Home/BlogThe VIIRS color imager on the Suomi/NPP satellite provided nice views yesterday of the heavy blanket of snow produced by the epic snowstorm of January 22-23, 2016.
Here’s the big picture of the eastern U.S. (click image for the super-sized version, suitable for computer desktop wallpaper):
And here’s a zoomed version covering the area from DC through NYC:
The whitest areas have the least vegetation, usually farm fields.
Enjoy!
DC hip deep in show. Same old story.
“farm fields” ?
Too simple. To the west, mountains got over twice the depth as areas to the east; for example the D.C.area. Would not snow depth differences of such magnitude also contribute to whiteness?
Seems to work for The Delmarva Peninsula, though.
Not so much. Snow is white once it covers things. That’s why visible satellite estimates of snow depth are almost worthless.
Hi Roy,
Just read your post On that 2015 Record Warmest Claim last Friday. I comment about it here because I doubt that you are still looking at the comments being made there. You might read Richard Feynmans comments, which were adapted from his Caltech commencement address of 1774 which was titled Cargo Cult Science, as published in Surely Youre Joking Mr. Feynman! (1985).
Have a good day, Jerry
1974 instead of 1774
So sad to hear Mr. Feynman wasn’t around for the signing of the Declaration of Independence.
Have a great day!
@jerry l krause…”You might read Richard Feynmans comments…”
Feynman was one of the real physicists, someone who would not give a lecture unless he could explain the reality behind the lecture.
With regard to quantum theory, he claimed it works but that no one knows why. It’s obvious that quantum theory was derived by manipulating the wave equation till it matched what could be confirmed by experiment.
In electronics we call that technique brute force troubleshooting where parts are changed one at a time till the circuit behaves properly. Hardly an elegant solution or a technique that reveals why the circuit failed in the first place. It’s done out of desperation and quantum theory seems to have been developed in the same manner.
Max Planck, who found the original quanta upon which QM is based, admitted that he fudged the math related to the electromagnetic spectrum to explain how the spectrum drops off it’s intensity in the higher frequency region. To do that, he had to introduce the concept of the quantization of energy.
Planck, a pure physicist like Feynman, fretted over that fudging claiming he did not know if a reality could be found to represent it. He also pointed out in his book on heat that parameters like time, length, density, temperature and pressure had no physical reality, that they were dependent on definitions based on real phenomena.
For example, the second is based on a small fraction of the Earth’s rotational period, and the metre is a fraction of the distance from the Equator to the North Pole. Gas pressure is the average force exerted by atoms on the walls of a container and is defined on that force at sea level.
Density is defined based on water at the freezing point while temperature is a relative measure of thermal energy based on the freezing point of water and its boiling point.
I lament that in only three or four more years our children will have no more snow to frolic in, tsk,tsk, poor children. It’s the fault of that nasty CO2. Or so they tell me.
So as we clearly can see on the imagery: CO2 and fossil fuel use causes more trees to grow. Snow covered trees have a lower albedo tthan snow covered fields. Has this land use change been incorporated in the climate models?
Good point. CO2 causes warming by making trees grow, leading to a reduction in albedo: a positive feedback. Nasty stuff, that CO2.
Luck for us, in a sense, people are chopping down forests faster than nature can expand them.
you may want to look at tree coverage records over the last 400 years befre claiming that david.
@mpainter…”CO2 causes warming by making trees grow, leading to a reduction in albedo: a positive feedback. Nasty stuff, that CO2″.
Not a true positive feedback but as Roy put it once, a not-so-negative negative feedback. If it was true positive feedback, we’d have been doomed long ago.
True positive feedback requires an amplifier. With an amplifier, small fractions of the output signal fed back to the input in phase with the input signal are added to the input signal and amplified. With each subsequent cycle of amplification, the output signal grows larger exponentially.
Fortunately there is no amplifier in the atmosphere. Therefore the best that can be hoped for is unity gain or less, which is negative feedback.
The 2nd law guarantees that. The 1st law, upon which AGW is based, would allow positive feedback and perpetual motion in certain circumstances. Clausius was smart enough to see that and introduce the 2nd law to plug those loopholes.
AGW, which is based on infrared energy, and not heat transfer, depends on a mysterious back-radiation from GHGs in the atmosphere to super-heat the surface beyond the temperature it is heated by solar energy.
Either that or they are talking about a GHG blanket that traps heat, an impossibility in the atmosphere. Heat cannot be trapped in an open atmosphere. It can be trapped by glass in a real greenhouse because heat is the kinetic energy of air molecules. If the molecules are trapped by glass, the heat builds up with constant solar energy.
There is no such mechanism in the atmosphere to trap heat.
Roy (and WUWT readers whom I have directed here
You can’t answer the QUESTIONS THAT STUMP LUKES AND WARMISTS can you?
Answers start here: https://itsnotco2.wordpress.com
It’s gravity, Roy, not back radiation. Gravity sets up the temperature gradient which then allows natural convective heat transfers up the sloping thermal plane because that plane with its temperature gradient represents the state of maximum entropy, that state having been disturbed by the absorption of new solar energy each morning, mostly in the stratosphere and upper troposphere, tops of clouds etc.
This “heat creep” process, Roy, is seen in every vortex cooling tube all over the world, and in every planetary troposphere all over the Solar System.
And Roy, consider the base of the 350Km high nominal troposphere of Uranus. Sorry, theres no solid surface to get warmed by direct solar radiation, and theres none of that down there anyway. There’s no convincing evidence that the planet is just cooling off either. Shame! You cant explain why its hotter than Earth there, now can you? I can, and I have explained how the required thermal energy actually gets there by non-radiative processes that are complying with the Second Law of Thermodynamics.
Its all at http://climate-change-theory.com
The whole radiative forcing greenhouse garbage is, to quote Jeff from the Air Vent (out of context) so blatant every one of them should be ashamed.
You would need a mean of over 450W/m^2 of variable flux to explain 288K mean surface temperature because of the T^4 relationship in Stefan-Boltzmann computations. And you cant include back radiation because all that all the radiation between the warmer surface and colder atmosphere and space does is transfer thermal energy out of the surface to the tune of about 66W/m^2.
Energy balance:
Out of surface into atmosphere or space
Non-radiative: 102W/m^2
Radiation: 66W/m^2
Total: 168W/m^2
Into surface
Solar radiation: 168W/m^2
Problem: How do you get the surface temperature of 288K from that when you need variable flux with a mean of at least 450W/m^2 from an effectively hotter source not multiple cooler sources?
Answer: https://itsnotco2.wordpress.com
Most people don’t like physics, probably because they don’t understand much of it, especially thermodynamics and entropy. In climatology texts I have shown precisely how and where the laws of physics are disregarded and/or altered so as to be incorrect, but usable to “explain” their false radiative forcing “greenhouse” conjecture.
When we apply the laws of physics correctly everything falls into place and science is confirmed by empirical evidence, as it should be.
It is no longer a “coincidence” that planetary systems have just the right temperature gradient from the core to the tropopause, getting down to just the right temperature there so as to be in radiative balance with the Sun. It’s not a coincidence at all, because it happens the other way around: the temperature plot builds up going downwards from that anchoring layer.
Many other “mysteries” are also solved, not least of which is how the surfaces of Earth and Venus receive the required thermal energy to rise in temperature during the day, balancing the cooling from the night before. Is convection going downwards during the day? Well, study what I have explained and find out what is really happening, because the Sun’s direct radiation to the surface is way too little to explain the mean temperature.
You can be enlightened, or you can stick with such mysteries seemingly unsolved: that’s your choice as I just write here to help those who want to learn.
DougCotton.
You need to quit invading all the threads like a virus.
You really need to go do some experimentation and then come back with your results. It would be far superior than your invasions!
Since you hate to experiment and add to the body of science in a meaningful and useful way you come up with totally wrong conclusions.
On one post you challenge people to explain if one radiator heats a surface to a certain amount what do 16 radiators do.
Here is an actual experiment (an alien creature to you) that proves you need to stop posting and spend time experimenting.
http://principia-scientific.org/publications/PROM/PROM-ROSS-Experiment.pdf
This is from your previous pals until you went over the “deep end” and even they rejected your ideas.
I do not agree with the authors conclusions and I think he is making many errors in his conclusions but his test is valid and totally contradicts what you post!
There are over 850 experiments documented young Norman.
“even they” (LOL) Postma with his radiation garbage? Pierre Latour the arrogant Frenchman. Or John O’Sullivan, journalist without an ounce of physics to his name – like you Norman?
DougCotton,
Your smokescreens are running thin.
YOU: “Meanwhile, I suggest you keep your ill-informed comments to yourself, Norman, in that you have no qualifications in physics and very clearly do not understand entropy and other physics taught even in second year of a university physics course.”
All garbage to run away from doing any experiments.
I posted an actual experiment that shows adding a spotlight DOES increase the temperature of a thermometer in direct opposition of your radiator point. I mean DIRECT.
Why are you even mentioning 850 experiments and not addressing one that blows your physics understanding out of the water?
More smokescreen from the phony Cotton who never studied physics but dreams he is a master of the topic but does not know expanding air cools. Odd that you missed that point.
YOU: “You do the experiment with 16 radiators Norman.”
Sad sack mentality. You are making the claims but have never done one experiment in your life and demand others do what you need to do. I am not making the claims. I sent you a link that showed you are completely daft and wrong and you throw out a bunch of smokescreens and changing the topic. Ball4 is right about you. You are a phony charlatan that has no degree in physics and no very little about it except the word entropy and second law. You have no clue of the 1st law of thermodynamics or energy conservation.
Stop the crap and address the link, you phony! Do some experiments or shut up with your phony crap physics and bombing thread endlessly.
Why are you so incredibly phony and lazy??? How do you get to be this way?
My “heat creep” hypothesis is not about radiation, so it’s not I who needs any experiment with radiation to support my hypothesis.
Norman writes: “I posted an actual experiment that shows adding a spotlight DOES increase the temperature of a thermometer in direct opposition of your radiator point.”
Yes, well Norman, Stefan Boltzmann calculations show that if one radiating spotlight makes the thermometer read 30C, then twice the flux should make it nearly 90C, but only 46C was achieved in your cited experiment.
Of course there is some extra warming because the rate of cooling by conduction does not increase a whole lot when the second light is turned on. Such loss by conduction into the air needs to be deducted from the radiation, so the net flux is even more than doubled, Norman, making your thoughts let’s just say, way out.
In fact the experiment you cite Norman proves my point, and shows that you won’t succeed with 4 or 16 radiators, but none of this is at all relevant to my “heat creep” hypothesis which has nothing to do with radiation reaching the surface.
You do the experiment with 16 radiators Norman. It is lukes and warmists who claim radiation from separate sources (with Planck functions that barely even overlap) will somehow combine to produce the equivalent of radiation from a warmer source with a perfect Planck function. If you think that foolish claim is correct, and if you, Norman, foolishly think that 16 bar radiators will create Venus-like temperatures, then at least start by borrowing a few from your friends and doing an experiment to prove your claim, which I don’t accept. Ironically even the experiment you linked (by an author without qualifications in science, let alone physics) also shows that radiation cannot be compounded, and of course I agree with that.
Alternatively …
Place a small electric bar radiator at a distance where you just start to feel it warming your skin. Lets say it makes an object (like a piece of steak with a steak thermometer) 40C. Now place another three identical radiators surrounding your steak each at the same distance, thus delivering four times the flux. Stefan Boltzmann calculations used (incorrectly) as the IPCC do by adding flux then say the temperature of your steak should rise to 170C. Try it! Does it? If not you have successfully refuted the whole greenhouse garbage science.
DougCotton,
I do not know how much 16 radiators will warm a surface so I am not making any claims one way or another on what such a test will do. You are the one making the assertions and claims on what it will or will not do. So do the test and report on what actually happens.
No, it’s OK now Norman. You’ve already linked that experiment with two spot lights where one raised the thermometer to 30C and Stefan-Boltzmann calculations indicated a second light should raise it to 90C, but instead it only achieved 46C.
Thanks for helping me to prove you and the radiative forcing greenhouse conjecture wrong by showing radiation cannot be compounded, as I wrote in my 2012 paper, Norman.
The steak won’t cook either Norman with four radiators. You try it too as you wouldn’t believe anything I write. I have no need to experiment with radiation because the “heat creep” hypothesis is not about radiation. It is already confirmed with correct physics, plus over 850 lab experiments and evidence throughout the solar system. More importantly, there is no experiment that I am aware of which refutes it.
So Norman, until you cook your steak with 4 radiators (where one radiator only achieves 40C) and also until you produce an experiment that refutes the alternative “heat creep” hypothesis (which in itself refutes the GH one) I rest my case.
QED
And Norman, you are making claims that I’m wrong about the “heat creep” hypothesis, and thus you are implying that the alternative hypothesis (the radiative forcing GH one) is correct. If the latter is correct, Norman, then it is totally and utterly based upon the assumption that radiation can be compounded. So, until someone proves wrong all the current 21st century physics which explains that radiation is not compounded (but is pseudo-scattered instead) and until someone achieves about 90C with two spot lights, or cooks a steak with four radiators achieving 170C at a distance where one achieves only 40C, then you have no support (and only refutation) for the alternative hypothesis to mine.
Either Loschmidt was right about the gravitationally induced temperature gradient, or he was wrong. Do you pit your knowledge and understanding of thermodynamics against that of the brilliant 19th century physicist, Josef Loschmidt, Norman?
So Norman, when you have done more than Roderich Graeff’s 850 experiments and proven all his were wrong in that they demonstrated what the brilliant 19th century physicist Josef Loschmidt explained would happen with a stable temperature gradient forming as a force field acts upon molecules between collisions, then, and only then Norman, will I look into your 900 or more experiments (which will take you a few years) that you have documented, and compare your methodology with the meticulous methods of Roderich Graeff and explain why your experiments are incorrectly demonstrating something that would be contrary to what I have deduced using Kinetic Theory and the Second Law of Thermodynamics. There are quite a few experiments confirming the Second Law, Norman, and Einstein and others used Kinetic Theory successfully.
But, who knows, Norman, you might be first in the world to find a situation in which the Second Law does not apply.
Meanwhile, I suggest you keep your ill-informed comments to yourself, Norman, in that you have no qualifications in physics and very clearly do not understand entropy and other physics taught even in second year of a university physics course.
DougCotton
YOU: “My heat creep hypothesis is not about radiation, so its not I who needs any experiment with radiation to support my hypothesis.”
Then why bring up a 16 radiator “thought experiment”?
Just so that you can understand why the radiative forcing greenhouse conjecture is wrong, Norman. That leaves only my alternative “heat creep” hypothesis (the Loschmidt was right not wrong hypothesis) to consider.
Let’s see gravity explain this:
http://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/briefs/schmidt_05/curve_s.gif
Thanks, Dr. Spencer. Very cool! And it surely is cold. Even in south Florida.
The problem is that more people die from cold winters than from hot summers, isn’t it so?
To be expected. After all, we are a tropical species. We love the warmth!
I know I do. But if Im tropical, my ancestors got here the long way through NW Europe. Did I lose my body fur (assuming I had some) from warm climate, wearing clothes, freedom from parasites, or just because?
That’s a good question! Probably a combination of the above!
Perhaps it was your ancestors wit with the use of fire which allowed them to venture so far north. Or maybe their ability to build shelter to defend against the chilling wind. Without the natural help of your own body, they used the fur of other animals as a substitute!
In any case, a little help was required to survive! The likes of which are not necessary near the equator! But humans evolved, got smart, and conquered new lands!
Some areas were really hit, but others are making a mountain out of a mole hill. We had about 18 inches in Sheffield England in 2010, not as bad as my child hood. Find it unbelievable that snow can be blamed for 5 deaths, when people did shovelling snow. As for banning cars from the rd and arresting in New York, sounds like a police state.
Hi Roy,
Long Island looks pretty well shellacked white. Thanks for the photo.
Have a great day!
Roy and anyone seeking the truth about CO2
In physics the Stefan-Boltzmann law tells us that, for a perfect blackbody which has been receiving a steady uniform flux of radiation for a very long time the temperature achieved by that flux is proportional to the fourth root of the flux. But if the flux is variable (as with night and day for planets like Earth and Venus) we can show mathematically that the mean temperature achieved is always less than the temperature that would have been achieved by a steady flux having the same mean value as the variable flux. Hence the mean temperature of the whole Earth-plus-atmosphere system is not 255K but a lower temperature perhaps more like 240K. Likewise, even if there were a mean flux of 390W/m^2 reaching Earth’s surface, because it is variable, it would not achieve a mean temperature of 288K (15C) but rather a mean temperature close to freezing point. However, even the net 390W/m^2 shown in those energy budget diagrams is not what can be used in Stefan-Boltzmann calculations: the solar radiation is only 168W/m^2 for which the blackbody temperature is 233K (-40C) and we cannot combine that with back radiation (as they do in the energy diagrams) to “explain” a higher temperature close to freezing point. So it’s all wrong, and we need to go back to Square One.
To understand what really happens, we need to realize that the brilliant 19th century physicist Josef Loschmidt was in fact right when he postulated that the force of gravity acting on molecules in flight between collisions creates a temperature gradient. This century the existence of that temperature gradient has been demonstrated in hundreds of experiments with sealed cylinders, as well as in experiments with centrifugal force. In fact, it is a direct corollary of the Second Law of Thermodynamics which tells us that natural (isolated) systems will always move towards the state of maximum entropy within the constraints of the system. It can be shown in just two lines of computation, that the temperature gradient in the absence of any IR-active (greenhouse) gases would be the so-called “dry adiabatic lapse rate” which is the quotient of the acceleration due to gravity and the weighted mean specific heat of the matter involved, be it solid, liquid or gas. All attempts to refute this with thought experiments are mistaken because they do not consider the effect of changes in molecular gravitational potential energy which result in entropy changes.
Once you understand that the temperature gradient is the state of maximum entropy (which in physics is called “thermodynamic equilibrium”) then it follows that new thermal energy absorbed in the atmosphere each morning will spread out in all directions, just like new rain water falling only in the middle of a lake. Some of this new thermal energy actually moves up the temperature plot, meaning downwards towards the surface or core of a planet. The process involved is called natural (not forced) convective heat transfer and, in physics, this includes thermal diffusion. In solid regions it is called conduction and, in all cases, it involves the transfer of kinetic energy between molecules as they collide.
And that is how and why a planet’s surface is hotter than the radiating temperature of the planet, and the necessary heat transfers are not by back radiation at all, but by this process that is entirely non-radiative.
Bye Doug.
Phony Cotton posts another long post.
From this point forward. PROVE IT! PROVE YOUR PHONY CLAIMS WITH EXPERIMENTAL evidence. Your phony long worded posts are as empty as your hollow head.
I believe in free speech but please Dr. Spencer, shut this thread down to keep the insane from hijacking it.
Brad,
My apologies to you. I guess I am going too far with my responses to DougCotton’s posts. I will back off and try to keep on thread topic. Sorry.
That’s OK Norman: I’m used to your “last resort” type comments without a word of physics and never a hint of any discussion of entropy maximization, thermodynamics or anything relevant to my “heat creep” hypothesis which is backed by hundreds of experiments which I told you about three years ago, and discussed in my February 2013 paper.
I’m still waiting on you for a single experiment that proves the energy in back radiation is thermalized in a warmer surface and makes it hotter still, thus proving the Second Law of Thermodynamics wrong and winning you a Nobel Prize for physics – without even being qualified in such, Norman the chemist.
Norman,
Dr. Spencer could post something about painting his office and the lunatic on this thread would hijack it and insult Dr. Spencer with his wild ass idea while at the same time embarrassing himself. He is quite delusional.
It’s a shame really.
Brad
Norman –
Go back to this comment.
Oh, and learn some thermodynamics one day – start with this website and read the pages on the Second Law which I can detect that you don’t understand. I quote from that site …
“Clausius coined the term “entropy” to refer to the dissipated potential and the second law, in its most general form, states that the world acts spontaneously to minimize potentials (or equivalently maximize entropy), and with this, active end-directedness or time-asymmetry was, for the first time, given a universal physical basis.”
That’s physics. When the unbalanced energy potentials have dissipated we have thermodynamic equilibrium (maximum entropy) and, in the case of a planet’s troposphere, the fact that there are no unbalanced energy potentials means that the mean sum of molecular ….
(gravitational potential energy + kinetic energy) = constant
and so, since PE varies with altitude, so too does KE, and temperature is proportional to that KE, as per Kinetic Theory.
Hence there is a stable temperature gradient and we don’t need any back radiation to raise the surface temperature.
Doug,
Seriously,
There are pharmaceutical products which you might be interested in trying. With luck you could get your life back.
Best wishes,
Lewis Guignard
It’s looking like this is not the last of it either. Warm air in the stratosphere centered over western Canada. After this little warm up we in the central and eastern US appear to be in for another blast of arctic air.
Cold times, they are a coming.
No Norman. I asked you to prove empirically your apparent belief in the false claim that back radiation somehow helps the Sun to achieve better than the mean of -40C which its 168W/m^2 would achieve in a perfect blackbody. This is such an outrageous claim that, if anything begs for empirical evidence, it sure does!
I am the one just sticking with what 19th century physicists knew to be the case, namely that gravity forms a stable temperature gradient in a planet’s troposphere.
I have cited a series of about 850 experiments in my paper dated February 2013 that confirm the gradient forms even in sealed cylinders. See the bolded type in the contents list:-
Planetary Core and Surface Temperatures
February 15, 2013
CONTENTS
1. Radiation and Heat Transfer
2. The Problems with the Greenhouse Conjecture
3. The Venus Dilemma
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
9. How Earth’s Surface Temperature is Supported
10. Laboratory Evidence for the Gradient
11. Planetary Evidence for the Gradient.
12. The Pseudo Lapse Rate.
13. Non-Radiative Heat Transfer Processes
14. Rebuttal of Counter Arguments
15. Support for the Mantle and Core Temperatures
16. Conclusions
17. Appendix Study of Temperature / Rainfall Correlation
18. References
Go back to this comment Norman and tell me how you are getting on with burning your house down (or your landlord’s) with Venus-like temperatures created by 16 little one bar radiators.
From WUWT:
wickedwenchfan January 26, 2016 at 11:06 pm
Of course its Doug! But hes correct and thats all that matters!
wickedwenchfan January 27, 2016 at 12:41 am
Btw. Im not being sarcastic when I said hes right. … Its all evidence, established and tested theory and good ole fashioned logic and reasoning.
Doug:
No one said you were the only deluded person posting on climate sceptic blogs.
There are people on WUWT that are dafter than you, and there is not a single human trait, however stupid or reprehensible that will not engender followers.
The post above merely shows that your ego feeds off them.
Hence your bragging of visitors to your webpages …. as though that were a validation of your “theory” (morbid curiosity more like).
As if “wickedwenchfan” (a particularly rabid/stupid regular WUWT poster) added a scintilla of credibility to it and that you should think so belongs to the annals of psychology.
Meanwhile we all await your Earth-shattering experiments and physical validation of same via a Nobel winning paper.
Go back to this comment Toneb and submit your claim for the AU $10,000 reward via a comment on my blog which you may also copy here, so that all can watch me demolish your argument.
There are hundreds of experiments supporting my “heat creep” hypothesis, and not a single experiment refuting it, Toneb.
Furthermore, correct physics supports it because it is developed directly from the Second Law of Thermodynamics. (What qualifications did you say you have in physics, Toneb?)
In contrast, there are numerous experiments refuting the alternative radiative forcing greenhouse conjecture, the development of which ignored the entropy maximization process described in the Second Law of Thermodynamics.
And, Toneb, if you’re looking for the experiments that confirm the “heat creep” hypothesis see the ‘Evidence’ page on my website and also refer to the two sections in bold type in this comment above.
Correction: <a href="http://www.drroyspencer.com/2016/01/after-the-snowstorm-color-satellite-views/#comment-207677"this comment above. But read the other one linked by mistake in the above comment anyway.
Ooops – Correction: this comment above. But read the other one linked by mistake in the above comment anyway.
Bye Doug.
Roy
This experiment proves you can’t add back radiation to solar radiation, so the whole radiative forcing greenhouse conjecture is proven wrong. One spot light raised the thermometer to 30C. If you could add radiative fluxes and use the total in S-B then two spot lights should have raised it to 90C, but only 46C was achieved. So the greenhouse garbage science is refuted once and for all.
DougCotton,
Before you jump for joy and do a victory dance, it might do you well to think more deeply and clearly on the experiment you linked to (that I had already linked to you above).
From the Author’s own calculations:
“(i) At 291 Kelvin (18 C ambient air temperature) the tape is emitting almost 407 ξ A Watts.
(ii) At 303 Kelvin (30 C ambient air temperature) the tape is emitting almost 478 ξ A Watts.
(iii) At 309 Kelvin (36 C ambient air temperature) the tape is emitting almost 517 ξ A Watts.
(iv) At 319 Kelvin (46 C ambient air temperature) the tape is emitting almost 588 ξ A Watts.”
I have no clue where you get the 90 C from but his own calculations demonstrate beyond doubt the two beams are adding and they are adding the exact right amount.
The surroundings are emitting 407 watts. The addition of one spotlight gets the tape emitting 478 watts (times emissivity and area since the area is much smaller than 1 m^2 the actual watts emitted will be much less than 478 but the E and A are the same in each case so you can do direct measurements of each step).
478 units – 407 units = 71 units. The first spotlight adds 71 units of energy to the tape to reach equilibrium. The second spotlight develops 517 units – 407 units so it adds 110 units of energy to the tape. When you have both lights on they will add together to add 181 units of energy to the tape. With both lights on you have 588 units of energy – 407 units to give you exactly 181 added units of energy which is the the same units when you add both spotlight energies together to add to the tape.
I am failing to see how this shows radiation does not add together to a target. In fact it shows it does exactly that. I think you are clearly wrong here and should rethink your position.
DougCotton,
I am thinking you are illogical and wrong with your 16 radiator thought experiment.
Consider. In a vacuum with no external energy sources (or to small to effect the overall outcome) you have two equal sized (say one square meter each) heating units. Also both have identical absorbing plates (say 1 meter squared in size) at a distance so that with full power from one of the heaters it will receive a total of 16000 watts to its surface (16,000 W/m^2).
Now the only difference between the heaters is one is complete unit and the other has 16 individual units that are fed power individually. Each individual unit is powered by 1/16 the power of the solid surface heater but the total power both emit is identical and will both send 16000 Watts to their respective absorbing surfaces when fully powered.
So DougCotton are you telling me that because the 16 unit heater will not warm its absorbing plate the same as a single unit heater will be able to? Why do you propose such an idea? It would violate the first law of thermodynamics.
If just one of the 16 elements of the heater is turned on it will only be able to send 1/16th of the energy to the absorbing surface so the surface will be much colder if only one element is turned on and will continue to reach higher equilibrium temperatures as more elements are powered up and when all 16 are on it will heat its surface to the same equilibrium temperature as the other heater. If if doesn’t you have violated the 1st law. Where does the energy go and why does it go?
Again you logic circuits are flawed. Rethink and regroup. Or can we hope you just quit posting! Or at least until you do some Real World Experiments and prove your assertions and conjectures.
PROVE IT!!
The reason why radiation does not violate the first or second law was explained in my paper published on several websites in March 2012. I thought you said you read it, Norman.
You have already mentioned the two spot light experiment which did not achieve 90C (as S-B calculations would indicate) but instead only got to 46C which is easily explained. So we’ve already both seen that the radiative forcing greenhouse conjecture is false. What else do you suggest, Norman?
Everything I write is in agreement with the laws of thermodynamics – that’s the first check to make – the one James Hansen forgot about.
DougCotton,
Holy unbelievable Cow! Here you claim:
You: From WUWT blog Atmospheric Physicist January 26, 2016 at 10:00 pm
“Im a world expert in thermodynamics.”
You have got to be a first clown clot! I am looking at how you arrived at the 90C and it is not even rational for a junior high student to think this is correct. Wow you can’t even think thermodynamics! Did you read the article you linked to? The spotlights only emit 150 watts each. If all the energy they had hit a surface of 1 meter squared the surface could only emit 150 watts at equilbrium!!! A 150 watt bulb cannot generate a flux of 500 W/m^2.
What you so stupidly (and I am kind with that choice of wording) did wrong was you did not include the ambient energy that was also supplying energy to the tape. Clot! Your so far gone in the world of fantasy that you can’t reason or think anymore. Sad for you.
You take his calculated tape flux of 478 W for one spotlight and then add 517 W for the second flux and then add them together to get a total of 995 watts and conclude this would mean a 90C temperature. Wow that is worse than bad. You flunk! F grade!
The are not emitting 478 and 517 W/m^2. The total energy they can emit is 150 watts and depending upon the area that is all the energy these bulbs will deliver. 100% of the available energy is 150 joules per second. Somehow you add these super unnatural fluxes that a 150 joule/second source could add 517 joules/second to a tape target? Get your brain off the second law and learn the first…you are completely ignorant of the main thermodynamic law that energy is neither created nor destroyed!!
The tape emits 478 watts times the area and emissivity. The area is much smaller than 1 meter squared and the emissivity is probably not one so the tape will actually be radiating less than 478 watts with one light on it. The spotlight is NOT adding 478 watts to the tape to reach equilbrium. If the tape was 1 meter squared the light would be adding 71 watts/m^2 to the tape surface to go from 407 Watt/m^2 to 478.
Wow DougCotton. You really need to learn some physics as it is more than obvious you don’t even know how to do the most simple of thermodynamic problems and come up with some very stupid answers.
Need to quit posting your nonsense experiment! PROVE YOUR POSTS with evidence!!
“A 150 watt bulb cannot generate a flux of 500 W/m^2.” writes Norman.
Of course it can. Spot lights focus the radiation into an area less than 1 square meter for a close target. In fact, with a parabolic mirror, they also send forwards the component of the radiation that would have gone backwards.
The fact is that the thermometer was raised to 30C with one spot light. So the radiation it received must have been at least equivalent to that of a very close blackbody at 30C and such a blackbody emits 478.8W/m^2.
So, if we double that flux and get 957.6W/m^2 then that is the flux from a blackbody at 360.5K which is over 87C.
Footnote: The second spot light was effectively stronger because it could achieve 36C on its own. Using similar calculations we get 91C as the expected temperature if it were correct to add fluxes. Since we only got 46C (just 10 degrees more than the second spot light could achieve on its own) the conjecture about being able to add fluxes is wrong, and so too is the radiative forcing greenhouse conjecture thus false.
If the experiment had been in a vacuum you would probably have got temperatures around 60C. This helps us understand why two lights do appear to warm a little. The rate of cooling by conduction (without the vacuum) into the air is only a little faster when the temperature is hotter. So, with one light the net effect is that it struggles to overcome the conduction, whereas with two lights the percentage loss by conduction is less, and thus there is a 10 degree warming, but nothing like 50 to 60 degrees of warming such as Stefan Boltzmann calculations give us when we incorrectly add the fluxes. Radiation cannot be compounded that way.
DougCotton
You just can’t leave well enough alone. Your ignorance is for all to see!
Think man. Think! Don’t just post. Think about what you are writing and how totally stupid it is!
YOU: “Of course it can. Spot lights focus the radiation into an area less than 1 square meter for a close target. In fact, with a parabolic mirror, they also send forwards the component of the radiation that would have gone backwards.”
DougCotton. If you concentrate 150 watts of power (150 joules/second) of energy onto a size smaller than 1 square meter you do not go up to 500 watts/m^2!!!. If you took all the available energy of the bulb and spread it on a 1 m^2 surface, the surface would receive 150 W/m^2. You can’t have more energy than this. If you concentrate the bulb on a smaller area say 0.3 m^2 you can then have a flux on that area of 500 W/0.3 m^2.
DougCotton,
You: “The fact is that the thermometer was raised to 30C with one spot light. So the radiation it received must have been at least equivalent to that of a very close blackbody at 30C and such a blackbody emits 478.8W/m^2.”
DougCotton you are not thinking clearly on this. The ambient temperature was 18 C or 291 K. The tape is emitting at the rate of 406 Watts times emissivity times area to start before the light is turned on. The light brings it to 479 Watts(Emissivity)(Area). So the first spotlight is only adding 73 (or as the Author calculated, 71) watts(E)(A) to the tape not 478.8. Your calculations are very flawed because for some reason you assume that the one spotlight is bringing it up from 0 K to 303 K not the more correct 291 K to 303 K and that is all the power it is delivering.
You have no idea Norman as to how radiation actually warms things. The original ambient temperature is irrelevant. It’s not a matter of just adding a few extra W/m^2. You would argue that a blackbody at 30C could warm a target to 40C if the target started off at, say, 25C. That’s just not what happens Norman, and you won’t find any correct physics documentation supporting what you say.
Furthermore, you are still mistaken about the W/m^2 issue. If you focus 150W onto half a square meter you get a flux of 300W/m^2 on that half square meter. If you didn’t, then what happened to the extra energy? Solar cookers would not work if they did not multiply the flux by what is usually about 1.6 by focusing it through a reflective funnel. It is the flux (W/m^2) that determines how hot the target gets.
Silent readers who understand radiation will know you are seriously mistaken Norman, and you have no valid physics published anywhere that supports your opinions that all we need to do is just add up the radiative flux to a target from different sources to work out its temperature.
PS – Norman
As I have advised you before, it’s not a good idea to assume I’m wrong regarding thermodynamics, a field in which I have done extensive post-graduate research. Do you even know the names of modern-day authors in the field, like Rod Swenson, M.T. Turvey and K.Matsuno? I doubt it.
It seems you cannot even comprehend what flux actually is. If you have a 150W spot light and concentrate the radiation into a tenth of a square meter, then, if it were 100% efficient, you could get up to 1,500W/m^2 falling upon that area.
So I hope you are duly embarrassed about what you wrote in your last comment, Norman, for you should be.
And, Norman, it does not matter what the original temperature of the tape was, so long as it was colder than 30C. If it were very cold it would just take longer to reach equilibrium. The equilibrium temperature depends entirely on the radiative flux which, at a maximum, is like that from a blackbody at 30C for the first light.
The initial temperature of the tape is irrelevant – it will never get above 30C because the source is only effectively that hot. Any higher temperature would be violating the Second Law, Norman.
And that’s why Solar radiation (with a mean that is effectively -40C) and back radiation (also with a mean that is around freezing point or lower) cannot in combination make the surface hotter than the higher temperature of the two, that being the backradiation at night and sometimes the solar radiation on clear days in non-polar regions.
DougCotton
You are the biggest phony yet. If there was a gameshow “Biggest Phony” you would win the grand prize. You have not really studied any physics. It is obvious in your ability to comprehend simple math and how to manipulate various areas.
I see. So we have the predictable “last resort” comment – if you have no scientific response just get out the smearing brush.
Go and read about solar cookers that focus solar radiation, thus creating fluxes over 1,500W/m^2 – greater than the solar constant at TOA.
I remind silent readers that Norman rubbished me because he did not think it possible for a 150W spot light to focus its output into an area less than 1 square meter and thus create a flux greater than 150W/m^2. Well solar cookers do work, Norman.
And Norman, you can read about how the flux is increased in a parabolic solar cooking in this scientific paper on such. They cite 700W/m^2 as a “standard” which is when the direct solar radiation is around 450W/m^2, but of course in the tropics around noon it is possible to get about double that when the direct solar radiation can be over 900W/m^2 when albedo is about 0.1 on a clear day and the Sun passes nearly straight overhead at noon.
And Norman, the amount of electro-magnetic energy being transported by every one-way pencil of radiation does not represent the amount of thermal (kinetic) energy which is effectively transferred from the source to the target, unless the target was initially at absolute zero (0K) and that’s why the two spot-light experiment did not achieve 90C.
Experiments, Norman, experiments! See how all the experiments (even the one at PSI you linked) just keep on confirming what I am saying. You just don’t get it do you Norman? There are the two spot lights with one achieving 30C but adding the second does not achieve anything remotely like the 90C which naive incorrect use of Stefan Boltzmann calculations says it should. There are the 850 experiments by Graeff, and all the vortex tubes in the world, plus recent experiments with centrifuge machines, plus all the evidence in planetary tropospheres, all confirming the alternative hypothesis to the GH and thus proving the GH hypothesis wrong, and yet you still ignore all the evidence and experiments.
And still, Norman, despite all the experiments (both documented and suggested – like 4 radiators that won’t cook your steak) you still struggle on trying to convince people that we can just add two or more lots of radiative flux and bung the total into Stefan Boltzmann calculations. The IPCC does that in their energy diagrams, and our experiments (and the good professors computations) all indicate that this does not give the correct resulting temperature. And still you carry on with your narcissism, Norman, despite the experiments which prove you (and the IPCC) wrong.
Bye Doug.
“Where does the energy go and why does it go?” asks Norman.
The answer is in my 2012 paper. Don’t worry, it’s not lost – no energy is destroyed – it’s all accounted for, Norman.
Now go and read about resonant (pseudo) scattering such as was explained by the good Professor here.
DougCotton.
Not another word from you about pseudo scattering without an actual test or experiment to prove this. Or at least don’t tell me about your concept until you provide proof. I was looking through your link. Where does the good Professor use the term pseudo scattering?
Page number for article please.
It’s not my concept Norman. The good professor quite clearly explains that radiation from a cooler source is not thermalized in a warmer target but is merely re-emitted with identical photons. Physicists call it pseudo scattering, because it looks like the original radiation has just been scattered, rather like diffuse reflection, which also preserves energy and frequency distribution. I used the term resonant scattering in my 2012 paper.
Prof Johnson writes (page 24 here) ..
“We shall find that the answer is resonance in a system of resonators …
incoming radiation is absorbed by resonance,
absorbed incoming radiation is emitted as outgoing radiation, or is stored as internal/heat energy,
incoming frequencies below cut-off are emitted,
incoming frequencies above cut-off are stored as internal heat energy.”
It’s not hard to understand what he’s saying Norman: not all the incoming energy is converted to thermal (“heat”) energy because frequencies below cut-off are just re-emitted without their energy being converted to thermal energy.
In my 2102 paper I extend the work of Prof Johnson explaining how the actual transfer of thermal energy in one-way radiation is related to the area between the Planck functions because that is the radiation which does not resonate.
I was first in the world to explain this, as indeed I have been first in the world to explain the heat transfers and temperatures in vortex tubes and planetary systems right down to the core.
DougCotton
Do you have evidence that this is what happens to EM energy upon a surface or is it just speculation? Do you have any spectrum of surfaces with various EM energies directed towards such surfaces?
Example. You have a 500 K surface and you get a spectrum of this emission. Now you have a 100 K surface but you filter the energy emitted on it so it will only send a certain energy band to the 500 K surface (this energy will slow the rate the 500 K surface cools) but the important thing is to get a spectrum of the surface after the 100 K filtered light hits the 500 K surface. If pseudo scattering is a reality you will have all of the energy of the 100 K filtered band in the spectrum. If the 500 K spectrum remains smooth as before, pseudo scattering would be a myth not a reality. Without some experimental evidence it is a speculation, a possibility. You use it as a reality which until you prove it with experiment, it is not. If you want to make it real do some experiments and prove your case.
If you had read my 2102 paper on Radiated Energy and the Second Law of Thermodynamics you would understand that all blackbodies radiate with Planck functions, regardless of what radiation happens to strike them from other sources.
It is you who has the evidence in your microwave oven Norman, and in the radio broadcasts you receive – as I have already explained in another comment – so why do you ask again? Search “microwave” if you haven’t read the comment.
You already have proof Norman in your cited two spot light experiment. You can try to cook your steak with four radiators if you like and thus refute it if the temperatures measure up.
There’s also proof of resonant (pseudo) scattering when low frequency microwaves in your microwave oven are scattered by those plastic microwave bowls which don’t get warmed.
If it didn’t happen, radio broadcasts would go virtually nowhere without being absorbed by clouds or the surface.
Hi DougCotton,
You claim:
“There’s also proof of resonant (pseudo) scattering when low frequency microwaves in your microwave oven are scattered by those plastic microwave bowls which don’t get warmed.”
If this is resonant (pseudo) scattering or reflection it’s not the same kind as happens when radiation from a relatively cooler object impinges a warmer object. Why? The microwave emitting filament is warmer than the bowl. Why? While microwave frequencies are low their amplitude necessary to boil water, heat food, etc. is high.
Have a great day!
Hi DougCotton,
Please excuse my response. When I attempted to cut and paste a quote from your post it became garbled.
Have a great day!
And once again Norman, I advise you that it is not a good idea to assume I’m wrong in matters relating to thermodynamics. Ask questions if you wish: I will always have the correct answers pertaining to heat transfer mechanisms, entropy and thermodynamics in general, at least in relation to atmospheric physics and climate matters.
But don’t endeavor to rubbish what I say, or air your false and defamatory remarks about my qualifications etc.
I completed a Science Degree with full time study majoring in Pure Mathematics and Physics at Distinction level. This included practical work in physics for three afternoons every week of the academic year. I was also awarded a scholarship by Sydney University Physics Dept, and in addition I received three other scholarships in my academic career that included nine years of university education – which ought to say something, Norman. I have written educational Mathematics software used by thousands of Australia students in all secondary years. I have been first in the world to explain the “heat creep” process which I have proved directly from the Second Law of Thermodynamics, and I have shown how it is evident in vortex tubes, centrifuge machines and every planetary troposphere, even in Earth’s outer crust. A little respect would go a long way.
DougCotton
We need to stop the debate. Roy Spencer may be getting tired of us highjacking his threads and I do not want to be a part of it. I plan on waiting until you provide some experimental evidence before responding to you again. I hope all respondents to your posts put the words “PROVE IT” on their posts. Maybe if you see it enough times you will get the hint and go experiment and be a real scientist and not a crank blog poster.
Ball4 has your number and soon your evasive tactics will fail if enough demand proof of each and all your claims. Hopefully this spreads to all the various blogs you post on. See Cotton demand Proof. PROVE IT!!
Vortex tubes demonstrate the “heat creep” process. There’s further proof on the ‘Evidence’ page of my website supporting my “heat creep” hypothesis, which thus refutes the alternative GH hypothesis.
DougCotton
Vortex tubes do not demonstrate “heat creep”. They demonstrate classical physics that gas temperature increases when you increase its pressure and temperature drops when you decrease pressure. Well established and understood physics. Heat creep not needed to explain and is even a flawed explanation since after a point (when expansion and compression have reached the maximum) the temperature difference of the gases starts reducing which is would not do as long as the spinning force where still in place. You are wrong on this one and I have linked you a couple times to the correct explanation (you rejected classical proven physics to push your own conjecture).
You’re not very good at acknowledging all your errors, are you Norman? Go back to this</b comment for example.
DougCotton,
You baited me with this one. I did not want to keep responding to your endless posts.
But I do have to respond when you say I am in error.
Think man. If you took the spotlight experiment in the vacuum of space with no external energy added to the tape, the first spotlight would only add a flux at 71 watts/m^2 to the tape bringing up the temperature to -85 C.
This is not a “debate” Norman. I’m just teaching silent readers the physics that is involved, and part of that teaching process is using what you write as the epitome of typical arguments put up by lukes and warmists and showing silent readers (of whom I know, from the hits I get, that there are hundreds) why those arguments are wrong.
Go back to this comment Norman and silent readers.
Roy and silent readers
We see in Norman a classic example of the attitude and beliefs of typical lukes and warmists who think surface temperatures of planets like Earth and Venus are determined by adding the various fluxes of radiation and bunging the total into Stefan Boltzmann calculations, totally ignoring the fact that the radiation is very variable anyway (and so does not produce as warm a mean temperature as would uniform flux with the same mean) and also totally ignoring what scientists like Josef Loschmidt and Dr Hans Jelbring have said about how gravity forms a temperature gradient which, as I have shown, is a direct corollary of the Second Law of Thermodynamics.
Because of this temperature gradient, we don’t need to fudge surface temperature calculations by incorrectly adding back radiation, and so the greenhouse conjecture is comprehensively refuted. But not for them, of course. They go on to ignore what a leading professor of applied mathematics wrote regarding resonant (or “pseudo”) scattering of radiation. I even had to point out that Prof Johnson explains it on page 24, because Norman missed that when skimming his paper. Then Norman comes up with his classic in which he does not think that the watts per square meter will increase when we focus radiation with a spot light, a solar cooking funnel or a magnifying glass that enables us to set fire to tissue paper, as any kid knows.
Then he asks for evidence and experiments. He even finds such an experiment himself (with the two spot lights that don’t achieve 90C temperatures) and yet fails to see that it disproves his conjecture about adding radiative fluxes and using the total in Stefan Boltzmann calculations, just as Trenberth and the IPCC do.
He still imagines he can cook a steak with 170C temperatures that he thinks four radiators would produce when each warms your hand only to 40C. He does not deign to borrow radiators from friends and try it – that’s supposed to be my job to prove his conjecture right. (LOL)
Well, it has nothing to do with my “heat creep” hypothesis and I know from correct physics what would happen anyway.
Norman also ignores the evidence of the “heat creep” process wherein cooler air moves out radially to warmer regions in a vortex tube. And he ignores the evidence for the gravito-thermal effect in every planetary troposphere, and the “coincidence” that all temperatures get down to the right level at the right altitude following the right temperature gradient in all planets doesn’t twig with him, so he fails to realize that in fact the temperatures build up inwards from the anchoring layers in the stratosphere and upper troposhere.
Norman does not care that there is no valid physics supporting the radiative forcing greenhouse conjecture, nor the assumption of isothermal tropospheres without IR-active gases that are supposedly building up the temperature gradient, when in fact they are leveling it out, as we know full well water vapor does with the “wet” lapse rate.
So, in summary, despite all the experiments (hundreds of them) and the evidence throughout the solar system and the fact that the Second Law tells us the density gradient and temperature gradient are both the same state of thermodynamic equilibrium – despite the fact that people with far more knowledge of physics than Norman the Chemist has say differently from what he dreams up – despite the science and the evidence, Norman plugs on with denying any of these people could be right or, in effect, that the Second Law of Thermodynamics could be right also. Everything and everyone is wrong if they don’t conform in their beliefs with his dreams.
DougCotton,
Many false points in your long post.
1) YOU: “Then Norman comes up with his classic in which he does not think that the watts per square meter will increase when we focus radiation with a spot light, a solar cooking funnel or a magnifying glass that enables us to set fire to tissue paper, as any kid knows.”
Wrong on this one. If you concentrate the radiation you will have more watts in a given area than you would if it was not focused. But you do not get more energy out of the radiation. More energy on a spot which increases the temperature of that spot considerably. If you have 1000 watts/m^2 flux and shrink it down to an area 1/1000 that size you do not have more than 1000 joules/second at that smaller area. You would not have an actual flux of 1,000,000 watts/m^2 (although you may writer the intensity of the beam in that fashion). You are not getting a million joules/second on the spot. You still only get 1000 joules/second out of a 1000 watt/m^2 flux despite if you enlarge or shrink the area.
What you are not understanding in the spotlight experiment is that the tape (I estimate it may be around 6 cm x 6 cm which would make it 0.0036 m^2 area) at 18 C is not emitting 407 watts of energy but a much smaller amount. The actual amount (use a Stefan-Boltzmann calculator). The actual energy the tape is emitting at 18C is 1.4667 Watts. Because of its small size you could say the intensity of energy emitted is equal to 407 W/m^2 (if the tape had an area of 1 m^2 is would be emitting 407 watts of energy (joules/second). The tape at 18C is emitting around 1.4667 Watts of energy so it needs that much energy to maintain an equilibrium temperature. It has a flux of 407 W/m^2 but it is not emitting 407 watts of energy because of its small size.
2) YOU: “He still imagines he can cook a steak with 170C temperatures that he thinks four radiators would produce when each warms your hand only to 40C. He does not deign to borrow radiators from friends and try it – that’s supposed to be my job to prove his conjecture right.”
NO DJC I do not imagine that all. You have totally fabricated this statement in your own mind. A typical hand is around 37 C so to raise it to 40 C takes approximately this much energy. Your hand is at equilibrium radiating around 524 W/m^2 flux (not actual watts but a flux) so to raise it to 40 C you would have to reach an equilibrium state of 545 W/m^2. Your heater is adding 21 W/m^2 flux to your hand so I would not see how adding 4 of these (which would add 84 Watts/m^2 to a steak) would raise the steak to 170C? Four such heaters would actually raise the steak to around 49C. The fluxes add but not the way you think they do or don’t. You have your math wrong and I explain it quite correctly. Will you take the time to think it through and go. “Oh yes, I can see his point now”
3) There is plenty of evidence supporting a balance of radiation energy for the explaining the Earth’s surface temperature. I have linked you many times to show you actual measured downwelling radiation. Prove to me it is not absorbed but pseudo scattered. The experiment you are trying to use to disprove GHE actually shows exactly that energy fluxes add together to create a new flux of incoming energy and you are totally wrong on the math you use to try and discredit this experimental evidence.
You won’t read through any of this. I waste my time. I still have not figured out why I am responding to you. I am as goofy as you are. Maybe I will learn like so many others have. Lord give me the strength and wisdom to learn this self evident truth that I should not respond to this poster named DougCotton.
Hi Norman,
I think we should ask Roy for a reward if we post longer than Doug does! Maybe something like 16 or 17 bar generators. Just kidding…
Have a great day!
JohnKl
Sorry about that! I am trying to take Toneb’s advise. I am as guilty as Doug. No more responses to DougCotton posts even though the last one he posted makes me want to reply I will hold my fingers and keep them off the keyboard.
When you concentrate (focus) radiation the watts per square meter increases. S-B temperature calculations depend on watts per square meter, and so a higher temperature may be obtained.
The “tape” gains thermal energy by conduction from the air – nothing to do with radiation until the spot light is turned on.
My heater is radiating about 545W/m^2 to my hand, that being the flux which supports a temperature of 40C in a blackbody. Four heaters will radiate four times that, but most will be pseudo-scattered. You see evidence of pseudo-scattering in your micro-wave oven and in radio broadcast that are not absorbed by the surface or by clouds.
Your “measured” downwelling radiation is not adding much if any thermal energy to the surface, Norman. Apply your incorrect concepts of radiation to solar radiation plus backradiation and see what surface temperature you get. Then tell the IPCC they got it all wrong when they used a net of 390W/m^2 to “explain” 288K. What they actually got wrong was that the surface (like that tape) is kept warm primarily by conduction between nitrogen and oxygen molecules in the air and surface molecules.
Norman are you and Cotton in on this together? How could an innocent post about a satellite photo of snow devolve into such a silly off topic debate without the two of you having a dialogue? Dr Spencer I think I speak for everybody in saying it would be nice if we could figure out a moderator program to exclude Cotton’s posts at least once he has gone into repetitive mode. Based on his history of burying all other discussion with endless posting I don’t see why limiting number and length wouldn’t be a good idea.
Hi Boris,
You close:
“Based on his history of burying all other discussion with endless posting I dont see why limiting number and length wouldnt be a good idea.”
Isn’t he already banned from this site. He simply changes his moniker and posts anyways. If Roy limits size and lengths of post it will likely end up applying to everyone. This seems to me unfair and unworkable since Doug can just post smaller statements under yet even more monikers. Nice try though!
Have a great day!
I’ve recently seen him sneaking back onto CE and WUWT (banned in the past … because of this behaviour).
Norman:
“Will you take the time to think it through and go. Oh yes, I can see his point now”
Now really! do pink pigs fly?
You have to remember it’s a psychosis.
He has a compelling NEED to do this.
AND understanding empirical physics and realising he isn’t Newton/Einstein/Faraday/Maxwell/Planck/Dirac et al will destroy his world-view.
It isn’t going to happen.
Only way if Roy continues to indulge is to not feed.
Toneb,
Thanks for your most thoughtful post. I think I also must have some psychosis to keep responding to his posts thinking in some way he will see some of the errors in his thinking. He won’t. I guess his posts are harmless. The great problem is with people like me that feel the need to post when physics is violated and tortured.
One thing about his posts though that is useful is when I read his material it triggers the desire to investigate, research and learn and I grow in my knowledge of the physics involved. I have made many mistakes on the journey but I get back on the road and work to learn the correct understanding.
There’s still the AU $10,000 reward for the first to refute what is actually in my “heat creep” hypothesis. It is the only correct explanation of temperatures and the necessary heat flows in all tropospheres, crusts, mantles and cores of all planets and satellite moons in the Solar System, and empirical data supports it. People who understand thermodynamics understand what I have explained and the significance thereof. Sadly most readers here just simply don’t understand entropy maximization.
“DougCotton 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)
Hi DougCotton,
John Turner in your quote in part states:
“Evidence is presented to show that greenhouse gases cool the Earth and do not warm it.”
Presumably, this would be because CO2 and other tri-atomic gas compounds radiate more energy in the IR spectrum than di-atomic gas compounds like Oxygen that radiate primarily in lower frequency microwaves. However, if diatomic gas compounds radiated with higher amplitude couldn’t that allow those atoms to radiate just as fast given the same temperature? If so that argument falls away.
In the case of condensing H2O other arguments apply, and the possibility seems stronger.
Have a great day!
JohnKl
My hypothesis is not based on radiation, except for the fact that “greenhouse gases” reduce the temperature gradient, as is well known for water vapor. Any radiation between two bodies (or two layers of the troposphere) has a temperature leveling effect. I suggest you read my blog and linked website and papers.
Norman:
Norman:
Yes me to. The need to correct someone torturing the sconce – in my case meteorology and a few years ago I tried with him on that subject and his “diffusion”. So I learned.
BTW: Roy banned him (one time of many it seems) because he accused me of being a charlatan. You see, the deluded do – as they think their world-view is the truth.
I also use posts to further my understanding – unfortunately there are many who are deluded. An ideological motivation does change the way the universe works.
BTW: There is a certain “class” of “sceptic” that can lure you down the rabbit-hole and if you follow you are lost – it’s their territory you see. I don’t anymore argue empirical physics. It speaks for itself and if that person is deluded enough to think it is wrong, they are lost from the world above.
ROY
THIS IS WHY YOU CAN’T ADD SOLAR RADIATION AND BACK RADIATION … and use the total in Stefan-Boltzmann (S-B) calculations.
S-B is based on the integral of the Planck function – that is, the area under the curve.
To get the right temperature, it must be a full-spectrum Planck function with the correct shape, so it must come spontaneously from a single blackbody.
But solar radiation and back radiation have very different Planck functions – different height and very different peak frequencies because these are proportional to temperature. Back radiation isn’t even full spectrum – it’s just several spectral lines.
So, if you added the two functions you obviously get a double-humped graph that is nothing like a true Planck function and so any S-B calculations based purely on the mathematical sum of the intensities amounts to garbage in – garbage out.
But that is definitely what is done in all those energy budget diagrams and all the expensive computer models.
A puzzle for any intrepid readers (especially Doug) …
INITIAL CONDITIONS:
Suppose I hollow out a chamber in a proverbial iceberg and evacuate all the air out. Suppose the iceberg is 270 K radiating 300 W/m^2 of IR “Iceberg radiation” from the icy surfaces. In the center I place a blackbody sphere with a surface area of 1m^2.
I assume that everyone agrees that once a steady temperature is reached for the sphere, it will be 270 K, with no net flow of IR radiation. (Ie absorbing)
NEW CONDITIONS:
A tunnel is bored through the iceberg to allow in some sunlight. In space this sunlight is about 1400 W/m^2, but because of various attenuation, the beam of sunlight is only 600 W/m^2 once it enters the evacuated chamber. Since the cross-sectional area of he sphere is only 0.25 m^2, only 150 W of sunlight are absorbed.
What is the final temperature of the sphere at the center of the chamber when the 600 W/m^2 beam has been shining on it for a long time? (Suppose we spin the sphere so it warms uniformly on all parts of the surface).
Here are your choices:
A) COOL OFF. Because only the “hotter” sunlight is absorbed, the total absorbed is only 150 W/m^2, and the sphere will COOL to 227 K.
B) STAY THE SAME: Because there is more “iceberg radiation” than solar radiation, only the “iceberg radiation” is absorbed, so the sphere will REMAIN THE SAME @ 270 K.
C) WARM UP. The extra 150 W/m^2 will add exactly as any rational scientist would expect, producing a total of 450 W/m^2 of “double-humped” incoming radiation, so the sphere will WARM UP to 298 K, at which point the radiation in and out once again balance.
D) OTHER (Please explain carefully, showing your work.)
Tim Folkerts,
That is a good example of how radiation really works. I think those who understand physics will agree with you C) choice. The rest will not. Best of luck to you.
D – As explained in several pages in my paper published on several websites in March 2012. You need to learn about resonant (pseudo) scattering Tim Folkert. Any rational scientist knows that Stefan-Boltzmann calculations are based on the integral of a standard Planck function as emitted by a single blackbody.
EVERY ONE-WAY PENCIL OF RADIATION (FROM A TO B) IS AN INDEPENDENT PROCESS AND THUS MUST OBEY THE SECOND LAW, AND SO ENTROPY WILL NEVER DECREASE IN ANY STAGE OF THAT PROCESS.
So your sphere is in a total vacuum is it Timmy Boy? It’s not losing anything by conduction to colliding air molecules, is it Tim? In fact it’s rather like the Moon, receiving radiation from the Earth (rather like from the ice) and solar radiation (about twice as much to its surface as the Earth receives) and acquiring a mean temperature of … wait for it … well below freezing point.
Tim, you have predictably crafted your scenario to advance your pseudoscience. And, Norm jumps onboard your sinking ship.
You have designed a thought experiment to demonstrate a hotter source can warm an object that is already begin heated by a colder source.
Try the opposite.
Try heating an object, that is being heated by a hot source, with another source that is colder.
I sure hate to ruin your pseudoscience party.
Hilarious.
(Norm, hope your rambling 4000-word response will include many more of your adolescent insults.)
Seriously, Geran?
Are you saying the that sphere cares what order the light sources are added?
Scenario A:
1) A sphere is sitting in empty space from from any radiation source. T = 3 K (cosmic background radiation).
2) A wall of 270 K ice is built around it. Wait a long time. T = 270 K
3) A 600 W/m^2 beam of light is shone on the sphere (in addition to the ice). Wait along time. T = 298 K
Scenario B:
1) A sphere is sitting in empty space from from any radiation source. T = 3 K (cosmic background radiation).
2) A 600 W/m^2 beam of light from the hot sun is shone on the sphere. wait a long time. T = 227 K
3) A wall of 270 K ice is built around it (in addition to the sun). Wait a long time.
Final temperature: ?
In what possible universe will the sphere not settle in again to 298 K after a long time of radiation from both sources?
PS I don’t mind at all ruining your strongly held but very incorrect views of the universe. 🙂
Seriously Tim, do you think your “slight-of-hand” tricks will prove anything about the real world?
Get rid of the idealized black body, and see if your ice can heat a warmer object.
(Nice try though.)
I have to respect the almost religious certainty you have, Geran. But this is a discussion of science.
I showed how your objection is wrong, and rather learning something, you try to evade with “there are no idea blackbodies”. The numbers will be slightly different if the sphere is not perfectly black, but the basic results are the same.
* Of COURSE the extra sunlight will warm the object in the cavity about the temperature of the surroundings.
* Of COURSE the order we do it won’t matter.
If you want to contribute, you need to do some science and show some work, not just appeal to your wish that the green house effect can’t work.
Tim, you didn’t show how my “objection was wrong”. You are trying to toss out “red herrings”. I’m not talking about the “order”.
Let’s make it simple, so you can not find ways to obfuscate. Can you bake a turkey with 10 square meters of ice?
Geran,
Of course you can’t bake a turkey with any amount of radiation from ice. The fact that you even ask shows you are not “grokking” this whole idea. Finding the flux arriving somewhere depends on the *solid angles* subtended by the radiation sources, not their surface area.
So in my example, the icy walls emit “270 K BB radiation at 300 W/m^2”. The subtle point is that the inner object will be receiving “270 K BB radiation at 300 W/m^2″ from the walls — no matter whet the dimensions or shapes — as long as the ice completely surrounds the sphere. Trying to pack in more ice to produce more flux” can’t work. there is already “270 K BB radiation at 300 W/m^2” radiation from all directions. Putting more ice inside will only serve to BLOCK some radiation from the walls behind and REPLACE it with its own “270 K BB radiation at 300 W/m^2” radiation.
Of course, if I warmed half of the solid angle (eg everything to the left of the object. then the flux arriving would be greater. Half would receive 300 W/m^2 and the other half would receive more (eg 1000 W/m^2 from a 364 K hemisphere) — an average of 650 W/m^2 = 327
Remove the radiation from the icy half and replace it with CMBR @ 3 K and the average will be 500 W/m^2 = 306 K.
But we just showed (once again) That the ice r4eally DOES help warm the object (compar3ed to the icy background of space).
So you can either try to learn, or you can keep turning to a red herring that only handful of poorly informed skeptics cling to.
Tim says: “Of course you cant bake a turkey with any amount of radiation from ice.”
Thank you, Tim. You got something correct.
Now, let’s go a step further. Assume the turkey is at “room” temperature, say about 295 K. Can you raise the temperature of the turkey to 296 K, using only 10 square meters of ice?
Tim Folkerts
Best of luck with geran. It would be awesome to see a possible hope of geran learning something. I think the possibility of this is about the same as Doug understanding real physics.
Here is what Roy Spencer himself suggested for geran a few threads back.
“Roy W. Spencer, Ph. D. says:
June 30, 2015 at 4:13 PM
geran, you need to learn some physics.”
I can tell he has not cracked open a physics textbook yet nor will he ever. He is right and that is all that matters to him.
Norm, Dr. Roy is polite enough to furnish this forum. It is a forum where pseudoscience can be revealed for what it is. Your contributions are valuable, as they demonstrate how a person can be so motivated to be wrong.
Ask yourself how many of your cabbages glow in the dark, before you attempt to slur actual physics.
Hilarious.
Geran says: “lets go a step further”
The thing is, you would have to go ten steps further just to get to where I started. My several posts here have covered the point you think you want to make, and go further.
Its like you only read half of the first sentence and skipped all the rest. If you don’t recognize that I have already answered your question, then you have a lot of catching up to do on radiation and solid angles and heat flow. Unfortunately this is not the place for that.
If you REALLY want to dialog, go back and point out one specific place you think I was wrong. Give one specific calculation of thermal IR and temperature. If you can’t do that, how do you expect to
Tim, you are starting to ramble. Is that a trait of pseudoscience?
No rambling, just answer the basic question: Assume the turkey is at room temperature, say about 295 K. Can you raise the temperature of the turkey to 296 K, using only 10 square meters of ice?
Hilarious.
“But we just showed (once again) That the ice really DOES help warm the object (compared to the icy background of space).”
Yep. Compared with temperatures under 3K in Space, a block of ice at, say, 270K could potentially warm a close object, or even an object embedded in the ice to nearly 270K, but no more.
I think we all knew that as school boys, Tim. What’s your point?
To raise the temperature of an object Tim Folkerts we have to increase the mean molecular kinetic energy of the object. (That’s basic Kinetic Theory.)
The Second Law tells us that radiation cannot cause an effective transfer of thermal energy from a colder natural source to a warmer target. The effective transfer of thermal (kinetic) energy goes only ever from warmer to cooler when radiation is involved.
The Second Law is, however, about entropy increasing towards a maximum that is determined by the constraints of the system, such a system being a column of air in the troposphere.
Because entropy varies when mean molecular gravitational potential energy varies, I have been able to prove in my 2013 paper that there can be effective transfers of thermal energy towards warmer regions, but only by non-radiative processes and only when such are increasing entropy, taking into account the gravitational potential energy.
That’s how we know from the Second Law of Thermodynamics that there will be a tendency for a stable density gradient to evolve, that being the state of maximum entropy. I have explained the process using Kinetic Theory, but won’t bore you here with that explanation, save to say that this state also has a stable temperature gradient.
The answer is that earth is not a black body and SB principals cannot be applied to it, except to yield spurious results. TOA is not the earth’s surface, which is 71% water. The ocean accumulates solar energy and it is this cumulative process that produces SST. SST is not determined by atmospheric temperature, rather, it is the reverse: atmospheric temperature is determined by SST. AGW first principles are incorrect. The earth cools evaporatively, in the main.
You’re nearly right, mpainter, but not quite, because you haven’t explained the necessary heat transfer into the surface to balance the outgoing energy, whilst actually explaining the surface temperature itself, now have you?
I have done so here, where you’ll note that we cannot explain the surface temperature with S-B calculations, as you say, but still need to do so, and the necessary thermal energy input. Think of Venus, for example.
And of course, Tim and Norman, you do realize don’t you that the Moon receives about 1260W/m^2 from the Earth, as well as about 1260W/m^2 direct from the Sun. You will love the result when you add the two for a total flux of 2520W/m^2 and divide by four to get 630W/m^2. Now I Google “Stefan Boltzmann calculator” and select the one at tutorvista.com to get a mean temperature of 325K and a maximum temperature (just after an eclipse of the Moon when all 2520W/m^2 strikes one spot on the surface) of 459K.
Doug says: “And of course, Tim and Norman, you do realize dont you that the Moon receives about 1260W/m^2 from the Earth”
A new crazy claim. I’d love to see your calculations supporting this wild idea.
Order of magnitude — viewed from the moon, the sun is about about 20x as hot as the earth, so it puts out ~ 160000x as much power per square meter. If both appeared the same size in the skty, the earth would provide 1/160,000 as much power. The earth would appear about 4x as large in diameter as the sun, or 16 x as much area. That means the moon receives about 1/10,000th as much thermal radiation from the earth as from the sun.
For solar radiation, the full moon has an absolute magnitude about 10 less than the sun, or 1/400,000 as much energy to the earth fro the moon as from the sun. A “full earth” shining on hte moon is again 16x the area in the sky, and maybe 3x more reflective, which is a boost of ~ 50x. Net result is again about 1/10,000 as much flux from the earth as from the sun.
PS. The maximum reflected flux from the earth back to the moon only occurs on the night side of he moon, so that will never add to the flux from he sun to the moon. You need to brush up on astronomy, too, it seems. 🙂
Tim Folkerts
I think Doug blew his cerebral cortex on his post that the Earth sends a flux of 1260 W/m^2 to the moon.
A full moon will only send 0.02 W/m^2 to the Earth. Earth to moon would be in this ballpark.
https://books.google.com/books?id=BwistUlpZ7cC&pg=PA791&lpg=PA791&dq=measured+intensity+of+moonlight+on+Earth%27s+surface&source=bl&ots=7-omfZ7IiT&sig=EAih5Pu7QwrsU7EMMer91-E0Ia4&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjByauRjNLKAhWHuB4KHUlMCO0Q6AEIHzAA#v=onepage&q=measured%20intensity%20of%20moonlight%20on%20Earth's%20surface&f=false
I think we should take ToneB’s advice. Doug is so far lost from the real world of physics that is makes no sense to communicate with him in the real world. Geran is not much better. I think you might have more chance of communicating with a monkey at the zoo then this individual. Not saying he is not smart but he is so blinded by irrational convictions his thought process is gone.
He is incapable of learning but knows the words “hilarious” and “pseudoscience”. I think if you check, he makes sure to include one or both in everyone of his posts.
Norm blabs: “Geran is not much better. I think you might have more chance of communicating with a monkey at the zoo then this individual. Not saying he is not smart but he is so blinded by irrational convictions his thought process is gone.
He is incapable of learning but knows the words hilarious and pseudoscience. I think if you check, he makes sure to include one or both in everyone of his posts.”
Norm, tell us again how a cabbage emits visible light. And, then tell us again how “the energy does NOT leave the system, but it leaves the system”!
And, you don’t think your pseudoscience is hilarious?
geran
YOU: “Norm, tell us again how a cabbage emits visible light. And, then tell us again how the energy does NOT leave the sybstem, but it leaves the system!”
I have already given you textbook data on the cabbage. You are so far gone in your belief you can not understand basic and simple concepts. I think in your mind (however illogically it connects words) you think the term used “visible light” means you have to be able to see it or it is not visible. Ball4 already explained the term as used in science but I think you could not understand his point. Visible light means EM energy in a certain band of wavelengths. If the energy of this band of EM is very low you will not be able to “see” it with your vision mechanism. You don’t understand it so it is pointless to explain to you (hey I think I will explain it to my dog, much more likely to understand it).
Even though this is simple and basic language you will probably link it to 1st grade writing ability and that is is rambling because it is beyond your ability to comprehend content and meaning.
On the other one I explained that at depth to you already but your lack of ability to link words together to form a meaningful statement makes communication with you virtually impossible in any rational sense of the word.
But for anyone who reads posts. The energy of the Earth’s surface that is being absorbed by IR active gases in the atmosphere is not leaving the system at this time (since it is being absorbed and redirected). A percentage goes back to the Earth’s surface where it is more than likely absorbed and then reemitted. It is still energy leaving the system (as some will get through to space but technically it is not the same energy that was originally emitted by the Earth’s surface. That won’t make any sense to you. But I hope you find it “hilarious”!
Hey Norm, do tomatoes and cucumbers also emit visible light? You know, “visible light” that we cannot “see”.
Hilarious!
It’s such an easy concept to disprove. Just take your vegetables in a dark closet. QED
Thanks for such a perfect example of pseudoscience.
How is the search for all those elephant bones at the bottom of the oceans going?
“DEC”, when you get a clue, please let us know.
“A percentage goes back to the Earths surface where it is more than likely absorbed and then reemitted.”
Go and publish your refutation of the good professor’s work, Norman, because he explained (page 24) that it is not thermalized in the warmer surface.
Radiation only effectively transfers thermal (kinetic) energy from warmer sources to cooler targets. Thus IR-active molecules help to cool the nitrogen and oxygen molecules by collecting some of their kinetic energy in collisions and then converting that kinetic energy to electron energy and subsequently to electro-magnetic energy in radiation which can only effectively transfer the original kinetic energy to cooler regions in the upper troposphere or directly to Space.
Nitrogen, oxygen and argon molecules form the blanket that keeps us warm at night, and “greenhouse” gases act like holes in the blanket, radiating energy out of the atmosphere. That’s why studies show that more moist regions are cooler, and you have never produced a statistically significant study showing the contrary, Norman. You and the IPCC need to do so if you want anyone to believe your garbage.
Tim Folkerts: Where is your experiment with four radiators cooking your steak when each is at a distance where one would warm it to 40C. Where is your evidence that four raise it to 170C as Stefan-Boltzmann calculations suggest when used incorrectly?
When the Earth is on the opposite side to the Sun (but not in the shadow of the Moon) you can think of it as acting like a mirror to the Sun. The total distance from Sun to the Earth and then back to the Moon is not much greater percentage-wise to that from the Sun to the Moon, so attenuation due to distance is not that much greater. How can you possible say the extra energy would not affect the mean temperature of the Moon? And when the Earth is between the Sun and the Moon, but not quite casting a shadow on the Moon, the radiative flux coming out of the dark side of the Earth (towards the Moon) is very similar to that striking the sunlit side of the Earth because it’s only perhaps 10 degrees cooler at night on Earth. So your 1/10,000 business is rubbish. In any event, try the four radiators.
Doug says: “When the Earth is on the opposite side to the Sun (but not in the shadow of the Moon) you can think of it as acting like a mirror to the Sun. “
Wellllll sort of.
If the mirror curved so that the sunlight was spread out over an entire hemisphere instead of reflecting in a well-defined beam.
And if the mirror was dark and rough so it reflected only part of the beam.
As I already pointed out (and as usual, Doug only talks but never listens), we already have a similar experiment for the moon shining on the earth. Both Norm and I pointed it out. Do *you* feel the intense heat from the full moon when it shines on you???
Sure, the earth is a bit bigger than the moon. and a bit shinier. But as already shown, this would be an order of magntitude brighter than a full moon, but still MANY orders of magnitude dimmer than sunlight.
Here’s an interesting article about how light from the Moon appears to warm Earth a little at full Moon. Click here.
And another new article here about how phases of the Moon affect rainfall.
Maybe next time I’ll add “/sarc” Norman so as not to confuse you.
You still haven’t cooked a steak with four radiators though.
“Do *you* Tim feel the intense heat from the full back radiation when it shines on you at night, just as much as the Sun does by day, according to those energy diagrams.
Mean solar radiation: 168W/m^2 over 24 hours
= 336W/m^2 over 12 hours.
Mean backradiation over 24 hours: 324W/m^2
Pretty similar I would suggest. Don’t forget your umbrella on a clear night.
“The energy of the Earths surface that is being absorbed by IR active gases in the atmosphere is not leaving the system at this time”
Nope. It is leaving the atmosphere – every night especially.
Nitrogen, oxygen and argon hold over 98% of all the thermal energy in the atmosphere. How do they cool? By transferring thermal energy by thermal diffusion to IR active (GH) gases that then radiate it out of the atmosphere.
Every one-way pencil of radiation has to obey the Second Law, because every independent process does so. Radiation only effectively transfers thermal energy from warmer to cooler, and so, in a planet’s troposphere, thermal energy is only transferred upwards and to Space by radiation.
Greenhouse gases are holes in the blanket, cooling the atmosphere by radiating thermal energy from all the rest of the molecules upwards and to Space.
geran
Your responses are getting dull and repetitive. Do you have new material. It was most obvious that you cannot understand the use of the word “visible light” in the world of physics.
This will not help your understanding. But I will post the link anyway (not that you will consider for a second looking at it).
http://www.livescience.com/50678-visible-light.html
Since you don’t look at links (I guess it is beneath you do so).
“Visible light falls in the range of the EM spectrum between infrared (IR) and ultraviolet (UV). It has frequencies of about 4 1014 to 8 1014 cycles per second, or hertz (Hz) and wavelengths of about 740 nanometers (nm) or 2.9 10−5 inches, to 380 nm (1.5 10−5 inches).”
Our eyes are sensitive to this band and can pick it if the intensity is high enough. I guess you are the type of person that ONE WORD = ONE MEANING. Your thought process is not flexible enough to grasp that words can have multiple meanings and the actual meaning of a given word is related to how it is used in a given sentence. It requires a little thought to properly interpret words.
This link might help you in your incredible confusion on how words work. It might be your native tongue is not English so it is difficult for you to understand the language.
http://grammar.yourdictionary.com/for-students-and-parents/words-with-multiple-meanings.html
Nice ramble, Norm.
Your constant pursuit of pseudoscience is amazing. But, it is also informative. You believe that a cabbage emits visible light. But, you refuse to do the simple experiment of taking a cabbage head into a dark closet, at night.
Hilarious.
Who cares if a cabbage emits invisible visible light? What is the relevance to climate Norman?
Surface temperatures are not primarily determined by radiation and you have never answered THE QUESTIONS THAT STUMP LUKES AND WARMISTS now have you Norman? So your hypothesis lies in limbo without a word of proof, whereas what Dr Hans Jelbring and I have explained is based on the laws of physics which need no further experiments because they now have the status of laws, as distinct from hypotheses.
Add /sarc
“We shall find that the answer is resonance in a system of resonators ….
incoming radiation is absorbed by resonance,
absorbed incoming radiation is emitted as outgoing radiation, or is stored as internal/heat energy,
incoming frequencies below cut-off are emitted,
incoming frequencies above cut-off are stored as internal heat energy.”
Source: Mathematical Physics of BlackBody Radiation page 24
What is explained by both the good professor and myself obeys both the First Law and the Second Law of Thermodynamics. What climatologists “explain” totally ignores the Second Law and the resulting temperature gradient.
For variable flux to explain Earth’s surface temperature it would need to be from a closer Sun delivering a mean of over 450W/m^2 to the surface by itself. On Venus you would need about 20,000W/m^2 of variable solar flux reaching the surface. In fact, Venus receives about 0.1% of that.
What do you and the good professor have to say about Saturn-Jupiter resonance cycles and their effect on Earth’s surface temperature? We are still waiting for your explanation.
They affect the angular momentum calculations in the inverted plot of the scalar sum of the angular momentum of the Sun and all the planets, that plot correlating exceptionally well with the natural climate cycles. That’s all – take it or leave it.
If that is all you’ve got – I will leave it.
Nothing more than astrology.
Tim Folkerts,
In your ice cave thought experiment, the problem with geran and Doug is they do not understand that radiation does add (it is just a form of energy) and that the sphere in the ice cave will reach an equilibrium temperature of 25 C with the addition of 150 W/m^2.
If you had the same sphere in space with no supporting radiation keeping it at a higher equilibrium temperature the sphere (receiving only 150 W/m^2) would achieve a temperature of -47 C.
Hopeless task of trying to reach either Doug or geran. I like your effort though. Keep science alive! The extreme skeptics that have lost ability to reason give the normal skeptics a real bad name in the science world. Even the fanatic CAGW posters (David Appell and Ross) provides links and supporting evidence for their fanatic positions which is more than anything geran has provided. But I do think geran’s responses have a humor quality. No science that I have ever seen.
Norm rants “Even the fanatic CAGW posters (David Appell and Ross) provides links and supporting evidence for their fanatic positions which is more than anything geran has provided.”
Norm, you have no clue as to how hilarious you are. You think that providing links makes someone’s “science” valid. Maybe that is why you provide so many links that you believe support your pseudoscience.
Norm, tell us again about your cabbages that emit visible light. Do you own any other vegetables that do the same?
Hilarious.
Max Planck (Nobel Prize winner in Physics) would turn in his grave regarding Norman’s claims. Who needs his work on Planck functions and their integrals used in Stefan Boltzmann calculations? We can chuck out all that physics because it doesn’t gel with Norman’s hilarious imagination.
Go and publish your refutation of the good professor’s work Norman. No doubt your mathematics surpasses that of this Professor of Applied Mathematics whom I have quoted from his page 24 in previous comments.
And why isn’t the Moon much hotter because it gets all that extra radiation from the Earth as well as the Sun? Just add it all up Norman, as if photons are like little hand-grenades delivering thermal energy into everything they strike in disobedience of the law – the Second one. They’re not, but don’t let it change your mind about anything Norman: you’ve already demonstrated that is impossible.
DougCotton,
It is stupid for me to respond to your posts but this one cannot go unanswered. What extra radiation from Earth??? 0.02 Watt or so per square meter!?? What in the name of mercy makes you think the Earth sends thousands of watts/m^2 to the moon’s surface?????
Help me with your horrible thought process!! When you are this far gone why would anyone want to follow your awful crap physics???
Not talking about emitted radiation – about 30% is reflected by Earth – quite a different thing – more directed when Earth is on opposite side than Sun – not coming out of the dark side of Earth like radiation.
DougCotton,
You mindless clot of twisted thinking! The full moon energy that hits the Earth is solar reflected energy off the moon’s surface and when it reaches the Earth it is in the value of 0.02 W/m^2. You are oblivious to the INVERSE SQUARE LAW. Your physics is so bad it hurts!
Yes well, Norman the main spectral lines for carbon dioxide correspond to temperatures found only in the mesosphere. That’s a fair distance up, but we don’t apply the inverse square law, Norman: we use steradians. The reflected Earth light reaching the Moon is somewhat greater than that from the Moon to the Earth my friend because, believe it or not, the Earth is bigger, but of course it’s not even a single watt per square meter.
We get a realistic idea of the effect of carbon dioxide up in the mesosphere by imagining those 1 in 2,500 molecules being grouped together into a region 1/2500 of the original volume. Then we use steradians applied to that very much smaller volume that subtends a very much smaller angle at the distant surface. In a nutshell, the slowing of the radiative component of surface cooling is absolutely infinitesimal, and there is a greater cooling effect due to the reduction in the temperature gradient, as happens with water vapor. But I’ll claim less than 0.1 degree of net cooling for CO2.
All this has just been a red herring to test your knowledge of steradians and the application of such in radiation calculations. You fell for the trap, Norman, and I’ve satisfied myself that you don’t understand photon absorption, such as I wrote a dozen or so pages about in my 2012 paper.
Radiation from different sources (usually with very different Planck functions) cannot be compounded and the sum of the fluxes cannot be used in Stefan-Boltzmann calculations because the compounded radiation is not black or grey body radiation.
Back radiation is irrelevant Norman and cannot be added to solar radiation in Stefan Boltzmann calculations. If it were valid to do so, then the gravitationally induced temperature gradient would be increased and the mean surface temperature sore above 310K. Gravity has already done the trick, obviating the need for concern over greenhouse gases. So go home and relax: there’s nothing mankind can do to affect climate, and it will start to cool for 500 years before the end of this century.
Now go and read about what Dr Hans Jelbring (PhD in climatology) first wrote back in 2003 and confirmed in an email to me on 30 January 2016. The quote is in total agreement with what I have explained in my 2013 paper.
DougCotton
Do you know this equation?
Net Radiation Loss Rate
If an hot object is radiating energy to its cooler surroundings the net radiation heat loss rate can be expressed as
q = ε σ (Th4 – Tc4) Ac (3)
where
Th = hot body absolute temperature (K)
Tc = cold surroundings absolute temperature (K)
Ac = area of the object (m2)
Do you understand that this equation works and is used in design applications for actual real world heat exchangers.
Do you know what it implies? Your lack of any rational comprehension is why you should get off all climate blogs. It will tell you back radiation is quite significant and since you do not understand how this equation works (or just stupidly reject it for your own moronic unjustified reasons). This is why you can’t understand the spotlight experiment. You do not consider the energy given off by the surroundings as real or significant. If you understood any physics you would use this in your calculations of the spotlight test and see the first spotlight only delivers a flux of 71 W/m^2 to the target tape and not the 478 you use. You have an extremely low understanding of radiation physics.
The equation above explains Tim Folkerts ice cave situation.
Norm pontificates, hilariously: “Do you know what it implies? Your lack of any rational comprehension is why you should get off all climate blogs. It will tell you back radiation is quite significant and since you do not understand how this equation works…”
No, Norm, you are the one lacking any rational comprehension. You found this equation online, and think that you understand it. The equation only applies to a perfect black body. You still have no clue about photon absorption. That’s just one of your many flaws that keep you wallowing in your pseudoscience.
geran
DougCotton’s lapdog barks again! Enough of your mindless posts. Follow Roy Spencer’s advice
Roy W. Spencer, Ph. D. says:
June 30, 2015 at 4:13 PM
geran, you need to learn some physics.
Do you know what this symbol is put into the equation for? “ε” It is an emissivity factor that covers grey bodies. If you have an equation that can only apply to nonreal blackbodies what good would it be? This equation is used all over manufacturing to determine correct heat flows. Learn some physics!
This link might help you but the likelihood is low.
http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/emissivity-coefficients-d_447.html
The Earth’s surface is not a grey body, however, Norman, because it gains and loses thermal energy by other processes apart from radiation. There is no general theory in physics to “work out” resulting temperatures in such instances. All we can determine is which process dominates, radiation or non radiative processes. In the case of the Venus surface, non-radiative processes account for 100.000% of the surface temperature. On Earth it’s a little less, probably around 90% but we don’t know precisely. My best estimate is that only for about 10% of Earth’s surface at any one time is the solar radiation actually raising the temperature above what the non-radiative processes have achieved.
And geran is right, Norman, when he says “You still have no clue about photon absorption.” I have given you links to the good professor’s computations on this, and even copied into a comment his summary on page 24 which makes it quite clear that not all photons striking a target are thermalized.
All the radiation between the Earth’s surface and the colder atmosphere does is summarized in these steps …
(a) converts thermal (kinetic) energy in the surface to electron energy in surface molecules
(b) converts electron energy to photons with electro-magnetic energy in emitted radiation
(c) converts the electro-magnetic energy in the radiation back to electron energy in the atmosphere
(d) re-emits some of the electron energy in (c) as new identical photons
(e) converts the rest of the electron energy in (c) back to thermal (kinetic) energy in the atmosphere.
Hence there is a one-way effective transfer of thermal (kinetic) energy from the warmer surface to the cooler atmosphere, and the quantification of this energy transfer is related to the area between the Planck functions for the surface and the atmosphere, although there is actually less absorbed by the atmosphere than would be absorbed by a blackbody because IR-active molecules make up less than 2% and, having limited elements (usually two) in their molecules, they have just a few spectral lines.
Norm says: “Follow Roy Spencers advice…”
Norm, you link to past comments like you link to pseudoscience. You only give part of the story. Here’s the part you omitted:
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2015/06/can-infrared-radiation-warm-a-water-body-part-ii/#comment-194037
Someday, if I’m drunk enough, I may go back and find the links for every stupid thing you have written on this blog. If I ever get that drunk….
Norm continues to pontificate: “Do you know what this symbol is put into the equation for? ε It is an emissivity factor that covers grey bodies. If you have an equation that can only apply to nonreal blackbodies what good would it be? This equation is used all over manufacturing to determine correct heat flows. Learn some physics!”
Norm, as I have stated several times, you lack any depth in the subjects you attempt to appear an “expert” on. You have only a surface knowledge, which, more often than not, leads you down the wrong path. You do not understand “photon absorption”, and that is why you believe ice will bake a turkey.
Hint: In the real world, emissivity varies with temperature!
You have no clue.
Radiation is “Just a form of energy” writes Norman.
Trouble is, Norman, there are lots of forms of energy, but only one form affects temperature. Do you know what that is, Norman? It’s called kinetic energy. Kinetic Theory tells us that temperature is proportional to mean molecular kinetic energy – and nothing else – no other form of energy counts Norman. This is pretty basic physics my friend – but of course you’re not qualified in physics so you are dabbling out of your depth on such matters – but don’t let your ignorance of this physics stand in the way of what you write about such, Norman.
THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT REGARDING the WORK of Dr HANS JELBRING
Dr Hans Jelbring (from New Zealand) completed his PhD in climatology in the late 1990’s and had a journal article published in 2003 about the effect of gravity forming a temperature gradient (lapse rate) in a planet’s troposphere. He has written to Joanne Nova, myself and others reiterating his hypothesis. I replied, thanking him for his time and saying …
As you know, I cited your work in my 2013 paper “Planetary Core and Surface Temperatures” and we both agree that gravity forms a stable temperature gradient as a direct consequence of maximum entropy production, which is what the Second Law of Thermodynamics says will tend to happen. We also both agree that total energy at any altitude must be equal, and, when other internal energy does not change, this amounts to mean molecular (gravitational potential energy + kinetic energy) being constant for all altitudes in an ideal troposphere. When that is the case then all unbalanced energy potentials have dissipated and, in physics, that is the state of maximum entropy, also called thermodynamic equilibrium.
Now, thus knowing that the temperature gradient is the equilibrium state, we can understand why new thermal energy being absorbed each planetary morning will disturb the equilibrium state and, rather like new rain-water falling just in the middle of a lake, the new thermal energy will spread out in all accessible (3D) directions, including some towards any solid surface or the core of a planet.
The process is all entirely by molecular collision, as only such natural convective heat transfers (which in physics include thermal diffusion) will form the “dry” temperature gradient (aka lapse rate) which we can calculate from (PE+KE)=constant as follows …
PE gain = KE loss
m.g.dH = -m.cp.dT
dT/dH = -g/cp
Where this process is predominantly downwards (from cooler to warmer regions) I coined the term “heatcreep” to distinguish it from common climatology concepts regarding convection. For example, wind of any form is forced convection, not natural convection. Furthermore, the “heatcreep” process only happens when thermodynamic equilibrium has been disturbed in the upper regions, resulting in downward heat transfer, albeit to warmer regions, provided that unbalanced energy potentials are being dissipated, that being synonymous with entropy increasing.
Hence we can explain the extra thermal energy that is required to raise planetary surface temperatures in sunlit hours by this “heatcreep” process, and by no other process, least of all by atmospheric radiation from a colder troposphere to a warmer surface. The latter would violate the Second Law, whereas “heat creep” is a direct corollary of that law.
I hope this clarifies the issue once and for all, and that Roy Spencer, PSI members and Jo Nova realize that Hans and I have been right all along.
“…Hans and I have been right all along.”
So it’s just you and Hans following in the footsteps of, what you call, “the great mind” of Loschmidt.
Great. Have you recently asked Hans how he feels about this “gravito-thermal” hypothesis ,Duggie? It could even be you alone, blathering this wacko theory into the wilderness.
In his email to me dated January 30, 2016, Dr Hans Jelbring summarized various points, concluding …
“According to the second law of thermodynamics converted to include the fact that gravity exists tells that any atmospheric mass unit of the atmosphere, regardless of altitude, will try to hold the same amount of energy. This will happen when the temperature lapse rate is g/Cp on Earth where g is gravity (m/s^2) and Cp is the heat capacity J/(kgK) at constant pressure. This is approximately valid in the lower troposphere in earths atmosphere and very well followed in Venus and Jupiters atmospheres. By the way, the greenhouse gases water vapor and carbon dioxide are lacking in the atmospheres of the giant planets. “
You don’t understand this physics Mack, so I really don’t know why you keep bothering to write anything here, interrupting us.
I’ve got an idea Duggie boy,…why don’t you email Hans, and invite him to come along here to Roy’s place, and he will be able to reinforce and supplement your contentions about the gravitational-thermal hypothesis,….thereby dispelling all our suspicions that you’re a raving lunatic.
We have a lot of time and patience (particularly Roy), and so we will wait patiently here for Hans to make an appearance, and assist you in your endeavours in “teaching” us the New 21st Century paradigm in physics.
Don’t be afraid to do this Dougie, you can trust us that Hans would be very welcome here. I for one, would be most pleased to talk to him.
Well you’d better swat up on what Hans wrote 13 years ago here.
And my 43 minute video will save the trip from Sydney. You could even watch it yourself one day.
So far (in about 25 weeks) it’s saved my making about 1,070 trips to explain it all to that number of viewers.
There are others, Mackie Boy. See this comment and this paper by Nikolov and Zeller.
Quoting Nikolov & Zeller …
“We show via a novel analysis of planetary climates in the solar system that the physical nature of the so-called Greenhouse Effect is in fact a Pressure-induced Thermal Enhancement (PTE), which is independent of the atmospheric chemical composition. Hence, the down-welling infrared radiation (a.k.a. greenhouse- or back-radiation) is a product of the atmospheric temperature (maintained by
solar heating and air pressure) rather than a cause for it. In other words, our results suggest that the GH effect is a thermodynamic phenomenon, not a radiative one as presently assumed. This finding leads to a new and very different paradigm of climate controls. “
Yes, those two as well, Duggie. Hans Jelbring would be fine, but why not go the whole hog.
I’m somehow thinking that all three won’t make an appearance, fearing they’d only have to deal with the rabid Duggie dog among their pack.
Your childish “last resort” comments serve no purpose. There are questions above you cannot answer, and you would do better to think about such.
Go and help your fellow hoaxer, David Appell who is still unable to answer this question. Expect some excuse or “last resort” comment soon – anything but an answer.
“Go and help your “fellow hoaxer,” David Appell ” !!!!
Aaaaahahahahahahahaha….Aaaahahahahahaha
There’s no hope for this loon.
Go and help Ball4 with his radiation figures that “explain” a surface temperature around 222K. Learn to write something to do with physics if you address me, as garbage like the above comment is water off a Doug’s back.
Lukes and warmists have no proof from physics and no physical evidence for their underlying assumption (as Roy also wrote) that there would be isothermal conditions in a planet’s troposphere but for “greenhouse” gases. As Dr Hans Jelbring pointed out, even the large gas planets exhibit a temperature gradient close to -g/cp and yet have no water vapor or carbon dioxide.
The temperature gradient is a direct result of the force field acting on molecules in flight between collisions, and the process of entropy maximization described in statements of the Second Law of Thermodynamics. I have cited about half a dozen others who agree with me about this, and there are hundreds, maybe thousands more who don’t speak up but have probably understood the explanation based on standard physics. There is also evidence of similar radial temperature gradients due to centrifugal force, such as in any vortex cooling tube.
It is surely a fundamental requirement of any hypothesis that it be proven from the laws of physics and supported by empirical evidence which never refutes it.
Every planetary troposphere and every vortex tube and the Second Law of Thermodynamics all refute the basic underlying assumption of the radiative forcing greenhouse conjecture.
The other assumption that solar and atmospheric radiation can be compounded is also false and easily refuted with simple experiments. The conclusion that water vapor warms by about 20 degrees for each 1% in the atmosphere is easily shown with real-world data to be incorrect.
Doug Says: “As Dr Hans Jelbring pointed out, even the large gas planets exhibit a temperature gradient close to -g/cp and yet have no water vapor or carbon dioxide. “
Yet another FAIL. All of the atmospheres of all of the planets & moons (at least the ones which actually have atmospheres) contain GHGs including H2O & CO2.
You can check any source you like, such as wikipedia’s entry for the atmosphere of Jupiter. “The atmosphere contains various simple compounds such as water, methane (CH4), hydrogen sulfide (H2S), ammonia (NH3) and phosphine (PH3).[1] Their abundances in the deep (below 10 bar) troposphere imply that the atmosphere of Jupiter is enriched in the elements carbon, nitrogen, sulfur and possibly oxygen[b] by factor of 24 relative to the Sun.[c][1] … The carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide and water present in the upper atmosphere are thought to originate from impacting comets, such as Shoemaker-Levy 9.”.
“There is also evidence of similar radial temperature gradients due to centrifugal force, such as in any vortex cooling tube. “
By definition, a device with air constantly forced in one end and other the other is NOT is a state of thermodynamic equilibrium. As such, it cannot be used as evidence for what would happen in equilibrium. Its like saying an air conditioner is proof that thermodynamic equilibrium allows warm air to collect on one side and warm air on the other.
Go ahead — ask the guys who built the centrifuge that you keep referring to. See if they support your interpretation of their device.
Go to this comment TF.
If you, Tim Folkerts, consider, for example, the 350Km high nominal troposphere of Uranus there is indeed a small percentage of methane, but it is concentrated in a layer near TOA and there it absorbs virtually all solar radiation. Even if there are negligible percentages of IR-active (GH) gases further down, or likewise further down in the large gas planets, no solar radiation reaches down there and there is no solid surface being warmed by solar radiation and no back radiation, so there is no radiative forcing effect due to such GH gases.
By definition, a moving thin cylinder reference frame “sliding” down the vortex tube may be considered as an isolated system which is approaching a state of maximum entropy and thus developing a radial temperature gradient in a force field. How do you think they get temperatures down to 1K in the centre of a centrifuge machine as here?
In any event, the Second Law of Thermodynamics used in conjunction with standard Kinetic Theory can be used to prove that there is a density gradient and temperature gradient in the state of thermodynamic equilibrium. The proof is in my paper and, whether or not you understand such physics, it is correct.
And you, Tim Folkerts, still don’t believe Josef Loschmidt, BigWaveDave, Dr Hans Jelbring or Drs Nikolov and Zeller, and you cannot produce in your own words a valid computation for the mean surface temperature of Earth, let alone Venus or the base of the nominal troposphere of Uranus. So until you at least try, give up!
Oh, and don’t forget Tim Folkerts to cook your steak with four bar radiators each capable of just warming your hand to about 40C but (by your false calculations compounding radiation) should achieve 170C when all radiating together. (LOL)
So, Tim Folkerts, where is your physics that you think proves the state of thermodynamic equilibrium in a force field would somehow be isothermal and thus have unbalanced energy potentials still capable of further dissipation. Thus your imagined state could still have increases in entropy as the unbalanced energy potentials diminish – and so it is not thermodynamic equilibrium.
So off you go, TF: go and prove that thermodynamic equilibrium is not the state of maximum entropy because you think it can have unbalanced energy potentials (with more molecular gravitational potential energy at the top) when there are isothermal conditions as assumed incorrectly by IPCC & Co.
Remain in your ignorance Tim Folkerts. You have no physics qualifications: you’re just an ill informed, seriously misled warmist who has been brainwashed by climatologists and who could learn from me, but deigns not to.
Silent readers will note …
(1) that you, Tim Folkerts, cannot support the radiative forcing greenhouse conjecture with any valid physics;
(2) that you cannot prove that a planet’s troposphere would be isothermal (from the base to the top) without GH gases;
(3) that you cannot prove that radiation can be compounded, such as with the 4 radiator experiment I suggested;
(4) that you cannot explain in your own words with valid physics why the surface temperature is what it is, and actually rises by day;
(5) that you cannot explain how the surface gets the required new thermal energy to rise in temperature (even under cloud cover) each morning, and
(6) that you cannot prove statistically from real world temperature and precipitation data that more moist regions are significantly hotter than dry regions at similar latitude and altitude, when in fact my study showed they are cooler.
It’s not hard to understand, Roy.
In this experiment we read “Molecules lose speed drastically when they are guided against the centrifugal force to the center of a rotating disk.”
Clearly, as these molecules gain potential energy (just like molecules in the troposphere with an upward component in their motion between collisions) they lose speed (kinetic energy) and so, on a macro scale, the temperature (which is proportional to mean kinetic energy) becomes cooler at the top, but warmer at the base of the troposphere – all because of gravity. So we don’t need extra warming by GH gases, which would in fact make mean surface temperatures over 310K – if such warming were possible.
Doug, When you can get the people who performed that experiment to support your interpretation of their results and the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics, then get back to us. Surely if anyone knows what this experiment means and how to interpret the results it would be the people who created and used the device. They ought to be thrilled that their experiment has overturned basic understanding of thermodynamic equilibrium in a force field.
The simple fact is that any system with applied outside forces and continuous inflows of molecules is — by definition — NOT thermodynamic equilibrium. As such, it is of no use for confirming nor refuting what will happen in thermodynamic equilibrium.
In the centrifuge or in the atmosphere, when you have bulk flow (eg convection), a temperature gradient will appear. When the “unbalanced potential” driving the bulk motion is removed, the gradient will be too.
Again … get the folks at the Max Planck Institute to agree and I will withdraw my objections. Simply repeating your claim is not going to convince anyone.
What I wrote in this comment is applicable to you also Tim Folkerts – the epitome of one who is unteachable.
You have been proven WRONG Tim Folkerts in that the thought experiment you copied from all your climatology texts assumed totally incorrectly that the energy distribution for molecules was (inverse) exponential. In contrast, physics texts and even Wikipedia would have confirmed that it is a Maxwell-Boltzmann distribution with three degrees of freedom – a distribution much more like a normal distribution that approaches the origin. This fact completely negates your attempt to refute the gravitationally-induced temperature gradient which is clearly the state of maximum entropy because it has no unbalanced energy potentials when (PE+KE)=constant. Consequently my hypothesis still stands unrefuted. (See today’s comments towards the end of this thread.)
Go back to this comment.
Roy, Tim and others – please read this comment.
Nothing but bullshit, Doug.
Your reasoning is utterly wrong.
Those molecules in upward motion indeed loose speed since their last collision but regain it as soon as they collide again with molecules in downward motion that for the very same reasons have necessarily gained speed since their last collision.
So the mean kinetic energy of any molecule after a new collision remains necessarily exactly the same as immediately after any of its former collision.
Thus, at thermodynamical equilibrium, temperature must remain the same everywhere with or without gravity or any external force field.
As is well known by any trained physicist and as you where told repeatedly.
So why not finally stop with your idiotic drivel here ?
We are not interested in the stability of the mean kinetic energy of a particular molecule as it rises and falls: we are interested in the mean kinetic energy of molecules at a particular height at any instant, and you have quite clearly stated that the height of the molecule varied. So when it was up it was up in the upper group, and when it was down it was down in the lower group.
Big mistake, Professor Alphagruis.
See the thought experiment with eight molecules in another comment of mine dated Feb 1 at 7:52pm.
Our Professor Alphagruis reminds me of the PhD’s to whom BigWaveDave referred in this comment, and I quote …
“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.
“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 GHGs. And, because this is based on long established fundamental principles that were apparently forgotten or never learned by many PhDs, it is not something that can be left as an acceptable disagreement.”
See also my refutation of that Robert Brown article on WUWT here.
Those “long established principles” date back to the work of the brilliant 19th century physicist Josef Loschmidt (Maxwell’s teacher) who was first to estimate realistically the size of air molecules.
Apparently our Professor Alphagruis thinks he knows better than Josef Loschmidt, but can produce no valid physics to prove him or me wrong, or demonstrate isothermal conditions in any planetary troposphere.
Alphagrius
What qualifications do you have in physics? If you are qualified you ought to be ashamed at your obvious lack of understanding of the process of maximum entropy production. Your “explanation” is seriously flawed and isothermal conditions are never seen in any planetary troposphere even where there is no solid surface at the base and no solar radiation reaching down there anyway, and no evidence of long term cooling of the planet. Furthermore, the “coincidences” issue that I have discussed makes the probability of isothermal conditions millions, if not billions to one against. The correct physics is below, and in my paper.
When there is a stable density gradient (that is, the state of thermodynamic equilibrium) there must be equal numbers of molecules crossing a horizontal plane with an upward component of motion as there are with a downward component. Furthermore, at the moment of crossing the mean kinetic energy (KE) of the downward ones equals the mean KE of the upward moving ones. This (using Kinetic Theory) means the pressure from above the plane equals the pressure from below, because pressure is proportional to the product of temperature and density, and temperature is proportional to mean molecular KE.
Now, since the upward moving ones have slowed down since their last collision at a lower level, and the downward moving ones have accelerated, the latter have come from a cooler region and the upward moving ones have come from a warmer region below. So there is a temperature gradient. QED
Your assumption of isothermal conditions in the state of maximum entropy is wrong because we don’t have maximum entropy if there are unbalanced energy potentials. That would clearly be the case because molecules at higher altitudes would have more gravitational potential energy than those at lower altitudes, whilst having the same kinetic energy (temperature) according to you. For maximum entropy there must be no unbalanced energy potentials, and so there must be (in the absence of phase change and any reactions) a homogeneous sum of mean molecular gravitational potential energy plus kinetic energy. Hence there is a temperature gradient because there is a PE gradient which is equal in magnitude but of opposite sign.
When considering a moving reference frame in a vortex tube (namely, a thin cylinder moving with the gas) it is clear that the radial temperature gradient is due to centrifugal force. Furthermore, I have published calculations showing that the gradient is also based on the quotient of the acceleration due to the force field and the weighted mean specific heat of the gases. So theory is supported by experiment.
Because the temperature gradient is the state of thermodynamic equilibrium, we can then explain how thermal energy can move downwards provided it is restoring maximum entropy. You have no other valid explanation for the surface temperatures of Earth and Venus rising each planetary day to compensate for cooling the night before. The Sun’s radiation is insufficient and back radiation and solar radiation cannot be compounded in Stefan Boltzmann calculations. If they could be there would be absurdly high temperatures at noon in the tropics where there is a lot of water vapor such as in Singapore. But temperatures there rarely exceed 33C in Singapore.
For your info Doug:
I’m a physicist, tenured professor of physics, published about 150 peer reviewed papers and taught statistical physics and so, guess what?, KINETIC THEORY OF GASES.
But note that you do not need to post any further ridiculous drivel in response.
Utterly useless. I won’t even bother and read it.
Good – you’re a professor of physics and so I throw down the gauntlet to you to debate the physics with me.
In that you have avoided any discussion of what I have actually written, you may wish to make a submission on my blog (and copied here) for the AU $10,000 (about US $7,000) reward for proving me wrong. I have spent thousands of hours studying and researching all this over at least five years and published two papers (also peer-reviewed) on the Second Law of Thermodynamics.
My website and blog provide further information which is based on correct physics. So, either pinpoint what you think is a specific error in my development of the hypothesis in the paper linked from my website, or I rest my case.
Everything I have explained is supported by copious evidence, experiments and a study showing water vapor cools.
You could start by showing readers that you can answer THE QUESTIONS THAT STUMP LUKES AND WARMISTS which are towards the end of my blog.
I look forward to an appropriate open public debate with you regarding the physics, but assertive comments such as the above will be ignored as water off a duck’s back.
Doug says: “Clearly, as these molecules gain potential energy (just like molecules in the troposphere with an upward component in their motion between collisions) they lose speed (kinetic energy) … ”
For anyone who cares, here a yet another fairly intuitive example that shows This understanding of Kinetic Theory is wrong. (The details for a true 3D gas are a bit more complicated, but the basic principle is correct.)
Consider 50 gas molecules in some layer of gas that happen to be moving upward. They will have a distribution of energies (in some arbitrary units) that might be something like this (calculated from an exponential distribution that typically shows up in kinetic theory):
KE # of particle
1 11
2 9
3 7
4 6
5 5
6 4
7 3
8 3
9 2
10 2
11 1
12 1
13 1
14 1
15 1
16 1
17 0
You can convince yourself that the average KE is 4.8. As these particles fly upward, they will indeed lose KE as Doug suggests. Suppose they go up far enough to gain 1 unit of PE and lose 1 unit of KE. What is the new average KE?
Doug would like to have us believe they lost 1 unit of KE, so the new average would be 4.8 – 1.0 = 3.8, and that they are therefore cooler.
However, anyone who is clever will note that 11 of the particles never got into the next layer up because they only had 1 unit of KE. So there are now only 39 particles left in the upper layer. Those 39 indeed all lost 1 unit of KE, but — lo and behold — the average for those 39 is STILL 4.8 units of KE. Yep, those 39 remaining particles will have the same average KE as the original 50.
We have a density gradient (fewer particles in the upper layer), but no temperature gradient.
Your “distribution” is absurdly and unrealistically spread out, TF. Molecules at ground level move at about 1,800Km/hr and in the upper troposphere they are still moving at around 1,400Km/hr. Virtually all have sufficient kinetic energy to reach well into the stratosphere. In any event, there is new absorption of energy while ever the Sun shines, which it does by day at least above the clouds. So molecules in the upper troposphere and stratosphere get a “top up” and don’t run out of energy. After all, they would only have no kinetic energy left if they got down to absolute zero (0K) which is about -273C.
And, Timmy Boy, no molecules actually move up or down by a matter of kilometers. The energy is passed on in collisions that are about 90 nanometers apart. Each collision amounts to a sharing of kinetic energy, tending to average out, as well we know happens in a horizontal plane. That’s why your distribution is unrealistic, and irrelevant, because you could just consider all molecules in each small range of energy as if they were a separate system, and every such separate system would develop a temperature gradient. Hence the mean of all such separate systems would also have a temperature gradient.
Your problem is Tim Folkerts that you just repeat typical arguments like this (which I have heard many times and is not your own original thought) without applying valid physics or thought processes of your own.
Consequently, you are thus the epitome of a brain-washed subject, Tim Folkerts, as I suspect any psychologist would confirm.
In fact, the Clausius statement requires that gravitational potential energy does not change, for otherwise entropy would be affected and the simplified entropy expression involving only a term in KE would be inapplicable.
Hence you can only prove that heat always transfers from hot to cold (thus tending to form isothermal conditions) if you hold gravitational potential energy constant, and thus restrict your hypothesis to a horizontal plane. The Second Law of Thermodynamics can not be violated or ignored, Tim Folkerts.
Doug, Doug, Doug,
It would be trivial to extend the example to billions of particles divided into bins of 0.001 units of energy and have the particles only moving up far enough to lose 0.001 units of KE. The results would be the same. (In fact, I just checked it. 5.000e9 particles with an average of 5.0000 units of KE become 4.999e9 particles with and average of 5.0000 units of KE ). The numbers here were just for illustration, since I didn’t want to put 100,000 rows of data into poor Roy’s blog
With just a little more work, the math could be extended a continuous distribution of speeds for an arbitrarily large # of particles moving up a distance dy losing energy dE. The results are STILL the same.
The self-selected particles that manage to actually move upward some amount dy must have been above average energy to actually make it that high. When the above-average-KE particles lose dE, they end up back at the same average KE = same temperature.
Innumerable textbooks come to this conclusion, so until you can point out a specific flaw in their math, your claims continue to be just bluster. Its not ME you are arguing against — it is every advanced textbook in physics. The fact that you try to make it personal simply shows you don’t realize just how alone you are in your conclusions.
PS. You missed the true limitation of my example — this is a “1D gas”. Extending to 3D would be a bit more challenging, but it is standard kinetic theory. And it still gives the same answer.
If you have a stable density gradient then you have a state of thermodynamic equilibrium (maximum entropy) with no unbalanced energy potentials. Such a stable density gradient must have, for any horizontal plane, equal pressure from above and below. That means there must be equal numbers of molecules crossing the plane each way, and the mean KE at the time of crossing must be equal for each group, those crossing upwards and those crossing downwards. For this to be the case, because molecules “falling” have gained KE by the time they crossed the plane, they must have come from a region with less mean KE – that is a cooler region above. Those rising and losing KE must have come from a warmer region below.
It’s not hard to understand, but the explanation won’t make it to climatology textbooks because it refutes the greenhouse agenda which they are politically or financially persuaded to support. Hence your climatology textbook authors (who are not usually qualified in physics) will obviously dream up unrealistic thought experiments and reiterate only such garbage, all copied from one another.
And, by the way, Tim, the reason there is a density gradient has been explained in another comment a few hours ago. Note also that, because of gravity, there is a slight downward curve in the motion of molecules. This means that there is a slightly greater than 50% probability that the next collision will be at a lower height than the previous collision. This is how we get equal numbers passing upwards and downwards across a horizontal plane. The initial condition must have been a higher density below than above, because less than 50% of the higher number below go upwards, whilst more than 50% of the lower number above go downwards. For equal pressure, the numbers crossing the plane must be equal and also have the same mean kinetic energy. So a similar argument shows that the initial KE at higher levels must have been less than the KE at the plane, whilst the initial KE lower must have been greater. So, in this state of thermodynamic equilibrium, wherein by definition there is no net matter or energy crossing any internal boundary, we must have both a density gradient and a temperature gradient.
Not even any “advanced textbook” has to be invoked to make your point, Tim.
As I already told Doug, Richard Feynman, provided a very good discussion of it in his famous introductory lectures of physics intended for undergraduates, for instance here
And you, alphagruis, a professor of physics did not even notice that Tim assumed an inverse exponential function for the energy distribution of molecules. You must surely know that is wrong because it is in fact a Maxwell-Boltzmann chi distribution with three degrees of freedom, and that negates his whole thought experiment copied from climatology texts.
Maybe you’d like to explain the near -g/cp temperature gradient in the 350Km high nominal troposphere of Uranus which is hotter than Earth at its base, despite being about 30 times further from the Sun.
You’re out of your depth arguing with me, professor, about such matters. Try me! I throw down the gauntlet, but you need to produce physics, notably discussion of maximum entropy production by the dissipation of unbalanced energy potentials.
And, Alphagruis, your linked Feynman article did not even discuss any physics pertaining to thermodynamic equilibrium and the associated temperature gradient: he merely assertive assumed isothermal conditions and wrote about thermal equilibrium rather than thermodynamic equilibrium.
You’ll have to do better than that, my friend, and I suggest that no cited references will prove me wrong.
And I suspect Professor Alphagrius that you will need to catch up on such things as the writings of Rod Swenson regarding entropy and the Second Law of Thermodynamics that first appeared in the 1980’s and are cited here in the pages about the Second Law.
I have to admit, I am impressed by Doug’s efforts. He’s not quite right, but he is at least looking in the right directions.
” … Tim assumed an inverse exponential function for the energy distribution of molecules. You must surely know that is wrong because it is in fact a Maxwell-Boltzmann chi distribution with three degrees of freedom, and that negates his whole thought experiment copied from climatology texts … “
The chi distribution applies to the *speed* distribution. However, since you recognized we are actually interested in the *energy* distribution, then Doug should have realized we need to look at *KE* distribution, which of course depends on speed *squared*. To borrow Doug’s words, this negates his whole objection to my post.
In fact, each degree of freedom does indeed follow an exponential distribution for *energy*. Since the horizontal degrees of freedom for KE are unaffected by changes in altitude (as are the rotational degrees of course), in the end, it is really only the exponential change in the vertical degree of freedom that matters. And as we have seen, the vertical component following an exponential distribution leads to no change in temperature.
Go and learn about equipartition, Tim. When I calculate the temperature gradient in two lines from first principles …
I am equating the change in gravitational potential energy with the negative of the change in kinetic energy, that latter change being the energy required to raise mass m by dT degrees. So I get (as in my paper and book) …
m.g.dH = -m.cp.dT
dT/dH = -g/cp
We don’t have to be concerned about the degrees of freedom (which in fact share the total energy equally as it is spread around statistically during collisions) because the specific heat cp is an empirically determined value which thus automatically takes into account the degrees of freedom and how the new KE is shared.
The vertical component does not follow an exponential distribution. Maxwell-Boltzmann distributions have no term for gravitational potential energy and so, rather like the Clausius corollary of the Second Law, they only apply in a horizontal plane.
You continue with your hyperbola-type distribution which is nothing at all like any natural distribution of anything – all such natural distributions being close to bell shaped, such as a normal distribution or these chi distributions. You do NOT get extreme maximum values at the outer extremes of the distribution, like your 11 with value 1.
With molecules moving at speeds like the speed of sound, how the hell do you suppose that 22% of them would not have enough energy to travel upwards by the mean free path (about 90 nanometers) so as to collide with another molecule. If they are low on energy relatively, then there is a greater than 50% probability that they will gain KE during the collision with a more energetic molecule. No molecules travel upwards even by a meter without perhaps billions of collisions.
You will note that I am NOT calculating the change in KE by using Newtonian calculations involving change in velocity. We don’t have to do that. We just use 1LoT saying the KE change equals the negative of the PE change, and we just note that temperature is proportional to mean molecular KE (however that may be distributed among DoF’s) and so all the change in KE will be observed only as a change in temperature.
Hence we can use the definition of specific heat cp to quantify the change in KE and thus determine the temperature gradient dT/dH which is a reality, my friend, whether you like it or not – and its existence refutes the radiative forcing GH conjecture.
That’s why Anthony Watts, climatology text books and Wikipedia all try to quash any mention of the gravito-thermal effect and Josef Loschmidt’s and Roderich Graeff’s work on this. They used to even modify the Second Law in some places to refer to “universe entropy” only which thus tells you nothing about a particular process.
The most correct one in Wikipedia is … In a natural thermodynamic process, the sum of the entropies of the interacting thermodynamic systems increases. [source]
Note the reference to “interacting” or, as I usually say, inter-dependent processes or systems.
Wikipedia, however, is far too restrictive in referring only to systems that it claims have to be in thermodynamic equilibrium to start with. What they had four years ago (quoted in my 2012 paper) was far better and more general.
Now, Tim, for your own sake and knowledge, not mine, I suggest you go back and study and really think about each and every point I have made in that summary comment (4:13pm) and following ones.
If you don’t understand the physics regarding the dissipation of unbalanced energy potentials leading to maximum entropy, then read about the Second Law at http://entropylaw.com which provides an up-to-date summary of what physicists have been saying, including developments since the late 1980’s.
Think about the amount of back radiation there would be in a tropical rain-forest climate like Singapore with far greater humidity than average (as you would know if you had spent a couple of weeks there as I have) and thus far more backradiation from the greenhouse gas water vapor. If that backradiation could be added to the higher-than-average solar radiation on a clear day around noon, your incorrect use of the total in Stefan-Boltzmann calculations would yield temperatures probably above 100C.
If they run out of KE they just fall and gain some KE, you clot. (Have you ever thrown a ball into the air?) The molecules also gain by colliding with other molecules. We know the mean temperatures in the troposphere and they never get down to 0K now do they? The less KE a molecule has, the greater is the probability that it will gain KE with its very next collision, because the mean molecular KE in the region is proportional to the temperature. In general those with more than average KE will lose some in collisions, whilst those with less than average KE will gain some in collisions. There is also new solar energy being absorbed in the stratosphere and upper troposphere, tops of clouds etc every day, so all the molecules in the regions where temperatures are rising due to this absorption gain KE.
You have not discussed or in any way refuted my explanation of the density gradient, the dissipation of unbalanced energy potentials etc etc. “With a little more math” my discussion at the molecular level can be extended by mathematical induction to the whole troposphere. Go visit Singapore and get cooked.
You are just so gullible, Tim, it’s sad. But you obviously have some financial incentive to keep promulgating the false climatology “science” even though you cannot explain why it’s not 100C in humid tropical Singapore.
Now go to this comment.
Tim, the distribution is not exponential as you claim. It is a MaxwellBoltzmann distribution which is a chi distribution with three degrees of freedom. Depending on the scale factor it can look similar to a normal distribution. In all cases it approaches zero (not infinity) as the energy level approaches zero. Your “11” value for energy 1 unit is unrealistic. Try changing that to 1 and working with 40 molecules. You don’t get isothermal then now do you?
As stated elsewhere, the *speed* distribution is chi, but the energy distribution is chi-squared (since KE is proportional to v^2) — and we are discussing changes in *energy*, bit changes in *speed*. The energy distribution is exponential for each degree of freedom, exactly as I claimed.
[As stated earlier, I did simplify to 1 degree of freedom (vertical), but since the other 2 degrees for freedom (horizontal) don’t change with altitude, they don’t impact the final result.]
You are getting there Doug. Keep digging.
Climatology texts may well say it is an “exponential” (or inverse exponential) distribution, but in fact Tim it is a Maxwell-Boltzmann distribution as you would learn from physics texts, and that is a chi distribution with three degrees of freedom, much more like a normal distribution, tapering off to zero as the energy approaches zero. So your 11 molecules with energy 1 unit should be more like 1 and that demolishes your little thought experiment which you have copied without thinking and without due diligence from your climatology texts, and which provides a good example as to just how far such texts wander from standard physics.
CLIMATOLOGY TEXTS MAKE THEIR BIGGEST MISTAKES when they assume …
(a) temperatures would be isothermal in a troposphere without back radiation from GH gases, but in fact such a state would have unbalanced energy potentials because there is more gravitational potential energy at higher altitudes.
(b) they assume that variable flux produces as warm a mean temperature as would steady flux with the same mean, but in fact variable flux only achieves mean temperatures that are about 10 to 20 degrees cooler.
(c) they assume they can add solar flux and back radiation and use the total in Stefan-Boltzmann calculations, but it’s not 100C in Singapore as could be deduced if they were right.
Tim – Pretty sure universe entropy did not increase in your 4:40pm example, at least I can’t see how it did. Can you compute the entropy difference for us? If not, you do not have a real process; at best your example is ideal (if delta S=0) which can’t be tested.
I don’t need to, Ball4. I only need to show that the unbalanced energy potentials have dissipated.
Absolutely nothing else is required to prove thermodynamic equilibrium is attained, or at least is being approached, weather permitting. You can waffle all you like, Ball4, but you do nothing but display your lack of understanding of thermodynamics.
You need to show any thought experiment consistent with 2LOT Doug or, as usual, your claim is falsified, unbelievable & wrong as Dr, Spencer showed by test. It is easy to compute entropy change Doug, I realize it is too hard for Doug or he would have already demonstrated the ability.
The test by Dr Spencer showed the well-known fact that water vapor slows radiative surface cooling that takes place mostly in the afternoon and early evening. The other thing that water vapor does is reduce the temperature to which the surface is raised in the morning, as explained here thus making more moist regions cooler than drier regions at similar altitude and latitude, as data confirms.
My thought experiments and the heat creep hypothesis are based on the Second Law and thus conform.
..water vapor slows radiative surface cooling..
Agreed as Dr. Spencers test data indicated. Doug now realizes his book is wrong where he claims water vapor cools i.e. wv does not increase radiative surface cooling. And Doug now realizes by writing this that resonant scattering can not exist.
The other thing that water vapor does is reduce the temperature..
Doug just agreed the opposite! Which is it really Doug? You will need a test to sort it out , Dr. Spencer already has one. Doug miscalculated the wv in the column for wet, dry and medium and got the wrong result as shown by satellites actually measuring column precipitable water.
All the IPCC, Trenberth and NASA energy budget diagrams (and the computer models) clearly imply that back radiation can be added to solar radiation and the total (after deducting non-radiative losses) used in Stefan Boltzmann calculations to obtain the surface temperature.
We can see that this conjecture is false just by considering a location like Singapore which is close to the Equator and has a tropical rain forest climate with more than twice the average concentration of the greenhouse gas water vapor.
On a clear day around noon in April or September the solar radiation reaching the surface could be easily two-thirds of the Solar constant – let’s say at least 800W/m^2. We’ll deduct about twice the average loss by non-radiative processes, reducing the net to about 600W/m^2 for which the black body temperature is 52C. This could easily on its own explain the maximum temperature (which is virtually always less than 34C) because the average solar radiation during daylight hours is a little less. But, if we add the backradiation (which could easily be another 600W/m^2 because of the high humidity) we get temperatures above 100C. Hence it’s totally wrong to do so, and physicists have explained why such back radiation is mostly just pseudo scattered.
Hi Doug and Tim,
To a large degree I share your skepticism regarding ghg’s. However, while water vapor has a broad absorption spectrum it supposedly does not as fully absorb IR within it’s bandwidth as co2. If I remember correctly co2 absorbs 197 times more effectively within it’s absorption range as h2o. As such, is it possible you’ve exaggerated the claimed extent of warming resulting from Singapore’s humidity. Having traveled there myself, I like it’s ghg effect but I’m curious how you arrived at 100c.
Have a great day!
Question above is for Doug.
I didn’t say water vapor warms Singapore or anywhere. Water vapor cools, and that is why Singapore does not get as hot Alice Springs which is just about on the boundary of the tropics.
Please just read my paper, website or blog, or watch my 43 minute video presentation. Note the study showing WV cooling in the Appendix of the paper. http://climate-change-theory.com
In that comment I gave you the data which, when used in the incorrect way that the IPCC & Co use it (adding solar radiation and backradiation) would give temperatures over 100C.
Is there any more cogent a way to prove the IPCC wrong?
Silent readers will understand why Tim’s stupid “explanation” is flawed.
He assumes absurd values in his distribution of molecular kinetic energy. He gets just the right fraction supposedly not getting to the next collision about 90 nanometers above, but that fraction is absurdly unrealistic. Molecules travelling at 1,800 Km/hr can be shown with simple Newtonian physics to have enough energy to rise more than 12Km at least to the top of the troposphere. Yet Tim thinks it reasonable to assume that only 39 out of 50 will rise a mere 90 nanometers before colliding with another molecule. The ones that have less KE than average would gain some in that collision more often than not anyway.
Suppose we have two layers separated by the mean free path. Each layer has four molecules (A B C D and W X Y Z) and the initial temperatures are assumed equal in the layers, so the mean KE is equal. We could have two distributions with KE values in brackets like this …
Upper layer: A(10) B(12) C(13) D(9) [Mean = 11]
Lower layer: W(9) X(13) Y(12) Z(10) [Mean = 11]
We will assume these “molecules” really represent a macroscopic ensemble having a measurable temperature, so that when they collide there is, on average, a propensity to share the KE in such a way that they each end up with the average KE after a collision.
Now, suppose A moves down and collides with W, X moves up and collides with B, C moves down and collides with Y and Z moves up and collides with D. We will assume the difference in gravitational potential energy is 2 units, so the KE gain or loss is also 2 units, there being no friction in molecular free flight between collisions.
After the above four collisions we get ..
Upper layer: B(11.5) X(11.5) D(8.5) Z(8.5) [Mean 10]
Lower layer: A(10.5) W(10.5) C(13.5) Y(13.5) [Mean 12]
If you keep doing more iterations you will find that the temperature gradient is stable.
This can be extended to the whole troposphere by mathematical induction, and so we have a stable temperature gradient. It’s not hard to understand.
Note that in the above thought experiment involving eight (macro ensembles of) molecules there is a net downward redistribution of kinetic energy (that is, a heat transfer) from the upper layer that is cooling to the lower layer which is becoming hotter than the upper layer.
Thus thermal (kinetic) energy is transferred from cooler to warmer regions.
If the stable state of thermodynamic equilibrium forms during a calm night and we then have new solar energy absorbed in the upper troposphere the next morning, we could emulate this by assuming we add 1 unit to each upper molecule, thus making the upper mean 11 whilst the lower mean is still 12. The process of natural downward convective heat transfer will then start until the upper layer cools to a mean of 10.5 and the lower layer receives an extra half unit and warms to 12.5, thus restoring the same stable temperature gradient.
This process (which in physics also includes thermal diffusion) is the opposite of the upward natural convective heat transfer that occurs as the surface cools in the afternoon and evening after being excessively warmed by direct solar radiation where that is strong enough to do so.
To avoid confusion with the upward heat transfer, I coined the term “heat creep” to describe (in fewer words) this downward process that involves heat creeping up the sloping thermal plane to warmer regions that are closer to the surface.
So MANY things wrong here.
1) This scenario produces a temperature gradient, but no density gradient. there are always 4 above and 4 below. This unphysical assumption invalidates any other conclusions.
2) There is no “a propensity to share the KE in such a way that they each end up with the average KE after a collision”. If this were true, particles with the same altitude would all end up with the same speed. This also would LOWER the entropy with each collision. Instead, collisions tend to randomize the energy (and increase entropy).
3) Consider an instance where the distribution in the bottom happens to be:
Lower layer: W(18) X(1) Y(11) Z(14) [Mean = 11]
As Doug supposes, X moves up and collides with B. Oh … wait … X cannot get up to collide with B because it only has 1 unit of energy. Since the lowest energy atoms never leave the bottom to collide in the top, the atoms leaving the bottom will be above average (ie warm) and will leave behind below-average (ie cool) atoms in the bottom. This will led to a transfer of energy UPWARD.
Its not coincidence that the two balance out, leaving the average temperature the same in both regions.
4) Doug calls my distribution “absurd”, but his is even less physical. (Not an ‘error”, but certainly ironic.)
5) Doug criticizes my example for having particles move up far enough to gain/lose 1 unit of energy; his go far enough to gain/lose 2 units of energy. (Not an ‘error”, but certainly ironic.)
I have explained in another comment how the density gradient forms and is also the same state of maximum entropy as is the temperature gradient: there can only be one state of maximum entropy, and if the density gradient were not such the atmosphere would collapse or take off to space.
You know there is a temperature gradient in the upper troposphere of Uranus where measurements have been made, but you have no other explanation for it but the gravito-thermal effect, first explained by the brilliant 19th century physicist, Josef Loschmidt and never ever proven wrong because it is based directly on the Second Law of Thermodynamics. Come back when you prove that law wrong.
And how the temperature gradient forms is explained in my comment on the eight molecule experiment, which also explains heat creep, as the next comment demonstrates.
“There is no a propensity to share the KE in such a way that they each end up with the average KE after a collision”
Read more carefully what I said about each “molecule” being considered to be a macroscopic ensemble that would have a measurable temperature. Do you want to argue that the Clausius statement is incorrect in a horizontal plane where the mean KE of all such ensembles obviously does “even out” due to multiple collisions? It’s a statistical process. Many laws and results in thermodynamics are proven statistically these days.
I’m not interested in your unrealistic distributions Norman. There would not be one molecule in a trillion even in the coldest regions of the troposphere that would not have enough energy to get up to the next layer. Even up there they move at about 1,400Km/hr.
However, there will be fewer when the numbers are larger that remain in the upper layers, and that’s how the density gradient forms. Obviously it cannot be demonstrated with so few molecules and only two planes separated by about 90 nanometers. But I have explained how it forms in another comment, that being due to the slightly greater than 50% probability that net molecular motion between collisions will be downwards rather than upwards because of the way in which gravity curves the path, just as when you hit a tennis ball over the net.
More realistic figures for the KE in the eight molecule experiment might be something like adding 10 trillion to each number and not having any number under, say, 8 trillion. The gradient still forms.
Silent readers can see Tim is wrong with his 50 molecule thought experiment because his assumption about the initial distribution being “exponential” (although his figures suggest the reciprocal) it is known in physics to be a totally different chi distribution as you can read here.
This is yet another example of the fictitious, fiddled “fissics” that makes its way into climatology texts and their first and only year teaching such false physics. What is in standard physics texts is altogether different and, in this case, use of the correct Maxwell-Boltzmann chi distribution easily refutes the whole argument.
For the third time in this thread, the SPEED distribution follows the chi distribution, but the ENERGY distribution follows a chi-square distribution, with an exponential distribution for energy for each degree of freedom. (And, yes, that is an exponential distribution with a negative exponent for energy). Since we are discussing how the ENERGY changes, Doug’s objection is misguided (as it usually is — no matter how many times he repeats it or how well he can use bold fonts).
This is getting laughable. Basic physics tells us kinetic energy is related to velocity. As “speed” approaches zero, so too does kinetic energy and thus temperature. In any event, your isothermal result only occurs with deliberately selected cherry-picked values that just “fluke” it.
Now read, study and inwardly digest my comment explaining the eight molecule experiment and the following one explaining heat creep.
The correct distribution is roughly bell-shaped (like a normal distribution) and this is characteristic of just about all natural distributions. Your stupid example has the largest value (11) for the lowest energy level. If you make that a realistic 1 instead of 11 and work with 40 instead of 50 you will actually demonstrate the temperature gradient. (LOL)
“Basic physics tells us kinetic energy is related to velocity. “
Yes, specifically related to velocity SQUARED. 🙂
Yes, which means energy goes down towards zero as velocity approaches zero. Your idiotic exponential distribution (looking like a hyperbola) shows the numbers increasing as zero is approached, so, even though your distribution ranges from 1 to 16, you have over 20% with value 1. Try having just 1 with value 1 and 40 in total, and you will also see the temperature gradient, just as is better explained in my 8 molecule thought experiment which can be extended to the whole troposphere by mathematical induction.
Sigh … its not really worth the effort, but …
Each degree of freedom independently follows this sort of exponential relationship. So while the energy distribution of each degree of freedom peaks at zero, with three degrees of freedom, the odds of all three simultaneously being close to zero is small.
(Disclaimer: the initial set of numbers was picked hastily to make a point. I should have double-checked a couple things — like the fact there are 58 particles, rather than 50. But that doesn’t affect the general result, only a few specific numbers.)
I’m too lazy to do three degrees of freedom ATM, but with 2 degrees of freedom for the distribution listed, the odds of having the lowest energy are about 3.6%; the mostly likely energy is 6 units @ 7.9%. Ie, the distribution drop toward 0% for low or high energy and peaks somewhere in between. If you continue increasing the # of particles, and go to three degrees of freedom, then the familiar results arise.
Google the MB distribution or pull out your favorite Stat Mech book for further details.
Tim Folkerts – this comment applies to you also.
“… in thermal equilibrium, energy is shared equally among all of its various forms; for example, the average kinetic energy per degree of freedom in the translational motion of a molecule should equal that of its rotational motions” [source]
You have provided no link to any standard physics that refers to the “exponential” distribution. You don’t get anything remotely like an exponential distribution by squaring the values in a chi distribution: that’s a mathematical fact.
How could you have something close to a bell shaped (normal) distribution and, just by squaring the values (converting velocity to kinetic energy) suddenly get a graph that looks like a hyperbola going off to infinity as it approaches both the x and y axes?
<i""the distribution drop toward 0% for low or high energy and peaks somewhere in between."
Yep – so it’s bell-shaped similar to a normal distribution but actually a chi distribution – just like I said.
Squaring the values still maintains the same x-value for the modal (peak) value and the graph does not become exponential or anything remotely like the hyperbola type of distribution in your “data” which (if it did have a bell shaped distribution instead) would clearly demonstrate the temperature gradient.
In any event, it’s all done for you in my eight molecule experiment which is far more illuminating, because it also explains why the temperature gradient becomes stable and how the downward convective heat transfers to warmer regions (“heat creep” for short) occur.
It’s not hard to work out how far up an average molecule would go if there were no collisions, Tim. Remember your school boy Newtonian physics? An average molecule moves at about 500m/sec and so the distance it would travel vertically is given by …
500 x 500 / 2g where g is 9.8 (say 10) m/Sec^2
So the distance is about 12.5Km getting up into the stratosphere or near it in the tropics. In the real world molecules get new energy every sunny day, so they don’t fall out of the sky.
So Tim, what infinitesimal percentage of the mean KE would a molecule have to have if it could not quite travel up by the mean free path? Just base it on the ratio of about 90 nanometers to 12.5 kilometers and ask yourself how significant you think would be the number of such molecules in a bell shaped distribution with a mean speed of 500m/sec.
You see, Tim, if it does have so little energy, then it is virtually certain to acquire on average about half the average KE of all the molecules in its very next collision. And the next collision is still more likely than not to increase its KE more towards the average.
So, that’s the very process of “averaging in collisions” called “thermal diffusion” that applies perfectly well in a horizontal plane transferring hot to cold only – just as in the good old Clausius corollary of the Second Law that applies only when gravitational potential energy does not change, and so does not alter entropy.
“we are discussing how the ENERGY changes,”
Yep – in your fictitious never-could-exist distribution of molecules that have 22% of them with the minimum value 1 and all the rest spread out up to 16. But when you use a Maxwell-Boltzmann distribution you demonstrate a temperature gradient – try it and prove me wrong about the eight molecule thought experiment which has a realistic more normal distribution.
Doug has to prove his thought experiment is correct in that it agrees with Clausius fundamental theorem of the universe, his 2LOT. Where are Doug’s supporting calculations? Nowhere.
Doug – Tim is not proven wrong by assertive statements – where is your test showing so? Nowhwere. It is Doug that is wrong yet again.
It is clear from your 2/2 comments that Doug does not understand the concept of initial conditions needed to set a system in motion (real or simulated). Folks that have earned a B.Sc.Physics should have learned any set of initial conditions will work whether balanced or not, Tim’s or yours, the laws governing the motion of the molecules can then be iterated to a consistent, balanced condition.
As an example, that might possibly be understood on your low level of accomplishment Doug, is the intial conditions of a set of billiard balls on a pool table. Start them as you like in real life (e.g. chi , M-B, exponential) or a computer programmed with the laws of nature, they will quickly iterate to balance if stable, achieve the natural solution governed by the input laws. Done this countless times in all sorts of simulations. Your best bet is to learn about initial conditions in differential equations. Maybe think about an autopilot.
——
“TIM FOLKERTS and all his climatology texts have been proven WRONG..”
Where is test by Doug or cite to one proving Tim wrong? Nowhere. A study is not a test. Where is a specific example in a “climatology” text that Doug has proven wrong by test? Nowhere. A study is not a test.
It is Doug that has been thoroughly proven wrong by test of Dr. Spencer and those of many others easily cited (like tests of Dr. Craig Bohren), easily found already performed.
Tim was wrong using an exponential distribution when well known physics explains it is a Maxwell-Boltzmann chi distribution. Have you even heard of those well-known physicists?
“Have you even heard of those well-known physicists?”
Yes.
Next time I’ll add /sarc as you guys obviously don’t pick up on my sarcasm – as with the Earth-light heating the Moon.
Use the /sarc after all Doug’s comments that do not reference test data.
We don’t need “tests” to prove thought experiments like Tim’s wrong – we need correct thought processes based on the laws of physics that show why his thought processes are mistaken.
Likewise we can show an hypothesis like the GH one to be incorrect if we can demonstrate that it assumes violation of the laws of thermodynamics, which it does, and which I have proved in my papers that I have no intention of re-writing here.
“We dont need tests
Yes. You do Doug. Your claims are falsified by existing test data such as Dr. Spencer performed. Where are Doug’s tests? Nowhere.
Dr Spencer showed the well-known fact that water vapor slows radiative surface cooling that takes place mostly in the afternoon and early evening. The other thing that water vapor does is reduce the temperature to which the surface is raised in the morning, as explained here thus making more moist regions cooler than drier regions at similar altitude and latitude, as data confirms.
..water vapor slows radiative surface cooling..
Agreed as Dr. Spencers test data indicated. Doug now realizes his book is wrong where he claims water vapor cools i.e. wv does not increase radiative surface cooling. And Doug now realizes by writing this that resonant scattering can not exist.
The other thing that water vapor does is reduce the temperature..
Doug just agreed the opposite! Which is it really Doug? You will need a test to sort it out , Dr. Spencer already has one. Doug miscalculated the wv in the column for wet, dry and medium and got the wrong result as shown by satellites actually measuring column precipitable water.
Ball4
I am glad you are able to sustain your point. Never tests from Cotton even though he claims textbook climate books are wrong. I agree 100%. If you are an outsider of the current understanding you must supply verifiable proof that the current understanding is wrong. Assertive statements made 100,000 times on as many blogs possible will not change anything. Test results can and do change the direction of physics. Einstein had an incredible mind to see what most could not. The science world did not accept his claims, however, until they were able to verify them with actual tests and experimental results. Doug wastes all his valuable time with endless posts that should be used doing experiments and working to gather evidence for any of his conjectures and ideas. Ideas are a dime a dozen, some good some bad, only empirical evidence finds which is which. Experiment Doug then come back with your results.
Carpet bombing threads does nothing to enhance your points it actually does the opposite. Most people are very tired on your endless repetitive posts that say nothing you have not already stated 10,000 times before. I already read the molecule thought experiment by Tim Folkerts and your same rebuttal. Nothing NEW!
Norman wrote “… textbook climate books are wrong. I agree 100%.”
I’m glad you agree 100% with me that climate textbooks are wrong on a number of points, such as the three key points I have listed in another comment.
“you must supply verifiable proof that the current understanding is wrong.”
Agreed. It’s in my 2013 paper. You should read it some time.
And there’s more evidence since then in my http://climate-change-theory.com website – guess where – on the page headed “Evidence” Norman. It’s not hard to find if you know how to use a keyboard and mouse.
There’s a AU $10,000 reward if you can provide evidence that I’m wrong and the radiative forcing greenhouse conjecture is right. Whether or not you think I would pay it, you might at least start by using the GH conjecture to answer THE QUESTIONS THAT STUMP LUKES AND WARMISTS (near the end of that linked blog) so we have a starting point for your proof of AGW. Yours is the “outsider” hypothesis that threw out the 19th century physics by Loschmidt, after all, so you need to prove it with both theory and experiments, or why should I be convinced?
“..provide evidence that Im wrong and the radiative forcing greenhouse conjecture is right.”
The test by Dr. Spencer provided all the evidence needed to prove Doug is wrong in his book and papers. I’ve already answered ALL those questions Doug. There is no need to throw out Loschmidt’s physics developed based on his tests. Where are Doug’s tests? Nowhere.
Roy showed the well-known fact that water vapor slows radiative surface cooling that takes place mostly in the afternoon and early evening. The other thing that water vapor does is reduce the temperature to which the surface is raised in the morning, as explained here thus making more moist regions cooler than drier regions at similar altitude and latitude, as data confirms.
..water vapor slows radiative surface cooling..
Agreed as Dr. Spencers test data indicated. Doug now realizes his book is wrong where he claims water vapor cools i.e. wv does not increase radiative surface cooling. And Doug now realizes by writing this that resonant scattering can not exist.
“The other thing that water vapor does is reduce the temperature..
Doug just agreed the opposite! Which is it really Doug? You will need a test to sort it out , Dr. Spencer already has the test. Doug miscalculated the wv in the column for wet, dry and medium and got the wrong result as shown by satellites actually measuring column precipitable water.
Chat to yourselves and comfort each other in the hope that your income from climatology fraud will be sustained. My eight molecule experiment thumps it all on the head.
And none of you can answer THE QUESTIONS THAT STUMP LUKES AND WARMISTS taking into account the responses already listed towards the end of that linked blog.
“My eight molecule experiment thumps it all on the head.”
Experiment? That’s a stretch of the truth Doug since you write: “Suppose we have…We will assume..”
A study is not a test Doug. Still, please compute universe entropy change “after the above four collisions” to show you have a proper analysis that “thumps it all”. This simple task should be a breeze for anyone with near Ph.D. accomplishments such as Doug.
Entropy change was positive as explained in my paper, and the final stable state is maximum entropy within the constraints of the system, as explained in my paper. Of course the entropy of the universe also increases, but that information on its own would tell us nothing about whether of not a stable density gradient evolves in a planet’s troposphere, as we know it does.
The eight molecule thought experiment (rather like Tim Folkert’s thought experiment) shows how the gradient forms, as does Tim Folkert’s one with correct energy distributions, and just as the brilliant 19th century physicist Josef Loschmidt also explained it would do, and just as Roderich Graeff’s 850 meticulous lab experiments also confirmed happens even in sealed insulated cylinders.
Assertion is not an entropy computation Doug. Apparently you cannot compute entropy change.
Apparently you don’t understand what changes entropy – the dissipation of unbalanced energy potentials, as explained by Clausius who coined the word “entropy” in the first place.
That’s an ok explanation in a closed, isolated, perfectly insulated system Doug, of which there is only one: the universe.
Please show us you have the basic tools learned to actually calculate entropy change in your own thought experiment to prove it is consistent with the fundamental theorem of the universe.
Bad luck. Under pressure from physicists Wikipedia removed the reference to universe entropy which climatologists (probably William Connelly) sneaked in there so they could justify their false science about adding back radiation to solar radiation.
“In a natural thermodynamic process, the sum of the entropies of the interacting thermodynamic systems increases.” [source]
The best definition of the Second Law was cited in Wiki about three years ago and is quoted in my 2013 paper.
The best definition of the 2LOT is by R. Clausius in his 9th memoir: “2. The entropy of the universe tends to a maximum.”
No, that’s was just a corollary. Likewise, the Clausius “hot to cold” statement is just a corollary that only applies in a horizontal plane.
Corollary? No, Doug you are confused by wiki. Clausius in his 9th memoir p. 365 calls that a “fundamental theorem of the universe”
https://books.google.com/books?id=8LIEAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=editions:PwR_Sbkwa8IC&hl=en&sa=X&ei=h6DgT5WnF46e8gSVvbynDQ&ved=0CDYQuwUwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false
Ball4 – this comment applies to you also.
A thought experiment is not a test Doug. I’ve already easily answered all the questions that stump Doug. Diffuse solar radiation gets through clouds at dawn as evidenced by test Doug.
The night atm. test by Dr. Spencer has refuted Doug’s claims.
You, Ball4 are stumped by the QUESTIONS THAT STUMP LUKES AND WARMISTS which you never have and never will be able to answer.
So your GH conjecture does not have any foundation with any evidence what-so-ever, such as being able to explain observed surface temperatures on Earth and Venus, and why they warm by day. No explanation = no valid hypothesis.
Silent readers: Don’t you just love this classic by Ball4: “Diffuse solar radiation gets through clouds”? We know that mean solar radiation of 168W/m^2 reaching the surface can only raise temperatures to -40C but, when there is thick cloud and it seems almost like night, Ball4 thinks the diffuse radiation getting through will warm the surface to about 15C.
Doug – you confuse climate and weather here. 15C is climate, dark cloud is weather. The 15C comes from all the dark clouds at once along with all the white fluffy ones and clear sky over several years. Doug is a rather poor politician and an even worse physicist.
“Ball4 are stumped by the QUESTIONS THAT STUMP LUKES AND WARMISTS”
I’ve already answered them all Doug with tested physics, these questions are easily answered by test, they only stump Doug who doesn’t rely on test.
“So your GH conjecture does not have any foundation with any evidence what-so-ever,”
The GH conjecture, Doug, is observed from test.
“..being able to explain observed surface temperatures on Earth and Venus..”
Simply calculated as I have already done for you, Doug, and results in agreement with test.
“..why they warm by day.”
At dawn, the sun comes up.
“An isolated system, if not already in its state of thermodynamic equilibrium, spontaneously evolves towards it. Thermodynamic equilibrium has the greatest entropy amongst the states accessible to the system.” Source: Wikipedia “Second Law of Thermodynamics” about three years ago.
This was the best and most general definition. In practical situations we refer to a nearly isolated system as a reasonable and workable approximation. We look for tendencies for the system to move in whatever direction increases entropy, even if there are small insignificant gains and losses of energy at the boundaries which we can ignore for all practical purposes. In other words, we imagine an “ideal” troposphere, just as they do when developing the Ideal Gas Laws.
We can also “imagine” a short burst of solar radiation changing the system, then imagine that burst ceases (as under a cloud or at sunset) and determine what then happens as a result of this disturbance to the former state of thermodynamic equilibrium. That is what I describe in the second comment (the one after the eight molecule thought experiment) regarding the heat creep process.
It’s all correct physics, so don’t bother to try to refute it – just sit back, relax, take a deep breath, draw diagrams to help your thought processes, and think, think, think. You can’t explain the surface temperature with radiation, so maybe Doug’s been right all along, because he can explain all temperatures and heat flows everywhere.
PS: If you take 43 minutes of your time to watch the complete two-part video presentation I recorded in August 2015 (as hundreds of others have) it will clarify everything in your thought processes and greatly expedite your conversion to believing the correct physics that is supported by experiments, evidence and studies. Then you can really relax knowing all climate change is natural, nothing to do with CO2, and cooling will come just as it did after the Medieval Warming Period and the Roman Warming Period before that and etc etc.
A video is not a test Doug. A thought experiment is not a test either. The night atm. test by Dr. Spencer has refuted your claims.
Refuted in comments above.
A comment is not a refuting test Doug.
Go to this comment.
The radiative forcing greenhouse conjecture (adding back radiation to solar radiation) is easily seen to be wrong, as in this comment and the following one.
A comment is not a test Doug. Where are Doug’s tests? Nowhere.
DougCotton
The carpet bomber of climate threads with no experiments performed to date.
Sad!
Norman – this comment applies to you also.
DougCotton,
So you will still refuse to do REAL science which is experimental empirical data collection? Carpet bomb some more threads. It seems to be what you like to do. You enjoy this much more than actual science.
And still, Norman, you refuse to study what the GH energy budget diagrams actually imply as here and nor can you use that false science to explain Earth’s mean surface temperature quantitatively.
And you, Norman, haven’t done a test with four radiators to prove you can add solar radiation and back radiation as the IPCC does for their Stefan Boltzmann calculations of surface temperature.
By the way, Ball4’s remarks about Roy’s test are irrelevant as explained in this comment.
Doug: water vapor cools. Dr. Spencer test: water vapor warms. Doug: Resonant scattering exists. Dr. Spencer test: no sign of resonant scattering existing. Hardly irrelevant Doug.
What you compare is apples with oranges. Totally and utterly irrelevant. Pseudo scattering is not anything to do with my heat creep hypothesis, and nor is the well known fact (demonstrated correctly by Roy and discussed in my 2012 paper) that radiation from a cooler source slows that portion of the rate of cooling of a warmer target that is itself by radiation, but does not slow non-radiative cooling because the electro-magnetic energy in the incident radiation never becomes kinetic energy in the target. All that is well-known physics. What you cannot explain is why some regions on Earth receiving over 800W/m^2 of direct solar radiation (as happens on clear days at noon in the tropics) are not 95C as discussed here.
This will be my last comment on this old thread, so don’t bother replying here.
“..because the electro-magnetic energy in the incident radiation never becomes kinetic energy in the target.”
Wrong by test Doug. It did in the the experiment of Dr. Spencer. The electromagnetic energy in the incident radiation from the added cirrus became added kinetic energy in the target water as the thermometer reading showed the temperature to be increased over the control water from that added cirrus EM energy.
“What you cannot explain is why some regions on Earth receiving over 800W/m^2 of direct solar radiation (as happens on clear days at noon in the tropics) are not 95C..”
That’s an easy explanation, it only stumps Doug. The surface temperature trace shows increasing temperature until the 800 turns down causing the surface temperature to turn down all the way to and past sunset. The heat capacity of the air means it takes time to warm up; the length of daylight is the limiting factor for the temperature high observed.
That this tested science has to be explained to Doug means he has never passed a course in atm. thermo. 101 and is unqualified in this field.
Doug says: “What you cannot explain is …”
In reality, this simple means “What I cannot understand is …” Time and time again, people post clear and accurate explanations (like here) and Doug simply ignores the answer, blinded by his pet theories.
Sure, there are *details* of climatology that are either poorly understood or are very difficult to understand, but that is not a reason to throw out the last 150 years of thermodynamics.
Are you going to admit your mistake Norman?
As for the unteachable Ball4 and Tim Folkerts, they never discuss thermodynamics and entropy anyway, so I’m not interested in their red herrings pertaining to radiation, which is not what determines surface temperatures. However they could learn from your mistake and the experiment in Singapore which proves pseudo scattering happens.
“..the experiment in Singapore..”
That was not an experiment Doug. A study is not a test.
Well you go to Singapore (as I have, spending a week on each of two occasions) and take your thermometer and radiation measuring equipment so you can write it up as an experiment.
Meanwhile I have done my four radiator experiment at home and got 45C, not the Hansen temperature of 170C. Have you done a similar experiment? Has anyone published any experiment showing radiation compounding like Norman (and Hansen) thinks it does?
Do you have any experiment confirming Hansen’s algorithm that implies Singapore temperatures should reach 95C. If not, then you have nothing at all empirically that confirms the fundamental greenhouse conjecture that surface temperatures are determined by radiation. Come back if you find such.
“It did in the the experiment of Dr. Spencer” writes Ball4 without any qualification in physics, let alone understanding of thermodynamics and entropy, which he never mentions.
The above is yet another assertive statement without a whisper of evidence.
For example, back radiation from the Venus surface is not what raises its temperature from 732K to 737K at a particular location on the equator over the course of its four month long day. If direct radiation to the Venus surface were supplying thermal energy into the surface (as you think every photon does, you clot) then you would need well over 16,000W/m^2 coming out of the base of the atmosphere and into the surface, this being at least seven (7) times the flux which the Sun delivers as its “solar constant” at the top of the Venus atmosphere.
An atmosphere is not an energy amplifying device. If energy could be multiplied that way, then make your fortune Ball4 with miniature CO2 atmospheres sold in a box. Meanwhile, that’s enough of your hot air.
And, Tim Folkerts, speaking of the last 150 years of thermodynamics, it was in the late 19th century when the brilliant physicist Josef Loschmidt explained how gravity (and any force field) forms a stable equilibrium temperature gradient by accelerating individual molecules. This is the 150-year-old physics which climatology has thrown out.
You are unteachable, Tim. You did not learn it from my paper because you haven’t read and understood such. (If you had you could draw the heat creep diagrams from memory, but I bet you can’t.) Nor did you learn it from my eight molecule experiment on another thread.
Nor could BigWaveDave teach you four years ago when he wrote about the “forgotten or never-learned” 19th century physics …
“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 PhDs, 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 GHGs. And, because this is based on long established fundamental principles that were apparently forgotten or never learned by many PhDs, it is not something that can be left as an acceptable disagreement.”
Your anticipated response referring to Robert Brown’s pathetic article is refuted on this page of my website.
There is absolutely nothing in my papers which is contrary to the First or Second Laws of Thermodynamics, or radiative heat transfer calculations used by engineers and physicists, and your assertive claims that there is are totally without evidence, explanation or any reference whatsoever quoting anything from either paper.
“..go to Singapore (as I have, spending a week on each of two occasions) and take your thermometer and radiation measuring equipment..”
No need Doug, I have all the data recorded at Desert Rock, Nv. where the physics is the same and proves Doug wrong daily.
“Hansen temperature of 170C. Have you done a similar experiment?”
That is Doug wrong writing 170C not Hansen. Detail the experiment and I will let Doug know, I have done plenty of experiments at home proving Doug is wrong.
“Has anyone published any experiment showing radiation compounding..”
Dr. Spencer has published an experiment showing radiation compounding.
“Do you have any experiment confirming Hansens algorithm that implies Singapore temperatures should reach 95C.”
No, that is Doug writing wrong 95C. My algorithm agrees with the measurements at Desert Rock yesterday peaking 10C at high noon 675 solar and 225 DWLWIR and agrees with the experiment by Dr. Spencer.
“..you have nothing at all empirically…
I have the Dr. Spencer experiment providing the data proving Doug is wrong. I have the Desert Rock, Nv. data. I have the satellite precipitable water data proving Doug wrong. Doug has admittedly not even passed college atm. thermo. 101 & is totally unqualified in this field which is why Doug is so often proven wrong by actual test data.
“..let alone understanding of thermodynamics and entropy, which (Ball4) never mentions.”
Doug is not qualified in this field not noticing my discussion of 1LOT, 2LOT, radiative, conductive, convective energy transfers, cites to Planck and Clausius original writings, atm. thermo. 101. I also cite the original atm. thermodynamic field test data proving Doug wrong. Doug cites wiki, lol.
“The above is yet another assertive statement without a whisper of evidence.”
I whisper evidence: The experiment by Dr. Spencer proves Doug wrong.
“..back radiation from the Venus surface is not what raises its temperature from 732K to 737K..”
The 732K is Venus climate Doug, any daily change in temperature to 737K (if so) when the sun comes up is weather Doug. You would know this if you were qualified in this field and had passed college atm. thermo. 101.
“An atmosphere is not an energy amplifying device.”
Only Doug’s imagined (false) strawman being a charlatan in this field; actually the optical depth of an atm. allows the sun to increase annual surface Tmedian (288K) over the planet annual median brightness temperature (255K).
“If energy could be multiplied that way..”
It cannot. Energy cannot be created nor destroyed Doug, see I am talking thermodynamics here, Doug has only a strawman, well stabbed, with no testing evidence of his own.
“This is the 150-year-old physics which climatology has thrown out. “
Wrong Doug, gravito-thermal -g/Cp consistent with the 850 tests is still taught in atm. thermo. 101, you would know this had you passed the college course to begin getting qualified in this field.
“Nor did you learn it from my eight molecule experiment on another thread.”
A thought experiment is not a test Doug and you did not show your thought conclusion consistent with 2LOT & you know what Sir Eddington wrote.
BigWaveDave and Doug have been proven wrong by the experiment of Dr Spencer.
“There is absolutely nothing in my papers which is contrary to the First or Second Laws of Thermodynamics..”
Resonant scattering (aka pseudo-scattering) goes against both Doug (does not conserve energy, does not increase universe entropy – if it does show your test data) and at any rate has been proven non-existent by the thermometer data from the test of Dr. Spencer.
“..assertive claims that there is are totally without evidence..”
The test by Dr. Spencer provides all the evidence needed Doug, see I am whispering again: The experiment by Dr. Spencer proves both Doug and BigWaveDave are wrong.
Good, Ball4, then take note that the gravito-thermal effect thus causes the plot of temperature against altitude to have a “dry” temperature gradient which means the surface end of that plot would be close to 300K. Fortunately water vapor makes the slope less steep (as you learned regarding the “wet adiabatic lapse rate”) and so the surface end rotates down a little to a more comfortable mean temperature around 288K.
But you’d better not live anywhere near any water vapor, Ball4, because all the back radiation (whose energy you think will not be saved by pseudo scattering, which is rather like diffuse reflection) will thus transfer heat from the colder atmosphere to the 288K surface and make it, well, how much hotter would you say, Ball4, for an extra 324W/m^2 of back radiation, oh, and some solar radiation also? /sarc
Ball4 says “noon 675 solar and 225 DWLWIR” conforms with 10C.
Well let’s see, Ball4. If you want to incorrectly add the two, I make that 1,000W/m^2.
So how do you get the blackbody temperature for 1000W/m^2 Ball4? Oh I see, you just knock off two noughts to get 10C. /sarc
Try using a S-B calculator which gives – wait for it …
364.42170464303115 K
I said 1000W/m^2 total, not 900, because you obviously made a mistake with the 225 backradiation when the IPCC said the mean (night and day) is 324W/m^2.
But if 225 is what they measured then 900W/m^2 gives 355K and it casts serious doubts on that “measured” mean of 324W/m^2 shown in those energy diagrams.
So Ball4, let’s look at your surface energy balance …
Solar radiation in …. 675W/m^2
Backradiation in … 225W/m^2
Total in …… 900W/m^2
Temperature 10C and so
Radiation out of surface …. 364W/m^2
Usual Non-radiative cooling …. 102W/m^2
Total out ………… 466W/m^2
What was it you were saying out energy conservation and the First Law of Thermodynamics, Ball4? Where’s the missing energy – is there over 430W/m^2 left in the surface?
Ooops – What was it you were saying about energy conservation and the First Law of Thermodynamics, Ball4?
You see Ball4, if we use James Hansen’s incorrect conjecture that we can add back radiation to solar radiation (and deduct non-radiative losses) to get the mean surface temperature of 288K from the net mean flux input of 390W/m^2 then we have to add back radiation everywhere.
BUT, Ball4, and let’s focus on this until you answer with computations, your 900W/m^2 (less 102W/m^2 for non-radiative cooling) should thus produce a surface temperature of 71C, whereas you said it was only 10C. So the IPCC mean of 15C is mucked up already with your very first example.
“…which means the surface end of that plot would be close to 300K.”
Actually this is wrong Doug, the optical depth of an atm. allows the sun to increase annual surface Tmedian (288K) over the planet annual median brightness temperature (255K).
Earth median annual surface end is around 288K, Doug wrongly writes 300K. If the lapse were to change from avg. standard 6.5K/km moist closer say to dry avg. standard 9.8K/km, then the atm. would not have as much optical depth, atm. would be optically thinner and the median annual surface temperature would drop towards 255K by 1LOT and entropy.
“… the 288K surface and make it, well, how much hotter would you say, Ball4, for an extra 324W/m^2 of back radiation..”
0K hotter by 1LOT and entropy.
“If you want to incorrectly add the two..”
The test by Dr. Spencer shows it is correct to add the two which is required by 1LOT and entropy Doug.
“So how do you get the blackbody temperature for 1000W/m^2 Ball4?..364K (91C)”
If the length of the day on earth were much longer Doug, the 1000 would have time to increase the 10C to much higher 90C max. with upwelling IR balanced around 1000. But the day was too short Doug, the Desert Rock measurements showed the 1000 at high noon only achieved the upwelling max. IR of 363 W/m^2 before declining to sunset. And wait for it…on your calculator 363 is 10C the max. temperature measured at high noon at Desert Rock 2/4/16.
Doug would have learned to do this in agreement with test had he ever passed a course in atm. thermo. 101.
“..you obviously made a mistake with the 225 backradiation when the IPCC said the mean (night and day) is 324W/m^2.”
Desert Rock is in the NH winter season Doug, so folks that have passed a basic course in atm. thermo. would expect a lower daily max. backradiation 225 than annual avg. 324. I double checked the backradiation which really was measured around 225W/m^2 on 2/4/16 at Desert Rock high noon, no mistake.
“Usual Non-radiative cooling . 102W/m^2
Total out 466W/m^2”
Wrong as usual Doug. The 102 didn’t make it to space Doug, it returned, folks that have actually learned the material and passed a college course in atm. thermo. 101 would know the 102 stays in the system thus:
Usual Non-radiative cooling out . 102W/m^2
Usual Non-radiative cooling in . 102W/m^2
Total out 364W/m^2 about as measured.
And the 363 total out (upwelling IR) 10C max. high noon T was the actual measured at Desert Rock.
“..then we have to add back radiation everywhere.”
Correct Doug or your results will not match actual Desert Rock measurements and will not comply with 1LOT and 2LOT.
“..until you answer with computations..”
I just did right in this comment Doug!
“..should thus produce a surface temperature of 71C,”
Wrong Doug. Not with Earth length of day as it is 24hr, only with a much longer length of day like say on the moon or Venus.
“..whereas you said it was only 10C. So the IPCC mean of 15C is mucked up already with your very first example.”
No muck up Doug, my 10C agrees with measurements of 363W/m^2 upwelling IR and with the test by Dr. Spencer.
What you say is incorrect Ball4, and you cannot explain the temperatures at the base of the tropospheres of Earth, Venus and Uranus with your radiative forcing fictitious fiddled fissics. Nor can you explain the temperature gradient in Earth’s outer crust, because you think in the wrong paradigm.
You claim the temperature at Desert Rock doesn’t get up to something over 80C because there isn’t time for the Sun and the back radiation (LOL) to get it there. Well black asphalt road surface get pretty hot in the Sun in a few hours.
Apparently everywhere else there is enough time, so that you think you can explain the 288K surface temperature with radiation because the Sun has enough time in the day. Well you can’t and haven’t.
Furthermore, the radiation is variable and, because temperature varies with the fourth root of flux, variable flux with the net mean input of 390W/m^2 (as shown in temperature diagrams) does not produce a mean temperature above 5C (not 15C) in accord with standard physics, namely the Stefan Boltzmann Law.
Now try to explain Venus and Uranus where there is no radiation from the Sun. You’re stumped. What is correct physics is in my paper.
“What you say is incorrect Ball4”
What I say agrees with atm. test Doug, where are your atm. tests? Nowhere.
“you cannot explain the temperatures at the base of the tropospheres of Earth, Venus and Uranus with your radiative forcing..”
All I need is 1LOT in steady state and the surface temperature at the base of all three is easily calculated Doug to within a few K of measurements. You would have learned that in atm. thermo. 101.
“You claim the temperature at Desert Rock doesnt get up to something over 80C..”
I don’t “claim” that Doug I looked up the measured temperature & flux data on 2/4/16.
“Well black asphalt road surface get pretty hot in the Sun in a few hours..”.
No kidding. Simply calculated by 1LOT in agreement with thermometer. The atm. and asphalt surface have different emissivity and albedo Doug.
“you think you can explain the 288K surface temperature..”
Yep, demonstrated the calculation to within 1K of thermometer with all measured input data.
“..the radiation is variable..”
No kidding Doug, since the sun at high noon and midnight from winter to summer is taken into account and the median surface T over 4 or 10 year annual periods for all sun angles measures to about 288K, same as the calculation from the mean flux showing the same.
“Now try to explain Venus and Uranus..”
That’s already been explained & demonstrated Doug, to within a few K of measurements just using 1LOT. Quite simple actually. You would know that had you ever taken a course in atm. thermo. 101 and you wouldn’t be so stumped.
LOL – “All I need is 1LOT”
Yep – get out your IR thermometer and measure the temperature of your cup of tea. It will magically tell you how the tea got its energy – gas stove, electric jug or billy on the camp fire. All you need is 1LOT – yep – one lot of Year 2 and Year 3 physics.
The content of “atm. thermo. 101” has been now proven incorrect by the experiments confirming that gravity and centrifugal force create a radial temperature gradient, and 2LOT which “atm. thermo. 101” courses overlooked, so there’s no need for back radiation to make the surface hotter – it already is. You would know this Ball4 if you had studied Years 2 and 3 Physics and my paper based on such.
And, as Ball4 said in this comment they are taught in “atm. thermo. 101” that the emissivity of the troposphere is 0.8 and the radiation from it is 324W/m^2 so the mean temperature of the troposphere as it does all that radiating is thus 17.5C which doesn’t trouble brainwashed students because, after all, it’s only a little hotter than the surface – on average. (LOL)
“(IR thermometer) will magically tell you how the tea got its energy..”
No read out for that Doug, you wouldn’t make that mistake with more study.
“The content of atm. thermo. 101 has been now proven incorrect by the experiments confirming that gravity and centrifugal force create a radial temperature gradient..”
Mistake Doug – you wouldn’t have any way to know that students of atm. thermo. 101 learn how to derive the gravito-thermal effect -g/Cp from Poisson/Boltzmann and build a solid foundation in Clausius’ 2LOT, unlike Doug, a politician.
“..the emissivity of the troposphere is 0.8..”
The entire STP atm. looking up on a global median basis rounded Doug, with the temperature not observed at 17.5C yet another mistake made by Doug; really at the STP atm. base median ~288.15K over 4-10 yr.s declining from there at 6.5K/km up to the tropopause where Thompson’s convection ceases becomes isothermal at 216.65K for another ~10km.
If you do more testing and learning from original science works Doug, your mistakes will decline and your political agenda align with science. How is that political agenda going Doug?
The content of atm. thermo. 101 has been now proven incorrect by the experiments confirming that gravity and centrifugal force create a radial temperature gradient..
Doug is correct.
A grey body with emissivity of 0.8 (Ball4’s cited value) emits about 324W/m^2 which is the claimed back radiation.
Doug is correct.
…. when its temperature is 17.5C.
Such temperature is not the mean for the troposphere so …
Doug is correct
Pure hand waving Doug, show us your testing. A comment is not a test.
Roy Spencer does the “testing” of tropospheric temperatures and publishes such each month, showing no net warming since the 60 year cycle peaked in 1998.
The greenhouse “ideal” atmosphere model shows a surface at 15C and a cooler troposphere, yet, at the same time, a back radiation flux of 324W/m^2 which is thus incompatible with the assumed temperatures.
“ideal atmosphere model”
Not a model Doug, from test measurements.
“thus incompatible with the assumed temperatures.”
Not assumed Doug, from thermometer measurements. You would know this if you were not a charlatan and had actually passed a course in atm. thermo. 101.
In summary, Ball4 admits the mean temperature of the troposphere is not 17.5C and so the atmosphere cannot radiate the measured back radiation of 324W/m^2 calculated using Ball4s cited emissivity of 0.8.
So Doug is correct.
Ball4 admits Doug is wrong as there is no such thing in physics as a mean temperature of 17.5C in the atm. troposphere or anywhere else as temperature is an intensive property of matter.
The content of atm. thermo. 101 has been now proven incorrect by the experiments confirming that gravity and centrifugal force create a radial temperature gradient.
Doug – as I’ve already written, atm. thermo. 101 confirms -g/Cp as the ideal gradient which you don’t know since you haven’t passed the course.
Yep, the dry gradient formed by gravity as entropy approaches a maximum in a gravitational field in an “ideal” troposphere without any inter-molecular radiation from nasty GH pollutants like water vapor.
Maybe you’d like to suggest a set of, say, 1,000 temperature readings that does not have a mean (LOL).
Doug – doesn’t matter whether you add 2 temperatures or 1000 temperatures, the result is equally unphysical. 17.5C plus 17.5C does not make an object 35C.
Adding backradiation at one temperature to solar radiation at another temperature doesn’t make the surface hotter than either of them – that would indeed by “unphysical” Ball4. But the whole greenhouse conjecture depends on the assumption that they can add these temperatures.