White House Panel Will Study Whether Climate Change Is a National Security Threat. It Includes a Climate Denialist

[ncguy50]

Originally Posted by Elliott_CA

Correct. As more CO2 holds more heat in, there's less heat transferred to the upper atmosphere, so it becomes cooler up there.

Or ... the sun is currently at a solar minimum and spurring comparisons to the prolonged Maunder minimum that occurred between 1645 and 1720. this was the coldest period of the mini ice-age in progress at the time. The sun affects climate way more than a trace gas in the atmosphere.

NASA is leaning toward global cooling and CO2 doesn't have squat to do with that.

[Gungnir]

Originally Posted by Goodnight

There was already a multi agency comprehensive report on the impact of climate change completed last year, why do we need a panel. I see one the 12 members is Dr Happer who has some interesting views on increased CO2 levels. So what can we expect from the panel, hopefully there will be some respected representation from NASA and the various universities that perform research.


https://nca2014.globalchange.gov/report





https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/20/c...ty-threat.html

Actually in risk management and assessment, it's pretty smart to have a denier, who can question the general opinion. If the opinion can't be supported by evidence and data, then the opinion isn't worth while. There are various names for this, I tend to use tenth man protocol. Actually having someone who literally disbelieve is a big bonus, because their motivation is to prove themselves right, and will vigorously analyze and criticize the general opinion.

If you have 12 people all of the same opinion on that panel, you need more people, or different people, or 11 people too many.

[TwoByFour]

Originally Posted by Elliott_CA

Correct. As more CO2 holds more heat in, there's less heat transferred to the upper atmosphere, so it becomes cooler up there.

That statement is not really correct. There is a natural temp gradient between the surface of the earth (which is about 288 deg K) and outer space (which is about 23 deg K). That has nothing to do with greenhouse gases and is just because space is cold.

If the earth had no atmosphere, the temperature would be about -20 deg C. But our actual temp is about +15 deg C. The difference is the presence of greenhouse gases, mostly water vapor but CO2 of course adds to that. If our atmosphere didn't have water vapor or CO2 or any greenhouse gas, it would be the effective temperature of a rotating blackbody, which is -20 deg C. We would still have a temperature gradient between surface and space if we had a non-greenhouse atmosphere.

Heat is lost from the earth's surface by a combination of thermal convection and radiative transfer. In the lower atmosphere convection dominates but the upper atmosphere radiative transfer dominates. Because the lower atmosphere is warmer, more heat is transferred to the upper atmosphere, and it has more heat to radiate to space.