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The "Social Cost of Carbon" -- an Absurdity

RabidAlpaca said:
So what? It's a GREENHOUSE GAS. If you paid attention in science class you'd know that greenhouse gases like CO2 trap heat. The higher level of CO2 content in a planet's atmosphere, the more heat is trapped by that atmosphere, thus a warmer planet. This is not rocket science, and it's something you can test yourself if you have doubts. If you'd like to see the extreme case of CO2 in a planet's atmosphere, take a look at Venus.

Can you explain why you believe CO2 isn't a greenhouse gas and that it magically floats off into space over time?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_gas
Click to expand...

Whats the difference between Venus and Earth? Plants. What do plants "breath"? CO2. So if there is more CO2 does that mean that plants will utilize it? Why yes they will. We have repeatable experimental data suggesting just that.
 
Jack Hays said:
Less in the north, more in the south.
.....
Click to expand...
MORE melting overall.
We have a gauge: Sea Level.

From 1870
Sea-Level-1.gif




From 1700
IPCC_AR5_13.27.png



And because of Accelerated Warming/Melting, many scientists/orgs are DOUBLING their Sea Level rise predictions (old ones in chart above) in just the last year, from app 3' to 6' by 2100.
 
Last edited:
RabidAlpaca said:
If you'd like to see the extreme case of CO2 in a planet's atmosphere, take a look at Venus.
Click to expand...

Uh huh, The atmosphere on Venus is 95% CO2 and it's hot enough there to melt lead.
And on Mars the atmosphere is also 95% CO2 and it's so cold there it snows dry ice.
Here on Earth the atmosphere is 0.04% CO2 and you're claiming exactly what?
 
mbig said:
... And because of Accelerated Warming/Melting, many scientists/orgs are DOUBLING
their Sea Level rise predictions (old ones in chart above) in just the last year,
from app 3' to 6' by 2100.
Click to expand...

Six feet by 2100 comes to an average 22 mm/yr for the next 83 years or nearly
six and a half times the current rate. So when is this huge bump-up in the rate
going to begin to happen?
 
Steve Case said:
Uh huh, The atmosphere on Venus is 95% CO2 and it's hot enough there to melt lead.
And on Mars the atmosphere is also 95% CO2 and it's so cold there it snows dry ice.
Here on Earth the atmosphere is 0.04% CO2 and you're claiming exactly what?
Click to expand...

That CO2 is a greenhouse gas and it traps heat. Are you saying this is false? Publish your findings and collect your fame and fortune. During the winter in north America there are many places colder than on Mars. Mars can trap more heat because of its CO2, but it's further from the sun so there is less heat to trap.

This is children's science and is something you could test yourself if you were as scientifically competent as a second grader.

PirateMk1 said:
Whats the difference between Venus and Earth? Plants. What do plants "breath"? CO2. So if there is more CO2 does that mean that plants will utilize it? Why yes they will. We have repeatable experimental data suggesting just that.
Click to expand...

So you're saying CO2 is not a greenhouse gas and does not have a warming effect? Source?

Jack Hays said:
As I posted before, I follow the lead of Henrik Svensmark and Nir Shaviv.
Click to expand...

As you posted before, you fish out single scientists from thousands that support your fabricated world view and ignore everything else. That's not how science works.
 
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Geoist said:
While methane is far more potent than CO2 as a greenhouse gas ...
Click to expand...
This is one of those mindless things repeated over and over again
when there's no logical reason why it should be so. Well really,
why is methane claimed to be more powerful? You can Google that
question and find web pages that claim to provide an answer but
when you get down to the nitty gritty they never supply any real
numbers, just words.

You can also Google - methane times more powerful - and you will
find web pages that claim methane is:

25 times
84 times
86 times
72 times
20 times
33 times
21 times​

more powerful or potent than CO2.

That's just from the first ten Google returns. It pretty much looks
like they're making it up as they go along. Do your own search to
try and answer the question why methane is claimed to be exactly
72 or 86 or ... times more powerful than CO2.
 
RabidAlpaca said:
That CO2 is a greenhouse gas and it traps heat. Are you saying this is false? Publish your findings and collect your fame and fortune. During the winter in north America there are many places colder than on Mars. Mars can trap more heat because of its CO2, but it's further from the sun so there is less heat to trap.

This is children's science and is something you could test yourself if you were as scientifically competent as a second grader.



So you're saying CO2 is not a greenhouse gas and does not have a warming effect? Source?



As you posted before, you fish out single scientists from thousands that support your fabricated world view and ignore everything else. That's not how science works.
Click to expand...
I would suggest that the actual mechanism by which CO2 causes warming in earth's atmosphere is poorly understood.
The basic principal is that CO2 absorbs the 15 um photons emitted from everything above about -60C, and re emits the spontaneous
decay photons in random directions, (some of those directions being back down).
The problem with this is that the diurnal , seasonal , and geographic asymmetry of the warming does not fit with the DC offset idea
of how CO2 operates. There are clearly more variables involved.
One simple one is that the higher the CO2 is in the atmosphere the more energy it traps is a complete falsehood,
because the higher the altitude of the molecule, the less likely the emitted photons will be directed towards the ground, as there is less ground to see.
CO2 does appear to cause an energy imbalance, but since re emissions do not have to be the same photon as was absorbed,
the energy could simply be spread over the balance of the long wavelength EM spectrum,(above 15 um).
How sensitivity is the Climate system to added CO2? Based on the observations and not the models, roughly about 2 C!
Is that catastrophic? It could be a problem except the majority of that warming has been in winter evenings.
What will the long term effects be? not much as we will transition to alternative fuels within the next few decades.
 
mbig said:
MORE melting overall.
We have a gauge: Sea Level.

From 1870
Sea-Level-1.gif




From 1700
IPCC_AR5_13.27.png



And because of Accelerated Warming/Melting, many scientists/orgs are DOUBLING their Sea Level rise predictions (old ones in chart above) in just the last year, from app 3' to 6' by 2100.
Click to expand...

Well, no.


[h=1]Sea Level Rise, Acceleration, and Closure[/h]Guest essay by Rud Istvan Background There is no doubt that interglacials change sea level (SL). And that sea level rise (SLR) can be dramatic on millennial interglacial time scales. That’s what happens when the vast Laurentide ice sheet (among others) melts. But sea level has changed relatively little in the past 7 millennia. We…

July 21, 2016 in Sea level.
[h=1]2015 Updated NOAA Tide Gauge Data Shows No Coastal Sea Level Rise Acceleration[/h]Guest essay by Larry Hamlin NOAA has updated its extensive U.S. coastal tide gauge data measurement records (http://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/sltrends/sltrends_us.htm) to include data through year 2015. These measurements include tide gauge data coastal locations for 25 West Coast, Gulf Coast and East Coast states along the Pacific Ocean, Gulf of Mexico and Atlantic Ocean. In addition 7…

May 28, 2016 in Sea level.
 
RabidAlpaca said:
As you posted before, you fish out single scientists from thousands that support your fabricated world view and ignore everything else. That's not how science works.
Click to expand...

"If they were right, one would be enough." --Albert Einstein

His response the publication One Hundred Against Einstein
 
longview said:
I would suggest that the actual mechanism by which CO2 causes warming in earth's atmosphere is poorly understood.
The basic principal is that CO2 absorbs the 15 um photons emitted from everything above about -60C, and re emits the spontaneous
decay photons in random directions, (some of those directions being back down).
The problem with this is that the diurnal , seasonal , and geographic asymmetry of the warming does not fit with the DC offset idea
of how CO2 operates. There are clearly more variables involved.
One simple one is that the higher the CO2 is in the atmosphere the more energy it traps is a complete falsehood,
because the higher the altitude of the molecule, the less likely the emitted photons will be directed towards the ground, as there is less ground to see.
CO2 does appear to cause an energy imbalance, but since re emissions do not have to be the same photon as was absorbed,
the energy could simply be spread over the balance of the long wavelength EM spectrum,(above 15 um).
How sensitivity is the Climate system to added CO2? Based on the observations and not the models, roughly about 2 C!
Is that catastrophic? It could be a problem except the majority of that warming has been in winter evenings.
What will the long term effects be? not much as we will transition to alternative fuels within the next few decades.
Click to expand...

One of the many things you've overlooked here is that the density of atmospheric gases drops exponentially with altitude, so by the time it gets to where emissions could shoot down and miss earth, there's hardly any CO2 left. Do you think we can infinitely pump CO2 into the atmosphere without consequence? Do you think the current mixture of oxygen, nitrogen and CO2 can and does remain constant regardless of what we do? The fact remains that CO2 is a greenhouse gas, it's ability to trap heat in a planet's atmosphere is a fact and beyond question, and the scientific community has as much of a consensus as there is for electron theory and heliocentrism.

This really isn't rocket science. Digging up dinosaur juice and burning it releases CO2 into the atmosphere and not all life on earth, be it plants, animals or humans are evolutionarily adapted to survive in a higher CO2 environment.

Jack Hays said:
"If they were right, one would be enough." --Albert Einstein

His response the publication One Hundred Against Einstein
Click to expand...

The fact that a science denier like yourself would try to use Einstein to prove a point why science is bull**** and reality is determined by trolls on the internet is disgusting. Albie was a big fan of the scientific method, not making things up based on subjective feelings as you've done.

Steve Case said:
This is one of those mindless things repeated over and over again
when there's no logical reason why it should be so. Well really,
why is methane claimed to be more powerful? You can Google that
question and find web pages that claim to provide an answer but
when you get down to the nitty gritty they never supply any real
numbers, just words.

You can also Google - methane times more powerful - and you will
find web pages that claim methane is:

25 times
84 times
86 times
72 times
20 times
33 times
21 times​

more powerful or potent than CO2.

That's just from the first ten Google returns. It pretty much looks
like they're making it up as they go along. Do your own search to
try and answer the question why methane is claimed to be exactly
72 or 86 or ... times more powerful than CO2.
Click to expand...

You googled something and got different answers, therefore all the scientists are just "making it up as they go along". Jesus H. ****ing Christ.
 
RabidAlpaca said:
The fact that a science denier like yourself would try to use Einstein to prove a point why science is bull**** and reality is determined by trolls on the internet is disgusting. Albie was a big fan of the scientific method, not making things up based on subjective feelings as you've done.
Click to expand...

Actually, I'm a skeptic because I prefer science to advocacy. I find some arguments more persuasive than others despite the deluge of advocacy in another direction. Did you ever stop to think perhaps the emperor is naked?

Thomas Kuhn wrote a marvelous book, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. If you have not read it, I recommend it. Svensmark, Shaviv and some others are unhinging AGW orthodoxy in much the same way that Copernicus dismantled the Ptolemaic planetary system.
 
RabidAlpaca said:
You googled something and got different answers, therefore all the scientists
are just "making it up as they go along". Jesus H. ****ing Christ.
Click to expand...
You tell me why the claim is made that CH4 is anywhere from 20 to over 100
times more potent a greenhouse gas than CO2. The precision of the claims is
really ridiculous. Well really 21 times, not 20 and not 22 but 21 times. Or 84,
not 85 and not 83 but 84 times. Clearly the people making this stuff up haven't
a clue and neither do you.
 
Steve Case said:
You tell me why the claim is made that CH4 is anywhere from 20 to over 100
times more potent a greenhouse gas than CO2. The precision of the claims is
really ridiculous. Well really 21 times, not 20 and not 22 but 21 times. Or 84,
not 85 and not 83 but 84 times. Clearly the people making this stuff up haven't
a clue and neither do you.
Click to expand...

What does it matter what factor worse methane is than CO2? You don't seem to be arguing about numbers you seem to be suggesting they're flat out not greenhouse gases at all.

What is your background in climate science or science at all and how many years of your life have you dedicated to it? You're an expert, right?
 
RabidAlpaca said:
One of the many things you've overlooked here is that the density of atmospheric gases drops exponentially with altitude, so by the time it gets to where emissions could shoot down and miss earth, there's hardly any CO2 left. Do you think we can infinitely pump CO2 into the atmosphere without consequence? Do you think the current mixture of oxygen, nitrogen and CO2 can and does remain constant regardless of what we do? The fact remains that CO2 is a greenhouse gas, it's ability to trap heat in a planet's atmosphere is a fact and beyond question, and the scientific community has as much of a consensus as there is for electron theory and heliocentrism.
Click to expand...
If there is less CO2 as you get higher it only reduces the chances of a 15 um photon striking a CO2 molecule.
Since a CO2 molecule at the surface has less than a 50% chance of it's emission heading towards the surface,
anything higher only reduces that chance.
I do not think we can infinity pump CO2 into the atmosphere, as there is a finite supply of CO2,
I think it is questionable if Human activity could even double the CO2 level, We have been trying hard for over a century,
and are only 43% of the way towards doubling the level now.
We have already used up the cheap easy oil, the rest is more expensive and difficult to extract.
As I have stated, CO2 is a greenhouse gas, The actual mechanism of that function is poorly understood.
If the mechanism were as simple as they describe, the diurnal and seasonal asymmetry would not be so great.

It is not a simple problem, but it is an irrelevant one.
Long before CO2 becomes an issue, market forces will push fossil derived liquid fuels, higher than the
man made fuels, People will buy the lowest cost product.
The man made can be made carbon neutral, so new CO2 emissions from the liquid fuel sector will all but halt.
 
RabidAlpaca said:
What does it matter what factor worse methane is than CO2?
You don't seem to be arguing about numbers you seem to be
suggesting they're flat out not greenhouse gases at all.

What is your background in climate science or science at all
and how many years of your life have you dedicated to it?
You're an expert, right?
Click to expand...

I successfully graduated from Mrs. McGraw’s 8th grade in
1958, took a personal typing class along the way and I'm
self-taught in Microsoft's Excel. I don't need anymore
education than that to see through the garbage spewed by
so-called climate scientists.

But back to the issue, tell me why CH4 with it's tiny
infrared absorption spectrum masked by H2O's spectrum is
claimed to be many times more powerful than CO2 as a
greenhouse gas.

Well, I expect you don't like a link to WattsUpWithThat
but Willis Eschenbach produced a good run-down on the
radiative effect of increasing methane concentration in
the atmosphere compared to CO2. Here's the link:

Scientific Urban Legends

In all of that, if you're smart, you should be able to
come up with the many times more powerful reason. It's
simple arithmetic, chemistry and also bullsh!t of course,
but it's in there.
 
Steve Case said:
You tell me why the claim is made that CH4 is anywhere from 20 to over 100
times more potent a greenhouse gas than CO2. The precision of the claims is
really ridiculous. Well really 21 times, not 20 and not 22 but 21 times. Or 84,
not 85 and not 83 but 84 times. Clearly the people making this stuff up haven't
a clue and neither do you.
Click to expand...
Clearly YOU are making stuff up with NO (or DISHONESTLY withheld) Links.

Here, in just ONE link you probably saw and MISrepresented, is the answer to the "discrepancy." How much time is used to calculate it's pervasive effects.

How Bad of a Greenhouse Gas Is Methane?
The global warming potential of the gaseous fossil fuel may be consistently Underestimated
Gayathri Vaidyanathan, ClimateWire December 22, 2015
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-bad-of-a-greenhouse-gas-is-methane/

.,.At issue is the global warming potential (GWP), a number that allows experts to compare methane with its better-known cousin, carbon dioxide. While CO2 persists in the atmosphere for centuries, or even millennia, methane warms the planet on steroids for a decade or two before decaying to CO2.

In those short decades, methane warms the planet by 86 times as much as CO2, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
But policymakers typically ignore methane's warming potential over 20 years (GWP20) when assembling a nation's emissions inventory. Instead, they stretch out methane's warming impacts over a century, which makes the gas appear more benign than it is, experts said. The 100-year warming potential (GWP100) of methane is 34, according to the IPCC.".."​
 
Jack Hays said:
Well, no.

[h=1]URL="https://wattsupwiththat.com /2016/07/21/sea-level-rise-acceleration-and-closure/" se levelRise, Acceleration, and Closure[/URL][/h][ FONt....

URL= [urlhttps:// wattsupwiththat.com/ [url 2016/07/21/sea-level-rise-acceleration-and-closure/ 2016[/UR L] in URL= https://wattsupwiththat.com/category/sea-level/" Sea level /URL ].
URL="https://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/05/28/2015-updated-noaa-tide-gauge-data-shows-no-coastal-sea-level-rise-acceleration/"]
clip_image0103.jpg
[/URL]
[h=1]URL="https://wattsupwiththat.com/ 2016/05/28/2015-updated-noaa-tide-gauge-data-shows-no-coastal-sea-level-rise-acceleration 2015 Updated NOAA Tide Gauge Data Shows No Coastal ..
URL="https://wattsupwiththat.com/ 2016/05/28/2015-updated-noaa-tide-gauge-data-shows-no-coastal-sea-level-rise-acceleration/ ay 28, 2016 URL] in
URL=" htts ://wattsupwiththat.com /category/sea-level/"Sea level/URL].
Click to expand...
So you've got some/EXCLUSIVELLY Crackpot Conspiracysts at the same Wacko websites.

In this case, when title links are 'Broken' to show Sources...
It's ALL WUWT!
ALL SEVEN!
WTF!
like "Backing up" 'Infowars, with "Infowars".

ALL Your Link Dumps are from a Few Wacky Blogs.
You Never 'touch down' with credible sources.
Due to the internet, one can indeed live in La La Land, but this is NOT reality.
Last-word away.. usually no more than 10 or 12, because you are NONconversant on this and all topics.
 
Last edited:
RabidAlpaca said:
And what are you basing this on? You're completely devoid of reality now and it's something you can test yourself. This is children's science.

Is it Getting Hot in Here? Investigate the Greenhouse Effect


Even if you reject science as you do, you could figure this out by simple logic alone. If you had a big sealed room, is there any amount of burning of fuel, wood, or other material that could possibly cause a health hazard? CO2 has no effect on anything and the atmosphere magically balances itself, right?
Click to expand...

I see you didn't read the link, or denied the science of it.
 
eohrnberger said:
Little do those that believe that carbon is such a problem realize that Methane is many multiple times worse, and that most of it comes from cows who give us milk, beef, and hides for shoes and belts. You think they'd be willing to give up eating beef, drinking milk, and wearing leather?
Click to expand...
OK, if methane is worse, then how?

What is it's sensitivity to doubling vs. the doubling of CO2?

Please do tell.
 
Steve Case said:
Uh huh, The atmosphere on Venus is 95% CO2 and it's hot enough there to melt lead.
And on Mars the atmosphere is also 95% CO2 and it's so cold there it snows dry ice.
Here on Earth the atmosphere is 0.04% CO2 and you're claiming exactly what?
Click to expand...
The difference is the atmospheric pressure...
 
RabidAlpaca said:
That CO2 is a greenhouse gas and it traps heat. Are you saying this is false? Publish your findings and collect your fame and fortune. During the winter in north America there are many places colder than on Mars. Mars can trap more heat because of its CO2, but it's further from the sun so there is less heat to trap.
Click to expand...

My take is those who use Venus as an example fail to understand what the science actually says.
 
Steve Case said:
This is one of those mindless things repeated over and over again
when there's no logical reason why it should be so. Well really,
why is methane claimed to be more powerful? You can Google that
question and find web pages that claim to provide an answer but
when you get down to the nitty gritty they never supply any real
numbers, just words.

You can also Google - methane times more powerful - and you will
find web pages that claim methane is:

25 times
84 times
86 times
72 times
20 times
33 times
21 times​

more powerful or potent than CO2.

That's just from the first ten Google returns. It pretty much looks
like they're making it up as they go along. Do your own search to
try and answer the question why methane is claimed to be exactly
72 or 86 or ... times more powerful than CO2.
Click to expand...

So please tell us your own words, what the numbers actually represent.

Can you do that please?

Under what conditions are those numbers valid?
 
RabidAlpaca said:
What does it matter what factor worse methane is than CO2? You don't seem to be arguing about numbers you seem to be suggesting they're flat out not greenhouse gases at all.

What is your background in climate science or science at all and how many years of your life have you dedicated to it? You're an expert, right?
Click to expand...

Because if you are speaking from a point of ignorance, what does that say...

If you cannot explain what those numbers actually represent then you are talking from where the sin doesn't shine.
 
Steve Case said:
I successfully graduated from Mrs. McGraw’s 8th grade in
1958,
Click to expand...

8th grade in 1958 is probably a better education than kids today get in their first or second year of college.
 
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