There is an energy budget produced by Kiehl and Trenberth, 1997, (at IPCC here) which convinces many scientists that greenhouse gases have to be heating the earth, because the numbers say so. Kiehl and Trenberth have a chart which shows the watts per square meter entering the earth and leaving. The large numbers supposedly show that greenhouse gases are trapping heat in the earth's atmosphere. The numbers are extremely corrupt, but unwary scientists cannot understand how any other interpretation could exist.

Here's a simplified drawing which shows the numbers, which are watts per square meter:

(explained in more detail here)

First is the accepted number of 235 W/m² coming from the sun. The same amount has to leave, and the required numbers are 195 from the atmosphere and 40 from the surface of the earth.

The clincher is that 390 W/m² must be emitted from the surface of the earth, because the Stefan-Boltzmann constant says the average surface temperature of 15°C will always emit that much radiation. The assumption is that only greenhouse gases could absorb that much heat in the atmosphere. Supposedly, the resulting temperature increase was 33°C.

This number, 33°C, or some description of it, is the most universal number put forth by all quasi authorities as indicating the result of greenhouse gases in the past. The mind boggling stupidity and fraud of this number is beyond belief. There are layers and layers of fraud to this analysis.

The 33°C has this logic: The Stefan-Boltzmann constant says the 235 W/m² which the sun adds to the earth will be emitted by any surface at -19°C. But the average near-surface temperature of the earth is 15°C, which is 34°C hotter (said to be 33°C). Therefore, the atmosphere increased the temperature by 33°C, and only greenhouse gases could supposedly be responsible for doing that.

Firsts, there are other ways to get that number besides greenhouse gases. In fact, other methods are required. The NASA Energy Budget indicates that 41% of the energy leaving the earth's surface is radiation, the rest being conduction and evaporation. This alone would require the 33°C to be reduced to 41%, which is 13.5°C. To not get this simple fact right is stupidity to a point of fraud. Nothing in science is supposed to be that wrong. Science has the purpose of not being that wrong.

This is on top of the fact that the claimed 41% radiation is absurd to a point of fraud. If radiation were that extreme at such a cold temperature, cooling fans would never be used. I have worked with electronics extensively designing heating and measuring devices for mushroom research, where radiation is known to be negligible compared to conduction and convection. It means the NASA energy budget should have shown less than 5% radiation, not 41%. The extremely large number for radiation was obviously an attempt to rationalize a greenhouse effect. These numbers are not measurements, they are contrivances.

From this starting point, the Kiehl and Trenberth chart supposedly shows mathematically where the heat comes from. The great big number 350 W/m² radiation going from the surface into the atmosphere would require greenhouse gases to absorb it. And there is no other way to juggle the numbers with the restrictions of the Stefan-Boltzmann constant.

In fact, the restrictions created by the Stefan-Boltzmann constant did not leave enough energy for conduction and evaporation. The Kiehl-Trenberth analysis shows only 24 W/m² for conduction and 78 W/m² for evaporation. That's 16 times as much radiation as conduction. The reality should be the other way around—less than 5% radiation and the rest conduction and evaporation. The NASA energy budget shows 41% radiation and 59% conduction and evaporation. In other words, use of the Stefan-Boltzmann constant forced the Kiehl-Trenberth analysis to show a preposterously high ratio of radiation to conduction and evaporation.

One of the problems is that the Stefan-Boltzmann constant shows about 20 times too much radiation being given off by normal-temperature matter. Correcting the Stefan-Boltzmann constant would totally destroy the mathematical basis for the greenhouse effect shown in the Kiehl-Trenberth chart. But even if the Stefan-Boltzmann constant were correct, there are endless frauds in the mathematical interpretations of the greenhouse effect.

The counter-argument to correcting the Stefan-Boltzmann constant is that the huge amounts of radiation being given off by cold matter is not detectable, because the same amount flows both ways—both into and out of matter. Only the difference can be detected as temperature change. If so, the huge amount of radiation supposedly flowing from the earth's surface into the atmosphere does not require any temperature increase.

The Kiehl-Trenberth energy budget is considered to be balanced, because the same amount of energy flows into and out of the atmosphere, the surface of the earth and into space. There doesn't have to be any temperature increase as the energy flows back and forth. In fact, the resulting temperature will be determined by equilibrium. In other words, the Kiehl-Trenberth chart doesn't provide the slightest clue as to the temperature of the atmosphere.

If there were no such thing as greenhouse gases, the temperature of the atmosphere would be exactly the same. The temperature is determined by the insulating characteristics of the atmosphere regardless of how the heat enters. Entering by radiation will do exactly the same thing as entering by conduction and evaporation. There will always be miniscule effects with different events, but the equivalent average temperature is determined by equilibrium, which is independent of how the heat gets into the atmosphere. And there is no science which will indicate whether miniscule effects will be increases or decreases or where.