Re: Subduing the earth and misinterpretation

At 09:15 PM 4/25/2006, Dawsonzhu@aol.com wrote:

>"...I note that I only recall one paper in the
>last two years that mentioned a possible pathway
>that ameliorates the effects of CO2 that was
>published in Science. Nevertheless, it is clear
>that CO2 is at the highest levels in the last 10 M years. .."

@ The BS Repellant is found below. ~ Janice

The Greenhouse Myth Thursday, April 20, 2006 By
Steven Milloy http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,192544,00.html

[[[ Mr. Milloy holds a B.A. in Natural Sciences
from the Johns Hopkins University, a Master of
Health Sciences in Biostatistics from the Johns
Hopkins University School of Hygiene and Public
Health, a Juris Doctorate from the University of
Baltimore, and a Master of Laws from the
Georgetown University Law Center.
BIO http://www.junkscience.com/Junkman.html ]]]

Al Gore’s global warming documentary hits
theaters on May 28. Entitled, “An Inconvenient
Truth,” the film purports to make the case for
concern over manmade emissions of greenhouse gases.

Meanwhile at
<http://www.junkscience.com/>JunkScience.com ,
we’ve produced
“<http://www.junkscience.com/Greenhouse/>The Real
Inconvenient Truth ”
– http://www.junkscience.com/Greenhouse/ ---
debunking two key myths of climate alarmism,
including that the Earth’s atmosphere acts like a
greenhouse and that reducing carbon dioxide (CO2)
emission will avert significant temperature change.

The notion that our atmosphere acts like a
greenhouse – that is, so-called atmospheric
“greenhouse gases,” like water vapor and CO2,
“trap” incoming solar radiation to warm the atmosphere – is wrong.

Not only doesn’t the atmosphere work that way, greenhouses don’t either.

Greenhouses work by physically blocking heat
transfer (by convection) from inside to outside –
the same effect that heats the inside of your car
when it’s parked in the sun on a hot day. Opening
the doors and windows allows air currents to flow and the heat to dissipate.

But neither the atmosphere nor “greenhouse gases”
block convection, so there is no literal atmospheric “greenhouse effect.”

Since “greenhouse effect” terminology has long
been used to refer to the natural warming of our
atmosphere to a habitable level, we’ll stick with
that incorrect, but commonly-used, terminology
for ease of discussion. So how does the “greenhouse effect” actually work?

Atmospheric flows of energy are complex, but a
simplified explanation – depicted in this
<http://www.junkscience.com/Greenhouse/Radiation_Budget.gif>graphic
– is as follows.

Incoming solar radiation is partly absorbed by
the Earth’s surface, partly absorbed by various
atmospheric gases (particularly oxygen and ozone)
and partly reflected back out to space. Solar
radiation isn’t significantly absorbed by
greenhouse gases in the lower atmosphere and so
doesn’t directly cause the greenhouse effect.

For our purposes, the greenhouse effect is
largely caused by energy emitted by the Earth’s
surface, most of which is subsequently absorbed
by greenhouse gases and clouds. Very simply
expressed, the greenhouse gases and clouds
transform that absorbed energy into heat that
warms the lower atmosphere and into energy that
is radiated back to space and also back to the Earth’s surface.

These radiative processes, if they acted alone,
would warm the Earth’s atmosphere to about 77
degrees Centigrade – much warmer than the 15
degrees Centigrade the Earth actually is.
Fortunately, other atmospheric processes –
including updrafts and circulation carrying heat
upwards and toward the poles – facilitate energy
escape into space so that our atmosphere cools to around 15 degrees Centigrade.

But our focus here is CO2’s role in greenhouse
warming – that’s what Al Gore wants us to fret.

Putting aside the cooling convection and
circulation processes mentioned above, the
limiting factor with respect to greenhouse
warming isn’t the quantity of greenhouse gases in
the atmosphere; it’s the energy emitted by the Earth’s surface.

As illustrated in this
<http://www.junkscience.com/Greenhouse/absorbspec.gif>graphic
, different greenhouse gases absorb different
wavelengths of energy emitted by the Earth. The
fact that only a limited amount of the Earth’s
emitted energy is available for absorption by CO2
and that CO2 has to compete with water vapor and
clouds for that energy, results in a crucial (but
little publicized) relationship between CO2 and atmospheric warming.

As illustrated in this
<http://www.junkscience.com/Greenhouse/co2greenhouse-X4.png>graphic,
the relationship between CO2 and temperature is
logarithmic in nature – that is, as CO2 increases
in the atmosphere, it absorbs less and less
additional energy to produce correspondingly less
and less additional warming. ­At some point,
adding more CO2 to the atmosphere doesn’t
significantly change atmospheric temperature.

To analogize, consider a window with many shades,
each blocking half the incoming light. As
successive shades are pulled, the transmitted
light is halved and the effect of each shade is
diminished. Eventually, there’s no additional
effect because previous shades have already
absorbed the light to all but a vanishing degree.
As more shades won’t block more light, more CO2
won’t cause significantly more warming.

In fact, there’s been more than enough greenhouse
gas in the atmosphere to cause much greater
warming than actually occurs since long before humans discovered fire.

“<http://www.junkscience.com/Greenhouse/>The Real
Inconvenient Truth” contains interactive
CO2-Greenhouse calculators so you can get a feel
for the all-important logarithmic CO2-temperature relationship.

So what's the point at which more CO2 doesn’t
cause more warming? Are we near it? The
commonly-used range of estimates of CO2’s impact
on global temperature should help put any worry into perspective.

As illustrated by this
<http://www.junkscience.com/Greenhouse/co2greenhouse-X2.png>graphic,
a doubling of atmospheric CO2 from pre-Industrial
Revolution days (280 parts per million to 560
ppm), might increase global temperature from
between 0.5 degrees Centigrade to 1.5 degrees Centigrade – that is, not much.

The current atmospheric CO2 level is about 380
ppm and the estimated temperature increase since
1880 (when regular temperature recordkeeping
began) is estimated to be about 0.60 degrees Centigrade.

Since at least half of this temperature increase
pre-dated 1950 – prior to any significant
increase in atmospheric CO2 levels – we can
estimate that the 30 percent increase in
atmospheric CO2 since the Industrial Revolution
is associated with a temperature increase of
about 0.30 degrees Centigrade. This supports the
idea that doubling atmospheric CO2 from
pre-Industrial Revolution levels would cause less
than a one degree Centigrade increase – and we’re not close to such a doubling.

Since this small variation in global temperature
is well within the historical climate record, panic hardly seems warranted.

So where does all the fuss about manmade CO2 and global warming come from?

Not from actual temperature measurements and
greenhouse physics – rather it comes from manmade
computer models relying on myriad assumptions and
guesswork. Many models incorporate hypothesized
“positive feedbacks” in the climate system, which
tend to amplify model predictions. But no model
has been validated against the historical
temperature record. So they don’t “radiate” much
confidence when it comes to forecasting temperatures.

In preparation for Al Gore’s movie, the global
warming lobby has purchased lots of newspaper and
TV space for an alarmist advertising blitz during
May. It’s comforting to know that all that hot
air won’t be significantly warming the
planet. ~ http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,192544,00.html

Waiting for Gore-doh... Since Al Gore was offered
the opportunity to facilitate serious debate on
the underlying science of global climate change
- 3 months, 3 weeks, 11 hours, 5 minutes, and 24
seconds have elapsed. Despite milking lucrative
speaking engagements and book deals with his
global warming schtick he declines any such
debate. http://www.junkscience.com/

Don't miss these items below:

Twenty Years After Chernobyl Thursday , April 13,
2006 By Steven Milloy http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,191721,00.html

“The Real Inconvenient Truth ” – Greenhouse,
global warming - and some facts April 21,
2006 http://www.junkscience.com/Greenhouse/

Top Ten Junk Science Stories of the Past
Decade Thursday, April 06, 2006 By Steven
Milloy http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,189706,00.html

Top 10 Junk Science Claims of 2005 Thursday,
December 29, 2005 By Steven
Milloy http://www.junkscience.com/fox/milloy123005.htm

Steven Milloy publishes
<http://www.junkscience.com/>JunkScience.com,
<http://www.csrwatch.com/>CSRWatch.com. He is a
<http://www.junkscience.com/Junkman.html>junk
science expert, an advocate of free enterprise
and an adjunct scholar at the
<http://www.cei.org/>Competitive Enterprise Institute.
Received on Wed Apr 26 00:47:40 2006