Agnes wrote on Mar 25
th, 2017 at 6:19pm:
who even believe these highly contradictory stats anymore..not me..
The stats are not contradictory, Agnes, tho the matter may appear complex it is at heart simple.
Greenhouse gases like CO2 and methane are concentrating more and more in the atmosphere. As sunlight is reflected by the surface of our world it loses energy and becomes infra red. The ray of IR heads out to space.
If a greenhouse gas molecule is hit by ray of IR it absorbs the photon then, nano or milliseconds later re-emits it. When it re-emits the photon it might go in any direction. In other words many such photons of infrared will be sent back down to the earth, warming it.
You can see the world is warming by looking at the poles: both poles are losing ice, the Greenland ice sheet continues to melt and nearly all land based glaciers are retreating. Weather is weird too, Chicago had 70°F weather in January, unheard of!
Water vapor is also a GHG and as the world warms there is more water vapor in the atmosphere, further warming the world: this is a positive feedback loop. Another positive feedback loop, where AGW makes more AGW happen, is at the poles where the sea ice extent has radically reduced. This means sunlight that used to be reflected by light colored ice and snow now is absorbed by the dark ocean heating the ocean. The poles is where AGW is most rapid.