Does CO2 really drive global warming?

But your reply had nothing to do with the article you posted at the top of this thread. Where is your defense of the "Arctic Ocean" model of climate change? How do you defend the statement that human emissions are small based on annual emissions, while ignoring the fact that these emissions have accumulated in the atmosphere for the past 100 years and resulted in a CO2 concentration that is 30% higher than it was in the mid eighteenth century.

Why doesn't the article you posted calculate radiative forcing due to anthropogenic greenhouse gases? Why doesn't it calculate climate sensitivity (i.e. how much warming is generated by doubling CO2)? I think the reason why is because the results of these calculations are not favorable to the author's argument. Having a background in physics, I always say "Show me the numbers."

How do you defend the statement that human emissions are small based on annual emissions, while ignoring the fact that these emissions have accumulated in the atmosphere for the past 100 years and resulted in a CO2 concentration that is 30% higher than it was in the mid eighteenth century.

If you indeed have a science background then you should be more careful with your cause and effect conclusions. The relationship between the onset of human industrial production and the introduction of the automobile does not coincide at all with the current warming trend. To suggest that CO2 can in fact accumulate over a 100 year period is also inconsistent with articles that you've posted previously which suggest that the resident time of gasseous CO2 (undissolved or unabsorbed) is much shorter than 100 years.

In fact the whole purpose of this article is to discuss where the CO2 came from. The author believes that it came from ocean outgassing. The author's belief is consistent with Henry's law and the relationship between Henry's law constant and temperature.

I cannot discuss the validity of the Arctic Ocean model presented here. I have also read of other models. SInce I am trying to understand these better, I would appreciate any critique (positive and negative) that you might have of this model.

I would guess that the reason that calculations are not presented in this article is that the audience is chemical engineers, not climate scientists. Chemical engineers are a bright crowd, but they are simply not educated in climate science, and thus it is unreasonable for you to expect these equations to be presented in this format.

However if you are interested in the amount of warming that occurs when you double CO2 concentrations, then you should also consider the relative uncertainty in other effects. The following chart illustrates this:

The radiative greenhouse effect of doubling the concentration of atmospheric CO2 (right bar) as compared with four of the uncertainties in the computer climate models (source=http://www.oism.org/pproject/s33p36.htm)

The uncertainties (which can result in either greater or lesser temperatures) of other significant modelling factors easily overwhelms the effect of increased CO2.

The atmospheric lifetime of carbon dioxide (this is the time at which there is a NET removal of half of a pulse of CO2 added to the atmosphere) is greater than 100 years, and it could be tens of millions of years, for reasons explained in this article
http://www.aip.org/pt/vol-55/iss-8/p30.html
This article deals with the other issues you raise as well. The beginning of the rise in atmospheric CO2 does indeed coincide with the beginning of the "age of coal."

What I meant to say, is that the author would have referenced calculations of radiative forcing and climate sensitivity if these numbers supported his claim. There do not exist any such calculations.

The graph you posted provides incomplete information and compares apples and oranges. More mainstream scientific sources such as NASA, NOAA, and the IPCC show graphs of radiative forcings of various changes to the environment as positive or negative values, as well as error bars showing the possible range of values. Also, my understanding is that the ocean flux correction is a constant, and the magnitude of the North-South heat flux mainly redistributes heat over the surface of the Earth and does not affect the Earth's radiative energy balance very much.

You should also know that OISM is not a scientific organization. One reason why I am not responding to many of the posts on this forum is that they reference SEPP, OISM, TCS, Cato Inst., junkscience.com, etc. These are not scientific organizations, but are actually the creations of public relations firms (junkscience.com was originally created by the tobacco industry according to an article in the medical journal, The Lancet). The alphabet soup of public relations science groups are generally contrary to the scientific mainstream on environmental and health issues. I prefer to reference my information against scientific journals and magazines that are over 50 years old, i.e. Geophysical Research Letters, Science, Nature, Physics Today, etc..

OISM is indeed a scientific organization (I am unfamiliar with the other organizations that you listed). It is not funded with public money. It is a privately funded organization that primarily concentrates on biological research (thus the rather lengthy discussion in the article on the benefit of increased CO2 and plant life). OISM has made important contributions in the study of aging and biological clocks.

The article that I sourced is contains 66 references. These references include ORNL, Science, Nature, NOAA, Astrophysical Journal, etc. Nearly all of the references are, what you might consider, mainline scientific publications. I urge you to review it.

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