Can we talk about global warming for a second? So I'm no denier, by any means. But it's gotta be more complicated then Al Gore has been spouting off for years right? The issue I see with the "mainstream" opinion of global warming thus far is 2 things.
1) Dissolved Gases. When you raise the temperature of a liquid, the ability of said liquid to retain solid gases decreases. This contradicts the notion that the rise in CO2 affects the temperature, when temperature increase actually is what causes more CO2 to be released into the atmosphere (by way of dissolved CO2 in our oceans b/c of plant life)
2) Henry's Law. The assumption posed from my first bullet then leads to the question "well then that increased CO2 then causes the greenhouse effect"...well, not necessarily. B/c HL states that the concentration of a gas dissolved in a solvent will be proportional to the partial pressure of the gas above the solvent. This means that they will constantly be in equilibrium.
My question to you then Veeky Forums is what exactly IS going on? I'm no climate-change denier, or any kind of troll, redditor, or /pol/-fag. I'm genuinely curious. The facts are there, ice caps are melting, ocean levels are rising. But I don't think CO2 is the issue, and carbon-footprints are retarded.
PIC -Al Gore's bullshit chart suggesting that Carbon Dioxide causes a rise in temperature
>When you raise the temperature of a liquid, the ability of said liquid to retain solid gases decreases. This contradicts the notion that the rise in CO2 affects the temperature, when temperature increase actually is what causes more CO2 to be released into the atmosphere What? You haven't shown how that's a contradiction at all. Also, the ocean is currently a net CO2 sink despite the rising water temperature, which really underscores how far we are from CO2 equilibrium right now.
>HL states that the concentration of a gas dissolved in a solvent will be proportional to the partial pressure of the gas above the solvent. This means that they will constantly be in equilibrium. So what? I'm not really sure where you're going with this.
>My question to you then Veeky Forums is what exactly IS going on? Have you tried reading ANYTHING other than denier copy-paste and Al Gore quotes?
>But I don't think CO2 is the issue, Then you're wrong. We can measure the Earth's outgoing radiation directly, and determine the strength and components of the greenhouse effect from that. There is no doubt that the current rise in temperatures is caused by sky-rocketing CO2 levels. We can also determine the source of that atmospheric CO2 by isotope analysis, and can show it's originating from fossil sources.
Camden Nelson
Here's one piece of evidence that proves you wrong: relative abundance of carbon isotopes in the atmosphere. The carbon in hydrocarbons we burn is diffferent to the carbon that was already in the environment. We can measure the relative abundance of different carbon isotopes over time and see that we're definitely the one's releasing CO2 which we know is a greenhouse gas.
Joshua Walker
Rate of carbon dioxide accumulation in the atmosphere is another aspect you might want to look at. Its very very high.
Jose King
this is directly from my chemistry textbook. like i said i'm not denying i just think the CO2 dialogue is a little off
Wyatt Russell
Why would ocean acification be happening unless more carbon was being introduced into the environment somehow, given Henry's Law?
Chase Morales
acidification*
Josiah Bailey
The contradiction is in the idea that CO2 causes the rise in temperature, and simply looking at a graph might reaffirm that notion. but dissolved gases are retained less at higher temperatures, which means that the temperature increase actually happens first, and then the rise in CO2 is then seen because of this. Not the converse, which is generally what people believe to be true
Joseph Brown
>this is directly from my chemistry textbook. Right. But you're claiming that it somehow contradicts AGW, and I don't see why.
>i just think the CO2 dialogue is a little off But why?
Asher Thompson
so the issue is mostly related to HFCs and CFCs then, not so much "Carbon Dioxide"
Brody Smith
The oceans cant possibly be the cause of rising CO2 levels - they're abosbing significantly more CO2 than they're emitting.
Xavier Thomas
>so the issue is mostly related to HFCs and CFCs then, not so much "Carbon Dioxide" Nope. We know what the relative forcing strength of different gasses are. HFCs and CFCs don't even come close to the contribution from CO2.
Aaron White
no because the use of HFCs (or was is CFCs) was discontinued but the carbon trend remains also we don't use enough of those to make this kind of impact they're only used for what? AC units? refrigerators? and they last for years in the machine rather than escape into the atmosphere right away
Logan Clark
what does this have to do with rote memorization? I'm just trying to unpack it all as i currently understand it with the laws and equations that I know to this point, and to fully understand means challenging the status quo, even if it's in a "devil's advocate" sense
Leo Smith
The graphic is funny in a silly way. Everything up until the modern era correlates near perfect and the argument somehow arises that the two are not related. So for 650,000 years carbon was doing carbon things but within the past 400 years, carbon somehow stopped trapping heat.
Parker Thompson
that chart was discovered to have bumped temperature increases by about 800 years though too, to make that correlation look more convincing. So i never said they "weren't related" like you suggest. I simply said that the causal relationship seems flipped, based upon what I know about how gases behave when dissolved in liquids, as well as how a dynamic equilibrium will behave
Nathaniel Watson
>ocean is currently a net CO2 sink
Jackson Jenkins
I'm an ice core scientist studying paleoclimate OP, and let me answer some of your questions legitimately
>Dissolved Gases. When you raise the temperature of a liquid, the ability of said liquid to retain solid gases decreases. This is absolutely correct, yes
>This contradicts the notion that the rise in CO2 affects the temperature, when temperature increase actually is what causes more CO2 to be released into the atmosphere (by way of dissolved CO2 in our oceans b/c of plant life) Not sure what you meant, are you suggesting that increase in temperature causes increase in atmospheric CO2? This is not true, and you kind of answered your own question below with Henry's law.
>2) Henry's Law. The assumption posed from my first bullet then leads to the question "well then that increased CO2 then causes the greenhouse effect"...well, not necessarily. B/c HL states that the concentration of a gas dissolved in a solvent will be proportional to the partial pressure of the gas above the solvent. This means that they will constantly be in equilibrium. Yeah the atmosphere and the ocean are almost always in equilibrium following Henry's law. You are correct that everything we dumped into the atmosphere will eventually ends up in the equilibrium with the ocean. This is why the ocean is currently acidifying, because the atmosphere is oversaturated with pCO2 compared to the ocean, and hence the ocean is a net sink of CO2 despite the fact that the ocean is warming.
Seems like you're a bit confused on Henry's law, or are you confused about the lead/lag relationship between CO2 and temperature?
Ian Sanders
Just to add things about the lead/lag relationship in CO2. With ice core records we know what Antarctic T leads CO2 then CO2 leads global temperature in the past 800ky.
