My belief in Global Warming is getting shaky

[belovelife]

and i thought carbon in co2 held more energy then the hydrogen in h2o
absorbed i mean
then methane ch4 would be able to absorb some also

[Michaelangelica]

Originally Posted by belovelife

if so, i would ned to fix my air conditioner
(or build an ionic breese the size of several skyscrapers to
co2 ->c+o2
ch4->c+2h2
)

I love it when you talk dirty
Can you re-phase that for non-chemists?

[belovelife]

and for the ionic breese tower thing we could have those cool robot sweepers to clean the carbon up and sweep it to a chute then sell it to fertilizer companies

[Michaelangelica]

Originally Posted by engineerdude

More than enough research has been done. People currently have nothing to do with global climate. On the other hand, we destroy coral, pollute rivers, erode topsoil, plenty of very real things. You are wasting your time and effort with imaginary problems like global warming. And you are in fact hurting the planet by diverting money and energy to pretend-issues things like AGW, instead of actually helping our world be better. In my opinion.

And I will be happy to continue trying to convince you all of this, people I respect, and who's opinions I value.

OK we have established we are both concerned about environmental degradation.
I see where you are coming from. Although I don't believe we can afford it to be an "either" , "or" problem. We have to fix all the environmental problems we have created.
Remember this is a very new concept down to Rachel Carson 30 years ago- max.

I too have doubts, and did not believe in global warming a few years ago.
Global modelling is very imprecise- look at the daily ,weather forecast!
If you listen to some of the links I gave, some support your point of view.

What is especially worrying is the state of the debate- when people can get environmental prizes for getting people to turn of city lights for an hour.!!! The breathtaking ignorance of this is awesome.
My environment minister is about to bow to environmental ignorance and popularism and ban plastic bags.
As if he had never heard of plastic bottles or a 5c refund on all bottles (My Boy Scout hall was built by re-cycling beer bottles -my Dad built a fair bit of it on his own!
But now I think I am with Rupert Murdock "You have to give the planet the benefit of the doubt".

If any "tipping points' really happen, it is going to get very scary, very quickly.
There is nothing 'out there' that convinces me we are going in the right direction to avoid these Tipping Points..

One easy thing farmers (gardeners) can do is sequester carbon (see Terra preta threads). At worse, this helps reduce fertiliser use and fertiliser run-off-pollution.
At best, it slows global warming (or just CO2 increase if you like) while improving soil productivity.
No downside; better than turning off lights for an hour while out at your favourite restaurant; or banning plastic bags for the alternative "Green Plastic Bags"

[Zythryn]

While I agree turning off lights for an hour isn't a solution, I do think it is a good thing. It is, at least, somewhat helpful in bringing the issue to the forefront of more people's minds.
Engineerdude, saying 'More than enough research has been done. People currently have nothing to do with global climate' repeatedly doesn't make it so.
Much more research points towards humans contributing to GW than research saying we have absolutely nothing to do with GW. Sure, lots of opinion pieces and op-eds but where is the research?
Did you ever redo your own research which many people here posted possible improvements to? Or did you disagree with the comments about your own experiment?

[Essay]

I see I'm just echoing Michaleangelica's post, but....

Originally Posted by engineerdude

This isn't how our world works. There is no energy trapped or "held" in our atmosphere. The greenhouse effect is like a blanket around our planet - it does not trap energy, it just slows the movement of heat, both coming in and going out. Again, there is no significant energy trapped any place in the atmosphere - changes in air composition just make heat move faster or slower. The only part of the sun's energy that is actually held on earth is that from chemical processes or photosynthesis. The rest of the energy is just moved around and eventually radiated back out to space. The greenhouse effect has no ability to hold any energy.

Engineerdude,

With not enough time, I can only ask that you consider that there is some mechanism by which CO2 affects the balance of heat escaping from our atmosphere into space. You clearly misunderstand the actual mechanism, so without going into all the details, I'd ask that you defer to people who have studied and experimented with this mechanism for many lifetimes worth of work. But....

I sure agree with you that there are many immediate, tangible problems which need attention. It is fortuitous that the solution to many of those problems also involves limiting CO2 levels.

The three items you mention (...we destroy coral, pollute rivers, erode topsoil...) are "solved" if we reduce CO2 levels: ...to halt acidifying the oceans; and use the sequestered carbon, instead of petrofertilizers, to fertilize our crops--thus avoiding the runoff, helping the rivers--and simultaneously building up topsoil, ala Terra Preta. This is all achieved thru a carbon mitigation strategy that incorporates biochar into more organic agricultural policies and procedures.

Regardless of how CO2 affects the climate, could we agree that a program of biosequestration would help the reefs, rivers and topsoils (& possibly help restore harvests in the anoxic coastal dead-zones; reduce our dependence on oil; contribute to a healthier diet and population; focus education more on health and production-- instead of entertainment and consumption; and provide new jobs, careers, and technologies-- helping the economy)?

Sorry to get rhetorical with that last parenthetical excursive, but....

Rather than spend billions to solve each of these problems individually, maybe we should focus on one, relatively cheap, synergistic strategy as a solution.

~ SA

[Flying Binghi]

Another one joins the skeptic crew -

American astronaut Dr. Jack Schmitt - the last living man to walk on the moon - is the latest scientist to be added to the roster of more than 70 skeptics who will confront the subject of global warming at the second annual International Conference on Climate Change in New York City March 8-10, 2009.

The conference expects to draw 1,000 attendees including private-sector business people, state and federal legislators and officials, policy analysts, media, and students.

Schmitt, who earned a PhD from Harvard in geology, resigned in November from......
Astronaut Jack Schmitt Joins Skeptics

Its looking to be an interesting and important conference.

[modest]

Originally Posted by engineerdude

This isn't how our world works. There is no energy trapped or "held" in our atmosphere. The greenhouse effect is like a blanket around our planet - it does not trap energy, it just slows the movement of heat, both coming in and going out. Again, there is no significant energy trapped any place in the atmosphere - changes in air composition just make heat move faster or slower.

I believe Belovelife's characterization of "holding more of the sun's energy in the atmosphere" is appropriate.

The sun's radiation peaks around the center of the visible spectrum (0.5 μm). As the sun's temperature is much greater than earth's, it radiates at a higher frequency and shorter wavelength than earth’s radiation—as Planck's law says it should.

It’s not difficult to calculate the temperature we would expect earth’s surface to be if there were no contribution from greenhouse gas. If we assume that the heat absorbed by planet earth from the sun is equal to the heat radiated from the earth then we can find temperature using Stefan–Boltzmann’s law.

The heat absorbed by earth is equal to its albedo times solar irradiance per unit area times the cross-sectional area of absorption.

where a is earth’s albedo, r is its average polar and equatorial radius, and is the radiation flux at our distance from the sun (1360 w/m^2).

The heat radiated by earth at a given temperature is given by Stefan–Boltzmann’s law where is earth’s emitted irradiance and is the Stefan–Boltzmann constant (5.67E-8 W/m^2/K^4). So then,

To solve for temperature we say heat absorbed = heat radiated,

and solve algebraically for T,

or,

Without any greenhouse effect, earth’s average temperature would be well below freezing around -25° C. This is far below the surface’s actual average temp of approximately 15° C due to greenhouse gasses. This is supported by Historical Overview of Climate Change Science which says (on page 97):

To emit 240 W m–2, a surface would have to have a temperature of around –19°C. This is much colder than the conditions that actually exist at the Earth’s surface (the global mean surface temperature is about 14°C)... The reason the Earth’s surface is this warm is the presence of greenhouse gases, which act as a partial blanket for the longwave radiation coming from the surface. This blanketing is known as the natural greenhouse effect.

They give a slightly higher result of -19° C which I can’t reconcile because they don’t show their work, but the conclusion remains the same.

The earth does “hold more of the sun's energy in the atmosphere” due to the greenhouse effect. The average kinetic energy of the surface and lower atmosphere is greater than it would otherwise be exactly because it holds on to the sun's energy.

~modest

[Turtle]

Originally Posted by modest

... If we assume that the heat absorbed by planet earth from the sun is equal to the heat radiated from the earth then we can find temperature using Stefan–Boltzmann’s law....
~modest

curious about where/how the heat from the core figures in to what is radiated from surface?

[CraigD]

Originally Posted by modest

I believe Belovelife's characterization of "holding more of the sun's energy in the atmosphere" is appropriate.

I agree.

Because the Earth’s atmosphere is very large, a small change in its average temperature entails a large change in its total thermal energy. The specific gas constant of dry air is about 287 J/kg/K. Multiplied by the atmosphere’s mass of about , the energy per degree C temperature is about . Though small in astronomical terms, this is pretty huge in human terms: about 20 time the world’s annual electrical energy generated and used, or 1/10th the total petroleum and natural gas reserves. It’s even appreciable in terms of the Earths total energy budget: about the same as the total solar energy received in 2.78 hours. And this is only the energy difference for a single degree C change in average temperature.

On the other hand, it’s not very sensible to compare the thermal energy of the atmosphere to common power sources, because there’s no practical way to use it directly to do work. Exercises such as the above are mostly useful in keeping a sense of scale and perspective.

Sources: Wikipedia articles “gas constant”, “[wiki]earth’s atmosphere[wiki]”, and “orders of magnitude (energy)”.