The dubious science of the climate crusaders.
by William Happer (from First Things)
William Happer is the Cyrus Fogg Brackett Professor of Physics at Princeton University.
The object of the Author in the following pages has been to collect the most remarkable instances of those moral epidemics which have been excited, sometimes by one cause and sometimes by another, and to show how easily the masses have been led astray, and how imitative and gregarious men are, even in their infatuations and crimes,” wrote Charles Mackay in the preface to the first edition of his Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds. I want to discuss a contemporary moral epidemic: the notion that increasing atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases, notably carbon dioxide, will have disastrous consequences for mankind and for the planet. The “climate crusade” is one characterized by true believers, opportunists, cynics, money-hungry governments, manipulators of various types—even children’s crusades—all based on contested science and dubious claims.
I am a strong supporter of a clean environment. We need to be vigilant to keep our land, air, and waters free of real pollution, particulates, heavy metals, and pathogens, but carbon dioxide (CO2 ) is not one of these pollutants. Carbon is the stuff of life. Our bodies are made of carbon. A normal human exhales around 1 kg of CO2 (the simplest chemically stable molecule of carbon in the earth’s atmosphere) per day. Before the industrial period, the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere was 270 ppm. At the present time, the concentration is about 390 ppm, 0.039 percent of all atmospheric molecules and less than 1 percent of that in our breath. About fifty million years ago, a brief moment in the long history of life on earth, geological evidence indicates, CO2 levels were several thousand ppm, much higher than now. And life flourished abundantly.
Now the Environmental Protection Agency wants to regulate atmospheric CO2 as a “pollutant.” According to my Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary, to pollute is “to make or render unclean, to defile, to desecrate, to profane.” By breathing are we rendering the air unclean, defiling or desecrating it? Efforts are underway to remedy the old-fashioned, restrictive definition of pollution. The current Wikipedia entry on air pollution, for example, now asserts that pollution includes: “carbon dioxide (CO2)—a colorless, odorless, non-toxic greenhouse gas associated with ocean acidification, emitted from sources such as combustion, cement production, and respiration.”
As far as green plants are concerned, CO2 is not a pollutant, but part of their daily bread—like water, sunlight, nitrogen, and other essential elements. Most green plants evolved at CO2 levels of several thousand ppm, many times higher than now. Plants grow better and have better flowers and fruit at higher levels. Commercial greenhouse operators recognize this when they artificially increase the concentrations inside their greenhouses to over 1000 ppm.
Wallis Simpson, the woman for whom King Edward VIII renounced the British throne, supposedly said, “A woman can’t be too rich or too thin.” But in reality, you can get too much or too little of a good thing. Whether we should be glad or worried about increasing levels of CO2 depends on quantitative numbers, not just qualitative considerations.
How close is the current atmosphere to the upper or lower limit for CO2? Did we have just the right concentration at the preindustrial level of 270 ppm? Reading breathless media reports about CO2 “pollution” and about minimizing our carbon footprints, one might think that the earth cannot have too little CO2, as Simpson thought one couldn’t be too thin—a view which was also overstated, as we have seen from the sad effects of anorexia in so many young women. Various geo-engineering schemes are being discussed for scrubbing CO2 from the air and cleansing the atmosphere of the “pollutant.” There is no lower limit for human beings, but there is for human life. We would be perfectly healthy in a world with little or no atmospheric CO2—except that we would have nothing to eat and a few other minor inconveniences, because most plants stop growing if the levels drop much below 150 ppm. If we want to continue to be fed and clothed by the products of green plants, we can have too little CO2.
The minimum acceptable value for plants is not that much below the 270 ppm preindustrial value. It is possible that this is not enough, that we are better off with our current level, and would be better off with more still. There is evidence that California orange groves are about 30 percent more productive today than they were 150 years ago because of the increase of atmospheric CO2.
Although human beings and many other animals would do well with no CO2 at all in the air, there is an upper limit that we can tolerate. Inhaling air with a concentration of a few percent, similar to the concentration of the air we exhale, hinders the diffusional exchange of CO2 between the blood and gas in the lung. Both the United States Navy (for submariners) and nasa (for astronauts) have performed extensive studies of human tolerance to CO2. As a result of these studies, the Navy recommends an upper limit of about 8000 ppm for cruises of ninety days, and nasa recommends an upper limit of 5000 ppm for missions of one thousand days, both assuming a total pressure of one atmosphere. Higher levels are acceptable for missions of only a few days.
We conclude that atmospheric CO2 levels should be above 150 ppm to avoid harming green plants and below about 5000 ppm to avoid harming people. That is a very wide range, and our atmosphere is much closer to the lower end than to the upper end. The current rate of burning fossil fuels adds about 2 ppm per year to the atmosphere, so that getting from the current level to 1000 ppm would take about 300 years—and 1000 ppm is still less than what most plants would prefer, and much less than either the nasa or the Navy limit for human beings.
Yet there are strident calls for immediately stopping further increases in CO2 levels and reducing the current level. As we have discussed, animals would not even notice a doubling of CO2 and plants would love it. The supposed reason for limiting it is to stop global warming—or, since the predicted warming has failed to be nearly as large as computer models forecast, to stop climate change. Climate change itself has been embarrassingly uneventful, so another rationale for reducing CO2 is now promoted: to stop the hypothetical increase of extreme climate events like hurricanes or tornados. But this does not necessarily follow. The frequency of extreme events has either not changed or has decreased in the 150 years that CO2 levels have increased from 270 to 390 ppm.
Let me turn to some of the problems the non-pollutant CO2 is supposed to cause. More CO2 is supposed to cause flooded cities, parched agriculture, tropical diseases in Alaska, etc., and even an epidemic of kidney stones. It does indeed cause some warming of our planet, and we should thank Providence for that, because without the greenhouse warming of CO2 and its more potent partners, water vapor and clouds, the earth would be too cold to sustain its current abundance of life.
Other things being equal, more CO2 will cause more warming. The question is how much warming, and whether the increased CO2 and the warming it causes will be good or bad for the planet.
The argument starts something like this. CO2 levels have increased from about 280 ppm to 390 ppm over the past 150 years or so, and the earth has warmed by about 0.8 degree Celsius during that time. Therefore the warming is due to CO2. But correlation is not causation. Roosters crow every morning at sunrise, but that does not mean the rooster caused the sun to rise. The sun will still rise on Monday if you decide to have the rooster for Sunday dinner.
There have been many warmings and coolings in the past when the CO2 levels did not change. A well-known example is the medieval warming, about the year 1000, when the Vikings settled Greenland (when it was green) and wine was exported from England. This warm period was followed by the “little ice age” when the Thames would frequently freeze over during the winter. There is no evidence for significant increase of CO2 in the medieval warm period, nor for a significant decrease at the time of the subsequent little ice age. Documented famines with millions of deaths occurred during the little ice age because the cold weather killed the crops. Since the end of the little ice age, the earth has been warming in fits and starts, and humanity’s quality of life has improved accordingly.
A rare case of good correlation between CO2 levels and temperature is provided by ice-core records of the cycles of glacial and interglacial periods of the last million years of so. But these records show that changes in temperature preceded changes in CO2 levels, so that the levels were an effect of temperature changes. This was probably due to outgassing of CO2 from the warming oceans and the reverse effect when they cooled.
The most recent continental ice sheets began to melt some twenty thousand years ago. During the “Younger Dryas” some 12,000 years ago, the earth very dramatically cooled and warmed by as much as 10 degrees Celsius in fifty years.
The earth’s climate has always been changing. Our present global warming is not at all unusual by the standards of geological history, and it is probably benefiting the biosphere. Indeed, there is very little correlation between the estimates of CO2 and of the earth’s temperature over the past 550 million years (the “Phanerozoic” period). The message is clear that several factors must influence the earth’s temperature, and that while CO2 is one of these factors, it is seldom the dominant one. The other factors are not well understood. Plausible candidates are spontaneous variations of the complicated fluid flow patterns in the oceans and atmosphere of the earth—perhaps influenced by continental drift, volcanoes, variations of the earth’s orbital parameters (ellipticity, spin-axis orientation, etc.), asteroid and comet impacts, variations in the sun’s output (not only the visible radiation but the amount of ultraviolet light, and the solar wind with its magnetic field), variations in cosmic rays leading to variations in cloud cover, and other causes.
The existence of the little ice age and the medieval warm period were an embarrassment to the global-warming establishment, because they showed that the current warming is almost indistinguishable from previous warmings and coolings that had nothing to do with burning fossil fuel. The organization charged with producing scientific support for the climate change crusade, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), finally found a solution. They rewrote the climate history of the past 1000 years with the celebrated “hockey stick” temperature record.
The first IPCC report, issued in 1990, showed both the medieval warm period and the little ice age very clearly. In the IPCC’s 2001 report was a graph that purported to show the earth’s mean temperature since the year 1000. A yet more extreme version of the hockey stick graph made the cover of the Fiftieth Anniversary Report of the United Nation’s World Meteorological Organization. To the surprise of everyone who knew about the strong evidence for the little ice age and the medieval climate optimum, the graph showed a nearly constant temperature from the year 1000 until about 150 years ago, when the temperature began to rise abruptly like the blade of a hockey stick. The inference was that this was due to the anthropogenic “pollutant” CO2.
This damnatia memoriae of inconvenient facts was simply expunged from the 2001 IPCC report, much as Trotsky and Yezhov were removed from Stalin’s photographs by dark-room specialists in the later years of the dictator’s reign. There was no explanation of why both the medieval warm period and the little ice age, very clearly shown in the 1990 report, had simply disappeared eleven years later.
The rest of the article is here
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Just saw DCC’s comment.
So there’s no confusion – blood levels, lung levels, either synonymous or directly related given the half tennis court surface area for gas transfer between the bloodstream and the lung.
So, I went to Google and typed “ocean acidification corrosive”.
The first thing that popped up, at least for me, was “scholarly articles”, with three papers listed. The second of these papers is by Scott Doney and colleagues, and is entitled “Ocean Acidification: the other CO2 problem.” This is fortunate because their paper is a very thorough and very balanced review on the subject. It is also fairly approachable and I think “open access” (i.e., anyone can download it). I encourage people to read their paper if they really want to understand the phenomenon of ocean acidification, including current open issues.
Following this are links to press articles, blogs, etc., but I found nothing in the first 15 or so links that would give an impression that the oceans will be pH 2, 3, 4, 5, as opposed to being slightly alkaline. Thankfully, there is nothing blatantly incorrect regarding the chemistry. Maybe we have different filters on Google?
Most of the press releases refer to the possible effects of lower ocean pH on the growth and development of calcifying organisms. This is, in my opinion, an interesting field of research because:
– we know that many organisms make their “skeletons” out of calcite and aragonite;
– we know the solubilities of calcite and especially aragonite are highly dependent on pH (yes, even between pH of 8.1 and 7.5);
– we do not know how the growth and development of calcifying organisms in nature will be impacted by a drop in pH of X, 2X, 3X, etc. (The Doney et al. paper discusses this all three of these concepts in some detail).
I will admit that some of the press releases have somewhat loaded terminology (e.g. one begins with “imminent danger”, another by abc news begins with “threatens ecosystems” and “a monster of a problem”). This is an unfortunate sign of the times where spin is ubiquitous. It should be emphasized, though, that it is often not the scientists who lay the spin.
In any case, I do not see the endeavor of understanding ocean acidification and its effects a fraudulent waste of resources, as long as it remains an interesting and potentially important scientific pursuit. Basically, “what happens to the chemistry and biology of the ocean when massive amounts of CO2 enter the atmosphere?” An answer of “nothing” makes no sense and is demonstrably incorrect on theoretical, experimental and observational grounds; many other, more specific and more quantified answers span the unknown circa 2011.
DCC says: (May 22, 2011 at 7:10 pm) [to me]
You need to read more carefully. The statement was that there is no lower limit of CO2 in the atmosphere. The CO2 that is necessary for human life is in the lungs, NOT in the atmosphere.
philincalifornia says: (May 22, 2011 at 7:27 pm) [to me]
Katherine and Myrrh mean well, but they’re confusing atmospheric levels of CO2 and physiological levels of CO2 in the blood (primarily).
My confusion is only compounded by the above attemps to educate me.
If there is no CO2 in the atmosphere, where do we get our supply for the blood?
DCC says:
“The statement was that there is no lower limit of CO2 in the atmosphere. The CO2 that is necessary for human life is in the lungs, NOT in the atmosphere.”
____
Contrary to some skeptics belief, there actually is a very good reason and necessity for CO2 in the atmosphere that has nothing to do with the fact that plants need it. Unlike water vapor, CO2 is a non-condensing GH has, such that, when the planet goes through the natural Milankovitch induced long-term ice ages and water vapor is reduced in the atmosphere (yes, colder means a more dry atmosphere), CO2 stays in the atmosphere, and in fact, will even increase in ppm during these colder periods. As such, CO2 can act the main thermostat, increasing when it gets too cold and decreasing when it gets too warm. What is the mechanism for such a negative-feedback process than any good thermostat should have? It’s call the the rock-carbon cycle and the related hydrological cycle. During warm periods, CO2 is initially higher, and then hydrological cycle speeds up, leading to greater rock weathering which reduces the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere, which then brings the temps back down. When it gets too cold, the hydrological cycle slows down, allowing more CO2 to stay in the atmosphere and keeping temperatures from getting too cold. A perfect negative-feedback thermostat, allowing earth to maintain a range in which life can go on.
The “climate crusade” is one characterized by true believers, opportunists, cynics, money-hungry governments, manipulators of various types—even children’s crusades—all based on contested science and dubious claims.
Hmm. Could there possibly be any distortion or exaggeration in the quote above?
For the development of agriculture and the problems civilizations run into when it fails try Jared Diamond “Collapse” (also “Guns, Germs and Steel”). For the possible effects of progressively higher global temperatures try Mark Lynas “Six Degrees”. The idea that 7 billion people on today’s agricultural base would flourish at 1000ppm CO2 is laughable.
Buzz Belleville says:
May 22, 2011 at 4:40 am
Of course, the definition of “pollutant” that EPA is required (REQUIRED!) to apply is written in the Clean Air Act, not in Webster’s or Wikipedia. That definition includes “any physical, chemical, biological or radioactive substance or matter that is emitted into the ambient air.” CO2 is undeniably a ‘pollutant’ under that Congressionally-prescribed definition.
No wonder I am infuriated with people who deliberately distort the meaning of words in the English language.
——————————————————————————-
So now pollutant can mean even the breath that we exhale is a pollutant according to this definition. And what, may I ask, is their definition of the ‘ambient air’ And also their definition of the location of that same ‘ambient air’.
It seems to me that this is yet another trough designed for the legal profession’s snouts.
Douglas
R. Gates says:
May 22, 2011 at 9:28 pm
Contrary to some skeptics belief, there actually is a very good reason and necessity for CO2 in the atmosphere that has nothing to do with the fact that plants need it.
=======================
Besides the silly “contrary to skeptics belief” proviso, the rest of his post could be summed up in one word:
DUH. Nothing new under the sun here. But plenty of spin still “skeptics belief.”
Would you rather be called a “believer” I take it?
Have you accepted Global Warming as your personal lord and saviour?
I thought so.
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
@roger Carr who said:
Ordinary metabolism (conversion of food to energy by “burning oxygen”) builds up CO2 in your muscles where it passes into your blood stream. The CO2 in your blood is removed by your lungs and is replaced by the oxygen that you inhale. You then exhale the CO2. In other words, your body creates the CO2 that is in your lungs.
See also the first paragraph at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lung
It is the CO2 level in your blood stream that tells your body to breath faster or slower. If it’s low, it says no need to breath fast. Example: if you were to hyperventilate breathing helium, the blood’s CO2 level would drop rapidly and so would your respiration rate, despite the fact that your are in desperate need of oxygen. You would pass out and, hopefully, start breathing oxygen again.
Do not try this experiment at home.
R. Gates cites this juicy little quote:
“All substances are poisons; there is none which is not a poison. The right dose differentiates a poison….” Paracelsus (1493-1541)
Of course, old darling, the debate we are having here, and the whole point of the Happer article is exactly, what is the “right dose?” You seem to boldly conclude (without much quality authority, I would contend) that we are at the “right dose” now. And of course, there is nothing actually happening to justify that conclusion, which you constantly seem to ignore.
richard telford says:
May 21, 2011 at 2:12 pm
Engchamp says:
May 21, 2011 at 12:33 pm
Since when was a pH>7 acidic? The variation of ocean alkalinity does vary, but it has never been acidic.
——————-
I presume you are one of those people who will never become old, just less young; and never fat, just less thin; and never poor, but less rich. And you don’t put beer in the fridge to make it cooler, but less warm; and only turn the light on to make it less dark, never brighter. You use the brakes on your car to go less fast rather than to slow down; turn the volume on your ipod up to make it less quiet, never louder. The ice in your soda never melts but becomes less frozen; your windows need undirtying rather than cleaning; and you never use a dictionary to find out what acidification means. So let me save you the effort: acidification means a decline in pH. That’s all. But if you want to call it dealkalinification, be my guest.
——————————
Richard, if I am 5 feet, 10 inches, and originally weigh 165 (a normal body weight for that height), but I gain 5 pounds to weigh 170, does that make me fat? That is the problem with your characterization and use of the word “acidification.” Miniscule changes in the pH of the ocean that do make it less alkaline, would that really be “acidified?” Especially when we know scientifically at what pH a true acid occurs? The popular imagination, which the warmist scientists are attempting to capture, aren’t using the word in the technical sense. They are overdramatizing the situation to score political points on the subject of CO2 and climate change.
I would suggest you discontinue your disingenous habits of mind.
@Ammonite who said:
Jared Diamond? Please! The man is an idiot full of nonsensical theories. If he gets a few right, it’s a complete accident.
I’ve not read anything by Lynas, but I am not encouraged by his bio in Wikipedia. An historian who is “an environmental activist focusing on climate change.” No thanks. We have enough ignorance from real climate scientists.
I suggest that you read with a more questioning attitude.
RE: R. Gates: (May 22, 2011 at 9:28 pm)
“Unlike water vapor, CO2 is a non-condensing GH has, such that, when the planet goes through the natural Milankovitch induced long-term ice ages and water vapor is reduced in the atmosphere (yes, colder means a more dry atmosphere) …”
This is a rather interesting comment. I think if we exclude the “Iceball Earth” condition, then we must assume that there would still be appreciable water vapor in the atmosphere during these periods. There would still be clouds (probably fewer) reflecting sunlight from the surface over non-frozen regions of the surface. I would expect that the level of the tropopause would be lower only in proportion to the general temperature reduction. I would also expect that active precipitation would still be a factor in determining the overall heat budget of the planet.
It is my understanding that soundings of the atmosphere indicate that the daily ground the temperature variations disappear at a relatively low altitude. This should be the altitude where most of the radiant energy from the surface subject to absorption has been absorbed by the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. At those low levels, I believe water vapor is still the most important greenhouse gas.
As water dearly wants to be solid or liquid at atmospheric temperatures, I expect that the processes of active micro-scale condensation and evaporation (by interaction with the most energetic molecules in the atmosphere) may result in the water vapor component of the atmosphere having an energy distribution equivalent to a higher temperature than that of the atmosphere as a whole. I think this may facilitate cooling of the upper atmosphere by shorter-wavelength radiation—from these energetic water vapor molecules—that can pass directly through the transparent windows in the CO2 spectrum.
philincalifornia – I’m not confusing it at all, I stated that we produce our own Carbon Dioxide, the amount in the atmosphere isn’t enough for us.
That amount is 6% of the air in our lungs as we mix it with the air we take in on inhaling, what this works out as in ppm re average lung capacity is around 60,000 ppm, the amount in the atmosphere is around 400. (I think my arithmatic is all right here, I’ve merely taken Oxygen at 21% in the atmosphere and therefore 210,000 ppm.)
We are around 20% Carbon. The rest of us is mainly water, 60-70%, and other important odds and sods. We are called Carbon Life Forms because we are, because we’re created out of Carbon, the building block of Life.
We get our Carbon from plants via the food chain, if plants can’t get enough of it they will die and so will we and all Carbon Life forms dependent on them. A plant takes the Carbon from the Carbon Dioxide it ‘breathes in’ and releases the Oxygen back into the Atmosphere. Note, it only does this only during photosynthesis, the rest of the time plants take in Oxygen and breathe out Carbon Dioxide, just as we do. It’s all interrelated and interdependent, the Carbon Life Cycle.
Those calling, and even legislating, that Carbon Dioxide is a “major pollutant” in our atmosphere, are ignoramuses. That ignorance translates to practical insanity.
We should be celebrating its existence, not demonising it.
Here more accurate percentages by weight: http://www.livescience.com/3505-chemistry-life-human-body.html
65% Water
18% Carbon
Jerry Dickens says:
May 22, 2011 at 11:59 am
Excellent post. I’ve learned a lot from what you wrote. I’m curious about a couple of things: (1) What caused the “hyperthermals” you referred to? Was it volcanic activity or something else (or do we even know for sure)? (2) What observations do you have about what the historic record of CO2 and temperatures of the last 65 million years seem generally to indicate – that temperature changes occur before CO2 changes? Or is this an incomplete or off-base assumption, given what you have said?
Re ‘amount and poison’ – not the standard definition of what is toxic. Carbon Dioxide is classed as a non-toxic gas, compared with Carbon Monoxide which is classed as toxic.
This too is being smudged and adjusted for AGW propaganda.
Carbon Dioxide suffocates. Like a pillow, by preventing the intake of Oxygen. A pillow is not a poison, not matter how many of them you have.
Carbon Dioxide IS HEAVIER THAN AIR. That actually means something in the real world of gravity where gases have volume and weight, i.e. not in the imaginary AGWScience world where Carbon Dioxide and Oxygen and Nitrogen are classed as IDEAL gases – WHICH DO NOT EXIST.
Carbon Dioxide cannot rise up through the REAL GAS AIR in our atmosphere as if it were an ideal gas, zipping along at vast speeds in empty space. Our space is not empty.
RE: Dave Springer (May 22, 2011 at 3:33 am)
“If everything else remains equal more CO2 will slow surface cooling with the same surety that putting an extra blanket on your bed will help retain body heat. Both mechanisms are well understood. ”
I believe adding more CO2 is more like adding extra scarves as the CO2 absorption effect is confined to narrow radiation bands. You might still freeze no matter how many scarves you put around your neck.
To DCC:
Thank you for taking the time to add explanation (your post May 23, 2011 at 12:43 am). I have read what you wrote, and the link you gave.
Both had added to my knowledge, but do not go to the heart of my concern, which is that William Happer states in this essay: “Although human beings and many other animals would do well with no CO2 at all in the air…” and this is wrong.
It is no harm to me that he has written this; but I do believe it harms his message; a strong and powerful message the world can welcome.
It would be better if it were exacting.
Jerry Dickens says:
May 22, 2011 at 9:14 pm
I will admit that some of the press releases have somewhat loaded terminology (e.g. one begins with “imminent danger”, another by abc news begins with “threatens ecosystems” and “a monster of a problem”). This is an unfortunate sign of the times where spin is ubiquitous. It should be emphasized, though, that it is often not the scientists who lay the spin.
———————————————
That was my point Jerry. I wasn’t getting on the scientist’s cases. The real scientists in this field seem to be somewhat responsible.
So let’s not let the fraudsters pollute this area of science by hijacking the term “acidification” (for something that’s above pH 7).
There are 3 basic descriptions in AGWScience re Carbon Dioxide “well-mixed in the atmosphere” and “able to stay in the atmosphere for hundreds and even thousands of years accumulating”.
1. Oxygen and Nitrogen, which make up the bulk of our atmosphere, and Carbon Dioxide are described by the Ideal gas laws (though they cherrypick here too). These molecules as per descriptions of ideal gases therefore, these pin pricks taking up no space zip around the mostly empty space in between molecules bouncing off each other elastically to mix thoroughly. Ideal gases do not have volume, weight, are not subject to gravity, do not interact via attraction, etc. are in high temperature and low pressure.
2. Carbon Dioxide acts in the atmosphere according to Brownian motion, that is, it is moved around randomly by the Oxygen and Nitrogen molecules, so mixes thoroughly.
3. The atmosphere is continually turbulent with wind mixing it all up evenly, so same proportion Carbon Dioxide throughout.
1: I have had a Physics PhD, teacher and examiner, tell me that Carbon Dioxide is exactly like an ideal gas in an ideal gas atmosphere. That a pool of it on the floor of a closed room will of itself, because it moves quickly and randomly as an ideal gas, rise up off the floor and mix thoroughly, diffuse, in the atmosphere without work being done, e.g. no windows opened to move it, no fan to disturb it, and once mixed it cannot be unmixed.
At first he denied that CO2 could pool at all, but when many examples produced he then accepted it and deleted the post containing his denial, a moderator on this particular forum. When I then asked how this Carbon Dioxide could pool except by the known science and properties of it being heavier than Air and so displacing Air to fall to the ground, he said, ‘it came down in a package of Air bringing the Air with it because of its greater volume’.
So, no blue tack or similar required for CO2 to rise aided into the Air by using it to stick the lighter molecules together as balloons, nor to stick themselves together trapping Air to bring it down with itself when in large amounts it sinks to ground and pools. Zero understanding then that an Ideal gas is an imaginary construct such as ‘average’, that no Real gas is such. No understanding of the meaning of Real in Real gases v Ideal Gases. No concept of real volume and weight and convection in our atmosphere.
Therefore, the idea prevalent among AGWScience influenced scientists, that neither CO2 nor the other real gases can separate out from each other in our atmosphere where they are thoroughly mixed and the same proportionally throughout. If at all admitted, it is claimed only a temporary aberration, the gases will all mix thoroughly because it is their nature to zip around moving quickly and randomly and mixing up by bouncing off each other in the vast empty space between them. There can be no sound in this imaginary atmosphere, can there? Perhaps that’s why they can’t hear all the real world physics arguments?
2: Brownian motion is misapplied to CO2 in the Air. This is about microscopic particles such as pollen being randomly moved around in a fluid medium and limited to nano to 1mm scales. The examples given from AGWScience to promote this idea is one of dropping ink into a glass of water or of perfume spreading through the air in a room. These are spread by convection, not Brownian motion.
3: Wind then like a big wooden spoon churning everything up and mixing the atmosphere like making a cake. That wind does not even cross hemispheres, some mixing at the equator, is irrelevant, i.e. doesn’t exist in their science. That wind is Air on the move doesn’t exist, so convection can be ignored. The Airs data that shocked those involved because they thought it well mixed, showed CO2 lumpy instead and they said that they’d have to go and think about this wind thingy.
So, all these together and mixed up bits from each are the reasons given, that I’ve found, for the claim that Carbon Dioxide mixes thoroughly in the atmosphere and exists proportionally throughout and can stay up for hundreds and hundreds of years accumulating, evenly distributed as if in an ideal gas world of low pressure and high temperature without any real interaction with the real world it’s in.
What’s really frustrating here is that all the arguments pro and con end up arguing about a little bit of the elephant, and getting bogged down in this. Just these three points when pulled together show how absurd their idea of our atmosphere; instead of the heavy weight of the Gas Air they have vast distances of empty space, nothingness full of radiation alone.
Sorry, p.s. – with radiation alone doing the heating, oxygen and nitrogen irrelevant.
Douglas — I guess I don’t understand how the English language is being distorted. I just gave you the CAA definition of pollutant because the author here cites to Webster’s and Wikipedia in a irrelevant attempt to argue that CO2 is not a pollutant under those sources.
To answer your other question, “ambient air” is not defined in the CAA. It is defined in the regs as “that portion of the atmosphere, external to buildings, to which the general public has access.”
Has anyone mentioned the fact that as the Co2 levels are rising so is life expectancy of man . . . . Now there’s a correlation.
Spector says:
May 23, 2011 at 2:10 am
“I believe adding more CO2 is more like adding extra scarves as the CO2 absorption effect is confined to narrow radiation bands. You might still freeze no matter how many scarves you put around your neck.”
Practically speaking that’s true. More CO2 is a case of diminishing returns. But the return never falls to zero it just gets so small at some point it becomes neglible. There’s an effect called “shoulder broadening”. CO2 absorbs LWIR in windows with center frequencies where most absorption is at the center frequency with less and less absorption as you move away from the center frequency. Each side of the center frequency comprises the “shoulders”. As the number of molecules of CO2 in the LWIR path increases the center frequency becomes saturated but the shoulders do not and continue to absorb farther from the center frequency.
Coincidently the scarves analogy illustrates it perfectly. The first scarves you put on insulate just your neck and at some point your neck is so well insulated that additional scarves do very little to help retain heat lost from the neck but as they grow thicker they will also be insulating more and more of your shoulders.
Myrrh (May 23, 2011 at 3:53 am)
Wonderful post, Myrrh. It sings!
Roger Carr says:
May 23, 2011 at 3:14 am
To DCC:
Thank you for taking the time to add explanation (your post May 23, 2011 at 12:43 am). I have read what you wrote, and the link you gave.
Both had added to my knowledge, but do not go to the heart of my concern, which is that William Happer states in this essay: “Although human beings and many other animals would do well with no CO2 at all in the air…” and this is wrong.
It is no harm to me that he has written this; but I do believe it harms his message; a strong and powerful message the world can welcome.
It would be better if it were exacting.
——————————————
Yes, I know, we’re belaboring this point somewhat.
His point is technically correct though on that one specific issue (breathing). We humans don’t need to get carbon from the atmosphere, as we get all we need from food.
He then, in the next sentence, talks about that other specific issue (the requirement for CO2 for having food to eat).
I’m guessing that if Professor Happer is reading this thread, he might change the wording in that paragraph in future essays to be more clear, but I still maintain that he is technically correct.