Chemistry and physics, not politics
In that class I first saw a remarkably simple diagram from decades of data gathered at the top of Hawaii’s Mauna Loa volcano. The hockey stick diagram, as it has since become known, showed the rapid and relentless rise in carbon dioxide levels in our atmosphere from the 1950s forward.
I also learned a basic truth about CO? — it works like a one-way mirror, allowing the sun’s heat in, but preventing it from leaving. If you increase the amount of CO? in the atmosphere, you increase the amount of heat trapped by the CO?.
I realized that the underlying driver of climate change is that basic. Add more carbon dioxide, trap more heat. It is chemistry and physics, not politics.
In 1988, after I’d returned to the newspaper, I read about the congressional testimony of NASA atmospheric scientist James Hansen. He testified, according to his recent recounting of the event, that “the Earth had entered a long-term warming trend and that human-made greenhouse gases almost surely were responsible.” Global warming, he said, “enhanced both extremes of the water cycle, meaning stronger droughts and forest fires, on the one hand, but also heavier rains and floods.”
In unrelated news, the forecast for International Falls, Minnesota looks lovely for the weekend.
I have a question. Why are they using C02 emissions from the top of a volcano? Don’t volcanos emit huge quantities of Co2?
There’s been a rather involved and lengthy discussion for a long time about why, I don’t buy much of it, but there are other places around the world which measures CO2 and apparently are in close agreement with Mauna so Mauna it is. It doesn’t really matter, I like the graph Mauna puts out! There is absolutely no correlation with CO2 trends and temps anymore. Compare….
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/wti/from:1979/plot/wti/from:1979/to:1990/trend/plot/wti/from:1990/to:2001/trend/plot/wti/from:2001/trend
with
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/esrl-co2/from:1979
the question is not whether or not more CO2 is being emitted, any fool knows that it is. The question is the role that CO2 plays in the global greenhouse effect. The plolitics of the situation have made a hash of the actual science.
The Hockey Stick did not refer to CO2 and warming allows more CO2 in the atmosphere due to increased biological activity. Humans are reintroducing CO2 that was trapped away from the biosphere millions of years ago and allowing increased biological activity. Of course that cools the globe!
lol, well heck, why didn’t anyone say it was that simple? It would have saved us a lot of time and effort! Quick! Someone call Lindzen and show him this article! Spencer and Christy don’t have to measure sat. data after all! All we have to do is take a CO2 reading and we’ll know the temps!
In case no one is paying attention, next week it is going to be very cold in the eastern 2/3 of the US as well, including Florida. Also looks abnormally cold in places like Japan and Korea. The atmosphere seems unusually wound up right now.
The National Weather Service promised me that it would get warmer this week but each day was revised and it will probably get above freezing today. However they have reduced the temperatures expected for the next 7 days.
lol, my comment is still waiting on moderation.
It’s a fact of science and physics that wood is flammable. There is untold gigatonnage of wood on the surface of the globe, therefore the world is in imminent danger of burning up. The next spark can trigger a worldwide immolation.