Samwik seems to be asking me 'what makes me think that CO2 isn't an increasing problem for our climate?'
Let's go back to the data. The temperature stopped increasing in 1998. Since 2002, the temperature trend has been negative according to satellite temperature data. Our CO2 levels have been increasing but the temperatures have not followed suit. This is why the IPCC ensemble of models has falsified. Our temperatures are bleow their constant CO2 level scenario. The warming effect, and thus human influence over climate is vastly exaggerated. If CO2 does cause warming at low concentrations, then the relationship must be logarithmic since it has not been causing any warming as of late. To suggest that the relationship is linear, as you do, means that CO2 has almost no warming effect whatsoever at any concentration.
About the second graph, it is not about the peak being reduced. It is about the inefficient edges being able to absorb a bit more IR radiation on the edges. This just lowers the 100 or 10 m limit where all IR radiation, that CO2 can absorb, will be absorbed.
CO2 that has absorbed IR, then becomes invisible to more IR, so any additional IR is absorbed by CO2 farther away, until it also becomes saturated (heated) by (and then invisible to) the additional IR. Even more IR would be absorbed by CO2 even farther away (through the hot, transparent CO2); and this would continue happening up through the atmosphere until, as the concentration of CO2 became too low, it would radiate away into space.
That would be fine if you assume that the CO2 holds the heat for more than a few seconds. The atmosphere is most dense near the ground. Either the CO2 molecule would re-radiate the energy, or it would change its energy level via a collision with another molecule. Canuck's graph suggests that the collisions are frequent enough that none of the 4.3 or 15 micron wavelengths are able to escape to space; therefore, the area under the curve is the IR that gets absorbed before it is converted to another wavelength.
Do you have any proof that Motl's formula is wrong?
