On Wednesday, March 12, 2014 4:56:04 PM UTC, John Clark wrote: > > On Tue, Mar 11, 2014 at 2:17 PM, <[email protected] <javascript:>> wrote: > >> >>> >>> I think on the scale of 4 billion years the sort of margin we're >>>> talking about is that necessary to keep water liquid on the surface. >>>> >>> >>> >> At least twice in the last 4 billion years water WAS kept below the >>> freezing point at the surface, from the pole continuously to the equator >>> and we had a snowball Earth. It happened once about 1.5 billion years ago >>> and again about 700 million years ago; why it happened and once it did how >>> things ever warmed up again is not well understood, just like most things >>> in climate science. >>> >>> >> >> > I knew you'd say that. So what if there are two periods or more when >> liquid water wasn't free running. Does that alter the fact that liquid >> water has been *roughly* in situ over billion years while the sun warmed >> 20%? Do you actually dispute that this is something that needs explaining? >> > > No and I don't claim to know all the answers, I'd like to knowwhy the > Earth turned into a snowball from pole to equator .7 billion years ago but > from 1.5 to .7 billion, when our star was even weaker, it did not and > despite a weaker sun things were much warmer. Apparently the climate > machine is a bit more complicated than what some would have us believe. > You're apparently suggesting science doesn't get it climate is complicated. Is this because the process of science has accumulated a large body of evidence co2 is the dominant greenhouse house? Is that unexpected from a complex system? You see irreducibility? The climate is stable and robust...the indication is for a mesh of mechanisms in play. That must have seen evolution. Life is at one end, but a lot of it isn't alive. A complex system needs simplifiers - periodicity. There's a body of science now for the part of co2. Life - anywhere in the universe - if complex is an ecosystem, and ecosystems need to emerge from non-life and then see evolution. Living planets like Earth are probably very much the other half of that. Had no complex plate techtonics emerged and stabilized, in the process producing granite, which floats to make continents, without which plate tectonics would not be stable, and the complex process of recycling, of co2 for one, wouldn't have systemized. Surface co2 would run out after 40 million years, so that be final curtains for life, and the planet would freeze over completely and that's the way it'd stay until the sun boiled it all away. Co2 is potent in the presence of water vapour only. One without the other doesn't work. Water vapour isn't self-sustaining. Meaning, if you have this much water vapour in the atm today, then tomorrow you'll have a small amount less. And so on, until there is no water vapour in the air, and the planet has frozen. Co2 without water vapour is a trace gas..a few parts per million on earth. No effect. The martian atmosphere is pure co2 and it's freezing coa. Not because the sun is further way solely, or even necessarily. But because there's no water vapour. Water vapour absorbs a huge amount of the infrared spectrum. But it leaves open a window, a range of frequencies water molecules don't absorb. If water didn't leave that frequency window open, it would be a stable gas...it'd feed back positively and runaway greenhouse. But the window is just a little too large for water to feedback neutrally and maintain itself. Co2, absorbs in a very narrow band...it's nothing like scale of water vapour. But that narrow band is in that window that water vapour doesn't absorb. When co2 rises...there's an inbuilt positive feedback in that a small rise, will drive a small rise in water vapour and so on. When you look back 0.7 - 4 billion years, you're not seeing things as they are now. The system has seen evolution...strong forces of natural selection must have been present for that. Life came out of that evolution. Life has struggled to be stable, just as the planet has. Before animals came along it was very easy for life to get eahead of the co2 and suck it of the air. Which'd be a near total extinction level event for life and Earth would feasibly freeze over as the water vapour diminished awau The real mystery is how it unfroze. Theoretically it never does. But it was co2. It took 20 million years waiting for plate tectonics to cycle enough back around. And some aggressive volcanism. Even then, because there was no water vapour, a huge amount had to build up - from memory 50 times what we have now, just to get the temperature up enough that just a little ice melted and evaporated. As soon as that happened things took off big time and the ice was gone. The aggression of a water vapour feedback with th,at kind of co2, is feasibly enough to blow the ice off both poles, thus have more energy from the sun absorbing than we do now, and open up a steamy humid epoch with critters sun and sanding antartica. Which is basically what happened. That and the Cambrian explosion. I've been a bit long winded because I've tried to address all of the concerns and questions. There are other drivers...like the positioning of the continents...ours is fortuitous because it transfers heat around. Times gone by that wasn't happening. Although climate over all can't go up that way, what can happen is heatwaves or freezewaves near a pole, which thaws or freezes on a massive scale, which in turn radically changes the albedo effect, which can trigger rampant warming or cooling. One final point would be that when stable, co2 levels never change by themselves. Co2 can't start the process. That has to something else. Like goings on in the interior. Several posts up, you obviously did not know about the sun warming issue.
> > BULLSHIT! I would be willing to bet money that I know more about the > evolution of stars, both on and off the main sequence, than you do, and > probably one hell of a lot more.u > That may be true, but the connection would need to be made. Which you hadn't yet. And nothing out of joint there, why would you have? Wion...hat was striking th wough was your reaction.....you absorbed the point and just carring on. Which points to motivation. You shouldn't be debating the finer points of climate science, if for you this is about preventing penury on humanity. It wouldn't be fair on others who might be putting time into engaging you, when there was no chance you were interested in a learning curve.; > >>> You keep throwing out eratic graphs....you do know they are provided >>>> by climate science? >>>> >>> >> >> So you think climate scientists are putting out "eratic graphs" but >>> nevertheless based on what they say you think the human race should be >>> forced to be put on a starvation energy budget that will impoverish the >>> world and kill billions of people. And this is the moral high ground? >>> >> >> > > I don't know what the fuck you are talking about. >> > > ot > That's a pity because you're the one who said climate science are > producing "eratic graphs". > feel free to correct my typos when quoting. I don't mind either way, but it's not clear why you're not reading this line right. I made it clear I was objecting to the way you were mixing up the basic distinctions like "The Science", "The societal options", "The lobbying" , "environmental extremists" etc > > > They are doing science. The discussion about what needs to happen is a >> separate matter. >> > > Yes, and the question about what has happened is a separate matter from > what will happen, and one question is far far more difficult to answer than > the other because the past is always clearer than the future. > Sure but note, a vast amount of knowledge and complexity has emerged from climate science. Yet when the US government got some CIA guys or whatever, to assesse threat...back in 1978 or something. They did the on a few bits of paper and came back with what is still the same projection now. Co2 hasn't moved that much through 30 years that revolutionized our understanding of climate. '[Because in the end it's fundamental physics. Co2 absorbs infrared photons and re-emits slight lower energy photon which would go out to space again if there was less co2, but chances are it'll get absorbed by another co2 molecule, and another. The longer that photon stays on the planet the higher the average temp goes. > > > Fuck off >> > > I love you too. > yeah I kind love you too baby > > John K Clark > > > > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
