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GREENHOUSE CONFUSION RESOLVED
CO2 Skeptics.com ^ | July 16th 2008 | Stephen Wilde

Posted on 07/16/2008 10:45:47 AM PDT by Delacon

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1 posted on 07/16/2008 10:45:47 AM PDT by Delacon
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To: steelyourfaith; Entrepreneur; Beowulf; CygnusXI; Defendingliberty; WL-law; Genesis defender; ...
Best explanation I've read so far.
2 posted on 07/16/2008 10:46:36 AM PDT by Delacon ("The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule." H. L. Mencken)
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To: Delacon

‘Without a warming of the oceans we cannot see a warming of the atmosphere, both are fixed in lockstep with the oceans as the leader.’


3 posted on 07/16/2008 10:51:13 AM PDT by griswold3 (Al qaeda is guilty of hirabah (war against society) Penalty is death.)
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To: Delacon

Mark


4 posted on 07/16/2008 10:51:42 AM PDT by TFMcGuire (Either you are an American, or you are a liberal)
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To: Delacon

If he was getting any grant money, he can kiss it goodbye.


5 posted on 07/16/2008 10:57:35 AM PDT by AU72
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To: Delacon
Best explanation I've read so far.

Explanations don't help. Most of the people we allow to vote will not go beyond their own wrong interpretation of pictures like this:

ML/NJ
6 posted on 07/16/2008 10:58:51 AM PDT by ml/nj
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To: Delacon
The atmospheric greenhouse effect is a flea on the back of an oceanic elephant and the influence of CO2 but a microbe on the back of the flea and the influence of anthropogenic CO2 but a molecule on the back of the microbe.
7 posted on 07/16/2008 11:04:15 AM PDT by CedarDave ("Not Evil, Just Wrong - The True Cost of Global Warming Hysteria" http://noteviljustwrong.com/)
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To: Delacon; All
THE ACQUITTAL OF CARBON DIOXIDE
by Jeffrey A. Glassman, PhD

ABSTRACT:

"Carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is the product of oceanic respiration due to the well-known but under-appreciated solubility pump. Carbon dioxide rises out of warm ocean waters where it is added to the atmosphere. There it is mixed with residual and accidental CO2, and circulated, to be absorbed into the sink of the cold ocean waters. Next the thermohaline circulation carries the CO2-rich sea water deep into the ocean. A millennium later it appears at the surface in warm waters, saturated by lower pressure and higher temperature, to be exhausted back into the atmosphere. Throughout the past 420 millennia, comprising four interglacial periods, the Vostok record of atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration is imprinted with, and fully characterized by, the physics of the solubility of CO2 in water, along with the lag in the deep ocean circulation.

Notwithstanding that carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas, atmospheric carbon dioxide has neither caused nor amplified global temperature increases. Increased carbon dioxide has been an effect of global warming, not a cause. Technically, carbon dioxide is a lagging proxy for ocean temperatures. When global temperature, and along with it, ocean temperature rises, the physics of solubility causes atmospheric CO2 to increase.

If increases in carbon dioxide, or any other greenhouse gas, could have in turn raised global temperatures, the positive feedback would have been catastrophic. While the conditions for such a catastrophe were present in the Vostok record from natural causes, the runaway event did not occur. Carbon dioxide does not accumulate in the atmosphere."

http://www.rocketscientistsjournal.com/2006/10/co2_acquittal.html

_______________________________________________________________

The graph above represents temperature and CO2 levels over the past 400,000 years. It is the same exact data Al Gore and the rest of the man-made global warmers refer to. The blue line is temps, the red CO2 levels. The deep valleys represent 4 separate glaciation periods. Now look very carefully at this relationship between temps and CO2 levels and keep in mind that Gore claims this data is the 'proof' that CO2 has warmed the earth in the past. But does the graph indeed show this? Nope. In fact, rising CO2 levels all throughout this 400,000 year period actually lagged behind temperature increases ...by an average of 800 years! So it couldn't have been CO2 that got Earth out of these past glaciations. Yet Gore dishonestly and continually claims otherwise. Furthermore, the subsequent CO2 level increases never did lead to additional warming, the so-called "runaway greenhouse effect" that Al Gore and his friends keep warning us about. -ETL

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"The above chart shows the range of global temperature through the last 500 million years. There is no statistical correlation between the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere through the last 500 million years and the temperature record in this interval. In fact, one of the highest levels of carbon dioxide concentration occurred during a major ice age that occurred about 450 million years ago [Myr]. Carbon dioxide concentrations at that time were about 15 times higher than at present." [also see 180 million years ago, same thing happened]:
http://www.tcsdaily.com/article.aspx?id=010405M

_______________________________________________________________

So, greenhouse [effect] is all about carbon dioxide, right?

Wrong. The most important players on the greenhouse stage are water vapor and clouds. Carbon dioxide has been increased to about 0.038% of the atmosphere (possibly from about 0.028% pre-Industrial Revolution) while water in its various forms ranges from 0% to 4% of the atmosphere and its properties vary by what form it is in and even at what altitude it is found in the atmosphere.

In simple terms the bulk of Earth's greenhouse effect is due to water vapor by virtue of its abundance. Water accounts for about 90% of the Earth's greenhouse effect -- perhaps 70% is due to water vapor and about 20% due to clouds (mostly water droplets), some estimates put water as high as 95% of Earth's total tropospheric greenhouse effect (e.g., Freidenreich and Ramaswamy, 'Solar Radiation Absorption by Carbon Dioxide, Overlap with Water, and a Parameterization for General Circulation Models,' Journal of Geophysical Research 98 (1993):7255-7264).

The remaining portion comes from carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide, methane, ozone and miscellaneous other 'minor greenhouse gases.' As an example of the relative importance of water it should be noted that changes in the relative humidity on the order of 1.3-4% are equivalent to the effect of doubling CO2.

http://www.junkscience.com/Greenhouse/

_______________________________________________________________

Water Vapor Rules the Greenhouse System

Water vapor constitutes Earth's most significant greenhouse gas, accounting for about 95% of Earth's greenhouse effect (4). Interestingly, many 'facts and figures' regarding global warming completely ignore the powerful effects of water vapor in the greenhouse system, carelessly (perhaps, deliberately) overstating human impacts as much as 20-fold.

Water vapor is 99.999% of natural origin. Other atmospheric greenhouse gases, carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), nitrous oxide (N2O), and miscellaneous other gases (CFC's, etc.), are also mostly of natural origin (except for the latter, which is mostly anthropogenic).

Human activities contribute slightly to greenhouse gas concentrations through farming, manufacturing, power generation, and transportation. However, these emissions are so dwarfed in comparison to emissions from natural sources we can do nothing about, that even the most costly efforts to limit human emissions would have a very small-- perhaps undetectable-- effect on global climate.

http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/greenhouse_data.html

8 posted on 07/16/2008 11:08:42 AM PDT by ETL (Plenty of REAL smoking-gun evidence on the demonRats at my FR home page)
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To: Delacon
The atmospheric greenhouse effect is a flea on the back of an oceanic elephant and the influence of CO2 but a microbe on the back of the flea and the influence of anthropogenic CO2 but a molecule on the back of the microbe.

Well said bump!

9 posted on 07/16/2008 11:21:39 AM PDT by Ditto (Global Warming: The 21st Century's Snake Oil)
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To: Delacon

Heretic. Denier. So what if it’s the truth?


10 posted on 07/16/2008 11:28:22 AM PDT by AlaskaErik (I served and protected my country for 31 years. Democrats spent that time trying to destroy it.)
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To: AU72
If he was getting any grant money, he can kiss it goodbye.

No doubt. But he's probably already off the GW dole.

11 posted on 07/16/2008 11:33:52 AM PDT by polymuser (Those who believe in something eventually prevail over those who believe in nothing.)
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To: ETL; All

I think what is concerning a lot of people is that unlike the three previous peaks as shown in the first graph, in the final peak elevated temperatures have lasted for 10,000 years rather than starting down immediately as the other peaks did.


12 posted on 07/16/2008 11:47:08 AM PDT by gleeaikin
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To: Sundog

Ping


13 posted on 07/16/2008 11:59:54 AM PDT by Sundog (Hussein . . . B. Hussein or S. Hussein?)
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To: Delacon; All
Well very interesting. I do have a question though. How did Earth warm up after the great Snowball Earth Ice Age of a 600 million years ago? Current theory credits CO2 from volcanoes. Now either the author is incorrect or something beside CO2 warmed the Earth 600 million years ago.

Ideas? Anyone?

14 posted on 07/16/2008 12:03:37 PM PDT by jpsb
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To: gleeaikin; All
in the final peak elevated temperatures have lasted for 10,000 years rather than starting down immediately as the other peaks did.

Perhaps this below offers an explantion. It appears the sun has been more (magnetically) active during the past 60-70 years than at any time during the past 11,000.

From a well-referrenced wikipedia.com column (see wiki link for ref 14):
"Sunspot numbers over the past 11,400 years have been reconstructed using dendrochronologically dated radiocarbon concentrations. The level of solar activity during the past 70 years is exceptional — the last period of similar magnitude occurred over 8,000 years ago. The Sun was at a similarly high level of magnetic activity for only ~10% of the past 11,400 years, and almost all of the earlier high-activity periods were shorter than the present episode.[14]"

[14] ^Solanki, Sami K.; Usoskin, Ilya G.; Kromer, Bernd; Schüssler, Manfred & Beer, Jürg (2004), “Unusual activity of the Sun during recent decades compared to the previous 11,000 years”, Nature 431: 1084–1087, doi:10.1038/nature02995, . Retrieved on 17 April 2007 , "11,000 Year Sunspot Number Reconstruction". Global Change Master Directory. Retrieved on 2005-03-11.


"Reconstruction of solar activity over 11,400 years. Period of equally high activity over 8,000 years ago marked.
Present period is on left. Values since 1900 not shown."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_variation

____________________________________________________

The rest of this post is infomation I've previously gathered...

If you look at the chart below, you will see that sunspot activity (during solar maxes--the individual peaks) has been relatively high since about 1900 and almost non-existent for the period between about 1625 and 1725. This period is known as the Maunder (sunspot) Minimum or "Little Ice Age".

From BBC News [yr: 2004]:
"A new [2004] analysis shows that the Sun is more active now than it has been at anytime in the previous 1,000 years. Scientists based at the Institute for Astronomy in Zurich used ice cores from Greenland to construct a picture of our star's activity in the past. They say that over the last century the number of sunspots rose at the same time that the Earth's climate became steadily warmer."..."In particular, it has been noted that between about 1645 and 1715, few sunspots were seen on the Sun's surface. This period is called the Maunder Minimum after the English astronomer who studied it. It coincided with a spell of prolonged cold weather often referred to as the "Little Ice Age". Solar scientists strongly suspect there is a link between the two events - but the exact mechanism remains elusive."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/3869753.stm

It's really hard to imagine how this little ball of fire could have any impact on our climate at all.

But the main arguments being made for a solar-climate connection is not so much to do with the heat of the Sun but rather with its magnetic cycles. When the Sun is more magnetically active (typically around the peak of the 11 year sunspot cycle --we are a few yrs away at the moment), the Sun's magnetic field is better able to deflect away incoming galactic cosmic rays (highly energetic charged particles coming from outside the solar system). The GCRs are thought to help in the formation of low-level cumulus clouds -the type of clouds that BLOCK sunlight and help cool the Earth. So when the Sun's MF is acting up (not like now), less GCRs reach the Earth's atmosphere, less low level sunlight-blocking clouds form, and more sunlight gets through to warm the Earth's surface...naturally. Clouds are basically made up of tiny water droplets. When minute particles in the atmosphere become ionized by incoming GCRs they become very 'attractive' to water molecules, in a purely chemical sense of the word. The process by which the Sun's increased magnetic field would deflect incoming cosmic rays is very similar to the way magnetic fields steer electrons in a cathode ray tube or electrons and other charged particles around the ring of a subatomic particle accelerator.-ETL

____________________________________________________

There's a relatively new book out on the subject titled The Chilling Stars. It's written by one of the top scientists advancing the theory (Henrik Svensmark).

http://www.sciencedaily.com/books/t/1840468157-the_chilling_stars_the_new_theory_of_climate_change.htm

And here is the website for the place where he does his research:
2008: "The Center for Sun-Climate Research at the DNSC investigates the connection between variations in the intensity of cosmic rays and climatic changes on Earth. This field of research has been given the name 'cosmoclimatology'"..."Cosmic ray intensities – and therefore cloudiness – keep changing because the Sun's magnetic field varies in its ability to repel cosmic rays coming from the Galaxy, before they can reach the Earth." :
http://www.spacecenter.dk/research/sun-climate

100,000-Year Climate Pattern Linked To Sun's Magnetic Cycles:
ScienceDaily (Jun. 7, 2002) HANOVER, N.H.
Thanks to new calculations by a Dartmouth geochemist, scientists are now looking at the earth's climate history in a new light. Mukul Sharma, Assistant Professor of Earth Sciences at Dartmouth, examined existing sets of geophysical data and noticed something remarkable: the sun's magnetic activity is varying in 100,000-year cycles, a much longer time span than previously thought, and this solar activity, in turn, may likely cause the 100,000-year climate cycles on earth. This research helps scientists understand past climate trends and prepare for future ones.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2002/06/020607073439.htm

15 posted on 07/16/2008 12:55:17 PM PDT by ETL (Plenty of REAL smoking-gun evidence on the demonRats at my FR home page)
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To: jpsb

An increase in solar output?


16 posted on 07/16/2008 12:59:10 PM PDT by east1234 (It's the borders stupid!)
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To: jpsb; east1234
 "How did Earth warm up after the great Snowball Earth Ice Age of a 600 million years ago? Current theory credits CO2 from volcanoes. Now either the author is incorrect or something beside CO2 warmed the Earth 600 million years ago."
 
No, the author isn't wrong nor did something besides CO2 warm the earth up. From wiki:

The carbon dioxide levels necessary to unfreeze the Earth have been estimated as being 350 times what they are today, about thirteen percent of the atmosphere.[40] Since the Earth was almost completely covered with ice, carbon dioxide could not be withdrawn from the atmosphere by the weathering of siliceous rocks. Over 4 to 30 million years, enough CO2 and methane, mainly emitted by volcanoes, would accumulate to finally cause enough greenhouse effect to make surface ice melt in the tropics until a band of permanently ice-free land and water developed;[41] this would be darker than the ice, and thus absorb more energy from the sun — initiating a "positive feedback." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snowball_Earth#Breaking_out_of_global_glaciation

So yes, it was mostly CO2 that warmed the earth up but at 350 TIMES current levels. So current CO2 levels effect on current global warming trends(more specificly man made contributions being just a fraction of the current CO2 levels)  has nothing to do with the levels that brought the earth out of the great snowball period. 13 percent back then verus .03 percent today.  Apples and oranges my friend, apples and oranges.


17 posted on 07/16/2008 1:28:48 PM PDT by Delacon ("The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule." H. L. Mencken)
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To: jpsb; east1234

And if you are wondering where that 13 percent CO2 went, well it got absorbed by the oceans, and plant life, and turned into things like limestone by lil tiny ocean critters. More to the point the earth absorbed it, which is its natural tendency to do. Yet another reason to believe that humans can’t do irreparable damage to this wonderful, ever resilient planet.


18 posted on 07/16/2008 1:34:54 PM PDT by Delacon ("The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule." H. L. Mencken)
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To: All

Correction: the graph with the red spikes (the 1st graph) is labeled incorrectly by the authors. Present day is on the right, not the left. Also, for a continuation of the graph (1900-2000), see the 2nd chart (’400 years of sunspot observations’). The number of sunspots in both time intervals/both graphs is listed along the vertical axis.


19 posted on 07/16/2008 2:18:27 PM PDT by ETL (Plenty of REAL smoking-gun evidence on the demonRats at my FR home page)
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To: Delacon

It’s an excellent explanation of the processes at work! However...after reading this piece it’s not surprising in this day and age with public schools being what they are that so many people are duped into believng that humans can impact the environment significantly. It’s more about making yourself feel good then having the common sense to think about things logically.


20 posted on 07/16/2008 2:52:31 PM PDT by Devilinbaggypants (Sperad the word...stop the madness...drill now...expand refining capacity and screw the sheet heads!)
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