Oh my, this is going to take ages to write a proper response… 
Carryfast:
Kyrbo:
Carryfast:
Sorry kyrbo but I’m a sceptic and I reckon that most of the yanks are right.If that level has increased by 30% and it’s really causing climate change then there should be a direct correlation between the CO2 level increase as a percentage and the temperature increase.
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About the direct correlation you are basically correct in your statement. Still if you think about equation 0.00001*X you get very small response for the change in the value of X and but that equation is directly proportional to X. When thinking some large system, like atmosphere, correlation between temperature and CO2 levels likely isn’t going to be anything that straightforward. I’d also think there are some huge delays (i.e. large time constants) when thinking about the response of any system as large as atmosphere. Just think how long time it is since CFC compound emissions have ceased and still it’s only quite recently when the amount of those compound in the atmosphere has started to diminish [2]. That’s just to point out how slowly that kind of reactions are likely to happen when talking about greenhouse gasses.
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[2] NOAA/ESRL Global Monitoring Laboratory - THE NOAA ANNUAL GREENHOUSE GAS INDEX (AGGI)
If I’m basically correct about there being a direct correlation between the ‘30% increase’ in C02 over the last hundred years and temperature levels then it follows that by now we’d have seen that directly reflected by a 30% increase in Summer and Winter temperatures around the world.
It seems that I must say sorry and withdraw a bit what I said about you being basically correct. You were talking about direct correlation and I though about directly proportional. These two are related, I’d believe, as directly proportional relationship between two variables also means that there is high correlation between them but not vice versa (correlation between two variables doesn’t mean they are directly proportional i.e. linear relationship). As I’ve never really got grasp of how correlation works I can’t say for certain whether you’re right or wrong with your statement about direct correlation between atmospheres CO2 levels and temperature.
What I meant with you being basically correct, based on my assumption that you meant direct proportionality, was that there is relationship between them but it by no means can be just straightforward direct proportionality. If it would, there would have been consensus about it a long time ago. Like I wrote, atmosphere is quite large system and interactions in it are most likely pretty slow. I’d think you agree that large systems found in nature are generally reacting quite slowly to changes in surroundings (consider for example temperature of a lake throughout the year). I’m also quite sure you agree that larger the system more prone it is towards any kind of interferences. To give some examples think about stationary fully loaded artic hit by car. Now artic is the large system and it’s likely maintain it’s speed and position quite well despite a single car hitting it. Now think about what happens when the car hit the artic. Car and artic both suffer from deformation, but artic much less. Car abruptly stops and artic, depending about cars momentum, friction and various other things, either moves a little bit or remains stationary. It also affects quite a bit if car is driving walking speed, 89 km/h or 300 km/h. In every case one could say artic stays stationary and one would be basically correct, but how big error that statement has greatly depends about the cars speed and angel of attack. Still the lorrys response the the collision can be approximated to be linear despite the fact that precise model would likely contain some nonlinear components. This isn’t a good example of what I meant with “basically correct”, but I couldn’t think up any good example that could easily be explained.
Now that being “explained”, lets get back to the 30% increase in the CO2 levels. You are stating this increase should directly transfer into a 30% increase in average temperatures throughout the world. Before I say anything about this statement, I’d like to point out atmosphere being very complex system just because it’s sheer size meaning there are huge amount of different subsystems which should be taken into account. Also some of these subsystems aren’t fully understood and some of the understood systems are very complicated or even chaotic (chaotic system explained in [1]). That being said, CO2 levels aren’t only thing affecting to the atmospheres temperature and this effect by no means can be direct. When talking about how temperature responses to CO2 levels fluctuating you are most likely able to use some reasonably accurate linear approximation. In the NOAA page I already linked to in my previous post they were calculating relationship between CO2 levels and the amount of energy radiating to Earth’s surface (Figure 3 in [2]). Unit for that was watts per square metre, which is still just a plain number for power and must be converted somehow to temperature, but by a quick search I didn’t found how it’s done. I did however found that CO2 is responsible from 9 to 26% of the greenhouse effect warming the atmosphere [3]. Water vapours (approx. 0.3% of atmospheric mass) were responsible for 36 to 70% of greenhouse effect.
I’d think those quite much explain why that claim of 30% increase in CO2 levels meaning temperature raising for 30% doesn’t hold true . To the “by now” part I’ve already pretty much answered in my previous post (like emission reductions done today begun to be visible around 2050). Atmosphere is such large system that it reacts very slowly to changes and for warming to fully happen we have to wait for several decades.
Carryfast:
I don’t believe in the inertia theory either as in most places temperatures go from relatively cold at night to relatively hot during the day in a matter of hours just by the sun’s radiation working on the air mass.
What do mean with the inertia theory in this context? I suspect you’re not referring to Newtons first law in classical mechanics (the law of inertia).
Carryfast:
…to bring the CO2 levels back to ‘normal’ anyway and probably even more.That’s assuming that a level of nearly zero is the ‘correct’ level to sustain life and for plants to keep replenishing the atmosphere with oxygen.
If CO2 levels of near zero percent have been enough for photosynthesis to happen for at least during last 400 thousand years why it wouldn’t be enough (and hence ‘correct’) for plants of today?
Carryfast:
But I don’t see any link between burning long dead carbonised life forms and removing living plant life which obviously has an effect on photosynthesis and therefore the planet’s CO2 and Oxygen recycling mechanism which basically means that trees breath in the CO2 which most life forms breath out in far higher concentrations than burning fossil fuels does and then they breath out the oxygen which we need to breath.
Removing living plants affects CO2 and oxygen recycling mechanisms, that’s certain. What I also think you agree is that natural CO2 production (like decay of organic materials) and CO2 depletion (like through photosynthesis) must have been matching each others pretty well as CO2 levels have been fluctuating between certain levels for a very long time. Also it’s certain there has been some amount of this recycling capacity in reserve.
Then how burning long dead carbonized life forms does affect into this system? Well, burning anything carbon based produces basically heat, water and, surprise surprise, carbon dioxide! How then burning fossil fuels differs from burning something like freshly cut wood? When you cut down a forest for burning you basically just accelerate what would happen naturally anyway, at least as long as you make sure forest grows back so that CO2 recycling mechanism doesn’t get affected much more than what I think is negligible amount for this argumentation.
When you burn fossil fuels CO2 is released into the atmosphere. This CO2 isn’t taken away from any current CO2 sink. Sink here is a mechanism which stores CO2, like growing forests through photosynthesis. To compensate this CO2 increase sinks must store more CO2 which either means bigger sink (like forests) or more efficient sink (not likely to happen fast naturally). If neither of these happens CO2 levels in atmosphere start increase after reserves for increased CO2 depletion in current sinks are used.
How does this differ from deforestation? In deforestation forests are cut down and big percentage of cut down forest is then burned (at least somewhere around 50% says [4]). Burning releases CO2 into the atmosphere. This CO2 is taken away from current CO2 sink. To compensate this CO2 sinks must be allowed to grow back or similar amount must be planted elsewhere. Deforestation itself means that neither of these happen. Only other possibility would be more efficient sinks, but like said that isn’t likely to happen fast by itself. As none of these is happening in deforestation, CO2 levels in atmosphere start increase after reserves for increased CO2 depletion in current sinks are used.
I fail to see how these two things differ when talking about CO2 emissions.
Deforestation is stated to cause about 20% of worlds greenhouse gas emission although recent calculations hint it could be less than that [4]. Burning of fossil fuels is widely stated to be leading cause for greenhouse gas emissions, but I didn’t found any percentages about those emissions. There were however absolute values available for CO2 emissions from burning fossil fuels [5] but not similar data for deforestation. I interpreted your writings so that you think deforestation is quite the only cause for CO2 levels increasing. If that is what you think, then where CO2 emissions from burning fossil fuel go?
Conor:
Kyrbo:
About climate change, what is agreed as a fact, and is even measurable by anyone with proper equipments, is increase in the amount of carbon dioxide in the Earth’s atmosphere. Increase during the last 100 years or so has been about 30%. That’s quite fast increase when considering how short timespan 100 years is compared even to the end of last ice age.
This increase alone has warmed atmosphere to date.
Really? CO2 accounts for 0.3% of the content of air. CO2 also doesn’t have a very high thermal efficiency, it being 1/156th that of water. With those two facts, explain how it is responsible for the increase?
I don’t understand what you mean with thermal efficiency here, but I think I can answer your question despite it. Actually I wrote about the reason of the increase in the very same post you are quoting… The reason why CO2 is important for this temperature increase despite it being quite scarce in atmosphere is because it is very efficient greenhouse gas. Greenhouse effect is explained in a pretty understandable form in Wikipedia [3], but I’ll write short summary here.
We’ll have to start by energy arriving from the Sun. As it hits Earth’s surface, about 50% of it is reflected away. This reflected energy is mostly in a form of long wavelength waves, like infrared waves (i.e. heat). Greenhouse gasses absorbs most of this reflected infrared radiation coming from Earth and transfer that captured radiation to infrared radiation, which radiates upwards to the space and downwards to the Earth. This downward radiation heats surface and lower atmosphere. Despite atmospheres CO2 levels being only approx 0.038%, CO2 is very efficient greenhouse gas and, like I wrote earlier in this post, it’s responsible for 9 to 26% of the greenhouse effect warming the atmosphere [3]. Water vapours (approx. 0.3% of atmospheric mass) were responsible for 36 to 70% of the greenhouse effect.
Conor:
I can however point out that the reduction in the levels of ozone over the antarctic , due to mans interference after the last “we’re all doomed” hole in the ozone layer panic, have increased the temperature there.
If you mean that Guardian’s article you linked to on some of your earlier posts I slightly disagree with your interpretation, but I wont deny anything on that article as it’s source look proper scientific publication (of course unless articles writer has wrote something from other than neutral point of view). My interpretation of this article was that due to man’s interference hole appeared into the ozone layer and this hole has prevented effects of global warming from hitting the Antarctic. My interpretation then continues that due to banning the CFC compounds causing the hole, ozone layer has now started healing itself and after it has properly healed in about 50 or 60 years the global warming has been able to hit the Antarctic with it’s full force as the hole isn’t protecting the Antarctic any more. Losing this man made shielding property was what I interpreted to be reason for oncoming climate warming over there and that if CFC compounds would never been used then the climate change would have already hit the Antarctic.
newmercman:
Apart from the fact that the majority of documents, papers & studies on Global warming have been proven to be fraudulent,
That’s quite harsh accusation. I guess you won’t mind giving some sources for this statement?
newmercman:
…the main evidence of ‘Climate Change’ are the Polar Ice Caps which are melting & supposedly causing Islands in the Maldives to disappear, well there’s a serious flaw in this argument, the Polar Ice Caps are floating bodies of ice, so their melting will do nothing to make the level of the oceans rise … Not only that but as the Ice Pack decreases at the North pole it is actually increasing by a corresponding amount at the South Pole 
Greenland isn’t floating and models predict that partial melting of it’s ice sheet will raise sea level about 5 cm during this century [6]. Sea levels would raise 7.2 metres if it would melt completely, but it’s believed to take several centuries before it melts completely. Also ice sheets near Antarctic aren’t all floating and some of those are likely to melt after ozone hole has repaired itself, like the article Conor linked to explained.
newmercman:
We may be experiencing a climatic change, the Earth travels around the Sun in an elliptical pattern, a slight change in the trajectory will have a massive impact on temperatures on parts the planet, like for example the difference between summer & winter 
That probably is affecting to climatic change, but I really don’t believe that none of the several thousands of scientist participating in the modelling of climate patterns wouldn’t have thought about this. I’d be tempted to believe that several of them have actually made some theories and calculations about that subject and results have either been incorporated to the climatic models predicting climatic change or neglected if magnitudes of the effects caused by trajectory changes weren’t that meaningful when compared to other processes working the atmosphere.
Carryfast:
newmercman:
Just as a little footnote, this was today’s high temperature where I live in Canada
http://photos-c.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc3/hs095.snc3/16254_1285851832183_1406776284_773235_4456983_n.jpg
Global warming, my arse
But that temperature there is probably no different than it was at this time of year 100 years ago.
And that bit less than 1 degrees Celsius which temperature have been said to raise globally during last century [7] wouldn’t mean that temperature of today is quite close to what it was 100 years ago?
pete904ni:
Temperatures in the last few years have been dropping, FACT, meanwhile CO2 still is rising FACT. The Midevil Warm Period with vinyards in England wasn’t caused by CO2 its all down to SUNSPOTS / SOLAR FLARES. Look at the graphs correlating sunspot activity with global temperatures and you’ll get an eye opener.
The first fact you are saying depends quite much locally, as climate varies much naturally from year to year. Here in Finland average annual temperature has been raising for three consecutive years, but that doesn’t prove anything. It could as well have been dropping and that wouldn’t also prove anything. In fact you have a fault in your logic and I’ve emphasized the particular position. The fault here is that you only state something about last few years despite it being so short time that many natural phenomenons affecting the climate last much longer time. For example for CO2 emissions it takes about year before they circulate from northern hemisphere, where CO2 emissions are higher, to the southern hemisphere [8] and another example is sunspot cycle of the sun, which is is 11 years. Your logic that global temperature isn’t raising because it hasn’t done so in last few years is like claiming that average weekly consumption of your lorry isn’t raising because you have been able to roll for last couple kilometres, despite you’re in a middle of most hilly terrain in UK.
Sunspot activity changes the power Earth gets from the Sun only about 0.1% [9]. The actual amount of this change due to sunspot activity is about 1.3 W/m^2 and increase in greenhouse effect due to CO2 increase has been calculated to be around 1.7 W/m^2 since 1750, so those two are both at same magnitude [2], [9]. As you are stating another of these is warming Earth then how you explain that another one isn’t?
Under current evidences Medieval warm period you referred to isn’t believed to have happened globally and global temperature for that timespan was quite the same as global temperature was around 100 years ago [10]. As it isn’t believed to have happened globally it clearly can’t be caused solely because of sunspot activity, right? Also there can be high correlation between sunspot activity and global temperatures, but that doesn’t mean one happening because of another despite it being common misconception.
pete904ni:
If 1 large volcano erupts it’ll pump out more CO2 than humans EVER have produced - how will a new tax help with that?
Volcanic activity releases annually about 0.13 to 0.23 gigatonnes of CO2 into atmosphere. Burning fossil fuels released 27 gigatonnes of CO2 into atmosphere at 2004. [11]
I fail to see how 230 000 000 tonnes of CO2 from volcanic activity could be more than 27 000 000 000 tonnes from burning fossil fuels, but if you wish to disagree with these numbers feel free to do so as long as you provide some sources.
newmercman:
Here’s some more of my crap 
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Generally it’s said that preventing climate from warming as much as we can comes cheaper than if it is let to warm up freely, but I won’t be touching economical effects of climate change as that would require also some sort of understanding about humans 
I just comment that on some parts I agree with your thoughts. There always are peoples trying to use any situation for their personal advantage.
Sources:
Despite many of these being Wikipedia links, I checked that every claim I took from Wikipedia had reliable sounding source listed in that Wikipedia article.
[1] Chaos theory - Wikipedia
[2] NOAA/ESRL Global Monitoring Laboratory - THE NOAA ANNUAL GREENHOUSE GAS INDEX (AGGI)
[3] Greenhouse effect - Wikipedia
[4] Deforestation - Wikipedia
[5] Carbon cycle - Wikipedia
[6] Arctic sea ice decline - Wikipedia
[7] According to IPCC, precise amount of measured temperature raise visible for example here: Climate change - Wikipedia
[8] gcrio.org - contact with domain owner | Epik.com
[9] Sunspot - Wikipedia
[10] Medieval Warm Period - Wikipedia
[11] Carbon dioxide in Earth's atmosphere - Wikipedia
PS. when writing this response I probably missed some things you had wrote in your posts, but that wasn’t intentional. This post just grew so bloody long I lost some of my interest in writing this towards the end…
PPS. Writing of this took ages, please don’t be so disbelieving 
You see, I’d be keen to do also other things than writing here. Searching a suitable mother for my childs would be quite high on that list
Nothing beats a proper reality show…
![[3]](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Carbon_Dioxide_400kyr.png){kind=link}