Doubts about climate change?

Here’s what got that seed of doubt sown. 30 years ago A bold plan was hatched Americas oil industry execs and a top PR guru. An $850,000 a day contract was at stake meaning it was in the oil industry’s best interests to create seeds of doubt about climate change.
A bit like the NRA telling supporters that guns don’t kill people.

Obviously the plan worked because climate changed doubters are everywhere today. Sadly actual climate change is wacking us in the face every hour of every day.

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ElwoodBlues · M

@hippyjoe1955 asks [quote]So what actual evidence do you have[/quote]
Dude, I'm SO GLAD you asked!!!!!!!!!

[quote]but I've yet to hear a rational explanation of how miniscule increases in an atmospheric trace gas such as CO2, causes the earth to warm.[/quote] It's because CO2 & methane are transparent to visible light but more opaque to infrared. The solar energy comes pouring in via the visible spectrum, but the heat can't leave so easily via the infrared spectrum due to that opacity. Kids' version:
https://www.sciencenewsforstudents.org/article/explainer-co2-and-other-greenhouse-gases

idealized quantitative model: https://www.climate-policy-watcher.org/coriolis-force/a-simple-mathematical-model-of-the-greenhouse-effect.html

[quote] In order to actually prove human carbon emissions influence climate, all variables would have to remain constant[/quote] Nope. With multiple data points we can solve for multiple variables simultaneously. Detailed climate models account for all the variables you list and more. They are verified and calibrated based on 700,000 years of prior climate data.

http://web.mit.edu/globalchange/www/climate.html

[quote] Global warming models are based on small amounts of data. The earth is 4.6 billion years old, and we are expected to believe they can draw conclusions based on a hockey stick graph with 50 years of data?[/quote]
Nope, not 50 years, 700,000 years, covering about 7 ice ages. The climate data comes from bubbles in glacial ice, and is corroborated by data from sea floor sediments.
https://icecores.org/about-ice-cores

Here's [i]where[/i] the various data sets were collected:

The most salient thing about the 700,000 years of climate data is the rate of change during those previous 7 ice ages compared to the current rate of change this century.

[quote] Where does the money for climate research come from?[/quote]
Fair question. Equally fair: where does the money for climate denial come from? The US oil industry makes about $110 [i]billion[/i] per year; coal another $20 billion. Big Oil spends $3.6 billion per year on advertising; a sum equal to about 8X the whole NSF climate budget. You're not naive enough to believe [i]none[/i] of that money goes to propaganda, are you?

[quote] At best scientist can make correlations.[/quote] So you're saying that when science predicts an eclipse ten years in advance accurate to the second, that's only a [i]correlation?[/i] C'mon dude, science makes [i]predictions[/i] all the time.

redredred · M

@ElwoodBlues

ElwoodBlues · M

@redredred You have it backwards! Raising CO2 raises temperatures, which in turn raise H2O, which raises temperatures further. This is known as positive feedback. P.S. it would be a mistake to assume the greenhouse gases are independent; the positive feedback cycle proves they are interdependent.

Kiddie version:
[quote]Although water vapor probably accounts for about 60% of the Earth’s greenhouse warming effect, water vapor does not control the Earth’s temperature. Instead, the amount of water vapor is controlled by the temperature. This is because the temperature of the surrounding atmosphere limits the maximum amount of water vapor the atmosphere can contain. If a volume of air contains its maximum amount of water vapor and the temperature is decreased, some of the water vapor will condense to form liquid water. This is why clouds form as warm air containing water vapor rises and cools at higher altitudes where the water condenses to the tiny droplets that make up clouds.[/quote]
[b]https://www.acs.org/content/acs/en/climatescience/climatesciencenarratives/its-water-vapor-not-the-co2.html[/b]

Hardcore version: [b]http://www.globalwarmingequation.info/[/b]

Also see:
[b]https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/2018/03/TAR-04.pdf[/b]

redredred · M

@ElwoodBlues humans aren’t the only source of CO2. CO2 doesn’t just sit in the atmosphere, it’s a limiting component, like phosphorous, in plant growth. Increasing it in the atmosphere Spurs plant growth and O2 production.

ElwoodBlues · M

@redredred True. And I'm a big fan of plant growth. But I'm NOT a big fan of sea level rise.

We have, in very round numbers, something like $100 trillion invested in buildings & infrastructure near sea level. If we let the seas rise to much or too rapidly, we risk flooding a big chunk of that investment. For me, protecting sea level investment worldwide is the main reason to limit CO2. So it comes down to a cost benefit analysis.

I'm gonna post my piece on climate change and cost benefit analysis at the top level so it won't scroll away. Please continue the conversation there.