Destructive Criticism - Four Revolutions in the Earth Sciences - page 215

Applying the same reasoning to the atmosphere, Hulburt showed if radiation
were the only factor, the atmosphere would also be far colder than we find it. To
account for the temperature of both the Earth's surface and atmosphere, and to
maintain overall heat balance, Hulburt calculated that the lower twelve kilometers
of the atmosphere must convect. That is, the air masses in the lower atmosphere
must move around, exchanging heat with one another and reducing the temperat-
ure differences between parts.
Hulburt then identified where, as he put it, “Ångström, Abbot, Humphreys, and
others” had gone wrong: they had not allowed for convection in the lower layer of
the atmosphere. Hulburt concluded that through convection, the lower layer of the
atmosphere passes heat energy up to the top layer, the “radiative region,” and from
there the heat is lost to space. Thus the “radiative [high elevation] region controls
to a considerable extent the temperatures in the lower lying convective region.”
Hulburt summed up with admirable restraint,
About all we can conclude is that the carbon dioxide theory of the ice ages is at least a possible
one, and that objections which have been raised against it by some physicists are not valid.
We can not conclude that objections may not crop up in the future. Geologists apparently have
come upon no evidence, and have no unanimous opinion to offer, as to the fundamental causes
of the ice ages. And we let it go at that. 21
Hulburt had shown mathematically that the Earth's temperature is regulated in
the wispy, dry, cold layers of the uppermost atmosphere. Even if the CO 2 in the
loweratmosphereweretoabsorb100percentofupgoinginfraredradiation,adding
more CO 2 at the bottom would push up the layer from which infrared radiation es-
capes to space. Thus the greenhouse effect keeps operating in spite of the alleged
saturation of CO 2 absorption at lower levels. 22
MeteorologistsshouldhavepaidattentiontoHulburt'sarticle,butevidentlythey
didnot.Afterall,itappearedin Physical Review ,oneofthemajorjournalsinphys-
ics. One would have thought that a topic with the title Physics of the Air would
have cited Hulburt, but its author, Humphreys, did not. Nor did any of the ma-
jor reviews of meteorology of the 1930s and 1940s, nor the 1951 Compendium of
Meteorology , even though it contained an article by Hulburt on another topic. Pan-
ofsky's 1956 review does not mention Hulburt. Other than in review articles and
other papers by Hulburt himself, the only citation to the 1931 paper in a scientific
article came from Gilbert Plass, whom we shall soon meet. E. O. Hulburt cast his
bread upon the waters, but it sank uneaten.
Courage and Perseverance