Venus' temperatures: Wattsupwiththat vs conventional science?

The only thing that's correct on WUWT is that Watts's name is spelled Watts.

Except Bravowhatever's statement that the upper atmosphere of Venus receives less TSI than Earth's is wrong. The *surface* energy shortwave flux to Venus is about equal to Earth's, give or take, and combine that surface energy flux with the greenhouse effect and you get the surface temperature of Venus. The upper atmosphere of Venus receives more SW energy than Earth's.

Look, this is basic stuff. If there were something wrong with the energy budget of Venus from a greenhouse perspective it would be all over the discussion in climate science, and it's not.

You skeptics need to get it through your head, the basic physics of the planetary greenhouse effect are understood, correct, and not in contention, except if you are in denial that anthropogenic CO2 is an issue as far as global climate is concerned. Continually arguing these settled points is why you skeptics are getting crushed in the debate, you simply won't accept that some things related to climate are known and no longer debatable. That the surface temperature of Venus is a result of a runaway greenhouse effect is one of them.

Move on.

Jim: Try to read for comprehension. The *surface* of Venus receives roughly the same SW flux as Earth, this fact can be found many places, like the two links I gave in my answer. If you're going to insult people, read what they say and don't let your emotions get in the way of objectivity.

"The way a greenhouse effect works is by shortwave radiation warming the ground, and greenhouse gases impeding the return of long wave radiation to space. Since there is very little sunshine reaching below 30km on Venus, it does not warm the surface much."

I find this argument interesting yet irrelevant to the discussion at hand. If all the sunshine on Venus get absorbed before it hits the ground, where does the energy go? Let's assume 65% gets reflected back to space. Then what about the additional 35%? It does not hit the ground, nor is reflected. This is where a little chemistry background would be helpful. What happens is the SW gets absorbed by the atmosphere and through collisions of the very dense gas molecules gets converted into heat and LW. In a very thick gas, molecules that are electronically excited do not take long to reach a thermal equilibrium. The ground is not needed like it is on the earth because the atmosphere is so thick.

Edit: And yes simple relations of greenhouse gases do work differently on Venus than on the Earth. One thing that is typically overlooked when discussing the greenhouse effect is that collisions are needed to trap the energy in a form that will not be reradiated. On earth is mostly through collisions with nitrogen and vibrationally excited nitrogen does not spontaneously radiate since it is a forbidden transition. Collisions could also transfer that energy to translational energy which I suspect is the main mechanism of energy transfer on Venus. But the real point is that there are a lot more collisions, thus the CO2 can be a much more efficient greenhouse gas.

Edit: Jim said "The energy is exponentially less as it moves away."

Uhh no, it follows the inverse square law, it is not exponential. I would think a highly educated geologist would know this.

Goddard, (whoever he is) seems to be trying to put the blame solely on atmospheric pressure when it is both the pressure and what the gas is (Co2) Goddard starts with "If there were no Sun" if we are being pedantic, as some here seem to be, if there were no Sun there would be no planets.

Interaction with solar energy does heat any body and there is an increase as you get closer or farther from the Sun, Pluto is -229c for that very reason.

Distance from the Sun is only one factor (Jim) the atmosphere of any planet also plays a part which is shown by Earths own previous periods of extreme cold and tropical climates.

The Earth is 1AU from the Sun (obviously) But Venus is just 0.7AU it receives ~twice the energy that the Earth does, but Mars is much further away at 1.6AU with just 1% of the atmosphere of Earth (and mostly Co2) but even at this distance we know it has had running water on the surface, so even at 1.6AU it was warm enough for liquid water.

Meaning that certainly from 1AU to 1.6AU it is possible to have only minor differences in planetary temperature. If you could (magically) give Venus an Earth like atmosphere it would most certainly be much cooler. But it doesn't have such an atmosphere, and frankly this is as much clutching at straws as comparisons to Mars which deniers also try to make, all three planets have very different atmospheres and of the three only Earth has liquid water in vast oceans which has a strong effect on global temperatures.

As far as Greenhouse effect and energy reaching the surface Venus is as bright (at the surface) as Earth on an overcast day so energy is reaching the surface (see the photo Goddard himself provided)

So what you have is warming in the middle atmosphere due to the cloud cover and warming at ground level due to greenhouse effect.

As far as Venus and it's large albedo 65%, through cloud cover and the atmosphere itself Earth also has a fairly high albedo at 30%, but Bravo forgot to mention that.

One further small point:

"Watts should know that as a meteorologist"

As far as I am aware Watts isn't a meteorologist, even on his own website he only claims to have been a weather presenter on T.V. and radio.

If Watts is going to use such sources it would be nice if he could list 'who' the person is as "Steve Goddard" returns several hits the lead one is Dr Steve Goddard who's specialty is computing not climate the next is a musician.

I would narrow down the test from "germs" to something more specific like e-coli 157h7, salmonella, campybolactor, etc.. That or bacteria counts on each type of food would also work. I would also choose no more than 3 different kinds of food and I would stick to either meats or vegetables/fruits. You also should pay attention to the kind of organics. Either buy from a local certified organic source or a corporate organic source but do not mix the two together as they are about as different as conventional vs organic As to your premise that organic foods make people sick I believe this is taken from Dennis Avery at the Hudson institute who claimed the CDC had run tests on organic foods and found that organic foods were dirtier than conventional. the CDC said they have never run any such tests and that Mr Avery made the whole thing up. Later John Stossel used this false information on the ABC News magazine 20/20 to "prove" organic foods were bad for all of us. Mr Stossle had to apologize for this episode a few months later due to outcry and some holes in his theory you could toss a planet through

Some folks are are attention-seekers with loyal followings. Blogs like WUWT play to the ignorant and political.

For the science-minded...

http://tamino.wordpress.com/2010/05/10/goddards-fo...

http://chriscolose.wordpress.com/2010/05/12/goddar...

Jim z says:

"GCNP suggests that Venus recieves the same energy as earth. What planet did he get his degree on. Obviously it is closer to the sun. "

It also has a thick cloud cover, which prevents energy from reaching the surface. The surface thus receives less energy than Earth.

"Paul, BZ wasn't saying the 2 to 18th power is 36. "

I agree that's not what Bravo meant, but he makes some other errors (cosmetic ones that are nothing in comparison to Goddard's inane inconsistent ramblings).

Bravo said:

"Even if you want to use the 2 degrees C for every doubling of CO2 like is used on Earth and assume that Venus has 16,000 times as much CO2, you still only get 2 raised to the 18th power or about 36 degrees C of warming according to the physics used by the IPCC. "

Actually, 3 C is the best estimate (not 2 C), and in line with the bulk of peer-reviewed literature.

2^18 is 262144, by the way. Not to mention an applies to orange comparison.

EDIT

Bravo says:

"So the laws of physics are mystical and apply differently on Venus since the comparison is apples to oranges???"

Bravo also says:

"As to the 3 degree figure, I assume you are adding water vapor to the calculation which obviously doesn't apply as a positive feedback on Venus."

You managed to contradict yourself in the same paragraph. "Climate sensitivity" is not a universal law of physics that applies to every planet. The definition applies to Earth's climate. You note one aspect that's different, which automatically invalidates your first statement. Others include planetary albedo and the possible long-term effect of evaporation of surface water.

I could just as naively note the temperature difference with Venus, extrapolate response to a doubling of CO2, then apply it to Earth. As simplistic as that would be, it's arguably better than Goddard/Motl inventing heat sources and butchering basic physics.

The Venus greenhouse effect issue was settled long ago, when observations validated theory (some theories mid-20th-century speculated Venus even might be habitable). Interesting questions worth debating are at what early planetary temperature would a runaway effect on a planet be likely to occur. In an early study, if an early Earth was 5 degrees C higher, it would have been enough to miss the liquid water phase (crucial in moderating the greenhouse effect) and the runaway effect would have occurred.

http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/docs/1970/1970_Rasool_De...

http://books.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=1790&p...

I personally don't believe the runaway effect will happen. I think it will have to get a lot warmer for the oceans to dry up, and that would happen over a very long period of time. Still, if we keep pushing the boundaries, negligible possibilities begin to increase.

Traditional physics is what he was using. It is corruption of physics to say that it is a runaway greenhouse effect. I think that you must not have actually read what he said.

his previous article on it.

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/05/06/hyperventila...

"The way a greenhouse effect works is by shortwave radiation warming the ground, and greenhouse gases impeding the return of long wave radiation to space. Since there is very little sunshine reaching below 30km on Venus, it does not warm the surface much. This is further evidenced by the fact that there is almost no difference in temperature on Venus between day and night. It is just as hot during their very long (1400 hours) nights, so the 485C temperatures can not be due to solar heating and a resultant greenhouse effect. The days on Venus are dim and the nights are pitch black.

The next problem is that the albedo of Venus is very high, due to the 100% cloud cover. At least 65% of the sunshine received by Venus is immediately reflected back into space. Even the upper atmosphere doesn’t receive a lot of sunshine. The top of Venus’ atmosphere receives 1.9 times as much solar radiation as earth, but the albedo is more than double earth’s – so the net effect is that Venus’ upper atmosphere receives a lower TSI than earth."

It isn't a greenhouse effect if the atmosphere is absorbing the visible spectrum directly but that is semantics. There is no doubt some warming from the greenhouse effect. Even if you want to use the 2 degrees C for every doubling of CO2 like is used on Earth and assume that Venus has 16,000 times as much CO2, you still only get 2 raised to the 18th power or about 36 degrees C of warming according to the physics used by the IPCC. I seem to remember him quoting something like that. I guess the laws of physics work differently on Venus then?

<edit to reply to bucket...>

"Actually, 3 C is the best estimate (not 2 C), and in line with the bulk of peer-reviewed literature.

2^18 is 262144, by the way. Not to mention an applies to orange comparison."

So the laws of physics are mystical and apply differently on Venus since the comparison is apples to oranges??? I was in a hurry so I probably started on line 2. It isn't particularly relevant except that it would reduce the temperature to 34 degrees from the greenhouse effect. I also did the calculation of the relative concentration in my head which is why I only meant 2 significant figures.

As to the 3 degree figure, I assume you are adding water vapor to the calculation which obviously doesn't apply as a positive feedback on Venus. The equations probably actually work there since they don't have the negative feedback that obviously affects Earth's climate. If you are trying to say that the amount of uncertainty in the basic physics is that high, I must say that is pathetic. I am basing the 2 degrees warming per doubling on what was said from an MIT PhD in atmospheric physics not some contrived numbers. Contrived numbers come from the same group of geniuses that don't know the difference between conventional wisdom like Venus and the greenhouse effect being a bogus argument. They spout that nonsense because it was told to them by Hansen and others who apparently like to change reality to fit a bogus agenda.

Bravozulu, you excel yourself! I quote your answer word for word, so that there is no doubt as to what you actually said: "2 raised to the 18th power or about 36 degrees C of warming"

2 raised to the 18th power is actually 262,144

Edit: do the thumbs down agree with bravozulu's arithmetic? If not, why thumbs down? I REALLY want to know.

GCNP suggests that Venus recieves the same energy as earth. What planet did he get his degree on. Obviously it is closer to the sun. The energy is exponentially less as it moves away. I guess under his logic, Mars recieves the same amount of energy too. Mars has an atmosphere that is 95% CO2 yet it is frigid.

Paul, BZ wasn't saying the 2 to 18th power is 36. He said that was the warming expected by the IPCC model. Are you alarmists attempting to be purposefully ignorant or is it just accidental.