Fundamentally about Global warming alias Climate Change alias AGW PDF Print E-mail
Written by Karl. J. Hansen   
Monday, 17 August 2009 12:34

The singular most important issue about global warming and the policy it spawns now or in the future, is solely this:  Does increased atmospheric CO2 considerably raise global temperature and is human role in this significant?

Everything else is unrelated and will only lead to endless discussions with no conclusion.  Let us therefore start by looking at what influence increased CO2 has on the worlds average temperature.  The simplest and possibly the only reliable method, is to analyse the correlation in the historic records during the last many millions of years.  We are so lucky that we several places on Earth have ice so thick that the oldest ice is incredible old.  We have therefore drilled ice cores up on both Greenland and Antarctica.  In these cylinders you will find small bobbles of air trapped.  The bobbles have kept the temperature, oxygen, carbon-dioxide and many other gasses through out history.  The analyses of these ice cores shows that there is no absolute correlation between temperature and CO2 concentration.  Further more have these investigations shown that there is a trend for CO2 rising and falling 800 years after rise and fall of the temperature.  Al Gore got this fatally wrong in his famous film from 2007, where he said that when CO2 rose and fell, then the temperature rose and fell in sync herewith.  To cut it out in cardboard so even Al Gore and James Hansen can grasp it:  CO2 increases after a temperature increase and this with a delay of about 800 years.

For that matter, we could stop right here, because we already now know from historic data, that CO2 does not influence temperature to any significant degree.  For the sake of good order, I will elaborate a little more detailed on why this is the case.
At present there is very low CO2 concentration at below 0.04%.  We have been down to 0.02% recently in geological terms.  Such a low level is getting close to the point where all animal and plant life go out of existence.  The current level at 0.04% provides almost 100% of the greenhouse effect that CO2 is capable of.  You calculate with a doubling of CO2 to 0.08% giving an increase in global temperature of 0.1 to 0.2 degree Celsius.  If we look at the more significant roles of CO2, such as ingredients for photosyntheses, which largely all plants and trees use to grow and mature with, the the current poor concentration at 0.04% is close to starvation limit.  The dinosaurs had much better times with 0.1% to 0.25% CO2 and therefore significantly higher oxygen concentration.  It must therefore be assumed that Dino lived in a very green world.  Many scientists assume 0.1% CO2 to be the optimum for life on Earth - so 2 to 3 times our current concentration.

We plants need more co2


To the question about to what degree we humans, our animals, our industry and other activities have on CO2 concentration.
Lots of calculations have been carried out regarding this and I will therefore not expose any numbers here.  It is though for certain that humanly produced increase in CO2 concentration is fairly moderate compared to foremost the oceans.  The oceans exhale large quantities CO2 to the atmosphere at present.  This is due to the fact that the oceans slowly heat up from the last ice age and earlier warmer periods.  Cold water can contain more carbon-dioxide than warm water.  The deep oceans contain more CO2 than the less deep (Henry's Law).  This is because at higher pressure the ocean can contain more CO2.  We are all familiar with this from when we open a Cola bottle, the pressure falls and the CO2 bubbles up to the surface and is released.  Another source, which also significantly exceeds human capability, are the volcanoes.  Volcanoes are very powerful producers of CO2.  A third source of CO2 is bacteria.  It is bacteria that are responsible for the compost of plants, trees and all dead animals and human beings.  A fourth source is animals and humans exhale.  We exhale a concentration at about 4% CO2, which is the reason why it is so good to talk to your house plants, they love the CO2 you exhale.  Yes, humans have a measurable effect on CO2 concentration.  However, it should be noted that CO2 would currently continue to increase even if we moved all people including all their activities to Mars.  Maybe Virgin Galactic can assist with such an experiment.

Conclusion
Yes, CO2 is increased further by human activity.  Yes, the global temperature increase due to our activities, but this increase is mostly theoretical.  The temperature increase is so small that it will totally disappear in the arsenal of natural variations.  We should appreciate the moderate temperature increase, we have experienced during the last few centuries.  We should appreciate higher temperatures for many reasons.  Because temperature increase is most pronounced at the Earth's poles, the temperature difference between the poles and Equator is diminishing, which in turn decrease the total storm potential.  Higher temperatures also creates higher humidity, more CO2, more oxygen, including a richer and more plentiful plant and animal life.  By higher air humidity and more carbon-dioxide the dessert areas diminish and the agriculture yield is increased.


Some key points

The greenhouse signature is missing.
Weather balloons have analysed the skies for years, but they still cannot find any trace of the expected "hot-spot" pattern, which greenhouse gasses would create.  There is not even a shadow of a trace.
Something else generates warming.
Missing hot-spot

The most important evidence was ice cores; but recent, more detailed, data turned the theory upside-down.
Instead of CO2 pressing the temperature up, the temperature has gone up before CO2.  On an average of 800 years before.  This fact threw away the fundamental idea about cause and action.
Something else generates warming.
Temp drives CO2

The temperature is not rising.
Satellites orbit around the planet twice a day.  They show that the Earth has not become warmer since 2001.  How many years of no global warming is needed?  While the temperature has been flat, the CO2 has been steady rising.
Something else generates warming,
but the computer models do not know what it is.
Temp and CO2 vs time

Carbon-dioxide already provide all the warming it can.
Doubling the CO2 does not give twice the difference.  The first CO2 molecules are the most important, but additional has less effect.  Actually the carbon-dioxide level was previously ten times higher, but we still dived into ice age.
Carbon-dioxide today a minor role with respect to the temperature.
CO2 saturation graph

There are things out there influencing the climate more than CO2,
but the computer models do not know what it is.


AGW = Anthropogenic Global Warming ~ human caused global warming
Last Updated on Wednesday, 23 September 2009 08:03
 

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