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- #81
Is the photon from the cooler atmosphere warmer than the ground it is flowing too? If it is not, then it simply can not be true.
Heat in the kinetic sense of molecules moving around is not a property of Electromagnetic radiation. A photon behaves like a microwave. It will CAUSE heat to flow if absorbed or carry heat FROM an object when it is emitted as InfraRed --- but it has no concept of hotter or colder.
ALL objects above Abs Zero emit IR photons. Solids, gases, liquids, or jello molds. The scuffle is about the heat "trapped" in the atmos by GHouse gases. Do they "WARM" the earth? No -- not actually, they impede the heat loss from surface by subtracting their lower IR photon flux from the larger amount of heat LEAVING the surface towards space.
What warms the surface is the new thermal equilibrium that it is reached by a thicker layer of GHGases impeding the SAME energy input from the sun -- producing the SAME conversion to surface thermal heat and then to skyward radiative IR losses...
That may be the dominant conversation on this board, but the topic of this thread is SSDD fantasies concerning radiative heat transfer.
SSDD believes it is physically impossible for any matter to ever radiate energy towards warrmer matter. He believes that the first object somehow stops radiating. He believes this happens selectively over time and space. For instance, he believes bringing in a hot object can stop a less hot object from radiating. For instance he believes that an object surrounded by matter both hotter and colder than itself, will selectively radiate towards one but not the other. He believes the Stefen-Boltzman law (the two body version with two temperatures) describes one-way energy flow. He believes warmer bodies throttle their own radiation depending on the temperature of their surroundings. He believes it is impossible for the atmosphere to heat the ocean. None of these interpretations involve net heat transfer. He believes heat transfer always takes place in a single direction, from hot to cold. And, among these sorts of oddities, he also rejects the existence of photons, rejects quantum mechanics and rejects special and general relativity.
I freely invite him to correct me if I have mischaracterized his position on any of these matters.