Continuing the debate regarding atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide...?

Question

Judging by several recent posts in the global warming section, it appears some people are unwilling to acknowledge that, whilst small in quantity, atmospheric carbon dioxide is capable of affecting our climate.

To these people I would ask: If CO2 (and the other greenhouse gases) are incapable of affecting the climate then how do you explain natural warming?

If you have ever used the argument that climate change is natural then please explain how you isolate this claim from any association with the heat retentive ability of the atmosphere.

If you accept natural warming, then by default you have to accept unnatural (human) warming - it's caused by one and the same thing.

If you do not accept natural warming then please explain how our planet has a moderated temperature (33°C above that if were there no greenhouse effect).

Answer 1

Good luck, Trevor. I've phrased a similar question 3 different ways and have hardly gotten any answers.

At least you didn't use an analogy - apparently that's too much of an intellectual leap for global warming deniers to comprehend.

I think they're puposefully misunderstanding (or pretending to) my questions because the greenhouse effect is obviously real, obviously causing our planet to warm, and this does not bode well for anthropogenic global warming denial, as you point out.

Well, hopefully some of the skeptics will make a real attempt to answer your questions, unlike mine.

*edit* Looks like they didn't. What a shock.

I don't think the skeptics are capable of answering any simple and basic scientific questions. It would undermine their skepticism, and we can't have that.

Answer 2

Clearly CO2 has not been a driver for climate change in the past. There is a lag of about 800 years regarding CO2 versus temperature. Temperature seems to causing fluctuations in CO2; therefore it cannot be argued that increasing CO2 will necessarily lead to warming. A much more important greenhouse gas is water vapor. Since it is not possible with present state of knowledge to predict water vapor concentrations, among other things, predicting climate is a little bit like playing eeny meeny meiny mo. You can say that CO2 is GHG and therefore should moderate the ambient temperature slightly but you cannot say that it will result in warming especially if there is a natural cooling trend. The concentrations of CO2 are dependent on many things. It is included in a cycle and all CO2 that man produces doesn't automatically stay in the atmosphere for ever. It is used by plants and it (or the carbon from it) is chemically precipitated in the oceans and other places. Suggesting that greenhouse gases retain heat is not the same thing as suggesting they are responsible for climate change. I am guessing that all the global cooling we have been experiencing has forced you to put a cap on.

Answer 3

jim z - CO2 acts in TWO ways. As a scientist, surely you can understand that idea. It can cause warming, through the greenhouse effect. And it is released from ocean waters as they warm. Those things are basic science, undisputed by any scientific "skeptic".

The thing is, in the past, there was a lag of several hundred years between temperature increase and CO2 increase. Because the warming started for other reasons, and later CO2 rose as it was released from the oceans.

This time is different. THERE IS NO LAG. That has NEVER happened before. It's because CO2 is (mostly) causing the warming.

There are reasons the vast majority of scientists say this time, the warming is mostly due to us.

Answer 4

Good point to ponder. I have stated that Global Warming is caused by the the added CO2 above the normal amount
of CO2 in the Atmosphere.

The added CO2 in the Atmosphere is from the Clear Cutting of trees in the Forests of the World, and the burning of the forests, by accident, and design. And the tons of CO2 spewing from autos. Trees Maintain a Chemical Balance in the Atmosphere. They emit Oxygen and absorb Carbon Dioxide. Auto's emit CO2 but eat up enormous amounts of Oxygen. Thats double trouble for mankind.

There is more, which I have stated in other listings in this forum.

Answer 5

The heat retentive ability of the ocean's are tremendously more powerful than the atmosphere at regulating climate. The warmest globally averaged temperature on record was 1998, and it was caused by the Pacific ocean not CO2. One look at the globally averaged temperatures over the last 127 years, tells that the warming and cooling occurs in steps of roughly 30 years, which happens to be the periodicity of the pacific decadal oscillation, why are such obvious temporal correlations continually dismissed in favor of atmospheric radiative computer games?

http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/Fig.A.lrg.gif

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Answer 6

See here's the problem. It is possible to accept that co2 does contribute the the warmth of the planet.

Can you show us what the climate will be if co2 doubles? No. There isn't a firm relationship between co2 and temperatures. The Vostok ice graphs show this clearly. Co2 can increase while temps decrease.

Clearly there is more going on then you are aware of. You have no idea if it will be warmer or colder next month, next year even if co2 levels increase.

And action taken without knowledge of what will happen is reckless. During the 70's it was desirable to take sulfur out of the air. Now there's talk about spraying it into the air to prevent "global warming". The only thing this will do is to create a greater environmental problem.

The idea that doom and gloom, floods, famine, pestilence is just around the corner if we don't repent our evil way right now is totally bogus. It just isn't going to happen.

Sure we should be responsible to reduce all pollution including ghg's, and we are.

We are building more wind turbines every year, more cars are available with cleaner engines, factories are installing new energy efficient drives and motors and pollution controls. And they do so because they live in the neighborhoods where they work, they don't need the gvmt to tell them what they need to do.

We do these things because its the right thing to do, not because we follow some specious dogma.

It's time to end funding on global warming research. It's no longer revelant.

And 'whilst' is not a real word.

Answer 7

You can't argue Global Warming/Cooling versus Anthropogenic Global Warming, they are two different things.

"While and whilst can nowadays legitimately be used in the contrastive sense of although or whereas, provided that it is not ambiguous."

A person shouldn't make a statement they can't back up with fact. What's that I hear? Is it the sound of someone gagging on their foot?