Fewer collisions ...at the higher concentrations? Does that make sense?
It is not fewer collisions, it is the same number of collisions with only a miniscule increase in a trace gas. Changing the concentration by 0.0002% is not going to have a detectable influence on pressure P=V/T.
So a fully saturated gas would be continually excited by incoming radiation;
I never said that would be the case. I just observed that the atmosphere, that is prodominantly nitrogen, oxygen, argon, and water vapour with traces of other gases like carbon dioxide, has not been letting much heat out. CO2 does not have the correct wavelengths to close most of the current window. Increasing its concentration will not retain much more energy. Looking at Canuck's graph, only the right hand edge of the blue section will be affected. Looking at the "area graph" there has to be a doubling of CO2 for a small increase and only half of it matters to warming (the left edge).
The original equation comes from Arrhenius (1896). A non-skeptic's site?
How about Wikipedia. It is usually good for the basics like the pvt
formula:
Using 'Stefan's law' (better known as the Stefan Boltzmann law), he formulated his greenhouse law. In its original
form, Arrhenius' greenhouse law reads as follows:
"if the quantity of carbonic acid increases in geometric progression, the augmentation of the temperature will increase
nearly in arithmetic progression."
Which is still valid in the simplified expression by Myhre et al. (1998).
ΔF = α ln(C/C0)
Arrhenius linked temperature and CO2 concentration in a logarithmic relationship and that basic relationship still held until
1998?
If wikipedia is not good enough, then how about
the IPCC?
CO2 ΔF = αln(C/C0) α = 5.35
Further you suggest that "[a]bsorption of IR quanta is a quantum process..." You also implied
yesterday that Newtonian physics
is appropriate when looking at the energy transfer via collisions. The reason quantum mechanics was created as a theory was
because molecules on that scale do not conform to newtonian physics.
Finally,
a National Academy of Sciences site suggests that W*m-2 can
be converted to temperature when it reads, "... 4 W/m2 (the forcing for a doubled atmospheric CO2) would be an increase of
about 1.2°C (about 2.2°F)."
