

Where Does Earth's Surface Energy Go During an Ice Age? - personjerry
http://earthscience.stackexchange.com/questions/2410/during-the-ice-ages-or-snowball-earth-times-where-was-all-the-energy

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lutusp
Simple answer -- the earth's surface heat energy is radiated away into space,
the ultimate heat sink. Barring any limiting factors like atmospheric CO2 to
prevent loss of energy, and absorbed sunlight, the surface temperature could
fall to 2.7 Kelvins, the so-called CMB and the universe's background
temperature.

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gus_massa
Don't forget water vapor (and clouds), that is the main greenhouse gas:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_gas#Impacts_on_the_o...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_gas#Impacts_on_the_overall_greenhouse_effect)

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lutusp
I left this off the list because a frozen snowball earth was the topic. But
yes, water vapor, methane and other greenhouse gases play an important part in
most circumstances.

