By Fred F. Mueller
Do you feel helpless when trying to assess the veracity of “climate doom is looming” claims we are constantly bombarded with?
For ordinary citizens not having acquired at least a Ph.d. degree in atmospheric physics or comparable climate-relevant sciences, it seems nearly impossible to tell right from wrong when it comes to assess such claims. Do so-called greenhouse gases really reflect infrared energy back to earth in such quantities that this affects earth’s temperature?
Don’t give up trying to understand the relevant basics: there are rather simple ways to get an idea about what this is all about. Even without a scientific background, most people have at least a good common sense. And that’s all it takes to get a grasp of how vigorously and chaotically enormous energy fluxes slosh up and down, back and forth between earth’s surface and the skies.
Fig. 1. The setting sun illuminating a fairly thin veil of clouds from below – thus injecting energy into the space between the earths’s surface and cloud cover.
Part 1 – some basics
Let’s first clarify where the heat that allows us to live rather comfortably in our habitats is coming from and where it goes to. Despite the enormous energy content of the molten core of our planet, the bulk of our energy comes from the sun, which sends us energy mainly using three forms of electromagnetic radiation: visible, ultraviolet and infrared light.
At the top of the atmosphere, every square meter oriented towards the sun thus receives a fairly constant power influx of 1361 to 1362 W/m2. Although not being a real constant, this value is often referred to as the solar constant.
The alleged greenhouse effect
The notion of a “greenhouse effect” in our atmosphere has been used and misused incredibly often, resulting in an incredible mess of erroneous perceptions not only among the public, but even in the scientific world. A striking example for an obvious misrepresentation can be seen in the lead-in picture of the Wikipedia chapter on the topic, Fig. 2.
Fig. 2. The lead-in picture of the Wikipedia chapter about the “greenhouse effect” (Author: Efbrazil 2), CC 4.0)
This graphic highlights the extent to which Wikipedia gives the impression of having fallen prey to climate activism. The complex reality of transfers and transformations of energy on our planet involving soils, waters, gases, clouds, aerosols, heat storage, conduction and convection, chemical reactions and phase transformations, as well as a host of additional factors are simply swept under the carpet, attributing all their combined effects solely to the odious “greenhouse gases”.
This Wikipedia chapter is a saddening example for the downfall of an allegedly scientific encyclopedia actually spreading rather crude ideology under the guise of educating the public. The related chapter comprises more than 7,000 words and tries to underscore its claim of being “scientific” by a list of 80 citations including papers about the atmospheric conditions on far-away cosmic bodies such as Titan and Venus. But this cannot excuse the use of such a grossly misleading graphic as the lead-in picture for the abstract. Such tricks commonly used in tabloids or yellow journals. Wikipedia touts itself to be an encyclopedia addressing not only scientists but also laymen and the general public and should therefore care all the more not to disseminate content that may be misunderstood by people lacking a scientific background.
Fig. 3. This more detailed representation of the energy fluxes on earth elaborated by NASA is still misleading with respect to some decisive facts (Picture by NASA 3), public domain) Note: This graphic and the corresponding link have been withdrawn after completion of the article. In a subsequent part, the replacement graphic and its amendments will be treated in detail. Nevertheless, this graphic and its errors have been displayed for a prolonged time, thus warranting a suited discussion.
Although the more detailed Fig. 3 elaborated by NASA gives a better impression of the many different factors influencing energy transfer fluxes between earth’s surface and space, it still misleads in a subtle way that makes it unfit to convey a correct understanding of the vital facts. Let’s look at the main inconsistencies.
Mean values intended to mask natural variations
One of the favourite tricks of climate prophets of doom is to suggest that all major factors influencing our climate are more or less constant, with the sole exception of “greenhouse gases”. They intend to exploit the fact that the CO2-level of the atmosphere is rising while at least for the past some 150 years, meteorologists have also seen a moderate rise of the temperature levels they monitor on their stations. Though both trends are far from being in lockstep, this coincidence of trends has been declared to be the proof for a causality, although no clear mechanism or quantitative deduction could hitherto be established. Despite many striking discrepancies e.g. with respect to the natural cycles of CO2 or the absorption and sequestration of CO2 in our oceans, the perceived rise in temperatures has been almost exclusively attributed to CO2.
Misusing water vapor
Another diversion has been to declare that water vapor is simply reinforcing the leading role of CO2. This might be viewed as a real masterpiece of twisting reality since water vapor has not only a much higher efficiency with respect to absorbing (and re-emitting) infrared radiation (see Fig.4.), but is also exceeds the content of CO2 in the atmosphere by factors between 25 (= median concentration value at sea level) and up to 100!
Fig. 4. Comparing the spectral IR radiance of a surface with 14 °C with the overlapped absorption bands of CO2 (brownish) and water vapor (bluish) shows the highly superior absorption capacity of water vapor for the IR emission of soil or water at 14 °C – (which is the “mean” temperature on earth’s surface). Please mind the different scales of the x axes: linear for the spectral radiance, logarithmic for the absorption. (Graphics: SpectralCalc 4) (above), NASA, Robert Rohde 5) Public domain (below)).
Notwithstanding these inconsistencies, the climate science community has in its vast majority adopted this approach. This might be attributable to the fact that the quantity of water vapor in the atmosphere is subjected to wild temporal and local variations between nearly zero – e.g. at high altitudes and very low temperatures – and sometimes up to 4% at sea level.
Cutting corners
Additionally, especially when transforming to clouds, water vapor tends to condense or freeze out of the atmosphere in ways that have up to now resisted any realistic attempt to describe them mathematically. Trying to establish realistic three-dimensional models of water vapor distribution over a certain location at a given moment and to calculate the resulting effects on absorption and re-emission of IR radiation thus remain a much more arduous task than using a single value for all and every condition, as can conveniently be done when attributing the whole “greenhouse effect” solely to CO2. And voilà, truckloads of complicated research work may simply be skipped. This approach also greatly reduces the scale of expenditures in data acquisition, manpower, computer time – and in waiting time before reaping academic awards. After all, the beacon for all climate science, the IPCC, is doing it too, e.g. by simply omitting water vapor from its account of “greenhouse gases”, see Fig. 5.
Pic.5. Contribution to observed climate change from 12 different drivers, as taken from the Summary for Policymakers of the sixth IPCC assessment report, adapted from figure SPM.2c (Graphic: Erik Fisk, CC 4.0 6))
The numerous advantages of such a cutting of (scientific) corners might be one of the main driving forces for the deplorable tendency towards the “single number fallacy” explained by Kip Hansen 7) as being “the belief that complex, complicated and even chaotic subjects and their data can be reduced to a significant and truthful single number.”
Unfortunately for us, that’s exactly what the official climate science is doing. Under the headline “One number to track human impact on climate”, NOAA scientists released the first AGGI 8) (aggregated greenhouse gas index) in 2006 as “a way to help policymakers, educators, and the public understand the cumulative impact of greenhouse gases on climate over time”.
The minuscule driving forces of “greenhouse gases”
When trying to assess the real impact of “greenhouse gases” on earths energy balance, the first step should be to assess the driving force they are alleged to exert on the input and output of energy fluxes. Corresponding parameters can be found in a table within the Wikipedia chapter about Greenhouse gases 9). They reveal that in the view of the leading climate scientists, just four gases have a relevant influence on the budget of energy exchange between incoming and outgoing radiation energy since the alleged start of “human- induced climate change” in 1750. These are:
Carbon dioxide with + 2.05 W/m2
Methane with + 0.49 W/m2
Nitrous oxide with + 0.17 W/m2
Tropospheric ozone + 0.4 W/m2
===========
Total GHG contribution +3.11 W/m2
This figure is extraordinarily small when comparing it with the enormous temporal and local variability of energy fluxes within our planet’s ocean/atmosphere/soil system within short time periods, and amounts to just a low single digit percentage of the daily variations. This will be treated in more detail in the following chapter.
Peculiarly enormous greenhouse effect range
On a side note, it is interesting to see that the IPCC gives an enormous range for the greenhouse effect (TCR, Transient Climate Response or “climate sensitivity” 10)) of CO2, which is estimated to range “likely” between 1.5 and 4.5°C. The figure represents the alleged rise of earth’s mean temperature in °C for every doubling of the CO2 level of the atmosphere. Given this extraordinarily broad range of ± 50%, one might be surprised that IPCC, NOAA and Wikipedia authors advance temperature rise values for greenhouse gases calculated with up to three “significant” digits. This too might be attributable to the feeling of certainty about climate relevant figures instilled into the public by the “one number fits it all” mentality prevalent in our current climate science community.
References
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_constant
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_effect
- http://science-edu.larc.nasa.gov/energy_budget/pdf/Energy_Budget_Litho_10year.pdf (Note: This link seems to have been deactivated very recently.)
- https://www.spectralcalc.com/blackbody_calculator/blackbody.php
- File:CO2 H2O absorption atmospheric gases unique pattern energy wavelengths of energy transparent to others.png – Wikimedia Commons
- https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Physical_Drivers_of_climate_change.svg
- https://wattsupwiththat.com/2023/01/03/unknown-uncertain-or-both/
- https://research.noaa.gov/article/ArtMID/587/ArticleID/2877/Greenhouse-gas-pollution-trapped-49-more-heat-in-2021-than-in-1990-NOAA-finds
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_gas
- https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/research/climate/understanding-climate/climate-sensitivity-explained
https://phzoe.com/2019/11/05/nasas-subtle-diagram-fraud/
1. Consider the CAGWH position on “forcing” under cross examination at trial.
The first question counsel might reasonably ask is, “From what temperature does this ‘greenhouse’ gas ‘force’ the atmosphere’s temperature? Where on the scale does it begin to heat things up?’ It seems at least a reasonable question, even posed by a hostile and perhaps scientifically illiterate trial lawyer. I have asked the question of more than one “skeptical” scientist and been told, if anything at all, that he/she would look into the matter and get back to me. I have never heard from again from any of t hem.
If one troubles to look for oneself, as Dr. Mueller suggests, one finds that CO2’s predominant spectral band of interaction with infrared radiation is at the 15 μm, wavelength, which has a temperature, by Wilhelm Wien’s 130-year-old displacement law, of 193.13K, or minus 79.87°C, that is, below zero Celsius. Its next most active band at 9.6μm passes with other 8-12μm energy direct through the atmospheric window to space – to the ozone layer, according to Dr. Salby.
It is possible that this subzero activity is entirely confined within the molecule with no atmospheric effect, as it is uniformly that temperature at the surface and at the gas’s higher altitude emission levels, with no apparent effect on ambient temperature. If it did affect its surroundings it seems likelier to cool than warm anything in the contexts most familiar to us. Humlum, Stordahl, et all demonstrate that it follows temperature change and cannot be a cause of warming or cooling.
It may seem rash, but I would kick out “forcing” from the vocabulary altogether.
2. As to the fatally flawed NASA schematic and its likely successor, Drs. Gerhard Gerlich and Ralf Tschneuschner pointed out about 14 years ago that no government or other scientist has ever explained the origin of the extra radiant energy for the thermal radiation “downwelling” toward Earth from the cold upper atmosphere. It also violates the Second Law of Thermodynamics predicting that colder-sourced energy cannot flow against the higher potential energy of a warmer surface.
The whole GHE is hokum. 99% of the thermal energy in the atmosphere is in the NON-GHGs. The air constitutes a thermal blanket, slowing the escape of IR such that the surface has to heat up to ‘push’ the IR out to outer space.
The GHE and thus AGW violate on to the most fundamentally thermodynamic facts in nature, to wit that all objects above 0K radiate IR. The claim that O2, N2, and Argon don’t radiate is nonsense.
Change of temperature leads change of CO2 in the air. Thus CO2 cannot be the cause og change of temperature.
Murry Salby & Hermann Harde: What Causes Increasing Greenhouse Gases? Summary of a Triology
https://scienceofclimatechange.org/wp-content/uploads/Salby-Harde-2022-Summary-Trifecta.pdf
[…] From the NoTricksZone […]
One more page on Wikipedia that needs to be rewritten before I will donate.
The most blatant “misconception” in the Earth energy budget is the misleading confusion between energy transfers and fluxes : why do they present fluxes while speaking about energy transfers ?
As an example :
– the upward arrow of 398.2 W/m² between the surface and the atmosphere is a IR radiative flux,
– the downward arrow of 340.3 W/m² between the atmosphere is also an IR radiative flux.
Then the radiative energy transfer between the surface and the atmosphere is the difference between those 2 fluxes :
– it is upward and its value is 398.2 – 340.3 = 57.9 W/m²
This has to be compared to the IR energy transfer between the atmosphere and the space, which is the IR radiative flux from the atmopshere minus the incoming IR radiative flux from the space (which is 0W/m²), thus, 169.9 W/m².
Now what are the active gases in the infrared spectrum that can emit those 169.9 W/m² into space other than the usual suspects (mainly CO2 and WV) ?
Secondly, we see that these gases actually emit more into space (169.9 W/m²) than they absorb from the surface (57.9 W/m²): thus, they cool the atmosphere (and the CO2+WV mix has no significant impact – and nobody knows in which direction it would change this radiative transfer balance since as an example, the endothermical reaction of photosynthesis is not taken into account.
Moreover, the active gases in the IR spectrum are the only way for the atmosphere to cool itself (by emitting into space). The atmosphere can’t cool itself by transfering heat to the surface since the global mean temperatures of the surface is higher than the mean temperature of the atmosphere and that according to thermodynamics law, a cooler body can’t warm a warmer body.
One more comment : the precision at a tenth of a W/m² is hilarious and the attribution of the inbalance (0.6W/m²) to the active gas in the IR spectrum is a pure speculation.
Correction:
– the upward flux to be considered from the surface toward the atmosphere is 358.2 W/m², thus the radiative IR energy transfer between the surface and the atmosphere is 358.2 – 340.3 = 17.9 W/m².
Other than the fact that the “emission into space/absorption from the surface” ratio of the atmospheric IR active gases is higher (169.9/17.9 instead of 169.9/57.9), the conclusions are the same.
“– the downward arrow of 340.3 W/m² between the atmosphere is also an IR radiative flux.”
Nope. The atmosphere has an average temperature of ~255K, the maximum emissive power at that temperature is ~240W/m^2. If the atmosphere had a downward flux of 340W/m^2 it would radiate 100W/m^2 more than a perfect blackbody. Not possible.
Nobody has ever measured 340W/m^2 DLR from the atmosphere. The instrument they use is a thermopile in a pyrgeometer. A thermopile can´t measure incoming radiation from a lower temperature than the device itself has. The temperature of the atmosphere is always lower than the pyrgeometer. What the pyrgeometer actually measures is the temperature of the atmosphere pretty close to the ground. It does so remotely as the thermopile will have a gradient across itself when directed towards something colder that the pyrgeometer. The thermopile will in that case be colder at the top than the bottom, and from that the pyrgeometer can detect the rate of heat transfer FROM the pyrgeometer to the atmosphere. From the rate of heat transfer the temperature of the atmosphere can be inferred. Then, deceptively, the pyrgeometer will say that the temperature^4 is the DLR. But in reality no heat(DLR) from the atmosphere is measured.
Heat is defined as the energy in transfer from high to low temperature. The atmosphere is always colder than the surface, so it transfers no heat to the surface.
Only heat and work can raise temperature. The greenhouse effect is neither. It doesn´t matter how much they say that the atmosphere radiates, when it has lower temperature than the surface no heat is transferred as DLR. If it doesn´t qualify as heat, it can´t warm anything. Definitions are important.
Incompetent authors like this one are the reason Climate Realists are ridiculed as science deniers by the Climate Howlers. The sum of this article is that virtually 100% of consensus climate science is wrong. Consensus climate science is often called AGW. There is also consensus non-climate science, called CAGW. CAGW does not exist — it is just a prediction that has been wrong since the 1979 Charney Report. A more sophisticated author could differentiate between AGW and CAGW: AGW can exist while CAGW does not exist. That argument is too sophisticated for the author of this article.
The author is not sophisticated enough to realize that changes in atmospheric water vapor are not a direct cause of climate change. They are a feedback to OTHER causes of climate change that alter the average temperature of the troposphere. That’s why water vapor is not listed as a direct cause of climate change in the list. An argument too sophisticated for the author.
In addition, there are multiple errors in the last paragraph.
The author uses the term Transient Climate Sensitivity, and obviously does not know what it means. He then quotes the ECS range from the 1979 Charney Report of 1.5 to 4.5 degrees C. He did not realize that the IPCC revised those numbers several years ago to 2.0 to 4.5 degrees C. He also does not realize the range includes a large, imagined water vapor positive feedback that happens over 200 to 400 years. The TCS that he started to talk about, before getting confused, is for the next 70 years and is roughly half the ECS range. Even lower if using the RCP 4.5, rather than the RCP 8.5, which the author never mentions, and probably didn’t know what RCP means.
The author attacks the ECS range after confusing it with a TCS range. And he attacks the +/- 50% range as a weakness. In fact, the huge +/- 50% range is one of the rare statements by consensus climate science that is honest. That huge range says: “We’re just guessing ECS — we really don’t know”. A wild guess of ECS with a wide range is better than a wild guess of ECS with a narrow range. I would prefer the correct answer: “We don’t know what ECS is”. The author, after criticizing the old 1.5 to 4.5 degrees C. range, never reveals the correct answer is “We don’t know the ECS of CO2”. It is always easier for an author to be critical, than to be correct.
Reading this article, a reader could get the false impression there is little or no greenhouse effect and CO2 is not a greenhouse gas at the current level. That impression could be created because the author is not very smart.
@ Greene,
you may have overlooked that I did not produce the figures myself. I quoted them from a source that is duly given in my article. Not from a 1979 report as you suppose. Go see:
https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/research/climate/understanding-climate/climate-sensitivity-explained
This is a renowned scientific institution, which claims to educate the public about climate science, and the figures are still published there under the title “What is climate sensitivity”, with a reference to an IPCC report and without any mention of ulterior changes. So please, if you’re not happy with the figures, go to the UK’s Met Office and scold them.
I’m not paid for my research activities, which I perform in my scarce spare time, so I do not have the time to go and look through six IPCC reports with several thousand pages each in order to check for amendments. I look such figures up from sources that are CURRENTLY available on the internet and purport to represent the state of the art of meteorological science, as one would suppose the UK’s Met Office to be.
Anyway, I do not consider these figures to be scientifically sound. As you conceded yourself, these could (and should, in my opinion) rather be considered as “wild guesses”. The laughing stock in this context is rather that we are presented from highest scientific authorities with calculations claiming to be taken seriously such as the 1.5 °C limit and related detailed “CO2 residual budgets”.
You’re very fast to take out your big stick to bludgeon someone over a side note. A rhetoric trick? It would be preferable to wait until you have seen the other chapters of the article. And then, you’re politely invited to discuss the big picture rather than hurling insults with respect to minor inconsistencies.
There is good reason to refute CAGW scaremongering, as I have been trying to do for the past 25 years. Given that the IPCC changed the ECS with guess just once since 1988, a few years ago, you could have at least checked the most recent wild guess. And not confused ECS with TCS.
The official climate organizations are in the business of climate scaremongering, as desired by the governments who pay the salaries — promoting CAGW since the 1979 Charney Report.
However, a more sophisticated author would have refuted CAGW without also appearing to refute AGW, which is real, even if harmless. Not 100% of consensus climate science is wrong.
A large percentage is not science at all — the always wrong wild guess predictions of CAGW are not science. Wrong predictions never are. The problem with too many people who try to be Climate Realists is dismissing and/or ridiculing 100% of consensus climate science when some consensus climate science is correct:
There is a greenhouse effect
CO2 is part of the greenhouse effect
CO2 is a weak greenhouse gas above 400ppm
There is a water vapor positive feedback
More greenhouse gases in the atmosphere
will impede Earth’s ability to cool itself
Although the exact effect of every climate change variable is not known, the net effect of all climate change variables, since 1975, has been harmless global warming. That harmless warming, mainly winter nights in colder nations, means the Net Zero fantasy project is not needed.
When the models used by the IPCC are used to predict TCS with RCP 4.5. the result is a prediction of global warming rate similar to the actual global warming rate in the 1975 to 2015 period. Which is just an extrapolation of the recent past global average temperature trend.
Unfortunately, using the actual climate in the past 30 to 50 years, to predict the climate in the next 30 to 50 years, has repeatedly failed over the past 150 years.
The bottom line is humans can not predict the climate. Yet the “experts” keep predicting, and even worse, they usually claim the future climate can only get worse, which is ridiculous.
What is “climate change”
Climate change is always wrong predictions of climate doom (aka CAGW) that began in the late 1950s (Roger Revelle) and got a specific wild guess of ECS (1.5to 4.5) in the 1979 Charney Report. So the CAGW predictions have been wrong for 43 years so far.
Meanwhile, there is plenty of evidence that rising CO2 levels contributed some unknown amount of the warming from 1975 to 2015. Since that warming was harmless, rising CO2 is very likely to be harmless too.
In fact, more CO2 in the atmosphere would benefit our planet by accelerating the growth of C3 photosynthesis plants (about 90% of 300,000 species).
Because of the benefits of more CO2, I have been promoting 800ppm CO2 as the minimum level for optimum C3 plant growth. Greenhouse owners CO2 enrich to 1000ppm to 1500ppm. Based on the science of over 3,000 plant growth CO2 studies of which I have read over 200 since 1975, MORE CO2 in the troposphere would be very good news. Any global warming as a result would be inf significant because CO2 is already a weak greenhouse gas above 400ppm. And that warming can be expected to mainly affect TMIN in the six coldest months of the year, in colder nations. And not cause Antarctica ice to melt, which is obviously does not do from more CO2 in the atmosphere.
@Greene,
I do not intend to be smarter than other people. I just use common sense to unmask the incredible inconsistencies in the stories the IPCC and its supporters present to the public. To find these is no rocket science. My job is simply to highlight obvious fault lines in the arguments of the climate doomers in a way that enables ordinary people with enough common sense to understand how they are fooled. Unfortunately, many people with a high scientific degree have a mindset that pushes them to leave aside this vital aspect: that we have to convince people that are not scientists themselves. Instead, they are charging at anyone that they have the impression of being inferior in scientific degree than they think they are. This habit is in my view counterproductive, because energy and resources are wasted in futile arguments at a level mostly excluding laymen from understanding what the row is about. I certainly do not share all the positions that you or other people critical of CAGW are advancing here, but refrain from attacking you with respect to these thoughts because I see only disadvantages in such a discussion. The IPCC and its supporters can only be stopped if enough people understand what is wrong with their position and why it is against their interests. That’s what I concentrate on.
You need to differentiate between the real science of AGW (harmless) and the fake junk science of CAGW (a fantasy prediction). Your writing leaves the impression that ALL consensus climate science is wrong. Which is not true, and makes the writer seem to be biased.
The IPCC goal has always been climate scaremongering. They blame humans by dismissing all natural causes of climate change as “noise” (which they did in 1995).
We have over 7 billion first hand witnesses to the global warming from 1975 to 2015. Some of us lived through all of that global warming.
The long term climate predictions have been wrong for over a century — they are worthless, including the predictions of CAGW since 1979.
But it is interesting that not one first hand witness to global warming is ever asked about how that global warming affected their life.
I’d bet that most people did not even notice global warming during their lives. Maybe some read about it in the newspaper?
Here in Michigan, where I’ve lived in the same home since 1987, and 4 miles south in an apartment for ten years before that: The winters are milder with less snow than in the 1970s.
That’s easy to notice if you live in the same place for a long time. We LOVE global warming here in Michigan and want a LOT more. And we don’t need a Ph.D. climate scientist to tell us that. It’s just that no one ever asks us about how global warming has improved our climate. Climate reality does not support the desired climate scaremongering
More GASES troubles!
“Energy Transition Farce Continues in Germany: Regulators, fearing outages, announce plans to ration power for environmentally friendly, state-promoted electric vehicles and heat pumps”
https://www.eugyppius.com/p/energy-transition-farce-continues
”At the top of the atmosphere, every square meter oriented towards the sun thus receives a fairly constant power influx of 1361 to 1362 W/m2”
This is not correct for Earth, it would be correct if there were no atmosphere.
The atmosphere acts like a lens, refracting radiation towards the center.
Due to Atmospheric Refraction additionell 4-5 W/m2 should be added.
…when some consensus climate science is correct:
There is a greenhouse effect
CO2 is part of the greenhouse effect
CO2 is a weak greenhouse gas above 400ppm
There is a water vapor positive feedback
More greenhouse gases in the atmosphere
will impede Earth’s ability to cool itself
There is no IR-stoked earthly greenhouse. It was experimentally disproven in 1904 by Professor R.W. Wood, and dismissed by the U.S. Department of Energy in 1985 (DOE/ER0237) as a “misnomer.” Beginning as a grade-school teaching aid it outgrew its murky lineage.
Physicists Gerhard Gerlich and Ralf Tscheuschner rebutted the six common “greenhouse” and “greenhouse effect” explanations. They found that, examined under applicable physics laws and thermodynamics they collapsed. (International J of modern physics B, v. 23, No.3 (2009), 275-364.). They can be condensed into about 520 words, which I will spare you. Their analysis was confirmed by Gerhard Kramm and Ralph Dlugi (Natural Science, 2011, v. 3, no. 12, pp 671-998).
Here is a capsule summary: There is no “blanket” to warm Earth’s surface (stand outside naked at night and see); IR interactive gases radiate like all else irradiated on the surface and do not delay cooling; Venus is warmer from compression of an atmosphere 92 times denser than Earth’s (the Ideal Gas Law); Earth’s temperature without an atmosphere cannot be known because of water vapor from the oceans; “downwelling” “back-radiation” violates the 2d law of thermodynamics and seems to rely on unexplained “extra” energy from the upper atmosphere (experiment shows no warming attributable to the atmosphere).
I suggest we all make the effort to bury the “greenhouse” it is unnecessary, time consuming and never did anyone any good.
1 Without CO2 the Earth’s Life would cease to exist.
2 The Sun, Sol, is the sole object responsible for all Planets temps, not Mankind.
3 Leave the cities and grow your own food/meat.