Sir Isaac Newton’s Kitchen Physics
Whether the story is apocryphal or not, Newton is connected in our minds with an apple that dropped on his head. I checked this and found that the actual apple tree still exists. From his experience of observing that the apple always fell to the ground, he deduced the law of gravity.
This is what I call kitchen Physics and it is something of which I have been accused by several friends. But the fact remains that nobody in their right minds has any difficulty in accepting this law, for the simple reason that it corresponds to the facts of experience.
If one leaps off a diving board into a swimming pool, nobody expects the diver to go upwards. If I drop a china plate it will fall with a crash to the floor. And as I am now older I have recently experienced falling very heavily, knocking over a bookcase, and bruising myself severely. I did not fall upwards!
The point I am making is that gravity is something that is a fact of every day experience. Nothing ever falls upwards or sideways unless caught by a gust of wind, everything falls downwards. So we all know this law is a law because it is confirmed by observation.
Let us now consider climate change, where so many politicians and Princes like Prince Charles consider that climate change is something that is urgent and is to be tackled. Even good friends and family nod their heads sagely as if climate change was so obvious that even to question it is considered almost sinful. And should one ask the question about the meaning of this phrase, one can be met with insults.
However I must insist that this concept is so nebulous that it cannot be considered scientific at all. What exactly does it mean? Which climate is changing? What is meant by tackling climate change? If climate is supposed to be the average of weather in a given place, from what time does one make that average? 50 years? A century? A thousand years?
Of course all this climate change morphed from the idea of global warming. And we are assured that this global warming is caused by emissions of Carbon Dioxide into the atmosphere. The scientists do agree that we are heated by the Sun. but the theory is that the heat that is generated by the Sun is somehow trapped in the atmosphere and thereby makes the Earth hotter than it would otherwise be.
Is there any prima facie evidence that the Earth is getting hotter? Actually there is none at all. Nor is there any evidence whatsoever that Carbon Dioxide traps heat. Ah! I met a Physicist once who declared that he as a Physicist knew that Carbon Dioxide absorbed infrared radiation. What he meant in simple language is that Carbon Dioxide will warm up as the result of this radiation. What he omitted to say was that just about everything on this Earth warms up with this infrared radiation, with the notable exception of Oxygen and Nitrogen, which are transparent to this radiation.
Even eminent and famous scientists talk about heat being trapped in the atmosphere by Carbon Dioxide. But of course ‘heat’ which is a transfer of kinetic energy cannot possibly be trapped. Heat is not a substance. Water or oil may be trapped in a bottle, or air may be trapped in a Glasshouse, but heat is never trapped. Indeed I will go so far as to affirm that heat has never been trapped and never, never will be trapped. It is an absolute impossibility.
So let us examine the sorts of Climate Change that seems to absorb people. Most of the so-called evidence is far removed from ordinary folk and most concerns the warming of the seas and the disappearance of ice in the Poles and Greenland. Also the retreat of glaciers in some cases, while in others glaciers are advancing. Okay, far be it from me to deny that some ice may be melting and that some seas may be relatively warmer. However can any of this warming be attributed to Carbon Dioxide in the atmosphere?
Let us take a simple example of kitchen Physics. If I take a test tube of water and place a Bunsen burner underneath it I can bring the water to the boil. However if I try to heat the water from above, it would be a very difficult contortion because heat spontaneously rises, not sinks. So every housewife who is boiling up some potatoes puts the pan on the stove and lights the gas underneath.
Whether from the flames of gas or from an electric hotplate, effective heating invariably comes from below. Therefore we can conclude that the idea that our coral reefs are suffering as the result of emissions of Carbon Dioxide is not tenable.
If the seas are getting warmer at depth, it is likely as the result of under sea heating, which is supported by the numerous marine vents and fumaroles (pictured) spouting intensely hot water into the seas. We know also from volcanoes that the centre of the earth is hot – indeed as hot as Hell!
Science has to be confirmed by observation, which is sometimes called Kitchen Physics, like Sir Isaac Newton and his apple. I am not denying that the weather everywhere is changeable – that is only too obvious – and therefore the average of weathers must also be changing. However the idea that man can tackle climate is simply absurd. Our Scientists are not Gods and our Politicians neither.
Once we have got rid of man-made or Anthropological Global Warming, the entire Climate Change farrago falls apart. And as to suppressing emissions of Carbon Dioxide this is even further idiocy. Without Carbon Dioxide there would be no food for green plants on land or in the sea. And without green plants there would be no oxygen for us to breathe. It is a formula for the mass suicide of the human race and the animal kingdom.
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Beretta1
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Hmmm…, I beg to differ on your premise that the “heat” in climate warming can’t come from the earth. This author presents a very believable ( at least to me) scenario that many of the earths climate events come from underwater volcanic rifts. Check it out. http://www.plateclimatology.com/
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jerry krause
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Hi Anthony,
I enjoy your articles (essays) but I cannot accept: “Whether from the flames of gas or from an electric hotplate, effective heating invariably comes from below.”
Go to this link (https://www.wcc.nrcs.usda.gov/scan/) and choose almost any SCAN (Soil Climate Analysis Network) site at the higher latitudes and look at the soil temperatures during the spring months at 2, 4, 8, 20, and 40 inches depths. You will find that incidence solar radiation must be heating the soil from the top. These simple observations of soil temperatures are no different than apples ‘fall down’ from trees.
You can also look at similar data of the USCRN project. (https://www1.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/uscrn/products/hourly02/) But here you have to to plot the soil temperature data which the SCAN project conveniently provides for a day or a month of days.
I try and try to get readers to inspect the data of these and other USA projects so they will not make foolish statements such as yours. But without much apparent success. I’m told this is because I cannot write as well as you do, and this true. But I think the real reason is that studying data is not really fun unless one really enjoys learning.
Which, I believe you, Anthony, do. So I expect yoy might really enjoy studying SCAN data. It is just that you have lived so long, as I had, without knowing that such data existed. This because I could not find anyone writing about it.
But now you have been informed, so I would like to learn if you enjoy what you find.
Have a good day, Jerry
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Anthony Bright-Paul
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Of course you are right, since the Sun shines from above. I meant to add a para to correct this. Most notably the sun warms the oceans and evaporation occurs. Evaporation is cooling and clouds are cooling, as is rain, hail and snow. Sure the sun warms the earth from above, which warms the air by conduction, which carries the heat upwards and away. So all heat has to be genrated and all heat flows from hot to cold by itself.
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jerry krause
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Hi Anthony,
“Sure the sun warms the earth from above, which warms the air by conduction, which carries the heat upwards and away.” Are you really sure of this?
If, you study the data of NOAA’s SURFRAD (Surface Radiation) project you will find that the surface emits a considerable flux of longwave IR toward space 24 hours a day because of the surface’s temperature which is heated by the incident solar radiation during the daytime, and during the nighttime this radiation is conducted upward from the soil at depths where the energy has been stored during the daytime.
Have a good day, Jerry
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jerry krause
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Should have provided the link to the SURFRAD data (https://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/grad/surfrad/dataplot.html)
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Herb Rose
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Hi Anthony,
The persistent belief that oxygen and nitrogen do not absorb heat while carbon dioxide does comes from the observation that carbon dioxide emits infrared radiation. Emitting radiation is the opposite of absorbing and is why carbon dioxide can be used as a coolant. Everything absorbs energy and emits energy with the radiation being emitted determined by the structure of the molecule. (Carbon dioxide has three atoms versus the two in oxygen and nitrogen which an additional degree of flexing and radiating energy.) If oxygen and nitrogen do not absorb heat how are you able to heat your home and keep it comfortable by just adding kinetic energy to the scarce CO2 molecules? All the gases in the atmosphere are absorbing energy from the sun and gaining kinetic energy.
Herb
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