Re: Theories which were once supported by a consensus of scientists

On Mar 31, 11:08 pm, Claudius Denk <claudiusd...@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Mar 31, 10:07 am, hersheyh <hershe...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On Mar 31, 3:13 am, Claudius Denk <claudiusd...@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On Mar 30, 8:49 pm, hersheyh <hershe...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On Mar 30, 6:12 pm, Claudius Denk <claudiusd...@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On Mar 30, 10:51 am, Friar Broccoli <elia...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On Mar 30, 12:57 pm, Claudius Denk <claudiusd...@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On Mar 30, 9:48 am, Friar Broccoli <elia...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On Mar 30, 12:39 pm, Claudius Denk <claudiusd...@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On Mar 30, 9:36 am, nos...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (J. J. Lodder) wrote:

[snip]

Thank you for this information but I'm really only interested in
information regarding CO2's purported thermal effects on the
atmosphere.  Specifically warming.  Okay?

Simple thermodynamics. More IR radiation absorbed and trapped in the
lower atmosphere means more heat trapped in the lower atmosphere. And
CO2 absorbs and traps IR radiation. It does it in a calorimeter. It
does it in the atmosphere. The ability to absorb thermal IR is an
inherent property of the CO2 molecule. IR, by the way, is heat. Why
do you think infrared lamps are called heat lamps?

http://agwobserver.wordpress.com/2009/09/25/papers-on-laboratory-meas...

Just to make perfectly clear:

http://cdiac.ornl.gov/pns/faq.html

Molecules can absorb and emit three kinds of energy: energy from the
excitation of electrons, energy from rotational motion, and energy
from vibrational motion. The first kind of energy is also exhibited by
atoms, but the second and third are restricted to molecules. A
molecule can rotate about its center of gravity (there are three
mutually perpendicular axes through the center of gravity).
Vibrational energy is gained and lost as the bonds between atoms,
which may be thought of as springs, expand and contract and bend. The
three kinds of energy are associated with different portions of the
spectrum: electronic energy is typically in the visible and
ultraviolet portions of the spectrum (for example, wavelength of 1
micrometer, vibrational energy in the near infrared and infrared (for
example, wavelength of 3 micrometers), and rotational energy in the
far infrared to microwave (for example, wavelength of 100
micrometers). The specific wavelength of absorption and emission
depends on the type of bond and the type of group of atoms within a
molecule. Thus, the stretching of the C-H bond in the CH2 and CH3
groups involves infrared energy with a wavelength of 3.3-3.4
micrometers. What makes certain gases, such as carbon dioxide, act as
"greenhouse" gases is that they happen to have vibrational modes that
absorb energy in the infrared wavelengths at which the earth radiates
energy to space. In fact, the measured "peaks" of infrared absorbance
are often broadened because of the overlap of several electronic,
rotational, and vibrational energies from the several-to-many atoms
and interatomic bonds in the molecules. (Information from "Basic
Principles of Chemistry" by Harry B. Gray and Gilbert P. Haight, Jr.,
published 1967 by W. A. Benjamin, Inc., New York and Amsterdam) [RMC]

Once again, thank you for this information but I'm really only
interested in information regarding CO2's purported thermal effects on
the atmosphere.  Specifically warming.  Okay?

You are being obtuse or exhibiting a lack of knowledge about
thermodynamics.

[snip]

Let me repeat what I have said.  In order for a gas to be considered a
greenhouse gas, it *must* absorb and emit energy in the *thermal*
infrared.  That is not arbitrary definition and, on a molecule by
molecule basis, CO2 is not the strongest absorber and emitter of
thermal infrared.  But on a total mass level in the atmosphere, CO2 is
a much larger emitter than most of the stronger emitting molecules
because there is so much more CO2 in the atmosphere.

How do you assess the thermal magnitude of this effect.  Where is the
experimental evidence?

The thermal magnitude of the effect is largely a function of the
innate capacity of CO2 to absorb IR radiation and the amount of CO2 in
the atmosphere. The *estimated* thermal effect due to the amount of
increased CO2 in the real atmosphere requires modeling of other
factors (assumptions about the effect of water vapor and cloud
formation for example) in addition to the fundamental features of
innate ability to trap heat described above. It is these more
complicated models that led the vast majority of climate scientists to
their conclusion that the observed recent (on geological time scale)
global increase in temperature was significantly affected by the
increase in anthropic CO2 production in that time frame.

Now, if you were a 'semi-rational' to even 'rational' scientific
skeptic of global warming rather than a brain-dead conspiracy nut, you
would not be denying the fact that CO2 is a greenhouse gas, nor would
you be denying the fact that global warming is now occurring (there
are just too many different ways to measure this that consistently
show a global increase), nor would you be denying that the oceans are
becoming acidified, nor would you be denying the fact that CO2 has
increased significantly since the industrial revolution and that much
of the increase is due to man. Those are the clearly established
facts supported by much evidence. In fact, the only way to deny those
facts is to be a conspiracy nut.

The way to remain a scientific (if only as an outlier in the relevant
community of scientists) AGW skeptic (and still be at least semi-
rational) is to attack the modeling assumptions that lie within the
models that place CO2 as the causal (rather than correlative) agent of
the observed increase in GW. But that requires a level of mathematics
and competence in computer modeling that is beyond my and, certainly,
your capacity. After all, you apparently know essentially nothing
about chemistry and physics. My personal concern is more with the
acidification of the oceans, which is much more clearly linked to
anthropic increases in CO2 than even global warming. There the
chemistry is so simple that even a caveman could do it.

Moreover, I presume that your *real* (but unstated) reason for being
an AGW skeptic of the standard paranoid conspiracy nut variety is not
related to nor based on real arguments about the science, but is
rather an objection to the proposed public policy changes that would
be needed to reduce anthropic CO2 increases regardless of whether the
observed global warming is due to anthropic CO2 or independent of it.
I sense that many skeptics of your kind feel a deep psychological need
for, let's call it the 'frontier' or 'rugged individualist' mentality;
the belief that one can or should be able to do whatever one wants
with only minor impacts on the globe and can consider the commons to
be unlimited and infinitely tolerant of whatever we want to do -- at
its extreme, 'rugged individualist' ideas becomes 'sociopathic
narcissism'. That world-view is threatened by the possibility that
human activity, and more importantly, their desired activities, can,
when done by many, have a dangerous world-wide impact. Of course,
there are also large economic interests (oil sheiks, Iran, coal
companies, industry, auto makers) in maintaining the status quo that
ignores any possible consequences of their activities. Some of the
AGW conspiracy nuts, of course, are also millenialists who believe
that they can pollute like crazy and to hell with the future because
they will be raptured away soon. But it is hard to distinguish those
people from simple sociopathic narcissists.

In my view, I regard ceasing to subsidize carbon pollution and
deforestation by letting it be costless as it is now (essentially
permitting polluters to be 'free riders') to be steps that will lead
not only to more energy self-sufficiency and less reliance on foreign
oil (with the nasty wars that go with it) and a step toward increasing
the health of our oceans, that even if it is later determined that
increased atmospheric CO2 is not the cause of global warming, acting
as if it were would be better than the status quo. If anthropic CO2
*is* the cause of GW, as scientists predict, then we will have also
dodged a very dangerous, possibly fatal, bullet. Pure gravy.

My preference is a simple carbon tax on industry (which, of course,
will be passed along as a cost to customers) with the tax directly
returned to the public on a per capita basis along with information
about how to avoid paying more than the 'average' share by one's
choices in conservation. Essentially, those with a small carbon
footprint will be getting a rebate of the added cost of the tax from
those individuals who choose to have a larger carbon footprint rather
than the current state. Even a relatively small tax like this would
likely have a major effect. People will start with the most cost-
effective strategies to reduce their carbon footprint in order to get
back more in their tax refund than they pay in carbon tax. A carbon
tax and financing improvements through innovative policies via
mortgage or property tax payments so that homeowners only pay for that
fraction of the upfront cost that they actually use while living
there, passing on the remainder to future buyers, which would make it
more cost-effective to improve existing housing for energy efficiency
would have a major impact driving us toward a less wasteful future.

I, unlike you, see little downside in most of the proposed policies to
reduce CO2 production. Which ones do you object to? How much are you
willing to pay for whatever it is you think you will be foregoing? Is
driving a Hummer that important to you? Fine, then pay the full cost
for it.

  It is also the

one gas which human activities has and has had the greatest direct
effect on.  Almost all water vapor comes from natural sources and any
human effect is only indirect (more heat in the atmosphere means air
that can hold more water vapor, but also can produce reflecting
clouds).  Most methane comes from "natural" sources, although some
increase comes from changes in human agriculture (esp. increased beef
production and rice farming).  Again, there are indirect effects,
since warming in Northern latitude tundra (lacking in the Southern
hemisphere) is starting to release much of the CO2 and methane in
permafrost and taiga areas and some hydrates from ocean deposits.

And you have been told that the first experiment that did this

What is "this"?  What, exactly, did the first experiment do?  Did it
measure CO2's effect on the atmosphere?

The absorption and emission of thermal infrared radiation is a
property of the CO2 molecule whether it is in the atmosphere or in a
test tube in a lab.

Answer my question you evasive jackass.

Have I been less evasive this time?   Again, greenhouse gases are
gases that absorb and emit radiation in the thermal infrared.

Okay.

  This is

a measurable property

Show us the measurements.

I did, but you are so into your magical paranoid conspiracy theory
that scientists have engaged in for more than a hundred years you
aren't listening or are so ignorant you did not recognize that I had
done so. Specifically, I pointed out that CO2 absorbs specific
wavelengths in the thermal infrared. As r norman has pointed out, an
atmosphere with CO2 can absorb more heat energy from sunlight
(specifically in the thermal infrared) and heat up a thermometer
faster and more than an atmosphere with less CO2 and this can be
demonstrated very simply. The experiment he describes is probably
akin to the first one that was ever done (by Tynedale 150 years ago)
that demonstrated that CO2 is a greenhouse gas. Of course, it has
been done with much more sophistication. But it is that type of
thermodynamic analysis that allows one to say things like methane has
x times as much ability to absorb in the IR than CO2 does. Simple
experiments like the one described that can be done in any high school
measure, on a molecular basis, the capacity of CO2 to absorb the
infrared radiation from the sun and transfer that absorbed radiation
as additional heat to the thermometer. That is the reason why the sun
heats the earth. Essentially, the more greenhouse gases (up to a
point when essentially all of the IR radiation coming in is absorbed)
there is, the greater the fraction of the sun's input remains here on
the earth and in the lower atmosphere (eventually the heat tends to
equilibrate in a gradient from the earth through the atmosphere
because of the laws of thermodynamics, but if more heat is retained
rather than immediately reflected back into colder space, the lower
layers will get warmer).

.

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