Let`s have a vote on back radiation

[IanC]

polarbear said-

To alarm the public Spencer, M.Mann, Al Gore would have to begin blaming water vapor and declare the most important natural substance which like CO2 is an essential of life as we know it, to exist. Would they, then it would indeed be very difficult to point out the cheat with which they managed to carpet bag a lot of "Virginias" that are giving the IPCC the thumbs up to implement a world wide Carbon tax.

hahahahaha. just how uninformed are you that you would lump Spencer with Mann and Gore? he has been an outspoken critic of climate models and CAGW since the beginning, back when it was very dangerous for his career and it led to a lot of criticism from 'consensus scientists'.

 

[SSDD]

what an extraordinary lack of curiosity you have.

Ability to stay on topic is a lack of curiosity?

of course the example of two objects with the same temp is important! when you look at a local condition of most systems there are very little differences in temperature.

Au contraire....physically, there is a profound difference between two objects of the same temperature and two objects of different temperatures, no matter how slight that difference may be. The second law speaks to the two objects of different temperatures and doesn't quibble about minute differences.

warmer objects produce more radiation. not only do they radiate in every direction but the wavelength is variable as can easily be discerned by examining a Planck curve that visually describes the probability of what frequency will be emitted. any wavelength on the curve is possible but the highest point is most likely.

You have yet to prove that they radiate in every direction, especially when in the vicinity of a warmer object. It is obvious that you believe it to be the case and perhaps not as obvious to everyone that your belief is based on an assumption as opposed to actual observation which should be easy enough if it were actually happening.

 

[SSDD]

hahahahaha. just how uninformed are you that you would lump Spencer with Mann and Gore? he has been an outspoken critic of climate models and CAGW since the beginning, back when it was very dangerous for his career and it led to a lot of criticism from 'consensus scientists'.

As has already been stated, Spencer believes in the magic, he just doesn't believe the magic is as powerful as the likes of Mann and Gore. Magical thinking is still magical thinking no matter how powerful you believe the magic to be.

 

[IanC]

hahahahaha. just how uninformed are you that you would lump Spencer with Mann and Gore? he has been an outspoken critic of climate models and CAGW since the beginning, back when it was very dangerous for his career and it led to a lot of criticism from 'consensus scientists'.

As has already been stated, Spencer believes in the magic, he just doesn't believe the magic is as powerful as the likes of Mann and Gore. Magical thinking is still magical thinking no matter how powerful you believe the magic to be.

why should anyone care that you have already stated that Spencer believes in the magic?

I mean really, you believe in your own magic. and you wont even try to describe the mechanism by which you think some all powerful gatekeeper stops individual particles from radiating in certain directions. is it perhaps Laplace's Daemon?

 

[IanC]

what an extraordinary lack of curiosity you have.

Ability to stay on topic is a lack of curiosity?

of course the example of two objects with the same temp is important! when you look at a local condition of most systems there are very little differences in temperature.

Au contraire....physically, there is a profound difference between two objects of the same temperature and two objects of different temperatures, no matter how slight that difference may be. The second law speaks to the two objects of different temperatures and doesn't quibble about minute differences.

warmer objects produce more radiation. not only do they radiate in every direction but the wavelength is variable as can easily be discerned by examining a Planck curve that visually describes the probability of what frequency will be emitted. any wavelength on the curve is possible but the highest point is most likely.

You have yet to prove that they radiate in every direction, especially when in the vicinity of a warmer object. It is obvious that you believe it to be the case and perhaps not as obvious to everyone that your belief is based on an assumption as opposed to actual observation which should be easy enough if it were actually happening.

well, when you are arguing against the null hypothesis that point sources of radiation emit radiation in all directions I think that you should put some effort into explaining your position.

let us go back to the Planck curves.

do you at least agree that the object can produce a photon from anywhere along the curve?

is there any specific cutoff that you would like to define for the difference of 20C between the curves.

do you see that there is almost perfect overlap between the curves as far as the actual wavelength that they can produce?

how does the warmer object stop the cooler object from radiating? where does that radiation go? does it just disappear? isnt that against the first law, conservation of energy? can you at least make some semblance of an answer to this very basic question?

 

[SSDD]

[
I mean really, you believe in your own magic. and you wont even try to describe the mechanism by which you think some all powerful gatekeeper stops individual particles from radiating in certain directions. is it perhaps Laplace's Daemon?

Can you describe the actual mechanism of gravity? I'm sure there is a nobel in it for you if you can and we understand gravity far better, and gravity is much simpler than the physics that drive energy exchanges.

You act like you actually "know" something when the truth is that not even the most brilliant minds on the planet actually know the things you claim are happening and not a bit of observed evidence exists in support of those claims. Your claims are based on nothing more than mathematical models of physical forces that we simply don't understand.

 

[IanC]

[
I mean really, you believe in your own magic. and you wont even try to describe the mechanism by which you think some all powerful gatekeeper stops individual particles from radiating in certain directions. is it perhaps Laplace's Daemon?

Can you describe the actual mechanism of gravity? I'm sure there is a nobel in it for you if you can and we understand gravity far better, and gravity is much simpler than the physics that drive energy exchanges.

You act like you actually "know" something when the truth is that not even the most brilliant minds on the planet actually know the things you claim are happening and not a bit of observed evidence exists in support of those claims. Your claims are based on nothing more than mathematical models of physical forces that we simply don't understand.

really? you are taking the 'unknowable' way out?

I asked you point blank whether objects at the same temperature stop radiating at each other, because that is the logical extension of what you have been saying, and you refuse to answer. but you are POSITIVE that no energy whatsoever can move from a cooler object to a warmer one. not even a single photon, randomly fired off.

conservation of energy doesnt matter to you. centuries of observations and measurements dont matter to you. only the second law matters to you, and you admit that you have no concept of how it works.

man o man. why do I always seem to end up wasting my time with idiots like you? you know nothing and only endlessly repeat the same talking points over and over.

 

[polarbear]

really? you are taking the 'unknowable' way out?

I asked you point blank whether objects at the same temperature stop radiating at each other, because that is the logical extension of what you have been saying, and you refuse to answer. but you are POSITIVE that no energy whatsoever can move from a cooler object to a warmer one. not even a single photon, randomly fired off.

conservation of energy doesnt matter to you. centuries of observations and measurements dont matter to you. only the second law matters to you, and you admit that you have no concept of how it works.

man o man. why do I always seem to end up wasting my time with idiots like you? you know nothing and only endlessly repeat the same talking points over and over.

Before I point out who the idiot is I`ll list the collection of Your replies :

now you are adding the strawman of creating high energy photons to the mix. sheesh! do you guys honestly believe that that a body loses heat at the same rate in an environment of oC as it does in an environment of -100C? the body radiates the same amount by definition, so why does it lose heat more quickly in the colder environment? because the environment is also radiating! why are you guys being deliberately obtuse?

if you dont agree that the first plate in Spencer's experiment warms up then explain where the energy went. first law of thermodynamicswell, when you are arguing against the null hypothesis that point sources of radiation emit radiation in all directions I think that you should put some effort into explaining your position.

do you at least agree that the object can produce a photon from anywhere along the curve?

is there any specific cutoff that you would like to define for the difference of 20C between the curves.

do you see that there is almost perfect overlap between the curves as far as the actual wavelength that they can produce?

hahahahaha. just how uninformed are you that you would lump Spencer with Mann and Gore?

I asked you point blank whether objects at the same temperature stop radiating at each other, because that is the logical extension of what you have been saying, and you refuse to answer. but you are POSITIVE that no energy whatsoever can move from a cooler object to a warmer one. not even a single photon, randomly fired off.

You just don`t get, just like all the other simple minded "Virginias" simply can`t get it either what the whole Spencer-Teflon Don- Con is all about.
You are the one that keeps coming back with the same crap over an over again. It simply does not dawn on You that CO2 can`t absorb just any photons can You...? CO2 does not care with how many photons (as in flux, or intensity) irradiate it that aren`t at the wavelength it can absorb.
Here take a look:

Everything else goes right by the CO2 because it is "transparent" to light of all other wavelengths

So tell me now, is the sun hotter than the earth or is it the other way around ?
So which of the 2 emits more photons at ANY wavelength, including those the CO2 can absorb ?...The white hot sun or the far less than ideal "black body",the earth which is supposed to be "glowing" red hot with all these Spencer photons?
Nobody is "denying" that there are some that are emitted at the right wavelength, and are blocked by the CO2...
Roy says there are more trying to be going out than came in,

By the time sunlight reaches the ground it has passed through almost 1000 kilometers air with 380 molar ppm CO2. Even if You don`t have a clue about Beer-Lambert`s law it should have dawned on You that it absorbed a lot more light at the CO2 absorption wavelength, than a much cooler earth could possibly produce with "black body" radiation.

But it doesn`t dawn on You, neither does it still not dawn on You that CO2 has nothing in common with this idiotic "experiment"...an "experiment" that exists only as an MSPAINT picture on Roy`s blogs. You come back here with stuff like "hahahah" like some dumb teenager would.

You call others "idiots" who unlike You, they do understand that CO2 can`t absorb all the IR like Roy`s "cooler object" which is some sort of solid bar made from an unspecified material.....and then expand the that bar principle which Roy is using like a stupid-stick into the realm of the Beer Lambert law without regard that CO2 is transparent to all other light which is outside the absorption spectral bands and has absolutely nothing in common with a solid object,.... which can block it all...

The only photons CO2 can "back radiate" are those few that are at exactly at the right wavelength which it could absorb and were emitted from a surface much cooler than molten lava. In fact they are so few that at 380 ppm a path length of ~ 10 meters does it all to "block" them.
What do You think would happen to an infrared sensor with band filters that are are transparent at the CO2 absorption wavelengths on a low orbit satellite if You would point it directly at the sun instead of the earth ?
If CO2 were blocking more energy from leaving the earth than what has been blocked by it from reaching the earth then You would burn out the same sensor when You point it from shoulder height to the ground...

Since Roy won`t or can`t explain, why don`t You?...

How CO2 could add some sort of "radiative forcing energy " with the small amount of energy which resides at this frequency and came from a warm body, while a huge amount of energy at the same frequency was blocked from reaching the warmed body way up above it ?

if you dont agree that the first plate in Spencer's experiment warms up then explain where the energy went.

You got it all wrong,...none of us owes any explanation where the energy Roy conjures up "went"...Roy has to explain where his extra energy came from. The same Roy that convinced Virginia and You that a solid bar has the same optical properties as a gas.

 

[SSDD]

really? you are taking the 'unknowable' way out?

I am not taking any way out. I am pointing out to you that most of what you have claimed to "know" so far has been no more than assumptions based on still questionable mathematical models. You don't seem to realise that.

I asked you point blank whether objects at the same temperature stop radiating at each other, because that is the logical extension of what you have been saying, and you refuse to answer. but you are POSITIVE that no energy whatsoever can move from a cooler object to a warmer one. not even a single photon, randomly fired off.

And I pointed out to you that there is a profound difference between objects of the same temperature and objects of a different temperature no matter how slight that difference is. The second law speaks to that difference in temperature no matter how small it is. You aren't going to get out of your corner by changing the topic to objects of the same temperature.

conservation of energy doesnt matter to you. centuries of observations and measurements dont matter to you. only the second law matters to you, and you admit that you have no concept of how it works.

Conservation of energy doesn't negate the second law and when you start talking about energy transfer from a cool region of a lower energy state to a warm region of a higher energy state you run afoul of the second law.

man o man. why do I always seem to end up wasting my time with idiots like you? you know nothing and only endlessly repeat the same talking points over and over.

You don't know much either ian. The fact is none of us do. You don't seem to be aware of that because you have placed your faith in models that just don't jibe with the physical laws.

 

[SSDD]

You got it all wrong,...none of us owes any explanation where the energy Roy conjures up "went"...Roy has to explain where his extra energy came from.

That is it, that's the rock bottom, bedrock, at the heart of the issue and the source of the sleight of hand magic that supports the AGW scam. That extra energy is conjured literally out of thin air and anyone who believes it is there, is, in fact, a Virgina.

Very well said.

 

[polarbear]

you guys paint yourself into a corner,....

but the wavelength is variable as can easily be discerned by examining a Planck curve that visually describes the probability of what frequency will be emitted.

Roy ignores all the energy feed barriers that exist in the real world which has to obey the laws of physics.
As Roy`s electric hot plate gets hotter the internal resistance increases the current drops curtailing a temperature catastrophe.


In the real world the most important solar radiation energy feed barrier is water vapor, which increases quantitatively as the temperature goes up and decreases the solar radiation over a wide range of the spectrum, not just where the absorption region of water vapor is, but also as a condensate (clouds) by reflecting the sunlight from above...something CO2 no matter how concentrated can not do.


Roy side steps the laws of physics that apply to the real world with a fictitious "result" he says can be observed with an "experiment"
that consists only of a drawing and Roy`s talk.
He bridges the energy barriers that incoming solar radiation would encounter with wires that feed un- impeded power from the outside into the inside of his silly and fictitious chamber experiment that uses a solid object which can block light over the entire EM spectrum (except maybe X-rays) from leaving his vacuum chamber.
Then he goes on and makes his case, with some success as long as his critics are only Yes-sayer Virginias instead of engineers, that
the sun can do the same thing as the wires in his drawing....and that CO2 can block radiation the same as solid object, his "cooler object"
in his drawing.
The rest of the climate "science" lot is arriving at a conclusion, that the earth has only a 30% "average" albedo, yet is able to reshape a radiation frequency profile the same way a theoretical perfect black body would...and it would have to be a perfect black body to shape the outgoing radiation frequency profile so that it conforms to Planck`s distribution curve.
Last not least this pseudo science is using this error to re- invent the UV catastrophe that would occur if you wrongly interpret Planck`s law
as it once has been for such an event to occur,....the only difference is that climate "scientists" create this fantasy world catastrophe at the lower side of the EM spectrum to conjure up an IR catastrophe for which the CO2 we added is supposed to be responsible.
However, unlike the IR catastrophe the UV catastrophe has been recognized as bogus, because real science is constantly re-examined by real scientists.
While climate "science" refuses to do so and uses "Yes Virginias" and the news media instead, to whip up public fear and concern to get a "majority consensus" as a "proof" with their sorry version of peer review.

 

[IanC]

really? you are taking the 'unknowable' way out?

I asked you point blank whether objects at the same temperature stop radiating at each other, because that is the logical extension of what you have been saying, and you refuse to answer. but you are POSITIVE that no energy whatsoever can move from a cooler object to a warmer one. not even a single photon, randomly fired off.

conservation of energy doesnt matter to you. centuries of observations and measurements dont matter to you. only the second law matters to you, and you admit that you have no concept of how it works.

man o man. why do I always seem to end up wasting my time with idiots like you? you know nothing and only endlessly repeat the same talking points over and over.

Before I point out who the idiot is I`ll list the collection of Your replies :

now you are adding the strawman of creating high energy photons to the mix. sheesh! do you guys honestly believe that that a body loses heat at the same rate in an environment of oC as it does in an environment of -100C? the body radiates the same amount by definition, so why does it lose heat more quickly in the colder environment? because the environment is also radiating! why are you guys being deliberately obtuse?

if you dont agree that the first plate in Spencer's experiment warms up then explain where the energy went. first law of thermodynamicswell, when you are arguing against the null hypothesis that point sources of radiation emit radiation in all directions I think that you should put some effort into explaining your position.

do you at least agree that the object can produce a photon from anywhere along the curve?

is there any specific cutoff that you would like to define for the difference of 20C between the curves.

do you see that there is almost perfect overlap between the curves as far as the actual wavelength that they can produce?

hahahahaha. just how uninformed are you that you would lump Spencer with Mann and Gore?

I asked you point blank whether objects at the same temperature stop radiating at each other, because that is the logical extension of what you have been saying, and you refuse to answer. but you are POSITIVE that no energy whatsoever can move from a cooler object to a warmer one. not even a single photon, randomly fired off.

You just don`t get, just like all the other simple minded "Virginias" simply can`t get it either what the whole Spencer-Teflon Don- Con is all about.
You are the one that keeps coming back with the same crap over an over again. It simply does not dawn on You that CO2 can`t absorb just any photons can You...? CO2 does not care with how many photons (as in flux, or intensity) irradiate it that aren`t at the wavelength it can absorb.
Here take a look:

Everything else goes right by the CO2 because it is "transparent" to light of all other wavelengths

So tell me now, is the sun hotter than the earth or is it the other way around ?
So which of the 2 emits more photons at ANY wavelength, including those the CO2 can absorb ?...The white hot sun or the far less than ideal "black body",the earth which is supposed to be "glowing" red hot with all these Spencer photons?
Nobody is "denying" that there are some that are emitted at the right wavelength, and are blocked by the CO2...
Roy says there are more trying to be going out than came in,

By the time sunlight reaches the ground it has passed through almost 1000 kilometers air with 380 molar ppm CO2. Even if You don`t have a clue about Beer-Lambert`s law it should have dawned on You that it absorbed a lot more light at the CO2 absorption wavelength, than a much cooler earth could possibly produce with "black body" radiation.

But it doesn`t dawn on You, neither does it still not dawn on You that CO2 has nothing in common with this idiotic "experiment"...an "experiment" that exists only as an MSPAINT picture on Roy`s blogs. You come back here with stuff like "hahahah" like some dumb teenager would.

You call others "idiots" who unlike You, they do understand that CO2 can`t absorb all the IR like Roy`s "cooler object" which is some sort of solid bar made from an unspecified material.....and then expand the that bar principle which Roy is using like a stupid-stick into the realm of the Beer Lambert law without regard that CO2 is transparent to all other light which is outside the absorption spectral bands and has absolutely nothing in common with a solid object,.... which can block it all...

The only photons CO2 can "back radiate" are those few that are at exactly at the right wavelength which it could absorb and were emitted from a surface much cooler than molten lava. In fact they are so few that at 380 ppm a path length of ~ 10 meters does it all to "block" them.
What do You think would happen to an infrared sensor with band filters that are are transparent at the CO2 absorption wavelengths on a low orbit satellite if You would point it directly at the sun instead of the earth ?
If CO2 were blocking more energy from leaving the earth than what has been blocked by it from reaching the earth then You would burn out the same sensor when You point it from shoulder height to the ground...

Since Roy won`t or can`t explain, why don`t You?...

How CO2 could add some sort of "radiative forcing energy " with the small amount of energy which resides at this frequency and came from a warm body, while a huge amount of energy at the same frequency was blocked from reaching the warmed body way up above it ?

if you dont agree that the first plate in Spencer's experiment warms up then explain where the energy went.

You got it all wrong,...none of us owes any explanation where the energy Roy conjures up "went"...Roy has to explain where his extra energy came from. The same Roy that convinced Virginia and You that a solid bar has the same optical properties as a gas.

you are making more strawmen.

here are a few excerpts from the article Spencer wrote which led him to add the 'Yes, Virginia' example. My Global Warming Skepticism, for Dummies « Roy Spencer, Ph. D.

7) Is Increasing CO2 Even Capable of Causing Warming? There are some very intelligent people out there who claim that adding more carbon dioxide to the atmosphere can’t cause warming anyway. They claim things like, “the atmospheric CO2 absorption bands are already saturated”, or something else very technical. [And for those more technically-minded persons, yes, I agree that the effective radiating temperature of the Earth in the infrared is determined by how much sunlight is absorbed by the Earth. But that doesn't mean the lower atmosphere cannot warm from adding more greenhouse gases, because at the same time they also cool the upper atmosphere]. While it is true that most of the CO2-caused warming in the atmosphere was there before humans ever started burning coal and driving SUVs, this is all taken into account by computerized climate models that predict global warming. Adding more “should” cause warming, with the magnitude of that warming being the real question. But I’m still open to the possibility that a major error has been made on this fundamental point. Stranger things have happened in science before.

11) Is Rising CO2 the Cause of Recent Warming? While this is theoretically possible, I think it is more likely that the warming is mostly natural. At the very least, we have no way of determining what proportion is natural versus human-caused.

12) Why Do Most Scientists Believe CO2 is Responsible for the Warming? Because (as they have told me) they can’t think of anything else that might have caused it. Significantly, it’s not that there is evidence nature can’t be the cause, but a lack of sufficiently accurate measurements to determine if nature is the cause. This is a hugely important distinction, and one the public and policymakers have been misled on by the IPCC.

13) If Not Humans, What could Have Caused Recent Warming? This is one of my areas of research. I believe that natural changes in the amount of sunlight being absorbed by the Earth — due to natural changes in cloud cover — are responsible for most of the warming. Whether that is the specific mechanism or not, I advance the minority view that the climate system can change all by itself. Climate change does not require an “external” source of forcing, such as a change in the sun.

Concluding Remarks

Climate researchers do not know nearly as much about the causes of climate change as they profess. We have a pretty good understanding of how the climate system works on average…but the reasons for small, long-term changes in climate system are still extremely uncertain.

The total amount of CO2 humans have added to the atmosphere in the last 100 years has upset the radiative energy budget of the Earth by only 1%. How the climate system responds to that small “poke” is very uncertain. The IPCC says there will be strong warming, with cloud changes making the warming worse. I claim there will be weak warming, with cloud changes acting to reduce the influence of that 1% change. The difference between these two outcomes is whether cloud feedbacks are positive (the IPCC view), or negative (the view I and a minority of others have).

So far, neither side has been able to prove their case. That uncertainty even exists on this core issue is not appreciated by many scientists!

Again I will emphasize, some very smart people who consider themselves skeptics will disagree with some of my views stated above, particularly when it involves explanations for what has caused warming, and what has caused atmospheric CO2 to increase.

Unlike the global marching army of climate researchers the IPCC has enlisted, we do not walk in lockstep. We are willing to admit, “we don’t really know”, rather than mislead people with phrases like, “the warming we see is consistent with an increase in CO2″, and then have the public think that means, “we have determined, through our extensive research into all the possibilities, that the warming cannot be due to anything but CO2″.

Skeptics advancing alternative explanations (hypotheses) for climate variability represent the way the researcher community used to operate, before politics, policy outcomes, and billions of dollars got involved.

I have actually read what Spencer has to say. judging from your responses I am assuming that you have only read criticisms of Spencer's thought experiment.

 

[IanC]

next we go on to the actual 'Virginia' piece. Yes, Virginia, Cooler Objects Can Make Warmer Objects Even Warmer Still « Roy Spencer, Ph. D.

I’m getting a lot of e-mail traffic from some nice folks who are trying to convince me that the physics of the so-called Greenhouse Effect are not physically possible.

More specifically, that adding CO2 to the atmosphere is not physically capable of causing warming.

These arguments usually involve claims that “back radiation” can not flow from the cooler upper layers of the atmosphere to the warmer lower layers. This back radiation is a critical component of the theoretical explanation for the Greenhouse Effect.

Sometimes the Second Law of Thermodynamics, or Kirchoff’s Law of Thermal Radiation, are invoked in these arguments against back radiation and the greenhouse effect.

One of the more common statements is, “How can a cooler atmospheric layer possibly heat a warmer atmospheric layer below it?” The person asking the question obviously thinks the hypothetical case represented by their question is so ridiculous that no one could disagree with them.

the thought experiment-

The plate will eventually reach a constant temperature (let’s say 150 deg. F.) where the rate of energy gain by the plate from electricity equals the rate of energy loss by infrared radiation to the cooled chamber walls.

Now, let’s put a second plate next to the first plate. The second plate will begin to warm in response to the infrared energy being emitted by the heated plate. Eventually the second plate will also reach a state of equilibrium, where its average temperature (let’s say 100 deg. F) stays constant with time. This is shown in the next illustration:

But what will happen to the temperature of the heated plate in the process? It will end up even hotter than it was before the cooler plate was placed next to it. This is because the second plate reduced the rate at which the first plate was losing energy.

(If you are unconvinced of this, then imagine that the second plate completely surrounds the heated plate. Will the heated plate remain at 150 deg., and not warm at all?)

Since the temperature of an object is a function of both energy gain AND energy loss, the temperature of the plate (or anything else) can be raised in 2 basic ways: (1) increase the rate of energy gain, or (2) decrease the rate of energy loss. The temperature of everything is determined by energy flows in and out, and one needs to know both to determine whether the temperature will go up or down. This is a consequence of the 1st Law of Thermodynamics involving conservation of energy.

Note that the above example involving 2 plates, one hotter than the other, is apparently where the greenhouse effect deniers (sorry, I couldn’t help myself) would claim the “physically impossible” has occurred: The presence of a colder object has caused a warmer object to become even hotter. Again, the reason the heated plate became even hotter is that the second plate has, in effect, “insulated” the first plate from its cold surroundings, keeping it warmer than if the second plate was not there.

What happens is that the second plate is heated by IR radiation being emitted by the first plate, raising its temperature. The second plate, in turn, cannot cool to the temperature of the vacuum chamber walls (0 deg. F) because it is not in direct contact with the refrigerant being used…it can only lose IR at a rate which increases with temperature, so it achieves some intermediate temperature.

Meanwhile, the cooler plate is emitting more radiation toward the hot plate than the cold walls of the vacuum chamber would have emitted. This changes the energy budget of the hot plate: despite a constant flow of energy into the plate from the electric heater, it has now lost some of its ability to cool through IR radiation. Its temperature then rises until it, once again, is emitting IR radiation at the same rate as it is receiving energy from its surroundings (and the electric heater).

Extending the Concept to the Atmosphere

As mentioned above, in the case of the cold depths of outer space surrounding the Earth’s solar-heated surface, ANY infrared absorber that gets between the Earth’s surface and space will cause the surface to warm.

This radiative insulating function occurs in the atmosphere because of the presence of greenhouse gases, that is, gases that absorb and emit significant amounts of infrared energy…(mostly water vapor, CO2, and methane). Clouds also contribute to the Greenhouse Effect.

Kirchoff’s Law of thermal radiation says (roughly), that a good infrared absorber is an equally good infrared emitter. So, each layer of the atmosphere is continuously absorbing IR, as well as emitting it. This is what makes the Greenhouse Effect so much more difficult to understand conceptually than solar heating of the Earth. While the sun is a single source, and most of the energy absorbed by the Earth is at a single level (the surface of the ground), in the case of infrared energy, every layer becomes both as source of energy and an absorber of energy.

and specifically for the Second Law crowd-

The 2nd Law of Thermodynamics: Can Energy “Flow Uphill”?
In the case of radiation, the answer to that question is, “yes”. While heat conduction by an object always flows from hotter to colder, in the case of thermal radiation a cooler object does not check what the temperature of its surroundings is before sending out infrared energy. It sends it out anyway, no matter whether its surroundings are cooler or hotter.

Yes, thermal conduction involves energy flow in only one direction. But radiation flow involves energy flow in both directions.

Of course, in the context of the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics, both radiation and conduction processes are the same in the sense at the NET flow of energy is always “downhill”, from warmer temperatures to cooler temperatures.

But, if ANY flow of energy “uphill” is totally repulsive to you, maybe you can just think of the flow of IR energy being in only one direction, but with it’s magnitude being related to the relative temperature difference between the two objects. The result will still be the same: The presence of a cooler object can STILL cause a warmer object to become even hotter.

polarbear- I cannot fathom how you can be so adverse to Spencer if you have read his actual writing rather than just someone else's interpretation of what he said. his thought experiment is a generalization, that is what thought experiments are. I could nitpick his illustrations etc too, but his point was that cooler objects can alter the equilibrium temperatures of the heat flow at different points along the pathway from input to eventual escape. and he did so.

 

[IanC]

You got it all wrong,...none of us owes any explanation where the energy Roy conjures up "went"...Roy has to explain where his extra energy came from.

That is it, that's the rock bottom, bedrock, at the heart of the issue and the source of the sleight of hand magic that supports the AGW scam. That extra energy is conjured literally out of thin air and anyone who believes it is there, is, in fact, a Virgina.

Very well said.

OK polarbear- where does Spencer say extra energy is conjured up. be specific.

 

[polarbear]

You got it all wrong,...none of us owes any explanation where the energy Roy conjures up "went"...Roy has to explain where his extra energy came from.

That is it, that's the rock bottom, bedrock, at the heart of the issue and the source of the sleight of hand magic that supports the AGW scam. That extra energy is conjured literally out of thin air and anyone who believes it is there, is, in fact, a Virgina.

Very well said.

OK polarbear- where does Spencer say extra energy is conjured up. be specific.

You come in here and say to me "Oh we did not use your magic phrase diminished cooling" while You insisted that it`s the same effect as heating and now after You finally grasped how dumb that was You are asking me to go through Spencer`s idiotic blog pages to use the exact same words Spencer did...while You should by now know full well that he claims that his electrically heated plate is getting heated even more from his cooler plate, bar whatever he stuck into his imaginary chamber....that imparts "more", "extra" or whatever he did call it,...."energy", "heat" , "watts" on the hot object in his "yes Vigrinia a cooler objects can make warmer objects warmer still ".
How exactly would You raise the temperature of a mass (the hot bar with the electric heater) that had already stabilized at a maximum temperature with the electric energy (in Watt seconds) You supplied so far without any "extra" energy...???
I don`t care what kind of "heater" You pick...they draw the most amps when the heating element is cold and has the least resistance. So does an incandescent light bulb. Once a heater such as Spencer`s has reached this maximum temperature at which it also has a resistance high enough to inhibit any further temperature increase. Any new object that has a mass and can accept heat from this heated bar will do so and by doing so it will have drawn on the energy that has been stored by the heated mass of the heated bar...cooling it down,....unless You make up with "extra", "or more" energy...(or whatever You or Spencer call it )...which will come in through the wires to this idiotic setup from the EXTERNAL power source...
If You say Spencer does not need any extra external energy then either he or You has to show where the energy that raised the temperature to a higher one as it was before came from.

To that You replied "hahahaa" tell me then where the energy went if that bar does not heat up to a higher temperature with Spencer`s "back radiation photons" from the cooler bar.

How many times does that have to be explained and re- explained before You finally realize how Spencer conned his Virginia ?
He is using an electric current not photons to "simulate" the energy influx from solar radiation and would still have to increase the voltage to overcome the increased resistance to raise the heated bar to a temperature higher than it was before. If You raise the voltage to get more watts then "extra energy" was ADDED.
In Spencer`s screwed up universe not a single heat exchanger we have would be able to cool a condensate in a condenser.
Or are You denying that the cooler inside mantle which faces a hot vapor can`t radiate IR...?
Every condenser I have seen is a "counter stream" condenser where the coolant inlet is at the same end as the condensate outlet, where both, the condensate and the coolant are at their lowest temperature.
At the hot vapor intake where the hot coolant outlet is every condenser the best engineers in the field have designed would be totally counter productive it the coolant which has at that stage been significantly warmed could make the hot vapor which enters the condenser even hotter....according to Spencer ...and You still believe this rubbish.

Quacks like Spencer can draw, write and say whatever they want,...it`s called freedom of speech. Engineers don`t have that luxury. They don`t get paid to publish idiotic papers. Engineers have to build the fully functioning REAL DEAL ! ....and for the most they are very good at it.
The first fully functional nuclear weapons were designed and built by engineers, not Einstein or Oppenheimer. When the British got the Okay from the US they sent Klaus Fuchs, that (German) chief engineer of the Manhattan Project to do it for them, not Oppenheimer or Einstein.
When Kennedy wanted to land a man on the moon he called on engineers that almost wound up being convicted & executed as war criminals because of the V1`s and V2`s to do the job.
The REAL world has no use whatsoever for the kind of crap that Roy Spencer and "climate scientists" produce on paper or with ridiculous "climate computer models".
I, sure as hell would not want to be in the same county where they want to build the cooling for a nuclear power plant or in an oil refinery which was designed by Roy Spencer.
You can stay there and watch it if You are so convinced he knows what he is yapping about...not me,...I would not even want to be in the same country that puts a monkey like that in a driver`s seat.

 

[SSDD]

Here Ian:

Climate Change Dispatch - No, Virginia, Cooler Objects Cannot Make Warmer Objects Even Warmer Still

 

[polarbear]

Here Ian:

Climate Change Dispatch - No, Virginia, Cooler Objects Cannot Make Warmer Objects Even Warmer Still

Thanks for the assist...but the puck won`t score a goal, because like Roy he calls a "time out" when he`s about to loose the "hockey stick" game..and the goal keeper is out to lunch...permanently.
Then when the ref puts the puck back in the game, Roy and his the Virginias want to play mini golf instead which does not go for a full 3 ( climate decade) game periods and overtime but only for as long as it suits them, say a bad 24 hour period for New Orleans or New York and the global arena is reduced to a much smaller recent local "severe weather event"....due to "GLOBAL warming"
You should think that IanC would have grasped the concept when I posted how the solar refrigerators work and what limits them when the rate of cooling is diminished...as it is when the parabolic mirror looks at a tree, a building or a cloud. Then You can`t cool water to a lower temperature as the IR radiation source the mirror captured.
But Ian still believes Roy that You could boil a cup of water if You point the solar fridge at a tree which radiates a say +10 C Planck frequency profile.
As if the world wide engineering community that is clever enough to build autonomous drones that can take out a target on another continent or land autonomous robot/vehicles that land on Mars would not be clever enough to design a heating system that can heat a house with a colder object like Roy claims.
So Ian why don`t You save Yourself a lot of money,...never mind solar or wind power...just point a large parabolic mirror towards the outside wall of Your neighbor`s house facing Your own and enjoy the free "back radiation" heat.
Ian, You wanna know why engineers don`t waste their time with Spencer`s "back radiation photons"...?
Because even a Virginia would have realized that a +100 C hot "black body" is no longer the same dark black body that was "dark" speak cold enough before it became hot and when it could still absorb the photons at the wavelengths which come from a "blacker" (speak colder) body.
The hotter, less dark, less black lesser of a black body it gets the larger the albedo and it begins reflecting everything that is emitted by a colder and still blacker black body..heat flows from hot to cold...and only from cold to hot in people`s minds which are too feeble to understand what a theoretical physics black body is supposed to be to, if You want it to conform to a Planck`s frequency profile.
The only "black body" that exhibits a radiation frequency profile as Planck`s is a mass less cavity with a small enough cavity which limits the radiation that can exit this cavity so that the cavity is at a thermal equilibrium state !
It`s no longer a Planck`s radiation profile black body just as soon as You allow it to dissipate radiation which has to have an albedo of 0 as in ZERO !!
A sphere is the exact opposite of a cavity and more so a sphere made from materials that expend absorbed energy by expansion, evaporation, phase changes , like ice melting, photo chemical processes like plant growth. All considered, even a sphere with a 30 % "average" albedo which in itself is a cheat more than twice as it would take to nullify even Spencer`s crap radiation.
So don`t even think, that every engineer of our times is dumb enough to go along with an IPCC carbon tax without a fight...
Up till now they confined their activity to debunk quacks like Roy,...
If Roy thinks he had it bad when he was bombarded by some of the engineers that bothered to read his stupid blogs...wait what will happen if Obamama`s nanny state goes lock step with the U.N. and forces everyone, all these engineers included , to pay a Carbon tax...then You ain`t seen nothin` yet

 

[SSDD]

I look forward to the day when the larger scientific community wakes up and clues the charlatans, the true believers, and the luke warmers into how science is actually done. It is happening as evidenced by the ever increasing numbers of peer reviewed papers opposing the scam in all its variations, but not nearly fast enough to suit me.

 

[IanC]

OK polarbear- where does Spencer say extra energy is conjured up. be specific.

You come in here and say to me "Oh we did not use your magic phrase diminished cooling" while You insisted that it`s the same effect as heating and now after You finally grasped how dumb that was You are asking me to go through Spencer`s idiotic blog pages to use the exact same words Spencer did...while You should by now know full well that he claims that his electrically heated plate is getting heated even more from his cooler plate, bar whatever he stuck into his imaginary chamber....that imparts "more", "extra" or whatever he did call it,...."energy", "heat" , "watts" on the hot object in his "yes Vigrinia a cooler objects can make warmer objects warmer still ".
How exactly would You raise the temperature of a mass (the hot bar with the electric heater) that had already stabilized at a maximum temperature with the electric energy (in Watt seconds) You supplied so far without any "extra" energy...???
I don`t care what kind of "heater" You pick...they draw the most amps when the heating element is cold and has the least resistance. So does an incandescent light bulb. Once a heater such as Spencer`s has reached this maximum temperature at which it also has a resistance high enough to inhibit any further temperature increase. Any new object that has a mass and can accept heat from this heated bar will do so and by doing so it will have drawn on the energy that has been stored by the heated mass of the heated bar...cooling it down,....unless You make up with "extra", "or more" energy...(or whatever You or Spencer call it )...which will come in through the wires to this idiotic setup from the EXTERNAL power source...
If You say Spencer does not need any extra external energy then either he or You has to show where the energy that raised the temperature to a higher one as it was before came from.

again, you are making strawmen.

the plate has an electric heater inside it. it is not anywhere near maximum temperature, the 10F change in the outside plate temperature would have no impact. and besides, it is a thought experiment designed to show basic principles.

would you be surprised if the plate came to a different equilibrium temperature if the thermos was heated or cooled 50F from the stated 0F? do you really deny that objects lose heat at a different rate depending on the temperature of the surroundings?

 

[IanC]

Here Ian:

Climate Change Dispatch - No, Virginia, Cooler Objects Cannot Make Warmer Objects Even Warmer Still

Latour's letter goes off the rails right from the beginning.

His statement “This is because the second plate reduced the rate at which the first plate was losing energy.” is provably false. And the answer to his subsequent question in parentheses is: no. His statement “Again, the reason the heated plate became even hotter is that the second plate has, in effect, “insulated” the first plate from its cold surroundings, keeping it warmer than if the second plate was not there.” is not true.

If the claim were true, the total surroundings, including cooler plate, would receive more radiation from T difference = 160 – 150 = 10F and the chiller chamber temperature would increase to T > 0, even if the portion of surroundings blocked by the cool plate gets colder. The rest gets warmer. The chiller would have to remove more heat to maintain 0, but input electrical energy to the 150 plate is constant, so this requires creation of energy. The 100 plate does not insulate the 150 plate from all 0 surroundings.

the increased radiation into the available walls of the thermos from the warmer surfaces exactly matches the decreased radiation into the walls of the thermos that are in 'shadow'.