If you could dredge out the Grand Canyon to a depth of 50km, atmospheric temperatures would be very hot – close to Venusian temperatures.
Would your hole change the height of the troposphere? Of course not. Would it change the composition of the atmosphere? Of course not. Would it change the lapse rate? Of course not.
Enough of the strawman arguments. Venus is hot because it has a thick, high pressure atmosphere. The heat has little or nothing to do with CO2. If Earth’s atmosphere were as thick as Venus, it would be incredibly hot here too.
The reason the top of Mt. Everest has low pressure is because it is cold up there.
The reason it has low pressure is because there isn’t a lot of weight of atmosphere above it.
There was supposed to be a smiley face after the comment.
I’m trying to wrap my head around this. It’s new to me.
How is the atmospheric change in pressure that increases temperature from simply compressing a gas, say CO2, in a tank to say 700psi? The CO2 tank doesn’t get hotter does it? Not enough to notice anyhow.
I’ve heard that if you put cotton in a cylindrical container and push in a plunger really fast the cotton will ignite and combust but if you push in the plunger slowly it won’t, the speed and force matter. How is this different than in an atmosphere?
You’ve mentioned that if the sun wasn’t there there would be no warming effect at all. Is this what is happening in a tank of compressed CO2?
Are these really the same situations with differences in the parameters to a physics math equation? Or are they really different situations with different math and physics going on?
What am I missing? What is the difference? Maybe that is why people are confused?
Thanks.
Missed a word:
How is the atmospheric change in pressure that increases temperature [different] from simply compressing a gas, say CO2, in a tank to say 700psi?
Compressing a gas makes it hot. Try pumping up a bicycle tire and see what happens to the pump.
Ok. The pump gets hot compressing the gas. So you’re saying that the compression of the gas heats the plunger and cylinder of the pump. That makes sense, not problem with that.
But you didn’t answer the questions in the depth I had hopped for.
What about the CO2 tanks compressed to 700psi? Why don’t they get hot or is it that the heat only happens right where the gas is actually being compressed and after that it evens out?
A tank of compressed CO2 isn’t boiling hot. What is the equation for that and is it the same one for a planet’s atmosphere? If so, why? If not why?
Thanks.
The only reason they would get hot would be if the gas was compressed on the way into the tank. The tank will of course quickly cool down after it is full. Everything wants to be at thermal equilibrium.
Yes that makes sense. Likely most compressors have the compression occurring away from the tank.
Found this description: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gas_compressor#Temperature.
Thanks for the clarification.
Maybe these exercises may help you visualize what he’s referencing.
http://www.discoveryeducation.com/teachers/free-lesson-plans/temperature-and-pressure.cfm
http://www.absorblearning.com/media/item.action?quick=10r
(Click on the “view online” button)
Thanks, excellent links.
If they where really serious about proving their CO2 Climate Doomsday Claims they’d have a similar web site with all the various experiments showing that their alleged climate science is the way Nature operates rather than asking us to trust them or be called names that start with a “d”.
But then it’s obvious why they don’t have such experiments… we’d see that they are, ahem to be polite, mistaken about their science.
Wouldn’t be a lot hotter? After all ALGore sez it’s a million degrees two miles under the surface of the earth, and 50 km…. yep 50 km is greater than 2 miles. After all, ain’t we supposed to blindly follow anything the Gore sez?
No need to dig the ground. Just dig at the geology dot com website where one can see all the ‘below sea level’ locations on land. Without fail, these places exhibit Ts much warmer than surrounding ‘above sea level’ locations.
And because these places experience potential annual evaporation rates much higher than precipitation rates, they lack water vapour for much of the year which causes much greater swings between temperature highs and lows. CO2 doesn’t enter into the equation.
For instance, Death Valley, at 86mtrs below sea level, experienced it’s highest temperature of 56.7DegC in 1913. Higher levels of CO2 since has not been able to break that record. If one believes the GHG theory, one would think 98 years worth of CO2 being pumped into the atmosphere might have nudged that record up a little at least.
lol, Kinda blows that whole CO2 thingy right out of the sky.
Dang comment in moderation hell again!!! Forgot the double link rule. 🙁
Yes, yes, yes … by jove you got it! … finally, exhibitions of intelligence on this planet. Whew .. I am vindicated .. this is what I have been yelling about forever. As Steve has so aptly demonstrated, time and time again, places like Venus are not hot because of Co2 .. they are hot for the same reasons that Death Valley is hot. … period … now, that wasn’t so hard was it?
sheeeshhh… 🙂
I have a hard time understanding this as well. Is the energy the same, but because it is compressed the thermometer says it is warmer, or is it something else?
Also, I work for a large construction company so I priced out your 50 km deep hole (my dept specializes in large earth works, mostly for the government).
According to our excavation software we could dig the hole for only $4.25 dollars per m3 735937524000000m3
Total 3,127,734,477,000,000
Blasting Extra
Compaction Extra
If you throw in the blasting and compaction for free you’ve got a deal.
Blasting is never free, but I will give you free compaction if you pay $4.82/tonne. I like your attitude.
Compression is the energy.
pressure = force/area.
force = mass*acceleration
Units of force = Newton.
newton meter/second = watt
Watt is expression of energy.
Hyper, you should go to one of your excavation sites. Go to one where digging is occurring. A small backhoe would do. Before it starts work, feel the metal of the working blade or jaws. After a few minutes of work digging in the earth, feel the metal. It will be warm, if not hot. It is the pressure exerted that creates this warmth.
that is due to friction, what does that have to do with atmospheric temperatures? sometimes our hoe operators start small forest fires when they dig on rock with lots of forest duff around.
Isn’t the friction from pressure?
I always thought it got hotter as you dug deeper because you were getting closer to the molten rock below the surface. But apparently that is not the case, it’s due to compression. I hope I’m saying this right.
Talking about something different. That would be in an underground mine. An open pit exposed to the air won’t be affected much by geothermal heat.
I have a hard time understanding this as well. Is the energy the same, but because it is compressed and the thermometer says it is warmer, or is it something else?
for instance if you took air from Venus” surface in a perfect insulated container and released the pressure on the surface of the earth, what would the temp be???
You can’t trap heat. There is no such thing as a perfect insulator. Temperatures will always equilibrate with the surroundings.
I might be wrong, but I have a feeling that every fridge applies the “hotter when compressed, colder when expanded” principle.
Of course a GH-effect commercial oven would make a good case for AGW. Any inventors out there?
As well as the depth it depends on the opacity, you can have same depth/ thickness but different opacity and that means different temperatures. By just saying it is the depth ignores the chemical makeup of the atmosphere.
If you just use depth on Mars, Venus or Earth as a guide you will end up with values that don’t match the observed at all.
Steve doesn’t want CO2 to be a cause so just ignores it.
Andy
Why would digging a hole change the opacity?
Let me phrase it another way, is the temperature on the surface only dependent on the depth of the atmosphere or is it also dependent on the chemical compostion of it?
As opacity is determined by the chemical composition and opacity has an effect on the temperature. So you can’t just base it on depth.
Your statement
“If you could dredge out the Grand Canyon to a depth of 50km, atmospheric temperatures would be very hot – close to Venusian temperatures”
Can you show your workings for this?
Andy
10C/km * 50km = 500C
“Energy cannot be created or destroyed, it can only be changed from one form to another.”
~Albert Einstein
I did a quick estimate at 350C, even yours is a lot less than Venus.
Andy
9.8 C /km * 50 km is obviously a lot more than 350C