Without gravity there would be no atmosphere.
When you throw a ball up in the air it isn’t radiation or CO2 that causes it to fall to earth.
It’s gravity.
Yet this simple fact is overlooked by climate scientists who want to blame CO2 for trapping heat in the atmosphere.
Heat is a measure of the mean molecular momentum. Blind Freddy knows gravity can change the momentum of an object in the atmosphere yet it is completely excluded from any discussion about atmospheric heat. It’s what causes the adiabatic lapse rate.
Climate scientists argue that CO2 traps heat in the same way that a greenhouse traps heat. This is categorically false.
A greenhouse (or blanket) traps convection because it a solid object.
CO2 is a gas, it cannot trap convection. This matters because convection is the process by which heat is carried away from the earth.
What traps convection is gravity. It’s why the surface of the earth is warmer than say the top of Mt Everest. Gravity stops all the molecules in the atmosphere including O2 and N2 from floating off into outer space.
We are taught in grade eight science that gases and solids have different properties. Yet climate scientists overlook this very simple fact.
It’s true that CO2 absorbs and emits radiation via photons. Photons come from the sun, they don’t come from CO2. This distinction is very important because of the Laws of Thermodynamics.
The first law of Thermodynamics says energy can neither be created or destroyed, only transferred or transformed. The radiation absorbed and emitted by CO2 doesn’t add to the overall heat in the system. Any photon it absorbs is already energy in the atmosphere as a result of heat emitted from the Sun or to a much lessor extent from the core of the Earth.
If a one tonne car travelling at 100km/h was to collide with a stationary one tonne car, the most the stationary car could travel is at 100km/h. It can’t go any faster. The combined momentum of the two cars can’t exceed 100km/h. The same principle applies to the photon. CO2 can re-radiate that photon/energy downwards, I.e. a different vector but that’s where the second law of Thermodynamics comes into play.
The second law of Thermodynamics says the entropy of a system always increases. This means that temperature differentials will be offset by changes in convection i.e. the wind or rising or falling thermals to try and even out the changes in temperature. It’s why hot airs rises and cold air sinks.
CO2 radiates photons at very low temperatures. Any miniscule downward radiation is easy offset by convection as the temperature/pressure equilibrium is restored.
Sorry if this seems complicated, but to say that a gas which is only 0.04% of the atmosphere has the same properties as a solid object such as glass is just plain wrong.
This junk science is being peddled to justify wasting billions on renewable energy that is going to send Australia broke. It needs to be called out.
Economics Legislation Committee
16/02/2023
Estimates
INDUSTRY, SCIENCE AND RESOURCES PORTFOLIO
Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation
Senator RENNICK: My last question is: do gases trap convection? I find it confusing that we use this ‘greenhouse gas’ term, when a greenhouse is a solid glass object. I was taught in grade 8 science that, basically, materials come in three forms: liquid, gas and solid objects. I didn’t know that gases could trap convection, in the same way that a greenhouse would trap rising air, cool and then condense. I don’t see how gas can do that.
Dr Marshall : I think we were talking about this before—the phenomena of the atmosphere being like a blanket around the earth.
Senator RENNICK: I don’t like that description. Does gas trap convection or not?
Dr Marshall : We know from temporary measurements going back a very long time that the earth is about 16 degrees warmer because of the residual greenhouse gases—CO2, mostly—in the atmosphere.
Senator RENNICK: Or gravity.
Dr Marshall : I’m not sure I understand your point.
Senator RENNICK: I know you don’t think gravity has a part in it. We’ll take that up another day; that’s fine. I just want an answer: does gas trap convection?
CHAIR: Does gas trap convection?
Senator RENNICK: Heat’s transmitted in three ways: convection, conduction and radiation.
Dr Marshall : It’s the radiation that gets absorbed. The earth radiates heat. Mostly it’s infrared—
Senator RENNICK: I understand all that, but that’s not the only factor.
Dr Marshall : Certain molecules absorb infrared better than others. Water vapour absorbs really well. CO2 absorbs really well. Methane absorbs really well. When they absorb the energy, they heat up and so you warm the atmosphere.
Senator RENNICK: It’s not the question I asked you. Do gases trap convection?
CHAIR: Senator Rennick, you said that it was your last question. Are you happy for Dr Marshall—
Senator RENNICK : Well, he’s going down the path of radiation, and I didn’t ask about radiation; I asked about convection.
CHAIR: We’re just at the end of your block, so we’ll let Dr Marshall finish his answer to your question and then I’ll allocate the call.
Dr Marshall : So: do gases trap convection?
Dr Mayfield : Maybe I can try and clarify. There’s conduction, convection and radiation. They’re the three modes of heat transfer. Convection is heat transfer through the movement of a fluid, whether it’s a gas or liquid. Gas doesn’t trap it. Moving gas is convection. If you look at the earth, the boundary condition you have to put there is the edge of the atmosphere. There is no movement of gas out across that, so radiation is the only way it can happen. That’s why we talk about radiation.
Senator RENNICK: And it’s trapped in the atmosphere by gravity.
