The Thermometer (again)
The thermometer is an instrument that is used throughout science. Biologist, physicists, chemist, and other disciplines use it as a standard by which other scientists can test others work
You would think, with the fundamental nature of its use that the people using it would understand what information it is providing, but that is not the case.
Meteorology and climatology are founded on its use, but their lack of understanding of the instrument disqualifies them as being sciences and they will never be able to understand what is happening until they know what information it provides.
It is such a simple instrument you’d think that knowing how it works and what it is measuring would be obvious, but this is not the case.
The instrument contains a material that expands when it is gains energy and contracts when it loses energy. A reading is established when equilibrium is achieved where the heat it gains and the heat it loses are equal.
It contains no calculator to determine an average or any memory chips to record a mean value. It simply measures the conditions it is in, from the energy transferred to it by the momentum of molecules striking it.
It is not measuring the kinetic energy, E=1/2mv^2, but the momentum, M= mv of molecules.
A thermometer requires matter to act as a source of energy in order to function. It does not measure the amount of radiated energy but the energy being transferred by convection or collisions.
The space between the sun and Earth contains all the energy that is heating the Earth’s surface but because there is so little matter it has no temperature. A satellite in orbit around the Earth will have the surface exposed to the sun read a temperature of 250 F while the surface in the shade will have a temperature of -250.
The thermometer’s basic design has one section containing a reservoir of the measuring liquid to absorb energy and another section into which the liquid expands or contracts as the liquid gains or loses heat.
As a liquid shifts from one section to the other, the amount of liquid absorbing energy and the amount losing energy changes, as energy flows from higher to lower.
When measuring the temperature of an object the thermometer is measuring a flow of energy from one medium to another medium. Energy gained in one section from one medium is lost by the other section into the second medium.
It is like measuring the flow of water in a river or the amperage of electricity flowing in a wire.
When the thermometer is used in a gas, like the atmosphere, the entire instrument is exposed to only one medium. It is no longer measuring a flow but the amount of energy the measuring medium has absorbed from the volume of the surrounding gas.
In this use it is like measuring the volume of water in a section of the river or the voltage of an electric current.
You cannot compare the measured temperature of an object to the temperature of a gas because they are measuring different things. In one case the instrument measures the flow from one medium to the other while in the other case it is measuring the energy contained in a volume of molecules striking it.
Not distinguishing between the different properties being measured is like not distinguishing between voltage and amperage in electricity.
There is a simple experiment that shows the difference in what a thermometer measures. Take a propane heater into a room and light it. Use a thermometer to measure the temperature of the flame.
No matter how much gas you burn the temperature will remain the same since the oxidation of propane will always produce the same energy. You are measuring the flow of energy from the burning propane to the atmosphere in the room.
The reading of the thermometer in the room will change depending on the amount of propane you are burning. It is measuring the amount of energy in the air in the room. The more propane you burn the higher the temperature in the room.
Comparing the temperature of the surface of the Earth and the flow of energy being lost from a large number of molecules to the amount of energy absorbed by the far fewer molecules in the atmosphere has resulted in the idiocy of the ‘greenhouse gas’ theory.
In order to determine the flow of energy you must know the level of energy of the molecules, not the amount of energy. The flow will always be from the molecules with a higher level of energy to molecules with a lower level of energy, regardless of the amount of energy the molecules contain.
To determine the level of energy of a molecule in the atmosphere you must divide the temperature reading at an altitude by the density at that altitude. Density is the mass (number of molecules) per a constant volume.
The inverse of density is the volume of a constant number of molecules. By dividing the temperature by the density you get the energy of a constant number of molecules.
A graph of this value shows that the energy of air molecules increases linearly with altitude in the troposphere and exponentially at higher altitudes. The zigzag line produced by the thermometer is not how energy flows.
In order for water to evaporate from a body of water, it must absorb energy. Why would anybody believe that the water molecule in the air, with its lower temperature, has less energy than the water in the liquid?
The law of conservation of momentum states that energy flow from an object with greater energy per unit mass to an object with less energy per unit mass, no matter the total amount of energy in the objects. The second law of thermodynamics is wrong.
The density of the atmosphere decreases with increasing altitude which shows that the gas molecules have increasing energy (Universal Gas Law, PV=nrt). It is the sun that is heating the atmosphere, not the surface of the Earth.
The atmosphere is heated because the oxygen and nitrogen in the atmosphere are absorbing the uv and shorter wavelengths emitted by the sun and converting that energy into kinetic energy.
All matter absorbs radiated energy so the assumption that because the atmosphere does not absorb visible light it is not gaining energy from the sun is stupid.
This can be shown by the different molecules formed from oxygen and nitrogen at different altitudes.
Atoms will combine to form molecules because it allows them to lose energy. The stability of a molecule is a function of the energy loss. If 492,000 joules are added to a mole of oxygen molecules they will split into oxygen atoms.
This splitting of oxygen molecules into atoms occurs near the top of the atmosphere where the shorter wavelengths of energy absorbed from the sun splits the molecule.
Because the surrounding energy at this altitude is too high, the oxygen atoms cannot reform an oxygen molecule until lower in the atmosphere, where the level of energy coming from the sun has decreased, being distributed to more molecules.
In the stratosphere oxygen forms both O2 and O3 molecules as the atoms combine losing energy.
An ozone molecule in the stratosphere is long lived because the surrounding high level of energy inhibits it decay into oxygen molecules. When ozone forms in the troposphere the lower level of energy surrounding it allows for a more rapid loss of energy and a short life span for the molecule.
It is the uv energy coming from the sun that creates the ozone molecule and also stabilizes it in the stratosphere.
Simply looking at the chemical composition of the atmosphere shows that there is no way that they are gaining energy from the surface even though the thermometer is recording that the surface has a higher temperature.
The ridiculous zigzagging graph of temperature in the atmosphere does not represent either the flow of energy or the amount of energy because the two temperatures are measuring different values, flow from the surface and amount per volume in the air.
Until meteorologists and climatologist understand what the thermometer is measuring they will continue to be studies of history, not sciences.
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Tom
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Again the experts are all baffled as they go back and forth trying to make true science into a political football that they kick back and forth. I would guess the temperature is now political depending upon what it reads on the thermometer.
This is an excellent explanation for how temperature and thermometers work.
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Allan Shelton
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Excellent. Thanks Herb.
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Jerry Krause
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Hi PSI Readers,
Herb began: “The thermometer is an instrument that is used throughout science. Biologist, physicists, chemist, and other disciplines use it as a standard by which other scientists can test others work.”
I begin by editing this a bit. The thermometer is an instrument that is used throughout science to measure TEMPERATURE. Biologists, physicists, chemists and nearly all other people us the common thermometer to measure temperatures.
Historically it seem to have beenproposed that Galileo. an experimentalist, invented the first thermometer to approximate the temperature of water in a narrow range of comfortable room temperatures by using the principle of buoyancy as the density of liquid water decreases as its temperature increases. But there was not yet any proposed temperature scale.
The first common mercury thermometer was invented by Fahrenheit and its scale was defined by the temperature (32F) of freezing water and the temperature (212F) of boiling water when the atmospheric pressure was 1atm. Which Fahrenheit temperatures do not seem as “logical” of those of the Celsius scale (0, 100).
However, we know the standard human body temperature is 98.6F so I propose that Fahrenheit could have first assumed this temperature to be 100F and 32 and 212 were approximate measured temperatures. Hence, because the Fahrenheit degree is smaller than the Celsius, a practical fact is the Fahrenheit degree can be estimated to the nearest whole degree with reasonable precision but the Celsius degree cannot. But a tenth of a Celsius degree is too small to be seen (estimated) with good precision
Just some thoughts about temperatures and thermometers. Have a good day
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Jerry Krause
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Hi PSI Readers,
This purpose of this comment is to make this link (https://wildfiretoday.com/2024/09/05/oregon-rail-ridge-fire-evacuations-growing-grant-county-malheur-national-forest/) a matter of record. It is about a natural wildfire caused by natural lighting during a natural wildfire whose smoke (including soot) had drifted westward over my location so at 4am SPT so I could not see any stars but I could see a very bright Jupiter. More about this later.
Have a good day
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Jerry Krause
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Hi PSI Readers,
A picture is worth a thousand words and the picture is the crotocal part of the link. Until I saw the white and black portions of the wildfire I had questioned why the carton had not been burned completely at the very high temperature of the flames. Now I have to conclude that in places all the oxygen of the atmosphere has been consumed as the more volatile products of the fire rapidly burn producing great heat and water vapor and carbon dioxide.gas and solid unburned carbon (soot) being carried upward by the hot nitrogen gas. As the water vapor cools it condenses to form white clouds which evaporates as the clouds mix the warm dry atmosphere. I challenge anyone to offer a different explanation for what is seen in the picture. But I pause here to give any doubters a chance to offer a different explanation.
Have a good day
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Jerry Krause
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Somehow the comment got submitted before correcting “crotoca” to “critical”.
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Jerry Krause
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Hi PSI Readers,
After yesterday’s sunset a great extent of the western sky was covered with a uniform reddish color which might by some be considered an ordinary. spectacular sunset. And I would agree. However, given the wildfire to the east, I saw the sunset in a new light. Instead of more larger atmospheric aerosols I considered the scattering aerosols could be the tiny soot particles scattering the shorter wave length visible solar blues, greens, ect. from the red which is was being transmitted through the smoke from the wildfire.
I have long noticed that Richard Feynman has a similar problem to mine.; it seems few scientists pay any attention to the SIMPLE RADIATION SCATTERING THEORY he taught CalTech physic’s students in Chapter 32 of “The Feynman Lectures On Physics.” I stop here to wait to see if anybody offers any EVIDENCE they have read that ro which I am referring.
Have a good day
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Jerry Krause
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Hi PSI Readers,
This comment is to allow me to quickly find Herb’s article.
Have a good day
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Jerry Krause
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Hi PSI Readers,
At this link (https://principia-scientific.com/the-corvallis-or-uscrn-site-a-natural-laboratory-part-three/) is a picture of a Red Sun I took of it rising over the crest of the Cascade Mts and of the BLUE LIGHT being scattered from the wildfire smoke bank.
Have a good day
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