Molecular and atmospheric scale energy
Terigi Ciccone - Gerald Ratzer
November 22, 2024
In my view, I think you (Gerald) and I are on topic. But, to be sure let me state it clearly as I know/can. You and I make a clear distinction between collisions at the atomic/chemical scale and the planetary/atmospheric-Brownian motion scale.
1) In the air CO2 absorbs an LWIR photon, and absent any collision, will re-emit a comparable photon. That photon may be absorbed by a nearby CO2 molecule, but more likely will be absorbed by water vapor. A re-emitted water vapor molecule is no longer re-absorbable by CO2 because the CO2 molecule will reemit its photon across the vast water vapor spectrum. At any time while these energized molecules are rising they can be deenergized by collisions. The probability of energized-collisions is about 100% near the surface and reduces with altitude.
2) At the atomic/chemical scale, EM energy is released with the emitted LWIR photon from the surface. Then, because of the great opacity of CO2/GHGs in the boundary layer of the surface and air, this EM energy is immediately absorbed by CO2/GHGs and is immediately thermalized by the collisions with all the air molecules. This EM energy disappears and is replaced by a tiny amount of physical/local heat. This heated molecule rises up the air with buoyancy, sharing some of that heat with its neighboring air molecules. But the collision de-energized it and can now absorb a new resonant LWIR photon at any time or place. Heinze Hug says that the central 15-um peak radiation disappears in the first 10 meters of altitude, but the wing frequencies of this photon disappear (saturate) in several subsequent upper layers of the troposphere over several kilometers but a few still leak through,
unthermalized, in the upper troposphere and beyond. These weaker wing frequencies will find a CO2 molecule and it will reemit directly into space or may go through a few more cycles until all of the wing frequencies exit into space. German physicist Heinz Hug first addressed this saturation concept and calculated the results. The remnants of his tests and writings are found on this website https://nov79.com/gbwm/satn.html
3) Meanwhile in the troposphere, both energized and deenergized, and all neutral molecules rise until their upper limits are reached, and they continue to collide with each other by Brownian motion. For the water vapor molecules, I think its upper limit is the dew point. For all the other molecules, energized or not, their limiting height is determined primarily by their molar mass. In all cases, at their limiting heights, all these molecules are accelerated downward by gravity and autocompression heating dominates. I suspect that even during this compression process, some of the GHGs may still be energized by resonant frequencies and de-energized by the many collisions and the air warms.
4) The source of Ned's arguments with Valentina is that Ned only sees collisions in terms of auto-compression, whereas Valentina seems to try and distinguish the two different ones. The difference between Ned's and Chris's is that Chris thinks Ned is talking about the earth's planetary albedo, i.e. 30%, whereas Ned by the term opacity is referring to the air density and/or GHG density.
5) There's very little literature on CO2/GHG opacity and saturation other than Heinze Hug, So I could be way off the reservation. Scan the many topical subjects at the Hug site given above. Pangburn gives an excellent account of "thermalization of CO2 in Chapter 4 of this paperhttps://www.researchgate.net/publication/ 316885439_Climate_Change_Drivers