I’ve seen threads elsewhere get revived after a year or so.

But I’m sure DC doesn’t want us to derail this thread.

[DC: I'll try to get it back on track asking an obvious question: Why are people reading this thread on Smil now after months of dormancy? It was even the most read post a couple of days ago.

I'll give the probable answer later today, if no one else does. ]

It also makes me wonder whether they are a Dr at all.

After 4.5Bn years of 250W/m^2 from the sun, the earth should have passed the fusion temperature of all the elements on the earth by now…

The CO2 GH forcing is calculated at 1.6 W/m^2. The earth’s surface area is 510,072,000 km^2. This gives us about 800 TW over the whole earth, or about 50 x what we consume.

Can someone check? It’s so easy to get these things wrong by huge factors!

Doesn’t the Law of Conservation of Energy say that that released heat energy has to stay trapped in the enclosed biosphere?

What a strange concept. You appear to be suggesting that all the energy ever produced must be retained in the biosphere. Have you made any estimates of that total energy and the resulting temperatures?

How is this energy different to solar energy reaching the earth’s surface and being converted into heat? Does that get retained, and if not, why not?

You are aware that energy leaves the earth via radiation (the only way it can)?

Or do you mean “soot”, the well known fine black particles produced by incomplete combustion?

Except it

a) isn’t a trend (too many ups and downs)
b) isn’t flat or down (goes up and down)

http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/ch1s1-4-4.html

Based on new research, the range of climate-relevant aerosols was extended for the first time beyond sulphates to include nitrates, organics, soot, mineral dust and sea salt. Quantitative estimates of sulphate aerosol indirect effects on cloud properties and hence RF were sufficiently well established to be included in assessments, and carbonaceous aerosols from biomass burning were recognised as being comparable in importance to sulphate (Penner et al., 1992). Ranges are given in the special report (IPCC, 1995) for direct sulphate RF (–0.25 to –0.9 W m–2) and biomass-burning aerosols (–0.05 to –0.6 W m–2). The aerosol indirect RF was estimated to be about equal to the direct RF, but with larger uncertainty. The injection of stratospheric aerosols from the eruption of Mt. Pinatubo was noted as the first modern test of a known radiative forcing, and indeed one climate model accurately predicted the temperature response (Hansen et al., 1992). In the one-year interval between the special report and the SAR, the scientific understanding of aerosols grew. The direct anthropogenic aerosol forcing (from sulphate, fossil-fuel soot and biomass-burning aerosols) was reduced to –0.5 W m–2. The RF bar chart was now broken into aerosol components (sulphate, fossil-fuel soot and biomass burning aerosols) with a separate range for indirect effects (Chapters 2 and 7; Sections 8.2 and 9.2).