You are reading a single comment by @moth and its replies. Click here to read the full conversation.
  • CO2 is not a greenhouse gas?
    or
    CO2 is a greenhouse gas but greenhouse gasses are not a problem?

    Which is your position?

    As i understand it, the earth's surface temperature is primarily set by the balance between adsorption and re-radiation of vast quantities of solar energy. Anything that affects that process has the potential to affect the earth's surface temperature. CO2 scatters certain frequencies of light, so reducing their flux through the atmosphere. The frequencies it scatters form a larger proportion of the re-radiated spectrum than the arriving spectrum, so all else being equal, increasing the quantity of CO2 in the atmosphere would tend to increase the surface temperature of the planet.

    Of course, all else will not be equal as the climate is a really complicated system with lots of feedback loops. I've heard of mechanisms that look like they'll oppose the warming, and of many others that will exacerbate it. Because water vapour plays a larger roll than CO2 in determining the energy balance it seems theoretically possible that feedback mechanisms involving it could overcome the effect of CO2 on surface temperature, but i haven't seen any evidence that they will, and it seems a pretty scant hope to me. (At least without major human-unfriendly re-jigging of the biosphere.)

About

Avatar for moth @moth started