Or has the balance always been there? Dr. Ferenc Miskolczi has quite a distinguished scientific career, including a number of years at NASA Langley.
It's a long read, but well worth it... http://hpsregi.elte.hu/zagoni/NEW/ZM-MF_short.pdf And here is one of his later peer-reviewed publications: http://hpsregi.elte.hu/zagoni/NEW/2007.pdf -Mark Dr. Miskolczi's theses: 1. There are hitherto unrealized global average relationships between certain longwave flux components in the Earth’s atmosphere; 2. The new relations directly link global mean surface temperature to the incoming shortwave radiation F0 ; 3. The Earth’s atmosphere optimally utilizes all available incoming energy; its greenhouse effect works on the possible energetic top; 4. The classical semi-infinite solution of the Earth's atmospheric radiative transfer problem does not contain the correct boundary conditions; it underestimates the global average near-surface air temperatures and overestimates the ground temperatures; 5. Recent models significantly overestimate the sensitivity of greenhouse forcing to optical depth perturbations; 6. Resolving the paradox of temperature discontinuity at the ground, a new energy balance constraint can be recognized; 7. The Earth’s atmosphere, satisfying the energy minimum principle, is configured to the most effective cooling of the planet with an equilibrium global average vertical temperature and moisture profile; 8. The Earth-atmosphere system maintains a virtually saturated greenhouse effect with a critical equilibrium global average IR flux optical depth tauA = 1.87; excess or deficit in this global average optical depth violates fundamental energetic principles; 9. As long as the Earth has the oceans as practically infinite natural sources and sinks of optical depth in the form of water vapor, the system is able to maintain this critical optical depth and the corresponding stable global mean surface temperature; 10. The new transfer and greenhouse functions, based on the finite, semi-transparent solution of the Schwarzschild-Milne equation with real boundary conditions adequately reproduce both the Earth’s and the Martian atmospheric greenhouse effect; 11. The Kiehl-Trenberth 1997 global mean energy budget estimate (c.f. IPCC 2007 AR4 WG1 FAQ1.1. Fig.1.) is erroneous; the U.S. Standard Atmosphere (USST-76) does not represent the real global average temperature profile (not in radiative equilibrium, not in energy balance, not enough H2O); it should not be used as a single-column model for global energy budget studies; 12. The observed global warming on the Earth has nothing directly to do with changes in atmospheric IR absorber concentrations; it must be related to variations in the total available incoming F0 solar plus P0 heat energy (geothermal, ocean-atmosphere heat exchange, industrial heat generation etc.). Runaway greenhouse effect contradicts the energy conservation principle; global mean surface warming is possible only if the solar luminosity, the Earth-Sun distance and/or the planetary albedo changes (depending on the extent of the cryosphere, on cloud coverage, and/or on the varying surface properties according to land use change etc.); 13. Without water vapor feedback, the primary greenhouse sensitivity to a doubling CO2 theoretically would be about 0.24 K, according to the semi-transparent solution of the radiation equations in a bounded atmosphere. But taking into account all the energetic constraints, the actual value is 0.0 K. No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG - www.avg.com Version: 8.5.339 / Virus Database: 270.12.52/2152 - Release Date: 06/03/09 05:53:00
