The role of long-lived greenhouse gases as principal LW control knob that governs the global surface temperature for past and future climate change

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Abstract
The climate system of the Earth is endowed with a moderately strong greenhouse effect that is characterised by non-condensing greenhouse gases (GHGs) that provide the core radiative forcing. Of these, the most important is atmospheric CO2. There is a strong feedback contribution to the greenhouse effect by water vapour and clouds that is unique in the solar system, exceeding the core radiative forcing due to the non-condensing GHGs by a factor of three. The significance of the non-condensing GHGs is that once they have been injected into the atmosphere, they remain there virtually indefinitely because they do not condense and precipitate from the atmosphere, their chemical removal time ranging from decades to millennia. Water vapour and clouds have only a short lifespan, with their distribution determined by the locally prevailing meteorological conditions, subject to Clausius–Clapeyron constraint. Although solar irradiance is the ultimate energy source that powers the terrestrial greenhouse effect, there...

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