"TWTW will begin by discussing a paper by W. A. van Wijngaarden and W. Happer and a video by van Wijngaarden explaining why, based on physical evidence from the atmosphere,
the world has nothing to fear from developing countries in Asia greatly increasing the concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, particularly carbon dioxide the gas essential for green plant life on this planet.
TWTW will explain why it is so impressed by the work of van Wijngaarden and Happer as an outstanding example of using proper science to address a complex scientific problem, even though their work has not been published by a leading western scientific journal.
As exemplified by Science Magazine since the mid-1990s, published by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), western journals are more interested in political conformity than they are in competent advances in physical science.
Van Wijngaarden and Happer are highly regarded experts in Atomic, Molecular, and Optical (AMO) physics which includes the study of how certain molecules absorb and emit electromagnetic radiation.
Greenhouse gases transmit visible sunlight but absorb various infrared colors.
Their work calculates transmission of infrared radiation through the atmosphere to outer space.
TWTW will then present the first two of eight essays by AMO physicist Howard Hayden and will discuss others in later TWTWs.
While van Wijngaarden and Happer discuss details of the IR spectra, Hayden looks at the overall results.
The 1860s pioneer of spectroscopy, John Tyndall, named the atmospheric gases that prevent land masses from entering a deep freeze at night as greenhouse gases.
They are essential for life on land.
... Greatly Exaggerated CO2 Effects:
In their paper, “Relative Potency of Greenhouse Molecules,” van Wijngaarden and W. Happer cut through a lot of nonsense by climate scientists who do not understand the greenhouse effect and how various concentrations of greenhouse gases change the effectiveness of other greenhouse gases.
The abstract reads:
The forcings due to changing concentrations of Earth’s five most important, naturally occurring greenhouse gases, H2O, CO2, O3, N2O and CH4 as well as CF4 and SF6 were evaluated for the case of a cloud-free atmosphere.
The calculation used over 1.5 million lines having strengths as low as 10−27 cm.
For a hypothetical, optically thin atmosphere, where there is negligible saturation of the absorption bands, or interference of one type of greenhouse gas with others, the per-molecule forcings are of order 10−22 W for H2O, CO2, O3, N2O and CH4 and of order 10−21 W for CF4 and SF6.
For current atmospheric concentrations, the per-molecule forcings of the abundant greenhouse gases H2O and CO2 are suppressed by four orders of magnitude.
The forcings of the less abundant greenhouse gases, O3, N2O and CH4, are also suppressed, but much less so.
For CF4 and SF6, the suppression is less than an order of magnitude because the concentrations of these gases is very low.
For current concentrations, the per- molecule forcings are two to four orders of magnitude greater for O3, N2O, CH4, CF4 and SF6 than those of H2O or CO2.
Doubling the current concentrations of CO2, N2O or CH4 increases the forcings by a few per cent.
A concentration increase of either CF4 or SF6 by a factor of 100 yields a forcing nearly an order of magnitude smaller than that obtained by doubling CO2.
Important insight was obtained using a harmonic oscillator model to estimate the power radiated per molecule.
Unlike the most intense bands of the 5 naturally occurring greenhouse gases, the frequency-integrated cross sections of CF4 and SF6 were found to noticeably depend on temperature.
He then explains the difference between the Planck blackbody curve with a transparent atmosphere and the irregular Schwarzschild curve with greenhouse gases.
These are discussed by Happer and are important to understanding the essays by Howard Hayden.
Correspondingly, cutting methane to zero or doubling it makes little difference in outgoing infrared radiation.
Methane is not an important greenhouse gas, despite EPA’s erroneous calculations.
*************** A Significant Contribution:
TWTW is impressed by the approach used by van Wijngaarden and Happer because they address the greenhouse effect as directly as possible
and do not go through the convoluted process of understanding the earth’s internal climate which has been changing for hundreds of millions of years.
They use the appropriate field of physics, AMO, to address the issue.
In earlier papers they use the appropriate mathematics, which includes calculus.
Developed independently by Isaac Newton and Gottfried Leibniz, calculus gave Newton a dynamic form of mathematics that explained the motion of the planets and gravity.
Static calculations were not sufficient.
Further, van Wijngaarden and Happer use the appropriate evidence, the HITRAN database, which is compiled from atmospheric observations, where the greenhouse effect occurs.
Since greenhouse gas theory is not fully developed and the greenhouse effect varies with cloudiness, altitude, and latitude, the Schwarzschild curve can be developed only through observations, not theoretical calculations.
Also, van Wijngaarden and Happer test their model (calculations) against independent physical evidence, as explained, in part, by van Wijngaarden about 14 minutes into his presentation ...
Nothing the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and its followers have done approaches the rigor in identifying the changing greenhouse effect that van Wijngaarden and Happer have accomplished.
To top things off, forty-two years of comprehensive atmospheric temperature observations by satellites show that the atmosphere is warming slowly, not significantly, contradicting claims of alarming global warming by climate modelers.
*************** Basic Climate Physics:
Howard ‘Cork’ Hayden, professor of physics emeritus in the Physics Department of the University of Connecticut, is editor of The Energy Advocate, a monthly newsletter promoting energy and technology.
A Colorado native, Dr. Hayden attended the University of Denver where he earned his B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. in Physics.
On receiving his Ph.D., he went to the University of Connecticut where he spent 32 years teaching and doing research.
He did accelerator-based atomic physics, including measurements of cross-sections for various processes, measurements of energy loss in atomic collisions and of lifetimes of excited states, beam-foil spectroscopy, and ion implantation.
He also performed a Trouton-Noble experiment that was 105 times as sensitive as the original.
He is writing a series on Basic Climate Physics, meaning all-inclusive physics that pertains to the subject of climate.
He uses the approach used by van Wijngaarden and Happer and the numbers established by the IPCC to establish an upper bound for calculations by climate modelers on temperature change from a doubling of carbon dioxide.
Even though some may disagree with IPCC numbers, as Hayden does, there should be no disagreement with those numbers by climate modelers who follow IPCC procedures.
He then explains the difference between the Planck blackbody curve with a transparent atmosphere and the irregular Schwarzschild curve with greenhouse gases.
These are discussed by Happer and are important to understanding the essays by Howard Hayden.
Correspondingly, cutting methane to zero or doubling it makes little difference in outgoing infrared radiation.
Methane is not an important greenhouse gas, despite EPA’s erroneous calculations.
The first two essays are posted on the SEPP website under scientific papers and others will be posted in the near future.
In the first essay Hayden establishes a Planetary Heat Balance which should apply to all non-gaseous planets and their satellites that orbit the sun.
In the second essay, he introduces the greenhouse effect and how it can be easily calculated.
Strangely, the greenhouse effect as a numerical quantity was not used by the IPCC until the Sixth Assessment Report (AR6, 2021), after thirty years of Assessment Reports.
Basic Climate Physics #1 & #2
By Howard “Cork” Hayden,
SEPP website,
March 12, 2022
http://www.sepp.org/science_papers/Climate%20Physics%201.pdf
http://www.sepp.org/science_papers/Climate%20Physics%202.pdf
Relative Potency of Greenhouse Molecules
By W. A. van Wijngaarden and W. Happer,
Jan 14, 2021
https://wvanwijngaarden.info.yorku.ca/files/2021/03/WPotency.pdf?x45936
Methane and Climate Change
By William van Wijngaarden.
Irish Climate Science Foundation,
Nov 25, 2020
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rgP-lwf2tb8
Video