Global Warming: Long term observations yield unsurprising results

[popeyespappy]

Then why wouldn't that same CO2 absorb the energy coming in before it reaches the surface, thus causing a cooling effect.

GC

The light spectrum from the sun includes energies above the infrared (heat). When these higher light rays hit the earth, the earth converts them into infrared. So some infrared light rays from the sun get directly absorbed by the CO2 in the atmosphere. You also have more infrared produced by the earth. The CO2 absorbs the infrared and it stays on the planet. Tada, get global warming.

This, but also a question for GC. Why do you think that CO2 absorbing heat on the way down would cause cooling? It is still absorbing heat.

GC, anytime you want to run an experiment yourself to see if this works just let me know and I'll tell you how. All you need is an empty aquarium, some plastic wrap to cover it, a light source, a bottle of carbonated water and a thermometer.

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That's something that's going to happen anyway. There is farmland on Greenland that's been under permafrost since the middle-ages. There was once fertile land in much of the world's deserts if you back far enough - heck the Middle East seems to have no shortage of fossil oil; yet much of the land they get it from has been desert for most of human history. Clearly in the past that land was able to sustain more life than it is able to do now.

Again, if you're going to claim the world will be "screwed" you have to do better than clam that redistribution of habitable land will occur, because that's something that's been going on for billions of years. At lest the farmers on Greenland will finally get their land back!

Great argument. Eventually my neighbors house is going to deteriorate to the point where no can live there anyway so I might as well burn it down now.

A 10 foot rise in sea level (predicted by 2200) would inundate more than 28,000 square miles of the US alone. That land is currently valued at $900 billion. It is home to 13 million people. The property rights libertarian crowd should be screaming at the top of their lungs.