Sun and Troposphere Control Earths Climate - Comment's - JS

Comments submitted by email to the authors, Douglas Lightfoot and Gerald Ratzer, or John Shanahan

Sun and Troposphere Control Earth’s Climate - Comments Discussion starting December 8, 2023

Introduction The reference documents for these comments are: - Sun and Troposphere Control Earth’s Temperature - Sun and Troposphere Control Earth’s Temperature - Why Use the Psychometric Model Table of Contents Introduction Comment by Lawrence Wilson Reply by Gerald Ratzer Comment by Russ Babcock Reply by Douglas Lightfoot Reply by Gerald Ratzer Reply by Gerald Ratzer Comment by Terigi Ciccone Comment by Ronald Barmby Comment by Brian Catt Comment by Alex Pope Closing Remarks by Douglas Lightfoot and Gerald Ratzer

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NOTE: The main comments listed in the Table of Contents are bold font and not indented.

The authors’ replies to the main comments and anyone’s comments on the initial comments are normal font and indented. ____________________________________________________

Comment by Lawrence Wilson A most interesting and informative study indeed. A comment and a question # Comment: I’m afraid there’s little hope of this paper ever reaching the Pope as he is surrounded by pro AGW minders who will block it - but even if it did get to him, notwithstanding his oft calls for transparency in discernment, his mind is totally closed to receiving alternative scientific explanation in this area.

Recall his refusal to even meet with the eminent NIPCC group of scientists some years ago. The late Cardinal Pell’s reported (post his death) observation on the quality of this Papacy was I believe, right on the mark. # Question: the paper states the CO2-warming relationship to be linear - I have always understood it to be logarithmic and this to be generally accepted by the broad scientific community - could someone comment on this ? # Question: Would I understand correctly this is the case up to the point of radiation saturation of CO2’s absorptive wavelength bands, but after that being fully absorbed, further absorption falls away to at most a logarithmic level ? go to first page - close previous windows —--------------------------------------------------------------------------------Revision 231208j

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Reply by Gerald Ratzer

About the relation of CO2 being linear or curved - I will make the following observations about our research and recent paper 1. All our research is based on empirical data collected by Douglas Lightfoot on his cell phone!

2. All the temperatures and humidity data values are for the lower Troposphere - specifically, at 2 metres above the surface.

3. The ground level height of a Stevenson screen is usually 2m.

4. As our paper explains, these data values are entered into an Excel spreadsheet. This is well covered in the two-page summary.

5. The basis for the analysis in the Psychrometric chart, invented in 1904 by Willis Carrier.

6. This is a model of the atmosphere, based on the work of scientists over a few hundred years. It includes the Ideal Gas Laws.

7. The important point to note is that all the greenhouse gases - GHGs (except water vapor (WV)) are above their boiling points and behave as ideal gases.

8. WV is by far the most important GHG. Our previous paper shows a range of the molecular ratio of WV to CO2 from less than 1 to over 100.

9. There is a map of the world divided by latitudes to show that most of the WV and high ratio number (>70) are in the Tropics. We all know the Tropics are hot and humid.

10. The output of the Psychrometric chart, which is the basis for the assertion of a linear relation of warming with concentration, is the enthalpy of WV and CO2.

11. The enthalpy is the "total heat" of a given mass. We use this as an absolute measure or as a difference between two locations. For example, what is the increase in a sample of CO2 warming between McMurdo in Antarctica and Tauodenni in the Sahara.

12. We assert that the temperature and humidity captured, reflect all the Revision 231208j

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heat related processes at the measured location. This includes any clouds, wind, feedback, Urban Heat Island or similar distorting effects.

13. So our data analysis uses the empirical data collected (240 readings from 20 locations over a year) , the Psychrometric chart and the calculated enthalpy.

14. The two charts in the paper show the dry air analysis of CO2 warming against concentration is linear, while the moist air calculated output is curved.

15. Note the moist air chart is linear below the freezing point as the WV has frozen into ice crystals. The curved section continues above the freezing point, as the moist air has WV as a component of the air. WV is the only GHG that exists in our atmosphere as a gas, a liquid or a solid.

I hope these 15 points will help you understand our research method.

I am sure Douglas Lightfoot will answer any further questions you may have. go to first page - close previous windows —--------------------------------------------------------------------------------Comment by Russ Babcock The paper makes some excellent points and it backs them up in a compelling fashion. Of the eleven conclusions, it's difficult to disagree with the main assertions when taken in total. Possibly with some of the side assertions (e.g. CO2 warming effect being linear vs logarithmic), but not with the totality of the paper's conclusions.

Where I have absolutely no disagreement is with the conclusion that everything that substantially affects the temperature at and near the Earth's surface, once the incoming solar radiation has been properly accounted for, occurs within the troposphere. I believe that makes good sense to all of us.

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But, HOW the troposphere impacts the temperature at and near the Earth's surface is where I have issues. Not IF, but HOW. Let me explain.

Lightfoot and Ratzer seem to assume that the temperature effects by the troposphere upon temperatures at and near Earth's surfaces are 100% due to "greenhouse gases", where H2O is the only IR-absorbing/emitting gas of significant consequence. The troposphere is 99.9% N2, O2, and Ar, yet none of these gases were even mentioned in this paper. Not once. Nor was the subject of mass transfer of energy mentioned. Energy can be and is transferred by means of conduction from the sun-warmed surface of Earth to the gases of the troposphere, and then in the presence of gravitational forces, is conveyed by way of convection through the troposphere and also by way of evaporative cooling of the oceans (latent heat). None of this energy transfer was mentioned in this paper either. How can these issues be ignored in a paper entitled "The Sun and the Troposphere Control the Earth’s Temperature" ?

The gases of the troposphere rise and fall ~ 20 degrees C each and every day of warm summer months, and ignoring the contribution by mass transfer of energy to and through the troposphere insinuates that 100% of that energy flux is due radiative transfer of energy. That just can't be true.

When 99.9% of the gases in the troposphere contribute zero "greenhouse effect", how can such significantly insulating temperature gradients from Earth's surface to the top of the troposphere be adequately explained? N2, O2, and Ar do not absorb, nor emit ANY IR wavelengths of energy. These gas molecules gain and lose kinetic energy 100% through collisions with neighboring molecules.

That the temperature effect of CO2 is vastly less than that of H2O is a very important conclusion. In itself, that is a powerful testament against the demonization of CO2 and the AGW narrative. But to insinuate that "greenhouse gases" explain 100% of that temperature effect is still not any more palatable (for me) than it was before reading the Lightfoot and Ratzer paper.

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go to first page - close previous windows —--------------------------------------------------------------------------------Reply by Douglas Lightfoot Reference the gases in the air: Please see page 186, right column, top paragraph: “The gases in the atmosphere, except for water vapor, are nitrogen, oxygen, argon, carbon dioxide, neon, helium, methane, krypton, and trace species [10]. These gases are above their boiling points and, therefore, act as ideal gases.”

About the Sun, the last line in the Abstract: “The Sun is Earth's primary energy source, and its natural variations control its temperature.” go to first page - close previous windows —--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Reply by Gerald Ratzer Thanks for your comments on our paper.

I really appreciate getting detailed comments on the climate content.

There are few people who are critical thinkers and will dig into the content.

As the paper states, this latest one is the fourth in a series of papers on the same topic.

The previous paper, which is referenced is

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Earth’s Temperature: The Effect of the Sun, Water Vapor, and CO2 has most details on the composition of the atmosphere, with table 3 showing the gases in our atmosphere - with and without water vapor.

The paper previous to thatLaws of Physics Define the Insignificant Warming of Earth by CO2 has this section "It is essential to know that any temperature increase by CO2 must appear in the measurements used to construct Figures 1 and 2. The readings of temperature and relative humidity at any location measure and reflect all the heat-related physical processes, including complex ones such as the radiation and absorption of infra-red energy and any feedback effects. They also include warming by water vapor and CO2, the local physical effects from latitude, elevation, Sun angle, Sun variability, proximity to oceans and lakes, clouds, volcanic action, and the interaction of CO2 and water vapor with the non-GHG gases nitrogen, oxygen, and argon and any heat island effect.

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" I guess we decided not to repeat this section - although the reference is in the latest paper.

I hope you agree with this point that the temperature and humidity - tell you is happening 2m above the surface, and there are no "hidden" energy sources.

Thank you again for your comments.

They are valuable to us for any future discussions. go to first page - close previous windows —--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Reply by Gerald Ratzer Apart from circulating our paper to a wide audience, your personal take on the situation, I think, is right on the money.

Thank you for doing this.

I would like more people to look at our research method and tell us if it is valid or not.

The Psychrometric chart has been around for 120 years and is a model based on the ideal Gas Laws.

As the paper says, many top scientists have worked on these laws for hundreds of years.

I think it is a correct model, and it appears that no one has thought of using it for the open atmosphere (as opposed to rooms inside), for climate Revision 231208j

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research.

In fact, the latest paper makes the point that for ideal gases, like CO2 above its boiling point, are linear with concentration, whereas water vapor (WV) is curved as it changes from a liquid, to a solid to a gas.

When WV is not an ideal gas, you get a curved chart. This also shows up in steam towers at power plants - where the white clouds coming out are a mixture of clear WV (close to the top of the chimney) and condensed aerosols further away. Salby used the term "Wa-Wa" for this mixture.

One thing I learned is that the Humidair computer version of the Psy chart works over a range from -100C to 100C. Thus, it deals with the three states of WV - gas, liquid and solid.

Looking careful at the psychrometric chart - you will notice that all the lines are smooth with no discontinuities (steps).

This is true, in particular, for the enthalpy.

Most readers have difficulty to understand entropy and enthalpy, as these are not covered in high school, but in university level physics courses on thermodynamics.

Our paper and the calculations done from the psy chart are just on enthalpy which is total heat in joules or kilojoules.

More specifically, it is the difference in enthalpy between any two locations that allow us to make the assertions in our conclusions.

I believe the enthalpy has the "total heat" from all sources embodied in it.

This is a point I would like others to confirm or deny with counter examples.

I think that all feedback effects and similar "hidden" processes (e.g. IR Revision 231208j

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exchanges) are included in the temperatures we measured and also in the calculated enthalpy from the psychrometric chart.

So far, no one has addressed these contentious points.

Our research is based on real, empirical data, collected by Douglas Lightfoot on his cell phone! This is the way real Science is done.

I look forward to more responses. go to first page - close previous windows —-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Comment by Terigi Ciccone Excellent points Russ, but here’s the bigger Point.

I’m writing a paper that seeks to demonstrate that less than 10% of all the solar incoming radiation exits the earth through the greenhouse gases before exiting to space. And in the process they help step down the radiation energy allowing it to exit to space while contributing only a meaningless small atmospheric warming through the kinetic theory.

The NASA earth energy budget misleads the casual reader and even the more scientific oriented readers to think that nearly 100% of the solar energy goes through the greenhouse gases before exiting to space which is not the case The paper goes on to theorize that the cycle of latent heat of evaporation never exits to space. Rather it’s borrowed heat that is reversed and canceled by the latent heat of condensation and the atmospheric cooling effects of precipitation. This may be the cycle that traps heat for weeks and months. Which may explain why the surface radiates more heat than exits Revision 231208j

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to space. So it’s not the greenhouse gasses that explains the missing heat.

It’s the latent heat cycle.

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Comment by Ronald Barmby I cannot claim original authorship of this response, as I am borrowing from an explanation generously offered to me by Dr. Happer on a paper that is included as footnote 15 of the subject paper you sent. I had made a statement in a podcast that was similar to the statement by Lightfoot and Ratzer. I had said (and wrote in my book) that the contribution to the greenhouse gas effect by CO2 was relatively small (5% or less). This was consistent with the position of many authors, previously including Dr. Happer.

He pointed out to me that the 2020 Wijngaarden and Happer paper had new findings that indicate the contribution of CO2 to the greenhouse gas effect is much larger than previously thought. Since their calculations are backed up by satellite observations they have significant weight. Since 2020 I am not aware of any repudiation of their paper backed by observations. I have attached that paper for your reference.

Please go to Figure 2 on page 19.

On figure 2 it does not matter if you choose a height of 11 km in the atmosphere (Ztp) or 86 km in the atmosphere (Zmp), CO2 is responsible for 35% or 29% of the radiative forcing, respectively. A problem exists (again as Dr. Happer explained to me) that the absorption bands of CO2 and H2O overlap, so they are not additive.

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The Lightfoot and Ratzer paper make the comment that the warming contribution of CO2 is too small to measure, and this is a significant component of their proposition. The 2020 Wijngaarden and Happer paper argues otherwise, and it ties to observed natural phenomena. I have since stopped quoting the 5% or less CO2 warming contribution and now quote 25% or more.

I do agree that because of the saturation effect of CO2 in the atmosphere, any future CO2 additions have a very small, if not negligible, effect. go to first page - close previous windows —---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Comment by Brian Catt The lapse rate is well documented and occurs naturally according to the heavily convected adiabatic heat transfer from the ocean’s surface to the troposphere. Maxwell described this. Most heat is lost in the tropics which receive half the total insolation over 40% of the earth’s surface, I think… and kick up big clouds, Hurricanes etc.. That’s natural negative feedback to insolation. Keeping the global heat balance.

The lapse rate gradient is well known to climatologists, who do real climate science that has to work as advertised, demonstrated on other planets and Moons, and has a boundary at 0.1 Bar wherever it occurs,where convection is no longer supported, in methane atmospheres as well.. THis is well known.

Non ideal gases like water vapour and CO2 modify this in a way well known to meteorologists, in particular those advising fliers, where the temperature gradients matter at “coffin corner” cruising altitude and speed (50 knot range between stall and speed of sound shake), air is thin, etc. Also useful when trying to get airborne at altitude. Less power and less lift.

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More important is the statement about the major adjustments to the Earth system’s thermal equilibrium happening in the troposphere, which is a misunderstanding about where surface heat comes from, and how, and where clouds come from and why, and the scale of these effects, I suggest...

The greatest heat loss of all from earth’s surface is the negative feedback provided at the oceans surface by evaporation in response to the warming by solar insolation. This releases water vapour containing the latent heat of vaporisation, which it then transfers adiabatically to the Troposphere, where it condenses into minute droplets, some of which enlarge around nucleation centres to form clouds, giving up the latent heat of vaporisation to the stratosphere as LWIR. All well known. So far so simple.

The driving enrgy of this negative feedback is the surface cooling by evaporation, not a tropospheric effect. It gets better…...

The latent heat transfer from the evaporating oceans in response to the solar EMR warming of the surface, as measured over 10 years by NASA, is estimated as 86.4W/m^2 of cooling - as latent heat alone, transferred by the convective adiabatic transfer to the troposphere which adds a further 14W/m^2 to the surface heat loss, which must also be given up in the Troposphere, but is first lost by the ocean surface.

IMPORTANTLY, Note that this rate of evaporation varies by 7% per deg K over a wide range of temperature AND relative humidity, easy to check using DIY on the standard characteristics curves.

So that is a very obvious 6W/m^2 per deg K negative feedback by evapoartion at the surface.

Simples!

Next, as it cools in the Troposphere, the water vapour condenses to form minute water particles held in suspension in the atmosphere. Some of Revision 231208j

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aggregate around nucleation centres and get larger, formimg ….. clouds.

Increasing clouds are highly reflective to visible light and add a further strong negative feedback, by reflecting incoming EMR more that the liquid surface beneath would, so have a further strong and net negative feedback on the warming that caused them. THe gross albedo of Earth’s clouds is c.50W/m^2 and this will also vary with the 7% per degree rate of water vapour formation. Together these two negative feedbacks alone must deliver over 10W./m^2 per degree K, after allowing for increased water vapour GHE from the same warming and better insulation by changed cloud cover at night.

So Earth's climate system cannot be significantly changed by 1 or 2 Wm^2 of AGW perturbation to the total GHE. Because the natural feedbacks of the dominant heat exchanges can easily rebalance the radiative imbalance caused by AGW gasses by an SST change of 0.1 - 0.2 deg C in SST. The rest of the climate change we observe only be natural. As we in fact observe in oast cycles. I suggest both these facts are self evident.

Earth’s SST regulation by water vapour is a strong and very sensitive control, far more powerful than its GHE, and. simply explains Earth’s very strong thermal stability, because of the sensitivity of evaporative heat loss response at its predominantly water surface.

70% of the surface is oceans, where all the surface heat is also stored because that’s where all the heat capacity is.

Not much to lose from the rocks.. Earth's stable thermal equilibrium and hence climate changes continually, to balance energy input and output, mainly determined by the dominant evaporative cooling response, far more sensitive than the Stefan Boltzmann T^4 radiative negative feedback to warming from the rocky/solid surface, or from within the atmosphere, up to the tropopause.

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The less sensitive S-B effect becomes dominant where there is no water vapour nor other non ideal gasses to scatter LWIR and reduce the heat lost to space, (because it occurs higher in the atmosphere where it's colder, not because it is absorbed, it largely isn’t).

I hope that is clear. Earth's thermal equilibrium is dynamic and changing constantly from daily to MIlankovitch periods. But all is dominated by the high negative feed back effects of oceanic water vapour evaporation, and that feedback dominates any small positive feedback from warming due to GHE from additional CO2, or it would just keep getting warmer until the SB feedback cut in, hopefully before it boiled off. But that's another planet, far, far away.

Climate science fiction. Not real. Like AGW as the control of climate. It simply cannot be. Far too small and dominated by the stronger and very obvious negative feedbacks satellites have measured.

Probably.

Brian RL Catt CEng, CPhys, MBA, MCIM 01932772731 07770931144 Skype Available PS: E&OE. Comments welcome, with references and data.

If they have deterministic merit I will incorporate them.

In god we trust, and cash, and data. No credit, no models. go to first page - close previous windows —--------------------------------------------------------------------------------Revision 231208j

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Comment by Alex Pope Water changes states and water is given credit for climate regulation in the paper. One significant state of water that is part of climate regulation is ICE, that is not even mentioned.

Water changing states is the most important factor in climate regulation.

Climate science will never be close to correct until it properly considers all of the changing states of water and includes ice.

I would welcome a zoom session to talk about the contribution of ice to climate change.

Major ice ages were Northern Hemisphere events, the southern hemisphere went along because as the oceans lowered, less ocean was heated in both hemispheres. In the north, in warmest times the Arctic was deeper and warmer during the warm times that were before each very cold ice age.

That put ice on land on the continents around the Arctic as well as on land inside the Arctic. There was enough ice that it did survive the summers, but it made little difference to the temperatures recorded in Greenland ice core records as long as the warm tropic ocean currents were still entering the Arctic. When the temperatures were dropping the fastest, leaving the major warm periods into the major cold periods was the time when the ice volumes and weights were maximum, ice was spreading fastest. When the Arctic was cut off from the warm currents feeding it, evaporation and snowfall continued in the Arctic until the Arctic ocean was depleted of much water and froze over. By then, there was enough ice beyond the Arctic to keep the snowfall on land beyond the Arctic fed by evaporation of oceans beyond the Arctic. The great northern ice sheets were thawing and spreading causing colder due to increased areas of thawing and reflecting.

The thawing and meltwater flow did not raise the oceans beyond the Arctic, due the the great weight of ice around the Arctic the meltwater flowed downhill into the Arctic. There is evidence that the Arctic filled with fresh water. The glacial maximums at the end of major ice ages were ice extent Revision 231208j

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maximums but not ice volume maximums, the great ice sheets had spread and thinned causing colder even as ice was depleted. The great ice sheets retreated rapidly because they were already thinned. The warming was erratic because freshwater and ice trapped in the Arctic was released in surges. During the long cold, Greenland ice core temperatures were erratic because the meltwater that entered the Arctic ocean from the great ice sheets was in surges.

The water released into the oceans at the end of major ice ages raised the oceans enough to trigger another major ice age, until this latest warming, now enough ice was sequestered on Antarctica, the oceans did not get deep and warm enough to take most of the ice off of Greenland and some other places in the north. This modern ten thousand years has been the first ten thousand years of a new normal.

- Climate is regulated in more narrow bounds because water is abundant and changes state. It has great influence in all of the states. go to first page - close previous windows —---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Closing Remarks by Douglas Lightfoot and Gerald Ratzer Thank you to Russ Babcock for positive comments about our paper. I hope the section about the psychrometric data dated Dec. 13, 2023 helps.

Thank you to Terigi Ciccone for your statement: “The paper goes on to theorize that the cycle of latent heat of evaporation never exits to space.”

The latent heat of evaporation is released when water vapor condenses into water droplets, i.e., clouds. This happens near the top of the Troposphere and energy flows unhindered to space.

Brian Catt: A great response as I would have expected.

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Part of the purpose of our paper is to correct some erroneous concepts that appear to have center stage at the moment. For example, the relationship between concentration of CO2 and temperature is logarithmic as promoted by the IPCC in section 6.3.5 of TAR. We prove that the relationship is linear (Section 3 of our paper). It is the relationship between concentration and warming effect of water vapor that is curved by a quadratic equation. Thus, when trying to separate the warming effect of water vapor and CO2 by radiation profiles, if the relationship curves, it is water vapor.

Further, the warming effect of CO2 is too small to measure. The people who developed the science behind the psychrometric chart could not find a warming effect by CO2.

Ronald Barbmy: I suggested that you examine the science that proves the warming effect of CO2 is too small to measure. See Section 2 of our paper. The science is proven physics and chemistry.

It might be more useful to you if I pointed out that we know the grams of water per kg of dry air by using air temperature and relative humidity as input to the psychrometric program, Humidair. We can calculate the grams of CO2 per kg of dry from the measurement at Mauna Loa. The measurement is reported in the media as, say, 420 ppm. The actual measurement is 420 molecules of CO2 per million molecules of dry air. This is 0.00042 moles of CO2 per mole of dry air. To convert to grams of CO2 per kg of dry air multiply as follows: (0.000420 x 44 x (1000/29) = 0.64 grams.

Now we can compare CO2 and water vapor in the same units. Thus, we can show the ratio of water molecules to CO2 molecules in the Tropics is 84 to 108. Thus, the warming effect of CO2 is not about half of that of water vapor. It is much less than that. The warming effect of CO2 is (Weight x specific heat x ΔT) = kilojoules. For the data set studied it is in the range of 0.47oC to 0.64oC as in the graph below. These amounts of temperature are too small to measure. I hope this helps. If it does not, please ask again. We may have to set up a Zoom session.

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To all from Douglas Lightfoot: As Professor Volkoff, physics professor at UBC, said: “An expert is a person who has made every possible mistake.”

Let me tell you about one of my important mistakes. The figure below is Figure 4 from a published paper by Lightfoot and Mamer in 2014. The section of the curve between 275 and 378 ppm is by the IPCC curve ΔRF = 5.22LN(C/Co). The curve that joins it is a quadratic that starts at zero and goes to an asymptote which is horizontal. This graph shows the maximum warming by CO2 is about 10.5 W m-2 and it occurs at 655 ppmv. It turns out new information available in 2023 shows this graph is about the warming effect of water vapor.

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Figure 2.Temperature versus enthalpy for water vapor The curve in Figure 2 is entirely from water vapor. The curve is also a quadratic. The curve in Figure 4 is strikingly similar to that of Figure 2. If the curve really represented CO2, it would be a straight line as in the figure below:

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Figure 1. Enthalpy of CO2 versus temperature It took nine years and new information for me to find this mistake.

All comments are welcome.

H. Douglas Lightfoot December 14, 2023. dlightfo@aei.ca

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