On 5/12/2015 1:01 PM, 'Chris de Morsella' via Everything List wrote:
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*From:* Telmo Menezes <te...@telmomenezes.com>
*To:* "everything-list@googlegroups.com" <everything-list@googlegroups.com>
*Sent:* Tuesday, May 12, 2015 12:22 PM
*Subject:* Re: Michael Shermer becomes sceptical about scepticism!
With climate change and cures for cancer you need statistics, because there
are no
such laws in these fields. There is no equation where you can plug-in a CO2
concentration and get a correct prediction on global temperature change.
There's a law where you can plug in atmospheric composition and solar
radiance and
get a correct prediction of the equilibrium temperature. That's what
Arrhenius did
in 1890. It's precisely because we do have equations for the energy
balance of the
Earth and how CO2 affects it, that anthropic global warming is as solid a
fact as
evolution and nuclear fission. If it were *just* observations there might
be room
for doubt as to why temperature has gone up. But the mechanism is well
known and
has been for a century.
>>How can we know that the greenhouse effect is the only thing to consider when dealing
with something as complex as the earth and its biosphere? Ok, CO2 in the atmosphere
reflects back some percentage of the infrared radiation which leads to more solar energy
being trapped in the system.
One key thing to understand about the physical properties of CO2 dipolar gas molecule is
that it absorbs/re-emits IR frequencies(i.e. is opaque) in an IR frequency range that
water vapor (e.g. H2O) -- which is the most significant global warming gas there is
overall is transparent in. This is critically important in understanding why CO2 gas has
such an impact on climate. It is because it closes (partially closes of course) a
critical window of transparency, that exists in the H2O infrared frequency absorption
profile through which infrared energy -- of that frequency range -- could otherwise
escape out from the atmosphere to be re-radiated out into outer space.
CO2 does not act alone, its effects are very much a result of its partially closing off
this infrared frequency transparency hole or window through which large amounts of
infrared energy would have been able to be directly radiated out into the cold sink of
outer space.
-Chris
Right. And it's also more significant because it doesn't condense out in clouds. There
is a kind of "last emission" zone in the atmosphere where IR photons can go directly to
space and it's what is emitted in that zone that affects the energy balance. IR emission
below that zone is just part of Earth's internal temperature exchange. Most clouds are
well below the last emission zone because water condenses out as it rises and cools. But
CO2 doesn't condense out and so plays a bigger role in emission than its concentration
would suggest.
Brent
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