Retired Physicist
IPCC REJECTS CONCEPT OF GREENHOUSE TRAPPING OF ENERGY
The IPCC itself explicitly abandoned the old “heat trapping” metaphor in the 1990s and replaced it with the radiative‑flux / radiative‑forcing framework. They have repeatedly stated that greenhouse gases do not trap heat. The clearest and most explicit quote comes from the IPCC’s Frequently Asked Questions section in AR4 (2007), which is still hosted on their website:
IPCC AR4 FAQ 1.1 – “Do greenhouse gases trap heat?” The IPCC states: “The term ‘greenhouse effect’ is misleading because the greenhouse gases do not trap heat.” “Instead, they absorb and emit infrared radiation.” Source: IPCC AR4 WG1 FAQ 1.1
An Energy Budget diagram showing back radiation from trace gases somehow being about double the flux from the Solar radiation can be viewed with this link: https://science.nasa.gov/earth/earth-observatory/climate-and-earths-energy-budget/#hds-sidebar-nav-7
JOSEF LOSCHMIDT'S GRAVITO-THERMAL EFFECT
In the 1870s physicist Josef Loschmidt explained that a non‑zero vertical temperature gradient arises spontaneously in a gas under gravity. Because gravity accelerates any downward component of molecular motion between collisions and decelerates upward motion, the distribution of molecular kinetic energy becomes altitude‑dependent. Since temperature is proportional to the mean kinetic energy of an ensemble of molecules, the lower regions of a gravitationally bound gas column necessarily become warmer than the upper regions. This mechanism operates in every planetary troposphere.
Jeong & Park* experimentally measured spontaneous temperature gradients in a sealed, insulated vertical air column under Earth’s gravity — without convection, without external heating, and without radiative forcing.
They reported stable negative temperature gradients up to 2.22 K/m, far larger than the atmospheric lapse rate.
This directly revisits the 19th‑century Loschmidt–Boltzmann–Maxwell dispute about whether a gravitational field can produce a temperature gradient in an isolated gas at equilibrium.
- Jeong & Park (2022), Scientific Reports