By Steve Goddard
ESA’s Venus Express mission has been studying the planet and a basic atmospheric model is emerging.
Venus has long been the CO2 bogeyman of climate science. In my last piece about Venus I laid out arguments against the claim that it is a runaway greenhouse which makes Venus hot. This generated a lot of discussion. I’m not going to review that discussion, but instead will pose a few ideas which should make the concepts clear to almost everybody.
If there were no Sun (or other external energy source) atmospheric temperature would approach absolute zero. As a result there would be almost no atmospheric pressure on any planet -> PV = nRT.
Because we have a sun providing energy to the periphery of the atmospheric system, the atmosphere circulates vertically and horizontally to maintain equilibrium. Falling air moves to regions of higher pressure, compresses and warms. The greater the pressure, the greater the warming. Rising air moves to regions of lower pressure, expands, and cools. The amount of warming (or cooling) per unit distance is described as the “lapse rate.” On Earth the dry lapse rate is 9.760 K/km. On Venus, the dry lapse rate is similar at 10.468 K/km. This means that with each km of elevation you gain on either Earth or Venus, the temperature drops by about 10C.
It is very important to note that despite radically different compositions, both atmospheres have approximately the same dry lapse rate. This tells us that the primary factor affecting the temperature is the thickness of the atmosphere, not the composition. Because Venus has a much thicker atmosphere than Earth, the temperature is much higher.
dT = -10 * dh where T is temperature and h is height.
With a constant lapse rate, an atmosphere twice as thick would be twice as warm. Three times as thick would be three times as warm. etc. Now let’s do some experiments using this information.
Experiment # 1 – Atmospheric pressure on Venus’ surface is 92 times larger than earth, because the atmosphere is much thicker and thus weighs more. Now suppose that we could instantly change the molecular composition of Venus atmosphere to match that of Earth. Because the lapse rate of Earth’s atmosphere is very similar to that of Venus, we would see little change in Venus temperature.
Experiment #2 – Now, lets keep the atmospheric composition of Venus constant, but instead remove almost 91/92 of it – to make the mass and thickness of Venus atmosphere similar to earth. Because lapse rates are similar between the two planets, temperatures would become similar to those on earth.
Experiment #3 – Let’s take Earth’s atmosphere and replace the composition with that of Venus. Because the lapse rates are similar, the temperature on Earth would not change very much.
Experiment #4 – Let’s keep the composition of Earth’s atmosphere fixed, but increase the amount of gas in the atmosphere by 92X. Because the lapse rates are similar, the temperature on Earth would become very hot, like Venus.
Now let’s look at measured data :
http://www.astro.wisc.edu/~townsend/resource/teaching/diploma/venus-t.gif
http://www.astro.wisc.edu/~townsend/resource/teaching/diploma/venus-p.gif
Note that at one Earth atmospheric pressure on Venus (altitude 50km) temperatures are only about 50 degrees warmer than earth temperatures. This is another indication that atmospheric composition is less important than thickness.
Conclusions : It isn’t the large amount of CO2 which makes Venus hot, rather it is the thick atmosphere being continuously heated by external sources. It isn’t the lack of CO2 on Earth which keeps Earth relatively cool, rather it is the thin atmosphere. Mars is even colder than earth despite having a 95% CO2 atmosphere, because it’s atmosphere is very thin. If greenhouse gases were responsible for the high temperatures on Venus (rather than atmospheric thickness) we would mathematically have to see a much higher lapse rate than on Earth – but we don’t.
WUWT commentor Julian Braggins provided a very useful link which adds a lot of important information.
“The much ballyhooed greenhouse effect of Venus’s carbon dioxide atmosphere can account for only part of the heating and evidence for other heating mechanisms is now in a turmoil,” confirmed Richard Kerr in Science magazine in 1980.
The greenhouse theory does not explain the even surface temperatures from the equator to the poles: “atmospheric temperature and pressure in most of the atmosphere (99 percent of it) are almost identical everywhere on Venus – at the equator, at high latitudes, and in both the planet’s day and night hemispheres. This, in turn, means the Venus weather machine is very efficient in distributing heat evenly,” suggested NASA News in April 1979. Firsoff pointed out the fallacy of the last statement: “To say that the vigorous circulation (of the atmosphere) smooths out the temperature differences will not do, for, firstly, if these differences were smoothed out the flow would stop and, secondly, an effect cannot be its own cause. We are thus left with an unresolved contradiction.”
======================================================
An update for those interested in what Venus looks like at the surface.
On March 1, 1982, the Soviet Venera 13 lander survived for 127 minutes (the planned design life was 32 minutes) in an environment with a temperature of 457 °C (855 °F) and a pressure of 89 Earth atmospheres (9.0 MPa). The photo composite above shows the soil and rocks near the lander.
Here’s another Venera image that shows a hint of yellow atmosphere. – Anthony
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
re wayne: May 16, 2010 at 5:27 am
Hi Wayne,
Not to worry about me trashing my life. I’ve been online since the Arpanet days, and I’m very selective about where I spend my cyber-time. WUWT is a rare departure from my habit of ‘reading and moving on’. This site feels more like a place to learn and share, rather than a vehicle used to ramrod an agenda (not to say that there isn’t a bit of that sometimes, but it’s not the dominating feature). I learn things from what I read, and sometimes I can add things that may be of help.
———
Now, back to your gases…. I think that the ρ = MP/RT relationship is the best one to keep in mind when thinking of gases, but there are a couple of caveats. Firstly, that particular equation is very general, but it is based on the Ideal Gas Law, so be careful when things get ‘extreme’, in which case you have to use a more extended equation of state. Secondly, I would advise being careful when attributing cause and effect. All three variables can be changed separately.
– For example, if you do work on the gas, its volume will decrease, its density will increase, and its temperature will tend to increase, but you can inhibit that by siphoning off energy if you cool it while compressing it. It’s common to do this when filling various kinds of gas cylinders.
– On the other hand, if you heat the gas, its temperature will be the first thing to increase, followed by the pressure. The density will tend to stay fixed, but you can regulate that too if you let the gas expand as you are heating it. In that case, the gas won’t increase its temperature by as much as it would in a fixed volume. That’s why heat capacity at constant pressure is greater than at constant volume.
– In short, the ρ = MP/RT relationship connects the variables at any instant, but doesn’t tell you what’s driving the process, nor which way it’s headed. That’s the basic point on which I disagreed with Steve way back at the start of this thread.
———
Regarding your black and white bodies, if I could go back in time and smack a few people up the back of the head for picking bad terminology, whoever came up with the ‘blackbody’ term (Kirchhoff, I think) would be high on my list of candidates. What it comes down to is that ‘blackbody’ doesn’t mean the same thing as ‘black body’. Ditto for ‘bluebodies’ and ‘blue bodies’.
In the case of your scenario with a white planet and a black planet, both of them ‘cold to the core’ to begin with (which I’ll take to be absolute zero or thereabouts), I’m afraid that I would side with your friend on the outcome. If these planets are just ‘popped into place’ and start receiving radiation, the one with the higher albedo will absorb less energy, and will heat up less. Keep in mind that it is emitting radiation at the same time as it is receiving it, and that all these blackbody things relate to equilibrium conditions, not to the transient process that gets them to that equilibrium. In the absence of any other energy input or output, the white one doesn’t need to get as hot in order re-radiate the amount of energy it receives.
An analogy might be those ‘heat lamps’ that you see in cafeterias. If you put two identical food trays under two identical lamps, they’ll both eventually settle to the same temperature, even if one of the trays was warmer than the other at the start. If you cover one of them with aluminum foil, however, that one won’t get as hot as the one exposed to the full effect of the lamp.
It’s also a bit like driving a car. If you start from rest and ‘ratchet’ the gas pedal to some fixed position, the car will pick up speed, quickly at first, and then more slowly until it reaches ‘terminal velocity’. That’s the speed at which the propulsive force of the engine just balances the drag forces on the car (and thus most of the fuel we use in our vehicles is ‘wasted’ in the process of pushing air molecules out of the way.) Anyway, the pedal position is equivalent to the amount of incoming radiation that isn’t reflected in the first place, and your speed is analogous to temperature. If you want to go faster (or get hotter), you have to press harder on the ‘pedal’.
Sorry for rambling on so much.
/dr.bill
dr.bill says:
May 16, 2010 at 1:00 pm
I had an inkling I might be somewhat or totally wrong, leaning too much on the pure theoretical principles, not what actually happens, because nothing really fits into many of TD ideal equations. However, you’re trays mentioned do have air touching them so conduction enters into the example, that was one huge difference in my point, it was in a vacuum of space. My viewpoint would require a more hypothetically property that emissivity to be exactly equal to ‘absorbability’ of the matter which gave them their color, never more and probably never occurs in reality.
Just found an open course offered at MIT on Thermodynamics & Kinetics, Chem 5.60 I think that I going to go through it to get some answers instead of leaning so much on others, but I’ll be around. I agree, WUWT is a great site if you like to interact in science. Just my cup-of-tea. I’ve spent years reading scientific papers but that manner of learning can leave some gaping holes. Time to hit the books again.
-w
There has been speculation by the ESA with VIRTIS images that lava flows are “recent” and that Venus may be currently active.
It’s interesting to study this geothermal gradient graph for Earth, and to ponder what the effect would be if the surface temperature were similar to Venus, or what might cause it to be similar, with different geology. Thoughts anyone?
Here’s another graph that might be handy:
http://geolor.com/GEOLOR/Core/Earth-Interior-Temperature.gif
wayne: May 16, 2010 at 3:34 pm
Hi Wayne,
I’d say that taking a course is a good idea (even without my teacher’s bias!). A well-constructed course has the benefit of including all the relevant pieces, in the right order, and maybe leaving out just enough to make you struggle with it a bit. And, of course, there’s nothing like sweat equity to help with learning – for teachers as well as students.
I bet you’re gonna work that teacher’s butt off, though! 🙂
/dr.bill
( Boy I wish there were a way to preview posts . )
Wayne , your question @ur momisugly May 16, 2010 , 05:27 highlights why I continue to judge the quality of understanding of the basic physics apparent on both sides of the conflict is pathetic . Certainly , so called “climate science” has become detached from the fundamental quantitative constraints well understood a 100 years ago .
I keep being given lists of $100 textbooks to slog thru to understand the problem . But if any of them had the definitive quantitative , ie , equation by equation , experimentally confirmed , explication of planet/atmosphere temperature profile , we would not be having this controversy . There certainly has been no Chandrasekhar in the field and that strikes me as bizarre given that these issues appear much simpler than those he analyzed .
I’ll be so bold as to assert that my own implementation , in several modern Array Programming Languages , of the StefanBoltzmann & Kirchhoff relationships for non-uniform gray ( flat spectrum ) spheres with arbitrary surrounding heat sources and sinks is the clearest and most general explication of the first-cut calculations which explain all but about 3% ( 9 kelvin ) of our temperature .
I’ll attempt to insert here the graph of the “Calculated & Observed Temperatures of Inner Planets” which I thank Dr Bill for his complement about the other day . If it didn’t show , you can find it on my website .
You will see how enormously higher the surface temperature of Venus is compared to a gray ball in its orbit simply heated by the sun . Given the StrfanBoltzmann P = sb * T ^ 4 relationship , where the sb constant drops out of any comparisons of temperatures between bodies , the surface of Venus is trying to radiate more than 16 times the amount of power it is receiving from the sun .
Sorry dr.bill , Wayne ‘s right on his intuition that “black” and “white” balls will come to the same temperature . That was Kirchhoff’s incredible insight 151 years ago . But it applies to flat spectra so that the correlation between the ball’s spectrum and its heat sources and sinks will be the same . That’s why the graybody temperature is the first term to be extracted . It is orthogonal to spectrum , thus makes no difference whether dark or light .
I have never found a quantitative definition of “the greenhouse effect” on the web — which is all that matters . So I’ll give one which makes sense :
since this is the ratio between absorptivity from sources versus emissivity towards sinks . Given any set of object and source and sink spectra , the equilibrium temperature can be calculated .
I’ll leave as a homework assignment for those who understand vector geometry what spectrum of an object will maximize its temperature for a simple situation like our sun’s spectrum versus the 3k cosmic background .
If the mean surface temperature of a planet exceeds that value , then it must have an internal source of heat .
Since I don’t have the time , you will find on my website that I am offering $300 to any student who elaborates the handful of lines of my algorithms to calculate values for full spectra – and calculates the equilibrium temperature for a bunch of spectra of interest such as pure CO2 . That’s well below minimum wage but the answers should be most interesting .
For dr.bill, from Bob’s website http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X-swoy2WKm0 .
Hi Bob,
I think our lack of agreement might just be a matter of interpreting the question in different ways. There’s also the issue of dealing with hypothetical scenarios that have a few ‘not-actually-possible-in-real-life’ aspects to them. Some gedanken experiments work out better than others. ☺
On a more substantial note, however, have you worked out the results for the Moon? From what I have understood of your calculations (and my grasp of those might not be complete), I would guess that the values should be quite similar to those for the Earth itself.
/dr.bill
Hi Keith,
I’ve actually seen that before, and have no issues with it. I didn’t, however, know that it was from Bob. A good demo, and based on observable effects in the real world. My compliments again, Bob.
/dr.bill
Bob Armstrong Reur May 17, 2010 at 3:00 pm
I’ve had a quick look at your website, and notice that you refer to Venus radiating energy at ~735K
There seems to be a dearth of literature on how S-B radiation is affected when a body is immersed in highly opaque fluid. However, Dr. Bill and I have been discussing this e.g. here, and have concluded that simple logic dictates that the Venus atmosphere is so opaque that the surface will not comply with S-B alone. One simple analogy is painted concrete, where the concrete loses HEAT into the opaque paint, and it is only the paint that then radiates EMR.
This means that most heat loss from the Venus surface is probably via conduction/ convection/ advection, except through some small windows.
(and not the same as it would be via EMR at 735K in a transparent or Earthly atmosphere)
There has been no dispute from Phil, or Tom Vonk, et al. (if they are around)
Bob Armstrong says:
May 17, 2010 at 3:00 pm
Wayne , your question @ur momisugly May 16, 2010 , 05:27 highlights why I continue to judge the quality of understanding of the basic physics apparent on both sides of the conflict is pathetic . Certainly , so called “climate science” has become detached from the fundamental quantitative constraints well understood a 100 years ago .
Bob, you have some very, very good insight. Halleluiah, some are really thinking science! Normally this type of comment I made would fall on deft ears.
I have been posting numerous scenarios, as the one above, for almost a year and you are one of the vary first persons of science which has seen through my post to the core. Bravo! I’m going to give dr.bill a pat on the back too that he is one of the first posting here willing to actually converse on actual underlying science. That is a rarity. Maybe the tide is turning. Two science minds found in one post, fantastic.
That example given above about the white and black planet, by the way, it was just a test but an important one, is what I would like to see occur here along with the normal present concentration on climate science and it’s political and social consequences. I mean real science conversations looking under the hood at the physic laws and their unpinning principles which govern the earth system, even at any planet’s system. So far that has only been a dream, but you two have done it for the first time here. I hope it continues as the months go by, there are so many incredibly simple questions as the one above that lay there concretely unanswered so everyone visiting WUWT to know. It’s a start.
I am not positively sure that my answer is true, but like Bob, I think it is. Dr.bill might help in answering that basically simple question, same temperature or not. If it’s incorrect, exactly why. What I see is if we cannot totally answer a question like that you can never take the next step, like for instance, now and an atmosphere, any atmosphere to that example. Does the added atmosphere make null the physics that we just proved to apply to the bare rock? That was where I was heading.
Bob, just visited your site, interesting, I will explore some later.
dr.bill says:
May 17, 2010 at 4:21 pm
I think our lack of agreement might just be a matter of interpreting the question in different ways.
If you need to further constain that example so that a firm answer might be found, do so.
wayne: May 17, 2010 at 5:11 pm
Hi Wayne,
Many thanks for the kind words, but it’s just a trait I inherited from my parents (along with their penchant for taking apart everything that came into the house in order to see how it actually worked), and that got reinforced by some other good people along the way. I’ve been “programmed”. ☺ In any case, I’ll have another go at your black and white planets.
The white one: I assumed that you intended it to have an albedo of exactly 1.00, so in my way of thinking, it will reflect 100% of the radiation impinging upon it. If it does that, then none of the energy gets transimitted down into the planet, so I don’t see how the planet will get any warmer.
The black one: I assumed that you wanted this one to have an albedo of exactly 0.00, in which case it will absorb everything that comes at it, and will indeed get warmer – up to the point where it is re-radiating at a temperature that allows it to put out the same amount of energy as it is receiving.
Is that any improvement?
/dr.bill
Dr.bill, Reur May 17, 2010 at 4:21 pm to Bob Armstrong:
Pardon me for butting in, but I find the argument for an effective radiation T for planets/ moons to be a bit of a stretch.
In the case of the moon, the surface T is said to range from very cold to very hot; some 350C. How this can be sensibly integrated into an average T seems to me to be rather simplistic. One difficulty is that EMR loss to space is proportional to the fourth power of T. Thus heat loss will be relatively rapid in the hot spot area under the sun, and much slower elsewhere. (whereas, this is not so on a planet with atmosphere and oceans shuffling the HEAT and EMR around) Other difficulties include the length of exposure to sunlight and darkness, and the thermal characteristics/ inertia of the lunar regolith.
Hi Bob (FJ),
I completely agree, and even on the Earth, it’s a bit of a stretch, but can perhaps be ‘tolerated’ for some purposes. If I understand Bob (A’s) calculation method, however, it seemed to me that he would get pretty much the same result for the Moon as for the Earth. If that were the case, then I would say that’s there’s a flaw in his methods. If it were not the case, then I would be inclined to take a deeper look at what he’s doing.
/dr.bill
dr.bill says:
May 17, 2010 at 6:07 pm
Hi Bill, it should not matter, and if it does, I am just wonder exactly why. Let’s make the white albedo 0.8 and the black 0.2, you chose the emissivities, remember, no atmosphere, but spinning, constant input (or not spinning and stationary more like Venus if that is a simpler case.) Don’t really want to rule emissivity totally out of the picture if possible, it seems that should not matter but would also only affect the rate of energy gain when not at equilibrium (the number of years to reach equilibrium). To me, emissivity (contra absorbability) acts similar as albedo in this type of case but for the fourth power rate.
In some respects it’s a harder question than it first seems. Try that one on your students, maybe you have a Nobel capable student right there in your class and he/she can straighten us out! 😉
Members of the church of global warming alarmist ‘science’ which primarily has been given wings by pseudo-intellectuals in the Western, secular, socialist, government-funded education complex, have gone full circle from the sort of people that generally have been hostile to Judeo/Christian ethics, principles, morals and traditions — and religion in general — but who now have become proselytizers of a new age doomsday religion that is particularly attractive to Leftist-libs and enviro-whackpots with teachings like, human CO2 is destroying the Earth, species face extinction and seas will run red and flood lands killing millions. These are the same people that kill babies in their wombs, say putting a crucifix in a glass of pee is art, burning the American flag is speech, granting Al Gore the Nobel Prize is recogintion of greatness, and look to leaders like Castro, Chavez and Mao and anyone else who is anti-America for their spritual guidence, i.e., they’re America’s flower children gone to seed and as worthless to society as a three dollar bill.
wayne: May 17, 2010 at 7:41 pm
OK Wayne, so what’s the deal here? You just gonna keep saying ‘No’ till I say ‘Yes’? Maybe I should put you in touch with my ex-wives, and they can fill you in on that! ☺ Just kidding (about you, that is). All right then, here we go:
Definitions and Symbols (and no more changing ponies in mid-game):
Two planets, no atmosphere, balls of rock, uniformly irradiated.
α and e – (albedo and emissivity, pure numbers, values 0 to 1)
σ – (Stefan-Boltzmann Constant, 5.670E-08 W/m²K^4)
I – (incoming radiation intensity, W/m²)
T – (ultimate equilibrium temperature of the planet, K)
At equilibrium (which might take some time): Power In = Power Out
This translates to: (1 – α)I = eσT^4
Example of usage:
Dark Planet: α = 0.20, e = 0.60, I = 345 W/m², T = 300K
Light Planet: α = 0.80, e = 0.90, I = 345 W/m², T = 192K
Now, I’m sure that you can plug numbers just as handily as I can, and if you play with the values a bit, you can make either planet the ‘hot one’, depending on what you choose for α and e. The only way to give them the same temperatures – under these stated constraints – is if the ratio (1 – α)/e is the same for both of them (and they get the same incoming power, of course).
One last thing: Let me assure you that I didn’t just invent this stuff. Look up any decent textbook on the Physics of radiating bodies, and you will find the equation that I started with. It is much older than I am, and has been vetted by generations of scientists with no ‘climate agenda’.
You happy now? ☺
/dr.bill
dr.bill says:
May 17, 2010 at 11:41 pm
You happy now? ☺
Yes dr.bill, that schoolbook example says it all. 🙂
wayne: May 18, 2010 at 10:47 am
Maybe in the future I should skip the chatter and just slap down the equations! In addition to my ‘people languages’, I’m pretty well-versed in ‘equation-speak’, and in the end, it IS the language of Physics. Anyway, it’s been fun, Wayne. Whenever I’m not getting what someone else is getting at, and then we figure it out, there’s a benefit all round. ☺
/dr.bill
In one of the great examples of cerebral contortionism I’ve ever seen, the authors of the study below conclude, saying:
“Lastly, one can invert the title of this paper and ask `Does the occurrence of lower/higher solar activity make a cold/warm winter in Europe more likely (than the climatological mean)?’ Our results strongly suggest that it does, which has implications for seasonal predictions.” (Ibid.)
We must do our best to cut through this obfuscation and filet the mumbo-jumbo if we want to get to the meat of the matter, Ok?
What we see yet another example of erstwhile authors being forced to dance and essentially proclaim without the slightest scientific backing that the role of the sun on the weather in the UK may have a bearing even on the rest of Europe but certainly not on the rest of the Northern Hemisphere and certainly not the rest of the globe. Accordingly, these dancing authors have tapped out a fiat license allowing global warming alarmist to endlessly continue to propagate groundless fears of runaway global warming due to human causes-even though the UK and possibly the rest of Europe may freeze over.
Nevertheless, even this pitiful example of fiat science does not allow the authors to dismiss or explain away the essential and incontrovertible fact that all climate realists know:
“Studies of isotopes generated in the atmosphere by galactic cosmic rays show that the Sun has been exceptionally active during recent decades. This grand solar maximum has persisted for longer than most previous examples in the cosmogenic isotope record and is expected to end soon.” (Ibid.)
As a result, the authors essentially are begging you use your own common sense. They’re actually telling you to turn the title of their own study on its head if you want to discover the real truth. In other words, you must provide your own answer to the real question, that fascist academia will not allow the authors to print in big block letters, e.g.,
THE BIG QUESTION: Were the relatively warmer European winters over the last several decades associated with global warming the result of relatively higher — and indeed `exceptionally’ higher — solar activity?
THE ANSWER: If you are a climate realist, your answer will of course be: `Yes, it’s the sun, stupid.’
Abstract. Solar activity during the current sunspot minimum has fallen to levels unknown since the start of the 20th century. The Maunder minimum (about 1650-1700) was a prolonged episode of low solar activity which coincided with more severe winters in the United Kingdom and continental Europe. Motivated by recent relatively cold winters in the UK, we investigate the possible connection with solar activity. We identify regionally anomalous cold winters by detrending the Central England temperature (CET) record using reconstructions of the northern hemisphere mean temperature. We show that cold winter excursions from the hemispheric trend occur more commonly in the UK during low solar activity, consistent with the solar influence on the occurrence of persistent blocking events in the eastern Atlantic. We stress that this is a regional and seasonal effect relating to European winters and not a global effect. Average solar activity has declined rapidly since 1985 and cosmogenic isotopes suggest an 8% chance of a return to Maunder minimum conditions within the next 50 years (Lockwood 2010 Proc. R. Soc. A 466 303-29): the results presented here indicate that, despite hemispheric warming, the UK and Europe could experience more cold winters than during recent decades.
[Lockwood M, Harrison RG, Woollings T, Solanki SK. Are cold winters in Europe associated with low solar activity? Environ. Res. Lett. 5 (April-June 2010) 024001]
http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/5/2/024001/fulltext
For those suggesting that Venus winds redistribute energy uniformly around the planet, here is an interesting report, (Sep 2008, my bold added):
EXTRACT: Firstly, between the equator and the median latitudes of the planet there dominates a superotation with constant winds blowing from East to West, within the clouds decreasing speed with height from 370 km/h to 180 km/h.
At these median latitudes, the winds decrease to a standstill at the pole, where an immense vortex forms. Other aspects of the superrotation that observations with VIRTIS have made possible are that the meridional (North – South) movements are very weak, about 15 km/h, and, secondly, unlike what was previously believed, the superotation appears to be not so constant over time: “We have detected fluctuations in its speed that we do not yet understand”, stated the scientists.
Moreover, for the first time they observed “the solar thermal tide” effect at high latitudes on Venus. “The relative movement of the Sun on the clouds and the intense heat deposited on them makes the superotation more intense at sunset than at sunrise”, they stated.
Very interesting; but if the north-south winds are weak, how can they possibly effectively evenly redistribute energy from the hotspot under the sun to the high latitudes? Up there, surviving sunlight is nominally spread over a much larger unit area, after nominally travelling through a much greater depth of atmosphere and clouds. (per the latitudinal cosecant; e.g. 1.414 at 45 degrees, year average.)
Strange place Venus, what?!
An anti-humanist world government thwarted by George Bush?
In the end, it was all about the money, George Bush saved the world.
We all see now that a non-existing of problem — global warming — was precisely created to be the fear so big that only world government could tackle the problem, right?
There was a grand attempt to quickly stampede the herd by the UN. And, supporting the hoax were the obliging secular socialist organs of Western society, the mainstream media and the governmental-education machine and union.
But reality and reason has in the end seen through the AGW hoax as a scientific fraud and also puts a spotlight on a continuing threat to the priciple that all humanity has a God-given right to liberty: the money and power grab by big government liberal fascism under color of global warming.
“Banks and investors are pulling out of the carbon market after the failure … [at] Copenhagen … Carbon financiers have already begun leaving banks in London because of the lack of activity and the drop-off in investment demand…
“Banks had been scaling back their plans to invest in carbon markets before Copenhagen. Fewer new clean energy projects need to be financed as, because of the recession, there are fewer global emissions to offset. The price of carbon credits has also fallen, while plans to introduce national trading schemes, particularly in the US and Australia, remain uncertain…
“Carbon markets were central to the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012 and obliged developed countries that exceed their targets to purchase credits from clean energy projects in the developing world. Policymakers will meet again in Mexico in November in an attempt to revive the climate change talks.”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/jan/24/carbon-emissions-green-copenhagen-banks
It seems that Steve’s hypothesis is dependent on convective circulation such that the descending gases are in a constant cycle of recompression. It has also been suggested that convection is likely to be higher on Venus than Earth. Here are some data which supports that speculation. They show that thermal conductivity of pure CO2 under Venus conditions is considerably higher than the air on Earth, which means that heat transfer into and through the gases is more rapid, and hence convection should be faster and have greater impetus. (although it is not completely true to apply; AOTBE)
(I hope the formatting of the table works out OK)
Height (km) Ref: [a]
——–Temp. K Ref: [a]
————– Atmospheric pressure (bar) Ref: [a]
——————————–Thermal conductivity (mW/MK) Ref: [b]
0—- 735— 92.10— ~56
5—- 697— 66.65— ~52
10— 658— 47.39— ~47
15— 621— 33.04— ~43
20— 579— 22.52— ~42
25— 537— 14.93— ~36 Sulphuric haze & water vapour above Ref: [d]
30— 495— 9.851— ~33
35— 453— 5.917— ~29
40— 416— 3.501— ~25
45— 383— 1.979— ~23
……………………………… Somewhat Earth-like above 50 Km
50— 348— 1.066— ~21 Sulphuric clouds & water vapour above. T= 75C
55— 300— 0.531— ~17 Temperature, T = 23C
60— 263— 0.236— ~17 Sulphuric clouds & water vapour above. T= -10C
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Compare with:
0—- 273— 1.032—- 14.7.…….. Earth Air at zero C Ref: [c]
[a] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmosphere_of_Venus
[b] http://www.nist.gov/srd/PDFfiles/jpcrd723.pdf
[c] http://encyclopedia.airliquide.com/Encyclopedia.asp?GasID=26
[d] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Venusatmosphere.svg
AGW prognosticating was a smithy’s craft. In an age of technology, reason and hope, they traded for sheepskins by pounding out the coffin nails that were used to bury science.
Much later than everyone else.. a new article on Science of Doom:
Venusian Mysteries