What does “Global Warming” really mean? The entire planet isn’t heating up, only the atmosphere. The temperature of the oceans isn’t increasing either, only the surface temperature is changing. So what is “Global Warming?” Should you care about “Global Warming?”
As you may know, our planet has been around for over 4 BILLION years. That’s a very long time in the cosmic sense, because our universe is estimated to be around 13 BILLION years old. You might say that our planet is now an “adult” planet that is reaching middle-age.
There is no human alive who can fathom the gulf of time that is 4 billion years. Our lifetime is only 72 years on average, sometimes longer, sometimes shorter. Therefore, humans really only live for about 0.0000018% of the current planet’s lifetime. Our lifetime is to the planet as a creature living for 41 seconds is to our lifetime. How much influence can that one creature have on our lives in those 41 seconds?
Well, as an infant, when we are the most dynamic and susceptible to change, those 41 seconds can mean life or death. As we approach our own middle-age, though, our bodies are more stable and resistant to change. Those 41 seconds won’t mean anything. There are thousands of creatures living on our bodies that only live for seconds. These creatures are microscopic to us, much like we are to the planet.
All living creatures emit waste gases. Out of our bodies come water vapor, methane, and some malodorous airs from those 41 second microscopic organisms in our crevices. We also produce waste gas as a part of our lifecycle. For instance, driving a car, heating the house, cooling the house, playing computer, cooking food, etc., all produce carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, hydrogen sulfide, and various other noxious effluence as a byproduct.
http://www.physicalgeography.net/fundamentals/7b.html
The volume of the effective atmosphere is 51,924,265,160,241,167,534 cubic meters. I figured this using 12,756,000 meters as the Earth’s diameter, and 100,000 meters as the atmosphere’s depth. Roughly 78% of the atmosphere is molecular nitrogen (N2) and 21% molecular oxygen (O2). The remaining 1% is composed of Argon and other trace elements, such as Carbon, Methane, etc.
http://ess.geology.ufl.edu/HTMLpages/ESS/GLY1033_notes/lecture1.html
Consider the carbon dioxide (CO2) concentration in the atmosphere. This is the big player in the “Global Warming” theory. To understand how CO2, and any other chemical, affects our atmosphere and surface temperature, you need to consider its THERMAL CAPACITY. This is a measurement of how much energy it can “hold” (or absorb and remit through radiative and kinetic transfer).
http://biocab.org/Heat_Transfer.html
The thermal capacity (specific heat) of CO2 is 850 J/Kg-C, which is 25% of the thermal capacity of water vapor, which is 4190 J/Kg-C. This is very important because you see a tremendous amount of water vapor in the atmosphere every single day of your life. Often times, you pray for it when the average surface temperature of your area is unusually high. Water vapor in its condensed form is cloud cover, and furthermore, falling rain.
Thermal capacity is very important because it measures how well the surface albedo will be absorbed into the atmosphere, as well as the solar incident radiation. Surface albedo is the energy reflectivity of a surface. Sheets of ice and snow have a high surface albedo; where as soil and rock have a low surface albedo. Water, such as ocean water, has a high surface albedo (glare). Not only do we get heat from our star, but we get it from the Earth’s core in the form of thermal radiation. All of these sources contribute to the average surface temperature of the Earth.
Now you know that the thermal capacity of the evil CO2 is a FOURTH of that of friendly water vapor. This should give you pause in your appreciation of “Global Warming” alarmists because CO2 is not going to have any significant affect on our atmosphere’s warming. Rather, your much heralded “hydrogen” car, which emits WATER VAPOR as its by-product, will have 4 TIMES as much global warming influence as CO2 will. Not only will you be strapping a Hindenburg to the back of your car, but you’ll be polluting the atmosphere four times faster than the gas-guzzling SUV you hate so much. I digress.
The US releases about 40,000 pounds of CO2 per person, per year. CO2 has a density of 2.814 grams per cubic meter. There are 2.2 pounds in every kilogram, so 40,000 pounds is really about 18,182 kg. That is about 6,461,200 cubic meters per year. The US has about 300 million people in it, so that comes to 1,938,360,000,000,000 cubic meters per year. Remembering the volume of the atmosphere, which is 51,924,265,160,241,167,534, we can compute the relative volume of CO2 emission per year by the US as 0.003733% of the atmosphere.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth's_atmosphere
We know that the Earth likes to have a CO2 concentration in the atmosphere, otherwise our plants would all die. The typical concentration of CO2, for the last 400,000 years, has been between 170 ppm and 300 ppm. The Earth’s atmospheric density is about 1.2 kg per cubic meter at sea level, and quickly becomes smaller as you approach the Karman line at 100 km. If there is 1 million cubic centimeters in a cubic meter, then the US's yearly CO2 charge is about 37 ppm. The continent of Asia is notorious for is CO2 charge, with over 3 billion people on it, all burning oil and gas to live. So what, though, right?
Let’s consider this graph we’ve all seen in the recent news and trade journals:
http://www.technologyreview.com/articlefiles/climatechart.pdf
Here you see about 400,000 years of ice-core data showing the CO2 concentration, sea level, and average surface temperature all nicely correlated. The graph goes from left to right, with the past on the left, and the present-day on the right.
All of the “Global Warming” alarmists claim that because today the CO2 concentration is at about 377 ppm, and the surface temperature is about 14.5 C, that “Global Warming” is upon us.
Why don’t we look at the graph a little bit closer. Notice the periodic trend on the graph, starting at 400,000 years ago, when the CO2 concentration was 280 ppm. Were there any humans driving around in their gas-guzzling SUVs back then? How about dirty coal firing furnaces in China? Maybe India had an abundance of motorcycles back then too, all polluting the atmosphere like crazy?
Jump ahead in time to 325,000 years ago and you find a really big spike in CO2 concentration (at 300 ppm), but with an average sea level 20 meters LOWER than they are today. Oops, that doesn’t jive with the “Global Warming” alarmists, so we’ll just have to ignore that for now. Maybe that was the last great human civilization before the glaciation of 260,000 years ago.
Moving ahead in time, at about 240,000 years we see another spike in temperature with a similar spike in CO2. This one must be those pesky “Grays” that we see hovering around our planet. Maybe they were driving around in their “Graycedes Model 2000 SUX” and polluting our atmosphere while we were throwing spears at the local Mastodons. The “Global Warming” alarmists would likely have you think that our cave-man campfires were the cause of that CO2 spike. It was a great party.
One more move through the graph takes us to about 125,000 years ago when we see a great sea level spike to about 5 meters above the current level, but with a CO2 level that is about 275 ppm, or a whole 100 ppm LOWER than it is today. Well, that doesn’t jive with the first event at 325,000 years which put the sea level LOWER than it is today, while showing an increase in CO2 concentration.
What you really should be concerned about is the 42 year lifetime left in our surface oil reserves, and the 140 year lifetime left in our coal reserves. That means in YOUR lifetime, you will see the end of oil-based combustion on a global scale. No matter what happens to CO2, it is guaranteed to lower in the next 100 years simply because its principal source will be gone.
Another guarantee to consider is the next glaciation. In about 70,000 years, this planet’s surface will again be covered by large glaciers and ice sheets that have since receded in the last 25,000 years. Your descendents, if they exist, will enjoy the cold winds, and breathable atmosphere that your ancestors enjoyed 25,000 years ago. We’re just stuck in the furnace blaming ourselves for something that occurs as part of the planet’s natural cycle.
As you may know, our planet has been around for over 4 BILLION years. That’s a very long time in the cosmic sense, because our universe is estimated to be around 13 BILLION years old. You might say that our planet is now an “adult” planet that is reaching middle-age.
There is no human alive who can fathom the gulf of time that is 4 billion years. Our lifetime is only 72 years on average, sometimes longer, sometimes shorter. Therefore, humans really only live for about 0.0000018% of the current planet’s lifetime. Our lifetime is to the planet as a creature living for 41 seconds is to our lifetime. How much influence can that one creature have on our lives in those 41 seconds?
Well, as an infant, when we are the most dynamic and susceptible to change, those 41 seconds can mean life or death. As we approach our own middle-age, though, our bodies are more stable and resistant to change. Those 41 seconds won’t mean anything. There are thousands of creatures living on our bodies that only live for seconds. These creatures are microscopic to us, much like we are to the planet.
All living creatures emit waste gases. Out of our bodies come water vapor, methane, and some malodorous airs from those 41 second microscopic organisms in our crevices. We also produce waste gas as a part of our lifecycle. For instance, driving a car, heating the house, cooling the house, playing computer, cooking food, etc., all produce carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, hydrogen sulfide, and various other noxious effluence as a byproduct.
http://www.physicalgeography.net/fundamentals/7b.html
The volume of the effective atmosphere is 51,924,265,160,241,167,534 cubic meters. I figured this using 12,756,000 meters as the Earth’s diameter, and 100,000 meters as the atmosphere’s depth. Roughly 78% of the atmosphere is molecular nitrogen (N2) and 21% molecular oxygen (O2). The remaining 1% is composed of Argon and other trace elements, such as Carbon, Methane, etc.
http://ess.geology.ufl.edu/HTMLpages/ESS/GLY1033_notes/lecture1.html
Consider the carbon dioxide (CO2) concentration in the atmosphere. This is the big player in the “Global Warming” theory. To understand how CO2, and any other chemical, affects our atmosphere and surface temperature, you need to consider its THERMAL CAPACITY. This is a measurement of how much energy it can “hold” (or absorb and remit through radiative and kinetic transfer).
http://biocab.org/Heat_Transfer.html
The thermal capacity (specific heat) of CO2 is 850 J/Kg-C, which is 25% of the thermal capacity of water vapor, which is 4190 J/Kg-C. This is very important because you see a tremendous amount of water vapor in the atmosphere every single day of your life. Often times, you pray for it when the average surface temperature of your area is unusually high. Water vapor in its condensed form is cloud cover, and furthermore, falling rain.
Thermal capacity is very important because it measures how well the surface albedo will be absorbed into the atmosphere, as well as the solar incident radiation. Surface albedo is the energy reflectivity of a surface. Sheets of ice and snow have a high surface albedo; where as soil and rock have a low surface albedo. Water, such as ocean water, has a high surface albedo (glare). Not only do we get heat from our star, but we get it from the Earth’s core in the form of thermal radiation. All of these sources contribute to the average surface temperature of the Earth.
Now you know that the thermal capacity of the evil CO2 is a FOURTH of that of friendly water vapor. This should give you pause in your appreciation of “Global Warming” alarmists because CO2 is not going to have any significant affect on our atmosphere’s warming. Rather, your much heralded “hydrogen” car, which emits WATER VAPOR as its by-product, will have 4 TIMES as much global warming influence as CO2 will. Not only will you be strapping a Hindenburg to the back of your car, but you’ll be polluting the atmosphere four times faster than the gas-guzzling SUV you hate so much. I digress.
The US releases about 40,000 pounds of CO2 per person, per year. CO2 has a density of 2.814 grams per cubic meter. There are 2.2 pounds in every kilogram, so 40,000 pounds is really about 18,182 kg. That is about 6,461,200 cubic meters per year. The US has about 300 million people in it, so that comes to 1,938,360,000,000,000 cubic meters per year. Remembering the volume of the atmosphere, which is 51,924,265,160,241,167,534, we can compute the relative volume of CO2 emission per year by the US as 0.003733% of the atmosphere.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth's_atmosphere
We know that the Earth likes to have a CO2 concentration in the atmosphere, otherwise our plants would all die. The typical concentration of CO2, for the last 400,000 years, has been between 170 ppm and 300 ppm. The Earth’s atmospheric density is about 1.2 kg per cubic meter at sea level, and quickly becomes smaller as you approach the Karman line at 100 km. If there is 1 million cubic centimeters in a cubic meter, then the US's yearly CO2 charge is about 37 ppm. The continent of Asia is notorious for is CO2 charge, with over 3 billion people on it, all burning oil and gas to live. So what, though, right?
Let’s consider this graph we’ve all seen in the recent news and trade journals:
http://www.technologyreview.com/articlefiles/climatechart.pdf
Here you see about 400,000 years of ice-core data showing the CO2 concentration, sea level, and average surface temperature all nicely correlated. The graph goes from left to right, with the past on the left, and the present-day on the right.
All of the “Global Warming” alarmists claim that because today the CO2 concentration is at about 377 ppm, and the surface temperature is about 14.5 C, that “Global Warming” is upon us.
Why don’t we look at the graph a little bit closer. Notice the periodic trend on the graph, starting at 400,000 years ago, when the CO2 concentration was 280 ppm. Were there any humans driving around in their gas-guzzling SUVs back then? How about dirty coal firing furnaces in China? Maybe India had an abundance of motorcycles back then too, all polluting the atmosphere like crazy?
Jump ahead in time to 325,000 years ago and you find a really big spike in CO2 concentration (at 300 ppm), but with an average sea level 20 meters LOWER than they are today. Oops, that doesn’t jive with the “Global Warming” alarmists, so we’ll just have to ignore that for now. Maybe that was the last great human civilization before the glaciation of 260,000 years ago.
Moving ahead in time, at about 240,000 years we see another spike in temperature with a similar spike in CO2. This one must be those pesky “Grays” that we see hovering around our planet. Maybe they were driving around in their “Graycedes Model 2000 SUX” and polluting our atmosphere while we were throwing spears at the local Mastodons. The “Global Warming” alarmists would likely have you think that our cave-man campfires were the cause of that CO2 spike. It was a great party.
One more move through the graph takes us to about 125,000 years ago when we see a great sea level spike to about 5 meters above the current level, but with a CO2 level that is about 275 ppm, or a whole 100 ppm LOWER than it is today. Well, that doesn’t jive with the first event at 325,000 years which put the sea level LOWER than it is today, while showing an increase in CO2 concentration.
What you really should be concerned about is the 42 year lifetime left in our surface oil reserves, and the 140 year lifetime left in our coal reserves. That means in YOUR lifetime, you will see the end of oil-based combustion on a global scale. No matter what happens to CO2, it is guaranteed to lower in the next 100 years simply because its principal source will be gone.
Another guarantee to consider is the next glaciation. In about 70,000 years, this planet’s surface will again be covered by large glaciers and ice sheets that have since receded in the last 25,000 years. Your descendents, if they exist, will enjoy the cold winds, and breathable atmosphere that your ancestors enjoyed 25,000 years ago. We’re just stuck in the furnace blaming ourselves for something that occurs as part of the planet’s natural cycle.