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#76 2020-08-30 02:23:13

DestinyCall
Member
Registered: 2018-12-08
Posts: 4,563

Re: Quick status update

Also, I'm not sure where you are getting the idea that CO2 accumulation is not "enough" to cause a global problem.   There are areas of real scientific debate around global warming, but the role of greenhouse gases are well-understood and backed by a mountain of verified research.

We know that the amount of solar radiation being trapped by the atmosphere is increasing, that greenhouse gas radiation is increasing, that the increase is not explained by increased solar activity OR volcanic activity, and we even know that the majority of the extra CO2 in the atmosphere is coming from fossil fuel burning and other human activities rather than natural sources.   

There is really very little room for doubt that we are actively contributing to global warming by continuing to release CO2 into the atmosphere at the current rates.

The real questions around global warming are related to how quickly this is going to start killing us and if we should be worried for ourselves or for our grandchildren or their children.  We don't really know how fast sea levels will rise or how fast the polar ice caps will melt.  And we don't know if the climate changes will come on gradually enough that we can adapt to new weather patterns and figure out a way to either live with higher temperatures or reverse the current trend. 

Also clouds .... nobody really gets how clouds work.  They are very mysterious.

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#77 2020-08-30 03:24:39

karltown_veteran
Member
Registered: 2018-04-15
Posts: 841

Re: Quick status update

Arcurus, destiny explained it perfectly. CO2 absorbs sunlight and traps it in the atmosphere, the more sunlight trapped in the atmosphere the hotter it gets.


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veteran of an OHOL town called Karltown. Not really a veteran and my names not Karl

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#78 2020-08-30 03:32:08

DestinyCall
Member
Registered: 2018-12-08
Posts: 4,563

Re: Quick status update

And if you need more information on the greenhouse effect and global warming, here is a nice site with information put together by NASA.

https://climate.nasa.gov/causes

It also has a clear explanation of how we know that rising global temperatures are not being caused by the sun.

Last edited by DestinyCall (2020-08-30 03:39:59)

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#79 2020-08-30 04:39:23

afreespirit
Member
Registered: 2019-08-12
Posts: 9

Re: Quick status update

I just can't help myself while waiting for the Apocalypse.

Evidence of warming is not evidence that humans are the cause. Nor is it evidence of impending catastrophe. There is no empirical evidence that the observed warming of the past 30 years or so is due to humans increasing CO2.

CO2 is a trace gas and a minor greenhouse gas making up about 0.04% of the atmosphere. The parts of the infrared spectrum it absorbs are also absorbed by water vapour which is a more abundant gas. That portion of the IR spectrum is largely saturated and little escapes to space. So saturated, that adding CO2 has a logarithmic effect. You have to double the amount of CO2 to achieve the same amount of IR absorption (like adding additional coats of paint to a window to block the light). At current rates of emissions it will take approximately 200 years to achieve this doubling.

Most of the greenhouse effect is due to clouds and water vapour, approximately 96-98%. Water vapour is also one of the primary means by which heat is transported via convection from the surface.  Clouds are formed from water vapour and overall clouds have a net cooling effect. A small decrease in cloud cover (less than 10%) can account for all of the observed warming over the past 30 years. However clouds are extremely complicated and always changing. We still cannot measure these changes for long periods as the amount of information tends to overwhelm the measuring instruments and they need to be reset. So no one knows what clouds have been doing for the past 30 years let alone the past 100 years.

Temperature is a beast. It is the chosen means by which we measure climate, although it is entirely uncertain why we do so since the climate is much more than just temperature. The earth is not in a state of thermodynamic equilibrium and so it is profoundly unscientific to talk about the earth's temperature. Yet some climate scientists actually do this.

Global average surface temperature is also profoundly unscientific. Temperature is not like length or weight. You can't add 20 deg to 25 deg and get 45 deg, it doesn't work that way. So you can't calculate an average temp the same way. Temperature is also unique to the time and place it is taken. The notion that we can calculate a global average temperature from a small number of surface points, unevenly distributed and of varying quality is laughable. The only proper way to find this average temperature is to observe the entire temperature field. But we can't do that so we settle for making it up.

Also an average is a statistic not a physical value. You can't add to it the same way. It also doesn't tell us anything about the individual values from which it is derived. For example, the average of 10 + 2 is 6 and average of 6 + 8 is 7. We may have increased the average by one but the individual value of 10 is still greater than either 6 or 8. That's why the claim that we have to keep an average from increasing by 2 deg is an utter absurdity.

As for predicting the future of the climate, that is not possible. The climate models used for this purpose are like crude cartoons. They are to climate like Mikey mouse is to real mouse. If you proposed that you could predict the behaviour of real mice by watching all of the cartoons of Mickey mouse you would be laughed at.

This is actually well known in climate science. Their answer is ignorance averaging, although they call it projection. They take many models and run each multiple times and then average out the results. However, each individual model run is no better than a wild guess, that's why they run each of them many times. Yet logically and obviously the average of a bunch of wild guesses is no more valid than any individual wild guess.

This 'solution' cannot solve the underlying physical problems, although it does solve the problem of securing financing for continuing the confidence trick. "Look at our lovely and colourful graphs of a fictional statistic! We need more money to make even more lovely and coulourful graphs so we can continue to investigate the behaviour of this fictional statistic"!

And what are the underlying physical problems you might wonder? Aside from clouds (we don't have a working theory of cloud formation btw) and convection (models are terrible at vertical representation of convection) there are two monsters of Cthulhu like proportions lurking here; Chaos Theory and Turbulence.

Solve those and we can all sleep peacefully.

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#80 2020-08-30 05:19:47

DestinyCall
Member
Registered: 2018-12-08
Posts: 4,563

Re: Quick status update

Fucking clouds, man.   I'm telling you.

Clouds.

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#81 2020-08-30 05:28:19

Dodge
Member
Registered: 2018-08-27
Posts: 2,467

Re: Quick status update

karltown_veteran wrote:

Again, the Spanish flu was around 100 years ago. After that, nothing. Then as it’s been getting warmer we’ve seen Ebola outbreaks, swine flu, coronavirus.

Oh so you just discard what happens 100 years ago because it doesn't make sense to your theory, nice.

karltown_veteran wrote:

If you knew half as much as you thought you did you would realize that animals didn’t decide to grow fur for fun, mammoths appeared because it started to get colder. It got colder very gradually, unlike the way it’s getting cold now. You’re right that animals can’t evolve quickly, which is why the rate at which climate change is going is going to cause extinctions. Thanks for proving my point for me!

You do realise that some of these temperature changes where much quicker than millions of years and much more extreme that what we are seeing right now and you do realize that evolution is a very slow process if you're talking about literally changing the DNA structure, so did the mammoths just lost their fur when it got warmer lol obviously i'm joking they died for other reasons, but you thinking that all the temperature changes from the past where so slow that it allowed species to change their DNA is laughable.


karltown_veteran wrote:

Hopefully you’re aware that there are both natural and manmade climate change

Are you?

karltown_veteran wrote:

Hopefully I don’t have to explain how we are currently heating up the atmosphere,

Yes please do explain, i would love to hear what an expert like you knows about this extremly complex subject

karltown_veteran wrote:

I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you at least know that.

No i dont actually, there is so many variables and elements at play, that i dont, but i also dont pretend to know unlike some.

karltown_veteran wrote:

Also just because one politician exaggerated the rate of the melting doesn’t mean it’s not melting quickly. For someone who doesn’t live in the US you have a bit of a crush on Al Gore

One of the many idiots that doesn't know anything and probably made a lot of money spouting bullshit.

karltown_veteran wrote:

The only monkey farting around here is you dodge smile

Apparently i'm not the only one smile

Destiny

What is co2?

It's literally fuel for plants

What happens when you heat water?

It turns into vapor, and given the right condition will turn into clouds and rain.

What is water?

An essential element for living forms, like plants

Since you're so keen on NASA studies here's one: https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/featu … nHydrology

Wait co2 increases but the ammount of co2 sinks are also increasing, could that mean that the ecosystem is constantly adapting and changing to new conditions, wow that's crazy.

"Though researchers have known of this North American carbon sink for the better part of the 20th century, they do not understand precisely what is causing the sink or why the amount of carbon absorbed seems to increase over the years."

"Viable causes for why plants have done so well include a revival of forests from agricultural and urban clear-cutting in the 1800s, greater concentrations of atmospheric CO2 from fossil fuel burning, and warmer global temperatures in the 1900s. But a new study points to another factor vital to plant growth that may be at the root of the matter—more water."

"According to the NASA-funded study that used 100 years of temperature and precipitation-related data, computer model results showed that on average from 1950 to 1993, an 8 percent increase in precipitation combined with higher humidity has led to a 14 percent increase in plant growth in the United States. The data over that period also show increases in cloud cover, minimum surface temperatures, soil moisture, and stream flows, which are all signs of a changing water cycle."

temp-precip-npp-rt.gif

The worse part is you cant even trust these studies anyway, with the ammounts of wrong predictions and idiotic way they choose which data is relevant even "serious" sources like NASA keep getting it wrong.

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#82 2020-08-30 06:35:39

DestinyCall
Member
Registered: 2018-12-08
Posts: 4,563

Re: Quick status update

For someone who doesn't claim to know anything, you sure love to tell people they are wrong, Dodge.

Out of curiosity, what part of global warming do you not believe?   It is kind of hard to have a serious debate without first establishing common ground.

...

Do you believe that, on average, global temperatures are rising or falling? 

Do you think atmospheric CO2 levels are going up or down?

Do you believe that increased atmospheric carbon dioxide levels can raise global temperature?

Do you think that people are producing enough carbon emissions to significantly alter the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere?

Do you believe in the power of clouds?

...

I realize this is a really complicated subject and I understand if you have a hard time answering.   I'd just like to understand your thought process a little better.

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#83 2020-08-30 08:45:24

Arcurus
Member
Registered: 2020-04-23
Posts: 1,002

Re: Quick status update

DestinyCall wrote:

There is strong evidence that rising CO2 levels are causing a rise in global temperatures.  And that human activity is directly responsible for the rising CO2 levels.  That's global warming.

yes, above is all common knowledge, but what i want to understand is how the effect from CO2 is increased through for example change in cloud formation.

As said, the greenhouse effect through CO2 alone seems not be big enough (at least with the current CO2 increase) to have an alarming impact on the climate if there is no secondary effect that increases these effect. Im interested to learn about this secondary effects.

Logically if it gets warmer, CO2 comes from the oceans in the atmosphere, this is exactly what Elgore was showing, but argumenting the other way round.

So if more heat increases CO2 in the atmosphere and this again increases the heat, the system would sound very intestable to me. What effect then brings again down the heat in the past eons?

Currently clouds have an big net cooling effect, but as far as i understood, in the current models an increase in heat is changing this effect (this is why heat increase through CO2 is meant to be so dramatic), so that clouds boost the heating, which sounds also very instable to me and also changes the logic that more clouds mean normally more cooling. So i want to understand how the current model considers the clouds and through which effect they get an net heating instead of and net cooling effect...

Last edited by Arcurus (2020-08-30 09:34:42)

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#84 2020-08-30 08:55:39

Dodge
Member
Registered: 2018-08-27
Posts: 2,467

Re: Quick status update

Destiny i already answered all the questions you're asking in the posts i made, if you dont want to read them it's not my problem.

If you're ingoring what i say, i might aswell do the same.

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#85 2020-08-30 09:00:45

Arcurus
Member
Registered: 2020-04-23
Posts: 1,002

Re: Quick status update

DestinyCall wrote:

Also, I'm not sure where you are getting the idea that CO2 accumulation is not "enough" to cause a global problem.   There are areas of real scientific debate around global warming, but the role of greenhouse gases are well-understood and backed by a mountain of verified research

it would not be "enough" (at least with the current CO2 levels) if there would not be a secondary greenhouse effect through water vapor and clouds.

The current climate models which predict an dramatic increase in temperature through CO2 use the amplifying effects from water vapor and clouds to predict drastic climate changes.

In short CO2 increases heat, heat increases water vapor and water vapor increases cloud formation and both water vapor and clouds are said to increase the effect, which again leads to more CO2 from water, more water vapor and so on....

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#86 2020-08-30 09:30:56

Arcurus
Member
Registered: 2020-04-23
Posts: 1,002

Re: Quick status update

afreespirit wrote:

I just can't help myself while waiting for the Apocalypse.

lol yea, maybe it was already there and we missed it...

by the way, thank you very much for the summary, why climate science is such a mess and about the role of clouds, which really create lot of climate mess...

The problem is, kids in the school learn this is so, that is so, but they dont learn how to see the full picture. They dont learn very much that science is always an evolving process of different thesis and models of the world. And also they dont learn how to be an natural being in harmony with nature.

@afreespirit i think at least with the radiation which goes back to space should be quite good measurable through satellites in our time and maybe also the radiation which hits the earth can be estimated through satellites or?


DestinyCall wrote:

Out of curiosity, what part of global warming do you not believe?   It is kind of hard to have a serious debate without first establishing common ground.

...

Do you believe that, on average, global temperatures are rising or falling? 
Arcurus >> dont know yet need to look at more data, most likely more warming, also hard to define global temperature as afreespirit outlined.

Do you think atmospheric CO2 levels are going up or down?
Arcurus >> way up

Do you believe that increased atmospheric carbon dioxide levels can raise global temperature?
Arcurus >> to an certain extend

Do you think that people are producing enough carbon emissions to significantly alter the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere?
Arcurus >> yes very much

Do you believe in the power of clouds?
Arcurus >> yes very much. And this effect i want to understand much better before i make any assumptions how "dangerous" an increase in CO2 is.

...

I realize this is a really complicated subject and I understand if you have a hard time answering.   I'd just like to understand your thought process a little better.

yes its a very complicated topic, that sadly is not allowed to discuss openly in most of the cases anymore.

its "little" bit more complex then CO2 is heating, so CO2 is dangerous.

Thank you that at least here we can dicuss it little bit smile


i take it like that, every week i try to learn little bit more deep about how this hole climate mess works and every week i see, that i hardly touch the surface of this topic.

There are so many influences, like ozone (seems to have quite an big effect on cloud formation), cosmic rays, sun radiation (which interestingly could also have a cooling effect, since it seems to increase cloud formation directly through ionizing particles in the atmosphere), particles from trees, that increase cloud formation, particles from humans (especially planes).

Last edited by Arcurus (2020-08-30 09:39:47)

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#87 2020-08-30 09:43:39

Arcurus
Member
Registered: 2020-04-23
Posts: 1,002

Re: Quick status update

afreespirit wrote:

Most of the greenhouse effect is due to clouds and water vapour, approximately 96-98%. Water vapour is also one of the primary means by which heat is transported via convection from the surface.  Clouds are formed from water vapour and overall clouds have a net cooling effect. A small decrease in cloud cover (less than 10%) can account for all of the observed warming over the past 30 years. However clouds are extremely complicated and always changing. We still cannot measure these changes for long periods as the amount of information tends to overwhelm the measuring instruments and they need to be reset. So no one knows what clouds have been doing for the past 30 years let alone the past 100 years.

yea, that summarizes it very well.

"A small decrease in cloud cover (less than 10%) can account for all of the observed warming over the past 30 years"

so unless we look deeper in how clouds work we only know that we know nothing much at all... if our ego let us know...

clouds are really interesting to study!

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#88 2020-08-30 09:51:14

Arcurus
Member
Registered: 2020-04-23
Posts: 1,002

Re: Quick status update

and to the sun radiation:

Interestingly there is an theory and some experiments, that suggest, that sun radiation can have an net cooling effect if stronger, since through radiation ionized particles seems to play a big part in cloud formation, which then again have an net cooling effect....

Same seems to be with cosmic rays from the galaxy itself. There is a theory, which says that a mayor impact on our climate is through cosmic rays (works same like described above). So if our sun system travels through spaces of the galaxy which more cosmic ray exposure it creates a net cooling effect.

The hole topic is so fascinating to me!

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#89 2020-08-30 15:08:10

DestinyCall
Member
Registered: 2018-12-08
Posts: 4,563

Re: Quick status update

Arcurus wrote:
DestinyCall wrote:

There is strong evidence that rising CO2 levels are causing a rise in global temperatures.  And that human activity is directly responsible for the rising CO2 levels.  That's global warming.

yes, above is all common knowledge, but what i want to understand is how the effect from CO2 is increased through for example change in cloud formation.

As said, the greenhouse effect through CO2 alone seems not be big enough (at least with the current CO2 increase) to have an alarming impact on the climate if there is no secondary effect that increases these effect. Im interested to learn about this secondary effects.

Logically if it gets warmer, CO2 comes from the oceans in the atmosphere, this is exactly what Elgore was showing, but argumenting the other way round.

So if more heat increases CO2 in the atmosphere and this again increases the heat, the system would sound very intestable to me. What effect then brings again down the heat in the past eons?

Currently clouds have an big net cooling effect, but as far as i understood, in the current models an increase in heat is changing this effect (this is why heat increase through CO2 is meant to be so dramatic), so that clouds boost the heating, which sounds also very instable to me and also changes the logic that more clouds mean normally more cooling. So i want to understand how the current model considers the clouds and through which effect they get an net heating instead of and net cooling effect...

I joke about the mystery of clouds, but they really are a big part of the equation and something that a lot of real science is being focused on right now.    Unfortunately, cloud science is still in its infancy, so many of the questions we have are, as yet, unanswered.

Water vapor is a big component of the greenhouse effect, but is also highly dynamic and interconnected with several other systems.   At a glance, water vapor looks like it would have an even bigger impact on global temperatures than carbon dioxide.   It makes up more of the atmosphere and it is responsible for absorbing a lot of heat.   When talking about the power of water vapor, you can look at dry areas, like deserts, for examples of how much difference it can make in terms of heating/cooling.    One of the reasons that deserts are very hot in the day time but usually very cold at night is because there is less water vapor to insulate and keep the heat trapped close to the surface when the sun is gone.   So it is blazing hot when the sun is present, but icy cold when the sun is gone.  Most of the heat is lost as soon as the heat source is no longer present.   In contrast, regions that have higher humidity also tend to stay warmer during the night, because the wetter atmosphere hangs onto heat better.   The same thermal buffering affect happens with large bodies of water that heat up during the day and slowly cool off overnight.    Together, these effects help to explain why coastal regions tend to have more mild temperatures, compared with drier inland regions.   

The effect of clouds on atmospheric temperature is more complex.    They are composed of water vapor, so you would think that they would insulate and raise temperatures, but they also reflect light, reducing the amount of solar radiation that reaches the Earth's surface.   Different shapes and densities of clouds may allow more sunlight to pass through or trap more heat from escaping, so it is likely that "clouds" can have both a heating and cooling effect.    We still don't understand how it works well enough to know whether "more clouds = more heat" or "more clouds = less heat", but it is highly likely that the relationship between clouds and atmospheric temperature is much more complicated and influenced by other environmental factors.

Another issue with assessing the role of water vapor in global warming is that temperature has a strong affect on the water cycle.   As global temperatures rise, the oceans heat up and water evaporates more quickly.   This increases the amount of water vapor (and clouds) in the atmosphere, which in turn, feeds into the warming trend, leading to higher evaporation rates and warmer oceans.    Likewise, if global temperatures drop, the oceans (eventually) start to cool down and the cooler temperatures lead to lower levels of evaporation and less water vapor (and clouds) in the atmosphere and a generalized global cooling effect.    This feedback loop is suspected to be an important component of the historical temperature trends seen in ice core samples, where global warming or cooling occurs over thousands or hundreds of thousands of years, as well as being related to the formation and recession of glaciers.   Melting glaciers (and polar ice caps) is another interesting topic.   Ice melts when temperatures rise, but melting of the ice also cools down the oceans which can help to reverse or slowdown the warming process, again leading to cycles of warming and cooling.

One of the major questions we have right now is how the water cycle will respond to the sudden influx of so much carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.  Unlike water vapor, carbon dioxide tends to stick around a lot longer.   Water vapor cycles in and out of the atmosphere in days or weeks, while carbon can take hundreds or even thousands of years to level out after a sudden influx, like a volcanic eruption.  Just like with water, there is a carbon cycle that helps keep atmospheric carbon at a fairly steady level by absorbing it into "carbon sinks".    The ocean is a major carbon sink and also plant life, including algae in the ocean, is another major carbon sink.   Rising ocean temperatures reduces the capacity of the oceans to hold carbon dioxide.   You can think of it as being similar to a warm Pepsi going flat.    A cold carbonated beverage hangs on to the bubbles, but as the temperature goes up, the bubbles rise and escape the liquid.   The same is true for the oceans - as they heat up, they are not just releasing more water vapor, but also they can't hang onto as much carbon dioxide.   We haven't hit full capacity yet, so right now, the oceans are still acting as a major buffer, by absorbing more carbon dioxide as atmospheric carbon dioxide levels rise.   This is leading to acidification of the oceans, which is a whole other topic, but more importantly, there will likely be a tipping point reached eventually when the warming oceans can't absorb anymore excess CO2 because they have already absorbed as much as they can.   

Carbon dioxide only makes up a minute portion of the atmosphere.   Approximately 99.9% of the atmosphere is composed of nitrogen, oxygen, and argon with the other 0.1% being all the greenhouse gases, including water vapor and carbon dioxide, and various other components, like dust particles and ozone.   Carbon dioxide only makes up 0.004% of the atmosphere, which doesn't seem like much, until you consider that historically, that number was much lower.    In the last two hundred years, carbon dioxide levels have nearly doubled and they are currently at their highest level in the last four hundred thousand years.

https://climate.nasa.gov/climate_resour … n-dioxide/

Carbon dioxide levels around 200 parts per million were common during the ice ages and they were around 280 parts per million during the warmer interglacial periods.   Over the last two hundred years, carbon dioxide levels have been steadily rising, in conjunction with our rising fossil fuel consumption.   Current levels of carbon dioxide are measured at over 400 parts per million and that number is still rising at the same rate.    If we continue to burn fossil fuels as we are now, we can expect the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere to continue to rise to unprecedented levels in the coming centuries.   

Although water vapor and clouds are both important components of the greenhouse effect, carbon dioxide plays a major role in driving the system.   One of the major questions facing climate researches right now is what will happen when carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere triple or quadruple their current numbers -  How will the water cycle respond?    The prevailing theory at this time is that carbon dioxide will have an amplifying effect - increasing carbon dioxide will drive global temperatures higher directly, but also indirectly by increasing water vapor and clouds, leading to a dramatically larger impact than expected based on carbon dioxide alone.   

This article does a good job explaining the issue in greater detail:

"We use the GISS model of radiative transfer through the global atmosphere to try and break down the attribution using realistic distributions of local temperature, water vapor and clouds. By removing each of the absorbers in turn and calculating the absorption for many different combinations, we can calculate all the overlaps and allocate the absorption fairly. We find that water vapor is the dominant substance — responsible for about 50% of the absorption, with clouds responsible for about 25% — and CO2 responsible for 20% of the effect. The remainder is made up with the other minor greenhouse gases, ozone and methane for instance, and a small amount from particles in the air (dust and other "aerosols").

Given that CO2 has such a major role in the natural greenhouse effect, it makes intuitive sense that changes in its concentration because of human activities might significantly enhance the greenhouse effect. However, calculating the impact of a change in CO2 is very different from calculating the current role with respect to water vapor and clouds. This is because both of these other substances depend on temperatures and atmospheric circulation in ways that CO2 does not. For instance, as temperature rises, the maximum sustainable water vapor concentration increases by about 7% per degree Celsius. Clouds too depend on temperature, pressure, convection and water vapor amounts. So a change in CO2 that affects the greenhouse effect will also change the water vapor and the clouds. Thus, the total greenhouse effect after a change in CO2 needs to account for the consequent changes in the other components as well. If, for instance, CO2 concentrations are doubled, then the absorption would increase by 4 W/m2, but once the water vapor and clouds react, the absorption increases by almost 20 W/m2 — demonstrating that (in the GISS climate model, at least) the "feedbacks" are amplifying the effects of the initial radiative forcing from CO2 alone. Past climate data suggests that this is what happens in the real world as well.

What happens when the trace greenhouse gases are removed? Because of the non-linear impacts of CO2 on absorption, the impact of removing the CO2 is approximately seven times as large as doubling it. If such an event were possible, it would lead to dramatic cooling, both directly and indirectly, as the water vapor and clouds would react. In model experiments where all the trace greenhouse gases are removed the planet cools to a near-Snowball Earth, some 35°C cooler than today, as water vapor levels decrease to 10% of current values, and planetary reflectivity increases (because of snow and clouds) to further cool the planet.

Despite being a trace gas, there is nothing trivial about the importance of CO2 for today, nor its role in shaping climate change in the future."

https://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/briefs/schmidt_05/

...

Long story short, I don't think there is any question that this is a real problem.   Clouds or no clouds, we need to do something about our out of control carbon emissions.   

However, we absolutely do still have a lot to learn about climate, the role of clouds, and how all of these different systems interconnect with one another.    If anyone tells you that climate change is simple, they are lying to you.   But if anyone tells you that climate change isn't happening, you should be equally skeptical.   

I think it is easy to get overwhelmed by the science.   One of the fascinating things about scientific research is that the more you know about a subject, the more aware you become about how much we DO NOT KNOW!    This is true of all scientific pursuits.   We have only barely scratched the surface when it comes to understanding how the world works and our place in it.   But I don't think it is wise to ignore the results of current research simply because we do not have all the answers yet.   Theories are part of science.   They are the core of scientific study.   Nothing is one hundred percent certain, but the more we learn about a subject and investigate it, the better our understanding becomes and the better our theories become at capturing the nature of our world.   

The picture of climate research that we get in high school is simplified to make it easier to understand and conceptualize as a layperson.    The reality is a lot more messy and there are many more points of uncertainty and unanswered questions.    It's important to appreciate what we don't know and keep an open-mind to alternative explanations.   Theories are just theories and theories are constantly changing.    Many of the ideas we have today are likely wrong or incomplete compared with what our understanding will be in a hundred years or a thousand years. 

Just don't get mislead into thinking we know nothing at all.    The truth is out there, grasshopper.

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#90 2020-08-30 15:09:28

DestinyCall
Member
Registered: 2018-12-08
Posts: 4,563

Re: Quick status update

Dodge wrote:

Destiny i already answered all the questions you're asking in the posts i made, if you dont want to read them it's not my problem.

If you're ignoring what i say, i might as well do the same.


Dodging my questions, I see.   Classic Dodge.

That's okay.  I don't mind.

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#91 2020-08-30 17:31:36

karltown_veteran
Member
Registered: 2018-04-15
Posts: 841

Re: Quick status update

Kind of funny that someone who spells ignoring “ingoring” is telling me I don’t know what I’m taking about.

Destiny explained CO2 and greenhouse gasses and the ozone layer very well in a previous post. You could learn something from her if you didn’t have your head stuck up your butt sad

The Spanish flu was 100 years ago and since then no other outbreaks or potential outbreaks happen, until recently when we had around five or six. Of course there are other factors but the increased heat sure doesn’t help.

There’s no way I’m going to read your whole whiny rant so I’ll talk about the parts I bothered with.

Hey, here’s something from NASA.

“Ice cores drawn from Greenland, Antarctica, and tropical mountain glaciers show that the Earth’s climate responds to changes in greenhouse gas levels. Ancient evidence can also be found in tree rings, ocean sediments, coral reefs, and layers of sedimentary rocks. This ancient, or paleoclimate, evidence reveals that current warming is occurring roughly ten times faster than the average rate of ice-age-recovery warming.”

Ten times faster, wow! It would make sense then that animals would be able to adapt to the cooling and warming of the ice age easier than now, eh? Here’s a source because I’m not a puss

https://www.google.com/amp/s/climate.na … idence.amp

Also in this article is a picture of the CO2 levels.

And gosh! 15 to 30 % of America’s CO2 released back into the land, in the first paragraph of your article. That’s 70 to 85 % not released back into the land! Almost as if it won’t offset the amount of carbon, because the world CANT adapt fast enough! Maybe you should read instead of skim so that you don’t further prove my point. Thanks, NASA

Oh, and people love / quote NASA because it’s a bloody good source.


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#92 2020-08-30 18:04:58

Dodge
Member
Registered: 2018-08-27
Posts: 2,467

Re: Quick status update

Are we still talking about co2? Did you not read afreespirit's post

It's almost as if the climate on earth has a way to regulate itself and adapt to change, almost like it's billions of years old, that's crazyyy

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#93 2020-08-30 19:21:05

Rookwood
Member
Registered: 2020-07-27
Posts: 79

Re: Quick status update

Dodge wrote:

It's almost as if the climate on earth has a way to regulate itself and adapt to change, almost like it's billions of years old, that's crazyyy

The climate on earth is not an organism that regulates itself or adapts... It reaches an equilibrium based on atmospheric composition and solar conditions.  Right now the level of CO2 we are releasing is driving the equilibrium point up for global temperatures at a historic rate.

Nor does the earth care whether its equilibrium point is suitable for life.  We are the ones who must adapt.  We are the ones with the intelligence to comprehend what is happening.  Some of us anyway...

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#94 2020-08-30 19:56:30

fug
Moderator
Registered: 2019-08-21
Posts: 1,130

Re: Quick status update

There are still people replying to Dodge and his troll posts.

Please don't feed the troll boys and girls.


Worlds oldest SID baby.

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#95 2020-08-30 20:10:29

DestinyCall
Member
Registered: 2018-12-08
Posts: 4,563

Re: Quick status update

I consider it an opportunity to be educational.    I'm not going to fix whatever's wrong with Dodge, but I might clear up confusion for anyone who is genuinely trying to understand the debate.

I think a lot of people have heard about global warming and know that it is supposed to be really bad, but they are a little fuzzy on the science behind it.   It is also an interesting topic to revisit, considering how much new information is out there now compared with when I was in school.  I haven't really studied this stuff in any detail since high school ... and that was a while ago.

Some of the stuff we are able to see with satellites is really cool/scary.

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#96 2020-08-30 20:11:38

Dodge
Member
Registered: 2018-08-27
Posts: 2,467

Re: Quick status update

Rookwood wrote:

The climate on earth is not an organism that regulates itself or adapts... It reaches an equilibrium based on atmospheric composition and solar conditions.  Right now the level of CO2 we are releasing is driving the equilibrium point up for global temperatures at a historic rate.

It's like you dont even read the posts or try to understand how climat really works, since you're still talking about co2...

fug wrote:

There are still people replying to Dodge and his troll posts.

Please don't feed the troll boys and girls.

Dont you have a cousin to go fuck or something, hell yeah brother.

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#97 2020-08-30 20:19:14

Arcurus
Member
Registered: 2020-04-23
Posts: 1,002

Re: Quick status update

DestinyCall wrote:

The effect of clouds on atmospheric temperature is more complex.    They are composed of water vapor, so you would think that they would insulate and raise temperatures, but they also reflect light, reducing the amount of solar radiation that reaches the Earth's surface.   Different shapes and densities of clouds may allow more sunlight to pass through or trap more heat from escaping, so it is likely that "clouds" can have both a heating and cooling effect.    We still don't understand how it works well enough to know whether "more clouds = more heat" or "more clouds = less heat", but it is highly likely that the relationship between clouds and atmospheric temperature is much more complicated and influenced by other environmental factors.


If, for instance, CO2 concentrations are doubled, then the absorption would increase by 4 W/m2, but once the water vapor and clouds react, the absorption increases by almost 20 W/m2 — demonstrating that (in the GISS climate model, at least) the "feedbacks" are amplifying the effects of the initial radiative forcing from CO2 alone. Past climate data suggests that this is what happens in the real world as well.

...


as afreespirit outlined the current theory is, that clouds have a net cooling effect. Therefore if CO2 makes more heat, which makes more clouds, they should cool in average and not heat more as in the current models, if there is no other effect involved.

As far as i understand it depends in which high the clouds are. Seems like higher clouds have an different net cooling / heating effect, then lower clouds.

So if the theory is right that CO2 is indirectly responsible, then i want to understand why this extra heat then creates these kind of clouds which heat more.

Since currently clouds seem to have a net cooling effect, if there would be simply more water vapor and therefore clouds i would expect also a net cooling effect through clouds. Therefore i want to understand why suddenly through CO2 clouds get an net heating effect in the models.

To water vapor and CO2 itself as afreespirit outlined, both seem to reflect in the same bandwidth and there is an limit on how much radiation there is to reflect. Therefore as afreespirit  outlined it could be that CO2 itself has not an big impact, since water vapor itself is already dominant. Any more input to that?

If we look at the historic CO2 levels, we must also look more further back then last 400K years, there CO2 levels seems to be quite higher.

Of course for us human we could argue, that our time like the last 100k years is more important for our evolution.

Just to say, an ice age was there, because there was lower CO2 levels, is not a proof for anything. Since more heat means, that more CO2 comes from the oceans into the atmosphere, naturally the CO2 level in an ice age would to be expected to be lower then in an warm period. So this in itself is no proof.



Just imagine, if not CO2 but a lack of ozone (or any other thing that is involved in cloud creation like planes, or particles from trees) would be the main culprit for the "heating", since less ozone means less ionized particles, means less clouds which cool.

In thise case we would need a fully other strategy.

Also i want to see more science about which temperature and which CO2 level is considered "good".




"(in the GISS climate model, at least) the "feedbacks" are amplifying the effects of the initial radiative forcing from CO2 alone. Past climate data suggests that this is what happens in the real world as well."

this sounds interesting to look into how they came to this prediction, that clouds amplify the CO2 heating effect. Anyone looked at the data? If clouds would not amplify the heating, then as outlined above the net heating would be  4 W/m2 not 20 W/m2, which a big difference.

Last edited by Arcurus (2020-08-30 20:28:08)

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#98 2020-08-30 21:05:23

Rookwood
Member
Registered: 2020-07-27
Posts: 79

Re: Quick status update

Dodge wrote:

It's like you dont even read the posts or try to understand how climat really works, since you're still talking about co2...

CO2 has a direct effect on global temperature as a greenhouse gas.  I linked you evidence of the correlation above.  CO2 goes up, temperature goes up.  It's not that hard to understand.

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#99 2020-08-30 21:10:35

karltown_veteran
Member
Registered: 2018-04-15
Posts: 841

Re: Quick status update

I did not read afreespirits post because I don't see it on this thread. Dodge, you're ignorant and quite frankly you seem to close your ears to education.

Its almost as if I already educated you on the fact that the climate cannot regulate itself to MANMADE change because it comes much faster, and although the earth is billions of years old humans only started polluting recently hence climate change began recently.

I really do hope you are trolling because if not you're a bloody idiot and part of the problem.

I'll continue to try and educate you if you keep arguing but it should not be my job to tell you these things. You should have already researched thoroughly yourself so that you can be an educated citizen and vote / make decisions accordingly.

I feel I am wasting my breath. Your arguments are losing validity to the point where they're things I've already disproved. I guess you can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink.


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#100 2020-08-30 21:34:56

Arcurus
Member
Registered: 2020-04-23
Posts: 1,002

Re: Quick status update

here what afreespirit wrote for all, that could not see the post:

afreespirit wrote:

I just can't help myself while waiting for the Apocalypse.

Evidence of warming is not evidence that humans are the cause. Nor is it evidence of impending catastrophe. There is no empirical evidence that the observed warming of the past 30 years or so is due to humans increasing CO2.

CO2 is a trace gas and a minor greenhouse gas making up about 0.04% of the atmosphere. The parts of the infrared spectrum it absorbs are also absorbed by water vapour which is a more abundant gas. That portion of the IR spectrum is largely saturated and little escapes to space. So saturated, that adding CO2 has a logarithmic effect. You have to double the amount of CO2 to achieve the same amount of IR absorption (like adding additional coats of paint to a window to block the light). At current rates of emissions it will take approximately 200 years to achieve this doubling.

Most of the greenhouse effect is due to clouds and water vapour, approximately 96-98%. Water vapour is also one of the primary means by which heat is transported via convection from the surface.  Clouds are formed from water vapour and overall clouds have a net cooling effect. A small decrease in cloud cover (less than 10%) can account for all of the observed warming over the past 30 years. However clouds are extremely complicated and always changing. We still cannot measure these changes for long periods as the amount of information tends to overwhelm the measuring instruments and they need to be reset. So no one knows what clouds have been doing for the past 30 years let alone the past 100 years.

Temperature is a beast. It is the chosen means by which we measure climate, although it is entirely uncertain why we do so since the climate is much more than just temperature. The earth is not in a state of thermodynamic equilibrium and so it is profoundly unscientific to talk about the earth's temperature. Yet some climate scientists actually do this.

Global average surface temperature is also profoundly unscientific. Temperature is not like length or weight. You can't add 20 deg to 25 deg and get 45 deg, it doesn't work that way. So you can't calculate an average temp the same way. Temperature is also unique to the time and place it is taken. The notion that we can calculate a global average temperature from a small number of surface points, unevenly distributed and of varying quality is laughable. The only proper way to find this average temperature is to observe the entire temperature field. But we can't do that so we settle for making it up.

Also an average is a statistic not a physical value. You can't add to it the same way. It also doesn't tell us anything about the individual values from which it is derived. For example, the average of 10 + 2 is 6 and average of 6 + 8 is 7. We may have increased the average by one but the individual value of 10 is still greater than either 6 or 8. That's why the claim that we have to keep an average from increasing by 2 deg is an utter absurdity.

As for predicting the future of the climate, that is not possible. The climate models used for this purpose are like crude cartoons. They are to climate like Mikey mouse is to real mouse. If you proposed that you could predict the behaviour of real mice by watching all of the cartoons of Mickey mouse you would be laughed at.

This is actually well known in climate science. Their answer is ignorance averaging, although they call it projection. They take many models and run each multiple times and then average out the results. However, each individual model run is no better than a wild guess, that's why they run each of them many times. Yet logically and obviously the average of a bunch of wild guesses is no more valid than any individual wild guess.

This 'solution' cannot solve the underlying physical problems, although it does solve the problem of securing financing for continuing the confidence trick. "Look at our lovely and colourful graphs of a fictional statistic! We need more money to make even more lovely and coulourful graphs so we can continue to investigate the behaviour of this fictional statistic"!

And what are the underlying physical problems you might wonder? Aside from clouds (we don't have a working theory of cloud formation btw) and convection (models are terrible at vertical representation of convection) there are two monsters of Cthulhu like proportions lurking here; Chaos Theory and Turbulence.

Solve those and we can all sleep peacefully.

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