The

Greenhouse Delusion

So called greenhouse gases have nothing to do with greenhouses.
Taken by Storm, at page 129.

Carbon dioxide from fossil fuels is only a minute portion of
the atmosphere – almost zero; global warming cannot
possibly be traced to it. Such a tiny amount of gas cannot
produce such large effects!

Most public discussion of global warming in the past few years
has been built on incoherent cliches and misleading
metaphors. Here’s an example from a 2002 Environment
Canada website. Under the heading “The Earth is a
Greenhouse” we read: “ As you know greenhouses use
glass to keep the heat in. And just as the glass in a
greenhouse holds the sun’s warmth inside, so the
atmosphere traps the sun’s heat near the Earth’s
surface.” …..Official or not, it is bunk that only serves
to confuse the public and reinforce the Doctrine of
Certainty.i [emphasis added].

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FAKE NASA DIAGRAM – IMPOSSIBLE CO2 TOO MINUTE

How is Earth a greenhouse?

Earth's atmosphere does the same thing as the [glass] greenhouse.

Gases in the atmosphere such as carbon dioxide do what the roof of
a greenhouse does. During the day, the Sun shines through the
atmosphere. Earth's surface warms up in the sunlight. At night,
Earth's surface cools, releasing the heat back into the air. But some
of the heat is trapped by the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.
That's what keeps our Earth a warm and cozy 59 degrees
Fahrenheit, on average..ii

But all the greenhouse gases only < 4% of the atmosphere and water
vapor is 95%. Physically, there isn’t even one panel in the above
diagram that would act like a glass panel of a real greenhouse.



GREENHOUSE GASES COMPOSITION

Here is a key graph of all Greenhouse gases that shows detailed

percentages of where the source of C02 in the atmosphere and human
emissions are miniscule at only 0.117%. Human activities contribute
slightly to greenhouse gas concentrations through farming,
manufacturing, power generation, and transportation.
However, these emissions are so dwarfed in comparison to emissions
from other natural sources it is foolish to think humans make any
difference. Even the most costly efforts to limit human Co2 emissions

2
if they succeeded would have a very small-- undetectable-- effect on
global climate.

http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossil...

It may be a little hard to picture just how minute the fossil fuel emissions across the
globe are. Please take 3 minutes to view this helpful Australian Rice video that
helped Australia’s public decide to axe the futile carbon tax.

AXE THE TAX AUSTRALIA THE RICE VIDEO 85880 32 CO2 1 HUMAN CO2

It is hard to imagine, but essential to realize they have no effect on the climate, just
how small the Co2 emissions from fossil fuels are. Co2 so small drawn to scale it is
invisible.

3



Law is a defiantly human field based on words because humans are
complex, unpredictable and uncontrollable much like the climate.
Science is different theories are developed with precise symbols
numbers, and formulae from data, models and derivatives. Yet, climate
science today is under the sway of word metaphors like greenhouse
which are central to justify an alarmist fear of unprecedented global
warming. The fear of being trapped in an ever hotter global
greenhouse grips the media and politicians who play on public anxiety
and concern. Greenhouse is not a precise word. There are different
meanings and you need to know the context. The most common
meaning is a physical structure using glass panels to control and protect
the environment for growing plants. The word is also used as the rubric
to describes a handful of invisible gases in the atmosphere called

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greenhouse gases (there is no synonym for greenhouse) including water
vapor, Co2 and methane.

This paper addresses the issue is greenhouse a misleading word, a bad
metaphor and a delusion claiming that Co2 from human emissions have
a major effect on the climate? Is the claim of heat forcing or back
radiation from the greenhouse effect false?

The justification to call out Canada’s erroneous website greenhouse
explanation as ‘bunk” begins with the fact the earth’s atmosphere is
an open, uncontrolled environment unlike a physical greenhouse.
There is nothing like glass panels trapping sunlight and heat unless
you believe in magic. The magic of alarmist climate scientists is to
resurrect a disproven hypothesis of the 1800s that greenhouse gases,
(GHG) water vapour in particular acts like glass panel or blanket and
keeps the heat from escaping especially at night.

Remember for every complex problem there is a simple answer and it

is wrong. NASA’s greenhouse gas story aimed at kids is simple and
wrong – yes it is bunk. The best way to see the error is NASA’s
education brief on the subject.

Greenhouse Gas
Climate Science Is
Broken Beyond Repair
Published on July 30, 2018
Written by Hans Schreuder

5
In earlier centuries, science had a positive influence on society in
developing social awareness around objectivity and rationality.
It replaced the witchcraft and hocus pocus of charlatans with
evaluation of objective evidence as the means of determining truth.
But now, science is leading the pack for charlatanism and witchcraft,
as junk science is acquiring a greater legitimacy than the charlatans
ever had.
Wherever there is corruption in science the most important,
underlying facts are contrived, while science is applied to more
superficial elements of the subject. Omitting the science where it is
most relevant isn’t an error, it is fraud. That’s why the word fraud
must be used in describing the major corruptions of science.
Nowadays, science bureaucrats require that every detail of research
be described in grant proposals; and in the laboratory, the
researchers can do nothing but fill in the blanks with numbers. The
claim is that doing otherwise would be defrauding the public. So the
research has to be done at a desk instead of the laboratory.
Science bureaucrats are not politicians. They are scientists who put
themselves in competition with the scientists in the laboratories. The
editors and reviewers of science journals do the same. The result is
that the laboratory scientists are dominated by office scientists who
dictate how their work will be designed and reported.
Madness has taken over the western world, an insanity that
demands we destroy ourselves over the ludicrous claim that a tiny

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increase of a trace gas (carbon dioxide) has endangered the world
due to an even more ludicrous “atmospheric greenhouse effect“.
Let me therefore conclude my “I Love My Carbon Dioxide” mission
by stating the following, which is in the tradition of proper science,
not radiative forcing’s greenhouse effect pseudo-science:
1.
The settled science that a greenhouse warms up due to re-radiated
light (energy), as set out by Fourier (1824), Tyndall (1861), Arrhenius
(1896), NASA (2008), et al., is false.
2.
Considering, therefore, that even inside an actual greenhouse with a
barrier of solid glass no such phenomenon as a greenhouse effect
occurs, most certainly there can be no greenhouse effect in our
turbulent atmosphere.
Energy can not be created from nothing, not even by means of re-
radiated infra red. Widely accepted theory has it that more energy is
re-radiated to earth than comes from the sun in the first place,
amounting to almost an extra two suns. All materials above zero
Kelvin radiate energy, yes, but energy does not flow from a cold
body to a warm one and cause its temperature to rise.
A block of ice in a room does not cause the room to warm up,
despite the block of ice radiating its energy into the room.
Yet carbon dioxide’s re-radiation of infrared energy warming up
planet earth is the preposterous theory hailed by not only the
alarmists, but accepted and elaborated by most skeptics as well,
with mathematical theorems that do little more than calculate the
number of fairies that can dance on a pinhead.
The accepted carbon dioxide greenhouse theory is thus declared
a complete and total scam, as more fully detailed in these papers,
amongst many (and I salute all scientists who agree with these
papers and will gladly publicise all papers on this subject) :
“Falsification Of The Atmospheric CO2 Greenhouse Effects Within
The Frame Of Physics” https://tech-know-
group.com/archives/Falsification_of_the_Atmospheric_CO2_Greenh
ouse_Effects.pdf
and
“Greenhouse Gas Hypothesis Violates Fundamentals of Physics”
https://ilovemycarbondioxide.com/archives/Greenhouse_Gas_Hypot

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hesis_Violates_Fundamentals_of_Physics2.pdf
Hans Schreuder
Ipswich, UK
www.ilovemycarbondioxide.com/FAQ.html
www.ilovemycarbondioxide.com/carbondioxide.html
“Really new trails are rarely blazed in the great academies. The
confining walls of conformist dogma are too dominating. To think
originally, you must go forth into the wilderness.” S. Warren Carey

Hans Schreuder is co-founder of PRINCIPIA SCIENTIFIC

INTERNATIONAL, legally registered in the UK as a company
incorporated for charitable purposes. Head Office: 27 Old Gloucester
Street, London WC1N 3AX. Telephone: Calls from within the UK: 020
7419 5027. International dialling: (44) 20 7419 5027.

Related
Betrayers of Truth: Fraud and Deceit in the Halls of Science
October 8, 2016
Michael Mann & Lawyer Exposed in Climate Court Case
September 26, 2014
Science Misconduct Skyrockets as Governments and Media Look
Away
December 8, 2012
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Comments (2)

8
 JAMES MATKIN 

Yes. This is an excellent article
because the greenhouse effect hypothesis is a delusion and a very
bad metaphor that has distorted science from the beginning. R.W.
Wood dumped the hypothesis in the dustbin of history in 1905.
Wood used physical lab experiments (not just ‘thought experiments’)
and concluded – “To argue that an open gaseous atmosphere
confines in the way that the top and sides of a greenhouse enclosure
does is not valid. To the contrary, a gaseous atmosphere is
conducive to the convective cooling that occurs in the absence of an
enclosure. It could be argued that CO2 along with the other gaseous
components of the atmosphere in fact helps to cool the Earth’s
surface.” The revival in the late nineteen hundreds without physical
experiments was double false as the original theory dumped by
Wood only applied to the major GHG water vapor not the minuscule
Co2 GHG.

https://principia-scientific.org/greenhouse-gas-climate-science-is-
broken-beyond-repair/

Note: “

2.6 Glass house summary

“It is not the “trapped” infrared radiation, which explains the warming
phenomenon in a real greenhouse, it is the suppression of air cooling.”

https://arxiv.org/pdf/0707.1161v4.pdf at 34 Gerhard Gerlich and Ralf D.

Tscheuschner

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 Human CO2 only 0.01% of atmosphere
Through the burning of fossil fuels, humans are also responsible for
having boosted atmospheric CO2 emissions from some 300 ppm to
400 parts per million, which translates into a difference of 0.01% of
the atmosphere. So what do the alarmists conclude from this:

“0.01% of the world’s biomass and 0.o1% of the atmosphere

are today almost solely responsible for climate changes.

The sun, oceans, volcanoes and other poorly understood major

varying factors are ignored. Does all that sound plausible?

Yeah right, and the price of tea in China drives the global economy.”
By P. Gosselin May 26, 2018
http://notrickszone.com/2018/05/...

Uncertainty from natural sources of Co2 dwarf human
emissions

The media and politicians attacking fossil fuels invariably ignore the
fact human sources of greenhouse gases are dwarfed by larger natural
sources. Also because natural sources of Co2 from vegetation, land ,
volcanoes and the ocean are very large statistics that are very
uncertain sources. This means the human emission could well be an
even smaller percentage.

It is essential to understand the complexity of measuring human

made Co2 emissions and to realize at a detail level the trace amounts
are indistinguishable from natural sources of co2. The atmosphere
contains approximately 800 Gt of Co2 with 95% coming from natural
sources of vegetation, land and ocean and 4% form human fossil fuel
emissions. Here is a vital graph sourced from the IPCC and it is only
an a rough estimate and far from accurate -

10
The amounts are measured in Gt and obviously they are just
estimates. There is no actual observation of the three primary
different sources of Co2. Numbers are simply statistical estimates
from data. This is a significant problem for the alarmist theory of
human caused global warming.
“For example, until recently estimates of the carbon dioxide yield of
one of the world’s best known land volcanoes, Kilauea Volcano
(Hawaii), was 2,800 tonnes/Co2/day. In 2001, Gerlach and co-
authors established by measurement a more accurate figure of
8,800 tonnes/day. which is over three times as great. If such
uncertainty attends to well-studied subaerial volcanoes, the
estimates of carbon dioxide emissions from submarine volcanoes,
the majority, are obviously little better than guesses.” Robert M.
Carter, CLIMATE: THE COUNTER CONSENSUS.

11
NO DOUBT THE 2001 ESTIMATE IS WRONG AFTER RECENT HAWAII
VOLCANIC EXPLOSIONS

Kilauea is one of the most active volcanoes on earth and has been in a
state of constant eruption since 1983, turning explosive this month
after a magnitude 6.9 volcano rocked the area.
So far, at least 47 homes and other structures have been destroyed by
lava from 23 open fissures, forcing thousands from their homes.

This means the human contributions in context are not well

understood because no one, including the IPCC, can satisfactorily
account for the observed levels in detail. There is no doubt carbon
dioxide sources and sinks have large DATA ERRORS. Even with
guesses the IPCC admits man’s carbon dioxide contribution is small,
but the IPCC argues that, nonetheless, anthropogenic emissions will
‘tip’ the natural balance of the planet causing dangerous climate
change and acidification of the ocean.
One expert climatologist Tim Ball estimates that human production
of carbon dioxide is more than four times less than the combined
statistical error (32Gt) on the estimated carbon dioxide production
from all other sources. IBID, page 74 at follows is that even were
human emissions to be reduced to zero, the difference would be lost
among other uncertainties to the global carbon budget. What is
presently missing from the public debate, then - and it is not

12
provided by computer model outputs, either - is an appreciation of
both the small scale (in context) of human emissions, and the range
of uncertainty in the carbon budget.”

TAKEN BY STORM, page 75

This means that human emissions are no more

than the statistical error of the estimates.

COMMERCIAL GREENHOUSES

"C02 is not a pollutant as Gore infers. It is, in fact essential

to life on the planet. Without it there are no plants,
therefore no oxygen and no life. At 385 ppm current levels
the plants are undernourished. The geologic evidence
shows an average level of 1000 ppm over 600 million
years. Research shows plants function most efficiently at
1000-2000 ppm. Commercial greenhouses use the
information and are pumping C02 to these levels and
achieve four times the yield with educed water use. At 200
ppm, the plants suffer seriously and at 150 ppm, they begin
to die. So if Gore achieves his goal of reducing C02 he will
destroy the planet."

- Tim F. Ball, Ph.D. Climatology

http://www.populartechnology.net...

Co2 Toxicity
CO2 levels elevated to more than eight times the current average
ambient outdoor level of 407 ppmv (0.04%) are harmless to humans
and animals. NASA kept the atmosphere in the Space Shuttle at
about 5000 ppmv (0.5%) CO2. The air in the International Space
Station is kept at about 4 mm Hg = 5400 ppmv (0.54%) CO2,
though one study recommends that they lower that to 2.5 mm Hg
= 3300 ppmv. CO2 levels in submarines are often even higher.

But it has long been known that elevated CO2 levels are highly
beneficial to plants. That's why most commercial greenhouses
use CO2 generators to keep CO2 at 3x to 4x ambient levels, at

13
significant expense. That's an increase 8 to 12 times as great as the
~100 ppmv increase which ⅔ century of heavy fossil fuel use has
caused in outdoor levels. Greenhouse operators spend the money to
keep CO2 levels that high because doing so dramatically
improves the growth of most plants.

Carbon dioxide (CO2) is one of the inputs of photosynthesis and as

such CO2plays an important role in increasing crop productivity
(Hand 1993, Rijkdjik and Houter 1993). Optimal CO2 concentrations
for the greenhouse atmosphere fall with the range of between 700 to
900 ppm (parts per million) (Romero-Aranda et al 1995, Tremblay
and Gosselin 1998). Crop productivity depends not only on efficiency
of interception of light but also on the efficiency with which light is
converted to chemical energy in photosynthesis. Carbon dioxide
enrichment to 1200 ppm increases the maximum
conversion efficiency by a substantial amount (between 28
to 59%) (Wilson et al 1992). Photosynthetic efficiencies appear never
to exceed about 22 % of the absorbed light energy in the 400 to 700
nm range, the maximum efficiency is obtained at relative low light
intensities, not in brightest sunlight (Salisbury and Ross 1978).
Considering the supply of light to available land area on which a crop
is growing, the overall yield efficiencies are always much below 22%
(Salisbury and Ross 1978).

The use of CO2 in greenhouses can give light use efficiencies

exceeding those of field crops (Wilson et al 1992). Glasshouse crops
with CO2 enrichment achieve maximum efficiency of light energy
utilization between 12-13% (Wilson et al 1992). The ability of plants to
utilize CO2 is dependent upon the presence of light, for this reason it
is only useful to supplement CO2during the daylight hours (Styer and
Koranski 1997).
http://www1.agric.gov.ab.ca/$dep...

Seeing is Believing

289,504 views

co2science
Published on 9 Apr 2010

14
Isolated for 42 days in chambers of ambient and elevated CO2
concentrations, we periodically document the growth of cowpea
plants (Vigna unguiculata) via time-lapse photography.

Submarine crew are reported to be the major source of CO2 on board

submarines (Crawl 2003). Data collected on nine nuclear-powered
ballistic missile submarines indicate an average CO2 concentration of
3,500 ppm with a range of 0-10,600 ppm, and data collected on 10
nuclear-powered attack submarines indicate an average CO2
concentration of 4,100 ppm with a range of 300-11,300 ppm (Hagar
2003).

Thus, CO2 at 40,000 ppm for 2 weeks did not affect

performance on multiple tests of cognitive function in
physically fit young airmen, a population probably not
unlike submariners.

https://www.quora.com/At-what-CO...

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ternational Journal of Modern Physics BVol. 23, No. 03, pp. 275-364 (2009)Review PaperNo
Access
FALSIFICATION OF THE
ATMOSPHERIC CO2GREENHOUSE EFFECTS WITHIN
THE FRAME OF PHYSICS
GERHARD GERLICH
and
RALF D. TSCHEUSCHNER
https://doi.org/10.1142/S021797920904984XCited by:12

Abstract
The atmospheric greenhouse effect, an idea that many authors trace back to the
traditional works of Fourier (1824), Tyndall (1861), and Arrhenius (1896), and
which is still supported in global climatology, essentially describes a fictitious
mechanism, in which a planetary atmosphere acts as a heat pump driven by an
environment that is radiatively interacting with but radiatively equilibrated
to the atmospheric system. According to the second law of thermodynamics,
such a planetary machine can never exist. Nevertheless, in almost all texts of
global climatology and in a widespread secondary literature, it is taken for
granted that such a mechanism is real and stands on a firm scientific
foundation. In this paper, the popular conjecture is analyzed and the underlying
physical principles are clarified. By showing that (a) there are no common
physical laws between the warming phenomenon in glass houses and the
fictitious atmospheric greenhouse effects, (b) there are no calculations to
determine an average surface temperature of a planet, (c) the frequently
mentioned difference of 33° is a meaningless number calculated wrongly, (d)
the formulas of cavity radiation are used inappropriately, (e) the assumption of
a radiative balance is unphysical, (f) thermal conductivity and friction must not
be set to zero, the atmospheric greenhouse conjecture is falsified.

16
Electronic version of an article published as International Journal of Modern
Physics B, Vol. 23, No. 3 (2009) 275–364, DOI No:
10.1142/S021797920904984X, ⃝c World Scientific Publishing Company,
http://www.worldscinet.com/ijmpb.

https://www.worldscientific.com/doi/abs/10.1142/S0217979209049
84X

1.2 The greenhouse effect hypothesis

Many authors assume that carbon dioxide emissions from fossil-fuel
consumption represent a serious danger to the health of our planet, since
they are supposed to influence the climates, in particular the average
temperatures of the surface and lower atmosphere of the Earth. However,
carbon dioxide is a rare trace gas, a very small part of the atmosphere found
in concentrations as low as 0, 03 Vol % (cf. Tables 1 and 2, …

Among climatologists, in particular those who are affiliated with the

Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change (IPCC), there is a scientific
consensus that the relevantmechanism is the atmospheric greenhouse effect,
a mechanism heavily relying on the assumption that radiative heat transfer
clearly dominates over the other forms of heat transfer such as thermal
conductivity, convection, condensation et cetera [23–30].

In all past IPCC reports and other such scientific summaries the following
point evocated in Ref. [24], p. 5, is central to the discussion:

“One of the most important factors is the greenhouse effect; a simplified ex-
planation of which is as follows. Short-wave solar radiation can pass through
the clear atmosphere relatively unimpeded. But long-wave terrestrial
radiation emit- ted by the warm surface of the Earth is partially absorbed and
then re-emitted by a number of trace gases in the cooler atmosphere above.
Since, on average, the outgoing long-wave radiation balances the incoming
solar radiation, both the atmosphere and the surface will be warmer than
they would be without the green- house gases . . . The greenhouse effect is
real; it is a well understood effect, based on established scientific
principles.”

17
To make things more precise, supposedly, the notion of radiative forcing
was introduced by the IPCC and related to the assumption of radiative
equilibrium. In Ref. [27], pp. 7-6, one finds the statement:

“A change in average net radiation at the top of the troposphere (known as

the tropopause), because of a change in either solar or infrared radiation, is
defined for the purpose of this report as a radiative forcing. A radiative
forcing perturbs the balance between incoming and outgoing radiation. Over
time climate responds to the perturbation to re-establish the radiative
balance. A positive radiative forcing tends on average to warm the surface; a
negative radiative forcing on average tends to cool the surface. As defined
here, the incoming solar radiation is not considered a radiative forcing, but a
change in the amount of incoming solar radiation would be a radiative
forcing . . . For infrared radiation and a positive radiative forcing.”

However, in general “scientific consensus” is not related whatsoever to

scientific truth as countless examples in history have shown. “Consensus” is
a political term, not a scientific term. In particular, from the viewpoint of
theoretical physics the radiative approach, which uses physical laws such as
Planck’s law and Stefan-Boltzmann’s law that only have a limited range of
validity that definitely does not cover the atmospheric problem, must be
highly questioned…

Global climatologists claim that the Earth’s natural greenhouse effect

keeps the Earth 33 degrees of the warming is attributed to water vapor and
20 persent to the 0.03 volume present as involving concentrated CO2 as a
thermal conductivity anomaly. It would manifest itself as new kind of ‘
superinsulation’ violating the conventional heat conductive equation.
However , for CO2 such anomaloua heat transport properties never have
been observed.

Therefore, in this paper, the popular greenhouse ideas entertained by the

global climatology community are reconsidered within the limits of
theoretical and experimental physics…For years, the warming mechanism in
real greenhouses, paraphrased as “the greenhouse effect”, has been
commonly misused to explain the conjectured atmospheric greenhouse
effect. In school books, in popular scientific articles, and even in high-level
scientific debates, it has been stated that the mechanism observed within a
glass house bears some similarity to the anthropogenic global warming.
Meanwhile, even mainstream climatologists admit that the warming

18
mechanism in real glass houses has to be distinguished strictly from the
claimed Co2 greenhouse effect…

2.5 Experiment by Wood

THERE appears to be a widespread belief that the comparatively high
temperature produced within a closed space covered with glass, and exposed to
solar radiation, results from a transformation of wave-length, that is, that the
heat waves from the sun, which are able to penetrate the glass, fall upon the
walls of the enclosure and raise its temperature: the heat energy is re-emitted
by the walls in the form of much longer waves, which are unable to penetrate
the glass, the greenhouse acting as a radiation trap.

I have always felt some doubt as to whether this action played any very large
part in the elevation of temperature. It appeared much more probable that the
part played by the glass was the prevention of the escape of the warm air
heated by the ground within the enclosure. If we open the doors of a greenhouse
on a cold and windy day, the trapping of radiation appears to lose much of its
efficacy. As a matter of fact I am of the opinion that a greenhouse made of a
glass transparent to waves of every possible length would show a temperature
nearly, if not quite, as high as that observed in a glass house. The transparent
screen allows the solar radiation to warm the ground, and the ground in turn
warms the air, but only the limited amount within the enclosure. In the “open,”
the ground is continually brought into contact with cold air by convection
currents.

To test the matter I constructed two enclosures of dead black cardboard, one
covered with a glass plate, the other with a plate of rock-salt of equal thickness.
The bulb of a thermometer was inserted in each enclosure and the whole packed
in cotton, with the exception of the transparent plates which were exposed.
When exposed to sunlight the temperature rose gradually to 65oC., the enclosure
covered with the salt plate keeping a little ahead of the other, owing to the fact
that it transmitted the longer waves from the sun, which were stopped by the
glass. In order to eliminate this action the sunlight was first passed through a
glass plate.

There was now scarcely a difference of one degree between the temperatures of
the two enclosures. The maximum temperature reached was about 55oC. From
what we know about the distribution of energy in the spectrum of the radiation
emitted by a body at 55oC., it is clear that the rock-salt plate is capable of
transmitting practically all of it, while the glass plate stops it entirely. This
shows us that the loss of temperature of the ground by radiation is very small in

19
comparison to the loss by convection, in other words that we gain very little
from the circumstance that the radiation is trapped.

Is it therefore necessary to pay attention to trapped radiation in deducing the

temperature of a planet as affected by its atmosphere? The solar rays penetrate
the atmosphere, warm the ground which in turn warms the atmosphere by
contact and by convection currents. The heat received is thus stored up in the
atmosphere, remaining there on account of the very low radiating power of a
gas. It seems to me very doubtful if the atmosphere is warmed to any great
extent by absorbing the radiation from the ground, even under the most
favourable conditions.

I do not pretend to have gone very deeply into the matter, and publish this note
merely to draw attention to the fact that trapped radiation appears to play but
a very small part in the actual cases with which we are familiar.

THE FAMOUS WOOD’S

EXPERIMENT FULLY EXPLAINED
Published on June 25, 2012

Written by Alberto Miatello

(Why Wood and Nahle were correct and Pratt was in error.)

Introduction

The famous experiment by Robert W. Wood, at John Hopkins

University, with two carton boxes/greenhouses, in 1909, is being
mentioned everywhere, and on many websites,* as simple
experimental evidence proving the fallacy of the greenhouse gas
effect theory (GHE).

20
According to the GHE theory, the small greenhouse with a glass
cover had to reach a temperature of nearly 15°C higher than the
other small greenhouse with a salt rock (halite) ceiling. This is
because salt rock is a material which is “neutral” to infra-red, while
glass can theoretically “trap” almost 80-85% of infra-red outgoing
from the heated bottom of the greenhouse, and significantly increase
the temperature, by “backradiating” the infrared (IR) waves.

Nothing of that took place, and both greenhouses showed almost

the same temperatures inside, with a discrepancy of “scarcely one
degree”. For years this experiment was sufficient to dispel giving any
scientific ground to the greenhouse gas effect theory. But several
decades later, many GHE advocates “forgot” this experiment.

One hundred years on, in 2009, Professor Vaughan Pratt of Stanford

University (Palo Alto, California) tried to replicate the Woods
experiment using more modern materials (plastic plates and foils,
along with the “old” glass plates).** Pratt came to the conclusion that
Wood’s experiment was in error, because according to Pratt’s
surveys the glass and acrylic greenhouses showed temperatures
15°C and 20° C higher than the one inside the other small
greenhouse with a thin polyethylene film cover.

Thereafter, in 2011, Professor Nasif Nahle of Monterrey, Mexico

performed his own very accurate repeat experiment using four small
greenhouses under strict peer-reviewed control.*** Nahle came to
the conclusion that Wood’s experiment was totally correct. Nahle’s
findings were that in the three small greenhouses having covers of
different materials (glass and plastic polymers) and upon one hour of
solar exposure, the temperature differences were scarcely in the
range of 1° to 1.5° C (as in the Wood’s experiment a century before).
Nahle saw that the other “holed” greenhouse – more exposed to
cooling convection and environment temperature – showed a lower
temperature. This was compelling proof that a greenhouse is heated
merely by the blocking of air convection with the outside
environment and not by any specious mechanism(s) such as

21
“backradiation” or the “trapping” of longwave outgoing infra-red
radiations.

https://principia-scientific.org/the-famous-wood-s-experiment-fully-
explained/

3 Chemists Conclude CO2 Greenhouse Effect Is ‘Unreal’, Violates Laws

Of Physics, Thermodynamics

By Kenneth Richard on 1. June 2017

Share this...

New Paper Uses Physics Laws To

Disassemble Greenhouse Theory

Eight years ago, 2 physicists published a comprehensive 115-page scientific

paper entitled “Falsification Of The Atmospheric CO2 Greenhouse
Effects Within The Frame Of Physics” in the International Journal of
Modern Physics.

https://arxiv.org/pdf/0707.1161v4.pdf

GERLICH AND TSHEUSHNER. 2009

This paper has been updated in 2017.

Role of greenhouse gases in climate change

Hertzberg et al., 2017

This study examines the various definitions of the greenhouse effect for
compatibility with the laws of physics.

Definition 1

A greenhouse is a glass/plastic enclosure, warmed by sunlight, facilitating

plant growth. Several definitions argue that the effect in the atmosphere is

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analogous to a greenhouse. It is stated that sunlight transmitted into an
enclosure through transparent glass warms the interior of the enclosure,
increasing the Infra Red (IR) radiation. As glass is partly opaque to IR
radiation, it cannot freely pass outward through the glass and is thus retained
within the enclosure. Several definitions infer the radiation is being
‘trapped’ and it is argued that atmospheric gases such as CO2 are
analogous to the glass pane action of a greenhouse and this serves to
‘trap’ IR radiation within the atmosphere and obstruct radiative
cooling.

The Critique

An early test of the ‘trapped’ radiation theory was conducted by R. W.

Wood. He constructed two enclosures, one covered with a glass plate and
the other covered with an IR transmitting rock salt plate. When adjusted so
that both were exposed to the same solar input radiation, they both reached
the same temperature of 55°C with ‘scarcely a difference of one degree
between the temperatures of the two enclosures’. His experiment clearly
showed that it was the presence of the enclosure itself that enabled the
warming. Therefore, it is the heat generated by absorbed sunlight that
becomes ‘trapped’. In the absence of an enclosure, the warmed air near the
ground would rise by buoyancy and be replaced by cooler air from the
surroundings thus cooling it. This natural convective cooling process is
restricted and suppressed by the enclosure. It is the same process that
generates a cooling afternoon sea breeze on a beach with cooler air from the
ocean replacing rising warmer air over land. To argue that an open
gaseous atmosphere confines in the way that the top and sides of a
greenhouse enclosure does is not valid. To the contrary, a gaseous
atmosphere is conducive to the convective cooling that occurs in the
absence of an enclosure. It could be argued that CO2 along with the
other gaseous components of the atmosphere in fact helps to cool the
Earth’s surface.

Definition 2

Another common theme among the various descriptions of the effect is that
the ‘greenhouse gases’ serve as a ‘blanket’ keeping the earth warm.

The Critique

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A simple experiment to test the validity of this argument is to appear naked
outside on a cold evening and observe how long the blanket of ‘greenhouse
gases’ in the atmosphere keeps you warm. Air warmed by body heat rises by
buoyancy and is replaced by cooler air from the surroundings, causing rapid
cooling down and shivering. An actual blanket is a flexible insulating
enclosure that reduces the rate at which body heat is lost to the surroundings.
Thus the atmosphere is more given to being an agent for cooling by way
of natural convection.

Definition 3

A regular description of the ‘greenhouse gas’ heating mechanism is that

referred to as ‘back radiation’. Atmospheric gases such as CO2, having a
dipole moment, absorb some incoming solar radiation and some of the IR
radiation the Earth’s surface radiates toward free space. According to the
Environmental Protection Agency, ‘re-radiated energy in the IR portion of
the spectrum is trapped within the atmosphere keeping the surface
temperature warm’. This ‘trapping’ is assumed to occur as the surface
radiates to the atmosphere and the atmosphere radiates back to the
surface.

The Critique

The radiation emitted from the warmer surface absorbed by the colder
atmosphere is readily detected by orbiting satellites. However, back
radiation from the colder atmosphere to the warmer surface heating the
surface further violates the Second Law of Thermodynamics.

There are two problems with that amount of down-welling radiation:

the atmosphere is not a blackbody with unit emissivity and equally, is
not radiating toward a receptive absorber. Yet it is depicted as radiating
heat downwards to the warmer Earth’s surface in direct violation of the
Second Law.

The flow of heat is always from the hotter surface to the colder surface as
required by the Second Law of Thermodynamics. Nowhere in the radiation
field between the two surfaces is the flux of radiant energy equal to that
which either surface would emit if they were facing a complete void. Thus,
the simple use of the Stefan-Boltzmann term, δT4 to characterize the
emission from a source of radiation in the manner that depends only on the

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temperature of the source without considering the temperature of the
surroundings receiving the radiation, is a misapplication of the equation and
the notion that a colder source can transfer radiant energy to a warmer object
is a misapplication of the Stefan-Boltzmann equation and a violation of the
Second Law of Thermodynamics.

It would therefore be clear that the application of the Stefan-Boltzmann term

to simply characterize radiant energy being transferred from an object to its
surroundings without reference to the conditions of the surroundings in
radiative contact with that object is a misapplication of the equation.

It would be incorrect to talk in terms of radiation exchanging, since transfer

occurs only from warmer to cooler matter, from higher energy level to lower
energy level.

Definition 4

A proposed new definition of the greenhouse theory to overcome the

objections raised against warming by back radiation argues that IR
absorbing ‘greenhouse gases’ hinder radiative transport from the
Earth’s surface upwards and aid to keep the surface warm and warmer
than it would otherwise be in the absence of those gases.

The Critique

The definition ignores the fact that those gases themselves emit radiation to
free space adding to radiation loss from the system. Radiation loss to free
space from the earth’s surface and its atmosphere is essentially the same
with or without presence of absorbing gases for the following reasons: the
cooling by radiation to free space is a one-step process; in the presence of an
atmosphere, it is a two-step process with the same loss, with or without, the
absorbing and emitting gaseous atmosphere. When talking about radiation, it
is absorbed radiation or emitted radiation that is being considered.

Definition 5

In many of the various definitions, attempt is made to prove that ‘greenhouse

gases’ in the atmosphere keep the Earth warm, warmer than it would
otherwise be in the absence of an atmosphere as conveyed by the following
[http://enviropedia.org] quote:

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“This process (radiation trapping) makes the temperature rise in the
atmosphere just as it does in the greenhouse. This is the Earth’s natural
greenhouse effect and keeps the Earth 33°C warmer than it would
(otherwise) be without an atmosphere, at an average of 15°C.”

The Critique

Logically that argues that if the Earth had no atmosphere, its average
temperature would be -18°C rather than its current temperature of 15°C.
Such a temperature is based on calculated ones, that is ‘otherwise’ ones. The
calculations arise from several mistaken assumptions. The most obvious
one diminishes the solar radiation input by 37% from the Earth’s cloud
albedo while simultaneously taking no account of any lessening of the
IR radiation emitted to free space by the same blocking clouds. Equally,
all IR radiating entities on the surface are assumed to be blackbodies with
unit emissivity. The calculation that yields the -18°C temperature is
obviously mistaken. The question is considered and covered in detail in the
‘Cold Earth Fallacy’.

Further argument used to illustrate the greenhouse effect of CO2 is the

atmosphere of Venus, which is almost entirely [965,000 ppm] CO2.
Based upon its distance to the Sun relative to that of the Earth, and using the
Earth’s average temperature, Venus surface temperature should be about
280°C. Yet the measured value is about 465°C. This difference is attributed
to the strong greenhouse effect of its higher CO2 concentration. The
difference is more correctly attributable to Venus’ high surface pressure
and the adiabatic compression of the atmosphere adjacent to its surface.
Venus’ surface temperature would be just as warm if its atmosphere
consisted of any gas whose compressibility was the same as that of CO2.
The temperatures in the Mohave Desert and the Dead Sea are higher
than the temperatures of surrounding areas at sea level. That is not a
greenhouse effect but is caused by adiabatic compression of the higher
pressures at their elevations below sea level.

Definition 6

All atmospheric gases that are believed to be ‘greenhouse gases’ absorb IR

radiation emitted from the Earth’s surface. Their absorption spectra are well
known and it is relatively easy to calculate the radiation flux, those gases
absorb from the Earth’s IR emission.

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The Critique

The problem arises when those radiation fluxes are translated into a resultant
temperature rise while ignoring the fact that atmospheric gas is being
simultaneously cooled by radiating to the unlimited sink of free space.

Epilogue

In one of science’s first ‘thought experiments’ Pierre Prevost (1751–1839)

conjectured that a hot body absorbed less radiation from a cold body than the
reverse, and that both would eventually reach the same temperature. Thus,
the theory of radiant exchanges came into being, a view that predated the
more thorough understanding of the Laws of Thermodynamics that came
later. Yet it is noted that aspects of Prevost’s 200-year-old theory continue
to be applied in regard to ‘net flow’ of heat – a concept that radiation
flows both downhill and uphill. The latter flow is a violation of the
Second Law, which informs us that a hot body can absorb no radiation
from a cold body to make it warmer still.

Radiative greenhouse supporters have theorized a blackbody as an all-

absorbing entity, capable of absorbing and retaining its own radiation to
elevate its temperature and have used radiant exchanges in support of their
arguments.

[S]o far no way has been found to be able to readily transpose or correlate
experiments conducted in the contained, static, isothermal and isobaric
conditions of a laboratory to the great vastness of earth’s atmosphere.

Conclusion

The various stated definitions of the greenhouse effect have been

subjected to the rigorous scrutiny and application of the fundamental laws of
physics and thermodynamics. They were found to be unreal, and unless
some new definition can be put forward that satisfies and complies with
those laws, it can only be concluded that the concept of a ‘greenhouse gas’
or a ‘greenhouse effect’ has not been demonstrated and is thus without
merit.

COMMENT

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1

http://greenhouse.geologist-1011.net
“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.”

http://notrickszone.com/2017/06/01/3-chemists-conclude-co2-greenhouse-
effect-is-unreal-violates-laws-of-physics-thermodynamics/

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i Pages 124- 130.

ii https://climatekids.nasa.gov/greenhouse-effect/

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