Roy Spencer's explanation of the Green House Effect

[IanC]

Yep. Kind of like the atmosphere.

the atmosphere has many ways of shedding or moving heat. the lower atmosphere is already just about fully opaque to the wavelengths of radiation that CO2 is involved with so the insulating power of additional CO2 is minimal. 1C for the next 400ppm.

the climate system has many built in mechanisms that come into play according to conditions. ever wonder why the oceans never get warmer than 31-32C, and seldom above 29C? natural thermostat that shunts the incoming energy into other pathways.

 

[Old Rocks]

Given the observed heat rise in both the oceans and the troposphere, I would have to say that we are retaining heat rather well, and that the observed effects are greater than predicted for the amount retained.

 

[IanC]

Let's see if you can guess what that is.

No need to guess. The second law, and a sufficently sensitive infrared camera will tell you. The skin that is in contact with the blanket, or the clothing, or whatever else you care to put it in contact with will be cooler than the skin that is not touching anything.

The temperature in the dead space will increase, but that is irrelavent to the atmosphere that this whole silly experiment is trying to analogize. In any event, the temperature will never rise above that of the emitter, no matter how much insulation you use.

be specific wirebender. are you stating that exposed skin will be warmer than covered skin? under what conditions?

or are you stating that skin which has both material insulation plus dead air space insulation will be warmer than skin with only material insulation? you are proving our case for us. plus you are confusing the efficiencies of conduction and radiation.

as far as the earth's temperature goes---- the sun is the emitter, so you are stating we wont get hotter than 4000C? well, duh!

of course when you were trying to refute Spencer's two bar thought experiment you demanded that we combine both surfaces and average the output because you proved mathematically that the two bodies would come to equilibrium at the same temperature. so both the earth and the sun should be at 3999.999C? (exaggerated accuracy of temperature for entertainment purposes only). are you still sticking to that explanation? your unassailable mathematical proof that no one has been able to disprove? hahaha, you are a joke with no conceptual understanding of physics.

 

[IanC]

to get an idea of the type of writers that wirebender likes to read and then parrot please see http://www.tech-know.eu/uploads/Vacuum_space_and_Spencer.pdf

it is funny to watch this guy twist definitions and completely distort Spencer's thought experiment into a strawman that is totally different from the original.

first off he dismisses the idea that space has a temperature because it has very little matter in it. the thermometers that we typically use measure temperature by volume contaction or expansion due to kinetic energy lost or gained by conduction to the environment being measured (Boyle's Law?), which is compared to known displacements. this method would not work well in space even if you used a rocketship to get it there because it would take an exceptionally long time to equilibrate. to measure things that are far away or inaccessible we measure the radiation coming off them, comparing that radiation to known levels of radiation via black body radiation studies. eg an infrared camera is a type of thermometer.

then he mischaracterizes Spencer as saying that space is 0F instead of -455F when in fact it was a large vacuum container that NASA uses to perform test in that was being described.

he says the bars were touching whereas the diagram Spencer shows them separate, specifically to stop conduction.

Spencer said the heated plate was receiving a stable flow of electricity that kept the bar at 150F when it was alone. Miatello states that the heated bar cooled when the 100F bar was placed in the vacuum container! hahahaha insane! Spencer talked about heat shedding by radiation, M is talking about conduction.

Spencer used two identical bar but only one was heated, M uses one copper and one out of PVC.

M states that they equilibrate to the same temp even though one is heated and the other is not! even if they are touching this cannot happen. the farther away from the heat source the cooler the material will be. this is especially true if only radiation is available.

M then turns off the heat and spends considerable time describing the cooling. with lots and lots of numbers and equations. talk about putting lipstick on a pig.

I suppose lots of people can be taken in by charlatans like this if they use enough 'sciencey talk' and misapplied equations, all spoken with confidence. but this article is a joke if you have any clue about physics and what Spencer was illustrating.

all in all, it is very similar to wirebender stating that clothing/blankets make you colder!

 

[IanC]

the original Spencer illustrative article that started the whole thing. Yes, Virginia, Cooler Objects Can Make Warmer Objects Even Warmer Still « Roy Spencer, Ph. D.

and (in my opinion) the best refutation of it. No, Virginia, Cooler Objects Cannot Make Warmer Objects Even Warmer Still (Updated)


personally I dont think colder objects can heat up warmer objects per se. but I do think colder objects can affect the conditions that improve or reduce the effectiveness of the heat source to warm up the various areas through which the energy flows. sun>atmosphere>surface>atmosphere>space. the sun provides the energy, space eventually receives it, but the conditions in between effect the actual temperatures produced.