View Single Post
Old 11-29-2012, 12:08 AM   #163 (permalink)
TheEnemy
The road not so traveled
 
TheEnemy's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jan 2010
Location: New Mexico
Posts: 680

The Truck - '99 Nissan Frontier xe
90 day: 25.74 mpg (US)

The Ugly Duck - '84 Jeep CJ7 Rock crawler
Thanks: 18
Thanked 66 Times in 57 Posts
Quote:
Originally Posted by freebeard View Post
I get the first two, grey body radiation is news to me. All the discussion makes my head hurt, but I'm trying to stick with it.
Greybody radiation is when you account for the fact that elements, molecules etc... don't radiate the full spectrum, you get spectral lines or bands. It is the same process by which astronomers can determine the chemical makeup of the atmosphere on other planets, our sun, and distant stars.

I went through the same headach several years ago when I started looking into the actual science behind the theory, and when you get this far in it gets really complicated, and I am pretty sure there aren't many climate scientists that are looking at things down to the grey body level besides pointing out the absorbtion bands of CO2.