Le Chatelier's Principal: "If a chemical system at equilibrium experiences a change in concentration, temperature, volume, or partial pressure, then the equilibrium shifts to counteract the imposed change and a new equilibrium is established."
If a change occurs in one side of the equation and equal change must occur in the other to keep it in equilibrium.
aA + bB <=> cC + dD
If you change the amount of A you have to have a corresponding change on the opposite side of the equation to keep the system in equilibrium. This is why, during warming periods, oceans outgas more CO2 than they intake. This is also the reason why oceans are currently intaking more than they are outgassing because one of the components of the equation above, that being the concentration of CO2, is increasing in the atmosphere due to human emissions, which consist of over 33.5 billion tonnes per year. The atmosphere is only increasing at an average rate of 2ppm or 15.6 billion tonnes per year. This is because the oceans are absorbing the total of natural emissions as well as half of the total human emissions as they attempt to maintain equilibrium. Of course this does not state anything about CO2s heat retention capabilities.
CO2s heat retention capabilities are very well known and it is known that they have historically acted as a feedback to warming. This means that they increase the warming due to another forcing or cause. Now, however, as CO2 is increasing in the atmosphere unnaturally they are acting as a forcing while other feedbacks, such as that of water vapour, are continuing to act as feedbacks increasing the warming further.
I'm basically going to give you Jeff M's answer in for-dummies terms.
There are 2 basic things going on. All else being equal, when you increase atmospheric CO2, you will increase the world's average temperature, and when you increase the world's average temperature, you will increase atmospheric CO2.
CO2 is a greenhouse gas. That means it acts kind of like a blanket in the atmosphere. It's clear to UV and visible light, but not clear to infrared light. So, light from the sun comes in (mostly UV and visible light), it hits the Earth, and most of it gets turned into infrared light (heat). When it goes back out, it hits the CO2 in the air, and sticks around instead of just flying on out to space. The more CO2 that's in the air, the more infrared light gets "caught", and the warmer the Earth stays.
There is a lot of CO2 in the ocean. But, just like a carbonated soda, the warmer it is, the less CO2 the water will hold. You can try this at home. Get 2 identical sodas, stick one in a warm room and one in the refrigerator. Once the one in the refrigerator is cold, open both. The warm one will fizz more. That's the CO2 escaping. The same thing happens in the oceans (though the oceans don't have nearly as much CO2 per volume as a soda). So, if there's warming, for any reason, the oceans will start to hold less CO2, all else being equal.
In the past, for the most part, there was no direct way that large quantities of CO2 got released into the air. That means that CO2 was never the initial forcing that started warming. Instead, the CO2 released from the oceans by warming from another source (changes in solar input; changes in albedo, or reflectiveness of the Earth's surface or the air; any other thing that would increase temperatures) would act as a feedback to that warming, increasing the amount of warming that occurred from a given initial "push".
But, now, *we* are releasing large quantities of CO2 into the air. So, instead of acting as a pure feedback, CO2 is acting as a forcing.
Does that make sense to you?
No, the climate is more complex than that and there is rarely any case where 1 thing always causes another thing to happen.
This only became an issue when Al Gore intentionally misread a graph in order to mislead people into believing CO2 drives the climate. In his movie An Inconvient Truth, he shows a graph and claims that when CO2 went up Temperature went up and when CO2 went down Temperature went down and looking at the graph most people would agree. The problem is time scale and up close what the graph showed was when Temperature went up more CO2 got released into the atmosphere and when temperatures went down less CO2 was in the atmosphere.
Now, thanks to Al Gore, instead of having a discussion about the causes of climate change we have to confront a myth that A causes B and since A is increasing and B is increasing and we know that man is releasing A unnaturally, Man is the reason B is increasing.
The facts are that CO2 is a greenhouse gas, that without greenhouse gases the earth average temperature would be 33C colder (a giant snowball) and that we have added 40% more CO2 to the atmosphere. There is not one scientist who denies these facts.
As some one else has already pointed out, the argument "CO2 lags temperature" is denier myth number 11 on Skepticalscience dot com a useful site that keeps a list of the more common denier claims and debunks each and every one of them.
Quotes by Sagebrush (a self proclaimed Christian and ardent AGW denier) :
"Execute all those who voted for OBAMA"
"Hire the handicapped, they are fun to watch!"
Historically, that is accurate. There are exceptions to that rule, as far as man can tell.
Quote by John Takeuchi, meteorologist: “The atmosphere has periodic warming and cooling cycles. The sun is the primary source of energy impacting the earth's surface. That energy heats the land and the seas, which then warm the air above them. Water vapor and other gases in the atmosphere also affect temperature....Oceans are the main repository for CO2. They release CO2 as their temperature rises - just like your beer. This strongly suggests that warming oceans - heated by the sun - are a major contributor to CO2 in the atmosphere.”
No CO2 raises temperatures
The chorus line will tell that CO2 increases always lags temperature increase - which is drivel
The issue is well understood : http://www.skepticalscience.com/co2-lags...
After and quite a long time after, due to warming oceans being unable to hold dissolved Co2 anymore, similar to opening a warm bottle of coke compared to a cold one.
And even confirmed Climate Change scientist's do not deny it.
A hard one. Almost as difficult as: "Do chickens always come after eggs and not before?"
Yes!
That's the way the evidence points.
