Where the fake mechanism is supposed to occur is in the yellow zone shown here. See The Disputed Area
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.
Near the surface of the earth, CO2 absorbs most of the radiation available to it in 10 meters. Doubling the CO2 would shorten the distance to 5 meters, which is not an increase in temperature. The first 10% of the CO2 in the atmosphere does most of what CO2 does. Therefore, promoters of the scheme needed to contrive a fake mechanism to explain how CO2 creates global warming.
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 stratospheresomething like 80-100 kilometers up.
(The numbers are evaluated more completely on the page titled 220 Trillionth °C.)
At a height of 16 kilometers, the 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.
Even extreme numbers will not salvage the fraud.
The total atmosphere is said to heat the earth by 33°C.
Propagandists say 41% of the heat leaving the surface of the earth is radiation. It's actually closer to 1%, but just look how ridiculous the result is even when using the 41%.
Only 8% of the radiation is of a frequency which can be absorbed by CO2.
So 33°C X 41% X 8% = 1.08°C The total heat that CO2 supposedly produces.
Then humans only put 3% of the CO2 into the air. Frauds say it accumulated to 30%; but even with the 30% figure, we must multiply the 1.08°C time 30%, which equals 0.32°C.
If then, the fake mechanism high in the atmosphere only concerns the shoulders on the absorption peaks, the fraction gets smaller. 5% is about what they are talking about. But even if it is 10%, the increase in global temperature caused by humans putting carbon dioxide into the air is an absolute maximum of 0.032°C.
These numbers are so undeniable, that the frauds produced another rationalization. They said water vapor multiplies the effect. They call it forcing. They say CO2 heats a little bit, and this heat causes more water to evaporate from the oceans, and the water vapor heats the globe 3 to 10 times more.
I explain the fraud of multiplying through water vapor on the web page titled The Water Vapor Fraud. But notice that before the multiplication, the absolute maximum number is 0.032°C. Multiplying by 10 would only be 0.32°C. They claim it is already 0.6°C and is going to increase some more. These numbers cannot be increased.
The upper, maximum limit for human induced temperature change based on the claims of the frauds is 0.32°C.
For an exact estimate of numbers, see 220 Trillionth of a Degree Centigrade.
The point here is the main point of all global warming criticism. The claims and purposes are so ridiculous that no amount of lying can fix the numbers.
Intuitive Description of Fake Mechanism
The fake mechanism applies to the shoulders on the infrared absorption peaks. This image shows the shoulders in green and blue. The discussion is over shoulders which are at most assumed to be 5%, but are often assumed to be less.
The way an absorption peak is measured is to gradually change the wavelength of infrared radiation while measuring absorption by CO2 in a chamber. At a particular wavelength, in this case 15 micrometers, a lot of absorption occurs.
This type of absorption is due to stretching and bending of bonds. The shoulders on the peaks are where some bonds are in an unusual condition, so they absorb different wavelengths. The image below shows unusually stretched or compressed bonds between the carbon and oxygen which cause the shoulder wavelengths to be absorbed.
The CO2 molecules in their most normal configuration (in the center) absorb infrared radiation at a wavelength of 15 microns. The shoulder molecules absorb shorter and longer wavelengths.
The CO2 molecules in the center of the peaks absorb all radiation available to them in about 10 meters near the surface of the earth. Since there are only 5% as many CO2 molecules on the shoulders, the radiation would travel 20 times as far before being totally absorbed. So the wavelengths absorbed by shoulder molecules would travel 20 x 10 = 200 meters before being absorbed, on average.
This means radiation coming from the surface of the earth and from the surrounding air must travel 200 meters to be completely absorbed by CO2 molecules which have shoulder characteristics.
The image below shows the relative distances for shoulders and peak.
If then, we move the analysis up 16 kilometers into the sky, the density of the air is one tenth what it is near the surface of the earth. Since there are one tenth as many molecules per unit of distance, the radiation must travel ten times as far to be completely absorbed. So the CO2 molecules in the center of the peak absorb all radiation in 10 x 10 = 100 meters; and the CO2 molecules on the shoulders absorb all available radiation in 10 x 200 = 2,000 meters, or 2 kilometers.
So how does this create global warming? If the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere is doubled, all of these distances are reduced to one half. The 10 meters for the center of the peak near the surface of the earth is reduced to 5 meters; and the 2,000 meters for the shoulder molecules up in the air 16 kilometers is reduced to 1,000 meters. Shortening the distance is not increasing the heat.
Global warming supposedly occurs when some radiation which would otherwise go into outer space is picked up by CO2 and converted into heat within the atmosphere. This would occur when the air is so thin that there are not enough shoulder molecules to absorb all of the radiation at the wavelength which they absorb.
We see that this does not occur at 16 km up, since all shoulder radiation is absorbed in 2 km. Somewhere around 30-50 km up there would not be enough CO2 to absorb all of the shoulder radiation. But the stratosphere begins around 10 km up.
So the effect which supposedly causes global warming has to occur in the stratosphere, or higher, which does not influence the lower atmosphere.
The quantities are also absurd. The shoulders shrink in size with increasing altitude, because there is less pressure and fewer collisions with surrounding molecules causing stretching and misshape of the CO2 bonds. So there is an infinitesimally small number of CO2 molecules supposedly creating the global warming.
This simplified explanation uses averages. The farther out on the shoulders the CO2 molecules get, the fewer there are, and the farther infrared radiation has to travel to be absorbed by those molecules. So someplace out there, the radiation travels 20 km to get absorbed by CO2 now, and it will travel 10 km when the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere doubles. It would be about one half of one thousandth of the CO2 in the air, because the distance is two thousand times that at the peak, where the distance is 10 meters.
These molecules move some of the heat from the stratosphere to the lower atmosphere (troposphere). So it is really something like one half of one thousandth (0.05%) of the CO2 which creates global warming, and it does so by moving traces of heat from 10 km above the troposphere to somewhere within the troposphere.
Isn't this making something out of nothing? The nothingness of it is put into quantitative perspective on the web page titled Crunching the Numbers. Even though the numbers I use cannot be exact, because there are no exact numbers for a fictitious effect, the numbers show the general nature of the problem.
Also see The Concept of Distance.