Let's Get Physical About Climate Change

a reply to: glend

The petition project is NOT a signatures of experts. Pretty much anyone with a B.S. in a science related field is eligible to sign it.

The 30,000 scientists and science graduates listed on the OISM petition represent a tiny fraction (0.3%) of all science graduates. More importantly, the OISM list only contains 39 scientists who specialise in climate science.

Most of the arguments that climate skeptics use can be found here.

originally posted by: Greven
a reply to: Teikiatsu
Again, CO2 isn't the only thing out there. It causing warming contributes to things like melting methane hydrates, etc.

As for 'starvation level' of plants? I would like to see a reference to that. Do you happen to know when the last time CO2 was over 400ppm... or 1400 ppm for that matter?

My bad, 1500 ppm

news.heartland.org...

"Patrick Moore, Ph.D., has been a leader in international environmentalism for more than 40 years. He cofounded Greenpeace and currently serves as chair of Allow Golden Rice. Moore received the 2014 Speaks Truth to Power Award at the Ninth International Conference on Climate Change, July 8, in Las Vegas. "

Over the past 150 million years, carbon dioxide had been drawn down steadily (by plants) from about 3,000 parts per million to about 280 parts per million before the Industrial Revolution. If this trend continued, the carbon dioxide level would have become too low to support life on Earth. Human fossil fuel use and clearing land for crops have boosted carbon dioxide from its lowest level in the history of the Earth back to 400 parts per million today.

At 400 parts per million, all our food crops, forests, and natural ecosystems are still on a starvation diet for carbon dioxide. The optimum level of carbon dioxide for plant growth, given enough water and nutrients, is about 1,500 parts per million, nearly four times higher than today. Greenhouse growers inject carbon-dioxide to increase yields. Farms and forests will produce more if carbon-dioxide keeps rising.

a reply to: Phage

Oversimplification. It's not a two-sided coin with 50% chance. It's a coin, then a 4-sided die, then an 8-sided die, etc.

Yes. And the TSI was significantly less as well, with that toddler of a Sun at the time.

Good to see you agree the sun has impact as well

a reply to: Teikiatsu

Patrick Moore was NOT a co-founder of Green Peace, he just claims that he was.

Also the Heartland Institute receives money from Fossil Fuel companies for the purpose of spreading propaganda against AGW.

a reply to: Greven

Einstein is dead too and people love quoting him. Is there anything wrong with that?

Are we trying to kill of peoples reputation AGAIN to try negate their opposition. If you think the head of the IPCC is above criticism think again.

As for that petition? There have been numerous fake names added to that thing. It's garbage.

And are there fake NASA astronauts and scientist in their petition as well. YES?

LOL!

originally posted by: jrod
a reply to: Teikiatsu

Patrick Moore was NOT a co-founder of Green Peace, he just claims that he was.

Also the Heartland Institute receives money from Fossil Fuel companies for the purpose of spreading propaganda against AGW.

Dispute what he said. I am sick and tired of this tactic.

Also: wattsupwiththat.com...

a reply to: Teikiatsu

Tactic???

You posted FALSE INFORMATION!!!

A simple search of Patrick Moore's name and the Heartland Institute on ATS's search engine and you will find I am correct.

a reply to: jrod

OISM list only contains 39 scientists who specialise in climate science.

Including the ex-head writer for IPCC Richard Lindzen, who was lead author of "Physical Climate Processes and Feedbacks" in the IPCC Third Assessment Report before he jumped off the gravy train because he couldn't stomach it any-more.

a reply to: glend
Or perhaps he was paid off by the fossil fuel industry and now is one of their stooges. (Less wacky of a claim than what the climate skeptics choose to believe)

You climate skeptics want us to believe the overwhelming consensus of the scientists is incorrect and corrupted in order to fulfill some global agenda to tax us to death, destroy the economy, or whatever catchy demonizing claim you can come up with, yet ignore the reality that the fossil fuel industry is paying think tanks and figure heads to push propaganda against AGW.

Their motive is simple to understand: PROFIT! Combating climate change and CO2 will hurt their profits.

More on Richard Lindzen

originally posted by: glend
a reply to: Greven

Einstein is dead too and people love quoting him. Is there anything wrong with that?

Are we trying to kill of peoples reputation AGAIN to try negate their opposition. If you think the head of the IPCC is above criticism think again.

As for that petition? There have been numerous fake names added to that thing. It's garbage.

And are there fake NASA astronauts and scientist in their petition as well. YES?

LOL!

I fail to see why you've brought any of this up. You seem to want to get in a shouting match of traded "NO YOU!" while using appeals to authority/bandwagon.

None of it gets around basic science - CO2 is a greenhouse gas. More CO2 means more temperature. Man is emitting more CO2 than is lost to sinks, as evidenced by the yearly growth of CO2 in parts per million.

The conclusion of this is fairly obvious.

a reply to: Teikiatsu

Oversimplification. It's not a two-sided coin with 50% chance.

A simplification, of course. But talking about "energy absorption" of CO2 is nothing but a red herring.
The re-emitted radiation has a 50% chance of being emitted toward space or not. Above the horizon, or not.

a reply to: glend

And are there fake NASA astronauts and scientist in their petition as well.

That is not a petition, it is a letter signed by a very small number of people who are welcome to their opinions. But are you using an appeal to popularity to support your position?

originally posted by: Teikiatsu
My bad, 1500 ppm

news.heartland.org...

"Patrick Moore, Ph.D., has been a leader in international environmentalism for more than 40 years. He cofounded Greenpeace and currently serves as chair of Allow Golden Rice. Moore received the 2014 Speaks Truth to Power Award at the Ninth International Conference on Climate Change, July 8, in Las Vegas. "

Meanwhile...

...some plants already have mechanisms for concentrating CO2 in their tissues, known as C4 photosynthesis, so higher CO2 will not boost the growth of C4 plants.

Where water is a limiting factor, all plants could benefit. Plants lose water through the pores in leaves that let CO2 enter. Higher CO2 levels mean they do not need to open these pores as much, reducing water loss.

These experiments suggest that higher CO2 levels could boost the yields of non-C4 crops by around 13 per cent.

Sounds good, right?

Well... maybe not:

However, while experiments on natural ecosystems have also found initial elevations in the rate of plant growth, these have tended to level off within a few years. In most cases this has been found to be the result of some other limiting factor, such as the availability of nitrogen or water.

The regional climate changes that higher CO2 will bring, and their effect on these limiting factors on plant growth, such as water, also have to be taken into account. These indirect effects are likely to have a much larger impact than CO2 fertilisation.

For instance, while higher temperatures will boost plant growth in cooler regions, in the tropics they may actually impede growth. A two-decade study of rainforest plots in Panama and Malaysia recently concluded that local temperature rises of more than 1ºC have reduced tree growth by 50 per cent

Plants need more than just CO2 to survive and grow.

Worse, there are the oceans to consider:

In the oceans, increased CO2 is causing acidification of water. Recent research has shown that the expected doubling of CO2 concentrations could inhibit the development of some calcium-shelled organisms, including phytoplankton

Sure, we might make the land-based plant life a bit happier, briefly. Meanwhile, the oceans die.

I'm not sure that this is a good trade.

a reply to: Phage

Not so much not off the table in Germany. After long protests we finally saw the exit under schröder, the exit from the exit under Merkel and the exit from the exit after the exit one day after Fukushima.

Was a hell of a ride, you folks should put it on the table as well! It works, sometimes. Somehow...

a reply to: Greven

Get off the rare prawn Greven it was you that slammed someone that cannot respond to criticism (RIP Seitz) and that is in very poor form indeed.

Your comment "More CO2 means more temperature" is Primary school logic. CO2 itself absorbs certain electromagnetic frequencies that the earth reflects back into space. If its already blocking outgoing radiation at those frequencies any increase in CO2 wont result in temperature increases. See this link for a better explanation.

Added.. its obvious that earth has certain fail safes else the atmosphere would have already gone into a runaway greenhouse state in our past from massive releases of CO2 from volcanic activity (Deccan Traps etc).

a reply to: glend

In other words, CO2’s radiation absorbing duties are already performing at their maximum level so CO2 is at a saturated state right now with regard to upgoing radiation absorption.

cosmoscon.com...
Nonsense. The same red herring attempt presented earlier.
It ignores the re-emission of infrared by CO2 molecules.
scied.ucar.edu...

a reply to: glend

I am not sure what your point of that post, the source is questionable and the conclusions are not based on any real world science. Alice in Wonderland logic is cute and all but has no basis when addressing a scientific issue. This is straight BS and not backed by actual science:

CO2’s contributing factor to the greenhouse effect is saturated and even if the Earth warms, CO2’s role in the greenhouse effect will only diminish. That is a hard pill for the AGW cult to swallow.

What the science actually says:

How do we know more CO2 is causing warming?

Is the CO2 effect saturated?

Humans emit 100 times more CO2 than volcanoes.

a reply to: Phage

Please look up the absorption lines of CO2 instead of saying it absorbs Infra-red. CO2 absorbs some infrared frequencies and some far-InfraRed.

a reply to: glend

I know. And it also re-emits them. "Trapping" them within the atmosphere.
What's your point?

a reply to: Phage

Point is once its trapped in 100% of the outgoing radiation within its absorption lines there is no more energy remaining for it to trap (saturation occurs).