29 April 2009
By Hans Schreuder
[editors note: Ok, so this won’t be short, but then again, this “Big Lie” has been preached for a long time (If you tell a lie often enough and long enough, people will believe it). It is necessary to make sure that each aspect of the “Big Lie” is explained and that the light of reason shines brightly under the bed so that the monsters under there can’t hide. If you are truly interested in facts and truth, you will want to read this!
This is the first in a series of such articles, offering our readers reason, verifiable facts, sound logic, observed, supportable, scientific principle (and a bit of humor occassionally to make it easier). I have to admit, since I am not personally a member of MENSA like this scientist is, I had to go find someone who was and get him to “do the math” and then explain it to me so that I could understand it. I am grateful to my friend LL for doing just that and not making fun of me, thanks Josh.]
Why Carbon Dioxide is not a pollutant and why there can be no temperature increasing greenhouse effect in our open atmosphere.
Summary
The importance of this submission lies in the fact that the EPA needs to rapidly come to the conclusion that any and all hype about mankind’s carbon dioxide emissions is based on the incorrect application of science. Carbon dioxide has a nil effect on the global climate and does not cause climate change in any way, shape or form. This submission will go against all the established interpretations, including those of many skeptical scientists, yet is based entirely upon the proper application of scientific principles, especially those of observation based evidence, none of which has yet been presented to cast doubt, in even the most circumstantial manner, upon the opposite of what is presented to you here.
Researchers in climatology should put aside their present work for a moment and focus their attention on the central and decisive subject of climatology. This is the extremely close correlation between the changes in the mean surface temperature and the small changes in the rotational velocity of the Earth in the past 150 years, which has been ignored by the mainstream climatologists. (See Dynamics of Climatic and Geophysical Indices ) Almost everything in climatology follows from this one central phenomenon. By Dr. Gerhard Löbert, Munich. Physicist. Recipient of The Needle of Honor of German Aeronautics.
A lot of obscurantism has been thrown at the nature of radiant energy in order to make the weird propositions of greenhouse theory seem plausible. The unalterably downward flow of thermal energy is the very essence of the second law of thermodynamics, for instance, but academics will try to argue that the 2nd law of physics only applies to “whole systems,” not to heat transfer in each and every particular.
That’s obscurantism, a practice that’s gotten so common in science that anyone who states a matter plainly is now suspected of being a fake. A sad irony, for it’s been the academics, the pros, who have tripped all over themselves to explain and defend a theory that the evidence keeps contradicting. So what has this left us with? Just a sour attitude toward science that “if it’s incomprehensible, it must be true.”
If glass lets visible wavelengths of sunlight in but doesn’t let invisible long-wavelengths (infrared) out, thus raising the temperature inside, then glass thermometers have been misleading us for centuries.
According to the theory, glass thermometers necessarily register an extra “greenhouse effect,” not the true temperature. (In reality, however, no extra heating would come about even IF the glass were trapping infrared. The thermometer would simply take longer to adjust to changes of temperature. But it would NOT record a higher-than-actual temperature. As a thermos demonstrates, trapping heat doesn’t raise the temperature, it only sustains it.)
There is in fact no such mechanism as the greenhouse effect in our open atmosphere and neither carbon dioxide nor water vapor are so-called greenhouse gases.
The Science
With no atmosphere at all, our moon is very hot in sunshine (over 100°C) and very cold in the shade (less than minus 150°C) (exact temps differ from zone to zone, but the ones given here illustrate the principle). With earth receiving as good as the same amount of solar irradiation, our atmosphere thus acts as a cooling medium during the hours of sunshine and a blanket during the hours of darkness (alarmists love the blanket analogy, using it to illustrate that the atmosphere is warmer during the day than it would be without one. But an actual blanket can at best maintain your body temperature, it can not give you a fever; it does not make you warmer, it just keeps you warmer …).
Global warming (which has by now been reversed to pre-alarm days), global cooling and all climate change is caused by the daily revolutions of our earth around its own axis, throughout which time the varying amounts of heat gained during the day and similar variations of heat lost during the night make the weather what it is: ranging from plus 50°C to minus 50°C (even more extreme in places), unpredictable beyond a few days (unless based on solar observations) and at times violent or totally quiet. That’s quite apart from the seasonal differences caused by the annual trip around the sun and the varying distance that our planet revolves around our sun and we’re not even considering even greater forces of influence.
Issue #1: What heats an actual greenhouse during the day?
An actual greenhouse, whether made from glass or plastic sheeting, reaches higher temperatures inside than outside due to the restriction put on the internal air mass to disperse its acquired heat within the rest of the open atmosphere. The air mass in turn has gained its heat from the contents of the greenhouse, such as the soil or other ground cover material and all other objects within the space of the actual greenhouse. The contents of the greenhouse in turn gain their heat from direct sun light, which is made up of a full spectrum of electro-magnetic radiation including infrared, which is absorbed by the contents. Air is hardly receptive to direct solar radiation (or any other radiation, else radio, radar, TV, mobiles, microwave ovens etc. etc. would not work) but is receptive to gaining or losing heat by means of conduction which in turn causes convection, carrying heat to ever greater heights – seldom the other way around.
Issue #2. What is a greenhouse gas?
The only true “greenhouse gas” then is air itself (oxygen and nitrogen). Gases such as water vapor and carbon dioxide have gained the reputation of being “greenhouse gases” (GHGs) because they do react to radiation at various frequencies and thus gain heat directly from sunlight as well as via conduction. In laboratory tests this means that any enclosed space of air heats up more when there are more of these GHGs present in the space of the enclosure of the experiment. But there is no experiment possible that mimics the open atmosphere, by definition!
In the open atmosphere, the so-called GHGs actually work to increase the scattering of any solar heat, quite the opposite of what we are led to believe. Imagine an actual greenhouse with low humidity and another one with high humidity (any difference in level will prove the point). Actual experiments have proven that a greenhouse with lower humidity takes less energy to heat. This is obvious as water vapor, a celebrated GHG, quite literally absorbs energy without warming the air that’s holding it – quite the opposite of what we are led to believe, yet again. Carbon dioxide does not have the ability to absorb energy like water vapor (or water or ice for that matter). See below for further information about absorption.
Carbon dioxide is not a greenhouse gas; it does not absorb infrared nor near-infrared in a way that a sponge absorbs water and it does not transmit visible light – it is transparent to visible light.
Any energy that hits a carbon dioxide molecule will create, at the same instant, an equal and opposite emission spectrum, giving the casual observer the false illusion that energy has been “absorbed”, whereas it has merely been scattered. Some of the energy that hits the carbon dioxide molecule may well increase the temperature of that molecule (depending on how the energy hits the alignment of the molecule), but that gained heat (theoretical only, can not be measured) will also be instantly dissipated by means of conduction with surrounding air molecules and at less than 400 parts in a million parts of air, those 400 carbon dioxide molecules would collectively need to reach several hundreds of degrees to warm the million parts of air by even a fraction of a degree, all at the same time, all over the world, all the time …. (all the while when the warmer air is rising and sharing its gained heat with ever higher altitude molecules of air and trace gases).
The Pseudo Science
Apart from the climate change alarmists, many prominent skeptical scientists also make statements which are opposite to how the atmosphere works in reality, whilst some even make up new laws of physics to justify their incorrect assessments.
1. “… all absorb heat radiation, and hence inhibit the cooling emission …”
2. “… the earth is warmer than it would be in the absence of such gases.”
3. “… adding to the ‘blanket’ that is inhibiting the emission of heat radiation …”
4. “… This causes the temperature of the earth to increase until equilibrium with the sun is reestablished.”
5. “… the 2nd Law applies to the behavior of whole systems, not to every part within a system.”
6. “… a photon being emitted by the cooler star doesn’t stick its finger out to see how warm the surroundings are before it decides to leave.
7. … “The climate system is like the hot jar having an internal heating mechanism (the sun), but its ability to cool is reduced by its surroundings, which tend to insulate it.”
8. … “In contrast, the infrared atmospheric greenhouse effect instead slows the rate at which the atmosphere cools radiatively, not convectively.”
9. … “if there were only radiative heat transfer, the greenhouse effect would warm the Earth to about seventy-seven degrees centigrade rather than to fifteen degrees centigrade.”
10. … “the sun shines on the top of the atmosphere, not the surface, and the emission of energy also comes from the top of the atmosphere, not the surface.”
1. There is no physical mechanism by which a gas can absorb energy without at the same instant creating an equal and opposite emission spectrum and in the open atmosphere of our planet there is in any case nowhere for energy to hide, other than in ice, water and water vapour. Carbon dioxide can not absorb and preserve energy. At no stage is cooling prevented and even if it was, that would not increase the originally achieved maximum temperature. A blanket can at best maintain your body temperature, it can not add heat and give you a fever; it does not make you warmer, it just keeps you warmer.
2. Quite the opposite. The earth would be warmer if there was to be no water vapour in the atmosphere and by some margin (but only during the hours of sunshine of course). Observational evidence can be seen on a daily basis when comparing maximum temperatures in deserts that have coastal fringes (e.g. Sahara, Namib, Atacama), where it will be seen that there is a direct link between humidity and maximum as well as minimum daily temperatures. Absence of water vapour allows more of the sun’s radiation to reach the ground and thus create a warmer earth locally when compared to an atmosphere that holds greater water vapour and is at the same latitude. Conversely, the absence of water vapour will allow greater cooling at night whilst high humidity areas benefit from greater preservation of warmth, a sort-of “greenhouse effect” in reverse.
3. That statement only holds true in high humidity areas and then only during the hours of darkness. The presence of water vapour creates a cooler daytime atmosphere and a less cold (not warmer) atmosphere at night. At no stage is heat added nor created by the presence of water vapour or any other substance. In any case, earth is already enveloped in the perfect “blanket”: the vacuum of space – void of matter and having no temperature of itself, we could not ask for a better insulation. As per #1 above, a blanket can at best maintain your body temperature, it can not give you a fever and neither can a thermos make its contents warmer.
4. If ever there was an equilibrium between temperatures on earth and solar irradiance, the weather as we know it would cease to be. As is, solar radiation often varies from mile to mile along any longitude and latitude that anyone could ever imagine and all climate related “averages” are purely mathematical entities that bear no relation to the actual situation at almost any point on our planet other than perhaps the coldest areas of the poles during their respective long periods of winter darkness when there is not enough energy entering the local climate system to create the greater variations witnessed in more temperate climate zones. Just looking at the maximum and minimum temperature of a particular place in a moderate climate zone and deriving an “average daily temperature” from such observations bears no resemblance to the ever-changing temperatures throughout the day. In between the observed maximum and minimum temperature of the day, it could have hailed or snowed or rained or have been overcast in several episodes. The struggle to reach equilibrium is what makes the weather so unpredictable and equilibrium can never be reached.
5. A brand new Law of Physics here, where parts within a system can behave contrary to the 2nd Law but the whole obeys. Only in “climate science” can such chicanery be accepted as academic judgement. Thermal energy cannot flow into itself, only into something that has less energy than itself. That’s a law of nature, not a law of “systems”.
6. A photon will not be able to raise the temperature of the object it is hitting if that object is at an equal or higher energy level. In IPCC graphics, that photon warms the earth and the process starts again – quite impossible (see IPCC graphic below). As per #5 above: Thermal energy cannot flow into itself, only into something that has less energy than itself. That’s a law of nature, not a law of “systems”.
7. Thermal insulation in the setting of our open atmosphere does not make the system one degree warmer than it would be without that insulation (the widely accepted “insulation” being the “greenhouse gases”, not the air itself (nitrogen, oxygen)). For a given energy input, a resultant maximum temperature is achieved and regardless of the amount or type of insulation, that maximum temperature can not be increased. As per #1 above, a blanket can at best maintain your body temperature, it can not give you a fever and a thermos does not make the contents warmer, it merely slows down the rate of cooling.
8. An infrared “greenhouse effect” (whatever next?) would need “greenhouse gases” to hang on to received radiation and only water has that ability which is best seen during the hours of darkness, not whilst the sun is adding energy, when in fact water and water vapour keep soaking up energy and prevent the atmosphere from warming up as much as it would without water and water vapour (quite the opposite to what is being proposed).
[editors note: I apologize for the following few paragraphs, they may be a bit beyond the “5 year old” level, but I have every confidence that there will be many of you reading this who will actually understand it]
9. A 77° average surface temperature due to the purely radiative impact of the greenhouse effect? Radiant units do NOT combine in reality – 101 W/m² directed at a blackbody that’s radiating 100 W/m² raises its energy to 101 W/m², not 201 – but in the much heralded Kiehl-Trenberth budget they DO combine. Let’s look at the numbers, then. According to the accepted Kiehl-Trenberth radiation budget (see below), the earth’s surface averages 168 W/m² for solar absorption. K-T has the surface lose much of that energy by convection and evapotranspiration, though, so that 324 W/m² of back-radiated power brings the surface up to 390 W/m², corresponding to 15°. But in this case we’ll reduce convective and evapotranspirative heat loss to zero, which leaves us with the original 168 W/m². Now, within these parameters, how much extra back-radiation is required to bring the surface up to 77°? SIX HUNDRED EIGHTY FOUR W/m², for a total of EIGHT HUNDRED FIFTY TWO W/m², which corresponds to 77°.
(Bonus question: If the greenhouse effect generates enough radiative power to raise the earth’s temperature to 77°, but most of this heat is dissipated, then why is there no sign of this excess energy being blasted away from the earth? Satellites only see the earth emitting 240 W/m².)
The average solar irradiance for a blackbody earth – one that absorbs every photon the sun can provide – is 342 W/m², corresponding to an average temperature of 5.5°. Yet here illustrious academia estimates conjure 852 W/m² out of nothing ….
10. “Radiative equilibrium” is an arbitrary construct to BEGIN with. You just subtract a planet’s reflectance from the available irradiance and divide by 4. That’s IT. There ARE no other steps. Since Earth reflects about 30% of sunlight, then, 1368 W/m² × 0.7 = 957.6 W/m². Dividing by 4 gives you 239.4 W/m², so that becomes earth’s equilibrium figure, which corresponds to a temperature of 255Kelvin. Now, is the earth’s average SURFACE temperature 255K? No, it’s warmer. So you say that “somewhere up there” is where earth’s radiative equilibrium is to be found, somewhere in the troposphere. It’s all so silly. But once you convince yourself that the earth’s temperature is NOT principally determined by the surface, you can convince yourself that it IS determined by the atmosphere and that “greenhouse gases” RAISE the “equilibrium point” higher and higher. And as you see, you can even go as far as asserting that the surface absorbs no sunlight.
The Settled Science Unsettled
In spectroscopy, an absorption spectrum does not mean that energy is actually absorbed; it means that an equal and opposite emission spectrum is created, indicating that intercepted energy is scattered and re-radiated at different frequencies. Looking only at the absorption spectrum gives the wrong impression, as so clearly illustrated by the overall emission spectrum of earth as seen by the satellites. Radiation input from our sun equals emitted radiation from the earth back into space, in expected accordance with the basic and well-proven laws of physics. No energy is lost nor created, whereas the widely and incorrectly accepted “greenhouse” mechanism has it that carbon dioxide somehow re-radiates the same amount of infrared energy towards space as well as back to earth, thus apparently doubling the energy quantity – quite an impossibility yet described in great detail by the greatest institutions on earth – see below for the latest list. The UN’s IPCC graph reproduced below is the classic and accepted view of the mechanism by which the earth gains heat, but this mechanism can not exist; if it did, our energy problems would have been solved long ago by the engineering community: “Surface gains more heat and infrared radiation is emitted again” – if only that were true!
Whatever method of heat transfer is used, net energy flow will only take place if the receiver is cooler than the emitter, unless external energy is applied as is the case in refrigerators, for example. With earth emitting infrared energy and carbon dioxide molecules re-emitting some of this energy back to earth, it is absolutely physically impossible for this re-radiated energy to warm the earth again. If that was not the case, the basic three laws of physics would need to be rewritten. Yet this re-radiation of infrared is the very rock upon which the entire global warming panic rests.
(for larger illustration, click here)
All who read this submission would do well to study the information on this page:
First Principles of Heat Transfer
The world has all too easily accepted greenhouse effect explanations which confuse the familiar reduction of CONVECTIVE heat loss with the production of radiative heat GAIN. A physical greenhouse merely slows down the normal cooling rate by limiting the volume of air in which heat loss is occurring. So here’s a key feature to notice as the argument jumps to the atmospheric theory of a greenhouse effect, that proponents will concede that the atmosphere provides no physical canopy, no actual pane of glass or blanket that confines heated air.
What’s left, then?
Radiant energy itself. Rather than confining a fixed number of vibrating air molecules, the atmospheric “blanket” they’re arguing for is a RADIATIVE canopy under which infrared photons accumulate, and this extra energy buzzing around raises the temperature of all bodies under the canopy. Thus the greenhouse effect amounts to a “light battery” or generator that is continuously being fed by solar radiation, continuously being discharged at an EQUAL rate by terrestrial radiation, and yet is continuously AMPLIFYING the radiant energy inside it.
As the Kiehl-Trenberth model shows, 235 units go in, 235 go out, and 324 are generated in between.
(for larger view, click here and scroll down to 2nd illustration on page)
So the question naturally arises, “Is this even POSSIBLE?” Can photons of LIGHT be collected and multiplied like this? Can you turn on a flashlight, say, put it inside a reflective thermos, close the lid, and convince yourself that a million watts of radiative power will eventually be generated if you wait long enough? For that matter, has anyone ever INVENTED a device that captures light, like capturing wind in a bottle?
Or do the laws of thermodynamics forbid this? You decide.
We need to realise that blackbody equations are unable to predict a physical body’s temperature to begin with – minus 18°C for the earth is a meaningless figure. No physical object radiates at a blackbody’s rate, for one thing. And why? Because a real body has DEPTH: its response to light is not merely to heat up and immediately radiate the same amount in turn but to conductively store the heat it acquires. Considering that the oceans alone are able to hold and circulate heat for decades, when do THEY reach a point of equilibrium with the radiation it has absorbed? Yet radiant energy budgets give it a year.
Who will get the message about the non-existence of an atmospheric greenhouse effect through to the academics, the powers that be at EPA and most of the world’s acknowledged institutions, NASA included, who all describe this non-existent “greenhouse effect” with its “greenhouse gases” in a language that mirrors the once celebrated justification for the existence of phlogiston?
The Conclusion
To quote from one of the best peer-reviewed papers on the subject of our atmosphere and its non-existent “greenhouse effect” filled with non-existent “greenhouse gases”:
“The atmospheric greenhouse effect, an idea that many authors trace back to the traditional works of Fourier (1824), Tyndall (1861), and Arrhenius (1896), and which is still supported in global climatology, essentially describes a fictitious mechanism, in which a planetary atmosphere acts as a heat pump driven by an environment that is radiatively interacting with but radiatively equilibrated to the atmospheric system. According to the second law of thermodynamics, such a planetary machine can never exist. Nevertheless, in almost all texts of global climatology and in a widespread secondary literature, it is taken for granted that such a mechanism is real and stands on a firm scientific foundation. In this paper, the popular conjecture is analyzed and the underlying physical principles are clarified. By showing that (a) there are no common physical laws between the warming phenomenon in glass houses and the fictitious atmospheric greenhouse effects, (b) there are no calculations to determine an average surface temperature of a planet, (c) the frequently mentioned difference of 33 degrees C is a meaningless number calculated wrongly, (d) the formulas of cavity radiation are used inappropriately, (e) the assumption of a radiative balance is unphysical, (f) thermal conductivity and friction must not be set to zero, the atmospheric greenhouse conjecture is falsified.” (http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/0707/0707.1161v4.pdf)
There is not one piece of evidence that supports the notion that carbon dioxide causes warming in the setting of our open atmosphere and in any case the physics involved in assessing a material’s property will indicate that carbon dioxide, just like water vapor, is in fact a cooling agent (fossil fuel-fired power stations with their massive cooling towers are a classic illustration of the cooling power of water), an aid in the scattering of energy. At least water vapor has the ability to absorb energy and hang onto it (latent heat); carbon dioxide has no such ability.
In the reality of our open atmosphere it is thus the case that the only actual “greenhouse gas” is air itself (oxygen and nitrogen), whose presence allows an actual greenhouse to warm up. But quite opposite to an actual greenhouse, during the hours of sunshine it is this same air that keeps our open atmosphere cooler (compare the moon), whilst during the hours of darkness it prevents the atmosphere from cooling too rapidly (compare the moon). At no stage is our atmosphere warmer than it could possibly be due to the presence of water vapor, or carbon dioxide for that matter.
Trapped heat can never make the source of the heat hotter than it was in the first place – how could it?
The Near Total Deception
“Human-generated greenhouse gases are warming the earth but not as much as alarmists say” never was a good strategy for winning the debate, and it’s probably too late now. The only battle that remains is trying to limit the extent of emission controls on practical grounds, but the principle of emission controls has already been conceded.
Dissenters should have just stuck with the evidence: there is no sign of CO2-caused warming at all, the “well established physics” of greenhouse theory be damned.”
With thanks to Alan Siddons for the [following] list and major input into the above arguments.
Here is a partial list of respected organizations, institutions and authorities that perpetuate the myth. http://www.ilovemycarbondioxide.com/pdf/Greenhouse_Effect_Poppycock_updated.pdf
[Editors Note: Click on the link, read through the list, if you read the above article, you will see the fallacy of each offering of every organization/group/study on the list. If you read through enough of them, after reading this article, you will see that many are (simply stated) lies. Adolph Hitler said in Mein Kampf, vol 1, ch. X – “. . .in the big lie there is always a certain force of credibility; because the broad masses of a nation . . .in the primitive simplicity of their minds they more readily fall victims to the big lie than the small lie, . . . Even though the facts which prove this to be so may be brought clearly to their minds, they will still doubt and waver. . . a fact which is known to all expert liars in this world and to all who conspire together in the art of lying.”]
Hans Schreuder
Analytical Chemist UK
Mensa
Born and educated to Analytical Chemist level in The Hague, Holland.
Emigrated to South Africa in 1969, becoming a member of MENSA.
Moved to Gran Canaria in 1986, then to Ipswich, UK, in June 1992.
(Now retired.)
A special thank you to Hans Schreuder for gracious permission to re-publish his articles.
RightSideNews.com is priviledged to have access to such an accomplished member of the scientific community.