Three Big Nails In the CO2 Global Warming Coffin
No one doubts or denies the reality of climate change. The climate is always changing, naturally varying between periods of global warming and periods of global cooling, with the next ice-age now well and truly overdue, if not currently underway.
But some people believe, or would like to have you believe, that CO2 causes or contributes towards global warming.
However, empirical data and standard science proves the CO2 Global Warming hypothesis is complete and utter nonsense.
It is far-fetched (Nail 1), it defies logic (Nail 2) and it violates the Laws of Thermodynamics (Nail 3).
Nail 1. It is Far-Fetched: Atmospheric CO2 Levels Are Minute
CO2 is a naturally occurring, non-polluting trace gas making up only about 0.04{154653b9ea5f83bbbf00f55de12e21cba2da5b4b158a426ee0e27ae0c1b44117} of the atmosphere. That’s just 400 molecules per million. Or just one molecule in every 2,500, shown more-or-less drawn to scale as the tiny red sphere in the graphic below:
Despite over 250 years of industrialization, during which time the global population has increased by over 1000{154653b9ea5f83bbbf00f55de12e21cba2da5b4b158a426ee0e27ae0c1b44117}, human activity, such as burning hydrocarbon fuels, is widely accepted as contributing only about 4{154653b9ea5f83bbbf00f55de12e21cba2da5b4b158a426ee0e27ae0c1b44117} to the total atmospheric CO2.
That’s just 16 molecules per million, or just one molecule in about every 62,500. You’d have to increase the volume of the atmosphere shown above 25 times over to find just one molecule of CO2 that was due to human activity.
It defies credulity and common sense to believe that such minuscule amounts of atmospheric CO2 could significantly contribute to, let alone cause, any global warming.
When examining the scientific facts, it is surely beyond belief to suggest that human-induced CO2 emissions could have any effect whatsoever.
Despite this, alarmists will claim CO2 has exceptionally powerful potential thermodynamic. Often, they will argue by applying analogy. They will refer to the most toxic poisons, which in very small doses can be to lethal eg cyanide.
But if such a very tiny concentration of CO2 truly had so much power to trap heat and/or delay atmospheric cooling to significantly impact climate change, then why isn’t this magic gas exploited for that effect in the heat insulation industry?
In fact, the only thermal industrial application of CO2 is as a COOLANT – the exact opposite physical property climate ‘scientists’ claim it possesses.
Nail 2. It Defies Logic: Effect Follows Cause. Cause Does Not Follow Effect.
If CO2 caused, or contributed towards, global warming, then you might expect natural periods of global warming to follow rises in CO2 levels and natural periods of global cooling to follow falls in CO2 levels, would you not? And, of course, it is obviously logically impossible for effect to precede cause.
However, ice-core analyses, covering thousands of years of natural global warming and cooling, show that the relationship is the other way around, vice-versa. Periods of global warming always precede rises in CO2 levels, as shown by climatologist, Dr Tim Ball.
If rising atmospheric CO2 levels are causing global warming, then cause would appear to be following effect, a logical impossibility.
The increase in atmospheric CO2 levels over the last 150 years or so is widely accepted as having coincided with a period of natural global warming, since earth emerged from the low temperatures of the Little Ice Age.
That has tapered off to essentially nothing over the last couple of decades, perhaps as another ice age looms. However, in the meantime, CO2 levels can be expected to continue to rise, because they lag periods of global warming by many years.
And let’s not forget that global warming and rising CO2 levels are associated with a greener planet. Indeed, CO2 is a ‘green Earth’ gas, vital to the most important process known to life on Earth, photosynthesis, which would cease if atmospheric CO2 levels dropped below about 200ppm.
In fact, current levels of CO2 are perilously low compared to the times when life on Earth has thrived (typically 1000 to 4000ppm over the last 600 million years).
It’s a pity that human activity makes such a pathetically small contribution to atmospheric CO2 levels (see Nail 1). But that shouldn’t deter us from doing our level best to increase atmospheric CO2 by burning as much hydrocarbon fuels and emitting as much of this life-support gas as possible, providing, of course, that we endeavor to minimize pollution (for example, emitting particulates). Hail CO2!, the gas of life.
- The Final Nail In The CO2-Global Warming Coffin: It Violates The Laws of Thermodynamics.
According to climate “scientists” onboard the research grant gravy train who ignore the real physics, CO2 is a “greenhouse gas” absorbing and re-radiating potentially heat-inducing electromagnetic energy back down to Earth (the so-called “greenhouse effect”).
This magical effect is accompanied by hocus-pocus, flat-Earth-assuming models that actually do assume that the Earth is flat. No wonder the models are duds as none of the alarmist predictions are coming true.
Supposedly, a whopping 97{154653b9ea5f83bbbf00f55de12e21cba2da5b4b158a426ee0e27ae0c1b44117} of these ‘experts’ agree that human-induced CO2 emissions are causing, or contributing towards, global warming. But this is a zombie statistic. Based on a close inspection of what has actually been said and reported in the scientific literature, the real figure is under 5{154653b9ea5f83bbbf00f55de12e21cba2da5b4b158a426ee0e27ae0c1b44117}. 97{154653b9ea5f83bbbf00f55de12e21cba2da5b4b158a426ee0e27ae0c1b44117} of climate scientists do not say or report that they believe in CO2-induced global warming (see https://www.thegwpf.com/ian-plimer-97-of-scientists-agree-on-nothing/).
Believers persist in mindlessly chanting the mantra “the science is settled” and 97{154653b9ea5f83bbbf00f55de12e21cba2da5b4b158a426ee0e27ae0c1b44117}-of-climate-scientists-agree. They follow tamely the flat-Earth, climate “science” priesthood, instigators and guardians of the alarmist, doom-mongering, insane, end-of-days cult of global-warming.
They are blindly followed and aided and abetted in their CO2-is-the-devil delusion by an unholy alliance of genuflecting, proselytizing and hectoring science and physics ignoramuses: climate change hucksters; UN racketeers (the IPCC among them) and not forgetting the rich globalist elite.
They have all jumped on the CO2-global warming bandwagon and appear hell bent on drumming up as much mass hysteria as possible. The extremists and ideological fundamentalists among them shout down and vilify anyone who dares to disagree.
These climate change acolytes all confuse weather with climate and conflate every imagined “extreme”, but perfectly natural, weather event (hurricanes, floods, droughts, hot summers, cold winters, record highs, record lows) as evidence of CO2-induced global warming, while conveniently ignoring any uncomfortable evidence to the contrary, such as the current ice sheet expansion and record cold winter temperatures in the Northern hemisphere, including snow in Algeria and Tunisia.
In desperation and denial, some even interpret such weather events as evidence of global warming. In their insane alternative to real science cooling equals warming!
Completely bonkers!
Even crazier, the 17th century Little Ice Age in Europe has recently been linked by loony ‘scientists’ to the arrival of the conquistadors in South America. Apparently, the collapse and devastation of the indigenous populations from introduced diseases, such as smallpox, led to the re-vegetation of the continent, which sucked up CO2 from the atmosphere, contributing to the Little Ice Age in Europe. I’m not making this up.
Most of the poor, unsuspecting, largely trusting general public, ignorant (through no real fault of their own) of the real science, have been duped into accepting and believing in the CO2-induced global warming myth. It has become the new quasi-religious, modern-millennial, anti-industrialization, anti-mining, environmentalist and socialist zeitgeist of the world we now live in.
The man-made (oops, sorry, human-induced) global-warming scam is probably the greatest hoax and fraud in human history, with trillions of dollars wasted on carbon mitigation schemes and obscenely subsidized, renewable energy projects, such as solar panels and bird-and-bat-shredding windmills.
However, notwithstanding Nails 1 and 2, the Earth isn’t flat, CO2 is not a “greenhouse gas” and nor does it have a “greenhouse effect”.
Greenhouses do not work by re-radiating energy back from their glass enclosures; they just trap warmed (by solar radiation) air, preventing heat loss via convection, not loss via radiation. Open the window at the top of a greenhouse and watch the temperature plummet.
And if CO2 is deliberately pumped into a greenhouse, as is sometimes done commercially, all that increases is plant growth and yields, not temperature. Not even a 100{154653b9ea5f83bbbf00f55de12e21cba2da5b4b158a426ee0e27ae0c1b44117} CO2 atmosphere inside a greenhouse would have the slightest effect on temperature. In the confined atmosphere of a greenhouse, increasing CO2 (quintupling present atmospheric levels will do nicely) has a highly beneficial effect on plant life, but no effect on temperature.
CO2 is a wonderful greening gas, not a warming or heating gas. As far as global warming is concerned, we can continue to pump out CO2 into the atmosphere with carefree abandon because it’s not going to induce or increase global warming one iota.
But more fundamentally and crucially, the inviolable laws of thermodynamics do not allow electromagnetic radiative energy (the only potential source of all heat) to be transmitted or transferred from a cooler body (lower energy state matter) to a warmer body (higher energy state matter).
It is here important to note that heat is not a thing, but the result of the transfer of energy from one, hotter thing to another, colder thing. Matter can be heated only by “absorbing” energy from a hotter body. Matter cannot be heated by absorbing energy from a cooler body.
The “flow” of potentially heat-inducing energy radiated from the Earth to the atmosphere is thus necessarily along a thermodynamic one-way street: from hot to cold only; from a warmer, hotter Earth to a cooler atmosphere and then onwards to infinity and beyond into the void of cold, cold space.
According to the laws of thermodynamics, there is no mechanism whereby radiation can transfer heat-inducing energy from a cooler body to a warmer body.
The down-the-temperature-gradient-only, directional “flow” of heat from the Earth into the atmosphere is like the flow of water under the influence of gravity, always downhill.
It doesn’t operate to radiate energy back ( ‘back radiate’) once it has left the surface. Thus is cannot cause an added heating/delayed cooling effect as shown in a typical (bogus) greenhouse gas theory diagram (as shown below).
The flow of energy as shown by the arrows above is bogus – heat transfer is a one way directional process!
Imagine a reservoir up in the mountains connected to a reservoir down in the valley. The combined total volume of water in the reservoirs is analogous to the total amount of energy in the system, which always remains constant.
It obeys the Law of Conservation of Energy, which states that energy can neither be created nor destroyed, only transformed or transferred from one form to another. The water can flow between the reservoirs only in one direction, downhill.
The water cannot flow uphill.
Heat flowing from a warm Earth to a cooler atmosphere, absorbed and then re-radiated back down to Earth, as the CO2-global warming model postulates, is like water flowing downhill and then magically back up again. It’s impossible.
The only source of heat that can warm our planet is electromagnetic radiative energy from the sun. Energy is transmitted and transferred from the sun, a hot body, to the Earth, a much cooler body.
The sun warms the atmosphere (which reflects or absorbs about 50{154653b9ea5f83bbbf00f55de12e21cba2da5b4b158a426ee0e27ae0c1b44117} of the incoming radiation), land and oceans (the main “heat sink” or “heat reservoir”) to an “aggregate” temperature where an equilibrium is reached between the heat gained from the sun, which obviously can occur only during the day, and the heat lost by or via the atmosphere out into space, which occurs mainly at night.
All the atmosphere does is to slow down and modulate the rate of cooling. Notwithstanding Nail 1, atmospheric CO2 can only slow down (or increase, why not, it’s not against The Law) global cooling. Slower cooling is not reverse or backwards heating.
Global warming can occur only when more electromagnetic radiative energy is received from the sun, for example, due to increased solar activity. The planet will warm until an equilibrium is reached where energy in (heating) equals energy out (cooling), a conservation of energy.
The land and oceans cannot be warmed by reabsorbing their own radiation sent back (re-radiated) from a cooler body (the atmosphere). Such a magical process would defy the laws of thermodynamics.
This simple and fundamental scientific fact is alone sufficient to disprove and bury the CO2 global warming hypothesis.
The physics and the science is settled: CO2 does not and cannot cause global warming. RIP CO2-Global Warming. But long live CO2, the green Earth gas.
Further useful resources:
https://principia-scientific.com/why-greenhouse-gas-warming-is-physically-impossible/
http://www.historyscoper.com/climatetlw.html
PRINCIPIA SCIENTIFIC INTERNATIONAL, legally registered in the UK as a company 
incorporated for charitable purposes. Head Office: 27 Old Gloucester Street, London WC1N 3AX. Telephone: Calls from within the UK: 020 7419 5027. International dialling: (44) 20 7419 5027.
Please DONATE TODAY To Help Our Non-Profit Mission To Defend The Scientific Method.
Trackback from your site.
Herb Rose
| #
Hi Andrew,
Thermodynamics is the transfer of energy between matter not the transfer of temperature.
Just because the surface of the Earth has a higher temperature than the atmosphere above it, does not mean those molecules have more kinetic energy. In a gas if you add energy the gas expands. In an unconfined gas like the atmosphere (pressure being gravity) when you add heat to gas molecules the gas becomes less dense (PV=nkt) and rises. The less dense gases higher in the atmosphere must have more kinetic energy than the denser gases lower in the atmosphere.
The reason the temperature drops with altitude is because there are fewer molecules (less mass) transferring energy to the thermometer.
The sun is the source of energy heating the Earth including the atmosphere. The kinetic energy of molecules is greatest at the top of the atmosphere and decreases as you approach the surface of the Earth. In the troposphere water moderates the temperature but it still increases with altitude.
The violation of the 2nd law of thermodynamics is that the less energetic molecules on the surface of the Earth are not transferring energy to the atmosphere but absorbing energy from it.
Reply
John Harrison
| #
Herb. It can be generally accepted that the temperature of a system can be related to the average kinetic energy of the particles in that system (principally translational KE in a gas).
Pressure is not gravity.
Energy, in the form of LWIR, will be emitted from the Earths surface, this can be absorbed by GHG molecules in the atmosphere and in the process, their internal energy is raised. This increase in energy can re-emitted as LWIR and some of these re-radiated photons will be absorbed by the surface. No violation of any of the laws of thermodynamics here as the Earths surface is not a perfect reflector (it is a grey body, not white) The NET flow of energy, however, WILL be from the surface to the atmosphere in accordance with those laws.
Reply
Herb Rose
| #
Hi John,
When it comes to the pressure holding the atmosphere to the Earth and resisting its expansion that pressure (in the universal gas law) is gravity. As long as the kinetic energy of the molecules in atmosphere are above the boiling point of the compound they will be a gas. The volume of the atmosphere expands when more heat is added to the molecules while the gravitational attraction between the gas molecules and the center of the Earth does not change significantly.
You maintain that the temperature is the mean kinetic energy of the molecules. If I boil water I have water molecules and steam molecules with the same temperature (100 C) and so the same mean kinetic energy. In order to convert the 100 C water to100 C gas I must add additional energy to the liquid. Where does this energy go if it is not found in the kinetic energy of the gas molecules.
Reply
James McGinn
| #
Herb,
You are a victim of he convection myth. The convection myth asserts that all or most movement in the atmosphere (or just the troposphere) is a result of convection. In reality convection plays a very minor role in the movement of air in the atmosphere.
Vortices powered by differential air pressure, emerging on wind shear boundaries do the lion’s share of heavy lifting to cause storms and the gusty winds associated with storms. Comparatively, convection is almost nonexistent.
The convection model of storms was developed in the 1840s an is based on nothing more than a rough analogy to a pot boiling on a stove. It is blatant pseudoscience. It is the stuff of fools. Don’t be a fool. There are too many of them already.
Vortices are the Pressure Relief Valves of the Atmosphere
http://www.thunderbolts.info/forum/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=17125
James McGinn / Solving Tornadoes
Reply
Herb Rose
| #
Hi James,
I went to your site and tend to agree with you that heat normally rises because of vortices. Exceptions would be volcanoes, forest fires, and large releases of energy where there is a dramatic difference in heat. What I was trying to say was that the higher you go in the atmosphere the more kinetic energy (heat) the molecules have. In the normal atmosphere the kinetic energy of gas molecules decreases with decreasing altitude but when the lower atmosphere is heated that heat will rise by some means to an altitude where it is equilibrium with the heat of the molecules around it.
I have become to believe your contention that water exists as nano droplets in the atmosphere rather than water vapor. What led me to support your position is that it takes 5.4 times the energy to convert 100 C water into 100C steam then it takes to raise the water from 0 C to 100 C. This is also what makes me believe that the temperature of a gas does not give an accurate indication of the kinetic energy of the gas molecules. If you have to add 540 calories to a gram of100 C water to convert it to a gas that energy cannot disappear and must be contained in the kinetic energy of the gas molecules.
Have a good day,
Herb
Reply
James McGinn
| #
Hi James,
I went to your site and tend to agree with you that heat normally rises because of vortices. Exceptions would be volcanoes, forest fires, and large releases of energy where there is a dramatic difference in heat.
JMcG:
Wait, wait, what? I never stated anything like this?
It’s as if you are saying that convection causes vortices, which is absurd. How in the world you ever though I stated anything like this is imcomprehensible to me.
Herb:
What I was trying to say was that the higher you go in the atmosphere the more kinetic energy (heat) the molecules have.
JMcG:
I suppose you are saying that this is the case on a molecule by molecule basis. You are saying that they are moving at a higher velocity. I don’t know if this is true or not. But so what? What is your point?
Herb:
In the normal atmosphere the kinetic energy of gas molecules decreases with decreasing altitude but when the lower atmosphere is heated that heat will rise by some means to an altitude where it is equilibrium with the heat of the molecules around it.
JMcG:
I don’t know. I still don’t see your point in regard to this assertion.
Herb:
I have become to believe your contention that water exists as nano droplets in the atmosphere rather than water vapor. What led me to support your position is that it takes 5.4 times the energy to convert 100 C water into 100C steam then it takes to raise the water from 0 C to 100 C. This is also what makes me believe that the temperature of a gas does not give an accurate indication of the kinetic energy of the gas molecules. If you have to add 540 calories to a gram of100 C water to convert it to a gas that energy cannot disappear and must be contained in the kinetic energy of the gas molecules.
JMcG:
The world is full of goons who having once read something in a book they can never stop believing it.
Without this brain-dead assumption meteorology’s theory of storms, the convection model of storm theory, is trash.
Unfortunately science is completely controlled by academia and academia is comprised of numerous pretentious nitwits. Read the comments between myself and a champion of academia, Robin Bedford. Who describes himself as an academically prominent chemist or to use his words a, “molecular architect.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RfNuWJDJvRw
Reply
Herb Rose
| #
Hi James,
What i am saying when I contend that the molecules higher in the atmosphere have more kinetic energy then those lower in the atmosphere is that heat flows down from the sun to the atmosphere to the surface of the Earth. Heat is not rIsing in the atmosphere because of the 2nd law of thermodynamics. Energy is not affected by gravity it flows to objects with lower energy levels. Because the Earths a sphere different areas receive different amounts of energy from the sun and energy will flow to areas receiving less energy. Eventually this energy will become greater then the energy in the atmosphere above and the energy will flow higher to equalize with the energy in the atmosphere but the primary flow of energy is towards the surface of the Earth.
When there is a volcanic eruption, fire, or other mass release of energy the energy at the surface of the Earth becomes greater then the energy in the atmosphere above and so then energy/heat will rise until it equalizes with the surrounding molecules.
The reason the high energy of evaporation of water convinced me that your nano droplet theory was correct is because energy does not transfer in large units but flows where the rate of flow is determined by the difference in energy levels. As I picture it when you are heating water the energy is splitting the water into droplets or energy packets. As more energy is added these droplets become smaller with increasing velocity. These droplets could leave the body of water and be in equilibrium with the gas molecules in the atmosphere surrounding them. If a single water vapor molecule was released it would immediately transfer energy to the surrounding gas molecules and not have enough energy to be a gas. At the top of the troposphere the kinetic energy of the surrounding gas molecules is equal to the boiling point of water.
That is my confusing explanation on how heat flows in the atmosphere.
James McGinn
| #
Herb:
What i am saying when I contend that the molecules higher in the atmosphere have more kinetic energy then those lower in the atmosphere is that heat flows down from the sun to the atmosphere to the surface of the Earth.
To me it seems plainly obvious that this is not the case.
Heat is not rIsing in the atmosphere because of the 2nd law of thermodynamics.
Nobody ever said it did/does, to the best o my knowledge.
Energy is not affected by gravity it flows to objects with lower energy levels.
Because the Earths a sphere different areas receive different amounts of energy from the sun and energy will flow to areas receiving less energy. Eventually this energy will become greater then the energy in the atmosphere above and the energy will flow higher to equalize with the energy in the atmosphere but the primary flow of energy is towards the surface of the Earth.
When there is a volcanic eruption, fire, or other mass release of energy the energy at the surface of the Earth becomes greater then the energy in the atmosphere above and so then energy/heat will rise until it equalizes with the surrounding molecules.
The reason the high energy of evaporation of water convinced me that your nano droplet theory was correct is because energy does not transfer in large units but flows where the rate of flow is determined by the difference in energy levels. As I picture it when you are heating water the energy is splitting the water into droplets or energy packets. As more energy is added these droplets become smaller with increasing velocity. These droplets could leave the body of water and be in equilibrium with the gas molecules in the atmosphere surrounding them. If a single water vapor molecule was released it would immediately transfer energy to the surrounding gas molecules and not have enough energy to be a gas. At the top of the troposphere the kinetic energy of the surrounding gas molecules is equal to the boiling point of water.
That is my confusing explanation on how heat flows in the atmosphere.
You are painting with much too broad of a brush. You are referring to generalities here and creating more to no good effect, IMO.
Andrew Tilley
| #
Thank you for your time and interest, Herb. Unless you’re homing in on my sentence “The down-the-temperature-gradient-only, directional “flow” of heat from the Earth into the atmosphere is like the flow of water under the influence of gravity, always downhill.”, I don’t think that I said or implied that thermodynamics is the transfer of temperature. What I said was that “the inviolable laws of thermodynamics do not allow electromagnetic radiative energy (the only potential source of all heat) to be transmitted or transferred from a cooler body (lower energy state matter) to a warmer body (higher energy state matter)”. And that “Matter can be heated only by “absorbing” energy from a hotter body”, by which I mean from a higher energy state body. My basic understanding of thermodynamics (see my reply to John Harrison) is that it relates to the transmission or transfer of energy between all forms of energy and that heat is a manifestation of the relationship. I understand temperature or “hotness” to be a measure of a quality of a state of matter. My understanding could be wrong. All I am simply saying is that if the Earth and the oceans are in a higher energy state than the atmosphere, then the only energy transfer direction is from higher to lower and that energy so transferring can’t be re-directed in the opposite direction, because that would be a violation of the laws of thermodynamics.
Reply
Herb Rose
| #
Hi Andrew,
You are absolutely right on thermodynamics. Heat/kinetic energy flows from “hotter” objects to cooler. What I am trying to explain is that the atmosphere is “hotter” (more kinetic energy) than the surface of the Earth or ocean. People believe that the surface of the Earth is “hotter” because of the recorded temperature. What I’ve been trying to explain is that temperature is not an accurate measurement of the kinetic energy a gas. The temperature of boiling water and the steam it produces are the same but the kinetic energy of the steam (gas) is 540 times (the calories needed to convert 1 gram of 100 C water to 100 C steam) the kinetic energy of the liquid. The way to determine the kinetic energy of a gas is by using the universal gas law.
The source of energy for the surface of the Earth is the sun. This energy does not disappear in the atmosphere but continues to flow to the Earth.
Have a good day,
Herb
Reply
Norman
| #
test?
Reply
Herb Rose
| #
Hi Norman,
I do not know what you mean by “test”. If you want evidence I would point out the state of water at different altitudes. Whether water is a solid, liquid, or gas depends on the kinetic energy of the molecules. If the kinetic energy the molecules is greater than the attractive force between the molecules water is a gas. If the attractive force is stronger then water is ice and when the two forces are approximately equal water is a liquid. This means the state of water in the atmosphere can given an approximate indication of the kinetic energy of the molecules in the atmosphere. Aircraft regularly fly through rain storms and clouds where the temperature outside the plane is -50 C. The atmosphere has to much turbulence to allow for the super cooling of water.
Have a good day,
Herb
Reply
James McGinn
| #
Herb,
You have zero understanding of H2O. It does not work in the simplistic manner you suggest here.
Reply
Andrew Tilley
| #
Thank you for your time and interest, Norm. Test what? The laws of thermodynamics?
I’m with Homer Simpson on this one: “In this house we obey the laws of thermodynamics.”
Not sure they need any further testing (or at least I can’t think of a crucial experiment to test them), isn’t that why they’ve achieved the status of laws, because they’ve never been observed to be violated?
Reply
John Harrison
| #
Andrew. In common with many others, you seem to be forgetting that the laws of thermodynamics relate to NET energy transfer and also that the NET energy transferred between two surfaces by radiation depends on their temperature DIFFERENCE. Ask yourself why would the rate of cooling of a hotter surface depend on the temperature of the colder surface and why would it only cool, increasingly slowly, therefore, to the same temperature as the colder surface. Does this not tell you that the hotter object must be absorbing LWIR from the colder surface, this radiant energy then being thermalised. Have you an alternative explanation? Thus the rate of LWIR emission by a colder body can influence the cooling rate and equilibrium temperature of the warmer object. In the same way by increasing the intensity of back-radiation from the atmospheric “GHGs”, by increasing their concentration, then the resulting increased rate of absorption by the Earths surface will reduce its rate of cooling and it will only cool to some higher equilibrium temperature. This is what alarmists foolishly claim will result in CAGW. It does not contravene any of the laws of thermodynamics, the surface is warmed by the sun during the day and its cooling rate is then reduced by back-radiation from GHGs. The effect will be insignificant and the CAGW predicted would involve impossibly large forcings from H2O vapour, by far the most potent of these two GHGs, and sundry other factors none have which have been observed.
Reply
Squidly
| #
John, please explain this process of “thermalised“
Reply
Andrew Tilley
| #
I’d like an explanation, too. I don’t remember the process of thermalisation from my student days, although I don’t remember lots of things from my student days.
Reply
Ross Handsaker
| #
John.
“Does this not tell you that the hotter object must be absorbing LWIR from the colder surface, this radiant energy then being thermalised. Have you an alternative explanation?”
The intensity of energy from the warmer body is greater than the intensity of energy from the colder surface. Energy lost by the warmer body is gained by the colder surface until equilibrium temperature is reached. As the colder surface warms the flow of heat from the warmer body will slow (temperature gradient reduces).
Reply
Andrew Tilley
| #
Hi John, many thanks for taking the time to read my article and for your comments and contribution. Greatly appreciated.
My understanding of thermodynamics is only to the level of A-level physics at high school and the first-year physics courses I took at university many years ago (early 70s) towards my B.Sc. I am aware that the energy transferred by radiation between two surfaces or bodies or lumps of matter depends on their temperature difference and, if I remember correctly, that this is described in ideal circumstances (black bodies, vacuums, etc) by the Stefan-Boltzmann Law, which has a fourth power of temperature ((Kelvin scale) somewhere in the equation. Anyway, doesn’t this explain why your hotter surface transfers energy increasingly slowly to the cooler surface until equilibrium is reached? Something to do with that temperature to the fourth power? If so, then No, it doesn’t tell me that the hotter object must be absorbing LWIR from the colder surface. As far as I can see, it’s still a one-way street. Also, sorry, but I don’t understand what you mean by “thermalised”. It’s not a concept I’m familiar with.
In relatively simple terms, as I conceptualise and understand it, the only source of heat that can warm our planet is electromagnetic energy from the sun. The Earth absorbs the energy to the point where an equilibrium is reached whereby energy in equals energy out. Once equilibrium is reached, the Earth can’t warm any further without the input of greater energy from the sun. There’s no other extra source. The incoming and outgoing energy is always along a thermodynamic one-way street, from “hot” to “cold”, from sun to Earth or from Earth to space. I guess that the cooling rate from the Earth through the atmosphere through to space is not reduced in the atmosphere by back radiation but by something to do with the Stefan-Boltzmann Law.
Reply
John Harrison
| #
Andrew. Only 2 big nails then and please never claim that any science is settled.
Reply
Andrew Tilley
| #
Still 3 big nails, I think (see my reply to your first contribution), and the “science is settled” was an ironic rhetorical flourish, for which I’m sure you’ll forgive me.
Reply
Chris Marcil
| #
I have actually been told that the global warming buffs want to get the CO2 levels below 200 ppm. They are actually looking to build scrubbers to do so. Their scientists do know the truth of it and do nothing. I wonder if this is done in order to deliberately control the population through food. Once below 200 ppm we begin to starve to death except for those who have large green houses that they can pump in CO2. Can you imagine the price of food!
Reply
Bevan Dockery
| #
Hopefully my web site now provides sufficient evidence to prove that it is climate change that determines the concentration of atmospheric CO2, not CO2 driving climate change or temperature. See: https://www.climateauditor.com
Perhaps in the future it may be more rewarding to concentrate on informing the public of this finding rather than trying to disprove the UN IPCC propaganda which is promoted as part of their scheme to achieve “One World Government”, with their hierarchy in charge, of course.
Reply
Andrew Tilley
| #
Thanks, Bevan. Your website certainly does nail it!. Keep up the good work.
Reply
Barry Briggs
| #
nice article!
Reply
Andrew Tilley
| #
Thanks for the compliment, Barry, greatly appreciated.
Reply
jerry krause
| #
Hi Andrew,
I had not read your article because my scan revealed no evidence of directly observed evidence; instead only arguments which have been made multiple times. Some of which (arguments), I grant, are based upon observed evidence.
However, your statements—”The water can flow between the reservoirs only in one direction, downhill. The water cannot flow uphill.”—ignore the observed fact that the compound water occurs in the earth’s natural atmosphere as a gas, liquid, and solid.
In a manned weather station at Giles Australia they still set a pan of liquid water out and measure the change (commonly a decrease) of its liquid water depth during the preceding 24 hour period. We (but James McGinn disagrees and that is his problem and not ours) commonly explain this decrease to the evaporation of water molecules from the liquid water surface.
What happens to these water molecules in the atmosphere? We commonly observe there must be some vertical convention of the atmosphere, during which a rising parcel of atmosphere cools, so eventually the water vapor of the rising parcel begins to condense to form many small droplets of liquid water (observable clouds, cumulus clouds). And sometimes we can see these cumulus clouds increase in size as they continue to rise to form cululonimbus clouds from which bigger cloud liquid droplets (rain droplets) fall back to the earth’s surface as precipitation, But sometimes bigger particles of solid water (hail) fall, from these cululonimbus clouds back to the earth’s surface.
Hence, we observe that water does ‘move’ both up and down by a well-known (observed) cyclic mechanism.
And the observed fact of precipitation cannot be changed by any argument.
Have a good day, Jerry
Reply
Andrew Tilley
| #
Thank you for reading my article, Jerry.
A bit of background to my article. The article was originally written with a non-scientific audience in mind and for submission to magazines and newspapers. My quest is to try to dispel the C02-global warming myth; to enlighten the poor, unsuspecting, largely trusting general public, ignorant (through no real fault of their own) of science in general and “climate science” in particular, who have been duped into believing the myth. Yes, I know, I’m probably wasting my time.
My water flowing uphill analogy is aimed at the general public who, unless they’ve watched the episode (Season 6, episode 2) of The Simpsons, in which Lisa builds a perpetual motion machine, have never heard of The Laws Of Thermodynamics. But they do know that water doesn’t and can’t flow uphill, in the same way that they know that an apple can’t rise from the ground back into the tree.
So far, I am having a good day, thanks.
Reply
jerry krause
| #
Hi Andrew,
Thank you for your response.
I write my essays for people with a minimum scientific background like the ones to whom you stated you were trying to provide some useful information. Except, plus for those who, like you, seem to believe that science is all about rational reasoning and argumentation without any reference to actual observations or experimental results.
So I am curious: have you read any of my essays without making any comment? The latest, which John O’Sullivan has posted, is (https://principia-scientific.com/natural-philosophy-meteorology-climatology-2/).
Have a good day, Jerry
Reply
Andrew Tilley
| #
Inferring that “I seem to believe that science is all about rational reasoning and argumentation without any reference to actual observations or experimental results” is about as far from the truth as you could possibly get. If you read my reply to John Harrison (see above) you will see that I have a strong science background. I have a science Ph.D.; worked for 5-years as a post-doc research scientist at the Medical Research Council, Cambridge, UK; and have taught research methodology and data analysis and the history and philosophy of science at university. Without wishing to sound too immodest, I consider myself to be an experimental scientist “par excellence”. After retiring from academia, I turned my hand to music artist management, sound engineering, and directing, producing, filming and editing music videos. If you’re interested, you can see the fruits of my labours here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCpveXy1P_fVaETOz6Sg-0Zg
I suspect that your idea of people with minimum scientific background and my idea and experience of people with a non-scientific background are very, very different.
Let me tell you a true story. A long, long time ago, I once met a bloke in a pub. He started telling me that the Earth was flat. At first I thought he was joking or winding me up, but, no, he was serious. A flat Earth nutter. First one I’d ever met in the flesh. At this point, like brave Sir Robin, I should have bravely run away, but I foolishly tried to dispel his delusion. I didn’t resort to data, didn’t have any to hand, but to reason. I drew pictures of lunar eclipses with the curved shadow of the Earth on its surface. I drew a few pictures to illustrate how a ship disappears gradually over the horizon and how an ant would look if you watched it crawling towards you over the curved surface of a cricket ball. I asked him how come the constellations look different if you look up to the heavens in England compared to Australia (he didn’t believe me, said that they didn’t). I drew a picture to show him how the Greeks had confirmed that the Earth was round with just a couple of sticks stuck in the ground at different latitudes. I drew more pictures to demonstrate why it was that you could see farther from the top of a hill. I asked him if he’d ever looked out the window of an airplane at 30,000 feet. He hadn’t, so that one didn’t work. I asked him why the Earth had different time zones and were the moon and the planets also flat. Yes, they were. Flat discs. I asked him what he thought of the photographs of the Earth taken from space. All fake. And lastly, I asked him why it was that most people believed that the Earth was a sphere. Curiously, this seemed to disturb him the most. By this time he had become quite animated and angry. He started shouting at me and accused me of being in league with the devil and wished me dead, at which point I grabbed my pint and, like brave Sir Robin, beat a hasty retreat and bravely ran away.
OK, so this bloke was a loony, but his knowledge of science was not all that different from most of the sane people in the pub. I have a friend who’s a professor of law. He’s a CO2-global warming believer. It fits nicely into his love for “renewable” energy sources and a left-wing ideological bent. Until I told him, he didn’t know the composition of the atmosphere and I suspect that he’d never heard of the Laws of Thermodynamics. The level of scientific knowledge out there in the general population, even among people who you’d assume were intelligent but haven’t done any science beyond the first few years of high school, is depressingly low and alarmingly close to zero. Most of them certainly can’t handle data. Present anything more than a very simple bar graph and their eyes will start to glaze over. In my decades of experience, most university students with a non-science background, whose level of numeracy also usually leaves a lot to be desired, have difficulty handling and interpreting data.
So, that’s why, in trying to communicate with a non-scientific audience, I steer clear of data and try to rely on reason. More fool me.
Reason definitely doesn’t work on the CO2 and global warming brigade. Not only did my professor friend question my CO2 figures, said he wanted source references (I think he thought I’d made up the figures), he didn’t seem to understand the logic of cause-and-effect relationships or accept that you’d better have a bloody good reason for abandoning the Laws Of Thermodynamics. So what if the hypothesised mechanism violated the laws? People break the law every day. The courts are full of them. He was unimpressed when I pointed out that the one molecule of CO2 due to human activity in about 50,000 molecules of air was very roughly equivalent to one drop of water in a 10L bucket, one grain of rice in a 1kg bag of rice, a tennis ball on a tennis court or a soccer ball on a football pitch. Just raised an eyebrow of disbelief. But to his credit, he also didn’t believe in homeopathy. Not sure why not. As for cause-and-effect, I pointed out that, based on the ice core data, where CO2 only ever rises following global warming, believing that atmospheric CO2 levels cause global warming was like believing that increases in ice cream sales cause the rise in temperature from winter-to-spring-to-summer. Still he clung to his belief. And he dismissed my analogy to water magically flowing uphill or apples magically rising from the ground back into the tree. And anyway, I could’t possible be right about CO2 not causing global warming because 97% of scientists say that it does, so it must be true, and what do I know, I’m not a climate scientist. Hallelujah!, thank God for that. Finally, out of frustration, I asked him what it would take to prove that the CO2-global warming hypothesis was wrong. I’m still waiting for an answer, but I suspect the answer would be “Nothing”.
Data, logic, reason, common sense, it doesn’t really matter, it’ll all be dismissed with a wave of the hand by the believers. You’ll be accused of lying and shouted down. Or worse, like my flat-Earth loony, some will turn violent.
By the way, Yes, I have read your essays without making any comments.
I’m having another good day, thanks.
Reply
jerry krause
| #
Hi Andrew,
To John you wrote: ” My understanding of thermodynamics is only to the level of A-level physics at high school and the first-year physics courses I took at university many years ago (early 70s) towards my B.Sc.”
To me you wrote: “If you read my reply to John Harrison (see above) you will see that I have a strong science background.
To me you wrote: “I suspect that your idea of people with minimum scientific background and my idea and experience of people with a non-scientific background are very, very different.”
To me you wrote: “So, that’s why, in trying to communicate with a non-scientific audience, I steer clear of data and try to rely on reason. More fool me.”
You say you have taught the history of science. Did you start with Dialogues Concerning Two New Sciences? Unfortunately (I conclude) my chemistry and physics professors never suggest I should read Galileo’s famous book which many believed founded that which we call science today. So I was about 50 when I decided that it was probably a mistake that I a physical science had no idea what Galileo wrote. If you read his book you know that he was not satisfied with merely two bodies of greatly different masses from high place and observing they both reach the ground beyond at approximately the same time proved without any further argument that the idea that bodies twice as heavy fell twice as fast.
Instead, he had a need to write about 20 pages of arguments that this simple experiment result was not enough.
What was the historical result of this? Tycho Brahe, an astronomer, make a great effort to make naked eye quantitative astronomical measurements. Johannes Kepler, a mathematician, carefully analyzed Brahe’s measurements and concluded that the orbital paths of the observed planets about the sun were elliptical instead of perfectly circular. And Galileo refused to accept the efforts of these two men because he believed (reasoned) they had to be circular And we know, I hope, who was right
You are totally correct when you wrote: “I suspect that your idea of people with minimum scientific background and my idea and experience of people with a non-scientific background are very, very different.” The first thing I try to establish with scientist and non-scientist is the same: It is that the fundamental basis of all science is observation. Even Einstein, the theorist who did no experiments and only reasoned, knew: “No amount of experimentation can ever prove me right; a single experiment can prove me wrong.” And if he knew that no amount of experimentation could ever prove him right, he had to have known (considered) no amount of reasoning could prove his, or any, idea, right.
Have a good day, Jerry
Reply
James McGinn
| #
Jerry:
. . . they still set a pan of liquid water out and measure the change (commonly a decrease) of its liquid water depth during the preceding 24 hour period. We (but James McGinn disagrees and that is his problem and not ours) commonly explain this decrease to the evaporation of water molecules from the liquid water surface.
James McGinn
The belief that water magically defies its well established boiling temperature to become gaseous at ambient temperatures is fantasy, not science.
Jerry:
What happens to these water molecules in the atmosphere?
James McGinn:
You have created a phantom principle. This is the desperately stupid approach that meteorology foists upon its adherents.
The ‘Missing Link’ of Meteorology’s Theory of Storms
http://www.thunderbolts.info/forum/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=16329
Jerry:
We commonly observe there must be some vertical convention of the atmosphere, during which a rising parcel of atmosphere cools
James McGinn:
Blatant pseudoscience. Nobody ever has observed convection. We have observed updrafts in storms but there is zero evidence that this is caused by convection.
A cold front is created by vortices at upper altitudes. It has nothing whatsoever to do with convection.
Reply