Determing How Wrong I May Be

While I am fine tuning my spread sheet to better estimate the values of the coefficients, I have been getting correspondence from someone trying to help me disprove myself. In case you want to join the fray, here is my latest response;



True, For the Earth and atmosphere as it now exists

Surface 390Wm-2 @ 288K TOA 238Wm-2 @ 254.5K

Near the tropopause 225K @ 145.329 Wm-2 That decrease in temperature and the flux

associated with that temperature is in effect the Atmospheric Effect.

If you view the change in temperature with the change in altitude, that is in effect the

change in net flux in the atmosphere

For a no atmosphere Earth with albedo = to zero, Ein = Eout, 340Wm-2 indicates a

temperature of 278.3 K.

Earth however does have a wealth of nitrogen and oxygen, while they have minimal

significantly intense spectral lines in the SW and LW spectrum, they do have a coefficient

of heat conduction. With a no greenhouse gas atmosphere, the 278.3K warms the gases

near the surface, causing those gases to expand against gravity. The energy required

to expand those gases would be the no GHG atmospheric effect. Which would create a low, but

existing tropopause.



The combination of surface and atmospheric albedos would supposedly create a planet with 240Wm-2 in

and 240Wm-2 out, the basic model of the no greenhouse gases Earth to calculate the magnitude to the

Greenhouse effect. For the top of the tropopause, that would be a valid model. However, since the

Earth would have a conductive induced tropopause with latent heat transferred from the surface to the

top of the tropopause, the surface temperature would not be 254.5K @ 238Wm-2, that is the conditions at

the tropopause, or TOA for a no GHG Earth.



With cloud albedo estimated at 10% and surface albedo at 20%, 90% of the incoming solar 340Wm-2

would be felt at the would penetrate the cloud cover, 306Wm-2 and 80%, .8 times 306Wm-2 would be

absorbed by the surface. 306Wm-2 * 0.8 = 244.5 Wm-2 which corresponds with at surface temperature

of 256.25K. Small but not insignificant difference from 254.5, as it would be, 1.75/33 = 5.3% of

the warming.

If, cloud albedo is 15%, which I believe quite reasonable, then 15% reflected by clouds would be

340Wm-2 * .85 = 289Wm-2 at the surface of which 85% would be absorb with a surface albedo of 15%

giving 245.65 Absorbed at the surface which would have an equivalent temperature of 256.5K.

Small but still not insignificant relative to 254.5K. The location of the albedo factors matter,

as it is 6% of the total calculate warming.

What my use of the equation is doing is showing an 8% over estimation of warming due to the variably

of the assumption of initial albedo. Which, BTW, happens to be approximately the margin climate

models are currently over estimating current warming.

I would like to fine tune the equation to see what assumption of initial albedo would be correct.

If the equation is correct, there are indications of interesting feedback relationships, which are

currently being published by NASA. http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/abs/la09300d.html

The data I have glean from the use of the equation so far indicates tropopause and lower stratosphere

ice particle feedback from deep convection that has been here to date underestimated. Dr. Susan Solomon,

has a relatively new paper where the impact of stratospheric water vapor was recently discovered has a

cooling effect. I believe that using the spectrum of ice, instead of water vapor would fine tune

that estimate as it only takes a few molecules of water vapor joined together, to radiate in the ice spectrum.

Again a small but not insignificant impact.

If you now consider that a 5% error in temperature results in a 20% error in flux value, you will see why I am a little interested in this pseudoscience. :)

It may be nothing of course, however, the results are interesting thus far.

Thanks for your patience Lynx-Fox


Yes, there is not a lot off between estimates, but when evaluating a 1% change a 5% potential error is significant.