In the frame of physics, a “greenhouse effect” as such, can only be used to describe a mechanism by which heat accumulates in an isolated pocket of gas that is unable to mix with the main body of gas. The elimination of convection within the troposphere by stratification, and the consequent temperature rise at the surface, presents us with a natural, if not hypothetical, example of a “greenhouse mechanism” in the frame of physics. Pseudoscience, popular misconception and political misuse of the term “greenhouse effect” have given it quite a different and unrelated meaning.
Since its original proposition by Arrhenius, the definition of the “Greenhouse Effect” has been chaotic and, as such, has successfully obfuscated the weakest and most important part of that proposition. Namely, that terrestrial heat radiated into the atmosphere is there absorbed and re-emitted back to earth to raise surface temperatures beyond what is possible from the incident radiation alone. In fact the physics, as we have examined them, only allow compositional changes to redistribute heat within the absorbing mass of the earth if no change in mean incident radiation occurs. This predicts that atmospheric warming due to increased opacity can only result in surface cooling, which effectively does no more than alter the thermal gradient, thereby redistributing the heat without adding or subtracting from it. This was confirmed by observations of surface cooling during eruptions that ejected ash and carbon dioxide into the stratosphere (Angell & Korshover, 1985) and by observations of stratospheric warming as a consequence of these same eruptions (Angell, 1997). The “Greenhouse Effect” would predict that backradiation from this warmer stratosphere would instead warm the surface significantly. Evidently, this did not occur. If the power recycling mechanisms that typify the “Greenhouse Effect” really existed, we could build cars that ran on nothing but their own recycled momentum and free energy machines could be built to create energy out of nothing more than spent energy. With a viable “Greenhouse Effect” a windscreen would not need a demister as the heat back-radiated by the glass would prevent ice and water drops from condensing and double-glazed windows filled with carbon dioxide would be self heating. In reality, heat flows and is conducted via two modes of heat transfer. One mode of heat flow is by contact transfer, and the other is by radiative transfer. By taking the radiative transfer part of conductive transfer and adding it to the total amount of conductive transfer between the surface of the earth and the atmosphere, Arrhenius (1896) duplicated a portion of the existing heat pro rata to the degree of absorption by carbon dioxide when, in fact, this portion of radiative transfer is already included in the conductive transfer figure.
In the real physics of thermodynamics, the measurable thermodynamic properties of common atmospheric gases predict little if any influence on temperature by carbon dioxide concentration and this prediction is confirmed by the inconsistency of temperature and carbon dioxide concentrations in the geological record. Moreover, when the backradiation “Greenhouse Effect” hypothesis of Arrhenius is put to a real, physical, material test, such as the Wood Experiment, there is no sign of it because the “Greenhouse Effect” simply does not exist. This is why the “Greenhouse Effect” is excluded from modern physics textbooks and why Arrhenius’ theory of ice ages was so politely forgotten. It is exclusively the “Greenhouse Effect” due to carbon dioxide produced by industry that is used to underpin the claim that humans are changing the climate and causing global warming. However, without the “Greenhouse Effect”, how can anyone honestly describe global warming as “anthropogenic”?
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