Eaarth

[NeilBlanchard]

The fact that carbon dioxide is a major greenhouse gas is chemical and physics fact -- it insulates because it lets visible light go through, but blocks some of the infrared waves, which are longer wavelength.

NCDC: Greenhouse Gases

As you can see -- they absolutely DO count water vapor, and methane and nitrous oxide and others. Water vapor is dependent on carbon dioxide, as it turns out. I've posted this link at least twice:

Carbon dioxide controls Earth's temperature

The study, conducted by Andrew Lacis and colleagues at NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) in New York, examined the nature of Earth's greenhouse effect and clarified the role that greenhouse gases and clouds play in absorbing outgoing infrared radiation. Notably, the team identified non-condensing greenhouse gases -- such as carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, ozone, and chlorofluorocarbons -- as providing the core support for the terrestrial greenhouse effect.

Without non-condensing greenhouse gases, water vapor and clouds would be unable to provide the feedback mechanisms that amplify the greenhouse effect. The study's results will be published Friday, Oct. 15 in Science

OF COURSE they are counting the variability of the sun! Do you think they are utter nincompoops?! Sheesh -- they are counting the tilt of the Earth at any given time, the sunspots, the position of the continents (they drift around remember?), ice crystals, aerosols, chemical reactions, volcanic activity, and many many things that we laypersons don't know about.

And ALL life forms affect the environment. Where does the oxygen we breathe come from? From plants, and they use minerals from the earth, sunlight, and water. The water is the same water that has always been here. When you drink water, you are drinking dinosaur pee.

The Earth has five major minerals -- and all five of them are in our bodies. Our cells are closely related to the cells of virtually ALL other life forms. Our genes are interchangeable. The iron in our blood came from the stars. All the elements heavier than iron on the periodic table -- came from supernovas.

Some lifeforms are different: horseshoe crabs have copper based blood. The tube worms that live around the deep ocean volcanic vents have no eyes, no mouth, no gut, no anus -- they eat scorching hot chemicals (~450C !!!) that would kill us if we didn't already burn up. But they have a symbiotic existence with the bacteria inside them -- just like we do! We don't actually digest food ourselves -- the bacteria in our gut do it for us...

It's a wild and crazy and wonderful world out there -- aren't you curious to know more about it?

[t vago]

Originally Posted by NeilBlanchard

The fact that carbon dioxide is a major greenhouse gas is chemical and physics fact -- it insulates because it lets visible light go through, but blocks some of the infrared waves, which are longer wavelength.

Never said otherwise, Neil. Why bring it up?

Originally Posted by NeilBlanchard

As you can see -- they absolutely DO count water vapor, and methane and nitrous oxide and others. Water vapor is dependent on carbon dioxide, as it turns out. I've posted this link at least twice:

Carbon dioxide controls Earth's temperature

And they based all this on a computer model. Not real life, but a computer model. Computer models can't even correctly model past behavior, Neil. Past behavior, as in it already happened.

I suppose you're going to try to tell me that water vapor requires the presence of carbon dioxide to evaporate into the air, or that water vapor requires carbon dioxide to transport it up into the stratosphere.

Post it a million times, Neil, for all I care. You're still basing your suppositions off a computer model that can't predict the past.

Originally Posted by NeilBlanchard

OF COURSE they are counting the variability of the sun!

We went through this already, Neil. The much beloved computer models do not include solar variability, and you know that. They include a forcing function that only uses visible light. Your source Richard Alley made a historical estimate of solar activity based on what he admitted was an imperfect method. The two are not the same.

Originally Posted by NeilBlanchard

Do you think they are utter nincompoops?!

Well... When they use data that has basically been tainted by ClimateGate... You tell me.

Originally Posted by NeilBlanchard

Sheesh -- they are counting the tilt of the Earth at any given time

Can't get around that one...

Originally Posted by NeilBlanchard

the sunspots

Nope. Visible light output, remember?

Originally Posted by NeilBlanchard

the position of the continents (they drift around remember?)

Now you're telling me that a mass movement of a centimeter per year is a measurable input to AGW models?

Originally Posted by NeilBlanchard

ice crystals, aerosols, chemical reactions, and many many things that we laypersons don't know about.

And they can't get the models to agree with each other with any certainty. They can't get the models to correctly predict THE PAST, Neil. What do you say about that?

[NeilBlanchard]

If you are smarter than the scientists, why don't you publish something and get in on their get-rich-quick scheme?

Sunspots matter, and they have a small affect. But it is nothing like what carbon dioxide does.

The computer models are used to figure out what is happening in real life -- the actual data is used in the models, and they compare the results of the model to both understand what factors are influencing what, and to project "what-if" scenarios.

I think you are confused on how the process works. And I'm fairly certain that you have not got as good a grasp on the myriad of factors and what the actual data is -- as they do. I certainly do not know much about the details and data.

But, the conclusions are there for all to see.

And they can't get the models to agree with each other with any certainty. They can't get the models to correctly predict THE PAST

You say this -- where's your evidence?

[t vago]

Originally Posted by NeilBlanchard

If you are smarter than the scientists, why don't you publish something and get in on their get-rich-quick scheme?

Did I hurt your widdle feewings? I'm sowwy...

Originally Posted by NeilBlanchard

Sunspots matter, and they have a small affect. But it is nothing like what carbon dioxide does.

Say it a million times, Neil, and it still isn't true. Sunspot activity has been reliably tied to twice in the 20th century where annual average temperatures were shown to have dropped by half a degree C..

[dcb]

Originally Posted by t vago

You're calling the Northern Hemisphere "local?" Wow.

Drop the fake surprise, what are you referring to?

Originally Posted by t vago

Besides that, you can point out that global temperatures have been rising in the recent past, from about 1990 onward.

It looks like longer than that

Originally Posted by t vago

However, that does not mean that Mankind carbon dioxide output is definitively proven as the reason why.

One step at a time please.

Originally Posted by t vago

Harp on greenhouse gas all you want, but the fact remains that there's no causal link showing carbon dioxide makes temperatures rise.

They trap more heat, that is what greenhouse gasses do by definition.

Originally Posted by t vago

water vapor is anywhere from 2 to 10 times more effective as a greenhouse gas

Excellent point. And a warmer atmosphere can hold even more vapor, and be even better at trapping the suns energy.

Originally Posted by t vago

Given that, and given the estimate of 750 gigatons of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere at the same time, how can you with a straight face claim that carbon dioxide alone is responsible for the temperature rise?

Is that addressed to me? I never said that. as bwilson might say, I don't have a dog in this fight. I'm just trying to get the facts straight.

Originally Posted by t vago

At that, how can you claim that MANMADE carbon dioxide is responsible for this temperature rise?

Show me where I claimed such a thing. I'm looking at pictures and listening to "fanatics" on both sides trying to make sense of it.

Originally Posted by t vago

While we're asking questions to each other that imply a lack of intelligence - You do realize that 12,900 gigatons of water vapor is more mass than 750 gigatons of carbon dioxide, right, acb? You do realize that water vapor is at least twice as effective a greenhouse gas as carbon dioxide is, right, acb?

I'm not sure where you are going w/the mass. Do you agree with the wikipedia assesment of relative contributions? h2o is not twice as effective by weight, but rather overall?
Gas Contribution
Water Vapor H2O 36 – 72 %
Carbon Dioxide CO2 9 – 26 %
Methane CH4 4 – 9 %
Ozone O3 3 – 7 %

Originally Posted by t vago

(Waiting for Neil to come up with some other close-minded AGW zealot source, and pass it off as scientific support for AGW...)

honestly I can't deal w/him when he gets like this either, but do please try to stay calm for my own edification. You bring up a lot of good points, though they do seem to come with a tinge of bias.

Originally Posted by t vago

Why do you ignore the effects of water vapor, and belittle the effects of that huge glowing thermonuclear ball hanging about 93 million miles above us?

I don't think that is an accurate assessment of my position.

[NeilBlanchard]

My feelings? Not even close. My question still stands.

What is "not true" about sunspots?

Here's the direct relationship of carbon dioxide level with temperature:


(click on image for link)

[t vago]

Originally Posted by NeilBlanchard

The computer models are used to figure out what is happening in real life -- the actual data is used in the models, and they compare the results of the model to both understand what factors are influencing what, and to project "what-if" scenarios.

I think you are confused on how the process works. And I'm fairly certain that you have not got as good a grasp on the myriad of factors and what the actual data is -- as they do. I certainly do not know much about the details and data.

Certainly, I'm not so confused as to assume that water vapor requires the presence of carbon dioxide to function as a greenhouse gas, as you and your precious computer models have stated.

Originally Posted by NeilBlanchard

But, the conclusions are there for all to see.

You say this -- where's your evidence?

Oddly enough, I got it off a "climate change skeptic debunker" website that, obviously enough, supports AGW. Here's the money quote:

So all models are first tested in a process called Hindcasting. The models used to predict future global warming can accurately map past climate changes. If they get the past right, there is no reason to think their predictions would be wrong. Testing models against the existing instrumental record suggested CO2 must cause global warming, because the models could not simulate what had already happened unless the extra CO2 was added to the model. Nothing else could account for the rise in temperatures over the last century.

So, you selectively pick and choose historical data (solar data calculated by Richard Alley, for instance) that shows that sunspots don't do anything, then when I show papers that state otherwise, you ignore them. When you suggest that carbon dioxide and temperatures are inextricably linked, I (and others) show you graphs that state otherwise, and you ignore them, or you get videos of other AGW zealots that supposedly prove your case, or you appeal to authority.

So, why aren't these models tested against the 19th century, Neil? You love to show historical data from before the 20th century that shows no global warming, so the data must be good enough for the model. Why not plug those numbers and events into the model, and see what it spits out? We have temperature data from that time period. We have sunspot data. We have major events that could have affected climate.

The answer - you can't do it. The AGW pushers can't do it. The model can't predict that past.

[NeilBlanchard]

That quote says

The models used to predict future global warming can accurately map past climate changes.

(emphasis is mine...)

You got it bass akwards...

It is saying the only way to explain what is happening is that it is anthropogenic carbon dioxide that is causing it!!!

The quote exactly supports what I and others have been saying....

[t vago]

Oh, and here's a Newsweek article about one of the co-authors of the IPCC report that you must believe in, Neil, because the IPCC report forms the basis for UN involvement with AGW.

Another money quote:

But here's the rub: water vapor is not well understood. Models, for instance, assume that a warmer atmosphere would hold more water vapor, but it wouldn't necessarily, says [Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Meteorology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Richard] Lindzen. Another wild card is the role of clouds in regulating humidity. Cumulus clouds draw moist air from the surface and carry it skyward. Some of the moisture falls back to the ground as rain, and what's left over is taken high up in the atmosphere, where it freezes into cirrus clouds. These clouds drift hundreds of miles raining ice particles into the lower atmosphere; these evaporate and raise humidity. But how much? Lindzen asserts that as the atmosphere warms, cumulus clouds will produce rain more efficiently, thereby leaving less for humidity-causing cirrus clouds. The result would be drier air. Rather than amplifying the greenhouse effect of carbon dioxide, this would counteract it.

And another money quote:

Even if scientists understood climate perfectly, the models would still contain another type of error inherent in the way computers do the calculations. In an ideal world, models would account for everything, down to each molecule of water. In practice, compromises are made. The Hadley Centre's model, for instance, dices the atmosphere into 250-kilometer squares, and then crunches equations that describe scientists' best approximation of the atmosphere's aggregate behavior. Making the squares smaller would reduce error, but it's expensive: shrink the squares to 125km, and the calculation balloons 16-fold. Even so, much of what goes on at the scale of clouds is lost.

[t vago]

Originally Posted by NeilBlanchard

That quote says


(emphasis is mine...)

You got it bass akwards...

It is saying the only way to explain what is happening is that it is anthropogenic carbon dioxide that is causing it!!!

The quote exactly supports what I and others have been saying....

Why not model the 19th century, then? There's enough data there, isn't there? These models deal with trends rather than events, right?