The great Global Warming Swindle

Discussion in 'Earth Science' started by Cris, Jan 29, 2008.

  1. Read-Only Valued Senior Member

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    Interestingly enough, I happened to watch a thing on one of the science channels this afternoon about the planet Venus. I already knew most of it, of course, but there was one little demonstration that I think he would have found interesting.

    A scientist took a bottle of CO2 straight from a soda fountain dispenser and placed it in the sunlight next to a same-sized bottle of air. Both were equipped with a digital temp sensor.

    After just a couple of hours, the CO2 was about 30 degrees hotter than the air. The point being that it takes only a SMALL amount of CO2 to have an effect on the heat-holding capacity of the atmosphere,
     
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  3. Xelios We're setting you adrift idiot Registered Senior Member

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    That might be true, but a bottle of 100% CO2 isn't a small amount

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  5. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    The concentration is high, but the total amount reasonable.

    Say the lower 50,000 feet of air - the stuff most important for weather - is about 1/2500th CO2 (.04% - the figure Cris posted is .o36%, but that is older and averaged data, concentration is higher near the ground and has been increasing due to fossil fuel combustion). That's about 20 feet of CO2.

    So a jar full of the stuff in the sun is not too farfetched an aid to intuition.
     
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  7. Cris In search of Immortality Valued Senior Member

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    Very interesting - thanks.
     
  8. sly1 Heartless Registered Senior Member

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    Whats naive is to think 200 years of research amounts to anything more than garbage.....which is all we have to go on to make any correlation between GW and man made GHG's.......honestly if you think 200 years of research and climate observation in the grand scheme of earth history is something to make a conclustion from.....you're no more naive than the people you are calling naive.....
     
    Last edited: Feb 1, 2008
  9. Andre Registered Senior Member

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    889
    Let's see, the estimate of forcing properties of CO2 ranges from -0 to 6 degrees for doubling CO2. The number that IPCC assessment report #01 came up with was 1.2 degrees. Then they invented "positve feedback" to boost it to some 2 - 6 degrees.

    However there is no positive feedback:

    http://www.aai.ee/~olavi/EE2007-ok.pdf
    http://www.aai.ee/~olavi/E-Ac-Sci-07.pdf

    So there is no reason to assume that Earth is going to warm more than the 1.2 degrees per doubling CO2.

    Sometime in near future, a whole lot of people will have to defend themselfs why they demonized the sceptics instead of listening to them.
     
  10. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    30,994
    The citations do not support your conclusion.

    They claim to show that negative feedback dominates since 1775 taken as a whole, not that there is no positive feedback.

    And they leave untouched the observation that the new tempreatures of 2005 are higher - although damped - and have been rising - although damped - since 1775.

    Since no mechanism of negative feedback is given, even acceptance of the conclusions (other explanations for the data exist) would not allow one to conclude that doubling the CO2 will continue to be negatively damped in its effects on temperature.

    The lack of mechanism keys interpretation. For example, if one of the negative feedback mechanisms is accellerated melting of icecaps and resultant cooling of the ocean surface, that is no cause for complacency.

    btw: I take it that you have changed your mind about the heat trapping effects of CO2 near the surface ?
     
  11. Andre Registered Senior Member

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    889
    There is no need to provide an explanation. Just measure and analyse and conclude from its behavior. There is no need to answer why. That's how the standard scientific philosophy works. Observe, make a hypothesis to explain the observation. Test the hypothesis. The hypothesis is positive feedback, the test result is just: nope, nada, niente, none whatsoever. end of story.

    But if you need a why, why not? The assumed major contribution to positive feedback to CO2 concentration is water vapor greenhouse effect. For that you'd need more water vapor in the air when the CO2 increases. For instance by assuming constant relative humidy. Now, if you'd double CO2 with constant relative humidity in the MODTRAN model you'd see about 1.3 degrees "Ground T offset, C" degrees in the 1976 US standard atmosphere to regain thermal equilibrium. No more. (You'd only need about 0.88 degrees with constant water vapor pressure.)

    The problem however is that getting more water vapor in the atmosphere requires more evaporation, one gram more water evaporating requiring 2500 joules of energy and the second problem is that satisfying the logaritmic relationship between greenhouse gas concentration and temperature requires an exponential increase of water vapor in the atmosphere to keep a constant increase in temperature. And all with 2500 joules per gram. Bottom line is that you end up very quickly with finding a limit, simply because there is no more energy available to evaporate more water vapor.

    There is a reason why fire brigade cherish water for extinghuising fire. Works in climate too.
     
  12. Xelios We're setting you adrift idiot Registered Senior Member

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    Well, CO2 concentration in the atomsphere has increased by about 65 ppmv in the last 50 years (as measured at 11000 feet). 65 ppm = an increase of 0.0065%. Take two bottles of air and add 65ppmv more CO2 to one of them. If the temperature difference between the two after a few hours is greater than the error range on your thermometer I'll eat my hat.

    It's interesting to see what an effect 100% CO2 has on temperature, but a bit extreme to intuit the effects in the atmosphere.
     
    Last edited: Feb 1, 2008
  13. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    30,994
    According to the numbers usually found by Googling, there is at least a third more CO2 in the air over your head now than there would have been 200 years ago, and all of that increase is accumulation from fossil fuel combustion.

    Now that would be a change from about 15 feet of the little molecules to about 20 feet of them, that the infrared from the ground has to get through to get into space, on that simplistic thought picture drawn above.

    If your intuition needs help, a jar with about 8 inches of CO2 in it can supply some information to your hand.

    If the CO2 has been making any difference at all - and I can see where 15 feet of it might - then adding another 5 or 6 feet (at minimum) would quite plausibly make even more difference, no? Enough to notice, one would expect.

    If you don't know what is happening, or why, how do you conclude that it is going to keep happening? Do you just take it on faith that whatever you don't understand is inevitable ?

    Personally I think there's something wrong with the calculations there in the first place, since they seem to deny the patterns of melting, animal migration, ecological trend, and so forth that have been well established since 1775. But even accepting them, you still need a mechanism to draw any conclusions.

    I don't see the problem here. Would you expect to be able to boost the CO2 concentration of the air by a third or more and not notice a difference ?
     
    Last edited: Feb 1, 2008
  14. Andre Registered Senior Member

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    Better study Popper first. If the idea doesn't stand harsh reality then it's wrong. A laywer does not need to find the real guilty person. All he has to do is prove his client innocent.

    Exactly the point. 1775, way before AGW started to increase CO2, almost two centuries.
     
  15. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    30,994
    ? What is it with this crowd that they think legal trial is some kind of model for scientific investigation? Popper has nothing do do with this, either. We are arguing a matter of factual explanation - and without a mechanism, you have no theory and can't predict. You don't even know what your null hypothesis is.

    The papers you posted, for example, don't have a theory - they have some fairly arcane and complicated correlations that are dubious but interesting evidence of some negative feedback curbing the temperature effects of the CO2 boost so far. Useless for prediction.

    If the "negative feedback" mechanism is the sinking of latent heat into water, for example, the prediction might be an extremely rapid temperature rise upon crossing a saturation threshold in thsi new CO2 regime.
    Nobody's started in 1775 - the quote was since, in the years since.

    And AGW is what ? The recent human boost in CO2 started with the widespread use of mined coal - 1775 is not a bad date to pick out of the air.
     
  16. Xelios We're setting you adrift idiot Registered Senior Member

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    Course it would make a difference, a small one.

    This isn't some sort of barrier that radiation has to pass through. The CO2 absorbs the IR, a whole 8% of it, and gives it off to the rest of the atmosphere as heat. Everything absorbs and emits IR to some degree, which means the rest of the atmosphere will emit IR after absorbing heat from the CO2. 8% of this will again be caught by the CO2, the rest will escape into space. More CO2 means it takes longer for the IR to reach space, you get a buildup. This warms up the atmosphere, which causes it to release more IR, and eventually you get a new balance.

    Point being, CO2 is a very small part of the whole system. Increasing it will have an effect, but it won't be big. 100 million years ago there was over 550% more CO2 in the atmosphere than there is today, if the 30% increase in the last 200 years is supposed to mean a 1-2 degree temperature change it would have been 18 degrees warmer back then. Surely that would be a world-ending catastrophe no?
     
  17. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    if you say so. Most professional theorists think its the biggest single and controlling factor in the whole system -that the water vapor, say, depends on the CO2. (Another factor: apparently the baseline concentration of CO2 was, possibly by sheer coincidence, just below a threshold level at which a small increase has disproportionate effects. It is now being pushed past that threshold level).
     
    Last edited: Feb 2, 2008
  18. Andre Registered Senior Member

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    Ad hominem attacks. Try to let him look stupid and you can ignore him. The truth has nothing to do with me not knowing the null hypothesis.

    That's not the point. Science is not about the polemic of competing hypotheses. it's all about testing hypotheses, not about cause hypotheses like the ENSO or the NAO or the lenght of the sunspot cycles or whatever.

    The scope of the papers was to test atmospheric feedback to find it negative, opposite the required effect that the warmers require for AGW. Connaisseurs call this falsification and that's where Popper comes in.

    Don't forget to wave the magic wand first. What kind of world is this? Not the one with the physical laws I know. Let's put in some numbers in that latent heat effect.

    For ballpark figures, from slide 6 here let's assume average annual 0ceanic evaporation of a meter per year. That's 2.74 liters (2740 g) per m[sup]2[/sup] per day or 114 g per hour is 0.032 gram per second. It takes 2500 joule to evaporate one gram of water, so for 0.032 gram that's 79 joule per second per square meter or 79 W/m[sup]2[/sup]

    Now to keep relative humidity constant when increasing the ambient temperature of 15 C to 16 C, suppose a dewpoint of about 9 degrees we see here a decrease of 67% to 63%. Obviously we also have to raise the dewpoint about one degree to get back to 67% Now the absolute humidity calculated here goes from 9 gram/m[sup]3[/sup] at a dewpoint of 9 degrees to 9.6 gram/m[sup]3[/sup] at a dewpoint of 10 degrees, an increase of 7%. To sustain an increase of 7% more water vapor in the atmospere we need to increase the rate of evaporation by 7% as well, which in turn requires 7% more energy. Hence I'd need 7% of 79 W/m[sup]2[/sup] or 5.5 W/m[sup]2[/sup] extra to maintain constant relative humidity. So how much excess energy is there to get that positive water feedback in? Wasn't doubling CO2 giving us some 3,7 - 4 w/m[sup]2[/sup]? Anybody see the problem? If we use that to increase the humidity somewhat then there is nothing left to raise the temperature.

    According to the ice cores the CO2 level remained around 290-310 ppmv until after WW-II and most of the warming took place before 1940

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  19. Andre Registered Senior Member

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    #2 Let's focus on:

    Where does this noting of extremely rapid temperature rise come from? The Greenland ice cores showing extreme fast isotope jumps, during the last glacial period, known as Dansgaard oeschger events ending with the Bolling Allerod - Younger Dryas oscilation.

    However the temperature interpretation of the ice cores causes a lot of confusion. I just completed a study on the Bolling Allerod - Younger dryas transition, of which the abstract reads as follows:

    Consequently those large sudden temperature changes within a few years never happened.
     
    Last edited: Feb 2, 2008
  20. Chris C Registered Member

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    Andre,

    your points on paleothermometry, water vapor feedback, etc have all been sufficiently addressed in the MS forums. Please do not regurgetate the same nonsense over here to a new audience. If anyone here would like to PM me about why his points on evaporation and water vapor feedback are rather poor that is fine, but I will not continue that discussion in a second venue, nor do I appreciate your intentionally misleading people. I cannot tell others what to do, but I assure you that is what andre is doing, and he knows it, and correspondence with him will go absolutely nowhere.

    If you feel that you have falsified the use of ice cores as a paleothermometer, then submit the material to peer review , and not lead audiences such as this to your blog (the one where all the references disagree with you).
     
  21. reasonmclucus Registered Member

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    I agree global warming belongs in pseudo science.
     
  22. Asguard Kiss my dark side Valued Senior Member

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    Spider, reasonmclucus how can a theory that is accepted by the largest group of scientists belong in pseudoscience???

    Does the general theory of Relitivity belong in pseudoscience????

    what about evolution????
     
  23. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    Falsification of what? Truth !? Apparently you don't understand Popper either.

    The discovery of the probable existence of negative feedbacks somewhere in the system - even if that bit of complex and dubious inference can be so described - falisfies nothing except a claim that there are none. No one to my knowledge has made any such claim.
    They - it, actually - weren't "noted", it was given as an example of a possible prediction based on a possible mechanism behind the hypothetically accepted results of your linked studies above - and one that is completely consistent with the worst of the disaster predictions from the most radical of the global warming alarmists. Your linked studies there, even if taken at face value (and I see problems with data mining in that fashion), do not conflict with such a prediction. The reason is that the alleged negative feedback is not identifed or given a mechanism.
     
    Last edited: Feb 3, 2008

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