What's up With Greenhouse Gases?
The basic cry of the global warming alarmists is that man-made greenhouse gases are the root of all evil. The claim is that burning fossil fuels releases carbon dioxide (CO2, the primary “culprit”) into the atmosphere, which then traps heat and leads to global warming. It can sound convincing, I admit, with the example given of a greenhouse…you can just picture it, can’t you? Cars, factories, houses all burning fossil fuels day in, day out….ahhhh! The key thing we have to understand, however, is the role carbon dioxide plays in controlling the earth’s atmosphere and temperatures.
When given a serious look, you can easily see that the Greenhouse Theory doesn’t make sense. The earth’s atmosphere has warmed only slightly since the 1940’s despite the huge clouds of greenhouse gases emitted from human activities—this provides evidence that the human greenhouse effect must be so small that it presents little or no threat to the planet or its people
p.36). So how then does carbon dioxide effect temperature?
Though you don’t hear these facts in the news, recent research has shown that carbon dioxide is not the primary climate factor! This is based on satellite and high-altitude weather balloon data that shows the lower atmosphere is not trapping lots of additional heat due to higher CO2 concentrations. Further, the Antarctic ice cores show that the Earth’s temperatures and CO2 levels have tracked closely together through the last three ice ages and global warmings (Unstoppable ... p. 36). Carbon dioxide has generally been a lagging indicator, rising eight hundred years after the temperatures rise—additional evidence that so-called greenhouse gases are not a force in recent global climate changes.
The confusion may have arisen when the ice core studies looked at samples centuries apart and noted correctly a strong relationship between CO2 concentrations and temperatures and determined that as CO2 levels rise, so do temperatures. But when the data was analyzed for decades versus centuries, something quite different emerged. Carbon dioxide changes are caused by temperature changes—not the other way around (Unstoppable ... p. 37)!!
It appears that the ocean gives up CO2 when it and the atmosphere warm. This stimulates tree and plant growth which then absorb CO2, creating more and larger roots and more soil carbon under lush grasslands (Unstoppable .. p.37). Sounds like a natural cycle to me!
Not all greenhouse gases are created equal, by the way. The most abundant and important one is…..water vapor!! Water vapor makes up about 60% of the natural greenhouse effect. Carbon dioxide makes up about 20%, and ozone, nitrous oxide, methane, and several others make up the remaining 20% (Unstoppable ... p.40). A lot of water is evaporated every day as the Sun shines down on the Earth’s vast oceans, and there is yet much scientific uncertainty about water’s role as vapor or clouds….as far as warming or cooling effects, water is a “wild card (Unstoppable ... p.41).”
That said, there was an intriguing study by NASA and MIT’s Richard Lindzen in 2001 about a huge climatic heat-vent in the Pacific in the planet’s warmest spot. The results of this study strongly indicate that the Earth is quite active in regulating its atmospheric temperatures—something computer models fail to take into account (Unstoppable ... p.42). The findings of this study were confirmed an additional two times, yet the fact that the Pacific Ocean tends to quietly and naturally vent its extra heat back into outer space—protecting the biosphere—doesn’t make the news (Unstoppable... p42)!!! While I find that irritating, I am mostly in awe of such an intelligent design (or neat happenstance, if you lean that way).
A final note—you can see from this discussion that carbon dioxide is not the culprit it has been made out to be. While caring for the earth is a good thing, spending money for carbon credits is not something that is worthwhile or worth your hard-earned cash! A word to the wise!
Check out this web-site for interesting information on a solar-lunar based technique of weather prediction that is reliable and counters the carbon-bashing theories :)
http://www.weatheraction.com/pages/pv.asp?p=wact1&fsize=0
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