[[The difference is that the cloud tops are invariably colder and radiate less IR. But also the clouds are capturing the outdoing IR.]]
A very small portion of outgoing IR- most escapes, much is radiated out toward space- some is radiate back
[[CO2 does the same thing with a lot less effectiveness]]
and much less effectively than clouds because there simply is nowhere near enough CO2 in atmosphere to cause anything on a global scale
[[Photons captured by CO2 heat to some extent. The quantity is small and a doubling of CO2 lead to less than a 1C increase in the atmosphere globally.]]
And you know this 1 degree increase would be due to CO2 and not some other factors how? Based on charts that show warming has happened? If so as stated before, warming happens first, then COI@ rises- so how is warming of atmosphere being linked to CO2 when clearly other factors have caused the warming?
Basically the warmists are disingenuously claiming “Warming has occurred, CO2 is increasing, therefore, man is causing warming- that would be like me stating that because I pissed I n the ocean during a massive global rainstorm that it caused massive worldwide flooding- my pissing I n the ocean doesn’t amount to a pisshole I n the snow in terms of global consequences no more so than adding 3.4% CO2 to the equally inconsequential total atmospheric CO2 level of 0.04% causes global warming
No, not based on charts. There is no doubt the warming after the Little Ice Age was natural and that includes most warming through the 30's. After that we had the highest solar in centuries from the 50's through the 90's (with a short break in the 70's) plus we had some natural ocean cycle warming, two huge El Ninos and lots of smaller ones in the 80's and 90's. So there was some combination of increased CO2 and natural factors.
The actual estimate of 1C (or maybe a little less) comes from single column of air models. Those are simply models that put in 280ppm, then 560ppm to see the difference. They leave everything else alone, no extra convection, no cloud changes, etc. Sometimes they will do columns with clouds and without clouds to get a better average. But none of these simple models can account for weather or weather changes due to (slight) warming.
The more thorough climate models are not trustworthy since they have not panned out and do not model weather but instead parameterize it. The bottom line is that the 1C is a very crude estimate and can't be used for much more than part of a range of possibilities depending on feedback.
Mankind has raised CO2 from 280 to 400 although it would have gone up a bit naturally due to natural warming (maybe from 280 to 285 or so). So the CO2 added is not trivial and will eventually double on current trajectories. So we will double the CO2, so what?
The temperature effect could be inconsequential as you imply. There is no way to separate natural and warming caused by more CO2. However with the current small temperature rise (about 1C per decade and dropping) despite the continued rise in CO2, and somewhat neutral natural conditions, it appears that manmade warming is modest. The next decade or so should make that abundantly clear as solar activity continues to slump. Slight warming could end and turn into cooling. In any case it is quite clear that the warming alarmists are desperate to get their agenda in place sooner rather than later. Even continued modest warming (rather than cooling) will result in the masses realizing that warming is not a threat but in fact a benefit. It is more likely to lead to more benign weather as it has throughout history.