Will we all be dead? 5 yrs.? 20? 30?  At what point are they going to find a new apoclypse when people get bored with this one? I remember learning how we would all be burned alive from the ozone layer. I thought we were entering an Ice Age 10 or 15 years ago?  We should have also run out of fossil fuels 20 years ago.  We keep drilling it faster than we can refine it.

The important thing to remember is that we are all going to die horrible deaths very soon unless we listen to our friendly, neighborhood screwball liberal.  They hold the key to our slavation.

A professor Richard Lindzen - currently the Alfred Sloan Professor of Atmospheric Sciences, MIT.... AND former lead author for the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change...

And HE SAYS:
"Future generations will wonder in bemused amazement that the early twenty-first century's developed world went into hysterical panic over a globally averaged temperature increase of a few tenths of a degree, and, on the basis of gross exaggerations of highly uncertain computer projections combined into implausible chains of inference, proceeded to contemplate a roll-back of the industrial age."

He has published papers on Hadley circulation, monsoon meteorology, planetary atmospheres, hydrodynamic instability, mid-latitude weather, global heat transport, the water cycle, and their roles in climate change, ice ages, seasonal atmospheric effects.  He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the Science and Economic Advisory Council of the Annapolis Center for Science-Based Public Policy. He previously held positions at the University of Chicago and Harvard University, and was a contributor to Chapter 4 of the "IPCC Second Assessment", "Climate Change 1995". He is known for pioneering the study of ozone photochemistry, and advised several student theses on the subject.

I guess he is too stupid to really understand the brilliance of an ALBERT GORE.  

There is MONEY to be made in whoring your scientific expertise to those who benefit from specific technical directions.  Please be advised that scientists will say or do just about anything for $$$!  


-- Modified on 5/19/2007 9:04:15 PM

It only works if you don't consider that it's only a matter of retaining heat in the atmosphere for longer. Greenhouse effect doesn't prevent heat from escaping back into space, it merely slows it down.  H2O I'll give you this conversation and link:

QUOTE (AEBanner @ Jun 12 2006, 07:38 PM)
Greenhouse Gas Effect and Carbon Dioxide

I have been having some difficulty with this, so perhaps someone could please sort out any mistakes, and let me know.

Consider a vertical column of the Earth’s atmosphere based on a square of area 1 m^2.

This air column has a mass of 1.01×10^4 Kg.m^-2.

The mass of the neutron (& proton) is approximately 1.67×10^-27 Kg.
So the mass of the nitrogen molecule is 4.68×10^-26 Kg.

Therefore, the number of N2 molecules in the column is approximately 2.15×10^29.

Now, carbon dioxide is currently present at the level of about 380 ppm by volume, and so the number of CO2 molecules in our 1 m^2 column is about 8×10^25.

The absorption cross section of a molecule of CO2 for an infrared photon of 14 micrometres wavelength (the optimum) is about 5×10^-22 m^2.

Therefore, the number of CO2 molecules required to ensure 100% probability of absorption of a photon emitted from anywhere within the 1 m^2 base area is 2×10^21 molecules.

The energy of a 14 micron infrared photon is 1.34×10^-20 Joules, and so the 2×10^21 molecules providing the absorption cover can absorb 26.8 Joules.

But, there are 8×10^25 molecules of CO2 in the column, and so the 100% cover can be provided
8×10^25 / 2×10^21 times over, ie.  4×10^4 times.  So the energy which can be dealt with by the CO2 is 26.8×4×10^4 Joules, in the base area of 1 m^2.  ie  about 10^6 Joules.

Given a relaxation time of 10 microseconds for the CO2 molecule to decay from its excited state, it follows that the process just described can be repeated 10^5 times within 1 second. And so the possible power which the carbon dioxide could cope with for 100% absorption is 10^11 Watts per square metre.

However, the limit is set by the Earth’s energy balance to about 235 W.m^-2.

So the carbon dioxide is grossly oversubscribed by a factor of 4×10^8.

This means that although the original GHG effect works very well, the idea of anthropogenic “enhanced” greenhouse effect is totally non-viable as far as carbon dioxide is concerned, because there has long been far, far more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere than required, and so another 30% ( or several orders ) extra will have absolutely no effect.

Aubrey E Banner, Sale, Cheshire,UK

Consider this from a PHYSICAL process point of view.

When the CO2 decays and releases the IR, SOME of it travels back to the ground, thus causing it to eventually be RE-RADIATED back up into the atmosphere.

The fact that there are less CO2 molecules ABOVE than below any other given CO2 molecule means that eventually the radiation will escape, still it is the fact that the release of the IR is omni-directional which causes the increase in CO2 concentration (to a point) to SLOW the RATE of heat loss to space.

But since we are getting a new supply of incoming energy each day, a delay in the loss of heat to space is equiv. to warming.

Still linear increases in CO2 would not translate to linear increases in atmospheric heating thus the IPCC claims it has to do with what they call the FORCING effect of CO2.

They CLAIM that the SLIGHT warming from CO2 will cause increased evaporation which will cause increased H2O in the atmosphere and it is this increase in H2O which is responsible for much of the FORCING effect of increased CO2.

This is where density comes in. A molecule of a greenhouse gas will absorb infrared at a certain wavelength. It will then, after a certain time, re-emit the energy. This will then be re-absorbed by a different molecule. Molecules like oxygen re-emitted quickly. The heat in the form of infrared gets passed around among the molecules in the atmosphere till it's re-emitted into space. The higher density of greenhouse gases, the longer the heat takes to leave the earth.  

You know the last point, but absorption spectrum isn't the whole story. Other questions to be asked (and for which I don't know the answer) how long does CO2 retain the heat it has absorbed? And how effectively does it absorb the wavelengths that are re-emitted from water vapor? And how well does water vapor re-absorb heat in the wavelengths CO2 emits?

As I've understood it, evidence of CO2 variance in geological prehistory correlates very strongly with pre-historical warming and cooling:

"'Reviewing the geologic records of carbon dioxide and glaciations, we found that carbon dioxide was low during periods of long-lived and widespread continental glaciations and high during other, warmer periods,' says Dr. Dana L. Royer, research associate in geosciences at Penn State."

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2004/03/040317074024.htm

I can site a lot of other stories about more studies. It seems it's also being well correlated in the current world:

"'The five warmest years over the last century occurred in the last eight years,' said James Hansen, director of NASA GISS. They stack up as follows: the warmest was 2005, then 1998, 2002, 2003 and 2004." (From link below, as of data available in January, 2006)
   
Again, wavelength absorption cannot tell the whole story. You're not talking about completely blocking light in the infrared spectrum from escaping; you're talking about slowing down energy radiating from a system, the earth, which is constantly having energy poured into it by the sun.  

I don't have the expertise yet to properly consider these questions, but until I find the answers, global warming is very plausible to me. More plausible than the argument you have produced.