Much in the news about AGW causing the loss of ice in the Arctic Ocean. Here is information about CO2 influence on the atmosphere. The following excerpt is from an article in the Washington Post.
“Carbon dioxide is a heat trapping greenhouse gas and its inexorable rise in recent history coupled with an increase in the Earth’s temperature raise concerns about human interference with the climate system and where temperatures and sea levels may be headed. “
Carbon Dioxide is NOT a heat trapping gas. CO2 does absorb infrared radiation in a very narrow band of the spectrum, but immediately reaches equilibrium with it's surroundings by a process of conduction and radiation.
The following are excerpts from http://www.aip.org/history/climate/co2.htm
“………. another scientist in Sweden, Knut Ångström, asked an assistant to measure the passage of infrared radiation through a tube filled with carbon dioxide. The assistant ("Herr J. Koch," otherwise unrecorded in history) put in rather less of the gas in total than would be found in a column of air reaching to the top of the atmosphere. The assistant reported that the amount of radiation that got through the tube scarcely changed when he cut the quantity of gas back by a third. Apparently it took only a trace of the gas to "saturate" the absorption — that is, in the bands of the spectrum where CO2 blocked radiation, it did it so thoroughly that more gas could make little difference.”
“Still more persuasive was the fact that water vapor, which is far more abundant in the air than carbon dioxide, also intercepts infrared radiation. In the crude spectrographs of the time, the smeared-out bands of the two gases entirely overlapped one another. More CO2 could not affect radiation in bands of the spectrum that water vapor, as well as CO2 itself, were already blocking entirely.”
The article goes on to rebut the previous two paragraphs.
“The greenhouse effect will in fact operate even if the absorption of radiation were totally saturated in the lower atmosphere. The planet's temperature is regulated by the thin upper layers where radiation does escape easily into space. Adding more greenhouse gas there will change the balance. “
This has proven to be false. The early models predicted that temperatures in the upper atmosphere would increase as CO2 increased. It has not done so and the global warming alarmists have gone to great lengths to claim that those upper air measurements are flawed. But the measurements have proven to be accurate. The reason is quite simple; no heating of the upper atmosphere will take place due to increased CO2 because in the absence of water vapor, and there is none or very little in the upper atmosphere, the radiation is free to escape to space.
“Carbon dioxide is a heat trapping greenhouse gas and its inexorable rise in recent history coupled with an increase in the Earth’s temperature raise concerns about human interference with the climate system and where temperatures and sea levels may be headed. “
Carbon Dioxide is NOT a heat trapping gas. CO2 does absorb infrared radiation in a very narrow band of the spectrum, but immediately reaches equilibrium with it's surroundings by a process of conduction and radiation.
The following are excerpts from http://www.aip.org/history/climate/co2.htm
“………. another scientist in Sweden, Knut Ångström, asked an assistant to measure the passage of infrared radiation through a tube filled with carbon dioxide. The assistant ("Herr J. Koch," otherwise unrecorded in history) put in rather less of the gas in total than would be found in a column of air reaching to the top of the atmosphere. The assistant reported that the amount of radiation that got through the tube scarcely changed when he cut the quantity of gas back by a third. Apparently it took only a trace of the gas to "saturate" the absorption — that is, in the bands of the spectrum where CO2 blocked radiation, it did it so thoroughly that more gas could make little difference.”
“Still more persuasive was the fact that water vapor, which is far more abundant in the air than carbon dioxide, also intercepts infrared radiation. In the crude spectrographs of the time, the smeared-out bands of the two gases entirely overlapped one another. More CO2 could not affect radiation in bands of the spectrum that water vapor, as well as CO2 itself, were already blocking entirely.”
The article goes on to rebut the previous two paragraphs.
“The greenhouse effect will in fact operate even if the absorption of radiation were totally saturated in the lower atmosphere. The planet's temperature is regulated by the thin upper layers where radiation does escape easily into space. Adding more greenhouse gas there will change the balance. “
This has proven to be false. The early models predicted that temperatures in the upper atmosphere would increase as CO2 increased. It has not done so and the global warming alarmists have gone to great lengths to claim that those upper air measurements are flawed. But the measurements have proven to be accurate. The reason is quite simple; no heating of the upper atmosphere will take place due to increased CO2 because in the absence of water vapor, and there is none or very little in the upper atmosphere, the radiation is free to escape to space.
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