How Heat Debunked Climate Pseudoscience and its Greenhouse Effect
No Heat Trap: CO2 does not trap heat. In fact nothing traps heat and that entire concept which comes from climate alarmism is false. Here is the definition of heat:
“Heat is defined as the form of energy that is transferred across a boundary by virtue of a temperature difference or temperature gradient. Implied in this definition is the very important fact that a body never contains heat, but that heat is identified as heat only as it crosses the boundary. Thus, heat is a transient phenomenon. If we consider the hot block of copper as a system and the cold water in the beaker as another system, we recognize that originally neither system contains any heat (they do contain energy, of course.) When the copper is placed in the water and the two are in thermal communication, heat is transferred from the copper to the water, until equilibrium of temperature is established. At that point we no longer have heat transfer, since there is no temperature difference. Neither of the systems contains any heat at the conclusion of the process. It also follows that heat is identified at the boundaries of the system, for heat is defined as energy being transferred across the system boundary.”
from G. J. V. Wylen, Thermodynamics
So, heat is a transient phenomenon and only exists when transferring from something warmer to something cooler. Heat is also a local phenomenon specific to and existing between two specific objects.
The atmosphere is cooler than the surface and decreases in temperature further with altitude. Thus, heat flows away from the warmer surface to the cooler atmosphere. Heat can’t be “trapped” at the warmer surface by the cooler atmosphere because heat spontaneously flows from hot to cold, and this can’t be stopped.
If we look at the equation for radiant heat flow between the surface and atmosphere, we have:
Q’ = σTsurf4 – σTatmo4
And so, if the atmosphere warms up to be closer to the warmer surface temperature, then the surface actually contains LESS heat.
Read that again: If the atmosphere warms up, then the surface contains LESS heat.
That’s straight from the equation for heat flow: if the cooler term becomes closer in temperature to the warmer term, then the warmer object contains less heat to send to the cooler term.
If the atmosphere warmed up to be identical in temperature to that of the surface, then the surface would actually contain Q’ = 0 (that’s zero!) heat.
This all goes to the fact that climate pseudoscience and its greenhouse effect use improper and even inverted definitions of physical quantities from the physical sciences. By inventing the false idea that “heat can be trapped” (it can’t, according to definition), it then goes on to say that the cooler atmosphere causes the warmer surface to trap more heat, whereas the actual mathematical and empirical definition states that a warming atmosphere results in the warmer surface having less heat!
It is for the very fact that heat reduces when two objects becomes closer in temperature that thermal equilibrium can be reached at all…asymptotically. If the heat from the warmer object stayed the same, or rose, when the warmer object heated the cooler object, then this would lead to unbounded self-reinforcing temperature increase which would never reach thermal equilibrium. Heat has to go to zero, it has to decrease, when the cooler object warms up, or else this universe could never have existed. It is impossible for heat to stay constant.
Purpose
Guys, this is just the simplest thermodynamics, and also the simplest way to sophize science by inverting terms and definitions that otherwise unwary people won’t be aware of and won’t be able to detect.
I said a long time ago that this is all about creating a simulacrum of merit in order to take over (eventually global) government policy regarding everything from the economy to personal rights and freedoms, and of course the carbon credit was going to be the new currency for this global hijack of the human race. It was the Chicken Little Strategy to global domination.
Just look at what the idiots are doing up in Canada – they actually have a position in government called “Minister of Climate Change“:
Catherine McKenna practiced competition and international trade law in Canada and Indonesia and was senior negotiator with the United Nations Peacekeeping Mission in East Timor. She also served as senior advisor on the former Chief Justice Antonio Lamer’s review of Canada’s military justice system. Catherine co-founded Canadian Lawyers Abroad, a charitable organization that works in developing countries and with Indigenous communities in Canada. She served as Executive Director of the Banff Forum, a public policy organization for young leaders. Catherine taught at the Munk School of Global Affairs. Catherine and her husband live in Ottawa with their three children. Catherine was elected on October 19, 2015 and was appointed Minister of Environment and Climate Change on November 4, 2015.
So in other words, this person has no real-world experience at all. She has no science training or experience, no mathematics training or experience, no experience in actually running a business, no experience creating jobs or managing a company or employees, etc. All she does is “policy”. How cute. Who’s policy? How can a person uneducated in the sciences and mathematics be competent to assess recommendations from so-called science advisers? How can you vet your science advisers and what they tell you if you have no idea what they’re telling you, and you merely “trust” them?
And so isn’t it perfectly fitting that such an unmeritorious person becomes thegovernment Minister of Climate Change.
Heat is Not a Conserved Quantity
If we go back to the radiant heat equation:
Q’ = σTsurf4 – σTatmo4
and noting everything we did about it above, the single response we always get from the climate pseudoscientist alarmists and their clandestine supporters is that
“Q’ is a constant because it is the heat/energy from the Sun, and so if Tatmoincrease then Tsurf has to as well, in order that Q’ stay constant. That’s the greenhouse effect.”
We already covered this above but it bears going over again because it is the response that you will always get to an explanation of what heat is and what the heat equation means.
Again, in that quote (and we’ve had it from any number of the usual characters multiple times…Monckton, Spencer, Watts, Brown, etc.), they are simply inverting and redefining heat. In fact they are simply completely trashing and obfuscating the entire concept and definition of heat, just totally sophizing it, so that they can make that statement they do and pretend that the definition which was just provided to them doesn’t have an effect. It’s just complete and total ignorant sophistry. Again:
Firstly, Q’ (heat) is not a constant, but is a transient, local term, specific exclusively to the two objects which make up the two terms on the right hand side of the heat equation. It is not a constant, and in fact becomes smaller, not larger, when the two objects become closer in temperature.
Secondly, the heat Q’ between the surface and atmosphere is not the heat or energy coming from the Sun. The heat Q’ between the surface and atmosphere is the heat Q’ between the surface and atmosphere. That’s it. It has nothing whatsoever to do with defining or representing anything from the Sun at all.
Their statement amounts to saying that the heat coming from the Sun can be measured by the difference in temperatures between Earth’s surface and atmosphere. Does that make sense to you? That the heat from the sun is given by the difference in temperature between Earth’s surface and Earth’s atmosphere? If you feel that something is wrong with that concept, then congratulations you at least have enough intuition, if not the science training, to count as a rational human being.
The heat from the Sun to the Earth, following the definition of heat, is given by the difference in radiant energy between the Sun & Earth:
Q’ = σTSun4 – σTEarth4
Now that makes sense. Of course the heat from the Sun to the Earth is given by a function of the difference between the solar and terrestrial temperatures. Of course that’s what is, and that’s all it is.
And in fact, in thermal equilibrium, the heat Q’ between the Sun and the Earth is zero! So that again completely debunks their sophistic statement above: the heat from the Sun isn’t a conserved finite constant, but is zero, and is not given by the difference between the Earth’s surface and atmospheric temperatures, because that’s not zero!
It’s just amazing what they’re getting away with. And just think…they’re getting away witha lot more and a lot simpler of things than this.
With the heat Q’ from the Sun to the Earth generally being zero assuming long-term thermal equilibrium, and noting that the radiant energy from the Earth is composed of components originating from the ground surface and the atmosphere, then we have:
σTSun4 = σTEarth_Surf4 + σTEarth_Atmo4.
Now, there is actually a conserved quantity here but it isn’t the one the climate pseudoscientist alarmists and their clandestine supporters have been able to identify, or which they obfuscate and ignore. Anyone know what is a big giant constant that travels around the sky? Anyone? The Sun? Yes, the radiant energy from the sun is a constant, and that is the term on the left hand side.
Note that the radiant energy from the Sun is not the same thing as the heat Q’ from the Sun to the Earth!
What we have now in the last equation is a true conservation equation under thermal equilibrium conditions, and now the way that this conservation equation works is that if the atmosphere warms up, and therefore emits more energy, then the surface will have to emit less energy, and that means that it has to cool down, in order to conserve the energycoming from the Sun.
I mean there you have it folks. The only way to make this simpler is to ask you to think about standing in the full sunshine in the autumn: The warmth you feel is from the Sun, and the cold crisp atmosphere you feel is making you cold, not hotter.
There is no climate science greenhouse effect.
Read more at climateofsophistry.com
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