Global warming is not caused by CO2

[Andre]

Mind that there is likely no convection in the lower atmosphere of Venus

http://cat.inist.fr/?aModele=afficheN&cpsidt=14488583

No air conditioner there

 

[Andrew Mason]

If convection MIXES air, then there is no convection! It would then be diffusion. Convection is the flow within flux tubes of air in the vertical direction, driven by a density gradient (itself induced by composition - water vapor - or temperature). Of course, there will be *some* mixing due to microturbulence, and there will be *some* conduction. But I take it that you can consider convection essentially as a loopy flow with "air bubbles" going up, and other "air bubbles" going down as if they were adiabatically insulated, like in balloons.

That isn't exactly the way convection works, though. The air isn't contained in little packets or in confined channels. Convection necessarily increases mixing. Watch a smoke stack. A chimney operates entirely by convection. But look what happens to the hot smoke/vapour escapes the chimney. It mixes, rapidly, into the surrounding air. This is just the inevitable effect of random thermal molecular motion. Convection on earth, of course, results in winds. That is the result of the differences in heating of the air because of the difference in intensities of solar energy incident upon the surface at different latitudes/locations and the different heat transfer mechanisms over land/sea/forests/deserts etc.

So IMO, convection cannot do anything else but *reduce* the greenhouse effect as compared to a static atmosphere. If Chilingar claims that it *overcompensates* and actually leads to a cooling, then I should study his argument, but it is not my point. My point is simply that convection IS a more efficient way to cool the surface than *just* radiation transport through a static grey atmosphere, and as such, when taken into account, will lead to some diminishing of the greenhouse effect as compared with a non-moving atmosphere.

And my point is that convection can't lower the average temperature of the atmosphere. It simply redistributes the heat. Convection is not air conditioning.

AM

 

[Andre]

That isn't exactly the way convection works, though. The air isn't contained in little packets or in confined channels. Convection necessarily increases mixing. Watch a smoke stack. A chimney operates entirely by convection. But look what happens to the hot smoke/vapour escapes the chimney. It mixes, rapidly, into the surrounding air. This is just the inevitable effect of random thermal molecular motion. Convection on earth, of course, results in winds. That is the result of the differences in heating of the air because of the difference in intensities of solar energy incident upon the surface at different latitudes/locations and the different heat transfer mechanisms over land/sea/forests/deserts etc.

Don't look at chimneys, look at cumulus type clouds, that's visual convection in action. The sharp defined boundaries proof that mixing is not a predominant factor at first. At higher altitudes the high winds cause mixing and you can see the anvil dissipate but that is after the convective phase.

http://www.geos.ed.ac.uk/abs/Weathercam/Clouds.html
http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a000000/a003300/a003393/index.html

 

[vanesch]

That isn't exactly the way convection works, though. The air isn't contained in little packets or in confined channels. Convection necessarily increases mixing. Watch a smoke stack. A chimney operates entirely by convection. But look what happens to the hot smoke/vapour escapes the chimney. It mixes, rapidly, into the surrounding air.

Yes, and at that point, convection stops, and becomes diffusion. That is because a stack is a small jet of air into a big static mass, and the hydrodynamics is such that this quickly becomes turbulent, microturbulent, and hence mixes, at which point there is no net hydrodynamics anymore.

But for big airmasses that's not true: ask any deltaglider or glider plane pilot. You really have massive upflows and downflows with just marginal mixing and diffusion at the border.

This is just the inevitable effect of random thermal molecular motion. Convection on earth, of course, results in winds. That is the result of the differences in heating of the air because of the difference in intensities of solar energy incident upon the surface at different latitudes/locations and the different heat transfer mechanisms over land/sea/forests/deserts etc.

You give a counter example yourself: wind. Wind is the horizontal equivalent of convection. Now, on northern moderate lattitudes, you have typically that if the wind blows from the south, it becomes warmer, and when the wind blows from the north, it gets colder. As such, wind (horizontal "convection") is very effective and capable of transporting heat over larger distances than normal diffusion (conduction in this case) would be able to do.

And my point is that convection can't lower the average temperature of the atmosphere. It simply redistributes the heat. Convection is not air conditioning.

That would be correct in an isolated atmosphere. But the atmosphere acts as a thermal resistor between the ground (heat source) and outer space (heat sink). As such, the main effect of the atmosphere is heat transport, and "redistributing heat" is everything we are concerned with here.

Think of it this way: consider a piece of carbon paper, through which we force a current (injection on the left, drain on the right). That represents the heat flow which the Earth surface needs to evacuate. The voltage difference needed to do so will depend upon the resistance of the sheet and represents the temperature. Now, convection acts as a kind of "short circuit", in the way a piece of copper placed on the sheet would. The piece of copper is not a current source. It doesn't alter the total charge of the sheet. It just shunts a part of the resistance. As such, the overall effective resistance of the sheet lowers, and for the same current, a smaller potential difference is needed.

 

[Andre]

Wind is the horizontal equivalent of convection.

That's called advection

Mind also that vertical convection in unstable atmospheric conditions is not the only form of convection. It also happens when cold and warm air masses collide, forming http://www.answers.com/warm%20front . Due to the density difference the warmer air mass is forced over the colder air mass, also transporting energy to higher levels for easier out radiation of IR.

the idea of cold front (upper) and warm fronts (lower) :

http://rst.gsfc.nasa.gov/Sect14/3_warmcoldfronts.jpg

But the strongest convection and hardest rain is associted with occluding fronts:

http://www.mrsciguy.com/sciimages/cyclone03.gif

where the wedged formed warm air section is squeezed up when the trailing cold front overruns the leading warm front.



Disclaimer: Meteorology just happens to be basics for flying, especially in the weather dominated west Europe. That's how one gets to know these things. But one may wonder if and to what extend these vertical energy transport effects are understood and simluated correctly in the climate models.

 

[Bystander]

(Snip)The atmosphere will radiate exactly the amount of radiation that it absorbs - it cannot cool by radiation. Besides, the radiation from the atmosphere is in all directions. Just as much radiation is directed from the atmosphere toward the earth. It is this radiation from the atmosphere back toward the Earth that increases the surface temperature.(snip)

This isn't just for AM --- everybody please go back and review Kirchoff's Law.

Regarding convective heat transfer from the surface to the tropopause, there is the adiabatic cooling of rising air masses, and the adiabatic warming of falling air masses to consider, plus whatever radiative heat transfers occur between sun and various air masses, between Earth surface and air masses, between CMB and air masses, and among air masses; i.e., it ain't obvious, the measurements ain't been done, and they aren't likely to be accomplished to a "definitive" level of certainty anytime soon.

 

[Andrew Mason]

This isn't just for AM --- everybody please go back and review Kirchoff's Law.

I am not sure what you are suggesting. It is not simply a matter of looking at the Earth from space as blackbody radiation problem. That analysis will give you the blackbody temperature of the Earth as viewed from space but it will not give you the temperature on the surface. The surface temperature will depend on how much energy is reaching the surface from space (the sun) and how much energy is reaching the surface from the matter above the surface ie. the atmosphere. That is a function of the temperature of the atmosphere and also how reflective and transparent that atmosphere is to IR radiation emitted from the Earth's surface.

A car sitting in the sun gets warm because a lot of short wavelength radiation (solar temperature 6000K) enters causing the car to emit long wavelength radiation (car temperature about 300K). The glass is transparent to short wavelength radiation but reflects and also absorbs/reradiates long wavelength IR radiation back into the car. So the radiation into the car is more than just the solar radiation.

Now, convection will cause air will move around in the car. But this doesn't really cool the inside of the car much. You won't get cool.

AM

 

[vanesch]

Now, convection will cause air will move around in the car. But this doesn't really cool the inside of the car much. You won't get cool.

It is highly artificial as example of course, but consider that the car only gets hot through solar radiation through the window and that the roof of the car is in the shadow. In that case, convection DOES cool the car a little bit, as more heat is transported to the roof of the car, so that more heat is conducted out and radiated away by the metallic roof, than if there were no convection and only the seats got very hot, and had to radiate away their heat to the roof.

In other words, facilitating the heat transport from the source (here, the seats of the car, that convert solar light into heat) to the dump (the roof) removes heat somewhat quicker.

 

[Andre]

http://www.gi.alaska.edu/ScienceForum/ASF8/817.html is how a greenhouse really works:

...Whether bare or covered by a greenhouse, the ground absorbs radiation from the sun and heats up. The increase in temperature is conducted to the air next to the earth; that air then warms and expands, thus becoming less dense than the air higher up. The lighter air rises, allowing cooler and denser air to take its place at the surface and absorb more heat from the warmed ground. Thus the radiation absorbed by the ground goes into heating a deepening layer of air. Above open ground on a sunny day in summer, the heated layer of air may easily be a mile or more deep, and since the warming is spread over such a large mass (a deep layer of air plus a very thin layer of soil and vegetation), the temperature rise is diluted by the sheer amount of stuff that must be heated. (Think of how slowly the temperature rises in a large kettle full of water which is set on a hot stove for five minutes.)

In a greenhouse, this mixing is confined to the layer of air trapped under the roof, so there is a much smaller mass to be heated. Essentially, the large kettle full of water has been replaced by one with half an inch of water on its bottom, and as a result the water will warm up much faster. This also explains why ventilation is so important in keeping a greenhouse from overheating. (A closed car in the sun heats up due to the same mechanism.)...

 

[billiards]

It is well understood that the "greenhouse effect" is a misnoma. An actual greenhouse works by physically preventing air from convecting heat outside of its glass housing. The "greenhouse" effect in the atmosphere is completely different, it works by gas particles absorbing energy in specific bands of the the electro-magnetic spectrum and re-emitting this energy, some of which goes back towards the earth.

Convection is the most efficient form of heat transfer, of course it accounts for a great deal of the Earth's dissipated energy. So much so that I don't think that small changes in CO2 will drive a significant increase in this dissipative mechanism. In fact, I don't really see why it would necessarily act as a convection enhancer in the first place, perhaps it even has the reverse effect? Given that CO2 covers bands of the electro-magnetic spectrum not covered by water vapour or methane, I reckon it's probably more important as a greenhouse gas, because if it weren't there the energy would be free to escape.

As for the discussion surrounding the scientific method, I think we have to look at this science less as a pure mathematical science, such as the type of science that Feynman was doing, and more as a kind of "geophysical hazards" type science. This is mixed with political, financial and of course sociological considerations which detract from the pure science - I don't mean that in an "excuses for poor science" kind of way - it's just how this science is. For example, take the study of volcanology, if the scientist who studies the volcano thinks it's going to erupt, she does her best to check the science but she cannot be 100% certain that it will go; it's still her job to let people know she thinks it's going to go, perhaps she will give them a degree of certainty and allow the authorities to handle the PR. Of course I'm not saying that Feynman was wrong, he was most certainly right in my opinion, and it is a shame that climate science (and Earth sciences in general) isn't closer to the rigourous science conducted by the likes of Feynman, but the complexity of the macroscopic scale forbids it. Incidentally, I'm not so sure that the anthropogenic CO2 emissions = global warming hypothesis is presented as being "proven", I seem to remember a "90% certain" from the IPCC.

To quote a famous glaciology paper, Mann 1978, when the fear of global warming first started to emerge:

Schneider sums up the dilemma facing mankind: despite the crudities and inadequacies of present techniques for modelling the climatic effects of increasing atmospheric CO2 content and the resultant doubts about the magnitude of the warming that would actually occur, we cannot afford to let the atmosphere carry out the experiment before taking action because if the results confirm the prognosis, and we should know one way or another by the end of the century, it will be too late to remedy the situation on account of the long residence time of CO2 in the atmosphere (Keeling and Bacastow estimate that, if all accessible fules were burnt, restoration of pre-industrial levels of CO2 would take at least 10,000 yr).

S

 

[Andrew Mason]

http://www.gi.alaska.edu/ScienceForum/ASF8/817.html is how a greenhouse really works:

A greenhouse can use many different techniques for regulating and/or storing heat. These do not illustrate the greenhouse principle. The principle is simple: let shortwave radiant energy in and trap the longwave radiation on its way out.

There is a popular misconception that the greenhouse effect is misnamed, suggesting that the trapping of heat by CO2 in the atmosphere is fundamentally different than the use of glass in a greenhouse. The principle is the same, although the mechanism is different. In a greenhouse the glass reflects the IR radiation back into the greenhouse ie. the IR radiation is not absorbed and reradiated by the glass. With CO2 the IR radiation emitted by the surface of the Earth is absorbed by the CO2, so the temperature of the CO2 increases. The CO2 then emits IR radiation - half of it back toward the earth.

AM

 

[Bystander]

http://www.wmconnolley.org.uk/sci/wood_rw.1909.html

from post #29 this thread, R. McL.

 

[vanesch]

It is well understood that the "greenhouse effect" is a misnoma. An actual greenhouse works by physically preventing air from convecting heat outside of its glass housing. The "greenhouse" effect in the atmosphere is completely different, it works by gas particles absorbing energy in specific bands of the the electro-magnetic spectrum and re-emitting this energy, some of which goes back towards the earth.

Convection is the most efficient form of heat transfer, of course it accounts for a great deal of the Earth's dissipated energy. So much so that I don't think that small changes in CO2 will drive a significant increase in this dissipative mechanism. In fact, I don't really see why it would necessarily act as a convection enhancer in the first place, perhaps it even has the reverse effect? Given that CO2 covers bands of the electro-magnetic spectrum not covered by water vapour or methane, I reckon it's probably more important as a greenhouse gas, because if it weren't there the energy would be free to escape.

As for the discussion surrounding the scientific method, I think we have to look at this science less as a pure mathematical science, such as the type of science that Feynman was doing, and more as a kind of "geophysical hazards" type science. This is mixed with political, financial and of course sociological considerations which detract from the pure science - I don't mean that in an "excuses for poor science" kind of way - it's just how this science is. For example, take the study of volcanology, if the scientist who studies the volcano thinks it's going to erupt, she does her best to check the science but she cannot be 100% certain that it will go; it's still her job to let people know she thinks it's going to go, perhaps she will give them a degree of certainty and allow the authorities to handle the PR. Of course I'm not saying that Feynman was wrong, he was most certainly right in my opinion, and it is a shame that climate science (and Earth sciences in general) isn't closer to the rigourous science conducted by the likes of Feynman, but the complexity of the macroscopic scale forbids it. Incidentally, I'm not so sure that the anthropogenic CO2 emissions = global warming hypothesis is presented as being "proven", I seem to remember a "90% certain" from the IPCC.

To quote a famous glaciology paper, Mann 1978, when the fear of global warming first started to emerge:

Schneider sums up the dilemma facing mankind: despite the crudities and inadequacies of present techniques for modelling the climatic effects of increasing atmospheric CO2 content and the resultant doubts about the magnitude of the warming that would actually occur, we cannot afford to let the atmosphere carry out the experiment before taking action because if the results confirm the prognosis, and we should know one way or another by the end of the century, it will be too late to remedy the situation on account of the long residence time of CO2 in the atmosphere (Keeling and Bacastow estimate that, if all accessible fules were burnt, restoration of pre-industrial levels of CO2 would take at least 10,000 yr).

S

I fully agree with what you write, and I always pointed out that AGW is 1) a genuine possibility, that, given the data, is certainly plausible and 2) that given the potential damage (although that can also be disputed, but ok...) of AGW, even if there were only a 30% chance of it actually happening in dramatic proportions, we should try to mitigate it. So, given the current state of affairs, I think that there is no discussion that we should at least plan how to get our CO2 emissions down, just in case. But that's the social and political part.

However, science is science and it is not because the means to gather proof are harder, that truth is easier to find and hence that one has to be less rigorous. And what disturbs me profoundly in the *scientific* discussion of AGW, is that open but sceptic inquiry is now frowned upon - while it should be the prevailing attitude. When you look at the IPCC and all the supportive bodies around it, it seems that if you even dare to question certain hypotheses of the AGW theory, you are stamped as a heretic, a climate sceptic, etc... with the underlying insinuation that you are or a crackpot, or that you have some or other vested interest in denying AGW, or that you have yourself leading by your emotions and are in a psychological state of denial.

We have had, according to their saying, official members of the IPCC here on this board requesting that discussions be closed simply because they were putting in doubt aspects of the AGW hypothesis, and that this should be treated as crackpot stuff, as if it were creationism or something of the kind. I find this, given the current state of knowledge, a very very worrisome attitude on the scientific level. It is the thing I try to point out (and I might come over as an AGW denier because of that, which I'm not).

Again, there's enough stuff on the table to say that it is not completely crazy to think of AGW, and given its potential dangers in its most extreme forms, that by itself is sufficient to warrant careful policies. Even a 10% chance of AGW (which means that there is 90% chance that AGW is not true) should make us err on the side of caution. Nobody would accept, say, a 10% chance that we would ignite the atmosphere in the coming century or 10% chance of some other global disaster. So the very absence of total proof that there is no AGW is sufficient to warrant careful policies.

But that has *nothing* to do with the question whether it makes sense or not to investigate in the difficulties that the AGW theory still faces. The very fact that taking on this position now makes you a heretic, or a non-scientist, or a spokesman of this or that presumed lobby, is, to me, as a scientist, profoundly shocking.

Also the 90% certainty displayed by the IPCC is itself just a statistical estimate of a distribution of responses to radiative forcings which is based upon certain hypotheses which are then given 100% a priori certainty. I think it is a very optimistic estimate of the actual state of knowledge.

 

[Andre]

We have had, according to their saying, official members of the IPCC here on this board requesting that discussions be closed simply because they were putting in doubt aspects of the AGW hypothesis, and that this should be treated as crackpot stuff, as if it were creationism or something of the kind.

I should not react to the less apparent due diligence of that IPCC groupthink but this is insane. If you can't win the discussion, remove the opponent. Why wasn't this alleged IPCC member invited to refute the rebuttals and demonstrate the robustness of the climate change notion?

Problem is that all evidence has evaporated; the ice cores; the hockeystick and the actual records.

In the beginning there were the ice cores showing a remarkable correlation between "temperature" and carbon dioxide. Given the greenhouse effect hypothesis this appeared to be a rather convincing substantiation, which certainly warranted climate caution.

But later research showed a substantial lag of CO2, following temperatures and the alternate guess of explaining it away as positive feedback, has never been substantiated. Instead, the characteristic behavior of positive feedback is missing. It actually shows that CO2 did nothing observable, essentially falsifying the estimated greenhouse effect of CO2.

Then came the hockey stick, Mann et al ironing out the wrinkles of the Medieval Warming Period and the Little Ice age in the last millennium; showing an overwhelming convincing nobrainer correlation between temperatures and CO2 both rising dramatically in the last millenium.

But then it was demonstrated that the hockey stick was mainly based on an incorrect algoritm, causing all Monte Carlo simulations to produce hockeysticks. Later reconstructions of the last millennium do show the Medieval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age again, demonstrating the predominance of natural variability independent of CO2. Mind that he discussion, whether or not the Medieval Warm Period was warmer than today, is irrelevant and plays no role in asserting the “warming power” of CO2.

An then the actual records; indeed the temperatures and CO2 were rising simultaneously in the last quarter of the last century, again suggesting causality. However the warming trend diminished around the beginning of this century, while the CO2 continued to rise, again demonstrating that natural variability outperforms CO2.

Notice also that melting glaciers, a warmer Arctic and rising sea levels, merely proof changing conditions, but not what caused those changes. Furthermore, notice also that climate model runs, based on the unproven hypothesis merely constitute circular reasoning. That’s no evidence either.

So what is the evidence left that supports substantial warming due to rising levels of CO2? I can’t think of any. Instead we have competing hypotheses (Chilingar et al 2008, Miscolczi 2007) explaining why the basic idea’s of the greenhouse hypothesis may be incorrect.

But it doesn’t matter since we have to curb emissions anyway to transit to sustainable energy, right? Wrong. It matters because science is turned into ideology or dogma here to enforce policy. That will backfire hard eventually when proven incorrect in the future. Perhaps we should let the governments be run by engineers, who can’t afford basing their designs on unproven dogmas.

 

[wolram]

The worrying thing to me is, that scientists can not derive an experiment to prove or dis prove AGW, the laboratory is Earth and is tangible, or is it that this problem IS so testable?

 

[Andrew Mason]

However, science is science and it is not because the means to gather proof are harder, that truth is easier to find and hence that one has to be less rigorous. And what disturbs me profoundly in the *scientific* discussion of AGW, is that open but sceptic inquiry is now frowned upon - while it should be the prevailing attitude. When you look at the IPCC and all the supportive bodies around it, it seems that if you even dare to question certain hypotheses of the AGW theory, you are stamped as a heretic, a climate sceptic, etc... with the underlying insinuation that you are or a crackpot, or that you have some or other vested interest in denying AGW, or that you have yourself leading by your emotions and are in a psychological state of denial.

There is a big difference between questioning a theory and taking a position that the theory is wrong. The first is good science. The second is not, unless you can a) provide conclusive evidence against it and b) provide an alternative theory that explains all the evidence.

AM

 

[Andre]

There is a big difference between questioning a theory and taking a position that the theory is wrong. The first is good science. The second is not,

What happened to the scientific method? It's not the subjective position one takes, it's the objective evidence that counts. If you can't falsify a hypothesis, the chance is that there is some truth in it

unless you can a) provide conclusive evidence against it and b) provide an alternative theory that explains all the evidence.

No, conclusive evidence is enough. It doesn't matter if the defendant has a motive and has no alibi and is the owner of the murder weapon. If the DNA of the offender doesn't match, he is innocent. Period. The barrister/counselor doesn't have to proof who else did it.

nevertheless, my previous post shows both elements

 

[vanesch]

The worrying thing to me is, that scientists can not derive an experiment to prove or dis prove AGW, the laboratory is Earth and is tangible, or is it that this problem IS so testable?

Sure, we're doing it right now. We're pumping a lot of CO2 up there. One day, we will have lowered our CO2 output dramatically, or because we all collectively decided so (for good or bad reasons), or because there are no cheap fossil fuels left. That can be 30 years in the future, or 200 years in the future. It is then sufficient to look at the climate records over still some more decades, and the issue will be settled for good. So between 50 and 200 or 300 years, we will know for sure and there will be no more discussion

The drawback is that it is a long experiment...

 

[Andrew Mason]

No, conclusive evidence is enough.

Conclusive evidence is enough to falsify a theory. But that does not necessarily mean that the conclusion is wrong, just the theory supporting the conclusion. To take a position that the conclusion that human activity is warming the Earth is wrong, a scientist has to provide conclusive evidence that the AGW theory is wrong and offer an explanation that is consistent with all the evidence that leads to a different conclusion.

It doesn't matter if the defendant has a motive and has no alibi and is the owner of the murder weapon. If the DNA of the offender doesn't match, he is innocent. Period. The barrister/counselor doesn't have to proof who else did it.

DNA is not always conclusive. It depends on the circumstances. The case of Dr. John Schneeburger is a case in point. The eyewitness (the victim of a rape) said he did it. A DNA sample extracted from his arm did not match the DNA of the perpetrator left at the crime scene. A second DNA test on blood from the Dr. matched the first sample. There was another "theory" that fit all the evidence and the complainant was vindicated and Schneeburger was convicted.

Usually, though, if DNA does not match, the non-match is conclusive evidence exhonerating the accused and proving another theory and resulting in another conclusion ie that the perpetrator was a person whose identity is not known.

AM

 

[Andre]

Conclusive evidence is enough to falsify a theory. But that does not necessarily mean that the conclusion is wrong, just the theory supporting the conclusion. To take a position that the conclusion that human activity is warming the Earth is wrong, a scientist has to provide conclusive evidence that the AGW theory is wrong and offer an explanation that is consistent with all the evidence that leads to a different conclusion.

Wouldn't be the first step, testing the AGW hypothesis with real life data. Sure that has been done and there was evidence that supported it but, repeating myself, now ALL evidence is evaporated, verschwunden. We only see natural variability, there is nothing left that needs to be explained other than natural variability can't explain.

 

[DEMcMillan]

Before moving to other topics, this thread touched on CO₂ level effects on human physiology with little recognition of the ability of closed environments to raise CO₂ levels when large numbers of humans or animals raise CO₂ by their breathing.

Consider a thousand people attending a function in a room of 1000 m² are and 10 m height. As they enter the volume of CO₂ is about 3,500 liters. They each exhale 1 liter each 6 minutes. After 2 hours the level becomes 23,500 liters. No-one notices because each of us is already experiencing a much higher CO₂ inhalational level due to “dead space” exchange effects in which the 5% CO₂ air that we exhale is mixed with incoming air. Now think about the levels achieved on a submarine and the need to be concerned but not dismayed. The CO₂ levels we need to consider are well below toxic levels in all cases.

On the other hand, now land on Venus or Mars with an over 95% CO₂ atmosphere. Respiration now introduces a nineteenfold rise in a gas that dissolves quickly in water and dissociates into hydronium (H₃O⁺ = H⁺) and bicarbonate (HCO₃^-) ions to create an instant acidosis as well as taking away oxygen needed for cerebral activity. The drop in pH becomes as important as the lack of oxygen in killing us.

While we are in the health-carbon area we seem to be missing a major point in the recent dialogue about carbon and its potential negative effects on “World” climate. The rising use of “fossil fuels” in the last half century has had one unambiguous effect on the World. It has released very low ¹⁴C carbon into the atmosphere, lowering the elevation that was produced by atmospheric testing from the end of World War II to 1969. The rise and fall are of the same magnitude, returning us to pre-WWII ¹⁴C levels. This confirms the allegation of the magnitude of the addition. It also means that ¹⁴C levels would be 30% higher without fossil fuel use.

What is the ¹⁴C doing to our health? We have 18% carbon bodies. For a 70 kg adult, this converts to 6.3x10²⁶ carbon atoms. One in a trillion (10^-12) is ¹⁴C, giving us 6.3x10^{14 14}C atoms in our bodies. ¹⁴C half life is 5,730 years, giving us a rate of disintegration of 6x10⁸ per day or 7,000 per second. Each event emits an electron from the nucleus whose average energy is 156 keV. A molecular bond can be broken by 2 eV of energy. A feature of this disintegration is that the atomic number of the product goes up 1. It is once again nitrogen, altering the chemistry of its molecule. In DNA, this means a chain disruption that needs repair. DNA chain repair takes time and an unrepaired change mediated by the altered state can lead to a chromosomal crossover linkage. Such crossovers are responsible for malignant diseases and other proliferation problems. No-one has been able to quantify the C to N effect. General features of exposure to radiation are used to estimate the problem’s magnitude. What ever its magnitude, this problem is 30% less than it would have been without fossil fuel use.

 

[vanesch]

While we are in the health-carbon area we seem to be missing a major point in the recent dialogue about carbon and its potential negative effects on “World” climate. The rising use of “fossil fuels” in the last half century has had one unambiguous effect on the World. It has released very low ¹⁴C carbon into the atmosphere, lowering the elevation that was produced by atmospheric testing from the end of World War II to 1969. The rise and fall are of the same magnitude, returning us to pre-WWII ¹⁴C levels. This confirms the allegation of the magnitude of the addition. It also means that ¹⁴C levels would be 30% higher without fossil fuel use.

What is the ¹⁴C doing to our health? We have 18% carbon bodies. For a 70 kg adult, this converts to 6.3x10²⁶ carbon atoms. One in a trillion (10^-12) is ¹⁴C, giving us 6.3x10^{14 14}C atoms in our bodies. ¹⁴C half life is 5,730 years, giving us a rate of disintegration of 6x10⁸ per day or 7,000 per second. Each event emits an electron from the nucleus whose average energy is 156 keV. A molecular bond can be broken by 2 eV of energy. A feature of this disintegration is that the atomic number of the product goes up 1. It is once again nitrogen, altering the chemistry of its molecule. In DNA, this means a chain disruption that needs repair. DNA chain repair takes time and an unrepaired change mediated by the altered state can lead to a chromosomal crossover linkage. Such crossovers are responsible for malignant diseases and other proliferation problems. No-one has been able to quantify the C to N effect. General features of exposure to radiation are used to estimate the problem’s magnitude. What ever its magnitude, this problem is 30% less than it would have been without fossil fuel use.

Ok, this is going to get off topic, but this is dramatic for 2 reasons, the first one being that if there are people 5000 years of so from now are going to get all of their history wrong because of that erroneous C-14 scale, and second, because if it happens to be true that there is hormesis, then we are doing away with all that good radiation that would have stimulated our cell repair mechanisms

No, seriously, I don't think that the slight lowering of the radiation dose due to C-14 compensates all the toxic stuff we inhale because of coal powered plants...

 

[billiards]

Wouldn't be the first step, testing the AGW hypothesis with real life data. Sure that has been done and there was evidence that supported it but, repeating myself, now ALL evidence is evaporated, verschwunden. We only see natural variability, there is nothing left that needs to be explained other than natural variability can't explain.

That's a bold statement.

Although it raises a fair point:

Looking at these temperatures, and comparing to the life-over-time chart below, it would seem that Humans have evolved on a planet with bipolar glaciation, a fairly unusual state of affairs in Earth History. How will the humans react to change? My guess is they'll get scared and try to kill each other, who knows, maybe they will become extinct?


http://lachlanhunter.deadsetfreestuff.com/geological_time.jpg

 

[Andre]

... the first one being that if there are people 5000 years of so from now are going to get all of their history wrong because of that erroneous C-14 scale, ...

It's exactly that atmospheric 14C variation that has played an essential role in the myth forming. In the early days of ice core layer counting and the discovery of the large isotope excursions (d18O) it was assumed that these resembled temperatures, which is not unlogical. So seeking confirmation of that, the ice core records were compared with many other geologic records which were carbon dated. However, little one was aware of the high variability of the delta14C in atmospheric CO2, which led to mismatching. For instance some glacial readvance was carbon dated 12,000 years BP and the start of the alleged hyper cold Younger Dryas was counted to about 12,900 - 12,700 years ago. It seemed a perfect match and one could move ahead with such a nice evidence.

Now the problem is that 12,000 14C years calibrates with INTCAL04 to about 13,830 calendar years which is in the middle of the alleged warm Bolling Allerod interval.

Of course one never looks back to see if the process was still valid with modern information available, because that would seriously challenge this interpretation:
edit:

see for instance:
http://www.aip.org/history/climate/cycles.htm
http://www.aip.org/history/climate/rapid.htm

 

[DEMcMillan]

Vanesch wrote

No, seriously, I don't think that the slight lowering of the radiation dose due to C-14 compensates all the toxic stuff we inhale because of coal powered plants...

You seem to equate nitrogen oxide and sulfur dioxide effects with radiation exposure. Do you have any evidence to support your position. I live in an area where all electricity is generated from coal. No-one here knows of such a relationship. If you are right we need to abandon solar and wind power because, being periodic, they will need to be supported by coal. Nuclear is not suited to periodic use. Periodic Sierra hydroelectric use is prominent in California in summer but is at capacity. I have lived before where wind power was used and was annoyed by the devices’ appearance without knowing yet of the bird deaths.

30% is more than a little. People in the radiation-cancer field usually make the relationship linear. The DNA repairase process may produce some positive feedback, increasing disease more than linearly.

I lived for 14 years in the Southern California air basin where inversions mediated by the Pacific were a regular feature. Aldehydes and opacity were the main source of difficulty. Collection of gasoline vapor to avoid its entry into the air has reduced opacity. Conversion of diesel trucks to natural gas is useful there but cab conversions are all for show. Future supplies of natural gas are threatened by a number of NIMBY movements. An attempt there to have ships use only low gravity bunker oil while in the area is being met with resistance that will raise shipping costs.

 

[Andrew Mason]

Wouldn't be the first step, testing the AGW hypothesis with real life data. Sure that has been done and there was evidence that supported it but, repeating myself, now ALL evidence is evaporated, verschwunden. We only see natural variability, there is nothing left that needs to be explained other than natural variability can't explain.

So I guess you can explain Venus' surface temperature without reference to CO2 content of its atmosphere.!?

AM

 

[vanesch]

Vanesch wrote
You seem to equate nitrogen oxide and sulfur dioxide effects with radiation exposure. Do you have any evidence to support your position. I live in an area where all electricity is generated from coal.

I don't have any evidence because there is no evidence at all that low levels of radiation exposure have any health effect at all - one only takes on *by convention* the LNT model in radiation protection, because it is the severest model that makes sense. From that model one can calculate the expected number of victims due to a radiation exposure. It is 5.6% of chance to die prematurely per Sievert of equivalent dose. I think, off the top of my head, that the dose you are talking about must be around 100 microsievert per year or so (C-14 is a fraction of the natural body self-irradiation, next to cosmic and telluric irradiation which amounts to a few hundred microsieverts a year).

The average world exposure is 2.4 mSv / year, of which about 0.4 mSv comes from medical diagnosis exposure (world average) and 1.2 mSv / year medical diagnosis exposure in the West (dentists and the like). Most of the natural background radiation varies, from about 1 mSv to 10 mSv per year, but there are some places where this gets in the 100 mSv / year, without observable effects which can clearly be distinguished from other variability.
So I don't think we should get nervous because of 0.1 mSv or so...

That said, a serious fraction of particulate and chemical air pollution is due to coal fired plants, and that pollution is known to lead to a significant number of death per year. Coal brings in the environment large amounts of mercury, of radium, of uranium, etc...

No-one here knows of such a relationship. If you are right we need to abandon solar and wind power because, being periodic, they will need to be supported by coal. Nuclear is not suited to periodic use.

That's a misunderstanding. See https://www.physicsforums.com/showpost.php?p=1949854&postcount=235 and related posts.

Nuclear is flexible, more so than coal. The only sources which are more flexible are hydro and gas. But nuclear can follow load for more than 99% of the time.

30% is more than a little. People in the radiation-cancer field usually make the relationship linear. The DNA repairase process may produce some positive feedback, increasing disease more than linearly.

Actually, the DNA repair mechanism is more the theoretical basis for models where the effect of a small dose variation is smaller than given by an overall linear relationship, and maybe even a threshold or even hormesis.

But in any case, any non-linear relationship between dose and effect that remains in agreement with effects at higher, measured doses will have a lower effect of a small increase in dose than the linear model. If you don't believe this, do the example with a quadratic model. It is only in the improbable case where the "quick rise" would be exactly on the background level that one would get a worse effect. The reason why this is improbable is that there are very large variations in natural background from place to place.

Now, what you may not know is that the radioactive exposure of people by coal fired plants is several times higher than due to the entire nuclear industry, and with nearby coal fired plants, this can amount up to 200 microsievert per year. That's still a low dose, btw, but of the order of the C-14 effect you were talking about.

EDIT: that said, we are really off-topic here, and any further discussion should be in the nuclear engineering forum...

 

[Andre]

So I guess you can explain Venus' surface temperature without reference to CO2 content of its atmosphere.!?

AM

That's not the question. It's not about challenging the radiative proportions of CO2, it's about understanding how it works. The question is if the condition of Venus would constitute support/proof for the IPCC greenhouse hypothesis or would it support the convection hypothesis of Chilingar et al. Let's see,

The IPCC assumes a global temperature increases of about 3 degrees per doubling CO2, Now if you do the math for Venus doubling the CO2 starting with 1ppmv you'd end up with an order of magnitude of about 20 degrees per doubling. It would require a rather creative explanation to talk that together.

However Chilingar et al propose that the Earth atmosphere is mainly heated by convection The convection transports the heat up so that the chance increases that emitted energy escapes to space rather than being re-absorpted at the Earth surface. How is this for Venus? The strong radiative properties of the CO2 are suppressing convection in the lower atmosphere. Hence energy emitted from the surface has a far larger chance to hit the surface again. Venus is missing the convective air conditioner of Earth.

Hence the Venus numbers don't add up for the IPCC hypothesis but the missing convection in the lower layers do support Chilingar et al.

There is a lot more to say about the origin of the heat of Venus but that's less relevant here.

 

[Andre]

That's a bold statement.

Sorry Jack, I intended to react earlier but I wasn't sure what you intended to suggest.

Anyway, I don't seem to recall that the IPCC had presented the geological alleged greenhouse-icehouse pendulum as evidence for CO2 causing warming. It could be equally true that warming caused higher CO2 levels as the ice cores suggest. Apart from that, there are deviations. The Paleocene greenhouse appears to have had http://lib.bioinfo.pl/pmid:11423657 .

So I stand by my capitals for ALL evidence being evaporated.

 

[mheslep]

...The IPCC assumes a global temperature increases of about 3 degrees per doubling CO2, Now if you do the math for Venus doubling the CO2 starting with 1ppmv you'd end up with an order of magnitude of about 20 degrees per doubling. It would require a rather creative explanation to talk that together...

Most of IPCC's 3 degrees/ 2x CO2 is from feedbacks, mainly water vapor effects, as you often point out, so I don't think one can compare directly to Venus in this way.