What is the Problem Presented by CO2?

Surface Detail wrote:How does that post make any sense at all?

Surface Detail wrote:Are you deliberately trying to make AGW deniers look stupid?

DaveRecklaw wrote:
Methane is much more of a problem than Co2

wmiddlemas wrote:
It is a scientific fact that C02 and Methane act as atmospheric blankets to capture and hold heat in the atmosphere. This has been proven through geological history through ice core samples and is being proven today as C02 levels continue to rise in tandum with global warming. The fact that the temperature of Venus is a toasty 470 degrees C is largely caused by the high concentration of C02 in its atmosphere.

wmiddlemas wrote:It is a scientific fact that C02 and Methane act as atmospheric blankets to capture and hold heat in the atmosphere.

wmiddlemas wrote: This has been proven through geological history through ice core samples and is being proven today as C02 levels continue to rise in tandum with global warming.

wmiddlemas wrote: The fact that the temperature of Venus is a toasty 470 degrees C is largely caused by the high concentration of C02 in its atmosphere.

ladonnag wrote:
"Global Warming is not occurring to any observable degree and, as far as anyone knows, the earth could be cooling right now."

The earth overall, as a whole, is not cooling. One cannot compartmentalize a particular area and call it climate, that is referred to as WEATHER. Temperature as a whole is increasing. NASA research finds 2000-2010 is the hottest decade EVER reported. http://phys.org/news/2010-01-nasa-decade-warmest-years.html

ladonnag wrote:The earth overall, as a whole, is not cooling.

ladonnag wrote: One cannot compartmentalize a particular area and call it climate, that is referred to as WEATHER.

ladonnag wrote: Temperature as a whole is increasing.

Into the Night wrote: This isn't the first stupid comment NASA has been making lately.

IBdaMann wrote:

Into the Night wrote: This isn't the first stupid comment NASA has been making lately.

Someone at NASA must be intentionally generating these entirely bogus claims to feed that particular political interest group, i.e. the scientifically illiterate and gullible that nonetheless NEED to play pretend scientist and feel smart.

How is it that warmizombies never concern themselves with margin of error? That should be the very first concern. I suppose that if it were, this whole "average global temperature" notion would be shot down immediately, and thus Global Warming as well in the same amount of time.

[WARNING! Warmizombies and Climate Lemmings should continue reading with caution. If you begin to feel faint or your faith in "climate" begins to feel threatened, stop reading immediately]

If we approach the issue with what we know, we realize that the surface area of the earth is roughly 510 million km2 and that any given thermometer can only read the temperature accurately for one fixed point in space, not over vast areas as people such as litesong like to believe. We also know from basic calculus that the minimum margin of error for any fixed quantity of thermometers over a specific area/volume is for the thermometers to be exactly evenly spaced, i.e. deviation from even spacing directly translates into increased error/inaccuracy. Also, since a temperature is for a point in time (not for a time interval) any temperature involving multiple thermometers must be for synchronized readings. Any and all deviations from synchronicity translate directly into induced error.

We know that at any given moment, any two points that are two kilometers apart will normally differ in temperature several degrees C, especially if there are differences in elevation, terrain, et, al. Ergo, if we were to cover the entire surface of the earth with a theoretical set of 31,875,000 completely accurate (0% error), completely synchronized (with 0 latency) and exactly evenly spaced thermometers, in a grid, each 4 km apart, we would not be able to escape a base overall margin of error of several degrees C. The vast numbers of thermometers/sensors do not cancel out any error (nor does it magnify it)...it simply continues it across the entirety of the calculation.

Unfortunately all sensors are physical devices that necessarily have operating tolerances and errors and that must be calibrated. To any base margin of error we must add the non-zero error of the thermometers/sensors being used and because temperature everywhere is always changing, the always non-zero latency error translation adds even more to the accumulated overall error. The non-zero amount of time since the last calibration gets factored into any calculations as additional margin of error.

If we were to use just such a sensor grid to measure the "average global temperature" every day for two calendar years, and say our measurements were to indicate that Year-2 was 0.2degC warmer than Year-1, we would be forced to conclude that Year-2 *could* have been cooler than Year-1. Why? The difference is less than the margin of error. The average global temperature might have actually decreased 0.7degC. We wouldn't know. We couldn't know.

jwoodward48 wrote:
Increasing sample size (covering whole Earth obviously creates a large sample size, and doing it multiple times also does) decreases the reasonable 0.05 margin of error. I realize that there is a large variance of temperatures even in a small region, but are we to expect that Rock Point is always 10 degrees cooler than Stone Valley? This is especially true for weather-created differences, which move quickly and are not tied to a specific small subregion.

jwoodward48 wrote:
But as we take measurements of a thousand Stone Valleys, the chances of them all having their own peculiar Rock Point is vanishingly small. There is always, of course, error, but larger sample sizes tend to iron them out sufficiently. Is the entire Earth large enough to iron out the incredible errors that must be present in our thermometer system? I don't really know.

jwoodward48 wrote:1. The chances of all the errors being in the same direction is vanishingly small.

jwoodward48 wrote:2. We can take thousands of measurements in a year.

jwoodward48 wrote:In addition, the clustering of thermometers can be offset with the wonders of mathematics.

jwoodward48 wrote: .Just decrease the weight of the value depending on the average distance to the other thermometers

jwoodward48 wrote:
You ever taken Stat? I just described a weighted average, which is a very simple example of statistics. If you don't think it's possible for mathematics to help you improve accuracy of an inaccurate measurement, cast your eye about the internet. Examples abound.

What, you want me to specify exactly what I mean? I didn't think that was expected. After all, have you ever done that?

jwoodward48 wrote: Yes, but this error could be made in either direction. Each thermometer could be a good representative of its region, a too-warm one, or a too-cold one - but the probability of all thermometers being too-warm is vanishingly small. Increasing the sample size decreases the error margin for a 95% acceptability.

wmiddlemas wrote:
It is a scientific fact that C02 and Methane act as atmospheric blankets to capture and hold heat in the atmosphere. This has been proven through geological history through ice core samples and is being proven today as C02 levels continue to rise in tandum with global warming. The fact that the temperature of Venus is a toasty 470 degrees C is largely caused by the high concentration of C02 in its atmosphere.

[b]Wake wrote:As for CO2 being a "greenhouse gas" you are entirely incorrect:
http://nov79.com/gbwm/ntyg.html
... water vapor and droplets in which the clouds are composed effect the climate far more than anything else.

wmiddlemas wrote:
It is a scientific fact that C02 and Methane act as atmospheric blankets to capture and hold heat in the atmosphere. This has been proven through geological history through ice core samples and is being proven today as C02 levels continue to rise in tandum with global warming. The fact that the temperature of Venus is a toasty 470 degrees C is largely caused by the high concentration of C02 in its atmosphere.