Can the atmosphere ‘trap’ heat?
I received a great question on the previous YouTube video about the lapse rate which offers an excellent entry into the question as to whether heat can be trapped
It is one of the most common phrases one will encounter in the circular argument scheme for the radiative greenhouse effect, which always appears after the idea that heat can act from cold to hot as “backradiation” is refuted.
The question by pulsar22 was:
“I too do not believe in the AGW hypothesis, but heat can be trapped.
Haven’t you heard about the invention of the thermos bottles? They do exist you know.”
This is actually a very good thing to discuss, for it is not heat which is being trapped, but only thermal energy.
Here is a simple thought-experiment which will demonstrate that heat is not a substance, not an object, not a material, which can be trapped and transported from one place to another like you would, for example, water.
To make it simple, consider that we have a perfect thermos bottle which does not lose any temperature of its contents at all. Let us say that the contents are a hot coffee, at 65°C, which is definitely warm enough to feel and possibly even to scald your tongue.
If the coffee inside the thermos is so hot, then it definitely has heat, right? It seems to be trapping heat. And you can move that thermos around with you all day and the perfect thermos “keeps that heat with it” the whole time.
And so, if the thermos contents have that heat, that heat should be able to perform heating wherever you release those contents, right?
However, consider that you put that thermos into an oven at 100°C, and then released the contents there. What would happen then? Would the coffee at 65°C heat the oven up some more?
No, it wouldn’t, but what would happen is that the oven would heat up the coffee!
So, what happened to the coffee’s heat? How come the thermos contains heat when the coffee reaches your mouth, but does not have heat when released inside the oven?
This demonstrates that heat is not a substance, and it shows that heat is only something which exists depending upon context of its surroundings. Well, if heat is something which only exists depending upon context, then it cannot possibly be any type of an object then, can it?
This was a problem which took real, legitimate scientists (not what we have passing for academics today, with their support of flat-Earth theory climate science where the Sun cannot create the Earth’s climate) hundreds of years to solve, and is best summarized with the First Law of Thermodynamics: dU = Q + W.
dU is change in energy, Q is heat and W is work, and therefore heat must be a special form of work since they appear directly without any conversion constants together in the First Law. And work is an action, which is the induction of movement; it is a verb, which describes something which an object is doing to another object.
For heat, it is the action which a hotter body performs upon a cooler body, raising the cooler body’s temperature, and the hot object can do this to the cool object because the hot object has frequency forces which the cooler body does not.
Heat is always the difference between the hot object’s thermal energy and the cooler one’s, which can be shown for example as the difference between two Planck Curves:
And so the answer to the title is: No, heat cannot be ‘trapped’.
And this phrase actually does not even make any sense, and falls fully foul of Gödel’s Incompleteness Theorem: any statement regarding “heat trapping” is an inconsistent sentence, in violation of ontological existence, i.e., not consistent with physics.
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Herb Rose
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Heat is kinetic energy, which is a combination of mass and energy (v^2). If an object transfers energy to another object it increases the velocity of that object. How is that not work?
It is energy that is transferred between object (elastic collisions). The mass of the objects does not changes and the object with greater energy (velocity) will transfer energy to the other mass, even if that mass is so great that the receiving object has more kinetic energy. (Law of conservation of momentum.)
With radiation energy is not being transferred to the other object but to the energy field the objects are in. (it is quite possible because of the bond structure of objects that one object cannot absorb the energy wavelength being emitted by the other object, but still the energy of the objects will equalize.) Both objects will equalize with the energy field, one radiating energy into the field, the other absorbing energy as internal energy across bonds until the energy across the bonds is equal to the energy of the field, equalization. At equilibrium the temperature of the two objects doesn’t have to be the average of the starting energy, as some energy becomes internal energy (increasing the motion of the atoms across the bonds) before becoming kinetic energy of the object.
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James McGinn
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Gases, including CO2, cannot and do not trap heat/energy. Water does. But water in earth’s atmosphere (despite what is believed by many perpetually confused members of the discipline of meteorology, in addition to most all elementary school children, and Jerry Krause ) is never gaseous. It is always in the form of (usually) invisibly small droplets. Liquid water’s heat capacity is a consequence of the inverse relationship (this concept being largely unknown to all of science) of interconnectedness of hydrogen bonds and strength of this inteconnectedness–what I refer to as the “elasticity” of hydrogen bonds between water molecules.
Postma continues to confound with his stubborn refusal to include the word “net” with his otherwise sensible assertion that cold doesn’t heat hot. (Sorry Joe, but details matter.)
James McGinn / Genius
CEO of Solving Tornadoes
http://www.solvingtornadoes.com/landing
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Jerry Krause
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Hi James,
“Gases, including CO2, cannot and do not trap heat/energy. Water does. But water in earth’s atmosphere (despite what is believed by many perpetually confused members of the discipline of meteorology, in addition to most all elementary school children, and Jerry Krause ) is never gaseous. It is always in the form of (usually) invisibly small droplets. Liquid water’s heat capacity is a consequence of the inverse relationship (this concept being largely unknown to all of science) of interconnectedness of hydrogen bonds and strength of this inteconnectedness–what I refer to as the “elasticity” of hydrogen bonds between water molecules.” (james McGinn)
I do not know if James has ever read R.C. Sutcliff’s book Weather & Climate, 1966, bur I have. On page 48 Sutcliffe wrote: “These results [page 47] obtained first the Wilson and broadly confirmed by many later experimenters, have a very important bearing on natural meteorology, not because supersaturation occurs in the atmosphere but because if does not occur: why is it that in the atmosphere condensation to clouds invariably happened as soon as normal saturation is reached?”
James I ask you: have you observed clouds to form in the atmosphere and then a little while later disappear? I certainly have and I believe most elementary school children have. So I ask: From what does the cloud form and to what do clouds disappear?
Now I will quote Sutcliffe’s answer to his question. “The answer is that the natural atmosphere, however clean it may appear to be, is always supplied with a sufficient number of minute particles of salts, acids or other substances which serve just as well as liquid water in capturing water molecules from the vapor [gaseous atmosphere]. “ Vapor is a confusing word because it has several definitions which depend upon the context of what is being described.
James, I will wait for your response. Have a good day
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James McGinn
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Jerry: why is it that in the atmosphere condensation to clouds invariably happened as soon as normal saturation is reached?”
JMcG: Uh, since saturation is defined as the cusp of droplets combining to become large enough to be visible and since there are many factors that would cause this there is no simple or obvious answer to your question. The fact that yourself, school children, and meteorologists mistakenly attribute such observations as evidence of a discrete transition between gaseous H2O and vaporous liquid H2O is indicative of group think dimwittedness and not sound science.
Jerry: James I ask you: have you observed clouds to form in the atmosphere and then a little while later disappear?
JMcG: Yes.
Jerry: I certainly have and I believe most elementary school children have. So I ask: From what does the cloud form and to what do clouds disappear?
JMcG: Clouds appear when smaller droplets combine to become large enough to be visible. Clouds disappear when larger droplets divide to become small enough to be invisible. This is about the thirtieth time I’ve explained this to you.
Jerry: Sutcliffe’s answer to his question. “The answer is that the natural atmosphere, however clean it may appear to be, is always supplied with a sufficient number of minute particles of salts, acids or other substances which serve just as well as liquid water in capturing water molecules from the vapor [gaseous atmosphere].
JMcG: Well, at least Sutcliffe had an excuse for such a silly explanation. He was a textbook writer and not a genuine scientists. Schoolchildren have the excuse of being young and therefore easily fooled. Jerry, you appear to not have an excuse for your simplemindedness.
James McGinn / Genius
http://www.solvingtornadoes.com
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Herb Rose
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Water:
dU(0) = Q(0) + W(0)
+ 100 calories
dU(100) = Q(100) + W(0)
+ 500 calories
dU(600) = Q(100) + W(0)
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Alan
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The atmosphere cannot trap heat but a thermos flask is our best attempt to trap heat and the heat cannot influence anything outside the thermos flask. I wouldn’t recommend taking a thermos flask to bed to keep warm.
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Richard Greene
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There are some good articles here and some losers, like this one teaching ThermoDUMBnamics.
Greenhouse gases and night clouds do reflect some upwelling radiation back down to earth’s surface. The effect could be described as trapping heat. This back radiation is easily measured and does exist.
There are two radiation flows at night. Upwelling radiation heading toward space and downwelling radiation reflected back by water vapor, CO2 and night clouds.
The NET flow of radiation is the upwelling radiation minus downwelling radiation. The larger the greenhouse effect, the smaller the net upwelling radiation reaching the infinite heat sink of space, ad the warmer our planet’s surface stays st night.
That is climate science 101, which the author apparently slept through. Along with commenter Herb Rose.
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Herb Rose
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Hi Richard,
PSI will soon publish the POD cast of Tom Shula where he shows experimental evidence that the GHGT theory has nothing to do with reality. You don’t need to watch it since you deny reality and insist on remaining stupid.
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Lit
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Nope. IR is not reflected by clouds, it´s absorbed. DLR is not measured, read the manual of a pyrgeometer, it clearly says that DLR is not a real measured value. The device uses a non-sensical manipulation of the SB-equation to get a calculated value of DLR, but what it actually does is a remote reading of the temperature 25m up, and that is always lower than the surface. No heat transfers from low to high temperature. Heat is defined as the energy in transfer from high to low temperature. According to the first law, ΔU=Q-W, only heat and work can raise temperature. The atmosphere contains nothing that fulfills the definitions of heat or work in context of surface temperature.
You don´t even know the basic definitions of heat, work and energy. You don´t know how a pyrgeometer works. You should sit down and shut up.
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Herb Rose
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Hi Lit,
Actually the water in clouds is radiating heat not absorbing or reflecting it. The liquid state of water does not occur at -30. During the day the water absorbs heat from the O2 and N2 molecules which are converting absorbed UV into IR. This heat is transferred (convection) back to air molecules at night (dew) making cloudy nights warmer than clear nights.
Do not mistake the reading of a thermometer for the kinetic energy of gas molecules (only energy is transferred). The thermometer was designed to measure the flow of energy from one medium to another. A portion of it (the bulb) exchanges energy from one medium by collisions, then transfers that energy to the other medium. In the atmosphere there is only one medium exchanging energy with the thermometer and the number of molecules transferring energy is not constant in a gas, but varies with the ke of the molecules. To get the accurate ke of molecules you must divide the temperature at an altitude by the density at that altitude to get the ke of a constant number of molecules (mass) instead of a constant volume.
You need to amend the first law to include the energy absorbed by matter as internal energy, which is not expressed as either heat or work.
Herb
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Richard Greene
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Of course 99.9% of real scientists are wrong and the non-climate scientist commenters here are right?
It’s a climate scientist conspiracy?
The CERES satellite measurements are wrong and the non-climate scientists commenting here are right?
Richard Lindzen, William Happer, Roy Spencer and John Christy, all Ph.D. climate scientists, are wrong and the commenters here are right?
All you ‘there is no greenhouse effect and CO2 does nothing’ cult members are living on la la land
Clouds can act like a blanket, trapping heat on Earth by absorbing the heat released by the surface of the planet. They radiate this heat back toward Earth, warming the lower regions of the atmosphere. Whether clouds heat or cool the surface of Earth depends on the height, type of clouds present in the sky and the time of day (night versus day)
All objects at a temperature greater than absolute zero radiate energy. You might want to learn thermodynamics rather than thermoDUMBnamics.
While clouds strongly reflect sunlight, as indicated by their bright white color, they also absorb the heat that radiates from Earth’s surface. Anything that absorbs energy must also re-emit energy.\
At night, when cloud coverage increases, downwelling infrared radiation also increases. So, clouds act like space heaters, emitting energy towards the ground.
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Herb Rose
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Hi Richard,
The 99.9% statistic is nonsense, just like most of the information you cite. Those “scientists” you name make their money and get published because they they support the agenda. They are not scientists but part of the scam.
Clouds are composed of water droplets. Where else do you see water strongly reflecting light? The water I drink and bathe in is transparent. What clouds do is transmit light but because of the shape of droplets and refraction that light is redirected scattering it in all directions. You might not have noticed but the bottom of some clouds as well as the tops and sides are white indicating transmission, not reflection.
You might want to take a refresher course on thermodynamics. Not only does all matter above absolute zero radiate energy but ALL matter absorbs radiated energy. This includes the O2 and N2 in the atmosphere. Since these gases do not absorb visible or IR radiation what spectrum of light do you think they absorb? Hint: the ozone in the stratosphere is a result of O2 absorbing UV light, splitting into oxygen atoms, then one of those atoms combining with an oxygen molecule. It takes 392,000 joules/mole to split an oxygen molecule into oxygen atoms. How does the surface of the Earth get that amount of energy into the stratosphere skipping the oxygenic the troposphere?
The primary transfer of heat in most of the atmosphere is by convection, not radiation. At the surface of the Earth 99.6% of the heat loss is from convection not radiation. Convection transfers heat to all matter unlike radiation where different molecules absorbs only selected wavelengths of radiation. So CO2, like any other gas molecule, will absorb all energy, not just that at -80 C.
There is no science in the GHGT just physicist using nonsense theory (There is no black bodies in reality because all matter absorbs and radiates energy. Sound familiar?) trying to convince fools like you so they can perpetuate their fraud.
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Richard Greene
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The 99.9% is my conservative estimate based on 26 years of climate science reading. There are very few scientists in the world — including “skeptic scientists” on our side — who reject the greenhouse effect and that CO2 is part oit. Those few scientists — the 0.1% — are science frauds.
Stunning that you think you know more than Richard Lindzen, William Happer, Roy Spencer and John Christy — all Ph.D. scientists who volunteer their time and take abuse from leftist climate scaremongers in their effort to refute CAGW climate scaremongering. I do my small part with a free blog recommending good climate and energy articles. YSpme frpm this website.
You spout ThermoDUMBnamics.
Different strokes for different folks, I supose.
Herb Rose
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Hi Richard,
Your argument consists: the experts say so that means it’s true. At one time 100% of the population believed the Earth was the center of the universe. That didn’t make it true.
Science advances because someone believes the experts are wrong. The phds you speak of are physicists who spent a lot of money snd time learning to ignore data and rational thought. They are committed to preserve the make believe fantasy they’ve accepted and avoid reality.
You have not countered any of my arguments. Just claiming: I’m right and your wrong without citing any evidence. Here’s the reality.: Convection (collisions between molecules) remains the dominant form of energy transfer until in the thermosphere. All your talk about radiated heat loss has nothing to do with reality.
You keep bringing up thermodynamics but it is a misnomer. Object do not transfer heat they transfer energy. The space between the sun and the Earth has almost no heat because there it contains almost no mass and yet it contains all the energy that heats the Earth. If you are in a small car and run into the back of a slow moving truck, you will lose energy (slow down) even though the truck has more kinetic energy and according to the 2nd law it adds energy to your car.
Jerry Krause
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Hi Herb,
Relative to your comment to Richard, you seem to believe if an expert makes a mistake that everything the expert believes to understand has to be wrong. NO Herb, to prove some idea to be wrong you must refer to observation (data) which proves an idea to be wrong.
You, like James, have commented that the atmosphere has no (few) gaseous water molecules in it. That is your your and James theory (understanding), so please respond to my comment (observations) to James which
prove your idea (theory) to be wrong,
Have a good day.
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Herb Rose
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Jerry,
If you were to cool and maintain a cleanroom (very few particles) down to just above freezing then boil some pure water in that room the water would condense into droplets continuously even though the few particles that were there have been captured and removed by the condensing water. Because water preferentially forms droplets around matter does not mean that it won’t condense without that matter.
It is the same with your idiotic law that you keep repeating. The dew point is the temperature where the humidity of the air reaches 100%. If the amount of water in the air remains constant the dew point remains the same but there is nothing about that value that prevents the air from gaining heat and having the humidity decrease.
Jerry Krause
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Hi Herb,
Since you seeming did not find my comment to which I referred. This is my comment to which I referred.
“James I ask you: have you observed clouds to form in the atmosphere and then a little while later disappear? I certainly have and I believe most elementary school children have. So I ask: From what does the cloud form and to what do clouds disappear?
Have a good day
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Herb Rose
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When water absorbs heat it forms nano droplets. When the air molecules around those replete collide with the nano droplets their energy equalize with the energy of the water. If the air molecules have less energy than the nano droplets, they absorb some of the stored energy and the nano droplets condense into larger droplets. If the air molecules have more energy than larger droplets, those droplets absorb energy and form nano droplets.
The trouble with answering your questions is you can’t think and understand the answer.
Jerry Krause
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Hi Richard,
You seem to be somewhat new to PSI and I am not yet sure what you believe (understand) So relative to James and Herb clearly stated opinions of what I claim to understand I give you some my history. (https://principia-scientific.com/condensation-nuclei-and-carbon-dioxide/)
Have a good day
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Jerry Krause
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Hi Richard,
Here is another article for you to consider (https://principia-scientific.com/the-corvallis-or-uscrn-site-a-natural-laboratory-part-three/)
Have a good day
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Lit
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In some way you can trap heat, and it´s done with thermal insulation. But you don´t trap it outside of the heat source as the GHE claims. The idea that cold air can trap heat is ridiculous.
Thermal insulation works by preventing heat transfer to the surroundings, so less heat is lost from the heat source. It traps the heat inside the heat source. This means that thermal insulation works by preventing heat absorption in the surroundings of the heat source. But what does GHGs do? They enhance heat absorption in the surroundings of a heat source.
Heat absorption is how we cool things. An air-cooled engine works by cold GHGs mixed in air absorbing the heat from the hot surface of the cylinder. The exact same situation as for the Earth surface and the atmosphere. If the cylinder is cooled by the atmosphere, why would the opposite be true for the surface? Cold air cools hot surfaces, always.
If you put thermal insulation around the cylinder you´d trap heat and the cylinder would get hotter.
Now consider that Earth has 70% of the surface covered with water, so what we actually have is not an aircooled planet, it´s both air-cooled and water-cooled. Super efficient cooling. And it all cools to an infinite heat sink in space. It can´t get any more efficient. Earth is much cooler than what it would be without oceans and an atmosphere. Ice caps demonstrate that very well, we are very close to being a snowball.
Just use Planck´s equation for energy balance of a blackbody inside a shell, or actually a double shell, and you´ll get Earth´s temperature. 1/4 of the solar energy is lost due to work, as keeping the sphere expanded requires work while all supplied heat is lost continously. Earth is a heat engine.
Planck says that 4/3σT^4 is required to keep emission steady in a system with a shell which also performs work. The global circulation of water and air requires work, and the system has two shells, so the required energy is 4πr^2(4/3)^2*σT^4surface. And it´s a perfect match:
TSI=1360.9W/m^2
TSI2πr^2=4πr^2(4/3)^2σT^4surface
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