The Greenhouse Gas (GHG) model of planetary climate has totally ignored the laws of thermodynamics and the Ideal Gas Law. We know that the temperature on earth changes about 7 °C per kilometer of height. In other words, the temperature decreases 7°C for every kilometer of height above the surface so the temperature is cooler at the top of the mountain than it is at the base. The GHG theory of global warming cannot account for this well known fact of the earth’s atmosphere because it ignores the compression of the atmosphere.
Professor Robert Ian Holmes of Federation University Australia published a ground breaking paper that shows there is little evidence of
greenhouse gas warming because the temperatures for planets with surface atmospheric pressures greater than 0.69 kPa (0.00681 atmosphere) can be calculated using the molar mass version of the Ideal Gas law. “This method requires a gas constant and the near-surface averages
of only three gas parameters: the atmospheric pressure, the atmospheric density and the mean molar mass. Using this simple model, Holmes has calculated the surface temperature of Earth to be 288°K (15°C) and the surface temperature of Venus that has a 96% CO2 atmosphere
to be 740°K (467°C). Both values are in very high agreement with numbers measured by satellite but this simple model doesn’t consider the effect of changing solar radiation due to cloud cover changes. It should be noted that Holmes model uses measured data for atmospheric density, atmospheric pressure and molar mass thus it doesn't provide a model for calculating temperature based on environmental changes.
The Next Generation of Calculations
Holmes’ simple gas law model has been expanded by Nikolov and Zeller (NZ) to include the effects of albedo radiation which effects the surface temperature of the earth. NZ started by creating a model using the Stefan-Bolzman Law of solar radiation for a rocky planet that has no atmosphere to derive the basic equation to calculate the surface temperature due to solar radiation.
This model was then used to develop a model that includes the pressure effects of the atmosphere and the albedo effects of the atmosphere. While analyzing NASA planetary data, NZ (2017) discovered that the long-term (baseline) global surface temperature of rocky planets and moons (𝑇𝑠𝑏, °K) is mainly a function of two variables: Total Solar Irradiance (TSI) reaching the top of the atmosphere and the mean atmospheric pressure at the surface.” In other words, the GHG effect is irrelevant in the regulation of the earth’s surface temperature.
A key new insight from the NZ model is that the climate system is not solely driven by radiation, which is a form of diabatic (external)
heating, but it is also controlled by an adiabatic enhancement of the absorbed solar energy (internal heating) due to air pressure.
Adiabatic heating is a well-known thermodynamic phenomenon in compressible fluids such as gases. The Greenhouse theory of climate
change exclusively focuses on radiative forcing and positive radiative feedback, and does not consider the adiabatic warming
effect of atmospheric pressure on a planet’s surface. The following figure shows the formula developed in NZ's research.
It’s not important to understand the mathematics of this formula but to understand that the temperature of the surface of a rocky planet with
an atmosphere can be determined by the total surface atmospheric pressure (P), the solar radiation (S), the global surface solar radiation (Rg), the baseline albedo radiation (αb) and the deviation of cloud albedo (∆αb) from a baseline (αb). This means that the temperature of the earth is not determined by CO2 emissions but rather a natural effect due to the gas physics of the atmosphere and solar activity.
Figure 3 above shows the calculated absorbed solar radiation since 1700 based
on the NZ model and temperature records. Note the increase since 1860
which corresponds to higher global temperatures since the beginning of
the industrial revolution. Of particular interest is the increase over
the last twenty years which agree within +/- 0.5% with radiometer measurements
of the CERES satellite.
Note that the model predicts a decrease in albedo in modern times (more solar radiation absorbed by earth). The warming at the beginning of
the industrial revolution, 1800, is NOT due to greenhouse gas from fossil fuel burning but due to the change in the albedo of the earth system (brightening of the clouds) probably due to solar activity. Note that figure 2 shows decreasing albedo starting in the early 1800s which corresponds to rising temperatures the last 160 years. “However, a plethora of studies published during the past 15 years have shown through both satellite and surface observations that the absorption of solar radiation by the Earth-atmosphere system has increased significantly since 1982 due to a decreased cloud cover/albedo, a phenomenon often referred to as “global brightening".
The following figures show the latest CERES satellite data for absorbed shortwave (SW) radiation, the global cloud cover and the corresponding temperature change from 2000 to 2024. Note that decreasing cloud cover corresponds to a lower albedo which causes more solar radiation to be absorbed which raises the earth's temperature. Green house gases play no role in the warming of the planet. It is warmed because more solar radiation is absorbed because of decreasing cloud cover.