Graeme M,

Further reading:

http://www.skepticalscience.com/Second-law-of-thermodynamics-greenhouse-theory-basic.htm

No QANDA I am not being obtuse. I'll read your link when I get a moment Poirot but I honestly have never heard of 'locked up' energy being released and increasing temps.

The GHE as I understand it requires GHGs to absorb and re-radiate LWR. Burning fossil fuels releases CO2 which increases the concentration of GHGs, thereby absorbing and re-radiating more OLR. In effect, that is blocking outgoing radiation which means the atmosphere has to heat up to get back to equilibrium at TOA.

What is this extra energy?

Graeme,

If the planet is currently building up heat - that amounts to adding energy to our climate systems. That is "extra energy" that the planet is holding on to, because of a slowing down of the rate at which heat is lost into space.

I actually think you get that.

(I know qanda gets frustrated when he switches to layman's terms for us. There's always a skeptic waiting in the wings to give his words a pedantic once over:)

SM : "I think that the single biggest lie perpetrated by Labor, is that Australia's carbon tax will have any effect on the environment without global consensus."

Please provide a link to Labor's official position supporting your statement, or does the word "perpetration" cover your (usual) slight of hand?

Off this point, for what it's worth, "global warming" has become "climate change" as it is clearer that not everywhere gets hotter. That, for example, increasing arctic winds bring extreme snow and cold to Canada and the US is caused by warming, not a coming ice-age. I raise this because Flannery gets flogged on OLO for apparently changing the subject whereas he has simply moved on to the consequences of warming. Be happy, deniers, that he will be gone as a public servant come the election, if Abbott gets up. http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/1753044/Flannery-defends-Climate-Commissions-work

Well Poirot I do think I 'get it'. But I have never before seen any mention of 'extra energy'. Now, I have no physics education so a lot of this stuff I struggle to get my head around. Remember, I am skeptical - I have an OPINION. I am not suggesting I KNOW better.

As for temps increasing, does that mean there is extra energy in the system? I can't see how this energy is being created. Yes there is extra heat, but that is not the same as energy is it? I don't mean to be pedantic, but that's a strong statement. I read your link Poirot and it's a very basic explanation of what I said above. No mention of extra energy.

qanda,

You made a couple of informed and informative posts earlier in this thread, and that is appreciated I'm sure, but, much as we would miss your informed contributions, why, if you have such a poor opinion of we 'OLO travellers', do you bother?

Impatience and derisory insinuation appear out of character, and, while such may have been responsible for starting a few wars, I doubt it has ever resolved an honest argument.

Proceeding from Graeme M's comment, I take it you subscribe to a view that 'Greenhouse' inhibits the additional heat energy being released from the combustion of fossil fuels being simply radiated out into space, and thereby contributing to the restoration of 'equilibrium' - an undefined state of equilibrium of course, and one which appears to have oscillated variously throughout Earth's long history?

I don't suppose the whole of our solar system, or even the entire universe, is warming significantly due to our activities on Earth (nuclear energy production and nuclear explosions included), OR due perhaps to an even broader form of 'Greenhouse', but it must be intriguing to contemplate the 'Universal Equilibrium', don't you think, and the possible role of dark matter and dark energy in the resultant equation(s)?

Since energy can supposedly neither be created nor destroyed (and hence the 'big bang' could hardly have come from 'nothing') there would have to be a universe-wide energy quotient, a universe-wide energy 'equilibrium' of sorts - unless there be an interchange between multiple universes?

Earth's core cooling, tectonic plates shifting, Sun's radiation fluctuating, black holes roaming the universe, perhaps even our own galaxy (or solar system perhaps?), more people consuming and more buildings constructed, forests cleared and crops planted, ice forming and melting, pollution killing plankton and numerous marine/aquatic species, Japan whaling and people keeping pets - such a complex 'equilibrium'.