Perhaps you have heard about temperature inversions. Those are temperature differences in gases in the atmosphere. These have been blamed for smog problems, as the smog is kept low to the ground due to the difference in temperature between the ground level and a few thousand feet up in elevation.
Believe it or not, there appears to be a temperature inversion in this trailer. At the level one sits at, the temperature is actually cold enough for a fog to come out when I breathe, but at standing level, this does not exist. That means that the heat has risen to the top of the trailer, and cold air exists at the floor level. The difference in temperature is significant.
Now, that is amazing to me that such a small volume as this trailer could support such a phenomenon. Could this be a property of the gas phase of matter? For example, are there temperature inversions in metals? Why, yes. I noted in an earlier post that the grill on the stove can get red hot near the flame, but a few inches away, it is cool enough to touch. That would be a temperature inversion. These are to be expected then.
But what makes temperature inversions different for gases? A hypothesis is that even though there are these inversions, they are far less significant than for solids and liquids. The capacity for movement of gases as opposed to liquids and solids could explain it. Solids cannot move around, the molecules are locked into place. Liquid molecules can move more, but gases move the most in relation to each other. This allows for temperatures to made more even than for the other two phases of matter.
Why this discussion? I love to go after the AGW crowd. This is another argument against AGW. Why? The "heat trapping " of gases is unlikely due to the nature of gases. That is because of the movement of gas molecules are much freer than for solids and liquids. Heat trapping occurs much more for those phases of matter than for gases. Gases do not trap heat very well at all.
But what about the temperature inversions in this trailer? These can be solved with better air circulation. The reason I have this phenomenon is that the air isn't being circulated enough.
Try circulating matter in a solid. Cannot be done. Liquids can be stirred. Solids cannot.
When the sun hits the earth, the gas molecules in the air help convey heat from the ground into the air. Think of air as a conveyor belt for heat. Conveyor belts do not trap matter, they move it around. Hotter gases will move around more, and mix with the colder gases in the upper atmosphere. The thing that makes for inversions are a lack of air movement. Let the wind blow!
Gases do not trap heat, but gravity can. It is density of matter that traps heat. The more matter in an enclosed space, the harder it is for the heat to move. Solids are more dense than gases, so the heat doesn't move as much. Hence, heat inversions are far more localized in a solid than for a gas or for a liquid.
The conditions of a runaway greenhouse effect exist on Venus, but cannot be replicated on Earth. The atmosphere isn't dense enough on Earth, nor could it ever be. The burning of fossil fuels can not change the Earth's atmosphere that much. The gravity of Venus combined with its dense atmosphere explain its greenhouse effect. There is no greenhouse effect on Mars even though its atmosphere is nearly all carbon dioxide. There isn't enough atmosphere there. The Earth can support a greenhouse effect, but this could never be replicated as it is on Venus, unless we figure out a way to import a lot more atmosphere than we have here now. We have to change what is already here.
Let's say you burn as much carbon as is possible. Do the math. The Earth's atmosphere is 1/5th oxygen. If you replace that oxygen with carbon dioxide, you increase its density by a factor of one third. That is because the molecular weight is 32 for oxygen, and 44 for carbon dioxide. If you replaced all the oxygen with carbon dioxide, that would increase the density by only one fifteenth, because it would be one third of one fifth of the atmosphere. In comparison, Venus' atmosphere is 100 times more dense than Earth's. You will never get there like that. Besides, by the time you replace just one third of the oxygen, the air becomes unbreathable. Humans could only change the atmosphere by a factor of one forty fifth, or approximately two percent before it would become impossible to make it more dense.
Not enough difference to make a difference. On Mars, the amount of gas in the atmosphere changes by more than that without a measurable difference in average temperature of the planet. No climate change on Mars due to changes in carbon dioxide, as it is ninety five percent of the atmosphere. It is just cold as hell, as someone once said. Nobody lives on Mars, so you cannot blame humans for any changes in carbon dioxide there. At least not yet. Bwah, hah, hah!
AGW is bunk.
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