lördag 15 oktober 2011

True-SB or False-SB by Experiment?


In recent posts I have compared a true form of Stefan-Boltzmann's radiation law describing one-way net radiative heat transfer between bodies of different temperature, named True-SB, and an incorrect form not described in physics literature describing net flow as the difference between two-way gross flows, named False-SB, in communication with Prof Grant W. Petty claiming that False-SB is true.

Prof Petty asks if it possible to set up an experiment showing that False-SB is false? Maybe, but since False-SB describes a fictitious non-physical two-way flow, the experiment would amount to prove the non-existence of a certain phenomenon, and proving non-existence is in general much more difficult than proving existence. Existence is proved by exhibiting the object claimed to exist, while non-existence requires a search through all possibilities which may well be impossible.

Further, any test observing the net flow, which is the only flow which can be observed directly, will not be a disproof of False-SB.

The argument of Prof Petty is now the following: If there is no experiment in sight capable of making a distinction between True-SB and False-SB, it must mean that if True-SB is true then False-SB is equally true. Is this a correct scientific argument?

No, it is not correct, because even if the two versions give the same net flow, they have fundamentally different stability aspects, and stability is essential in the basic applications of SB in climate science concerning climate sensitivity, which is global warming under a small
perturbation of radiative forcing. The different stability is displayed in comparing net with the difference of gross quantities in an equality such as
  • 0 = 100 - 100.
Here the net (flow) is 0 (two bodies of equal temperature), while gross flow is 100. The net flow on the left hand side remains small under small perturbations, while a small relative perturbation of gross flow (small relative change of the temperature of one of the bodies), may turn the right hand side into 1, which is an infinite inflation of 0.

True-SB and False-SB describe vastly different physics (one-way vs two-way heat transfer) and
the fact the the net flow of False-SB is the same as in True-SB, is not evidence that False-SB is true.

What is required by any scientist claiming that False-SB is true, like Prof Petty, is direct theoretical and experimental verification that False-SB is true, but both are missing. It is not enough to say that since the net flow is the same as in True-SB, also False-SB must be true. This is not science, only pseudo-science.

The following question presents itself: If now True-SB and False-SB describe the same net flow, and the only thing that matters is net flow, why cannot climate scientists like Prof Petty be content with the True-SB but instead so ardently have to insist that False-SB is true?

Yes. you are right: The stability aspect of False-SB serves the purpose of selling CO2 alarmism
by inflating something neglible to something alarming. But alarm based on pseudo-science is pseudo-alarm.


14 kommentarer:

  1. Direct observations made all around the world every day destroy your argument completely and utterly. Your denial of those observations is frankly retarded.

    SvaraRadera
  2. i do not really see how it would be very difficult to check whether or not an object at temperature T_S lower than the background temperature T_B does in fact radiate or not. if you'd spend all the time you're wasting in looking for nerdy cartoons, new age analogies and ridiculous bar-conversation-type remarks on swedish culture and pc-mafia, in designing an experiment and talking to some people at your lab, you could by now have won the nobel prize and saved the world from the climate hysteria (if you're right) or moved on to doing something more useful (if you're wrong).

    SvaraRadera
  3. The question is if an experiment can be set up which directly records a difference between True-SB and False-SB. If not, then False-SB is the same as True-SB and then False-SB can be left out from the discussion altogether, because it has no function. So what is then the experiment recording a difference?

    SvaraRadera
  4. you're claiming that a source at T_S lower than the background's temperature is not radiating. that should be easy to check and would be a revolutionary results. that would also an experiment testing what you call true-SB against false-SB.

    SvaraRadera
  5. Do you actually understand that people detect and measure radiation from the atmosphere, every day, all around the world? Do you seriously claim that this radiation doesn't exist?

    SvaraRadera
  6. Why don't you answer these direct questions?

    SvaraRadera
  7. I have said many times that what is measured is not DLR, but net heat transfer and from net heat transfer temperature is computed and from temperature DLR is computed using SB. DLR is not measure directly, because it is impossible to directly measure something non-existent.
    Do you understand what I am saying?

    SvaraRadera
  8. The Stefan-Boltzmann law is totally irrelevant to the direct measurement of radiation from the atmosphere. Infrared-sensitive materials placed at the focuses of telescopes detect it directly. Only a moron would claim otherwise. Are you a moron, or are you just explaining yourself badly?

    SvaraRadera
  9. Telescopes magnify signals, but the surface of the earth is not under magnifying glass.

    SvaraRadera
  10. I think we must go back to the causes rather than to argue about the effects.
    The EM energy flow is due to the cross product of the electric and magnetic fields (Poynting vector). So, if it is possible that there exist two opposite Poynting vectors, then there exist also two opposite electric fields and two opposite magnetic fields. But that contradicts the univocity of the vectorial fields. That’s, at any point there exist only one field intensity, i.e., only one electric field and only one magnetic field; then there exists only one Poynting vector, the local net energy flux.
    It is so banally simple!!!!!
    Michele

    SvaraRadera
  11. No it is not so simple. EM wave propagation is two-way, heat transfer only one-way but not by your banal argument, I think.

    SvaraRadera
  12. As far I know the effect of the EM waves can be thought as it is due to two counter propagating waves that both transfer useful power (heat) and store on the place reactive power, point by point. The resultant effect is that only one wave travels in one way, or no wave travels.
    Michele

    SvaraRadera
  13. This is handwaving and probably incorrect.

    SvaraRadera
  14. May be my exposition isn’t formally rigorous but the EM power vector is a complex quantity that adjusts its active and reactive components according to environment boundary conditions. So, the power is continuously transferred & stored by the electric & magnetic fields and the transfer is only one way.
    Michele

    SvaraRadera