Global Warming

Even if I accept this idea, what difference does it make? We built our cities and houses when it was colder, and the sea was lower. Just because it used to be hotter in the past, doesn't make this current warming any less of a threat. This is true. But without significant levels of greenhouses gases in the past, why should we expect anything different?Have a look at this graph: Causes of Climate ChangeYes, the sun is indeed making the earth hotter. (I wish it wasn't, because that would stop a lot of misnomers about the sun causing all of global warming, rather than 19% of it.) But, greenhouses gases are now the cause of our very rapid changes, compared to the slow fluctuations in solar radiation or the short-lived changes in volcanic forcing. Edited by Doddy, : fixed link

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"Der Mensch kann was er will; er kann aber nicht wollen was er will." (Man can do what he wills but he cannot will what he wills.) - Arthur Schopenhauer

Some do. Sulfate aerosols are known to cause cooling via radiative forcing. In fact, these were one of the contributors to the cooling seen from 1940-1970 (drops in volcanic warming effects also playing a role).CO2 however, like water vapor, does not reflect radiation like sulfates, but absorbs it, so cannot cool the atmosphere. Known effects, but according to Stott et al, accounts for about 20% of global warming.Since 1985, solar forcing has been steady or declining, and yet warming hasn't. How does one explain this? Also a known effect. It's a vicious circle = greenhouse gases cause warming, which in turn cause more greenhouse gases.

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"Der Mensch kann was er will; er kann aber nicht wollen was er will." (Man can do what he wills but he cannot will what he wills.) - Arthur Schopenhauer

Plants have existed for years before man ever was around. Any amount of methane that they produce is not going to warm anything. If we can show that more methane is being produced now by plants than before, then it is not the plants which are to blame, but whatever causes this change in methane output.I don't think any study has been proven that the absorption of carbon dioxide is in any way outweighed by the methane output. I'll quote the outcome of a calculation from this article.

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Thus, for each kg of CO2 assimilated by a plant roughly 0.25 to 1 to 4 g of CH4 is released

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Even given that methane is much stronger of a greenhouse gas, it isn't going to be 250-1000 times stronger.

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"Der Mensch kann was er will; er kann aber nicht wollen was er will." (Man can do what he wills but he cannot will what he wills.) - Arthur Schopenhauer

Just an aside, that paper says this:

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So the UN repealed a fundamental physical law. Buried in a sub-chapter in its 2001 report is a short but revealing section discussing "lambda": the crucial factor converting forcings to temperature. The UN said its climate models had found lambda near-invariant at 0.5C per watt of forcing.

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You don't need computer models to "find" lambda. Its value is given by a century-old law, derived experimentally by a Slovenian professor and proved by his Austrian student (who later committed suicide when his scientific compatriots refused to believe in atoms). The Stefan-Boltzmann law, not mentioned once in the UN's 2001 report, is as central to the thermodynamics of climate as Einstein's later equation is to astrophysics. Like Einstein's, it relates energy to the square of the speed of light, but by reference to temperature rather than mass.

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The bigger the value of lambda, the bigger the temperature increase the UN could predict. Using poor Ludwig Boltzmann's law, lambda's true value is just 0.22-0.3C per watt. In 2001, the UN effectively repealed the law, doubling lambda to 0.5C per watt. A recent paper by James Hansen says lambda should be 0.67, 0.75 or 1C: take your pick. Sir John Houghton, who chaired the UN's scientific assessment working group until recently, tells me it now puts lambda at 0.8C: that's 3C for a 3.7-watt doubling of airborne CO2. Most of the UN's computer models have used 1C. Stern implies 1.9C.

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I can't believe that author is actually applying the Stefan-Boltzmann Equation, which the slightest wikipedia search reveals that it calculates "the total energy radiated per unit surface area of a black body in unit time is proportional to the fourth power of the thermodynamic temperature".A further check of 'black body' reveals: a black body is an object that absorbs all electromagnetic radiation that falls onto it. Clearly, because the Earth can be seen from space, it isn't a black body, so the Equation does NOT apply to Earth.Edited by Doddy, : fixed grammar

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"Der Mensch kann was er will; er kann aber nicht wollen was er will." (Man can do what he wills but he cannot will what he wills.) - Arthur SchopenhauerHelp inform the masses - contribute to the EvoWiki today!