I have really let this blog go to pieces.
I will post useful stuff in the future but allowing Mr Cotton to take it over again was a mistake. It seemed reasonable to allow him to write, because the topic was PSI. It won’t happen again, even though I am starting to think a serious discussion on back radiation is necessary because people are very confused on the matter. Other PSI members will always be allowed to comment in the future, any time they wish, but they will be treated with an open mike reply as we all are.
Is it is my blog so I will highlight one more ridiculous Doug comment for which he will not be allowed to reply. He will attempt to, and his answers will be deleted when I have time, so don’t bother discussion with him here in the future months.
No it won’t be pretty and it is my fault for making this happen – my apologies.
(a) How the microwave radiation appears to pass through the opaque plastic bowl, not in a straight line like normal transmission, and not having its energy converted to thermal energy, and yet coming out the other side (in random directions) but with the same frequency.
For Fuck’s sake Doug, plastic is nearly perfectly transparent to household microwaves. [self snip]
Go away. I will delete your comments later.
New posts tomorrow, sorry again folks. I will be avoiding the blog so there will be a short time delay between deletions.
the Air Vent 
A blog is an enormous amount of time and effort. and sometimes we just do not have either or. But I will continue to read. You have a style that makes reading easy and fun.
I believe logorrhoea is a terminal disease.
Just like a woman (not ALL of them) Doug believes if he slings enough words he can control a discussion/argument.
Jeff,
My last one hit the bit bucket.
Jeff,
Your tolerance is to be commended. You are right to block Doug Cotton and all his aliases as Lucia and Verity have already done.
Most of what Doug said made perfect sense to me. Unfortunately, his theory is like the “Curate’s Egg” that is “good in parts”. Doug’s failure to address the weaknesses in his theory causes me to reject his entire hypothesis.
You have GP failed to address the weaknesses in the radiative forcing / greenhouse effect “theory” which I have pointed out numerous times to you. You cannot explain Venus or Uranus temperatures with instantaneous radiative energy balance, and nor can Earth’s surface, crust, mantle or core temperatures be explained with a greenhouse effect, whereas all the above can be explained by what I have written in my paper on just that topic.
“allowing Mr Cotton to take it over again was a mistake”
No it was not a mistake! I read a lot of Wikipedia to upgrade my education because of your blog.
It was very cathartic having Doug expound his views in the previous blogs. However, it is now time to ban him as the discourse has reached a tedium with his constant ……. someone else can supply the appropriate term,
Jeff, I see you have deleted the completely wrong statement which was in the emailed copy of the blog post above (since edited I presume) about “IR lasers can’t cut metal, idiocy. Incompetence is an understatement at this point.”. I do think an apology is in order.
What part needs an apology?
You need RoundUp for Cotton™
I actually liked the insanity that was displayed.
I always love the people that think that they have discovered something radically new that goes against all common sense, logic and reality.
I have removed Doug’s numerous comments as promised.
When even John O’Sullivan thinks you’re far out of left field, Mr. Cotton, I think you should begin to wonder.
“even John O’Sullivan” ? I thought this was about physics, in which I suggest I am somewhat more educated and experienced than John, and probably understand better than most contributors here.
John’s request related purely to asking that I make it clear that I am writing independently of PSI and not in any way representing any official PSI viewpoint, or majority viewpoint, although such is not specifically documented yet.
I have made that clear in at least two other comments on the previous thread, and so I have fully complied with his request, which is as far as his jurisdiction extends over myself.
But can you cook food with 400W/m2 of backradiation at night? It would make camping more fun if you could.
Sulk – my posts keep disappearing ;(
I approved all that I found int he bucket. Keywords trap them.
Ah – I mentioned PSI and Cotton, silly me!
Welcome back Jeff.
Way to go Jeff. You gave him an inch… which was too much.
@Anthony Watts
As long as we don’t get genetically modified Cotton (aka Round Up Ready).
I HAVE PROVED BEYOND REASONABLE DOUBT that it is the gravity effect which, in conjunction with natural variations in Solar flux reaching a planet’s atmosphere, determines that planet’s atmospheric, surface, crust, mantle and core temperatures. This is based on valid physics and is explained in my 20 page paper “Planetary Core and Surface Temperatures” which so far no one in the world has successfully rebutted, because when they study it they realise it is correct.
Snore …..
I have quickly read the previous two threads.
Carrick is trying to redefine the word ‘heat’ and this causes needless confusion
There is no debate in physics about the meaning of ‘heat ‘.
ALL Physics textbooks agree with Clausius that spontaneous heat transfer is a one way process, that is, from a higher to a lower temperature.
There is a very simple test.
Heat must be capable of doing thermodynamic work in the given circumstance.
Thermodynamic work can be done with a high temperature source and a lower temperature sink.
The reverse is not possible.
So it makes no sense to say that heat is transferred spontaneously from a lower temperature object to a higher temperature object.
In the case of a purely radiative exchange between two objects the heat transferred is the net of the radiative exchange.
For each body it is the difference between the energy that each body absorbs and that which it emits.
If the hotter body emits 10 Joules per second in the direction of the colder and absorbs 4J/s from the colder the heat transferred to the colder is 6J/s
The temperature of the hotter body will go down and the colder body will increase.
That’s what are sound physical basis!
And now, we can model the effect of added CO2.
Oh, surprise!
GCM are in a mess.
Ah, but they are not saying that heat is transferred from colder to hotter, they are saying that the rate of cooling of the warm body is lowered because of the CO2 effect or something like that. Still waiting for a consensus description of the puported physical mechanism (backradiation, radiative “insulation”, etc) so it can be experimentally tested and verified or disproven in a physics lab. Surely someone with access to a physics lab is interested in this problem.
blouis79 said
“Ah, but they are not saying that heat is transferred from colder to hotter, they are saying that the rate of cooling of the warm body is lowered because of the CO2 effect or something like that.”
Yes the more careful ones do not make that mistake.
The radiative insulation effect of CO2 is real, so the rate of cooling is less, but is it significant?
There is back radiation and back conduction and back convection for that matter.
If all that is meant is that some energy originally at the Earth surface can make its way back there.
The greenhouse effect is something different.
It claims a purely radiative effect causes a 33K increase in the Earths near surface average global temperature.
The practical test by R W Wood and the link below show the the radiative greenhouse effect is negligible.
Click to access penn_state_plastic_study.pdf
Bryan Section 4 of my paper explains how and why the Clausius statement has been replaced by physicists with a more precise statement of the Second Law. All your physics books must be rather old. Try Wikipedia.. The Sections 5 to 9 then rebut the rest of your comment which is very primitive school boy physics. See my latest comments here ..
https://noconsensus.wordpress.com/2013/06/05/psi-theory-destroyed/#comment-95719
I get a bit tired of people who think they can rebut my paper without reading it or having the slightest idea about the physics explained therein. You don’t need to “teach” me about the GHE, Wood’s experiment and all that which I studied long ago in great detail.
Any reader should just go and try to explain Uranus temperatures 350Km down into the atmosphere there. Or explain how the Venus surface increases in temperature by 5 degrees each 4-month day. If you try, you will realise it is not any radiative effect involved – it is the gravity effect and “heat creep” which I have explained using the Second Law.
Physics – O – Cloud Cuckoo Land.
There is an impostor called Doug Cotton who claims that your wonderful insights into Climate Science are all his own work.
I told him, and it applies equally to you!
Get a first year university physics book.
Study the chapters on thermodynamics, make notes.
At the end of each chapter attempt each question, don’t worry if you find some of them too hard, seek help and you will get there with a little extra effort .
Then return to the debate and participate as a commentator who will not be sniggered at.
The Charles Atlas approach to the Climate Debate.
Carrick is one of the most knowledgeable commenters here, and he uses his terminology more carefully and accurately than most (including you).
You do seem to acknowledge that a colder body transfers radiative energy to a warmer body, although always less than the warmer body transfers to the colder body (4 vs 10 in your example). If the absorbed radiative energy is converted to thermal energy (as opposed to electrical energy in a photovoltaic cell or chemical energy through photosynthesis in a leaf), we say it heats the body, and the (net) heat transfer is from the warmer to the colder body. (And all of my engineering thermodynamics and heat transfer textbooks do explicitly use the term “net”.)
If this were the only energy transfer occurring in either body, the temperatures of the two bodies would approach each other — the bigger the difference, the higher the power transfer at that moment, and the more rapidly they would approach each other’s temperature. So far, so good.
But what happens if one of the bodies has another source of energy transfer? To keep it simple, let’s say the warmer body has a fixed power input from another source, and the radiative exchange with a cooler body is the only other transfer. We’ll use your sample numbers. The warmer body is getting 6 units of electrical power input, radiating 10 of output due to its temperature, and receiving 4 from the colder body. We are in thermodynamic equilibrium.
Now we replace the colder body with a body of somewhat higher temperature, but still colder that our warm body. This one is radiating 6 units of power. (And to keep it simple, this body is much larger than our warm body, so its temperature changes very little as a result of the radiative exchange.) Now, the warmer body has more power coming in than leaving, so its temperature increases until it is radiating enough additional power so it is in balance again. In our simple example, its temperature would increase until it radiated 12 units of power.
This is trivially easy to show, as I did with light-bulb experiments at WUWT a few weeks ago. Some mocked the experiments as “amateurish” for their simplicity, but to my mind, the simpler the experiment that can show an effect, the better.
Your invocation of the principle of thermodynamic work is completely irrelevant, as no one is claiming that this “back radiation” can produce work. The very obvious flaw I see immediately in the Slayer’s claim that it is the gravitational effect of the atmsophere’s weight that produces the surface warming is that a gravitational effect is capable of producing work (as in hydroelectric power). If that is true, why has no one harnessed it. I pointed out in the last thread that if the gravitational effect were cancelling out the 150W/m^2 radiative imbalance at the surface, you could create a megawatt of free electrical power in the area of a football field.
Curt said
“Carrick is one of the most knowledgeable commenters here, and he uses his terminology more carefully and accurately than most (including you).”
Carrick’s terminology regarding ‘Heat’ is incorrect and the fact that you don’t realise it makes you a poor judge of terminology.
Curt said
“Your invocation of the principle of thermodynamic work is completely irrelevant, as no one is claiming that this “back radiation” can produce work.”
This then leads to the proof that back radiation is not ‘heat’ as defined in thermodynamics
Read the introductory chapters on Carnot and the Second Law
Most Physics textbooks use this as an introduction to the second law and then define Heat as being able to do thermodynamic work in the given circumstance.
I have several university level physics textbooks perhaps you could pick one that have and we can resolve any misunderstandings.
Curt said
“But what happens if one of the bodies has another source of energy transfer? To keep it simple, let’s say the warmer body has a fixed power input from another source”
Its better if we look initially at the two body heat problem to see if we agree then move on to look at more complex examples.
By the way I am not a slayer but I think several (Doug Cotton exepted) make interesting contributions to the Climate Debate
Gravity is a force – it redistributes energy, just like it redistributes water after you jump in your pool.
Does it occur to you to read my paper for an explanation of “heat creep” and all planetary atmospheric, surface, crust, mantle and core temperatures?
Regarding radiation, consider reading my “Radiated Energy and the Second Law of Thermodynamics” because I have no intention of re-writing 30 odd pages from these papers here.
Gravity is a force – it redistributes energy, just like it redistributes water after you jump in your pool.
Does it occur to you to read my paper “Planetary Core and Surface Temperatures” for an explanation of “heat creep” and all planetary atmospheric, surface, crust, mantle and core temperatures?
Regarding radiation, consider reading my “Radiated Energy and the Second Law of Thermodynamics” because I have no intention of re-writing 30 odd pages from these papers here.
I have already explained the fallacy in WUWT assumptions about what the light bulb experiment is showing – namely nothing more than the well known fact that radiation can slow radiative cooling so that electricity can heat to a higher temperature. Joe Postma has written a multi-page rebuttal of it also, pointing out that the temperature of the glass is not that of the filament. You’ll find his article in the “Latest News” section on the PSI website.
Anthony Watts has very little understanding of thermodynamics. He tried to rebut Dr Hans Jelbring’s 2003 peer-reviewed paper about the Loschmidt gravity effect, but there was an obvious blunder in the logic in the article he published, which I have exposed in the last paragraph of Section 14.
Curt wrote: “Slayer’s claim that it is the gravitational effect of the atmsophere’s weight that produces the surface warming ”
There is absolutely no paper or article among “Slayers” literature (to my knowledge – and least of all my own writings) that states what you wrote.
Cotton is interesting case. He is in a way sort of like Joe Romm or that cartoonist who promotes global warming: They can all string words together, but after awhile it is just another demonstration of why the Capt. Queeg meltdown scene is so powerful and sad.
A cold body does not transfer thermal energy by spontaneous radiation to a warmer body. All it can do is slow that portion of the rate of cooling of the warmer body which is itself due to radiation. Back radiation does not slow evaporative cooling of a warmer water body, or slow the rate of conduction into air molecules at the surface-atmosphere boundary. The latter two processes transfer twice as much thermal energy to the atmosphere as does radiation from the surface according to the NASA net energy diagram reproduced in my paper.
None of this has any bearing whatsoever on mean planetary surface temperatures which are supported by the autonomous gravitationally induced temperature gradient which results from the process described in statements of the Second Law of Thermodynamics in which thermodynamic equilibrium evolves spontaneously.
All the “calculations” of Earth’s surface temperature in the GH models are fudged, because unless you know the temperature gap at the boundary, you cannot determine the rate of non-radiative cooling, and such cooling removes energy which cannot then come into the radiation calculations. Most of the radiation from the surface is merely “pseudo scattered” back radiation which is not cooling the surface at all because its energy did not come from the surface.
Curt said
“Carrick is one of the most knowledgeable commenters here, and he uses his terminology more carefully and accurately than most (including you).”
Carrick’s terminology regarding ‘Heat’ is incorrect and the fact that you don’t realise it makes you a poor judge of terminology.
Curt said
“Your invocation of the principle of thermodynamic work is completely irrelevant, as no one is claiming that this “back radiation” can produce work.”
This then leads to the proof that back radiation is not ‘heat’ as defined in thermodynamics
Read the introductory chapters on Carnot and the Second Law
Most Physics textbooks use this as an introduction to the second law and then define Heat as being able to do thermodynamic work in the given circumstance.
I have several university level physics textbooks perhaps you could pick one that have and we can resolve any misunderstandings.
Curt said
“But what happens if one of the bodies has another source of energy transfer? To keep it simple, let’s say the warmer body has a fixed power input from another source”
Its better if we look initially at the two body heat problem to see if we agree then move on to look at more complex examples.
By the way I am not a slayer but I think several (Doug Cotton exepted) make interesting contributions to the Climate Debate
I’m inclined to agree with you on the “Slayers”. I like most of all Claes Johnson’s work, and I understand he departed from the “Slayers” group. I also like Joseph Postma’s work, but I don’t consider him so much a “Slayer” because he wasn’t published in the original book “Slaying the Sky Dragon”.
[snip – as explained in the post.]