Re: Serious question here
Hey Up Lomax,
" The obvious problem is that equlibrium will be reached at a higher temperature. You might want to pause and think for a moment here."
[pause] and you may want to have a look at the chart again. You seem to have brushed over it. It's the timeseries of outgoing long-wave radiation from the earth. What we have been told we should expect with increasing GHGs is that less heat is radiated to space as it is "trapped" by GHGs**
But what do we actually see in the plot? MORE LW radiation is escaping to space! Around 5Wm^-2 more! It seems that changes in surface temperatrure (for whatever reason) are corrected by changes in OLR very quickly. It's a very efficient self-regulaing mechanism
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** [yes "trapped" is the wrong word - the escaping radiation has a longer path length is better - but "trapped" in the newspaper parlance].
Biting the hand that feeds IT
