A look at the science behind climate change

a reply to: Justoneman

Now I am using these to help me and my peers understand the type of personality it takes to avoid the truth for whatever reason.

You mean avoiding the fact that increasing CO2 concentrations are causing global warming?

originally posted by: Phage
a reply to: Justoneman

Now I am using these to help me and my peers understand the type of personality it takes to avoid the truth for whatever reason.

You mean avoiding the fact that increasing CO2 concentrations are causing global warming?

I mean not understanding Atmospheric Chemistry. Especially the Chemistry. You understand Astronomy very well, we can all agree.My main issue, parroting proven charlatans and acting as if you are right with their data in tow. How many predictions did they get right?

www.cfact.org...
coldclimatechange.com...



I can't emphasis enough the importance of scale with the data. Scale creates uncertainty and Temperatures are an uncertain thing we all know it.

realclimatescience.com...

originally posted by: Dfairlite
a reply to: 1947boomer

You wrote:

“You're conflating two different things. Emissions and atmospheric concentration. Your chart is about emissions. I'm talking about atmospheric concentration. Since the 50s the atmospheric CO2 concentration is up about 90-100 ppm (depending on the year you pick as your starting point). In the 100 years prior to that, the concentration rose about 80 ppm. So while our emissions are growing (not anywhere near exponentially) our additions to the atmosphere are much closer to linear than logarithmic.”

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No, I’m not conflating the two different things, but I will admit that my statement was terse and didn’t necessarily clarify the distinction between the two. So let’s talk about emissions of CO2 and concentration of CO2.

First, your statement that emissions are growing closer to a linear manner is bull puckey. Did you look at the chart? In the decade 1850 to 1860, the slope of the curve is barely positive, by 1950 the slope is going up at about a 45 degree angle; today it is going up at about an 80 degree angle. It is clearly concave upwards. It is much, much different than linear over the range 1850 to the present.

Moreover, total CO2 concentration in the atmosphere is also changing at a non-linear rate in the period 1850 to the present. Take a look at this graph:

www.co2levels.org...

Between 1850 and 1900, CO2 accumulated at an average rate of about 0.25 PPM/year.
Between 1900 and 1950, CO2 accumulated at about 0.32 PPM/year.
Between 1950 and 2000, CO2 it accumulated at about 1.2 PPM/year.
Between 2000 and the present, CO2 accumulated at about 2.25 PPM/year.
The rate of accumulation of CO2 is clearly also increasing with time. That shouldn’t be surprising since we’ve only been putting it in the air in a serious way for about 150 years and the residence time of CO2 in the atmosphere is about 300 years. Very little of the excess we’re put in has come out.

If one were to create a realistic model of the total concentration of CO2 as a function of time from 1850 to the present by curve fitting of the empirical data in that graph, I think it’s pretty obvious that you would end up with a constant term that describes the concentration prior to the industrial revolution and a term that adds to the concentration, with increasing time, starting at 1850. I also think It is clear from the shape of the curve that the term describing the amount of additional CO2 concentration added since 1850 will be either an exponential increasing with time or a power law increasing with time.

Now let’s look at the logarithmic dependence of temperature on CO2 concentration: In 2006, the climate scientist Willis Eschenbach published a model for the logarithmic dependence of excess temperature as a function of the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere. The model is: Excess Temperature = K [log2 (C2) – log2 (C1)], where C1 and C2 are the concentrations of CO2 in the atmosphere at two different times (in PPM) and K is a constant equal to ≈ 2.35. In this model, C1 is the concentration before the buildup started, so it is treated as a constant; C2 is the concentration from 1850 on, it obviously is a variable, since it increases with time. The simple point I was trying to make in my previous post is that if you take a model for the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere that contains a constant term and an exponential or a power term that gets bigger with time, and plug it into Eschenbach’s equation, you will end up taking the log of a constant term plus the log of a term that has either an exponential or a power law in it. The log of a constant term is a constant, but the log of a term containing an exponential or power law is going to increase linearly, with time. That simply means that as long as the concentration of CO2 keeps increasing exponentially or as a power law, the temperature will keep increasing with time. I thought you were bringing up the logarithmic dependence of temperature with CO2 concentration to suggest that the diminishing heating effect due to increasing CO2 concentration will cause the rate of heating that we are currently experiencing to diminish. I’m just pointing out that mathematically, it can’t do that as long as we’re putting CO2 into the air at an ever increasing rate.

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You went on to write:

“Furthermore, burning every currently known available drop of fossil fuels will only result in about 700-800ppm (total) of CO2 in the atmosphere. Given that 800 is when we will see another 1C change from now and we have to get another 800 from there to see the next 1C rise, it's safe to say there is absolutely zero worry about with CO2 emissions.”

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I guess we both agree that when and if the CO2 concentration gets to 800 PPM, the temperature will get to about 3.5 C or about 7.5 F above the 1956 to 1980 baseline. I’m having a hard time understanding just exactly what your position is on this. You seem to be fully accepting that CO2 concentration in the atmosphere is increasing due to human activity and you seem to be fully accepting of the physics that says that that rise in concentration has caused an approximate 1 degree C rise in temperature and that when we get to 800 PPM there will have been another 1.5 degree C rise. Are you saying that a planet that is 7.5 degrees F hotter than the one we had in the 1950s is not worrying? You agree that human emitted CO2 is causing global warming, you just don't care?

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You went on to write:

“Of course, then there is the inconvenient fact that our adding CO2 to the atmosphere has prolonged life on this planet by hundreds of thousands of years (if not millions).”

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What calculation did you perform that allows you to come to that conclusion?

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You went on to write:

“And the ideal atmospheric makeup for plant growth is around 2000ppm of CO2.”

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There is no "ideal" CO2 concentration for plant growth in the abstract; some plants do better in a CO2 enriched environment and some don't because some plants are not genetically equipped to make use of the additional CO2 and some become less productive with increasing temperature. 2000 PPM would correspond to a temperature increase over the baseline of more than 13 degrees F. That would kill the grain crops on which we rely to feed our population.

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You went on to write:

“When you come to accept these facts the worry about CO2 emissions causing any sort of catastrophe becomes nothing but a joke.”

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I guess that’s true if you consider the prospect of losing a few billion of our fellow human beings needlessly to fire, flood, starvation, and war over the next half century to be a joke.

What is the Ideal Temperature for Earth folks?

a reply to: Justoneman

How many predictions did they get right?

Carbon Dioxide is a Cooling Gas According to NASA

That's a bunch of nonsense. It blatantly lies about the NASA study. The study was about CO2 in the thermosphere (you know what the thermosphere is, right?) and how it is reacts to CMEs. It has nothing to do with climate.

Here is your big chance to get it.


ACTUALLY read it.If you had, you would now know that CO2 and NO gasses (Laughing Gas is composed of Nitrous Oxide) BOTH shoot up into space releasing energy from earth into space. That is what is in this article and why it was my answer to you.

I should've started a thread to show you this data. You should not argue against these facts anymore.

ETA

Also, I and many of us ATS members want to know what Phage thinks the ideal temperature is?

a reply to: Justoneman

BOTH shoot up into space releasing energy from earth into space.

False, it is about what happens at the edge of space. Here is a discussion from when the NASA article first appeared, 6 years ago.
www.abovetopsecret.com...

originally posted by: Phage

So nasa steps in with a new climate report on how co2 is going to freeze not fry.

I'm sorry. I don't see anywhere in that article where anything is said about climate. Nor do I see where is it said that increasing levels of CO2 in the lower atmosphere has a cooling effect. Can you point that out for me. It is my understanding that the thermosphere is actually the outer reaches of the atmosphere. I don't think what goes on up there has much to do with what goes on 50 miles below.

The article would seem to be about the effects of coronal mass ejections on the upper atmosphere. It is my understanding that it is not CMEs which cause the heating of the lower atmosphere (where CO2 levels are increasing), but infrared radiation. It seems the quoted article is in error when it says:

NASA's Langley Research Center has collated data proving that “greenhouse gases” actually block up to 95 percent of harmful solar rays from reaching our planet, thus reducing the heating impact of the sun.

CMEs are not "harmful solar rays", they are clouds of plasma.

Here is the article. Read it.
science.nasa.gov...

a reply to: Phage
Deflector is all you seem to have I see!

So you avoid the data and the question?

What temp Phage.
I am starting one in the mudpit just about the liars who can't come up with an decent Temp for the Earth when asked after ranting about it being meltdown.

If you care for the facts you would quit twisting them like a TROLL. Keep trying to pretend you understand Chemistry.

a reply to: 1947boomer

I'm not going to argue about exponential and linear growth. We're simply taking the terms differently as far as I can tell. But let me try to clarify where I think this difference is taking place:

Between 1850 and 1900, CO2 accumulated at an average rate of about 0.25 PPM/year.
Between 1900 and 1950, CO2 accumulated at about 0.32 PPM/year.
Between 1950 and 2000, CO2 it accumulated at about 1.2 PPM/year.
Between 2000 and the present, CO2 accumulated at about 2.25 PPM/year.

So that's additional growth of 0.07 then 0.88 then 1.1 Graph the growth rates.

Moving on:

I guess we both agree that when and if the CO2 concentration gets to 800 PPM, the temperature will get to about 3.5 C or about 7.5 F above the 1956 to 1980 baseline.

No, 3-4C from the 1850 baseline. But in principle yes we agree.

You seem to be fully accepting that CO2 concentration in the atmosphere is increasing due to human activity

Well, I'm simply accepting the premise that the cause is mostly human for the sake of discussion. I'm not sure it is. It's certainly a contributing factor, but how much IDK. But it doesn't matter, even if it's 100% human caused the end result is the same.

Are you saying that a planet that is 7.5 degrees F hotter than the one we had in the 1950s is not worrying?

Yep. I would say 5-6F, but yes. I'm not worried about that. I'm more than willing to accept that the climate changes and as every living creature put on this earth, we will have to adapt to that change if we want to survive.

What calculation did you perform that allows you to come to that conclusion [adding co2 has prolonged life on the planet]?

Pretty simple ones. The amount of carbon in the atmosphere has been decreasing since the beginning of the earth. It was 17x what it is today, in the beginning. Slowly CO2 in the atmosphere was being eaten up by sediment and plants (mostly). The recent (last two hundred million years or so) lowest levels we have seen in CO2 levels were 170-180ppm (these lows keep reaching lower and lower and the highs are also lower, it's an obvious downtrend). When we get below 150, plants begin to die. With no plants, there is no life. Increasing CO2 concentrations, prolongs the eventual plant starvation and death to all life.

2000 PPM would correspond to a temperature increase over the baseline of more than 13 degrees F. That would kill the grain crops on which we rely to feed our population.

Sure, if we don't move where we are planting them. But they will grow much more efficiently, because unlike temperature CO2 spreads pretty evenly throughout the atmosphere, worldwide. Luckily, we have great modes of transportation and revolutionary farming techniques and technology that make moving our agriculture easier than ever before.

I guess that’s true if you consider the prospect of losing a few billion of our fellow human beings needlessly to fire, flood, starvation, and war over the next half century to be a joke.

For a "progressive" you sure seem to fear change and progress. All of this fearmongering ignores the reality of the world. First, it's going to be a very slow and gradual process, spanning hundreds of years. two hundred years ago, where were the population centers of the world? Populations move and adapt.

Second, fires? really? You're blaming CO2 and global temperature averages for fires?

Third, floods? You realize the worst flood in US history happened almost one hundred years ago, right? There is no evidence to suggest flooding will increase with warmer temperatures.

Fourth, starvation? Why would people starve more so in a few hundred years, when compared to today?

You seem to be approaching things from a static viewpoint, where humans and plants are life forms incapable of adaptation and movement. Both premises are false and therefore your conclusions are wildly off base.

One last thing, before you run to rising sea levels, look up the glacial isostatic adjustment and what that really means for sea levels.