CO2 - Dumb question

I am finding this thread fascinating seeing both sides of the argument, my problem is when one side appears to have lost the argument they then start the personal attacks.

Can we be more civil towards each other please?

Is it possible on this topic ?

Or is that it is too polarising for each group to be able to analyse each others data and evidence. ?

Otherwise this discussion will just go round and round.

Derek

Hopper said:

..."I don't claim to be a scientist or to have a level of knowledge and expertise even approaching that of a scientist."...

Well it may have taken ten pages to get here, but at last you admit that you can not explain the CO2 warming theory - thank you.

As I and others have been trying to point out, there is more than one version of the science surrounding this topic and we want to consider those other versions too.

The explanation in your LINK 2 says "As CO2 soaks up this infrared energy, it vibrates and re-emits the infrared energy back in all directions. About half of that energy goes out into space, and about half of it returns to Earth as heat, contributing to the ‘greenhouse effect.’ ".

Which is a puzzle to me, because if the atmospheric CO2 soaks up the energy on the way in, and before it gets to the surface, then that would reduce the surface warming effect. The article continues by saying this soaked up energy is then radiated back in all directions, including to the Earth's surface. The puzzle for me remains, because this re-emitted energy contained in the CO2, is the same energy that was initially present and would have struck the Earth's surface in the first place. Or has some energy been created somehow?

Martin.

Just because it's a puzzle to you does not mean it is wrong. It just means you don't understand it. The scientists do.

If I'm coming over as absolutist, that's a mistake. To me it's all shades of gray.

Science isn't absolute either - it's a continual improvement process. Early science is an interesting mix of right and wrong because it lacked formality. Too much depended on clever chaps making convincing arguments without rigorously testing the evidence. Ptolemy's mathematical model was accepted for centuries because it successfully predicted the course of the planets and eclipses. But he assumed the earth was the centre of the universe, which complicated his maths suspiciously and didn't explain all the evidence. Galileo realised the maths was simpler and more evidence fitted if it was assumed the Sun is the centre, and the earth revolves around it with all the other planets. Large numbers of people found the new explanation unacceptable, but their alternatives were unsupported by the evidence.

In the next generation, Newton made a gigantic leap forward by identifying and quantifying all the laws of motion. His work led directly to the modern world, and provided firm foundations for a mass of other scientific and technical advances, all of them based on rational thought supported by strict rules of evidence. Personal opinion is low value, and great reputations do not mean much. By about 1890, many scientists thought Newtonian Physics was nearly complete, apart from a few effects it didn't explain. Investigating them showed that Newton was wrong. Not wrong in the sense it produced bad answers, but wrong in the sense the maths didn't match very big, very fast, or very small phenomena. Examples include the source of the sun's energy, photo-electric effect, energy travelling through space, radioactivity etc. Thinking about gravity in a different way led Einstein to Relativity, which at the time many found difficult to accept, but - so far - all the new evidence supports it. However, relativity doesn't explain very small effects, for which a different set of maths is needed. This is the extremely strange world of Quantum physics.

State of play:

• Good understanding of and predictability of very fast, very big physics, (space craft, black holes, big bang, galaxies etc), not possible to confirm everything by experiment:
• Near perfect understanding and predictability of human-scale physics (things we can touch, see , smell or otherwise detect.) Almost everything can be confirmed by experiment.
• Reasonable understanding and predictability of very small Quantum effects (atoms, sub-atomic particles, etc). Impossible to confirm everything by experiment
• Science knows things are still missing because giant, normal, and tiny physics all work, but not at the same time. All have been arrived at by consensus, and all are probably right, but there's more to do. If it walks like a duck, looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck it probably is, but there's still room for doubt - that science needs to investigate further, doesn't invalidate the Duck Hypothesis. Although not 100% conclusive scientific method is fairly certain it's not an Ostrich in disguise.

In technical matters, scientific method progresses to truth far more effectively than lay opinion. It's superior to beliefs because it follows disciplined methods specifically designed to home in on the truth whatever it might be. Science has strict rules about constitutes evidence. As almost anything goes in belief systems because no formal evidence is required, science rejects opinion unless it's properly supported in scientific terms.

Opinion is valid in politics because politics is about how we want to live rather than a search for the truth. Sorry to disappoint people with strong lay opinions, but establishing the truth of global warming is a technical problem requiring scientific method.  The science behind global warming can't be rejected for political reasons, but politicians are allowed to ignore it if that's what people want.  Choosing to party on despite the consequences is always an option.

Scientific Method isn't an opinion - it's an effective system, shown repeatedly to be more reliable than hearsay, guesswork, old-ways are the best, vested interest, over-simplifications, and wishful thinking.

Dave

Edited By SillyOldDuffer on 19/08/2022 12:10:19

IU just found the bit of the "Skeptical Science" web page where they try to plaster over, "Mike's Nature trick" and Phil Jones, "Hide the decline"

I've always been a bigger fan of "Hide the sausage" myself.

Edited By Hopper on 19/08/2022 12:30:16

The point is, there are not two sides to the argument. On one side you have the best of worldwide scientific knowledge, the same science that makes aeroplanes fly and invented, developed and runs the internet that makes these posts possible. On the other side you have a mumbo jumbo of internet mythology by laymen who have no expertise in the field whatsoever. That is not an argument. It is just science and people who don't understand science.

Would you listen to some guy on a forum who reckoned he knew more about running a nuclear power station than a nuclear physicist does? Would that be an argument? Or just silliness? Or some guy who reckoned he could fly a Concorde better than a trained pilot could? Or if your child was sick with cancer, would you take them for treatment by a guy on an internet forum who said he had "researched" cancer on Google and knew all about it? Or would you go to see the trained scientist, the oncologist with a higher degree in the science of treating cancer?

Edited By Hopper on 19/08/2022 12:51:34

please PLEASE PLEASE could we just terminate this thread? It's going nowhere.

It's about politics, so that's guaranteed

Do you understand it? I was rather hoping you might explain it to me.

Martin.

Chillax, man - it's just a conversation. Don't read it if you don't like it.

Martin.

I'm following the science.

please PLEASE PLEASE could we just terminate this thread?

Why ?

This is a "Tea Room" discussion - If this thread is of no interest to you, don't read it. Simples.

Can't say the topic is of much interest to me, but it is interesting to see two sides defending their positions.

I'm more of the "what will happen, will happen regardless" POV - doesn't matter so much what started any changes, nothing looks set to change in terms of worldwide behaviour that may alter the situation that I can see other than plenty of hot air being spouted to add to temperature rises !

Rather like the pancreatic cancer that claimed my father - by the time there are symptoms to investigate, the chances of influencing the outcome via interventions are very low.

Nigel B.

I couldn't get passed, "Most of the excess atmospheric heat is passed back to the ocean"

'that probably makes him a scientist that you should respect'. No- respect isn't evidence!

At this point, is the Sun's energy on the Earth's surface, or just on its way? The sun's energy is a continuous stream taking about 500 seconds to arrive.

So Nitrogen, Oxygen and Argon are not good at holding onto the Sun's heat energy? Like glass, they're transparent to some frequencies, but insulate others.

So Water vapour, Methane and CO2 are good at holding onto the Sun's heat energy? No. They absorb energy at some frequencies & release it as heat, a conversion. Electricity flows cool along a Copper Cable but the element of a fire gets hot because the element is less transparent to electricity than Copper. The element converts.

What proportion of this energy that hits the surface was retained on the way in by Water vapour, Methane, and Carbon Dioxide? Couldn't find a straight answer. I think this is Radiative Forcing Capacity, the amount of energy over area over time for a given integrated IR absorbance or the energy held by air rather than radiated. Earlier I said greenhouse gases filter energy so solar energy converted to heat by hitting the surface is caught on the way out. Heat accumulates because reflectivity is reduced.

How is Nitrogen, Oxygen, and Argon now able to remove heat from Water vapour, Methane and Carbon Dioxide, whilst being less conductive and what effect does this have? Like a car radiator. Water cools the engine to keep the oil in good order and to stop pistons seizing etc. Water passes through a radiator over which a lot of air passes. Although air conducts poorly there's enough to cool the water. The effect of trapping heat in the air is to warm it at the surface, mostly within 15km.

Water vapour isn't guilty of global warming... Any evidence of this? Seems counterintuitive considering how wildly weather is reported to be changing. The Water Cycle is well-known. Vapour lifted from the surface in hot places rises & pushed from hot to cold becoming more dense as it cools. Most becomes rain, unless cold enough to freeze. The cycle removes water vapour as fast as it's created. The record rainfall being reported is consistent with more energy in the water cycle increasing the push given to water vapour and allowing it to float warm over low rainfall areas, which get less water than normal.

You first need to show 'greenhouse gases' are a cause and not an effect. No has to be shown greenhouse gases are an effect. Not happened yet. The existence of an alternative isn't enough to derail another hypothesis, specially a well developed one. Must be evidenced. The field is wide open - anyone showing greenhouse gases are an effect will be famous!

Of course - what else could they do? Fair cop guv!

Dave