The concept isn't that hard to understand. Greenhouse gases trap heat. The quantity of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere is increasing. Therefore, the earth is going to get hotter. LOL at going out with thermometers and tracking global temperature to try to prove anything. That's the global weather, not climate.
You don't know what you're talking about quite yet but you're headed in the right direction.
Feel free to elaborate.
Well the thermal conductivity of CO2 is 0.105 (W/m*K). Air is 0.0243 (both at 0 deg C). So it appears air is a better insulator than carbon dioxide. How in the world is air with an increased concentration of CO2 trapping heat?
The "lifetime in the atmosphere" of CO2 is much higher than O2, for example. Basically, based on the oxygen and carbon cycles, oxygen is cycled through more quickly and develops offsets that have a net loss in heat, whereas CO2 has a slower cycle and develops a net gain in heat.
We're focused on the trapping of the heat first. Then we'll get into your chemistry voo doo. I bid you good day, sir!
Well, then lets focus on the correct thermal principal. Convection. conduction isn't that big of a player except from the surface to less than an inch above the ground. But on to the CO2 specifically: It absorbs infrared light in the atmosphere. The "air" absorbs all non-blue light, thus it contains the infrared complement, that is in turn absorbed by the CO2. The net radiation of infrared from the earth if ~400 W/m2 and in the upper limites of the atmosphere, it radiatess ~ 250 W/m2, with smoething like 150 W/m2 absorbed in the atmosphere itself. Now, based on the isotopes of carbon found, the amount of carbon produced into the atmosphere over the past 150 years is approx. 500billion metric tons, enough to increase the atmospheric CO2 concentration by 30%. 280ppm to 390ppm....should be higher, right? Thanks ocean, for taking the rest.
^^all of this is not debateable.
what is debateable is this: the increased CO2/greenhouse gases have increased the amount of energy by 2.5 W/m2. Some released chemicals actually provide a cooling effect ~(0.9) W/m2......and that's where the 1.5 W/m2 that gets tossed around comes from. This creates a flux of energy available, which cause weird weather, ice cap stuff, and actually some positive(temporary or LT, who knows) and a 0.75 C warmer for each W/m2 that is found. That's the crux of the argument. Is that numver accurate? What does an increase mean? I dunno.