For decades, climate science has rested on a flawed assumption—one that has quietly underpinned the entire greenhouse gas narrative. It’s a mistake so fundamental, so glaring, that once exposed, it threatens to unravel the very foundation of Net Zero policy and the multi-trillion-dollar climate agenda.

The error lies in the energy budget diagrams used by climate modelers. These diagrams typically show that the Earth’s surface receives about 168 watts per square meter (W/m²) of solar radiation. But here’s the problem: according to the Stefan–Boltzmann Law, that amount of energy can only sustain a surface temperature of around 233 Kelvin (-40°C), which is 55 degrees below the observed global average of approximately 288K (15°C).

Image created using AI.

Faced with this discrepancy, climate theorists made a leap: they proposed that “back radiation” from greenhouse gases in the atmosphere must be supplying the missing energy. In other words, they claimed that radiation emitted downward from a colder atmosphere was somehow warming the warmer surface.

This clearly violates the Second Law of Thermodynamics because there is no other interacting thermodynamic system. In the Wikipedia article on “Laws of Thermodynamics,” we read that the Second Law states, “in a natural thermodynamic process, the sum of the entropies of the interacting thermodynamic systems never decreases.” Climatologists overlook that word “interacting” and try to excuse the obvious violation of the law with the excuse that greater radiation out of the surface, perhaps on the other side of the globe, somehow combines with this radiation.

So how does the Earth’s surface actually get the extra energy it needs?

The answer lies in a process I’ve termed “heat creep”—a natural, non-radiative mechanism of energy transfer that has been overlooked by mainstream climatology. Rather than relying on radiation, heat creep involves molecular collisions and gravitationally induced temperature gradients to move energy downward through the atmosphere.

Images from the author.

To understand this, consider a simple observation: a patch of ground still in the shadow of a mountain after sunrise begins to warm before direct sunlight reaches it. How? The early morning sun heats the upper atmosphere and nearby sunlit regions, including clouds. Then, through molecular interactions, energy is transferred laterally and downward—even into shaded areas. This is heat creep in action.

Unlike the radiative forcing model, heat creep is consistent with thermodynamic laws and explains a range of planetary phenomena:

•        Venus’s surface temperature (~735K) is far too high to be explained by solar input or CO₂ alone. Heat creep, driven downwards through the planet’s dense atmosphere, accounts for the observed thermal profile. The process even continues below the surface.

•        Uranus, despite receiving minimal solar radiation, has a tropospheric base temperature hotter than Earth’s surface. Again, heat creep provides the missing mechanism.

•        Even the Moon’s core, which reaches temperatures of 1200–1400°C, defies explanation by solar heating alone. With no atmosphere and no greenhouse gases, the Moon’s internal warmth is a testament to non-radiative energy dynamics.

I first outlined this process in 2012 in my paper Planetary Core and Surface Temperatures, and later in a video presentation, both linked from my website. The theory has since gained traction among physicists who recognize the limitations of the greenhouse paradigm. About 20,000 have read my papers, without any valid refutation ever being published.

The implications are profound. If heat creep—not back radiation—is responsible for maintaining planetary surface temperatures, then the entire edifice of greenhouse-driven climate alarm collapses. Carbon dioxide and methane, present in trace amounts (0.04% and 0.0002% respectively), cannot be the climate villains they’ve been made out to be. In fact, even water vapour, the most abundant so-called greenhouse gas, has a net cooling effect—a fact quietly acknowledged by CSIRO scientists in Australia under Freedom of Information requests.

The tide is turning. Eminent scientists, including Nobel Laureate Dr. John Clauser, have denounced the current climate narrative as pseudoscience. It’s only a matter of time before institutions like the IPCC, NASA, and the CSIRO are forced—perhaps in court—to admit that the “settled science” is not only unsettled, but demonstrably false.

It’s time to shift the paradigm. The laws of physics demand it.