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Thread ID: 140464	2015-10-16 19:47:00	Global Warming	jayal (1291)	PC World Chat

Post ID	Timestamp	Content	User
1410062	2015-10-23 21:41:00	What Global Warming? There hasn’t been any for 18 years and only 0.8 degrees Celsius in the last 135 years. As for trying to hype up the Co2 importance by using percentages let me put it to you this way. You have a cup of tea. You place in it one grain of sugar. You can’t taste it so you add another grain. You still can’t taste it. Why, because even though you’ve increased the sugar 100% the amount is so miniscule as to be unnoticeable. That is why trying to cause alarm by saying Co2 has increased 42% is nonsense. B.M., I have a sneaking admiration for your persistence in the face of all opposition, but why do you insist that the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere is "negligible". The absorption power of CO2 for infra-red radiation has been well documented for well over 100 years and the mechanism by which the absorbed energy heats the atmosphere is well understood. How do you "know" that the current CO2 concentration is too low to cause significant warming? Still, your statement "There hasn’t been any [warming] for 18 years... " seems to imply that you accept that warming was occurring up to 18 years ago, so we are making progress.	Jayess64 (8703)
1410063	2015-10-23 22:46:00	One of the predictions made due to global warming was that with the increased energy in the world system we would see increased numbers of hurricanes of larger and larger size as they picked up more energy from the warmed seas, over the last few years that hasn't really been the case, but it looks as if a really big one is heading into Mexico from the Pacific which is also unusual: www.usatoday.com	zqwerty (97)
1410064	2015-10-23 22:55:00	Also: www.iflscience.com thinkprogress.org	zqwerty (97)
1410065	2015-10-23 23:20:00	B.M., I have a sneaking admiration for your persistence in the face of all opposition, but why do you insist that the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere is " negligible " . The absorption power of CO2 for infra-red radiation has been well documented for well over 100 years and the mechanism by which the absorbed energy heats the atmosphere is well understood. How do you " know " that the current CO2 concentration is too low to cause significant warming? Still, your statement " There hasn’t been any [warming] for 18 years... " seems to imply that you accept that warming was occurring up to 18 years ago, so we are making progress. Well Jayess the point I am making about Co2 is that at the moment NASA tell us that there is 400 parts per million of Co2 in the atmosphere which is 0.04% and leaves 999,600 other parts. In my book this is a small proportion of anything, it doesn’t only apply to Co2. Have a play with the ratio of Co2 to the rest of the atmosphere yourself and you’ll soon see what I’m getting at. Quick example: You and I are standing together and you’re Co2 and I’m the rest of the atmosphere. You take a stride of 1 metre and I take a stride but I’m 2.5Km down the road. A big difference by any man’s standards. Moving onto the warming I rely on the fact that: 1: There hasn’t been any rise for 18 years. 2: The average rise there has been over the last 135 years only totals 0.8°C which is neither hear not there, given the temperature can rise and fall 20°C in a day no problem. So what is it that Mother Earth is doing today that she hasn’t done before? Nothing I can think of, the plants are growing, the birds a chirping, don’t know what all the fuss is about. :)	B.M. (505)
1410066	2015-10-24 03:31:00	Using a sort of mathematical induction, BM's reasoning goes like this: 400ppm of CO₂ in the atmosphere is incredibly tiny, a change of 120 ppm is even tinier, yea minuscule even, and produces no effect whatsoever; ergo, by induction, a change of 400ppm to 0% CO₂ is also minuscule and should produce no noticeable effect either. The only problem with this is that we would all be dead in due course :banana :banana	Terry Porritt (14)
1410067	2015-10-24 03:39:00	I agree - playing with the numbers for atmospheric CO2 is a good idea. You argue that 400ppm is a very low ratio, and in absolute terms I would agree. But I want to look at the figures in a different way, using some very rough calculations that are not exact but should show the order of magnitude of the effects we argue about. The density of air at "standard conditions" is about 1.2kg/m^3 (thats per cubic meter - I haven't figured out how to do superscripts here). At 400ppm of CO2, that corresponds to about 0.2 micrograms of carbon per cc, with the carbon in the form of CO2 gas molecules. Plug in Avogadro's Number and you get near enough to 10^16 CO2 molecules per cc of air. The very small number we started with no looks a bit bigger. Now my calculation gets very hairy indeed and any physical chemist will wince, but the point remains valid. The bond length of the CO2 molecule is of the order of a couple of Angstrom units, and for my purpose I will treat it as a radius. So the geometric cross-section area of one molecule is of the order of 13x10^-16 cm^2. Now, if we project all the CO2 molecules in 1 cc (10^16) against on face of the 1cm cube, we see that their areas will overlap. This means that a ray passing through the cube is almost guaranteed to intercept at least one CO2 molecule, and that's for only 1cm path length - we have kilometres available. Replace the ray by a photon of thermal radiation with a wavelength corresponding to an absorption band in CO2. The photon has a good probability of being absorbed (remember that the oxygen & nitrogen are pretty well invisible to such a photon). It gives its energy to the molecule, which then begins vibrating and/or rotating. The CO2 may re-emit the photon, which can set off in any direction, or, more likely the CO2 will collide with another gas molecule, almost certainly nitrogen or oxygen. The result is like what happens when you toss a pingpong ball into a rotating fan - it comes out faster than it went in. The excitation energy of the CO2 molecule is transferred into kinetic energy of the colliding molecule and it bangs into neighbouring molecule, passing on some of its energy. But this increase in kinetic energy of the gas molecules is simply what we call heat. A chemist might say that CO2 acts as a catalyst to convert radiant energy into heat. The amount of energy involved in a single event like this is minuscule, but we have a huge number of molecules available. OK, B.M., I've left enough wriggle room here for you to find all sorts of objections (I don't doubt your ingenuity), but I just want to show that because a number looks small, it doesn't mean it's insignificant. Oh, yes, your comment about 0.8 degrees rise in 135 years is a red herring - the accelerated rise dates from the mid-20th century. Rising and falling 20C in a day - oh, come now, you know better than that.	Jayess64 (8703)
1410068	2015-10-24 03:42:00	Using a sort of mathematical induction, BM's reasoning goes like this: 400ppm of CO₂ in the atmosphere is incredibly tiny, a change of 120 ppm is even tinier, yea minuscule even, and produces no effect whatsoever; ergo, by induction, a change of 400ppm to 0% CO₂ is also minuscule and should produce no noticeable effect either. The only problem with this is that we would all be dead in due course :banana :banana You are absolutely right Terry, we will be. :banana :banana But maybe in the meantime we could start a rumour that Co2 is dropping and see what happens. After all there are those distinguished scientists who predict an Ice Age. :clap	B.M. (505)
1410069	2015-10-24 03:52:00	BM, things don't have to be present in large doses to have an effect.	Nick G (16709)
1410070	2015-10-24 03:54:00	OK, B.M., I've left enough wriggle room here for you to find all sorts of objections (I don't doubt your ingenuity), but I just want to show that because a number looks small, it doesn't mean it's insignificant. Oh, yes, your comment about 0.8 degrees rise in 135 years is a red herring - the accelerated rise dates from the mid-20th century. Rising and falling 20C in a day - oh, come now, you know better than that. A massive +1 But by ingenuity, I think you mean a complete lack of willingness to believe scientists, data, or logic.	Nick G (16709)
1410071	2015-10-24 06:41:00	But by ingenuity, I think you mean a complete lack of willingness to believe scientists, data, or logic. Oh dear wrong again. I have no problem believing Scientists Data or logic, just not the ones you chose to support. But for those with an open mind, have a look through THESE (tomnelson.blogspot.co.nz), they are the e-mails that instigated Climategate. Naturally, you will claim they are all made up, but I suggest you would need a bloody good imagination to orchestrate them. Hence I will stick with the scientists who don’t fudge the figures to suit a theory that fills their pockets. :)	B.M. (505)
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