As you may know, a group of us have been active in recent Climate discussions, by writing papers, attending conferences, and participating in Clintel events, such as webinars and email discussions
Three of us, described below, have planned to take it a step forward with an online 2024 Climate Discussion Group.
The plan is to have some 50 or so expert participants. In this respect, it is not open to the public at present, but that can change after the initial discussion. Hopefully, that will not take too long as the consequences of poorly made climate change policies will greatly and negatively impact our families, our lives, and our financial and cultural well-being.
This will be a moderated civil discussion by email. Your name would be displayed on the website documents, but not your email address (you can opt in or out). We have a background document to give you an insight into the nature and level of the discussion. It is below. We suggest you read this before you decide whether you can contribute to such a discussion.
The main topic will start with comments on two different climate concepts –namely Radiative Transfer (RTC) and the Heat Transport concept (HTC). When and where these apply will be one of the more difficult issues on the table for discussion. It is hoped that experts in these fields will participate.
The discussion is planned for about two months – with a final online report The report would contain the email content submitted by authors, with their names only. This would be structured with a Table of Contents and conclusions from authors along with Recommendations to Policymakers and will be published online.
Organization details
Event organizers
Gerald Ratzer, Professor Emeritus, McGill University, Montreal, Canada proposed this event and is the event leader in planning decisions, selecting technical content and for technical communications with participants. See his bio and a few articles.
Terigi Ciccone, Engineer with a career in many applications of turbines - Florida, USA is the event advisor to Gerald Ratzer and John Shanahan See his bio and a few select articles.
John Shanahan, Civil Engineer - Colorado, USA is the event organizational administrator. See bio here. He has many articles on allaboutenergy.net.
People who do not participate can still follow the discussion by going to the website. If your area of expertise is in policy and economics, and since the website is “All About Energy”, maybe you would like to contribute to the “Recommendations to Policymakers”. This should be a bulleted list of short recommendations.
We would like the 2024 Climate Discussion Group (CDG24) to be inclusive with people from different points of view, cultures and values.
Thank you,
Gerald Ratzer
Professor Emeritus McGill, Montreal
Gerald.ratzer@mcgill.ca
How The Sun Warms the Earth
How The Earth Dynamically Responds
Terigi Ciccone
Introduction
The Sun is the major source of energy that warms the Earth. Its power arrives by electromagnetic radiation at the speed of light, 300,000 Km per second, then exits back to space at the same speed. What happens in between we call weather, a slow chaotic process that is never stable and never in equilibrium. This slow-physical chaotic weather process makes life sustainable on Earth. This natural process has been ongoing for billions of years and left an indelible record of the evolution of multicellular life on Earth in the last 550 million years in stone for us to study. This
discussion focuses on weather, meaning how Earth transforms this lightning-fast solar energy into a refreshing summer breeze, powers our sails and plants, and manufactures violent storms and hurricanes. To understand this complex process, we need to use three branches of science: Thermodynamics, Chemistry, and Radiation.
We start by examining the well-documented and promoted Radiative Transfer concept (RTC) seeking to explain how the Sun’s radiant energy is absorbed by the air and surface and “captured” by the Greenhouse gases. This process is said to “delay” the cooling of the Earth, thus warming the planet. The subsequently released IR from CO2 going in all directions can not measurably warm the land, oceans and atmosphere by absorption or greenhouse gas excitation.
The second is the Heat Transport concept (HTC) which remanufactures most of this radiant solar energy into physical/sensible heat that mixes and distributes this physical heat up into the atmosphere and around the planet at speeds slower than sound instead of light speed. In substance, it produces a greenhouse-like warming effect by slowing down the heat loss from the surface back into space. Then after hours, days, or weeks, the physical heat is remanufactured back into radiation so it can exit to space.
The Sun warms the Earth and the Earth dynamically responds. There are more than two dozen forces and cycles that warm and cool the Earth. Some are well-understood; others are barely understood. In addition, little is understood about how these forces and cycles interact with each other, as at times they amplify their effects, diminish, or even possibly cancel each other out. Many of these factors are Exo-Earth, occurring at the solar level, the orbital and planetary levels, and even galactic levels. Some are at the Earth system levels like volcanic/tectonic heat, the ENSO cycles (El Niño Southern Oscillation), Gyres, and especially how the oceans powerfully interact with the atmosphere. Lastly, we must also consider the bio-Earth factors, including human activities and nonhuman life factors. Nonetheless, the Sun is the elephant that controls the baseline in how the Earth warms and how the dynamic Earth responds and accommodates solar activities, making all life possible and sustainable.
Heat Transport
The surface of the Earth also cools by convection and latent heat, as it warms the air above providing a stable and comfortable weather and climate suitable for all life on Earth.
The first thing we observe each day is convection, as warm air rises through increased warm air buoyancy. This is what makes smoke rise in the sky and up the chimneys. In their Earth Energy Budget NASAtells us that more than 11% of the solar power reaching the surface is converted into this sensible heat they label as “convection flow”. The surface also cools and warms the atmosphere with the much-neglected Latent Heat of Evaporation (LHE). When we look at the NASA Earth Energy budget, we note that more than 53% of the solar power absorbed by the surface is labelled “Latent Heat”. So, what is Latent Heat? We have all experienced it. On a sunny, hot day you get out of a pool, and within seconds you feel a chill all over your body, why? What is happening is that the Sun is evaporating the water drops on your skin. The liquid water is going through a phase change going from a liquid to a gas, Water Vapor. This absorbs an enormous amount of heat from your body and your environment and lifts it into the sky. This rising column of water vapor-rich air joins in with the convection flow and slowly warms the air as it rises and spreads across the globe through wind and ocean currents.
Let’s pause for a moment. Almost two-thirds of all the solar power warming the surface of Earth has been remanufactured into sensible heat by Latent Heat, Convection, and Thermalization by the gases in the air. This sensible heat rises slowly upward and circulates the globe warming the air for days and weeks before cooling and returning to the surface, under gravity or exiting to space by radiation. This appears to be a more plausible explanation for the missing 33°C that is alleged to be provided by the GHE (Green House Effect).
The diagram below is useful to help classify the different climate processes. It was sent to us by Howard Hayden. The External Processes are governed by RTC and happens at the speed of light:
1. The amount of sunlight at orbit – TOA– Top ofAtmosphere.
2. The amount of reflected sunlight.
3. The amount of outgoing infrared (heat radiation at TOA)
The Internal Processes are mainly HTC – heat related, relatively slow moving and governed by the Laws of Thermodynamics. You might like to comment on this classification. For instance, there are exceptions. The driest and coldest location on Earth is Vostok inAntarctica, with an albedo close to 1. Namely, when the Sun shines on the snow there, most of the energy is reflected, and very little thermalization takes place.
The problem of using only radiative flow and averages in studying climate
John Shanahan
The universe and life are wonderful. Earth’s climate is a small part of this wonder. It is very complex and varies in space and time. Understanding climate requires many fields of science to study real things. This is a tremendous task and will go on for a long time. Many alarms have been sounded about humanity supposedly changing
climate for the worse, “catastrophic man-made climate change” also known as “climate change.”
Simplifications of the real world are needed to get approximate answers about climate change now, not later.
Three important forms of energy in the study of climate are: radiative energy (from the sun and back to space), thermal energy (movement of oceans and the atmosphere, change of phase of water, etc.) and potential energy (stored chemical energy in hydrocarbons - plants and fossil fuels, water falling because of gravity, etc.).
Scientists who focus on radiative energy to study climate introduce two problems:
a) they say thermal energy is included in the study of radiative energy and can be ignored for their purposes of understanding climate and
b) they introduce sweeping averages of radiation flow and apply them to one weather parameter, temperature.
The study of a planet's use of sunlight energy and shedding heat energy is valid science, but it is not a complete answer to what causes weather and changes in the weather. Climate and climate change are averages of weather events. Weather is very complex. A study of averages can not mathematically or scientifically be interpreted backwards to weather events, just like the study of class averages can not be related back to the performance of any student.
Generally speaking, one does not get good answers about changes in the weather by only studying the average solar insolation on a fixed circular disk, average albedo, average absorption, average infrared radiation on land and ocean surfaces and average infrared radiation returning to space.