wirebender
Senior Member
infinite number of photons? sorry, not possible
Infinite is your word Ian, not mine. Since photons are the quantum (the smallest quantity of some physical property, such as energy, that a system can possess according to the quantum theory) of EM fields, wherever EM fields exist there are photons. Without photons, there would be no EM fields.
I don't understand why you grasp so for some magical warming by CO2. Trenberth, in his energy balance of the earth created a need for a greenhouse effect by calculating the energy input from the sun as P/4. In doing this, he turned the earth into a flat disk that is under perpetual twilight. You can use blackbody formulae on stars because the look the same from every direction. It does't work with the earth because the earth is not a 3D 360 degree self illuminating body. The earth, as far as energy input goes is a 3D 180 degree illuminated hemisphere where the input of the sun should be expressed as P/2.
His energy budget assumes that the solar input over the 12 hours of daylight is the same as the satellite measured output over 24 hours. If you calculate the solar input over the 12 hours that it actually occurs, you don't need a greenhouse effect to make the earth 33 degrees warmer than it should be.
If you calculate solar input as it exists in reality, you actually find that the hemisphere that is receiving the solar input is slightly cooler than it should be. This, as I have stated before is due to the fact that "greenhouse gasses" by absorbing and emitting IR in multiple directions serves to scatter IR which, in effect, aids in dissipating the energy more efficiently.