Another gem at http://chiefio.wordpress.com January 19th 2012, 'Stratopause Emissions' following close on the heels of his investigation of water vapour in the atmosphere. In this instance he targets back radiation from co2 – but see also http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/12/29/unified-theory-of-climate/ and http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/01/13/a-matter-of-some-gravity/ which also deal with the same basic subject matter. Chiefio notes in passing that CAGW people never like to talk about natural variation of ozone with solar cycle changes (and another paper this week appeared hyperventilating about the so called ozone hole – see www.physorg.com/news/2012-01-temperatures-ozone-degradation-arctic.html).
Chiefio claims that the surface is dumping lots of heat which indicates co2 is not stopping the surface from radiating in spite of the greenhouse effect theorising over the last couple of decades. In the Brewer-Dobson circulation system air is lifted into the stratosphere over the tropics and it then moves either south or north, towards the Poles – where it drops back down to the troposphere and then at lower altitude moves back towards the tropics (and something similar can be found at www.physorg.com/print245921654.html but in a CAGW context and in a rather negative fashion). Hence, if uyou want to know how the earth sends IR to space and what controls global temperatures – look at the stratosphere. It is only after the above process has happened that the descended polar air furnishes us all with our weather (which is what the CAGW folk know as climate). What controls the stratosphere and upper altitude ozone is what controls heat radiation to space. Once the air has descended back down to the troposphere it is below the co2 blanket which therefore seems to do very little to the global energy balance.
What is striking is the similarity between the air and the ocean circulation systems. For example, the Gulf Stream brings warm water from the tropics to the western shores of Britain, Ireland and Scandinavia and off the coast of northern Norway meets cold polar water and sinks, the current then bottom riding past Greenland and Labrador and south down the coast of eastern North America, fetching cold water to the tropics where the process begins all over again. A similar situation exists in the Pacific. It seems that as above so below, a remarkable dispersal of warm water and warm air confined in a global weather system.