I had a really excellent follow-up question come up on my “Real Climate Physics vs. Fake Political Physics” video. I will post the original question and response, and then discuss the follow up below:

Leon Hiebert: Hi Joe. Quick question. You said the TE of earth is correct but if the FS(1-A)/4 is wrong, wouldn’t that mean the TE isn’t -18?

Joe Postma: The TE of the Earth is correct…but…NOT AS THE SOLAR INPUT or forcing from said input. It’s not correct to use TE as the solar input. TE is the earth “output”…and it is way colder than the solar input. This is the fundamental mistake…THE ONE. And it originates in flat earth theory. Great question for generating clarity!

Six months later Leon posted a follow up question:

Leon Hiebert: 6-months later I return to this question. If the output is less than the input, (which I don’t dispute) how is there an energy balance? I know the Trenberth chart is garbage and 163 hitting the surface should be more, and they try to balance it out by inverting output and fudging the 340W but an alarmist will say energy in must match energy out. If there’s an olr deficit, we would overheat. Which I can’t dispute. So how come we don’t overheat when less is going out? Thanks.

Now this is an extremely important question. The total energy in and out is indeed the same in quantity. But the quality of the energy is completely different. It is not a question of quantity, which of course equal, but of quality, and that is not at all equal. It is the quality of the energy that drives the physics.

Above, we used TE for the temperature of the earth output. Temperature is a measure of the quality of energy, not the quantity. The earth output temperature TE is -18C, so quite cool in quality.

The Earth solar input temperature we can denote as TS, and although it’s the same total energy as the output of Earth, the TS is actually +121C.

So you have the same total energies in the output and the input, but one energy is at -18C while the other is at +121C.

Do these energies have the same effect upon matter and in physics? Would they generate the same physical responses in matter? For the same total energies, what effect would -18C energy have on an ice cube vs +121C energy? For the same total energies, what effect would -18C energy have on generating and sustaining our known climate vs. that of +121C energy?

Climate science and its greenhouse effect says that there is no difference. Climate science says that we can use the output -18C energy of the Earth as the solar input of the Earth because there is the same total quantity of +121C solar input; climate science says that we can ignore the difference in the quality of the energy because they have the same total quantity. Climate science then even goes on to state their position that they believe that the Sun does not heat the Earth as I exposed in the video AMS Official: SUN DOES NOT CREATE EARTH’S WEATHER.

So here’s the sequence of events:

1. Climate science pretends that in physics we can ignore the quality (temperature) of energy as long as we have the same quantity of energy.
2. Given 1, climate science then uses Earth’s output energy with a quality of -18C in place of the the solar input energy of +121C to the Earth, since it is the same total energy.
3. Given 2, climate science then states that the solar input cannot heat the Earth above -18C and thus cannot create and sustain Earth’s climate and weather.
4. Given 3, climate science then invents a scheme of heat-recycling and heat-amplification which it calls a “greenhouse effect” even though real greenhouses do not operate by heat recycling or heat-amplification.
5. Given 4, climate science peer-review prevents anyone from pointing out that mistakes have been made, and that real greenhouses demonstrate that the alternative climate science “greenhouse effect” does not exist, and that this is because heat-recycling violates the Laws of Thermodynamics, and that we should re-consider the quality of solar energy at +121C as being the force that directly creates and sustains the climate and weather.
6. Given 5, climate science with its pal-protected review process then turns into political theory where it claims that the life-creating molecule of carbon dioxide is the molecule which causes this heat-recycling and that more of it will threaten a “runaway warming” of the planet, with politicians together with the climate scientists then labeling the life-creating molecule of carbon-dioxide as a pollutant that must be taxed and regulated so that we can save the Earth from destruction.

And the final step of this process has been that all along the way, modern academic PhD’s in physics and astronomy and meteorology (weather men!) now completely lack the intelligence and intellectual fortitude to comprehend the difference between quantity and quality and whether such distinctions make a difference to physics and science at all. They cannot even form the question in their minds, let alone begin to answer it. This step is truly the most amazing part of all.

Quantity is not equal to quality, and it is quality, not quantity, which determines what physics occurs. The quality of the energy dictates what type of physics can occur; the quantity dictates how much of that physics can occur.

And when it comes to radiant energy, i.e. the energy in light, its quality is measured by energy flux density, i.e., Watts per meter squared (W/m²).