It is also interest to imagine our liquid atmosphere evaporating. Low MW liquids expand about a thousand fold upon evaporating. So 10 m of liquid becomes 10 km of atmosphere. About 5 km in altitude the pressure is halved and the volume doubles. Go another 5 km and the same thing happens.

If we assemble a hypothetical system comprising a “heater” (electrical in this case) followed by a slab of Copper, followed by a slab of PVC, followed by a slab of Copper, it turns out that the SLOWEST heat transfer mechanism determines the final outcome! If you replace the Copper with Diamond in this system, the final outcome is STILL determined by the PVC in the system! And this when we know that the PVC has a relatively high ”Thermal Capacity”.

I hate to say this but there has been way too much concentration on the effects caused by the materials with the highest alleged capacity to affect the outcome (i.e. “greenhouse gases”) it is also necessary to carefully observe the behavior of the “less active” materials.

It’s ironic but when it comes to romantic relationships the person with the least interest in the relationship actually has the most power. Funny how human relationships mimic physical relationships…

Dr. Spencer, I do think you might benefit from a short internship at some place that deals with heat on a daily basis, perhaps a power plant. Even though I have a pretty good educational background, I did in fact learn quite a bit of useful things on the “factory floor”. I think this could add valuable insight to your already impressive understanding of what is going on above our heads in the atmosphere.

Cheers, Kevin.

It turns out that the fastest heat transfer happens when all those atoms are dancing together to exactly the same tune (kind of like a little molecular conga line). This is what happens in a diamond, and to a lesser extent in a metal like copper.

So, historically speaking I am on the side of the person that postulated that stomach ulcers where not caused by “stress” and “spicy foods”, but believed that the “consensus” was wrong. I believe that increases of “greenhouse gases” actually increase the “Speed of Heat” in the atmosphere of the Earth and probably have such a small effect that we could not possibly spend enough money to actually measure it with any believable accuracy.

But, hey, I’m just a crazy engineer like Marconi, the Wrights, Edison, and others, but still hoping to someday make an impact anywhere near the impact they made.

Dr. Spencer, I do appreciate your work and respect your candor and attention to detail. I do hope that you are able to make additional contributions to our understanding of the still complex system known as the Climate of the Earth.

Cheers, Kevin.

I have read most but not all of your previous writings on this subject. I appreciate your efforts and contributions in the field of climate science. I mean no disrespect, but you really need to unambiguously define what you mean by a “heater” and a “air conditioner” before you postulate the possible effects of these elements on the climate.

I’m sorry, but a “heater” (as understood by the most generally accepted terms) does not create “extra” heat/energy, and an “air conditioner” (as understood by the most generally accepted terms) does not make “extra” heat/energy disappear.

I’m sorry, but “IN EFFECT, each CO2 molecule is a tiny heater (or air conditioner)…” needs additional definition of terms before it is deserving of further consideration.

Note, I do not find it necessary to mention my education and practical engineering history to buttress my argument. No disrespect to your credentials, a PhD clearly demonstrates significant accomplishments. However, the truth is the truth, and a title does not override this, and no, I am not suggesting in any way that you are distorting the truth, but perhaps you have been captured by a “paradigm” inherent to the climate sciences. Note, I do dislike the word “paradigm”, my best quote for this is “I burned out my clutch once on a paradigm shift”, probably lost on the younger generation that does not known what a clutch is.

For reference, you started this discussion by stating that
effectively “greenhouse gases are the only way that the Earth “warms” and also “cools”. I still find this an amazing conclusion which runs contrary to all of my empirical observations about what “heat” actually does in the real world.

I’ll refrain from future comments……..

Cheers, Kevin

I did not mean to imply that the cooling mechanism you identified, specifically the transfer of heat from warmer “non-GHGs” to colder “GHGs” followed by the radiation of infrared radiation to space does not exist. It clearly does exist. It may in fact be the primary cooling mechanism for gases in the atmosphere. It may in fact be the most efficient (i.e. the fastest) mechanism. However, I dispute the proposal that it is the ONLY cooling mechanism. As one additional cooling mechanism I might suggest that falling sleet in the upper atmosphere absorbs heat from all the gases (thereby cooling the gases) and thereafter warms, melts and falls as rain. I’m sure there are other examples as well.

Regarding the thermal capacity of a material, this is only one determining factor in the rate (i.e. speed) of heat flow. Let’s examine a hypothetical example of two materials in contact at the exact same temperature, Unobtainium and Administratium. Unobtainium has a thermal capacity near infinity; Administratium has a thermal capacity near zero. In the proposed example, no heat flows between the two since there is no temperature difference. Now, some believe that as soon as the most infinitesimal temperature difference (Administratium warmer than Unobtainium in this example) occurs the material with the higher thermal capacity (Unobtainium in our example) will immediately absorb all of the heat from the Administratium, thereby cooling it to the new lower temperature. Well, at first blush this is sort of correct, however, there is another very important factor involved; the thermal conductivity of the materials. A material with near infinite thermal capacity and near zero thermal conductivity is not very effective at cooling or heating another material. Likewise, a material with very high thermal conductivity and a very low thermal capacity is not very effective at cooling or heating another material.

This is of course described by a very important characteristic of real materials; the thermal diffusivity. This considers both the thermal capacity and the thermal conductivity of a material. The thermal diffusivity of a material is literally the “Speed of Heat” in a material and has units of area/time (i.e. m^2 /sec). I postulate that the increase of “GHGs” in the atmosphere actually increases the “Speed of Heat” in the atmosphere (since more heat/energy is transferred at the “Speed of Light” rather than at the “Speed of Heat”). Therefore, a permanent warming of the Earth due to “GHGs” is impossible.

Note that when Engineers want to move heat quickly (i.e. cool a microprocessor or laser diode) the materials of choice are Diamond (costly) and Copper (more practical) precisely because they exhibit some of the highest “Speed of Heat” characteristics available. Aluminum is an economical compromise used in most devices. Aluminum heat sinks and fans in computers act together to; quickly move the thermal energy to a large surface area so that the heat transfer via convection from the moving air is more effective. In fact many plastics have thermal capacities close to copper, but the thermal conductivity is “awful” so their usefulness in transferring heat is limited.

So if you are a Heretic in the climate science world, I must be an anti-Christ. (No offense intended against anyone’s religious beliefs).

Cheers, Kevin.

The problem with this theory is that in reality will any increase of a well mixed GHG broaden the spectral band. The result is precisely as Dr Spencer say increase outgoing radiation.
This because the atmosphere is heated by convection, shortwave radiation, latent heat, conduction and, but with very small amount, “captured” outgoing infrared radiation. But cooled nearly completely by infrared radiation.
With a cooling/heating factor in the range of about 10 are the atmosphere a more efficient radiant cooler than heater.
The AGW promoters tend to forget that the atmosphere is not so much heated by IR radiation as it is cooled by IR.
Radiative balance between slabs of the atmosphere does not exist since heat is lifted by mainly convection and latent heat.
The needed temperature difference for driving radiative heat transfer in any spectral band for a well mixed gas is also small inside the atmosphere due to the lapse rate but large towards cold space.
Water vapor and especially clouds is not well mixed in the atmosphere and have seen from space as well as from earth a surface with a wide spectral band. That cause green house effects or cooling due to boundary conditions both for incoming as well as for outgoing radiation.
But that is a completely different thing than for a non condensation well mixed gas. As CO2.