JackC

In this case, the air cools down. In the calorimetry discussion, the water heats up a little bit, while dramatically cooling the air. Right, so for every degree the air temperature goes up, how many degrees does the water temperature go up? Remember that heat will flow until they are in thermal equilibrium.

What happens if I put two thermally conductive objects in contact with each other and then heat one of them up? The heat flows through both until they are in thermal equilibrium. One does not heat up bu 0.0002 degrees for every degree the other heats up. I thought you said you understood the sicence?

So, what is your point? The point is that the earth absorbs visible and UV light, which makes it heat up and emit IR light which in turn gets absorbed and reflected back to earth by atmospheric CO2 instead of being allowed to escape into space. This is the greenhouse effect. You conclusion based on calorimetry is invalid because calorimetry is not how the system works.

Don't forget the second law of thermodynamics - "you can't break even".

No. Typically hydrocarbons get burnt to form water and carbon dioxide, with some carbon monoxide and some stray hydrocarbons for incomplete combustion. Plus anyother crap you get in fuels like traces of sulphur and lead (now largely removed). Now hydrocarbons and carbon monoxide and sulphur dioxide are all pretty nasty and want removing but that's why people invented catalytic converters, to complete the combustion cycle and clean up the exhaust gasses. Volvo for example claim the air that comes out of their engines is cleaner than when it went in. I dunno if that is true though. Plus CO2 has been around in the atmosphere for millenia and it is inert.

But of itself, CO2 is not poisonous to humans or animals so what's the problem with breathing it? Especially if it saves carting a rain forest around on your roof rack. Now if it was carbon monoxide or carbon tetrachloride your car was belching out, I'd be with you.

You mean like photosynthesis?

You'd find lots of trash and perhaps a few nuggets. Yes and no. There are some brilliant folks I've known who couldn't pass the bar. There are also dipshits like me who have. The Bar is meant to establish some kind of minimum competence for someone who will be assisting another person. On the other hand, there are people out there whom I believe have some powerful things to say about the law who are not attorneys. I tend to find myself frequently falling into the lawyer way of doing things and thinking, which can be hazardous in many situations. Each point should be met by its own merits. Just because Dewey Cheatham is a piece of crap, he will often have arguments and theories that are valid and require a careful response. Never underestimate the opponent. There is a saying in science circles: "that's not right, it's not even wrong". It's from something Wolfgang Pauli once said when confronted with a paper that was based on such neanderthal misunderstanding of known and proven scientific principles that any and all work built on it was just plain old gibberish and not worthy of further consideration. One of the things I keep banging on about is the woeful lack of understanding many, many people have about even the most basic scientific principles. They get their science from newspapers and TV shows and internet blog sites and all kinds of crappy sources that don't know what they are talking about. In fact they go everywhere except reputable science sources which they avoid like the plague citing political bias or some other excuse, an idea they got from those same crappy sources who don't know what they're talking about. And they are so uneducated about real science that they are not even capable of recognising that they are "not even wrong". In a perfect world, each point should be considered on it's own merits that's true. But that only works if you can recognise a merit when you see one. If you allow uneducated idiots a free reign to educate more people in their idiocy, all you get is more uneducated idiots. If you'd never been skydiving but wanted to try, would you trawl through piles of shit advice and take each on their own merit? How many jumps do you think you'd get before burning in?

I have offered proof that the mechanism for CO2 based global warming is real and is in effect and the evidence for this is indisputable (even lawrocket and mnealtx agree). What I haven't offered is an estimate of how fast or how high temeratures will rise, I have only shown that the mechanism is proven to be there to enable it to happen. Be very clear about what I have said and what I haven't for it is important. It is very common for people to misinterpret what scientist say about everything (think how wuffos misunderstand skydiving). Unfortunately there is an underlying chronic and massive failure to understand even the most basic scientific principles in many (most?) people. Again (and I repeat this often because it is of vital importance and people absolutely do not listen) but this is down to people getting their science from everywhere under the sun except reputable scientific sources and they virtually always get the wrong end of the stick because of it. If GW is going to be a disaster, it will be because of this.

You may want to have a word with Jack... he's claiming that adding CO2 will ALWAYS result in a temperature increase. Maybe you should be embarassed for him, seeing as you were claiming that wasn't what he said, upthread. Seriously Mike, learn to read.

That it CAN act to retain heat, yes. Show me a single example where CO2 does not act to retain more heat in an applicable system and you will win the Nobel prize for physics. That it CAN retain still more heat. Demonstrate a single example where adding a capacity to retain more heat does not result in more heat being retained and you'll disprove thermodynamics and win a Nobel prize for physics. There is no can, it does every single time.

Good grief. Just read that sentence again would you. I will restate it. Why does the author make any difference to the science? I'm gald you restated the question, because the first attempt was pure gibberish. Of course it matters. What do you think would happen if some of the people here wrote science reports? Gravity would be waves, as proved by Newton and then if anyone questioned it they'd deny saying any of it and claim a PA. What would happen if people didn't have to pass the bar exam to be lawyers? What piss poor standard of law would be practiced then eh?

Finally! Then you agree that CO2 acts to retain heat, that we've added more CO2 to the atmosphere so it will retain still more heat, and that if you retain more heat in a system the temperature goes up. You have agreed with all the consituent parts of global warming. You have agreed that the mechanism for global warming is real and is happening. I did and you agreed with it all. Each step is a proven fact, you agreed with all of them.

Then why

Good grief. Just read that sentence again would you.

Now who's the one playing with strawmen? No. An increase in CO2 is effectively an increase in atmospheric insulation. If you don't understand the science here, all you have to do is ask. Isn't that exactly what the 'experiment' you linked to proved, Jack? If that wasn't the point you wanted to make, then why link to it? No. The experiment shows how CO2 works as a greenhouse gas. It doesn't show that CO2 causes an increase in the amount of heat in a system, it shows how CO2 acts to retain heat put in a system from an external source. CO2 does not cause heat. You really don't understand any of this do you?

I'd like to. My concern is that "science" sources have been shown to have, in some instances, suppressed scientific research that might lead in directions opposite the dominant political belief. That's not very scientific. The great thing about science is that it is self-correcting; for nature does not lie and you cannot silence it. There are undoubtedly some people who do not get the publications they think they deserve; absolutely every scientist on earth has been knocked back for funding or publications at one time or another, it's the nature of the game. But there is no conspiracy, the whole game is way too big for that. If Nature won't publish you, Physical Review will. If Science won't play, try Physics Letters. If you can't get published in the US, go to Russia. And if all else fails, you can post your papers on the arXiv e-print server where there are no moderators, no editors, no peer review, just legions of scientists just queueing up to read your latest work. Your concerns are valid and wise but I doubt they have much by way of foundation, exept for the odd fruit cake who thinks he's disproved thermodynamics with his new perpetual motion machine. One thing is for damned sure, you'll do better getting your science from reputable science sources than from anywhere else on the planet. If you go anywhere else, anywhere, you will get the wrong end of the stick. I can almost guarantee it.

None of these questions have any bearing on atmospheric CO2 concentrations and the greenhouse effect leading to global warming. The three questions I posed are the only relevant ones to deciding if GW is real and happening. Everything else is an extra. You are quite right that we might want to know about that stuff to decide how quickly GW is taking effect and what other factors besides atmospheric CO2 will affect the earth's climate. But to answer the question "is the atmospheric CO2 GW mechanism in effect" we don't need to know any of that stuff. The basic science is that simple. Really it is. Now if you want to know how fast GW is happening, when sea levels will rise, what feedback mechanisms are in effect and all the other extras, then it gets complicated really fucking fast. Then get your science from science sources, not from new papers, TV shows, and for gods sake not this fucked up shite storm of a website.

You ASSume incorrectly. 2 down. So you deny thermodynamics?

Now who's the one playing with strawmen? No. An increase in CO2 is effectively an increase in atmospheric insulation. CO2 does not cause a rise in heat, the sun supplies the heat, not the CO2. If you don't understand the science here, just ask and I'm sure someone will explain it to you.

1 down. Since you now agree that CO2 is a greenhouse gas, I assume you must deny that atmospheric CO2 concentrations are increasing? View the data here.

There are only 3 questions that need to be answered here. 1) is CO2 a greenhouse gas? 2) is the atmospheric concentration of CO2 increasing? 3) does a system increase in temperature if you increase its capacity to retain heat? If the answer to any of those questions is no, then we have nothing to worry about. If the answer is yes to all three then the mechanism for global warming is real and it is in effect. All other scientific studies or theories or political footballs are just complications and have varying degrees of importance/relevance/hinderance. The basic science of GW is contained in those 3 simple questions.

You said: And I gave you a link which demonstrates that CO2 is a greenhouse gas with an experiment that you can do yourself at home. You obviously think dropping apples proves Newton's laws then why doesn't the experiment in that link prove CO2 is a greehouse gas? I have to wonder why you continue to bleat "show me the proof" when you have already decided that there is no proof that you will accept?

Dropping an apple and watching it hit the ground is provable, and has been for several hundred years. Let me know when adding 20ppm of CO2 to the atmosphere will ALWAYS cause a temperature increase of xC, ok? Read me!

Wouldn't it be more polite to summarize, in your own words, the underlying points? Simply repeating "read the links" makes it sound like you are either unwilling or unable to state your position for yourself, but rather just take someone else's view on faith. I have summarised them, several times.