Is There Experimental Proof of CO2 Warming?

[spot1234]

Originally Posted by BestTimesNow

This is where the climate models are wrong, by ignoring forced evaporation.

We are using 137 billion gallons per day in the US for irrigation. Some of this water stays in the crops that are sold, but most of this water will be evaporated into the air. Many states irrigate at a rate of 5 acre feet, per acre.

It’s like annually evaporating a massive lake 5 feet deep.

Here’s a chart of the irrigation water used in the US in 2000.

Irrigation water use, from USGS Water Science.

You have proved that humid areas are warmer then dry areas all other things being equal. However you haven't really thought out the implications of that. A very cold dry area can hold very little water vapour in the atmosphere above it. Arctic and alpine regions for example.

If we entertain for a moment the ridiculous notion that something other than water vapour is changing in concentration causing temperature change, where would the most dramatic effects of that temperature change manifest itself?

As a side note what is observed in those regions now?

[Windguy]

Trend Maps

Best times now, you need evidence to back up your claim, How are we forcing evaporation into the atmosphere?? Wouldn't it rain more, cloud more and keep things cooler, by my study evaporation is slowing down because of deforestation, since forests transpire 5 times more water per area than a lake evaporates.

You need cold ocean air hitting warmer land air to help force rain, but because of the CO2 our oceans are heating up.
Trend Maps
Therefore less rain.

By the Vostok ice cores, and by integrating Stefan and Boltzmann's law it shows CO2 at 380ppm (1.66W/m^2) is actually equal to a 1.4C increase, but it's the ocean that delays that increase because it has to heat up itself. So a 0.6C increase is really just the tip of the iceberg of what is going to happen even if we stop all fossil fuel burning now.

Did you also know because of higher CO2 levels, leaves will have less stomata therefore less transpiration still. The Amazon can go the way of the dodo just by this alone if we hit strong enough concentrations.

[ThankyouMoneypenny]

Originally Posted by Windguy

Trend Maps

Best times now, you need evidence to back up your claim, How are we forcing evaporation into the atmosphere?? Wouldn't it rain more, cloud more and keep things cooler, by my study evaporation is slowing down because of deforestation, since forests transpire 5 times more water per area than a lake evaporates.

You need cold ocean air hitting warmer land air to help force rain, but because of the CO2 our oceans are heating up.
Trend Maps
Therefore less rain.

By the Vostok ice cores, and by integrating Stefan and Boltzmann's law it shows CO2 at 380ppm (1.66W/m^2) is actually equal to a 1.4C increase, but it's the ocean that delays that increase because it has to heat up itself. So a 0.6C increase is really just the tip of the iceberg of what is going to happen even if we stop all fossil fuel burning now.

Did you also know because of higher CO2 levels, leaves will have less stomata therefore less transpiration still. The Amazon can go the way of the dodo just by this alone if we hit strong enough concentrations.

Talk about needing evidence to back up a claim...

I invite everyone to click on the 'trend maps' link provided by Windguy in his comments about CO2-induced increased sea temperatures leading to less rain.

In the drop down menus on the left of the page, select Variable=rainfall, then Region=Australia, then select timeseries. You will see that the Australian rainfall has, for the past 100 years, remained roughly constant but, if anything, has increased slightly (about 50mm). Just for fun, try using the global climate link at the top of the page and check the global rainfall.

In addition, if you need cold ocean air to move over warm land to force rain, how come it rains in the middle of the pacific? Rain will form when the lapse rate dictates that the temperature reaches a point where the air can no longer hold moisture as a vapour so it reaches condensation point. Enough condensation = rain (or snow).

Oh, in case you're worried about your foot, Windguy, just don't point the shotgun at it... (couldn't resist that!)

[Windguy]

Originally Posted by ThankyouMoneypenny

Talk about needing evidence to back up a claim...

I invite everyone to click on the 'trend maps' link provided by Windguy in his comments about CO2-induced increased sea temperatures leading to less rain.

In the drop down menus on the left of the page, select Variable=rainfall, then Region=Australia, then select timeseries. You will see that the Australian rainfall has, for the past 100 years, remained roughly constant but, if anything, has increased slightly (about 50mm). Just for fun, try using the global climate link at the top of the page and check the global rainfall.

In addition, if you need cold ocean air to move over warm land to force rain, how come it rains in the middle of the pacific? Rain will form when the lapse rate dictates that the temperature reaches a point where the air can no longer hold moisture as a vapour so it reaches condensation point. Enough condensation = rain (or snow).

Oh, in case you're worried about your foot, Windguy, just don't point the shotgun at it... (couldn't resist that!:-")

wow, you know about condensation, how about regular condensation or rainfall, the mere fact that the 1900's was a drought during el ninio (a strong one at that) and we are currently in a very strong la nina brought on by the Arctic melting. Newcastle a city never known to flood got dumped on last year and created massive havoc. So you are comparing an apple to an orange there.

Climate change study 'like a disaster novel' - National - BrisbaneTimes

CSIRO - one of the world's most respected scientific bodies around the world.

[ThankyouMoneypenny]

Originally Posted by Windguy

wow, you know about condensation, how about regular condensation or rainfall, the mere fact that the 1900's was a drought during el ninio (a strong one at that) and we are currently in a very strong la nina brought on by the Arctic melting. Newcastle a city never known to flood got dumped on last year and created massive havoc. So you are comparing an apple to an orange there.

Climate change study 'like a disaster novel' - National - BrisbaneTimes

CSIRO - one of the world's most respected scientific bodies around the world.

One of the world's most respected scientific bodies around the world? As opposed to around SW Australia?

Your post was a pathetic attempt to deflect the fact that you were wrong in your previous post. The average rainfall in Australia (that's PLANET Australia, to you...) has not changed throughout the past 100 years (using the much vaunted CSIRO's own graph on page 9 of your beloved report. In addition, the droughts of 1900-1930s clearly (page 10) affected much greater areas than any of your recent droughts.

Gosh, its a good job Australia managed to recover from those periods, eh? Without all that fuss about needing policies to combat climate change? I'm sure there were a few koalas that were really worried for a week or two - and used words like 'disaster' and 'havoc' - before they got bored and went back to the Eucalyptus trees.

[BestTimesNow]

Let’s look back in the Earth’s history, all the way back to the Cretaceous Period, about 100 million years ago. Water covered more than 80% of the Earth. Also, the high mountain ranges had not formed yet. The mountain ranges today are important because they the help force the rain and allow large areas of low humidity.

An example of this would be the state of Florida, low elevation and high humidity all over the state, but the mountains of Hawaii cause heavy rains and desert climates (Kau Desert) in a very small state.
Mount Kilauea - Kau Desert

Once we clear the air, of most of the humidity, the Earth has a chance to radiate more heat back into space. A large semiarid area like this would be from California to near the Mississippi River.

Here’s a map of the Earth during the Cretaceous Period when the middle latitudes were heavily loaded with the greenhouse gas, water vapor and the Earth was MUCH warmer.

Image:LateCretaceousGlobal.jpg - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"A very gentle temperature gradient from the equator to the poles meant weaker global winds, contributing to less upwelling and more stagnant oceans than today. This is evidenced by widespread black shale deposition and frequent anoxic events. Sediment cores show that tropical sea surface temperatures may have briefly been as warm as 42 °C (107 °F), 17 °C (31 °F) warmer than at present, and that they averaged around 37 °C (99 °F). Meanwhile deep ocean temperatures were as much as 15 to 20 °C (27 to 36 °F) higher than today's.”

Cretaceous - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

----
3) “CO2 levels are usually invoked to explain Cretaceous warmth and the flat Cretaceous temperature gradient. This makes sense, since the very active mid-ocean spreading ridges might well have been associated with out-gassing of CO2 from deep within the Earth. Unfortunately, neither the geology of the period nor the stable carbon isotope records really support the idea as well as they might.
4) Even the most sophisticated quantitative models can't reconstruct the flatness of the Cretaceous temperature gradient. Either our temperature estimates are off, or some important factor is missing from the models. Since dinosaurs and semi-tropical vegetation are known from within 10° of the Cretaceous poles, the problem is likely to be with the theory. A recent study of a mid-latitude continental interior (in eastern Russia) -- far from the ocean in even Late Cretaceous times, suggest that temperatures were very even and that these regions were damp and non-seasonal even in the Mid-Cretaceous.”
Palaeos Mesozoic: The Mesozoic Era


In this map of the world, I am primarily interested in the areas between 45° N and 45° S latitude. (Yes, the Polar Regions have very low humidity, but that’s not a factor in what I’m trying to show.)

http://www.mapsofworld.com/world-map...d-lat-long.jpg


This one year simulation of the Earth’s water vapor movement is very interesting, also note the prevailing winds. The areas of low humidity in the middle latitudes are very important for radiating heat back into space.

YouTube - Water Vapor Circulation on Earth

As a side note about the video, you could also see the humid air coming into the Amazon and getting turned around by the Andes mountains to form the Amazon Rain Forest and the Atacama Desert. Read “What causes deserts” in this link:

Driest Place - Atacama Desert

[Bored Wombat]

Originally Posted by Davaris

I was just wondering if there is any hard experimental evidence that proves CO2 warms the environment?

For instance has anyone done an experiment where they add a mix of gases (that represent the atmosphere of the earth) to a glass tank. Then shine a light through it representing the Sun and then increase the CO2 content to see if the increasing CO2 increases the temperature of the tank?

The answer is yes, this lab-based experiment has been done many times.

In fact the optics of shining light through gasses is so well understood that we can use this science to detect the gasses in the atmosphere of large planets orbiting other stars.

[flogger]

"It was only the warmest in the USA, which is about 2 to 3% of the earths surface.

Only an American could see that as pertaining to the whole world."

Correction the USA is around 6% of the surface area and the only large area monitored over a long period using the same methodologies hence th significance of the figures. Australia also saw similar kinds of temperature rises pre 1940.

I'm Scottish BTW

"But last year was the second warmest on record for the whole of the Northern Hemisphere, beaten only by 2005. So the idea that global warming ended in 1998 or 2005 is equally unlikely.
15th-July-2008 01:21 AM"

Total nonsense.

Br-r-r! Where did global warming go? - The Boston Globe


The Strata-Sphere » 2007 Coolest Year In 3 Decades: After 20 Years Of Global Cooling James Hansen Still Screams “Fire”!

[flogger]

"It was only the warmest in the USA, which is about 2 to 3% of the earths surface.

Only an American could see that as pertaining to the whole world."

Correction the USA is around 6% of the surface land area and the only large area monitored over a long period using the same methodologies hence th significance of the figures. Australia also saw similar kinds of climatic events pre 1940 too.

I'm Scottish BTW

"But last year was the second warmest on record for the whole of the Northern Hemisphere, beaten only by 2005. So the idea that global warming ended in 1998 or 2005 is equally unlikely.
"

Total nonsense.

Br-r-r! Where did global warming go? - The Boston Globe


The Strata-Sphere » 2007 Coolest Year In 3 Decades: After 20 Years Of Global Cooling James Hansen Still Screams “Fire”!

[ThankyouMoneypenny]

Originally Posted by Bored Wombat

The answer is yes, this lab-based experiment has been done many times.

In fact the optics of shining light through gasses is so well understood that we can use this science to detect the gasses in the atmosphere of large planets orbiting other stars.

Bored Wombat,

I would love to see how I can view those experiments.

Davaris, the answer is probably not 'yes' to your question about hard evidence in warming the environment.

I believe the experiments BW is referring to merely show that CO2 absorbs radiation at certain wavelengths by differing amounts. No argument there. However, to then say that it therefore warms the environment is, I think, overstating its importance. It will have a theoretical effect but, as I have said early on in this thread, the environment is a complex place and it is extremely difficult to input all the variables into an experiment. Scientists can't even put all the variables into a model, let alone an actual experiment. I have no doubt that CO2 is a forcing agent, and that it is a 'greenhouse' gas but, in the same way that a greenhouse does not rely on the differential absorption properties of glass to heat the interior (blocking convection is a much greater effect), so too does the atmosphere not rely that much on CO2 for its warming. It is however, a factor, if small.

ps, If you increase CO2, then the absorption happens in a shorter distance (from the Earth's surface). Does this actually warm the whole atmosphere or just the bottom 5-10 meters or so? Open to comments.