Man-emitted CO2 causing devastating global warming? Uh, no

The Orange County Register political commentary blog: Orange Punch ^ | 1-21-2011 | Mark Landsbaum

[Mark Landsbaum]

A couple of readers questioned our (the Orange County Register editorial) call for an independent investigation of the underlying science that is the basis for global warming alarmism. They claim, in essense, that the science is settled. Who are we to rock this boat, anyway?

Well, there are lots of super-qualified, highly regarded scientists rocking it along with us. Many of them find the claim that man’s meager contribution of a trace gas (CO2) into the atmosphere could significantly change anything, let alone set us on course for a melt down.

Here’s a fellow worth listening to: William Happer, Cyrus Fogg Brackett Professor of Physics at Princeton. He seems fairly qualified in this regard from where we sit. He’s spent his professional life studying one of the main physical phenomena behind the greenhouse effect. He’s published 200 peer-reviewed papers in scientific journals, a member of the American Physical Society and the National Academy of Sciences. He’s even previously been the director of energy research at the Department of Energy (DOE) from 1990 to 1993, where he supervised all DOE’s climate change work.

Last May, he testified before congress. Guess what he said:

“Global-warming alarmists have tried to silence any who question the party line of impending climate apocalypse. We need to establish a Team B of competent scientists, charged with questioning the party line. The DoD and the CIA do this, there was a devil’s advocate (promoter fidei) for sainthood, why not the same for climate change?“

[Lonesome in Massachussets]

Clouds are not water vapor, they are condensate. Clouds tend to contribute strongly to global cooling. The tops of clouds reflect far more sunlight into space than the bottoms reflect IR back to the ground. Water vapor is colorless and orderless. In the atmosphere it tends to absorb infrared radiation, causing the atmosphere to warm.

AGWT depends on positive feedback from water vapor to amplify the minor effects of CO2.

The atmosphere is very bad at absorbing heat from sunlight. Sunlight does not effectively heat the atmosphere. Rather, sunlight heats the surface and things on the surface. The surface warms the atmosphere two ways. One by convection and the other by radiation. The sun warmed surface radiates infrared radiation. Water vapor, CO2 and methane, inter alia, absorb the infrared radiation and are thereby heated. They collide with and heat the other molecules in the atmosphere. (A real greenhouse works by limiting convection to the air mass trapped inside. Misnamed “greenhouse” gases make the atmosphere more effective at absorbing infrared.)

More water vapor implies more clouds. Whether the net marginal effect of water vapor in heating the atmosphere by absorbing infrared radiation or cooling it by increasing the number of clouds is really the question on which the whole of AGW catastrophism hinges. The available observations seem to support water vapor as contributing to net cooling. If true, AGW catastrophism collapses.

[Mmogamer]

That volcano eruption in Iceland last year put more “greenhouse” gasses into the atmosphere than man has since
he started using fire. Billions of times more.

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[RipSawyer]

I wouldn’t offer that as evidence, Mr. Bear appears to be in an open clearing.

[clodkicker]

Or that wetlands are a major source of methane gas. We need to drain the wetlands.

[SuziQ]

For an interesting read on the effect of clouds on global climate, and why those clouds form, read The Chilling Stars: A Cosmic View of Climate Change, by Henrik Svensmark. Last I heard, he was trying to get some cloud experiments set up at CERN, but they were delayed by the damage the Large Hadron Collider sustained in its first run.

[seowulf]

The next thing you know the environmental nutjobs will seek to ban belches and farts and claim that they contribute vastly to global warming.

Actually they won't mind at all if you belch or fart. In fact there will be free government provided chili and beer for everyone.

A government bureaucrat will simply walk up to you and issue you a ticket and fine you for each belch and/or fart.

That's what it's all about anyway; a revenue stream to fund socialism and government control.

[aliquando]

Is water vapor being constantly added to the atmosphere at the same rate it is being removed via condensation?

[ApplegateRanch]

Or, “did you know that the #1 greenhouse gas is water vapor”?

It's a twofer for me: both CO^2 and H^2O.

I heat with wood and coal; and I keep a kettle of water on the stove to add humidity to help hold the heat in the air.

[ApplegateRanch]

wetlands are a major source of methane gas. We need to drain the wetlands.

That's because wetlands are where the wild goose "goes".

Eliminate geese; buy an extra freezer to hold them.

[johnny reb]

A couple of readers questioned our (the Orange County Register editorial) call for an independent investigation of the underlying science that is the basis for global warming alarmism.

Forget bickering about the science.It's the government grants stupid!

[exDemMom]

In the atmosphere it tends to absorb infrared radiation, causing the atmosphere to warm.

The only kind of absorbance I can think of leads almost immediately to emission at a slightly longer wavelength, regardless of where in the spectrum the original absorbed photon existed. Since the slight difference in energy would be retained by the absorbing molecule as internal energy (thus causing warming through increasing the kinetic energy), I don't see how how such a phenomenon could be limited to only absorbance/emission occurring in the IR range of the spectrum. It seems to me that such a mechanism of heat gain by the molecule would occur at any wavelength where the molecule absorbs (which would be why highly absorptive colored objects on the ground get so much warmer than the air).

Or is there another kind of absorbance other than that which is part of fluorescence of which I am not aware?

[spodefly]

Settled Science = Dogma.

[GATOR NAVY]

“What evidence is there that current global temperature is optimum? Or that current C02 levels are optimal?”

Exactly.

[Lonesome in Massachussets]

It depends on the ratio of the mean time bewteen collisions to time between absorbtion and reemission. Down in the dense atmosphere, the molecules have a high probability of colliding while in an excited state, the collision converting some of the energy of oscillation to kinetic energy.

[Lonesome in Massachussets]

Is water vapor being constantly added to the atmosphere at the same rate it is being removed via condensation?

In the long run, it better be, or the oceans would all dry up. Unless it went the other way and all the water vapor in the atmosphere returned to the surface as percipiation. Basically, the average amount of water vapor and clouds in the atmosphere represent an equilibrium between evaporation and condensation.

[exDemMom]

It depends on the ratio of the mean time bewteen collisions to time between absorbtion and reemission. Down in the dense atmosphere, the molecules have a high probability of colliding while in an excited state, the collision converting some of the energy of oscillation to kinetic energy.

In other words--trying to calculate any effect of shining any light of an excitatory wavelength into a gas must be a bear and a half. It's especially complicated since the atmosphere is an open system, not a closed... Also, given that all gases have emission spectra, it'll be REALLY hard to separate out the total contribution of only the IR portion of the CO2 emission spectrum to the overall kinetic energy, as opposed to the contribution of all the other gasses at all wavelengths.

[DocH]

I can't handle years of group therapy.

I'm going to end it all now with pills.

Now WHERE did my wife put that bottle of Beano she bought me?

[Lonesome in Massachussets]

The calculations are straightforward, given the system state. No one knows the system state. The warmmongers mistake confidence in their calculations, given the system state for confidence in their knowledge of the state of the system. You are correct, it is almost impossible to know the system state, even a posteri, much less predict a day in advance.