KevinK elegantly explains why the Arrhenius radiative greenhouse effect essential to the theory of catastrophic anthropogenic global warming (CAGW) is fictional, and confuses the actual cause (the 33C gravito-thermal greenhouse effect of Maxwell, Clausius, Carnot, Boltzmann, Feynman, US Standard Atmosphere, the HS greenhouse equation, et al) with the effect (IR absorption and emission from IR-active 'greenhouse gases').
- I would like you and george e smith to elevate this to a post and send to Anthony.
Thanks for your input.- Bubba, thank you.I did submit a somewhat whimsical explanation of this delay line effect to Anthony several years ago.I have submitted a more detailed explanation to other climate science sites as well.The “radiative greenhouse effect” is merely a form of hybrid optical/thermal delay line. It has no effect on the “average” temperature at the surface of the Earth.Cheers, KevinK
- KevinK,I think that is the best comment I have read here in several weeks at least. (a high complement considering the quality of the comments here)I do hope that you will offer that comment as a post, that it is posted, and that then the moderation allow a full and complete debate on all parts of it. There are many of us who think the mass of the atmosphere along with gravity is the main reason for the misnamed “green house effect” along with H2O in all its phases.~ Mark
- If this delaying of the photon by a few milliseconds has no impact on the “average temperature”, please explain the well documented phenomena of heat retention on humid nights compared to dry one. [HS Comment: See
Why are cloudy nights warmer? Not from greenhouse gas 'back-radiation']
- The thermal capacity of water is much greater than CO2.This is why the main purpose of indoor air conditioning is to remove the water vapor first and then secondarily reduce the temperature of the now dryer air.
- Kevin, Liquid water yes, because of it’s much greater density. However the difference between water in the vapor stage and CO2 is much, much smaller.
Regardless, the warming affect of water occurs even when it is the air aloft that is damp and the air at the surface is dry. IE, clouds. [HS comment: No many papers prove the net effect of clouds is cooling, although they can reduce convective cooling somewhat, but which has nothing to do with radiative forcing. In addition, increased water vapor increases the heat capacity Cp of the atmosphere, which decreases the lapse rate, which COOLs the surface].
- Has anyone calculated the average delay for a photon that is within one of CO2 absorbtion bands?
I strongly suspect that it is more than a few milliseconds. Given that the direction of the photon when it is re-emitted is random, it could be down as easily as up, if it is sideways, it will have many miles of dense atmosphere to traverse compared to up. - At about 22 minutes, Dr. Happer shows the “xylophone effect” on a CO2 molecule.https://youtu.be/gMdYmAo08O4A portion of their discussion:After hearing Will’s lecture, Dave asks:1. At low altitudes, the mean time between molecular collisions, through which an excited CO2 molecule can transfer its energy to another gas molecule (usually N2) is on the order of 1 nanosecond.2. The mean decay time for an excited CO2 molecule to emit an IR photon is on the order of 1 second (a billion times as long).Did I understand that correctly?Will replies: [YES, PRECISELY. I ATTACH A PAPER ON RADIATIVE LIFETIMES OF CO2 FROM THE CO2 LASER COMMUNITY. YOU SHOULD LOOK AT THE BENDING-MODE TRANSITIONS, FOR EXAMPLE, 010 – 000. AS I THINK I MAY HAVE INDICATED ON SLIDE 24, THE RADIATIVE DECAY RATES FOR THE BENDING MODE ALSO DEPEND ON VIBRATION AND ROTATIONAL QUANTUM NUMBERS, AND THEY CAN BE A FEW ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE SLOWER THAN 1 S^{-1} FOR HIGHER EXCITED STATES. THIS IS BECAUSE OF SMALL MATRIX ELEMENTS FOR THE TRANSITION MOMENTS.]Dave: You didn’t mention it, but I assume H2O molecules have a similar decay time to emit an IR photon. Is that right, too?[YES. I CAN’T IMMEDIATELY FIND A SIMILAR PAPER TO THE ONE I ATTACHED ABOUT CO2, BUT THESE TRANSITIONS HAVE BEEN CAREFULLY STUDIED IN CONNECTION WITH INTERSTELLAR MASERS. I ATTACH SOME NICE VIEWGRAPHS THAT SUMMARIZE THE ISSUES, A FEW OF WHICH TOUCH ON H2O, ONE OF THE IMPORTANT INTERSTELLAR MOLECULES. ALAS, THE SLIDES DO NOT INCLUDE A TABLE OF LIFETIMES. BUT YOU SHOULD BE ABLE TO TRACK THEM DOWN FROM REFERENCES ON THE VIEWGRAPHS IF YOU LIKE. ROUGHLY SPEAKING, THE RADIATIVE LIFETIMES OF ELECTRIC DIPOLE MOMENTS SCALE AS THE CUBE OF THE WAVELENTH AND INVERSELY AS THE SQUARE OF THE ELECTRIC DIPOLE MATRIX ELEMENT (FROM BASIC QUANTUM MECHANICS) SO IF AN ATOM HAS A RADIATIVE LIFETIME OF 16 NSEC AT A WAVELENGTH OF 0.6 MIRONS (SODIUM), A CO2 BENDING MODE TRANSITION, WITH A WAVELENGTH OF 15 MICRONS AND ABOUT 1/30 THE MATRIX ELEMENT SHOULD HAVE A LIFETIME OF ORDER 16 (30)^2 (15/.6)^3 NS = 0.2 S.Dave: So, after a CO2 (or H2O) molecule absorbs a 15 micron IR photon, about 99.9999999% of the time it will give up its energy by collision with another gas molecule, not by re-emission of another photon. Is that true (assuming that I counted the right number of nines)?Will: [YES, ABSOLUTELY.]Dave: In other words, the very widely repeated description of GHG molecules absorbing infrared photons and then re-emitting them in random directions is only correct for about one absorbed photon in a billion. True?Will: [YES, IT IS THIS EXTREME SLOWNESS OF RADIATIVE DECAY RATES THAT ALLOWS THE CO2 MOLECULES IN THE ATMOSPHERE TO HAVE VERY NEARLY THE SAME VIBRATION-ROTATION TEMPERATURE OF THE LOCAL AIR MOLECULES.]
- HS comment: Whether the true delay is microseconds to minutes makes little difference, since a 12 hour night can easily erase & reverse this "radiative heat trapping," with no net effect on a daily, annual, or multi-decadal basis whatsoever.
- There can only be one and only one 33C greenhouse effect: 1) the 33C Arrhenius radiative GHE, or 2) the 33C Maxwell et al gravito-thermal GHE, otherwise the greenhouse effect would be double (66C) that observed. Clearly, overwhelming evidence, such as the above, favors the gravito-thermal GHE by lightyears.







This is known as the “transient response” of an optical integrating sphere.