Ideal Gas Law Proves Carbon Dioxide COOLS the Atmosphere
Canadian Astrophysicist, Joseph E Postma, has risen to the fore among scientists disproving ‘greenhouse gas’ junk climate science and claims CO2 causes global warming.
Postma’s blog, climateofsophistry.com, is rapidly becoming the best forum for serious discussion on the topic.
In response to his brilliant new post, ‘Where Do Alarmist Numbers Come From?‘ informed commenters have done yeoman’s work in providing evidence from standard scientific literature, including the Ideal Gas Laws, to prove the CO2-driven greenhouse gas effect cannot exist in nature.
For example, George (2019/08/19 at 7:52 AM)
provides a link that to standard math formulas that shows Dalton’s Law of gasses indicate that more CO2 in the atmosphere actually cools our planet, it if all other factors stay the same.
In response the statement in the link that:
“In fact, increasing any gas in a mixture that contains a fixed amount of heat energy will cause the temperature of the mixture to drop as the energy is distributed over a greater number of molecules. Therefore, simply increasing the earth’s atmospheric CO₂ cannot increase its temperature.”
Joe Postma replies:
“Yes I agree with that. There is no radiative back-effect whatsoever as this is already part of the molecules thermodynamic properties such as thermal capacity and conductivity, etc.”
Meanwhile, Zoe Phin (2019/08/19 at 9:55 AM) says:
“George,
In normal science: Hotter objects emit more radiation, Colder objects emit less radiation. In climate junk science, emitting less radiation (to space) is “proof” something is getting hotter.How dumb.
CO2 is capable of absorbing about 37W/m^2 of the 389W/m^2 leaving the sun-warmed surface. Two ice cubes at 0°C (315W/m^2) facing each other will not warm each other.
Why do crank scientists claim 37W/m^2 can warm 389W/m^2? Hoax. Only >389W/m^2 can warm 389W/m^2.
Climate cranks pretend that looking at absorption spectrum changes determines Air temperature. No, it doesn’t. It only tells you about GHGs absorption of IR, and nothing else. It doesn’t even tell you the temperature of the GHGs. Near the surface, CO2 will be 15°C (389 W/m^2), while it will only be absorbing 37 W/m^2 at best.
Looking at a subset (37) doesn’t prove it caused the whole set.
The brilliant thing about the ideal gas law is that it looks at all forms of heat transfer at once: radiation, conduction, convection. Climate cranks are trying to isolate the radiative component and then add it on as an extra effect, when it’s actually already included.”
PSI readers are encouraged to join the discussion at climateofsophistry.com
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Sabin Colton
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I was wondering the other day, while eating my eggs cooked in coconut oil, cured my adult rosacea and supposedly good against ALS, what are the temperature equivalents of the two absorption bands of CO2? It was literally a back of an envelope calculation at my kitchen table, well I did use a small calculator.
The two bands came out to -78°C and 401°C. First, solar input cannot heat anything on Earth’s surface to 401°C. Second, everything on Earth is warmer than -78°C, which means that emissions from this band are reflected and NEVER absorbed. CO2 simply is a non-player regarding emissions.
Looking at the atmospheric window from the Sun, it’s range is -66°C to 87°C, which means that CO2 might get heated above -78°C, but it cannot emit anything that can warm anything.
And, what CO2 can do is, in the absence of solar input, suck energy from the surrounding gases, emitting at -78°C, thus acting as an active radiative gas. CO2 is clearly a coolant, even under such a simple consideration.
Water vapor is ignored here because it is a perfectly natural occurrence in the atmosphere and clearly NOT influenced by CO2 emissions. However, it is probably a coolant as well. I have not done the calculations—another morning.
These are simple calculations and I leave it to others to see how wrong I am.
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John O'Sullivan
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Thanks, Sabin. Great to see you back on here. You are a valued PSI member : )
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James McGinn
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SC: . . . what are the temperature equivalents of the two absorption bands of CO2?
The two bands came out to -78°C and 401°C. First, solar input cannot heat anything on Earth’s surface to 401°C. Second, everything on Earth is warmer than -78°C, which means that emissions from this band are reflected and NEVER absorbed. CO2 simply is a non-player regarding emissions.
JMcG: Well stated.
SC: CO2 is clearly a coolant, even under such a simple consideration.
Water vapor is ignored here because it is a perfectly natural occurrence
JMcG:
There are deeper reasons why water is ignored/misunderstood:
https://youtu.be/RfNuWJDJvRw?t=66
James McGinn / Self Declared Genius
https://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2014/07/17/unsettled-science-uncertainty-around-the-continuum-absorption-of-water-vapour/
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Zoe Phin
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John,
But removing carbon from the ground reduces heat capacity in the ground, thus allowing more geothermal energy to reach the surface. The net thermal effect must be zero.
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Bob Armstrong
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I get so tired of articles without fundamental equations .
But a piece of it is right . Hansen’s 1981 https://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/abs/ha04600x.html , claims , without equation , that more CO2 raises it’s effective radiative altitude to where it’s colder ( not acknowledging that’s due to the gravitational lapse rate ) thus radiating less and then claiming the entire gravitational temperature profile below to be due to this spectral trapping mechanism .
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T L Winslow
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As I explain in my online course on climate science, the attempt of CO2 AGW hoaxers to invent surface warming by top of atmosphere (TOA) radiation balance mysteriously affecting the surface 10 miles away is moose hockey because there can be no radiation balance after a large portion of the incoming radiation ends up being transformed to work to create winds and weather. By the time the TOA is reached, surface IR is pretty much wasted by that and the lapse rate, and who cares, we live on the surface not way up there.
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James McGinn
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JO’S:
“The brilliant thing about the ideal gas law is that it looks at all forms of heat transfer at once: radiation, conduction, convection. ”
JMcG:
I get your point. But when you use superlative’s like “all” it closes the door to things that are not yet discovered or fully understood. We know we have jet streams and we really don’t have any way of explaining why they exist and why the exist where they are found, at the tropopause. Here is a link to the Connelly’s that will further make my point:
Is there something missing:
https://youtu.be/XfRBr7PEawY?t=2568
Vortices are the Pressure Relief Valves of the Atmosphere
http://www.thunderbolts.info/forum/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=17125
James McGinn / Genius
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T L Winslow
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[[“In fact, increasing any gas in a mixture that contains a fixed amount of heat energy will cause the temperature of the mixture to drop as the energy is distributed over a greater number of molecules. Therefore, simply increasing the earth’s atmospheric CO₂ cannot increase its temperature.]]
Sorry, the ideal gas law doesn’t by itself disprove the greenhouse warming theory. When you breathe out, you inject CO2 into the atmosphere, which at first might decrease the temperature a trifle, but it’s what happens after that which matters. Does CO2 act like a floating laser, catching surface IR and beaming it back to rewarm the surface, or is that moose hockey like we all know because each CO2 molecule is surrounded by 2500 non-CO2 molecules, which it bumps into, transferring its kinetic energy to the sky-bound convection train and leaving nothing to beam anywhere, but actually helping cool the surface?
[[“The brilliant thing about the ideal gas law is that it looks at all forms of heat transfer at once: radiation, conduction, convection. ”]]
Sorry, the ideal gas law doesn’t look at any form of heat transfer. It’s just about bulk properties of gases, p, v, and T, not their internal energies. If one of the gases is hydrogen, then one little spark and kaboom, and p, v, and T will all radically change.
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Zoe Phin
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T L Winslow,
Heat is what happens between molecules, not inside them. So yes, Ideal Gas Law could care less about internal energy.Ideal Gas Law is about what happens to any and all heat transfer methods under a gravitational field.
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