Global Warming: Long term observations yield unsurprising results

[Surgenator]

The physics behind global warming are simple. When energy in is greater than energy out things warm up. Even professional climate change skeptics like Roy Spencer admit as much. Likewise the theory behind anthropic climate change is equally as simple. Increasing the amount of greenhouse gasses such as CO2 cause our planet to radiate less energy back into space which results in energy in being greater than energy out. Therefore warming.

CO2 does absorb energy. This is an observable, testable scientific fact verified by many experiments. A recently released study, Observational determination of surface radiative forcing by CO2 from 2000 to 2010, has confirmed the amount of energy absorbed by atmospheric CO2. The unsurprising part is that the conclusion that an increase of 22 parts per million results in an energy absorption equivalent to .2 watts per meter squared falls within the assumptions used for most climate change models. What would be a surprise is if this new nail in the coffin lid of climate change denial made a bit of difference to the nuh-uh crowd.

Then why wouldn't that same CO2 absorb the energy coming in before it reaches the surface, thus causing a cooling effect.

GC

The light spectrum from the sun includes energies above the infrared (heat). When these higher light rays hit the earth, the earth converts them into infrared. So some infrared light rays from the sun get directly absorbed by the CO2 in the atmosphere. You also have more infrared produced by the earth. The CO2 absorbs the infrared and it stays on the planet. Tada, get global warming.