RE: Will Our Sun Expand and Go Nova or Shrink into a Black Hole?
January 18, 2017 at 7:18 pm
(This post was last modified: January 18, 2017 at 7:19 pm by Anomalocaris.)
(January 18, 2017 at 5:52 pm)Rhondazvous Wrote:Think of it this way:(January 18, 2017 at 4:57 pm)Alex K Wrote: I think the point is if the current temperature were caused by large amounts of co2, we could pull that lever and cool by removing some of it. But since there's not that much there right now, you don'g get far trying to cool by removing co2. Imagine you are setting up a cupboard and realize it doesn't fit in your room bc the ceiling is too low. Then cutting off part of its legs would help, but if the legs are already short, you don't gain much. So you'd say the legs are too short to sufficiently shorten the cupboard.But of course making them longer wouldn't help but the opposite...
Let's try this again, Alex. He said there's too little co2, not too much. So you'd have to start with a cupboard that is too small for your room, and then show me how making the cupboard bigger wouldn't help. I'll be patient with you if you'll be patient with me
The sun has been growing steadily warmer and brighter throughout earth's history. But the earth has been able to keep its surface at roughly the same temperature during almost its entire history. The way earth accomplished this was to steadily reduce the amount of CO2 and other greenhouse gases in its atmosphere. It's like a person taking off layers of clothing as the room gets hotter to keep himself comfortable.
But the atmosphere is only about 0.04% CO2 now. It's like the person is now down to underwear. There is almost nothing more to take off, but the sun is still getting hotter. So soon the person would have to take off the underwear, and after that there is nothing more to take off. After that, If the room continues to get hotter, as the sun will continue to do, he will overheat.
You can make the person put on some extra clothing just so he can take it off, that's like adding co2 to the atmosphere now. but that doesn't help the heat situation because it just makes the person overheat right now, instead of some time after when he otherwise would have ran out of cloth to take off.
