Information from:

http://www.phys.uri.edu/~gerhard/PHY525/tln23.pdf

“During expansion, a gas does work against attractive intermolecular forces.
In the process, the average potential energy increases and, by virtue of energy
conservation, the average kinetic energy decreases. The result is a drop
in temperature.”

At the following site there is a test that you can take to see if you understand the concept.

http://www.phys.uri.edu/~gerhard/PHY525/wtex72.pdf

I thought that was grammatically clear. If you weren’t already programmed to be overly-sensitive to any supposed irony, it might have rolled right over you without a notice.

I know I was certainly not alluding to anything cute or snarky, especially since I’ve always felt my prior rejection of the runaway greenhouse idea was evidence of my more moderate and reasonable approach to the science involved.

But moderate and reasonable is never enough is it? You demand complete submission.

It ain’t me. I don’t profit from making or influencing public policy. I just want to talk about it.

When he puts it away, we’ll talk.

“He’s kind of ugly but not as ugly as a warthog.”

I’m not a member of your power-hungry cabal, I don’t work for the great Liberal conspiracy any more, haven’t you heard? I never did. I just happen to have an opinion, which as a professional physical geographer I feel I am entitled to discuss with some authority. Why are you so desperate to make sure no one even brings this up? Are you afraid of even speculation on the subject?

You don’t like people talking about things you don’t want to be true, do you? Things that might call attention to your self-serving ideology. You have to nip it in the bud. Stamp out the offending thoughtcrime. And you can’t even see how that gives you away.

“According to TB’s politics, we’re supposed to do nothing about it until it can be definitely proven. Unfortunately, there’s only one way we can definitely prove it, and that’s to suffer from it.”

If someone is going to do major cancer surgery on me, damn straight I want definite proof.

And right now, it’s a long way from definite, with way too many things not following the predictions, and way too many cases of people cooking numbers.

“We can’t afford to wait for the evidence to come in” is a common refrain.

Unfortunately, every solution proposed for this issue by those who are obsessed with it has been the same one: more power and loot to a massive centralized authority. Preferably a worldwide one, with them humbly taking charge. You should see what James Hansen is trying to sell now.

I claim the right to have at least as much skepticism about this issue as you would have if a private corporation was the one trying to shove this down our throats to gain money and power.

Money AND power. You have an eagle’s eye for lust for wealth, and one hell of a blind spot for lust for power.

You can refresh your memory by reading my response to VRB below.

I read snark and hyperbole.

But you can explain what you really meant if you like.

The earth will radiate any excess heat off into space, but it will do so at a higher temperature, not necessarily hundreds of degrees, but even a few degrees will have consequences for our weather and climate. I have repeatedly said here a runaway greenhouse effect was highly unlikely on earth because after billions of years of asteroid strikes and volcanic episodes the earth has never had one. The earth is self-regulating, but not perfectly so. We do have Coal and Ice Ages. But of course, TB has accused me of something I’ve never claimed, and that he knows I’ve never claimed, so he
can cleverly produce a pithy counter-example.

No one knows why Venus had a greenhouse excursion, which is why astronomers are so baffled by it. It may have been Venus’ chemistry, or its distance from the sun, or even its rotational mechanics, did not allow an earth-type feedback weather moderating system to evolve there. But no one knows for sure.

But even a slight excursion in temperature over a short time span will alter ocean currents, wind patterns, precipitation, little things which may wreak havoc with our agriculture, settlement patterns, and civilization. According to TB’s politics, we’re supposed to do nothing about it until it can be definitely proven. Unfortunately, there’s only one way we can definitely prove it, and that’s to suffer from it.

As the earth heats up from the effects of the sun, there is only one way it can cool off, by radiating its excess heat into space. It’s the same physics that causes any heated object to give off heat until it stabilizes at some higher temperature. The power radiated, P = kT**4, so equilibrium is quickly reached. But greenhouse gases can potentially alter the proportionality constant k so equilibrium may be reached at a slightly higher T. But even a rise of an average of a few degrees C will probably cause weather changes, and maybe corn won’t grow in the Iowan Desert any more.