Carbon Dioxide DOES NOT cause global warming...?

Question

The sun warms the earth. How much of that heat gets to the earth varies due to cosmic radiation. This is a proven fact.

As the air warms, the ocean warms and oceanic algae grows and prospers. This emits millions times more CO2 than humans could possibly do. It takes around 800 years for the oceans (which cover 2/3rds of this planet) to warm and therefore the relationship between a rise in CO2 and the air temperature is that the increase in CO2 will come 800 years after any significant warming in air temperature. This again is a proved fact.

Put simply there really isn't much humans, as a relatively insignificant species inhabiting this planet, can do to change or cause global warming.

What we are doing though is crippling the third world. We are dictating to poor countries in Africa Asia and South America that they cannot build power stations to burn fossil fuels, leaving these countries with no electricity. This means poor schools, hospitals, basically keeping them poor

Ok - for those of you that do not understand basic biology, yes all plants make food by using sunlight, water and carbon to make sugar and during that process they emit O2 but like ALL living things when they use energy by burning that food they create CO2. They emit some CO2 and lots of O2 during daylight but when its dark they still grow and use energy, producing CO2. Science 101 - or have all you smarty pants forgotten that?

Answer 1

You are right to say that the oceans can be a source of CO2 when the air warms, but for the wrong reason. As pointed out by others, algae does not emit CO2, but use sit in photosynthesis (see first source link).
Oceans are a source of CO2 because cold water can dissolve more CO2 in it. It's to do with the chemistry of the carbonate ion.
And you are also right to say that the earth warms because of solar heating. But you need to understand that the air near the surface (top 10km) is kept warm by greenhouse gases. Whose physics mean they definitely absorb heat energy and keep the earth warmer. this property of gases like CO2 is used in all sorts of machines and devices, it is fundamental. i.e really I'll be impressed if you can prove to me extra CO2 in the atmosphere does not absorb infra red radiation, thus making the atmosphere warmer. Really impressed.
Greenhouse gases act like an amplifier. The larger the incoming sun energy the more it warms. If the incoming radiation were to stay the same and the CO2 increases, the more it warms. If the CO2 and the sun energy both increase, it warms even more. Ta da. Rocket science it ain't.

Now about the oceans - Look at the conveyor system in source 2. It takes hundreds of years for water to resurface after it goes down (the red-changing-to-blue line) in the far northern Atlantic.

Next:
Let's imagine the Earth in an ice age, it receives less radiation from the sun because it's orbit is further away (milankovitch cycles). At this point the cold oceans absorb more of the CO2 from plant life (N.B. there is still some in the atmosphere to keep us warm). The ice age continues for thousands of years, but slowly the earth's orbit is brought slightly closer to the sun and the air temperature starts to warm. As the air temperature starts to warms the oceans warms. As the oceans warm then they can hold (and absorb!) less CO2, and this is released or not absorbed as quickly, thus remaining in the atmosphere. This add a bit more heating to the atmosphere and the oceans warm some more - releasing (or not absorbing) even more CO2, and the atmosphere warms...etc, a 'positive feed back' effect.
Meanwhile....at the bottom of the ocean. Some colder water which absorbed more CO2 during the slightly colder temperatures is going around the ocean conveyor. when it emerges 800 years later the air temperature is mush higher than when it last was at the surface - so the CO2 it contained was released and even more CO2 put in the atmosphere causing even more warming.

I would not like to dictate to 'third world' countries, but I would like to give them all of our technology to save them the bother of a transition we are not able to do. I would also like to see developed nations give the environment the respect it deserves, in all seriousness, before it's too late.

Answer 2

First of all, algae and plants do not emit CO2 they absorb it to grow. They emit oxygen. Ice core data has shown CO2 levels are higher now than they have been in the last 650,000 years. What the ice core data shows also is a trend where as the levels of CO2 rise and fall naturally the temperature follows the exact pattern as the CO2.

The oceans also help in the absorbtion of CO2, but eventually it will head back into the atmosphere. A lot of people believe that the oceans and trees will absorb all our CO2, so we can pump out as much as we like. CO2 though can remain in the atmosphere for an average of 100 years unlike methane which only remains in the amosphere for a decade or so.

Rising carbon concentrations largely reflect increasing use of fossil fuels. All together globally we pump out 6 billion metric tons of carbon. This figure increases by 2% each each year. So the billions of ton of CO2 that we pump into the atmopshere each stays there for a very long time before getting absorbed.

Now if thats how much CO2 is being pumped out at the moment imagine how much will be emitted when countries like India and China which between them hold 1/3 of the earth's population become industrialised and need the same amount of energy.

The reason why the US hasn't signed the Kyoto proptocal is simply because India and China havn't and it will also damage their economy (obviously). India and China's arguement is well hang on why should we sign this thing when the gases that are up there are not our gases they are your gases. Thats fair enough, but what happens when those countries become as industrialied as the US and others. The US says well hang we need some assurance that when you guys do become industrialised you will jump on board with us.

If The US is using 23% of the world's energy with 300 million people, how much energy will India and China need with over 2 billion between them.

Answer 3

Sunlight is needed for Algae to grow and prosper and it grows as fast in a heated tank as it does in a cold water tank!
Ask any fish keeper, it doesn't emit CO2 it absorbs it. It's like any other green plant! Basic Biology or were all the teachers wrong? Everything about your theory seems wrong. There isn't a period that suggests global warming occured 800 years before the noticable rise in CO2 levels. There would have been accounts of the effects, not just a rise in temperature but the weather conditions that accompany it! The poorer Countries that have supplies of fossil fuels are also the ones that have not the budget's to spend to get the fuel out, others would have to import it at high costs. Most of these Countries are already spending huge amounts of money on war!
We are in a race as to what will be the cause of our extinction and should at least try to do enough to give our children and grandchildren time to discover a way to stop it happening!

Answer 4

Do you know how the air is heated? UV rays from the sun come into the earth's atmosphere and "bounce" off the Earth. As this occurs, it turns into infrared rays, which causes our atmosphere to begin heating. Now, some amount of this UV/infrared ray is needed to allow our planet to maintain its temperature that allows us and other organisms to survive on our planet. Now, CO2 is an essential greenhouse gas which doesn't allow infrared rays to pass through it, but UV rays can. Thus, the larger the amount of CO2 rays, the less infrared rays can be reflected out of our atmosphere and back into space. Instead, the rays bounce around in our atmosphere and heat our Earth to new levels. That's how it works...

And, any green plant uses photosynthesis as far as I can tell, so, algae can't emit CO2.

Did you know, global warming can throw us into another ice age? The melting of the ice caps dumps more fresh water into the oceans, which unbalances the salt and water balance. Salt lowers the freezing point of water. So, the less salt, the higher the freezing point. Once the ocean begins freezing over, it brings cold air onto land, and so forth. Sound like fun?

Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, it's been a while since I've thought a lot about the technical parts of global warming.

Comment:
(to the guy above me about the bombs) lol, try seconds, and maybe minutes. If we were to go into all out nuclear war, it would take minutes to destroy the world. The US alone has enough firepower in its nuclear submarine force to destroy mankind.

Answer 5

"As the air warms, the ocean warms and oceanic algae grows and prospers. This emits millions times more CO2 than humans could possibly do."

Algae converts carbon dioxide into simple sugars and O2.

If you cannot state facts, and instead depend on the hyperbole of FoxNews, you will never be taken seriously.

Answer 6

"The sun warms the earth" - True, by a maximum variation of 0.1% between minimum and maximum output during a complete solar cycle. A variation of 1.3 Watts per metre squared per year compared to a mean of 1366 W/m2/yr.

"How much of that heat gets to the earth varies due to cosmic radiation" - Solar Radiation not cosmic radiation and the amount that gets to earth is determined by earth's albedo and other factors.

"This is a proven fact." - True, but not so much in the context in which you cite the statements.

"As the air warms, the ocean warms" - True but there's more to it than just the air warming. The primary cause of the seas and oceans warming is solar radiation. It's also partly false because as the air warm it melts polar ice which introduces near freezing water to the seas and oceans and thus cools them. The overall effect is a warming one.

"and oceanic algae grows and prospers" - Not necessarily, sometimes it does but sometimes it doesn't. It can also be killed off due to the acidification of the oceans as they warm up. In any event, algae, plankton etc absorb CO2.

"This emits millions times more CO2 than humans could possibly do." - False. Oceanic CO2 uptake is 90 billion tons per year, they release 88 billion tons a year. A net intake of 2 billion tons per year, not much compared to the 29 billion tons we produced last year.

"It takes around 800 years for the oceans (which cover 2/3rds of this planet) to warm" - False. There is no sudden rise in temperatures, it's gradual. The moment ambient temperatures fall below that of the seas and oceans they start to cool. That's why seas and oceans are cooler in winter than in summer.

"and therefore the relationship between a rise in CO2 and the air temperature is that the increase in CO2 will come 800 years after any significant warming in air temperature" - False. Temperature and CO2 levels are part of a Feedback Process, it makes no difference which one comes first as they lead to each other, it's basic physics and has been known about since the 1800's.

"This again is a proved fact." - False.

"Put simply there really isn't much humans, as a relatively insignificant species inhabiting this planet, can do to change or cause global warming." - False. There's a natural carbon cycle which without human interference can remove up to 3 billion tons of CO2 per year from the atmosphere. As I've already said, last year alone we added 29 billion tons to the atmosphere - almost 10 times the amount that nature can handle. Over the centuries we've added over 1 trillion tons of CO2 alone,

"What we are doing though is crippling the third world" - True but not for your reasons. Global warming causes drought, famine, flood, wildfires, erosion, crop failure, lowering of the water table, desertification, loss of agricultural land, water inundation, insect infestation, spread of disease and more. All of which are currently affecting 'third world' countries. Did you know that one American produces 19.8 tons of CO2 per year, one Chadian produces 10 kilograms.

"We are dictating to poor countries in Africa Asia and South America that they cannot build power stations to burn fossil fuels , leaving these countries with no electricity. This means poor schools, hospitals, basically keeping them poor" - False. Most of these countries don't have fossil fuels and to build power stations which burned them would be prohibitively expensive as the fuel would have to be imported. It's for this reason that many of these countries are going down the road of nuclear and hydro electricity generation. Not long ago I visited the world's largest reservoir - Volta Lake in Ghana, Africa. It powers a massive hydro electric power station which received almost no foreign aid because the developed world wanted the Ghanaians to build coal and oil fired power stations so we could export fossil fuels to them.

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By all means please dispute global warming and make a valid contribution to the important debate but don't rely on seriously flawed 'evidence' to substantiate your claims.

Answer 7

This isn't even a question, you retard! And our species isn't insignificant. We are the top species, able to change the landscape significantly, displacing and destroying other species. We can collect vast resources from the planet in a short period of time. We can travel faster than the speed of sound and even leave the planet completely. I would hardly call that an insignificant species. We are the bomb, baby. Oh yeah, we have those too. Capable of destroying ourselves completely in a couple of hours. Let's face it, humans aren't to be taken lightly.

Answer 8

Who told you that South American countries can not build power plants? There are power plants in Argentina and Brazil. Answering your question... I just say that I believe more in the scientists than in you, and they have nothing to gain with this heating theory.

Answer 9

fine.

but carbon dioxide does trap heat. that's a proven fact.
and there is way more carbon dioxide in our atmosphere now than there was before the industrial revolution. that too, is a proven fact.
and lastly, how many starving, third world africans have you seen with aerosol air fresheners?

Answer 10

Algae do not emit Carbon dioxide. They emit oxygen just like every other photosynthesising organism. Infact, they emit more oxygen than all the trees on the entire planet. Please get your facts straight before you go spouting off at people.