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Pollution, global warming, urbanisation etc.
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#15195101
Steve_American wrote:1] I disagree with your claiming more science knowledge that I have. See below for the proof.

What you prove below is that your scientific knowledge is rudimentary at best, and certainly far inferior to mine.
2] . a] Well, you may not have said that the energy that reaches the surface of the Earth from the sun is mostly in the form of visible light. However that is just a scientific fact. If you don't know this fact, then you are lacking in your scientific knowledge.

No. You incorrectly assumed that the absorption of downward radiation that prevents CO2 in the upper atmosphere from warming the earth's surface was absorption of visible wavelengths from the sun rather than IR wavelengths from CO2 in the air. GHGs warm the earth precisely BECAUSE they are transparent to visible wavelengths from the sun, but absorb infrared wavelengths emitted from the earth's surface. But they are just as effective at absorbing downward IR from farther up in the earth's atmosphere as they are at absorbing upward IR from the surface.
b] Well, again you're showing your lack of scientific knowledge.

No, you are, and I will thank you to remember it.
When a molecule absorbs heat=infrared light it doesn't reradiate it in the same direction. If it did it would have little effect as you say. However, the direction it is reradiated is totally random. So, is rediated down as much as up.

Right, but the photons radiated in any direction but down can't warm the earth's surface, so they are not relevant to the notional mechanism whereby CO2 in the upper atmosphere could warm the earth's surface. No matter how many times an IR photon is absorbed and reradiated by CO2 in the upper atmosphere, unless it somehow reaches the earth's surface again, it eventually leaves for outer space, and CANNOT warm the earth's surface.
. . . c] The GHG story is that the energy reaches the Earth's surface in the form of visible light from the sun. Over the course of a day or a year the energy either heats up the Earth or it is sent somehow back to space.

Incident solar radiation, most of it in visible wavelengths, gets back to outer space one of two ways: immediate reflection from the surface, especially from snow or ice, but also from land (the oceans are almost completely black, and absorb almost all incident EM radiation), or after being absorbed, thus heating the earth's surface, it is radiated from the surface as IR radiation that is absorbed and re-emitted many times by GHGs before finally reaching outer space.
Energy is conserved, it can't disappear. Either it leaves, or it heats things, or it makes something move faster.

When it makes molecules move faster, that IS heating.
. . . So, the infrared light is absorbed by CO2 in the air and reradiated up, down or sideways. If the energy is trapped at any altitude by any process it can't just be there. It must heat up the air at that altitude. This not happening much. We know this because we can feel the heat of the sun and so we know that it is enough to heat things up, like a piece of metal in the sun. Therefore, the fact that we don't see the temp of air at many altitudes heating up 2 dec. C per day, everyday, all summer, proves that the heat is mostly escaping out into space. And some is heating the ground and the oceans. But, mostly it must escape to space. It simply MUST! Again you are showing your lack of scientific knowledge.

No. This is all obvious, and I have never said or implied anything to the contrary.
. . . Lurkers, frankly I'm not sure why the infrared light tends to be sent up more but it must be because otherwise as I just showed it would either heat up the air or heat up the dirt & oceans.

It's not sent up more. It's just that it can only escape to outer space if it is not re-absorbed, and that is most likely if it goes up. But it is a simple geometric relationship: the greater the angle of emission is away from straight up, the greater the probability it will be reabsorbed. If it is emitted in any direction where the earth's surface is in the way, it CANNOT escape, and is certain to be reabsorbed before beginning the outward journey again.
He doesn't want to have it heat the dirt and we can agree it isn't heating the air that much, so it must go up more than down.

It doesn't go up more than down. It just has a higher chance of escaping to outer space the closer it is to being emitted straight up, and NO chance of warming the earth's surface unless it is emitted in a downward direction that intercepts the earth's surface.
. . . However, some can be sent back down to be causing the dirt to be heated a little year after year.

But only if it isn't reabsorbed before it reaches the surface! That is the point.
. . . Anyway, as we go up in altitude the concentration of CO2 is reduced as the air pressure is reduced.

No, the concentration of CO2 actually increases slightly with altitude as water vapor condenses out. It is the density that decreases with pressure.
Therefore, the level where the CO2 stops all the infrared rises, and this reduces the amount of the energy that finally escapes out into space.

No, it does not. All it does is increase the altitude and reduce the temperature of the average final IR emission that escapes to outer space.
So, less energy escapes, so more stays in the air or in the dirt/oceans/etc. And, that more energy must show up as heat, which we see as increasing temps. It isn't a lot, but the small change heats the Earth year after year.

No. The equilibrium just shifts as described above. There is no continued build-up of heat such as you describe.
BTW --- the Earth is never in temp. equilibrium because the temp does up and down during the day and during the months. The ave. temp. changes every year a little. Sometimes it has changed going down for decades, sometimes it has gone up a little each year for decades, and sometimes it has done little for decades, but it is always changing at least a little.

Yes, the earth is always out of thermal equilibrium and moving towards it.
#15195124
Truth To Power wrote:What you prove below is that your scientific knowledge is rudimentary at best, and certainly far inferior to mine.

No. You incorrectly assumed that the absorption of downward radiation that prevents CO2 in the upper atmosphere from warming the earth's surface was absorption of visible wavelengths from the sun rather than IR wavelengths from CO2 in the air. GHGs warm the earth precisely BECAUSE they are transparent to visible wavelengths from the sun, but absorb infrared wavelengths emitted from the earth's surface. But they are just as effective at absorbing downward IR from farther up in the earth's atmosphere as they are at absorbing upward IR from the surface.

No, you are, and I will thank you to remember it.

Right, but the photons radiated in any direction but down can't warm the earth's surface, so they are not relevant to the notional mechanism whereby CO2 in the upper atmosphere could warm the earth's surface. No matter how many times an IR photon is absorbed and reradiated by CO2 in the upper atmosphere, unless it somehow reaches the earth's surface again, it eventually leaves for outer space, and CANNOT warm the earth's surface.

Incident solar radiation, most of it in visible wavelengths, gets back to outer space one of two ways: immediate reflection from the surface, especially from snow or ice, but also from land (the oceans are almost completely black, and absorb almost all incident EM radiation), or after being absorbed, thus heating the earth's surface, it is radiated from the surface as IR radiation that is absorbed and re-emitted many times by GHGs before finally reaching outer space.

When it makes molecules move faster, that IS heating.

No. This is all obvious, and I have never said or implied anything to the contrary.

It's not sent up more. It's just that it can only escape to outer space if it is not re-absorbed, and that is most likely if it goes up. But it is a simple geometric relationship: the greater the angle of emission is away from straight up, the greater the probability it will be reabsorbed. If it is emitted in any direction where the earth's surface is in the way, it CANNOT escape, and is certain to be reabsorbed before beginning the outward journey again.

It doesn't go up more than down. It just has a higher chance of escaping to outer space the closer it is to being emitted straight up, and NO chance of warming the earth's surface unless it is emitted in a downward direction that intercepts the earth's surface.

But only if it isn't reabsorbed before it reaches the surface! That is the point.

No, the concentration of CO2 actually increases slightly with altitude as water vapor condenses out. It is the density that decreases with pressure.

No, it does not. All it does is increase the altitude and reduce the temperature of the average final IR emission that escapes to outer space.

No. The equilibrium just shifts as described above. There is no continued build-up of heat such as you describe.

Yes, the earth is always out of thermal equilibrium and moving towards it.


Lurkers, he shoots himself in the foot by pointing out that water vapor condenses out as you go up in altitude, because water vapor is a stronger GHG than CO2 is. Scientists don't focus on it because the oceans and lakes are a huge reservoir of liquid water as a source of more water vapor. So, humans adding more water by burning methane, for example, has no effect. In the same way if there were huge glaciers of 'dry ice' on earth, it would not matter that we are burning coal that adds CO2 to the air. However, our Earth is covered by water oceans and doesn't have ice sheets of dry ice. [BTW -- CO2 doesn't have a liquid state in the normal conditions of Earth. It goes from solid to vapor, directly.]

I said that the CO2 thins out as altitude is increased. I used a different word but that was the meaning.

He implies that CO2 doesn't thin out, because water is removed. But, all we have to do is go higher to find the effect I described.

The air isn't massively heated like metal in sun light. And, neither is the dirt of Earth because it is damp. Sand in the desert can get very hot. But, at night with no clouds, the sand cools off quite fast.

Let me try this angle, lurkers. A cloudy day is cooler because they block the visible light from the sun. Just like CO2 in the air, the water drops in the clouds don't heat up like metal in the sun. No, they scatter the light in all directions instead of letting to continue straight down to the earth. So, it is cooler under clouds. OTOH, a cloudy night is warmer because they block the infrared being radiated up by the dirt, etc. The CO2 in the air blocks infrared all the time, not just at night. So, just like thin clouds block less light and thick clouds block more light, thinner CO2 'clouds' hold in less infrared, and as we make the CO2 'cloud' more dense, they block more infrared.
. . . Apparently. sea level air has enough CO2 to absorb all the infrared, sending half up and half down (if we can ignore the amount reradiated sideways). So, adding more CO2 to sea level air has little or no effect, however, at some altitude the H2O and CO2 are thinner, so more infrared keeps going up. As we burn carbon we are making the CO2 way up there more dense, and this sends more of the infrared back down. This acts like making thin clouds into denser or thicker clouds.
#15195131
If the energy keeps getting re-emitted and re-absorbed back into the atmosphere, that is just a way of saying that the atmosphere is heating up.

Also, note that energy that warms up the surface of the planet and then is re-emitted into the atmosphere here it gets sent back and forth between the surface and the atmosphere just stays in the system.

What is relevant is the interaction between the sun, the planetary system (which includes the atmosphere) and space,

If the planetary system gets more energy than it emits, it heats up. Or more specifically, if it takes longer for the energy to escape than it takes for that energy to be absorbed, then we get global warming.

So, if CO2 does keep energy in the planetary system longer, then it is a significant factor in global warming.
#15195157
Pants-of-dog wrote:Irrelevant.

Because it demolishes you?
This completely ignores the rate heat loss from the atmosphere.

No it doesn't. It explains how GHGs govern the rate of heat loss from the earth's surface by governing the rate of heat loss from the atmosphere at the effective emission altitude.
Just like the text you quoted.

No. You have merely decided to make yourself permanently unable to understand the fact that heat loss is inverse to the effectiveness of thermal insulation.
No.

Yes.
The heat loss from a body is not always the inverse of its absorption.

It's the inverse of the insulator's absorption (and direct with its transmission) of heat, not the warm body's absorption.
This would mean that nothing ever gets warmer or colder.

Yes, if you have decided not to know the difference between the heat absorption of a warm body and the heat absorption of its insulation.
Think about it: my house is losing heat to the outdoors. At the same time, it is absorbing heat from the burning fuel in the furnace. If heat loss was magically the exact inverse of heat absorption, I would not need a thermostat to regulate this.

<sigh> Do you have insulation in your house's walls? Do you think the absorption and transmission of heat by the insulation affects your house's rate of heat loss? If not, then what do you think the insulation is there for?
#15195159
Pants-of-dog wrote:If the energy keeps getting re-emitted and re-absorbed back into the atmosphere, that is just a way of saying that the atmosphere is heating up.

That's if you don't know any atmospheric physics, and can't understand the fact that energy emitted upward high enough in the atmosphere is not re-absorbed, but escapes into outer space. That is how the earth's temperature is stabilized.
Also, note that energy that warms up the surface of the planet and then is re-emitted into the atmosphere here it gets sent back and forth between the surface and the atmosphere just stays in the system.

But the energy is not all just recycled between the surface and the atmosphere: some -- and eventually all of it -- percolates upward to higher altitudes, and then escapes into outer space. It has to, to maintain the earth's stable temperature.
What is relevant is the interaction between the sun, the planetary system (which includes the atmosphere) and space,

Right -- and specifically, how much additional CO2 affects the rate of heat loss through the atmosphere. Angstrom's result shows it can't affect it much.
If the planetary system gets more energy than it emits, it heats up.

Certainly.
Or more specifically, if it takes longer for the energy to escape than it takes for that energy to be absorbed, then we get global warming.

No. The length of time taken for the energy to escape is irrelevant. All that matters is the balance between energy arriving and energy escaping. A photon of visible sunlight is absorbed by the earth's surface in a fraction of a nanosecond, but it might take years for that energy to get back out of the atmosphere into outer space via infrared emission, absorption, and re-emission. As long as the amount of energy emitted from the top of the atmosphere is the same as the amount arriving from the sun, global temperature will not increase.
So, if CO2 does keep energy in the planetary system longer, then it is a significant factor in global warming.

No, that is a non sequitur fallacy. Because there are so many other factors involved, and their contributions are complexly related, all we can say for sure is that additional CO2 is a factor. Angstrom's results show that it cannot be a significant one.
#15195161
Pants-of-dog wrote:@Truth To Power

Until you provide a quote from a study that actually mentions the rate of heat loss from the atmosphere, you are wasting my time.

:lol: No, that is just more ridiculous garbage from you. You just proved you don't know anything about this subject. The rate of heat loss from the top of the atmosphere is completely irrelevant to the Svensmark et al. paper I cited about the effect of solar activity on ionization and cloud formation, because clouds primarily affect the earth's albedo -- i.e., the fraction of incident solar radiation that is reflected -- not the rate of loss of heat that has been absorbed by the earth's surface. And the rate of heat loss from the top of the atmosphere is also utterly irrelevant to the Angstrom paper's results, because heat loss from the top of the atmosphere has to balance heat arriving from the sun: what matters is how CO2 affects the radiative equilibrium at the surface, which is precisely what the Angstrom paper explained.

You have nothing.
#15195165
Truth To Power wrote:That's if you don't know any atmospheric physics, and can't understand the fact that energy emitted upward high enough in the atmosphere is not re-absorbed, but escapes into outer space. That is how the earth's temperature is stabilized.

But the energy is not all just recycled between the surface and the atmosphere: some -- and eventually all of it -- percolates upward to higher altitudes, and then escapes into outer space. It has to, to maintain the earth's stable temperature.

Right -- and specifically, how much additional CO2 affects the rate of heat loss through the atmosphere. Angstrom's result shows it can't affect it much.

Certainly.

No. The length of time taken for the energy to escape is irrelevant. All that matters is the balance between energy arriving and energy escaping. A photon of visible sunlight is absorbed by the earth's surface in a fraction of a nanosecond, but it might take years for that energy to get back out of the atmosphere into outer space via infrared emission, absorption, and re-emission. As long as the amount of energy emitted from the top of the atmosphere is the same as the amount arriving from the sun, global temperature will not increase.

No, that is a non sequitur fallacy. Because there are so many other factors involved, and their contributions are complexly related, all we can say for sure is that additional CO2 is a factor. Angstrom's results show that it cannot be a significant one.


Truth To Power wrote::lol: No, that is just more ridiculous garbage from you. You just proved you don't know anything about this subject. The rate of heat loss from the top of the atmosphere is completely irrelevant to the Svensmark et al. paper I cited about the effect of solar activity on ionization and cloud formation, because clouds primarily affect the earth's albedo -- i.e., the fraction of incident solar radiation that is reflected -- not the rate of loss of heat that has been absorbed by the earth's surface. And the rate of heat loss from the top of the atmosphere is also utterly irrelevant to the Angstrom paper's results, because heat loss from the top of the atmosphere has to balance heat arriving from the sun: what matters is how CO2 affects the radiative equilibrium at the surface, which is precisely what the Angstrom paper explained.

You have nothing.


@Truth To Power

Until you provide a quote from a study that actually mentions the rate of heat loss from the atmosphere, you are wasting my time.

also, I find it amusing that you misread my sentences and then end up saying I am wrong and then repeating my own points back to me.
#15195167
This is hilarious.

If time was irrelevant in how long heat was absorbed or emitted, a body would not heat up if it gained two units per second but lost 2 units of heat every two seconds.

So, time is relevant. And this is why the R-value you see on the side of a package of insulation includes a time variable.
#15195278
Pants-of-dog wrote:This is hilarious.

No, it's pathetic.
If time was irrelevant in how long heat was absorbed or emitted, a body would not heat up if it gained two units per second but lost 2 units of heat every two seconds.

That is not a statement about how long heat takes to leave the body, it is a statement about the body's rate of heat loss. I already explained this to you, very clearly and patiently, in simple, grammatical English. As long as the rate of heat loss matches the rate of absorption, the body is in thermal equilibrium whether it takes one second for absorbed heat to be lost or 1000 years.
So, time is relevant. And this is why the R-value you see on the side of a package of insulation includes a time variable.

Time is obviously relevant to the rate of heat loss, but contrary to your claim, how long it takes absorbed heat to be lost is not relevant.
#15195280
Truth To Power wrote:No, it's pathetic.

That is not a statement about how long heat takes to leave the body, it is a statement about the body's rate of heat loss. I already explained this to you, very clearly and patiently, in simple, grammatical English. As long as the rate of heat loss matches the rate of absorption, the body is in thermal equilibrium whether it takes one second for absorbed heat to be lost or 1000 years.

Time is obviously relevant to the rate of heat loss, but contrary to your claim, how long it takes absorbed heat to be lost is not relevant.


Yes, you understand.

Now, please note that your quoted text about how CO2 affects heat absorption by the atmosphere only looks at half the equation and does not look at the rate of heat loss.

Let me know when you have a quote from the study that looks at the rate of heat loss from the atmosphere.
#15195281
Pants-of-dog wrote:@Truth To Power
Until you provide a quote from a study that actually mentions the rate of heat loss from the atmosphere, you are wasting my time.

No, your claims continue to be false. By insisting only irrelevancies are relevant in order to evade the relevant facts I already identified and cited with peer-reviewed sources, you are wasting my time. I already explained to you, very clearly and patiently, in simple, grammatical English, why the rate of heat loss from the atmosphere is irrelevant: whatever its surface temperature, the earth has to maintain thermal equilibrium, so averaged over any substantial period of time, the rate of heat loss from the atmosphere will always be the same as the rate of heat absorption by the earth's surface. That is why climatology talks of the "equilibrium climate sensitivity" or ECS.
also, I find it amusing that you misread my sentences and then end up saying I am wrong and then repeating my own points back to me.

Readers are invited to confirm for themselves that that has not happened.
#15195284
@Truth To Power

Let me get your argument straight:

So, the Earth magically maintains thermal equilibrium enough to avoid negative effects from anthropogenic climate change because it “has to”.

This is bad sciemce.
#15195286
Pants-of-dog wrote:Yes, you understand.

Wish I could say the same....
Now, please note that your quoted text about how CO2 affects heat absorption by the atmosphere only looks at half the equation

No it doesn't. You are just makin' #!+ up.
and does not look at the rate of heat loss.

Because it is utterly irrelevant, as it has to match the rate of heat absorption by the earth's surface in any case. All that matters is the top-of-atmosphere conditions that match heat loss rate to heat absorption rate at the surface. As the equilibrium rate of heat loss from the atmosphere is absolutely determined by the equilibrium rate of heat absorption by the earth's surface, there is nothing relevant that can be said about it. We know how much it has to be, and that's how much it is.
Let me know when you have a quote from the study that looks at the rate of heat loss from the atmosphere.

As the rate of heat loss from the atmosphere is about as relevant to CO2's effect on surface temperature as the rate of interest on 10-year Treasury bonds, no relevant study looks at it. You know this, which is why you have decided to evade the relevant facts by insisting that only an utter irrelevancy is relevant.
#15195288
Pants-of-dog wrote:@Truth To Power

Let me get your argument straight:

Without reading further, I know with 100% certainty that you are about to just make $#!+ up. Watch:
So, the Earth magically

See? You simply made $#!+ up, exactly as I predicted. There is nothing magical about the physics of radiative heat transfer, as you know perfectly well.
maintains thermal equilibrium enough to avoid negative effects from anthropogenic climate change because it “has to”.

No, I didn't say anything about the claimed negative effects of anthropogenic climate change. You simply made that up. The rate of heat loss from the atmosphere has to match the rate of heat absorption by the planet for the same reason that the rate of heat loss from an apple sitting in a bowl of fruit has to match its heat absorption from the light fixture overhead: if it didn't, it would heat up until it burned, or cool down until it froze.

The surface of Venus is hot enough to melt lead. But the rate of heat loss from the top of its atmosphere "magically" matches the planet's rate of heat absorption because like the earth, or the apple in the bowl, it has to: it moves to thermal equilibrium by natural law.
This is bad sciemce.

All that you have to say on the subject is more accurately termed nonscience.
#15195292
Steve_American wrote:Lurkers, he shoots himself in the foot by pointing out that water vapor condenses out as you go up in altitude, because water vapor is a stronger GHG than CO2 is.

Identifying facts that prove me right is somehow shooting myself in the foot...?
Scientists don't focus on it because the oceans and lakes are a huge reservoir of liquid water as a source of more water vapor. So, humans adding more water by burning methane, for example, has no effect.

The fact that scientists don't focus on something is not evidence that it is irrelevant. They don't focus on the fact that the oceans are salty, either, but the fact that salt stops them from freezing is a major factor in determining the earth's climate.

<more irrelevancy snipped>
I said that the CO2 thins out as altitude is increased. I used a different word but that was the meaning.

No. The atmosphere thins out -- becomes less dense -- with altitude, but the concentration of CO2 (and everything else) actually rises a few percent as water vapor condenses out.
He implies that CO2 doesn't thin out, because water is removed. But, all we have to do is go higher to find the effect I described.

CO2 becomes less dense with altitude, like every other component of the atmosphere. But its concentration -- the word you used -- rises.
A cloudy day is cooler because they block the visible light from the sun.

In the winter, a cloudy day is not cooler, it is warmer.

Such a mystery.

To you, that is.
Just like CO2 in the air, the water drops in the clouds don't heat up like metal in the sun. No, they scatter the light in all directions instead of letting to continue straight down to the earth. So, it is cooler under clouds.

Except in the winter.
OTOH, a cloudy night is warmer because they block the infrared being radiated up by the dirt, etc. The CO2 in the air blocks infrared all the time, not just at night. So, just like thin clouds block less light and thick clouds block more light, thinner CO2 'clouds' hold in less infrared, and as we make the CO2 'cloud' more dense, they block more infrared.

And as Angstrom showed over 100 years ago, adding CO2 to atmospheric air blocks only slightly more infrared.
. . . Apparently. sea level air has enough CO2 to absorb all the infrared, sending half up and half down (if we can ignore the amount reradiated sideways).

No, it has enough WATER VAPOR to make added CO2 irrelevant to the IR absorption rate.
So, adding more CO2 to sea level air has little or no effect, however, at some altitude the H2O and CO2 are thinner, so more infrared keeps going up.

Right. And in effect, once the H2O all condenses out, there is so little GHG above that altitude that IR emissions become much more likely to escape to outer space. The effective emission altitude is not much above the altitude where air becomes extremely dry (which varies with latitude and season). This is not a coincidence. Adding CO2 just increases the emission altitude a bit and reduces the emission temperature a bit. It cannot have any significant effect on surface temperature, as Angstrom showed.
As we burn carbon we are making the CO2 way up there more dense, and this sends more of the infrared back down. This acts like making thin clouds into denser or thicker clouds.

Nope. The IR can't get back down because it runs into water vapor as soon as it gets low enough for water vapor not to have condensed out.
#15195294
Truth To Power wrote:….
The rate of heat loss from the atmosphere has to match the rate of heat absorption by the planet for the same reason that the rate of heat loss from an apple sitting in a bowl of fruit has to match its heat absorption from the light fixture overhead: if it didn't, it would heat up until it burned, or cool down until it froze.
……


So, it is autumn here in Canada. The apple trees have dropped their fruit for the year, so I can watch apples.

In the night, they actually do lose heat until they freeze, because it drops below freezing at night.

In the day, they warm up until they get as warm as the ambient air.

So, we see that in nature, there is no reason for a body to stay the same average temperature. Things warm up and cool down all the time.

Now, it is true that the Earth (including its atmosphere) must lose heat at roughly the same rate as it absorbs heat if it needs to avoid radical temperature change.

But unless you can provide a reason why it will lose heat at the same rate (as opposed to why it needs to), you are still not addressing the issue.
#15195382
Pants-of-dog wrote:So, it is autumn here in Canada. The apple trees have dropped their fruit for the year, so I can watch apples.

In the night, they actually do lose heat until they freeze, because it drops below freezing at night.

In the day, they warm up until they get as warm as the ambient air.

So, we see that in nature, there is no reason for a body to stay the same average temperature. Things warm up and cool down all the time.

Right. The apples, along with everything else, warm up and cool down because heat automatically moves from warmer things to cooler ones, not the other way around. The only way to impede this process is with thermal insulation, like the GHGs in the earth's atmosphere (you can actually reverse it with a heat pump, but that requires an outside energy input).
But unless you can provide a reason why it will lose heat at the same rate (as opposed to why it needs to), you are still not addressing the issue.

The greater the difference in temperature, the faster a warm body loses heat to a cooler one -- and in this case, the cooler one's temperature is the near-absolute-zero of outer space. The earth moves towards equilibrium with the cold of outer space for the same reasons the fallen apples heat up in the daytime and cool off at night. It's just that the sun shines on the earth more or less constantly while the earth rotates under it, so the average rate of heat loss from the atmosphere is constantly moving towards the rate of heat absorption from the sun.

The heat absorbed from the sun goes through two cycles: the diurnal cycle that happens because the earth's land masses are not distributed equally by longitude, and the annual cycle that happens because the earth's axis is tilted, and its land masses are not distributed equally by latitude. The diurnal cycle of heat loss from the upper atmosphere is imperceptible because GHGs impede the loss of surface heat long enough to smooth the cycle; but the annual cycle proves that it takes at most a small fraction of a year for the rate of heat loss from the upper atmosphere to track heat absorption at the surface.
#15195387
Truth To Power wrote:
You clowns should be paying me for teaching you the basic physics of radiative heat transfer in the atmosphere.



Personally, I'd like to see them give professional trolls the boot.
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