Green World Trust

[Derek]

[hqmonaro]

[Derek]

Yup, the IPCC has realised they ain't going to get anyone to swallow the "tipping points" scares of a few years ago.
Reality check.

BTW - Please explain why it is not a good idea to plan for possible global cooling as well as apparently not happening global warming.
This is something the IPCC wholely omit.
If the aim of the IPCC is to provide good policy direction from scientific evidence the IPCC has fallen flat on it's face.
I look forward to the people behind such misdirection having to publicly fall on their own swords - perfectly naturally.

As was seen in London this last winter (and it will be repeated) it is not a good time at present to be reducing or "snowballing" snow plows,
the "feared" warming just ain't occurring.
_________________

An induced feeling of guilt is not sufficient reason
to convict, or punish the human race.

[FerdiEgb]

Hi Lucy,

Just back from a nice trip to Prague, Linz (Austria) and Southern Germany... Saw your new calculations today.

Seems to confirm my calculations, which were including the previous period (1900-1960) based solely on ice cores CO2 levels, which show the same ratio between increase in the atmosphere and the emissions...

Of course there may be (and there is) an additional CO2 rise caused by warmer oceans (and a reduction caused by more vegetation). The overall influence of temperature on short term is about 3 ppmv/°C, if you plot the short term temperature changes and changes in CO2 increase speed (dCO2) together. On longer term the glacials/interglacials and the MWP-LIA temperature changes show a ratio of about 8 ppmv/°C.

Thus while the temperature over the last millions of years is rather uncertain (it is based in proxies) there is certainly an influence of temperature on CO2 levels, but the influence is limited. For the LIA-current period, assuming a 1°C warmer world, not more than 8 ppmv, while we see a total increase of about 100 ppmv.

Thus sorry for what you don't like: that humans are fully responsible for the bulk of the increase of CO2 in the atmosphere is very solid, all available evidence points to that and nothing in the observations contradicts that.

The fact that the increase is a near fixed percentage of the emissions is from a process technical view quite remarkable: it points to a simple first order linear process in dynamic equilibrium. Thus with all the (even non-linear) many different processes that influence the amounts of CO2 in the atmosphere, the sum of everything happens to be a quite simple process: if you disturb it by something, it tries to go back to the original equilibrium in a simple mathematical way.

A complete different point is what the extra CO2 does. There is no doubt that more CO2 in the atmosphere will absorb IR of certain wavelengths and thus heat up itself and the atmosphere where it resides. That is simply measured at laboratory scale (and used to measure CO2 levels...).

The ultimate effect of that warming is matter of debate: more convection (cooling), more water vapor (warming) going to higher levels, giving more clouds (cooling),... There it is where the models come in and the science is far from settled: how much heating will result from 2xCO2 is ranging from zero to 10°C, depending of what model and model parameters you choose (or what you believe!)...

[Derek]

[Richard111]

I second the above question. I fail to understand how a glass tube in a laboratory replicates the physics of the global atmosphere.

[FerdiEgb]

Hi all,

The fact that CO2 absorbs light of certain wavelengths is sufficient: light is energy. When absorbed, the energy of a molecule is enhanced by the light foton energy. That translates in different possibilities: one of the electrons is pushed into a higher energy level and may fall back immediately to the lower level including sending out a new foton (with a different -lower- energy level than the original): that is called fluoresence (if the new foton is in the visible spectrum). It may take some time to fall back and sending out a new foton, that is called phosphoresence.

But in the case of CO2, no electron have been pushed to a higher energy level, the absorbed energy wavelength is what fits with the vibrational energy of the atoms in the molecule towards each other, like the match between a certain tone and a glass... The total vibrational energy of the molecule CO2 is enhanced (like the glass which collapses at the right tone), that means a higher "temperature" of the molecule.
See more at: http://webphysics.davidson.edu/alumni/jimn/CO2/Pages/CO2Theory.htm

The higher vibrational energy can translate in more thermal radiation of the molecule and/or by collisions with other (inert) molecules, enhancing the average temperature of the total air mass, including a slightly higher termal radiation of all molecules.

The above is direct physics, measurable in lab equipment. That doesn't imply that in the real world there is a measurable impact on temperature.

The AGW theory (and the models) now expect that at the places of interest: the higher troposphere in the tropics, the increase in temperature should be higher than at the ground, if CO2 is to blame. Until now, satellites don't show that, to the contrary. That means that other climate items like (deep) convection, water vapor / clouds,... are more important for climate than the extra warming by CO2...

[hqmonaro]

[quote="Derek"]Yup, the IPCC has realised they ain't going to get anyone to swallow the "tipping points" scares of a few years ago.
Reality check.
[quote]

They didn't 'realise' anything. They have just presented the science as best as they can, based on what the research reveals. You are confusing 'tipping point' with 'runaway'. They are two different things. A tipping point is what triggers a positive feedback effect that moves the climate to a new warmer state that means we can't go back, for example, the CO2 going above a certain level. "Runaway" means we end up like Venus. The current scenario means it will get warmer, we are well on the way to the CO2 tipping point, but it will still be constrained by other factors, meaning there will be a limit, be it 3C or 6C. Runaway means it gets a lot warmer, like 20C or 30C. That won't happen.

[FerdiEgb]

Forgot to add:

The absorption itself at specific wavelengths, where the vibrational wavelengths of CO2 (and some overlap with water vapor) are, is what is measured and is in (logarithmic) ratio with the concentration of CO2 in the air.

[Derek]

[hqmonaro]

[Richard111]

As usual the more I learn the more confused I get. So just one point from me.
All bodies radiate proportional to their current temperature. Some better than others. Even gases.

Any given volume of the atmosphere, ignoring external influence, will attempt to stablise its temperature throughout that volume and radiate at that temperate. CO2 gas in that volume radiates more effectively and the molecules will run cool in that volume dragging down the temperature at a faster rate than if CO2 was not present.

Ergo, CO2 in the upper attmosphere cools and reduces upper level humidity which also helps cool that level by NOT absorbing incoming shortwave radiation.

[FerdiEgb]

[FerdiEgb]

Derek,

I found the full experiment by Tyndall, done in 1861 (!) about the absorption/emission of CO2 (and other vapors and liquids) here:

http://onramp.nsdl.org/eserv/onramp:16571/n3.Tyndall_1861corrected.pdf

See the CO2 experiments at page 273 and following. This seems to confirm the direct (re)radiation of heat from CO2 and other GHGs. How much the ratio between direct reradiation and heating up really is, is not clear from the experiment.

[hqmonaro]