Greenhouse Gas Experiment June 20, 2007
Posted by physics309 in Global Warming, McKinney, Science.trackback
I received a copy last week of a paper I wrote that was accepted by a peer-reviewed journal. Since I’m a liberal arts teacher, getting a paper accepted is always good news. I like to average about one per year, whereas a research scientist needs to average several per year. This particular paper has an interesting story behind it and is relevant to the topic of global warming, something I’ve followed for over twenty years now.
The story began at a Lunar and Planetary Sciences Conference I was attending in the early 1990s. This is an annual conference hosted by the Lunar and Planetary Institute and held at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas. This is a great conference and I really enjoy going to it. There are several rooms with scientists giving lectures on their research all day for about five days straight. For me, it’s worse than being in a candy store. Which one do you go to? There’s a series of lectures on Venus in room A, but there’s some really interesting lectures on Mars in room B, while the latest results from a particular mission are being shown in room C, not to mention what’s going on in room D. You follow the schedule and move from room to room to catch the ones most interesting to you. The wealth of scientific discovery being revealed is exciting! In fact, there is so much to present they can’t schedule it all. As a complement to the lectures they have poster sessions, displaying hundreds more presentations. Of course, not all lectures and posters are equal. Some are enlightening and tremendous fun. Others are of interest to only a few select people. Then, there are the ones that make you wonder how they ever got in the door.
I was at one of the poster sessions and was following my routine of walking along, getting a quick view of each, and stopping at certain ones that caught my interest. There was one in particular that caught my eye simply because I thought the topic was so preposterous I felt there must be a mistake. This individual was claiming the greenhouse effect doesn’t exist. He wasn’t saying that global warming doesn’t exist (something that was in much greater debate in the scientific community at the time), he was claiming that the actual effect of warming a planet with an atmosphere doesn’t exist and all of the scientific literature on the topic was in error. I stopped just long enough to clarify that, in deed, this was what he was claiming and intended to move on but, as they say, those that hesitate are lost. This gave the author time to corner me and launch into his rationale for his claim. I certainly didn’t want to get into an argument or to encourage him, so I politely listened to everything he had to say and moved on when I got the chance, thinking there must be a way to prove this guy wrong.
His premise was that, ignoring heat coming from a planet’s interior, the total amount of heat coming in from the Sun and then being radiated out from a planet must be equal. Therefore, there can’t be any warming because this would require an imbalance in the heat flux. An interesting concept, but one that is wrong. His problem was that he did not take account the time rate of change of the heat flux. Add a layer of insulation and for a period of time, more heat will be coming in than going out, resulting in a higher temperature. Eventually, the amount of heat leaving will again equal the amount of heat coming in, but the temperature will be higher than it was before.
Imagine you are a planet and your constant body hear represents the constant heat from the Sun. Now, imagine you’re laying on a bed on a chilly evening. This would be a planet with no atmosphere; your body heat is escaping almost immediately into space (the air, in this case). To keep warm, you pull a sheet over you. Now, the sheet keeps some of the heat in and you’re warmer, but still chilly. Next, you pull a blanket over you. Now, more of your body heat is retained and you’re even warmer than before. You continue to pile blankets on top of you and you get warmer and warmer, eventually reaching the point where you become hot.
Hey! Wait a minute here! Didn’t we establish that your body temperature is constant? How is it, then, that you keep getting hotter and hotter? It sounds like something’s going on here.
In fact, if we were to take some instruments in and measure the amount of heat going into the air, we would find that, over a period of time, you are emitting the same amount of heat energy when you had nothing over you as when you had just a sheet, and as much as when you had a single blanket, and as much as when you had a pile of blankets. Given enough time, the amount of energy leaving your body is constant and it will eventually get radiated into the air. The trick is the phrase, ‘enough time’. The amount of time needed when you had nothing on you is much shorter than the amount of time when you had a pile of blankets. That’s what insulation does for you, it doesn’t stop you from losing heat, it just stretches out the amount of time it takes for it to happen. As you added blankets, we would find that, for a while, the amount of heat being emitted into the air was less than the amount of heat emitted by your body. But, everything has to balance over time, so when you get up in the morning and remove your source of heat, the blankets will continue to emit heat until they are the same temperature as the surrounding air. This shows that if you add a layer of insulation, there will be a period of time when less heat is emitted out than is supplied, and if you remove the insulation, there will be a period of time when more heat is emitted than is supplied.
That’s how global warming works. By increasing the amount of greenhouse gases in our atmosphere we have increased the amount of insulation – we’ve put some blankets on the Earth. This insulation will store heat for a while and will eventually get back into equilibrium where the amount of energy being radiated back into space is equal to the amount of energy coming in from the Sun. But, since we’ve slowed down the rate that the energy is lost, the temperature will be higher. Just like with the blankets.
So, this guy with the poster was saying none of that really happened and I decided there had to be a way to prove him wrong. I ended up designing a very simple experiment that I’ve used in my astronomy labs since then. Using two 2-liter bottles and a couple of cans of Coca-Cola, I create two environments in the bottles. In one bottle, I pour the Coke in and agitate it within the bottle. In the other case, I agitate the Coke and remove the carbonation before pouring it in. This creates two environments that are identical with the exception that one has nitrogen-oxygen atmosphere, and the other has a carbon-dioxide atmosphere. Then, you stopper them and put the two bottles in the sunlight with a thermometer in the stopper to measure the rise in temperature. My classes have consistently obtained results that show the carbon dioxide atmosphere goes up a couple of degrees higher than the nitrogen-oxygen atmosphere. Clearly, the guy with the poster was wrong.
Now, this experiment will be published and available for anyone to use.
Coming up, I will share my observations concerning global warming.
One way to make this experiment more fair would be to place baloons over the tops of the bottles.
In the bottle with the carbonated cola, the soda will release CO2 into the bottle gradually and eventually there will be a significantly higher pressure in that bottle due to the closed cap and the “extra” CO2 released by the cola.
According to the ideal gas law, PV = nRT, the increased pressure will contribute to an increase in the temperature in the bottle.
Global warming is based on the fact that greenhouse gases absorb some of the incident solar radiation; the increase in the energy of those gas molecules is dispesed to the atmosphere by collisions with other gas molecules. Higher levels of greenhouse gases lead to more heat introduced to the atmosphere by this mechanism, and a gradual heating occurs. As you correctly stated, a constant level of green house gases would eventually reach a steady state, where the flux of energy to the earth would be equal to the flux leaving the earth – but after a period of time where the atmospheric average temperature had risen by amount.
The seal around the thermometer is usually not tight enough to allow pressure to build, keeping the pressure in the two bottles equal, but you’re point is well made. Thanks for pointing that out.
Chris
Any chance you could send me a preprint of the paper?
On its way. Let me know if you didn’t get it.
Chris
Wow that’s quick. Thanks.
Have you ever tried this experiment at night? I suspect that the results would be the same, except that the CO2 atmosphere at night would decrease in temperature slower than the N2/O2 atmosphere similar to when the bottles were placed on the snow. It might also be interesting to see how the temperature varied over an entire diurnal cycle, if the leakage from the bottles could be contained that long.
That is an interesting idea. You’re right, it should be similar to the snow experience and the CO2 atmosphere should decrease in temperature more slowly than the N2O2 one. I don’t think leakage would be that much of a problem. The CO2 is heavy and sits inside the container pretty well. Shrinkage of the atmosphere would occur, but any gases leaking in would sit on the top of the CO2.
[...] an excellent, simple, and cheap experiment to verify the greenhouse effect from Tales From The Travels. So, this guy with the poster was saying none of that really happened and I decided there had to be [...]
Have you insulating the 3/4 of the bottles surface through which
heat escapes.
You will get a very different result.
I’m not sure what you mean. Heat escapes through 100% of the surface. It also comes in through 100% of the surface. So, if you insulate any part of it, you’ll be reducing the amount of solar radiation that can get in. This will certainly give very different results.
Rubbish
Heat comes in on the exposed side and goes out through the unexposed areas.
That is plain common sense.
If the unexposed areas are insulated the temperature differential
disappears.
Heat is always entering and leaving all surfaces, it is never a one-way affair. I should point out that energy is entering the system in the form of light, not thermal energy, and is entering through one-half of the surface, the surface facing the Sun. The thermal energy is escaping equally through all of the sides of the bottle. It is also escaping through the top and bottom, but these are not equal in all respects to the sides, so the heat flux will be different.
The goal of this experiment is to demonstrate to students that greenhouse gases really do store heat and it demonstrates that point very effectively. This is part of the education for students that are aware of, but not necessarily knowledgeable about, the issues concerning global warming and the effects of greenhouse gases on our environment, which is certain to be one of the most important issues of their lives. The experiment is not designed to be a rigorous scientific experiment to measure exact effects on the atmospheric system caused by greenhouse gases.
Yes, changing the conditions of the experiment will produce different results, but it is also a different experiment that tests something different. If there are other points that you wish to test or demonstrate, it is only logical that a different experiment would be needed.
I am very interested in your experiment. My daughter and I have been researching how a large scale housing development and golf course, replacing a forest, could effect the carbon dioxide in the environment for her science fair project. Her hypothesis is that cutting down the trees and adding more households with cars is a bad carbon trade off and will increase the greenhouse gas effect. We would like to try your experiment in support of this.
Your daughter is correct. But, its even worse than she thinks. By cutting down the trees you will also be releasing the carbon that is stored within their wood as they decay. This will create carbon dioxide and methane.
There’s no doubt that CO2 is a greenhouse gas, but your experiment doesn’t take the concentration of CO2 into account. What is the difference in temperature rise when CO2 iss 280ppm vs. 380ppm, etc.
The Earth’s atmosphere isn’t contained in a bottle, either. The Earth is essentially a living organism that we still are trying to figure out. We’ve had periods in our history where temps have gone up for several hundred years and gone down for several hundred years. A century of weather is just a blip in the history of weather, and even when scientists go back 140,000 years using proxy data, they don’t include the margin of error and they don’t mention that the sample rate is 3-6000 years. There is a very good chance that many centuries comparable to ours could exist within those periods of missing data.
Your argument is a false one. The purpose of the experiment was to demonstrate that CO2 is a greenhouse gas and will store heat better than an N2O2 atmosphere and it does that quite well. This experiment was not meant to model the Earth’s atmosphere, nor was it intended to address the history of climate change. The arguments you present have all been shown to be invalid arguments concerning climate change, but climate change was not the point of this experiment anyway.
You’re correct, the idiot claiming that the greenhouse effect doesn’t exist was wrong.
Please enlighten me about how my arguments have been shown to be wrong. Are you saying that the Vostok ice core data samples aren’t 3000 to 6000 years apart? The little ice age and medieval warm period didn’t exist?
Anyway, back to the experiment. The experiment is invalid since the quantities of gas are different. Did the class measure the pressure of the gas in the bottles? As we know, PV = nRT. V should be the same in both bottles if the same amount of liquid is added, n is constant, but not equal between both bottles. It’s likely that the pressure is higher in the CO2 bottle (hiss of gas when uncapping vs no hiss when uncapping) Higher pressure, higher temperature. Plus the bottle with the CO2 atmosphere also has N202 along with it. So you have equal quantities of N202 atmosphere and then additional CO2 in the CO2 bottle. Having more molecules in one bottle over the other could cause the bottle to retain more heat.
The pressure in both bottles is the same because they are open to the air. While the top is tight enough to prevent the hot gases from escaping, it is also loose enough to prevent pressure from building up. This actually works against the greenhouse gases because they are more likely to heat up and create a pressure that will allow some to escape. However, capping the bottles tightly has not shown any difference in observed results at this level of measurement.
The CO2 fills the bottles to the top and forces the N2O2 out of the bottle. We proved this by inserting burning wood splints and seeing them go out as soon as they entered the CO2 bottle, but continued to burn when inserted in the N2O2 bottle.
While the number of CO2 molecules may be different than the number of O2 and N2 molecules in the other bottle, the difference is not going to be significant enough to cause the observed differences in temperature rise.
The ‘Little Ice Age’ is a misnomer. What was observed was a regional drop in temperatures, not a global one. There were also large regions that experienced temperature rises during this same period. And, none of this has anything to do with the experiment, which was designed simply to demonstrate that the greenhouse effect is real.
Does the global atmosphere expand when it heats up?
Does the global atmospheric pressure increase?
How does equilibrium vapor pressure of oceans come into play?
Is infrared light and heat the same thing?
Does CO2 reflect heat or does it absorb and re-radiate it?
How much of the heat that encounters a CO2 molecule comes back to the earth’s surface?
Does the rate of heat transfer depend on the temperature difference between two objects?
Wouldn’t a higher global temperature increase the rate of heat transfer to space?
Can you predict when the stock market will go up? It’s a much less complicated system than the climate and we are going to need a lot of dough to pay for all the proposed remedies to climate change. How are we going to get termites to pay their fair share of the cost? Economics, science, and religion are killing my buzz! Face it — In the long run we’ll all be dead.
The atmospheric greenhouse effect assumes that in daytime, a cool atmosphere “back radiates” to a warmer earth surface. While all bodies radiate, the nett effect can only be heat passing from warm bodies to cooler bodies – 2nd Law of Thermodynamics.
This NASA diagram shows no greenhouse :
http://eosweb.larc.nasa.gov/EDDOCS/images/Erb/components2.gif
My view is that the atmosphere acts like a radiation shield on an automotive exhaust. One or more sheets of metal between the hot exhaust and cool surroundings, reduce radiation from the hot exhaust. The shield(s) adopt intermediate temperatures. There is no “greehouse effect” between the shield and the cool surroundings.
The result is that absorption of sunlight by gases in the atmosphere, moderates daytime temperatures. Similarly it increases nightime temperatures.
It would be interesting to see a trend of the difference between global average max and min temperatures over the past 150 years. If GHGs are increasing, one would expect a falling trend. This trend would be less susceptible to urban heat island effect. Is this data available ? (It is obviously stored in order to calculate global average temps).
You’re wrong when you say the diagram does not show any greenhouse effect. There is an arrow labled ‘Radiation Absorbed By Atmosphere 15%’. Atmospheric absorption is what the greenhouse effect is all about, and what this experiment is all about. The experiment shows that a CO2 atmosphere absorbs more energy than a N2O2 one.
As for the day/night difference, that is an interesting question. You could be correct on this, although I have some thoughts about it. It would depend on the relationship of energy escape rate at night versus energy storage rate during the day. I don’t know where to find that data, but I agree with you that it should be somewhere.
Correct … the diagram does show heat from sunlight being absorbed. I have no argument about the atmosphere absorbing incoming solar radiation. However, it does not show greenhouse “back radiation” (that is, a cool atmosphere radiating heat to a warmer earth) as most of these heat/energy “greenhouse” diagrams do.
I suspect that there is a general confusion about heat / wavelength / temperature. The 2nd Law doesn’t care what the wavelength of the energy is. The idea that a cool atmosphere can absorb long wavelength radiation from the earth and then “back radiate” this to a warm earth violates the 2nd Law.
As you and the diagram suggest, all the atmosphere does during daytime, is to absorb some incoming solar radiation.
Your statements about greenhouse effect and the 2nd law are both incorrect.
The 2nd law of thermodynamics says, in various forms, that entropy always increases. Heat can, and does, move from a cool body to a warm body, as long as there is an increase in entropy somewhere else to compensate.
But, that isn’t what the greenhouse effect is all about. What the greenhouse effect says is that the atmosphere is trapping heat, like a blanket on a bed, and keeping the overall temperature higher than it otherwise would be. By adding more greenhouse gases to the atmosphere, the atmosphere becomes more efficient at trapping heat. Individual molecules will trap heat, then reradiate them. But, there is not a preferred direction to this radiation. Energy will be radiated by the molecules in all directions. Some of this radiation will be reabsorbed by the ground, some will be reabsorbed by other molecules in the atmosphere, and some will radiate into space.
There is certainly no violation of the laws of thermodynamics there.
Yes, the general expression of the 2nd Law is that there is always a tendency to an increase in total entropy. In a simple system such as this, assuming constant pressure, perhaps you can give an example of heat flowing from a cold body to a hot body without the input of work ?
Have you discovered a source of perpetual energy ?
If the greenhouse effect acts “like a blanket on a bed, and keeping the overall temperature higher than it otherwise would be” as you suggest, we would expect temperatures to be lower in daytime if there was less GH gases. This is exactly the situation over deserts, with low levels of water vapour in the atmosphere … but deserts are hot in the day, not cool. The only NETT effect that GH gases have is to absorb incoming solar radiation, as shown in the NASA diagram. There can be no NETT back radiation from a cool atmosphere to a warmer earth.
Again, you are wrong on several counts.
First, there is work being done on the Earth by the Sun, a huge amount, in fact.
Second, the Earth’s environment is certainly not a simple system. There is nothing that is simple about it. If it was, things like weather forecasting would have been perfected long ago.
Third, being a desert does not mean it is hot. Antarctica is considered the driest desert in the world. A desert such as the Sahara is hot because of the intense solar radiation during the day is absorbed by the ground and not by ground cover. Plant life converts much of this radiation into chemical products through photosynthesis. More energy is used up in evaporation. Without ground cover and without the evaporation that would be found in a wetter climate, the ground absorbs all of the heat and then reradiates it. After sunset, the ground is no longer receiving solar radiation and cools rapidly. This daily cycle has nothing to do with the greenhouse effect or global warming. What you would need to do is to check the long-term average temperature in a desert to see if there is any change. The data shows that, yes, even the desert areas are getting hotter.
Also, the atmosphere is typically only cooler than the ground during the daytime, but warmer during the night.
As for the net effect, your statement is correct, but misleading. It is true that eventually, all energy coming into the atmosphere will leave it. But, this could take thousands of years, or even millions. If energy is trapped in the atmosphere at a rate greater than what it radiates back out into space, then the temperature must rise.
By the way, referring to your comments about radiating from a cool system to a hot one, you must take into consideration the atmosphere. The upper levels of the atmosphere are much hotter than the lower ones. Temperature drops as you go up in altitude, but then rises again to temperatures in the 100s and even 1000s of degrees. By your argument, we could never radiate any heat into space at all because it would first have to radiate through this much hotter layer of the atmosphere.
If you think that global warming is false, then I suggest you check into my $1000 Global Warming Skeptic Challenge. If you can prove, via the scientific method, that global warming does not exist, I’ll pay you $1000.
Are you now suggesting that the work done by the sun on the earth is responsible for heat travelling from a cold bodies to hot bodies ?
You did not answer my question:
… assuming constant pressure, perhaps you can give an example of heat flowing from a cold body to a hot body without the input of work ?
I have no argument that the earth’s atmosphere and climate is complex. The discussion here relates to the claimed “greenhouse effect” … that is, the daytime “back-radiation” from so called GHGs.
Once again you have sidestepped … your greenhouse theory would suggest that the daytime Sahara temperatures should be cool rather than hot, because of low levels of the major GHG, water vapour. Low GHG’s mean what you call your “blanket” is missing.
“As for the net effect, your statement is correct” … we are making progress !
Do you disagree with this NASA diagram showing no “back radiation”, no greenhouse effect, and no what you refer to as “a blanket” ? :
http://eosweb.larc.nasa.gov/EDDOCS/images/Erb/components2.gif
The atmosphere is not opaque as you imply. Warm parts of the atmosphere will show a nett radiation to cooler parts. However the atmosphere does not absorb all radiation passing through it. It is partially transparent … that’s why even in very polluted areas we can see the sun.
Your $1000 is very “old hat” and looks very silly compared to the $500,000 offered here :
http://www.ultimateglobalwarmingchallenge.com/
… if you can prove global warming is true.
I’ve decided to use your submissions as the second entry in my Global Warming Skeptic Challenge. Check my blog in the next few days for my review of your argument.
I should add that the sign of a good scientist is that he is a skeptic about just about everything. History is full of examples of great scientists who have stood against the tide of popular opinion. Galilleo is a good example, although he waited till his death bed before standing for the truth. Bruno was a little more bold and was burnt to death as a result. John Nash didn’t want to be “contaminated” by ideas of others, so he derived everything himself from first principles.
Most scientists probably had similar experiences to mine years ago when I first heard about CO2. I’d learnt 350ppm in school and now it was higher … at first glance it seemed there might be a connection with global temperatures. However it didn’t take a great deal of investigation to start to see the flaws in the hypothesis. Until a couple of weeks ago, I’d taken greenhouse for granted, as I’m sure 99% of other scientists do. I may have made similar statements as the blogger here. On questioning greenhouse in detail, it is clearly built on just as poor grounds as the theory about man’s CO2 causing global warming.
Your arguments have a number of fatal flaws. I hope to be able to get to your posts soon and detail where you are making your errors.
Waiting with bated breath for your fatal response.
You can see my reply here.
Dr A Burns is absolutely correct.
First some applicable Physics links:
“Second Law of Thermodynamics: It is not possible for heat to flow from a colder body to a warmer body without any work having been done to accomplish this flow. Energy will not flow spontaneously from a low temperature object to a higher temperature object.”
http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/thermo/seclaw.html#c3
——
Entropy
“The second law
Main article: Second law of thermodynamics
A law of physics, the second law of thermodynamics, states that the total entropy of any system cannot decrease except insofar as it flows outward across the boundary of the system.
As a corollary, in an isolated system, the entropy cannot decrease (the second law places no restrictions on the increase of entropy).
Two important consequences are that heat cannot of itself pass from a colder to a hotter body:”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entropy
——-
With reference to Heat Transfer by Radiation using the Stefan-Boltzmann Law
“Radiation is heat transfer by the emission of electromagnetic waves which carry energy away from the emitting object.”
P = e*BC*A(T^4 – Tc^4)
Where P = net radiated power (Watts), e = emissivity, BC = Stefan’s constant, A = area, T = temperature of radiator and Tc =
temperature of the surroundings or another body.
..when rearranged gives
P/A = e*BC*T^4 – e*BC*Tc^4 (Watts/m^2)
This is an obvious subtraction of two Electromagnetic Fields
It also complies with the Vector subtraction of Electromagnetic Fields which are Vectors.
The resultant Electromagnetic Field will have a magnitude of P/A and have a direction of propagation in the direction of the larger field.
There is absolutely no energy flow from cold to hot, complying with the 2nd Law.
http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/thermo/stefan.html#c2
———————————————————-
It is impossible for a colder atmosphere to heat a warmer Earth.
———————————————————-
Tutorial on the Greenhouse Effect- University of Arizona
“In this case, the Earth still gains 240 Watts/meter2 from the sun. It still loses 240 Watts/meter2 to space. However, because the atmosphere is opaque to infrared
light, the surface cannot radiate directly to space as it can on a planet without greenhouse gases. Instead, this radiation to space comes from the atmosphere.
However, atmospheres radiate both up and down (just like a fire radiates heat in all directions). So although the atmosphere radiates 240 Watts/meter2 to space, it
also radiates 240 Watts/meter2 toward the ground! Therefore, the surface receives more energy than it would without an atmosphere: it gets 240 Watts/meter2 from
sunlight and it gets another 240 Watts/meter2 from the atmosphere — for a total of 480 Watts/meter2 in this simple model.”
http://www.lpl.arizona.edu/~showman/greenhouse.html
The Greenhouse Effect
“Absorption of longwave radiation by the atmosphere causes additional heat energy to be added to the Earth’s atmospheric system. The now warmer atmospheric greenhouse gas molecules
begin radiating longwave energy in all directions. Over 90% of this emission of longwave energy is directed back to the Earth’s surface where it once again is absorbed by the surface. The heating of the ground by the longwave radiation causes the ground surface to once again radiate, repeating the cycle described above, again and again, until no more longwave is available for absorption.”
http://www.physicalgeography.net/fundamentals/7h.html
The above Greenhouse Effect links describe a Perpetual Motion Machine, actually a Perpetual Motion Machine in a Positive Feedback Loop.
The ultimate outcome is an infinite “creation” of energy and a violation of the Law of Conservation of Energy.
The Sun is the ONLY energy source, the Earth and atmosphere are NOT energy sources.
———————————————————-
Proof that Back Radiation (available Day and Night) from a colder atmosphere cannot Heat a warmer Earth.
———————————————————-
Solar Ovens are Parabolic Mirrors that can concentrate Solar Energy and IR Back Radiation at a focal point.
If Back Radiation actually reached the Earth, Solar Ovens would produce heating at night.
Here is an experiment done at Brigham Young Unversity that PROVES that Back-Radiation CANNOT heat the Earth.
Solar Cookers and Other Cooking Alternatives
“The second area of solar cookers I looked at was their potential use for cooling. I tested to see how effective they are at cooling both at night and during the day. During both times, the solar cooker needs to be aimed away from buildings, and trees.
These objects have thermal radiation and will reduce the cooling effects. At night the solar cooker needs to also be aimed straight up towards the cold sky. During the day the solar cooker needs to be turned so that it does not face the Sun and also points towards the sky.
For both time periods cooling should be possible because all bodies emit thermal radiation by virtue of their temperature. So the heat should be radiated outward.
Cooling should occur because of the second law of thermodynamics which states that heat will flow naturally from a hot object to a cold object.
The sky and upper atmosphere will be at a lower temperature then the cooking vessel. The average high-atmosphere temperature is approximately -20 °C.
So the heat should be radiated from the cooking vessel to the atmosphere.”
http://solarcooking.org/research/McGuire-Jones.mht
This link shows that heating cannot occur from the atmosphere.
In fact, the article shows how to COOL items placed in the Solar Oven at NIGHT AND DAY!
All you have to do is point the Oven away from the Sun during the Day and the Oven will transfer heat from the WARM object in the Oven to the COOLER atmosphere!
It can even be used to produce ICE when the ambient air temp is +6 deg C!
“If at night the temperature was within 6 °C or 10°F of freezing, nighttime cooling could be used to create ice. Previous tests at BYU (in the autumn and with less water) achieved ice formation by 8 a.m. when the minimum ambient night-time temperature was about 48 °F.”
And, this also confirms the validity of 2nd Law of Thermodynamics….heat energy CANNOT flow from Cold to Warm objects.
———————————————————-
All the physics and measurements falsify the greenhouse effect.
First, A Burns (I strongly doubt he is a doctor of anything except his imagination) is completely wrong, as I have previously shown. And, so are you.
To begin with, heat most definitely moves from cold bodies to warm ones. The correct wording for the second law of thermodynamics is that no NET flow of heat can occur without work being done. What this means is that heat is flowing from a cold body to a hot one, but even more heat flows from the hot one to the cold one. Heat is not a fluid or some kind of matter. It is energy and energy is flowing in all directions, all the time.
And, there is a similar correction to the statement of entropy. The correct statement is that the total entropy OF A CLOSED SYSTEM cannot decrease. We decrease entropy every time we run an engine or clean up a room, but only in an open system. When we include the source of the energy needed to run the engine or clean the room, entropy increases.
Energy fields are not vectors. They can be represented by vectors in that they have a magnitude and a direction, but they are physical entities and vectors are mathematical entities. But, again, you’re statement about the Stefan-Boltzmann law applies to NET energy flow. The Sun, as hot as it is and with all the energy it is radiating, is still absorbing energy from space. Some of this energy comes in as photons of energy from other sources or as cosmic rays (high energy charged particles). The fact that it is emitting energy does not preclude the absorption of this other energy, even though the surrounding space is colder than the Sun.
Your statement about a colder atmosphere cannot heat the surface of the Earth is as silly as when A Burns said it. No one is claiming that a cold atmosphere is warming the Earth. What you are trying to do is the equivalent of smoke and mirrors. By making what sounds like a scientific argument, you then introduce a false statement and claim that global warming is false. Since global warming evidence does not claim a cold atmosphere is warming the Earth, your argument is not only invalid, but extremely childish.
You need to spend more time understanding physics and less time convincing yourself that you are smarter than all of the scientists in the world.
You’re not.
First, I am a Professional Electrical Engineer.
Of course, as you are undoubtedly aware, Electromagnetic Radiation includes radio waves, microwaves, infrared, visible light, ultraviolet, X-rays, and gamma rays.
A large part of my work deals with Propagating Electromagnetic Fields in the design of communication links covering a large portion of electromagnetic spectrum from very low frequencies up to optical
frequencies.
This includes antenna radiation patern design and prediction using Vector analysis of Electromagnetic Fields to predict nulls and peaks of the radiation pattern.
This has been common practice for Electrical Engineers for over a hundred years and makes possible all Radio, Television, Telephone, Satellite etc. communications used by everybody, everyday.
Further, the 2nd Law and Heat Transfer Physics are used by Electrical Engineers to design heat dissapation devices like “heat sinks” used in all sorts of enviroments including the computer you are sitting at.
This post will deal with Electromagnetic Fields.
——-
ALL Propogating Electromagnetic Fields are Vector quantities.
The mere fact that they have a magnitude and direction should make this self-evident.
When subtracting opposing EM Field Vector quantities there can can only be ONE resultant EM Field Vector.
That’s how antenna radiation pattern nulls are designed.
Further,
Heat Radiation
“Radiation is heat transfer by the emission of ELECTROMAGNETIC WAVES which carry energy away from the emitting object. For ordinary temperatures (less than red hot”), the radiation is in the infrared region of the electromagnetic spectrum. The relationship governing radiation from hot objects is called the Stefan-Boltzmann law:”
http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/thermo/stefan.html#c2
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Thermal Radiation
“Thermal radiation is ELECTROMAGNETIC RADIATION emitted from the surface of an object which is due to the object’s temperature.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermal_radiation
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Electromagnetic radiation
“Electromagnetic (EM) radiation is a self-propagating wave in space or through transparent matter. EM radiation has an electric and magnetic field component which oscillate in phase perpendicular to each other and to the direction of energy propagation.”
“According to Maxwell’s equations, a time-varying electric field generates a magnetic field and vice versa. Therefore, as an oscillating electric field generates an oscillating magnetic field, the magnetic
field in turn generates an oscillating electric field, and so on. These oscillating fields together form an electromagnetic wave.”
“Interference is the superposition of two or more waves resulting in a new wave pattern. If the fields have components in the same direction, they constructively interfere, while opposite directions cause
destructive interference.
The energy in electromagnetic waves is sometimes called radiant energy.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromagnetic_wave
————
Electromagnetic radiation
“Electromagnetic radiation (sometimes abbreviated EMR) takes the form of self-propagating waves in a vacuum or in matter. EM radiation has an electric and magnetic field component which oscillate in phase perpendicular to each other and to the direction of energy propagation. Electromagnetic radiation is classified into types according to the frequency of the wave, these types include (in order of increasing frequency): radio waves, microwaves, terahertz radiation, infrared radiation, visible light, ultraviolet radiation, X-rays and gamma rays. Of these, radio waves have the longest wavelengths and Gamma rays have the shortest.”
“Electric and magnetic fields do obey the properties of superposition, so fields due to particular particles or time-varying electric or magnetic fields contribute to the fields due to other causes. (As
these fields are vector fields, all magnetic and electric field vectors add together according to vector addition”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromagnetic_radiation
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“Power Density and Radiated Power
The Poynting Vector P is defined as:
P(vector) = (1/2) E(vector) X H(vector)
which is a power density with units of W/m2.
Figure 4.1.3 The w/m2 Varies with Position on the Surface of a Sphere
“n = unit normal directed outward from the surface.”
“We now continue to calculate the total radiated power from an antenna. It is the number of watts
per square meter that happens to be at a given point and the direction of the vector is the
direction of the power flow.”
http://www.engr.psu.edu/cde/courses/ee497c/M4L1.pdf
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Blackbody Radiation
“Blackbody radiation” or “cavity radiation” refers to an object or system which absorbs all radiation incident upon it and re-radiates energy which is characteristic of this radiating system only, not
dependent upon the type of radiation which is incident upon it.”
The radiated energy can be considered to be produced by standing wave or resonant modes of the cavity which is radiating.”
http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/mod6.html#c1
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Do you even realize that common ‘interference’ patterns produced by interacting EM waves is entirely explained by use of vector analysis and superposition?
Your statement that Energy fields are not vector fields is obviously wrong and displays an astounding ignorance of the physics that has been in common use for over a hundred years.
Now, I will talk about your claim that the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics deals with NET flow and why your statement is false.
“Second Law of Thermodynamics: It is not possible for heat to flow from a colder body to a warmer body without any work having been done to accomplish this flow. Energy will not flow spontaneously from a low temperature object to a higher temperature object.”
http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/thermo/seclaw.html#c3
The 2nd Law does not include the word NET, in fact it clearly uses the words NOT POSSIBLE.
You might as well re-write the Law of Universal Gravitation to be the “NET Law of Gravitation” so that some people could be blasted into space by gravity as long as most people remained Earth bound!
As long as the NET direction of Gravity was “downward” most people would remain Earth bound.
Those few people who had Gravity spontaneously change direction to “up” would be blasted into space.
This also would violate the Law of Conservation of Energy.
The 2nd Law of Thermodynamics has everything to do with DIRECTION of energy flow…..warm to colder bodies.
Radiated Heat energy is an EM field vector quantity.
When subtracting opposing EM Field Vector quantities there can can only be ONE resultant EM Field Vector.
The resultant EM Field Vector will have a magnitude (Warm w/m^2 – Cold w/m^2) and a DIRECTION of propagation from warm to cold.
There will be ZERO EM Field propogation from cold to warm.
If there was ANY propagation from cold to warm, the result would be a violation of the Law of Conservation of Energy….which is NOT POSSIBLE.
Example: On another forum someone once stated the 2nd Law was a NET Law and used an analogy of a radiating light bulb…here was my reply:
——————————————————–
I wonder why so many people, who have obviously heard of Laws of Science, will try to prove that they are somehow wrong.
In case you don’t know why they are called Laws of Science, it’s because they have never been shown to be violated.
Do you really think what you have posted is correct and therefore somehow disproves Laws of Science?
Let’s use your “clear light bulb” as an example….you said:
“Consider a clear light bulb, turned off. You can see the filament because ambient room light is shining on it. When you turn the bulb on, light is still shining on the filament from the room, you just don’t
notice it because the filament radiates so much more than it recieves.”
—-
Now, I will post these Laws of Science for use in analyzing what you have written:
1. The Law of Conservation of Energy basically states that “Energy cannot be created or destroyed”.
2. The 2nd Law of Thermodynamics basically states that “Energy can only flow from Hot to Cold objects”.
3. The Stephan-Boltzmann Law basically shows that “Objects that absorb energy will increase in temperature and radiate all the energy it absorbed”
—-
OK, lets analyse:
“Consider a clear light bulb, turned off. You can see the filament because ambient room light is shining on it.”….CORRECT.
“When you turn the bulb on, light is still shining on the filament from the room, you just don’t notice it because the filament radiates so much more than it recieves.”….WRONG
It is wrong because it would violate the The 2nd Law of Thermodynamics AND The Law of Conservation of Energy.
It violates the 2nd Law because the light energy from from the room comes from a colder body than the HOT filament.
If the light from the room was absorbed by the filament it’s temperature would have to increase and the filament would radiate more energy.(Stephan-Boltzmann Law).
If the filament radiated more energy, the light in the room would increase and cause the filament temperature to increase even further.
The filament would radiate more energy causing the light in the room to increase again, causing the filament to heat further, causing the light in the room to increase….etc.
This violates the The Law of Conservation of Energy because energy has been created.
In fact, the temperature of filament would increase to infinity and produce infinite energy.
—————————————————–
As you can see the Laws of Science are all connected. If you violate one Law you invariably violate other Laws of Science.
It is NOT POSSIBLE for heat to flow from a colder body to a warmer body without any work having been done to accomplish this flow.
I doubt you are an electrical engineer. You lack an understanding of the physics involved that even a first year introductory student would understand. A typical engineer would understand that heat is the NET flow of energy and not some kind of bulk fluid motion. An engineer would also understand that vectors are merely representative of fields and not the fields themselves. And, at that, they only represent the SUM of the individual fields. I suspect you are, at most, a technician. You have a very poor understanding of the physics and have replaced that understanding with an amalgam of equations. Quoting a number of equations may impress a lay person, but it isn’t going to work with most scientists.
Most people will look at a photograph of a person and say ‘That is Joe,’ (or whomever it may be), but few people will think that it actually IS Joe. They understand that the photograph is merely an image of the actual person. Likewise, vectors represent fields, they are not the fields themselves. And, normally, the vectors are representative of the SUM of the fields. A given field is usually the sum of many individual fields, each created by individual charges, and the number of charges is typically so great that the number can only be represented via scientific notation. Surely, you’re not suggesting that all of those individual fields are all pointing in the same direction and with the same magnitude as the total field. Any student of introductory physics knows this is not a true statement. Individual fields curve and point in all directions. Further, we don’t even know what a field is. They are merely defined as ‘regions of influence,’ which describes what they do, but not what they are. To go and say that a field is a vector is the same as saying a photograph is a person. It is merely the mathematical description of the field, not the field itself. As a further example, when we make contact with an alien culture, we will find that their math is very different than ours. Are you saying that the fields will be different for these aliens because their math is different? Learn to distinguish between the mathematical description and the physical reality.
This brings me to your ‘arguments.’ You quote a variety of equations, for what reason I can’t fathom. The Stefan-Boltzmann law provides information of radiation intensity. So what? What does this have to do with any point you are trying to make? We all know the Sun emits energy. Apparently, you don’t grasp that concept that NET flow of energy moves from a hot object to a cold one, but that is still irrelevant.
And, your use of the second law of thermodynamics smacks of arguments I have heard from creationists. You are missing a fundamental understanding of the second law. The biggest flaw in your second law arguments is that the Earth is not a closed system. You cannot argue that entropy cannot decrease in the atmosphere simply by quoting the second law. The second law makes it very clear that entropy CAN decrease in a region if work is done on it by an outside force, AND THE SUN IS AN OUTSIDE FORCE! And, there are other outside forces that are doing work on the atmosphere (cosmic rays being a notable one). The Sun is doing tremendous amounts of work on the atmosphere. So, while the second law certainly applies, you must understand what it is saying in order to properly apply it.
Your statements lack any kind of credible logical progression. Further, you do nothing to address the absolutely overwhelming mountain of evidence that supports global warming, a mountain that is growing at an alarming rate. Additionally, you fail to provide even the slightest evidence to support any claim that global warming ISN’T occurring. What you have done, which is the typical method of all global warming skeptics, is to reach a conclusion you want to reach. You then ignore the evidence that is contrary to your desired conclusion and you make up invalid arguments to support it. Frequently, as in your case, you will throw in a bunch of equations or quotations in an attempt to make it sound as if you’re credible. But, even the least amount of effort shows that what you are saying is false.
If you feel that you can prove, via the scientific method, that global warming is not real, then you can take my $1000 challenge. It is still sitting there and no one had claimed it. This pretty surprising since so many people like you state with so much certainty that it isn’t, you would have thought someone would have been able to prove it by now. One word of caution, nothing you have written here even begins to approach a valid argument.
Global warming skeptics like you fall in the same category as people who profess creationism, 9/11 government conspiracy claims, the Moon landings are a fake, there is a face on Mars, and the world will end in 2012.
Now, I will talk about your claim:
“Your statement about a colder atmosphere cannot heat the surface of the Earth is as silly as when A Burns said it. No one is claiming that a cold atmosphere is warming the Earth. What you are trying to do
is the equivalent of smoke and mirrors. By making what sounds like a scientific argument, you then introduce a false statement and claim that global warming is false. Since global warming evidence does not
claim a cold atmosphere is warming the Earth, your argument is not only invalid, but extremely childish.”
Really?
First, the Greenhouse Effect links I produced in my first post was NOT WRITTEN BY ME!…They were written by AGW advocates at the University of Arizona and PhysicalGeography.net
They clearly violate the 2nd Law and the Law of Conservation of Energy.
Ever hear of Kevin Trenberth and his Energy Balance Diagram?
It’s included in just about all AGW literature, websites, papers and the IPCC uses it extensively.
Kevin E. Trenberth
“Kevin E. Trenberth is head of the Climate Analysis Section at the National Center for Atmospheric Research. He was a lead author of the 2001 and 2007 IPCC Scientific Assessment of Climate Change (see IPCC Fourth Assessment Report) and serves on the Scientific Steering Group for the Climate Variability and Predictability (CLIVAR) program. In addition, he serves on the Joint Scientific Committee of the World Climate Research Programme, and has made significant contributions to research into El Niño-Southern Oscillation.
He was made an honorary fellow of the Royal Society of New Zealand, in 2000 and awarded the Jule G. Charney award from the American Meteorological Society and in 2003 NCAR Distinguished Achievement Award.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevin_E._Trenberth
With reference to Trenberth’s Earth’s Energy Balance Diagram
http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/thermo/Earthebal.html#c1
Trenberth clearly shows the colder Atmosphere Back Radiation of 324 w/m^2 being absorbed by the warmer Earth’s surface.
Anytime a body absorbes heat energy it’s temperature has to increase…..the warmer Earth’s surface was warmed by the colder atmosphere.
The Sun (THE ONLY ENERGY SOURCE) only provides 168 w/m^2 of energy that is absorbed by the Earth’s surface.
Is the Earth an Energy source?…NO IT IS NOT!
Is the Atmosphere an Energy source?….NO IT IS NOT!
The 168 w/m^2 FROM THE SUN IS ALL THE ENERGY THAT IS AVAILABLE!
Trenberth shows the Atmosphere Back Radiation absorbed by the Earth’s surface is 324 w/m^2.
Is 324 greater than 168?
Conservation of Energy
“Energy can neither be created nor destroyed”
http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/conser.html
ENERGY WAS CREATED.
Your statement that “No one is claiming that a cold atmosphere is warming the Earth.” is FALSE.
In fact, the Back Radiation IS the basis for the AGW claim.
——————————
PS: I noticed that you had no comment about the actual Solar Oven measurements done by the Physics Dept. of Brigham Young Unversity.
The Solar Oven Parabolic Mirrors that can concentrate Solar Energy and IR Back Radiation at a focal point should have focused the 324 w/m^2 Back Radiation (available Day and Night) to produce HEATING AT NIGHT!
In fact, the Back Radiation should produce more heating than the Solar Energy!
If Back Radiation actually reached the Earth, all our energy problems would be solved!
By the way, ALL direct measurements of the Back Radiation use IR detectors that are cooled far below the -20 deg C average atmosphere temperature.
This complies with the 2nd Law and makes these direct measurements POSSIBLE.
——————————————————–
All the Physics and All the measurements completely falsify the Greenhouse Effect and AGW.
See my reply to your last comment. You are either a fraud, or woefully lacking in your understanding of physics.
Gee, I think you will have to post it first.
DUH!
All comments, no matter how ridiculous, get posted.
I’ll try one more time to show you why you’re wrong about the second law.
There are two major ways to transfer heat between objects, electromagnetic radiation and conduction.
Suppose we have two objects, one is hotter than the other, so will be the ‘hot’ object while the other is the ‘cold’ object. By your statements, no heat can move from the ‘cold’ object to the ‘hot’ one without violating the second law of thermodynamics. However, even the cold object is emitting infrared light and doing so in all directions. Some of this IR light will strike the ‘hot’ object and be absorbed. Therefore, heat is moving from the ‘cold’ object to the ‘hot’ object. At the same time, IR light is being emitted by the ‘hot’ object and, in the same way, will be absorbed by the ‘cold’ object. But, there will be more IR light going from the ‘hot’ object to the ‘cold’ one than vice versa. So, while heat is most definitely moving in both directions, the NET heat is moving from the ‘hot’ object to the ‘cold’ one.
In the case of conduction, heat transfer is done via moving molecules. The faster the velocity of the molecule, the higher the temperature of that molecule. The overall temperature of any given object will be the average of the temperatures of the molecules making up that object. So, the molecules in the ‘cold’ object will have an average temperature that is lower than the average temperature of the molecules in the ‘hot’ object. But, the spread of temperatures will very large and even the coldest object will have some molecules with very high temperatures (velocities) and the hottest will have some molecules with very low temperatures (velocities). If we put the two objects in contact with each other, some of the molecules in the ‘cold’ object will strike molecules in the ‘hot’ object and transfer some heat via conduction. At the same time, some of the molecules in the ‘hot’ object will do the same thing to the ‘cold’ object. But, again, more of this will occur moving from the ‘hot’ object to the ‘cold’ object, so the NET flow of heat will be from the ‘hot’ object to the ‘cold’ one, even though heat is again moving in both directions.
Not only are these two processes not a violation of the laws of thermodynamics, but they are REQUIRED by those laws.
Anyone with even a rudimentary knowledge of physics is well aware of this. This is just one reason I’m convinced you are not an electrical engineer. Any engineer would be well aware of these processes and how they work.
First, some comments about CLOSED SYSTEMS.
You said…
“The biggest flaw in your second law arguments is that the Earth is not a closed system.’
This statement is FALSE!
Closed system
“In physics, a closed system can exchange heat and work, but not matter, with its surroundings.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Closed_system
Closed System
Is is a system that transfers energy, but not matter, across its boundary to the surrounding environment.
Our planet is often viewed as a closed system.
http://www.physicalgeography.net/physgeoglos/c.html
You should really review the definition before posting your “opinion”!
It is amazing how hard you are working to destroy your credibility.
First, why in the world would you assume the planet is not exchanging mass with its surrounding environment? The Earth gives off hundreds of thousands of tons of matter every day, and receives even larger amounts. Yes, the Earth is growing is size. So, there is certainly an exchange of matter with the surrounding environment.
You’re citation of Wikipedia only helps to show you are some kind of fruitcake, at best. Anyone that cites Wikipedia as a reliable source is very suspect. Let’s just examine the entry you cited. The first thing you see on this citation is:
“This article does not cite any references or sources. ”
You are basing your argument on this?
Then, it also says:
“A closed system is a system in the state of being isolated from its surrounding environment. The term often refers to an idealized system in which closure is perfect. In reality no system can be completely closed; there are only varying degrees of closure.”
Even your poor reference disputes your arguments.
But, going to any source that is more credible will likely give a definition such as:
“A physical system on which no outside influences act; closed so that nothing gets in or out of the system and nothing from outside can influence the system’s observable behavior or properties.”
http://www.physlink.com/reference/Glossary.cfm
Now, back to EM Fields.
You said…
“A given field is usually the sum of many individual fields, each created by individual charges, and the number of charges is typically so great that the number can only be represented via scientific notation. Surely, you’re not suggesting that all of those individual fields are all pointing in the same direction and with the same magnitude as the total field. Any student of introductory physics knows this is not a true statement.”
Wrong Again!…and Hilarious!
The individual fields from multiple sources don’t have to be ‘pointing in the same direction’!
Example: Antenna Radiation Patterns
It is a simple matter to do Vector summation at multiple points in a circle around the sources to determine the radiation pattern!
We have been doing precisely this for OVER A HUNDRED YEARS!
More on Electromagnetic Fields and Vectors in addition to the numerous Physics Links that I have already provided.
1. Vector addition of fields…
http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/electric/mulpoi.html#c3
This shows how resultant field vectors are calculated.
Using superposition, many, many sources can analysed to produce a single resultant vector.
2. Radiation from a dipole source..and cancellation of sound..and an animation
http://www.kettering.edu/~drussell/Demos/rad2/mdq.html
This example shows radiation patterns produced by sound wave sources.
The same patern types are produced for Antennas using the Poynting Vectors of Electromagnetic Fields.
Notice the nulls and peaks calculated by vector mathematics.
3. Field Lines for a Magnetic Dipole…
http://www.earthsci.unimelb.edu.au/ES304/MODULES/MAG/NOTES/fieldl.html
Notice the field is zero along the plane of the dipole?
4. Cancellation of Light
http://www.exploratorium.edu/ronh/bubbles/bubble_colors.html
Notice the light can be completely cancelled in the Soap Bubble.
There is also a good explaination of Constructive and Destructive Interference.
http://webexhibits.org/causesofcolor/15F.html
More on Constructive and Destructive Interference as it relates to Diffraction.
http://micro.magnet.fsu.edu/optics/lightandcolor/interference.html
Still more on Constructive and Destructive Interference.
———–
ALL THESE LINKS show how CANCELLATION OF FIELDS HAPPENS!
This phenomena is taught throughout ALL areas of Physics and Engineering.
It’s in all the textbooks, publications and papers since the 1800’s or earlier!
————
Once again, you make me think that you are either on drugs or drunk (or both) when you write your posts.
What you are saying here is what I was trying to educate you about and is in conflict with your previous statements.
The concept of vectors is typically traced back to the mathematician Bernard Bolzano, who published a book in 1804 that laid the geometric foundations for vectors. By 1837, Mobius was publishing books that showed vector quantities.
This important for two reasons. First, vectors were mathematical constructs that appeared long before Maxwell discovered electromagnetism in the 1860s and 1870s. Also, it shows that vector quantities existed long before there was any vectors to describe them. Vectors have become powerful tools we use to describe many phenomena in nature, but you want to make the claim that there is no difference between the math and the phenomena.
What point you are trying to make in citing all of these references that state vectors are mathematical tools is beyond me.
Now back to your fantasy that the 2nd Law is a NET law.
You said…
“So, while heat is most definitely moving in both directions, the NET heat is moving from the ‘hot’ object to the ‘cold’ one.”
Absolutey WRONG!
I already posted an analogy of saying that the 2nd Law is a NET law is like saying the Universal Law of Gravitation is a NET Law.
I already posted that violating the 2nd Law or the Universal Law of Gravitation will violate the Law of Conservation of Energy and gave examples of this.
Well if you can’t understand that Electomagnetic Fields are vector fields, maybe you can understand that FORCE is a Vector.
Force has both magnitude and direction, making it a vector quantity.
Ever hear of the Electromagnetic Force?
It’s one of the four fundamental forces….just like Gravity is.
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Electromagnetic force
“The electromagnetic force is one of the four fundamental forces. The other fundamental forces are: the strong nuclear force (which holds quarks together, along with its residual
strong force effect that holds atomic nuclei together to form the nucleus), the weak nuclear force (which causes certain forms of radioactive decay), and the gravitational force. All other forces are ultimately derived from these fundamental forces.”
“In physics, the electromagnetic force is the force that the electromagnetic field exerts on electrically charged particles. It is the electromagnetic force that holds electrons and protons together in atoms, and which hold atoms together to make molecules.
“The electromagnetic force operates via the exchange of messenger particles called photons and virtual photons.”
“The electromagnetic force is the one responsible for practically all the phenomena one encounters in daily life, with the exception of gravity.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromagnetic_force
—
Photon
“In physics, a photon is an elementary particle, the quantum of the electromagnetic field and the basic “unit” of light and all other forms of electromagnetic radiation. It is also
the force CARRIER for the electromagnetic force. The effects of this force are easily observable at both the microscopic and macroscopic level, because the photon has no rest mass;
this allows for interactions at long distances”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photon
—
Heat Radiation
Radiation is heat transfer by the emission of electromagnetic waves which CARRY energy away from the emitting object. For ordinary temperatures (less than red hot”), the radiation is
in the infrared region of the electromagnetic spectrum. The relationship governing radiation from hot objects is called the Stefan-Boltzmann law:
http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/thermo/stefan.html#c2
—
Properties of electromagnetic waves
“An electromagnetic wave, although it CARRIES no mass, does CARRY energy.”
“A more common way to handle the energy is to look at how much energy is CARRIED by the wave from one place to another.”
http://physics.bu.edu/~duffy/PY106/EMWaves.html
——————————————————————–
Hot objects are not “spatially aware” any more than a block of wood “knows” that it is supposed to move in the direction of greatest force when two opposing forces are applied
to the block of wood!
- Heat Radiation is accomplished by propagating EM fields.
- EM fields are Force fields, in fact the Electromagnetic Force is one of the four fundamental forces.
- EM fields carry “Photon Energy”.
- Photons have zero Mass.
Is it so surprising that opposing EM fields and corresponding Forces will only move the zero mass Photon energy in the direction of the larger force?
The “block of wood” analogy should be apparent except that, unlike a “block of wood”, a Photon has zero mass.
Hot objects produce a larger EM field (and force) than Cold objects so heat energy can only flow from Hot to Cold!….The direction of the larger force!
This is really what 2nd Law of Thermodynamics is fundamentally saying!
“Second Law of Thermodynamics: It is not possible for heat to flow from a colder body to a warmer body without any work having been done to accomplish this flow. Energy will not
flow spontaneously from a low temperature object to a higher temperature object.”
http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/thermo/seclaw.html#c3
When you AGW’ers say that Heat can flow from Cold to Hot it’s like saying the “block of wood” will move in the direction of the weaker force!
————————————-
————————————-
You said…
“The Stefan-Boltzmann law provides information of radiation intensity. So what? What does this have to do with any point you are trying to make?”
It not only provides radiation intensity, it clearly shows that the magnitude is the result of subtraction of EM fields and that there is absolutely ZERO energy flowing from cold to hot!
—————
I suppose that all Heat Transfer Physics is also all wrong?
“Radiation is heat transfer by the emission of electromagnetic waves which carry energy away from the emitting object.”
P = e*BC*A(T^4 – Tc^4)
Where P = net radiated power (Watts), e = emissivity, BC = Stefan’s constant, A = area, T = temperature of radiator and Tc =
temperature of the surroundings or another body.
..when rearranged gives
P/A = e*BC*T^4 – e*BC*Tc^4 (Watts/m^2)
This is an obvious subtraction of two Electromagnetic Fields
It also complies with the Vector subtraction of Electromagnetic Fields which are Vectors.
The resultant Electromagnetic Field will have a magnitude of P/A and have a direction of propagation in the direction of the larger field.
There is absolutely no energy flow from cold to hot, complying with the 2nd Law.
http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/thermo/stefan.html#c2
———————————-
Let’s test your Wacko claim that Heat can flow from Cold to Hot with a simple heat transfer calculation using the above equations:
Example: Two bodies of different temperature
1) Assume the emissivity e = 1 for each of the two bodies and their thermal time constant is 0 (instantaneous).
2) Boltzmans Constant (BC)= 5.67 X 10^-8
3) Assume the Warmer body has a temp of T = 100 deg K. and is kept at this temperature by a constant energy source emitting 5.67 watts/m^2.
The warmer body will also radiate an electromagnetic field of BC *(100^4)= 5.67 Watts/m^2
4) Assume the Cooler body has a temp of Tc = 50 deg K
It will radiate an electromagnetic field of BC *(50^4)= 0.35 Watts/m^2
Now the resultant field between the two bodies is 5.67 – 0.35 = 5.32 Watts/m^2.
The direction of the field is towards the cooler body.
Notice that none of the radiation from the cooler body reached the warmer body and the warmer body remains at 100 deg. K.
This conforms with the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics since the warmer body is not “heated” by the colder body.
Now, the colder body is receiving 5.32 Watts/m^2 from the resultant field, which it will absorb and increase in temperature.
Once the colder body absorbs the 5.32 Watts/m^2 it will radiate the 5.32 Watts/m^2 PLUS the 0.35 Watts/m^2 it was already radiating = 5.67 Watts/m^2.
So this means the colder body has warmed to 100 deg K and the two bodies are at the same temperature….and equilibrim is achieved.
Now that both bodies are at 100 deg K and each will radiate 5.67 Watts/m^2.
The resultant field between them is 5.67 – 5.67 = 0 Watts/m^2 so there is there is no energy transfer between them and they will remain at 100 deg. K.
If the energy source is removed, both bodies will now cool at the same rate.
If the energy source is increased, both bodies will now warm at the same rate.
—-
Now let’s see YOUR calculations with energy flowing from the colder body to the hotter body.
Do the calculations until thermal equilibrium is achieved.
Remember that there is ONLY one energy source emitting 5.67 watts/m^2 and the Law of Conservation of Energy says “Energy cannot be created or destroyed”.
GOOD LUCK!
—————-
After you flounder around with your “calculations” re-read the “clear light bulb” example I posted in #27, my proof regarding Trenberth’s Energy Budget Diagram (violates the 2nd Law
and Conservation of Energy) in #28 and the actual Solar Oven measurements done by the Physics Dept. of Brigham Young University at prove that Back Radiation cannot heat the Earth.
Finally re-read all the Physics Links I posted on Electromagnetic Fields (especially the Poynting Vector), the Law of Conservation of Energy and finally the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics
(It is NOT POSSIBLE for heat to flow from a colder body to a warmer body without any work having been done to accomplish this flow.)
Compare ALL these Laws of Science, actual measurements and your in-ability to do the “calculations” without violating the Law of Conservation of Energy to your posts.
Your Posts are ALL just your “opinion” not backed with ANY Laws of Science or ANY measurements.
I’m sorry you can’t understand the explanation I provided.
By the way, if you knew anything about physics, you would know that the law of gravitation really is a net law. Gravity is the sum of gravitational forces of all individual particles of matter in a given mass.
You said…
“If you feel that you can prove, via the scientific method, that global warming is not real, then you can take my $1000 challenge. It is still sitting there and no one had claimed it. This pretty surprising since so many people like you state with so much certainty that it isn’t, you would have thought someone would have been able to prove it by now. One word of caution, nothing you have written here even begins to approach a valid argument.”
First, I have not made any claims that Global Warming is not real.
We are currently still coming out of the last Ice Age and the Earth is warming compared to that reference point.
If you use another reference point, like 50 Million Years ago when the Earth’s temp was +22 deg C then the current Earth temp of +15 deg C clearly shows a long term COOLING trend.
The Past and Future of Climate
(See Fig.9 Climate over Geologic Time)
http://climatepolice.com/Past_Future_climate.pdf
—————
What I say is that the Greenhouse Effect and AGW is completely falsified by established Laws of Science and actual measurements.
Scientific method
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_method
1.Define the question
2.Gather information and resources (observe)
3.Form hypothesis
4.Perform experiment and collect data
5.Analyze data
6.Interpret data and draw conclusions that serve as a starting point for new hypothesis
7.Publish results
8.Retest (frequently done by other scientists)
——————–
1. Define the question.
Is the Greenhouse Effect and AGW real?
The links I provided to the Greenhouse Effect and Trenberth’s Energy Balance Diagram all show that the Greenhouse Effect and AGW can only occur by Radiative Heat transfer from a colder atmosphere to a warmer Earth surface (This is called Back Radiation). Thus, disproving this will disprove the Greenhouse Effect and AGW.
2. Gather information and resources (observe)
The information gathered was:
- a number of Greenhouse Effect explainations produced by reputable sources.
- Trenberth’s Energy Balance Diagram (Trenberth’s diagram is widely accepted and is found in virtually all AGW literature including the IPCC)
- a number of Physics links (2nd Law, The Law of Conservation of Energy, Heat Transfer, Electomagnetic Radiation) all widely accepted and used.
- an actual measurement done by the Physics Dept. of Brigham Young University.
3. Form hypothesis.
- The Greenhouse Effect and AGW is FALSE.
4. Perform experiment and collect data.
- The physical experiment and data collected was done by the Physics Dept. of Brigham Young University.
- An analysis of the Greenhouse Effect, Trenberth’s Energy Balance Diagram and a Heat Transfer examples were done.
5. Analyze data.
The analysis shows that:
The Greenhouse Effect descriptions and Trenberth’s Energy Balance Diagram violate the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics, Electromagnetic Physics, Heat Transfer Physics, The Law of Conservation of Energy and are in conflict with actual measurements.
6. Interpret data and draw conclusions.
Only one violation of Any Law of Science or any valid measurement is required to dis-prove the Greenhouse Effect and AGW.
There are numerous violations of Laws of Science and established Physics.
Actual measurements confirm that Back Radiation cannot heat a warmer Earth.
7. Publish the results.
They have been posted here as well as a number of other sites for review.
8. Retest
There has never been any counter arguments supported by Laws of Science or measurements to dis-prove my conclusions.
in fact, there has never been even One Law of Science or even One measurement produced that shows that Back Radiation reaches the Earth.
——————
CONCLUSION BASED ON THE SCIENTIFIC METHOD
The Greenhouse Effect and AGW is not real.
The Greenhouse Effect and AGW is completely falsified by established Laws of Science and actual measurements.
All my statements have the support of Laws of Science and actual measurements.
Only one violation of Any Law of Science or any valid measurement is required to dis-prove the Greenhouse Effect and AGW.
There has never been even One Law of Science or even One measurement produced that shows that Back Radiation reaches the Earth.
Falsifiability
Quotations:
- No amount of experimentation can ever prove me right; a single experiment can prove me wrong. — Albert Einstein
- The criterion of the scientific status of a theory is its falsifiability, or refutability, or testability. — Karl Popper
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falsifiability
———————–
There you go, proof, via the scientific method, that anthropogenic global warming is not real and I take your $1000 challenge.
PS: If your $1000 Challenge is anywhere close to being realistic then Your “opinion” is not enough to dismiss what I have posted.
You have to use the scientific method as well.
Consensus ‘opinion’ of any group of AGW ’scientists’ is NOT proof of anything.
Correlation is NOT proof of anything.
Good luck!
I will post this as a challenge to the $1000 Global Warming Skeptics Challenge and show why it is false.
But, that is the last posting I will allow from you. You have some serious issues and I will not spend my time on you or allow this blog to become a platform for your delusions.
There are plenty of other places you can go and pretend you are an electrical engineer and maybe you can fool someone else into believing you have an understanding of physics. But, this isn’t one of those places.
I agree with Gord.
Then all that shows is that you have rejected science in favor of seeing what you want to see.
You have ignored all the science presented by Gord.
Why dont you answer his questions.
you only talk with no science
Once again, if you say I have not answered his statements without science, you have failed to read my responses and are seeing only what you want to see.
what happened to Gords last few posts
I stated that they will no longer be posted. The guy is a nutcase and wants to make this his forum. I allowed him to speak his mind, even though his comments were crazy, but will not let him turn this into his platform for diatribe.
Example: Two bodies of different temperature
where was your answer
I responded to this issue with my reply posted on 2009/09/05 at 9:59am.
[...] by physics309 in Uncategorized. trackback NOTE: This challenge was submitted as comment to ‘Greenhouse Gas Experiment.” My comments are embedded in the challenge. They are separated from the challenge by rows of [...]
COMMENT: There is no data or scientific argument here to discuss. Your claims have been investigated and shown to be false.
COMMENT: Each of these statements is false.
First, it has been shown that no laws of physics have been violated.
Second, even if some laws were violated, or some hypotheses were shown to be incorrect, it only means that they hypotheses need to be corrected. Your argument is the same as saying
we have to throw out all modern medicine if even one patient doesn’t respond the way we think he should.
COMMENT: They have been reviewed and they fail the test of the scientific method, as shown.
COMMENT: Just as almost everything you say, this statement is false. I do not need to use the scientific method to prove you wrong. I only have to show that you failed to use the
scientific method. The purpose of my challenge was to show that no scientific evidence exists to support the claim of global warming skeptics. You have demonstrated the validity of
my claim.
COMMENT: It is true that ‘consensus opinion’ is not proof of anything. At the same time, global warming skeptics like to say that as proof of their beliefs, and it isn’t. The fact is
‘consensus opinion’ is a necessary part of the scientific method. All results must be reproducible by anyone. If only one individual, or even a small group, is getting a given result
and that result cannot be reproduced by the general community, then it is likely invalid. The claims of cold fusion are a textbook example of how that works. So, while ‘consensus
opinion’ is not proof, it is a very excellent indicator. And, making that statement certainly does nothing to prove any errors that may exist.
I have no doubt that you will reject the evidence I have supplied to you. You have left the realm of reality and have based all of your conclusions on what you WANT to see, not what
is real. I did not spend my time to try and change your mind or educate you, you’ve shown that it would be an impossible task. What I am hoping is that someone that is searching for
answers, and might otherwise be persuaded by the likes of you, can see for themselves that your arguments are false.
Gord asked for you to use the scientific method and show laws of science
I dont see that
If you have followed the entire discussion and my response to his challenge, then you would see that #1, I don’t need to follow the scientific method, I only have to show he failed to make his case using the scientific method; and #2, I provided plenty of scientific evidence to show that his claim was invalid.
I responded to this issue with my reply posted on 2009/09/05 at 9:59am.
I dont see your calculations
I don’t really need to provide calculations to support the argument. I don’t really understand what point you are trying to make. Are you saying that any statement of the laws of physics must be provided with measurements everytime they are referred to?
I see that you and ‘Gord’ are the same people. You should really make sure you have a different IP address when you want to pretend to be someone different.
I could not ge his experiment to work, either with carbonated and de-carbonated coke or with methane vs nitrogen in a 2-litre flask, or with the same gases in 5-litre PET bottles. In the latter two experiments, I used black card in the vessels and I also tried with aluminium foil on the back and sides of the PET bottles. After correcting for slight differences of about 1degC betwen the two sets of apparatus when using air only, I concluded that in none of these experiments could a temperature difference be observed. This is definitely NOT because the GHG effect does not exist!
With the coke, you have the confounding factor or water vapour and the large thermal mass of the liquid in the bottom, to say nothing of its IR absorption properties, being a dark, water-based liquid. So it is hardly surprisisng that no difference in temperature is observable. A similar argument applies to the other experiments. 5 litres of methane weighs less than 4 grams. Even though the IR absorption of PET is meant to be quite low, a 100g bottle will absorb more heat energy than the gas and will therefore overhwhelm the contribution to the temperature rise provided by the gas. This is even worse if you use a black card and if you use a glass container.
I’m a little confused by your comment. If you did the experiment correctly, you should have the same dark mass and water content in both bottles. The experiment is designed so that the only difference between the two bottles is the CO2 atmosphere. My students and I have done this experiment hundreds of times and consistently got 2-3 degrees C difference between the two bottles in only about 20 minutes. Its important that the bottles be in direct sunlight.
The bottles were in direct sunlight.
What I’m trying to suggest is that the infrared energy abosrbed by 4g of methane is less than that absorbed by 100g of PET, let alone several 100g of dark water (in the coke case) and that the temperature difference is likely to be marginal. I can’t explain why your experiment works and the ones I tried didn’t.
Again, if you do the experiment correctly, there should be no differences that you are alluding to. You have two identical bottles, so the PET mass is the same. They both have Coca-Cola in them, so they both have the same mass of dark fluid. Since the volume of the bottles and the amount of dark fluid is identical, the volume of gas in the two bottles is also identical. One has a gas volume consisting of N2-O2 and one has a gas volume of CO2. That is the only difference between the two. If the PET or the fluid is absorbing some amount of heat in one bottle, then that should be equal in the other. Any difference in temperature that is observed would have to be due to the difference in gas. Like I said, we have done hundreds of trials and consistently get a couple of degrees difference.
[...] as Gord and David. These comments were in response to a posting I made some time ago about a simple greenhouse gas experiment I had devised. To put it bluntly, the comments were yet another series of crackpot comments about [...]
The experiment does not ensure control of parameters such as the amount of radiation and types of radiation entering the bottles is identical, etc. A somewhat more scientific experiment is shown here http://www.espere.net/Unitedkingdom/water/uk_watexpgreenhouse.htm
However, even if that experiment (the one I show a link to) was run to steady-state, i.e. run until the temperatures in both the CO2 and air containers stabilized, it would show that even with 100% C02 vs air, the delta T would not support the global warming predicted by the IPCC models. A most interesting experiment would be to run the experiment with the CO2 doubled from the current concentration in our atmosphere. I suspect the delta T would be hardly measurable.
So, the whole issue is not whether CO2 is a greenhouse gas, it of course is. The issue is whether CO2 causes addition positive feedback in temperature through other interactions with the atmosphere as the IPCC claims. That’s the harder claim to swallow.
JP: I don’t think it is right to criticise the experiment in this blog for not controlling for the amount and types of raidation entering the bottles: after all, they are standing side-by-side in the sun. If anything, the one you provide a link to is less well controlled, as the two lamps may not be matched.
That said, in some ways it is a better experiment, especially as there is no water vapour present in the containers and the thermal mass of the system appears to be less, due to the absence of liquid in the vessels. I tried a similar set up (see above) using methane and nitrogen and got much larger temperature rises than with the coke-in-bottles (up to nearlly 60C), but I was unable to show that the methane vessel consistently reached a higher temperature. I am not at all a global warming sceptic and want to seek an explanation for the failure of my experiments, but my physics isn’t up to it and I don’t get much time to experiment (or sunlight: I may need to wait until next spring).
I don’t understand your second or third paragraphs. Of course, these experiments would only demonstrate that CO2 is a GHG. If it works at all, it would have to be with a large concentration of CO2. You can’t expect a positive result when comparing a few cm of CO2 at 550ppm with the CO2 in the atmosphere at the same concentration (where the IR is absorbed and re-emitted sequentially through the whole 10km path length). See http://www.aip.org/history/climate/simple.htm#L_0141
I’m not sure what “addition(al) positive feedback in temperature through other interactions with the atmosphere” means. Do you mean the absorption and re-radiation discussed in the link to the aip site (above), or do you mean things like increasing water vapour, methane and CO2 as a result of warming?
Sorry, 100 km path length … my 0 key is sticky
Thanks Philip Ward. Good points. The experiment in no way comes close to representing the earth’s atmosphere. It just shows CO2 is a greenhouse gas, and that’s about it.
With regard to positive feedback in the atmosphere, i meant things like increasing water vapor.
Keep in mind what the experiment is for. It is not to prove global warming or to even really to prove that CO2 is a greenhouse gas. The original purpose of the experiment was to demonstrate that the greenhouse effect really exists.
If you read the story, it was in response to a global warming critic that claimed there was no such thing as the greenhouse effect at all. I’ve since met and communicated with several such individuals.
Physics309, I didn’t read the story. Sorry. The experiment demonstrated the effect.
Meant to say didn’t fully read the story in my previous post.