Eli Explains It All: Or Why Just About Everybunny Gets Energy Thermal Energy Transfer Between the Surface and the Atmosphere Wrong

Everybunny who has been hanging about the Climateball Court for the Christmas Dinner Playoffs has heard the bit about how heat transfer from the surface to the atmosphere by radiation is small compared to that by convection.

Eli posted an elegant explanation of why that was, well to be nice, complete bollocks, but thinking about it again the Bunny has come up with a simple one that you could explain even to your obstreperous uncle next big family dinner.  Well.....maybe.

Perhaps we start with the usual figure

and the usual argument, that the heat flow into the atmosphere by evaporation and sensible heat is 104 W/m² is massive while radiation only accounts for 398 - 342 W/m² which is a minuscule 56 W/m².  Limited sarcasm about minuscule.

There is a major problem with this.

It assumes that there is a difference between thermal energy that has entered the atmosphere from evaporation and sensible heat and thermal energy that entered the atmosphere by radiation.  

Nope

Let Eli reduce this to jelly beans.

If three bunnies put black jelly beans into a well shaken jar can anybunny tell Eli which one donated the black jelly bean he took out and is munching on?

I'll take Bashkirtsev's can't-lose side of the bet with James Annan

James Annan is low-key:

The bet - final outcome

You may be wondering what had happened with this. As you will recall, some time ago I arranged a bet with two Russian solar scientists who had predicted that the world was going to cool down. The terms of the bet were very simple, we would compare the global mean average surface temperature between 1998-2003 and 2012-17 (according to NCDC), and if the latter period was warmer, I would win $10,000 from them, and if it was cooler, they would win the same amount. See here and here for some of the news coverage at the time.

The results were in a while ago, and of course I won easily.....

So this should be the point at which I ask my blog readers for ideas as to what to spend the $10,000 on. I was hoping to do something that would be climatically and environmentally beneficial, perhaps something that might garner a bit of publicity and make a larger contribution. But they are refusing to pay. More precisely, Bashkirtsev is refusing to pay, and Mashnich is refusing to even reply to email. With impressive chutzpah, Bashkirtsev proposed we should arrange a follow-up bet which he would promise to honour. Of course I'd be happy to consider such a thing, once the first bet is settled. But it looks unlikely that this is going to happen.

Clearly, James was out-maneuvered, and that's why I prefer Bashkirtsev's position. You make a bet with someone honorable, and if he loses, he pays, while if terms come out wrong for you, then you refuse to pay and instead offer him a new chance to lose his money. Repeat as needed.

I'll take a bet that gives me a one-in-a-million chance of winning and zero chance of losing. Bashkirtsev, I salute you!

More seriously, Nature magazine covered the original bet and should cover the resolution. Better yet, they should fly James to Russia and do an ambush video of the two Russians. Or fly ME there, I'll pretend to be James and scream WHERE'S MY MONEY, DENIALISTS??? WHERE'S MY MONEY?!!!

As a side note, I've criticized my own bets with David Evans as being over-complicated, but we did address this issue via an escalating series of bet amounts over three time periods, so there's that. And David seems honorable to me, however wrong wrong wrong, dangerously wrong, he may be on climate.

Another side note, here's a blog on climate betting: http://ohbwaa.blogspot.com/. I kind of think the moment has passed due to denialists being mostly unwilling to pony up (I've probably challenged over a dozen, and I know many others have done the same), but good for this blogger for publicizing it.