Climategate - Round 2. How will the AGW proponents justify this one?

[westwall]

Even if certain or a small group of scientists are being 'scandalous' for whatever reason, that doesn't mean global warming isn't happening, and isn't being caused by humans. This article and the possible facts it points to, in terms of objective reality and why our earth is warming does, not mean anything. It is just another excuse for certain people to continue their personal consumption patterns without personal accountability to a larger whole, a nice paradox when the republican ideal of 'personal responsibility' seems to be so strong. It is easy to espouse 'personal responsibility' when you don't accept any for our Earth dying.

Nice attempt but they are not being "scandalous". They are engaging in completely unethical behaviour as regards the corruption of the peer review process and are actively engaged in fraud as regards their data sets (and this has been shown quite compellingly by the weather stations organisation, to the point the GAO released a report where NOAA has had to articulate exactly how they are going to correct the hundreds of weather stations that are reading faulty data) but a lefty like you will ignore all of that in your efforts to get your sweeping governmental policies enacted.

As far as your other assertion show us one single piece of empirical data that shows man is raising the global temperature. Not a computer model, but empirical data.

Good luck.

Let's get one thing straight: my only allegiance is to the pursuit of truth, not any ideology, especially a superficial political one. human interference with science is not truth, but science is still the greatest and only conduit to truth in our physical universe. I will listen to scientific consensus, which is unbiased, over a republican or a liberal, any day. it just so happens that in this political climate, republicans reject science more often than not, even as part of their social agendas. in this light, they have lose vast amounts of credibility, even in their attempts to undermine science. an article posted on Forbes is not going to change my mind about global warming. Not all scientists are bought, and %90 of them agree that global warming is human-caused. Not only that, but if you look at the data, it is common sense, plus I want people to stop polluting this Earth as if it was our waste bin.

Your "Defender of the Faith" status is duly noted. Consensus science has led many people astray, just look at the MTBE debacle and the billions of dollars in environmental damage and the poisoning of thousands of water wells throughout CA for the most recent example of consensus science run amok.

Also, if the science is so settled why deny dissenting papers? Why go against every rule of science which REQUIRES the asking of those hard questions that you no longer wish to hear?

No, you a a religious fanatic as regards the cult of AGW. No empirical data of any sort exists to support your faith yet you believe and wrap it up in the robes of your high priests who tell you that they are spreading Gods word.

You are a classic example of the denial of real science for the pseudo science of consensus.

 

[westwall]

I think it is hilarious you mention US sovereignty, because it really highlights the shallow nature of your motives: ego in the form of nationalism. Global warming is real and human caused, and when our children and grandchildren are left to deal with it, who is sovereign on this planet is not going to matter, because the suffering for everyone will be so great. There will not be room for ego, or concern over who is most powerful. There will only be concern over the mitigation of universal suffering, and they are going to look back at this time, and just go "wtf"?

It is illustrative of your political ideals as well. As far as the rest of your nonsense. Prove it. I can show quite easily that every single event that the warmists points to as evidence of AGW is repeated in the near history through entirely natural processes.

On the other hand, the only thing you can use to spread yourt religion is computer models that are so poor they can not recreate the weather that occured 3 days ago and you're either not smart enough or simply don't care to realise just how important a statement that is.

they can not recreate the weather that occurred three days ago?... You act is if weather is a simple process, that can be narrowed down to a set of algorithms and parameters and passed through a supercomputer to predict with %100 accuracy the weather. Your dismissal of science is merely a 'giving up' because you would rather not have faith in the methodology of science in the first place, and that is obvious. You see any small failure as a failure of the whole, which is a logical fallacy, in my opinion.

Small failure? Here's a clue for you. If the models are so great. So great that you will sacrafice your hard one wealth to some minor deity called the cult of AGW (all of whom are doing quite well thanks to rubes like you BTW) why is it then, that they can't re-create that which we allready know occured? We have PERFECT knowledge of the conditions that existed, the wind speed, the direction, the humidity, the angle of the sun, the position of the moon relative to Earth at any particular moment in time, the temp of the oceans in the regions, the salinity of the ocean waters, the level of vegetation to urbanization, the type of vegetation and its insolation and expiration characteristics, et. etc. etc. We have everything and these models to which you have sold your soul can't recreate what occure ONE HOUR AGO!


And you, with your pithy beliefs don't find that important. So tell me....who is really denying the science? Yep, you and yours. You pay lip service to it but in the end, you either don't know how, (because it is very hard to do good science) or more likely, you don't care to do it. Either way it is you who don't do "science".

 

[westwall]

Forbes magazine has commented on the newest data in the Climategate scandal:

A new batch of 5,000 emails among scientists central to the assertion that humans are causing a global warming crisis were anonymously released to the public yesterday, igniting a new firestorm of controversy nearly two years to the day after similar emails ignited the Climategate scandal.

Three themes are emerging from the newly released emails: (1) prominent scientists central to the global warming debate are taking measures to conceal rather than disseminate underlying data and discussions; (2) these scientists view global warming as a political “cause” rather than a balanced scientific inquiry and (3) many of these scientists frankly admit to each other that much of the science is weak and dependent on deliberate manipulation of facts and data.

Regarding scientific transparency, a defining characteristic of science is the open sharing of scientific data, theories and procedures so that independent parties, and especially skeptics of a particular theory or hypothesis, can replicate and validate asserted experiments or observations. Emails between Climategate scientists, however, show a concerted effort to hide rather than disseminate underlying evidence and procedures.

“I’ve been told that IPCC is above national FOI [Freedom of Information] Acts. One way to cover yourself and all those working in AR5 would be to delete all emails at the end of the process,”writes Phil Jones, a scientist working with the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), in a newly released email.


“Any work we have done in the past is done on the back of the research grants we get – and has to be well hidden,” Jones writes in another newly released email. “I’ve discussed this with the main funder (U.S. Dept of Energy) in the past and they are happy about not releasing the original station data.”

More here:
Climategate 2.0: New E-Mails Rock The Global Warming Debate - Forbes

I wonder how our AGW supporting friends will handle this new information?

Anonymously released?

LOL!!!!!!!


Yeah, this matters - for what again?

I find it amusing that a supposedly thinking person, such as yourself, will extoll the virtues of an oil company WHISTLEBLOWER but if a WHISTLEBLOWER comes from within your own hallowed halls of skullduggery then he is to be dismissed.

POLITICAL HACK eh!

But then yes it is spidey toober after all.

 

[Si modo]

I never said I was here to supply you with evidence. I am here to rebut the OP with my own opinion of this situation. In response: There is plenty of information that might suggest that global warming is being caused by humans, but there is simply not enough to make it 'fact'. It is the same as looking at a crime scene. You gather as much evidence as you can, and try and pin down the most likely suspect. Sometimes you need to gather evidence for a long time, and scrutinize the crime scene, and do back checks, and histories of the characters involved, but there are no guarantees that the crime will ever be solved. In the meanwhile, you have your hunches based on how much information you have already collected. Based on the information we have that I have scene and the theories available, I am convinced humans are causing this. Whether or not some scientists are being irresponsible is not going to change reality. There is one objective reality. Either we are causing this or we aren't. We had better figure it out soon, because the window in which to reverse global warming, if it is us, is closing by the day.

Let's get your thoughts organized, shall we?

The skeptics claim that the science does not support the claim that the magnitude of man made CO2 is significantly causing warming.

One cannot prove a void. There is no science supporting a claim that the magnitude of man made CO2 is significantly causing warming.

If you believe it is, that's fine. You are entitled to any belief you want.

If you want to talk science, then show the science supporting any claim that man made CO2 is significantly causing warming.

If you can't, then you are just arguing a personal belief.

Science is not based on beliefs.

It seems as if you asking me to start from scratch. I do not want to do that. I should not have to do that. I did not come here to regurgitate scientific facts which i am sure you are well aware of. We obviously have a different interpretation of the same reality. I do not have the energy to dig up the entire body of evidence for global warming simply to satisfy you. When I see people acting a fool, I am going to call them on it, hence, my involvement in this thread.

There is a body of evidence out there accessible to both of us. I see it and say that global warming is made made. You do not. This is where it ends for me.

So, you do believe that man made CO2 is significantly contributing to warming but you refuse to support that.

Got it.

 

[westwall]

I never said I was here to supply you with evidence. I am here to rebut the OP with my own opinion of this situation. In response: There is plenty of information that might suggest that global warming is being caused by humans, but there is simply not enough to make it 'fact'. It is the same as looking at a crime scene. You gather as much evidence as you can, and try and pin down the most likely suspect. Sometimes you need to gather evidence for a long time, and scrutinize the crime scene, and do back checks, and histories of the characters involved, but there are no guarantees that the crime will ever be solved. In the meanwhile, you have your hunches based on how much information you have already collected. Based on the information we have that I have scene and the theories available, I am convinced humans are causing this. Whether or not some scientists are being irresponsible is not going to change reality. There is one objective reality. Either we are causing this or we aren't. We had better figure it out soon, because the window in which to reverse global warming, if it is us, is closing by the day.

Let's get your thoughts organized, shall we?

The skeptics claim that the science does not support the claim that the magnitude of man made CO2 is significantly causing warming.

One cannot prove a void. There is no science supporting a claim that the magnitude of man made CO2 is significantly causing warming.

If you believe it is, that's fine. You are entitled to any belief you want.

If you want to talk science, then show the science supporting any claim that man made CO2 is significantly causing warming.

If you can't, then you are just arguing a personal belief.

Science is not based on beliefs.

It seems as if you asking me to start from scratch. I do not want to do that. I should not have to do that. I did not come here to regurgitate scientific facts which i am sure you are well aware of. We obviously have a different interpretation of the same reality. I do not have the energy to dig up the entire body of evidence for global warming simply to satisfy you. When I see people acting a fool, I am going to call them on it, hence, my involvement in this thread.

There is a body of evidence out there accessible to both of us. I see it and say that global warming is made made. You do not. This is where it ends for me.

The only scientific facts that matter are these.


1. There is no empirical data to support the belief system that man is contributing to the
warming of the Earth at this time.

2. There is SIGNIFICANT empirical data to support the warming as completely natural.

3. Most of the warmists arguments at the present time are based on computer models and not on research done in the field.



This last point is not scientific but it is certainly relevent...

4. There is significant evidence of tampering with the historical temperature record to
support the "theory of AGW".


You may choose to hang your hat on the altar of scientific consensus, but the real scientists of this world choose to actually do real work and we choose to not follow your religion.

 

[westwall]

CO2 emits exactly as much IR as it absorbs. There is no "trapped" energy.

You're playing with words. CO2 traps energy and then re-emits it. Since statistically half would be emitted towards earth, what would that extra energy be doing, except to contribute to warming?

Well then konny, if what you say is true and oh so logical why then is the world not continually warming? CO2 levels have skyrocketed in the last three decades and yet the warming has stopped. Twelve years and counting of no statistically measurable warming.

How do you explain that Mr. logical? If CO2 is the end all and be all of your religion it looks like it's REALLY FAILING to do its job now.

 

[Si modo]

CO2 emits exactly as much IR as it absorbs. There is no "trapped" energy.

You're playing with words. CO2 traps energy and then re-emits it. Since statistically half would be emitted towards earth, what would that extra energy be doing, except to contribute to warming?

Just so you know, any molecule that is IR active (meaning it has a dipole moment, which, incidentally CO2 does not, but that is another story) absorbs specific quanta of energy correlating to its functional groups with influences on the exact quanta from neighboring groups to that functional group.

Once IR radiation is absorbed, it is converted into molecular vibrations (symmetric, asymmetric, in-plane, out-of-plane); the IR energy is converted to kinetic energy.

There is no trapped energy.

If there was, we would have no need for oil.

If there was, we would have no need for any electrical cells, either.

 

[Rambunctious]

Climategate 2: More E-mails Leaked Ahead of UN Summit

 

[Foxfyre]

Q.

So why would any reputable scientist discuss with his colleagues the problems and indefensibility of the research while telling the public that he or she stands behind the whole global warming schtick?​

A.

Because there is huge profit to be made in government and other research grants that will almost certainly dry up when the scientific community declares that there is no reasonable evidence for unusual global warming, human caused or otherwise.​

Q.

So why would world leaders throughout the free world not welcome a verdict of global warming not being a problem we should be worrying about?​

A.

Because those addicted to power become insatiable in their desire for more. The more excuse they they can find to take away rights, choices, option, opportunities from the people, the more they can solidify power in government and run the world the way they want to run it. A worldwide threat of global warming catastrophe/disaster is a huge opportunity, for the common good of course, to seize a lot more power. Power is a very heady phenomenon that has gotten the best of many good men.​

Q. So why do some of the more ordinary people seem so desperate to embrace global warming, most especially AGW, and seem so quick to dismiss or reject any evidence that doesn't support it?

A. This one is tougher. The only reason I can come up with is such people are so brainwashed into believing the source of all that is good and beneficial resides in government and government policy, they become incapable of seeing anything that does not fit that belief.

 

[wirebender]

CO2 emits exactly as much IR as it absorbs. There is no "trapped" energy.

You're playing with words. CO2 traps energy and then re-emits it. Since statistically half would be emitted towards earth, what would that extra energy be doing, except to contribute to warming?

We have been through that as well konradv. The miniscule EM field generated by a CO2 molecule can not overcome the EM field radiated by the surface of the earth. The energy emitted by a CO2 molecule can not travel "upstream" against the greater field emitted by the earth. You must subtract opposing EM fields.

The fact that you keep making the same silly arguments even when this has been explained to you and proven mathematically for you is clear evidence that it is all just too far over your head for you to grasp and understand.

 

[wirebender]

Doesn't really matter if I can prove there's been any warming at all. Logic tells us that, if A leads to B and A is increasing, B will also increase. QED!

A doesn't lead to B. Therein lies the flaw in your logic. The cooler atmosphere can not warm the earth konradv. The second law of thermodynamics states explicitly that it is not possible for energy to radiate from cool to warm and the atmosphere is cooler than the earth. A cooler atmosphere warming the earth is a violation of not only the second law of thermodynamics, but a violation of the law of conservation of energy.

 

[OohPooPahDoo]

We also know, from scientific research, that the Earth was once much cooler than now when the CO2 levels were much higher. We also know, from available data, that volcanoes don't add all that much CO2 to the atmosphere and however much CO2 human activity is generating is a tiny fraction when compared to that occuring from natural causes. And we also know from available data that CO2 levels have been increasing steadily over the last several years while the mean temperatures have remained stable that suggests that CO2 could likely be the result of climate change rather than a significant cause of it.

Several hundred gigatons of CO2 are produced every year. Humans are responsible for a couple dozen of those. The increase in CO2 every year in the air is about half of the amount that humans add to the air every year. This is because some of what we produced is absorbed or cycled back into C and O2 - some of it just builds of in the air. We are therefore responsible for the increase. Its pretty straightforward. Even the small handful of credentialed AGW skeptics can understand that.

 

[OohPooPahDoo]

Anyone with the least understanding of science grasps the fact that you cannot increase the GHGs in the atmosphere by large percentages without changing the climate. When you change the climate, you change the environment.

Really? Can you describe the mechanism by which that might happen and name at least one physical law that supports and predicts the hypothesis? And don't bother posting your scripture because we both know that there is nothing there that represents proof of any sort.

Radiation entering the atmosphere from the sun is mostly in the visible spectrum. Most all gases in the Earth's atmosphere are optically thick (EDIT: optically THIN - I miswrote) to most of the Sun's radiation. The Earth's surface is optically thick to visible radiation and much of the rest of the solar spectrum, so when it hits the Earth's surface, the atoms absorb the photons and convert that energy into thermal energy. The energy is then remitted as Planck blackbody radiation in the lower frequency IR spectrum. CO2 and other greenhouse gases are optically thick to IR radiation. Most other gases in the atmosphere (nitrogen and oxygen) are not. The energy which was able to pass through the atmosphere and strike the Earth's surface is not able to be radiated back into space as efficiently. These effects are all described by Maxwell's equations.

I would suggest you start with Jackson's "Classical Electrodynamics". If you don't have a strong background in calculus and differential equations, you'll need to back up a bit and do those first.

 

[OohPooPahDoo]

You're the one that seems disorganized!

We know that CO2 and other gases can absorb IR radiation.

We also know that CO2 and other so called greenhouse gasses emit precisely the same amount of IR radiation that they absorb and that the IR radiation passes through them at, or very near the speed of light.

They do not emit it in the same direction that it is absorbed in, its closer (though not exactly) to isotropic emission. The individual photons - while traveling at or close to the speed of light - get scattered, bouncing back and forth between molecules instead of escaping into space.

You seem to be forever neglecting that bit of information which voids your claim about absorption. The CO2 does not hold any energy at all and has no capacity to do so. The simple fact of absorption and emission does not lend any creedence at all to the AGW hypothesis.

??? That's not even true. Anything with a temperature above absolute zero has thermal energy. When a photon is absorbed by a CO2 molecule it is transformed into kinetic energy, and if the CO2 is surrounded by other molecules that it bounces off of, that kinetic energy becomes thermal.

We also know that the amount of CO2 produced by man is not enough to even overcome the natural deviation from year to year in the earth's own CO2 making machienry. Man's contribution to atmospheric CO2 is so tiny as to be nearly indistintuishable. We both know that it wouldn't serve any purpose to quote you the actual percentage of man's contribution to atmospheric CO2 because you are not a math guy so here is a word picture for you. I picked it up along the way and serves to accurately illustrate how stupid it is to claim that man's CO2 is driving the climate.

You seem to fail to grasp some basic concepts. Man does NOT produce most of the CO2 - he only produces most of the excess CO2 that is not absorbed.

Imagine one kilometre of atmosphere that you want to clean up. For the sake of the discussion, imagine you could walk along it.
The first 770 metres are Nitrogen.
The next 210 metres are Oxygen.
That’s 980 metres of the 1 kilometre. Just 20 metres to go.
The next 10 metres are water vapour. Just 10 metres left to go.
9 metres are argon. 1 metre left out of 1 kilometre.
A few gases make up the first bit of that last metre.
The last 38 centimetres of the kilometre – that’s carbon dioxide.
A bit over one foot.
97% is produced by Mother Nature. It’s natural. It has always been in the atmosphere otherwise plants couldn't grow.
Out of our journey of one kilometre, there are just 12 millimetres left. About half an inch. Just over a centimetre.
That’s the amount of carbon dioxide that global human activity puts into the atmosphere.

We all know you didn't produce those figures yourself. Are you going to shamelessly claim credit for someone else's work?

 

[OohPooPahDoo]

CO2 emits exactly as much IR as it absorbs. There is no "trapped" energy.

You're playing with words. CO2 traps energy and then re-emits it. Since statistically half would be emitted towards earth, what would that extra energy be doing, except to contribute to warming?

Just so you know, any molecule that is IR active (meaning it has a dipole moment, which, incidentally CO2 does not, but that is another story) absorbs specific quanta of energy correlating to its functional groups with influences on the exact quanta from neighboring groups to that functional group.

Once IR radiation is absorbed, it is converted into molecular vibrations (symmetric, asymmetric, in-plane, out-of-plane); the IR energy is converted to kinetic energy.

There is no trapped energy.

If there was, we would have no need for oil.

If there was, we would have no need for any electrical cells, either.

How would that mean we have no need for oil? The energy trapped by greenhouse gases is high entropy, I don't see how we can produce electricity or power of any kind with it.


Greenhouse gases do indeed cause the Earth's atmosphere to trap more energy, elsewise we'd all be frozen right now. They raise the equilibrium temperature of the Earth by making it harder for energy that enters the atmosphere to be re-radiated, requiring a higher temperature for the power flows in and out to balance one another. Its just like a blanket. If you throw a blanket over yourself, you won't get warmer and warmer without end - eventually an equilibrium is reached - but its obvious the blanket is trapping energy elsewise they'd be useless for warming you up.

 

[OohPooPahDoo]

CO2 emits exactly as much IR as it absorbs. There is no "trapped" energy.

You're playing with words. CO2 traps energy and then re-emits it. Since statistically half would be emitted towards earth, what would that extra energy be doing, except to contribute to warming?

We have been through that as well konradv. The miniscule EM field generated by a CO2 molecule can not overcome the EM field radiated by the surface of the earth. The energy emitted by a CO2 molecule can not travel "upstream" against the greater field emitted by the earth. You must subtract opposing EM fields.

(I added the bold in above quote)


???? Yes, it can. A fluid element can contain photons of any distribution of momenta. A single look at the radiative transfer equation should tell you that, its a 7-dimensional PDE - 3 spatial, 3 momenta, 1 time.

The fact that you keep making the same silly arguments even when this has been explained to you and proven mathematically for you is clear evidence that it is all just too far over your head for you to grasp and understand.

You are in no position to criticize another person's understanding of electromagnetic radiation.

 

[OohPooPahDoo]

CO2 emits exactly as much IR as it absorbs. There is no "trapped" energy.

You're playing with words. CO2 traps energy and then re-emits it. Since statistically half would be emitted towards earth, what would that extra energy be doing, except to contribute to warming?

Well then konny, if what you say is true and oh so logical why then is the world not continually warming? CO2 levels have skyrocketed in the last three decades and yet the warming has stopped. Twelve years and counting of no statistically measurable warming.

How do you explain that Mr. logical? If CO2 is the end all and be all of your religion it looks like it's REALLY FAILING to do its job now.

(bold in above quote added by me)

Why would you expect statistically significant warming over such a short period?

 

[wirebender]

Several hundred gigatons of CO2 are produced every year. Humans are responsible for a couple dozen of those. The increase in CO2 every year in the air is about half of the amount that humans add to the air every year. This is because some of what we produced is absorbed or cycled back into C and O2 - some of it just builds of in the air. We are therefore responsible for the increase. Its pretty straightforward. Even the small handful of credentialed AGW skeptics can understand that.

You say that the earth produces several hundred gigatons of CO2 every year. Then you say that man is responsible for a couple of dozen of the several hundred gigatons that are produced every year. Then you say that humans are responsible for half of the increase every year. Explain the logic that leads you to believe such a thing when the fact is that the CO2 we produce is not even enough to overcome the natural deviation from year to year in the earth's own CO2 making machienry that produces the several hundred tons per year.

 

[wirebender]

Radiation entering the atmosphere from the sun is mostly in the visible spectrum. Most all gases in the Earth's atmosphere are optically thick to most of the Sun's radiation.

Actually, most of the gasses in the atmosphere are optically invisible to most of the radiation that comes from the sun. O2 in the high atmosphere is responsible for blocking most SW radiation, but the rest is optically invisible to incoming radiation from the sun. Your misunderstanding begins at the very beginning of the process and that leads you off on the wrong track throughout the process

The Earth's surface is optically thick to visible radiation and much of the rest of the solar spectrum, so when it hits the Earth's surface, the atoms absorb the photons and convert that energy into thermal energy. The energy is then remitted as Planck blackbody radiation in the lower frequency IR spectrum.

You don't make yourself sound smart by using terms like "optically thick". You would serve yourself better by simply stating that the earth's surface absorbs incoming energy from the sun. By the way, the earth does not emit blackbody radiation as it is not a blackbody. The AGW hoax is largely built on the fallacy that the earth emits like a black body but if you model the earth as a 3D sphere that receives radiation across half of its surface and is dark across half of its surface at any given time, then the greenhouse effect is not necessary to explain the temperature of the earth.

Here is how the science dictionary defines blackbody:

blackbody - A theoretically perfect absorber and emitter of every frequency of electromagnetic radiation. The radiation emitted by a blackbody is a function only of its temperature.

The earths temperature is a function of the amount of radiation it absorbs, unlike a blackbody in which the radiation it emits is a cunction of its temperature. Blackbody describes a star, not the earth and in the energy budgets put forward by the priests of AGW, the earth is treated like a blackbody. trenberth, for example expresses the radiation received by the earth from the sun in the form of /4 which, in reality models the earth as a flat plane receiving 1/4 as much energy from the sun but receiving the energy across the entire surface 24 hours a day. Such a model doesn't even begin to portray reality and yet, it is the model upon which AGW alarmism is built.

CO2 and other greenhouse gases are optically thick to IR radiation. Most other gases in the atmosphere (nitrogen and oxygen) are not. The energy which was able to pass through the atmosphere and strike the Earth's surface is not able to be radiated back into space as efficiently. These effects are all described by Maxwell's equations.

IR radiates away from the surface of the earth to space at, or near the speed of light. CO2 does not slow down the escaping IR by even 1 mile per hour. It is still travelling at or near the speed of light when it reaches cold space.

I would suggest you start with Jackson's "Classical Electrodynamics". If you don't have a strong background in calculus and differential equations, you'll need to back up a bit and do those first.

I do have a background in calculus and differential equations. If you want to have a math battle, I am armed. I suggest that you first familiarize yourself with the AGW hypothesis as you are in opposition to it right off the bat. AGW alarmism is built on the idea of backradiation whch your explanation omits completely.

 

[wirebender]

They do not emit it in the same direction that it is absorbed in, its closer (though not exactly) to isotropic emission. The individual photons - while traveling at or close to the speed of light - get scattered, bouncing back and forth between molecules instead of escaping into space.

CO2 molecules emit IR at a slightly longer wavelength than the wavelength at which it was absorbed and as a result, the radiation is not absorbed by other CO2 molecules. It is absorbed, emitted, and heads on out to cold space at or near the speed of light.

Here is a link to that bit of information whch you clearly are not aware of:

Alternatives to Traditional Transportation Fuels 1994 - Volume 2, Greenhouse Gas Emissions

CLIP: What happens after the GHG molecules absorb infrared radiation? The hot molecules release their energy, usually at lower energy (longer wavelength) radiation than the energy previously absorbed. The molecules cannot absorb energy emitted by other molecules of their own kind.

And here is a set of calculations on the movement of IR through the atmosphere which demonstrates pretty convincingly that CO2 is not slowing down the escape of IR from the atmosphere in any way that might lead to the dire consequences threatened by your priests.

Mean Free Path Length of Photons in the Earth's Atmosphere

??? That's not even true. Anything with a temperature above absolute zero has thermal energy. When a photon is absorbed by a CO2 molecule it is transformed into kinetic energy, and if the CO2 is surrounded by other molecules that it bounces off of, that kinetic energy becomes thermal.

The other molecules around it that the energy bounces off of? Which other molecules would that be? Among any million molecules surrounding our CO2 molecule that has absorbed the photon, none hundred ninety nine thousand six hundred and twenty are invisible to the IR so it isn't bouncing off them. The energy emitted by our CO2 molecule is at a wavelength that is to low for any of the remaining 380 CO2 molecules to absorb so it is effectively invisible to them as well. Tell me, exactly what is this energy "bouncing" off of?

You seem to fail to grasp some basic concepts. Man does NOT produce most of the CO2 - he only produces most of the excess CO2 that is not absorbed.

It is you who fails to grasp the basic concepts as indicated by your very basic errors above. We don't produce enough CO2 to even overcome the natural deviation from year to year in the earth's own CO2 making machienry. How long do you believe CO2 resides in the atmosphere?

We all know you didn't produce those figures yourself. Are you going to shamelessly claim credit for someone else's work?

Try reading for comprehension. Did you not see what I wrote immediately preceeding the word picture. I said:

We both know that it wouldn't serve any purpose to quote you the actual percentage of man's contribution to atmospheric CO2 because you are not a math guy so here is a word picture for you. I picked it up along the way and serves to accurately illustrate how stupid it is to claim that man's CO2 is driving the climate.

I don't know where I got it but stated explicitly that it wasn't my own description. Check closely, maybe I made a gramatical error, or misspelled a word, or misued a semicolon. Perhaps you can score a point by editing my work but you certainly won't score any on the science with all your very basic misunderstandings.