dale-cloudman
8mo ago
Consider the air at the elevation level at the top of the grand canyon. The air that is at ground level at this elevation (eg past the top rim of the canyon) will have a certain temperature. If the grand canyon didn't exist but were equally flat with this ground level, the air there would be the same temperature, right? This is the equilibrium at that height.
Now bring the grand canyon back into existence and allow that air to fall. What happens? As it falls, gravity compresses it, and thus heats it up. By the time it reaches the ground it will be hotter. On its way down, this falling air will displace the air further below it, causing that air below to rise and, due to the lower pressure, expand and cool on its way back up. Thus you have a circulating effect, with the equilibrium temperature increasing with depth.
It doesn't violate thermodynamics as gravity is doing work on the gas, converting potential energy to kinetic energy and increasing its temperature on the way down, while via buoyancy pushing the lower, warmer air up. With no further energy inputs the whole column of air would gradually cool (and eventually freeze and fall out of the sky), but the sun provides the "seed" energy by warming the surface which then warms the air via conduction & convection.
Without the lapse rate basically all ground-level air at any elevation would be the same temperature, the temperature achieved by the sun's warming -- with perhaps mountains slightly warmer as they are closer to the Sun. But the lapse rate additionally causes this effect of warmer air below and cooler air above.
You don't have to take my word for it! Some links:
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"You can thank a weather phenomenon called adiabatic heating. As air sinks down into a lower elevation, it gets compressed, compressed air releases heat as energy. This caused the air mass to become even warmer.".
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"In adiabatic cooling, when a mass of air rises—as it does when it moves upslope against a mountain range—it encounters decreasing atmospheric pressure with increasing elevation. The air mass expands until it reaches pressure equilibrium with the external environment. The expansion results in a cooling of the air mass.
With adiabatic heating, as a mass of air descends in the atmosphere—as it does when it moves downslope from a mountain range—the air encounters increasing atmospheric pressure. Compression of the air mass is accompanied by an increase in temperature."
https://www.encyclopedia.com/science/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/adiabatic-heating
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"Air molecules play a pivotal role in temperature variation with elevation. When at a low elevation, there are more air molecules compressed together due to the weight of the atmosphere pressing down. As these air molecules are compressed, they generate heat, leading to a temperature increase. Conversely, as elevation rises, air molecules spread apart due to decreased atmospheric pressure, leading to a temperature decrease."
https://science.howstuffworks.com/nature/climate-weather/atmospheric/question186.htm
dale-cloudman
8mo ago
I would say observe that whenever a gas is compressed, the result is both higher pressure and temperature. Gravity compresses a gas as it pulls it to the ground, so this will of course heat it up as well as increasing the pressure.
dale-cloudman
8mo ago
Climate-related deaths have dramatically plunged since the 1900s. It's because of advance in human technology. The way forward is to promote as vibrant and powerful a growth of economy, health, wealth, and technology as is possible, which will allow humans to adapt even better.
dale-cloudman
8mo ago
The terminology can be tricky here. In the Fundamentals of Thermodynamics, 6th Edition (https://www.kashaninejad.com/uploads/4/6/7/6/46761445/fundamentals_of_thermodynamics__6th_edition.pdf):
Heat is defined as the form of energy that is transferred across the boundary of a system at a given temperature to another system (or the surroundings) at a lower temperature by virtue of the temperature difference between the two systems. That is, heat is transferred from the system at the higher temperature to the system at the lower temperature, and the heat transfer occurs solely because of the temperature difference between the two systems.
This definition applies also to mutual radiation exchange between two bodies. From Gerlich 2007 (https://arxiv.org/pdf/0707.1161.pdf): "Clausius examines thoroughly, that the second law is relevant for radiation as well, even if image formations with mirrors and lenses are taken into account [178, 179].".
And from Clausius himself (https://www3.nd.edu/~powers/ame.20231/clausius1879.pdf): "Again as regards the ordinary radiation of heat, it is of course well known that not only do hot bodies radiate to cold, but also cold bodies conversely to hot; nevertheless the general result of this simultaneous double exchange of heat always consists, as is established by experience, in an increase of the heat in the colder body at the expense of the hotter."
Thus: the result of any exchange of energy as a result of a temperature difference, is that the hotter body gets colder and the colder body gets hotter: "an increase of the heat in the colder body at the expense of the hotter."
With regards to the atmosphere, the proposed greenhouse effect mechanism is thus that you have a, say, -18ºC surface in an atmosphere without any GHGs. Now, by adding CO2 to this atmosphere and thus doing nothing but changing the atmosphere's absorption and emission properties, the colder body (the atmosphere) results in a warming of the hotter body (the surface), in a tight feedback loop that essentially doubles the surface's energy level (as well as increasing the atmosphere's in the process).
To which I say: well that is not quite in direct accordance with the above sources on thermodynamics. I understand diagrams and graphs can be drawn and that the resulting steady-state is one in which the surface is still hotter than the atmosphere. But drawing a diagram does not make it so. All the laws of physics thus far have been determined experimentally, including the laws of thermodynamics.
The proof that the GHE works can only reside in an experiment demonstrating the phenomenon. There are none. There have been none since the mechanism was first proposed two centuries ago by Fourier. Do you really think the climate alarmists would not have done one by now if they could have? Rather than do so, they have simply stopped trying (if they ever did) and merely started asserting that the science is settled. Yet they skipped over that crucial experimental step! This is not science, it is ideology, beliefs, and politics.
dale-cloudman
8mo ago
How can it not have an effect, indeed?
Well, the starting point would be to demonstrate that it can have an effect, in isolated, carefully-controlled lab conditions.
That CO2 absorbs IR has been definitively shown for over a century. That this absorption and re-emission of radiation back towards a heat source causes that heat source to heat up further? Never has been, as detailed in the article.
Thus there is no experimental basis for the claim.
As to the atmosphere itself warming up due to absorbing CO2 -- firstly this is not the greenhouse effect (which is that the surface warms, not the air). Secondly, the lower atmosphere is warmed far more by conduction&convection, which 100% of the atmospheric gases participate in, than radiation, which only the IR-absorbent constituents do. Thirdly, that increased CO2 level will cause net air warming after all effects taken into account, is nowhere near certain (see: https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2023/10/carbion_dioxide_does_not_cause_warming.html). Fourthly, the CO2 absorption is already saturated in the troposphere; any effects of additional CO2 are said to only affect higher, cooler layers of the atmosphere. Thus any effect on the surface would not be a direct effect but rather a complex, indirect effect. One might say that this means the boundary condition of the higher-up air is warmer (see earlier points if that is true), yet this comes to fifthly: the consensus is increased CO2 levels will cause the stratosphere to cool, not to warm. Thus the boundary condition at the TOA will be a cooler TOA not a warmer one.
As to differing rates of CO2 levels somehow themselves being an evidence for warming, I refer you to the article: "Looking at longer time scales calls the general theory into question: Barral 2017 shows that CO2 levels sometimes show “inverse trends” with temperature, and Easterbrook 2016 found evidence that “global warming causes increased atmospheric CO2”, and not vice-versa."
To sum: it is nowhere near as simple or certain as you claim.
dale-cloudman
8mo ago
Well it appears my strategy worked. The critique went from "reasonably-easy misunderstanding to make" for someone "without the proper grounding" to: scientists can still be wrong. Mission accomplished.
dale-cloudman
8mo ago
No, sorry, a rhetorical question is not an argument. For the second time, you are still doing the thing you accuse your opponents of: positing that some effect is explained fully by your own pet model without providing any independent evidence that it does so.
By saying so you are endorsing the point of the article, which is that this isn't sufficient evidence. I agree. I would certainly never advocate spending trillions of dollars on global projects on this basis without doing further research. Yet that's precisely what the climate alarmists want us to do with their "pet model"s.
And trillions is not an exaggeration! "Without creating the conditions for the massive engagement of the private sector, it will be impossible to move from the billions to trillions that are needed to achieve the SDGs.", said by the Secretary General of the UN in 2023: https://www.un.org/sg/en/content/sg/statement/2023-01-18/secretary-generals-remarks-the-world-economic-forum .
Until then, I can just point out that we have two mutually exclusive explanations, that can't both be right, and insufficient experimental evidence to say which is the correct one. Further on the GHE side of it we have a supposedly powerful physical effect with no experimental (and thus causal) proof that it exists (despite all other physical effects being able to be demonstrated experimentally, even gravity with the Cavendish experiment). And on the adiabatic lapse rate side of it we have rock-solid proof that this is how Earth's atmosphere actually does operate (it does have a lapse rate, the dry rate and moist rates essentially perfectly line up with the rates computed from first principles, etc) and thus it must necessarily also operate in Venus's atmosphere (as physics is universal and works the same everywhere).
It must be noted the effective temperature of Earth (255K, -18C) is indicative of the average amount radiated by an entire column of surface plus atmosphere above.
Are you or are you not trying to rule out that radiative heat transport is a significant factor in atmospheric temperature?
Hmm... so obviously the only way the Earth as a system loses energy is to space via radiation. The "effective temperature" isn't actually a physically real temperature but rather the temperature corresponding to a hypothetical blackbody that would have the same emission as the average radiative emission of Earth to space. And obviously an entire column of surface plus air above it, is what will as a whole be radiating to space.
The question of whether the radiative heat transport warms the surface past the blackbody temperature is separate from the above considerations.
If you neglect radiative heat transport then atmosphere temperature can only ever be less than surface temperature, which is blackbody.
You're leaving out the entire rest of the atmosphere: conduction, convection, water, moisture, latent heat, phase changes, winds, adiabatic lapse rate, etc. etc.
The moon's effective blackbody temperature is the same as Earth's, -18C. Yet it gets to +120C during the day and -120C at night. It's both much hotter and much colder than Earth and than the effective blackbody temperature.
The entire atmosphere participates in the redistribution of this heat, to be cooler during the day and warmer at night. Not just the tiny percent that absorbs and emits infrared radiation.
By neglecting all that and leaving only one option, radiation, of course your thoughts will naturally be directed towards assuming and thus believing that it must account for everything. But you leave out all the rest.
Not to mention that by considering the effective blackbody temperature, you're considering an average and also neglecting the fact that there's day and night, that the Sun warms the planet more on its day side than night side, etc.
On the other hand, if you include radiative heat transport, then you must acknowledge that different gasses have different absorption/emission spectra and so their behavior cannot necessarily be compared on 1-1 ( or equal density) basis.
Their non-radiative effects can be. All that is needed for adiabatic lapse rate is to have mass, heat capacity, and gravity. CO2 accomplishes this as well as any other gas.
As to what effect the differing radiative properties have (which differing properties they do have), that is indeed what's under discussion here.
dale-cloudman
8mo ago
The adiabatic lapse rate falls naturally out of the force of gravity, and non-radiative properties of gases. For the dry adiabatic lapse rate it's actually just the strength of gravity and the heat capacity of the air. You can find a derivation here: http://www.atmo.arizona.edu/students/courselinks/fall10/atmo551a/AdiabaticLapseRate.pdf .
For the moist rate you have to factor in phase-change considerations of the water. This decreases the rate, i.e. the air cools more slowly when water is involved.
Any GHE would have to be on top of/in addition to this. But if the adiabatic lapse rate alone nearly perfectly explains Venus's temperature distribution...
dale-cloudman
8mo ago
I'd rather have a system set-up where we don't have to trust the people in charge with not ending the world :). They should not have the power to unilaterally do so.
dale-cloudman
8mo ago
The reason to point out that two physicists published a peer-reviewed paper where they argue the GHE violates the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics is to show that it's not a layperson's mis-understanding that underlies this claim. Trained physicists with extensive experience precisely with thermodynamics, made the argument. So it's just not effective to say it's because of lack of "proper grounding".
The terminology can be tricky. For a detailed explanation I refer readers to the paper in question, https://arxiv.org/pdf/0707.1161.pdf, p75-79 in particular.
dale-cloudman
8mo ago
Some of the alarmists are explicit about their ideological tendencies, see: https://twitter.com/ClimateBen/status/1766859556313841773
"Does capitalism mean fully entering rapid mass extinction in either the 21st or 22nd century?
Yes.
Will humans and the majority of species face mass death or annihilation by 2050- 2150?
Yes.
Are mass media journalists telling us scientists urge economic system change?
No."
And later in the thread: "Abrupt climate change is just one compounding factor in extinction catastrophe. Change this Extinction Economy now while it's still too late to protect species and everyone."
I suspect there's a large overlap between climate alarmism and anti-capitalism.
This is highly dangerous. As the image shows (source: https://ourworldindata.org/extreme-history-methods), the global poverty rate was over 80% in 1800. Today it's less than 20%. Capitalism and the industrial revolution it helped to fuel is the obvious cause of that. Note that modern-day class warriors rail against the inequality of capitalism -- but they leave out the fact that the vast majority of people on the planet are far better off today than 250 years ago.
The dangerous aspect is if they have their way, the systems that enabled this to happen will be reversed and thus we'll head back in the direction of extreme poverty for all.
dale-cloudman
8mo ago
This was the relevant part: "In closed containers, the differing gas density still affects the rate of convective loss, as #2 points out."
Quoting from the paper, emphasis added:
Even if the experiments were done in a sealed container, and CO2 were compared with Ar, differences in convective transport could not be ruled out.
[...]
In some of the reported demonstrations, the container is sealed so that interfacial mixing should not be a factor, but a temperature difference between air and CO2 was still reported.[3–5] Sealing the container brings into play additional factors, which are difficult to quantify, especially the infrared characteristics of the “window.” In Ref. 5, for example, T is reported to be 25% greater for CO2 than for air. As we have argued, a difference of this magnitude cannot be accounted for by far-infrared absorption. This experiment probably involves the direct absorption of sunlight rather than of reemitted far-infrared radiation, but that effect should be even smaller. [7] Simple models of natural convection suggest that the difference in the heat flow between the two gases should be less than 10%.[17] The calculations depend on the geometry, however, and the conditions are in a transition regime between laminar and turbulent flow, and thus it is possible that small changes could have disproportionate effects. These uncertainties reinforce the value of including a comparison case that uses a heavy gas without infrared absorption, such as argon.
dale-cloudman
8mo ago
Ehm... at the time you wrote this, I provided two links. One was to another post I made in this thread, and one was to a YouTube video. There are no "various YouTube videos" linked, just one (which was related to the discussion), and no "otherwise unrelated content" at all (in fact, no links to other content at all besides the one video). So it seems you're operating on a mind-already-made-up, prejudiced basis and are interpreting what I'm writing via feelings, emotions, and pre-existing beliefs rather than sensible facts and clear-headed evaluation of what I'm writing here.
Your other points are equally invalid. I haven't evaded any questions -- you'll have to point out where I have if you want to make that claim, but you won't be able to, as I haven't.
I haven't written anywhere that I think the GHE is empirically verified. Rather to the contrary, I've written how it hasn't been experimentally verified (https://www.themotte.org/post/960/the-vacuity-of-climate-science/203568?context=8#context). And no, this is not a link to "otherwise unrelated content", it's a link to something else I wrote in this thread.
You are misinterpreting what I wrote about greenhouses. The point is that, the fact that greenhouses don't work according to the GHE (see https://www.themotte.org/post/960/the-vacuity-of-climate-science/203995?context=8#context if you are getting tripped up on the terminology here) does not prove, in and of itself, that the GHE doesn't exist, but it does speak very much against it. This doesn't mean the GHE exists, it just means the fact of how greenhouses work is not sufficient evidence to disprove the GHE.
Perhaps the only valid thing you did write here is that you "don't know a thing about climate models" (your words). I can accept that. But the salient question then is, whence do you draw the confidence with which you've formed your opinion about what I wrote?
To help you answer that question I will re-iterate something I wrote at the start of the article that is very relevant here, with emphasis added: "This is highly relevant because it means our current climate scare is based not on irrefutable scientific evidence but rather on hysteria and alarmist fear-mongering that fifty years of “failed apocalyptic predictions” have failed to abate. This is crucial to understand as it makes it clear that rather than debating how humans should mitigate this alleged impending disaster, the proper focus should be to question why those in power are employing psychological fear tactics to promote taxation, restriction, and degrowth, and why so many intelligent people have uncritically bought into the hysteria when these proposed policies are clearly to their own detriment."
dale-cloudman
8mo ago
It also won't change the point here. I'll try it again with newly coined terms in bold.
The florb effect is a radiative phenomenon. Any object above 0K absorbs & emits infrared radiation. Certain gases, like CO2, also absorb & emit infrared radiation, while others don't. If you increase the concentration of CO2 in the air, the air now will be emitting more infrared radiation, both upwards and downwards back toward the surface. This downward emission of infrared causes the surface to become warmer. This warming is called the florb effect.
A hothouse, by contrast, works by the hothouse effect, a totally different phenomenon. The sun heats the inside of the hothouse, which causes the air inside to become warmer. This air rises, but is physically prevented from escaping by the hothouse walls. This allows the air inside the hothouse to get warmer than the outside air. It is an effect of suppressing convective loss rather than a radiative phenomenon.
The peculiar thing: A hothouse remains equally hot whether its walls are transparent to infrared, or absorbing of infrared! This is despite the IR-absorbing walls emitting infrared into the hothouse, while the IR-transparent walls don't. According to the depicted mechanism of the florb effect, the IR-emitting walls should result in a much hotter hothouse interior. Yet, it doesn't.
Thus, the fact that a hothouse works due to the hothouse effect, and not due to the florb effect, is evidence against the florb effect.
You see now?
dale-cloudman
8mo ago
"The greenhouse diversion is unfortunate due to the naming but also interesting. We can call it a hothouse instead and call the way it really works the “hothouse effect”, which is suppression of convection. HHE != GHE , of course, so it’s not relevant on that level."
HHE = the "hothouse effect" I just coined here for clarity in communication.
dale-cloudman
8mo ago
It may be worth reviewing the links I just provided as to why Argon is a valuable control for these experiments (https://www.themotte.org/post/960/the-vacuity-of-climate-science/203988?context=8#context).
In short: carbon dioxide is more dense than air. CO2 and Argon are about the same density as each other. A typical experiment involves adding CO2 to a beaker and observing the surface temperature get hotter. But the reason is that the convective loss of the bottom is suppressed because the air is prevented from rising due to the heavier CO2 above it. This works equally well with Argon. In closed containers, the differing gas density still affects the rate of convective loss, as #2 points out.
The experiment you linked must therefore also be performed with 100% Argon (as it was with 100% CO2) as a control.
dale-cloudman
8mo ago
On experiments:
-
"Benchtop Global-Warming Demonstrations Do Not Exemplify the Atmospheric Greenhouse Effect, but Alternatives Are Available", https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.jchemed.8b01057
_
(It must be noted the "alternatives" provided are analogues, not demonstrations of the GHE.)
-
"Climate change in a shoebox: Right result, wrong physics", https://www.researchgate.net/publication/243492513_Climate_change_in_a_shoebox_Right_result_wrong_physics .
dale-cloudman
8mo ago
Sure. The grand canyon is a good starting point. The temperature at the bottom of the canyon is hotter than at the top. Why is that? It's not due to the greenhouse effect. It's due to earth's adiabatic lapse rate.
Essentially, gravity pulls air in the atmosphere downwards, doing work to compress it, which increases its pressure and temperature. The hotter air then starts expanding and rising (being displaced by the cooler air being brought down), which causes it to cool and decrease in pressure. This is an ongoing process. Notably, it has nothing to do with any radiative properties of the atmosphere (i.e. the greenhouse effect). It can be calculated from basic values of the mass of air and gravity: https://phys.libretexts.org/Bookshelves/Thermodynamics_and_Statistical_Mechanics/Heat_and_Thermodynamics_(Tatum)/08%3A_Heat_Capacity_and_the_Expansion_of_Gases/8.08%3A_Adiabatic_Lapse_Rate .
The lapse rate is essentially the same on Venus as on Earth, and as Venus's atmosphere is thicker than Earth, the lapse rate has a longer way to go, resulting in a higher temperature increase. It must be noted the pressure on Venus's surface is 90x that of Earth's.
The blackbody calculation presumes no atmosphere and thus no adiabatic lapse rate. The presence of an atmosphere and gravity introduces this mechanism by which work is done, heating the air as it compresses and gets close to the surface. It explains the tropospheric temperature gradient and, it must be re-iterated, has nothing to do with any radiative properties of the air. Any atmosphere, even one without any greenhouse gases whatsoever, would have this feature.
The question then is: as the adiabatic lapse rate explains the grand canyon temperature difference, why would it not also explain the temperature difference between the surface and the effective blackbody temperature? It must be noted the effective temperature of Earth (255K, -18C) is indicative of the average amount radiated by an entire column of surface plus atmosphere above. As we've established there must be a gradient due to the lapse rate, the average of this column must necessarily be somewhere in the middle. Below is hotter, above is cooler.
dale-cloudman
8mo ago
I've collected these links as well, albeit they are more technical than the video. Will I next be asked to provide a simpler one? :)
- "Venus: No Greenhouse Effect" https://theendofthemystery.blogspot.com/2010/11/venus-no-greenhouse-effect.html
- "Why does this simple equation predict the Venus surface temperature so accurately?" https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/508573/why-does-this-simple-equation-predict-the-venus-surface-temperature-so-accuratel
dale-cloudman
8mo ago
Yeah, and Lord Kelvin estimated age of Sun to be about 32 million years (IIRC). Noone claims that scientists are always right.
You're missing the point, perhaps deliberately?
The question centers around why experimentation is important. Anyone can observe something and then make a model up to explain that observation. This does not, and cannot, demonstrate the model is correct. Scientists were wrong about the surface temperature of Venus before it was measured -- yet they made models that perfectly predicted their (incorrect) surface temperature. That their model matched their prediction did not corroborate the model in any way, as is obvious by the fact that it was wrong.
Since then, scientists have measured the temperature of Venus. And now... they have made models to perfectly predict that (correct) surface temperature. Because this time around the temperature is correct, it feels like the model is thus more correct (on this basis) than the previous one. In a sense it is, in that it gives the right temperature. But it is no more (or less) validated by this than the incorrect model! The evidentiary value is exactly the same. You can always make a model fit certain data points, it doesn't mean the model is correct.
dale-cloudman
8mo ago
It appears you started skimming earlier than that, as this is in the 3rd paragraph: "Worst of all, the alleged recent warming trend that is said to confirm earlier model predictions is based on data that appears to be adjusted to match the very models it is meant to be independently corroborating." It is elaborated in the article on the "Correlation is not causation" section.
As to the 2nd Law: "As to the thermodynamics, the arguments are plentiful. I'll just point out two physicists believed that it does violate the 2nd Law and published a peer-reviewed paper to that effect (Gerlich & Tscheuschner). Most others, of course, disagree. The point in the article is that rather than debate it, let's demonstrate it experimentally, in the real world - and this has not been done for the GHE."
As to thinking the Earth during summer is hotter than the Sun... genuinely not sure what you're addressing here.
dale-cloudman
8mo ago
For me, the way nuclear power is handled is a dead give-away that the climate alarmists aren't actually interested in the climate. If CO2 emissions really as as catastrophically dangerous as they are made out to be, then nuclear is the obvious, guaranteed-to-work, 100% solution that would completely have already solved this problem by now.
As in the article: "This is highly relevant because it means our current climate scare is based not on irrefutable scientific evidence but rather on hysteria and alarmist fear-mongering that fifty years of “failed apocalyptic predictions” have failed to abate. This is crucial to understand as it makes it clear that rather than debating how humans should mitigate this alleged impending disaster, the proper focus should be to question why those in power are employing psychological fear tactics to promote taxation, restriction, and degrowth, and why so many intelligent people have uncritically bought into the hysteria when these proposed policies are clearly to their own detriment."
dale-cloudman
8mo ago
The linked post is meant to show that using Venus to corroborate a model is foolish, as that same reasoning was used to predict it had the same temperature as Earth. It provides just as much support to any more modern theory, namely, none at all.
For an adiabatic lapse rate on Venus description see: https://youtube.com/watch?v=_4KG0-2ckac ,
dale-cloudman
8mo ago
Greenhouses are relevant because the GHE should be the mechanism by which they work. But, they don't. That they work due to the HHE and not the GHE is evidence against the GHE.
The day & night is relevant here. The sunlight has the potential to heat the ground to over 100ºC (212ºF). The reason it doesn't get that hot is because the ground conducts heat to the air, which then convects upwards. So the sunlight, during the day, has the power to heat the surface far above the blackbody average.
Then, you just need to compare temperatures at differing elevations to see that the adiabatic lapse rate has a real effect on the temperatures you find there. Compare bottom of grand canyon to top of grand canyon to high up on a mountain-top. The air pressure at all of these levels is, of course, higher than the air pressure would be without an atmosphere, which is zero.
So we know for a fact that gravity causing increased air pressure results in higher temperatures than those found at lower air pressures. This is observable, empirical, and irrefutable. I wrote some more detail about the lapse rate here: https://www.themotte.org/post/960/the-vacuity-of-climate-science/205320?context=8#context .
The atmosphere, thus-warmed during the day, then prevents the night-time temperatures from getting as cold as they do without an atmosphere (-100ºC on the moon), much like how a blanket works.
The net effect of the above is evidently that it is cooler during the day than without an atmosphere, warmer at night than without an atmosphere, and the 'average' temperature is overall higher than without.
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