Wild, Weird Weather
Carbon dioxide may calm the climate, but it cannot cause wild, weird weather. Every day some place in the world has “wild weather”. And in recent times, human industry gets the blame. “It’s all caused by man-made global warming” (generally shortened to “global warming”, or GW by alarmists).
Floods or droughts – blame GW; bushfires or snowstorms – blame GW; frosts or heatwaves – blame GW; hail storms or dust storms – blame GW; cyclones or tornadoes – blame GW.In fact, here is a complete list of all the things blamed on global warming:
http://www.numberwatch.co.uk/warmlist.htm
If all of this were true, then carbon dioxide is surely the most powerful and disruptive gas on the planet. That great scientist, John Kerry, even calls it a “weapon of mass destruction”.
Thanks to cartoonist Steve Hunter who has gambled again that we may raise enough money to pay him. But carbon dioxide (CO2) is one of the most stable, predictable, unreactive and puny of all climate factors. And its effect diminishes for each addition of CO2 to the atmosphere. Adding more now has almost zero effect on temperature.
Read the full report: http://carbon-sense.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/wild-weird-weather.pdf
Sun, Water, Winds and Weather
What determines surface temperature at any spot on earth?
Apart from a tad of geothermal heat and a wisp of heat from nuclear power generators, every bit of surface energy (including coal and biomass) comes directly or indirectly from the sun. There is no other source of surface heat – everything else just stores, releases or re-directs solar energy.
Surface heat is maximised when the sun is directly overhead, near a peak in the sunspot cycle and when Earth’s orbit comes closest to the sun (perihelion). The hottest places on earth will be found near the equator, after mid-day, in mid-summer, at perihelion and when there are no clouds in the sky to reflect solar radiation. Temperature will be maximised when there is no cooling wind and no nearby surface water or moist soils to cool things by evaporation. Since higher temperature also occurs at lower altitudes, one of the hottest places on earth is Death Valley, a desert below sea level, where the temperature can reach 56 °C on a mid-summer afternoon.
Frigid temperatures are found near the poles, where solar energy is weak. The coldest place on Earth is Vostok at high altitude in Antarctica where the air is very dry and where the temperature can go as low as minus 89 °C with a cloudless sky in the dead of winter.
Since both extremes could occur simultaneously, Earth’s maximum daily temperature range is thus up to 145 °C. But at any single place, the diurnal variation is more likely to be about 15-40 °C.
Carbon dioxide has no effect on any of the above temperature drivers – it generates no new heat, cannot affect latitude, solar orbits, sun spots, altitude, season, time of day, clouds or the proximity of water. All it can possibly do is encourage plant growth, and intercept, absorb and redirect a tiny bit radiant energy passing either way between the sun, Earth’s surface and space. But that effect is almost exhausted at current levels of carbon dioxide. Doubling the carbon dioxide content from 400 ppm to 800 ppm (which may take the next 100 years) might possibly increase surface temperatures by up to 2 °C – not even noticeable compared to the daily temperature ranges we cope with now.
Everyone can feel the powerful warmth of the rising sun, the variations between summer and winter, the moderating effect of clouds and the shock of hot and cold winds.
But even if carbon dioxide levels doubled overnight, most people on earth would not notice any difference.
Read more at The Carbon Sense Coalition.
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