Home/BlogThe Version 5.6 global average lower tropospheric temperature (LT) anomaly for January, 2015 is +0.35 deg. C, little changed from the December 2014 value of +0.32 deg. C (click for full size version):
The global, hemispheric, and tropical LT anomalies from the 30-year (1981-2010) average for the last 13 months are:
YR MON GLOBAL NH SH TROPICS
2014 01 +0.291 +0.387 +0.194 -0.029
2014 02 +0.170 +0.320 +0.020 -0.103
2014 03 +0.170 +0.338 +0.002 -0.001
2014 04 +0.190 +0.358 +0.022 +0.092
2014 05 +0.326 +0.325 +0.328 +0.175
2014 06 +0.305 +0.315 +0.295 +0.510
2014 07 +0.304 +0.289 +0.319 +0.451
2014 08 +0.199 +0.244 +0.153 +0.061
2014 09 +0.294 +0.187 +0.401 +0.181
2014 10 +0.365 +0.333 +0.396 +0.189
2014 11 +0.329 +0.354 +0.303 +0.247
2014 12 +0.322 +0.465 +0.178 +0.296
2015 01 +0.351 +0.551 +0.152 +0.126
The global image for January, 2015 should be available in the next day or so here.
Popular monthly data files (these might take a few days to update):
uahncdc_lt_5.6.txt (Lower Troposphere)
uahncdc_mt_5.6.txt (Mid-Troposphere)
uahncdc_ls_5.6.txt (Lower Stratosphere)
Dr. Spencer,
Recently I was listening to some commentator who said global temperatures can easily be decreased by placing fine particles into the upper atmosphere. He suggested sulfur as a likely substance.
He said we know how to lower global temperatures at fairly low cost should it become necessary. He had some figures but they were much less than is being spent on “climate change” research. Another of his comments was that we should be much more concerned about earth entering a long term cooling phase that would lead to another ice age. There would be nothing mankind with its present knowledge and technology could do.
Have you addressed these topics? I keep up with what you post in your blog and on your website fairly well but have not seen anything specific to these.
Sincerely,
Rene Noel
the Ice Age theory is longer term — thousands of years in the future — so I don’t pay much attention. But that’s just me.
The “geoengineering” solution to warming by dumping sulfur in the stratosphere is meant to mimic a major volcanic eruption, and is indeed the most likely way to cool the Earth ‘on purpose’. But I don’t think it will ever happen due to concerns over purposely polluting in order to (supposedly) counteract another form of pollution….unless warming accelerates, then the idea might get legs.
Worth reading:
“20 reasons why geoengineering may be a bad idea,” Alan Robock, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists MAY/JUNE 2008
http://climate.envsci.rutgers.edu/pdf/20Reasons.pdf
Hi David,
Some interesting ideas many of which others have considered. The article state:
“Still, it’s a slippery slope: I wouldn’t
advocate actual small-scale stratospheric
experiments unless comprehensive climate
modeling results could first show
that we could avoid at least all of the potential
consequences we know about.”
That proves empirically impossible. Every action will have consequences and there exists no way to avoid the ALL!!!
“Due to the inherent natural variability of
the climate system, this task is not trivial.
After that there are still the unknowns,
such as the long-term effects of short-term
experiments— stratospheric aerosols have
an atmospheric lifetime of a couple years.”
In other words, he has no clue.
“Solving global warming is not a difficult
technical problem. As Stephen Pacala and
Robert Socolow detail with their popular
wedge model, a combination of several
specific actions can stabilize the world’s
greenhouse gas emissions—although I
disagree with their proposal to use nuclear
power as one of their “wedges.”20
Instead, the crux of addressing global
warming is political.”
Errr, not quite. The problem of getting 7 billion people on the planet to agree to anything involves many problems, including technical ones. If it all proved so simple, and the benefits outweighed the costs it might just have been done by now.
“The U.S. government
gives multibillion- dollar subsidies
to the coal, oil, gas, and nuclear industries,
and gives little support to alternative
energy sources like solar and wind
power that could contribute to a solution.
Similarly, the federal government is
squashing attempts by states to mandate
emissions reductions. If global warming
is a political problem more than it is
a technical problem, it follows that we
don’t need geoengineering to solve it”
Perhaps he wants a multi-million dollar subsidy for some hydrocarbon free energy system he markets or wants to put his name behind. It certainly would pay to make it appear a much easier problem to solve than in fact it would end up being. In addition, cutting of those hydrocarbon or even nuclear competitors at the knees might just improve those profit lines as well.
Have a great day!
John:
Alan Robock wrote the article, not me.
So it seems your questions should be directed to him.
David:
I didn’t ask a question.
Have a great day!
— Rene Noel says:
February 3, 2015 at 9:16 AM
Dr. Spencer,
Recently I was listening to some commentator who said global temperatures can easily be decreased by placing fine particles into the upper atmosphere. He suggested sulfur as a likely substance. —
You get dust from space environment and put the dust at earth sun Lagrangian one.
L-1 always remains between the sun and Earth, and gravitational node tends to keep stuff at the location. It’s possible there is already dust there [in very small quantities, and in the past there could been varying amounts of space dust in this location]. One would need a lot of dust
one add a nearly immeasurable amount and it would affect amount sunlight reaching earth and yearly or every decade one could to need to add more as dust is not permanently in the location [the solar wind and various gravitational affect would eventually clear the dust.
Anyhow it’s a vast space [much larger than volume of earth] and the density of dust could about same amount dust density which is in the Earth atmosphere [at any time]. And so things could fly thru this space just as thing can fly thrue the Earth atmosphere.
The difference is Earth atmosphere is say 100 miles thick and this region is ten of thousand of mile “thick”. So one make to Sun appear red [a lot of dust] or not really have visible affect sun yet could still block the sunlight by a few watts per square meter.
So cost would billions of dollars and maybe somewhere around average yearly cost of hundred or so million.
Which could cheaper or around same cost as using airplanes
to to put many tons of dust in Earth’s atmosphere
Hi Rene Noel,
The problem remains that the Earth goes through geological periods that include massive tectonic and volcanic disruption the likes of which have not been seen for centuries. For example, the Mount Tambora explosion (selective quotations):
“The most destructive explosion on earth in the past 10,000 years was the eruption of an obscure volcano in Indonesia called Mount Tambora. More than 13,000 feet high, Tambora blew up in 1815 and blasted 12 cubic miles of gases, dust and rock into the atmosphere and onto the island of Sumbawa and the surrounding area. Rivers of incandescent ash poured down the mountain’s flanks and burned grasslands and forests. The ground shook, sending tsunamis racing across the Java Sea. An estimated 10,000 of the island’s inhabitants died instantly.
It’s the eruption’s far-flung consequences, however, that have most intrigued scholars and scientists. They have studied how debris from the volcano shrouded and chilled parts of the planet for many months, contributing to crop failure and famine in North America and epidemics in Europe. Climate experts believe that Tambora was partly responsible for the unseasonable chill that afflicted much of the Northern Hemisphere in 1816, known as the “year without a summer.” Tamboran gloom may have even played a part in the creation of one of the 19th century’s most enduring fictional characters, Dr. Frankenstein’s monster.
The eruption of Tambora was ten times more powerful than that of Krakatau, which is 900 miles away. But Krakatau is more widely known, partly because it erupted in 1883, after the invention of the telegraph, which spread the news quickly. Word of Tambora traveled no faster than a sailing ship, limiting its notoriety…
Indonesia’s Directorate of Volcanology and Geologic Hazard Mitigation said that I should not attempt to climb Tambora—too dangerous. As my guide would later tell me, the name of the mountain means “gone” in a local language, as in people who have vanished on its slopes. But researchers who have studied the volcano encouraged me.
Formerly a cone or double-cone, it’s now shaped like a turtle’s shell: the eruption reduced the mountain’s height by more than 4,000 feet.
In repose for thousands of years, the volcano began rumbling in early April of 1815. Soldiers hundreds of miles away on Java, thinking they heard cannon fire, went looking for a battle. Then, on April 10, came the volcano’s terrible finale: three columns of fire shot from the mountain, and a plume of smoke and gas reached 25 miles into the atmosphere. Fire-generated winds uprooted trees. Pyroclastic flows, or incandescent ash, poured down the slopes at more than 100 miles an hour, destroying everything in their paths and boiling and hissing into the sea 25 miles away. Huge floating rafts of pumice trapped ships at harbor.
Throughout the region, ash rained down for weeks. Houses hundreds of miles from the mountain collapsed under the debris. Sources of fresh water, always scarce, became contaminated. Crops and forests died. All told, it was the deadliest eruption in history, killing an estimated 90,000 people on Sumbawa and neighboring Lombok, most of them by starvation. The major eruptions ended in mid-July, but Tambora’s ejecta would have profound, enduring effects. Great quantities of sulfurous gas from the volcano mixed with water vapor in the air. Propelled by stratospheric winds, a haze of sulfuric acid aerosol, ash and dust circled the earth and blocked sunlight.”
From other reading I can also tell you global temperatures are believed to have dropped some 4-5 degrees centigrade. If such an event occurred today, given the correlation between global temperature rise and the growth rate in CO2, CO2 levels would likely plummet. The event produced global food scarcity and reportedly famines. In fact, I remember reading that horses became rare because people ate them and it was around this time bicycles had been invented. Suppose such an event coincided with a major geo-engineering action that actually proved successful. Do you think it may just result in a major environmental cataclysm? Just asking.
Have a great day!
Here is what I have concluded. My explanation as to how the climate may change conforms to the historical climatic data record which has led me to this type of an explanation. It does not try to make the historical climatic record conform to my explanation. It is in two parts.
PART ONE
HOW THE CLIMATE MAY CHANGE
Below are my thoughts about how the climatic system may work. It starts with interesting observations made by Don Easterbrook. I then reply and ask some intriguing questions at the end which I hope might generate some feedback responses. I then conclude with my own thoughts to the questions I pose.
From Don Easterbrook – Aside from the statistical analyses, there are very serious problems with the Milankovitch theory. For example, (1) as John Mercer pointed out decades ago, the synchronicity of glaciations in both hemispheres is ‘’a fly in the Malankovitch soup,’ (2) glaciations typically end very abruptly, not slowly, (3) the Dansgaard-Oeschger events are so abrupt that they could not possibility be caused by Milankovitch changes (this is why the YD is so significant), and (4) since the magnitude of the Younger Dryas changes were from full non-glacial to full glacial temperatures for 1000+ years and back to full non-glacial temperatures (20+ degrees in a century), it is clear that something other than Milankovitch cycles can cause full Pleistocene glaciations. Until we more clearly understand abrupt climate changes that are simultaneous in both hemispheres we will not understand the cause of glaciations and climate changes.
My explanation:
I agree that the data does give rise to the questions Don Easterbrook, presents in the above. That data in turn leads me to believe along with the questions I pose at the end of this article, that a climatic variable force which changes often which is superimposed upon the climate trend has to be at play in the changing climatic scheme of things. The most likely candidate for that climatic variable force that comes to mind is solar variability (because I can think of no other force that can change or reverse in a different trend often enough, and quick enough to account for the historical climatic record) and the primary and secondary effects associated with this solar variability which I feel are a significant player in glacial/inter-glacial cycles, counter climatic trends when taken into consideration with these factors which are , land/ocean arrangements , mean land elevation ,mean magnetic field strength of the earth(magnetic excursions), the mean state of the climate (average global temperature), the initial state of the earth’s climate(how close to interglacial-glacial threshold condition it is) the state of random terrestrial(violent volcanic eruption, or a random atmospheric circulation/oceanic pattern that feeds upon itself possibly) /extra terrestrial events (super-nova in vicinity of earth or a random impact) along with Milankovitch Cycles.
What I think happens is land /ocean arrangements, mean land elevation, mean magnetic field strength of the earth, the mean state of the climate, the initial state of the climate, and Milankovitch Cycles, keep the climate of the earth moving in a general trend toward either cooling or warming on a very loose cyclic or semi cyclic beat but get consistently interrupted by solar variability and the associated primary and secondary effects associated with this solar variability, and on occasion from random terrestrial/extra terrestrial events, which brings about at times counter trends in the climate of the earth within the overall trend. While at other times when the factors I have mentioned setting the gradual background for the climate trend for either cooling or warming, those being land/ocean arrangements, mean land elevation, mean state of the climate, initial state of the climate, Milankovitch Cycles , then drive the climate of the earth gradually into a cooler/warmer trend(unless interrupted by a random terrestrial or extra terrestrial event in which case it would drive the climate to a different state much more rapidly even if the climate initially was far from the glacial /inter-glacial threshold, or whatever general trend it may have been in ) UNTIL it is near that inter- glacial/glacial threshold or climate intersection at which time allows any solar variability and the associated secondary effects no matter how SLIGHT at that point to be enough to not only promote a counter trend to the climate, but cascade the climate into an abrupt climatic change. The back ground for the abrupt climatic change being in the making all along until the threshold glacial/inter-glacial intersection for the climate is reached ,which then gives rise to the abrupt climatic changes that occur and possibly feed upon themselves while the climate is around that glacial/inter-glacial threshold resulting in dramatic semi cyclic constant swings in the climate from glacial to inter-glacial while factors allow such an occurrence to take place.
The climatic back ground factors (those factors being previously mentioned) driving the climate gradually toward or away from the climate intersection or threshold of glacial versus interglacial, however when the climate is at the intersection the climate gets wild and abrupt, while once away from that intersection the climate is more stable. Although random terrestrial events and extra terrestrial events could be involved some times to account for some of the dramatic swings in the climatic history of the earth( perhaps to the tune of 10% ) at any time , while solar variability and the associated secondary effects are superimposed upon the otherwise gradual climatic trend, resulting in counter climatic trends, no matter where the initial state of the climate is although the further from the glacial/inter-glacial threshold the climate is the less dramatic the overall climatic change should be, all other items being equal.
The climate is chaotic, random, and non linear, but in addition it is never in the same mean state or initial state which gives rise to given forcing to the climatic system always resulting in a different climatic out-come although the semi cyclic nature of the climate can still be derived to a degree amongst all the noise and counter trends within the main trend.
QUESTIONS:
Why is it when ever the climate changes the climate does not stray indefinitely from it’s mean in either a positive or negative direction? Why or rather what ALWAYS brings the climate back toward it’s mean value ? Why does the climate never go in the same direction once it heads in that direction?
Along those lines ,why is it that when the ice sheets expand the higher albedo /lower temperature more ice expansion positive feedback cycle does not keep going on once it is set into motion? What causes it not only to stop but reverse?
Vice Versa why is it when the Paleocene – Eocene Thermal Maximum once set into motion, that being an increase in CO2/higher temperature positive feedback cycle did not feed upon itself? Again it did not only stop but reversed?
My conclusion is the climate system is always in a general gradual trend toward a warmer or cooler climate in a semi cyclic fashion which at times brings the climate system toward thresholds which make it subject to dramatic change with the slightest change of force superimposed upon the general trend and applied to it. While at other times the climate is subject to randomness being brought about from terrestrial /extra terrestrial events which can set up a rapid counter trend within the general slow moving climatic trend.
Despite this ,if enough time goes by (much time) the same factors that drive the climate toward a general gradual warming trend or cooling trend will prevail bringing the climate away from glacial/inter-glacial threshold conditions it had once brought the climate toward ending abrupt climatic change periods eventually, or reversing over time dramatic climate changes from randomness.
NOTE 1- Thermohaline Circulation Changes are more likely in my opinion when the climate is near the glacial/inter-glacial threshold probably due to greater sources of fresh water input into the North Atlantic.
PART TWO
HOW THE CLIMATE MAY CHANGE
Below I list my low average solar parameters criteria which I think will result in secondary effects being exerted upon the climatic system.
My biggest hurdle I think is not if these low average solar parameters would exert an influence upon the climate but rather will they be reached and if reached for how long a period of time?
I think each of the items I list , both primary and secondary effects due to solar variability if reached are more then enough to bring the global temperatures down by at least .5c in the coming years.
Even a .15 % decrease from just solar irradiance alone is going to bring the average global temperature down by .2c or so all other things being equal. That is 40% of the .5c drop I think can be attained. Never mind the contribution from everything else that is mentioned.
What I am going to do is look into research on sun like stars to try to get some sort of a gage as to how much possible variation might be inherent with the total solar irradiance of the sun. That said we know EUV light varies by much greater amounts, and within the spectrum of total solar irradiance some of it is in anti phase which mask total variability within the spectrum. It makes the total irradiance variation seem less then it is.
I also think the .1% variation that is so acceptable for TSI is on flimsy ground in that measurements for this item are not consistent and the history of measuring this item with instrumentation is just to short to draw these conclusions not to mention I know some sun like stars (which I am going to look into more) have much greater variability of .1%.
I think Milankovich Cycles, the Initial State of the Climate or Mean State of the Climate , State of Earth’s Magnetic Field set the background for long run climate change and how effective given solar variability will be when it changes when combined with those items. Nevertheless I think solar variability within itself will always be able to exert some kind of an influence on the climate regardless if , and that is my hurdle IF the solar variability is great enough in magnitude and duration of time. Sometimes solar variability acting in concert with factors setting the long term climatic trend while at other times acting in opposition.
THE CRITERIA
Solar Flux avg. sub 90
Solar Wind avg. sub 350 km/sec
AP index avg. sub 5.0
Cosmic ray counts north of 6500 counts per minute
Total Solar Irradiance off .15% or more
EUV light average 0-105 nm sub 100 units (or off 100% or more) and longer UV light emissions around 300 nm off by several percent.
IMF around 4.0 nt or lower.
The above solar parameter averages following several years of sub solar activity in general which commenced in year 2005.
IF , these average solar parameters are the rule going forward for the remainder of this decade expect global average temperatures to fall by -.5C, with the largest global temperature declines occurring over the high latitudes of N.H. land areas.
The decline in temperatures should begin to take place within six months after the ending of the maximum of solar cycle 24.
Secondary Effects With Prolonged Minimum Solar Activity. A Brief Overview.
A Greater Meridional Atmospheric Circulation- due to less UV Light lower ozone in Lower Stratosphere.
Increase In Low Clouds- due to an increase in Galactic Cosmic Rays.
Greater Snow-Ice Cover- associated with a Meridional Atmospheric Circulation/an Increase In Clouds.
Greater Snow-Ice Cover probably resulting over time to a more zonal atmospheric circulation. This circulation increasing the aridity over the ice sheets eventually.
Increase in Volcanic Activity – Since 1600 AD, data shows 85 % approximately of all major Volcanic eruptions have been associated with Prolonged Solar Minimum Conditions. Data from the Space and Science Center headed by Dr. Casey.
Volcanic Activity -acting as a cooling agent for the climate and enhancing aerosols possibly aiding in greater cloud formation.
Decrease In Ocean Heat Content/Sea Surface Temperature -due to a decline in Visible Light and Near UV light.
This in turn should diminish the Greenhouse Gas Effect over time, while promoting a slow drying out of the atmosphere over time. This may be part of the reason why aridity is very common with glacial periods.
Salvatore, your comment if off-topic and is 4 times as long as my post. That makes me sad. ðŸ™
“Why is it when ever the climate changes the climate does not stray indefinitely from it’s mean in either a positive or negative direction? Why or rather what ALWAYS brings the climate back toward it’s mean value ? Why does the climate never go in the same direction once it heads in that direction?”
The pattern depends on the process forcing the climate to change.
1. Step changes: Tectonic changes like uplift to the Tibetan Plateau or closure of the Central American Isthmus changed fluid flow patterns in global heat distribution and ultimately created a cooler climate that has persisted since the transition occurred. In other words the climate has not returned to pre Pliocence patterns without ice on the norther high latitudes. So it is not a cycle it is a step change.
2. Orbital parameters: Milankovitch patterns are periodic thus climate change related to them are ryhthmic as well and centered on a mean. This pattern is prevalent in the rock record. Milankovitch periodicities can be quantified in modern ice cores and Cretaceous rocks deposited 90 million years ago in the interior seaway that spanned from the gulf of mexico across the us and canada alike. The 90 Ma rocks are prolific oil producers and have been studied in detail (abundant marine fossils in colorado and a marine source rock called Niobrara). To imply orbital parameters dont dominate climate change is not speculative it is wrong, sorry. (Google Locklair and Sageman and Niobrara for one of the many examples).
3. High frequency changes. Solar activity range in frequency and are generally centered on a mean (although not truly periodic). I agree with you that solar activity is most likely more dominant than considered by the IPCC bc tsi change is likely underestimated and other processes like magnetics and cosmic rays do appear to impact albedo via cloud formation. You can see these changes regionally in climate records. The PDO and ENSO are internal oscilators to the climate system. So the are events that return the system to equilibrium after energy builds up but dont really change the energy in the system. Thus they are a zero sum game. Same with events like volcanoes that have a significant impact but discipate in time.
Point is conventional theory easily explains the pattern you describe.
Thanks, Dr. Spencer.
I have updated my climate and meteorology pages with your new graph.
And the pause seems to be creeping up in temperature now?
I would like feedback pro or con. This is my best effort and what I think might have happened and will going forward.
I think it’s all VERY speculative, Salvatore.
True, like every climate graph projecting temps into the future and distant past.
Some feedback:
“…here is my prediction for climate going forward, this decade will be the decade of cooling.”
— Salvatore del Prete, 11/23/10
http://ourchangingclimate.wordpress.com/2010/10/20/andrew-dessler-debating-richard-lindzen/#comment-8875
“Temperatures in response to this will decline in the near future, in contrast to the steady state of temperature we presently have,or have been having for the past 15 years or so.”
— Salvatore Del Prete, 11/6/12
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2012/11/uah-v5-5-global-temp-update-for-october-2012-0-33-deg-c/#comment-64939
“I think the start of the temperature decline will commence within six months of the end of the solar cycle maximum and should last for at least 30+ years.”
— Salvatore Del Prete, 7/13/13
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2013/07/uah-v5-6-global-temperature-update-for-june-2013-0-30-deg-c/#comment-84963“
Ah yes David but if we are prepared to give Al Gore a plus or minus 10 year window on his ice free arctic prediction then surely we can extend the same curtesy to Salvatore dont you think?
Cheers
Al Gore?
Who gives a toss what Al Gore says — he’s not a scientist.
Stick to the science.
Well done David, you have belittled a fellow commentator and successfully deflected the gibberings of the head idiot of your cause in one fell swoop.
You are right Al Gore is not a scientist and yet he was awarded a nobel for his work in the scientific field of obsfucation and misdirection. Which is of course are where your true talents lie.
Lets look more closely at Salvatores recent predictions
1, the decade of cooling was to begin in 2010, David can you tell me the temp trend over the past 5 years (pick any data set you want).
2, Temps will decline in the near future……… this statement (to some point taken out of context) is by no means any more vague or detailed than the declarations from the code cutters computer programs and yet you reject what Salvatore say and cling to the computer programs, the question is why?
3, Have we reached solar max yet David? Surely this prediction cannot be tested until we have and if you think we have reached solar max then you better inform Hathaway of your method of predicting solar cycles because he and his colleagues (with all due respect)have no idea.
I agree with you David we should stick to the science how about you give it a try.
David A,
Trofim Lysenko was a good scientist. So was Lord Kelvin. Do you believe everything they said?
Gavin Schmidt, on the other hand, is a mathematician. Not a scientist. I assume you pay more attention to real scientists, rather than self styled scientists, but I’m probably wrong again.
Live well and prosper,
Mike Flynn.
crakar24 says:
“You are right Al Gore is not a scientist and yet he was awarded a nobel for his work in the scientific field of obsfucation and misdirection.”
False.
Gore received 1/2 the Nobel Peace Prize. That prize is not given for scientific accomplishment.
Nor is it given for accomplishments in the field of peace. It is a political plum.
As I showed, Salvatore has been predicting cooling for over four years now: “…for climate going forward, this decade will be the decade of cooling.”
There isn’t much ambiguity there. Salvatore is flat-out wrong. Yet unwilling to reconsider his “science.”
lewis says:
“Nor is it given for accomplishments in the field of peace. It is a political plum.”
Many people disagree. Gore did a great deal to highlight and point out the dangers of AGW. It’s fair to call him a debate-changer. He’s been a highly successful communicator on a very important subject.
David A says: “Gore did a great deal to highlight and point out the dangers of AGW. It’s fair to call him a debate-changer. He’s been a highly successful communicator on a very important subject.”
You could also say: “Hitler did a great deal to highlight and point out the dangers of Jews. It’s fair to call him a debate-changer. He’s been a highly successful communicator on a very important subject.”
To be a hero in my book, you must be more than a successful communicator, more than a debate-changer. It is also important to have the substance right.
I think this slight increase is due to the continuing slight El Niño conditions.
It is but I am glad that you looked at it. I wanted to express my thoughts on this subject to you.
One last comment. This is the best I can come up with which does not mean it is correct. Nevertheless, if this line of reasoning is way off what is the line of reasoning that isn’t?
Salvatore, if all inputs were constant (solar, CO2 input, magnetic, cosmic, plate tectonics, orbital parameters, etc.) would climate also be constant? Or if there were an identical earth subject to the same inputs (say on the other side of the sun) or a perfect computer model would it have identical climate? Doesn’t chaos assure that climate won’t be constant (and that two earths will be different)? Does anybody know how much is just chaos? Trying to outguess something as complex seems just futile. We do have 4.5 Byr (0.5 of big life) showing it is stable (within bounds) even with some pretty dramatic perturbations. Isn’t that all that’s known for sure?
How much is chaos? Try reading this as 1,000 others are doing each week now.
Then join with us in showing Roy why the radiative forcing concept and his isothermal conjecture are both false physics.
An isothermal column of air would be totally unstable, being a temperature inversion that is hotter than normal at the top. It would have more gravitational potential energy at the top and would in fact also have homogeneous density, which we know is absurd. It would not last a second. More molecules would “fall” than would rise, thus forming the density gradient when maximum entropy is attained at thermodynamic equilibrium. Then there is clearly homogeneous molecular (PE+KE) and so there is a temperature gradient.
Doug, that third paragraph is pathetic.
I throw down the gauntlet to you also jimc. Read our group’s website and prove anything wrong with valid physics and empirical evidence.
jimc and others
See this comment below.
Doug, your statement that an isothermal column , ” . . would also have homogeneous density . .” is what is absurd, and WRONG.
A column of air will have higher pressure at the bottom of the column, because of the weight of the air above it. ( . . or do you want to try to dispute that . . .?)
AND that iso-thermal column of air will have a greater density at the bottom of the column than the top, because of that higher pressure (and the column of air all being at the same temperature).
So an iso-thermal column of air DOES NOT have a homogeneous density as you claim. What else do you need to understand this?
NOW, if you were to take that iso-thermal column of air (imagine it in a long closed tube) and ‘flip it upside down’, then the bottom of the column WILL warm up (due to it now being ‘compressed’ from the weight of the air above it, AND the top will ‘cool down’ (because it is ‘expanding’ from having no weight on it).
Now that would be an interesting experiment to show . . ! I wonder how long of a closed tube would be required to show a sufficiently measurable difference . . maybe a few hundred feet long ? ? ?
No Martin C. Molecules “know” nothing about “weight of air above them” because all they experience is collisions with other molecules. High pressure does not cause high temperatures. Temperature and density are the independent variables. Pressure is a corollary because pressure is proportional to the product of temperature and density.
I am correct in saying that the Second Law process leads to maximum entropy in the state of thermodynamic equilibrium. If the density gradient were not that state, then it would not be stable. Nor would the temperature gradient be stable in the nominal troposphere of Uranus, for example.
You do not understand thermodynamic equilibrium. You do not understand entropy. You do not understand thermodynamic potentials. You think the Clausius statement applies in a vertical plane, but there is no valid physics you could use to prove that. See this comment on that issue, and read the website endorsed by our growing “Planetary Physics” group of person qualified in physics, as would not appear to be the case for yourself.
Regarding your “experiment” over 800 meticulous experiments have been carried out this century by Roderich Graeff confirming the existence of the temperature gradient in insulated sealed cylinders.
No, Doug, you are delusional. A column of air will ALWAYS have higher pressure at the bottom of the column. Just ask ANY REAL physicist. Oh, I know, you wont’, because you are clueless.
Dr. Spencer, PLEASE put a halt to Doug’s postings.
Of course it will. Gravity forms a temperature gradient and a density gradient. Thus temperature and density are each higher at the bottom. Pressure is proportional to the product of temperature and density. So, as a corollary, there is also a pressure gradient, meaning that pressure has higher values at the bottom. You don’t need to “teach” me stuff that I’ve already explained on climate blogs years ago. What’s your point anyway?
Any idea when new version/upgrade will be out for UAH? I’ve notice Feb. 2012 was last negative anomaly, do you think it will take a moderate LA Nina event to get our next negative monthly anomaly?
Nice to meet you.
I love blog of Dr. Spenser.
You were written by a recent article,
uFeelings now trump factsvcFor your words, I felt as if a chest burst.
Japanese Meteorological Agency, media, politician are very stupid, too.
Because I am a Japanese, I understand it well.
Thank you for conveying the truth.
So that a good day comes.
Surely I come on that day.
‚ ‚È‚½‚ÉŠ´ŽÓ‚µ‚Ä‚¢‚Ü‚·B
There is much discussion of temperature trends above. I suggest all take a look at the graphic here in order to note the compelling correlation between natural climate cycles and the 934-year and superimposed 60-year cycles in the scalar sum of the angular momentum of the Sun and all the planets. This is no joke. You can also read there why carbon dioxide has nothing to do with climate, and fortunately water vapor lowers surface temperatures from what would be about 10 degrees hotter if the atmosphere was dry and devoid of clouds.
The data page says January’s global anomaly is +0.36 C, but this post says it’s +0.35 C….
http://vortex.nsstc.uah.edu/public/msu/t2lt/uahncdc_lt_5.6.txt
So which number is right?
And what’s the 1-sigma uncertainty on the monthly global anomaly number? I’ve asked this repeatedly, and AFAIK Dr. Spencer has never addressed this point.
Still no reply…. This is what worries me about Roy’s presentation here of the UAH group’s results:
1) won’t release their source code
2) won’t give uncertainties for their calculated numbers
3) won’t even be consistent about the number of significant figures.
But hey, at least they no longer slap a 3rd-order polynomial on their data plots!
Roy, even though more than a year ago I presented a study (reproduced on your blog) showing moist regions had lower daily maximum and minimum temperatures than drier regions at similar latitude and altitude, you have not even spent just a few hours producing a contrary study. The IPCC effectively claims water vapor warms by 10 to 15 degrees per 1%. You can’t water that down, or you leave too much of their “33 degrees of warming” for carbon dioxide to do supposedly. Of course the whole 33 degree thing is false because the troposphere without GHG would not have had isothermal conditions between the surface and the radiating altitude. But that’s another paradigm altogether – the correct one. I just want you to work within your incorrect paradigm of radiative forcing and prove you’re right with empirical evidence, as I have done for my paradigm.
Another month, no change. This is great news.
Having followed the graph for some years now, I become more and more reassured. The variation over 35+ years is less than 2deg C: if we didn’t have measuring devices, we wouldn’t notice. On the other hand, last night the local (Crouse, NC) temperature went into the low 20’s from a high of 50 earlier in the day. I did notice that.
What I do notice is that some years it snows more, some years it rains more, some are hotter and some are colder. What I don’t understand is why I should be afraid. Why should I have higher electricity prices? Why should 3rd world countries not be able to use hydrocarbons to improve the lives of their people?
Lewis Guignard says:
“Another month, no change.”
That’s interesting — how exactly do you define “no change?”
If say, one month’s anomaly is X, and another month’s is Y, how do you personally define “change?”
I define it as X-Y, but I’m curious about other methods.
David A:
Perfectly right.
Now how about applying your formula to 1998 and 2014. Compare every year since then to now. In fact compare all the years with last year.
You seem to want it both ways.
Most of us have a reasonable idea of when the change rate of T vs time has basically been static for some 16 years or on the decline for a considerable period which conflicts with all the models and CAGW conjecture.
All the kings horses and all the error levels in the world won’t help.
I note you were quite happy to get stuck into Salvatore above for some of his predictions. Perhaps you could be equally observant with all the nonsense climate predictions of the past and note them for us too.
Tony: Sure.
But first, why did you pick 1998?
You cherry picked 1998 to give the result you want, whether is has anything to do with climate or not. (It doesn’t; see “natural variability.”)
DavidA:
As usual u avoid and evade the question by answering with a question.
Rather a silly question without foundation when u ask “But first, why did you pick 1998?”
I actually asked:
“Now how about applying your formula to 1998 and 2014. Compare every year since then to now. In fact compare all the years with last year.”
This covers ALL the years. It will so happen that 1998 will form rather loosely as a start point of inflection such that allowing for variation the rate of change will be close to zero from then on (yes am aware it is higgledy piggledy as is all the data).
The key point is that there is little correlation with CO2 increases or models.
What is of significance is that EVERY model run is on the hot side. The chance of that happening over such a long period is about zero if the models were to be considered reasonable. It is conclusive proof of biased runs! They are trained that way and have as much relevance to reality on this metric as daily prayers to Gaia.
David,
My explanation for no change was contained in the rest of my post but to reiterate no, to simplify.
As one looks at the graph Dr. Spencer is kind enough to maintain, you will notice the range is from ‘point’ 8 above to ‘point’ 7 below. That means the range is 1.5 degrees. No where does the variation exceed those limits. In fact, it generally stays between .4 above and .4 below, less than 1 degree C.
You seem to believe moving back and forth less than one degree C is of great consequence when the daily variation can be above 30 degrees F and the annual variation much larger than that. I believe otherwise.
The fact is, the only way we know this is from some exceptionally sensitive instruments. Regardless, the fact is the temperature, as shown by the graph, has remained remarkably stable for a number of years.
Where is the hockey stick? On the ice.
Lewis Guignard says:
“You seem to believe moving back and forth less than one degree C is of great consequence when the daily variation can be above 30 degrees F and the annual variation much larger than that. I believe otherwise.”
Lewis, the global mean surface temperature difference between a recent ice age (glacial period) and interglacial period (like now) is 8-10 C.
So it’s your belief that the temperature difference that happens in your backyard every night is more extreme than an ice age?
Translation: I can’t feel it and it’s cold outside. Therefore…… etc….
Lewis,
If we get another 2deg C warming you will definitely notice it in NC.
Maybe not the temperature, but the sea level rise will seriously alter the Outer Banks and the low country. Florida will be worse. The cost of dealing with it in Miami alone will be staggering since they can’t build sea walls there due to the porous rock the city sits on.
Nobody around here likes to discuss the fact that sea levels rise over the last twenty years has been faster than the IPCC predicted. Water expands when heated, there is no avoiding that. Ice sheets melt when heated, there is no avoiding that.
Grey
IF………one of the most abused words in the english langauge.
What IF the temp dropped by 2C in the next 35 years?
Oh sorry thats just being silly how could it possibly drop by that much?
God only knows what the omni potent force of a trace gas is capable of.
crakar24 says:
“What IF the temp dropped by 2C in the next 35 years?
Oh sorry thats just being silly how could it possibly drop by that much?”
Good question — how could it?
You are getting desperate now David be careful your ideology is showing through
OK, I’ll ask again — how could the global mean surface temperature drop 2 C in the next 35 years?
How could it go up by 2C? By the omni potent force of a trace gas?
Grey,
People that build in flood plains and coastal areas and barrier islands get what they get. Their having done so is only an example of the stupidity of man, not a reason for me to change my life style to help them maintain theirs.
Also, IF an asteroid hits your town, where will you move to?
Lewis,
NASA has a research program to track all near earth objects that might impact earth. http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/ They have been sending spacecraft to land on asteroids, partly to study their composition and partly to test the feasibility of using gravity tractors or small rockets to deflect them from an earth impact.
The difference between asteroids and climate change is that it hasn’t become politicized. US Republicans are not required by their bases to deny the existence of asteroids or claim that asteroid strikes would be good for the earth or that the cost of deflecting asteroids is too high compared to the loss of one little town in NC that will be flattened or to say that man cannot change the course of asteroids and is arrogant to think so etc., etc.
Lewis Guignard says:
“People that build in flood plains and coastal areas and barrier islands get what they get.”
Are you a US citizen?
Then some of your taxes are (already) going to bail out homeowners who have lost homes on east coast barrier islands.
Where they then rebuild.
This is only the beginning…. How much are you willing to pay in subsidies for such folks?
Willing to pay? None.
Nor am I willing to pay to worry about future possibilities of CAGW.
Which one do you pick to pay for?
Lewis, you’re paying already, whether you’re willing or not. (And it will only get worse. You will pay for climate change one way or the other.)
“Across the nation, tens of billions of tax dollars have been spent on subsidizing coastal reconstruction in the aftermath of storms, usually with little consideration of whether it actually makes sense to keep rebuilding in disaster-prone areas. If history is any guide, a large fraction of the federal money allotted to New York, New Jersey and other states recovering from Hurricane Sandy — an amount that could exceed $30 billion — will be used the same way.”
– NY Times, “As Coasts Rebuild and U.S. Pays, Repeatedly, the Critics Ask Why” 11/18/12
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/19/science/earth/as-coasts-rebuild-and-us-pays-again-critics-stop-to-ask-why.html?pagewanted=all
Another 2 degrees centigrade since when? When have you ever experienced in your lifetime 2 degrees centigrade warming in global atmospheric temperatures?
Have a great day!
Grey,
1) when do you think we will get another 2deg C warming?
2) Can you provide a rough range of the timing?
3) Do you have some kind of model or graph that might support the trend toward this 2deg C warming into the future? Please share it with us.
4) If you do have some model or graph that shows when this 2deg C of warming will take place, how has it predicted the past warming trend over the past couple of decades? Is it reliable and predictive? What is the margin of error/uncertainty?
All your concern comes from the fact that you don’t understand thermodynamics. Because we can disprove the conjecture that CO2 warms using valid physics, there is no need for assuming we as humans can control climate. Luckily we have evidence of natural cycles which can give us confidence that about 500 years of cooling will start after 2059 as shown here.
And Roy if you fail to respond with appropriate scientific explanations, and if you none-the-less continue to write posts claiming the impossible about thermodynamic equilibrium being isothermal in a gravitational field, then your readers are going to understand what our group of physicists write and present to meetings throughout Australia this year and next and they will realize that water vapor does not warm by over 10 degrees for each 1% in the atmosphere (as the IPCC implies) and so they will realize that you are among the promulgators of the biggest hoax in the history of the world.
Admit you were wrong Roy about isothermal conditions and that the new 21st century paradigm in climate science is the correct one that is backed by evidence in a Ranque Hilsch vortex tube and throughout the Solar System.
Looks like we have reached (or are nearing) may records for consecutive months above certain thresholds.
35 months ≥ 0.00 C (one month shy of tying the record)
34 months ≥ 0.05 C (record)
20 months ≥ 0.10 C (tied)
20 months ≥ 0.15 C (record)
For the 13 month running average, there is a current record for 24 months ≥ 0.20 C. Furthermore, many other record are at risk.
For example, even if the average dropped to 0.00 for the near future, we are still headed to tie records (and then surpass) records for
31 months ≥ 0.15 C by May (centered on last November)
75 months ≥ 0.10 C by September (centered on next March)
81 months ≥ 0.05 C by November (on next May)
[I know that sound like a long way into the future, and in some ways it is. OTOH assuming an average of 0.00 is not that outlandish at all. And much of the data for these potential records is already in the books. For example the 0.15 potential record already has 9/13 data points. Even if the next four months were -0.2, we would still average at least 0.15 through May)
Yes, Tim that’s because the long-term natural cycle that correlates with the 934-year cycle in the scalar sum of the angular momentum of the Sun and all the planets will not reach a maximum until about 2059 before nearly 500 years of cooling sets in. Carbon dioxide has nothing to do with it.
For the projection of this plot (based on planetary orbits) until 2200 click here and, while you’re there, read the physics (and the overwhelming evidence supporting it) which explains why increases in water vapor concentrations lead to lower surface temperatures.
So if you, Tim Folkerts, like Roy, still believe the IPCC claim that water vapor warms the surface by about 15 degrees for each 1% increase in concentration (because you think the troposphere would have been isothermal without it) well, I guess there will always be the gullible.
May I remind you that BigWaveDave pointed out to you the significance of the gravito-thermal effect nearly three years ago here and explained how it obviated the need for concern over greenhouse gases. Of course it does, because it is what brings about the warmer surface temperatures, not back radiation which doesn’t even penetrate water surfaces by more than a few nanometers.
Tim Folkerts and others
See this comment below.
I was looking at the regional temp anomalies. The tropics shows a variation of over 0.6 C in just a few months (February 2014 to June 2014). I was wondering is this much change could be the result of clouds (definately not carbon dioxide causing this).
A 1% change in albedo of the Earth will vary the temperature by a full Kelvin (which would also be a C unit) which would be similar to all the warming claimed to be caused by carbon dioxide.
http://www.geo.umass.edu/courses/climat/radbal.html
albedo calculator.
Question. If you are not accounting for the albedo to control for it (with data) and just assuming it does not change, so attribute all warming to a single source even though multiple inputs are possible, life clouds, sun, other albedo changes, is this science or religion (blind faith that I am right)?
(1) Planetary orbits regulate solar activity and cosmic ray levels because their magnetic fields reach to the Sun. There is compelling correlation with climate seen here.
(2) Cosmic ray levels affect cloud formation and thus albedo and hence temperatures.
(3) Solar intensity affects the anchoring temperature in the troposphere where radiative balance is attained.
(4) The gravitationally induced temperature gradient raises the surface end of the temperature plot by about 45C° in dry regions, then inter-molecular radiation involving water vapor, carbon dioxide etc lowers the surface end because it has a temperature leveling effect. Latent heat release possibly plays a small, fairly insignificant role in this reduction of the magnitude of the gradient.
(5) Because the temperature gradient is the (overall) state of thermodynamic equilibrium (taking into account both the radiative and convective effects) it is then possible for heat transfers by diffusion and slow convective heat transfers to take place in all directions over the sloping thermal plane, and thus to warm the surface.
Roy, you agreed to correct errors in your “Misunderstood Basic Concepts and the Greenhouse Effect” post.
Below in italic are your words copied from that post, and inserted in bold is what is correct. You can see from my reply to Tim Folkerts that BigWaveDave has been saying the same as me for three years.
You wrote:
“6) The tropospheric temperature lapse rate would not exist without the greenhouse effect. Not correct because the temperature gradient (aka lapse rate) forms at the molecular level in any force field. While it is true that convective overturning of the atmosphere leads to the observed lapse rate, Diffusion and very slow convective heat transfer does – no wind achieves the lapse rate. that convection itself would not exist without the greenhouse effect constantly destabilizing the lapse rate The “lapse rate” would exist in the absence of GHG because nitrogen and oxygen molecules are affected by gravity also. through warming the lower atmosphere and cooling the upper atmosphere. That would make the lapse rate steeper, but you know that the GH gas water vapor makes it less steep Without the destabilization provided by the greenhouse effect, convective overturning would slow and quite possible cease altogether. No it sometimes ceases in calm conditions around dawn when maximum entropy is attained with its associated environmental lapse rate. The atmosphere would eventually become isothermal, that is impossible and never happens in any troposphere as the full depth of the atmosphere would achieve the same temperature as the surface no it would not because the Second Law says entropy will be maximized, and isothermal conditions in a force field are nothing like such a state. through thermal conduction; without IR emission, the middle and upper troposphere would have no way to cool thermal energy would spread out over the sloping thermal plane as I have explained here maintaing the temperature gradient, just as in the Uranus troposphere.. itself in the face of this heating. This scenario is entirely theoretical, no it’s entirely a figment of your imagination which ignores the Second Law entropy maximization. though, and depends upon the atmosphere absorbing/emitting absolutely no IR energy, no it doesn’t which does not happen in the real world.
I’ll be happy to post corrections/additions to the above list as warranted. <b<Good, well do so.“
Roy – In this comment I will pinpoint how climatologists got their thermodynamics wrong, and I will do so with standard physics documentation.
As you and silent readers can read here when deriving the equations for thermodynamic potentials “certain forces, such as gravity, are typically disregarded when formulating expressions for potentials.” They ignore it because gravitational potential energy does not vary significantly when considering a small “engine” in a lab experiment. And James Hansen ignored (or forgot about) this prerequisite. Hence any deduction from these equations about there being isothermal conditions in a significantly high vertical plane in a gravitational field is incorrect.
In a planetary troposphere the effect of gravity most certainly does affect entropy, just as when an apple falls off a tree entropy increases. The same happens with molecules in free flight between collisions.
Now, as you know, the Second Law of Thermodynamics is all about entropy increasing to a maximum level wherein we have thermodynamic equilibrium, which is not about isothermal conditions but isentropic conditions that have no unbalanced energy potentials, so that no further work can be done. That state has a stable density gradient, and it also has a stable temperature gradient because mean molecular (PE+KE) is homogeneous.
And that is why for any planet with a significant atmosphere, the surface temperatures are hotter than the planet’s effective radiating temperature, as is found somewhere in its troposphere.
It has nothing to do with back radiation, wind or solar radiation striking and warming a surface, if there is one. And so the greenhouse radiative forcing conjecture is not what explains that “33 degrees” of warming.
Doug Cotton,
Did you look at the last blog post. I sent you a link concerning the material you post. Your position is not a new one. I do think you might lighten up on your attack on Roy Spencer. You might be very wrong in your conclusion (and maybe you are not). You are as faith based as the IPCC is on their models. You have a hypothesis that you have not done experiments to verify. You sound more like a religious preacher than a physics major (I did take a class in college physics but majored in Chemistry many years ago).
Without really strong experimental proof run under multiple condtions and setups you have no stronger position than the IPCC models (which are also based upon physics equations by the way).
http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/pdf/10.1175/1520-0469(2004)061%3C0931%3AOMEP%3E2.0.CO%3B2
I am reposting the link. Please read and consider this material before you continue your attacks on scientists with Doctor degrees in the field (Judith Curry and Roy Spencer). They are not mindless beasts wondering the field.
I have read and refuted the Verkley paper over 2 years ago in several blog comments. The reason they are wrong is the same as I have explained here, namely that that use equations for thermodynamic potentials which disregard changes in gravitational potential energy. You cannot do that in a vertical plane. As I have said the “experiment” with the Ranque Hilsch vortex tube proves beyond doubt that a force field creates a temperature gradient. See the comments I wrote way back on the “Talk” page for that Wikipedia article.
Doug Cotton,
I am reading material on your webpage. Here is data you should consider.
Here is the profile of the temperature gradient of Earth’s atmosphere. As the paper by Verkley you refute. Maybe you should not be so quick to do so. In the paper they describe convective effects generate the isentropic gradient (with showing an intermediate is even closer to actual atmopshere).
Here is the known atmospheric profile.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Standard_Atmosphere
Note: The troposphere is about 11 kilometers. Above this for about 10 kilometers the lapse rate is zero. No gravitational gradient. This is an area of the atmosphere with very little convective mixing. It is isothermal. Why is this according to your gravitational argument that you are so confident is correct? This part of the atmosphere is subject to gravity the same as the troposphere yet it is isothermal. Isn’t this impossible since the molecules in the upper portion of this region would then posses more energy (K.E. equal to molecules 10 kilometers below yet possessing much additional P.E. due to their elevation)?
http://www.eoearth.org/files/187001_187100/187002/atmtempprofile.png
You don’t need to teach me about atmospheric profiles, tropopauses, stratospheres, mesospheres, thermospheres or exospheres. I have answered you in this comment. Meanwhile continue reading the “Evidence” page on the website endorsed by our group of persons with qualifications in physics, which you do not appear to understand.
Norman and others
See this comment below.
You all can read more on Judith Curry’s blog where “A Fan of *More* Discourse” used the equations for thermodynamic potentials in this comment (and an earlier one) to which I responded (in four comments from here)explaining that changes in gravitational potential energy are ignored in those equations. Hence the equations obviously imply isothermal conditions because it is changes in gravitational potential energy that cause the temperature gradient.
Doug,
Why don’t you and your group get a 1000 meter insulated tube filled with water and various temperature sensors in the water at various places. Post the tube from horizontal to vertical and you should see a 9.8C difference at the bottom from the top. This would end the debate and you could claim total victory over all the morons over here in the States. I think if you compose the tube made out of styrofoam it would be light enough to go the full distance and would provide the important insulation. What do you think?
By the way both Gibbs and Boltzmann disagree with your theory.
Such experiments have been done more than 800 times, but, if you had read what is in our website and what I have written in many climate comments, the gravitationally induced temperature gradient is reduced in magnitude by inter-molecular radiation, of which there is quite a lot in liquid water, thus making it imperceptible in oceans except in calm, dark regions in the polar nights.
I couldn’t care less if Gibbs and Boltzmann (or Roy or Maxwell or you) disagree with my hypothesis. The empirical evidence, such as the fact that water vapor causes lower surface temperatures, not higher ones, and all the experiments confirm what I say, and what the brilliant 19th century physicist Josef Loschmidt said.
Just know that our group of persons with qualifications in physics will attack all assertions by anyone (regardless of “authority”) that we see as a travesty of physics, and we will attack this greenhouse fraud everywhere we can, because it is wasting money and causing deaths.
I don’t know how Roy or anyone can now ignore the valid physics which proves Hansen wrong, especially now that we are more than half way through the 30-year downside in the 60-year cycle. Hansen’s concept that back radiation helps teh Sun to warm the surface is ludicrous. Do you feel as much “heat” from the back radiation at night as you do from the Sun by day? Does back radiation penetrate the oceans like solar radiation does? Think!
Just read what Roy wrote:
“the greenhouse effect constantly destabilizing the lapse rate through warming the lower atmosphere and cooling the upper atmosphere.”
Surely you can see that what Roy has written here implies that the greenhouse gas water vapor increases the magnitude of the temperature gradient, whereas in fact he knows the moist adiabatic lapse rate is less steep than the dry one. So water vapor does the exact opposite of what Roy claimed.
Norman says, “Post the tube from horizontal to vertical and you should see a 9.8C difference at the bottom from the top. “
Here is a simple thought experiment based on your proposal.
Build *two* insulated columns that are the same temperature at the bottom — for example run a metal between the columns at the bottom or put the bottoms unto a water bath. Fill the two columns with two *different* gases.
First of all, 9.8 K/km is called the “adiabatic lapse rate” because it is derived assuming the gas is adiabatic ie that it is impossible for heat to move from one part of the column to another. This already strongly suggests this is NOT the actual equilibrium condition, since we must add this extra condition that is preventing heat flow (and hence lii the system’s ability to reach equilibrium).
Furthermore (and more importantly for the thought experiment), the 9.8K/km is NOT a universal result; it depends on the heat capacity of the gas. So with two different gases and two different gases, the tops of the two columns would have two different temperatures. There is no unbalanced gravitational potential, since the tops of the columns are the same altitude. But the temperatures are different.
Think about that… In Doug’s world, the cool top of column A is in equilibrium with the warm bottom of column A. And the warm bottom of column A is in equilibrium with warm the bottom of column B (ie at the same altitude and hte same temperature). And the warm bottom of Column B is in equilibrium with the cool top of Column B. The WHOLE THING is in equilibrium, yet the gas in the top of A is at a different cool temperature than the gas at the top of column B. If we thermally connect the tops, there would be a heat flow of heat between TWO SYSTEMS IN EQUILIBRIUM.
We have a clear contradiction, which means some assumption must me wrong. And of course that incorrect assumption is that the adiabatic lapse rate is the equilibrium condition. The ‘diabatic lapse rate’ would be the true equilibrium condition — where heat is allowed to move within the system until equilibrium is achieved.
Water vapor does NOT support Doug’s hypothesis (it is immaterial).
Vortex tubes do NOT support Doug’s hypothesis (a hightly non-equilibrium situation cannot tell us what happens in equilibrium).
Graeff’s experiments — if confirmed — WOULD support Doug’s hypothesis (but of course, would also contradict the laws of thermodynamics as outlined above). The experiments provide some hints at an equilibrium gradient, but they are far from conclusive. But these experiment are very touchy — trying to measure temperature differences of ~ 0.01 K in small containers of gas, where even tiny heat flows (<< 1 mW) with in the system or between th system and the surroundings could mask the effect they are seeking.
Occam's Razor suggests sticking with 'text book' thermodynamics supported by 100+ years of experiment, rather than an upshot theory that is supported by one set of unclear experiments.
Regarding your thought experiment, a new state of thermodynamic equilibrium will be attained, because that’s what the Second Law of Thermodynamics tells us will happen.
You haven’t a clue about entropy. You write “adiabatic ie that it is impossible for heat to move from one part of the column to another.” That is utter garbage. Even Wikipedia could have helped you …
“An adiabatic process is one that occurs without transfer of heat or matter between a system and its surroundings.”
If the initial state is not thermodynamic equilibrium then there is no reason why there cannot be any transfer of energy internally provided that entropy increases in that process. Only when thermodynamic equilibrium is attained does net internal energy transfer across any internal boundary cease. If that state (with its temperature gradient) is disturbed then what happens is described here. There will always be a propensity for the temperature gradient to be restored. What do you think happens in the nominal troposphere of Uranus?
Regarding the vortex tube, there is a propensity to move towards thermodynamic equilibrium in the cross section, and the temperature gradient is -g/Vp.
Regarding Graeff’s experiments, what more confirmation do you want? Why have climatologists not “confirmed” such experiments themselves in the interests of science?
I stick with the textbook physics thanks. You can’t prove I don’t. I use Kinetic Theory and the Second Law of Thermodynamics.
Correction: Regarding the vortex tube, there is a propensity to move towards thermodynamic equilibrium in the cross section, and the temperature gradient is -g/Cp.
Now read this comment.
“If we thermally connect the tops, there would be a heat flow of heat between TWO SYSTEMS IN EQUILIBRIUM.”
So what? The heat transfer will cease when the new state of thermodynamic equilibrium is attained.
Place a hot metal sheet on top of a cold one of the same size. Heat transfer? Sure! What’s your problem?
Of course the reason those with a vested interest in maintaining the fraudulent hoax go out of their way to try to dream up thought experiments supposedly proving Loschmidt wrong is that they realize that their whole hoax crumbles because of the validity of the gravito-thermal effect – just as BigWaveDave explained to you Tim Folkerts nearly three years ago when he wrote: “it obviates the need for concern over GHG’s.”
What you don’t understand is thermodynamics, yet you think you have some claim to being able to prove what I say on the subject to be wrong. Well I’m not wrong. You, for a start, don’t even seem to know the difference between “heat capacity” and the intrinsic “specific heat” which is what is in the denominator in -g/Cp and it is the weighted mean specific heat of the gases and/or solids and/or liquids involved in the total system. When you connect two previously isolated system then you make a new system with a new weighted mean specific heat and new temperature gradients in the various components, including the wires. There is nothing unusual or unexpected in what happens. There is no cyclic perpetual heat transfer – just a new state of thermodynamic equilibrium – no big deal. I had already refuted Robert Brown on the “WUWT errors” page here regarding just such a thought experiment.
“a new state of thermodynamic equilibrium will be attained, because that’s what the Second Law of Thermodynamics tells us will happen.”
Norman, you can probably see the fatal flaws in the counter-argument as well. If the whole system is already in thermodynamic equilibrium, there is no where else to go (without changing something like the total energy or the volume).
Equilibrium means the systems has already reached maximum entropy; if it were not maximum entropy, then it would not yet be in equilibrium. Any change from equilibrium to a new, different state will necessarily be a change to a non-equilibrium state with lower entropy — clearly impossible by the laws of thermodynamics.
Thus the previous state was NOT YET in equilibrium. Each gas following its own different lapse rate separately cannot be the equilibrium state. Both gases must follow the same lapse rate. And the only solution that works of of all gases (and liquids and solids) to follow the same 0 K/km laspe rate in equilibrium.
“If the whole system is already in thermodynamic equilibrium, there is no where else to go”
More garbage from Timmy boy. I gave you an example of a hot metal plate and a cold one, both in their own initial state of thermodynamic equilibrium, in fact close to isothermal if horizontal. Put them together and a new state of thermodynamic equilibrium evolves and there sure is a heat transfer.
You don’t change the total energy! Who said that? But entropy will increase if it can within the constraints of the new system. The Second Law said that! Give up Folkerts!
It gets better – more garbage …
“Any change from equilibrium to a new, different state will necessarily be a change to a non-equilibrium state with lower entropy”
Why Tim?
The Second Law says there will be a propensity to move towards thermodynamic equilibrium. Fullstop. That’s what always happens. Entropy always increases. You just don’t understand what entropy is.
“If the whole system is already in thermodynamic equilibrium”
There is no “whole system” at the start. You have two independent systems until you join them, just like the two metal sheets at different temperatures.
You have a dam full of water and a lake lower down – two systems. Open a valve in a pipe joining the two. Does entropy increase? Sure does!
Imagine a long horizontal sealed, insulated cylinder initially filled with air at the same altitude. Now turn it around its center to a vertical position.
Does a density gradient form? Sure does, because such is the state of thermodynamic equilibrium with maximum entropy. That’s why the density gradient becomes stable.
But as more molecules move down than move up as that density gradient is formed, there ends up being more mean KE per molecule at the bottom, and that’s your temperature gradient when thermodynamic equilibrium is attained. It’s not hard to understand, and it just sits there as in any planet’s troposphere.
Gravity “traps” heat, not back radiation.
One last comment. It is pretty clear Doug will not listen, but any others will at least hear the ‘other side’ (ie what every engineering and physics text would say).
”There is no “whole system” at the start. You have two independent systems until you join them, just like the two metal sheets at different temperatures.”
There is a “whole system” that is joined – two columns of gas that are thermally connected at the bottom. Think of it as one giant, sealed, insulated U-tube with a metal sheet at the bottom separating the two arms so heat can move across from one arm to the other, but the gases cannot.
Just to have some numbers, make each arm 1 km tall. In Arm A, we have a gas with specific heat 0.98 kJ/kg, so the adiabatic lapse rate is 10 K/km. In arm B, we have a gas with specific heat 4.9 kJ/kg, so the adiabatic lapse rate is 2K/km. Assume the bottom of the U-tube is 300K. If the two arms follow the adiabatic lapse rate, the top of Arm A is 290 K and the top of arm B is 298 K. (In other word, if Graeff’s experiments are correct, these are the temperatures he would actually observe inside the tube.)
For the sake of argument, let’s assume that the adiabatic lapse rate is indeed the equilibrium condition. According to this assumption, the entire U-tube from one end to the other is in thermal equilibrium, with the temperatures varying smoothly from 290 K — 300K — 298K as we traverse down one tube and back up the other.
” I gave you an example of a hot metal plate and a cold one, both in their own initial state of thermodynamic equilibrium, in fact close to isothermal if horizontal.”
OK … sounds good. Let the hot plate (Plate B) be connected to the top of Arm B @ 298K and the cold plate (Plate A) be on the top of Arm A @ 290K.
” Put them together and a new state of thermodynamic equilibrium evolves and there sure is a heat transfer.”
Yes, indeed! Agree 100%!
If we thermally connect Plate A & Plate B, there will be a flow of heat from Plate B to Plate A. As Plate B cools, it draws heat from the gas within Arm B, cooling the top of Arm B. Similarly, the gas in the top of Arm A will warm. We have a net flow of heat from Gas B to Gas A. the top of B will drop from 298K and the top of A will raise from 290K.
As you conclude, a new state develops in the gases as the system as a whole is evolving toward equilibrium. And that equilibrium (as you also conclude) occurs when the Plates (and the tops of the two arms) are the same temperature. Heat has moved from warm to cool. This is a higher entropy condition then when the tops were two different temperatures.
So now thermally disconnect the tops of the two arms. They can’t spontaneously revert to their earlier state with different temperatures because that would mean entropy was spontaneously decreasing. They will stay in this new, improve, higher entropy state that is NOT the adiabatic lapse rate in the two arms! If the adiabatic lapse rate was indeed the true equilibrium condition (ie highest entropy), then the temperature gradients should re-develop after disconnecting the tops.
Planetary_Physics says on
February 4, 2015 at 11:00 PM
“Imagine a long horizontal sealed, insulated cylinder initially filled with air at the same altitude. Now turn it around its center to a vertical position.”
Doug, when the cylinder is turned to a vertical position, the pressure at the bottom of the cylinder will go up (and be the highest in the cylinder) BECAUSE of the weight of the column of air above it. The pressure at the top of the cylinder is the least. A pressure, and therefore density gradient will exist, being highest at the bottom, and lowest at the top.
In addition, the air at the bottom of the cylinder will heat up from it being compressed, and the top will cool from being expanded.
The density gradient (and temperature/pressure gradient) isn’t because “such is the state of thermodynamic equilibrium’ as you say. It forms because the air is compressible, and the bottom of the column is being compressed from the weight of the column above it. And with the temperature gradient, there is not ‘thermodynamic equilibrium’.
Now over time (with the assumption of the cylinder being completely insulated, with no heat input or output from the cylinder), the hotter air at the bottom will conduct its heat to the cooler air above it ( . . you know, something about heat flowing from warmer regions to cooler regions . . ), and eventually, the column will become isothermal. NOW the system is in ‘thermodynamic equilibrium’. And the density/pressure gradient will still exist, again because the bottom of the column is supporting the weight of the air above it.
Doug stated:
“But as more molecules move down than move up as that density gradient is formed, there ends up being more mean KE per molecule at the bottom, and that’s your temperature gradient when thermodynamic equilibrium is attained. It’s not hard to understand, and it just sits there as in any planet’s troposphere.
Gravity “traps” heat, not back radiation.”
Well stated. Thank you.
Have a great day!
If you have a U shaped set of two cylinders connected thermally at the base they will always have a propensity to move towards the state of thermodynamic equilibrium. We are not talking about “thermal equilibrium” to which Tim refers. Likewise if you had mercury in one side of the U and water in the other everything moves towards themodynamic equilibrium. That what the Second Law tells us. Nothing unexpected will happen. Whatever the mean temperature gradient pans out to be, it will still be cooler at the top than at the bottom, because if it were not then entropy could and would increase. If you connect the tops you alter the constraints of the system and so it may be possible for entropy to increase more to a greater maximum.
The centrifugal force field in a Ranque Hilsch vortex tube causes there to be a temperature gradient in the cross-section so that cold and hot streams of gas can be physically separated. Likewise the force field of gravity forms a temperature gradient in the tropospheres, crusts and mantles of all planets and satellite moons. Nothing else could explain the observed temperatures and the fact that the gradients everywhere depend on the -g/Cp quotient.
Martin C wrote “the hotter air at the bottom will conduct its heat to the cooler air above it”
No it won’t. You cannot prove it would because entropy would decrease if it did. You cannot use the equations for thermodynamic potentials to prove it would, because those equations specifically disregard changes in gravitational potential energy. Hence the Clausius “hot to cold” corollary of the Second Law only applies in a horizontal plane, because it is derived from those equations for thermodynamic potentials which assume homogeneous gravitational potential energy.
You guys need to study Kinetic Theory and think at the molecular level.
Physics Group aka Doug,
You state:
“Martin C wrote “the hotter air at the bottom will conduct its heat to the cooler air above it”
No it won’t. You cannot prove it would because entropy would decrease if it did.”
You cannot prove it doesn’t. You go on:
“Clausius “hot to cold” corollary of the Second Law only applies in a horizontal plane, because it is derived from those equations for thermodynamic potentials which assume homogeneous gravitational potential energy.”
It must make such an assumption otherwise the system isn’t closed, gravitational energy gets added to the mix. Nevertheless, nothing stops any given hot air molecule at the bottom from rising higher and transferring energy to molecules at a higher plane. You further state:
“You guys need to study Kinetic Theory and think at the molecular level.”
Theory never trumps the facts or laws of nature. A burning candle transfers heat to the air above it (put your hand over one if you don’t believe me, but not to close). Nothing stops air molecules from communicating energy and even heat to other air molecules at a higher elevation.
In a more lucid moment, you yourself stated:
“But as more molecules move down than move up as that density gradient is formed, there ends up being more mean KE per molecule at the bottom, and that’s your temperature gradient when thermodynamic equilibrium is attained.”
This statement I can and have agreed with.
Have a great day!
JohnKl
It is not an assumption. Read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermodynamic_potential
“In thermodynamics, certain forces, such as gravity, are typically disregarded when formulating expressions for potentials.”
So you cannot prove your claim that any hotter molecule will move upwards to a cooler region. To do so you could have to use entropy equations which disregard changes in gravitational potential energy.
And don’t forget that the Ranque Hilsch vortex tube proves that a force field can redistribute temperature and thus separate the gas into hot and cold streams.
“Theory never trumps the facts or laws of nature.”
Quite so. That’s why I use the Second Law of Thermodynamics to develop my hypothesis, which development you have not yet read, so I leave you to do so at http://climate-change-theory.com wherein you may begin to understand why some of your concepts of heat transfers in gravitational fields are not what the Second Law actually implies will happen.
In that neither of you have not so much as even discussed thermodynamic potentials, entropy, thermodynamic equilibrium or unbalanced energy potentials, we have no common ground upon which to even start a scientific discussion.
Group of Physicists (at least one of you appears to be wrong),
You state:
“So you cannot prove your claim that any hotter molecule will move upwards to a cooler region. To do so you could have to use entropy equations which disregard changes in gravitational potential energy.”
Frankly, I don’t have to PROVE that a hotter molecule with greater KINETIC ENERGY and likely HEAT ENERGY can move upwards to a cooler region. You have provided neither empirical evidence it doesn’t nor any reason to believe it cannot! Neither, must I use entropy equations disregarding changes in gravitational potential energy. Frequently I notice you reference kinetic and potential energy. From what I’ve come to understand energy comprises not merely kinetic/work and potential energy but heat as well. The three interplay. An RPG fired at a helicopter will deliver quite a lot of kinetic energy to the airborne vehicle whether or not it hovers above the person firing the device. Certainly the copper shell will loose kinetic energy en-route but will still maintain enough energy to do damage, just ask apparently ex-news anchorman Brian Williams (he will explain it to you even if he has to make everything up!).
To bolster your seemingly saggy point you state:
“And don’t forget that the Ranque Hilsch vortex tube proves that a force field can redistribute temperature and thus separate the gas into hot and cold streams.”
The Ranque Hilsch vortex tube commonly used in refrigerators and sundry mechanical devices doesn’t make your case. Although this example bears only tangential relationship to the discussion at hand, HOTTER AIR MOLECULES WITH GREATER INERTIA DO NOT MAKE IT IMPOSSIBLE FOR ANY COLDER MOLECULES TO REACH THE OUTER PORTION OF THE TUBE, IT SIMPLY MAKES IT MUCH LESS LIKELY TO OCCUR!
Thanks and have a great day!
Group of Physicists (at least one of you appears to be wrong),
Re-thinking my post I probably should have used the example of gun or cannon fire rather than an RPG. The same argument can be made with either and Brian Williams would still need to explain the small arms fire if I had.
Have a great day!
To all of you regarding the direction of sensible diffusion and convective heat transfers in a gravitational field, see the comprehensive explanation as to how you can determine which way they go, up or down, in our website. From the physics explained therein, when you read it you will understand why …
(1) The heat transfers are upwards when the temperature gradient is algebraically less than the negative environmental temperature gradient, that is, more steep.
(2) There is no heat transfer up or down when there is thermodynamic equilibrium wherein the temperature gradient equals the environmental temperature gradient.
(3) The heat transfers are downwards when there is a temperature inversion, that meaning that the temperature gradient is algebraically greater than the negative environmental temperature gradient.
No further discussion will be entered into on this topic, because everything is explained in the website.
“The experiments provide some hints at an equilibrium gradient”
In fact virtually every one of Graeff’s 850 or so experiments showed cooler temperatures at the top. The claim about the surroundings shows a lack of understanding of the apparatus, because there was in fact a reverse temperature gradient in the outer shell and the surroundings, probably because it was in a sub-floor basement so that the air at the top would be warmed through the floor. So that makes the experiments even more convincing.
Norman and others
Please see this comment below.
crakar24 thanks for your earlier post.
The direction climate science has taken is the wrong path. No attention is given to the historical climatic record which shows so clearly that the climate has changed much more abruptly in the past in contrast to this past century.
That is the key to understanding how the climate may change going forward. It is not the CO2, GHG effect notion.
I presented some really good tough questions which need to be answered in my article(I posted earlier on this site) in order to solve the climate puzzle. I addressed them to some degree, and I think I am on the correct path.
I need low solar conditions to prevail going forward which will clear up matters significantly one way or the other.
The “climate problem” is “solved” in this plot which extends to the year 2200.
Salvatore Del Prete says:
“I presented some really good tough questions which need to be answered in my article(I posted earlier on this site) in order to solve the climate puzzle.”
Except your predictions are, over and over again, wrong.
Though I’m sure that won’t cause you to reevaluate your ideas. Alas.
Assertive statements from you or anyone are of no interest – only valid arguments based on the laws of physics.
Have you seen anyone on any climate blog any time in the last few years prove what I say to be incorrect by using valid physics? If so, link me to their comment and I will explain the inevitable errors in their response.
“I addressed them to some degree, and I think I am on the correct path.”
Your repeated predictions, quoted above, show you are not.
There is only one thing that counts, agriculture, we have to feed an ever increasing world. This is a definitive sign of how our well our climate is doing. 2014 was one of the best years ever with bumper crops seen worldwide. Not bad considering the amount of land used for agriculture has been decreasing since 1998, the world’s population has increased over a billion and what we are using is also used for bio-fuels.
http://thebreakthrough.org/index.php/programs/conservation-and-development/can-we-grow-more-food-on-less-land
“That’s why I was surprised to find what appears to be good news lurking in global data (from the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization, FAO 2014) while I was doing research for a chapter in an upcoming book (Agricultural Resilience: Perspectives from Ecology and Economics – coming from Cambridge University Press later this year).
I found that, while the global food supply per person has increased over the last 15 years, we have simultaneously decreased the total amount of land we’re using to produce it”
“bumper crops seen worldwide.”
Yes because of increasing carbon dioxide which plants need.
“amount of land used for agriculture has been decreasing since 1998”
Yes and much of the corn production goes into ethanol instead of mouths.
He stated that – bio-fuels.
Another month, and another month missing a key fingerprint of AGW. Greenhouse gases are supposed to warm parts of the atmosphere closer to the surface while cool the stratosphere (“the outside of the blanket” in the blanket analogy). Now, the stratosphere has not cooled in 20 years — well over half of the time that we have measured it via satellites.
This observation does not necessarily mean that there is no AGW, but it does suggest that other factors are overwhelming it.
I am not “faith based” in this regard. I have cited standard physics text which emphatically states that changes in gravitational potential energy are disregarded in the equations for thermodynamic potentials. Hence when those equations are used to derive the Clausius “hot to cold” corollary of the Second Law there is an obvious reason why sensible heat transfers only always transfer from hot to cold in a horizontal plane. Hence there is no reason for there to be isothermal conditions in a vertical plane. In fact the state of thermodynamic equilibrium in a vertical plane in a planet’s troposphere has a temperature gradient.
I most certainly have presented something new, namely that, because the gravitationally induced temperature gradient is the state of equilibrium, there can be diffusion and other convective heat transfers from cooler to warmer regions and even into the surface. That is why solid surfaces on Earth still rise in temperature by day even when there is extensive cloud cover. That is why a location on the surface of Venus rises by 5 degrees during the course of the 4 months of sunlight. That is why it’s hotter than Earth’s surface at the base of the nominal troposphere of Uranus.
Before you or anyone else responds I suggest you read the valid physics endorsed by our “Planetary Physics” group here.
Regarding experiments, there have been over 800 done this century by Roderich Graeff which confirm that isothermal conditions do not evolve in insulated sealed cylinders. There is also the compelling evidence from the Ranque Hilsch vortex tube and of course evidence in planets and satellite moons everywhere. Read the ‘Evidence’ page on that website.
The study of the thermodynamics of the atmosphere lies wholly within the discipline of physics. Correct me if I’m wrong. but my understanding is that climatology courses do not include anywhere near as much physics as is covered in a degree in science with a major in physics, such as I have.
More importantly, physics is about understanding the real world. If you use equations and “laws” of physics, you need to know about the prerequisites for these to apply. Many of my students over the years have not understood such.
For example, the Stefan-Boltzmann equation only applies to true black and gray bodies, and such bodies have to be perfectly insulated against any loss of thermal energy by conduction and other sensible heat transfers. And of course a black body is not transparent like the thin surface layer of the oceans. So all James Hansen’s fiddling with back radiation in order to get the magical 390W/m^2 to “explain” the surface temperature of 288K is garbage, because radiation is not the primary determinant of that temperature, for the simple reason that it is not a black or gray body and only the solar radiation should be counted anyway.
You have to understand that you can only claim that sensible heat transfers occur only from warmer to cooler regions in a horizontal plane, because, as we saw above, the equations for thermodynamic potentials are derived with the assumption that gravitational potential energy does not vary.
You have to understand that the Second Law is all-pervasive and plays a part in determining what happens in all heat transfers and other energy transfers also. That’s why the density gradient is a result of the Second Law. To claim that the state of thermodynamic equilibrium has no density gradient in a gravitational field would be ludicrous. It is just as ludicrous to claim that it has no temperature gradient. There must be no unbalanced energy potentials, and that sure ain’t the case for Roy’s isothermal troposphere.
It is not greenhouse gases which establish the temperature gradient: it is gravity. Until you understand that fact, you will never understand the downward convective heat transfers which explain why all planets’ surfaces are hotter than their tropospheres.
Dr Spencer,
Where can one download the source code used to calculate your monthly temperature anomalies?
— David
No one can prove from the laws of physics that a planet’s troposphere would be isothermal in the absence of greenhouse gases, or that a tall insulated sealed cylinder of argon would not exhibit a temperature gradient close to the quotient of the acceleration due to gravity and the specific heat of the argon.
You cannot possibly prove that an isothermal state would have no unbalanced energy potentials and thus represent maximum entropy. It doesn’t and never could because it has more gravitational potential energy per molecule at the top. It’s not hard to understand.
Climatologists love to pull out the equations of physics and try to prove isothermal conditions from equations for entropy, but in so doing they completely ignore the prerequisites of the equations for thermodynamic potentials, namely that gravitational potential energy does not vary. So of course if you start out with an equation which assumes that, you will be able to prove what it assumes. And sure, you will be right in a horizontal plane. Yep, it’s nice and isothermal in a horizontal plane and the mid-19th century Clausius “hot to cold” statement sure does work in a horizontal plane, but only then I’m afraid.
So the greenhouse radiative forcing conjecture is false. Now that you know that, are you still going to be a part of the hoax?
So Doug Cotton has swarmed the comments section with his gibberish again….
Yes, well I throw down the gauntlet to you, Will Nitschke, and challenge you in the comment below where you get a mention.
Just curious, how many gauntlets do you have?
Quite a few commenters have been similarly challenged over the last few years and not one on any climate blog (to my knowledge) has successfully refuted what I have said. But if you believe there is any comment anywhere that perhaps I’ve missed, then link me to it and I’ll discuss and pinpoint where the author must have gone off the rails.
So is it appropriate to call the claim that water vapor and carbon dioxide warm the surface to be hoax, a lie and a fraud? I say it is because climatologists must have questioned the role of water vapor and realised that the sensitivity cannot possibly be 10 to 15 degrees of warming for each 1% in the atmosphere. Climatologists have tried to kid the world that they know more about thermodynamics than do physicists. They have ignored how physicists define black bodies and then treated the Earth’s surface, the thin transparent surface layer of the oceans and even layers in the atmosphere as if they are black bodies. They have ignored what Loschmidt said about the autonomous formation of a temperature gradient resulting from the force of gravity acting on molecules in flight between collisions. In fact they have published papers (like Verkley et al) which use equations pertaining to thermodynamic potentials which are specifically derived by ignoring gravitational potential energy. So they “prove” using wrong assumptions that the assumptions are true, namely that there would be isothermal conditions in the absence of greenhouse gases. That state is not what the Second Law of Thermodynamics indicates will evolve. Instead gravity does set up a temperature gradient and the resulting sensible heat transfers into the surface explain the observed surface temperatures on planets like Earth and Venus.
Doug,
How does your theory explain the isothermal conditions of the tropopause? Around 10 kilometers of air in isothermal state, same temperature at top and bottom and all points in between.
That’s covered in the book and in more detail in my paper on planetary temperatures which preceded the book. The excessive absorption of insolation in the stratosphere is at such a rate that it dominates the slow diffusion process that forms the temperature gradient in every planet’s troposphere, rather like what happens in the ocean thermoclines. The stratosphere represents an absorption “hump” in the overall trend of declining temperatures in the troposphere and the mesosphere. The gradient in the mesosphere is less steep because the effective acceleration due to gravity is partially offset by outward centrifugal force, and also because of some absorption as in the stratosphere.
Remember that it is the extreme centrifugal force in a Ranque Hilsch vortex tube which separates the gas into hot and cold streams. There can be no doubt that a force field acting on molecules in flight between collisions will always redistribute molecular kinetic energy and thus form a temperature gradient at the molecular level.
It is totally incorrect for climatologists to assume that the Clausius “hot to cold” corollary of the Second Law (which only applies in a horizontal plane) would lead to isothermal conditions in a vertical plane.
May I suggest you and Roy and Will and BooS actually read the correct physics which is in our group’s website and discuss the physics therein in your own words, demonstrating your own personal understanding of temperatures and energy flows in all tropospheres, surfaces, crusts and mantles of planets and satellite moons in out Solar System. If you merely cite the works of Pierrehumbert, Verkley or others I will have already pinpointed where they go wrong in their physics.
This thread contains the most comprehensive discussion in any climate blog ever of the atmospheric physics involved. I suggest you all read all of what I have explained.
Hi Doug aka Physics Group (one of you is apparently wrong again),
You stated:
“Remember that it is the extreme centrifugal force in a Ranque Hilsch vortex tube which separates the gas into hot and cold streams.”
You’ve used the term “centrifugal force” too much on this post and others not to be commented on. “CENTRIFUGAL FORCE” DOES NOT EXIST!!! CENTRIPETAL FORCE (OR CENTER SEEKING) DOES EXIST!!! If you claim the mantle of Physics Teacher, you might just want to know this fact.
Have a great day!
The climate trend change will be upon us shortly after solar cycle 24 ends. It is not going to be put off into some distant future time.
Those kind of predictions always put me off because they say nothing in essence.
The big players will be weakening solar/geo magnetic fields, within the background of other climatic factors, which are at least neutral as a whole.
My estimate.
I think the temperature trend will be a jig saw gradual down trend (.1-.15c/ year )as we go forward from here (after solar maximum cycle 24 ends,(WHICH HAS NOT TAKEN PLACE YET) but with a more abrupt down movement within the down jigsaw pattern.
Yes there will probably be a slight decline until 2027 or 2028 as I predicted in August 2011* but then the warmists will celebrate again because temperatures will rise about half a degree between 2029 and 2059, as is seen in the plot derived from planetary orbits on our group’s website linked in other comments.
* “From 2003 the effect of El Niño had passed and a slightly declining trend has been observed. This is the net effect of the 60-year cycle starting to decline whilst the 934 year cycle is still rising.”
Thought I clicked my bookmark to Roy Spencer’s Blog, but it turns out my URL must have been changed to Doug Cotton’s blog. WUWT?
Go back to this comment where you get a mention.
ROFLMAO
Question. The variance from average in the northern hemisphere for January, in my opinion, is not believable. I am not a climatologist or even a scientist of any kind, but I did well enough in statistics to know a stat that doesn’t look right when i see it.
You can forget about the garbage “science” which claims that the Sun’s radiation plus radiation from a planet’s colder troposphere somehow explains the planet’s surface temperature. It doesn’t. Not on Earth. Not on Venus and certainly not at the base of the nominal troposphere of Uranus where there is no solar radiation or surface, yet it’s hotter than Earth’s surface down there.
You can forget the garbage “science” which then claims the temperature gradient (aka “lapse rate”) is caused by rising parcels of air that could only be held together by wind in all its forms. Such a process does not form the expected temperature gradient. Only the very slow diffusion process does so – that same process that you see when your car has been heated up by the Sun in your driveway and you then drive it into your garage, close the garage door and open all the car doors. That is not wind even if you can detect very slow advection due to net molecular motion.
What does happen on every planet is that radiative balance is attained with the Sun, though in detail the planet cools on its dark side and warms back up by the same amount on its sunlit side. The temperature gradient is formed at the molecular level due to the force of gravity acting on molecules as they move between collisions. We see physical evidence of a (centrifugal) force field redistributing molecular (micro) kinetic energy and producing hot and cold streams of gas in a Ranque Hilsch vortex tube.
So radiative balance sets the overall mean temperature in the troposphere and then gravity induces a temperature gradient. That gradient is then reduced in magnitude by intermolecular radiation between molecules of water vapor and other so-called greenhouse gases. We know water vapor reduces the gradient, so the thermal profile rotates downwards at the surface end. It is ludicrous to think that water vapor raises surface temperatures by most of “33 degrees” when in fact it lowers them and empirical evidence confirms this. There’s more evidence here.
Doug Cotton,
This article you may like. He does consider what you talk about.
http://xxx.tau.ac.il/pdf/0812.4990.pdf
Very long but interesting. It is not a simple answer. I do not think you should be ignored (but you are very repetitive and destroy blog thread topics). I think your approach is terrible, your ideas can be interesting.
Do you know what the conclusion of this author is? It is the same as I ask for. Experimental proof and evidence. One person’s tests going down to 0.04 K are not conclusive enough. Doug, you and your group should petition the Australian government to supply you with enough funding to run conclusive experiments. The greater the length of tube the more conclusive will be the results (either direction), an obvious temperature gradient will emerge or it won’t.
If you want to be a good scientist you should be the first one trying to find flaws in your thinking. And if you do run tests you should be running them to disprove your theory. The best scientist is not one who knows he is right, it is the one willing to let Nature tell him the truth and listen! Your brain is so filled with your own ideas you do not want to listen to the world around you which makes you a very poor scientist. That is why you seem a religious zealot! You are so obsessed with your discovery that you have shut your mind down at listening to the external world.
The situation is complex if you read the article. It is not clear or easy to figure out. It is not like stones. Molecules have very high energy and move very fast and the speed is an energy distribution which does not apply to a single object and the situation develops into a complexity. Don’t oversimplify the complexity.
As I have said, read the Evidence page on our group’s website and perhaps discuss the probability of the -g/Cp gradient being found everywhere, even in Earth’s outer crust, and the process which delivers the required thermal energy needed to raise the surface temperature of Venus.
There is far, far more evidence in all the planets and even sub-surface regions, the core of the Moon, the nominal troposphere of Uranus, the empirical evidence that water vapor cools the Earth’s surface, the fact that a temperature gradient evolves in the plane of the centrifugal force in a Ranque Hilsch vortex tube (and even equals -F/Cp where F is the acceleration due to the centrifugal force) and the statistical improbability of isothermal conditions when nearly all of Graeff’s 850 experiments showed otherwise.
Doug Cotton,
Here is another article showing how complex the action of quadrillions of molecules creates.
https://caves.org/pub/journal/PDF/v71/cave-71-01-100.pdf
Because molecules at room temperature (or cave temperature) have such high energies compared to the gravitational field (average speed of nitrogen molecules at room temperature is 500 m/sec) and the gravitational force is 9.8 m/sec/sec. A nitrogen atom would move 490 meters up the first second, 480 the next and so on. In 10 seconds it would have traveled about 2.5 miles up.
The point I bring up with this article is to show that because of the very high energy of the molecules as compared to the gravity field that heavier gases and lighter gases are homogeneous mixture even in the gravity field (as long as the volume does not run into the kilometer range). If you get a homogeneous mixture of gases (even radon) even in a large cave of uniform temperature, why would you think that more energetic molecules would be greatly effected by gravity with a large speed distribution.
Hi Norman,
first of all thank, you for having highlighted the issues above, this is in my opinion the right way to do science.
About the specific point, isn’t a different case when gases are contained in a cave respect to the free atmosphere exposed to gravity?.
I mean, in a cave the gas molecules sure mix their energy in the limited volume they can move, while in the free atmosphere I imagine that single molecule that shares it’s energy kept from the ground with the multitude of the other molecules above, so shouldn’t establish a vertical energy gradient anyways because of gravity?
In a mechanical (maybe silly) point of view, in the cave the ceiling is thermalized by the gas molecules bumping themselves, so the vertical gradient should be far less if not absent or inverted.
Anyways, as always said I’m just an electronic engineer, and maybe I misunderstood something.
Have a great day.
Massimo
Massimo PORZIO I like reading your posts. Even in the free atmopshere the gases are homogeneous (random sample from various places will result in the same proportions of gases) until you go very high. High in the atmopshere hydrogen, helium, nitrogen and oxygen do stratify based upon their molecular weights. Definately not anywhere in the troposphere.
Hi Norman,
thank you for the info about that place where gases stratify, I was absolutely unaware of that. I knew that all along the atmosphere they were supposed to be perfectly mixed together, but not that there is a place were they stratify.
Just to my knowledge (if it’s not an heavy task for you), could you remember and tell me at which height it happens?
Have great day.
Massimo
Massimo PORZIO
Here is a link to that area of the atmosphere. It is called Heterosphere.
https://www.shodor.org/os411/courses/411b/module02/unit01/page04.html
The stratification occurs because of lack of conductive heating.
It is about 80 kilometers up in the atmosphere.
Thank you very much.
Have a nice Sunday.
Massimo
Yes Norman, but the fact that the gases diffuse among themselves and become a homogeneous mixture is not what Massimo or I are talking about. We are talking about how their mean molecular kinetic energy leads to there being a temperature gradient when the state of thermodynamic equilibrium is attained. The kinetic energy is shared among molecules in collisions, and such molecules don’t have to be ones of the same gas. It really is time that you read and try to understand all five pages at http://climate-change-theory.com because I only have time to discuss my hypothesis when genuine questions are asked, not red herrings like this.
Hi Doug,
yes I agree with you about that, that is I’m not convinced about the isothermal atmosphere. Anyways, I could be wrong because I’ve no concrete proof that the atmosphere is not isothermal.
Your isentropic atmospheric profile sounds much better for me, but who am I to tell who is right or who is wrong if I can’t find any proof?
Instead I agree with Norman, who should be a professional in the field (military??? if I’m not wrong), that the tropopause temperature plateau is good riddle. That is, why is it almost perfectly at constant temperature?
Is it just a superimposition of the tropospheric lapse rate and the stratospheric one, or is it something else?
Science should be done answering these questions.
Reading something about tropopause, I also discovered that its temperature is counter-intuitively lower at the tropics and higher at the poles, which IMHO should explain the higher incidence of devastating thunderstorms at the tropics, and the almost absence of them at the poles.
Anyways, I’m no one to teach anything to Dr. Spencer or Norman, who work in the field (Norman refute me, if I’m wrong). I have enough to be allowed to write here my thought, just hoping that among many silly things I wrote some could help them doing their job.
I also agree with Norman when he wrote that you shouldn’t be ignored “but you are very repetitive and destroy blog thread topics”.
In my opinion you have a good new theory about our atmosphere, but until a practical check of it will be found against the reality, it will remain a theory.
And since the atmosphere is so much chaotic, I just really hope to have the honor of living the days in which someone (maybe you, who can tell) will state for sure as the whole atmosphere works.
Have a great day.
Massimo
Massimo, i have no problem with doug being repetitive and as far as destroying blog threads goes, i hate seeing any constraints on that as well. I think doug’s problem is in his delivery. His ideas may be good, but he’s just not the guy to present them. Dr. Spencer used the term “mumbo jumbo” to describe doug’s ramblings. As is, i can’t imagine he’ll ever gain much traction with what he’s saying. AND that’s a shame because if he fails to do so, it won’t be so much because his ideas are bad rather because his ideas are poorly presented…
Hi Fonzie,
I perfectly agree. I have nothing to add to your comment about Doug, other than that I believe it’s not a good behavior insistently change the topic of a thread.
This could be a deathly communication failure for presenting his theory (which I currently don’t see any proof about it’s right or wrong).
Have a great day.
Massimo
Massimo
You have concrete proof in the tropospheres of every planet and satellite moon with a significant atmosphere. You also have proof that radial centrifugal force in a vortex tube produces a radial temperature gradient, increasing the temperature at the circumference of each cross-sectional circle, and decreasing the temperature (well below 0°C) down the center line of the cylinder, that is at the center of each cross-sectional circle. See the “Evidence” page here and don’t change the subject from what is in my hypothesis, for how else could you or anyone refute such?
And, mo, Massimo, I am the expert in the field of thermodynamics, not Norman or Tim or Curt or Roy.
The tropospause is no riddle – I explained it in the paper written two years ago – just search the word “stratosphere” when you have that paper open from http://climate-change-theory.com.
Dr Spencer does need to learn from me, as he only got an “A” in some low grade thermodynamics course, nothing remotely like a full degree in physics such as I have. The biggest problem among climatologists is that they make up physics to suit their greenhouse conjecture and they get people to obliterate anything in Wikipedia that proves their radiative forcing conjecture wrong. It’s a closely knit pal review system designed specifically (and openly admitted) to try to overcome capitalism.
I suggest you stop sitting on the fence, Massimo, and that applies to Roy also. There’s still that $5,000 reward explained in another comment written today.
“A nitrogen atom would move 490 meters up the first second”
No it would not. It would start out at 500m/sec and slow down over the distance until it was down to 490m/sec at the next level. The distance traveled would be closer to 495m.
Norman and others:
I have provided a proof from Kinetic Theory and the Second Law of Thermodynamics that the state of thermodynamic equilibrium has a temperature gradient. I have also provided evidence.
You have absolutely no valid proof that isothermal conditions could exist in a force field as the state of thermodynamic equilibrium.
If they could, then the Ranque Hilsch vortex tube would not work, and nor could you explain any planetary surface temperatures and energy flows for any planet with an atmosphere. So, if you want to dispute what the brilliant physicist Loschmidt explained, then produce your proof and empirical data that supports your wild conclusion about isothermal tropospheres which simply don’t exist, even where there is no solar radiation and no surface.
I will not accept as “proof” equations of thermodynamic potentials which are based on assumptions of fixed gravitational potential energy, nor will I accept the Clausius “hot to cold” corollary of the Second Law because that also applies only in a horizontal plane, being derived from the equations of thermodynamic potentials.
Regarding your gravitational potential energy, it changes in distance dH between collisions for a molecule of mass m and that change is of course m.g.dH and the resulting increase in kinetic energy during that molecule’s vertical descent before its next collision is m.Cp.dT where this expression is the energy required to raise its temperature dT. Hence the temperature gradient dT/dH is g/Cp.
Doug Cotton,
Your challenge: “So, if you want to dispute what the brilliant physicist Loschmidt explained, then produce your proof and empirical data that supports your wild conclusion about isothermal tropospheres which simply don’t exist, even where there is no solar radiation and no surface.”
Look at Figure 2 of this article:
http://curry.eas.gatech.edu/currydoc/Curry_JAS40.pdf
Note Day 0 shows the lapse rate structure you conclude is caused by gravitioanl field effects (colder at top than bottom by multiple degrees).
Look again, now at Day 14. Fairbanks, Alaska gets little solar insolation in December so radiation effects are minimal. The air is stable with no convection taking place (bottom colder than upper layers). The atmosphere in low radiation stable conditions moves to an isothermal condition for at least 4 kilometers up. It only looks maybe a 6 C difference from bottom to top and a lot less for most of the way, the air is really cold at the bottom and shows more variation than isothermal state.
Calm air, little to no convection, very little radiation to change state and what does the atmosphere evolve to or tend to become? Looks like isothermal to me. This polar air would be a lot closer to thermodynamic stability than turbulent tropical air, mixing all the time.
Doug Cotton,
I am forming a rival hypothesis that can ahow an isothermal condition in equilibrium in a gravity field.
I have not worked out the details but it has to do with the energy distribution of the molecules of gas.
Nitrogen average speed at room temperature is 500 meters/sec. Some are moving faster some slower but the mean is what determines the temperature reading. The higher energy nitrogen atoms move faster and would have much larger mean free paths than the slower moving one. Therefore the probability of finding such at higher elevations in a gravity field is more likely. Now the gravitaional force will act on all the nitrogen molecules but the higher speed ones (being slowed down by gravity as they go higher) will still have enough energy so that average of the particle speed is still 500 meter/second so the tmeperature at the top and bottom remain the same.
That is why it is premature to conclude anything about molecules in a gravity field when their energies are far in excess of gravitational pull and the energies are distributed among a probability curve.
When Loschmidt had disagreement with Maxwell and Boltzmann over the condition of atmosphere in an equilibrium state (which is hard to see with all the continuous turbulence and overturning), rather than battle with math equations they should have settled it with clever and convincing experiments. I do not think experiments that show a 0.04 C change are conclusive enough to convince the bulk of thermodynamic scientists. One needs more conclusive measurements of a temperature gradient to get large acceptance.
I read up on your vortex tube and I am not sure how you use this to prove a temperature gradient would exist in an equilibrium atmposphere.
I do not think it is a “wild” conclusion to consider the troposphere in isothermal state in equiiibrium state. Loschmidt may have been a brilliant man but so were Gibbs, Maxwell and Boltzmann. They are some of the founders of the laws of thermodynamics you use in your arguments. I do not think they were wild with their calculations. They likewise were brilliant and meticulous, their derivations are not the back of an envelope type.
Give up Norman!
You wrote: “The higher energy nitrogen atoms move faster and would have much larger mean free paths than the slower moving one.”
Why? They are still in among lower energy ones. The mean free path is of the order of 13 times the mean distance between molecules. Who cares about what speed the molecules move? They are still going to collide perhaps sooner than later. They don’t skirt around any molecule in their path just because they are going faster.
It is highly improbable that any one molecule would travel even a meter in one direction (such as upwards) without encountering multiple collisions which ensure its motion is random and can readily head back downwards.
Regarding the Ranque Hilsch vortex tube, you can see my calculations in the “Talk” page on Wikipedia.
The issue is not what turbulence does. Obviously it disturbs thermodynamic equilibrium. The issue is the overall propensity for entropy to increase. Sure, you will only get close to the expected temperature gradient in perfectly calm conditions at night. But you could say the same for the density gradient, yet no one argues that it does not exist. You will get a propensity towards a temperature gradient just as surely as you will towards a density gradient, for the simple reason that they are each the one and only state of thermodynamic equilibrium, that being the one and only state with maximum entropy.
As I have said, you cannot prove that there would be isothermal conditions using the “standard” equations for thermodynamic potentials. The entropy equation specifically leaves out any term for gravitational potential energy. It’s there in black and white that gravitational potential energy is ignored.
It is blatantly obvious that molecules at higher altitudes have higher mean molecular gravitational potential energy. If there were no compensating reduction in mean molecular kinetic energy, then you obviously have unbalanced energy potentials, and so work could be done and entropy could increase. Hence it ain’t thermodynamic equilibrium. QED.
Turbulence and wind of any form disrupt the slow process that leads to the formation of the temperature gradient as thermodynamic equilibrium is approached. You cannot disregard the Second Law of Thermodynamics. But you have to understand the relatively slow process (such as the hot car in garage example in our website) can easily be over-ridden by weather conditions and not necessarily restored within 14 days.
But weather is not climate, and is usually disregarded in climate models because it tends to average out. You could find examples where weather just about eliminates the density gradient also, but that does not disprove the Second Law of Thermodynamics which enables us to understand why that density gradient forms. We just have to understand that a tornado may disrupt it temporarily.
Footnote:
With regard to the paper you linked, Norman, they concluded “Into this framework the inclusion of a gravitational field is natural. Inevitably, it leads to pressure gradients and thus also temperature gradients.”
However they then talked about a “series” of equilibrium states between isothermal and the g/Cp temperature gradient. That is contrary to the Second Law, because entropy just keeps on increasing until the one and only state of maximum entropy evolves. That state is thermodynamic equilibrium by definition.
Because the density gradient is stable, it must be that state of thermodynamic equilibrium. Then, because more molecules have moved downwards to form that density gradient (when the cylinder rotates from horizontal to vertical) there is greater mean KE at the bottom than at the top. Nothing changes from there unless new energy is added or energy removed. There is no propensity to go back to isothermal, thus decreasing entropy.
From James Clerk Maxwell’s “Theory of Heat”, written in 1871:
“We find that if a vertical column of a gas were left to itself, till by the conduction of heat it had attained a condition of thermal equilibrium, the temperature would be the same throughout, or, in other words, gravity produces no effect in making the bottom of the column hotter or colder than the top.
This result is important in the theory of thermodynamics, for it proves that gravity has no influence in altering the conditions of thermal equilibrium in any substance, whether gaseous or not. For if two vertical columns of different substance stand of the same perfectly conducting horizontal plate, the temperature of the bottom of each column will be the same; and if each column is in thermal equilibrium of itself, the temperatures at all equal heights must be the same. In fact, if the temperatures of the tops of the two columns were different, we might drive an engine with this difference of temperature, and the refuse heat would pass down the colder column, through the conducting plate, and up the warmer column; and this would go on till all the heat was converted into work, contrary to the second law of thermodynamics.”
JCM had it figured out 150 years ago. Robert Brown’s and Tim Folkerts’ examples are variations of these. All of them are slam-dunk refutations of your arguments, obvious to anyone who really understands basic physics and thermodynamics.
You really have nothing except the observation that if you throw a ball up in the air, it slows down as it gets higher. You erroneously try to generalize this to an atmosphere with a density gradient, as many a first-year student would. (Hint: It is your lack of accounting for the density gradient that is your key error.)
Robert Brown’s post is refuted on the “WUWT errors” page on our group’s website here. If you really believe that perpetual energy circulation could happen, then you have no understanding of the Second Law, which of course Robert Brown does not gave either.
Anthony Watts obviously knows that the garvito-thermal effect smashes the greenhouse and so he deletes comments that refer to it (as I well know) and rests his laurels on his mate Robert Brown’s article. Note BigWaveDave’s comment at the very end of the thread, following which Watts closed comments immediately.
Come back Curt when you can explain how the necessary thermal energy gets down into the nominal troposphere of Uranus from the methane layer near the top where most solar radiation is absorbed and it’s a cold -214°C. Likewise explain where the energy comes from that causes a location on the equator on Venus to rise in temperature by about 5C° over the course of 4 months of sunlight, warming back up after 5° of cooling at night. Then read my responses to Norman.
Maxwell was wrong and his teacher, Josef Loschmidt was right. If you want to understand why then go back to this comment and, if necessary, the one above it.
Yes Curt, well Maxwell wasn’t correct, and they didn’t have Ranque Hilsch vortex tubes then which prove him wrong and his teacher, Loschmidt right. The Second Law of Thermodynamics makes it quite clear that a temperature gradient and a density gradient both exist when maximum entropy is attained. Every planetary troposphere has such gradients, regardless of whether there are IR-active gases, or even a surface receiving solar radiation.
Continued here.
Nearly two months ago, I posted the following
December 25, 2014 at 12:25 PM
Consider:
Annual emissions of CO2 by
Humans = 3.5%
Nature = 96.5%
Annual uptake of CO2 by nature = 98.5%, so annual increase is no more than 1.5% of total annual emissions.
Therefore, long-term human emissions of CO2 cannot exceed 3.5% x 1.5% = 0.0525% of total annual CO2 emissions.
Again, total annual emissions are 850 Gigatonnes of CO2. Only 1.5% carry forward to the next year, or 12.75 Gigatonnes, so mankind does not contribute more than 450 Megatonnes of CO2 to the annual increases in atmospheric CO2.
The atmosphere’s mass is 5.15E15 tonnes, of which CO2 makes up 0.06% by weight, or 3100 Gigatonnes.
Now, the Greenhouse Warming on Earth is attributable to mostly water vapor and carbon dioxide as follows:
H2O = 95%
CO2 = 5%
Let’s say Greenhouse Warming really is as high as +33C. Then, the warming attributable to ALL atmospheric CO2 is
+33 x 0.05 = +1.65C
The long-term annual (maximum) possible effect of human CO2 emissions must be limited to
0.450 Gigatonnes / 3100 Gigatonnes x +1.65C = +0.00024C.
Therefore, if there is no positive feedback, or if net feedback is negative, then 165 years of fossil fuel consumption by mankind cannot have added more than +0.04C.
It is very hard to imagine this tiny bit of (unmeasurable) anthropogenic warming could possibly produce an effect equal to +5C over the next 150 years. One needs to imagine a long term feedback/amplification of at least 50X. I agree with the evaluation of the good Dr. Spencer that this type of enormous feedback due to a tiny bit of added CO2 warming is not in evidence. The long term (165-year) warming has been less than +1.5C, and more than half of this is already known to be due to nature. Just a little bit of effort and investigation is required to show how nearly ALL of the warming has been natural.
Whether money needs to be provided to prove this is questionable. Mother nature herself will be producing the cooling, and will prove the absurdity of science of CAGW proponents.
On December 28, 2014 at 1:28 PM
MRW asked:
Are these generally accepted percentages and temperatures you’re using?
…
Is there anything you can point me to? Thanks.
The calculations were originally mine, but the percentages can be validated by almost any model of the CO2 cycle, and even by the IPCC’s assessment reports. I’m using accepted data to derive the inputs to my calculations, and I’ve simply put this data together in a compelling manner.
My calculations highlight three important assumptions that must all be true for catastrophic global warming due to human fossil fuel emissions to be a valid hypothesis.
1) One must assume ALL of the annual increase in CO2 observed on the side of the active volcano, Mauna Loa, was added to the atmosphere because nature cannot sink the exponential increase in human CO2 emissions
2) One must assume the idea of CO2 back-radiation “slows” the escape of energy from Earth’s surface into space at night
3) One must assume a tiny bit of warming due to CO2 drives an increase in atmospheric H2O, and that this H2O then “amplifies” the warming caused by the CO2
There is insufficient objective, observational data to validate any of these three assumptions, which are foundational to the applicability of global climate models used to demonstrate warming due to CO2 emissions.
Assumption 1) cannot be true, because nature does not have a brain in order to distinguish between sources of CO2, and only sink that CO2 which was emitted by mankind. The IPCC reports clearly rely on the notion of “well-mixed” tropospheric gases to extrapolate the application of Mauna Loa CO2 data to the entire atmosphere.
Assumption 3) cannot be true, because it suggests the atmosphere is unstable, and susceptible to tiny amounts of warming. Again, nature does not have a brain, so ANY cause which produced a tiny bit of warming would necessarily be “amplified” in the same manner as has been assumed for CO2. Dr. Spencer has successfully argued to the contrary in his recent papers.
Assumption 2) might be true, but I’m skeptical for several reasons.
A) CO2 absorption spectra indicate only one narrow infrared band at 14 microns where CO2 gas molecules absorb photons and re-emit them within microseconds.
B) CO2 molecular radiative absorbance in this band alone is 1.0, so transmittance is near 10%, in laboratory measurements. However, the atmosphere is not constrained as in a laboratory experiment. The CO2 molecules in the stratosphere have mean-free-paths which exceed the microseconds required before re-emission occurs.
C) H2O absorption spectra indicate broad band photon absorption and re-emission over nearly the entire radiation spectrum – with a transmittance of only about 50% at the 14 micron band shared with CO2.
D) The outgoing longwave radiation (OLR) energy is distributed across the entire spectrum associated with an ideal black-body emitter at 288 K.
E) Only about 1% of OLR energy is at the narrow 14 microns band.
F) Less than half of the 1% of OLR energy is available for “back-radiation”, or “downward” radiative warming by CO2.
G) Contrasting CO2 with H2O, the H2O molecules can absorb 99.5% of the OLR energy from Earth’s surface, where 0.5% overlaps the band occupied by CO2.
H) There are at least 25X more H2O molecules in the troposphere than there are CO2 molecules.
If radiative absorption is shared evenly (as a pure statistical probability of a given 14-micron wavelength photon striking a molecule of H2O vs CO2), then, on average, water vapor molecules must have at least 12.5X more absorptions than CO2 molecules.
This implies a much, much greater share of the Greenhouse Warming Effect is due to H2O than is found in any IPCC literature.
If we use the IPCC figure of +33 C for total GWE, then I’d estimate the GWE for H2O = 99.85% (+32.95 C), while the GWE for CO2 = 0.14% (+0.046 C).
However, for my calculations above, I used the unlikely IPCC figures of 95% of GWE due to H2O, and 5% due to CO2. This is far to generous to CO2, in my opinion. Some “climate scientists” throw around even larger figures attributable to CO2, but these always require the “amplification” of CO2 warming to be evident, which it is not.
J) The addition of CO2 molecules into the lower troposphere would tend to increase the nucleii available for surface cloud formation (fog), because CO2 molecules readily dissolve into water.
K) Cloud formation, in general, is catalyzed by more CO2 nucleii in the atmosphere.
L) Increases in cloud cover produce Negative feedback to any tiny bit of CO2 warming, because more solar radiation is reflected back into space before reaching the surface. This effect is obviously far more important than the minuscule CO2 back-radiation, of a small fraction of OLR, only at night.
M) CO2 back-radiation cannot occur during the day, when incoming solar radiation saturates the capacity of the atmosphere to absorb radiative energy.
Therefore, if anything, more CO2 would tend to provide a net Cooling effect at the surface, not a net Warming.
These last thoughts (my rationale for remaining skeptical of the significance of CO2 “back-radiation”) are only conjecture, not science. However, taken together they are a plausible criticism of the theory, and could be investigated by someone who has more time than I have available right now.
I believe Drs. Gerhard Gerlich and Ralf Tscheuschner (2007) attempted to do this very thing with their paper “Falsification of the Atmospheric CO2 Greenhouse Effects Within the Frame of Physics”, and its defense in 2009, against Halpern, et al. (2008, 2010).
Before Gerlich, I too had questioned the alleged +33 C of surface warming, which is alleged to be due to the improperly named “Greenhouse Effect”. But I’m not a world-reknowned mathematical physicist like Gerlich, and I won’t have the time to look into this more carefully until after I retire.
John, as a simple analogy, suppose I had a job where I grossed $100 per day, but my expenses were also $100 per day. I could work forever and never get ahead.
Now, suppose a friend decides to give me $3 per day. Suddenly my bank account is growing $3 per day. On the one had, you could lump the $103 together and say that 97% of the $3 I am saving = $2.91 comes from my earnings and only $0.09 comes from my friend’s gift.
But very few people look at it that way. They would say the extra $3 is what you are able to save. Even if you started spending $102 per day because you were feeling richer, most would still attribute the extra $1 savings to the friend’s contribution.
The problem with your analogy is that we don’t know whether expenditures actually total $100. (furthermore, since the entire $3 is not showing up every day, that gives rise to the possibility that even more of it could be taken out to spend…) In the case of co2, the alleged stability of atmospheric concentrations before the industrial revolution is based on ice cores which remain unverified. Therefor, we don’t actually know what happens to co2 after hundreds and thousands of years trapped in ice…
Yep. Even if the cores of all planets had been cold to start with when formed, or at least less hot than they are, then some of the thermal energy from the Sun, absorbed in the upper troposphere and above would have been conveyed by diffusion, conduction and downward convective heat transfer to the surface, the crust, the mantle and the core little by little over the life of the planet, being trapped under the sloping thermal plot whose gradient is set by gravity acting on molecules between collisions.
Marvelous isn’t it!
And if the cores were initially hotter, they would have cooled down to existing temperatures, thus ensuring that all the temperature gradients in the mantle, crust and troposphere were to be as expected (based on -g/Cp) until the temperature gets down to just the right radiating temperature that balances with the insolation at just the right altitude.
In fact, of course, the thermal plot builds up (temperature wise) from that anchor point in the troposphere, not down from the core.
It’s good that you’re starting to understand what I’ve been saying for two and a half years now.
John Olson,
Thank you for the post, I agree with much of it. However, one point you made struck me. You stated:
“Assumption 1) cannot be true, because nature does not have a brain in order to distinguish between sources of CO2, and only sink that CO2 which was emitted by mankind.”
While the statement for the most part appears true. One small caveat comes to mind. Plants do not absorb the carbon 13 isotope. Therefore, if the earth’s hydrocarbons prove to be FOSSIL FUELS then the entire volume of anthroprogenic carbon emission can be re-absorbed by plants. However, if as I’ve provided evidence for many times much of the earth’s hydrocarbons including much of the petroleum and almost all the natural gas sources do not derive from living things but from geological chemical reactions (methane forms from iron oxide, calcite and water under sufficient heat and pressure found beneath the earth’s crust-methane is a volcanic gas) then a portion 1.1% of the emissions will not be absorbed by living creatures.
Carbon-13 (13C) is a natural, stable isotope of carbon and one of the environmental isotopes. It makes up about 1.1% of all natural carbon on Earth.[1]
Personally, I don’t think it makes a whole lot of difference just pointing it out.
Have a great day!
John Olsen
Well if as you say: “Then, the warming attributable to ALL atmospheric CO2 is +33 x 0.05 = +1.65C” then the warming attributable to water vapor would be about 31.3C° for a mean of, say 2% WV. So regions with 1% are warmed over 15C° and rain forests with 4% are warmed by over 62C° – that is by 47 degrees more than those dry regions at similar latitude and altitude.
Of course the real physics tells us that the assumed isothermal troposphere (between the surface and the radiating altitude) in the absence of GH gases is a figment of the imagination and would not be what the Second Law indicates would happen. That law indicates that there would be a propensity towards maximum entropy and that state of thermodynamic equilibrium has a temperature gradient which would make the surface about 25°C but for the fact that water vapor lowers the temperature gradient (to the “wet adiabatic lapse rate”) and thus causes the surface to be at least 10° cooler.
John (and others)
“This implies a much, much greater share of the Greenhouse Warming Effect is due to H2O than is found in any IPCC literature.”
Yes indeed, if you start out with an assumed surface temperature of 255K based on incorrectly assumed isothermal conditions between the radiating altitude and the surface you end up with this obviously incorrect conclusion that water vapor raises surface temperatures far more in rain forests than in deserts, when of course it doesn’t.
I remind you all that my study* showed daily mean temperatures to be cooler in more moist regions:-
Wettest third: Max: 30.8°C Min: 20.1°C
Middle third: Max: 33.0°C Min: 21.2°C
Driest third: Max: 35.7°C Min: 21.9°C
(1) The gravitationally induced temperature gradient allows the necessary diffusive and convective heat transfers into a planet’s surface that cause its temperature to be higher than the radiating temperature of the planet, as is found somewhere in its cooler troposphere.
(2) Then inter-molecular radiation (such as between water vapor molecules) has a temperature leveling effect working against the gravity effect and thus lowering surface temperatures.
On Earth gravity raises the temperature to about 25°C and then IR-active gases (mostly WV) lower it by about 10C°. It’s not hard to understand here.
* published in my book “Why It’s Not Carbon Dioxide After All”
And I’ve already explained to you why this is wrong, and it’s because you’re conflating the effects of water vapor alone without considering its combined effect with clouds (which is accepted to be net cooling). Areas with more water in the atmosphere also have more clouds, and you can’t disentangle the effect water vapor has by itself if there are also clouds. You also don’t seem to understand or be able to distinguish the difference between 1st and 2nd order effects in a system.
The IPCC claims water vapor and the associated clouds do most of “33 degrees of warming.” But there is no “33 degrees of warming” to do by back radiation, because the gravitationally induced temperature gradient causes the surface temperature to be about 25°C and then, based on both physics and empirical evidence, the combined effect of water vapor and the associated clouds (which themselves increase albedo by 20% in total and thus lead to lower temperatures) is to lower temperatures by about 10°C. Carbon dioxide also reduces the temperature gradient (and thus the surface temperature) but only by a minuscule amount. It certainly cannot raise the surface temperature in accord with any valid physics. This comment is continued here and on the following page which contains compelling evidence supporting the hypothesis.
Doug,
“The IPCC claims water vapor and the associated clouds do most of “33 degrees of warming.” But there is no “33 degrees of warming” to do by back radiation…”
Where specifically is it claimed that the +33C is caused by downward LW, i.e. ‘back radiation’, passing from the atmosphere to the surface?
This is not my understanding of the physics of the GHE, which are that of radiative resistance to cooling. That is, the absorption of upwelling IR emission acting to cool that is absorbed by GHGs and clouds and subsequently re-radiated back downward toward the surface, thereby acting to warm. This mechanism has little to do with the amount of IR the atmosphere passes to the surface, as there are multiple energy inputs to the atmosphere, including not the least of which is the latent heat of evaporation from the surface and post albedo solar power absorbed by the atmosphere.
You also fail to recognize that much of the downward LW incident on the surface is only replacing non-radiant flux leaving the surface but not entering as non-radiant flux, making it a net zero energy flux across the surface/atmosphere boundary.
Moreover, you fail to recognize that a radiative transfer simulation of a global average atmosphere results in about 300 W/m^2 of upwelling IR captured, for which it takes about +150 W/m^2 of net surface gain to offset (i.e. establish equilibrium with space). It’s no coincidence that this is virtually exactly half the difference, as the probability of a photon emission at any discrete level in the atmosphere is 50/50 up or down. This is the same as what would independently be required by a black body emitting over twice the area it absorbs (the area of the surface and the TOA are about equal).
Or that in order to offset a W/m^2 of atmospheric absorption, it only takes 0.5 W/m^2 of additional net surface gain. This supports that even if 100% of upwelling emissions were absorbed, it would take only an amount equal to half that absorbed — of net surface gain — to establish equilibrium with space, effectively limiting atmospheric opacity to 50%. That is, the same as what would be predicted by considering only the elemental properties of the photons (i.e. radiant boundary fluxes and isotropic emission on a photonic level).
I note there seems to be immense push back by Roy and others on this notion due primarily to the lapse rate and the fact that the atmosphere as a whole mass emits more to the surface than it does out into space; however, net opacity itself is independent of this and is determined by the amount of additional net surface gain needed to establish equilibrium with space.
And so, RW, whatever happens below freezing point (with clouds stopping solar radiation reaching the surface) is not going to help water vapor achieve most of “33 degrees of warming” now is it?
Surface reflection is irrelevant when there are clouds shading the surface. Have you ever wondered how the (solid) surface temperature still rises in the morning even in calm conditions when there has been complete thick cloud cover for several days and nights, so virtually no solar radiation strikes the surface beneath?
You would understand the concept of the “supporting temperature” if you read the explanation on http://climate-change-theory.com where over 5,000 have visited in the first six weeks.
RW asks: “Where specifically is it claimed that the +33C is caused by downward LW, i.e. ‘back radiation’, passing from the atmosphere to the surface?”
See the Energy diagram at the foot of the “PSI errors” page at http://climate-change-theory.com and work it out yourself if it’s never dawned on you to do so.
Hint: Using Stefan Boltzmann calculations, you get a radiating temperature of 288K from a net 390W/m^2 which includes 342W/m^2 of back radiation supposedly transferring thermal energy into the surface, which it can’t do because it does not even penetrate water by more than a few nanometers, as even Roy knows.
RW also writes: “You also fail to recognize that much of the downward LW incident on the surface is only replacing non-radiant flux leaving the surface but not entering as non-radiant flux, making it a net zero energy flux across the surface/atmosphere boundary.”
What a laugh. Now RW is admitting exactly what I explained about resonant (or “pseudo”) scattering in my first paper on the Second Law published in March 2012 linked on the “Evidence” page at http://climate-change-theory.com and of course, in so doing, he is admitting that all the K-T, IPCC and NASA energy diagrams that show back radiation supposedly helping the Sun to raise the temperature of the surface are wrong. Good, we’re getting somewhere now with RW.
You could have learnt from our above-linked website that the solar radiation into the surface of Earth is not sufficient to explain the observed temperatures, let alone that reaching the Venus surface. You can slow cooling all you like, but cooling from what temperature? How does the surface temperature of Venus actually rise from 732K to 737K during 4 months on the sunlit side? Where does the required energy come from and by what heat transfer mechanism does it get into the Venus surface, RW?
And, by the way, in calculating what the temperature would be without water vapor, clouds and other IR-active gases, James Hansen and his disciples ever since have made a huge mistake anyway, because to get their 255K they used the albedo value of 30% which included 20% due to clouds, which of course would not exist without water vapor. Then they made a second huge mistake in wrongly assuming that there would be isothemal conditions between the radiating altitude (where it would have been 271K based on 10% albedo rather than the incorrect 255K based on 30% albedo) and the surface.
And so, RW yes clouds cool because they lower the effective radiating temperature from 271K to 255K. That radiating temperature becomes the anchor point for the thermal profile in all planetary tropospheres. For example, on Uranus the temperature of the anchor point is about 59K and it is in the methane layer right up near the top of its atmosphere where there is radiative balance with the Sun. The thermal profiles in all planetary tropospheres, crusts, mantles etc build up from those anchor points as the effect of gravity acting on individual molecules causes an interchange of gravitational potential energy and kinetic energy at the molecular level, and thus a temperature gradient. From this we calculate in two lines that the “dry” temperature gradient is -g/Cp but then inter-molecular radiation between IR-active molecules (such as water vapor and CO2 on Earth) reduces the magnitude of the gradient and so lowers the supported surface temperature.
Hence both clouds and water vapor lead to lower surface temperatures.
“And so, RW yes clouds cool because they lower the effective radiating temperature from 271K to 255K.”
Or clouds cool because in the aggregate they reflect more solar energy back to space than is delayed beneath them. The data strongly supports this being correct (and not your explanation), because the net effect of clouds is only to cool when the surface is snow and/or ice free, as illustrated here in this plot of cloud amount vs. surface temperature:
http://www.palisad.com/co2/sens/st_ca.png
Below 0C, the more clouds there are, the warmer it is on average, where as above 0C, the more clouds there are the cooler it is on average. If your explanation was correct, there would not be this inflection point at the approximately the same spot where the surface becomes equally reflective or less reflective than the clouds above.
Clouds “lower the effective radiating temperature” (my words) because they increase albedo as “they reflect more solar energy back to space” (your words) so glad to see we agree on something. That leaves the IPCC out in the cold with us both disagreeing with them about water vapor doing most of “33 degrees of warming.”
This comment is continued here where you could learn a lot about the thermodynamics of planetary tropospheres and sub-surface regions.
RW:
The K-T, NASA & IPCC energy diagrams, together with Pierrehumbert’s “gold standard” book confirm I am correct. The diagrams show 20% reflected by clouds, 6% by surface and 4% by atmopshere. Then Pierrhumbert uses this total 30% albedo when he multiplies the flux by 0.7 to get the 255K temperature. Without clouds reflecting 20% he should have multiplied by 0.9. That gives a temperature 16.5 degrees hotter.
The full study, with methodology and data is in the back of the 18 page paper (February 2013) linked at http://climate-change-theory.com and it is a study of the real world data that obviously includes the effect of clouds and anything else that is a function of the level of water vapor.
As I ask many times, what is your opinion as to the sensitivity for a 1% increase in water vapor? Maybe 15 degrees? Maybe 20 degrees? Maybe rain forests are 40 degrees hotter than dry deserts? /sarc
John Olson says:
“Consider:
Annual emissions of CO2 by
Humans = 3.5%
Nature = 96.5%
Annual uptake of CO2 by nature = 98.5%, so annual increase is no more than 1.5% of total annual emissions.
Therefore, long-term human emissions of CO2 cannot exceed 3.5% x 1.5% = 0.0525% of total annual CO2 emissions.”
However, the greater natural sources and sinks are mostly short term alternating ones, such as seasonal decomposition and regrowth of biomass. On an annual basis, what is mostly occurring is that humans contribute 3.5% of the “total give”. And certainly I doubt human activity takes much of it back. Instead of claiming what percent of CO2 sourcing and sinking is by humans and nature, I think it is better to cite the ratio of annual CO2 gain to annual human sourcing. (Roughly half of annual human contribution is removed by nature, and roughly half of annual human contribution accumulates in the atmosphere.)
Donald, the “50% paradigm” is a myth… Carbon growth tracks with temperature. The only reason that it seems that half of the anthropegenic source has been taken out is because temperature has been rising as have human emissions. Without the rise in temps over the last few decades we would be seeing far more (apparently) taken out than just 50%.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/esrl-co2/from:1959/mean:24/derivative/plot/hadcrut4sh/from:1959/scale:0.22/offset:0.10
CO2 cools, but by less than 0.1C° for the reasons here and in the linked 18 page paper.
John great information.
Sure Salvo – except for the fact that water vapor does not warm the surface of the Earth by about 31C°, far more so in moist regions like rain forests than in drier regions like deserts. Read my other comments on this to John. Why are you people so easily bluffed by the IPCC?
The IPCC bluff works because people readily respect academic pedigree, position and title over reason and empirical analysis. It should be remembered about most forms of ID that ID often just means idiots delight.
Have a great day!
Thanks for your support. It’s just so sad that an intelligent guy like Roy lets himself be taken for a ride, I guess because he only got an “A” in thermodynamics and never really understood it. I’m trying to help him – haven’t heard much from him lately though.
One of the points I am trying to bring out in my piece of how the climate may changes is the following:
The problem with so many in climate science is that the scientist in this field try to prove their points as to what may or may not effect the climate with specific items, as if they are in ISOLATION, rather then in the context of the entire climatic picture.
Again a given force and magnitude changes of that force which may impact the climate has to be taken into consideration with the entire spectrum of items that are exerting an influence on the climate at that given time ,along with the state of the climate at that given time in order to get a sense of what impact that specific force may or may not exert on the climate.
This is why it is so hard to prove and show a simple cause and effect relationship between the climate and items exerting a force upon the climate even though it does exist.
So Curt, Tim, John, Roy and other lukes, wriggle your way out of this little dilemma about water vapor warming rain forests 47 degrees more than deserts. This conclusion follows directly from your isothermal conjecture which you cannot prove from the equations for thermodynamic potentials, because in the development of those equations they assume gravitational potential energy is constant, as in a horizontal plane.
The climate most likely acts as a two tier system in that it has slow moving cycles such as Milankovitch Cycles that gradually move the climate toward a warmer or colder climate but super imposed on this gradual cycle are forces, and events that can create counter abrupt climatic trends especially when the climate is near the glacial/inter- glacial threshold condition which the slow moving cycles in the climatic system bring the climate toward and away from over long periods of time.
They(most climate scientist) do not get it. They try constantly to isolate an item that may influence the climate without considering it in the context of the entire spectrum of items that may be impacting the climate at that given time or the state of the climate at that given time and think they can somehow come up with an explanation as to why the climate changes. Wrong , wrong and wrong
As I have said many times in the last three years or so, it’s all shown in this plot of the scalar sum of the angular momentum of the Sun and all the planets. That’s what the climate has followed, at least since Roman times, and is still following. That’s why we are in the middle of 30 years of slight net cooling since 1998. Glacial periods are regulated by the eccentricity of Earth’s orbit.
Doug:
You say, “Maxwell wasn’t correct, and they didn’t have Ranque Hilsch vortex tubes then which prove him wrong.”
They didn’t have high-speed centrifuges then, which prove him correct, and are a much better test of the idea.
Let’s take the example of the uranium enrichment centrifuges, which spin at 100,000 rpm (= 1,667 rps = 10,472 rad/sec). At a radius of 10cm (0.1m), the acceleration is:
g = 10,472 * 10,200 * 0.1 = 1.10 x 10^7 m/sec^2
which is over a million times that of earth’s gravity.
Uranium hexafluoride has a Cp of 370 kJ / kg / K. So the adiabatic lapse rate is:
g/Cp = 29600 K/m
By your physics, the gas would evolve to have a lapse rate of 30K per millimeter (60K per mm at a 20 cm radius). This would lead to over a 1000K difference over the length of the tube. But there is no temperature gradient!
With an effective gravity a million times that of earth, the presence or absence of this effect can be detected easily, unlike the case with a simple 1g environment, which is virtually impossible to isolate enough to see the tiny effect in a lab. And the results are absolutely overwhelming in refutation of your hypothesis.
Curt
Thank you for that post! I doubt Doug will even consider it! He asked for empirical proof of an isothermal atmosphere and I provided a link to the formation of polar air. In calm air with little radiation and no convection the atmosphere moves toward an isothermal state.
With probability distribution of molecular speed I gave him a case where you could get the isothermal state in a gravity field but he rejected it.
Norman & Curt:
Firstly, neither of you has addressed the development of the hypothesis and the use of the laws of physics in that development on our group’s website. Such physics has now been endorsed by several persons qualified in physics.
Polar air is not calm, especially above the South Pole where all the winds from most longitudes converge at the top of the troposphere and have nowhere to go but downwards. In contrast, without such overpowering winds, the poles of Venus are at almost the same temperature as the equator and the expected tropospheric temperature gradients are evident.
In that you have no alternative explanation as to how the required thermal energy gets into the Venus surface and actually raises the temperature of a point on the equator by about 5 degrees over the course of 4 months of sunlight, I rest my case. But I will address any valid physics (or attempt at such) should you present such.
However, you both need to understand that, in the development of the equations for thermodynamic potentials the effect of any changes in gravitational potential energy were ignored. Hence you have no physics supporting the contention that heat transfer by conduction and diffusion from cooler to warmer regions cannot happen in a vertical plane in a gravitational field. You also need to explain the observed temperature “splitting” in a Ranque Hilsch vortex tube by some other valid physics not relying upon the gravito-thermal effect where centrifugal force acts in lieu of gravity. Keep busy!
Doug,
There was a counter idea about Venus that was never accepted. It was that Venus was an outside body that entered the solar system, caused Uranus to tip and was a young hot planet so the warmth is due to youth from the original formation where gravity is the source of energy via collision of chucks of matter.
The standard Astronomical reason the gas giants have warm cores (which I can’t verify, it is a theory) is because of gravity collapse and equilibrium (similar what keeps a star going). The gravity of the planet (say Uranus) compresses the atmosphere where the energy is then converted to heat at the core. As the core heats it transmits heat upwards and the increased energy of the molecules slows further compression, so the gas giants warm from internally outward to reach an equilibrium state and so there is a hotter region as you near the core (explained not by your heat creep theory which you have ZERO experimentational congirmation and you will not even attempt to run any experiments or propose some. You use a couple examples which you may very well be explaining incorrectly (vortex tube) but will not run any of your own. You just want people to accept your word for it based upon your pure brilliance and the fact you can’t possibly made a mistake in your reasoning.
My example was Arctic air not Antarctic and show me that there was a super strong wind in the development of this air and why would wind tend to form an isothermal profile. I wanted you to explain why this air mass was tending to isothermal conditions in the absence of much radiation?
No, Norman, any point on the equator of Venus can cool by 5 degrees in 4 months, so, if the Sun were not radiating, the whole interior of the planet would have cooled right down quite easily in a billion years. Consider our Moon and how its surface cools by over 200C° in a fortnight.
Of course there have been other attempts to explain planetary core and surface temperatures, but the correct explanation based on the Second Law of Thermodynamics is in my paper on the topic that is summarized in our group’s website and linked therein also. I would be happy to discuss what I have written therein, and that will in effect refute other explanations.
And no, Norman, Uranus is quite unique and not collapsing or showing any convincing evidence of any significant net energy loss at TOA. As I said, read what I have explained first or you are just wasting your time and mine, because all this is in what I have already written. All other explanations regarding the core temperatures of planets and satellite moons (including our Moon) are incorrect.
Regarding the Arctic, Norman, you have not provided any proof that there is absolutely no downward wind above the North Pole, and that is simply incorrect because the existence of polar cells (north and south) is well documented such as here. After all, if winds at the top of the troposphere all converge from all longitudes around the pole, where else could the air go but downwards? And if you read and understood the physics I have outlined in my hypothesis, then you would understand why wind destroys the gravitationally induced temperature gradient.
And, by the way, I am not interested in your assertive statements and claims that conjectures have the status of being a “theory” in physics.
“Heat creep” (downward conductive and convective heat transfers from the tropopause to the core) has to happen and the valid physics and evidence for it is in our group’s website and the linked paper written two years ago.
You have merely made an assertive statement and you have not posted any link to any experiment that confirms there is no radial temperature gradient. If your centrifuge were set up like a Ranque Hilsch vortex tube (where temperature measurements have been made) you would indeed observe, as they have, a temperature gradient of that magnitude, because in 5mm along any radius there can indeed be a difference of 150C° as I discussed in the “Talk” page of the Wikipedia article, where my calculations are similar to yours.
Blimey Curt! The temperature gradient induced by radial centrifugal force does not occur orthogonal to the radius “along the length of the tube” as you say. Read what happens on the “WUWT errors” page at http://climate-change-theory.com and also see the diagram at the foot of the “Evidence” page.
Well, since there is no temperature gradient, period, there is not one orthogonal to the radius… 😉
You are not even understanding the argument, so let me break it down into baby steps. High-speed centrifuges spin about a vertical axis so there is no change in gravitational effect during a revolution. Tubes holding the material to be spun are long and thin, oriented along radial lines. The tubes are closed physically and therefore thermodynamically.
When they are spun about the vertical axis, the centrifugal force operates parallel to the radius, which is along the length of the tube. The whole point is to develop a strong pressure gradient along the length of the tube to separate out substances of different densities.
Such a centrifuge spinning at 100,000 rpm develops a centrifugal force one million times earth’s gravitational force at a 100mm radius and two million times it at 200mm radius. (I went through the detailed calculations above in this thread.)
YOUR physics claims that uranium hexafluoride gas with a Cp of 370 J/kg/K would evolve a g/Cp temperature gradient of 30K per mm at 100mm radius and 40K per mm at 200mm radius. Integrating over this length, there would be, according to you, a 4500K temperature difference would evolve over this radius.
THIS SIMPLY DOES NOT HAPPEN!!!
“the centrifugal force operates parallel to the radius, which is along the length of the tube. ”
No it doesn’t. It acts along each radius in each cross-sectional circle of the long tube. The vortex tube then separates the air near the outside from that near the center axis which of course runs down the length of the tube.
As previously advised, my calculations are in the Talk page for the Wikipedia article on the vortex tube, and those calculations confirm the expected temperature gradient along each radius of each cross-sectional circle, those radii being about 5mm in length.
There is no logic to your “integrating over the length” and in fact the greatest temperature difference between the outside (circumference) and the center occurs near where the air is first injected, because that is where the rotation speed is the greatest. There is understandably a slowing down of the effective rotation speed going down the tube as air disperses a bit and thins, so centrifugal force reduces, as does the temperature difference, albeit still a substantial difference usually over 100C° between the two air exits.
“The whole point is to develop a strong pressure gradient along the length of the tube to separate out substances of different densities.”
That is not the whole point of the vortex centrifuge which is the only centrifuge I wish to discuss as I have no temperature data on others. The whole purpose of the Ranque Hilsch vortex tube is to create very hot and very cold air streams, only one of which is normally used – usually the cold one which is well below 0°C.
You contradict yourself. The vortex tube is a high speed centrifuge. Maybe you should read about it on the “WUWT errors” page and the”Evidence” page at http://climate-change-theory.com
Ultra high centrifuge machines create a temperature gradient with colder air at the center as shown in this comment and the following ones, and the linked article.
High speed centrifuge machines docreate a temperature gradient with colder air at the center. See this comment and the following ones.
Doug: You say, “Robert Brown’s post is refuted on the “WUWT errors” page on our group’s website here. If you really believe that perpetual energy circulation could happen, then you have no understanding of the Second Law, which of course Robert Brown does not gave either.”
Wow! Not only are you screwed up on physics and thermodynamics, you cannot follow simple logical arguments. Brown’s argument, as those of Maxwell before him, and those of Tim Folkerts here, are a form of “refutation by contradiction”. They start by assuming your position is correct, and work logically from there. If they get to an impossibility, they can conclude that the assumption was wrong.
In your case, they start by assuming that a vertical column of gas would tend to evolve spontaneously to the adiabatic lapse rate.
Then they attach a thermally conductive metal wire from the top to the bottom of the column (in RGB’s case) or between the tops of columns with different lapse rates (and also the bottoms) in Tim’s case.
As long as there is a temperature between the two ends of the metal wire, it will conduct heat from the hot end to the cold end. This will lessen the temperature difference between the ends of the gas column.
The gravito-thermal theory says that if the lapse rate in the gas is less than the g/cp adiabatic rate, it will spontaneously react to attempt to restore that rate. This will cause a transfer of thermal energy from the cold end to the hot end.
This in turn prevents the wire from ever being able to bring the two ends to the same temperature and stop conducting. This would been a continual circular flow of thermal energy (not a static thermodynamic equilibrium) — from hot to cold in the wire, and from cold to hot in the gas.
Of course this is ridiculous, and in violation of the 2nd Law! But that is BECAUSE THE ASSUMPTION OF A GRAVITO-THERMAL EFFECT IS WRONG!!! (And yes, I’m shouting!) This is how a refutation by contradiction proceeds.
Or if you use Maxwell’s example of a heat engine between the tops of two gas columns with different Cp values (a modern example could simply use a Peltier thermoelectric generator), as the heat engine both brings the temperature levels of the two columns closer together and removes energy from the system, a gravito-thermal effect as you posit would continually restore the temperature difference, permitting the heat engine to continually remove energy from the two-column system.
Once again, this is in blatant violation of the 2nd Law, as it would continually reduce the entropy of the system to produce work. A ridiculous result. But once again, that is BECAUSE THE ASSUMPTION OF A GRAVITO-THERMAL EFFECT IS WRONG!!!
I understood refutation by contradiction by the time I was 10 years old. You really should try to figure it out.
As stated on our website, perpetual energy circulation cannot happen. Who has proved it could?
The gravito-thermal effect is not an “assumption.” It is proven to exist in a sound proof based on Kinetic Theory and the Second Law of Thermodynamics, with supporting evidence on the second page of the website for our group of physicists …
http://climate-change-theory.com
I am not interested in statements like “entropy would decrease” which you present assertively with neither computational support or any discussion of such things as energy potentials. If you attempt to support your assertion computationally, then note my comment about the equations for thermodynamic potentials ignoring the effect of gravity.
In an isothermal state there are obviously unbalanced energy potentials (due to more molecular gravitational potential energy at the top, but the same KE) and so work can be done as those differences diminish. Hence entropy was not at a maximum in that isothermal state. QED.
“As long as there is a temperature between the two ends of the metal wire, it will conduct heat from the hot end to the cold end.”
You see. As I said in the other comments here, this is the false assumption you simply cannot prove. Of course if it were true it is blatantly obvious that everything would become isothermal in a vertical plane in a gravitational field.
But you have no way of proving it to be true from the laws of physics.
You see, it could only be proved from the equations for thermodynamic potentials, specifically that for entropy. But the standard equations for such which might appear to prove the statement are themselves based on the assumption that gravitational potential energy does not change, as would only be the case in a horizontal plane.
The comprehensive equations for entropy must include a term for gravitational potential energy, and as soon as such is included you can use them to prove that the state of thermodynamic equilibrium does in fact have a temperature gradient.
All of this misunderstanding of physics by climatologists just epitomizes the need for them to consult with those in the world of physics who, like myself, have had specialized education and study in the field of thermodynamics.
Doug:
Several points:
1. Maxwell’s thought experiment involves a horizontal wire between the tops of two gas columns. So the idea of any gravitational potential affecting heat flow in this wire would not affect this. And still in this case, accepting your gravito-thermal proposition leads to blatant 2nd Law violations.
2. Are you seriously suggesting there is a lapse rate in conduction of heat through a solid? Seriously? Can you point me to a single reference that shows such a thing?
3. Even if there were a lapse rate in a vertical wire, as long as it was not the same as in the gas, your proposition would lead to 2nd Law violations.
I repeat my point that you are incapable of following a simple logical argument. Accepting your gravito-thermal proposition inevitably leads to blatant 2nd Law violations through one or two steps (and no, it’s not circular logic).
2. Yes I do “suggest” and explain the temperature gradient in solids in our group’s website, in the same way as did Josef Loschmidt. The Second Law works in everything.
The gradient in solids is evident in measurements in boreholes in the outer 10Km of Earth’s crust where Cp is somewhat greater than in the mantle because Cp reduces at high temperatures. So the temperature gradient in the mantle is far less steep than in the crust. It also obviously occurs in the sub-surface regions of the Moon down to its >1300°C core, and if it did not, the core would not be anywhere near as hot. The mean temperature of the Moon’s surface is below freezing point, so where is there evidence of isothermal conditions between the core and the surface? The Moon has had plenty of time to cool off, and would do so in a few thousand years if the Sun’s radiation ceased. Likewise all the solid planets and their satellite moons.
Solids also have molecules which move a little and thus collide causing conduction. If you had no such movement you would have no conduction. So I rest my case on this issue.
3. There can be no Second Law violations anywhere anytime. Set up two water pipes at different angles (like an italic X) and join the tops and bottoms with other pipes. You have different gradients but no perpetual cyclic motion of water. As I have explained, a new state of thermodynamic equilibrium evolves and then motion of water (or net motion of KE) ceases.
Now see if you can follow this logical argument.
Sorry – correction (you make me angry and I can’t concentrate):-
Cp is somewhat less (in the crust) than in the mantle because Cp increases at high temperatures.
You can start with two different gases in two insulated sealed cylinders. It makes no significant difference whether you join them at the top and bottom with a tube that allows physical mixing by diffusion or a wire that does not allow such. You end up with an overall temperature gradient (equal in each tube) which is based on the weighted mean specific heat of the gases, just as we use the weighted mean Cp to calculate the temperature gradient in the 350Km high nominal troposphere of Uranus wherein the hydrogen and helium have different specific heat values. It is the state of thermodynamic equilibrium and (when disturbed with new absorption near TOA) that’s why there are heat transfers from the methane layer (at 59K) to the base of that troposphere where it’s about 320K – hotter than Earth, though there’s no surface there and it’s 30 times further from the Sun.
Curt
An “exam” question for you that I sometimes use when helping my students understand thermodynamics …
Explain the Second Law in your own words with reference to maximum entropy, thermodynamic equilibrium and unbalanced energy potentials. Further explain how you would determine what would happen when entropy increases and when and why it would cease increasing. Quote any equations pertaining to thermodynamic potentials that you would use, and explain how the Clausius corollary of the Second Law is derived, together with the prerequisites for any equations for thermodynamic potentials that you use in such a proof.
Curt – go back tothis comment.
I most certainly do not believe perpetual motion could happen, as clearly stated by me many times when discussing the false assumptions made by Robert Brown. You must be one of those referred to by BigWaveDave in the final comment on that WUWT thread. You simply do not understand entropy and what happens as it approaches a maximum. When two separate systems are joined they become a new system and entropy can increase further to a new maximum. The Second Law always works. When maximum entropy is attained (as it will be) there are no unbalanced energy potentials, and so there can be no further net heat transfers across any internal boundary. This pinpoints where you lack understanding of thermodynamics and you are out of your depth.
As I said, see the “WUWT errors” page and don’t assume what is there without reading it, because your assertions are already refuted there.
And, by the way, the Second Law says entropy does not decrease. The Law does not say entropy always increases, so it can remain unaltered as in a state of thermodynamic equilibrium and even in the hydrostatic equilibrium that happens in Maxwell’s example where thermal energy can “creep” up the temperature gradient and cyclic KE energy motion can happen, but does so without further temperature changes at any point en route. I agree it sounds strange, but new energy comes in at one end as fast as energy leaves at the other. If energy is lost in friction with the sides the whole system cools if it is isolated, or if if is connected to a heat source, it will simultaneously draw the extra energy required from that source.
The mean temperature gradient (equal in each tube) remains, but is not thermodynamic equilibrium – just hydrostatic equilibrium. So I agree that, with further thought, I have come to the conclusion that this is the correct explanation, and have immediately edited the “WUWT errors” page accordingly a few hours ago.
This is where Maxwell’s conjecture has its shortcomings and his conclusion are wrong, whilst those of his teacher Josef Loschmidt were correct all along. It seems he did’t understand the explanation.
Australia will lead the world in exposing the climate fraud
This is a must read letter (not mine) to Australia’s Minister for Environment, Greg Hunt …
http://www.conscious.com.au/docs/letters/20140321/GregHunt,March2014.pdf
In a nutshell, all thought experiments like Maxwell’s and Robert Brown’s that try to prove there is no gravito-thermal effect, and so no heat transfers from cooler to warmer regions in a force field, are circular. They merely assume such heat transfers can’t happen and end up proving their false assumption, which, if true, would of course invalidate the gravito-thermal effect.
What happens in a Ranque-Hilsch vortex tube quashes all such postulates, for if they were correct, then how could the centrifugal force separate the gas into hot and cold streams?
Come on Doug. You know better than that. Your tube uses a totally dynamic situation (the outer layer is compressed as the inner layer is expanded. Cut off the inlet and outlet flows, spin the tube, wait a half a day for thermal equilibrium, and then see if you measure a gradient from inner to outer layers.
Yes you would.
Roderich Graeff did this over 850 times, sometimes waiting for several months.
You tell me why entropy would increase from the state of thermodynamic equilibrium with its associated temperature gradient. In any event, this happens in calm conditions in the early pre-dawn hours when meteorologists know convection stops, even though the environment lapse rate persists.
There is never any propensity towards isothermal conditions in a force field. There is never a case in which the centrifugal force field in a Ranque Hilsch vortex tube fails to establish a temperature gradient and thus separate the gas into hot and cold streams.
State the law of physics which you think you are using. State why you think that the equations for thermodynamic potentials could be used to prove your point when they are derived with the assumption that there is no change in gravitational potential energy.
In short, my friend, explain how the hell you can possibly imagine that, when there is more PE in upper layers but the same KE you still think that these blatantly obvious unbalanced energy potentials would not lead to increases in entropy. You won’t bluff someone who understands this physics with your school-boy “fissics.” You have zero understanding of this thermodynamics.
Read what I wrote to Curt about assertive statements.
Footnote: At first I thought you were referring to the example of rotating a long cylinder of air from a horizontal to a vertical position. In that I now see you were referring to the vortex tube then, regarding that vortex tube, obviously if you cut off the source of the centrifugal force field your temperature gradient which is in the cross-section of the tube will vanish. Your point is thus trivial. However, this just proves my point that it is the force field, and that alone, which produces the temperatures gradients in planetary mantles, crusts, tropospheres etc.
Doug Cotton,
http://www.exair.com/en-US/Primary%20Navigation/Products/Vortex%20Tubes%20and%20Spot%20Cooling/Vortex%20Tubes/Pages/A%20Phenomenon%20of%20Physics.aspx
I see nothing in this explanation of this tube that even remotely would suggest the heating and cooling is the result of a gradient formed. The explanation given is that the angular momentum of the inner vortex does not change as the size decreases (as it should) and this energy is transferred to the warmer air.
centrifugal force is not separating the gases into hot and cold streams.
Yes, and that is just another way of explaining the obvious fact that as the gas moves through a helical tube it experiences a centrifugal force acting outwards, just like gravity acting downwards in the troposphere, or just like what happens when you go around the curves in a big dipper ride. And, just like in the troposphere, there is a redistribution of molecular kinetic energy (as he says “this energy is transferred to the warmer air”) and we end up with less KE per molecule where the potential energy due to the force field is greater, namely in the higher region in a troposphere, or in the inner region of the vortex tube. To be precise, the reduction in KE balances the increase in PE (and vice versa) and so (KE+PE) is homogeneous. Hence, in the orthogonal direction of the cross-section there are no unbalanced energy potentials and so entropy no longer increases. Hence the temperature difference reaches an equilibrium point. Only increases or decreases in the speed of the gas (and thus the centrifugal force) will alter the difference in the temperatures for any given gas. Of course a change to a gas with a different specific heat will also change the temperature difference.
Furthermore, the temperature gradient in each may be shown to relate closely to the quotient of the acceleration due to the force field and the weighted mean specific heat of the gas (or other matter) involved.
Footnote: I may well the first in the world to explain the vortex tube comprehensively, and to explain the dependence on specific heat, but correct me if you find a similar explanation elsewhere, as I’m genuinely interested.
See my 5:58pm comment. Also note that the linked Wikipedia article refers to “a rotorless centrifugal compressor”.
The RH vortex compressor, as a dynamic device with continual flow, is not remotely analogous to your static gas column. Sure, initial compression can warm a gas — we all agree on that. But you assert that a temperature gradient will be maintained through “heat creep” in an isolated static column, and the RH vortex says NOTHING about this.
On the other hand, the counter example of high-speed centrifuges is directly analogous. Your theory says that the gases being spun would tend to develop huge temperature gradients under the very high g-forces. These simply do not occur!
We are not talking about heat creep in the vortex tube. We are talking about what is explained on the Evidence page at http://climate-change-theory.com and I have previously told you where you can read my calculations of the gradient (in the Wiki Talk page) which agree with observations.
No I don’t agree that compression necessarily causes warming, and high pressure does not maintain high temperatures. Nor does low pressure maintain the colder temperatures in the center of the tube – temperatures much colder than the original air input. There is a radial temperature gradient produced and maintained by the radial centrifugal force. Vary the force up or down and the gradient varies likewise.
Ultra high speed centrifuge machines do create a temperature gradient having colder air at the center. See this comment and the following ones.
Norman says assertively: “centrifugal force is not separating the gases into hot and cold streams”
Well, it is, for the reasons explained here.
And, by the way, if you read this you will see that it is well known in meteorology that convection stops when (thermodynamic) equilibrium is attained, even though there is still a temperature gradient. QED.
Since writing the above I note there has been a change in the Wikipedia article since I last read it and it does indeed support my contention that the temperature difference would be inversely proportional to the specific heat Cp as I expected it would be.
“The main physical phenomenon of the vortex tube is the temperature separation between the cold vortex core and the warm vortex periphery. Under this fundamental approach, this is explained with the work equation of Euler,[2] also known as Euler’s turbine equation, which can be written in its most general vectorial form as …” here where you will see that Cp is in the denominator.
And, by the way, if you read this you will see that it is well known in meteorology that convection stops when (thermodynamic) equilibrium is attained, even though there is still a temperature gradient. QED.
The earth’s atmosphere is not an isolated system. It generally takes heat from below (through various mechanisms) and loses heat to above (radiation alone to space). This is what maintains the gradient. Oh, and this is not remotely a case of thermodynamic equilibrium
You are obviously unable to distinguish between an isolated system and a closed system. This is one of the most basic concepts in thermodynamics. If you cannot keep these simple concepts straight, then you are in no position to contribute to the discussion. And certainly not to claim that Maxwell was wrong!!!
No Curt, that is not the only mechanism which maintains the temperature gradients in Earth’s mantle, crust and troposphere, or the sub-surface regions of the Moon down to its core that is over 1300°C, or the Venus troposphere etc.
And that environmental temperature gradient is the state of (overall) thermodynamic equilibrium because the total of molecular gravitational PE and KE is homogeneous, and so there are no unbalanced energy potentials. You would need to prove that there were such unbalanced energy potentials if you think entropy could increase. Is there something in what I have explained here that you don’t understand?
When will you get the message Curt that I do not accept assertive statements? I only accept sound and logical development of a hypothesis that is clearly based on the laws of physics, step by step, and which recognizes and complies with the prerequisites for any laws or equations of physics that are used.
You need to think outside the Earth. How is the gradient maintained in the 350Km high nominal troposphere of Uranus where the only effect of the solar radiation (about 0.1% of what Earth receives) is to “warm” the methane layer near TOA to a very cold 59K? How, Curt?
What is it that you don’t accept in the standard physics in this comment addressed to Roy?
You also need to read what an isolated system is here and its uses. You might as well throw out all the Ideal Gas Laws if you can’t think in practical terms. For example, think of a cylinder in the troposphere with radius, say, 100Km but only consider what happens in the inner cylinder with radius 1Km. If the cylinder is not “practically” isolated you would not even have grounds for assuming a density gradient.
“A practically isolated system is subject to small, unnoticeable perturbations, that would be expected to provide microscopic noise that would lead to its practical internal thermodynamic equilibrium. This would account for why classical thermodynamics is often presented with the existence of states of internal thermodynamic equilibrium regarded as axiomatic. In the attempt to justify the postulate of entropy increase in the second law of thermodynamics, Boltzmann’s H-theorem used equations which assumed a system (for example, a gas) was isolated.”
The rest of my response is at http://climate-change-theory.com where you could have read about Uranus on the “Evidence” page and far more evidence as well. Indeed every planetary troposphere exhibits a temperature gradient close to -g/Cp whether or not significant solar radiation penetrates to the base of the troposphere, and whether or not there is a surface there. I have explained why.
Doug Cotton,
In your reply to Curt “You would need to prove that there were such unbalanced energy potentials if you think entropy could increase.”
For a person who taught students physics I can hardly believe you are incapable of understanding the scientific method. The established science is from Gibbs, Maxwell and Boltzmann. They have done elaborate calculations to support their understanding. You are the one who does not accept their understanding. This is fine, I think it is wonderful to have thinkers willing to challenge the accepted or established views. The thing you are doing is wasting everyone’s time with 10,000 words of untested conjecture on your part. You will not overturn the established science by your personality or by thousands of words on as many blogs that still allow you to post on them. You will only overturn established science with overwhelming experimental proof (you only offer two examples over and over and then if someone did not catch it the 20,000th time you will say it 5000 more times for good measure, your incorrect understanding of a vortex tube and some guy that did some tests in his basement and came up with complete proof with a few hundredths of a degree).
Be a real scientist (not a wannabe) and do some experiments. Document them, explain them and then if you have conclusive evidence of the effect you describe science will praise you and give an equation named after you. You could even win a Nobel Prize if you are able to overrule established understanding with verifiable experimentation. I think you would serve your cause much better to invest your time and effort in designs for experiments to prove your conjectures and thoughts about how molecules behave in gravitational fields. Until then have a good day and I will keep an open mind and await some experiments from you.
Your endless posts are as if I would declare the moon is made of cheese and astronauts never went to the moon so no one can prove me wrong. Prove to me that the moon is not made up of cheese!! I might launch my internet campaign on many blogs explaining to all how the established science is so wrong claiming the moon is rock. It is cheese.
I am not interested in your calls to authority. You have not addressed the physics I have presented. Here is an alternative call to authority that was addressed to Tim Folkerts three years ago…
“I have been earning a living as an engineer specializing in cutting edge technology for very large scale thermal energy transfer processes and power systems for close to 40 years. My credentials include BS, JD and PE, and I have four patents.
“As for my qualifications to engage in argument with PhD’s, I have many times been part of and have led teams with PhD team mates. I was also married to a PhD for 20 years.
“Because the import of the consequence of the radial temperature gradient created by pressurizing a spherical body of gas by gravity, from the inside only, is that it obviates the need for concern over GHG’s. And, because this is based on long established fundamental principles that were apparently forgotten or never learned by many PhD’s, it is not something that can be left as an acceptable disagreement.“
BigWaveDave: “long established fundamental principles”
Anonymous Norman: “The established science is from Gibbs, Maxwell and Boltzmann.”
It’s just your assertive statement versus that of BigWaveDave.
Maxwell’s conjecture in his attempt to rubbish his teacher Loschmidt never gained the status of a “theory” in physics, let alone the status of a “law” of physics. I resort only to the Second Law of Thermodynamics. You, Norman, continue to avoid discussing such, or the evidence for what I deduce from that law.
Mr. Cotton,
I am not calling to authority to prove anything. You are not listening! Open your ears. I am saying in order to overturn “established science” (not even stating it is the correct understanding).
I am saying you need to experiment! How much clearer can I get. Ideas and theories are many. Science eliminates the many with valid experiments. Why are my words that hard for you to understand. Why are you reluctant to experiment on your own?
Maybe when you taught physics you only used the book and never set up experiments for your students to test the ideas they learned. In Chemistry we have labs that test the ideas we learn from books.
Experiment, again set up experiments. Show why you are right with some test. Does this make sense to you?
And I have told you where to find my published study showing temperature v. precipitation to be inversely correlated, and my “experiment” is the Ranque Hilsch vortex tube. And I have provided copious evidence from throughout the Solar System here.
In complete contrast, you have absolutely no evidence in any troposphere to support any wild contention that there would be isothermal conditions. Not even the equations of thermodynamic potentials (which explain the Clausius statement in a horizontal plane) will help you out of your dilemma because they ignore gravity.
You, Norman, cannot prove (from what is in the website endorsed by five other members in our group) that there is anything at all therein which is amounts to a contradiction of the Second Law of Thermodynamics. Try to do so! I throw down the gauntlet to you my friend. Spell it out step by step, pinpointing which step in our development you think to be wrong and why. There may well be argument about who’s right, Loschmidt or Maxwell, but there is no argument about the Second Law of Thermodynamics and what constitutes an increase in entropy, nor about the fact that the state of thermodynamic equilibrium can have no unbalanced energy potentials.
Norman writes: blogs that still allow you to post … “
Sure. Excerpt from last month’s site stats for unique visitors to http://climate-change-theory.com …
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/01/09/ben-santer-tries-to-explain-the-pause-in-global-warming/ 486 21.7%
http://m.facebook.com/ 185 8.3%
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2015/01/how-the-climate-system-works-for-dummies/ 158 7.0%
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2015/01/why-do-different-satellite-datasets-produce-different-global-temperature-trends/ 128 5.7%
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/01/16/peer-reviewed-pocket-calculator-climate-model-exposes-serious-errors-in-complex-computer-models-and-reveals-that-mans-influence-on-the-climate-is-negligible/ 124 5.5%
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2015/01/2014-as-the-mildest-year-why-you-are-being-misled-on-global-temperatures/ 96 4.3%
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2015/02/uah-global-temperature-update-for-jan-2015-0-35-deg-c/ 96 4.3%
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/01/06/on-the-futility-of-climate-models-simplistic-nonsense/ 39 1.7%
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/01/13/cold-kills-summer-no-sweat-for-aussies-but-winter-freeze-fatal/ 31 1.4%
http://judithcurry.com/2015/01/08/miskolczi-discussion-thread/ 27 1.2%
http://joannenova.com.au/2015/01/is-the-sun-driving-ozone-and-changing-the-climate/ 23 1.0%
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/01/11/alarmists-bizarrely-claim-just-what-agw-predicts-about-the-record-high-global-sea-surface-temperatures-in-2014/ 22 1.0%
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/01/05/hottest-year-ever-giant-clam-reveals-middle-ages-were-warmer-than-today/ 21 0.9%
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2015/01/to-the-gop-and-the-pope-forcing-higher-energy-prices-on-the-poor-is-immoral/ 21 0.9%
http://joannenova.com.au/2015/01/the-sun-and-solar-physicists-go-quiet/ 19 0.8%
http://notrickszone.com/2015/01/12/university-of-augsburg-44-year-veteran-meteorologist-calls-climate-protection-ridiculous-a-deception/ 18 0.8%
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2015/01/uah-global-temperature-update-for-december-2014-0-32-deg-c/ 17 0.8%
Lots of people will go to see a train wreck…
The “the scientific method” Norman is firstly to check that the laws of physics are complied with in the hypothesis. Loschmidt did so; Maxwell did not. The reasons are at http://climate-change-theory.com
I am reluctant to waste more time on this thread because you people just simply don’t understand why heat transfers go the other way (downwards) when there is a change from a state of super convection to a state with a temperature inversion, as explained here.
Do not read another word of this comment until you have read the linked comment.
Now that you’ve read the linked comment you will understand that making a thermal connection at the top and bottom of two insulated cylinders of different gases creates a state of super convection in one cylinder (where the temperature gradient is increased in magnitude to the mean gradient) and an inversion in the other cylinder in which that gradient is reduced in magnitude to the mean gradient. Hence there is a propensity for heat transfers in each cylinder to be in the same direction (up or down as the case may be) in the top regions and the lower regions of the cylinders. Hence all net heat transfers grind to a halt as opposing heat transfers meet and a new state of thermodynamic equilibrium is attained.
All your assumptions that isothermal conditions would evolve hinge upon your school-boy notion that heat transfers are always from hot to cold. If that were true in a vertical plane in a gravitational field then of course isothermal conditions would evolve in a sealed insulated cylinder.
But the Clausius statement is not true in a vertical plane in a gravitational or other force field (such as in a vortex tube) because that statement is derived from equations for thermodynamic potentials (ie for entropy) which specifically ignore gravity.
The Ranque Hilsch vortex tube provides unequivocal evidence that a force field creates a temperature gradient which thus enables separation of the cold and hot streams of gas. If I were wrong then the vortex tube would not work. The correct explanation as to how it works shows the there is centrifugal force which thus leads to far greater potential energy due to that force at the center and far less at the outside. This is just as in a planet’s troposphere, and the Second Law leads to the reason why (PE+KE)=constant and so there is a temperature gradient.
To Roy and silent readers:
Norman can’t see the irony of his demands for proof. Nor does he have any idea of the scope of various different lines of proof in the “Evidence” page of our group’s website.
What proof has anyone associated with the AGW crowd produced to show that insulated sealed cylinders do not develop a temperature gradient as the Second Law of Thermodynamics leads us to conclude they would develop?
What experiments have they conducted with centrifugal force to prove no temperature gradient evolves, as it does in a vortex tube?
What study have they done to support their implied assertion that water vapor causes the Earth’s surface to be about 15C° hotter for each 1% of WV in the atmosphere above?
What proof do they have that back radiation flux can be added to solar flux in Stefan Boltzmann calculations? If it could be, then what proof do they have with night measurements that it is the back radiation which is supporting the surface temperature at night?
What response do they have for the numerous points made in this correspondence?
Doug, you say:
“You can start with two different gases in two insulated sealed cylinders. It makes no significant difference whether you join them at the top and bottom with a tube that allows physical mixing by diffusion or a wire that does not allow such. You end up with an overall temperature gradient (equal in each tube) which is based on the weighted mean specific heat of the gases, just as we use the weighted mean Cp to calculate the temperature gradient in the 350Km high nominal troposphere of Uranus wherein the hydrogen and helium have different specific heat values. It is the state of thermodynamic equilibrium and (when disturbed with new absorption near TOA) that’s why there are heat transfers from the methane layer (at 59K) to the base of that troposphere where it’s about 320K – hotter than Earth, though there’s no surface there and it’s 30 times further from the Sun.”
You can’t even follow the implications of your own theory!
You have always maintained that a vertical column of gas that has a lapse rate less than adiabatic will spontaneously evolve toward the adiabatic through your downward “heat creep” mechanism.
A vertical column of gas with a lapse rate greater than adiabatic will develop convection producing an upwards heat flow to drive it toward the adiabatic.
Now in the case of two otherwise isolated columns with different adiabatic lapse rates joined by horizontal conductive wires, you claim that they would reach a static equilibrium with one at greater than its own adiabatic lapse rate and the other at less than its own adiabatic lapse rate.
Are you serious???!!! What stops convection from developing in the column that is at greater than adiabatic? Why wouldn’t your precious “heat creep” occur in the column that is at less than adiabatic?
And you justify this by citing the completely different example of a mixed atmosphere! Are you really claiming that the adiabatic lapse rate of Gas A is changed because it is connected by a wired to a column of Gas B?
If I had made such ridiculous assertions in my introductory thermodynamics classes, I’m sure my professor would have told me to go study art history instead!
You display such fundamental confusions and make such stupid mistakes. Yet you ask us to believe you have corrected Maxwell, Boltzmann, Einstein, and Planck! And you wonder why we don’t believe you!
What happens is explained on the “WUWT errors” page at http://climate-change-theory.com
“Are you serious?”
Yes, because in this instance there is nowhere else for the thermal energy to go because of the insulation. You have combined two systems into one. Hence there becomes just the one overall mean temperature gradient based on the weighted mean specific heat, just as happens (and I have confirmed with calculations) in the mostly hydrogen and helium troposphere of Uranus where the temperature gradient is about 95% of the -g/Cp value. All tropospheres have slightly less steep gradients because of the temperature-leveling effect of inter-molecular radiation between IR-active molecules. Because the temperature gradient represents the state of thermodynamic equilibrium, any new thermal energy absorbed in the upper atmosphere from insolation will disturb the equilibrium and lead to a new state of thermodynamic equilibrium evolving with the same temperature gradient, but a higher overall temperature.
So, in a nutshell, when there are thermal energy transfers in the same direction at, say, the lower end of each tube, then a “lake” of thermal energy builds up at the base of each until the point where the convective heat transfers in each column are blocked and thus cease. That state is thus the new state of thermodynamic equilibrium for the combined system, just as I spoke of in the very first response I wrote on this issue. The issue has also been explained on the “WUWT errors” page on our group’s website.
What happens in the real universe is a complete paradigm shift from what climatologists think about planets cooling off and having surfaces warmed only by solar radiation. All planetary temperatures are determined from the “anchor point” in their atmosphere right down to their cores, and all temperatures en route are supported by downward diffusion and convective heat transfer from the anchor point, that being where there is radiative equilibrium with the Sun. If the Sun’s radiation somehow ceased, then all planets and satellite moons would cool right down, even their cores wherein any energy generation is in reality nowhere near sufficient to maintain existing temperatures, and not necessary anyway. That’s what the Second Law of Thermodynamics gives us reason to say must be the case.
Doug: You say, “when there are thermal energy transfers in the same direction at, say, the lower end of each tube, then a “lake” of thermal energy builds up at the base of each until the point where the convective heat transfers in each column are blocked and thus cease.”
Unbelievable! This is the kind of mistake a struggling high school student would make! Do you really believe that when heat is transferred from Column A to Column B, the thermal energy of both would increase? And yet you think you can correct Maxwell and Boltzmann, when you can’t distinguish between addition and subtraction!
On of the first things you learn in a real thermodynamics class is how to break a full system into subsystems and analyze each subsystem properly. You demonstrate very clearly that have no clue.
Energy is never created in such a process, but entropy will never decrease. What happens is on the “WUWT errors” page at http://climate-change-theory.com and in comments below.
Curt & Norman:
You’d be wise to tone down your personal smears as such are far from being an appropriate scientific response, and they only backfire on yourselves when silent readers realize that what our group now endorses is indeed correct physics and the hypothesis is supported by data throughout the Solar System. And, by the way, you can get an idea as to how many silent readers there are from the above hits to our website that came from various posts on Roy’s blog, second only to those from WUWT.
Dear Curt and Norman,
I just happened to pass by this website which I last visited a few years ago. I see Doug is still just as frenetic and as muddle-headed as ever. Back then I advised him to have a good lie down and to purchase and read a basic text on climate science.
It appears he has not done so. Consequently I must give him another F for fail.
My advice to you is to not waste your time on trying to educate poor Doug.
I am afraid it is a lost cause.
Sincerely,
Dr No
To Dr No: +1
From: a silent reader
Go back to this comment. If you have insufficient understanding of thermodynamics to discuss what has been explained here and the evidence on the second page, then I can’t help you.
”..then I can’t help you.”
No kidding. This is obvious to many competent silent & verbose readers. As stated, look for your help in a modern introductory relevant standard atmosphere physics textbook Doug, not blogs & wikipedia (ok to use the ref.s).
According to site stats, over 700 visitors to http://climate-change-theory.com have been linked there from Roy’s blog these last 6 weeks. How many of them do you see coming on board, quoting even a single paragraph and refuting it with valid physics? If I’ve missed answering a comment, link me to it.
PS: This 21st century new paradigm in climate change science probably won’t make it into climatology textbooks until the 22nd century when long-term (500 year) cooling will be underway after about the year 2059, that prediction being explained on http://climate-change-theory.com.
Doug I am not trying to smear you. Not my intent. My intent is to get you to experiment. Rather than explain why you do not wish to create experiments to prove your point you throw it on the “other side” saying the AGW crowd has no experiments to counter yours. I would agree. There are far more ideas out there than experiments to confirm any.
Ranque-Hilsch vortex tube you make the claim that the tube separates molecules based upon their K.E. vs P.E. Ones on the inside have more P.E. less K.E. and are cooler.
This scientist from an Australian University has a much different explanation and he has experimentation to back up his hypothesis. Yes Doug, he actually ran some experiments to come up with his explanation and it is far from what you claim.
https://digital.library.adelaide.edu.au/dspace/bitstream/2440/82139/3/02whole.pdf
Curt is also correct in his centrifuge argument which you seem to be ignoring.
Look at this one. Temperature profile within a centrifuge is isothermal. How is this possible with your understanding?
http://www.slideshare.net/brslides/temperature-gradient-molecule-in-centrifuge
It seems Curt is on to a test you could easily perform. You should be able to talk to your old physics buddies and see if you could use a centrifuge. All you would need do is mount some thermometers at different places in your centrifuge. By your theory the temperature near the rotor will be cooler than the temperature at the far end of the centrifuge. The molecules near the rotor would have the greatest amount of P.E. and those near the edge would possess maximum K.E. and should then be warmer. You can spin a centrifuge in much excess of 1-g and so should be able to see a noticeable difference even in a normal sized centrifuge.
When you discuss all the wealth of evidence on the “Evidence” page (point by point) I will respond to any attempt you make if you use the Second Law of Thermodynamics upon which the group’s hypothesis is built.
The issue is that the AGW crowd has no empirical evidence (such as water vapor raising surface temperatures by 15C° for each 1% of WV) to support their hypothesis. The onus has been upon them to do so way back in the early 1980’s. That’s the scientific method, now isn’t it?
Regarding my running experiments with the vortex tube, I have investigated actual temperature measurements made and the dimensions of the cross section etc and my calculations are in the Talk pages of the Wikipedia article. As far as I’m concerned, that’s as good as doing the experiment myself and writing it up in the public arena. I showed that the temperature gradient is based on the quotient of the acceleration due to the centrifugal force and the mean specific heat of the air or gas. I don’t know whether you are trying to claim there is no centrifugal force, when there obviously is for a gas that is rotating so fast. The force is orders of magnitude greater than the force of gravity. Why look for another centrifuge when the vortex tube is one and the molecules rotating nearest the center are very clearly much colder because they have more PE and less KE than those rotating on the outside?
Without downward diffusion, conduction and convective heat transfers you cannot explain the necessary energy inputs that support the observed temperatures in planetary tropospheres, surfaces, crusts, mantles or cores. And if the temperature gradient were not the state of thermodynamic equilibrium then you could not explain those downward heat transfers. You never discuss the points I have made over and over regarding what we can correctly deduce from the Second Law of Thermodynamics. Do so before we can progress.
Here is a copy of what I wrote last year in the WIkipedia Talk page for the Ranque Hilsch Vortex Tube. …
High pressure does not cause high temperature:
The paragraph in the article which wrongly claims high pressure causes high temperature should be removed.
It is the gravitational (centrifugal) force which acts on molecules that causes a density and temperature gradient. There is no direct action by gravity on pressure. Gravity (and centrifugal force) act on matter. Gravity sets up a state of hydrostatic equilibrium by acting on molecules and physically redistributing those molecules so as to form a density gradient with maximum entropy. That state (hydrostatic equilibrium) is also thermodynamic equilibrium because each is the (only possible) state with maximum entropy. So gravity forms both a density and temperature gradient. Then pressure is the result (not the cause) being proportional to the product of density and temperature.
Once you understand this, then it is easy to understand why the temperature gradient between the inner and outer regions is expected to be the (badly named) dry adiabatic lapse rate. Despite the name, it is just a thermal gradient of, in this case, about 20 to 50 million degrees per kilometer, which matches the observed values of around 100 to 250 degrees in about 5mm. There is nothing unexpected in this. If you had given me the data regarding revs/second and diameter of the tube, the temperature difference could have been calculated using the quotient of the acceleration due to the gravitational (centrifugal) force and the mean specific heat, which is about 1.0 for air. You should expect slightly different results with other gases having different specific heat.
…
Douglas Cotton (talk) 22:08, 3 April 2014 (UTC)
There is centrifugal force in a Ranque Hilsch vortex tube (resulting from the spinning helical motion of the air) and air on the outside is warmed whilst air in the center gets colder, so we have the expected radial temperature gradient obviously caused by the centrifugal force. There are calculations in the Talk page of Wikipedia (written by myself) and more explanation the “WUWT errors” page at http://climate-change-theory.com
No, Curt is not correct in his centrifuge comment. The “experiment” has been done. High speed centrifuge machines docreate a temperature gradient with colder air at the center. See this comment and the following ones.
No Curt is not correct, as he cannot provide calculations as to the temperature differences in the vortex tube. Nor can the author of your first linked article, whilst the second article is merely a simulation which, like climate models, can be made to give isothermal conditions if you build in false assumptions, as they do when they give the molecules that strike the sides a KE based on the temperature of the sides. You might as well say that when you hit a squash ball against the front wall it comes back with a velocity based on the temperature of the wall. They seem to think the KE after the collision has nothing to do with its initial KE before impact. That is quite contrary to accepted Kinetic Theory.
Ah well, such is the state of “physics” produced by those who use formulae and equations without any understanding of the prerequisites for those to be applicable, as I have said over and over again.
As for yourself, you do nothing but call upon such “physics” written by others, rather than actually thinking about the ground-breaking work I have presented. Can you, for example, find anyone else in the world who correctly quantified the temperature differences in a Vortex tube, and did so nearly a year ago?
One day you will also realize that I am years ahead of climatologists when it comes to understanding all planetary temperature data and the required energy flows.
There there.
Calm down.
Of course you are right and everyone else is wrong.
You are indeed the most clever scientist of all and we have been very wrong to have doubted your wisdom.
Let me apologise for our ignorance.
Now, it must be well past your bedtime. Nurse will help put you to bed.
No physics from Dr No and so ignored.
I have had my disagreements with Doug over a number of issues on these very pages, some quite vehement and hilarious.
I will make this observation as I did on Lucia’s board: No one has actually been able to disprove him despite many vowing that they could and would.
I have never actually disagreed with his isentropic hypothesis but took him to task on a number of other issues which he seems to have smoothed out (like instant offset of back radiation by conduction/convection or speed of lapse rate formation).
Norman is making positive suggestions along scientific lines. Despite the gigantic nature of Maxwell, for me, it is not a concept that can simply be dismissed on two grounds:
1. the experiments actually conducted as claimed by Doug.
2. it is too much of a coincidence that the Standard Atmosphere is closely followed by all the planets with a reasonable atmosphere from 0.1 atm to 1 atm when adjusted for albedo and insolation. The Std Atmosphere developed by NASA did not use any GHG theory as I understand it. Perhaps Dr Roy might correct me if I am wrong.
I do wish though that Doug would be be bit milder in attitude (but he does seem to have mellowed a lot :))
tonyM
Any gas in motion in a gravity field will have a vertical component to the motion. When it moves down or up, it is compressed or rarefied. So, heated or cooled. This heat change then diffuses in to the gas at the new level. Both up and down motions have the effect of pumping heat downward, until the dry adiabatic lapse rate is achieved. A DALR warming in the downward direction, and the critical level is g/cp.
Maintaining such a gradient requires a heat pump, because heat tends to move down the gradient by conduction. The energy for the pump comes from convection and turbulence driven by differential solar heating on a rotating planetary surface (vis PJS).
In the absence of water (and GHG’s) on a planet, a DALR is naturally achieved. And so it is not “coincidence that the Standard Atmosphere is closely followed by all the planets with a reasonable atmosphere”
Add water, and of course moist convection creates a SALR. Mixing then creates variable ELR’s. Add GHG’s and the lapse rate is pinned at the altitude where incoming SW is balanced by outgoing IR.
Of course, without any insolation at all a planetary atmosphere will become isothermal. You have no differential heating to create and maintain the “heat pump”. Gravity does NOT create a lapse rate. Gravity can only create a pressure/density differential. It is a one-time-only process. In the thought experiment whereby you instantaneously create a planet with an atmosphere but without insolation. Yes. there will be a LR formed …. which soon tends to isothermal as heat is lost to space. Thereafter it remains isothermal (without insolation). I have seen this argument used to explain Venus’ extreme temp. No. In the same way your bicycle tyre does not remain forever hot because you’ve pumped it to a high pressure – neither does Venus’ atmosphere. It is maintained by its CO2 atmosphere’s GHE and the pinning of the in/out equality at extreme height.
Just as an aside … it’s groundhog day on there. Like the above (Dr No and Ball4) – I’ve returned after a few years to find a certain Doug Cotton still maintaining he is the greatest scientific genius of all time bar none and trucking … absolutely NO gainsay.
My contact with him here resulted in Roy banning him (for being err, “impolite”) – in my case for him accussing me of being a fraud. I’m a retired Meteorologist with the UKMO.
Thanks Toneb. Yes I vaguely remember the interaction with Doug and hopefully it can be left behind.
My comment about similarities were really that irrespective of the GHG content the lapse rate and T profile closely matched the earth between 0.1 atm and 1 atm when appropriate adjustments are made eg. Venus with its near 100% GHG atmosphere is a match.
The issue Doug raises is more detailed, as I see it, and impinges very much on the 2nd Law rather than the one off gravity pressure pump mechanism. The Entropy Law is one of the most robust in all of science. It is probably the most tested of all Laws in science and has always came out trumps. Even Einstein ran foul of it – but it may fail in a black hole.
So the issue is whether the maximum entropy of the earth system would tend towards isentropic or isothermal. You suggest without insolation it would be isothermal.
Let’s assume this isothermal state to start. Doug’s argument is that due to kinetic energy interchange this is unstable as the PE is exchanged for KE in any vertical component. This is so whether molecules are displaced or simply exchange some momentum. The molecules from the top will have a higher KE when interacting with molecules from below (on average) right through the atmosphere.
Ultimately the tendency is for the PE/KE to be balanced in this way until thermodynamic equilibrium is established which would end with a higher T (KE) at the base of the atmosphere. This is the state of maximum entropy.
This is as you described in your opening paragraph and requires no heat pump to warm the surface. Doug deals with it at a molecular level rather than adiabatic parcels of air.
Entropy tells us the direction or tendency but not the speed so that it is clear other variables also come into play in a more dynamic way with the whole sun/planet system. The Entropy law is still satisfied if parts of the system decrease while other parts gain which is what we do indeed have in practice ie differential heating, turbulence, winds etc as you point out.
I will make one further observation. Doug’s view of the 5C increase to the Venus surface between day and night “seems” more plausible as very little insolation reaches the surface to effect such an increase. Perhaps I have missed something here.
PS: Doug is quick off the mark as he has already commented.:)
tonyM
Good until the last three paragraphs from “The Entropy law is still satisfied if parts of the system decrease while other parts gain”
The entropy (Second) law applies to every independent process in an isolated system. You need to clarify what you mean by the system. You can’t say it’s OK for entropy to decrease in some column of air on the sunlit side just because it increases more in a similar column of air on the dark side of any planet.
Wind in any form does not help any system to evolve towards thermodynamic equilibrium with its associated temperature gradient.
You don’t understand how the required thermal energy gets into the surface of Venus in order to raise its temperature, because, as I have said many times, it is not by direct solar radiation to that surface. A mere 20W/m^2 cannot raise the temperature of a surface that is already about 460°C because that would required a flux of over 16,000W/m^2. And no, such radiation of 20W/m^2 can’t even do it in a billion years.
There can be no “parcels of air” that are somehow held together in perfectly calm conditions without wind of any form. Molecules move randomly in any direction, so some come and so go out of any imaginary parcel. All this garbage is just an invention because people don’t apply Kinetic Theory from which the Ideal Gas Laws are derived anyway.
Why try to use the IDL when it is not applicable? When calculating the -g/Cp gradient climatologists do it in a most clumsy roundabout way, introducing pressure and then finding pressure just cancels out because, in reality, it is not what causes temperature changes. The gradient can be derived simply in two lines direct from Kinetic Theory, as in my book and several comments on several climate blogs.
Sorry about typo: IGL of course.
I really think it is about time people here studied what is really happening, as is explained in the five pages of our group’s website http://climate-change-theory.com
It will blow you mind when you finally come to grips with what real physics tells us, and the significance of it in blowing apart the GH radiative forcing conjecture.
Toneb wrote “Maintaining such a gradient requires a heat pump, because heat tends to move down the gradient by conduction.”
You think that because you do not realize that you cannot use the equations for thermodynamic potentials (notably that for entropy) in a vertical plane in a gravitational field because, in the development of those equations, they specifically ignored changes in gravitation potential energy.
Thus your statement is incorrect. No “heat pump” is required and the temperature gradient is the state of thermodynamic equilibrium which evolves at the molecular level (not the macro level as you imply) just as the Second Law states it will. When there is such thermodynamic equilibrium then, by definition, there will be no net heat transfers across any external or internal boundary, and so your statement about heat transfers being down the temperature gradient is not correct when convection stops, as often happens on a calm night in the early pre-dawn hours, even though the environmental temperature gradient remains.
If you have more of your IPCC-influenced (or Stephen Wilde or Hockey Schtick influenced) physics to discuss may I suggest you first read (and study carefully) our group’s website and other comments on this thread. Note the page on “Hockey Schtick errors” regarding your comment about turbulence, because that is wind and wind destroys the temperature gradient: it does not form it. If a planetary troposphere somehow became isothermal it would be an unstable state because there would be more mean gravitational potential energy per molecule at the higher altitudes than at the lower ones.
Radiation from CO2 in the Venus atmosphere cannot add thermal energy to the surface at the rate of over 16,000W/m^2 as would be required to cause the temperature at a location on the equator to actually rise by about 5 degrees during the 4-month-long sunlit period. My paper on radiation is linked in a comment just written. The Venus atmosphere cannot amplify the solar radiation that enters at the top and deliver a much larger flux into the surface. Nor can Earth’s.
All this is covered on our website and in earlier comments on this thread, so please catch up on your reading.
I am very well versed in what the IPCC says, so you don’t need to come on board here and just reiterate it all. I have thoroughly refuted it all.
So I throw down the gauntlet to you, Toneb, to respond with valid physics to what I have said here and to what is in the website endorsed by five others in our group of suitably qualified persons.
tonyM:
If you don’t accept Maxwell’s theoretical disproof of the “gravito-thermal” effect, then you have to throw out the 2nd Law as not being universal (and therefore not a law). Because if such a thing were possible, the thermal energy of an isolated system could be converted to work without rejecting any heat to a lower temperature reservoir.
As I have pointed out several times in this thread, high-speed centrifuges, which produce exceptionally high effective gravitational forces, are an excellent test of this theory. If the gravito-thermal effect were real, the outer parts of these centrifuges and their contents would be destroyed by melting, combusting, or both.
As to the Earth’s “standard atmosphere”, the fact that the Earth’s atmosphere is mostly heated from the bottom (from several means from the surface) and cooled from the top (by radiation to space from — roughly — the tropopause) tends to set up an environmental lapse rate greater than the adiabatic lapse rate. If this is the case, convection starts, driving the atmosphere toward the adiabatic lapse rate.
“the thermal energy of an isolated system could be converted to work without rejecting any heat “
No it’s not converted to work. But if there were isothermal conditions then molecular KE and PE would be redistributed without net gain or loss of combined PE and KE. Only entropy would increase.
If an insulated long thin sealed cylinder of air is initially horizontal with isothermal conditions and homogeneous density in a horizontal cross-section, and you then turn it to a vertical position, it is obvious that it is not in the state of thermodynamic equilibrium because entropy is going to start to increase towards a maximum which is attained when the density gradient becomes stable and of course is non-zero. Then there will be homogeneous molecular (PE+KE) for the simple reason that there is thermodynamic equilibrium.
This comment is continued here and I also refer you to the discussion of the vortex tube in this thread and the prerequisite for the equations for thermodynamic potentials, namely that gravitational potential energy does not change. So the Clausius statement (derived from the equation for entropy) only applies in a horizontal plane. Hence you cannot prove isothermal conditions would evolve in a vertical plane.
Kurt:
I feel I covered it above when in effect we were talking about an “isolated system” starting out as isothermal. PE came into play at the molecular level to increase the entropy resulting in a lapse rate.
Gravitational PE is not taken into account if there is a balancing force preventing it from having any effect. Take the case of Newton’s apple. While it stays on the tree no net force is applicable. Make some minor changes like stem desiccation and cleave a few bonds and the force becomes unbalanced so that gravity completes the job and it falls to the ground causing heat dissipation and an increase in entropy.
Take a huge rock precariously balanced at the top of a mountain cliff by my finger or a twig. Any unbalancing of the force will similarly result in a change of relative PE to other energy forms whjen it falls. Again a change in entropy, this time much greater than the apple.
Why would these be different to the PE imbalance via kinetic interaction of molecules in an isothermal atmosphere subject to gravity? One would have to show that, say, the density gradient could offset this to prevent such a vertical transfer of net energy.
Any transfer of energy is not taking place contrary to the 2nd Law as each average interaction is a transfer of energy from hotter to colder molecules so that net entropy is always increased.
In practice the solar/planet system is not isolated. Other transfers come into play but this would not cause any underlying is-entropic tendency to suddenly disappear.
Curt:
Apologies I misspelled your name above.
Not quite right TonyM but showing promise. What happens is explained here: http://climate-change-theory.com
TonyM – It’s pretty clear that if we are talking about entropy reaching a maximum, then that must be when entropy is homogeneous – that is, the state is isentropic. Now if we assume no chemical or nuclear reactions, and no phase change, then the inevitable conclusion is that the sum of molecular (PE+KE) is homogeneous, because we have assumed other forms of energy don’t change for our purposes here.
Of course, once you accept (PE+KE)=constant, then you accept there is a gradient in KE (temperature) offsetting the known gradient in gravitational PE. All this can only happen at the molecular level, because nothing holds parcels of air together and, in calm conditions, they are a figment of the imagination.
No I don’t throw out the Second Law: I use it to develop the hypothesis.
Actually Maxwell disregarded it, as hinted by Eddington …
“The law that entropy always increases holds, I think, the supreme position among the laws of Nature. If someone points out to you that your pet theory of the universe is in disagreement with Maxwell’s equations — then so much the worse for Maxwell’s equations. If it is found to be contradicted by observation — well, these experimentalists do bungle things sometimes. But if your theory is found to be against the second law of thermodynamics I can give you no hope; there is nothing for it but to collapse in deepest humiliation.”
—Sir Arthur Stanley Eddington, The Nature of the Physical World (1927)
Yes such centrifuge machine are an excellent test, and you should have done some research first before you put your foot in it Curt. (LOL)
High speed centrifuge machines do create a temperature gradient with colder air at the center. See this comment and the following ones.
Thanks for your support, tonyM, Perhaps you could email Roy on this, because I don’t think he reads all comments. If you’d like to join our group, email me at the address on the website linked below.
I have certainly had trouble getting them here to understand why the air in a Vortex tube encounters strong centrifugal force as it spirals its way in a helical motion down the tube (and back up in the central region) as I described in an earlier comment on this thread. (It’s also explained in Wikipedia and in my comment on the ‘Talk’ page there.) Maybe you can explain such, because I admit I get a little angry with those who just peddle the AGW line without even thinking about what I have written, or deigning to read the new website that has been endorsed by our small group of six persons with suitable qualifications and/or understanding of the relevant thermodynamics.
Norman keeps asking for an experiment using centrifugal force, totally ignoring the fact that I have provided one in this vortex tube.
The separation of the air into hot and cold streams is obviously due to the centrifugal force acting orthogonal to the length of the tube. So this confirms beyond reasonable doubt that Loschmidt was right regarding the temperature gradient caused by a force field in gases at least. From that, the rest of our group’s hypothesis is in the website, but, until those here acknowledge and perhaps apologize about their misunderstanding as to how the Vortex tube works, we haven’t even got off Square 1 with them.
However I’m gratified to see that the website has now had over 3,800 hits in its first month (over 500 from Roy’s blog) and over 1,300 of those have gone on to read the second page regarding evidence that is in addition to the Ranque Hilsch Vortex tube.
Until people can explain (as we do) the necessary energy transfers on Venus, Uranus, Earth and other planets and moons, they are most likely still thinking in the outdated and incorrect paradigm of radiative forcing which is not what explains planetary surface temperatures.
Regarding back radiation, tonyM, please see my paper published on several websites in March 2012, but removed recently by Roger (Tallbloke) and PSI because of their aggression towards me, not because of any incorrect physics therein.
In fact, the physics in that paper expanded on what Prof. Claes Johnson wrote, and he commented that I was one of only a few who demonstrated a correct understanding of his paper. I went on from where he left off, explaining the mechanism whereby the quantification of one-way thermal energy transfers by radiation is represented by the area between the Planck curves, that being the radiation that is not common and thus does not resonate. That’s how Nature ensures that the Second Law of Thermodynamic applies for every one-way passage of radiation.
Note to all: Doug is studiously avoiding the issue of centrifuges, despite the urgings of Norman and me. Unlike the virtually impossible task of trying to isolate a tall column of gas well enough to reliably detect a temperature difference under standard earth gravity of 9.8m/s^2, modern centrifuges can create an effective gravitational acceleration a million times greater.
By Doug’s calculations, this should create a stable lapse rate a million times greater than what is seen in the atmosphere, on the order of tens of K per MILLIMETER. This is easy to test, and frankly is done so in thousands of labs around the world every day.
Norman has urged Doug to instrument a centrifuge and do the test. Frankly, it is easier than this. Simply put a tiny slip of paper at the end of an air-filled tube and spin it up. By Doug’s calculations, this end of the tube should get fair hotter than the combustion temperature of the paper, so we should find it burned.
If Doug is also correct that this lapse rate occurs in solids, put a 50mm long cylinder of copper in the tube and spin it up. Doug’s calculations say that the outer end of the cylinder should get way beyond the melting point of copper. It would be easy to see.
Hell, forget about the copper! Doug’s calculations say that the outer end of a glass test tube should melt after being spun up to tens of thousands of rpm. Has anyone ever reported that?
Curt,
You are one funny person. You got me laughing seeing the image of a piece of paper igniting in a centrifuge.
I think you have much more knowledge of thermodynamics than me. I studied Chemistry (years ago) now work as a lab tech that tests things daily. Sounds like you might be a physics major.
Norman:
I studied thermodynamics and heat transfer, first in physical chemistry, then in mechanical engineering, at MIT and Stanford. I work as an engineer.
I consider myself very fortunate to have studied these at places that demanded so much rigor. At a lot of schools, thermodynamics is a classic “washout” course that weeds out those who do not have the mental discipline to define their systems, subsystems, inputs, outputs, and interactions consistently and rigorously. (I think at my schools, the admissions office performed this function.)
I guess that’s why seeing people like Doug, who are incapable of this rigor, drive me up a wall. I know I won’t convince him, but I don’t want anyone else taken in.
Curt,
Impressive schools. Thanks for the background. You would have then studied actual work done by Gibbs and Maxwell. These people were not morons and they were quite thoughtful in their understandings
What’s your problem, Curt?
“The vortex tube, also known as the Ranque-Hilsch vortex tube, is a mechanical device that separates a compressed gas into hot and cold streams. The air emerging from the “hot” end can reach temperatures of 200°C, and the air emerging from the “cold end” can reach -50°C.[1] It has no moving parts.”
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vortex_tube
and on the “Talk” page there I responded to your objection nearly a year ago when I wrote …
“High pressure does not cause high temperature:
The paragraph in the article which wrongly claims high pressure causes high temperature should be removed.
It is the gravitational (centrifugal) force which acts on molecules that causes a density and temperature gradient. There is no direct action by gravity on pressure. Gravity (and centrifugal force) act on matter. Gravity sets up a state of hydrostatic equilibrium by acting on molecules and physically redistributing those molecules so as to form a density gradient with maximum entropy. That state (hydrostatic equilibrium) is also thermodynamic equilibrium because each is the (only possible) state with maximum entropy. So gravity forms both a density and temperature gradient. Then pressure is the result (not the cause) being proportional to the product of density and temperature.
Once you understand this, then it is easy to understand why the temperature gradient between the inner and outer regions is expected to be the (badly named) dry adiabatic lapse rate. Despite the name, it is just a thermal gradient of, in this case, about 20 to 50 million degrees per kilometer, which matches the observed values of around 100 to 250 degrees in about 5mm. There is nothing unexpected in this. If you had given me the data regarding revs/second and diameter of the tube, the temperature difference could have been calculated using the quotient of the acceleration due to the gravitational (centrifugal) force and the mean specific heat, which is about 1.0 for air. You should expect slightly different results with other gases having different specific heat.
“So, all this is unsupported guesswork and should be deleted: From “One simple explanation is that the outer air is under higher pressure …. Peltier effect device, which uses electrical pressure (voltage) to move heat to one side of a dissimilar metal junction, causing the other side to grow cold.”
Douglas Cotton (talk) 22:08, 3 April 2014 (UTC)
Doug aka Physics Group (you should know better than),
Gravity is a “centripetal” force, not centrifugal. No such thing as centrifugal force. readmy previous comments.
Have a great day!
Doug:
As you’ve been told repeatedly, the dynamic performance of an RH tube says nothing about how an isolated system will evolve toward static thermodynamic equilibrium. Your continued inability to tell the difference speaks volumes as to your competence.
(By the way, I have not been able to find a single analysis that agrees with you even on the dynamic mechanisms.)
Regardless, a high-speed laboratory centrifuge should be an excellent way to confirm your theory to people, as the results with the very high g-forces should be unambiguous. Burn a piece of paper at the end of a tube full of air. Show us a copper cylinder whose outer end you melted simply by spinning it up to high speeds!
Norman has kindly provided you with a reference – see Chapter 6 where it refers to “centifugal force” on page 88 and talks about the expansion and compression which this causes.
Produce valid physics with which you think you can prove there would be isothermal conditions in a planet’s troposphere. It is you (and the rest of the AGW crowd) who are postulating something which exists nowhere, so the least you could do is to produce some physics which would explain the possibility.
You cannot use the equations for entropy that are derived with specific mention of the fact that they ignore changes in gravitational potential energy.* Nor could you assess the state of maximum entropy in any other way which would correctly show that isothermal conditions would exist as that state of thermodynamic equilibrium. So I don’t know what you think you can use.
* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermodynamic_potential
Even though the air is moving rapidly down the helical vortex tube as it also rotates, the individual molecules are still moving at a considerable speed of about 500 meters per second in random directions between collisions, and so they are still affected by gravity during their free path motion, and that is of course the one and only reason why there is an exchange of molecular gravitational PE and KE, leading to the temperature gradient by exactly the same process as occurs in a planet’s troposphere.
You, Curt and Norman and other AGW promoters still have not explained how the required thermal energy gets down into the nominal troposphere of Uranus from the cold (59K) region in the methane layer near TOA where there has been absorption of insolation that is about 0.1% of what Earth receives. At the base of that troposphere it is hotter than Earth’s surface. So, as Prof Julius Sumner Miller used to say in our physics lectures in the 1960’s – “Why is it so?”
The issue of centrifugal force creating a temperature gradient is explained on the “WUWT errors” page at http://climate-change-theory.com and calculations that agree with observations are in my comments in the “Talk” page here.
No I’m not avoiding the issue of centrifuges Curt.
High speed centrifuge machines certainly do create a temperature gradient with colder air at the center. See this comment and the following ones.
Doug Cotton,
https://digital.library.adelaide.edu.au/dspace/bitstream/2440/82139/3/02whole.pdf
Please read Chapter 6 of this person’s explanation of the vortex tube.
Using actual measurements (which I applaud) he found that the coldest air was at the inlet and then it slightly warmed after that (but still colder than the original air entering). This totally rejects your hypothesis of how this device works by separating energy of molecules via the centrifugal force (which for some unknown reason fails to materialize in a standard centrifuge as Curt has pointed out). Because the coldest part is right at the inlet the author hypothesizes the cooling part of the vortex tube is caused by expansion (gases cool when expanding because internal energy is used up pushing against the resistance of other molecules). It is not a systematic cooling as would happen with separation of hotter and colder air molecules which would occur the whole length and continue until a balance was achieved. This is not the case for the vortex tube.
Norman: Your cited author is mistaken, but, for whatever reason, there is a temperature gradient in the cross-section of the vortex tube and you, having no evidence to the contrary, can’t deny that the centrifugal force field (due to the rapid rotation in a helical path) causes that gradient to evolve.
I never said it had anything to do with “separation of hot and cold molecules” as you would know if you deigned to read our group’s website. The molecules could all start out with precisely the same KE for all I care.
You, Norman, continue to demonstrate your lack of understanding of Kinetic Theory.
Maybe you could start by reading the assumptions for such, noting that the molecular motion between collisions may be treated classically and that gravity affects such motion.</i
Also read my other comment just written and try to understand that there is no valid physics which can be used to prove isothermal conditions would apply. I challenge you to present such in the light of what I have explained in that comment.
That is my last word to you Norman: I repeat, I challenge you to produce valid physics supporting your wild contention that planetary tropospheres would evolve towards isothermal conditions if there were no IR-active gases. Indeed, the lower troposphere of Uranus has virtually none anyway.
And Norman, your cited reference on page 88 refers to “centrifugal force” and here you are arguing that it is not, in effect, a centrifuge. (LOL)
The error which is repeated by climatologists regarding expansion supposedly always causing cooling can only be understood when you understand Kinetic Theory. It is not changes in density that are the cause of temperature changes when an external force is causing such changes. The Ideal Gas Law does not allow us to assume changes in density or pressure necessarily cause changes in temperature. That law is derived from Kinetic Theory anyway, so it is more instructive (and less prone to misunderstanding and error) to use kinetic theory (as in my hypothesis) and develop a correct understanding from first principles, rather than from computations using equations for entropy but then ignoring the prerequisite for those equations to be valid, namely that gravitational potential energy is held constant, as in a horizontal plane.
You can only prove that heat transfer by conduction, diffusion or convection will always be from warmer sources to cooler targets if you restrict considerations to a horizontal plane. And you cannot prove me wrong on that, thus you cannot prove your contention of isothermal conditions in a vertical plane in a planet’s troposphere. Thus the greenhouse conjecture is smashed because it depends on the assumption of isothermal conditions which cannot be proved correct.
Suppose you start with a long very thin insulated sealed horizontal cylinder with homogeneous density and temperature, consider then what happens when it is rotated to a vertical position. You are introducing a force field along its length which causes a density gradient that then stabilizes. (Things like this only stabilize when the state of thermodynamic equilibrium is attained, because so says the Second Law.) Now, you could use your “expansion causes cooling” concept if you wish, because the air at the top of the cylinder has indeed become less dense and you might accept that as the reason for the cooling at the top, whilst the compression at the bottom you might think to be the reason for the warming. Fine! You are thinking like your author of that cited reference and thus coming to the same conclusion that the force field (gravity or centrifugal force) has indeed caused a temperature gradient. The real explanation is in our website using Kinetic Theory and the Second Law of Thermodynamics, but at least your author agrees with me that the force field sets up a temperature gradient somehow, thus allowing warmer air to be separated from colder air. So too does gravity, thus allowing us to explain planetary temperatures.
Yes Norman that person (Yunpeng Xue in a PhD thesis at Adelaide University in Australia) in your linked article agrees with me that there is centrifugal force acting and causing the temperature gradient. For more on this click here.
Curt and Norman and others:
Doug has “studiously” used a centrifuge as is inherent in the rapidly rotating Ranque Hilsch vortex tube for which others have quantified the huge centrifugal force thus created.
Regarding solids, the -g/Cp temperature gradient is observed in borehole measurements in the outer 10Km of Earth’s crust, where it reaches about 300°C at 10Km depth. This completely demolishes the conjecture that there is a reasonably constant temperature gradient thought to be due to one-way conduction from the core to the surface. Such conduction is not one-way, because, if it were, then how could the thermal plot “know” from deep underground how to be at just the right gradient so that the plot extrapolates to the surface temperature? How can the surface temperature on Earth and Venus (or that temperature at the base of the Uranus troposphere and other such planets) “know” what it should be so that the temperature gradient in the troposphere is just right all the way to the radiating altitude, where it is at just the right temperature to balance solar insolation.
Our group has answers to all these questions. You can’t explain, because you start out with an incorrect assumption of isothermal conditions.
Direct solar radiation to the Earth’s surface is not what causes its temperature to be what it is. Nor does radiation from a colder atmosphere actually transfer thermal energy into the oceans, for example, and in fact it does not even penetrate by more than a few nanometers.
The models are based on incorrect physics in that they assume there is proof that isothermal conditions would exist in a dry atmosphere without IR-active gases, whereas that is not the case because the equations for thermodynamic potentials are developed with a specific declaration that changes in gravitational potential energy are ignored. Thus, when using the entropy equations to prove the Clausius corollary of the Second Law, it should always be noted that such only applies in a horizontal plane. A force field, such as gravity or the centrifugal force in a Ranque-Hilsch vortex tube will always act on molecules in flight between collisions and redistribute molecular kinetic energy so as to create a temperature gradient and, in the case of the huge force in the vortex tube, this leads to very significant temperature differences between the emerging hot and cold streams. That valid physics can then be used to explain all planetary temperatures, even down to their cores.
The new paradigm of course smashes the greenhouse conjecture.
And so, for whatever reason you choose to believe, the empirical evidence stands that the centrifugal force (referred to on page 88 of your cited reference, Norman) acting along any radius in a Ranque Hilsch vortex tube clearly causes there to be a temperature gradient along that radius. It is just as BigWaveDave explained to Tim Folkerts three years ago here when he was refuting Robert Brown’s article on WUWT …
“Because the import of the consequence of the radial temperature gradient created by pressurizing a spherical body of gas by gravity, from the inside only, is that it obviates the need for concern over GHG’s. And, because this is based on long established fundamental principles that were apparently forgotten or never learned by many PhD’s, it is not something that can be left as an acceptable disagreement.”
Doug Cotton,
This will be a pointless exercise with you but perhaps tonyM will find it useful.
Uranus Atmosphere:
http://www.windows2universe.org/uranus/atmosphere/U_atm_structure_2.html
Note: It has a large isothermal region 200 km in height. In a gravity field. How? Why is the “heat creep” so selective as to only work in turbulent areas that are in constant motion and mixing but disappears when radiation and turbulence are stopped (seems this is the place one should see the most direct evidence of it).
http://www.windows2universe.org/uranus/atmosphere/U_mesosphere_2.html
Take a closer look at the thermal profile for Uranus. Note the word “troposphere” – the same word I have used over and over when speaking about the nominal troposphere of Uranus which is about 350Km in height, and which is about 47°C at its base where there is no surface. [source]
Your “isothermal” region is the troposphere where in fact the profile is curved as it gradually changes to an inversion simply because the absorption of thermal energy in any planet’s stratosphere is at a level which dominates the much slower rate of sensible heat transfer (conduction, heat diffusion, convection – call it what you like) that forms the temperature gradient. Molecules are further apart and less collisions occur up there.
By my calculations the mean temperature gradient in the nominal troposphere of Uranus is about 95% of the -g/Cp value.
Thermal energy from the Sun is only absorbed in upper regions where the temperature is about 59K or less, because that is the black body temperature for the radiation the planet receives. Some of that thermal energy has accumulated over the life of the planet, “trapped” under the sloping thermal profile which has a gradient determined by gravity and the weighted mean specific heat of the gases.
Sensible heat transfers can occur downwards (and must have done so) as heat “creeps” up the thermal profile closely balancing the losses (the other way) by radiation. This “heat creep” can happen because there is no law of physics which says it can’t. I have discussed elsewhere why the Clausius “hot to cold” corollary of the Second Law is subject to the prerequisite that gravitational potential energy does not change, and so it is inapplicable here.
Correction: Your “isothermal” region is the tropopause above the troposphere
Continued in this comment.
Doug Cotton,
Why is what Curt wrote so difficult for you? If I assume the troposphere of the Earth has a lapse rate because the sun heats the surface (actually at much higher rate than the air above would indicate).
http://nature.berkeley.edu/classes/es196/projects/2011final/GuanK_2011.pdf
The heated surface warms the air above but because air is a really good insulator the temperature of the air increases very slowly as you go up creating the lapse rate. You can again see the lapse rate in the Earth’s atmosphere where UV energy is absorbed in the stratosphere.
If you look at planetary atmospheres there are large distances of isothermal temperature profile and they seem to correspond to the same places that have little turbulence and little energy added to them. Doug’s Theory Busted! With actual evidence of real atmospheres.
Water does the same thing. Oceans are mostly isothermal (Doug comes up with some weird explanation of why that can be). The ocean deviates from isothermal at the area absorbing solar energy. Where most energy is absorbed has the greatest temperature and it goes down in a lapse rate to isothermal.
Saturn, Jupiter, Uranus, and Neptune’s atmosphere temperature profiles. Long stretches of isothermal atmosphere.
Norman writes: “If I assume the troposphere of the Earth has a lapse rate because the sun heats the surface””
The reason that is an assumption that is inapplicable in many regions of Earth, and all over the dark side, is easily understood when you consider the planet Uranus which has no surface at the base of its nominal troposphere. You could have read this on our website on the first and second pages.
Your “large distances of isothermal temperature profile” are not in the troposphere of those planets. I have explained what happens in water and in the stratosphere and tropopause in my papers, articles, websites and book, as well as in response to similar comments on various blogs over the years. If you don’t understand what I explain then ask questions, but study the website first.
You have no proof using valid physics that there is any propensity for isothermal conditions to evolve in the centrifugal force field in a Ranque Hilsch vortex tube, or in an “ideal” planetary troposphere in calm conditions at night. Read my comment on the derivation of the Clausius statement in Roy’s most recent post here.
So “No” Norman. In general the Sun cannot heat a planet’s surface to the observed temperatures with direct radiation when there is a significant atmosphere in which the gravitationally induced temperature gradient causes the surface to be hotter than the Sun’s radiation can make it. The way the energy gets into the surface is explained here: http://climate-change-theory.com and supporting evidence is on the “Evidence” page and in the linked 18 page paper I wrote two years ago in February 2013.
Doug writes above:
“It will blow your mind when you finally come to grips with what real physics tells us, …”
I think that, in Doug’s case, this has literally happened.
You are just as likely to have a similar “reasonable” discussion with a dope head.
Still no physics from Dr No-all, or any comment on what is in the website now viewed by nearly 4,000 in 5 weeks, more than 500 of those linked from Roy’s posts.
Hi ToneB,
you wrote: “Yes. there will be a LR formed …. which soon tends to isothermal as heat is lost to space. Thereafter it remains isothermal (without insolation).”
I’m just an engineer (electronics), and being Italian maybe I lost some details because of my poor knowledge of English, so excuse me if the following question could look silly to you.
Doesn’t that isothermal atmosphere happen when the whole energy has dissipated to space?
I mean (if that was the case), shouldn’t all the atmosphere collapsed to the planet ground?
What I find very difficult to accept to me, about the isothermal GHGs less atmosphere, it is that the very last molecular layer of the atmosphere should have the very same KE of all the layers below. But since it is the very last upper layer, its molecules should haven’t any vertical outgoing movement, while they all get their own KE from the below.
How could this uppermost layer receive the KE as vertical bumps no GHGs, so no other ways to get it) and immediately convert the very same KE to tangential?
Have a great day.
Massimo
A good point Massimo. The others will have no valid answer to your question, because if they were right, the atmosphere would gradually disappear to space, because there is no reason why such molecules at the top could not keep on moving higher and higher.
The reason we have a ceiling on our atmosphere (and lose very little through the exosphere) is because of the general propensity for kinetic energy to be lost when molecules move upwards (gaining PE) between collisions.
I don’t know why these guys don’t understand, but I suspect it is because they have to kid they don’t to protect their pecuniary interests in the AGW scam.
Here is the link regarding the explanation as to why the Clausius statement (when relating to sensible heat transfers) applies only in a horizontal plane.
Hence you cannot use the Clausius “hot to cold” statement (which is a corollary of the Second Law that only applies in a horizontal plane) to prove that isothermal conditions would evolve in an isolated system in a vertical plane in a gravitational field. So you have no proof, Norman.
Doug,
You claim I have no proof? What are those isothermal regions about?
The only places you see lapse rates in planetary atmospheres is where you have some heat source. Uranus, Jupiter, Saturn, Neptune, Mars (not sure of Venus), Earth all have warmer areas below which moves heat up. Jupiter has the hottest core so you would expect it to be warm as you move to the core.
The isothermal parts of the atmospheres (in your graph it is based upon pressure so you do not see clearly the isothermal regions you would if it was using a fixed distance unit like kilometers or miles.
So how are not isothermal states in most planetary atmospheres not proof??? What form of reasoning are you using in this debate?
All planets with significant atmospheres have a troposphere which has a temperature gradient close to -g/Cp as shown here.
Yours is a deliberately misleading comment Norman and you must have known you were referring to the tropopause regions.
Massimo,
“Doesn’t that isothermal atmosphere happen when the whole energy has dissipated to space?
I mean (if that was the case), shouldn’t all the atmosphere collapsed to the planet ground?”
True it will compress under cooling (and become liquid). But this a thought experiment.
Compression will cause heating from the bottom up and this will all dissipate to space.
PE is a red-herring – not needed to arrive at a valid description of the physics of the atmosphere.
An air parcel at thermal parity with it’s neighbouring parcels is buoyant (ignoring turbulence).
The PE of air aloft does not lord it over air below. It is not a temperature and cannot be translated as such until the air subsides (the consequent warming then being perfectly described via the Gas Laws).
Then we have the situation I described. A formation of a LR in a moving/turbulent atmosphere …. which naturally happens when insolation is absorbed at the surface (convection) and the planet rotates (Sub-Equatorial and Polar JS’s). A heat pump. Gravity has nothing to do with creating a LR. Full stop. As NWP models well know.
Mr Cotton would do well to create a NWP model algorithm and get it to predict weather. No need. The ones we have do the job ta. You know? with the empirical science the world has gained knowledge of without the greatest physicist the world has ever known (to himself only).
Mr Cotton – should you reply to this I will ignore ….. of course you will. 113 posts you’ve made here out of 261….so QED, with your usual “I truck no criticism” post (well several).
It would be a complete waste of my time.
I have made my points, such as those with a critical mind can evaluate.
I value my sanity to much.
“The PE of air aloft does not lord it over air below.”
You got that one right. But of course you are talking on a macro scale, not about molecular PE on a micro scale as I have been. Disappointing (for you) that you have failed to understand such a straight forward point. That of course is why you haven’t even got off Square 1 in your understanding of the new paradigm.
By the way the Ideal Gas Laws are derived from Kinetic Theory – the same Kinetic Theory I use along with the Second Law of Thermodynamics to prove the hypothesis.
“Gravity has nothing to do with creating a LR. “
So the acceleration due to gravity (g) just happens to be in the denominator of the dry lapse rate because it’s a nice number I suppose.
“A heat pump” Tell us all about the heat pump at the top of the Uranus atmosphere pumping heat downwards to warmer regions in the nominal troposphere, thus offsetting the net upward energy transfers by radiation.
The mechanism is described here, but that’s just for silent readers to check your answer. Over 500 of Roy’s readers have already visited the website this year.
Ooops it’s late (11pm) here… That should read g is in the numerator of course, and that is the acceleration due to gravity for whichever planet we are discussing. The weighted mean specific heat of the gases Cp in any planetary troposphere is in the denominator, so maybe you should tell us why wind has something to do with either when it doesn’t always exist and its parameters have nothing to do with either g or Cp.
Hi ToneB,
thank you for the quick reply.
I was not thinking to any gas compression, I was thinking to the missing (thermal) energy which keeps the gas molecules away each other.
In absence of insulation the final state should lead to a temperature of 0K, that is no KE at all. In that situation I can’t imagine a true isothermal atmosphere because I can’t imagine a gas exists.
Excuse me if I’m repetitive, but into a “pure” non GHGs isothermal atmosphere. I can’t find any explanation to my top atmospheric layer molecular behavior issue.
Do you have any ideas about that?
Anyways, I’m not arguing that Doug is right or wrong, I simply don’t have the clue to establish that. I’ve just some problems imagining the molecules of gas as the only one matter not attracted from the planet to its ground via its gravitational field.
AFAIK, their KE (gas temperature) is the only thing that allow the molecules to jump high in the sky until it is fully converted into PE.
Where am I wrong here?
Have a great day.
Massimo
Massimo
Near the top of the mesosphere the KE per molecule is only just over half what it is for molecules near the surface. But the thermosphere above that has molecules with far more KE than even some at the surface. If collisions occur sometimes near the mesopause I suppose there may be a greater propensity for subsequent downward movement, and of course some molecules in the upper mesosphere will simply “fall” because of their gravitational potential energy. There are some lost to space above the thermosphere in the exosphere, named because of such exiting molecules.
I also suspect that at night, when the thermosphere can be much colder, some gas probably does rise beyond the mesopause and then become so cold that it liquefies and then falls back down a certain distance before it becomes gas again.
In general you should not assume that there is actually a whole lot of adiabatically rising air with nowhere to go. This is not necessary for the temperature gradient to form as is explained here.
In the mornings in the upper troposphere there is a propensity for net downward convective heat transfer which could be stopped in the middle of the troposphere by upward convection above a solid surface on a clear day in non-polar regions. But above the oceans the downward net convective heat transfer (including some slow advection) probably continues to the water surfaces, because that is what primarily provides thermal energy to the oceans, because we know most solar radiation passes through the thin surface layer and only gets absorbed in cooler layer below.
Hi Doug,
no, I’m not discussing about a real atmosphere (with lot of other phenomena such the one which happen into the thermosphere).
I just idealized a non GHGs atmosphere with energy coming just from the Sun, no cosmic rays, no solar wind etc…
I know that I’m writing about something nonexistent at all.
Have a great day.
Massimo
Yes the molecules are affected by gravity. See the assumptions of Kinetic Theory noting the last of these …
“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 kinetic theory has its own definition of temperature, not identical with the thermodynamic definition.
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.“
Massimo:
I am simply saying what empirical science says … that has been observed to be correct for decades/centuries. Certainly during my career as a Meteorologist with the UKMO.
There is no need to invoke gravity/PE into the physics of the atmosphere. Nothing is missing and it works as standard physics suggests it should. I refer to temp as KE. I am/was a practical Meteorologist. Same thing.
These elements are inherent in standard physics vis the hydrostatic equations and the gas laws.
A non-GHG atmosphere on an Earth-like planet in the absence of water will naturally develop an isentropic atmosphere. Because the air will natural move. The surface heats the air above, which rises by convection. The rotating planet sets up temp/density/pressure deltas and Coriolis creates Jets – baroclinic instability … more turbulence/movement. Rising/subsiding air, warming/cooling along a DALR. The natural consequence of moving air that is heated from below. Add GHG’s and the LR remains the ~same (a GHG induced LR is of the same order as the ALR), though feed-backs do alter locally (obviously).
What GHG’s do effectively is raise the effective emission level of outgoing IR. the level at which the temp -s ~255K. The BB temp of Earth. The temp that satellites see of Earth. More GHG’s and the higher that level becomes. The LR is pinned at that point and therefore makes the surface ~33K higher than BB.
An isothermal atmosphere will occur (hypothetically) if transparent to IR and not heated from below. Gravity does not proscribe the LR. If it did NWP models would go wildly wrong. They do not. Observation and calculation refute Mr Cottons “Physics”.
You reiterate the same old IPCC garbage which I refuted years ago. So what if water vapor raises the emission level which is highly unlikely because it congregates far more at lower altitudes? It also reduces the temperature gradient, and thus lowers the surface temperature. An increase in water vapor also produces more clouds which increase albedo. If albedo increases by 1% (from 30% to 31%) then the radiating temperature (255K) is lowered by 0.92 degree, so the surface temperature is also.
You don’t think that molecular gravitational potential energy makes a difference, because you don’t think as physicists do.
Entropy changes when molecular energy changes. That’s what the Second Law is all about. You cannot prove there would be isothermal conditions in the absence of GH gases. In short you don’t have a correct understanding of thermodynamics, so you (and Roy) could learn from someone like myself who has both qualifications in physics and experience and understanding gained over five decades.
The biggest single problem is that climatologists in general do not have sufficient understanding of thermodynamics and, from what you write, I can tell you certainly don’t understand entropy for a start.
The models are wrong because of the initial assumption that without GH gases the troposphere would have been isothermal. We know this assumption is made because we know the 255K temperature is at about 5Km altitude, and yet they say the surface would have been the same 255K. From there they get their sensitivity by assuming water vapor makes rain forests about 30 to 40 degrees hotter than dry regions and carbon dioxide adds a bit of warming also. In fact none of that happens.
The assumption regarding isothermal conditions is inherently applying the Clausius “hot to cold” statement which is just a corollary of the Second Law which only applies in a horizontal plane. That we know because it is clearly specified (as here) that the entropy equation is derived by assuming that changes in molecular gravitational potential energy can be ignored. It is those changes which actually cause the temperature gradient to evolve, so we must always remember that sensible heat transfers are not always from warmer to cooler regions in a vertical plane in a gravitational field
.
So they cannot prove that the Clausius statement they use to get their assumed isothermal conditions is correct in a vertical column of a planet’s troposphere, and so they cannot prove the fundamental building block upon which they built the GH conjecture.
Any questions are probably already answered here: http://climate-change-theory.com
Hi ToneB
One more personal consideration: even if I don’t believe in the GHGs free isothermal atmosphere, I don’t believe that the embedding or not of the PE effect on the NWP models invalidate or simply change their predictability, because (as your self said), their are “empirical science” (which I very appreciate, because it works sometimes better than the theoretical one).
In fact it suffices a fudge factor into an empirical model to adjust its response and the effect of the KE converted to and from the PE could be well emulated.
Have a great day.
Massimo
Massimo PORZIO
” Anyways, I’m not arguing that Doug is right or wrong, I simply don’t have the clue to establish that. I’ve just some problems imagining the molecules of gas as the only one matter not attracted from the planet to its ground via its gravitational field.”
Molecules are attracted by gravity like all matter. My view of the molecular world (in direct opposition to Doug Cotton) is that as a molecule at the top region of an atmosphere in a gravitaional field begins to move down and pick up enery there is another molecule moving upward losing energy at the same rate. Think of this possibility. The one at the top has a speed of 500 m/s as it moves down it picks up speed. The one moving up is moving up with a speed of 700 m/s and losing speed as it moves up. One gains energy and the other loses it at the same rate but the final effect is isothermal.
Another way of visualizing my view would be to have a perpetural motion machine (no friction similar to molecules with perfectly elastic collisions). You have a pulley system with equal weights on both sides. Add energy to move it and it will spin around at this speed as long as energy is not added or removed. The weights on the side moving downward will gain K.E. and add it to the overall system. Those on opposite side of rotation will lose energy as they move up the gravitaional gradient. So the amount of energy gained on one side is perfectly balanced by the energy lost on the other side and the speed of the system remains the same. It does not speed up at the bottom and slow down at the top. It is one system.
Hi Norman,
thank you for your consideration.
I get your point, but I don’t agree that the system is isothermal, or better in my opinion it is isothermal on each layer where the downward molecules intercept the upward ones, but the temperature (averaged of course) should decrease as the altitude increase.
My point is still the same: who stop the upward molecules run otherwise?
There is always an uppermost layer without any other layers above no?
How could exists that last layer up there if the KE didn’t fall to 0?
Didn’t all those molecules never stop and escape to the outer space?
Anyways I could be wrong of course.
I know almost nothing about atmospheric physics, I’m just trying to match the few thing I know about thermodynamics and mechanics to the things I read here.
Now I have to have dinner, I see that you gave me some reply, I’ll try to read them and write back later.
Have a nice day.
Massimo
“as a molecule at the top region of an atmosphere in a gravitaional field begins to move down and pick up enery [sic] there is another molecule moving upward losing energy at the same rate.”
They don’t “lose energy” – energy cannot be destroyed. They interchange gravitational potential energy with kinetic energy. The sum of (PE+KE) remains constant. Only KE affects temperature. There is a gradient in PE. Hence there is a gradient in KE of opposite sign. So there is a temperature gradient.
You could have read this at http://climate-change-theory.com
Norman:
“My view of the molecular world (in direct opposition to Doug Cotton) is that as a molecule at the top region of an atmosphere in a gravitational field begins to move down and pick up energy there is another molecule moving upward losing energy at the same rate.”
Exactly. In a nutshell.
What I said re vertical motion warming/cooling and necessarily creating an isentropic atmosphere.
This has been observed to be true for decades via the Meteorological network and the feeding of that data into numerical models. Who’s physics accurately represent future events.
It’s not bust and so doesn’t need fixing.
Hi ToneB and Norman,
Uhmmm… I don’t agree at all.
IMHO it’s not necessary that there is an another molecule in the opposite way, the only thing necessary is that the very same molecule at the very same altitude has the very same KE. Obviously if the molecules shared their KE together then the averaged KE matters, but the constrain is that the molecule above the reference layer have less KE than the one below it, so that passing through the same reference plane their whole molecular KE is the same.
This doesn’t implicitly change any empirical numerical model, they could work well anyways.
Have a nice day.
Massimo
“A formation of a LR in a moving/turbulent atmosphere:
Nope. Doesn’t happen due to wind of any form. Explain your physics in such a non-adiabatic process in which wind is adding energy to the column of air under consideration.
Strongly downward winds above the South Pole obliterate the temperature gradient. So too do warm winds from a valley when they then blow up a mountainside forming Foehn winds at the top which are warmer than the air would normally be there. Once again, the temperature gradient has been reduced significantly by the wind.
Where are the winds in the nominal troposphere of Uranus where sensible heat transfers occur downwards on the sunlit side from the solar heated methane layer in the upper troposphere (at around 59K) to the base of the nominal troposphere at about 320K and then on further down?
To understand the correct physics read all pages at http://climate-change-theory.com
Massimo PORZIO
Massimo, I offer proof of what I am saying and showing you why Doug is incorrect and maybe should reevaluate his belief system (won’t happen though, his EGO is too heavily invested in his own wonderful mind to look negatively at what he has come up with).
http://en.citizendium.org/images/thumb/2/26/AtmTempProfile.png/350px-AtmTempProfile.png
The link should be a graph of Earth’s atmospheric profile.
If you look at it you see isothermal conditions in the region of the atmosphere that does not absorb radiation and has no convective energy flow. It is a 10 km region so nothing to sniff at or ignore (as Doug likes to do). With Doug’s incorrect understanding this region should have a temperature grdient of 100 C. Why does it not, is there a selective process to heat creep? It only works in places where energy is being absorbed?
Where energy is absorbed by a region you have a thermal gradient (makes sense in normal understanding of thermodynamics, heat moves away from the source of heat and warms the area around it). You have the gradient with a heated surface absorbing energy, warming then tranferring this energy to the atmosphere above and warming it but the temperature goes down as you move away from the heat source.
Look at the Stratosphere where energy is being absorbed. You have a thermal gradient on both sides of this region.
Then back to isothemal again (Mesosphere) until you start absorbing energy again then you have another thermal gradient. I can’t conceive of why I would think Doug Cotton’s heat creep theory is correct when the evidence suggests that energy in a given region is driving the thermal gradient and not gravity.
Massimo PORZIO
http://curry.eas.gatech.edu/currydoc/Curry_JAS40.pdf
When I presented this evidence of an isothermal condition (Figure 2 of article) to Doug he went to Antartica and claimed somehow wind forces were creating the isothermal condition. I don’t know what evidence he has to prove that this air mass was created by wind of any type. He just makes things up when he needs to. Not evidence based science more religion.
Anyway look at the Figure 2 (if time permits) here is air that is devoid of convection (lower region colder than above) and has very little radiation. What does it move to? It is slowly moving to an isothermal condition.
Uranus has a warm core so as you move down the atmosphere you will have a thermal graient as heat slowly moves from the core outward.
Hi Norman,
quickly I read your consideration above and I realized that you probably think that I don’t believe that GHGs can change the vertical thermal profile of our true atmosphere.
I apologize for having give you that impression, when I wrote about the isothermal atmosphere I’m always talking about an hypothetical atmosphere where there is nothing else the gravitational field and the Sun heating the ground.
In my opinion, all those thermal plateau and the inversion of the lapse rate in the stratosphere could be explained via the various phenomena which characterize our atmosphere.
Of course take my opinions for what they are, that is opinions.
As always said, I’m not an expert in this field.
Now I go to having dinner.
Have a nice day.
Massimo
Hi Norman,
You stated:
“Uranus has a warm core so as you move down the atmosphere you will have a thermal gradient as heat slowly moves from the core outward.”
It has a warm core due primarily to gravity and the planet’s enormous apparently atmospheric mass. Or do you think it’s merely an accident that large planets tend to have warmer inner and core temps. The larger more massive solid body planets like Venus and the Earth prove geologically active while smaller dense globes like Earth’s Moon, Pluto, Mercury etc. do not appear to. As to Mars, I’m still open to the possibility but see little if any evidence. Larger planetary mass allows fissile reactions to occur beneath the surface greatly increasing internal temps.
Not to interject too much with your seemingly eternal debate with Doug, but as I mentioned to him all three primary energy expressions/forms KE, PE and Heat all interplay one with another. You cannot divorce gravity (frequently considered one of the four forces of nature along with electro-magnetism, and strong and weak nuclear forces – btw the same holds in General Relativity since curved space-time still accelerates matter centripetally ) from any energy expression including heat and temperature. Imo, Curt’s previous childish allusion to centrifuges and burning pieces of paper fails due to the small quantum of energy involved and their application. Must rush away but I’ll state more later. In any case, be careful when it comes to energy conversion. As Dr. Strangelove pointed out earlier you can generate a temperature of 20k Kelvin from a block of ice!
Until later…
Have a great day!
Uranus is not like Neptune. There is no evidence of significant net heat loss on Uranus, so the core is neither generating energy or cooling off. In fact it is at the temperature of about 5,000K solely because of the level of solar radiation, the height of the gases above the small solid core (55% the mass of Earth) as well as the force of gravity and the specific heat of the gases. No internal energy or cooling off could possibly explain the current temperature and the way in which the temperature gradient in the troposphere is very close to -g/Cp.
Below is more information …
“An Overview of Uranus’ Atmospheric Structure
“As on Earth, the atmosphere of Uranus consists of a troposphere, stratosphere, mesosphere, and thermosphere. The troposphere is the region where the visible clouds are to be found. The stratosphere, as on Earth, is a region where the atmosphere warms. Unlike the Earth however, where stratospheric warming is caused by the presence of ozone, the causes of the warming of the Uranian stratosphere are the hazes of methane to be found there. The mesosphere of Uranus, as on other planets, is a static region, a region of balance between incoming and outgoing energy.” [source]
Doug aka PhysicsGroup,
If as you claim the Uranus core temp is 5000k due to solar radiation why is the mantle surrounding the core composed of ice? At least that is what I remember reading.
Have a great day”
For those still not bored with this thread, here is a cool kinetic theory simulation of gas particles.
http://www.falstad.com/gas/
In particular, if you turn gravity up to the max, the density at the bottom is several times higher than the density at the top. Unfortunately for Doug, a corresponding temperature gradient DOES NOT occur. The distribution of speeds for particles near the top is indistinguishable from the distribution near the bottom. There is no lack of high-speed, high-energy particles near the top.
When I attempted to connect to your link nothing came up. In any case, you display a seemingly addled mind if you claim to disprove a theory by reference to another theory and/or model. Facts and evidence please!
Have a great day!
John, this is not “another” theory. The question at hand is whether kinetic theory predicts a temperature gradient or not when gravity is present.
This simulation is simply one implementation of kinetic theory. It was not written either to support or to refute Doug — simply to simulate kinetic theory.
The simulation seems to work pretty well — for example it reasonably shows PV = nkR and it pretty reasonably shows the M-B distribution for speeds.
It ALSO pretty reasonably shows that even when there is a dramatic density gradient, there is little or no temperature gradient.
This is a numerical confirmation of theory (supported by every text and most people commenting here) and confirmation of experiment (no temperature gradients observed in ultracentrifuges where even more extreme density gradients fail to display the temperature gradients of Doug’s theory.
Hi Tim Folkerts claimed:
“This is a numerical confirmation of theory (supported by every text and most people commenting here) and confirmation of experiment (no temperature gradients observed in ultracentrifuges where even more extreme density gradients fail to display the temperature gradients of Doug’s theory.”
Similar assertions by Curt and yourself seem to bear little relation to reality and for similar reasons lack relevance. The energy utilized in any centrifuge proves only relevant to INERTIAL MASS (M x V) and VELOCITY IS A VECTOR. Any gas molecule can only transfer KE upon collision with another molecule based on relative speed due in part to direction of motion. Two cars approaching each other at 70 and 71 miles per hour collide at 141 mph combined relative velocity if involved in a head on collision. If on the other hand, a car moving at 71 mph overtakes a car moving at 70 mph from behind the rear collision occurs at a relative velocity of 1 mph. If as in a centrifuge (ultra or otherwise) that seeks to separate matter by mass, all the gas, liquid and/or solid molecules contained in the centrifuge prove to be accelerated to the same velocity what opportunity would exist for temperature increase? Instead of spinning (as in many ultra-centrifuges) a cylindrical drum along the lengthwise horizontal axis inside an enclosed structure designed to prevent friction, abrasion etc., spin an old-fashioned medical centrifuge with actual vials spun along the length of a rotating rod and bring the lot to Mach 3. You will likely find temps in excess of 1000 deg centigrade. 1000 deg centigrade and higher temperatures result when commonly sub-zero upper troposphere air molecules confront the intake inlet of an SR-71, Valkyrie or similar vessel moving at Mach 3 and above.
Gravitational force acts centripetally toward the center of the Earth’s mass. Centrifuges merely mimic the effect by rotating mass at some velocity. The gasses found in the Earth’s atmosphere move at varying speeds in many directions. Gravity accelerates gas molecules at high altitudes to lower ones increasing their velocity and KE relative to other gas compounds at lower elevations making thermal interaction much more likely.
Much more could be stated, but your absurd ultra-centrifuge analogy fails on many levels.
Have a great day!
P.S. – Consider that a person living at the Earth’s equator will spin at ~1000 mph relative to the Earth’s center and/or a person standing at either polar axis of spin. Since the entire planet at his arc of rotation spins at the same speed the individual doesn’t notice the effect. The Earth’s atmosphere (rotated at different locations to varying velocities) sure does however which proves why we experience hurricanes and typhoons in part in the manner we do!
Correction my statement above should have read:
Any gas molecule can only transfer KE from it’s velocity (and not electron vibrations) to another gas molecule upon collision based on their relative velocities due in significant part to direction of motion.
No, Tim. You also should have done some research on centrifuges, like the ones used to cool air right down to 1°K at the center. See this comment and the following ones.
Hi Tim,
Set it as follows:
Setup: 3 Gases, Random Speeds
Tag the Heather
Simulation Seed: half scale (probably depends on your machine)
Molecule count: half scale
Color scale: as you prefer (I don’t understand what it should show, maybe the energy content of the single molecule)
Heather temperature: full left
Gravity: full right
Reset it, and allow to stabilize few tenths of seconds.
Do you really believe that the temperature at the base is the same of the top?
I say not. just very few molecules reach the top and their KE per volume isn’t sure as high as the bottom.
Of course if you raise the heather temperature, you reach a status of almost the same temperature at the bottom and at the top, but that the case of a closed column, nothing to do with our atmospheric setup.
Have a nice day.
Massimo
Massimo says “just very few molecules reach the top and their KE per volume isn’t sure as high as the bottom.”
Temperature is related to KE per molecule not KE per volume. My eyeball test says the distribution of color near the top is almost identical to the color distribution near the bottom.
Massimo:
You have just highlighted Doug’s key point of confusion with your comment that “just very few molecules reach the top and their KE per volume isn’t sure as high as the bottom.”
You are correct that KE per unit volume decreases with height in a gravitational field, in the real world as well as in this simulation. But temperature is KE per unit MASS, not per unit volume. (Most people would say that temperature is the average KE of each molecule — each molecule has a fixed mass, not a fixed volume.)
The distinction is critical, and one that Doug cannot grasp. The fact that KE per unit volume decreases with height means that if you analyze the energy transfers across a horizontal plane, they will sum to zero only in the isothermal case (constant average KE per molecule over height), even though (the more numerous) individual molecules from below are decelerating across the plane and (the less numerous) individual molecules from above are accelerating.
Tim and Curt,
I know what you are saying Curt, but in a steady state the molecule coming up from below shouldn’t be the same that are falling down from above? Otherwise you have an accumulation of molecules above the reference plane on the passing of time, not a steady state at all.
My point of view is that at the steady state both mass and number of molecules must cross in both ways the reference plane (which is perpendicular to the gravity, vector of course).
In this condition the only steady state temperature is that which for each plane the average temperature is isothermal, but it is decreasing as function of the altitude.
Tim, by the way, that simulator doesn’t shows correctly the instantaneous KE of the molecule with their colors. It just shows the KE shared after a collision. If you want a proof of it, just set my previous setup but adjust for one molecule and increase the heater to allow the molecule to rise close to the top, then read the kT when the molecule bumps against the wall at different heights. The molecule reduce its temperature as function of height of course.
Just an another question for Curt: I read about the thermospere here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermosphere
“The highly diluted gas in this layer can reach 2,500 °C (4,530 °F) during the day. Even though the temperature is so high, one would not feel warm in the thermosphere, because it is so near vacuum that there is not enough contact with the few atoms of gas to transfer much heat. A normal thermometer would read significantly below 0 °C (32 °F), because the energy lost by thermal radiation would exceed the energy acquired from the atmospheric gas by direct contact.”
Climatologist should decide decide what temperature is in a gas when there are no GHGs, because without them (which is our case) the thermometer work exactly as there into the thermosphere.
My question is: is (as you say) the temperature averaged over mass or (as I say) over volume?
I always believed that temperature is a proxy measurement made by thermometers, and the temperature as measured by thermometers in the thermosphere is 0°C. Of course the “molecular” temperature of the thermosphere is 2500°C, but I added the adjective “molecular” before temperature.
As always said I’m just an engineer and i could be wrong.
Have both a great day.
Massimo
Yes, Tim Folkerts, and because more molecules move to the bottom they must have gained kinetic energy and so got warmer.
Unfortunately for you, Tim Folkerts, you just don’t understand thermodynamics, nor what BigWaveDave explained to you here three years ago.
Unfortunately for you, Tim Folkerts, you don’t realize that the centrifugal force field in a Ranque Hilsch vortex tube (acting radially) certainly does create a temperature gradient along any radius in the cross-section, just like that other force field, gravity, does in the troposphere.
Unfortunately for you, Tim Folkerts, you cannot prove that sensible heat transfers only ever occur from warmer to cooler regions in a gravitational field, because when you use the equation for entropy (to see what the Second Law says will happen) you will find that it is derived with the inapplicable assumption that gravitational potential energy does not vary.
Unfortunately for you, Tim Folkerts, if the GH gas water vapor were to raise the surface temperature it would make the lapse rate steeper than the original isothermal (zero gradient) temperature profile. But water vapor makes the lapse rate less steep in the real world.
Sorry to have to hit you so hard in just one comment, but your continued promulgation of the hoax, Tim Folkerts, angers me because of the money that is being wasted and the lives that are being lost with less money being spent on humanitarian aid.
Try searching on youtube using the words “climate hoax” and see what you can learn.
And, to cap it off, when you maximize gravity and reduce the simulation speed and the molecule count almost to minimum levels, I suggest that you can in fact see that the mean speed of molecules at the bottom is faster than at the top in the simulation Tim Folkerts linked here and this confirms the temperature gradient.
Even if you disagree about the apparent speed of the molecules in that graphic, the spacing between the molecules indicates that the whole graphic represents a height of just a few mean free paths of air molecules, where the mean free path is about 68 nanometers [source] and so the temperature difference would be expected to be minuscule, given that it is about 7 degrees in a kilometer in Earth’s troposphere.
If a molecule could somehow fall for two seconds without colliding, it would fall by about 1Km because its average speed is about 500m per second. So, with the acceleration due to gravity being 9.8m/sec^2 [source] (say 10m/s^2) it would increase its speed to about 520m per second, which is an increase of about 4%. So, if the original “temperature” was 250K it would also increase by 4% (which is 10°) to 260K, at least in perfectly dry air.
Doug says “Sorry to have to hit you so hard in just one comment”
Not a problem. When you actually hit with something correct, then I will start to take notice.
Wait, way earlier I remember you WERE right once. You caught me using similar but wrong nomenclature: “You, for a start, don’t even seem to know the difference between “heat capacity” and the intrinsic “specific heat””
OK, you got me there. I wrote the wrong name. My bad. One point for Doug.
“they must have gained kinetic energy and so got warmer.”
You can SAY that, but the simulation doesn’t SHOW that.
“rAnd, to cap it off, when you maximize gravity and reduce the simulation speed and the molecule count almost to minimum levels … “
Umm … remember we are talking about kinetic theory? The theory that you went to great lengths to explains as requiring “The number of molecules is so large that statistical treatment can be applied”? With only a few particles, you have broken the rules you yourself recognized.
“the spacing between the molecules indicates that the whole graphic represents a height of just a few mean free paths of air molecules”
No. There is nothing in the simulation that suggests that the initial conditions are suppose to represent the density, pressure, or temperature of earth’s atmosphere.
“…and so the temperature difference would be expected to be minuscule”
Once again — no. The strength of gravity in this simulation is HUGE! The density gradient is clearly visible. So whatever the physical scale, if the density gradient is clearly visible, then the temperature gradient should ALSO be clearly visible.
Tim Folkerts,
Interesting simulation. Thank you for sharing.
May I suggest Roy and everyone should read this comment I have just written.
Massimo PORZIO and JohnKl
I am not certain of this but I think I am figuring out why exactly Doug’s thinking is not correct. May take me some more research.
First start with mean free path (which is 93 nanometers for STP gas conditions).
http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/kinetic/menfre.html
In Doug’s criticism of Tim Folkerts gas simulation you can start to see where his thinking is coming from. He reduced the number of molecules to near the minimum of the simulation and at that level his understanding is correct.
If you have one molecule moving in a friction-less column, it will indeed slow down as it moves up the gravitational gradient to an eventual stop and then accelerate on its way down. You will have zero temp at the top and maximum temp at the bottom.
If you go with a perpetual motion pulley system (frictionless).
A belt looped around two wheels in a gravity environment with only one weight on the belt. The system will move fastest when the weight is at the bottom position and slow to a near stop as the weight ascends to the top. This single weight system will speed up and slow down just as Doug would predict. However if you keep adding weights to both sides then soon the system will reach a uniform speed and maintain it as long as energy is not added or removed.
Now with normal air you have considerable numbers of molecules. With the very small mean free path in such an environment I believe (again this is not a fact I found, just my current understanding and helping to show why Doug has not overturned the understanding of Gibbs, Maxwell and Boltzmann) the air layers will act similar to an actual surface condition so that the P.E. and K.E. differences are very small.
I do not know if that is a clear explanation. So consider how potential energy is calculated. You choose an arbitrary surface and calculate the potential energy based upon how high you raise an object above that surface in a force field (in this case gravity). If a scientist, at sea level, raises a 10 kg block 1 meter above the tabletop he calculates the potential energy from the surface to the point he has raised the weight. Now if another scientist raises a similar weight the same height above his tabletop but his lab is in a 100 story building, he does not calculate the P.E. based upon how high the weight is from the Earth surface but from the arbitrary surface he raised the weight from. I am of the opinion that in normal air you would have what act like surfaces when calculating P.E. and K.E. levels. Doug uses the entire distance to do his calculation so it creates a gradient that does would not exist in a real atmosphere and it also explains why you have the several kilometers of isothermal atmospheres on real planets. Our own Stratosphere included.
The temperature gradient formed by gravity occurs in the troposphere of all planets. Above the tropsphere is the stratosphere, which is a region in which there is excessive absorption of insolation by ozone (on Earth) and by methane on Uranus, for example.
So the stratosphere is a “hump” (caused by excessive absorption) in the otherwise general cooling pattern that continues as you go upwards above the stratosphere.
Obviously there is some heat transfer downwards form the lower stratosphere, whilst some also comes up to meet it from the upper troposphere. Hence, just like a lake that forms in a valley when water flows down mountains on each side, we get fairly level temperatures in the tropopause that is in the “valley” between the troposphere (with negative gradient) and the lower stratosphere with a positive temperature gradient that increases with altitude.
Norman writes: “it moves up the gravitational gradient to an eventual stop “
Why would it “stop” Norman before the temperature gets down to absolute zero (-273°C) which it never does anywhere in the atmosphere? You just don’t think, do you Norman?
“then soon the system will reach a uniform speed”
The acceleration due to gravity is about 9.8m/s^2. It is close enough to constant in the troposphere. It certainly does not go down to zero. Basic Newtonian physics tells you that the velocity will always increase in your frictionless environment subjected to a gravitational force, no matter what the net weight difference.
In another comment I gave you a realistic example of a molecule somehow falling 1Km in two seconds without collisions and gaining KE equivalent to 4% which is about 10C° – just as we observe in the dry lapse rate. Now I can see why you can’t understand such things – it is your lack of understanding of even school-boy physics.
No, Doug uses the difference in gravitational potential energy which absolutely must affect entropy. That difference is m.g.dH and it is equated with the negative of the difference in KE that is m.Cp.dT to get the temperature gradient …
dT/dH = -g/Cp.
Now go and read what Doug actually says at http://climate-change-theory.com. Can you find anywhere on the internet any published criticism thereof from any of nearly 4,000 visitors to that site in its first 5 weeks?
Doug Cotton,
You have tunnel vision! You do not have the ability to read or reason properly. You are so obsessed with your own ideas you can’t think, even for a moment, outside your box. My example was for one molecule (which of course does not exist in any atmosphere). It was an example of what would happen. A molecule will behave as any mass in a gravity field. Whatever initial energy it may have (speed) as it moves against a gravity field it will slow down at the rate of the gravitational force until it stops (stupid me, I guess I am using Newton’s laws here, and object in motion will remain in motion unless acted upon by an outside force). One molecule Doug! Think yourself and try to understand what is being said okay?
Doug I do am not sure that you understand the perpetual motion machine I describe. It will not increase in velocity. The weights on one side will fall in the gravity field, the weights on the other side will oppose this acceleration. To simplify this have a bar with two equal weights. Make it friction-less and it will NOT gain energy!! It will move at the same speed as the initial energy started the motion. Based on the rotation, one side will be pulled down by gravity, the opposite side will resist this pull by equal amount keeping the speed uniform.
Norman:
“If a scientist, at sea level, raises a 10 kg block 1 meter above the tabletop he calculates the potential energy from the surface to the point he has raised the weight. Now if another scientist raises a similar weight the same height above his tabletop but his lab is in a 100 story building, he does not calculate the P.E. based upon how high the weight is from the Earth surface but from the arbitrary surface he raised the weight from. I am of the opinion that in normal air you would have what act like surfaces when calculating P.E. and K.E. levels.”
Again spot on.
The nub of it in Meteorology is that air is considered buoyant at any particular level. It is in equilibrium in the Earth’s gravity field.
Over the infinite vertical movements of air – the equation KE:PE comes out at zero. It is simply a direct swap of KE and PE and vice versa.
Air warms under subsidence. Or cools under ascent. Obeying the gas laws. Full stop. No mystery.
An isentropic atmosphere is naturally created.
Science knows this because it is demonstrated/calculated/observed every day in the World’s Met Centres.
Norman says: “If you have one molecule moving in a friction-less column, it will indeed slow down as it moves up the gravitational gradient to an eventual stop and then accelerate on its way down. You will have zero temp at the top and maximum temp at the bottom.
No, that is too simplistic. If you watch that molecule in one trip, then you will indeed such a path.
But “temperature” is always an average. You can average many particles at one time. Or you could average one particle at many times. Since we are talking about one particle, we must be averaging over many such trips.
And to to say it has a given temperature at the bottom, it must have a spread of speeds at the bottom (ie the MB distribution when averaged over many trips). So we are watching the particle bouncing up from the ground with random energies — sometimes very fast and sometimes very slow.
So what do we see higher up? Well, the energy for any given trip certainly decreases the higher the particle gets. BUT! only some of the trips actually get up to a given altitude. The slow, low-KE particles never get to that height (hence the density gradient, with the particle more likely near the surface than higher up). Only self-selected particles with unusually large average KE ever get counted at the higher altitude.
The cool thing that falls out of the math is that extra average KE energy of the particles that actually reach a given exactly off-sets the PE energy lost as the particle rises to that level. The remaining KE stays the same at all altitudes!
**************************
And with that, it is time to sign off. Those who know how to confirm the math can do so. Those who don’t know how to confirm the math should either believe those who have done the calculations or recognize they don’t really have the knowledge to come to a conclusion.
Nope. Kinetic energy is passed on in collisions, so KE can get to the top, or it can go in any direction due to the random motion of molecules. To ascertain where net KE will go we need the Second Law of Thermodynamics which is always right – like me.
Collisions are the only thing stopping any particular molecule getting to the top. With velocities in the vicinity of 500m/sec (1800Km/hr) virtually all molecules could make it from Earth’s surface to the stratosphere, and there they would then gain more kinetic energy through collisions with solar-heated ozone molecules.
Your analysis is oft-quoted and second-hand (because you don’t think for yourself) and incorrect, because what actually happens is as explained in our group’s website. Feel free to ask questions about the content thereof when you have studied it, preferably all five pages excluding the page in German – which I hope makes sense to our friends we write to on German climate blogs.
If you had isothermal conditions, then all molecules at the top have more gravitational potential energy than all those at lower levels. Because you assume the temperatures are the same, then, no matter how they got there, any ensemble of molecules with total mass of a few picograms (10^−12g) will have a measurable temperature and there will be unbalanced energy potentials between it and a lower such ensemble. So it’s not thermodynamic equilibrium, and never could be. QED.
What is your motive, Norman, in joining a discussion like this? Come out from behind your cloak of anonymity and declare your full name and who pays you. You’re certainly a beggar for punishment, even to the extent of making a fool of yourself with the naivety exposed in your last comment above.
My motive is simple Doug. I like science. I request from you experimentation of your theory and you will provide none. I will argue with both sides when I see a deviation from science and we are supposed to accept things on belief or some charismatic personality or some authority figure. I like experiments, tests, data. That is science to me. Your no better in my opinion than the IPCC with its models. No one wants to prove their points they just want people to believe them without question.
You say that Maxwell, Gibbs, and Boltzmann were all wrong. Fine, but provide conclusive experimental evidence to justify such claims. I do have an open mind and was interested in your theory when I first read it on PSI. I started to research it and found it is not such a great idea. I am sure you won’t even think about the surface idea I proposed above. I am thinking about your understanding and putting it to rigorous questioning, trying my best to understand how this may work. I am learning as I go. It has been many years since I studied Chemistry but I do continue to read science magazines. I can learn but I feel you cannot. You are stuck in a zone and will not move from it. I am not sure what your motive is but I think it is primarily egosim.
For the last time, Norman, the vortex tube is an experiment with centrifugal force. Whether you class it as such or not is of no concern to me. What you can’t do is construct a similar vortex tube which retains the same temperature along any radius.
It is the isothermal hypothesis which needs to be “proved” with experiments now, because it never has been and, because it is contrary to the Second Law of Thermodynamics, it never will be. It is never found over the full height of any planetary troposphere. All such tropospheres exhibit a mean temperature gradient that can be calculated from -g/Cp with reductions in magnitude (rarely more than a third) due to inter-molecular radiation.
Yes, Maxwell was wrong and the brilliant physicist Josef Loschmidt (Maxwell’s teacher, and first in the world to estimate the size of air molecules) was right for the reasons explained in our group’s website, in particular on the “Hockey Schtick” page. No one had Ranque Hilsch vortex tubes in the 19th century that they could have used to confirm empirically that Loschmidt was right and Maxwell wrong on this particular issue.
Where precisely did you read my hypothesis on PSI? In the paper “Planetary Core and Surface Temperatures” when it was in the PROM menu? I just want to check that’s where you read it and that would have been about two years ago. Right? There is far more evidence now on the website http://climate-change-theory.com and you wanted evidence.
And how much physics did you study? This is all about thermodynamics, a subject I have been helping my students understand for about 50 years since I got a university scholarship in physics and completed my first degree in such. You are welcome to ask questions about specific points in the website, because the book replaced the paper and you probably haven’t bought it.
The physics therein is correct, Norman, and is supported by empirical evidence throughout the Solar System, experiments like the vortex tube ones, and Graeff’s 850 tests with cylinders, and, on top of that, a comprehensive study of temperature data over 30 years from three continents.
Hi Norman,
You wrote: “I do not know if that is a clear explanation. So consider how potential energy is calculated. You choose an arbitrary surface and calculate the potential energy based upon how high you raise an object above that surface in a force field (in this case gravity).”
It’s an interesting point to me, but I think that in the atmospheric case the local KE (dKE) gained by the fall above an another molecule should be shared with this last one molecule. For the principle that energy can’t be destroyed, I suppose that the final dKE at ground is the sums of all dKE.
The contrary every upward bump to upper molecules reduces the KE of the source molecule below of the very same amount of the increase of the KE of the destination molecules above, but globally the sums of the KE of the molecules should be reduced by their position in height because of the conversion in PE. It’s just conservation of energy.
Please, remember that I’m not telling that this justify an increase of temperature at the ground. I never thought that.
Have a great day.
Massimo
I replied on this issue of potential energy here and Norman could have saved us both time if he had read the website. He now claims to have read my hypothesis on PSI, but he has obviously forgotten the most important point of all and seems to have no recollection of what I said at all, and why it is what we can derive directly from the Second Law of Thermodynamics which is solid physics.
Hi Curt,
returning to my question above: “is (as you say) the temperature averaged over mass or (as I say) over volume?”
I remember you that we are talking about the existence of a (supposed) vertical temperature profile, that is something related to space not mass. How do you give any significance to the “molecular” temperature along the height?
That is for example, just to place it in numbers: what’s volume size of your sample at the ground and what it is at 1km of altitude?
That is (normalizing to any infinitesimal layer), what is the area of the samples?
If you don’t establish it to be a constant, I can’t find any significance to the two measurements, because the probability of sharing energy between layers changes as function of how many molecules pass through those areas.
Maybe I ‘m missing something of course.
Have a nice day.
Massimo
You are way off track in your understanding of the temperature gradient and you don’t understand what is explained here probably just because you haven’t read it.
It always fascinates me that my site statistics show that over 500 unique visitors have opened the website direct from links in these comments on Roy’s posts, but the 5 most prolific contributors here don’t deign to do so.
How you quantify the gradient (and explain it) was summarized way up thread in this comment.
Uhmmm… I reread myself and effectively as I wrote it seems that I believe that the temperature depends upon the area, which is not of course.
In few words, what I was try to say is that if you place a thermometer in a gas where its density is lower, even if the molecular gas temperature is the same as the one of a place where it is at higher density the measurement of the thermometer is lower.
This because averaging over time, its own temperature (which is what the thermometer measures indeed) is the result of the balance between the KE received by bumping with the gas molecules (which also changes with density) and its radiation to the environment which is a continuous instead (the outer space in our case).
Doug, about the fact that I’m between the “5 most prolific contributors here”, if it’s true I apologize because I didn’t realized how much I can be intrusive in a field for which I’m very ignorant indeed. I should limit myself a little.
About the fact that I don’t read your website, it’s not a question of dignity, you can’t imagine how many difficulties I have reading e writing in English in the little free time I dedicate to this argument.
Have a great day.
Massimo
Massimo and others
See this comment below.
And Norman, in case you missed it, I refuted your conjecture in this comment a few days ago.
You will recall that I said the Clausius “hot to cold” corollary of the Second Law requires the prerequisite that gravitational potential energy does not change. Wikipedia has now got a similar prerequisite which amounts to the same thing, because I was talking about the micro PE per molecule. The way Wikipedia now explains it in their “Second Law of Thermodynamics” article is …
“except that an externally imposed unchanging force field is allowed to stay subject to the condition that the compound system moves as a whole within that field so that in net, there is no transfer of energy as work between the compound system and the surroundings”
So, yes, if you do an experiment in a horizontal plane within an airplane that is descending you will indeed only get “hot to cold” because there it is the macro PE that is changing as all the air in the plane descends en mass. That air in the airplane is similar to that in wind, which I have explained does not form the gradient.
Doug please look at this graph:
https://createarcticscience.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/eur_temp.jpg?w=640&h=323
Polar air profile at Eureka, Canada:
Full Article with graph:
https://createarcticscience.wordpress.com/2013/03/12/temperature-inversion-in-the-arctic/
Why would I accept your “heat creep” idea as the reason the surface is warmed? The alternate theory is that the surface absrobs solar energy, warms, and then in turn warms the air above it. Being a good insulator the warmth moves slowly up the gradient.
In this polar air there is no convection. It is a strong inversion.
In summer you have the typical lapse rate gradient (hot air near surface when solar energy is hitting the surface). Then in winter you have the opposite. The ground cools, the air above cools as well. In still air with little movement (you can even see this in the photos of what an inversion does) you do not get “heat creep”. The K.E. of air molecules above is not decending to the surface to warm it!!
By heat creep theory the surface should be -20 (following the lapse rate line to the surface). Instead the surface air is -50 C. You can have a pseudo explanation for this somehow but evidence is really strong against your heat creep idea.
Doug, just so you know, you are not alone in challenging the Greenhouse gas theory. Another group has another theory to disprove it.
Here is the link if you are curious.
http://globalwarmingsolved.com/2013/11/summary-the-physics-of-the-earths-atmosphere-papers-1-3/#paper3
I have not investigated the claims yet but I wanted to link you to it because this group actuall set up an expeirment (and did a video presentation) to support their claims. It is what scientist should all do (not rely on models). You want to overturn accepted understanding of science, don’t just talk it, do something to prove it.
Your vortex tube proof is not proof!! You have an idea on why it heats and cools gas. So do many others. You claim you are right and they are wrong. I have not seen you present a detailed analysis to prove your idea. I linked you to a paper by someone who did but you just flatly rejected his idea, at least he has data to verify what he thought. You have nothing!! Get with it, start experimenting on your own!! Please, and quit tying up all Roy Spencer’s blogs.
Since you are tired of me I am done, unless another comments on my posts. You do not reflcet or think about anything but your own ideas anyway. Good luck!
You start experimenting Norman and prove your wild contention of isothermal conditions that would have unbalanced energy potentials and thus not have maximum entropy and thus not be what the Second Law of Thermodynamics says would eventuate. First and foremost you should see whether your conjecture conforms with the laws of physics, and it certainly does not.
Every planetary troposphere is far hotter at its base than it is at the tropopause, whether or not there is a surface at that base, whether or not there is any wind and whether or not any solar radiation even gets down to that base. And yet you propose that no thermal energy can get down to the base of the Uranus troposphere from where it is absorbed in the methane layer in the stratosphere !!!!
See this comment below.
And yes Norman I had read that “other group” page months ago. They recognize that there must be unexplained downward heat transfers, but their “pervection” is a figment of the imagination with no physics to explain it.
You should read comment threads Norman – see my comments here in the thread you linked.
Massimo:
“IMHO it’s not necessary that there is an another molecule in the opposite way, the only thing necessary is that the very same molecule at the very same altitude has the very same KE. Obviously if the molecules shared their KE together then the averaged KE matters, but the constrain is that the molecule above the reference layer have less KE than the one below it, so that passing through the same reference plane their whole molecular KE is the same.
It may not be necessary massimo – but it’s what happens in reality!!
Conservation of mass.
AND please, why use KE? It’s temperature when measured by a thermometer.
Air at a particular pressure level at a particular temp if forced to rise/fall – as it must on rotating planet with a differentially heated surface (Longitudinaly as well as latitudinaly) with warm/cool.
This motion creates the isentropic profile via the gas laws. End of. It works.
“This doesn’t implicitly change any empirical numerical model, they could work well anyways.”
Err, then why are we “arguing” ?????
Toneb:
(1) Except that the process does not need a surface being heated by solar radiation – there is no such surface or radiation at the base of the nominal troposphere of Uranus, that troposphere having a mean temperature gradient of about 95% of the -g/Cp value.
(2) Except that on Venus, during sunlit hours, the solar heating happens in regions in the upper troposphere (and above) that are at temperatures less than about 400K (as per Stefan Boltzmann calculations) and the temperature then builds up due to downward diffusion and other sensible heat transfers towards the surface where it is about 735K. Such transfers may or may not include advection which is not necessary for the process to occur. But note that they have to happen or the surface would cool right down.
Continued in this comment.
Hi ToneB,
You wrote: “Err, then why are we “arguing” ?????”
I arguing that no matter if the isentropic profile is fixed by the gas laws or the gravity (IMHO maybe they are both the same effect just seen from different points of view), but the presence of this LR despite the absence of GHGs (I still remember that I’m talking about a thought GHGs free atmosphere) could be the reason that the tropical hot spot at mid troposphere predicted by some GHG related models isn’t there.
In fact if (I repeat if, it’s just a conjecture) the GHGs effect was less than the isentropic LR profile, their predicted hot spot could be hidden by the LR temperature decay.
You also asked me: “AND please, why use KE? It’s temperature when measured by a thermometer.”
I’m very confused about that (maybe because I’m an engineer and not a climatologist), but talking about KE is unequivocal for me, while the temperature in a gas is a little “evanescent” parameter for me. See my previous post about the thermosphere: anybody here are talking about “molecular” temperature, but the vertical atmospheric graph reports the effective temperature measured by thermometers there.
An example here: http://www.eoearth.org/files/187001_187100/187002/atmtempprofile.png
So, what is confusing me is: are we talking about isothermal atmospheric temperature or isothermal atmospheric gases molecular temperature?
Two very different things, in my opinion.
Have a nice day.
Massimo
Massimo,
“So, what is confusing me is: are we talking about isothermal atmospheric temperature or isothermal atmospheric gases molecular temperature?
Two very different things, in my opinion.”
I’m sorry, you’re talking to a practical (retired) Meteorologist. Whereobservations are made with thermometers (or radiometres on satellit). A radiosonde has an electrical resistence thermometer and records a temperature. To my mid all talk of KE and moelcular gas temperatue is irrelevent. I talk of the profile as is shown in your. Link Observed by thermometers and measuered in Celsius.
“isothermal atmospheric temperature or isothermal atmospheric gases molecular temperature? Two very different things, in my opinion.”
To a Meteorologist they’re not. Just temperature measured by a thermometer of a gas (air) in a shaded (irradiance excluded) manner.
You may be right about GHG’s causing some sort of lapse rate but I can find no reference to that in the recognised literature (something I attach vital importance to …. as I do not believe Mr Cotton or anyone else can reinvent the wheel in a different shape).
What I do know is that vertical movement of air on this planet produces an isentropic profile. I’ve seen it countless times when stagnant air is stirred via convection/turbulence (in upper air temp profiles).
If GHG’s do have a LR inducing effect, it is small and tending to the DALR.
Also with the “missing” tropical hot-spot is not relevant to AGW theory.
The existence of anthropogenic warming does not hinge on the existence of the tropospheric “predicted hot spot”. Tropospheric amplification of warming with altitude is the predicted response to increasing radiative forcing from natural sources, such as an increase in solar irradiance, as well.
Stratospheric cooling is the real “fingerprint” of enhanced greenhouse vs. natural (e.g. increased solar) warming.
Unfortunately, actually determining what is happening in the real tropical troposphere is tricky. Perhaps the largest reason for this is the quality of data from the main source of our information from this region for long time periods- radiosonde networks.
Satellite data are worse if anything, as they are contaminated by cooling in the Strat above (real signal for AGW).
Hi ToneB,
you write: “You may be right about GHG’s causing some sort of lapse rate but I can find no reference to that in the recognised literature ”
No, no… Maybe I confused you, I’ve not any minimal prof of what I wrote about that. I was just supposing that the GHG theory is right, and for that I was analyzing the possibility that the tropospheric hot spot at the tropical lats wasn’t seen just because of the existing natural ALR.
About: “To a Meteorologist they’re not. Just temperature measured by a thermometer of a gas (air) in a shaded (irradiance excluded) manner.”
My consideration was about the fact that any thermometer (it doesn’t matter how is done i.e. new IR ones aiming a solid target in the gas, or older mercury ones) measure their own temperature, or the one of the solid target (in case of the IR ones). This imply that if the low density of the gas around the thermometer/target allow it to radiate into the outer space, the thermodynamic equilibrium at which the thermometer stabilize to get the readings could be far less than the effective molecular gas temperature. And the thermosphere is a good example of what I mean.
Anyways don’t take me to much seriously, because as said I’m no way better that a dummy in this field, I just write my considerations from an electronic engineer point of view.
Just for saying it, for what it worth, my point is that the GHG could warm a little but I still have no proof of that.
I apologize for my English, I’m in Italy and sufficiently old to haven’t studied it so much at the time of school.
Have a nice weekend.
Massimo
Norman and others
Direct solar radiation striking the surface of any planet or satellite moon in our Solar System with a significant atmosphere is not sufficient to raise its temperature to the observed level. Likewise the radiation from any star striking any planet orbiting it. That’s what physics tells us because of the gravitationally induced temperature gradient which is a direct consequence of the Second Law of Thermodynamics.
Even if there is no surface, the gas at the base of a planet’s nominal troposphere will be hotter than the direct solar radiation could make it. For example, there is no surface at the base of the nominal troposphere of Uranus where it is about 47°C, and the Venus surface receives a mean of less than 20W/m^2 – about a tenth of what Earth’s surface receives, yet it is about 460°C.
I am not interested in the effect of local weather here on Earth which can destroy the temperature gradient due to wind of any form. I have explained in our website how the Second Law of Thermodynamics leads to the inevitable conclusion that there will be a temperature gradient in an isolated system in a force field. That explanation, and supporting evidence is in our group’s website that has been peer-reviewed by five others in that group, all it would seem with a better understanding of thermodynamics than yourself.
“The law that entropy always increases holds, I think, the supreme position among the laws of Nature. If someone points out to you that your pet theory of the universe is in disagreement with Maxwell’s equations — then so much the worse for Maxwell’s equations. If it is found to be contradicted by observation — well, these experimentalists do bungle things sometimes. But if your theory is found to be against the second law of thermodynamics I can give you no hope; there is nothing for it but to collapse in deepest humiliation.”
—Sir Arthur Stanley Eddington, The Nature of the Physical World (1927)
And Norman, if you still don’t understand the downward sensible heat transfers in a temperature inversion, study carefully the explanation and the diagrams from the book now appearing at the foot of the Home page here. Regarding the definition of an inversion, see this comment.
Experiment you say Noman?
OK – I determine that centrifugal force ought to have the same effect on air molecules as does gravity in forming the temperature gradient we observe in every planetary troposphere. So I invent a tube shaped gadget in which I will inject air tangentially so that it spirals down the tube in a helical fashion. I expect it to experience centrifugal force along any radius of the cylinder, and so I expect (from the Second Law of Thermodynamics) that there will be a propensity for entropy to increase, and so a temperature difference should be observed between the air in the center and that on the outside. I find that someone has already constructed such a gadget (calling it a Ranque Hilsch vortex tube) and so I use it and find that indeed the air on the outside is far hotter than that on the inside. I do some calculations (see my comment on the Talk page of the Wiki article) and I find the temperature difference is indeed in accord with the expected -g/Cp temperature gradient along the radius why I use dry air.
Correction (but it’s worth repeating anyway) …
I find the temperature difference is indeed in accord with the expected -g/Cp temperature gradient along the radius when I use dry air.
And, Norman, if after spending half an hour studying the content of the five pages on our website* you still don’t understand the physics, then I suggest you just accept the evidence that there must be downward diffusion and other sensible heat transfers, as demonstrated in this comment above.
* http://climate-change-theory.com
How ironic that Doug is actually arguing the reverse of what he thinks he is. 🙂
When air is FORCED to move through his centripetal force device (the vortex tube), then a temperature gradient is created. This is analogous to forced motion via convection in the atmosphere. Both are non-equilibrium situations. Both lead to temperature gradients. Interesting, but neither directly informs us about what might happen in an equilibrium condition.
When air is allowed to equilibrate in a centripetal force device without a continued input of energy to artificially move the air around(ultracentrifuge), then the temperature gradient fails to appear. The centripetal forces are MUCH greater, yet the predicted temperature gradient is now missing. THIS is analogous to a stable atmosphere without winds or convection. This is where his “equilibrium temperature gradient” should appear and be highly pronounced. Yet here is where his predictions utterly fail. And here is where he repeatedly has no answer.
Tim writes (incorrectly as usual, without any physics or empirical measurement to support what he says) “When air is allowed to equilibrate in a centripetal force device without a continued input of energy to artificially move the air around(ultracentrifuge), then the temperature gradient fails to appear.”
Well, yes it would be hard to detect in a distance of 5mm, and it would only be maximized if the tube were horizontal and you observed what happened along a vertical radius. Let’s see now: with 7 degrees in a Km we should expect a temperature difference of 0.000035 degree in 5mm. Maybe Tim slipped up somewhere in measuring that difference.
You can see a diagram at the foot of our “Evidence” page here.
The Second Law of Thermodynamics lets us understand why a propensity to isothermal conditions is not the direction in which entropy would increase in a plane that is parallel to a force field.
Likewise, in the radius of the vortex tube we see a clear demonstration of a propensity to move from the original isothermal state to one with a temperature gradient along each radius, that is, in the opposite direction of the artificial force field. All we need to observe is that, because entropy must be increasing, the system is going from isothermal to having a non-zero temperature gradient. If we increase the force the temperature difference increases.
Doug, I realize you are ignorant of many things related to science, so you might want to read up on ultracentrifuges. Let me help out.
“The ultracentrifuge is a centrifuge optimized for spinning a rotor at very high speeds, capable of generating acceleration as high as 2 000 000 g” (Wikipedia)
So with a centripetal field 2 million times that of gravity, the lapse rate would be 2 million times as great. So instead of 10 K/km for 1 g, the ultracentrifuge would have a gradient of 20 K/mm!
So Doug, rather than 0.000035 K in 5 mm, the correct answer would be around 100 K (depending on the gas in the centrifuge)!
Tim:
I went through the ultra-centrifuge calculations in detail several days ago in this comment:
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2015/02/uah-global-temperature-update-for-jan-2015-0-35-deg-c/#comment-181829
Doug has carefully ignored it. (I wonder why?)
I further pointed out how easy his theory would be to test with one of these high-speed centrifuges further down in that comment thread by pointing out that if you spun up a vial of air with a slip of paper in it, if his theory was correct, the paper would be hot enough to combust!
Again, crickets!
I was very amused that Doug responded to your centrifuge example by looking at the vertical (axial) dimension rather than the radial (horizontal) dimension. In addition to showing that he does not comprehend the first thing about basic physics, it echoes his confusion about Maxwell’s theoretical disproof, where he invoked a vertical lapse rate in solids (!) when Maxwell’s thought experiment involved horizontal conductors.
Curt – I have previously referred to my calculations confirming the g(centrifugal)/Cp cross-sectional radial gradient (in about 5mm distance) in the “Talk” page of the Wikipedia article on the Ranque Hilsch Vortex Tube. Of course the temperature gradient is in the same radial plane as the centrifugal force. So refer to that if you wish to dispute what I am saying, rather than make your own incorrect assumptions. The vortex is a centrifuge machine you clot!
You will never succeed in proving me wrong, because my explanation (also in that Talk page) is correct physics, as is the physics at http://climate-change-theory.com which I suppose may be out of your depth of understanding.
Hi Curt,
You hilariously stated:
“I further pointed out how easy his theory would be to test with one of these high-speed centrifuges further down in that comment thread by pointing out that if you spun up a vial of air with a slip of paper in it, if his theory was correct, the paper would be hot enough to combust!”
Please consider what I indicated to Tim Folkerts earlier. Tim Folkerts claimed:
“This is a numerical confirmation of theory (supported by every text and most people commenting here) and confirmation of experiment (no temperature gradients observed in ultracentrifuges where even more extreme density gradients fail to display the temperature gradients of Doug’s theory.”
Similar assertions by Curt and yourself seem to bear little relation to reality and for similar reasons lack relevance. The energy utilized in any centrifuge proves only relevant to INERTIAL MASS (M x V) and VELOCITY IS A VECTOR. Any gas molecule can only transfer KE upon collision with another molecule based on either the excitation state of the molecule or relative speed due in part to direction of motion. Two cars approaching each other at 70 and 71 miles per hour collide at 141 mph combined relative velocity if involved in a head on collision. If on the other hand, a car moving at 71 mph overtakes a car moving at 70 mph from behind the rear collision occurs at a relative velocity of 1 mph. If as in a centrifuge (ultra or otherwise) that seeks to separate matter by mass, all the gas, liquid and/or solid molecules contained in the centrifuge prove to be accelerated to the same velocity what opportunity would exist for temperature increase? Very little, so THE ODDS OF YOUR SLIP OF PAPER SPONTANEOUSLY BURSTING INTO FLAMES CONTRADICTS KNOWN PHYSICS AND ANYTHING EVEN DOUG INDICATED. Instead of spinning (as in many ultra-centrifuges) a cylindrical drum along the lengthwise horizontal axis inside an enclosed structure designed to prevent friction, abrasion etc., spin an old-fashioned medical centrifuge with actual vials spun along the length of a rotating rod and bring the lot to Mach 3. You will likely find temps in excess of 1000 deg centigrade on the vial’s surface should it survive the encounter. 1000 deg centigrade and higher temperatures result when commonly sub-zero upper troposphere air molecules confront the intake inlet of an SR-71, Valkyrie or similar vessel moving at Mach 3 and above.
Gravitational force acts centripetally toward the center of the Earth’s mass. Centrifuges merely mimic the effect by rotating mass at some velocity. The gasses found in the Earth’s atmosphere move at varying speeds in many directions. Gravity accelerates gas molecules at high altitudes to lower ones increasing their velocity and KE relative to other gas compounds at lower elevations making thermal interaction much more likely.
Much more could be stated, but your absurd ultra-centrifuge analogy fails on many levels.
Have a great day!
P.S. – Consider that a person living at the Earth’s equator will spin at ~1000 mph relative to the Earth’s center and/or a person standing at either polar axis of spin. Since the entire planet at his arc of rotation spins at the same speed the individual doesn’t notice the effect. The Earth’s atmosphere ( mixed and rotated at different locations to varying velocities ) sure does however which proves why we experience hurricane and typhoon vortexes in part in the manner we do!
Hi Curt,
One other point. You stated:
“In addition to showing that he does not comprehend the first thing about basic physics, it echoes his confusion about Maxwell’s theoretical disproof, where he invoked a vertical lapse rate in solids (!) when Maxwell’s thought experiment involved horizontal conductors.”
Personally, I regard Maxwell highly as well and consider him 2nd only to Newton as to scientific achievement. However, he’s far from infallible. He belonged to a religious sect that believed matter to incapable of decay, M Curie later proved him wrong. If I remember correctly, he also speculated that energy from an emitting object to be determined by intensity and frequency. Planck later provided much clearer evidence that energy correlated to frequency and not intensity. In any case, an appeal to authority won’t buttress your case.
Have a great day!
John Kl:
I stand by the relevance of my centrifuge analogy. A centrifuge rotating at 100,000 rpm produces accelerations one million times that of Earth’s gravity at a 10cm radius and two million times Earth’s at a 20cm radius.
Oh, and these very high-speed centrifuges are usually operated in a vacuum, so there are no heat-inducing drag forces that would require extra power to overcome. So once they are brought up to speed, virtually no power is required to keep them at speed. They even have magnetic bearings to eliminate bearing friction.
Recall that a century ago, Einstein realized that there is no physical test that can be done from inside an “accelerated” vessel to distinguish between what we would think of as gravitational acceleration and inertial acceleration. So the effect on the gas in the centrifuge is the same in kind as earth’s gravity.
I think we can agree that 1,000,000 g’s would set up a very high pressure gradient. Doug claims it would set up a very high temperature gradient as well. By his calculations, the gradient for air at 10cm would be 100K per mm. So over a radial span of just 6mm, there would be a 600K difference. Since the inside end could not possibly go below 0K (3rd Law!), 6mm from the inside end would be at 600K absolute temperature. Since the combustion temperature of paper is just over 500K, if Doug’s theory is valid, the paper should combust.
By the way, I have worked on 100,000rpm flywheel energy storage devices that spin in a vacuum on magnetic bearings. There are many, many technical challenges to these devices. But radial thermal lapse rates (which Doug claims occur in solids as well) that would melt the outer parts of the rotor if Doug were correct have never been one of them.
Hi Curt,
You stated:
“I think we can agree that 1,000,000 g’s would set up a very high pressure gradient. Doug claims it would set up a very high temperature gradient as well.”
Notably, I did not claim in my post that pressure caused heat. Neither did Doug. In fact, if you review many of his wordy posts you’ll find he stated just the opposite. The increased interaction of gas molecules with greater relative (hence conflicting) velocities will provide the requisite energy. Please re-read my post you don’t seem to comprehend it.
You go on:
“Oh, and these very high-speed centrifuges are usually operated in a vacuum, so there are no heat-inducing drag forces that would require extra power to overcome. So once they are brought up to speed, virtually no power is required to keep them at speed. They even have magnetic bearings to eliminate bearing friction.”
Exactly my point, which you apparently missed! Try operating a centrifuge without such protections you may find enormous heat produced! Cold air molecules colliding with the front of jet at Mach 3 will produce 1000 deg centigrade temps. The Earth atmosphere is not a vacuum. Please re-read my post.
Have a great day!
Sorry to disappoint you, but high speed centrifuge machines do create a temperature gradient with colder air at the center, even down to 1°K.
See this comment and the following ones.
Footnote:
Some might say that the vortex tube has energy and mass being added. But we do our measurements when the rate of air flow is maintained steady, so what enters also leaves the tube, creating hydrostatic equilibrium in the direction of the length of the tube, with a propensity to form a temperature gradient along any radial direction as entropy increases.
BigWaveDave taught you about the radial temperature gradient three years ago Tim. You still haven’t come to grips with what he said here, now have you? And you never responded on that thread back then either because he had you stumped. Remember what he wrote?
Roy, you could learn from him too…
“Because the import of the consequence of the radial temperature gradient created by pressurizing a spherical body of gas by gravity, from the inside only, is that it obviates the need for concern over GHG’s. And, because this is based on long established fundamental principles that were apparently forgotten or never learned by many PhD’s, it is not something that can be left as an acceptable disagreement.”
You see, Tim and Roy. You can relax. There’s no need for concern because the validity of what the brilliant physicist Josef Loschmidt postulated eliminates any need to explain that “33 degrees of warming” mostly by water vapor as it forms clouds to shade us. /sarc
“But we do our measurements when the rate of air flow is maintained steady … ”
But that STILL is not “thermodynamic equilibrium” — it is simply steadystate. I could also create a steady temperature gradient by “steadily” running a heater at on the floor and a cooler on the ceiling, which is no more equilibrium than your vortex tube.
On the other hand, the centrifuge spinning at steady speed does not have any continued inputs of heat or mass. It SHOULD reach thermodynamic equilibrium, and there ain’t no ~100K temperature gradients as your theory would expect.
“Because the import of the consequence of the radial temperature gradient created by pressurizing a spherical body of gas by gravity…”
This is, for example, what warms a star initially. The active compression of the gas as the gas collapses warms the inside more than the outside. For objects large enough to be stars, the core warms enough to initiate nuclear fusion.
The large gas giants still have some of this occurring — hence the face that they emit more energy than they receive from the sun. But this is NOT happening on earth (or Mars or Venus), where a solid surface prevents the atmosphere from continued collapse. The is no “pressurizing” happening on earth; the atmosphere is as pressurized as it is going to get.
Compressional heating of protostars and gas giants is certainly a PART of the energy balance picture, but just because one part of a picture is understood, that does not per se erase all other parts of the picture.
“… because he had you stumped.”
Or because comments were closed at that point. 😉
“This is, for example, what warms a star initially.”
Maybe for a star, but not necessary for a planet that already has a star that is warming it. As for our Solar System planets, well maybe in part, maybe more than the Sun could do, maybe less.
There is PE being converted to KE when a star (or a planet like Jupiter) is contracting – exactly the same process that builds the gravitationally induced temperature gradient from the top down in the first place – conversion of molecular gravitational potential energy to molecular kinetic energy.
“The large gas giants still have some of this occurring”
Jupiter yes, Neptune maybe, but not Uranus – there’s no compelling evidence of significant energy loss for Uranus – and that’s why you should read what is explained about Uranus in the “Evidence” page at http://climate-change-theory.com
And not Venus which cools 5 degrees in 4 months on the dark side – so switch off the Sun’s radiation, wait a few thousand or million years and she’s cold as a cucumber – colder actually.
“The is no “pressurizing” happening on earth”
That’s right because its solid surface prevents contraction. Only climatologists think pressure causes and maintains high temperatures. If contraction is prevented by a solid surface as for Earth, then the planet has no significant net energy loss either, so we can deduce its core is also not generating enough energy to keep that core as hot as it is. The Sun’s energy does that as explained in the website and the original paper and the book.
That’s why you need to read the paper I wrote two years ago, because you are not going to find the correct explanation anywhere else, as I was the first in the world (as best I can ascertain) to explain the energy transfers correctly. I have explained what the “other part” is using the Second Law of Thermodynamics which never fails.
That’s why I can always prove other papers and articles that are saying contrary to be incorrect. Try me!
PS: I doubt that you can “teach” me much about planets that I have not learnt in thousands of hours of research.
Tim Folkerts writes “On the other hand, the centrifuge spinning at steady speed does not have any continued inputs of heat or mass.”
Of course it does have energy input – it runs on electricity. It would not have accelerated to the required rotational speed (thus forming a larger and larger temperature gradient as it accelerated) without input of energy from electricity or other fuel. Likewise the pump that feeds air tangentially into the vortex tube runs on electricity or other fuel and the temperature gradient in the cross-section builds up as the speed of the injected air also increases. When that speed is held steady there is hydrostatic equilibrium in the direction of the length of the tube, and thermodynamic equilibrium in the cross section because no further temperature change is occurring. There is no significant net energy input, because just about as much comes out in the two streams of hot and cold air.
It makes no difference whether you spin the air in a spinning container, or you spin it with a tangential input that then spirals in a helical path down the tube and back up in the central region where can end up over 100C° colder than the air on the outside. Either way the air is still spinning in a roughly circular fashion.
If you want to believe the other published “explanations” that the temperature gradient is due to pressure, well you could believe Dr Hans Jelbring as he wrote in 2003 in his published peer-reviewed paper about the effect of gravity.
However, gravity acts on molecules not pressure. Gravity thus forms temperature and density gradients and the correct physics is in Sections 4 to 9 of my paper “Planetary Core and Surface Temperatures” written exactly two years ago (15 February 2013) and linked from http://climate-change-theory.com
Take a look at the mess Hansen and Pierrehumbert got themselves into with their isothermal assumptions that assumed the surface would be the same 255K as found 5Km higher up and then respond to this comment with your estimate of the sensitivity (warming or cooling) for each 1% increase in water vapor.
Tim
You can blow all the warm air you like out of your heater but you won’t create a temperature gradient in the cross-section of that flowing air that would enable separation into two streams, one colder than the original air and one hotter than that air from your heater. You could also blow your hot air down an ordinary tube and likewise fail. Only when it spirals down in a helical path, thus being affected by centrifugal force – only then can you get some air that is colder and some that is hotter than the input.
Clive Best has a post on centrifuges and the Loschmidt effect. How about you go and comment there and include a link to the centrifuge experiment you keep talking about. I’d be interested in seeing if their insulation was as effective as Graeff’s was. And Clive will be grateful, because I assume he’s searched quite a bit for documentation of such an experiment. You might also note my comments about the vortex tube there on this thread http://clivebest.com/blog/?p=4101
In that you never deign to discuss entropy and what happens that enables thermal energy on Uranus to get from the methane layer in the stratosphere (at about 59K) down to the base of the nominal troposphere (at about 320K) because of the gravitationally-induced temperature gradient, it is obvious you don’t have a clue about why, when there are unbalanced energy potentials due to more PE at the top, that is not a state of maximum entropy. I can easily detect (from 50 years of helping students to understand math and physics) that this physics is way out of your depth, Tim.
What makes you think that you understand thermodynamics better than BigWaveDave who spent 40 years working in the field with groups of PhD students? You could learn from him and me, but of course you have a pecuniary interest in promulgating the scandal.
Maybe you also want to destroy capitalism like Christiana Figueres, executive secretary of U.N.’s Framework Convention on Climate Change, who admitted “This is the first time in the history of mankind that we are setting ourselves the task of intentionally, within a defined period of time, to change the economic development model that has been reigning for at least 150 years, since the Industrial Revolution.”
Go and read the “Home” page and the “Evidence” page at http://climate-change-theory.com because that contains the rest of my response to your obvious lack of understanding as to why the vortex tube creates hot and cold streams out of isothermal air.
And, by the way, there’s a paper I wrote two years ago about all this – it will save you buying the book …
http://www.climate-change-theory.com/Planetary_Core_and_Surface_Temperatures.pdf
Doug you should NOT use Planetary_Physics as your post name!
You do not comprehend anything about Plantary Physics. Reality does not support your core theory at all in any of the plantetary bodies.
Here is true plantary phyisics.
http://coolcosmos.ipac.caltech.edu/page/jupiter_saturn
Do you understand this process?
You manybe should put Planetary_Fisics for your post name. You are so phony you need to spell it fony!!
Before you claim all current understanding of physics is wrong, learn what the actual physics is and why they say it.
When you, Norman, deign to read and discuss the content of my peer-reviewed paper “Planetary Core and Surface Temperatures” (linked from the group’s website then I will be happy to answer any questions you have about that content. The explanation in your linked document is not based on the Second Law of Thermodynamics, whereas mine is, as other physicists agree …
“Doug Cotton shows how simple thermodynamic physics implies that the gravitational field of a planet will establish a thermal gradient in its atmosphere. The thermal gradient, a basic property of a planet, can be used to determine the temperatures of its atmosphere, surface and sub-surface regions. The interesting concept of “heat creep” applied to diagrams of the thermal gradient is used to explain the effect of solar radiation on the temperature of a planet. The thermal gradient shows that the observed temperatures of the Earth are determined by natural processes and not by back radiation warming from greenhouse gases. Evidence is presented to show that greenhouse gases cool the Earth and do not warm it.”
John Turner B.Sc.;Dip.Ed.;M.Ed.(Hons);Grad.Dip.Ed.Studies (retired physics educator)
And, Norman, regarding the contracting of planets, you must have missed this comment. Fancy linking me to an article about Jupiter and implying it applied to Uranus!
Go back to this comment and help Curt answer the question he can’t answer.
And, Norman, there are three comments starting here that you can now read and try to understand after you’ve read the website and the linked peer-reviewed paper “Planetary Core and Surface Temperatures” that I wrote two year ago.
And Norman, in one of your comments you said you did not think that a state of isothermal conditions in a vertical plane would be an absurd situation. Well Norman, it is not what the Second Law of Thermodynamics indicates would be the final state of thermodynamic equilibrium with maximum entropy and no unbalanced energy potentials.
Suppose you have a long, sealed and perfectly insulated cylinder of air that is rotated about its center from horizontal to vertical. Initially it was isothermal, but you seem to think that nothing would change when you rotate it to a vertical position and thus create unbalanced energy potentials (more PE at the top) and hence a state which has not yet attained maximum entropy.
Everyone knows, Norman, that the Second Law is right, and things will change and a density gradient will form.
Hence that state was not the state of thermodynamic equilibrium. Obviously more molecules fall than rise to form that density gradient. Obviously that gradient becomes stable when thermodynamic equilibrium is attained.
That’s what the Second Law tells us will happen, Norman..
Meanwhile, because more molecules have fallen more than others have risen, there is warming in the lower half and cooling in the upper half, just like in the Vortex tube where centrifugal force does what gravity does in the troposphere.
It is just as absurd to imagine isothermal conditions as it is to imagine there would be no density gradient when thermodynamic equilibrium is attained.
Norman and others:
There is absolutely no law of physics that you can use to prove that “heat creep” cannot occur up the thermal profile in a gravitational field, because the Clausius “hot to cold” corollary of the Second Law only applies in a horizontal plane.
As you can read for yourself here …
“In thermodynamics, certain forces, such as gravity, are typically disregarded when formulating expressions for potentials …. the gravitational potential energy term in the formula for the internal energy would usually be ignored because changes in gravitational potential within the engine during operation would be negligible.”
So the Clausius statement (derived from the entropy equation that ignores changes in molecular gravitational potential energy) is based on the assumption that there is no change in altitude. Hence it simply cannot be used in a vertical plane to deduce isothermal conditions. Such conditions are not what the Second Law can be used to deduce will happen.
And what keeps the core of the Moon hotter than 1300°C Norman?
If the Sun’s radiation somehow stopped, then, within a fortnight all the surface would be as cold as the dark side. And it would keep on cooling ’cause there ain’t no gaseous compression going on there, and there’s nowhere near enough other internal energy generation from mass to stop the dark side cooling by over 200C° each month. And if the whole surface stayed at least as cold as the dark side, the core would not be 1300°C after a billion years of such a lack of sunshine.
So, what keeps the core hot? It’s the Sun, Stupid.
In short, Norman, you display no understanding of the relevant thermodynamics, and your comments do not include any reference to such things as entropy.
Doug,
Before throwing out stupid, look in the mirror. Your complete arrogance is totally annoying. Good science is humble and open.
http://www.nao.ac.jp/en/news/science/2014/20140807-rise.html
Real science Doug in this link, please read.
http://www.spaceanswers.com/solar-system/why-is-uranus-colder-than-neptune/
THEY DON’T KNOW!! They will do more research. That is science. You reject good science explanation on the vortex tube and claim with certainty your understanding is correct. I am not sure if you have ever even seen a vortex tube in reality and doubt you have done any research on it.
Emtrpy: “a thermodynamic quantity representing the unavailability of a system’s thermal energy for conversion into mechanical work, often interpreted as the degree of disorder or randomness in the system.”
If arrogance and smug attitude would win a Nobel Prize you would win one every year.
Your “good science” explanation quite clearly said that the temperature gradient in the cross-section of the vortex tube results from the centrifugal force.
Did you miss the words “centrifugal force” in the “good science” you linked, Norman?
Why do you think I carried out a comprehensive study of 30 years of temperature and precipitation data from three continents if it was not because I believe in “good science” and the need to support my hypothesis with empirical data?
You would have read that study if you had read the two peer-reviewed papers of mine that are linked from the group’s website, that website itself having been peer-reviewed by the members of the group.
As I said, you don’t understand (and can’t even spell) entropy. You can’t explain when it reaches a maximum, now can you? If you could, then you would realize there is then a stable density gradient, and a stable temperature gradient formed simultaneously. You are way out of your depth.
You quote a primitive and incomplete description ..
“Emtrpy [sic[: “a thermodynamic quantity representing the unavailability of a system’s thermal energy [No, no, no. It does not only refer to thermal energy] for conversion into mechanical work, often interpreted as the degree of disorder or randomness [a primitive and imprecise description] in the system.”
From Wiki “Entropy” …
“According to the second law of thermodynamics the entropy of an isolated system never decreases; such a system will spontaneously evolve toward thermodynamic equilibrium, the configuration with maximum entropy.”
“Entropy was discovered when it was noticed to be a quantity that behaves as a function of state, as a consequence of the second law of thermodynamics.”
“Understanding the role of thermodynamic entropy in various processes requires an understanding of how and why that information changes as the system evolves from its initial to its final condition.”
“The second law is now often seen as an expression of the fundamental postulate of statistical mechanics through the modern definition of entropy.”
If you don’t understand the processes that lead to a change in entropy, Norman, how are you going to understand what the Second Law tells us will happen? This is not school-boy “hot to cold” fissics, Norman. You are way out of your depth, as are Roy and other climatologists when they make the huge mistake of assuming that, in the absence of GHG, there would be isothermal conditions between the radiating altitude and the surface, both supposedly being 255K if there were clouds, despite the lack of water vapor (LOL).
Doug: You quote Wiki approvingly as saying, “According to the second law of thermodynamics the entropy of an isolated system never decreases.”
But Maxwell showed very clearly 150 years ago that the “gravito-thermal” effect would produce an isolated system whose entropy would decrease. When I pointed this out to you, you said, ‘I am not interested in statements like “entropy would decrease”.’
Unbelievable. Simply unbelievable. Do you even realize how much of a fool you are making of yourself???
Norman, the coffee in the thermos is in contact with the inner wall, and so there is heat transfer by conduction (involving molecular collisions) that then continues through the inner wall. Then, in the vacuum between the walls convective heat transfer is stopped because such needs some gas. That is the main function of the flask and that’s why it’s called a vacuum flask. Even a black iron outer wall would stop radiation. Only conduction conveys thermal energy through the material in each wall. The role of the reflector is to reduce absorptivity by the outer wall, as I said. And it’s a complete red herring anyway totally irrelevant to climate as explained before and again in the last paragraph below.
Then you write: “The absorption and reemission of radiation is the same process as reflection.” No it’s not. Reflection is a different process in which the angle of incidence equals the angle of reflection – quite unlike absorption and emission.
Then you come up with an absolute corker when talking about diffusion and convective heat transfer in gases! You say: “I think it is too complex of an interaction to get a good picture of what is going on or make declarative statements about how the process works.”
Well, try reading the assumptions of Kinetic Theory here.
Given your complete lack of understanding of Kinetic Theory, entropy and the Second Law of Thermodynamics, you have no valid refutation of our group’s hypothesis here at all.
And still you talk about GH gases slowing radiative cooling of the surface, whilst completely ignoring the fact explained in my March 2012 paper, that they cannot slow conduction (that complicated process you don’t understand) and evaporative cooling. These sensible heat transfers accelerate such that there is no net slowing of overall surface cooling by all processes.
Norman, here’s a video explaining why the concept of entropy representing disorder is not appropriate.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QCADIxtg_iY
Second Law Doug,
Do you know how a thermos works or how long it will keep a hot liquid hot or a cold one cold?
http://www.explainthatstuff.com/vacuumflasks.html
The reflective surfaces prevent radiation from leaving. CO2 does not warm by being warmer than the surface but by preventing radiation from leaving. It is NOT a violation of the second law of thermodynamics.
My response is in Sections 2 to 6 of my March 2012 paper on the Second Law of Thermodynamics that is linked at the foot of the “Evidence” page at http://climate-change-theory.com .
Yes – it’s in the last paragraph of Section 5 that I explained (three years ago) that only that portion of surface cooling that is by radiation will be slowed by radiation from the cooler atmosphere. There is more cooling going on by sensible heat transfers and evaporative cooling.
Back radiation can have no effect what-so-ever on the rate of cooling by such non-radiative processes for the reasons explained in that paper.
I never claimed the Second Law is violated in this process. In fact, I have shown from physics why these other processes accelerate and thus nullify the effect of any slowing of the radiative component of surface cooling. In other words, surface cooling is not slowed, but even if it were, that would merely extend the warmth of the day by perhaps a few seconds into the night, and it will not affect the temperature that is supported by the gravitationally induced temperature gradient. In other words, it won’t affect the minimum temperature that night.
“The reflective surfaces prevent radiation from leaving.”
Yuk! That is very imprecise physics, Norman. Radiation can’t “leave” for the simple reason that there’s a solid outer wall through which it can’t penetrate. What the reflective surface does is significantly reduce the absorptivity of that outer wall, so that less of the electromagnetic energy in the radiation is converted to thermal energy in the wall. Hence the rate of conduction of thermal energy through that wall is significantly reduced.
I see no analogy what-so-ever with what happens in a planet’s troposphere. In Earth’s troposphere about 98% of the thermal energy is contained in nitrogen, oxygen and argon molecules which then transfer some kinetic energy in collisions which sometimes cause water vapor, carbon dioxide and methane molecules to become “warmer” and thus increases their propensity to radiate. When they do emit radiation, thermal energy is only ever transferred from warmer to cooler regions when it is transferred by radiation. Hence that radiation cools the troposphere and the so-called GH gases act like hoes in a blanket, helping to cool the nitrogen, oxygen and argon molecules that have been storing 98% of the thermal energy in the atmosphere.
Typo: GH gases act like holes in a blanket,
Yes, and because back radiation cannot raise the surface temperature, as you agree Norman, there is no runaway greenhouse effect on Venus that supposedly causes its surface temperature to rise by 5 degrees while the Sun shines. But the Sun’s radiation at the surface is only about 10% of what Earth’s surface receives, so it ain’t the Sun’s direct radiation that’s raising the surface temperature either. It’s heat creep.
Hi Norman,
You stated:
“The reflective surfaces prevent radiation from leaving. CO2 does not warm by being warmer than the surface but by preventing radiation from leaving. It is NOT a violation of the second law of thermodynamics.”
First, CO2 DOESN’T REFLECT IR IT ABSORBS AND RE-EMITS A FEW NARROW BANDWIDTHS IN ALL DIRECTIONS. While it does absorb a few narrow bands of IR, it also emits the same frequency speeding up the ability of the Earth’s atmosphere to radiate energy to space since Oxygen and Nitrogen don’t significantly emit in the IR range, but in the much longer wave, lower energy micro-wave range.
Have a great day!
Yes, Norman, what JohnKl says is as I also explained to you in the last paragraph of this comment. IR-active gases act like holes in the blanket that is mostly nitrogen, oxygen and argon molecules storing about 98% of the thermal energy in the atmosphere, and yet unable to rid themselves of that energy by radiation. They can only cool by diffusion, conduction, molecular collision, call it what you like. And of course water vapor, carbon dioxide and methane acquire some of that thermal energy from those other air molecules.
JohnKl,
I should not have merged by statements in such a confusing fashion. In the first I was talking about how a thermos keeps liquids warm or cold for very long periods of time (relatively speaking). Doug does not like the wording (prevent radiation leaving), but that is what a reflector does. Electromagnetic energy hits a mirror and moves right back to the source. If the mirror is very good almost all the energy returns in the direction it came from.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-do-mirrors-reflect-ph/
Basically the energy (radiation) does not leave the system. It is true a cold object will not warm a hotter object, but the theory behind AGW is not that at all. The absorption and reemission of radiation is the same process as reflection. If you read how mirrors work the original photon stimulates motion in a metal’s surface electrons which create the same energy as the initial photon and send it back to the source.
A photon is emitted by the hot liquid in a thermos cooling it (energy is removed). The photon hits the mirrored surface of the thermos and returns to the liquid. No net change in energy, the fluid cools very slowly because of other losses.
As for the atmosphere, I have read material on the nitrogen/oxygen collision with CO2 ideas. I think it is too complex of an interaction to get a good picture of what is going on or make declarative statements about how the process works. Maybe it cools, maybe it does not. I think the best approach is use real data (not ideas that could be right or wrong).
Check this link out. Infrared telescopes on Earth’s surface are no good. The atmosphere absorbs most the energy coming from space.
http://feps.as.arizona.edu/outreach/ira.html
If it is absorbing what is coming from outside Universe, why would it not logically follow it will do the same with the Earth’s surface? Again GHG gases do not heat the Earth’s surface by 33 C. The concept is that they slow the radiation loss as compared to no GHG gases which makes a warmer world than if none of the gases were present. The Earth’s temperature is not a closed system, it receives constant energy input at some locations. The only thing GHG do is slow the cooling like a thermos bottle. The mirror surface in the thermos does not make the liquid warmer, it just keeps it at the same temperature. The only way to change a temperature is to either add or take energy away. If you would add energy to the thermos on a 12 hour add/ 12 hour off cycle the liquid in the thermos would keep getting hotter. The comparison here would be to have a thermos (with internal heater) and a metal cup (also with internal heater) with the same mass of liquid. Both get exactly the same energy on the on cycle. Which do you think will warm more? Will the insulated, radiant reflecting thermos and metal cup have the same temperature?
Yes and if you put out lots of coffee cups evenly spaced all over the globe (including Antarctica) the mean temperature to which the Sun’s radiation could raise them in the first place is about -41°C according to Stefan Boltzmann calculations based on NASA estimates of 168W/m^2 of solar radiation absorbed by Earth’s surface. Put all the coffee cups (with their liquid or frozen solid coffee) into vacuum flasks and they won’t get hotter as you said.
The Moon’s surface receives about twice as much solar radiation as does Earth’s surface. The Moon’s temperature range is about -150°C to 123°C so its mean is less than freezing point. So too would Earth’s mean surface temperature be even colder than the Moon’s. All your slowing of cooling rates ain’t going to make it hotter. Slowing from what temperature, Norman?
On Venus less than 20W/m^2 of direct solar radiation is absorbed by its surface. That 20W/m^2 has a black body temperature of 137K which is about -136°C. Slowing from what temperature, Norman?
Now, as you say, back radiation does not raise the surface temperature, so what does raise the surface temperature of Venus by a few hundred degrees above that to which the Sun’s radiation could make it? The answer is here Norman.
Now stop wasting my time with red herrings that have absolutely nothing to do with the new 21st century paradigm in climate change science.
Doug
When you say “stop wasting my time”, this post was NOT to you, it was to JohnKl.
I do not think you understand the physics. When you have an energy input and slow the loss of energy transfer away from the target of the energy input, the target will be warmer than if no slowing took place but the insulating material is NOT warming that target. The input energy is doing the warming. Things can be warmer than some calculated temperature that would exist if nothing would slow the energy transfer.
The thermos example is not a red herring. It is a legitimate explanation of how a radiant reflector effectively slows cooling by a very considerable degree.
The liquid in the thermos will be much warmer than if you calculated a theoretical temperature based upon non reflective media. I wish you would understand the description before you make negative comments about it. Doug you are smarter than that!
I am not sure Venus did not experience some massive magma flows that released large amounts of sulfur dioxide and carbon dioxide and made a very hot surface that is just cooling down now. Why does Venus have such a thick atmosphere in the first place? With Venus, most theories are speculation at best. Not enough information to create a true picture.
Norman:
Regarding slowing of cooling, see Section 2 of my 18 page paper written two years ago.
Regarding Venus, see Section 3 of that paper.
Reminder: You have seven questions to answer by midnight February 22nd, one of which refers to the fact that the Venus surface warms by 5 degrees in its daytime, to compensate for cooling by 5 degrees at night. Does heat from your conjectured cooling core “know” when to warm or cool the surface in such a regular diurnal pattern?
Silent readers are watching, and over 700 of Roy’s readers have already visited our group’s website without a single attempt at refutation thereof which anyone could send to the email address thereon. You’re a beggar for punishment.
Doug
What is the source of your information that Venus temperature raises 5 degrees during its day cycle and loses 5 degrees at night.
“But on Venus, the surface temperature is 460 degrees Celsius, day or night, at the poles or at the equator.”
http://www.universetoday.com/14306/temperature-of-venus/
This source claims there is no temperature variation which could prove my speculation. Venus is a strange beast in our region of the solar system. It has a super thick atmosphere of carbon dioxide and sulfur dioxide. Its day last longer than its year.
http://www.universetoday.com/14282/how-long-is-a-day-on-venus/
Maybe a few million years ago Venus was struck by a large celestial object which cracked its surface and allowed magma flow with large release of trapped gases. The object stopped its rotation. The thick atmosphere holds in the heat like the Earth’s mantle does.
Hi Norman,
Thank you for the comments and links. However, I’m familiar with the green-house theory and find it wanting. You left out many facts concerning the atmosphere and radiation and made a misstatement. Allow me to address a few.
You correctly state:
“Electromagnetic energy hits a mirror and moves right back to the source. If the mirror is very good almost all the energy returns in the direction it came from.”
Then follow it a few statements later with this bit of nonsense:
“The absorption and reemission of radiation is the same process as reflection. If you read how mirrors work the original photon stimulates motion in a metal’s surface electrons which create the same energy as the initial photon and send it back to the source.”
REFLECTION IS DIRECTIONAL AND EMISSION/RE-EMISSION IS NOT! A mirror does reflect visible light (em) back toward the source, but the small fraction of energy absorbed by the mirror (or anything else) and subsequently re-emitted can be sent in any direction including away from the initial foreign source of radiation.
You also stated:
“Basically the energy (radiation) does not leave the system.”
The energy eventually does leave the systems or it would be entirely closed, which seems extremely doubtful. At this very moment I have a thermos of hot water with teabag in front of me. Frankly, no matter how well humans construct the thermos if I leave it alone at my desk in an office at room temperature long enough the temperature of the water will decline eventually to match room temperature.
You further state:
“As for the atmosphere, I have read material on the nitrogen/oxygen collision with CO2 ideas. I think it is too complex of an interaction to get a good picture of what is going on or make declarative statements about how the process works. Maybe it cools, maybe it does not. I think the best approach is use real data (not ideas that could be right or wrong).”
Well, the links you provided to a Scientific American article and your constant reference to “photons” involves a great deal of SPECULATION but fortunately the absorption/emission bands of oxygen and nitrogen do not!
You went on:
“The atmosphere absorbs most the energy coming from space.
http://feps.as.arizona.edu/outreach/ira.html…
If it is absorbing what is coming from outside Universe, why would it not logically follow it will do the same with the Earth’s surface?”
Agreed! Funny, Doug made a similar comment many months ago and David A claimed the solar IR energy absorbed by our atmosphere to be miniscule, interesting to see you agree with Doug. The problem you have is that while CO2 absorbs a few long-wave, low-temp IR emissions either from the Earth’s surface or from the Sun it also re-emits the same back to space at a pace far faster (likely at least an order of magnitude faster) than the even longer-wave microwave emissions from the Oxygen molecules in the atmosphere. Have you noticed that while one may have to wait a few decades to detect a tenth of a degree warming in the ADJUSTED (warmer) satellite temp data for the lower troposphere the upper troposphere/Stratosphere has been COOLING RAPIDLY due significant increases in CO2 and other supposed GHG’s? What happened to all that energy they absorbed?
You yourself stated:
“The only way to change a temperature is to either add or take energy away.”
Unfortunately for your argument radiation doesn’t strictly act like water in a bath-tub. If I add 15 mu radiation to an object already emitting in that range and above it will not alter the temperature. It will be absorbed, but the highest wavelength/frequency it can be re-emitted at will be the same wavelength received and can never accumulate like water in a bath-tub to raise temps above the energy level available from that wavelength/frequency received. Higher energy (wavelength/frequency) emission (temps) require higher energy absorption. If you don’t agree, just ask Max Planck.
As to the thermos, obviously the better insulated thermos will retain heat longer. Unfortunately for you, CO2 IS NOT AN INSULATOR IT IS AN EMITTER!!!
Have a great day!
JohnKl
Thanks for your thoughtful response. Rigor is the fundamental of good science.
I should probably explain my point for the post. Doug believes (very strongly) that a cooler atmosphere sending energy to a warmer surface violates the second law of thermodynamics. The reason I use the thermos is because a mirror can be quite cold yet send almost all the energy from a source back to the source. The GHG gases do not emit based upon the gases temperature but on the energy state of the bond (they are not like solid objects that have so many bonds and emit a smooth black-body radiation spectrum when heated (or close to). A cold carbon dioxide molecule can absorb infrared energy (at certain frequencies) and re-emit it. I am trying to point out the way a GHG works is closer to how a mirror works than a hot object. If you have a large number of CO2 molecules and they are very cold possessing little kinetic energy, they can absorb all available IR in their frequency bands and re-emit in all directions so that about 50% will be directed at the same source that initially produced them.
I should also point out I am far convinced of the Green House effect or that Carbon Dioxide is this major concern. I am a skeptic because it is more a hypothesis then a tested and verified science.
I am still looking for tested evidence. One would be to have valid IR spectrum from the surface emission and then to match it with one in outer space above the same location. You should see if a large amount of energy is missing from the spectrum (did not get through). If it is missing from the outgoing spectrum it would mean the system retained it.
As for Doug, I think it is great to challenge accepted science. But he will only accept information that agrees with him. I sent a link about the vortex tube giving an explanation that did not involve a thermal gradient but he rejected it. I sent him a link on how tidal forces may be heating the moon’s core. I do not think his “heat creep” is correct and if he wants to convince me it will require some experimentation. I default to accepted science theory until a strong experimental evidence will shift by belief.
Here is an article that sounds like from where you are coming from. You may like it.
http://www.biocab.org/ECO2.pdf
Hi Norman,
Thank you for the link, I will investigate it further when I have more time. You stated:
“A cold carbon dioxide molecule can absorb infrared energy (at certain frequencies) and re-emit it. I am trying to point out the way a GHG works is closer to how a mirror works than a hot object.”
Many have made similar claims. Please remember CO2 emits at very cold temperatures. Emission at 15 mu occurs according to Wikipedia at -23 deg centigrade. In fact, JPL satellite observations shows the upper atmosphere emitting at that range over the polar regions. Mars polar regions drop to as low as -123 deg centigrade. It’s not difficult at all for CO2 to re-emit any of it’s energy. Thank you for your response and I’ll have more to state later.
Have a great day!
JohnKl
From what I have read on the GH theory. The researchers understand that CO2 is an emitter. The way it is described it that CO2 will emit in all directions (about 50% downward and back to the source). The remaining 50% will move upward and away but since CO2 in atmosphere is 3D they envision you must look at it like stacked layers of emitters. The CO2 molecules near the surface will emit 50% of their combined energy upward and 50% back to Earth (meaning the energy the Earth’s surface had lost has been returned). This 50% returning energy will not warm the surface above its initial temperature but it will slow the cooling rate. The next 50% is absorbed by CO2 molecules above it and now 50% of that is sent back down to the lower layer of CO2 where it is absorbed and out of that 50%, half is sent back to Earth. You would have to figure out the path of an IR electromagnetic wave (I do not think you like the term photon) to see how long it will stay in the atmosphere moving hither and thither before it finally leaves forever to the vastness of space. You would then be able to determine what overall effect Carbon Dioxide in the atmosphere has on the surface temperature.
You likewise “Have a great day!”
Norman: You say, “I am still looking for tested evidence. One would be to have valid IR spectrum from the surface emission and then to match it with one in outer space above the same location.”
These spectra diagrams are not hard to find. The upward IR measured close to the surface is very close to the Planck blackbody spectrum for that temperature. What you see from space is quite different. In some portions of the spectrum, like the 8 – 14 micron “atmospheric window” that is not absorbed by either CO2 or H2O, the spectrum is still near the Planck curve for the surface temperature.
In those parts of the spectrum absorbed by H2O, like 4 – 8 microns, the spectrum is of the magnitude of the temperature of the height of the atmosphere where there stops being much water vapor, colder than that of the surface.
In those parts of the spectrum absorbed by CO2, like 14 – 16 microns, the spectrum is of the magnitude of the temperature of the height of the atmosphere where the density is so low that not much radiation can be blocked. This is colder than either of the other two.
If you look at the spectrum of the downwelling infrared, you only see it at those frequencies absorbed by the poorly named “greenhouse gases”. There is essentially nothing in the 8 – 14 um atmospheric window range.
Once you study these, you have to go through mental contortions to avoid the conclusion that these gases are absorbing IR, re-radiating it, and affecting the energy balance in doing so.
Curt,
Thank you for your response concerning actual data of energy spectrum in the IR range. I am not finding any actual measurements of energy. I find models of calculated energy but not actual measured spectra. They may be out there I just have not found what I am looking for yet. What you describe would be considered good scientific evidence of a “greenhouse effect” (commonly used to explain energy returning to its source by radiation emissions).
Hi Norman,
Thank you for responding to my post and believe it or not we agree more than you may realize. Please know I understand what many researchers claim in regards to CO2 and IR radiation. You stated:
“This 50% returning energy will not warm the surface above its initial temperature but it will slow the cooling rate.”
Exactly! Herein we face a challenge. The moon’s daytime temps can reach in excess of 100 degrees centigrade / ~212 deg F. In fact, man-made earth satellites reach similar exterior temps. The Earth’s surface sits comfortable at far cooler temps despite the existence of significant quantity of so-called GHG’s. Earth’s surface temps if I remember correctly average around 10-20 degrees centigrade the highest recorded terrestrial surface temp occurred at Death Valley ( below sea level – probably near Furnace Creek ) where the black top reportedly reached close to 200 deg Fahrenheit.
The opposite situation faces Venus where surface temps reach 864 deg F, higher than any other planet in the solar system including Mercury which orbits far closer to the sun (greater solar irradiance) and apparently has a longer solar day. If as you claim CO2 and other GHG’s cannot raise the temp of the emitting surface higher than it’s emission temperature by re-emitting the same radiation back to the surface, how does Venus warm it’s surface to such an extent that the recorded surface temperature exceeds the emission temperature of planets even closer to the sun? As mentioned the relative velocities of gas molecules can and do provide thermal interactions. Gravity (centripetal force), atmospheric mass, solar energy (helps to create and sustain the Earth’s atmosphere providing energy to allow expanding gas volume (in all 3 dimensions) and the earth’s centrifuge like rotation ( ~1000 mph at the equator ) provides additional energy to lift and help expand the Earth’s atmosphere as it help drive gas molecules away from the Earth’s center of mass. The forces mentioned above and others ( including fissile geologic volcanic action on a planet’s surface ) conflict in the direction they drive atmospheric gas compounds providing ample opportunity to drive surface temps higher due to higher relative molecular velocities for a planet’s atmospheric gas molecules, as mentioned in a prior post.
Have a great day!
Correction:
My statement should have read:
“If as you claim ( and I agree) CO2 and other GHG’s cannot raise the temp of the emitting surface higher than it’s emission temperature by simply re-emitting the same radiation back to the surface, how does Venus warm it’s surface to such an extent that the recorded surface temperature exceeds the emission temperature of a planet even closer to the sun?”
Well said JohnKl. Just a minor point: I was talking about oxygen, nitrogen and argon acquiring thermal energy through sensible heat transfers from the surface and atmosphere, and then the fact that some collisions will occur with IR-active molecules (WV, CO2, CH4 etc) which will then be warmed and emit that energy which can then only be transferred to cooler targets. That which strikes warmer targets (including the surface) is pseudo scattered as explained in my March 2012 paper (on radiation and the Second Law) linked from the second page of our group’s website. Please consider joining the group via the email address on that site.
Doug, Jim, John, Lindsay, Alex and Wendy
“Planetary Physics” group of those with physics qualifications
<Curt and Norman
Radiation from the atmosphere can only slow that portion of surface cooling which is itself by radiation.
It cannot and does not slow sensible heat transfers (conduction, convection) or evaporative cooling. These rates accelerate to nullify the effect of radiative slowing. Indeed back radiation does not even penetrate water by more than a few nanometers which you might assume it would quickly boil and thus increase evaporation. But even that assumption would be wrong because it actually undergoes resonant (or “pseudo”) scattering as explained in Sections 2 to 5 here.
The main frequencies from CO2 are produced at temperatures mostly only found in the mesosphere. With its limited range of frequencies, radiation from CO2 is like a picket fence with most of its pickets missing, standing up against the tidal wave of full spectrum radiation from the much warmer surface.
The fact that CO2 frequencies are missing in surface radiation observed at TOA proves nothing because the energy they absorb can also be transferred to other molecules by sensible heat transfers, not radiation, and can then be emitted by water vapor. Are all water vapor frequencies missing? Yes to some extent if you point your instrument at dry land perhaps, because such emissions may come at any angle from anywhere in the troposphere.
JohnKl,
Your point about Venus. It is still receiving energy from the sun.
If you still have that thermos in front of you, what would happen if you added a heater that would add energy to the fluid?
Even though Mercury receives more energy than Venus that would have little to do with the actual surface temperature. Mercury receives the energy, heats up and then radiates it away rapidly keeping the temperature at some equilibrium. It would be like if you had a heater in your thermos bottle and a heater in a liquid in a metal can. The heater warming the metal can could put in twice the energy of the thermos but the liquid could still end up cooler because it is not just the rate the energy enters a system, it is also how much is leaving.
Hi Norman,
Thanks again for the reply, but I’m uncertain how it any way states anything new or that hasn’t been stated before. In addition, it doesn’t really deal with topic at hand. Let me explain.
You mention that Venus still receives energy from the sun. True, the surface if I remember correctly receives about 10% of what the Earth’s surface gets because the Venusian atmospheric particulate layer extending to about 50 km above the surface REFLECTS (I know you’ll love that word) 90-95% of the visible spectrum back out to space. The solar radiation actually impinging the surface proves to be only a small fraction of the energy reaching even the Earth’s surface. Despite an earlier suggestion you made regarding temperature and energy, frequency/wavelength determines the radiative energy from an emitting body and the higher an objects temperature the more energy it emits and the higher the frequency and shorter the wavelength of the radiation emitted. Once again because you didn’t seem to catch it the first time, since the atmosphere can only reflect back to the surface a fraction of the energy emitted from the surface and as you admitted never be able to raise it’s temperature how can the emitting temperature of the surface rise to levels above that of Mercury which not only receives more energy than the Earth but the total energy impinging upon Venus (including the energy reflected away by the particulate layer)? How does it manage to obtain enough energy to do that when by your own words the greenhouse gasses prove incapable of doing it?
As to your question regarding the thermos, if I added energy from a heater to the fluid I’m quite sure I’d expect it to warm. However, my thermos claim stemmed from the obvious life learned observation that in the universe we all inhabit everything usually mixes and short of divine intervention you’ll be hard pressed to find any truly closed system in an absolute sense.
Your last paragraph regarding energy entering and leaving a system mirrors what I”ve claimed on this website for a long time. Energy proves to be like wealth in that it’s not what you make (or receive) that counts it’s what you keep. Your problem which I’ve presented to you in my previous post and in this one as well remains unanswered. How does Venus obtain enough energy to raise it’s temperature above that of Mercury’s when the GHG’s by your own admission cannot even prevent the Venusian surface from COOLING DOWN?!!!!
You seem to cautiously avoid the subject because you may not have thought through the answer. Don’t worry the physics can be thought through, unfortunately the CAGW alarmists have not done so.
Have a great day!
Neptune’s mass is 17.15 x Earth’s whereas the mass of Uranus is only 14.536 x Earth’s and so the gravitational force is greater on Neptune. Also the weighted mean specific heat is slightly greater on Uranus because there is about 2% more hydrogen (Cp=14.32) and 4% less helium for which Cp=5.19. Hence the gravitationally induced temperature gradient (derived from g/Cp) is steeper for Neptune. The dimensions of the two planets are fairly similar, so we would expect from my hypothesis that the core of Uranus would be cooler (about 5000°C) than that of Neptune that should be about 7000°C. There’s nothing surprising in this when you understand the physics involved. Of course those who wrote your “good science” have not yet read up on the new paradigm.
What you call arrogance is merely complete confidence on my part in the Second Law of Thermodynamics, about which I have written two peer-reviewed papers, a book and the new website endorsed by all members of our group.
Indeed I share the same confidence in the Second Law as did Eddington when he wrote …
“The law that entropy always increases holds, I think, the supreme position among the laws of Nature. If someone points out to you that your pet theory of the universe is in disagreement with Maxwell’s equations — then so much the worse for Maxwell’s equations. If it is found to be contradicted by observation — well, these experimentalists do bungle things sometimes. But if your theory is found to be against the second law of thermodynamics I can give you no hope; there is nothing for it but to collapse in deepest humiliation.” — Sir Arthur Stanley Eddington, The Nature of the Physical World (1927)
You might note the reference to Maxwell, as well as the fact that the Second Law over-rides what Maxwell postulated (about atmospheric turbulence causing the temperature gradient) and the Second Law can be used to prove what Maxwell’s teacher, Josef Loschmidt had postulated earlier about gravity doing so, just as centrifugal force does in the vortex tube, a fact upon which I and the authors of your linked “good science” agree.
I have as much confidence that the gravito-thermal effect is a reality as I do regarding the Second Law, because the gravito-thermal effect can be shown to be a direct corollary of that Second Law.
And speaking of “good science” Norman, maybe you should read (as I have) Dr Tim Ball’s book The Deliberate Corruption of Climate Science.
Discussion from our group continues here.
Looking back at some introductory thermodynamics texts and seeing what concepts they try to get students to understand from the outset, I see that Doug has not mastered any of these.
He does not really understand the difference between isolated, closed, and open thermodynamic systems and tries to apply the analysis for one type of system to another.
He does not understand at all the difference between one-time transient events, dynamic steady-state conditions, and thermodynamic equilibrium. As above, he tries to apply the analysis for one type of system to another.
He has no clue as to how to split a thermoydynamic system into subsystems and analyze the interactions between them. My favorite example of this was his assertion above that heat flow from gas column A to gas column B would increase the thermal energy of both!
He cannot understand simple logical strategies like temporarily accepting a proposition, following logically from it, and if a contradiction reached, realizing that the proposition cannot be true.
Doug would be in serious trouble a few weeks into an introductory undergraduate thermodynamics course (nothing to do with climate science), but he would have us believe that he has overturned the results of Clausius, Maxwell, Boltzmann, Einstein, and Planck!
Curt, I think the big difference between you and Doug in the thermodynamics world is you can use complex math to demonstrate a point. I never see more than the most basic math on Doug’s pages and I am not sure he can follow the complex logic of intergal calculus.
If you have a wonderful new theory of molecular kinetics, it would be a more mature scientist to use complex math to describe the motions of the particles as opposed to K.E. + P.E. with no further complexity.
Curt’s error is explained in this comment which should make Curt curse.
It would be nice perhaps to be the author of some new theory, but I’ll just stick with my use of the Second Law of Thermodynamics and the Kinetic Theory of Gases as was used successfully by Einstein and many others.
By the way, I have written mathematics tutoring software which has been used by thousands of students, and of course it includes integration of exponential, trigonometric and logarithmic functions.
Curt says: “My favorite example of this was his assertion above that heat flow from gas column A to gas column B would increase the thermal energy of both!”
I said no such thing. I said that entropy would then increase. Let go of a stone and it falls as entropy increases. But there is no creation of energy. None-the-less, it is of course possible for thermal energy to increase when gravitational potential energy is converted to thermal (kinetic) energy. That’s what happens when Jupiter contracts.
The undergraduates whom I have helped understand physics over these last 50 years or so since I gained a university scholarship and graduated in such have done well thank you and none ever faulted my understanding of thermodynamics. Nor have you.
When you discuss what is here rather than your warped interpretation of what I have explained we might get somewhere. In any event, it is now proven empirically that a centrifugal force field creates a temperature gradient, just as gravity does.
So I leave you with a single question: What is the sensitivity to a 1% increase in the most prolific greenhouse gas water vapor?
Doug: What you said was, “when there are thermal energy transfers in the same direction at, say, the lower end of each tube, then a “lake” of thermal energy builds up at the base of each until the point where the convective heat transfers in each column are blocked and thus cease.” You seem to believe that both columns would accumulate heat.
Let’s go through Maxwell’s thought experiment step by step, and include some numbers. We’ll take two gas columns each a kilometer in height, very well insulated except for where they will be joined together by highly conductive solids. One is filled with standard air that has a Cp of 1000 J/kg/K. The other is filled with a gas that has a Cp of 500 J/kg/K. We’ll call earth’s gravity 10 m/s^2 to make the math easy.
Initially the two columns are connected at the bottom through a highly conductive (i.e. metal) HORIZONTAL solid that is also tied to a surface ambient temperature of 300K. This is the columns’ only thermodynamic connection to the outside world.
You claim that a -g/Cp lapse rate would naturally evolve in each gas column to put each of them in thermodynamic equilibrium. For the air column, this lapse rate is -0.01K/m or -10K/km, so the top of the column would be at 290K. For the other column, the lapse rate is -0.02K/m or -20K/km, so the top of the column would be at 280K.
We now disconnect the bottom conductor from the surface ambient. It is very well insulated from the outside — only thermally joined to the gas columns at each end. This is our initial state for the problem. We have an isolated system with the bottom of both columns and the conductor between them at 300K. You claim that the top of column A would be at 290K and the top of column B would be at 280K.
Now we connect the tops of the columns with HORIZONTAL conductive solids with a heat engine in the middle. To use a specific example, we’ll make this a Peltier thermoelectric device, with the electric power it generates driving a motor that turns a winch that can lift a weight. All of this is thermodynamically isolated from the rest of the world. So the whole system is isolated.
The heat Qa that flows out of the top of column A (at 290K) is greater than the heat Qb that flows into the top of column B because some of that energy is turned into work W to lift the weight.
But still, the heat flowing out of the top of column A would reduce its temperature below 290K and the heat flowing into the top of column B would increase its temperature above 280K.
In column A, the lapse rate would now be greater than adiabatic, so convection would start to transfer heat upwards to restore the adiabatic lapse rate. This would lower the bottom temperature below 300K.
Your claim is that in column B, which now has a lapse rate less than its adiabatic, a “heat creep” mechanism would transfer heat downward to restore the adiabatic lapse rate. This would raise the temperature of the bottom above 300K.
With the bottom of column B above 300K and the bottom of column A below 300K, the HORIZONTAL solid between them would start conducting heat from column B to column A.
By your analysis, column B will continuously evolve to try to maintain a top-to-bottom temperature difference of 20K. Column A will continuously evolve to try to maintain a top-to-bottom temperature difference of 10K. As the two columns are connected by HORIZONTAL solid conductors, these conductors would continuously transfer heat from B to A at the bottom, and from A to B at the top. But by having the heat engine between A and B at the top, a fraction of the heat is continually converted to work.
So if we accept your analysis, we have thermal energy of an isolated system being converted to work. This lowers the entropy of this isolated system by Qw/T, where Qw is the part of the heat Qa that is converted to work in the heat engine (so column B receives Qa-Qw). The overall thermal energy of the isolated system would continuously decrease as it is steadily converted to work, reducing system entropy as it goes, as a logical conclusion of your proposition. This is a blatant 2nd Law violation, thus disproving your proposition.
By the way, even if there were no heat engine in the top horizontal conductor, you would get a continual looping flow of heat in the isolated system, which is by itself a 2nd Law violation.
So this is a complete, slam-dunk refutation of your ideas of thermodynamic equilibrium at the adiabatic lapse rate, and of “heat creep” against the thermal gradient. (By the way, what is the effective thermal “conductivity” value to use in calculating the rate of this heat creep? In all of my scientific and engineering references, the only conductivity values given are for conduction from higher temperatures to lower temperatures.)
This is very, very basic thermodynamic analysis, appropriate for first-year students. You claim to have studied thermodynamics for 50 years, but yet you are incapable of understanding this simple proof.
“You seem to believe that both columns would accumulate heat.”
Gong! I don’t. It is impossible to have any net heat transfer across any internal boundary, let alone a continuing loop, once thermodynamic equilibrium is attained.
“This lowers the entropy of this isolated system by Qw/T”
Gong! No it doesn’t lower entropy. The Second Law tells you that can’t happen. You have omitted the term for the change in gravitational potential energy you clot! Your mistake, not mine. Sooner or later you’ll realize I’m right and the evidence everywhere in the Solar System is against you.
What happens is the same as what happens in a centrifuge (such as the vortex tube) wherein a temperature gradient evolves as unbalanced energy potentials diminish – as the Second Law implies they will. You could have read that here.
Answer the seven questions I asked MikeB.
Doug: You simply continue to demonstrate your complete inability to either analyze a very simple thermodynamic system or to follow a simple logical argument.
I didn’t “omit the term for change in gravitational potential energy”. I ACCEPTED it to see where it would lead. And by accepting it, it inexorably led step by step to a blatant 2nd Law violation. No thermodynamic equilibrium, and a decrease in entropy of an isolated system.
However, if I DO “omit the term for change in gravitational potential energy” and get rid of your ridiculous “heat creep”, the system reaches thermodynamic equilibrium without entropy decrease.
You simply cannot wrap your head around the FACT that it is YOUR physics that leads to these 2nd Law violations, not MINE.
And it is your very argument that “a temperature gradient evolves” that you continue to make that causes these problems.
There is a reason that you start students with simple problems and basic controlled laboratory experiments that isolate specific effects. There is no point in moving on to more complex systems with many different mechanisms until these basic systems are understood.
I see your admission that your main thermodynamic education has come from Wikipedia. That explains A LOT!
“By your analysis, column B will continuously evolve to try to maintain a top-to-bottom temperature difference of 20K.”
Gong! No it won’t. The temperatures will tend towards being approximately equal where the wire connects the tubes. If there is only one horizontal wire at the bottom, the different temperature gradients will be maintained up or down from the common temperature, which temperature will be determined by the total energy in the combined system. If there are horizontal connecting wires at top and bottom, the temperature gradients will tend towards a common mean gradient because of course the top temperatures will tend towards being equal as well as those at the bottom tending towards being equal to each other. Then, when all unbalanced energy potentials are eliminated we have thermodynamic equilibrium and so no further net heat transfers across any internal boundary.
You have maintained for years that your precious “heat creep” mechanism means that a vertical column of gas tends toward the adiabatic lapse rate from a lower lapse rate. You have claimed that it would transfer heat downward to do so.
I accept your arguments to see where they lead. Now you claim that this heat creep will not occur in this case. Make up your freaking mind!!
I was simply accepting your claims in this system, with top and bottom of the two columns connected by horizontal conductors. According to the physics you have argued for years, this leads to:
1. Downward heat transfer in Column B through heat creep.
2. Conductive heat transfer from B to A through the bottom solid.
3. Upward heat transfer in Column A through convection.
4. Conductive heat transfer from A to B.
No thermodynamic equilibrium as long as you have heat creep. If you don’t include heat creep, you break the cycle and reach thermodynamic equilibrium.
And if the top conductor has a heat engine in the middle, you get an entropy decrease of an isolated system IF AND ONLY IF you accept your heat creep mechanism.
Although discussing what happens in a vertical plane, you, Curt, continue to confuse thermodynamic equilibrium with isothermal conditions which would indeed ensure heat transfers only from warmer to cooler regions, but only if gravity is done away with. This comment is continued here.
I will modify and enlarge upon this sentence: “Then, when all unbalanced energy potentials are eliminated we have thermodynamic equilibrium and so no further net heat transfers across any internal boundary.”
There is no apparent heat transfer across any internal boundary because, when hydrostatic equilibrium is attained, there is imperceptible friction-less cyclic motion of molecular kinetic energy which (in this “ideal” system) is neither increasing nor decreasing entropy. In the real world there would be friction with the walls and the whole system would cool very slowly whilst retaining the temperature gradients.
The Second Law only says entropy will not decrease, so it can stay the same in an ideal experiment like this once it has attained a maximum after connecting the tubes. In that sense (because it is maximum entropy) it could be called thermodynamic equilibrium, but hydrostatic is more descriptive of the actual cyclic energy flow which I now agree happens, but does not violate the Second Law because everything on a macro scale appears not to change and so no actual heat transfer can be detected. Note of course that there is indeed heat creep on one side, balancing the reverse process in the other tube. So this proves heat creep exists.
Now, if you also connect your bottom wire such that it is “also tied to a surface ambient temperature of 300K” then you extend the system to the whole Earth system, rather than just two insulated cylinders. Hence there will of course be heat transfers between the tubes and the 300K air, water or solid surface. So what? Eventually both ends of the tubes will be at 300K and the expected temperature profiles will each be anchored by that 300K at the bottom. If you then connect the tops you just get a temporary heat transfer until the top temperatures are equal and then the temperature gradients in the cylinders will be equal to the mean, but still be non-zero and not have any internal net heat transfers across any internal boundary when that maximum entropy is attained.
My analysis specifically isolated the system after initial conditions were established. You are unable to understand these basic points.
What happens if you isolate it is explained here.
The standard texts have not modified conduction rates to take into account the effect of gravity, so they only apply in a horizontal plane, as does the Clausius statement.
This means that their calculations of terrestrial heat flow through the outer crust (based on borehole measurements) are way out. Most sunny mornings, especially when summer is approaching, there will be heat transfers by conduction into the crust and, yes, up the thermal profile to warmer regions. That should help you answer the question about what keeps the core of the Moon above 1300°C. It also explains at least some of the energy supply that is released in volcanoes and thermal springs.
You can draw an analogy with a horizontal insulated metal rod with its ends connected to a uniform heat source and a uniform heat sink. The temperature gradient adjusts so as to be roughly linear even when you then change the end temperatures – at least within a certain range. Does it ever occur to you to think why is it so? If heat transfer were all about a one-way process, how does the temperature profile in the warmer end extrapolate to just the right temperature at the other end, even when you then change that cooler temperature?
When you connect the bottom ends of the tubes to a virtually infinite heat source/sink then you don’t have an isolated system, so the Second Law is not strictly applicable as we do have a potential source of new energy.
If the two tubes and top wire were perfectly insulated then indeed you could have energy flowing in an upside-down U shape – in at the bottom of one tube where the 300K acts as a heat source, and then equal energy flowing out each second at the bottom of the other tube and thence into the infinite heat sink. There does not need to be a connection with a wire at the bottom, and nor does the heat source have to be connected to the heat sink – that is, there could be a heat barrier between the two lots of air, water or solid surface. There is nothing usual about such heat transfers, because they can also happen at the molecular level between a triangular group of three molecules for example. Entropy is not decreasing – it’s just staying the same because what goes into one tube comes out with identical energy and identical entropy from the other tube.
So I admit that seemingly unending heat flow could occur in such a system that is not isolated and so does not have to obey the Second Law, but no work can be done at any intermediate point without drawing equivalent extra energy from the virtually infinite heat source that feeds the first cylinder. So there’s no violation of either the first or second law, but we do indeed have an example of heat creep in one of the cylinders. So there you go – thanks for the thought experiment which confirms what I have said all along about heat creep, and what is observed in a centrifuge such as a vortex tube.
So your little
So your little two cylinder thought experiment, Curt, even when subsequently isolated, is not a perpetual motion machine, because it is not a machine, and, if you attempt to make it such, then any work that you attempt to extract would merely cool it down with a loss of equivalent or greater energy.
Does there continue to be cyclic transfers of kinetic energy at the molecular level? Yes, but there are no macroscopic changes in the temperatures of any small region in the system once hydrostatic equilibrium is attained. So no heat transfers can be measured. Each small regions keeps on receiving as much energy as it transfers each second.
Why does the KE cycle? The cyclic motion was started by your connecting the two systems at the top and bottom. This creates an initial steep temperature gradient in at least one of the connections, and so initially there is a strong flux generated which starts the (eventually) undetectable cyclic motion. It is rather like spinning a top or a kids’ razzle-dazzle – when you stop pumping or pushing they both keep spinning and only stop if sufficient energy is removed. In an ideal gas (as per the assumptions of kinetic theory) collisions are elastic and molecular motion between collisions is without friction. There could be gains or losses in energy through the walls if the system is not perfectly insulated, but we are assuming it is ideal, and so nothing will stop the cyclic KE motion. But no work can be extracted on any perpetual basis, because it would all cool down to absolute zero and then stop.
But remember, since it is not an isolated system (and so the Second Law is inapplicable) the system is not actually reaching thermodynamic equilibrium. Instead it is in a state of hydrostatic equilibrium. It’s interesting, I agree, because there can be said to be transfers of net kinetic energy and yet the temperature at any point in the U does not change. So it appears that no heat transfers are occurring across internal boundaries.
The process is analogous to water flowing down a sloping open trough which is being fed in at the top at just the right rate so as to maintain the same depth at every point. The depth remains constant at all points, so it may appear that no water is flowing.
For the gases, the two-way process (due to random motion of molecules) regulates the rate at which new thermal energy is taken in from the source. This is also what happens with the long metal rod when the controlled temperature at the cold end is altered.
Note that when there is a complete cyclic system (rather than a U shaped one, then the comment just above (Feb 19, 7:07pm) applies and we do actually get a state of thermodynamic equilibrium because, even though molecular kinetic energy may seem to be cycling around the system, there is no temperature change at any level on a macro scale. At every level there is an equal input of KE on one side matching the loss of KE on the other side. There is no reason for more KE to start moving upwards on each side just because the top is cooler than the bottom, because that process would decrease entropy as some molecules gained more gravitational potential energy than others lost.
Regarding isolated systems the Secomd Law applies to such.
“Classical thermodynamics is usually presented as postulating the existence of isolated systems. … an isolated system can, indeed eventually always does, reach its own state of internal thermodynamic equilibrium.
“A practically isolated system is subject to small, unnoticeable perturbations, that would be expected to provide microscopic noise that would lead to its practical internal thermodynamic equilibrium. This would account for why classical thermodynamics is often presented with the existence of states of internal thermodynamic equilibrium regarded as axiomatic.
“The concept of an isolated system can serve as a useful model approximating many real-world situations. It is an acceptable idealization used in constructing mathematical models of certain natural phenomena; e.g., the planets in our solar system …”
People like Curt love to use the equations of physics whilst ignoring the assumptions and prerequisites for such equations to be applicable.
As you can read here the equations for thermodynamic potentials (for example, the equation for entropy) specifically assume there is no change in gravitational potential energy. Hence, when climatologists use the entropy equation to prove the Clausius “hot to cold” corollary of the Second Law they don’t realize that it only applies in a horizontal plane. So they blunder on and use it to “prove” that isothermal conditions are the state with maximum entropy in a vertical plane in a planet’s troposphere. Of course they are wrong, because the Clausius statement does not apply in that vertical plane, and there can be (and must be) sensible heat transfers from cooler to warmer regions, thus explaining the necessary thermal energy inputs into planetary surfaces that make them hotter than the Sun’s direct radiation can do.
So I have not “overturned Clausius” but rather pointed you to where you can read for yourself that gravity is ignored in the entropy equations which are used to confirm what Clausius said about heat transfers only being from hot to cold. That only applies where you can ignore differences in gravitational potential energy which, as is blatantly obvious, cause changes in entropy, just like when a stone falls we know that entropy increases.
And Maxwell made the same mistake as Curt and climatologists make when he also did not realize what I explained about the Clausius statement. Of course there were no centrifuges then that we can now use to prove Maxwell wrong by showing empirically that a centrifugal force field does in fact create a temperature gradient, as explained on our website. There’s nothing quite like an empirical experiment to confirm who’s right and who’s wrong.
Don’t forget folks, increasing the percentage of water vapor causes the surface temperature to be lower. Empirical evidence sorts out that one too, and my hypothesis explains the physics involved.
The greenhouse is smashed. THAT SHOULD BE A CAUSE FOR REJOICING.
Good god, Doug! You cite an anonymous Wikipedia contributor as authority over JC Maxwell??? That article is just riddled with errors.
It’s not an assumption that causes all standard thermodynamic analyses not to include gravitational potential energy in these quantities; it’s the fact that doing so is wrong, and would lead to blatant physical contradictions.
I laid out Maxwell’s logic step by step below (because his own presentation required mental leaps you have not been able to make). It is one very simple way of showing your propositions cannot possibly be correct.
It is blatantly obvious in the equation used for entropy that there is no term relating to changes in entropy caused by changes in gravitational potential energy. Where is g in the equation? Link me to some contrary physics explanation and then refer to that when you edit Wikipedia. Maxwell was no god, good or otherwise.
Of course gravitational potential energy has to be taken into account. Otherwise if you let go of a stone, why would it fall? There’s no change in total energy whilst it is falling in a vacuum without friction. But entropy must be increasing because, if it were not, then the Second Law would tell us nothing would need to happen and so it would stay still in a state of thermodynamic equilibrium.
Now I see why you can’t visualize what is happening as molecules exchange PE and KE in transitions between collisions, but, for thermodynamic equilibrium, should arrive at their next collision with KE matching their new collision partner. Blimey! How could you have such a lack of understanding of standard kinetic theory and entropy!
Now you’ve got a sequence of comments about your tubes to read and you should read all before commenting.
You’ve also got seven questions to answer, and seeing that I’ve spent a lot of time answering yours, you owe me one.
You are ignoring the chemical potential energy of these molecules. WHY???
Methane has a far higher chemical potential energy than H2O and CO2. Yet your analysis completely ignores this FACT!!!
You obviously don’t understand thermodynamics!!!
The reasons for ignoring chemical reactions (and phase changes also) are on the “WUWT errors” page at http://climate-change-theory.com and you should also note JohnKl’s comment above reading …
“You cannot divorce gravity (frequently considered one of the four forces of nature along with electro-magnetism, and strong and weak nuclear forces – btw the same holds in General Relativity since curved space-time still accelerates matter centripetally ) from any energy expression including heat and temperature. Imo, Curt’s previous childish allusion to centrifuges and burning pieces of paper fails ..”
You can read about entropy here Curt …
http://entropysite.oxy.edu/teaching_entropy.html
and how changes in gravitational potential energy (and other PE) cause changes in entropy …
“Potential energy in macro objects (like a rock held up in the air, or water behind a dam) is always hindered, i.e., kept from dispersing, until it is changed to kinetic energy. The potential energy in chemistry that we have already talked about is that involved in phase change; coming from or going to the surroundings, it causes breakage or formation of intermolecular bonds and thus can free or restrict molecular motion..”
Well, edit Wikipedia yourself and tell me a day later if it sticks. Meanwhile read this from an article about entropy at oxy.edu.
Come back Curt & Norman when you have attempted to answer the seven questions I asked MikeB in this comment.
It appears that you have much trouble understanding that if there are two horizontal planes of identical molecules with identical KE in the top plane and a higher level of identical KE in the lower plane then, if we assume there are no molecules between the two planes and that molecules somehow only bounce back and forth vertically between the planes, then the difference in KE per molecule between the planes must match the difference in gravitational PE for each molecule. If it does not, then changes will occur, because molecules would arrive at their next collision with more or less KE than the one they strike, thus altering its KE. It’s not hard to understand. Unless the KE matches there will be further heat transfers, just as happens with conduction in a horizontal plane.
You can also visualize a long thin horizontal sealed insulated tube of argon that is then rotated about its mid point to a vertical position. You know that the Second Law tells us a density gradient will form (because PE changes play a part in entropy changes) and that means there is net movement of molecules downwards. As they move downwards they gain KE due to gravity. So we end up with more mean KE per molecule (thus warmer temperature) at the bottom, with no propensity for that to change once the density gradient is stabilized in the state of maximum entropy that we call thermodynamic equilibrium.
And you are ignoring the density difference between the two vertical layers. It completely negates your analysis. This has been pointed out to you repeatedly, and you cannot understand its signficance.
It does nothing of the kind. A basic assumption of Kinetic Theory is that the absolute temperature is proportional to the mean molecular kinetic energy. Varying the density with more or fewer identical molecules does not alter the temperature.
Now answer the seven questions.
The detailed refutation regarding the cylinder conjecture is on this page, so I have nothing more to add to that.
As I have said many times, you could have saved us each time by reading the original paper written two years ago.
Go back to this comment and, if necessary, the one above.
Footnote (to all):
As explained in the paper linked from the second page of our website, more intense energy flows (such as in the stratosphere and the ocean thermoclines) can over-ride the slow diffusion process that depends upon molecular collisions, and thus on the parameters relating the molecular velocity, spacing etc.
Mow, this happens when the ends of the two tubes with different temperature gradients are joined and are thus “forced” to have equal temperatures. When it happens the temperature gradients are modified until equilibrium associated with the overall heat transfer rates is established. We can call this “hydrostatic equilibrium” and it is also what occurs as you control the temperature of the cooler end of a metal rod that is conducting heat.
So we know there must be some feedback mechanism, and it is due to the fact that molecules move randomly in all directions. Hence, even in Earth’s outer crust, the temperature profile in boreholes between, say, 9Km and 5Km depth extrapolates to the surface temperature because of the feedback mechanism closely associated with heat creep.
Curt,
Wow! I saw that Doug is schooling you on Entropy. An MIT/Stanford student educated in the physics of thermodynamics and he is sending you a link on hte concept of entropy. I guess since he is from Australia he is not aware of the prestige these schools have and how it is important to reputation to have well educated students.
Yes thermodynamics has been my area of specialization since attending lectures by the well known team Profs Harry Messel, Werner von Braun and Julius Sumner Miller in the early 1960’s – all in Wikipedia. Calls to authority, indeed!
Come back Curt and Norman when you can answer those seven questions, as I asked you to do here. That will test your understanding of thermodynamics. Deadline February 22nd.
PS: In that I have a son (with a PhD) who is living in New York, I do hear a bit about the United States of Arrogance. I wonder if you hear a little about what comes out of Australia, such as this invention made by my great uncle which may have changed the outcome of World War II …
“In 1940, whilst at the University of Sydney, Professor Cotton invented the “Cotton aerodynamic anti-G flying suit” (G-suit), which prevented pilots from blacking out when making high speed turns or pulling out of a dive. This was used extensively by pilots in the Allied air forces during World War II.[1][5]
“Cotton was also responsible for the ergometer, a machine to test the athletic potential of sportsmen and women. Cotton claimed through this machine to have discovered the swimmers Jon Henricks and Judy-Joy Davies. The Australian swimming coach, Forbes Carlile, began his career as an assistant to Cotton.[1][5]”
And yes Norman and Curt, MIT/Stanford etc etc have not yet caught up with the 21st century breakthrough in thermodynamics which explains the very necessary heat creep (downward diffusion and convective heat transfer that can transfer thermal energy from cooler to warmer regions as it restores thermodynamic equilibrium)* for which there is evidence on all planets.
In fact, to my knowledge, only one other researcher has written (independently) about such here but I was not aware of his writings until last year.
* Explained (with evidence) in this 18 page paper I wrote two years ago.
Curt and Norman:
Go back to this comment.
And in this comment you will find the final nail in the coffin of Maxwell’s little thought experiment with the two cylinders.
You could have read the Conclusions (Section 16) I wrote two years ago here and I quote …
When Maxwell and Boltzmann dismissed Loschmidt’s postulate of a gravity gradient they did the world a great disservice, and they contributed to a belief in a non-existent warming by an imaginary radiative greenhouse effect. The subsequent “calls to authority” should be a lesson for all in the scientific world, for this has resulted in an absolute travesty of physics. The greenhouse conjecture will inevitably take its brief place in history as the biggest and most costly mistake ever in the field of human scientific endeavor. Hopefully that will be soon.
Scientists, be they climatologists, physicists or whatever, need to step outside the square and to adopt a paradigm shift based on, and supported by 21st century science. Dr Hans Jelbring and Roderich Graeff have each made significant contributions which must now be heeded before the mistake is perpetuated by those who now have personal vested interests in maintaining the status quo.
Climate has in fact been following natural cycles [28] as shown in the Appendix to the author’s paper on Radiated Energy [1] and the world can expect a period of about 500 years of cooling to start within 50 to 200 years from now.
The Loschmidt gravity-induced thermal gradient is more than enough to explain the proverbial “33 degrees of warming” and in fact the dry adiabatic lapse rate would lead to a mean surface temperature of about 25°C were it not for water vapor and, yes, to a much smaller extent, carbon dioxide reducing the gradient and causing lower base surface temperatures. In the Appendix is an outline of methodology that would almost certainly produce studies which would demonstrate the cooling effect of water in locations around the world.
Thermal energy can and does “creep” up the very shallow thermal gradients in planetary atmospheres and also in their solid crusts and mantles, supporting sub-surface temperatures. Indeed the physics of “heat creep” resolves the long-term puzzles of planetary core and surface temperatures, and, for this very reason, begs attention and claims validity for this 21st century new paradigm shift in climate change science.
Doug,
I have read much of your ideas and I still think they are wrong. I think your flaw is oversimplification of kinetics. I suggested earlier about the significance of the mean free path of a molecule in a gas (which is around 93 nanometers for gas at sea level).
This short distance is how long a molecule may move before hitting another molecule and changing direction and energy.
If you use this in a calcualation.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equations_for_a_falling_body
Instantaneous velocity \ v_i\ of a falling object that has travelled distance \ d\
The molecule can move downward for around 93 nanometers before it collides with another molecule.
If you use the equation to find out how much this distance will change its speed it comes out to:
speed= Square Root (2*9.8 m/sec^2 * 93^10-9)
speed=0.00135 meters/sec.
This small gain of velocity added to a molecule moving with a velocity of 500 meters/sec is not going to do much to its temperature going up or down and that is why you get an isothermal atmosphere when there is no energy input and very little wind like in the stratosphere (for several kilometers, but you don’t really have a good explanation for this).
“The point where the environmental temperature profile established by
convection intersects at higher altitudes the nearly isothermal profile consistent with pure
radiative equilibrium is effectively the tropopause”
From this document:
http://ruc.noaa.gov/AMB_Publications_bj/2009%20Schlatter_Atmospheric%20Composition%20and%20Vertical%20Structure_eae319MS-1.pdf
What you need is to provide a convincing explanation for how a molecule higher in the atmosphere can transmit gravitational energy downward to the surface when collisions are random and have no net direction up or down but would tend to equalize in a probability distribution. You should provide the necessary mathematical equations to support your belief that molecules can transmit kinetic energy downward via collision mechanism.
Hi Norman.
I think that your citation: “The point where the environmental temperature profile established by convection intersects at higher altitudes the nearly isothermal profile consistent with pure radiative equilibrium is effectively the tropopause” confirms exactly the opposite, that is to get the isothermal condition you need a “radiative” effect to establish the equilibrium there.
Maybe I misunderstood the subject of your argumentation with Doug, but if I’m not wrong, we were talking about the existence of an isothermal atmosphere in absence of GHGs, that is without any energy I/O in the atmospheric profile, with energy I/O just at the ground level.
I’m still convinced that it can’t exist.
Have a great day.
Massimo
Massimo PORZIO
I agree with you that if energy is added to one part of the system then isothermal conditions will not exist. My argument with Doug is his “heat creep” theory. I am not thinking it is correct in any way.
In the tropopause where no convection is taking place and little to no energy is being added to this region an isothermal gradient is the pattern.
I fail to see how Doug’s theory trumps any of the standard explanations for heat flow. Planet cores are hot from gravitational collapse and radioactive decay, and the heat moves outward from the core developing a gradient (hotter near the source cools as you move away) which is the what happens to heat sources.
His vortex tube explanation does not equate with what is actually happening in the tube (if he took the time to measure temps inside and not rely on a Wikepidia diagram). The coolest region is at the injection point of the gas. It does not continue to cool as it moves down the tube (spinning in a vortex) but warms slightly.
Hi Norman,
Ok, I never entered this debate because I just took a look to the diagram of the vortex tube, but I never investigated more.
Anyways, when a gravitational field exists, I’m convinced that the isothermal condition doesn’t exist even when the energy input and the energy output are on the very same side.
Have a great day.
Massimo
“Planet cores are hot from gravitational collapse and radioactive decay,”
Not necessarily. Uranus is not collapsing and not emitting significantly more energy than it receives from the Sun, so it’s not generating nuclear energy or just cooling off.
You can’t prove that every planet generates just the right amount of thermal energy this way in order to maintain just the right temperature gradients based on -g/Cp all the way from the core to the radiating altitude where it is then just the right temperature. How does the “core” know what temperature it ought to be to make that happen? Heat creep provides the answer.
Now, answer the seven questions, including the question about the Moon’s core which is hotter than 1300°C. Given that the Venus surface cools 5 degrees in 4 months at night, why has it not cooled right down? How does its surface get energy to warm back up the next day? Heat creep.
Draw from memory the heat creep diagrams in the paper and explain why the (PE+KE) axis is inclined at an angle to the temperature axis.
Until you can answer that question, you continue to demonstrate to hundreds of past and future silent readers of this thread that you have absolutely no understanding of the thermodynamics involved.
Regarding the vortex tube, I have used data about temperatures inside, the centrifugal force developed and the dimensions of the tube and I have published the calculations (using this data) which show there is a -g/Cp gradient therein, just as I would expect.
I could have invented the vortex tube myself and it would have done just as I would have expected.
It proves beyond doubt that isothermal conditions do not exist in a force field, and thus disproves your wild conjecture that runs against what is observed in every planetary troposphere and the vortex tube. Your conjecture is not supported in any way by the Second Law of Thermodynamics (because entropy is not at a maximum in isothermal conditions) whereas mine is developed directly from the Second Law.
I have previously told you where you can read those calculations in the Talk page for the Wikipedia article. They are there with my name on them.
At the injection point there is the biggest difference in temperature between the center line and the circumference of the Vortex tube. See Section 6 of this paper. This is not surprising because the centrifugal force is greatest near the injection point.
Massimo wrote: “we were talking about the existence of an isothermal atmosphere in absence of GHGs, that is without any energy I/O in the atmospheric profile, with energy I/O just at the ground level. I’m still convinced that it can’t exist.”
You have every right to be convinced that isothermal conditions can’t exist in a planet’s troposphere, Massimo, just like others in our group with an understanding of Kinetic Theory are as convinced as you and I are.
It is only Norman here who has wild imaginings that molecules near the surface that have collided with surface molecules, thus acquiring similar kinetic energy (and temperature) could thus rise and yet not cool. Yep. That’s what he wants them to do – rise against gravity whilst gaining PE but not losing KE. In simple terms, he wants them to create energy and he’s having a spot of trouble trying to convince you and me, Massimo – and probably hundreds of silent readers also, who no doubt realize Norman is wrong.
Norman writes and I reply in the inserted bold …
What you need is to provide a convincing explanation for how a molecule higher in the atmosphere can transmit gravitational energy downward to the surface no I don’t because I never did claim any single molecule would do that. when collisions are random and have no net direction up or down True in thermodynamic equilibrium; not true when a new heat source then disrupts thermodynamic equilibrium, whether that be a heated solid surface on a sunny morning, or a heated region in the 59K methane layer in the stratosphere of Uranus. but would tend to equalize in a probability distribution.Yes, after the thermodynamic equilibrium has been disturbed and the Sun sets that day, there will be a propensity (in calm conditions) to for (PE+KE) to be homogeneous (as entropy increases to a maximum) and thus there evolves the temperature gradient that we observe in every planetary troposphere – the best proof ever of the Loschmidt gravito-thermal effect. You should provide the necessary mathematical equations to support your belief that molecules can transmit kinetic energy downward via collision mechanism.”Well, molecules can certainly transmit kinetic energy in all directions when you open your car doors in the garage. You’re the one who likes experiments. I have produced such proof – see the 18 page paper that you still haven’t read, or you would know the calculations of the -g/Cp gradient are there, as they are also in my book.
Now, back to your seven exam questions, Norman.
PS: You should also know an important point that is in my hypothesis Norman regarding the “isothermal profile consistent with pure radiative equilibrium” so explain it in your own words – so it sinks in, Norman.
Hint: |dry lapse rate| > |wet lapse rate|
“I have read much of your ideas and I still think they are wrong.”
Then that is because you cannot answer the question below about the heat creep diagrams. You need to spend more time studying the paper and those diagrams.
Norman you demonstrate in that last comment that you have no understanding of what’s going on. Go and climb some giant staircase, say 1Km high, but don’t bother measuring the temperature difference at each step because, as you ought to know, all the little differences add up to the big 7 degree picture.
Have you never heard of mathematical induction? Try two planes of molecules separated by mean free path. Then try three planes. Then apply mathematical induction to extend to the whole troposphere. Really, Norman, you just don’t think.
Above the troposphere there is a temperature inversion because ozone absorbs energy more rapidly than it can be dispersed by diffusion, conduction and convective heat transfers. So the tropopause is just a temperature “valley” and actually has a curved profile on most planets as the negative gradient in the troposphere “lap dissolves” into a positive gradient in the stratosphere. Your approximately isothermal profile up there proves.
Every little molecular collision counts Norman. If you applied your conjecture in your garage when you have just driven in your car full of much hotter air, then you would deduce that, when you open the car doors, no change could happen because the temperature difference is so small between molecules separated by 93 nanometers that you would ignore it.
It doesn’t matter that molecular motion is in random directions, because a heat source will drive net molecular motion away from that source in all accessible directions. And, as it does so, there is likewise net kinetic energy transferring away from the new source of thermal energy.
While ever you try to prove me wrong Norman, I will continue to point out your misunderstandings, because what is in my 18 page page is right. I know that because I use empirical evidence, experiments and studies of real world and solar system data to confirm I’m right in the hypothesis.
You still have 7 exam questions to answer Norman by February 22nd when your exam time runs out and you fail. You could start by estimating the sensitivity for a 1% increase in the greenhouse gas water vapor, and then produce real world data to support your guestimate.
I have produced a study of real world data (at the end of the February 2013 paper) showing water vapor cools. To support the radiative forcing scam, you need to produce a similar study showing WV warms, and that it is realistic to assume that between 1% and 2% causes about 30 degrees of warming. There is no such study Norman, because, whilst it has no doubt been done, like mine, it would have shown the opposite of what the AGW crowd wanted to see.
For any new silent readers just joining us the evidence referred to above is here and in more detail in the first linked paper which proves the hypothesis that explains the temperatures in tropospheres, surfaces, crusts, mantles and cores of all planets and satellite moons. The Home page of our group’s website gives a brief outline of the hypothesis.
There is no other paper in world literature that presents both the valid physics and the empirical support, whilst explaining temperatures and, more importantly, the processes that produce the required thermal energy transfers. This is light years ahead of the greenhouse scam science, which of course the paper proves incorrect.
<b?So, to Roy, Norman, Curt, MikeB and all the skeptics of our group's ground-breaking hypothesis I say …
Until you really study and think about the explanation of the “Heat Creep” diagrams in the website and the linked paper, you will never understand the hypothesis.
There is one simple question you need to be able to answer, because if you can’t then that demonstrates you don’t understand, and thus need to put more time into trying to understand. Obviously the paper explains in more detail than the brief summary in the website.
That question is …
“What is the significance in the heat creep diagrams of the fact that the (PE+KE) axis is inclined at a angle to the temperature axis?
When you can answer this question correctly, you will also be able to answer the seven questions I have asked about other planets and the Moon.
Doug Cotton,
I can tell by your responses that you are not understanding the view I am attempting to project about molecules in a gravitational field and why I see an isothermal structure at equilibrium conditions (no energy in or out).
Take any layer of atmosphere. With the large numbers of molecules you will average out that close to 50% are moving either up or down from the center of the layer.
The average speed of the molecules of this layer is 500 meters/second (around room temperature). For sake of clarity I am going to amplify the actual gravitational acceleration above what it would exist in a real situation.
Say the 50% down moving molecules are accelerated by gravity to 510 meters/second. Likewise those rising up are slowed by gravity to 490 meters/second.
Now you take the downward moving molecules moving at 510 meters/second and they collide with the next lowest layer where the molecules are moving upward at 490 meters/second. After a bunch of collisions and energy exchanges a new layer of molecules is formed that now move at 500 meters/second. The gravity field had no overall effect on the temperature.
On the other hand, with your car experiment. The hot car air say is moving at 600 meters/second. It meets with the next layer moving at 500 meters/second. After a bunch of exchanges the two layers now move at 550 meters/second. The car air is cooler but it warmed the next layer over. Now the second layer moving at 550 meters/second hits the next layer that is moving 500 meters/second. After a bunch of collisions and energy exchanges both layers are moving at 525 meters/second. Now the middle layer is cooler again than the first layer out from the hot car. So the 550 layer interacts with the 525 and they end up at 537.5
The process continues as each layer away from the car is heated and the car heat is cooled until a new equilibrium is established.
You can see that heat will flow away from a hot source and why and you can also see why molecules in a gravity field will not transmit energy down the field to make warmer faster moving molecules at the bottom.
Norman:
There is a glaring blunder in your three layer thought experiment. The molecules in the middle layer are all moving with speed 500m/sec regardless of their direction. The ones that happen to move upwards (initially at 500m/sec) will be slowed down by gravity during the course of that upward movement, getting down to 490m/sec when they get to the top layer. So all molecules up there are moving in all directions at 490m/sec and so the temperature is cooler. Molecules in the middle layer that were moving initially at 500m/sec, but happened to move downwards, accelerate under the force of gravity (just like a stone falling) and get up to 510m/sec only when they get to the lower layer, where the temperature is thus warmer than the middle layer.
Furthermore, you can see we have thermodynamic equilibrium because there is no net transfer of KE in collisions wherein the two molecules have the same KE just before colliding. If one in the lower layer (colliding at 510m/sec) happens to then go back upwards, it will be slowed down by gravity (like a stone thrown upwards) and get down to just the right speed of 500m/sec when it arrives at the middle layer. So no problem – there’s no change in the KE of either molecule because they each had the same KE just before the collision. That’s why it is thermodynamic equilibrium with that temperature gradient.
Now Norman, you could have read all this in a similar thought experiment already my paper two years ago. I think an apology is in order for wasting so much of my time because of your blunt refusal to read the paper, study it and understand it in the process, as physicists are doing among nearly 1,000 visitors each week to the http://climate-change-theory.com website. Until you can answer the question about the heat creep diagrams, you simply just have not spent the time you need to in order to understand the hypothesis.
Norman writes “why I see an isothermal structure at equilibrium conditions”
That cannot be thermodynamic equilibrium in an isothermal column in a force field because there would be unbalanced energy potentials and so the Second Law of Thermodynamics tells us you are wrong. The explanation is in my paper written two years ago. Just one of many forms of empirical proof is seen in the vortex tube which can produce (from air at room temperature) separated streams of much hotter air and much colder air.
I never said that, if there is a state of thermodynamic equilibrium, gravity would move net thermal energy downwards or upwards or anywhere.
Unless you quote paragraphs from my paper you would be best saying nothing, because there is absolutely no point in your proving wrong things which I never claimed to be the case.
Now, start by answering the above question …
“What is the significance in the heat creep diagrams of the fact that the (PE+KE) axis is inclined at a angle to the temperature axis?
Then answer the other seven questions before your exam time runs out on February 22nd at midnight Pacific Time.
And Norman, I discussed your “experiment” nearly a year ago on Lucia’s Blackboard where I suggest you read my comments starting here.
Doug I have been to your website and read the material and I have pointed out clearly why I believe you are wrong. You are using potential energy incorrectly. You are not thinking of the atmosphere as a series of millions of layers where the potential energy of the upper atoms is only equal to the distance it can move in its layer. I gave you the example of the speed of molecules I only used 3 layers but in the real world atmosphere there would be millions of layers in a meter. You might get an unmeasurable temperature difference at the top layer and bottom layer.
I think you may have made an incorrect assumption about potential energy and how it applies to a system. A hydroelectric dam in the mountains vs one near sea level will not have more potential energy based upon its elevation. The available potential energy is how high the water is above the turbines. The potential and kinetic energy of molecules in the atmosphere will only be as much as they can freely move in that field before exchanging energy with other molecules and it is very little movement.
Norman writes “I gave you the example of the speed of molecules …” Go back to this comment regarding that example based on incorrect assumptions.
Then Norman writes “.. will not have more (gravitational) potential energy based upon its elevation.”
Not what a physicist would say. Try reading …
“The general form of the gravitational potential energy of mass m is:
U = -GMm/r
where G is the gravitation constant, M is the mass of the attracting body, and r is the distance between their centers.”
You see, Norman, that r relates to elevation.
PS: You could learn more about gravitational potential energy here and you need to, Norman, because it seems you were not concentrating in your high school days.
Firstly I use gravitational potential energy relative to sea level for all molecules, and, in any event only the difference in PE is used in the computations in Section 6 of the paper wherein I correctly derive the recognized and well accepted temperature gradient of -g/Cp. That derivation is done using the standard Kinetic Theory of Gases, as used successfully by Einstein and many others. The assumptions of that theory are here and I use those assumptions.
There is absolutely nothing in those standard assumptions in the Kinetic Theory of Gases which says anything remotely like your weird assumption that only the molecules which are moving faster go downwards and only those that are moving slower go upwards. If you want to “take on” our group of six (all suitably qualified in physics) you will continue to make a fool of yourself with thought experiments such as your last, which was a real corker that has all our members laughing. And, by the way, the molecules exchange kinetic energy in collisions, and they keep whatever gravitational potential energy they had at that height above sea level or whatever reference level you wish to set. The difference in PE equals the difference in KE in each and every passage of a molecule between collisions.
When are you going to study the “heat creep” diagrams and make a genuine effort to understand the correct physics in the paper that refers to those diagrams? When are you going to answer the remaining five of the seven questions, having not given correct answers to the first two?
Doug,
You want me to answer your questions how about you answer mine. Do you have any ability to reason? Can you comprehend anything? You totally cannot understand what I am saying at all!!
It does not help to converse with you when you intentionally act so stupid. Where in the world did you come up with the stupidest possible interpretation of what I was stating? You: “There is absolutely nothing in those standard assumptions in the Kinetic Theory of Gases which says anything remotely like your weird assumption that only the molecules which are moving faster go downwards and only those that are moving slower go upwards.”
That could qualify for a stupidest award if one existed.
I gave you an exaggerated (so hopefully you could grasp the concept which obviously you have zero ability to do so I should not even try, you are so obsessed with your own ego idea that you are unable to think anymore) example to demonstrate a point. It was not an actual real molecular motion and I did state that in my post but you are too blind to read. Sorry you need help in understanding points presented.
There is no further reason for me to waste time on your “heat creep” theory. It is a religious belief of yours and reason cannot penetrate it.
Why do you use sea level for your potential for all molecules. What physics is this? Sounds quite arbitrary to me. So if you were tasked with building a hydroelectric dam would you use sea level as the potential energy of the water stored in your dam? I know what your error is but you or your group cannot see it at all and will continue to peddle your false physics on blogs that allow your crap.
Norman:
It’s pointless. Doug has this “idee fixe”, as the French call it, that the gravitational potential energy should be factored into these types of calculation, even when it is not being converted to potential energy by “falling”. Now, many a teenaged physics student has had this thought, and it is worth considering.
But if you have an open mind about it, you quickly realize that it gets you into blatant physical contradictions, as simple thought experiments of low complexity show very clearly. Maxwell’s 150-year-old one should have settled the matter. Similar ones on blogs by Robert Brown and Tim Folkerts illustrate the point nicely as well.
In the real world, ultra-high-speed centrifuges and flywheels are a daily disproof of Doug’s theories. They would not be possible if the temperature gradients Doug predicts actually occur.
But just as a dog does not have the cognitive ability to untangle its leash if it gets wrapped around things, Doug does not have the rigorous conceptual background required for the capability to analyze these problems, scientifically or logically. Even the idealized four-stage problem of Maxwell is beyond his abilities. I laid it out for him step by step, accepting his physics, and he couldn’t follow it.
(He has maintained for years that if the vertical gradient is less than adiabatic, it will spontaneously evolve toward adiabatic through his “heat creep” mechanism. When I show that the top and bottom horizontal conductors will produce a lapse rate in one column less than adiabatic, he tried to argue back that (1) there was a vertical lapse rate in the conductors [irrelevant], (2) that heat creep wouldn’t occur in this case [against his own theories], and (3) that that heat creep wouldn’t affect the temperatures.)
He also doesn’t understand basic ideas of scientific investigation that you analyze simple systems first to isolate particular physical effects — this is the whole purpose of laboratories. So when you propose the simplest possible experiements, thought or laboratory, that would test his theories, he veers off to the atmosphere of Uranus, where there are many competing effects of which we understand very little.
The really funny thing, though, is that this is irrelevant to his bigger argument about the greenhouse effect. Whether a completely transparent atmosphere would tend toward isothermal conditions or adiabatic lapse rate conditions does not alter the fact that in either case, the planet’s surface must radiate as much power to space as it receives from the sun, so the lapse rate would not affect the surface temperature for a transparent atmosphere.
The constant of integration to turn the lapse rate into actual temperatures (what Doug calls the “anchor point”) is the surface regardless of the lapse rate.
But with an opaque atmosphere, the “top of atmosphere” must radiate as much power to space as it receives from the sun, so this is where the constant of integration comes from to set absolute temperatures, whether the lapse rate comes from gravity alone or from the gradient from radiative absorption and re-emission limited by convection.
So his whole argument about heat creep is irrelevant anyway.
Go back to this comment.
You have come in late. The “two cylinder” thought experiment has been discussed on Roy’s thread for the January temperature data, and is also refuted on the “WUWT errors” page at http://climate-change-theory.com
A transparent atmosphere would enable the surface to receive sufficient solar radiation (342W/m^2) to support a mean temperature of 9°C which is about the mean annual temperature at an “average” location near the sea at latitude about half way to the poles – such as Imvercargill at the southern tip of New Zealand. I suggest that the 14°C or 15°C mean temperature postulated by the IPCC is overstated and ignores temperatures such as -60°C in the Antarctic winter.
But in the real world, because the atmosphere does reflect and absorb about half the solar insolation, the surface only absorbs about 168W/m^2 of direct solar radiation and that has a black body temperature of only about -41°C and so we have to explain at least 50C° of temperature difference. This is not due to back radiation but to the gravito-thermal effect and the resulting heat creep processes explained in my paper written February 2013. I am not interested in red herrings and thought experiments supposedly disproving teh physics in that paper. Either discuss the content in detail or keep to yourself.
Go back to this comment regarding the two cylinders. Also read the one above it.
Curt,
How much more can you take?
You and he are beggars for punishment. Many silent readers must be laughing at you. Over 800 of Roy’s readers have now visited http://climate-change-theory.com and I don’t see anyone referring to any paragraphs in the website or linked paper and then explaining any errors therein with valid physics.
(I’m loving this.)
Go to this comment.
No Curt. Quite the opposite because high speed centrifuge machines do create a temperature gradient with colder air at the center, even down to 1°K.
See this comment and the following ones.
Regarding why the two cylinder thought experiment does not prove that the brilliant 19th century physicist, Josef Loschmidt was wrong, read my paper and then you will understand the “WUWT errors” page on the website and this comment on Roy’s blog that refutes Robert Brown type arguments. You will not understand it until you understand the heat creep diagrams in the website and (with more detailed explanation) in the linked paper.
Doug:
When will you get it through that thick skull of yours that ACCEPTING your heat creep argument is what leads to physical contradictions? The horizontal conductors (which you have incredibly tried to claim would have a vertical lapse rate…) lead to a less-than-adiabatic lapse rate in the cylinder with the lower Cp.
It is YOUR claim that “heat creep” would lead to a downward conduction of heat is this cylinder, not mine! And it is this claim of YOURS that leads to the MACROSCOPIC continual cycling of heat through and between the cylinders, in clear violation of the 2nd Law.
And because you are utterly incapable of following a simple logical and scientific argument, I will spell out the converse to you. I am arguing, along with Gibbs, Maxwell, and Boltzmann, that there is no downward “heat creep” against the temperature gradient. If you follow MY argument to its logical conclusion, you get thermal AND thermodynamic equilibrium in and between the cylinders, with no 2nd Law violations.
So let’s summarize the errors Norman has made for the benefit of Roy and hundreds of silent readers, present and future …
(1) He claimed the vortex tube does not generate centrifugal force, and yet the very paper that he himself linked had those exact words “centrifugal force” staring him in the face.
(2) He thought that water in a dam at the top of a mountain had no more gravitational potential energy than an identical mass of water at a lower height above sea level. But standard physics tells us such energy is mgh where h is the height above a reference level, usually sea level. All I used in the derivation of the -g/Cp temperature gradient in my paper was the difference in gravitational PE, so that only depends on the difference in height. We are in effect talking about the derivative with respect to h of a linear function in h which derivative is of course constant.
(3) He thought that with his 500m/sec air molecules that there would be different speeds in each layer. Those in the layer above (where they should all be 490m/sec) could apparently have downward ones already at 510m/sec. He did not understand that gravity acts over the distance (having units of acceleration) and so a molecule gradually slows down from 500m/sec to 490m/sec as it rises over that distance between the planes.
(4) He thought that the temperature at the base of the 350Km high nominal troposphere of Uranus was the estimated 320K (hotter than Earth’s surface) because the small solid core (55% the mass of Earth) thousands of kilometers further down was somehow keeping the whole troposphere at just the right temperatures (for billions of years) such that just the right -g/Cp temperature gradient exists in that 350Km high troposphere so that the temperature gets down to just the right 59K effective radiating temperature at just the right altitude in the stratosphere of Uranus where there is a methane layer absorbing virtually all the very weak solar radiation that is about 0.1% of what Earth receives.
Instead, as I have explained with diagrams and valid physics, it is heat creep (obeying the Second Law of Thermodynamics) from that 59K cold methane layer in the stratosphere of Uranus which keeps all the planet (including its core) at existing temperatures, and will continue to do so for billions of years, at least if the Sun’s temperature remains constant.
Doug Cotton,
2) My point on the dam high or low was that you could not get more energy from the water of a mountain dam than you could from a lower level dam. The only energy you can get from a hydroelectric dam is the water level above the spinning turbine. A mountain dam with water 100 meters high behind the dam will not generate more energy than a lower level dam with 100 meters of water behind the dam. Why is this hard for you to understand?
1) My point on the vortex tube was that centrifugal force separating lower and higher energy molecules was not the reason given for temperature variation out of the tube.
3) You do not understand my point on this and no matter how many times I explain it you consider it a flaw without understanding my point. It is useless to pursue this avenue further, you are not capable of understanding it.
4) Does Uranus troposphere convect like Earth’s? What is driving the convection?
2) But you can still get more energy from the water – just send it down a pipe and into the lower dam. So what, anyway? You’ve at last looked at the paper and seen that a straight forward equating of the loss in gravitational potential energy with the gain in kinetic energy is fully sufficient to explain the “dry” temperature gradient -g/Cp as is observed on all planets, and is most certainly not isothermal. So your ridiculous guesswork (with no law of physics to support it) is completely demolished in just two lines. It is indeed such a simple mistake you made not realizing that isothermal conditions cannot possibly represent the state of maximum entropy, now can they?
1) Yes centrifugal force was explained as causing a pressure gradient and, like most climatologists, the author thought it was the pressure gradient that caused the temperature gradient. He is wrong and I am right, because the force field can only act on molecules, not on an abstract thing like pressure. The force field (centrifugal or gravity) forms a density gradient and a temperature gradient. The Ideal Gas Law then lets you deduce that there is a pressure gradient, because it says pressure is proportional to the product of temperature and density.
3) I fully understand what you are thinking, but you are wrong. Why the hell do you think only the faster molecules will move downwards and that there will be slower upward moving ones which are the only ones waiting below to collide with the speedy downward ones and acquire some of their surplus KE? Does that sound like a state of thermodynamic equilibrium with kinetic energy still changing during collisions? Yes or no, Norman.
4) On the dark side of Uranus the cooling atmosphere drives diffusion and convective heat transfer upwards towards the methane layer in the stratosphere which is the main region where energy can be radiated back to space. On the “day” side the diffusion and convective heat transfer are downwards from the methane layer that is being warmed by the Sun. On Venus, the radiation also takes place mostly in the upper atmosphere where the temperature is less than about 400K. Earth has a bit of a mixture of different processes in different locations, because there are relatively rare instances where there can be a few hours of direct sunlight on a clear day which will have the potential to raise the temperature of solid surface regions, bit not oceans or polar ice caps.
Now you could have answered the last question yourself if you had read and understood the paper, rather than just scanning for computations which you did not even realize proved you wrong.
Doug:
Norman has provided answers to your questions (even if you don’t like his answers). But you have dodged the questions on ultra-high-speed centrifuges for over a week now.
So I ask you specific questions on these now:
You have a closed glass test tube full of air, radially oriented in a centrifuge. The inner end of the tube is at 0.1 meter radius; the outer end of the tube is at 0.2 meter radius. (If you need these values, the air is sealed into the tube at 25C and 1 atm.)
The centrifuge outside of the tube is evacuated to a very high vacuum and the tube is spun up to a 100,000 rpm. With a vacuum and magnetic bearings, virtually no steady-state power is required to maintain this speed.
The questions are:
1.) What steady-state lapse rate do you predict will develop at the inner end of the tube?
2.) What steady-stage lapse rate do you predict will develop at the outer end of the tube?
3.) What total steady-state temperature difference do you predict there will be for the air between the inner and outer ends of the tube?
4.) What absolute temperatures do you predict there will be at the inner and outer ends of the tube?
To keep the math easy, you may assume for the gas a Cp of exactly 1.0 kJ/kg/K.
Show your work.
Firstly, I have responded to Norman’s “answers” some of which were still questions.
“What steady-state lapse rate do you predict will develop at the inner end of the tube?” you ask, Curt.
Assuming you are asking about the radial temperature gradient, then that gradient would be similar to that observed in the radial direction of any cross sectional circle in the vortex tube if the tube were of similar dimensions. My calculations for the thin vortex tube, with radius about 5mm, have been in the Talk page for the Wikipedia “Vortex tube” article for nearly a year now. However, your tube has far too great a diameter for practical purposes and would get far too hot and melt. We don’t even know how the specific heat would vary with such temperatures, though we know it gets much higher in Earth’s mantle, explaining the far less steep gradient there. Anyway, that’s why vortex tubes have to be thin – like about 5mm radius, and I can’t be bothered with your remaining questions because neither you nor I know what would happen to specific heat values at many thousands of degrees. The temperature difference of about 250 degrees is sufficient for practical use with a vortex tube where the hot stream can be about 200°C and the cold stream about -50°C. It is usually the cold stream that is put to practical use because there are lots of other ways to heat air.
Doug:
You say, “I can’t be bothered with your remaining questions because neither you nor I know what would happen to specific heat values at many thousands of degrees.”
You, sir, are a FRAUD! Any competent scientist would know there are tables for these values and would have them in easy reach.
You also say, “your tube has far too great a diameter for practical purposes and would get far too hot and melt.”
Well, I’m glad you have at least made a qualitative prediction. The only problem is that your prediction is completely wrong! Ultra-high-speed centrifuges are used successfully every day with parameters like the ones I gave you. And nothing melts! It’s a complete experimental contradiction of your hypothesis.
Centrifuge machines do create a temperature gradient with colder air at the center, even down to 1°K.
See this comment and following ones.
The fact that a commercial centrifuge like this one requires a built in refrigeration unit. It’s pretty obvious that it is developing a radial temperature gradient.
Footnote: It is not hard for a refrigeration unit (or some other cooling mechanism) to avoid excessively hot temperatures in a commercial machine (such as shown in the above link) because the total thermal energy is limited to what it started with. So removing thermal energy lowers the whole temperature profile. But the center does not get down to absolute zero of course, because the centrifugal force is not great near the center. Such units are not designed to produce cold air, whereas a vortex tube is, and we know the cold stream from the center can be 50 degrees below freezing point.
Doug:
Have you ever heard of air friction? Spinning at high speed through an atmosphere creates a lot of frictional heating. With or without a temperature gradient in the tube.
I have repeatedly pointed out that the very high-speed centrifuges (and energy storage flywheels) spin in a high vacuum, both to avoid this heating and to reduce the power necessary to maintain the high speed.
Sorry to have to prove you wrong yet again Curt, but centrifuge machines do create a temperature gradient with colder air at the center, even down to 1°K. See this comment and the following ones.
By the way, why are you asking about temperature differences between the ends of the tube rather than radially between the circumference and the center line? Don’t you know what happens in a vortex tube despite all the explanation on our website in the “Evidence” page and the “WUWT errors” page at http://climate-change-theory.com ?
It’s OK – I see your tube is radially oriented to start with – not like the Vortex tube at all because the force acts along your tube, whereas the force is radial in the vortex tube.
I can’t imagine any practical way of measuring temperatures in your radially oriented tube, so it’s a useless experiment. In contrast, temperatures can and have been measured in a Ranque Hilsch vortex tube and, as I have shown here, the temperature gradient is indeed the quotient of the acceleration due to the centrifugal force and the weighted mean specific heat of the gas. We know that temperature differences of around 250C° can be achieved in a distance of only about 5mm along a radius. You have no other valid explanation.
QED
If you had bothered to actually read counter-arguments, you would have known that several weeks ago, I proposed an easy way to evaluate whether your temperature gradient occurs or not in these ultra-centrifuges.
If you put a tiny slip of paper at the outer end of the tube, if your theories are correct, it should combust as it would reach a temperature greater than 509K (remember the book Fahrenheit 451?).
And since you claim that this lapse rate occurs in solids as well, the glass test tube should melt at the end.
THESE THINGS SIMPLY DO NOT HAPPEN!!!
As I have mentioned to you several times — and you have completely ignored — energy storage flywheels spin at these speeds (in a vacuum) with far greater radii than 5mm. And there is no temperature gradient! According to you, they should melt down at the outside almost immediately.
WHY DON’T THEY???
They do. High speed centrifuge machines do create a temperature gradient with colder air at the center, even down to 1°K.
See this comment and the following ones.
In case you missed it, Norman (and Curt), there’s a detailed explanation as to why your 500m/sec thought experiment is wrong in this comment where you will see that I most certainly understood your argument, but was easily able to pinpoint where you went wrong with that argument due to your lack of understanding of Kinetic Theory and what molecules actually do in free flight and collisions.
I remind you also that I have correctly refuted the “two cylinder cum perpetual motion machine” thought experiment, so you have nothing left, especially when your isothermal conjecture would be contrary to the Second Law of Thermodynamics, as I have told you from the outset.
Once again, Norman, you could have saved us all time by making an effort to understand the paper.
Doug:
Your attempts to reject the “two-cylinder” refutation of your theories depend on you denying your very own hypothesis.
You have claimed for years that a vertical column of gas, if it has a temperature gradient less than the adiabatic lapse rate, will “spontaneously evolve” to the adiabatic lapse rate by “heat creep” transferring heat downward until this lapse rate is reached.
But even with a column starting at the ALR, horizontal conduction of heat from a column with lesser lapse rate will heat the top of this column, reducing the gradient below ALR.
YOUR PHYSICS say that this will cause the downward “heat creep” that attempts to restore the ALR. The other column will have upward heat transfer to restore its ALR. To maintain conservation of energy (1st Law), there must be continual cyclic heat flows, in violation of the 2nd Law.
When this was pointed out to you, you denied that there would be heat creep in this case, in violation of your own theories. You can’t even be consistent!
Curt: There is no contradiction whatsoever. Heat creep does occur up one side and this proves it happens. Of course there is cyclic motion of kinetic energy, but there is no detectable change in temperature at any point once hydrostatic equilibrium is attained. You can’t create a perpetual motion machine out of it. There’s no violation of the laws of thermodynamics.
I have already explained the cyclic motion in this comment above. I suggest you read all my comments before writing again, especially the four molecule one below that I first wrote nearly a year ago on “The Blackboard” blog. There is absolutely no violation of the Second Law anywhere in anything I write. Your problem is that you just don’t understand entropy.
One of these years when you really study the heat creep diagrams, Curt, and you’ve spent many thousands of hours on all this, as I have, you will realize I’ve been right all along. You’re wrong because you can’t explain the energy transfers on Uranus or Venus just for starters. Don’t forget to read the four molecule experiment below which you cannot refute.
See also this comment regarding the Second Law.
Doug:
In my particular instance of Maxwell’s two-cylinder thought experiment, I let you start out with (different) adiabatic lapse rates in the two cylinders with the same temperature at the bottoms of the two cylinders.
To put particular numbers on the problem, both columns were at 300K at the bottom. The column with the higher Cp was at 290K at the top; the column with the lower Cp was at 280K at the top.
With these columns now thermodynamically isolated from the rest of the universe, the tops of the columns are now connected by a horizontal solid conductor. This starts conducting thermal energy from the first column at 290K to the second column at 280K.
This has the effect of lowering the temperature of the top of the first column below 290K and raising the temperature of the top of the second column above 280K, thus reducing its lapse rate to less than the adiabatic lapse rate.
Simple question: In this situation, do you believe that “heat creep” in the second column would conduct thermal energy downward to try to restore the adiabatic lapse rate in the column? Why or why not?
Doug: It’s a very simple question for someone who has spent thousands of hours on this subject. I’m waiting…
And both of you should read the refutation of Norman’s molecule thought experiment which I wrote nearly a year ago here on the Blackboard blog site. See also my earlier and subsequent comments on that thread where I tied a Skeptical Science author in knots.
I’ll copy that comment on the Blackboard here …
Doug Cotton (Comment #126576)
March 11th, 2014 at 2:45 am
An isothermal profile in a gravitational field is not isentropic, for the simple reason that, firstly you are assuming all molecules have the same kinetic energy, but secondly, we know the ones at the top have more gravitational potential energy.
So, consider the following initial state …
Molecules at top: More PE + equal KE
Molecules at bottom: Less PE + equal KE
In such a situation you have an unbalanced energy potential because the molecules at the top have more energy than those at the bottom. Hence you do not have the state of maximum entropy, because work can be done.
Let’s consider an extremely simple case of two molecules (A & B) in an upper layer and two (C & D) in a lower layer. We will assume KE = 20 initially and give PE values such that the difference in PE is 4 units …
At top: A (PE=14 + KE=20) B (PE=14 + KE=20)
At bottom: C (PE=10 + KE=20) D (PE=10 + KE=20)
Now suppose A collides with C. In free flight it loses 4 units of PE and gains 4 units of KE. When it collides with C it has 24 units of KE which is then shared with C so they both have 22 units of KE.
Now suppose D collides with B. In free flight it loses 4 units of KE and gains 4 units of PE. When it collides with B it has 16 units of KE which is then shared with B so they both have 18 units of KE.
So we now have
At top: B (PE=14 + KE=18) D (PE=14 + KE=18)
At bottom: A (PE=10 + KE=22) C (PE=10 + KE=22)
So we have a temperature gradient because mean KE at top is now 18 and mean KE at bottom is now 22, a difference of 4.
Note also that now we have a state of maximum entropy and no unbalanced energy potentials. You can keep on imagining collisions, but they will all maintain KE=18 at top and KE=22 at bottom. Voila! We have thermodynamic equilibrium.
But, now suppose the top ones absorb new solar energy (at the top of the Venus atmosphere) and they now have KE=20. They are still cooler than the bottom ones, so what will happen now that the previous equilibrium has been disturbed?
Consider two more collisions like the first.
We start with
At top: B (PE=14 + KE=20) D (PE=14 + KE=20)
At bottom: A (PE=10 + KE=22) C (PE=10 + KE=22)
If B collides with A it has 24 units of KE just before the collision, but then after sharing they each have 23 units. Similarly, if C collides with D they each end up with 19 units of KE. So, now we have a new equilibrium:
At top: C (PE=14 + KE=19) D (PE=14 + KE=19)
At bottom: A (PE=10 + KE=23) B (PE=10 + KE=23)
Note that the original gradient (with a difference of 4 in KE) has been re-established as expected, and some thermal energy has transferred from a cooler region (KE=20) to a warmer region that was KE=22 and is now KE=23. The additional 2 units of KE added at the top are now shared as an extra 1 unit on each level, with no energy gain or loss.
That represents the process of downward diffusion of KE to warmer regions which I call “heat creep” as it is a slow process that happens in which thermal energy “creeps” slowly up the sloping thermal profile. It happens in all tropospheres, explaining how energy gets into the Venus surface, and explaining how the Earth’s troposphere “supports” surface temperatures and slows cooling at night.
The whole point of Sections 4 to 8* of my February 2013 paper was to prove why “heat creep” does not violate the Second Law of Thermodynamics. So I am not entertaining assertive statements (like that from Curt) which claim otherwise without even so much as a reference to entropy, let alone my proof.
*
4. The Second Law of Thermodynamics
5. The State of Greatest Entropy
6. Quantification of the Thermal Gradient
7. Explanation at the Molecular Level
8. The Concept of “Heat Creep”
Doug:
Five days ago, I showed you with detailed step-by-step logic how Maxwell’s thought experiment proved that accepting your heat creep mechanism violated the 2nd Law because it led to an isolated system whose entropy decreased.
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2015/02/uah-global-temperature-update-for-jan-2015-0-35-deg-c/#comment-183086
Your response was to say that the entropy of an isolated system could not decrease, WHICH WAS EXACTLY MY POINT! Your mechanism violates the 2nd Law.
On the other hand, all you have in all your writings is the simple ASSERTION that gravitational potential energy should be incorporated in these thermodynamic calculations. All of your subsequent calculations simply accept this assertion.
The whole edifice you have created on this flimsy foundation collapses because the foundation is rotten – it falls apart on both simple theoretical analysis, like Maxwell’s, and experimental, like high-speed rotating machinery.
No Curt, heat creep does not violate the Second Law. That’s the whole point of the comprehensive proof in the paper which you have not read. Need I say more?
I have shown (using the Second Law) why it doesn’t in those sections in the paper, and in this comment just above, and in all the empirical evidence from Earth and other planets, and in your two cylinder experiment because there is no further transfer of net thermal energy across any internal boundary (on a macro scale) once that state of hydrostatic equilibrium (also thermodynamic equilibrium) is attained. And, because there are no further thermal energy transfers (on a macro scale) it is the state of maximum entropy, and entropy has not decreased whilst the system approached that maximum entropy state.
As I said, you don’t understand entropy, Curt, and you don’t even discuss it, which I find remarkable when you are discussing the Second Law.
If, alternatively to the heat creep hypothesis, you think Earth’s surface temperature is supported by the sum of 168W/m^2 of solar radiation and 342W/m^2 of back radiation supposedly transferring thermal energy into the Earth’s surface and raising its temperature, then it is your conjecture which is in violation of the Second Law. Unlike convection (wherein gravity acts on molecules) radiation can only ever cause the transfer of thermal energy from a warmer source to a cooler target. (See my paper on the Second Law linked on the ‘Evidence’ page of our group’s website.)
ENTROPY NEVER DECREASES DURING THE PROCESS OF HEAT CREEP, and you should be able to see why in the above four molecule thought experiment which you have ignored.
As I wrote in the paper …
When Maxwell and Boltzmann dismissed Loschmidt’s postulate of a gravity gradient they did the world a great disservice, and they contributed to a belief in a non-existent warming by an imaginary radiative greenhouse effect. The subsequent “calls to authority” should be a lesson for all in the scientific world, for this has resulted in an absolute travesty of physics.
I repeatedly discuss entropy, showing carefully how YOUR PHYSICS leads to an isolated system with decreasing entropy, and you repeatedly say that I do not discuss entropy!!
As the kids would say: Un-freaking-believable!! You don’t have the basic intellectual capacity to follow a simple argument. And you think you can overturn the giants of science…
PS: If you don’t include gravitational potential energy in entropy, then you cannot deduce from the Second Law that a density gradient will evolve in a troposphere and attain a stable state of thermodynamic equilibrium.
When an object falls in a vacuum, entropy increases solely because of the change in gravitational potential energy.
I will not discuss your crazy omission of gravitational potential energy until, with suitable references, you manage to edit the WIkipedia article below, getting your assertive false opinion ratified by at least one other person in the world. Currently the article reads …
Thermodynamic potential
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A thermodynamic potential is a scalar quantity used to represent the thermodynamic state of a system. The concept of thermodynamic potentials was introduced by Pierre Duhem in 1886. Josiah Willard Gibbs in his papers used the term fundamental functions. One main thermodynamic potential that has a physical interpretation is the internal energy U. It is the energy of configuration of a given system of conservative forces (that is why it is a potential) and only has meaning with respect to a defined set of references (or data). Expressions for all other thermodynamic energy potentials are derivable via Legendre transforms from an expression for U. In thermodynamics, certain forces, such as gravity, are typically disregarded when formulating expressions for potentials. For example, while all the working fluid in a steam engine may have higher energy due to gravity while sitting on top of Mount Everest than it would at the bottom of the Mariana Trench, the gravitational potential energy term in the formula for the internal energy would usually be ignored because changes in gravitational potential within the engine during operation would be negligible.
I repeat: “the gravitational potential energy term in the formula for the internal energy would usually be ignored because changes in gravitational potential within the engine during operation would be negligible.”
Sure, the approximation is OK for an “engine” with minimal height. But it is not OK for a planet’s troposphere.
Here is the dilemma you put yourself in Curt:
Suppose you rotate a very long thin insulated sealed cylinder from horizontal to vertical about its mid point.
(a) Intuitively you know more molecules will fall than will rise and so a density gra