Home/BlogThe Global Precipitation Mission (GPM) core observatory is scheduled to be launched from Japan at about noon (CST) on Thursday, Feb. 27. It will be in a 65 deg. inclination orbit, providing the first mid- and high-latitude coverage of precipitation systems with a precipitation radar.
The joint Japan-U.S. mission will be used with a variety of other satellites already orbiting the Earth that provide passive microwave imagery of precipitation systems to provide nominal 3-hourly coverage of most areas on a daily basis. A major focus of the core satellite will be the measurement of light precipitation, especially at mid- and high-latitudes, facilitated with a dual-frequency radar (14 GHz and 35 GHz; the TRMM satellite has only the lower frequency).
Clearly, precipitation is a key weather and climate variable, and its measurement from space has always been a challenge. Radars are the most direct method, but spaceborne precipitation radars have a practical limitation on swath width, and thus global coverage and sampling. So, we use the radars to “train” our passive microwave retrievals using data from the wide-swath microwave imagers, like the GMI (GPM Microwave Imager, with frequencies from 10 to 183 GHz).
I am particularly interested in precipitation processes from the standpoint of precipitation being what regulates how much of our main greenhouse gas — water vapor — is allowed to accumulate in the atmosphere from evaporation. I still think positive water vapor feedback in global warming theory is not a done deal (climate modelers consider it indisputable, magnifying any warming influence by about a factor of 2), and the lack of significant feedback might explain why the tropics have not warmed significantly (and the upper tropospheric hot spot has failed to materialize). See our paper, How dry is the tropical free troposphere? Implications for global warming theory (1997 BAMS).
My very first research publication as a post-doc was on measuring rainfall over land, which appeared as a cover article in Nature (1983). I was very active in the field for about 10-15 years before measuring temperature (rather than precipitation) with microwaves became my main research focus, although I still interface with many of those in the precipitation retrieval business.
This video animation of the GPM core satellite launch and deployment of the instruments and solar arrays is pretty cool (the rotating antenna is the microwave imager…the radar is electrically scanning, and sits on the bottom of the spacecraft):
New Precipitation Satellite – How many people will have the authority to adjust the precipitation data, and what are their politics?
In twenty years, Global Precipitation Mission will be changed to Global Pollution Mission. If CO2 is pollution, then since water vapor in the atmosphere from evaporation is the most potent greenhouse gas, it is also a pollutant…or so we’ll be told, no doubt. Anything measuring a derivative of it will be considered measuring pollution.
That sounds crazy, I know, but thirty years ago if I said the same thing about CO2 rather than water vapor and precipitation, that would have also sounded crazy and yet here we are.
Thanks for putting this post up, Roy. This is REAL science. How refreshing…to make empirical, environmental observations and measurements rather than relying on “The Models” to provide them for us.
In my experience, satellite observationalists spend all of their time on figuring out how to observe better. Few of them get involved in figuring out what the observations mean in the big picture.
On the other “side”, the modelers tend to use the observations in only a cursory manner…for example to see if their models roughly match the *averages* of the observations.
I copy that, Roy. I think part of the issue is increased specialization invoked by more sophisticated and complex technology. Not that I’m eschewing the technology; better observations are a good thing.
It’s much tougher, if not impossible, to be a Galileo or a da Vinchi these days. As you imply, the raw data observations need to be interpreted holistically, and if one’s focus is wrapped up in maintaining models against observations, or maintaining the observation instrumentation, we obviously have a gap, and no one holistically to oversee the entire process. Galileo and da Vinchi et al could do that in their day; conduct and oversee the entire process. Sadly, no longer. Still, there’s a way around or through it. Seeing the cracks in the process and having the collectively concomitant motivation to fill them could do the trick…but it’s a tall order.
Here’s a highly informative essay on specialization as it relates to science and society. It’s worth noting how the AGW Consensus crowd uses specialization as an appeal to authority in their argumentation. How many times have we heard or seen “well he/she isn’t a climate scientist?” Too many to count and what that does is censor, or in the least marginalize the opinions of legitimate scientists who have the right and merit to weigh in on the topic, i.e. physicists and oceanographers for example. The AGW Theory transcends many disciplines of science, imo, so to sequester it to the purview of climate scientists only is stifling and proprietary.
http://faculty.history.wisc.edu/hollingsworth/documents/Snare_of_Specialization.pdf
I think it is most useful to use data on precipitation to implicitly measure evaporation (since the two must essentially be equivalent except on very short time scales). Evaporation is a major component of the surface energy budget-any change in which must manifest as a change in the top of the atmosphere energy balance that is approximately equivalent.
It’s worth noting that evaporation appears to increase rapidly on a global scale with temperature, relative to where models place it. This translates to a realization that the Earth’s surface cools much more efficiently, at least by evaporation, as it warms-that is, a negative feedback. And one of sufficient magnitude to drastically diminish the response of the system to perturbation. And since this same feedback is much smaller in models, if follows that, ceteris paribus, the models have too high of a sensitivity. In order to counter this observation, modelers need to explain where the large positive feedback underestimated by models is to cancel this out. Near as I can tell, they haven’t got an explanation. Nobody claims the water vapor feedback is underestimated by models, to my knowledge-only that it is about right. As I recall it is acknowledged that correlations between temperature and clouds are not statistically significant so it is unlikely there is a big cloud feedback-at least, in the “mainstream” analyses. Ice-albedo is not really significant on this timescale, globally, in an already warm climate. So where does the effect that can cancel this feedback come from?
…except the models which predict large warming DO increase evaporation (and precipitation) with warming. As I recall, by an average of about 5% per deg. C of warming.
What is interesting to me is the unknown of precipitation *efficiency*…if precipitation efficiency goes up, temperatures go down, and so evaporation (and precipitation) go down. So, high precipitation efficiency leads to less precipitation.
Roy, you are recalling wrong. Models typically see evaporation increase between 1 and 3% per degree. The observations suggest closer to 7%.
OK, I see the CMIP5 models average 2.3% precip increase per deg C of warming.
But we don’t have good enough observations to validate that. Yes I know about the Wentz study (I co-authored the original rainfall retrieval paper with him), the large increase in rainfall he sees with warming is contaminated by an increase in cloud water, which passive microwave observations can’t distinguish from rain water.
We once did a study using a cloud resolving model, which grows its own rain systems, and doubled CO2 in it. The increase in model rainfall with warming was much less than microwave simulations computed from the model output suggested. It was an increase in total suspended condensate in the model atmosphere that caused a false signal of rain increase.
Rain measurement is an extremely difficult problem. What we really need is actual rain gauges covering the Earth…but I’m afraid that might adversely upset the climate system 😉
Roy
Moist air in double glazed windows helps to radiate the energy across the gap more quickly, reducing the insulating effect. So too does water vapor in the troposphere.
You have not answered my question about the sensitivity to water vapor because you whole nonsense about isothermal temperatures is a complete fiction. I suggest you read the comment below, because thousands of others will be. A study I am also publishing in April proves with statistical significance that greater precipitation leads to lower mean daily maximum and minimum temperatures. This is hardly surprising when we know that the moist lapse rate is less steep, and so the temperature plot rotates downwards at the surface end and up at the tropopause in order to maintain radiative balance with the Sun.
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3 DAYS UNTIL YOUR FALSE PHYSICS IS REBUTTED ALL OVER THE INTERNET ROY
I make no bones about the fact that I am determined to stamp out the travesty of physics which is promulgated on warmist and luke warm climate blogs. This comment appears on several of them already, with many more to come.
Roy Spencer still cannot prove with any valid physics his crazy postulate that there would be isothermal conditions in Earth’s troposphere in the absence of water vapour and radiating gases. The greenhouse conjecture depends totally upon this garbage “fissics” that would violate the entropy conditions of the Second Law of Thermodynamics. All the models depend totally on this weird idea which is never observed anywhere on any planet or moon, not even on Uranus where the base of the nominal troposphere is hotter than Earth.
Roy only needs to look at the data for the Uranus troposphere to realise that thermal gradients (aka “lapse rates”) evolve spontaneously at the molecular level. Radiating gases reduce the gradient (and thus cool the surface) due to inter-molecular radiation. They help energy escape faster up the troposphere and eventually to space. Radiation that strikes any warmer surface is just pseudo scattered.
There is no need for advection (upward rising gases) or any direct solar radiation or a surface: the lapse rate just forms autonomously as gravity acts on molecules in free flight between collisions.
That is why the (badly named) “lapse rate” on Earth, Venus, Uranus, the outer crust of Earth, the core of the Moon – everywhere – evolves spontaneously in solids, liquids and gases. That is why radiative forcing is not what is the primary determinant of any planet’s atmospheric or surface temperature – gravity is – gravity traps energy.
Water vapour reduces the insulation effect – just consider the problem with moist air in double glazed windows. Moist regions are cooler than dry regions – I have proved that with real world temperature records.
You’ll find the study in my book “Why it’s not carbon dioxide after all” available late April from Amazon etc. and from which I quote …
“The world will one day look back upon a small slice of history that began in the 1980’s and sadly have to conclude that never in the name of science have so many people been so seriously misled by so few for so long. Never have so many careers, so much time and so much money been spent in the pursuit of such a misguided and ineffective goal to reduce human emissions of carbon dioxide, a harmless gas which comprises about one molecule in every two and a half thousand other molecules in the atmosphere of our planet, Earth.”
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Uh oh…the Sky Dragon Slayers are back! I was wondering when the sequel would return. Get out the popcorn!!
And glad to see you are still kicking, Doug.
What exactly is meant by “all over the Internet” anyway?
Strange… if we have winds from the east we have a cold and dry nights temperatures drop fast. During winds from the west air is humid and temperatures hardly drop at night.
clear sky and almost no wind ofcourse
I recently moved to Alberta from the UK. It is much drier here and much colder. Just a real world observation.
Doug is mistaken in his physics, as I read him. Specifically, I read him as denying a well accepted thermodynamic concept. The concept that I read Doug as denying is for an ideal hypothetical thermodynamic system, in a tall vertical columnar perfectly insulating vessel, in a vertical gravity field, that has reached thermodynamic equilibrium in itself. Being isolated, its only interaction with other physical objects is, by hypothesis, by gravity.
At thermodynamic equilibrium, the material inside the column has one uniform temperature, the same at every altitude. This is accepted thermodynamics.
As I read Doug, he denies that uniformity, and he thinks that the temperature inside the equilibrium column varies evenly with altitude, being colder at the top. As I read him, he thinks that, compared with molecules at the bottom, molecules at the top have less average microscopic molecular kinetic energy, because they have lost potential energy in rising to the top. This fallacy is well-known and has been analysed by experts. The problem for Doug is that only a statistically few molecules with initially more kinetic energy, starting at the bottom, will make it up to the top. The result is that the average kinetic energy of the molecules in the equilibrium vessel is uniform, the same at every altitude.
As far as I can see, Doug has made no effort to come to terms with this simple idea.
Of course, in the real atmosphere, as contrasted with the hypothetical thermodynamic system described above, the temperature is higher at the bottom of the troposphere than at the top of it. This is because sunlight heats the earth’s surface more effectively than it heats the atmosphere, and the earth’s surface is consequently mostly hotter than the rest of the troposphere. This effect is not uniform over the various latitudes, and at the poles, especially in winter, the reverse is often the case, that the ice is colder than the effective average tropospheric air above it. This happens often also overnight in other latitudes.
The top of the troposphere has fairly ready access to the cold of outer space, and so it cools by radiation more than does the bottom of the troposphere, which has less ready access to the cold of outer space. This radiative effect is moderated by tropospheric convective circulation which transports internal energy from the lowest troposphere (which is in contact with the earth’s surface) to the upper troposphere. This tends to warm the upper troposphere, but not enough to remove the overall average temperature difference that is caused by radiation.
“At thermodynamic equilibrium, the material inside the column has one uniform temperature, the same at every altitude. This is accepted thermodynamics.”
You are wrong, Christopher Game..
The second law of thermodynamics states that “Every process occurring in nature proceeds in the sense in which the sum of the entropies of all bodies taking part in the process is increased.
The isothermal column you postulate has unbalanced energy potentials, there being greater mean gravitational potential energy per molecule in the higher molecules, with no compensating reduction in mean kinetic energy per molecule – that is, no reduction in temperature. Hence there is still more spontaneous evolving to take place as entropy can still increase.
The argument you present is well known, and I have previously shown where it is flawed. The basic fallacy centres around the fact that the truth is that temperature is based on the mean kinetic energy per molecule, not the total kinetic energy of all molecules. In other words, temperature does not depend on density.
Your assumption about only those molecules with more KE going upwards also shows a lack of understanding of basic Kinetic Theory such as used successfully by Einstein and many others. At thermodynamic equilibrium I think we can at least agree that there is homogeneous temperature in a horizontal plane. This means when molecules collide they have equal kinetic energy, or are tending that way and becoming more equal in KE after the collision. Now, the collision is a random process and the direction in which each molecule leaves is not a function of its kinetic energy but purely dependent on the angle and direction of impact, rather like snooker balls colliding.
Your point about the top of the atmosphere cooling faster is absurd. It has less water vapour for a start, in that 99% of water vapour is in the troposphere and most is below 5Km altitude. The intensity of radiation is proportional to the fourth power of the temperature, and so somewhat more radiation emanates at the higher temperatures. In fact, I estimate that half of all outward radiation comes from altitudes less than the “pivoting altitude” at about 4Km or even a little less.
Intermolecular radiation between water molecules (not latent heat release) reduces the thermal gradient (compare wet and dry lapse rates) and the thermal plot rotates around the pivoting altitude (about 4Km) such that the surface end is cooler and the tropopause end warmer.
Now, the evidence for the spontaneous thermal gradient is staring you in the face in data about the Uranus troposphere where it’s hotter than Earth (320K) at the nominal base of the troposphere, but there is no significant solar radiation reaching down there, no surface and no convincing evidence of significant internal energy generation. Explain that before we continue this discussion.
A gravitational potential is not a thermodynamic potential in the sense that is appropriate for calculating maximum entropy. It does not of itself affect the entropy.
I am not talking about gravitational potential. I am talking about gravitational potential energy which converts to kinetic energy when anything, notably a molecule, has a downward component in its velocity. Nor am I talking about a thermodynamic potential – just an unbalanced total energy potential which enables a further increase in entropy.
An isothermal state in a vertical plane in a gravitational field is not a state of maximum entropy accessible to the system.
As you have no other explanation than mine for the near -g/Cp thermal gradient in the Uranus troposphere, and as you have no other explanation than mine as to how the required energy gets into the Venus surface to raise its temperature by 5 degrees over the course of its 4-month-day day, and as you have no other explanation than mine for the thermal gradient within the Moon, I rest my case unless and until you produce such.
From my book I quote …
Let us consider a thought experiment in which a region of a non-radiating gas of mass M all happens to move downwards by a small height difference, H in a “closed system” where g is the acceleration due to gravity. The loss in PE will thus be the product M.g.H because a force Mg moves the gas a distance H. But there will be a corresponding gain in KE and that will be equal to the energy required to warm the gas by a small temperature difference, T. This energy can be calculated using the specific heat Cp and this calculation yields the product M.Cp.T. Bearing in mind that there was a PE loss and a KE gain, we thus have …
M.Cp.T = – M.g.H
T/H = -g/Cp
But T/H is the temperature gradient, which is thus the quotient -g/Cp.
This result is well known, as is the fact that the atmospheres of all planets exhibit a similar temperature gradient that can be calculated from the gravitational force on that planet and the mean specific heat of the gases in its atmosphere.
If any reader is having trouble visualising molecules in free flight between collisions maintaining
(KE+PE)=constant
they may wish to read up on Kinetic Theory noting, in particular, these two assumptions …
“The average kinetic energy of the gas particles depends only on the absolute temperature of the system.
Because they have mass, the gas molecules will be affected by gravity.”
D o u g 8:43pm: “If any reader is having trouble visualising molecules in free flight..”
ALL readers have trouble visualizing that collision including you. The (KE+PE) cannot remain constant in the collision though the energy is conserved and still increase entropy to make the process real. As you correctly noted 2/25 7:08pm.
I submit it is a mistake and you are out of your depth (D o u g term) to concentrate on what happens to an individual molecule which is impossible to say. Emission is determined by temperature, which in turn is a property of an ensemble of many molecules.
Consider a gas of many molecules illuminated by IR radiation. Absorption of some of this radiation results in an increase in the temperature of the gas. Some molecules that absorb IR photons must de-excite sometimes partly by non-radiative processes. If this were not true, it would be impossible to increase the temperature of a gas.
D o u g – You need to stop and think way more, give cites to proper 1st principle explanations, to understand if what you write really makes any sense.
Ball4 I have replied here to your comment above. I suggest you study the assumptions in the link I provided therein to Kinetic Theory.
And Ball4 the reason I said below that you did not understand my point is that, firstly you quote my sentence about “free Flight” and then you refer to such free flight as being a collision. Then you ramble on with information about radiation that I learnt decades ago, but which has no relevance to the spontaneous formation of the isentropic thermal gradient in a gravitational field.
If you feel you must discuss radiative forcing (which I now say is almost totally irrelevant in relation to planetary core and surface temperatures) then please read first my peer-reviewed paper “Radiated Energy and the Second Law of Thermodynamics” published on several websites two years ago this month.
D o u g C o t t o n 2:45am: “I believe what physicists are now saying about “pseudo scattering” which I called “resonant scattering” in that paper two years ago.”
This physics hypothesis would enable unopened bank vaults to explode in blinding flashes of light at some point. This is unobserved in the wild. Your paper fails, I did read and understand that paper.
Here’s why in simple but principled assertion. All matter greater than 0K emits photons. Photons possess momentum and thus can exert pressure integrated over a surface where they are deposited. The inside walls of unopened bank vaults are matter substantially greater than 0K in all cases therefore these walls emit photons – in the dark to lying human eyes but the walls glow in instrumentation eyes.
If these photons are not absorbed by the same bank vault walls but “pseudo scattering” or “resonant scattering” is taking place, the photons will remain in their bath inside the vault and continuously build up until their pressure rises above the strength of the vault walls. Explosion.
Ask bank tellers – opening the bank vault in the morning day after day – does this result in any photonic pressure relief being observed. The weight of observations shows the photons emitted really are absorbed back into the vault walls and an energy balance is struck with room temperature – supplied by furnace or A/C energy being used up.
******
At 7:18 am you agree the Second Law says entropy relentlessly increases in all real processes.
At 11:49 pm you state: “…Venus or Uranus tropospheres…with its isentropic state…”
This is not isolated comment. You write this over and over and over. Isentropic means constant entropy. Yet Venus and Uranus are real processes, they can’t achieve constant entropy, isentropic state. In reality, Venus & Uranus system entropy must relentlessly increase. There is no hope for your isentropic hypothesis’ violation of what you write & agree with, the 2nd Law.
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2:13am: “Radiation….has no relevance…”
Shield the Earth 100% from the sun’s radiation, as some have proposed to do partially. Calculate how long the g/Cp gradient will support the surface temperature for homework to discover if radiation really has no relevance over the eons.
Hint: You can use the 1st law and the mass & Cp of Earth’s atm. and integrate a simple differential eqn. More hints upon request. Dr. Spencer demonstrated the method for you once before IIRC. In a downloadable spreadsheet even.
1:58am: You give link to Kinetic Theory. This shows you being misled by the writing of interim authors changing the words of the original grand master authors – you have to go back, cite what they really wrote in their words to learn from those grand masters. Try this one, may be above your pay grade & you can advance learning to be up for promotion:
http://www.jstor.org/stable/108968
It seems like Ball4 has worked out a way to create energy. The process of pseudo scattering is identical energy-wise to diffuse reflection. Obviously no energy is created when light is reflected, but Ball4 seems to think that, perhaps if there were mirrors on the inside of the vault, then all he would need is to leave a torch inside and the whole thing would explode. The only thing that explodes would be his pseudo fissics.
I’ll leave it to him to argue with Prof. Johnson on his blog. He will know who I mean and what he wrote about computational blackbody radiation, because any inquiring student will tend to not only read a paper, but also at least the main cited papers therein.
We still haven’t heard what completed qualifications Ball4 has in physics, but he writes with the typical lack of understanding that I often find among my first year university physics students fresh out of a high school system which teaches them crap about carbon dioxide.
Ball4 says “In reality, Venus & Uranus system entropy must relentlessly increase.”
No, entropy can only increase to a maximum that is imposed by the parameters and physical confines of the isolated system being considered. If you drop an egg, the floor confines it so that entropy cannot increase further within that system. If you had dropped it out the window then, yes, entropy could have increased more.
In the case of a troposphere that maximum entropy state to which it tends (but never completely reaches because of weather conditions) is the isentropic state. Frankly, I find that pretty obvious, because when entropy is homogeneous at all altitudes (and we thus have a temperature gradient) then we do not have unbalanced energy potentials, and so entropy cannot increase any more, and so it is at the maximum which corresponds to thermodynamic equilibrium.
D o u g 6:35pm: “…physical confines of the isolated system being considered….so entropy cannot increase… “
Fine for idealized work, but not for real processes like Venus and Uranus which are hardly the isolated systems you claim to consider them to be. Planets are real processes, they increase universe entropy relentlessly & will not achieve a maximum entropy for a looooong time to come.
6:27pm: D o u g shows no sign of learning from Maxwell, Clausius/Carnot papers. Their credentials are self evident superior to B.Sc. Physics. These papers inform mirrors added to a bank vault will still absorb, scatter AND reflect photons, mirrors are not immune to 2nd law as is hypothesized “resonant scattering” and “pseudo-scattering” not being observed in the wild.
Ball4 attempts yet another smear with a reference to my B.Sc. majoring in physics. I can assure readers that the physics required in my papers and the book is well within the scope of such a degree course, but, in addition, I have spent nearly five decades in post-graduate study and tutoring of university students. I gained a high position in the state of NSW and won a university scholarship in physics, which I studied under Prof Harry Messel and his team. Without correct understanding of physics you get nowhere.
The issue at the poles, as well as in the stratosphere and the ocean thermoclines has to do with the very slow speed of the diffusion process. This is overridden by rapid absorption of new thermal energy from insolation, and also by wind with any upward or downward component in its direction. You won’t detect the gravity gradient in oceans subjected to solar radiation and currents, but it is observed in still, isolated underground lakes in Antarctica and some calm regions of the Arctic ocean in winter.
The fact that the volume of the troposphere above any two equally spaced lines of latitude (right around the globe) decreases dramatically as you approach the poles creates what I call a “funnel effect.” In winter the height of the troposphere also reduces at the poles from about 10Km in summer down to about 7Km in winter. So the “funnel effect” produces strong downward winds at the poles which literally carry air from the tropopause directly to the surface without it having time to warm.
“Doug is mistaken in his physics, as I read him. Specifically, I read him as denying a well accepted thermodynamic concept. The concept that I read Doug as denying is for an ideal hypothetical thermodynamic system, in a tall vertical columnar perfectly insulating vessel, in a vertical gravity field, that has reached thermodynamic equilibrium in itself. Being isolated, its only interaction with other physical objects is, by hypothesis, by gravity.
At thermodynamic equilibrium, the material inside the column has one uniform temperature, the same at every altitude. This is accepted thermodynamics.”
With such vertical column in gravity well, one must have density gradient. And the pressure is the mass of the
gas which higher in the vertical column, so also always have pressure gradient.
And:
“The temperature of a gas is a measure of the average translational kinetic energy of the molecules. In a hot gas, the molecules move faster than in a cold gas; the mass remains the same, but the kinetic energy, and hence the temperature, is greater because of the increased velocity of the molecules.”
https://www.grc.nasa.gov/www/k-12/airplane/temptr.html
So if have same number molecules within some volume of area
and you increase the velocity of molecules then the temperature is higher
And if have the same gas and you don’t have same number molecules within a given volume, and molecule are moving the same speed that is a lower temperature of gas.
This means where there is less gas in volume the molecules must be traveling faster in order for it to be same temperature.
Or less density requires faster molecules- or it’s same as with mixed gases- or this an expression of ideal gas law. Lower density of helium molecule must travel faster than denser argon molecules when at same temperature. Or pure
helium gas has higher velocity of it’s molecules at 20 C,
than pure argon at 20 C. And if mixed the individual molecules of either helium or argon maintain their velocity
at 20 C.
Ok So if have 2 billion billion molecule going average of 400 m/s in cubic meter, if have 1 billion billion molecules in same cubic meter, then for it to be same temperature requires that molecules average velocity to be higher than 400 m/s.
Now, there is *much* difference in velocity- because kinetic energy is velocity squared.
KE equal 1/2 mass times velocity square.
2 [billion billion] times 1/2 times 400 m/s times 400 m/s is 160,000
565.68 squared is 320,000
1 times 1/2 times 565.68 m/s times 565.68 m/s is about
160,000.
But what this means is our universe would not exist As balls of hydrogen could not form.
But if just look at Earth, in Earth atmosphere there is difference of density much greater 2 to 1.
So say 1/100th rather than 1/2. That makes gas velocity
of 4000 m/s. Hmm that is less than escape velocity-
no, wait it’s 5656.85 m/s, but still less escape.
Ok let’s try 1/1000th: that’s 17888.5 m/s well over
escape velocity.
So Earth atmosphere might take a few years to evaporate.
But anyway there no reason or principle which would cause
gas molecules to increase in velocity the higher they are up a gravity well.
Or we do have very fast molecules of gas in high attitude,
but there is other unrelated reasons why this happens.
No, for any given temperature the molecules do not have to “move faster” when the density decreases. You are confusing pressure with temperature. It is pressure which is proportional to the product of density and temperature. Temperature is a measure of the mean kinetic energy per molecule. And, by the way, the kinetic energy is divided equally among all degrees of freedom as a result of collisions.
1 more day left until the reveal. Popcorn in hand.
Dr. Spencer.
Probably off topic but being an amateur radio too, I really wonder about the GPM antenna (the one you named GPM microwave imager or GMI.
Into the animation it seem to me that its FOV is parallel to the DPR plane.
Which is the orbital setup of the satellite?
I mean: I suppose that the DPR exposes its face to the Earth surface during the final orbital path, so how could the GMI reflector see the ground below in that position?
Even if the FOV is not what I think and the reflector “looks” down, is not that alternative FOV obstructed in most of the rotation by the satellite body?
Have a nice day.
Massimo
The rotating reflector is the GMI…it is a conical scanner…scans the imaginary surface of a cone. The satellite is not in the way.
The antenna staring sideways is for communications.
Also, these satellite are designed so there is no RF interference between the various transmitters and receivers.
Ok I went to the NASA dedicated web site and it looks down for 140° ahead and uses parts of its body views to calibrate itself.
http://pmm.nasa.gov/GPM/flight-project/GMI
Thank you.
Massimo
Massimo, I dug into Dr. Spencer’s archive and found this piece written by Dr. Christy that might interest you… (I noticed your back and forth with “big appell”)
Addressing the Criticisms of the UAH Temperature Data Set at 1/3 Century; December 21, 2011
Buona Giornata…
Thank you Fonzie,
I remember that thread and the one about the Aqua Ch5.
I know that the “things” coming from UAH are much scientific than “someone” would they to be.
Buona giornata anche a te.
Massimo
Satellite data to me is the most objective data we have to go by. The more data derived from Satellites the better.
Thanks, Dr. Spencer. Good News!
If these new measurements help pin down the positive feedback question … Welcome GPM!
Roy and others
(a) I have not been a member of that organisation for several months.
(b) Alberta temperatures are cooler partly because of the 1,000 metre altitude. UK temperatures are affected by the island nature and the temperatures of the surrounding oceans.
The study I did includes 30 years of data from inland locations on three continents and the results have statistical significance. Merely comparing two locations would be nothing but anecdotal.
OK – I’ll give you the results of the study …
TABLE OF TEMPERATURE AND RAINFALL DATA FOR 15 TROPICAL CITIES
City, Country/State, Continent, Altitude, Maximum, Minimum, Rainfall, Adj* Max, Adj Min
01: Manaus, Brazil, SA, 39m, 27.3, 18.7, 238.7, 23.4, 14.8
02: Goiania, Brazil, SA, 749m, 30.1, 19.5, 209.6, 31.1, 20.5
03: Kadoma, Zimbabwe, AF, 1160m, 28.6, 17.7, 183.2, 32.5, 21.6
04: Halls Creek, Western Australia, AU, 422m, 36.6, 24.4, 164.9, 35.4, 23.2
05: Charters Towers, Queensland, AU, 336m, 33.5, 22.4, 164.7, 31.7, 20.6
06: Pedro Juan Caballero, Paraguay, SA, 563m, 29.9, 20.4, 160.4, 29.6, 20.1
07: Mariscal Jose Felix Estigarribia, Paraguay, SA, 151m, 35.4, 22.9, 129.3, 32.0, 19.5
08: Mount Isa, Queensland, AU, 356m, 36.4, 23.7, 117.3, 34.6, 21.9
09: Francistown, Botswana, AF, 1001m, 30.8, 18.9, 115.5, 33.8, 21.9
10: Maun, Botswana, AF, 943m, 32.2, 19.8, 109.4, 34.8, 22.4
11: Ghanzi, Botswana, AF, 1100m, 32.4, 19.3, 104, 36.4, 23.3
12: Longreach, Queensland, AU, 193m, 37.1, 23.3, 73.0, 33.8, 20.0
13: Beitbridge, Zimbabwe, AF, 456m, 33.5, 21.9, 56.8, 32.3, 20.7,
14: Paraburdoo, Western Australia, AU, 389m, 41.2, 26.0, 51.4, 39.5, 24.3
15: Alice Springs, Northern Territory, AU, 545m, 36.9, 21.8, 39.9, 36.5, 21.4
* At 600m: for 01 to 05 use gradient 7C/Km, 06 to 10 use 7.5C/Km, 11 to 15 use 8C/Km
Means of Adjusted Daily Maximum and Daily Minimum Temperatures
Wet (01-05): 30.8°C 20.1°C
Medium (06-10): 33.0°C 21.2°C
Dry (11-15): 35.7°C 21.9°C
Conclusions:
There is clearly no indication of any warming effect related to water vapour and so no evidence for the assumed positive feedback, which is a fundamental building block for the greenhouse conjecture. Rather, the opposite appears to be the case, and water vapour does in fact appear to have the cooling effect anticipated by the hypothesis in this book.
It may well be argued that the sample was not large enough, but this must surely indicate a need for some attempt to confirm such a crucial assumption, which is vital for there to be any validity in the greenhouse conjecture that carbon dioxide has a warming effect. If water vapour does in fact have a negative feedback (as it radiates heat to higher, cooler regions, or direct to space) then so too would carbon dioxide have such a cooling effect, albeit far less in magnitude. It is noted that carbon dioxide would cause a minuscule increase in the temperature gradient because it has a slightly lower specific heat than air, but calculations show that such an increase is not as great as the decrease caused by inter-molecular radiation. The overall effect of carbon dioxide appears to be net cooling of less than one-tenth of a degree.
Roy
I suggest what I have done in this study (which I first drew your attention to a year ago and emailed you again last week) could be enlarged (with perhaps 100 inland cities or locations from the whole of the tropics) and, if done along the lines outlined in the book (and the March 2013 paper) then I am confident it would put to rest the whole issue and confirm beyond doubt that water vapour cools, in accord with my hypothesis based on isentropic, not isothermal conditions evolving.
Without precipitation, what is left in the end?
Oh to view Earth from Space, no?
Even if there are assumed and presumed Evil producers, they did a great job!
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/earth/earth-from-space.html
For entertainment purposes only😎
It is easy to say, as Dr Spencer knows, that when the surface of the earth, especially the surface of the ocean, is hotter, then there is more evaporation and more moisture in the lowest troposphere. But what happens higher up is not so obvious or well known. The IPCC fellows want that greater moistness to persist to higher altitudes, but the evidence is not water-tight. It is perhaps the case that the higher troposphere is less moist, and it is also perhaps the case that the effect of the lesser moisture of the upper troposphere has a radiative effect that outweighs the greater moisture in the lowest troposphere. If good evidence is found by better measurements, it seems to me quite possible that Dr Spencer’s suggestion, of no positive feedback by radiative effect of water vapour, will be found right.
Yes, there’s no positive warming effect due to water vapour in the first place.
Radiation from a colder atmosphere cannot possibly transfer thermal energy to a warmer surface. That’s basic physics. The radiation is merely scattered and its electromagnetic energy never gets converted to thermal energy. See my paper “Radiated Energy and the Second Law of Thermodynamics” published two years ago and easily found on several websites.
Then study the results just above for inland tropical cities at altitudes less than 1,200 metres.
If you, Roy or anyone can produce contrary results with your own study then show me the data. I’ve put my cards on the table and this is the only place where that data will appear until the book comes out in April.
“this is the only place where that data will appear until the book comes out in April.” correct because no other site would show you the courtesy of presenting it.
ColdinOz
And what do you have to say about the proof in that study that water vapour cools instead of warms as the IPCC authors would have you believe?
What is your estimate of the sensitivity to a 1% increase in water vapour?
What is you explanation as to why the base of the Uranus troposphere is hotter than Earth?
What is your explanation as to why the core of the Moon is hotter than the surface ever is?
Answer or keep out of this, because you are out of your depth.
Doug
Sydney
D o u g 3:43am:
“And what do you have to say about the proof in that study that water vapour cools instead of warms as the IPCC authors would have you believe?”
The precipitable water in the column above each of your cities and the column temperatures are the key parameters to know for your study and you do not even use them. Higher water vapor (wv) and higher temperature means higher probability of increased DWIR at one site over another. Whether “dry” or “not” (D o u g terms).
Deserts are regions of descending air (lee side of mountain ranges) which makes them dryer but not necessarily have less DWIR from the column above than say Madison, Wisc. Alice Springs is a region of descending air from Hadley Cell action.
You need to calculate the partial pressure of wv, est. percentage difference in density of wv above to form a correct opinion on temperature at surface.
“What is your estimate of the sensitivity to a 1% increase in water vapour?”
wv varies up and down all the time, the real key answer is the sensitivity to CO2 ppm which is monotonic recently. Estimate 0.16C 20th Century, .GT. 0.49C for 21st century (from Callendar 1938) for added CO2 ppm.
“What is you explanation as to why the base of the Uranus troposphere is hotter than Earth?”
Myriad specialist papers show the energy of Uranus formation from in falling material has not had the necessary time to escape to deep space sink over the solar system lifetime to date. There is likely some fission continuing at depth and the decrease in height of atm. is not known exactly.
“What is your explanation as to why the core of the Moon is hotter than the surface ever is?”
See last answer, substitute “Moon” for “Uranus”, delete the comment about atm. height decrease.
Ball4
Again you keep talking about radiation, and I strongly recommend you read my paper on it so that you can at least understand that I believe what physicists are now saying about “pseudo scattering” which I called “resonant scattering” in that paper two years ago.
I was a bit ahead of most of them and had not seen the term pseudo scattering at the time – but it’s the same process whereby an electron jumps between energy states, but then instantly emits an identical photon – before the extra electron energy can go through the complicated process of being converted to kinetic energy, which would be shared evenly between the translational, rotational and vibrational degree of freedom in accord with the Equipartition Theorem.
You avoid estimating the sensitivity to 1% increase in water vapour. It must be around 5 to 10 degrees, so your deserts with, say, 1% would have be 15 to 30 degrees cooler than rain forests with 4% water vapour at similar altitude and latitude. Not very likely my friend!
No, the unique thing about Uranus is that there is no convincing evidence of any significant net energy loss, and the maximum likely loss is nothing like what would be expected to be coming from the small 5,000K solid core. Venus cools by 5 degrees during its 4-month-long night and at that rate both these planets, and the Moon, could easily have cooled off if gravity were not maintaining a thermal gradient.
But, if you still feel on top of all this, then try explaining just precisely how the required thermal energy gets into the surface of Venus in order to warm it from about 732K to about 737K spread over the course of its 4-month-long day. The explanation is not in any currently published paper or book, so don’t bother referring me to any, which I’ve probably read anyway in my thousands of hours of research.
D o u g C o t t o n 2:45am: “..try explaining just precisely how the required thermal energy gets into the surface of Venus in order to warm it from about 732K to about 737K spread over the course of its 4-month-long day.”
At dawn on Venus, the sun also rises. Deposits an added ~17 W/m^2 mean solar flux local at the surface vs. none at night. The Venus atm. composition has no true IR window wavelengths .GT. ~3 μm. Local Tmean increases to 1st law equilibrium consistent with 2nd law. Then the sun sets. Get another local equilibrium, start over.
Even if radiation were the only source of energy for the Venus surface (which it isn’t) and the surface were a true blackbody with absorptivity and emissivity both 1.000 then
(a) the flux for 732K would be 16,279 W/m^2
(b) the flux for 737K would be 16,728 W/m^2
So there is a difference of 449 W/m^2 which is quite a bit more than the 17 W/m^2 from the Sun, I suggest.
There is only more evaporation if the temperature gap between the surface and abutting air increases, not if the temperature itself increases but the gap reduces significantly, as can happen.
It is not radiative forcing which is the primary determinant of planetary surface temperatures. There is ample evidence on Venus and Uranus to support this statement.
Rather it is the gravitationally induced thermal gradient which evolves spontaneously as the isentropic state of maximum entropy is approached – as the Second Law of Thermodynamics tells us will happen spontaneously.
When new energy is absorbed in the top of the Venus or Uranus tropospheres it is transferred downwards to warmer regions by a slow diffusion process that restores thermodynamic equilibrium with its isentropic state, wherein the mean sum of molecular kinetic energy and gravitational potential energy tends towards being homogeneous. It’s not hard to understand.
Christopher (and others) ..
See also this comment above (replying to yours) and the one after it.
Yes, exactly as Christopher has stated.
.
Roy – I have rebutted Christopher comprehensively above.
How about you, Roy, explain why the Uranus troposphere is isentropic (thus with an autonomous thermal gradient which is about 95% of the -g/Cp value) rather than being isothermal in accord with your philosophy.
You are stumped, Roy Spencer, are you not?
If you think not, explain what happens in the Uranus troposphere where the base of the troposphere is hotter than Earth’s surface, even though Uranus has no surface there and no direct solar radiation either.
I repeat, YOU ARE STUMPED ROY.
Christopher seems to think that mechanical energy plays no part in thermodynamics – that car brakes and tyres don’t get hot due to friction, that a hammer can’t make a nail hot.
Any process which involves an irreversible conversion of any form of energy to any other form of energy brings about an increase in entropy, even though total energy is the same, as in (KE+PE)=constant. Apples don’t “fall” back up onto trees.
As per Wiki …
The second law of thermodynamics states that “Every process occurring in nature proceeds in the sense in which the sum of the entropies of all bodies taking part in the process is increased.”
I see no mention of any restriction to thermodynamic potential, do you? You could call it the Second Law of Physics.
“Stanley Sandler, in his 1989 Chemical and Engineering Thermodynamics, described how given any thermodynamic process, a quantity TS can be interpreted as the amount of mechanical energy that has been converted into thermal energy by viscous dissipation, dispersion, and other system irreversibilities.”
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entropy_(energy_dispersal)
Doug:
And you sir, are shouting rather than informing.
If all the 20 odd comments I’ve spent hours writing for readers here are not informing them as to the correct answer for the trillion dollar question “isentropic or isothermal?” then the 20 odd pages (complete with diagrams) in my book will perhaps do a better job.
As part of my method of teaching physics these last 5 decades I have always found it highly desirable to use a questioning technique. For example, if you yourself try thinking about the three questions I have posed on Uranus, Venus and the Moon, then you may either understand immediately, or be in a better position to ask genuine questions of me which I am more than willing to answer in great detail.
In thermodynamics, the total energy of a body is considered to be split into three parts, bulk kinetic energy, bulk potential energy, and internal energy. Total energy = bulk kinetic energy + bulk potential energy + internal energy.
The kinetic and potential energies of single molecules are not directly considered in thermodynamics, because they do not directly fit into the classification of bulk kinetic and potential energies. They are directly considered in the kinetic theory of gases.
Interconversion of kinetic energy and potential energy according to the rule (KE+PE)=constant is reversible, and does not change the entropy.
The entropy is calculated from thermodynamic potentials, especially the internal energy, which exclude bulk kinetic and bulk potential energies. To see that, one needs to know the definition of entropy.
An apple falls from a tree because of what is known to thermodynamics as a thermodynamic operation, not a natural thermodynamic process. That is to say, the apple falls because the constraints on its motion are changed by rotting of the stem. The branch remnant of the stem is not part of the falling apple, but it was an external contributor to the fall.
Kelvin spoke of “inanimate agency” as the defining feature of a natural process; rotting would not count as an inanimate agency for this purpose.
The actual fall of the apple is reversible, according to the rule (KE + PE)=constant. The apple can be thrown vertically up and it is still affected by gravity, and comes to instantaneous rest at the top of its orbit, according to that rule.
Its hitting the ground is irreversible.
Christopher Game writes …
“Interconversion of kinetic energy and potential energy according to the rule (KE+PE)=constant is reversible, and does not change the entropy.”
Yep. And that’s why we have reached the state of maximum entropy when we have isentropic conditions (at all altitudes) so that no further increase in entropy is possible. All the molecules are retaining (PE+KE)=constant during their free flight motion, and then sharing KE during impacts with other molecules. (Remember I pointed out you were wrong about the direction of motion after a collision – it is not determined by the KE. Will you admit your error?)
All the rest of your comment is about artificially devised restrictions and boundaries which nature does not necessarily follow. In fact they are pseudo physics constructed to try to support the very thing I dispute, namely your isothermal conjecture which is never observed anywhere in the Solar System. If we should see it anywhere, that would surely be in the Uranus troposphere.
Now, how about you …
(1) Explain just precisely how the required energy gets into the surface of Venus to raise its temperature by 5 degrees over the course of 4 months of its day.
(2) Explain just precisely how the required energy gets into the base of the troposphere of Uranus to make it hotter than Earth, even though there’s no significant direct solar radiation, no significant internal energy source and no surface. Also explain why the thermal gradient throughout the 350Km high troposphere on Uranus is about 95% of the -g/Cp value.
(3) Given that Venus can cool 5 degrees in 4 months without Sun, why hasn’t the Moon cooled right down in its core, which is far hotter than the surface ever is?
(4) Why did my study (results of which are above) show higher rainfall leads to lower mean daily maximum and minimum temperatures? In other words, water vapour cools and that demolishes the greenhouse conjecture which is based on isothermal assumptions for non-radiating atmospheres, but of course doesn’t have a hope of working on Uranus or Venus.
Frankly, Christopher I don’t know why you or anyone has trouble understanding what happens when a molecule moves in frictionless free flight between collisions.
Just suppose it were possible for all the molecules at every altitude to have the same KE. We would of course have isothermal conditions. But every time a molecule moved in such free flight with any upward component in its velocity, then it would be creating gravitational potential energy out of nothing if it were somehow retaining constant KE. That is impossible, so it loses KE, and a very simple calculation (in a comment above somewhere) derives in two lines the temperature gradient -g/Cp for a non-radiating gas.
D o u g said: When new energy is absorbed in the top of the Venus or Uranus tropospheres
Already, an atmosphere has something to do with it and it’s not just gravity…in your own words and according to your unorthodox theory. What happens if this “energy” isn’t absorbed by an atmosphere because there is no atmosphere?
it is transferred downwards to warmer regions by a slow diffusion process that restores thermodynamic equilibrium
Again, you imply atmosphere by indicating “warmer regions.” Warmer regions of what? You can only mean an atmosphere. Therefore, atmosphere, which is a symbiotic collection of interacting molecules, plays its part, so it isn’t just gravity…per to your heretical theory (I’m not marginalizing your theory with these adjectives, by the way).
Per your theory, is it safe to assume that the Moon is warmed by the Earth and the Earth is potentially cooled by the Moon or vice versa? They share a gravitational relationship and it’s not insignificant. Per your theory, heating and cooling occur because of the gravitationally induced thermal gradient and surely this gradient works between astral bodies in proximity to one another that have a significant and extended gravitational relationship. Please elaborate. Or must we/I wait for the book?
I’m not responding to “Cold” cynicism, or those who just think it’s all a joke. Those who display such a lack of any understanding of the thermodynamics I am explaining will certainly need the far more detailed explanation in the book.
The Global Precipitation Mission will no doubt be helpful in making short-term weather predictions in that any significant increase in rainfall above a particular region signals cooler temperatures a day or two later, because the supporting temperature will be lowered.
It may also help some to decide which side of the fence is the correct one. That fence divides the isothermalists and the isentropists – new words for your spell check it seems.
(a) The isothermalists (like Roy) believe the troposphere would have been isothermal in the absence of those “pollutants” like water vapour and carbon dioxide. The fact that the Uranus troposphere doesn’t have them, or a surface, or any direct solar radiation doesn’t perturb them as they bury their heads in the carbon dioxide hoax.
(b) The isentropists understand why there is in fact a thermal gradient in the troposphere of Uranus because they understand the implications of the isentropic state which the Second Law of Thermodynamics says will evolve spontaneously.
Hey precipitation data will be exciting data to watch… I can’t wait to see a el niño and la Nina event and all the teleconnections across the globe… I’m super curious!
I searched in vain in this page for the word ‘settled’. People who think the science is settled should be horrified that NASA is giving millions to aerospace companies (if they build rockets for satellites they can build them to deliver nukes) instead of spending the money on social programs. Doesn’t anybody out there see the futility of spending money on more research when the science is already settled?
Yes. I quote from my book “Why it’s not carbon dioxide after all” ….
“The hypothesis in this book is supported by all known and estimated temperature data throughout our Solar System, whereas the greenhouse conjecture is demolished from various angles and never has been successfully applied to explain any other planetary temperature data.
“The author throws down the gauntlet to any reader who, after comprehending the arguments herein, believes it possible to rebut same, be it in public or private debate. On the other hand, those with a sound understanding of thermodynamics are asked for their opinions on the content. It is hoped that some will stand in the public arena and join the rising protests against the pseudo physics that has been promulgated by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in Switzerland whose authors have had an alarming influence, whilst attracting huge sums of money to the cause. One wonders how many lives may have been saved had such funds been devoted instead to humanitarian aid.“
CO2 cannot cause any warming, full stop. It’s blatantly obvious at the base of the nominal troposphere of Uranus where there’s no CO2, no direct solar radiation and no surface, yet it’s hotter than Earth but nearly 30 times further from the Sun.
William Connelly is stumped now by Wikipedia of all things, where he loves to edit to give things a nice greenhouse flavour.
The new Wikipedia Second Law statement clearly demolishes that “net” effect business that tries to claim a single one-way radiation process does not have to obey the Second Law of Thermodynamics. Wiki now reads …
“Every process occurring in nature proceeds in the sense in which the sum of the entropies of all bodies taking part in the process is increased.”[
D o u g 7:08pm: Do you agree GPM core observatory will observe on earth “..the Second Law of Thermodynamics:” which explains why:
“Every process occurring in nature proceeds in the sense in which the sum of the entropies of all bodies taking part in the process is increased.”
I agree the Second Law says that. I quoted it in this comment. Your first sentence is too obscure to be unambiguous in its meaning.
Footnote:
The Wikipedia statement of the Second Law has now been changed back to what it was in the version before the version before last – that is, what it was at least one to two years ago. It reads here …
The second law of thermodynamics states that the entropy of an isolated system never decreases, because isolated systems always evolve toward thermodynamic equilibrium—the state with the maximum possible entropy.
It is a good version because it confirms that entropy only increases until the maximum where thermodynamic equilibrium has been achieved. This is far more precise than the one which followed it.
Doug perhaps you have a case. However your manner of presentation is not just offensive but obnoxious, typical of trolls from skeptical science and real climate. You are turning the average reader of this site right off.
A question for you. Are you prepared to accept the data from the GPM mission as conclusive evidence in this debate.
The data from the GPM is irrelevant. It may help weather folk predict weather, but it won’t predict the natural cycles that regulate Earth’s climate. Weather folk should hand over this whole debate about carbon dioxide to physicists who understand such things as thermodynamics and kinetic theory.
The data in my study, the data on Uranus, Venus and Earth itself proves my point. And the fact that you can’t answer the above questions about Uranus, Venus and the Moon, and nor can anyone else on over a dozen climate blogs, shows that you are all as stumped as Roy himself.
Roy does a good job presenting monthly climate data. He should stick to that and not write ill-informed articles such as his much cited “Misunderstandings” article in which he very clearly stated isothermal conditions would prevail without water vapour, CO2 etc.
If I sometimes seem annoyed I have a right to be when the profession of physics is being ignored and IPCC-like garbage is fraudulently diverting public funds into the coffers of the hoaxers with their travesty of physics.
Chapter 2 – A slice of history
“The world will one day look back upon a small slice of history that began in the 1980’s and sadly have to conclude that never in the name of science have so many people been so seriously misled by so few for so long. Never have so many careers, so much time and so much money been spent in the pursuit of such a misguided and ineffective goal to reduce human emissions of carbon dioxide, a harmless gas which comprises about one molecule in every two and a half thousand other molecules in the atmosphere of our planet, Earth.
“The author is very much aware of the arguments put forward and the extent of vested interests dependent upon those billions of dollars of government funds shelled out in the belief that “the science is settled” and now we must get on with the task of “saving the planet” by cutting “carbon” emissions no matter what the cost to society. He is also aware from personal experience in debate with many hundreds of believers and so-called “deniers” that very, very few exhibit a valid understanding of the relevant physics and physical laws in the field of thermodynamics.”
You’re wrong.
And you can’t answer the questions about Uranus, Venus and the Moon, whereas I have.
You believe that you have answered such questions. Others do not.
Well they haven’t read the book yet. I take it that you can’t explain these planetary observations, so you drop out, OK?
I have suggest that Roy should consider doing an enlarged study similar to mine – see this comment. Seeing is believing, Roy.
D o u g
I do understand your theory. Its major application would be for an explanation of the reported 33C warming the Earth has over the calculated radiation balance that should result in a colder planet.
What would be more useful at this time is to explain with a valid mechanism of why the Earth is currently in a warming phase (or was) of about 0.6C for the last few decades. The gravity effect would have nothing to do with the recent warming unless gravity increased or decreased in relative strength over that period. I have read your material that there are 60 year and other cycles. What produces these cycles? Gravity causing warming has nothing to do with these as it is a constant effect and once established will not change much.
I believe Roy Spencer claims that cloud changes are the major cause of short term warming or cooling cycles caused by the different known climate patterns given names such as PDO, ADO etc. But the causes of these events is not so easy to find. Since you have established your theory and those interested in it will look into it more but what you do is “Flame” the thread and just spreading your own ego. You do not seem able to think or talk on any other matter but your own pet theory and this becomes a major turn-off for many. There are other things to think about then your idea and you should be able to think about some other issues as well. One would be find the mechanism that causes cycles in global temperatures.
Norman and others
Regarding natural climate cycles, there is discussion in my book and also in the Appendix of my paper “Radiated Energy and the Second Law of Thermodynamics” published March 2012 on several websites.
But this post is about precipitation, and I have posted the results of my study on precipitation above (Feb 24, 10:11pm).
Contrary to the garbage promulgated by climatologists that deserts supposedly have cooler temperatures at night, that was not found to be the case. The 15 cities (max. altitude 1,200m) were sorted in order of precipitation (01=wettest, 15=driest) and the results for mean daily maximum and minimum temperatures (adjusted to 600m altitude) were …
Wet (01-05): 30.8°C 20.1°C
Medium (06-10): 33.0°C 21.2°C
Dry (11-15): 35.7°C 21.9°C
This supports my hypothesis and demolishes the isothermalists’ greenhouse conjecture.
I suggest that the onus is on them to produce opposite results in a similar study (the methodology being in my book) to support their hoax.
My hypothesis is also supported by the thermal gradients measured in the Uranus troposphere, the Venus troposphere, the Earth’s troposphere and the Earth’s outer crust. None of these can be explained with correct physics if you start from isothermalists’ assumptions.
Dr Roy Spencer is incorrect in his claim that isothermal conditions would have existed in Earth’s whole atmosphere without water vapour, and that water vapour then warms the surface. Does it warm the surface, say, 20 degrees more where it is concentrated (4% of the troposphere) than where it is only 1% of the troposphere?
No, Virginia
Doug working hard here to push his theory and everyone else is wrong but Doug. Sweet.
James, Roy and others
And neither have you been able to explain why the base of the nominal Uranus troposphere is hotter than Earth, even though no significant solar radiation reaches down through the 350Km high troposphere, no significant internal energy is generated, no surface exists to give rise to any upward advection and the planet is nearly 30 times further from the Sun than we are.
I have explained it with valid physics. The greenhouse (isothermal) conjecture does not use valid physics.
Hey Roy, it looks like the Nazis may have set their hackers loose on you. I’ve seen this at other sites I’ve read and studied over the years. When things heat up, the hackers are set loose and they start messing with your software and people’s browsers who visit your site. A telltale sign is posts will start populating out of order. It just happened on the large Nazi thread. It’s a declaration of metaphorical war when they do this. Hacker activists are all over the internet despoiling blogs and free speech they don’t like. They like to think they’re anarchists, but as we see, these so-called techno anarchists are just censoring authoritarians in disguise.
If you know any IT people, you might want to have them take a look under the hood. To me, such behavior is lower than low, and beyond the pale of hypocrisy. It’s also a sign that they’re losing the argument and pulling out all the stops.
It has been pretty bizarre… especially that first afternoon when things started piling up so fast. AND it’s been growing steadily since then.
Bizarre indeed. I take it as a sign that we’re in Carcosa. The Yellow King is on his way.
Doug and I have been disagreeing for years…he’s not any kind of new trouble maker.
Oh no, I didn’t mean to imply it was Doug doing it. I like Doug. He slays (as in Dragon Slayer) me…as in “you slay me bro.”
Hot Potato, I think you may have just gone right over Dr. Spencer’s head…
May I remind you that I have not been a member of that organisation for several months, so please don’t give them credit for what I write. They are still left behind in isothermal land, like Roy and most of you it seems.
The only trouble is that the entropy maximisation in the Second Law of Thermodynamics would not allow molecules to remain at the top with more total kinetic energy and gravitational potential energy, and so an isothermal atmosphere (which doesn’t exist anywhere, not even on Uranus) would not be what that law says will evolve.
The second law of thermodynamics states that “Every process occurring in nature proceeds in the sense in which the sum of the entropies of all bodies taking part in the process is increased.
Does that law say kinetic (thermal) energy always transfers from hot to cold regions, even in a gravitational field? No Virginia.
Roy and I don’t argue. I just present the facts, the valid physics and the empirical data to support what I write, and Roy just has no valid response or counter argument. That’s why I always win by default, and still neither Roy nor anyone else has explained the Uranus and Venus data, or why the Moon is so hot inside.
I was just being satirical in an endearing way. I’m open to your theory, Doug. Don’t get me wrong. I was just testing the boundaries of your mettle, and man, you’ve got some mettle alright.
If I’ve “got some mettle” it’s because I’m onto the truth of the matter, and truth will prevail in the long run, even though I estimate it will take perhaps 7 to 15 years to get on top of the pseudo “isothermal” science.
As you may have noticed, no one is answering my questions successfully, and my understanding of what is going on in planetary atmospheres, surfaces and sub-surface regions gives me confidence to be able to see the inevitable fallacies in any attempted rebuttal, like Christopher’s attempts here.
That’s why I genuinely believe Roy (if I’ve got your attention) should look into this trillion dollar question and, if he wishes, pitch anyone against me right here in this thread. He’ll be far more red-faced if he doesn’t admit to error in the isothermal assumptions for a few years than he would be now when the science is still “newish” and it’s excusable not to have understood it at first. I would willingly comment on any thread which, for example, he might post on this when my book comes out in April.
Roy
You don’t have any empirical evidence to support your isothermal hypothesis about water vapour and radiating gases supposedly raising surface temperatures by 33 degrees, whereas I do have empirical evidence of at least four kinds to support mine. You could start with the study above (full methodology in the Appendix of the book I emailed you) and find, if you can, contrary evidence.
I have delivered the valid physics which explains why water vapour cools by a few degrees, and I have supported the physics with a comprehensive, statistically significant study. You have nothing to substantiate your conjecture.
Sorry, I don’t want to interrupt Doug’s theory, but I think it’s important to show where AGW theory is leading; a global psychosis of sorts. This guy’s an example:
http://earthyear.blogspot.com/
This is a story of how learning about climate change chewed me up and spit me out. This is a story of how the stress of climate (along with bipolar and pot smoking) lead to a psychosis whereby I stripped naked on the highway and claimed to be Sam Carana. This is a story of failed climate activism. This is a story of addiction. This is a story of how I nearly died. This is a story of my descent into madness. My introduction to climate change came from Al Gore, in his 2006 award winning An Inconvenient Truth. I became aware of the issue, but never gave it much more thought. It wasn’t until I heard James Hansen on CBC in 2009 that I became really interested in the issue, and started researching it online and reading avidly about it on The Economist. At this point I was a melancholic individual, but nowhere near as bad as I would become after digging deeper into climate change. Over the next 3 years I would read over 100 books on climate, energy and related, and countless websites. Obsession with a topic is a symptom of bipolar. For my favorite books and documentaries see my blog bio https://www.blogger.com/profile/05049365647624045680.
The books that hit me hardest was James Hansen’s Storms of My Grandchildren, James Lovelock’s The Vanishing Face of Gaia, and James Kunstlers The Long Emergency, while the websites that affected me most was Peak Oil forums, Sam Carana’s Arctic News blog and Cory Morningstar’s The Art of Annihilation . I was flabbergasted. The injustice! We were screwed. There was no hope. Serious scientists were predicting famine and war caused by climate change in the near term. I was depressed and suicidal. I would break down crying all the time. I was manic and barely slept. I stopped eating. I read day and night, non-stop. I coped by smoking enormous volumes of marijuana. It was my only release. Then the Occupy movement erupted in 2011. I was ecstatic. Change! I met tons of great fellow activists there and made life long friends. I finally had a place to express my activism. I’d do activism with the Occupy group but sometimes i’d also go alone to the university and show off my climate artwork. These were full size 1 metre tall paintings.
He fits the profile of people I’ve encountered in my study and research of this. They are quite literally going off the deep end and if you challenge their adopted paradigm, they attack you like hive-mind Nazis.
Thanks for the link. I’ve just added this comment under the article …
As a person with 50 years’ experience in physics and many thousands of hours spent studying the climate waffle, I have written a book “Why it’s not carbon dioxide after all” that should be available in a couple of months through Amazon and Barnes & Noble. It will only take an hour to read and set your mind at rest because of the valid physics therein and the proof in a comprehensive study that water vapour cools rather than warms. So does carbon dioxide, but only by about a tenth of a degree.
Footnote: The comment stuck for a while, but is now deleted. No further comment.
For what it is worth, I don’t agree with much of anything Doug has to say in these matters.
Then perhaps you need to think about your response to this comment above.
Roy
This is a trillion dollar issue. The whole greenhouse conjecture hinges upon whether or not isothermal conditions would have existed in a pure nitrogen and oxygen atmosphere.
The truth of the matter is that the laws of physics and the empirical data tell us that thermal gradients evolve autonomously at the molecular level, without any need for a heated surface and upward rising convection. You claimed that convection would dry up and isothermal conditions apply from top to bottom of the atmosphere.
No physics or data from anywhere in the Solar System supports you, Roy. I have provided what you have been looking for – the reason why warming has turned to slight natural cooling for 30 years, before the next 30 years of warming from about 2030 to 2060: it’s all natural cycles that are probably regulated by planetary orbits, magnetic fields affecting cosmic rays, affecting cloud formation or whatever. You and I could change the world if you would but think about it and read my book.
dealsaver deals deals of more than 60%, including goldbox deals.
Ball4 in this comment (that I just noticed) misses the point that the gravitationally induced thermal gradient will evolve even in a sealed cylinder of pure argon with no significant internal radiation. You can read about Kinetic Theory and note that KE is shared at the moment of impact (where gravitational potential energy does not change) and then it is during free path motion between collisions that (PE+KE)=constant. There is no gain or loss of energy assumed during such frictionless molecular motion, so how could it be otherwise? Please read all my comments in more detail before going off at a tangent, or just wait for the book next month.
D o u g C o t t o n 1:44am: “..then it is during free path motion between collisions that (PE+KE)=constant. There is no gain or loss of energy assumed during such frictionless molecular motion, so how could it be otherwise?”
Free path motion of mass in gas state is a real process. It must be otherwise or process entropy would not increase as you have agreed must be the case for all real processes.
******
“…the gravitationally induced thermal gradient will evolve even in a sealed cylinder of pure argon with no significant internal radiation.”
If you mean no significant radiation entering sealed theoretical rigid container across its boundary, meaning adiabatic rigid sealed container, I do not miss your point, I concur. However, the classical rigorous solution shows if p*V work is allowed across the container walls to come into equilibrium, the gas will become isothermal with height.
Selecting the proper isentropic or isothermal rigorous solution depends on selection of work allowed or no work allowed across control volume boundary – in practice a non-rigid and theoretical rigid container. The 2004 source theory paper has been cited many times, I’ll let you do the look up work, you need some practice. No tangents.
You contradict yourself. You assume equilibrium evolves when in fact you are talking about external energy entering the system. That extra energy can decrease entropy, just like when you boil a jug of water. You have no understanding of thermodynamics – even less than most of my first year university students have displayed when fresh out of high school.
Dr. Spencer was right, get out the popcorn.
D o u g 6:52 pm: “..you are talking about external energy entering the system…”
What part of my “adiabatic rigid sealed container” did you not read or comprehend exactly?
“That extra energy can decrease entropy, just like when you boil a jug of water.”
My boiling a jug of water decreases entropy?? No, this is a real process, the entropy in the universe is increased when I make some tea. You too.
******
7:01 pm: You make no Uranus science sense. Read the Uranus science papers I posted other thread, report back when making at least some scientific sense.
There is absolutely no significant new energy being added to the Uranus troposphere below the methane layer which absorbs most of the trickle of insolation and emits about half of it back to space. There is no convincing evidence of any internal energy generation, and my hypothesis does not depend on such.
At the base of the nominal troposphere there is no surface sending upward convection, yet it’s hotter than Earth because gravity, acting on individual molecules in free flight between collisions, causes the troposphere to approach an isentropic state, that state being a state of maximum entropy (which means entropy remains constant) and having a temperature gradient very close to the calculated -g/Cp value.
To compensate for energy lost by radiation at night, the trickle of solar radiation absorbed and thus warming the methane layer a little, will disturb the thermodynamic equilibrium, which is thus subsequently restored by downward heat transfer by diffusion.
Just an extra point, Ball4…
In Kinetic Theory, free path motion of molecules between collisions does not involve any gain or loss of total energy or any decrease in entropy.
The Second Law should be stated as below where you will note that entropy can remain constant …
“Processes in which the entropy of an isolated system would decrease do not occur, or, in every process taking place in an isolated system, the entropy of the system either increases or remains constant”
This is from the textbook “An Introduction to Thermodynamics, the Kinetic Theory of Gases, and Statistical Mechanics” (2nd edition), by Francis Weston Sears, Addison-Wesley, 1950, 1953, page 111.
In fact it is implied and imperative that the processes in the system are dependent. The law does not apply to the combination of two independent processes, so you cannot decrease entropy with one process and then increase entropy more with another independent process. For example, water does not flow uphill into a lake at the top just because more water flows down the other side. But water does flow upwards on one side of a siphon because the process going down on the other side is dependent. Cut the hose at the top and the processes become independent.
D o u g 9:51pm: Consults and even cites a text. Magnificent progress. Commendable. Keep it up. More modern ones are preferred but this one is serviceable b/c your clip is traceable (cited) to Clausius’ and Carnot’s own words.
Earlier 3/1 at 7:18am you agree “Every process occurring in nature proceeds in the sense in which the sum of the entropies of all bodies taking part in the process is increased.”
Now you add in Sears cite, a good one. That text will also teach you that the processes with entropy remaining constant are not real. The ones with constant entropy are ideal and do not occur in nature, no reversible process exists in nature. Sadie Carnot started us down that road, see page 37 and read the 1st paragraph at least:
https://archive.org/details/reflectionsonmot00carnrich
If you read or at least skimmed the J. Clerk Maxwell manuscript I posted, you will find “free path motion of molecules between collisions” really occurs in the nature of gas. So guess what? Sadie Carnot tells us the “free path motion of molecules between collisions” is irreversible thus ..the entropies of all bodies taking part in the process is increased.”
Increased! Entropy of real processes does not remain constant. You are making progress with all this. Please don’t backslide.
Go away Ball4 with your condescending tones and answer the question about how the extra energy gets into the Venus surface, because you really botched your first answer as I have pointed out to all the silent readers.
Then go and read about Kinetic Theory. Note the assumptions which it seems I’ll have to clutter up this thread by copying below. Do you seriously think you can negate my hypothesis with minor, trivial, infinitesimal variations in energy or entropy that are orders of magnitude less than what we are considering?
Here, straight from Wiki …
The theory for ideal gases makes the following assumptions:
The gas consists of very small particles known as molecules. This smallness of their size is such that the total volume of the individual gas molecules added up is negligible compared to the volume of the smallest open ball containing all the molecules. This is equivalent to stating that the average distance separating the gas particles is large compared to their size.
These particles have the same mass.
The number of molecules is so large that statistical treatment can be applied.
These molecules are in constant, random, and rapid motion.
The rapidly moving particles constantly collide among themselves and with the walls of the container. All these collisions are perfectly elastic. This means, the molecules are considered to be perfectly spherical in shape, and elastic in nature.
Except during collisions, the interactions among molecules are negligible. (That is, they exert no forces on one another.)
This implies:
1. Relativistic effects are negligible.
2. Quantum-mechanical effects are negligible. This means that the inter-particle distance is much larger than the thermal de Broglie wavelength and the molecules are treated as classical objects.
3. Because of the above two, their dynamics can be treated classically. This means, the equations of motion of the molecules are time-reversible.
The average kinetic energy of the gas particles depends only on the absolute temperature of the system.
The time during collision of molecule with the container’s wall is negligible as compared to the time between successive collisions.
Because they have mass, the gas molecules will be affected by gravity.
D o u g yet again 3:47am: ”…answer the question about how the extra energy gets into the Venus surface…”
The sun comes up at Venus dawn, adds mean 17W/m^2 to the previoulsy balanced night time local surface energy budget, in atm. w/o true IR window to deep space at IR wavelengths .GT. 3 microns . Repeat offense against learning both 1st and 2nd law, higher laughter fine assessed. No learning observed in D o u g nature.
“All these collisions are perfectly elastic.”
Fails 2nd law, this process is idealized not real, please read Maxwell’s and Carnot/Clausius’ own words not wiki, entropy must relentlessly increase in real processes. Repeat offense against 2nd law, higher laughter fine assessed.
NB: It is ok to consider an ideal process where entropy is held constant for learning basics, but one must then realize this process considered can’t occur in nature as is idealized & cannot be relied upon to fully explain real natural processes. If you fail at this, can cause appropriate laughter by some in blog land.
“Do you seriously think you can negate my hypothesis…”
Maxwell, Clausius/Carnot papers & Sears/Bohren texts do fine job of this, no real need for me to pile on, but I do get good laughs from your hypothesized physics.
Here’s an experiment you can do at home if you have a self cleaning oven probably somewhat less than 1 m^3. Don’t worry the photons generated will be absorbed, oven won’t explode from “resonant scattering” or “pseudo-scattering” – the 2nd law prevents those hypothesized processes actually existing in nature.
During this cleaning process, observe the temperature inside will rise to ~732K similar Venus surface. Obtain a good high temperature thermometer for ~US$10-$20. Wait for T to stabilize (technically dT/dt~0) i.e. come to steady state equilibrium. Then turn on your 20watt or maybe 40watt oven light bulb. Inform why the change you observe in the steady state temperature reading increases 5K to 737K. Hey – the sun came up in your oven will do.
Ok, this is ~1bar, Venus is ~90bar so your numbers have to be modified for Earth, but method is same, work on it. Better yet, assign a student to work it out. Inform the student – can use the spreadsheet Dr. Spencer provided.
We don’t need to bring p*V into it. The fallacy in that old argument was debunked in this comment in 4th paragraph starting “The argument …”
Pressure is not involved. The thermal gradient is derived directly from kinetic theory equating KE and -PE …
M.Cp.T = -M.g.H
T/H = – g/Cp
And while you are reading that comment, see also the final paragraph about Uranus and see if you can answer the question which Christopher Game could not answer with any valid physics. The base of the nominal troposphere of Uranus is 320K (hotter than Earth’s surface) but you have no significant direct solar radiation or internal energy generation – oh, and no surface either – so that will keep your radiation calculations easier – just working with zero.
D o u g 6:00am: “…base of the nominal troposphere of Uranus is 320K (hotter than Earth’s surface) but you have no significant direct solar radiation or internal energy generation…”
No kidding. Assess another heavy laughter fine though. Already pointed out the energy delivered by infalling material at planet formation hasn’t had time to escape troposphere due in part to the involved pressure. Yes, Virginia pressure is involved.
As well as the atm. opacity low to high altitude from various chemical signatures including in the surprisingly transparent upper reaches, 800K, another self cleaning oven high in Uranus atm.:
“The high temperature and the abundance of atomic hydrogen imply an unusually extensive exosphere.”
http://www-personal.umich.edu/~atreya/Articles/1987_Upper_Atm_Uranus.pdf
Resonant (“pseudo”) scattering does not in any way generate energy or violate the Second Law. In two years since my paper “Radiated Energy and the Second Law of Thermodynamics” was published there has been no peer-reviewed published rebuttal of same, nor any submission that successfully rebuts it, least of all your incorrect assertions that it violates laws of physics.
None of what I write violates the laws of physics.
Your “explanation” for the thermal gradient on Uranus is also incorrect – see below.
You haven’t acknowledged your error in overlooking conduction and convection from the Venus surface which would overpower insolation anyway. Because you don’t understand what is happening on Venus, you also don’t understand what is happening on Uranus or Earth.
High pressure does not maintain high temperatures or in any way generate or transfer the required thermal energy needed to balance the normal energy losses by radiation and sensible heat transfer, which you forgot about on Venus.
Pressure is proportional to the product of temperature and density. Temperature is the independent variable that is determined by energy flows.
I have pointed out that there is no convincing evidence of significant internal energy generation on Uranus, or significant net outward flux. Within the margins of uncertainty in the measurements, there could even be net inward flux. Unlike those on Jupiter and Neptune, the atmosphere of Uranus is not collapsing because the planet has a solid core about 55% the mass of Earth and at a temperature in the vicinity of 5,000K, as I would expect due to the gravitationally induced thermal gradient, which also explains core temperatures for the Moon and Earth.
Footnote: Ball4 wrote: “or process entropy would not increase” – See the version of the Second Law now on Wikipedia which does not preclude entropy staying the same.
D o u g 2:51 pm: “You haven’t acknowledged your error in overlooking conduction and convection from the Venus surface which would overpower insolation anyway.”
Because the error is on your part only. Conduction and convection energy are dumped in the Venus atm. not deep space as I wrote just like on Earth; you have already accounted for this energy in the 16,000 W/m^2 ~measured balance (your number if convection & conduction ignored wouldn’t balance at steady state equilibrium of 732K & thankfully you didn’t use latent heat). Assess only 2x laugh fine here because this is hard, not many get it right.
D o u g 2:38 pm: “Resonant (“pseudo”) scattering does not in any way generate energy or violate the Second Law…nor any submission that successfully rebuts it”
It was already rebutted by Carnot/Clausius papers I cited, there was no need to add to the literature. There were a lot of grins and laugh max. fines from your unseen readers though.
“Resonant (“pseudo”) scattering violates the 2nd law in what you agreed to – namely it does not relentlessly increase the entropy in the universe which you agreed must happen for all real processes so there is no hope for this hypothesis to be real in nature or unopened bank vaults would explode (w/no need for dropped blowtorches). You have been told before however this time your assessed fine is only a smile.
Cite the rebuttal paper making the others in the literature incorrect – meaning the papers about Uranus energy being primordial please and the gradient being ~1.0K/km vs. Earth’s 9.8, and I will pull the paper.
“I would expect due to the gravitationally induced thermal gradient, which also explains core temperatures for the Moon and Earth.”
This gaffe earns a near max. laugh fine of ROFL. In Kinetic Theory you cite, you have been told in my previous cite by no less than J. Clerk Maxwell in 1866 p. 49-50 the very first 2 pages of his paper: In kinetic Theory “…molecules of solid bodies oscillate about their positions of equilibrium, but do not travel from one position to another in the body.” There is no bulk free flight of molecules in a solid to enable gravity inducing a lapse rate.
Listen to the grand masters & learn.
So you think a polished silver ball (even with zero absorptivity if that were possible) suspended just above the surface of Venus would not get hot – like about 730K hot from sensible heat transfer from the surface? Apparently you have never studied a NASA energy budget diagram which shows convection from Earth’s surface as being in addition to radiation. In fact the original NASA net energy diagrams showed sensible heat transfer to the atmosphere as being exactly double the radiative heat transfer to the atmosphere, and that is realistic I assure you, as any engineer working in the field would also confirm. In any event, radiation cannot transfer heat to a hotter surface and raise its temperature in the process. Venus cools at night despite all the back radiation. The extra 17W/m2 of insolation would not overpower the sensible heat transfer, let alone the radiative heat transfer out of the surface. You have no concept of the Venus dilemma, but maybe a little thought would help.
You have no understanding of thermodynamics and radiative heat transfer. What formal qualifications did you say you have achieved in physics? I don’t think you answered that question. My B.Sc. (majoring in physics) has all the requirements for a correct understanding of all this. An additional 47 years of post-graduate study and tutoring of university students, and a university scholarship in physics (such as I received) may also have helped, along with thousands of hours studying climatology guff and picking it to pieces.
Energy-wise, resonant scattering does exactly what diffuse reflection does. When a photon raises the energy of an electron between any two given energy states, the energy in the photon exactly matches the difference in energy between those two quantum states. Then, when the process is immediately reversed and the electron energy drops back to the original state then an identical photon with identical energy is emitted. That is what happens in resonant scattering. There is resonance because the photon is identical to one which the target itself could emit. So the energy in that photon never got converted to kinetic (thermal) energy in the rotational, vibrational and rotational degrees of freedom of the hosting molecule.
“No lees than (19th century) J.Clerk Maxwell” indeed! Calling on authority are you? Maxwell was wrong in dismissing Loschmidt’s postulate and I have proved that to be the case. Loschmidt was also wrong on one point, namely his perpetual motion postulate, but I have shown why that was incorrect.
I will not read this old thread any longer. Go to this comment and the following one if you are a beggar for more punishment …
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2014/02/global-precipitation-mission-ready-for-launch-today/#comment-106846
D o u g 4:56pm: “So you think a polished silver ball (even with zero absorptivity if that were possible) suspended just above the surface of Venus would not get hot – like about 730K hot from sensible heat transfer from the surface?”
No, I think the polished silver ball would rapidly equilibrate to 730K no matter the ball’s starting temperature. The only question is the time to steady state equilibrium; Dr. Spencer provided the spreadsheet for you to figure that out if given a mass of the polished silver ball, works if starts out at higher or lower temperature.
NB: You are the one believes it will not get to 730K rapidly if it starts out at a higher temperature; you inform the cooler atm. will cause the ball to simply “pseudo-scatter” and/or “resonant scatter” the incident photons integrated across the spectrum. Build Dr. Spencer’s modified spreadsheet showing your better “Maxwell was incorrect” working theory. Show how that can be in math. It will fail the 2nd law. There is no hope for it. Entropy increases relentlessly in real processes.
“…resonant scattering does exactly what diffuse reflection does.”
Oh, ok. Why did you rename a well understood process “diffuse reflection” into “resonant scattering” explained with different properties then?
So the energy in that photon never got converted to kinetic (thermal) energy in the rotational, vibrational and rotational degrees of freedom of the hosting molecule.
Yet I (and Tyndall) have observed over and over that a gas can in fact be increased in temperature by incident IR. If what you write were true, no gas could absorb IR and increase temperature. 3x laughing fine assessed, this should be obvious.
”Maxwell was wrong in dismissing Loschmidt’s postulate and I have proved that to be the case.”
Not exactly. In 2004 it was shown the classical solution of Maxwell simply used different boundary conditions than Loschmidt used & tests with rigid sealed containers used. Loschmidt is mostly famous for his “number”. You have been pointed to this many times, it must be above your pay grade, for credentials above your Bachelor’s, assess a smile level fine, since the math is hard. Few do get it.
It doesn’t matter my pay grade, I always defer & refer anyway to the recognized credentialed Maxwell, Carnot/Clausius original publications & recent papers/texts from subject matter experts traceable to the grand masters. Go there. Please. Listen to them & learn.
Maxwell was right.
The silver ball is heated by diffusion and conduction, not radiation, so Spencer’s equation is irrelevant. You have so little understanding of thermodynamics that you seem to think the only heat transfer process is radiation.
Spencer’s calculations are wrong. The reasons are in my peer-reviewed paper “Radiated Energy and the Second Law of Thermodynamics” for which, in two years, there has been no rebuttal published.
Resonant (pseudo) scattering is a totally different process to diffuse reflection. Again you demonstrate your lack of understanding. Reflection does not involve electrons changing between quantum energy states and then back again. Reflection involves oscillations of polarisation in atoms – quite a different process.
The process of an electron doing so in resonant (pseudo) scattering is not in any way a violation of any law of physics. Any physicist who knows anything about quantum mechanics knows this. Apparently you don’t. For the third time, what formal qualifications have you completed in physics?
You misquoted me, deliberately leaving out the words “Energy wise …”
The fact that you think I imply no gas can absorb IR just shows how little understanding you have of my paper on Radiated Energy. The atmosphere absorbs energy from about 19% of incident solar radiation and less energy (15%) from upwelling radiation from the surface, based on NASA net energy diagram.
The 2004 paper was seriously flawed in a very basic assumption it made that temperature was a function of the density of molecules. It is not. Temperature only depends on the mean kinetic energy per molecule, regardless of density.
Good luck to the grand masters! All are human, and as physics progresses and some of us keep up with advances, we realise some have made errors. Many “scientists” in the field of climatology continue to do so to this day.
Sorry, but the Loschmidt gravitationally induced thermal gradient potentially exists everywhere.
D o u g 6:43am: The science of Maxwell, Dr. Spencer, 2004 paper are all fundamentally correct. Your writing here is merely science fiction. I would expect your upcoming book to be listed in Amazon’s Comics & Graphic Novels section.
I can see right through you Ball4. You have less understanding of thermodynamics and radiative heat transfers than most of first year university students. You wouldn’t have a clue what I’m talking about when explaining all this stuff and why that 2004 paper was flawed.
The empirical evidence (including over 800 lab experiments plus planetary data) is overwhelmingly in support of the existence of a gravitationally induced thermal gradient, and you haven’t a hope of explaining how the Venus surface warms by 5 degrees spread over the course of its 4-month-long daytime without starting with such an assumption.
D o u g 5:30am: “..empirical evidence…support of the existence of a gravitationally induced thermal gradient…”
The science of Maxwell et. al. supports this. The 2004 paper proves it rigorously.
…you haven’t a hope of explaining how the Venus surface warms..”
The sun comes up at dawn.
5:35am: ”Their 1.0K/Km is wrong. It’s less…”
Simple assertions don’t impress. You didn’t show the calculations until after I posted up the answer.
Yes, by the time you reach my age you may realise that, if your hypothesis doesn’t explain real Solar System observations then your hypothesis is wrong.
The concept of “heat creep” which is restoring thermodynamic equilibrium allows my hypothesis to explain the following, none of which your radiative greenhouse hoaxpothesis can explain …
1. Why Earth’s atmospheric and surface temperatures have nothing to do with carbon dioxide or radiative greenhouse hoaxes, and why water vapour cools.
2. Why the thermal gradient in Earth’s crust is over 25K/Km, but this reduces to about 1K/Km in the mantle.
3. Why the core of the Moon is hotter than the surface ever is.
4. How the required energy gets into the surface of Venus, the troposphere and below in Uranus, and into all planets and satellite moons throughout the universe.
5. Why planets in our Solar System are not still cooling off, but instead are being kept warm by the Sun.
D o u g 7:30pm: What is observed & unexplained in the Solar System is your failure to read, understand and apply fundamental science.
Processes in your 1-5 are easily explained perfectly well by Maxwell/Carnot/Clausius papers, modern textbooks, specialist et. al. papers that match observations. You can google their explanation from your favorite source: wiki or better yet the original works which are far more productive than the entertaining comedy in your science fiction.
Yes – pity you are not actually able to link me to any such garbage – you just blurb out meaningless generalisations in support of the profession from which you hope to make a living – at least while the hoax continues.
And of course there are many such papers written and reviewed by those with a similar motive to carry on the false physics which uses Stefan-Boltzmann calculations for a transparent thin surface layer of the oceans that is really warmed by convection, diffusion and conduction, and not by the radiation that passes straight through it.
Give me 8 to 10 years.
D o u g 11:19pm: “Give me 8 to 10 years.”
You shouldn’t need that much time to study up on & learn why processes in your 1-5 are easily explained perfectly well by Maxwell/Carnot/Clausius/Fourier/Fick, modern textbooks, specialist et. al. papers with fundamental science that match observations; most learn do this in 4 years if they can stay awake in class.
You get no marks for answering your exam questions that way without the slightest hint of an explanation, computation or derivation.
I need “8 to 10 years” to get the new paradigm accepted – that’s only because of anticipated inertia and a lack of willingness to investigate the facts and evidence within the scientific community, you yourself being having the epitome of such a mindset.
D o u g 3:51am: “You…answering ..without the slightest hint of an explanation, computation or derivation.”
This is easily proven wrong by inspection as I have cited by link, text, paper, w/page number all the fundamental explanations, computations and derivations to rigorously prove D o u g’s assertions are unfounded. The only conclusion that can be justifiably drawn is D o u g was asleep in or didn’t attend science class when the principles were taught.
The fact that Do u g doesn’t read my cites and simply states Maxwell was wrong w/o cite, Carnot/Clausius 2nd law is flawed (there is no hope for D o u g on this), S-B is wrong, every specialist paper author is wrong, all the modern text authors are wrong, without evidence writes the 2004 paper is wrong, Dr. Spencer and experiments are irrelevant and/or wrong, quotes text book writer Sears out of context to suit a purpose, writes boiling a jug of water decreases entropy, that it is ok to add heat to an adiabatic process……speaks very loudly that D o u g is justifiably simply a science fiction writer.
It has been said if you go through the day and find one person wrong, that is fine and expected. If you go through the day and find every person wrong, then it is you who is wrong. D o u g is nearly 100% wrong about science in general. His efforts and achievements in this thread to be continuously rigorously proven wrong in science is awe inspiring.
Yes, all those who write and think in the incorrect paradigm wherein radiation supposedly determines planetary temperatures are indeed wrong. The Earth’s ocean surfaces, for example, are transparent. A black or grey body is not.
The correct paradigm that is supported by the real temperature data throughout the Solar System is that paradigm which acknowledges the autonomous gravito-thermal effect, which sets up thermodynamic equilibrium that has a temperature gradient.
Ball4 doesn’t seem to realise the gravitationally induced thermal gradient depends on -g/Cp.
I have done the calculations for Uranus and the observed value is very close to the calculated value based on the acceleration due to Uranus gravity and the weighted mean specific heat of the Uranus atmosphere. I expect such gradients to be up to a third less than the -g/Cp value due to inter-molecular radiation. For example, in the outer 10Km of Earth’s crust the calculated value is about 40C/km which is then reduced to somewhere between 25 and 30C/Km.
This is yet another mistake by Ball4 and another assertive claim that the gradient should be similar to Earth’s gradient. Ball4 never backs up such assertive claims with any detailed calculations or explanations based on physics.
He or she is a beggar for punishment all right.
D o u g 5:29pm: “This is yet another mistake by Ball4 and another assertive claim that the gradient should be similar to Earth’s gradient. Ball4 never backs up such assertive claims with any detailed calculations or explanations based on physics.”
No mistake. Not assertive. No claim the same gradient. Always backed up with details. I pointed you to the subject matter expert previously, listen to it and learn, Earth is 9.8K/km and Uranus ~1.0K/km adiabatic lapse rate Table II.
Show your calculations. 3x reader laughter fine for not even reading “The Atmosphere of Uranus”. Need to send a GPM payload up there for you I guess.
http://eaps4.mit.edu/research/papers/Stone_1975a.pdf
Their 1.0K/Km is wrong. It’s less and I’ve shown you the calculations which I first did over a year ago. See my comment on the other thread. I can’t include the links because the comment disappears here, but you can find the info using Google.