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But the Earth also absorbs some of the radiation, heating the Earth. At equilibrium that energy is later re-radiated. Crucially, that's at infrared frequencies, where greenhouse gases make the atmosphere somewhat opaque
Intuitively, the GHGs makes the atmosphere a little like a one-way "blanket", allowing some energy through (at optical and UV frequencies), but making it harder for the infrared radiation to get back out again.
The net effect is for the Earth to have to heat up a little extra, thus producing a little more infrared so that at equilibrium the total amount of energy escaping is the same as the total amount of energy incident.
What I don't understand: the IR that's being blocked by the GHGs is energy which has already been absorbed by the Earth. So this shouldn't change the Earth's overall absorbivity, and I don't see how it could change the Earth's temperature.
Twitter may not be the best medium for this(??) But if someone who understands this well can point me to a good explanation, I'd appreciate it. Thanks!
@AndrewDohertyQu @dabacon @worrydream @patrickc Do you know?
I omitted the technical details, but it's this: the temperature should be set by: incoming energy flux = epsilon sigma T^4, where epsilon is the emissivity, sigma is the Stefan-Boltzmann constant, and T is the temperature.
Since anything absorbed by the GHGs has already been absorbed by the Earth, the absorptivity (and thus the emissivity) shouldn't be changed by the GHGs, and so I don't see how T can be changed by the GHGs.
I should have said earlier in the thread, but the key thing I'm worried about: why is epsilon in the Stefan-Boltzmann relation changed, since net absorptivity apparently isn't? Or is S-B the wrong way to be thinking?
Update: I believe @PESimeon has isolated the source of my confusion. A summary (more or less) can be found here:https://twitter.com/michael_nielsen/status/1096990267259809793 …
Thankyou for all the comments and the links. It's very much appreciated, and has clarified matters greatly for me, especially (though certainly not just) in the part of the thread linked in the last tweet.
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