Is the Atmosphere Really Such a Good Blanket?
The incorrect application of the current methodology for treating and averaging Earth's surface temperatures has contributed to contradictions and misinterpretations in different scientific disciplines, particularly in climate change and global warming research. The methodology previously proposed by the author addresses these shortcomings and provides a physically based framework for further analysis. This paper demonstrates that the contribution attributed to the atmosphere in determining the warming of the Earth's surface may be substantially overestimated, with the estimated effect differing by approximately 10 degrees Celsius from the conventional interpretation. The analysis is based on the ERA5 reanalysis dataset produced by the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF), using hourly skin temperature data for 1950-2025 on a global grid of approximately 1.04 million cells representing the Earth's surface. The proposed method enables an absolute assessment of global warming, confirms the long-term warming trend, and provides a comparative analysis with results obtained using the conventional methodology.