Do you two NOT understand why a simple blackbody model is insufficient for the earth ? Do you not understand that the spectral absorption of CO2 & H2O and NOT their molar concentrations are the relevant issue ? It's like listening to 3rd graders argue about the Cauchy-Riemann eqn.[/quote/
In post #1539 I said :
Here's the simple picture. Planet Earth is a big ball of rock. Covering its surface is a very thin skin of fluids. Radiation from the Sun introduces energy into the fluid (and an even thinner layer of said ball of rock), and the fluid layer emits the same amount - by radiation, the currency the energy arrived in, the currency of Space. This applies, of course, when the fluid skin is in equilibrium with its surroundings.
That doesn't assume a blackbody model, but does assume a balance of energy in and energy out in an equilibrium - which seems to me a truism. The energy has to go out as radiation, surely? Not necessarily in a blackbody spectrum, of course. As I understand it, "blackbody" refers to solids, not gases.
The idea of using recent weather data as support for a particular climate model is nonsense; such data can at most eliminate erroneous theories. One can obviously propose thousands of different models that match any observed dataset in such a complex system.
One can, but most are likely to be unskilful in prediction. The thing about, say, Hansen's 1988 model is that it not only fits observations up to that time but also observations made subsequently. Which is quite robust support, to my mind.
I don't agree that climate is a very complex system to model. Weather is far more complex, as is ice-dynamics (a real bitch from what I've heard).
As I've suggested before, the entire point is moot unless a practical, politically implementable solution is available.
I find enjoyment in science for its own sake. There's no practicable solution to what cosmology tells us, but it's still way cool.
I steer clear of solutions to AGW since that subject really
is moot. The near to middling future will be event-driven, not policy-driven.
The thing that most concerns me is the assault on science
per se, of which climate-change denialism is one example.
That we have increased the atmospheric CO2 is relatively uncontested ...
Relatively uncontested? Heliocentrism is
relatively uncontested.
CO2-load is not difficult to measure (it was a common test of laboratory skills by the late 19thCE, when such practical matters were more highly-valued than in today's scientific enviroment) and it's risen from about 290ppm to about 380ppm in the last century. Over the same period oceans have taken up a considerable amount of CO2 themselves. Meanwhile vast amounts of fossil-fuel has been consumed.
It surely can't be
reasonably contested that we've jacked-up atmospheric CO2-load by about a third.
I can't imagine for a moment that some international agreement like Kyoto can actually reduce human CO2 emmisions by enough to matter. That's a fuzzy-thinking liberal fantasy. When your kids are going to bed cold and hungry people will do most anything, environment be d*mned. Our propensity to reproduce up the the limits of available resources ensures our global dependence on high energy usage or else massive deaths.
Thomas Malthus, thou art avenged!
When it's not their own kids that are cold and hungry most people won't sacrifice anything significant for them. When a Louisiana politico loses
one of his homes to a hurricane it's not exactly a rocket up his fundament. And it's the politicians that have the power to make a difference. Which they won't exercise.
The cold and hungry will indeed do anything, but if it impinges on the better-off they won't be
allowed to. They are cold and hungry because they're powerless, so what they actually
do adds up to squat. Let's face it, we could - in global terms - lose the whole of Sub-Saharan Africa without even noticing the bump.
OK, that's my excursion into the political realm done
. As I've said before, we're screwed. So some are more screwed than others, meh. It was ever thus.
