Professor David Archer of the University of Chicago has posted You-tube videos of his 10 week lecture series for non-science majors on climate change. In lecture 5, The Greenhouse Effect, Archer uses the Stefan-Boltzmann equation to calculate the supposed temperatures of Venus, Earth, and Mars with and without a greenhouse effect. Archer's calculations show the greenhouse effect on Venus is wildly underestimated by 415C and wildly overestimated on both Earth (by 23C) and on Mars (by 19C) in comparison to actual observed temperatures. This is despite the fact that CO2 levels are very high and virtually the same on Venus and Mars (around 96%) and only trace (0.039%) on Earth. Archer says in the lecture that one would have to assume the Venus atmosphere behaves like multiple panes of glass in order to obtain an answer near the observed temperature, yet on both Earth and Mars one would have to assume the atmospheres behave like much less than one pane of glass. Leaving aside the fact that no atmosphere behaves like a pane of glass, climate scientists cannot claim that the greenhouse theory comes close to a unified explanation of temperature on any of these 3 planets. The simple fact is the adiabatic lapse rate (effect of pressure with altitude) fully explains the temperature profiles on all 3 planets without any need to invoke a supposed 'greenhouse effect.' See Shattering the Greenhouse Effect and Venus: No Greenhouse Effect.
H/T Professor Claes Johnson, who explains why Archer also uses the Stefan-Boltzmann equation incorrectly (and here)
The table below is reproduced from Archer's lecture 5 near the end (around 40 minutes in), with temperatures converted from Kelvin to Celsius, and the differences between observed and calculated temperatures added to the table, along with atmospheric CO2 levels.
Legend for the table (Kelvins converted to Celsius):
Column 1: Average solar insolation over the entire planet in W/m2
Column 2: Albedo (% of incoming solar energy reflected from the atmosphere)
Column 3: Observed 'average' temperature of each planet
Column 4: Archer's calculated temperature of each planet without an atmosphere
Column 5: Archer's calculated temperature of each planet assuming the atmospheres act like a single pane of glass
Column 6: The difference in degrees C between observed temperatures and Archer's calculated 'greenhouse effect'
Column 7: The % CO2 in each atmosphere

Thank you for the link to my article, "Venus: No Greenhouse Effect". However, I suggest readers be sent to the article's own page, with its comments, at
ReplyDeletehttp://theendofthemystery.blogspot.com/2010/11/venus-no-greenhouse-effect.html
because I strongly recommend readers also read the comments after the article, particularly my responses. The Venus/Earth comparison, properly done, corrects not just one, but a whole handful of fundamental mistakes committed by "consensus" scientists like Prof. Archer. It is amazing, I know, but they have all been fundamentally miseducated, and continue to miseducate the world.
I think I might by right in saying that what Professor David Archer has said is in line with what Alan Siddons has proven in "Slaying The Sky Dragon - Death of the Greenhouse Effect"
ReplyDeleteyes, except Archer doesn't seem to recognize it
ReplyDeleteI see that Mostlyharmless complained about it
ReplyDeletehttp://mostlyharmless-room-101.blogspot.com/2011/08/clutching-at-straws-or-scraping-barrel.html