Concept of Trapping - Fiction
“Trapping” is another fictitious concept that frequently shows up in discussions of global warming. The following article is representative of the mis-information that is promulgated by various websites pushing the AGW alarmist viewpoint on global warming and the supposed human contribution to it: http://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/green-science/question7461.htm
Typical erroneous statements appear, such as:
“The reason we often associate the greenhouse effect with environmental damage is that since the Industrial Revolution, the greenhouse effect has fallen out of balance: Earth's atmosphere is trapping too much heat.”
First of all, the Earth actually is warmer as a result of having an atmosphere, but that is because the atmosphere acts as an insulating layer around the Earth. (The higher temperature is easily verified by a comparison of Earth’s “average temperature” with the “average temperature” on the Moon. Both on average receive the same amount of sunlight.) An additional quote from the above article:
“… without Earth's atmosphere and the greenhouse effect it provides, we'd be up a creek. But it turns out that an overactive greenhouse effect can result a similarly devastating outcome. With too many heat-absorbing greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, too much radiation gets trapped, causing the Earth to warm beyond its ideal temperature.”
This last quote begs the question of what is the “ideal temperature” for the Earth. No one can know the answer to that.
The reality of the situation is that there is incident sunlight during daylight hours, during which time the temperature of the Earth rises. The Earth radiates long-wavelength IR to outer space, and the balance of incoming energy and out-going energy determines Earth’s temperature, with the balance shifted to warming during the day. During the nighttime, there is no incident sunlight, so the incoming energy drops dramatically, while the Earth continues radiating to outer space. Earth’s temperature drops.
During daytime, the Earth reaches some maximum temperature, locally and varying with a myriad of conditions (latitude, longitude, cloud cover, humidity, presence or absence of snow or ice, over land or over oceans to name a few), and reaching a minimum during the night. From the varying temperature, an average could be calculated for any given 24-hour day.
Over a 24 hour time period there is some “balance” of energy in and energy out. For short times, on the order of weeks, months, the incident sunlight would be roughly constant, but that reaching the Earth’s surface would be subjected to varying cloud coverage, and other variables. If the insulating effect of the atmosphere were to increase, the rate of out-going energy would be reduced and the temperature of the Earth would increase.
To bring this into the realm of everyone’s experience, consider how a person “senses warm and cold”. Humans sense not temperature, but rather rate of heat transfer. This can be easily demonstrated by having 3 bowls of water, one cold, one hot and one at room temperature. If a person puts one hand in the cold water and the other in the hot water for a minute or so, then puts both hands in the room temperature water, the hand that was in the cold water will feel warm and the hand that was in the hot water will feel cold. Heat is transferring into the hand that was in cold water and heat is transferring out of the hand that was in hot water, and that is what is being sensed, not the temperature.
Now consider various situations of a person lying in bed in a cold room. Body metabolism is the source of heat, which will be conducted to the skin. Heat will leave the skin resulting in the person feeling cold. The actual temperature of the skin will be determined by the rate at which heat is transferred to the skin from the interior of the body, and the rate at which heat is leaving the skin to the colder ambient.
Covering the person with a sheet, adds a little bit of insulation that reduces the rate of heat loss, with the result that the person to feels “warmer”. The skin temperature will also increase a little. Adding a blanket or two will add more insulation, further reducing the rate of heat loss and the person will feel still warmer. The skin temperature will also have increased a little more. But it is critical to note that the sheet and blankets are passive (excluding the possibility of electric blankets), and they are not warming the person. There is no energy source associated with the sheet and blankets. The person’s metabolism is the only source of heat. It is only the increased insulation reducing the rate of heat loss that results in the person feeling warmer. It might be that this could be described as “trapping” heat, but in our experience “trapping” in connection with global warming has not been used in this context.
It seems like AGW alarmists use the term “trapping”, without defining exactly what they mean by it, more likely intending to conjure up the erroneous image of a closed-environment Greenhouse which does indeed trap warmed air.
We should revisit occasionally what the proper role of government is. As the constitution was a good sense of direction, we need a core set of principles to add in order to deal with the future.
So many want to engineer society, remove risk, assist certain groups, rather than let individuals thrive and raise communities. Why?
Is Democracy where we all "get it good and hard" or is it the best means to a free society?
Should we roll with the special interests, or make the government achieve its proper role, what is that role, and how to do this?
When do deficits and governments become too large?
Government is becoming more elitist while trying to sell corrections to problems it created, what makes this possible?
