">

Climate Science Glossary

Term Lookup

Enter a term in the search box to find its definition.

Settings

Use the controls in the far right panel to increase or decrease the number of terms automatically displayed (or to completely turn that feature off).

Term Lookup

Settings

All IPCC definitions taken from Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis. Working Group I Contribution to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Annex I, Glossary, pp. 941-954. Cambridge University Press.

Home Arguments Software Resources Comments The Consensus Project Translations About Support

Twitter Facebook YouTube Mastodon MeWe

RSS Posts RSS Comments Email Subscribe


Climate's changed before
It's the sun
It's not bad
There is no consensus
It's cooling
Models are unreliable
Temp record is unreliable
Animals and plants can adapt
It hasn't warmed since 1998
Antarctica is gaining ice
View All Arguments...



Username
Password
New? Register here
Forgot your password?

Latest Posts

Archives

Has the greenhouse effect been falsified?

What the science says...

Select a level... Basic Intermediate

The greenhouse effect is standard physics and confirmed by observations.

Climate Myth...

Greenhouse effect has been falsified

 

"[T]he influence of so-called greenhouse gases on near-surface temperature - is not yet absolutely proven. In other words, there is as yet no incontrovertible proof either of the greenhouse effect, or its connection with alleged global warming.

 

This is no surprise, because in fact there is no such thing as the greenhouse effect: it is an impossibility.  The statement that so-called greenhouse gases, especially CO2, contribute to near-surface atmospheric warming is in glaring contradiction to well-known physical laws relating to gas and vapour, as well as to general caloric theory.' (Heinz Thieme)

 

Some climate change skeptics dispute the so-called ‘greenhouse effect’, which keeps the surface temperature of the Earth approximately 33 degrees C warmer than it would be if there were no greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. In other words, without the greenhouse effect, the Earth would be largely uninhabitable.

How do we know for sure this effect is real? The principle is demonstrated through basic physics, because a bare rock orbiting the sun at the distance of the Earth should be far colder than the Earth actually is. The explanation for this observation was based on the work of John Tyndall, who discovered in 1859 that several gases, including carbon dioxide and water vapour, could trap heat. This was the first evidence for what we know now as greenhouse gases. Then, towards the end of the same century, a Swedish scientist named Svante Arrhenius proved the relationship between greenhouse gas concentrations and surface temperatures.

Empirical Evidence for the Greenhouse Effect

We only have to look to our moon for evidence of what the Earth might be like without an atmosphere that sustained the greenhouse effect. While the moon’s surface reaches 130 degrees C in direct sunlight at the equator (266 degrees F), when the sun ‘goes down’ on the moon, the temperature drops almost immediately, and plunges in several hours down to minus 110 degrees C (-166F).

Since the moon is virtually the same distance from the sun as we are, it is reasonable to ask why at night the Earth doesn’t get as cold as the moon. The answer is that, unlike the Earth, the moon has no water vapour or other greenhouse gases, because of course it has no atmosphere at all. Without our protective atmosphere and the greenhouse effect, the Earth would be as barren as our lifeless moon; without the heat trapped overnight in the atmosphere (and in the ground and oceans) our nights would be so cold that few plants or animals could survive even a single one.

The most conclusive evidence for the greenhouse effect – and the role CO2 plays – can be seen in data from the surface and from satellites. By comparing the Sun’s heat reaching the Earth with the heat leaving it, we can see that less long-wave radiation (heat) is leaving than arriving (and since the 1970s, that less and less radiation is leaving the Earth, as CO2 and equivalents build up). Since all radiation is measured by its wavelength, we can also see that the frequencies being trapped in the atmosphere are the same frequencies absorbed by greenhouse gases.

Disputing that the greenhouse effect is real is to attempt to discredit centuries of science, laws of physics and direct observation. Without the greenhouse effect, we would not even be here to argue about it.

 

Basic rebuttal written by GPWayne

Update July 2015:

Here is a related lecture-video from Denial101x - Making Sense of Climate Science Denial

 

Last updated on 7 July 2015 by MichaelK. View Archives

Printable Version  |  Offline PDF Version  |  Link to this page

Argument Feedback

Please use this form to let us know about suggested updates to this rebuttal.

Comments

Prev  1  2  3  4  5  6  7  Next

Comments 26 to 50 out of 168:

  1. You're right, Will, I should not have pointed you to Wikipedia for the definition of thermosphere. So let's use NASA. Or you could just search the internet for "thermosphere" and look at hundreds of definitions of it as a layer of the atmosphere.
  2. Will, glass is transparent to near-infrared wavelengths. It's opaque to thermal infrared wavelengths. See figure 2-3 here for an example. Lots of people get confused about this distinction, but if you're going to write about the earth's radiation budget you absolutely have to understand it.
  3. Will writes: As for Photosynthetic efficiency which is just one part of the effect I'm referring to, 2% is a stab in the dark. While it is claimed that crops such as wheat may achieve low efficiency of between 1-4%, sugar cain can achieve 7%, but photosynthesis is just one process plants use energy for. Oxygen production is another. Photosynthesis is how plants produce oxygen. It's the same process! A moment ago you were claiming that "40-50% of the incoming sunlight hitting the leaves is locked in by photosynthesis and the rest is reflected as short-wave". Healthy green plants absorb 90% or more of visible wavelengths of light, quite a bit less in the near-infrared. Only a small part of that, less than 10%, is converted by photosynthesis. The remainder warms the plant, and indirectly warms its environment. This is all irrelevant, though, since the analogy to a glass greenhouse is not intended as (nor appropriate as) a description of the physical mechanism by which CO2 warms the earth system.
    Response: Indeed. Will, in the post at the top of this page, see the section titled "The Term 'Greenhouse.'"
  4. Berényi - So, you are just talking about the lapse rate here? Your comments seemed to involve nitrogen as a greenhouse gas, which I found quite confusing. Certainly, if you remove half the atmosphere, the dynamics and equilibrium of the Earth would be different - much as it would be if you removed all of it. I was under the impression, however, that we were discussing greenhouse gasses and the greenhouse effect, with only a few % of the atmosphere in question. Not wholesale planetary engineering or hypothetical worlds...
  5. Just an overall note on topics, Berényi - your half/double N2 comment really represents a red herring with respect to a conversation on the greenhouse effect. It's not helpful, and doesn't advance the discussion in any way.
  6. Will writes: Please don't "Science of Doom" me. I'm not sure what you mean by that. Science of Doom offers admirably lucid, accurate, and detailed explanations of the physical basis for the greenhouse effect. They also manage to do so in a polite and respectful environment. It's hard to imagine a more appropriate resource for this particular thread.
  7. Will, The article on your web site that you've linked to includes serious factual errors. Diffusion of light by the atmosphere does not cause "the molecules also absorb some of that energy from the photon", and does not cause the molecules to vibrate. This is because, as has been explained to you above incoming solar radiation does not match the vibrational frequencies of the IR active vibrations - in visible light is too high a frequency for any molecular vibrations. Electron transitions do occur due to UV light, but the atmosphere is largely transparent to visible light. O2 and N2 are completely inactive to IR radiation, except for the tiny amount of isotopic variation which, as your own graphs show, are 1x10-30 less powerful than CO2 and are the wrong frequency for both incoming solar and outgoing earthlight. You should also be aware that the energy in photons is related to their frequency, not as you seem to assume, their intensity. Or do you really not believe Albert ? You are wrong to say all substances absorb IR radiation: use the search engine of your choice to look for "Dipole Moment" and "Vibration" and take your pick
  8. Hey Will, still no answer to post #3 & 4. At least the hypotheses put forward by climate scientists match real world observations and measurements. Which is kind of the whole point isn't it?.
  9. Ned "Will, glass is transparent to near-infrared wavelengths. It's opaque to thermal infrared wavelengths. See figure 2-3 here for an example." Lets just look at this statement for a minute. Thermal radiation is heat. Vibrating matter. Gas molecules are vibrating matter. They cannot pass through solid glass. You are confusing matter with energy. It is the energy which passes through the glass not the vibrating molecules which cause heat. In the vacuum of space full spectrum EMR produces no thermal radiation, heat. It is you who is confused or rather attempting to confuse. As for your comment about healthy green plants absorbing 90% of visible wavelengths, this is yet another stab in the dark generalisation. Some leaves are highly glossy/reflective and others are completely mat. It depends on the plant. Above all plants do not warm environments, they cool them, as per the urban heat island effect. Even in direct sunlight the top canopy of leaves on any plants will be much cooler than bare earth, and that is my point. So the point is, according to the bottom-up warming "greenhouse effect" hypothesis, an empty greenhouse should be considerably warmer than a full one, as attested to by the urban heat island effect, but this is not the case. With regards to false analogies, try implementing cap and trade without using the words "greenhouse gas emissions".
  10. Will, your experiment that you describe on your web site is not novel. Students have been doing similar experiments for years. Maybe there is a flaw in your experimental design, or the effect you created was too small to be detectable by your temperature measuring apparatus. I've got relevant links on this comment.
  11. Phil "This is because, as has been explained to you above incoming solar radiation does not match the vibrational frequencies of the IR active vibrations - in visible light is too high a frequency for any molecular vibrations. Electron transitions do occur due to UV light, but the atmosphere is largely transparent to visible light. You have contradicted yourself here.
  12. Will, you are incorrect. Thermal radiation is not vibrating matter, because "radiation" is not vibrating matter, it is instead electromagnetic energy. Use the internet to search for definitions of "thermal radiation." An example is a definition by the University of California San Diego Center for Astrophysics and Space Sciences.
  13. Tom Why don't you try it for yourself. The point is not to take my word for it. Its a simple test and yes children have done it and achieved the same results as I do.
  14. #34: "Above all plants do not warm environments, they cool them" And here in plain English is why: Plants give off water through tiny pores in their leaves, a process called evapotranspiration that cools the plant, just as perspiration cools our bodies. On a hot day, a tree can release tens of gallons of water into the air, acting as a natural air conditioner for its surroundings. And that's why plants cool their surrroundings, which has nothing to do with UHI. But here is why this may be a new problem: "There is no longer any doubt that carbon dioxide decreases evaporative cooling by plants and that this decreased cooling adds to global warming," says Cao. "This effect would cause significant warming even if carbon dioxide were not a greenhouse gas." Its a double-whammy. CO2 traps heat requiring plants to do more evaporative cooling, but CO2 acts to decrease a plant's ability to cool itself.
  15. Will - in your experiment you lack the black cardboard representing the Earth. Therefore you don't have the visible light changing to IR and attempting to leave back through the air or CO2, hence your experiment isn't set up correctly, and hence your results aren't going to show anything. I'm also not certain you're going to have sufficient CO2 in your quite small sample from soda water fizz; I would try it with an empty soda bottle full of air, and another where you fill it with CO2, either from a tank or using a piece of dry ice (vented until the ice sublimates, to keep pressure the same). Otherwise the effect may be too small to show up on simple (and rather inaccurate) thermometers like the liquid crystal ones you show.
  16. Tom I should have said "caused by" vibrating matter are you happy now? The point I am making is that Ned is wrong about glass being opaque to thermal radiation because if it were, why would we need double glazing with reflective coatings?
  17. Will #36 Read it again; the first sentence refers to molecular vibrations, and visible radiation, the second to electronic absorbtion and UV (i.e non-visble) radiation. No contradiction
  18. KR You are wrong, I have conducted these experiments on multiple surfaces. The CO2 bottle contains almost pure CO2. Enough to extinguish a burning match, see here: spinonthat.com/CO2.html At the end of the last video at the bottom of the page I demonstrate how much CO2 with a burning match. Still I am impressed at how you can convince yourself of almost anything based on pure guess work. Well done to you!
  19. Just to expand a bit more on my previous post. Molecules absorb EM radiation (sometimes loosely called "light" by lazy people like me - gulp!) by three mechanisms 1. Changes to Rotational Quantum states - in the microwave and low infra-red EM region. Molecules need a permanent dipole moment to absorb radiation. (N2 for example cannot, neither can CO2) 2. Changes to Vibration (of the nuclei against each other) - in the infra-red region. The vibration needs to change the dipole moment to absorb radiation (The one vibration in N2 cannot, 3 of the 4 vibrations in CO2 can) 3. Changes to Electron orbits - in visible and UV EM region. Again a change in dipole moment is required for absorption. This will depend on the lower and upper orbit, some N2 transitions will be allowed, and these occur in the UV region
  20. #30 KR at 05:50 AM on 26 August, 2010 your half/double N2 comment really represents a red herring with respect to a conversation on the greenhouse effect. Not really. For example World Book at NASA - Venus has the following "explanation": "Most astronomers believe that Venus's high surface temperature can be explained by what is known as the greenhouse effect". Surface temperature on Venus is about 458°C and if an astronomer believes it is so high because of the greenhouse effect, he is not an astronomer at all, but a crackpot. It is a shame National Aeronautics and Space Administration of the US disseminates such nonsense. At the 1 atm level temperature of Venus is only 71°C, that is, 387°C cooler than at the surface. If you'd put the Earth at the same orbit, its average surface temperature would go as high as 66°C. The difference is only 5°C, that could be called the additional greenhouse effect due to an atmosphere almost entirely made of CO2 and covered by clouds of sulfuric acid droplets above haze of the same stuff. You get it for doubling the amount of CO2 almost 11 times relative to Earth. The rest is pressure (92 bar at the surface), this is what makes Venus so hot, not the "greenhouse effect".
  21. #34 Will at 06:50 AM on 26 August, 2010 Even in direct sunlight the top canopy of leaves on any plants will be much cooler than bare earth That's true. Not because they reflect much light, but because of evaporation of water through pores on the back of leaves called stomata. If this vapor laden air rose high enough, it would cool by adiabatic expansion releasing the latent heat eventually by phase transition, producing rain and (relatively) hot dry air which leaves the cloud and radiates this heat into space. Cooling itself this way it sinks again, ready to take up some more moisture. GHGs are very important ingredients in this process, for due to Kirchhoff's law of thermal radiation in local thermodynamic equilibrium (which holds up tu 50 km in the atmosphere) emissivity of stuff is the same as its absorptivity. That is, if a gas does not absorb thermal radiation (like nitrogen) it can't get rid of heat by radiation either.
  22. I suggest a new way of trying to start a learning dialogue with Will. Assume he is right in the findings of his backyard experiment. What, then, happens to our scientific understanding and the engineering that has been developed from that science? What do we have to unlearn about the universe due to Will's discoveries? Will, you seem very invested, psychologically, in your experiments. I wonder if you are capable of accepting constructive criticism. If not, then you are incapable of actual dialogue, and it would be worthless for anyone here to continue to engage with you. A number of posters have challenged your understanding of physics, and they have presented research that has been done with much greater rigor and care than has yours, yet you reject their findings out of hand. And then you expect them to accept your findings without question.
  23. Hmm. So we have expensive experimental setups for quantifying greenhouse response of various gases to high degree of precision being invalidated by backyard experiement with cheap thermometers. I dont think so. I think this is a common experiment but the setup is difficult so you get "prove" or "disprove" greenhouse gas theory from physical processes that dont actually have anything to do with it. I prefer this setup for eliminating other possible effects.
  24. Will @23 - "At my site you find direct reproducible experimental evidence that pure CO2 causes less warming than ordinary air." Interesting, this experiment indicates otherwise
  25. In addition to that video linked by Dappledwater, there are many more successful such experiments, Will. Look at the sample at the right side of the YouTube page after you click on Dappledwater's link. Here's an example of a child's experiment:

Prev  1  2  3  4  5  6  7  Next

Post a Comment

Political, off-topic or ad hominem comments will be deleted. Comments Policy...

You need to be logged in to post a comment. Login via the left margin or if you're new, register here.

Link to this page



The Consensus Project Website

THE ESCALATOR

(free to republish)


© Copyright 2023 John Cook
Home | Translations | About Us | Privacy | Contact Us