Do I have the CO2 calamity math right? (help from an expert please)

VernerHornung wrote:

tmiddles wrote:
So the asci format is a bit tough with fractions like this.

Ja. Typing equations here sucks.
~

tmiddles wrote:
So frequency is a huge number and wavelength a tiny number. f is in the numerator and λ in the denominator so they are achieving the same effect of imbiggening the number (science lingo).

Ja. If the frequency goes up or the wavelength gets smaller, the fraction in the equation grows larger. Numbers get unwieldy in Planck's law. The Planck constant,

h = 0.00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 000667 Joule seconds

is usually written as 6.67 x 10^-34 so they don't have to mess with 33 zeros after the decimal point. The smallness of h is why people don't notice quantum effects in daily life; mostly it affects atoms or molecules.

The units on your equations are correct, and they matter. The square meters and π tell us it's for energy radiated over a whole sphere. As for why f is upstairs to the 3rd power and λ downstairs to the 5th power, I think I have a clue. The Phys. Prof. had two of us young'uns hold the ends of a jump rope and excite it into a standing wave. Pair with the most nodes won, and nobody achieved more than three since you have jiggle the rope faster—the frequency—to get a higher number of nodes.

tmiddles wrote:
...but not to the λ^5th! arggh! So close.

Getting the exponents is tough; it took me a while to arrive at a schema for it. Light was still viewed as a wave in Planck's day. So he proposed the radiation in a cavity radiator was a standing wave; it's convenient to assume a cubical shape. Let's start with a one-dimensional standing wave confined between walls, like this:



The following derivation's extreme slop (glad there's no real physicists here), but it's meant for concept only. The energy in a classical standing wave is proportional to the amplitude (how tall the up and down swings are) and to the number of nodes, so we model the cavity radiator as a hollow box with standing waves inside:



In the last part, I'll just put in Einstein's photon energy to get numbers that correspond to the energy of the standing waves near a particular frequency or wavelength:



This isn't the correct derivation; it just explains the exponents on f and λ. The numeral 3 emerged because I used a box. When a cubical box of L x L x L inches expands a small amount ΔL, the increase in volume is about 3L^2 ΔL. We can check that. Suppose the box is 30 inches on a side and expands by ΔL of 1 inch. Then

initial volume: 27000 in^3
estimated increase: 3 x (30 in)^2 x 1 in = 2700 in^3
estimated final volume: 29700 in^3

exact final volume: (31 in)^3 = 29791 in^3

Pretty close, and the approximation gets better the smaller ΔL is. We speak of an "instantaneous rate of volume increase" for boxes,

dV = 3L^2 dL,

which is 2700 cubic inches per inch for a 30-inch box. The shape of the cavity doesn't matter very much, and we're interested in the rays outside the cavity, the ones that come out through the little hole. For that I'll need to derive the stuff I have above for a spherical shell, like the skin of a basketball. The numeral 3 should disappear, with 4π in its place instead.

I'm slow, though, and they didn't spend much time on Planck's law in school. I'd forgotten about it until now. Max was a smart cookie.

The whole point of the exercise is the "Stefan-Boltzmann" scream coming from that pair of ITN-IBdaMann speakers on the bookcase. With CO2, we have something basically like a Planck spectrum with a slot cut out in the infrared, like



The sunlight comes down with most of its energy in the slot where CO2 is transparent. Rays from the Earth come up near the right end where CO2 absorbs. The asymmetry is crucial to making the greenhouse work; otherwise the CO2 would just be blocking solar energy before it got to the surface.

VernerHornung wrote:Smith answers that "the average temperature is always less than or equal to the effective thermal radiation temperature" computed by Gerlich. Head-scratch time! The papers are at

tmiddles wrote:
Are there filters, like you'd put on a light or camera lens, that have this same property of transmitting high frequency and absorbing low frequency?

There are various filters for telescopes & cameras.

tmiddles wrote:

VernerHornung wrote:Smith answers that "the average temperature is always less than or equal to the effective thermal radiation temperature" computed by Gerlich. Head-scratch time! The papers are at

tmiddles wrote:
Are there filters, like you'd put on a light or camera lens, that have this same property of transmitting high frequency and absorbing low frequency?

There are various filters for telescopes & cameras.

The math is beyond me at the moment (I might be able to get up to speed in time). We are lucky to have REAL other planets to reference in testing these theories.

What I'm wondering is why you can't have a light shining on a box covered with a filter that allows high frequency light in but absorbs infra red. It seems that if that if you had enough of this type of filtering you could have an extreme greenhouse effect.

tmiddles wrote:
The math is beyond me at the moment (I might be able to get up to speed in time).

tmiddles wrote:
We are lucky to have REAL other planets to reference in testing these theories.

tmiddles wrote:
What I'm wondering is why you can't have a light shining on a box covered with a filter that allows high frequency light in but absorbs infra red.

Into the Night wrote:
Misuse of Planck's law. Denying the Stefan-Boltzmann law. CO2 also radiates.

Into the Night wrote:
You can't trap or slow heat.

VernerHornung wrote:

tmiddles wrote:
What I'm wondering is why you can't have a light shining on a box covered with a filter that allows high frequency light in but absorbs infra red.

I think it's already been done, and put on the market: those newfangled heat-loss prevention windows they sell for houses. Lets daylight in, keeps infrared inside the house from radiating back out the windows, a major source of heat loss in winter.

VernerHornung wrote:
A house is heated by its furnace, a planet by its star.

VernerHornung wrote:
The basic physics of greenhouse effects looks good to me,

VernerHornung wrote:
but applying it to planets with dynamic atmospheres is difficult and that's what makes me skeptical of getting precise values for surface temperature rise as you add CO2 to Earth's atmosphere in a computer model.

VernerHornung wrote:
The more elaborate the model, the more chances for hidden mistakes or bugs, and planets may have climate drivers we don't even know about yet.

VernerHornung wrote:

Into the Night wrote:
Misuse of Planck's law. Denying the Stefan-Boltzmann law. CO2 also radiates.

Stefan-Boltzmann is based on Planck, what you get if you integrate the emission curve over all frequencies (or, equivalently, all wavelengths) from 0 to ∞. Planck, in turn is based on several assumptions, the key one here being that the dimensions of the cavity radiator generating the waves is much larger than the wavelengths. Planck works for continuous thermal emission from blackbodies but cannot be applied to the spectral lines of atoms or molecules because these objects are smaller than the wavelengths of their spectral lines.

VernerHornung wrote:
As consequence, Stefan-Boltzmann doesn't work for filtered spectra as often seen with gases in quite the same way it does for opaque, colored solid surfaces.

VernerHornung wrote:
Gases and certain transparent materials such as glass are forced to radiate in frequency ranges available to them.

VernerHornung wrote:
I never said CO2 doesn't radiate. But it doesn't absorb or radiate much at visible wavelengths.

VernerHornung wrote:

Into the Night wrote:
You can't trap or slow heat.

I'll keep that in mind every time I have to put my coat on this winter.

VernerHornung wrote: Planck works for continuous thermal emission from blackbodies but cannot be applied to the spectral lines of atoms or molecules because these objects are smaller than the wavelengths of their spectral lines.

VernerHornung wrote: As consequence, Stefan-Boltzmann doesn't work for filtered spectra as often seen with gases in quite the same way it does for opaque, colored solid surfaces.

VernerHornung wrote:

Into the Night wrote:
You can't trap or slow heat.

I'll keep that in mind every time I have to put my coat on this winter.
~

Into the Night wrote:
You cannot create energy out of nothing.

Into the Night wrote:
1) The Earth emits all the energy absorbed from the Sun.
2) The Earth does not emit all the energy absorbed from the Sun.
Irrational. Which is it dude?

1) Three photons go up, only two make to space.
2) Two photons go up, they both make to space.
Which is it dude?

VernerHornung wrote:

Into the Night wrote:
You cannot create energy out of nothing.

The energy comes from the sun.

VernerHornung wrote: It's not being created from nothing. Greenhouse gases slow the rate of heat loss from a planet's surface,

VernerHornung wrote:If you add more gas, the surface will then warm to a still-higher temp.

VernerHornung wrote: The in-out balance is preserved.

VernerHornung wrote:What I don't get here, ITN, is some of your posts from past years were quite reasonable, ...
Lately, we notice weird acronyms, private vocabulary, and repetitive mantras.

VernerHornung wrote:Raymond Pierrehumbert, Arthur Smith, Carl Sagan and other scientists have established, however, that atmospheric greenhouses obey energy conservation.

VernerHornung wrote: While 97% in the geophysics, meteorology and climatology communities are said to concur with the greenhouse model,

VernerHornung wrote: the existence of a 3% dissent should not be dismissed.

VernerHornung wrote:
[quote]Into the Night wrote:
You cannot create energy out of nothing.

VernerHornung wrote:
It's not being created from nothing. Greenhouse gases slow the rate of heat loss from a planet's surface, but would not stop the planet from freezing to near absolute zero were the sun to stop shining.

VernerHornung wrote:
[quote]Into the Night wrote:
1) The Earth emits all the energy absorbed from the Sun.
2) The Earth does not emit all the energy absorbed from the Sun.
Irrational. Which is it dude?

1) Three photons go up, only two make to space.
2) Two photons go up, they both make to space.
Which is it dude?

VernerHornung wrote:
Two photons arrive from the sun and the Earth surface emits three, one of which is returned to the surface by the atmosphere.

VernerHornung wrote:
The other two photons exit to outer space. The surface is able to emit three because it's hotter than it would be without an atmosphere above it.

VernerHornung wrote:
Conservation of energy is obeyed at the top of the atmosphere, two in, two out, and at the surface, three in, three out. No energy is created because one of the three photons involved is ping-ponging back and forth between surface and atmosphere.
* You can't create energy out of nothing. You can't suspend the 1st law of thermodynamics at the surface.
[quote]VernerHornung wrote:
If you add more gas, the surface will then warm to a still-higher temp.

VernerHornung wrote:
But it will do so only if the sun shines on it.

VernerHornung wrote:
If you switched the sun off and added gas, the surface would of course chill, exactly as I will if I happen to die with my coat on!

VernerHornung wrote:
What I don't get here, ITN, is some of your posts from past years were quite reasonable, such as this one, which said that ocean currents rotate clockwise and tides are caused by the moon and sun, which pull harder on the side of the Earth closest to them. You accurately countered the "whirlpools" absurdity the top post in the thread had expressed.

VernerHornung wrote:
Lately, we notice weird acronyms,

VernerHornung wrote:
private vocabulary,

VernerHornung wrote:
and repetitive mantras.

VernerHornung wrote:
What's changed?

VernerHornung wrote:
If you can state in clear, unambiguous terms why an atmospheric greenhouse is impossible,

VernerHornung wrote:
or link back to a post where you've done so, then I'll be willing to look.

VernerHornung wrote:
I'm not a pretend physics expert here;

VernerHornung wrote:
there's a lot I don't understand.

VernerHornung wrote:
Raymond Pierrehumbert, Arthur Smith, Carl Sagan and other scientists have established, however, that atmospheric greenhouses obey energy conservation.

VernerHornung wrote:
...deleted irrelevant material...
[quote]VernerHornung wrote:
These objections are at least serious. While 97% in the geophysics, meteorology and climatology communities are said to concur with the greenhouse model, the existence of a 3% dissent should not be dismissed.

VernerHornung wrote:
If the model were as obvious as E = 0.5kA^2 for a harmonic oscillator at amplitude A, there'd be no dissent at all.

IBdaMann wrote:
Then you are shifting semantic goalposts and are violating Stefan-Boltzman.

Into the Night wrote:
Absorption of visible light doesn't convert to thermal energy.

VernerHornung wrote:...Ever notice how the Man and the Parrot Killer keep trashing my art?...

VernerHornung wrote:
Ja. I think Mars is a better test case, though. The surface is visible from space, with full daylight sun. It has seasons like Earth's and a similar rotation period. It has a similar amount of total greenhouse gases because its air, though thin, is all CO2. Yet it has less of a greenhouse effect than Earth does. That's partly the weaker sun at its orbit, and because it has no significant water vapor.

VernerHornung wrote:
applying it to planets with dynamic atmospheres is difficult and that's what makes me skeptical of getting precise values for surface temperature rise as you add CO2 to Earth's atmosphere in a computer model.

VernerHornung wrote:

Into the Night wrote:
You can't trap or slow heat.

I'll keep that in mind every time I have to put my coat on this winter.~

tmiddles wrote:
Inevitable result of the law: "Those who can, do. Those who can't, criticize."

tmiddles wrote:
Earth is at 1013.25 millibars and Mars just 6.0 millibars pressure at ground level. That's just 0.6%. While CO2 is 0.04%, so Mars has 15 times the CO2. BUT the water vapor is 0-4% so that is overwhelming all told right? Really Mars makes a very solid case for Huffman's point, maybe more than Venus does.

VernerHornung wrote:

tmiddles wrote:
Inevitable result of the law: "Those who can, do. Those who can't, criticize."

I'm in fact done with energy and Stefan-Boltzmann, satisfied what whatever might be wrong with the greenhouse doesn't involve these. Time to move on and find out what it is.

tmiddles wrote:
Earth is at 1013.25 millibars and Mars just 6.0 millibars pressure at ground level. That's just 0.6%. While CO2 is 0.04%, so Mars has 15 times the CO2. BUT the water vapor is 0-4% so that is overwhelming all told right? Really Mars makes a very solid case for Huffman's point, maybe more than Venus does.

The solar flux at 1 AU (Earth orbit) is 1360 W/m^2, so at 1.52 AU Mars will be getting 1360/1.52^2, or 589 Watts per square meter, just above the atmosphere and where the sun is directly overhead. Averaging over a sphere gives one-fourth this value, or 147 Watts, versus the 340 Watts the IPCC reports for each square meter on Earth. We can easily compute the blackbody temps:

T = (R/σ)^(1/4), with σ = 5.67 x 10^(-8) W / m^2 K^4

Earth: (340/5.67 x 10^(-8))^1/4 = 278K
Mars: (147/5.67 x 10^(-8)))^1/4 = 226K

So we have our first deviation from the blackbody situation: the albedo of each planet. On Earth, 30% of the R is reflected away without heating the surface, on Mars, 25%. So we redo the calculation with an adjustment for this:

Earth: (0.70 x 340/5.67 x 10^(-8))^1/4 = 255K
Mars: (0.75 x 147/5.67 x 10^(-8)))^1/4 = 210K

These match the "predicted temperatures" in the planet chart within a margin of rounding error. Earlier on the forum, I figured the greenhouse gases per square meter by mass, but I need to refine the formula a bit to account for CO2 being heavier than air and H2O lighter:

mass(CO2) = partial pressure (CO2) x molar mass (CO2) divided by molar mass (air ) divided by surface acceleration of gravity

Earth pressure 101.3 kPa, 0.04% CO2, 1.4% H2O
partial pressure of CO2 is 0.0004 x 101.3 kPa = 41 Pa
molar mass of CO2 = 44
molar mass of air = 29
gravity = 9.8 m/s^2
so mass (CO2) = (41 x 44) /(29 x 9.8) = 6.3 kg of CO2 per square meter

partial pressure of H2O is 0.014 x 101.3 kPa = 1420 Pa
molar mass of H2O = 18
so mass (H2O) = (1420 x 18) / (29 x 9.8) = 90 kg of H2O per square meter

Mars pressure 640 Pa, 95% CO2, 0.03% H2O
partial pressure of CO2 is 0.95 x 640 Pa = 608 Pa
molar mass of Martian air = 43.5
gravity = 3.7 m/s^2
so mass (CO2) = (608 x 44)/(43.5 x 3.7) = 166 kg of CO2 per square meter.

partial pressure of H2O is 0.0003 x 640 Pa = 0.19 Pa
so mass (H2O) = (0.19 x 18) / (43.5 x 3.7) = 0.021 kg of H2O per square meter



Mars has more greenhouse gases total overhead, per unit of surface area, than Earth does! These computations are rough because gravity decreases with height and other little things. Convection is also stronger, in relative terms, on Mars than on Earth because the air is very dry and nearly cloudless. (The clouds you see in the diagram are thin and there aren't many visible in rover photos.) the tropopause on Mars is over 30 km above ground, though the thinness of the air means convection doesn't carry much heat up from the surface.

But remember the pink sky of Viking? Mars has a load of junk in the air—no rain washing it out, so the Huffman-style direct absorption of sunlight by particles in the air will be important on Mars as well, if less so than on Venus & Earth. Global dust storms are known to drop surface temps by blocking sun; the Opportunity rover survived and took thermometer measurements during one. They heat the atmosphere aloft, however, as measured by the orbiters.

I dunno. I doubt direct heating of the air by sunlight produces the greenhouse effect itself, but it tends to decrease the temperature difference between air & ground, reducing convection. (A hot air balloon rises faster on a cold day.) Reduced convection, in turn, means a warmer surface because less heat from the ground is carried upward. The heating of air by sun warms the surface in an indirect way, and should do so without any greenhouse gases present.

That's my take on it, which is probably leaky as a sieve. Weather & climate is a complicated mess. Nobody in climate change has ever told us why the Martian "greenhouse" is only 6˚C with more gases than we have, and Earth's is 33˚. Reason could be the weaker sunlight there, or the optical thickness parameter in spectrography. (The Earth's CO2, despite its tiny concentration, is enough to block any 15-μm ray from reaching space from the ground, and such rays are also blocked on Mars.)

Seems greenhouse absorption/re-emission spectra, direct heating of air & clouds, vertical convection and horizontal winds all must be analyzed to compute a surface temp. It's beyond my ability.

VernerHornung wrote:

IBdaMann wrote:
Then you are shifting semantic goalposts and are violating Stefan-Boltzman.

No moving goalposts here.

VernerHornung wrote: I've stated over and over again that the energy comes from the sun.

VernerHornung wrote: And no violation of Stefan-Boltzmann because the Earth isn't a single radiating surface.

VernerHornung wrote: It is a composite system with parts that radiate separately according to their own temperatures and emissivity characteristics.

VernerHornung wrote: There may well be other problems with the atmospheric greenhouse theory,

Harry C wrote:
My problem with it all is that you dismissed the science and are using anecdotal correlations to make a case...

Harry C wrote:
What's the point? To obfuscate or convince yourself?

Harry C wrote:
...impressive array of formulas...

Harry C wrote:
...something you admit that you don't understand.

IBdaMann wrote:
Just as all warmizombies are want to do, you transition to violating Stefan-Boltzmann...

VernerHornung wrote:

Harry C wrote:
What's the point? To obfuscate or convince yourself?

I'm not trying to "convince" myself of anything. I'm still agnostic regarding details of what causes climate change on a planet,

VernerHornung wrote: The greenhouse effect is one such cause,

VernerHornung wrote:

IBdaMann wrote:
Then you are shifting semantic goalposts and are violating Stefan-Boltzman.

No moving goalposts here.

VernerHornung wrote:
I've stated over and over again that the energy comes from the sun.

VernerHornung wrote:
And no violation of Stefan-Boltzmann because the Earth isn't a single radiating surface.

VernerHornung wrote:
It is a composite system with parts that radiate separately according to their own temperatures and emissivity characteristics.

VernerHornung wrote:
This isn't something I invented on my own;

VernerHornung wrote:
it's been developed by chemists and physicists

VernerHornung wrote:
since Svante Arennhius (1896),

VernerHornung wrote:
becoming a matter of interest to planetary astronomers long before the political controversies over carbon arose.

VernerHornung wrote:
Meaning it wasn't invented to support the climate change agenda, either.

VernerHornung wrote:
There may well be other problems with the atmospheric greenhouse theory, but ex nihilo energy creation and Stefan-Boltzmann are not among them.

tmiddles wrote:

Into the Night wrote:
Absorption of visible light doesn't convert to thermal energy.

So what does it convert to?

VernerHornung wrote:...Ever notice how the Man and the Parrot Killer keep trashing my art?...

Inevitable result of the law: "Those who can, do. Those who can't, criticize."

VernerHornung wrote:
Ja. I think Mars is a better test case, though. The surface is visible from space, with full daylight sun. It has seasons like Earth's and a similar rotation period. It has a similar amount of total greenhouse gases because its air, though thin, is all CO2. Yet it has less of a greenhouse effect than Earth does. That's partly the weaker sun at its orbit, and because it has no significant water vapor.

So we have Mercury, with no atmosphere, giving us 4 degrees more than what we'd expect for the distance from the Sun. Venus is crazy town. Earth is 30 degrees above and Mars is just 6 degrees above.
Really with Mercury coming in at 4 degrees above and what has to be a healthy margin of error Mars isn't really doing ANYTHING in observed vs. calculated.

Earth is at 1013.25 millibars and Mars just 6.0 millibars pressure at ground level. That's just 0.6%. While CO2 is 0.04%, so Mars has 15 times the CO2. BUT the water vapor is 0-4% so that is overwhelming all told right? Really Mars makes a very solid case for Huffman's point, maybe more than Venus does.

VernerHornung wrote:
applying it to planets with dynamic atmospheres is difficult and that's what makes me skeptical of getting precise values for surface temperature rise as you add CO2 to Earth's atmosphere in a computer model.

Yes and any theory being modeled should also get the other planets right as well.

VernerHornung wrote:

Into the Night wrote:
You can't trap or slow heat.

I'll keep that in mind every time I have to put my coat on this winter.~

ITN likes to be deceptive with vocabulary games. I think he'd say you can "reduce heat". But it's all a feverish attempt to claim thermal energy cannot build up anywhere like we warmazombies so passionately want it to.

Remember that in IBD/ITN land that coat won't help you. You're a goner in even a 70F room!

VernerHornung wrote:

tmiddles wrote:
Inevitable result of the law: "Those who can, do. Those who can't, criticize."

I'm in fact done with energy and Stefan-Boltzmann, satisfied what whatever might be wrong with the greenhouse doesn't involve these. Time to move on and find out what it is.

Harry C wrote:

VernerHornung wrote:

tmiddles wrote:
Inevitable result of the law: "Those who can, do. Those who can't, criticize."

I'm in fact done with energy and Stefan-Boltzmann, satisfied what whatever might be wrong with the greenhouse doesn't involve these. Time to move on and find out what it is.

tmiddles wrote:
Earth is at 1013.25 millibars and Mars just 6.0 millibars pressure at ground level. That's just 0.6%. While CO2 is 0.04%, so Mars has 15 times the CO2. BUT the water vapor is 0-4% so that is overwhelming all told right? Really Mars makes a very solid case for Huffman's point, maybe more than Venus does.

The solar flux at 1 AU (Earth orbit) is 1360 W/m^2, so at 1.52 AU Mars will be getting 1360/1.52^2, or 589 Watts per square meter, just above the atmosphere and where the sun is directly overhead. Averaging over a sphere gives one-fourth this value, or 147 Watts, versus the 340 Watts the IPCC reports for each square meter on Earth. We can easily compute the blackbody temps:

T = (R/σ)^(1/4), with σ = 5.67 x 10^(-8) W / m^2 K^4

Earth: (340/5.67 x 10^(-8))^1/4 = 278K
Mars: (147/5.67 x 10^(-8)))^1/4 = 226K

So we have our first deviation from the blackbody situation: the albedo of each planet. On Earth, 30% of the R is reflected away without heating the surface, on Mars, 25%. So we redo the calculation with an adjustment for this:

Earth: (0.70 x 340/5.67 x 10^(-8))^1/4 = 255K
Mars: (0.75 x 147/5.67 x 10^(-8)))^1/4 = 210K

These match the "predicted temperatures" in the planet chart within a margin of rounding error. Earlier on the forum, I figured the greenhouse gases per square meter by mass, but I need to refine the formula a bit to account for CO2 being heavier than air and H2O lighter:

mass(CO2) = partial pressure (CO2) x molar mass (CO2) divided by molar mass (air ) divided by surface acceleration of gravity

Earth pressure 101.3 kPa, 0.04% CO2, 1.4% H2O
partial pressure of CO2 is 0.0004 x 101.3 kPa = 41 Pa
molar mass of CO2 = 44
molar mass of air = 29
gravity = 9.8 m/s^2
so mass (CO2) = (41 x 44) /(29 x 9.8) = 6.3 kg of CO2 per square meter

partial pressure of H2O is 0.014 x 101.3 kPa = 1420 Pa
molar mass of H2O = 18
so mass (H2O) = (1420 x 18) / (29 x 9.8) = 90 kg of H2O per square meter

Mars pressure 640 Pa, 95% CO2, 0.03% H2O
partial pressure of CO2 is 0.95 x 640 Pa = 608 Pa
molar mass of Martian air = 43.5
gravity = 3.7 m/s^2
so mass (CO2) = (608 x 44)/(43.5 x 3.7) = 166 kg of CO2 per square meter.

partial pressure of H2O is 0.0003 x 640 Pa = 0.19 Pa
so mass (H2O) = (0.19 x 18) / (43.5 x 3.7) = 0.021 kg of H2O per square meter



Mars has more greenhouse gases total overhead, per unit of surface area, than Earth does! These computations are rough because gravity decreases with height and other little things. Convection is also stronger, in relative terms, on Mars than on Earth because the air is very dry and nearly cloudless. (The clouds you see in the diagram are thin and there aren't many visible in rover photos.) the tropopause on Mars is over 30 km above ground, though the thinness of the air means convection doesn't carry much heat up from the surface.

But remember the pink sky of Viking? Mars has a load of junk in the air—no rain washing it out, so the Huffman-style direct absorption of sunlight by particles in the air will be important on Mars as well, if less so than on Venus & Earth. Global dust storms are known to drop surface temps by blocking sun; the Opportunity rover survived and took thermometer measurements during one. They heat the atmosphere aloft, however, as measured by the orbiters.

I dunno. I doubt direct heating of the air by sunlight produces the greenhouse effect itself, but it tends to decrease the temperature difference between air & ground, reducing convection. (A hot air balloon rises faster on a cold day.) Reduced convection, in turn, means a warmer surface because less heat from the ground is carried upward. The heating of air by sun warms the surface in an indirect way, and should do so without any greenhouse gases present.

That's my take on it, which is probably leaky as a sieve. Weather & climate is a complicated mess. Nobody in climate change has ever told us why the Martian "greenhouse" is only 6˚C with more gases than we have, and Earth's is 33˚. Reason could be the weaker sunlight there, or the optical thickness parameter in spectrography. (The Earth's CO2, despite its tiny concentration, is enough to block any 15-μm ray from reaching space from the ground, and such rays are also blocked on Mars.)

Seems greenhouse absorption/re-emission spectra, direct heating of air & clouds, vertical convection and horizontal winds all must be analyzed to compute a surface temp. It's beyond my ability.

That's an impressive array of formulas. My problem with it all is that you dismissed the science and are using anecdotal correlations to make a case for something you admit that you don't understand. What's the point? To obfuscate or convince yourself?

VernerHornung wrote:

Harry C wrote:
My problem with it all is that you dismissed the science and are using anecdotal correlations to make a case...

Hardly "anecdotal" at all.
...deleted lengthy anecdotes...

VernerHornung wrote:

Harry C wrote:
What's the point? To obfuscate or convince yourself?

I'm not trying to "convince" myself of anything. I'm still agnostic regarding details of what causes climate change on a planet, of a dim view toward the environmental scare tactics swirling 'round industrial CO2 on Earth. The greenhouse effect is one such cause,

VernerHornung wrote:
...deleted remaining religious 'proofs' and assumptions...

Harry C wrote:
...impressive array of formulas...

VernerHornung wrote:

Harry C wrote:
...something you admit that you don't understand.

Do you understand it? I hope to understand it better, and one thing to learn is why the greenhouse effect on Mars is so much weaker than Earth's when Mars actually has more gases than we do. The greenhouse theory is required to answer this question if we're to accept it at face value. Climate change literature doesn't go into this key issue.

VernerHornung wrote:
The first steps were to find the blackbody temperatures and to find the masses of CO2 and H2O per square meter involved—documenting how I arrived at those results so the detractors on the forum can't claim I'm simply making up the numbers. Another forum user, Spot, pointed out the mass and computed it as a percentage figure:

VernerHornung wrote:
New and 1st thoughts and questions
https://www.climate-debate.com/forum/new-and-1st-thoughts-and-questions-d6-e2798.php#post_44200

I'll take up the spectrum business next time.
~

VernerHornung wrote:

IBdaMann wrote:
Just as all warmizombies are want to do, you transition to violating Stefan-Boltzmann...

You're raising nothing new and haven't shown where the violation occurs.

VernerHornung wrote:
I'll get back to you when I have time, but I won't discuss Stefan-Boltzmann until you explain the correct method for applying it to a body enclosed by a partially transparent shell.

Into the Night wrote:
According to Kirchoff's law, all energy nodes are effectively combined into one single energy node, which is the sum of all of its parts. You can't move the goalposts around by separating out parts and then considering them as the whole and back again.

Into the Night wrote:
Planets don't have partially transparent shells.

Into the Night wrote:
Pressure does NOT change absorption spectra at all.

VernerHornung wrote:

Into the Night wrote:
According to Kirchoff's law, all energy nodes are effectively combined into one single energy node, which is the sum of all of its parts. You can't move the goalposts around by separating out parts and then considering them as the whole and back again.

Kirchoff's law for radiation was derived from a radiative equilibrium between two emitting and absorbing infinite parallel plates of different materials facing each other. There were already two bodies at stake. His conclusion said that for rays of the same wavelength at the same temperature the ratio of the emissive power to the absorptivity is the same for all bodies. But he did not say that all bodies have the same emissive power at a particular wavelength. If the emissivity happens to be low at that wavelength, then the absorptivity will also be low.

VernerHornung wrote:
Furthermore, you can add blackbody spectra to one another by superposition of waves to get a resultant temperature and spectrum.

VernerHornung wrote:
This implies (by division algorithm in arithmetic) that you can divide them wavelength by wavelength as well, if you want temperature independence, and the THEMIS instrument on Mars Odyssey did so to obtain characteristic spectra for minerals on Mars, including those of carbonate rocks that form in water.

VernerHornung wrote:

Into the Night wrote:
Planets don't have partially transparent shells.

Yes, they do. They're called atmospheres.

VernerHornung wrote:

Into the Night wrote:
Pressure does NOT change absorption spectra at all.

Yes, it does:

VernerHornung wrote:
"The spectra there are computed from the HITRAN database with lines broadened by collision with air at a pressure of 5 x 10^4 Pa..."

Infrared Radiation & Planetary Temperature
Raymond Pierrehumbert
Department of Geophysical Sciences
University of Chicago
https://geosci.uchicago.edu/~rtp1/papers/PhysTodayRT2011.pdf
(see p. 3 in pdf file)

VernerHornung wrote:
You've made that claim twice and I've replied citing this source twice.

VernerHornung wrote:
But it won't do any good; you're gonna repeat your absurdities like a broken record until they become true—a tactic the radicals use to get the public to accept their claims about society.

VernerHornung wrote:
Interesting how little the far right and the far left differ from one another, when politicizing an issue, even if it's one which should be a matter of science.

Into the Night wrote:
You are now attempting to misuse Wien's law. This doesn't work to determine temperature accurately.

Into the Night wrote:
Irrelevant. You are ignoring Kirchoff's law of summation of energy nodes. You are also changing the boundaries of a closed system at your convenience.

IBdaMann wrote:
The amount of energy absorbed must equal the amount of energy radiated away. All of it.

IBdaMann wrote:
Explain how the addition of a gas, not any additional energy, increases a body's average temperature.

IBdaMann wrote:
Give me the "greenhouse effect" science. Just lay it out right here.

Into the Night wrote:
Observations are subject to the problems of phenomenology. This particular paper is an excellent example of just this sort of problem. Observations are not a proof.

VernerHornung wrote: Infrared absorption by CO2 has been measured in the lab under controlled conditions. It's known that this gas absorbs strongly at wave numbers 670 and 2240.

VernerHornung wrote: Pierrehumbert's paper is the best non-mathematical explanation of the physics behind greenhouse effects I've found.

VernerHornung wrote: The Cassini spacecraft observed the predicted warmth of Titan's surface,

VernerHornung wrote: We can't prove that climate change on Earth in recent decades isn't caused at least in part by something other than anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions.

VernerHornung wrote: Regional climate is affected by ...

VernerHornung wrote: So we redo the calculation with an adjustment for this:

Earth: (0.70 x 340/5.67 x 10^(-8))^1/4 = 255K
Mars: (0.75 x 147/5.67 x 10^(-8)))^1/4 = 210K

These match the "predicted temperatures" in the planet chart within a margin of rounding error.

VernerHornung wrote:
Mars has more greenhouse gases total overhead, per unit of surface area, than Earth does!

VernerHornung wrote:
The heating of air by sun warms the surface in an indirect way, and should do so without any greenhouse gases present.

VernerHornung wrote:Nobody in climate change has ever told us why the Martian "greenhouse" is only 6˚C with more gases than we have, and Earth's is 33˚.

Harry C wrote:...My problem with it all is that you dismissed the science and are using anecdotal correlations to make a case for something you admit that you don't understand. What's the point? To obfuscate or convince yourself?

IBdaMann wrote:...you are violating thermodynamics...

IBdaMann wrote:

tmiddles wrote:...How did you learn the Stefan-Boltzmann Law ...

Someone explained the science to me,...

IBdaMann wrote:

VernerHornung wrote: I've stated over and over again that the energy comes from the sun.

... violate the 1st law of thermodynamics? The earth simply does not have the power to either create or destroy energy.

VernerHornung wrote:

Harry C wrote:
What's the point? To obfuscate or convince yourself?

I'm not trying to "convince" myself of anything. I'm still agnostic regarding details of what causes climate change on a planet, of a dim view toward the environmental scare tactics swirling 'round industrial CO2 on Earth.

VernerHornung wrote:

Harry C wrote:
...something you admit that you don't understand.

Do you understand it? I hope to understand it better, and one thing to learn is why the greenhouse effect on Mars is so much weaker than Earth's when Mars actually has more gases than we do.

VernerHornung wrote:

IBdaMann wrote:....violating Stefan-Boltzmann...

...you explain the correct method for applying it to a body enclosed by a partially transparent shell.

IBdaMann wrote:Explain how the addition of a gas, not any additional energy, increases a body's average temperature.

IBdaMann wrote:
Venus' atmosphere is irrelevant.

Into the Night wrote:

VernerHornung wrote:
It is a composite system with parts...

According to Kirchoff's law, ...You can't move the goalposts around by separating out parts and then considering them as the whole and back again.

VernerHornung wrote:

Into the Night wrote:
According to Kirchoff's law,

Kirchoff's law for radiation was derived from a radiative equilibrium between two emitting and absorbing infinite parallel plates

VernerHornung wrote:

Into the Night wrote:
Pressure does NOT change absorption spectra at all.

You've made that claim twice and I've replied citing this source twice.... you're gonna repeat your absurdities like a broken record until they become true—a tactic the radicals use to get the public to accept their claims about society. Interesting how little the far right and the far left differ from one another,...

VernerHornung wrote:

Into the Night wrote:You are now attempting to misuse Wien's law.

Then how do you explain this?

VernerHornung wrote:
The Earth is not a closed system. And you can draw a boundary around a system wherever you please. There are no preferred systems, nor closed ones save the universe itself.

VernerHornung wrote:

IBdaMann wrote:
The amount of energy absorbed must equal the amount of energy radiated away. All of it.

Radiative balance with the sun for the entire planet need hold only at the top of the atmosphere, because that's really where Earth ends and space begins.

VernerHornung wrote:

IBdaMann wrote:
Explain how the addition of a gas,...

If you just add gas, no temperature hike. You need a star, and a gas transparent to the bulk of the star's light but opaque to a portion of the planet's return radiation.

IBdaMann wrote:
What you need to explain is how the earth is able to somehow destroy or create energy

tmiddles wrote:

VernerHornung wrote: So we redo the calculation with an adjustment for this:

Earth: (0.70 x 340/5.67 x 10^(-8))^1/4 = 255K
Mars: (0.75 x 147/5.67 x 10^(-8)))^1/4 = 210K

These match the "predicted temperatures" in the planet chart within a margin of rounding error.

Just gotta say nicely done!

VernerHornung wrote:
Mars has more greenhouse gases total overhead, per unit of surface area, than Earth does!

This really seems to corroborate Huffman's theory that it's all about total mass. As well as Blair McDonald here saying that the other gasses are also producing a greenhouse effect: So the "non-greenhouse" gases are also greenhouse gases to some degree

VernerHornung wrote:
The heating of air by sun warms the surface in an indirect way, and should do so without any greenhouse gases present.

It seem pretty direct to me. If the air is hotter then the ground will be too right?

VernerHornung wrote:Nobody in climate change has ever told us why the Martian "greenhouse" is only 6˚C with more gases than we have, and Earth's is 33˚.

I wonder if anyone has modeled it?

I'm still frustrated that you can't do lab experiments to demonstrate this stuff. Forget about finding out why any planet is doing something. Just predict and model Plexiglas boxes full of precise gas mixes with black paper a the back. I'm guessing someone is doing this type of work.

Harry C wrote:...My problem with it all is that you dismissed the science and are using anecdotal correlations to make a case for something you admit that you don't understand. What's the point? To obfuscate or convince yourself?

What do you mean "dismissed the science"? Verner and I are wondering about something. Why is it that way? We don't know. That's OK. It's SCIENCE : D

tmiddles wrote:
This stuff isn't figured out yet as far as we know. I would love to know more! How about you?

IBdaMann wrote:...you are violating thermodynamics...

IBD, who learned his private thermodynamics from a guy on the street in the oral tradition of Physics he adheres too. No book, no research, just word o' mouth.

IBdaMann wrote:

tmiddles wrote:...How did you learn the Stefan-Boltzmann Law ...

Someone explained the science to me,...

In 5 years never a single calculation done.

tmiddles wrote:

IBdaMann wrote:

VernerHornung wrote: I've stated over and over again that the energy comes from the sun.

... violate the 1st law of thermodynamics? The earth simply does not have the power to either create or destroy energy.

You simply deny that the Earth is 30 degrees warmer than it should be. Oh no we don't know the temp of Earth or of anything they cry! We can't talk about it they cry! Lame lame lame.

No explanation for you guys at all. Just BS.

tmiddles wrote:

VernerHornung wrote:

Harry C wrote:
What's the point? To obfuscate or convince yourself?

I'm not trying to "convince" myself of anything. I'm still agnostic regarding details of what causes climate change on a planet, of a dim view toward the environmental scare tactics swirling 'round industrial CO2 on Earth.

I concur and have a similar position at this point. One trap extremists fall into, both the ITN/IBDs of the world and the crying sky is falling environmental doomsdayers, is that they over reach with their claims and end up in an argument where they are dead wrong.

tmiddles wrote:
Something can be TRUE and yet be INSIGNIFICANT. If you claim it doesn't exist, and it does, you are doing a great job of creating the illusion that it's VERY SIGNIFICANT since you seem so afraid of it.

tmiddles wrote:
So it goes with made up science arguments from buffoons like ITN/IBD.

tmiddles wrote:
Real skeptical scientists appear behind a cloud of that BS.

tmiddles wrote:
A perfect example of confusing "it exists" with "it is important" is with radiation. Radiation is real!

tmiddles wrote:
When Fukushima happened you bet some of that radiation got into the coast waters near the plant.

tmiddles wrote:
Some very stupid people said don't go in the pacific ocean on the US west coast, don't eat fish. This is effectively holding up a MORON sign and discrediting anything that ever comes out of your mouth on the subject again. There is NO upside for anyone when this kind of human stupidity flourishes.

tmiddles wrote:
Yes having the other planets seems like our best resource in being able to figure out how it all works. They are real, full, equally complex models we can study. And for what it's worth Verner I'm understanding the basic science a lot better thanks to your work.

tmiddles wrote:
Also Harry this was actually "Step one" in the whole science of temperature and atmosphere. 1827 Fourier indicated the similarity between what happens under the glass of a greenhouse and how heat is absorbed in the atmosphere. This led to the term "greenhouse effect.".

tmiddles wrote:

Fourier noticed that the Earth was warmer that is should be.

tmiddles wrote:
He didn't have the direct measurements from Venus and Mars but he was still able to realize there was an odd extra 30 degrees to our mean temperature at ground level.

tmiddles wrote:

VernerHornung wrote:

IBdaMann wrote:....violating Stefan-Boltzmann...

...you explain the correct method for applying it to a body enclosed by a partially transparent shell.

Don't hold your breath Verner. IBD has never explained how to do anything in 5 years.

tmiddles wrote:

IBdaMann wrote:Explain how the addition of a gas, not any additional energy, increases a body's average temperature.

What was your theory on Venus? Oh right, nothing, nothing at all.

tmiddles wrote:

IBdaMann wrote:
Venus' atmosphere is irrelevant.

Into the Night wrote:

VernerHornung wrote:
It is a composite system with parts...

According to Kirchoff's law, ...You can't move the goalposts around by separating out parts and then considering them as the whole and back again.

This is completely unfounded. You can consider everything in the universe to be one "part" and you can consider a single atom to be one "part". Stop making things up Kirchoff never said. That is NOT in any of Kirchoff's laws.

tmiddles wrote:

VernerHornung wrote:

Into the Night wrote:
According to Kirchoff's law,

Kirchoff's law for radiation was derived from a radiative equilibrium between two emitting and absorbing infinite parallel plates

So Verner, ITN actually believes that when two bodies are in thermal equilibrium there IS NO absorption! Just to deepen the nuttyness (sorry I know that helps no one, least of all ITN).

Into the Night wrote:
Nothing that is warmer than something else will absorb any radiance.

tmiddles wrote:

VernerHornung wrote:

Into the Night wrote:
Pressure does NOT change absorption spectra at all.

You've made that claim twice and I've replied citing this source twice.... you're gonna repeat your absurdities like a broken record until they become true—a tactic the radicals use to get the public to accept their claims about society. Interesting how little the far right and the far left differ from one another,...

Excellent point! In every case an enemy of science.

tmiddles wrote:

VernerHornung wrote:

Into the Night wrote:You are now attempting to misuse Wien's law.

Then how do you explain this?

ITN never explains anything.

tmiddles wrote:

VernerHornung wrote:
The Earth is not a closed system. And you can draw a boundary around a system wherever you please. There are no preferred systems, nor closed ones save the universe itself.

As usual very well put. One thing that is abundantly clear on this issue is people preference to focus on just the ground as being "Earth" is based only on our habitat. Equally stupid is to pretend that the ground level can be disregarded and it doesn't matter what happens there as long as the "whole" is doing it's thing.

tmiddles wrote:

VernerHornung wrote:

IBdaMann wrote:
The amount of energy absorbed must equal the amount of energy radiated away. All of it.

Radiative balance with the sun for the entire planet need hold only at the top of the atmosphere, because that's really where Earth ends and space begins.

And that's what you could most accurately call the "Surface" right?

tmiddles wrote:
Also wouldn't it be fair to say this: The "surface" of Earth that absorbs the Suns energy need not be the same "surface" of Earth that radiates it back out into space.
?
Because the ground DOES absorb a great deal of the energy directly but emits almost none of it directly.

tmiddles wrote:

VernerHornung wrote:
[quote]IBdaMann wrote:
Explain how the addition of a gas,...

If you just add gas, no temperature hike. You need a star, and a gas transparent to the bulk of the star's light but opaque to a portion of the planet's return radiation.

tmiddles wrote:

IBdaMann wrote:
What you need to explain is how the earth is able to somehow destroy or create energy

This simple denial that the Earth is warmer than it would be without an atmosphere should be stated as such.

tmiddles wrote:
You pretend that we know nothing about Venus,

tmiddles wrote:
that the Earth is not warmer at ground level than the moon,

tmiddles wrote:
and in short, that we know nothing.

tmiddles wrote:
Except of course that you know you're right.

IBdaMann wrote:
What you need to explain is how the earth is able to somehow destroy or create energy...

IBdaMann wrote:
Let's stay focused on global "climate." What is that EXACTLY?

IBdaMann wrote:
... but your single biggest problem is that this doesn't bother you.

tmiddles wrote:
It seem pretty direct to me. If the air is hotter then the ground will be too right?

IBdaMann wrote:
I wonder if anyone has modeled it?...Forget about finding out why any planet is doing something. Just predict and model Plexiglas boxes full of precise gas mixes with black paper at the back. I'm guessing someone is doing this type of work.

Into the Night wrote:...fallacy.

VernerHornung wrote:

tmiddles wrote:
It seem pretty direct to me. If the air is hotter then the ground will be too right?

I dunno. The air can heat the ground directly only if it's hotter than the ground,

VernerHornung wrote:
Hot as Venus's air is, it's still cooler than the surface.

VernerHornung wrote:
It does seem, however, that N2 and O2 help keep the Earth warm.

VernerHornung wrote:

IBdaMann wrote: OOPS VERNER THIS WAS ME NOT IBD
I wonder if anyone has modeled it?...

Funny thing is I'm not sure a small-scale model would tell us much. ...Toy boats in bathtubs don't reproduce the behavior of ocean liners beyond the principle of buoyancy,...

VernerHornung wrote:

IBdaMann wrote:
What you need to explain is how the earth is able to somehow destroy or create energy...

I've done enough explaining. Insulation slows heat loss from a warm body to a cold environment.

VernerHornung wrote:
Whether the insulation blocks convection or radiation doesn't matter; a winter coat does in fact block radiation—in addition to conduction & convection—from the person wearing it. No one's claimed that insulation violates conservation of energy.

VernerHornung wrote:
The only reason pundits can get away with denying the obvious in greenhouse effects is that the mechanism for insulating the Earth is complex and difficult to reproduce on a tabletop.

VernerHornung wrote:
I'm fully aware of the defective Bill Nye-style experiments with CO2 in bottles where the CO2 is heated directly by the lamp. He'd need an electric arc shining only visible and near-IR light up to λ = 3μm onto a black-painted metal plate suspended inside an insulated thermos bottle with a window for the light to come in. Problem being the apparatus wouldn't look so impressive to naïve viewers.

VernerHornung wrote:
Nothing that might be staged will convince those who've made up their mind anyway. Los Alamos didn't test the Hiroshima "Little Boy" device, either, as they knew it would work even though it was the first bomb of its kind.

VernerHornung wrote:

IBdaMann wrote:
Let's stay focused on global "climate." What is that EXACTLY?

I can define what it's not. Here we are on this little blue gem surrounded by dead planets. Seems like a good idea to take care of this home and understand the risks our activities pose to its health. Postulating endless petroleum after industry geologists have told us it's a finite resource, or that the composition of the air doesn't affect Earth's surface temps after the weather and climate bureaus have concluded it does, is foolish. I rarely quiz my auto mechanic on stuff he tells me is wrong with my car.

VernerHornung wrote:

IBdaMann wrote:
... but your single biggest problem is that this doesn't bother you.

You don't suppose it does? If the uncertainties and what I see as an overestimate of scientists' ability to predict how Earthly climates will evolve left me unfazed, I'd post ads for Citizens Climate Lobby here and email my Congressman to tell him go ahead and wreck the US economy in a panic. I'm looking for policies that address fossil fuels supply limitations and pollution risks in a measured fashion, perhaps starting with electric power since converting vehicles still awaits proper technology. But the eggplant heads are gonna hand the ball to AOC.

VernerHornung wrote:

tmiddles wrote:
It seem pretty direct to me. If the air is hotter then the ground will be too right?

I dunno. The air can heat the ground directly only if it's hotter than the ground, and any energy from the sun that goes into heating the air won't go into heating the surface. Hot as Venus's air is, it's still cooler than the surface. It does seem, however, that N2 and O2 help keep the Earth warm. If all we had was our H2O and CO2, we'd possess an atmosphere almost as thin as Mars'. Hard to imagine it balmy.

N2 acts as an insulator for objects that lose heat by conduction, as it's the "active ingredient" in fiberglass insulation for houses.

VernerHornung wrote:
But planets lose heat by radiation since the vacuum of outer space doesn't conduct or convey. A major fly in the soup is that none of these things are blackbodies, and the gases exist as a mixture with its own properties.

VernerHornung wrote:

IBdaMann wrote:
I wonder if anyone has modeled it?...Forget about finding out why any planet is doing something. Just predict and model Plexiglas boxes full of precise gas mixes with black paper at the back. I'm guessing someone is doing this type of work.

Basically what I'm thinking of, though we'll want better insulation than Plexiglas to be able to detect heating of surfaces induced by visible light before it's conducted away. We don't notice heat coming off LEDs and fluorescent lights; only an intense source like the sun gives off enough in the visible band for rapid heating.

VernerHornung wrote:
Funny thing is I'm not sure a small-scale model would tell us much. We already know that the radiative greenhouse effect is real, physically,

VernerHornung wrote:
in just the way Oppenheimer & Feynman knew explosive fission in U235 was real having never detonated any of it.

VernerHornung wrote:
The planet is the problem, as scaling something up often results in surprises. Toy boats in bathtubs don't reproduce the behavior of ocean liners

VernerHornung wrote:
beyond the principle of buoyancy,

VernerHornung wrote:
and a lab greenhouse that works fine may not work, or operate differently than expected, if you make it as big as a planet.

VernerHornung wrote:
Although I've no idea how N2 would operate as an insulator for a radiating planet, I'm not counting it out yet.

VernerHornung wrote:
There's always physics we haven't discovered, and scale matters.

VernerHornung wrote:
I think it unwise to assume an ocean of N2 weighing quadrillions of tons must act the same way the amount in a 2-liter bottle does

VernerHornung wrote:
when it comes to a global climate system.

VernerHornung wrote:
Saturn's moon Titan is an example of a celestial body with a dense N2 atmosphere, and I hope we send more probes to study it.

tmiddles wrote:

Into the Night wrote:...fallacy.

Sums you up.

VernerHornung wrote:

tmiddles wrote:
It seem pretty direct to me. If the air is hotter then the ground will be too right?

I dunno. The air can heat the ground directly only if it's hotter than the ground,

But it will result in the ground being hotter just by being "in the way". Insulation. I guess that's not considered direct?

VernerHornung wrote:
Hot as Venus's air is, it's still cooler than the surface.

Do we actually know that? I would imagine that there was certainly a thermometer extended from the probe but would they have actually taken a contact measurement from the rock or dirt below?

VernerHornung wrote:
It does seem, however, that N2 and O2 help keep the Earth warm.

At the very least they are able to possess thermal energy. This means that they can participate in adding to the maze incoming energy must traverse as it passes through the Earth system before it becomes outgoing energy.

Here's a basic couple questions for alternate Earth bodies:
With no atmosphere just a simple thin hollow shell of a ball (not much matter) vs. a solid ball (lots of matter). Doesn't the solid ball have a higher night time temperature? But matter has a draw back, it can't flow or convect or radiate within itself, only conduct. So for a 3rd version let's do the solid ball covered with swirling liquid, no atmosphere, and then as a 4th version add a heavy, thick dust cloud, opaque to light. Are we increasing the amount of thermal energy winding it's way through the maze?

I see a denser, more complex and dynamic system resulting in a longer and more complex path for energy to traverse before it is able to leave. That means more thermal energy is present.

It's like trying to leave Ikea.

VernerHornung wrote:

IBdaMann wrote: OOPS VERNER THIS WAS ME NOT IBD
I wonder if anyone has modeled it?...

Funny thing is I'm not sure a small-scale model would tell us much. ...Toy boats in bathtubs don't reproduce the behavior of ocean liners beyond the principle of buoyancy,...

What I'm saying is that in a world where some people, including the US president, deny that buoyancy exists, it is worth demonstrating!

VernerHornung wrote:I've done enough explaining.

VernerHornung wrote: Insulation slows heat loss from a warm body to a cold environment.

VernerHornung wrote:

IBdaMann wrote:
Let's stay focused on global "climate." What is that EXACTLY?

I can define what it's not.

VernerHornung wrote: Here we are on this little blue gem surrounded by dead planets. Seems like a good idea to take care of this home and understand the risks our activities pose to its health.

VernerHornung wrote: Postulating endless petroleum after industry geologists have told us it's a finite resource,

VernerHornung wrote: ... or that the composition of the air doesn't affect Earth's surface temps after the weather and climate bureaus have concluded it does, is foolish.

VernerHornung wrote: I rarely quiz my auto mechanic on stuff he tells me is wrong with my car.

IBdaMann wrote: I'm looking for policies that address fossil fuels supply limitations and pollution risks

Into the Night wrote:There is no 'maze'.

IBdaMann wrote:
Do you consider CO2 to be "pollution"?

tmiddles wrote:

Into the Night wrote:There is no 'maze'.

You have yet to present anything but platitudes in 5 years. Waste of time.

tmiddles wrote:
[quote]IBdaMann wrote:
Do you consider CO2 to be "pollution"?

Do you consider phosphorus in the water to be pollution?

tmiddles wrote:
I would say sometimes it is.

tmiddles wrote:
CO2 might be pollution if there is enough of it to cause a problem.

tmiddles wrote:
A ecosystem has a balance and of course you can mess it up. We couldn't even get Biosphere to work so don't assume it's easy or resilient.

tmiddles wrote:Do we actually know that? I would imagine that there was certainly a thermometer extended from the probe but would they have actually taken a contact measurement from the rock or dirt below?

tmiddles wrote:
But it will result in the ground being hotter just by being "in the way". Insulation. I guess that's not considered direct?

tmiddles wrote:
With no atmosphere just a simple thin hollow shell of a ball (not much matter) vs. a solid ball (lots of matter). Doesn't the solid ball have a higher night time temperature?

tmiddles wrote:
...So for a 3rd version let's do the solid ball covered with swirling liquid, no atmosphere...

tmiddles wrote:
What I'm saying is that in a world where some people, including the US president, deny that buoyancy exists, it is worth demonstrating!

tmiddles wrote: I see a denser, more complex and dynamic system resulting in a longer and more complex path for energy to traverse before it is able to leave.