I'm trying to sort out the science from the politics and emotions (subject: global warming). Wondering if anyone has seen both Al Gore's video AND the recent one titled "The Great Global Warming Swindle," which can be viewed at this link:
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/017028.php

If so, I'd like to see some objective reactions to the arguments both sides are making.

I read that 85% of the responders to a recent poll believe that the globe is warming and it's humans' fault; I also know that scientific truth is NOT determined by popular vote or opinion polls. Consequently, I'm ignoring the polls and trying to weigh the evidence on both sides of the question. Just trying to find out where this forum's participants stand on the evidence that's out there at this point.

If you are going to get really really technical, pretty much all the heating of the earth come from the sun

Measurements of the suns output have been taken from outside of the atmosphere for almost 30 years. No significant change outside of its usual 11 year cycle in that time period.

I agree with korjik...it is the sun's fault. Why? Because without the sun we would have no global warming.

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Numbers are not case sensitive. (me)

I’d read the previous 30 threads on this topic and maybe ask a more specific question. My reactions are pretty much summed up in this one.

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Do try not to take me too seriously.

That's a pretty good sum up.

Yup. That is definitely a good sum up.

I do have one question tho. If the CO2 concentration saturates the IR absorption, dosent any addition afterward have no increased effect?

My understanding is that at saturation the CO2 absorbs and reradiates 100% if the radiation on the appropriate band.

No, because although there is a narrow peak where all infrared radiation of a certain wavelength is absorbed, CO2 also absorbs infrared radiation of other wavelengths. So, as mentioned in the summary, a each doubling of CO2 concentrations will increase temperatures by the same amount, all other things being equal.

If you want to debunk the Sun is warming up the planet argument, you simply need to reverse the Energy/Dist = Temperatue logic to find out what a 1.8 degree change on earth due to suns output would mean.

I think you would find that by revering this would lead one to mathmatical conclusion the sun has started moving into the red giant phase, which we know it has't done yet.

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There is no problem that cannot be solved by a suitable application of high explosives - US Army Demolitions School

I just saw Hayley's comet, she waved, Said "why you always running in place? Even the man in the moon disappeared, Somewhere in the stratosphere" - Shinedown

http://worldsofothersuns.home.comcast.net/

Looks pretty safe at the moment, I think storms may be variable and sunspot activity might get erratic. If a change was underway it would be measurable.

An extra heating effect

So far I have not seen any discussion on thermal gradients at depth.

I was wondering if the restriction of the heat loss by the earth due to its thermal blanket of CO2 may have any calculable effect. That is would a rise in surface temperature of the planet by a meer 0.5 to 0.7 degrees translate to greater internal thermal activity.

The earth does get hotter the deeper one goes hence we have plate tectonic movement. If the temperature gradient all the way down was consistent no great change. However if the earth is a generator of internal heat and unable to dump it a thermally graded effect may translate to much higher temperature say into the hundreds of degrees.

This would then pose a more serious problem and have hidden consequences. Higher plate movement potential due to lesser viscosity of the underlying magma. Great numbers of plate movements or thinning of the crust means more tidal waves more frequently and potentially with greater severity. Increased volcanic activity may also be a possibility.

Even in the Antarctic the ice sheet is over 2000 metres thick. A warming at depth could be the cause of the 14 huge fresh water lakes under the Western Antarctic ice sheet. Warming at depth would be far more seroius than surface warming as it could enable the ice sheet to slide far more quickly into the ocean.

There is a positive here, a rough positive at best. An ice age brought on by cataclismic event depending on severity and world preparation may be preferable to global warming. Cooler climates do seem to have better social community venues due to the need to make the best use of heating resources. This last point is just a perception of the tolerance people have of the smell of sweat which strangely enough is more noticeable in a hot climate.

Cheers

Its not that simple. If you try that calculation for the current solar flux to try to find the temp of the Earth, you dont get the current temp of the Earth. If I remember right, the Earth is a good deal warmer.

Another way to see that your arguement dosent work is that there should be a good clear monotonic temp bias to take into account the brightness increase of the sun over the last couple billion years. If you actually check the temps tho, you find that the Earth is colder now than it has been over large periods in the past.

The effect of solar radiation on Earth's temp is a very complex one.

One thing tho, my comment above has to do with the fact that whatever is causing the current climate change dosent change the fact that 99% of the heat on the Earth's surface is from solar radiation.

We need an off-planet comparison, I would suggest that actually, ice core samples of the Martian poles would give us an independant record of climate in the solar sytem.

Doug

That just means you are not using a valid model

The original argument stands: the amount of increase in solar output--without other factors--needed to produce 1.8 degree increase would probably be noticeable to the average sun-bather, and would certainly not escape the notice of scientists who dedicate careers to measuring such things.

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"The truth may be out there, but lies are inside your head" Terry Pratchett

My point is that the relationship is not linear or constant. If a small increase, or even a decrease, causes a mode change, that could end up changing temperatures a lot more than a simple linear relationship. The relationship is not n watts = k Kelvins. There is alot more too it than that.

Question is the Earths orbit creaping inward? If so then an increase of enegry would be seen at the surface.

There was an article in the "Arkansas Democrat-Gazette" a couple of weeks ago that stated that March was the hottest March ever recorded in Arkansas. A few days later was a letter to the editor in which the writer blamed congress for approving expanding daylight savings time for the warming. It was a short letter, only a couple of paragraphs, so I reread it about five times. There was nothing funny or tounge in cheek, that I could see in it. So I guess the guy was serious.

So just do away with DST, and we can solve the GW problem.

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I'm not a scientist, but I play one on the internet.
http://www.rrac.org

Correct it's a Inverse Square over distance of the energy output of the sun, modified by the size of the sun verses the size of the earth.

So any small change on earth caused by the sun, would be extreamly noticibale on the sun, because the amount of energy reaching earth is basicly an inverse square over the distance.

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There is no problem that cannot be solved by a suitable application of high explosives - US Army Demolitions School

I just saw Hayley's comet, she waved, Said "why you always running in place? Even the man in the moon disappeared, Somewhere in the stratosphere" - Shinedown

http://worldsofothersuns.home.comcast.net/

Slightly off topic, but to respond to the OP.

I am impressed that you note the difference between polls and actual scientific data.

Here is a sample of how polls can be wrong.

Yet another poll on polls.

One of the main problems with GW and other scientific issues, is that all the decisions are made by polls.

The politicians poll their scientists, experts, and constituents.
They go to the 'house of government' and they themselves are polled to 'make or break' the law that is on the table.

I think that most politicians only poll their constituents.

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_.- _..-/ /((.'
((,.-' ((,/

Hmm, Hansen et al has done this calculation: Earth is absorbing 0.85 w/m^2 more solar energy than it is emitting.

To put that in perspective, the sun's total irradiance is around 1370 W/m^2 with a variance of as much as 2 W/m^2 over its 11 year cycle.

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Do try not to take me too seriously.

no its not. That calculation gives an earth that is cooler than it actually is. The actual temperature of the earth is dependent on incoming radiation modified by a very large number of effect due to conditions on the earth. With the right change in conditions on the Earth, the Earth can cool when the sun gets warmer. The opposite is true also. If it werent true, the earth would not be cooler today than it was 12 million, 40 million, and 70 million years ago.

Not arguing these staments as they are all correct.

However I was only addressing what would be required of the total Solar output to effect a 1.8 degree change on earth. That part is bassed on the inverse square law.

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There is no problem that cannot be solved by a suitable application of high explosives - US Army Demolitions School

I just saw Hayley's comet, she waved, Said "why you always running in place? Even the man in the moon disappeared, Somewhere in the stratosphere" - Shinedown

http://worldsofothersuns.home.comcast.net/

Well, if you take the excellent correlation between global temperature and solar irradiance from 1900 to 1940 and use it to calculate forcing, you get about 0.1 degree C per W/m^2 of increased solar irradiance (back of the envelope calculation from this graph). That particular increase in irradiance was indeed accompanied by quite noticeable sun spot activity.

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Do try not to take me too seriously.

The postulated mechanism of climate variations being linked to sunspots is NOT primarily due to variation in solar irradiance. That variation is rather small, about 2 W/m2 in an average of 1374 W/m2.

The mechanism postulated by CO2 skeptics is:
more sunspots = more charged particles = more screening from galactic cosmic rays = less cloud cover = higher temperature.

I just saw that 'global warming swindle' propaganda reel, and the correlation between sunspot activity and temperature seemed very well supported as presented. I would like to verify the figures listed independently - trusting an obvious propaganda reel without verification is just stupid. The interaction mechanism is also pretty straightforward, as mentioned by kzb. Water vapour remains the most significant greenhouse gas, which is not to say that CO2 is insignificant. But it might not be as critical as the media circus would have it.

I still think reducing our reliance on burning fossil fuels is a good idea, if for no other reason than to reduce other kinds of pollution associated with it. But we need perhaps not start an uproar if the developing countries start digging into their coal reserves.

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So where is the 11 year cycle in temperature?

As a historical note I should point out that an obsession with 11 year cycles goes back a long way. An 11 year cycle in temperature is not something that could really pass unnoticed.

The linkage was supposedly between the variation in solar cycle *length* (it's not always 11 years) and temperature, which is a rather tentative connection. Entertainingly, it looks like this is yet another case of cherry-picking your data to fit the results you're looking for.

http://stephenschneider.stanford.edu...onLaut2004.pdf

I saw another graph showing the cyclic behaviour over a longer period of time, but naturally I can't find it now. At any rate, it showed that the supposed correlation simply wasn't there. And the presented problems with the CO2-forcing model based their reasoning on old, outdated data. Hmm, something about this whole thing sounds eerily familiar...

This image shows a pretty good breakdown of the various factors influencing climate.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:C...ttribution.png

This is why we need to study the sun more. And also have a lot of independant sensors over al types of terrain--in case a slow motion Nyos is vomiting CO2 by the ton (over large areas) and going unreported.

You think a CO2 source notable enough would have gone unnoticed?

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Science is a way of trying not to fool yourself. The first principle is that you must not fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool.
-- Richard Feynman

The problem with scientists is that they are conditioned to think scientifically and to base their opinion on the known facts. You can of course claim that the majority of climatologists support the prevailing theory only by "gut feeling", crave for research grants or are just incompetent but I respect them more.

Yeah, sure, majority of scientists can be show to be wrong, but usually that is obvious only on hindsight if ever. As an example, geologists didn't originally adopt the continental drift theory as it didn't provide any mechanism how continental plates could move. In fact, the original theory was wrong because according to it continents moved on the ocean floor. When mid-ocean ridges were found and ocean floor was dated, it didn't took long when the theory in the form of plate tectonics became a fact.

Climatologists predict future when they study the global warming, so their long time predictions are impossible to confirm now. However, the current trend follows closely the predicted curve. In addition, the models are accurate in the case of past climate which is known. As an example of their ability to model future climate, climatologists were successful predicting the cooling effect that lasted for couple of years after the Pinatubo eruption.

According to the current knowledge, solar variability plays a part, but the current level of CO₂ -- caused by humans -- is clearly the major driving force in the current warming trend.

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Science is a way of trying not to fool yourself. The first principle is that you must not fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool.
-- Richard Feynman