Why More Atmospheric CO2 Is A Good Thing
It’s too bad the current brouhaha about CO2 is so narrowly focused. So what if a higher concentration in the atmosphere raises global average temps?
If higher temps were accompanied by increased atmospheric moisture, it would even out around the world and turn it into a paradise planet, greening the deserts so that the teeming billions could be fed. Cold temperatures are inimical to life, not a goal of life.
Too bad, it might take a lot more CO2 than you think to really change the global weather, but not because it has any control over Earth’s surface temperatures. In fact atmospheric CO2 can’t melt an ice cube with its 15 micron radiation wavelength that has a Planck radiation temperature of -80C, the same as dry ice. Why do they call CO2 a greenhouse gas? Because plants breathe it, and they pump it into greenhouses to help them grow and thrive.
Polar regions and deserts look good in postcards, but who wants to live there. Meanwhile global pop. is zooming, so obviously the real answer is to pump more CO2 and water vapor into the atmosphere to turn the Earth into a greenhouse, turning deserts both hot and cold into lush green crop-growing regions like 35 million years ago when the avg. global temp was 88F and the CO2 level was 1K parts per million (vs. 415 PPM today).
So what if we lose some desert polar regions and even some yummy coastline, the adjustments will be inconvenient but temporary, but I prefer shirt-sleeve weather to Frosty the Snowman. How many arctic animals can’t adapt to a warmer climate? What animal needs to live in ice and snow and wouldn’t like a vacation to Tahiti? They can lose the fat, hair or feathers.
The real question is can we make and keep the global CO2/H20 levels high enough, and for how long? Sooner or later mass global starvation will become unstoppable if world pop. keeps climbing, and this is the way to forestall it, if we act soon enough. Don’t give me them Malthusian objections, give me some CO2/H20 solutions. I like a paradise Earth in the possibility window.
So, while the world is debating the horrors, extent or lack thereof of global warming caused by CO2, let’s engineer the CO2/H20 solution to making the Earth a warm temperate planet from pole to pole with no deserts or ice wastelands, allowing vastly more food to be grown and turning poor nations rich. I DON’T mean a planet with wild swings between super-hot summers and super-cold winters, but one that is warmer than now everywhere, but moister and greener, with a giant network of plant life helping to avoid extremes.
Since CO2 and water vapor are the keys, and the paltry amounts in the atmosphere need to be increased as soon as possible to turn deserts green and get the warming process off to a good start, but the new levels have to be maintained permanently, I’m looking to remote Antarctica (which is really a sea) as the most promising source for unlimited CO2 and water vapor generation, given that noxious emissions (sulfur dioxide, etc.) can be controlled.
This blog is for posting news on the world climate situation, scientific and political, along with my own articles. I’m sure it will start out with hardly any interest or followers, but I’m hoping that it will attract the smartest people eventually and in the end I hope for a global consensus that if it can be done it must be done.
So what is the Antarctic Volcanoes Project? My working idea is that an international effort to reactivate as many volcanoes in Antarctica as possible in an ideal location for distributing the CO2/H20 will produce the best and most cost-effective results.
Sorry, one-worlders, it won’t give you a license to override and control any country’s economy, but if your country is suffering from lack of food you will be too busy expanding farming to care. Hence until I think of or hear about a better way to increase world CO2/H20 levels, this is my pet project. If you are a scientist, please climb aboard my AVP Express and let’s make it happen.
It Would Be Funny If It Weren’t So Sad
It would be funny it weren’t so sad, but when the scientists say “greenhouse gas” they are using a malaprop. It should be greenhouse GLASS, because that’s why a greenhouse stays warm, by glass walls stopping convection of air and trapping heat. Yes, CO2 is pumped into greenhouses, but not for heating purposes, only to help plants BREATHE.
So the whole sucker’s game of “greenhouse gas” must truly be for the purpose of stopping more vegetation from growing and feeding the teeming billions. Is that their true goal? Another blip on the horizon is the promise of melting permafrost releasing gigantic amounts of CO2 from the Arctic not Antarctic sector. Let’s hope we at least get some more good CO2 that way.
See more here: antarcticvolcanoesproject
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Alan
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A welcome celebration of CO2, but not the continued idea that we should or can control the climate.
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Carl
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“If higher temps were accompanied by increased atmospheric moisture, it would even out around the world and turn it into a paradise planet, greening the deserts so that the teeming billions could be fed.”
The premise of this statement is that deserts exist because there is not enough water in the air, when in reality deserts exist because of a mal-distribution of atmospheric moisture. This mal-distribution, in turn, is caused by the unchangeable laws of thermodynamics that are in operation within the atmosphere’s air circulation, i.e. the Hadley, the Ferrel and the Polar Cells.
Let’s look at the Hadley Cell, which starts at the equator and extends north and south to ~30 degrees latitude.
Step 1:The Sun heats the ocean and surface level air more in the lower altitudes than in the higher latitudes. This heating evaporates a certain amount of ocean water into atmospheric moisture.
Step 2: The heated air because of Charles Law expands and becomes less dense and this lower density causes it to ascend skyward.
Step 3: More dense cooler air from the higher latitudes is pulled towards the equator to replace this ascending moist air. Thus is created the massive Hadley Cells–north and south–that cover the lower 30 degrees of latitude.
Step 4: As the moist warm air ascends skyward in the lower latitudes it cools and the moisture condenses out of the air. This forms massive daily thunderstorms over the lower latitudes, which in turn creates the jungle regions of Africa and South America.
Step 5: The now cold, dry air in the upper troposphere over the lower latitudes (-70 to -75 degrees) travels north within the upper troposphere and descends at around 30 degrees latitude north and south to replace the air that is constantly being pulled towards the equator by the ascending warm moist air mentioned above.
Step 6: As the cold, dry air from the upper troposphere descends at around 30 degrees latitude, north and south, “work” is done on it by the the increasing pressure of the surrounding air. Because of Boyle’s Law this increases the air’s temperature from around minus 70 degrees C at the troposphere over the equator to around plus 30 degrees C at ground level in the Sahara Desert. This process does not put any moisture back into the air. Thus is created a hot, dry desert. Simply putting more moisture into the atmosphere would not change how that moisture gets distributed within the atmosphere via the operation of the unchangeable laws of physics.
This heating of descending air via the operation of Boyle’s law within these massive atmospheric Cells is also why the average ground level air temperature is 33 degrees warmer than the average temperature of the entire Troposphere (and the air in the Tropopause is around 42 degrees cooler than the average temperature of the entire Troposphere.) I call it the “heat pump” effect, which is clearly not the “greenhouse effect” that one reads about in current literature. Stated simply, these massive atmospheric Cells cause the air at the Troposphere to be “refrigerated” and the air at ground level to be “heated”.
In reality, since the specific heat of water vapor is nearly twice that of dry air, any water vapor present in descending air would decrease, not increase, the heating of descending air via the operation of Boyle’s law. There are several other ways that humidity cools rather than warms ground level air, but that is another story.
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Herb Rose
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Hi Carl,
You’ve got it wrong. The greater the altitude the greater the kinetic energy of the gas molecules. Use the ideal gas law, not a thermometer, to determine the the energy of the gas molecules in the atmosphere (inverse of density). The lower the density the greater the energy which means the air molecules above have more energy and radiate energy to the molecules lower in the atmosphere. Because the higher atmosphere is “hotter” the expansion of the atmosphere occurs at sea level not in the upper atmosphere.
Water as a gas cannot exist below the boiling point of water (see a phase chart). The evaporation of water in not turning water into a gas but a liquid crystal (see Dr. Gerald Pollacks book “the Fourth Phase of Water”) where the energy is stored as electrical energy. It is the negative charge of the water’s crystal shell that causes it to rise in the atmosphere. At he top of the troposphere the crystals reach the second melt point of the liquid crystal, before they reach the boiling point of water which causes them to release the stored electrical energy, convert to a liquid and fall to the Earth as rain.
Herb
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Jerry Krause
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Hi Carl,
Good to read your comment after sometime since the last I have read. I know you are a scientist because you have described your experimental projects in the past. And we have had give and take discussions in the past about our current understanding of popular, but wrong, environmental issues in the past. Which understanding was not common to each of us.
And this might be another in which we agree to disagree. However, we do not KNOW this until have another actual give and take discussion.
I believe we both agree that the atmospheric circulation is driven by atmospheric heat engines whose fuel is principally solar radiation. That at the beginning we do not need to focus upon any smaller, more localized, geothermal contributions.
However, I believe any consideration of the the Hadley, the Ferrel and the Polar Cells is a waste of time and effort. My reason for this that the circulations of these cells are based upon an assumed homogeneous earth surface. Now, as I review again what you have written to confirm there is no mention of the centrifugal effect of the rotating earth. But possible only a consideration of the centripetal effect of the rotating Earth. Which centrifugal effect is an action force continually acting on matter to move it toward the equator.
Now I anticipate you might suggest that Newton took care of the influence of this vector force as he calculated that the actual shape of the earth’s surface is not a sphere due to the earth’s rotation. If one looks at Newton’s calculation of the centrifugal effect it plain that he is only considers its lifting influence. For he assumes there is no influence at the poles.and that this lifting influence slowly increases to some latitude where it becomes a greater factor.
I hope you accept that the centrifugal effect is a vector force which is the sum of vector perpendicular to the spherical surface and the other vector tangential to the spherical surface. Now, I consider magnitude of tangential vector to be zero at both the poles and the equator and have no idea at what latitude this horizon vector has its greatest magnitude. For I am certainly not a Newton.
I stop here because I need to learn if you accept what I have so far written.
Have a good day, Jerry
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Jerry Krause
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Hi PSI Readers,
I met Carl when he and Joseph Postma were discussing Hoarse de Saussure’s observations (experiments) with a HOT BOX that Hoarse had invented (https://principia-scientific.com/solving-global-warming-de-saussure-device-paradox/) at Joseph’s website (https://climateofsophistry.com/). About which HOT BOX I had no knowledge.
In my long, rambling, essay (PSI link), I never wrote that my conclusion is that Horace not only invented the first HOT Box but that he also had invented the first RADIOMETER. For in the linked essay I had written about a few of my experiences, of using my modified Suomi, Staley, Kuhn (SSK) net radiometer, without describing that the SSK net radiometer is merely two Hot Boxes put together (back to back) with polyethylene films instead of glass panes. Hence, the upward facing radiometer is a de Saussure Hot Box.
However, the SSK net radiometer was designed and constructed only to be used during the nighttime when there was no solar radiation to warm the interior of the top hot box; only any long-wave IR radiation from the atmosphere above. And the interior of the downward facing hot box was warmed by the upward long wave IR flux from the earth surface plus any long-wave radiation being emitted upward from the atmosphere beneath the net radiometer. For the net radiometer was to be lifted by a atmospheric sounding balloon and the two temperatures being measured sent back to a ground station by ‘radio waves’ just as the then common atmospheric sounding data was.
Not much is known about the SKK net radiometer because it became obsolete before it ever became a regularly used instrument. For the USA successfully placed a satellite in orbit and Verner Suomi (the S of SKK) immediately saw that the satellite was a better place from which to observe weather. So he had an instrument package ready for the next attempt to place another satellite in orbit.
Just a bit of factual HISTORy as I wait for Carl’s response to my question.
Have a good day, Jerry
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