Topic
To understand why the planet's heating up, you need to know about 'radiative forcing.'
A dash of CO2 keeps other, even more powerful greenhouse gases aloft in the atmosphere (UNEP).
Cut through the smoke, learn the facts, win debates. In eight easy lessons starting today.
The high price and distant hope for carbon sequestration. Part seven of a Tyee Solutions Society series.
As planned for 2011, EnCana project is 'irresponsible': Pembina.
[Editor's note: There's no bigger subject than climate change, and maybe none more important to understand. But too often it's a subject for arguments, when we need a reasonable discussion based on what's actually happening to the planet around us. We thought it might help to revisit the basics of what's going on in the air and the oceans, our human role in events, and what kind of future we can expect if we don't make some changes. So welcome to a first for The Tyee. Scientifically trained writer Eric Nadal has created a nine-part series made up of eight short, straightforward, simple to understand classes in climate change, followed by a quiz you can take -- with a certificate to hang on your wall if you pass. Climate Cadet? Gaia Geek? Smarty Boots of Atmospheric Science? Graduates are invited to put whatever they wish on their next job applications. And the planet will thank you.]
Part 2: The Heat
Physics, as we learned yesterday, gives us more than just a reason to think that the CO2 we've added to the atmosphere over the last couple of centuries might trap some heat. It's also allowed us to calculate exactly how much heat that CO2 is trapping: what scientists call its "radiative forcing" or "climate forcing."
Various lines of evidence show that the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere has increased by about 40 per cent since the industrial revolution late in the 18th century: from 277 to 394 parts per million. (Most of that increase has occurred since 1970.) Readings from space show that less radiation at the particular frequencies of light that CO2 absorbs is leaving the planet. At the same time, measurements on the ground have detected an increase in downward radiation at the frequencies that agitated CO2 molecules emit.
Using these measurements along with laboratory data and well tested laws describing molecular radiation, physicists can work out precisely how much total radiation the extra CO2 we have put into the atmosphere will absorb and beam down to the surface of the Earth.
It turns out to be a staggering amount of additional energy flowing onto land surfaces, oceans and the lower atmosphere every second: about 9.5 million gigawatts globally, or 1.89 watts per square meter (plus or minus 10 per cent). For scale, that amount of energy is about 600 times all the energy used by all of humanity for all our industry, transportation, heat and light. To release that much energy with nuclear weapons, you would need to set off the entire U.S. nuclear arsenal every few hours.
To be clear, this is the extra energy that the CO2 we have already put in the air is trapping and pumping back into the Earth's climate system each second (more about that tomorrow). And it is merely where CO2 forcing stands right now. The energy being poured down on us will increase as long as the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere continues to rise.
But there's more. This huge influx of extra energy is only what CO2 radiates directly. As it turns out, CO2 has a further role.
The extra energy radiating out from the growing number of CO2 molecules in the atmosphere produces warmer air, which holds more water. Water (another "winged" molecular combination of one oxygen and two hydrogen atoms) is a powerful greenhouse gas on its own. In fact, water vapour and clouds are the most abundant heat-trapping agents in the atmosphere. Together they're responsible for three quarters of the global average of roughly 160 watts/m2 of warming from the overall greenhouse effect.
Earth 'glows' heat back out into space. Watch how the planet's hot belt moves and changes over six years in this NASA animation. Caption: NASA.
But water vapour and clouds are volatile. Water rains out of the atmosphere. If air gets cold it holds less water. If there were no CO2 in the atmosphere whatsoever, it would be cooler than it is and water vapour, clouds and their distinct greenhouse effect would almost completely vanish, plunging the planet into an ice-bound state. Another powerful greenhouse gas, methane, quickly decays into CO2 and water. But CO2 neither condenses nor breaks down chemically. So unlike methane, it stays with us. And whenever the air loses some of its water vapour, persistent CO2 provides enough warmth for the air to eventually refill with water -- and so again amplify its greenhouse effect.
As the planet's principal long-lived, stable greenhouse gas therefore, CO2 sustains the planet's entire greenhouse effect, even though it produces only 20 per cent of that effect itself. Correspondingly, by providing the conditions for more water vapour to remain in the air, ratcheting up CO2 levels also ratchets up the rest of the planetary greenhouse effect, ultimately magnifying the heat-trapping effect of CO2 alone by a factor of four.
Congrats, you are a quarter of the way through the course! Tomorrow (Saturday): How CO2 acts as Earth's thermostat. Find the entire series to date here. ![[Tyee]](http://thetyee.cachefly.net/ui/img/ico_fishie.png){kind=small}
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Hakuin
16 weeks ago
This should save some time
Would the usual suspects please just take a number:
http://www.skepticalscience.com/argument.php
Booker
16 weeks ago
tyee
I don't believe I've seen this sort of series in the general news media, only on science shows/blogs/mags, etc. So thanks.
It's still hard for me to believe that politicians and pundits aren't freaking out about this, but I guess they mostly talk about what they are paid to talk about (and don't talk about what they are paid not to talk about).
Illahie
16 weeks ago
It is starting to look like
We will require every bit of the forcing.
mememine69
16 weeks ago
Science exaggerated. Why do you wan this misery to be real?
FACE IT; Climate Change (not planet loving) was our “Reefer Madness” and our Iraq War of lies and I’m sure Bush laughs at our condemning our own children to our greenhouse gas ovens of an exaggerated crisis of unstoppable warming. Who’s the neocon again here?
REAL planet lovers are former believers and are happy a crisis wasn’t real after all, for whatever reason.
You can’t love a planet with fear. What has happened to us?
Science has only said it MIGHT happen, media says it COULD happen and politicians say it WILL happen. Do the math.
Gary123
16 weeks ago
Good Job
Thanks well done.
mememine69
16 weeks ago
Belief in climate change is faith in climate change.
*Occupywallstreet does not even mention CO2 in its list of demands because of the bank-funded carbon trading stock markets ruled by corporations and trustworthy politicians
*Canada killed Y2Kyoto with a freely elected climate change denying prime minister and nobody cared, especially the millions of scientists warning us of unstoppable warming (a comet hit).
*Obama has not mentioned the crisis in the last two State of the Unions addresses.
*In all of the debates Obama hadn’t planned to mention climate change once.
-Science gave us pesticides and they are more political than politicians. These lab coat consultants are not saints, they are guilty of war crimes for threatening the billions of people on the planet with a death by CO2, …………………………..“maybe”.
FatherTheo
16 weeks ago
Faith and science differ.
Faith accepts "just because." Just because it's inconvenient, people deny climate change.
Science accepts because a theory fits what we know about the world otherwise, and the results are reproducible. We know the qualities of CO2. They are measurable in the laboratory. The projected affects of CO2 in the atmosphere match what we have seen in the laboratory. Thus, anthropogenic climate change, as a theory, fits what we already know about the world in relation to the properties of CO2. The theory has been tested over and over again from multiple directions and the results remain consistent. Thus it passes the reproducibility test.
Accepting climate denial is acting on faith. Accepting what peer-reviewed science says about climate change is acting on science.
Have whatever faith you wish. In regard to climate, I prefer science, not faith.
Illahie
16 weeks ago
Global Warming is now Over
I think that Global Warming has come to and end.
The pendulum seems to be starting to swing back down. After a decade or so of not much change the earth seems to be making a move.
Solar cycle 24 seems to be much weaker than predicted. It may already have peaked much to early and may be starting to decline.
The sun seems to be going through a magnetic reversal.
The Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation is just about over. Bad news for Europe I think
There are no signs of El Nino in the Pacific. The ENSO 3.4 Region is slightly in La Nina category at the moment.
I think that the biggest scam in the history of the planet is just about over.
guydauncey
16 weeks ago
Great work Eric. I do hope
Great work Eric. I do hope you will also point out the radiative forcing of methane, which traps 25-32 times more heat than CO2 over 100 years, and 72 to 105 times as much heat over 20 years.
The natural gas industry is inundating us with ads telling us how "clean" it is, but whenever natural gas escapes it does so as methane, and fracking is producing up to 3 times more escapes of natural gas then traditional drilling.
When you do the maths, including these 'fugitive' emissions of methane, the climate impact of natural gas may be worse than coal. We urgently need a real climate debate about the impact of all the methane emissions from the natural gas sector in BC, before we start expanding, and exporting the fracked gas as LNG to China
Hakuin
16 weeks ago
And again
I see not one of the cranks or liars addresses any of the science thus far explained in the articles. And the reason for that? They can't.
Do carry on please Eric, you are doing humanities work here.
cyberclark
16 weeks ago
Climate change has been on the move for many years.
We are well into it!
Twenty years ago, a crown Corporation in the NWT built a "Syncrolift" This was a U shaped hole in the bank cut into the permafrost. Then a cement fortress was built into 2 sides and 1 end leaving the front open to the Great Slave Lake.
In action a boat would float or power into the Syncrolift and a system of cables strung from the sides would lift it out of the water on cradles which were part of the design.
Five years passed and the sides started to tip inwards. The Permafrost was thawing. Nitrogen pipes were drilled into the surrounding permafrost and nitrogen applied though out the summer to arrest the thawing.
Another 5 years passed and the Syncrolift was closed; there was no way to keep the frost in place.
In the same time frame, R. Angus built a superb shop just outside of Inuvik NWT. Well up to date on the impacts of climate change they installed culverts beneath the foundation and put several feet of Styrofoam between the foundation and the permafrost. They installed large refrigeration units run by their powerful diesel engines.
Fifteen years later the building was shut down as inoperative. It had started to sink into the permafrost.
Through out this people who were alarmed about climate change were filed away with tree huggers an disregarded.
Still another tale. Canmar was setting up to build the Tarsuit Island. They were headquartered in Tuktoyaktuk where they drilled and exploratory well which turned up trees several yards in diameter and the wood was like it was off a new tree from our forests. They also encountered "ice Lens" a truly huge lake like lens of ice many meters deep and stretching beyond 5 km.
This Lens made it impossible to "ground" or "earth" electrical components!
As we progress into climate change city sized hectors will sink into the ground as the water comes to the surface. There will be major upheavals not only in the NWT but around the world.
I look with some curiosity at the planned natural gas pipeline from the NWT to the Tar Sands. The people building it are building in refrigeration capacity and say they are putting footings down 30 feet into the ground ,
Having seen what I have witnessed I have to wonder if it is feasible in the final solutions.
Hakuin
16 weeks ago
Ayup
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/exclusive-billionaires-secretly-fund-attacks-on-climate-science-8466312.html
Fiat lux
16 weeks ago
Climate change deniers remind
Climate change deniers remind me of a story a friend told me many years ago. He was a Canadian officer in the days when Vietnam was partitioned between North and South, with a supposedly demilitarized zone between them.
I think they were called a "control commission" with four officers of various nationalities in a Jeep, touring the demilitarized zone, to make sure that neither side violated it and started building fortifications etc.
One of the officers in his Jeep was from then communist Poland. They would come across a bunker, built by the North and started taking pictures and writing reports on the violation of the treaty, but the Pole would say :"What bunker ? I can't see any bunker. What are you warmongers talking about? "
I suppose the same applied when they saw something built by the South, but then it would have been the others who haven't seen it.
Always have to laugh when people living in some shoebox apartments in mega cities claim there's no climate change when we in the bush can see and have to fight the effects every day.
Ed Deak.
NickS
16 weeks ago
Natural Climate Change Overrules "Consensus Science"
The Junk Scientists have lost the argument, not only because their physics is pure fantasy, but because all of the data proves them wrong. The braying jackasses who insist that CO2 causes warming which in turn has produced the obvious cooling happening now, will not go away until the money supporting them dries up. I don't expect that to happen until the inevitable financial collapse happens.
In the meantime, just remember what the late Michael Chrichton said about Consensus Science:
"I regard consensus science as an extremely pernicious development that ought to be stopped cold in its tracks. Historically, the claim of consensus has been the first refuge of scoundrels; it is a way to avoid debate by claiming that the matter is already settled. Whenever you hear the consensus of scientists agrees on something or other, reach for your wallet, because you’re being had.
Let’s be clear: the work of science has nothing whatever to do with consensus. Consensus is the business of politics. Science, on the contrary, requires only one investigator who happens to be right, which means that he or she has results that are verifiable by reference to the real world. In science consensus is irrelevant. What are relevant are reproducible results. The greatest scientists in history are great precisely because they broke with the consensus. There is no such thing as consensus science. If it’s consensus, it isn’t science. If it's science, it isn't consensus. Period."
Hakuin
16 weeks ago
You misspelled your "source's" name
Twice yet. Also, is a science FICTION author really your best counsel on matters of SCIENCE?
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2008/11/05/203302/michael-crichton-worlds-most-famous-global-warming-denier-dies/?mobile=wt
cw
16 weeks ago
Amory Lovins said it best
He doesn't call what's going on "climate change" or "global warming", but rather "global weirding". The net result of what's been going on in measurable terms over measurable time spans is weather extremes. Colder in some places, warmer in others, and overall instability. 100 year extremes happening biennially if not annually.
Imagine trying to tell somebody in the twentieth century that there would be over a hundred tornadoes one summer in the US Midwest, most of New Orleans would flood, not to be fully repaired most of a decade later, or that New York City would have large areas covered in 3 meters of water, its subways would flood from a storm, Staten Island and the New Jersey shore would be wiped out. And that's just North America. Looking at that globe in the article, the southern hemisphere appears far more affected.
Global weirding. Hits the nail on the head.
NickS
16 weeks ago
Just using the word "Denier"gives the game away.
He denied Christ first and then denied the Holocaust...terrible, terrible, thought crimes.
Heretics should be burnt at the stake or jailed.
Hansen wanted to execute coal company executives and likened coal cars to the cattle cars that carried Holocaust victims to concentration camps.
The next tell is the shifting terms used.
Global Warming turned to Climate Change and now Global "Weirding"(note spelling Hack)!
The amount of money being spent keeping the meme in place is enormous, and who knows what the budget is for weather manipulation by a combination of geo-engineering techniques and HAARP.
The Tyee tries very hard to keep the cattle in the corral, but I don't think any of you realize what is truly at stake.
Weather Warfare: Beware the US Military’s Experiments with Climatic Warfare
‘Climatic warfare’ has been excluded from the agenda on climate change.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/weather-warfare-beware-the-us-military-s-experiments-with-climatic-warfare/7561
Hakuin
16 weeks ago
:)
tell us about the chem-trails, nick :)
Hakuin
16 weeks ago
science!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hDYO7MJcnWs
mememine69
16 weeks ago
%98 agree it "could" be a crisis, not "WILL" be a crisis.
Science only agrees it is real, not a real crisis as not one IPCC warning says it WILL happen, only could and might and likely etc.
How close to the edge of unstoppable warming will science take us before they say the worst crisis imaginable WILL happen?
Hakuin
16 weeks ago
"science" ain't taking anybody nowheres
Science tells us what will likely happen, sometimes so well we start thinking it is prophesy. But do not be confused, science don't give a damn what happens to humans or what humans would like to believe on faith. Science just IS.
NickS
16 weeks ago
Look Up! Wake Up!
Documentaries about chemtrails and geoengineering
independent investigators report on chemtrails
http://www.canadaskywatch.com/articles/documentary/
Hakuin
16 weeks ago
and that will
do it. Goodbye nick, do take your hat with you, or do you have a full roll at home?
Hakuin
16 weeks ago
(sorry)
"Are you not entertained!?"
ModestyBlaise
16 weeks ago
Canadians Love to Talk about the Weather.
I thought the science was settled. This is so very 20th Century stuff.
"Jan 18, 2013
NASA Warns Earth May Be Entering a Period of “Global Cooling”
All climate scientists agree that the sun affects Earth’s climate to some extent. They only disagree about whether or not the effect form the sun is minor compared to man-made causes.
2011
This week, scientists from the US Solar Observatory and the US Air Force Research Laboratory have discovered - to their great surprise - that the sun’s activity is declining, and that we might experience the lowest solar output we’ve seen since 1645-1715. The Register describes it in dramatic tones:
What may be the science story of the century is breaking this evening.
Scientists who are convinced that global warming is a serious threat to our planet say that such a reduced solar output would simply buy us more time… delaying the warming trend, but not stopping or reversing it.
On the other hand, scientists who are skeptical about global warming say that the threat is a new mini ice age. (Remember that scientists have been convinced in the past that we would have a new ice age, and even considered pouring soot over the arctic in the 1970s to help melt the ice in order to prevent another ice age. Obama’s top science advisor was one of those warning of a new ice age in the 1970s. And see this.)
NASA reports this week that we may be on the verge of another Maunder Minimum (a period with an unusually low number of sunspots, leading to colder temperatures): "
Doesn't it just make you shiver? I'm all goosebumps!
ModestyBlaise
16 weeks ago
Heads Up!
Jan 23, 2013
Ex-NASA Scientists Conclude: ‘…no convincing physical evidence to support the man-made warming’
CO2isGreen.org: Team of Ex-NASA Scientists Concludes No Imminent Threat from Man-Made CO2
PR NEWSWIRE
A group of 20 ex-NASA scientists have concluded that the science used to support the man-made climate change hypothesis is not settled and no convincing physical evidence exists to support catastrophic climate change forecasts.
Beginning in February 2012, the group of scientists calling themselves The Right Climate Stuff (TRCS) team received presentations by scientists representing all sides of the climate change debate and embarked on an in-depth review of a number of climate studies.
Employing a disciplined approach of problem identification and root cause analysis honed from decades of dealing with life threatening safety issues in successfully sending astronauts up through Earth’s atmosphere and returning them safely home, the TRCS team concluded that no imminent threat exists from man-made CO2.
TRCS team is comprised of renowned space scientists with formal educational and decades career involvement in engineering, physics, chemistry, astrophysics, geophysics, geology and meteorology. Many of these scientists have Ph.Ds. All TRCS team members are unpaid volunteers who began the project after becoming dismayed with NASA’s increasing advocacy for alarmist man-made climate change theories.
Yawn...
ModestyBlaise
16 weeks ago
Der Spiegel
Warmist Spiegel/Euro-Media Concede Global Warming Has Ended…Models Were Wrong…Scientists Are Baffled!
By P Gosselin on 19. Januar 2013
Spiegel has finally gotten around to conceding that global warming has ended, at least for the time being.
Yesterday Spiegel science journalist Axel Bojanowski published a piece called: Klimawandel: Forscher rätseln über Stillstand bei Erderwärmung (Climate change: scientists baffled by the stop in global warming).
We’ve been waiting for this admission a long time, and watching the media reaction is interesting to say the least. Bojanowski writes that “The word has been out for quite some time now that the climate is developing differently than predicted earlier”. He poses the question: “How many more years of stagnation are needed before scientists rethink their predictions of future warming?”
Bojanowski adds (emphasis added):
15 years without warming are now behind us. The stagnation of global near-surface average temperatures shows that the uncertainties in the climate prognoses are surprisingly large. The public is now waiting with suspense to see if the next UN IPCC report, due in September, is going to discuss the warming stop.”
The big question now circulating through the stunned European media, governments and activist organisations is how could the warming stop have happened? Moreover, how do we now explain it to the public? To find an answer, Bojanowski contacted a number of sources. The result, in summary: scientists are now left only to speculate over an entire range of possible causes. Uncertainty in climate science indeed has never been greater. It’s back to square one.
One explanation Spiegel presents is that the oceans have somehow absorbed the heat and are now hiding it somewhere. "
Quick! Launch a sub. Find it!
ModestyBlaise
16 weeks ago
We MUST Invest in Renewables!
Germany’s Solar Bloodbath Continues…Bosch Solar Arm Loses More Than $2.5 Billion in 3 Years!
By P Gosselin on 25. Januar 2013
Klimaretter, the German catastrophe-obsessed warmist site that dedicates itself to “rescuing the climate”, has a story today of the ongoing bloodbath in the German solar industry, here.
Engineering giant Bosch issued a press release in English here, where it reports that a cooling global economy has slowed the pace of growth of the Bosch Group.
But the real damage has come from its solar arm: “a likely one billion euros of impairments and losses in the difficult photovoltaics business had a significant effect on the earnings situation”.
According to klimaretter.de, Bosch’s solar arm posted an operating loss of 450 million euros in 2012. In addition, the solar arm took unplanned special depreciations totaling about 600 million euros. Therefore the losses totalled more than 1 billion euros in 2012 alone. That comes on the heels of “impairments” of 560 million and 425 million euros in 2011 and 2010 respectively.
Klimaretter.de adds:
According to Bosch, the solar arm is currently worth zero euros.”
It goes without saying, the company’s 2000 solar workers now face an extremely precarious future. Already one plant in Erfurt was shuttered at the end of the year.
Instead of focusing on saving the planet from an imaginary climate catastrophe, one that is generated by dubious models concocted by environmental kook physicists, klimaretter.de perhaps ought to focus more on real issues, like rescuing German jobs by promoting sensible policies. ..."
We could buy the whole company for 1 Euro.
Hakuin
16 weeks ago
oh lord, another one
... or is it the same one?
ModestyBlaise
16 weeks ago
Dr. Parker
Dr. Parker has studied and photographed Mars since the 1960's. He's noticed the frozen ice on the cap of Mars has been consistently shrinking for years.
Solar System Warming!
Dr. Parker says he has yet to see any coal fired power stations on Mars, neither has he seen and SUVs.
Resumé of Donald C. Parker, M.D.
Don Parker, a retired physician from Coral Gables, has had a lifelong interest in astronomy – especially the planet Mars. Over the years Dr. Parker came to specialize in Solar System research and planetary photography. He has taken over 20,000 photographs and electronic images of Mars and Jupiter, as support for professional astronomers at NASA, JPL, and various observatories.
Dr. Parker has done extensive research on the climate and meteorology of the planet Mars, 2012 being his 58th year of observing that planet. He has authored or co-authored over 150 papers on the Solar System and on planetary photography, many of which were published in professional journals and is co-author of the book, Introduction to Observing and Photographing the Solar System. Over the past 35 years Dr. Parker has lectured internationally on planetary astronomy, electronic imaging, and global warming. He is a lifetime member of the Southern Cross Astronomical Society and past Director of the Association of Lunar and Planetary Observers.
In recognition of his contributions to planetary astronomy, Dr. Parker was honored by the International Astronomical Union in 1994, when an asteroid was given the name “5392 Parker.” In 2004 he was awarded the Oriental Astronomical Association’s Gold Medal for his work on Mars.
Frank
16 weeks ago
Hakuin
"oh lord, another one"
I don't think any of us are surprised he turned out to be a believer in a mass scientific community conspiracy.
Hakuin
16 weeks ago
Heh heh heh!
No, I suppose not
the crucible
16 weeks ago
Solar powered CO2 scrubbers
Hmmm..
http://www.diginfo.tv/v/12-0223-r-en.php
NickS
16 weeks ago
Actually it's artificial photosynthesis and could be very useful
It might lead to understanding how necessary CO2 is to life. Just think, instead of demonization, an appreciation of those things which generate CO2. I just wonder if they will leave enough in the atmosphere for the plants. Maybe we will have to make laws preventing the looting of CO2 from the atmosphere.
Ya never know!