Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire The Science is settled!

The earth's climate is always changing in one way or another. Has been for hundreds of millions of years. It's in constant flux, either gradually moving from a warm period into an ice age or the reverse. Currently, we're still gradually moving out of the last ice age towards a warm period. We've been in a warming trend since the peak of the last great ice age, except for a brief (geologically speaking) relapse during the "little ice age."

Those numbers are no better than the others posted up a decade ago, which were very wrong.

The estimates have been terrible, and thats not even factoring in the long term feedback mechanisms you allude to in #3.

Saying "FACT" and .2 deg and 5.2 by 2100 is a freaking joke and you are kidding yourself, but not everyone, that its more than a ballpark guess.

And THAT, is fact.

Dot bring up the sun. we cant tax or control that.

^

You shouldn't be locked into a loosing position.

A tightening one is better.

I didn't find the paper I read, but did bing and came up with this: https://skepticalscience.com/co2-lags-temperature.htm

CO2 comprises only about .04% of the atmosphere. By comparison, water composes from .4 to 1% of the total gases. That's varying from 10x to 25x the level of CO2. Water has a roughly 25% higher specific heat at normal atmospheric temperatures.
Water vapor is impossible to tax or control while CO2 can be blamed with better political results.

The oceans are very complex but in general, they give off more CO2 as the water warms and absorb more as it cools. The resulting CO2 levels FOLLOW the warming or cooling. It's a very slow process, taking decades to make any appreciable difference.

The 3.5 and 5.2 degree figures are the latest and best predictions by the IPCC. So is the 0.2 degree prediction for Paris. Those are the best anyone has. They are obviously not exact (which is why they vary from 3.5 to 5.2). I should have made myself clear about the 0.2 degree effect of Paris. The point is that it is probably too small to measure. The Paris agreement was a triumph of hope over science. And, incidentally, the 0.2 degree prediction assumed that all the 195 countries would adhere exactly to their promises, which is doubtful.

Someone also mentioned something about the sun's variability. Some scientists have speculated that the sun cooled slightly and that caused the Little Ice Age. As yet there is no way to determine if the sun varies in output. There MAY have been fewer sunspots during the Little Ice Age (the data is sketchy), which might indicate the sun was quieter then.

The link jaguartx posted about CO2 actually lagging temperature by 800 years during the last 400,000 years is interesting. If true, this contradicts what any high school student learns about how CO2 (and water vapor, and methane) absorbs and retains heat, unless, of course, there is some undiscovered feedback effect that takes 800 years to operate. Here's a theory: If volcanos or a variable sun caused cooling the now-cooler oceans could absorb more CO2, removing it from the air. Just the opposite might happen if he volcanos stopped erupting as much.

Snow cover vs. bare ground makes a HUGE difference in the reflectivity of the earth. Snow reflects heat, bare ground absorbs it.

The longer there is snow on the ground, the longer the sun's heat is reflected. What determines how long the snow stays? Temperature,sure, but the amount of snow is a bigger factor. If it snows a lot, there is more snow, longer. In other words the amount of precipitation is more important than the temperature.

Same with glaciers. Sure, glaciers move, and melt. But how big a glacier is determines how fast it melts. More ice, the longer it takes to melt. Again, the amount of precipitation is a bigger determination of glacier size than temperature.

So droughts increase temperature, while wet periods decrease it.

To best understand this issue, follow the money, period.

I noted the word "philosophy" in there...

Again, no it doesnt. Every HS student who ever took physical science or chemistry, which is most of them, learns about solubility curves. (this one seems like its been in every textbook written https://www.delsearegional.us/Acade...otes/academic/Unit06/Images/solcurve.gif)

When covering that, they invariably learn the somewhat counterintuitive concept that gasses are MORE soluble in liquids at cooler temps, and visa versa.

Take it a step simpler, your soda/beer goes flat faster in the warm than cool. As it goes flat, it doesnt warm up.

I really dont care to get in a pissing contest, but the amount of BS hypothesis and inference thats spewed as FACT is tiresome.

"IF every country did THIS or THAT, THEN the world would cool by .2 deg. " Absolutley hogwash. far more variables than the best have a grasp on, and the evidence of prior and current jibberish supports this.

Oh geez...

Can't argue with that.

Thanks RM, good read.