Archives for February 2, 2011
A Note on the Stefan-Boltzmann Equation
According to American climatologist, Judith Curry, there are plenty of things to be skeptical about when it comes to Anthropogenic Global Warming, but the basic physics of gaseous infrared radiative transfer is not one of them.
Dr Curry, is the chair of the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at the Georgia Institute of Technology and the co-author of ‘Thermodynamics of Atmospheres and Oceans’ (1999), and was speaking out against claims in a book ‘Slaying the Sky Dragon: Death of the Greenhouse Gas Theory’.
There has been some discussion of radiative transfer theory at this blog mostly via notes I have posted from Alan Siddons, Holden, Massachusetts, who is a chapter author in the book and is very skeptical about the basic physics of radiative transfer as applied by mainstream climate scientists and in the IPCC reports.
I was recently alerted to a blog post Dr Curry has started, ostensibly to discuss this physics and its application to global warming theory. It seems to have stirred up interest again in this issue.
An occasional commentator at this blog, known as Cementafriend, is also skeptical, in particular about how the Stefan-Boltzmann equation is applied by the climate scientists.
Following is a note from Cementafriend to resurrect the issue here:
Is the Stefan-Boltzmann Equation used correctly
D Kern in the text book “Process Heat Transfer” states “Radiant energy is believed to originate within molecules of the radiating body, atoms of such molecules vibrating in simple harmonic motion as linear oscillators. The emission of radiant energy is believed to represent a decrease in the amplitudes of the vibrations within the molecules, while an absorption of energy represents an increase.”
But from where does the Stefan-Boltzmann equation come?
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD has worked in industry and government. She is currently researching a novel technique for long-range weather forecasting funded by the B. Macfie Family Foundation.