by W. Crockett, Mar 14, 2023 in ClimateChangeDispatch

There is no scientific evidence that the minuscule 0.01% increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) since 1780 has had any effect on the Earth’s average temperature.

Nonetheless, in the 1980s, a religious/political movement against man-made or anthropogenic CO2 arose.

It was driven by catastrophic predictions from a gaggle of impenetrable and undecipherable computer climate models operated by the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and quickly metastasized into a worldwide mass movement with all the fervor of a new evangelical religion.

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Composition of the Atmosphere: The tropospheric atmosphere is composed of 78% nitrogen, 21% oxygen, 1% argon, 0.4 to 4% water vapor, and several trace gases.

The largest trace gas is carbon dioxide at 0.041%, followed by methane at 0.0018%, and nitrous oxide at 0.0003%. The volume of atmospheric molecules is also expressed in terms of parts per million (ppm): nitrogen 780,000 ppm, oxygen 210,000 ppm, and argon 10,000 ppm.

Scientists have also speculated that water vapor constitutes something between 4,000 and 40,000 ppm, depending on time and location. By contrast, the trace gas CO2 has only 410 molecules per million (.041%); methane (CH4) has only a minuscule 1.8 molecules per million; and nitrous oxide (N2O) is only a barely detectable 1/3 molecule per million.

All atmospheric molecules create a blanket of heat that slows the loss of infrared radiation to space. The sun’s short-wave radiation passes through the troposphere generally unimpeded by nitrogen, oxygen, and argon molecules to the surface, which increases the kinetic motion (heat) of all impacted surface and atmospheric molecules.¹

The increased molecular motion, in turn, increases full spectrum (blackbody) infrared radiation (IR) in all directions. All atmospheric molecules, including water vapor and CO2, take up the additional heat by conduction (contact), from both the surface and surrounding atmospheric molecules.

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