A treatise by a “Chemistry Expert: Carbon Dioxide Can’t Cause Global Warming” [Published on by Dr Mark Imisides (Industrial Chemist)]
Comments edited by me, JackAZ
______________________________________________Well well, with the help of a science blog called RABETT RUN here are some comments…Scarcely a day goes by without us being warned of coastal inundation by rising seas due to global warming.Why on earth do we attribute any heating of the oceans to carbon dioxide (my emphasis), when there is a far more obvious culprit, and when such a straightforward examination of the thermodynamics render it impossible.
🍥 No reputable climate scientist
attributes the warming of the seas to CO2 – this is a ‘straw man’ argument upon which this entire treatise is built.
*Energy
flows to Earth’s surface from the sun, through the atmosphere.
*Most
of it is absorbed by the oceans (which we register as heat).
[the oceans are ~70%-75% of the Earth's surface]
[the oceans are ~70%-75% of the Earth's surface]
*This energy
flows away from the Earth’s surface through the atmosphere.
*So,
the incoming energy flow must be equaled by the outgoing energy flow to keep
global temperatures relatively unchanged.
*all of
that energy passes through the atmosphere
(since at no point on Earth does land or sea touch space).
(since at no point on Earth does land or sea touch space).
*The energy lost from the surface of the oceans (both by
radiation and convection) passes to and through the atmosphere and is radiated
to space.
*The
only way energy leaves Earth’s atmosphere is by radiation to space.
*Since the
energy flow must be balanced to keep global temperatures relatively unchanged, a
change in the atmosphere such as increased greenhouse gases can raise the
temperature of the atmosphere.
*If the rate at which the sun heats the oceans increased (i.e., if the sun’s radiation output was getting measurably greater, or stronger,) they would warm, but we know by direct measurement that that is not markedly happening in the short term.
*If the rate at which the sun heats the oceans increased (i.e., if the sun’s radiation output was getting measurably greater, or stronger,) they would warm, but we know by direct measurement that that is not markedly happening in the short term.
*Yet we
know that the net temperature of the oceans is increasing and the oceans are
warming. If solar irradiation is not increasing (and we know it is not) then
raising the oceans’ temperatures requires limiting the net rate at which they
lose heat, which is what increasing greenhouse gases in the atmosphere does.
The
author builds upon this false premise that Global Warming advocates say the
oceans are being heated by the atmosphere’s increasing temperatures:
*“water takes a lot of energy to heat up, and air
doesn’t contain much”
*The bathtub / heater analogy
*Later
he writes “When the clouds
clear and bathe us in sunlight, we don’t take off our jumper because of
‘greenhouse heating’ of the atmosphere, but because of the direct heat caused
by the sunlight on our body.” which is a clear statement that the SUN
is doing the work of heating our bodies, and therefore the Earth’s surface, by
direct irradiation, which is not what his ‘straw man’ was arguing before.
*so then he writes “If the enormous influence of the sun on our
climate is so obvious, then, by what act of madness do we look at a variation
of a fraction of a percent in any of these variables, and not look to the sun
as the cause?” without any apparent knowledge of the irony within. HE
set forth the ‘straw man’ that climate researchers are saying that the atmosphere
is heating the ocean, then knocked it down.
But
climate scientists and other apologists don’t claim any such thing. They know
and say that:
- The
sun heats the Earth.
- We
are in an interglacial warming period which has an unknown cause but is
measurable and predictable.
-
Atmospheric temperatures are increasing at rates that have measurably exceeded
the warming due to the interglacial (i.e., natural) cause of our 10,000 year+
warmup that caused the ice sheets to disappear.
-
Long before the controversy, scientists in the beginning of the industrial age investigated
and noted that the factories producing the smoke from burning, at that time,
coal, were measurably increasing the CO2 in the atmosphere and
predicted that would raise the net temperatures in the atmosphere.
-
Their predictions have been surpassed by what we have already measured.
So,
how is the sea temperature increasing if the atmosphere isn’t heating it?
§ The sun is still heating it.
§ Greenhouse gases are causing the atmosphere to HOLD more
heat than before, radiating less to space,
§ which makes the atmosphere ‘blanket’ the land and the sea
better,
§ so the sea cools more SLOWLY than it used to,
§ which has the net effect of making the seas warmer than
they used to be.
Surely we have heard of the Arctic Sea Icemelt being much
less in recent years, so much so that there is a reasonable expectation of a “Northwest
Passage” finally appearing after so many adventurers tried to find it over the
centuries (which they didn’t because it didn’t exist then).
This has also heightened the Geopolitical risk of a stronger
Russia taking command over the Arctic Ocean and its presumed natural resouces,
including oil, which they are actively working toward.
Why, one may ask, do there seem to be more problems with
rising sea levels in the lower latitudes than the higher ones?
*Water expands with increased heat.
*The oceans are warmer near the equator, so they have always
had a higher sea level than nearer the poles. We just couldn’t measure that phenomenon
until modern technology made it possible.
*The increasing warmth of the seas is more marked nearer the equator
than near the poles because the water is starting off warmer. Nearer the poles (and
deeper anywhere) the water is much cooler and less prone to thermal expansion.
*More people are likely to suffer the effects of rising sea levels
in warmer climates because more people live on islands and other low-elevation
lands in those latitudes. Along the continents, people have lived on or near
the shorelines for a longer period of time than further north, e.g., nobody
lived on Scandinavian shores 15,000 years ago because they were under an ice
sheet, but the tropics had no ice.
*Yet the seas are warming on the surface worldwide in part because
of the blanketing effect of the atmosphere increasing in its effectiveness
worldwide, but more so because the oceans circulate across the entire globe,
constantly distributing more heat to the polar regions.
✸ And here is the original author’s argument used against
him: Those circulating oceans with their increased heat energy ARE, in fact,
heating the atmosphere in the polar regions faster than previously expected,
BECAUSE the water is denser and holds more heat for a longer time than the air
in the atmosphere, and carries it all the way to the North Pole, reducing the
sea ice and allowing the exposed water to radiate more heat into the atmosphere
and warm it, which it holds on to longer because of the greenhouse gasses it
has in more abundance.
*This is more pronounced in the Arctic than in the Antarctic
because much of the latter is occupied by a continental landmass, thus less
affected by its more limited direct contact with warmer waters.
· Methane. A hydrocarbon gas produced both through natural sources and human activities, including the decomposition of wastes in landfills, agriculture, and especially rice cultivation, as well as ruminant digestion and manure management associated with domestic livestock. On a molecule-for-molecule basis, methane is a far more active greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide, but also one which is much less abundant in the atmosphere.
