The Temperature of the Atmosphere
When one looks at a graph of the temperatures at different altitudes in the atmosphere (above), they would conclude that there is an energy source floating in the atmosphere at an altitude of 50 km.
This energy source is heating the atmosphere cause the temperature to rise from 15 km and then decrease at altitudes higher than 50 km. This anomaly is not a result of an energy source but the inaccuracy of a thermometer in measuring the temperature of a gas.
A thermometer measures the kinetic energy or heat being transferred to it or from it and the resulting reading is defined as the average or mean kinetic energy of the molecules being measured. This is true in a solid or liquid where the entire measuring surface of the instrument is in contact with the medium being measured but not true in a gas.
A liquid at sea level has a thousand times the particles transferring energy to the measuring surface than a gas at sea level. This means the instrument is receiving a thousand times the energy in the liquid than it is in the gas. If you were only to submerge the bottom one thousandth of the tip of the thermometer into a liquid you would not get an accurate reading of the temperature.
When the temperature is 50 degrees F outside it is a good time to go jogging and exercise because the cool temperature will transfer heat away from your body preventing overheating. When the water temperature of a pool is 50 degrees F it is not a good time to go swimming because the thousand times molecules transferring heat away from your body will kill you within a half hour.
A thermometer does not give an accurate reading of the kinetic energy of molecules in the atmosphere especially as the density, or number of molecules transferring energy, decreases with increasing altitude.
In order to get an accurate measurement of the kinetic energy of molecules in a gas you must use the universal gas law, PV = nkt, to calculate the temperature of the molecules. In a confined gas the increase in temperature of the gas molecules will result in an increase in the pressure and this can be used to determine the temperature.
When you compress a gas the temperature rises, not because you are adding more kinetic energy to the molecules but because there are more molecules transferring energy to the measuring device.
In an unconfined gas, like the atmosphere, when you add kinetic energy to the gas molecules the volume of the gas increases. In the atmosphere it is important to understand that the atmospheric pressure is not the pressure referred to in the universal gas law.
The atmospheric pressure is the weight of the molecules in the atmosphere while the pressure referred to in the gas law is the pressure confining the gas and resisting its expansion. This pressure is gravity that holds the atmosphere to the Earth.
If you remove enough energy from the atmosphere the gases will condense into a liquid and be held on the surface of the Earth by gravity. The weight of the molecules (gm) does not change. As energy is added to the molecules they convert to a gas and expand in volume overcoming the pressure of gravity.
The difference in the pressure of gravity at sea level (6,300 m) and at the top of the atmosphere (6360 m) is not significant and the pressure in the gas law can be considered constant throughout the atmosphere.
To determine the temperature at different altitudes you must use the inverse of the density, or the volume of a constant number of gas molecules, t = V/n. By accepting that the temperature at sea level (15 C) is correct you can use this to determine the kinetic energy of molecules at different altitudes. (15 C/(1/12.28 kg/m^3 times 1/density at altitude = t at altitude).
Below is a chart of the calculated temperatures for different altitudes.
It is interesting that the measured temperature decreases, than increases, than decreases while the calculated temperature continuously increases. That strange anomaly of decreasing, increasing, decreasing temperature disappears.
Planes that fly at an altitude of 10000 m can run into rain storms and liquid water. According to the measured temperature (-50 C) the water should be ice but according to the calculated temperature the water would be liquid.
According to the calculated temperature liquid water would boil between 15000m and 20000 m (the top of the troposphere) and the moderating effect of water would end and that is exactly what happens.
The chart shows that the energy from the sun is being primarily absorb (and radiated) by the atmosphere and only a small portion (visible spectrum) reaching the surface of the Earth.
All the gas molecules (Oxygen, Nitrogen, Argon, Water, Carbon dioxide) are blocking the Earth’s surface from radiating heat into space, not because they are reflecting heat back to the Earth, but because they are radiating more heat to the Earth than they are receiving from it (2nd law of thermodynamics).
It is the molecules in the atmosphere that are the primary means of transferring heat to and from the Earth. When a cloud is at the surface of the Earth, as fog, it feels cold because the water droplets transfer heat away from the body.
When the clouds are in the atmosphere at night it feels warmer because the water droplets are transferring heat from the hotter molecules in the atmosphere to the surface of the Earth.
The greenhouse gas theory is a bad theory resulting from bad data and bad thinking.
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tom0mason
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So in the bit that matters for our weather and climate — the troposphere, tropopause and lower stratosphere — the higher you go the colder the air becomes. Not a good greenhouse, not good for a so called ‘greenhouse effect’, as this is NOT what happens in a real greenhouse where the warmer air rises to the roof. To argue otherwise is just illogical.
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Sabin Colton
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“When you compress a gas the temperature rises, not because you are adding more kinetic energy to the molecules but because there are more molecules transferring energy to the measuring device.”
This does not appear accurate according to basic physics. As you compress the gas, the inward moving wall(s) adds speed to particles bouncing off it as the wall has an inward velocity. Thus, the particles have increased kinetic energy, high temperature.
The higher temperature is registered by the thermometer as the same number of particles are hitting the device harder as well as more often.
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Herb Rose
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Hi Sabin,
Here’s another experiment. I have a two chambered container where the chambers are separated by a closed ball valve. In one chamber I add n gas molecules with kinetic energy t, and a thermometer while the other chamber is empty. When I open the ball valve the gas flows into the second chamber without adding kinetic energy (t) or gas molecules (n). The increase in volume results in a decrease in pressure. The gas molecules will now strike the thermometer less often because of the increased volume and will transfer less energy to it, even though they have the same kinetic energy. The recorded temperature will be lower than when the original recorded temperature.
Have a good day,
Herb
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Sabin Colton
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“When the clouds are in the atmosphere at night it feels warmer because the water droplets are transferring heat from the hotter molecules in the atmosphere to the surface of the Earth.”
Yes, greenhouse theory is a bad theory, but what about the adiabatic lapse rate and its variation with humidity? Cloud formation is much more easily explained by adiabatic effects. Basically, the above does not show how humid air, noncondensing at the surface and rising due to its lower density, would condense at altitude when much hotter. That seems confusing or wrong.
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Herb Rose
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Hi Sabin,
When talking about climate I believe that climate is a function of the energy the Earth receives from the sun. This allows the use of average temperature and treating the Earth as a two dimensional object. When talking about cloud formation and changing humidity you are dealing with weather which necessitates treating the Earth as a sphere, where there are variations in the energy at different locations. Weather deals with how energy is distributed around the sphere due to the different amount received.
When I spoke of the clouds transferring heat to the surface of the Earth at night I was using this as a more reasonable explanation for warmer nights than having the water in the clouds reflecting heat. As to the formation of clouds as a weather event I do not know enough about meteorology to offer an explanation.
Have a good day,
Herb
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tom0mason
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Yep, our weather and climate is just about all held in that tiny part of the atmosphere up to the lower stratosphere. What is truly dumb is that from the bottom of the cloud-base the top of the clouds (somewhere around the bottom of the tropopause) is where so much of the action takes place but so little is actually known.
So many people THINK they know what goes on with clouds but the problem is we just do NOT know.
Well depending on who you talk to it can be adiabatic lapse rate, or back-radiation, or changes in humidity, or latent heat of ….etc. Where are the verified measurements? How do clouds work? What are all the fundamental processes of cloud formation, evolution and dissipation truly described? What and how does the energy balance of a cloud (any cloud) change through the cloud evolution process.
Why do scientists and meteorologists pretend that they ‘know’ and understand (by incomplete theory and very patchy measurements) how these things work? Could it be that scientists and meteorologists, are too eager to lie back on their collective fat complacencies making easy money by not knowing? I suspect so!
I believe if we understood clouds better then all aspects of weather forecasting would improve. But why do that when so many people make a fat living arguing over the ‘angels on a pinhead’ theory of CO2 in the atmosphere, instead of measuring H2O action in there?
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James McGinn
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Tom:
. . . look at the sky. If there are clouds then there is water visible in the atmosphere, if there are not clouds obvious, there still is water in the atmosphere.
Jim:
Right. There is LIQUID water even in clear moist air. It is not gaseous H2O. The notion that the atmosphere contains gaseous H2O is just a stupid myth brought to us by a dishonest meteorology lobby.
This is significant for two reasons. Unlike gaseous H2O, liquid H2O has a huge heat capacity, which explains how the atmosphere retains and provides heat. And, secondly, since it contains liquid and not gas, moist air is heavier than dry air. This contradicts and essentially refutes meteorology’s absurdly vague belief that moist air provides the convective uplift of storms.
Tom:
Every second of every day millions of tons of water hangs in the air, moving truly massive amounts of energy about the globe.
Jim:
True, but the lion’s share of energy movement is achieved by vortices and jet streams. These also underly the origin of storms.
There is a standing myth that is put forth by the dishonest meteorological lobby that storms are causes by convecting, moist air. This notion is easily as dumb or even dumber than the silly notion that CO2 causes global warming. The truth is that for H2O to convect it would have to be gaseous. And there is exactly zero percent of gaseous H2O in earth’s atmosphere, which is far too cool to support the existence of gaseous steam.
Tom:
And that is it, not the ridiculous notions about CO2 ‘holding heat’ or any other mythology that rules climate and its changes. Water is, was, and has always been the main overwhelming effect on weather and climate.
Jim:
Okay, but, it is equally ridiculous to imagine gaseous H2O holding heat.
Read this to find out more about a revolution happening with man’s understanding of the role of storms in the atmosphere:
The ‘Missing Link’ of Meteorology’s Theory of Storms
https://www.thunderbolts.info/forum/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=16329
James McGinn / Solving Tornadoes
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