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Originally Posted by SamSpade  I think the original remarks were addressing the fact that were it not for the sun, the earth would be a stone cold lifeless rock in space, and virtually all heat on earth derives from it. Without it AT ALL, the effect of greenhouse gases would be irrelevant. |
...yes, the sun *does* heat the earth, that is a given - but it isn't responsible for GW because the sun's power output doesn't significantly change. The weather isn't cloudy one day and sunny the next because the sun decided to crank it up a notch: it's almost exclusively the atmosphere (its effect on the ability of heat to transfer to/from space and earth) that's responsible for establishing the temperature of earth.