Wisdom of the Common Man

My climate research has uncovered many revelations. Everyone recognizes the many ways we use heat in our lives but few wonder, what is heat? Climate alarmists say CO2 has the earth headed for a heat apocalypse and anyone that disagrees is a “denier”. Their position, deniers don’t care about the fact that climate change is going to kill us all! Deniers are realists, looking for the truth! Climate alarmist’s fears are stoked by politics masquerading as science called IPCC. Many scientists like me dare to challenge “settled science”. Let’s begin:

What is heat? Part 1:
First let’s define the basic elements of earth’s climate: 1) Heat 2) Water in all forms 3) Atmosphere 4) Earth’s rotation and orbit of the sun. Take away any one of these and life as we know it would not exist. The real climate though is the interaction between these four basics, which is quite complex! #1) Heat is pivotal in proving or disproving the CO2 myth.

Everybody knows the sun is our primary heat source. Other natural sources of heat on earth: volcanoes (including under ocean), ocean heat vents, and geothermal. This heat comes from the earth’s mantle through breaks in the earth’s crust. Forest fires caused by nature could be included, but do not heat the earth 24/7/365 like the others. These are an undeniable and significant source of heat on earth. But since the IPCC goal is to blame CO2 for GW, they are barely mentioned. In defense of IPCC, they are mentioned (including deforestation and land use) but are buried in a sea of inane words. Since they are natural variables, virtually impossible to quantify and are not part of the “human influence” narrative being promoted, their effect is termed negligible.

What is the heat from the sun? Every bit of heat that we see on earth is photons. Even the earth’s internal heat (not from the sun), is photons. “The modern photon concept originated during the first two decades of the 20th century with the work of Albert Einstein, who built upon the research of Max Planck. In 1926, Gilbert N. Lewis popularized the term photon for these energy units.” “Photons are massless, so they always move at the speed of light in vacuum” (Wikipedia). Einstein didn’t create this hypothesis with sophisticated science tools, he used logic and common sense. Common sense says that he judged the sun’s rays to be massless because if they had mass, we would all be dead. And secondly, they couldn’t travel at the speed of light.

“The Sun is the star at the center of the Solar System. It is a nearly perfect ball of hot plasma,[18][19] heated to incandescence by nuclear fusion reactions in its core, radiating the energy mainly as visible light, ultraviolet light, and infrared radiation.” “Roughly three quarters of the Sun’s mass consists of hydrogen (~73%); the rest is mostly helium (~25%), with much smaller quantities of heavier elements, including oxygen, carbon, neon and iron.[21]” (Wikipedia). “Energy” radiating from the sun is photons. Atoms/molecules gain heat when struck by photons and release photons upon cooling (Photons also result from electron flow and some chemical reactions). Fusion from the sun’s core heats the atoms of the afore-mentioned elements and heat from the core reaches the surface by conduction, convection and finally radiation to space.

The wavelengths of ultraviolet, visible, and infrared radiation quantifies energy. Shorter wavelength (space between photons) means more photons, longer wavelength means fewer photons. Each photon has a discrete amount of energy. You want more energy, have a stream of millions per unit/time! The difference between Infrared, Visible, and Ultraviolet is the number of photons in the stream. For a comparison: Infrared = low heat, Visible = medium heat, and Ultraviolet = high heat.

Let’s pick a substance on the surface of earth. The surface layer of that substance receives photons from the sun and every photon received increases its temperature. As the temperature of the surface molecules becomes higher than the underlying molecules, the hotter molecules release photons to their cooler neighbors below, transfer of heat by “conduction” (due to the second law of thermodynamics). This action is repeated throughout the day and heat penetrates deeper into the substance. This is the heating phase.

Molecules don’t heat themselves (remember that for later), so when the heat source (sun), disappears the surface molecules cool by radiating photons to space through the atmosphere. The rapid cooling occurring at sundown is due to heat released by radiation from the surface. Since conduction in a solid is the transfer of heat from a hot body to an adjacent cold body, as the surface molecule cools, his hotter neighbor below sends a photon back to him, which he promptly radiates out to space. We’ll call this the cooling phase. This slower process continues until the heat source, sun, reappears. The above process repeats every 24 hrs.!

The hotter an atom/molecule, the more photons are released. We know the sun is extremely hot, therefore the suns’ photon wavelengths cover all spectrums. The cooler earth, however, releases heat only in the infrared band. How solar irradiance reaches distinct parts of the earth is complex. That subject was covered in more detail by my first article “Climate Science: Friend or Foe”. You should read that one for more detail.

The earlier discussion relates to heat interaction between sun, ocean, and solid earth. Plant life is a whole different story. Discussion of how plant life affects earth’s climate also reveals the crucial role of water vapor. Plants are the surface of the earth’s greatest terrestrial heat modulator. Snow cover is another important heat modulator by virtue of reflection, more on that later.

It’s a fact that plants use heat from the sun in an active way. Ocean/lakes/rivers and solid objects simply absorb and emit heat. Plants absorb photons and use that energy to power photosynthesis. Some of the heat is not re-emitted and is now part of the plant. Our climate villain CO2 is part of that process. When CO2 is absorbed by the plant the carbon atom stays, the O2 molecule is released. Before I get myself in trouble with this extremely complex subject, understand I’m attempting to extract facts relating to how plants modulate heat on the earth, this is not a treatise on photosynthesis. The release of H2O by a plant is called “transpiration”. Transpiration is often combined with evaporation from water surfaces and land, to create the term “evapotranspiration”, the combined release of water vapor into the atmosphere from both sources. When water evaporates the resultant water vapor removes heat from that surface, cooling it. Transpiration and special reflective properties keep plants at around 85-90o (F). Bare ground for comparison can be up to 135o (F). That’s why deforestation is devastating to the climate, especially in the tropics. Loss of CO2 sequestration is not an issue because CO2 does not cause global warming!

Water vapor, the only true greenhouse gas, is one of the four basics of climate. How important? Without it we wouldn’t be here! Water evaporates at all temperatures, even from ice/snow, in a process called “sublimation”, an admittedly slow process. Heat energy from the sun (photons) speeds the process. That’s why most water vapor in the atmosphere comes from the tropics, particularly from solstice lines. Solstice Heat Paradigm (read the article on my website for details) adds immensely to that evaporation process. Rotation of the earth and the Coriolis effect, 4) on the four basics, moves that water vapor across both hemispheres. Water in all its forms dominates climate on the earth’s surface and in the atmosphere.

End of Part 1.
Author: 7_Sages
Released: 5/16 22
Update: 12/15/22