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Showing posts from February, 2016

Questions to the infinite monkey cage on climate change

Here are my questions to the team of the The Infinite Monkey Cage , Series 13   on Climate Change Where: Brian Cox and Robin Ince are joined by guests Dara O Briain, Professor Tony Ryan and Dr Gabrielle Walker to discuss the ever-hot topic of climate change. They take a forensic look at the evidence that the climate is changing, how we know we are responsible, and what can be done to stop it. The scientific will may be there, but is the political will finally catching up? My Questions 1)       How can it be oxygen and nitrogen not absorb or emit infrared radiation when (in the next chapter of my physics book) it is said ‘no substance does not radiate infrared’? 2)       Would a molecule of oxygen in the vacuum of space, in the sun, absorb IR (heat)? If not, why not? 3)       Why do we only use thermoelectric thermopile detectors (as John Tyndall used in his 1859 experiment) when if we also used   Raman spectrometers ( the complement to

Does oxygen in the vacuum of space absorb IR Radiation?

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I have now published my updated theory of the atmosphere.  Augmenting 19th Century Thermoelectric Greenhouse Theory with 20th Century Quantum Mechanics Raman Spectroscopy: Towards a Coherent Radiation Theory of the Atmosphere Update: May 2017 I am writing up my findings, but I have settled on this question: N2 and O2 absorb and emit IR radiation in space, at least in the thermosphere. In the thermosphere, there can only be radiation, and these molecules are 'radiated' to a temperature of some 2500C. Good for the goose, good for the gander: N2 and O2 radiate in the troposphere, too.  The key assumption of climate science (to both proponents and sceptics of manmade climate change) is that N2 and O2—the non-greenhouse gases constituting 99% of the dry atmosphere—do not absorb or emit IR radiation. In space, there is only radiation to transfer heat energy. If this  is true for the vacuum of space, then it must be true for the atmosphere. Space  is the place to test that premise