Text 16365, 57 rader
Skriven 2007-02-21 19:48:30 av John Beckett (1:379/45)
Ärende: Re: global warming doesn't make sense
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From: John Beckett <johnXsecondary@tpgXcomXau>

"Geo." <geo@nls.net> wrote in message news:<45daee95$4@w3.nls.net>:
> It's far too small a percentage to make squat difference in heat retention.

A scientist is, by definition, someone who is accepted for publication in
peer-reviewed journals on the topic at hand. That involves full-time work in a
specialised area for many years.

AFAIK none of us here are scientists in any field, let alone climate.

The fundamental problem with your arguments is that no one here is capable of
having an opinion that matters. Certainly, some people understand the issues a
lot better than others. But no one here has let us know that they work in the
area of climate and really understand the issues.

I used to do a lot of work with TTL logic and experience told me that it was
pretty useless trying to predict whether an output would go high or would go
low, when an input occurred. Given a reasonable amount of complexity (say a
dozen chips between input and output), the chance of deducing which way the
output would go was about 50%. OTOH, intuition and experience gave a pretty
good guide.

Working with computers and logic circuits, we have the full manufacturer's
documentation. We have something built by humans. Yet we can't predict whether
an output will go high or low! (Well we could get pretty certain if we put in
sufficient time, but there is a surprising amount of error.)

Now you take an argument about CO2 and the earth's climate, and expect to reach
a conclusion proving that climate scientists are idiots. Wow!

It really is pointless for us to pool our ignorance on your thought experiment.
However, I will mention a couple of problems with applying your model to the
climate.

First, the hypothesis is not that the air in one box would get warmer than the
air in the other box. The claim concerns how much thermal radiation would be
reflected back to the earth by CO2 in the atmosphere.

Second, I think the reason that such a small percentage of CO2 can have an
effect is simply that the atmosphere is very large. The "greenhouse effect" is
that the ground is warmed by incoming solar radiation. The warm ground radiates
heat (infrared). Some of the IR goes up (towards space).

Then, because the atmosphere extends a great distance, it is pretty certain
that the IR will interact with CO2 molecules somewhere, even if CO2 molecules
are very rare. The CO2 molecules allegedly absorb energy from the IR then
re-radiate it. The result is that a significant percentage of the IR escaping
from the ground is reflected back to the ground.

If anyone who has spent more than a couple of hours reading about this stuff
has comments, I would be very interested.

John

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