I use the term "blanket" because within my layman's understanding of climate factors........ "blanket" is EASY for me to understand. I concede that it is a "dumbing down of scientific explanations". But, it is useful for me. I can't take the time to dive deeper into further "mysteries of the stratosphere."
........I further concede that I have only a layman's understanding of Climate "tipping point". I wish that I knew more.
.........From my reading, I have concluded that CO2 is not a pollutant when the earth is in NORMAL balance. I believe that it becomes a pollutant (in the ocean killing coral) when it becomes EXCESSIVE compared to normal and can NOT BE absorbed NORMALLY by the earth's trees (Brazilian rainforest destruction) and the OCEANS.
...........I believe that I correctly quoted a Corning Scientist that, "CO2 has the potential to TRAP energy from the sun and heat the surface of the earth".
..........I agree with you that, "we will see SUBSTANTIAL political unrest" and I believe that the US is already seeing illegal CLIMATE migration from South America. The investment analyst known as DR Doom for his unconventional honesty stated that US people should avoid retiring to Florida and Texas due to the increasing HEAT that they will experience that is happening RIGHT NOW. Of course, they won't either hear or take that advice. There are giant areas of Africa that are predicted to become uninhabitable in 30 years.....starting northward migration.
........I believe in the things that I write and I wish I had more than a layman's background to raise the ante in these climate discussions. But, I must keep on keeping on and muddle through it.

OK, a teaching moment. Basically, heat is transferred by convection, conduction, and radiation. A blanket traps heat by reducing convective and conductive losses. A greenhouse stays warm by reducing the convective loss of the heat gained from solar radiation. CO2 in the atmosphere reduces the net longwave radiative loss to space. There can also be positive feedbacks such as a warmer atmosphere can hold more water vapor and therefore have more clouds which will further reduce longwave radiative losses to space but also can reduce incoming shortwave radiation. It gets complicated and, yes, there are lots of equations and we write lots of code to solve those equations. However, the equations are based on first principals, laboratory work, and field studies to collect data.

Yes, the higher the world's population (we may have passed that TIPPING POINT) the greater the pollution. Also, not much to brag about IF we say that the US has improved its air quality since the Industrial Revolution............because we just outsourced the bad air to China, which has used the money to build a fleet (really a flotilla) of fishing and canning GIANT vessels that plunder the oceans of fish and dolphins and coral.
..........In 1900 til today the US was busy producing Green House gas. Now we outsource to China and other countries what is, by proxy, our US Green House upper atmosphere pollutants.......AKA.....a blanket.
..........one old famous philosopher once said, "wars and pestilence keep the human population under control" IMO today population IS out of control so I suspect that we will be seeing MORE Pandemics and wars.

Touche !!!!!!!!!!

Got to love that Socratic Method, so cutesy.

And in this corner representing world cooling is.............
And in this corner representing Global Warming is............
Shake hands now and come out debating

Well, just keep up your "the sky is falling, the sky is falling" and I am sure someone will take notice. Personally, since my choice is to live in this world and because I have already sowed my seed to further the population effort, I will just sit back and enjoy my next 20 years on this great world. Unlike you, I have no intention of trying to convince others that we need to reduce the population. Nature is already doing what it can to assist in that effort. You complain about hurricanes and tornadoes, cars and motorcycles causing deaths and then worry about being over populated. I appreciate what we have done in this country because I have lived in the most polluted cities in the world. I have witnessed airline flights diverted because the air pollution was so bad that there was not enough viability to land safely. I have walked through business areas of cities where you could not see the tops of buildings because of the smog. Our country has cleaned up the air we breath since the 1900's. Scientists are predicting that Earth will be hit by a giant asteroid in our near future. Do you believe them? After all, they are scientists and you believe THOSE experts. If you do believe them, then you can quit worrying about climate control, because there won't be anyone around to benefit from your worry.
Don't get me wrong, even though I believe that we have come a long way in cleaning up the air pollution, I still think we can do better. But, I still plan on smoking my BBQ and driving my fossil fuel burner, as long as I can get away with it.

Thanks, OK I can follow that. Maybe instead of a "blanket", the better analogy of the "shroud" (?) in the upper atmosphere would be something like a reflective net that has gotten out of balance and is reflecting more longwave radiation (heat) back to earth while blocking more or less short wave radiation from the sun.
......Basically from my layman's perspective, I have READ that the OVERALL results are a PREDICTION that the earth will be warming for the next 30 years. Now, however, it is your analysis that there will be manmade heating, but it will or may be inconsequential in degree. I stated that Dr Doom believes in your 3rd outcome of excessive heat. I imagine that Dr.Doom has access to expert opinions and information that I do NOT. It would be nice to know upon WHAT he bases HIS conclusion???????

No, CO2 doesn't impact incoming solar radiation, at least not directly - wrong wave lengths. I ambiguously worded a sentence in the previous post. Additional clouds can reduce incoming solar radiation that reaches the ground. CO2 induced warming can lead to additional clouds. At the risk of stating the obvious, modeling the clouds correctly in the climate models is of some importance. It impacts longwave radiation cooling of the atmosphere (yes, longwave flux divergence in the atmosphere is typically negative), the incoming solar that reaches the ground, and incoming solar absorption by the atmosphere which creates heating.

I believe that we will continue to see anthropogenic warming, to some degree, for the foreseeable future. Whether it will turn out to be an existential threat is, in my opinion, to be determined. Those who believe we are facing an existential threat are probably basing it on climate model simulations and probably the 8.5 scenario. To be clear, there are a lot of uncertainties. Nobody knows for sure. As with almost anything that is complex, the odds of it happening are based on a probability function.

I appreciate your opinion and it is nice that you have traveled the world. And your opinion and views are shared by a large % of the people of our great (after WW2) country. And I am sure that you are putting veggie burgers on the barbie to do your part to decrease cow flatulence which could increase heat reflection from the upper atmosphere. Yes, all the "baby steps" to prevent Global warming and restore the world's glaciers are greatly appreciated.

We are all doing our best to leave the next generations a better world. We don't want a Glacier National park without Glaciers

OK thanks, I guess that we can agree on the "indirectly" part. I was hoping that you might want to share an opinion on Dr DOOM's statement about Florida since it MAY (?) start affecting your golf game during increasingly HOT summers starting next summer. of course, if you are a snowbird then it would be just academic.

We will probably continue to see global temperatures increase. The real interest, however, is regional in nature. We aren’t really able to do regional climate simulations so far, at least with any fidelity. Nobody knows for sure how serious a problem we have. I wouldn’t stress to much over this. You will be dead before the stuff hits the fan, assuming stuff is going to hit the fan. Your kids, grandkids, I can’t speak for them.

:1rotfl::1rotfl::1rotfl::1rotfl: I kick his butt back to the ice age!:crap2:

Sorry, but I eat rib eye steaks and triple burgers every chance I get. The day I eat a fake burger will be the day that cows, pigs, dogs and any other meat bearing animals are extinct. In my opinion man was not created with K9 teeth to eat grass. Speaking of flatulence, I do my part in the contribution of well digested food to produce a quantity when there are no cows around to blame it on. Like I said before, I have no control over global warming or global cooling, so I see no reason to be concerned about a few warmer or colder degrees in the weather that might/MIGHT happen in the next 20 years of my life. When you all get done with your climate changing and increase the temps up North a few degrees during the winter, I might move back to the woods. This flat, sandy state is kind of boring to look at, but I enjoy the warm weather.

Amen!

If God didn't intend for people to eat animals he wouldn't have made them out of meat!