Roy Spencer’s Fatal Error: Believing the Vacuum of Space has a Temperature

Written by John O'Sullivan, guest post | 20 February 2012

Astrophysicists will tell you that the vast emptiness of outer space has no temperature. Space is empty, thus it is temperature-less. But ask a climatologist and you’ll be told space is 'cold.' Such fallacy spawned the fatal error in the junk science known as 'greenhouse gas theory,' also called the 'greenhouse effect' (GHE).

Alberto Miatello has now published his own stunning debunk of Dr. Roy Spencer’s‘Yes, Virginia, Cooler Objects Can Make Warmer Objects Even Warmer Still’ (July 23, 2010) dissecting how the fallacy of 'cold' outer space allowed climatologists to believe Earths’ atmosphere acted like a ‘blanket’ to help keep our planet ‘warmer than it otherwise would be.’

Miatello’s paper adroitly affirms a prior compelling evisceration of Spencer’s errors by Dr. Pierre R. Latour in Latour’s masterful, 'No, Virginia, Cooler Objects Cannot Make Warmer Objects Even Warmer Still.'

The Miatello and Latour papers utterly vindicate the groundbreaking analysis of the ‘Slaying the Sky Dragon’ book - the world’s first full-volume refutation of the greenhouse gas hypothesis - a publication that some critics have tried and failed to discredit. Miatello’s exposure of the 'cold' space fallacy is further compelling affirmation that fudged numbers were fed into the bogus ‘greenhouse gas theory’ equations.

Miatello’s new paper, ‘Roy Spencer and the Vacuum Bottle Flask’  (February, 2012), not only refutes Spencer’s errors but also once again affirms the damning analysis of savvy climatologist, Dr. Tim Ball who points out, “Climatology is a generalist discipline in a world of specialization.”

Generalists, we find, often need specialist help. We can forgive principled experts such as doctors Roy Spencer and Richard Lindzen because they are not specialists. As Miatello points out,

“The vacuum space is neither cold nor hot, being void of all molecules/atoms (or almost void) and as such has no temperature. Then, you can clearly see the aftermath of Spencer's wrong idea of ‘cold’ vacuum outer space.”

What did the 'Cold Space' Fallacy do for Greenhouse Gas Believers?

Anyone who reads Roy Spencer’s ‘Yes, Virginia...’ can adduce that Spencer truly believes that vacuum space is cold, because unlike Pierre Latour’s ‘No, Virginia…’ debunk, Spencer did not feel the need to add quotation marks on the word ‘cold.’

Miatello observes, “I saw that Pierre understood that the cosmic vacuum is not cold, and so did not devote much attention to the point. However, I saw that it was important to identify Spencer’s error that vacuum space is NOT cold.”

But how significant is this?

“IF the vacuum of space were cold - then it would be true what Spencer (and many GHE supporters) maintain, namely: the colder body reduces the rate of the heat loss by the hotter body, etc.”

But because we know that vacuum space is neither cold nor hot (being almost void of matter and thus having no temperature) we can clearly see the aftermath of Spencer's wrong idea of a 'cold' vacuum of outer space.

No ‘Heat Loss Blanket Effect’ because Vacuum Space is ‘Neutral’ not ‘Cold’

This then has a fatal knock on effect for GHE calculations. We can better understand the root of the big mistake by GHE promoters because they actually believe that our 'colder' atmosphere is reducing the rate of heat loss, as a blanket with our body, just because (in my opinion) they believe that vacuum space is ‘cold.’

Of course, they would be right if the vacuum of outer space were truly ‘cold.’

But unfortunately for them, vacuum space is neutral (neither cold nor hot), and so the rate of heat loss by our 'hotter body' (earth's surface at +15° C), surrounded by a colder body (atmosphere at - 18°C) is much larger than what they believe!

There is no greenhouse effect, our atmosphere is not surrounded by a ‘colder’ vacuum space and thus our atmosphere is not a blanket reducing the rate of heat loss. On the contrary, our gaseous and 'wet' atmosphere is acting to cool our planet's surface by convection and conduction while constrained within the energy neutral zone of the 'thermos flask' of vacuum space.

Such reasoning is faultless and demands the immediate cessation of all further reliance on spurious GHE numbers. It’s now all exposed as pure GIGO: ‘garbage in - garbage out.’

Paging James Hansen: NASA’s Errant Evangelist of Climate Fraud

The crass notion of ‘cold’ outer space is but one of several gross misunderstandings built into the calculations of the increasingly discredited ‘theory’ that is the cornerstone of the $100 billion man-made global warming industry.

Although we can justly forgive Spencer for his errors, we cannot forgive the ultimate instigator of the GHE fraud: NASA’s Dr. James Hansen. Hansen has stubbornly refused to listen to fellow NASA veterans like Dr. Pierre Latour and others - experts who actually put Neil Armstrong on the moon.

And Hansen is not alone within NASA for sustaining this fraud. Since the glory days of the Apollo Mission, the once great U.S. space agency has lost its way. It abandoned its place at the cutting-edge of space science to descend into political advocacy; recently being caught out faking sea level rises  and surface temperature records.

In 1969 when Armstrong took his ‘giant leap’ to walk on the moon no one at Mission Control was confused about whether space was 'cold’ or not. Everyone understood that in the airless void outside Earth there was neither ‘hot’ nor ‘cold’ - just emptiness. The reason: Back then, NASA applied the traditional scientific method rather than post-normal science.

One of the greatest dangers to the astronauts was not freezing in their suits but getting the excess body heat away from their skin. This is because in a vacuum, with the absence of any molecules, the free exchange of temperature is virtually impossible.

NASA Literature Contradictory and Confused on “Cold” Outer Space

After pulling out of the ‘space race’ a politicized NASA applied a self-contradictory double-speak to maintain the illusion that space is ‘cold’ when describing the need for huge radiators on the International Space Station (ISS). NASA spin doctors now crassly state: "MLI insulation does a double-duty job: keeping solar radiation out, and keeping the bitter cold of space from penetrating the Station's metal skin."

NASA then admits, in its ‘Staying Cool in Space’ web page that the "ISS needs huge radiators to get rid of its excess heat." So much for the ‘cold’ of space!

So deadly is the risk of astronauts being cooked alive in the ‘cold’ tin can of the ISS that the vehicle requires 14 honeycombed aluminum panels each measuring 6 by 10 feet (1.8 by 3 meters), for a total of 1680 square feet (156 square meters) of ammonia-tubing-filled heat exchange area just to stay cool.

Our Planet: the Air Conditioning Chiller

Firmly shoulder-to-shoulder with the ‘Slayers’ is yet another compelling voice in a growing cacophony of specialist voices demonstrating that the time has come for a full re-examination, then abandonment of the false GHE paradigm.

For too long highly educated scientists have imagined our atmosphere as a ‘blanket,’ instead of a ‘refrigerator,’ or at least an ‘air conditioning chiller’ surrounding our planet, as it is in reality.

With the myth that space is ‘cold’ now firmly debunked Miatello calls on Spencer and other principled climatologists to work with us to promote a new ‘Copernican revolution’ throughout the blogosphere.

Once climate scientists understand that the concept of a ‘blanket’ trapping effect is false then they will grasp the fact that the very foundation of the greenhouse gas effect itself is also proven to be false. As such, the necessary scientific proof is now  in hand to bring a swift end to the needless and grossly expensive restriction on human emissions of the benign trace gas, carbon dioxide.

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John O'Sullivan is co-founder and coordinator of the Slayers and Principia Scientific International