The Atmosphere Is Not A Glass Greenhouse
The design of Curt Wilson’s experiment–a little glass greenhouse over top of a heat source–perpetuates the idea that the thermodynamics of a gaseous atmosphere tens of km thick can be modeled using a glass dome (as do all of the mathematical models that portray the atmosphere as a sheet of glass suspended some distance above the surface.) What one cannot learn about the thermodynamics of the 11,000 meter thick gaseous troposphere by studying a solid piece of glass is one of the fundamental elements of the first law of thermodynamics.
Unlike a solid piece of glass, air is compressible, therefore “work” can be done on air which will raise its temperature and “work” is done on every kg of air that is pulled down from aloft to replace air that is ascending, expanding and cooling. These two processes are symmetrical; one cannot exist without the other. Ascending air cannot expand and cool unless there is an equal amount of air somewhere else descending, being compressed and warming. The equilibrium temperature of the “Standard Troposphere” is actually about -20.6 C and can be found at an altitude of ~5.5 km. The temperature of the tropospheric air above this altitude is lower by the same amount ( about 35 C) as the temperature of the tropospheric air below that altitude is higher due to the energy imbalance created by this “adiabatic process.” Remember that the “adiabatic process” does not create nor destroy energy but rather just moves it from one place to another.
So, in reality there exists within the atmosphere opposing movements of heat–four are spontaneous and one is active. The spontaneous heat transfer modes of conduction, convection, latent heat transfer and radiation that are all moving heat from the “hot source” of the ground and lower troposphere upward towards the “cold sink” of the upper troposphere. At the same time the adiabatic process (the active mode of heat transfer) through the vehicle of “work” is moving heat from the the “cold sink” of the upper troposphere down to the “hot source” of the ground and lower troposphere. This is in line with the “Clausius Statement” “Heat can never pass from a colder to a warmer body without some other change, connected therewith, occurring at the same time.” Of course the “other change” is the uneven solar heating of the surface and surface level air, which acts like the early refrigerators that were driven by a propane burner that cycled on and off. At any rate the result of this tug-of-war between the one active mode and the four passive modes of heat transfer is that the dry adiabatic lapse rate of 9.8 C/km is reduced to an average of 6.5 C/km.
The “greenhouse effect” hypothesis denies the fact that the lower troposphere is actively being heated by the “work” being done on descending air by ascending air and instead insists that the ground and lower troposphere are actively being heated by “back radiation” from “greenhouse gases”. For example James Hansen in his 1981 paper – Climate Impact of increasing Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide referred to the “adiabatic lapse rate” as a “radiative vertical temperature gradient” as opposed to a “work” induced vertical temperature gradient. The difference may seem subtle but the former violates the second law of thermodynamics while the latter does not. IR radiation cannot spontaneously create a temperature differential within a body of matter, such as the troposphere, “through warming the lower atmosphere and cooling the upper atmosphere.” (Spencer 2013) This would mean that the same trace gases are having opposite affects at different places within the same atmosphere. In reality, it is the adiabatic process, via the “work” done by ascending air on descending air, that warms the lower troposphere and cools the upper troposphere just as is taught in basic climatology courses.
“The most common atmospheric adiabatic phenomena are those involving the change of air temperature due to change of pressure. If an air mass has its pressure decreased, it will expand and do mechanical work on the surrounding air . . . the energy required to do work is taken from the heat energy of the air mass, resulting in a temperature decrease. When pressure is increased, the work done on the air mass appears as heat, causing its temperature to rise. The rates of adiabatic heating and cooling in the atmosphere are described as lapse rates and are expressed as the change of temperature with height. The adiabatic lapse rate for dry air is very nearly 1 °C per 100 m.
“Large-scale atmospheric motions are approximately adiabatic.” —Fairbridge, Rhodes, w., Columbia University, The Encyclopedia of Climatology, Van Nostrand Reinhold Co, New York 1987
The result of attempting to redefine the warming of descending air by the “work” done on it by its surroundings a “greenhouse effect” is a “consensus” (a general agreement) that “greenhouse gases” can make heat flow spontaneously from a cold sink to a hot source, such as the one found in the conclusion of Wilson’s experiment, “radiation from a cooler object can increase the temperature of a warmer object.”
or this statement from wikipedia:
“The greenhouse effect is a process by which thermal radiation from a planetary surface is absorbed by atmospheric greenhouse gases, and is re-radiated in all directions. Since part of this re-radiation is back towards the surface and the lower atmosphere, it results in an elevation of the average surface temperature above what it would be in the absence of the gases.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_effect
or this statement from North Carolina State University:
As the longwave radiation goes up into the atmosphere, it is absorbed by the greenhouse gases. The greenhouse gases then emit their radiation, which will often keep being absorbed and emitted by various surfaces, even other greenhouse gases, until it eventually leaves the atmosphere. Since some of the re-emitted radiation goes back towards the surface of the earth, it warms up more than it would if no greenhouse gases were present.” http://www.nc-climate.ncsu.edu/edu/k12/.greenhouseeffect
or this statement from Columbia University:
“Greenhouse Gases . . . are very good at absorbing and re-emitting infrared radiation. They intercept the IR radiation from the ground and reflect some of the energy back to the ground, warming it up more than would occur otherwise.” http://eesc.columbia.edu/courses/v1003/lectures/greenhouse_gas/
or this from NASA:
“Because greenhouse gas molecules radiate heat in all directions, some of it spreads downward and ultimately comes back into contact with the Earth’s surface, where it is absorbed. The temperature of the surface becomes warmer than it would be if it were heated only by direct solar heating. This supplemental heating of the Earth’s surface by the atmosphere is the natural greenhouse effect.” http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/EnergyBalance/page6.php
or this statement from the New World Encyclopedia:
“The greenhouse effect is the process in which long wave radiation (infrared) emitted by the earth surface is absorbed by atmospheric gases only to cause further emission of infrared radiation back to the earth, warming its surface.” http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Greenhouse_effect
What all of these statements have in common is the assertion that the “greenhouse effect” is more than just an inhibition in cooling but rather an active warming of the ground and lower atmosphere. This is demonstrated within the mathematical constructs that presume to quantify the “greenhouse effect”, because these equations simply sum counter radiation from the atmosphere with solar input as though atmospheric IR radiation is an independent source of heat. A Google search of “back radiation warms the ground” returns 6,310,000 hits and many of them are from institutions of higher learning, science organizations and government sponsored research facilities. Not one of the definitions of the “greenhouse effect” that I perused mentioned that descending air is warmed by the work done on it by its surroundings. Rather they all just assumed that this warming was being done by back radiation from “greenhouse gases.” To add an air of sophistication to this fallacy some scientists now call the “greenhouse effect” hypothesis “radiative forcing” and insist that water vapor itself is responsible for at least 22 C of “radiative forcing”. Unfortunately for the “greenhouse effect/radiative forcing” hypothesis water vapor is observed to lower the lapse rate, which causes the temperature of ground level air to drop.
All scientific fallacies have the same thing in common; they are all misattributions. A physical observation is made, but the cause of that physical phenomenon is misidentified. For example, the sun is observed to move across the sky. This observation was believed to be caused by the sun orbiting the Earth, where in reality it is caused by the Earth’s rotation on its axis. Heat was originally thought to be a fluid, where in reality it is the movement of energy. The light emitted by warmed objects was thought to be done over a continuous spectrum, but in reality it occurs at specific quantified wavelengths. The “extra” thermal energy present within sea level air was though to be caused by a “greenhouse effect” where in reality it is caused by the “work” being done on descending air by ascending air. In the end the truth endues because the laws that govern the physical world don’t change and eventually nobody can be found who will admit that they ever believed in the fallacy.
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