Abstract: This post describes a new approach to calculating the CO2 greenhouse effect. Instead of calculating radiative transfer from the surface up through the atmosphere to space, exactly the opposite is done. IR photons originating from space are tracked downwards to Earth in order to derive for each wavelength the height at which more than half of them get absorbed within a 100 meter path length. This identifies the height where the atmosphere becomes opaque at a given wavelength. This also coincides with the “effective emission height” for photons to escape from the atmosphere to space. A program has been written using a standard atmospheric model to perform a line by line calculation for CO2 with data from the HITRAN spectroscopy database. The result for CO2 is surprising as it shows that OLR from the central peak of the 15 micron band originates from high in the stratosphere. It is mostly the lines at the edges of the band that lie in the troposphere. The calculation can then show how changes in CO2 concentrations effect the emission height and thereby reduce net outgoing radiation(OLR). The net reduction in OLR is found to be in agreement with far more complex radiative transfer models. This demonstrates how the greenhouse effect on Earth is determines by greenhouse gases in the upper atmosphere and not at the surface.
Explore Station Data
-
Recent Posts
- Energy balance and the oceans
- H2O decreasing while CO2 rises !
- Marcott – Proxy errors and conclusions
- Detecting peaks in Marcott data
- Map of Marcott Proxies
- Evidence that Marcott’s up-tick is an artefact
- Marcott Study
- Beware which way the wind blows.
- Water Vapor Decline Cools the Earth: NASA Satellite Data
- Radiative Forcing of CO2
Recent Comments
Categories
- Africa (26)
- AGW (30)
- America (7)
- Australia (12)
- Britain (16)
- Climate Change (80)
- climate science (44)
- Colletta (7)
- Economy (1)
- Energy (8)
- Ethiopia (23)
- Fiji (1)
- Food (1)
- Gaia (5)
- GCM (5)
- Hong Kong (1)
- Ice Ages (8)
- Institiutions (2)
- Internet (2)
- Israel (1)
- Italy (4)
- Japan (1)
- Kenya (3)
- Libya (1)
- mobile (1)
- New Zealand (5)
- Oceans (2)
- OSI (1)
- Physics (26)
- Privacy (1)
- Public Health (1)
- Science (48)
- Technology (2)
- Travel (21)
- UK Met Office (3)
- Venus (1)
- Water Feedback (1)
- web services (2)
- wind farms (2)
- Work (2)
Archives
- May 2013
- April 2013
- March 2013
- February 2013
- January 2013
- December 2012
- November 2012
- October 2012
- September 2012
- August 2012
- July 2012
- June 2012
- May 2012
- April 2012
- March 2012
- February 2012
- January 2012
- December 2011
- November 2011
- October 2011
- September 2011
- August 2011
- July 2011
- June 2011
- May 2011
- April 2011
- March 2011
- February 2011
- January 2011
- November 2010
- July 2010
- June 2010
- May 2010
- April 2010
- February 2010
- January 2010
- December 2009
- November 2009
- October 2009
- September 2009
- August 2009
- July 2009
- June 2009
- May 2009
- April 2009
- February 2009
- January 2009
- December 2008
- February 2008
- January 2008
- December 2007
- November 2007
- October 2007
Meta














