Commentary on Earth Temperature

Part II of II
II. TECHNICAL CONSIDERATIONS

What is Temperature? Temperature is merely an index to indicate the heat content in a substance. Relative to life forms, they require boundaries or limits and controls within which they can survive. There has been more than one scale used in history to determine temperatures. These scales have graduated increments from absolute zero (no heat content) in increasing temperature to the freezing point of water, the boiling point of water, and continuing up in heat content. The conditions are specified in thermodynamic terms as STP conditions or “standard temperature and pressure”. I began study using English units of Fahrenheit and Rankine, and metric units of Centigrade and Kelvin. The academicians have long since replaced Centigrade with Celsius. A metric degree is about 9/5 of a Rankine degree. Water freezes at zero degrees Celsius, and boils at 100 degrees. In most cases today, the NASA (NOAA) measurements by satellite are in metric units. You get 100 degrees C under STP and a different value for pressures below and above one atmosphere of pressure.

You won’t get this from most sources. There are two measurement techniques for obtaining temperatures. The first is direct measurement by thermometry or thermocouples (bimetallic strips). With calibration based on the current scales, these are said to give temperature measurement accuracy to within hundredths or thousandths of a degree of the environment in which they are placed, whether solid, liquid, or gas. There is a problem. Calibration of the environment must account for heat transfer. Those gages in the bank marquees probably do not calibrate for sunlight coming through the enclosed glass structure. Thus, they are measuring “an environment”, but not the outside air temperature. The second technique mostly used by NASA is by radiometry. All indirect measurements by a radiometer require some type of analytic solution to convert to temperatures from the amount of radiation received. There are various types of wide band radiometers and spectral line radiometers, and with information required to identify specific source(s) of the input. There are differences between earth surface, lower atmosphere, middle atmosphere, and upper atmosphere. Many problems have been encountered with calibrating specific types of detectors. Still, all in all, such results of indirect measurements are generally scientifically accepted as “accurate”. By accurate, they mean a fraction of a degree, but that is the best estimate. Radiometry could be used at ground level, too. That is not the problem. The problem with all earth measurements to define global warming is defining an average temperature and its history.

Average Earth Temperatures. There are at least two average temperatures, or averaging techniques. The first is by time, the second is by area. This presupposes that the scientist or measurement guy doesn’t just take random samples at various sites and times and uses them as he pleases. In the direct measurement method, a temperature over concrete at the airport on the same sunny day gives a different value than a suburbian field. Another issue is that there are insufficient measurements, earth-wide, to accurately average over area. Further, about 70% of the earth surface is water, without many measurements. With time averaging, different evaluators do a variety of averaging techniques. With daily cycles, seasonal cycles, storm cycles, and the effects of changing atmospheric turbulence in one form or another, the “time averages” should consider time-integrated averages (of all the cycles). I don’t think they do this. When you consider how to evaluate averages to include all areas, it becomes a monumental task with many inaccuracies. It is certain that direct earth measurements cannot be made by direct thermometry to give average temperatures to within a fraction of a degree, regardless of the analytic techniques of averaging.

This leaves indirect measurement techniques by radiometry from aircraft or satellite. There are not enough aircraft in the world to do any good. Who said there was? The satellite measurements are limited to a few satellites making continuous measurement scans in their continuous orbits, day in and day out. There are two orbits: geo-stationary and polar orbits in which they operate. At the present time, the United States operates 2 GOES (geostationary) satellites, (GOES-8 and GOES-10), with two in standby (orbiting, but not turned on, (GOES-9, and GOES-11)). The U.S. also operates 3 polar-orbiting satellites,(NOAA-14, NOAA-15, and NOAA-16) with one polar-orbiter in standby (NOAA-12). Other countries have some too. The results include both earth surface temperatures, and atmospheric temperatures. Questions of accuracy involve both analytic models and the portion of earth being measured (that is, portion of atmosphere or earth’s surface), and the methodology of averaging over area and time for trends. It is a huge problem, in spite of “scientific” claims to the contrary. Within the last two decades, there are many “scientific” outputs that do indicate the complexities of the atmosphere and the effects of water vapor (the primary radiator and absorber in the atmosphere), the uncertainties in other constituents such as carbon dioxide, particulates, hydrocarbons, and impact both short term and long term of convection within the atmosphere, along with solar radiation variations. As a thermodynamicist, to the chagrin of most other scientists, I tell you that there is no such thing as convection as a fundamental heat transfer mode. There is only conduction and radiation. That label (of convection) is used on an empirical basis, with fairly good analytic models actually in some cases, because we just don’t know, or cannot put together the conduction and radiation models to handle pipe or aerodynamic flows, much less atmospheric movements. It is empirical!

What produces these Temperatures? Some understanding of heat balances and variations of the sun-earth system is helpful to understand why there are uncertainties related to establishing average temperatures (and forecasting). Consider the solar-earth system. The data from my 1960 master’s thesis on solar radiation for satellite design (ancient history now) have not changed much. Earth in its slightly eccentric orbit around old Sol receives electromagnetic radiation in the nominal amount of about 2 cal/cm2/min. Most of this is in the visible and infrared wavelengths. (I am a wavelength guy, physicists often speak in terms of frequencies). The error estimate is about 2%. In addition, the orbital variation is about plus or minus 3.5%. In 1960 available data indicated periodic variations in the solar constant on the basis of 11-year cycles. It was estimated that the periodic variation was a few percent. It does not include effects of sunspots, particle bursts, cosmic radiation and other such things. In typical heat balance analyses, the solar reflections from the moon are neglected. This is reasonable with an estimated 0.07 lunar surface reflectivity multiplied by the configuration factor for radiative included angle (moon to earth). The heat balance is not between the sun and earth surface, but between the sun and the earth-atmosphere system, including earth rotation in the day-night cycle.

The single major issue is water vapor and clouds in this balance. Bipolar molecules such as H2O absorb and radiate. It varies over the surface of the earth from hour to hour and day to day. Any assumption for conditions inherently incorporate large errors that will be even larger tomorrow, maybe less the day after. As solar radiation hits the earth-atmosphere system, some is reflected, some scattered to space and earth, some absorbed, and some passes transparently through the atmosphere to the earth surface. All bodies radiate according to their temperature. The earth-atm system radiates at “low temperatures” in the infrared to itself and to space. Sometimes this is referred to as black body radiation because it occurs according to the Boltzmann equation. Now that is an approximation too, and we use a correction number called emissivity to denote departure from black body theory. “A kind of summary for sun and earth” from the thesis is as follows to illustrate the problems with solar radiation heat transfer (labeled as 100 units):

Incident Solar Radiation (100 units):
Direct Solar to earth surface: 24
Atmosphere to space: 48
Diffuse Solar through clouds: 17
Atmospheric absorption: 19
Reflection (clouds & earth): 25
Scattering to space: 9

Earth radiation:
Infrared to space: 18
Atm to space: 48
Atm IR to earth: 105
Earth IR to atm: 101

If all the solar radiation were absorbed by the earth system and radiated uniformly back to space at its equilibrium temperature, the mean over the earth surface would be about 82 deg Fahrenheit. A major fallacy in the global warming argument occurs in considering any heat balance. As the earth system warms, it radiates more to space, and the temperature drops accordingly.

Both earth surface characteristics AND spectral characteristics of ALL atmospheric constituents must be considered in any detailed analyses of determining the temperatures. Although the earth surface may be considered almost a black body, its emissivity (departure from black body theory) varies from land to sea, and from equator to the white capped poles. Now, a stupefying problem: ALL atmospheric constituents vary in the day-night cycle AND over the surface of the earth: from land to sea, and from pole to pole! There are not enough measurements available to cover all the details.

Other constituent measurements including aerosols, volcanic eruptions, maybe some sulphates, and beast of all beasts, methane from humans and animals are not available. There is an obvious solution: just do away with both!

Considering all the problems of data measurement and obtaining accurate values, we have omitted another huge problem: the analytics of atmospheric movement. The meteorological forecasts are based on local and worldwide measurements of temperature, pressure, velocity, densities, and humidity at local sites. There are not enough of these to be all inclusive with respect to forecasting “exact” conditions. After all, it is written, “The wind blows where it wishes and you hear the sound of it, but do not know where it comes from and where it is going.”

III. LONG TERM PREDICTION OF EARTH TEMPERATURES

The issues herein are not the same as meteorological forecasting. The latter is now being referred to as climate forecasting as though the prediction of earth temperatures can simply use the analytical models of meteorology. The basis of meteorological forecasts is having thermodynamics (atmospheric temperature, pressure, humidity and wind speed, perhaps with clouds) measurements to insert into analytical models that attempt to account for atmospheric movements, both global and local. This is very simplified, but that’s the essence of it. None are really very, very good (i.e., very precise). Constituent species do not enter into the models, unless you include the limited amount of water vapor info. The basis of earth-temperature predictions, or forecasts are analytical models that must account for all that is in the meteorological models, AND the heat transfer between sun and the earth-atmosphere system, including heat exchange between the atmosphere and earth surface and within the atmosphere due to a variety of constituents, air mass movement, AND the time varying aspects of all of these! To say that this analysis is formidable is the understatement of the century. No one can predict future earth temperatures, even if they knew the constituents and their time variable concentrations. You would have to know this on a time varying basis at each locale on earth, AND the response of life on earth. The more CO2 generated, the more that is absorbed by plant life. The more evaporation that occurs, the more rain we get to settle out particulates back to the surface. Volcanic eruptions have produced particulate clouds covering major portions of the earth. These, in turn, cause huge changes in climate due to solar radiation being increasingly reflected away from earth and absorption in the upper atmosphere. But it is eventually dispersed, and things return to more normal conditions. The primary species (combustion products) of power plants, engines, wood burning from the use of hydrocarbons are CO2 and H20. The relative amounts depend on the length of the hydrocarbon chain to be used. But, in general, simple chemistry shows that the molecular amount of water vapor produced ALWAYS exceeds that of the carbon dioxide. The effects of excess water vapor in the heat transfer equations far exceeds those for the effects of CO2. It is a better radiator and absorber. And there is more of it. CO2 is a heavier molecule, will occupy a lower portion of atmospheric space, and will have greater access to plant life for absorption.

With respect to spectral line radiation analysis, a separate and distinct analytic model is required for each separate constituent that radiates or absorbs, due to its unique radiation characteristics. In general, these are known, but what is not known are all constituents present at a given locale and their distribution in the atmosphere. Ah, if only we could catalog them all, all over the earth and have our leader tell us what happens tomorrow. The best modeling is done for solar radiation inputs at the outer reaches of the atmosphere, black body type earth surface radiation from specific locales where the surface characteristics are known, and the condition that most of the earth is covered by water. In one sense, this makes the Stephan-Boltzmann equation easier to use. Black body radiation is emitted in proportion to temperature to the fourth power! This is very important, since increasing temperature produces radiation loss in the IR with exponential increases! Can you find an Al Gore to tell you this? Sometimes, I am politically minded!

The most complicated analytical models are those of atmospheric movement and prediction of thermodynamic variables. Boundary conditions of earth temperature, solar inputs, constituent concentrations and variation at any given point in time just illustrate how difficult the problem is.

The claim that scientists have shown the earth temperature has increased by a fraction of a degree Celsius in the last decade is absurd. It is even more preposterous to claim it will increase by untold degrees in the next two decades or century.

IV. POLITICAL AND POWER AGENDAS DO NOT HELP

Inconvenient Truth Guy…worth has increased from 2 to about 100 million pedaling global warming in the last decade

United Nations…added untold bodies to mine this epidemic, with outstretched hands for money and power leading to a one-world government

Environmental advocates just love the thoughts of Mother Earth worship, power and sharing the wealth
The “go green” community… is making others green with envy at their successes in new rules and regulations

USA Today, Nov 23, 2009: Lawsuits being filed against private companies and utilities for “global warming” damages

How many will go along with this to advance their own cause?

Commentary on Earth's Temperature

Commentary on Earth’s Temperature-Part I of II
November, 2009

I. INTRODUCTION
The issue of global warming is front and center in environmental circles these days. Also referred to as the Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) theory, I will just stick to ‘global warming’, and note that the alarmists have become more politically correct by using ‘climate change’ recently in the face of their critics. Browsing on the internet currently yields more than 11 million hits (tremendous increase in the last 2 or 3 years) on this subject with wild cries of horror on the part of both sides of the controversy. The vast, vast majority of these comments are philosophical and political in nature without much real analysis or data that is precise. In fact, a brief review reveals only a limited amount of properly interpreted data, error analyses, and examination of the difficulties of predicting future earth temperatures. It really is beyond the layman without training to even understand the problems and difficulties inherent to interpretation and analysis. Nevertheless, my wife glimpsed one problem by observing the current temperatures on the marquees at the local banks next to my home and across the street from one another. They were 10 degrees different during the day, and 4 degrees different at night! My car gage generally showed an average between those two measurements. I cannot tell you which one is correct (or none!) without extensive examination and calibration which is costly. The issue as I define it is really quite simple:

Is the earth temperature increasing to the detriment of life forms on the earth?

As I will suggest below, this brings up multiple questions about what is temperature, temperature measurements, average temperature, heat balance on the earth, effects of atmospheric constituents, radiative transfer, analytical modeling and accuracy of temperature and heat transfer predictions, and the sources of heat transfer…there are many, not just the solar input. It is not helpful in philosophical debate about melting ice caps (mostly false information), extinction of polar bears, less snow in Colorado available for summer water needs in California, perceived causes of the perceived global warming, or increasing intensity of hurricanes and tornadoes, ocean currents and changes, etc. All this just adds confusion to real understanding, although all these may affect the earth temperature.

The factual analysis should consider all the multitude of parameters associated with the sun-earth system as a giant heat transfer problem. That is what it is, not just a question of whether or not adequate temperature measurements have been made, although that is an issue. This postulate emanates from this heat transfer problem:

... No one can predict with any certainty (at all) the future of the earth’s temperature.

The problem is just too, too complex. On top of this, some of us subscribe without reservation or second thought to that which most of the alarmists treat as extremists or right wing religionist kooks or uninformed idiots: My sovereign God is in control. In 1986, author Dr. Donald E. Chittick produced The Controversy: Roots of the Creation-Evolution Conflict. A chemist/scientist, he wrote on the background as well as the conflicting data with an orderly and logical layout of the thinking on the part of the antagonists. This way of thinking may be valid for the present conflict over global warming, and other controversies too. It goes like this as a belief system…a way of thinking…the way they operate and think:

Assumptions…held by faith!
|
Data...interpretation based on assumptions!
|
Conclusions

Regardless of where you come from, the Creationist and Evolutionist both start with assumptions held by faith. There is NO alternative. In their case one major assumption or presupposition by the Creationist is that GOD IS. Similarly, for the Evolutionist, the assumption is that GOD IS NOT. Everything precedes from there affecting other assumptions, interpretation of data (events, facts, testimony, numbers etc.), and, of course, the resulting conclusions. This way of thinking, beginning with faith assumptions, is the hallmark of the global warming enthusiasts, environmentalists, animal rights activists, atheists and agnostics, etc. We do not deny our belief system beginning with GOD IS, and react accordingly.

It is my suggestion or speculation that most (not all) of the adherents to global warming do begin with the GOD IS NOT assumption, and extends with their humanist/secularist worldview. It logically leads to the conclusion that man, and only man, can and must save the planet, regardless of the cost, and thus interprets the data on both a technical and philosophical basis to sustain the conclusion. My friend suggests that Romans 1 describes them as Asteroth (Mother Earth) worshippers, and turning to idolatry of all kinds…worshipping the creation and the creature, rather than the Creator. The result of such thinking is conclusions oriented legislation both nationally and worldwide for cap and trade laws, emissions reductions by regulations and severe penalties for violations, no more coal powered plants, and yes, animal and human population control ! Nevertheless, we demand of the GOD IS people that they too recognize the rights of the sovereign Creator in granting stewardships to man from the beginning. We are not free as men or nations to sinfully despoil the creation. We were instructed and commanded to care for and tend it…for the benefit of mankind, and to the glory of God. “For all things are from Him, and to Him, and through Him. To Him be the glory forever.”

But where does the actual data enter in? Is it valid? Are there error analyses to support the conclusion(s)? Generally, you cannot find comprehensive and realistic error analyses to support global warming. It does appear that among scientists who have examined the issue (and sometimes on a somewhat basis!) that the initial surge toward global warming is subsiding. There are claims now that “more scientists” oppose than support global warming. But the algore shouts that “It is real and indisputable”, or “Global warming is dead on arrival”, are both mostly the philosophy of men…which we should be warned and wary about. We propose to comment as a thermodynamicist with some 30 plus years of practical experience in the Aerospace/Defense Industry. My BS degree in Chemistry was at Eastern Illinois University, my MS in Engineering was at UCLA, and my Ph.D in Engineering was granted from the Univ. of California at Irvine. We will not establish that global warming is real, but add to the skepticism by pointing out thermodynamic features that must be considered. Lastly, we must not forget the political agendas of the United Nations, the Al Gores, the environmentalists, and poor 3rd world countries. The end result is already apparent: taxation for dubious activities to “save mankind”. One leader has referred to this as “Share the Wealth”.

Any consideration of the “giant heat transfer problem” should identify and establish characteristics of the variables involved. We will consider this under the title of Technical Considerations. The use of these variables, in addition to actual measurements of temperatures, constituents, radiation, atmospheric conditions, and time variations all play a part in analytic development of theories for predictions (the meteorologist calls it forecasting). Uncertainties in technical considerations add to the difficulties in making predictions. Then, we will comment briefly on the Requirements for Analytic Models for prediction from a semi-technical viewpoint. The difficulties here are illustrated in local meteorological forecasting from my family TV when the meteorologist says she uses 5 different models and chooses the “most reliable” to predict the next week weather. Short term trends are difficult, accurate long term forecasts are impossible. In all cases, the two topics chosen for discussion are highly interrelated and should be considered on that basis.

On a preliminary basis you might want to glimpse other current thinking from online sources:
Temp msts:
http://spacescience.spaceref.com/newhome/headlines/essd06oct97_1.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satellite_temperature_measurements
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2000/ast21jul_1m.htm
http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/science_and_impacts/science/past-present-and-future.html
(calculating temp over time)
http://cat.inist.fr/?aModele=afficheN&cpsidt=14843043 (temps under earth surface)
http://science.nasa.gov/newhome/headlines/essd06oct97_1.htm (accuracy of satellite msts)

And check out some of the blossoming skeptics:
Refs to the likes of http://www.climate-skeptic.com/2007/09/table-of-conten.html?gclid=COzji-3J-ZECFQT3lgodmH_zyQ ……..the Climate Change Skeptic
http://weathereye.kgan.com/expert/warming/skeptic.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_scientists_opposing_the_mainstream_scientific_assessment_of_global_warming
http://www.skepticsglobalwarming.com/
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Global_warming_skeptics
http://www.globalwarmingskeptics.info/?p=105;
also add: http://www.climatedepot.com/ …….many, many links

Other sites of interest:
http://xtronics.com/reference/globalwarming.htm ...........very good
http://www.technologyreview.com/Energy/13830/
http://www.nov55.com/logic.html
http://www.theleftcoaster.com/archives/011726.php
http://www.nationalcenter.org/NPA420.pdf ...some data, no real error analysis
http://www.newsweekly.com.au/articles/2004nov20_c.html
http://www.livescience.com/environment/060201_temperature_differences.html

If you receive this electronically, the above are direct links to online stuff. If you feel I am biased by referring to these, your browser has 11 million other places to look at! That includes all the supporters of global warming.