Into the Night
Verified User
Thank you.
So these numbers are quoted by Anne Marie Helmenstine, Ph.D., who in turn got it out of a chemistry book written by David R. Lide. In other words, all of you are just quoting numbers with no authoritative source that I can see.
Gas concentrations in the atmosphere vary from place to place and from moment to moment. You can see this if you go out and buy a CO2 detector and wander around with it (and that's just the CO2 on the surface!) In other words, none of these gases are uniformly distributed over the Earth's surface or through the atmosphere.
So these numbers come from an unknown user at answers.com, and designated by answers.com as the 'correct' answer by fiat. Obviously, this is not an authoritative source.
You have accepted these as sources. I don't. As I said before, I have a higher requirement to even begin to believe numbers just thrown around.
Fortunately, it's inconsequencial. None of these gases or vapors have the ability to warm the Earth.
You had somewhat the right idea, but the wrong way of presenting it, and actually argued in favor of the Church of Global Warming while doing it. Your argument was based on the triviality of the low concentration of CO2 in Earth's atmosphere, but actually wound up ignoring the 1st and 2nd laws of thermodynamics and the Stefan-Boltzmann law.
You got caught with a weak argument, and wound up actually helping those you were arguing against. The real key to this is to learn the science and the mathematics, and to realize why the idea of a magick gas is not possible, and that measuring the temperature of the Earth is not possible.
I'm trying to help you strengthen your argument. Please take my attempt in that light.