Doomberg: Where Stuff Comes From

Guest post from Doomberg. Original is posted at https://doomberg.substack.com/p/where-stuff-comes-from

“this dovetails in sinister fashion with the basic idea that any sufficiently advanced technology cannot be distinguished from magic. highly evolved capitalism becomes such a technology and the largess and plenty it produces gets mistaken for a property of the universe rather than a made thing, a thing that must be created rather than simply reaped.” – el gato malo

Modern society is awash in stuff. There’s stuff at the grocery store. At the hardware store. At Amazon and eBay. We eat stuff, wear stuff, buy stuff, and store stuff. Click some buttons, swipe a card, tap a phone – and presto! Stuff appears, like magic.

At least for now.

We are a carbon-based species. Carbon forms the foundation of our bodies and the external world we experience. Almost everything we touch is carbon-based. As I type this, I’m sitting on a couch made predominantly from foamed polyurethane, my feet resting on a carpet made from synthetic nylon. I just sipped water from a bottle made of polyethylene terephthalate, which I then placed on a coffee table made of wood.

Not only is our stuff mostly based on carbon, but the energy required to manipulate materials – to make stuff – comes predominately from carbon-based feedstocks as well. While not all stuff is based itself on carbon – copper wire is made of copper, after all – we can’t make use of it without first extracting energy from carbon fuels. In other words, we can’t mine copper without carbon. Those excavators, dump trucks, and bulldozers aren’t going to run themselves.

Since energy is life, mastering the chemistry of carbon and harnessing the energy of stuff to make other stuff is core to the human endeavor.

Atmospheric tidal waves maintain Venus’ super-rotation

Credit: infobarrel.com

Super-rotation of its thick atmosphere, that is. The researchers believe their findings could also be a model for tidally-locked exoplanets with atmospheres.

An international research team led by Takeshi Horinouchi of Hokkaido University has revealed that this ‘super-rotation’ is maintained near the equator by atmospheric tidal waves formed from solar heating on the planet’s dayside and cooling on its nightside.

Closer to the poles, however, atmospheric turbulence and other kinds of waves have a more pronounced effect. The study was published online in Science on April 23.

Venus rotates very slowly, taking 243 Earth days to rotate once around its axis. Despite this very slow rotation, Venus’ atmosphere rotates westward 60 times faster than its planetary rotation.

This super-rotation increases with altitude, taking only four Earth days to circulate around the entire planet towards the top of the cloud cover. The fast-moving atmosphere transports heat from the planet’s dayside to nightside, reducing the temperature differences between the two hemispheres.

“Since the super-rotation was discovered in the 1960s, however, the mechanism behind its forming and maintenance has been a long-standing mystery,” says Horinouchi.

A question from Ned Nikolov

This looks self-explanatory, so here’s the graphic…

[click on image to enlarge]

Solving the sun’s super-heating mystery with Parker Solar Probe

‘The coronal heating problem in solar physics relates to the question of why the temperature of the Sun’s corona is millions of kelvins higher than that of the surface. Several theories have been proposed to explain this phenomenon but it is still challenging to determine which of these is correct’ — Wikipedia.

It’s one of the greatest and longest-running mysteries surrounding, quite literally, our sun—why is its outer atmosphere hotter than its fiery surface?

University of Michigan researchers believe they have the answer, and hope to prove it with help from NASA’s Parker Solar Probe, says Phys.org.

In roughly two years, the probe will be the first manmade craft to enter the zone surrounding the sun where heating looks fundamentally different than what has previously been seen in space.

This will allow them to test their theory that the heating is due to small magnetic waves travelling back and forth within the zone.

Crying Cowboy’s Censorship Complaint Codswallop

Willis Eschenbach recently complained that I banned him from the talkshop. He makes this complaint, on average, annually. Usually in a comment attacking Dr Ned Nikolov and Dr Karl Zeller.

On the occasions I’ve bothered to respond, I’ve pointed out to Willis that in fact he banned himself from the talkshop, something he maintains is a lie. Below the break is the screenshot of his parting comment, made on the talkshop in mid-January 2012.

Every interaction I’ve had with Willis since has reminded me how fortunate we were that he decided to deprive us of his brilliance.

Nikolov & Zeller: Reply to Dr Roy Spencer’s blog article.

Confusing Diabatic and Adiabatic Processes within the Climate Theory:

A Reply to Dr. Roy Spencer’s Blog Article “Giving Credit to Willis Eschenbach”

Ned Nikolov, Ph.D.
Physical Scientist

In a recent blog post, Dr. Roy Spencer at the University of Alabama at Huntsville attempted to criticize and dismiss the importance of our recent discovery about the physical nature of the atmospheric “Greenhouse effect” (Nikolov & Zeller 2017). I normally do not reply to blog articles, but this one reflects a fundamental generic confusion in the current climate theory that is worthwhile addressing for readership clarification. In his blog, Dr. Spencer demonstrated several misconceptions about our work that could be due to either not having read/understood our papers or perhaps an incomplete grasp of thermodynamics. The fact that Dr. Spencer cites a newspaper article about our research instead of the actual published paper may indicate a lack of familiarity with the technical details of our study. These are some key misrepresentations that I spotted in his article:    

1. Dr. Spencer incorrectly referred to our main finding as a “theory” when, in fact, it is a discovery based on vetted NASA data extracted from numerous published studies. This empirical pressure-temperature (P-T) function emerged from reported NASA measurements in the process of Dimensional Analysis, which is an objective technique employed in classical physics to derive/extract physically meaningful relationships from observed data.

Gavin Cawley explains the radiative greenhouse effect

Ned Nikolov, Ph.D.‏ @NikolovScience Oct 31

Here are 2 key issues that you must address when trying to defend the radiative “Greenhouse” hypothesis:

1. How does 240 W m-2 absorbed solar radiation get converted into 342 W m-2 IR back radiation without violating the Energy-Conservation Law?

2. Why there is such a POOR relationship between #CO2 and global T for past 70 My?

• Gavin Cawley‏ @Gavin_Cawley Oct 31

  Gavin Cawley Retweeted eli rabett

  The answer is still the same as the last time you ignored it

  Gavin Cawley added,

  

  eli rabett @EthonRaptor

  As Eli has pointed out many times, the 240 W/m2 is the solar input, not the energy the surface and the atmosphere exchange. 462 W/m2 enters the atm from the surface, 79 from the sun = 541 W/m2. 342…

  Ned Nikolov, Ph.D.‏ @NikolovScience Oct 31

  Gavin, this is not sensible answer to my 1st question, but a CIRCULAR argument! Can’t you see it? The 342 W m-2 IR back radiation cannot be explained by surface LW emissions, because then the question becomes, where does the 398 W m-2 surface LW radiation come from?

  Gavin Cawley‏ @Gavin_Cawley Oct 31

  I seem to remember I have already explained this to you at least once. Here is the thought experiment. Imaging a black body in a vacuum containing a 1W constant power heat source. Eventually it will reach an equilibrium temperature at which it radiates 1W out into the (1/n)

  Gavin Cawley‏ @Gavin_Cawley Oct 31

  vacuum. Now put a thin shell surrounding, but not touching the sphere, of the same blackbody material. The outgoing sphere will heat the shell, and it too will begin to radiate heat until it too reaches thermal equilibrium. Now the shell will radiate equally out into the (2/n)

Met Office fakes the Foehn effect

Descending air in the atmosphere rises in temperature as it is adiabatically compressed in the pressure gradient created by gravity acting on atmospheric mass. This has been known for centuries. However, the MET Office has decided to do away with this fundamental fact of physics in a short video it has produced.

Here is some more information on what we mean by the Foehn Effect pic.twitter.com/h8Zr9XJ2Y2

— Met Office (@metoffice) October 23, 2018

Even their own website page on the Foehn effect (now safely screenshotted and web-cited) tells us:

“ foehn air… becomes warmer and drier on the leeside after it is compressed with descent due to the increase in pressure towards the surface.”

A conversation with Brandon Gates on the causes of the ‘greenhouse’ effect

 

Rog Tallbloke‏ @RogTallbloke Oct 7

Hi Brandon, What is the best estimate of the ratio of radiation to space taking place from CO2 relative to H2O?

Brandon R. Gates‏ @brandonrgates Oct 7

Dunno Rog. MODTRAN could probably get you in the ballpark. This is CO2-only from 70 km looking down, more what I would expect an actual Nimbus retrieval to look like. http://climatemodels.uchicago.edu/modtran/ 

Rog Tallbloke‏ @RogTallbloke 24h24 hours ago

Although CO2 absorbs thermal radiation from the Earth, it emits more. Carbon dioxide is in thermal deficit in terms of radiative balance. Nitrogen and oxygen constantly feed CO2 with heat so that it maintains a temperature higher than its radiative equilibrium. CO2 is a coolant.

A conversation with Ken Rice on the causes of the ‘Greenhouse effect’

Rog Tallbloke‏ @RogTallbloke 3h3 hours ago

Yes, adiabatic compression heating is an ongoing process, due to the convection cycle. I’ve tried to illustrate it by modifying NASA’s energy budget diagram. Calcs on right show PV/nR=T gives correct values regardless of radiative transfer.

Ken Rice‏ @theresphysics 3h3 hours ago

This has probably been explained before, but if adiabatic heating is to be an ongoing process then that would suggest the atmosphere is contracting. Since it clearly isn’t, this can’t be the source of the enhanced surface temperature.

Rog Tallbloke‏ @RogTallbloke 3h3 hours ago

Ken. Air convecting upwards every day displaces cold high altitude air downwards through the pressure gradient which compresses and heats it. If it didn’t, that air would be colder at the surface, and would allow much more rapid conduction of heat from surface to the air. Agree?

Ken Rice‏ @theresphysics 2h2 hours ago

Roger, if you want to enhance the temperature on the surface via compression then the atmosphere would need to continually contract.

Cloud formation and distribution follows simple thermodynamic, statistical laws

Clouds are climate wildcards says Phys.org. This study focuses on tropical convective clouds. It seems that ‘the product of the number of clouds and their perimeter remains constant, a mathematical law known as scale invariance.’

Quoting from the ‘plain language summary’ of the study:
‘Narrowing uncertainty in forecasts of climate change has been hindered by the difficulty of representing the extraordinary complexity of clouds. Here, we show how the numbers and sizes of clouds, and their total amount, can be derived thermodynamically knowing just the atmospheric temperature and humidity profile.’

As usual an assumption of future warming is built-in, but we have to live with that approach even if we question it.

Take a look at the clouds, if there are any in your sky right now. Watch the billows, the white lofty tufts set against the blue sky. Or, depending on your weather, watch the soft grey edges smear together into blended tones that drag down through the air to the ground.

They’re an inspiration to most of us, but a nightmare for climate scientists. Clouds are exceptionally complex creatures, and that complexity makes it difficult to predict how and where they’ll form—which is unfortunate, since those predictions are essential to understanding precipitation patterns and how our climate will change in the future.

Thermodynamics 101: Compression increases temperature.

Question: If I had a container, full with air, and I suddenly decreased the volume of the container, forcing the air into a smaller volume, will it be considered as compression, will it result in an increase in temperature, and why?

Answer on Stack Exchange by Luboš Motl: Yes, it is compression and yes, it will heat up the gas.

If there’s no heat exchange between the gas and the container (or the environment), we call it an adiabatic process. For an adiabatic process involving an ideal gas (which is a very good approximation for most common gases), pV^γ is constant where γ is an exponent such as 5/3. Because the temperature is equal to T=pV/nR and pV/pV^γ=V^1−γ is a decreasing function of V, the temperature will increase when the volume decreases.

Macroscopically, the heating is inevitable because one needs to perform work p|dV| to do the compression, the energy has to be preserved, and the only place where it can go is the interior of the gas given by a formula similar to (3/2)nRT.

Resolving misconceptions about the Nikolov and Zeller universal theory of climate

We’ve been having a good knockabout on twitter with Patrick Moore concerning Ned and Karl’s Pressure-Insolation theory; their discovery that a simple formula using surface pressure and solar distance will accurately give you the surface temperature on vastly different planets and moons throughout the solar system.

Figure 4: The relative atmospheric thermal enhancement, observed surface T/No -atmosphere T (Ts/Tna ratio) as a function of the average surface air pressure according to Eq. (10a) derived from data representing a broad range of planetary environments in the solar system.

Patrick is a great guy, and a good sport, and has been mostly putting up with Ned’s jibes and arguing his corner. I thought it might help others to understand Ned and Karl’s ideas if we look at a few of the objections Patrick raises and our answers to them.

Policymakers! Listen up!

I was trained as an engineer and then did a degree in the History and philosophy of science.

I know how to calculate forces, I understand thermodynamics and radiative theory and I don’t ignore data inimical to any hypothesis.

After thirty years of monitoring and appraising the data, the global warming hypothesis and working out what really causes climatic change I’ve concluded that it ain’t CO2. The real causes of climatic change at the planetary scale are the enormous forces transferring energy between solar system bodies.

Jupiter and Saturn between them hold over 85% of the angular momentum of the system. Venus has, within an order of magnitude, the same gravitational force on the Earth-Moon system as Jupiter. The two of them have shaped the orbit of our Moon, whose tidal forces have a profound effect on the overturning circulation of Earth’s oceans, which contain 1000 times more heat than the atmosphere of which CO2 comprises 0.04%.

There’s Ken Rice’s nonsense, and then there’s thermodynamics

Ken Rice, an Edinburgh University academic who selectively censors dissenting comments at his pro-AGW “and Then There’s Physics” propaganda blog, has another of mine in moderation:

tallbloke says:

Your comment is awaiting moderation.

March 12, 2018 at 10:02 am

OK, I’ll drop that subject and deal directly with the subject of your blog post.
You state that:

“If the Earth’s atmospheric pressure is to contribute to the enhanced surface temperature, then that would mean that the atmosphere would need to continually provide energy to the surface. It could only do this through the conversion of gravitational potential energy to thermal energy. This would then require the continual contraction of the Earth’s atmosphere.”

This quote demonstrates that you’ve fundamentally misunderstood Ned Nikolov’s hypothesis. He’s not positing a raised surface T due to an ongoing gravitational collapse producing a compression, generating heat which is then lost to space.

Atmospheric pressure produces a density gradient; i.e. it forces there to be more air molecules per unit volume at lower altitude than at higher altitude. Denser air intercepts and absorbs more of the sunlight passing through it than less dense air, producing more molecular collisions and excitation. It therefore holds more kinetic energy.The more kinetic energy it holds the higher its temperature will be.

WCC4 Rome: Interview with Nikolov and Zeller

I got back from Rome last night following the highly successful World Climate Conference. Quite a number of CO2 sceptics gave presentations, which were politely received and discussed by all present. We even made a few converts. Here’s a short interview I made with Ned Nikolov and Karl Zeller where they give their impressions and some insight into their paradigm shifting discovery of the temperature-pressure relationship which holds good across the entire solar system.

Ned and Karl’s two papers are here:

New Insights on the Physical Nature of the Atmospheric Greenhouse
Effect Deduced from an Empirical Planetary Temperature Model

On the average temperature of airless spherical bodies and the magnitude of Earth’s atmospheric thermal effect

They show that the uplift in temperature on Earth’s surface due to the presence of the atmosphere is not 33K as the current greenhouse theory states but 90K, and is due to atmospheric pressure at the surface, not the back radiation from ‘greenhouse gases’.

We’ve been following Ned and Karl’s work since 2010 here at the Talkshop. They are finally getting heard in a wider forum.

IPCC AR6 Won’t discuss radiative forcing: ‘Science is settled’

IPCC obviously thinks 'the science is settled' Piers. A cute way of avoiding discussion of recent literature? e.g. https://t.co/m0XLER0AvS

— Rog Tallbloke (@RogTallbloke) August 9, 2017

Stephen Wilde: How conduction and convection cause a greenhouse effect arising from atmospheric mass.

This guest post from Stephen Wilde offers a descriptive theoretical and qualitative perspective on the ‘gravito-thermal’ theory. It covers the vertical profile of the atmosphere as well as the surface temperature comprehensively quantified by Nikolov and Zeller’s latest paper.

How conduction and convection cause a greenhouse effect arising from atmospheric mass.
Stephen Wilde

Introduction

The current scientific consensus is that Earth’s so called ‘greenhouse effect’ is caused by the presence of radiating gases in the atmosphere but many years ago, I learned what  I then understood to be the consensus view that it is actually a result of atmospheric mass such that the radiative characteristics of the atmosphere are either wholly or largely irrelevant.

The ‘greenhouse effect’ is an apt description for the mass based phenomenon because warming, descending air (which is occurring over half the planet at any given moment) will inhibit convection in the same way as does a greenhouse roof and by dissipating clouds it increases incoming sunlight through that barrier to convection just like the transparency of a greenhouse roof.

If the greenhouse effect is attributable to atmospheric mass rather than radiative characteristics then the fact that the vast bulk of Earth’s atmosphere is comprised of mass that is non-radiative is likely to mean that human emissions of radiative gases are not important as a regulator of surface temperature.

Foundations of Greenhouse Theory Challenged by New Analysis of Solar System Observations

Back in late 2011, the Talkshop splashed the story on a ‘Unified Theory of Climate’  developed by PhD physicists Ned Nikolov and Karl Zeller. They set out to show that the ‘greenhouse effect’ is not a phenomenon arising out of the absorption and reemission of outgoing long-wave radiation by the atmosphere (as thought for 190 years), but is a form of compression heating controlled by solar radiation and the total atmospheric pressure at the Earth’s surface. Pressure is in turn a product of the gas mass contained in a column of air above a unit surface area, and the planet’s gravitational effect on that mass.

It’s been a long and treacherous road involving many revisions and refinements of the original study. On several occasions the manuscript was rejected unread, but Ned and Karl have finally got their greatly improved and expanded paper published. This latest version is a tour de force strengthened by the rigors of criticism from an army of peer reviewers at several journals along the way.

Using dimensional analysis (a classical technique for inferring physically meaningful relationships from measured data), they show that the long-term global equilibrium surface temperature of bodies in the solar system as diverse as Venus, the Moon, Earth, Mars, Titan and Triton can accurately be described using only two predictors: the mean distance from the Sun and the total atmospheric surface pressure. This type of cross-planetary analysis using vetted NASA observations has not been conducted by any other authors. It represents the first and only attempt in the history of climate science to assess Earth’s surface temperature in the context of a cosmic physical continuum defined by actual planetary-scale observations. The result is a new insight that planetary climates are independent of the infrared optical depth of their atmospheres arising from their composition, and that the long-wave ‘back radiation’ is actually a product of the atmospheric thermal effect rather than a cause for it.

Harvesting renewable energy from Earth’s mid-infrared emissions

Tim writes,

Enjoy. When I first came across this paper there was a lot of chuckling, can’t be serious, surely?

Well, I can understand someone wanting to quantify the effect, show the laws, make it a warning for any fools who need saving from themselves, ain’t engineers. I’m afraid this paper goes too far off the deep end, hints at meant seriously. Your opinion might differ.

Published PNAS

Harvesting renewable energy from Earth’s mid-infrared emissions
Steven J. Byrnes, Romain Blanchard, and Federico Capasso, School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138
Contributed by Federico Capasso, February 3, 2014 (sent for review November 1, 2013)

It is possible to harvest energy from Earth’s thermal infrared emis-
sion into outer space. We calculate the thermodynamic limit for
the amount of power available, and as a case study, we plot how
this limit varies daily and seasonally in a location in Oklahoma.We
discuss two possible ways to make such an emissive energy har-
vester (EEH): A thermal EEH (analogous to solar thermal power
generation) and an optoelectronic EEH (analogous to photovoltaic
power generation). For the latter, we propose using an infrared-
frequency rectifying antenna, and we discuss its operating princi-
ples, efficiency limits, system design considerations, and possible
technological implementations.
— http://www.pnas.org/content/111/11/3927.full.pdf

Actual merit? Works at night.