How the Atmosphere is a protective layer that keeps us cool!
Hey fellers, I must have given the wrong impression. One of my critics on Facebook, one of those who are forever trying to trash my articles, has pointed to the temperatures on the Moon, which to all intents and purposes has no atmosphere. He made a very important point. I cannot find his article right now, but it is clear that Moon temperatures vary between +200ºC and –200ºC.
I guess that those are very convenient numbers as the average Lunar Mean Temperature must be zero! I only put this in, in order to demonstrate just how useless is our own Global Mean Temperature. An average simply does not show the extremes, and it is the extremes that matter. Say you were in the Sahara, dying of thirst and heat, would you be happy to know that the Global Mean temperature is 14ºC? (I have just looked it up.) Or if you were in Mongolia, where the temperatures have dropped well below zero C. and you were literally freezing to death, what comfort would the knowledge of a Global Mean Average be to you?
Nevertheless my critic had a point. While I had shown that the atmosphere was full of NOTHING, that is full of holes, since the distance between molecules increases with altitude, I did not mean to imply that the atmosphere was not and is not a ‘protective layer’. As we can see the Moon has extremes, such extremes of temperature as would be impossible for us humans to live in. So yes, the atmosphere is indeed a protective layer, without which we would be miles too hot in the day and miles too cold at night. Far from the atmosphere keeping us warm or too warm, as the Warmists claim, precisely the opposite is the truth. The atmosphere keeps us cool, and regulates the way heat dissipates.
That guy on Facebook had got it right. Without our atmosphere we would be suffering 200ºC in the day and freezing to death come night. The atmosphere scatters the incoming radiation and this is principally done by frozen water vapour – commonly called clouds. It is interesting that the IPCC do not do clouds.
So the Greenhouse gases keep us cool by scattering the incoming radiation from the Sun and also keep us warmer by inhibiting the exit of heat. That is by slowing down the exit of heat. For we are already agreed, are we not, that it is totally impossible to trap heat – it is only possible to slow down its exit. There is no such entity as a heat-trapping gas. That would be a nonsense. A molecule of Carbon Dioxide may absorb outgoing infrared, but it does not stick there, does it? If it did it would be useless. No, it radiates the heat away and thereby cools.
Anyone with a minimum knowledge of meteorology, who follows the Weather forecasts, will see what I mean. Here, once again, one does not need to be a Professor in a secure ‘Ivory Tower’, but any common or garden plumber or farmer will have observed the effect of clouds and of water vapour.
The ‘Greenhouse gases’ keep us both cool and warm, but in no way do they contribute to Anthropogenic Global Warming – that is a myth.
Only a few years ago ‘scientists’ were alarmed about a coming Ice Age. Sure! Then some of these same scientists jumped on the bandwagon of Man-Made Global Warming. What a money-spinner that has turned out to be, once politicians latched on to the idea! Massive subsidies have gone to support Green energy. Huge distortions occurred in the market places as humans were urged to desert petrol or gasoline in motor vehicles and change to diesel. And all this was done in the name of protecting the ‘environment’. Now it turns out that diesel with its ‘particulate matter’ is especially unhealthy and harmful to the environment. It makes you sick, doesn’t it?
In addition vast areas of arable land are covered with Solar Panels, but only because the owners are offered huge Government subsidies. The same goes for Wind Turbines, which are monumentally inefficient, only operating between certain wind speeds, but supported by Government subsidies again. These hideous monsters are anti-environment, cruelly trashing beauty spots for the sake of a handful of silver. So landed gentry become even richer on the back of the ordinary folk, who are supporting them through their taxes.
The third world has latched on to coal, as it is still the cheapest fuel with which to make electricity, but some suffer from air pollution. What is this pollution? It is particulate matter. Much more needs to be done to scrub smoke and make more ‘smokeless fuels’ which luckily will have and do have more Carbon Dioxide. Why luckily? Because even the Warmists have at last come round to acknowledging the fact that Carbon Dioxide is a food for green plants and aids photosynthesis – and provides oxygen for animals – human animals too!
The Warmists constantly tell pictorial lies, so that the unwary are lead to believe that CO2 is the same as smoke (see image). They have been peddling this lie for years. Carbon Dioxide is a clear transparent gas – how many times must I repeat this?
Ignorance abounds – ignorance is everywhere, yet ignorance flaunts itself. Ignorance proposes to Save the Planet, by reducing emissions of Carbon Dioxide, which I am told has a sort of ‘residential hotel’ in the atmosphere. How many dumb clucks are there, seriously maintaining that Carbon Dioxide is causing the Globe to get too hot, when without Carbon Dioxide we would not have a Green Planet and then no oxygen to breathe!
Before our scientists began messing about and trying to scare mankind witless over a supposed man-made Global warming, everybody knew and acknowledged Great Nature. For Great Nature allows mankind to live upon this wonderful Planet and has invented its own illustrious measures in order to make Planet Earth liveable. If a human being gets too hot for comfort what does he do? He sweats. What does the sweat do? It evaporates – it turns into vapour. This evaporation causes cooling.
Likewise when Planet Earth gets too hot the surfaces of the oceans, lakes and rivers evaporate. As the seas evaporate so also clouds of Carbon Dioxide rise up into the atmosphere ( water cycle – see image). This is the way that Planet Earth has of cooling itself, before mankind began examining the atmosphere from the bottom up and not from the top down at the same time. The atmosphere is self-regulating on a massive scale, long before mankind decided in its supreme ignorance to make Carbon Dioxide a scapegoat for a warming that is in many ways highly desirable. Would we really prefer another Ice Age?
It is only about 180 years that fairly reliable records of temperature began. In that time we have been emerging from the Little Ice Age, which is a well-known historical fact. In all those years it is claimed that the Earth has warmed some 0.8ºCentigrade, if that. Is that a cause for alarm? No! It is a cause for rejoicing. The only people who are not too happy are those on Government grants, or grants from UNO. They hate anybody who questions man-made Global Warming since their jobs might go up in smoke! It is called the ‘gravy train’.
Every year now the Met Office trumpets that this last year was the warmest on record. Do they ever watch the news?
Snow on Greek and Italian beaches – Greek islands declare state of emergency after record snowfall – Record snowfall on Prince Edward Island – Rewriting History in Slovakia – coldest night ever – Severe cold up north – winter storm in Quebec –Perth, Australia coldest winter in 20 years
Of course, it is so easy to tweak the data, when you are making averages. Simply cut out the weather stations at altitude or in cold regions. Even if we were to believe the averages, which are based on anomalies, are we really to believe that a warming of less than 1 degree Celsius in 180 years is a danger for mankind? No – the only danger is the hysteria of the Warmists and the gullibility of their acolytes.
Trackback from your site.