Looking for sources to smack down on GW deniers

[Junghalli]

So, the global warming deniers are coming out of the woodwork on SB. And they seem to be pretty much having a free run of the place.

So, does anybody have any good sources I can use to smack them down? Their main argument seems to be that global warming is hype that scientists agree with because it's the easy way to get money, and the usual "lots of scientists don't think it's happening" crap.

[Surlethe]

Ooh, on SB? Can I have a link?

Check out this website for a one-stop source of global warming arguments and refutations. It provides sources and nicely bundled refutations. As far as the ad hominem argument, you can simply point out that it's a red herring, or you can ask them for a detailed argument demonstrating that scientists do get easy money by proposign global warming is happening.

[Junghalli]

Ooh, on SB? Can I have a link?

Enjoy.
I particularly like the one where the guy goes "durr, natural CO2 sources are much more than those released by humans". Because, you know, it's not like artificial emissions might be shifting a natural equilibrium or anything.

[Darth Wong]

Ooh, on SB? Can I have a link?

Enjoy.
I particularly like the one where the guy goes "durr, natural CO2 sources are much more than those released by humans". Because, you know, it's not like artificial emissions might be shifting a natural equilibrium or anything.

That's one of the oldest anti-GW arguments in the book. It's like saying that since your mortgage payment is your largest monthly expense, all of the smaller expenses must have no effect on your finances.

[Junghalli]

Damn, I already adressed it but I wish I'd thought of an analogy like that, it nicely puts into perspective just how ridiculous their "but how could our CO2 emissions have an effect when 97% of CO2 is from natural sources!" whining.

Now they're trying the CO2 saturation argument. Which is somewhat trickier I'll admit, because any layman can see how ridiculous the natural CO2 argument is if he uses his brain a bit but stuff like saturated CO2 more naturally lends itself to technobabble obfuscation which can be harder to debunk if you don't have knowledge of the field. Stuff like this:

Ah yes incressing the CO2 in the stratosphere is going to cause ruin.

But at stratosphere layer the greenhouse effect is mostly CO2, rather than water vapor already.

Although you will do well to remember that the stratoshphere has almost no impact on the greenhouse effect as observed in the troposphere. Why you ask? Because the long waves radiated by the earth have mostly been trapped in the troposphere already, very very little can pass to the stratosphere, and once it's their it has little effect on the already rather cool top layer of the troposphere. Hope that -75 doesn't get to warm from a few hundredth of a degree of warming caused by a quading of CO2.

[Darth Wong]

Does he have an actual scientific source to support his "few hundredth of a degree" estimate, or did he just pull it out of his ass? Does he honestly think that the existing models totally ignore atmospheric layering, despite undergoing far more extensive scientific peer review than a post on spacebattles.com?

[Junghalli]

Obviously not. It really is pretty amazing, the people who think that reading some magazines and doing some Googling makes them qualified to dismiss the finding of reputable scientists.

My reply was just to point out that the atmosphere wasn't actually saturated so even if his claims were true it was mute. If he continues making an issue of it I'll be sure to ask him exactly why we should take him more seriously than the article somebody else already linked to debunking the myth.

[Darth Wong]

You might want to direct him to this:

http://www.aip.org/history/climate/co2.htm

The most important CO2 absorption lines did not lie exactly on top of water vapor lines. Instead of two overlapping bands, there were two sets of narrow lines with spaces for radiation to slip through. So even if water vapor in the lower layers of the atmosphere did entirely block any radiation that could have been absorbed by CO2, that would not keep the gas from making a difference in the rarified and frigid upper layers.

Of course, I doubt that any global warming denier would ever have the patience to read through that entire article, despite their claims of having "thoroughly studied" the subject.

[Junghalli]

He seems to be arguing that the upper atmosphere won't make a difference to the temperature in the troposphere

Moving on they are going on about absorption in the stratosphere, mesosphere and thermosphere. Which I freely admit can absorb more energy in the 2.5 5 and 20 nm range. (CO2's key bands).

But those layers have FUCK ALL to go with the temperature down in the troposphere.

So what you have with that link is mostly correct. The atmosphere can absorb more energy in CO2's bands, in total it isn't saturated. Some areas have less water than others and can draw in more energy.

BUT where it can absorb more energy it will have no effect on the average temperature in the troposphere.

Even if we just agree with what the link says, a quadrupling of the CO2 which is what it's working on would be rather hard to achieve and would have very little effect on the warming. Something like 1.3C - 2.7C on clear water free skys.

In the rather wet earth, the effect for a 4 times incress would be something between 0.2C and 1.1C.

(oh and a 4 times incress in CO2 would incress harvest yeilds by something near to 30%)

So far I'm just hammering him on "prove it, bitch" (not in so many words).

[Wyrm]

ALL of the layers of the atmosphere are involved in keeping heat in. After all, energy (in the form of heat) have to leave all layers of the atmosphere in order for the planet to cool. If a layer traps heat, then it doesn't matter if it's high up or low down. The heat is still trapped.

[Darth Wong]

How many times can he repeat his "everything but the biggest factor can be safely ignored" pseudo-logic?

[Junghalli]

He's now moved on to claiming the planet is colder now than it was ten years ago. Because, you know, there can never be blips in a general upward data curve, especially with something as complex as the weather.

When I hit him with a ton of before and after pics of glaciers melting he also claims they were melting before that, never mind I'd already mentioned that the rate of melt had accelerated dramatically in the last few tens of years, which was outright stated in the articles I linked to.

[Darth Wong]

He's now moved on to claiming the planet is colder now than it was ten years ago. Because, you know, there can never be blips in a general upward data curve, especially with something as complex as the weather.

When I hit him with a ton of before and after pics of glaciers melting he also claims they were melting before that, never mind I'd already mentioned that the rate of melt had accelerated dramatically in the last few tens of years, which was outright stated in the articles I linked to.

A lot of global warming deniers fail to understand that surface air temperature is but one measure of overall thermodynamic balance (and hardly the most significant one), particularly in a system where the oceans are hundreds of times more massive than the atmosphere.