The question of how much warming will result from adding carbon dioxide to the atmosphere is what we skeptics are skeptical of. The climate system is amazingly complex, and the IPCC position that elements within the climate system (especially clouds) will change in ways which amplify the resulting small warming tendency is highly questionable, to say the least. If the climate system instead acts to reduce the warming, then anthropogenic global warming (AGW) becomes for all practical purposes a non-issue.
This represents what I believe to be the simplest description of how greenhouse gases cause warming of the surface. It bypasses all of the esoteric discussions and instead deals only with observations, which I believe cannot be easily explained any other way:
FIRST, warming can be caused by a decrease in the rate of energy loss by the climate system (or any other system, for that matter).
SECOND, IR absorbing gases are observed from satellites to reduce the rate of energy loss to space.
THEREFORE, adding more IR absorbing gases will cause a warming tendency.
QED.
Again I emphasize, however, the above simple argument is necessarily true only to the extent that all other elements of the climate system remain the same, which they will not. These other changes are called ‘feedbacks’, and they can either make or break theories of global warming and associated climate change.
Slaying the Slayers with the Alabama Two-Step « Roy Spencer, Ph. D.
for konradv. you are both right and wrong with your simplistic view that CO2 runs the climate. the effect is real, the positive feedbacks are not. no positive feedback, no problem.
ever wonder why ocean water never exceeds 31C and is seldom above 29C? different pathways are expanded or contracted depending on how much energy is available to power them. and the natural order of things is to reduce the impact of disturbance to the system. negative feedback. homeostasis.
the climate models are rough projections of what may happen given the few parameters that are fed into them. slight changes in how clouds (or a host of other things) can radically change the outcome of those results. the feddbacks of the IPCC climate models are obviously only as good as the information and programing put into them. I think the real climate system acts to dampen the effect of extra CO2 as it does with many other things. obviously other disagree with me. but we shall see.
I hope you get a kickback from all the free advertising you give his website.. Seriously man, you must have a Spencer shrine in your basement, if the man farted you would try and bottle it..ROFL..
It doesn't warm the surface, the surface is already warmer. It slows heat loss, it doesn't warm the surface. They already know that more energy in means more energy out at a higher rate. In other words, the more the sun warms the surface, the faster the heat will be dissipated away. It's entropy doing it's job.
IF by some miracle the surface and the atmosphere were to reach a state of thermal equilibrium, the radiative transfer would neither add to or subtract from the system, hence blackbody radiation.
The earth's atmosphere isn't a greenhouse, nor is it anything like one. A closer analogy would be a fine mesh. EM radiation or light comes in well enough to give us light and warm the surface, and when that heat is released it is diffused by the atmosphere. It keeps a more closer to uniform global temperature and slows the heat loss, but DOES NOT heat the surface further.
Spencer used the insulated house story again... Too funny.. The insulation does NOT make the house warmer, it slows the loss of heat. If you turn off the heater it will not stay the same temperature or get any warmer, it will cool down and do so at the rate the insulation levels will permit. Now turn the heater up to 90 F and what will happen? The house will warm until it reaches the 90F temperature and then the thermostat will shut it off. It will reach 90F faster the more insulation you add, but it will NOT warm the interior any more than the heater or heat source. The reason? The 1st and 2nd law negate perfect machines and lossless energy transfer, as well as energy flowing back to it's warmer source without work being done to make it happen.
I think spencer has invested so much into this theory he just refuses to accept reality even when he himself says it...
His own words from your link...
"Infrared absorbing gases reduce the rate at which the Earth loses infrared energy to space."-Roy Spencer
Yes it does, and that IS NOT the same as warming the surface even more than it already is .. It can reach a state of equilibrium with the energy coming in quicker, but it cannot produce any extra energy or warming..
Now I know you're going to go and pretend it makes no sense again and do your standard Ian dumb act. Please be my guest, and show me that you lack the mental capacity to think on the proper level to see things as they are and not as you wish them to be.
Edit* Re-post for Ian because he can't respond to anything honestly..
