Wednesday, April 2, 2014

CO2 Math

Math is the universal language of science and search as you might you will not find a unified equation explaining how trace amounts of CO2, measured in parts per million, interact with the atmosphere to cause a specific amount of warming.  Scientists know that water vapor, carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, tropospheric ozone, etc... act as greenhouses gases.  The question I have is the calculated radiative forcing of these trace gases correct?

If we put "X" tons of CO2 into the air what will be the global increase in temperature be? Furthermore, is 100% of the increase man-made?

Millions of years to hundreds of thousands of years to just as recently as the last ice age roughly 10,000 years ago (roughly... we don't actually have definitive dates for the last ice age?) aren't able to be modeled when it comes to atmospheric CO2.

Climate scientists are using predictive modeling, various equations and super computers in ways similar to how hurricanes and hurricane seasons are predicted.  Considering scientist can back feed about 800,000 years of atmospheric composition, air and water temperature data into these predictive models and NOT "predict" much of anything makes me wonder.  If we can't accurately model the past how can we predict the future?

There is no doubt that mankind has released CO2 that was once in the atmosphere but the "locked" up by long dead plants. There has been a 33% increase in atmospheric CO2 since 1900 to roughly 400 ppm. That without man there was already an increase in CO2 occurring due to a warming Earth... Remember the North was covered in ice 10,000 years ago and we are still warming from that event.

How much of the CO2 increase is man-made or man caused? That's a good question and I've read anything from 100% to as little as 25%. I'm going to suggest man contribution to the ongoing increase in CO2 to be around 50%. This
increase in CO2 has resulted in global temperature rise over the last 3000 years is what "Climate Deniers" latch on to and will not let go.

Instead of using computer models imagine a 10,000 square meter sealed box inside in a climate controlled building.  At the top of the box there is a sun like heat source which turns on and off representing the sun.  In that box you place 7808 square meters of Nitrogen, 2095 square meters of Oxygen, 93 square meters of Argon, 3 square meters of CO2 and various square inches of the other trace gases.

Do you think adding another square meter of CO2 would change anything?

What do you think will happen?

What about water vapor that makes up 95% of all green house gasses?

I would argue that building any atmospheric model like the one above, adding water vapor which the IPCC excludes, to empirically measure changes that increasing CO2 by 33% - from 3 to 4 parts in 10,000 would produce better results than billions of dollars and thousands of scientist have gotten with their modeling.

Here is 10,000 super balls being dropped... Now imagine that one more black one is added... That's your entire atmospheric CO2 increase since 1900.


Blaming 150 years of glacial melt, a 1.33 degree Fahrenheit increase and 8 inches of sea level rise on a 100 ppm increase in CO2 using computer models that can't accurately predict weather a few months in advance, that don't take water vapor into consideration isn't something I want the worlds governments spending trillions of dollars on.

If the world governments feel compelled to spend trillions why not go after things that we absolutely know are destroying our planet.  From deforestation of the worlds rain forests, to over fishing and of course developing countries like China who are killing their population with massive air, water and soil pollution.