Because I like you Will, about Gary Novak featured above, read...
Thanks SamSam, an interesting read.
This one sums up the problem with AWG arguements, for both sides, quite nicely.
Can someone help me sift through the pseudoscience of this article refuting climate change to help dispute it point by point? It's finally time to stand up to my family's BS emails. : climate https://www.reddit.com/r/climate/comments/2nywrc/can_someone_help_me_sift_through_the/
The OP starts from a position of, "Their wrong and I need your help to find some way to counter their arguement."
All well and good except for the obvious fact that the OP has not given the arguement they are trying to counter, any real attention or consideration. This is evidenced by his referencing the article as pseudoscience without any more support to that statement than to call his family support of it, "BS". A very clear example of ad hominem.
Then there is the response thread. No one offers the actual "lesson" in science they recommend, instead, their first reaction is to attack the credibility of the author. Not that he isn't a crackpot. It does sound like he is, but that does not address his points at all. More ad hominem seems to be the main arguement to counter deniers. Similar ad hominem arguements come from the deniers when they point out the financial or political motivations that supporters of AGW probably have.
I don't believe in the greenhouse effect, but that is not to say the addition of CO2 doesn't have a warming effect on the atmosphere. Pointing to Venus as the perfect example of the greenhouse effect doesn't do a thing for me without some explanation as to how that proves the science. Venus is a lot closer to the Sun than we are. It experiences a different Sun and the CO2 in its atmosphere may not have much to do with its difference in temperature from ours.
All I ever get for proof of the greenhouse effect are nifty little drawings that show arrows of light inadvertently reflecting off the interior of the atmosphere, back to Earth. Why would it do that?
If radiant energy strikes a transparent surface (Sunlight entering Earth's atmosphere), four things happen to that light.
1). It refracts. That means it changes its direction according to the angle of incident and the wavelength of light as dictated by the particulars of the substances involved. Usually this creates a prism affect and the various light waves tend to separate.
Ok. light energy still coming in.
2). It reflects. This means some of that energy is reflected back without penetration of the medium. How much energy and which light waves are reflected back have to do with the incident angle (the more acute, the more reflection) and the substances involved. Some gasses are opaque to some light waves while transparent to other light waves. This means energy is expended and gained in a partial elastic collision and energy levels are conserved (no significant addition to the energy contained by the atmosphere).
3). It is absorbed. This is a form of inelastic collision and represents the transfer or combining of energy to the new system that is both halves of the collision. The result here is the raising of the atmosphere's temperature as light energy is transformed to the medium that is not perfectly transparent. Different substances have difference levels of translucence, light passes through, but not freely. This is dependent upon the medium and the wavelength of the light, as well as the amount of that medium where it allows some passage of radiant energy.
4). It is transmitted through the medium. This is the energy that finally strikes the Earth's surface and warms the ocean and the land. Now, we are in another medium transition and the filtered energy that hits the surface of the Earth reacts to that in those same four ways.
The thing is, the wave lengths of light that the atmosphere won't let in, aren't there to reflect back out again either.
Let's say the greenhouse effect is real and we have an atmosphere that is lower in CO2, so it doesn't reflect outgoing energy back to earth. The energy that it allows to pass out also includes a greater amount of energy allowed to pass in. This means that if only 47% of the Sun's energy makes it to the surface, only a percentage of that energy reflects back out. Call it 2%, as per the above illustration.
Now, raise the level of CO2 such that more of that 2% gets absorbed and even reflected back to the surface. You see, the Sun's rays had to make it past the atmosphere in the first place and to change that atmosphere to include more CO2, means more of the Sun's energy is reflected back to outer space before it even enters the atmosphere. Instead of 42% getting in, it would be less. Why? Because CO2 is a greenhouse gas which means it reflects light energy back. It doesn't work in just one direction.
Maybe it also absorbs more energy, so that means it collects more of the Sun's energy out of the light as it passes through. On the way down to the Earth's surface, that would cause a warming of the atmosphere, but that means less energy makes it to the surface on the initial approach and the Earth's surface wouldn't warm as much and less energy would reflect back into the atmosphere. It sounds like it all balances itself out, to me, but nowhere in there is a reasonable explanation for outward radiating light energy getting reflected back by a gas that lets it pass in the first place.
Thank you all for your patience. I hope I haven't bored you.
-Will (Dragonfly)
