> If the burning of fossil fuels is the main cause of global warming, why hasn't temperature rose at near the same rat

If the burning of fossil fuels is the main cause of global warming, why hasn't temperature rose at near the same rat

Posted at: 2015-03-12 
It is because at the lower layers of atmosphere it's warming effect is basically saturated and water vapour covers 90% of the frequency that it operates on, only in places with very low water vapour such as deserts and Antartica does it have much influence at all, plus reradiated infrared cannot penetrate water and 70% of our planet is covered by water.

It is a fact confirmed by CERES that most of the heat radiated into space comes from the top of the troposphere, below that heat is transported mainly by convection not by radiation.

You are jumping around ignorantly. First, heat energy isn't only found in sensible temperature measurements of the lower troposphere and/or some particular published summation of it as a "global mean temperature." It is also found in latent heat and also, most significantly, in the Earth's oceans which cover 70% of the Earth and are NOT a part of these global air temperature record summations. Second, CO? rise doesn't (and no informed scientist I know of has suggested it does) even, in theory, suggest that there will be a "same rate" in the rise of some human calculated number about sensible air temperature measurements near the ground over far less than half the Earth. CO? rise is more correlated with a rise in the radiation altitude of the Earth and with some darkening of the pressure broadened periphery of its absorption bands in the bulk of the atmosphere. None of these ideas suggest a "same rate" relationship should exist, even if you found one present. Not to mention that I wouldn't trust YOUR judgment, regardless, looking over any two curves. I wouldn't even trust MY judgment doing that with two curves you picked out (or two curves I picked out.)

As a final note, the underlying trend in CO? rise supports the theory of fossil fuel use affecting well-mixed atmospheric CO? concentrations. Both because we have very good numbers on production and various means of its use, so we can actually calculate reasonably accurate figures for expected releases of burned fuel products, and because we can very precisely measure the relative proportions of the three isotopes of carbon found in CO?, 12C, 13C, and 1?C. Very simple (high school even) theory and math can be used to estimate changes in the mixing ratios of these isotopes based on what we know about fossil fuel use from other sources. Fossil fuels contain no 1?C, having only 12C and 13C in them. So we'd expect very specific changes in the otherwise natural balance of the three isotopes. These very specific changes have been exactly observed and add a confirming nail into that coffin. Fossil fuel use underlies a large share of the rising trend of CO? in the atmosphere.

This isn't some achilles heel in climate science. And climate scientists are vastly smarter than you give them credit for -- if it were so obvious that two curves alone picked out by you could dispel the entire field and all its work, they would also see it and report on it. Climate scientists and physicists aren't idiots, much as you seem to expect.

Typical denialist thinking. Causation is not the same as correlation. Sometimes, small changes will have big reactions, sometimes the reverse. The point is that you are not dealing with a straight-line phenomenon.

Evidently it has. The flaw in this thesis, that CO2 has nothing to do with anything, is that heat doesn't stay in the atmosphere. Heat rapidly transfers from warm to cold... that is from a 'warm' atmosphere to a colder venue such as seawater and ice. CO2 is a powerful greenhouse gas that act to retard the escape after dark of heat energy gained during the day. The heat then transfers to a colder venue...seawater warms and ice melts.... the data shows this.

Global warming occurs when fossil fuels are burned, releasing carbon gas. This gas mixes with the oxygen in the atmosphere creating carbon dioxide. Carbon dioxide is considered a "greenhouse gas", which means it traps the heat which is trying to escape from Earth within our atmosphere. The rise in fossil fuels burning = rise in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere = more heat trapped within the atmosphere = slow rises in annual temperatures

You are a conspiracy freak and you really need a new hobby.

Do you work for the Koch Bros?



The best answer is that a scant 0.02% increase in co2 does nothing to effect the earths climate.

Fossil fuel use skyrocketed around the 1940's but global temperature did not. There seems to be no correlation between fossil fuel use and global temperature.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fossil_fuel#mediaviewer/File:Global_Carbon_Emissions.svg