I'm probably going to make a few enemies, but the deniers of global warming (skeptic is too kind, Contrarian is more like it) really need to head over to NOAA.gov or Climate.gov and see what all of many different satellite data are showing. First, let's answer Craig's comments about not knowing if CO2 was from man burning fossil fuels or something. Some people have the mistaken idea that atmospheric CO2 can come from other places, like space. The total amount of carbon in earth is actually fix. The total amount neither increases or decreases. It's just that it moves from on place to another. It's either sequestered in the earth in the form of carbon based minerals, fossil fuels, shale, coal... etc, or its biomass on the earth's surface and oceans, or it is CO2 uptake into the oceans, or lastly it's in the air. I'm describing what is called the Carbon Cycle. Wikipedia has nice entry about the carbon cycle that is worth a good read if you want to talk about global warming and understand all of the issue. There are sources of CO2 and sinks of CO2. The interesting point about the carbon cycle is that of millions of years, the carbon cycle has not really changed much in it's amounts up until the 1950's
So when we are talking global warming from CO2, we mainly are referring to atmospheric CO2 levels. There are naturals sources of CO2, like Volcanoes, wild fires, and ocean out gassing. The source-to-sink was balanced with atmospheric CO2 levels from 170ppmv to 289ppmv. So for millions of years, CO2 has been less than 300ppm until 1950, the era of Big Oil, Coal, Gas. From 1950 to present, CO2 levels have skyrocketed from 289 to 396ppmv (part per million volume). Everything is the same except, burning massive amounts of fossil fuels. And it is massive; 362.7 kilograms of C02 produced per barrel of oil; or 0.3627 Tons of CO2 per barrel of Oil. So more than 1/3 of a ton per barrel of crude oil. Coal is even better; it produces 3.7 tons of CO2 per ton of coal (the extra tonnage comes from the 2 oxygen atoms that are pulled from the air during combustion). A 1 ppmv rise in global atmospheric CO2 is equivalent to 7.82 Gigatons (billion tons) of additional atmospheric CO2. Since 1950, that comes out to just about 900 BILLION TONS of ADDITIONAL atmospheric CO2 in just 63 Years! The deniers must believe in Unicorns and pixie dust if they think they can account for that amount of CO2 without it coming from fossil fuels. So to the climate deniers out there, how do you explain the build up of an additional 900Gigatons of CO2 since 1950? http://chartsgraphs.wordpress.com/2009/09/11/co2-emissions-changes-in-atmospheric-levels/ Next question, we know the CO2 is a green house so how does that directly effect global warming. This is best explained in a diagram; http://www.ucsusa.org/assets/images/gw/heattrapping-gases-faq.PNG http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming (an excellent source of real sicence). >From wikipedia "Solar radiation at the frequencies of visible light largely passes through the atmosphere to warm the planetary surface, which then emits this energy at the lower frequencies of infrared thermal radiation. Infrared radiation is absorbed by greenhouse gases, which in turn re-radiate much of the energy to the surface and lower atmosphere." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_effect The bottom line is that there a plenty of examples of the greenhouse gas effect, from the planet Venus, to your friendly little terrarium that your kids might have. CO2 concentration is a major player in the efficiency of the heat trapping. So it is very logical to see the connection between CO2 concentrations and gobal average temperature. A simple extrapolation of current data gives this nice little linear equation, the predicted temp is about 10.31 degreeC + (0.0114 degreeC /ppmv). The bottom line is I just don't understand the thinking of the Global Warming Deniers, the contrarians. Global Warming is so blatantly obvious in the data, observations, theory and models that the only reason I can think that anyone would argue against it's reality is someone being paid to do so. Either that or your just a plain gullible person. Of course, I should add humorously that that is what some people think of cold fusion too, but we all know they are wrong. Best Regards, Chuck -------- On Sun, Feb 3, 2013 at 11:52 AM, Jed Rothwell <jedrothw...@gmail.com> wrote: > Edmund Storms <stor...@ix.netcom.com> wrote: > > >> The reason is both political and based on the very slow response of the >> earth system to any change man might make. >> > > This makes no sense to me. The earth system is responding to CO2. Suppose > we quickly remove the CO2 from the atmosphere, with a megaproject to plant > trees and with reverse combustion, as I suggested in my book. As soon as we > do that the earth system will stop responding. It will not gradually warm > up once CO2 levels return to where they were before people began burning > large amounts of fossil fuel, circa 1800. > > This megaproject would be expensive, but it would cost any a tiny fraction > of what it will cost if the sea level rises 9 m. Also, this project will > not hurt or kill anyone, whereas a 9 m increase will kill millions or > hundreds of millions of people. So I think it is a better option. > > It could be done cheaply with cold fusion. It would cost far more to do it > with fission, solar and wind energy, but it could be done. > > - Jed > >
