From a comment:

m: “Three up to date alarmist arguments for GHE: 1. Absorption spectrum of CO2 seen from satellites proves heat is “trapped”

2. Increase in “effective radiating level” from more CO2 causes surface to warm

3. IR cameras like FLIR prove back radiation effect It’s hard to keep up with all the nonsense.”

That’s a good concise summary m. They’re worth going over:

1. Absorption spectrum of CO2 seen from satellites proves heat is “trapped”

We know that their primary tactic is to misuse the language of thermodynamics, as is done here. Given that heat is a transient phenomenon when energy transfers across the boundary of a cooler surface as compared to the energy source’s surface, then this statement has no discernible meaning. From the 1st Law, dU = H + W, we see that heat (H) is identical with work (W ) since they appear together being added together. The work that heat performs is in the increasing of the agitation, in the acceleration of the thermal vibrations, of the cooler surface. Heat transfer is directly related to the increased movement at the microscopic scale of the cooler object’s molecules, just as we normally think of work as being involved when we move something.

So what would “trapping work” mean? If anything, it could possibly mean stopping the work from being performed? That would be ineffectual, since this is the cessation of anything occurring. Or does it mean to “trap the movement” that the work has done? That would be ineffectual too, since the movement was performed anyway.

But this is precisely the intention of sophistry: to create terms and imply concepts which have no connection to reality and no rational meaning at all. There is no such thing as “trapping heat”, and no way to interpret what it would actually mean. Heat flow is spontaneous and transient and represents the performance of work done at the molecular level – it doesn’t mean anything to say that one can “trap” this; it is like saying that we can “trap running”, or that we can “trap swimming”, or that we can “trap typing”. Heat isn’t a noun, it is a verb, just as work is a verb. This is why in the First Law heat and work appear equated to a delta, i.e. to a CHANGE, the dU, change in internal energy.

If you ever see one of them talking about “trapping heat” again (of course, this is constant), then ask them how to trap “running”? Heat is an action of energy, not energy itself, and energy can only perform this action if it has sufficient potential. This is just like work: energy may be spent trying to move something, but if there is no movement because the energy isn’t powerful enough, then there is no work performed. Of course this is why they try to equate all energy with heat, but this identical to saying that a shoe is the same thing as running. Energy is a noun, an object; heat (and work) is a verb, an action.

As for the absorption spectrum: that represents that either IR energy has been resonantly scattered given that CO2 is already vibrationally activated from inter-molecular collisions, and/or that the CO2 absorbed the energy and was thus “warmed” by it. On the latter point, the absorption spectrum at the CO2 wavelengths would then indicate that heat has in fact been transferred, not “trapped”. There is of course nothing wrong with the warmer surface heating the cooler atmosphere, and, this is NOT their greenhouse effect.

2. Increase in “effective radiating level” from more CO2 causes surface to warm

3. IR cameras like FLIR prove back radiation effect

These can go together simply because they contradict each other immediately. Again, as we know, their aim is to create language which has no rational meaning and which is constantly self-contradictory. Most of their goal seems to be just to confuse thinking…which is of course a step along the way to their goals of implementing pseudoscience to then use for political control, etc.

Is their greenhouse effect warming caused by 2 or 3? Which one is it? Those are different mechanisms. Typically their greenhouse effect is first described via 3. However, all that number 3 indicates is that the atmosphere has a temperature. We can remotely detect with FLIR the temperature of an ice-cube. Like an ice-cube, the atmosphere is merely a passive object that has somehow attained a temperature from heating which was previously performed upon it. From what process did the atmosphere attain its temperature? Of course: from the Sun. Remotely detecting that an object has a temperature does not mean that the object is capable of supplying the performance of heat to a warmer object.

The atmospheric gas in the presence of a gravitational field and hard surface at the bottom of itself then sorts itself out so that the average thermal energy state is found somewhere in the middle regions: it is mathematically impossible for the average thermal state of the atmosphere to be found either at the very bottom of the atmosphere or at the very top, *even though* most of the heating of the atmosphere occurs at the bottom via conduction with the sunlight-heated surface. Because of gravity, because it is a free gas, and because of statistical mechanics (mathematics), the average thermal state of the atmosphere must be found around the average of the atmosphere, i.e., around the middle altitudes (of the troposphere).

This now goes to 2, in that the only way to increase the altitude of the average thermal state of the atmosphere would be *to have more atmosphere*. This is the reason why Nikolov and Zeller determined their solution that near-surface air temperature was a function only of the solar constant and the mass of the atmosphere.

So as one can see, the alarmists are inventing language and concepts which are indefinable and un-understandable, and which are not consistent with basic mathematical laws, etc. In other words they’re just lying and sophizing, because they can get away with it, because few people in the world have the ability to parse and deconstruct their statements. The wonder is that they have the support of media and some governments and NGO funding which is intent on pushing their language onto the public, which thus indicates an entire and very well thought out campaign at play.

Finally, if one wishes to discuss “trapping”, then we should discuss the trapping of radiant thermal emission which originates from a surface. The ability for a surface to emit is called “emissivity”. Emissivity is a natural property of a surface and cannot be changed remotely. However, if an object does have low emissivity, then indeed its ability to thermally radiate energy is “trapped”, and the object thus raises in temperature to the point at which needs to given an energy supply to it. The entire principle of greenhouse gases is that they are supposed to be good emitters, to radiate energy, and to radiate their energy to space and also back to the surface. However, non-GHG’s have poor emissivity, and do not radiate their energy either to space or back to the surface. Thus if one gas can radiate energy to space, but another cannot, then which gas facilitates losing energy and which gas facilitates trapping energy? Supposed GHG’s must serve to cool since they can emit, whereas non-GHG’s already serve to hold on to and trap thermal energy. Thus, this is just another example of the logical and philosophical and scientific inversions created by flat-Earth greenhouse theory.