There is an interesting debate happening in the weather and climate modeling wing of the blogosphere. Seems that over at Wattsupwiththat someone has pointed out the significant part water vapor may play as an absorber of solar energy. All you have to do is look at the absorbance spectrum of water vs CO2 and you’ll see that the game is suddenly more complex than the incessant drum beating about CO2 would suggest.

There are a number of good websites on weather and climate out there. Rabett Run seems well centered in terms of the science.  If you are interested in the level of play happening in the real, behind the scenes debate, check out the references to Kirchoff’s law.  Physical meteorology is at the center of the whole debate. Assumptions about the applicability of certain laws, assumptions about the value of key variables, and other details of equation building can drive the nature of the conclusions. Planetary atmospheres are really quite complex!

I think it will be several more solar cycles before the right modeling assumptions shake out.