Figure 3.1: Two-layer model consisting of the atmosphere and the Earth's surface
I have now received and roughly translated the majority of the paper from Hermann Harde. At 52 pages long this is a superb piece of work, but it will take me a few days just to digest what it says. On the big question “why is it 0.45C warming as opposed to around 1C direct warming based on the IPCC information”, there is no real answer.
Hermann can only speculate regarding the big difference of his results to that provided by others because he couldn’t get adequate information about the methodology used in previous calculations and specifically the conditions and assumptions on which these calculations were performed. This lack of information was his motivation to undertake his own calculations particularly as he was aware of the problems in this type of analysis from his own work in the spectroscopy of gas absorption:
This was one motivation to make my own calculations, particularly when I read that authors are dealing with broad band models to compute the absorption of well mixed gases with strongly overlapping spectra.
So Hermann has problems explaining the reasons for the difference:
Of course, one reason can and will be that I’m using the latest HITRAN database, which includes much more lines and improved line parameters.
However, if people don’t distinguish between different vertical layers, it is almost impossible to get correct values for the absorbance particularly for mixed gases with blended spectra.
The absorption on a special wavelength or frequency is extremely dependent on the temperature, the partial pressure and the overall pressure, all of which are changing with altitude.
Figure 2.10: Absorption of outgoing heat radiation from the Earth with CO2 and CH4 in the tropics. Top: transmission spectrum, bottom: absorption spectrum
He mentions for example that the width of a spectral line easily changes by a factor of 10 due to pressure broadening (and also the lineshape). This means that if you take the absorption spectrum at sea level and compare it with one at a height, not only will the shape of the fine detail change, but, if that fine detail overlaps with that of other gases, then the total absorption of that line could significantly change as the individual absorption spectra of each gas begin to overlap.
If this broadening is not accurately considered, interference effects with another gas and also saturation effects on a line cannot correctly be modelled.
Figure 2.7: The Earth as a truncated icosahedron.
Another possible area of difference is that Hermann does most of his calculations with 46 layers with a vertical resolution in the troposphere (up to 11,000 m) of 500 m, but he also did calculations with 228 layers with 100 m resolution in the lower atmosphere.
Other reasons for the difference of his data may result from the water vapour concentration and its distribution over the vertical profile, and the spectral resolution he apply for his calculations.
Both, of course, have a strong influence when calculating the contribution of CO2 in the presence of water vapour (see e.g. my paper, Fig.2.11 and compare with Kiehl et al., p. 201).
Whilst he makes no claim to be a “climate expert” he does say he has included an aspect of the feedback particularly the increasing humidity with increasing temperature. “This feedback, as already mentioned last time, is included in my calculations, and it even can cause a negative sign (in tropic zone)”.
He has not included changing albedo but:
I can easily simulate, e.g., if the reflection at the surface is reduced by 1%, the temperature rises up by about 0.5°C and if the sun scattering at the atmosphere and clouds is increased by 1%, the earth temperature drops by 1°C. Since all this is very speculative, and even the sign is not clear, when the cloudiness or aerosol concentrations increase, to my opinion it is not serious to include such feedback effects.
Paper Contents
1. Preliminary
1.1 The temperature measurement 1
1.2 Assumed reasons and causes of global warming 2
1.3 Motivation and focus of this work 3
2. Absorption in the atmosphere 5
2.1 solar spectrum 5
2.2 Absorption of sunlight in the atmosphere 6
2.2.1 Atmospheric pressure and temperature changes 6
2.2.2 Water vapor concentration in the atmosphere 8
2.2.3 Absorption spectra of H2O, CO2 and CH4 8
a) number of lines 8
b) Spectral transmission and absorption 10
c) absorption by CO2 and CH4 10
d) number of layers 10
e) Spectral resolution 11
f) Transmitted spectrum for CO2 and CH4 12
g) spectrum with H2O 12
h) overlap of the absorption bands 12
i) saturation behaviour of CO2 14
j) absorption path in the atmosphere 14
2.2.4 The Earth as a Bucky Ball 14
2.3 Terrestrial heat radiation 16
2.3.1 Global Warming 16
2.3.2 The Earth as a Planckian radiator 17
2.3.3 Calculation of the absorption spectra 17
a) absorption by CO2 and CH4 18
b) absorption, taking into account the water vapor 19
c) Spectral overlap and saturation 20
2.4 Compilation of the results 20
2.4.1 tropical areas 20
2.4.2 Temperate regions 21
2.4.3 Polar Regions 22
2.4.4 change in absorption with soil temperature 23
3. Two-layer climate model 25
4. Influence of carbon dioxide on the climate 28
4.1 Simulation for tropical areas 28
4.2 Simulation for Temperate regions 31
4.3 Simulation for polar regions 33
4.4 Global warming 35
4.5 Assessment of results 36
4.5.1 Spectral calculations 36
4.5.2 Water vapor distribution 37
4.5.3 Distribution of climate zones 37
4.5.4 Climate Model 37
5. Summary 39
Appendix A: Basics for the calculation of the absorption spectra 42
1. Transition frequency Transition frequency 42
2. Spectral Line Intensity 42
3. Absorption Coefficient 44
Appendix B: Water vapor in the atmosphere 46
1. Total water content in the atmosphere 46
2. Pressure, saturation vapor pressure and temperature in the atmosphere 48
3. Water vapor content 48
References
It is still a model which does not account for real measurements. Note my comment on the previous post and read the paper by Dr Noor Van Andel repeated here http://climategate.nl/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/CO2_and_climate_v7.pdf . I have made my own calculation using the equation developed from measurements in furances and heat exchangers by Prof Hoyt Hottel (see Perry’s Chemical Engineering Handbook equation 5-145 in the section5 -Heat and Mass transfer) and the radiant absorption by CO2 in the atmosphere is insignificant. Here http://jennifermarohasy.com/blog/2011/03/recycling-of-heat-in-the-atmosphere-is-impossible/ Dr Nasif Nahle takes a different approach. Earlier I made a post on the Stefan-Boltzman equation http://jennifermarohasy.com/blog/index.php?s=cementafriend. It appears that physicists do not understand the limits to its use. Could I add that many make assumptions about photons which do not exist – note the following by an engineer based on real experience and measurement http://www.worldsci.org/pdf/abstracts/abstracts_5711.pdf
Why does CO2 lag temperature in icecore records and Ernst Beck showed lagged temperature in real measured results (eg W Kreutz 1941) prior to 1960? The models have it all wrong because the scientists do not understand heat transfer (or deliberately wish to distort the truth).
Have you seen the post by Donna Laframboise here http://nofrakkingconsensus.wordpress.com/2011/03/16/the-strange-case-of-sari-kovats/. No one should believe anything the IPCC has done or written.
4.5.1 Spektralrechnungen???? = Spectral calculations
I agree with cementafriend. The ‘two layer model’ shown above has been thoroughly discredited by the authors of ‘Slaying the Sky Dragon: Death of the Greenhouse Gas Theory.’ I recommend you buy a copy and further enlighten yourself as to the true depths of this fraud.
cementafriend, thanks for the links. The point about this paper is that it ought to be straight physics (OK some chemistry) – a scientific calculation of the warming caused by CO2, and as I understood the “science” this was supposed to done & dusted with very limited room for change.
thanks!
John, as I know the author is preparing an English version perhaps a detailed reply will have to wait. At present all I can offer is the badly translated version of the relevant sections which admit are very difficult to understand:
“In this chapter, a two-layer model is considered that these two areas, the atmosphere on the one hand and the earth’s surface on the other hand, consists (Fig. 3.1). In equilibrium, indicating the atmosphere as the Earth each as much power again as they have received from the sun and the adjacent layer. ”
…
The calculations extend to the absorption of sunlight over a spectral interval of 0.1 – 8 microns, for heat radiation over a range of 3 – 60 microns with a spectral resolution of better than 1 GHz. By the pressure and temperature and thus is the height above ground dependent absorption taken into account on the distribution of the atmosphere up to 228 elevations. For each layer, the optical density as a product for the absorption coefficient is determined by the distance covered in the layer and summed over all sub-elements.
…
from summary…
“The report cited the IPCC values for the equilibrium climate sensitivity derived from 14 different sources and models [11]. They range from 2.1 – 4.4 ° C with a mean of 3.2 ° C and are in the best case by a factor of 4.7, in the worst case as much as 10 times above the value determined here. Although the presented climate model i. W. shows only a two-dimensional structure, no dynamic processes in the atmosphere, on land or water involves using, does not have high spatial resolution and thus can be local conditions in mind, although the values are taken into account yet and just the essential factors that make the difference to the influence of CO2 capture on the climate.
Thus, in particular about the changing climates of water vapor distribution and modeled in detail about the height profile with the pressure and temperature changing absorption capacity of the gases. This is no momentary or transient status is determined, but the resultant balance of incoming and outgoing current account of Earth’s surface and atmosphere, both of which absorb the sun and the adjacent location as much energy as they emit on average again.
The discrepancy between the IPCC data is therefore mainly due to the more detailed calculations for the absorption of greenhouse gases, especially the recycled water vapor and its effect on the absorption capacity of the other gases. Thus, the proportion of water to the greenhouse effect in the literature with 60% and that of CO2 given (among other greenhouse gases) by 30% and from this to the strong influence of closed CO2 on climate. “
Where is this paper. Are you going to make your translation available?
Peter,
if you have not read it already there is a summary poster in English: http://meetingorganizer.copernicus.org/EGU2011/EGU2011-4505-1.pdf
I asked the author for a copy and he sent me a German copy of the full paper which I have attempted to translate.
I’ve emailed the author asking for permission to release the paper, but until I have that permission I don’t think it is ethical to release much more.
Just a minor point. My web browser (IE8) doesn’t display the picture at the top of this article?
Thanks. I checked it with IE7 and can’t see a problem. It may be a temporary glitch with the web browser, if so clearing the cache and reloading should fix it.
I tried Chrome also and there is still a little square just below the tag line just below the title such as;
posted on xxxxxxx by Scottish Sceptic
[]
Just wanted to help 🙂
The image is linked with URL http://scottishsceptic.wordpress.com/Users/mike/AppData/Local/Temp/moz-screenshot-10.png and this gives a 404 Not Found. So not a browser issue.