Global Warming

If one wants to argue that the current warming is caused by increased solar output, he should address the current stratospheric cooling.The stratosphere is warmed basically two ways:* Incoming solar UV* Outgoing longwave (thermal) infrared from belowA significant increase in insolation (incoming solar radiation) should cause warming in both the troposphere and the stratosphere.However, if the flow of heat from the surface and troposphere to the stratosphere is somehow blocked, say, by doubling the CO2 content of the lower atmosphere, you get a simultaneous warming of the troposphere and a cooling of the stratosphere. Like what seems to be occuring now. Edited by gene90, : No reason given.

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It may be that changing cloud cover has caused global warming over the past century or so.

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Avenues like this should be studied, but it doesn't address stratospheric cooling.

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And to think they believe Co2 increases cause global warming when it appears to have just the opposite effect.

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I see no evidence of that. However, if your two datasets aren't perfectly correlated, measurement error might make the temperature increase appear to occur before the CO2 increase. Of course, that would be nothing more than an artifact.

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Perhaps the increasing amounts of water vapor in the atmosphere is buffering the small amounts of atmospheric Co2 increases from fossil fuel.

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Except that water vapor is also a GHG. Also, increased water vapor in the stratosphere would absorb more insolation and push the stratospheric temperature up...not down. This makes things worse for the anti-GW crowd, not better. Edited by Admin, : Reduce image size.

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The only greenhouse gas that is particularly important is water vapor. Are you worried that global warming is not raising the oceans and perhaps might be lowering the levels of the oceans, etc...?

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This would be the first time in recent geologic history that that has happened. I personally have seen the evidence for both lower (carbonate dunes that dip beneath the ocean from the last glacial) and higher (inland wavecut cliffs and fossil reefs from the 5e interglacial) Pleistocene sea levels.An interesting point you raise is whether the net effect of global warming will be positive or negative. I'm skeptical of it being positive once coastal erosion starts being a problem, but it's a much better scenario than a cooling period. Variability in general tends to be bad, it's cold trends that have historically created the most havoc for society.If you live in the Maldives, the glass is half empty, if you want to start a vinyard in Scotland, it's half full.