So the only answer needed to maxx's question "Do you think Wiki is lying? "
Is, "maybe you should actually read your own link properly"
In centigrade the current average temp of the planet is 15c, without the greenhouse effect it would be ~-18c on average, that is a significant difference, maybe you should do the math instead of playing with kelvin to try and pretend it's not. During those glacial period deniers like to reference so often CO2 drops ~30% and the average global temperature drops ~8c, which causes glaciers to expand to New York (as another denier often reminds us)
maxxy talks of "dodges" yet it seems clear he is not going to even try and address the point of "non-greenhouse gases" I find these a bit sad when even the link he uses to try and back himself shows he clearly either didn't read it or simply dosen't understand what it is saying
It's almost like they are trying to argue heat content of the atmosphere, where non-greenhouse gases hold 90% of the total heat in the atmosphere (which seems low to me, since non-greenhouse gases are more than 90% of the total moles and heat content fraction scales roughly linearly with mole fraction). However, the heat content idea is more defensible than the hypothesis that non-greenhouse gases provide 90% of the heating of the atmosphere.
Maybe somewhere some dingbat climate skeptic confused heat content with radiative forcing, and other skeptics were too clueless to understand the distinction for themselves. Since they didn't really understand the difference between heating and heat capacity, they have played "telegraph" and garbled the argument, which was never right to begin with, so that now it's completely unintelligible.
I dunno, it's just a thought. Sometimes it's interesting to try to figure out exactly what they are screaming about just to identify the logical inconsistency, error, and/or misinterpretation they are invoking to support some crackpot theory. It's like watching cats try to do calculus.
"... without the non-greenhouse gases it would be 255 K; with them it would be 255 K."
Is that actually true?
I ask because the non-greenhouse gases are in contact with the ground and they will heat up. Once they have heated up, how do they then get rid of that heat because I understand the emissivity is close to zero?
There was an answer here some time ago that said that the heated gases will rise near the equator and fall nearer the poles so the heat will be transported polewards. When it heats the earth it can then be radiated away, In the meantime, haven't the non-greenhouse gases been delaying the return of the energy in the incident radiation and doesn't that mean some kind of warming, however small?
This is actually a legitimate question. Without an atmosphere the temp of the earth should be approximately 255 K. The 33 degrees is primarily associated with GHGs, but clearly nitrogen and oxygen both retain heat. How much of the 33 degrees of warming is caused by nitrogen and oxygen? I cannot find anything which accounts for this. It is not sufficient to just discount the effect of nitrogen and oxygen and pretend they do nothing.
Are you really suggesting that if you heat up nitrogen and oxygen, they do not retain any heat at all. In fact, everything I read seems to suggest that the ONLY source of warming for the atmosphere is IR radiation. Now this is patently false. It may be tha the other soruces opnly account for less than a degree and are thus not included in the discussion, but they have to account for something.
So do you think that climate scientists like yourself should not be able to answer this question? Honestly if you are claiming that Oxygen and Nitrogen retain no heat at all, then they would become miracle thermal conductors.
Absolute "zero" equals = 0k
255k comes from somewhere, if GHGs only account for 33k of the 288k.
If CO2 accounts for 26% of the "greenhouse effect" and humans are responsible for raising CO2 levels by 40%, then the temperature increase caused by humans should be 3.4k. We could add in the additional % of other GHGs caused by humans, but we are already at 3.4k.
We should be at 18.4C for an average temperature, if adding 40% of a gas that is responsible for 26% of the "greenhouse effect". It's obvious that CO2 isn't as effective to the temperature as the science would state.
It's obvious that raising CO2 levels 1 part in 10,000 (as it relates to total molecules in the atmosphere) above pre-Industrial levels doesn't have the affect that the IP CC states and all I am talking about is 1 greenhouse gas.
There has to be a net cooling effect from somewhere that climate science has been specifically leaving out of the equation. The mixing of the non-greenhouse gases must have a profound effect on temperature increases. A 26% influence on temperatures through the greenhouse effect is simply wrong in the first place.
We could throw in the obvious temperature fluctuations that have happened over the past 300 years or so to easily show that CO2 warming is not a factor either, but why bother, since you are intentionally biased to the information?
Notice how quick the greenies throw Wikipedia under the bus when it doesn't fit their agenda?
And yes Peggy, you are confused. For once I agree with you.
It also happens in the Realworld unless the figures that James Hansen gave us lied.
Maxx hasn't a clue what he is talking about. He is proof that climate change deniers only deny because they have no clue.
I think maxxworld is heated by all the friction due to the lies maxx passes along to us here, it certainly isn't his wealth of climate science
Yes, it happens in Maxxworld and it also happens in pegminerworld. It's just the plain facts.
Do you think Wiki is lying?
Wiki says: Earth's surface would average about 33°C colder than the present average [without Greenhouse Gases] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_...
Earth's average temperature is 288K, Greenhouse Gases ONLY PROVIDE 33K of that. Do the math.
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That's a pretty transparent dodge pegminer. Do you think people here will not see how disingenuous you are being? It also shows you're not that good at math word questions.
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antarcticice - You say the average temp of the planet is 15c -- guess what, that equals 288K [288.15 to be exact], which is what I said. And you said it would be -18c without greenhouse gas -- guess what, -18c equals 255K [255.15k to be exact] which is what I said. So thanks for confirming what I said. Or are you trying to quibble about the 0.15k?, is that your "significant difference?"
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I really dont think it matters much, I think most of Earths heat is transported from the surface to top of the troposphere by convection, as according to CERES OLR is not that much different at the equator and the poles
There is a magical place called "Maxxworld" in which non-greenhouse gases do most of the heating of the planet. Apparently for a planet like Earth, they heat the surface up to about 255 K, while if they weren't present, it would only be about 255 K.
How do they accomplish this? It's almost too magical to believe.
Convection and conduction are just as powerful as radiative warming. One can actually see convection in cloud formations. Geezez
