Why is this global warming "debunking" wrong?

[Takket]

some troll posted this online... I haven't heard about this but I'm sure it is BS. anyone ever heard of this before??????

Carbon dioxide acts as a coolant in Earth’s atmosphere, says new NASA report.

“NASA’s Langley Research Center has collated data proving that “greenhouse gases” actually block up to 95 percent of harmful solar rays from reaching our planet, thus reducing the heating impact of the sun,” says to this article on principia-scientific.org.

“The data was collected by Sounding of the Atmosphere using Broadband Emission Radiometry, (or SABER). SABER monitors infrared emissions from Earth’s upper atmosphere, in particular from carbon dioxide (CO2) and nitric oxide (NO), two substances thought to be playing a key role in the energy balance of air above our planet’s surface.”

“Carbon dioxide and nitric oxide are natural thermostats,” explains James Russell of Hampton University, SABER’s principal investigator. “When the upper atmosphere (or ‘thermosphere’) heats up, these molecules try as hard as they can to shed that heat back into space.”

http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2012/22mar_saber/

[AuntPatsy]

1. This is from the same source your um troll used,

http://science.nasa.gov/earth-science/big-questions/is-the-global-earth-system-changing-and-what-are-the-consequences/

People are responsible for the rapid heating of the earth according to the same site that is used in your op, there is no mention of climate change being Debunked

...

[Judi Lynn]

5. So sad. Thank you! n/t

[truebluegreen]

2. The thermosphere is so far up it is difficult to think of it as part of the atmosphere.

50 miles or so--it's where the space station orbits. So yes, I guess you could say that CO2 molescules "shed the heat back into space", just as they very easily pick it up. The molecules can reach 2500C in full sun...not that you would feel it, in a near vacuum.

Needless to say, this is not where weather or climate occur. Silly trolls.

[Agnosticsherbet]

3. Reading the article answers the question.

For the three day period, March 8th through 10th, the thermosphere absorbed 26 billion kWh of energy.  Infrared radiation from CO2 and NO, the two most efficient coolants in the thermosphere, re-radiated 95% of that total back into space.[/div class="excerpt"]

It appears that CO2 in the thermos here retaliated heat absorbed from space back out in space.

What it debunks is the notion that the sun is hotter and heating things up.

The moral of the story, don't cherry pick science to justify a stupid ideology.

[Duppers]

4. Here's an 8yo NASA article

http://www.earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/Aerosols/page3.php

[muriel_volestrangler]

6. The article is about a brief increase from a particularly energetic solar storm

This means the geomagnetic storm dumped enough energy into the atmosphere to power every home in the Big Apple for two years.
...
No one on Earth’s surface would have felt this impulse of heat. Mlynczak puts it into perspective: “Heat radiated by the solid body of the Earth is very large compared to the amount of heat being exchanged in the upper atmosphere. The daily average infrared radiation from the entire planet is 240 W/m2—enough to power NYC for 200,000 years.”

So 95% of the storm energy was radiated back into space. But, in those 3 days, that's just 1/300,000th of the solar energy the earth receives (since the radiation out roughly balances the radiation in).

[mackdaddy]

7. The CO2 was shielding us from the CME particles, this is different from the normal sunlight energy.

What I understood from the article was that these greenhouse gasses were shielding us from actual physical particles from the coronal mass ejection from the sun. They were in this case performing something positive for us reflecting this energy back out into space before it reached the earth.

But the greenhouse effect is different in that normal sunlight does come through this layer and strikes the earth heating it up. This Infra-red light/heat energy is trapped by these greenhouse gasses near the earth and heats up the atmosphere and is not allowed to radiate back into space. This is the greenhouse global warming effect that is causing the problem with too high of levels of CO2.

A imperfect but I think valid analogy using a real greenhouse, the transparent greenhouse walls would stop hail or ice pellets from getting in, but would allow the sunlight in which would still heat up the interior of the greenhouse.

[Bill USA]

8. the thermosphere is at the outer edge of our atmosphere. You'll note the scientists says the

thermosphere IS heated up when the radiation and energetic particles hit it.

"When the upper atmosphere (or ‘thermosphere’) [font size="+1"]heats up[/font], these molecules try as hard as they can to shed that heat back into space.”

THe molecules of “Carbon dioxide and nitric oxide are natural thermostats,” ... because he is talking about those molecules which reside in the thermosphere - the topmost layer of our atmosphere: i.e. right next to space. Being at that level, the energy absorbed by those molecules (95% of it) is then be radiated back out to space (while 5% of that energy heads down to the lower atmosphere )- because there is no atmosphere above them to absorb the energy (radiated as infrared radiation). They "act as a thermostat" because they are in the thermosphere - the topmost layer of the atmosphere - where they can radiate the absorbed energy (as infrared radiation) back into space because there is no atmophere above them to absorb it.

Sunlight still penetrates the thermosphere and lower levels of the atmosphere and reaches the surface of the Earth - that which is not reflected back out to space by clouds and snow cover. When the Earth is heated by the energy from the sun this energy is then radiated - as infrared radiation - back into the atmosphere where Greenhouse gases such as CO2 or Nitric oxide absorb the infra-red radiation heating up the atmosphere.

the point is that the Greenhouse gases he's referring to are in the thermosphere - the very last layer of the atmosphere. Since these molecules are in the thermosphere, the energy they absorbed is radiated (as infra-red radiation) - and since there is no atmosphere above them - most of the infra-red radiation goes out into space.