L. David Roper
http://arts.bev.net/roperldavid
20 March, 2010
The science is absolute that greenhouse gases trap solar energy near the Earth surface. The Earth would be a very cold planet, not fit for human habitation, if that were not true. Increasing trapped energy due to increasing greenhouse gases is not always expressed as increasing average temperature of the Earth.
Many climatologists have replaced the term "Global Warming" by the term "Climate Change" to indicate that trapping of solar energy near the Earth surface causes more than an average temperature increase of the atmosphere. In fact, it is possible that atmospheric average temperature decreases for some limited period of time even as the trapped energy increases.
A better term for the trapping of solar energy near the Earth surface might be "Global Heating." The effects of global heating are numerous, some of which are increasing atmospheric temperature, increasing ocean temperature, melting ice at the poles and at high elevations, and evaporation of water from land and seas which increases the water vapor in the atmosphere. The increase of water vapor in the atmosphere can increase the trapping of solar energy near the Earth and increase the precipitation of rain, sleet and snow. The term "Climate" does not necessarily include all the effects of global heating.
Although the effects mentioned above increase on the average across the Earth, specific regions may experience decreases in one or more of them. That is, decreasing temperature may occur in some region while temperature is increasing in another region.
Weather is not climate, which is long-term average of weather. Do not confuse weather with climate.
Roper Global-Heating Web Pages
L. David Roper interdisciplinary studies