More on global warming

Discussion in 'General Science & Technology' started by timojin, Jun 13, 2017.

  1. timojin Valued Senior Member

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    Is water not a higher contributor to global warming than CO2
     
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  3. spidergoat pubic diorama Valued Senior Member

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    Water vapor is a factor, one that increases when the climate gets warmer, so I would call it a feedback effect.
     
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  5. timojin Valued Senior Member

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    Does increasing in upper clouds removes CO2 by producing carbonic acid, were it comes down as acid rain ?
     
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  7. billvon Valued Senior Member

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    No, not significantly. (That's why CO2 is still increasing.) It is actually a bigger factor in the ocean, where higher CO2 level cause a decrease in pH. Note that CO2 levels have been rising a lot more slowly than they otherwise would due to the ocean absorbing a lot of CO2. Unfortunately it's almost reached its limit; as the waters warm their ability to absorb more CO2 decreases.
     
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  8. danshawen Valued Senior Member

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    Every electrical engineering student learns about electrical voltage or current regulation, and is familiar with the fact that in all types of feedback regulating systems, there is a tipping point to voltage or current regulation beyond which a system may either fail to regulate or shut down completely.

    Global warming scientists have noticed the climate is behaving as if it might soon go out of regulation, and that may be apocalyptically or catastrophically bad for other systems (like us) who depend on global climate regulation between the oceans, land, and atmosphere to work the way we expect and have become accustomed to. Don't pretend you weren't warned. The regulation we are talking about has more serious and immediate consequences than the deregulation of government regulatory authority to try and mitigate the consequences if it should go out of regulation, transition to an uninhabitable state, or even shut down. Sea level changes accompanied by earthquakes, tsunamis, and increased volcanism all at the same time will no doubt be as inconvenient as Al Gore suggested at the beginning of this millennium.

    After this system goes out of regulation, don't expect that mitigating the consequences will be easier than a similar failure in electronics. Putting a cork in a supervolcano that erupted early due to an abrupt climate change, for example, is a force we can't possibly come to terms with after it has happened. Loss of coal jobs in Pittsburg seems a small price to pay to avert such a catastrophe for a few more decades. Cleaner energy sources are possible, so why the hell not encourage them before burning coal takes us all there in a happy meal?
     
    Last edited: Jun 17, 2017
  9. danshawen Valued Senior Member

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    A complete discussion of the relative effects of water vapor vs CO2 appears in this website:

    https://www.windows2universe.org/?page=/earth/climate/warming_clouds_albedo_feedback.html

    Note that even though the percentage of global warming attributable to CO2 may be smaller than that of water vapor, we have little to no control over water vapor, besides which, the melting of the polar ice caps leads to sea level rise, leads to more water vapor in the atmosphere. Of course, once a thermal deregulation cascade effect has started, it may be impossible to slow or stop it by means of cutting back on CO2. We all understand this. Questions about which straw actually broke the camel's back get us nowhere.
     
    Last edited: Jun 17, 2017
  10. timojin Valued Senior Member

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    If clouds at higher altitude will take place the penetration of sun radiation will be reduced , because at higher altitude water vapor will be in a more crystalline form because of the lower temperature , and so there will be an albedo effect. ?
     
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  11. danshawen Valued Senior Member

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    Yes. from the provided link:
    "
    °Altitude: thin, high-altitude cirrus clouds made up of ice particles are nearly transparent to incoming sunlight in visible wavelengths, so they let light in. They are, however, very effective at trapping outgoing long wavelength infrared radiation. An increase in the occurrence of this type of cloud exerts a net warming influence on the atmosphere.
    "
     
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  12. timojin Valued Senior Member

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    Why not the opposite ? You are stating the present condition, If more evaporation takes place vapor moves to higher altitudes the crystalline concentration of particles have to increase and so there will be a barrier for the incoming light. Take as an example as clouds get denser the darker becomes our day. The warmer day we get during cloudy days is because the earth surface is emitting heat that was absorbed .
     
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  13. DaveC426913 Valued Senior Member

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    As you just quoted danshawen: ice crystals are nearly transparent to incoming sunlight.
     
  14. timojin Valued Senior Member

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    Transparent to what wave length ? Even if it would be a large crystal it would have refractive property .
     
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  15. DaveC426913 Valued Senior Member

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    Visible light.

    Visible light enters, gets absorbed by ground, etc. re-emitted as IR, ice crystals are relatively opaque to IR, so heat doesn't leave Earth.

    Refraction does not affect insolation of light.
     
  16. sculptor Valued Senior Member

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  17. timojin Valued Senior Member

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    If I understand correctly according to the solar spectra if there would be more water in the atmosphere or in the higher altitude clouds more absorption of solar energy will take place and less radiation earth will experience. At the same time the earth will experience hale coming upon us.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Solar_spectrum_en.svg

    Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

     
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  18. billvon Valued Senior Member

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    Yes.
    Well, overall radiation will increase (which is why it will get warmer.)
    Do you mean "hail?" Hail does not come from high altitude cirrus (or indeed any ice crystal) clouds. It comes when rain is lifted above the freezing line by convection.
     
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  19. timojin Valued Senior Member

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    Can you explain how the overall radiation will increase !
    Do you believe vapor moves from lower levels clouds to cyrus altitude ?
    If there is a movement to ciros because of to large of volume in nimbus , would you believe there would there would be solid formation and the solid due to gravity would come down as snow or hail ?
    I don't understand how rain is lifted up I thought rain comes down .
    How doe snow comes down in winter ? where does forms ?
     
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  20. billvon Valued Senior Member

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    Because that's how the greenhouse effect works. A little less radiation makes it to the ground. A lot of radiation is reflected back to the ground. That is, net, more radiation - so the planet warms.
    Couldn't _quite_ parse that.
    Normally it does.

    However, in a thunderstorm, warm moist air rises due to uneven heating of the Earth's surface. As it rises it cools and you get cumulonimbus clouds. Once they get wet enough the moisture starts to clump together and fall as rain. That's a "normal" rainstorm.

    In bigger storms, the warm moist air rises faster and farther. It often forms a hammerhead at the top where it can no longer rise. Now that water rises, clumps together - and keeps rising due to the strong updrafts. It freezes and falls due to its weight, and then is lifted again by an even stronger updraft as the storm gets stronger. It does this a few times (that's why hailstones often have layers) before it is so heavy that the updrafts can no longer hold it up - and it falls as hail.

    Snow forms within clouds; that is different from frozen rain or hail.
     
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  21. timojin Valued Senior Member

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    My friend you said nothing different wht said except you used the word thunderstorm or bigger storm
    which is a rise of loud to a higher altitude due to accumulating more clouds at lower level
     
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  22. billvon Valued Senior Member

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    Uh - OK. Do you understand how rain can "go up" now?
     
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  23. danshawen Valued Senior Member

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    If the water vapor / ice crystals begin to absorb more sunlight in the upper atmosphere, they will simply boil off into space and things quickly return to the status quo or even worse.

    Did you learn nothing from the ozone hole freon fiasco? We were refrigerating ourselves into sterilization / mass extinction, the handiwork of the same bozo who gifted us leaded gasoline to improve octane ratings. You die of lead poisoning while your engines are purring and the corroded mufflers fall off twice a year.

    There is not an easy, no pain technological solution to every problem, especially not in the case of Global warming. The ice crystals in the upper atmosphere reflect infrared more efficiently than visible or UV, to which they are transparent. UV CHECKS IN, BUT HEAT DOESN'T CHECK OUT. It's as simple as that. Also, ice crystals are lighter than the equivalent amount of water vapor. There is no way to mitigate this kind of stratification. The ice crystals will always be at a higher altitude than the water vapor.

    Want to battle global warming in an eco friendly way? Go back to living and dying in caves. It's always cool down there with the other morlocks and bat guano crazy survivalists. Take lots of extra ammo.
     
    Last edited: Jun 20, 2017

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