“Let us look at an explanation of why the global warmers think that CO2 will cool the upper atmosphere, while warming the lower atmosphere. From the National Academies Press, Board of Physics and Astronomy, Atoms, Molecules, and Light: AMO Science Enabling the Future (2002)[18]:
Paradoxically, while CO2 contributes to global warming near Earth’s surface, it causes cooling in the stratosphere. Carbon dioxide molecules generated at ground level can eventually migrate to the upper layers of the atmosphere, where they collide with oxygen atoms. During the collision, the colliding atoms lose energy (i.e., they cool), while the CO2 is transferred to an internal excited state. The excited CO2 then radiates, causing a net cooling of the upper atmosphere. In the stratosphere this cooling contributes to the enhanced formation of polar stratospheric clouds, leading to greater ozone depletion. Models suggest that the doubling of CO2 in the atmosphere, as is predicted to occur over the next century, will result in significant amounts of cooling in the upper atmosphere and, in turn, more O3 depletion. [Emphasis added.]
And why do the “warmers” still claim that the same CO2 would warm the lower atmosphere? On the Access Science website is the article, Effects of carbon dioxide on the upper atmosphere,[19] which has the statement:
This is the opposite effect to the response of the lower atmosphere. The reason for this apparent paradox is that CO2 and other multiatom molecules can emit infrared radiation as well as absorb it. In the lower atmosphere, especially in the troposphere (below 15 km), CO2 absorbs radiation coming from the Earth, which excites it to higher vibrational states. Before it can reemit the radiation, it undergoes collisions with other atmospheric gases, transferring the vibrational energy into heat. [Emphasis added.]
The two statements appear contradictory to me. The first statement:” During the collision, the colliding atoms lose energy (i.e., they cool).” The second statement says the collision causes the transferring of energy into heat. To me they don’t make sense. Also, it is stated that the colliding of the CO2 molecule with an oxygen atom is what results in the cooling. There is far more oxygen in the lower atmosphere for the CO2 molecules to collide with. During the early flying during the Second World War, the airplanes did not have pressurized cabins, and the flyers had to use heated suits and oxygen masks so that they could survive the cold and lack of oxygen. By regulation, flyers were supposed to start using their oxygen masks at 10,000 feet altitude.
Traditional anthropogenic theory of currently observed global warming states that release of carbon dioxide into atmosphere (partially as a result of utilization of fossil fuels) leads to an increase in atmospheric temperature because the molecules of CO2 (and other greenhouse gases) absorb the infrared radiation from the Earth’s surface. This statement is based on the Arrhenius hypothesis, which was never verified (Arrhenius, 1896).
The proponents of this theory take into consideration only one component of heat transfer in atmosphere, i.e., radiation. Yet, in the dense Earth’s troposphere with the pressure pa > 0:2 atm, the heat from the Earth’s surface is mostly transferred by convection (Sorokhtin, 2001a). According to our estimates, convection accounts for 67%, water vapor condensation in troposphere accounts for 25%, and radiation accounts for about 8% of the total heat transfer from the Earth’s surface to troposphere [lower atmosphere].
Thus, convection is the dominant process of heat transfer in troposphere, and all the theories of Earth’s atmospheric heating (or cooling) first of all must consider this process of heat (energy)– mass redistribution in atmosphere (Sorokhtin, 2001a, 2001b; Khilyuk and Chilingar, 2003, 2004). …”
This is why i asked for specifics- The amount of transfer from CO2 compared to all other means of heat transfer from earth surface to upper levels- is insignificant- it is not driving warming- the amount of molecules warmed compared to the total atmospheric weight is a drop in the bucket- it would be akin to lighting a bic lighter in a stadium and claiming that it’s causing catastrophic warming-
There are studies that show cosmic radiation adds to an aerosol effect which causes clouds which influence warming- just because CO2 rises while temps have gone up doesn’t mean the one caused the other because there are many many variables at play- The cosmic radiation study bears this out-
Your specifics are fine, i.e. 8% of heat captured by CO2. My guess would be even less than that. But there is some capture and immediate distributon of that heat to the O2 and N2. The O2 and N2 then warm other CO2 molecules, or more likely water vapor molecules, which then radiate the energy out into space or back to earth (about 50/50). There is no valid catastrophic warming claim, certainly I have not claimed that. But there is more lower atmosphere warming when there is more CO2.