Wuwei
Gold Member
- Apr 18, 2015
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Storage doesn't enter the picture -- is PRETTY much what I described in the post above. Some posters are rejecting the fact that absorption/re-emission is a thing. Quoting "residency times" for that energy to be RETAINED by a CO2 molecule that don't have a fixed number..
GH theory doesn't require "storage" in the sense that the layer doesn't have to heat up to radiate back thermal energy to the planet.. But it does require that one accept the ability of those molecules to "retain" energy from kinetics and photons and pass that energy off again.. Which is where SSDD and BillyBob are stick in the ditch..
I agree. Here is another slant on relaxation (residency) times. The actual time does not matter. No matter what it is, there will always be a large population (2/9) of CO2 in an excited vibration state. (From the equipartition theory).
If a CO2 molecule in an excited state is hit by 15 micron radiation will undergo stimulated emission and drop to the ground state and emit a photon along with the photon that stimulated it.
And of course the 7/9 ground state CO2 molecules are excited by 15 microns.
Of course collisions add to the chaos, but will not change the 2/9, 7/9 ratios for CO2 state mixtures. The whole atmosphere is always swarming with a high density of 15 micron radiation no matter what the collision rate or the CO2 relaxation rate. I looked into the radiation density above 100 meters once and it was small but significant.
As for the saturation effect, you can see that by isobar levels there's substantial projection of the surface warming thru most of the troposphere. Lots to do with mighty strong convection processes.. In fact, have you ever read about the "hot spot" prediction?
Climate scientists find warming in higher atmosphere: Elusive tropospheric hot spot located
All of the logarithmic basics of CO2 saturation are based on "well mixed" assumptions. And there's lots of debate on HOW well-mixed one can assume the Troposphere to be...
I haven't paid much attention to the hot spot problem except it was supposed to an embarrassment. The idea that the hot spot disappears with a better method of handling sparse data will not keep some from shouting data manipulation!
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