"Atmospheric nitrogen is an inert, colorless, odorless gas, and has no known influence on the greenhouse effect."This is from a GW denier site, renewamerica; that then goes on to say:
Although neither nitrogen or oxygen has an influence on the greenhouse effect, for some reason CO2 is assumed by environmentalists to influence the greenhouse effect so as to cause global warming. We are all waiting for an explanation of how CO2 differs from nitrogen and oxygen in its influence on the greenhouse effect. Until such explanation is forthcoming, it seems reasonable to suspect that the theorists are failing to differentiate between wholesome CO2 and poisonous CO1 (carbon monoxide) and other toxic gases that accompany CO2 in industrial pollution. Why are the global warming theorists singling out a wholesome gas that is necessary for life on earth as the culprit of the impending disasters they are predicting?
Conclusion:
The burden of proof lies with those who claim that CO2 gas has a greenhouse effect, because they have presented no understandable mechanism or process that explains how CO2 gas in the atmosphere increases heat on earth.
Hmmmm. Other than this "Nitrogen masking-effect" *^* which you've hypothesized, haven't we already (post#26288, above) visualized the mechanism by which absorbed IR "increases heat on earth?"
"Why are the global warming theorists singling out a wholesome gas that is necessary for life on earth as the culprit of the impending disasters they are predicting?"
Why? Because CO2's having the largest effect and it is the easiest to change?
Well, enough of that stuff.
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...also indicating that Nitrogen has no significant IR absorbance:
http://www.globalwarmingart.com/wiki/Image:Nitrogen_Molecule_VdW_png
The strong bond makes it chemically stable and non-reactive in most circumstances. Nitrogen's simple structure is
unable to absorb either visible or infrared light. As a result, nitrogen is not a greenhouse gas.
Yes it is from wikipedia
Every technical thing I found was dealing with molecular nitrogen in high temperature or high pressure, bound states, dealing with materials science. See my "surfings" at:
http://www.scienceagogo.com/forum/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=26306#Post26306Anyway, the coe site you linked to is a semiconductor type, material science site.
http://www.coe.ou.edu/sserg/Solid State Devices
Welcome to the Solid State Devices research group at the University of Oklahoma. We perform research in a number of areas related to development of mid-infrared optoelectronic devices as well as development of applications for these devices. Specific research areas include semiconductor materials growth and characterization, laser fabrication, and tunable laser spectroscopy.
Here's a list of their publications, indicating what type of materials they work with.
http://www.coe.ou.edu/sserg/web/Publication/paper%20title.htmI noticed that their HITRAN-96 spectrum of CO2 bears no resemblance to the standard IR spectra of atmospheric gasses that we normally see (update: I see more commonalities now... -see below).
*^*Despite the fact that you have that beautiful, rich spectrum of N2 at the very specific wavelength that we're talking about here, I don't think it applies as proof about your Nitrogen masking hypothesis; but if you can find any more information about the pressure, temperature or state of that N2 (or a comparison of it's absorbance at 4.5 microns with CO2's, in terms of relative strength), I'd be happy to acknowledge that. From my reading around about those Fourier Transform spectra, I think those are used for high precision observations of electron shell changes during bonding processes, or some processes which are not related to gasses at atmospheric conditions.
...hmmmm, maybe not: see update below.
Update:
Oh, I see from their 6 pages of CO2 spectra, that their studying different isotopes of CO2.
Oh, ...and I think I see a comparison:
Their 2nd page of CO2 (first image) shows the 4.5 (~2300+ wavenumber) peak with a line strength of 1e-18;
The Nitrogen peak has a line strength (whatever that is) of 1e-28.
As negative exponents, I take it to mean the Nitrogen's absorbance is much smaller than is the CO2.
I'd also note that the dark (solid) central peak in the N2 spectrum is very narrow, whereas the CO2 solid area is much broader.
I don't even know if that dark, solid area is significant in these Fourier Transforms, but it was a noticeable difference.
Well, again, this is way too much talking. I guess I'll leave it over to you. What do you think about all this Nitrogen stuff.
How come nobody's ever mentioned N2 before if it's at all involved in heat absorbance effects.
It couldn't be much if, without water vapor, the air temp would fall by 70-100 degrees (post#26261).
...not quite as fun as I'd hoped, but still worthwhile....
