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srid  7mo ago (cafeamericainmag.com)   Edited 7mo ago   4095 thread views

The Vacuity of Climate Science

cafeamericainmag.com

There has been a lot of CW discussion on climate change. This is an article written by someone that used to strongly believe in anthropogenic global warming and then looked at all the evidence before arriving at a different conclusion. The articles goes through what they did.

I thought a top-level submission would be more interesting as climate change is such a hot button topic and it would be good to have a top-level spot to discuss it for now. I have informed the author of this submission; they said they will drop by and engage with the comments here!

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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.

Here's an interesting question: How would it gradually cool? If the greenhouse effect is not a thing, how can air lose energy to space? Convection and conduction require molecules to impact each other to transfer energy -- but there's nothing in space for the molecules to bounce off of. Are you claiming that first the earth would have to radiate energy to space through a long-wave-transparent atmosphere, then the atmosphere would cool down by losing energy when molecules bounce and impart energy to the cooler earth?

If what you are saying is true, then wouldn't we see that the surface actually cools down faster than the air at night?

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