Comment Re: Coral dies all the time (Score 1) 167
CO2 is not unique in its ability to absorb energy or radiate that energy.
Of course; there are other greenhouse gases too.
You can do comparisons to every other planet in the solar system and what you'll find is that the chemistry of the atmosphere makes almost no difference.
Citation most definitely needed for that claim.
what makes a difference is distance from the sun and density.
Obviously, but distance from the sun only affects the level of incoming energy, not outgoing radiated energy. And it's also obvious that pressure affects temperature. This goes back to the 1700s. But this doesn't trap heat.
Where greenhouse gases make a difference is because they allow most of the incoming radiation to pass (which from our sun is primarily in the optical spectrum, and CO2 is invisible to optical light), but they block a significant amount of the outgoing radiation, much which has been absorbed then re-radiated at black-body temperatures, i.e. in the infra-red range.
If you don't like the Skeptical Science site, don't read it - just read the cited sources (that's what I've been telling you to do all along, if you recall). I merely provided the page as it has a good list of relevant papers, but if you can't even bear to go near it, I'm happy to list them here for you.
As to the effect of CO2 being unquestioned, that is simply not true.
Show many any reputable atmospheric scientist who is questioning the basic science of the greenhouse effect. I'll concede that there are still ignorant people in the world who aren't up to speed on this, but if you want to include any old uninformed opinion, then there are still people who question whether the earth is round.. Let's not muddy the discussion by being over-literal, yes? Context matters. This is centuries-old science, dating back to the 1820s.
There is clearly a controversy so claiming there is no question is not logically supportable.
Now I think you're being disingenuous. When I said there was no question about the effect of CO2, I was clearly referring specifically to the well-established greenhouse effect, and there is pretty much no controversy about that in scientific circles (I'm largely ignoring uninformed opinion outside that, as I don't see that as relevant to the science). And as I said, there is still debate about how much this effect translates into increased temperatures on the surface.
You can't simply dismiss them all. That is not how science works.
Now you're going all straw-man on me. I'm not "simply dismissing" anything. I've provided citations to peer-reviewed papers for every single claim I've made - which is far more than you've been doing, I might add - and the few links you've provided have not challenged anything I've said, or even backed your own claims.
Let's start seeing some actual citations for your claims, because this conversation is ending up as one-sided as all the others. I've spent enough time providing you with verified evidence, and all you've done so far is change the subject.