Reducing climate change to Anything But CO2.
Examples
Climate change — it happens, with or without our help.
(Roy)
Read my lips: Climate change is a common planetary phenomenon that has nothing to do with people and cars.
(SteveT)
Objections and Replies
Attribution. We don’t know how much is our fault & how much is—
☞ The A in AGW is likely 93%–123% of the observed 1951–2010 change.
Cause. CO2 does not cause temperature to—
☞ It influences solar radiation, which in turn affects temperature.
Climate changes. Climate doesn’t stay the exact same forever—
☞ Our carbon dioxide has prevented the next ice age.
Coolant. CO2 is used as an industrial coolant—
☞ Because it’s cheap and mostly harmless, not because it’s efficient.
Correlation. CO2 follows temperature in both short and long time scale—
☞ If CO2 was all there was in the atmosphere, you’d have a point. Science is about explanation, and CO2 is the best one we got for current warming.
Cycles. This period of warmth is not different from prior periods—
☞ Current warming is occurring roughly ten times faster than the average rate of ice-age-recovery warming.
Entropy. The Earth has cooled from a molten state to its present—
☞ That heat flow is too small (less than 0.1W/m^2) and has been constant over millennia, so it can’t explain current increases (H/T Entropic Man).
God. God controls the weather—
☞ But She does not control climate.
Implication. That CO2 is a GHG in no way implies that increasing CO2 must— ☞ That the Sun has risen today does not imply it will rise tomorrow either.
Natural. The warming could be 100% natural—
☞ Over the past 60 years, natural forcings have had a cooling effect.
Nights and Days. Each hot day it freezes at night—
☞ Climate is a long term average.
Ozone. Warming is driven by changes in ozone—
☞ Great! Quantify your new theory and publish it. Please mind your units.
Pluto. There’s global warming on Pluto—
☞ Natural death does not exclude murder. If humans could not contribute to Nature’s ebbs and flows, they would be pure spirits.
Rotation. We discovered the Planet Surface Rotational Warming Phenom—
☞ Is that you, Christos?
Teh Sun, Stoopid. No one recognizes solar output—
☞ Quite sure physicists heard about the Sun.
Volcanoes. Massive eruptions at Kilauea for four months in 2018, but nary—
☞ Every single day humans release a Mt Pinatubo eruption’s worth of CO2.
Water Vapor.
☞ Water vapor fluctuates daily whereas CO2 used to vary on geological times scale.
Wood. R. W. Wood disproved the GHG theory —
☞ There are at least two problems with Wood’s logic.
Notes
{} Second Law. There are lots of arcane discussions about the Second Law of thermodynamics. Unless you like to play #ButSemantics (it’s all about what warming means), stay away from them and defer to physicists. It takes expertise to diagnose misunderstandings.
* * *
Resources
Greenhouse effect on other planets.
Space Weather Prediction Center; NOAA provides all we need about Sun cycle.
Wood’s 1909 greenhouse experiment, performed more carefully; Vaughan rocks.
2019-07; You Asked: If CO2 Is Only 0.04% of the Atmosphere, How Does it Drive Global Warming?
2018-02; Anthropogenic and Natural Radiative Forcing; the IPCC’s take on natural forcings.
2017-09; Why the sun is not responsible for recent climate change.
2016-10; Can a blanket violate the second law of thermodynamics?
2016-02; What is the best explanation of the greenhouse effect?
2015; CO2 Measurements; we need more contrarians like Ferdinand.
2014-04; Skeptical Arguments that Don’t Hold Water
2012; The Global Climate System; not a bad introduction.
2010-11; The Tyndall Effect; great introduction by a great Climateball player.
2010-08; Yes, Virginia, Cooler Objects Can Make Warmer Objects Even Warmer Still
2009-01; Climate and Earth’s Energy Budget
2009; The Biggest Control Knob: Carbon Dioxide in Earth’s Climate History; Richard Alley rocks.
1997-08; Climate Change: The Basics; Web 0.1 was the best.
1993; How Sensitive is the World’s Climate?
Readings
2020-12; Global Carbon Budget 2020; https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-12-3269-2020
2010-10; Attribution of the present‐day total greenhouse effect; https://doi.org/10.1029/2010JD014287
2008-07; Earth’s Global Energy Budget; DOI:10.1175/2008BAMS2634.1
Climateball Episodes
2021-04; Mind Your Units; on Joe’s bogus geometry.
2015-11; Peter Ward’s Ozone Depletion Theory
2004-01; Your Logic Escapes Me; the time Judy misunderstood the 100% attribution statement.
2011-08; Slaying the Greenhouse Dragon Part IV;
2010-04; On the Miseducation of the Uninformed by Gerlich and Tscheuschner (2009).