Can a NATURAL HEAT SINK Remove Heat no matter how much heat?

Question

Can a NATURAL HEAT SINK Remove Heat no matter how much heat?
Is it possible that no matter how much heat energy you have to deal with, it can still be dissipated or removed as long as there is an adequate 'heat sink'. Even if it takes the rest of the universe to do it. Can a 'natural heat sink' remove heat from Earth and send the heat out of the atmosphere.
In other words, if theres even more heat, just keep getting a "bigger" 'heat sink'?
In other words , dealing with the universe is there an infinite supply of material , ice or whatever, do deal with any heat transfer.

Answer 1

First, let me deal a second with heat sinks... The size of the heat sink alone isn't necessarily the limiting factor here -- it's the ability to actually manage the heat transfer that will just as often bite you.

Let's take this down to a less "macroscopic" level and look at a simple transistor and avoiding cooking the thing with heat sink technology...

No matter HOW big the heat sink, a) unless you have adequate conduction in the materials across the mechanical junction between the transistor and the heat sink, and b) unless the surface area where that conduction takes place is large enough ... you'll never pull the heat out fast enough. While your heat sink might arbitrarily have infinite capacity, you've got to get the heat moved from the transistor to the heat sink before the size of the heat sink matters.

Everything hinges on your definition of "adequate", and I assume in my answer that it means getting rid of the heat faster than it's being generated. In my one case, it means getting the heat from the transistor to the sink faster than the transistor is generating it, else it'll eventually cook (e.g., thermal runaway) no matter *how* big the heat sink is. That's why we use conductive grease and other things to try to improve the conductivity in the mechanical junction.

As to the word "natural", I'm not sure what bearing this has on the subject. What you're looking for is a combination of thermal mass and conductivity, no matter how you happen to come by it.

Moving to your larger example, you're really not talking about a heat sink at all. Energy radiated (in particular, as heat) from the Earth doesn't require a "heat sink" in order to be radiated. You can radiate infrared energy right into the (more or less) vacuum of space if you like -- and technically, all of that space *could* have zero thermal mass and the radiation could occur through no "conductive" medium. So I think the word "heat sink" does not apply at all to your question.

The condition you describe is more one of assuring that, in order for the Earth to be a *NET* emitter of infrared energy, that it absorb less infrared (and other wavelengths that might be converted to heat) than it is generating.
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Answer 2

As far as the total amount of heat transfer, an infinite heat sink would be just great, as long as it's at a lower temperature than whatever you're trying to transfer heat away from. An "earth-natural" (large but finite) heatsink will keep transferring some heat as long as it's cooler, and the total amount of heat it can handle is equal to the mass times the specific heat times the temperature difference.
If you're talking about radiating Earth's heat away (faster than the current rate), you'll need some sort of heat pump (like an air conditioner) designed to have a very hot-running condenser so it can produce useful amounts of radiant energy. Of course this will take much energy to run, generating more heat. Nothing in thermodynamics comes without a cost. I think it would be more feasible (by which I don't mean practical) to go find a decent sized comet and send chunks of its ice back to Earth.

Answer 3

CO2 is a linear molecule with the structure O=C=O. The oxygen atoms are more electronegative than the carbon and carry a partial negative charge. The bond electrons spend more time near the O than C, so the C atom has a fractional positive charge. The molecule has symmetric and antisymmetric stretching modes as well as a doubly degenerate bending mode. The symmetric stretching mode (both O's move in and out in phase) does not involve a dipole change and is infrared inactive, but can be seen with Raman spectroscopy. The antisymmetric stretching mode (O's move in and out out of phase) involves a dipole moment change and is infrared active near 2300 cm-1. The bending mode also involves a dipole moment change and is infrared active near 700 cm-1. The molecule acts (in a classical sense) in the same way as a radio transmitter with two resonant frequencies. A transmitter can also receive radiation at the same frequencies. An incoming photon is an electromagnetic wave that "giggles" the atoms. If the frequency of the photon is resonant with the receiver, energy can be transferred to the motion of the atoms. Quantum mechanically, the probability of this happening is related to the transition dipole moment, which can be measured experimentally. In addition to the internal motions noted, the molecule has three translational degrees of freedom. The kinetic energy of the molecule moving as a unit is what is referred to as heat. The molecule can also rotate about an axis perpendicular to the molecular axis and energy can be stored in this rotational motion. Quantum mechanics dictates that the vibrational and rotational energy levels can change only in discrete quantities. The rotational transitions have much less energy than the vibrational transitions and are found both in the far infrared and superimposed on each vibrational mode. At high resolution (0.01 cm-1) the molecular absorptions look like a comb. The tynes of the comb are broadened by the Doppler effect and also by molecular collisions. Energy can flow between any of the modes mentioned by a variety of mechanisms, with the overall distribution of energy determined by the partition function. Thermal radiation from the ground (290 K) is specified by the Planck distribution, with a small correction for emissivity. The result is a curve peaked near 1000 cm-1 with most of the energy between 500 cm-1 and 1500 cm-1. Although CO2 can absorb at 2300 cm-1, only a tiny fraction of the thermal energy is present at that frequency. The CO2 absorption near 700 cm-1overlaps the thermal distribution and thus has significant absorption in the thermal band. After a thermal photon is absorbed, another is emitted in a random direction because the molecules do not have a preferred orientation in air (although a preferred orientation in possible in the presence of a strong electric field or on the surface of a metal, for example). The process is repeated N times until the photon escapes to space. If the atmospheric concentration of CO2 is increased, N, the effective number of layers increases. At each layer, half of the absorbed photons are re-radiated toward the ground on average. This sets up a photon concentration gradient with more energy close to the ground and less at higher altitudes. This in a nutshell is the greenhouse effect. The same description applies to any molecule with a dipole moment change at a frequency in the thermal radiation range.