Conflicting Views on Climate Change

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There is global warming, but carbon dioxide has nothing to do with it!
The atmosphere is 17 trillion cubic kilometers and carbon dioxide is less than one percent of it. Basic laws of thermodynamics is the one that governs transfers of heat from one body to another or from one gas element to another. Given the volume of carbon dioxide in relation to total atmosphere, there is simply no way it can cause global warming.
But since the world is warming, in fact it has been warming continuously since the peak of the last ice age; it has been warming even before people started overpopulating some places of the earth and started producing carbon dioxide through industry and the burning of fossil fuel, then there must be another element that is causing the warming of the earth. Carbon dioxide is not the only element that can go up to the atmosphere and contribute to its warming. In fact, water vapor is the better element in terms of bringing heat up from ground to atmosphere and from the atmosphere to the oceans and on the land. Water with 4% has more volume in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide with only .038%. Carbon dioxide is heavier than air, while water vapor is lighter than air, and therefore water gets up to a higher level in the atmosphere while carbon dioxide is sinking back to the oceans and on the land. Water vapor will receive heat from the sun before carbon dioxide gets it.
The problem in the climate change debate is that there is more emotion than basic science. Get the volumes of the elements and the principles of physics that govern heat and energy transfers between the elements and we will begin to make real sense of what essentially is the problem.
Making carbon dioxide as the culprit instead of the growing quantity of water vapors in the atmosphere, will bring us to the wrong solutions to the problem.

Gabriel Atega of CA 11:09AM October 13, 2009

"Forecasts from the IPCC are merely the opinions of some scientists and computer modellers. It is not proper to claim that these are truly scientific forecasts."
Well, it's not just the IPCC that is saying this you know. Have a look at the latest results from the climate change study group at MIT:
http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2009/roulette-0519.html
Would you consider that scientific work?
While you're at it, consider the statements by the NAS and AAAS, the most respected scientific organizations in the world:
http://dels.nas.edu/climatechange/
http://www.aaas.org/news/press_room/climate_change/
These organizations are very careful not to endorse a scientific theory until the evidence supporting it is overwhelming.

Eli of CO 5:41PM October 12, 2009

"The only reasonable scientific interpretation of the lag is that temperature controls carbon dioxide."
The CO2 lag business is part of another common myth. The lag between temperature increase and CO2 level rise during past interglacial periods proves that CO2 level is increased when it gets warmer for other reasons, yes. It is part of a feedback loop.
When temperature increases, the oceans can't hold as much CO2, so the CO2 level in the atmosphere increases. This then causes further warming. It's a cycle. Normally CO2 level is part of a feedback mechanism which responds to forcing coming from other sources, such as variations in the Earth's orbit.
In this case, the forcing is the increasing CO2 level, and other effects such as ocean acidification because the ocean is absorbing more carbon in the form of Carbonic acid, are part of the feedback mechanism.
There is a good article on this here:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/04/the-lag-between-temp-and-co2/
The truth is that this feedback cycle is well-understood, and it is taken into account in all of the current models.

Eli of CO 5:35PM October 12, 2009

Climate change deniers or in better words, Climate Realists, say that Co2 does not cause global warming because there is no proof that it does. We have been waiting for 30 years for this proof and there is none. Even the climate will not show any proof. I wonder if there was this kind of argument in the 20's, 30's and 40's? I bet not. Yet those 30 years were warmer. Do you think that as the climate warmed from the Dark Ages to the Medieval Warm Period, people were asking their governments to tax them more to make it stop warming? Again, I bet not. They were too busy growing food and being happy. It is a pity that people in thie warm period cannot enjoy their good luck.

Eve of NY 9:10PM October 11, 2009

There is science, and then there is debate and politics. Propaganda 101 technique... turn a science into a debate. Have the Oil and Gas sponsored "think tanks" pay to have official sounding experts (but never the ones actually involved in the peer reviewed scientific research projects) push emotional buttons to pull and push the subject into a debate. Come on people, do some critical thinking for yourself. Read the science results, not the debates, and think about motivations behind those debates when they are pushed upon you.

Jim Cairn of CA 11:35AM October 10, 2009

Sea level was rising at a rate of 1 mm a year in the 90's. It reached 2 mm a year in the first decade of the new millenium and now before that decade is even over with its at 3mm a year.
IPCC vscientists note the "suprising acceleration is not linear but exponential or in other words its rate of change is increasing at an increasing rate.
If you think the sea level rise is mostly from melting glaciers and polar ice caps that would be wrong. Its mostly from the coefficient of expansion which increases as temperature rises.
If you think a few mm a year is no big deal check out the topic of arithmetic and geometric series on google. If it follows the pattern its presently showing 1,1,2,3,5,8,13... we might easily have most of our major cities and their nuke plants underwater before the end of the century.
The fact that C)2 acidifies the oceans so that reefs and plankton are dying and rainforests are being logged off so that the earths respiratory system no longer can but oxygen into the atmosphere faster than the greenhouse gases like CO2 and methane means that we are facing suffication if we can't get emmisssions back down to 350 ppm.

whittet of ME 11:35AM October 10, 2009

Has it never occured to any rational man or woman that Climate is Weather. The presupposition that Climate Change is a belief of Man altering the Earths environment, to catastrophic levels, is an ideology. The greatest fallacy of Alarmists is the mantra they fall back to when cornered without recourse. That is the 'Why Climate is Not Weather' clause. What better talking point, when faced with scientific fact that debunks Alarmists predictions, than using a simple catch phrase to silent dissent. I imagine that works at coffee table discussions with friends and neighbors, but to an intellectual, that defense would only allow you the 'knowing' nod and silent ridicule. Ignorance is bliss they say.
There are but two truths regarding Climate Change, and that is science and politics dressed up like science. The Alarmist parades and panders his politics and scientists seek truth through what's known as the 'scientific method', a.k.a. trial and error. To paraphrase Thomas Edison on the invention of the light bulb: ' It did not take 100 trials on how to make a lightbulb, but a 100 trials on how a lightbulb is not made.' The same could apply to climate models. I'm concluding that inventors of climate models stopped their scientific method after just a few trials. Why else would every prediction on weather based upon climate models fail? Why else would the I.P.C.C. remove the 'hockey stick' graph from their assessment report? Why else would the Hadley Center say that their raw data, for the basis of their models, was destroyed ?(conjecture).
If Alarmists wish to continue to hide behind idealogy, their fate will be no different than the Mayans; a stronger more determinded people will consume and destroy the barbarism and heresy and remove all knowledge of them in recorded history, except in the mentioning as myth and speculation.

David Alan of TX 9:01AM October 10, 2009

Why did the US Democratic Party not allow a debate between Lord Monckton and Al Gore ?
Was it because Lord Monckton would have made Al Gore look like a fool ?
Why is it that the politicised IPCC are "scared" to have a debate with the
non-politicised NIPCC ?
CO2 levels have been appreciably higher in the past (even as high as 500 to 1000 times)
before the onset of industrialised man and life on Earth had been flourishing with these
high CO2 levels.
We cannot explain the Earth's greatest natural climate change effect (i.e. prior to the Earth becaming a snowball (ice sheets at the equator) then followed by the Earth leaving this "snowball" phase) and likewise we cannot adequately explain the Earth's current climate
phenomena. Climate science is a complicated discipline and it is naive to believe that relatively simple climate models can perform adequate long-term predictions.
Audits by entities from the "International Institute of Forecasters" had found that the IPCC forecasting procedures were not valid and there is no reason for policymakers to take the
IPCC's forecasts seriously. Forecasts from the IPCC are merely the opinions of some
scientists and computer modellers. It is not proper to claim that these are
truly scientific forecasts.
To believe carbon dioxide is a pollutant indicates a gross
ignorance in basic science.
It's obvious that "climate change" has many details on many levels.
It appears Al Gore's plan has been to hide important details from the people
of the World since these details conflict with his agenda,

Cade Foster 12:56AM October 10, 2009

The pseudo science is authored by those who will not look quantitatively at the lag of CO2 behind temperature. The only reasonable scientific interpretation of the lag is that temperature controls carbon dioxide. In ice-core and other records, there is no empirical evidence that CO2 has any effect on temperature. If I may, I would suggest looking at http://docs.google.com/fileview?id=0B39QlQ1NSWREN2Q5NGM2Y2MtODFjOC00MTEzLThkYWUtNGI5YmNkOTViZDdl&hl=en for a quantitative treatment of CO2 lag.

R Taylor 11:42PM October 09, 2009

O.K.; so there is a problem. But the real problem is NOT CO2 emissions. If we are to reduce carbon emissions by 20% by the year 2020, how do we control population numbers so that the gain we are sure to have in population does not negate the gains we make in carbon emissions? Even if we can control carbon emissions, the fact remains we have surpassed the limit of how many people this planet can sustain. Mother Nature, in her infinite wisdom, is well on her way to correcting our neglect, and slowing down CO2 emissions will have about the same effect as the little Dutch boy with his finger in the dike. This IS the inconvenient truth.

Nancy of KS 7:48PM October 09, 2009