In the 2013 article titled “The Shattered Greenhouse: How Simple Physics Demolishes the ‘Greenhouse Effect'” consulting geologist Timothy Casey “explores the ‘Greenhouse Effect’ in contemporary literature and in the frame of physics, finding a conspicuous lack of clear thermodynamic definition.”
The rest of the abstract reads:
“The ‘Greenhouse Effect’ is defined by Arrhenius’ (1896) modification of Pouillet’s backradiation idea so that instead of being an explanation of how a thermal gradient is maintained at thermal equilibrium, Arrhenius’ incarnation of the backradiation hypothesis offered an extra source of power in addition to the thermally conducted heat which produces the thermal gradient in the material. The general idea as expressed in contemporary literature, though seemingly chaotic in its diversity of emphasis, shows little change since its revision by Svante Arrhenius in 1896, and subsequent refutation by Robert Wood in 1909. The ‘Greenhouse Effect’ is presented as a radiation trap whereby changes in atmospheric composition resulting in increased absorption lead to increased surface temperatures. However, since the composition of a body, isolated from thermal contact by a vacuum, cannot affect mean body temperature, the ‘Greenhouse Effect’ has, in fact, no material foundation. Compositional variation can change the distribution of heat within a body in accordance with Fourier’s Law, but it cannot change the overall temperature of the body. Arrhenius’ Backradiation mechanism did, in fact, duplicate the radiative heat transfer component by adding this component to the conductive heat flow between the earth’s surface and the atmosphere, when thermal conduction includes both contact and radiative modes of heat transfer between bodies in thermal contact. Moreover, the temperature of the earth’s surface and the temperature in a greenhouse are adequately explained by elementary physics. Consequently, the dubious explanation presented by the ‘Greenhouse Effect’ hypothesis is an unnecessary complication. Furthermore, this hypothesis has neither direct experimental confirmation nor direct empirical evidence of a material nature. Thus the notion of ‘Anthropogenic Global Warming’, which rests on the ‘Greenhouse Effect’, also has no real foundation.”
The rest of the paper will be dealt with in other pieces.