One idea is to measure heat up take by the oceans, which will give a figure in W/m2 for the radiation imbalance; but why can we not measure it directly, ie compare the incoming and outgoing radiation in W/m2?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiative_forcing And what's the tropopause got to do with it? The heat capacity of the air is essentially zero for periods longer than a few weeks, so if there's imbalance in W/m2 it's got to a) go into the ocean and b) it'll be the same right across the atmosphere, or not? A few weeks ago I asked about averaging according to 4th powers, but thinking it through again, as long as the albedo of the Earth stays the same and solar insolation stays the same, the average temperature of the Earth determining the outgoing radiation stays the same; what changes is that the temperature gradient between where the incoming radiation is absorbed and where it is re-emitted to space goes up. The point being, why should the transport between those two points go according to 4th powers? Eg, some of the transport should be in the form of convection or water evaporating at the surface of the oceans and condensing higher up in the atmosphere. And convection (hot air rising in the tropics say and falling over the arctic), while temperature dependent in some fashion, is not a straight 4th power function of surface temperature. --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Global Change ("globalchange") newsgroup. Global Change is a public, moderated venue for discussion of science, technology, economics and policy dimensions of global environmental change. Posts will be admitted to the list if and only if any moderator finds the submission to be constructive and/or interesting, on topic, and not gratuitously rude. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/globalchange -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
