Of course they also like to point out that of the CO2 only a tiny part is of human origin. So the effect of human CO2 emissions must be close to zero...

Fermiparadox-

I should have said "Even if these numbers are correct ...".  You're correct that those numbers are wrong.

Thanks!

Of course they also like to point out that of the CO2 only a tiny part is of human origin. So the effect of human CO2 emissions must be close to zero...

This comment, as well as the root issue (the relatively small fraction of atmosphere that is CO2) reveals a basic misunderstanding about how to think about this stuff.  It's not a matter of absolute quantities or static values.  It's a matter of balance.  If the heat leaving equals the heat entering, you have a stable state.  If the heat leaving is even slightly less than the heat entering, you get a net heating effect.  Ditto with CO2 in the air: Natural processes make lots of CO2, and absorb lots of CO2.  Human activity releases smaller volumes of CO2, but does not uptake CO2 in similar proportion.  The degree of out-of-balance may be small, but if it's consistent over time, it will add up.

Yeah,
Thats really what the issue is.

So the complaints about "OMG Volcanoes put up lots of CO2"  It's really easy to shut that argument down for the strawman that it is.

In 650,000 years of records
Countless volcanic eruptions
We've never gone above 281ppm of atmospheric CO2.
This year, we're somewhere around 480ppm of CO2.

So it doesn't matter if our contribution is small.
The total net effect on atmospheric CO2 balance is large.

_

It's kind of like a counterweight pulley crane.
A little force in, and you can move amazingly heavy objects.

My response to that canard is usually "That may be true, but I haven't seen carbon dioxide condensing out of our atmosphere and falling to the ground."

    I have an easier way to explain it. When the U.N. needs to increase funds by 3%, it releases a report to show how the report they released last week was not quite accurate and that.... (whatever the problem is)it is significantly worse than first thought because our computor model had the wrong perameters inputed.
    Once this is released to the media, a forward push is on, and funds increase.

Long story short, POLLUTION needs to be regulated, but not by an orginazation that swaps oil for food with a former thug, and has human rights commissions that set around for the entire year of 2006 to write up over 80 resolutions about how Isreal is mean to the Palestinians. If it looks bad, it probably is bad, including the IPCC.

Apparently discussions of global warming lead to incoherent blog posting.  Amazing! I wonder if it's a causal relationship, or merely correlative.

minor correction from the comments:  CO2 is currently around 380ppm not 480ppm.  This is still very much higher than ever seen in the 800+KY ice core records and perhaps unprecedented in many millions of years.

"The problem with people who have no vices is that they tend to have some pretty annoying virtues." -- [paraphrased] Elizabeth Taylor

re: Icelander
--My response to that canard is usually "That may be true, but I haven't seen carbon dioxide condensing out of our atmosphere and falling to the ground.--

Thats because carbon dioxide doesn't do that.
It floats back down, and is absorbed by plants as a gas.

Particularly Phytoplankton, (Which accounts for more than half the earth's biomass production capacity)
Where it then sinks to the bottom of the ocean until the bottom of the ocean warms up.
Which usually takes about 800 years give or take.

Catch is, carbon dioxide normally stays up there for about 100 years before it comes back down.
(Methane, only about 14 years, but it's 23x more potent as a greenhouse gas)

In a natural cycle, this hasn't been a problem since the ammount coming down and the ammount going up where mostly in balance with each other.

(Except of course when the bottoms of the ocean heats up)

minor correction from the comments:  CO2 is currently around 380ppm not 480ppm.  This is still very much higher than ever seen in the 800+KY ice core records and perhaps unprecedented in many millions of years.

Cool beans.
I'll need to find a source for that info.

I shouldn't be quoting it so idlly without ;D

It's easy to throw percentages around without thinking about what they actually mean. In any terms, most people just dismiss something like 3% as unimportant. "3% of the people taking that vitally important country-wide exam failed." "Oh, that's no big deal, that means 97% passed. That's a good record." "But 1000 people took the test. That means 30 people have just had their futures ruined." "Oh. I hadn't thought of it that way."

It's like saying "well the IPCC report did leave a slight margin of error", or "well, if the sea levels only rise about 25cm, that's nothing." It's very difficult to look at numbers on a wider scale. Must be why so many hate maths.

"Human activity has increased because of whatever it is that's raising the temperature and hence more CO2 (as well as other stuff)."

I don't get it. Can you explain?

We know:
It's not the sun
It's not cosmic rays
It's not water vapor
It's not volcanoes
It's never been this hot in recorded human history.

Certainly whatever is causing it is something that we are causing.

And all the models, and evidence agrees with the CO2 theory.

_

Could it be something besides CO2?
Sure.

But it's mostly likely something that humans are causing, since there are no known natural forces that can explain the rapid warming of the last 3 decades.

As is well known, my own feeling is that the CO2 increases are a result -- not a cause -- of the warming.   Human activity has increased because of whatever it is that's raising the temperature and hence more CO2 (as well as other stuff).

"Feeling"? "Whatever it is"? "Other stuff"?

Hey, jabailo, you couldn't be a little bit more vague could you?

Hey, jabailo, you couldn't be a little bit more vague could you?

Don't tempt him.  He might spontaneously generate a black hole of vagueness, which sucks in all sense and spits it out in some other universe.

The really tough thing, of course, would be figuring out where the damn thing is. :)

(Too true, GreenEngineer)

Going back to my original comment, this is of course where standard form, plus all the micros and nanos (and the megas and teras), came from. Move the numbers closer to the decimal point to make them seem more important, as it's tough to realise that a small number can mean anything.

Seems like a lot of what is supposedly there to make things easier is actually there to get people to realise they're dealing with something real.