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The greenhouse effect is reasonably well understood and methane is a potent greenhouse gas. We know that man made pollution is highly correlated with global wa

The greenhouse effect is reasonably well understood and methane is a potent greenhouse gas. We know that man made pollution is highly correlated with global warming and we know that greenhouse gasses cause the globe to warm. The only thing we don't know for certain is if there is another currently unknown cause with a larger contribution to global warming.

dozzie 12y ago
> The greenhouse effect is reasonably well understood Except that it doesn't stand even basic scrutiny. 10 meters high layer of CO_2 with current concentration already absorbs 99,94% of IR radiation, so whatever made it above fourth floor would be swallowed by next floors. Any change to the concentration of CO_2 makes no difference on Earth's radiation. > and methane is a potent greenhouse gas. Water is even more potent, as I know. We don't emit much water to the atmosphere. And guess what? It's there, even more than CO_2 and methane combined together. And now quick question: how are you sure that Sun's increasing activity is not the reason of climate change? And a hint: four centuries ago Batic Sea was freezing seasonally, so people could even build inns on it. Now there's little ice on Baltic since mid-1800's. The climate changed drastically, was it industry's fault as well? 19th century industry was not developed enough yet to affect whole climate. > We know that man made pollution is highly correlated with global warming and we know that greenhouse gasses cause the globe to warm. We know it is highly correlated, true. Correlation is not causation, though. It is basic logic. Then, we do not know that greenhouse gasses cause the global warm. It is merely a hypothesis, and given the historical facts, it doesn't stand the Occam's razor principle. > The only thing we don't know for certain is if there is another currently unknown cause with a larger contribution to global warming. No. The first thing we don't know is whether the hypothesis is actually true. It's unverifiable at best. There are plenty of possible effects in thermodynamics that would easily make the noise in measurements above the level of changes that are announced for greenhouse effect. We have no way to verify the claim the greenhouse effect takes the place, all the argument about it revolves around some mental model, which nobody tell is correct.
- seanflyon 12y ago
  > 10 meters high layer of CO_2 with current concentration already absorbs 99,94% of IR radiation, so whatever made it above fourth floor would be swallowed by next floors. Any change to the concentration of CO_2 makes no difference on Earth's radiation. Do you have a source for this? >Water is even more potent Yes and that would be a huge problem if it built up instead of falling out of the sky. >how are you sure that Sun's increasing activity is not the reason of climate change? This is actually what I was thinking of when I said "we don't know for certain is if there is another currently unknown cause with a larger contribution to global warming" though I believe this particular theory has been debunked. >four centuries ago Batic Sea was freezing seasonally You are referring to the little ice age which was primarily a localized event and therefore not caused by changes in the greenhouse effect or solar radiation. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Ice_Age http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Ice_Age >We know it is highly correlated, true. Correlation is not causation, though. I completely agree. The fact that they are correlated does not give us a causal link. The fact that green house gasses increase temperature does. The only missing piece here is how much of the increased temperature is caused by our greenhouse gas emissions and how much is caused by other unidentified forces. >There are plenty of possible effects in thermodynamics that would easily make the noise in measurements above the level of changes that are announced for greenhouse effect. I completely agree. When I said there could be an unknown effect, I did not mean to imply such an effect would be outside of "possible effects in thermodynamics". >We have no way to verify the claim the greenhouse effect takes the place Actually we can. We can measure the radiation before it hits earth, when it hits the ground and when it leaves the atmosphere as well as measure what radiation is absorbed and emitted by various gasses. We don't have a perfect understanding of the green house effect, but we can observe it in action.
  - dozzie 12y ago
    >> 10 meters high layer of CO_2 with current concentration already absorbs 99,94% of IR radiation, so whatever made it above fourth floor would be swallowed by next floors. Any change to the concentration of CO_2 makes no difference on Earth's radiation. > Do you have a source for this? "The roles of carbon dioxide and water vapour in warming and cooling the earth's troposphere", Jack Barrett. Maybe there's not the number (99.94%), but it says about absorption saturation on the first 100 meters above the ground. The 99.94% number is here: http://nov79.com/gbwm/hnzh.html http://nov79.com/gbwm/hnzh.html >> Water is even more potent > Yes and that would be a huge problem if it built up instead of falling out of the sky. It would be not. Maybe you don't know it, but water is already present in the atmosphere at the level of ground. Moreover, while some of water "falls out of the sky", some other part of it vaporizes at the same time. It doesn't disappear from the air. > This is actually what I was thinking of when I said "we don't know for certain is if there is another currently unknown cause with a larger contribution to global warming" though I believe this particular theory has been debunked. At this point it doesn't matter whether this particular theory has been debunked or not. You say that "we don't know for certain is if there is another currently unknown cause with a larger contribution to global warming". So we don't know if the global warming is actually caused by greenhouse effect. There's no magic in greenhouse effect that would cause it important when proven unimportant. Having this, it's way, way too early to panic about the greenhouse effect. > The fact that green house gasses increase temperature does [give causation]. It would, if it was fact. It's merely a hypothesis that these gasses increase the temperature of Earth. And again, it doesn't stand direct measurement with calculations (i.e. absorption saturation). > The only missing piece here is how much of the increased temperature is caused by our greenhouse gas emissions ...if affected by these emissions in any way over measurement error... > and how much is caused by other unidentified forces. So basically, we don't know if there are any other forces, but it must me human emission that causes global warming. So we focus on CO_2 and methane, which is nowhere near what water can absorb. >> We have no way to verify the claim the greenhouse effect takes the place > Actually we can. We can measure the radiation before it hits earth, when it hits the ground and when it leaves the atmosphere as well as measure what radiation is absorbed and emitted by various gasses. You know that this doesn't tell whether the greenhouse effect takes place? It only shows how much radiation is absorbed before entering the atmosphere and after leaving it. We have no way of checking if increasing CO_2 or methane concentration affects the radiation absorption. Sorry, but there are too many variables to make this a realiable experiment, and having effectively only one data point is too little to draw any conclusions.

dozzie 12y ago

> The greenhouse effect is reasonably well understood Except that it doesn't stand even basic scrutiny. 10 meters high layer of CO_2 with current concentration already absorbs 99,94% of IR radiation, so whatever made it above fourth floor would be swallowed by next floors. Any change to the concentration of CO_2 makes no difference on Earth's radiation. > and methane is a potent greenhouse gas. Water is even more potent, as I know. We don't emit much water to the atmosphere. And guess what? It's there, even more than CO_2 and methane combined together. And now quick question: how are you sure that Sun's increasing activity is not the reason of climate change? And a hint: four centuries ago Batic Sea was freezing seasonally, so people could even build inns on it. Now there's little ice on Baltic since mid-1800's. The climate changed drastically, was it industry's fault as well? 19th century industry was not developed enough yet to affect whole climate. > We know that man made pollution is highly correlated with global warming and we know that greenhouse gasses cause the globe to warm. We know it is highly correlated, true. Correlation is not causation, though. It is basic logic. Then, we do not know that greenhouse gasses cause the global warm. It is merely a hypothesis, and given the historical facts, it doesn't stand the Occam's razor principle. > The only thing we don't know for certain is if there is another currently unknown cause with a larger contribution to global warming. No. The first thing we don't know is whether the hypothesis is actually true. It's unverifiable at best. There are plenty of possible effects in thermodynamics that would easily make the noise in measurements above the level of changes that are announced for greenhouse effect. We have no way to verify the claim the greenhouse effect takes the place, all the argument about it revolves around some mental model, which nobody tell is correct.

seanflyon 12y ago
> 10 meters high layer of CO_2 with current concentration already absorbs 99,94% of IR radiation, so whatever made it above fourth floor would be swallowed by next floors. Any change to the concentration of CO_2 makes no difference on Earth's radiation. Do you have a source for this? >Water is even more potent Yes and that would be a huge problem if it built up instead of falling out of the sky. >how are you sure that Sun's increasing activity is not the reason of climate change? This is actually what I was thinking of when I said "we don't know for certain is if there is another currently unknown cause with a larger contribution to global warming" though I believe this particular theory has been debunked. >four centuries ago Batic Sea was freezing seasonally You are referring to the little ice age which was primarily a localized event and therefore not caused by changes in the greenhouse effect or solar radiation. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Ice_Age http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Ice_Age >We know it is highly correlated, true. Correlation is not causation, though. I completely agree. The fact that they are correlated does not give us a causal link. The fact that green house gasses increase temperature does. The only missing piece here is how much of the increased temperature is caused by our greenhouse gas emissions and how much is caused by other unidentified forces. >There are plenty of possible effects in thermodynamics that would easily make the noise in measurements above the level of changes that are announced for greenhouse effect. I completely agree. When I said there could be an unknown effect, I did not mean to imply such an effect would be outside of "possible effects in thermodynamics". >We have no way to verify the claim the greenhouse effect takes the place Actually we can. We can measure the radiation before it hits earth, when it hits the ground and when it leaves the atmosphere as well as measure what radiation is absorbed and emitted by various gasses. We don't have a perfect understanding of the green house effect, but we can observe it in action.
- dozzie 12y ago
  >> 10 meters high layer of CO_2 with current concentration already absorbs 99,94% of IR radiation, so whatever made it above fourth floor would be swallowed by next floors. Any change to the concentration of CO_2 makes no difference on Earth's radiation. > Do you have a source for this? "The roles of carbon dioxide and water vapour in warming and cooling the earth's troposphere", Jack Barrett. Maybe there's not the number (99.94%), but it says about absorption saturation on the first 100 meters above the ground. The 99.94% number is here: http://nov79.com/gbwm/hnzh.html http://nov79.com/gbwm/hnzh.html >> Water is even more potent > Yes and that would be a huge problem if it built up instead of falling out of the sky. It would be not. Maybe you don't know it, but water is already present in the atmosphere at the level of ground. Moreover, while some of water "falls out of the sky", some other part of it vaporizes at the same time. It doesn't disappear from the air. > This is actually what I was thinking of when I said "we don't know for certain is if there is another currently unknown cause with a larger contribution to global warming" though I believe this particular theory has been debunked. At this point it doesn't matter whether this particular theory has been debunked or not. You say that "we don't know for certain is if there is another currently unknown cause with a larger contribution to global warming". So we don't know if the global warming is actually caused by greenhouse effect. There's no magic in greenhouse effect that would cause it important when proven unimportant. Having this, it's way, way too early to panic about the greenhouse effect. > The fact that green house gasses increase temperature does [give causation]. It would, if it was fact. It's merely a hypothesis that these gasses increase the temperature of Earth. And again, it doesn't stand direct measurement with calculations (i.e. absorption saturation). > The only missing piece here is how much of the increased temperature is caused by our greenhouse gas emissions ...if affected by these emissions in any way over measurement error... > and how much is caused by other unidentified forces. So basically, we don't know if there are any other forces, but it must me human emission that causes global warming. So we focus on CO_2 and methane, which is nowhere near what water can absorb. >> We have no way to verify the claim the greenhouse effect takes the place > Actually we can. We can measure the radiation before it hits earth, when it hits the ground and when it leaves the atmosphere as well as measure what radiation is absorbed and emitted by various gasses. You know that this doesn't tell whether the greenhouse effect takes place? It only shows how much radiation is absorbed before entering the atmosphere and after leaving it. We have no way of checking if increasing CO_2 or methane concentration affects the radiation absorption. Sorry, but there are too many variables to make this a realiable experiment, and having effectively only one data point is too little to draw any conclusions.