its hot (a rant)

[fishingme]

Originally Posted by Diggles [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

I live in Juneau pretty sure there's more rain.

I live in the puget friggin sound. I'm inside the water!

[Diggles]

But is it a national rainforest?

[Nikon]

Originally Posted by Tasslehofp99 [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

BTW -- Global warming is fake. The earths climate works in natural cycles, maybe we speed it up by about .00000000000000000000000000000000001%....GO BUY A PRIUS! save the world....pfft yeah right.

This made me laugh. Tell that to the ice core researchers that provide most of what we know about the history of the earths climate up to about 400,000 years ago.

Yes, the earth does heat and cool in cycles. No educated chemist or climate researcher will argue that point. I'm really interested to know where your idea of the percent contribution attributed to humans came from.

Since 1880, scientists have measured an average global atmospheric temperature change of 0.6° C (Gr. 1). We are currently near the peak of the global heat trend and if the temperature cycle continues sometime between now and the next thousand years or so the earth should start to cool. Now, while that will seem to concur with the assumption that global warming is natural, what is not natural is the correlation between other factors that influence the temperature change.

Carbon dioxide (CO₂), is a gas produced by living organisms, such as ourselves, and through combustion reactions such as burning something. (We also exhale the gas as well but that is not considered a significant source). In the atmosphere carbon dioxide acts as a heat insulator retaining the heat that makes it to Earth from the sun. This is known as the "greenhouse" effect.

Now, by studying pockets of air that are trapped miles deep in the polar ice caps from hundreds of thousands of years ago, scientists have been able to study the contents of the air and the average global temperature change. There can be seen a direct correlation between the amount of carbon dioxide and particle dust in the atmosphere in respect to the average global temperature at a given time. (graph to follow) In an example such as the Vostok Ice Core Data, it is easy to see the relationship between the levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and the average global temperature change. They are almost identical plots. Inversely, the highest levels of dust in the atmosphere correlate with the lowest points on the change in carbon dioxide and global temperature change. Some of you may be wondering what atmospheric dust has to do with global temperature. If you have ever seen the result of a large volcanic eruption it will be easy to understand. When a volcano erupts, it throws massive amount of dirt/dust particles into the atmosphere turning the sky dark. This dust essentially blocks the suns visible rays from hitting the Earth's surface. It reflects the light/heat. This has a cooling effect. So as the graph shows, the more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, the hotter the temperature gets as more heat is retained. As the levels of dust increase, the Earth cools itself as more light/heat is reflected.

Animals and natural organic processes produce varying amount of carbon dioxide and have been the major contributors throughout history. In the late 1800's, our civilization went through the industrial revolution and began burning fossil fuels at an expedited rate. As a result of this, each year more and more carbon dioxide is released into the atmosphere at a rate that is unmatched by any natural process on Earth. The earth has one major countermeasure to the buildup of carbon dioxide - photosynthesis. Photosynthesis is used by plant life to produce sugar for food and release fresh oxygen gas. When you take into account the mass amount of deforestation we have seen in the past 100 years, it is easy to see that we are reducing the amount of natural air scrubbers. So by this we are not only increasing the amount of carbon dioxide being released into the atmosphere, but we are reducing the amount of organic life that can remove the carbon dioxide through a natural process.

Now, some will still argue the natural highs and lows in the global temperature change. What I've done on the Vostok chart is marked the current level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere in ppmv (parts per million volume) to scale. It far exceeds the levels produced by natural means over the last 400,000 years. I've also included a chart of the global temperature change from 1880 to 2005 to illustrate where the 0.6°C average change comes from (Gr. 2). I welcome any intelligent counter arguments and I expect to get flamed (RnF forum) but I figured some might enjoy this. So, buying a Prius isn't going to save the world but this is at least food for thought. The more you know....

Gr. 1
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Gr. 2
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[fishingme]

Originally Posted by Diggles [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

But is it a national rainforest?

It's a sound.

[Saidi]

It is most certainly only 80 and perfectly sunny, here in west LA! [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.] Seems like perfect beach weather to me! Venice Beach, here I come!

[sadada1234]

Thanks a lot...