I disagree. We know that we are releasing CO2. We know that CO2 can act as a greenhouse gas. We do not know that the CO2 we have released is currently acting as a greenhouse gas. We do not know that the CO2 that we have released has caused the warming that we have seen or made a significant contribution to that warming. Many people believe it, but the actual link has not been shown, much less quantified. Remember that there have been warmer periods with less atmospheric CO2 and colder periods - ice ages even - with more atmospheric CO2.
Go read intention’s demolition of it in GD - he’s a far better debater than I and more knowledgeable (granted this is not difficult ) to boot.
Anthropogenic CO2 may be the answer; CO2 may be only part of the answer; CO2 may not be the answer at all. I don’t know, and the more I read, the more I’m convinced that nobody knows.
You state in no uncertain terms that the CO[sub]2[/sub] <–> Climate change has no evidence except a correlation between CO[sub]2[/sub] rise and temperature.
In post #101 of this thread (directly above) you wrote:
These two positions are mutually contradictory. Either CO[sub]2[/sub] cannot act as a greenhouse gas, and then there is no evidence other than the association (it’s a little bit more complicated than correlation, but close enough) or CO[sub]2[/sub] can act as a greenhouse gas and in addition to the association between CO[sub]2[/sub] and temperature, there is also a mechanism by which CO[sub]2[/sub] can increase the temperature.
Every other global warming skeptic I have encountered, including intention, admits that CO[sub]2[/sub] absorbs energy in the infrared and could theorhetically act as a driver of increased temperatures:
I strongly suspect that intention would not be discussing CO[sub]2[/sub] forcing if s/he believed that such a thing did not exist.
You are unique in denying that the forcing effect can occur at all, and I am curious as to why, could you enlighten me?
The remainder of your post is something of a non-sequitur unless we can resolve the issue of the inherent contradiction in your earlier posts.
If you accept that there is a possible mechanism for the CO[sub]2[/sub] – temperature link, then we can move on to discuss whether that might actually play out in climate - could increased albedo from clouds be shielding the climate from a CO[sub]2[/sub] greenhouse effect, or could solar wind and magnetic fields account for warming.
But discussing such things is useless if you don’t believe CO[sub]2[/sub] can act as a greenhouse gas in the first place, as indicated by post #56.
The ironic part here is that ‘can’ and ‘does’ are not the part of your statements that are contradictory. I’ll try to explain again, with some emphasis and an analogy.
If CO[sub]2[/sub] can act as a greenhouse gas, then that is evidence that links CO[sub]2[/sub] to global warming. It might not be conclusive evidence that CO[sub]2[/sub] has caused the current warming, and it is certainly not proof (whatever that concept might mean! ) But it is evidence.
Here’s an analogy.
Many have noted that the lamentable lack of piracy in the modern world has coincided with the rise in global temperature: See here
This is a situation to which you might fairly say “Correlation does not show causation.” Because it is obvious that there is no mechanism by which a lack of pirates would cause global warming.
Now let us imagine that pirates are demonstrated to have a heat absorption capacity of 42 Terajoules at a rate of 1.21 Terajoules per pillage. Now we have a mechanism by which pirates could actually prevent warming - by absorbing large amounts of heat. This is additional evidence in the pirate - global warming debate.
I would have been fine if you had stated “insufficient evidence,” since that’s a matter of dispute. But you said “no evidence,” which is clearly false.
Sorry for taking so long to get back to you: I’ve been away. I say can rather than does because we do not know that the CO2 emissions are getting to where they will cause AGW. Plenty of cities have smogs, caused by CO2 and other emissions, but you see the smogs sitting on the cities, dispersed by rain etc, not dispersing into the atmosphere where CO2 does indeed provide its warming effect. The CO2 in the smogs therefore clearly does not contribute to AGW. The question then arises, “What about the other anthropogenic CO2 released at low levels?” Does it stay in the atmosphere? Does it actually contribute to global warming? I don’t know.
I’m not denying the forcing effect of CO2: that CO2 provides some warming to the Earth’s atmosphere is well known. I’m querying the certainty of the linkage with respect only to human-released CO2. I am being skeptical in the proper sense, not a denier. Models don’t cut it; hard data does.
Look, it’s like pouring a glass of liquid into the ocean – molecules of it will be in waters all over the world in a few months. Every molecule of CO2 released into the atmosphere will remain in the atmosphere until it is sequestered, as by plant respiration.
CO[sub]2[/sub] has a fairly low solubility in rainwater (of the order of 0.5-1 ppm) because of the low partial pressure of CO[sub]2[/sub] in the atmosphere. It’d take hundreds of years for it all to dissolve assuming there was a one-way sequestering mechanism on the ocean side (there isn’t).
You wouldn’t know if the rain washed away the CO[sub]2[/sub] because it’s odorless. So you admit you don’t know, but that doesn’t stop you from using it as a point in your favour. Just as an example - CO[sub]2[/sub] isn’t a component or contributor of smog, and isn’t washed away easily like the particulates and volatiles that do make up the smog in your example. It’s dangerous to extrapolate from the visible to the invisible in this case.
I find it difficult to see how expressing one’s own ignorance, asking for clarification on a possible gap in someone’s argument, counts as using it as a point in one’s favour.
BTW CO2 was by far the largest component of the London smogs. See this Met Office article on the Great Smog of 1952.
More modern smogs may be different, of course.
But your figure of the solubility is pretty useful. Unless other factors in the smog act to increase the solubility, then smog isn’t relevant. Thank you.
Seemed to me like you were using the question as a rhetorical device, and I apologise for misreading that. In any event, now you do know.
No, it wasn’t. It was a component of the air pollution, but not the smog itself. Like I said, the two are not synonymous.
Some are, some aren’t, depending on where you are. Some (big cities) are more photochemical smogs (a lot more products of petrochemicals, like nitrous oxides, carbon volatiles and O[sub]3[/sub]), but some are still the classic sulphurous smoke coal-fired smog. Of course, some are a lovely mix of both.
Quartz, I’m sorry I’ve been absent from this thread during the holiday here. I would like to tell you why I don’t find your scenario convincing.
Take the CO[sub]2[/sub] coming out of my car’s tailpipe. We can easily figure out whether that CO[sub]2[/sub] will stay in the same area that it was emitted in or not. I start a car in San Francisco at 9 AM on November 27, 2007 and release CO[sub]2[/sub] into the air.
We can calculate the average speed of molecules using the kinetic theory of gases. The average speed (not to be confused with the root mean square speed) of molecules is equal to the square root of (3 times R times the temperature times 10[sup]3[/sup] divided by the gas’s molar mass, my apologies for the word problem – we can’t post equations from Microsoft Equation Editor.) R = 8.314 J K[sup]-1[/sup] mol[sup]-1[/sup]. The molar mass of CO[sub]2[/sub] is 44.
We’ll imagine that it is a very cool day in San Francisco (40°F = 4.4°C = 277.4 K) because that will slow down the molecules of CO[sub]2[/sub].
The molecules of CO[sub]2[/sub] are moving at about 397 meters per second, or about 888 miles per hour, on average. Some molecules will arrive in Perth faster, others more slowly. The bulk of them will not be directed at Perth, of course, but they will disperse in all directions.
Under these conditions, molecules leaving my tailpipe at 9 AM in San Francisco November 27th, 2007 can arrive in Perth, Australia about 9,150 miles (14,725 km) away at 7 PM San Francisco time on November 27th. Molecules in a gas move extremely rapidly, even at cold temperatures. This is why the atmosphere is a well-mixed fluid with regards to smaller gases such as carbon dioxide.
These particles from combustion are measured in micrometers – let’s say one is 1 micrometer across. A carbon dioxide molecule is 4.53 x 10[sup]-8[/sup] cm across. The soot particle is 2,000 times larger than the molecule of CO[sub]2[/sub]. That’s why particulate smog does not disperse as quickly as CO[sub]2[/sub]. Your imagery of a “blanket of smog” over an urban area refers to smog made of many pollutants, including particles, which looks like [this](” AirNow.gov), while CO[sub]2[/sub] looks like this. Carbon dioxide is odorless and colorless, and it does not look or act like many of the larger air pollutants we encounter in day-to-day life. Even ozone, just slightly larger than carbon dioxide, acts very differently from carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
I don’t think you’re trying to deceive us, Quartz, but I do have to say that sometimes it’s better to admit that you don’t know something rather than creating a rationalization that doesn’t stand up to scrutiny.
I haven’t listened to Rush for many months, but used to listen regularly. I’m going from what Rush said early this year and earlier, I doubt things have changed much.
Rush has stated things along the lines that journalists will publish anything that supports their side if it sounds at all believable. No one in the media has more incentive and means to verify the accuracy of what he states. Who else in media have people paid by the opposition to listen and find falsehoods?
OK Rush took it and ran with it, how much more common would be the main stream media in taking a pro AGW paper from a reputable sounding source? and how much more potential for widespread falsehoods to come from that channel then through Rush?
That is one of Rush’s points, journalists are Not scientists they have to depend on the scientists and that is a large potential for abuse of power. It is the reason that we need alternative media - it is the natural counterbalance to the conventional media who run the same stories regardless of the truth.
OK. I know this is a topic which is frustrating and difficult to learn about, but don’t give up on learning new things about it - the internet has made it easier for everyone to get a hold of scientific information.
Just a minor point - photosynthesis sequesters CO[sub]2[/sub], not respiration. Plant respiration releases CO[sub]2[/sub] the same way animal respiration does. It’s just a pet peeve of mine that people forget that plants need to respire the same way animals do.
You do see the irony in posting a theorhetical reason for Limbaugh to fact-check when empirically we know that he didn’t in this case?
wevets, I believe that the rate of diffusion will determine the trip length to Perth . Sure, the CO[sub]2[/sub] molecules are zipping along at a velocity which is greater than the speed of sound, but a short time later they collide with another molecule in the atmosphere and changes direction. As a result, the net outward velocity of the gas drops way down, because a substantial portion of the molecules will end up heading back to the tail pipe. The trip to Perth is going to take days, if not weeks.
[QUOTE=wevets] Quartz, I’m sorry I’ve been absent from this thread during the holiday here. I would like to tell you why I don’t find your scenario convincing.
Take the CO[sub]2[/sub] coming out of my car’s tailpipe. We can easily figure out whether that CO[sub]2[/sub] will stay in the same area that it was emitted in or not. I start a car in San Francisco at 9 AM on November 27, 2007 and release CO[sub]2[/sub] into the air.
We can calculate the average speed of molecules using the kinetic theory of gases. The average speed (not to be confused with the root mean square speed) of molecules is equal to the square root of (3 times R times the temperature times 10[sup]3[/sup] divided by the gas’s molar mass, my apologies for the word problem – we can’t post equations from Microsoft Equation Editor.) R = 8.314 J K[sup]-1[/sup] mol[sup]-1[/sup]. The molar mass of CO[sub]2[/sub] is 44.
We’ll imagine that it is a very cool day in San Francisco (40°F = 4.4°C = 277.4 K) because that will slow down the molecules of CO[sub]2[/sub].
The molecules of CO[sub]2[/sub] are moving at about 397 meters per second, or about 888 miles per hour, on average. Some molecules will arrive in Perth faster, others more slowly. The bulk of them will not be directed at Perth, of course, but they will disperse in all directions.
Under these conditions, molecules leaving my tailpipe at 9 AM in San Francisco November 27th, 2007 can arrive in Perth, Australia about 9,150 miles (14,725 km) away at 7 PM San Francisco time on November 27th. Molecules in a gas move extremely rapidly, even at cold temperatures. This is why the atmosphere is a well-mixed fluid with regards to smaller gases such as carbon dioxide.
wevets, I believe that the rate of diffusion will determine the trip length to Perth . Sure, the CO[sub]2[/sub] molecules are zipping along at a velocity which is greater than the speed of sound, but a short time later they collide with another molecule in the atmosphere and changes direction. As a result, the net outward velocity of the gas drops way down, because a substantial portion of the molecules will end up heading back to the tail pipe. The trip to Perth is going to take days, if not weeks.
) to boot.
) But it is evidence.
Since when is that a question? “Washed away” to where? I’ve never heard even a theory to the effect that rain sequesters gaseous CO2!
