What is being shown here are contradictions in claims by alarmist climatologist. What should really happen is hard to say, because there is no such thing as greenhouse gases. Only the contradictions can be shown.

These numbers are for the amount of temperature increase that would occur if there were no natural regulation through equilibrium.

The First Table Explained

Atmospheric Heat

Scientists have been saying, with no disagreement, that the atmosphere is responsible for heating the globe by 33°C. Propagandists (promoters of supposed consensus view that humans are the cause of global warming) try to create the impression for the public that all 33 degrees is caused by "greenhouse gasses". It's not true.

The 33°C comes from the Stefan-Boltzmann constant. There is an average of 235 W/m² energy leaving the earth. The Stefan-Boltzmann constant says that an object at -19°C emits 235 W/m² black body radiation. But the average earth surface temperature is 15°C. So the earth's surface is 15 + 19 = 34 (rounded to 33) degrees C warmer than it would be without an atmosphere. The atmosphere supposedly keeps the earth's surface warm.

I'll use the 33°C for this criticism, but in fact greenhouse gasses add no heat to the atmosphere, because heat as radiation cools the planet by going around them, not through them. The atmosphere does not need greenhouse gasses to absorb and hold heat, as explained on the page titled Summary in Simple Words.

Furthermore, the Stefan-Boltzmann constant is inappropriate for the atmosphere, because it only applies to two dimensional surfaces. Applying it to the three dimensional atmosphere is so preposterous that it shows what an arrogant mockery is being perpetrated as authoritative science.

On top of that, the Stefan-Boltzmann constant is absurdly high. With a corrected Stefan-Boltzmann constant, the surface of the earth without an atmosphere would emit 235 W/m² at a temperature of something like 50°C, not -19°C. With an atmosphere, the surface average is 15°C. The atmosphere cools, as it should, because it is like a heat sink. This means the atmosphere picks up energy through conduction and convection, which removes heat much faster than radiation alone. Heat sinks (usually made of aluminum) are used for this reason throughout electronics to speed cooling.
 
Infrared radiation is 1-5% of heat leaving the earth's surface

The atmosphere acquires heat in a variety of ways, and very little through radiation. Here's how it works:

The atmosphere is transparent to most of the sun's radiation. This means that much of the radiant energy from the sun goes through the atmosphere without heating it, and then it is absorbed by the earth's surface, where it is converted into heat. There are various exceptions which are not relevant to global warming from carbon dioxide. For example, water in the air absorbs some of the solar energy, and ozone absorbs a little.

The important point is that radiation from the sun is too high of a frequency to be absorbed by carbon dioxide, which only absorbs infrared radiation. Something as hot as the sun cannot emit low frequency radiation.

Conduction and Convection

Most of the heat leaves the earth's surface through conduction, convection and evaporation (about 95-99%), while very little leaves as infrared radiation (about 1-5%). (You might notice that promoters of the propaganda sometimes imply that heat leaves the earth's surface through radiation only and that CO2 is the only thing holding heat in the atmosphere.)

Nowdays there is a good indication that very little radiation is given of by the earth's surface or the atmosphere, and it is night vision equipment (as sometimes seen on TV). At 80°F, or 27°C, (typical temperatures) there is very little radiation picked up by night vision equipment.

I do a lot of electronic work with heat measuring and controlling devices for mushroom research, where experience shows that very little heat leaves surfaces as radiation, even at moderately hot temperatures.

I therefore estimate that 95-99% of the heat on the earth's surface enters the atmosphere through conduction, convection or evaporation, while about 1-5% gets there by radiation emitted from the earth's surface.

This means, of the 33°C which the atmosphere is said to add to the globe's temperature, about 1.65°C is due to radiation which can be absorbed by the "greenhouse gasses".

Promoters of global warming hype try to balloon infrared radiation out of proportions, sometimes claiming that it may be as much or more than the sun's energy. That claim is incredibly absurd. Night vision equipment shows that matter at normal temperatures gives off very little infrared radiation.

The NASA web site says 41% of the energy which leaves the earth's surface is in the form of radiation, which is absurd. (See The 41% Fraud.) The IPCC probably uses the same number. The rationalizers pick numbers with no relationship to reality. If that number is used, the breakdown is this:

claimed heat due to atmosphere --- 33°C
59% due to various things --- 19.5°C
41% due to infrared radiation from earth's surface --- 13.5°C
8% of infrared bandwidth available to CO2 --- 1.1°C

This is the maximum heat carbon dioxide can add to the atmosphere— 1.1°C. It means that increasing the CO2 could never produce a larger total. Even if humans are responsible for 30% of it, which is absurd, the "anthropogenic global warming" would be 0.33°C.

Also, they claim 49% of the heat gets into the atmosphere directly from the sun's energy being absorbed by such things as water vapor and ozone, which is absurd; but if true, the total would need to be reduced by another 51%. in other words, they can't get numbers which add up even after ballooning them out of proportions. Computer models take care of the discrepancies.
 
Carbon Dioxide Absorbs only 8% of Radiation

When radiation is emitted from the earth's surface, it is picked up by gasses in the atmosphere. Carbon dioxide has three narrow bands of absorption, and water vapor has several bands.

Measurements show that 8% of the radiation will strike carbon dioxide due to its narrow absorption bands. The other 92% of the radiation goes around the CO2 bands and may strike the water vapor, methane or other substances in the air.

The red areas are CO2 absorption peaks. They take up about 8% of the horizontal space on the X axis. (The Y axis is not relevant to this point.) The 8% figure was determined decades ago, and no one has questioned it.

This means, of the 1.65°C that radiation heats the atmosphere, at most 0.13°C could be attributed to CO2.
 
Humans put 3% of the CO2 in the Air
External Reference

Humans are said to put 3% of the CO2 in the air, while the rest of the CO2 is due mostly to biological decay and respiration. The official numbers from the government and most agreed upon are that humans add about 8.6 giga tons carbon per year to the atmosphere, while there is about 800 GTC in the atmosphere, which is a human addition of about 1% of what is already there. All other sources (most respiration including decay) add about 270 GTC per year to the atmosphere. So humans are responsible for 3% of the CO2 going into the air, and each year they add 1% of what is already in the air.

The hypothetical problem is that humans might double their production of CO2 over the next century. Doubling would mean adding 3% to whatever CO2 does. A 3% increase in what CO2 does would mean increasing the 0.13°C by another 0.0039°C. This is the maximum amount of heating of the atmosphere humans would do by doubling their production of CO2—0.0039°C—until taking into account the next factor.

(The claim that humans caused a 30% increase in CO2 over the past 150 years is phonier than a three dollar bill. The actual increase was due to warmer oceans releasing more; but it was less increase than claimed, because numbers for earlier times are based on ice core measurements, which are dubious and not comparable to present measurements in the air. Oceans regulate the amount of CO2 in the air. If not, nothing would control the amount of CO2 in the air, and there would be so much, life would be impossible. claiming that the 3% which humans add multiplies to 30%, while the 97% which nature adds does not multiply is unscientific. See 30% Fraud)
 
Saturation Pertains to about 5% of the Absorption Peaks

Supposedly, the all-important effect occurs high in the atmosphere where the absorption peaks are not saturated. In the thinner atmosphere, the shoulders on the peaks shrink and do not overlap with the peaks for water vapor. The shoulders on the absorption peaks are very small—at most 5% of the absorption. This means the quantities above need to be multiplied by 5%. Then the effects of saturation result in, at most, 5% times 0.0039°C, which is 0.0002°C.

Apparently, not all climatologists are aware of this effect, where shoulder absorption is used to salvage the hype. If not, they are ignoring the fact that more CO2 only shortens the distance without adding more heat.

There is no Mechanism

These are hard numbers which can be estimated without much error. So propagandists need some way to explain how the heat is being produced. They claim the earth has already been heated 0.6°C by carbon dioxide, and 1-6°C more heating is expected in the future.

To salvage the global warming hype, "consensus" scientists pretend that there is an esoteric mechanism farther up in the atmosphere doing some vague thing to produce the heat. But they can't explain a mechanism. There's no such mechanism.

After the heat enters the atmosphere, the same dynamics of distribution exist: Convectional currents stir the air for about a month, while small amounts of radiation compete with convection for moving heat around. And then near the outer edges of the atmosphere, the energy escapes into space through radiation. Before it escapes, it doesn't matter whether the energy is in contact with CO2, water vapor or nitrogen.

These miniscule numbers show that there is no real mechanism for carbon dioxide creating global warming.
 

 
IPCC Numbers Explained:

The atmosphere is assumed to add 33°C to the planet based on the Stefan-Boltzmann constant, which is described elsewhere.

The NASA "energy budget" (at bottom of page) claims 41% of the energy leaving the surface of the earth is in the form of radiation, while 59% is other methods of transfer (conduction and evaporation).

IPCC assumes (with no traceable evidence) that carbon dioxide is adding 7.2°C to the atmosphere at this time. That's 53% of the 41% of the heat leaving the earth's surface as radiation.

But a different approach yields on 2.7°C for all CO2 at this time. It is assumed that CO2 is adding 32 W/m² to the earth's surface. The Stefan-Boltzmann constant says there is 390 W/m at the global average temperature of 59°C. If 41% of it takes the form of radiation, that's 160 W/m². Then 32 W/m² is 20% of 160 W/m². In terms of temperature, 20% of the 13.5°C attributed to radiation is 2.7°C.

The IPCC claims that 4.3 W/m² is produced through "radiative forcing" by CO2 (which means the result of doubling CO2). In means 13.4% of the 32 W/m² attributed to all CO2 at this time will supposedly result from doubling the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere. In terms of temperature, 13.4% of 7.2°C is 0.96°C.

Absurdity of IPCC Numbers:

The assumption that all CO2 is creating a temperature increase of 7.2°C is extremely absurd. Even if 41% of the heat leaving the surface of the earth is in the form of radiation, which is extremely absurd, as explained elsewhere, there must be 53% of the radiation absorbed by CO2 to get 7.2°C. This result is a known error which is never looked at in these terms.

Usually, the assumption is that only 8% of the radiation leaving the surface of the earth is absorbed by CO2, which is based on the absorption bandwidth, as shown in this image.

The red areas are CO2 absorption peaks. They take up about 8% of the horizontal space on the X axis. (The Y axis is not relevant to this point.) The 8% figure was determined decades ago, and no one has questioned it.

To get the absurdly large number of 7.2°C for temperature increase caused by all CO2 in the atmosphere, the absorption peaks for CO2 would have to take up 53% of the bandwidth instead of 8%.

If 8% is used instead of 53% and then multiplied by 41%, the temperature increase due to CO2 at this time is 1.1°C, not 7.2°C.

If then, the assumed radiative forcing of 13.4% is multiplied times 1.1°C, the increase in temperature due to doubling CO2 is only 0.15°C, not 0.96°C.
 
But the assumption of 13.4% increase in temperature attributed to CO2 upon doubling is extremely absurd. It's usually expressed as 4.3 W/m² increase compared to 32 W/m² at the present time. It's absurd, because it is supposedly caused by the outer shoulders of the absorption peaks increasing by 13.4% when CO2 doubles.

Doubling the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere would not widen the shoulders on the absorption peaks one iota. The width of the shoulders is determined by the unusual energy state of some molecules. The energy state of the molecules would not change with doubling the number of molecules. This means the width of the shoulders would stay exactly the same. The only change to occur would be to reduce the distance radiation travels by one half for each point on the curve upon doubling the number of CO2 molecules.

One major problem is that water vapor absorption overlaps CO2 absorption on one side of the absorption peak. This would reduce the assumption in half, which would be 6.7%. But if the 4.3 W/m² is held constant, then the single shoulder would have to expand by twice as much or 26.8%. So some rationalizers claim that the magic occurs high in the atmosphere, where water vapor disappears. But there is no way to get the increased heat down from the upper atmosphere to ground level.

The outer shoulders of the absorption peaks, where the supposed expansion occurs, would consist of parts per million of the total CO2. Supposedly, it doesn't matter as long as they are absorbing a good chunk of radiation. But such molecules of CO2 are absorbing over the entire atmosphere, which leaves most of the heat too high to influence ground temperatures.

Such a tiny number of molecules would be competing with other greenhouse gasses, which would also have miniscule effects on the outer shoulders of their absorption peaks. Water vapor does some absorbing on both sides of the CO2 peak in question—the 15 µm band.

All of this is based on the absurd claim that 41% of the heat leaving the surface of the earth is in the form of radiation. The truth is that about 1% of the heat leaving the surface of the earth is in the form of radiation. So the increase in watts per square meter, or temperature, claimed by the IPCC would have to be reduced by a factor of 41 for this reason alone.

And then, it is not humans who are causing CO2 to increase in the atmosphere but oceans. Oceans release more CO2 as they warm. There was five times as much CO2 in the air during dinosaur years and twenty times as much before then, which shows that increases in CO2 do not fry the planet.

These claims may look like my word against some of the authorities, but nature shows how it all adds up. Nature is causing more precipitation to occur, which would not be possible if the atmosphere were warming due to greenhouse gasses. Nature shows that it is the oceans which are doing the primary warming, not the atmosphere. Atmospheric effects are only responding to the effects produced by the oceans.
 

Some Background Concepts Explained

A major reason why greenhouse gasses do not create significant global warming is because the relevant radiation only interacts with the earth within the first few meters (10 meters for CO2). Above that, the radiation is doing everything it does in all directions equally, which does not change the amount of heat in the atmosphere.

Heat enters the atmosphere through conduction, convection and evaporation with traces of radiation. The energy is re-emitted as radiation within the atmosphere. Carbon dioxide can only absorb 8% of the wavelengths which are emitted because of its narrow bandwidth of absorption wavelengths.

Regardless of how much heat is held in the atmosphere by CO2, increasing the CO2 cannot significantly increase the heat or temperature, because CO2 is doing all it can do before any increase. (See The Dispputed Area.)

The fakes want people to assume (and sometimes directly state) that the atmosphere would not hold any heat without greenhouse gasses. And a corollary is that it doesn't matter how much heat leaves the surface of the earth, because it's the rate of escape into space that matters. Both are a fraud.

Most heat leaves the surface of the earth through conduction, convection and evaporation (about 99%). These sources heat the nitrogen and oxygen. So the atmosphere would contain almost as much heat even if there were no greenhouse gasses. (See correction of Stefan-Bolzmann constant.)

CO2 absorbs all radiation available at its central peak in 10 meters at ground level. Doubling the amount of CO2 shortens the distance to 5 meters. Shortening the distance is not increasing the heat.

At 5 kilometers of height, the atmospheric density is one half as much; so CO2 absorbs all radiation available at its central peak in 20 meters. At 16 kilometers of height (in the stratosphere), the atmospheric pressure is one tenth; so the absorption distance increases to 100 meters.

Shortening these distances by increasing the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere does not translate into increased heat except for two miniscule situations. One: high in the stratosphere or above it, the last cycle of emission and absorption involves distances which are so long that some radiation would escape into space, while an increase in CO2 would absorb it before getting into space. Two: At mid levels of the atmosphere and higher, trace amounts of CO2 are in an unusual energy state where they absorb different wavelengths over long distance. They are on the shoulders of the absorption peaks. The trace amounts and long distances result in miniscule effects, mostly in the stratosphere and higher, where an increase in CO2 reduces the long distances to shorter distances. (See The Disputed Area.)

The shoulders of the absorption peaks are created by CO2 molecules which are in a different energy state causing them to absorb slightly different wavelengths of infrared radiation. Since there are fewer molecules in that state, the shoulders absorb less, which means the radiation travels farther in the atmosphere before being totally absorbed. So the net effect is that on every part of the absorption peak spectrum, doubling the number of molecules only shortens the distance by half for radiation to travel before being totally absorbed.

So the farther out on the shoulders, the farther the radiation travels before being absorbed. Where there are 1% as many molecules, radiation travels 100 times as far, which would be 1,000 meters for CO2. Doubling the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere would reduce the distance to 500 meters for those molecules.

Thus it can be said that doubling the amount of carbon dioxide reduces the distance radiation travels before being totally absorbed to one half, and this applies to all parts of the absorption peaks. Reducing the distance is not increasing the heat. At extremely long distances, a reduction brings the heat slightly closer to the surface of the earth, but such thin distribution only applies to parts per thousand of the heat and only lowers its location fractionally in the atmosphere, which adds up to a non-effect.

For more details, see The Concept of Distance and Fake Mechanism.