Rising Carbon Dioxide Levels Don’t Increase Earth’s Temperature

[DEMcMillan]

Six days ago, the Dutch government added a flight fee at Schiphol, the Amsterdam airport, to be used to lower Earth’s atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) levels. The Netherlands is one of the four countries that tax carbon put into air in response to advice from the UN-sponsored Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). I posted a note critical of the carbon dioxide warming model on 10/16/07. It was seen 546 times without any reply. I now offer a specific explanation for why the well-documented rise in atmospheric CO2 content has had no effect on the Earth’s temperature. I wish first to document the observed rise in sufficient detail for its distribution itself to raise doubt about the CO2 thesis. The table below has been developed from monthly values posted by people at the University of Alabama at Huntsville since December 1978. Their values were acquired from a series of polar satellites circling Earth. Values are also available for land and ocean elements of each major listed area and the contiguous 48 US states. They are posted early each month on three sites, http://vortex.nsstc.uah.edu/data/msu/t2lt/uahncdc.lt, .mt, and .ls. Tropospheric warming is concentrated in the northern third of the planet while some southern third areas show cooling. The entire stratosphere has been cooling.
29.5 year change in degrees Celsius (Kelvin)
Low Troposphere value SE ratio
Global mean 0.393 0.033 11.92
Northern half, 0 to 85 N 0.595 0.040 15.06
Southern half, 0 to 85 S 0.193 0.035 5.59
Northern third, 20 to 85 N 0.811 0.046 17.51
Tropical third, 20N to 20S 0.184 0.052 3.52
Southern third, 20 to 85 S 0.199 0.037 5.38
North Pole, 60 to 85 N 1.325 0.120 11.08
South Pole, 60 to 85 S -0.193 0.131 -1.47

Mid Troposphere value SE ratio
Global mean 0.149 0.032 4.72
Northern half, 0 to 85 N 0.284 0.037 7.66
Southern half, 0 to 85 S 0.014 0.034 0.41
Northern third, 20 to 85 N 0.387 0.040 9.67
Tropical third, 20N to 20S 0.098 0.053 1.86
Southern third, 20 to 85 S -0.038 0.037 -1.03
North Pole, 60 to 85 N 0.695 0.108 6.44
South Pole, 60 to 85 S -0.349 0.116 -3.01

Low Stratosphere value SE ratio
Global mean -1.243 0.062 -19.97
Northern half, 0 to 85 N -1.275 0.076 -16.78
Southern half, 0 to 85 S -1.210 0.086 -14.15
Northern third, 20 to 85 N -1.372 0.096 -14.30
Tropical third, 20N to 20S -1.101 0.124 -8.86
Southern third, 20 to 85 S -1.261 0.116 -10.89
North Pole, 60 to 85 N -0.840 0.421 -2.00
South Pole, 60 to 85 S -1.259 0.354 -3.55


While many have been discussing green-house gases and their control, a new situation has developed. The price of crude oil, identified by the IPCC as a CO2 generating fossil fuel, has risen fivefold in the last five years. This rise has had a major negative effect on global economics, especially in the last year. The cost of transporting people, food, and maritime, truck, and rail goods has risen rapidly. Higher energy demands are being met more and more by coal, whose combustion generates more nitrogen and sulfur oxides. Rapid urbanization in the “developing” world has made diesel oil used in food production and transport a high demand item. A continued rise in its cost could bring widespread food shortages back to the world. While some environmentalists may see the price rise as beneficial, it is really an omen of future trouble for mankind.

Kiehl & Trenberth’s 1997 BAMS paper is widely cited as a model showing how rising atmospheric CO2 is driving planetary temperature higher. It supplies acceptable values for the major components of the Earth’s radiation balance and identifies CO2 as blocking 32 W/m2 outward loss compared to water vapor at 75 W/m2. The total after all losses is 235 W/m2. The Earth’s surface generates 390 W/m2 at 15o C., ε=1 (blackbody) and the atmosphere 165 W/m2. The atmospheric radiation figure is derived by subtracting greenhouse and cloud effects from the 390 W/ m2 amount. Infrared spectra obtained from orbiting satellites were used to quantify the effects of water vapor, CO2 and ozone. The satellite observations are labeled TOA (top of the atmosphere) spectra. A striking feature of these spectra is that their nadir in the midst of absorption bands is half or more of the unaffected (Planckian) spectral height. The nadirs of solar Fraunhofer lines are much lower, close to zero.

The high nadirs suggest that the atmosphere itself is radiating infrared Stefan-Boltzmann photons in all directions. This conclusion is supported by the 1969 Pick and Houghton stratospheric rocket experiment that showed nocturnal radiation toward the Earth in a 5-7 micron band at 25 km. More recent infrared spectra also indicate that the atmosphere itself radiates photons in all directions based on local temperature. My calculations indicate that ε≈1 at 25 km above the Earth. It must fall below this value at some altitude, but there is little information on this matter. TOA means that ε<<1 at orbiting satellite altitude, but no evidence supports this. In contrast, astronomical studies of molecular clouds reveal that very low density structures in the galaxy radiate in the infrared and microwave range sufficiently to assign them very low absolute temperatures. They have lower densities than the Earth’s thermosphere and radiate at ε sufficient to be measured.

In the meantime, ε≈1 thermal photon radiation in the higher than -10o C. upper stratosphere is scattered by CO2 molecules in the same way that atmospheric oxygen scatters Fraunhofer A and B radiation from the Sun, in proportion to local concentration. Stratospheric CO2 density is higher at lower altitude, so that scattering of radiation toward the Earth raises outgoing radiation, to at least half the total, negating its “absorption” near the Earth’s surface. This mechanism explains the high nadirs in the TOA spectra and demonstrates why the great rise in air’s carbon dioxide seen in the last 50 years hasn’t affected the planet’s atmospheric temperature. Other reasons for the essentially regional temperature rise shown in the table should be sought.

[Andre]

It appears that you have a few subjects too many, which confuses the matter. Taxes and an overexcited fuel market are really different subjects. The quintenses is how sensitive atmospheric temperatures are to doubling CO2. Better concentrate on that.

Then:

Kiehl & Trenberth’s 1997 BAMS paper is widely cited as a model showing how rising atmospheric CO2 is driving planetary temperature higher. It supplies acceptable values for the major components of the Earth’s radiation balance and...

I'm not so sure about that. Don't they explain the ~33 degrees difference between black body temperature and actual ground surface temp as solely caused by back radiation? However in the nul hypothesis (no greenhouse effect) there would still be a one way heat transport by conduction. During daylight warm (light) air in contact with the surface would rise and heat the atmosphere but at night time the opposite would not happen since the cooling (heavier) air at the surface remains there isolating the daylight warmed air aloft. Not to be confused with the latent energy from evaporation and condensation. So for the higher air to cool, the atmosphere needs radiative properties, hence greenhouse effect. Do they account for that?

Stratospheric CO2 density is higher at lower altitude, so that scattering of radiation toward the Earth raises outgoing radiation, to at least half the total, negating its “absorption” near the Earth’s surface. This mechanism explains the high nadirs in the TOA spectra and demonstrates why the great rise in air’s carbon dioxide seen in the last 50 years hasn’t affected the planet’s atmospheric temperature.

Could you elaborate a bit more on that? Perhaps a drawing?

[DEMcMillan]

"Stratospheric CO2 density is higher at lower altitude, so that scattering of radiation toward the Earth raises outgoing radiation, to at least half the total, negating its “absorption” near the Earth’s surface. This mechanism explains the high nadirs in the TOA spectra and demonstrates why the great rise in air’s carbon dioxide seen in the last 50 years hasn’t affected the planet’s atmospheric temperature.

Could you elaborate a bit more on that? Perhaps a drawing?"

Andre has suggested a figure to help make my point about past omission of upper atmospheric contributions to Stefan-Boltzmann radiation balance. This forum does not allow full size figures. I ask that you visualize carbon dioxide molecules as random redirectors of 13 to 18 micron wavelength photons. Near the Earth’s surface their photon capture is followed by scattering in a spherical pattern, with a just below 50% probability of redirecting a photon toward the Earth’s surface. Consider now an ellipsoidal shell lying between 40 and 50 kilometers altitude above the equator and having an average temperature of -10oC. The outer surface of this shell will radiate into space in the same way as the Earth’s surface. The overall intensity is decreased by 30.4% by the lower temperature and may also be affected by lower emissivity (ε). But at 50 km air’s density is 1/1,000 that at the Earth’s surface. Scattering by carbon dioxide is reduced and a larger fraction of 13-18 micron outward radiation fills some of the spectral deficiency generated below. Replacement of 13-18 micron radiation is furthered by carbon dioxide scattering radiation from the inside of the shell that is directed toward the Earth’s surface. It is also possible that the inner shell surface has a higher emissivity than the outer shell surface. This radiation is moving into areas of greater and greater carbon dioxide concentration. Its scattering into space further fills in the 13-18 micron band. Raising atmospheric carbon dioxide will have slight effects on initially outward radiation but acts at least as vigorously to send downwardly directed radiation into space. The existence of a layer of substantial atmospheric radiation neutralizes carbon dioxide’s rising concentration’s effect near the surface that MODTRAN estimates. The model predicts little or no change in the depth over time of the 13-18 micrometer carbon dioxide TOA spectral notch. If this is true, the greenhouse gas model is incorrect and should be abandoned. As we analyze more infrared spectral data within the atmosphere we need to assign emissivity values to various altitudes and add atmospheric Stefan-Boltzmann radiation to MODTRAN.