Discussions

3 hours ago, Sven Groot wrote

If an object receives more energy than it radiates, it heats up, yes?

Yes.

You put a kettle of water on the stove, it heats up and starts to boil because it's receiving more energy from the stove than it is capable of radiating away in the same amount of time.

Yes.

The earth's atmosphere reduces the amount of energy the earth radiates into space.

Wrong. The earths atmosphere distributes the energy around the globe via convection. It's thus cooling by transporting the energy around the planet and it's always radiating at max to space. The earth is in thermal balance with the sun, if it's output increases, so does our thermal radiating. If that wasn't the case, we couldn't live here.

If that weren't the case, the Earth would cool off very rapidly at night, similar to the moon (where it's 100C in daytime and -150C at night).

Agreed, the atmosphere creates a lag for warming and cooling. It's a mass, and mass is slow. Otherwise the extremes would be higher and lower. But the surface temperature is determined by pressure, distance and output of the sun not by the greenhouse effect. As demonstrated with Mars, Venus, etc.

How much the atmosphere reduces that radiation depends on its properties, one of which is composition. It has been shown as early as 150 years ago that carbon dioxide will trap and re-emit radiation in all directions. Therefore, increasing the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere reduces the amount of energy the earth can radiate into space in a given time, while it still receives the same amount of energy from the sun. Therefore, it heats up.

Argument from history? The properties determined CO2 demonstrated in a lab 150 years ago, is no justification of it's behavior in the atmosphere. And I'm not in disagreement with it's properties. Sure it can block certain IR frequencies. But that doesn't mean it radiates this energy back to the planet. That's still in violation of the second law. There has to be additional work done in the atmosphere to force the radiation back to it's origin. The models predicted a 'hotspot' in the troposphere, it isn't there.

So, the models are wrong. They can't predict anything and violate basic laws. These should be put on the same footing as other crackpot ideas.

Consider this: if your mirror or ice cube analogy were correct, then it would be completely impossible for the atmosphere to heat the planet at all.

The whole point of the atmosphere is to put a lag on the temperature changes and distribute the warming around the planet.

Why then isn't the earth a barren wasteland like the moon? Those analogies are entirely irrelevant because they utterly misrepresent the actual process at work.

Gravity.

The deeper you go, the higher the pressure, the higher the temperatures.

And why does my experiment fail to represent the process? The greenhouse effect is;

• Light emitted by the sun, get's absorbed by the surface. (This is the desk lamp)
• The surface does work (heats up) and a lower frequency of light (IR) is emitted from the surface. (this is the area on the desk where the light shines)
• This longwave radiation is then reflected by CO2 and other greenhouse gasses (the mirror)
• This radiation get's absorbed by the surface and additional warming is generated (the brighter spot on the desk)

In order for this effect to occur, you would have to violate the second law of thermodynamics. A source cannot heat up (light up) more by it's own emitted photons. Because there is no difference in energy between the two. Current (electrons or photons) wont flow between two points with the same potential. How does the photon know this? It doesn't, it pushes against a stream with equal force, they cancel each other out, net result is zero. This is basic physics,.

4 hours ago, Sven Groot wrote

No, someone has to come up with a better model, otherwise theirs is still the most accurate one we have at the moment. That doesn't make it true, just more accurate than the alternatives.

Hogwash, if you build a flawed model that violates even the basic laws, there is no need to take that model seriously. They need to go back to the drawing board.

And a model doesn't have to be 100% true to be useful. We still use Newtonian physics, despite knowing that it's "wrong". It's just been shown to be accurate enough for most things (but not all; e.g. GPS satellites need to use general relativity).

Sure we can use Newtonian physics, because it is a model that actually does some things right. The climate system as described by Trenbreth can't even hold a candle to the Newtonian model. It fails to predict anything and when it is put to the test it fails. Meanwhile we spend trillions of dollars on a untrue model.

7 hours ago, cbae wrote

Regardless of how the human body achieves its internal temperature, the point is that you can keep the surface temperature of your body a lot closer to the internal temperature by limiting heat loss. That was the point.

Sure you can insulate, but that is not a model for the earth. As it has no internal combustion like a human body. The greenhouse theory is based on radiative energy transfers, not on convection. This is a key point, you really need to understand this.

You seem to be claiming that the heat energy reflected back by greenhouse gases can't be greater than the original heat energy provide by the Sun. Well, that's a nice little strawman, because nobody is claiming otherwise. Congratulations. You made a claim that I don't disagree with.

Thanks!

Greenhouse gasses cannot reflect anything back. There is no thermal difference for a flow to start.

The problem is you're trying to simplify this to a 4th grade understanding of science, when it's a bit more complicated than that.

They make it more complicated, if we invalidate the null hypotheses, we can disprove AGW.

@Charles: can you get me a cup he drank from? So we can clone him.

We are the evil empire, time to live up to our name!

@evildictaitor: insulation from convection is an entirely different phenomenon that we are discussing here. Not to mention that a body produces it's own heat, unlike the surface which is heated by the sun.

We are debating thermal radiation,. In where an system open to space is thermally affected by the atmosphere that surrounds it. My take is no, and no bottle experiment or naked amazon tossed into the cold has convinced me that you can warm a body by reflecting it's own energy without external work.

They thought this external work took place in a hotspot in the atmosphere, but when they looked, it wasn't there.

So much for 4th grade science.

@cbae: same rules apply between visible and non visible light.

The point of the experiment is, you can't light the spot with it's own light. Therefore you can't light the earth warmer with it's own infrared radiation.

@cbae:I'm saying, just because you revert the beam back to it's origin, it's origin will not light up brighter.

@evildictaitor: I agree with you, it's not complicated, because it is untrue.

You can post picures of perpetuum mobile all day, still doesn't make it true.

You cannot warm water with an icecube! They teach that in kindergarten!

@evildictaitor: You can't compare surface temperatures of the different planets, they all have completely different atmospheric masses.

Like the bottle experiment, the heavier the atmosphere, the greater the pressure, the greater the energy density, the greater the temperature.

Check the temperatures of the different atmosphere's relative to earths atmospheric pressure. It's about the same.

13 minutes ago, Dr Herbie wrote

Actually, they get tax deductions AND subsidies -- item 3 on the list "Oil and Gas exploration and development expensing ($7.1 billion)"

Herbie

I think everybody should get 100% tax deduction. And as I said, any subsidy should be stopped immediately, regardless who is the beneficiary.

6 minutes ago, evildictait​or wrote

CO2 was confirmed as a greenhouse gas 150 years ago - long before the climate change debate started in the late 1980s. The mechanics of how and why extra carbon dixiode in the atmosphere causes a temperature rise is trivial: CO2 absorbs infrared; then re-emits it.

But only some of the re-emitted infrared goes outwards, and some inwards back towards the surface. That re-emission back down IS the greenhouse effect.

That's precisely what the lamp on desk experiment disproves.

In order for energy to flow from the CO2 to the ground, the CO2 has to have a higher temperature then the ground. Like with current in electricity, there has to be a difference in potential for energy to flow. Second law of thermodynamics.