The Birth of the BIG BLUFF of CO2 Alarmism

                          The IRIS satellite reporting outgoing longwave radiation OLR

The previous post revealed that the basic argument of CO2 alarmism in the form of "downwelling long wave radiation" DLR from the atmosphere to the Earth surface of size 300 W/m2, is supported by specific DLR-meters designed to report measurements of DLR. A DLR-meter is based on a DLR-meter Formula producing DLR from measurements of net radiation between the Earth surface and the atmosphere. 

The DLR-meter Formula was first formulated by the meteorologist Anders Ångström, chief of
Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute SMHI 1949-54, when in A Study of the Radiation of the Atmosphere (1915) reporting measurements using a pyrgeometer designed by his father Knut Ångström made during expeditions to Algeria in 1912 and California in 1913 to study "nocturnal radiation to the sky" from the Earth surface:

• It was found the water vapor exerted a very marked influence on the nocturnal radiation to the sky.
• From the observations it was possible to arrive at a logically founded mathematical expression for this influence. 
• The outgoing radiation of a blackened body in the night must be regarded as the sum of several terms: the radiation from the surface toward space given by Stefan's radiation law (E_c), the radiation from the atmosphere to the surface E_a...with effective radiation: 
• J = E_c - E_a.
• If the observed effective radiation is not more than 100 W/m2 when at 15 C one has E_c ~ 400 W/m2, it must be that 300 W/m2 is radiated to the surface from some other source of radiation; in the case of the Earth this other source of radiation is probably to a large extent its own atmosphere...ignoring the fact that a small fraction of it is due to the stars and the planetary bodies.

We see here how Anders Ångström expresses net "effective" radiation as the difference of two gross quantities:  

• E_c = sigma T_s^4 radiation from surface to outer space (according to Stefan-Boltzmann bypassing the atmosphere)
• E_a radiation from the atmosphere to the surface ("back radiation")

What Ångström wanted to measure was E_a, by measuring J by the pyrgeometer and reporting

• E_a = J + sigma T_s^4 = DLR-meter Formula.

Notice that Anders Ångström introduced E_c as the radiation from the surface to outer space according to Stefan-Boltzmann, which however has no physical meaning since the surface is in radiative contact with the atmosphere and not directly with outer space at 0 K.

Ångström claimed that the outgoing radiation E_a "must be regarded" to satisfy E_c - E_a = J and thus E_a = J + sigma T_s^4. But this "must be" lacks physics rationale, which is evident from the fact that Ångström offered no motivation other than "must be" which is no motivation. 

Ångström thus introduced the non-physical quantity E_c and then from this non-physical quantity constructed another non-physical quantity E_a = J + E_c, by measuring the physical quantity J.

The scientific mistake committed by Anders Ångström is so elementary that it has not been identified as an error but instead has come to serve CO2 alarmism as the prime evidence of massive warming of about 300 W/m2 of the Earth surface by the atmosphere. 

To understand that the DLR-meter Formula lacks physics rationale is in principle simple, since it only requires to understand that the quantity E_c as the radiation from the Earth surface to outer space lacks physical meaning, because the atmosphere is between the Earth surface and outer space. 

But to understand how it is possible that the elementary mistake by the meteorologist Anders Ångström has not been identified during 100 years of modern physics, is more difficult. 

It seems that meteorology in its birth in the beginning of the 20th century from thermodynamics and radiation physics, was searching for a place in science and found this by inventing specific instruments for measuring specific phenomena such as "nocturnal radiation to the sky". This strategy is today taken to its extreme by massive measurements of DLR coordinated and standardized by the World Meteorological Organization WMO. Climate science is this way made into the King of Sciences but

• Pride goeth before a fall.

The discovery that the King is naked is imminent.