[cogitator]

I'm combining a couple of your posts here.

The stratosphere loses heat to space, and it is to thin to absorb radiant energy released from blackbody radiation and from release of latent heat of water vapor transported to the upper atmosphere.

To which I replied via query about the observed warming of the stratosphere after the Mt. Pinatubo eruption.

Your reply: The effect of volcanoes on the stratosphere has nothing to do with hypothetical CO2 concentrations increasing forcing in the Troposphere. It has a great deal to do with the aerosols injected into the stratosphere which absorb radiant energy inducing higher molecular motion(i.e. raising temperature) of the stratosphere.

So first you've said that the stratosphere is too thin to absorb radiant energy, and then you note that it isn't, i.e., the injected aerosols impart a warming via greater molecular motion. I prefer the latter. The stratosphere warms and cools radiatively. You're a physical chemist, and while I couldn't pass the maths required for Berkeley graduate school P-chem, I know enough to say this: temperature is a measurement of the kinetic energy of the molecules in a gas, liquid, or solid. Right?

OK. Now you've proposed something quite interesting, which is that water vapor can explain a lot of what's not explained. That's quite consistent with the current state of knowledge regarding clouds and water vapor in the atmosphere.

All that is needed is a mechanism for heat storage, water serves quite well and can explain why the Troposphere is not heating as expected in the "standard" view, and why the Stratosphere can cool, should ozone depletion not even required to explain cooling of the Stratosphere.

The interesting thing about this to me is that the water vapor feedback is one of the primary positive feedbacks of GHG-induced warming. So, if you've got GHG-induced warming, and a water vapor feedback, then that's pretty much in-line with the mainstream view. Your major contention is still with the CO2 energy absorption.

[ancient_geezer]

So, if you've got GHG-induced warming, and a water vapor feedback, then that's pretty much in-line with the mainstream view

Which leads us to one of many fallacies of the GCM theories. Water Vapor is a GHG and a least 2 orders of magnitude more effective than CO2.

Perhaps you will be kind enough to explain the difference between the GHG H20, and the GHG CO2, that one is called (only by IPCC & their modellers) a "feedback".

Water Vapor Rules the Greenhouse

I know enough to say this: temperature is a measurement of the kinetic energy of the molecules in a gas, liquid, or solid. Right?

Sounds good, now how does CO2 contribute to temperature increase if it only absorbs and re-radiates quantum 15micron IR radation,(i.e. a delayed spontaneous & random process). Hint, it can't, It must lose the absorbed IR excitation in collisions with other molecules to manifest as a change in temperature(i.e. velocity of molecules).

So first you've said that the stratosphere is too thin to absorb radiant energy,

I said that in comparison with the troposphere that is quite true.. Obviously there are molecules in the stratosphere, sparce though they may be compared to the troposphere, and thus can manifest temperature(i.e. molecular motion), black body radiation is radiated consequent to molecular changes in motion. Radiant energy absorption on the otherhand is a quantum process that occurs at very select wavelengths dependent upon the quantum characteristics of the molecules absorbing radiant energy.

Here is a more complete picture of radiation absorption from UV through Visible to Far Infrared in comparison with Solar & Earth blackbody radiation curves.

Note the only significant CO2 absorption of Earth blackbody radiation associated with the greenhouse effect is at the 15micron band overlapped by H2O rotational absorption which aborbs 100% of earth blackbody radiation at IR wavelengths greater than 15microns.

At 15micons, absorption is 100%, and as Hug & Barret have made clear, that absorption reaches extinction in a very short atmospheric path(<100ft) near the surface of the earth.

The statosphere loses heat to space, and it is too thin to absorb radiant energy released from blackbody radiation and from release of latent heat of water vapor transported to the upper atmosphere.

and then you note that it isn't, i.e., the injected aerosols impart a warming via greater molecular motion.

The injected aerosols themselves are molecules absorbing solar radiation as well as upwelling blackbody radiation and imparting any absorbed energy to the stratosphere in collisions with upper atmosphere molecules. So where is any inconsistency? Those "volcanic" areosols are only sporadically part of the picture.

By the way, blackbody radiation is predominately due to changes in motion of molecules in interaction and collision as opposed to the spontaneous quantum emmissions at specific wavelengths of non-interacting molecules.

So, if you've got GHG-induced warming, and a water vapor feedback,

Water vapor "feedback", is an IPCC fiction. Water vapor IS the dominant GHG.

You have solar induced changes, and water vapor GHG interactions.

Your major contention is still with the CO2 energy absorption.

Have I ever said otherwise? The contention of the IPCC & their modellers is CO2 is the king and driver of the whole show. Which is a blatant fiction.