Although the scientific principles of anthropogenic climate change are well-established, existing calculations of the warming effect of carbon dioxide rely on spectral absorption databases, which obscures the physical foundations of the climate problem. Here, we show how CO₂ radiative forcing can be expressed via a first-principles description of the molecule’s key vibrational-rotational transitions. Our analysis elucidates the dependence of carbon dioxide’s effectiveness as a greenhouse gas on the Fermi resonance between the symmetric stretch mode ν ₁ and bending mode ν ₂. It is remarkable that an apparently accidental quantum resonance in an otherwise ordinary three-atom molecule has had such a large impact on our planet’s climate over geologic time, and will also help determine its future warming due to human activity. In addition to providing a simple explanation of CO₂ radiative forcing on Earth, our results may have implications for understanding radiation and climate on other planets.

中文翻译：

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费米共振和全球变暖的量子力学基础

尽管人为气候变化的科学原理已十分确定，但现有的二氧化碳变暖效应计算依赖于光谱吸收数据库，这掩盖了气候问题的物理基础。在这里，我们展示了如何通过分子关键振动-旋转转变的第一原理描述来表达CO ₂辐射强迫。我们的分析阐明了二氧化碳作为温室气体的有效性对对称拉伸模式之间的费米共振的依赖性ν ₁、弯曲方式ν ₂ .值得注意的是，一个普通的三原子分子中明显偶然的量子共振在地质时期对我们星球的气候产生了如此大的影响，并且还将有助于确定未来由于人类活动而导致的变暖。除了提供地球上CO ₂辐射强迫的简单解释外，我们的结果可能对理解其他行星上的辐射和气候具有影响。