StreetScooby

One of the more interesting tidbits I've come across is that AGW was postulated in the 1890s by Svante Arrhenius, a Swedish scientist who was one of the founders of physical chemistry. From here: The Discovery of Global Warming We are all engines of karma

I believe one of the time tested papers in the Warming Papers discusses this. If it does, I'll be sure to post that info. Seems to be a point of "contention", for the lack of a better phrase. BTW, it'll be about 2 weeks before the library gets the book. We are all engines of karma

AIG should have gone out of business, and none of their execs should have been rewarded. The only reason they weren't allowed to do that is because pretty much all insurance issued in America, and lots of other places in the world, works its way back to AIG. Governments, etc., didn't do their counterparty risk assessment. We are all engines of karma

They do. One's path may be longer than another's, but that path exists for everyone in this country, at this point in time. We are all engines of karma

Thanks for the link.

So far, I've avoided papers that focus on data regression of historical temps. My interest isn't there, yet. The Warming Papers has a few papers on this that I plan to review once the library gets my copy. Hansen, et. al., make use of the phrase "detrending" a fair amount. Not really sure what that means, and I'm hoping one of these original time-tested papers gives me insight into that. To me, it seems to be a reasonably controversial topic, at this point. When I get to that point, I'll most certainly share what I've learned (with links). We are all engines of karma

My understanding right now is they can do both. As temperature increases, sinks that rely on CO2 solubility will release retained CO2, since solubility decreases with temperature. By itself, CO2 has been shown to increase the avg. temperature of the earth through the green house effect. Please feel free to comment and/or ask questions. The reason I'm doing this is to learn, and everyone is welcome to participate. The more the merrier. I'm going to get to the "bottom" of this, and make my own mind up whether "alarmism" is warranted. We are all engines of karma

I said pretty well done. Yes, it can be read as biased, no question. But it also says what they don't know, which is what I was reading for. Also, the time scales are really in the hundreds of years, not decades, for some of these predictions, which is what I expected to find. I am past looking at how things are being phrased, at least in the material I'm reading. I'm looking for what is being said, and I know how to do that. I am not going to be influenced by pictures of polar bears drowning in the ocean. NewScientist is a "regular guy" site, so I'm not surprised at the "bias". We are all engines of karma

Thanks, I wouldn't have thought of most of these approaches. My town library has arranged for an inter-library loan for me to get the warming papers. I was actually thinking about heading to NYC libraries to spend some time in the stacks, again (...used to really enjoy doing that). Then I remembered they don't actually let you into the stacks in NYC. We are all engines of karma

NewScientist just published a good summary article on this topic today: Climate change: What we do – and don't – know It's pretty well done. You'll need to sign up, but it's free. We are all engines of karma

For anyone else interested in following along here, one of the things you'll bump up against while following referenced papers is the price journals want for a copy. Several of Hansen's referenced papers are only available at $25/copy. If you're looking to get to the collection of papers generally regarded as the starting point for AGW, try here: The Warming Papers Amazon wants $60 for a paperback version. There are some links I've come across claiming I could get it for $2, but they didn't pan out. Right now, I'm going to check this out of a library. If someone can find it for $2, please let me know. We are all engines of karma

I've never doubted we're having an impact. What I'm doubting is whether it truly is "alarmist". Does AGW justify Lisa Jackson's EPA shutting down 8% of our electrical grid now, especially considering it might make the entire thing unstable? That's what I'm trying to get a feel for. Good to know. So, we're not starting at 320ppm. My review of CO2 emissions by country was an eye opener, especially wrto China. I've heard of the acidification of the ocean being a "side" concern with AGW, and have understood the argument. That'll be something else to get my head around. Agreed, all physical sinks have their limits. Right now, the natural CO2 flux is around 550GT/year. With 30GT/year emissions, we're impacting that by 5%. Yes, I can see where we'll be pushing up against sink limits in a "relatively" short time. What blew me away when looking at the carbon cycle was the impact of just the North American growing season. That consumes 3-9ppm per year. Looks like there's a fair amount of room for crops to take up excess CO2, and turn it into dirt, if we made that a way of life. Not sure of the practicality of that, though. If it's so "easy", why aren't we already doing it? Interesting. My argument all along with people using AGW model predictions, especially to justify what I consider draconian policies, is the size of the system being modeled. There is alot going on, and I'm sure there's alot we don't know. I'm pretty impressed with the papers I've been glancing over. I never really doubted real scientists were involved in this, but it's nice to actually see some of their work. If nothing else, we're going to better understand the Earth through these efforts. That's a good thing, IMO. We are all engines of karma

+1 (I'm too tired to say anything else right now ;-) We are all engines of karma

I don't think anyone is saying that. We are all engines of karma

+1 We are all engines of karma

LOL... I was shooting trap with a bunch of guys several years back. We were having a hard time finding steady supplies of ammo. Went out and ordered 15 cases of low brass #7. UPS guy delivered it to the house, and didn't say anything. We are all engines of karma

Can't argue with that. Yes, I've come across the saturation effect. Haven't spent time looking into it, yet. Valid question, IMO. One of the articles I glanced over showed satellite measurements of thermal emissions from the earth across the bandwidth. Their measurements show a noticeable decrease in thermal emissions at the CO2 absorption band widths. Thus, inferring that CO2 is absorbing more heat, thereby implying that CO2 is increasing noticeably. There's nothing to say that earth isn't losing heat via other channels. The only channels it has to lose heat, though, is through thermal radiation. Same here... As I'm googling away here, one site keeps popping up pretty consistently: http://www.skepticalscience.com/ Though their name may indicate they're AGW skeptics, they're not. The stuff is pretty good, IMO. They have a piece somewhere in there regarding saturation effects. Haven't had a chance to read it, yet. We are all engines of karma

And that is why I've spent the last few days diving around this. Al Gore is a huckster, there can be no doubt about that. What I'm seeing is inspiring confidence. There are guys out there doing real science, not that I ever doubted that, but seeing it for my own eyes is inspiring confidence. What I haven't looked into yet are magnitude predictions, and what that magnitude will cause. I believe we're all in agreement that man can't keep burning fossil fuels at an increasing rate forever without changing the environment. If GHG green house effect has given us 57 degF difference from what the sun alone can offer, is a couple more degrees going to kill us? I doubt that, but I'm also not sure I've phrased that question fairly. What is clear is we can't push the avg temperature too far above that. Where a medium is, I don't know, and it's not clear to me the scientists know. We are all engines of karma

It may do that also, if CO2 solubility becomes a factor in what's going on. If I heat up a bottle of Coca-Cola, the CO2 surrounding the coca-cola will increase because it's coming out of solution. Adding CO2 to the atmosphere does cause the atmosphere to retain more heat, just by itself. The physics are well established for that. How long the CO2 stays warm before re-radiating that energy isn't something I've looked into. It's a good question. It sounds like you are. We are all engines of karma

You're losing me here. Are you claiming there is no green house effect? We are all engines of karma

What's not settled? The magnitude of man made induced change, the effect that'll actually have on our environment, and the time frame in which that will happen are most certainly not settled. Not that I've seen, yet. We are all engines of karma

Showing pictures of polar bears floating on small pieces of ice, and claiming they're drowning because of AGW is not only an exaggeration, but a gross exaggeration. We are all engines of karma

CO2, and other green house gases (GHGs) are actually a cause. From here: http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/globalwarming.html Essentially, all of the GHGs in the current concentrations are our friends. How much of that effect is directly attributed to CO2, I'm not sure, yet. Water is the dominant molecule in total green house effect for the planet. How much of an impact the the projected temperature change in global temperature will have on our quality of life, well, I don't know, nor do I have an opinion, yet. I still want to see what they're currently predicting, and what that's based upon. I just looked at the charts you attached. Not sure what that is, to be honest with you. Can you give me a little insight, please? We are all engines of karma

Next installment.... Anyone out there still awake? I decided to look further into human CO2 emissions and the impact they're having. What is the significance of 30GT (gigatons) of additional CO2 being pumped into the atmosphere that's directly attributable to humans? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_dioxide_emissions In order to investigate this, you need to establish (in chemical engineering speak) your control volume. A control volume is a "pot". How big is that pot? How much CO2 is already in the pot? How much CO2 is coming into the pot from other sources? How much CO2 is leaving the pot? The ultimate aim here is to get a feel for the effect 30GT is having on the concentration of CO2 in the pot. That concentration is important in this discussion because it's being used by the AGW models to produce their results. *) How big is the pot? Currently, CO2 is 0.04% of the atmosphere. That in itself doesn't help us here. The atmosphere is really big, with many different layers in it, each with their own composition. Since CO2 is heavier than air, it's reasonable to assume that the bulk of it's concentration will be in the lower level of the atmosphere, which is the troposphere. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmosphere_of_Earth. So, it's reasonable to consider the pot as the troposphere, and even better, that pot is can be considered reasonably well mixed due to weather systems. So we can treat the concentration of CO2 as reasonably uniform throughout this pot. The weight of the total atmosphere can be found here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmosphere_of_Earth If I did the unit conversions properly, the weight of the troposphere works out to around 4,000,000 GT. *) How much is already in the pot? Again, CO2 is 0.04% of the atmosphere. Well, is that a mass fraction or volume fraction? Big difference between the two, especially when dealing with gases. This number is being quoted as a volume fraction. In order to translate 30GT of CO2 (a measure of mass) into a volume fraction, you need to use densities to translate. Calculating gas densities requires what's known as an "equation of state". For what we're dealing with here, the ideal gas law (PV = nRT) is suitable. Unfortunately, we'll need to take into account the variability of temperature through the troposphere. There isn't any "simple" calculation to deal with this. So, let's look and see if someone has already done this calculation, and we find this: http://www.skepticalscience.com/human-co2-smaller-than-natural-emissions-basic.htm: There's several different definition of tons, and this particular quote isn't clear in which type of ton they're quoting. Dividing 720 GT by 4,000,000 GT gives a CO2 mass concentration of 0.018. So, we're in the ballpark with these numbers... *) How much CO2 is coming into the "pot" from other sources? How much CO2 is leaving the "pot"? The topic is phrased by others as "The Global Carbon Cycle", and both the topic and volumes discussed are huge. From here: http://www.skepticalscience.com/human-co2-smaller-than-natural-emissions-intermediate.htm This paragraph doesn't say what happens to the 332 gigatonnes emitted by the ocean. Since nature was at equilibrium before mankind started emitting CO2, that value was also absorbed by the earth. So, the flux of CO2 being released and absorbed by the earth is around 552 gigatonnes per year. We're adding 30GT/552GT = 5.4% to that flux on a sustained yearly basis, with current emission rates. Of the 30GT humans are putting into the atmosphere, a significant portion is being absorbed back into the earth: http://www.skepticalscience.com/human-co2-smaller-than-natural-emissions-intermediate.htm 60% of 30GT is 18GT. Dividing this by 700GT give us 2.5%. So, we're adding a little over 2%/year to the carbon in the atmosphere. From here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_dioxide_in_Earth%27s_atmosphere So, mankind is changing this balance in a non-trivial way, especially considering we keep doing this same amount every year. One last question here - what's the distribution of that 30GT of CO2 across the planet? From here, CO2 emissions by country as of 2008, converted to GTs: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_dioxide_emissions 1 China 7.0GT 23.33% of total 2 United States 5.5GT 18.11% - European Union 4.2GT 14.04% 3 India 1.7GT 5.78% 4 Russia 1.7GT 5.67% 5 Japan 1.2GT 4.01% What's really striking from this web page is the rate of increase in China's emissions. They're increasing their CO2 output by about 1GT/year!!! At that pace , in 5 years time, China will be emitting more CO2 that the rest of the listed countries combined. Why I have I bothered to do this? In one of the earlier posts we had discussed the increase of CO2 from 0.032% to 0.04% over the course of 50 years. In order to calculate how long it would take for the doubling effect to occur, we had used 0.008% over 50 years, and calculated that it would be another 150 years before CO2 doubled from 0.032% to 0.064%. It's reasonable to expect the CO2 will double sooner than another 150 years under current emission rates. It's still a long time off, relative to human life span, but's it definitely coming if things don't change. This driving force will be set in our children's lifetime. Once that doubling gets here, mankind will have set in motion an increase in the ocean's temperature that will take 100s of years to manifest itself. There's one more thing to look at here, and that's the magnitude of the change being predicted by AGW models. I'll start digging around for that next. We are all engines of karma

Did not know that. Thanks for posting the reply. Just learned something