A Note on Fourier and the Greenhouse Effect
If you missed ever reading this document, please do so now as it gives a really clean and concise overview and debunk of the idea that Joseph Fourier discovered the climate science “greenhouse effect”:
The document can be found on ArXiv as well:
https://arxiv.org/abs/1510.02503
Joseph Fourier in fact empirically refuted the climate science greenhouse effect, and he established that real greenhouses function by limiting convective cooling.
Please submit any questions/comment intended for Joe Postma at his blog (link below). Thank you.
Read more at climateofsophistry.com
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Jerry Krause
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Hi John O’Sullivan (Editor of PSI),
I understand why you ask comments about Joseph’s posting be sent to his website. But this policy makes it difficult for a PSI reader to read any comment they, or I, may have relative to his posting. So, I will submit my comment to PSI so everyone can read it.
First Joseph has almost completely explained Horace de Saussure’s experiments that Horace conducted with the Hot Box he first invented and then optimized by his experiments which Joseph does not mentions when we go to the link he provides.
This link (http://solarcooking.org/saussure.htm) allows interested readers to read a description of what Horace did. He objective from the beginning was to achieve the highest possible temperature in his solar oven. He began with 5 panes of glass to minimize the atmospheric conduction of the thermal energy in its hot interior to the oven’s exterior. Just as multiple pane windows are used for the same reason. Except the panes were horizon and not vertical. Not a big deal but we must accurately describe his solar oven as precisely as possible. After testing the oven with 5 panes Horace evidently began to remove the glass panes one pane at a time to measure the new maximin temperature. Which evidently was greater than the first for Horace then removed another pane and must have again measure an even greater temperature. And I do not read, but propose, that he removed another pane and then found this next temperature was not a great as the former.
What Joe does not acknowledge in his analysis is that a portion of the direct solar radiation is reflected back toward space each time it is incident upon the top of each glass pane. No, Horace had, and I have, no idea what portion of the incident visible solar radiation is reflected by each pane of glass. But I know from experience that the surface of the top pane becomes warm to the touch. For glass does not readily transmit the invisible infrared portion of the solar incident solar radiation. So, much of this infrared portion must be reflected back towards space. (These observed facts are critical to any analysis of Horace’s solar oven).
For Joseph did report that the maximum temperature that Horace’s solar oven achieved was about 110C. What Joseph did not mention was this near the maximum temperature measured for the moon’s surface. Which moon has no atmosphere, but its surface strongly absorbs nearly 90% of all the solar radiation incident upon it. Horace had made the interior surfaces of his oven as black, absorptive as possible. But we know that not all the energy of the incident solar radiation was reaching the oven’s black interior. There must be a lesson to be learned here but this lesson is not the purpose of this comment.
From the moon’s surface temperature and the oven’s maximum temperature it seems we must accept the radiation being emitted from interior black surface of the oven is nearly a 100% of that being emitted from the lunar surface of the same temperature. But because we know that glass is opaque to the long wavelength IR (infrared) radiation being emitted by the interior surfaces of the oven. So any energy from the interior must be thermally conducted through the glass pane which has a quite small thermal conductivity. So, for any thermal energy to be conducted there must the a temperature difference between the bottom surface of the pane and its top surface. However, we need to see that this ‘hot’ upper surface must be emitting IR radiation according to its temperature toward the bottom of the next surface. But since most all radiation moves at, or near the speed of light, the two temperatures of the two panes facing each other become equal. So there needs to be a temperature difference between the bottom and the top of the second pane. Likewise, the temperatures of the top of the second pane and the bottom of the third pane are the same. And again there must be a temperature difference between the bottom and top of the third pane. But now when the top of the third pane emits the IR radiation according the temperature of top, it is emitting this radiation toward space.
I have not idea what the temperatures of the emitting top surfaces of the three glass panes are but I know that Horace’s observation the maximum interior temperature very near that of the surface of the moon is evidence that this solar oven achieves a ‘natural’ radiation balance. Hence, Horace’s solar oven is the first radiometer known to have been invented by man. Which can be used to measure the downward radiation from the atmosphere during the nighttime.
Joseph and Carl ,thank you for introducing me to Horace’s solar oven even before I had even discovered PSI.
Have a good day, Jerry
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Jerry Krause
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Hi PIS Readers,
Joseph concluded: “Joseph Fourier in fact empirically refuted the climate science greenhouse effect, and he established that real greenhouses function by limiting convective cooling.”
My two comments: One, what empirical quantitative data did he have to use to do thi?”. Two, onlyconvective cooling? What goes up must eventually come down.
If you want to actually want to learn about the Earth’s radiation balance system I urge you to construct your own solar oven. It does not require great skill or cost for modern insulting panels and panes of glass, and a digital cooking thermometer. Plus, a relatively inexpensive infrared (IR) thermometer with which to measure the temperature of its top glass pane. Must admit I have not yet done the latter,
However, as I have described, the only temperature measurement that is critical is the maximum temperature of the oven’s interior which is nearly that of the surface of the moon which does not have an atmosphere.
As I wrote the previous sentence I began to ponder the fact that our electric oven has a double pane window. So I need its temperature at different temperatures and use my IR thermometer to see what its surface temperature might be at the various temperatures. Just curious and curiosity is what motivates SCIENTISTS who actually make observations instead of only reasoning as Aristotle did. And maybe as Fourier only did and as Joe has only done. If you, a PSI reader, come to PSI to learn something about SCIENCE, you must ‘see’ that the fundamental foundation of SCIENCE is observation and not reason. For it is a historical fact that Aristotle reasoned several absolutely wrong ideas about our NATURAL PLANET.
Have a good day, Jerry
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Antero Ollila
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The GH effect is reality. If we do believe in measurements, the explanations are simple. The Earth receives 240 W/m2 SW radiation: 75 W/m2 absorbed by the atmosphere and 165 W/m2 absorbed by the surface. The surface emits 395 W/m3 according to Planck’s law and according to observations. It means that the surface must receive more energy than that 165 W/2m. According to measurements it receives 345 W/m2 from the atmosphere. 345 +165 = 510 W/m2 and this extra energy in addition to 240 = 510-240 = 270 W/m2. That is the effect of the GH.
What are the sources of the 345 W/m2. There are three sources. The GH gases and clouds absorb 395 – 240 = 155 W/m2. The latent heating is 91 and sensible heating is 24. Totally these three sources are 155+91+24 = 270 W/m2.
There is nothing mysterious in the GH effect. There is one massive error in the IPCC’s definition, because they say the magnitude is only 155 /m2. In this way they can almost double the warming effect of carbon dioxide. In the energy balance the IPCC approves that LW radiation form atmosphere is the fact. But in the GH effect they claim that the only 155 W/m2 is warming the surface. They claim that the effect of 345-155-75 = 115 W/m has no warming effect. All the time this amount of energy namely 115 W/m2 has been absorbed by the atmosphere. It cannot move into space. The only place the atmosphere can remove this energy is to the surface.
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Herb Rose
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Hi Antero,
Do you believe that all objects absorb radiated energy and radiate energy? If so then the contention that the N2 and O2 in the atmosphere do not absorb energy radiated by the sun and is heated by conduction by the Earth is wrong. In the stratosphere O2 molecules split forming O3. It takes 450,000 joules/mole to break the O2 bond. Do you believe this energy is coming from the Earth’s surface or is it a result of O2 absorbing UV radiation coming from the sun?
Objects will absorb and radiate energy (in all directions including into space) establishing equilibrium. At 80 km the density of the atmosphere is .00005 km/M^3..At sea level the density of the atoms[here is 1.2 kg/m^3. If there was no loss of UV energy in the atmosphere (there is a loss of 95%) then at equilibrium the molecules at 80 km would have 80,000 times the kinetic energy as the molecules at sea level.
The GHGT is based on the false premise that because O2 and N2 do not absorb visible light or longer electromagnetic waves they do not gain energy from the sun. The composition of the atmosphere with increasing altitude shows this is not correct.
Herb
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Antero Ollila
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I told above all the important information. How do you explain the energy balance of the Earth, if the energy fluxes are not real?
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Zoe Phin
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It’s all right here:
http://phzoe.com/2020/03/04/dumbest-math-theory-ever/
http://phzoe.com/2020/02/13/measuring-geothermal-a-revolutionary-hypothesis/
http://phzoe.com/2020/02/25/deducing-geothermal/
http://phzoe.com/2020/10/05/geothermal-to-the-moon/
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Herb Rose
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Hii Antero,
The thermometer was designed and calibrate for liquids where there is a constant number of molecules transferring energy to the measuring medium. Using a thermometer in a gas to determine kinetic energy is a misuse of the instrument as increase energy results in fewer molecules transferring energy to the thermometer. If you want to compare the energy of the different altitudes of the atmosphere you can either use the universal gas law (as an unconfined gas the density is a function of the kinetic energy of the molecules) or you can look at the energy contained in oxygen compounds in the atmosphere.
At the second highest level (highest being hydrogen and helium) the oxygen exists as atomic oxygen. The next level consists of nitrogen oxide molecule, then O2 and O3 in the stratosphere and finally H2O, O2, and CO2 in the troposphere. The higher the altitude the greater the energy of the oxygen.
The surface of the sun radiates visible and infrared radiation while solar flares produce x-rays and UV. During solar minimums the energy coming from the sun’s surface doesn’t vary (0.1 %) while the x-ray and UV emissions are drastically reduced. Why does the Earth cool during solar minimums (like we are now entering) if the solar energy heating the Earth doesn’t change?
Herb
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Herb Rose
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Hi again Antero,
What I am trying to point out is that income and expenditures (fluxes) do not determine assets. There is a lot of stored solar energy on Earth and in the atmosphere. Just like in a deep pool of water the exchange of energy is happening at the upper level with minimal effect lower.
The moon has the same input and output of solar energy as the Earth, the difference is that with the moon the exchange occurs on the surface while with the Earth the exchange happens in the upper atmosphere. The atmosphere acts as insulation absorbing energy from the sun and preventing energy from escaping from the surface of the Earth.
Herb
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