There should be an online sales tax clearing house. The online vendor sends it the shipping address, the item being purchased and the amount and the clearing house returns the amount of sales tax due. The vendor then sends the total sales tax owed to the clearing house once a month which distributes it to the various taxing authorities that are owed. It's all paid for by skimming a bit off of the money passing through the clearing house.
Well, of course humans can't affect the output of the Sun. But we do affect albedo. Agriculture and urban development both have considerable effect on albedo, cutting down forests affects albedo and carbon black from industrial processes affect the albedo of snow and ice surfaces in the Arctic among other things.
When you consider the state of knowledge of the climate system in 1981 vs. today 30% low isn't that bad. It shows that actual climate scientists have not been the alarmists they are painted to be by the demagogues.
What percentage of solar radiation does CO2 absorb coming in? What percentage is any is reflected back out by CO2?
Almost none. Incoming solar radiation is mostly in the visible range which CO2 is transparent to. A certain part of the incoming solar radiation is absorbed by the Earth's surface which then re-emits the energy in the infrared band which is what CO2 is capturing.
While I agree that Physics is the fundamental science behind climate studies don't forget that the current composition of the atmosphere is a result of biological systems on the Earth. Biological processes are a large chunk of the carbon cycle. So, biologists do have their place.
The Sun's output over time does change however we have detailed records of that back to the 1950's and a good sunspot record (which is a proxy for the Sun's output) going back around 400 years. Over the long term the Sun's luminosity is quite well known as it's a simple matter of physics. The luminosity of the Sun has increase about 25% in the last 4 billion years.
Actually the Earth's temperature reached a peak during the Holocene Climatic Optimum around 8,000 years ago and has been on a slow cooling trend since... until anthropogenic global warming changed the trend.
Ocean mixing is pretty fast on the human scale too. Of the CO2 emitted by humans every year only about 43% remains in the atmosphere after 5 years. Most of the rest is being absorbed by the oceans. From what I've seen about the glacial cycles of the ice age both temperature increase and temperature drop lead the changes in CO2 levels.
The last time the Earth had anything like 1000 ppmv in the atmosphere was around 100 million years ago when flowering plants became widespread and before there was any significant mammalian fauna. The evolution of the genus homo is only about 2 million years old.
AGW starts primarily with the infrared absorption of CO2. As you note, other positive feedbacks such as the increase in atmospheric water vapor from the warming caused by the CO2 add to the effect.
No, climate is the statistical accumulation of weather records over time. It defines the bounds within which weather is chaotic. Climate itself (at least the temperature part of it) is simply an energy balance equation.
While the current hiatus in the observed rise of global atmospheric heat content...
To talk only about the atmospheric heat content is incomplete. You really have to talk about the total heat content of the whole Earth system. In particular there is a lot of heat transfer between the atmosphere and the oceans (and to a lesser extent the atmosphere and the land surfaces). There is no indication that the total heat content of the system is not continuing to rise.
BTW, the heat required to raise the top 25 meters of the oceans by 1C would be enough heat to raise the entire atmosphere's temperature by 10C. 90% of the heat being absorbed by the Earth system is going into the oceans.
1) Sunrise and incoming radiation passes through the atmosphere that is mostly transparent to visual radiation. 2) What incoming radiation that isn't reflected is absorbed by the surface of the Earth and later reradiated in the infrared range. 3) Greenhouse gases in the atmosphere capture that reradiated infrared energy and heat up. 4) goto 1.
A greenhouse works mainly by limiting convection of energy by trapping the air within it. On the other hand the greenhouse effect in the atmosphere works by greenhouse gases capturing infrared radiation, mostly emitted from the surface of the Earth.
A large chunk of the draw down in CO2 during glacial periods is the fact that colder ocean waters are able to hold much more dissolved CO2 in them. So when the various cycles that make up the Milankovitch cycles start a cooling trend then CO2 is absorbed in the oceans which is a feedback for even more cooling.
All of the carbon in all known fossil fuel reserves is enough to put the atmospheric concentration of CO2 over 1000 ppmv and maybe enough to get it over 2000 ppmv. That would lead to a vastly different world than we have now.
It's true the the carboniferous period had very high CO2 levels but it's also true that the Sun was significantly dimmer back then and the configuration of the land masses (which has an effect) as very different.
Sea ice is only a part of the cryosphere. While there has been an increase in sea ice in the Antarctic (which has been fairly well explained) the land ice in Antarctica (which is something like 80% of all of the ice on the Earth) has been declining by over 100 Gt per year.
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An appeal to authority is not a fallacy when the authorities you are citing are in fact knowledgeable on the subject.
Do you work for NASA in the Mars satellite division? 40 meters is about 131 feet of SLR.
Current estimates for sea level rise by 2100 are in the 1-2 meter range. These were made after the IPCC AR4 was issued.
There should be an online sales tax clearing house. The online vendor sends it the shipping address, the item being purchased and the amount and the clearing house returns the amount of sales tax due. The vendor then sends the total sales tax owed to the clearing house once a month which distributes it to the various taxing authorities that are owed. It's all paid for by skimming a bit off of the money passing through the clearing house.
Government spending as a percentage of GDP is not that different from what it's been since the 1940's.
Well, of course humans can't affect the output of the Sun. But we do affect albedo. Agriculture and urban development both have considerable effect on albedo, cutting down forests affects albedo and carbon black from industrial processes affect the albedo of snow and ice surfaces in the Arctic among other things.
Yes.
Which two?
If that isn't obvious to you then you're not qualified to make a judgement on the subject.
When you consider the state of knowledge of the climate system in 1981 vs. today 30% low isn't that bad. It shows that actual climate scientists have not been the alarmists they are painted to be by the demagogues.
What percentage of solar radiation does CO2 absorb coming in? What percentage is any is reflected back out by CO2?
Almost none. Incoming solar radiation is mostly in the visible range which CO2 is transparent to. A certain part of the incoming solar radiation is absorbed by the Earth's surface which then re-emits the energy in the infrared band which is what CO2 is capturing.
While I agree that Physics is the fundamental science behind climate studies don't forget that the current composition of the atmosphere is a result of biological systems on the Earth. Biological processes are a large chunk of the carbon cycle. So, biologists do have their place.
Statistical research shows you need 17 years of temperature records to separate the signal of global warming from the noise of natural variation.
The Sun's output over time does change however we have detailed records of that back to the 1950's and a good sunspot record (which is a proxy for the Sun's output) going back around 400 years. Over the long term the Sun's luminosity is quite well known as it's a simple matter of physics. The luminosity of the Sun has increase about 25% in the last 4 billion years.
Actually the Earth's temperature reached a peak during the Holocene Climatic Optimum around 8,000 years ago and has been on a slow cooling trend since ... until anthropogenic global warming changed the trend.
(b) is true but omits that a lot of the surface temperature comes from hte hot center of Earth.
The amount of heat energy from the interior of the Earth is trivial compared to the Sun's energy at the surface. It amounts to a rounding error.
Ocean mixing is pretty fast on the human scale too. Of the CO2 emitted by humans every year only about 43% remains in the atmosphere after 5 years. Most of the rest is being absorbed by the oceans. From what I've seen about the glacial cycles of the ice age both temperature increase and temperature drop lead the changes in CO2 levels.
The last time the Earth had anything like 1000 ppmv in the atmosphere was around 100 million years ago when flowering plants became widespread and before there was any significant mammalian fauna. The evolution of the genus homo is only about 2 million years old.
AGW starts primarily with the infrared absorption of CO2. As you note, other positive feedbacks such as the increase in atmospheric water vapor from the warming caused by the CO2 add to the effect.
No, climate is the statistical accumulation of weather records over time. It defines the bounds within which weather is chaotic. Climate itself (at least the temperature part of it) is simply an energy balance equation.
Sorry but the ozone hole is still there, it's just not getting worse like it was. Last year an ozone hole developed over the Arctic which was unusual.
I love it when guys like you make statements like that. Makes it easy for me to dismiss the other stuff you say.
While the current hiatus in the observed rise of global atmospheric heat content ...
To talk only about the atmospheric heat content is incomplete. You really have to talk about the total heat content of the whole Earth system. In particular there is a lot of heat transfer between the atmosphere and the oceans (and to a lesser extent the atmosphere and the land surfaces). There is no indication that the total heat content of the system is not continuing to rise.
BTW, the heat required to raise the top 25 meters of the oceans by 1C would be enough heat to raise the entire atmosphere's temperature by 10C. 90% of the heat being absorbed by the Earth system is going into the oceans.
Sorry but that isn't correct at all. Try this:
1) Sunrise and incoming radiation passes through the atmosphere that is mostly transparent to visual radiation.
2) What incoming radiation that isn't reflected is absorbed by the surface of the Earth and later reradiated in the infrared range.
3) Greenhouse gases in the atmosphere capture that reradiated infrared energy and heat up.
4) goto 1.
Start here: how does a greenhouse work?
A greenhouse works mainly by limiting convection of energy by trapping the air within it. On the other hand the greenhouse effect in the atmosphere works by greenhouse gases capturing infrared radiation, mostly emitted from the surface of the Earth.
A large chunk of the draw down in CO2 during glacial periods is the fact that colder ocean waters are able to hold much more dissolved CO2 in them. So when the various cycles that make up the Milankovitch cycles start a cooling trend then CO2 is absorbed in the oceans which is a feedback for even more cooling.
All of the carbon in all known fossil fuel reserves is enough to put the atmospheric concentration of CO2 over 1000 ppmv and maybe enough to get it over 2000 ppmv. That would lead to a vastly different world than we have now.
It's true the the carboniferous period had very high CO2 levels but it's also true that the Sun was significantly dimmer back then and the configuration of the land masses (which has an effect) as very different.
Sea ice is only a part of the cryosphere. While there has been an increase in sea ice in the Antarctic (which has been fairly well explained) the land ice in Antarctica (which is something like 80% of all of the ice on the Earth) has been declining by over 100 Gt per year.