Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach
Short answer? Of course not, that would violate the Second Law of Thermodynamics … BUT it can leave the hot object warmer than it would be if the cold object weren’t there. Let me explain why this is so.
Let me start by introducing the ideas of individual flows and net flows. Suppose I owe you twenty-five dollars. I run into you, but all I have is a hundred dollar bill. You say no problem, you have seventy-five in cash. I give you the hundred, you give me the seventy-five, and the debt is paid.
Now, there are two equally valid ways to describe that transaction. One way looks at both of the individual flows, and the other way just looks at the net flow. Here they are:
Figure 1. Net flows and individual flows. The individual flows are from me to you, $100, and from you to me, $75. The net flow is from me to you, $25.
What does this have to do with cold and warm objects? It points out a very important distinction, that of the difference between individual flows of energy and the net flow of energy, and it relates to the definition of heat.
Looking at Figure 1, instead of exchanging dollars, think of it as two bodies exchanging energy by means of radiation. This is what happens in the world around us all the time. Every solid object gives off its own individual flow of thermal radiation, just as in the upper half of Figure 1. We constantly radiate energy that is then being absorbed by everything around us, and in turn, we constantly absorb energy that is being radiated by the individual objects around us.
“Heat”, on the other hand, is not those individual flows of energy. Heat is the net flow of energy, as represented in the bottom half of Figure 1. Specifically, a heat flux is the net flow of energy that occurs spontaneously as a result of temperature differences.
Now, the Second Law of Thermodynamics is only about net flows. It states that the net flow of thermal energy which we call “heat” goes from hot to cold each and every time without exception. However, the Second Law says nothing about the individual flows of energy, only the net flow. Heat can’t flow from cold to hot, but radiated energy absolutely can.
When an object emits radiation, that radiation goes on until it hits something that absorbs it, whereupon it is converted to thermal energy. The individual temperatures of the emitting and absorbing objects are not significant because these are individual energy flows, and not the net energy flow called “heat”. So there is no violation of the Second Law.
Here’s the thing that keeps it all in balance. If I can see you, you can see me, so there are no one-way energy flows.
Which means that if I am absorbing radiation from you, then you are absorbing radiation from me. If you are warmer than me, then the net flow of energy will always be from you to me. But that says nothing about the individual flows of energy. Those individual flows only have to do with the temperature of the object that is radiating.
So how do we calculate this net energy flow that we call “heat”? Simple. Gains minus losses. Energy is conserved, which means we can add and subtract flows of energy in exactly the same way that we can add and subtract flows of dollars. So to figure out the net flow of energy, it’s the same as in Figure 1. It’s the larger flow minus the smaller flow.
With all of that as prologue, let me return to the question that involves thermal radiation. Can a cold object leave a warm object warmer than it would be without the cold object?
While the answer is generally no, it can do so in the special case when the cold object is hiding an even colder object from view.
For example, if a person walks between you and a small campfire, they hide the fire from you. As soon as the fire is hidden, you can feel the immediate loss of the radiated energy. At that moment, you are no longer absorbing the radiated energy of the fire. Instead, you are absorbing the radiated energy of the person between you and the fire.
And the same thing can happen with a cold object. If there is a block of wood between you and a block of ice, if you remove the wood, you’ll get colder because you will be absorbing less radiation from the ice than you were from the wood. You no longer have the wood to shield you from the ice.
Why is all of this important? Let me offer up another graphic, which shows a simple global energy budget.
Figure 2. Greatly simplified global energy budget, patterned after the Kiehl/Trenberth budget. Unlike the Kiehl/Trenberth budget, this one is balanced, with the same amount of energy entering and leaving the surface and each of the atmospheric layers. Note that the arrows show ENERGY flows and not HEAT flows.
These ideas of individual flows, net flows, and being shielded from radiation are important because people keep repeating over and over that a cold atmosphere cannot warm the earth … and they are right. The temperature and the radiation are related to each other by the Stefan-Boltzmann equation. When we apply the S-B equation to the 321 W/m2 of downwelling “back radiation” shown in the graphic above, it tells us that the effective radiating level is somewhere around freezing, much colder than the surface.
BUT a cold atmosphere can leave the earth warmer than it would be without the atmosphere because it is hiding something even colder from view, the cosmic microwave background radiation that is only a paltry 3 W/m2 …
And as a result, with the cold atmosphere shielding us from the nearly infinite heat sink of outer space, the earth ends up much warmer than it would be without the cold atmosphere.
To summarize …
• Heat cannot flow from cold to hot, but radiated energy sure can.
• A cold atmosphere radiates about 300-plus W/m2 of downwelling radiation measured at the surface. This 300-plus W/m2 of radiated energy leaves the surface warmer than it would be if we were exposed to the 3 W/m2 of outer space.
My best regards to all,
w.
My Usual Request: When you comment, please QUOTE THE EXACT WORDS THAT YOU ARE DISCUSSING, so that we can all understand the nature of your objections.
My Second Request: Please keep it civil. Speculation about the other person’s motives and cranial horsepower are greatly discouraged.
Further Reading: My post entitled “The Steel Greenhouse” looks at how the poorly-named “greenhouse effect” work, based on the principles discussed above.
Math Notes: There’s an excellent online calculator for net energy flow between two radiating bodies here. It also has the general equation used by the calculator, viz:
with the following variables:
and Q-dot (left-hand side of the equation) being the net flow.
Now, when the first object is totally enclosed by the second object, then area A2 is set to a very large number (I used a million) and the view factor F12 is set to 1. This is the condition of the earth completely surrounded by the atmosphere. For the general case, I’ve set area A1 to 1 square metre. Finally, I’ve made the usual simplifying assumption that thermal IR emissivity is 1.0 for the surface and the atmosphere. The emissivity values are greater than 0.9 in both cases, so the error is small. With those usual assumptions, the equation above simplifies as follows, courtesy of Mathematica:
But sigma T ^ 4 is simply the Stefan-Boltzmann radiation for the given temperature. That is why, in the energy budget above, we can simply add and subtract the energy flows to produce the budget and check to see if it is balanced.
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Willis,
May I suggest that you find and print out my elevator post and our subsequent communications and then address my latest responses to you. Create a new head post on that very issue if it helps.
I find it very difficult to negotiate such a long thread too but it is your thread and you must be able to use the system to make things easier.
As I see it you have now been given exactly what you asked for by way of a coherent explanation as how the adiabatic theory can raise a surface temperature above S-B and I’ve done it by using the most basic and incontrovertible scientific laws.
Stephen, let me say that I don’t go on a snipe hunt for any man. I used to do that, go hunting … and then the other person would say “No, not that elevator post, you idiot, I meant THE elevator post” … so I gave it up.
If you have something that you think is important, let me suggest that YOU find and print whatever it is that you think is important.
Next, you claim that “adiabatic theory can raise a surface temperature above S-B”. However, I showed above that this is physically impossible for a non-GHG atmosphere. Why? Because if it did so, then the surface would be radiating more energy on a continuous basis than it receives. Re-read my post, “A Matter Of Some Gravity“, or Robert Brown’s post, “A Refutation Of Stable Thermal Equilibrium Lapse Rates“. I note that you have not said one damn word to dispute either my post or Robert Brown’s post, and they both PROVE, not assert but prove, that you are wrong.
Both of the proofs are very broad in scope, and as near as I can understand your claims, they are specifically ruled out by either proof.
Come back when you are willing to face the ugly facts. And no, I’m not doing your homework for you.
w.
Here is my elevator speech again:
“Willis:
i) Kinetic energy at the surface can either be conducted away or radiated away. Both cannot occur simultaneously. If one rises the other drops. So, if you have kinetic energy sufficient to produce a temperature of 288k as per the Earth’s measured surface temperature there is no physics that prevents 255k radiating to space and the other 33k being conducted to the atmosphere.
ii) If that 33k goes upwards from the surface in convective ascent (effectively disappearing from the radiative energy budget as PE) then it comes down in convective descent (reappearing within the radiative energy budget as KE at the surface) but at a later time. It is well established physics that adiabatic cooling in ascent and warming in descent is fully reversible.
iii) The original 33k taken from the surface by conduction in the formation of the atmosphere came from energy that would otherwise have radiated to space. That being the case it cannot have reduced surface temperature below 255k which was the surface temperature pre atmosphere as per S-B.
iv) If the surface temperature remained at 255k whilst the atmosphere was being formed then it MUST rise by 33k when the adiabatic loop closes.
v) Although the surface temperature is then 288k you still have ongoing conduction of 33k upward to maintain convective overturning PLUS 255k of radiation going out to space which keeps the combined radiative and adiabatic loops stable and the atmosphere in hydrostatic equilibrium indefinitely.
Your previous objection to such a scenario missed the issue of the process of creating the atmosphere in the first place when the first convective overturning cycle formed. That is where the non zero consequence of conduction and convection comes from so that there is no breach of the first law.”
You previously replied ‘0k’ to points i) ii) and iii) but balked at points iv) and v)
Having so replied to point i) it follows that a surface at 288k need not radiate to space at 255k since 33k can go into conduction instead and as per point ii) be recycled up and down indefinitely.
Your objection to points iv and v amounts to a disbelief that an atmosphere cannot be held off the ground indefinitely once the first convective cycle completes because its initial slug of energy will somehow be radiated off to space without the atmosphere falling to the ground.
I asked you to explain how that might work given that the energy involved is PE that does not radiate and you gave me a stocktaking analogy which was flawed so I gave you a corrected one which showed that the extra energy acquired from the surface during formation of the atmosphere need not be lost if it is being constantly recycled up and down within an adiabatic loop. You accepted in your reply to point ii) that such a loop is fully reversible.
There was then a suggestion from you or someone else that the atmosphere needed something to ‘live on’ but I pointed out that as an inanimate object an atmosphere has no metabolism and requires no such additional energy once it is in place and supported by the continuing arrival of fresh insolation. That is the issue that Brett picked up on quite correctly.
As for your demand for ‘numbers’ it is very simple.
255k in and 255k out in the radiative loop.
33k up and 33k down in the adiabatic loop
That is the current position.
Over to you for the next step.
Stephen Wilde December 6, 2017 at 3:29 am
TL;DR. An “elevator speech” boils your central ideas down to a few crucial ideas. It’s called an elevator speech because the scenario is as follows. You get on an elevator, and there is the very man you hope to convince. You’ve only got the very small length of the elevator ride to make your pitch … so you have to make every single word count.
Please boil it down to a quarter of that size, throw away all the extraneous stuff, restrict it to the very important. I ask you to do this for me, but more importantly, for yourself. If you can’t get your idea across in a very short time, you don’t really understand what’s important in it and what’s secondary.
Finally, if the numbers are what you claim, viz:
then I have no idea what your central claim is. You’ve claimed (I think) that from somewhere you get energy to keep the atmosphere warm on a constant basis … how much energy, and where does it come from? Whatever it is, it has nothing to do with those numbers.
Finally, you cannot do accounting in Kelvin, because temperature is not conserved. An accounting must, must be done in W/m2, because they are conserved … and the fact that you seem innocent of that concept is certainly worrisome,
In any case, I still look forward to your elevator speech, because I still have no clue what you think warms the atmosphere in your scenario.
w.
From: A Matter Of Some Gravity
“NOTE 1: Here’s the thing about a planet with a transparent atmosphere. There is only one object that can radiate to space, the surface. As a result, it is constrained to emit the exact amount of radiation it absorbs. So there are no gravity/atmospheric phenomena that can change that. It cannot emit more or less than what it absorbs while staying at the same temperature, conservation of energy ensures that. This means that while the temperature can be lower than the theoretical S-B temperature, as is the case with the moon, it cannot be more than the theoretical S-B temperature. To do that it would have to radiate more than it is receiving, and that breaks the conservation of energy.”
Willis has now accepted that a surface at 288k can radiate 255k and conduct / convect at 33k since you cannot use the same unit of kinetic energy for two independent processes.
Thus his above conclusion is incorrect.
So, the next step is to ask how that 288k can be maintained without increasing radiation TO SPACE to 288k.
Quite simply, the same 33k is recycled up and down constantly with a single cycle delay. There is a total of energy (PE plus KE) ‘worth’ 66k in the atmosphere of which 33k is constantly rising and 33k is constantly falling and there is no need to ‘consume’ any of that energy in order to keep it going because the movement up and down arises solely from temperature induced density differentials in the horizontal plane which cancel out over a single cycle.
I have also looked at Robert Brown’s work again and he talks only about a vertical column constrained by vertical sides. That setup contains no provision for the creation of PE from KE as in the real atmosphere which has no constraints on expansion with height.
Both articles are fatally flawed IMHO.
In previous post I asked:
“Do you count the atmosphere’s PE in the PE-KE exchange of convecting parcels?”
You answered:
“Yes, of course it counts as energy. It just isn’t heat and doesn’t radiate.”
Could this be the root of our disconnect?
First off, the atmosphere has a mass and some effective center of gravity that you can use to calculate its PE value. If you would, please state whether you agree with this point with yes or no.
Secondly, I hold that this PE value is a practical constant unless the effective center of gravity moves over some vertical distance. Please state whether you agree with this, yes or no.
Thirdly, I hold that this PE is not energy, precisely because it is not, and can not move vertically. In similar fashion oil is not energy, and fire-wood is not energy, despite having fire in its description. Do you agree, yes or no.
Lastly, I hold that INDIVIDUAL parcels of air, can and do exhibit changes to their KE-PE exchange and these changes do not, and can not change or interact with the total PE of the atmosphere. Agree, yes or no.
PS:
You seem to be using the POTENTIAL energy of the entire mass of the atmosphere as an eternal flux generator and this a perpetual motion machine.
The PE of the ENTIRE atmosphere is a net positive flow, into the atmosphere at time 0 and out when the sun winks out. For the eons between it does squat.
Stephen, your very first point is rather befuddled and poorly expressed. That needs to be cleared up before ANY of the rest can be discussed.
“i) Kinetic energy at the surface …”
Clearly you actually mean “internal energy,” U — the energy associated with random microscopic thermal energy of atoms.
” … [internal energy] can either be conducted away or radiated away. Both cannot occur simultaneously.
Clearly you actually mean that a given joule of energy can either be conducted away or radiated away. Later on you specifically say that both process do indeed happen simultaneously — ” there is no physics that prevents [some energy[ radiating to space and the other [energy] being conducted to the atmosphere”
” … a temperature of 288k as per the Earth’s measured surface temperature
If this tempeature is true (and the surface is a blackbody emitter as we have been assuming), then SB says that it will be radiating
P/A = sigma { (288K)^4 – T(cold)^4) }
” … no physics that prevents [240W/m^2] radiating to space”
Yes,physics DOES prevent this — the SB equation quoted above! A 288 K blackbody surface “radiating to [T(cold)=3K] space” will radiate 390 W/m^2. The only way to radiate 240 W/m^2 “to space” from the 288 K surface would be if “space” were T(cold)=227 K!
So, Stephen, which is it?
* Space is 227K.
* The SB equation is wrong.
* The surface radiates 390 W/m^2 to space?
S-B should not be applied to a surface beneath a convecting atmosphere.
“Willis has now accepted that a surface at 288k can radiate 255k..”
No, only in Stephen’s imagination.
“S-B should not be applied to a surface beneath a convecting atmosphere.”
Why not Stephen? You will have a hard time explaining yourself when S-B was developed by tests within a convecting atm.
Evidence please.
As if Stephen will actually look it up. Or be able to absorb it. But there is the nonzero possibility Stephen will do so and at least look at the sketches of the lab equipment, as cited by Planck:
H. Rubens, F. Kurlbaum, Ann. d. Phys. 4, p. 649, 1901. Available for free on the internet. Also Lummer, Pringsheim, Ann. d. Phys. 6, p. 210, 1901.
“S-B should not be applied to a surface beneath a convecting atmosphere.”
*You* are the one who needs to supply evidence! I have never once heard any such claim. I have never read such an exception in a textbook. S-B depends only on emissivity, surface temperature, and surrounding temperature. There is not and have never has been any other factors in the equation for air pressure, rate of convection, etc.
So … what textbook or source tells us how to calculate the radiation “beneath a convecting atmosphere” and what factors do we need to include?
The S-B definition and equation contains no provision for non radiative processes, just as you say.
How then, can you apply it regardless when non radiative processes are active?
It was never designed for that scenario.
Stephen Wilde December 6, 2017 at 10:13 am
Say what?
Stephen Wilde December 6, 2017 at 1:39 pm
Wow … just … wow.
I’ve read huge amounts on this subject, as you might imagine. You are the first and the only person that I have ever heard make this claim. Ever.
As such, I fear that you will need to substantiate it solidly with scientific references. It is an extraordinary claim, and as the saying goes, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
One reason I don’t think your claim is true is that virtually every object around us has active non-radiative processes going on—convection and conduction go on almost everywhere except the vacuum of outer space.
If you were right, that would mean that the S-B equation wouldn’t be valid for anything except space exploration … whereas in fact it is used in night-vision glasses and stand-off thermometers and it is employed in calculations daily in situations where you say it is invalid.
So let’s make this the test case for your understanding of thermodynamics. Come up with the references, or admit you were wrong.
I truly hope you follow up on this, because admitting you are wrong will give you some hope of being right … whereas the way it stands, you remain mired in misconceptions while loudly claiming incorrect ideas are gospel truth.
w.
PS—you say:
Huh? Kelvin IS temperature … so it is NOT conserved.
There is a reason that we do energy budgets in W/m2 and not in Kelvin. It appears I am not able to get this across to you, but you might profitably ponder why it is we use W/m2 … you might start by looking up the difference between “extensive” and “intensive” properties of matter. Mass is an extensive property. It can be added and subtracted when the objects are combined or split. Three kilos of water plus two kilos of water is five kilos of water.
Temperature and density, on the other hand, are intensive properties. They cannot be added or subtracted when objects are combined or split.
For example. If you split a 2kg block of steel in half, you get two 1kg blocks of steel, because mass is conserved.
But if you split a 2kg block of steel at 288K in half, you do NOT get two 1kg blocks of steel at 144K … because Kelvin are NOT conserved.
Which is why attempting an accounting in Kelvin is … well … let me call it “not done in scientific circles” and leave it at that.
S-B can be used within an atmosphere for such utilitarian purposes because the net effect of the non radiative processes is pretty much the same anywhere in the atmosphere after accounting for the lapse rate slope once hydrostatic equilibrium has been achieved. Hence the utility of the standard atmosphere.
What I mean by not applying it to a planetary surface beneath an atmosphere is a different issue. To apply it correctly one must observe the planet from outside the atmosphere and as we see the Earth from space it is indeed radiating at 255k and not at 288k.
I have given you a fuller explanation below as to why the surface is warmer than S-B.
As regards the units I’ve been using I have repeatedly referred to the amount of kinetic energy that gives rise to a temperature in kelvin. Since the big debate is always about where the extra surface temperature of 33k comes from that is by far the simplest way of looking at it. W/m2 is not as straightforward when readers have been conditioned by the 255k 288k and 33k numbers and I have been on threads where there has been much consequent confusion.
To say it is ‘not done’ is simple snobbery.
Stephen:
In my professional career, I have to (among other things) design thermal systems to keep power electronic devices from overheating.
We mount the power electronic devices on metal heat sinks to conduct the thermal energy from the small transistor to a large surface. We often black-anodize the outer heat sink surface to increase its emissivity. Sometimes we will also add fans for forced convective cooling.
The idea that adding the fans for more convective transfer would reduce the ability of the surface to radiate (for a given temperature) is simply absurd — we have never detected this, and no one in our group would give the idea a moment’s consideration.
Throughout all your comments, you display a very basic and repeated confusion between energy and power, which causes you to conclude all sorts of ridiculous things.
The 1st Law of Thermodynamics is about conservation of energy, not conservation of power. You are arguing that if a square meter of surface can radiate 400 watts (power) into a vacuum at a given temperature, then if it starts conducting/convecting 100 watts into the atmosphere, its radiative output will reduce to 300 watts. That is a “conservation of power” argument, which has no validity.
Using the 1st Law properly, you can determine that if the surface starts outputting 100 watts conductively/convectively as well as the 400 watts radiatively, the total output is 500 Joules every second, thus reducing the internal energy of the body by 500 Joules per second. If all of the inputs to the object sum up to 400 watts, the internal energy of the body decreases by 100 Joules per second, and the body cools.
Even your financial analogies suffer from this same confusion between the conserved substance (money) and its rate of transfer (e.g. $/week).
Ed,
You are perfectly correct for the situation within an atmosphere where there is a haze of radiative and conductive energy governed by the lapse rate slope.
I am only considering the relationship between and irradiated planet, it’s atmosphere and radiation actually reaching space which is an entirely different scenario.
33k of the Earth’s potential ability to radiate to space just doesn’happen.
AGW theory says it is because of DWIR and I say it is because of convective overturning.
Stephen:
You say what you are considering “is an entirely different scenario”.
No, it’s not!!!
Both are the same scenario — a warm surface both radiating away and conducting/convecting away thermal energy to a colder ambient. Both follow the same laws of physics.
The only mechanism through which the atmosphere can attenuate the radiative power to space is through absorptive constituents (aka “greenhouse gases”). Transparent gases, even if moving up or down, do not affect the radiative transmission from surface to space at all.
TJF said:
“1) The atmosphere starts at 255 K. In this case, it is the same temperature as the surface and no convection is started. There is never energy lost from the surface to the atmosphere, never any ‘adiabatic loop’, and never any energy returned to the surface to warm it about 255 K.”
Which is utter nonsense. Convective overturning cannot be prevented over an unevenly irradiated surface so the entire atmosphere can never be at 255k due to the lapse rate slope that then ensues.
TJF comment is NOT utter nonsense, only in Stephen’s imagination is it such, as there is no unevenly radiated surface if the surface is all at 255K. The lapse rate slope simply STARTS everywhere at 255K. Simple logic.
You keep putting the cart before the horse, Stephen. You talk about some “initial loop” seting everything up, but never describe the initial conditions! The atmosphere could start at a uniform 255 K if “god” created it that way. But you are welcome to describe YOUR initial conditions.
For example, you could average 240 W/m^2 to the surface by having half receive 390 W/m^2 (288K) and half receive 90 W/m^2 (200 K). This would certainly set off convective overturning if you added an atmosphere. Warm 288 K air rising in the warm areas and returning at 288 K in the cold areas would warm the ground above 200 K — but also cools the air below 288. This intermediate-temperature air would return to the warm areas, but the ground would below 288 K due to contact with the air. So the NEXT “loop” would start BELOW 288 K on the way up and return at the same temperature to the cold areas.
So now even the warmest areas are cooler than 288 and the cool areas are WAY cooler than 288.
I can guarantee that no matter what combinations of radiation (averaging to 240 W/m^2 incoming), initial temperature of the surface and atmosphere, and heat capacities you postulate, you will NEVER be able to get above the 255 K average temperature limit imposed by SB.
Three recent articles about the steel greenhouse. They’re all part of one overall refutation, so it’s best to read them all. There are prior articles there too on the same subject.
Just on the off-chance that there is anyone out there still reading through at this point, other than the handful of people still commenting, who haven’t seen these posts already:
https://climateofsophistry.com/2017/10/19/the-steel-greenhouse-in-an-ambient-temperature-environment/#comment-32262
https://climateofsophistry.com/2017/10/22/incomplete-thermodynamics/
https://climateofsophistry.com/2017/11/03/the-alarmist-radiative-greenhouse-effects-final-end/
Tony December 6, 2017 at 2:48 am
Three recent articles about the steel greenhouse. They’re all part of one overall refutation, so it’s best to read them all. There are prior articles there too on the same subject.
Just on the off-chance that there is anyone out there still reading through at this point, other than the handful of people still commenting, who haven’t seen these posts already:
The analysis presented there is based on the following error;
“The shell’s surface would emit on its interior as well, however, internal emission by the shell will always meet another interior side of the shell (or the sphere), and hence will not leave the shell. Internal emission by the shell’s surface hence does not lead to a loss of energy for the shell, and hence the energy produced by the sphere will be conserved with the outward emission of the shell to the environment.”
You’re welcome to go over there but be prepared for the foulmouthed, abusive host, it’s easy to see why he isn’t allowed to post here!
Here’s the disingenuous trick they are playing. They are using the very same mechanism that they deny exists to disprove the effect.
Note that they aren’t telling you (at least by your summary) what happens next…. so that radiation doesn’t leave. Fine. Where does it go and what does it do when it gets there.
Like I said, it’s best to read them all.
As Phil says, it is EASY to find very fundamental flaws in those critiques. THe ironic thing is that the correct answer is presented — but then excuses are invented as to why the actually correct answer must be wrong!
OK, Tim.
Tony will also find that testing is completely absent from any of the 3 links & more that he posted up. Not having to comply with 1LOT, 2LOT as all testing does allows for much assertion and imagination on display.
OK, Trick.
Typo alert:
Should be:
Your objection to points iv and v amounts to a belief that an atmosphere can be held off the ground indefinitely once the first convective cycle completes despite its initial slug of energy somehow being radiated off to space.
No fair! We are talking about a transparent atmosphere that does not radiate to space. Plus where does the atmosphere go when the sun winks out?
Ask Willis, not me.
Do not have to ask Willis, he was indeed writing about a transparent atm. “Here’s the thing about a planet with a transparent atmosphere.” which cannot exist in nature as a transparent atm. will not produce entropy as light passes through, a process ruled out by 2LOT.
Willis, I think that is a pretty poor response to a good faith attempt to fulfil your specific request. The points that need addressing by you are as clear as they can be.
To suggest that my elevator speech is too long when it contains only 5 points and a little exposition is simply perverse.
“To suggest that my elevator speech is too long..”
Not if the listener already got off the elevator and you continue to rattle on about something or other.
Stephen, as I’m sure you’re aware, it is futile to attempt to argue with those who do not do so in good faith. Just acknowledge receipt of their response with a simple, non-commital, “OK”, and hope that someone else comes along who isn’t simply out to sow as much confusion as possible.
I’ll just wait and see if Willis comments further.
Whatever he does will speak volumes either way.
I’m confident that many non commenting readers will get the point and I’ll be raising it on future occasions where it is relevant to the thread both here (if Anthony doesn’t censor me) and elsewhere.
Tony December 6, 2017 at 11:06 am
Oh, piss off with your underhanded accusations that I am not arguing in good faith. You don’t even have the pelotas to accuse me by name, and that’s lower than a snake’s belly. You don’t even have the courage of your own convictions.
I have made every effort to engage with Stephen, and I continue to do so.
To date, Tony, you’ve added nothing to this conversation but nastiness. Seriously, when are you going to actually make a scientific comment?
w.
That’s right, I didn’t say your name. Seems strange you responded, given that. Do at least TRY to be civil.
Stephen Wilde December 6, 2017 at 3:58 am
Stephen, thanks for the response. My reply was also in good faith. But if you cannot explain your ideas simply, I’m not interested. As I said, that is as much for your benefit as for mine. I am trying to force you to think more deeply, because to date, your “explanations” simply have not made sense.
I note also that you have not commented on your attempt to do an accounting in Kelvin …
w.
Clear and simple enough to me and I suspect for other readers who do not get involved but OK Willis.
I’ll catch up with you again next time the issue becomes relevant and maybe by then you might have given it more thought than is apparent from your replies here.
Man, I hate being right about this stuff, but I figured that as soon as you were actually pressed about things like doing accounting in Kelvin and keeping an atmosphere warm without expending any energy to do so, you’d be out the door …
I am sorry to see you go. If you stayed and tried to say defend accounting for energy in Kelvin, you might have learned something.
Morning here, I’m off to work. I wish you the best.
w.
“Man, I hate being right about this stuff, but I figured that as soon as you were actually pressed about things like doing accounting in Kelvin and keeping an atmosphere warm without expending any energy to do so, you’d be out the door“
Or perhaps you’re wrong, and Stephen just got tired of talking to a brick wall.
And all my numbers are specifically described as kinetic energy sufficient to produce the quoted temperatures so criticism of that aspect is inappropriate too.
I await hearing on the basic scientific issues that I have put in play.
“I await hearing on the basic scientific issues that I have put in play.”
Many comments by Stephen are unscientific by simple logic having been shown wrong by test and more informed study of authors 60or70 years ago or more. So actually Stephen has already heard the science but prefers to continue with imagined meteorology.
Replace Stephen with Mr Eshenbach and your statement I just as true.
Only in his fantasy thought experiments do cold things make hot things hotter.
Whereas back here in the real world practically every physics statements and test says it doesn’t and can’t happen.
Only climate science with a very small s thinks otherwise.
So Trick point us to all the scientific papers and quotes by real Scientists that back him up please.
“So Trick point us to all the scientific papers and quotes by real Scientists that back him up please.”
Quote the exact words you are referring to in order to make this possible.
In the steel greenhouse the hotter body (Sphere) absorbs and thermalises the lower power radiation from the cooler body (Shell) and gets hotter and emits even higher energy radiation.
To summarise a Cold body makes a warm body warmer by back radiation or any of it’s radiation.
No, AC: The sphere has an independent power source. Without that, the entire sphere/shell system radiates until it is at ambient temperature, presumably about 3K.
Stephen Wilde December 6, 2017 at 4:12 am Edit
No. You call them “kinetic energy”, but your numbers were in KELVIN, which is not kinetic energy in any form. One example among many:
You can’t add Kelvin like that, temperature is not conserved. And as I said before, the fact that you are innocent of any idea that temperature is not conserved is worrisome.
w.
Oh dear.
Kinetic energy is simply molecular motion that leads to a temperature that can be measured in kelvin.
I can ‘add kelvin’ like that because energy is conserved whereas temperature is not. I tried to show that total energy in the atmosphere is a lot more than is apparent from the temperature along the lapse slope and it only becomes fully apparent as temperature when descending columns return heat to the surface.
The total PE plus KE in the atmosphere originally came from the surface via the surface temperature caused by molecular motion induced by the sun.
I think you are too far down a rabbit hole due to the convolutions caused by your adherence to the radiation theory which is what leads to the ever raging confusion over the steel greenhouse.. You need to start over from first principles and keep it simple.
Maybe another time.
Stephen, I fear you are beyond my poor power to add or detract. I gave you a clear description of intensive and extensive properties. I pointed out that intensive properties are NOT conserved. If you divide a 2 kg block in two, you get two 1-kg blocks. Mass is conserved.
However, if you divide a 2 kg block at 200°C in two, you do NOT get two 1-kg blocks at 100°C … why not?
Rather than commenting on that, rather than thinking about that, rather than deal with the important concept of intensive and extensive properties or even mention them, you just blow off what I wrote and say that temperature is just kinetic energy, and energy is conserved, so you can add temperatures.
If that is the case, then why don’t we get two 1-kg blocks at 100°C? I mean, temperature is just kinetic energy and kinetic energy is conserved … so why don’t we get two blocks at 100°C? You’ve assured me that because energy is conserved I could do just that, so why doesn’t it work?
Or how about if we combine two buckets of water at 300K? Do we get one bucket of water at 600K? Temperature is just energy so we can add them, you said … so when I add 300K and 300K I get 600K. You said it could be done, so why can’t I do it?
The answer is yes, temperature is a measure of the average kinetic energy of the molecules, but it is an INTENSIVE PROPERTY, which means that you can’t add it or subtract it.
And given that you truly a) don’t understand that, and b) think you understand it perfectly, and c) are totally unwilling to listen to any number of folks trying to set you straight, including folks who teach this for a living, and d) you show no interest in learning anything anywhere anytime, and e) you scatter insults along your trail like confetti … like I said, you’re clearly beyond my poor power to add or detract.
Best wishes,
w.
Paging Mr Eshenbach and all the adherents to the Steel Greenhouse thought experiment.
I have a thought experiment based on that experiment that can actually be easily tested in the real world.
The original experiment required one major premise to make it work ie a continuously heated object receiving Radiation of any energy value from another object which will increase it’s Temperature.
Is that correct?
So we have fixed energy and another energy source of what ever temperature.
The thought experiment
An energy source (Hot Water, electric blanket etc)
A Shell which has a thermocouple to measure its temperature.
Surround the Shell with the energy source to heat it up above Ambient.
Now according to the theory any energy impacting the Shell Surface from whatever source will increase the Temperature.
So the Flux from the inner side of the shell is for instance 1 Watt/ metre2 based on the heater.
The Photons from any point on the inner Shell Surface will now strike the Inner Surface of the Sphere somewhere else, be asborbed and warm it up while it is still being heated by the exterior heat source?
If this IS the case will the Sphere attain a temperature higher than the surrounding heat source and hence increase it’s temperature as well.
So does this experiment meet the Steel Greenhouse Experiment criteria of constantly heated Surface receiving photon energy from another source?
If not in what special way does it differ
I will conduct this experiment tomorrow so would anyone like to predict what temperature the Shell will get to above the heat source?
I have already conducted a Hot/Cold Objects with no increase, two objects at the same temp with no increase and finally a continuously heated object/cooler object with no increase.
I’m sorry, but I don’t understand either your experimental setup or what it has to do with the Steel Greenhouse. Perhaps if you were to point us to an illustration of the setup it would help. I don’t like to comment on something I don’t understand.
Thanks,
w.
Forget the setup, if you can’t work it out for yourself there is no point in talking to you.
Perhaps one of your adherents can figure it out and give me an answer.
“I don’t like to comment on something I don’t understand.“
Odd. It’s never stopped you before.
Willis is entitled to adult-like responses. Above – well it is the normal food fight behaviour.
A C Osborn December 6, 2017 at 1:00 pm
I civilly and politely ask for a drawing and a clarification and I get abuse … charming.
w.
My God you must be a snowflake if you call that abuse.
I tell you what, go back and read your own responses to me and many others if you want to see verbal abuse, sarcasm, character assassination and much more.
A C Osborn December 6, 2017 at 2:23 pm
Call it what you like, that wasn’t the point. The point was that you refused a polite request for further explanation and coupled it with an attack on my ability to “work it out”.
I don’t want to “work it out for myself”, A C. I don’t go on snipe hunts like that, and I am unwilling to guess what it is that you mean.
Why? Because when I guess, people have a habit of saying “You idiot, that’s not what I meant!!”
So, being unwilling to expose myself to attack for guessing wrong, I asked politely for a drawing and further explanation … and I got an attack in return.
Is that a better description of your unwillingness to simply explain your ideas?
Look, you actually had someone interested enough in your thought experiment to want to see where it went, someone curious enough to ask you to explain it further … and instead of just explaining it and providing a sketch of your experimental setup, you pissed all over your chance to discuss it.
Now, you have no one who wants to discuss it with you, because I sure don’t.
Congratulations. Well done.
w.
For a start I have no idea how to provide a sketch even if I had one.
I suggested that your steel greenhouse would proved that a Dyson sphere would probably kill everyone in it.
Your response was I didn’t know the Kardashians had class 2 civilisation.
Now THAT is what you call snarky & rude.
The Dyson Sphere would have to heat up sufficiently to radiate to space the entire output of the sun. That would certainly fry anyone between the two.
A C:
This experiment that was written up several years ago on WUWT tests what I think you are trying to express:
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/05/28/slaying-the-slayers-with-watts-part-2/
It looks to me like it backs up Willis’ analysis.
“It looks to me like it backs up Willis’ analysis.”
Hugely, Ed.
A C Osborn December 6, 2017 at 2:58 pm
There’s a well-established procedure for dealing with that kind of dilemma. It’s called “asking”. See, you say “How do I post a sketch?” Then I say “Draw it, scan it, put it up on Photobucket or Pinterest or some other hosting site, and provide a link to it”.
…
This is why I ask people to QUOTE MY EXACT WORDS, a polite request which you frequently ignore. You have totally misrepresented what went on. Actually, the conversation went like this:
“Snarky and rude”??? It’s called HUMOR, A C, you ought to look into it.
I have no idea what a “Kardashev Scale 2 Civilization” or a Dyson sphere is, and I assumed that whatever it was it was science fiction and thus had nothing to do with a steel greenhouse, and I presumed you were making a humorous aside … so I responded with humor.
But OK, if you were serious, no need to angrify your blood, let me look this up
…
I find this:
(As a trivial aside, I note that it is not called a “Kardashev Scale 2” civilization, as you had stated, it’s a “Type II” … moving on …)
Next, a “Dyson Sphere”, presumably Freeman has to be in there somewhere, hang on again …
… OK, got it.
So it was science fiction, as I thought …
In any case, no, a “Dyson Sphere” wouldn’t fry everyone. With a single shell, the maximum achievable surface gain at the sphere is a doubling of the radiation of the planet or sun at the center of the sphere. It will not heat up indefinitely as you seem to think. That wouldn’t be enough energy to boil water at the distance of the earth … S-B blackbody temperature at earth’s distance from the sun with doubled solar radiation would be 57°C.
=======================
So now, cue the chorus of people saying things like “Willis can’t be convinced of anything, it’s no use trying, he doesn’t think a Dyson sphere would fry everyone” … folks, when I am convinced, I change my mind publicly. I have two posts from a while ago where that exact thing happened. One post was called “Wrong Again”. The second post, a few years later on another subject, was called “Wrong Again, Again”.
In addition, I disagreed strongly with Robert Brown about Jelbring’s hypothesis that atmospheric pressure can cause ongoing atmospheric warming … but Robert convinced me, and I admitted it in public.
Here’s another example, from an addendum to a head post in which I’d made an error:
When I am wrong, as happens to everyone, I have consistently and publicly admitted it. And not in any half-arsed fashion either. I don’t hedge it about, I say flat out “I was 100% wrong.”
Now, can any of my attackers say the same thing? Anyone? Tony, where have you publicly admitted you were wrong? … oh, wait, I forgot. He’s cowering behind an alias, and having an alias means never having to say you’re wrong. You just change names and keep going. Robert Kermodle, how about you? Can you point to where you have very publicly and humiliatingly admitted you were in error, as I have done a number of times?
Look, I have demonstrated over and over that when the facts change, I admit publicly, clearly, and unequivocally that I was wrong, and I change my mind. Since you guys have not done the same, how about y’all cut back on the false claim that I cannot be convinced of anything? That’s a demonstrable lie.
w.
PS—Prepare for further brain explosions when I say … if you want to fry everyone, put more concentric shells (Dyson spheres) around the sun. The maximum radiation increase for a steel greenhouse is input radiation times (N+1), where N is the number of shells. With one shell, instead of 340 W/m2 at earths distance you get 2 * 340 = 640 W/m2. With two shells you get 3 * 340 = 1020 W/m2. This corresponds to a blackbody temperature of 97°C, hot, but not hot enough to sterilize the planet.
How about three shells? That would give a maximum of 4 * 340 = 1360 W/m2. This corresponds to a blackbody temperature of 120°C, should be enough to kill everything except the extremophiles.
Now, if this seems counterintuitive, consider a light bulb. It radiates a lot of energy. Suppose you put it in a thermos bottle. It will heat up further, of course, until it is hot enough that the thermos bottle is losing the amount of energy coming from the light bulb. At that point, it will be in steady-state, no more heating.
(I note in passing that the thermos bottle, which is cooler than the light bulb, makes the bulb warmer than it would be without the thermos, as I said to open this discussion … but I digress.)
Now, put the system, composed of the light bulb and the thermos bottle, inside another thermos bottle. What happens? The light bulb gets hotter still, and the inner thermos gets hotter still.
Q. E. D.
My hasty, smarmy quip that anything between the sun and a Dyson Sphere would fry was greatly in error, Willis. Thanks for the heads-up.
TL:DR
Here is a refutation of the “Slaying the Slayers With Watts” experiments parts I and II:
https://climateofsophistry.com/2013/06/05/slaying-watts-with-watts/
Ok, Tony. I see the amount of testing performed in the linked site is same amount of science supporting their refutation.
OK, Trick.
Just a question: What if we reverse the steel shell problem?
A sphere existing in space and at equilibrium with space is subsequently surrounded by a shell with a separate energy source such that it is radiating energy at a constant rate to the sphere. The sphere heats to equilibrium WRT the shell and the system is in balance.
A separate energy source is introduced to the sphere. Does the sphere heat up in relation to the prior equilibrium? If so, does that cause the sphere to radiate more energy?
If the sphere is radiating more, does that radiation impact the shell? If the shell is receiving a net increase of energy from the sphere, does the shell increase in temperature?
If the shell begins radiating more energy because of an increase in temperature, does the increased radiation impact the sphere?
Over time, given two separate, unvarying energy sources, does the sphere/shell system settle to a particular temperature dependent on the physical nature of the system?
Replace the system with the earth as the sphere and its atmosphere as the shell. Does an increase in radiative molecules (GHG’s) in the atmosphere increase the amount of radiation being emitted by the atmosphere?
Rinse and repeat.
And, yes, the atmosphere is dynamic with many energy exchanges occurring on all time scales. That doesn’t mean that additional radiative gases (GHG’s) won’t add energy to the system. But it also means that the contributions of an increase in CO2 is basically unmeasurable in the system, given the large, overwhelming changes in water vapor and clouds in the system.
Dave Fair December 6, 2017 at 12:45 pm
Yep.
The sphere has to heat up if it is receiving more energy. And in turn, it will radiate more.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes. It will settle down to steady-state when the total energy radiated to space is equal to the total energy input.
That one is easy because we can actually measure it from space. However, there is one further question:
Does an increase in downwelling GHG radiation perforce mean the surface of the sphere heats up?
I say no, because it is offset by small, almost undetectable changes in the natural thermoregulatory mechanisms. We get earlier daily formation of tropical clouds and thunderstorms to reduce solar input; a slight increase in the El Nino/La Nina pump moving warm water to the poles; a few more dust devils moving energy from the surface to the atmosphere, and the status quo ante is restored.
w.
Thanks, Willis. I was going to go there with my next series of questions.
Delta-CO2 forcings are lost in the vastly larger climate energy systems. The is no practical mechanism by which temperatures can go up to drive 3X H2O forcings.
I think you will find that the blanket is a constant temp device.
If that response is to me, who said so?
You are suggesting is has a thermostat only position.
There is a maximum output position for fast heating on mine, but it runs for a maximum of 90 minutes which is easily long enough to do this.
Then again so would a bath full of hot water, as it would take quite a while to cool significantly.
So would a large pot of water that is boiling or maintained at a simmer.
But perhaps you could answer the question instead, in a heated sphere the inner surface is emmitting photons which are impacting another heated surface directly opposite it. Do those absorbed photons warm the surface or not?
If not why not?
Here’s the steel greenhouse with all the science removed. Just the math. I know It’s more fun to lip flap opinions but sooner or later the math will out and when it does it is often counter intuitive but always correct.
I have a bank account that I put the same amount of money in every night. Every morning my wife takes it all out as cash then feels bad and puts 20% back.
Let’s say for demonstration purposes it is $100. The first day she walks away with $80 and the bank has $20.
The next day she takes the $120, walks away with $96 and the bank has $24. And so it goes. Next day she keeps $99.20 and the bank has 24.80. Then It’s $99.84 and $24.96. Then $99.97 and $24.99.
You can keep it going if you like. But, i think you can see that by the end of the second week $125 is coming out of that bank every day and I only put in $100 Every day. My wife is taking all my money and the bank is a perpetual money machine. ESPECIALLY WHEN I LEAVE OUT THE wife’s guilt.
It’s the magic of feedback and the bank math is exactly the same as the greenhouse math. Before you get anywhere near discussing the galactic implications of the Microstates of argon in the galactic spiral on a rotating water planet you should get crystal clear on the simple math.
The greenhouse is not making energy. It’s distributing it in counterintuitive ways and you can’t figure it out with a freakin electric blanket
Maths, simple or otherwise can be incorrectly applied.
Show where the Science says energy from an object that is cold is absorbed by and makes a hotter object warmer.
Apart from Climate Science that is.
Please provide the evidence that the Maths is acceptable for that condition.
Oh no no no. First you must agree that feedback to a source can make that source supply more than what is being supplied by its primary, constant, source.
Do that and we will proceed. I want a concise statement of agreement or a demonstration as to where the math in my bank example is wrong.
AC, I think the operative term is “warmer than it would otherwise be.” With no outside energy source, the two-body system loses energy and cools, as a system. The warmer body cools at a slightly lower rate because of the surrounding body’s energy inputs. Likewise, the surrounding material cools at a lower rate than it would without the interior body’s energy contribution.
Throw in an independent power source for the warmer interior object, it warms to bring the entire system into thermal equilibrium, including the surrounding medium. The surrounding cooler object warms to bring net energy output into balance with the inner body’s energy input.
The interior body must increase in temperature for its energy output to increase.
As to your last statement I may or may not be able to “figure it out”, but I do not need to if I prove it wrong by experiment.
Remember Einstein’s quote about 1 experiment?
Well I am on number 3 which all prove it wrong, number 4 will be enlightening.
How no no no, you made the statement it is encumbent on you to back it up.
Paul Bahlin wrote, “i think you can see that by the end of the second week $125 is coming out of that bank every day and I only put in $100 Every day.”
You mean 80% of $125 = $100 is coming out every day = the $100 that you put in every day.
No! I meant what i said. $125 is being taken out, period full stop. Go get the withdrawal slips. 80% of that is being taken away by wifey. She gets the net. What she walks with is not what is being taken out.
Language is a beech, right?
A C Osborn on December 6, 2017 at 3:37 pm
Says,
“How no no no, you made the statement it is encumbent on you to back it up.”
If you reread my comment, I never
Sorry about the broken comment….
I never mentioned more than banking. It’s a math problem. Answer the math question.
Is it right or wrong?
Paul, I don’t think there is anything wrong with your basic arithmetic, but there is an awful lot wrong with your logic.
Let me try and straighten it out for you.
Your bank account has a trillion dollars debt (Space), so you put in your money and when your wife goes to the bank there is nothing in there because the bank has taken the lot to service your debt to space.
So your wife who is really pissed off with you because she knows your snarkiness thinks you didn’t put any in.
So she either never speaks to you again, divorces and marries someone who doesn’t have your debt, or sends you an IOU for the $100.
Now do you see about whether your arithmetic applies or not?
Yeah, well that already happened to me once. Now I have a much much more tolerant one.😄
Paul,
RUN YOUR OWN MATH using your specified formula.
By day #7, the bank keeps $25 and your wife withdraws $100. Every single day after that, the bank keeps $25, and your wife takes $100. Period. Full stop.
Law of diminishing returns. The amount of “feed back” on the initial $100 was $20, then on the $124 it was only $4, then it was only $0.80 then $0.16 then $0.03 then $0.01. Once it reaches $25.00 remaining in the bank, the daily input and withdrawals by your wife MATCH. 20% of 125.00 is always going to be $25.00.
Math is math. Right?
What’s your point?
Paul,
My point:
You stated:
“You can keep it going if you like. But, i think you can see that by the end of the second week $125 is coming out of that bank every day and I only put in $100 Every day. ”
You are wrong.
By day 7, the amount going into the bank every day from you, and being withdrawn by your wife every day, are BOTH $100.
According to your scenario in which your wife’s “guilt” makes her put back 20% of the total in the bank, once the amount being left in the bank reaches $25, the account reaches equilibrium…same amount in on one side, same amount out on the other. At NO POINT in time (unless you change your formula somehow) is “$125.00 coming out of that account every day”.
To fulfill YOUR formula, your wife must leave 20% of each morning’s total in the bank. At $25 in the bank, when you deposit $100, she can only take out 80% of $125.00. 80% of $125 is……$100. So UNLESS you change your “simple” thought experiment somehow, on day 7, the account reaches equilibrium and at no point does your wife withdraw $125.00. Not even once, much less “every day”.
Read again. $125 withdrawal, $25 deposit, $100 to walk away with. 2 transactions.
AC, you start with:
Come back when you can tell us why those two are totally different and will lead to different outcomes for your thought experiment.
As I said, I don’t understand your experiment. More to the point, however, it seems that you don’t understand your experiment.
w.
Well here is the question, you say that the lower level energy MUST be absorbed and thermalised by the warmer object.
So please explain why it MUST NOT be absorbed and thermalised by an empty Shell’s opposite wall?
Or in the case of the steel greenhouse with a much larger shell, all of the wall still visible beyond the sphere, ie a sphere at 1 metre diameter with a shell of 1000 metres.
A C Osborn December 7, 2017 at 12:25 pm
Well here is the question, you say that the lower level energy MUST be absorbed and thermalised by the warmer object.
So please explain why it MUST NOT be absorbed and thermalised by an empty Shell’s opposite wall?
Or in the case of the steel greenhouse with a much larger shell, all of the wall still visible beyond the sphere, ie a sphere at 1 metre diameter with a shell of 1000 metres.
Why do you think that should be the case?
Tony
“refutation of the “Slaying the Slayers With Watts” experiments’
At the outset they have a light bulb next to a mirror saying something like ‘obviously this bulb will not heat up or shine brighter”
But then when they discuss the experiments, that is exactly what is found! The light bulb did got hotter! There is yada yada about why that happened, but with no real refutation of it.
I don’t why you find this impressive?
I also don’t understand why you think Postma understands thermodynamics, but somehow Spencer, Christy, Lindzen, Freeman Dyson (!) and countless others do not?
It tends to be best to read it all. Plus try to understand it.
Read it. Not impressed. What part do you find persuasive?
OK, Nate.
Willis said:
“keeping an atmosphere warm without expending any energy to do so,”
Energy can either be expended as a result of work done OR it can be transformed as a result of work done.
The former generates heat as a by product but the latter just moves heat around.
The ability of convection to move energy around by transforming it rather than by expending it appears to be a new concept for people here.
I’ll only comment further here if I get some positive indication of progress (unlikely, I know)
Stephen Wilde December 6, 2017 at 1:16 pm
Thanks, Steven. Convection in our atmosphere indeed moves matter around, transforming potential energy into kinetic energy and vice versa as it does so.
However, this is not sufficient to warm anything, because it is a zero-sum process. For every parcel of air that is raised, an equivalent parcel is lowered. As a result, there is no gain.
And because there is no gain, such a transformation cannot keep anything permanently warm.
To keep something warm, you need to constantly add energy to it to offset the constant heat loss. The unanswered question with your theory is, where does that constant energy flux come from? It cannot come from the original energy you say was necessary to get the atmosphere started. That would have been used up long ago keeping the atmosphere warm.
So … where does it come from?
w.
That is reasonably put so I’ll continue.
Since convection is a zero sum process no energy is being lost or gained within the adiabatic loop but new solar energy is constantly flowing through the loop such that every convective cycle 33k enters the loop from solar heating of the surface and 33k leaves the loop via solar radiation from the surface. Thus the total of solar radiation flowing through the entire system is also net zero with the same out as in.
Then the stock control analogy comes in.
Where there is a one cycle delay in releasing solar radiation to space you constantly have 33k of solar radiation backed up in the adiabatic loop.
Radiation to space from the surface beneath the adiabatic loop is not from the 33k taken up simultaneously but rather from the previous ascent of 33k.
It obviously isn’t the exact same block of energy that lifted up the atmosphere but it might as well be because the pool of energy in the adiabatic loop is being constantly topped up again as fast as it departs.
Now the lapse rate slope clearly arranges 33k of KE at the surface and 33k of PE at the top (roughly) once hydrostatic equilibrium is achieved so you naturally have an extra 33k of heat at the surface in addition to continuing insolation from the sun.
It is like a standing wave in a river where an obstacle beneath the water slows down one portion of the flow and speeds up another portion in a net zero effect on total flow but it produces a higher water surface in the form of the wave.
Some may balk at my use of the term 33k of PE since PE is not heat but that is just shorthand for ‘ the amount of kinetic energy that would provide a temperature of 33k if all the potential energy present were to be transformed to KE’
Given that I have been accused of using too many words I think that stylistic convention is reasonable.
I awoke this morning expecting to see a reasoned response but nothing thus far.
Do you really think convection just moves energy around? Pretty astounding. No work is done by the air that’s pushing it up? No buoyant force lifting it against gravity?
Really?
Jeez.
Convection IS the work and Is a consequence of buoyancy differentials in the horizontal plane.
Spare me.
Paul, I’ve noted that you have a sense of humour but there is a limit.
Stephen Wilde
December 6, 2017 at 1:16 pm: Yup, Stephen, just eternal deflection. Of course we know tj and Trick of old, sadly. While one of the previous times when I think I
met EdBo, he was pretenting to be an ex- Navy/CG Officer. But he did not know the differences between steam, smoke or photoshopping of chimneys.
Fancy saying the thoughty’s surface must cool and remain so on contact with argon, when it has a thoughty constant irradiation? Just makin’ it up, I see.
And by the way Willis, re aspersions on my horse care and seakeeping, quite amusing: “There y’go again” said the Gypper. My horses could run, but not the steel greenhouse and any variants. You have to get serious about understanding gases………
After learning about the way you can’t violate 2nd law, I’ve come up with a fantastic idea. It’s called Earth Oven. We know that the earth, about 10 feet down, is a virtually constant 55 degrees F. This means it is a listless supply of cold radiation.
You could say it is a constant supply of 303 k energy as I’ve heard it described here. We also know that cold things can’t get absorbed by hot things. So here goes….
We make a double walled glass container with an open bottom and put it in the yard. Of course we would have to make a vacuum between the walls.
Then we just put in the chicken and wait. The cold 303 k energy flow comes out of the ground and hits the glass. The glass is warmer than the 303 k energy so none of it can get out.
It bounces around and some of it even goes back and hits the ground but it’s warmer than the 303 k energy flow too and anyway it is back radiation and we know that can’t do anything either.
The Earth Oven has a limitless supply of energy. The outside never gets hot and It’s free cooking.
What do you think? Haven’t worked all the details out. It will only work when It’s more than 55 F outside but that wouldn’t matter much in poor countries that are ALWAYS hot
Yeah, listless should be limitless. Spend more time fixing stupid auto correction then typos.
After some thinking, I think I’ve solved the problem where Earth Oven doesn’t work when It’s colder than 55F in my yard.
Since albedo is a function of temperature, all I have to do is put a little heater on the outside surface. As soon as it gets to 55F the glass switches to albedo = 1 and nothing gets out.
No movement of energy there from KE to PE and back again and no time delay in the background flow of energy so a worthless analogy.
Steven comments:
“No movement of energy there from KE to PE and back again and no time delay in the background flow of energy so a worthless analogy.”
Well, never said it was a convection oven did I? Never said there was air in it either. But if you insist, make it a 1 meter cube. Then go figure out the velocity of 1.3 kg of air cranking around as convection then compare It’s KE to the 482 w/m^2 pouring out of the ground.
Come back to me with some numbers.
Until then; worthless comment!
And oh btw. It’s not an analogy.
It’s a sure fired marketplace winner of a fuel free oven built on the science you are putting forth. It has nothing to do with atmosphere. Never mentioned it.
I would appreciate it if your commentary sticks to what I am going to patent.
Willis, in a long post above you criticised me for using temperature as if it were an extensive property that could be conserved rather than more correctly treating it as an intensive property that cannot be preserved.
I have said that I was using temperature in rising and falling columns as :
“shorthand for ‘ the amount of kinetic energy that would provide a temperature of 33k if all the potential energy present were to be transformed to KE’”
Kinetic energy, being molecular movement is energy that must be preserved and so has an extensive property that can be added and subtracted.
So, I am correctly talking about kinetic energy with its extensive property but in order to link that to PE which does not have a temperature it is necessary to consider the thermal potential of the energy held as PE when it converts to KE.
That is all I am doing.
Your buckets of water and 1kg blocks being liquids and solids rather than gases are not appropriate illustrations since there is no significant interchange of KE and PE when one moves them up or down.
I know that I cannot add and subtract the temperatures of PE and KE since PE has no temperature and temperature is an intensive property but PE does have the potential of affecting temperature when work is done on it and one must take that potential into account somehow.
I am therefore adding and subtracting kinetic energy and NOT adding and subtracting temperature.
Anyway, can we just ignore that straw man and have your comment on my above post at 2.39 pm on the 6th?
Stephen Wilde December 7, 2017 at 4:21 am
Perhaps you missed the part of my last comment where I said:
I’m sorry, but I cannot deal any more with your willful, stubborn, and unpleasant ignorance. The ideas of intensive and extensive energy are not “straw men” that can be “ignored”, any more than we can “ignore” the laws of thermodynamics. You’ll have to find some other way to learn something about the subject you are convinced you know better than anyone else. I’m clearly not able to penetrate the walls you’ve built up.
Pass …
w.
PS—and no … you cannot add temperatures … despite being intimately related to kinetic and potential energy, TEMPERATURE IS NOT CONSERVED! And since you are either unable or unwilling to understand that, I give up. Go try to convince someone else that temperatures can be added and subtracted, it’s not gonna happen with me.
It is perfectly clear to any neutral observer that I am adding and subtracting kinetic energy and NOT temperature.
That is entirely legitimate.
That kinetic energy influences temperature in a way that does not suit you is not my problem.
What insults have I issued ?
Are you confusing me with others?
Willis said:
“The ideas of intensive and extensive energy are not “straw men” that can be “ignored”, any more than we can “ignore” the laws of thermodynamics”
I didn’t suggest that those ideas were straw men that can be ignored. I said that your allegation that I was ignoring them was a straw man.
As explained above, I am adding and subtracting kinetic energy and NOT temperature.
I know you are a busy man but I have spent a lot of time carefully narrowing down the issues to a couple of points that need clarification from you.
All I ask is that you attend to them.
Stephen Wilde December 7, 2017 at 1:55 pm
Stephen, you are the only person that I have ever heard make the claim that because temperature is a reflection of the average kinetic energy of the molecules involved, that means that you can add and subtract temperatures in Kelvin. The only one. You have not provided any logical reason why that should be so. I’ve pointed out that when you add two 1-kg masses at 200K you don’t get one 2-kg mass at 400K, but you persist in your claim that you can add temperatures.
You have also claimed that a one-time injection of energy in the atmosphere is what is keeping your imaginary system going. I pointed out that there are two proofs that that doesn’t work, mine and Dr. Robert Brown’s. Your response?
Say what? You don’t get to claim that two separate proofs, proofs that many people have examined and found no flaws with, are “fatally flawed” without pointing out the fatal flaws. That’s just more of your endless and baseless denial of anyone who doesn’t agree with you.
I have done my level best to “attend” to the issues you raised. But neither citing scientific works, nor others engaged in trying to get you to see just where your ideas are wrong, nor two separate proofs, nor pointing out things like the difference between intensive and extensive properties, have done any good.
So, as I said above, I can’t take any more your endless rejection of my good-will efforts and those of others. Nothing that I or anyone has said, nothing the citations have said, nothing the other people on the thread have said, has made the slightest dent in your unfounded certitude that you alone know how it all works. Nobody agrees with you, the citations don’t agree with you, but that makes absolutely no difference to you.
Let me suggest that if you want to go further, you point out the flaw in my proof that a non-GHG atmosphere alone cannot keep the surface temperature warmer than the S-B temperature corresponding to the amount of incoming radiation. That proof is here, and I don’t care in the slightest that you CLAIM it is fatally flawed. You need to SHOW that it is fatally flawed, or your whole premise that the atmosphere can warm the surface on a continuous basis goes up in smoke.
If you can show me the flaw in my proof, we’ll have something to discuss. Until then I’m getting off your merry-go-round, it’s making me dizzy …
w.
Stephen, I think I have your “elevator speech”.
The normal version of the Stefan-Boltzmann Law governing thermal radiation is incorrect because it fails to account for convection. With the correct version of the S-B Law, a 288 K surface below a convecting atmosphere will only radiate as if it were 255 K, allowing a mere 240 W/m^2 of incoming sunlight to maintain the surface and lower atmosphere at 288 K as long as convection occurs.
You missed out the conversion to and fro between KE and PE and the consequent delay in energy flowing through the system so you are talking rot.
S-B is based on radiation in and radiation out. It does not deal with a non radiative feedback loop between surface and atmosphere.
S-B is perfectly correct but it must be also be applied correctly.
The surface radiates at 288k but 33k doesn’t get out because it is absorbed by conduction and convection along the lapse rate slope.
Viewed from space the combined surface and atmosphere do observe S-B. It is only below top of atmosphere that S-B becomes inadequate.
“The surface radiates at 288k but 33k doesn’t get out because it is absorbed by conduction and convection along the lapse rate slope.”
In other words, the surface radiates at 390 W/m^2 (@ur momisugly288 K), but (390 W/m^2 – 240 W/m^2) = 150 W/m^2 (@ur momisugly 288K – 255K = 33 K) of that upward radiation doesn’t get out because it is ” absorbed by conduction and convection along the lapse rate slope”. What mechanism allows 150 W/m^2 of outward travelling thermal radiation to get absorbed ‘along the lapse rate slope’? Where along that slope is it absorbed?
So you don’t believe that matter absorbs radiation and can then pass it to other particles of matter by conduction and convection?
If you don’t believe that conduction can draw energy away from radiation you are in conflict with Willis who ok’d that point. For a non radiative atmosphere it would happen at the surface.
You can’t have the same unit of kinetic energy in two places at once or performing two discrete tasks simultaneously.
Are you really serious?
Stephen, the very way you express your ideas and ask your questions belies fundamental misunderstandings — both about what I am saying and about how the energy transfers work. We could maybe try to reach a common understanding somewhere else — like your blog. But I suspect we have gone about as far as we can go here.
“We could maybe try to reach a common understanding..”
This will not happen Tim since Stephen ignores the testing, modern texts, and prominent papers that you et. al. rely on to understand meteorology. And Tim will not accept Stephen’s imagined meteorology.
Stephen — You ask: “So you don’t believe that matter absorbs radiation and can then pass it to other particles of matter by conduction and convection?”
I believe that matter with absorptivity greater than zero absorbs radiation and can then pass it to other particles of matter by conduction and convection.
I also believe — because of over a century of repeatable spectroscopic measurements — that N2, O2, and Ar in the atmosphere DO NOT have absorptivity noticeably greater than zero in the thermal IR band emitted by the earth’s surface.
I further believe — again because of over a century of repeatable spectroscopic measurements — that H2O, CO2, and other polyatomic gas molecules in the atmosphere with polar covalent bonds DO have absorptivity significantly greater than zero in the thermal IR band emitted by the earth’s surface.
We call this second class of molecules “greenhouse gases”, and it appears from your argument that your theories are dependent on their presence — that is, the metaphoric “greenhouse effect”. By your own logic, it would not happen with just the “transparent gases”.
Ed Bo 8:55pm: “.. N2, O2, and Ar in the atmosphere DO NOT have absorptivity noticeably greater than zero in the thermal IR band emitted by the earth’s surface.”
A little google-fu and your searching will find paper(s) on the noticeably nonzero collision-induced absorption by molecular N2, O2 & their individual effects quantified on the OLR of Earth’s atmosphere. Ar not so much.
Trick:
I’m well aware of that, which is why I added a qualifier to my statement. But the absorptivity is so low — many, many orders of magnitude less that that of CO2 and H2O — that there is no way is has any practically significant effect.
Mr Folkerts, I know that. You are busy at the moment with Mr Wilde.
But I asked you a question much further up post when you commented on post by Jim Masterson which I hoped you would answer.
It involves the very comment you made about adding a heat source and heat sink.
Could you find the time to answer it now please?
Dave Fair up post, which is getting lost now due to the still heavy traffic with Mr Wilde, I responded to you defense of Mr Eschenbach, as it will probably not get read by you if you are just staying with the current debate I am going to repeat it here
Dave, Mr Eshenbach does not need your.
Let me correct your statement for you.
Stop mimicking Willis just address Willis’ Fantasy science and avoid verbal coup-counting.
But as you are still asking questions.
Please show me any reputable (ie non Climate Science) sites that say that the radiation from a cold object makes a warmer one warmer and please do not quote a “Thought Experiment”.
That is all I am trying to Establish, what conditions that are currently not described by the Science allows photonic energy from whatever colder source to warm up a warmer object.
The definition of heat flow is the amount of Joules per second (Watts) per Metre2. Therefore at Equilibrum the amount of joules is a finite amount from the energy source without changing the energy source.
So that just leaves Emitting Surface Area as the variable.
Let’s assume that his sphere is spitting 2000 Joules per second per metre2 at Equilibrium, if we just take his sphere and expand it to the size of the Shell it’s Output will also drop by half as in the Steel Greenhouse Shell to 1000 Watts/M2 ie half the number of joules available per second per M2.
Please note that the System is still at Equilibrium putting out the same total of 2000 Joules per second when the total surface is considered, ie over twice as many square metres.
Also note that it is NOT at 4000 Joules per second, which are NOT available, totally impossible and are totally unnecessary for the sphere to obtain its original state of Equilibrium.
In fact I am not sure if it willactually be below 1000 joules per second as it takes twice as many joules to heat twice as much steel (Specific Heat) to the same Temperature, so am not sure if they can still be radiating the same.
As it would also take a little more to heat the extra Steel in the Shell.
I have been conducting REAL Experiments to try and find those magical conditions where the Colder surface Radiation heats the warmer surface and up till now I have failed.
As to the Light Bulb in a jar and foil which you so heartily endorsed, I am absolutely staggered that anyone believes that Back Radiation is directly involved in the warming of the Bulb.
I did not need to be shown that experiment as I had already done it for myself. Of course I used a Thermometer with 2 probes where it can provide not only the temperature from the probes, but also their difference in temp.
The extra heat comes from standard “Insulation” plus one other factor which comes after this one.
So what has changed, the addition of the Jar and the Foil have drastically reduced the heat loss via both Conduction and Convection. So what about the extra heat from adding the Foil, well that is where any back Radiation comes in.
Not only is the Foil doing the same to Conduction & Convection now the foil heats much quicker than the air between it and the bulb as it is a much better Conducter. The much hotter foil’s radiation excites the Air between the Foil and the Bulb increasing Temperature and thus slowing the cooling even more.
Experiment 1 with and without Foil box with a hot object
Without Box
Heated Object Temp (Facing Upwards) = 24.5C
Air above temp = 20.2C
Difference = 4.1C
With Box (with Foil) after 15 minutes
Heated Object Temp (Facing Upwards) = 26.0C
Air above temp = 24.0C
Difference = 2.0C
With Box (with Foil) after 20 minutes
Heated Object Temp (Facing Upwards) = 27.2C
Air above temp = 24.2C
Difference = 3.2C
With Box (with Foil) after 30 minutes
Heated Object Temp (Facing Upwards) = 27.5C
Air above temp = 24.4C
Difference = 3.2C
Foil at this point 22.5C
So do you see what happened, the Air heated most at 4.0C first due to the foil which in turn meant the heat sink was no longer as effective and the heated object warmed 2.0C.
But the air had started to stabilise at 24.2C and only rose another 0.2C while the object was still trying to reach stability.at 27.2C and then 27.5C.
However the Actual Heat Source which was a bulb around 25mm below the object could not be affected because all the heating was taking place above the Object, whereas the temperature to the side and below the object was only raised by 0.4C despite all that heat above neing reflected downwards by the Foil and By Conduction within the Air.
So now to the other factor involved, lets assume a warehouse with 20000 cubic metres of space. It has no heating so it remains at roughly outside ambient. We add X number of watts/m2 of Radiators with a large enough boiler to maintain a temp of say 30 degrees. Now if I put you in that Wharehouse with the Heating running at max you would be quite a bit hot, but not too uncomfortable. If I now take all thus radiators and stuff them into a room of 200 cubic metres with much better thermal Insulation how do you think you would feel.
Well you probably wouldn’t feel anything for very long as you would be Dead from heat exhaustion.
That is precisely what they did with the bulb in a box, took it out of a very spacous room and placed it in a very tiny one by comparison and added additional Thermal cladding..
Now tell me if you are surpised by the Air getting much hotter and thereby preventing the Bulb from cooling.
Perhaps they should fill the Box with CO2 at -180C to see how much it heats the bulb, I might try that with Cold air as I don’t have any CO2.
Experiment 2 with and without Foil box with 2 cold objects 13grms in weight at 12.0C and 12.7C in the box.
It is an established fact that a hotter object can warm quicker than a colder object so the one in the box may cool quicker. The Purpose of experiment is to demonstrate further that it insulation
After 0 minutes
Object out of box = 12.0C
Object in box = 12.7C
Difference = -.0.7C colder than outside
After 10 minutes
Object out of box 14.5C
Object in box = 14.9C
Difference = -0.5C
After 20 minutes
Object out of box = 17.3C
Object in box = 17,2C
Difference = +0.1C
After 30 minutes
Object out of box = 18.4C
Object in box = 18.1C
Difference = +0.3C
So there you have it A Foil Box also slows how much a cold object warms up, so it is insulating it from it’s surrounding, it did not add a single bit of back radiation to speed up the warming compared the one outside the box.
I agree AC; it is frustrating to carry on a dialogue with all the Thread hopping.
I have never said a cooler object can warm a warmer object. Without an independent power source, at best the cooler object would slow cooling of the warmer.
I have already done that experiment.
But no one on here wants to predict the result.
So I will tell you anyway the heated object at equilibrium exposed to a cold object, absolutely no warming at all, it instantly cooled at 0.4C/second.
A C — You request: “Please show me any reputable (ie non Climate Science) sites that say that the radiation from a cold object makes a warmer one warmer and please do not quote a “Thought Experiment”.”
You can check out any college textbook that explains radiative heat transfer, whether in physics or engineering. EVERY one shows this. For example, here is a link to MIT engineering professor Lienhard’s heat transfer textbook:
http://web.mit.edu/lienhard/www/ahttv211.pdf
Check out the very first explanation of radiation heat transfer in the introductory chapter (p 32). It states:
“Suppose that a heated object (1 in Fig. 1.16a) radiates only to some other object (2) and that both objects are thermally black. All heat leaving object 1 arrives at object 2, and all heat arriving at object 1 comes from object 2. Thus, the net heat transferred from object 1 to object 2, Qnet, is the difference between Q(1 to 2) = A1 eb(T1) and Q(2 to 1) = A1 eb(T2)…”
Note carefully that it describes the energy transfer as going both ways. Note in particular that it does not even say whether T1 is greater than T2 or less than T2.
There is a lot more detail in the chapter dedicated to radiative heat transfer, starting on page 529.
As I said, EVERY heat transfer textbook I have ever seen explains it in the same way, with bi-directional exchange of power. I have NEVER seen such a textbook claim that radiated energy from a colder object cannot be absorbed by a warmer object.
So I will turn the challenge around on you: Please show me any reputable sites that say that the radiation from a cold object cannot be absorbed by a warmer object, thereby increasing its energy level above what it would be without that radiative transfer.
A C Osborn asked, “Please show me any reputable (ie non Climate Science) sites that say that the radiation from a cold object makes a warmer one warmer…”
Ed Bo replied, “check out any college textbook that explains radiative heat transfer, whether in physics or engineering. EVERY one shows this. For example…”
It would be a lot more fun to perform the experiment which I suggested to Michael Moon:
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2017/11/24/can-a-cold-object-warm-a-hot-object/#comment-2677988
http://sealevel.info/man-and-woman-snuggling-under-blanket-BYAG9P_30pct.png
One of the other of you surely starts out a bit chillier than the other, yet when you snuggle up close to her you will both get warmer.
More experiments to come.
Stephen Wilde December 7, 2017 at 1:33 pm
Nope. And I called you on it before:
============
Stephen Wilde December 2, 2017 at 1:21 pm
Too painful to admit that a ten year old would know that energy loss delayed is temperature gained.
Stephen Wilde December 3, 2017 at 7:18 am
I gave you the accounting in the cheese ball analogy. You start with 10 balls but by manipulating timing on one occasion you end up with 15 in stock forever. I can see you never did stock control in retail.
Stephen Wilde December 3, 2017 at 7:27 am
You seem incapable of the mathematical agility required for retail stock control (multiple moving parts and variable timing) so no point engaging with you further since I’m sure other readers will get the idea.
Willis Eschenbach December 3, 2017 at 11:44 am
I do get the idea. You think that by accusing your opponent in the debate of stupidity, that you get to walk away without answering his question.
Paul Bahlin December 5, 2017 at 9:41 am
Stephen Wilde December 5, 2017 at 9:54 am
A good analogy for other features of your personality then?
Stephen Wilde December 5, 2017 at 1:42 am
Hope that is easier for those confused by the various more involved forms of words that I used previously in response to various objections.
Stephen Wilde December 5, 2017 at 12:27 pm
This is all pretty basic science and I’m increasingly surprised at how little you know.
==================
Clearly, we are all just too stupid to appreciate the true brilliance and insight of your claims …
w.
Willis, yes and after 8-10 years of Stephen attempting to get his comments generally accepted. If Stephen’s meteorological points were valid and backed by experiment & observation, consistent with the bulk of the foundational science work in the field, his efforts would have been fruitful LONG ago.
Then there is a disconnect between our opinions as to what constitutes insults. I saw my asides as pitched at a level similar to what was directed at me.
I’ll avoid any such asides in future but maybe others should do the same.
I agree that there is no point going further into the science points given that you won’t say how you think the energy used to form an atmosphere could have been dissipated away when the atmosphere is still present.
Nor will you accept that heat removed in ascent can cause a temperature rise when it is returned at a later date in descent whilst insolation continues throughout.
Neither your ‘proof’ nor that of Robert Brown considers adiabatic heating and cooling with its consequent delay in energy throughput at all.
Will contribute further in future threads (without any asides) if permitted to do so because many others see what I see and there should be some representation of that fact on this site.
Best wishes.
Stephen Wilde December 8, 2017 at 5:51 am:
Stephen, I distinctly remember Willis answering that question in a previous comment, but I don’t have time to search through 1800-odd comments right now to locate it for you. So I’ll just repeat it again here and now as it’s a really short and succinct answer. It is: Radiation.
This is the standard answer that you will also get from any conventional physical scientist, any competent geophysics textbook and any decent encyclopedia under “History of the earth” or the like. Disagree with it by all means if you want to, but you cannot expect others to join you in disagreeing with it unless you give them good reason to do that. And as far as I can see, you still haven’t given one.
I don’t accept that either, since heat removed from the surface by upward convection does not normally come back down again in the descending phase of the cycle. Normal convection cycles are net-transporters of heat from lower altitudes, where the air is warmer, to higher ones, where the air is cooler. I’ll grant that there might be occasional exceptions to this rule, mysterious nature being what she is, but in the main this is what standard meteorology says happens. Thus, their overall effect on the global surface is apparently to cool it, not to warm it or to re-deposit heat in it that they have previously extracted from it. I am surprised that someone who says he has been studying meteorology for sixty years should appear to be unaware of this.
I suspect that is because they would not need to consider it since convective overturning is not adiabatic. On the contrary, it is precisely the heat-input at the bottom of the cycle and the heat-output at the top that drives the cycle.
“In thermodynamics, an adiabatic process is one that occurs without transfer of heat or matter between a thermodynamic system and its surroundings. In an adiabatic process, energy is transferred to its surroundings only as work.” as Wikipedia aptly puts it.
Sorry, but I don’t see how you can get any surface temperature enhancement out of this process, with or without a time delay.
Cassio,
I had hoped to move on but since your post contains an insult I feel obliged to politely respond:
i) Willis did answer ‘radiation’ but the outstanding question is as to why the atmosphere has not collapsed to the ground. Can you help on that?
ii) Willis accepts that an adiabatic process is fully reversible. Heat at the surface that becomes PE higher up cannot radiate to space. Can you suggest how it would fail to return as heat in the descent?
iii) It is true that where an atmosphere contains radiative material there is some leakage of radiative energy out of the adiabatic cycle but most is recovered in the descent otherwise there would be no adiabatic warming in descent but there clearly is, at a rate that exactly matches the cooling in ascent if one disregards the effect of water vapour which is a separate issue. If you have some meteorological knowledge to the contrary please produce it.
iv)The radiative theory relies on a time delay to cause surface warming. Why would it be any different for a non adiabatic process especially when the latter is far slower than the former? Willis and Robert should reconsider their works accordingly.
Stephen: to your question.
“Willis did answer ‘radiation’ but the outstanding question is as to why the atmosphere has not collapsed to the ground. Can you help on that?”
We are still talking about an adiabaticc system of transparent gas, so no energy exchange except surface boundary via conduction, right.
So imagine a cold column with no convection. The warm surface passes energy to the gas. It expands and accepts energy until the surface equilibrates. At that point, the energy exchange stops forever. The potential energy is established forever. The ke is zero forever. That pe is no longer energy.
It takes no energy to .maintain this state forever.
So how did you get that cold column off the ground in the first place?
Go read it.
Energy goes in. One time. Never comes out.
You need 4 blocks of energy.
First, conduction from incoming solar hitting the surface to the rising column to get it into place.
Second, refresh the energy in the rising column as the falling leg completes.
Third, conduction back to the ground so that radiative balance with space is maintained.
Fourth, refresh the energy in the rising column for the second cycle from more incoming solar simultaneously with number 3.
Then you have the two separate energy loops in balance and surplus KE at the surface keeping the ‘motor’ running. KE is most definitely not zero because the air at the surface is all KE and no PE with a lapse rate slope marking the steady transition of KE to PE with height.
Refer back to my stock control analogy.
The energy for the first column cannot leave until you return the entire mass of the atmosphere to the surface. One needs to cut off the conduction in step 1 (sun stops shining) for the same time interval as one cycle and that causes the columns to collapse. That seems to be the issue that Willis and you have a problem with.
Your mistake is that PE is energy but not heat and the exchange between KE and PE is constant but in balance. I’m not sure what Willis’s problem is because he hasn’t said.
Yes PE is energy. But It’s not flux. It’s not flowing. You can’t use it in an accounting of flux values moving in and out of a system or subsystem
First, we are
First, we are not talking about blocks. We are talking about flows.
Your four flows are:
An initial flow of energy into the atmosphere during formation by conduction. This will continue, unbalanced, until the atmosphere is formed. At this point it has a mass, a center of gravity, a PE, and a lower boundary temperature equal to the surface temperature (integrated over reasonable time).
At this point conduction stops. Absent something gross happening, that’s the fourth flow, (when the sun winks out). You won’t see that energy ever again as a flow(), right. That energy can no longer cross that equilibrated boundary by conduction so it takes no energy, forever, to keep it there. Remember, by your own definition it has no other way to gain or lose.
Now while all that gas is in place, it has ke-pe exchanges, driven by surface conduction where there are localized imbalances in temperature, that exactly balance. That is flows 2 and three.
These are occurring with individual portions or parcels of the gas, not the entire mass. You have to think of system states over temporal range. If i take that range as time 0 to time infinity, then that initial flow is relevant and included. If i take the temporal range as, say +- thousand years it is irrelevant and not included.
There is nothing in Newtonian physics that says mass is a function of where its parts are.
I think you are trying to make a flow from time 0 PE and that is the energy you are using to maintain the surface temp at 288k.
You can’t. The atmosphere (entire mass) is not participating in ke-pe exchange, parts are.
Well a flow of energy between two points over a specified period of time can be legitimately regarded as a discrete ‘block’ of energy.
Anyway, you’ve confirmed what I was suspecting about your view of the formation of an atmosphere.
You have this mental picture of the entire atmosphere rising off the ground evenly around the globe until it reaches maximum height at which point it settles into a static condition with no top to bottom convection.
Even then maximum KE would be at the base and maximum PE at the top and the KE at the base would still have to be added to the KE from continuing insolation so even then you can’t get a surface at S-B.
It is that ‘extra’ KE at the surface which supplies the upward pressure gradient force which offsets the downward force of gravity whilst radiation in from space equals radiation out to space.
In reality, a planet is unevenly heated with a dark side and an illuminated side so that there is always a preferred hotter location for the beginning of the process. You will always start with discrete rising columns and they will fall again in discrete descending columns. No way to avoid it even with no GHGs so convection can never stop and you permanently have convective overturning converting KE to PE and PE to KE.
PE is simply former kinetic energy with the potential to become KE again when it is compressed once more.
All the jumbled up events within the atmosphere are just the interplay of irregularities in the PE / KE balance along the lapse rate slope caused by gravity having created a density gradient.
If you could adjust your mental picture then maybe you can start to see it?
Before the atmosphere there is indeed 0 PE.
After the atmosphere has formed there is a permanent store of PE which is proportionate to the weight of atmospheric mass and that weight is dependent on both the amount of mass and the power of the gravitational field.
Look, Cassio, why be so quick to reject Stephen’s idea? You guys are going to need SOMETHING to explain the remainder of the total atmospheric thermal enhancement, beyond the ~33 K Cassio has agreed is the maximum the radiative GHE can be producing. You can still hang on to your “back radiation heating” nonsense for the time being, if you like, but it only gets you so far. As Ed Bo agrees, whatever the true ATE value is for Earth, it MUST be greater than ~33 K.
Cassio’s agreement:
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2017/11/24/can-a-cold-object-warm-a-hot-object/comment-page-1/#comment-2687269
Ed Bo’s agreement:
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2017/11/24/can-a-cold-object-warm-a-hot-object/comment-page-1/#comment-2680092
No Tony, you have a complete inability to comprehend the simplest of arguments.
I “agreed” that the GHE “is more” than 33K (that is, the average surface temperature of the earth is more than 33K higher than an alternate imaginary earth without it.
That is completely different from — and in fact, pretty much the opposite of — agreeeing that it “cannot” be greater than 33K.
I pointed out that the argument that it cannot be greater than 33K was based on the same erroneous analysis that your heroes N&Z based their paper on.
When will you have anything constructive and honest to contribute to the discussion?
Pretending not to understand is not going to work at this stage, Ed. Sorry.
“I pointed out that the argument that it cannot be greater than 33K was based on the same erroneous analysis that your heroes N&Z based their paper on.“
Plus, you might want to click on the link under “Cassio’s agreement”, read that comment and the preceding discussion, then if you have any questions, take it up with Cassio.
“ii) Willis accepts that an adiabatic process is fully reversible. Heat at the surface that becomes PE higher up cannot radiate to space. Can you suggest how it would fail to return as heat in the descent?”
It would fail to return as heat in the descent because no real process is fully reversible. There are always losses in any real process thus the 33K cannot be held in place over time by the process Stephen describes.
“There are no “losses” in either of these processes.”
And yet universe entropy increased during the process (as this is a real process as noted) thus somewhere there was a loss which is easy to explain. Perhaps Rob can cite a source for his assertion explaining evidence for no loss but I doubt it.
Another Experiment, I only had time for one today.
This time with a heated object at equilibrium, an object at ambient and an object slightly warmer than ambient, this target object partially obscures an inside wall 0.2 above ambient Air when in place.
The air space between the heated object and the target objects, is swept by a low power fan to help prevent heated air affecting the results as I cannot make a vacuum of my room. But the airflow is masked from the target.
Starting position with fan on and heated object at equilibrium
Ambient Air Temperature = 17.6C Ambient Wall Temperature 17.8C
Temperature of heated object = 36.7C on Probe T1 now known as T1
Temperature of target object = 17.6C on Probe T2 now known as T2
After 10 minutes
T2 = 18.3C
T1 = 33.4C = 3.3C lower than start point
After 15 minutes
T2 = 18.3C
T1 = 33.2C = 3.5C lower than start point
After 20 minutes
T2 = 18.3C
T1 = 33.2C = 3.5C lower than start point
So that looks like Equilibrium, unfortunately the heat transfer to the target (T2) is rather low, but it still caused a 3.5C drop in the heated object (T1) by it’s presence, note it is Cooler, NOT hotter.
The original object (T2) is now warmed from the opposite side to T1 to try and generate that elusive Extra warming.
After 10 minutes
T2 = 22.2C A rise of 3.9C
T1 = 33.4C so a Massive rise of 0.1C even though the T2 is much warmer
After 20 minutes
T2 = 22.3C A rise of 3.9C
T1 = 33.1C the original gain has now been lost but Ambient is now at 17.4C, which is probably the cause.
Still no magic photons from a colder place making a hotter object even hotter.
I will keep trying to find them though, I haven’t given up yet.
Has anyone got any ideas for a simple experiment that I can do at home to find them?
Sorry T2 = 22.3C A rise of 3.9C should be
T2 = 22.3C A rise of 4.0C
OK, 2 Experiments to go.
One to test the theory that a mirror will increase the temperature of heated or non heated object.
The second is to get as close to the steel greenhouse as possible with what I can make, it will consist of
1. A ball, with most of the air extracted and resealed
2. A light bulb suspended in the ball with temperature transducer attached.
3. A second temperature transducer attached to the outside.
4. Either a fridge it ice to surround the ball.
Anyone prepared to offer what results I will get?
Great idea, AC.
First suspend the light bulb (the surface of the bulb is the iron sphere) by itself surrounded by your ice container. No ice can face the bulb directly (phase changes, you know). Let the system reach equilibrium. I guess you can replace melted ice in the surround-container to maintain a constant-temperature heat sink.
The interior of the surround-container must be maintained at a constant temperature at all times. No cheating.
Measure the temperature of the surface of the light bulb.
Then introduce the ball (iron shell), completely surrounding the light bulb and re-surround the whole shebang with the ice-filled surround-container. The interior of the surround-container must maintain the same exact constant temperature as described above.
The surface of the light bulb will heat up. If not, you have performed an Al Gore/Bill Nye level experiment.
You’re right, of course. But CO2 is such a strong absorber/emitter at 667 cm^-1 that it absorbs essentially 100% within tens of metres from the Earth’s surface. By Kirchhoff’s Law that a good absorber is a good emitter, it then radiates in both the forward and backward directions. Therefore your model of using a reflector which sends radiation only backward is not relevant. For Conservation of Total Energy, the back-radiation from CO2 must be powered by an equal amount of emission from the Earth’s surface, resulting in zero net warming of the surface (there is negligible 667 cm^-1 radiation from the Sun itself to be absorbed by CO2). The forward radiation from the CO2 in the atmosphere is that portion of other photons emitted from the surface that is not net absorbed by CO2 and transferred via inelastic collisions to the non-radiating N2, O2 and Ar of the troposphere. What then powers warming of the Earth’s surface? The incoming Solar visible and UV radiation that reaches the surface, which is strong enough to warm the Moon’s surface well above 40 Celsius in the daytime.
At no stage have the affirmatuve team in this post come to grips with the solar system empirical data. If this is a test, there has been, also, failure at the poster’s (WE) end re respect of contrary ideas, data, and persons. As if this was a warmunista blog.
Unvalidated models have failed. Allowing for real honest margins of error, no warming has happened during two decades of CO2 increase. What are we left with? Thought experiments here, also unverifiable. Jumping Jehasophat, Doc!
And if the steel shell was instead steel gas, it would behave as a gas, by gaseous equations of state. By physical Laws, cause and effect, which govern such to act differently from all solids . As a whole in spite of any trace gases including CO2. But remove gravity and the game changes……
A C Osborn December 8, 2017 at 3:25 pm
Thanks, A C, but as far as I know neither I nor anyone else has said that cold things can make hot things even hotter by radiation alone.
I have said that if you have an object at steady-state in a given environment, it will get warmer if you replace a cold object in its view field with a warm object. HOWEVER, the assumption of a steady-state pre-supposes a constant energy supply to the object. It is the constant energy supply which is making the object hotter, not the decreased net heat loss due to the change in the environment.
When you decrease the energy loss of an object receiving a steady flow of energy, it will warm up. Put mirrors on all sides of an electric light bulb, for example. Or put a blanket around an electric light bulb. The blanket or the mirrors are COOLER than the light bulb. But if you put them around the light bulb it gets WARMER.
Now, it appears that because the mirrors or the blanket are cooler than the light bulb, your claim is that the light bulb WILL NOT GET WARMER.
Me, I can do that experiment in my head and have 100% certainty about what will happen … the bulb will get warmer.
Heck, put a light bulb inside a thermos bottle and see what happens …
Think about it. You and others are seriously claiming that if you put a light bulb into a thermos and evacuate the air so all heat transmission is by radiation, the light bulb will NOT get warmer simply because the thermos is cooler than the light bulb …
Now, if you have to do experiments to verify that, I’d suggest you take a small incandescent light bulb, tape a thermistor to it, stick it in a thermos bottle, pump out the air, and see what happens … for me, the thought experiment plus the equations I gave in the head post are sufficient, but YMMV.
w.
PS—you say:
A C Osborn December 9, 2017 at 3:39 am
In that case, you should have no problem interpreting the equations that I gave at the end of the head post … and yet you and many others keep either denying them or ignoring them. And if you’ve forgotten how to do the equations, I included an online calculator to allow you to skip the calculations and go straight to the answer … let me suggest that you look at both, as they agree with me, Ed Bo, and many others here on this thread.
A C:
You may want to ponder why the agencies that build spacecraft and use large vacuum chambers to test them before launch provide the capability for supercooling the walls of the vacuum chambers.
They commonly use liquid nitrogen to cool “shrouds” inside the structural walls of the chamber. Nitrogen boils at about 70K, so this keeps the walls below 100K. 100K is 1/3 the temperature of typical ambient of about 300K, so the radiative flux density is 1/81.
When they really want to test deep space environment, they add supercooled helium shrouds inside the nitrogen shrouds to get down to temperatures of about 20 – 30K. With 30K at 1/10 of 300K, the radiative flux density is 1/10000. The sensor electronics of the Webb space telescope just went through several months of testing in this environment. They did this because they want these electronics to operate at about 30K in actual operation.
This supercooling of vacuum chamber walls costs untold millions of dollars. It is done to minimize the “back radiation” from the walls of the chamber (which would be about 400 W/m2 at typical surface ambient temperatures).
By your logic, these agencies are wasting their money, because there is no way the walls, even at 300K, could serve to increase the temperature of the electronics (which have their own power supply).
Do you really think they are wasting their (our) money??? Have you written them to complain about this incredible waste of taxpayer money?