Re: [Phys-l] Arguing Points (was Climate skeptic...)

[brian whatcott <betwys1@sbcglobal.net>]

Ah yes: the wiki cite mentions a spun black body would stabilize at -5 
deg C   (tho I couldn't see a  direct reference for this datum). It 
notes that the albedo difference would put an  Earth colored airless  
spun object at -19 deg C - so that the greenhouse effect provides a lift 
of 33 deg C to get the Earth mean temp  of 14 or 15 deg C.....


Considering  a mirror-surface ball - say a big ball-bearing -  with 
maximal albedo: that would stabilize to some temperature lower than  -19 
deg C I suppose: perhaps that's the reason NASA uses gold faced foil on 
its unmanned spacecraft then?

This might be fun to develop into a reductio argument - but I don't have 
patience to deal with a topic that gives rise to so much internal 
heating of participants....   :-)

Brian W

On 2/19/2012 12:59 PM, John Mallinckrodt wrote:
> A would-be Devil's advocate who "picked up" some (uncited) "satellite lore" "at some point" might be well-advised to spend a few moments looking into the matter.  There's a thing called "teh google" that offers instruction in such matters.  For instance:
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_effect
>
> On Feb 19, 2012, at 10:46 AM, brian whatcott wrote:
>
> > Acting as the Devil's Advocate, I suppose I should mention the snippet
> > of satellite lore I picked up at some point:     "A spun object in near
> > Earth orbit stabilizes at about 15 deg C."
> >
> > If this is true, I would imagine the mean temperature of a spun object
> > like Earth would also stabilize on a mean value of 15 deg C    N'est-ce pas?
> >
> > If this were the case the warming provided by atmospheric greenhouse
> > effect given as 33 deg C would be questionable??
> John Mallinckrodt
> Cal Poly Pomona
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