DOES ANYONE REALLY UNDERSTAND THE GREENHOUSE THEORY?

Most explanations of the green house theory will go something like this. A garden greenhouse allows ultraviolet light through its glass. This is absorbed within its confines and the interior of the greenhouse thus warms up because of the enclosed space.

Then the earth’s atmosphere is likened to the walls and the roof of a greenhouse. It allows ultraviolet in.

Then the fact that the earth’s atmosphere is not a fixed volume and unable to trap heat like the fixed volume of the walls and roof of a garden greenhouse is transposed for infrared radiation being trapped by the earth’s water vapour and some other minor gases such as carbon dioxide.

Atmospheric scientists seem to be allowing themselves to confuse fixed volume heating with non fixed volume heating. And have somehow married radiation into their confusion to give us a junk global warming thery.

About fifteen years ago I didn’t know much about the green house and thought I better get with it and try and understand what it is. Bought a weather book and soon found out it was based on a premise that seemed, well, bizarre to my simple mind.

What stood out as being strange was the notion of as much radiation having to be emitted by the earth as what arrives from the sun. That's not the greenhouse theory its self, but it is the rationale the greenhouse theory is based on. It's referred to scientifically as the global energy balance.

Realistically there would be a global energy balance of some sort if annual global temperatures are relative stable.

With respect of the greenhouse theory, the main problem this particularly balance concept glosses over is the energy we experience.

Which is heat.

Radiation of any wavelength is not heat. Radiation causes heat when absorbed by an atom or molecule but is not heat its self.

Heat is caused by the kinetic energy of molecules and is the rate at which atoms or molecules collide. The greater the collision rate, the greater the heat. The global energy balance idea is that the emission of infrared radiation lowers the collision rate of the atoms and molecules of the earth. But how?

Anyway, I had thought it just gets cold at night. Speed of light terrestrial emissions being refrigeration was news to the simpleton.

The reaction was so succinct, exact and precise, it was hard to let go of.

An absence of sun = refrigeration. Or equals cooling to be less dramatic with the language.

What could be scientifically wrong with that? Like night follows day as they say.

PART ONE

But you go with the rationale of terrestrial emissions being cooling and investigate the nature of this radiation. The radiant heat from a fire is caused by infrared radiation but the degree of infrared emission during combustion is not the norm and, obviously, nothing gets cool during a fire.

By and large ultra violet energy that arrives is considered to be high energy and the infrared radiation that the earth emits is considered to be low energy.

Plausibly infrared could be emitted 24 hours a day or from both sides of the earth whereas only one side of the earth is subject to solar rays.

Infrared x 2 maybe able to = ultra violet x 1?

Such may or may not be possible but if one is considered high energy and the other low, for the existing global energy balance rationale to be valid, it was an issue that should have at least been addressed. Not just assumed as has apparently been done since the idea first came up in 1824.

Warmer objects emit more infrared radiation than cooler objects. From this it is somehow presumed the increased infrared emissions from a warmer object quells the heat of the warmer object at the same time.

Such seems strange but anyway solar radiation has two effects on the molecules of the earth when it is absorbed by the molecules of the earth.

Absorption of solar radiation causes

1/ Earthly molecules to gain kinetic energy. Makes them move faster causing them to collide more often. This increased collision rate is the heat we feel in the presence of the sun's rays.

And the absorption of solar radiation also causes

2/ Earthly molecules to emit a higher degree of infra red radiation.

Solar energy arriving = emission of infrared radiation + increased atmospheric heat. This does not = infrared radiation cooling the earth’s atmosphere. That’s an add on you must get with the steak knives.

If the global energy balance idea that greenhouse theory is based on is taken seriously, it has things going

solar radiation arriving = atmospheric heat gain = infrared radiation stimulation = atmospheric heat loss.

It’s the veracity of the last equals sign that I question. The middle one is a bit dodgy to but how the emission of infrared radiation slows atmospheric molecules down is the question I ask.

If the existing global energy balance notion was correct, the stimulation of infrared emissions would have to be a consequence of the atmospheric molecules moving faster and also a cause of atmospheric molecules moving slower, presumably at the same time.

The reality would seem to be solar radiation causes the simultaneous events of increased heat and increased infrared radiation. Turning radiation of any wavelength into a cooling process from there defies logic.

This is not to say that the consequences of trapping infra red radiation in should not be considered. It is simply to say the emission of infrared radiation shouldn’t be considered to be the way the earth loses the heat of the day.

And also simply to say that the absorption of infrared radiation should only be considered as an atmospheric heat gain or radiation back to earth factor of molecules that make up under 0.1% of our atmosphere. Which, in what works out to be an expanding atmosphere, shouldn’t strike to much global warming terror into anyone. (The atmosphere is made up of 78% nitrogen, 21% oxygen, 0.93% argon, 0.03% carbon dioxide and 0.04% of other gases. Or something like that. When humidity and clouds are said to be the by far greatest cause of the greenhouse effect, you just have to wonder about the carbon dioxide panic. Bit of PR going its way wouldn’t hurt.)

In a nutshell, where the greenhouse theory falls down is it equates the extra emission of infrared radiation with the atmospheric heat that ultraviolet rays are causing. If the emissions are accounted for as energy leaving the earth, then the heat we feel is accounted for as leaving the earth is the way the theory works. But that’s just plain wrong. The heat is still very much with us whether or not the infrared radiation is leaving the earth.



PART TWO

It would seem the greenhouse theory has grown out of a theory about energy being perfectly conserved. Science doesn’t like being wrong and it is probably best that it isn’t but I think it is fairly easy to demonstrate that energy is not perfectly conserved as the school books have been saying.

The fact that the sun’s energy is consumed as it arrives is not difficult to see.

What if the sun was to stop emitting radiation?

What would happen to the earth?

Well, it begin to freeze and then where would all the atmospheric heat be that the earth currently experiences. Concepts of it being conserved pretty much defy earthly logic.

The anything that gains height gains potential energy. A rock taken up a hill has gained potential energy. That energy will be released if and when the rock rolls down the hill.

When the sun’s rays go to work in the morning and the atmosphere gains height, the atmosphere gains potential energy. Solar energy has been used to lift the atmosphere up to a greater height.

Then, come evening, the atmosphere descends and loses this potential energy. If it was a rock rolling down the hill this potential energy would be released as collisions with other rocks and things on the way down. When the atmosphere descends, though, there are no collisions on the way down.

Why? Because, unlike the rock beginning its descent from the top, the atmosphere begins its descent from the bottom. The bottom molecules lower first and then molecules above these settle onto those and so on. If this is right the potential energy that the sun gave the atmosphere during the day is getting destroyed at night. It vanishes as the atmosphere contracts and isn’t appearing as energy anywhere else.

The expansion and contraction of the atmosphere makes the destruction of solar energy vivid but any solar energy used to hold the earth’s atmosphere at a greater size than what it would otherwise be is energy that is being dissipated into the extra space all the time anyway.

Sun’s energy absorbed on earth = heat in the atmosphere + work done by the earth’s atmosphere against the earth’s gravity = heat in the atmosphere + increased size of atmosphere . (for the greenhouse theory lovers, heat in the atmosphere includes any heat caused by the absorption of infra red radiation.) What’s in bold requires a constant energy input to exist. That constant energy input can never be accounted for as energy again. It is vanishing as it does its job of expanding the atmosphere.

It isn’t as vivid an extinguishment of energy picture as a descending or contracting night time atmosphere but science probably has a new era to enter when it comes to the conservation of energy. It works fine in a closed system but where space and heat meet, don’t think so. Think heat is always being lost to space, anyway, regardless of incoming energy. I haven’t turned my mind to it to a great extent but I would say the centre of the earth is perpetually creating heat energy where its opposite forces meet. Some kids or blokes in the pub will sort it out whilst women folk are sorting out why it gets cold at night but I think there is probably a perpetual transfer of heat away from the centre of a celestial body that is subsequently getting lost to the space around the body. Gravity has to cause heat at its centre, anyway, and that goes against the notion of energy being something that can’t be created.

What we have is the sun emitting radiation and the earthly observation is a molecule gains kinetic energy when it absorbs this radiation. Then starts to lose kinetic energy as soon as it stops absorbing this radiation. If a perfect conservation of energy principle was at work, then the lost kinetic energy would be appearing somewhere else. But it doesn’t.

That destruction scenario or logic isn’t even really outside the realms of the perfect conservation of energy, anyway. The edict does allow its self an out with the connotation of potential energy. Potential energy is energy in limbo. If the mechanism for bringing that energy back to life circumvents its self, where would the limbo energy be? Absent for ever is the obvious answer. So, even from within its self, the whole notion of energy being perfectly conserved is significantly over rated. And obviously, if there is energy, something creates it. The whole conservation notion is not something that can really pass a clear thinking test.

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So some sunny evening or other as the day begins to cool have a think about global warming. Ask your self just why the planet does not get hotter and hotter? We know the sun is always heating half the world but what is its cooling process? Is it the emission of infra red radiation as the greenhouse theory says. Or are its cooling mechanisms just something to do with the atmosphere expanding a little into outer space during the day and the destruction of its heat as the atmosphere contracts at night.

If the earth’s cooling process is along the lines suggested here, it is fairly obvious that the ozone layer is what controls oven temperature as it were. The ozone layer controls how much solar radiation arrives in the lower atmosphere. If the earth has a global warming problem, then the obvious first place to look is the ozone layer.

That is what I would worry about anyway.