The question is whether an increase in the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere will cause an increase in temperature near the surface of the earth due to absorption of infrared radiation.

Supposedly, the all-important effect occurs high in the atmosphere where the shoulders on the absorption peaks for carbon dioxide are not saturated. In the thinner atmosphere, the shoulders do not overlap with the peaks for water vapor. But the reason why they do not overlap is because the shoulders start to disappear, which means they are of miniscule proportions.

The shoulders of the peaks are said to not be saturated, which means more CO2 will result in more absorption. If not absorbed, the radiation would go into outer space. So the point is that less heat escapes into space, when CO2 levels increase.

Not only is this effect miniscule, but logic indicates that it would occur above the lower atmosphere (troposphere), where there would be no mixing with air near the surface of the earth.

The center of the peaks absorbs all available radiation in a short distance, while the shoulders absorb all available radiation in a longer distance. This means CO2 is still absorbing it's central wavelengths way above the stratosphere—something like 80-100 kilometers up.

It also means shoulder molecules do the same thing nitrogen and oxygen do—they absorb radiation over a long distance. But shoulder molecules only absorb a narrow band of frequencies, while nitrogen and oxygen absorb a wide band of frequencies; and there are almost a million times as many nitrogen and oxygen molecules as shoulder molecules. Why would doing some more or what nitrogen and oxygen do result in global warming? It wouldn't.

Consider a height of 16 kilometers, where atmospheric density is about one tenth that at sea level. The peak wavelengths should absorb completely in about 100 meters, because at ground level they absorb in 10 meters. Shoulders which are 5% as effective would absorb completely in 20 times as much distance, or 2 kilometers. When doubling the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere, they would do the same in 1 kilometer. The shorter distance is not an increase in heat. But does it add heat to the lower atmosphere, where the concern is? Not significantly, because 17 kilometers is in the stratosphere, which does not circulate significantly with the lower atmosphere.

Consider these quantities. Carbon dioxide is said to absorb 8% of the wavelengths emitted by black body radiation. The shoulders are assumed to be something like 5% of the 8%. But Heinz Hug says it is much less, and logic indicates he is right, since shoulders disappear higher in the atmosphere. Humans are responsible for 3% of the carbon dioxide being produced. Propagandists say humans put 30% of the CO2 into the air, but new evidence is showing otherwise, and it is ridiculous to assume that the human input accumulates, while the natural input does not, particularly since oceans regulate the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere to the most minute degree.

Promoters of the global warming hype are claiming that such a miniscule amount of heat scattered in the upper atmosphere, with almost no ability to influence temperatures in the lower atmosphere, is supposedly the cause of global warming.

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