Narz
keeping it real
When in doubt trust a basket case over scientists! 
hehe, couldn't resist!
hehe, couldn't resist!
Global warming debate continued
- Thread starter Mik1984
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Jolly Rogerer
Prince
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- May 16, 2008
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The bottom line is that X number of scientists believe that global warming is occurring and is caused by human activity "tipping the scales". This is not science, which IIRC requires repeatable tests to prove something. By the same token we take that same level of proof for all sorts of things and act on them, often it is true mistakenly. I'm quite willing to take certain actions (such as reducing the use of dirty fuels) because regardless of whether or not using such fuels is going to cause or hasten some sort of global warming effect, the action will mitigate a known negative effect. Where I don't get on board is where an action is proposed to combat an as yet unproven phenomena that is very costly and doesn't have another upside that could alone justify its cost.
Joe Harker
1st in the Premiership!
It does, but not on the scale of H2O day by day. H2O although relfects much of the suns energy also keeps in the heat below radiating from the earths surface, thats why wet rainy humids days are warmer than clear days at the same time of year (particulary winter days)
Erik Mesoy
Core Tester / Intern
You're really not getting the point here.
Current Earth temp is around 300 K. Replace each "unit of heating" in the scenario I gave with "3/10ths of a degree of warmer climate". Then notice how your objection is rendered moot while my scenario makes exactly the same point about a change in a small part of a small part of a large system having the same effect.
I am leaving the question of exactly how much warmer the climate is getting to the professional scientists. What I am doing here is beating down a type of curious ideological bias that says something akin to "small changes in large systems must have small effects", because I can do that without needing too much help, and because that family of biases are very counterproductive to a serious discussion.
Ziggy Stardust
Absolutely Sane
A small thing like a couple of bacteria or molecules in something as big as a body really can't have any effect either. 
BasketCase
Username sez it all
Old joke, but still a good one.When in doubt trust a basket case over scientists!
hehe, couldn't resist!
Quick reminder, though--the stuff I write in these global warming threads IS scientists.
There's a new book out there, titled "The Deniers" (written by an environmentalist, no less!) that contains testimony from a whole lot of well-accredited people who say pretty much what I've been saying in CFC's global warming threads. Either they read my words and found truth in them, or they actually came up with the ideas before I did. Probably the first one, but there's no way to know......
BasketCase
Username sez it all
Wrong. Each "unit" of heat in your example is 1/1200th of a degree Kelvin.
Erik Mesoy
Core Tester / Intern
I'm getting 3/10 from representing 300K with 1 000 'units'. Where are you getting 1/1200?
BasketCase
Username sez it all
Never mind. Your whole model was wrong from the start.
If the object receiving the heat has NO insulation at all--big surprise--its temperature is NOT zero. In fact its temperature is nowhere close to zero. Earth's temperature, with no atmosphere at all, would be about 75 degrees below freezing. Even with no insulation at all, the Earth won't lose all its heat instantly. That's impossible.
Plus, as any real object gets hotter, the cooling rate increases. The Earth does not remain at a constant "365,000 units of cooling". That's also impossible.
If the object receiving the heat has NO insulation at all--big surprise--its temperature is NOT zero. In fact its temperature is nowhere close to zero. Earth's temperature, with no atmosphere at all, would be about 75 degrees below freezing. Even with no insulation at all, the Earth won't lose all its heat instantly. That's impossible.
Plus, as any real object gets hotter, the cooling rate increases. The Earth does not remain at a constant "365,000 units of cooling". That's also impossible.
Erik Mesoy
Core Tester / Intern
Why, thank you for telling me things that I have already stated.
Thank you again, this time for explaining basic thermodynamics to me.
And thank you some more for the continuing lectures on thermodynamics.
[/sarcasm]
Masquerouge
Deity
Regarding "moisture will reflect more heat"
Today I trapped a frog in a glass bottle and left it in the sun. After a bit, the frog said "Sirrah, 'tis getting warm in here, please open the jar". I said "it's warm out here, too, and rest assured: the glass is actually reflecting some sunlight (and hurting my poor eyes!) - you're actually cooler in there than I am out here!"
Just to be sure, and because I am steeped in wealth, I sprayed on some silver frosting onto the jar. Surely THAT must increase the albedo of the jar, and protect Sir Frog!
He complained a bit more, but everything's completely quiet now. I'm sure he's figured out the difference between increased insulation and increased albedo
Today I trapped a frog in a glass bottle and left it in the sun. After a bit, the frog said "Sirrah, 'tis getting warm in here, please open the jar". I said "it's warm out here, too, and rest assured: the glass is actually reflecting some sunlight (and hurting my poor eyes!) - you're actually cooler in there than I am out here!"
Just to be sure, and because I am steeped in wealth, I sprayed on some silver frosting onto the jar. Surely THAT must increase the albedo of the jar, and protect Sir Frog!
He complained a bit more, but everything's completely quiet now. I'm sure he's figured out the difference between increased insulation and increased albedo
That's a pretty bad analogy, since the Earth's system is NOT a closed system like a greenhouse. A greenhouse primarily stops convection as a means to heat up, for example, whereas the Earth does not.
Too many ignorant people think they actually know something. Sigh...
Too many ignorant people think they actually know something. Sigh...
betazed
Seeking...
- Joined
- May 9, 2003
- Messages
- 5,224
The above sentence does not seem to make any sense to me. What is "cooling rate"? A semantic translation would be rate of temperature decrease -dT/dt. But then the statement is a contradiction. "as any real object gets hotter" (so we are assuming a +ve dT/dt) we have a cooling rate which is -dT/dt?
Yes, it stops convection. IR radiation is the main way heat leaves a greenhouse. IR radiation is also the main way heat leaves our earth. (and this is the whole CO2 debate)
The point is that the water vapour has an insulative effect and maybe an albedo effect (I haven't seen a study showing an increase in albedo due to cloud cover, which would be really easy to show - but I'm open to the idea, it seems obvious). The sunlight forcings reduced by albedo have to be calculated against the trapped heat due to vapour.
Now, the solar heat-trapping cycle is very rapid, because humidity has a huge range. CO2 heat-trapping is a much, much slower cycle (over an entire year). But it's very much had an upward trend
edit: Betazed, there's no point talking to Basketcase on the topic. That said, a 100 C pot of water will lose 5 degrees (in a room temperature room) faster than a 25 C pot of water. That's what he means, though it's pretty obvious how he's misusing that fact.
The point is that the water vapour has an insulative effect and maybe an albedo effect (I haven't seen a study showing an increase in albedo due to cloud cover, which would be really easy to show - but I'm open to the idea, it seems obvious). The sunlight forcings reduced by albedo have to be calculated against the trapped heat due to vapour.
Now, the solar heat-trapping cycle is very rapid, because humidity has a huge range. CO2 heat-trapping is a much, much slower cycle (over an entire year). But it's very much had an upward trend
edit: Betazed, there's no point talking to Basketcase on the topic. That said, a 100 C pot of water will lose 5 degrees (in a room temperature room) faster than a 25 C pot of water. That's what he means, though it's pretty obvious how he's misusing that fact.
BasketCase
Username sez it all
Good, then maybe people will be quiet and listen.
(Actually that hasn't been a problem, the post rate in here has been pretty slow)
Erik's messed-up mathematical example was intended to provide shock value by showing how a tiny change in one factor can have a huge impact on the whole system. If his numbers are to be believed, then if humans added another 5 percent of CO2 to the planet's atmosphere, the temp would have gone up by a hundred and fifty degrees Kelvin. Clearly bogus. Don't get comfy, Erik, I'm going to continue baggin' on ya over this for a while longer.
The Earth is not a nuclear reactor, and you can't destabilize it by pulling out a control rod. And the Earth is not one of those machines in a cartoon where the innocent mouse can destroy the whole thing by unscrewing the one bolt at the base that holds the whole contraption together. The Earth has only had five major unexpected disruptions of its ecosystem in BILLIONS of years (not including Ice Ages--those are entirely natural), and those five incidents were the result of either meteors or unknown events on a more than biblical scale. Or, perhaps, those were entirely natural also?
Another popular fallacy is the "tipping point": the claim that the Earth is dynamically unstable and right of the edge of being nudged into a runaway process that will destabilize the ecosystem and cause it to implode. How do we know we're at a "tipping point"? We don't. Global warming alarmists claim that we might be in order to produce fear. But they don't actually know where these alleged tipping points are, and indeed can't even prove they exist.
Erik Mesoy
Core Tester / Intern
(Bold in BC's quotes mine, except at "unknown".)
"Apparent extinction intensity, i.e. the fraction of genera going extinct at any given time, as reconstructed from the fossil record. (Graph not meant to include recent epoch of Holocene extinction event)"
In such a situation a 5% change in CO2, which is responsible for 2.7% of the total heating, will result in 50% increase in heat. If this 50% increase in heat results in just another 0.000004% of the world's water-in-the-form-of-oceans-lakes-and-icecaps evaporating, it'll have increased the amount of H2O in the atmosphere by 1%, leading to another 1000 units of heat, and WHAM, we've got a tipping point with a runaway increase. See, they exist! I just proved it!
Happily, THE EARTH DOESN'T WORK THIS WAY. (If you keep telling me my own disclaimers, I'm going to conclude that you're trolling) The way the Earth DOES work, the tipping points are at other values. With your much-vaunted uncertainty about where they are, we should therefore not push the system around, because we risk running into one.
Let me reiterate for the Nth time: I was claiming to explain the mechanism by which a small change in a small part of a large system can result in a large change of that system. I specifically disclaimed that the numbers were in any measure accurate.Erik's messed-up mathematical example was intended to provide shock value by showing how a tiny change in one factor can have a huge impact on the whole system. If his numbers are to be believed, then if humans added another 5 percent of CO2 to the planet's atmosphere, the temp would have gone up by a hundred and fifty degrees Kelvin. Clearly bogus. Don't get comfy, Erik, I'm going to continue baggin' on ya over this for a while longer.
THOSE NUMBERS ARE NOT TO BE BELIEVED. You're charging at strawmen here.
Major on what scale? The "got published in what BC reads" scale?
"Apparent extinction intensity, i.e. the fraction of genera going extinct at any given time, as reconstructed from the fossil record. (Graph not meant to include recent epoch of Holocene extinction event)"
Be very, very wary of attributing evil motives to those you disagree with. Down that road lies cultishness. Feel free to suspect them, but if you do more, why shouldn't I simply claim that e.g. you're only contradicting me because you're paid by oil companies to cloud the issue?? And then perhaps you will recognise that motive is irrelevant. Look up the Bulverism fallacy.
Let's hypothesize that CO2 is providing 10 000 'units' of heating to the planet, while H2O provides 100 000, and other "factors that influence the global temperatures" provide another 256 000 'units'. Meanwhile other things such as heat loss to space are providing 365 000 'units' of cooling to the planet, resulting in a net 1 000 'units' of heat.
In such a situation a 5% change in CO2, which is responsible for 2.7% of the total heating, will result in 50% increase in heat. If this 50% increase in heat results in just another 0.000004% of the world's water-in-the-form-of-oceans-lakes-and-icecaps evaporating, it'll have increased the amount of H2O in the atmosphere by 1%, leading to another 1000 units of heat, and WHAM, we've got a tipping point with a runaway increase. See, they exist! I just proved it!
Happily, THE EARTH DOESN'T WORK THIS WAY. (If you keep telling me my own disclaimers, I'm going to conclude that you're trolling) The way the Earth DOES work, the tipping points are at other values. With your much-vaunted uncertainty about where they are, we should therefore not push the system around, because we risk running into one.
BasketCase
Username sez it all
Suppose CO2 is providing 10,000 units of heating, H2O provides 100,000, and "other factors" provide another 256,000. Meanwhile, other things such as heat loss to space are provinding TEN (10) units of cooling.
Then a 5% increase in CO2, which is responsible for 2.7% of the total warming, will result in 2.7000000001% more heat.
No, the Earth doesn't work this way (and yes, I'm trolling ), but actually, your numbers just plain don't work. They mean nothing.
Then a 5% increase in CO2, which is responsible for 2.7% of the total warming, will result in 2.7000000001% more heat.
No, the Earth doesn't work this way (and yes, I'm trolling
), but actually, your numbers just plain don't work. They mean nothing.Spoiler :
Shaihulud
Deity
There is some thought by scientists that the increased co2 in the atmosphere presently is creating a positive feedback in global warming by increasing methane emmision via decay and water vapour in the atmosphere. It is a complicated matter and many variables, but in this I trust the scientists who made it their study, it is almost a scientific concensus that global warming is taking place, whether it will increase to unbearable limit should be the topic of discussion.
Statistical record from the recent centuries indicates that global temperature has on average been increasing, this is correlated with increased co2 emmision during the Industrial revolution. I have no idea why people are still denying so vehemently that global warming is happening and from all we understand will be getting worse.
Statistical record from the recent centuries indicates that global temperature has on average been increasing, this is correlated with increased co2 emmision during the Industrial revolution. I have no idea why people are still denying so vehemently that global warming is happening and from all we understand will be getting worse.
BasketCase
Username sez it all
Because an increasing number of scientists IN the fields relevant to the topic are dissenting more and more loudly. And because a number of recent screw-up by agencies such as NASA have shown that some of our numbers are completely wrong.
