The Effect of a Colder Solid’s Thermal Radiation on a Warmer Solid Exposed to Sunlight
18 hours ago Guest Blogger 158 Comments
experiments performed July 10th 2024
by Dale Cloudman
Abstract
It is experimentally shown that the thermal radiation from a transparent, colder solid has the capacity to influence a solid warmer than it to become even warmer, under the right circumstances. This dispels the critique of the greenhouse effect that, as heat only flows from hot to cold, the effect is thermodynamically impossible. Even so, significant portions of the theory of the greenhouse effect remain experimentally unproven, signaling caution rather than uncritical acceptance of the theory.
Introduction
A long-running debate about the physical reality of the greenhouse effect centers around whether the thermal radiation from the colder atmosphere can possibly have a warming effect on the warmer Earth’s surface. The argument goes as follows: as heat only flows from hot to cold, the radiation emitted by a colder object cannot possibly cause a warmer object to become warmer. It might have a reduced cooling effect, but under no circumstances can it result in a warming effect.
The most salient features of such debates are that neither side provides experimental evidence in their defense, and that the debates frequently devolve into heated arguments, which is generally an indicator that solid arguments are lacking. As genuine scientific knowledge is acquired via experimentation performed in physical reality, and not theory or “experiments” (sic!) consisting of computer simulations, I sought to settle the debate once and for all with a properly-performed experiment.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2024/07/31/the-effect-of-a-colder-solids-thermal-radiation-on-a-warmer-solid-exposed-to-sunlight/