Bad science, bad arguments.
The issue is *not* the distribution of thermal energy among chemical species in the atmosphere, but ability to absorb infrared radiation. All wavelengths of sunlight that can be absorbed by atmospheric gasses are absorbed high in the thermosphere and reradiated into space long before they get to surface.
When sunlight is absorbed by the surface, it heats the surface. Think tarmac in July in Dallas at noon. This heat is transferred to the atmosphere by two mechanisms, convection, when air molecules of any species contact the surface, and by radiation. Heat is mostly radiated at infrared wavelengths, the surface converts sunlight to infrared wavelengths.
Gas molecules containing only one element, like N2 or O2 react only weakly with infrared radiation. They are unpolarized and cannot interact with long wave radiation. Molecules with different elements like CO2, H2O and CH4 have electric dipoles and interact with longer wave radiation, converting it into rotational and vibrational modes of the molecule. Random rotation and vibration of molecules are just forms of heat. The mean time between collision between “greenhouse gas” molecules and N2 or O2 is on the order of nanoseconds, faster than they are likely to re-radiate the energy they have absorbed.
The effect is to transfer heat from greenhouse gasses to the more common species. The transfer takes place more or less instantaneously, the entire bulk is at thermal equilibrium in no time. There is naturally so much CO2 in the atmosphere that all the IR radiation emitted by the surface will be absorbed. The question is at what altitude. With higher concentrations of CO2, more is absorbed at lower elevations and has the effect of heating the surface. Without any greenhouse gasses, the earth would be a frozen iceball. With more greenhouse gasses, other things being equal (and they never are), the surface would be warmer.
No one seriously doubts any of this.
Thank you for stating this. Reading the excerpt at the end of the article was like fingernails on a chalkboard. The author should have stuck with the list of questions.