Talk of The Villages Florida - View Single Post - Are You Worried About Climate Change?
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Old 10-14-2019, 05:09 PM
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Originally Posted by biker1 View Post
There are some things we know with certainty and other things that are still being researched. We do know that we are in an interglacial period. We also know that anthropogenic CO2 increases have taken place and, from radiative transfer considerations, will contribute to some warming. We also suspect that anthropogenic CO2 increases are not, by themselves, enough to cause enough warming to be of concern. Any direct warming from anthropogenic CO2 increases must be accompanied by positive feedbacks that cause additional warming - an amplification if you will. For example, additional CO2 causes warming which increases the amount of water vapor in the air which causes additional warming since water vapor is a greenhouse gas. There can also be negative feedbacks. The additional warming causes additional water vapor that results in more clouds that reflect solar radiation which can cause cooling. Of course, the clouds also intercept terrestrial radiation and reemit it back down to earth causing more warming. It's complicated. The dire forecasts you hear about come from coupled ocean/land/atmospheric models which attempt to simulate where the climate will drift to when CO2 levels are increased. Retrospective model runs have had issues with reproducing mid-tropospheric temperature in the tropics (yes, that is important) and this raises questions about their fidelity and appropriateness as a tool for developing public policy. It is just down right difficult to model complex, non-linear interactions that are not completely understood such as cloud/radiation interactions (which are critical to getting the feedbacks correct and without positive feedbacks we probably don't have an issue).

Essentially the bottom line is we don't know how much warming will take place in the future from man's activities. This is still an area of research. We do know that CO2 levels will continue to increase for the next several decades as developing nations will continue to generate power from fossil fuels. Put solar panels on your house because it saves you money and makes you feel good but it won't have any impact.
The high light above is a statement one will never hear from a politician or special interest group or climate change activists.

The unfortunate part of the whole subject is so much amplification
by the media of these groups positions and are presented as if we do not accept/believe/do what they are "selling"....the planet is doomed.

Centuries of climate change radical swings point to the contrary.