We was talking about this in another thread and somebody pointed out that actually there has apparently been cooling for the past ten years.
This is a bit of a fly in the ointment, and then someone else said, well, if global warming precedes rises in CO2, then doesn't that imply that CO2 has a cooling effect (because otherwise we would expect a greenhouse runaway and that has never happened, at least not on very long term scales).
This got me thinking. Given the current cooling period, and the cooling between the 40's and 70's, it doesn't currently look like there is actually much reason to think that over the past century there has been a robust warming trend. I recall that a mad Russian scientist on a documentary about 10 years ago I think, saying that his data sets showed that actually. the earth has warmed in a hundred year cycle peaking always at the end of each century, and that would incidentally fit the warming period from the 1970's. To compound this scientists are arguing hotly about the effect of sunspots, which they voraciously oppose can be influencing climate by 'cosmic rays' effecting clouds. But what if CO2 directly influenced rain the way that sunspot-warming theorists suppose is achieved by cosmic rays?
So I thought, lets presuppose that CO2 has a cooling effect - how?
Today I refined the model and it goes like this:
The warming effect of CO2 I think is primarily ocuring at night. This is because the CO2 probably lets a good percentage of the heat straight through in the day, not being in the right frequency to interact with. During night however, heat is being radiated at a frequency closer to that which CO2 reflects back. Without the CO2, loses to space would be very high, comparitively from our sensitive perspectives.
So, more CO2 has a good portion of its warming effect at night, in spite of the fact that at night much less energy would pass through the atmosphere.
What I think then happens is more important than CO2 - a feedback that drives a most unexpected effect. H20 in the atmosphere would normally cool at night as the atmosphere radiates out to space. This would condense moisture evaporated by the sun during the day (in a simple model without the movement of heated gases and seas) or lead it to descend.
But, when you add CO2, you reflect more heat radiating from the ground through the sky back through the atmosphere, keeping water moisture absorbed into the atmosphere, perhaps to the extent that it reduces precipitation of reduces cloud formation that allows precipitation later in the day.
The increased temperatures at night would lead to more water throughout the atmosphere, and drive it higher up in distribution, and this then traps more heat than CO2. But, it specifically warms itself up like a blanket, and this blanket seperates from the ground in an effect that acts a bit like a thermal shield. As the atmosphere captures more heat direct from the sun, it also must let less heat to the surface. The thicker the cloud cover and greater the water content in the sky, the more it traps heat from the sun, and re-irradiates it about. This loses a fraction of itself to space as it bounces around gas molecules, leading to more heat loss, especially higher up where less insulation is present.
This might lead to less direct driving of moisture from the sea by less day time heating because moisture already in the atmosphere may be shielding the surface in the day, reducing peak evaporation rates. (Or it may increase day time warmth on the ocean and increase the evaporation and lower level cloud cover, causing a shielding effect over land whilst ironically leading to reduced precipitation?)
At night, there is no solar energy to drive evaporation and the water cycle, it is dependent on transferred heat and residual heat, which is quickly lost. In this, evaporation of less temperature stable shallow seas and vegetation covered land mass, is where the principal evaporation occurs, and this is primarily during the day through direct exposure to the sun and its higher temperature rays. Increased CO2 and water moisture in the atmosphere may act to reduce direct evaporation during the day, by cooling the surface.
Lack of night time cooling by CO2 insulation may cause existing water content in air to remain there longer reducing precipitation and increasing a 'shield' rather than 'blanket' effect, with water heating itself and blocking precipitation along with an insulating action of CO2 (acting largely at night?). This also causes colder, dryer conditions generally.
This model is simple but ought to be basically right - it views simplistically the night as the condensing (emptying) phase of the atmosphere, and day as the moisture (generating) phase of a water cycling engine.
And if it does cause surface cooling and vegetative loss, in the boundaries between vegetation and tundra, we expect an increase in ice cover and thereby cooling, causing a vicious cycle that also seems to lock up CO2, accounting for long term stability and an absence of runaway CO2-heating feedback. I would expect that these effects only manifest over certain thresholds, and that perhaps this threshold has been reached, causing a negative feedback?
Someones bound to have proposed this anyway. Que the hottest summer on record no doubt, and we'll be back to the CO2-ground warming model!
Full Version: Global Warming - quick thought here
QUOTE (ATB @ Apr 10 2008, 03:19 PM) 
We was talking about this in another thread and somebody pointed out that actually there has apparently been cooling for the past ten years.
This is a bit of a fly in the ointment, and then someone else said, well, if global warming precedes rises in CO2, then doesn't that imply that CO2 has a cooling effect (because otherwise we would expect a greenhouse runaway and that has never happened, at least not on very long term scales).
This got me thinking. Given the current cooling period, and the cooling between the 40's and 70's, it doesn't currently look like there is actually much reason to think that over the past century there has been a robust warming trend. I recall that a mad Russian scientist on a documentary about 10 years ago I think, saying that his data sets showed that actually. the earth has warmed in a hundred year cycle peaking always at the end of each century, and that would incidentally fit the warming period from the 1970's. To compound this scientists are arguing hotly about the effect of sunspots, which they voraciously oppose can be influencing climate by 'cosmic rays' effecting clouds. But what if CO2 directly influenced rain the way that sunspot-warming theorists suppose is achieved by cosmic rays?
So I thought, lets presuppose that CO2 has a cooling effect - how?
Today I refined the model and it goes like this:
The warming effect of CO2 I think is primarily ocuring at night. This is because the CO2 probably lets a good percentage of the heat straight through in the day, not being in the right frequency to interact with. During night however, heat is being radiated at a frequency closer to that which CO2 reflects back. Without the CO2, loses to space would be very high, comparitively from our sensitive perspectives.
So, more CO2 has a good portion of its warming effect at night, in spite of the fact that at night much less energy would pass through the atmosphere.
What I think then happens is more important than CO2 - a feedback that drives a most unexpected effect. H20 in the atmosphere would normally cool at night as the atmosphere radiates out to space. This would condense moisture evaporated by the sun during the day (in a simple model without the movement of heated gases and seas) or lead it to descend.
But, when you add CO2, you reflect more heat radiating from the ground through the sky back through the atmosphere, keeping water moisture absorbed into the atmosphere, perhaps to the extent that it reduces precipitation of reduces cloud formation that allows precipitation later in the day.
The increased temperatures at night would lead to more water throughout the atmosphere, and drive it higher up in distribution, and this then traps more heat than CO2. But, it specifically warms itself up like a blanket, and this blanket seperates from the ground in an effect that acts a bit like a thermal shield. As the atmosphere captures more heat direct from the sun, it also must let less heat to the surface. The thicker the cloud cover and greater the water content in the sky, the more it traps heat from the sun, and re-irradiates it about. This loses a fraction of itself to space as it bounces around gas molecules, leading to more heat loss, especially higher up where less insulation is present.
This might lead to less direct driving of moisture from the sea by less day time heating because moisture already in the atmosphere may be shielding the surface in the day, reducing peak evaporation rates. (Or it may increase day time warmth on the ocean and increase the evaporation and lower level cloud cover, causing a shielding effect over land whilst ironically leading to reduced precipitation?)
At night, there is no solar energy to drive evaporation and the water cycle, it is dependent on transferred heat and residual heat, which is quickly lost. In this, evaporation of less temperature stable shallow seas and vegetation covered land mass, is where the principal evaporation occurs, and this is primarily during the day through direct exposure to the sun and its higher temperature rays. Increased CO2 and water moisture in the atmosphere may act to reduce direct evaporation during the day, by cooling the surface.
Lack of night time cooling by CO2 insulation may cause existing water content in air to remain there longer reducing precipitation and increasing a 'shield' rather than 'blanket' effect, with water heating itself and blocking precipitation along with an insulating action of CO2 (acting largely at night?). This also causes colder, dryer conditions generally.
This model is simple but ought to be basically right - it views simplistically the night as the condensing (emptying) phase of the atmosphere, and day as the moisture (generating) phase of a water cycling engine.
And if it does cause surface cooling and vegetative loss, in the boundaries between vegetation and tundra, we expect an increase in ice cover and thereby cooling, causing a vicious cycle that also seems to lock up CO2, accounting for long term stability and an absence of runaway CO2-heating feedback. I would expect that these effects only manifest over certain thresholds, and that perhaps this threshold has been reached, causing a negative feedback?
Someones bound to have proposed this anyway. Que the hottest summer on record no doubt, and we'll be back to the CO2-ground warming model!
This is a bit of a fly in the ointment, and then someone else said, well, if global warming precedes rises in CO2, then doesn't that imply that CO2 has a cooling effect (because otherwise we would expect a greenhouse runaway and that has never happened, at least not on very long term scales).
This got me thinking. Given the current cooling period, and the cooling between the 40's and 70's, it doesn't currently look like there is actually much reason to think that over the past century there has been a robust warming trend. I recall that a mad Russian scientist on a documentary about 10 years ago I think, saying that his data sets showed that actually. the earth has warmed in a hundred year cycle peaking always at the end of each century, and that would incidentally fit the warming period from the 1970's. To compound this scientists are arguing hotly about the effect of sunspots, which they voraciously oppose can be influencing climate by 'cosmic rays' effecting clouds. But what if CO2 directly influenced rain the way that sunspot-warming theorists suppose is achieved by cosmic rays?
So I thought, lets presuppose that CO2 has a cooling effect - how?
Today I refined the model and it goes like this:
The warming effect of CO2 I think is primarily ocuring at night. This is because the CO2 probably lets a good percentage of the heat straight through in the day, not being in the right frequency to interact with. During night however, heat is being radiated at a frequency closer to that which CO2 reflects back. Without the CO2, loses to space would be very high, comparitively from our sensitive perspectives.
So, more CO2 has a good portion of its warming effect at night, in spite of the fact that at night much less energy would pass through the atmosphere.
What I think then happens is more important than CO2 - a feedback that drives a most unexpected effect. H20 in the atmosphere would normally cool at night as the atmosphere radiates out to space. This would condense moisture evaporated by the sun during the day (in a simple model without the movement of heated gases and seas) or lead it to descend.
But, when you add CO2, you reflect more heat radiating from the ground through the sky back through the atmosphere, keeping water moisture absorbed into the atmosphere, perhaps to the extent that it reduces precipitation of reduces cloud formation that allows precipitation later in the day.
The increased temperatures at night would lead to more water throughout the atmosphere, and drive it higher up in distribution, and this then traps more heat than CO2. But, it specifically warms itself up like a blanket, and this blanket seperates from the ground in an effect that acts a bit like a thermal shield. As the atmosphere captures more heat direct from the sun, it also must let less heat to the surface. The thicker the cloud cover and greater the water content in the sky, the more it traps heat from the sun, and re-irradiates it about. This loses a fraction of itself to space as it bounces around gas molecules, leading to more heat loss, especially higher up where less insulation is present.
This might lead to less direct driving of moisture from the sea by less day time heating because moisture already in the atmosphere may be shielding the surface in the day, reducing peak evaporation rates. (Or it may increase day time warmth on the ocean and increase the evaporation and lower level cloud cover, causing a shielding effect over land whilst ironically leading to reduced precipitation?)
At night, there is no solar energy to drive evaporation and the water cycle, it is dependent on transferred heat and residual heat, which is quickly lost. In this, evaporation of less temperature stable shallow seas and vegetation covered land mass, is where the principal evaporation occurs, and this is primarily during the day through direct exposure to the sun and its higher temperature rays. Increased CO2 and water moisture in the atmosphere may act to reduce direct evaporation during the day, by cooling the surface.
Lack of night time cooling by CO2 insulation may cause existing water content in air to remain there longer reducing precipitation and increasing a 'shield' rather than 'blanket' effect, with water heating itself and blocking precipitation along with an insulating action of CO2 (acting largely at night?). This also causes colder, dryer conditions generally.
This model is simple but ought to be basically right - it views simplistically the night as the condensing (emptying) phase of the atmosphere, and day as the moisture (generating) phase of a water cycling engine.
And if it does cause surface cooling and vegetative loss, in the boundaries between vegetation and tundra, we expect an increase in ice cover and thereby cooling, causing a vicious cycle that also seems to lock up CO2, accounting for long term stability and an absence of runaway CO2-heating feedback. I would expect that these effects only manifest over certain thresholds, and that perhaps this threshold has been reached, causing a negative feedback?
Someones bound to have proposed this anyway. Que the hottest summer on record no doubt, and we'll be back to the CO2-ground warming model!
You might wish to contact S. Fred Singer and ask him what he thinks of your theory:
http://www.independent.org/aboutus/emailform.asp?id=496
Dr. S. Fred Singer is Research Fellow at the Independent Institute, Professor Emeritus of Environmental Sciences at the University of Virginia, a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and a Member of the International Academy of Astronautics. He received his Ph.D. in physics from Princeton University. Dr. Singer has served as Vice Chairman of the National Advisory Committee on Oceans and Atmospheres; Chief Scientist for the U. S. Department of Transportation; Deputy Assistant Administrator at the U. S. Environmental Protection Agency; Deputy Assistant Secretary at the U. S. Department of the Interior; Dean of the School of Environmental and Planetary Sciences, University of Miami; (First) Director of the U. S. Weather Satellite Center; Director of the Center for Atmospheric and Space Physics, University of Maryland; and Research Physicist, Upper Atmospheric Rocket Program, Johns Hopkins University. He has also been a visiting scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars; Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology; National Air and Space Museum; Lyndon Baines Johnson School for Public Affairs, University of Texas; and the Soviet Academy of Sciences Institute for Physics of the Earth. He is the recipient of the White House Special Commendation, Gold Medal Award from the U.S. Department of Commerce, (First) Science Award from the British Interplanetary Society, and Honorary Doctorate from Ohio State University.
Dr. Singer is the author or editor of fourteen books on climate science, energy, and environmental issues as well as the author of over 400 articles in scientific and public policy journals plus over 200 articles in popular publications, Dr. Singer has been featured in articles in Time, Life, and U. S. News & World Report, and he has been interviewed on Nightline, Today Show, News Hour, Nightwatch, and other national and international television programs.
I disagree with the presumption that we are in a cooling period. The whole basis for that is one isolated blip in the form of a colder than usual winter this year. Meanwhile, the glaciers are retreating at a rapid pace.
QUOTE (maxhealth @ Apr 10 2008, 05:31 PM)
I disagree with the presumption that we are in a cooling period. The whole basis for that is one isolated blip in the form of a colder than usual winter this year. Meanwhile, the glaciers are retreating at a rapid pace.
no, it isn't. just a couple of decades ago (or thereabouts), all the talk was about global cooling and the impending ice age. this global warming bullshit is very recent, but if you're relatively young, it seems like it's always been this way.
it's a scam, and it's purpose is to line the pockets of the elite rich like Al Gore.
Ignorance is Bliss!
Anybody want to review their laws of thermodynamics? I think one could "invent" a much simpler model that could explain CO2 relationship with global warming.
Anybody want to review their laws of thermodynamics? I think one could "invent" a much simpler model that could explain CO2 relationship with global warming.
ugh, i hated thermo. will say one thing though. water is one of the most important elements wrt to temperature buffering at the earth's surface. it's the reason (or the lack of it, actually) that desserts get so hot during the day, but freeze at night. water has a fairly high heat capacity to keep you warm overnight, then during the day you get the additional benefit of evaporation. water also absorbs low frequency red and infrared light, but absorbs little blue spectrum. so water has huge impacts on temperature, and there's lots of it.
water does other things, too, like serve as a buffer for CO2. interestingly enough, solubility decreases as temperature goes up. so that may be a source of atmospheric CO2 increase following global warming. not sure of the accuracy of these numbers, but it should be easy enough to confirm or deny if someone wants to google a little deeper.
http://www.wunderground.com/wximage/viewsi...=0&gallery=
water does other things, too, like serve as a buffer for CO2. interestingly enough, solubility decreases as temperature goes up. so that may be a source of atmospheric CO2 increase following global warming. not sure of the accuracy of these numbers, but it should be easy enough to confirm or deny if someone wants to google a little deeper.
http://www.wunderground.com/wximage/viewsi...=0&gallery=
"just a couple of decades ago (or thereabouts), all the talk was about global cooling and the impending ice age."
I don't recall any such talk. Are you sure about that?
"it's a scam, and it's purpose is to line the pockets of the elite rich like Al Gore."
Then why are the glaciers melting? Why is the sea rising? Why don't scientists agree with you? Gore is already rich, he doesn't need the money from talking about GW. Being an ex-vicepresident, he makes speaking fees anyway. He could talk about anything. You make it sound like he made the whole thing up so he could have a meal ticket.
I don't recall any such talk. Are you sure about that?
"it's a scam, and it's purpose is to line the pockets of the elite rich like Al Gore."
Then why are the glaciers melting? Why is the sea rising? Why don't scientists agree with you? Gore is already rich, he doesn't need the money from talking about GW. Being an ex-vicepresident, he makes speaking fees anyway. He could talk about anything. You make it sound like he made the whole thing up so he could have a meal ticket.
QUOTE (maxhealth @ Apr 11 2008, 09:55 AM)
"just a couple of decades ago (or thereabouts), all the talk was about global cooling and the impending ice age."
I don't recall any such talk. Are you sure about that?
"it's a scam, and it's purpose is to line the pockets of the elite rich like Al Gore."
Then why are the glaciers melting? Why is the sea rising? Why don't scientists agree with you? Gore is already rich, he doesn't need the money from talking about GW. Being an ex-vicepresident, he makes speaking fees anyway. He could talk about anything. You make it sound like he made the whole thing up so he could have a meal ticket.
I don't recall any such talk. Are you sure about that?
"it's a scam, and it's purpose is to line the pockets of the elite rich like Al Gore."
Then why are the glaciers melting? Why is the sea rising? Why don't scientists agree with you? Gore is already rich, he doesn't need the money from talking about GW. Being an ex-vicepresident, he makes speaking fees anyway. He could talk about anything. You make it sound like he made the whole thing up so he could have a meal ticket.
does google elude you?
http://www.denisdutton.com/cooling_world.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_coolin...entieth_Century
glaciers take a very long time to form, and a very long time to melt. they've been melting for a while now. some scientists agree and some disagree. Al Gore is not a scientist. Al Gore has no qualifications at all. what are his math and science training? what degrees does he hold? what coursework did he take in college? what makes him more qualified than any other celebrity?
"they've been melting for a while now"
In this "global cooling period"? If they are melting while we are supposedly cooling off, according to you, then I'd hate to see how they do when we heat up. They haven't just been melting the last 10 years, they've been melting every year more and more
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/20...reglaciers.html
Glaciers Melting Worldwide, Study Finds
Robert S. Boyd
Contra Costa Times
August 21, 2002
New surveys from satellites and aircraft document an alarming acceleration in the melting of glaciers around the world.
The swift retreat of these great ice streams is helping to raise ocean levels and is threatening significant changes in human, animal, and plant life—some good, but mostly bad.
Like a canary in a coal mine, the dwindling of the glaciers is visible evidence that the earth really is getting hotter.
"Receding and wasting glaciers are a chief telltale sign that global climate change is real and accelerating," said Jeffrey Kargel, a glacier expert with the U.S. Geological Survey in Flagstaff, Arizona.
In this "global cooling period"? If they are melting while we are supposedly cooling off, according to you, then I'd hate to see how they do when we heat up. They haven't just been melting the last 10 years, they've been melting every year more and more
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/20...reglaciers.html
Glaciers Melting Worldwide, Study Finds
Robert S. Boyd
Contra Costa Times
August 21, 2002
New surveys from satellites and aircraft document an alarming acceleration in the melting of glaciers around the world.
The swift retreat of these great ice streams is helping to raise ocean levels and is threatening significant changes in human, animal, and plant life—some good, but mostly bad.
Like a canary in a coal mine, the dwindling of the glaciers is visible evidence that the earth really is getting hotter.
"Receding and wasting glaciers are a chief telltale sign that global climate change is real and accelerating," said Jeffrey Kargel, a glacier expert with the U.S. Geological Survey in Flagstaff, Arizona.
glaciers have been receding since the last ice age.
remember, most of that time period was in a mini cooling cycle as compared to 2002, so it's not unusual to see faster melting.
there's a much bigger point here. and that is that what is happening right now is not indicative of where we are going, or where we have been. it is no more than right now. riding the zeitgeist does not make one a leader, only an opportunist.
QUOTE
That's more than twice the annual rate observed from the 1950s to the mid-1990s.
remember, most of that time period was in a mini cooling cycle as compared to 2002, so it's not unusual to see faster melting.
there's a much bigger point here. and that is that what is happening right now is not indicative of where we are going, or where we have been. it is no more than right now. riding the zeitgeist does not make one a leader, only an opportunist.
QUOTE (lordshockspeare @ Apr 10 2008, 09:38 PM)
Ignorance is Bliss!
Anybody want to review their laws of thermodynamics? I think one could "invent" a much simpler model that could explain CO2 relationship with global warming.
Anybody want to review their laws of thermodynamics? I think one could "invent" a much simpler model that could explain CO2 relationship with global warming.
I'm not quite sure you understand what was being suggested:
If CO2 acts by blooking certain infra red frequencies and reflecting them back, my point is that at night, and towards the ground, the action would shield against heat loss from clouds. The clouds thereby must condense less rain.
The action is highests nearest to the ground, because heat bounced around is obviously lost from the edges. The heat has furthest to escape from nearest to the ground.
This is I think safe to say where those clouds tend to condense out to rain. This requires heat loss. A heat gradient is needed - which CO2 reduces.
The result ought to be, I think, that there would be more low level cloud cover in the morning, and so as the sun acts on the system, is bounces off the clouds - hence a cooling effect measured at the surface. This might explain the southern sea ice increases?
But then a cooling should also be self limiting as less evaporation should occur during the day.
More thing I am sure of - its a very complicated system.
How confident are we of cooling over the last ten years anyway?
This thread really covers these important topics and fleshes themn about a bit too. They finally start to touch on what I was saying here towards the end:
http://atmoz.org/blog/2007/07/10/falsifica...nhouse-effects/
In effect, one can argue that increasinf atmospheric activity (by heat transfering to it) must increase loses from it. This is not automatically to say that the surface warms or cools, but it does tell us that CO2 would have direct effects on the atmospheres heat loss potential.
http://atmoz.org/blog/2007/07/10/falsifica...nhouse-effects/
In effect, one can argue that increasinf atmospheric activity (by heat transfering to it) must increase loses from it. This is not automatically to say that the surface warms or cools, but it does tell us that CO2 would have direct effects on the atmospheres heat loss potential.
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