Re: OT: Al Gore has completely lost his mind!

Brian Lawrence Brian_W_Lawrence@xxxxxxx said:
"Fred Toner" <caseyterry5959@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Even the idea of the Sun having a role in it has been generally
disproven,


So if the Sun has no role in the Earth's weather it wouldn't matter
if it disappeared tomorrow?




You've twisted the meaning of his words.

Read on

A guide to facts and fictions about climate change - The Royal Society -
Englands
foremost Science Establishment

Misleading arguments 4.
-----------------------

The Earth is getting hotter, but not because of emissions of greenhouse
gases from human activities. Carbon dioxide makes up such a tiny fraction
of the atmosphere that even if it doubled it would make little difference to
the climate.

Variations in the sun are more likely to be the cause of climate changing
than increases in
greenhouse gases.

About half of the solar energy entering the top of the Earth's atmosphere
eventually reaches the surface where it is absorbed. Much of the solar
energy is absorbed by the Earth's surface and then released as infra-red
radiation, some of which is absorbed by greenhouse gases such as water
vapour, carbon dioxide and methane. The greenhouse gases act like a blanket
over the surface of the Earth, keeping it around 20 centigrade degrees
warmer than it otherwise would be, which is a phenomenon known as 'the
greenhouse effect'.

Increases in the concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere
enhance the greenhouse effect and, on average, lead to further warming. It
has been long established that carbon dioxide strongly absorbs infra-red
radiation. The IPCC 2001 report pointed out that carbon dioxide is "the
dominant human-influenced greenhouse gas", and is responsible for more than
half the warming due to changes in atmospheric concentrations.

Based on direct analysis of gases found trapped in cores of polar ice, it is
known that the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide for several
thousands of years before 1750 was about 280 parts per million. Between 1750
and 2000, during which industrialisation has occurred, the concentration
rose by about 31% to 368 parts per million. The IPCC report noted that the
current concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has not been
exceeded during the past 420,000 years and that "the rate of increase over
the past century is unprecedented, at least during the past 20,000 years".

It has been claimed that the rise in atmospheric concentrations of carbon
dioxide is actually a consequence of climate change, rather than a cause.
The IPCC report pointed out that chemical analyses of the carbon dioxide
show that the increase in the atmosphere, and an
accompanying decrease in oxygen concentrations, are primarily due to the
burning of fossil
fuels and deforestation.

Although some carbon dioxide taken up and released by oceans or land, it
stressed that the average rate of increase in concentrations in the
atmosphere since 1980 has been about 0.4% per year and that this is due to
emissions. It stated "Most of the emissions during the past 20 years are due
to fossil fuel burning, the rest (10 to 30%) is predominantly due to
land-use change, especially deforestation".

A number of other factors are known to influence climate and cause change,
particularly volcanic eruptions, variations in the energy from the sun and
particles released into the
atmosphere from both natural sources and human activities. Particles in the
atmosphere reduce the amount of energy from the sun that reaches the Earth's
surface, and therefore cause a cooling effect..

The IPCC has studied evidence of changes in these various factors and their
likely influence on the global average temperature. It found that the
variations over the 20th century can only be understood by taking all
factors, both natural and human, into account.

Land use changes such as the spread or shrinkage of forest areas can also
contribute to changes in temperature. The loss of forests can exert a
cooling effect by increasing the
reflectivity of the land surface, which means lower amounts of solar
radiation are absorbed. The IPCC 2001 report noted that the overall effect
of land use changes since pre-industrial times has been to produce cause
cooling, and that this has mainly been due to the replacement at high
latitudes of snow-covered forests by open, snow-covered areas. The report
noted that the level of understanding of the overall effect of land use
changes was lower than for other factors affecting global temperatures.

The IPCC found that the dominant influences on climate change in the early
part of
the 20th century were likely to be a small increase in solar output and a
decrease in average volcanic activity. However, such natural factors cannot
explain the warming in the latter half of the 20th century, and the IPCC
concluded that there is "new and stronger evidence that most of the warming
observed over the last 50 years is attributable to human activities". The
report pointed out that natural factors on their own would have produced an
overall drop in global average temperatures.

A recent study by Solanki and others, published in the journal Nature, found
that
the level of solar activity during the past 70 years has been "exceptional"
when considered over the period of the last 11,400 years. However, they
concluded that "although the rarity of the current episode of high average
sunspot numbers may indicate that the Sun has contributed to the unusual
climate change during the twentieth century, we point out that solar
variability is unlikely to have been the dominant cause of the strong
warming during the past three decades".
.

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