A Simple Explanation of Atmospheric Temperatures

When the sun heats the ocean’s surface, the temperature of the water is moderated by the mass of liquid sloshing around. So it does not immediately lose its heat into the atmosphere at night. The planet Mercury has neither ocean nor atmosphere, so its solid surface has a huge range of temperatures between day and night.

How long does our ocean and atmosphere take to lose it's heat? Notice the long lag time from winter solstice to the cold of February. The coldest time of the year comes a few weeks after the shortest day.

The warm waters of the Gulf Stream are a good example of the temperature moderating effect of our ocean. That is why on my Bahamas yacht adventure in the summer of 1975, I could sleep all night on deck in only my swimming trunks, without a blanket.

When I lived near the coast of northern California, the summer sun would heat the land surface to a very high temperature in the afternoon; let's use 100 degrees F as an example. The heated atmosphere rose, drawing in cool breezes from the ocean so that if you were within 3 miles of the shore, the air may only be say 50 degrees F. As soon as the sun went down, the land was no longer being warmed by the sun, so the cool breezes would extend much further inland, making a quick transition to cool temperatures. If I wore short sleeves in the morning and was caught without a sweater at dusk, my lips and fingernails would turn blue and I would seek fire or an artificial heat source as soon as possible.

There is no atmospheric greenhouse effect. There is only an ocean heat storage effect and a lesser atmospheric heat storage effect. The Earth is as cool as it is because it only has an average of about 2 miles of ocean across only 3/4 of its surface. Venus has well over 40 miles of high-pressure carbon dioxide that is more like our ocean than our atmosphere - the same pressure at its surface as our ocean has more than half a mile down. The large volume of high-pressure gas blowing around the whole planet at 300 MPH is what stores the heat on Venus and keep it an even temperature between day and night. It has nothing to do with the fact that the particular gas in the atmosphere happens to be carbon dioxide. In fact, IF the greenhouse conjecture were true (which it is not), what would cause the greenhouse effect on Venus would be sulphuric acid clouds, not CO2!

The sulphuric acid clouds on Venus are the equivalent of our "dihydrous monoxide" clouds (H2O, commonly known as water). The moisture in our clouds is more dense than the atmospheric gases and so it stores more heat. During the day, this is somewhat offset by the reflection of sunlight from the tops of the clouds.

If one allows oneself to really stop and think about where the heat of our planet comes from and how it gets stored, it is really not that difficult or complex. Some of the heat comes from the core of the earth, but most comes from the sun. I recently read a website that claimed more than twice as much heat comes from the greenhouse effect than from the sun! That seems laughable, but it is sad that people don't think things through before they speak or write. They so often just regurgitate what they've been force-fed by a scary movie or a political document.