http://scienceblogs.com/stoat/
Author: Atmospheric Physicist
Comment:
Lukes and warmists have no proof from physics and no physical evidence for their underlying assumption (as Roy Spencer also wrote) that there would be isothermal conditions in a planet's troposphere but for "greenhouse" gases. As Dr Hans Jelbring pointed out, even the large gas planets exhibit a temperature gradient close to <i>-g/cp</i> and yet have no water vapor or carbon dioxide. Nikolov and Zeller said likewise.
The temperature gradient is a direct result of the force field acting on molecules in flight between collisions, and the process of entropy maximization described in statements of the Second Law of Thermodynamics. I have cited about half a dozen others who have agreed in writing about this, and there are hundreds, maybe thousands more who don't speak up but have probably understood the explanation based on standard physics. There is also evidence of similar radial temperature gradients due to centrifugal force, such as in any vortex cooling tube.
It is surely a fundamental requirement of any hypothesis that it be proven from the laws of physics and supported by empirical evidence which never refutes it.
<b>Every planetary troposphere and every vortex tube and the Second Law of Thermodynamics all refute the basic underlying assumption of the radiative forcing greenhouse conjecture.</b>
The other assumption that solar and atmospheric radiation can be compounded is also false and easily refuted with simple experiments. The conclusion that water vapor warms by about 20 degrees for each 1% in the atmosphere is easily shown with real-world data to be incorrect.
