Reply #91: Only to those... [View All]

[DrGregory]

Your answers are grossly insufficient (to be polite).
=============================================

Only to those that are not learned in science.

I stated, correctly, that a portion of sunlight
is reflected. However, the majority of the energy
is re-radiated as per the Stephan-Boltzmann law.

That re-radiation is a major component of the Earth's
heat balance. I considered a hypothetical case in
which "magically" the Stephan-Boltzmann re-radiation
were turned off.

So we had an influx of sunlight, with about 10% reflected.
That left 90% of the influx "unbalanced". There was no
sink or loss term to counter-balance 90% of the influx
in the Earth's heat balance equation.

So what would happen IF the Stephan-Boltzmann radiation
were turned off. The Earth would heat up. After all,
if one understands the Greenhouse Effect - the CO2
in the atmosphere is blocking some of this re-radiation.

What if something wasn't just blocking part of the
re-radiation, but the whole thing, that is all the
re-radiation were turned off. We would have an
EXTREMELY bad Greenhouse Effect - a "runaway"
Greenhouse Effect.

When would that runaway terminate? It would terminate
when the Earth reached the temperature of the energy
source driving the heat up. That is you can't get
energy from something that is colder than you are.
So that would be the photosphere of the Sun.

Of course, one can't turn off the Stephan-Boltzmann
re-radiation; so the extreme temperatures don't
happen in actuality.

Dr. Greg