Scott wrote:
delboy wrote:


Suppose you measure CO2 levels in the atmosphere for a few years when
global temperatures are increasing naturally. Then you draw a graph of
increasing CO2 concentrations against Global Temperature and find that
you have a correlation.
Derek Copeland


Exactly...is increasing CO2 warming the planet or is a warming planet
increasing the levels of CO2? Which is causing which? As a
homebrewer who deals with carbonation, a warmer liquid can not hold as
much gas in suspension as a cold liquid. Maybe any dissolved CO2 in
water is being expelled as the Earth warms and the water's temperature
increases...
Science has moved well beyond simple correlation; in fact, the potential
for global warming was recognized over a century ago, just based on the
physics of CO2 and the atmosphere (look up Svante Arrhenius). The
investigation of the impact of CO2 is based on physics, not statistics.
CO2 has been increasing at a relatively steady rate for over 6 decades;
meanwhile, the yearly global temperatures have oscillated far more, as
you would expect from natural variability. The idea you should base the
science on a graph as Derek says is wrong and climate science doesn't
even try to do it.

The contributions of CO2 to the atmosphere are not a mystery. For
example, the acidity of the oceans is easily measured, and it shows CO2
is INCREASING in the oceans. Oceans are, in fact, the major sink of CO2,
and this increasing acidity is causing problems for the ocean life.
These problems must be addressed soon, even if global warming were not a
problem. Another example: carbon has several isotopes, and this allows
the contribution from fossil fuel burning to measured separately from
other sources. See

http://www.skepticalscience.com/huma...-emissions.htm

You don't have to follow the science of climate change very long to
realize the questions Derek is bringing up have been answered many
times and long before now. It's clear to me he is not posting here to
improve his understanding of climate science, but to raise doubts about
it. RAS is NOT the place to do this; there are many better places to
discuss it besides an unwieldy thread here.

--
Eric Greenwell - Washington State, USA
* Change "netto" to "net" to email me directly