I am sure by now that everybody has heard of the "greenhouse effect" and how it is threatening to destroy the earth. But what exactly is this "greenhouse effect"? Let us look at a greenhouse.
Above all else, a greenhouse is a heat trap. A greenhouse is a useful heat trap that enables us to produce vegetation whenever it is still too cold outside for the plants to flourish. We have improved greenhouses to the point that we have control over humidity as well as temperature, and methods of storing up daytime warming to be useful during the night. In short, greenhouses are an integral part of food and plant production. Greenhouses work on a very simple principal.
Greenhouse enclosures admit radiant energy, which excites the molecules inside of the greenhouse into a higher energy state. This higher energy state of the physical world inside of the greenhouse then gives off additional "heat". (All matter that is above absolute zero gives off heat) The heat is trapped because we have built a physical wall to prevent its escape. The heat that escapes from the greenhouse does so by conduction. So to recap, we allow the radiant energy inside of the greenhouse to excite molecules inside of the greenhouse into giving off additional heat. We then prevent the heat from escaping by the physical barrier of the greenhouse walls and ceiling, so temperature rises within the greenhouse. Increasingly, greenhouses are made of much more efficient materials with higher insulating properties that prevent a lot of the heat loss by conduction.
Earth has no physical boundaries to trap the excess heat generated by the radiant energy of the sun. There is no evidence to suggest that any additional greenhouse effect is affecting the Earth's temperature. If more gases are preventing heat loss from Earth, then land surface temperatures would have to be increasing, they are not. In fact, the land surface temperatures have shown a slight decrease, not an increase.There would also have to be increased heating in the troposphere, it is not. Troposphere temperatures also have shown temperature decreases. So what has caused the approximately 1 degree of temperature rise over the past 100 years? Why is there an increase in CO2? There are as many theories as there are scientists, but one thing you can count on is that the increased heat is not because of increased greenhouse effect.
One of the Earth's natural chemicals is carbon dioxide. CO2 comes from a lot of sources including living mammals and decaying vegetation. But the largest supplier by far is from the Oceans. In addition to the radiant heating by the Sun of our Oceans, there is natural heating from the tectonic plate boundaries. Why? The Earth Crust Plate boundaries found in both the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans are teeming with sub sea volcanoes. In fact, there are over a thousand of them. Two of the byproducts of these Volcanoes are CO2 and heat. Cold Ocean water circulates through the many cracks and fissures on the sea floor, is heated and circulated back to the Oceans. As Ocean water is heated, it surrenders more CO2 into the atmosphere. The properties of CO2 absorb a very minor amount of heat. Convection rapidly transfers the heat back into the atmosphere.
Clouds are a wonderful thing. They reflect an enormous amount of radiant energy, and at the same time give us a cooling shade in the daytime. At night, the moisture in clouds tends to block some of the radiated heat from the earth and as a result, we retain some of this heat. But remember, that during the day, they are preventing a lot of radiant energy from reaching Earth. A good case can be made that clouds are more beneficial as umbrellas than greenhouse traps. Further, there is good evidence that increased sunspot activity inhibits cloud formation in the atmosphere because of strong solar winds created by the intense magnetic storms on the Sun. Any decrease in cloud formation means more radiant energy from the Sun is getting to the earth and creating more heat than normal.
Please do your own investigation about these matters. Do not take to heart the rants of those who preach "Global Warming" as a man made phenomenon or "Greenhouse Effect". It is not! Put some time into your quest to find out all sides of this story before you decide.
Cheers,
-Robert-
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