Comments on: Part 5 of 5: The Only Explanation Left

By: Climate 411 » Global Warming Test: The Real Answers - Blogs & Podcasts - Environmental Defense Fund

Tue, 22 Apr 2008 21:38:23 +0000

[...] Today's rapid global warming is caused by increased concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. The additional greenhouse gases come from human activities such as industrial pollution and tropical deforestation. It is not caused by orbital eccentricities or variations in the Sun's output. [...]

By: Climate 411 » Part 4 of 5: Medieval Warming Period - Blogs & Podcasts - Environmental Defense Fund

Tue, 22 Apr 2008 17:53:51 +0000

[...] 1. A 175-year-old Puzzle 2. What Chemistry Tells Us 3. Causes of Past Climate Change 4. The Medieval Warming Period 5. The Only Explanation Left [...]

By: quentinp

quentinp — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 17:43:05 +0000

"Note the IPCC Assessment carries no weight with me whatsoever. I think it is a total fraud and those behind it ought to have charges brought against them, similar to war crimes. It is just a bad to try to deceive unsuspecting people for financial gain and political control using scare tactics."

It's interesting that you think the IPCC has so much power. Give the general populace more credit – they have scientific education too, and the "unsuspecting" but in fact highly educated people that have picked over the IPCC output find it all stacks up. As it would, because their entire process is open to a fault – so much so that internal discussions and disagreements can be inflated into controversies to fuel the idea of conspiracy / lack of consensus.

Quentin

By: rkcannon

rkcannon — Tue, 18 Dec 2007 03:55:25 +0000

Note the IPCC Assessment carries no weight with me whatsoever. I think it is a total fraud and those behind it ought to have charges brought against them, similar to war crimes. It is just a bad to try to deceive unsuspecting people for financial gain and political control using scare tactics.

By: rkcannon

rkcannon — Tue, 18 Dec 2007 03:52:01 +0000

Dr. Chameides- Anxiously awaiting your response to Dr. Ankoviak, who I happen to agree with. I have a MS in Engineering btw. Also your explanation of why the warming of the earth cannot be the cause of global warming does not make sense to me. You said the earth temperature would stop increasing if it was warming the atmosphere. But that would be true only if the fire went out so to speak. If the earth temperature is increasing internally for some reason, a nuclear reaction possibly, then it will continue to heat the atmosphere. Or maybe the heat is escaping faster in the northern hemisphere somehow, or is being conducted via the ocean currents, transferring heat from the south.

Anyway your explanations seem simplistic and missing key details. The science is by no means settled or you would not have comments by the likes of Dr. Ankoviak. There are many mroe like him and he is by far more believable.

This site is very good. http://www.climatescience.org.nz/

By: Sheryl Canter

Sheryl Canter — Wed, 10 Oct 2007 19:59:30 +0000

Take a look at the IPCC's Fourth Assessment Report. That gives a very detailed summary of research from around the world, including models with predictions.

By: Dave

Dave — Sat, 06 Oct 2007 22:46:54 +0000

To echo one aspect of the comments above: The strongest science relentlessly pursues the falsification of the *best* (or favored) hypothesis at all times. I wish that I could find more articles that explore the specific predictions made by the human-induced global warming theory and show how each has fit the observations or experiments made to test it. The more detailed and specific the predictions, the greater will be our confidence that the theory is correct. But most of what I read about global warming falls into two categories: (1) evidence that warming is occurring (the case for this seems strong), (2) evidence falsifying other explanations of warming. Maybe the problem is that not enough of the stronger science is making it into the more popular literature…

By: Dr. Kevin Ankoviak

Dr. Kevin Ankoviak — Mon, 30 Jul 2007 22:42:27 +0000

Alright. If you are going to treat that Dr. in front of my name as though it came from a Cracker Jack box, I can play along. Let's play a game of 20 questions shall we? Everyone listening? Dr. Chameides, in your article about global warming, you say that if the Earth had no atmosphere, it's surface would be too cold to support life. Could you please tell the class what the surface temperature of the Earth would be if it did indeed not have an atmosphere?? 12 different papers have been published on this very subject, so I have a number in mind.

By: Bill Chameides

Bill Chameides — Fri, 27 Jul 2007 17:07:02 +0000

1. This H₂O thing that is constantly brought up really amazes me. Do the people who bring it up think that they have thought of something that scientists, who have been working on this since Fourier's work in 1827, did not?

Sure H₂O is the primary greenhouse gas. It is so effective that very little terrestrial radiation below ~8 microns escapes to space. CO₂, which absorbs at 15 microns, blocks a significant amount of radiation that would otherwise escape, and is therefore an important greenhouse gas. We can directly observe the very significant effect of the CO₂ 15 micron absorption band on the flux of terrestrial radiation from space. Not a theory, observational fact.

For more on why CO₂ is the important greenhouse gas and not H₂O, see my previous post on the water vapor fallacy.

2. Solar output and sunspots have not increased (see our post debunking this misconception). Moreover, if increased sunspots were the cause of the warming by changing cloud cover, we would have seen a long-term trend in the earth's albedo (or reflectivity). We have not.

By: Dr. Kevin Ankoviak

Dr. Kevin Ankoviak — Fri, 27 Jul 2007 04:48:30 +0000

Two comments I would like to add. First, why is the emphasis placed on CO2 concentration in the Earth's atmosphere?? The Earth has an average temperature of say 15 degrees Celsius or 285 degrees Kelvin. This means the Earth will radiate in a band around 10 micrometers. Mostly from 9 micrometers to 12 micrometers. CO2 absorbs radiation at 3 very narrow bands around 2.7, 4.3 and 15 micrometers. Absorption of radiation is governed by quantum mechanical processes…not classical ones!! The primary gas in the Earth's atmosphere which does have significant absorption bands near 10 micrometers is water vapor. I would assume water vapor concentrations in the atmosphere would be a more obvious candidate. Secondly, you are being disingenuous Dr. Chameides. While overall solar output hasn't changed much in 100 years, solar particle radiation and sunspot counts are up. Significantly. This increased blast of charge particles would effect cloud formation in the atmosphere. The charge particles ionize the water vapor and dust in the atmosphere allowing them to attract electrically and form clouds. I know cloud cover effects the thermodynamic equations in several ways, but I can tell you, from experience, that the solar astronomy crowd is convinced solar radiation activity plays a significant role in global warming. Just as geologists believe that increasing atmospheric dust levels from volcanic eruptions are a significant cause. In conclusion, I am NOT saying that humans shouldn't reduce their CO2 emissions as insurance against the possibility that we are the primary cause of global warming. I am worried that with so many possible influences, if it turns out humans are NOT the primary cause of global warming, the non-scientific community will refuse to listen the next time some scientist says "Hey, you are causing a problem."