Did Gerlich and Tscheuschner Prove There is No Atmospheric Greenhouse Effect?

10:07 PM Tuesday.

My response to a comment from @jerrypalmer1786:

From Google Gemini: "While the International Journal of Modern Physics B (IJMPB) is a legitimate journal, the publication of the 2009 Gerlich and Tscheuschner (G&T) paper is widely cited as a failure of its peer-review process. After publication, the scientific community published formal rebuttals in the same journal to correct the record. A prominent 2010 commentary by Halpern et al systematically debunked G&T’s claims, noting they had ignored non-radiative heat flows and misinterpreted how heat transfer works in the atmosphere."

Conscientious readers may wish to consult Bob Wentworth's page on Quora. Wentworth has a PhD in Applied Physics from Stanford University. He has written what may well be the most accessible rebuttal of the G&T paper for the non-specialist. It is pinned at the top of his Quora page under the title "Did Gerlich and Tscheuschner prove there is no atmospheric greenhouse effect?"

Again, from Google Gemini: "The claim that the greenhouse effect violates the Second Law of Thermodynamics has been definitively and systematically rebutted within the astrophysics and broader physics communities. The scientific consensus as of 2025 is that this idea stems from a fundamental misinterpretation of thermodynamics, specifically the Clausius statement regarding heat flow. Mainstream astrophysics and climate science continue to view the greenhouse effect as a robust physical mechanism. The 'violation' argument is now relegated to fringe circles and is frequently used as a textbook example of how the misuse of technical terminology can lead to 'unphysical' and 'absurd' conclusions. Observational data through 2025 continues to confirm the rising energy imbalance caused by greenhouse gases, reinforcing that the effect is both real and thermodynamically sound."

"In the context of the greenhouse effect debate, the Clausius statement refers to one of the primary formulations of the Second Law of Thermodynamics. Formulated by Rudolf Clausius in 1850, it states [that] heat does not spontaneously flow from a cold object to a hot one. Skeptics like Gerlich and Tscheuschner use this statement to argue that because the atmosphere is colder than the Earth’s surface, it cannot 'warm' the surface, as that would imply heat flowing from cold (air) to hot (ground). However, the scientific community rebuts this by clarifying how the law actually applies. The Second Law only requires the net flow of heat to be from hot to cold. While the cold atmosphere does radiate some energy back to the warmer surface (back-radiation), the surface radiates more energy out toward the atmosphere. The net movement of energy remains from the warm Earth to the cold space, satisfying Clausius's principle. The atmosphere acts as an insulator (like a blanket), not an active heater. By absorbing and re-emitting radiation, greenhouse gases inhibit cooling rather than spontaneously transferring heat from cold to hot. The Earth-atmosphere system is not isolated; it is continuously driven by an external energy source—the Sun. This constant influx of energy means the system is not merely moving toward a spontaneous equilibrium between two bodies but is managing a massive energy throughput. In summary, the Clausius statement is often used by critics to imply a physical impossibility that doesn't exist when the entire Earth-Sun energy system and the concept of net heat flux are correctly accounted for."

The image at top is the Irish physicist, John Tyndall, who proved the greenhouse effect in 1859.

End 10:23 PM.

Addendum 4:49 AM 24 December 2025. A comment from @jerrypalmer1786:

The so-called "greenhouse effect" of CO2 is the product of a laboratory experiment with the gas confined in a tube. From this the conclusion that CO2 "traps heat" was formed. ALL GASES dissipate heat by the processes of conduction and convection, and the "greenhouse effect" of CO2 has NEVER been detected or measured in open atmosphere, and certainly never demonstrated. The only "trapping" is caused by the vessel in which the experiment is performed. If you disagree with this, perhaps you should organise a demonstration of the awesome power of a trace gas to heat a planet. In open atmosphere of course. Or you could just accept that examination of data shows that CO2 has no effect on temperatures whatsoever:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XfRBr7PEawY

My response:

"If you disagree with this, perhaps you should organise a demonstration of the awesome power of a trace gas to heat a planet. In open atmosphere of course." I do disagree. Three demonstrations come to mind. The first is the atmosphere and surface temperature of the planet Venus relative to the planet Mercury. The second is the Vostok Ice Core Data. The third is the 2015 paper in Nature by Feldman et al titled "Observational Determination of Surface Radiative Forcing by CO2 from 2000 to 2010." Because of their molecular structure, greenhouse gases like methane and carbon dioxide have infrared radiation trapping properties that non-greenhouse gases like nitrogen and oxygen do not. This is according to mainstream physics as reported by authoritative sources.

End 4:51 AM.

Addendum 10:36 AM 24 December 2025. A comment from @jerrypalmer1786:

Despite claims to the contrary, there is no 'runaway greenhouse effect' on Venus. Why? Because it's atmosphere has a layer of highly reflective sulphuric acid clouds, giving it an albedo of around 8.5 compared to Earth's albedo of 3.0. The solar energy that reaches the surface of Venus is only around 6% of the solar energy that reaches Earth's surface despite being a lot closer to the Sun, and despite the atmosphere being around 97% CO2. So why is the temperature on the surface of Venus hot enough to melt lead? Venus has around 2.5 times the mass of atmosphere that Earth has, resulting in around 94 times the atmospheric pressure than that of Earth's. The proof?

From google:

"Current Venus: At the 1 bar pressure level (about 50 km altitude), the temperature is approximately 20-37°C. This is warmer than Earth's average sea-level temperature, even with less solar energy reaching the surface due to thick cloud cover.

Hypothetical Venus: If Venus were moved to Earth's orbit, it would receive about half as much solar energy as it currently does. It is estimated that the temperature at the 1 bar pressure level would likely be between 0°C and 15°C, which is a significant drop from its current temperature but still within the range of Earth's average sea-level temperature."

We are told that the 'correct' temperature of Earth is 15°C, so even with all that CO2, the 1 bar temperature of Venus' atmosphere would not be more than Earth's at the same distance from the Sun, but could be a whole lot less. Now let's apply some facts, logic and common sense to Vostok ice cores:

The 2001 IPCC Working Group I Report notes,

“The concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere has risen from close to 280 parts per million (ppm) in 1800, at first slowly and then progressively faster to a value of 367 ppm in 1999, echoing the increasing pace of global agricultural and industrial development. This is known from numerous, well-replicated measurements of the composition of air bubbles trapped in Antarctic ice. Atmospheric CO2 concentrations have been measured directly with high precision since 1957; these measurements agree with ice-core measurements, and show a continuation of the increasing trend up to the present.”

These measurements are not well replicated and have many serious limitations. Some of these include

1. It takes years for the bubble to be trapped in the ice. Near the surface bubbles can migrate between layers. Which year does the final bubble represent? 

2. As the ice gets thicker, it becomes impossible to determine the layers and, therefore, the relative dating sequence. Some say that at 2000 meters it requires 245 cm of ice to obtain a single sample, but under the compression and melding that represents one bubble for several thousand years.

3. Meltwater on the surface, which occurs every summer, moves down through the ice contaminating the bubbles. As Zbigniew Jaworowski said in his testimony to the US Senate,

“More than 20 physio-chemical processes, mostly related to the presence of liquid water, contribute to the alteration of the original chemical composition of the air inclusions in polar ice.”

4. A study by Christner (2002) titled “Detection, Recovery, Isolation and Characterization of Bacteria in Glacial Ice and Lake Vostok Accretion Ice.” Found bacteria were releasing gases at great depth even in 500,000-year old ice.

Professor Zbigniew Jaworowski was attacked viciously during the latter years of his life because of his views on climate change and ice core data. Like all who are attacked it is a sure indication they are exposing the deliberate deceptions of the global warming political agenda. Here are Jaworowski’s credentials that accompanied his presentation to the US Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation.

“I am a Professor at the Central Laboratory for Radiological Protection (CLOR) in Warsaw, Poland, a governmental institution, involved in environmental studies. CLOR has a “Special Liaison” relationship with the US National Council on Radiological Protection and Measurements (NCRP). In the past, for about ten years, CLOR closely cooperated with the US  Environmental Protection Agency, in research on the influence of industry and nuclear explosions on pollution of the global environment and population. I published about 280 scientific papers, among them about 20 on climatic problems. I am the representative of Poland in the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR), and in 1980 – 1982 I was the chairman of this Committee.

For the past 40 years I was involved in glacier studies, using snow and ice as a matrix for reconstruction of history of man-made pollution of the global atmosphere. A part of these studies was related to the climatic issues. Ice core records of CO2 have been widely used as a proof that, due to man’s activity the current atmospheric level of CO2 is about 25% higher than in the pre-industrial period. These records became the basic input parameters in the models of the global carbon cycle and a cornerstone of the man-made climatic warming hypothesis. These records do not represent the atmospheric reality, as I will try to demonstrate in my statement.”

There was nobody more qualified to comment on the ice core record and here is part of what he said to the Committee.

“The basis of most of the IPCC conclusions on anthropogenic causes and on projections of climatic change is the assumption of low level of CO2 in the pre-industrial atmosphere. This assumption, based on glaciological studies, is false.”

Of equal importance Jaworowski states,

The notion of low pre-industrial CO2 atmospheric level, based on such poor knowledge, became a widely accepted Holy Grail of climate warming models. The modelers ignored the evidence from direct measurements of CO2 in atmospheric air indicating that in 19th century its average concentration was 335 ppmv. In Figure 2 encircled values show a biased selection of data used to demonstrate that in 19th century atmosphere the CO2 level was 292 ppmv. A study of stomatal frequency in fossil leaves from Holocene lake deposits in Denmark, showing that 9400 years ago CO2 atmospheric level was 333 ppmv, and 9600 years ago 348 ppmv, falsify the concept of stabilized and low CO2 air concentration until the advent of industrial revolution."

_____________________________________

Feldman is standard alarmist junk 'science', and proof of nothing. ALL gases dissipate heat by convection and conduction, no gas can 'trap' heat, and even if you want to grant CO2 an exception, the suggestion that 0.043% of the atmosphere can overwhelm the capacity of the remaining 99.957% to disperse heat is abject nonsense. The observed phenomenon is that CO2 absorbs and re-radiates certain wavelengths of the infra red spectrum, and therein lies a clue. If it's 're-radiating', it cannot be 'trapping' anything.

So, you have not presented any actual evidence of your claims, and have not, as requested, demonstrated the 'greenhouse effect' of CO2 in open atmosphere.

Did you watch the video?

My response:

With respect to Venus, just to be clear, you are attributing the high temperature at the surface entirely to atmospheric pressure, and not at all to a carbon dioxide greenhouse effect, and you believe that your position is scientifically credible, on the basis of no peer-reviewed rebuttal to the mainstream scientific position. Have I understood you correctly?

Regarding the Vostok Ice Core Data, you disagree that it shows how changes in atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations during Earth's climate history are closely correlated with changes in temperature and global climatic conditions, including glaciation-interglaciation, and you believe that your position is scientifically credible, on the basis of Jaworowski's testimony to the US Senate. Have I understood you correctly? 

Regarding the 2015 Feldman paper, you disagree that "the increase in surface radiative forcing between the years 2000 and 2010 measured at two experimental sites is directly attributable to the 22 parts per million increase in atmospheric CO2 over that decade and tallies with model results" on the basis of no peer-reviewed rebuttal, and then you proceed to castigate the paper as "standard alarmist junk 'science'" with the same viciousness you condemned in the reception of Jaworowski. Why, on your logic, should I not think this is a "sure indication" that my citation of Feldman is "exposing the deliberate deceptions" of a denialist "political agenda" on your part?

When you say that "the observed phenomenon is that CO2 absorbs ["traps"] and re-radiates certain wavelengths of the infra-red spectrum," do you agree that this is even more true for methane, while it is not true for nitrogen, and if you do agree, at what atmospheric concentration in the Earth's atmosphere, if any, are you willing to concede that CH4 and CO2 would begin to have a greenhouse effect?

No, I did not watch more than 30 seconds of the video you brought to my attention. I did look to see if it was based on a peer-reviewed paper in a credible journal, but I could not find any evidence this is so. I am waiting for you to acknowledge that an atmospheric greenhouse effect does not violate the Second Law of Thermodynamics, as G&T asserted in the thoroughly debunked paper that you cited. One step at a time.

2:16 PM. Another comment from @jerrypalmer1786:

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change have declared that methane is 86 times more effective as a greenhouse gas than CO2, therefore we have to stop farming cattle, give up meat and dairy products, plus adopt a vegan diet or eat insects. This claim deserves a little scrutiny:

 

Firstly, every cell of every living thing on the planet, animal or vegetable, is composed of carbon compounds that were once in the air as CO2. Plants absorb it from the air, animals eat the plants,  those are eaten by larger animals, and so on up the food chain. Eventually everything dies and decomposes back to it's component parts, the carbon returns to CO2 and methane. Pound for pound, ALL life forms contain about the same amount of carbon, so it makes no difference whether it decomposes in your stomach or in open air, anything you eat will decompose and the cycle starts again. No animal can make it's food into more carbon than the food absorbed from the air. 

Secondly, the infra red response of methane is entirely covered by that of water vapour, which is variable, but usually in the range of 2-4% of the air (Or 20,000-40,000 parts per million, to put it in "climate" speak). Methane is just 1.9 ppm (0.000019%), and NOT increasing significantly, and until recently was DECREASING. Methane oxidises into CO2 and wv relatively quickly. In other words, methane cannot absorb any IR energy that wv hasn't already absorbed, so has NO EFFECT on temperatures. In short, the IPCC's claim is a provable lie. Why would you trust anything they say?

Watch the video. Examination of the data shows what it shows. Peer review is not an indicator of truth, only of bias.

And my reply:

So far, by my count, you have been unable to defend your positions on G&T, Venus, Vostok and Feldman in the face of elementary criticism. Instead of doubling down with stronger arguments for your previous assertions, now you are digging yourself into a new disinformation hole by floating the ridiculous assertion that water vapor "covers" [cancels] the infra-red "response" [greenhouse gas effect] of methane, such that "methane cannot absorb any IR energy that water vapor hasn't already absorbed." My understanding is that water vapor, CH4 and CO2 primarily have an ADDITIVE greenhouse effect. Do you even agree with the IPCC that water vapor is a greenhouse gas?

But let's leave water vapor out of the equation for the moment. We already have enough irons in the fire on this thread. Why don't you simply answer the question I posed to you in my last comment: all else equal, at what atmospheric concentration in the Earth's atmosphere, if any, are you willing to concede that CH4 and CO2 would begin to have a greenhouse effect?

At this point in our dialogue, why should I trust anything you say, let alone peer review any video you recommend - wouldn't that contradict your own methodology for truth-seeking, on the one hand, and prove me your disinformation fool, on the other?

5:53 PM. Another comment from @jerrypalmer1786:

Our annual emissions equate to no more than a couple of extra CO2 molecules per tree leaf on the planet. Consider that every living thing on the planet on the land, in the sea and in the air is composed of carbon compounds that were once in the air as CO2. The claim that it is only our "emissions" that remain in the air and accumulate year on year, nature cannot cope with our contribution or that the carbon cycle was somehow magically in perfect equilibrium before we started to burn coal and oil is a complete fairy tale designed to fool the gullible. And here you are.

My response: 

When did I claim that 1) it is only anthropogenic emissions that remain in the atmosphere and accumulate year on year, 2) nature cannot cope with our emissions, or 3) the carbon cycle was in perfect equilibrium before we started to burn coal and oil? Keep your straw man arguments to yourself, thank you very much. Here are my actual opinions: 1) The Vostok record shows that non-anthropogenic emissions have accumulated in the atmosphere many times before in the past. Non-anthropogenic feedback loops are of particular concern moving forward. 2) Nature will surely continue even if we destroy our current biosphere. 3) Before we started to burn coal and oil, the carbon cycle was running too cold for optimum greenhouse equilibrium. The system was moving toward another ice age and maybe even a Snowball Earth. But we overshot our planetary boundaries in the opposite direction and now we are on the trajectory to a Hothouse Earth. The diabolical irony of the situation we face is that your denial of the serious problem in front of us is the fairy tale in the room. Stop trying to fool a gullible public. Repent and return to the good things your Creator has in mind for you.

End 7:18 PM.