Carbon warming too minor to be worth worrying about
By David Evans (excerpts from a special to the Financial Post)
The debate about global warming has reached ridiculous proportions and is full of micro-thin half-truths and misunderstandings. I am a scientist who was on the carbon gravy train, understands the evidence, was once an alarmist, but am now a skeptic. Watching this issue unfold has been amusing but, lately, worrying. This issue is tearing society apart, making fools out of our politicians.
Let’s set a few things straight.
The whole idea that carbon dioxide is the main cause of the recent global warming is based on a guess that was proved false by empirical evidence during the 1990s. But the gravy train was too big, with too many jobs, industries, trading profits, political careers, and the possibility of world government and total control riding on the outcome. So rather than admit they were wrong, the governments, and their tame climate scientists, now outrageously maintain the fiction that carbon dioxide is a dangerous pollutant.
Let’s be perfectly clear. Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas, and other things being equal, the more carbon dioxide in the air, the warmer the planet. Every bit of carbon dioxide that we emit warms the planet. But the issue is not whether carbon dioxide warms the planet, but how much.
Most scientists, on both sides, also agree on how much a given increase in the level of carbon dioxide raises the planet’s temperature, if just the extra carbon dioxide is considered. These calculations come from laboratory experiments; the basic physics have been well known for a century.
The disagreement comes about what happens next.
The planet reacts to that extra carbon dioxide, which changes everything. Most critically, the extra warmth causes more water to evaporate from the oceans. But does the water hang around and increase the height of moist air in the atmosphere, or does it simply create more clouds and rain? Back in 1980, when the carbon dioxide theory started, no one knew. The alarmists guessed that it would increase the height of moist air around the planet, which would warm the planet even further, because the moist air is also a greenhouse gas.
This is the core idea of every official climate model: For each bit of warming due to carbon dioxide, they claim it ends up causing three bits of warming due to the extra moist air. The climate models amplify the carbon dioxide warming by a factor of three — so two-thirds of their projected warming is due to extra moist air (and other factors); only one-third is due to extra carbon dioxide.
That’s the core of the issue. All the disagreements and misunderstandings spring from this. The alarmist case is based on this guess about moisture in the atmosphere, and there is simply no evidence for the amplification that is at the core of their alarmism.
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I am easily convinced that if you added molecules to the atmosphere, you would increase it. If you doubled the total # of molecules in the atmosphere, would you double the heat retained?
I am also easily convinced that in order to anthropogenically double the atmosphere of Earth, you would need to install something like a giant vacuum hose and siphon off another planets atmosphere.
Simply turning O2 into CO2 doesn’t fit the bill. Burning fossil fuels also does not conjure up a reasonable way to double the Earths atmosphere. Since 75% of our atmosphere is N2, there isn’t enough O2 around, for starters.
Nice to hear the truth but don’t expect the BBC and other MSM to admit anything anytime soon.
Great article that spells out the facts. This one quote alone is worth a 1000 words.
Take note all who have signed onto the IPPC theory/myth!
“climate science” stopped being a science. In science, empirical evidence always trumps theory, no matter how much you are in love with the theory. If theory and evidence disagree, real scientists scrap the theory.
Not a truer word has been spoken
Thank you Professor David Evans.
Did you forget to include some science in your rant. Or you still smarting from being BESTed?
REPLY: Did you forget to read the name of the author before you shot your mouth off? – Anthony
Technically, CO2 impedes the cooling of the planet. Trivial in the everyday conversation, but a more accurate fact.
Great article. Does anyone know of any skeptic that has considered the evidence and changed sides to pro-AGW and the alarmist camp?
“carbon dioxide is the main cause of the recent global warming ”
Alice Springs , Australia
23.8 S 133.9 E 501943260004 18,000 1880 – 2011
D-J-F M-A-M J-J-A S-O-N metANN
2010 27.9 20.1 11.9 19.1 19.75
Only 1904 19.39
1908 19.23
1921 19.58
1949 19.56
1975 19.73
1976 18.37
2001 19.74
were colder years. So where do we see Global Warming?
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/gistemp/gistemp_station.py?id=501943260004&data_set=1&num_neighbors=1
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/work/gistemp/STATIONS//tmp.501943260004.1.1/station.txt
Not in Alice Springs
Hope this guy has an unlisted number.
IPCC’s Prof. Richard Lindzen says no environmental benefit for carbon tax 6/April/11
David, I know you know as much about what I’m going to say as anyone….
They keep trying to explain CO2 with physics, etc…the easy way.
CO2 is required for life on this planet, and they will never be able to explain it until it’s explained biochemically.
But biochemistry is hard, much more difficult than simple formulas………..
I read the full article and I think it’s an excellent summary of where we are in climate science, and how we got here. It mentions the corruption of data from most thermometers and gives an unnamed hat tip to surfacestations.org. I heartily recommend everyone send a link to anyone in need of a global warming science summary.
Beautiful!
I doubt that the climate change is issue is “making fools out of politicians”. What it is doing is revealing that they are in fact fools. This may be the only upside to this whole stupidity.
Don’t worry about David Evans and unlisted numbers, Pat. He’s married to Jo Nova. I’m sure they’ve got all that covered.
“Most scientists, on both sides, also agree on how much a given increase in the level of carbon dioxide raises the planet’s temperature, if just the extra carbon dioxide is considered.”
More Co2, more green , less heat.
I noted his speech at Joanne Nova’s site last week. It pretty much says all that needs to be said about this scam.
Who is Dr. David Evans?
Dr. David Evans is a former Warmist who had gone cold. R. Gates, where are you?
“And to curb emissions on a world scale might even lead to world government — how exciting for the political class!”
ohoh! tin hats for everyone.
I’m gonna have to give this article two thumbs up!
David Evans,
Welcome
Excellent article.
jcrabb says:
“ohoh! tin hats for everyone.”
Crabb, you are truly a fool if you don’t believe the corrupt, totalitarian UN fully intends to be the world’s government. They have said as much.
But I don’t believe you’re a fool, so WUWT comment?
Mike Borgelt says:
April 10, 2011 at 3:26 pm
I doubt that the climate change is issue is “making fools out of politicians”. What it is doing is revealing that they are in fact fools.
____________________________________________________________
Politicians may be cowards, but they are certainly not fools……
…One of the major reasons that alarmists have so much political influence is by playing the “Do you want to go down in history as the people who stood by and did nothing to avert impending global disaster, despite being warned by scientists of the possible dire consequences of doing nothing” card.
It is a very powerful weapon ; the very thought of this is probably enough to have any politician waking up in a cold sweat in the middle of the night.
If, on the other hand, the science turns out to be wrong, who is going to be slaughtered in the history books? The politicians who trashed previously prosperous economies on the basis of bad scientific advice, or the scientists who gave them that advice.
My money is firmly on the scientists.
On that basis, perhaps the politicians are not as foolish as you think………
“Every long-lived natural system behaves this way, counteracting any disturbance. Otherwise the system would be unstable.”
Everyone who understands even basic linear control theory knows this to be true. This simple observation is what led me to question the orthodoxy many years ago. The first time I realized that our impending doom relied on positive feedbacks I realized just how empty this theory might be. I believe Lindzen called it “intuitively implausible”.
rbateman says:
April 10, 2011 at 2:09 pm
“I am easily convinced that if you added molecules to the atmosphere, you would increase it. If you doubled the total # of molecules in the atmosphere, would you double the heat retained?”
Yes, in the same manner the filling a bucket of water twice as high will increase its heat capacity as well. Left out in the sun it will be able to hold twice as much solar energy. The hitch is that won’t translate into a higher temperature because the doubled heat retention capacity is distributed over a doubled volume of water. It’s a wash.
Heat capacity of the atmosphere has little to no influence. The first 10 meters of the ocean surface has the same mass and twice the heat capacity of the atmosphere. Adding insult to injury the ocean absorbs essentially all incoming radiation from the sun whereas the atmosphere absorbs very little sunlight and only a fraction of the radiation moving from earth to space.
In the big picture the sun heats the ocean and the ocean heats the atmosphere. Always keep that in mind. The next thing to keep in mind is that the only important difference between CO2 and nitrogen is that CO2 is an insulator and nitrogen is not. CO2 and nitrogen are both transparent to most of the solar spectrum (centered around visible light). Nitrogen is transparent to most of the earth’s spectrum (centered in the far infrared). CO2 is translucent in the far infrared. This effectively makes it an insulator. In response to the insulation the surface temperature rises higher than it would be otherwise until the larger delta between surface temperature and cosmic microwave background (3K) serves to transport energy faster through the insulation so that once again a balance is restored where energy in from the sun equals energy out to space.
This is really how it works and anyone who knows beans about the thermodynamic properties of water and atmospheric gases knows it works in exactly this way. This has been known for 150 years which is somewhat longer than the OP claim of 100 years but the point remains. This is old knowledge that predates quantum mechanics. It’s classic stuff and is beyond refute to anyone who knows just a bit of the physics that 19th physicists knew. It ain’t rocket science.
rbateman says:
April 10, 2011 at 2:09 pm
there isn’t enough O2 around, for starters.
There is, in the oceans, for example, and half of the Earth’s crust is oxygen. But O2 is a dangerous pollutant. If the concentration increases above some 30% many things will burn too readily. They stopped using pure oxygen in the space program after the disastrous Apollo 1 accident where three astronauts burned to death. Even the later Apollo flights had too much oxygen, so they had to be very careful with not causing sparks. In nature, there are enough natural sparks [lightening] that more than 30% O2 becomes a problem.
This is also a good opportunity to clarify the difference between quantum and classical mechanics. Classical mechanics, also called statistical mechanics, deals with the properties of matter in bulk. Quantum mechanics deals with the properties of matter in individual molecules or smaller. An axiom of quantum mechanics is that it must faithfully reproduce the behavior of matter in bulk i.e. it must be in agreement with classical mechanics. Quantum mechanics extends classical mechanics. It does not change classical mechanics.
There is absolutely no need to discuss the atmosphere in individual molecules except perhaps at the far fringes where the density approximates a vacuum. Other than that isolated circumstance classical mechanics, which is much easier to understand, is totally sufficient in explanatory power. Quantum mechanics in atmospheric physics is very well in the first place and try to bluff their way into making the reader think it somehow trumps classical mechanics and so the simpler classical explanation of atmospheric physics is then pronounced wrong. That is nothing more than ignorant hand waving. Quantum mechanics never trumps classical mechanics. If a quantum explanation disagrees with the classical explanation the quantum explanation is wrong.
Bravo to Mr Evans for this excellent summary of what’s wrong with CAGW. Bravo to the National Post (Go Canada!) for running it. And bravo Anthony for the post!