Do Global Energy budgets make sense. ???

[Richard111]

Seems like physicists have a sense of humour, have a look at:

"hv" by Gilbert Stead

On reading through explanations this sentence rather threw me:
The specific heat is the amount of energy needed to raise the temperature of one gram of a solid by one degree.

Why, because I started thinking about the volume of a gram of GAS compared to the volume of a solid and how there is much, much, more room for the molecules of a GH gas to indulge in vibrational/kinetical jiggery pokery as opposed to molecules locked in place in a solid.

I think I can see how a gas would need LESS energy to reach a state equivalent to a given temperature but when the GH gas is mixed with other gases and there is no structure physically connecting the molecules, kinetic transfere of energy must be quite slow compared to kinetic heat flow through a solid.

I am told radiative cooling is proportional to surface area, more surface, more cooling. So a solitary molecule, to my mind, has an almost infinite surface area and will radiate excess energy tout de sweety.

So it looks like, to me, that radiative warming of DRY ATMOSPHERE by greenhouse gases is hardly more than wishful thinking.

Once the humidity exceeds the dew point we get water droplets and enter a whole new ball park. Must stop here as this just goes on and on.