Good explanation of how CO2 warms up the atmosphere – more scientific than the “blanket” but still comprehensible.

the Air Vent

I’m forced to spell out again how I am so darn sure that CO2 causes some warming.  Some of this seems like it’s too obvious but that’s probably because I work in optics and these equations are very familiar.  When considering radiative absorption of CO2, we need to look at Plancks equation and the absorption curve of CO2.

The spectrum of CO2 is important to consider.  Note that all the absorption is at the far right end of the curve – long wavelengths – with high transmission in the visible .3-.65 microns.  Also for the water vapor guys, there is a couple of clear CO2 peaks which fall at water vapor valleys — bad luck guys.  Anyway the absorption curve of CO2 in Fig 1, doesn’t extend into the visible range.  It is transparent to visible light though and you can confirm it by the total atmosphere curve which is…

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