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Old Posted Sep 23, 2019, 5:22 PM
Obadno Obadno is offline
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Join Date: Jan 2010
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Quote:
Originally Posted by pj3000 View Post
8th grade Earth science:

We know that Earth's atmosphere regulates energy flows to create a delicate energy balance which maintains Earth surface temperatures and allows current planetary life to exist.

We know that within this energy regulation process the "greenhouse effect" is characterized by naturally-occurring atmospheric gases (like CO2, CH4, NO2, H2O vapor) which absorb longwave energy (i.e., infrared/heat) that is re-radiated from the Earth's surface and trap it in the lower atmosphere, thereby allowing less energy (heat) to escape back to space.

This energy equation warms our planet and allows us to live, much in the same way glass traps re-radiated infrared radiation (heat) inside a greenhouse and allows plants to live inside of it in the winter; or why your car gets so damn hot when it's sitting in the sun with the windows closed. Shorter wave radiation (visible, UV) can pass thru the glass and warm interior surfaces... longer wave radiation (infrared, aka heat) radiates off the warmed surfaces and cannot pass back through the glass... thus warming the interior of the greenhouse or car two-fold, to the point where it is much warmer than the exterior. Think of the greenhouse or car interior as the Earth's surface and the glass as the Earth's atmosphere.

We know that the left side of an equation must equal the right side of the equation.
Increasing a value on the left results in a corresponding increase on the right. An input into a system results in an increase in output.

Highly simplified for purpose of demonstration... there are definitely other factors at play which also influence atmosphere temp. Let's just use CO2 and H2O vapor for example as two contributing GHGs (you could put any of them for x and y and add many many more variable, the output z would still have to reflect the inputs):

x+y = z

x = tons of atmospheric CO2
y = tons of atmospheric H2O vapor
z = atmospheric temperature

Increase x and/or y... you increase z.


We know that atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases have been rising as global population has rapidly increased and resulting human emissions of greenhouse gases have rapidly increased.

We have increased x, we have increased y... therefore we have increased z.

We have added CO2, H20 vapor, CH4, NO2, etc. to the atmospheric system therefore we have increased the atmospheric temperature.
Wow I didn't realize an entire group of science disciplines can be summed up as 8th grade earth science.

Thank you for clearing that up