Greenhouse

[T.L.G.vanderLinden@student.utwente.nl (Timothy van der Linden)]

>> >You keep assuming greenhouse gasses cause global warming.  That is an
>> >unproven theory.
>
>> No, I keep assuming that greenhouse gasses do keep the 
>> heat in and I've never heard (except from you) that it 
>> keeps the heat out or has no effect at all.
>
>Sorry.
>
>How could it keep Earth heat in without keeping some solar heat out?

My error, it keeps MORE in than it keeps out:

I think I made a mistake, by using the word reflection, it seems that the
heat is absorbed by the atmosphere. This means both solar-heat and
soil-heat. Other radiation is going through the atmosphere without much
interaction.
Of course the atmosphere radiates the heat away until an equilibrium exists.
This equilibrium has an higher temperature than it would without greenhouse
gasses.

Let me quote the following:
"The surface of the earth is warmer than it would be in the absence of an
atmosphere because it receives energy from two sources: the sun and the
atmosphere."

>> You are saying that greenhouse gasses don't exist, or in 
>> other words there are no gasses that have a higher 
>> reflectivity for IR-light than for visible and UV-light.
>
>No, I'm saying that introducing IR reflective gas wouldn't nessisarily heat
>up a planet that got most of its surface temp from outside sources.  Given
>that a lot of IR reflective gas has been added to the atmosphere without
>changing the temp, and no one has a coherent explanation for how it would
>increase the temp, and the whole idea is vigorously debated, I'ld say it
>seems like a dud theory.

I've mislead you by saying the greenhouse gasses are reflective for IR, I
interpreted the word opaque by reflecting. Having read more about the
greenhouse effect this slowly became clear to me. I hope you can see, that
this difference makes a lot of difference in our theories.

>Could we go back to talking about the star ship?

Yes, if we have something to talk about. Everyone seems to be awfully quiet
lately...

To end this discussion properly, I would strongly recommend that you read
the "bad greenhouse" page. (I think you didn't do that yet) I 
(http://www.ems.psu.edu/~fraser/Bad/BadGreenhouse.html)


Timothy

P.S. If you read that rather small page, I would really be interested in
what you think of it.