By Definition, Aren’t All Gases ‘Greenhouse Gases’?
Increasing observational evidence (not climate models!) proves that all gases, not just that trace amount of “dangerous” carbon dioxide (0.04{154653b9ea5f83bbbf00f55de12e21cba2da5b4b158a426ee0e27ae0c1b44117}), operate in our atmosphere like a “greenhouse gas”. As more scientists accept such irrefutable truths the very foundation of the “theory” collapses, as explained below by Alan Siddons.
What I wrote in The Hidden Flaw in Greenhouse Theory (2010):
[M]eteorologists acknowledge that our atmosphere is principally heated by surface contact and convective circulation. Surrounded by the vacuum of space, moreover, the earth can only dissipate this energy by radiation. On one hand, then, if surface-heated nitrogen and oxygen do not radiate the thermal energy they acquire, they rob the earth of a means of cooling off — which makes them “greenhouse gases” by definition. On the other hand, though, if surface-heated nitrogen and oxygen do radiate infrared, then they are also “greenhouse gases,” which defeats the premise that only radiation from the infrared-absorbers raises the Earth’s temperature. Either way, therefore, the convoluted theory we’ve been going by is wrong.
So I was more than pleased to find a comment by ‘Myrrh’ on a WUWT page, which refers to a relatively new paper: The natural greenhouse effect of atmospheric oxygen (O2) and nitrogen (N2), by M. Höpfner, et al.
This peer-reviewed study tells us:
The effect of collision-induced absorption by molecular oxygen (O2) and nitrogen (N2) on the outgoing longwave radiation (OLR) of the Earth’s atmosphere has been quantified. We have found that on global average under clear-sky conditions the OLR is reduced due to O2 by 0.11 Wm2 and due to N2 by 0.17 Wm2. Together this amounts to 15{154653b9ea5f83bbbf00f55de12e21cba2da5b4b158a426ee0e27ae0c1b44117} of the OLR-reduction caused by CH4 at present atmospheric concentrations. Over Antarctica the combined effect of O2 and N2 increases on average to about 38{154653b9ea5f83bbbf00f55de12e21cba2da5b4b158a426ee0e27ae0c1b44117} of CH4 with single values reaching up to 80{154653b9ea5f83bbbf00f55de12e21cba2da5b4b158a426ee0e27ae0c1b44117}. This is explained by less interference of H2O spectral bands on the absorption features of O2 and N2 for dry atmospheric conditions.
From their conclusion:
This work challenges a common perception on the negligible role of O2 and N2 as natural greenhouse gases in the Earth’s atmosphere compared to species like CH4 or N2O. It is in fact the large abundance of oxygen and nitrogen which compensates for their only weak interaction with infrared radiation through collision-induced absorption bands.
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