2014 hottest year on record

[azure]

Here is your problem, and I tried to point it out to you before. The NASA and the IPCC explanations are impossible. I don't know how you couldn't think they meant it literally since they say it with words and diagrams showing radiation drilling into the surface. The IPCC explanation is put out to the world as consensus. You claim it is dumbed down for the masses. I disagree. Their explanation is the same as how people use to think a real Greenhouse worked. You and some others realize this is impossible , and so go with a reduced cooling effect. Just like a thermos, it can't increase the the temperature of the contents, just keep it from cooling faster. It would not be difficult for the IPCC to explain in laymans terms what you think the theory is.

I tend to agree, the more I think about it the less I like that way of explaining it. Some sites just say that CO2 slows down radiational cooling and leave it at that. For example, from this site, about halfway down the page:

Within the next half-century or so an accumulation of airborne pollutants -- notably carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), nitrous oxides (NOx), and chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) — will very likely cause noticeable changes in climate ( noticeable changes may have already occurred but there is debate about that). Because these so-called greenhouse gases retard the flow of heat radiation from the surface into space, the whole Earth will warm . This is called the greenhouse effect . This warming is partly reduced by other pollutants that form tiny aerosol particles which reflect some sunlight back to space. The global warming will in turn lead to a variety of other changes throughout Earth's climate system: changes in heat and water transport, wind and ocean currents, precipitation patterns and clouds. Given such a profound potential for an adjustment of the basic climatic elements and the possible consequences for human society, an improved understanding of the radiation and water balance and their dependence on cloud processes is one of several crucial goals of current research.

But they completely leave out the physical mechanism that explains how the extra warmth gets spread around the planet. It's impossible to do that without mentioning back radiation. And back radiation is convenient because it's touchy-feely, it makes people think of sitting under a sun lamp.

The skeptics have a big job becuase they have to put down multiple versions of the theory. Frankly, since you had a problem with the Wood experiment, I think your own thoughts on the theory have evolved since the start of this thread.

Yep, and the climate scientists have a big job trying to explain it to the public because all analogies fail if you push them too far. Sure my thoughts have evolved, I didn't see how you were thinking about it until just a couple of hours ago, so we were just talking past each other. The Wood experiment... not so much, I've honestly never been sure what to make of it. I just don't know what fraction of the "forcing" in a real greenhouse is due to blocked radiation vs convection. And I'm not interested enough in the question to do the calculation. Maybe some day as a project for a student.

I don't buy the CO2 as a blocking agent , slowing the cooling either. I feel CO2 is just another conduit to move heat. Even if it did what you say, how much of an effect would one molecule of CO2 out of every 2500 molecules in the atmosphere have? At least I now have a clearer idea of what you think the theory is.

It all depends on the probability that a photon will interact with a single CO2 molecule, basically how "big" the molecule looks to a photon. The best analogy I can come up with here is slightly dirty water. If you have a shallow pool of it, you can see through it easily, in fact if the dirt is fine enough you might not even notice it. But if the pool is deep enough, you won't be able to see the bottom because somewhere in their journey to the surface, most of the photons coming from the bottom have been blocked by an encounter with a dirt particle. The bigger the dirt particles, the fewer of them there have to be to have the same effect.

BTW, no hard feelings on all this junk, Happy New Year!

Likewise - Happy New Year!

 

[vintage cessna]

If you think it scatters the radiation, why don't you think some of it is not scattered back down to the earth?

This other guy recreated the experiment too, and came up with different results.

http://boole.stanford.edu/WoodExpt/

I think it does, maybe about a quarter of it. CO2 scatters the radiation at a different ( degraded) wavelength than it received it at. But it will not do anything. A radiating body ( Earth in this case) can not warm itself. That is impossible. The most CO2 could do is transfer heat from one place to another.

As for the Wood experiment, for all the billions being spent on climate research, why not give this inexpensive experiment to three different groups. They could post everything they do and the results on the Internet for everyone to see. That is how all taxpayer funded climate research should be done anyway. This research is done for the benefit of all mankind. It will never happen, becuase right now the probable results is not what policy makers of the current administration want to hear.

 

[vintage cessna]

I tend to agree, the more I think about it the less I like that way of explaining it. Some sites just say that CO2 slows down radiational cooling and leave it at that. For example, from this site, about halfway down the page:

But they completely leave out the physical mechanism that explains how the extra warmth gets spread around the planet. It's impossible to do that without mentioning back radiation. And back radiation is convenient because it's touchy-feely, it makes people think of sitting under a sun lamp.

Yep, and the climate scientists have a big job trying to explain it to the public because all analogies fail if you push them too far. Sure my thoughts have evolved, I didn't see how you were thinking about it until just a couple of hours ago, so we were just talking past each other. The Wood experiment... not so much, I've honestly never been sure what to make of it. I just don't know what fraction of the "forcing" in a real greenhouse is due to blocked radiation vs convection. And I'm not interested enough in the question to do the calculation. Maybe some day as a project for a student.

It all depends on the probability that a photon will interact with a single CO2 molecule, basically how "big" the molecule looks to a photon. The best analogy I can come up with here is slightly dirty water. If you have a shallow pool of it, you can see through it easily, in fact if the dirt is fine enough you might not even notice it. But if the pool is deep enough, you won't be able to see the bottom because somewhere in their journey to the surface, most of the photons coming from the bottom have been blocked by an encounter with a dirt particle. The bigger the dirt particles, the fewer of them there have to be to have the same effect.

Likewise - Happy New Year!

Ok. To the relief of everyone this will be my last post on the subject. Some food for thought. I can't buy your argument that the "real" Greenhouse effect theory, whatever it may be, is too complicated to explain to laypeople.

Einstein, in explaining the theory of relativity, was able to do so in a way that even my peanut brain could start to grasp the concepts.

With that, we shall just agree to disagree.

 

[N801BH]

I have to admit....

This (was) a fascinating debate.. My simple mind works slower then most peoples but when Mari chimed in with her logical questions, the thread took a smooth turn into the realm of rational thinking........

Personally, my thoughts are..

CO2 is NOT a bad gas as all living organisms that use photosynthsis (sp) need it to do their job.... The more CO2, the more they thrive.. AND the more oxygen gets released back into the atmosphere by the leaves of plants.. Kinda offsetting the excess CO2......

Once again.... I learned ALOT reading this.. Thanks all..

Ps.... I LOVE POA.....

 

[azure]

If you think it scatters the radiation, why don't you think some of it is not scattered back down to the earth?

There was a paper a few years ago that proposed that scattering of infrared radiation by CO2 clouds on Mars could have contributed to a greenhouse effect there way back when the planets were young. The idea is sound, as you say: if you scatter radiation so that less gets through to space, you're inhibiting cooling and so the planet gets warmer.

But CO2 clouds aren't gas, they're dry ice crystals. CO2 *as a gas* is much likelier to absorb infrared light than to scatter it. When a CO2 molecule absorbs infrared, it holds onto the energy for a while before re-emitting it - I think it's on the order of a few microseconds (millionths of a second). But the vast majority of CO2 molecules collide with other molecules every few nanoseconds (billionths). By the time the average CO2 molecule re-emits, it has given up most of its extra energy in collisions and so the infrared it emits is "downgraded" (to use VC's words), meaning it has less energy. Most of the molecules in the atmosphere are poor emitters of infrared light. That's why people say the radiation is "trapped".

If there wasn't this big bright star 93 million miles away shining down on us, we'd still turn into a snowball pretty quickly and all the CO2 "blanket" would do is prolong the agony. VC is correct that the planet can't warm itself, but he is somehow missing the point. [/QUOTE]

 

[EppyGA]

http://www.drroyspencer.com/2014/10/why-2014-wont-be-the-warmest-year-on-record/

 

[Everskyward]

I think it does, maybe about a quarter of it. CO2 scatters the radiation at a different ( degraded) wavelength than it received it at. But it will not do anything. A radiating body ( Earth in this case) can not warm itself. That is impossible. The most CO2 could do is transfer heat from one place to another.

I don't know why you keep bringing up the statement that the earth can't warm itself. That's not really what we are talking about is it? I thought the point was that a blanket of *something* whether it be clouds, CO2 or other gases/particles, is keeping some of the heat from radiating out into space.

 

[TMetzinger]

This is really getting tiresome VC. There IS consensus on the theory. There is not a consensus on how to explain it to lay people. How many times do I need to say it? The guvmint orgs dumb down the consensus theory and lose some accuracy in so doing. Their explanation is not really false, it is just inaccurate in the details and it emphasizes a part of the total picture that is not helpful in doing temperature predictions.

The book I'm using by Pierrehumbert devotes some 200 pages to explaining how it all works. He talks about blackbody radiation, atmospheric thermodynamics, the optical and radiative properties of GHGs, back radiation, lapse rates, and many other things. One thing that you learn very quickly is that a lot of complexity emerges from the way a few simple physical mechanisms interact. Everything affects everything else, but it all hangs together self-consistently. Do you really expect the IPCC to be able to distill all of that down to a few sentences and still have it all be perfectly accurate?

Sounds worse than trying to describe pitch/power/performance to a student pilot.... but not by much.

 

[overdrive148]

This thread in a gif. Good to see some attempts at rational argument by the way!

 

[LDJones]

Periodically, it's good to do a reality check. Here's a graphic representation of the change in CO2 since 1900 that is supposedly dooming our planet and it's inhabitants to extinction. (See attachment)

Now, back to your regularly scheduled doomsday discussion.

 

[N801BH]

Periodically, it's good to do a reality check. Here's a graphic representation of the change in CO2 since 1900 that is supposedly dooming our planet and it's inhabitants to extinction. (See attachment)

Now, back to your regularly scheduled doomsday discussion.

OH GEEZ.......
WE ARE ALL GOING TO DIE....

 

[overdrive148]

Periodically, it's good to do a reality check. Here's a graphic representation of the change in CO2 since 1900 that is supposedly dooming our planet and it's inhabitants to extinction. (See attachment)

Now, back to your regularly scheduled doomsday discussion.

Semi-related.

 

[Everskyward]

Periodically, it's good to do a reality check. Here's a graphic representation of the change in CO2 since 1900 that is supposedly dooming our planet and it's inhabitants to extinction. (See attachment)

Now, back to your regularly scheduled doomsday discussion.

Those pictures could mean anything. You could easily say the concentration of CO2 has increased 33% going from 3 dots to 4. Besides, who is talking about doomsday? I certainly am not and neither were the participants in the latter part of this thread.

 

[Norman]

Periodically, it's good to do a reality check. Here's a graphic representation of the change in CO2 since 1900 that is supposedly dooming our planet and it's inhabitants to extinction. (See attachment)

Now, back to your regularly scheduled doomsday discussion.

Gotta tell all those Chinese to quit exhaling.

 

[LDJones]

Those pictures could mean anything. You could easily say the concentration of CO2 has increased 33% going from 3 dots to 4. Besides, who is talking about doomsday? I certainly am not and neither were the participants in the latter part of this thread.

Congratulations on your math skills. The point of the exercise was to visualize the tiny percentage of CO2 molecules out of total molecules in the atmosphere. You could have doubled the CO2 molecules and they'd still be insignificant....unless you're attributing super powers to them.

As for the doomsday, you're obviously not paying attention to the broader discussion....loss of landmass, massive crop failures, human starvation. That's what we're being told is at stake, no? Otherwise, it's just an academic discussion of science.

 

[azure]

Periodically, it's good to do a reality check. Here's a graphic representation of the change in CO2 since 1900 that is supposedly dooming our planet and it's inhabitants to extinction. (See attachment)

Now, back to your regularly scheduled doomsday discussion.

I could do a similar graphic for CO in your cockpit. What harm can 395 ppm possibly do? It's less than .04% of all the molecules.

Your argument is just as fallacious.

 

[LDJones]

I could do a similar graphic for CO in your cockpit. What harm can 395 ppm possibly do? It's less than .04% of all the molecules.

Your argument is just as fallacious.

The difference Is we have physiological proof of the impact of one, pure speculation on the impact of the other. In other words, science.

 

[Everskyward]

Congratulations on your math skills. The point of the exercise was to visualize the tiny percentage of CO2 molecules out of total molecules in the atmosphere. You could have doubled the CO2 molecules and they'd still be insignificant....unless you're attributing super powers to them.

Your graphic doesn't take into consideration what concentration of CO2 molecules it takes to have an effect. I think the graphic was intended more to fool people into thinking, look! the molecules of CO2 are an inch apart (on my computer screen). How could they have much effect??!

 

[LDJones]

Your graphic doesn't take into consideration what concentration of CO2 molecules it takes to have an effect. I think the graphic was intended more to fool people into thinking, look! the molecules of CO2 are an inch apart (on my computer screen). How could they have much effect??!

Then you missed the point. Was there a dramatic difference between the two graphics? We're ascribing a tremendous affect to the #4 dot in the second image. Does that even pass the sniff test for you??

 

[Everskyward]

Then you missed the point. Was there a dramatic difference between the two graphics? We're ascribing a tremendous affect to the #4 dot in the second image. Does that even pass the sniff test for you??

You can't say anything one way or another from that graphic. As I said earlier, you could interpret the second graphic as having 33% more dots. You don't know what the effect of the individual dots are.

 

[LDJones]

You can't say anything one way or another from that graphic. As I said earlier, you could interpret the second graphic as having 33% more dots. You don't know what the effect of the individual dots are.

So, if we only had two dots we'd probably freezing to death?

 

[Everskyward]

So, if we only had two dots we'd probably freezing to death?

It's just a cartoon which doesn't mean anything because there is no context.

 

[LDJones]

It's just a cartoon which doesn't mean anything because there is no context.

The context is there are precisely .03% black dots in the first "cartoon" (???) image and .04% in the second, representing relative representation of CO2.

Nothing more, nothing less.

 

[Everskyward]

The context is there are precisely .03% black dots in the first "cartoon" (???) image and .04% in the second, representing relative representation of CO2.

Nothing more, nothing less.

Yet you are asking people to draw conclusions from that graphic. It's a cartoon dig at what you perceive to be the other side of the debate.

 

[azure]

The difference Is we have physiological proof of the impact of one, pure speculation on the impact of the other. In other words, science.

Which, even if true, doesn't change the fact that my counterexample shows that your "sniff test" is not a valid way of thinking about the subject.

But you're wrong that there is no science behind AGW. We know a lot about the "physiology" - we understand how the greenhouse effect works. Predicting the impact for the individual case is a lot harder. With humans and CO, people differ in their sensitivity, some people will be overcome at a lower concentration than others. In the climate system, we only have a rough idea how sensitive the surface temperature is to changes in CO2 concentration.

 

[Henning]

Not where I live. I haven't seen a dredge off shore here in years, if ever. And, if there was one, it would be to clean out the harbor.

And, yes, I do live on salt water. Budd Inlet, the southernmost extent of Puget Sound.

Might want to look at the two coastlines with no mountains and 90% of the energy infrastructure within 3' of sea level.

 

[write-stuff]

Periodically, it's good to do a reality check. Here's a graphic representation of the change in CO2 since 1900 that is supposedly dooming our planet and it's inhabitants to extinction. (See attachment)

Now, back to your regularly scheduled doomsday discussion.

Looks like a pretty substantial increase. Thanks for the chart.

 

[LDJones]

Yet you are asking people to draw conclusions from that graphic. It's a cartoon dig at what you perceive to be the other side of the debate.

No "cartoon" at all. It's a mathematically accurate depiction of reality.

 

[LDJones]

Looks like a pretty substantial increase. Thanks for the chart.

Yeah, it's breath taking. But we've seen bigger variations before.

 

[Everskyward]

No "cartoon" at all. It's a mathematically accurate depiction of reality.

Wow, you got 2.95 dots increasing to 3.95 dots on a square background. But that doesn't mean anything if you don't define what effect a dot has on something else.

 

[PaulS]

Wow, you got 2.95 dots increasing to 3.95 dots on a square background. But that doesn't mean anything if you don't define what effect a dot has on something else.

Isn't that what we don't know?

 

[Everskyward]

Isn't that what we don't know?

The person who drew the cartoon has an opinion one way or another about it or he or she wouldn't have drawn it. But it is not representative of any kind of science.

 

[N801BH]

The person who drew the cartoon has an opinion one way or another about it or he or she wouldn't have drawn it. But it is not representative of any kind of science.

Which is EXACTLY what the MMGW side claims is fact...

 

[LDJones]

Wow, you got 2.95 dots increasing to 3.95 dots on a square background. But that doesn't mean anything if you don't define what effect a dot has on something else.

Brilliant! Therein lies the heart of the debate. I'm just providing the data points. We'll let the scientists argue about what it means.

 

[Everskyward]

Brilliant! Therein lies the heart of the debate. I'm just providing the data points. We'll let the scientists argue about what it means.

They already are.

And those are not really data points, they are just dots on a white background.

 

[LDJones]

The person who drew the cartoon has an opinion one way or another about it or he or she wouldn't have drawn it. But it is not representative of any kind of science.

That's your assumption. The "cartoon" accurately depicts two time frames. You're the one applying your perceived meaning to it.

 

[LDJones]

They already are.

And those are not really data points, they are just dots on a white background.

Dots accurately representing two data points.

 

[Everskyward]

Dots accurately representing two data points.

Did someone figure out if you could get 10,000 dots in those squares? Otherwise it's not very accurate.

 

[Gary F]

I could do a similar graphic for CO in your cockpit. What harm can 395 ppm possibly do? It's less than .04% of all the molecules.

Your argument is just as fallacious.

That's a lousy comparison.

 

[Henning]

I have to admit....

This (was) a fascinating debate.. My simple mind works slower then most peoples but when Mari chimed in with her logical questions, the thread took a smooth turn into the realm of rational thinking........

Personally, my thoughts are..

CO2 is NOT a bad gas as all living organisms that use photosynthsis (sp) need it to do their job.... The more CO2, the more they thrive.. AND the more oxygen gets released back into the atmosphere by the leaves of plants.. Kinda offsetting the excess CO2......

Once again.... I learned ALOT reading this.. Thanks all..

Ps.... I LOVE POA.....

Problem is we increase CO2 release at the same time we destroy more CO2 consuming regions. If we used Fuel Cells to pull the electricity from Natural gas, we would increase the electric output 14%-35%, and be able to run the CO2 released from the NG directly through algae reactors to store as energy that can be used as feed, food, or fuel.