By John O'Sullivan at Johnosullivan.livejournal.com {newly updated}
Long-time greenhouse gas theory denier, Alan Siddons, has done it again in exposing NASA’s climate change fraud. In an earlier article I reported how the former radio-chemist had uncovered a bogus ‘X-Factor’ in the Earth Energy Budget equations, or ‘Kiehl-Trenberth diagram’ (K-T). The K-T equations are the foundation of environmentalist claims that emissions from burning fossil fuels are raising global temperatures.
That article illustrated how, since 1997, NASA got away with double counting the ‘up and down’ heating effect of carbon dioxide by using the K-T calculations to exaggerate the heating effect of carbon dioxide by a factor of two.
Fallacy of the Perpetual Motion Heat Engine
What I sought to explain in my earlier article was that alarmist climatologists were suggesting that from the 168Wm-2 of heat received by our planet’s surface there comes an ‘up and down’ re-radiation so that half is always being ‘back radiated’ again to Earth’s surface.
Thus from 168Wm-2 would come a further 84Wm-2; from that in turn comes back radiated a further 42Wm-2, etc., etc. Thus the notion of ‘trapped’ atmospheric heat was born. Yet, as numerous highly qualified independent scientists have pointed out (e.g. Charles Anderson PhD, Professor Claes Johnson, physicists Gerhard Gerlich and Ralph Tscheuschner , etc., etc.) such a cyclical re-heating effect is against the laws of physics. Such experts dismiss the entire hypothesis as an impossible perpetual motion heat engine better suited to the realms of science fiction.
Simplified Illustration of the K-T Earth Energy Budget
However, not satisfied with leaving the debunkery at that, Siddons perused the numbers again after reading my last tome, 'Kitchen Colander Proves Greenhouse Gas Theory Won't Hold Water,' The eagle-eyed researcher soon spotted a flaw in my calculations; I had under-estimated the full extent of Trenberth’s (and thereafter, NASA’s) factoring errors.
Trenberth Comes Out to Answer His Critics
Siddons’ latest revelation surpasses even the malfeasance of that previously uncovered trickery. What is now being exposed is so damning it is sure to heap further embarrassment on the beleaguered space agency.
The climate researcher accuses Trenberth (and NASA) of using a multiple layered model that fraudulently allows doomsayers to triple the solar-originated energy in the atmosphere.
The fuse to the latest bombshell was lit last week when the ‘Hockey Schtick’ blog pitched an email query direct to Kevin Trenberth, the architect of the NASA equations. Calamitous Kevin of Climategate infamy was asked to explain his grotesquely inflated number-crunching.
To our delight and amazement he replied, “the atmosphere is not a single layer, it is 3-dimensional.”
Siddons picked up on the subtle word play, “he's almost explicitly declaring that multiple layers multiply energy.”
You can bet that on reading this new stunner NASA will be as tight-lipped as when we asked them to explain why their education department no longer publishes the K-T diagram in their high school textbooks.
Heat is Transferred According to Temperature Difference
To assist readers in better understanding the mire of this pseudo-science gobbledygook we need to make use of the "New Unphysical AGW Simulator."
By availing ourselves of the ‘AGW Simulator’ (thanks University of Colorado) we see that solar-originated atmospheric energy is almost exactly tripled according to the K-T method:
519 ÷ 169 = 3.07. Thus a multiplying factor of 3.
That’s how our imaginary "greenhouse" of gases goes from having one pane of glass to 3 panes!
By Trenberth’s ‘magic’ we can have multiple "layers;” all the better for us to then multiply our data by a factor of three because the “atmosphere is not a single layer, it is three-dimensional.”
As Siddons says, “It’s similar to heating a 70 degree pair of pants with a 200 degree iron. The temperature of the pants doesn’t rise to 270 but only to 200 at most. Heat is transferred according to the temperature difference, not according to a sum.”
Thereafter, all climate scientists, taking the equation on trust, wrongly concluded that human emissions of carbon dioxide were far more significant to climate change than they are.
Why fudge by two, if three looks Better?
This kind of wanton fakery has long been enshrined in the ‘bible’ of doomsaying: the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Report.
The IPCC's Report of 2001 (in ‘Figure 1.2’) states that, “Of the incoming solar radiation, 49% (168 Wm-2) is absorbed by the surface. That heat is returned to the atmosphere as sensible heat, as evapotranspiration (latent heat) and as thermal infrared radiation. Most of this radiation is absorbed by the atmosphere, which in turn emits radiation both up and down.“
Did you see it? That old double counting ‘up and down’ hoax gets slipped in to fool the unwary yet again.
The fraudulent ‘X-Factor’ of energy released from carbon dioxide is justified by claiming it forms a "two-sided surface" (in the atmosphere). This swindle has been well sold to unthinkers like politicians and the ‘useful idiots’ in the mainstream media who long ago scorned old fashioned virtues such as due diligence and investigative responsibility.
'Back radiation' as unphysical as 'back conduction' or 'back convection'
Like other analysts, I refuted this ‘up and down’ gambit that K-T used to multiply the effects of CO2 by a factor of two because this ‘back radiation' folly has no precedent in the laws of science. For over 30 years a clique of climatologists (collective noun: a ‘conspiracy’?) has been trying to get away with skewing the laws of physics when applied to radiation.
As a simple comparison, no scientist claims there is such a thing as ‘back-convection’- likewise, none claim there is such a thing as ‘back-conduction’ as both these concepts would be so preposterous as to be universally laughed at. Yet somehow the proposition of ‘back radiation’ gets a ‘free pass’ supposedly avoiding all accountability in the laws of thermodynamics: sorry, my ‘denier’ associates and I don’t buy that!
Pointing out the Purpose of Poynting Vectors
Kiehl, Trenberth and the rest of the doomsaying fraternity also ‘forget’ that when calculating any transport of electro-magnetic energy (radiation) all such flow is to be determined by field vector calculus (i.e. Poynting's vector theorem) which is an energy conservation law: see the ‘gold standard’ textbook by John David Jackson Classical electrodynamics.
Vectoring laws must be applied in any three-dimensional calculus of electro-magnetic forces in motion (i.e. radiation). As Trenberth has explicitly stated his intention is to model in 3-D, therefore there is no escaping the requirement of applying Poynting’s laws.
Poynting’s theorem specifically requires that when the direction of such energy flow is equal and in opposite motion (that spurious K-T ‘up and down’) all such flows must be summed to zero.
In the doomsayers’ failure (and in mine), the true extent of the misapplication of calculus was overlooked.
This is a mighty hefty debunk because this is the core of NASA’s preferred calculation of our planet’s energy budget. The K-T diagram has risen then fallen just as ignominiously as the discredited ‘hockey stick’ graph of Michael Mann.
Satellite Data Says Siddons is Correct
Finally, to reassure ourselves the real world concurs with our take on the physics, if we check the satellite evidence from ERBE, as shown by Lindzen and Choi (2009) and admitted to by Trenberth, back radiation appears to present no impediment to the outward flow of radiation.
Thus, empirical observations, the laws of thermodynamics and Poynting's vector calculus together deliver the GHG hypothesis a knock out blow. Falling with it is all vestige of scientific credibility of that doomsaying ilk associated with Kevin Trenberth, NASA and the IPCC.
References:
Dr. Hertzberg, M., Siddons, A, & Schreuder, H., 'A Greenhouse Effect on the Moon?" (May 2010).
Lindzen, R. S., & Choi, Y., ‘On the determination of climate feedbacks from ERBE data,’ (August 2009), Geophysical Research Letters, Vol: 36, L16705.
Jackson, J. D. ‘Classical electrodynamics’ (1998), (Third ed.), New York: Wiley. ISBN 047130932
There is no violation of physics here. An atmospheric atom absorbs a photon, that increases its energy, then it emits a photon, returning to a lower energy state. That emission can go in any direction. If it happens to head toward the earth, then when the earth absorbs that photon it will warm it up, just a little. What I think you're having trouble with is that this is a system that is in *steady state*, not *equilibrium*. By that I mean that it is constantly heated from above by the sun, and so energy moves around until it is emitted at the top of the atmosphere. There is no "extra energy" anywhere, nor is there a net movement of energy from cold to warm. More energy moves from the surface to the atmosphere than the other way around--in keeping with thermodynamics--but some photons do move in the other direction and do have an effect. There is nothing at all odd about this. If you think this is a violation of thermodynamics, then I'm not sure how you explain to yourself that the dark side of the moon is so much colder than the dark side of the Earth.
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