Tuesday, April 10, 2007

Alexandre/Global Warming: C02 Saturation Theory

Alexandre,

I just learned about "saturation theory" over at Small Dead Animals (SDA).

The theory is this: C02 occupies a very narrow spectrum affecting blocking of the sun's rays. It's like a flashlight shining on a billiard table. Without any balls (C02) on the table, the light goes straight through to the other side of the table. For every billiard ball added to the table, the probability increases that some light will be reflected.

But. At some point, adding additional billiard balls will have no further effect, because there are sufficient balls already on the table.

Some scientists are saying this point has already been reached with C02, and adding more C02 into the atmosphere will have no further effect.

We need more science, and less catering to anti-western, fear-mongering activists.

And that's the way the (billiard) Ball bounces.

11 comments:

Alexandre said...

Now you´re talking! That´s something worth a debate.
Unfortunately, the SDA website blocks Brazilian users, and that means me. Do you know of any other source to that? Or could you give me more details about it so that I can Google it? Whose theory is it, for example?

Anonymous said...

Interesting theory, but what is left out of a lot of these speculations is the fact that there is some pretty strong evidence that major swings in the climate are accompanied by catastrophic events, such as asteroid bombardments. Have you noticed the uptick in meteor sitings, or the fact that Jupiter now has 63 (count em' 63!) new moons? It makes me think the whole global warming/climate change schtick is a boodoggle to distract us from much more serious matters. You may find this article very enlightening:

http://tinyurl.com/2wsj9a

Alexandre said...

It looks like that is a very private and secret theory of SDA´s... that´s very scientific.

BallBounces said...

Alexandre -- where have you been man?! I've been trying to get ahold of you. I contacted SDA about Brazil, and Kate said, "try it now".

So, can you access SDA now?

BallBounces said...

Sariade -- I'll pass on most of what the article says, but the Bible does say that in the last days there shall be "signs in the heavens above and the earth beneath".

As for Noah, I believe that he, the flood, and the ark were all real, and I look forward to meeting him some day.

From what I can glean from the Bible, the Earth's atmosphere and climate were quite different prior to the flood, and our science of "looking backwards" (and forward, for that matter), is not as solid as empirical science associated with direct observation of events in a lab.

BTW, have you met Alexandre? If not, stay tuned, he likes to weigh in on GW.

Alexandre said...

I tried again, and no success so far... No other sources to that?

Alexandre said...

I found no access to SDA nor any hints of the theory so far.
Anyway, my perception is, something doesn´t have to be accurate or reliable to be considered "proof" of the non-existence, or the human origin of GW to you. It just has to come to the (in your view) right conclusion.
A study done by a reputable university says GW is real and human made. You say "I don´t know... they needed funding...". Donald Duck says the opposite, and you go "aha! look! there´s no consensus!"
I´ll quote that verse by The Police again: "a blind man looking for a shadow of doubt".

PS: I had a look at your profile, and instead of your doubtful scientific sensibility, I definetely prefer your musical taste.

BallBounces said...

Alexandre: Try to see it my way; only time will tell if I am right or I am wrong -- while we see it your way, there's a chance that we might be apart before to long; we can work it out!

I didn't find the article, but I did Google the guy's name and came across some stuff.

I've got another email in to SDA about Brazil. I told them that "the world needs more small dead animals!". I'll post here if/when I hear from them.

If you think my musical taste is good now, just wait until my debut CD comes out -- it should be ready soon.

Here's another good quote: "All lies and jest, still a man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest" -- Paul Simon, the Boxer

Another one: "Life is what happens when you are busy making plans" -- John Lennon

BallBounces said...

Alexandre: Here's a substantial extract from the post from SDA. It was a comment inside an article. I thought I had posted an extract from this earlier; but I don't see it now. I am posting it here because you do not currently have access to SDA in Brazil; I hope I'm not violating any copyright in doing so; if so I beg forgiveness of the copyright holder. Here it is:

TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.smalldeadanimals.com/mt/mt-tb.cgi/5077

.... The question is: how much of an effect will a change in the portion of CO2 vapour have in terms of change to temperature. In other words, we're interested in the first derivative of temperature with respect to concentration, dT/dc, over the range of concentrations covering the current values and reasonable variances thereto.

Lars Kamél, from the Department of Astronomy and Space Physics at the University of Uppsala, writes that: "The main reason why CO2 can only have a small impact on the climate of the world is called saturation. This is a phenomenon well known from theory and observations of spectral lines in stellar atmospheres. An atom or a molecule does not absorb light and other electromagnetic radiation at all wavelengths. It only absorbs in narrow regions in the electromagnetic spectrum. Every atom or molecule has its own characteristic sequence of spectral lines.

"Carbon dioxide in the Earth's atmosphere has exactly one important spectral line in the infrared part of the spectrum. This line is clearly saturated. If you increase the number of CO2 molecules in the atmosphere, not much will happen. The amount of infrared radiation, that is, heat, that will be absorbed changes only by a minimal and insignificant amount. Only if we increase the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere by orders of magnitude, will there be a noticeable change."

As Mr. Borrello wrote (private correspondence): "According to the atmospheric transmission data (H.W. Yates and J. H. Taylor, "Infrared Transmission of the Atmosphere," U.S. Naval Research Laboratory, Washington, DC, NRL Report 5453, 1960) carbon dioxide has a very strong absorption band between 13.5 and 15.5 microns wavelength. Earth radiates as a blackbody with a mean surface temperature near 300°K and has a peak energy wavelength at 10 microns. Earth's radiation energy in the 13.5 to 15.5 band is 8.4% of Earth's total blackbody radiation.

"Since CO2 absorbs all radiation in this band it absorbs and reradiates 8.4% of the total energy within 200 meters of the surface. Adding more CO2 does not increase this effect because it is at its maximum. Using the absorptivity function (Beer's Law) for a gas, CO2 would only begin to lose this impact if CO2 concentration dropped below a few parts per million. It has been above 200 ppm for over a million years according to geophysicists. Thus I claim the heat retention as a percentage of Earth's total radiation by CO2 is constant". (Emphasis mine.)

What we have here is a double-whammy. Not only is the man-made CO2 vapour concentration contribution to the green-house gas effect minuscule, changes in concentration don't have significant effect either.

Now compare this to the fear-mongering in the UN and the mass-market media. The IPCC says a change of a few degrees over the next hundred years will result in species being wiped out, crime rising, starvation killing hundreds of millions, disease becoming rampant, islands disappearing beneath the waves, and deserts consuming entire continents.

Funny how that didn't happen the last time the earth's atmosphere was a few degrees warmer. And the UN says that we must act now. Why? Even their models don't say that all their conjectured warming will happen in the next 10 years. If the warming over the next ten years is only a few tenths of a degree, why can't we wait a decade or two until we have a better understanding of the science and technology involved? ....

Posted by: Vitruvius at April 10, 2007 6:22 AM

BallBounces said...

Lars Kamel:

http://www.astro.uu.se/~l/

3 articles, including Hockey Stick and C02

BallBounces said...

Algoredre: I've heard back from SDA. They removed the block on .br. If you provide your IP number, Kate will look again. If you want to send it privately, send it to Kate McMillan at kate@katewerk.com. -- Rk.

"... nothing intellectually compelling or challenging.. bald assertions coupled to superstition... woefully pathetic"