Climate Change - The Big Picture

Over the last year or so I have made several posts on the subject of climate change. In these posts I have tried to make it clear I do believe the climate is changing, but I just don't believe it's the result of man's reliance on fossil fuels or as it is referred to "anthropogenic climate change". Here the endeavor is to tie several of these posts together and review some of the assertions about climate change.

Global Climate is Changing

This is a true statement. Believers in man made global warming point to an increase in temperature over the last 150 years of so and use this as evidence that man's generation of carbon dioxide through the use of fossil fuels during the industrial revolution is to blame. In the post House Resolution 109 and Climate Change I introduced data from the Vostok ice core sample showing historical temperatures over the last 420,000 years. This data provided information demonstrating not only the last ice age but others before that. Global temperatures over this range show many peaks and valleys, we are currently in a peak. One distinct advantage of this data is that it is derived from a consistent basis, it's all the same type of data. Any error would be consistent from data point to data point, if the data is in error it would be consistent and the relative moves would be the same. Temperature measurements compiled over the last 150 years by other means would be from different methods resulting the differing error among the different methods. It's difficult to measure temperature to +/-0.1°C today, imagine how difficult it would have been 100 or 150 years ago.

The Vostok ice core samples also provide a history of carbon dioxide levels over this time frame.

This data shows the current increase in carbon dioxide levels started around 7000 years ago, well before the start of the industrial revolution. The industrial revolution did greatly increase the amount of carbon dioxide, but I have never read a technical explanation of how this is increasing the temperature of the planet. The application of science to a problem like this involves math, not just assertions that we are supposed to accept as facts. Another statement I have heard is that the earth is warmer than it's ever been in history, this data absolutely shows this to be false. In fact, within the last 10,000 years the earth has been a full 2°C warmer.

Carbon Dioxide is the Most Significant Greenhouse Gas

Don't believe it, it's false. In the post Greenhouse Effect I attempted to explain the greenhouse effect of the atmosphere to develop the understanding this a a natural and critical component for sustaining life on this planet. The post Greenhouse Effect - Energy Trapped by the Atmosphere provided an explanation of how energy is trapped in the atmosphere and demonstrates that water vapor is a much more significant greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide.

The greenhouse effect relies on a property known as emissivity. The graph to the left shows the emissivity of water vapor (tan) and carbon dioxide (blue) over the range of wavelengths the earth would emit energy back into space. Clearly the energy trapped by water vapor covers a wider range of the wavelengths of energy than that of carbon dioxide. Couple with this the the relative amounts of each gas in the atmostphere, 4-5% water vapor and 400 parts per million of carbon dioxide, water vapor is the much more dominant greenhouse gas.

Carbon Dioxide is Causing the Earth's Temperature to Rise

Again, false. Data from the Vostok ice core samples demonstrates a lag between the temperature starting to rise and the increase in carbon dioxide levels. This lag has been calculated at 800 years and up to 1073 years.

When carbon dioxide levels and temperature are plotted on the same graph the lag is obvious. By looking at only 150 years of data it's easy to make the assumption that rising carbon dioxide levels drive the temperature increase. The truth is just the opposite.

The oceans of the world absorb carbon dioxide. As the temperature of the ocean warms, the ability of the water to absorb the carbon dioxide decreases. The post The Earth's Great Conveyor Belt discussed the thermohaline currents that take cold water through the depths of the ocean from near the north pole down to the warmer waters near the equator. This circuit aides in transporting energy around the world keeping it warmer in the north and cooler in the south than it would have been. I also provides an explanation of the lag between temperature increase and increases in carbon dioxide levels. Cold water at one part of the circuit absorbs carbon dioxide, as the water warms the carbon dioxide comes out of the water. It takes hundreds of years for water to complete this circuit with some estimates being as high as a thousand years. Imagine carbon dioxide exhaled by someone several hundred years ago could just be resurfacing.

On of the more interesting articles I've found on the internet on this subject is THE ACQUITTAL OF CARBON DIOXIDE by Jeffrey A. Glassman, PhD. In this article, Dr. Glassman walks through the analysis of the Vostok data where the carbon dioxide levels are plotted against the corresponding temperature. Dr. Glassman found that doing so the data closely represented the curve of the solubility of carbon dioxide in sea water. What this does is validate, for me anyway, the change in carbon dioxide levels is a result of the changes in ocean temperatures.

I'd like to be able to tell you this is all very new findings that haven't made it to the mainstream news outlets yet. Unfortunately Dr. Glassman's article was written in 2009. For 10 years some scientist have ignored these facts continuing to seek funding to research and support a hoax. Global climate models have been modified to ignore the impact of oceans to make them better fit the narrative of anthropogenic global warming. This isn't science!

Now we have politicians in the Democrat party utilizing this fake science as a tool in their arsenal to use in their never ending lust for power. They are trying to sell the Green New Deal as being necessary to protect the earth when it's actually the implementation of socialism in the United States. Hoping with the implementation of socialism they will be part of the ruling class to have all the power they want. I doubt it would end there since their achieving power will simply make them want more.

All of this while there could be a great need for real science to investigate global climate. Look back at one of the earlier diagrams with a couple of lines added.

Over the last 3500 years the global temperature has been decreasing. At the same time it appears the increase in carbon dioxide has flattened and potentially starting to decrease. The implication here is that our current interglacial period (time between ice ages) could come to an end at some point, which could be thousands of years from now. The need for real climate research comes from how quickly the temperature cools when these interglacial periods end. The next ice age could start in thousands of years, or it could be decades.