Mice, Sinking Ship, Etc.
Bunnies may recall that there are limits even for S. Fred Singer, who resigned from the Editorial Board of Environmental Geology when they published a paper by one L.F. Khilyuk and G. V. Chilingar. Tim Lambert commented at the time
Chilingar has republished his paper that shows that if you assume CO2 is not a greenhouse gas then it doesn't warm the planet in Enviromental Geology. This paper is so bad that S Fred Singer has resigned as an editor from Environmental Geology. Yes, this S Fred Singer.Floating across the Etransom comes this comment from S. Fred
You may recall that i resigned from the Editorial Board after Env Geol published the paper
All i can say is: Kramm-Gerlich-Tscheutschner is worse
Posts
146 comments:
Oh my. Kramm teams up with G&T? What I get from that is that Kramm is outright deliberately dishonest.
It's interesting to read about how climate denial persists even with good education, which I have a hard time getting my head around. But Kramm certainly has the background to know that G&T are cranks.
I don't understand how these kinds of things happen; but there you go.
sylas, "never underestimate the power of denial". I'm pretty convinced Kramm believes in the anti-physics he peddles.
Captain P
Regarding #75 on Stoat that was not me, and as you probably know I am not allowed to reply on Stoat.
I also have no clue as to why you think my comments about maxwell in my point 4 had anything to do with quantum physics.
Also I have no clue why a chemistry professor would want to convince other people that a cold atmosphere could heat a hotter surface, and why you would want to be part of a group of climate scientists wanting to promote this erroneous viewpoint.
Eli, you lucky bunny, you've got a stalker!
poor andrew has to hold ever so tightly to a semantic confusion about "cold atmosphere"s not heating a "hotter surfaces", when it's very easy to see how raising the temperature of a cold atmosphere will suppress heat loss from the surface and thus cause the surface to warm somewhat.
That's not an ideal way of thinking about the greenhouse effect (it's more helpful to consider the effect of enhanced greenhouse gases on the average height at which heat is lost to space to achieve radiative equilibrium, and the effect this has on the temperatures of atmospheric layers right down to the surface); still it is interesting that denialism considers that the equivalent putting one's hands over one's eyes and pretending that one can't be seen...is a useful approach to "understanding"!
by "a group of scientists", presumably andrew means "scientists"..
Rattus, unkind to talk about Celery that way.
Chris, I am not a denialist. I just spent a few hours today explaining to bair polaire on WUWT how the green house effect works.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/03/30/open-thread-weekend-9/#comment-941556
But why is it necessary for you to repeat this odd idea that what I am talking about is semantic confusion?
Dave Souza told me I was making an odd unsupported claim that the surface heats the atmosphere.
The primary source of heat for the atmosphere *is* the surface.
As described by ref 9 the greenhouse effect acts to slow down the heat loss from the surface where the surface is heated by the sun.
But evidently many wiki editors actually do believe the atmosphere is heating the surface.
And for that reason i got insulted and banned and my wife was banned.
Yes there is a group of you working on this
Why?
This blog sounds like April Fools every day, so is this a joke or real?
Here is a birthday article about Chilingarian. According to the article, he is on the editorial board of this publication, Russian Geology and Geophysics.
http://cee.usc.edu/assets/002/49388.pdf
Dave Souza and others actually *really* believe the backradiation is *heating* the surface, and do *not* believe that the surface is heating the atmosphere.
How can it be semantics to object to that quaint idea?
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Andrewedwardjudd&diff=483199569&oldid=472236319
Think about it this way - Without an atmosphere, the photons would zing off into space, and the surface would cool down relatively rapidly.
With an atmosphere, a high percentage of radiation coming from the surface is absorbed by gas. In turn, half the photons are emitted back in the general direction of the surface, thus warming it more than it would be without the atmosphere being present. Energy in fact passes from the atmosphere back to the surface. Of course the overall flow is outwards (until the sun comes back up) but the nub of the claims by G&T and others (If I recall correctly, it is a while since I read some of their stuff and the discussion) is that the photons from the atmosphere somehow don't warm the surface, they all dissappear off into space.
Hi andrew.
Radiative energy flow is a diffusive process. From the microscopic perspective it has no preferred direction. So conceptually, talking from 1dimendional perspective, heat from a point can be resolved into energy moving away from that point, both up and down.
It works the same for both heat conduction and electricity. So if back radiation was not possible electronics would not work either.
This is encapsulated in Poisson's equation, where temperature at a point us just the average of surrounding points.
I figure that's not clear because I am talking in broad brush strokes.
"Dave Souza and others actually *really* believe the backradiation is *heating* the surface, and do *not* believe that the surface is heating the atmosphere."
Did Dave Souza or anyone else ever claim that the surface was not heating the atmosphere? I don't think so.
So the semantic confusion here is that you seem to want define "heating" as being a unidirectional word, whereas most of us are happy with it being bidirectional. As in, when I hug someone, I am heating them, and they are heating me. Similarly, the surface heats the atmosphere, and the atmosphere heats the surface.
Net heat transfer is a different story, of course.
-MMM
Maybe I can simplify.
Consider conduction in gas contained in a long thin jar with one end hot and one end cold. The atoms in the gas move around randomly so energy flows from from hot to cold. The atoms are not prevented from moving in the cold to hot direction by the laws of thermodynamics and they are not prevented from transferring their kinetic energy in the cold to hot direction.
In the atmosphere IR photons behave in the same way as the atoms in the long thin jar. There is no violation of thermodynamic laws in either case.
Climate Ferret
"But evidently many wiki editors actually do believe the atmosphere is heating the surface."
I'm not following this discussion elsewhere, so perhaps I'm missing an important component of the exchange, but nevertheless...
Just from perverse curiosity, if a change in solar forcing does not explain the change in the Earth's surface temperature, then what is "heating" the surface?
And if the radiatively-active chemical composition of the atmosphere is increasing, then how does this not contribute to accumulation of heat at the surface?
Bernard J. Hyphen-Anonymous XVII, Esq.
Many of you are mixing ideas and concepts
Radiation is a two way energy flow at the macro and micro thermodynamic level.
Heat is never a two way energy flow at the macro level. Heat never flows from a cold body to a hot body. If you say the surface and the atmosphere then you are clearly talking about huge bodies and are not talking about the micro level.
As soon as the hotter surface is in radiative contact with the colder absorbing atmosphere the atmosphere heats the cold atmosphere
Radiation is not heat.
There is no particular heat thing called thermal radiation. Thermal radiation is only descriptive of the wavelength of light involved.
Ultraviolet thru to far infrared all cause local heating upon absorption. This light is not heat. This light is a form of energy.
The correct view is that the sun heats the surface and the surface heats the atmosphere and the emitting atmosphere slows down the heat loss from the surface so that the surface becomes hotter when heated by the sun.
It is very odd indeed that you would spend so much energy defending such an amateur viewpoint that it is ok to say the cold atmosphere is warming the hotter surface.
What you do is walk right into the hands of sceptics who know that is impossible and cannot possibly understand what you are talking about.
And then as i have already explained, people like me spend days in conversations getting people to understand what is a very simple process if presented clearly to begin with.
We cannot say the cold atmosphere warms or heats the hotter surface or we simply look like fools.
We cannot say the cold overcoat warms or heats the hotter body or we simply look like fools. -sarc off-
izen
This is how this saga began on wiki. Cambridge University educated Andrew Cates with a maths Phd stupidly said:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:William_M._Connolley&diff=prev&oldid=483127746
The second law applies to isolated (closed) physical systems. It does not apply to forced systems like an atmosphere subject to radiation. In a forced system of course "colder gases can warm the hotter layers below". So the people who are against the idea aren't ones with much knowledge of physics. Do we need to worry about them? I guess only if discussion about them becomes notable
Later he seemed to know all about my banning and said I was aggressively pushing low quality edits
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:AGK&diff=next&oldid=483433992
Bozmo aka Andrew Cates concludes on his talk page.
"I like WikiPedia but it is at its weakest on "common misconceptions" which keep getting put back to wrong by new arrivals in a given discussion"
His strange comment about the second law of thermodynamics was followed by an endless number of people with the same silly belief.
Why are you defending such stupidity?
Here is another example of the peculiar beliefs of the editors:
I said
"the backradiation flow means the surface cannot cool as rapidly as it did before that radiation arrived"
William M Connolley decides
"not really; because radiation doesn't matter so much at the sfc"
This is a very strange idea. The surface at 5C is emitting over 200Wm2 so that the radiation cooling rate of the surface by emission is over 200WM2 regardless of any other cooling abilities the surface has.
If the 5C surface receives 100W of emission from the atmosphere it is now only cooling at 100Wm2 and is forced to rise in temperature until it can cool by an additional 100Wm2
The conceptualisation presented on the wiki page is odd.
Thanks for the awesome post. Keep on going; I will keep on eye on it.
I know the West Ridge (where Kramm works) very well. It's pretty nice and most of the people there don't produce pseudoscience. He's basically another Lubos Motl. Probably decent enough in his actual job, but a raving lunatic when his partisan sensibilities are engaged. He does not represent UAF at all. We did have another actual scientist, Akasofu, who lent respectability even to outright frauds like "The Great Global Warming Swindle" with its doctored graphs, quote-mining, and cherrypicking. But unlike Kramm, at least he basically was just showing up and saying things so vague they could even be right, just not germane.
@- andrew said -
"the backradiation flow means the surface cannot cool as rapidly as it did before that radiation arrived"
Wrong.
The surface cools faster than it does without the backradiation because it is warmer.
and heat loss is proportional to T^4.
@- andrew said -
"If the 5C surface receives 100W of emission from the atmosphere it is now only cooling at 100Wm2 and is forced to rise in temperature until it can cool by an additional 100Wm2"
Wrong.
The surface still cools at 200Wm2, but the backradiation adding another 100Wm2 'warms it up' in common English usage. Or 'is forced to rise in temperature' as you put it.
izen
Anonymous
I am not wrong. Is that William?
I said:
"the backradiation flow means the surface cannot cool as rapidly as it did before that radiation arrived"
If the surface heated by the sun cannot cool as rapidly, it rises in temperature until it can cool as rapidly as it did before the backradiation arrived. Ie all of the arriving solar energy is still leaving the surface at the same rate as before via the new higher surface temperature.
Your statement is confused because if the surface was cooling faster because it is warmer, it would get cooler than it was before and cannot get warmer.
The whole thing about the backradiation increasing is that the surface net heat loss is reduced, and the surface which is heated by the sun if forced to rise in temperature, until the net heat loss is the same as it was before.
Anonymous,
You are mixing cooling with emission. Heat is not radiation.
200WM2 of emission is not the cooling heat loss if 100WM2 is being absorbed. The cooling heat loss is 100WM2.
100WM2 is not warming the surface. The 100Wm2 came mainly from the surface and cannot warm the surface. The 100WM2 reduces the cooling rate of the surface, but has no possible way of heating the surface.
The surface is heated by the sun, and since the cooling rate is reduced the sun increases the temperature of the surface until the cooling rate is once more 200WM2.
And i should have said earlier net radiation loss rather than net heat loss. There is no such thing as a net heat loss between large bodies. There is only ever a heat loss from hotter to colder.
Happy April Fool's Day, Eli!
There's a lotta fools out there.
By the way, the publication by Khilyuk and Chilingar (K&C) proves something: when the rejectionists claim that "the peer review process is broken", sometimes they're actually right. After all, K&C got published. And so did G&T, who thought that global warming violated the 2nd law of thermodynamics.
Andrew says
We cannot say the cold atmosphere warms or heats the hotter surface or we simply look like fools.
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While I agree with what you say in general i am prepared to be put in the fool category.
I am in the process of setting up a simple experiment. What is your prediction of the outcome of the following?
Two directional lamps facing each other. Surfaces coated with black paint. should emit IR radiation, no light.
Each powered via a light dimmer so one lamp will run hotter than the other.
Front surface of each has a thermocouple attached so the temperature can be measured.
Each lamp is run until it reaches equilibrium. Temperature of each is measured, say 200C and 300C
The lamps are then set facing each other at 1 meter separation. Measure temp again.
Reduce distance. Measure and repeat again at 10cm intervals.
My prediction is that the temperature of both lamps will increase as the separation is reduced. Eventually the separation will be so small that conduction will become important. At that point the temperatures will equalize.
My explanation is that the thermocouple on the hotter lamp will receive progressively more energy from the colder lamp and therefore get hotter as the separation is reduced.
Andrew says
The correct view is that the sun heats the surface and the surface heats the atmosphere and the emitting atmosphere slows down the heat loss from the surface so that the surface becomes hotter when heated by the sun.
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But how does the emitting atmosphere slow down heat loss from the surface? there is no magic to be had here so what is the actual process?
Or even :does the emitting atmosphere slow down heat loss from the surface? Remember the energy in equals energy out and since the solar input is not changing the output must not change either.
Climate Ferret
C
Try this experiment which is carried out many times every day. Immerse a thermocouple in an open hot flame, measure the temperature. Now place a quartz tube around the Th/C in such a way that the flow past it is unaffected, remeasure the temperature, what if any change would you observe?
Climate Ferret --- It was correctly explained earlier. Whatever IR is emiited by the surface is absorbed by CO2+H20 and 1/2 is re-emitted downwards. So the surface temperature is higher by
1 + 1/2 + 1/4 + 1/8 + ... = 2.
Even that is rather simplified. Reading Ray Pierrehumbert's "Principles of Planetary Climate" through chapter 6 explains all the details.
Andrew says
You are all confusing reduction in heat loss with what you *insist* on calling warming
Warming is *not* the *correct* word.
The cold object has *no ability* to warm or heat the hotter object.
As the following video makes clear you are only witnessing a reduction in heat loss from the hotter object. The cold brick in the video has **no ability to heat or warm the hotter brick**.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mITUQo23nFE
If you do not think use of language is important in science or you think that the laws of thermodynamics need to have peculiar special considerations for climate science, there is not much more I can say on this topic.
It would be more productive if you spent some time talking to some experts in thermodynamics who can explain how the greenhouse effect works for you.
Climate Ferret
How does the emitting atmosphere slow down the heat loss from the surface?
Without that emitting atmosphere the emitting surface would emit radiation that passed thru the atmosphere to space.
The absorbing/emitting atmosphere takes some of that cooling energy from the surface and returns it to the surface. It is a zero sum phenonema that reduces the ability of the surface to cool at that same emission temperature.
The energy from the cold atmosphere cannot heat the surface because most of the energy in the cold atmosphere has come from the hotter surface.
If water and C02 were not emitting in the atmosphere, the atmosphere would be enormously hotter and would be emitting far more radiation from a hotter atmosphere than the surface, because oxygen and nitrogen begin significantly emitting at higher temperatures. But currently the very hot thermosphere is such a tiny part of the atmosphere that is has almost no ability to heat the colder surface. Without the main greenhouse gases the thermosphere would be much closer to the surface and would have a far more important heating effect than it does at present.
The only warmth coming from the atmosphere is from the hotter atmosphere which is a small part of the atmospheric mass.
The issue of what is heat was addressed earlier at RR and discussed.
The second law is a useful tool to distinguish work and heat the point is that work is defined as force times distance, and distance implies a direction, so work is energy that can be directed in a particular direction while heat is energy that is isotropically distributed. Converting heat to work requires forcing the energy to be expended in a particular direction, which cannot be done with unit efficiency, thus the second law.
Now we come to radiation. Some radiation is directional, e.g. laser emission and that can be converted to mechanical or electrical energy with unit efficiency at least in theory. Thermal radiation, OEOH, is isotropic. The radiation field can be assigned a temperature, and the energy in the field is transferred as heat energy to any body it impinges on.
The problem, of course, is twofold. The first is that an early 19th century concept (heat) is being shoved into an early 21st century box, and it does not quite fit.
The second is that to be complete you have to include any radiation field in the thermodynamical system.
If you try and do so tautologially, the earth is not in thermal equilibrium and the hell with the second law because the temperature of the sun's radiation at the earth is much higher than the temperature of the earth, but in that case the mismatch is so high, that the two can be decoupled.
In such a case we talk about a local thermodynamic equilibrium and we have to include the thermal radiation in that (yes, the temperature of the thermal radiation from the atmosphere is the same as that of the molecular modes of motion and they are in equilibrium.
The energy transferred to the surface is THERMAL, e.g. characterized by a temperature, and therefore the energy is transferred as HEAT
Oh yes Andrew, the bunnies are experts in the field of thermodynamics
David Benson says
Climate Ferret --- It was correctly explained earlier. Whatever IR is emiited by the surface is absorbed by CO2+H20 and 1/2 is re-emitted downwards. So the surface temperature is higher by
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That's what I thought. I was being Socratic and trying to get Andrew to think about the actual process.
He was going around in circles a bit and tripping over words around cooling when he would be better off thinking about energy transfer and flux.
Climate Ferret
Eli Rabbit
There is no particular heat thing called thermal energy. Thermal energy is only descriptive of the particular wavelength of light where all wavelengths of light are capable of heating an object upon absorption
Laser light is not unidirectional. All you are doing is causing a collimated beam of energy from a heat source to heat a colder source which emits and transfers energy to the hotter source. There is no particular difference between a hot laser source and the hot surface of the earth.
The 19th century idea of heat as matter in motion still applies because the potential energy of heat can only be present when the kinetic energy is there to keep it a potential energy. Dispite the confusion created by the useage of 'thermal energy' the old idea of heat remains valid.
Heat is not being transferred by radiation. Heat is converted to radiation energy and radiation energy is converted to heat upon absorption.
Do you think heat can travel down an electrical wire? Consider the peltier effect where a thermocouple junction cools and removes heat and creates electricity. Do you think the heat is travelling along the wire?
There is no way the cold atmosphere can intercept energy that is cooling the earth and then use that energy to warm the earth.
Use of the word warm is unscientific.
The earth warms because the cooling rate is reduced and it is heated by the sun or by the heat stored in the earth.
People who say backradiation warms the Earth are scientifically ignorant.
"People who say backradiation warms the Earth are scientifically ignorant."
Just to emphasise this point if you use a perfect heat pump to cool the earth and then use this energy to heat the earth you are not heating the earth via the heat pump. You are doing nothing.
To say the atmosphere which intercepts a cooling energy from the earth and then transfers a smaller portion of this energy to the earth is warming the earth amounts to a lie. The surface is clearly warming the atmosphere.
It is ignorance of the highest order to argue otherwise.
Climate Ferret
>>That's what I thought. I was being Socratic and trying to get Andrew to think about the actual process.
How about you think about the **actual* process and let go of the ideas floating around inside your head?
If temperature is 1 then emission of any surface energy ***reduces*** 1.
You said:
"It was correctly explained earlier. Whatever IR is emitted by the surface is absorbed by CO2+H20 and 1/2 is re-emitted downwards. So the surface temperature is higher by"
1 + 1/2 + 1/4 + 1/8 + ... = 2.
How can you get 2 when to begin with you have to subtract 1.0 from 1 to allow for the emission of the surface energy of which only .5 returns??
2 requires energy from the sun
Eli Rabett
"The energy transferred to the surface is THERMAL, e.g. characterized by a temperature, and therefore the energy is transferred as HEAT"
You are mixing micro and macro. If you use the term 'the surface' you are talking macro. The surface heats the atmosphere.
Heat only gets 'transferred' one way in macro
From UCSD Center for Astrophysics and Space Sciences
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Any object that is hot gives off light known as Thermal Radiation (or sometimes Blackbody Radiation for arcane physical reasons). The hotter an object is, the more light it emits. And, as the temperature of the object increase, it emits most of its light at higher and higher energies.
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From Taftan, a seller of thermodynamics databases
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Thermal radiation is the energy radiated from hot surfaces as electromagnetic waves. It does not require medium for its propagation. Heat transfer by radiation occur between solid surfaces, although radiation from gases is also possible. Solids radiate over a wide range of wavelengths, while some gases emit and absorb radiation on certain wavelengths only.
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From a physics thermo course at University of New Mexico
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All objects give off radiation, i.e., electromagnetic waves, because of their temperature; we refer to this as thermal radiation. As well they absorb such radiation from their surroundings. If a body is hotter than its surroundings it emits more radiation than it absorbs, and tends to cool; if a body is cooler than its surroundings it absorbs more radiation than it emits, and tends to warm. Usually it will eventually come to thermal equilibrium with its surroundings: a condition in which its rates of absorbtion and emission of radiation are equal.
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AJ, grab a can of clue.
Sigh... Of course people like Andrew keep popping up with their statements about "heat" as if they have discovered something that is the least bit important.
The problem here is that the atmosphere is largely transparent to thermal radiation (some wavelengths more than others, obviously). So a "macro" description, with one-way flows of heat, is quantitatively inadequate because the "micro" particles involved (photons in this case) have such long mean-free paths that they can travel distances beyond where the standard "LTE" conditions of "macro" thermodynamics hold.
That is, there is no way to quantitatively describe the process of radiative transfer without considering specifically all the "one-way" flows of radiative energy in the system. It is inherently a mixed "micro-macro" problem. The standard treatment using the Schwarzschild equation encapsulates this.
Or, AJ, do you have some problem with the way calculations are actually done on the Greenhouse Effect?
Arthur
The issue here is
1. does backradiation from the cold atmosphere warm the warmer surface *or*
2. does the warm surface of the earth warm the colder atmosphere.
Only one of those things can be true.
It is ignorance to say the backradiation from the cold atmosphere is warming the warmer surface.
The calculations for the greenhouse effect clearly show that the warmer atmosphere is heating the colder atmosphere.
No educated person should be saying backradiation warms the surface of the earth.
Eli Rabitt, I dont have an issue with any of the things you just quoted from uni of mexico.
The issue is the way you incorrectly mix two way heat exchange at the macro level to say that backradiation is warming the surface of the earth.
That is false.
The warm surface **is** warming the colder atmosphere.
Backradiation reduces the rate of cooling of the surface, and because the surface is heated by the sun, the surface is forced to rise in temperature.
Why is it so important to you people that you get the whole thing back to front arse about face?
No educated person can possibly understand what you are talking about.
Eli Rabett
My meaning was i dont have an issue with any of the things you just quoted. If people want to say thermal radiation so be it. At the macro level however, no educated person says there is a two way heat exchange by radiation exchange. In modern terminology heat is a quantity of heat. In macro terms there is only one quantity of heat to be considered.
Arthur
"Or, AJ, do you have some problem with the way calculations are actually done on the Greenhouse Effect?"
The issue here is describing in words the greenhouse effect so ordinary people know what it is.
The expression 'the surface is warmed by backradiation' is false.
The expression 'the cold atmosphere is warmed by the hotter surface' is true and unambiguously clear.
I was banned from Wiki for attempting to get the true and clear version inserted on the GHE page. A small army of people expected me to believe the false version or said it did not matter it was just semantics.
Meanwhile ref 9 on the page totally supported my version.
Connolley said i was unable to read the reference.
So something very very odd is going on here and at Wiki.
AJ - you are insisting on using "macro" thermodynamic concepts in a case where they simply do not apply. Evidently you didn't comprehend my comment. I suggest you re-read what I wrote. Specifically, macro thermo requires local thermodynamic equilibrium. The radiation spectrum is not in local thermodynamic equilibrium with Earth's atmosphere because the atmosphere is largely transparent to it; the distance between absorption events is so long that the temperature can change significantly between them.
Therefore, macroscopic thermodynamic concepts, such as the "one-way flow of heat" you insist upon, *do not apply* to the atmosphere. The only way to correctly understand it (to quantitatively calculate the energy flows) is to account for energy going in both directions. There is therefore absolutely nothing wrong with saying the (colder) atmosphere warms the surface through back-radiation - that is physically exactly what happens.
And conceptually if the issue is common understanding by ordinary people, we have no problem with a saying something was warmed by being surrounded by a colder blanket, or a colder coat, or what have you. In all these cases the "warming" comes from a change in parameters, and is not describing a net flow of heat from colder to warmer. Ordinary people understand these things. Why do you seem to think they won't?
Arthur
You are wrong to say macro concepts dont apply.
1. The sun is heating the surface of the earth. The surface of the earth is not heating the sun.
2. The sun is heating the atmosphere directly by about 25% of total incident energy. The atmosphere is not directly heating the sun
The atmosphere is not some peculiar special case of thermodynamics so that macro does not apply.
The greenhouse effect is quite clear in macro terms if you allow for the micro events that are happening.
The surface is heated by the sun, and the colder emitting atmosphere, heated by the surface and the sun, reduces the heat losses of the surface, and so forces the surface to rise in temperature.
Your idea that macro thermodynamics does not apply to the atmosphere is wrong.
Evidently you are mixed up and seem to need some kind of strange explanation of how the greenhouse effect is operating.
As for coats or blankets do you want a scientific explanation or do you want some kind of folksy explanation that has nothing to do with science?
The coat slows down your heat losses where you are internally heating your skin and therefore your skin rises in temperature.
Arguing the atmosphere warms the surface on the basis of an ignorant view of what is happening when you put on a coat is very strange.
been there, done that
There are blankets and blankets.
"your skin rises in temperature."
Isn't that another way of saying your skin was warmed because of the coat?
Utahn
Do you want a scientific explanation or do want to read poetry?
Your skin rises in temperature because it is heated by something other than the coat.
The surface rises in temperature because it is heated by the sun
The atmosphere is not heating the surface.
The surface is heating the atmosphere.
If you prefer womens weekly or what some guy down the pub tells you for your science then so be it.
I just had this fantasy that Wiki was based on reliable references rather than Connolley and his friends unpublished opinions
Andrew:
In the immortal words of Sir John Maddox,
THAT'S ENOUGH ! - Ed.
Andrew Judd - you keep repeating the same things over and over again, but I don't seen any clear evidence that you understand some fundamentals.
"Macro" thermodynamics is a field that describes the relationships of aggregate averaged quantities under conditions where those aggregates apply. In particular, "macro" thermodynamics requires that all bodies involved have a definable temperature. But temperature is defined (as a local variable for a portion of a system) only under conditions of local equilibrium.
So, Andrew, please tell me exactly how you describe in terms of aggregate thermodynamic quantities the situation at a point in the middle of the atmosphere that has:
(A) a local population of air molecules with well-defined temperature T lower than the surface temperature Ts
(B) a substantial fraction of original incoming sunlight from the Sun, consisting of downward-flowing photons mostly in the visible and near IR regions
(C) upward-flowing photons in the thermal IR spectral region, coming from the surface
(D) other thermal photons originating from various other regions of the atmosphere
If you were to assign a temperature to the photons of (B) it would have to be around 5000 K, since they just came from the Sun at that temperature. The photons in (C) similarly have a spectrum corresponding to Ts, not T. And the photons of (D) come from all sorts of temperatures different from T.
That is, there is no single temperature T that applies to all the bodies involved in energy flow and other thermodynamic processes in this small region of the atmosphere. You can apply "macro" thermodynamic theory to the air itself (A), but it fails if you try to apply it to the whole system because there is such a mix of entities at different temperatures, i.e. OUT of equilibrium, all in the same place.
"macro thermodynamics" certainly does apply to the atmosphere - when you ignore all the radiant energy involved. But that leaves out a big part of the picture. The Schwarzschild equation is *NOT* a macro thermodynamic equation, it is one that mixes statistical and macro concepts. And it works.
And you still seem not to have come up with any actual point to your complaints here other than apparently it's confusing to some people. Well, it's inherently a difficult subject - radiative transfer isn't a pre-school subject, you know. If you learn enough to understand the equations there is no reason to be confused at all about it. And if you don't - well, it's hard enough to turn math into comprehensible English as it is without people imposing pedantic constraints that have nothing to do with real science.
Oh - and as to "the Earth is not heating the Sun" and "the atmosphere is not heating the Sun" - once again macro thermo cannot be applied to the situation at a point in space mid-way between Earth and the Sun. In fact, macro thermodynamics doesn't even apply to the particles there - the solar wind, for example, is not in local thermodynamic equilibrium. So the concept of "heat only flowing one way" simply doesn't apply and you have to look at the specific energy flows involved - one of which is indeed from Earth and atmosphere to the Sun. So it's perfectly valid to say the Earth and atmosphere are indeed (to a very small degree) heating the Sun. Just as the same argument applies whenever two bodies radiate to one another against the background of empty space.
Anyone with an education in radiation heat transfer will understand perfectly. The atmosphere recycles heat leaving the surface back to the surface thereby heating it to a higher temperature than it would have been at in the absence of the feedback. Just as observed by many engineers and scientists observe when the do the thermocouple measurement I described above. Not all science can be explained satisfactorily at such a simple level with a non-technical language.
Arthur
There is no field of thermodynamics called 'macro thermodynamics' that can exist without knowledge of microscopic phenonema.
You seem to want to argue for no purpose.
Any atmospheric layer can be considered to be heated by the sun and by the surface and by other atmospheric layers. That results in a total heating. Since for the purpose of a model that layer is in equilibrium it has to have a cooling output the same as the heat input.
Radiation cannot have a temperature. You seem to be hugely getting your knickers in a twist about that one.
If you want to believe you are heating a fire or the sun and are prepared to devote such a large amount of time attempting to get me to agree that the cold atmosphere heats the surface on the basis it is just semantics and makes no difference, I think we can all be relieved that you work in IT rather than in science.
The surface rises in temperature because it is heated by the sun, the surface is not heating the sun anymore than the atmosphere is heating the surface.
To say the atmosphere heats the surface is totally misleading and amounts to dishonest representation.
Maybe you are unable to realise that? Please stick to what you know.
Phil
The surface does not rise in temperature because it gets energy from itself!! Why do you think we need to heat our homes with expensive fuels??
You are describing a reduction in cooling. Even if we reduce the cooling of our homes we still need to supply heat to them to get them to rise in temperature.
The sun forces the temperature to rise because there is a reduction in cooling.
I think I need to make it plain to people talking to me that if you obfuscate over the following questions then I will know that your only purpose is to obfuscate and you have no intention of honest discussion.
1. Do you think if you remove 10,000 Watts from your home and pump it into the atmosphere and then remove 10,000 Watts from the atmosphere that you are heating your home? Yes or no?
2. If you add 200 watts to the atmosphere from the surface of the earth, and supply 200 watts to the surface from the atmosphere do you believe this will make the surface warmer? Yes or No
3. Given your answer of 'no' for both 1 and 2 what then causes the surface of the earth to be warmer?
Anybody who continues to obfuscate over this will clearly be shown to be dishonestly wasting my time
Judd seems to be recapitulating the view that a Norwegian Blue in thermal equilibrium with a pet store atmosphere cannot be dead, because it's warming the place by radiation and dead birds don't bloody well radiate.
As it would be useful to confirm that Judd himself is still radiating, will someone please insert a bolometer into that stoat shaped hole in his trilby?
Andrew Judd - radiation most certainly CAN have a temperature. Why do you think temperature is a factor in Planck's law? Radiation isn't some mysterious non-physical system that behaves differently from everything else, it is describable by physical laws just like any material object.
In particular, YOU are the one insisting that the rules of standard "aggregate" thermodynamics (which require LTE) must apply to the system in question, which includes both molecules and electromagnetic fields. Under circumstances of strong absorption (for example inside an opaque solid object) the EM fields are indeed a part of the local LTE. The whole idea of the standard "pinhole" black body system is to set up exactly that thought experiment of radiation in equilibrium with an opaque solid object.
But the atmosphere is not an opaque solid object. The rules of standard aggregate thermodynamics don't apply. If they did,mYOU could define a temperature for the radiation field at every point in the atmosphere. Instead you have to deal with distinct flows separately, which is why it's perfectly appropriate to talk about the downward flow heating the surface.
By the way, you seem to think you somehow have more knowledge of this subject than I or some of the other commenters on this blog. My undergraduate degree was in physics, and while completing my PhD in condensed matter physics I taught several semesters of undergraduate statiscal mechanics and thermodynamics. I know this stuff backwards and forwards. Your condescending tone is way out of place. I suggest you comment a bit less and read a bit more on e subject so you actually understand it better first.
Arthur
If you have knowledge of this subject than I respect that. I feel i have to point out however that you arrived here with
"Sigh... Of course people like Andrew keep popping up with their statements about "heat" as if they have discovered something that is the least bit important. "
Before we continue perhaps you can answer my earlier simple questions?
1. Do you think if you remove 10,000 Watts from your home and pump it into the atmosphere and then remove 10,000 Watts from the atmosphere and pump it into your home that you are heating your home? Yes or no?
2. If you add 200 watts to the atmosphere supplied by the surface of the earth, and supply 200 watts to the surface from the atmosphere do you believe this will make the surface warmer? Yes or No
3. Given your answer of 'no' for both 1 and 2 what then causes the surface of the earth to be warmer?
Arthur
Planck referred to radiation emitted by hot surfaces as 'temperature radiation'. The temperature of black body radiation was then X degrees, meaning it was emitted by a black body of temperature X.
He also said that for monchromatic light you could not talk of a definate radiation temperature. For example we know that sodium emits the two yellow lines over a wide range of temperatures
He was not saying that radiation had a temperature of X.
Note the word monochromatic and yes, Andrew people have thought about this issue and no Andrew, Eli was about to point you to a discussion of this but you are obviously not prepared for it.
Suffice it to say that you can treat monochromatic radiation from a laser using non-equilibrium thermodynamics to calculate a temperature, something that was not available to Planck, the way quantum states were not available to Boltzmann and both not available to Clausius.
Arthur
>>Instead you have to deal with distinct flows separately, which is why it's perfectly appropriate to talk about the downward flow heating the surface.
Yes, but so far it is verboten to talk about the larger flow that is heating the atmosphere so that an ordinary person realises the surface is heating the atmosphere. For some reason this observation resulted in me being banned from wiki, and my wife being banned from wiki, and has resulted in a queue of people coming here to get me 'to see reason that the cold atmosphere is warming the hotter surface'.
Andrew - I'm not sure what you are trying to get at with your questions (why does '3' assume the answer is 'no' on the first two?). If one treats the removal of heat and the addition of heat as two separate processes, then for both (1) and (2) there is a cooling process (the removal of energy) and a heating process (the addition of energy). The analogy with the surface-atmosphere situation is a good one if we do treat them as two separate processes.
In particular, in the surface-atmosphere case, the cooling process (radiation from the surface) happens whether or not the atmosphere is present. So one is comparing a situation with only the cooling process, to a second situation where there is both a cooling process and a warming process. Adding the warming process to the situation where previously there was only cooling results in heating. So the house or surface gets warmer because the heating process was added, compared with a situation where there was only cooling and no return of that heat.
Why do you find this so confusing? It seems to me because you keep insisting on treating as a single process something that is fundamentally not - when you get into the actual calculations of the system, the math involved requires treating the heating and cooling as two separate processes when we are talking about thermal radiation through a mostly transparent atmosphere.
So the physics requires thinking of it as two processes. The mental picture people have when asking about greenhouse warming is the comparison of different atmospheric states - i.e. with different levels of the heating process, under the same cooling conditions (unchanged surface). So warming caused by the (yes, cooler) atmosphere is a precisely appropriate representation of the quantitative physics underlying the problem.
If your argument is that the underlying physics is wrong (as people like Claes Johnson try to claim), well that's one thing. But if you agree with the underlying physics, then you have absolutely no point here, because all we are doing with this discussion of wording is trying to represent that mathematical problem in ordinary human terms. And every ordinary human seems to understand what's going on with the use of the term "warming" in this context, so it is an accurate representation of the physics.
As to the temperature of radiation - certainly some radiation fields do not have a well-defined temperature (such as monochromatic radiation) - that is actually my point. The radiation field in the atmosphere does not have a well-defined temperature. That is precisely why macroscopic bulk thermodynamic arguments about heat flow do not apply and you need to look at the actual spectrum of radiation flowing from different source points. It is fundamentally a two-way problem, not a local-thermodynamic-equilibrium problem that lets you treat "heat" as flowing in only one direction.
As I said, you need to read up on the field. I'd suggest Ray Pierrehumbert's Principles of Planetary Climate textbook for one - do the problems there and then see if you still have a question about wording on the subject.
Eli Rabett
Planck was clearly talking about the temperature of a black body emitting a continuous black body 'temperature radiation'. There is nothing to note about monochromatic light in the manner you suggested.
Planck specificly excluded cold light radiation
Arthur
>Adding the warming process to the situation where previously there was only cooling results in heating.
There is no result of heating by cooling a surface and then adding the exact same amount of heat as was removed.
your answer for both questions should be no.
Andrew, you are not discussing questions of science, you are obfuscating issues of logic and semantics. Let me ask you some questions:
(A) The interior of a greenhouse missing its glass windows sits at the same temperature as outside the greenhouse. Glass is then added, and the temperature quickly goes up. Would you say the glass warmed up the interior of the greenhouse?
(B) A beggar shivers on a dark and cold night. I give him my coat and he soon feels warmer. Did my coat cause warming?
(C) A planetary surface with no atmosphere sits at a certain temperature. An atmosphere is added and the surface gradually warms. Did the atmosphere warm the surface?
Arthur
I am not obfuscating. I am scientific
You just said:
>>Adding the warming process to the situation where previously there was only cooling results in heating.
What are you talking about?
there is only cooling and warming. What do you mean by heating? You already mentioned warming.
Arthur
(C) A planetary surface with no atmosphere sits at a certain temperature. An atmosphere is added and the surface gradually warms. Did the atmosphere warm the surface?
What magic force gets this surface to sit at at certain temperature?
Is the surface by chance wrapped in a magic perfect mirror?
Andrew - sorry if (C) wasn't clear though it doesn't really matter what the planet's heat source is, external or internal, for this question. But let's suppose it's a planet way off in space getting negligible heat from any star, heated only by radioactive decay of elements in its interior.
My point here is that you are playing around with questions of causation and meaning where most people looking at the situation would say "this is what changed, and warming resulted, therefore the change caused warming". It is not wrong or misleading to think such things, it is in fact perfectly normal. And in the planetary case it also matches exactly the underlying physics of two-way radiative flows we've been discussing.
I also don't know why you think nobody is allowed to discuss the surface warming the atmosphere. Of course it does. That is an essential part of the math of the problem. From what I gather of your wikipedia experience the problems were (A) your suggested changes were not improvements according to others reading the text, and (B) you violated a large number of wikipedia rules in trying to insist on your changes. When in Rome, do as the Romans do, is the old saying. When editing wikipedia, first learn how you're supposed to behave and you're a lot less likely to get in trouble. I find wikipedia rules mystifying enough that I've never tried to bother with it much.
Andrew Judd said...
Phil
The surface does not rise in temperature because it gets energy from itself!! Why do you think we need to heat our homes with expensive fuels??
You are describing a reduction in cooling. Even if we reduce the cooling of our homes we still need to supply heat to them to get them to rise in temperature.
The sun forces the temperature to rise because there is a reduction in cooling.
Please Andrew go away and learn something about radiational heat transfer and stop bothering the grown-ups. That 'reduction in cooling' you refer to is accompanied by an increase in radiation flux towards the surface (measured) and the cooling flux from the surface increases! Some trick.
Andrew stop Gishing, when you said about Planck-
He also said that for monchromatic light you could not talk of a definate radiation temperature. For example we know that sodium emits the two yellow lines over a wide range of temperatures
----------------------
fact is you can talk about the temperature of such radiation fields, you just have to know some non-equilibrium thermo.
Arthur
I was banned from wiki for saying the warmer surface is warming the colder atmosphere.
My wife was banned when she reported my telephone conversation with the writer of reference 9 who confirmed the warmer surface is warming the colder atmosphere.
I am glad that you have **at last** confirmed you **do** realise the hotter surface is warming the atmosphere.
However I have no idea if you can correctly describe to me, in a step by step manner, why the surface rises in temperature when the atmosphere is heating an absorbing/emitting atmosphere
Arthur
Correction:
I have no idea if you can correctly describe to me, in a step by step manner, why the surface rises in temperature when the *surface* is heating an absorbing/emitting atmosphere
Andrew,
You might want to look at the Wiki sockpuppetry page to see why you wife was banned.
As far as explanations of the processes involved: Arthur did a pretty good job of laying out that there are two processes, energy flows, involved. Once you can grasp that simple concept -- and really the last physics I had was in HS -- it should be clear to you what is going on. Holding steadfastly to a rather strained interpretation of the classical statement of the second law while ignoring the more physically correct statistical interpretation is really holding you back
Rattus
We all know about the two way energy transfers. It is tiresome to have it endlessly repeated as if we dont all know about the two way energy transfers.
As you know the surface gets warmer. Meaning it gets more energy from *somewhere*. But *we know* it is losing *more* energy to heat the atmosphere than it receives *from* the atmosphere.
So why does the surface warm?
I know why it warms. Do you?
I have no idea what you know.
Arthur to his credit has at least confirmed that he realises the hot surface is heating the cold atmosphere.
"Additional space has been added for sensible ramblings.
The management."
Nonsensical ramblings on the other hand deserve a space saving typeface.
It would be a mercy to reduce Andrew to 3 point Comic Sans.
Andrew, I can see you are very passionate about this issue, but I'm not sure I understand (or need to understand) why.
I have a question for you to see if I can understand your position better.
Let's say for simplicity we have a theoretical Earth's surface radiating at 290K, with the atmosphere radiating at on average 215K, surrounded by space at a temperature of 5K. Some aliens bring in several bazillion rocks from another planet that are radiating at 245 K and suspend them in the atmosphere with balloons. The temperature of the theoretical Earth's surface goes up.
Would you say the aliens have warmed/heated the surface of the Earth, or not?
Utahn
I think the idea here is to express things scientifically rather than poetically or whatever the alternative is to 'scientifically'. If you want you can say a blanket makes you warm. But it is not scientific to say that.
The beginning point to explain why the presence of the colder rocks causes the surface of the earth to become warmer is to focus on *what* is causing the surface to radiate at the higher temperature of 290K which is then causing the surface to heat those colder rocks.
Things have to be explained in the correct order to explain what is happening without making mistakes
So far nobody on these various boards seems willing to do that. It is though explained in reference 9 on wiki and endless times by me before I was removed from Wiki.
Andrew,
You have not responded to my questions (A), (B), (C). Warming = heating if that was what stopped you.
As to my ability to explain the situation, you might want to check my paper "Proof of the atmospheric greenhouse effect" which goes through the math on this. I also still highly recommend Pierrehumbert's textbook.
You asked somebody else, where does the extra energy come from? With or without the atmosphere, the surface (at a given temperature) loses energy at the same rate. With an atmosphere, there is a new radiative flow downward to the surface. that's a real source of energy for warming. Are you denying this?
Andrew, please do not lie. Everyone can see you were banned because of your behavior: edit warring and making legal threats. You subsequently behaved further like a complete idiot in making personal attacks in your request to be unblocked. Your wife was blocked for meatpuppetry.
Two lies, Andrew. Who do you think you are fooling here? Everyone can read your talkpage and that of your wife. Everyone can see why you and your wife were banned.
M
Arthur
With ABC you are asking leading questions, so my answers will probably annoy you and not help resolve this situation.
The thing to focus on is this:
>>"You asked somebody else, where does the extra energy come from? With or without the atmosphere, the surface (at a given temperature) loses energy at the same rate. With an atmosphere, there is a new radiative flow downward to the surface. that's a real source of energy for warming. Are you denying this?"
Once again you need to begin by saying *why* this surface has a given temperature, when we know that for a given temperature it will be cooling by at least the rate of emission of that surface.
Andrew, I'd appreciate your answers to ABC anyway, it may give some insight into where you're coming from because much of what you say makes little sense here.
In particular you focus on "why" - you need to begin by saying *why* this surface has a given temperature
but in reality every effect has multiple causes, and there is never a single "right" answer to the question of "why" something happened. God willed it (or the laws of physics demanded it) could be the ultimate "why" answer to anything.
But the issue at hand is how to describe the greenhouse effect, specifically the effect that an infrared-absorbing atmosphere has on temperatures at the surface of a planet. There is a whole background of physical parameters needed to set the stage - a planet, with gravity; an ultimate source of energy input to the planet's surface; a setting within a much lower-temperature environment that outgoing thermal radiation can flow to (outer space). Each of these is part of the causal explanation for the effect.
But if the issue at hand is the question of the effect of the infrared-absorbing atmosphere on the system, then the relevant causal chain is to look at the sequence of things that happen when the atmosphere is added to a planet with none (or the infrared absorbing components are increased in some fashion). What changes in this case?
The ultimate source of energy in the system is unchanged. The emission from the surface is (at least at first) unchanged. The low temperature background is unchanged. Only the atmosphere has changed. What is the consequence of that?
And the simple answer is: the presence of the infrared-absorbing (and -emitting) atmosphere leads to a new source of energy to the surface: radiated thermal energy from the atmosphere. Adding the atmosphere warms the surface. There is nothing physically or intellectually wrong with this description at all.
You may prefer to talk about a different causal situation, but you simply cannot claim that this particular causal analysis is wrong or misleading in any way. It is an accurate description of what happens and should be confusing to nobody.
Well color me stoopid
A most interesting thread.
One writer persistently ignores the realities of the real world physics and the body of peer reviewed evidence accumulated since the days of John Tyndall.
From the Michael Shermer Baloney Detection Kit:-
* How does the claim fit with what we know about how the world works?
* Does the preponderance of evidence point to the claimant's conclusion or to a different one?
* Is the claimant employing the accepted rules of reason and tools of research, or have these been abandoned in favor of others that lead to the desired conclusion?
* Is the claimant providing an explanation for the observed phenomena or merely denying the existing explanation?
Full text kit can be found here :-http://homepages.wmich.edu/~korista/baloney.html
“you can't escape tomorrow's responsibilities by evading it today” ― Abraham Lincoln
“Don't believe every quote you see on the Internet.” ― Abraham Lincoln[/s ;) ]
"The beginning point to explain why the presence of the colder rocks causes the surface of the earth to become warmer is to focus on *what* is causing the surface to radiate at the higher temperature of 290K which is then causing the surface to heat those colder rocks."
I'll try to change it to simplify it, as I am interested in your "poetic" answer, since you appear to be (like me) not in favor of doing much in the way of math, which would be the truly scientific way to discuss this.
The sun heats the earth, causing it to radiate at 290K. The rocks are actually miniature nuclear powered radiators set to radiate at 245 K. Is the surface heated or not?
1 + 1/2 + 1/4 + 1/8 + ... = 2.
How can you get 2 when to begin with you have to subtract 1.0 from 1 to allow for the emission of the surface energy of which only .5 returns??
2 requires energy from the sun
----------------
Andrew ,just running with what David Benson said:
Planet no atmosphere----
Downward flux from sun = 1.0
Upward flux from heated surface = 1.0
Result: energy is conserved and direction is from hot sun to cold space.
Planet add atmosphere------
Downward flux from sun = 1.0
Time= 0, Upward flux from heated surface initially = 1.0
(conservation of energy)
Atmosphere absorbs 0.5, 0.5 passes through to space.
Atmosphere has a higher temperature.
Atmosphere emits 0.25 up and 0.25 down.
Emission to space is 0.75 but not yet 1.0 since not yet in equilibrium.
Time=1, surface now absorbs 1.0 plus 0.25.
Upward flux from heated surface is now 1.0 plus 0.25
(conservation of energy)
Atmosphere absorbs half, so 0.625 now passes to space.
Atmosphere has even higher temperature.
Atmosphere emits 0.3125 to space and
.3125 to surface.
Emission to space is now 0.3125 plus 0.625 = 0.9375 not yet 1.0 since not yet in equilibrium.
Time=2, And so on. The outward flux at top of atmosphere will eventually equal 1.0 at equlibrium.
At the surface the upward and downward fluxes at the surface will balance, but will both be at a higher level ( they will reach a limit) than if the atmosphere was not present. This of course means the surface temperature is higher.
The atmosphere will have a temperature midway between surface and space. since there will be a temperature gradient. That of course means that the atmosphere has a lower temperature than the surface.
Andrew could try putting this in a spreadsheet. Hands on might make it clearer.
Climate Ferret
The Baez Cranksmanship Metric being iterative, I llack the patience to apply it to Andrew.
Here is some of the relevant apparatus for those willing to try :
The Crackpot Index
copyright John Baez
A -5 point starting credit.
1 point for every statement that is widely agreed on to be false.
2 points for every statement that is clearly vacuous.
3 points for every statement that is logically inconsistent.
5 points for each such statement that is adhered to despite careful correction.
5 points for using a thought experiment that contradicts the results of a widely accepted real experiment.
10 points for each claim that quantum mechanics is fundamentally misguided (without good evidence).
10 points for pointing out that you have gone to school, as if this were evidence of sanity.
10 points for each new term you invent and use without properly defining it.
10 points for each statement along the lines of "I'm not good at math, but my theory is conceptually right, so all I need is for someone to express it in terms of equations".
10 points for arguing that a current well-established theory is "only a theory", as if this were somehow a point against it.
10 points for arguing that while a current well-established theory predicts phenomena correctly, it doesn't explain "why" they occur, or fails to provide a "mechanism".
10 points for claiming that your work is on the cutting edge of a "paradigm shift".
20 points for each favorable comparison of yourself to Newton or claim that classical mechanics is fundamentally misguided (without good evidence).
20 points for every use of science fiction works or myths as if they were fact.
20 points for defending yourself by bringing up (real or imagined) ridicule accorded to your past theories.
20 points for talking about how great your theory is, but never actually explaining it.
30 points for suggesting that a famous figure secretly disbelieved in a theory which he or she publicly supported. (E.g., that Feynman was a closet opponent of special relativity, as deduced by reading between the lines in his freshman physics textbooks.)
30 points for suggesting that Einstein, in his later years, was groping his way towards the ideas you now advocate.
40 points for comparing those who argue against your ideas to Nazis, stormtroopers, or brownshirts.
40 points for claiming that the "scientific establishment" is engaged in a "conspiracy" to prevent your work from gaining its well-deserved fame, or suchlike.
40 points for comparing yourself to Galileo, suggesting that a modern-day Inquisition is hard at work on your case, and so on.
40 points for claiming that when your theory is finally appreciated, present-day science will be seen for the sham it truly is. (30 more points for fantasizing about show trials in which scientists who mocked your theories will be forced to recant.)
50 points for claiming you have a revolutionary theory but giving no concrete testable predictions.
Arthur
My answers to ABC are here after each question. Please note your text saying i am deliberatingly misleading and hiding issues of logic and semantics. The use of the word obfuscating is quite unfriendly.
I felt each question was not well phrased, which meant a simple answer did not do justice to what **I am trying to get you to realise**.
You said
Andrew, you are not discussing questions of science, you are obfuscating issues of logic and semantics. Let me ask you some questions:
(A) The interior of a greenhouse missing its glass windows sits at the same temperature as outside the greenhouse. Glass is then added, and the temperature quickly goes up. Would you say the glass warmed up the interior of the greenhouse?
It is generally considered that a greenhouse becomes warmer because the glass prevents air movement, rather than the glass acts in any important way to absorb the energy emitted by the surface or air in the greenhouse. Therefore the name 'the greenhouse effect' is not considered to be descriptive of how an actual greenhouse works. I dont actually know myself what effect the glass would have in the greenhouse - obviously you would imagine that glass is going to be at least slightly directly heated by the sun and by emissions in the greenhouse. However the glass is thin and is contact with cold air on one side and warm air eventually on the other side. Either way the effect of that glass as an absorber emitter is not obvious to me.
(B) A beggar shivers on a dark and cold night. I give him my coat and he soon feels warmer. Did my coat cause warming?
Your language is poor here. The coat cannot cause the warming. The beggars internally heated body causes the warming and the coat slows down his heat losses. We could say that you enabled the warming by placing the insulating coat on the beggars warm body so that he was able to lose heat less quickly and become more comfortable by eventually raising the temperature of his skin
(C) A planetary surface with no atmosphere sits at a certain temperature. An atmosphere is added and the surface gradually warms. Did the atmosphere warm the surface?
Since you have already subsequently told me *how* the surface of this planet is *heated* - by radioactive decay, then this question can be used to expand on what I felt was the more important question you raised with me, where in your last reply you did not *again* tell me *why* or *how* the surface was a *given* temperature.
Which i will elaborate on in the next reply
Arthur
Before I begin you said.
"the simple answer is: the presence of the infrared-absorbing (and -emitting) atmosphere leads to a new source of energy to the surface: radiated thermal energy from the atmosphere. Adding the atmosphere warms the surface. There is nothing physically or intellectually wrong with this description at all."
It is entirely and absolutely wrong to say that the atmosphere being heated by the surface can in any way provide a **new source of energy** to the surface, by the atmosphere returning a smaller or identically sized portion of the energy obtained from the surface, back to the surface.
You are describing something that is against the law of conservation of energy.
The greenhouse effect *works*, but you are not correctly describing it with such language or conceptualisations.
Arthur
For your isolated planet far from an important heat source that is internally heated by radioactive decay, when the cold atmosphere is first placed around the planet the heat losses from the surface of the planet enormously increase as the almost 0 Kelvin gas cools the surface far below the previously present temperature, and conversely the surface heats the atmosphere.
Whatever energy is now emitted or conducted from the surface can only leave this system via this absorbing and emitting atmosphere.
Some of the energy travels straight thru the atmosphere but some does not.
**The cooling ability of the planets surface has now been reduced**.
The atmosphere only returns to the surface, some energy that the surface gave to the atmosphere. The atmosphere cannot warm the surface with this returned energy.
Since the surface is internally heated, and the cooling rate has been reduced, the surface rises in temperature due to the internal heating.
The colder atmosphere has no ability to provide a new additional source of energy for that surface. The surface just cools less quickly and is internally heated.
This is not a semantic point of view. It is a totally different conceptualisation to the idea that some kind of strange thermodynamics are needed to understand the greenhouse effect.
The idea the atmosphere warms the surface of the earth is misrepresenting the far simpler and actual process involved.
As explained by reference 9 in Wiki
Utahn
The colder nuclear reactors are not heating the earth. They just slow down the heat losses from the surface and since the surface is heated by the sun it rises in temperature.
For your 1 .5 .25 thing. You have now agreed that 1 comes from the sun.
You cannot say that .5 goes to the atmosphere and then .25 returns to surface as if there was a sequence like that enables a mysterious warming force of .25 to bathe the earth in energy that causing a temperature rise.
Instead we need to emphasise these process happens *simultaneously*. Ie the reality is that heat losses from the surface are reduced by .25 while the surface is being simultaneously heated by the sun.
The sun enables the warming due to the reduction in heat loss.
Andrew says
For your 1 .5 .25 thing. You have now agreed that 1 comes from the sun.
-----------------
Hmmmm. So the surface receives 1 and emits 1 without an atmosphere. To satisfy conservation of energy at equilibrium.
After the atmosphere is added it is now warmer and emitting more, say 1.5. The surface must be receiving an additional 0.5 from somewhere to satisfy conservation of energy. 1.5 up must balance 1.5 down.
Where is that 0.5 coming from? I am betting the Andrews answer is going to drive people crazy.
-------------
Andrew also says
You cannot say that .5 goes to the atmosphere and then .25 returns to surface as if there was a sequence like that enables a mysterious warming force of .25 to bathe the earth in energy that causing a temperature rise.
-------------
Which means Andrew does not understand that emission of radiation from a gas has no prefered direction, it's omnidirectional.
Anonymous
Without a source of surface heating, the warm surface layer cannot rise in temperature due to radiation received from the colder atmosphere.
To say otherwise is against the law of conservation of energy.
All the radiation from the atmosphere can do is reduce the cooling rate of the surface.
The unheated surface can *never* rise in temperature due to radiation received from the colder atmosphere.
The colder atmosphere can **only** slow down the cooling rate of the hotter surface.
Andrew wrote:
"Whatever energy is now emitted or conducted from the surface can only leave this system via this absorbing and emitting atmosphere.
Some of the energy travels straight thru the atmosphere but some does not.
**The cooling ability of the planets surface has now been reduced**.
The atmosphere only returns to the surface, some energy that the surface gave to the atmosphere. The atmosphere cannot warm the surface with this returned energy.
Since the surface is internally heated, and the cooling rate has been reduced, the surface rises in temperature due to the internal heating."
My point is the bolded bit. What happens to the thermal radiation that comes from the atmosphere to the surface? Does it hit the moules of the surface and cause them to increase in energy? Or does it, according to the text above, sit in limbo until somehow it returns to the atmosphere? Or has Andrew misttyped a sentence, which after all happens to all of us at some point?
"Without a source of surface heating, the warm surface layer cannot rise in temperature due to radiation received from the colder atmosphere."
Does that mean the surface layer can't rise in temperature due to radiation received from the sun, too?
Guthrie
If you want to argue on a Wiki page that the Earth warms the Sun and you think this will help people understand the greenhouse effect then we are going to disagree.
Most people consider they need a heating source for their homes because their cold walls are not warming the air in their room.
If you were to advertise you have a method to enable cold wall warming of a house you would probably end up in prison for dishonest representation.
The simple and correct explanation of the greenhouse effect is that the hotter surface is heating the colder atmosphere which causes the emitting atmosphere to reduce the heat losses of the surface, that is heated by the sun, so the surface becomes warmer.
All this talk of the atmosphere warming the surface amounts to obfuscation and dishonest representation of the kind that would normally mean you end up in prison.
J Bowers said
"Does that mean the surface layer can't rise in temperature due to radiation received from the sun, too?"
For the temperature to rise, the Sun needs to be heating the surface at a higher rate than the surface is cooling. Weak winter sunshine only results in a reduction in the cooling rate of the surface
> For the temperature to rise, the Sun needs to be heating the surface at a higher rate than the surface is cooling.
Too complicated, let's simplify,
simplify and abstract everything,
everything except the Sun:
The Sun shines more,
more heat there is,
and vice versa.
Simplicity is where hope lies in science,
anything else leads to
Science of Doom.
Wow, how times have changed. The deniers have been warning us for years that climatology was a wacky science, now here's the proof. These climatologists use models which assume CO2 is not a ghg, now even climatologists are becoming deniers. Never thought I'd live to see it. What some guys will do for a buck.
Andrew, by my examples I was trying to get you to a simple issue of cause and effect. When something changes, and warming occurs as a result, ordinary English usage and the laws of logic indicate that whatever it was that changed is a (at least one of several) *cause* of the warming. You deny this. So you have departed the laws of logic and the English language to insist that "reduction of cooling" != "warming" and so forth. I think we don't need to discuss further. It certainly isn't a question of the science, which is even more unambiguous on the energy flows in the case of the surface and atmosphere than in the greenhouse glass or beggar's coat cases.
That is, in the first two cases, the warming is indeed a result of a reduction in outgoing energy flow. But in the surface-atmosphere case (by the way, I assumed the atmosphere in our planet would be added with some temperature profile above absolute zero, but no matter) - there is no reduction in outward radiative flow from the surface, it remains the same. What changes is an increase in inward flow of radiated energy from the atmosphere. It is nonsense to describe that only in terms of a reduction in the outward flow from the surface, because there is no such reduction when you measure the actual emitted radiation. Yes, there are constraints on that downward flow - if it is sustained over time the energy has to come from somewhere (nobody claims energy is not conserved and to claim that I or anybody else is asserting that is ridiculous). But it is a real measurable thing and it causes an increase in the surface temperature directly through that input of additional energy.
Obviously we are simply not getting anywhere here. So, enjoy your little semantic crusade if you must, I think I'm done.
"Because the atmosphere is almost transparent to sunlight, all that is absorbed at the surface results in warming and the emission of IR radiation; this radiation cannot freely escape into space because of absorption in the atmosphere by trace gases such as water vapor and carbon dioxide (CO2). These absorbing gases and their surrounding air warm up, emitting radiation downward, towards the Earth's surface, as well as upward, towards space. This effectively traps part of the IR radiation between ground and the lower 10 km of the atmosphere. This reduction in the efficiency of the Earth to lose heat causes the surface temperature to rise above the effective temperature calculated above (Te) until finally, enough heat is able to escape to space to balance the incoming solar radiation. The effect is analogous to that of a blanket that traps the body heat preventing it from escaping into the room and thus keeps us warm on cold nights."
...AnonyPsylopsella
Arthur
You are mixed up.
I said:
**The cooling ability of the planets surface has now been reduced**.
You said:
It is nonsense to describe that only in terms of a reduction in the outward [radiative] flow from the surface
I never said there was a reduction in outward radiative flow from the surface.
If the surface is cooling at 210WM2 and then it receives 100Wm2 from the atmosphere, it is now cooling at a rate of 110WM2
A surface that is heated and cools slower will warm up
A surface that is not heated and cools slower just cools more slowly.
Backradiation has *no* ability to warm the warmer surface of the earth.
Your conceptualisation is entirely wrong.
"The colder nuclear reactors are not heating the earth. They just slow down the heat losses from the surface and since the surface is heated by the sun it rises in temperature."
Interesting, so this newly added source of radiation does not warm the surface in your opinion? What would you think they would do if they were set to radiate at 291K, would that warm the surface?
I also strongly object to you going on about the surface warming the atmosphere. It is only transmitting solar energy to the atmosphere. Clearly the *sun* heats the atmosphere. Stating that the surface warms the atmosphere is the kind of thing that "scientifically ignorant" people say.
Utahn
The nature of learning is that you become different. If you dont want to be different you cannot learn.
Andrew Judd said...
Guthrie
The simple and correct explanation of the greenhouse effect is that the hotter surface is heating the colder atmosphere which causes the emitting atmosphere to reduce the heat losses of the surface, that is heated by the sun, so the surface becomes warmer.
Unfortunately for this concept when the surface is warmer the heat losses are actually increased while the sun is still inputting the same amount of heat!
All this talk of the atmosphere warming the surface amounts to obfuscation and dishonest representation of the kind that would normally mean you end up in prison.
That's a pretty good description of what you're doing.
Phil
You are confusing the surface energy loss due to emission, while the same surface is undergoing energy absorption, with heat loss.
The heat loss of any hot surface reduces once a colder object is placed near it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mITUQo23nFE
Anonymous Sidelong Dog says,
AJ: "A surface that is heated and cools slower will warm up"
What wisdom. But Andrew, how can a surface cool more slowly? "to cool" = verb. The opposite must be the verb "to heat." If you say a surface cools more slowly, using the comparative "more," then you are saying the surface heats relative to whatever you're comparing the cooling to. You did the comparing, remember. The surface cools more slowly (relative to another condition). By saying that and including the necessary implication, you agree that the cause of "cools more slowly" is also the cause of "heats."
Language is the imperfect medium in which we work. If you want to claim that energy returning to the surface is incapable of causing surface temperature change relative to an earlier surface state, why then feel free to do so, but don't be surprised if people ridicule you. And don't be surprised if people ridicule you for refusing to call that change in temperature an act of heating--especially when you feel free to call the same act "cooling" when the sign is reversed.
If I place a dam across a river, and the water begins to rise behind the dam, am I wrong to say that the dam is the "cause" of the "deepening" of the water?
A thread worthy of the 2nd law thread on SkS. I vote we place Andrew on the surface of a planet without an atmosphere. If he finds it "cold," then we can offer to add a O/N/CO2/H20 atmosphere to help him out. If he refuses to admit that he's been "warmed" up by our addition, and especially that we were the cause of the "warming," then we suck it back up and let him enjoy his semantic games.
AEJ,
You might want to watch the two lectures from Chapter 3 found here. In the second one ("The Greenhouse Effect") Professor Archer explains how the GHE works and builds a simple conceptual model which clearly demonstrates that the atmosphere *warms* the surface via it's emission of IR which is absorbed by the ground.
Andrew Judd said...
Phil
You are confusing the surface energy loss due to emission, while the same surface is undergoing energy absorption, with heat loss.
No, I'm not the one who's confused.
The heat loss of any hot surface reduces once a colder object is placed near it.
Really!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mITUQo23nFE
"The nature of learning is that you become different. If you dont want to be different you cannot learn."
I very much appreciate that sentiment. In fact I have become different because of reading this thread, so thanks for that...
But what do you think about those nuclear radiators set at 291K, floating in the atmosphere, do they heat the surface?
By the way, I hope you understand my second paragraph about strongly objecting to you saying the surface heats the atmosphere was in jest. It is obvious to people discussing these things that the initial source of the surface heating was the sun, and therefore fine by me for you to say the surface heats the atmosphere.
I think it's also obvious that the source of the heat from the atmosphere that heats the surface is from the sun via the surface. So I still don't quite understand your unwillingness to let people make statements where the obvious is assumed...
Anonymous Sidelong Dog
Cooling involves a heat loss. So cooling can be extreme all the way to extremely small and then no cooling and then a tiny amount of heating.
So I dont follow your point at all.
When a colder mass of humid air arrives over a frosty surface that is radiating energy to space thru dry air then the heat losses of the surface are reduced and then the energy coming from the sun or the sub surface layers can warm the surface to melt the ice.
John Tyndall used the expression 'local dam' to describe the radiative barrier of water vapour that he said clings to the ground and enables life on Earth to be possible. However he was clear that the dam operates because it prevents the radiation from the surface from escaping, whereas you and others want to describe it as 'a warmer'.
Utahn
Yes the hotter reactors heat or warm the surface.
The point about the source of the heat of the surface is that without this heating a colder object can never cause or enable the warmer surface to become warmer.
On wiki for example the useage of the wording 'surface warms the atmosphere' is prevented in favour of the misleading idea of heat from the atmosphere that came from the surface warming the lower layers and therefore the surface below.
All the emission from the atmosphere can do is slow down the surface heat losses that would have gone to space and are instead returned to the surface.
Wiki also has some rather odd ideas that the near surface has no greenhouse effect of importance, while simultaneously saying the near surface atmosphere is almost opaque to radiation from the surface! So we know from that there is massive near surface warming of the atmosphere from surface emission. Wiki then insists that other forms of cooling are more important near the surface.
A fundamental of air flows over surfaces is that at the boundary there is almost no movement of air. So heating by emission must be very important at the near surface. But either way the air is warmed at the near suface and the air emits and the heat losses from the surface are reduced to cause greenhouse warming
Such talk however is verboten due to the peuliar ideas present on wiki
"For the temperature to rise, the Sun needs to be heating the surface at a higher rate than the surface is cooling."
But the surface doesn't care if the energy's direct from the solar manufacturer, or secondhand from the atmospheric Ebay.
Facing this kind of skeptikism, scienceofdoom provides the outline of an answer:
BEGIN blockquote
I don’t like the term “back radiation” myself and the general term in use in atmospheric physics is “downward longwave radiation” or DLR.
The DLR is simply a consequence of these 2 points:
1. The atmosphere is above absolute zero
2. The atmosphere includes gases that can radiate at these temperatures
So to track one specific measurement and identify cause and effect.. not particularly worthwhile, or even possible.
The DLR from atmosphere that we measure at the surface is around 300 W/m^2.
If you have a theory about the reason why the atmosphere radiates this amount of energy, you are welcome to explain it (easier than me trying to guess). And then we can review your explanation.
END blockquote
Source: http://scienceofdoom.com/2010/08/11/darwinian-selection-back-radiation/#comment-5992
Perhaps our guest can take his chance over there.
Andrew, I see you haven't done your homework yet. Are you planning to watch the two lectures I pointed you to and actually discuss the science contained therein?
To sum it up, the radiation emitted from the atmosphere (1/2 the radiation absorbed from the surface) raises the temperature of the surface by around 18%. It warms it.
"Yes the hotter reactors heat or warm the surface."
So the reactors radiating at 291K heat the 290K surface, but reactors radiating at 289K would not?
How does the surface know which photons to reject and which to accept?
In reality it's the same process isn't it? Both sets of reactors heat the surface. Or am I missing something?
Andrew Judd,
How do you explain temperatures on Venus? Anyway, you are just a troll plain and simple. If you want to get theoretical. A body that allow energy in and no energy out could become much hotter than the original source. If a planet and it's atmosphere allowed ultraviolet energy in, and trapped all energy escaping through all radiative spectrum, it would heat up....or just retain energy. Just think about the First Law of Thermodynamics....Basically a closed system on the output side, but allowing energy in on the input side.
I think quite a few people here have entered this discussion late and dont realise
1. I am not a sceptic of the powerful greenhouse effect operating on earth
2. That i got banned from Wiki for wanting the wiki GHE page to make clear that that the surface was always heating the colder atmosphere, and the cold surface could not possibly raise the temperature of the hotter surface since this would be thermodynamically impossible.
Various editors then attempted to require me to believe that in a forced system the second law of thermodynamics did not apply or that no references supported what I was saying.
However no references were ever discussed with me.
After I was banned in one of my appeals against that banning I said
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Andrewedwardjudd#Here_is_an_example_of_how_the_wiki_greenhouse_effect_page_is_mixing
Where i describe line by line how Wiki is misleading the reader and how the editors refused to discuss why they were doing that.
Utahn
The problem for this conversation is the insistance by everybody here apart from me, on the thermodynamically incorrect expression that heat is a two way process at the macro level. It is totally wrong to talk about two way heat flows at the macro level. This was something that the writer of reference 9 on Wiki GHE totally agreed with me on.
We are talking about a reactor and atmosphere and a surface. This means we are *not* talking about particular molecules in a surface so we can talk about the microscopic details in a way that makes any sense at all.
Instead we need to talk about net energy flow.
For example the IPCC document "The physical Science Basis" says the earth is heated at the top of the atmosphere by Net radiation (where net radiation can be either positive or negative from moment to moment but averages out to approximately no heating over the course of a year if the earth is not being heated to become hotter.)
Nasa produces some charts of net radiation to show either heating or cooling of the earth with the seasons.
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/GlobalMaps/view.php?d1=CERES_NETFLUX_M
So at the macro level we either say the net radiation flux is positive for heating or we say it is negative for cooling, or we say heat or cool.
The surface is heating the cooler reactors and the reactors that are warmer than the atmosphere are heating the atmosphere.
But i have to ask people here, what meaning are you wishing to created by insisting on saying the atmosphere warms the surface and would the wiki page want to leave that observation out of the page and make it impossible to add again?
The wiki page is a mess. It talks about re-radiation and two way heat flows and refuses to allow the greenhouse effect to be important near the surface even while it says the near surface layers are almost opaque to emissions from the surface.
The impression it gives it that the reader is being mislead for some purpose like for example disguising the observations John Tyndall made about the importance of water vapour at the near surface. None of that kind of observation is permitted on the Wiki GHE page. Only abuse waits anybody attempting to get it inserted.
Reference 9 says
"This reduction in the efficiency of the Earth to lose heat causes the surface temperature to rise"
John Tyndall in one of the references says
"Aqueous vapour constitutes a local dam, by which the temperature at the earth's surface is deepened: the dam, however finally overflows, and we give to space all that we receive from the sun."
He also talks about a blanket or screen but any mention of these things on Wiki leads to abusive blocking
So in your view we must use a different word for the rising temperature of the 290K surface due to the 289.9K reactors, than from the 290.1K reactors. You stated it was acceptable to say the warmer reactors heated Te surface, but not the slightly cooler ones. You're asking people to use different words for the exact same physical process, how is that not just semantics?
I have no interest in editing wikipedia at all or any beef you have with people there. But I am interested in understanding the relevant processes and trying to simply explain them to others. How is insisting on using two words for the same process going to help me or a messed up Wikipedia page?
Utahn
How about we transfer this conversation to a more user friendly software provider? Blogger is a very clumsy interface.
I am Radiant2009 at:
http://www.physicsforums.com/index.php
all you have to do is register for free and message me there.
Direct heating of an object that is colder than the heat source is a very different process to the heating that happens as a result of the greenhouse effect.
You must realise that?
What purpose is served by using confusing language to imply the temperature rises because of the same process?
The heating created by the greenhouse effect is a totally different process to that created by the heating due to a hotter source of energy
I'm not sure I'll gain any more understanding of your position by continuing much longer so I'll let it go if you just answer one yes or no question. Do both the 289.9K and 290.1K reactors heat the 290K surface?
I don't want to get into who's warming whom when both get hot, but I would seriously appreciate some data on IR wavelengths' mean free paths and how much these change for relevant changes in GHG concentrations.
Thanks,
Pete Dunkelberg
Rattus
So far, I could not get those videos to play. Hopefully I can get that sorted out and report back.
However the correct expression is that the atmosphere causes the surface to warm. It is 'poetic' to say the atmosphere warms the surface.
Most people here seem to prefer poetry rather than simple scientific explanations
"Do you think heat can travel down an electrical wire? Consider the peltier effect where a thermocouple junction cools and removes heat and creates electricity. Do you think the heat is travelling along the wire?"
Perhaps we should set up an international bureacracy to make everyone comply with a single terminology? Just think of all those revised editions, the publishers would have a field day. To answer the above question,the wire carries a total energy current, an entropy current and related quantities such as 'heat flux' or 'thermal current' depending on the text.
Less trivial, it helps to think of the effect as originating in the bulk of the two metals rather than being located at the junction, and that is without invoking any microscopic theory.
By the way this system is not analagous to the one in radiation transfer because the electrons in the first system, unlike the photons in the second, are usually very close to thermodynamic equilibrium. This leads to useful tools such as temperature, voltage and a good macroscopic theory for this partially irreversible process.
Geoff
We are both getting a bit muddled here.
A thermocouple junction and the wires, generate a voltage and requires different temperatures along the wires.
The Peltier effect is what happens when you apply a voltage to a thermocouple so that you produce a cooling force or mini fridge.
If a wire carrries a current then a real wire has resistance and that creates heat, but the heat is not travelling along the wire with the electricity.
So the thermocouple generates a voltage by cooling the hot end of the thermocouple - you cannot get something for nothing.
This seems analogous to emission from a surface that cools a surface.
In neither case is the energy in transit a quantity of heat or heat itself.
What is measured is that heat reduces with emission and an equal amount of heat is created with absorption and we say that heat is transfered. No actual heat is transfered however. Energy was transfered
Andrew, you may have missed this in the kerfuffles.
What do you think, yes or no: Do both the 289.9K and 290.1K reactors heat the 290K surface?
Andrew Judd said:
"For the temperature to rise, the Sun needs to be heating the surface at a higher rate than the surface is cooling. Weak winter sunshine only results in a reduction in the cooling rate of the surface."
I responded to this yesterday, but my post seems to have evaporated…
So, Andrew Judd, as you are enamoured of the idea of "poetry", perhaps you would indulge me for a moment and explain whether you were referring to the weak northern winter sun or to the weak southern winter sun...?
Bernard J. Hyphen-Anonymous XVII, Esq.
>>perhaps you would indulge me for a moment and explain whether you were referring to the weak northern winter sun or to the weak southern winter sun...?
It does not matter.
Water will freeze in weak winter sunlight.
Without the greenhouse effect it would freeze more rapidly
Utahn
>What do you think, yes or no: Do both the 289.9K and 290.1K reactors heat the 290K surface?
The hotter surface is heating the colder reactor.
Saying the cold reactor is also heating the hotter surface is false.
Heat is not being exchanged via radiation.
Heat and radiation are different energies
When an object is heated it gets more energy from a source than it gives to the source
Talking about two way exchange of warmth by radiation is scientifically invalid.
And for the purposes of Wiki is is downright bizarre, that you people should think such an incorrect scientific view can be at all helpful to the reader who expensively heats his house because he *knows* the cold walls are not warming his house.
Rules about words.
The same ones can be used to produce quite a variety of false outcomes and even some true ones.
Where does this familiar string originate?
"it confuses “radiative energy” and “heat”"
Start here: Google Scholar
Enter the string and search. (To save time use copy/paste so as keep the quotation marks.) Eli may recognise the result.
[Repeat: these people share some arguments but not conclusions]
These ex cathedra pronouncements remind me of John Searle's Chinese room experiment which sets out to demonstrate that imposing and obeying rules can coexist with zero understanding.
Geoff
No matter how much you and the others obfuscate and attempt to portray me as an unreasonable person, a cold body cannot ever heat a hotter body to a higher temperature.
All the colder body can do is slow down the heat losses of the hotter body.
Geoff
Look at this stupidity on William Connolleys talk page
"There appears to be a problem with not understanding the second law here? The second law applies to isolated (closed) physical systems. It does not apply to forced systems like an atmosphere subject to radiation. In a forced system of course "colder gases can warm the hotter layers below". So the people who are against the idea aren't ones with much knowledge of physics. Do we need to worry about them? I guess only if discussion about them becomes notable... --BozMo talk 13:39, 21 March 2012 (UTC)
Or if, say, a large number of them started aggressively editing Wikipedia... :P MastCell Talk 17:55, 21 March 2012 (UTC)
Bozmo is a Cambridge UK educated PhD in Maths and evidently totally clueless how the greenhouse effect works.
The whole thing would be comical were it not for the likes of James Annan and others joining in with the stupidity.
Do you *really* think the second law of thermodynamics does not apply to the Greenhouse house effect??
How about you show some integrity and you point out to the others how foolish they have been?
Thanks Andrew for the reply. Since both the 289.9K and 290.1K reactors are causing the 290K surface temperature to rise, and both are causing this to occur by the *exact same physical mechanism*, I do feel it is unreasonable to state that it's fine to say the 290.1k reactors are heating the surface, but not fine to say the same thing for the 289.9k reactors. Either allow it for both instances or neither.
If someone was trying to understand this situation and I told them "the 290.1 reactors heat the surface", but the "289.9 reactors are completely different, they only slow the loss of heat from the surface", I think I would have left them very confused.
Take care, and if you haven't already read ScienceOfDoom on this kind of issue you might find it enjoyable, esp regarding imaginary vs real 2nd law. To be sure, I don't think you are a victim of the imaginary second law(unless you think there really is something fundamentally different about the physical mechanism that leads to surface warming in the 289.9 or 290.1 reactor cases). I suspect you are just having a problem stemming from the fact that "heat" and "warm" don't have universally accepted definitions.
If you went on a crusade saying we should always use "net heat" to make sure it's clear what we're talking about, I might sign up, but if you insist one can use heat in one instance but not the other of the exact same physical process, count me out.
Utahn
Net heat is wrong. Net radiation is correct. There is no heat in radiation.
Heat, radiation, electricity and so forth are energies but each is not the other.
The IPCC say net radiation for the heating/cooling at the top of the atmosphere.
Yochanan Kushni has been a director at NOAA for 13 years
It is not like I am shaking science to its foundations
AEJ
I am sure that you can discover errors or poor reasoning in other people's hurried comments. Most of them are irrelevant to your campaign to control the language and I simply don't have the time to review them all. I didn't see the one which you quoted from the comments in Stoat and I don't want to know unless it gets into Wikipedia.
Andrew, you've never heard of net heat flow?
Anyway, the larger point is, if you're going to allow the word "heat", with the many meanings people ascribe to it, to apply to the physical process by which a 290.1K reactor raises the temperature of the 290K surface, you should also allow it for the exact same physical process whereby a 289.9K reactor raises the temperature of the 290K surface.
So it looks as though you are going to let people say "the 290.1K reactor heats the surface of the earth" but then rap them on the knuckles when they say the "289.9K reactor heats the surface", forcing them to say about the exact same physical process: "the 289.9K reactor prevents heat from escaping, thereby raising the temperature of the surface". If that is the case, your semantics will make it so their understanding of the relevant actual physical processes is lessened, not increased, and I'm sure that is not your goal.
That is my last word, I'll be sure to look back and see what your reply is, but so help me GOD I won't reply back :)
Geoff
Why does Wiki obfuscate about the reality the surface is *always* heating the colder atmosphere?
Why are you all controlling that so urgently?
"Why does Wiki obfuscate... "
I have had nothing to do with Wiki, at least not so far.
Although I have reservations about the man , this is a case where I would apply Popper's demarcation principle. If you can't come up with a falsifiable disagreement * with Wiki then in this case you are probably not disagreeing with it.**
William and Eli have said very similar things using other words.
[* That excludes your statement about the greenhouse effect being dominated by gh gases near the surface where I disagree.. and I am not returning to that discussion now].
-------------------
**. That is what distinguishes this from Gerlich and Tscheuchner. Amongst other things their original paper really does include a disagreement with modern physics. They did though try to use linguistic deviation to deflect attention from the falsification when it came.
Hey,
as english is not my first language i really do have the impression that different words are used for multiple meanings (wich i guess is the semantic problems mentioned above). For me its not clear what someone wants to describe by the word "warming". Does it mean warming up in terms of increasing its temperature or does is mean it receives energy. So Andrew to be absolutely clear lets say:
-"warming" applies to a certain object, for example the surface or the atmosphere and describes that its temperature rises over time
-"cooling" describes the decrease of temperature over time
-instead of saying that a certain object is warmed by another one lets be more precisely and say that it receives energy from it
Now lets look at a steady state climate, that is where the the temperatures of the atmosphere and the surface do not change over time. Nothing warms or cools BUT both the atmosphere and the surface radiate and receive (from each other as well as from the sun) energy. As the temperature is constant incoming energy equals outgoing energy. Now we compare this state to one where some conditions are changed (i think this is what Arthur wanted to point out), that is where the amount of radiation of the atmosphere towards the surface is changed. Perhaps your problem is that the energy which comes from the atmosphere was originally radiated from the surface. But this is no problem at all, remember we are looking at a steady state system (which took a long time to equilibrate) and change the conditions now. The atmosphere was and is on average colder than the surface but it does always contribute to the energy budget of the surface. Why should the surface NOT be able to warm up as a result of a changed atmosphere radiation pattern? Arthur already pointed out (which was very enlightening, thank you for that) why you cant simply treat the system with classic thermodynamics.
TK
Like many others here you seem to think that I am saying the surface does not get warmer because of the GHE.
What i am objecting to is the strange use of unscientific imprecise language.
If the surface is cooling at night or thru the winter, then saying the atmosphere is warming the surface is just a peculiar use of language which is not scientific and just leads to confusion.
Things are not warming when they are cooling more slowly, and they are heating the thing that is said to be warming them.
It is this amazingly bizarre use of language that I am objecting to.
A somewhat obscure youtube video showing back radiation.
http://www.youtube.com/watch/v%3Dzz3R9Z3oT-c&ei=v3aBT9LRJMiTiQeemMSyBA&usg=AFQjCNEQUsAz0KlRRUfiR9BoP3SZpgmupQ
If I understand it correctly the surface on the left is hot and on the right it's cold. Then the cold surface is hidden by a warmer , but still cold, surface so the temperature of the hot surface rises.
Climate Ferret
Climate Ferret
>>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zz3R9Z3oT-c
If I understand it correctly the surface on the left is hot and on the right it's cold. Then the cold surface is hidden by a warmer , but still cold, surface so the temperature of the hot surface rises.
I made that video. I also made this one:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mITUQo23nFE
The reason I made these videos, was I having a conversation with a person who said a cold object could not emit radiation that could be absorbed by a hotter object.
Which then led me wanting to clarify how the greenhouse worked so people would find it easier to understand.
Obviously that cold brick is not warming that cold brick.
Instead, the heat loss from the hot brick is slowed down by the colder brick, where the surface of the hot brick is internally heated
Andrew,
It is your contention that the backradiation from the greenhouse effect cannot warm the surface, but merely causes it to cool more slowly. Is that correct?
OK, can we at least stipulate that a photon absorbed by a body will warm that body? And if so, how does the absorbing body know if the photon came from a warm or a cold body?
A_ray_in_dilbert_space,
Confucius he say, a photon absorbed by a surface causes local warming of that surface.
Confucius he say, a man can believe he gets richer, by giving 100 to fool who give him 50.
Confucius he say, I am not one who was born in the possession of knowledge; I am one who is fond of antiquity, and earnest in seeking it there.
> These ex cathedra pronouncements remind me of John Searle's Chinese room experiment which sets out to demonstrate that imposing and obeying rules can coexist with zero understanding.
I believe Searle was more circumspect than that.
Unless one can show that syntax suffices for semantics, one should stick to green houses.
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