Now you can say that CO2 concentration has increased by 40% as well. That is also true.
Your case is that only around 1% of the atmosphere or less actually has any measurable impact on temperature. Therefore, an increase of 0.012%, when dealing with only 1% of the atmopshere is MORE impactful.
That is your case. Now MY claim is that the thickness of the atmosphere ALSO contributes to the heating of the Earth. MY case is that your models are overestimating because you are overestimating the impact of the added CO2. That is what is highly debatable.
The 0.012% or 40%, depending on your word choice, is not debatable or "deception".
As far as the "IR absorption", we both know that IR absorption is not directly related to the percentages. Sure it is impacted, but then you have to look at the differing wavelengths, the amount absorbed by other compounds, etc. AND at the very least, we know that temps increase logarithmically with CO2 concentration increases.
A 40% increase in CO2 or a 0.012% increase in total atmospheric CO2 concentration, is not going to cause a 40% or 0.012% increase in temps. In fact, % increases in temps make little sense. What are you comparing to? Absolute zero?
WE both know why warmers pick 40%, while some "deniers" pick the 0.012% number. 40% sounds scary, 0.012% sounds miniscule.
IF you want to make some claimk about 40%, then how is that not every bit a disingenuous??? 40% temp increases are surely not going to occur.
AND, are we not talking about planetary CO2? Mars and Venus have around 95% atmospheric CO2 concentration. We have 0.04%.
And lets be clear. 0.04% of your water being poison, might kill you, but 0.04% of that water being salt, you would not even be able to taste it. These numbers do not speak to the whole debate, they are just part.
Edit:
I agree with Pegminer, though (which might be a first). The increase of GHGs by 3% is the most honest way of stating this. At least here you are talking in terms of what is impactful. There are some other GHGs that are VERY small in percentages. We can increase those by 500% and it would make no difference, because they would still make up so little of the total GHGs.
Edit:
And I refer you to my answer. The atmospheric CO2 concentration increased from 0.028% to 0.040%, which is an increase of 0.012%. You can say whatever you like about what people usually mean, or whatever crap, THIS IS FACT. You may not like the wording, but saying 40% is no more accurate and no less deceptive. You will note, however, that I DON'T imply or say YOU are lying when using the 40%. You don't want to show common decency in a debate, then that is your problem.
As with Jello's lottery example. Do you say you went from 1 in ten million to one in 2 million if you buy 5 lottery tickets, or do you say you increased your chances 400% or do you say you are 5 times more likely to win??? I say the first, because your chances are still crap and people should know that.
Just as the MOST honest way of referring to the increase is the 3%. BECAUSE it is a 3% increase in GHGs (though he should use ~0.45% as the divider with H2O at ~0.4, CO2 at 0.04 and others, but whatever). Even more accurate would be to account for the GWP and methane increases, but that takes too long and is too confusing for people.
It's like the old phrase by Benjamin Disraeli ... there are lies, damned lies, and statistics.
There are two camps - warmists and deniers (or whatever phrasing one cares to choose to describe those positions). Warmists will use the 40% figure. Deniers will use the 0.004% figure. The aim in both cases is to represent the data in terms of the argument you want to present. It's neither a deception nor misunderstanding in either case, but marketing of a view.
However, the argument that some sceptics are putting forward is 'the rise is 0.004% and *therefore* is insignificant'. It's the *therefore* that is flawed. The sceptics argue this, then fail to back it up with actual proof that this is true.
I hate to trot out the conservatives favorite climate change whipping boy again lest I be accused of being a defender of Al Gore, but the best example I have seen to address your question recently appeared here just a couple of days ago: https://answers.yahoo.com/question/index...
The question was a direct quote from an article headline: "Al Gore Said North Pole Would Be Completely Melted This Year… Guess Not, Huh?"
Clearly, saying that Al Gore said this is a false statement. This raises the specter to which you refer-if it is a misunderstanding, it is on the level of near-illiteracy, the only detail being the authors of the article and question are not illiterate by virtue of the fact that they could publish such inaccurate information. So we go to reading comprehension, and a failure of comprehension in at least some instances if not many is clearly evident. However, given Al Gore's actual words in writing accompanied by a video of him saying the same thing while the article in question says something entirely different leads to the very high probability that the people who are putting forth such nonsense are gambling that many people are going to read only the headline and take it at face value, and by repeatedly publishing mis or dis information if one does not wish to describe what was said as what it is-an outright lie-the credibility of a climate change activist will be undermined along with the entire field of climate science...and the theory of AGW itself.
We are seeing this repeated over and over again in the media and argument in the general population about what is going on with climate. It seems that this strategy is being employed more often than can be declared "true misunderstanding" and the warmers are clearly frustrated by it. What they need to do is step back a little bit and consider the possibility that some people who make these arguments don't have an ideological agenda and are asking for information-those folks are not 'deniers,' and accusing them of being such does not influence those who are sincere in their attempts to get at the truth. Unfortunately, it is often quite difficult to discern the difference between denial, requests for information and people who have just had too much to drink and think it is fun to annoy people who are sober.
Yes this is correct. The difference between 0.028% and 0.040% is just 0.012%. Do you say that temps have risen 1 degree in the last 100 years, or do you state that they raised 0.025%? You use the bigger number because you want to scare others into believing what you believe and that's just dishonesty. It's no difference than saying that if you have 3 lottery tickets and buy 2 more, you increased your chances of winning the lottery by 40%. Shame on you. Clearly you are a flunky.
The "logic" that is "used" in such cases is very analogous to this:
If your credit card starts charging you 18% instead of 12% on outstanding balances, then the fees you pay have only gone up by 6%, because 18-12=6. With an ongoing $1000 balance you would owe $15 per month instead of $10, but this would be "only a 6% increase".
Chance of vaporization of this carefully worded answer rates as between 25% and 50%.
Deliberate deception.
An increase from 0.028% to 0.040% is a 0.012 percentage POINT increase, but a 40 PER CENT increase. Similarly, interest increasing from 5% to 10% is a 5 percentage POINT increase, or a 100 PER CENT increase.
Also, if I increase the insulation in my attic from 1 inch to 2 inches, that is a 100% increase. It matters not that that is only half a percent of the height of the house.
Similarly, I double the thickness of the epoxy on my boat to decrease the water vapor diffusion by 10 x. It matters not that that is only 4% of the hull thickness.
I have no doubt it's deliberate. The amount of increase is about 40% if you count kilograms, moles, carbon atoms--anything that counts the amount of "stuff", and it doesn't compare it to things that are irrelevant. About 99.6% of the atmosphere consists of non-greenhouse gases. Since they don't bring about the warming of the planet, why count them at all in these calculations? It's like adding Monopoly money to your assets to make them seem bigger.
If they were somewhat honest and yet still wanted to downplay the amount of increase, they could compare the .012% to the approximately 0.4% total and say the increase in greenhouse gases is only about 3%--that would be an honest way of doing it.
Both. It is deliberate deception in that they understand the argument behind the 40% number. However, there is a misunderstanding along the lines of what Pindar has said, that 40% of nothing is still nothing. They are basically not understanding that the 40% increase matters.
I think it's deliberate deception and a lack of understanding of science and how it works.
Conservatives seem to really love conservative blogs.They fail to realize those blogs are conservative more than anything. The Conservative Movement is a Cult.
I don't really talk or think about it in percentages, I think about it in ppm, man has probably increased between 50/100 ppm depending from when you start counting, this is though is really a small amount, whether you think this small amount makes a difference depends on what science/physics you believe in.
Some of the Usual Suspects have been trotting out variants of the "CO2 has only increased .012%" stuff again (in one case, the number quoted is .004%, because he's only counting the actual carbon atoms). Generally with the implication or clear statement that this means that IR absorption could only be increasing by a similar percentage.
Do you think this represents actual, legitimate misunderstanding of how the atmosphere works, a deliberate and intentional effort to be deceptive, or somewhere in between? Can someone explain in small words where they're getting it wrong? Any other thoughts?
A truckload of hog manure has 10E20 bacteria. Therefore the increase in human population over the last million years is only 7E-9%.
whereas 40% could easily mislead some people into thinking there's a lot more CO2 around, when the reality is that 40% of hardly nothing is still hardly nothing. So we seem to have a case of the pot calling the kettle black.
The 0.012 figure is a lot more representative of reality.
Who really cares? It hasn't been even close to being proven to have an affect on the temperature or climate. It is a non-issue.
Deliberate deception!
It's 0.004%. 40 carbon atoms have been added per 1,000,000 molecules of air. The O2 was already in the atmosphere so you can't say that humans added the O2. "CARBON" is the actual addition and it's 40 atoms per 1,000,000 parts of air.
O2 does not absorb IR. Only the CARBON in CO2 does.
deliberate deception like many denier points. like volcanoes emit more co2 than people
ff
both
