I dipped back into Science of Doom again for a giggle and ended up at this fine article, it's the third article in a series which is basically a long list of things which are undisputed. The series builds up to this:
Wavelength Dependence on the Temperature of the Source
Of course, radiation from different temperature sources do have significant differences – in aggregate. What most, or all, believers in the imaginary second law of thermodynamics haven’t appreciated is how similar different temperature Planck curves can be:
Notice the similarity between the 10°C and the -10°C radiation curves. Alert readers who have pieced together these basics will already be able to see why the imaginary second law is not the real second law. If a 0°C surface can absorb radiation from 10°C radiation, it must be able to absorb radiation from -10°C radiation. And yet this would violate the imaginary second law of thermodynamics...
Conclusion
[Downward longwave radiation] is emitted by the atmosphere, reaches the surface and is absorbed by the surface. This absorption of energy changes the surface temperature. The physics behind this are [sic] very basic and have been known for around 100 years. Proving that the surface doesn’t absorb DLR should be a walk in the park for anyone with a small amount of cash. But only if it’s true.
Say what now?
Let's assume the ground is zero degrees C. Case A: air from the south wafts in which is +10 C. We'd expect the ground to warm up a bit (and the air to cool a bit). Case B: air from Siberia wafts in which is -10C. A sane and rational person would expect the ground to cool further (and the air to be a bit less cold), but apparently, the ground will warm up almost as much as if the air were +10C rather than -10C. This would to energy appearing out of nowhere (because the air is also getting less cold) and so is clearly impossible.
And I'm not aware that the Second Law says that objects can't absorb radiation from cooler objects. That is a red herring and neither here nor there - if the warmer object is emitting more than it is absorbing, it is cooling down. What the 'Law' says, among many other things, is that heat goes from warm objects to cold objects. Whether that is due to conduction or radiation or anything else is a secondary issue. The word "radiation" only appears once in the very lengthy Wiki article (and once again in the footnotes). Rather conveniently for the forces of common sense and reason, it's in the following sentence:
The second law is concerned with the direction of natural processes. It asserts that a natural process runs only in one sense, and is not reversible. For example, when a path for conduction and radiation is made available, heat always flows spontaneously from a hotter to a colder body.
They seem to be trying to convince themselves of something that in their hearts they know is not true.
Debate Magazine
