When I was a kid back in the 1960s, I was already a science geek (and still am today, obviously). At the age of 10, I already knew what carbon dioxide was; i.e., a colorless gas in the atmosphere with a molecular structure containing two oxygen atoms and a single carbon atom. (Yes, I studied those “How and Why” science books well!).

The only time that CO2 seemed to play role in my life was on those rare but interesting occasions when I encountered “dry ice”, i.e. frozen carbon dioxide. Dry ice seemed like “super ice”, as it was much colder than regular ice and it visibly smoked as it melted. I.e., it turned right into gas, and not into a liquid as regular ice did. About the only time we would actually see dry ice was in school, during a science demonstration. You couldn’t play with it; the teachers wouldn’t let you touch it because it was so cold that it would damage your skin (a “cold burn”, if you will). But it was really neat when they put a chunk of it in a glass of warm water and it started bubbling and then freezing some of the water around it. Strange, but very neat stuff.

When I was around 12 I wanted to be a scientist. Well, actually that varied from day to day; sometimes I wanted to be a shipmate in the Navy, or a pharmacist, or even a plumber (I had a box of old pipes and joints in the garage that I enjoyed tinkering around with). On my scientist days, I would think about what I wanted to study – the moon, the stars, the universe, that kind of stuff. One thing I knew that I did NOT want to study: carbon dioxide. How boring. Might as well study lint or dust bunnies. There wasn’t anything important left to be learned about CO2. I definitely remember having that thought!

So now I find it terribly ironic that CO2 is right at the center of one of the biggest questions that our world has ever consciously faced – i.e., what to do about global warming. Up to now I’d given total credence to the global warming proponents; I was totally good with Al Gore, the UN and the IPCC. Some of my past blogs have discussed the geo-political dangers that might evolve over the next 50 to 10 years if the seas rise and farmlands turn to deserts due to “anthropogenic” (man-made) warming. I agreed that it was time for action, action that would cost real money. I even tried to get ahead of the curve by making an annual donation to a non-profit group as to buy “carbon credits”, to help offset the carbon dioxide from the fossil fuels burned to support my lavish (well, not exactly) lifestyle.

Since the Climategate revelation of “voodoo-science” e-mails from the East Anglia Climate Research Unit, the center that is responsible for most of the data and much of the analysis that supports the global warming hypothesis, I’ve been giving the climate warming skeptics more of a chance. I’ve thus become familiar with Professors Lindzen, Singer and Michaels, along with Lord Monckton and Dyson Freeman.

After going over various summaries of their works along with the overall arguments made by those arguing against radical action to stop global warming (these arguments are obviously supported by the big oil, coal and power companies), I’ve concluded that anthropogenic global warming since the start of the Industrial Era (usually put at 1880) is still quite real. Furthermore, many of the arguments made by the more political skeptics aren’t very strong, or are clearly biased and distorted.

Interestingly, I’ve also found some bad arguments on the part of those who support global warming activism; I actually saw a web page arguing that the world’s climate system is NOT a complex system subject to chaotic effects such as strange attractors; and that even if it was, we can still know quite well where it is going and what it will do next. That’s wishful thinking, AT BEST. Take a look at the crazy ups and downs of temperatures over the past 130 years, as CO2 slowly and steadily builds up; the overall trend in temperature is upward, but with lots of 10 or 20 year ups and downs. Obviously, a whole lot of things are influencing the world’s climate, not just rising CO2.

At bottom, though, the skeptics still have one argument that gives me pause. And that’s the theory that carbon dioxide responds as a ground heat reflector (i.e., as a “blanket” keeping heat coming up from the earth and ocean surfaces from going out into space, causing air temps to rise) according to a LOGARITHMIC function, and not a LINEAR function. Research by Lindzen using this property of CO2 indicates that most of the man-made global warming that will ever take place has already taken place. That is because CO2 has diminishing returns as a heat reflector. In a log function, very roughly speaking, your first 20% of an input (i.e., carbon dioxide into the atmosphere) gives 80% of the total possible effect (i.e., rising temperatures). Each additional percent inputted has less and less effect, under a log function.

Since about 1880, carbon dioxide levels have gone from about 285 ppm to about 385 ppm, about a 35% increase in 130 years. During that time, the estimated average surface temperature of the world has increased about 0.7 degrees C, which is around a 5% increase. The accepted computer models say that if the CO2 levels double from where they are now, i.e. a 100% increase, the percentage effect on temps is going to be around 3 degrees C, about a 20% increase. Lindzen and his friends say no, it’s going to be much, much less, based upon the diminishing energy absorption effect of CO2 (although we are admittedly uncertain about its interactions with the super-complex dynamics of seas, clouds, winds, sunlight, etc.)

I read that the same models that predict such dire global warming in the future also overpredict current temperatures somewhat. However, some global warming proponents answer that it takes time for the full effect to be realized, especially given the vast areas of the ocean that slowly adjust to surface temperature changes – so give it more time! OK, but if the analysts know that the ocean is a problem, why didn’t they factor that into their models? Or is that beyond the capacity of their models?

Well, I certainly don’t know who is right here. On the Grist.com web page entitled “How to Talk to a Climate Skeptic: Responses to the Most Skeptical Arguments on Global Warning”, they do NOT include a response to the CO2 LOGARITHMIC RESPONSE argument. Ditto on the Realclimate.com “Response to common contrarian arguments” page. So the anti-skeptics don’t seem to be jumping on that one. However, I’m sure that there are climate scientists arguing against log response. It mostly comes down to the actual chemistry of carbon dioxide, and how it reacts in the very complex system that is our global climate and our ecosphere.

So it seems to me that CO2 is interesting, after all! The stakes are huge; the western nations might spend billions on the problem (while the Chinese are in no hurry) and thus depress the
standards of living of millions of their citizens (sending many families over the edge into poverty) through higher taxes, higher prices, higher unemployment and lower wages. And it might turn out not to be necessary. OR, we might do nothing, and in 50 or 60 years there will be hordes of refugees and desperate governments using their military forces (perhaps nuclear forces, by then) to gain food and shelter for their populations, who can no longer live in flooded coastal regions or dried up agriculture belts.

I truly hope that there are some good, honest scientists out there somewhere focusing on boring old CO2!