RE: An Attempt to Understand the Science Behind Global Warming

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BenevolentM -> RE: An Attempt to Understand the Science Behind Global Warming (9/30/2013 9:54:05 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: BenevolentM quote: The emissivity of Earth's atmosphere varies according to cloud cover and the concentration of gases that absorb and emit energy in the thermal infrared (i.e., wavelengths around 8 to 14 micrometres). These gases are often called greenhouse gases, from their role in the greenhouse effect. The main naturally-occurring greenhouse gases are water vapor, carbon dioxide, methane, and ozone. The major constituents of the atmosphere, N2 and O2, do not absorb or emit in the thermal infrared. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emissivity#Emissivity_of_Earth.27s_atmosphere In other words greenhouse gas is our blanket and there is nothing else out there that is keeping us warm at night. There is the heat from the asphalt. So what would be the temperature of the earth if it were devoid of greenhouse gas? Remove carbon dioxide, the oceans, etc from the equation. What would we have left? How cold would our planet be?

DomKen -> RE: An Attempt to Understand the Science Behind Global Warming (9/30/2013 10:10:06 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: BenevolentM quote: ORIGINAL: BenevolentM quote: The emissivity of Earth's atmosphere varies according to cloud cover and the concentration of gases that absorb and emit energy in the thermal infrared (i.e., wavelengths around 8 to 14 micrometres). These gases are often called greenhouse gases, from their role in the greenhouse effect. The main naturally-occurring greenhouse gases are water vapor, carbon dioxide, methane, and ozone. The major constituents of the atmosphere, N2 and O2, do not absorb or emit in the thermal infrared. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emissivity#Emissivity_of_Earth.27s_atmosphere In other words greenhouse gas is our blanket and there is nothing else out there that is keeping us warm at night. There is the heat from the asphalt. So what would be the temperature of the earth if it were devoid of greenhouse gas? Remove carbon dioxide, the oceans, etc from the equation. What would we have left? How cold would our planet be? It would be cyclic. During daylight it would quickly rise to lethal temperatures (Nothing to absorb any as it came in from the sun). At night temps would quickly drop far below freezing. In orbit temps cycle between around 120C and -157C. http://www.grc.nasa.gov/WWW/k-12/Numbers/Math/Mathematical_Thinking/estimating_the_temperature.htm Couldn't find a good source for the low but several sources agree on the two numbers.

BenevolentM -> RE: An Attempt to Understand the Science Behind Global Warming (9/30/2013 10:11:57 PM)
Only heat radiation can escape the earth. So all the other mechanisms are only redistributing the heat. I am ignoring heat storage, however. Heat storage implies a redistribution in time. Either way the only mechanism that can influence the net heat is radiant. This is why greenhouse gas is important. What the asphalt is doing to keep us warm at night or rocks thrown in a camp fire are examples of heat storage. The same is true for the temperature of the air. The air is storing heat. None of these mechanisms regulate the total amount of heat that is available.

BenevolentM -> RE: An Attempt to Understand the Science Behind Global Warming (9/30/2013 10:33:41 PM)
Regardless of what you might think of Scientology what L. Ron Hubbard said about barriers to study http://www.studytechnology.org/10-barr.htm seem applicable. I came across it for the first time a few days ago. Lack of Mass Too Steep a Gradient The Misunderstood Word I suspect a lot of people approaching this topic are confronted with these three problems. From what I read Scientology has a can do attitude. You can do it! Such an attitude is a healthy one.

BenevolentM -> RE: An Attempt to Understand the Science Behind Global Warming (9/30/2013 10:55:34 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: DomKen It would be cyclic. During daylight it would quickly rise to lethal temperatures (Nothing to absorb any as it came in from the sun). At night temps would quickly drop far below freezing. In orbit temps cycle between around 120C and -157C. http://www.grc.nasa.gov/WWW/k-12/Numbers/Math/Mathematical_Thinking/estimating_the_temperature.htm Couldn't find a good source for the low but several sources agree on the two numbers. I suspect your numbers would apply to the space shuttle, but the earth has stones and the air and such to store the heat over night. Unless air devoid of greenhouse gas has no capacity to store heat, which I doubt. The article you cited its formula could perhaps be adapted to compute the day/night temperatures on earth. What I want is a baseline. This is what it would be like if we had no greenhouse gas. Since water vapor is a greenhouse that would mean no oceans or lakes and such. That would help illustrate how important the greenhouse gases are. This is what I found http://www.drroyspencer.com/2009/12/what-if-there-was-no-greenhouse-effect/ quote: ..., it turns out that the greenhouse effect has a more fundamental role: there would be no weather on Earth without the greenhouse effect. ... The global-average temperature at which this occurs would depend a lot on how reflective the Earth’s surface is to sunlight in our thought experiment. ..it could be anywhere from well below 0 deg F for a partially reflective Earth to about 45 deg. F for a totally black Earth. ... Only the surface and a shallow layer of air next to the surface would go through a day-night cycle of heating and cooling. The rest of the atmosphere would be at approximately the same temperature as the average surface temperature.

BenevolentM -> RE: An Attempt to Understand the Science Behind Global Warming (9/30/2013 11:07:46 PM)
So the next question is, what is the relative contributions of the greenhouse gases? All the talk is about carbon dioxide. What is its contribution compared to the others?

BenevolentM -> RE: An Attempt to Understand the Science Behind Global Warming (10/1/2013 1:44:13 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: BenevolentM Only heat radiation can escape the earth. So all the other mechanisms are only redistributing the heat. I am ignoring heat storage, however. Heat storage implies a redistribution in time. Either way the only mechanism that can influence the net heat is radiant. This is why greenhouse gas is important. What the asphalt is doing to keep us warm at night or rocks thrown in a camp fire are examples of heat storage. The same is true for the temperature of the air. The air is storing heat. None of these mechanisms regulate the total amount of heat that is available. I was concerned with the accuracy of the above when I wrote it. There was something off that I couldn't put my finger on immediately. It is accurate and yet not entirely accurate. As a first approximation the fit is good and appears to be what the scientific community is thinking. Temperature is a measure of stored energy and so it doesn't make complete sense to eschew energy storage, but it does make some sense as I explained. It is the difference between liquid assets and assets though assets are not liquid such as real property. I am at the present time only interested in the liquid assets because only a liquid asset is an actor. One can swap real property, but is not something you can do in the world of physics. In physics the property must be converted to cash and as long as no such conversion occurs, it is not an actor. In physics these liquid assets are radioactive. They emit energy because they are storing energy. They emit energy during the day, but more so at night. I was assuming in what I wrote that it was black and white. It is black and white in an approximate sense. I am eschewing complexity for the sake of understanding the problem in its simplest terms. Asphalt and stones and such resting on the earth are liquid assets. To the extent to which the earth absorbs energy though it varies is also more or less a constant. It is not what I'm interested in and what I wrote is half true even for these liquid assets. I am only interested in the atmosphere. You divide the problem in order to conquer it. If you fail to divide the problem you will be caught in a labyrinth. Many here wonder in such a labyrinth, then wonder why they get no where.

BenevolentM -> RE: An Attempt to Understand the Science Behind Global Warming (10/1/2013 1:49:37 PM)
I suspect that what the scientific community is saying is that although the science is unsettled, the evidence is good enough where a venture capitalist may consider the investment a good investment. Because the science is unsettled, there is risk, but the pay off if they are right is large. It may be that those who object to the science want certainty and are risk adverse. Liberals tend to be less fearful; consequently, they can bath themselves in fear and think nothing of it whereas a conservative under the same circumstances would freak out.

BenevolentM -> RE: An Attempt to Understand the Science Behind Global Warming (10/1/2013 2:09:42 PM)
What makes the science unsettled? If you think of the atmosphere as our blanket, the greenhouse gases in it is our blanket. The contribution of everything else in our atmosphere to keeping us warm is non-existent or negligible. That is a clear statement and bodes well for global warming theory. Among the greenhouse gases is water vapor. As the earth warms there is more water vapor that in turn creates more clouds which in turns cools the earth by reflecting sunlight back into space. More carbon dioxide may encourage plant growth such as algae that in turn will absorb the excess carbon dioxide. That said, water vapor is not the most potent of the greenhouse gases. Carbon dioxide apparently is. The ability of the planet to grow more plants is unclear and in jeopardy. Though we are gambling because the science is unsettled, should we given the evidence bet against it?

BenevolentM -> RE: An Attempt to Understand the Science Behind Global Warming (10/1/2013 2:25:12 PM)
I showed that blankets behave logarithmically. I recall someone putting me down for mentioning it, but this is very significant. It is this logarithmic behavior that makes it plausible that carbon dioxide though sparse can in fact warm the planet significantly. I also pointed out that the situation is ambiguous, that is why what I advanced is a plausibility argument. It is plausible, but the only way to move it from plausible to likely is to get quantitative. As betting is concerned plausible can be good enough.

BenevolentM -> RE: An Attempt to Understand the Science Behind Global Warming (10/1/2013 2:32:23 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: BenevolentM I recall someone putting me down for mentioning it, but this is very significant. I do not understand why anyone would do this, but to me it suggests that they want to hurt the skeptics. They want the skeptics to remain in the dark and not be handed the light so that when the time comes when the science is settled, the disbelievers are cast into a pit.

BenevolentM -> RE: An Attempt to Understand the Science Behind Global Warming (10/1/2013 2:36:34 PM)
I know enough about science to know that such sentiments though human are not scientific. The intention of science is to be an objective and rational observer. This is agenda.

BenevolentM -> RE: An Attempt to Understand the Science Behind Global Warming (10/1/2013 2:40:32 PM)
If such machinations upset you, it is unfortunately a part of the human condition. Allowing it to color your vision isn't scientific either.

mnottertail -> RE: An Attempt to Understand the Science Behind Global Warming (10/1/2013 2:40:33 PM)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cCCQu5ozxuM

LookieNoNookie -> RE: An Attempt to Understand the Science Behind Global Warming (10/1/2013 3:38:52 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: BenevolentM My goal is to present the material in an unbiased fashion. If I appear biased do try to look past it. As a first approximation I thought of the following question: If the earth's atmosphere were compressed to the same density as liquid water how deep would it be? Changes in the amount of carbon dioxide that there is in the atmosphere is measured in parts per million. If it were one meter thick, one part per million would correspond to a layer that is one micron thick. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plastic_wrap "Common plastic wrap is roughly 0.5 mils, or 12.5 µm, thick" In other words the layer would be less than 1/12th the thickness of common plastic wrap. It is not my intention to make a point per se. Understanding how the blanket works is involved because it isn't plastic wrap. The atmosophere has no surfaces so the notions of reflectivity and such don't make complete sense. Thinking about how thick it is helps. I suspect many here are not especially well educated on the topic yet have a great deal to say on it. They defer to the experts, but that is an appeal to authority which is fallacious. Technically speaking, at the present time there are no experts on the topic. There are people who earn a living at it, but they are like experts in astrology. They know something about the motions of the planets, but how it relates to the weather remains unclear. But clearly there is science behind it. What makes a one micron layer or one that is a hundred microns thick matter so much? If the layers had surfaces, it would make a difference because it would be like wrapping the planet in a hundred blanks, but the atmosphere has no surfaces and the carbon dioxide is diffuse. Let's face it no one has explained any of this stuff to us. So it is up to us to figure it out for ourselves. Unfortunately, many feel that how they feel about it emotionally is sufficient. Fascinating treatise on same: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/12/29/don-easterbrooks-agu-paper-on-potential-global-cooling/ Also.... http://www.bellinghamherald.com/2013/04/14/2958336/easterbrook-disputes-wwu-faculty.html

deathtothepixies -> RE: An Attempt to Understand the Science Behind Global Warming (10/1/2013 5:00:39 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: BenevolentM Regardless of what you might think of Scientology what L. Ron Hubbard said about barriers to study http://www.studytechnology.org/10-barr.htm seem applicable. I came across it for the first time a few days ago. Lack of Mass Too Steep a Gradient The Misunderstood Word I suspect a lot of people approaching this topic are confronted with these three problems. From what I read Scientology has a can do attitude. You can do it! Such an attitude is a healthy one. Oh dear, you might as well stop posting now because any slim veneer of intelligence or believability you had has just exploded in a massive tsunami of laughter. I will be contacting my lawyers and health insurance people as soon as I get out of intensive care to see if any lawsuit can be filed for splitting someone's sides

BenevolentM -> RE: An Attempt to Understand the Science Behind Global Warming (10/1/2013 6:02:55 PM)
Regardless of whether one regards Scientology as a whole as credible, it is not like they are without any credibility. The same is also true for so-called climate change deniers. Something convinced them to take the position they have taken.

BenevolentM -> RE: An Attempt to Understand the Science Behind Global Warming (10/1/2013 6:09:55 PM)
If a person is convinced that global warming is real because of Venus, they may be gullible. The example does not form a cogent argument as is. Some people know enough to be skeptical.

DomKen -> RE: An Attempt to Understand the Science Behind Global Warming (10/1/2013 7:08:37 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: BenevolentM Regardless of whether one regards Scientology as a whole as credible, it is not like they are without any credibility. Yes, it is. They are completely non credible. quote: The same is also true for so-called climate change deniers. Something convinced them to take the position they have taken. Cash.

DomKen -> RE: An Attempt to Understand the Science Behind Global Warming (10/1/2013 7:10:27 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: BenevolentM If a person is convinced that global warming is real because of Venus, they may be gullible. The example does not form a cogent argument as is. Some people know enough to be skeptical. GHG in Venus's atmosphere makes it much hotter than it would be otherwise. That is a simple fact. I presented the equations needed to find the temp of an object in space. You can do the math for Venus orbit and it will be lower than the surface temp of Venus.

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