After explaining that the USAF scientists and technicians who established our "CO2 science" possessed impeccable credentials, we should also point out that if those scientists had been wrong, they would have been exposed in short order.
Why you ask? Because of the increasing variety of modern marvels that would have been impossible had those studies not produced exquisitely accurate facts and figures.
The following was written to supplement the previous review of USA atmospheric research and to explain why a layperson can feel very comfortable trusting, heck believing, scientists, their atmospheric studies, and overall understanding.
This post is an interesting sort of one way collaborative effort. You see, over the years I've communicated with a number of scientists and grads. Asking straight forward questions and often receiving informative replies. I try not to overdo my welcome, after all these are very busy professionals with more important things to do. Still, for this post I sent a grand shout out to a number of my correspondence pals and received more responses than I expected including some informative surprises for me. I have taken great liberty slicing and dicing their contributions. Rewriting some, leaving other quotes untouched and giving all of it some order.
I mention this because I want to be clear the following List of " CO2 science dependent" modern marvels is not my own cleverness and I send a big Thank You! out to my informed anonymous heroes!
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The increase in atmospheric concentration of CO2 since preindustrial times is a given. Appreciate that the radiative physics of greenhouse gases are very well-understood.
Consider, heat seeking missiles flying through different altitudes searching for a heat source who's signature is changing with altitude. In order to program the computer to track and home in on a jet's exhaust, the programmer must know how to accurately compensate for the changing signature. It requires a complete knowledge of the radiative properties of all the gases and how they change throughout the atmosphere, or all that hardware is for naught.
{Incidentally, there is not one contrarian "theory" or challenge to climate science or the geophysics that hasn't been looked at by informed individuals. You'll find that contrarian errors, omissions, and falsifications have been clearly explained.
Don't believe me, look at this outline for yourself:
