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It's simple physics. You put gases into a glass tube and you test the heat retention. Earth's energy economy is determined by how much energy enters the earth i
by juujian 3y ago
It's simple physics. You put gases into a glass tube and you test the heat retention. Earth's energy economy is determined by how much energy enters the earth in the form of sunrays and how much energy is lost due to infrared radiation. Climate gases are like a blanket that retains the heat, i.e., infrared radiation.
There are some fun practical experiments to be found: https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsos.192075 https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsos.192075
. Some you could realistically try at home. The first research papers on that are literally 150 years old. Those are actually interesting to look at, too. Great hand-drawn diagrams of their lab equipment.
An issue is that there are paid trolls that go around posting blanket doubt on climate change, so it's always difficult to tell whom to engage with and when it is better not to provide a stage.
- capitainenemo 3y agoHm. My understanding was that we'd pretty much saturated that bandwidth range in terms of insulation potential, and the real multiplier now is how much humidity was going to get pumped into the atmosphere as a result, with the impact of that depending on how the humidity behaves at different latitudes (clouds can be reflective or insulative depending on land, sea, day, night, tropics, temperate).
- saalweachter 3y agohttps://skepticalscience.com/saturated-co2-effect-advanced.htm https://skepticalscience.com/saturated-co2-effect-advanced.h...
- juujian 3y agoKeep in mind that so far, co2 levels have increased from below 300 to about 420 parts per million (alongside increases in other greenhouse gases). It's a stark difference that makes for a measurable increase in heat retention. The classic experiment is to fill one glass tube with atmospheric air and one with atmospheric air with added co2 and expose both to an infrared lighbulb and then take the temperature over time. Depending on the difference in concentration you can get a measurable temperature difference in hours. So it's really not a theoretical difference anymore that we need to speculate about, it's a tangible difference that we can measure with fairly basic instruments that you would find in a high school lab or even at home. Also, thanks to both of you for sharing.