Current Events — HabitableZone

Current Events » in reply to Running on bluff now, are we?

No, but the paper does...

For instance he spends 20 pages 'proving' that the Earth's atmosphere is NOT equivalent to a glass enclosed room, thus the term 'greenhouse effect' is a hoax... Wow!

He cites many papers from the late 1800's and early 1900's on glass green houses, he mis-states the global warming claims and is quite clearly doing so intentionally to set up a straw man...

I can go over it point by point, but its garbage that has little or no bearing on the actual science of global warming, and is often just plain wrong . Its just more trash trapped by the blogosphere.

To see it debunked in depth: http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/0802/0802.4324v1.pdf

Summary:

Gerlich and Tscheuschner1 state, among more extravagant claims, that “Unfortunately, there is no source in the
literature, where the greenhouse effect is introduced in harmony with the scientific standards of theoretical physics.”
The above analysis I believe completely establishes, within perfectly simple and appropriate theoretical physics constructs,
the main points. Namely that assuming “the atmosphere is transparent for visible light but opaque for
infrared radiation” leads to “a warming of the Earth’s surface” relative to firm limits established by basic physical
principles of energy conservation, for the case of an atmosphere transparent to both visible and infrared.
In particular, it has been shown that:
1. An average surface temperature for a planet is perfectly well defined with or without rotation, and with or
without infrared absorbing gases
2. This average temperature is mathematically constrained to be less than the fourth root of the average fourth
power of the temperature, and can in some circumstances (a planet with no or very slow rotation, and low
surface thermal inertia) be much less
3. For a planet with no infrared absorbing or reflecting layer above the surface (and no significant flux of internal
energy), the fourth power of the surface temperature always eventually averages to a value determined by the
incoming stellar energy flux and relevant reflectivity and emissivity parameters.
4. The only way the fourth power of the surface temperature can exceed this limit is to be covered by an atmosphere
that is at least partially opaque to infrared radiation. This is the atmospheric greenhouse effect.
5. The measured average temperature of Earth’s surface is 33 degrees C higher than the limit determined by items
(2) and (3). Therefore, Earth is proved to have a greenhouse effect of at least 33K.
The specific contributions of individual gases such as CO2 to Earth’s greenhouse effect are covered well by the
standard treatments of the subject2,4,5.

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