I want to learn the topic of gravity, pressure and temperature of the earth’s surface, related to the pressure theory of Nikolov and Zeller.
Last time I was here for a long time, I was confused by the puzzle of the two bottles: if you have two bottles, one has a casual atmosphere and one has, for example, close vacuum and you put them out in the cold, will the temperature in the two flasks be the same? If we say ‘yes’, then it means that pressure has no effect on temperature at all. Usually say, ‘yes.’
However (and no one arguing on my side came to my rescue – perhaps because they were tired of following) the correct answer was ‘no, the two bottles won’t be at the same temperature.’ At that point, I went with the usual answer and admitted I was wrong.
I believe everyone at WUWT knows why the two bottles are not at the same temperature, even if the molecules inside them are moving at exactly the same speed. If not, put your hand in temperature and let us know how hot your hand is.
So pressure (the number of molecules in a volume) is important.
Another thing that struck me was the idea that if the atmosphere were a non-IR-radiating gas (e.g. nitrogen) the atmosphere would be isothermal. No, that is not possible. Does not make any sense. It is not possible for masses of gas in all layers of the atmosphere to have the same temperature. Convection will occur.
I think Nikolov and Zeller were right. I highly doubt that the earth’s surface is warmed by retrograde radiation or any such fiction. In fact, I think the whole theory of radiative greenhouses is just epic cycles to support a theory that can be explained much more easily and elegantly by gravitational modeling.
And with that, Happy 4th!
