The Greenhouse Effect and Greenhouse Gases

E-mail to Congress:
My son-in-law, who has a PhD in Food Technology, and I have been having some discussions on climate control. The latest has been a question-and-answer session, in which I thought you might be interested as follows:

Dr.: No one will argue that CO2 contributes significantly to the insulating effect of the atmosphere. That is obvious from the thermal conductivity data.

ACS: I absolutely disagree. I claim that carbon dioxide in the atmosphere makes no significant contribution to the insulating effect, and that is based on the fact that the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is only 0.038%. I also claim that doubling the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere will still have an insignificant insulating effect.

Dr.: Here are a couple of questions: 1) What is the temperature of space? 2) What is the thermal conductivity of space?

ACS: 1.) 4 degrees K. (Wikipedia). 2.) I don't believe there is a measured thermal conductivity of outer space. Thermal conductivity is a measure of heat transmission through a substance. Outer space is considered devoid of substance.

Dr.: So when the other guys talk about greenhouse gas they are definitely not talking about the property of thermal conductivity, nor of heat capacity, but rather of a molecule's ability to absorb long wavelength IR (which itself is not heat) and then transform it into heat.

ACS No. They're going around Red Robin's Barn. We previously covered that. A black body (molecules) is absorbing long wavelength radiation directly from the Sun. The black body transforms (converts) it into heat. We don't really care about that mechanism. We are concerned only with the result, which is heat, and which is the major aspect of the discussion on global warming. Once you have heat generated, from whatever source, you then have to consider its transmission from one location to another. I have previously discussed it as radiation from the Earth to outer space, including its passage through the mixed gases of the atmosphere, which impede its transmission and can be changed by compositional gas changes in the atmosphere.

Dr.: Thermal conductivity is the ability of a substance to transmit heat from one point to another simply powered by the thermal gradient.

ACS: Absolutely correct.

Dr.: Obviously the blanket effect or insulation effect is part of the thermal equilibrium of the earth as you described, but it does not seem to be "the greenhouse effect".

ACS: It is the "greenhouse effect". Consider a greenhouse. The sun's radiation passes through the glass or plastic roof, strikes the internal surface of the greenhouse, where it is converted to heat. The heat transmission out of the greenhouse is then impeded by the glass or plastic roof. The glass or plastic roof is serving as a blanket or insulation to retain heat within the greenhouse. In the case of the Earth, the atmosphere is serving as a blanket or insulation to retain heat on the Earth's surface.

Dr.: I don't know if you saw my second email which looked much like the first but there is a section if you hit the advanced button at the top where they discuss why they think N2 and O2 are not greenhouse gases. How do greenhouse gases "work"?

ACS: I read it. It's a lot of gobbledygook. All gases are greenhouse gases. Some are more and some less efficient as insulators to the passage of heat. One example involves the manufacture of low-heat transfer windows. They are double pane with a layer of argon between the two panes. Why not use air? It is less expensive than argon. The answer is that argon has a thermal conductivity of only 16.36 mW/(m.K), while the thermal conductivity of air is about 24.
I haven't seen any mechanism for how greenhouse gases work, but I'll take a stab at it. The molecules or atoms of substance have a certain affinity for heat. The heat may be particles or plasma or whatever, but in any case, heat is real. The affinity of the substance to capture and retain heat is different from one material substance to another. Time basis must also be included in that analysis. Two substances may capture the same amount of heat, but one substance may release it more quickly than the other. The longer retention time would be a measure of the substance's insulating capacity. In the case of gases, that would be at least partially equivalent to a "greenhouse effect".

Dr.: Thanks for taking the time for the long and logical answer. I only hate to think the large disagreement between the proposed problem and your well thought out answers is a problem of definitions or, as you have pointed out, as a problem of sophistry and doublespeak. Thus my attempt is to get the clearest ideas from the web and try to size them up in light of your objections.

ACS: It is my pleasure to try to clarify truth, where I believe falsehood is prevalent for reasons of personal gain. I am a stickler for honesty. When I suspect dishonesty through hiding information in 1200-page congressional bills or scientific papers with tremendous amounts of unrelated data tending to confuse issues, it tends to get my back up. The scientific world has a high degree of complexity. Many dishonest persons capitalize on that complexity and exaggerate it further for their own specific ends. My routine approach is to try to simplify these things to the lowest common denominator. Warren Buffett has said that if one doesn't understand the basis of a financial investment, one shouldn't be in it. The same goes for science. God gave us the ability to understand. If we don't understand it, it's probably not real.

Dr.: I hope you are not finding me dense or thick-headed.

ACS: Not at all. I tell my fifth graders, "Don't believe everything you hear or read. Always analyze it with respect to what you already know. Sometimes you will not know what the right answer is. Hold it in your mind, perhaps days or even years, and eventually it will likely be resolved."