Thank you Poirot, I get that qanda has more than a few 'clues', and it's good of him to share them with we mere 'travellers', I just don't take to intellectual browbeating (or condescension) and much prefer to see Mano-a-mano (no sexism intended) honest discussion of the issues.

Also, though I appreciate his argument regarding restoration of 'equilibrium', and accept this as a principle, I regard it as a rather vague proposition - given the complexities of climate and of the biospheric vectors operating.

Equilibrium can be as simple as two equal weights suspended over a pulley, or as complex as a balanced ecosystem (or universe) (or the human mind) - but an ecosystem is not static, is constantly in flux, and my understanding is that problems with balance ('equilibrium') and sustainability occur when influences beyond the resilience and adaptability of a system are introduced - either internally (say by genetic mutation) or externally (say by pollution).

Sometimes 'simplification' (with the best of intentions) can be misleading, or can ignore the underlying causation for events.

Of course Graeme M should understand that fossil fuels represent a form of concentrated energy - derived in reality from the accumulation of solar energy over eons (ain't photosynthesis marvellous!), and burning it releases that accumulated energy (and residuals like CO2) into the surrounding environment.

Climate variability (or change) is a reality - whether 'natural' or man-made (or influenced) - but the continued wholesale burning (consumption) of eons of accumulated fossil fuels in the blink of a geophysical eye, and without any timely replacement plan, is arrogant and wasteful frittering away of otherwise enormous possibility, and can not do otherwise than contribute a significant external impact on the viability and resilience of Earth's multitudinous ecosystems.

Too smart, or too dumb for our own good? We ain't seen nothin' yet.

QANDA and Poirot, I don't want to derail this thread into physics 101. I think some of the issue here is just a misunderstanding of terminology on my part. And of course my lack of background in the sciences. Don't think I am a complete dill as I understand the matter of matter/energy equivalence etc. And I think I broadly understand the GHE. Heck I can throw around terms like TOA and column and radiation and thermal equilibrium and almost know what they mean.

But what throws me is your suggestion that adding energy heats the system up. As you said:

"If you add energy to a system (e.g. atmosphere, ocean, cryosphere and terrestrial biosphere) it heats up."

So, just for a moment indulge me. Liberating CO2 into the atmosphere is not liberating energy as far as the GHE goes, surely? Burning fossil fuels and generating CO2 is converting matter from one form to another. There is energy produced in the form of heat and electricity and mechanical work but I didn't think that was relevant as far as the GHE is concerned.

The GHE as I understood it involves outgoing longwave radiation being absorbed and re-radiated by the GHG molecules. Incoming SWR from the sun heats the earth, it radiates back LWR and equilibrium is reached with the incoming and outgoing the same at TOA.

Increasing the mass of GHGs by liberating CO2 affects that process. So in terms of energy budget, there is no more or less energy. Rather it is that the emission of LWR back to space is impeded meaning an imbalance at TOA. So to get back to equilibrium, the atmosphere heats up until the energy of OLWR again equals incoming solar radiation.

So, there is no added energy is there? Yes there is increased heat, but isn't that just a rearrangement of energy balances?

Graeme M,

"....In terms of the energy budget, there is no more or less energy...."

So are you saying that if some of the heat from the sun (that would otherwise be radiated back out into space under a regime of less CO2 in the atmosphere) is "amassed" within a 'closed system' - then that 'closed system' somehow hosts the same amount of energy as it did before it amassed the "extra heat/energy"?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermal_energy#Distinction_of_thermal_energy_and_heat

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2011GL048794/abstract

Poirot I am not saying anything beyond what my understanding of the GHE is. My understanding may be incorrect. Your wiki article is beyond my paygrade, I'd need a few days thinking to figure that out. :)

I *think* though that you are stating that in essence, the increase in heat of the atmosphere represents an increase in the thermal energy of the atmosphere.

However, that seems to me to be a different thing to claiming, as QANDA did, that burning fossil fuels and liberating CO2 is to add energy that has been locked up in the earth's crust... As he/she said:

"When (coal) is burnt it ‘releases energy’ in the form you know as CO2."

But the CO2 is not adding the energy directly. Rather as you yourself observe when you talk of amassing energy, CO2 is simply increasing the thermal energy of the atmosphere by allowing more heat to accumulate. Or is QANDA's description some kind of strangely worded simplification?

And now you've set me off and I have to go worry at the question of whether heat is accumulating or amassing until I can 'see' how that actually works. Damn you Poirot! :)

Belly, your thread has gone off on a tangent.

At least the physics ain't being politicised :-)

Seeyaround

Sorry belly for going off on a tangent.

For what it's worth I think the average Joe in the street doesn't give two hoots about voting according to either major party's climate policy....and they won't unless they experience palpably negative effects from climate change.