Re: Global Warming

On 14 mar, 18:12, El Castor <NotAny...@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
"Jake" <jcbepst...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On 13 mar, 20:27, "Jerry Okamura" <okamuraj...@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
"Jake" <jcbepst...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message

I listened to a professor of geology speak aboutglobalwarminga
couple of days ago. He had a particular interest in climate and had
assembled data going back 15,000 years from sources like ice cores,
and pointed out that the earth had gone through a period of warming
during part of the first half of the 20th century which ended in 1945
-- this despite the fact that Co2 had changed little during that
period.

Using the 5 yr average (red curve) in the global temperature graph

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Instrumental_Temperature_Record.png

I see no discernable temperature change until about 1930 after which
there
was a sharp increase peaking around 1940, coolling to a new
plateau and a rapid increase since 1980.

Accurate measurements of CO2 content only occurred after the

Image:Mauna Loa Carbon Dioxide.png

site began measuring in the late 1950s. Since then the CO2
concentration
has gone from about 315 ppm to its present 383 ppm. The pre-industrial
base line is around 280 ppm so by 1960 the CO2 had increase 35 ppm,
and and
since 1958 about 70 ppm. If the global temperature increase was
exactly proportional to the CO2 we'd anticipate 1/3rd of it prior to
1960
and 2/3rd since.

This is what I see in the graph--

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Instrumental_Temperature_Record.png

The fly in the soup of that argument is why the flat no temperature
period
change in the 1960-1980 period? Obviously other factors are at work
but solar forcing since 1980 is not one of them, since the solar
constant, only recently measureable with accuracy has not changed.

The one big factor which is hard to get a quantitative handle on is
atmospheric changes. Water is actually the biggest greenhouse
gas. Of the infrared radiation reemitted by the earth's surface
almost
none gets through directly into outerspace. The atmosphere absorbs
that radiation and eventually reemits it. We do know from personal
experience that the air get colder as one goes higher, it is hotter
at the surface than at 20,000 feet. In fact one of the features
of global warming is a warming of the surface air and a cooling
higher because the heat does not get as high. Even on hot hot
Venus, the temperature 100 kms is about the same as on earth.
Even with the heat of the sun, outer space is cold. Remember
the movie Apollo 13? When their fuel cell blew up, it got very cold.
Yet they were getting more sunlight than on the beach in Florida!
But they are reemitting it back into cold dark space, which
has a black body temperature of several degrees above absolute
zero.

CO2 has been geologically, the biggest moderator of the earth's
temperature, the earth would be a ball of ice without it.

Next, suppose the CO2 level was falling inspite of fossil fuel
burning. Suppose it was dropping and had gone in the opposite
direction by 100 ppm from 280 to 180? Geological history would
tell us to get ready for a big ice age, a temperature drop of
5-8°C. Scientists would recommend dumping as much CO2 into
the atmosphere as possible. But that would be costly.
There would be no economic incentive to doing this. So economic
interests would pooh pooh the chicken littles, certain poltical
parties
would back those interests.

As in that case, I see no economic incentives to reducing CO2
release to the point that the atmospheric level begins dropping.
Any capitalist or marxist would tell you that without an economic
incentive you will get no action.





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