Naked Science Forum
Life Sciences => The Environment => Topic started by: Henry Pool on 17/04/2009 10:30:02
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Henry Pool asked the Naked Scientists:
Hi you all
Subject: global warming
I read an article about climate change, and I quote: "It turns out you can't save species without saving the sky. That will mean reducing carbon emissions as fast as possible." (Time, April 13)
Now, we have the theory that the earth is warming up due to more CO2 getting into the atmosphere from the burning of fossil fuels, causing a green house effect.
Reaction: C (any wood or fossil fuel) O2 (burning) = CO2 (g)
My problem is: I cannot remember having seen any figures on this increase in CO2. I think a relevant question is: How much is the increase every year? Do you perhaps have an answer to that? How much is it and by how much every year is the CO2 in the air increasing?
On the other side of the balance we have nature itself (e.g. forests, oceans, seas) trying to move CO2 back to oxygen.
Reaction: CO2 + UV sunlight + fauna & flora = O2 (g)
But forests are being cut down at an alarming rate and pollution caused by overpopulation may have an effect on the seas and oceans around us, causing less oxygen to be put back in the atmosphere by this process.
Perhaps, as we speak, we are removing much more oxygen by burning fossil fuels then nature is putting back. I do not know. Do you have an answer to that? Don't you think that that would be a relevant question, to see which way the balance is moving?
The problem is (again): I cannot remember ever having seen any figures on the increase or decrease of oxygen. The question is: How fast is the oxygen content of the air in the world decreasing, if at all?
My proposal is that we must agree to a number of standard places on earth where we measure the CO2 and O2 content, at a specified height. All these results and the average should be published every week or month, at a place where everyone can find this, together with a year to year graph, so that we know whether or not we are moving in the right direction. This would become like a barometer on the health of the sky.
I hope you will agree with me that it is time to de-mystify some of the aspects of 'global warming' and come up with some real figures and facts, from exact measurements.
Many thanks!
Regards,
Henry Pool
What do you think?
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Here is the first of a few figures which may trigger others to posts here too!
This graph (http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/) shows the readings and annual trend of CO2 increase since 2005 in Hawaii, and so you can see that it has increased by about 9 parts per million (ppm) over the last 4 years. The box to the right of the graph shows the annual CO2 increase in ppm from 1959 to present. No decreases in there, are there!
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In principle the production of that extra 9 ppm over the last 4 years will have been accompanied by a fall in the oxygen concentration of about 9 ppm.
However that means that it fell from (about) 21% to about 20.9991% In fact, because of local variations, it wouldn't be easy (perhaps not even possible) to show that a change that small has actually happened.
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Henry - you can get to the graphs by clicking on the words "This graph" in Dentstudent's post, or by going here: http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/
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yes, I found the the graphs from Pieter Tans, very interesting. An analysis of these results over each (reported) decade suggest that the annual increase in CO2 will soon be about 2,5 ppm's per annum. However, look carefully at the rate of the increase. It does seem to be slowing down a bit. Any ideas on why?
I also find the 2,5 ppm's (= 2,5 milligrams per kilo air) much lower than expected. Difficult yet to imagine that a change this small can have such a serious influence on the climate.
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I have thought about it whole day, but I really, honestly, cannot believe that an increase in the CO2 content of only 70 ppm's (0,007%) since 1960 could possibly be the cause or reason for global warming. That is not it. Impossible. But I still know that global warming is real. We can see it happening in Alaska, Greenland and in the arctics. But if it is not in the air, then it must be something else. I am thinking, it is us... We want to live and work in a warm place, drive cars, fly planes, and we are the ones who make all that heat and fire on earth. It is all 6,7 billion of us. These results of the CO2 content show to me that we have to shift our way of thinking completely. We simply have to reduce the amount of heat that we produce on earth each year, not carbon emissions. Unfortunately, I don't know and I am not yet sure how we can do that without interrupting basic human rights....
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Since you cannot convert ppm to mg/kilo correctly it's fair to assume that you don't have a clue what you are talking about. On that basis it makes more sense for you to listen to those people who do know what they are talking about and accept that the change does make a difference.
Also you might want to think about the fact that the change (270 ppm to 340 ppm) is roughly 25% not 0.007%.
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I am not sure how you say that I made a mistake in my ppm to %w/w conversion. You said yourself that 9 ppm = 0,0009% w/w, so the 70 ppm increase (since 1960) must be equal to 0,007%?
So the bored chemist is saying that the CO2 content went up by approx. 25% which I am not denying. But in the composition of air this change was from 0,027% to 0,034%, an increase of only 0,007% w/w. I am saying that I think that in the atmosphere such a small change is not relevant, and cannot possibly be a cause for heat being trapped (green house effect). Have there been any tests done on that (at such low CO2 concentrations?)
Anyway, I am clear in my mind as to what the reasons are for global warming. We have to stop cooking.
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Just exactly where was I dumb enough to say %w/w?
Concentrations of gases are generally measured and expressed as volume fractions (% or ppm) or as mass/ volume .
Do you understand that
Air is mainly nitrogen, oxygen, argon and carbon dioxide and that only one of these absorbs infra red so, from the point of view of the greenhouse effect, the other gases might as well not be there.
In effect the blanket just got 25% thicker and you don't accept that this could cause a change.
As I said, it might be better if you knew what you were on about.
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You can express it any way you want. If you talk about ppm (part per million) then 1 ppm = 1mg/kg = 0,0001% w/w which is why you (correctly) stated that 9 ppm = 0,0009%. Hardly even measurable if you talk about the oxygen. So what I say is this: the air that we breath now is 99.99% the same as the air that we breathed in 1960. If you want me to believe that such a small change of less then 0,01% in the air over a period of almost 50 years is causing global warming you have to prove that to me from the relevant studies. I am sure such studies must have been done? Perhaps someone can direct me to those studies? Otherwise, if you cannot prove that to me, I am still thinking that maybe it is not the change in the composition of the air that we have to worry about. Maybe it is rather the cumulative heat that we are producing all together, by wanting to stay cool or warm and cook and move about. Does that not make some sense?
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Look, I spend my days at work largely doing analysis of air and I know that, in that context ppm refers to v/v (strictly speaking mole fraction) not mg/kg.
Also, if you don't see how making the blanket 25% thicker will warem things up then you are on the wrong website.
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Yes, that must be it. It must be me. I'm sorry that I don't understand it.
Let us just consider the off chance that I am right and that it is not the 70 ppm's of CO2 that was added to the atmosphere since 1960 that is the cause of our global warming. Suppose it is mostly the increase in energy generated by man on earth's surface (Henry's theory). In that case, I have come to the conclusion that even that does not change that much to the whole global warming debate. The total energy going onto the surface of earth is made up of two main parts, namely one that comes from nature itsself and one that which is manmade. Obviously,if we can convert energy from nature and channel it to man, we win, because then the total energy sum goes down./ Energy coming from nature includes that from the sun (sunlight), moon,(gravity), and those interacting with nature, e.g. rain, wind, rivers,hot water springs, etc. If we can convert any of these energy sources already present in nature, we win. If we all become more energy efficient and start using (energy efficient) public transport, we also win. The only thing that would really change in the debate is that nuclear energy would not be green. Because it would still add to the overall energy equation.
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"Suppose it is mostly the increase in energy generated by man on earth's surface "
OK, lets suppose that's true for a minute.
Since the sun dumps roughly a kilowatt of power onto each square meter of the earth's surface (on the sunlit side) then mankind must be making a roughly comparable contribution in order to explain the warming.
The effective area of the earth's sunward side is about 100 million million square metres so that's about 120 million billion watts of power. Now there are roughly 6 billion of us, so for us to contribute that much power we would need to dissipate something like 20 megawatts each.
OK I said we would suppose that the suggestion was valid; if I make that supposition I come to the conclusion that each man woman and child on the earth must be wasting some reasonably significant fraction of 20 MW.
Do you understand why I'm going to stop supposing that?
I'm all in favour of green progress, but lets not base it on a silly fantasy.
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I don't know, I think that calculation has some holes in it, because I don't see a time factor brought in it. I would like to check it out when I get the time for it. The atmosphere and surface also reflects and shields a lot of that energy from the sun. So I think it is not quite as simple as all that.
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In order to do this calculation, I would start looking at the amount of energy the average person consumes.In order to that I would need to know the total amount of wood (Africa fuel!), coal, liquid fuels, kerosene and gas consumed in the world as well as the total amount of electricity generated. All these consumption figures per time period. I am sure bored chemist has these figures for me? THANKS.
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It seems I am not getting the answers that I was hoping for that would prove to me one way or another that the 70 odd ppm’s of Carbon dioxide that were added to the atmosphere since 1960 are to blame for global warming. Surely, there must have been tests done to prove this theory? If yes, where are the results of these studies?
Just in case no results of such studies are available, I am proposing the following experiments. I am hoping that maybe the naked scientists can interest some of the stake holders to help conduct these experiments. Feel free to propose modifications to these experiments if you think it will be an improvement.
I hope that the results of all of these experiments may prove one way or another that carbon dioxide is to blame for global warming more then anything else, or that perhaps it has no influence, or that perhaps there might be a combination of factors that is at work here. It is imperative that we know which are the important factors when we look at global warming as otherwise we could be making the wrong policy decisions!
Experiment 1
We have a glass vessel, about 100 liters, flushed and filled with 80% nitrogen and 20% oxygen, representing the earth and its atmosphere at the beginning.
We have a probe on the side, in the middle, connected to a thermocouple and a temperature recorder. We have a heating element in the middle of the vessel. The vessel is closed from the outside. The outside temperature is kept constant, at all times.
A measured amount of energy is released into the vessel. The resulting increase of the temperature in the vessel is recorded until it falls back to the base line. The area below the curve is measured. The measurements are repeated until a constant result can be reported. (A)
We now double the amount of energy released into the vessel, this increase representing human activity on earth. The area below the curve is measured. The measurements are repeated until a constant result can be reported. (B)
In the case of this experiment, the result is predictable (i.e. if you double the amount of energy released in a vessel you should find close to a doubling of the area under your graph) which proves that Henry’s theory may have some bearing on global warming.
Experiment 2
Experiment 2 is the same as experiment 1, but now the vessel is filled with air, which includes all 350 ppm or so carbon dioxide currently available in 2009 air. The results are C en D. What would be interesting for scientists to know is the difference between A and C and between B and D – in other words: if we release similar amounts of energy into the vessel, what effects, if any, does the carbon dioxide and the other gases present in air have on temperature retention inside the vessel.
Experiment 3
To prove bored chemist’s theory, it becomes a little bit more difficult. The heating element inside is removed. I propose to use a laser beam that introduces infra red light into the vessel via a KBr pressed cell on top of the vessel. (I hope this works). The vessel remains closed to the outside atmosphere. This energy source represents sun light. The amount of energy introduced by this laser beam must be very close to that of the amount of energy introduced in the first experiment. You have to try and compare apples with apples. The vessel is flushed and filled with 80% nitrogen and 20% oxygen. The result is E and for doubling the energy, we will call it F. However, remember, A-E and F-B should be close to 0, when looking at the square area underneath the graph (fine tuning of exposure to the laser beam).
Experiment 4
Experiment 4 is the same as experiment 3, with identical amounts of energy being introduced inside the vessel as in experiment 3, but now the vessel is filled with air, which includes all 350 ppm's or so carbon dioxide currently available in 2009 air. The results are G en H. What would be interesting for scientists to know is the difference between E and G and between F and H – in other words: if we release similar amounts of energy into the vessel, what effects, if any, does the carbon dioxide and the other gases present in air have on temperature retention in the vessel.
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>It seems I am not getting the answers that I was hoping for that would
>prove to me one way or another that the 70 odd ppm’s of Carbon dioxide
>that were added to the atmosphere since 1960 are to blame for global
>warming. Surely, there must have been tests done to prove this theory?
>If yes, where are the results of these studies?
When the response to asking pertinent questions is that you are belittled and told that you don't understand and should leave it to those who do then you can be pretty sure you are on the right track. According to data from ice core samples there have been times in the past when the levels of CO2 have been many times higher than they are now. The result of having more of the life giving CO2 is that plants and trees flourish. The amount of CO2 produced by the entire United States in a year is minuscule when compared to the amount produced by a single active volcano. There are a lot of volcanoes in the world.
How about this? Maybe the CO2 didn't cause the warming at all. Maybe the opposite is true and the warming caused more CO2 in the atmosphere. Maybe it's due to natural cycles of the Earth and Sun. That might explain why "global warming" is also happening on Mars and other planets. It also might explain why the warming of the Earth and Mars has been directly proportional to the warming of the Sun. It is also interesting to note that the Earth's temperature in 2008 was cooler than in the previous 10 years. It looks like 2009 will be even cooler. I notice that many of those who make a lot of money from promoting the idea of global warming have switched to using the phrase "climate change" rather than "global warming". Coincidence? Not likely.
TED
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When the response to asking pertinent questions is that you are belittled and told that you don't understand and should leave it to those who do then you can be pretty sure you are on the right track.
As any 3-year old child can tell you.
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Henry, the experiments you propose would tell you about conduction and convection losses rather than radiation losses so they don't have any bearing on the greenhouse effect.
Is TED a "sockpuppet"?
Anyway; it may be ture that "When the response to asking pertinent questions is that you are belittled and told that you don't understand and should leave it to those who do then you can be pretty sure you are on the right track. "
I wonder what you can be pretty sure of when someone points out that, rather than a 0.007% change, you are talking about a 25% change and that, based on the power delivered, your theory ignores something like 20MW per person.
My guess is that you can be pretty sure you are just dead wrong.
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We are talking about the retention of heat by the earth, i.e. heat being retained because it cannot escape. Similarly I have noticed in winter that if you come to the city after staying outside on the same plane (height) the temperature in the city is always a few degrees higher. What has this heat now to do with radiation? It what we do, we heat our houses. Anyway, I did try and simulate sunlight in the experiment with infra red radiation, can that not work? A good idea would be to add a fan to the vessel, for even heat distribution (that would simulate the wind). Otherwise, if you don't want to do this experiment, where are the results of your tests that I am asking about? Could it be that they have been done, and they prove nothing?
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The extra warmth of big cities is well doccumented.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urban_heat_island
However as most of the earth's surface isn't even land, never mind a city the potential for this to affect the overall temperature is small. Even in a city centre the heat from mankind's activity is less than a tenth of that from the sun. Of course, in rural areas it's practically zero and there are vastly more bits of the world without antropogenic heatig than with.
As for experimental evidence, I have got a greenhouse and it's generally warmer in there than outside so there's no question that the greenhouse effect works.
I also use infra red spectrometry at work and I know that CO2 absorbs infra red radiation.
What mechanism are you proposing that stops the greenhouse effect?
Incidentally, while this
isn't a very sophisticated experiment, it shows the effect of a CO2 atmosphere on the temperature of an object heated by radiation.
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Is TED a "sockpuppet"?
IP's don't match. I think he's an opportunist, rather than a sockpuppet.
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Is TED a "sockpuppet"?
IP's don't match. I think he's an opportunist, rather than a sockpuppet.
Fair enough, but I think you can understand my suspicion.
BTW, Henry,
I know I have not cited particularly evidence to back up the conventional theory. To be fair, there's plenty of discussion of it elsewhere on the net.
Do you have any evidence at all to back up your ideas?
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Henry, I don't have time to go in to much detail, but just skimming over your posts I have picked a few quotes out:
I hope you will agree with me that it is time to de-mystify some of the aspects of 'global warming' and come up with some real figures and facts, from exact measurements.
I also find the 2,5 ppm's (= 2,5 milligrams per kilo air) much lower than expected. Difficult yet to imagine that a change this small can have such a serious influence on the climate.
I have thought about it whole day, but I really, honestly, cannot believe that an increase in the CO2 content of only 70 ppm's (0,007%) since 1960 could possibly be the cause or reason for global warming.
It seems I am not getting the answers that I was hoping for that would prove to me one way or another that the 70 odd ppm’s of Carbon dioxide that were added to the atmosphere since 1960 are to blame for global warming.
From those quotes I am lead to believe that you just don't understand basic Meteorology or Climatology, and that you have not researched the content of this topic. The subject is only mystifying when you do not know or understand the science, and yes, there are "real" facts and figures from exact measurements, how else could we know the changing state of the atmosphere? One place you may wish to look up is the Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii:
Mauna Loa Observatory (MLO) is a premier atmospheric research facility that has been continuously monitoring and collecting data related to atmospheric change since the 1950's. The undisturbed air, remote location, and minimal influences of vegetation and human activity at MLO are ideal for monitoring consituents in the atmosphere that can cause climate change. The observatory is part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) - Earth System Research Laboratory (ESRL) - Global Monitoring Division (GMD).
http://www.mlo.noaa.gov/
Comments here also seem to be confusing Climate Change with the Greenhouse Effect, and I would again recommend that people read this:
http://www.ems.psu.edu/~fraser/Bad/BadGreenhouse.html .
The greenhouse effect is actually a good thing and needed for life, without it the average surface temperature would be around -18 degrees Celsius. There is no scientific argument that the greenhouse effect is real and happening.
Global warming, or more accurately global climate change happens because the usual pattern whereby the earth s surface absorbs visible radiation from the sun, which causes heating and the surface and the atmosphere then emit infrared radiation back to space. If this was left uninterrupted then the earths surface temperatures would remain fairly constant, but increased greenhouse gasses have and are changing this. As has been discussed earlier, the concentration of Co2 has increased, this is causing more heat to be trapped in earths atmosphere instead of radiating out into space.
A pdf from the WMO will give you information on the values of increase in these gases:
http://www.wmo.ch/web/arep/gaw/ghg/ghg-bulletin-en-03-06.pdf
The UK Meteorological Office also have an Educational section:
http://www.metoffice.gov.UK/climatechange/
You made this comment:
Similarly I have noticed in winter that if you come to the city after staying outside on the same plane (height) the temperature in the city is always a few degrees higher.
Which prompted BC to post about the urban heat island. This can increase the local temperature by as much as (IIRC) 5 degrees Celsius, and alter the local climate conditions. What you have noticed is this effect, but for the wrong reason. If you look at the weather maps on your local forecast they will show areas where the temperatures are the same, they are represented as (usually) black lines and they are called an isotherm...places of equal temperature. You could leave that city and go to another town, nearby, that is of a lower elevation and that could have a higher temperature. So your observation is not really valid.
I just don't have the time to go in to detail, and may aspects have been left out, such as the most important one, water vapour and the effect increased Co2 has on it. Why not try reading and learning some basic meteorology and get a feel and understanding of how things work before trying to challenge something big like climate change?
here are a few places to start:
http://www.srh.noaa.gov/jetstream//
www.theweatherprediction.com
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OK, let’s sum up what we got on my original question. We found only one place in the whole earth where they dutifully kept track of the CO2 content each year.. It was noted that about 70 ppm’s of CO2 were added to the atmosphere since 1960 (in Hawaii). This was considered to be so small, that it would hardly make a dent in the oxygen content, i.e. no measurable difference in the oxygen content.. The question has now shifted from “How much CO2 is added every year” to “How much is the influence of varying amounts of CO2 in the atmosphere to global warming”. A variety of people have told me to go and do some studying because I just don’t understand but no one so far has given me an answer... Fine, CO2 and water etc. absorb in the infra-red region. So what? What does that prove? Maybe these gases should cause cooling, because they keep that infra red from reaching earth? Why would they not start acting as a mirror outward to keep the heat out? Where are the studies that show this as proof, using varying amounts of carbon dioxide so that anyone (especially the stupid people in government and me) can understand it?
Please note: I am not denying that global warming is happening. I can see it. There is talk of the northern passage opening up and shipping magnates are already happy, because when it does, they can ship their stuff much faster from the east to the west. In fact, 400 yrs ago Barents was hoping on finding this northern passage open, but got stuck in the ice.
But why is global warming happening? We have to find the correct reasons. Seas and oceans are no longer empty. There are filled with ships and aeroplanes that put enormous amounts of energy in the air. Half of the world population has no excess to gas and electricity from a plug in their homes, they still use wood or anthracite for cooking and heating. The whole world is putting out enormous amounts of energy up in the air. Is it not more logical to blame or partly blame human activity for global warming rather then some or other gas up in the air? (As proven from Henry’s experiment A )
BC thinks that he can compare the CO2 green house effect with his warm house in the garden. I think this is an over simplification and may also be completely wrong. I don’t think the CO2 is like a “film” in the air. Surely it is diffused into the air, very much like sugar into water?
Anyway, to settle this matter, we have to do some testing. Or bring the studies that prove this, hopefully in such a way that anyone can understand it.
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Just for a start while it's true that "We found only one place in the whole earth where they dutifully kept track of the CO2 content each year." we didn't bother to look very carefully. There are thousands of CO2 monitors in the world- not least the ones used to check vehicle emmissions.
We usually cite the ones measured in Hawaii because they are unlikely to be infuenced by local events.
You also say that
"The question has now shifted from “How much CO2 is added every year” to “How much is the influence of varying amounts of CO2 in the atmosphere to global warming”. "
Well, you shifted it by saying
"I have thought about it whole day, but I really, honestly, cannot believe that an increase in the CO2 content of only 70 ppm's (0,007%) since 1960 could possibly be the cause or reason for global warming. That is not it. Impossible. "
In saying that you asserted (without any evidence) the the greenhouse effect of CO2 is not responsible for global warming.
You said that it couldn't be the reason because the change is so small.
In doing so you failed to notice that a change of 0.007 percentage points is a change in total CO2 of roughly a quarter. That's quite a big change.
You put forward the idea that the change is due to the waste heat from industialised society and I pointed out that our direct heating is a drop in the ocean compared to the heat we get from the sun.
You also ask "Why would they not start acting as a mirror outward to keep the heat out? "
Well, I don't know about you but I wouldn't make a mirror out of coal. Do you have any idea what you are talking about?
Do you actually understand the conventional view of the greenhouse effect?
"BC thinks that he can compare the CO2 green house effect with his warm house in the garden. I think this is an over simplification and may also be completely wrong. "
We all know it's a simplification; it may be wrong.
Please provide a better model or an viable alternative reason for the observed heating or shut up about it.
As for things like
"Is it not more logical to blame or partly blame human activity for global warming rather then some or other gas up in the air? (As proven from Henry’s experiment A )"
I wonder what you think you mean. Have you actually done the experiment?
If not this should be relabeled as "Henry's uninformed guess A" which doesn't, of course, prove anything.
Also re "I don’t think the CO2 is like a “film” in the air."
Nobody said it was; do you not realise that the peopple here are very good at spotting strawmen and will just point out that, if you have to resort to logical fallacies to make your point then that point can't be very good?
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If something has not (yet) been proven to me (i.e. that CO2 is in fact to blame for global warming), I have to take a point of view that makes more sense to me. Please read experiment A again. It is about proving that if you add more energy to a vessel, you will note an increase of the temperature in that vessel. Surely I donot actually have to perform Experiment A to know what will happen? The result of that Experiment A already proves to me that heat/fire/transport/ warming activities caused by humans may have some % influence on global warming. So, I already have proven my point. I just don't know by how much %. Now, because of that, I don't think I am the one who has to shut up.... I just hope we can find someone who can come to us with measured evidence that proves CO2 is to blame, and maybe get some figures from (an) actual experiment(s).Otherwise there is still experiments B, C and D...
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Sod this pointless argument. Let's take a planet and add lots of CO2 to the armosphere and see if the temperature goes up.
OK, done that. It did. End of debate.
Any argument that the process of generating the CO2 also generated some heat is a distraction because we know that the heat added is tiny compared to that added by the sun.
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Poor BC. We gave him a hard time. I hope we don't need a whole planet to either prove or disprove Henry's theory. I have done some thinking about what might happen if we do experiment 4. I think we might be in for a big surprise. I think we might find that G-E and H-F is <0. In other words, I think we might find that the CO2 causes a cooling effect rather then a warming effect. How do I come to this belief? BC also mentioned this and most chemists know this, namely that CO2 absorbs in the infra red region. What does this mean exactly? It actually means that it blocks the infra red. (in a similar way, this was the reason why I chose KBr to introduce infra red into the vessel because I knew that the glass of the vessel would block most of the IR). So this being the case, if CO2 blocks IR then this probably happens in a similar way as ozone blocks UV. (IR is the hot radiation, UV is the cold radiation). So therefore, if CO2 blocks IR, if anything, it should protect us from more heat coming in, rather then the other way around. So if we do this experiment, and if we have a fan, and if we release identical amounts of IR energy as were released in experiment 3, it could well be that we see the CO2 blocking some IR energy from coming into the vessel.
So now, come on BC, why not simply admit that we won't know for sure one way or the other, unless we do the tests?
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Henry, your original questin asks "How much is the increase in CO2 every year". Here are figures for the Annual Mean Growth Rate at Mauna Loa, Hawaii
year ppm/yr
1959 0.95
1960 0.51
1961 0.95
1962 0.69
1963 0.73
1964 0.29
1965 0.98
1966 1.23
1967 0.75
1968 1.02
1969 1.34
1970 1.02
1971 0.82
1972 1.76
1973 1.18
1974 0.78
1975 1.10
1976 0.91
1977 2.09
1978 1.31
1979 1.68
1980 1.80
1981 1.43
1982 0.72
1983 2.16
1984 1.37
1985 1.24
1986 1.51
1987 2.33
1988 2.09
1989 1.27
1990 1.31
1991 1.02
1992 0.43
1993 1.35
1994 1.90
1995 1.98
1996 1.19
1997 1.96
1998 2.93
1999 0.94
2000 1.74
2001 1.59
2002 2.56
2003 2.29
2004 1.57
2005 2.56
2006 1.69
2007 2.17
2008 1.66
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/
This is a link to NOAA's Earth System Research Lab (ESRL), and their carbon tracker.
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/carbontracker/
This link is for the GMD Carbon Cycle Greenhouse Gases Group (CCGG)
The NOAA ESRL Carbon Cycle Greenhouse Gases group makes ongoing discrete measurements from land and sea surface sites and aircraft, and continuous measurements from baseline observatories and tall towers. These measurements document the spatial and temporal distributions of carbon-cycle gases and provide essential constraints to our understanding of the global carbon cycle.
You say "My proposal is that we must agree to a number of standard places on earth where we measure the CO2 and O2 content".
Well, NOAA has a network of five global baseline observatories and about 100 global cooperative sampling sites extends from the high Arctic to the South Pole. Samples are also taken at five-degree latitude intervals from three oceanic ship routes. A Baltic ferry line collects samples as it makes its daily crossing. All samples are sent to Boulder for analysis and comparison with NOAA's world standards for the gases. So we already do have those standard places.
This last link from ESRI is for THE NOAA ANNUAL GREENHOUSE GAS INDEX (AGGI)
NOAA Earth System Research Laboratory, R/GMD, 325 Broadway, Boulder, CO 80305-3328
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/aggi/
Have a look around their pages, you will learn all you should need to know.
Again I repeat this
I hope you will agree with me that it is time to de-mystify some of the aspects of 'global warming' and come up with some real figures and facts, from exact measurements
It is not mystifying if you know the science and are willing to listen to people. There are facts and figures if you are willing to look for them or accept the help and assistance of others, bitching and name calling will get you nowhere.
More when I have the time...
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Sod this pointless argument. Let's take a planet and add lots of CO2 to the armosphere and see if the temperature goes up.
OK, done that. It did. End of debate.
Any argument that the process of generating the CO2 also generated some heat is a distraction because we know that the heat added is tiny compared to that added by the sun.
This is why I rarely bother with climate cahnge discussions here. They just don't want to listen, and always know better.
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Paul, we have already noted that about 70 ppm's of CO2 have been added to the atmosphere since 1960. The only thing that is lacking is any proof (from physical measurements) that CO2 is to blame for global warming.Do you have this proof? BC thinks that human activity (including transport, wars, fires, gas-, coal-, wood- and oil burning etc.) add little energy to the earth's atmosphere. I disagree. I also think that maybe CO2 has nothing to do with global warming or that it might even be good - as it blocks IR radiation. But now it seems no one has has done any tests.
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Measuring the IR absorbtion of CO2 is a physical measuremnt, why do you keep ignoring it?
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Yes, and during this physical measurement we throw a beam of IR onto the C-O bond, and the instrument measures the reflection and tells us that the IR absorbs (C-O blocks the IR beam). So if infra red radiation from outside falls onto CO2 a similar thing must happen, i.e. the CO2 is blocking the IR (although only partially) similar to the UV being blocked by O3.
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look, I cannot believe that there have been no environmental studies done that prove that CO2 is to blame for global warming, other then someone saying: oh, it must be that, because that's the only thing that it can be. Surely, CO2 has been in the air forever. In fact, if it was not for CO2 there would be no supper for us tonight.... Would the good Lord make CO2 if it was bad for us? But anyway, let us please just prove it one way or the other.
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Henry, the topic question has been answered, the rest of the posts on this topic are all over the place, there are too many questions and no form to the way the discussion is going. You also fail to explain why you think what you do, and fail to cite references or articles you have read.
I also find the 2,5 ppm's (= 2,5 milligrams per kilo air) much lower than expected. Difficult yet to imagine that a change this small can have such a serious influence on the climate.
What were you expecting? and what were those expectations based on?
I have thought about it whole day, but I really, honestly, cannot believe that an increase in the CO2 content of only 70 ppm's (0,007%) since 1960 could possibly be the cause or reason for global warming. That is not it. Impossible.
What are you basing you imposibilities on?
But they are not the only cause or reason for global warming, they play a part in enhansing the greenhouse effect and a role in climate feedback loops.
OK, let’s sum up what we got on my original question. We found only one place in the whole earth where they dutifully kept track of the CO2 content each year..
wrong.
The question has now shifted from “How much CO2 is added every year” to “How much is the influence of varying amounts of CO2 in the atmosphere to global warming”
You shifted the conversation. I would suggest that once the initial question has been answered, you open up another topic of discussion to keep them seperate, clearer and lees jumbled up. This may encourage others to post, and will make the whole mess easier to read and follow.
If you are willing to do this then this conversation may continue, if not then I will not continue to get a headache trying to follow it. In the meantime may I suggest you have a read through this book:
http://books.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=10850&page=1
and here are a few links you may also wish to check out:
http://cdiac.ornl.gov/aboutcdiac.html
http://www.academicinfo.net/environstwarming.html
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Dear Paul, you are also ducking and diving and not really answering my question. I serve no other interest then my own curiosity. I cannot quote anyone because I am not familiar in this field, I am just a retired chemist. But I think what we discuss here is important, as wrong policies maybe formed because scientists have not done a good job. I think everyone is on the bandwagon blaming CO2 for global warming, yet no one here could convince me from actual measured evidence that it is bad.. But thanks for your advice& I agree that we must start a new question. I did post a new question.
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Here is perhaps some useful background reading:
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/308/5727/1431
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Not to clear to me, as a layman. But I have posed the question to the author. Just remember: I never denied that global heating is happening. Note that they form their forecasts on global warming on measurements of the oceans, which is correct. But then they blame (amongst others) CO2 - of which it is not clear where they get that "evidence" from.It seems it is just assumed that everyone believes this?
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I don't think that it's a question of apportioning blame to a single cause, ie, CO2. Firstly, of course in science, there is no such thing as "proof". All decisions are based on a body of evidence, of which there is plenty that CO2 is a GHG and contributes to GCC. Secondly, CO2 is seen as perhaps the "easiest" to remedy through reductions in energy consumption / storage / public awareness. Thirdly, the time that CO2 is active in the atmosphere as a GHG is considerably longer than some other GHGs like Methane, and so it is of greater importance to make sure that it doesn't get there in the first place.
I think that it is quite clear from the evidence that CO2 contributes to GCC as a GHG and that a reasonable response to this is to make efforts to reduce its release.
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I did post a new question.
I don't see it....
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I did e-mail the question to Chris. I suppose we will have to wait and see if they put it on? I have also posed same question to other people who seem to have done work on global warming.THANKS!
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You are able to start your own topic in an appropriate area of the forum without Chris if you wish. Just go to the proper subject area and click "New Topic" and you can post your own question. Just make sure that it's in the form of a question, otherwise the mods get all tetchy.
*Waves at mods [:X]*
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Henry, your "experiment 3." shows that you simply don't understand the theory.
In that experiment you propose heating an object using IR. The point about the greenhouse effect is that the energy arrives as visible light (which goes through the CO2)and is absorbed by the ground which heats up. The ground then tries to lose heat by IR radiation but some of that radiation is trapped because the CO2 absorbs it. The only way it can lose the heat is to get slightly hotter.
None of this is rocket science.
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I think I know where you are going with this. My (thought) experiment 3 & 4 was designed to similate sunshine coming in. Undeniably, I think I would have been able to prove that CO2 causes a cooling effect. However, you and others want us to look what happens to IR that is already in, looking from the inside out? Thereby ignoring the initial cooling effect? Let us continue this discussion on the new topic (since we strayed too far from the original question)
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There is no cooling effect. The absorbtion of radiation doesn't make things go cold.
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"carbon emissions" are often blamed as the greatest culprit for global warming. But is this really true? How can we be sure about this? What about energy coming from increased sun activity? What about increased salinity of the ocean, does that not trap heat? What about increased volcanic activity, going on underneath the seabed, that we cannot even see happening? What about energy from human activities - e.g.all these Abombs and rockets? &.......(fill in)
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If you compare the normal rate of global temperature fluctuations over the past hundreds of years compared to the natural temperature increases, there is little difference. However, what we call the "global arch" indicates a humanitarian contribution to global temperatures, an impact the planet cannot necessarily reverse easily. As a student, I have few expertise with regards to our nearest star, the sun, although I suppose the level of thermal radiation remains relatively constant although, human activities which you mentioned are evidently a problem. CO2 emissions are causing the upper layers of the atmosphere to trap heat reflected off the surface of the Earth - maximising the greenhouse effect.
You are correct to assume increase volcanic activity could result in rapid global changes although, following 6 months of volcanic eruptions, the earth manages to restore normal natural temperatures. At the moment, in spite of past eruptions, we experience a low level of volcanic activity which again, is no different thousands of years ago to the present day.
You must consider the human arch where temperature changes most probably result due to human output.
The human arch in more detail is the curve or human line of global average temperatures over the last 50-100 years compared with the natural arch or steady curve. Here, with more information, we can calculate the average human input to global changes - which to the present day is low although every point of a degree is terribly significant and can affect specific species of unknown species dramatically.
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Don't go abroad on holiday, buy local seasonal food and become a vegetarian. If you do these three things you will save the planet. Yes co2 emissions are a biggy in global warming but they don't have to be. Remember a 4x4 driving vegetarian uses less carbon than a meat eating bus user!
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"Remember a 4x4 driving vegetarian uses less carbon than a meat eating bus user!"
Well said MiL. CO2 pollution is not as clear cut as most would have us believe. In fact, that goes for all pollutants.
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What about energy from human activities - e.g.all these Abombs and rockets? &.......(fill in)
Why are you asking this again?
Didn't you like the answer you got last time?
http://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/index.php?topic=22348.0
Mod edit - Good point - topics merged
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Greetings all. I came across this thread Googling for "experiments using various CO2 concentrations global warming" and similar terms. So far, I've only been able to come across people asking the same question, and no experiments. In reading this thread, I share many of the thoughts of Henry Pool.
To be honest, I did come across these two experiments:
http://www.espere.net/Unitedkingdom/water/uk_watexpgreenhouse.htm
http://www.rsc.org/education/teachers/learnnet/JESEI/co2green/home.htm
What strikes me as odd is that they both use 100% CO2 in their experiment, and it results in a temperature difference of a few degrees. Replicating the atmosphere of Venus and proclaiming CO2 to be a greenhouse gas is a bit overreaching, yes?
So far, I've seen experiments or studies where the entire Earth or the entire atmosphere is used as a test bed. I didn't go to college, but doesn't basic scientific method dictate that you test one variable at a time? How is this possible if you use the whole atmosphere?
What I have not seen, and what Henry Pool also wants to see, is a simple experiment with 2 enclosed boxes.
Box A: ambient air, some dirt and water at the bottom.
Box B: air with 500ppm CO2, some dirt and water at the bottom.
Put a sun lamp on them. Record the temp until it maxes. Shut the sun lamps off. Record the temp until it reaches its low point. Compare the two.
Repeat the experiment with Box B having 750PPM, 1000ppm, 2000ppm CO2.
This elementary experiment, which should be the cornerstone of the global warming argument, is nowhere to be found. Why am I having such difficulties finding this experiment? I feel like I'm taking crazy pills.
The absence of this experiment, or the difficulties in me finding it, speaks volumes.
I get the sneaking suspicion that any temperature changes would be absolutely minuscule, and that's why such an experiment is not easy to find.
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To be honest, I did come across these two experiments:
http://www.espere.net/Unitedkingdom/water/uk_watexpgreenhouse.htm
If you found Espere, did you also find thire climate encyclopedia? From memory, it has quizzes at the end of chapters / sections so you can see if you understood what you have just read.
CLIMATE ENCYCLOPEDIA (http://www.atmosphere.mpg.de/enid/1a9a82eea8a73ff77b0bb5320cf2f74c,0/English/CLIMATE_ENCYCLOPAEDIA_144.html)
You can even download it, free of charge, HERE (http://www.atmosphere.mpg.de/enid/1a9a82eea8a73ff77b0bb5320cf2f74c,0/Service/PDF_621.html)
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Thanks Paul. I'll download the entire PDF and come back to the thread in the coming days.
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Im pretty sure you can only take the quizzes on the online version, but the pdf is well worth dowloading and keeping.
At the end of the day all you can do is read whats out there and make your own mind up, but do keep questioning both sides of the argument. Even when you have decided which side you favour, keep reading what they both put out and see if their or your position changes. Both side do publish peer reviewed work, both sides have their critics of the other, and both sides have people with great personalities who can easily persuade you that they are right.
Two places to start are:
ICECAP (http://www.icecap.us/)
ICECAP, International Climate and Environmental Change Assessment Project, is the portal to all things climate for elected officials and staffers, journalists, scientists, educators and the public. It provides access to a new and growing global society of respected scientists and journalists that are not deniers that our climate is dynamic (the only constant in nature is change) and that man plays a role in climate change through urbanization, land use changes and the introduction of greenhouse gases and aerosols, but who also believe that natural cycles such as those in the sun and oceans are also important contributors to the global changes in our climate and weather. We worry the sole focus on greenhouse gases and the unwise reliance on imperfect climate models while ignoring real data may leave civilization unprepared for a sudden climate shift that history tells us will occur again, very possibly soon.
Through ICECAP you will have rapid access to our experts here in the United States and to experts and partner organizations worldwide, many of whom maintain popular web sites or insightful blogs or newsletters, write and present papers, have authored books and offer interviews to the media on climate issues. We spotlight new findings in peer-review papers and reports and rapidly respond to fallacies or exaggerations in papers, stories or programs and any misinformation efforts by the media, politicians and advocacy groups.
ICECAP is not funded by large corporations that might benefit from the status quo but by private investors who believe in the need for free exchange of ideas on this and other important issues of the day. Our working group is comprised of members from all ends of the political spectrum. This is not about politics but about science.
We are an open society that welcomes your membership and appreciates your endorsement and support. Icecap is now a 501C3 corporation. As such, contributions are tax exempt under section 170 of the Internal Revenue Code. Any bequests, transfers or gifts are also exempt under sections 2055, 2106 and 2522 of the code. For your records, we are ICECAP US.
REAL CLIMATE (http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/05/start-here/)
RealClimate is a commentary site on climate science by working climate scientists for the interested public and journalists. We aim to provide a quick response to developing stories and provide the context sometimes missing in mainstream commentary. The discussion here is restricted to scientific topics and will not get involved in any political or economic implications of the science
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Hi there. I have posted my in the "new theory" box but it seems Ben decided to close it. Anyway I decided to share my experiences as to how I came to my theory. I grew up as a young man in western Europe where it was mostly cold and wet and humid. I remember only feeling the "heat" (which we know is infra red) of the sun only during a few weeks in summer, if we were lucky. I then moved to Africa and we live inland where it is very dry, humidity usually below 30%. Now here we do feel the heat the sun! Both in winter and in summer. In fact in summer the heat is so scorching that only after ten minutes you will look for cover or shade. But on a sunny day moving to the coast going from west to east on the same height you can actually see a) a rise in humidity the nearer you get to the sea and b) a lowering of the temperature. You can actually feel that the heat from the sun is being lessened by the presence of water vapor. These experiences of mine were like the apple on Newtons head and in my mind I was able to formulate a simple rule: the higher the humidity the less infra red heat you feel from the sun, the cooler it gets. Obviously we know that carbondioxide reacts similar to water vapor, so from this I was able to formulate the general rule: the higher the humidity and carbon dioxide levels the more it covers us as a shield against infra red. So all this talk about the greenhouse effect and then to ignore the cooling effect makes no sense to me whatsoever. Hence here is my theory, for those who are interested:If carbon dioxide traps infra red radiation (IR) from earth (keeping us warm) then it must follow that carbon dioxide also blocks IR coming from the sun (similar to ozone blocking UV, keeping us cool). So the logical question everyone must ask, is: what is the nett effect, especially at the relevant levels of carbon dioxide 0.02-0.04%? Using my body as the sensor, I can measure that the IR coming from earth must be a lot less than the IR coming from the sun. This means that the cooling effect of carbon dioxide must be greater than the warming up effect. So I say: carbon dioxide is good. So my theory is this:Global warming is probably caused by energy released by human activities and/or unseen volcanic activity in the oceans or the change in salinity in the water , & probably has little or nothing at all to do with the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. (Human population has doubled in the past 50 years).
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That's not a theory,it's a collection of logical fallacies.
That may explain why it was locked.
I sugest that you lookup the definition of relative humididty; in pparticular how it relates to absolute humidity and the effect that temperature has on that relationship.
Here's a quick summary.
If you take some air and heat it, the relative humidity falls.
So, it is perfectly reasonable to assume that the low RH in the centre of Africa is due to the high temperature. The high temperature is, in turn, due to the distance from the sea.
I guess we can close this thread too now.
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I did not start this thread again to have another debate or discussion. Believe it or not, but I am actually worried that my theory is correct. If it is, we will be making the wrong decisions in Copenhagen. All I am asking for is to see the results of actual measurements of actual tests caried out during actual experiments that will give a clear answer to the logical and relevant question that I asked. We need to help each other here, that is why I posted again. If you do not have the figures then I suggest you do not interfere.
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What cooling effect? Carbon dioxide absorbs IR energy, meaning the atmosphere is heated. Where else do you think the energy goes?
If you shield your face from a fireplace it will make your face cooler, but it won't cool the whole room down will it.
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So where does the UV go that is being blocked by ozone? The term absorbtion comes from the way as to how we measure this blocking action (with an infra red spectrophotometer). If I can feel and notice a difference in the heat from the sun on earth when humidity is high,then surely that additional Infra red (heat) must have been mirrored to outside? Perhaps the H2O and CO2 molecules keep on working as mirrors even when it is saturated in heat? I can also reverse your question: why is heat trapped when IR from earth bounces back to earth due to the presence of H2O and CO2 in the atmosphere. Is it not precisely because of the blocking action and the molecules being saturated with heat?
Anyway, as I said, I am not really interested in starting another debate or discussion. I am hoping to find someone who has some real figures from some real experiments that would somehow convince me that that 0.01 % increase in carbon dioxide that happened over the past 50 years is really significant. (please note the logical question that I am posing in my theory. )
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OK, for a start if this "I did not start this thread again to have another debate or discussion. " is true then you are on the wrong website.
You say "Believe it or not, but I am actually worried that my theory is correct. "
Well, stop worrying- you are totally and hopelessly wrong.
"So where does the UV go that is being blocked by ozone?"
It is turned into heat.
"surely that additional Infra red (heat) must have been mirrored to outside? "
No.
Why can you not understand that the IR isn't reflected at all?
it is absorbed.
"The term absorbtion comes from the way as to how we measure this blocking action "
No, it doesn't. It comes from the fact that the IR is absorbed. For what it's worth you can do measurements of IR reflectance and at wavelengths where the stuff absorbs radiation it doesn't reflect it.
"(please note the logical question that I am posing in my theory. "
You have yet to put forward anything remotely close to a theory.
Your ideas are based on a total misunderstanding of the effects of the sun's radiation. Accordingly, you have yet to ask any logical question.
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I thought I had asked for the relevant measurements and the figures? So where are they? You don't have them??? I am glad that you are sure that I am 100% wrong. It seems to me when it comes to the theory about carbon dioxide you just have to have "faith" . I am gald you are one of the "fainth" . But your figures have not convinced me.You can laugh at me - it does not really bother me. I am still standing.
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"I thought I had asked for the relevant measurements and the figures? So where are they?"
This graph of the figures
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/
was posted as the first reply to the first time you asked the question.
Had you forgotten?
Why ask silly questions like "So where are they? You don't have them?"
And it's not a matter of "faith" that gases absorb IR.
I sometimes use a photoacoustic IR spectrometer at work.
If the gas didn't absorb IR it wouldn't heat up so there wouldn't be a pressure change so the microphone wouldn't get a signal and the thing wouldn't work.
My assertion that CO2 and water absorb IR is based on my own personal observation. There are, of course, other observations made by other people all over the world doing similar things.
You may be still standing but your ideas don't stand up; they never did.
The reason they don't stand up is that they do not fit with reality, yet you continue to trot them out.
The one blinded by faith is you not the rest of us.
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Ok, I will try and explain to those of you who really want to understand. First of all, even though infra red is warm/hot to the skin, it still behaves like light. To infra red, the molecules of water and carbondioxide are like 2 way mirrors. They form a three dimensional sherical ring up in the air, thereby acting as a complete spherical mirror. During the night when infra red is reflected from earth into the air, the mirrors act as a reflector and the infra red bounces at an angle back to earth. This explains the greenhouse effect that we do notice. During the day, the infra red of the sun hits the mirror on the outside and again the infra red is deflected at an angle, which means that most of it will be scattered back into space. This explains my observation that the heat from the sun becomes less when I see that the humidity rises. So my theory is as it stands. One of my main questions is still: what ,if anything, would a difference of 0.01% in CO2 make if most of the greenhouse effect is caused by moisture? Why does nobody talk about the cooling effect that I have observed?
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Are you even reading any of our replies?
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The replies do not fit my own observations?
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I did check the textbook on the absorption issue. It says that a little energy is indeed absorbed, but most of the infra red is re-emitted back. So I think all three of us were right? I think my mirror protrayal is still reasonable.
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I did check the textbook on the absorption issue. It says that a little energy is indeed absorbed, but most of the infra red is re-emitted back. So I think all three of us were right? I think my mirror protrayal is still reasonable.
No competent textbook will tell you that IR is reflected by CO2- the clouds reflect some, but that's another matter.
Much energy is absorbed. For wavelengths where CO2 is a reasonable absorber essentially none gets through- it's all absorbed.
Only two of the 3 of us were right - and you are the odd one out.
Why on earth do you think that it's reasonable to portray something which, if you could see in the IR would look black, as a mirror?
Do you understand that this idea of yours "To infra red, the molecules of water and carbondioxide are like 2 way mirrors. " is quite simply wrong.
There is ample evidence against it and no evidence for it.
"Why does nobody talk about the cooling effect that I have observed?"
We have talked about it at some length. We have pointed out that it is nonsensical. You do not cool something by letting it absorb radiation and, no matter how often you say otherwise, CO2 does't reflect IR it either lets it through or it absorbs it.
We have also explained that using a black umbrella might keep the sun off you- but it doesn't stop the earth picking up that heat.
I admit we have not even started on the fact that the most likely reason you feel hotter when the RH is high is because you are sweating- no offense; humans are the sweatiest aninmals on the plannet so of course the humididty affects how hot or cold we feel.
Did you not realise this?
Do you not understand what sweating is for?
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Quote from Wikipedia (on the interpretation of the greenhouse effect): "The Earth's surface and the clouds absorb visible and invisible radiation from the sun and re-emit much of the energy as infrared back to the atmosphere. Certain substances in the atmosphere, chiefly cloud droplets and water vapor, but also carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, sulfur hexafluoride, and chlorofluorocarbons,[23] absorb this infrared, and re-radiate it in all directions including back to Earth." End of quote.
This quote supports my theory. It also supports the cooling effect: the water & CO2 radiates and dissipates the IR from the Sun (in all directions, including much of it back to outer space). This explains why I can feel that the heat is lessened when the humidity increases.
The sweat issue is something else, has to with biology. Ask Chris..
As we all know, the humidity in the air is much more than the carbon dioxide. Again, the real question (which everyone keeps avoiding)is: whatever would a difference of only 0.01% carbondioxide make? Even if you cannot accept my theory, cannot you see that this whole carbon emission issue is a complete and total non-issue?
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(https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fscienceblogs.com%2Finsolence%2Ffacepalm.jpg&hash=d658d5dce118af7a6189ba8eee4bc90c)
"The Earth's surface and the clouds absorb visible and invisible radiation from the sun and re-emit much of the energy as infrared back to the atmosphere. Certain substances in the atmosphere, chiefly cloud droplets and water vapor, but also carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, sulfur hexafluoride, and chlorofluorocarbons, absorb this infrared, and re-radiate it in all directions including back to Earth."
The word reflect isn't even in there
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"and re-radiate it in all directions including back to Earth"
it is just a choice of words, re-radiate= reflect?
So, to explain to you the cooling effect of humidity and carbon dioxide that I have observed I could say: the infra red from the sun is absorbed and re-radiated in all directions including back to space (for at least 50%). I assume you know the properties of light? It cannot get stuck in the atmosphere. No need for insulting pictures.
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"I did check the textbook on the absorption issue. It says that a little energy is indeed absorbed, but most of the infra red is re-emitted back. So I think all three of us were right? I think my mirror protrayal is still reasonable"
Do we all agree on this point now? Or do you still have another opinion/quote? The molecules can only absorb a little bit, until it is saturated which is why we can measure it with FTIR.After that, the molecules re-emit or re-radiate the IR or whatever term you prefer to use. My mirror idea was just used as a way to explain what I see is happening.
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Geewhizz! what happened? Are all the tails between the legs? Surely, everyone can understand that the same physical laws that cause the greenhouse effect also cause the cooling effect? Come to think of it, the cooling effect of carbon dioxide might be more because I think in 12 hours the sun puts a hell of lot more IR out than the earth in 24 hours as earth is covered mostly in water.
Where does that leave us with global warming? Well, I remember somebody on this forum saying: let us have a planet, add more carbon dioxide, see if the temperature goes up, it did, so that must be it. The tragedy: this is exactly what happened. We have Al Gore and a couple of profs in the US who said the same thing: see, the temp rises as the CO2 rises!(1). That must be it. Then they analysed ice cores going back as much as 650000 years. Then they said, and I quote:" whenever the carbondioxide was higher the climate was warmer." So I asked myself: but why were there periods in history (before man) where the carbondioxide was higher? Well, where does all carbondioxide come from? Wow, it comes from volcanic activities (2)! That is why life exists. So when there is more volcanic activity, should we not expect a temperature rise? So that explains that correlation. Efforts by me to get in touch with Al Gore have not been successfull. So that DVD of him you can also throw out of the window.
I thought I would just poke some fun with the naked scientists by posting my theory on the website. Shake things up a bit. Wanted a laugh. See if you have some figures to prove me wrong. Now I realize this is not a joke. This is really a tragedy. Because if, as I suspect, global warming is not caused by carbon dioxide, then what does? well I have given you the clues in (1) and (2). CO2 rises as the population increases. More energy is released. Simple arithmetic. Luckily, if I am right, we donot have to worry anymore about reducing carbon emissions.We have to reduce energy output per person. We have to steal energy from nature. Nuclear is not green. Secondly, we have to make sure that there is no volcanic activity going on somewhere that we are not aware of. Perhaps all the atomic boms that were exploded in the Indian Ocean may have caused instability in that region. Hence, earthquakes and tsunamis in that region. Does somebody have temperature measurements of the oceans? Perhaps we can pick up something unusual there.
I am signing off again. I hope I made you laugh.
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Henry. The answer to your initial question is 1.5 ppm or 7 billion tons 3.5 billion are reabsorbed by various means and the other 3.5 billion reamains airbourne. I'm sure someone has already said this.
Have you read about stratospheric cooling?
Why do you want to know oceanic temperatures? And do you want surface or temperatures from depth?
Being a skeptic and questioning is a good thing, but you do need to do some research before you do the questioning. Simply asking for information when you have already made your mind up that it's wrong is not cricket.
As for oceanic temperatures, there is a whole new argument gong on there with different data sets. If you really want to have this data then it's avaliable from NOAA, NCAR and various skeptic sources.
Hope this helps.
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"and re-radiate it in all directions including back to Earth"
it is just a choice of words, re-radiate= reflect?
So, to explain to you the cooling effect of humidity and carbon dioxide that I have observed I could say: the infra red from the sun is absorbed and re-radiated in all directions including back to space (for at least 50%). I assume you know the properties of light? It cannot get stuck in the atmosphere. No need for insulting pictures.
The light that comes from the Sun goes mostly into heating up the ground and ocean. When the surface becomes heated, it starts radiating infra-red light. This energy would radiate straight back out into space if it were not for greenhouse gases, which, because they absorb infra-red light, become heated from it. So it's holding energy in. It doesn't block the energy from getting to the surface because it's mostly in other wavelengths on the way in, but after it's converted to infra-red then the greenhouse gases absorb it on the way out.
Where's the cooling effect?
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Hi there. Read the theory! You ignored the question about how much energy can be "absorbed". I am off.
I grew up as a young man in western Europe where it was mostly cold and wet and humid. I remember only feeling the "heat" (which we know is infra red) of the sun only during a few weeks in summer, if we were lucky. I then moved to Africa and we live inland where it is very dry, humidity usually below 30%. Now here we do feel the heat the sun! Both in winter and in summer. In fact in summer the heat is so scorching that only after ten minutes you will look for cover or shade. But on a sunny day moving to the coast going from west to east on the same height you can actually see a) a rise in humidity the nearer you get to the sea and b) a lowering of the temperature. You can actually feel that the heat from the sun is being lessened by the presence of water vapor. These experiences of mine were like the apple on Newtons head and in my mind I was able to formulate a simple rule: the higher the humidity the less infra red heat you feel from the sun, the cooler it gets. Obviously we know that carbondioxide reacts similar to water vapor, so from this I was able to formulate the general rule: the higher the humidity and carbon dioxide levels the more it covers us as a shield against infra red. So all this talk about the greenhouse effect and then to ignore the cooling effect makes no sense to me whatsoever. Hence here is my theory, for those who are interested:As carbon dioxide traps the infra red radiation (IR) from earth (keeping us warm) then it must follow that carbon dioxide also blocks IR coming from the sun (similar to ozone blocking UV, keeping us cool). So the logical question everyone must ask, is: what is the nett effect, especially at the relevant levels of carbon dioxide 0.02-0.04%? Using my body as the sensor, I can measure that the IR coming from earth must be a lot less than the IR coming from the sun. This means that the cooling effect of carbon dioxide must be greater than the warming up effect. So I say: carbon dioxide is good. So my theory is this:Global warming is probably caused by energy released by human activities and/or unseen volcanic activity in the oceans or the change in salinity in the water , & probably has little or nothing at all to do with the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. (Human population has doubled in the past 50 years).
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Good bye.
Where ever you hav gone to you might want to thinks about the fact that the atmosphere will only re emit heat after it has been heated up.
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Heeee! I am back! If you read my initial posting you will note that I was a "believer" in the theory that CO2 causes globsal warming. Now I am a total skeptic. Here is my final report.
CARBON DIOXIDE NOT THE REASON FOR GLOBAL WARMING?
An ordinary scientist’s quest to find the real reason(s) for global warming.
What is the greenhouse effect?
Quote from Wikipedia (on the interpretation of the greenhouse effect);
"The Earth's surface and the clouds absorb visible and invisible radiation from the sun and re-emit much of the energy as infrared back to the atmosphere. Certain substances in the atmosphere, chiefly cloud droplets and water vapor, but also carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, sulfur hexafluoride, and chlorofluorocarbons, absorb this infrared, and re-radiate it in all directions including back to Earth."
Water and carbon dioxide behave similarly when exposed to infra red radiation. Each molecule accepts one or more photons. Once this transaction is completed the molecule becomes sort of like a little mirror to infra red radiation and the molecules start reflecting the infra red. Because of the random position of the molecules we may assume that at least 50% of the infra red from earth is radiated back to earth. The process repeats itself.
Air composition of the two main greenhouse gases
Note that according to the definition the two main components in the air that are causing the greenhouse effect are water and carbon dioxide. Air contains ca. 1.2% water vapor (at 70%humidity) and 0.035% carbon dioxide. The increase in carbon dioxide during the past 50 years was 0.007%. So the carbon dioxide content went up from 0.028 % in 1960 to 0.035% now. At this point the question arises: whatever would a difference of only 0.007% carbon dioxide make, especially when compared to the ca. 1.0 – 1.5% water vapor in the air? (1) The fluctuations in the water content in the air are a lot more than 0.01%. Attempts by me to get an answer to this simple question from the so-called experts proved unsuccessful. If any recent experiments were done, I do not know about it.
Without getting any figures on that, my doubt that carbon dioxide is a major or even a contributory factor to the global warming problem remained.
The anti greenhouse effect
A number of personal experiences in the past were to me like the apple on Newton’s head.
I noticed that the direct heat that you feel from the sun decreases as the humidity increases. We know that the heat that we ‘feel” from the sun is actually mainly infra red radiation. As carbon dioxide behaves similar to water vapor, I was able to formulate the simple rule: the higher the humidity and carbon dioxide content, the less infra red (heat) you feel from the sun. This cooling effect is explained by the same mechanism and the same physical laws that govern the greenhouse effect: the infra red (now coming from the sun) is absorbed by the water and carbon dioxide and is then re-radiated in all directions including back to space for at least 50%. Unlike water, carbon dioxide is diffused in the air at all levels of the atmosphere. Therefore the cooling effect of carbon dioxide must be at all levels. Obviously when humidity increases you tend to sweat a bit more, but this is something biological and has nothing to do with my observation that the heat that you feel directly from the sun becomes less when humidity increases. It is because of this effect that the temperature on the coast during a sunny day is usually a bit lower than more inland. At this point my main question became like this: If carbon dioxide traps infra red radiation from earth (keeping us warm) then it must follow that carbon dioxide also shields us from the sun blocking infra red(similar to ozone blocking UV). So what is the nett effect, especially at the relevant levels of carbon dioxide of 0.02% – 0.05%? (2)
Like with my first question, I did not get any answers. Contrary to my own observations, most scientists did not even accept (or know of!) the possibility of there even being such a thing as a cooling effect coming from carbon dioxide. Of those that did, some claimed that the earth’s infra red radiation is a lot more than that coming from the sun…
What appears to have gone wrong?
Almost 100 years ago, Svante Arrhenius predicted that carbon dioxide in the atmosphere would cause warming up. In the meantime, carbon dioxide has increased even more than he expected, but Earth hasn't warmed as much as he thought it would (applying his formula). Subsequent followers have always assumed that his theory must have some truth in it and never challenged it with modern research. Eventually, the whole theory really became something like this: let us have a planet, add more carbon dioxide, see if the temperature goes up, it did, so that must be it! For example, we have Al Gore and a couple of profs in the US who did exactly this. They said: “see, how fast the temperature of earth rises as the CO2 rises!” (b) Obviously it is easy to make two graphs look the same if you put the right scaling in. But they still had to prove that there is a correlation. So apparently they had analysed ice cores going back to as far as 650000 years. Then they said, and I quote: " whenever the carbon dioxide was higher the climate was warmer." So I asked myself: but why were there periods in history (before man and any kind of major human activities) when the carbon dioxide was higher? Well, where does all carbon dioxide come from? Wow, it comes from volcanic activities (a)! That is why life exists. So when there is more volcanic activity, should we not expect a temperature rise? There is an awful amount of heat released when volcanoes explode. So that explains that correlation. So the climate history of the past half-million years provides no evidence to suggest that the ongoing rise in the air's CO2 concentration will lead to significant global warming.
I also studied the IPCC report. Now I accept that global warming is happening as a matter of fact. You only need a thermometer and camera for that. But what they did in the IPCC report is to compare the concentrations of the gases in 2005 with 1750. Then they assigned a measure of relative radiative forcing to the so-called greenhouse gasses depending on the increase in concentrations measured. But this is like working at the problem from the wrong end! That is assuming that you are 100% sure what the cause is (of global warming) and then trying to work your way backwards to find a solution to the problem. They took all the gases that absorb infra red as positive forcing. "This must be the cause, what else can it be?"
It is really commendable to try and quantify global warming. However, they forgot /ignored /overlooked the cooling effect and the fact that without carbon dioxide in the atmosphere even more heat (infra red energy) would be slammed onto our heads and into our oceans. So, without the relevant research and without the relevant facts it could well be that the IPCC is simply putting the horse behind the carriage.
So what are my findings?
Astonishingly, it appears that no proper research has been done at all that would give us clear answers to the questions 1+2 that I raised. I also could not find any other research done that would give us a clear relationship of the correlation between carbon dioxide and heat retention, especially at the current concentration levels of carbon dioxide. Surely, Svante Arrhenius’ measuring equipment must have been much poorer than what we have now and unknowingly he could have made grave errors. In any case, it would have been impossible for him in those days to test at the relevant carbon dioxide concentration levels with the correct energy sources.
The whole greenhouse theory is therefore not an exact science, it is some kind of a belief system. If you ask any of the “believing” scientists for the relevant proof or the answers to my particular two nasty questions, you are either completely ignored or you will be told to do some ‘studying”. There clearly is no experimental evidence whatsoever that proves that carbon dioxide causes global warming.
Unfortunately I do not have the testing equipment to carry out the required research. However, I do hope that with my simple observations I will be able to create enough doubt so that the big stakeholders (e.g. the oil companies) will spend some money on carrying out the necessary research that will give the answers to our questions.
We know that about 47-49% of the sun’s total energy output is in infra red. Let us assume a constant air composition. For the greenhouse effect to be equal or greater than the anti-greenhouse effect, the earth’s total infra red output in 24 hours (which includes the bounce backs) must match that of the sun in 12 hours. 70% of earth’s surface is water. So only 30% of earth’s surface is able to radiate infra red radiation. Using my body as the gauge, I can sense that the cooling effect of carbon dioxide is probably equal or greater than the warming up effect.
Another observation is this: Everyone knows that all the places on earth where there never is any water vapor, are called deserts. As we have seen, carbon dioxide behaves similar to water vapor under infra red. So the question in my mind and perhaps in those of other scientists: Is asking for a reduction in carbon dioxide not just as nonsensical as asking for a reduction in water vapor?
What causes global warming?
If, as I suspect, global warming is not caused by carbon dioxide, then what does? Well I have given two clues in (a) and (b). There may even still be other reasons. First, we have to make sure that there is no volcanic activity going on somewhere that we are not aware of. Perhaps all the atomic bombs that were exploded in the Indian Ocean may have caused instability. Hence, earthquakes and tsunamis in that region. Also, the whole Mid-Atlantic Ridge is essentially a linear, segmented volcano. We must monitor the temperatures of the oceans and report any anomalies (e.g. concentrated heat).
Secondly. And I think this must get more emphasis. We have to accept that there must be an effect that man’s presence on earth is having on global warming. Surely the reason as to why CO2 rises is because the population of earth is increasing, and that means more energy is released. The human population has doubled in the past 50 years. If you put the kettle on, the water in the kettle gets warmer. The problem could simply be the amount of heat that we produce to fly, to drive, to cook or to stay warm or cold. Simple arithmetic. I can see a raise of 2.5 degrees in temp. when I drive at night from the country into the city. If global warming is indeed not caused by carbon dioxide you may feel a little less guilty about driving your car. But don’t open the champagne bottles just yet. The fight against global warming might in fact get more difficult. If global warming = us, we would have to reduce the total energy output per person. We have to steal energy from nature. (Wind, gravity, tides, solar etc.). Carbon emissions would not be green. Nuclear energy would not be green. Hydrogen and oxygen combustion (rocket fuel) would also not be green. In that case we will have to re-visit the whole global warming debate, for example in the case of sending rockets out to space: will the burden of all that energy released in the atmosphere by placing that satellite in orbit, result in similar savings in energy on earth?
Henry Pool
PS. If you have any figures of actual measurements carried out during actual experiments that would prove that CO2 is to blame, I would love to hear from you.
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Water and carbon dioxide behave similarly when exposed to infra red radiation. Each molecule accepts one or more photons. Once this transaction is completed the molecule becomes sort of like a little mirror to infra red radiation and the molecules start reflecting the infra red. Because of the random position of the molecules we may assume that at least 50% of the infra red from earth is radiated back to earth. The process repeats itself.
You still do not understand. There is a difference between reflection and absorbtion/re-emission. And as Bored Chemist said in his last post, it doesn't matter where the re-emitted energy goes, because the atmosphere has already become heated from the absorbtion. Even if the re-emitted energy is somehow directed 100% back out into space, the atmosphere has still absorbed energy in the first place, therefore warming up.
If carbon dioxide traps infra red radiation from earth (keeping us warm) then it must follow that carbon dioxide also shields us from the sun blocking infra red(similar to ozone blocking UV).
It's as if you think that the atmosphere isn't a part of the planet. If the atmosphere is heated, we are heated.
Think of this analogy; you're in a room with a fireplace with a fire burning fiercely away. You're up close to it and it's burning your face. You pull out a dirty great shield and put it between your face and the fire. Now your face is fine, the shield is absorbing the heat instead. The shield has blocked the infrared, just like you say CO2 does. But do you think that the shield is going to cool the whole room down?
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Henry also still doesn't understand that the relative change in CO2 levels isn't 0.007% it's about a quarter.
It's easy to see that having 4 blankets on the bed is a fair bit warmer than having 3.
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I think you people still do not understand the nature of light. It cannot get "absorbed" in the atmosphere. Let me give you this example: Let us say that on earth with a lightmeter I measure the light by holding the meter in a certain direction, at a certain time of the day on a) a sunny day and b) on a cloudy day. On the cloudy day I notice a) it is cooler and b) it is darker. So where did the difference in light go? yes, because of the nature of the water (in gas form!) the clouds reflected most of that light, including the (hot) infra red light. This light cannot "stay" in the atmosphere! It has to move.. It is reflected back to space. Likewise carbon dioxide is opaque to infra red, so some of the infra red that would otherwise hit earth is reflected back to space. Without giving me any figures on on how much cooling and warming one layer of carbon dioxide would cause, the debate about it is pointless.....
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It's amusing you think we don't understand the nature of light.
This light cannot "stay" in the atmosphere!
The light is converted to heat energy when absorbed.
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I think it's Henry who doesn't understand things. He writes stuff like" because of the nature of the water (in gas form!) the clouds" but we know that the water in a cloud is a bunch of tiny drops of liquid.
Clouds of liquid can reflect light quite well- but the issue here is CO2 and it's always a gas in the Earth's atmosphere so Henry's "point" is a total red herring.
Until he learns the basic facts there's not a lot of point putting numbers to them.
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I cannot believe that you people do not understand that there is a limit to how many photons can be taken up by a certaine amount of a substance. I have a definition here of the greenhouse effect by Elmar Uherek:
"Greenhouse gases (CO2, O3, CFC) absorb infrared radiation from the surface of the Earth and trap the heat in the troposphere. If this absorption is really strong, the greenhouse gas blocks most of the outgoing infrared radiation close to the Earth's surface".
I think let us keep the discussion of the role of the water & water vapor out of it, as it only confuses things. What we are really only interested in is the effect of the carbon dioxide which happens to be completely diffused into the air @ ca. 0.035%
Keyword that he used in his definition is "blocks". That is the word that I also used. This is where the infra red keeps coming back to earth instead of going outwards. Now he is the only scientist so far who actually agrees with me that there is or that there may be some cooling effect(s) by carbon dioxide. In fact, to quote from his e-mail to me, he says:
"This (web) page (i.e. these are his own studies into the cooling effect of carbon dioxide in the upper atmosphere) does not consider the amount of infrared radiation from the sun coming from the top of the atmosphere. It would be interesting to find out how much is coming bottom up compared to top down. Honestly, I do not know it. I am sorry, that I cannot do a sound inquiry in this issue, since I am a bit overworked and additionally became father last week.I hope, my ideas helped a bit how to proceed with further inquiry". End of quote.
Now if you will go back to my report, to my "findings", you will note that this is exactly the whole point that I am trying to make. This is what the whole issue is about.I am saying top down infra red is probably more than bottom up because
1) The total energy coming from the sun is 47-49% in infra red (for 12 hours per day)
2) We only have 30% of earth that can radiate infra red (for 24 hours per day).
3) So for the carbon dioxide to have any impact, the infra red from earth in 8 hours (= ca.1/3 of 24 hours) must match that of the sun in 12 hours.
4) From where I am (stand), I can feel that what we get in infra red from the sun is a lot more than what earth emits.
So now you understand why I am not worried anymore about the carbon dioxide.
Again, unless someone has actual figures, debating it further is really quite pointless....
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"I cannot believe that you people do not understand that there is a limit to how many photons can be taken up by a certaine amount of a substance. "
Unfortunately for your rather odd beliefs there is no such limit.
Since we tend to prefer reality we don't believe in that limit.
You don't seem to have grasped what the bloke you cited actually said.
"If this absorption is really strong, the greenhouse gas blocks most of the outgoing infrared radiation close to the Earth's surface".
I have underlined a bit for you.
If the gas stops the heat getting out the earth's temperature rises.
Greenhouse gases cause warming.
Incidentally, there is yet another thing you haven't understood; you are not a good IR meter.
So when you say "From where I am (stand), I can feel that what we get in infra red from the sun is a lot more than what earth emits. "
there's a simple explanation.
You are hotter than the earth, but colder than the sun.
When you fact the sun you emit IR towards it but it sends a lot more IR (and visible light) your way so the net effect is that your face warms up.
When you face the earth you emit more IR to it than it sends you so there's no net warming of your face.
If you were trying to prove that the sun is hotter than the earth then this set of observations would help.
It says absolutely nothing about the greenhouse effect.
It does, on the other hand, show that as usual, you have not understood what you are saying.
Incidentally that rubbish about "12 hours a day" shows that you don't understand that the sun and earth emit radiation all the time.
Whatever the figures may be, debating nonsense is, as you say, pointless.
Feel free to stop.
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sorry, BC, you lost me now. Just go back a a few steps to see what the argument was about. I never said that I do not believe in the mechanics of the greenhouse theory. But according to the same mechanics there must also be a cooling effect. Surely, going from the top to the bottom is the same as going from the bottom to the top (of the atmosphere) for infra red. And everywhere the CO2 content is the same. So it looks to me that the cooling effect is as much or even more then the warming effect. But admittedly I do not have the figures. I think it is you who has brought nothing but nonsense in this discussion so far. Feel free to stop "helping" me. You are only fooling yourselves.
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"Surely, going from the top to the bottom is the same as going from the bottom to the top"
No, going from hot to cold is not the same as going from cold to hot.
The sun emits visible light which can pass through the atmosphere whereas the earth tries to emit IR which doesn't.
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Quote: "Direct sunlight ......includes infrared (47% share of the spectrum), visible (46%), and ultra-violet (only 6%) light". Apparently 98.7% of the UV is blocked by the ozone.Let's keep that out of the equations. The reality is that only 30% of earth's surface is able to emit infra red. A lot of the visible light comes through but a large portion of that is also reflected, especially by clouds and on the poles and mountains and by the seas. You only have to study the pictures from earth from outer space to see what happens. Anyway, a maximum of a third of that 46% visible and a maximum of a third of that Infra red 47% part hits upon us.
But, as I said, whether all of that would be reflected as infra red by earth?
I doubt very much that it would be possible for earth to emit as much infra red radiation as what we get from the sun.
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During the day more energy comes in than goes out. The planet warms. The more greenhouse gases there are, the less energy that gets out. The warmer the planet.
I'm not sure if I can simplify it any further
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sorry MS, I think you also lost the thread of what we were discussing.
Like me, some scientists accept(ed) that carbon dioxide also causes cooling but they believed that per square meter solid ground area (of earth) the infra red was brighter (i.e. more) than what the sun puts on that square meter. There may be some truth in that. But I think that would be ignoring the cooling effect that the carbon dioxide causes above our oceans: I say that without the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere even more heat would be dumped into our oceans. Remember that infra red cannot escape the water. It can only heat it, as it has been doing for thousands of years.
So what is really important is to know the total output in infra red of earth per square meter per time unit compared to the total input of infra red from the sun per square meter per time unit. I am pretty sure that if you average it out over the whole surface area of earth, you will find that the infra red coming from earth is a lot lower than that coming from the sun.
that means: carbon dioxide is good for life and good for global cooling.
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OK, for a start lets drop the nonsense about day and night.
It is always daytime on earth and it is always nighttime.
The earth reflects about 39% of the light that falls on it- Vangelis wrote a song about it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albedo_0.39
so it's simply wrong to say "A lot of the visible light comes through but a large portion of that is also reflected, especially by clouds and on the poles and mountains and by the seas"
Most of it isn't reflected.
Most of it is absorbed and warms the earth up a bit. The earth re-emits heat as IR. If the atmosphere is full of CO2 then this gets in the way of the outgoing CO2.
Because the earth can't lose heat so easily, it warms up.
You have provided data on the radiation from the sun. Here's a rough breakdown of the energy emitted by the earth.
IR- practically all of it
Visible light- virtually none
UV- even less
The earth gains energy from the sun- the only way it can lose it is by emitting IR. If something gets in the way of that IR the earth gets warmer.
This isn't complicated; why won't you understand it?
Incidentally, Re "Remember that infra red cannot escape the water."
Nonsense- Water emits IR perfectly well.
You say "So what is really important is to know the total output in infra red of earth per square meter per time unit compared to the total input of infra red from the sun per square meter per time unit. "
Well, you are nearly right. The two figures you need are
1 how much energy comes in from the sun (and it doesn't matter a tinker's cuss what wavelength it comes in as because, once it is absorbed, it will come out as IR because the earth isn't very hot)
and
2 the rate at which that area can lose heat by radiation.
(which will be all in the IR because the earth isn't hot enough to give out visible light or UV)
The input is pretty near constant- the sun's not changing much.
The output can be altered if we put something in the way- like extra CO2.
(strictly you need to add heat generated within the earth too but that's not going to change much anyway so we can ignore it here.
BTW, I am thinking of going through every one of your posts on this and collecting all the assertions that you have made that are simply not true. To save me the trouble, could I ask you not to bother posting any more trash? All I would ask is that you don't waste time saying things like "the clouds are made of gas" or "Remember that infra red cannot escape the water"
They, and the associated corrections, just clutter up the site.
It would be better if you checked that what you post is factually correct before posting it. This is, after all, meant to be a scientific site.
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First of all, let me say that it was not me who did not understand the mechanism or the proposed mechanism of the greenhouse effect. We wasted a lot of time on that.
Anyway, thanks for that page on the albedo, from there I was able to jump somewhere else and get a figure for the total infra red emitted by earth, it is 230W/m2.
Apparently it is defined as 288 K (15 C) min. I did not realize this. I was used to having infra red ovens for curing of paint, so I always associate IR with much higher temperatures.
So indeed, apparently above water there can also be infra red. I do apologize for not knowing or picking up on that before.
Now, the sun apparently puts a total of 1366 W/m2 on earth.
The IR range 760nm to 500 um (micrometer) equals 46% of the energy; so that would be 628 W/m2.
Now 628>230. I expected this result. This proves to me that my findings as reported earlier are correct.
The cooling effect of carbon dioxide must be greater than the warming effect...
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Sorry, I was going with BC's assumption not to worry anymore about day and night. That was wrong!
QUOTE:
The Earth receives a total amount of radiation determined by its cross section (π·RE²), but as it rotates this energy is distributed across the entire surface area (4·π·RE²). Hence the average incoming solar radiation, taking into account the angle at which the rays strike and that at any one moment half the planet does not receive any solar radiation, is one-fourth the solar constant (approximately 342 W/m²). At any given moment, the amount of solar radiation received at a location on the Earth's surface depends on the state of the atmosphere and the location's latitude"
e.g. here in Africa I was probably right in saying or feeling that the IR from the sun is more than that of earth.
So now 157< 230. If all these figures are correct it means that the warming effect due to the carbon dioxide is more probable.
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I am sure of the value of the emittance from the sun onto earth. I have various sources for that. However, I am not too sure anymore about the 230 coming from earth. It seems to me this was calculated from the albedo of earth which was taken at about 0.3. Some sources mention an albedo of 0.3. One source that I have puts the albedo of earth at 0.36 +- 0.06. If we went for the top value we have an albedo of 0.42. In that case the value of 230 would already change to 0.58 x 342=198. But obviously if this is how the earth's emittance was calculated or estimated then this is is not particularly good science for our research here.
We have to try and get a measured value for earth's IR emittance that is independant of the value that we got for the sun.
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"Apparently it is defined as 288 K (15 C) min. "
no it's not- or at least that's not how most people define it.
The day vs night bit isn't important because the earth is big and so it averages temperature changes out quite a bit. Changes on a day to day basis or even a season to season basis are not significat from the point of view of climate change.
The mean irradiance at the earths outer atmosphere is about 1.3KW/m^2
Some of that is reflected- for the visible bit it is about 39%
We simply don't have any information about the IR but I guess we can assume it's similar (unless anyone has the real numbers)
That incoming radiation is averaged over the earth's surface to give, as Henry calculated about 342 W/m^2 and, since about 39% is reflected about 61% is absorbed
That gives about 210W/m^2
I say "about" because the number varies by about 7%
The true figure is somewher between about 204 and 225
Henry also provided a figure of about 230W/m^2 for the loss (By IR)
You may note that the difference between these figures for the incoming and outgoing energy are rather similar. That's not a shock. If they were not then the earth would heat up or cool down until they were balanced.
The earth also generates heat because of the decay of radioactive materials in the rocks.
This explains the reamaining dozen or so w/m^2
The incoming and outgoing energy balance.
The question is what happens if you make it more difficult for the IR to escape.
The answer is that the planet warms up a bit so it emits more IR so that (even with part of it reabsorbed by the CO2) the system still balances.
Henry has assumed that, because these numbers match, one must have been calculated from the other.
He doesn't understand that they are bound to match because the earth has been here long enough to reach (close to) equilibrium and any other result would be a breach of the principle of the conservation of energy.
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thanks BC.It does makes sense. But I have been thinking and I am worried we might have been going about this in a wrong way. I think we have to go back to the actual infra red spectrum of CO2, see where it absorbs, i.e the wavelengths, then take the energy from the sun between these two particular wavelengths where CO2 absorbs, from the solar constant (I think can calculate this from the tables that I found!).But after this, we must get the radiance from earth between these two wavelengths where CO2 absorbs, ... now where and how do I get this information?
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"thanks BC.It does makes sense. "
It always did.
I could find a copy of the IR spectrum of CO2 and that would give you the information on how much IR is absorbed at what wavelengths.
But it doesn't matter, if some of the IR (at watever wavelength) is blocked on the way out then the world heats up a bit.
The spectra involved would make a difference to how big the warming is but it would be warming anyway.
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Ok. I am still looking at all of this. I need more time. Here is an interesting graph:
http://faculty.engineering.ucdavis.edu/jenkins/courses/EBS216/SolarEnergy/SolarEnergy.pdf
The blue line is the energy we would get without an atmosphere, yellow line is what we get with it. Look at the combined efforts of carbon dioxide and water vapor: it keeps us cool!!
I think it will be difficult to get a more quantifiable result as this, unless somebody puts some money into some real research.
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Somehow the link does not work anymore. How can I attach the graph here?
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Just because you have a graph doesn't mean we will believe it.
There's already been a whole lot of research done and, like common sense, it says that the greenhouse effect causes warming
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The blue line is the energy we would get without an atmosphere, yellow line is what we get with it. Look at the combined efforts of carbon dioxide and water vapor: it keeps us cool!!
I think it will be difficult to get a more quantifiable result as this, unless somebody puts some money into some real research.
I didn't see the graph but it probably refers to energy recieved on the surface. So it would make sense that that would be less with an atmosphere because the atmosphere will absorb some of it. I think maybe the problem is you haven't got your head around the fact that the atmosphere is part of the planet too and if it's heated we all are.
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Ok, this graph also shows what I want to tell you:
http://www.globalwarmingart.com/images/7/7c/Atmospheric_Transmission.png
Look carefully where CO2 absorbs. The only place where it matters for the greenhouse effect (i.e. warming) is at 14 um. But in this area water(g) is also still absorbing! You will note that in the picture of earth's radiation the presence of the carbon dioxide leads to a tiny small corner not being emitted by earth.
But the carbon dioxide is also absorbing at around 2 and between 4 and 5 um which is leading to some infra red from the sun being cut short, i.e. cooling. Again, if we have to weigh the cooling and warming against one another. Bearing in mind the overlapping area of the water,it looks pretty much even to me?
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Three points
First why don't you understand that when CO2 in the earth's atmosphere absorbs radiation from the sun it makes the world hotter? There is no cooling effect.Secondly, the graphs show the absorbtion by CO2 of radiation at about 4µm so your assertion that "The only place where it matters for the greenhouse effect (i.e. warming) is at 14 um." is false.
Also the earth emits much more radiation than the sun at those wavelengths so it's also not true to say that "carbon dioxide is also absorbing at around 2 and between 4 and 5 um which is leading to some infra red from the sun being cut short, i.e. cooling"
Even if there were a cooling effect (and there's not) the fact is that the absorbtion near 2µ is small and the sun's emmision there is small so the overall effect is very small. Also as I said, near 4µ the earth is emitting a lot more than the sun so the effect is a clear "greenhouse" effect.
Bearing those in mind, brings me to the third point. I asked if you would check that what you are saying is factually correct before posting it.
You clearly have not done so.
I don't expect to hear about a cooling effect again.
If you persist in bringing up that discredited idea than it will be clear that you are trolling and I presume that you will be treated accordingly by the mods.
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At least our friend in Australia picked it up:
"I didn't see the graph but it probably refers to energy recieved on the surface. So it would make sense that that would be less with an atmosphere because the atmosphere will absorb some of it."
Look at the graphs! What is coming from the sun on earth compared to measured above earth's atmosphere from the sun is about 30% less. Unless you have other figures? If you look at the graphs, principally the gasses that cause this effect are ozone, oxygen,water and carbondixide.If this is not cooling, then what is? Please do explain this to me?
Second, at 4 um, the radiation from both the sun (= about 0.5%) and from earth appear to be very small, so it looks to me this cancels each other out. It may be that the two absorptions between 2 and 3 of the carbon dioxde look small, but the energy coming from the sun in that range is still about 5%. Also, I think there is some work done that shows that there is also some absorbtion of carbon dioxide in the UV-visible range. I am still looking for a 2nd source to confirm that.
Lastly, what is the point of having a science forum, if we agree which each other about everything? There is a difference between discussion and debate.
In the case above we will continue to have a debate (i.e. not ever agreeing) because it appears nobody has any real figures.How on earth can we have a Copenhagen summit about all of this if nobody did any real research?
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But the carbon dioxide is also absorbing at around 2 and between 4 and 5 um which is leading to some infra red from the sun being cut short, i.e. cooling.
No.
Unless by "cut short" you mean absorbed and by cooling you mean warming.
I am also suspect of trolling since you continually refuse to understand the concept that when IR is absorbed the atmosphere is heated, there is no cooling effect. When the atmosphere is heated, the entire planet is. You keep pushing the misconception that absorption means "blocking", but the result of "blocking" is heat. How on earth do you interpret this as a cooling effect?
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I have a quote here from another expert in the field:
"Yes, that is correct. Light that is absorbed by gases is re-emitted in a random direction. "
"The amount of carbon dioxide is enough to absorb all the radiation in the bands where it absorbs within a few meters. So the only effect of an increase in CO2 is to move the location of absorption/re-emission closer to the source".
Tom Nelson
Are you sure about exactly what is the greenhouse effect? You are not answering the question that I asked in my previoos post?
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Yes, i'm sure. Is this Tom Nelson you speak of trying to say that all the IR is absorbed within a few metres of atmosphere?
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The first search result of "Tom Nelson" is his blog; "A personal blog that captures the latest headlines skeptical of the global warming debate with commentary."
And from his site:
About Me
Tom Nelson
I have a Masters of Science degree in Electrical and Electronics Engineering.
Last time I checked, a degree in electronics does not make you an expert on climate change. Please do not make false assertions.
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I am sure you got the wrong Tom. Try to google "cold facts on global warming". I am sure Tom still believes that carbon dioxide is or could be a major cause for global warming. I did not try to influence his opinion but perhaps my questions may have puzzled him/ I would not know.
Why is that you people do not keep your mind open as to who what the final outcome is of an investigation? Is this all politics? Are you people that much influenced by politics? That really puzzles me.
This is what he said on my relevant questions:
Hi Henry,
Carbon dioxide does not absorb in the visible or near ultraviolet. In the far ultraviolet (below 190 nm), its absorption is swamped by the absorption by oxygen.
You are right, for those regions where CO2 and water both absorb, CO2 is insignificant because of its lower concentration.
Tom Nelson
Makes sense to me, does it not, what he said?
CO2 and O2, could be like sort of brother and sister.
Also, water and carbon dioxide could be like our father and mother
i.e.the source of life as we know it.
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I am getting tired of this.
I already pointed out , a propos of your assertion "Yes, that is correct. Light that is absorbed by gases is re-emitted in a random direction. "
that, for that radiation to be re emitted it had to get absorbed in the first place and that as soon as it's absorbed the atmosphere is already hotter.
All this re-radiation can do is slightly reduce the amount of heating.
There is no cooling effect.
You are trolling.
And as for "Why is that you people do not keep your mind open as to who what the final outcome is of an investigation?"
Did you consider the fact that you keep saying things that are demonstrably false?
It's not that I don't have an open mind, it's just that, in order to change my opinion, you need to provide me with some evidence.
You haven't.
Instead you have put up all sorts of trash. I have repeatedlty asked you to verify things before posting the; you haven't.
To cut to the chase, telling fibs doesn't convince scientists of anything but your own foolishness.
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But you demonstrated again that you did not answer the question that was posted:
"Look at the graphs! What is coming from the sun on earth compared to measured above earth's atmosphere from the sun is about 30% less. Unless you have other figures? If you look at the graphs, principally the gasses that cause this effect are ozone, oxygen,water and carbondixide.If this is not cooling, then what is? Please do explain this to me?"
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But you demonstrated again that you did not answer the question that was posted:
"Look at the graphs! What is coming from the sun on earth compared to measured above earth's atmosphere from the sun is about 30% less. Unless you have other figures? If you look at the graphs, principally the gasses that cause this effect are ozone, oxygen,water and carbondixide.If this is not cooling, then what is? Please do explain this to me?"
You have been told the answer to that question a few times already. Why should I waste my time telling you again.
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So are we all agreed now that the ozone, oxygen, water vapor and carbon dioxide have a combined effect so that approximately 30% less heat from the sun hits the earth? (I am trying to avoid the word "cooling" now, otherwise I get into trouble)
The point now is to try and find out what portion of that 30% less heat (if we are all agreed on that figure) is due to carbon dioxide alone.
After that, we must try and find out exactly the warming effect of the carbon dioxide.
How would we do that? This brings me back to my final report again.
I think the only way to get this information is by experimentation in large specifically designed climatic chambers where we can play around with various atmospheric compositions and various energy sources.....
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So are we all agreed now that the ozone, oxygen, water vapor and carbon dioxide have a combined effect so that approximately 30% less heat from the sun hits the earth? (I am trying to avoid the word "cooling" now, otherwise I get into trouble)
It might be worth adding the words "warming the atmosphere in the process".
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"So are we all agreed now that the ozone, oxygen, water vapor and carbon dioxide have a combined effect so that approximately 30% less heat from the sun hits the earth?"
No, not unless you can tell us where else it might go.
The earth's atmosphere is part of the earth. (Did you think that it was part of venus or something?)
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The greatest amount of useless Co2 is being created by Al Gore everytime he opens his mouth!!!!!!!!
The "inconvenient truth" is a convenient misrepresentation manufactured by the Globalist agenda!
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quote author=Ethos link=topic=22348.msg280099#msg280099 date=1255989308]
The greatest amount of useless Co2 is being created by Al Gore everytime he opens his mouth!!!!!!!!
The "inconvenient truth" is a convenient misrepresentation manufactured by the Globalist agenda!
[/quote]
Since this is a science website I presume that you have evidence for that. Perhaps you might care to open another thread to discuss it.
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Since this is a science website I presume that you have evidence for that. Perhaps you might care to open another thread to discuss it.
Regarding which issue Sir? Whether Al Gore is responsible for the excess CO2 or, if the misrepresentation is due to the Globalist agenda?
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If either issue was on-topic then the distinction would matter.
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Bored,
The CO2 bandwagon has been getting noticeably lighter in recent years. One reason for this is the simple hysteria just LOOKS suspicious. ONLY 50 DAYS LEFT TO SAVE THE PLANET! I believe something like that was actually said by the highest official in one of the most advanced nations on earth just recently.
And then there are those heart rending photographs of the forlorn Polar Bear on a small ice berge. "There aren't just a few more bears. There are a hell of a lot more bears," said Mitch Taylor, a polar bear biologist who has spent 20 years studying the animals."
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/1545036/Polar-bears-thriving-as-the-Arctic-warms-up.html
And then there are the legions of Carbonistas are entirely unaware the climate has been both warmer and cooler in historical times then it is now. http://www.green-agenda.com/greenland.html
In fact, a period of global cooling about 4,000 years ago killed so many Egyptions through draught famine the entire society collapsed. http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ancient/egyptians/apocalypse_egypt_01.shtml#five [Warm is Good, Cold is Bad] is my general summation on climate.
So you see why there are many skeptics.
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Bored,
The CO2 bandwagon has been getting noticeably lighter in recent years. One reason for this is the simple hysteria just LOOKS suspicious. ONLY 50 DAYS LEFT TO SAVE THE PLANET! I believe something like that was actually said by the highest official in one of the most advanced nations on earth just recently.
This was referring to the upcoming Copenhagen discussions on climate change, so nothing to do with 'hysteria' of any kind.
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Ben - I don't care WHAT it referred to. The fact this offical actually said that is prima facia evidence of hysteria.
Maybe you don't get it. Statements like this and others like it create a social climate of suspicion. JUSTIFIED suspicion in my opinion. If Gore shows me a forelorn Polar Bear on melting ice berg, while at the same time I have reports "there are a hell of a lot more Polar Bears", I take notice.
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Warm is good, cold is bad, that simple is it?
Ok. Why is warm good?
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Madi
Warm is good for several reasons. First, it provides more arrible land. Excess agricultural production is the very deffinition of civilization. How do you think Rome paid for the Flavian Amphitheater? Wall Mart coupons? No. The weather was such that excess food production, primarily from North Africa could be confiscated in the form of taxes to feed the workers. Then it got cold. No more wine from Britain! And of course the Northern Barbarians move South.
The very same thing in Old Kingdom Egypt. The warm climate of the era provided rain to feed the Nile to such an extent the Pharoes could tax the excess agricultural production and feed tens of thousands of workers to produce, among other things, the Sphinx and the various Pyramids.
Then it got cold. The Nile dried up so much that Lake-Whats-its-Name fed by the Nile dried up entirely for the only time in geographic record. We have actual old Kingdom hyroglyphic accounts it was so bad parents canabalized their own children.
Then just think about the very recent Ice Age. I believe much if not all of the UK was under one or two hundred feet of ice. Certainly that was the case in North America. During the Ice Age Chicago was under something like ONE FRIGGN MILE of ice. Having lived many years in Chicago I can attest to the advantages of warmer rather then cooler climate.
Or perhaps you prefer the colder, damper climate of the Bubonic Pague era. It only resulted in the death of, perhaps, half the entire population of Europe. But the whose counting! After all, there are forelorn Polar Bears out there needing immediate rescue.
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Ben - I don't care WHAT it referred to. The fact this offical actually said that is prima facia evidence of hysteria.
Maybe you don't get it. Statements like this and others like it create a social climate of suspicion. JUSTIFIED suspicion in my opinion. If Gore shows me a forelorn Polar Bear on melting ice berg, while at the same time I have reports "there are a hell of a lot more Polar Bears", I take notice.
No, the fact that you cited it is prima facie evidence that you didn't understand it.
Also re the arrable land. The further from the equatror you push the boundary of "nice weather for farming" the smaller the area that's available.
It's something to do with the geometry of spheres.
The fact that it has been hotter and colder in the past doesn't make change good. It's the change that's the problem.
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Bored
Your last post suggests you are drunker then ME! I am about out of beer, and will leave the stage.....
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Warm is good for several reasons. First, it provides more arrible land.
There will be new arable land. Do you have evidence to say it will be more? There would be new arable lands in countries like Greenland and Canada, and higher rice yeilds in Northern China. However, at the same time:
China's grain harvest could be cut by 10% http://www.terradaily.com/reports/Global_warming_to_decimate_Chinas_harvests_999.html (http://www.terradaily.com/reports/Global_warming_to_decimate_Chinas_harvests_999.html)
Africa's food production will be halved http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/IRIN/3883fde14bb3020c21fd8159ef50dd7c.htm (http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/IRIN/3883fde14bb3020c21fd8159ef50dd7c.htm)
Crop disease may be boosted http://www.terradaily.com/reports/070814124316.rhrly4bx.html (http://www.terradaily.com/reports/070814124316.rhrly4bx.html)
Water shortages in the Mediterranean, flash floods along the Rhine, more than half of Europe's plant species will be at threat http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=story_30-5-2005_pg6_10 (http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=story_30-5-2005_pg6_10)
Encroachment of shrubs into grasslands, rendering rangeland unsuitable for domestic livestock grazing http://www.pnas.org/content/104/37/14724.abstract (http://www.pnas.org/content/104/37/14724.abstract)
Fresh water supplies for coastal communities will diminish http://researchnews.osu.edu/archive/saltwatr.htm (http://researchnews.osu.edu/archive/saltwatr.htm)
Decreased water supply in the Colorado river basin http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2007/2007GL031764.shtml (http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2007/2007GL031764.shtml)
Decreased water supply in the Murray-Darling basin http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2008/2008GL033390.shtml (http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2008/2008GL033390.shtml)
Decreasing human water supplies, increased fire frequency, ecosystem change and expanded deserts http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2009/20090126_climate.html (http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2009/20090126_climate.html)
To name a few.
Not to mention CO2's effects on ocean acidification, and its possible far-reaching ramifications.
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Warm is good, cold is bad, that simple is it?
Ok. Why is warm good?
Because I won't have to wear that cumbersome Snuggy..........Bhurrrrrr!
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Madi,
Get yourself a wetsuit and start bringing those distraught Polar Bears to safety. What you fail to realize is not all of us are Chumps. Lie to me about Polar Bear Populations, or past climate change, and you are history.
No second chances you fraudulent piece of iceberg flotsom.
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Bored
Your last post suggests you are drunker then ME! I am about out of beer, and will leave the stage.....
No, stone cold sober (but perhaps a bit hungover). Even if I had been drunk it wouldn't have given you and excuse to ignore the facts.
Feel free to answer the points I made.
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No second chances you fraudulent piece of iceberg flotsom.
This is getting worryingly close to an abusive attitude. People can be band from the forum for that, I've heard!
BTW, who's been lying to whom about polar bear populations?
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Madi,
Get yourself a wetsuit and start bringing those distraught Polar Bears to safety. What you fail to realize is not all of us are Chumps. Lie to me about Polar Bear Populations, or past climate change, and you are history.
No second chances you fraudulent piece of iceberg flotsom.
I have lied about nothing. You're attacking a straw man, I have said nothing of polar bears. You either didn't read or chose to ignore my points.
Abusing me will convince no one of anything, come back if you are ready to pull your head out of the sand and actually address arguments and facts.
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Ben - I don't care WHAT it referred to. The fact this offical actually said that is prima facia evidence of hysteria.
Maybe you don't get it. Statements like this and others like it create a social climate of suspicion. JUSTIFIED suspicion in my opinion. If Gore shows me a forelorn Polar Bear on melting ice berg, while at the same time I have reports "there are a hell of a lot more Polar Bears", I take notice.
But you don't take notice of the actual content of an article that contains the "just 50 days..." quote? Did you bother to read past the headline? I think this probably shows that you're predisposed towards a particular attitude on climate issues.
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Bored chemist - You wrote: "Let's take a planet and add lots of CO2 to the armosphere and see if the temperature goes up."
You will be happy to note the industial revolutions on Mars, Pluto, and other planets and moons have also warmed them up noticeably as well. Of maybe its just second hand CO2.
http://www.livescience.com/environment/070312_solarsys_warming.html
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BenV,
The guy is a politician and knows how to get a headline. That was the headline he got. I have the normal suspicion of political discourse. However, I have two questions for you: 1)have you heard of the "hocky-stick" graph of planetary temperatures over the last couple of thousand years; and 2) do you belive it?
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madi
I was not calling you a lier about Polar Bears, since you did not mention it. My post was simply an explanation that Nobel Prize Winner algore STILL will not admit there are more Polar Bears then in the recent past. His latest answer was just as political as ever "Are they on the endangered species list?"
The contradictions and inconsistency pile up like dirty snow in Chicago. There ARE more Polar Bears. Yes, the entire solar system seems to be warming. Yet, our planet now seems to be cooling right now. And yes, our planet has seen both warmer and colder spells over the millenium PRIOR to industrialization.
CO2 has been as high as 3000ppm, and the Jurassic period flourished. During the last Ice Age, with about the same CO2 as now, burried much of North America benieth a mile of ice. Having lived in Chicago, I would vote 3000 parts per million HOT, rather then 300ppm Ice Age. I shoveled my fair share of Chicago Snow. But one mile of ice would choke even the best Home Depot snow blower.
PS: The entire fiasco has become of supernatural indiference to me. Europe and Japan are going Nuclear, the US seems to be taking an appropriate Blow-Hard approach with windmills. The developing world will continue to burn fossile fuels. NONE OF THIS WILL CHANGE in our lifetimes. And I predict the sky will not fall.
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"CO2 has been as high as 3000ppm,"
[O2] used to be zero ppm so it couldn't do any harm to go back to that.
From this
http://www.livescience.com/environment/070312_solarsys_warming.html
cited by litespeed...
"Habibullo Abdussamatov, the head of space research at St. Petersburg's Pulkovo Astronomical Observatory in Russia, recently linked the attenuation of ice caps on Mars to fluctuations in the sun's output"
And, from the same site
"As for Abdussamatov’s claim that solar fluctuations are causing Earth’s current global warming, Charles Long, a climate physicist at Pacific Northwest National Laboratories in Washington, says the idea is nonsense.
“That’s nuts,” Long said in a telephone interview. “It doesn’t make physical sense that that’s the case.”
"
Shall we just say that the evidence doesn't seem altogether uncontraversial?
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Bored
I found my Roma Era warming studies. It took a couple of hours. The following link shows a number of proxy studies, with summaries. http://www.co2science.org/subject/r/summaries/rwpeuropenorth.php
The following link is from that summary and shows the Roman Era 6C warmer. I am skeptical about that particular number.... http://www.co2science.org/articles/V8/N40/C2.php
"Linderholm and Gunnarson (2005) utilized the well replicated period of 1632 BC to AD 2000 of the Jämtland multi-millennial tree-ring width chronology derived from living and subfossil Scots pines sampled close to the present tree-line in the central Scandinavian Mountains as a proxy for summer temperatures. Several periods of anomalously warm and cold summers were noted throughout this record: (1) 550 to 450 BC (Roman Warm Period), when summer temperatures were the warmest of the entire record, exceeding the 1961-1990 mean by more than 6°C, (2) AD 300 to 400 (Dark Ages Cold Period), which was "the longest period of consecutive cold summers," averaging 1.5°C less than the 1961-1990 mean, (3) AD 900 to 1000, a warm era corresponding to the Medieval Warm Period, and (4) AD 1550 to 1900, a cold period known as the Little Ice Age."
PS: This is a nice link to long scale co2/Temp tracking: http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/Carboniferous_climate.html
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Bored
I found my Roma Era warming studies. It took a couple of hours. The following link shows a number of proxy studies, with summaries. http://www.co2science.org/subject/r/summaries/rwpeuropenorth.php
The following link is from that summary and shows the Roman Era 6C warmer. I am skeptical about that particular number.... http://www.co2science.org/articles/V8/N40/C2.php
"Linderholm and Gunnarson (2005) utilized the well replicated period of 1632 BC to AD 2000 of the Jämtland multi-millennial tree-ring width chronology derived from living and subfossil Scots pines sampled close to the present tree-line in the central Scandinavian Mountains as a proxy for summer temperatures. Several periods of anomalously warm and cold summers were noted throughout this record: (1) 550 to 450 BC (Roman Warm Period), when summer temperatures were the warmest of the entire record, exceeding the 1961-1990 mean by more than 6°C, (2) AD 300 to 400 (Dark Ages Cold Period), which was "the longest period of consecutive cold summers," averaging 1.5°C less than the 1961-1990 mean, (3) AD 900 to 1000, a warm era corresponding to the Medieval Warm Period, and (4) AD 1550 to 1900, a cold period known as the Little Ice Age."
PS: This is a nice link to long scale co2/Temp tracking: http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/Carboniferous_climate.html
Who cares?
There never was any God-given promise that the sun wouldn't fluctuate.
However the fact remains that we cannot predict those fluctuations with any accuracy (apart from the 11 year sunspot cycle and even that's up a gum tree at the moment).
We can predict the effect of the excess CO2 and, in general, it's not good.
So we should try to reduce that excess.
What happened a hundred or a thousand years ago doesn't have a lot to do with whether or not we should invest in wind turbines today.
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madi
This is just the sort of junk science example that gives CO2 science a bad name. Dramatic music, meliphorous presenter, and one single scientist (Peter Cox). Cox should work a slight of hand gig in Vegas.
1) He tells us the climate jumps about a bit, perhaps a bit colder if a volcano goes off, but just a bit jiggley. Very convenient his chart began at the end of the last "Little Ice" age.
2) And of course there are no dissenters on hand to point our the climate jumps about quite a lot over the last couple of millenia. Both significanly warmer and significantly cooler.
3) His climate models are marvels of simplicity. He just simple TELLS us these things are true. He should at least name WHICH model. But the mortal sin is if he has a model, he needs to run it BACKWARD. Perhaps he is an Extreme Crationist and believes the climate began less then two hundred years ago.
Your very presentation of this silly film clip as some sort of serious scientific reference is troubling in and of itself.
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Madi
I would be negligent if I did not present you with a better example of scientific reference then what you provided me. Specifically, I wished to know what sort of evidence there might be that supported the idea The Roman Era Warming, at least better then 'Britain Exported Wine'. The following is some of what I found. I suggest you ponder the differences in science presentation between your film clip and the following.
ROMAN ERA CLIMATE
Jiang et al. (2002) used diatom assemblages from a high-resolution core extracted from the seabed of the north Icelandic shelf to reconstruct a 4600-year history of mean summer sea surface temperature in that general region. In doing so, they found that the warmest temperature of the record (~8.1°C) occurred near its beginning about 4400 years before present (BP). Thereafter, the climate cooled, fitfully over the next 1700 years, but more consistently over the final 2700 years. In fact, most of the data of this final period are well described by a steadily declining linear relationship. There is, however, one data point at about 1500 years BP (during the Roman Warm Period) that rises above this line by ~0.5°C and another at about 1350 years BP (during the Dark Ages Cold Period) that falls below the line by ~0.5°C. Then comes a departure centered on about 850 years BP (during the Medieval Warm Period), when the temperature rises by more than 1°C above the line describing the long-term downward trend. Last of all, the most recent data point (during the Current Warm Period) has a value of ~6.3°C.
These findings clearly indicate that the past 2700 years have witnessed a significant deterioration of the climate in the vicinity of the north Icelandic shelf, as the region has moved ever further away from the benign weather of the Roman Warm Period. After the planet's descent into the Dark Ages Cold Period, however, the Icelandic record depicts a nearly complete recovery during the middle of the Medieval Warm Period; but the warmth of this period soon gave way to the rapid cooling that produced the Little Ice Age, which brought mean summer sea surface temperatures down by ~2.2°C from what they were at the peak of the Medieval Warm Period. Clearly, it's time for a little warmth once again; and the results of this study suggest that the region surrounding Iceland is going to need a whole lot of it to return to its former "glory days" of both the Medieval and Roman Warm Periods.
Working nearby, on Iceland itself, Olafsdottir et al. (2001) simulated the spatial relationship between temperature change and potential vegetation cover there over the period of the Holocene, evaluating their results against palynological and geomorphological data. This work revealed that during the Holocene Climatic Optimum, vegetation may have covered about 60% of the land. By the time the Roman Warm Period began to wane about 2300 years ago, however, a vegetative decline commenced that continued until the Medieval Warm Period reversed the decline for about 400 years. The appearance of the Little Ice Age, however, resulted in "an unprecedented low potential for vegetation for the Holocene that lasted c. 600 years, i.e., between AD c. 1300 and 1900," which suggests that the Roman Warm Period was likely the most vegetation-friendly (i.e., warmest) period of the post Climatic Optimum era.
Berglund (2003) identified several periods of expansion and decline of human cultures in Northwest Europe and compared them with a history of reconstructed climate "based on insolation, glacier activity, lake and sea levels, bog growth, tree line, and tree growth." This work revealed "a positive correlation between human impact/land-use and climate change." More specifically, in the latter part of the record where both cultural and climate changes were best defined, there was, in Berglund's words, a great "retreat of agriculture" centered on about AD 500, which led to "reforestation in large areas of central Europe and Scandinavia." He additionally notes that "this period was one of rapid cooling indicated from tree-ring data (Eronen et al., 1999) as well as sea surface temperatures based on diatom stratigraphy in [the] Norwegian Sea (Jansen and Koc, 2000), which can be correlated with Bond's event 1 in the North Atlantic sediments (Bond et al., 1997)." And, of course, the climatic state from which this cooling began was the agriculturally-friendly Roman Warm Period.
Grudd et al. (2002) assembled tree-ring widths from 880 living, dead, and subfossil northern Swedish pines into a continuous and precisely dated chronology covering the period 5407 BC to AD 1997. The strong association between these data and summer (June-August) mean temperatures of the last 129 years of this period then enabled them to produce a 7400-year history of summer mean temperature for northern Swedish Lapland. The most dependable portion of this record, based upon the number of trees that were sampled, consists of the last two millennia, which the six researchers say "display features of century-timescale climatic variation known from other proxy and historical sources, including a warm 'Roman' period in the first centuries AD and a generally cold 'Dark Ages' climate from about AD 500 to about AD 900." They also note that "the warm period around AD 1000 may correspond to a so-called 'Mediaeval Warm Period,' known from a variety of historical sources and other proxy records." Lastly, they say that "the climatic deterioration in the twelfth century can be regarded as the starting point of a prolonged cold period that continued to the first decade of the twentieth century," which "Little Ice Age," in their words, is also "known from instrumental, historical and proxy records."
Going back further in time, the tree-ring record displays several additional warmer and colder periods. And in a telling commentary on climate-alarmist claims to the contrary, Grudd et al. report that "the relatively warm conditions of the late twentieth century do not exceed those reconstructed for several earlier time intervals." In fact, the warmth of many of the earlier warm intervals significantly exceeded the warmth of the late 20th century.
Hormes et al. (2004) identified and dated periods of soil formation in moraines in the Kebnekaise mountain region of Swedish Lapland in the foreground of the Nipalsglaciaren, after which they compared the climatic implications of their results with those of other proxy climate records derived throughout other areas of northern and central Scandinavia. The chief result of these efforts was that two periods of soil formation were identified (2750-2000 and 1170-740 cal yr BP), which spans of time coincide nearly perfectly with the Roman and Medieval Warm Periods delineated by McDermott et al. (2001) in the δ18O record they developed from a stalagmite in southwestern Ireland's Crag Cave. Hormes et al. additionally report that during the periods when the soil formation processes they discovered took place, "the glacier was most likely in a position similar to today, and climate conditions were also similar to today."
With respect to their identification of soil formation during the Roman Warm Period, Hormes et al. describe similar prior findings of contemporaneous soil formation at Svartisen glacier between 2350 and 1990 cal yr BP by Karlen (1979), Austre Okstindbreen glacier between 2350 and 1800 cal yr BP by Griffey and Worsley (1978), and Austre Okstindbreen glacier between 2750 and 2150 by Karlen (1979). In addition, they note that the pine tree-based temperature history of northern Fennoscandia developed by Grudd et al. (2002) "discloses a spike +2°C higher than today's around 2300 cal yr BP," and that "the lacustrine records in Lapland and Finland are also consistent with supposition of a warmer climate than at present before 2000 cal yr BP and cooler temperatures before 2450 cal yr BP (Rosen et al., 2001; Seppa and Birks, 2001; Shemesh et al., 2001; Hammarlund et al., 2002; Heikkila and Seppa, 2003)."
Utilizing plant macrofossils, testate amoebae and degree of humification as proxies for environmental moisture conditions, Blundell and Barber (2005) developed a 2800-year "wetness history" from a peat core extracted from Tore Hill Moss, a raised bog in the Strathspey region of Scotland. Based on the results they obtained from the three proxies they studied, the two researchers derived a relative wetness history that begins 2800 years ago and extends all the way to AD 2000. The most clearly defined and longest interval of sustained dryness of this entire history stretches from about AD 850 to AD 1080, coincident with the well known Medieval Warm Period, while the most extreme wetness interval occurred during the depths of the last stage of the Little Ice Age. Preceding the Medieval Warm Period, their hydro-climate reconstruction reveals a highly chaotic period of generally greater wetness that corresponds to the Dark Ages Cold Period, as well as dryness peaks representing the Roman Warm Period and two other periods of relative dryness. In addition, the correlation this study demonstrates to exist between relative wetness and warmth in Scotland strongly suggests that the temperature of the late 20th century was nowhere near the highest of the past two millennia in that part of the world. In fact, it suggests there were five other periods over the past 2800 years that were considerably warmer.
Linderholm and Gunnarson (2005) utilized the well replicated period of 1632 BC to AD 2000 of the Jämtland multi-millennial tree-ring width chronology derived from living and subfossil Scots pines sampled close to the present tree-line in the central Scandinavian Mountains as a proxy for summer temperatures. Several periods of anomalously warm and cold summers were noted throughout this record: (1) 550 to 450 BC (Roman Warm Period), when summer temperatures were the warmest of the entire record, exceeding the 1961-1990 mean by more than 6°C, (2) AD 300 to 400 (Dark Ages Cold Period), which was "the longest period of consecutive cold summers," averaging 1.5°C less than the 1961-1990 mean, (3) AD 900 to 1000, a warm era corresponding to the Medieval Warm Period, and (4) AD 1550 to 1900, a cold period known as the Little Ice Age.
Last of all, Allen et al. (2007) analyzed pollen characteristics within sediment cores retrieved from a small unnamed lake located near the coast of Nordkinnhalvoya, Finnmark, Norway, after which they used the results of this effort to construct a climatic history of the area over the course of the Holocene. In doing so, they discovered that "regional vegetation responded to Holocene climatic variability at centennial-millennial time scales." More specifically, they report identifying "the most recent widely documented cooling event, the Little Ice Age of ca 450-100 cal BP," the "Dark Ages cool interval, a period during which various other proxies indicate cooling in Fennoscandia and beyond," which they place at 1600-1100 cal BP, the "Medieval Warm Period that separated the latter two cool intervals," and "the warm period around two millennia ago during which the Roman Empire reached its peak," which, of course, was the Roman Warm Period.
In view of these several research findings, it should be obvious that the Roman Warm Period was a very real feature of northern European climatic history, and that it likely was even warmer than the Current Warm Period has been to date. Furthermore, since all of that prior warmth occurred at times when the atmosphere's CO2 concentration was more than 100 ppm less than it is today, there is no compelling reason to believe that the lesser warmth of today has anything at all to do with the air's current much-higher CO2 content.
References
Allen, J.R.M., Long, A.J., Ottley, C.J., Pearson, D.G. and Huntley, B. 2007. Holocene climate variability in northernmost Europe. Quaternary Science Reviews 26: 1432-1453.
Berglund, B.E. 2003. Human impact and climate changes -- synchronous events and a causal link? Quaternary International 105: 7-12.
Blundell, A. and Barber, K. 2005. A 2800-year palaeoclimatic record from Tore Hill Moss, Strathspey, Scotland: the need for a multi-proxy approach to peat-based climate reconstructions. Quaternary Science Reviews 24: 1261-1277.
Bond, G., Showers, W., Cheseby, M., Lotti, R., Almasi, P., deMenocal, P., Priore, P., Cullen, H., Hajdas, I. and Bonani, G. 1997. A pervasive millennial-scale cycle in North Atlantic Holocene and glacial climates. Science 278: 1257-1266.
Eronen, M., Hyvarinen, H. and Zetterberg, P. 1999. Holocene humidity changes in northern Finnish Lapland inferred from lake sediments and submerged Scots pines dated by tree-rings. The Holocene 9: 569-580.
Griffey, N.J. and Worsley, P. 1978. The pattern of neoglacial glacier variations in the Okstindan region of northern Norway during the last three millennia. Boreas 7: 1-17.
Grudd, H., Briffa, K.R., Karlen, W., Bartholin, T.S., Jones, P.D. and Kromer, B. 2002. A 7400-year tree-ring chronology in northern Swedish Lapland: natural climatic variability expressed on annual to millennial timescales. The Holocene 12: 657-665.
Hammarlund, D., Barnekow, L., Birks, H.J.B., Buchardt, B. and Edwards, T.W.D. 2002. Hoolocene changes in atmospheric circulation recorded in the oxygen-isotope stratigraphy of lacustrine carbonates from northern Sweden. The Holocene 12: 339- 351.
Heikkila, M. and Seppa, H. 2003. A 11,000-yr palaeotemperature reconstruction from the southern boreal zone in Finland. Quaternary Science Reviews 22: 541-554.
Hormes, A., Karlen, W. and Possnert, G. 2004. Radiocarbon dating of palaeosol components in moraines in Lapland, northern Sweden. Quaternary Science Reviews 23: 2031-2043.
Jansen, E. and Koc, N. 2000. Century to decadal scale records of Norwegian sea surface temperature variations of the past 2 millennia. PAGES Newsletter 8(1): 13-14.
Jiang, H., Seidenkrantz, M-S., Knudsen, K.L. and Eiriksson, J. 2002. Late-Holocene summer sea-surface temperatures based on a diatom record from the north Icelandic shelf. The Holocene 12: 137-147.
Karlen, W. 1979. Glacier variations in the Svartisen area, northern Norway. Geografiska Annaler 61A: 11-28.
Linderholm, H.W. and Gunnarson, B.E. 2005. Summer temperature variability in central Scandinavia during the last 3600 years. Geografiska Annaler 87A: 231-241.
McDermott, F., Mattey, D.P. and Hawkesworth, C. 2001. Centennial-scale Holocene climate variability revealed by a high-resolution speleothem δ18O record from SW Ireland. Science 294: 1328-1331.
Olafsdottir, R., Schlyter, P. and Haraldsson, H.V. 2001. Simulating Icelandic vegetation cover during the Holocene: Implications for long-term land degradation. Geografiska Annaler 83A: 203-215.
Rosen, P., Segerstrom, U., Eriksson, L., Renberg, I. and Birks, H.J.B. 2001. Holocene climatic change reconstructed from diatoms, chironomids, pollen and near-infrared spectroscopy at an alpine lake (Sjuodjijaure) in northern Sweden. The Holocene 11: 551-562.
Seppa, H. and Birks, H.J.B. 2001. July mean temperature and annual precipitation trends during the Holocene in the Fennoscandian tree-line area: pollen-based climate reconstruction. The Holocene 11: 527-539.
Shemesh, A., Rosqvist, G., Rietti-Shati, M., Rubensdotter, L., Bigler, C., Yam, R. and Karlen, W. 2001. Holocene climatic changes in Swedish Lapland inferred from an oxygen isotope record of lacustrine biogenic silica. The Holocene 11: 447-454.
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In view of these several research findings, it should be obvious that the Roman Warm Period was a very real feature of northern European climatic history, and that it likely was even warmer than the Current Warm Period has been to date. Furthermore, since all of that prior warmth occurred at times when the atmosphere's CO2 concentration was more than 100 ppm less than it is today, there is no compelling reason to believe that the lesser warmth of today has anything at all to do with the air's current much-higher CO2 content.
http://www.skepticalscience.com/co2-higher-in-past.htm (http://www.skepticalscience.com/co2-higher-in-past.htm)
To claim that "higher CO2 in the past disproves CO2 warming" is essentially a straw man argument. If climate scientists were claiming CO2 is the only driver of climate, then yes, high CO2 during glacial periods would be problematic. But any climate scientist will tell you CO2 is not the only driver of climate. Climatologist Dana Royer says it best: "the geologic record contains a treasure trove of 'alternative Earths' that allow scientists to study how the various components of the Earth system respond to a range of climatic forcings." Past periods of higher CO2 do not contradict the notion that CO2 warms global temperatures. On the contrary, they confirm the close coupling between CO2 and climate.
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Madi - You wrote: "But any climate scientist will tell you CO2 is not the only driver of climate." Well duuuhhhh. However, kudus for putting the wooden stake into algore and his forlorn Polar Bear.
The Little Ice Age ended no later then 1900. Many climatologists believe most of the subsequent and expected warming took place prior to 1950. Climate has been unstable since, with a recent trend back towards cooler. I hope you are correct the climate will once again warm up. If not? Well, there will be money to be made on the fozen Thames Winter Fair!
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What graph are you looking at that makes you think the earth is cooling?
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I have a quote here from another expert in the field:
"Yes, that is correct. Light that is absorbed by gases is re-emitted in a random direction. "
"The amount of carbon dioxide is enough to absorb all the radiation in the bands where it absorbs within a few meters. So the only effect of an increase in CO2 is to move the location of absorption/re-emission closer to the source".
Tom Nelson
Are you sure about exactly what is the greenhouse effect? You are not answering the question that I asked in my previoos post?
Here is how CO2 spreads..CO2 (http://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/index.php?topic=27265.msg289980#msg289980) and please read where that link links too. (About Lisa Moore, Ph.D., scientist in the Climate and Air program at Environmental Defense. (further down))
Here is the global analysis for November by NOOA Satellite and Information Service (http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/?report=global&year=2009&month=11)
Notice the trends..
And if you are serious I'm prepared to discuss it with you, but not until you read this (http://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/index.php?topic=25747.msg276354#msg276354) first. You only need to read the part discussing CO2 and methane :)
The rest is other stuff.
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"CO2 has been as high as 3000ppm,"
[O2] used to be zero ppm so it couldn't do any harm to go back to that.
From this
http://www.livescience.com/environment/070312_solarsys_warming.html
cited by litespeed...
"Habibullo Abdussamatov, the head of space research at St. Petersburg's Pulkovo Astronomical Observatory in Russia, recently linked the attenuation of ice caps on Mars to fluctuations in the sun's output"
And, from the same site
"As for Abdussamatov’s claim that solar fluctuations are causing Earth’s current global warming, Charles Long, a climate physicist at Pacific Northwest National Laboratories in Washington, says the idea is nonsense.
“That’s nuts,” Long said in a telephone interview. “It doesn’t make physical sense that that’s the case.”
"
Shall we just say that the evidence doesn't seem altogether uncontraversial?
Bored Chemist, to that one might add that there are evidence pointing to Russian hackers being the ones that (according to my sources) with the help of the Federal Security Service (FSB= Federal'naya Sluzhba Bezopasnosti) cracked and spread a lot of good disinformation about climate scientists. A beautiful disinformation job in fact, but the real beauty was the way they puzzled together enough 'random information', in such a way that people reading it only would draw one conclusion. Russia have always been good at disinformation and have several projects involving natural gas (methane) as well as oil and the power politics in Russia is geared to Power, not environmentalism.
FSB crackers (http://climaterealists.com/index.php?id=4572)
--Quote-----From GlobalSecurity.org--
"The Federal Security Service (FSB - Federal'naya Sluzhba Bezopasnosti, previously known as Federal Counterintelligence Service - FSK) is the most powerful of the successors to the KGB. In the years since the fall of the Soviet Union, the FSB slowly took on the responsibilities of a number of agencies. Most recently, it absorbed FAPSI, the Russian equivalent of the United States' National Security Agency.
The FSB's power is rooted in the influence of President Vladimir Putin, a former director, and a vast network of former officers that has permeated all sectors of Russian government and society. It is estimated that, among Russia’s 1,000 leading political figures, 78% have worked with the FSB or its predecessors. With this sort of clout at its disposal, FSB carries out intelligence, counterintelligence, counterterrorism, economic crime investigation, electronic intelligence, border control and “social monitoring.”
----End of quote-----
Another thing worth pointing out here is that once a site is compromised you can't trust its materials anymore, that mean that you either have it all back-upped and start from there with a entirely new OS or that you accept the risk of corrupted data and 'back doors.'