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Originally Posted by Lugnut  How is it that green house gas's have more effect on global temps than the 1.5X10^17 watts of solar energy that hit the earth every second? |
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Originally Posted by Lugnut So uh, how many watts/ergs/joules do those green house gas's produce? |
They don't "produce" energy -- you would have to understand the thermal properties: absorption, reflection, long-wave & short-wave IR. A planet with some atmosphere will have moderated temps compared to a bare rock that will bake in daylight and freeze on the dark side.
"Although natural internal climate processes, such as El Niņo, can cause variations in global mean temperature for relatively short periods, analysis indicates that a large portion is due to external factors. The rapid warming observed since the 1970s has occurred in a period when the increase in greenhouse gases has dominated over all other factors. Numerous experiments have been conducted using climate models to determine the likely causes of the 20th-century climate change. These experiments indicate that
models cannot reproduce the rapid warming observed in recent decades when they only take into account variations in solar output and volcanic activity. However, models are able to simulate the observed 20th-century changes in temperature when they include all of the most important external factors, including human influences from sources such as greenhouse gases and natural external factors. The model-estimated responses to these external factors are detectable in the 20th-century climate globally and in each individual continent except Antarctica, where there are insufficient observations. The human influence on climate very likely dominates over all other causes of change in global average surface temperature during the past half century."