What Do We Think About Climate Change

You're a bit stubborn arn't you?
You stated that our activities in relation to the CO2 level didn't matter, that the impact our activities may have, was of little or no significance or something like that, You also linked to a site stating that the change in CO2 equaled something like 1,66 W/m2.

So I just took your numbers, to give a picture of the energy that little number due to the change in CO2 (from your site) actually have.

2,56 e 22 Joule/ Year? (Was it that high? I'll check) Does that sound like a high number? I Used the evaporation example just to show that actually that amount of energy in fact can do (and probably does) something to affect our way of living:
Increase the water vapour in the atmosphere, more clouds, ok, well have it your way, increase the greenhouse gas (water wapour).

So I think....
The change in heatinput caused by the change in CO2, will affect the sea, in its liquid state. Therfore i still believe it pretty correct to use the properties for water.

(and of course, it will also heat the sea, reducing again the evaporation, but again; I used to give a number to the amount of energy a little no of that size actually represents).

I just used it to get a size of the effect the difference in CO2 has to the atmosphere. And even 10% of that again will probably have something to say, can we affect to that level? I have quite frankly no idea.

"tragically flawed" well, I admit that any simplification will reduce the credibility to any calculation, but we have to start somewhere, don't we? A fullsized calculation....puuuhh. Anyway I believe it a bigger flaw to jump on a high horse and state that what we do doesn't matter. I also believe that simplified calculations like that can show us that something is moving, wether we like it or not, wether we can affect it or not... I generally just think we should be a bit more careful, we know what we have, and most of us like it pretty much so. There's no or little use stating that there was global warming for 7000 years (or something) ago, and then we had no human produced CO2 either. Because I'm not shure if I would have enjoyed the weather at that time, And I don't know anybody that was around at that time either...

"What can I say? LOST!!!" At least I try to steer my decisions. So far I've not seen that from you... Picking up somthing from the net and throwing it at me as facts? You're not steering, you're probably steered...

Ay there's the rub...
The question we should maybe ask us is: who is steering?
Here in our part of the world, our ears are filled with:
Turn of the lights.
Insulate your house.
Buy a new environmently friendly car.
Install heat exchangers.
buy buy...

No; reduce your consumption....

 

As I stated, I do not question that the water vapor does have the ability to act like a greenhouse gas. But in my opinion, a bit uncertain of how to put it; It's a secondary gas, something must change or happen (normally or not) in order for that to get the ability to be a gas to consider. And we need it, we just don't want it to change completely.

So, well, if I'm putting my attention to gases we actually can do something about, what's wrong with that? By now you probably should have realized i'm not quite alone...

 

Since you're Locked on this target, I just thought that I should be so kind to point out the fact that I was NOT attempting to model the greenhouse capacity of atmospheric water vapor a heat problem.
Grow a brain! (Since you have set the level at this altitude, I should probably respond like that )

I was only trying to put a number to what a change in CO2 (numbers from site, linked to by you) and the corresponding change in 1,66 W/m2 is capable to do. Put a better number on the amount of energy. I still believe the assumptions are pretty correct ( As I said what this energy can do...). And also; due to this; I do not believe that we, and our possible actions doesn't matter.

 

Knut,

The real 'rub' is that you were asking totally wrong questions about the problem, and then patting yourself on the back for a clever analysis of that question, when the answer was *completely* irrelevant!

Allow me to explain.

You took the fraction of the solar budget attributed to the increase in atmospheric CO2 (so and so W/M^2) and then calculated the amount of water that would be expected to evaporate from the addition of this amount of heat energy. Then you concluded something like "I can see that increased atmospheric CO2 can increase atmospheric water vapor concentration, thereby accelerating the greenhouse effect." Thus what you are asserting in a nutshell is a (positive) feedback loop between CO2 concentration and water vapor concentration.

The BIG problem with this analysis is that since CO2 is a relatively weak greenhouse gas, it cannot increase water vapor concentration by greenhouse heating (the method you supposed in your analysis) more than water vapor itself can, since water vapor is so much more effective as a greenhouse gas. Yet water vapor does not participate in a positive feedback loop with itself; there are very robust negative feedback loops that dominate the water vapor cycle that prevent water vapor from accumulating in the atmosphere. When water vapor concentration climbs, clouds and precipitation act to mitigate the additional heating that would otherwise result. These mechanisms have to cope constantly with huge daily influxes of water vapor into the atmosphere, much, much larger than the increase that could be attributed to recent increases in CO2.

So the concentration of water vapor in the atmosphere is governed by a 'set point' around which it oscillates very little, having strong negative feedback mechanisms in place that make this so. Even the AGW alarmists recognize this, and they are NOT asserting as you did that CO2 participates in a simple positive feedback loop with water vapor because that's simply not plausible.

But what they ARE saying is that by some unknown process, CO2 can somehow reset the 'set point' for water vapor in the atmosphere. This is quite a different thing than your simplified analysis since the negative feedback mechanisms that govern the water vapor concentrations would still be operative, it's just that they would then cause water vapor concentrations to oscillate around a new higher set point, which would in turn result in more greenhouse heating and higher temperatures.

This is what I was referring to in an earlier post as a "complex Rube Goldberg process" that the AGW alarm crowd keeps searching for to prove that CO2 could somehow leverage its tiny intrinsic (and logarithmic) greenhouse potential to in effect govern the temperature of the whole atmosphere.

But in order to believe this, we first have to believe that CO2 can accumulate in the atmosphere to start up the process. In order to get to that point we have to ignore the fact that, like the situation with water vapor, there are robust negative feedback mechanisms (fluxes) in place that prevent this from happening.

First the terrestrial plant biomass is known to consume CO2 in proportion to the concentration available; when more is available, the plant biomass consumes more, fixing all that surplus carbon by turning it into sugars, starches and cellulose though accelerated plant growth. This is a well documented phenomena, but one that is not well modeled in the current climate models and largely ignored by the AGW alarm crowd.

But the even bigger flux is the colder parts of the ocean which uptakes CO2, transporting it to warmer parts of the ocean, where it is again released. During the transit period, which lasts some number of years, pelagic plant biomass consumes the dissolved CO2 fixing the carbon. The plants are in turn consumed by oceanic fauna which release the CO2 though respiration. The uptake and release are somewhat in balance; when the oceans are colder, the uptake is greater than the release. When the oceans warm up, the releases outpace the uptake. Thus the ocean temperature establishes the set point for atmospheric carbon concentrations. This in turn explains very nicely why the recent increases in atmospheric CO2 lag the observed increase in temperature by a few hundred years; it takes the ocean several hundred years to warm up.

The exact 'how' and 'why' we are warming up is still unknown, but it's far more plausible to look toward the solar influence for the answer. But hey, nobody's gonna get elected that way, and that's ultimately what AGW alarmism is all about

All the above has been referenced in earlier posts; just go back and read.

Jimbo

 

Jim,

Congratulations. I take my hat off to you for managing to untangle Knut's post and then being able to formulate such a cogent, reasoned and best of all, absolutely truthful and honest answer, to his muddled thinking. How can he not see the error of his ways now, but we shall know more when he replies?

I hope he will admit he is now no longer sitting on the fence, but has climbed over to join the rest of us in debunking the "CO2 is a pollutant" scam. How can he not, but "there's nought to queer as folk" and nothing surprises me nowadays about the comfort blankets people carry around in their heads? To be able to accept a new idea, first it's necessary to let go of an old one.

Best wishes,

Perry

 

Bugger, and I was thinking we were getting close to proving black=white or should it be warming = cooling...

 

Brian,

What do you do for fun in Buderim? Here we are, Jimbo and others including me, offering lessons in mathematics and logic to the insanely innumerate and you are behaving like the class clown.

Sit down boy and behave, or by the gods, I'll have the skin of your back. You can take that look of your face as well boy! I know dumb insolence when I see it! Return to your desk this instant!

Sound familiar? It does to me! I can still hear the priests screaming at me.

Best o' luck,

Perry

 

Hi Pericles, this must be the consequence of a totally obedient childhood (Lord Fauntleroy had nothing on me) - - Now in my second childhood, I am catching up with all that I missed.... I went to a "state" school and churched under the tutelage of a "fire & brimstone" Scotsman for one hour on Sundays... Really quite a benign environment... We would chase the Catholic girls, knowing that they could "sin" on Saturday night, confess & say several "hail Marys" ready to sin the next weekend... - - either they lied or the priest got some hot stories....

It is so tedious, waiting for houses to sell / market to recover to match my pricing / needs so I can get my dream yacht sorted... Technology has not matured sufficiently for pricing to come down for electric drive system so the auxiliary may have to be normal diesel.... for http://www.boboramdesign.com.au/39-c/ in a motor-sailor version with the forward cockpit and a pair of genoa (no main sail or boom), different underwater shape - somewhat like the C10 in my gallery or the underwater lines aft of this "Streaky Bay" http://www.boboramdesign.com.au/36-streaky-bay-for-sale/ ...

 

Then, smooth seas and may the wind be always at your back!

Perry

PS

Coming to a port near you, well, Melbourne anyway.

http://www.petegoss.com/

 

Eh Pericles, drop by here too man, we're just on the oposite bank

 

Fanie,

Pete Goss and his crew are hoping to repeat an epic voyage of 1854 when 12 Cornish fishermen sailed a fishing lugger to Australia from Cornwall, in order to better their lives. The original voyagers stopped in South Africa, so expect Pete Goss to do the same. Right now they are trying to set course to the west to escape the Bay of Biscay, however after 5 days they are still headed straight towards Coruna in Northern Spain. The Cornish sailors were south of Portugal in the same time at sea. http://www.petegoss.com/tracker.php

Nevertheless, I am sure we all wish "Spirit of Mystery" smooth seas and fair winds.

Perry

 

Real game is:
- Reducing not oil-producing countries' dangerous external oil dependency without forcing WW III,....
- Create a global market for a new breed of low-oil related products and keep consuming wheel turning....
- With technologies developed in the first world countries.....
- And so keep those countries on ruling the world.

Nothing to do with global warming. That's just a lure for the sake of some doom prophets.


Cheers.

 

Knut,

I do hope this helps you.

http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/greenhouse_data.html

Perry

 

Great post, Guillo. Very realistic outlook.

Recently the US government's research labs (Sandia, IIRC) completed an exhaustive study to determine what the best move the world can make to drastically reduce the use of oil, especially for transportation applications. They passed over electric cars, hybrid technologies, fuel cells, hydrogen power and a host of others because they are either too expensive, impractical or have a poor return on investment. The technology they recommended we put our research money into is toward improving the efficiency of the internal combustion engine. With efficiencies typically less than 5%, which has not changed much in 50 years or so, there is a lot of room for improvement. I've recently become enamored of one of the emerging stars, the Quasiturbine. It does not seem to have a downside; just does everything better than a piston engine.

Jimbo

 

Well Pericles, if Pete Goss and his crew are hoping to repeat an epic voyage, someone may have to warn them that the .za currency is somewhat buggered up and some other things are also not what they used to be at the time last time.

Be a bugger if these guys have been at it ever since (I get the impression it's quite a while) and they are still in Spain Stick in the compass maybe... new guy have preblems with the maps

Any way, they can always just phone. ET did