Comment Re:ozone layer (Score 1) 635
In fact, the Ozone hole was there the first time it was recorded.
Not even close. Ozone levels in Antarctica started being recorded in 1956 and the ozone hole didn't appear until the 1980's. Here's the graph.
In fact, the Ozone hole was there the first time it was recorded.
Not even close. Ozone levels in Antarctica started being recorded in 1956 and the ozone hole didn't appear until the 1980's. Here's the graph.
Read just about any science and you get the same thing. Everything in science is subject to revision pending new information. When you see words like "very likely" or "extremely likely" as a layman you can consider it settled science.
Correct, however for those who do the maths, energy captured due to CO2 absorption (all else ignored) has a T^3 factor. Blackbody radiation (the heat emitted to space) has a T^4 component. When you do the maths, temperature rise is logrithmic with CO2 proportion. Basically, temperature rise is quoted for a doubling in CO2. Say 1.2 degrees - to get another 1.2 degrees, you need to double again etc.
Now to try to make it scarier, you can introduce feedback - so the hotter it gets, the rate of increase get faster to offset the logrithmic CO2/T. The trouble is that whilst the temperature increase due to CO2 has been tested time and again, and uses sound physics principles, the feedback is more or less guess work. Models are tweaked with new feedback terms until they match previous years...
You were doing so well then you just sailed right off the tracks. On what basis do you claim that feedback is more or less guesswork? Models are not tweaked to match previous years. Any adjustments are made on the basis of better understanding of the physics involved.
Eat more Russian cabbage. That'll give you gas.
Given that natural sinks of CO2 absorb enough of it that the year to year rise in atmospheric CO2 is only about half of total human emissions per year it's your numbers don't add up. If those natural sinks didn't operate as they do the year to year rise in CO2 would be over 10 ppm per year or over 100 ppm per decade.
My point about cyanide wasn't that CO2 would directly kill anyone but that just because there is a small number doesn't mean the effect is small. There is no doubt that there have been some excess deaths around the world due to the effects of global warming caused by increased CO2. Absolutely no one believes that CO2 should be entirely eliminated from the atmosphere which would be impossible to do in any case. We just need to stop causing the level to rise.
What an awesome religion to have actual evidence to back it up.
Estimated deaths for various future scenarios:
- Accidentally inducing an ice age (which can happen in as little as a year or two) from amelioration efforts: billions
Science says it's impossible for the Earth to plunge into a glaciation cycle with CO2 levels greater than about 250 ppm so no worry. A supermassive volcanic eruption or major asteroid strike might plunge us into a decade or two of cold temperatures that could kill millions or billions of people but it wouldn't plunge us into an ice age.
-Successful amelioration efforts backing off GW, with attendant damage to economic dynamism, leaving us with 2050 tech in 2100: hundreds of millions to billions
-GW with slow sea rise but continued powerful economy: Baseline against the ungodly losses of the other two scenarios, but level 2100 tech with its marvels (consider vs. 1900vs today)
I think you have that backwards. More like:
-Successful amelioration with lots of new investment in the technologies that we use to replace our dependence on fossil fuels.
-GW with shifting climates slowly degrading agricultural and natural systems make it increasingly impossible to feed everyone leading to massive starvation after they decimate their local ecosystems looking for food and billions die.
"Radically altering the composition of the atmosphere
You're numbers are a bit off. More like 40 would be CO2, 28 would be from nature and 12 would be from human activity.
Just because the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere is small doesn't mean it isn't significant. If I put you in a room with a concentration of just 270 ppm of hydrogen cyanide gas you would be dead within minutes.
No the article the other day said ozone depletion had stopped getting worse. Full recovery isn't expected until the 2060's or so.
How's your liver L. J. Beauregard? After this tread I don't imagine you're in the hospital because of alcohol poisoning.
Climate models are exercises in curve fitting. They're programmed to fit the data. They are adjusted to fit actual reality, not predict it in advance. This is the pea under the thimble.
You couldn't be more wrong.
The North Polar ice cap increased in the last seven years? On what planet?
Mars?
Your response is just makes it evident that politics are more important to you than the science. The various "dire" predictions are materializing on schedule or in some cases ahead of schedule and you would know that if you paid attention to the science. Yes, there have been a few hyperbolic statements here and there but they are not mainstream science.
BTW, Al Gore's place on the coast is far enough above sea level and won't have problems with SLR for several hundred years.
Sheesh! Sea ice has essentially zero effect on sea level whether it forms or melts. It's the land based ice like the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets that have an effect on sea level. If you're not paying enough attention to the science to understand even that simple concept why should I think anything else you have to say is worth listening to.
Because wind. CFC molecules are not so heavy that they aren't well mixed in the atmosphere. After all water vapor molecules are quite light compared to N2 and O2. How come they don't immediately head for the stratosphere. The atmosphere isn't quiescent enough for significant stratification of the gases in it. As far as traveling to the South Pole, it's not necessary. The ozone layer has thinned out over the whole globe because of ozone depleting substances like CFC's which makes it easier for the hole over the South Pole to develop.
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