Snorbert Zangox’s Recent Comments

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  Observations

  All of the GCMs predict a hot spot between 3 and 10 km above the tropics.  The reason is that carbon dioxide cannot add significantly to the heat absorption of water vapor at lower elevations.  Water absorbs strongly across the entire IR band at which the Earth emits heat.  Carbon dioxide has one narrow absorption band at about 10 to 12 microns.  Even though the extinction coefficient of carbon dioxide at that wavelength, is about twice the water extinction coefficient, the concentration of carbon dioxide is about 400 ppm, while the concentration of water vapor is about 20,000 ppm (80 F at 50% R.H.).  Even with the higher extinction coefficient, carbon dioxide can augment the heat absorption of water only by about 4% in the only band in which carbon dioxide absorbs.  Add the heat absorption of water at all of the other wavelengths and the possible contribution of carbon dioxide to warmth in the tropics is minimal.  

  At higher elevations, the vapor pressure of water is far less.  For example, the temperature at 10 km is about -40 C and the vapor pressure of water is about 130 ppm.  Under these conditions, carbon dioxide can and does add to the heat retention of water vapor.  Thus, the upper air must warm first and most.  

  After a gas molecule absorbs a photon of IR, it will convert part of the IR energy into kinetic energy and will emit IR on a longer wavelength.  The direction of emission is random, so half goes up toward space and half returns toward the surface (ignoring curvature).  The time taken by repetition of this process delays the loss of heat to space.  

  This reasoning also demands that higher elevations and Polar areas warm faster than temperate areas.  

  As I said, neither the satellite nor the balloon data show the requisite hot spot.  The hypothesis failed this necessary condition and we must abandon it before we cause irreparable harm to the most vulnerable among us.  

  I am not convinced that cosmic ray attenuation during solar maxima causing low-level cloudiness is the complete answer to the question "What causes climate change?"  As you say, there are many other possible causes.  I do say that IPCC has not investigated the cosmic ray effect thoroughly and has dismissed it without just cause.  Svensmark, Svensmark, and Calder have presented a strong case for solar reduction of the muon fraction of cosmic rays during high sun spot activity as a cause of warming.  We also have Shaviv and Veiser demonstration of correlation geological scale climate changes with migration of our solar system through our galaxy and with nova activity.  

  When I look at the data there seem to be too many correlations between cosmic ray activity and the climate of Earth to ignore.  Nevertheless, ignore them is what IPCC has done.  

  You mentioned Nino and Nina events.  I agree that they too affect climate.  The 1998 oceanic heat dump is a prime example.  I saw one article, I believe by Anthony Watts, which displayed an excellent correlation between climate warmth and a combination of PDO and ANSO events and sun spot activity.  

  I would say that what Svensmark is trying to do is discover a mechanism by which sun spot activity affects our climate.  That is a perfectly legitimate scientific approach.  You notice a correlation and you attempt to discover why it is so.  

  We do know that cosmic rays cause condensation in moist atmospheres.  After all, scientists have used chambers of moist gas for centuries to count cosmic ray activity.  You just count the tiny little contrails that the energetic, charged particles leave behind as they penetrate the chamber.

  The ice core data give a faulty estimate of long-term average concentrations.  The 1993 measurements at Vostok yielded 1,000-year average values for temperature and carbon dioxide.  The data showed temperature and carbon dioxide increasing and decreasing in lock step.  Al Gore uses these data in his presentations and used them in his movie.  

  In 2003, the researchers returned with better equipment, equipment able to yield 100-year averages and found that temperature changes always preceded carbon dioxide by about 500 years.  Al Gore made his movie in 2005; do you wonder why he did not use the improved, 2003 data?

  It is difficult to blame the recent increases in carbon dioxide concentration on industrial emission for several reasons.  The total accumulation of carbon dioxide is approximately equal to half of the industrial emissions, and is approximately 4% of the total carbon dioxide flux between the atmosphere and the biosphere.  Second, the rate of accumulation of carbon dioxide did not increase when our emissions increased.  The slope of the carbon dioxide line does not track the slope of the emission rate line.  Third, the amount of carbon dioxide in the oceans is about 1,000 times the amount in the atmosphere.  If water-borne carbon dioxide emissions are increasing in compliance with Henry's law, anthropogenic emissions would pale by comparison.  

  It also is true that the signs of warming preceded the onset of rapid increases in anthropogenic carbon dioxide by at least 100 years.  Glacier retreats began in the 1830s, growing season lengthening and warming temperatures began about the same time.  Man-made carbon dioxide emissions did not increase significantly until after 1900.  
  On John McCain's environmental record is as bad as climate change denier James Inhofe posted 1 year, 1 month ago 8 Responses

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  Idiots

  Perhaps, before you start calling folks "idiot", you should offer at least one shred of physical evidence that carbon dioxide causes the climate to warm.  On John McCain's environmental record is as bad as climate change denier James Inhofe posted 1 year, 1 month ago 8 Responses

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  As wrong as Romm

  The 2003 ice core data clearly show that throughout the past half million years that temperature increases have preceded carbon dioxide concentration increases.  The ice core data also show that temperature decreases have always preceded decreases in carbon dioxide concentrations.  The data that have accumulated during the present warming period also show that temperature increased before carbon dioxide concentrations increased.  

  Data collected over approximately 600 years of sun observations show that there is a nearly perfect correlation between solar activity (sunspot numbers) and global temperature.  Several researchers have identified the increased electromagnetic field associated with increased sunspot activity as an agent that deflects incoming cosmic rays from the solar system.  Those cosmic rays increase low-level cloudiness, which reflects incoming solar radiation and leads to cooling beyond what we would expect from decreased solar output alone.  The prevention of low-level cloudiness would increase global temperature beyond what we would expect from the increased solar output during periods of active sunspots.  

  High quality scientists used classical chemical methods to measure the concentration of carbon dioxide at many locations around the world between circa 1800 and 1961.  Those data show that the concentration of carbon dioxide exceeded the present day concentration on at least 3 occasions during that period, on one occasion the concentration approached 500 ppm.  During none of those periods of high carbon dioxide did the global temperature tip over a precipice and go spiraling out of control.  In fact, the global temperature did not increase at all because of those high carbon dioxide concentrations.  

  The models predict a hot spot between 3 and 10 km altitude over the tropics.  The temperature in this zone would increase about 3 times faster than the temperature at the surface if the warming were the result of carbon dioxide.  Satellite and balloon data agree that the hot spot does not exist.  In addition, the temperature today is below the error band of the model projections made just 10-years ago.  The models are wrong.  

  All of these facts are consistent with sun-driven temperature changes and carbon dioxide changes in compliance with Henry's Law.  None of it is consistent with carbon dioxide-driven warming.  The hypothesis has failed to describe reality and we must discard it and move on.  

  The sun is now more quiescent than it has been since the beginning of the Little Ice Age.  Global temperatures have held steady or even decreased slightly since 1997.  If the sun continues on its current course, we may have another period of uncomfortably cold weather.  

  I fervently hope that President McCain turns out to be as wise as Mr. Romm thinks that he is.  We need protection from the forces of warming hysteria.  
  On John McCain's environmental record is as bad as climate change denier James Inhofe posted 1 year, 1 month ago 8 Responses