Look - the most hotly contested data is the actual climate sensitivity, which is defined in terms of temperature rise for a doubling of CO2-e * concentration.

1.There is a clear relationship between CO2 concentration and warming, (I'd like to see you dispute that) and it's extremely easy to calculate using the forcing equation, which is a derivative of some pretty basic physics. Put different levels of CO2 in a tube and you can easily demonstrate how much it absorbs Infrared.  

2. The actual forcing due to CO2 is about 1 degree C for a doubling of atmospheric CO2.  

3. The climate sensitivity is generally taken to be about 3 degrees  C (plus or minus 1.5) including the 1 degrees C from the CO2 component.  The additional 2 degrees is due to feedbacks, which include things like increases in water vapour concentration, decreases in marine albedo due to melting sea ice and a few others.

4. The tropical rainforests are currently a sink for CO2. When global temperatures rise by a further 2 degrees C, they will start to become net emitters of CO2. By that stage, all the tree planting in the world won't help.

5. The climate sensitivity can be monitored using long term trends, either pre-industrial age or post industrial age. If we use post industrial age data, we need to account for thermal inertia in the oceans. The warming caused by the last 50 years will not be fully realised until 200 years hence.

I've tried to keep it non-technical. If you can grasp that basic science together with an appreciation of the Earth's carbon balance, you should be able to understand how it works. High School students seem to understand the science quite easily.


*CO2-e = (CO2 equivalents - includes other GHG's corrected for individual Global warming potential (GWP).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_warming_potential

Of course I'm wasting my time here. Why bother?

Well some High school students understand it better than others.

Happy wrote on May 13^th, 2009 at 4:33pm:


Happy - a temperature difference of -6 degrees is all the difference between now and the peak of the last ice age.

The next Ice age could be several thousand years away. We're talking about 91 years until the end of the century.

A 2 degree C increase will change the tropical forests from net sinks to net emitters of CO2. A 2 degree C increase will kill the Great Barrier Reef and severely impact on staple cereal crops like rice, resulting in approximately a 30% loss in crop yield. We haven't see the impact of major world famines yet. We haven't seen the impact of the loss of seasonal melt water from the Himalayas either.

Do your homework. Sunspots increase solar irradiance.

We're not joking. This is for real.

muso wrote on May 14^th, 2009 at 8:25pm:



I am not in a position of making scientific studies on the subject myself.

All I do is look at the argument put by others who study the subject.
I would hate to see global warming and to see global cooling too.

I just have a reasonable doubt that right now we are heading toward global warming.

Ten years ago I would say definitely YES, today I say not sure, that’s all.

Happy wrote on May 16^th, 2009 at 12:14pm:


The problem is that the arguments you are reading are not those advanced by people who study the subject.

To say that sunspots decrease solar activity is like saying that the Sun orbits the Earth. Do you understand that the Earth actually orbits the Sun, or is that too scientific for you? Would you prefer to just keep an open mind on it because you don't understand the maths of gravitational theory?

This is an all too frequently quoted cop-out - I don't understand the science so I'll keep an open mind.

The science is pretty basic stuff that can be understood by most intelligent teenagers (note - we don't currently have any of those on this forum that I'm aware of - so surprise me).

Quote:


Al Gore....  rotflmao 

http://www.odu.edu/ao/instadv/quest/Greenhouse.html
Ice In The Greenhouse:
Earth May Be Cooling, Not Warming
Jens Bischof is author of Ice Drift, Ocean Circulation And Climate Change and is a research assistant professor in Old Dominion’s Department of Ocean, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23411799-7583,00.html
Climate facts to warm to
Quote:


http://jennifermarohasy.com/blog/2009/05/ocean-cooling-falsifies-global-warming-hypothesis/
Quote:


http://www.friendsofscience.org/index.php?id=121
Worry About Global Cooling - Not Warming
Dr. Tim Ball is a Victoria-based environmental consultant and Chairman of NRSP. He was one of the first climatology PhD's in Canada and taught and researched in the field as a professor at the University of Winnipeg for many years.

Quote:

Nice figure Squippo...  probably not even accurate.  Nor on topic.

Mind you if you have proof that global warming is primarily caused and driven by man-made CO2 emissions,  then you should be up for some sort of science prize...  because no one else has yet.

We all know climate warms and cools Squippy...  that aint the argument.

I'm not never have been a climate denier...  always believe in climate.

Read "Heaven and Earth" yet Squippo?
No?  How unusual for you.

You probably don't realise it but I'm staying exactly on topic.