Originally Posted By: paul
I wasn't talking about near surface.
...but that is where the greenhouse effect, and the climate, operate.
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As I said, your logic works ...for incoming IR energy ...blocking some heat from getting to the planet (so in that sense, it has some cooling effect).

But in the troposphere, with outgoing long-wave thermal radiation, GHGs "block" the heat and 're-warm' the surface.

If you want to call it a cooling gas, that's fine; but it still contributes to the greenhouse effect down here, warming the region "about near surface."

~

Pyrolysis creates reduced carbon! ...Time for the next step in our evolutionary symbiosis with fire.