Guy Ottewell's website and weblog
Updates on my research and expository papers, discussion of open problems, and other maths-related topics. By Terence Tao
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Dear mr.Blanket Man.
[snip]
The second law says that transfer of energy from cold to hot, can only be in the form of work.
Why does the gh-theory say that energy is transferred as heat to the surface?
[snip]
I don’t get many comments. shrug Getting comments or even traffic is not why I write my blog, but I do have the utmost respect for my 177 followers.
I’m leaving this one here as an example of what not to post.
Responding and engaging trolls are simply a waste of time that could be put to better purposes.
With the edits (made by the Moderator), the comment from @lifeisthermal now can be addressed in a proper context. The physical work related to the greenhouse effect is adiabatic expansion (where the “work” is coming from internal cooling) coupled with radiation of heat energy into space. The adiabatic portion occurs with constant potential temperature, at constant entropy. Lost of energy by emission is another energy exchange, indicative of a non-closed system. (Second law only applies to closed.) And the greenhouse effect and global warming are simply corollaries of the First and Second Law.
First note: Temperature of parcels of air decrease monotonically as altitude about Earth’s surface decreases. The rate of decrease is termed the lapse rate, and its profile is uniquely specified by any given atmosphere, whether it contains greenhouse gases or not. Atmosphere at higher altitudes is colder than atmosphere at lower ones, and the atmosphere at the surface boundary layer, in contact with the surface is the warmest of all.
Second note: The atmosphere, sans clouds and other scattering, is transparent to high frequently radiation from the Sun. It warms the Earth’s surface and, to the degree water is involved there (and pretending no water above) water in air near it. Because of the First Law, Earth must remain in thermal equilibrium with space about it. Since upon receiving a parcel of energy from Sun, Earth is incrementally warming because of it, this must be radiated out. And so it is, but the layers which radiate are high in the atmosphere, not near the surface. Thermal radiation is exchanged the dense layers by convection and collisions of molecules, and very little by direct radiation. Moreover, presence of dense layers of atmosphere above mean their cross section for thermal photos is very high. So they rarely escape.
Third note: Introduce, now, greenhouse gases in atmosphere. These are per unit mass much more opaque to thermal photons than ambient Oxygen and Nitrogen, and, so, impede the emission of thermal energy from any rising parcel of air. The effect is to change the lapse rate so high atmosphere at a temperature
before the addition of greenhouse gas has 
only when 
where 
is the new altitude and 
was the old one.
Fourth and final note: But if the lapse rate is such that the new equilibrium-by-thermal emission altitude
is higher than the original 
, that means, because the lapse rate is a monotonic decrease in temperature the temperature of atmosphere near Earth’s surface must necessarily be higher. So, it warms the surface more than it would without the greenhouse gases.
That’s it.