Guest post by Robert G. Brown
Duke University Physics Department
The Problem
In 2003 a paper was published in Energy & Environment by Hans Jelbring that asserted that a gravitationally bound, adiabatically isolated shell of ideal gas would exhibit a thermodynamically stable adiabatic lapse rate. No plausible explanation was offered for this state being thermodynamically stable – indeed, the explanation involved a moving air parcel:
An adiabatically moving air parcel has no energy loss or gain to the surroundings. For example, when an air parcel ascends the temperature has to decrease because of internal energy exchange due to the work against the gravity field.
This argument was not unique to Jelbring (in spite of his assertion otherwise):
The theoretically deducible influence of gravity on GE has rarely been acknowledged by climate change scientists for unknown reasons.
The adiabatic lapse rate was and is a standard feature in nearly every textbook on physical climatology. It is equally well known there that it is a dynamical consequence of the atmosphere being an open system. Those same textbooks carefully demonstrate that there is no lapse rate in an ideal gas in a gravitational field in thermal equilibrium because, as is well known, thermal equilibrium is an isothermal state; nothing as simple as gravity can function like a “Maxwell’s Demon” to cause the spontaneous stable equilibrium separation of gas molecules into hotter and colder reservoirs.
Spontaneous separation of a reservoir of gas into stable sub-reservoirs at different temperatures violates the second law of thermodynamics. It is a direct, literal violation of the refrigerator statement of the second law of thermodynamics as it causes and maintains such a separation without the input of external work. As is usually the case, violation of the refrigeration statement allows heat engines to be constructed that do nothing but convert heat into work – violating the “no perfectly efficient heat engine” statement as well.
The proposed adiabatic thermal lapse rate in EEJ is:
where g is the gravitational acceleration (presumed approximately constant throughout the spherical shell) and cp is the heat capacity per kilogram of the particular “ideal” gas at constant pressure. The details of the arguments for an adiabatic lapse rate in open systems is unimportant, nor does it matter what cp is as long as it is not zero or infinity.
What matters is that EEJ asserts that 
in stable thermodynamic equilibrium.
The purpose of this short paper is to demonstrate that such a system is not, in fact, in thermal equilibrium and that the correct static equilibrium distribution of gas in the system is the usual isothermal distribution.
The Failure of Equilibrium
In figure 1 above, an adiabatically isolated column of an ideal gas is illustrated. According to EEJ, this gas spontaneously equilibrates into a state where the temperature at the bottom of the column Tb is strictly greater than the temperature Tt at the top of the column. The magnitude of the difference, and the mechanism proposed for this separation are irrelevant, save to note that the internal conductivity of the ideal gas is completely neglected. It is assumed that the only mechanism for achieving equilibrium is physical (adiabatic) mixing of the air, mixing that in some fundamental sense does not allow for the fact that even an ideal gas conducts heat.
Note well the implication of stability. If additional heat is added to or removed from this container, it will always distribute itself in such a way as to maintain the lapse rate, which is a constant independent of absolute temperature. If the distribution of energy in the container is changed, then gravity will cause a flow of heat that will return the distribution of energy to one with Tb > Tt . For an ideal gas in an adiabatic container in a gravitational field, one will always observe the gas in this state once equilibrium is established, and while the time required to achieve equilibrium is not given in EEJ, it is presumably commensurate with convective mixing times of ordinary gases within the container and hence not terribly long.
Now imagine that the bottom of the container and top of the container are connected with a solid conductive material, e.g. a silver wire (adiabatically insulated except where it is in good thermal contact with the gas at the top and bottom of the container) of length L . Such a wire admits the thermally driven conduction of heat according to Fourier’s Law:
where λ is the thermal conductivity of silver, A is the cross-sectional area of the wire, and ΔT=Tb–Tt . This is an empirical law, and in no way depends on whether or not the wire is oriented horizontally or vertically (although there is a small correction for the bends in the wire above if one actually solves the heat equation for the particular geometry – this correction is completely irrelevant to the argument, however).
As one can see in figure 2, there can be no question that heat will flow in this silver wire. Its two ends are maintained at different temperatures. It will therefore systematically transfer heat energy from the bottom of the air column to the top via thermal conduction through the silver as long as the temperature difference is maintained.
One now has a choice:
- If EEJ is correct, the heat added to the top will redistribute itself to maintain the adiabatic lapse rate. How rapidly it does so compared to the rate of heat flow through the silver is irrelevant. The inescapable point is that in order to do so, there has to be net heat transfer from the top of the gas column to the bottom whenever the temperature of the top and bottom deviate from the adiabatic lapse rate if it is indeed a thermal equilibrium state.
- Otherwise, heat will flow from the bottom to the top until they are at the same temperature. At this point the top and the bottom are indeed in thermal equilibrium.
It is hopefully clear that the first of these statements is impossible. Heat will flow in this system forever; it will never reach thermal equilibrium. Thermal equilibrium for the silver no longer means the same thing as thermal equilibrium for the gas – heat only fails to flow in the silver when it is isothermal, but heat only fails to flow in the gas when it exhibits an adiabatic lapse in temperature that leaves it explicitly not isothermal. The combined system can literally never reach thermal equilibrium.
Of course this is nonsense. Any such system would quickly reach thermal equilibrium – one where the top and bottom of the gas are at an equal temperature. Nor does one require a silver wire to accomplish this. The gas is perfectly capable of conducting heat from the bottom of the container to the top all by itself!
One is then left with an uncomfortable picture of the gas moving constantly – heat must be adiabatically convected downward to the bottom of the container in figure 1 in ongoing opposition to the upward directed flow of heat due to the fact that Fourier’s Law applies to the ideal gas in such a way that equilibrium is never reached!
Of course, this will not happen. The gas in the container will quickly reach equilibrium. What will that equilibrium look like? The answer is contained in almost any introductory physics textbook. Take an ideal gas in thermal equilibrium:
where N is the number of molecules in the volume V, k is Boltzmann’s constant, and T is the temperature in degrees Kelvin. n is the number of moles of gas in question and R is the ideal gas constant. If we assume a constant temperature in the adiabatically isolated container, one gets the following formula for the density of an ideal gas:
where M is the molar mass, the number of kilograms of the gas per mole.
The formula for that describes the static equilibrium of a fluid is unchanged by the compressibility (or lack thereof) of the fluid – for the fluid to be in force balance the variation of the pressure must be:
(so that the pressure decreases with height, assuming a non-negative density). If we multiply both sides by dz and integrate, now we get:
Exponentiating both sides of this expression, we get the usual exponential isothermal lapse in the pressure, and by extension the density:
where P0 is the pressure at z=0 (the bottom of the container).
This describes a gas that is manifestly:
- In static force equilibrium. There is no bulk transport of the gas as buoyancy and gravity are in perfect balance throughout.
- In thermal equilibrium. There is no thermal gradient in the gas to drive the conduction of heat.
If this system is perturbed away from equilibrium, it will quickly return to this combination of static and thermal equilibrium, as both are stable. Even in the case of a gas with an adiabatic lapse rate (e.g. the atmosphere) remarkably small deviations are observed from the predicted P(z) one gets treating the atmosphere as an ideal gas. An adiabatically isolated gas initially prepared in a state with an adiabatic lapse rate will thermally equilibrate due to the internal conduction of heat within the gas by all mechanisms and relax to precisely this state.
Conclusion
As we can see, it is an introductory physics textbook exercise to demonstrate that an adiabatically isolated column of gas in a gravitational field cannot have a thermal gradient maintained by gravity. The same can readily be demonstrated by correctly using thermodynamics at a higher level or by using statistical mechanics, but it is not really necessary. The elementary argument already suffices to show violation of both the zeroth and second laws of thermodynamics by the assertion itself.
In nature, the dry adiabatic lapse rate of air in the atmosphere is maintained because the system is differentially heated from below causing parcels of air to constantly move up and down. Reverse that to a cooling, like those observed during the winter in the air above Antarctica, and the lapse rate readily inverts. Follow the air column up above the troposphere and the lapse rate fails to be observed in the stratosphere, precisely where vertical convection stops dominating heat transport. The EEJ assertion, that the dry adiabatic lapse rate alone explains the bulk of so-called “greenhouse warming” of the atmosphere as a stable feature of a bulk equilibrium gas, is incorrect.
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Since this Jelbring’s scenario has actually got back to what we know we have, I can’t see anything wrong with it.
How about “I took a well-known result of atmospheric dynamics, driven by non-equilibrium differential heating caused by the GHG GHE and claimed that it is a static feature of an adiabatically isolated atmosphere, ignoring the fact that the proposed thermal profile violates the second law of thermodynamics for the specific conditions of long relaxation times and equilibrium conditions I propose”. Speaking as Jelbring, of course. Nothing wrong with that?
First, Jelbring didn’t do anything but quote a textbook in climatology out of context and assert that the conclusion holds in an adiabatically isolated system and so can explain heating when there is no open system differential heat flow present. It doesn’t and it can’t. It would violate the second law of thermodynamics.
rgb
In one of Climate Science’s favorite configurations you have two objects radiating against each other. When they finally equilibrate do they stop radiating??
An excellent question. The answer is yes. Take two “blackbody” plates at different temperatures, place them in an adiabatically isolated (perfectly reflecting) container facing one another. No matter what the size, or shape or (non-GR-relevant) gravitational orientation of the two plates, they will come into thermal equilibrium at the same temperature through a process called detailed balance.
You should study detailed balance as it is enormously important to this whole discussion. In the end, each body radiates exactly as much energy as it absorbs, with the entire cavity filled with BB radiation at the common temperature.
rgb
Robert Brown, in your example physics paper (posted 2:33pm above) I found an error in the solution in 1(b) … the word calculate is misspelled as ‘calcfulate’ … does this qualify me for any credit towards a physics degree, or does that just make me a run-of-the-mill pedant? 😉
Dear Spiny,
In my classes I award students a tasty piece of dark chocolate every time they catch me make a mistake at the board (which I do regularly in every lecture as I lecture cold, without notes, and just do the derivations and examples as I go. Occasionally a student will catch me make a spelling mistake or other irrelevant error. Hell, candy is cheap, and it makes the game more fun.
I owe you one piece of candy.
rgb
Yes, I now see how it is and you are correct. The atmosphere relaxes to an isothermic state.
Thanks for your patience, you taught taught me something important, humility, along iwth some physics.
Dearest Jim,
You are hence awarded the gentleman and scholar award. If I could give you candy (see previous post plus two) I would.
rgb
Robert Brown says at 1/28 2:33pm:
“A physics problem is not solved in words! Especially not a difficult one.”
Agreed. Robert Brown presents some substantive debate in his terrific 2:33pm post way beyond the idealized thought experiment of top post Fig. 1. My suggestion to him would be there is enough material that bringing Fig. 1 into the debate is just an unnecessary distraction that then brings into play two formal papers (Velasco et. al. 1996 and Verkley et. al. 2004) with algebra! which would need to be considered in the debate, as here.
Couple thoughts on the SC final exam link. Man, only get 8 points! for writing that Phys 706 #1 part b answer? Hoo-boy, I would think I could earn a season ticket to Cameron Indoor Stadium for writing that answer out even w/open book. Instead I would get only 8 exam points at SC? Wow.
Seriously though, take a look at the integration for n(z) right after the words “The solution is”. Then compare further down for the heat capacity where “we differentiate (total energy) w.r.t. T”. There is something here worth digging into; T seems to be both held constant for n(z) integration and then apparently a variable for heat capacity differentiation.
But I’d rather spend time attending equiv. of a game at Cameron than expending that thermo effort at the moment; I was hanging out here w/some downtime due to a head cold. This thread has been Spock’s definition of fascinating; I’m pretty sure Coach K says his team gets better when the competition gets tougher. Same for the posters here.
I’m interested enough sans head cold to engage here w/tough competition (but with less time as I move back to hang out w/productive work & play elsewhere). Still, may have some more thoughts here when my on-order Boren text arrives.
Myrrh askes: “Gosh Tim, real experiments from satellite data looking down on the Earth proving carbon dioxide warms the Earth?”
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2011/03/gw-petty-6-6.jpg
… but only if you understand enough of the other science involved.
And I think I am now going to go back to other things …
And since this thread appears now to be “finished”, I will probably make this very figure (or some just like it) the subject of my next top post, because this figure is precisely direct evidence for the GHG-GHE. In my opinion, evidence that cannot be challenged. It is literally the “evidence of our own eyes”, even though our eyes are electronic ones out there in orbit.
But not until I finish writing 30-50 recommendations…
rgb
“This paper shows nothing in the actual language of physical science; it presents a purely heuristic, question-begging argument with numerous errors and internal inconsistencies.” – Brown “.
Bryan sez: “Sounds like a very good description of the greenhouse effect.”
+++++
Right on, bro.
I am not sure how many of you are interested in the philosopy of science, but the discussion above is a good example of what has happened as a result of ‘consensus science’ applied to the effects of human activity-sourced CO2.
Robert, the reason you meet so many people on this list who are automatically extra-skeptical of any ‘science’ put forward by the Lettered and the Self-Proclaimed is because of the B.S. that passes for climate science these days. What more perfect classroom is there for tutoring the intelligent layman to be skeptical of the ‘known laws of science’ than the stream of stupidity wrapped in obfuscating words than the hockey stick of Mann and the screaming doom from Hansem’s mouth? What better example of ‘believe anything I say because I say it’ is there than, ‘You are all guilty, give me money to solve it”?
In deepest Africa one gets precisely these same words from self-taught shamanic diagnosticians who can explain everything as the fault of the victim of circumstance with a universal. ‘You have failed to appease….’ or ‘You unknowingly did…’ “That will be two chickens, please.”
You rail against the ignorant questioning of basic assumptions and ancient proofs, yet who has taught the skeptics that they were right all along to suspect there is something very rotten in the world of climate ‘science’? No need for epithets like ‘climate scientology’ here. Climate science disgraces itself, or rather, it is achieved by those who emit a stream of verbal garbage along the line of some or other manufactured consensus.
And now you see the state into which things have evolved. Your own logic has not been perfect. I don’t expect it to be. Willis’ for whom I have a lot of time, is imperfect. People with graduate degrees, who I work with every day, are frequently wrong about all sorts of basic things. They jumped hoops and got the paper. That does not make them infallible.
The model planet is being discussed at the limits of our ability to conceive of that artificial world. At the limits, the physical laws and commong descriptions frequently break down. Invoking them is a bit like invoking the victim’s responsibilty for all that befalls him – it is frequently true, within limits.
There is no doubt that the effects of the blatant propaganda selling the idea that recent global warming is ‘primarily cause by human-emitted CO2’ will be studied like the caged rat it is: an example of group-think gone wild with one hand covering the eye of the public and the other in their trouser pocket.
Do not complain, sir, about excessive skepticism of ‘consensus physics’.
Here is an elevator speech:
1. CAGW is powered by consensus physics.
2. CAGW is B.S.
3. Why then is consensus physics not also to be questioned?
Pressed hard from all quarters, many of the explanations above falter at the known limits and the answer is still not clear.
“David, just as a matter of curiosity, why do you select this possibility instead of the far simpler one that silver is just silver and conducts heat uphill just fine and Jelbring’s paper is simply wrong because it proposes a final state that egregiously violates the second law of thermodynamics, one that is derived by ignoring heat conduction in the first place?……….
I’m serious, this is an actual question. Why?”
Well, I started by imagining a single molecule in an elliptical orbit about a planet. Clearly, at the top of the orbit, it is moving more slowly, than when at the bottom – because kinetic energy has been converted into potential energy. On reflection, that idea generalises to atoms or molecules in anything! I noticed that you didn’t actually explain what is wrong with my argument. A atom/molecule will slow down as it ascends a gravitational field, won’t it?
Your construction with the silver bar doesn’t show that a column of gas at equilibrium would have constant temperature, it shows that everything – including your bar – must have the same lapse rate when it is at equilibrium in a gravitational field, so that it is not possible to extract useful work by piping heat from the bottom to the top – thus it does not violate the 2nd law.
By coincidence, I spent the interval between my two posts, walking up a hill, watching the snow build up as I got to the top!
David
Dr Brown,
Thanks you. Maybe I can help with what is going on here, and what Jelbring’s paper probably is.
Some people need very good, and very precise, pictures to understand intangible ideas. Writhing of myself; I can’t do math, I can’t see the numbers on a paper and I can’t see them in my head. I’m a high school dropout who owns a trucking company, and I like physics more than anything and want to understand as much as I can. So sometimes I grow a large chip on my shoulder; when I want to understand something and an a knowledgeable person says ” You won’t understand until you do the math”. That is very, very irritating to me. (I can see the other useful things, vectors, gradients, fields, operators).
The picture you drew in the derivation at the start of the thread is simple. I understand the empirical rule for heat conductivity in the silver thread. What was an unexplained part of the picture is what happens if the gravitational gradient is large across the box. That is; going from a table top picture of the silver bar, to a skyscraper sized picture of a silver bar.
I got off wrong footed after seeing an incorrect picture in one of the replies. I wrote a smart ass remark about tsunamis. You wrote, ‘…what about radiation?’. Then I put your light pipe in the picture, and it worked the way you wrote that it would. So next I went to the picture of gas in the ‘gravity’ box. I put in thermally opaque gas and watched what happens. The result was just as you wrote it would be. OK. But the question is; what about the Earth’s atmosphere? I put thermally transparent gas in the box and watched what happens. The condition I started with isn’t steady state. Entropy increases and the gas relaxes to an isothermal state. Now I knew you were correct.
But the hard part was going back to your first picture. Silver bar, stack of billiard balls, or stack of Jello, the isothermal picture wasn’t easy to see. I had to watch those picture for a long time to see it work. Now I know why some people won’t believe it.
I hope that you understand this. Saying that ‘you need to do the math’ won’t work for many people. It is like ‘dancing about architecture’. Good pictures will work.
Thank you again.
I perhaps jumped too quickly to say that I had arrived at “exactly” the same conclusion as David Bailey, since I had not given any thought to what mechanism, if any, might result in a different mean molecular kinetic energy at the top of the wire than at the bottom.
But the point is not whether, say, the silver would conduct heat uphill no matter how minuscule the difference in average molecular kinetic energy there is between the top and bottom. The point is that David Bailey’s tentative conclusion points up the fact that Dr. Brown’s thought experiment fails to show the contradiction he needs for his proof.
For the sake of his proof, Dr. Brown assumes (as he and most of us believe, contrary to fact) that at equilibrium, i.e., in the highest-probability, highest-entropy state, the isolated gas column exhibits the dry adiabatic lapse rate. If I’m not mistaken, he also tacitly assumes that the vertical silver wire in isolation does not. Presumably upon connection some kinetic-energy exchange would therefore occur between the gas and the wire. But the two assumptions (lapse rate for isolated gas, no lapse rate for isolated wire) do not require the result that such transfer would continue forever. Another possibility is that the exchange would continue only until the new, combined wire-gas system reached its own equilibrium, in which we would not in general expect the gas to exhibit the same mean-molecular-kinetic energy profile it did when it was isolated.
So no perpetual-motion machine necessarily results.
Robert Brown says at 1/29 6:22am:
“Take a dollop of heat at the bottom..”
Robert! You have repeatedly told us consider Fig. 1 is at equilibrium, no net heat flow. There is no dollop of heat inside equilibrated Fig. 1 in top post to take anymore. Velasco et. al. 1996 and Verkley et. al. 2004 b have given us the algebra for Fig. 1 top post at equilibrium, no net heat flow, no net thermal energy flow, isentropic.
Robert continues:
“There is no net flow of heat in a system in thermal equilibrium..”
See!
So there is no heat dollop to obtain anywhere within Fig. 1 at equilibrium b/c there is no thermal energy flow anywhere in Fig. 1 at equilibrium. Ref. Maxwell 1871 Theory of Heat. Since heat isn’t flowing anymore in Fig. 1, any of 3 bodies in contact will, WILL by 0th law, have achieved thermal energy equilibrium everywhere therein (a wire, an insulator & the ideal gas). Heat flow stops when they equilibrate in T(z) everywhere & system is isentropic. Cite Velasco & Verkley algebra.
The only way, ONLY way, to take a dollop of heat into the bottom of a wire in equilibrated Fig. 1 above is to bring a hotter (higher T dollop of thermal energy) body than the bottom of the wire across the control volume of Fig. 1 and put it in thermal contact with the bottom of an insulated wire and the gas.
By 2nd law, entropy of Fig. 1 will increase. It will eventually reach thermal equilibrium again by oth law, isentropic now with 4 bodies. Higher but again isentropic (non-isothermal as correct algebra proves in Velasco & Verkley b). You cannot escape the physics, correct algebra & reasoning in each of those two papers. As much as you try. And try….and try….ad infinitum I suppose.
Or show your correct algebra refuting those two V&V papers. Robert Brown says algebra is needed esp. for difficult physics, show the correct work. Hint: Robert Brown’s top post algebra is incorrect as I’ve posted, cite Velasco & Verkley papers for correct algebra showing non-isothermal isentropic top post Fig. 1.
I know (believe me by now!) this boils down to Robert Brown cannot grok 0th law IS satisfied in equilibrated Fig. 1; Verkley paper b explains how 0th law IS satisfied and Fig. 1 achieves equilibrium & is Robert Brown ungrokenly non-isothermal isentropic – their algebra proof stands. That should be interesting to Robert Brown. It is to me! I want my piece of chocolate candy (will accept a game ticket to Cameron instead). Six pieces really, one for me, Velasco, Verkley et. al. authors.
The real atmosphere gets the dollop of heat from the sun; exciting and interesting stuff happens to equilibrium w/wire in top post Fig. 1 thereafter. Lotsa’ algebra too.
Myrrh says:
January 29, 2012 at 5:51 am
Let me be clear about that quote, Myrrh, so you are in no doubt.
It is nonsense. It is junk. It is wrong, and not just a little bit wrong, but cataclysmically wrong. If wrong were the height of a man, that quote is the Empire State Building of wrong. Am I getting through yet? It is laughable, a veritable sea of wrongness. If I set out to write something wrong, it would be but a candle to your very bonfire of wrongitude. Are you getting the picture? It is a veritable black hole of wrongness, where when any fact enters it is never seen again. If wrong were a shot of whiskey, that quote is a three day bender waking up in the gutter. It is the prince of wrongness, the duke of disinformation, the earl of errors.
Is my meaning sufficiently clear? Because I could go on if I’m not getting through to you …
w.
PS—my favorite part? Where he says that the “battery forms a dipole which nudges the local environment into an unbalanced state which pours out energy in every direction.” That was priceless, I’d pay good money to see that happen.
“OK: picture an atmosphere with a lapse rate, a warmer bottom and cooler top. Introduce the silver wire. Heat will flow up the wire and because there is no lapse rate for silver, it will warm the gas at the top. You put a larger heat exchanger at the top to overcome the collision rate difference due to the pressure differential. Objection overcome.
Eventually it will reach thermal equilibrium, correct? At that time, in a gravitational field, the total energy of any upper molecule will be much greater than at the bottom (K+P), correct? Is that a state of maximum entropy?”
It seems to me you would cool the entire atmosphere.
I feel compelled to mention one talking about very small differences of heat, and therefore whatever engine you using will draw very little energy from the system. Any nuclear reactor is typically wasting vastly more energy- waste heat from all engines are wasting a higher difference of heat. Rubbing your hands together is giving more energy.
So this silver wire would a refrigerator- a very poor and expensive refrigerator. Far, far worse than windmills and solar panels- in terms generating energy. And a windmill would be a cheaper and more efficient refrigerator.
Robert, end of thread? So you are never going to answer (you say you prefer numbers, lay them out) the question on Venus and why it’s lapse of 8km/K compared to Earth’s at 6.5km/K though Venus’s energy input is 66W/m^2, giving it 66/94 or 0.6 W/m^2 per equivalent Earth atmosphere, and the Earth’s input per atmosphere is 240 W/m^2? WUWT? You keep saying lapses are governed by the energy… explain.
If you never answer this question I think that is why so many doubt your ability. You never answer the real questions of real worlds with real atmospheres but instead call people slide names and with shaded smears and belittling remarks as if you are some kind of grand authority. I can assure you are not. Stop. It does not prop up people’s view of you, it just makes you look small.
Crispin in Waterloo said @ur momisugly January 29, 2012 at 7:49 am
The Pompous Git is a philosopher of science. He says: this discussion id a good example of what happens when you don’t know WTF you are talking about. In order to be a philosopher of science, you need not only to understand the science, you need to understand logic. You clearly understand neither.
There is indeed much BS in climate “science”. But there is also a very great deal of well-understood climate science that relies on a full understanding of the physics that Robert, Willis, DeWitt & others have been trying to explain. Actually, they have explained the physics very well. Several commenters have shown a lamentable disinterest in learning.
Your “shamanic diagnosticians” do not discuss, or rely on, fundamental physics. Are you on drugs?
Nobody here has been claiming infallibility, or did I miss something? A quote might help if you believe this to be the case.
The model planet was chosen by Jelbring. This is a discussion of Jelbring’s “work” and thinking. Read the head post. It is manifestly not at the “limits of our ability to conceive” unless we have a severe case of inability to read and think. First year physics students understand models like this one every day. The ones who fail to understand are generally those who do not do the work required.
1. CAGW is not “powered by consensus physics”; it is an unwarranted extrapolation from consensus physics.
2. CAGW is BS. [Hard to disagree with]
3. Consensus physics is questioned all the time — by physicists as well as people who are profoundly ignorant of physics. Guess who can make a difference? Hint: experiments are designed to ask questions of physical systems.
Willis Eschenbach said @ur momisugly January 29, 2012 at 9:45 am
My favourite is “Those poles actually distort the universe around your battery”. This sounds very much like a “reality distortion field” just like the one surrounding some commenters here.
I haven’t laughed so much since I was told these many long years ago that an electronic circuit drawing was just as effective as one built out of transistors, capacitors and resistors. I’ve smoked some pretty strong hooch in the dim and distant, but it never took me that far off the planet 🙂
Willis Eschenbach says:
January 29, 2012 at 9:45 am
Myrrh says:
January 29, 2012 at 5:51 am
p.s. Willis – thanks for the electricity direction, I’ve been doing a bit of looking and am rather taken with the knowledge that what all batteries do is stop the ambient energy supply…
Here:
http://free-energy-info.co.uk/Intro.html
Let me be clear about that quote, Myrrh, so you are in no doubt.
It is nonsense. It is junk. It is wrong, and not just a little bit wrong, but cataclysmically wrong. If wrong were the height of a man, that quote is the Empire State Building of wrong. Am I getting through yet? etc. etc. etc.
Is my meaning sufficiently clear? Because I could go on if I’m not getting through to you …
Yeah, yeah Willis, you’re back to your empty vessel makes much noise. I put up the link, read the run up before the bit I quoted, tell me what’s wrong with his explanation.
PS—my favorite part? Where he says that the “battery forms a dipole which nudges the local environment into an unbalanced state which pours out energy in every direction.” That was priceless, I’d pay good money to see that happen.
You can’t see elecricity, you’ll be waiting some time.. Perhaps I shouldn’t have bothered posting that to you.
Anyway, now, many thanks, the Mods have kindly retrieved my post – please see, http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/01/24/refutation-of-stable-thermal-equilibrium-lapse-rates/#comment-878541 you might have missed it.
And if Robert/others have any thoughts on it, please bear in mind I don’t speak math/s so replies please in the spirit in which Jelbring presented his thought experiment.
(If Jelbring is reading this,I hadn’t appreciated that earlier, I ask for English not maths speak as I’m not a scientist.)
And Robert, please, take note of what Trick says here:
Trick says:
January 29, 2012 at 9:41 am
That’s contributed a lot to me not being able to follow what you’re talking about.
Robert,
For once I disagree with your reply — in particular in this exchange
>>In one of Climate Science’s favorite configurations you have
>>two objects radiating against each other. When they finally equilibrate
>>do they stop radiating??
>An excellent question. The answer is yes.
Later on I agree with your more complete answer “each body radiates exactly as much energy as it absorbs”. There is this idea that floats around the climate skeptic blogosphere that somehow a cold body does not radiate AT ALL to a warmer object, as if radiation from the cool atmosphere to the warm ground violates the 2nd Law.
The objects never stop radiating, no matter the temperature of the emitting or absorbing. Many people would read the first line of your answer and think it means that literally IR radiation from both objects has stopped. I know it sounds silly, but it is a common conclusion and a common objection to the greenhouse effect.
They don’t graps that:
* NET radiation is zero between two objects at the same temperature is zero.
* NET radiation is from hot to cold (even when some energy is going from cold to hot).
* SOME energy from cold to hot is not a contradiction with the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics as long as the NET flow is hot to cold.
Your initial reply helps reinforce this incorrect interpretation of IR radiation exchange.
Robert Brown says:
January 29, 2012 at 7:02 am
Myrrh askes: “Gosh Tim, real experiments from satellite data looking down on the Earth proving carbon dioxide warms the Earth?”
Tim replies: “http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2011/03/gw-petty-6-6.jpg
… but only if you understand enough of the other science involved.
And I think I am now going to go back to other things …”
And since this thread appears now to be “finished”, I will probably make this very figure (or some just like it) the subject of my next top post, because this figure is precisely direct evidence for the GHG-GHE. In my opinion, evidence that cannot be challenged. It is literally the “evidence of our own eyes”, even though our eyes are electronic ones out there in orbit.
You haven’t even started a proper refutation of Jelbring’s paper, as I’ve pointed above. You haven’t even read his explanation for writing it the way he did as your diabribe against him showed, so I’ve no reason to think anything you’ve said in this “Refutation of Stable Thermal Equilibrium Lapse Rates” is in the least bit relevant as a refutation, and so, you may think you’re finished, but I think you should begin again, Take II, and stick to his thought experiment and not your strawman silver wire deflection.
Not that a post on “real experiments from satellite data looking down on the Earth proving carbon dioxide warms the Earth” wouldn’t be welcomed, Tim’s chickened out for all his blather that he would explain it..
Have you got the top and bottom of the troposphere carbon dioxide data from AIRS? And the mid from AIRS properly set out so we can see where their “carbon dioxide is not well-mixed but lumpy” actually comes from? I can’t find anything but two pictures out of all those years data and they don’t fit with their conclusion.
Willis,
I hate to take Myrrh’s side, but there is a grain of truth in what he was saying about energy flow for circuits. I only glanced through his “free energy” link and I strongly suspect it is hogwash. And most of what Myrrh is saying in his post is poorly stated (or simply wrong). But analyzing circuits using the “Poynting vector” does indeed visualize the energy flowing through space from the battery to the device in the form of E & H fields (and in some sense the fields “actually distort the universe around your battery” although the energy does indeed come from the battery, not from the universe).
See, for example, section 8.3 of http://www.guspepper.net/electro/Primer%20semestre/Poynting%20vector.pdf for more details.
Wayne,
Setting aside the physics for a moment, you said:
“You never answer the real questions of real worlds with real atmospheres but instead call people slide names and with shaded smears and belittling remarks as if you are some kind of grand authority. I can assure you are not. Stop. It does not prop up people’s view of you, it just makes you look small.”
I am just amazed at the amount of back biting ad hominem arguments there are in ‘climate science’. If you think someone else is behaving that way, it is best to rise above them, not join them!
David
“Robert, end of thread? So you are never going to answer (you say you prefer numbers, lay them out) the question on Venus and why it’s lapse of 8km/K compared to Earth’s at 6.5km/K though Venus’s energy input is 66W/m^2, giving it 66/94 or 0.6 W/m^2 per equivalent Earth atmosphere, and the Earth’s input per atmosphere is 240 W/m^2? WUWT? You keep saying lapses are governed by the energy… explain.”
Lapse rate is based on gravity. It’s affected by amount of heating and affected by humidity:
“When the air is saturated with water vapor (at its dew point), the moist adiabatic lapse rate (MALR) or saturated adiabatic lapse rate (SALR) applies. This lapse rate varies strongly with temperature. A typical value is around 5 °C/km (2.7 °F/1,000 ft) (1.5°C/1,000 ft)”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lapse_rate#Saturated_adiabatic_lapse_rate
Dry adiabatic lapse rate {DALR}:
“DRY ADIABATIC LAPSE RATE.—If a parcel of air is lifted, its pressure is DECREASED, since pressure decreases with height, and its temperature falls due to the expansion. If the air is dry and the process is adiabatic, the rate of temperature fall is 1°C per 100 meters of lift (10°C per Kin), or 5 l/2°F per 1,000 feet of lift. If that parcel descends again to higher pressure, its temperature then INCREASES at the rate of 1°C per 100 meters or 5 1/2°F per 1,000 feet. This is known as the dry adiabatic lapse rate”
http://meteorologytraining.tpub.com/14312/css/14312_47.htm
In above ref there is diagram, indicating moist ADIABATIC and “normal” ADIABATIC and “dry” ADIABATIC and “SUPER” ADIABATIC and AUTO CONVECTIVE.
6.5 km/K is “normal”.
Earth’s atmosphere is not dry, we live on a water planet. Dry adiabatic lapse rate is mostly theory- and in there is not any dry air, there is only drier air.
Venus is far, far more dry than earth atmosphere- anywhere on earth, even the stratosphere on earth. Venus does have a small ocean or large lake of water in it’s atmosphere- but Venus has a LOT of atmosphere. Venus has a lot more water in it’s atmosphere than Mars, Mars has little atmosphere, since it’s got little amount atmosphere and tiny amount of water vapor, it is less dry than Venus.
And Mars drier than anyplace on earth- it’s a dry, very cold airless desert- and that in it’s wetter and warmer areas:)
Venus has such a huge atmosphere that it holds about as much water vapor in it’s atmosphere that it has somewhere near as much a earth does in it’s atmosphere. Venus is big atmosphere a lot water in it, but very little in comparison to amount of atmosphere.
So Venus is closer to a DRY ADIABATIC LAPSE RATE than anywhere on Earth or Mars.
Robert Brown says:
January 29, 2012 at 6:42 am
In one of Climate Science’s favorite configurations you have two objects radiating against each other. When they finally equilibrate do they stop radiating??
“An excellent question. The answer is yes.”
Oops! I don’t think you quite meant this. In reality, they each keep on radiating at the rate appropriate to their temperature, irrespective of the presence of the other. What I think you meant is that at equilibrium they absorb exactly as much radiation from each other as they emit to each other, so there is no net flow of heat. The detailed description further on in your comment does imply that this is what you actually meant, so I wouldn’t bother with the nitpick were it not that one of the main fallacies of the anti-GHE crowd is the belief that cooler objects (the upper atmosphere) can’t radiate to hotter objects (the ground) and hence that back-radiation is a “myth”.
Tim Folkerts says:
January 29, 2012 at 12:27 pm
I hate to take Myrrh’s side, but there is a grain of truth in what he was saying about energy flow for circuits. I only glanced through his “free energy” link and I strongly suspect it is hogwash. And most of what Myrrh is saying in his post is poorly stated (or simply wrong). But analyzing circuits using the “Poynting vector” does indeed visualize the energy flowing through space from the battery to the device in the form of E & H fields
I suspect that the free energy link is relying not upon the Poynting vector, but upon some garbled version of advanced potentials, because in a naive view these seem magically to draw in energy from the entire universe and the whole of past time.
By the way, I notice that you’ve nitpicked Robert’s radiation answer too. Sorry for duplicating that.
rjb says “Here is an ordinary undergraduate exam question in a course in statistical physics and thermodynamics offered and the University of South Carolina and posted on their website. Note well that the question asks students to solve the exact same problem that Jelbring proposes — that of a vertical, isolated, column of ideal gas that must be in static and thermal equilibrium in a gravitational field”
The problem set out in the link starts off with these conditions: “The total number of atoms is N, the mass of each atom is m, and the temperature is T.”
As the “the temperature is T”, the problem is isothermal as a matter of its specification. I’m not defending Jelbring, but where does he constrain his discussion to an isothermal outcome?
Still no take for my question: given the mechanical nature of conduction at the microscopic level, what are the implications for Fourrier’s Law?