Supposedly, 41% is the amount of energy leaving the surface of the earth as radiation. The real amount is closer to zero; and this is one of the several reasons why carbon dioxide cannot create global warming.

Nothing could be easier to measure than this number. To balloon a small number into such a large number can't be anything but fraud.

The earth's surface is 70% oceans. Their maximum surface temperature is 80°F, with the average much less. Such cold temperatures do not give off significant radiation by any analysis. Propagandists want people to think of asphalt in summer heat. It's a fraud.

What the number means

Carbon dioxide cannot absorb radiation which comes from the sun, because it is too high in frequency. Objects as hot as the sun cannot give off low frequency radiation in the infrared range, which carbon dioxide absorbs.

This means carbon dioxide can only absorb radiation which comes from the earth or the atmosphere.

So radiation from the sun strikes the surface of the earth and is converted into heat. The heat then enters the atmosphere through conduction, convection, evaporation and infrared radiation. Carbon dioxide absorbs some of the infrared radiation, but not all of it, only narrow bands of frequencies which make up about 8% of the infrared frequencies at the lower atmosphere, and less in the upper atmosphere.

Therefore, if there is little radiation being emitted by the surface of the earth, there is little energy being added to the atmosphere by carbon dioxide through that avenue. But if 41% of the sun's energy leaves the earth's surface as infrared radiation, that's a lot of energy to be influenced by carbon dioxide.

Where the number 41% comes from

Climatologists evaluate movement of energy around the earth on flow charts which they call an "energy budget". NASA has such a flow chart showing the 41% number. Presumably the IPCC uses the same number, but it's impossible to extract real information from the IPCC reports, so I'm using the NASA number.

The NASA flow chart shows 51% of the sun's energy striking the earth, while 15% is radiated from the earth into the atmosphere, and 6% is radiated from the earth directly into space. Adding the 15% and 6% and dividing by the 51% yields 41% as the proportion of the energy leaving the earth's surface as radiation.

Studies from decades past (before global warming became a significant issue) showed that 8% of the radiation which leaves the surface of the earth is of suitable wavelengths to be absorbed by carbon dioxide.

The shamelessness of the fraud

Claiming that a large amount of infrared radiation leaves the surface of the earth is so obviously false that it cannot be anything but deliberate fraud. There are too many sources of evidence to get such a misrepresentation through error without fraud.

A very important fact to realize is that the infrared radiation given off by any matter is determined by its temperature and nothing else. This means that a normal temperature object (80°F or 27°C) emits the same radiation in a dark room as in blazing sun, when the temperature is the same. So the radiation given off by the earth is determined by its temperature only. Objects vary slightly in their emissivity or absorptivity, but it's about 90% for most objects and about 50% for metals.

The average temperature of the earth is considered to be around 15°C (59°F), which is somewhat less than inside houses. Therefore, the fact that normal temperature matter does not give off significant radiation can be determined in any dark, typical room. If there were such a large amount of radiation, objects would have different temperatures due to different amounts of radiation being absorbed, just as outdoors due to the sun's energy.

Night vision equipment shows the same thing. It is designed to pick up infrared radiation. It will be swamped by moonlight or a flashlight a hundred feet away. It shows that there is very little energy being emitted by normal temperature matter.

For carbon dioxide propagandists to claim that normal temperature matter emits 41% as much energy in the form of infrared radiation as the average energy of sunshine falling on the earth's surface is a shameless fraud.

Each analyst uses a different number, and it varies wildly. I've seen 115%. This means 115% as much infrared radiation leaves the surface of the earth as in the sun's energy striking the earth. Some of it supposedly comes from secondary radiation emitted by the atmosphere. If it were a real number, it would be easy to determine, and everyone would use the same number. But it seems that lies can never be stabilized quite like objective reality.

Electronics Shows the Same Thing

Another line of evidence that the 41% figure is fraud is electronics. I do a lot of electronic work, where there is often heat that needs to be dissipated for large transistors. Large transistors are attached to aluminum for that purpose. Without convection, the aluminum gets very hot. Put a fan on it, and it cools rapidly. It cools about 1-5% as well without air circulation, which allows radiation only. If 41% of the heat were escaping through radiation at 80°F, cooling fans would not be needed. It would be more practical to increase the temperature and surface area of the aluminum slightly.

The surface of the earth is cooled like a fan blowing air over a rough surface. It is just as absurd to claim 41% of the heat escapes the earth through radiation as it is with electronics.

The Stephan-Boltzmann Constant

There is a constant for determining the amount of radiation given off by surfaces at any particular temperature. It's called the Stephan-Boltzmann constant. How climatologists use it, I do not know, but the constant is a total fraud, as I show on the web page titled The Stephan-Boltzmann Constant.

Image of NASA Flow Chart
NASA Web Site