fredag 24 september 2010

Atmosphere: Boiling Pot Air Conditioner

In Basic Thermodynamics of the Atmosphere, I give mathematical evidence that the atmosphere acts as an air conditioner keeping the Earth surface at comfortable 15 C upon radiative forcing from the Sun.

Like a boiling pot of water the atmosphere reacts to increased heat forcing by increased vaporization and turbulent convection, while keeping the temperature constant.

I thus present mathematical evidence that the Earth surface temperature is determined by
thermodynamics rather than radiation, which indicates a small climate sensitivity to radiative forcing e.g. from increased CO2.

This is a main argument showing that the socalled "greenhouse effect" belongs to fiction and not science.

4 kommentarer:

  1. I believe you are on the right track, however, I have a few questions:

    1. In the introduction of the G&T paper it is stated quite vigorously that an atmosphere acting as a heat pump violates the 2nd law. I see you prefer to use the term "air-conditioner", but an air-conditioner also needs electricity to operate. Do you challenge G&T on this statement?

    2. Why is the TOA positioned 5km up in the atmosphere?

    3. Why is there a stratosphere, why isn't there a constant negative lapse rate?

    4. The lapse rate is not fixed but varies substantially. In general, the higher ground temperature the smaller lapse rate. What is generally observed in soundings is that temperature and PRESSURE follow each other. Can you explain this?

    5. Do you see temperature inversions in your simulations? They occur in reality.

    6. Have you compared your results to other planets? See

    Keep up the good work.


    I think that according to the GE theory, the pure radiative lapse rate would not be 10 degrees per kilometer but rather 16 degrees.

  2. 1. An ordinary AC moves heat from warm to warmer thus requires energy.

    The atmosphere as AC moves heat from warm to colder and as such does not consume energy. But there is 2nd Law also here: high-frequency radiation is turned into low-freq which can be seen as irreversible increase of entropy.

    2. This is an effective altitude with temp -18 C = effective outgoing temp of radiation of 240 W/m2 = effective incoming rad.

    3. The stratosphere is heated by absorption by ozon.

    Will return to 4-6.

  3. Regarding the stratosphere there is an interesting thought experiment:

    Suppose that there is no UV-absorption by ozone. Furthermore assume that the surface maintains a temperature of 288 K and that there is a constant lapse rate of approximately 10 degrees/km. According to our assumptions we then reach negative absolute temperatures at an altitude less than 30 km.

    Hence, under all circumstances there has to be a formation of a stratosphere somewhere.

    This insight might be of some importance when discussing the boundary conditions and the TOA. At the moment you take for granted that the temperature at 5km is -18 C, but your model doesn't predict it. How would things change do you think if for example the total mass of the atmosphere was doubled?

  4. No negative temp: the atmosphere ends at 30 km with zero everything,
    in the model. The model will be used to predict surface temp with
    given heat forcing and TOA temp.