Global Warming: Long term observations yield unsurprising results

[Thumpalumpacus]

I'm just wondering... Since fossil fuel is the remnants of past animals and plants. If we burn it all, and let all the gasses out, wouldn't we be resetting the atmosphere to a state which it has previously been?

I doubt it. Fire is in itself a chemical reaction, and the atoms themselves would be returned to the atmosphere, but it's highly unlikely that the same compounds in similar proportions would be returned.

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What is the estimation for running out? When I was a child they said that it could very well happen within my lifetime. Now I never hear it discussed at all.

depends on what you're talking about. I'd imagine coal is more plentiful than oil. That last estimates I've heard on oil were anywhere from 50 to 100 years, but I can't speak to the accuracy of those numbers.

[Void]

I doubt it. Fire is in itself a chemical reaction, and the atoms themselves would be returned to the atmosphere, but it's highly unlikely that the same compounds in similar proportions would be returned.

Umh.. fire is plastma.
And I know that climat quotas are built on the principle on storing an equal amount to what you are letting out. Norway, my country, is letting out a lot more gasses then what our international obligations alow us to do. We compensate for this in several ways. For instance, we are financing huge fields of trees in Africa. The whole purpose of growing these trees is to take carbon out of the air, into the tree. Then dig them down into the ground.

[Thumpalumpacus]

Umh.. fire is plastma.

"Umh", fire is also a chemical reaction. At least, that's what the Air Force taught me in fire school, on my way to being a firefighter. It's also what I learned getting my certificate in fire science at college.

Saying it's a plasma is technically true, but irrelevant to your question. That deals with the ionization of atoms, but doesn't address the chemical reactions which happen as something burns.

And I know that climat quotas are built on the principle on storing an equal amount to what you are letting out. Norway, my country, is letting out a lot more gasses then what our international obligations alow us to do. We compensate for this in several ways. For instance, we are financing huge fields of trees in Africa. The whole purpose of growing these trees is to take carbon out of the air, into the tree. Then dig them down into the ground.

I understand what you're getting at. I was answering your first question. Carbon may be sequestered by a tree in one form -- say, carbon dioxide -- but when the tree is burnt, it can release it in a different form -- say, carbon monoxide. That is my point.

The total number of atoms won't change. The chemicals they constitute almost certainly will, because oxidation under heat loosens chemical bonds.

[tantric]

The danger of global warming is from rapidly industrializing nations. If China, India, et al begin emitting carbon like the west, even like France, the world is screwed. Present level are bad enough, but that eventuality would be catastrophic.

[Aractus]

Listen to yourself ... "If ... the world is screwed." The world will not be screwed, we know it's endured temperatures much higher than present temperatures in the past, and for that matter much higher than tempreatures are projected to reach over the next century. The world will still be here, and humans will still be able to survive here even if there's more desertification, higher sea levels, higher temperatures, etc. The world will still be here, and it'll be here for millions of years to come.

[Void]

Listen to yourself ... "If ... the world is screwed." The world will not be screwed, we know it's endured temperatures much higher than present temperatures in the past, and for that matter much higher than tempreatures are projected to reach over the next century. The world will still be here, and humans will still be able to survive here even if there's more desertification, higher sea levels, higher temperatures, etc. The world will still be here, and it'll be here for millions of years to come.

I'm not so sure about that. It think it took planktons a few million years to prpare the atmosphere in such a way that animals cold survive on the surface.

[abaris]

Oh, the world will be here all right.

But I'm not all too eager to witness the ensuing wars for habitable zones once it's land under for the large coastal hubs. I'm also not all too eager to participate in the famine and global economic crisis. Thankfully that's decades in the future and it's a goody reserved for our grand- or grandgrand children.

[Aractus]

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!

[Godscreated]

The physics behind global warming are simple. When energy in is greater than energy out things warm up. Even professional climate change skeptics like Roy Spencer admit as much. Likewise the theory behind anthropic climate change is equally as simple. Increasing the amount of greenhouse gasses such as CO2 cause our planet to radiate less energy back into space which results in energy in being greater than energy out. Therefore warming.

CO2 does absorb energy. This is an observable, testable scientific fact verified by many experiments. A recently released study, Observational determination of surface radiative forcing by CO2 from 2000 to 2010, has confirmed the amount of energy absorbed by atmospheric CO2. The unsurprising part is that the conclusion that an increase of 22 parts per million results in an energy absorption equivalent to .2 watts per meter squared falls within the assumptions used for most climate change models. What would be a surprise is if this new nail in the coffin lid of climate change denial made a bit of difference to the nuh-uh crowd.

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

GC

[Surgenator]

The physics behind global warming are simple. When energy in is greater than energy out things warm up. Even professional climate change skeptics like Roy Spencer admit as much. Likewise the theory behind anthropic climate change is equally as simple. Increasing the amount of greenhouse gasses such as CO2 cause our planet to radiate less energy back into space which results in energy in being greater than energy out. Therefore warming.

CO2 does absorb energy. This is an observable, testable scientific fact verified by many experiments. A recently released study, Observational determination of surface radiative forcing by CO2 from 2000 to 2010, has confirmed the amount of energy absorbed by atmospheric CO2. The unsurprising part is that the conclusion that an increase of 22 parts per million results in an energy absorption equivalent to .2 watts per meter squared falls within the assumptions used for most climate change models. What would be a surprise is if this new nail in the coffin lid of climate change denial made a bit of difference to the nuh-uh crowd.

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.