Simple explanation of greenhouse effect - right or wrong?

[duncan61]

Hi everyone,I am brand new to this forum however I have been participating in other forums for 14 months.My interest in AGW/CC began when a young girl whose house I was working on confidently declared."CO2 is like a blanket in the sky and its making the planet hotter."I had no clue as to the reality of this and have been investigating the effects of CO2 in the atmosphere since then and feel i have learned a lot.I purchased a CO2 meter and have been taking measurements at sea level and up in the Darling ranges at altitude and it is constant between 390ppm and 420ppm.This is a miniscule amount and as much as I understand the theory of CO2 reflecting light and it should make the surface warmer it simply is not.I have found it very difficult to find out from anywhere what the global average temperature should be or what it actually is.All I can find is its warming from some unknown quantity to another unknown quantity.This could be because we have no way of taking a snapshot of the global average at any given time.There are vast areas of Australia and Africa that have no measuring devices and I have studied how Satellites are supposed to measure surface temperatures and its sketchy at best.There is a lot of homogenisation which is tech speak for making it up.NASA spent huge sums of money putting instruments on AQUA and TERRA to read the UV light being emmitted from the Earth no one is going to say it did not work.

 

[pbuk]

I have found it very difficult to find out from anywhere what the global average temperature should be or what it actually is.All I can find is its warming from some unknown quantity to another unknown quantity.This could be because we have no way of taking a snapshot of the global average at any given time.There are vast areas of Australia and Africa that have no measuring devices and I have studied how Satellites are supposed to measure surface temperatures and its sketchy at best.

For all these reasons and more we do not use a 'global average temperature' to measure global climate change, we measure the 'mean global temparature anomaly'. There is a good explanation of the what, why and how of this here.

This is a miniscule amount and as much as I understand the theory of CO2 reflecting light and it should make the surface warmer it simply is not.

There is a good explanation of why CO₂ and other greenhouse gasses matter, despite their low absolute concentrations in the atmosphere here.

 

[duncan61]

Thank you

 

[duncan61]

Satellites do not measure temperature directly. They measure radiances in various wavelength bands, which must then be mathematically inverted to obtain indirect inferences of temperature.The resulting temperature profiles depend on details of the methods that are used to obtain temperatures from radiances. As a result, different groups that have analyzed the satellite data have produced differing temperature datasets.

GISS results are usually double CRU East Anglia.The results are given in .00 increments.Is this reliable science?
12 physical stations in the Alps at around 2400 meters have been recording temperature in the Alps since 1970 and some seasons are cooler some are warmer.The overal trend is minor.Who to trust?

 

[hutchphd]

12 physical stations in the Alps at around 2400 meters have been recording temperature in the Alps since 1970 and some seasons are cooler some are warmer.The overal trend is minor.Who to trust?

As has been pointed out, such questions are not all that relevant to the question at hand, and are often used as a red herring by those who prefer inaction and demand simple explanations to a complex problem . The analysis of the young girl is probably correct but incomplete , and the ice caps are in fact melting .

 

[duncan61]

I feel actual ground measurements taken at the same location over 50 years to be very relevant.The young man who did the study runs a short video on where the stations are and how he compliled the data.Its across 3 nations and I have a high confidence that the Swiss can measure stuff.

 

[hutchphd]

I have a high confidence that the Swiss can measure stuff.

And those measurements may well be true locally.
But the polar ice caps are most certainly melting.
They are large and phase change is most assuredly accurate, inconvenient though that may be.
.

 

[duncan61]

I am concerned about going off topic and I am not going to post links or name sources.When I started my journey of enlightenment I dared question sea levels and was blocked within a few hours by one site and have permanently left another site recently as I was abused for agreeing with Atmospheric Thermal Effect.My understanding of ATE is .Gravity makes the Atmosphere denser at the surface
.The Atmosphere has a mass
.The Atmoshere takes time to heat/cool
.This keeps the planet habitable
.I have learned there are many factors which affect this.

 

[BillTre]

You got periods at the wrong end of your sentences!
Better watch out for the punctuation police.

If you wanted to do bullets you could use these:

 

[duncan61]

1. Got it

 

[duncan61]

I would like to apply a physical side to this debate.This morning I went outside to load my jeep with pipe for tomorrows job.At 9.00am it was cold enough to make my hands uncomfortable and when I moved my jeep to the trailer inside the car was comfortable.At 11.00 am we still had 100% cloud cover and it was still cold however now it is 1.00pm and the clouds have dissipated and the sun is shining through and it is comfortably warm.From this is it reasonable to assume heavy water filled black clouds do not allow as much energy through as clear skies and how can this possibly be calculated?

 

[duncan61]

 

[duncan61]

I was testing my ability to post stuff and did it twice.Ooopps

 

[DrStupid]

.Gravity makes the Atmosphere denser at the surface
.The Atmosphere has a mass
.The Atmoshere takes time to heat/cool
.This keeps the planet habitable

If Earth's atmosphere wouls consist of pure nitrogen only, then

• Gravity would make it denser at the surface.
• The Atmospere would have a mass.
• The Atmosphere would take ime to hat/cool.
• This would not keep the planet habitable.

 

[f95toli]

Satellites do not measure temperature directly. They measure radiances in various wavelength bands, which must then be mathematically inverted to obtain indirect inferences of temperature.The resulting temperature profiles depend on details of the methods that are used to obtain temperatures from radiances. As a result, different groups that have analyzed the satellite data have produced differing temperature datasets.

This is gradually becoming less of a problem. There has been a huge effort over the past few years to improve the accuracy of satellite based observations and they are getting better.
An example of this effor would be the ESA TRUTH project will hopefully launch a satellite which among other things is specifically designed to help improve the calibration of data from other satellites.

Also, "not measuring temperature directly" somehow implies that radiometry is always a bad method, it is not. Radiometry is an extremely well established technique and can be done with extremely high accuracy if you use the right instruments, the problem is of course that doing this in a satellite is not trivial in any way. One of the goals of the TRUTH project is to do traceable radiometry from space; i.e it should be able to provide extremely reliable data.

 

[hutchphd]

I have studied the data myself and the warming trend detected has stopped

You forgot to tell the ice caps. Please tell them soon.

.

 

[jim mcnamara]

We got off track and went into speculation. Thread closed