Thank you. So, CO2 cools AND heats surrounding gas.

I notice I DID garble it earlier. I keep confusing electron energy levels with molecular bond flex in CO2.

The statement of local thermodynamic equilibrium just says that this happens very fast – faster than anything else you will be considering. In particular, faster molecules re-emit received radiation. So when a GHG molecule absorbs a photon, the energy is quickly redistributed. But the same goes the other way. When GHG molecules emit IR, it’s because their chance collisions with other molecules have put them into an energetic state (within the M-B distribution). It’s not because the individual emitting GHG have previously absorbed a photon.

An important consequence is that air containing GHG emits only because of its temperature, not because of IR absorbed. Of course, absorption of IR is usually the heat source that allows it to emit while maintaining its temperature, but it isn’t part of the emission mechanism.

The original experiments on the thermalisation of IR by CO2 were done by Tyndall in the 1860’s. I don’t know if he actually measured the temp rise, but he showed the IR was absorbed, so the gas must heat by conservation of energy.

you are big on radiative physics. Maybe you can explain it to me.

CO2 absorbs IR which apparently raises the excitation of the electrons. The emission does not happen except at particular quantum levels so the molecule may end up with extra energy for a period of time due to missing the level for emission. During this period the molecule colliding with another molecule can transfer some of this energy heating the other molecule.

(please clarify if I garbled this too much)

What I wonder about is why a molecule colliding with the CO2 does not transfer some of its energy to the CO2 molecule???? That is, why is this a one way street?? Why can not CO2 receive energy in collisions which it then emits???

Why is this process, depending on specific local conditions, not a simple transfer mechanism that averages out temps???

Of course, I have been doing a little looking for empirical data on this process. I haven’t turned up much yet. There is some old research that states that CO2 does NOT thermalise IR, so would not go the other way. The stuff I have read on CO2 Lasers does not make it clear that the heating comes from the IR or from the pumping process itself. Maybe you can point me to experiments showing the thermalisation of IR by CO2???

What compelling nonsense your write – “the climate has warmed” can only be quantified by measuring temperature, which you then assert may, or may not, be sufficient on it’s own. How else could you possibly know the climate has warmed apart from noting the temperature.

What, from the belief that increased CO2 will cause increased radiation to the Earth’s surface, if I interpret it correctly?

That’s the theory but the measurements show otherwise, which you then counter by suggesting it could be “undermined by a prolonged failure of warming”, and that puts your argument fairly into the camp of pseudoscience as defined by Irving Langmuire.

The problem is that AGW proponents treat the climate system as an isolated gas/water one coating an inert sphere in a vacuum. This model might have been appropriate in the days of Newton and steam engines, but these days we have discovered that the Earth isn’t an inert sphere but a highly active one, especially in the EM domain where at last 10,000 different solar modes have been documented affecting almost everything on the surface of the Earth.

Furthermore there is an increasing body of scientific data linking internal Earth processes to the solar factor, and others not fully understood.

Increased CO2 in the atmosphere is an effect, not a cause of warming.

Nick, that is so right but if GHGs were increasing where it really matters would not that extra energy have shown up as undeniable, measurable evidence by now?