3 ms·

Wikipedia has an explanation of the calculation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_warming_potential#Calculating_the_global_warming_potential https://en.wiki

• dozzie 10y ago
  And where does this calculation come from? How was it determined that this is a valid approximation of a physical process? This "global warming potential" seems to assume that a wave of certain length can be reflected and absorbed at the same time, which idea is somewhat unexpected if you dig through optics handbooks. Not to mention that the formulas are incomplete.
  • phaemon 10y ago
    The calculation comes from the physicists who came up with it of course. Are you saying they were wrong? Do you have a link to a paper showing this?
    • dozzie 10y ago
      > The calculation comes from the physicists who came up with it of course. This is the part I'm not so sure about. Physicists tend to not bother with climatology.
      • phaemon 10y ago
        What gave you that idea? Radiative transfer is physics. That doesn't change because we're talking about planet earth. I would guess that most scientists involved in climatology have a physics background. Edit: for example, Radiative Forcing in the AR5 http://climate.envsci.rutgers.edu/climdyn2013/IPCC/IPCC_WGI12-RadiativeForcing.pdf http://climate.envsci.rutgers.edu/climdyn2013/IPCC/IPCC_WGI1... The main author is Drew Shindell, Professor of Climate Studies, PhD in Physics.