Is There Ever A Downside To The Greenhouse Effect?

The greenhouse effect is a crucial and positive part of Earth’s energy balance, allowing the planet to stay warm enough for life to survive. It occurs when certain gases, such as carbon dioxide, accumulate in Earth’s atmosphere. These gases, which occur naturally in the atmosphere, help trap heat near Earth’s surface, influencing Earth’s average temperature and shaping global climate and ecosystems.

The greenhouse effect is a good thing because it warms the planet to temperatures that keep life on Earth livable. Without it, the world would be more like Mars: a frozen, uninhabitable place. However, the burning of fossil fuels for energy artificially amplifies the natural greenhouse effect.

The greenhouse effect is related to a physical property of gases in the atmosphere and is neither good nor bad in the morality play of mankind. It is not always a bad thing, as it allows the atmosphere to hold heat. However, the greenhouse effect can be both good or bad depending on the circumstance.

The greenhouse effect is essential for life on Earth, as trees and plants need greenhouse gases in the atmosphere to survive. Without the greenhouse effect, our planet would be too cold for life as we know it. However, if the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere changes, the strength of the greenhouse effect may decrease.

In conclusion, the greenhouse effect is a natural and essential process that helps maintain Earth’s temperature suitable for life. However, human activities have added large amounts of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere, which can be both beneficial and harmful. Understanding the role of greenhouse gases in our environment is crucial for maintaining a healthy and livable planet.


📹 The greenhouse effect is good for us!

What is the greenhouse effect and why is it good for us? Over the centuries, the climate was relatively stable – plus/minus an ice …


Are greenhouses good or bad?

Greenhouses offer both positive and negative environmental impacts, such as year-round food production, reduced chemical pesticide use, and water usage compared to traditional farming. However, their energy-intensive practices and the increasing use of plastics in agriculture, particularly in countries like China, South Korea, Spain, and Turkey, have significant environmental implications. Concerns about toxic air pollution and microplastic accumulation in soils and waters are growing due to the widespread use of plastics in agriculture.

Is the greenhouse effect always a good thing?
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Is the greenhouse effect always a good thing?

Greenhouse gases play a crucial role in maintaining Earth’s temperature for life. Without the natural greenhouse effect, Earth’s heat would escape into space, resulting in an average temperature of around -20°C. The greenhouse effect occurs when most infrared radiation from the Sun passes through the atmosphere, but most is absorbed and re-emitted by greenhouse gas molecules and clouds. This warms the Earth’s surface and lower atmosphere.

Greenhouse gases absorb infrared radiation in the form of heat, which is circulated in the atmosphere and eventually lost to space. They also increase the rate at which the atmosphere can absorb short-wave radiation from the Sun, but this has a weaker effect on global temperatures.

Is the greenhouse effect always bad for the environment?

The greenhouse effect is a natural process that warms the Earth’s atmosphere, allowing life to thrive. It is essential for maintaining Earth’s livable temperature range, but the burning of fossil fuels for energy is amplifying this effect, leading to increased global warming and altering the planet’s climate system. The greenhouse effect occurs when gases trap heat from the sun, which would otherwise escape into space. Scientists identified the process in the 1800s and have been working to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to mitigate its impact on our changing climate.

Can greenhouse effect be negative?
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Can greenhouse effect be negative?

The negative greenhouse effect is a localized cooling phenomenon that occurs in the troposphere, while the anti-greenhouse effect involves an overall temperature inversion in the stratosphere. Both effects increase outgoing thermal emissions, both locally and globally. Titan’s stratosphere contains organic haze that absorbs 90% of solar radiation but is inefficient at trapping infrared radiation due to its atmospheric window.

The anti-greenhouse effect due to the haze reduces the surface temperature by 9 K, making the real surface temperature of Titan 12 K warmer than the effective temperature of 82 K. In the ideal anti-greenhouse case, the maximum impact of the organic haze on Titan is (1-0. 84) 82 K = 13 K, which is higher than the 9 K found on Titan.

The organic haze on Titan is formed through the polymerization of methane photolysis products and nitriles, which combine into longer chains and bigger molecules. The distribution of these polymers is not vertically uniform in Titan’s atmosphere, with nitrile and polyacetylene polymers formed in the upper atmosphere and PAH polymers in the stratosphere. The haze’s opacity to sunlight is determined by the haze production rate, which increases with higher haze production, resulting in more cooling of the surface temperature.

Is the greenhouse effect a problem?

The greenhouse effect is a natural process that warms the Earth’s atmosphere, allowing life to thrive. It is essential for maintaining Earth’s livable temperature range, but the burning of fossil fuels for energy is amplifying this effect, leading to increased global warming and altering the planet’s climate system. The greenhouse effect occurs when gases trap heat from the sun, which would otherwise escape into space. Scientists identified the process in the 1800s and have been working to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to mitigate its impact on our changing climate.

Is greenhouse bad for the environment?
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Is greenhouse bad for the environment?

Greenhouses, a popular form of agriculture, are a significant source of pollution and resource depletion. The production of plastic for their construction and operation contributes to the depletion of non-renewable resources and pollution. The waste generated by plastic greenhouses can be problematic, as it is not biodegradable and can contribute to soil and water pollution. Greenhouses can also transform rural landscapes, potentially displacing natural habitats and affecting biodiversity.

Additionally, they require significant water for irrigation, straining local water resources, especially in arid regions. The widespread use of plastics in agriculture, known as plasticulture, has raised concerns about sustainability and environmental health. The environmental footprint of greenhouses extends beyond plastic pollution, with energy consumption being a significant concern, particularly when sourced from non-renewable energy sources.

Is a greenhouse environment friendly?

Greenhouses can help reduce carbon footprint by localizing food production and reducing transportation needs, lowering greenhouse gas emissions. However, their environmental impact is significant. The use of plastics in agriculture, particularly in countries like China, South Korea, Spain, and Turkey, has led to concerns about toxic air pollution and microplastic accumulation in soils and waters. The steel skeletons and energy-intensive practices of greenhouses and plasticulture contribute to the environmental impact of greenhouses.

Can climate change be a good thing?

Global warming may bring both short-term and long-term benefits to agriculture. In the short term, farmers may benefit from earlier spring onset and longer warm seasons suitable for crop growth. Higher carbon dioxide levels can make crops more drought-tolerant, but this can also lead to the growth of weeds, invasive plant species, and insect pests. Water availability in drier agricultural areas will be affected, and the benefits of increased carbon dioxide may be overwhelmed by the negative impacts of heat stress and drought. In 2011, Finnish icebreaker MSV Nordica set a new record for the earliest transit through the Northwest Passage.

Is the greenhouse effect inherently a bad thing?

Greenhouse gases significantly impact Earth’s temperature, causing it to be 32. 5°C colder than it is today. They are not inherently harmful, but their increasing concentration in the atmosphere has been raising global temperatures. CO2, CH 4, and N2O are emitted through natural processes and human activities, while fluorinated gases are created and emitted primarily through human activities. Since the Industrial Revolution, human activities have been a major source of forcing greenhouse gases, leading to a dangerous increase in these gases within the Earth’s atmosphere. As a result, the growth of all forcing greenhouse gas concentrations is now directly controlled by humans.

Are all greenhouse gases good?
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Are all greenhouse gases good?

Wearing multiple layers of clothing can cause overheating, especially in the atmosphere, which is filled with gases like nitrogen and oxygen. While these gases, like carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide, can help regulate the planet’s temperature, they have no significant impact on climate. However, human activity has led to a significant increase in greenhouse gases, causing the Earth to become overheated.

Not all greenhouse gases have the same heat-trapping abilities and stay in the atmosphere for the same duration, making some stronger than others. Therefore, it is crucial to address these issues to prevent climate change.

Are greenhouse gases always harmful?
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Are greenhouse gases always harmful?

Greenhouse gases have significant environmental and health impacts, including climate change, respiratory disease, extreme weather, food supply disruptions, and wildfires. They also cause species migration or growth. To reduce greenhouse gas emissions, every sector of the global economy, from manufacturing to agriculture, transportation, and power production, must evolve away from fossil fuels. The Paris Climate Agreement of 2015 acknowledged this reality, with 20 countries responsible for at least three-quarters of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions, with China, the United States, and India leading the way.

Technologies for ramping down greenhouse gas emissions include swapping fossil fuels for renewable sources, boosting energy efficiency, and discouraging carbon emissions by putting a price on them. These solutions aim to reduce the negative effects of climate change and ensure a sustainable future for all.


📹 The Greenhouse Effect Explained – Sixty Symbols

The Greenhouse Effect (which is not how greenhouses work). More links and info below ↓ ↓ ↓ Featuring Professor Michael …


Is There Ever A Downside To The Greenhouse Effect?
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73 comments

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  • This is a great article. It shows the basic analysis for the greenhouse effect quantitatively, rather than just hand-waving, and as Prof Merrifield said, shows how no physical laws are broken. I haven’t seen any other articles explaining this basic calculation (although I haven’t been looking too hard)….

  • In this article Professor Merrifield keeps saying that glass absorbs IR light, which is low-energy, but in another article from 2011 about transpaency of glass, diamonds etc Professor Moriarty says that it’s high-energy UV light that gets absorbed by transparent materials and even runs an experiment. I’m in a bit of confusion about whether both UV and IR photons get absorbed by glass somehow or one of these two statements is not quite correct.

  • This reminds me of one of my physics instructors at UCSB, Dr. Hansma. The explanation is utterly clear and intuitive. It always amazes me how people who deny climate change have such disdain for people who understand climate and then cherry pick facts to ‘prove’ that the experts are wrong, all while having absolutely no understanding of climate, whatsoever.

  • He forgot to mention that there is no perfect blackbody radiator in the universe including the sun. The Earth radiates at an emissivity of about .8 to .9. The atmospheric layer has an emissivity of perhaps .2, which makes it a negligible radiator. He is probably assuming the Earth is a perfect blackbody which is not true. While the atmospheric radiator isn’t an effective radiator at all being it has an emissivity of .2 at best. All gases have extremely narrow absorption bands including CO2. According to the Planck Distribution, the absorption band of CO2 and the center radiation band of the Earth do not coincide. CO2 absorbs strongly at 15 microns and the Earth radiates the most radiation at 10 microns. Only a small fraction of the Earth’s radiation is available for CO2 absorb.

  • Well this is better than trying to explain it with all the higher math. So I get the point that the emission height is now a bit higher: 5.4km to 5.5km. The strato is apparently cool & needs to increase its T in order to radiate better (warmer air radiates more IR away). Now I’ve come across more than one article on co2 saturation & it make sense that further addition of co2 is not going have any more major effect. Nearly all that carbon is saturated & co2 behaves logarithmically relative to temp. The illustration commonly displayed is that if co2 goes from a porous wall to a dense wall, then effectively it’s going to block those IR rays from exiting to any higher layer. So yes the IR accrued heat will remain below this, but the distance of bouncing off the ground keeps getting halved because of more than ample co2. Not that I believe it’s doubling anyhow–how could it be when all these renewables are going up & carbon capture is getting started & the decarbonated concrete looks as if it will become the new player.

  • I was wondering about the space mirror thing. So it’s about putting multiple giant mirrors in space to deflect away the sunlight. But as you put it here, why can’t we just put mirrors on the ground? Visible light comes in not absorbed by the atmosphere, and then it leaves, also as visible light so it’s not absorbed. Why do people think that putting mirrors in space instead of simply on the ground would be better?

  • Point 10 While it’s already known that swings in water vapor as much as 400% in days isn’t given any weight while tiny CO2 increases 2ppm in a year signals runnaway temperatures the other factor is even more embarrasing for warmers. Water vapor has an IR bandwith greater than CO2 interacting about 4 times more effectively. These factors alone should sink the the alarmists claims alone.

  • Point 6 GHG radiation is a product of diminishing returns and cannot be absorbed back onto the surface of higher energy. The illustration is even colored deceptively blue comming in, orange going up and red comming back down. Energy always flows to lower states, it’s not “trapped” in a feedback loop of increasing gains.

  • Thoroughly enjoyable and well explained but I have a question. Assuming solar irradiation is constant, (which it isn’t but for the sake of argument), then how can it increase the amount of energy in the atmosphere? Mondays photons and consequent infrared are surely gone by Tuesday. Then we get another days dose, and that goes. It is a conveyor belt of sorts, but the energy it conveys does not change? Can that question be addressed or is it misconceived and if so why? Energy in = energy out, no net gain over time?

  • You forgot to mention one important piece that relates to the second law of thermodynamics. Overall the energy input is the same as energy output (otherwise we’d cook). The important part is that what we get from the Sun as input is high energy, low entropy photons (visible) and what we put out are low energy high entropy photons (infrared). And because the energy in = energy out we radiate out more photons than we recieve. So for every visible photon absorbed by the Earth several infrared will be radiated out to maintain equilibrium. THAT is why we can have complex molecules, plants and overall perform WORK (such as walking or thinking).

  • Folk, all that happens with a doubling of CO2 is the height to extinction occurs at 1/2 the height. If 15 nm extinguishes at 32 feet at 400 ppm, then at 800 ppm, the height is 16ft. Total energy is not affected. It just gets absorbed earlier. Adding more does nothing. above that height. Game over. The model he shows is silly nonsense. He claims a certain height at a temperature, which is silly. Radiation occurs along the entire column of air, not at some lever. He claims that some height there are no more CO2 molecules to hit. No, it is well mixed all the way up. The problem with AGW theory starts with this fake model that does not occur. All the peer reviewed paper are based on this impossible view of the world. Radiation according to Stephan Boltzmann says at 15 C we get 390 w/m^2. Your wall in your basement is like four old light bulbs in 1 M^2? Note even close! NO Way. SB is off by about 20 times in the 15 C range and gives a wrong answer. Earth should be 50 degree or more, not -18 as claimed. Air COOLS the ground and conduction gives us the lapse rate, just like you find in your wall with insulation, a linear gradient. Convection speeds up the flow and then places the energy in above the ground where no more 15 nm can get to CO2 from the ground. It all then just passes energy around and then radiation occurs along the entire column to space. Radiation to space then occurs in all molecules, including N2 and CO2, as well as H2O, where open bands allow energy to go freely past.

  • Greenhouse gases are different from gases like nitrogen and oxygen because they can absorb heat, which is also called infrared energy. When they absorb this heat, the greenhouse gas molecules start moving very fast and hit other nearby molecules. This creates a chain reaction, with molecules hitting each other like in a game of pinball. This movement is what we call kinetic energy, and it’s related to temperature—the more kinetic energy, the warmer something is. Think about the heat in our atmosphere as a mix of two types of energy: kinetic energy, which comes from particles moving and bumping into each other, and radiant energy, which is energy from light waves. Together, they make up the entire energy field that we feel as warmth

  • 20 years ago in school we learned that if we don’t get the air pollution (and therefor climate change) under control, we might be headed towards another ice-age, because once the glaciers and polar caps melted away it would dilute the water so far down that the gulf stream dies away and can’t pump warm water into colder climates: ice rebuilds and reflects even more heat into space, speeding up the icing…and so on. does this still hold true or have there been other findings by now?

  • Sixty Symbols keeps delivering. What a wonderful resource for anybody interesting in the wide range of topics and themes covered, I wonder how far the Earth is from triggering a run away greenhouse scenario? This article ends with the statement that we are very far away from this trigger point which implies that the global Temperature required to drive a runaway or irreversible greenhouse effect is known. What is this critical temperature, or atmospheric CO2 concentration?

  • from 13:00 to 14:20 can use your explanation of things in the article up to that point to explain why the atmosphere of Jupiter is so thick? Based on what you said there is not much of an explanation about pressure beside earlier in the article when you said gas expands and contracts as it raises or descends. So is Jupiters atmosphere so thick because it is so big then? Would we be crushed if earth were the size of Jupiter?

  • Like a much more complex situation and variation on the reasons why light is slower in glass, plus why open water absorbs more heat than ice, and something to do with doping semiconductors, etc, etc.., and then there’s “colours” of frequencies all over the place in Quantum resonances, fields of conduction. Eg how does a photon get 13.8 bn light years away from the “edge”, unchanged? (If you accept the Quantum Operator Fields Modulation Mechanism as a theoretical manifestation of Actuality) Interesting talk on the best parts of the Physics. —– The only thing I would ask is that Climate Change, or Global Warming get another more fitting name change to the Passive Investment Air Fryer Scheme, acknowledgement in Principle.

  • Can somebody help me with one ecological/fysical problem I am dealing with? I am currently perplexed by question whether the water present in the soil can have influence on this process or not, do somebody here have some ideas regarding this problem? You see, we are currently facing severe drought here in central Europe, which is mainly caused by bad agricultural practices that lead to lower ability of the land to absorb and hold rainwater. I know that moisture in the soil through evaporating can cool the surface several degrees celsius. That means the T1 temperature in the professors diagram gets lower, leading to less IR radiation emmited by the surface. That should lead to decrease in GH effect. I am afraid however this might not change the overall equilibrium, just change the distribution a bit. Not able to decide on my own though. What are your ideas on this? These agricultural practices drying and eroding soil are worldwide issue, and their implementation overlaps with global temperature rise just as CO2 levels do. Thanks for replys. This problem is inspired by documentary by hydrologist Stefan Valo (its in slovakian though), he claims that drying soil is partly responsible for global warming process. I am not convinced that its influence is so big, but i like that its original way of thinking and also interesting from physics point of view.

  • Supposing we burnt all the oil reserves tomorrow. Every possible barrel of oil that we could possibly produce – suppose we burnt all that tomorrow. How much CO2 would that release? Then, from what concentration of CO2 to what concentration of CO2 would the change be? Do we have any historical precedents of CO2 levels that high or higher? If so then why did we not turn into Venus at those times and why is it that we would this time?

  • Just read the new heavy metal physics book and really got me thinking! Great read! (well, listen for me since I drive so much) Now I’ve got a question (maybe a article topic?) for the physics experts… Can a wave collapse the wave function of another wave? Orrr is there a lower limit of size at which a particle become so wave like that it can no longer be an observer to collapse a wave function? Can things as small as an electron collapse wave functions of other electrons? What about a photon?

  • As far as I understand the missing 33oC is entirely accounted for the lapse rate mentioned around 9:00. It is an empirically consistent relationship that holds between atmospheric pressure and temperature in all the planets in the solar system that have enough atmosphere regardless of the composition of that atmosphere. The Prof. is correct in that the question revolves around the feedback, but the role of water is poorly understood and its feedback factor can in fact be negative, all told. Which, combined with the fact that climate sensitivity is measured as a doubling of CO2 (reflecting the fact increasing CO2 itself damps the effect) makes the whole thing a bit of a damp squib. It really is a debate between rationalism and empiricism. All the scare stories are rationally derived, while empirically we know the effect can’t be that big, and we know that the feedbacks can’t be that big either, since otherwise there would be no way to explain how we could ever exit out of an ice-age like the one we are currently in.

  • Ok – so the greenhouse effect alone causes a negligible effect on global temperature for the increases in atmospheric CO2 that we are forecasted to be emitting over the coming centuries? Is it correct that the effect itself diminishes with each increment in additional CO2 concentration? How then add these positive feedback loops modeled? Surely there must also be negative feedback loops too? And what about interaction/interference between the looping effects? Can somebody explain how the IPCC models themselves are made?

  • Here’s How the “Greenhouse Effect” Works (my 6th great explanation method of the same thing). Suppose there’s average 345 w/m**2 of downwelling LWR radiation into the surface and 199 w/m**2 of LWR radiation heading up from the top of the troposphere. Just Suppose. The LWR is manufactured by collisions of infrared-active “Greenhouse Gas” molecules in the troposphere. The fact that the total of 345+199 = 544 w/m**2 isn’t split evenly into 272 w/m**2 of downwelling LWR radiation each into the surface and out of the troposphere top means there’s a “Greenhouse Effect” from those gases in the troposphere and an obvious measure of “Greenhouse Warming Effect Factor” is 345/199-1 because if they were both 272 then Factor would be 0.000 and if there was more heading up than into the surface then the Factor would be -ve (it would be a cooling Effect). —— So I figure how much more GHGs I need to get 1 w/m**2 extra of global heater Earth’s energy budget imbalance (EEI) and mix those GHGs in the troposphere with a big spoon and INSTANTLY 2 things happen: – LWR radiation heading up from the top of the troposphere drops from 199 w/m**2 to 198 w/m**2 – LWR radiation downwelling and penetrating the surface jumps from 345 w/m**2 to 346 w/m**2 There’s been no temperature change but a global heater of 1 w/m**2, 510 terawatts, 16 Zettajoules / year, just got turned on (the total, net, heater or chiller is the sum of all heaters & chillers in operation). The reason why LWR up from the top of the troposphere dropped from 199 w/m**2 to 198 w/m**2 is that what gets out is manufactured on average higher up than before because there are more absorbing molecules to get past, and higher air is colder so it manufactures less LWR (fewer collisions than warmer air and less violent).

  • I enjoyed your presentation. thank you for sharing. Since radiation is the way heat moves thru ‘space’, how is it that the Earth can radiate heat in the presence of the atmosphere? Physics says the heat would move up thru the atmosphere via conduction and convection overwhelming any contribution from radiation. This would mean that there is little to no IR for CO2 to absorb, thus no greenhouse effect. Am I missing something?

  • Love this man. However I am a bit confused. It appears that energy in = energy out ? But some of the energy in gets converted to mass by trees and plants etc. by way of photosynthesis. Then given the enormous amount of energy being converted to mass on the earths surface, Is the earth getting heavier?

  • At 5:52 where Mister Sixty Symbols says “we’ve kind of overcooked it a bit” this translates into “I’ve just wasted 5 minutes 50 seconds of your time and totally confused you about this for the rest of your life by Talking Down To You and doing a silly bit of 10 year old child arithmetic describing how some totally-fictional non-existent planet would be warmed instead of simply treating you like adults and explaining the simple Greenhouse Effect for Earth to you”. I was so disappointed to come across this same drivel in my Global Physical Climatology book by Dennis Hartmann (2nd Ed. 2008).

  • Nice presentation! My question is does the solar energy in from the sun vary? and does Earth’s elliptic cycle around the sun also change? Lastly, what about cosmic rays and the energy from the other stars in the universe? Isn’t the cause of various ice ages earth has been through been caused by these effects? My last point on this what about volcanos and the Oceans what effect/impact do these have on that energy in/energy out picture? And then we can start talking about CO2. But I liked Prof Merrifield presentation!

  • Again a thoughtful broadcast (in the unfortunate sea of garbage that YT normally recommends) – I wonder about statistics and topologies (of the interwebs) that led me to Sixty Symbols – I guess everything is only few clicks away from everything else but I am glad I have found it. Well done (this is not to me finding it but to the crew of course) ! The missing part i.e. what to do with the problem is rightly missing as it involves not only physics and math but also policies i.e. politics is involved – no way to get a clear picture or straight line then or even facts and logic there I am afraid. Event tho I could imagine that a statistical system approach to see if for instance ban on coal and gas power stations in one country in northern Europe can change anything compared with policies like say 1 child policy in China (and reverse thereof). These are in itself mind boggling, complex issues. Quite refreshing comparing to the sea of garbage that is usually thrown at us from media (again: all sides). But I think one issue may be right to be presented to the Professors here (maybe it was then I apologize for not searching better): I wonder for instance about the comparison between diesel and petrol engine in terms of CO2 produced for the same amount of mass /distance. The common understanding so far was, that diesel is more effective by burning less fuel than petrol engines for unit of mass moved over unit of distance. What would be the reason for that – energy has to be taken from somewhere and in ICE it is chemical energy received from burning stuff – I guess there may be differences between C/H ratios as well involved and can imagine that technology used in Diesel is more effective maybe?

  • Could the position of the photosphere be dependent on the location of the observer? It is the altitude from which the emitted radiation enters the observer’s detector. What I am getting at is that at altitude x, emitted radiation is reabsorbed at altitude y but at altitude 2x, the radiation will still be absorbed. It will just be adsorbed at a greater distance, say 2y. It is not linear but the photons should still eventually be absorbed and reemitted. Wouldn’t the photosphere exist only in the presence of an observer and not exist in the absence of an observer?

  • The Greenhouse Gases are: Water Vapor, Nitrous-dioxide, Carbon-dioxide, Ozone, Methane, and the Chlorofluorocarbons. If Clouds, which are made of water vapor, cool the Earth, then how does Carbon-dioxide, Methane, Nitrous-dioxide, and Chlorofluorocarbons behave differently from Water Vapor which cool the Earth?

  • Using the Stefan-Boltzmann law in equilibrium, CO2, which makes up 0.04% of the atmosphere, has a minimal impact on the Earth’s total emissivity, which is approximately 0.95. By itself, CO2 does not significantly contribute to temperature increase. Although estimates of atmospheric H2O are all below 5%, even if the atmospheric H2O were to double to 10%, the Stefan-Boltzmann law predicts that the resulting increase in equilibrium temperature would be less than 1°C. Is this not, indeed, the case, Professor?

  • Great article, but I still fail to see how atmospheric co2 wouldn’t simply reflect an equivalent amount of infrared radiation coming from the Sun back into space. I’m also somewhat caught up on this idea of inaccuracy in how we’ve gauged Earth’s surface temperature; I hate to have to say things like this, but have they really accounted for how cold a lot of the Earth gets at night? I mean, places like the Gobi and Sahara deserts are huge, and they all go into sub-zero temperatures at night. Then there’s Antarctica and the Arctic; it seems to me that an average for Earth’s day and night surface temperature, all things considered, might not be so far away from -18 degrees.

  • If you are truely committe to filling in the blanks and perhaps even becoming a legend, look up plasma physics. The electric universe theories and experiments explains that the earth’s atmosphere is simply a plasma double layer (well defined within experimental data and mathematics). So your metaphorical sheet of glass is in in fact a plasma sheeth whith properties you can apply to your research 😊 You’re welcome. PS it will also give context to the gradients you see between the earth’s surface and the atmospheric layers.

  • I did the calculation in 15 minutes first in July 2018 and again last night (couldn’t find my old notes). It’s simple arithmetic from the simple quantities known with total certainty, should take you 30 minutes if you need to grab the half dozen weights & measures off the internet first. But NOTE my “(once per 6 minutes)” above is based on nothing at all. All I’ve ever been toild from physics is that CO2 emits about 1.8 photons per second at its 15.015 microns base wavelength (the vibration with no rotations) and I know nothing for H2O gas. I’ll find it this winter but I don’t study in summer. So it’s the “(once per 6 minutes)” that you need to get the accurate information for for CO2 & H2O gas. Solar SWR absorbed 1.224 x 10**17 Joules/sec (Watts) 3.312 x 10**-19 Joules energy of my estimated average Solar SWR 0.6 micron photon So 3.70 x 10**35 photons/sec of Solar SWR absorbed Avogadro’s number = 6.0221 x 10**23 molecules / mole In troposphere 1.3 x 10**19 grammes H2O gas / 18 Atomic weight = 7.22 x 10**17 Moles H2O gas In troposphere 6.0221 x 10**23 x 7.22 x 10**17 = 4.35 x 10**41 molecules In troposphere 423 ppmv x 2.213 x 3.67 x 10**15 grammes CO2 / 44 Atomic weight = 7.81 x 10**16 Moles CO2 gas In troposphere 80% x 6.0221 x 10**23 x 7.81 x 10**16 = 3.76 x 10**40 molecules (Note I’m showing 10x as much water vapour (“It’s 0.4% Babble”) as CO2 (“Only 0.04%! Babble”) At 1 photon manufactured-emitted per trillion collisions (once per 6 minutes): H2O gas In troposphere yields 4.

  • There is a mistake in the calculation, the assumption that all heat radiated from earth is absorbed by the earth atmosphere. In addition, when the earth heats up it will radiate more. Moreover, during the night the earth will mostly radiate energy and the only received energy will be from the clouds radiation.

  • That is very interesting. So most people are actually completely wrong when they talk about the greenhouse effect. It’s not about keeping more energy in the system, but rather creating an energy gradient up through the atmosphere. Oh man I am going to troll the internet so hard with this new knowledge!

  • Wait: the energy coming in is still the same with and without atmosphere, in the atmosphere scenario shouldn’t the total energy out still be equal to the energy in? I mean: the T balance value should be the sum of the energy lost from the ground to the atmosphere and from the atmosphere out, and the energy returning to the ground should be just a fraction of the balance value, which then wouldn’t be double the no atmosphere scenario, but only slightly higher. That of course would put the equilibrium temperature to a lower leve than 33C. Am i missing something? 😅

  • I’ve added it to watch later and I’ll correct this comment if I’m wrong, but I’ll be astounded if any testable quantitative equations are presented or even specifically linked . I expect just nonscience word waving and untestable qualitative claims defying thermodynamics and conservation of energy .

  • the adiobatic lapse rate works for all gases .. co2 not required for heating.. Ideal gas law explains it.. Venus is 92 times the density of earth atmosphere .. again adiobatic lapse rate explains it’s high temp .. if there is a run away green house effect.. why did it stop where adiobatic lapse rate explains it?

  • This is not even wrong, it is contradictory to quantum mechanics. Everything with a temperature radiates IR photons, that’s quantum mechanics, listen to your own articles, and that includes the Sun. With that said, how come N2 and O2 (the air basically) are assumed not to absorb any IR photons (at any temperature), when they have QM predicted spectra lines at 2338 and 1556cm-1 respectively in the IR range of the EMS. With quantum Laser based Raman spectroscopy (IR spectroscopy’s complement instrument) these predicted IR spectra, and all the spectra of all the gases in the atmosphere for that matter, are observed and the temperature of the molecules are measured with the highest of accuracy. Which is correct; greenhouse theory or Quantum Mechanics? By the way, the N2/CO2 laser would not operate if N2 did not absorb electrons and or photons at the said 2338 cm-1 mode.

  • First: In physics, there is no such thing like a conversation law of radiation. This is a fundamental mistake of climatologists. There is a conversation law of energy! The statements you make with the assumption of a “conversation for radiation”, are meaningless. Second: The incoming sun radiation is 45% infrared (witch CO2 absorbs). I hope you see, that your statement, “it passes the atmosphere completely” cannot be true. The more CO2 is in the atmosphere, the less sun radiation reaches us, and the less our ground is warmed up. So CO2 suddenly stops global warming? Third: When you use Stefan-Boltzmann, be sure the conditions hold. For example: Assuming, this law holds for a gas layer in our atmosphere, is not serious science. Fourth: Luckily you explained, how real greenhouses work (convection). Here in Germany lot of students, teachers, professors still believe in the false explenation with “trapped radiation” – they learned so in the books. The effect of radiation is strongly overestimated… But why do you think, it suddenly can be used for some kind of atmosphere greenhous effect? There are experiments, that condradict your explenation of the atmospheric greenhouse effect.

  • “Greenhouse-warming theory assumes that fluxes of heat are additive. Heat flux, however, is clearly observed in warming and cooling curves to be a function of the AVERAGE of the existing and ultimate temperature at any moment in time. Such averaging is done in Nature by resonance between discrete molecular-bond-scale oscillators oscillating at the same frequency on the surface of the emitting and absorbing bodies. Radiation is the result of the simultaneous resonance of a very large number of oscillators at all the frequencies contained within the frequency spectrum for a body at a given temperature shown by Planck’s law.” Dr. Peter L. Ward So, no I don’t believe this article is an accurate description of how the greenhouse effect works.

  • Point 9 The point made to claim adding a little CO2 to the atmosphere is in his mind absolutely going increase temperatures like a snowball effect by increasing water vapor is INSANE. CO2 about 400ppm and may vary 2ppm per year whereas water vapor varies from 10,000 ppm to 40,000 ppm as weather systems move. So a tiny .5% change over a year is compaired with swings of 400% in days in a volume of greenhouse gas 50 times larger???? This also is absolute proof of very strong negative enforcement (magnitudes larger than all the CO2 period).

  • THUMBS DOWN; yes click bait cause overlooking some important factor. What if we pave grassland or even desert full of solar panels with a close to 100% absorption with only 40% efficiency in terms of generating electricity… Secondly, millions of years trees have converted the solar energy into mass (=oil and fossil fuels). So on top of burning up those fossil fuels we are painting the world black AND 🙂 the greenhouse balance has a “knock-off” effect: STOP converting ANY land into solar panel farms, please! The only reason this is getting so much traction is because those energy douchebags can make free money at the cost of the planets health.

  • 3:18 – NO – GHGs DON’T produce radiation depending on their temperature, and they DON’T “heat up” due to absorbed long-wave infrared radiation. Gas temperature is a function of the kinetic energy of the gas molecules. GHGs absorb LW IR internally, in bending and stretching of the molecular bonds. There is NO increase in kinetic energy, and therefore NO heating. The downward LW IR from GHGs heats the surface, which transfers heat to the atmosphere by conduction and convection – not even mentioned here. Flawed from just 3 minutes in.

  • From what ive seen this all makes sense. What doesn’t make sense is the 1st world spending billions on reducing small increments of CO2, the 3rd world spending millions releasing far more CO2. What also doesnt make sense is that the only renewable energy source is solar or wind, which requires replacement and large amounts of energy to produce. The movement to nuclear seems the only logical outcome of all this when modelled on resource supply and access. Follow the money

  • There is noone denying there is greengases and other types of heating that raise the temperature, but it seem they are not mandriven but cyclical in nature, like greengases stored up in the permafrost even released and from the ocean bed. It seem it have to do not only with the filter but also with the frequensy of the lightsource, lightsources.

  • Gee! You show the radiation bouncing back from the blanket overhead but you don’t show how this same blanket reflects incoming solar radiation back into space before it reaches the surface. Also, water vapor makes clouds which don’t allow solar radiation to reach the surface, so increasing heat produces increasing water vapor (clouds) which tends to regulate the solar energy penetrating the blanket. You did not explain that gas pressure ate the surface determines the gas temperature at the surface and that pressure is dependent on altitude so the temperature on the mountaintops is very low. Temperature is dependent on the pressure of the atmosphere so the night side stays warm even without solar radiation.

  • Now do this equation for Mars and find that its surface temperature is within 99.7% the predicted temperature using the SB equation, yet its atmosphere has MORE than 10 times the CO2 than Earth. All that CO2 and yet there is less than 1% radiation being “back radiated”. That’s because their hypothesis is pseudoscience. Energy is transferred throughout the atmosphere in the form of kinetic energy. This kinetic energy is of course also transferred back to the surface and that is why it’s warmer than the simple SB equation. How many times did he even mention kinetic energy in his pseudoscience lecture?

  • How bad is a solar panel for the environment? Of course, other means of converting different energies to electricity can be worse, but I’m talking about placing a solar panel on the roof versus not. If we exclude production effects on the environment, there is still a net affect on the temperature increase. Why? Imagine that the solar cell was not on the roof at all – a significant portion of the solar rays would have mostly bounced on the roof and traveled back into space – with most of their energies with them. But now, with the help of our solar cell, we trap this energy, convert it to electricity, and in the end it get released probably as heat. To compensate for this, we must add mirrors or white, high-reflective panels that has the sole task to reflect the sun’s rays back to outer space. If this hypothesis is plausible, how many such panels are needed for 1 solar cell?

  • This is such a a good long form explanation of what is going on, and I have trouble keeping people in my abbreviated one to the same end. Good lerd it terrifies me that the tiktock crowd will be taking over soon 😬 these people have such short attention spans there is no way to educate them in the truth that we have centuries of data to back up. “Nah bro, plants have been sucking in Co2 since the beginning of time, and there are lots of plants!” They won’t listen to reason

  • At 3:39 he explains “…we know the amount of energy coming in…has to be equal to the amount of energy ultimately making it out” – which is exactly why this hypothesis is absurd. Game over. The amount of energy coming into the atmosphere is never equal to the amount of energy going out. The atmospheric temperature rises during the day precisely because more energy is coming in than is going out. At night, the temperature drops precisely because more energy is going out than is coming in. The onset of summer is delayed while the surface of the oceans are warming, and the onset of winter is delayed as the oceans cool. There is no equilibrium. If there was an equilibrium, the atmospheric temperature would never change at all. The atmosphere is not a greenhouse, it’s a thermal flywheel – spun up slowly as the energy from the sun pours into, and winding down slowly as the energy pours out of – a very leaky bucket. Brainy mathematicians like this need to get out of their office – and into a desert, where all the CO2 in the world cannot stop the air temperature from dropping 40ºC in a few hours after sunset – every day. And maybe visit Canada, where all of the summer ocean surface energy cannot stop winter from occuring – every year.

  • 7:20 “But then, in order to get the energy back from the ground to here (the atmospheric layer), the second law of thermodynamics essentially says that in order to get heat to travel from here up to here, this ground has to be at a higher temperature from that layer there.” I don’t see how the second law of thermodynamics applies here at all. And if this argument were valid, why would it not apply to the radiation from the atmospheric layer back down to the ground?

  • Enjoyed the article, think its clearly shows why proving or disproving man made climate change is not easy science. .also now is the theory that co2 makes the startosphere more efficent at radiating energy . Futher complicating the thermal equilibrium . Throw into this hadley cells, and polar cells, jet streams, now you getting into mathmatics that rival quantum theorey .

  • I wish I did articles with cartoons because I could do an obvious cartoon far better than the pair of contradictory cartoons in this one. The 1st cartoon at 1:50 to 6:00 is a coal/oil shill’s dream (I’m surprised Sir His Majesty Lordship Monckton hasn’t copied it) because it states that the “greenhouse effect” in Earth’s troposphere is saturated for billions of years and so can’t be altered by adding any more “greenhouse gases (GHGs)”. It has Earth’s surface set at 303K no matter what (much like 1000FrollyCoalShillThingPhD Robert Holmes has with his puerile pressure-fixed Earth’s surface at 288K). The 2nd cartoon at 11:13 to 14:03 that totally contradicts the 1st cartoon is absent the one critical thing that it needed to make it both correct and clear to the viewer. It needed a 2nd thick black line with its temperature far below the one at 255K shown at 12:20 with the radiation making it to surface being from this 2nd thick black line with its temperature which is now at 277K because that’s the average radiation point out of atmosphere to surface, instead of the babbling about how hard it is for photons to get from 255K to surface. Then it would have finally correctly described the “greenhouse effect” in Earth’s troposphere.

  • I wish I did articles with cartoons because I could do an obvious cartoon far better than the pair of contradictory cartoons in this one. The 1st cartoon at 1:50 to 6:00 is a coal/oil shill’s dream (I’m surprised Sir His Majesty Lordship Monckton hasn’t copied it) because it states that the “greenhouse effect” in Earth’s troposphere is saturated for billions of years and so can’t be altered by adding any more “greenhouse gases (GHGs)”. It has Earth’s surface set at 303K no matter what (much like 1000FrollyCoalShillThingPhD Robert Holmes has with his puerile pressure-fixed Earth’s surface at 288K). The 2nd cartoon at 11:13 to 14:03 that totally contradicts the 1st cartoon is absent the one critical thing that it needed to make it both correct and clear to the viewer. It needed a 2nd thick black line with its temperature far above the one at 255K shown at 12:20 with the radiation making it to surface being from this 2nd thick black line with its temperature which is now at 277K because that’s the average radiation point out of atmosphere to surface, instead of the babbling about how hard it is for photons to get from 255K to surface. Then it would have finally correctly described the “greenhouse effect” in Earth’s troposphere.

  • “greenhouse effect” physics: It happens in Earth’s troposphere. The H2O gas & CO2 in Earth’s atmosphere manufacture ~1,500 times as much radiation as the Sun’s radiation that Earth absorbs (or something of that scale, hundreds of times as much). Taking 1 Unit as the Sun’s radiation that Earth absorbs (which is 99.93% of all energy going into the ecosphere, geothermal and all the human nuclear fission and fossil carbon burning are 0.035% each) and the 1,500 times as a workable example (not accurate) to describe the physics concept: ==== Atmosphere energy (as power) Budget ==== Units 0.33 Solar SWR that Earth absorbs into the atmosphere 1,500 LWR manufactured by H2O gas & CO2 molecules in Earth’s atmosphere, using up 1500 “heat” Units 1,497.65 LWR absorbed by H2O gas & CO2 molecules in Earth’s atmosphere, generating 1,497.64 “heat” Units 0.92 LWR Leaks out the top of Earth’s atmosphere and goes to space 1.43 LWR Leaks out the bottom of Earth’s atmosphere and goes into the surface 1.57 LWR Leaks out the surface and goes into the bottom of Earth’s atmosphere 0.45+x “Heat” (regular+water evaporation latent) rises from the surface into the troposphere at a range of altitudes x “Heat” (regular+water condensation latent) goes from the troposphere at a range of altitudes into the surface ==== Surface energy (as power) Budget ==== Units 0.67 Solar SWR that Earth absorbs into the surface 1.43 LWR Leaks out the bottom of Earth’s atmosphere and goes into the surface 1.57 LWR Leaks out the surface and goes into the bottom of Earth’s atmosphere 0.

  • Nonsensical explanations. The Earth isn’t cooler away from the surface ‘because it has to be’ to explain how heat can radiate into space. It’s also warmer below the surface, so the temperature differential is most probably caused by distance from geothermal heat. His analogy of air cooling as it comes out of a tyre is misleading: in that case, there is a huge heat sink which is dissipating a small amount of extra heat. However, if an area of warm air rises and expands, the heat sink is the surrounding air. So that layer of air warms up rather than cools. His explanation of ‘adding greenhouse gases’ is pure twaddle. A few ppm of CO2 won’t make a significant effect, regardless of the other speculation he tries to throw in.

  • Show less The problem with people in Europe they only see their surrounding environment thinking, if around me is ok then I will save the environment eg Electric vehicles cutting C02 emissions but no one is doing research to how much C02 is being made to produce electric vehicles and lithium batteries its like we are burning a cigarette from both sides. We are digging a bigger hole as batteries need to be recycled MEANING WILL BE PRODUCING TONNES OF C02.LEAD AND OTHER METALS IN OUR ENVIRONMENT.

  • One aspect that is often skipped in discussion of greenhouse gases is that they only absorb a narrow band and that once energy is completely absorbed you could double or triple … the amount of that gas in the atmosphere with no change in the effect. The main question becomes how much of a particular gas is need to complete extinguish the energy in its absorption bands. Someone I know that worked on CO2 lasers for many years of his life has mentioned that ‘Gas is not a blanket’ and ‘by the time you have enough CO2 to support life it has already absorbed all of the energy that it can.’

  • In the presentation, the 50% of radiation going back down is ignored. In fact, it … hits the Earth and is absorbed … converted back into radiation … sent back up, until it finally escapes. … the part that keeps coming back down, increases the radiation from Earth going back up. That increases delta T. Please don’t ignore the vast majority of Earth surface being ocean, which is a rather large heat sink (unlike Earth crust that gets hotter as you go down). Increased heat doesn’t create water vapor that creates clouds that reflect sun radiation? Seriously? Can people that believe in CO2 being a forcing agent of temperature change: o explain the nearly zero correlation between 65-million years of CO2 and temp data? o explain the past 800,000 years (no epic events) of CO2 and temp data where it’s temperature that forces CO2 change, not the other way around. … the forcing level found was the exact amount of CO2 dissolved in the ocean. … the forcing lag is exactly how long it takes the atmosphere to heat the ocean. Earth came to within 30 ppm of an extinction event (at 150 ppm, flora begins to die) at the end of the last ice age. Plants grow best at 500 ppm to 1500 ppm. Making CO2 out to be a poison is just wrong. Please see the NASA recent addition of Greening of the Earth. Down with pollution, up with CO2.

  • This article is easily the WORST description of the so-called “greenhouse effect” in Earth’s troposphere. It is drivel. First it massively falsifies the energy to the ground at 2:02 to 2:08 making it a massive 42% more than it really is (263 w/m**2 instead of the actual 185 w/m**2) and also boosts the surface energy by removing a massive 97 w/m**2 of latent & sensible thermal convection-conduction heat so it boosts 185 w/m**2 to 263+97 = 360 w/m**2 by that outright fakery, which of course warms the surface by 52 degrees, by plain fakery. Then it completely removes (COMPLETELY REMOVES) the “greenhouse effect” at 3:28 to 3:34 because the ACTUAL DEFINITION of the so-called “greenhouse effect” in Earth’s troposphere is that the troposphere radiates MUCH MORE DOWNWARDS THAN UPWARDS. THAT’S LITERALLY HOW IT WORKS (352 w/m**2 downwards and only a tad more than 240 w/m**2 upwards, causing the true, correct 33 degrees of warming). That what I just explained literally IS the so-called “greenhouse effect” in Earth’s troposphere and this article doesn’t explain it in the slightest.

  • Mike ….Has stated a number of important inaccuracies…..The earth’s Greenhouse effect is exactly and precisely the same as an ordinary garden greenhouse…Except instead of glass, it’s gravity….Gravity is the glass in the Earth’s Greenhouse…And this is important, as once understood, certain important misconceptions vanish. …In equilibrium, the potential energy and kinetic energy of the atmospheric system is constant…..Temperature is a measure of kinetic energy, not potential….Temperature is a measure of the kinetic energy density of a space, a flat surface can do, because it’s a 3 dimensional space, with a third dimension whose scale is infinitely small, Temperature measures the scale of something happening in the dimensions not the scale of the dimensions…… ..In Adiabatic expansion, energy isn’t lost, the density of kinetic energy lowers, reverse the process and you get a higher KE density, and you get heat..but no new energy has been gained or lost ………. ….The physics Mike has used is classical thermodynamics, from a time when they didn’t even know what a photon was, it gives weird and incorrect answers on occasion because the fundamental ideas were wrong. Use at your peril…….So, once you have the concept that glass..the surface of thermodynamic importance, in the Earth’s Greenhouse is Gravity….And that as you throw a tennis ball in the air it slows down because of gravity (gas particles in the Earth’s atmosphere exhibit this effect as cooling), but you see all that speed come back as the ball falls, no energy had been gained or lost.

  • When he’s talking about adding Carbon Dioxide to the atmosphere, why, in the name of honesty, do you show cooling towers? I ask this question because this is a matter of deliberate editing, you absolutely did this on purpose. They only add water vapor into the atmosphere as the only thing coming out of them is steam. That’s water vapor that’s local, it does NOT contribute anything into the climate. Their effect is EXTREMELY localized. You are explicitly showing cooling towers when he’s talking about adding CO2 into the atmosphere, by IMPLICITLY showing them when he says the actual words “adding CO2 into the atmosphere”. Is this ‘simple science’ website attempting to mislead their audience? Because that is beyond sketchy, and downright vile.

  • Someone I’ve met argued, that the heating from -18°C to 14°C is due to the dry adiabetic lapse rate (which is 9.76 Kelvin per Kilometer) and not because of the greenhouse effect. As far as I understood, that argument put in simple terms is “the heating at the ground level is due to the pressure of the atmosphere. The higher pressure at ground levels causes the heat difference”. Could someone explain to me if I actually understood that correctly (translating dry adiabetic lapse rate into simple terms) and where the mistake is. Because I certainly believe in the consens that the greenhouse effect is responsible for the heating but cannot seem to disprove that argument. Thanks in advance 🙂

  • What a load of garbage these guys dont understand the first thing about basic physics. The “effective temperature” (thats the physics term) is indeed -18°C. And that is exactly the empirical temperature that is measured in the data at 5 kilometers up in the atmosphere The “effective temperature” is basically the average temperature of the atmosphere which varies from 14 degrees at the surface to -55 degrees in the upper stratosphere. The reason for the stratification of the temperature is due to the laws of physics. Temperature increases with pressure ! The pressure at the surface is much higher than the upper atmosphere ! but the average (the effective temperature) is -18°C So there is no evidence of a greenhouse effect

  • This nonscience has greatly diminished my respect for Sixty Symbols . It is easy to understand and quantitatively confirmed that the bottoms of atmospheres are hotter than their tops due to the universal tradeoff of gravitational and thermal, ie: kinetic energy . Simply : o Particles moving “up” in a gravitational field slow down, ie: cool ; o Those moving down speed up, ie: heat . The rest can be computed from Newton . The relationship has been shown to hold across planets and atmospheric compositions . The spectral GHG paradigm excludes gravity, in defiance of conservation of energy, and, being false, has NO testable enabling equation . That’s why all there is in this article is qualitative word waving . NO testable equations . Not even a calculation of how this supposed spectral trapping can “trap” a surface energy density on Venus 25 times that which the Sun delivers to its orbit . World, you’ve been had .

  • So, basically, the “greenhouse effect” creates a buffer instead of simply amplifying temperature. It prevents such extreme temperature swings. So the more greenhouse gases we have, the less wild the temperature swings we will have. Makes a lot of sense now. EDIT: I think the temperature of Venus is probably mostly due to adiabatic warming since the surface pressure is so high compared to Earth. Mars, on the other hand, doesn’t suffer from adiabatic warming due to it having such a low pressure. Radiative effects dominate on Mars compared to Venus.

  • Very impressive… and totally wrong ! First of all : you claim that the temperature of the earth in the absence of atmosphere is -18 °. This result is obtained with an average solar radiation of 240 W / m2 put in the formula of Stefan Boltzmann M = σT4 which gives : T = ⁴√ (M / σ) = ⁴√ (240 / (5.67 * 10 ^ -8) = -18 °. Wrong! The local temperature is proportional to ⁴√M but the average of local temperatures is not equal to ⁴√ (average of local Radiative flux). Let’s say we have a surface which receives on a face O.0 W / m2: temperature = 0 ° K and on the other side a radiation of 480 W / m2: temperature ⁴√ (480 / (5.67 * 10 ^ – 8 = 303K. local temperature average = 303/2 = 151.5K = -122 ° C. ⁴√ (Average temperature) = ⁴√ (240 / (5.67 * 10 ^ -8) = -18 °! 2) I’m not very sure you are breaking the rule the 2nd law of thermodynamics (I think so) but you are violating an essential law: the law of conservation of energy. You start your reasoning with an amount of energy of 1σT⁴ and you end with an energy of 2σT⁴. You created energy from nothing. If it works you probably deserve the Nobel Prize in physics.

  • I have experience with avalanche safety, I am a backcountry skier. CO2 is in the snowpack, and at very high concentrations, some 5000 ppmv compared to the air’s 400. If CO2 is said to cause globa warming, why doesn’t it cause, at least in part, avalanches. I have has reviewed the literature and no word of it, and have asked world experts, they do not measure it or know anything of it as been causal. These people would know, their lives depend on this knowledge of any factor. Or have I made a discovery: all avalanches are caused by CO2?

  • “greenhouse effect” physics, simple as pie (simpler than pi). There are 1,200 times as many H2O gas molecules in the troposphere as there are in the surface below. There are 1,000 times as many CO2 molecules in the troposphere as there are in the surface below that manufacture all the radiation that heads up from the surface within the CO2 absorption-manufacturing band. The greenhouse gases (GHGs) molecules in the troposphere overwhelmingly outnumber molecules in the radiating surface below it. Total surface radiation is ~1.65 times as much power as all the Sun’s energy that Earth absorbs, so therefore the GHG molecules in the troposphere manufacture about 2,000 times as much radiation as all of the Sun’s energy that Earth absorbs. Comparing these vast quantities of molecules, the vast radiation manufactured, with IRRELEVANT N2, O2 & Ag molecules is the rubbish of a silly Troll-Parrots. Published physics source: “The Response of the Ocean Thermal Skin Layer to Variations in Incident Infrared Radiation” by Elizabeth W. Wong and Peter J. Minnett Nature Published online 6 APR 2018

  • Can’t tell mother nature what to do. Climate models need to make future predictions that validate well. So far, all climate model validations have been with historical data. The outcome is known, so, the models can be tuned and fudged to work for the specific case data or manipulated at will. Count me as a skeptical mathematical modelling scientist.

  • You are violating the 2.nd law of thermodynamics 🙂 because you cant have IR radiation from a colder CO2 and back to earth. Validate by test chamber tests. Ref world first lab model test of the greenhouse theorem by Seim & Olsen 2021 and second test 2023. No one re-tested the work of Tyndall and Svante Arhenius both of 18 th. century. Seim & Olsen find no THERMAL backscatter Radiation for CO2, but they detect a weak electromagnetic backscatter radiation for CO2 which do not carry any heat. If you assume violation of the second law of thermodynamics, ( That Thermal Heat can go from cold to warm), it is possible to check the magntude of that backscatter radiation from CO2 since we know the CO 2 is 420 ppm in atmosphere. The 420 ppm is equal to 0,042 % mix CO2 in atmosphere. We know the IR earth radiation = 237 Watt/Sq M. So if we assume worst case reverse engineering assumption that ALL IR radiation received by the CO2 will be reflected back to earth. Gives: MAX IR backscatter radiation form CO2 will then be : 0,042% of 237 Watt/Sq M. Gives 1% = 2,37 Watt /Sq M. Multiplied 1% by the mix which is 0,042% = 0,09954 Watt/ Sq M. Absolute maxIP backscatter radiation form CO2 if you violate 2 law of thermodynamics = 2,37 X 0,042 %= 0,09954 Watt / Sq M. IPCC Science Base report IR backscatter radiation for CO2 which is 2,2 Watt/ Sq M. IPCC gets : 22,1X more than what the reverse engineering calculation show. 🙂 2,2 Watt/Sq M/ 0,09954 Watt/ Sq M = 22,1X

  • Calling it a “greenhouse” effect is just marketing. There is no drama here. No emergency. What this guy is not telling us is that there is no reason to suspect that CO2 will cause warming. So this guy is just distracting from the argument to dissuade the audience from realizing how much of this is just to confuse the public.