Moderated Global Warming Discussion

[Malcolm Kirkpatrick]

It doesn't cancel because the weight of something distributed planet-wide is not under the evenly effect of the same gravitation. That's the formal part of it. That's elemental. You missed. You fabricate a justification to save your skin.

No. Earth's gravity is not that variable, by latitude or altitude (within ten miles or so). So adjustments of "weight" for given masses of atmosphere at various altitudes will not affect the result to any significant degree. Concern for this detail, given gross variations in other variables (CO₂ and 0₂ vary locally, H₂0 in air varies much more) is like measuring a paper clip to the hundredth of a gram and adding that to the weight (mass, for pedants) of a truck, measured in tonnes (rounded to the nearest 1/10 tonne.

By the way, anyone here get a rash over conversion tables tha convert tonnes to tons or kilograms to pounds (i.e. mass to force)? I suspect not, because it's not important in normal life to pull phoney intellectual rank in that case and you'd only look like the social retards on Big Bang Theory.

As you do here.

 

[Malcolm Kirkpatrick]

I have learned something from this discussion. I had to think about the concept of "insulation". Insulation is measured by the change in the difference in temperature between too bodies (source and sink) per unit time.

I don't have an answer for the question about the surface temperature of Venus and Mercury, except to observe that "the surface temperature of Venus" makes more sense than "the surface temperature o fMercury", since a dense fluid atmosphere would scatter sunlight and transport heat by convection, reducing day/night and equator/pole temperature differences, while on an airless rocky planet with a day almost as long as its year and small axial inclination, you would expect extreme variation between midday and pre-dawn temperatures and between polar and equatorial temperatures.

I went looking for the post in which I mentioned the peaks in CO2 from Vostok ice cores. This was not one way or the other in this discussion, just curious. It looks like CO2 peaks some time before the official start of the next ice age. Dunno what this means. Maybe a post-modern glaciologist could explain it.

 

[Reality Check]

What do you think will happen to Foraminifera due to global warning

1. Good idea.

Geting back to discussing climate change:

Malcolm Kirkpatrick: Species of Foraminifera could not adapt to temperature changes that took thousands of years.
What do you think will happen to Foraminifera when similar temperature changes take place over a couple of centuries or even decades?
Revised question from 10th September 2012

(originally What do you think will happen to Foraminifera when CO2 changes over decades?)
22 days and counting.

 

[aleCcowaN]

No. Earth's gravity is not that variable, ...

It doesn't matter. It's variable so two striking different concepts like mass and weight end up being even different quantities.

Your problem is conceptual, to say the least. But I can understand how someone who fail to grasp such evident conceptual difference may think that the change in value doesn't matter. It's even predictable.

 

[aleCcowaN]

I have learned something from this discussion. I had to think about the concept of "insulation". Insulation is measured by the change in the difference in temperature between too bodies (source and sink) per unit time.

And such a fantastic definition has to do with the topic of this thread ....? ....?

 

[CapelDodger]

a. Mass of atmosphere: 5.3 x 10 ^18 kg. http://hypertextbook.com/facts/1999/LouiseLiu.shtml
b. Total atmospheric CO2, by weight (percent): 0.046 % http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/air-composition-d_212.html
c. CO2 emissions, 2011. 34 x 10^12 kg.yr^-1 http://www.pbl.nl/en/publications/2012/trends-in-global-co2-emissions-2012-report
Online calculator: http://web2.0calc.com/
Mass of atmospheric CO2= axb= (5.3 x 10 ^18 kg)x(4.6x10^-2)=2.438x10^17 kg.
Yearly CO2 emissions as a fraction of total atmospheric CO2 mass = (3.4x10^13 kg. yr^-1) /(2.438x10^17 kg.)=1.394538 x10^-4 yr^-1 or ~ 1.4x10^-4yr^-1
Number of years to double atmospheric CO2 = (1/1.4)x10^4yr.=0.7142857x10^4.. or about 7000 years.
That's without any natural biological sequestration.
Anybody want to check the work? Maybe I dropped couple powers of ten or multiplied when I should have divided.

All in mass, so lets pretend the weight thing never happened and take a look.

The smell test first. 7000 years to double CO₂ from ~400 to ~800ppm with current emissions. In two hundred years of emissions we increased it from ~280 to ~400ppm from a standing start. 7000 for the next 400? Smell test failure, and people know it from a block away.

This is separate from the fact that a doubling of CO₂ is usually associated with pre-industrial levels and/or climate sensitivity. The next doubling is just scare-stories, what's relevant is the 40% increase so far which will be 50% in ten years time.

We are already seeing the effects and disruption from 40%, and we've not seen the worst of that yet. You don't have to depend on "unsigned authors" for that, it's even on Fox News (which has Murdoch's signature and thumbprint all over it). They don't make the connection with AGW, obviously, but the pictures are irresistable. If you haven't got an ongoing car-chase show a house getting carried downriver.

 

[CapelDodger]

It doesn't matter. It's variable so two striking different concepts like mass and weight end up being even different quantities.

Which is why I (and probably you) learnt to use the term mass in a scientific context (except, perhaps, when explaining the difference between mass and weight). Malcolm Kirkpatrick lacks that instinct, which explains a lot.

Your problem is conceptual, to say the least. But I can understand how someone who fail to grasp such evident conceptual difference may think that the change in value doesn't matter. It's even predictable.

Someone who's so glib about a few orders of magnitude while insulating his worldview from model projections by the simple expedient of calling them inexact is just as predictable, if you know how dense they are and how closely bonded to their worldview.

Meanwhile it's all going to pot in the real world.

 

[lomiller]

I don't have an answer for the question about the surface temperature of Venus and Mercury, except to observe that "the surface temperature of Venus" makes more sense than "the surface temperature o fMercury", since a dense fluid atmosphere would scatter sunlight and transport heat by convection

Venus's atmosphere reflects ~2/3 of the sunlight that the planet receives. While most of the rest is indeed absorbed before it reaches the surface the main property that makes the planet hot is the absorption of the IR that is subsequently emitted.

Remember, IR is just another frequency of EM wave and just like light it can be absorbed or not. Since the key property of a greenhouse gas is that it absorbs IR any atmosphere without such a gas is completely transparent to these frequencies, no matter how thick that atmosphere. Conversely an atmosphere that contains greenhouse gases is murky to these frequencies even if the atmosphere is relatively thin.

 

[CapelDodger]

Yet another pointless distraction.

Engineering Toolbox was wrong to use the term weight, when they should have used mass. You were wrong to argue the toss about that.

And so like Furcifer (remember him?) that one's bound to suspect they were both formed in the same mould. Malcolm Kirkpatrick has the advantage of not being anonymous, obviously, but even terracotta warriors have distinguishing features added to the moulded base.

We frankly don't attract the class of denier we used to here. Check out Eric Worrall at http://watchingthedeniers.wordpress...-change-real-and-accepts-the-need-for-action/ for the real business. If it's a Poe it deserves an award.

 

[r-j]

Venus's atmosphere reflects ~2/3 of the sunlight that the planet receives.

What amount does the earth reflect?

 

[Mikemcc]

1. Good idea.
2. It's my response to Alex Cowan's strident po-mo criticism of style over any contribution of substance.
3. Maybe if there were fewer distractions of the vacuous sort we've addresses in the last twenty or so posts.
4. You said something about "discussion climate"? I tend to think...well, let's discuss climate and not your manners.

2. So it's insult as a response instead of addressing the points raised, great debating style...

3. Almost all of those distractions have been launched by you. Corals, as an example.

4. Well done on demonstrating my point exactly! Do you have a response to the scientific paper that I linked to in post 6280?

 

[jimbob]

Conflating mass and weight is analogous to the following:

For example, if you were baking, and the recipe called for "5-cm of salt" it would be wrong, but one could guess that they meant 5cm³ or a teaspoon.

ETA: if it was an online discussion about baking and the person then insisted it was not supposed to be "a teaspoon" but actually "5-cm of salt" that the recipe called for, then they would begin to look a bit silly.

I was not "conflating". I reported the description from the site.

The analogy does not apply. In our calculation units cancel and (total atmospheric CO2 by weight)/(total emissions by weight per year) and (total atmospheric CO2 mass) / (CO2 emission mass per year) gives a real number with units of years (and the same number, if the input numbers were correct). Adjustments for latitude and altitude will make less difference than measurement errors in assays of atmospheric gas composition.

I saw your link (engineering toolbox), unfortunately it was using sloppy language and was technically incorrect. I also mentioned that I didn't pull you up on it until you started defending its use as it was still comprehensible.

Continuing to insist that it should read "weight" not "mass" does begin to look a bit silly.

Remember the bit I also quoted:

I didn't pull you up on using the term "weight" until you started defending its use. It is simply wrong, but understandably wrong.
I'm afraid that a lot of your statements do show some fundamental misunderstanding about how various natural systems work. Some of this would be obvious to you if you lived elsewhere on the Earth.

For example, I live near a limestone area and can see how carbonic acid in rainfall has dissolved this limestone, which means that I can instantly see that increasing the level of carbonic acid in the ocean would cause a problem for corals etc.

ETA: I understand that the 2010 eruptions at Eyjafjallajökull actually reduced the CO₂ emissions, because the reduction in human emissions from grounded aircraft was larger than the volcanic emissions. To me this is pretty scary. Humans are now one of the most significant geological influences on many continents.

 

[jimbob]

I have learned something from this discussion. I had to think about the concept of "insulation". Insulation is measured by the change in the difference in temperature between too bodies (source and sink) per unit time.

I don't have an answer for the question about the surface temperature of Venus and Mercury, except to observe that "the surface temperature of Venus" makes more sense than "the surface temperature o fMercury", since a dense fluid atmosphere would scatter sunlight and transport heat by convection, reducing day/night and equator/pole temperature differences, while on an airless rocky planet with a day almost as long as its year and small axial inclination, you would expect extreme variation between midday and pre-dawn temperatures and between polar and equatorial temperatures.

Have you considered the greenhouse effect as an explanation? If not, why do you reject it?

Given that the atmosphere remains round a planet, you could just walk into an unheated greenhouse on a sunny day to see something very similar in operation.

I went looking for the post in which I mentioned the peaks in CO2 from Vostok ice cores. This was not one way or the other in this discussion, just curious. It looks like CO2 peaks some time before the official start of the next ice age. Dunno what this means. Maybe a post-modern glaciologist could explain it.

The climate has a lot of feedback loops, some are positive, some are negative. This is why we need computer models of climate, as otherwise we don't have the computational ability to solve the relevant equations by hand, except in the broadest sense similar to what I have done.

However a rise in temperature usually does precede a rise in CO₂, which then acts to cause further warming. One factor could be the advance or retreat of peat bogs. Overall, however CO₂ has been systematically removed from the atmosphere in the formation of fossil fuels. Humanity is putting this back into the system.

 

[Corsair 115]

... since a dense fluid atmosphere would scatter sunlight and transport heat by convection, reducing day/night and equator/pole temperature differences, while on an airless rocky planet with a day almost as long as its year and small axial inclination ...

In regards to the bolded, you do realize, don't you, that both those statements pretty much apply to Venus as well. A sidereal day on Venus lasts 243 Earth days while its year lasts 224.7 Earth days; on Mercury a sidereal day lasts 58.6 Earth days while its year lasts 88 Earth days. If you prefer solar days, a year on Mercury contains 0.5 solar days while a year on Venus has 1.92 solar days. That's not a great deal of difference between the two. Mercury's axial tilt is 2.1º from the vertical while Venus' is 2.7º from the vertical. Again, little difference.

 

[a_unique_person]

What amount does the earth reflect?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albedo

The albedo is an important concept in climatology and astronomy, as well as in calculating reflectivity of surfaces in LEED sustainable rating systems for buildings, computer graphics and computer vision. The average overall albedo of Earth, its planetary albedo, is 30 to 35%, because of the covering by clouds, but varies widely locally across the surface, depending on the geological and environmental features.[1]

 

[Acleron]

What amount does the earth reflect?

 

[Malcolm Kirkpatrick]

And such a fantastic definition has to do with the topic of this thread ....? ....?

Why call this statement "fantasitc"?
People made claims for the effect of the atmosphere's insulation on Earth's surface temperature, so it's relecant to consider what insulation van and cannot do. Seems to me anyway.

 

[Malcolm Kirkpatrick]

In regards to the bolded, you do realize, don't you, that both those statements pretty much apply to Venus as well...

Sure, but the difference is that the surface of Mercury wil lose heat directly through radiation to the universal sink at night AND convective heat transport will reduce latitude-related differences in surface temperature on Venus. My argument is with the article "the" in "the surface temperature of Mercury". By analogy, "the resident of apartment 1401, 1225 Maple street, 55728 (I just made that address up, but you get the idea) is unambiguous if there's only one resident. "The resident of New York City" is hardly unambiguous.

 

[jimbob]

By the way, anyone here get a rash over conversion tables tha convert tonnes to tons or kilograms to pounds (i.e. mass to force)? I suspect not, because it's not important in normal life to pull phoney intellectual rank in that case and you'd only look like the social retards on Big Bang Theory.

As you do here.

Just one aside, pounds and tons are measures of mass in the imperial system. (the pound force is a unit of force).

Being British I am fairly familiar with both the metric system and parts of the imperial system.

 

[Malcolm Kirkpatrick]

...
Continuing to insist that it should read "weight" not "mass" does begin to look a bit silly....

Continuing to put words into my mouth looks desperate. I didn't say "should". I said that that's what the site called their computation: Atmospheric composition by weight". I also argue that it doesn't make much difference to the result because the units cancel.