Global Warming

"Debunking the cult.  A new perspective on global warming. " -A Fortscribe original series done in collaboration with Perankhscribe. Due to the length of this piece, it has been broken down into sections and chapters. This page contains the introduction and chapter 1.

INTRODUCTION:

Successfully debunking the theory of man-made global warming would be an epic feat. Children are taught from a young age that green house gases “trap” the sun’s energy and heat the planet.  Scientists who support it seem invincible behind a facade of good intentions and complicated  mathematical models. Politicians fly their jets to give speeches in front of spectacular displays of glacial “recession.”

Since only a select few can even begin to understand the intricacies of higher level math, the average layperson cannot attack the premise of global warming on a scientific basis. The result is that opponents of global warming generally have to rely on attacking the supporters of global warming rather than their logic. We should care about hypocrites like Al Gore.  A man who wants you to use mercury laden eco-bulbs but does not even bother to turn off his estate lamps for causes like “Earth Hour.”  Unfortunately, unless we win in the realm of ideas, we will still face an army of eco-zombies that view Al Gore as the victim of mean-spirited right wing propaganda.

Fortscribe will do it. We will attack the underlying “science” of global warming with scientific principles. There may be many who will try to discredit or ignore our logic. People who will say it doesn’t apply because of some intricacy. Rubbish. Read this. We will demystify global warming.

Before we can attack the assumptions behind global warming, the reader must first be familiar with some basic concepts developed in physical chemistry.  Since this article is intended for a general audience we have done our best to incorporate it into the chapters and we have tried to make it understandable for those with a high school level of education.  Unfortunately, this may still require patience.

Chapter 1: The Kinetic Theory of Gasses, how it pertains to Carbon Dioxide and explains the temperature-CO2 correlation.

MAXWELL-BOLTZMANN:

The Maxwell–Boltzmann distribution equation forms a basis for our understanding of the kinetic behavior of gases. While there is quite a bit that can be done with this equation, we will focus on how this equation relates to the distribution of molecular speeds in a gas. What does that mean? Well a picture is worth a thousand words:

Still confused? Well imagine a balloon filled with helium floating at room temperature. You probably know that helium is made up of really tiny bits of matter called atoms. Try to imagine these helium atoms flying around, randomly bumping each other. It is kind of like shaking a toy rubber ball filled with marbles.

I probably don’t need to tell you that there are many helium atoms in a balloon. With so many atoms bouncing around, it is not hard to imagine that some of these atoms will be flying around at different velocities. The ‘v’ in the picture above stands for “velocity” and each atom has its own velocity. Before I go further in explaining what this graph means, let us add one more concept. The concept of energy.

You may already have an idea of what energy is. If I told you that one car is moving at 50mph and another at 200mph and then I asked you which one has more kinetic energy… You would say? Well I hope you told me the car at 200mph. If you have studied high school physics then you have learned that kinetic -energy is equal to one-half times mass times velocity squared . (K.E. = ½ m v2 )

Let us try another question. What do you think has more energy: A cup of scolding hot McDonald’s coffee or an ice cold coffee? Once again the answer is pretty obvious. This time though we were talking about temperature. Through this reasoning we can appreciate that temperature and energy are somehow related. The relationship however is not as straightforward as that for velocity. You may be aware that some things take longer to heat than others. Different materials require different amounts of energy to change their temperature.

Lets take another look at the graph.

What this graph is telling you is that at a given temperature, a sample of gas will have some molecules with a lot of energy and other molecules with very little energy. Each curve is specific to a single temperature. I will assume that you know how to read a graph. What I want you to notice however is that as the sample goes from being colder to warmer, the number of molecules with a large amount of energy increases. Raising the temperature of the sample makes it more likely that if you pick out a random gas molecule it will have more energy.

MAXWELL-BOLTZMANN WITH VARYING MASS:

Did you follow all that? What I am going to show you now is the same thing viewed in a slightly different way. Remember how I told you that energy is related to velocity? (K.E. = ½ mV^2 ) If one knows the mass and energy of the molecules in a sample then one can find their velocity. Look at this graph.

Each curve here represents samples of different types of gas molecules. Blue for Helium, yellow for Neon, teal for Argon and purple for Xenon. If you know your chemistry then you know that these are elements from the Noble Gas family of the periodic table. Unlike the other graph, all of these curves exist at the same temperature. They are different because each of these elements has a different mass. Compare Xenon (purple) with Argon (teal). Does this kind of remind you of the other graph? Xenon is like the cold sample and Argon is like the warmer one. But in this graph all of these curves are for different types of molecules at the SAME temperature (25 °C). You may have noticed another slight difference. The Y-axis in this graph has been labeled probability density. This is just another way of expressing the number of gas molecules.

Suffice it to say that what this graph is telling you is that the less mass something has, the more gas molecules you will find moving at a higher speed for a given temperature. Makes sense right? Isn’t it easier to push an empty shopping cart quickly than one full of junk? Something with very little mass like helium can reach high speeds even at relatively low temperatures.

ESCAPE VELOCITY:

Your patience is about to be rewarded as we are almost to our first major point concerning “global warming.” Before that however, we must consider one more concept, escape velocity. Once again, you may have an idea of this concept already. Commonly it is thought of as the speed an object needs in order to “escape” Earth’s gravity. In physics this concept is more formally defined, but the common conception is sufficient. If an object is moving away from Earth with sufficient velocity, then it will keep moving away from Earth and not come back down. Stated simply, if you could throw a baseball fast enough then it won’t come back down. (Of course said baseball would probably be destroyed in trying to achieve such a speed but I digress.) What is essential to know about the escape velocity is that it is the same for all objects regardless of mass. Whether they are tiny atoms or rockets, the escape velocity is the same for all objects leaving Earth. To escape Earth you much achieve a velocity of 11186 m/s.

HOW THIS PERTAINS TO GLOBAL WARMING:

So, let us unite all of this background. If you followed along with the logic above then the logic of this next graph should be straightforward. 

Notice that I compare two gases, helium and our friendly greenhouse gas carbon dioxide at both warm and cold temperatures. As expected, the less massive helium tends towards the right side of the graph. As we heat helium up to higher temperatures, (like say those found in our ionosphere) we notice that a significant portion of these gas molecules acquire enough velocity to escape Earth. (The magic 11186 m/s) Notice however that for the same increase in temperature, the portion of CO2 molecules able to escape the Earth has not changed substantially. A sample of CO2 needs to be at a substantially higher temperature before a significant portion of that sample can escape Earth. This is a very important point. If there is a slight increase in the planets temperature, what do you think happens to the percentage of CO2 in the atmosphere?

Well, if the lighter gases start escape and the heavier gases still tend to remain then I hope you will agree that the % of CO2 in the atmosphere will increase. Woooh… Hold on now.

What I just said is that an increase in the planets temperature would be expected to cause an increase in CO2!

This is the exact opposite of what the environmentalists are telling you. They want you to believe that an increase in CO2 causes an increase in the planets temperature. They want you to stop polluting the planet with your green house gases and drive government sponsored hybrids. They ask for billions of dollars to stop the impending disaster of global climate change. Conservatives don’t have to disagree that there is a link between CO2 and planetary temperature. After all, we often do notice that warmer planets tend to have more CO2. CO2 and temperature may be correlated, by correlation does not prove causation.

CONCLUSION CHAPTER 1:

Unless you’re the most bilious sort of left winger, by now you realize that we have a point. However, we are not naïve enough to think that the material of chapter 1 alone will put a nail in the coffin of the environmentalist wackos. Liberal fanatics are like the members of doomsday cults after the predicted day of apocalypse has come and gone. They always find some rationalization to hold onto their beliefs. With that in mind it is not hard to predict what they will probably say – “but you didn’t really prove man made global warming is impossible,” “your last table didn’t use exact figures from a liberal think tank and fancy math too difficult for the uninitiated to understand.” If they are really dumb they might say the Maxwell–Boltzmann distribution is a conservative myth.

I could attempt to answer each of their concerns with logic and care. Hell, I could pretend to be one of them and ask for billions of dollars of grant money so I could pull a formula out of my ass that gives you more colorful curves with precisely inaccurate numbers. Why waste time like that though? We expected them to demand a ridiculous amount of evidence to dispel a belief with little evidence. Thus, we came prepared. You did not think our discussion would end with that? No no no…  The best is yet to come!

Next chapter: "The oceanic bicarbonate cycle. How the Ocean transports and deposits the extra CO2 we produce."