Myths you get adnauseam …
1 ) A “greenhouse gas traps heat” “It’s a heat trapping gas”
This is a nonsense The whole theory is called the RADIATIVE GREENHOUSE EFFECT, in other words, there’s supposed to be “trapping” of radiation energy…not HEAT. Good luck with the “trapping” of radiative energy travelling at the speed of light. Then they blather around about a “radiative imbalance”…at the TOA (Top of the Atmosphere) no less… they never seem to quantify what exactly is the imbalance, they just fudge around with “radiative forcing”numbers of about +/- 0.1 watts/sq.m. … all the while, Trenberth can vary the numbers of his solar radiation striking Earth’s surface from 161 to 163 to 168 watts/sq.m., with his loony Earth Energy Budget Diagrams.
Only a glasshouse, closing off convection, can trap heat. ALL gases in the atmosphere just dissipate heat. The atmosphere COOLS the surface.
2) “The atmosphere acts like a BLANKET”
Hold a REAL BLANKET closely above your head and use your hair-dryer from beneath…..to find out that the atmosphere just dissipates heat,
3) “The atmosphere acts as an INSULATOR”
An insulator acts as a double-edged sword. For example, an insulated hot water cylinder (with a source of heat, the inside electric element) . In the case of the atmosphere surrounding the Earth the source of heat is outside… the Sun. In Egypt they use HOT water cylinders to keep water COOL.
Arrhenius, Tyndall, et al can be forgiven for not knowing that molecules in the THERMOSPHERE can glow red hot at temperatures of about 1500 deg. C with an active Sun. ..and that includes CO2 molecules. They can be forgiven for not knowing (realising) that a space craft travelling between, say, here and the Moon or Mars, has to revolve in space, otherwise it would get red hot on the side facing the Sun and freeze on the shade side.
In other words the atmosphere keeps the Earth COOLER from the heat of the Sun. …everywhere in the atmosphere…. even in the trophosphere …everything… clouds, water vapour, gases, smoke, haze, fog, drizzle, anything between the surface and that giant blazing ball.
4) “The Earth would be much colder without an atmosphere”
Yeah !! like -18 deg C !! Unreal, pseudo-scientific, hypothetical , speculative, wacko nonsense. Sorry, reality strikes, the Earth HAS an atmosphere and HAS a real average global temperature of about +15 deg C. There’s no quack “greenhouse effect” of an ATMOSPHERE which raises the temperature of this planet by some 33 deg.C. ! The ATMOSPHERE does not keep the oceans in liquid state (not totally frozen solid) the SUN does. The SUN melts ice, not the atmosphere. It’s the Sun, stupid.
Mack 