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06 November 2011
| Article Index |
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| No, Virginia, Cooler Objects Cannot Make Warmer Objects Even Warmer Still (Updated) |
| Supplemental email correspondence-pg 2 |
| All Pages |
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Intro by John O'Sullivan: It is my great pleasure to provide for publication the following robust analysis and counter-argument of former NASA scientist, Dr. Pierre Latour, to Dr. Roy Spencer’s unscientific claims regarding the alleged heating properties of ‘back radiation.’ Latour’s detailed assessment affirms those aspects of Slayers’ science (John O’Sullivan, November 6, 2011).
"No, Virginia, Cooler Objects Cannot Make Warmer Objects Even Warmer Still"
[Author's note: Revised and updated November 28, 2011, with additional supplemental email correspondence with Dr. Roy Spencer-see end of article].
Pierre R Latour, PE, PhD Chemical Process Control Systems Engineer rebuts Dr. Roy Spencer’s article,’Yes, Virginia, Cooler Objects Can Make Warmer Objects Even Warmer Still’ (published July 23, 2010). [1.]
I have admired and learned from Roy Spencer's work on AGW & GHG for several years. He taught me a lot. He is well recognized in his field. Now I write to return the favor and teach him about the errors in his posting and how he can learn from my field. I read all 350 blog responses, and identify the correct ones at the end.
Spencer’s setup through paragraph 11 is OK, assume start is steady-state, all dT/dt = 0. Spencer does not say whether the chiller chamber surroundings at 0F are held there by constant heat removal rate (= plate power input rate) or constant T = 0 (adjusting power input rate). Spencer’s paragraph 12 claim that the radiating plate temperature will increase from 150 to 160F by absorbing some back-radiation from the inserted non-radiating 100 plate is merely a claim, without scientific theory or evidence to back it up.
His statement “This is because the second plate reduced the rate at which the first plate was losing energy.” is provably false. And the answer to his subsequent question in parentheses is: no. His statement “Again, the reason the heated plate became even hotter is that the second plate has, in effect, “insulated” the first plate from its cold surroundings, keeping it warmer than if the second plate was not there.” is not true.
If the claim were true, the total surroundings, including cooler plate, would receive more radiation from T difference = 160 – 150 = 10F and the chiller chamber temperature would increase to T > 0, even if the portion of surroundings blocked by the cool plate gets colder. The rest gets warmer. The chiller would have to remove more heat to maintain 0, but input electrical energy to the 150 plate is constant, so this requires creation of energy. The 100 plate does not insulate the 150 plate from all 0 surroundings.
The Stefan-Boltzmann law radiation law says radiation rate is proportional to its absolute temperature **4, no T difference involved; the radiation rate of 150 is proportional to its radiating T = (65.6 + 273)**4, no matter what the surroundings. However, the absorption rate of real bodies depends on whether the absorber T (radiating or not), is less than the intercepted radiation T, or not. If the receiver T > intercepted T, no absorption occurs; if the receiver T < intercepted T the absorption rate may be as great as proportional to (T intercepted – T absorber), depending on the amounts reflected, transmitted or scattered.
What actually happens is the chiller radiates to the hot plate, but the plate cannot absorb any of it because it is too cold. The hot plate reflects, transmits or scatters colder radiation, just like my roof does for cold radio waves. Insertion of the 100 plate blocks hot radiation to the portion of the surroundings behind it, cooling them to T < 0. But the 100 plate also radiates to the rest of the surroundings, heating it to T > 0. The combined effect is no change in radiation absorbed by total surroundings and average radiating temperature remains 0. The hot plate does indeed intersect 100F radiation from the cold plate, just as it intersects 0F radiation from the surroundings, but it cannot absorb any of it and warm since the incident radiation is too cold, < 150.
Examples are all around us. Chemical engineers design and operate radiant, convection and conduction furnaces, kilns, forges, chemical reactors and boilers for refining petroleum, manufacturing chemicals and generating electricity since 1920. We no longer need more experiments. No back-radiation is observed. Conducting this experiment will allow nature to tell which prediction is correct. This has been done already by Prof Nasif Nahle, reported on 26 Sep 11 [2.]. Findings confirm the prediction T remains 150 is correct because a warm body cannot absorb cooler back-radiation.
An easy proof experiment is to park your car along a busy road at night with the headlights on. Move 5 meters in front and watch or measure your headlight emission brightness as approaching cars shine on them. Have you ever noticed your headlights getting brighter; then flickering back down as the oncoming car passes? No! Why? The hot bulb filaments do not absorb the low intensity, T, radiation from oncoming headlights, and reradiate it, brightening them.
Mathematics. Back-radiation may be represented by finite difference equations:
fi = f0 + K*Fi-1, and Fi = F0 + k*fi, where:
i is the iteration number, i = 1, 2, 3, …. infinite
Fi+x is the energy rate from the first bar at iteration i+x (x = 0|-1). Given F0 > 0.
fi+x is the energy rate from the second bar at iteration i+x (x = 0|-1). Given f0 => 0.
K is the fraction of radiation from the first bar absorbed by the second colder bar, 0 < K <=1.
k is the fraction of re-radiation from the second bar absorbed by the first hotter bar, 0 <= k <=1.
Substitute the first equation into the second to get
Fi = F0 + k*[f0 + K*Fi-1]
Delta Fi = Fi - Fi-1 = - (1 - kK)*Fi-1 + F0 + k*f0
This sequence converges to Fj - Fj-1 = 0 = - (1 - kK)*Fj + F0 + k*f0, and
Fj = [F0 + k*f0]/(1 - kK) => F0, constant, provided kK < 1, and
fj = f0 + K[F0 + k*f0]/(1 - kK) => f0.
The change in radiation energy rate to surroundings, Es, is the final rate minus initial rate minus amount initially diverted from surroundings to the injected cold plate, K*F0,
Es = (Fj - F0) + (fj - f0) - K*F0 = [(1 + k)*K*F0 + (1 + K)*k*f0]/(1 - kK) - K*F0.
For any K > 0 and k > 0, Es > 0. This would constitute creation of energy, a violation of the first law of thermodynamics.
Since K may be > 0, Es = 0 if and only if k = 0.
Since this is the only possible solution, k must be identically zero, so no cold back-radiation is absorbed and T remains 150. Quod Erat Demonstrandum, QED.
Chemical Engineering. Here is the corresponding radiation energy transfer engineering (Perry, John H, “Chemical Engineers Handbook”, 1950, H C Hottel, Section 6, Radiant Heat Transmission , pp. 483-498; Bird, R Byron, Warren E Stewart & Edwin N Lightfoot, “Transport Phenomena”, John Wiley, 1960, Chapt 14, Energy Transport by Radiation; Bennett, C O & John E Myers, “Momentum, Heat and Mass Transfer”, McGraw-Hill, 1962, Chapt 28, Radiant Heat Transfer, p371):
Hot emitter rate at T is
Qe = 5.7*X*T**4, S-B relation.
where X is radiating area, m2, T = 65.6 + 273 = 338K.
Hot radiation absorbed by cold at t < T is
Qa = a*b*Qe
where a = view factor of q from Q, < 1. Fraction of Q emission intercepted by q.
b = absorption factor of q, < 1. Depends on amount of incident radiation > t. Amount < t is not absorbed. Rest, (1-b), is reflected, transmitted or scattered.
Hot radiation re-emitted by q at t is
qe = c*Qa = 5.7*x*t**4
where x is radiating area, m2, t = 37.8 + 273 = 311K.
c = emission factor of q, < 1.
The rest (1-c) is converted to thermal heat to warm the cold body, increasing thermal t, and releasing heat to its colder surroundings by convection or conduction, until they equilibrate. Any change in radiating t depends on the nature of the radiating body and the absorbed radiation; it can be complex. I shall assume t remains constant for simplicity, no thermal effects, just like Spencer.
Re-emission energy from q intercepted by Q is
qi = A*qe, where
A = view factor of Q from q, < 1, fraction of q emission intercepted by Q.
Amount of re-radiation from q absorbed by Q is
qa = B*qi = B*A*qe = B*A*c*Qa = B*A*c*a*b*Qe = abcAB*Qa < Qa , where
B is absorption factor of Q, < 1.
This describes radiation from a furnace flame to boiler tubes and fire walls then onward from fire walls (not backward) to tubes.
Physics says when T > t, B = 0. So Qa = 0. There is no back-radiation energy transfer from cold to hot. QED.
Radiant energy transfer rate from Q that is absorbed by q and re-radiated by q to surroundings ts < t is
QT = Qa – qe = ab*Qe – c*Qa = abX5.7T**4 – cx5.7t**4 = 5.7[abX*T**4 – cx*t**4]
Some call this QT the net radiant energy transfer from Q to q accounting for qe because it has a temperature difference factor. This is not the difference between hot radiation emitted and cold back radiation re-absorbed by the hot emitter. When the surroundings are black, x = X, and when the radiating body is grey, c = a*b, so
QT = abX5.7[T**4 – t**4], provided T > t.
Note S-B law is not used for this analysis; it is a side information issue because it just assigns a radiating T for a particular Q/X. It is only needed to verify whether B = 0.
All these equations are first law conservation of energy balances.
Black and grey bodies are introduced to simplify the analysis, neither exists in nature. Engineers determine view factors a and A. That geometry is the hard part for furnace duty. Conduction and convection modeling is harder still, and significant. Since materials that behave like black and grey bodies are most useful for radiant energy transfer equipment, these assumptions with experimental adjustment factors are used for commercial engineering design of furnaces, kilns and forges.
Major furnace constructors like Babcock & Wilcox, Foster - Wheeler, Stone & Webster, Selas, KTI, KBR, Combustion Engineering, and Lummus have developed and built proprietary furnace designs world-wide for decades. Earth’s surface and atmosphere radiation may deviate from black and grey as well. And engineers never assume radiators get hotter by absorbing their own generated energy re-radiated back from colder absorbers. If one assumes everything is a theoretical black body, everything works like a black body, but nature may not quite.
Kirchhoff’s law assumes absorbed radiation is completely re-emitted (none is converted to thermal energy) and then proves the obvious, the ratio of emissive power to absorptivity is the same for all such bodies; equivalently the fraction of incident radiation absorbed, absorptivity, equals fraction emitted, emissivity. While emissivity depends only on the nature of the emitting body, absorptivity also depends on the nature of the incident radiation absorbed (but if this can be neglected, it is called a grey body, to simplify analysis). So emissivity can be less than absorptivity for real, non –grey bodies, they convert the difference to thermal heat. I have not assumed it or violated it in this analysis.
Spencer’s statement of Kirchhoff’s law is not precisely correct and was irrelevant to his claim hot bodies absorb cold radiation, just an interesting comment about the weather.
Unlike Spencer, I tend to include the physics of what happens on the molecular, atomic and photon level; it often overturns common sense and experience, leading to a more complete understanding of physics and natural phenomena. I do not arbitrarily dismiss physics because I do not understand it; only if I do and know it to be irrelevant. I am aware professional radiation physicists may have more precise descriptions of the un-absorbable colder T criteria from particle physics. Claes Johnson gave a plausible explanation of cutoff frequencies in “Slaying the Sky Dragon”, 2011. Irwin Hasenwinkle (30Jul10, 6:38 am) provided a convincing supporting explanation from Maxwell’s field equations.
Spencer imagined a physical situation and claimed what would happen; a radiating plate would get warmer if another colder, non-radiating plate were introduced, with no supporting physics or evidence. Then he claimed it was correct because he claimed it to be so. This is a circular argument, an invalid tautology; claim something and use it to prove the claim. Logic shows this proves nothing. Circular arguments should be avoided in a court where the judge and jury understand and reject invalid tautology.
Conclusion, the hot plate remains at 150. All physics I know supports it; no physics offered refutes it. Spencer mistakenly assumed the 150 plate absorbs incident 100 radiation. Introducing change to surroundings, like a new 100 plate, will simply change the temperature of the rest of the surroundings (cooling them to < 0), absorbing the same radiation from the 150 plate. Not only did Spencer fail to prove his claim but I have offered an alternative theory that refutes it. The generalized claim that a cooler object placed near a warmer object cannot result in a rise in temperature of the warmer object stands.
Another Spencer misstatement is revealed in paragraph 14 and repeated in subsequent blog comments: an unclear description of the first law conservation of energy ODE: input rate – output rate = accumulation rate = mCp*dT/dt. So imbalance does not cause T, it causes dT/dt or temperature change. T will keep changing until a T is reached that restores the balance; this always occurs because an input and/or output rate always depends on T.
If not T would go to 0 K or infinity. Surely every climatologist, weatherman, climate change artist, Congressman, engineer and high school graduate worth his salt knows how to quantify change and what a derivative is, (Newton, I, “Principia”, 1687). While this may seem picky, AGW promoters have claimed since 1997 ice melts because the atmosphere is warming, temperature is increasing, dT/dt >0, when in fact ice melts because the atmosphere is too warm, when T >0C, and at a rate proportional to T, not because atmosphere is warming, dT/dt > 0. Further, [CO2] significantly affects Cp of air, which affects the lag time of T responses to energy imbalances but may not affect the steady-state equilibrium value much. AGW debate is filled with sloppy language, inconsistent definitions and hence confusion.
Just because the K-T energy flow diagram balances does not prove GHG back-radiates 333 w/m2 from the cold sky GHG’s, or warmer Earth absorbs all of it and as a consequence warms further, as indicated at the far right of K-T diagram. The 396 w/m2 emitted by the surface and 333 w/m2 back-radiation absorbed could just as well have been 63 w/m2 emitted and 0 w/m2 reabsorbed.
What I feel with a warm blanket is reduction in heat transfer rate, not higher temperature. (Skin may sense T change but mostly Q change.) A blanket reduces the conductive heat transfer coefficient, U, between my body and air. Since Q = UA*(T body – T air), Q decreases with U so long as T body > T air. Metabolism adjusts Q to hold T body constant 98.6F (37.0° C for Europeans). When you die, Q = 0, and T body = T air, no matter what U is or how thick the blanket is. Blankets, coats and gloves reduce the rate of heat loss from one’s body, and hence the required shivering metabolism rate to maintain 37°C. They do not warm cold stones. To confirm my opening sentence, turn a fan on. You feel cooling because the fan increases the convective heat transfer coefficient at your skin, increasing Q at constant T. You feel increase in Q. Besides your experiment is about radiant energy transfer only, you ruled out conduction and convection, so the blanket conduction analogy is invalid if radiant and heat transfer are different mechanisms. Radiant energy transfer does not work the same way as conductive & convective heat transfer, as you know. Energy from colder cannot heat hotter further because the second law of thermodynamics says so, because nature says so; always and everywhere.
Spencer attempted to show how his claim relates to how much CO2 affects atmospheric temperature.
His opening universal statement about energy transfer to outer space “Putting anything between that (essentially infinite) heat sink and the Earth’s surface will cause the surface to warm.” should say space is an infinite radiation energy transfer sink, but it is an empty infinite barrier to conductive and convective heat transfer, since there is nothing out there to conduct or convect heat. Further, the statement for radiation would be false for any atmosphere that is transparent to the emitted radiation, like transparent gases for visible light, a tent for radio waves or my body for x-rays.
Since all atmospheres must get colder with altitude as kinetic energy is transformed into potential energy in a planet’s gravitational field, the lower atmosphere must be warmer than upper atmosphere, even if there is no radiation involved. This follows from the perfect gas law, PV = nRT. (The slope of the h vs. T line, the lapse rate, is –g/Cp.) Since air heat capacity, Cp, increases with exchange of O2 for CO2, the slope gets more horizontal and the surface T may increase. And the length of the line increases with the amount of atmosphere, also warming the surface.
This is not how a blanket works; is not even Spencer’s mischaracterization of how a blanket works. A planet’s surface temperature increase due to the presence of an atmosphere depends on the amount of atmosphere and it’s Cp. Its average re-radiation rate is set by the atmospheric energy balance dominated by solar input, adjusted for changes in reflectivity, surface inputs like respiration, combustion and mantle eruptions and outputs like photosynthesis, stabilized by ocean CO2 and energy sinks and sources. Short term weather has nothing to do with this because weather is a natural result of energy, mass and momentum transport within a turbulent three phase system driven by planet surface changes, rotation and orbit, lightening, ionosphere ionization and auroras.
So not only was the cold heats hot statement not proven to be correct, it is actually not true. In fact there is no heat transfer (heat means thermal energy, not radiation energy) involved from Earth’s surface to stratosphere on average either, because heat cannot escape to space and average dT/dt > 0, always. Of course there is tremendous mass, energy and momentum underway within Earth’s turbulent three-phase atmosphere, causing weather. The only mechanism I can see for Spencer’s assertion is if the atmosphere converts thermal heat to radiation to space, just as the surface does. And how much [CO2] affects that transformation. Which leaves us with total energy leaving Earth is that radiated by its surface and atmosphere. There is no back-radiation energy transfer from cold sky absorbed by Earth’s warmer surface.
Spencer did not prove his claim “ANY infrared absorber that gets between the Earth’s surface and space will cause the surface to warm.” He just asserted it. If that IR absorbing gas absorbs solar IR rather than letting the Earth surface absorb it, (thereby cooling surface) would not the gas re-emit all of it, even at a somewhat lower T and spectrum, as colder radiation and thermal heat? Thereby releasing all the energy it absorbed, and not influencing Earth energy balance one whit? Would it not just modify the distribution between radiant and thermal energy? Maybe more thermal T and less radiant T? According to Kirchhoff’s law!
Spencer’s far right downward orange arrows get wider because the amount of atmosphere overhead increases as you go down, not because warm lower atmosphere absorbs and reemits colder IR. Upper atmosphere IR in the widest arrow down has cooled more by dispersion and is not absorbed by the warmer surface below, just scattered. And the orange upward arrows are correspondingly narrower.
The statement “As a result of the atmosphere’s ability to radiatively insulate the Earth’s surface from losing infrared energy directly to the “cold” depths of outer space, the surface warms to a higher average temperature than it would have if the atmosphere was not there.” is an unproven assertion. I accept the next statement “This, then, constitutes the basic mechanism of the Greenhouse Effect. Greenhouse gases represent a “radiative blanket” that keeps the Earth’s surface warmer than it would otherwise be without those gases present.” because Spencer is more expert than I on that subject. But I have proven the basic mechanism is wrong.
I inserted clarifications in next paragraph: “Many well-meaning people think that one of the consequences of Kirchoffs Law of radiation is that an individual layer of the atmosphere that absorbs infrared energy at a certain rate must also emit energy at the same rate. This is NOT true. OK, because it is not a black or grey body. It is true for every molecule though, because of conservation of energy.
The rate of emission becoming the same as the rate of absorption occurs in the very special case where (1) the temperature has reached thermal (change thermal to radiant) equilibrium, and (2) that equilibrium is the result of only those two radiative flows, in and out of the object. And this condition is met at the molecular level.
Interestingly, this condition of a layer emitting the same amount of IR as it is absorbing is virtually never met anywhere in the atmosphere instantaneously, but it is satisfied in aggregate, on average, for well mixed gases. This is because of the vertical, convective flows which are also transporting energy between layers that affect local conditions but not average behavior.”
Then Spencer asserts, “In the global average, air below about 5,000 feet in altitude is absorbing more infrared energy than it emits, while air above that altitude (up to the top of the troposphere, the 80% of the atmosphere where weather occurs) is losing infrared energy faster than it is gained.” without explanation or evidence. If true, wouldn’t air below continue warming forever; and air above continues cooling forever? Since I don’t know, I must remain skeptical.
Can Energy “Flow Uphill”? Spencer says “In the case of radiation, the answer to that question is, “yes”. While heat conduction by an object always flows from hotter to colder, in the case of thermal radiation a cooler object does not check what the temperature of its surroundings is before sending out infrared energy. It sends it out anyway, no matter whether its surroundings are cooler or hotter. Yes, thermal conduction involves energy flow in only one direction. But radiation flow involves energy flow in both directions.”
I say “In the case of radiation, the answer to that question is, “no”. While heat conduction by an object always flows from hotter to colder, in the case of thermal radiation a cooler object does not check what the temperature of its surroundings is before sending out infrared energy, but the receiving absorber does and will only absorb radiation hotter than itself, otherwise it reflect, transmits, or scatters it. It sends it out (emits) anyway, no matter whether its surroundings are cooler or hotter.” Yes, thermal conduction involves energy flow in only one direction. But radiation flow involves energy flow in both directions, but actual transfer in only one from hot to cold, just like conduction and convection.”
Spencer offers “But, if ANY flow of energy “uphill” is totally repulsive to you, maybe you can just think of the flow of IR energy being in only one direction, no, it emits in all directions, but with it’s magnitude being related to the relative temperature difference between the two objects. OK. The result will still be the same: The presence of a cooler object can STILL cause a warmer object to become even hotter.” Nope, if you agree the magnitude of actual transfer is related to T hot **4 – T cold **4 then you cannot then assert the contrary. Contradiction is not allowed.
To recap, Spencer did not correctly describe how radiating plates work; how a blanket works or how the atmosphere works. There is no Green House in the sky. Cooler objects cannot make warmer objects even warmer still. QED.
Anyway, that’s my story, and I’m sticking to it, until someone convinces me otherwise. I trust this clears up the controversy. It is hard to translate the language of nature, mathematics, into the language of humans, like English. If it’s all about semantics, get the definitions right. History since Socrates teaches high standards of skepticism are warranted because most speakers and writers are wrong, including scientists. That is why establishing the truth is difficult. Call it wisdom if you please.
I am left to assume Spencer devised this provocative plate experiment claim to test how many student bloggers can rebut it correctly. I think Vangel, Dusty, Eilert, Anonymous (25Jul10, 1:51am, 6:17am), Tom Rowan, jae, Brian Strong, Andrew S, Eilert (25Jul10, 3:29am), Joletaxi, Colin Henderson, old construction worker, Spencer (27Jul10, 9:58 am), william, KuhnKat, Gord, robjMitchell, Irwin Hasenwinkle (30Jul10, 6:38 am), John Onsager, Gerlich and Tscheuchner, and Rudolf Clausius would. I hope his daughter would too. I would not want to deliberately mislead Virginia either.
By the way, I worked for NASA, Apollo, 1967-69. In 1997, I proved using fossil fuel combustion for Earth’s thermostat cannot work because the system is un-measurable, unobservable and uncontrollable.
[1.] Rebuttal of Roy Spencer’s ‘Cool Things Can Warm Hot Things’
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2010/07/yes-virginia-cooler-objects-can-make-warmer-objects-even-warmer-still/ Posted by Roy Spencer, PhD, 23 Jul 10 to 27 Jul 10
By Pierre Latour (4 Nov 2011)
[2.]http://principiascientific.org/publications/New_Concise_Experiment_on_Backradiation.pdf
From: Pierre R Latour
To: DrRoySpencer
Subject: No Virginia, Cooler Objects Cannot Make Warmer Objects Even Warmer Still
Date: Mon, 7 Nov 2011 17:38:14 -0600
Dear Dr Roy Spencer,
I have shared your scientific skepticism of Global Warming and Greenhouse Gas theory promoted by the UN IPCC for a number of years.
While Earth’s radiating temperature goes up and down from time to time, and atmospheric CO2 concentration has been increasing during the last few decades, I have yet to see a plausible theory connecting anthropogenic CO2 to significant temperature effects, like plus or minus 1C for say 10% changes in fossil fuel combustion. Any net steady-state effect appears to be vanishingly small. I believe there are numerous flaws in GHG theory.
I studied your website developed in late July 2010 with considerable interest: http://www.drroyspencer.com/2010/07/yes-virginia-cooler-objects-can-make-warmer-objects-even-warmer-still/
My analysis and conclusions were posted 6 Nov 11 at http://climaterealists.com/index.php?id=8610&;linkbox=true&position=2
The source I prepared is attached for your consideration: No Virginia Cooler Objects Cannot Make Objects Even Warmer Still edited.pdf
I attached my earlier publication: Thermostat CO2 HPFeb10.pdf
I hope you find them interesting and informative. I welcome any claims of provable errors I may have made; I want to learn, I have no stake in the outcome.
My resume is available upon request.
Sincerely
Pierre R Latour, PE, PhD Chemical Process Control Systems Engineer
President, CLIFFTENT Inc
Houston
From: Roy Spencer
Sent: Monday, November 07, 2011 5:49 PM
To: Pierre R Latour
Subject: RE: No Virginia, Cooler Objects Cannot Make Warmer Objects Even Warmer Still
Hi Pierre:
Good to hear from you.
Rather than the hypothetical experiment with plates, etc., let me ask you one question:
Why does a hand-held IR thermometer measuring a clear sky apparent temperature of, say, 0 deg. F, increase its reading to, say, 40 deg. F when it is pointed at a low cloud, in both cases the ground air temperature being (say) 60 deg. F?
The point is that the sky-viewing portion of the thermopile warms when it is pointed at the cloud, even though the thermometer itself is warmer than the cloud. How do you explain that without downwelling IR radiation being part of the atmosphere's (and surface's) energy budget?
-Roy
From: Pierre R Latour
To: Roy Spencer
Subject: RE: No Virginia, Cooler Objects Cannot Make Warmer Objects Even Warmer Still, v1.1
Date: Tue, 8 Nov 2011 09:38:51 -0600
Dear Roy Spencer,
Both questions are easy. Your next to last sentence is correct.
Q1: Because that cloud can re-radiate absorbed solar radiation more intensely than transparent, low density air. IR pyrometers measure intensity of radiation (and corresponding Boltzmann temperature), a point property of EMR field at the receiving pyrometer sensor (thermopile), generated by some body, like a nearby cloud. (Gee, that sounds poetic, make a good song lyric.)
Thermometers and thermocouples measure a different point property, thermal temperature of matter, the molecules surrounding the bulb or thermocouple, like the surface air around it. Radiating matter has two different types of temperatures.
That is why we use pyrometers to measure radiation intensity of electric fields and thermometers to measure thermal heat intensity of gases, liquids and solids. (This is basic physics, chemical engineering and instrumentation business.)
One of many causes of confusion in the low level public literature on GHG is failure to understand these two temperatures and how they are related to two different physical phenomena and energy transfer mechanisms: radiation by 300k km/s pure energy field of zero mass and slow conduction/convection by matter.
Q2: So Earth’s surface and atmosphere has two kinds of temperatures, just like a burning log or candle; one for radiant energy (mostly to space) and one for thermal heat (trapped in our thermos bottle). GHG theory is all mixed up. “Downwelling IR radiation”, just like all radiation is certainly a part of Earth’s energy budget; reflected, scattered, transmitted and absorbed (by colder molecules only).
The references I supplied do a better job answering your questions than I can.
Does your prompt abandonment of your hot plates thought experiment indicate you see I may have a point? How firm are you in your belief Cooler Objects Can Make Warmer Objects Even Warmer Still? If you have elevated that assumption beyond belief to knowledge and your mind is quite closed on the subject, please tell me in fairness; we are both busy.
Thanks for your prompt reply, questions and interest in my views. Feel free to ask more questions. Your reply made history; only the second time I know of where a meteorologist responded to a chemical engineer (Richard Lindzen did in 2009). Your attached TruthAboutClimateChangeOpenletterFeb11.pdf was sound engineering and an act of courage.
To learn why process control engineering standards for knowing truth exceed scientists, study attached FbKnwArtLtrs BentWinSpg11.pdf (my 2 cts on last page).
Pierre R Latour, Chemical Process Control Systems Engineer
From: Roy Spencer
Sent: Tuesday, November 08, 2011 9:56 AM
To: Pierre R Latour
Subject: RE: No Virginia, Cooler Objects Cannot Make Warmer Objects Even Warmer Still, v1.1
Pierre:
But the IR thermometer measurements can prove the same point at night, too! OK, so do the test INSIDE your house....let the IR thermometer warm up in your hand, then point it at the inside of a refrigerator (reading a cold temperature). Then point it at the outside of the refrigerator (reading close to room temperature). (Turn the light off in the room and do it again. Same result.)
And, yes, I am aware of the differences between thermometers, pyrometers, thermocouples, etc.
I have not abandoned the theoretical example of hot and cold plates...instead, the IR thermometer test described above is the most direct proof of the concept, which you can perform yourself. Because the lens-illuminated side of the thermopile is actually changing its temperature in response to changes in incident IR, and will warm even if the object it is viewing is colder than the thermopile (when its field of view is changed from the inside of the refrigerator to the outside).
Pierre, surely you are smart enough to recognize this as basic thermal radiation physics.
-Roy
From: Pierre Latour
Sent: Wednesday, November 09, 2011 12:18 PM
To: 'Roy Spencer'
Subject: Cooler Objects Cannot Make Warmer Objects Even Warmer Still, v1.2
Dear Roy Spencer,
Thank you for your second reply below, 18 min after I sent mine. You are quick on the draw.
So you want to modify your experiment a third time. You can do that forever. Rather than trying to disprove my explanation by simply asking me to explain all your experiments, you should work to prove your own theory, or better yet disprove it; you first Alphonse.
Recap. First a recap to ensure we are on the same page(s). We are discussing a very important issue for mankind. Back-radiation from cold GHG reabsorbed by warmer surface is one foundation pillar of GHG theory supporting AGW and CO2 pollution forecasts. See famous Kiehl-Trenberth diagram attached, particularly far right side. Since 1997 Kyoto Protocol, world governments have spent > $100 billion with government and academic groups to prove fossil fuel combustion increases CO2 and warms the Earth significantly. The back-radiation hypothesis of GHG theory has been cracking under skeptics scientific scrutiny for years and is crumbling into the dust bin of history these days. Many powerful vested interests are waging a world-wide war to rescue it. Australia just adopted a carbon tax law on 7Nov11 which Viv Forbes claims will cripple Australian industry. Greece, Spain, Italy, Ireland, Europe, Japan, Mexico and US can no longer afford to borrow from future generations to finance more GHG theory research and the world is left to rely on Syria, Iran, N Korea and Zimbabwe to take up the slack. I realize US DoE, EPA, Congress, NAS, UN IPCC, National Geographic, American Meteorological Society, most universities and the “overwhelming consensus” of meteorologists and scientists believe in back-radiation, fervently, for some reason. I just can’t find out what it is. I would like to get it right for once, so I can rest in peace. They tell me I must accept it on their authority. After all Al Gore won the popular vote in Nov 2000. Even though I am an environmentalist, I fear when AGW promoters discover I remain skeptical, have questions, and proved Cooler Objects Cannot Make Warmer Objects Even Warmer Still, they will get upset, perhaps even angry. I am afraid I will be called derogatory names like truth denier, oil industry lobbyist, wing-nut, ding-bat, or nut case. I hope they can change and don’t hurt me. I consider Roy Spencer a hero.
I think the use of historic data to build statistical regression models capable of forecasting, without the underlying relationships of physics and chemistry, mass, energy and momentum conservation and rate laws, is known to be a fundamentally flawed method. It would be like regressing hourly stock market price data for forecasting. If Prof Michael Mann, Univ of East Anglia and UN IPCC can do it for climate, they can do it for investments and retire to Monaco. The HPI abandoned that approach for rigorous engineering models of oil refinery processes by 1970, because empirical regression models do not work in distillation column feedback control systems where accurate extrapolation, not just interpolation, is required. Expert systems are no longer in vogue for similar reasons.
I have identified several more chemical engineering flaws in GHG theory. What a tangled web we weave, when -------.
Move on. I am pleased you want to move on from hot plates and my reply, seek my assistance to refute more GHG theory errors. I assume you have read all of my original analysis and references, found no errors and concur with my conclusions. Attached Cooler Objects Cannot Make Warmer Objects Warmer Still.pdf replaces the *.pdf I sent you; it clarifies one equation; the conclusion remains valid. My mathematical model of your theory represents it correctly. (If not, could you provide the correct math and physics? And please identify where the net increase in energy radiation from your two plates comes from; the energy balance on your whole system and every component in it.) I was correct to assume your hot plate > 150F radiates to all its 0F surroundings, not just to the cold plate. Otherwise how could one explain if a hotter surface can absorb cold incident re-radiation, heat further and radiate more, then why can they also say on the second merry-go-round round the cold surface does not absorb the hotter radiation and re-radiate it a second time? One iteration is enough?
Background. Consider reshaping the colder plate to a parabola. We know radiation (and thermal) shields, reflectors, lenses and telescopes focus radiation, A1*I1, by increasing incidence over a smaller area, A2*I2, from constant receiving power, watts = e*A1*I1 = a*A2*I2. So I2 = I1*(eA1/aA2). If cold absorber focuses large A1 to smaller A2 such that aA2 < eA1, then I2 > I1. If hot focused spot Boltzmann T1 > t2 of receptor, receptor can absorb it, even if emitter T1 < t2. Focused solar eclipses burn holes in paper on Earth. Now some skeptics of my explanation conclude this proves back-radiation from a cold body to a hot one can be absorbed by the hot one, making it hotter, which of course, with proper understanding of the English words, does not follow. Beware of Mumbo Jumbo.
My radio antenna detects and absorbs cold radio waves but it does not reemit them with higher intensity than it intercepted them. My 1200 w microwave oven heats coffee to boiling; when I turn it off the boiling stops abruptly, within a few seconds. I suppose coffee re-emits some intense (hot) microwaves converted to IR for a while. I think the IR rate drops very quickly when the oven stops and equalizes with my kitchen IR as I drink it. I am not able to determine how long the coffee continues to radiate above background T.
I accept radiation detector surfaces need not be colder than the incident radiation to detect and measure cold radiation. My eyes see ice. My eyes do not re-radiate ice light. Penzias & Wilson detected CMBR = 3.7 K in 1964 with a radio telescope in a warmer NJ. Radio telescopes do not re-radiate CMBR. I suppose warm IR thermometers can indeed measure radiating temperature of colder refrigerators, without absorbing refrigerator radiation and warming further. What does that have to do with whether warm radiators get warmer from cold re-radiation?
Regarding "back-radiation", physics professor Nasif Nahle wrote: “I prefer to call it "downward" radiation, not "backradiation", for the same reasons you expose. Downward radiation can be composed of two or more sources; remember the atmosphere is heated up also by solar radiation. The air absorbs 14% of solar radiation before it touches the surface. Oxygen, water vapor, and dust are the components of the air that absorb directly part of the incoming solar radiation. We cannot count the whole percentage of solar energy absorbed by the atmosphere as energy emitted towards the surface as a warm wrapper because it is dispersed immediately to winds, in the form of kinetic energy, to space like thermal radiation, and to other systems like unusable potential energy. However, the main reason other systems do not absorb thermal radiation from the atmosphere is that the wavelength of the emitted electromagnetic energy does not correspond to thermal energy, i.e. it cannot be transferred as heat to other systems, because of redshift. Downward radiation exists, but it cannot warm up systems that are warmer than the air.”
http://www.biocab.org/Mean_Free_Path_Length_Photons.html
Clouds. With that, let us consider your question about clouds.
I accept your description of your experimental evidence is valid. You say clouds radiate more IR than open clear sky (not transient but at steady-state, 0200). I accept that because a cloud has liquid and therefore higher density than clear, transparent sky, so cloud can convert the internal energy it absorbed from daylight to lower T IR (I am not an expert at how and how fast matter actually does this). Easy to accept clouds radiate more intensely (higher T) than gas. If night cloud IR intercepted by surface is warmer than surface, Ti > ts, surface can absorb some of it and reradiate some. But it cannot absorb it if Ts < ts. To conclude Earth’s warmer surface absorbs colder IR from clouds, one must assume IR pyrometers are radiators; I need proof. See Pyrometer and Infrared thermometer; neither mentions radiating pyrometers. Thin filament pyrometers developed since 1988 improved measurement of gases. Since the distance to spot ratio is hard to set for clouds, IR readings may not be accurate. (Thanks for assuring me I am smart enough to recognize basic thermal radiation physics. You probably reached that conclusion from my work to help you understand why Cooler Objects Cannot Make Warmer Objects Even Warmer Still.)
Whether IR detectors or Earth surface absorbs radiation from nighttime clouds, warm and re-radiate back still depends on the nature of the incident spectrum and the interceptor, so I cling to my belief warmer radiating surface will not absorb colder cloud radiation either.
Your night experiment is easily explained: low lying clouds radiate IR in the dark for a while, like my house and body do. How they do that is a different subject; your job. My experience is they radiate differently (probably by reflection) in daytime than at nighttime, in the visible to my eyes. Moonlight helps me see them at night radiating by reflection.
So far I have refuted every back-radiation claim I have encountered; no one has refuted any of mine. Since some of your questions are answered in the references I provided and a new book “Slaying the Sky Dragon”, 2011, (http://www.slayingtheskydragon.com/), I suggest you read them. If you have any further questions for me, be assured I will reply with my best understanding or “I don’t know”.
Roy, surely you are smart enough to recognize cold radiating plates warming hot radiating plates to radiate more intensely violates basic physics. When you think our exchange reaches the quality of your “Yes Virginia” blog, Jul11, you have my permission to post our exchange on your blog, entirely. May I pass it to Richard Lindzen and Marc Morano? My Cooler Objects Cannot Make Warmer Objects Even Warmer Still is already at Climate Realists and Climate Change Dispatch.
Math Theorem: The set of all incorrect statements includes the set of all politically incorrect statements, so a correct statement can never be politically incorrect. QED.
Comments
The colder insulation does not transfer heat to the warmer spacecraft - Spencer is dead wrong about the 2nd Law. He makes the classic mistake of equating incident radiation with conversion to heat (as if reflection, scattering, and transmission don't exist), which causes him to contradict himself: Yes, the surface radiates no matter what's out there, so how can it "know" that the net heat transfer will end up being hot to cold?
We don't know how it might "know" ... but it could.
E.g., how does light "know" how to take the least-time path.
We don't know, but it does.
The best we can do is come up with rules and mathematical representations that describe this phenomenon, like path integrals, Lagrangians, etc.
So, we come up with an answer, " it *acts* like it tries every path and picks the shortest."
bv
We start with a 1 m^2 thin black-body plate in a vaccuum chamber with walls held at 0F (thermostat controlled, variable power). To keep the geometry simple, we assume the chamber is the same shape as the plate and only slightly bigger, so we can treat it as flat plates to either side and ignore end/incidence angle effects. The plate is supplied with 1018 W to the heating element, and radiates 748 W/m^2 to either side. It's total area for both sides is 2 m^2 so it radiates 1496 W. It receives 239 W/m^2 from the walls at 0F, total from both sides 478 W. The net power lost by radiation is 1496 - 478 = 1018 W. The plate is in thermal equilibrium.
[continued...]
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And the whole thing is a completely pointless exercise as far as AGW is concerned, since the 'greenhouse effect' warming isn't actually caused by back-radiation. It's a consequence of the increased average altitude of emission to space combined with the limit the adiabatic lapse rate sets on convection. Backradiation does exist, and is absorbed thermally, but there are comparable situations where backradiation is just as intense and no warming occurs - because the adiabatic lapse rate is near zero and therefore convection can carry all the excess heat away.
The difference is Verba postulates all cold incident radiation 239 (-18C) *2 is absorbed by the hot plate that would otherwise radiate at 1018/2 = 509 (34.8C) if the incident 239 were reflected and scattered to surroundings instead of absorbed. He assumes absorptivity = 1, no matter what the intensity/temperature or spectrum of the incident 239 from surroundings. And this cold 239 (-18C) is postulated to be reradiated to surroundings at 748 (66C). This assumes plate is a black body with emissivity of 1, no matter what color it actually is. This means cold 239 (-18C) incident radiation is upgraded to hot 748 (66C) radiation.
Dr Claes Johnson, “Slaying the Sky Dragon”, 2011, Chapter 19 shows this violates Second Law. Many scientists and radiation engineers agree. The debate is whether the incident 239 is absorbed and reradiated by colorful, real plates or merely reflected, scattered or transmitted. Surroundings see the same 239*2 either way. Question is which path does it follow? Verba says absorbed and reradiated at higher T, Johnson says reflected.
My understanding is Prof Nasif Nahle has performed an experiment that proves Claes Johnson is correct about back-radiation. So Verba must provide experimental evidence he can build such a system that behaves according to his postulate.
Verba introduces the second plate, 578 (44.75C = 112.55F), postulating a situation similar to mine, also in perfect agreement with the First Law: inputs = 1018 + 239 + 578 = 1835 w/m2 = outputs = 917.5*2.
The difference is Verba postulates all cold incident radiation 239 (-18C) is absorbed by the hot plate that would otherwise radiate at (1018 + 578)/2 = 798 (71.4C) if the incident 239 were reflected and scattered to surroundings instead of absorbed and all hotter incident 578 (44.75C) is absorbed and reradiated. He assumes absorptivity = 1, no matter what the intensity/temperature or spectrum is of the incident 239 from surroundings. And this cold 239 (-18C) is postulated to be reradiated to surroundings at 798 (71.4C). This assumes plate is a black body with emissivity = 1, no matter what color it actually is. This means cold 239 (-18C) incident radiation is upgraded to hot 798 (71.4C) radiation. That does not seem to be in accord with Second Law.
However since second plate has no power supply, if it is a black body it will immediately cool to less than 509 (less than 34.8C), decreasing with distance from the radiator. It has no effect on either first plate or surroundings; it just absorbs and emits = 1. If it is colorful, it will cool more and radiate less intensely. Both plates remain in harmony with both Laws of thermo.
Verba closes with claim Dr Roy Spencer’s exercise relative to GHG theory is pointless because GHG theory does not employ back-radiation. So he is dismissing Kiehl-Trenberth diagram of GHG theory and invokes yet another ill-defined version of GHG theory. In fact he agrees with me “back-radiation” does not exist (as I have defined it), after assuming it does from the start. This is called incoherence.
Verba did not find any fault in my math and engineering proofs that back-radiation violates both First and Second Laws of thermodynamics. He demonstrates he understands the First Law. But there is more to physics than the First Law.
Air thermal temperature decreases with altitude; solar radiation intensity increases.
Nighttime clouds radiate more energy down than the clear night air they displace, because they have greater mass and radiating surface. So the air below absorbs more radiation from clouds and warms. When clouds pass, night air cools.
Daytime clouds reflect, scatter and absorb more solar radiation than the clear blue sky they displace, because they have greater mass and absorbing surface. So less solar radiation reaches the air and surface below and it cools. When clouds pass sunshine returns and daytime air warms.
Since Dr Roy Spencer did not refute this elementary explanation after I offered it, it is fair to conclude he accepts it.
Yes, I assumed black body, for simplicity. It's easy enough to do grey body (e.g. emissivity 0.98), and rather harder but still possible to do coloured bodies, but there's not much point since you don't believe in the standard absorption/emission physics anyway. My aim was simply to give a more rigorous version of Spencer's example, for clarity. Arguing the case that it's correct would take a far longer comment, and there's a comment length limit here that makes that difficult.
The Kiehl-Trenberth diagram isn't the basis of the GHG theory. The original Arrhenius mechanism was disproved shortly after publication by Angstrom. The modern theory was developed in the 1960s, works in a completely different way to the Arrhenius back-radiation/trapping argument, and is rarely explained in public by climate scientists. I've written on it extensively elsewhere - e.g. see Climate Etc. 'Best of the Greenhouse'. You're aiming at the wrong target.
"top of atmosphere radiation balance",
Insolation is one quarter of Solar constant,
the 255 K radiating temperature (which is the outgoing radiation's temperature and not the incoming Solar radiation's temperature),
the atmosphere acts like a blanket insulating us from the "cold" of space,
the atmospheric layer radiation model with actual equations,
ignoring the tiny quantities of mass of GHGs (CO2 at 0.06 % by weight is only 0.732 grams of the 1.205 kg of air in a cubic metre at sea level),
ignoring the period of rotation which is the major factor in keeping the Earth warm (you only have to look at the Moon to see that is true)
and all the other nonsense that is taught as climate science
why is it that this is actually what is taught in Universities and is actually the only "science" taught by Academic Institutions anywhere on the net if it is indeed, as you say, incorrect ???
You are quite correct, I do not believe in the “standard absorption/emission physics”, promoted by GHG theorists, because it has been easily falsified on many grounds by professional physicists, chemists and engineers as outside science. Study Gerlich & Tscheuschner, “Falsification of the Atmospheric CO2 Greenhouse Effects Within the Frame of Physics”, Jan 2009 (arxiv.org/abs/0707.1161) and Kramm & Dlugi, “Scrutinizing the atmospheric greenhouse effect and its climatic impact”, Dec 2011 (www.scirp.org/journal/PaperInformation.aspx?paperID=9233). I understand why you are compelled to clarify Spencer’s example with some clarity, as I did. My aim also was simply to give a more rigorous version of Spencer’s example, for clarity.
Your claim K-T is not the basis of GHG theory is novel; requires some evidence. What is the basis of GHG theory, pray tell? I agree the “Arrhenius back-radiation/trapping argument” was disproved long ago, but I have 2011 references supporting it to defend GHG theory. I also agree your “the modern consensus, mainstream theory, developed in 1960’s” is rarely if ever explained in public by GHG promoters and remains obscure, without any authors. I have a plausible explanation for this strange situation.
Like the moon, Venus and every planet with or without an atmosphere, Earth’s atmosphere makes the surface cooler than it would be if the atmosphere were thinner or nonexistent, because it absorbs highly directional solar radiation and scatters and emits it in all directions. The more mass and thickness, the cooler the surface becomes. Gravitational compression of gases explains the universal decrease in thermal temperature with altitude nicely. Rather than acting like an insulating thermal blanket, an atmosphere acts like a radiation reflector/absorber/emitter.
I trust this clarifies the mystery for you and we are in close agreement. Have you purchased and read O’Sullivan, et al, “Slaying the Sky Dragon – Death of the Greenhouse Gas Theory”, 2011?
quote
"Again, the reason the heated plate became even hotter is that the second plate has, in effect, “insulated” the first plate from its cold surroundings, keeping it warmer than if the second plate was not there."
unquote
It seems that Spencer believes (this is a very widespread commonplace and false concept)that space vacuum is "a cold surrounding".
It is not so! "Cold" and "hot" have a physical meaning just whenever air, gases, liquid and solid matters are considered.
But space vacuum (to which our atmosphere is in direct contact above) is neither cold nor hot, because there is almost no gas, molecules, atoms etc, in vacuum space, for definition.
Therefore, it is not true that if you take a hot plate, and then you put a colder object near to it, the colder object is "insulating" the hot plate from an alleged "even colder surrounding" (the vacuum).
Vacuum in NOT cold! (and it is not hot)
And so, if you put a colder plate near a hot plate in a vacuum like space, then the hot plate gets colder (and not hotter!) even faster, because colder object will begin to absorb thermal energy from the hotter object according to 2nd law of thermodynamics!
Sorry for Roy Spencer, but he still believes (as many persons) that vacuum space is "cold", this is the reason for his big mistake.
>How do the photons from the Sun ...
The atmoshpere is almost transparent to visible EMR, which is the range of thermal radiation from the sun. That visible radiation (sun light) is absorbed by the surface and is radiated by the surface back out at a much lower freq in the IR range.
bv
Significant proportions of this infra-red is absorbed by water vapour in the atmosphere.
Admittedly the Earth's weak and cool infra-red emissions are much longer wavelengths than the Solar radiation and that there is little overlap but the fact remains that almost half of the Solar radiation is actually not in the visible spectrum at all but infra-red.
This is another of the wrong assertions of climate science.
Even Wikipedia, an alarmist controlled organisation, present the correct data in their Solar spectrum graphs confirming this statement !
Photons are not heat, they are energy and only become heat when they contact with an absorbing surface.
The maximum temperature on the Moon proves a couple of things that AGW deny:-
Most significantly that the solar radiation absorbed at the surface of the Moon is solely responsible for the temperatures observed.
It requires the solar constant to produce the observed temperatures so one of the cornerstones of climate science is proven incorrect - that insolation is reduced by a factor of four due to "energy balance".
The night time temperatures on the Moon are a result of the long lunar night where radiation slowly cools the surface down.
If insolation on the Moon produces such high temperatures there why doesn't it produce the same on Earth ?
One answer is that the day is much shorter on Earth - but experiments demonstrate the solar radiation is capable of "super heating" an environment where conductive and convective heat loss mechanisms are removed - so the length of the heating is only a small part.
The obvious answer is an atmosphere reduces the heating effect of the solar radiation not enhances it.
Hell, they even admit this by stating the atmosphere reflects solar radiation away.
If Earth had no atmosphere then the surface temperatures would increase up to the maximum possible for the power of the solar radiation during the day and close to this on average because the faster rotation of the Earth would not provide sufficient for radiation to cool the surface at night - the Earth would never cool to the same extent as the Moon.
After all, a vacuum is the best insulator we know of - if not "greenhouse gas" flasks would sell a motza.
Very nice analysis! Are you an atmospheric physicist by any chance?
John
"... atmosphere reduces the heating effect of the solar radiation not enhances it."
matters.
The point that AGW makes is that without the aditional ACO2, the temp would be at some stable (apparently perfect) state assuming other variables constant (insolation ) -- regardless of whether the atmosphere keeps the temp lower than in its absence.
Then, then argument is that more ACO2 causes more absorption/downwelling-reradiation and slows the overall radiative cooling.
Firstly, the atmosphere acts like a heat pump removing heat from the Earth's surface to high in the atmosphere and performing work by causing winds and other weather - else the Earth's surfaces would heat to higher levels than observed - witness the Moon !
Second evaporation of water also reduces the heating effect of the Solar radiation by a significant amount through latent heat without any thermal effect except when it releases this energy on condensation.
Also CO2 is a trace gas - < 0.06 % of the atmosphere by weight (not volume which is 0.04%) - how is it possible for a trace gas that is >50% heavier than air (and hence most of it is close to the ground) to form this radiating "layer" I always see depicted in GHG "energy flow diagrams ??
And what about mass ?
Climate science tells us all this radiation is caused by such a small amount of mass that is virtually at minus 18 degrees C ?
Given that the surface solids and water are at least 1000 times denser than air and CO2 and water vapour and the rest of the GHGs are at most say 2 % of the atmosphere they would literally have to be on fire to transmit any significant energy to the surface or water - the basic laws of thermodynamics prove this beyond doubt.
Climate science ignores the period of rotation which is so obviously critical it is hilarious they ignore it.
True, the long lunar day may mean the Earth's surfaces never reach the maximum blackbody temperature the Solar radiation can cause as evidenced on the Moon BUT it is equally true that in 12 Earth hours of darkness the Earth will NEVER cool to the same extent as the Moon in 354 Earth hours of darkness.
Also the maximum temperature of a radiation flux determines the maximum temperature once the blackbody maximum is reached not the length of heating - where climate science is wrong is they think the "blackbody" temperature of the Earth is minus 18 degrees C but this is NOT the maximum surface heating the Solar radiation can cause - again witness the Moon !
There is now a lot of data for temperatures on the Moon and this data proves beyond dispute that a heated surface radiating to space "cools" at a slow rate - a maximum of 1 K per Earth hour down to a very slow rate of 0.5 K per Earth hour once the Sun sets.
Also, analysis of sample from Apollo missions shows that the specific heat changes by a factor of four (decreases) as temperatures decrease thus demonstrating that the Moon cools quickest when it is hottest and the rate decreases dramatically as temperatures drop.
Only Blind Freddie couldn't connect the dots :-
1. The Earth doesn't get as hot as the Moon because the atmosphere and oceans reduce the thermal impact of the Solar radiation - there is zero chance they enhance it.
2. The Earth doesn't get as cold as the Moon as it rotates in 24 hours not 708 hours.
Most diagrams of lunar temperature variations are presented with a lunar day of 24 hours.
Clowns like those at SkepticalScience see this, forget there are 29.5 Earth hours to a lunar hour, and then make assinine statements like the temperature drops rapidly on the Moon to well below freezing thus proving the assertions of the "Greenhouse effect".
But this is simply completely wrong - The surface on the Moon cools very slowly compared to the surfaces on Earth where conduction, convection and evaporation act.
How anyone can miss this obvious truth is beyond me !
I don't see how
"... atmosphere reduces the heating effect of the solar radiation not enhances it."
matters to the question of whether a specific component of the atmosphere, ACO2, has any effect.
bv
I assert the power of the real solar radiation never heats the Earth's surfaces anywhere near the real blackbody temperature it is capable of due to the effectiveness of conduction/convection and evaporation in reducing the potential maximum temperatures.
The effect of water is overlooked to a large extent but is easily observed by noting that desert surfaces are much hotter than surfaces in the near vicinity of water.
If the Sun explains the temperatures on Earth and the atmosphere and oceans act like a heat pump preventing the surfaces from reaching the maximum temperature who cares what effect 0.04% of the atmosphere has - if any ?
Remember climate science ignore mass !
Soil is some 1600 times as dense as air and hence requires farrrr more energy to increase in temperature by 1 K than air .
Similarly water is about 1000 times more dense than air but water requires 4000 times the energy to raise the temperature by 1 K than air does.
How is it possible that CO2 with thermal conductivity slightly more than half that of air and a specific heat only 80% of air could ever provide sufficient energy cubic metre per cubic metre to heat water when the energy required by 1 cubic metre of water to increase by 1 K is 4000 times that of air ??
It is absurd beyond belief.
Of course there is the BS argument that we are talking about radiation not conduction !
Well, I say - how is it possible to measure the thermal peoperties f these gases whilst excluding any radiative effect.
Radiation has units of watts per sq metre - a watt is a Newton metre per second - it has a relationship to mass !!!
The atmospheric mass density is 1000 times less than water and even less than soils etc.
Don't try to tell me mass doesn't matter.
At 20 degrees C and 1 atmosphere pressure air is 1.205 kg /cubic metre and at 0.04% by volume CO2 is 0.06 % by weight.
This means that every cubic metre of air at NTP has at most 0.723 GRAMS of CO2 - ignoring the other obvious fact that CO2 is 1.52 times heavier than air so most of thes 0.732 grams will be at or near ground level.
I cannot believe the effect of CO2 is totally negligible.
Even water vapour at 100% relative humidity is only 17.3 GRAMS / cubic metre.
If you think the rest of the atmosphere - 1,187 grams per cubic metre - isn't contributing to the warmth and that about 18 grams per cubic metre of which 0.732 grams per cubic metre is CO2 has any effect at all given that it is most likely to be almost all in the bottom layer of the atmosphere then I suggest there are fairies at the bottom of the garden granting wishes !
Water vapour on the other hand is 1.61 times lighter than air and is natually expected to be found in the upper atmosphere.
I cannot believe the effect of CO2 isn't totally negligible.
>I cannot believe the effect of CO2 isn't totally negligible.
But can you prove it?
I don't think that ACO2 is leading us to catastrophic warming, either. It is just hard for me to believe that the Earth is that fragile and I'm more worried about the next glacial period, which we have every reason to believe will occur based on recent geological history.
But these are just my beliefs.
But I think that we've gotten off the topic a little. Can a cooler body slow the cooling of a warmer body via "back radiation".
I'm not convinced that it can't.
Reflection is re-radiation.
If the cooler radiation can be reflected by a warmer body (which has been stated herein somewhere), then why can it not be absorbed? I believe that thermo says only net heat flows hot-to-cold over time.
I have not seen a good discussion of exactly what EMR absorption is and how it works. Unfortunately, I'm far removed from my physics days.
bv
Consider blackbody curves for radiation for 2 bodies - one hot and one much colder.
At equilibrium both bodies will have the same curve which is somewhere in the middle of the original curves.
Secondly the cooler body's curve will initially be wholly contained within the hotter bodies curve.
As the cooler body warms its curve will "rise" whilst the hotter body will lower.
There can be no logical mechanism whereby the radiation from the cooler body will increase the temperature of the hotter body - it is already way above the energy level being emitted by the cold body and falling to a mid point that each achieves - it defies scientific logic.
The area under the curve of the cooler one is far less than the hotter one - you simply can't add them together - it doesn't work that way and science knows it
If "back radiation" is possible then so is "back conduction" as all things radiate continuously !
But we all know you do not put an ice cube into your drink to warm it up.
The "net" flow of heat is a BS concept - if the "net" flow is from hot to cold then any potential warming effect of the so-called "back radiation" is already swamped by the greater energy flow from hot to cold.
CO2, having no remarkable thermal properties such as latent heat at ambient temperatures - is nothing more that a slightly better insulator than normal air.
But with less than 1 gram per cubic metre CO2 is being credited with magical properties it simply does not possess.
There are so many things wrong with AGW "science" but there is hard data it is wrong.
Temperatures on the Moon show that the Sun can heat the Earth to much more than the BS minus 18 degrees C. The Moon data also proves cooling by radiative processes alone is a slow process.
The Moon would never cool to the same low temperatures in 24 hours that it does in 354 hours.
Climate science ignores the period of rotation in favour of bogus calculations.
climaterealists.com/?id=10321
It takes less energy to raise the temperature of CO2 than it does for normal air - specific heats of 0.844 kJ/kg.K for CO2 versus 1.01 kJ/kg K for normal air.
CO2 has a thermal conductivity of 0.0146 W/m.K versus air with a thermal conductivity of 0.024 W/m.K - thus air is almost 60 % more "efficient" at conducting heat than CO2 - despite air being an extremely efficient insulator itself providing convection is suppressed - hence the effectiveness of double glazing.
So supply a kJ to a kg of air and CO2 and the CO2 will heat up more than the air by a factor of 1.01/0.844 or almost 1.2 K for CO2 versus 1 K for air.
Subsequently the air will conduct heat away at a faster rate than CO2 - a rate difference of about 1.64 in favour of air.
This confirms what all the clowns demonstrate with their "CO2 traps heat" experiments like the one on Mythbusters.
What they have demonstrated is that well known physics is right.
The CO2 eventually returns to ambient temperature !
What they fail to realise is that these experiments/demonstrations have nothing to do with "trapping" radiation but are explained by the thermal properties shown !!
Further, with the very low levels of CO2 in the atmosphere, the effect on the physics of the situation is negligible - remember 0.06 % by weight or 0.732 grams CO2 per cubic metre at ground level - even less at the "magic ceiling" height where GHGs act like a radiating surface "back-radiating" infra-red at more than double the insolation if you believe the IPCC !
How is it possible that 0.732 grams of CO2 per cubic metre could "back-radiate" any significant energy ??
Remember thermal conductivity is determined by experiment and unless the scientists can stop the CO2 radiating infra-red during the experiment CO2 has no powerful radiative effect at all - else it would show up in the energy transfer rate test that is thermal conductivity !!!
Also thermal conductivity is determined at far higher temperatures than the "radiating temperature" of the Earth so any effect from CO2 should be even more obvious !
It is so funny that they claim to have established "trapping radiation" without thermally isolating the test apparatus to exclude conduction to, and convection in the surrounding atmosphere.
That people are blindly accept that this proves that "trapping radiation" is possible without bothering to investigate any other possible explanations simply proves the old adage once ascribed to a famous Circus proprietor - "There's one born every minute" !
All of my reasoning may be completely wrong and if so I will appreciate the opportunity to learn !
I offer Virginia a counter-example:
(Do this on the driveway, not in the house!)
1)Take a cheap hot plate (one without a thermostat-contol, just a rheostat). Attach a high-temperature thermistor to the coil.
2) Plut the hot plate in and turn it on (low). Measure the equilibrium temperature after it stabilizes.
3) Drop a batt of fiberglass insulation on top of the hot plate.
4) Measure the new equilibrium temperature.
The colder fiberglass has caused the warmer hot plate to heat up.
Violation of the Second Law? No, you have simply added resistance to the energy loss path of the hot plate without reducing the energy input. The plate heats up until the energy loss once again equals the energy input.
This is analogous to the misnamed "Greenhouse Effect": GH gases slow down the energy loss rate of the Earth's surface (by returning some of the longwave radiation via backradiation) without significantly affecting the energy input mechanism (absorption of shortwave radiation from the Sun).
It is unnecessary to postulate that the backradiation can't be absorbed to "save" the second law -- since the second law is not being violated even if backradiation is absorbed. (Not to mention that this postulate is completely lacking any experimental verification.)
Does this mean I think AGW is right? Of course not -- since the proposed mechanisms for AGW have produced no measurable effect, we can conclude that they have negligible effect on the Earth's climate. This conclusion is based on empirical measurements and doesn't depend on whether the GH effect exists or not.
This has nothing to do with radiation unless the pot is at the blackbody maximum the heating can produce.
With the atmosphere continually removing heat via unimpeded conduction and convection this will never occur no matter how much heat you pump in.
The mechanism is not radiative "trapping" but suppression of conduction/convection !
It is amazing a concept like "backconduction" is always dismissed as impossible but seperate two objects and "backradiation" is possible ??
What crap.
We know many properties on lots of things such as thermal conduction, specific heat etc etc - all through experiment.
A simple question - given that everything at above absolute zero radiates energy continuously how is it that these well established physical properties do not include a radiation component ?
Of course they do - it is impossible to not.
So why is it people propose absurdities like "backradiation" whilst agreeing "backconduction" is absurd ??
This statement is demonstrably false by simply studying well documented data.
Cooling rates in the atmosphere are significantly faster than the cooling rate of a heated surface radiating to space and there is hard data to support this.
The Moon cools from ~390 K at noon to about 220 K at sunset.
This is a temperature loss of ~ 170 K in 170 Earth hours - remember a lunar day is 708 Earth hours long.
This is the fastest cooling rate the Moon exhibits - about 1 K per Earth hour.
Once the Sun sets the lower temperatures naturally radiate at a lower rate so that it takes a further 340 Earth hours for the temperature to drop another 120 K.
I can place near boiling water - not too different from the lunar day time temperature - in my freezer and have ice within 8 - 10 hours.
The conduction and convection of the atmosphere cool at a rate that is at least 9 times that found on the Moon.
This BS that the atmosphere somehow hinders cooling of the Earth's surfaces is simply wrong and proven so !
Your experiment does not quite show the same thing. Can you give an example where the metal plate is heated from a light source above until it reaches thermal equilibrium and then place something between the light source and the metal plate that increases the temperature of the plate? A very useful substance if you can!
In your example, the heat source is within the metal plate. I don't think anyone would dispute that if you then insulate it from loosing heat, it can reach a higher temperature.
In a similar vein others may be interested in my publication Radiated Energy and the Second Law of Thermodynamics
principia-scientific.org/publications/psi_radiated_energy.pdf
Vortices are the most common movement in nature and affect this discussion in a number of ways - pressures; heat and mass transfer and an absolute ability to deliver a signal that identifies mass flow and specific gravity. My work is in mass flow measurement in a confined tube and microatomization. It all scales up, but is also modified with chaos theory = the bugaboo for all our climate studies and theories. That is why this group is on the right track.
I'm awed by this discussion and can't add much to the arguments save to say that Spencer is not the enemy and I'm happy he hasn't been treated so. What does matter is that our truth quests follow Peirce's rather than Descartes.
Source:Intelligent Origin
Certainty Test:Multiple Source Confirmation
Truth Inference: Inference from many Fields
Mysteries Revealed: Interpret in terms of Intelligibility
The Cartesians get one hare-brained idea, declare it logical and run with it, forget the cost or the quest for truth.
Outer space has low mass density, only 10 to 10**6 atoms per cubic meter, with a correspondingly very low thermal conductivity, k, essentially zero compared to dense matter on Earth. The mostly H and He atoms, ions and molecules have a low thermal temperature, measuring their kinetic energy, perhaps < 5K if far from a star, higher in stellar clouds.
The EMR field of space-time has an energy transfer rate, intensity, watts/m2, a vector depending on direction (high from nearby stars, low from distant ones). Boltzmann equation is often used to assign a corresponding radiant temperature, Poynting vector, to radiation intensity. Minimum radiant temperature in outer space is CMBR = 2.7K. It is about 5500C near surface of sun. Radiant energy transfers throughout the field along those vectors. Earth’s big one is called the sunbeam.
The rate of heat transfer through matter by conduction is Fourier’s law, Q, watts = kA(T – To); k is thermal conductivity of matter, T is thermal temperature of hot matter source and To is thermal temperature of cold matter sink.
Since k is vanishingly small in outer space, Q from Earth to outer space is essentially zero for any (T – To). Therefore, Earth is encased in a vacuum thermos bottle; the only form of energy leaving is radiation: reflected + scattered + emitted.
Atoms and molecules intercept and exchange kinetic energy by collisions, heat transfer. They also intercept and exchange photons, radiant energy transfer. They convert kinetic to radiant energy and vice versa.
BTW, I find GHG theory literature does not make proper distinction between familiar thermal T, scalar indicator of kinetic energy of matter, measured by thermometers and radiant T vector indicator of radiation intensity, measured by pyrometers. James Hanson made a basic error in 1981 when he declared Earth’s surface thermal temperature, 15C, minus its radiating temperature, - 18C, = 15 - (-18) = 33C, his so called greenhouse effect. The math is correct but there is no underlying physics to connect them. It is actually Whatchamacallit nonsense, since law of vector addition is violated. 50 chickens - 17 stars = 33 Whatchamacallits. So what?
I am not convinced Dr Roy Spencer or other GHG theory believers understand or accept any of this. That is their problem and opportunity.
To BobC,
Your Virginia “counter-example” does not support Spencer’s Yes Virginia assertion or disprove my No Virginia proof. It is not a valid counter-example because blankets do not affect the steady-state temperature of rocks or corpses wrapped inside.
Ceri Phipps explains why.
Rosco and Douglas Cotton falsified Spencer’s assertion and corroborated my proof.
If you look at the basic "top of atmosphere energy balance" equations taught as the fundamental basis of the greenhouse effect you have to be "on the ball" to spot the sleight of hand trick but if you say it aloud and apply the Stefan-Boltzmann law appropriately (forgetting the emissivity issue) you see the result is bogus.
Here's how I see it.
At TOA:-
Energy in uniformly over a disk shape = Energy out over a sphere.
(Their claim and I do not necessarily agree as there is a significant conversion of energy to mass which is never discussed.)
They immediately introduce the effective temperature and calculate it by reducing insolation by four.
But if you think clearly this is not the maximum temperature under the noonday Sun - it is simply the temperature required to balance the energy input to output considering the geometry.
Calculate the maximum temperature the full albedo adjusted insolation can cause and you find ~957 W/sq metre and the associated temperature of ~360 K.
Calculate the "effective temperature" the standard way and you find ~239 W/sq metre and the associated temperature of ~255 K.
The ratio of temperatures 360/255 is 1.4117647 ....
This is the fourth root of 4 thus establishing the correct initial geometry of the hypothesis - ie heat a sphere over its disk profile uniformly and the sphere radiates uniformly at one quarter of the power flux.
I don't think this is a good model anyway but I think I have established they are wrong to assert that insolation is one quarter of the Solar constant.
If you assume they are right and the insolation is one quarter -
(how does THAT work when the insolation is exclusively during the day and how does the other 3 quarters know it is excluded ?) -
and apply their figures - eg Kiehl & Trenberth - in the Stefan-Boltzmann equation you find there is insufficient energy to produce a temperature that establishes their own original hypothetical equations and completely fails to reproduce the proportionality constant of 4 the ratio of area of a sphere to a disk.
The only logical analysis to this is their methodology is wrong.
If their simple model is wrong the more complex computer equations are garbage!
Using Kiehl & Trenberth's insolation of 342 W/sq metre and albedo of 0.31 we have -
1 - 0.31 = 0.69 - albedo adjustment.
34. x 0.69 = 235.98 W/sq metre
235.98 = sigma x T^4 - Stefan-Boltzmann.
T = 254 K
254/255 = 1
1^4 = 1 - oops where did the original four factor go ?
I could calculate temperatures and obtain the ratio and raise this ratio to the fourth power and obtain 4 but using climate experts figures I can't !
I know the four is there because they quarter the insolation originally but this is wrong.
If their method of calculating temperatures is correct they need to be able to recalculate the geometry proportion of 4 by raising the ratio of the calculated temperatures to the fourth power.
Their method fails analysis. It cannot reproduce their original energy balance constant of proportionality - 4.
It has to be able to do this or their method is simply wrong - mathematical procedures must be reversible or they are wrong !
Thanks very much for your level-headed dissection of the basic tenents of AGW.
Have you seen the University of Chicago lecture "The Greenhouse Effect"
The lectures follow a textbook, “Global Warming, Understanding the Forecast,” written for the course.
It is by David Archer
freevideolectures.com/Course/2973/PHSC-13400-Global-Warming/5
He appears to use the back-radiation model.
Is he wrong?
Yes, Archer definitely did invoke the back-radiation model, unique to GHG theory. Without justification.
Yes, he is quite wrong, he made numerous serious errors.
I suggest Kent Clizebe study the 43 minute Archer video and identify assumptions, questions, possible errors in the presentation. Then read the book “Slaying the Sky Dragon” to find some answers.
I will offer these hints of encouragement because this video has numerous glaring flaws covered by smooth sales talk.
1. Matter can reflect, scatter, transmit and absorb/emit EMR. Archer's assumption incoming that is not reflected L(1-albedo) passes down unaffected and impinges surface is wrong.
2. Black body assumption surface and atmosphere have epsilon = 1, is wrong.
3. Starting energy balance is incomplete. Neglects other inputs and outputs.
4. Energy balance on glass pane assumes factor 2, which is wrong, then deduces fourth root 2 parameter, which is a tautology, not physics. Balance also neglects conduction, convection, and gravity.
5. Archer assumes down-welling from glass is absorbed by surface which is false. Radiant energy does not transfer, flow, from atmospheric gases radiating at low intensity to be absorbed by surface below already radiating at higher intensity, causing surface to get even warmer.
6. Archer uses sink analogy to describe his claim greenhouse gases “impede” radiation rate out to space, causing radiating temperature at surface to increase for same energy out = in. But that does not prove his claim, simply describes it. He still needs physics to justify the appropriateness of his analogy. The analogy itself is valid for instantaneous mass and energy balances commercially applied by chemical engineers for a century.
7. There is no GHG model here that predicts what the atmosphere’s thickness and composition effects are on atmospheric thermal temperature. No mention of CO2. In other words, I challenge anyone to take this GHG theory and calculate the change in temperature for exchanging 100 ppm O2 for CO2. And 400 ppm.
8. If Archer is wrong for Earth he is wrong for Venus & Mars as well. His calculation proves nothing.
9. Archer does not account for the physics of Newton that explains why atmospheric thermal temperature decreases with altitude, h. Hint: total energy = kinetic + potential = constant with h. Potential energy increases with h so kinetic energy and thermal temperature must decrease. PV = nRT.
10. Archer fails to distinguish between scalar thermal temperature of kinetic energy of matter and Boltzmann temperature associated with radiation intensity vector. My body can detect the difference between heat transfer by radiation, conduction and convection when facing the sun on a windy ski slope. Bet yours can too.
You may consider these 10 hints as holes. Big holes. I trust this helps.
I think the video lecture was intellectually sloppy, unworthy of academic recognition, at least by engineers who must make something of it.
Thanks very much for your explanation.
Archer, in this video, comes off as a con-man. The most striking instance of this attitude was when he drew in the "back-radiation" bouncing off his "pane of glass" back to the Earth.
When he drew in the line and the value, he proceeded to turn to the class and, glassy-eyed, seem to challenge them. His attitude would best be described as bullying.
It seemed that he knew his claims were nonsense, but if he was brazen in making his claims, the students would not catch on.
If you can't dazzle 'em with brilliance, baffle 'em with bullsh*t.
I'm an expert in detecting deception. Archer's demeanor screams out, "Deception!"
Your technical explanation seems to uphold my assessment.
Keep up your good work. We're winning.
Thanks.
Kent
I concur.
I have matured from healthy skepticism to healthy cynicism.
Brings me PEACE of mind.
Which is the crucial error Spencer made. But what follows is the coolant spreads this around the vessel so that the whole thing wants to be T 0, is absorbed by the heated bar, restoring it to 150F which restores the average vessel to T = 0. It's just a radiative redistribution.
Now obviously if one bolted the bars together with a wipe of heat sink compound between, the increased surface area would lower T to less than 150F.
The EMR energy field transfers energy so long as a driving force exists. Matter interacts with it and can convert some to heat, which is transferred by conduction and convection. Usually the energy transfer results in reduction of the driving force so the system rates reach equilibrium, steady-state, no driving force, no energy transfer, constant temperatures. The systems of nature are predominately stable, until an explosion occurs. My office is steady like that right now.
When some change occurs, like a radiating mass moves or a source emission or absorption properties change, energy begins to flow and redistribute according to the well-known laws of radiant energy transfer, until a new steady-state is reached.
I believe Spencer’s moving cold plate to the hotter radiating one would indeed divert some energy from cold plate absorption to surroundings absorption, affecting To, rather than heating hot plate and causing it to radiate more intensely. Spencer did not analyze the entire energy transfer system equations correctly.
Place a clear 100 watt light bulb near a frosted 100 watt light bulb. Move them together and the light distribution in the room adjusts but each will still emit 100 watts. Neither filament will radiate >100 watts because that is set by filament resistance and voltage. Glass surface thermal temperature and heat transfer may change.
If I paint one bulb black, all its filament radiation will be converted to heat and the glass will warm until conduction transmits the heat to surroundings and a new thermal and radiant energy transfer equilibrium is established. Of course the bulb glass might break at high temperature and the situation becomes more complicated. But a new steady-state will still be reached. There will be no perpetual global warming.
That’s the way I see it.
Tony Wakeling: I do not accept your
“resistance is temperature”.
Temperature is a measure of the kinetic energy of matter, its motion: translation, rotation, vibration.
A temperature difference is a driving force for heat transfer, analogous to a pressure difference for fluid flow and a voltage difference for electric current. Bernoulli, F = (P2 – P1)/R, and Ohms Laws, E = IR, are specific versions of Newton’s second law of motion, F = Ma.
Fourier Law of heat transfer by conduction is Q = kA(T2 – T1). The driving force is (T2 – T1) > 0. Resistance is inverse of thermal conductivity and area, 1/kA. Q is watts.
I am not aware of any law of radiant energy transfer that would predict
“increase the local temp” through vacuum, because thermal conductivity of vacuum k = 0. But heat transfer by conduction and convection through the air will transfer heat from the warmer bulb surface to the colder one as they approach, until equilibrium is reestablished, (T2 – T1) = 0. Because k > 0.
Pierre R Latour
The temperature of the heated bar is dependent on the temperature of its surroundings (and the power supplied to it). There has to be a radiative exchange between the heated bar and the vessel even though the vessel is colder than the bar, if the vessel was cooled to -50F, the heated bar would not reach 150F for the same power input. The same kind of exchange happens between the two bars.
The statement “As a result of the atmosphere’s ability to radiatively insulate the Earth’s surface from losing infrared energy directly to the “cold” depths of outer space, the surface warms to a higher average temperature than it would have if the atmosphere was not there.”
Spencer keeps asserting that space is cold with statements like "Space emits radiation like a blackbody whose temperature is 2.7 K, and a portion of this emission is indeed in the infrared, as was verified by the COBE satellite experiment:"
But this totally ignores 2 indisputable facts.
1. The vacuum space surrounding the Earth is literally awash with solar radiation capable of heating planetary surfaces to over 390 K !! The only way to avoid this is to hide in the shadow of a planet.
There is no conceivable way the space at the Earth orbit can be considered cold in those circumstances - even given the absurdity of applying physical concepts to something which has no substance at all !!
2. NASA data from the Moon prove that the rate of cooling of the lunar surface - a heated surface radiating its energy to space - is a verly slow affair with an apparently maximum rate of 1 K per Earth hour and an "average" rate from max to min of about 0.55 K per hour.
If the Moon had a 12 hour period it would be far hotter than Earth with its preciouse greenhouse gases.
People like Prof Nahle have shown the solar radiation can increase temperatures at a rapid rate.
In 12 Earth hours the Moon would not cool significantly compared to a lunar night of more than 354 Earth hours.
I proposed thisonce but was told by Spencer the argument was a straw man - he never even condescended to explain his dismissal of a simple argument supported by hard data.
Apparently he just knows without the need to verify what are really nonsense claims.
I always like the defence of there is backradiation but the proponents also argue that the "net" flows is from hot to cold as thermodynamically correct.
To my mind is the "net" flow is from hot to cold then there is no backradiation at all.
Dr Spencer needs to explain the data NASA present for the Moon - a 354 Earth hour long night simply explains cooling on the Moon and at a slow rate - why doesn't it get to a few K if space is so cold ?
As the thermometer is presumably warmer than either he asserts the cold radiation from the compartment "heats" the sensor thus proving radiation from cold objects can warm warmer objects.
I simply say he has completely ignored the energy input from the battery which provides the energy to detect varying fluxes of infra-red radiation.
I challenge him to remove the battery and get any sort of result - obviously he won't.
This debate reminds me of the olde discredited theory of calorific/frigorific rays !
Mt favourite is the space is "cold" assertion to justify greenhouse gas warming !
Spencer has repeated this misinformation many times including this one :-
"As a result of the atmosphere’s ability to radiatively insulate the Earth’s surface from losing infrared energy directly to the “cold” depths of outer space, the surface warms to a higher average temperature than it would have if the atmosphere was not there.”
Firstly it is absurd to apply physical concepts such as hot or cold to something that has little or no substance at all !!
Secondly, while no one disputes that in areas of space there is almost no background radiation this does not imply "space" has any uniform properties - in fact observation of the sky clearly shows there is no homogenuity of space - there are literally millions of stars and large "empty" areas with nothing in common.
Thirdly it is misleading to use this "space is cold" misdirection to bolster support for the greenhouse effect !!
Clearly the space surrounding the Earth and Moon is literally awash with powerful solar radiation capable of heating planetary surfaces to 390 K or so.
I don't know about you but that doesn't sound cold to me !
I was watching the NASA series "When we left the Earth" the other night and noted that when Skylab was launched it failed to deploy its solar panels and "parasol" properly.
When astronauts arrived they found the inside temperatures extremely hot and had to work in extreme discomfort until they could deploy the "parasol" and solar panels properly.
Near Earth space iscold - bah humbug !
I once wrote on Spencer's blog that the reason the Moon gets so cold is its "night" is 354 Earth hours long. Given that climate scientists state the albedo of Earth reduces insolation by 30 % I reasoned that without an atmosphere the extra incoming 30 % solar energy would increase the Earth's surface temperatures and given a short night time of 12 hours the Earth would not cool to the same extent so that over time the Earth's surfaces would be heated up to levels like the Moon but not cool very much at all.
Just thoughts on the issue but reasoned thoughts I believe.
This proposition was dismissed as dangerous antiscience.
Apparently the period of rotation is completely irrelevant !
Well, might I say that recent NASA data - as I initilally read in a piece by Albert Miatello - completely destroys the argument that the period of rotation is irrelevant.
At the rate the Moon "cools" if it had a period of 24 Earth hours instead of 708 there seems little reason to doubt the average temperature on the Moon would be way above the "blackbody" temperature calculated by climate science.
Obviously I have no proof and never will have unless we find an airless planet with a 24 hour period a similar distance from a similar star and can measure its properties.
I'd be prepared to bet that the period of rotation is much more important than climate science thinks and their radiative calculations are simply wrong !
That is why I do not believe in a paradox like the "greenhouse effect" which requires something heat itself up by radiating less - a clear result of something that is actually cooling.
It can't be the Sun as they now claim because Kiehl and Trenberth tell it shines 24 hours a day at 170 W/sq metre which heats the surface to about 234 K according to Stefan-Boltzmann!
What a joke !
PS I like you captchas - unlike some they are legible.
"As a result of the atmosphere’s ability to radiatively insulate the Earth’s surface from losing infrared energy directly to the “cold” depths of outer space, the surface warms to a higher average temperature than it would have if the atmosphere was not there.”
Is there actually any evidence to show that atmospheres insulate a planet's surface ?
There is now good evidence of the cooling rate of the Moon's surface and it is very slow.
At some locations on Earth the cooling rate is far higher than the Moon radiating to space.
Perhaps it is the vacuum of space insulating the atmosphere - not the atmosphere insulating the surface.
I can't get away from the vacuum thermos which keeps my drinks hot for ages.
Greenhouse gas theory postulates significant back-radiation from cooler atmospheric CO2 molecules absorbed by warmer Earth’s surface, driving global warming.
Using Dr Roy Spencer’s hot bar analogy, which he used to support the theory that cool radiators heat hot radiators even more, I wrote the energy balance = input rate – output rate and proved the change in energy rate to the bar’s surroundings is
Es = [(1 + k)*K*F0 + (1 + K)*k*f0]/(1 - kK) - K*F0.
K is absorptivity, the fraction of radiation from the first bar absorbed by the second colder bar, 0 < K 0 and k > 0, Es > 0 (because the first term > K*F0). This would constitute creation of energy, a violation of the first law of thermodynamics.
Since K may be > 0, Es = 0 if and only if k = 0 (because first term = K*F0).
Since this is the only possible solution, k must be identically zero, so no cold back-radiation is absorbed.
If back-radiation exists, k > 0, a violation of the Second Law of thermodynamics, then Es > 0, which would constitute a perpetual motion machine of the first kind creating energy. No such mechanism exists in nature. Therefore any Greenhouse gas theory employing back-radiation must be false. QED.
Until I see verifiable documented proof I will not believe it !!
There are alternate explanations.
Let us never forget Planck and all of the other pioneers of radiation physics - be their results right or wrong - never failed to remember one basic tenet of REAL science -
:-
It is the temperature that causes the radiation - the higher the greater !
As for an alternate explanation how about this ?
Even though greatly reduced during the night there is always thermal conduction and convection occurring in the atmosphere and the surface temperature is always higher and the density is always higher than that of the upper atmosphere - Ok temperature inversions do occur but to my knowledge they have little to do with radiation.
Along comes a cloud and its mass disturbs the convection paths, suppressing the transfer of heat and it is this which causes the illusion of increasing temperature.
Unless there is hard verifiable empirical evidence that this explanation is wrong I choose it.
There can be no doubt that the shading that clouds create during the day reduces the heating potential of the Solar radiation - no sane person can deny that.
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