Hydrostatic Vs. "Gravito-Thermal": Real Physics Vs. Latter-Day Incompetence in Science

The Hockeyschtick site has another post hyping a "gravito-thermal" greenhouse effect. My response:

This is just a rehashing of Nikolov and Zeller's "Unified Climate Theory" (N&Z), only claiming the use of "dimensional analysis methodology", presumably meaning their mysterious "Eq(10)"--mysterious because it is not deemed important enough to actually reveal it here--has physical units consistent on both sides of the equation, that refer to the physical parameters involved in the problem (and not to an arbitrary amalgamation of variables--an ad hoc fitting function--without physical consistency, as N&Z did). There is still the "atmospheric thermal enhancement" (ATE) factor, the airy reference to the "Poisson formula", and the apparently absolutely precise fitting of the global mean surface temperatures of all the considered planetary bodies to one formula, that featured also in N&Z -- and no physics involved, of course, just carefree mathematical modelling (and the claim that it "deserves further investigation and possibly a theoretical interpretation"). The Moon, Mars and Triton are practically meaningless in it, however, as the fitting function is vertical (insensitive to the pressure) for such small-to-nonexistent surface pressures as these 3 bodies possess. And they say Titan wasn't even used in the regressions, so only Earth and Venus really matter in them (and see below for my caveat on Titan). I already, nearly 5 years ago, compared Earth's Standard Atmosphere to the temperature vs. pressure profile of Venus, not at one point (the planetary surface) but over the full range of Earth tropospheric pressures.

None of this present hype goes beyond, or even rises to the level of, my Venus/Earth comparison as the definitive correction of the false physics embraced by climate and atmospheric science today. None of it rises to the level of the utterly stable Standard Atmosphere, which was known to everyone before scientists turned away from it to pursue the chimaera of "runaway global warming". None of it rises to the level of understanding, gained from simply looking at the temperature and pressure profiles of all the planets, that they all have the same form: Above approximately 200 mb pressure, they all have the negative, constant vertical temperature lapse rate structure that Earth has, and which is due simply to the hydrostatic condition: that the pressure at any level in the atmosphere is just the weight of the atmosphere above that level. The Standard Atmosphere is of course based upon assuming the hydrostatic condition.

But none of the other planetary bodies compares so precisely with Earth as does Venus, where only the ratio of solar distances is needed to explain the Venus/Earth temperature ratio, at any given pressure. So the "gravito-thermal" theory glosses over (simply does not recognize) any other variables that are necessary to explain the temperatures in the other planetary bodies considered. The comparison of Earth's Standard Atmosphere with Titan, for example, as I compared Earth with Venus, shows that the near-surface temperature of Titan's atmosphere is too low, by about 7K (while near the tropopause, around 300 to 200 mb, it comes into close alignment with Earth's atmosphere, corrected only by the effect of its different solar distance); the modelling touted here, and that done by Nikolov and Zeller, can't even recognize that awkward fact, much less explain it physically--whereas the Venus/Earth comparison can, because Venus's temperatures, inside its thick cloud layer, are also too low, by about the same amount (5K), and both are probably due to the same cause: Non-gaseous particles suspended in the atmospheres (water-based clouds on Venus, particulate haze on Titan) that increase the effective specific heat of the atmosphere, in those regions where they occur.

And, of course, my definitive contribution was left out of the list presented above. No one is learning anything. The "gravito-thermal" effect is nothing but the effect of the hydrostatic condition, so far as any real physics is concerned.

No Consensus (or Too Many Chiefs)

Bob Tisdale has a post (also posted on the wuwt site) showing "no consensus on Earth's top-of-atmosphere energy imbalance" among the models touted by climate scientists. These kinds of critical analysis are pretty dense (detailed), especially for laypersons, and I have much better, simpler evidence to offer, so I responded:

Consensus climate science is so bad, it should come as no surprise to learn that a much simpler (and definitive) indictment of it can be made, just from the figure 1 above (Trenberth’s “global earth energy budget”). Concerning that figure, I wrote back in October 2010:

“It all looks straightforward enough, but then when you look closely you see something strange, off on the right side: The radiation coming off the surface is huge, and there is an almost equally huge ‘back radiation’ from the atmosphere to the surface. To a physicist–or at least to this physicist–that strange, gigantic loop of energy between the atmosphere and the surface appears unphysical, out of all proportion to the rest of the diagram.

“And we don’t have to get into detailed physical theory or wordy explanations to pin down what’s wrong with it: The power coming off the surface (the number 390) is larger than the incident power from the Sun (342). (The power shown as ‘back radiated’ by the atmosphere is about as large as that from the Sun, too.)

“Just that one fact is enough for me to see that the ‘climate science’ of the U.N. and the consensus of (so we are told) 97% of all climate scientists–is absurd. No part of the ‘global energy budget’ can be greater than the incident energy. Either their numbers are wrong, or the model being illustrated is wrong. Period, full stop. You don’t have to know, or explain to the world, what is really going on, or why there has been recent ‘global warming’. Just know their explanation is nonsense, basic physics absolutely and undeniably forbids it. Everything else you read is either other scientists trying to show they know what is really going on (which obviously no one does at this point, entirely), or scientists or their followers trying to defend the indefensible, with complex, technical and always wrong-headed arguments.

“Of course, that unphysical loop of excess energy is just what they are calling the ‘greenhouse effect’. And it is garbage, and all the scientists who deny that, or refuse to see it for what it is, should be drummed out of science, or at least be required to undergo re-education. Because they are worse than first-year students, who are generally at least open to learning the hard truth.”

A little later, I realized the 390 W/m^2 supposed to be coming off the Earth’s surface was just that expected from a blackbody at the same temperature (288K), and then learned that the proponents of the radiation transfer theory (behind all those numbers in the “energy budget” diagrams and in discussions of “TOA radiation imbalance”) actually believe and teach, in their theory, that the Earth’s surface radiates like a blackbody poised in a vacuum. At this point, an honest and competent physicist can only recoil in horror, as if at a monstrous snake on one’s doorstep, and demand it be killed forthwith. And that’s where I stand, ever since. Trenberth is a miseducated idiot. All climate scientists are miseducated idiots, for not seeing that lie, of a huge loop of energy between atmosphere and ground, greater than that coming from the Sun, and expecting to get away with presenting it seriously to the world.

…and then I found the “skeptics” didn’t see it either, or pretended not to, because they never speak of it, that obviously ridiculous incompetence at the very heart of the consensus case.

And that (plus my Venus/Earth temperature vs. pressure comparison) is why I always say, there is no valid climate science, and no competent climate scientists.