Source: Email
Comment on the 2021 paper by Douglas Lightfoot on
Earth Temperature Versus The Sun, Water Vapor, and CO2
Russ Babcock
November 10, 2025
Excellent paper by Douglas Lightfoot: Earth Temperature Versus The Sun, Water Vapor, and CO2. Note, Douglas Lightfoot refers to this paper as work by Douglas Lightfoot and Gerald Ratzer.
Reminds me of the Nobel Prize paper written by Watson and Crick back in 1953, explaining the double-helix structure of DNA, and how and why it is the biochemical definition of LIFE as we know it (i.e. the physical side of life) - the ONLY molecule capable of reproducing itself (propagation).
I make this comparison because the Lightfoot / Ratzer paper is a clear explanation of the observations and results born from the efforts of other scientists before them. They assimilated the efforts of others in a meaningful and scientific way to explain the reality of what makes atmospheric temperatures rise and fall, in the same fashion that Watson and Crick did in explaining the meaning of the work of those who came before them when they wrote their Nobel Prize-winning paper in 1953.
Hats off to Lightfoot and Ratzer.
Russ Babcock
NOTES by John Shanahan, host of allaboutenergy.net:
1) Here are the articles by Douglas Lightfoot and Gerald Ratzer posted on allaboutenergy.net. Each listing has a hotlink.
2) Some models trying to predict the change of temperature, weather, and climate caused by the use of fossil fuels are simplified beyond recognition as a correct model of the Blue Marble planet, Earth. These models represent the Earth as a flat disk always facing the sun with no oceans, no freshwater cycle, and no seasons: spring, summer, autumn, and winter or wet and dry. These static average parameter models hardly represent Earth’s dynamic weather and climate, which vary all the time.
Some authors and supporters of very simple models of Earth’s climate misrepresent the good science and the good names of authors who acknowledge the important roles of the oceans, the freshwater cycles, and the seasons. They will be challenged.
The Sun’s energy is mainly stored as heat in the oceans, currents in the oceans and atmosphere, and storms in the freshwater cycle. These events determine weather and climate. This is not properly treated in static average climate models, focusing mainly on infrared radiation released by ocean and land surfaces acting on CO2 and water vapor.