Friday Funny – reflections on the greenhouse effect

All light bulbs eventually fail how does that constitute an argument for the GHE.

johnmarshall says:
July 19, 2013 at 4:14 am
All light bulbs eventually fail how does that constitute an argument for the GHE.

Certainly, but check out the Centennial Light Bulb, they don’t make ’em like they used to.

Suppose the reflector is actually matt black rather than a normal reflector. I’m guessing that the matt black reflector will get hotter than the normal reflector and the filament will not get as hot.
Reflection of heat and heat transfer between objects is two different things completely.

>Jimbo says:
>July 19, 2013 at 4:28 am
>>johnmarshall says:
>>July 19, 2013 at 4:14 am
>>All light bulbs eventually fail how does that constitute an argument for the GHE.
>Certainly, but check out the Centennial Light Bulb, they don’t make ‘em like the used to.
It is not difficult to make a bulb that will outlast the customer, though it is difficult to turn a profit. It is actualy quite easy to modify a regular incandescent bulb to last a lifetime with a little resistance.

Mods, any idea why my post at 4.57 am went into moderation?

You should have asked yourself, why your face does not evaporate when you look at yourself in a mirror. Because this alleged “greenhouse warming” of your face would never stop if this effect existed.

The above statement is true as long as you make some assumptions. 🙂 If you keep adding heat to something, and the heat can’t escape, then that thing will eventually evaporate.
So we have two assumptions: 1 – you keep adding heat to your face long enough to make it evaporate. 2 – the heat can’t escape.
I leave it to you as an exercise to explain why those assumptions don’t apply in the face, mirror example.
Have the Slayers ever explained how a thermos works?

I suggested to one of the slayers during the last debable that he perform a trivial experiment.
This was to counter the argument that while the light bulb got hotter, the filament was ths source of the heat to it could not possibly get hotter.
The experiment consisted of wrapping a bulb in foil, shiny side in, and turning it on. Obviously, as the filament cannot get any hotter, there is no reason that the bulb will expire in a few seconds.
Did any slayer dare to try the experiment?

– the above erata is to a comment that used the “s” word so is queued in moderation ;(

Jimbo— yes I know about this but that bulb has been left ”on” to eliminate the heat stress of the on/off cycle which is the main thing to cause bulb failure.

From the viewpoint of a self-taught engineer: >> IF << it were possible to tune a parabolic light reflector to the entire tungsten filament there would be little effect at all. As the reflected light was absorbed, the resistance would increase, less current would be drawn, and the 'boil-off' would stabilize.
– sort of like "Earth adjusts its own thermometer"
As it is, even distribution is difficult if not impossible and the hottest/thinnest point on the filament will eventually fail anyway… if not sooner.
– sort of like geo-climate-engineering would have unintended consequences.

Quibbling about the filament of a light bulb is missing the big error, that if the dragonslayers were right and energy cannot travel from a lower energy source to a higher energy source then it would be impossible to see yourself in a mirror because the face is at a higher energy than the mirror.
Or, it would only be possible to see yourself in a mirror if was hotter than you!
Rejecting the role of CO2 in the greenhouse effect is such a profound error in physics that it is difficult to disagree with this post that engaging with such errant nonsense is an exercise in futility.
As is most engagement with folks who are incapable of assimilating the real world of physics, but live in an alternate reality.

I thought I’d try this experiment just to see. ….. and you know what , MY FACE EVAPORATED!
They are right! I’m now going to sue WUWT for telling me it was safe !

What would the temperature at the surface of Venus be if Venus has the identical atmosphere (depth and composition) as Earth? Same for Mars? Incidentally, planets without oceans. The density, composition, and pressure of our atmosphere in combination of the energy received from the sun at a particular distance produces an average temperature. We’ve seen what volcanic ash can do as an effective energy reflector, yet it does not reflect energy from the surface as a green house effect, but rather preventer of energy from further heating the surface. The composition of our atmosphere is a resistance to energy absorption and reflection o and to and from the surface. Right?

I could swear there was something about the mirror not making the bulb brighter, as for hotter, you’re putting in a given amount of power, you’re not letting it dissipate effectively, not sure what this is a proof or disproof of.

Patrick says:
July 19, 2013 at 7:16 am
“highflight56433 says:
July 19, 2013 at 7:10 am”
Not the same!
Agreed, just as the greenhouse experiments are not the same. I think that is the entire point. 🙂

A good way to extend bulb life & save some electricity is too add a diode in series with the filament. They make flat diode pads to do this but it is just as easy to do (and way cheaper) at the switch. So instead of a 25 watt light bulb use a 60 watt with a diode for extra bulb life. Dimming of course also reduces power usage and adds life. However they make long life bulbs (see 1000bulbs.com) although they have less lumens/watt. They also sell a carbon filament bulb that looks much like the original incandescent (only rated 2000 hours though).
The problem with some low quality CFLs and LEDs is that although they are rated for long life, that may only apply to the light emitter. If the electronics are of low quality then they may give up well before the rated life. In addition the bulb styles and light are not always as pleasing and are more expensive up front. I have bought my incandescents on line when on sale and in bulk for a special rate so that they cost even less.

That reflector link relates to fluorescent lighting – no filament, no tungsten. Just saying.
REPLY: Yes but the point about thermal considerations of reflectors is still valid and that was my reason for using it. – Anthony

Quibbling about the filament of a light bulb is missing the big error, that if the dragonslayers were right and energy cannot travel from a lower energy source to a higher energy source then it would be impossible to see yourself in a mirror because the face is at a higher energy than the mirror.

Absolute twaddle. Your eyes detect light, which was reflected off your face from some high-energy source, bounced off the mirror with little loss, and back to your eyes. Nothing at all to do with energy output by your face/
If you are going to attack the rubbish that the SL*Y*RS say then at least use a reasonable argument.

OK, my comment has successfully come through with a 2 hours dalay. I am writing this to test if I am still under pre-moderation, and if yes, please, cancel it to make a real time conversation possible.

Stick a thermometer down in the sand, and a multimeter measuring amperage on the lamp.
The sand won’t be close to the filament’s temperature before the filament will be toast.

Well there is a (small) element of truth, in the silly statement.
Back in the old days, (as they say), people had things called slide projectors, designed to throw magnified images of Kodachrome color slides onto a distant screen. Kodak, Bausch & Lomb and many others made them (I still have one.
Almost universally, these projectors used a special 500 Watt incandescent light bulb to operate them.
The lamp typically had a double separated straight strand of coiled coil filament. The Tungsten wire was extremely fine, and using the coiled coil, got a lot of wire length in a compact space.
This lamp, mounted in the housing with the two filaments side by side, vertically, and parallel to the slide plane.
A condenser lens in front of the bulb roughly collimated the light beam. It did not focus on the slide plane.
With that arrangement, only a small fraction of the light (25%) got to the slide.
The housing included a concave spherical mirror behind the bulb, with the filament center, at the center of curvature of the mirror. With that exact arrangement, the mirror, forms a 1:! inverted image of the two filaments, actually on each other. Each filament’s image fell on the other filament.
This is undesirable.. The mirror (or lamp) had a fine adjustment arrangement, that translated one or the other sideways, parallel to the silde plane. In the new bulb replacement process (quite often) , the setup was adjusted so that the two filaments, and the two images interleaved, so that one image fell between the two filaments, and one filament fell between the two images. With a high reflectance mirror, the two images are essentially the same brightness as the two filaments; at least within the solid angle that the condenser lens could accommodate.
So with no slide in place, one could focus the projection lens, so that it focused on the filament plane, instead of the slide plane. So on the screen at some useful distance, one got an image of four filaments, which then enabled the correct offset of the lamp or mirror. to get four equi-spaced filament images..
If the projector used a cheap metal mirror (Aluminum), it also reflected IR very well, so if you misaligned, and got the filaments imaged on each other, then the “heat energy” going backwards, got returned to the filaments, so the filaments didn’t cool as fast as they were supposed to and they ran at higher Temperatures.
Better projectors used a “cold” mirror, which selectively reflects visible radiation, but transmits IR wavelengths so they escape out the back of the projector.
Running the filaments too hot, increased the rate of Tungsten evaporation, and there would always be sections of the filament, that were finer diameter than the rest of the filament. They would run hotter, and evaporate faster, so that made them even thiner, further accelerating the selective loss from hotspots. The filament would eventually fail from mechanical fracture of a thinned region of the filament; NOT from total evaporation of the filament. The differential thinning is actually very small, but the Temperature increase is amplified.
I think those bulbs only lasted about 250 hours or so even under ideal conditions.

Dr. Brown needs to face the fact that “there are some people you can’t help”. This is the same problem that government social workers have. Indeed I applaud his effort but realistically many of these people are beyond help. They are too ingrained with liberal propaganda to recognize the truth or in some cases to even process the concepts being presented. Sad really.

The definitive statement of the physics if from Goody and Yung ‘Atmospheric Physics’, Ox. Ac. Press.
The monochromatic rate of heat accumulation by matter is the negative of the Divergence of the monochromatic radiation flux density at a point.
This means heat transfer rate = -Delta I where I is the irradiance. So, ‘back radiation’ cannot exist.
It is why you use the difference of two S-B equations but in neither case is the irradiance transmitted power.
Most scientists and engineers fail to understand the negative sign or that the pyrometer output which is the potential flux to a sink at 0 deg K is not an energy flux, but a potential energy source.
Eventually the rest will catch up. Talk to the pyrgeometer manufacturers and they will tell you exactly what I have written here. There is no ‘back radiation’; the Trenberth Energy budget has wasted 100s of man years creatinbg a perpetual motion machine.

“””””…..Greg House says:
July 19, 2013 at 6:27 am
You could have quoted my very clear statement on impossibility of “back radiation warming” from the same page as well, it is relevant:
“Radiation reflected back to the source can not have any effect on the temperature of the source……””””””
It may be relevant, but it is also nonsense.
In the case of an incandescent source powered by electricity, the electrical parameters, including high Temperature resistance, determine how much electric power is being delivered, to heat the filament.
The equilibrium Temperature reached then depends on the rate of energy loss, mainly by radiation. There will be “heat energy” conduction from the ends of the filament to the mounting hardware, which acts as a “heatsink”.
If the filament were to be immersed in high purity water, it wouldn’t get as hot. (we don’t have to assume an actual vacuum or gas filled light bulb filament).
So reflecting some of the otherwise escaping radiant energy (of any wavelength) back to the filament, will result in some of it being absorbed and some reflected. The amount absorbed results in a net reduction of the rate of energy loss, so the equilibrium Temperature will settle at a higher value. This higher Temperature filament will likely have a higher resistance, so the electric power will drop.
In the case of an LED die, the emitted radiation is narrow band. If you reflect some of that back to the chip, some will be reflected, and some will refract into the chip, and rattle around in there. The LED diode junction, also happens to be a very efficient photo-detector (solar cell) at the same wavelength range that was emitted. So photons absorbed by the material, will result in electron-hole pairs being generated, and swept across the junction to create an electric current. This current is always in the opposite direction to the original applied current, but the device is usually current driven, so the result is the current remains the same, but the terminal Voltage increases, just as if the internal resistance has increased (it has).
So with the same current drive and a higher drive Voltage the applied power is increased, and the chip will get hotter.

george e. smith says:
” but the terminal Voltage increases, just as if the internal resistance has increased (it has).
So with the same current drive and a higher drive Voltage the applied power is increased, and the chip will get hotter.”
If you increase the temperature of a semiconductor its resistance goes down.

tadchem says:
July 19, 2013 at 10:24 am
Definitive experiment
Not so definitive…
The difference in conduction/convection of a thin layer of CO2 compared to air has very little resemblance to what happens with the IR absorbance by CO2 in a 70 km layer of air…

steveta_uk says:
July 19, 2013 at 8:55 am
Absolute twaddle. Your eyes detect light, which was reflected off your face from some high-energy source, bounced off the mirror with little loss, and back to your eyes.
=================
Then how do you explain the fact that vampires can’t see their own reflection, hmm?

Did I read someone say the sun has an “ultimate greenhouse effect”…
The interior of the sun is so dense that photons produced in nuclear fusion–fusion initiated by the mass of the star being high enough to result in said densities–take millions of years to random walk out to the less dense layers where there is a chance of reaching the exterior and then making it into space beyond the star.
The only stellar process which remotely resembles the greenhouse hypothesis, specifically the absurd runaway version, is the neutrino pulse which superheats the outer layers during a supernova.
Normally the rest of the star is transparent to neutrinos, and so there is effectively zero energy transfer to the outer layers by neutrino absorption.
In the case where the core has undergone a catastrophic collapse, the gravitational binding energy is converted into a large enough amount of neutrinos to result in significant heating of the outer layers.
The escaping neutrinos also reduce the pressure within the star somewhat, allowing the outer layers to collapse inwards towards the neutrino shockwave, accelerating the rate of interaction even more dramatically, before the pull of the star is overwhelmed and the remaining mass is scattered beyond the star.
The inability of the neutrino pulse to escape to space results in extreme heating of the outer layers, which at least somewhat resembles the “infrared trapping” mechanism postulated by the greenhouse hypothesis.
A normal main sequence star has no analogue to said hypothesis, though, as the heating of the outer layers is not due to trapping of energy, rather it is simple proximity to the fusing core layers that leads to the temperature profile observed.

Dear Gary Hladik,
I did indeed read Dr. Spencer’s thought experiment. After over 30 years as an engineer, I’ve been through hundreds of thought experiments, but many fail to hold up to verification when tested with real physical matter. I’m not saying he is wrong, just that I wouldn’t mind seeing a demonstration that he is right. The whole reason I got sucked into being a climate skeptic in the first place is that I can’t bring myself to believe something just because someone with a PhD says that its so. Dr. Mann says the hockey stick is so. But when I looked for independent verification, there was none. Not to compare Spencer to Mann, but hey, I’m not one to just take anybody’s word for things, even if I know them to be honorable people. As to predicting an outcome — no I can’t. That’s exactly why I would like to see the experiment. I have no favorite horse in this race – I just want to see some data to see what happens. I’d be equally happy finding that Roy is right as to find out that the slayers are.

max,
you’ve got some real hangups there. Temperature balance occurs when the energy rate in equals the energy rate out. If you put 60 W of power into a light bulb, it will heat up until 60 W of power leave that light bulb. See above post for what happens to the actual amount of power when you manipulate the light bulb’s condition because it will reduce the electrical power applied unless you manipulate the voltage to compensate. If you block some of that radiation from leaving, then the light bulb will heat up more until a power balance is reached. If you simply take a warm object and place it in a room or a box, that object will assume the temperature of that room (which might change from the initial value or it might not – depending upon the thermal mass). Once that is done, the object will be at the temperature and it will radiate power out as if it were sitting out in space near nothing. However, since it will not transfer energy away and cool to a lower temperature than the ambient, that means that the radiation coming back by reflection off the walls and by radiation from the walls will equal the power being radiated. In other words, once the object has reached equilibrium with the room or box, it will neither become hotter or cooler as long as that box or room remains at a constant temperature.
Note that if you think what I’ve stated is incorrect, you should immediate go apply for a patent because you now have a perpetual energy source and can build a perpetual motion machine.
In reality, you simply have an object that is emitting and absorbing the same amount of power and if you add more – by running an electrical power cord to it and start adding additional heat, that object will heat up according to how much additional energy it receives minus how much additional energy leaves it. (assuming no work is being done or chemical reaction energy is occurring).
As for your supernovae post, I’d suggest go read an introductory article about them.

Big Don says (July 19, 2013 at 2:01 pm): “I did indeed read Dr. Spencer’s thought experiment. After over 30 years as an engineer, I’ve been through hundreds of thought experiments, but many fail to hold up to verification when tested with real physical matter. I’m not saying he is wrong, just that I wouldn’t mind seeing a demonstration that he is right.”
Thanks. I should have included “don’t know” as a possible answer. Sorry.
More later. I’d like others to weigh in on “Yes, Virginia” before proceeding.

IMHO, this is not an argument between the “slayer” position and the WUWT crowd. I did not know who “slayers” were until the Willis “steel shell” post evolved. My understanding through my university physics and thermo courses has always been that a cold object simply cannot warm up a warmer object. That is the essence of the Clausian statement of the Second Law, That has always been my understanding even before I knew who the “slayers” were, and before I knew anything about the greenhouse effect. And a violation of the 2nd Law always leads to a violation of the 1st Law.. I have never seen one physics or thermo textbook state any modified versions of these laws to indicate otherwise. No I am not going to debate these issues, because that is not my point. My point is that there are many scientists/physicists who adhere to the long established laws of thermodynamics, which happen to coincide with the slayer position.

SkepticGoneWild says (July 19, 2013 at 5:16 pm): “My understanding through my university physics and thermo courses has always been that a cold object simply cannot warm up a warmer object.”
Thanks, Skeptic. So I’ll put you down for “temp stays the same” in the “Yes, Virginia” thought experiment?

Gary,
I’m not interested in thought experiments.

tjfolkerts says (July 19, 2013 at 5:57 pm): ““… makes our black body absorb those 600 and get warmer accordingly.”
OK — tou did get that line right. The object is absorbing 600 W of reflected light and absorbing 800 W of electrical power, for a total of 1400 W.”
========================================================
I know this argument, it is false.
It ignores that the body in my example has already been warmed by the first portion of reflected radiation (“greenhouse effect”). Of course, this “greenhouse effect” can never happen in reality, but you can not insist there is “greenhouse effect” and ignore the higher temperature it is supposed to cause.
Just stick to the assumption of the “greenhouse effect”.
Again, black bodies radiate according to their temperature.
800 joule per second is only what holds our black body at a stable temperature initially and what it radiates initially. Of course, in reality it would never get warmer without additional source of energy, it is only the assumption of the “greenhouse effect” that “warms” it and leads to the absurd result.
So, you could only add 600 to 800, if the body were still at it’s initial temperature, but it is not, because it has already been “warmed” by the first portion of reflected radiation, which was 400. Therefore it’s next temperature is determined by the temperature corresponding to 1200 (not to 800) and the “additional” 600 reflected back. I am sorry, but this is your “greenhouse effect”, not mine.
As I said, the problem the proponents of the “greenhouse effect” can not overcome is that their “greenhouse warming” causes also more back radiation which causes more warming and so on and it can never stop.
From my experience, some people debating this point of mine somehow forget that the whole calculation is done strictly under the assumption of the “greenhouse effect”, every single step of it.

Oops, forgot one more for you, cba.
“All flavors of neutrinos and antineu-
trinos from the neutrinospheres inside the proto-NS are thought
to play at least two essential roles in successful SN explosions
in the ‘‘delayed explosion’’ model. First, successive interactions
between intensive flux of neutrinos and materials collapsing
into the proto-NS deposit neutrino energy into the ejecta and thus
revive the shock propagation, leading to a successful breakout
through the iron core (Wilson 1985; Bethe & Wilson 1985). Sec-
ond, in such a neutrino-powered SN explosion mechanism, the
atmosphere of the proto-NS is heated by neutrinos at high en-
tropy s/k=100~400 to form a ‘‘hot bubble’’ flowing out rap-
idly behind the shock, which is called the neutrino-driven wind.
This is a viable candidate site for the r-process (Woosley et al.
1994).”
“Otsuki et al. (2000) showed that neutrino heating occurs most
effectively at r=30 km from the center of the collapsing core.
We found in the same flow model analysis that it takes 3–4 ms
for the material blowing off the surface from the proto-NS to
reach 30 km. We discussed in
[2] that neutrino emission is followed, until abruptly terminated by the BH formation, with the appearance of the apparent horizon in the first scenario. Finite time elapses before the BH forms, and the neutrino luminosity
is cut off at 1–2 s (Burrows 1988). In the second scenario the
cutoff time is delayed about 10 s for the formation of the proto-
NS, followed by possibly a phase transition of softening of the
equation of state of the core matter, and possibly later mass accretion onto the BH. Since the neutrino cutoff time 1–2 or
10 s is larger than the heating timescale 3–4 ms, we can as-
sume that the hot bubble can form in the neutrino-driven wind
of Type II SNe that form BHs as remnants.
The temperature of all flows of the neutrino-driven wind used
in the present study reaches to T_9 ~=9 at t=3~4 ms. We adopt
this temperature as the typical temperature at which neutrino
heating is completed. The entropy of the hot bubble that is
formed stays constant after this time. This justifies our assump-
tion of constant entropy during the nucleosynthesis that follows.
Our nucleosynthesis calculation starts from this initial tem-
perature, and time zero refers to the time when the hot bubble
reaches T_9=9 as displayed in Figure 1. It is to be noted that
the time in this figure and all others we discuss in this paper is
not the time after core collapse or core bounce. Flows of the
neutrino-driven wind successively blow off until the neutrino
luminosity is cut off at the time t=t_cut.”
http://iopscience.iop.org/0004-637X/634/1/534/pdf/0004-637X_634_1_534.pdf
Now, unless I’m sorely mistaken, that paper and the links above say that during a supernova most of the gravitational binding energy is released in the form of neutrinos, and there is a process by which neutrino heating influences the formation of certain SN remnants, as well as being involved in r-nucleosynthesis during the explosion itself.
So, cba, can you please share with the rest of the class your insight about where my understanding of SN processes is incorrect?

Correcting HTML error in my previous comment:
BTW, there are textbook/handbooks that dispute your version of the Second Law. See here and here.

tjfolkerts says:
July 19, 2013 at 6:16 pm
“The 2nd Law says that heat (the net flow of thermal energy) naturally goes from warmer to cooler. This in no way precludes some thermal energy from moving from a cooler object to a warmer object, as long as more thermal energy goes the other way. The laws of conduction and radiation guarantee that this will always be the case. (The ‘slayers’ typically misinterpret this law, insisting incorrectly that the word “net” should not be there and that NO energy can move from a cooler object to a warmer object).”
===================================================================
The word “net” is simply not there. It is in your postings and in many others, but in the historical statements it is not there. Hence what you and some others are presenting as the 2nd Law is not the 2nd Law.
Still, your pseudo “the 2nd Law” can be valid, but you need to prove it, what no one managed to do.

tjfolkerts says:
July 19, 2013 at 6:16 pm
“Cool objects can “assist” in warming a warmer object in conjunction with some other heater. Only the heater actually “heats” the warm object. The cool object limits the heat flow that would have occurred to EVEN COLDER objects. (The sun for the earth; the electric heater in Greg’s example above; a furnace for your house). So the cool walls of your house, in conjunction with the hot furnace, will keep your house warmer than if there were no walls (or poorly insulated walls). Similarly, the cool atmosphere, in conjunction with the hot sun, will keep the earth warmer than if the earth were radiating straight to space.”
==============================================================
This “assistance” is the funniest argument, sorry. Just think of it: if I let my dog “assist” by pushing the air condition button, is my dog now cooling my house “in conjunction” with the air conditioner? Dogs cool houses? “Greendog effect”?
The warmists’ position is that colder objects supply energy to warmer objects, not just “assist” in an unrelated way.

Here ya go, cba, which I assume stands for “can’t be asked”, as in “can’t be asked to read”, yes?
“All flavors of neutrinos and antineu-
trinos from the neutrinospheres inside the proto-NS are thought
to play at least two essential roles in successful SN explosions
in the ‘‘delayed explosion’’ model. First, successive interactions
between intensive flux of neutrinos and materials collapsing
into the proto-NS deposit neutrino energy into the ejecta and thus
revive the shock propagation, leading to a successful breakout
through the iron core (Wilson 1985; Bethe & Wilson 1985). Sec-
ond, in such a neutrino-powered SN explosion mechanism, the
atmosphere of the proto-NS is heated by neutrinos at high en-
tropy s/k=100~400 to form a ‘‘hot bubble’’ flowing out rap-
idly behind the shock, which is called the neutrino-driven wind.
This is a viable candidate site for the r-process (Woosley et al.
1994).”
“Otsuki et al. (2000) showed that neutrino heating occurs most
effectively at r=30 km from the center of the collapsing core.
We found in the same flow model analysis that it takes 3–4 ms
for the material blowing off the surface from the proto-NS to
reach 30 km. We discussed in
[2] that neutrino emission is followed, until abruptly terminated by the BH formation, with the appearance of the apparent horizon in the first scenario. Finite time elapses before the BH forms, and the neutrino luminosity
is cut off at 1–2 s (Burrows 1988). In the second scenario the
cutoff time is delayed about 10 s for the formation of the proto-
NS, followed by possibly a phase transition of softening of the
equation of state of the core matter, and possibly later mass accretion onto the BH. Since the neutrino cutoff time 1–2 or
10 s is larger than the heating timescale 3–4 ms, we can as-
sume that the hot bubble can form in the neutrino-driven wind
of Type II SNe that form BHs as remnants.
The temperature of all flows of the neutrino-driven wind used
in the present study reaches to T_9 ~=9 at t=3~4 ms. We adopt
this temperature as the typical temperature at which neutrino
heating is completed. The entropy of the hot bubble that is
formed stays constant after this time. This justifies our assump-
tion of constant entropy during the nucleosynthesis that follows.
Our nucleosynthesis calculation starts from this initial tem-
perature, and time zero refers to the time when the hot bubble
reaches T_9=9 as displayed in Figure 1. It is to be noted that
the time in this figure and all others we discuss in this paper is
not the time after core collapse or core bounce. Flows of the
neutrino-driven wind successively blow off until the neutrino
luminosity is cut off at the time t=t_cut.”
http://iopscience.iop.org/0004-637X/634/1/534/pdf/0004-637X_634_1_534.pdf
Perhaps bolding the references to neutrino heating will help?

http://www.ps.uci.edu/physics/news/nuexpt.html
Long time ago, 1956 according to that link, they were proposed in 1930 by Pauli, we’ve detected supernova neutrinos from the SN1987 event, as well as several others since then.

steveta_uk says:
July 19, 2013 at 5:12 am
Erata: “ths source of the heat to it could not possibly get hotter” -> “the source of the heat so it could not possibly get hotter.

Yore erata needs an erratum because you spelled errata rong. It’s the reflexive form of Muphry’s Law.

Did anyone even bother to check that the example worked through is exactly the “steel Greenhouse” proposal and can be found in the textbook – – page 24 number 1026 – :-
Problems and Solutions on Thermodynamics and Statistical Mechanics (Major American Universities Ph.D. Qualifying Questions and Solutions) Volume 5 Edited by Young-Kuo Lim. ???
Read the book – you can find it Google Books and preview enough of it to see this example.
This is accurate physics and mathematics where the result is derived from first principles without any assumptions.
If it challenges your preconceived ideas test it out and see which one is actually right – you may be surprised.
Everyone should understand this is a sound result – even more so as it makes no assumptions about the answer unlike the assumption made in the “Steel Greenhouse”.
Proper science and mathematics require no assumption about the answer.

And you still have not explained why a desert is hotter than a rainforest within the concept of the GHE.

tjfolkerts says:
July 19, 2013 at 9:03 pm
“The colder object DOES supple some energy to the warmer object, “
==========================================================
This is absolutely impossible, exactly as in case of a reflector.
In my example above, if we replace the reflector with a blackbody at 0K initially, in 2 seconds the system will export more energy than it has at it’s disposal, an absurd result that proves the assumption false.

[snip – too stupid and condescending to post – Anthony]

“And you still have not explained why a desert is hotter than a rainforest within the concept of the GHE.”
Rainforests tend to have a higher average temperature. Deserts can get cooler at night.
Death Valley highest daytime temperature: “134 °F (57 °C) on July 10, 1913, at Furnace Creek, which is currently the hottest temperature ever recorded.”….
“The summer of 1917 had 52 days where temperature reached 120 °F (49 °C) or above with 43 of them consecutive.” …
“The lowest temperature recorded at Greenland Ranch was 15 °F (−9 °C) in January 1913.”
“The mean annual temperature for Death Valley (Furnace Creek Weather Station) is 77.2 °F (25.1 °C) with an average high in January of around 67 °F (19 °C) and 116 °F (47 °C) in July.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_Valley
Generally, tropical rainforest:
“The average yearly temperature is approximately 80 °F (26 °C) but the temperature can range from 68 °F (20 °C) to 93 °F (34 °C).”
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_the_average_yearly_tropical_rain_forest_temperature
So hottest place on planet has average yearly temperature of 77.2 °F and generally rainforest have about average of 80 °F.
Or it tends to be much warmer at night in tropical paradises.
“What is the coldest temperature recorded in Singapore?
The lowest minimum temperature ever recorded in the month of December is 20.6 deg C ( on 2 Dec 1964), while the lowest temperature ever recorded (since record began in 1929) is 19.4 deg C (on 31 Jan 1934).
Cool weather over Singapore are caused by the following conditions :
i ) periods of cloudy to overcast weather accompanied by rain which blocks out the heat from the sun
ii ) season and prevailing wind
Singapore’s average annual rainfall is 2357.8 mm. ”
http://www.weather.gov.sg/wip/web/home/faq
“Singapore is 1 degree north of the equator. Singapore’s climate is classified as tropical rainforest climate (Köppen climate classification Af), with no true distinct seasons. Owing to its geographical location and maritime exposure, its climate is characterized by uniform temperature and pressure, high humidity and abundant rainfall. The average annual rainfall is around 2,340 mm (92.1 in). The highest 24-hour rainfall figures ever recorded in history was 512 mm (20.2 in) (1978), 467 mm (18.4 in) (1969) and 366 mm (14.4 in) (19 December 2006). The temperature hovers around a diurnal range of a minimum of 23 °C (73.4 °F) and a maximum of 32 °C (89.6 °F). May is the hottest month of the year in Singapore, followed by April. This is due to light winds and strong sunshine during those months. The highest recorded temperature is 36.0 °C (96.8 °F) on 26 March 1998. The lowest recorded temperature is 19.4 °C (66.9 °F) on 31 January 1934. Temperature often goes above 33.5 °C (92.3 °F) and can reach 35 °C (95 °F) at times.
Relative humidity has a diurnal range in the high 90s in the early morning to around 60% in the mid-afternoon, but does go below 50% at times.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geography_of_Singapore
So in tropical rainforests you can run around without any clothes, but without clothes in deserts, you could freeze.

george e. smith says:
Bryan, I am going to assume that English is NOT your native language. You clearly didn’t read what I wrote; to whit;
“””””….. but the terminal Voltage increases, just as if the internal resistance has increased (it has)……”””””
Doesn’t say one word about increasing the Temperature of a semiconductor.
I believe I said that the terminal VOLTAGE increases.
I believe I said that the CURRENT flowing stays constant.
I believe that Voltage times current equals power.
I believe I said the applied power increases.
I believe if you put more power into ANYTHING, it will get hotter.
I believe that Voltage divided by current is (one measure of) RESISTANCE. (not necessarily Ohmic).
I believe that a higher VOLTAGE divided by a constant CURRENT implies a higher RESISTANCE..
And finally, I believe that if you made your first LED (light emitting diode) prior to June 1966, that you probably do know more about LEDs than I do.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
George if something gets hotter then its temperature has increased.
You say;
“just as if the internal resistance has increased (it has)…”
“I believe if you put more power into ANYTHING, it will get hotter.”
My simple observation is that since the LED is made from semicondor material then in this case its resistance will go down.
This cannot be squared with your statement above.
Read the following article or any similar source on the topic.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrical_resistivity_and_conductivity

“baikie says: “I don’t think if you made Mars the surface lamp soot black that the day time surface
temperature would much warmer”
As a ballpark figure, Mars now absorbs ~ 75% of the incoming solar energy. Making it perfectly black would change that to 100%. Since temperature is proportional to P^0.25 and power has gone up by a factor of ~ 100/75, the temperature would go up by a factor of ~ 100/75^0.25 = ~ 7.5 %. So if the average is ~ 220 K now, it could increase by ~ 16 K. (Again, these are rough estimates that ignore lots of details that could change the results a bit.) ”
What could be done is take dry brownish red sand and carbon and expose them to sunlight
on Earth which is around 500 to 600 watts per square meter. And measure their temperature.
On Mars the ground in sunlight near noon get about 80 F.
What I did, was I have some brownish sand [probably more reflective as compared to Mars regolith].
And took 3 barbecue briquets and crushed them into small pieces. And put them on table outside.
each sample about 6 by 6″ area and 1/8th to 1/4″ deep.
Right now it’s cloudy [looks like it might even rain- unusual weather for southern calif in summer, but cloudy in morning is normal and probably burn off. Now 8:30 am. Maybe direct sun will appear by 10 or 11 am. And they are now 68 F.
So if and when sand is 80 F [26.6 C] what will the temperature of crushed briquets be?
I think there more advantage of briquets warming quicker, due to it being black and due to lower specific heat [plus sand is a bit damp]. Plus if sun come out [unless it’s as early as around 10 am] I will have more than 600 watts per square meter.
Despite this I don’t think there will a temperature difference more than 5 C.
And air temperature has been reaching about 80 F, so the effect of air should be minor, unless surface temperature gets above 90 F [I forget it check once gets to 80 F].
Different color painted cars:
http://www.tom-morrow-land.com/tests/cartemp/

Maybe (Wicki’s definition) of Fick’s Law is of some help here:
Fick’s first law relates the diffusive flux to the concentration under the assumption of steady state. It postulates that the flux goes from regions of high concentration to regions of low concentration, with a magnitude that is proportional to the concentration gradient (spatial derivative).
Fick’s Law is already from 1855. You don’t see anything in that law that is called net diffusive flux, although most here will know that a lot of molecules/ions or whatever will diffuse from the lower concentration towards the higher concentration as all such movements are random. But the movements from higher concentrations to lower outnumber the opposite movements, so that the net flux is in from high to low.
Something similar is happening with radiation exchanges between a warmer and a colder object. There is radiation going from a colder object to a warmer one, which is absorbed there, but the radiation of the warmer one outnumbers that of the colder object, so that the net heat flux is from warm to cold…

Anthony–You are correct to allow the “slaxxrs” a place here.
The point is–the science is NOT settled. Allowing Slaxxers to comment here verifies your search for the truth.
True, they may be after their own “Nobel Prize”, but the truth will always out.
Keep up the great effort.

tjfolkerts says:
July 20, 2013 at 9:07 am
““Still, your pseudo “the 2nd Law” can be valid, but you need to prove it, what no one managed to do.”
It is you, greg, with the pseudo 2nd Law. The “net” concept is there. It is reinforced in the modern statistical mechanics statement of the 2nd Law in terms of entropy and probabilities. It takes almost a willful misreading to say that no energy can move from colder to warmer.”
==========================================================
Again, there is no “net”-word in the historical statements of the 2nd Law. Nor can this “net” thing be derived from those historical statements. You and others can claim whatever “net”-concept you like, but no one has proven it correct. You simply misinterpret the 2nd Law by inserting something else into it. As I said, claim whatever you want but do not call it “the 2nd Law”, because it is not.
As for “cold can warm hot”, I have already demonstrated above that this assumption inevitably leads to an absurd result, which proves this assumption false, no reference to the (real) 2nd Law being necessary. Your “greenhouse effect” is physically impossible.

Greg House says:
July 20, 2013 at 1:30 pm
Again, there is no “net”-word in the historical statements of the 2nd Law. Nor can this “net” thing be derived from those historical statements.
Greg, there is no “net”-word in the historical statements in Fick’s Law of diffusion of 1855. Despite that, it is proven that all the molecules/ions move in all directions and even some move from lower concentrations to higher concentrations. Fick’s Law only says that in average more molecules/ions move from the higher concentration to the lower one than reverse.
The 2nd Law of heat transfer doesn’t count for individual packages of radiation energy, fotons, which go in all directions and even some are emitted from a colder object and are absorbed by a warmer one. All what the 2nd Law says is that in average more radiation energy is transferred from a warmer to a colder object than reverse.

Marc says:
July 20, 2013 at 1:18 pm
“We can solve this whole problem if we stop calling it “warming” and instead call it “slower cooling”.”
=============================================================
No, you can not save the “greenhouse effect” this way. “Slowing cooling by back radiation”-effect would mean an alleged energy supply that causes a warming of an object at initially stable temperature (with an absurd result, see above) and an increasing warming of an object that has already been in the state of warming. It is still the same impossible “back radiation warming effect” regardless of how you call it.

tjfolkerts says:
July 20, 2013 at 2:03 pm
‘All thermal radiation is “emissions which occur due to ambient temperature”’
Incorrect. Radiation occurs due to a change from a high vibrational energy state to a lower one. A CO2 molecule vibrational mode can be excited by photon absorption, or by resonant collision. The latter is a function of ambient temperature. The former is not necessarily. It is the former excitation of CO2 vibration states due to emissions of IR photons at the Earth’s surface with which we are concerned.

”
tjfolkerts says:
July 20, 2013 at 2:03 pm
‘All thermal radiation is “emissions which occur due to ambient temperature”’
Incorrect. Radiation occurs due to a change from a high vibrational energy state to a lower one. A CO2 molecule vibrational mode can be excited by photon absorption, or by resonant collision. The latter is a function of ambient temperature. The former is not necessarily. It is the former excitation of CO2 vibration states due to emissions of IR photons at the Earth’s surface with which we are concerned.
”
An excited state can be entered due either to the collison or a photon absorption. Also, an excited state can be left due either to a collision or to a photon emission. Higher energy photons from a warmer BB continuum are still absorbed by the molecules in a rather T independent fashion but the emissions of the energy associated with those are not “re-emitted” at those higher energy but rather according to the BB continuum for the temperature of the atmosphere there and upon the spectral characteristics of the molecule. In other words, this absorbed radiation becomes thermalized and helps define the local temperature.
If the parcel of atmosphere were able to stay at the same temperature as Earth’s surface outgoing radiation, there would be no absorption lines present. If the parcel were hotter than the Earth’s surface, the parcel would be emitting spectral lines rather than absorbing them.

Greg House says:
July 20, 2013 at 5:05 pm
Ferdinand Engelbeen says:
July 20, 2013 at 2:39 pm
“All what the 2nd Law says is that in average more radiation energy is transferred from a warmer to a colder object than reverse.”
========================================================
This is not true, the 2nd Law says nothing about “average”, exactly like it says nothing about “net”.
Again, the assumption “cold warms hot” leads to an absurd result and is therefore false, see my demonstration above.
=========================================================================
*sigh* No. tjfolkerts already addressed all of your points but you failed to grasp what he wrote. Let me try (because I’m bored). The second law of thermodynamics as expressed mathematically IS NET heat transfer. It’s called the Clausius inequality and is expressed as the closed integral of dQ/T <= 0. Think a little bit about the mathematical properties of an integral. Think about how you evaluate an integral.
Or here's another try. Take your plate. Let's insulate it on one side so we only have to worry about radiation from a single side just to make the problem a bit simpler. Then let's put another plate in place of the reflector but hook it up to a constant temperature sink that maintains its temperature at 100K. Let's say that our original plate is in equilibrium in this system at a temperature of 200K at some level of internal power production that is held constant. We all agree that (net) heat will flow from the hot plate to the cold plate at a rate of sigma*(Thot^4 – Tcold^4). Now let's increase the temp of the cold plate to 150K. The rate of heat loss from the hot plate just went down noticeably even though the object is still colder. By your understanding of the second law NO heat (not no net heat) can move from the cold plate to the hot plate, so how does nature know to reduce the heat transfer? Have we resurrected Maxwell’s Demon and given him a radar gun and ticket writing authority? No, what we’ve done is we’ve raised the amount of radiation from the cold plate that radiates back onto the hot plate. The hot plate now has to get rid of this extra heat and in order to be in equilibrium it has to raise its temperature.
Now let’s move on to your original reflector/plate problem. The system starts with the plate emitting a total of 800W, 400W to space and 400W to the perfect reflector. The reflector sends 400W back, so the net outflow from the plate is only 400W right at the instant the first reflected photons make it back to the plate. The next time step is where you start making your mistakes. You make the assumption that a new equilibrium is instantaneously reached with the extra 400W now meaning that the plate is emitting a total of 1200W, 600 to each side. In reality the thermal mass of the plate will play a roll in establishing the equilibrium, but let’s assume it’s so small that the plate heats instantaneously. So 600W out, 600W to reflector and 600W back to plate. OK, so that means that the next go around the plate has to emit 1800W which is 900W on either side and more than the original energy production! OMG, you HAVE falsified it!
Wait, no, you haven’t. You argument is that the plate is hotter and thus emitting 1200W when the additional 600W comes in, but that can’t be. See, I let you use instantaneous heating of the plate on the original 400W cycle, which means you have to let me use instantaneous cooling. The plate emits 600W to space and that’s gone. It emits 600W towards the reflector but due to the speed of light that emission has not made it back to the plate. The plate has radiated away the excess 400J (it’s in flight) so the temperature now reverts to that generated by the 800W of internal power. The plate is in instantaneous thermal equilibrium so that when the 600W comes back from the reflector the plate now has to deal with the 800W being internally generated and the 600W that just came in for a total of 1400W. And as tsfolkerts showed the next step is 700/700/1500, 775/775/1575, 793.75/793.75/1587.5,…
I admit I had to spend some time figuring out the exact flaw in your argument. Your error is in your numerical integration and your time steps. If you want more detail on the nature of the error I’d suggest picking up a good reference on numerical integration to learn of all of the pitfalls that must be avoided when using that technique to solve a problem (not that it’s invalid, just potentially tricky).

SkepticGoneWild says (July 20, 2013 at 7:27 am): “Those equations are simple heat transfer equations which you will find in any thermo or physics textbook. They do not invalidate the 2nd Law”
Of course they don’t. The only thing “invalidated” by Willis’s & SoD’s textbook references is the imaginary version of the 2nd Law.
“I challenged Mr. Dumb to find me a textbook problem example which indicates a cooler body warming up a warmer body. Not just an equation, but a worked up problem with real numbers. He could not provide one. There are none.”
Actually there are–I found a fully worked out problem involving a radiation-shielded thermocouple–but they’re not easy to find in free internet references. Note that I also found several other relevant problems but without computed answers, making them useless for the purpose. 🙁
But hey, let’s forget the textbooks for now and (finally) get to experiment.
In these “cool thing warms a warmer thing” discussions, I always bring up Dr. Spencer’s “Yes, Virginia” thought experiment, because it’s a simple illustration of the problem and if actually performed should settle the question definitively. Of course I never expected it to be done for real because Dr. Spencer has no incentive–he already knows the answer–and the Pink Unicorn Brigade dare not do it because they’d be proven wrong.
It turns out, however, that the “Yes, Virginia” experiment–or rather a close variant–has been done and reported in the literature. Hat tip to “chris y” who cited this article all the way back in 2009 in the comment thread to the classic “Steel Greenhouse” article.
The paper proposes a method to calculate the efficacy of one or more radiation shields in a vacuum furnace. Their apparatus is a water-jacketed vacuum chamber with cylindrical radiation shield(s) surrounding a long coaxial heating element. It actually resembles the “steel greenhouse”–hence the “chris y” comment–but differs in no significant way from the “Yes, Virginia” setup. They discuss radiation shield theory and then compare experiment with prediction.
Rather than vary the heater temp, they maintain temp at 1300 °C and measure the decrease in power required to maintain constant temp with various shields in place. Using stainless steel, for example, the required power is only 52%, 37%, or 27% with one, two, or three shields, respectively, compared to no shield. Spencer 1, Pink Unicorn Brigade 0.
The most amusing aspect of this paper is the authors’ casual attitude as their–in the eyes of the horrified Pink Unicorn Brigade–black magic “overthrows” the holy Second Law of Thermodynamics. In the introduction they write, “In constructing the high temperature vacuum furnace, the heat efficiency must be good. Radiation shields are, as is well known, used for this purpose…” Perhaps not so well known in the more ignorant corners of the internet… 🙂
Of course I don’t expect this to change anyone’s mind, except perhaps Big Don’s. The Pink Unicorn Brigade has repeatedly demonstrated invulnerability to both logic and facts. But the tap dancing around this one should be amusing. 🙂

“””””……
My simple observation is that since the LED is made from semicondor material then in this case its resistance will go down.
This cannot be squared with your statement above.
Read the following article or any similar source on the topic.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrical_resistivity_and_conductivity……””””””
So some “””””…..similar source on the topic…..”””””
Well not really similar; an actual factual source on the topic.
Ro whit Silicon Semiconductor Data; as in SEMICONDUCTOR DATA.
By Helmut F. Wolf Pergamon Press.
I prefer my source to yours, since the entire SEMICONDUCTOR industry is built on MY Source; not on Wikipedia.
On page 48…. Resistivity of Silicon vs. Impurity Concentration and Temperature.
For n-type, Cb = 1E15 cm^-1 at 25 deg C rho = 5.5 Ohm cm
……………………………………………at 125 deg C rho = 17.0 Ohm cm. That’s a 3.1x INCREASE!
For n-type. Cb = 1E17 cm^-1 at 25 deg C rho = 0.1 Ohm cm
…………………………………………….at 125 deg C rho = 0.2 Ohm cm That’s a 2.0x INCREASE!
Well I could cite more of this SEMICONDUCTOR data, for both n-type, and p-type.
Sorry it is always positive Temperature coefficient for Silicon.
Should I dig out the data for Germanium or Gallium Arsenide as well, or would you prefer to look that up for yourself. But look it up in a real source; the kind that engineers and scientists who do work in the field use; their products are actually expected to work.
And yes, it is still positive for LED…… SEMICONDUCTOR MATERIAL
And maybe you should take a course in Semiconductor Physics, so you can learn the difference between RESISTANCE and ……. LEAKAGE CURRENTS.
“””””…..This cannot be squared with your statement above…….”””””
Correction Bryan; YOU cannot square “this” with my statement above !
I was lucky enough to take MY Semiconductor Physics studies from Andrew Grove, who wrote the definitive text on the subject. That was 45 years ago at Fairchild Semiconductor, where Si valley really started. Andy was later the President and CEO of Intel. Sadly he is now severely hampered, by Parkinson’s or some similar malady. Not something I would wish on anybody, of such stature.

Greg House says (July 20, 2013 at 5:05 pm): ‘Again, the assumption “cold warms hot” leads to an absurd result and is therefore false, see my demonstration above.’
“Demonstration?” You mean your “reductio ad absurdum“ thought experiment? The one that tjfolkerts showed was bullus excrementum? Short memory, Greg? 🙂

There is one simple thing that is often forgot. Earth surface only gets warmer if it gets more energy from the source (sun). How much earth surface transfers energy from the surface depends how warm the air is in the surface just above the surface. That just above is exactly what is enviroment temperature. Wind is very good at increase energy transfer from surface if it is colder than the surface. Earth surface radiate only the amount of energy what is temperature difference between surface and air, according to SB-law and Newtons cooling law. If temperature difference is 5K between surface and air that makes some few W/m2, not the measured 200-300 W/m2 which is its temperature what is calculated against 0K. Radiated energy depends of the temperature difference, earths surface cannot emit energy more than calculated energy change based on temperature change in surface material. Let’s say that that few W/m2 is 5 W/m2 all energy (5Wh/m2) transfers from the surface. Most of that is conduction when air is in contact with surface, there is very little energy left for radiation energy that warms air, simply because gases are very very poor absorbers or emitters in these temperatures.You cannot get more energy from the source ( now warmer surface is energy source to colder air) when it cools than what is its temperature chance. Radiation energy is only a very tiny part how energy transfers in system sun, earth, air, space and which energy transfer method works in different parts of that system. To calculate earths energy balance according to radiated energy misleads many false assumpitions ie. greenhouse effect. When you forget some vital energy transfers methods you must add to calculation more radiation energy to get that balance work. That is for sure wrong way to handle it and leads wrong theories and false physics as we have seen.

Most posters above do not seem to fully understand the 2nd law. Whilst energy can flow from cold to hot the temperature of the hot body will not increase as a result. It is easier to understand when looking from the point of view of quantum mechanics.
The 2nd law can be reduced to three words:- ”entropy must increase”. Any increase in temperature that occurred from the cold to hot energy transfer would mean a reduction of entropy. This would mean that it would be possible to have a process working above 100% efficiency. This is clearly impossible as Anthony knew/knows when he refused to take up my challenge above to design and build such an engine working on the GHE principle.
He still refuses to answer the question regarding desert and rainforest surface temperatures.

Greg House says:
July 21, 2013 at 7:43 am
Only one question to know your position: if a photon emitted by an object at 273 K hits another object at 303 K and is absorbed by the latter (assuming both objects are ideal blackbodies), is the energy of the photon absorbed by the “warmer” body or not?

Ferdinand Engelbeen says:
July 21, 2013 at 9:05 am
“Only one question to know your position …”
=======================================================
My position is that whatever some people imagine about what might happen to the radiation, back radiation of any kind can not warm the source, because the assumption of the opposite leads to absurd results, see the explanation above.
Of course, I am not going to speculate what exactly happens to the electromagnetic waves that have some properties that caused the introduction of the notion of photon. I am only interested in the question, if the “greenhouse effect” as presented by the IPCC exists or not. It doesn’t.

johnmarshall says (July 21, 2013 at 3:43 am): “Most posters above do not seem to fully understand the 2nd law.”
The irony, it burns! 🙂
“Whilst energy can flow from cold to hot the temperature of the hot body will not increase as a result.”
How do you explain a radiation shield increasing the temperature of a vacuum furnace heating element?
“This is clearly impossible as Anthony knew/knows when he refused to take up my challenge above to design and build such an engine working on the GHE principle.”
I’m curious. If you, johnmarshall, assume for a moment that the so-called GHE really exists, how would you design such an engine?

Sorry for bad, of course suns energy is only radiation energy to earth, but after that it is a very tiny part of heat transfer inside the system. Only in the upper atmosphere happens last radiation energy transfer to space. What happens inside the when sun energy is coming to earth and what happens between earth and atmosphere. Onlu molecules which can transfer heat to space are in practice O3 and CO2, if they increases the more earth radiates to space. Earth has incredibly fine temperature control system, more energy from sun, more CO2 from oceans, more radiation to space. CO2 acts as a cooler not as a warmer inside atmosphere. What happens to tempertaure if we take CO2 away from the atmosphere, atmosphere becomes much more hotter than with CO2, less heat radiation to space.

tjfolkerts says:
July 21, 2013 at 12:22 pm
“…if you add more CO2, it will BLOCK the IR from lower layers and emit INSTEAD from the higher layers (that currently have too little CO2 to emit efficiently).”
There is not nearly enough at higher altitude to block what is coming up from below to any level of significance. This is not even close to a first order effect.

Boiler Designer says (July 21, 2013 at 11:41 am): “What happens to tempertaure if we take CO2 away from the atmosphere, atmosphere becomes much more hotter than with CO2, less heat radiation to space.”
Thanks for the clarification, BD. If I’m reading you right, you’re saying that so-called “greenhouse gases” may have a net cooling effect, rather than the net warming effect assumed by both CAGW alarmists and skeptics?

Ferdinand Engelbeen says:
July 21, 2013 at 1:15 pm
“Assuming that any individual photon released from a colder object that hits a warmer object is absorbed, it will heat the warmer object.”
==========================================================
No, it won’t, because the this assumption leads to an absurd result, which proves the assumption false, see the explanation and the calculation above. The calculation for 2 blackbodies is similar and leads to the same conclusion.

tjfolkerts says:
July 21, 2013 at 1:18 pm
“It is more accurate to say that ALL of the upward radiation gets absorbed by the GHGs (if it is in their bands). “
No, this is not correct. It depends on the concentration. If there is one molecule of CO2 at 20 km, it is not going to intercept everything coming at it from below 20 km.
“The radiation from the top will decrease as more CO2 is added.”
All things being equal, that would be the case (though, all things are decidedly not equal, which is why we haven’t observed any definite warming effect from CO2). However, it is because the increased concentration of CO2 would intercept more outbound IR. It has little to do with the altitude at which it is intercepted.

Greg House says:
July 21, 2013 at 9:59 am
Tsk Tsk says:
July 20, 2013 at 8:45 pm
“See, I let you use instantaneous heating of the plate on the original 400W cycle, which means you have to let me use instantaneous cooling.”
=============================================================
The “greenhouse effect” is claimed to produce warming, not cooling, hence your derivation is not about the “greenhouse effect” any longer.
To see the absurd result of the assumption of the “greenhouse effect” you need to strictly stick to this assumption, not to jump from this assumption to the reality back and forth or even invent other absurd things.
==========================================================================
OK, admit it. Now you’re just being facetious. In order for your “example” to work you have to have effectively instantaneous heating and by extension instantaneous cooling. And since the plate is physically isolated from everything else the only mechanism to achieve that is through radiation. And in order to truly obey the second law (and the first) emissivity and absorptivity have to be the same. If they weren’t then we truly would have a perpetual motion machine. But that’s exactly what you created with your error. It’s only through your integration error that you get the result that you want. My “cooling” is nothing other than blackbody radiation which is your warming and is perfectly consistent with the GHE.
Finally, I’ll note that you didn’t or couldn’t answer how nature knows to raise the temperature of the plate when we raise the temperature of the cold sink. How do you suppose that information propagates between them?

Greg House 7/21 2:32pm: “My refutation of the “greenhouse effect” above…”
If you mean above at 7/19 5:02pm, then you have provided no successful GHE refutation therein.
tjfolkerts offers an explanation why your refutation is not successful at 7/19 5:57pm which you incorrectly hand wave away.
For your claim “My refutation of the “greenhouse effect” above…” to be successful at the most basic level, you will need to prove that massive bodies with T>0K do not all radiate in IR bands.
Earth’s atm. is a massive body with T>0K, so it must radiate in IR bands toward earth’s surface. Prove that wrong, and you will have your refutation.
From my reading of your words, you confuse warming with heat. Heat is no longer a noun. Heat is only an adjective as in heat transfer. Where you use “heat” as a noun, or replace “heat” with “warming”, your science is lacking modern skill.
Do not be alarmed! This happens to many, even those with more skill that you demonstrate. Especially in the field of study of Ocean Heat Content. Oh man, don’t go there with me.
In your example, nature protects against your proposed runaway with reflectors that are not perfect. Made real, your 7/19 5:02pm system will not runaway; it will equilibrate with surroundings at a higher temperature than before your reflector was placed. The real equilibrium temperature will not be infinite (as tjf tries to show you) even with a darn good internal battery. Nature protects.

Tsk Tsk says:
July 21, 2013 at 5:00 pm
“In order for your “example” to work you have to have effectively instantaneous heating and by extension instantaneous cooling.”
=======================================================
Last time I checked the notion of “greenhouse effect” suggested warming, not cooling.
I understand you desire, you know, to somehow insert cooling into the absurd “greenhouse effect” to avoid it’s absurd consequence, but you can not have it. Blame the IPCC&Co for that, not me.

Greg House says (July 21, 2013 at 4:45 pm): “Besides, common sense is practically screaming that if the authors had claimed increasing efficiency of a furnace by back radiation warming, they would have certainly said it clearly in their abstract. They didn’t.”
That’s just it, Greg. As they wrote in their introduction, the increase in efficiency was well known even in 1956. Their contribution was just an improved way to predict the actual efficiency gain from various types of shields.
“Try it better next time.”
Not really much point, is there? As we saw with the dichroic light bulb example (complete with product brochure and scientific papers), you’re impervious to facts. Every one of your comments in this thread has only reinforced that.
“And thank you for this wonderful revealing example.”
My pleasure. Thank you for the laughs. I mean, “The greenhouse effect will melt your face!!!! Aaaaah!” Priceless. 🙂

george e. smith, you appear to be saying that if semiconductor material is heated its resistance goes up.
A simple yes or no reply on this central point would have cleared the matter up
My last post gave you the chance to set the record straight but instead you dodged the central point
I hoped that you would agree with me that all commonly freely available sources (such as wikipedia) say exactly the opposite that is that the resistivity goes down as the temperature goes up.
Here is the wiki reference that you found hard to find from the link I provided.
Semiconductors[edit]
Main article: Semiconductor
In general, resistivity of intrinsic semiconductors decreases with increasing temperature. The electrons are bumped to the conduction energy band by thermal energy, where they flow freely and in doing so leave behind holes in the valence band which also flow freely. The electric resistance of a typical intrinsic (non doped) semiconductor decreases exponentially with the temperature:
This is also the opinion of all the physics textbooks I have looked up
University Physics – Harris Benson 1996 edition page 537
Essential Principles of Physics – Whelan & Hodgson 1978 Edition page 354
University Physics – Young & Freedman 1996 edition page 804

Gary Hladik.
the element in a vacuum furnace gets heat from the electrical energy supplied to its element.
No I could not design such an engine because the theory is wrong so it would not work. I was wondering if Anthony would make the same assumption. Obviously not.
As explained above decreasing entropy of a system is impossible without an external source of energy to drive that drop. The earth/sun system is it, no external energy to lower entropy, even cosmic rays powerful though they are act as a cooling mechanism by increasing clouds which increases entropy.

The ocean basins cover the earth about 55 or something percent. They kick back blue light the most energetic end of the spectrum.
The earth’s “the blue planet” because of it.
You’re not going to find an instrument class which reveals a warming effect due to the presence of the gas, water, half the globe covered in oceanic basins of:
frigid,
liquid,
refrigerant.
Even saying you think maybe reveals something’s seriously up with what leads you to claim you believe it. The atmosphere’s a frigid gas bath, refrigerated, with phase change action, of water.
The refrigerant and the tiny trace of CO2 aren’t going to be found, ‘warming’ anything. No matter how many years people spend milking the grant/publicity that comes from insisting it will.

tjfolkerts says:
July 21, 2013 at 10:35 pm
“Greg … think about what you just said! “Efficiency of protecting the environment from the inside heat by the shields”
The ‘protection of the environment’ means less heat getting out to adversely warm the surroundings. By conservation of energy, this mean the heating elements are providing less power than they would without without the radiation shields in order to reach the same temperature. Your own statement backs this up!”
=======================================================
Is it possible that you have lost focus a little bit?
There are many ways to keep cold from getting warm and warm from getting cold, like blankets, insulation etc. . But we are talking specifically about alleged “back radiation warming effect” also known as “greenhouse effect”. This particular effect is not possible, as I demonstrated earlier on this thread.

Richard Vada says:
July 22, 2013 at 4:21 am
I suspect you are essentially correct, and that the phase changes of massive amounts of water dominate the dynamics. Mind you, what you are suggesting is negative feedback. It does not invalidate the basic Greenhouse mechanism, but it makes a mockery of the necessary “all things being equal” qualification. All things are decidedly not equal, and increasing CO2 in the atmosphere, according to the observational evidence, has negligible impact on surface temperatures.

johnmarshall says (July 22, 2013 at 2:41 am): “No I could not design such an engine because the theory is wrong so it would not work.”
Dodging the question. I asked you, as you asked Anthony, to design an engine utilizing the so-called “greenhouse effect”, assuming such an effect. You can’t, so your challenge is meaningless.
What do think about the compact vacuum furnace?

Greg House 8:13am demonstrates his confusion arising from use of the word “warm” when writing:
1) “It is clear, that a thermos flask with a reflective layer will indeed keep a hot drink warm under usual conditions…”
2) “Reflected radiation like any radiation can warm, but not the source…”
The source of the warmth in the thermos flask is the hot drink hence these Greg House’ writings cannot both be true. The one that is not true in modern science is 2).
In modern science, the word “energy” can be used as a noun, heat or “warmth” cannot be used as nouns. When one writes “heat transfer” it is always way less confusing to write “energy transfer”.
Energy is conserved, heat is not. Heat as a noun doesn’t even exist once the caloric theory died out.
Here’s one way I would make Greg House’ statements less confusing, both of these are true in modern science:
1) “It is clear, that a thermos flask with a reflective layer will indeed keep a hot drink losing energy slower under usual conditions…”
2) “Reflected radiation like any radiation can slow energy transfer but cannot raise the temperature above that of the original source…”
******
Greg House 8:13am continues:
“The only way a radiation shield can work would be by redirecting radiation to some spot, but not to the source, the latter is impossible.”
When Greg House writes that incorrect statement, what he means to convey properly is something like this:
“The only way a radiation shield can work would be by redirecting radiation to some spot, but if redirected to the source, it is impossible to raise the source’ temperature above starting conditions.”
To Greg House – A recommendation for less confusion (of author & reader) in your postings: drop the terms “warm”, “warmth”, “heat” as a noun and substitute “energy” & “temperature”. Greg House’s postings will become a lot less confused and Greg House’s refutation(s) above will be obvious as to why it (they) cannot prevail.

And that silicon 5 E28 is a typo, 5E22 is correct

Gary Hladik and tjfolkerts
In this case the argument is not with me but with Professor Schack.
Professor Alfred Schack, the author of a standard textbook on industrial heat transfer .
was the first scientist who pointed out in the twenties of the past century that the infrared
light absorbing gas components carbon dioxide (CO2) and water vapor (H2O) may be
responsible for a higher heat transfer in the combustion chamber at high burning temperatures
through an increased emission in the infrared. He estimated the emissions by measuring the
spectral absorption capacity of carbon dioxide and water vapor.
In the year 1972 Schack published a paper in Physikalische Blatter entitled ;
The inuence of the carbon dioxide content of the air on the world’s climate”.
With his article he got nvolved in the climate discussion and emphasized the important role of water vapor .
Firstly, Schack estimated the mass of the consumed fossil fuels per year
Schack then shows that CO2 would absorb only one seventh of the ground’s heat radiation
at most, if the water vapor had not already absorbed the infrared light in most situations.
Furthermore, a doubling of the CO2-content in the air would only halve the radiation’s characteristic absorption length, that is, the radiation would be absorbed at a length of 5km
instead of at a length of 10 km, for example.
Schack discussed the CO2 contribution only under the aspect that CO2 acts as an absorbent
medium. He did not get the absurd idea to heat the radiating warmer ground with
the radiation absorbed and re-radiated by the gas.
In a comment on an article by the science journalist Rudzinski the climatologist
Oeschger objected against Schack’s analysis of the inuence of the CO2 concentration on the
climate that Schack had not calculated thoroughly enough . In particular, he referred to
radiation transport calculations. However, such calculations have formerly been performed
only for the atmospheres of stars, because the processes in planetary atmospheres are far too
complicated for such simple models. The goal of astrophysical radiation transport calculations
is to calculate as many absorption lines as possible with one boundary density distribution
and one temperature dependency with respect to the height with Saha’s equation and many
other additional hypotheses . However, the boundary density of the radiation intensity
cannot be derived from these calculations.
One should emphasize that Schack was the first scientist to take into account the selective
emission by the infrared light absorbing re-gases for combustion chambers. Therefore one
is driven to the verge of irritation when global climatologists blame him for not calculating
complicatedly enough, simply because he saw the primitive physical concepts behind the
equations for the radiation transfer.
Taken from link below (page 71) with additional calculations to justify the analyisis.
http://arxiv.org/pdf/0707.1161v4.pdf

Bryan says (July 22, 2013 at 2:51 pm): “Gary Hladik and tjfolkerts
In this case the argument is not with me but with Professor Schack.”
I’m not sure there’s any argument at all. Theoretical calculations, based on the absorption/emission properties of CO2, say a doubling of CO2 should warm the Earth by about 1 K, all else being equal. All else is never equal of course, but both sides of the CAGW debate seem to agree on this point. Does Professor Schack disagree? Does he calculate the effect of doubling CO2, all else being equal?

Trick says (July 22, 2013 at 1:05 pm): ‘2) “Reflected radiation like any radiation can slow energy transfer but cannot raise the temperature above that of the original source…’
The second part of that statement is not true, as demonstrated by this paper (unfortunately behind a paywall) and such tangible examples as this compact vacuum furnace and this dichroic light bulb.
That shouldn’t be surprising. Just as the temp of a constantly heated house goes up when insulation is added (thus “slowing” conductive energy transfer to the environment) a radiation shield “slows” radiative transfer to the environment. Greg’s bullus excrementum example is exactly the same as applying a perfect insulator to one side of the plate, but with a radiative shield he thinks the plate would melt. In the insulated case he would (I hope) agree that the plate would simply radiate 800 W from the uninsulated side. Yet the two cases are functionally identical.
It’s that kind of fuzzy thinking that leads the Pink Unicorn Brigade to conclude that the so-called “greenhouse effect” would melt your face (to the everlasting amusement of WUWT readers). 🙂

Greg House says (July 22, 2013 at 2:55 pm): “Meaning that the reflective layer inside a thermos flask is useless, it is the vacuum insulation that works.”
Which of course explains why thermos manufacturers go to the expense of adding the reflective layers, despite the danger that someone’s face could melt. 🙂

Greg House 2:55pm: My clip is intended to be brief but capture context. In this case, a thermos flask “under usual conditions” does contain a vacuum thus the context was carefully preserved in my clip.
The reflective coating however is not useless. And remember radiation travels thru a vacuum. Under intense competition worldwide now, manufacturers would not bother with reflective coatings but in case they are wrongfully expending shareholder money, consider your story above where you write: “Reflected radiation like any radiation can warm…”
Here, if you follow thru with my recommendation and drop the term “warm” and reduce confusion toward science preciseness short of formulas try these for a thermos flask:
“Reflected radiation like any radiation can slow the cooling of the hot drink in the thermos…”
“A vacuum in a thermos flask like any vacuum can slow the cooling of the hot drink in the thermos…”
Both of which cause thermos buyers to part with some cash or credit.
You are right despite your confusing wording in that neither the reflected radiation nor the vacuum insulation can increase the energy in the thermos flask. And eventually the hot drink reaches equilibrium with the surroundings (aka room temp.).
Notice also, thermos temperature does not run away from reflections onto the energy source, refuting your 7/19 5:02pm claim above about GHE falseness. Nature protects a thermos from runaways with non-perfect reflectors and non-perfect vacuum insulation in much the same way as it does the atm. A difference is the location of the energy source (inside vs. outside), another difference is forced vs. unforced.