Talk:Greenhouse effect

Greenhouse Effect problems

The radiative greenhouse effect conjecture is demolished by the Loschmidt gravito-thermal effect which is clearly evident in a Ranque-Hilsch Vortex tube for example, as well as in all planetary tropospheres.

It is wrong to assume Loschmidt's gravitationally induced thermal gradient does not evolve spontaneously in a gravitational field. It is the isentropic state of maximum entropy with no further unbalanced energy potentials. You cannot explain why the Venus surface temperature rises by 5 degrees spread over the course of its 4-month-long day with any radiative forcing conjecture or greenhouse philosophy. The Venus surface receives barely 10% of the direct Solar radiation that Earth's surface receives. It would need over 16200 W/m^2 if radiation were heating the surface. Then, during sunlit hours it would need an extra 450W/m^2 to raise the temperature from about 732K to 737K. On Earth, if isothermal conditions were supposedly existing without water vapor and other greenhouse gases, then the sensitivity to water vapor would be about 10 degrees per 1% atmospheric content. But there is no evidence that a region with 1% above it is 30 degrees colder than another region at similar altitude and latitude with 4% above it. The effective surface layer of Earth's oceans may be considered to be only 1cm thick, or even if 10cm thick it is still very transparent to insolation. But a black or grey body does not transmit radiation, and the surface layer absorbs less than 1% of that incident solar radiation. So the S-B calculations are totally incorrect and planetary surface temperatures cannot be calculated using such.

This is where the error crept in in 1985 [1] ...

"Coombes and Laue concluded that answer (1) is the correct one and answer (2) is wrong. They reached this conclusion after finding that statement (2a) is wrong, i.e., the average kinetic energy of all molecules does not decrease with the height even though the kinetic energy of each individual molecule does decrease with height.

These authors give at first a qualitative explanation of this fact by noting that since both the kinetic energy of the molecules and the number density of molecules decrease with height, the average molecular kinetic energy does not necessarily decrease with height."

This is absurd. They had the mean kinetic energy decreasing in each molecule, but then they divided again by the number. Try calculating a mean by dividing twice by the number of elements. A glaring error. The Loschmidt effect has NOT been debunked by this nonsense.

Nor has the Loschmidt (or gravito-thermal) effect been debunked by Verkley et al [2] because they made the mistake of working with enthalpy, rather than entropy, which is all that the Second Law of Thermodynamics refers to. An isothermal state would have unbalanced energy potentials in a vertical plane because it would have more mean gravitational potential energy per molecule at the top. Hence it is not the state of thermodynamic equilibrium with maximum entropy.

A good example of the gravito-thermal effect can be found in the nominal Uranus troposphere where the base is hotter than Earth's surface despite there being no significant direct solar radiation or internal energy source, or any surface. The thermal gradient in the Uranus troposphere works out to be very close indeed to the negative quotient of the acceleration due to gravity on that planet and the weighted mean specific heat of the gases in the troposphere.

[1] Velasco, S., Román, F.L., White, J.A. (1996). On a paradox concerning the temperature distribution of an ideal gas in a gravitational field, Eur. J. Phys., 17: 43–44.

[2] W.T.M.Verkley et al "On Maximum Entropy Profiles" http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/pdf/10.1175/1520-0469(2004)061%3C0931%3AOMEP%3E2.0.CO%3B2

Douglas Cotton (talk) 02:28, 1 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Physics and chemistry of the greenhouse effect - in common language

All objects emit light that depends on their temperature (thermal radiation). This does not mean the visible light that comes from objects when sunlight falls on them or something like that, but light that depends on their temperature. The hotter the object, the more energetic the light. In ordinary objects this light is invisible, (is, for example, in the infrared region), but if the object is heated more, it begins to illuminate in the visible region (such as red-hot iron).

The sun warms the earth's surface and the earth radiates invisible light depending on its temperature in each place. In the atmosphere there are gases, for example greenhouse gases that "absorb" part of this light and then the molecules begin to rotate and vibrate more and with that it heats up. This is not completely different from what happens in a microwave oven. The microwave oven makes invisible light, which the oven produces in a certain way and the food in it absorbs this light, which causes the molecules in the food to rotate and with that it heats up.

When the earth radiates its invisible light, some of it would just go into space, but when more greenhouse gases are added, more of the heat is absorbed by the atmosphere and some of it is radiated back to the earth.

The problem is mainly fossil fuels, oil, gas and coal. When burned, the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide is formed. Someone may then ask if the man has not always been burning firewood and thereby producing carbon dioxide. Yes, that's right, but what happened then was that plants absorbed the carbon dioxide that was created by the fire, as well as water and sunlight, and produced from it oxygen and carbohydrates, in a process called photosynthesis, so this was a cycle in which the carbon dioxide formed by the fire of the firewood was occupied by other plants and the amount of carbon dioxide remained fairly stable in the atmosphere. When fossil fuels are burned, on the other hand, carbon is added to the carbon cycle and carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, causing increased greenhouse effect, whereas larger portion of the earth’s thermal radiation is absorbed by the atmosphere and some of it is radiated back to earth. It should be noted that part of the added carbon dioxide goes into the sea and causes ocean acidification.

Without the greenhouse effect it would not be habitable on earth, it would simply be too cold, but the increase in greenhouse gases could be causing rapid warming.

Physics and chemistry of the greenhouse effect - in common language

Can I get this article published as a section in the main article? Gunnar Björgvinsson (talk) 07:35, 19 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Greenhouse Effect problems

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Physics and chemistry of the greenhouse effect - in common language

Physics and chemistry of the greenhouse effect - in common language