Recently I said to someone

“I believe the scientific basis of global warming is very simple: if you put more heat (energy) into something than comes out, the temperature will go up. A commonly shared experience we can all relate to is getting into your car on a 90-degree day only to find that the inside temperature is around 120-degrees, due to the trapped heat.”

I wanted to check my statement about the 120 degree Fahrenheit (48.9 degree C) temperature inside the car to see if it was true.  I used a small automated weather station to get the inside and outside air temperatures and an infrared thermometer to measure surface temperatures.  Here is what I found (in degrees C):

12:15 PM, Location Mayaguez, Puerto Rico, Sept. 22, 2014, 2001 Honda Accord, Black.

Air temperature outside 31.6 C

Air temperature inside car 49.1 C (My statement was very close!)

Surface temperatures…