Climate Change Denial: Why?

originally posted by: stinkelbaum
brian cox crushed some aussie climate change denying politician, he asked for proof, the professor provided it, guffaws followed the politicians strange reply.

I watched that this morning. LOL

And the serious question is again, why are we not supposed to believe Scientists and NASA and everyone else on Climate change? Sure we can question stuff and we should, but people, especially here on ATS, post charts and graphs and long scientific diatribes pretending that they know more about climate scientists than actual scientists. It's laughable. And then they cling to one little thing or incident or guy or one report that was wrong or one guy that lied that one time, while ignoring the thousands of other things and the overall picture and then ....then they have the nerve to insult those of us that listen to scientists as if we have founded some new religion and then of course they must invoke the dreaded carbon tax which they don't understand, and invoke the name of Al Gore who has nothing to do with anything.

The warmer we get, the less carbon dioxide spectra lines overlap theoretical black body emissions, and the colder we get, the more they overlap.

I’m assuming you’re talking about Planck’s law (and Wien’s displacement law) here? Wien’s displacement law tells us the peak emission wavelength of a body at a given temperature and for CO2 that absorbs strongest at 15μm that temperature comes out to be about 190°K. However as the temperature of a body increases it emits more radiation on all wavelengths. The peak emission wavelength on Mars for example (with a temperature of about 210°K) is closer to CO2’s main absorption band of 15μm but because bodies emits more radiation on all wavelengths as the temperature increases, the amount of available radiation on CO2’s absorption band on Earth is still more, even though its peak emission wavelength no longer corresponds to CO2’s main absorption band. So there is still more available radiation on CO2’s absorption bands on Earth than Mars and hence the CO2-effect on Earth would still be stronger assuming both planets had the same amount of CO2 in their atmospheres. It seems to me that you’re saying as Earth cooled the CO2-effect would get stronger, but maybe I’m just misunderstanding you. Unless you’re just putting forward that as an explanation as to why CO2 on Earth is subject to diminishing returns and behaves logarithmically. I’m not sure.

a reply to: Nathan-D

I'll try.

All molecules exhibit some form of spectral lines. These lines represent the energy band levels of the electrons inside the molecule. The more complex the atomic bonding, the more spectral lines there are.

Inside the molecule, energy is absorbed and emitted when electron bonds change from one energy level to another. Since electron bonds only exist at certain energy levels (are quantized), the energy that can be emitted and absorbed is also quantized.

To illustrate: water is a very complex molecule, containing a large number of different possible energy levels in the various bondings. Because of that, water vapor absorbs and emits a very wide range of frequencies of radiation (remember there is a direct relationship between frequency and energy). Water vapor is therefore an extremely potent greenhouse gas, because it can interact with so many different frequencies.

By contrast, carbon dioxide has very few different bondings inside it, and therefore very few spectral lines. It is used as a lasing material for precisely this reason. Energy absorbed and emitted will be of the exact same frequency, the frequency of the spectral lines in the infrared range.

The radiation coming from the earth has a range of frequencies dependant on the temperature... more precisely, dependent on the temperature of each particle... the random differences between particle temperatures lead to the range effect. The warmer the planet is, the higher the energies radiated and the higher the frequencies. No greenhouse gas can operate as such unless it is capable of absorbing and re-emitting the frequencies radiated. Here again using the previous example, water vapor can absorb and re-emit quite a few frequencies that the earth is emitting. Carbon dioxide can only absorb and re-emit one.

That frequency, as it turns out, is less than the average frequency emitted by the planet. So as the earth warms, the mean emitted frequency increases and becomes farther from the carbon dioxide spectra and the carbon dioxide becomes less effective as a greenhouse gas. If the earth were to cool, the emitted frequencies would decrease and the mean frequency would be closer to the carbon dioxide spectra. That means the greenhouse effect would increase.

The differences in efficiency vs. temperature are small for small changes in temperature; I would be lying if I said it was a major effect. But it is a negative feedback effect, or a negative forcing as climatologists put it, and needs to be considered in the models. It also would create the effect mentioned in the post I was replying to.

I hope that cleared things up some.

TheRedneck

a reply to: Nathan-D

The range of frequencies emitted by a radiating body is the direct result of the fact that temperature as measured is a mean, not an overall homogenous value. Each grain of sand on a beach, for instance, is not at the same temperature as the grain next to it. This leads to the emitted radiation being a quantized Gaussian function.

The quantized part comes about because each emitting molecule has its own spectra lines as well. This shifts the Gaussian function somewhat based on the physical makeup of the emitting surface, but it still remains essentially Gaussian.

It is true that increasing temperature also leads to increasing amounts of radiation, but this effect is so dependent on physical makeup it is harder to predict than frequency distribution. Tests on radiation vs. temperature of mixed-media objects have shown quite dissimilar results to black-body tests on homogenous objects. In addition, even if temperature increase caused the magnitude of radiation at the carbon dioxide spectra to increase, the percentage of emitted energy reflected would still decrease substantially. That means a higher percentage of the emitted energy would still escape and the planet would experience less of the greenhouse effect of carbon dioxide.

TheRedneck

a reply to: stinkelbaum

First of all, a politician against a physicist... Humm, bias much?> Second of all, even that physicist doesn't understand that a lot of the warming seen has been caused by anomalies in the Pacific ocean known as ENSO (El Niño-Southern Oscillation). There was one in 1997-1998, and 1998 was a very warm year because of the Super El Niño. Not to mention the 2015-2016 Super El Niño. These are anomalies not caused by CO2. Then again, this physicist, like many other AGWarmists ignore the fact that the Earth, and our Sun have been experiencing dramatic changes which do cause wild weather and climate change. If there were no other changes happening to Earth, or the Sun then it would be another story, but in fact dramatic changes are occurring to the Earth, and our Sun which do affect the climate, and weather.

a reply to: amazing

Hummm, what I wonder is how a AGWarmist like yourself after being shown several times the evidence that contradicts your claims you keep going supporting a lie. Tell you what. How about you post lists of the scientists, and their expertise that support AGW.

How many times does it have to be pointed out that the claims that a majority of scientists agree with AGW is nothing but a lie?...

In fact, most scientists who were/are experts in Climate Change and participated in the IPCC have stated the fact that the IPCC is nothing but a political tool that does not care about the science, and in fact the majority of scientists who agreed with the AGW and participated in the IPCC reports were not experts in climate change. There were/are only a few experts in climate change who participated in the IPCC reports, the rest were policymakers, and environmental activists with no experience nor knowledge in climate change.

The long used claim by the AGW camp that over 2,500 climate experts who participated in the IPCC reports has been shown many times to be nothing but a lie.

Here are some of the IPCC scientists who do have knowledge in climate change or on a related field that deals with the effects of climate change, participated in IPCC reports and disagree with the claims from the policymakers.

Dr. John T. Everett, UN IPCC lead author and reviewer, led work on five impact analyses for the IPCC..

MIT Climate Scientist Dr. Richard Lindzen, UN IPCC lead author and reviewer.

Dr. Oliver W. Frauenfeld, Contributing Author to the UN IPCC Working Group 1 Fourth Assessment Report.

Dr. Richard Tol, Author of three UN IPCC Working Groups.

Dr. Philip Lloyd, UN IPCC co-coordinating lead author.

Dr. John Christy, UN IPCC lead author in 2001 for the Third Assessment Report.

Rosa Compagnucci, Author of two UN IPCC reports, professor in the Department of Atmosphere Sciences in the University of Buenos Aires, and El Niño expert
"There was a global warming in medieval times, during the years between 800 and 1300. And that made Greenland, now covered with ice, christened with a name that refers to land green: 'Greenland.’”

Dr. Aynsley Kellow, UN IPCC Contributing Author, referee for the UN IPCC Fourth Assessment Report.

Dr. Christopher W. Landsea, UN IPCC author and reviewer.

UN IPCC Japanese Scientist Dr. Kiminori Itoh.

Meteorologist Hajo Smit, former member of the Dutch IPPC Committee, reversed his belief in man-made warming to become a skeptic.

Climatologist Dr. Robert E. Davis, UN IPCC contributor.

Climatologist Dr. Robert Balling of Arizona State University, served on the IPCC, and as climate consultant to the UN Environment Program, the World Climate Program, the World Meteorological Organization, and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization.

Dr. Indur M Goklany, represented the U.S. at the IPCC and in negotiations leading to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change.

Dr. Paul Reiter, UN IPCC participant, malaria expert, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, professor of entomology and tropical disease with the Pasteur Institute in Paris.

Yury Izrael, past UN IPCC Vice President, director of Global Climate and Ecology Institute, member of the Russian Academy of Sciences "There is no proven link between human activity and global warming.”"Global temperatures increased throughout the 1940s, declined in the 1970s and subsequently began to rise again.... Present day global warming resembles the 1940s, when ships could easily navigate Arctic passages. However, man's impact was much smaller at that time. A Russian expedition that recently returned from the central Antarctic says that temperatures are now starting to decrease.... In ancient times the Earth had periods when maximum CO2 concentrations were 6,000 PPM (Carboniferous period). But life still goes on."

Dr. Richard Courtney, UN IPCC expert reviewer and a UK-based climate and atmospheric science consultant.

Dr. Kiminori Itoh, UN IPCC expert reviewer of the 2007 Fourth Assessment Report, award-winning environmental physical chemist of Yokohama National University.

Dr. Lee C. Gerhard, UN IPCC expert reviewer, past director and state geologist with the Kansas Geological Society and a senior scientist emeritus of the University of Kansas.

Dr. Ross McKitrick, UN IPCC expert reviewer, Associate Professor of Environmental Economics at the University of Guelph, author or coauthor of dozens of peer-reviewed papers in both economics and climate science journals.

Dr. David Wojick, UN IPCC expert reviewer, PhD in Philosophy of Science, co-founded Department of Engineering and Public Policy at Carnegie-Mellon University.

Dr. Patrick J. Michaels, UN IPCC expert reviewer, former Virginia State Climatologist, and University of Virginia professor of environmental sciences.

Dr. Hans H.J. Labohm, UN IPCC expert reviewer, global warming author, and economist, a lecturer at the Netherlands Defense Academy, started out as a man-made global warming believer but later switched his view after conducting climate research.

Dr. Vincent Gray UN IPCC expert reviewer of every IPCC Assessment Report "The claims of the IPCC are dangerous unscientific nonsense."

Dr. Madhav L. Khandeka, UN IPCC expert reviewer in 2007, Canadian environmental scientist.

Geologist/Geochemist Dr. Tom V. Segalstad, UN IPCC expert reviewer, professor and head of the Geological Museum at the University of Oslo "It is a search for a mythical CO2 sink to explain an immeasurable CO2 lifetime to fit a hypothetical CO2 computer model that purports to show that an impossible amount of fossil fuel burning is heating the atmosphere. It is all a fiction."

Dr. Hans H.J. Labohm, UN IPCC reviewer, lecturer at the Netherlands Defense Academy.

Dr. Paul Reiter, UN IPCC expert reviewer, professor at the Institute Pasteur, Unit of Insects and Infectious Diseases, Paris, France.

Dipl.-Ing. Peter Dietze, UN IPCC expert reviewer, scientific climate and carbon modeller, Bavaria, Germany The two scientists above wrote a letter with other scientists stating: “When the public comes to understand that there is no ‘consensus’ among climate scientists about the relative importance of the various causes of global climate change, the government will be in a far better position to develop plans that reflect reality and so benefit both the environment and the economy.”

Atmospheric Scientist Dr. Joanne Simpson, first woman to receive a PhD in meteorology, formerly of NASA, has authored more than 190 studies and has been called “among the most preeminent scientists of the last 100 years”

Aerospace engineer and physicist Dr. Michael Griffin, top administrator of NASA and former head of the Space Department at Johns Hopkins University's Applied Physics Laboratory.

Hungarian scientist, Dr. Ferenc Miskolczi, an atmospheric physicist with NASA. Dr. Miskolcziresigned his post over the agency’s lack of scientific freedom “My idea of the freedom of science cannot coexist with the recent NASA practice of handling new climate change related scientific results.” "Runaway greenhouse theories contradict energy balance equations."

Chemist and Nuclear Engineer Robert DeFayette formerly with NASA’s Plum Brook Reactor in Ohio and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, holds a masters degree in Physical Chemistry.

and the list continues of UN IPCC authors who disagree with the AGW claims...

www.hatch.senate.gov...

originally posted by: ElectricUniverse

originally posted by: TheRedneck
...

Atmospheric carbon dioxide levels in those observations show temperature lags behind atmospheric carbon dioxide levels.
...
TheRedneck

It's actually the opposite, historically CO2 lags behind temperatures by an average of 800 years.

Not anymore. Thanks to some isotopes they're down to 200 or something.
science.sciencemag.org...

We're still learning to mind this gap between the age of said ice cores and the age of that gas trapped inside the ice. But then some spin docs arrived to state CO2 is somewhat lagging behind the temps.

Nice story though.

a reply to: ElectricUniverse


Given the record temps in recent years I have some issues to actually see the slowdown you're talking about.

BTW, it has been pointed out to you several times that in 2015-2016 there has been a Super El Niño which caused the temperature anomaly we have seen similar to the 1997-1998 Super El Niño anomaly... Those temperature anomalies are not related to CO2...

Local weather extremes are generally not related to CO2, but rather attributed to the actual climate change. And it's highly likely that a warmer westpacific is the direct consequence of human contributions (and CO2), thus we could speak of an indirect influence.

And btw, those periods of global warming on Earth don't imply that there's no human contribution to the climate at all. The data I'm aware of, actually suggests a decline in natural forcings contributing to the warming and a slight offset with negative forcing (aka cooling, hence the ice-age hypothesis).

a reply to: TheRedneck


Water vapor is a point they already tackle. It's considered to be a reaction to the human forcings, amplifying our footprint if you will.

“This new data set shows that as surface temperature increases, so does atmospheric humidity,” Dessler said. “Dumping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere makes the atmosphere more humid. And since water vapor is itself a greenhouse gas, the increase in humidity amplifies the warming from carbon dioxide." Specifically, the team found that if Earth warms 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit, the associated increase in water vapor will trap an extra 2 Watts of energy per square meter (about 11 square feet). "That number may not sound like much, but add up all of that energy over the entire Earth surface and you find that water vapor is trapping a lot of energy," Dessler said. "We now think the water vapor feedback is extraordinarily strong, capable of doubling the warming due to carbon dioxide alone."

www.nasa.gov...

Sulfate emission is another issue entirely.

Calculations of the effects of both natural and anthropogenic tropospheric sulfate aerosols indicate that the aerosol climate forcing is sufficiently large in a number of regions of the Northern Hemisphere to reduce significantly the positive forcing from increased greenhouse gases. Summer sulfate aerosol forcing in the Northern Hemisphere completely offsets the greenhouse forcing over the eastern United States and central Europe. Anthropogenic sulfate aerosols contribute a globally averaged annual forcing of -0.3 watt per square meter as compared with +2.1 watts per square meter for greenhouse gases. Sources of the difference in magnitude with the previous estimate of Charlson et al. (1992) are discussed.

adsabs.harvard.edu...

There you have it - aerosol (negative) forcing and greenhouse gases (positive) compared with each other.

Albedo changes on the surface or in clouds is a pretty complex issue, I'm not sure why you mentioned clouds now. Anything concrete in mind?

a reply to: PublicOpinion

Yes, they do tackle water vapor as a greenhouse gas. Yes, water vapor is a potent greenhouse gas, with a wide absorption spectra. Yes, a warmer atmosphere typically holds more water vapor.

Now put those together.

The earth has supported life for an extremely long time. It has supported human life for a very long time. During that time, before the Industrial Revolution, heck, let's say before America was discovered, what is the probability that there was a single heat wave?

I'd say pretty sure myself.

If there was a heat wave, regardless of reason for it, the atmosphere got warmer, right? That's the definition of a heat wave after all. If the atmosphere got warmer, it would have held more water vapor. We know water vapor is a potent greenhouse gas, so all that excess water vapor in the atmosphere would have had a positive forcing and raised the temperature. That would cause there to be more water vapor in the air, a larger positive forcing, higher temperatures, more water vapor, increased positive forcing, higher temperatures, more... ad infinitum.

So, we have only two logical choices: either our present assumptions about the overall climate and forcings are incomplete, or there was never a temperature increase before the first recorded records.

I'll go with the former.

This is another example of what I have been saying throughout this thread: the assumptions in the climate models are incomplete and cannot stand up to scrutiny. They do not deliver accurate predictions, for this simple reason. They will never deliver accurate predictions until the scientists working on them are left alone to do their job without being influenced by greedy politicians and confused activists.

As it is, we're trying to harvest the corn when it's one inch tall... and complaining when the bucket keeps showing up empty.

I don't remember mentioning cloud albedo... I mentioned that sulfuric acid decreases freezing points for water, leading to a higher land albedo (ice vs. water) and that soot increased land albedo as well. I also am adamant that high sulfur levels need to be addressed quickly, as they are a particularly toxic form of pollution.

TheRedneck

a reply to: PublicOpinion

The point is it still lags. There is a force for warming, that causes co2 to be released, which further adds to warming. Humans add additional co2 beyond what nature adds causing additional warming. If you look through the co2/temperature records, co2 only leads temperature just before a drop, usually a drastic drop that takes place over hundreds of years. If you then look at that trend over a timescale, it looks like co2 causes cooling...but we know that isn't true as we can prove in lab experiments that co2 definitely causes warming, even if logarithmic.

I point you to Skeptical Science to view the co2/temperature overlay.

If we only focus on the end, which is what we do of course we will see one thing. But if you look at the area I have outlined in yellow:



You will see that entire period the co2 increase follows warming, and then the decrease follows cooling. If we were to focus only on that we would think that co2 caused cooling during that period, but if you only focus on the very peak, co2 continues to rise when warming levels off. There is even a small spike there that could say was caused by the co2. But then, even with co2 well above temperature, a massive dropoff happens leading into an ice age. We know it wasn't the co2 that caused the warming then, and we know it wasn't the co2 that caused the cooling. The co2 certainly facilitated additional warming beyond whatever else was going on just as we see today.

Also, your paper states the lag is there, or possibly even non existent if:

The assumption that no convective zone existed at EDC during TI...this might be tested in the future using krypton and xenon isotopes

However I see no further testing to prove that assumption unless you can find the pertinent papers? On top of that, their source for the assumption shows as: Direct Link PDF to Climate of the Past

Which states:

[url=Finally, method 2 gives estimates within a few metres of methods 3 and 4 during the last deglacial warming, suggesting that the convective zone at Dome C cannot have been very large at this time, if it existed at all....In the applications below, we will assume that there was no convective zone at EDC during the last 800 kyr[/url]

But let's look at their caveat:

Note that we have evidence for a large convective zone at present at some sites (Bender et al., 2006; Severinghaus et al., 2010)

I will leave you to take away from that what you will. Both papers agree the lag is somewhere between 0 years and 130 or 200 years respectively. They both pull away from the 800 +- 200 and with pretty good reasoning to back up their claims.

a reply to: TheRedneck

I agree with you on the pollution issue but with regards to global warming sulfates are considered to be a negative forcing, and a rather marginal one to be perfectly frank.

So, we have only two logical choices: either our present assumptions about the overall climate and forcings are incomplete, or there was never a temperature increase before the first recorded records.

Or the third choice: we can measure increased radiation due to the greenhouse effect from CO2 only and we have models to explain the increase in water vapor as reaction to said rise in temps.

We didn't see any global warming happening in Earth's history due to water vapor only, did we?

I mentioned that sulfuric acid decreases freezing points for water

Given the fact that sea water is already full of salt I have issues to see the point you're making.
The ice caps at the poles mainly melt due to the heat in the waters underneath, at least that's the theory I'm aware of. Changes in surface albedo due to global warming would probably result in a lower land albedo. Ice has a high albedo, water a lower one.
But we didn't address water vapour yet, more clouds would probably raise the albedo above surface. This whole topic is work in progress and we don't have enough data to nail it sufficiently, at least that's the way I see it.

They will never deliver accurate predictions until the scientists working on them are left alone to do their job without being influenced by greedy politicians and confused activists.

Some of them probably are? You're being emotional again, just saying. For every biased study you can find a better one to ponder about, try me.

originally posted by: ElectricUniverse
there were no other changes happening to Earth, or the Sun then it would be another story, but in fact dramatic changes are occurring to the Earth, and our Sun which do affect the climate, and weather.

What effects, other than increased greenhouse gases, are there now? What is the observational evidence for them? What is the physical mechanism, and quantitative impact?

a reply to: PublicOpinion

clear water vapor (humidity) is a unequivocal warming feedback----clouds are more complicated with heating and cooling effects in various situations and have been studied intensely for many decades as a result.

a reply to: raymundoko

Correct, those are Milankovitch cycles and orbital forcing also having an effect. Since there was no fossil fuel mining & burning the CO2 was resulting from carbon cycle in the biosphere and crustal rocks, unlike now.

At present, those astronomical effects peaked at about 6000 BC and have been slowly on a cooling course since then and until the industrial period, the climate was slowly cooling from that time.

a reply to: raymundoko

You will see that entire period the co2 increase follows warming, and then the decrease follows cooling. If we were to focus only on that we would think that co2 caused cooling during that period, but if you only focus on the very peak, co2 continues to rise when warming levels off. There is even a small spike there that could say was caused by the co2. But then, even with co2 well above temperature, a massive dropoff happens leading into an ice age. We know it wasn't the co2 that caused the warming then, and we know it wasn't the co2 that caused the cooling. The co2 certainly facilitated additional warming beyond whatever else was going on just as we see today.

Frankly, I don't get how you can't think of some cataclysmic event in PlanetX size. We don't know for sure if CO2 was (or wasn't) the cause for the warming, how should we? But the correlation with the temps is way too strong to dump the whole argument at this moment, hence it's highly likely that CO2 was the cause. We're still able to measure the greenhouse effect of CO2, this whole aspect of science didn't fall apart as of yet.

I might add... a few big vulcanos dumping their ash in the atmosphere will be sufficient to cool down the planet as seen in the charts. Nobody here witnessed the events, it's a highly speculative topic. But I think it would be a fallacy to rely on CO2 and temps only when trying to solve that riddle. The ash from my example will take a while longer to settle, which makes is difficult to see the connection. Just a thought, you'll get the drift.

I will leave you to take away from that what you will. Both papers agree the lag is somewhere between 0 years and 130 or 200 years respectively. They both pull away from the 800 +- 200 and with pretty good reasoning to back up their claims.

That's what I meant, thanks for the addition. Let's leave it with that for now.

a reply to: PublicOpinion

I agree with you on the pollution issue but with regards to global warming sulfates are considered to be a negative forcing, and a rather marginal one to be perfectly frank.

And therein lies the big issue for me. Instead of focusing on the real source of pollution, a substance that is almost wholly introduced by humans and can be easily shown to be responsible for ecological die-offs, we are concerned with how much it contributes to atmospheric heating. That is so like eating rat poison while trying to figure out if it contains B3.

And yes, that last statement might be a little emotional. I care about the planet.

Or the third choice: we can measure...

How is that a third choice? Either the system is inherently stable, or there have been zero destabilizing influences in history.

We didn't see any global warming happening in Earth's history due to water vapor only, did we?

We honestly cannot answer that, but we did see warming trends as well as cooling trends. If we are going to make linear assumptions on the present climate, can we not extend those same arguments to past climate?

Given the fact that sea water is already full of salt I have issues to see the point you're making.

Perhaps I should have made myself clearer: not all ice is made of salt water. Acidification still reduces the freezing point of salt water as well, though.

I agree that the logical culprit to ice melt in the polar region is from below, not above. As a matter of fact, there are studies that show a temperature increase in the Bering current is likely the major culprit behind Arctic melt. Then there's this thread detailing new evidence that the oceans themselves are a significant, recent positive forcing.

For every biased study you can find a better one to ponder about, try me.

You can post links to studies from now until doomsday; until one agrees with raw observational data and develops a record of accurate predictions, they are not proof of anything other than the fact scientists came to work.

That's the bottom line: they are unproven.

TheRedneck

a reply to: TheRedneck

And yes, that last statement might be a little emotional. I care about the planet.

So do I, but let's try to keep this straight. You all do have a point when stating, that the pollution will kill us faster than the climate change ever could. That's a straw man at it's finest, with such an argument you could easily shut up every debate regarding the climate change. And to be fair, that wouldn't be fair at all.

How is that a third choice? Either the system is inherently stable, or there have been zero destabilizing influences in history.

Simple: we can measure incoming and outbound radiation, thus the greenhouse effect of CO2 is a simple fact. I restrain myself from adding another study for now, but water vapor isn't the only well known greenhouse gas. And water is a strong one, as it roughly doubles the effect of global warming due to CO2.
To state CO2 has no effect whatsoever would be pretty ...eh... extreme... and I have yet to see one decent study going down that road.

You can post links to studies from now until doomsday; until one agrees with raw observational data and develops a record of accurate predictions, they are not proof of anything other than the fact scientists came to work.

Agreed. Which is why we have a load of evidence in this thread by now, models coherent with observational data for ex. We talked about them.
Or do you mean the lack of models for the historic rise of temps and CO2 levels at regular intervals? PlanetX should be incorporated in those theories you say? That's my song, get off my lawn you devious Nerdneck!



Known unknowns and unknown unknowns...

That frequency, as it turns out, is less than the average frequency emitted by the planet. So as the earth warms, the mean emitted frequency increases and becomes farther from the carbon dioxide spectra and the carbon dioxide becomes less effective as a greenhouse gas. In addition, even if temperature increase caused the magnitude of radiation at the carbon dioxide spectra to increase, the percentage of emitted energy reflected would still decrease substantially. That means a higher percentage of the emitted energy would still escape and the planet would experience less of the greenhouse effect of carbon dioxide.

I am not sure what you’re getting at here and I cannot make any sense of it. I am under the impression that you were making the argument that is made on this page [url=https://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2014/01/25/ir-expert-speaks-out-after-40-years-of-silence-its-the-water-vapor-stupid-and-not-the-co2/]here[/u rl] by Mike Sanicola. He argues that because the temperature of the surface doesn’t correspond to CO2’s absorption wavelength then CO2 cannot be that strong. He used Wien’s displacement law to find out the peak emission wavelength at different temperatures, 220°K and 300°K, which more or less is the temperature of Mars and Earth respectively. He found that CO2’s main absorption wavelength corresponds to lower temperatures at 220°K and then argued that CO2 must be having a stronger effect at these lower temperatures. The curve that depicts the distribution of radiant energy across the whole spectrum (called the ‘Planck curve’, or the ‘Planck distribution’) has a peak at a particular wavelength that is characteristic of the black body’s temperature. However, what he failed to take into account (and as explained in the comments-section) is that the total amount of radiation emitted on all wavelengths increases as temperature increases in accordance with Planck’s law (and the Stefan-Boltzmann law). This means as the Earth increases in temperature there will always be more radiation available for CO2 to absorb on its main absorption wavelength and so the stronger warming it will have. You appeared to be implying the opposite, as Mike Sanicola does.