Why is less than 0.04% CO2 important to climate change?
- Thread starter Woody1
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Thales
Registered Member
I should learn, really. It seems I am in need of perspective, and in want of way(s) of knowing. How is indeed the tricky part.
It's a declarative sentence. It's not vague. You inquired about the differences between discussions of angels then and climate now, and I pointed to the single most significant one: we have lots of information about climate now, obtained by careful research and analysis.
Of course we do.
The ones that have acquired the enormous body of information and theory we now possess, by performing research into the physical circumstances involved, over the past couple of hundred years, are all pertinent. Don't discard them.
exchemist
Valued Senior Member
I don't think it is that hard, actually.
One part of critical thinking, which we are all taught during our education, is to read information with an eye for whether the source appears to have an agenda other than the strict subject matter itself, as this is a good way of detecting any biases the source may have and keeping those in mind as we read and compare with other sources. Any historian does this as a matter of course, but the principle applies to literary criticism and many other fields of study.
sculptor
Valued Senior Member
How it's done:
It seems most likely that CO2 neither reflects nor refracts heat(energy) but rather, absorbs energy by stretching or bending, then releases that stored energy in all directions when returning to a relaxed state.
accurate?
It would then follow that some of the energy would be radiated out into space, some towards the earth, but most would be radiated into the atmosphere. Which would then lead to the conclusion that most of that atmospheric energizing would flow to the poles, especially with/by sudden stratospheric warming(ssw)events. SSW, then disrupts the polar vortex, spilling the cold down into the mid latitudes. Then, it would seem that most atmospheric energizing would be felt at the poles, which would then lead to the equable climate model.
It seems most likely that CO2 neither reflects nor refracts heat(energy) but rather, absorbs energy by stretching or bending, then releases that stored energy in all directions when returning to a relaxed state.
accurate?
It would then follow that some of the energy would be radiated out into space, some towards the earth, but most would be radiated into the atmosphere. Which would then lead to the conclusion that most of that atmospheric energizing would flow to the poles, especially with/by sudden stratospheric warming(ssw)events. SSW, then disrupts the polar vortex, spilling the cold down into the mid latitudes. Then, it would seem that most atmospheric energizing would be felt at the poles, which would then lead to the equable climate model.
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The reason the poles are heating up faster is that they are dark and snow-covered and dry, which means they get less solar heat most of the year (dark) and they absorb less of it into the ground (snowcovered) and they lose it faster through the air (dry). The only thing holding the heat was the CO2. The extra CO2 therefore traps proportionately more heat, and the resulting warmer air reduces the snowcover (more absorption) while it sublimes and holds proportionately more water in formerly very dry air - further increasing the heat trapping.
This heat trapping is thereby proportionately greater - much greater, proportionately - than near the equator. The heat balance is far more dramatically affected, there. That was one of the earliest and most robust of the climate change predictions: the high latitudes will warm disproportionately, especially at night and during the winter. That was a simple and direct conclusion from the observation that the night and winter heat balance of the high latitudes was more sensitive to the CO2 concentration.
There is no "equable climate" model. There are several models of how this long-predicted disproportionate polar heating will affect the planet's climate, and all of them predict severe disruptions of the current economic and political order due to large changes in some local weather patterns. Some predict severe winter cold over the North Atlantic and its bordering European landscapes, for example, alternating with severe summer heat/humidity events. Larger and more dramatic temperature swings including severe weather events is not what a term like "equable climate" suggests.
sculptor
Valued Senior Member
exchemist
Valued Senior Member
I confess I was not aware of an "equable climate" model of the effects of climate change. Can you provide any references to this?
Correct. Which is why more CO2 leads to more heat retained - both in the atmosphere (due to absorption) and in the ground (due to re-radiation and absorption by the ground.)
If by "atmospheric energizing" you are referring to absorption of longwave by CO2, then that occurs most often in areas that see a lot of longwave infrared - i.e. areas illuminated most directly by the Sun.
Maybe look up "equable" in the dictionary?
It sounds like you might be trying to invoke or refer to climate models that posit an eventual equilibrium state for the planet - after AGW has settled down - in which the average atmospheric temperature difference between polar and equatorial regions is smaller than it has been since the most recent onset of glaciation. That reduction in the average temperature gradient across latitude is a long-term prediction of several models, with the major uncertainty being the behavior of various ocean currents - they being the predominant transporters of heat on this planet. Is that what you are talking about?