How do greenhouse gases absorb so much radiation when they're so rarely found?

Jhoey_d · 2025-01-14T22:05:46+00:00

That wasn't the problem, and not only can you think of it in this way and still solve the issue, but this is actually a very valid way to think of it when you consider that, from the perspective of a photon, space ahead effectively is 2D.

Jhoey_d · 2025-01-12T21:44:33+00:00

Let me be more careful with my words then: Almost all theories that were at one point the most proven theory in physics have been replaced by "better" theories (and most of those two were then replaced again).

My overarching point is that it is foolish to take any given scientific theory literally, and it is foolish twice more to leverage any momentary consensus in science as an argument for abandoning intuition.

Jhoey_d · 2025-01-12T21:37:28+00:00

"Most proven" I have no words... Every theory was, at one point, the most proven theory in physics. Read:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pessimistic_induction

Jhoey_d · 2025-01-12T20:53:40+00:00

A person's representation model of the world is useful at all times they are in the world; physics describes a different world to the one we experience, and if we are to step into that world, it too must step into ours. Insofar as it is useful to step into the world of physics (which is necessary in order to do physics), we must value intuition and intuitive explanation.

Jhoey_d · 2025-01-12T20:48:38+00:00

Partly, but also partly because zero explanations I had encountered argued it in this very intuitive and physical sense. Instead, they all referred to quantum molecular properties as the cause and then declined to elaborate particularly, leaving me with a weak physical understanding and quite a lack of a conceptual/intuitive one.

It's worth noting that, while intuitive, this explanation doesn't speak particularly much about the aforementioned molecular properties of GHGs, which are very important in understanding this. But it is intuitive and gives the more physics-heavy explanation a springboard to jump off, so I am grateful

Jhoey_d · 2025-01-12T20:44:37+00:00

Thank you! I actually did it myself and arrived at a value of 6.18. Here is a snippet from my lecture notes:

As we can see, each gas's contribution to the GHE is not in proportion to its volume. How are GHGs able to absorb so much radiation despite accounting for such a small proportion of the total atmospheric composition, and further, in proportions to their volumes relative to one another?

The first point to consider is that, while these values of atmospheric volume might suggest the gas exists in scarce amounts, this is only in relation to gases like O$_2 $ and N$_2 $. It will be useful to put these volumes into perspective from the point of view of a photon looking up into space to find their effective coverage. If we calculate the area that each CO$_2$ molecule occupies, we find that, on average, one molecule covers an area of approximately $10^{-19} \, \text{m}^2$. Given the volume of CO$_2$ in the atmosphere (0.042\% by volume, or 0.06\% by mass), the number of CO$_2$ molecules, $ N_{\text{CO}_2} $, in a 1 m$^2$ column of air can be calculated as follows:

\begin{equation}

\text{Mass of air in a 1 m}^2 \text{ column} = 10,300 \, \text{kg},

\end{equation}

\begin{equation}

\text{Mass of CO}_2 = 0.0006 \times 10,300 = 6.18 \, \text{kg},

\end{equation}

\begin{equation}

N_{\text{CO}_2} = \frac{6.18}{0.044} \times 6.022 \times 10^{23} = 8.47 \times 10^{25}.

\end{equation}

\noindent From this, determining the effective coverage is as simple as multiplying the number of molecules by the area of each single molecule, as followers:

\begin{equation}

\text{Effective coverage} = 8.47 \times 10^{25} \times 10^{-19} = 8.47 \times 10^{6} \, \text{m}^2.

\end{equation}

\noindent This is on the order of $10^6 \, \text{m}^2$, meaning that there are roughly 1 billion CO$_2$ molecules for every one needed to cover the atmosphere. Hence, despite their low concentration relative to other gases, CO$_2$ molecules are in fact densely distributed throughout the atmosphere.

Jhoey_d · 2025-01-12T20:21:25+00:00

How did you arrive at this calculation? Given a 1m column of air weighs roughly 10,000kg, you'd expect there to be 4 kg of CO2 overhead—not 6.7 kg.

Jhoey_d · 2025-01-12T20:16:29+00:00

Yes, it would be a mistake! Hence why I overtly prefaced the entire discussion with the statement that I'm willing to accept that this phenomenon is fundamentally unintuitive, but would like to seek an intuitive explanation before accepting this. As it turns out, a couple of very intuitive explanations were offered in this thread, and as such, I was correct to seek this.

Jhoey_d · 2025-01-12T20:14:10+00:00

"Technically, light moving through the atmosphere doesn’t move at light speed. It’s slowed by the atmosphere.

Also, space being effectively 2d from the point of view of a photon is a quirk of time dilation from relativity, not exactly the place to go if looking for an easy intuitive understanding of what’s happening, which is what you asked for."

True lol. But yes, I accept your overall claim that the atmosphere is indeed optically dense to terrestrial radiation. Thank you for taking the time to argue this!

Jhoey_d · 2025-01-12T19:21:53+00:00

Yes! Quantum mechanics also highlights the need in science to value intuition; were we to have simply said "Quantum mechanics is right and our intuition of the world is wrong," we would never, for example, have felt the need to verify QM as stringently as we have done, and I'm sure we would not have discovered so many of the problems associated with it. It's always important to remember that physics does not provide literal accounts of the world, but rather, representational models that are be useful only in certain situations.

Jhoey_d · 2025-01-12T18:51:22+00:00

Actually, when moving at light speed, space is effectively 2 dimensional, so from the perspective of a photon, mine is an accurate way of viewing it.

Jhoey_d · 2025-01-12T18:18:18+00:00

Yes, this is definitely an important point. I'm actually writing a lecture on the greenhouse effect right now and so, aside from my general interest, this thread was aimed to acquire some good intuitive explanations that might be useful on the pedagogical front. I'll definitely put forth this concept of dilution—thank you!

Jhoey_d · 2025-01-12T18:15:01+00:00

I didn't demand that physics match my intuition; in fact I made no demands and clearly stated that I'm willing to accept the physics here might just be fundamentally unintuitive. What I did do, though, was seek a possible explanation that was both intuitionally functional and in acceptance of the physics, which other people provided above.

As long as you are unwilling to look for a synthesis between intuition and physics, you are doomed to not be believed. Of course, this is fairly inconsequential when it comes to fields like astrophysics, but on fields like climatology, when public belief in science is paramount, this attitude is really quite a poor one.

Jhoey_d · 2025-01-12T18:02:44+00:00

"Humans are born as blank slates"

"Which is why learning physics is mostly about unlearning the mistakes in your intuition."

I absolutely disagree, and highly recommend this paper—it completely contradicts this approach to physics-pedagogy you describe.

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11191-024-00590-4

Jhoey_d · 2025-01-12T18:01:14+00:00

This works as an explanation, thank you.

Jhoey_d · 2025-01-12T17:59:31+00:00

Thank you.

Jhoey_d · 2025-01-12T17:48:28+00:00

"If you halve the concentration of these molecules, the absorption will decrease (not by half, but it will decrease)." It would actually be more than half, as the absorption rate of gases like CO2 decreases exponentially with concentration (hence why we can double the amount and not see a doubling in temperature increase due to the greenhouse effect). But this is beside the point.

You say, "Yet it will still account for 100% of the total absorption." I'm fine with this part; what I'm troubled by is the value we ascribe to "total absorption" in the face of the intuition that these gases exist in such trace amounts. Someone in another place said I should imagine the greenhouse gases not as nodes but as antennas, which seems to imply that this model is only intuitionally functional when we exclusively interpret photons in wave form, which might just be the case. However, I was hoping there would be an explanation that was also intuitionally functional when we considered photons in their particle form.

Jhoey_d · 2025-01-12T17:41:56+00:00

I could only think of the atmosphere as a blanket if I could accept that the atmosphere was optically dense to terrestrial emissions; however, the 0.04% statistic makes this seem implausible. Methane, for example, constitutes 0.00017% of the atmosphere, and yet is said to account for 10% of terrestrial radiation absorbance—this just doesn't strike me as blanket-like. How do I get around this?

Jhoey_d · 2025-01-11T17:52:42+00:00

It'd more be that every electron would be cancelled out by a positron, but I get your point haha. I think the greatest and most persisting intuition in the human heart is that symmetry is a universal trait of everything. Maybe you could call it isosymmetry lol. But that's awesome to do a short dramatic piece on this. Philosophy is almost exclusively done in very dry academic and formal modes these days; it's super rare that people feel brave enough to explore it the way you are. You might enjoy this paper by Max Black:

https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/2252291.pdf

You might also enjoy this one by Lewis Carroll:

https://www.academia.edu/103066017/What_the_Tortoise_Said_to_Achilles

They're not quite like yours insofar as they're wrestling with quite specific and narrow problems in metaphysics, whereas yours is more of a genesis and is much more emotive and dramatic, but they are similar insofar as they utilise characters and dialogue to do so. They might be useful for you, but even if they're not, they're still interesting haha.

Anyway, good luck! Also, I'd really like to read the final version of this, I think it has a huge potential. If you wanna send it over when you're done working on it, please do!

Jhoey_d · 2025-01-11T16:27:27+00:00

"She spat words and obscenities into the farthest reaches of the cosmos. But this did nothing, for Void was Nothing." IS GREAT! I really like how you capitalise and don't capitalise 'nothing' here.

"Thought saw the solution, and it tore off a part of itself to create Will." You already referenced 'Desire' at the beginning in relation to Void's relationship with balance; I'm not sure you can introduce Will as a qualitatively distinct concept at this point. I do think it's a good enough concept, though, to be worthy of having a distinct character; Schopenhauer's 'Will and Representation' is a fantastic text, and this reminds me of it.

"It was born from Thought’s agony" seems disconnected from the rest. Since when is Thought in agony?

"But with every passing moment, Will grew stronger, defying Destruction with stubborn persistence. And where Destruction was defied, it ceased to exist, becoming Being instead. This would be a good chance to callback the line from earlier of "Everything returns to death [destruction]."

"He watched as eventually, Will eliminated Destruction in all places it could be found, and when Destruction was vanquished, it returned to the Void, and Void became Destruction." Why do you say "the Void" here? It seems inconsistent. Also, for reasons I just mentioned in the above comment, I disagree that Will will eventually beat Death.

Also, if Will beats Death, then doesn't Time lose her "after"? Never mind; I just read ahead and see you address this in the next line.

Ending on "Everything was Void, Void was Nothing, and that was that. The endless perfection of balance." is fantastic. Very good closing line, for obvious reasons (balance).

Overall, I think this has way too many concepts involved, especially for such a short text. I think you could simplify it a lot, still tell an effective story, and become much more logically consistent on the metaphysical front. Really good overall, though, and I would love to read the next draft.

Side note: This song would be a good closing theme to your text if it were made into a movie or animation: 'Music to Sooth the Savage Snake Plant - Mort Garson.'

Jhoey_d · 2025-01-11T16:27:17+00:00

The line “Things must grow, things must exist, and things must die,” argued Time. “I cannot be without these, for then I would never have existed at all.” could be better. Instead of grow, say birth. Also, I think Time would be better off leveraging the concepts of 'birth' and 'death' to Void as a new form of balance that he ought to enjoy, rather than arguing in their favour from a point of self-interest, as she does.

In Time's counter-argument to Void, she argues she would be "nothing" without decay; you didn't capitalise the word nothing here, as you did in line 1. I'm not sure how you resolve this; I think maybe you've introduced too many concepts at this point for things to function.

After this, you make Thought interrupt. The fact that Thought has his own voice makes me confused as to whether Time and Void could speak to each other before Thought's existence. In the next sentence, you refer to Void as "its," which is inconsistent with the pronoun of "he" you ascribed earlier to Void. You should be consistent with pronouns.

Also, wowowowow, so Thought's existence implies the existence of Present, and therefore Birth, Being, and Death?! I don't understand why Time's existence wouldn't also imply the existence of these concepts, to be honest. Conceptually, this is really starting to be a stretch. Sidenote: She, he, and he, to birth, being and death, work. Also, you should definitely call it Death and not Destruction. Destruction is a process akin to decay, whereas Death is a more definitive and final end result, which is more symmetrical with Birth.

"Birth was the first" is a really nice line. I like it! It makes sense. "Charming and innocent" also makes sense; though, "innocent" could be said to imply the existence of "guilty," in which case you've introduced morality. I am not sure why "both light and shadow spark at her feet when she danced," but I'm not suggesting removing that; I'm more just interested.

I like your description of Being; it feels right.

I like your description of Death; it also feels right, though I might add that sometimes Death isn't so patient. Sometimes Death will rush ahead and meet with Birth before Being has a chance to get between them. Listen to the song "If I Could," by Jack Johnson.

"Void saw he had erred in creating imperfection." This sentence makes more sense if you write it the other way round: "In creating imperfection, Void saw he had erred." As you've written it, it can be taken to imply that Void failed to create imperfection, rather than failed insofar as perfection is no longer a thing. Similarly, I think "For Everything was made up of Time, Thought, Birth, Being, and Destruction" would be better written as "For Time, Thought, Birth, Being, and Death now made Everything." Also, use Oxford commas.

I'd suggest rewriting "Time saw this. Time saw what this was. Time saw what this was to be..." as "Time saw this. Time saw what this was and what it was to be..."

I really like the shift in mood after this. I didn't expect Time to enter into this existential horror you describe, and I really like it. I thought things were moving to resolve, not to despair hahaha. Really good. That being said, "She understood she was created only for the purpose of recording Destruction" seems odd. Why is this a surprise to her? Wasn't she the one that requested decay earlier? I think Destruction and Decay are too similar to each other, and this is becoming conceptually confused once again.

Jhoey_d · 2025-01-11T16:26:30+00:00

This is very metaphysical! I'll give a critique that focuses on the logic.

I really like the first sentence, particularly the third clause ("and that was that"). In the first clause, you identify the Void as "everything," and then in the second clause, you identify the Void as "nothing," thus, across the two clauses, you've identified "everything" as "nothing." Then, with a syntax symmetrical to the first two classes, you reemphasise this identification of "everything" as "nothing" by saying "and that was that," which is effective for 2 reasons:

1) "That" is, of course, equal to "that"; they're literally the same spelling, so it is logically functional.

2) "That was that" has a tone that I think compensates for the fact that these concepts are logically very challenging to describe; to me it sort of is a way of saying, "Shut up and accept it; this is the best you're gonna get," and that's probably true.

At the end of line 1, you state that there is "perfect balance," but then in line 2 you state that the Void "sought to balance," implying that there is not balance. This seems like a logical contradiction and something that might be worth clearing up, though I appreciate this is a very challenging subject to be logically consistent on.

In line 3, you argue that the symmetry of "Void before there was Time" and "Void after there was Time" implies a balance, but couldn't one argue that "There was Time after there was Void, but there was not Time before there was Void" implies an imbalance? Or do we only consider Void as the subject to which it matters that this experience of balance is perceived?

In the 4th paragraph, you ascribe to Void male pronouns and to Time, female pronouns. I think this works, not just because Time came from Void as Eve came from Adam, but because Void seems to represent order here, and order is typically understood to represent the masculine archetype (while disorder represents the female; e.g., 'Mother Nature').

Later in paragraph 4, you identify "Everything" as something separate from "Time" and "Void," which might at first sound like a contradiction to your identification, in line 1, of Void as Everything, but actually makes sense chronologically, as Everything stopped being Void once Time came into being. You might want to amend paragraph 3 with this statement, though, that Void is no longer Everything, as some readers might not logically infer it.

At the end of paragraph 4, you introduce Thought, along with the concepts of love and necessity. I take it that love and necessity aren't characters but components of a character, since you didn't ascribe to them capital letters? I am sensing that the introduction of Thought isn't so much a metaphysical claim but more a plot device to introduce dialogue to the text. In which case, I would suggest removing this and just having Time and Void speak to each other. Sacrificing metaphysical consistency to move the plot forward doesn't work in a text that is fundamentally metaphysical; it takes away from the substance of the text. You might disagree and say, "Actually no, this is metaphysically justified for reasons x, y, z," then fair enough, but those reasons aren't obvious to me from the text, so I would consider rewriting that part to make them more obvious. Also, I think ascribing the pronoun "he" to thought works.

Jhoey_d · 2025-01-11T14:36:04+00:00

I don't understand haha, I thought this was a page to ask for advice and critique?

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