“What? You smell Nobel Peace Prize, too?”

Hahaha, I just loved that!

Congratulations!

Thanks,
I wasn’t sure the analogy was straightforward for everyone, glad it got you

Greenhouse gas emissions?

There is no physical mechanism linking anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions to observed rises in global mean average temperature during the 20th century.

http://www.nov55.com/gbwm.html

Really?
http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/science_and_impacts/science/global-warming-faq.html

Great post, Frederico! Nice and clear message!

Thanks!

@mike
in any case, it just makes sense to live in a house that doesn’t waste energy.

Even if you don’t think CO₂ causes any damage, it’s healthier and cheaper than a house full of holes. :D

Your link can be summarised as the following:

1) Because the IPCC said so.
2) Let’s ignore water vapour.
3) Models supercede reality.
4) Our models can’t reproduce natural variability, therefore it must be anthropogenic.

It is physically impossible for additional atmospheric carbon dioxide to cause any measureable amount of warming.

http://www.nov55.com/gbwm.html

The ends do not justify the means. And quite frankly the “go green” meme just pisses me off.

Environmentalism is a luxury afforded by those without more pressing concerns. Do the billions living in poverty care about roof insulation when they don’t have one over their head to begin with? Supposedly we cannot let them “make the same mistakes” so we deny them the means to lift themselves out of it.

If an insulated house is truly healthier and cheaper, sell the message on those merits, not the misleading negative connotation of GHGs.

@mike,
No, actually my link can be summarised as the following:

1) Because every serious measurement points to that the same inescapable conclusion, shared by the IPCC.

As for the impossibility of CO2 casing global warming, it looks like you are missing some basic scientific background. Let me refresh your memory.

The major natural greenhouse gases are water vapor, which causes about 36-70% of the greenhouse effect on Earth (not including clouds); carbon dioxide CO2, which causes 9-26%; methane, which causes 4-9%, and ozone, which causes 3-7%. It is not possible to state that a certain gas causes a certain percentage of the greenhouse effect, because the influences of the various gases are not additive. Other greenhouse gases include, but are not limited to, nitrous oxide, sulphur hexafluoride, hydro-fluorocarbons, per-fluorocarbons and chlorofluorocarbons.

Greenhouse gases in the atmosphere act like a mirror and reflect back to the Earth a part of the heat radiation, which would otherwise be lost to space. The higher the concentration of green house gases like carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, the more heat energy is being reflected back to the Earth. The emission of carbon dioxide into the environment mainly from burning of fossil fuels (oil, gas, petrol, kerosene, etc.) has been increased dramatically over the past 50 years, see graph below.

http://timeforchange.org/sites/timeforchange.org/files/pictures/Global-Carbon-Emission.png

72% of the totally emitted greenhouse gases is carbon dioxide (CO2), 18% Methane and 9% Nitrous oxide (NOx). Carbon dioxide emissions therefore are the most important cause of global warming. CO2 is inevitably created by burning fuels like e.g. oil, natural gas, diesel, organic-diesel, petrol, organic-petrol, ethanol. The emissions of CO2 have been dramatically increased within the last 50 years and are still increasing by almost 3% each year.

Are you looking for the missing link?

Here are some rather key specific observations beyond the rise in seasonally averaged global temperature that fit in well with an enhanced greenhouse effect (the relevant effect of increasing CO2 concentrations). These observations do not fit with other potential forcings.

  * Temperatures have risen more at night than during the day. This really defeats the notion of a solar powered climate change on its face.
  * The stratosphere is cooling. Models that predict the warming we are seeing also predict this particular feature of the current climate change.
  * An increasingly enhanced greenhouse effect should cause an energy imbalance between incoming sunlight and outgoing infrared radiation. This has been detected.

So to summarize: we know anthropogenic climate change is real because there is no other likely candidate cause, the CO2 rise is unquestionably the result of our activities, the particulars of the warming signature are consistent with an enhanced greenhouse effect and the whole phenomenon is entirely consistent with very long standing theories and expectations.

http://scienceblogs.com/illconsidered/2008/10/what_is_the_evidence_that_co2.php

I rest my case.

Carbon dioxide levels are saturated in the atmosphere to the point that only 5-10% of what we emit can possibly contribute to any warming. Carbon dioxide only absorbs a narrow band (8%) of radiation available to it, and man is supposedly responsible for just 30% of the CO2 in the atmosphere. The greenhouse effect supposedly keeps us 33 degrees warmer at the surface than we otherwise would be. 1-5% of the energy hitting the surface of the Earth leaves it as radiation (IPCC falsely claims it’s 41%, but lets use that anyway). Water vapour positive feedback supposedly amplifies this warming by 3-10 times (impossible since it would cause thermal run away, but let’s ignore that).

Putting it all together:

Claimed heat due to atmosphere—- 33°C

41% due to infrared radiation from earth’s surface—- 13.53°C

8% of infrared bandwidth available to CO2—- 1.08°C

30% of CO2 produced by humans—- 0.32°C

10% of absorption “unsaturated” for global warming—- 0.032°C

Water vapour multiplier—- 0.32°C

Net temperature increase caused by humans is—- 0.32°C

claimed global warming—- 0.6°C

These numbers cannot be increased. As spurious as the IPCC’s numbers are they still can’t account for half the warming. If you were to use the real values, the warming by humans works out to be less than 0.0002 degrees (read: immeasurable).

All of your arguments are defeated, because CO2 induced global warming is a physical impossibility.

GHGs do not act like a “mirror” at all. When radiation is absorbed, it is re-emitted in all directions equally. Additionally, in the absence of GHGs, the radiation would not simply escape into space, it would be absorbed by oxygen and nitrogen, but over a much longer distance.

None of your stated observations are a unique signature to anthropogenic global warming. You claim there is no natural cause because your models cannot reproduce natural variability (reality). Everything nature does completely dwarfs human activity.

GHGs do not act like a “mirror” at all. When radiation is absorbed, it is re-emitted in all directions equally.

Citation needed.

It’s my wikipedian spirit.

Citation? It’s simple physics.

From NASA:
“Greenhouse gases absorb longwave radiation that is emitted by the surface of the earth.

Subsequently, they re-emit the energy as longwave radiation in all directions.”

http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Experiments/PlanetEarthScience/GlobalWarming/GW_Movie3.php

Now it also says falsely on that page, that GHGs act like the glass of a greenhouse. This is wrong. Glass acts as a physical barrier to convection, and heat can only escape slowly through convection and radiation. In the atmosphere, there is no such physical barrier. When radiation is absorbed it is converted to heat and carried away by convection and conduction rapidly throughout air currents in the atmosphere. Only a small amount of energy is re-emitted. This radiation is then absorbed again; some energy is converted to heat and carried away by convection/conduction, some energy is re-emitted at a lower wavelength, so on and so forth. Eventually, the wavelength of the radiation emitted is too low to be absorbed by GHGs and escapes into space. This behaviour applies to all gases in the atmosphere, not just GHGs.

Correction: too low -> too long

A part form the semantic issue of defining the word mirror in this context (<em>reflect back to the Earth a part of the heat radiation, which would otherwise be lost to space<./em>, so they do act like a mirror, don’t they? You did not falsify this sentence, you just took one word out of context and went against it), let’s focus on the broader issue.

Carbon dioxide is released to the atmosphere by a variety of sources, and over 95% percent of these emissions would occur even if human beings were not present on Earth. For example, the natural decay of organic material in forests and grasslands, such as dead trees, results in the release of about 220 billion tons of carbon dioxide every year. But these natural sources are nearly balanced by physical and biological processes, called natural sinks, which remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. For example, some carbon dioxide dissolves in sea water, and some is removed by plants as they grow.

This carbon dioxide alone is over 8 times the amount emitted by humans. Although natural sources represent most CO2 emissions, they do not contribute to the recent observed increase in concentrations because natural sources are balanced by natural sinks that remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.[7] The increase in carbon dioxide concentration arises because the increase from human activity is not completely balanced by a corresponding sink.

As a result of this natural balance, carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere would have changed little if human activities had not added an amount every year. This addition, presently about 3% of annual natural emissions, is sufficient to exceed the balancing effect of sinks. As a result, carbon dioxide has gradually accumulated in the atmosphere, until at present, its concentration is 30% above pre-industrial levels.

http://www.gcrio.org/ipcc/qa/05.html

The numbers are very clear, and the answer is Parts per million.

The industrial activities that our modern civilization depends upon have raised atmospheric carbon dioxide levels from 280 parts per million to 379 parts per million in the last 150 years.

You see, the planet Mars has a very thin atmosphere, nearly all carbon dioxide. Because of the low atmospheric pressure, and with little to no methane or water vapour to reinforce the weak greenhouse effect, Mars has a largely frozen surface that shows no evidence of life.

On the contrary, the atmosphere of Venus, like Mars, is nearly all carbon dioxide. But Venus has about 300 times as much carbon dioxide in its atmosphere as Earth and Mars do, producing a runaway greenhouse effect and a surface temperature hot enough to melt lead.

http://climate.nasa.gov/causes/

Oh, right, I forgot: Mike (not better define, unknown person) says the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, a team of some 17,000, which includes:
  * Carbon sequestration assessment for Carbon Management (USDA, DOE)
  * Early warning systems for air and water quality for Homeland Security (OHS, NIMA, USGS)
  * Enhanced weather prediction for Energy Forecasting (DOE, United States Environmental Protection Agency‎ (EPA))
  * Environmental indicators for Coastal Management (NOAA)
  * Environmental indicators for Community Growth Management (EPA, USGS, NSGIC)
  * Environmental models for Biological Invasive Species (USGS, USDA)
  * Regional to national to international atmospheric measurements and predictions for Air Quality Management (United States Environmental Protection Agency‎, NOAA)
  * Water cycle science for Water Management and Conservation (EPA, USDA)

is wrong, so it must true.

Mike,
please do not post any more stuff form the nov55 website.

It’s the quintessential non-scientific website.

A bunch of numbers with no peer-reviewed publications to back it up, unexplained claims, only cross-references within the site itself and so on.

Oh yeah, and what about the <i>Thirty one thousand scientists signed a petition saying humans are not the cause of global warming.</em>? A list of seemingly random people, who would be made up using a simple name-gibberish-creating algorithm, since there is no reference whatsoever of them being Ph.D (let alone knowing what kind of Ph.D did they earn, it would be too much to ask for, would it)?

I Googled tested some of the names on the list, just for fun. No results showed up, from any university.

I guess it would make much more sense to have 31 distinguished real scientists, who have a curricula, a list of publications and so on to check out, maybe with some reputation whatsoever. But no, a useless list of thousands of possibly made up names works best, doesn’t it?

Mike,
still waiting for you response, both here and on other posts as well.

Oh that Mike won’t reply. He is just a troll. He gets stut up and he runs away.

Why is Mars a frozen wasteland and venus a churning furnace? It’s not the greenhouse effect. It’s the pressure. At 50km above the surface, pressure and temperature of Venus are roughly the same as that on Earth (288K vs. 300K), while having 2500 times earth’s CO2 concentration. Venus’ surface pressure is 9000% greater than Earth’s, While the Mars’ is only 0.7% of Earth’s surface pressure.

Does the tail wag the dog? The notion that human emissions disturb a delicate balance between natural emissions and sinks is an unproven assumption. Ice cores are unreliable CO2 proxies, isotope ratios are not a unique signature of anthropogenic emissions, rises in CO2 levels could be explained by a very small change in natural emissions. We simply cannot track all of the CO2 and where it goes. And we’ve barely scratched the surface in trying to understand the oceans, which are estimated to hold 50 times more CO2 than atmosphere. Chemical measurements during the 18th-20th century also suggest CO2 was not flat prior to the industrial revolution.

I’d prefer not to drag on about scientific consensus on either side, other than to point out that only 53 authors and 7 reviewers actually support the conclusions of the quintessential chapter 9 of ar4, Understanding and Attributing Climate Change. The official position of an organisation is also not reflective of individual views.

Just to defend once more about my citation of nov55.com, I only cite from there because his views on the subject generally align with my own, and covers almost everything in one place. Gary Novak is an essayist, his essays are not scientific papers, obviously. That doesn’t mean his logical arguments are not valid. I am of course, prepared to back up my points with other sources.

I’ll gladly respond when I am called out.

Let me see if I understand correctly. You quote non scientists, who allegedly use deductive reasoning in such a way that is more reliable than actual scientists who studied the subject.

But, since this aligns with what you think, it’s all right?

Gary Novak is a scientist. He’s just not a climatologist. Could I ask you to stop making strawman arguments? It’s really irrelevant that I cite Gary Novak to make things easier, especially when I have been more than prepared to back up my points with other, more relevant sources.

more relevant sources.
Yeah, right. NASA against… uh… who was that?

Gary Novak, who dropped out of graduate school (physiology) to do independent mushroom research.

Mmmm, you have a point there. Professors, researchers, are nothing compared to a person with no academic reference whatsoever who allegedly studied mushrooms and who wasn’t able to publish any scientific paper because of some conspiracy against him.

I attempted to publish in the science journals but was locked out. Science is a good-old-boys club, and I was an outsider. So I put the results on the internet

Well, you know, science is a hard world. You have to justify what you write, it isn’t enough to say things with no backup, data, research and knowledge of the subject.

Whatever, Federico. You are obvously incapable of arguing anything of substance. I’m not going to play into your false dilemma.

Is that right?

I just proved that your so called expert is nothing but a person with no scientific reputation, by using his own biography, and guess what? You say I am incapable of arguing.

Pretty slick. Just when you have nothing else to say, you blame it on me and try to get away with it. Take responsibility and admit the obvious fact that you are basing your research on no scientific evidence, and that you simply try to get people mad at you by insulting them, so that it will look like it’s not your fault.

Guess what? I’m not mad. I don’t insult, and I don’t run away. I’m right here, and I’m still waiting for answers. Publications, real experts and data. Bring them on, if you are capable of doing so.

Mike, if you aren’t an expert and you gain your understanding of the subject through the provision of non-published, peer reviewed works then you cannot be expected to present a coherent argument. You can hardly call NASA and Gary Novak reliable sources and if your views coincide with his well isn’t that a coincidence. You may as well read the essays of climatology students as they likely bear more substance and academic underpinning than writers such as Gary Novak who appears to know everything about evry scientific subject area. Wow he must be clever for you to bum him.