From: throopw@sheol.UUCP (Wayne Throop)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: Holden, heat, temperature, and the 2nd law
Summary: greenhouse theory still doesn't violate the 2nd law
Date: 09 Nov 92 01:49:48 GMT

:: From: throopw@sheol.UUCP (Wayne Throop)
:: Message-ID: <720586950@sheol.UUCP>
:: In particular, when Ted says that the surface receives 2% of the heat
:: while the atmosphere receives 98% (and these are the only sources of
:: heat)
: From: news@fedfil.UUCP (news)
: Message-ID: <102@fedfil.UUCP>
: Basically, that is a Sagan belief, part of the Sagan belief system,
: not mine.  I would never make such a statement. 

I could have been more clear, but the paragraph of Ted's in question
started off saying "There are numerous ways of demonstrating that SG
truly IS bullshit".  Thus, when I said "Ted says" above, the intended
meaning in that context was that "Ted says [of the standard greenhouse
theory as applied to venus]".  And that is, indeed what Ted says of it.
For example:

+ Message-ID: <96@fedfil.UUCP>
+ It is the Sagan version of SGH which has the heat CAUSED by the 2% or
+ less of solar energy, without bothering to explain why the middle cloud
+ layer which absorbs the vast bulk of the remaining 98% of solar energy 
+ is COOLER which violates the 2'nd law.

Again, this clearly and unambiguously shows that Ted thinks that
rate of heat flow equates directly to temperature.  It does not.

:: "therefore" the atmosphere must be "hotter", he is
:: incorrect because of his confusion on this point.  In particular, 
:: the input is heat, but the "hotter" is temperature. 
: At some point in the atmosphere, given Sagan's belief system, you will
: still have the inescapability of IR posited and more than the 0 - 2% of
: solar energy reaching the surface.  That this does not happen basically
: disproves Sagan's belief system. 

This sentence is gibberish, presumably a typo or three short of
representing what Ted means.  It is impossible to determine what the
"this" that "does not happen" might be.  Presumably he means something
like "... at some point the heat carried away by the IR generated by the 
surface temperature will exceed the 2% of solar heat reaching the surface".

Assuming that this is what he means, Ted is forgetting that the IR
cannot escape the surface, because the surface is covered by an
atmosphere opaque to IR radiation.  Further, that atmosphere is being
heated by "the 98%" (well...  22%) of solar energy.  Thus any net heat
transver via IR from the surface upward into the atmosphere is an
instance of heat being transfered from a cooler object to a warmer one
(under Ted's hypothesis that the surface "should be" cool if it gets
only 2% of solar heat input). 

It is Ted's parody of greenhouse processes that violates the
2nd law, not the greenhouse model itself.

: Neat analogy, Wayne.  Show me the lid on Venus' atmosphere.  

There is none.   That's why it's cooler than the surface.  There
IS a lid on the surface, however.  Namely, the atmosphere.  That's
why the surface is hotter.

: The whole thing is totally uncovered, heat DOES escape, apparently via
: IR flux at very low altitudes (Suomi et.  al.  as has been often noted,
: again assuming you don't monkey with the raw data to make it conform to
: uniformitarian schemes because everybody knows they are right), and via
: concentric waves at higher altitudes. 

First, mechanical action (Ted's beloved "concentric waves") cannot
remove heat from the planet.  Cannot.  Period.  Only radiation or
ejected material can do that, and there's no material being ejected. 

Second, from off planet, the heat flow measured is (at most) less than
15% of solar input, and the Suomi IR flow measured is greater than the
ENTIRE solar input.  Yet, since the upper atmosphere shows no net
increase in temperature, these two heat flows MUST be equal.  The
off-planet flow is measured from space under well-understood conditions. 
The Suomi raw data was gathered under conditions of heat and pressure
that essentially can't be reproduced on earth to calibrate the
instruments. 

Given these facts, and given that EITHER the myriads of space-based
measurements must be wrong, OR the handfull of measurements done in
venus' atmosphere must be wrong, which is more likely to be wrong? 

It is this simple fact that causes Suomi's raw data to be mistrusted,
not any imagined "uniformitarian bias". 

: Logically, given Sagan's system, the only possible source for the
: surface heat is the middle atmosphere, which absorbs most of the solar
: energy, and this transfer represents a violation of law number 2 due to
: the fact that the atmosphere is measurably cooler than the surface. 

No.  Under the greenhouse theory, the source for the surface heat is
the 2% of solar energy that reaches the surface.  The source for the
surface *temperature* is the fact that the heat can't escape.

Now, Ted can claim that the greenhouse theory disagrees with Suomi's IR
flux *measurements*, but he *cannot* correctly claim that the greenhouse
theory violates thermodynamic *laws* based on temperature measurements
alone. 

: Sagan loses...  Throop loses.

Interesting how Ted always uses dominance and conflict metaphors, 
rather than more purely descriptive ones, such as "Ted is inaccurate"
or "Velikovsky is incorrect".
--
Wayne Throop  ...!mcnc!dg-rtp!sheol!throopw
Newsgroups: talk.origins