The Sun is a practically steady driver of the earth's energy transport process. If it were more erratic or even predictably variable, it would be a convenient source of externally imposed perturbations of the earth's energy transport process, but it isn't such.
The Sun drives the earth's energy transport process so as to make it a dissipative process. The high quality (over five thousand degree Kelvin) energy in sunlight is degraded into lower quality energy in outgoing longwave radiation (OLR, around 255 degrees Kelvin). The quality incident energy is partly reflected or scattered away. The rest is absorbed by the earth's atmosphere and condensed matter surface. Over the billions of years, the system will have continually explored the myriad of possible ways it has for spreading the absorbed radiative energy back to the rest of the universe, which, as you may check by looking at them night sky, is not far from a black body. Its average temperature is about 2.7 degrees Kelvin, so that it acts as a mighty sink for the OLR.
The energy's dissipative passage through the system is complicated. The condensed-matter absorbed energy is cooled as it enters at temperatures around 288 degrees Kelvin, and passes as heat and by evaporation into the atmosphere at temperatures around 255 degrees Kelvin, whence it radiates easily to the 2.7 degrees Kelvin sink. Downgrading all the way. Exceptionally, it occasionally and transiently gets hotter, as in flashes of lightning, particularly in sporadic local transient positive feedback in thunder storms. The global stability of the dissipation indicates that negative feedback describes its overall character, as in a dynamical régime not too far from a globally nearly steady state.
The currently dominant Marxist–WEF–IPCC–warmista gang seductively and delusively proposes that somehow the passing energy participates in a mechanism of "global amplification through positive feedback through the radiative effect of water vapour". That mechanism isn't specific for CO2-level perturbations. It goes against the overall dissipative nature of the process. Nevertheless, using their seductive and delusive proposal, the gangsters have lured gullible Western politicians (with a very few honourable exceptions) into wrecking their nations' economies. Counter to that, Jennifer's proposal of an "equilibrium climate sensitivity" of 0.6 degrees Kelvin, to me, seems near enough, subject to powerful external driving, such as Milankovitch effects.
Christopher! Thanks for sharing this thoughtful note—it’s an important and unique perspective on the Sun’s role in Earth’s energy transport process, and it aligns beautifully with my theme. You continue to emphasis the need for a dynamic systems focus. Brilliant!
Your note emphasises the Sun’s steady energy input, its role in driving a dissipative energy process, and the global stability of Earth’s climate system through negative feedback, which complements my focus on the Sun’s constancy, nested cycles, and life’s resilience. It also introduces thermodynamic concepts like energy quality degradation (from high-temperature sunlight to low-temperature outgoing longwave radiation, OLR) and the universe as a 2.7 K sink, which I shall endeavour to weave into my developing narrative.
Your note suggests Earth’s energy transport is globally stable, governed by negative feedback (e.g., increased OLR with warming), maintaining a near-steady state despite transient positive feedback (e.g., thunderstorms). This stability underscores the Sun’s constancy and life’s resilience.
Jennifer. Ad "Christopher! Thanks for ... life's resilience. Thank you!"
For such a dynamic process as that of the earth's energy transport, stability is a hard concept to fully grasp, because it has so many time scales to consider. The history of the climate shows that.
For an idea of stability, I think the way to go is to construct a definite proposed future trajectory for one's variables of interest, and then to ask how far and for how long an externally imposed perturbation will deflect the system from one's proposed future trajectory. Will the perturbed process soon drift back to the predicted proposed trajectory, or will it veer off to somewhere strange? The climate process isn't like the conditions governed by an air conditioning system, which has a prescribed set-point. The climate system generates its own future, in ways poorly understood. For this, one must set a short time scale, perhaps the interval of sampling of one's data set of meterological variables. And a long time scale, the longest time that one thinks one can predict the future trajectory. For weather forecasts of the usual sort, that long time scale is perhaps a week. For a study of the climatic effects of a volcanic eruption, one would need a longest time scale of perhaps five years. For studying the stability of a dynamic process, one needs to find suitable external perturbations. What externally imposed perturbations can one find for examining the processes of the land ice, which operate over thousands of years?
The Sun is a practically steady driver of the earth's energy transport process. If it were more erratic or even predictably variable, it would be a convenient source of externally imposed perturbations of the earth's energy transport process, but it isn't such.
The Sun drives the earth's energy transport process so as to make it a dissipative process. The high quality (over five thousand degree Kelvin) energy in sunlight is degraded into lower quality energy in outgoing longwave radiation (OLR, around 255 degrees Kelvin). The quality incident energy is partly reflected or scattered away. The rest is absorbed by the earth's atmosphere and condensed matter surface. Over the billions of years, the system will have continually explored the myriad of possible ways it has for spreading the absorbed radiative energy back to the rest of the universe, which, as you may check by looking at them night sky, is not far from a black body. Its average temperature is about 2.7 degrees Kelvin, so that it acts as a mighty sink for the OLR.
The energy's dissipative passage through the system is complicated. The condensed-matter absorbed energy is cooled as it enters at temperatures around 288 degrees Kelvin, and passes as heat and by evaporation into the atmosphere at temperatures around 255 degrees Kelvin, whence it radiates easily to the 2.7 degrees Kelvin sink. Downgrading all the way. Exceptionally, it occasionally and transiently gets hotter, as in flashes of lightning, particularly in sporadic local transient positive feedback in thunder storms. The global stability of the dissipation indicates that negative feedback describes its overall character, as in a dynamical régime not too far from a globally nearly steady state.
The currently dominant Marxist–WEF–IPCC–warmista gang seductively and delusively proposes that somehow the passing energy participates in a mechanism of "global amplification through positive feedback through the radiative effect of water vapour". That mechanism isn't specific for CO2-level perturbations. It goes against the overall dissipative nature of the process. Nevertheless, using their seductive and delusive proposal, the gangsters have lured gullible Western politicians (with a very few honourable exceptions) into wrecking their nations' economies. Counter to that, Jennifer's proposal of an "equilibrium climate sensitivity" of 0.6 degrees Kelvin, to me, seems near enough, subject to powerful external driving, such as Milankovitch effects.
Christopher! Thanks for sharing this thoughtful note—it’s an important and unique perspective on the Sun’s role in Earth’s energy transport process, and it aligns beautifully with my theme. You continue to emphasis the need for a dynamic systems focus. Brilliant!
Your note emphasises the Sun’s steady energy input, its role in driving a dissipative energy process, and the global stability of Earth’s climate system through negative feedback, which complements my focus on the Sun’s constancy, nested cycles, and life’s resilience. It also introduces thermodynamic concepts like energy quality degradation (from high-temperature sunlight to low-temperature outgoing longwave radiation, OLR) and the universe as a 2.7 K sink, which I shall endeavour to weave into my developing narrative.
Your note suggests Earth’s energy transport is globally stable, governed by negative feedback (e.g., increased OLR with warming), maintaining a near-steady state despite transient positive feedback (e.g., thunderstorms). This stability underscores the Sun’s constancy and life’s resilience.
Thank you!
Jennifer. Ad "Christopher! Thanks for ... life's resilience. Thank you!"
For such a dynamic process as that of the earth's energy transport, stability is a hard concept to fully grasp, because it has so many time scales to consider. The history of the climate shows that.
For an idea of stability, I think the way to go is to construct a definite proposed future trajectory for one's variables of interest, and then to ask how far and for how long an externally imposed perturbation will deflect the system from one's proposed future trajectory. Will the perturbed process soon drift back to the predicted proposed trajectory, or will it veer off to somewhere strange? The climate process isn't like the conditions governed by an air conditioning system, which has a prescribed set-point. The climate system generates its own future, in ways poorly understood. For this, one must set a short time scale, perhaps the interval of sampling of one's data set of meterological variables. And a long time scale, the longest time that one thinks one can predict the future trajectory. For weather forecasts of the usual sort, that long time scale is perhaps a week. For a study of the climatic effects of a volcanic eruption, one would need a longest time scale of perhaps five years. For studying the stability of a dynamic process, one needs to find suitable external perturbations. What externally imposed perturbations can one find for examining the processes of the land ice, which operate over thousands of years?