New Evidence of an Enhanced Greenhouse Effect

Abstract: The state of earth's climate is constrained by well-known physical principles such as energy balance and the conservation of energy. Increased greenhouse gas concentrations affect the atmospheric optical depth, and physical consistency implies that changes in the energy transfer in terms of infra-red light must be compensated by other means of energy flow. Here, a simple heuristic and comprehensive model is used to interpret new aspects of real-world data. It is shown that trends in tropospheric overturning activity and the estimated altitude where earth's bulk heat loss should place are two independent indicators of climate change. There has been increased vertical overturning in the middle and upper parts of the troposphere since 1995 on a global scale. Greater overturning compensates for reduced radiative energy transfer associated with increased optical depth. An increased optical depth is also expected to raise the altitude from where planetary bulk heat loss takes place according to the heuristic model, and an estimated trend of 40m/decade is consistent with a surface warming rate of 0.2K/decade. The simple comprehensive model of the greenhouse effect can also account for feedback processes, changes in the hydrological cycle, and may assist the wider scientific community in understanding of the main principles involved.