by Anthony Bright-Paul

Here is a very simple Climate Quiz for 2016, which is good for Warmists and Sceptics alike, and better still for those who are confused about the whole issue. All the questions are questions of fact – there are no opinions. Some questions may need reference to Google for an answer, and some of the answers can be quite surprising to those who already know a fair bit about this subject.

Climate Quiz for 2016

1. The temperature on the Moon varies between 240ºC and -240ºC.

1. What is the average temperature?
2. What temperature did the astronauts experience?
3. Since the Moon has no atmosphere what was being measured?

2. The Sun is much bigger than the Earth

1. Is it twice as big as the Earth?
2. Is it 1,300,000 times as big as the Earth?
3. Is it 559 times as big as the Earth?
4. Is it 3,769 times as big as the Earth?

3. When the sands of the Sahara reach 71ºC the air temperatures can be 41ºC.

1. Does the air warm the sands?
2. Do the sands warm the air?
3. Or does the Sun warm the air?

4. The North Pole can be minus 30 degrees Celsius which equals 243.15K

1. Is the ice warmer than the air?
2. Or is the air at 5ft above the ice warmer?

5. The temperature in London today was 12ºC.

1. What was the temperature 1,000 feet up?
2. 5,000 feet up?
3. 30,000 feet up?

6. The Sun is some 90 –95 million miles distant from Earth. The Sun does not send heat* through the “outer space” but radiation. Radiation has to encounter matter (anything that has mass and takes up space) for heat to be produced.

*In physics, heat is defined as a form of energy associated with the movement of atoms and molecules in any material. The higher the temperature of a material, the faster the atoms are moving, and hence the greater the amount of energy present as heat.

1. Is Outer Space then very hot?
2. Is Outer Space very cold?
3. Is Outer Space neither hot nor cold?

7. There are 4 levels of atmosphere, the Troposphere, the Stratosphere, the Mesosphere and the Thermosphere.

1. In which level is the Jetstream?
2. Can Dame Judy Slingo of the Met Office control the Jetstream?
3. Can President Obama?
4. Can the Pope?

8. The Earth is orbiting the Sun

1. Is it travelling at 600 miles per hour?
2. Is it going at 6,000 miles per hour?
3. Or in excess of 66,000 miles per hour?

9. As gases are warmed they rise up and the molecules get farther and farther  apart and by Convection they cool down

• What is between the molecules?

10.  99% of the atmosphere is composed of Nitrogen and Oxygen, which leaves just 1% for the so-called Greenhouse Gases, of which Water Vapour is the most abundant.

1. What is the percentage of CO2 (Carbon Dioxide) in the atmosphere?
2. What distinguishes the Greenhouse Gases?
3. What percentage of the total CO2 in the atmosphere is man-made, according to the IPCC (International Panel on Climate Change)?
4. So what is the man-made percentage to six figures of decimals?

11. The 2^nd Law of Thermodynamics states that, by itself, all heat flows from hot to cold and never vice-versa. In layman’s language everything that is hot cools.

• So what is the 1^st Law of Thermodynamics? (Expressed in layman language)

12. As the Earth is revolving on itself as it hurtles round the Sun in an ellipse and as there are 3,600 seconds in an hour there are some 3,600 changes of temperatures in every location upon the Planet, even if in 1/100^th of a degree.

1. What is the Global Temperature today?
2. What was the Global temperature at 12 noon Greenwich Mean Time on Jan 1^st 2016?
3. What was the Global temperature on Jan 1^st 2000?
4. What was the Global temperature on Jan 1^st 1900?
5. Where does one put the thermometer?
6. What is being measured and where?
7. Is there such an entity as a Global Temperature?

For answers scroll to the very bottom of this page

Copyright 2016 by Anthony Bright-Paul

12 simple questions compiled by Anthony Bright-Paul, author/compiler of e-Book:

So-called Greenhouse Gases scatter incoming radiation and allegedly impede or slow down outgoing radiation. In no way though do they make the Earth hotter. Anthony Bright-Paul brings logic to bear on the theories of man-made Global Warming and man-made Climate Change in such a way that even unscientific people can understand. His layman questionings are supported by answers from a host of brilliant scientists.

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Answers to Climate Quiz 2016

1. Well, of course the average temperature is nought, which goes to show how misleading averages are. The lunar astronauts had to wear boots with extra thick soles, since they landed in a lunar daytime. On Earth temperatures are taken of the atmosphere in louvred boxes at 5ft above the ground. Since the Moon has no atmosphere to speak of the temperature taken is of the top layer of soil and rocks.
2. The Sun is immense. I was quite surprised to find that the answer is that one million, three hundred thousand Earths can be contained in the Sun. I put the other figures in just to make you think.
3. The answer is that the hot sands of the Sahara warm the air by Conduction. The Sun’s radiation warms the surfaces of the Earth, be they water or soil and the surfaces warm the atmosphere from the bottom up. Hence the Adiabatic Lapse Rate and the Standard Atmosphere used by Air Crews.
4. I understand that the same principle applies with the ice at the Poles. The ice actually is warmer than the air, which is why I also put in a figure in the Kelvin scale.
5. If the temperature in London at a given moment in time was 12ºC then the temperature 1,000 feet up would be 10ºC. The temperature will decline by 2ºC for every 1,000 feet of altitude. So at 5,000ft it would be 2ºC and at 30,000 ft it would be minus – 48ºC.
6. The answer is c. Outer Space is a vacuum and is neither hot nor cold, since there is nothing there to get either hot or cold. Radiation has to encounter mass for heat to be generated. Of course, what strays into Space has great difficulty in keeping cool – i.e. a Space Station.
7. The Jetstream is in the Stratosphere, and has a huge effect on our weather. Neither Dame Slingo nor President Obama nor the Pope has been able to command the Jetstream.
8. The Earth is orbiting the Sun in excess of 66,000 miles an hour.
9. What is between the molecules? This is a question that puzzled me greatly, and is dealt with in my Chapter ‘What’s in the Space?’ I appealed to the Rev. Philip Foster, who gave me the answer:  Nothing. This was supported by a lot of figures from Avogrado’s Law. If that bewilders you, it does me too.
10. What is the percentage of Carbon Dioxide in the atmosphere? The answer is but 0.04%. Most of it is natural. The IPCC figure for man-made CO2 is 2.9%. Taking that up to 3% of 0.04% brings us to a figure of 0.000012%. It is this figure that scientists are attempting to reduce in order to control the Global Average (anomalous) Temperature, taken from some 3,800 Weather stations at 5 ft off the ground.       What distinguishes the Greenhouse Gases so-called from Nitrogen and Oxygen? – The latter are transparent to radiation, the former are opaque.
11. The 2nd law of Thermodynamics is known to every sentient being. Everything that is hot cools down by itself. Make a cup of coffee with boiling water… from the instant it is poured the water begins to cool. Same with red-hot lava. The 1^st law in layman’s language can be expressed as All heat has to be generated. In books of Physics it says ‘by work done.’ So nothing will ever get hotter just by itself.
12. What is the Global temperature today? You tell me. NASA confirms that there is no simple temperature of the Globe, for the very obvious reason that the Earth by reason of its orbit, hurtling round the Sun, has a huge range of constantly changing temperatures. There is no one place to stick a thermometer. This is so obvious that it is often overlooked. So NASA, NOAA and the CRU make use of a small number of weather stations at 5ft above the ground to work out some averages. Averages as we have seen from question 1. can be very misleading. Furthermore these averages take no account of the soils, the crust of the Earth, the oceans, and the atmospheres, which are approximately 100kms high from the surface of the Earth.

PS Exposition by Hans Schreuder

 The sun does not send “heat” through space … only radiation, and that radiation causes any mass that it encounters to heat up. Not easy to get your head around, I know; it’s confusing.

Starting from scratch:

1. Ill-understood processes going on inside our sun cause the outer atmosphere of the sun to be at nearly 6000K (some 5700°C) – for full details:http://www.universetoday.com/18092/temperature-of-the-sun/ Keep in mind that what really goes on at the heart of our sun is by no means a settled matter! What is settled is that the outer atmosphere is at around 6000K.
2. All matter radiates according to its temperature. The sun radiates according to its 6000K outer atmosphere.
3. The frequency and strength of this radiation determines the amount of heating it can cause when it hits matter.
4. The amount of heating depends as well upon the distance from the source. You’ll understand that if you were only one kilometre from the sun you’d be close to that same 6000K; and on the other side of our solar system, Pluto gets only a fraction of the heat.

Now to our atmosphere.

1. Sun heats earth
2. Earth heats atmosphere
3. Hot air rises, mostly by convection, as you say already
4. There comes a point where the air get so thin (the molecules that make up air are getting more and more spread-out, which is the reason for adiabatic cooling) that convection stops and the only way in which energy can still be lost is radiation.
5. The level of that radiation is in line with the temperature of the emitting gases, in earth’s case some 240-Watts per sqm.

Remember that the atmosphere is heated from the bottom up yet it can also be said that the rare atmosphere above the troposphere is heated by the sunlight and reaches high temperatures! But … there are so few molecules of matter at those high altitudes that no heat is perceivable; it is already close to an absolute vacuum up there!

The apparent heating up in the stratosphere is caused by clouds forming and a gigantic release of energy from water vapour turning into water (540 calories per gram of water; you only need 100 of those same calories to bring water up from zero C to 100C, so you can know how much energy 540 calories is).

The heating in the thermosphere is deceptive as it is a near-vacuum up there and only the odd bit of matter reaches those temperatures. Balloonists going at great height always need protection from the cold!

Heat has no temperature; heat is the result of an action. Radiation also has no temperature either; it is the result of a substance having a temperature. Very confusing, I know!

Think of a hotplate on a stove. Before you switch the power on, all is at equal temperature with the rest of the surroundings. Now you switch the power on. Electricity (which has no temperature either!) starts to flow through the element and causes it to warm up, which causes it to shed radiation according to the temperature it is achieving due to the electricity flowing through it!

Yet, the electricity has no temperature!

– Hans