Sea Level Rise From Global Warming

Everything changed - read the book instead of watching cartoons.

 

I have done my homework. I am convinced that AGW is occurring but at a climate sensitivity to CO2 of ~ 1 deg C it poses no significant danger to the world population. Policies which would act to reduce CO2 emissions which are politically feasible will do nothing to decrease the global average temperature 100 years from now but will reduce economic growth and the creation of wealth that can be used to adapt to adverse effects of the slow warming of earth. Indeed the first Centigrade degree of warming (which will extend until the year 2100) will have net beneficial effects on the earth's population.

 

No they didn't. You are embarrassing yourself.

 

Yeah... I am still waiting for you to explain why you actually think you know more than the people who do this for a living. You clearly do not have enough knowledge to question anyone on the subject.
I also note that you completely evaded any question about whether you have subscriptions to scientific journals. Your feelings are worthless.

 

This thread wasn't about AGW. It was about how much the sea levels could rise due to any cause be it natural or anthropogenic global warming.

What we also know is that naturally caused global warming, that can result in a significant increase in the sea levels due to the thermal coefficient of expansion of water, typically takes thousands of years but that AGW can accelerate that warming resulting in a rapid increase in the sea level over just a few hundred years.

 

The atmosphere does both but because it's a gas it doesn't absorb very much energy when compared to the land (a solid) and the oceans (a liquid). The greater problem is that the atmosphere acts as a thermal blanket over the land and water preventing the heat from escaping. It doesn't have to absorb more energy to prevent the escape of infrared radiation from the land and seas. Think of it like asbestos that you can place on a red hot stove burner. The asbestos doesn't get hot because it doesn't transfer heat but it prevents the heat from escaping.

 

so you agree that the atmosphere is absorbing incoming IR not outgoing IR?

 

Says the guy who gets his science from videos.

 

I review the entire spectrum of understanding and develop conclusions based on that homework and my own engineering education and a lifetime of working as an engineer in the nuclear and semiconductor industries.

The "scientific journals" were complicit in the MBH hockey stick hoax.

 

The atmosphere absorbs infrared radiation (heat) and where that heat originates is irrelevant. It is from both the sun (incoming infrared radiation) and from the planet (outgoing infrared radiation).

 

Sure it's relevant. How would it be from the surface, if the gas has already absorbed the incoming IR? You do know that the gas you refer to is logarithmic right? Do you know what that means? In fact, the surface heat merely leaves the planet. Cooling the planet not heating it. D'oh

 

Some of the IR is absorbed and some is reflected back into space by the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere when it's incoming but much of it passes through where it's either absorbed or radiated back out towards space. When exiting the planet the Infrared radiation once again has to transition through the greenhouse gases such as water vapor or CO2 those gases where it can be absorbed, reflected back to the surface, or passes through the greenhouse gases. It don't matter which direction the IR is going related to the atmosphere. Some will be absorbed, some will be reflected back towards its source, and some will pass through.

I have no idea where the belief comes form that the source of the IR (i.e. sun radiation or Earth radiation) has anything to do with how it interacts with the the atmosphere. Some energy will be reflected back towards it's source, some will be absorbed, and some will pass through. The problem from the Earth's standpoint is that all of the Sun's radiation that is absorbed or allowed to pass through the atmosphere and all of the Earth radiation that is absorbed or reflected back to the planet's surface heats the planet. If we're not radiating the same amount of IR energy back into space then the planet gets warmers and greenhouse gases restrict the amount of radiation back out into space. That's both good and bad depending upon whether the greenhouse gases regulate the amount of IR so that the amount of energy is balanced.

 

well it matters quite a lot if the atmosphere is a top down or a bottom up environment. I already posted the gas has already absorbed incoming IR, and why would it not? Why would the gas know the difference between incoming IR to outgoing IR? So the fact is, the gas absorbs the IR as it enters the atmosphere, and you are correct, some is reflected out. But when the UV rays that aren't absorbed, warm the surface, the surface then emits IR that isn't absorbed by the atmosphere. And, you have no evidence to suggest such a thing. Feel free to post up an experiment and prove me wrong.

 

UV rays don't contain much heat energy which predominately exist at the other end of the spectrum in the IR radiation.

Nitrogen, the primary component of the atmosphere, doesn't absorb any of the IR heat radiation. It's the other components of the atmosphere such as water vapor, CO2 and methane, all "greenhouse" gases, that actually provide the "heat" in the air that we feel. Ever been in the desert at night? It gets very cold sometimes because the desert air doesn't contain very much water vapor. The nitrogen in the atmosphere isn't "warm" so you can become very cold when the sun sets in the desert due to the lack of water vapor in the atmosphere.

Of course the greenhouse gases don't give a damn whether the IR radiation is coming from the sun or the Earth because they're effected by all IR radiation. It's not a top-down or a bottom-up scenario because it's both.

 

I will contend that it's top down. I've read enough information to believe that the CO2 and water vapor does absorb incoming IR and not any IR from the surface. It that indeed were true, then we'd definitely be warm. Warmer much warmer. but hey, feel free to post up the experiments that show bottom up. I haven't found any. So it must not be true. Cause I'd guess that would be fairly easy to test.

And yep, lack of water in the atmosphere is why deserts are cold at night. yep. And why CO2 doesn't create warmth.

 

Then you haven't read enough, or understood what you've read. Greenhouse gases absorb indiscriminately in all directions, that's elementary radiative heat transfer physics.

We are. The atmosphere is what makes us more than 20C warmer than the moon, which gets the same solar flux.

Silliness. The gas can't tell where the radiation is coming from.

CO2 is a greenhouse gas, like H2O.

 

The gas can't tell where the radiation is coming from.


So you can't prove it comes from the surface right?

Also, can you post the temperature from 20 PPM of CO2?

 

The radiation from the surface has to balance the radiation reaching the surface, or the surface will get hotter.

That makes no sense. Do you mean the temperature difference between 20ppm and zero, or 20ppm and 400, or 400 and 420? Or something else?

 

George Carlin addressed this in one of his routines and asked, rhetorically, "does it really matter whether the Earth ends tomorrow or a thousand years from now?" Didn't think he was funny, but he's got a point there. My own view is that we should err on the side of protecting mother Earth. Even if we aren't warming the Earth (we are), we're savaging it in many other ways.

 

If you've read that then it's scientifically inaccurate. That would be like claiming I can only heat water in a pan from the bottom as opposed to putting the heat source above the water and heating it. The water doesn't give a damn where the heat is coming from.

 

As a libertarian I have a more fundamental argument. No one has a Right to Pollute and while some pollution is necessary for society any unnecessary pollution is unacceptable and a violation of the Natural Rights of ALL People.

According to the US Coal Industry up to 40% of all coal pollution in the US can be economically eliminated by employing "clean coal" technology. This is "unnecessary pollution" that can't be justified and it's the responsibility of our government to eliminate it through strict regulation. This doesn't even have anything to do with AGW but instead it deals with a fundamental violation of the Natural Rights of the American People by the US coal industry because it's creating vast amounts of unnecessary pollution.

 

how do you boil water in a pan from the top?

the heat source is the gas or electric burner on the bottom.

The sun in the sky is our burner and it comes in top down. Holy crab.

 

Put the pan in the oven, use the broiler element, and leave the door open so that only the radiant heat from the upper element is heating the water. Or on the stovetop use an inverted hot plate over the pan to heat the water.

Obviously you're not a scientist because any scientist would have thought if both these solutions as fast as they could type the reply like I did.

The Earth isn't hot? Gee, I just walked outside and didn't freeze to death. It felt awfully warm outside to me and even the payment is too hot to walk on barefoot right now,

 

It is pretty well understood that the sun warms the oceans as the solar irradiation penetrates quite deep into water whereas back IR only penetrates few micrometers. It is also understood that the oceans have a greater affect on weather than thought before such as the current El Nino where a bunch of ocean heat was dumped into the atmosphere. Anyone want to guess where that heat dumped into the atmosphere ends up?

 

I think we should err on the side of improving the standard of living of human beings. And limiting the use of inexpensive, readily available, and on-demand 24/7 fossil fuels reduces the rate of standard of living improvement based on computer models (which cannot predict the past history) and the precautionary principle. Why do some continuously put mother earth before human beings when the history of civilization is based on humans modifying their environment.