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Climate Change
This is a place to store the questions I don't have answers for while I continue to look for answers. I can't guarantee any of these questions are even important, much less whether science has already answered them.
- Where the CO2 goes in the air? It's heavier than
the mixture of N2 and O2 that make up the whole atmosphere so it should
concentrate at lower altitudes. Does it? If so how high does the
greenhouse extend. CH4 is lighter than air and should rise to the top.
- What mechanism prevents runaway heating from humidity increased
greenhouse effect. Is it just that humid air is lighter than dry air so
it rises and dumps its heat above the greenhouse. Does it have to do with the difference in lapse rates for humid and dry air?
- Are sea levels changing?
- Just having temperatures rise causes
liquid water to expand which raises sea levels.
- Melting floating ice in
the Arctic would have no impact on lea levels. Melting Greenland would
cause sea levels to rise. The Antarctic seems to be getting colder. When are they predicted to melt? Is stuff melting faster than predicted?
- A big
increase in North Atlantic freshwater could shutdown the Gulf Stream
(Thermohaline Circulation shutdown). So how does that really work. Why does salinity differences matter to an ocean current. Why don't ocean currents dissipate into the surrounding water? It must have to do with the difference in temperature between surface and deep waters and the contours of the coast lines. Why does the IPCC think a THC shutdown unlikely.
- The 8 climate models capable of such a prediction all expect sea level
to rise throughout the 21st century. The range of predictions is from
0.2-0.8 meters with the best guess being 1/2 meter.
- Ocean currents (how are they modeled in the AOGCMs and how are they affected)
- Stratospheric cooling (Ozone depletion and increased lapse rate)
- How will increased levels of CO2 change the carbon flux
equilibrium? Will mechanisms arise to recapture atmospheric carbon as
levels rise (plants grow faster, etc) Man made CO2 recapture sinks have been proposed, how effective are the proposals?
- For the last few decades we have been adding 10,000 supertankers full of carbon to the atmosphere every year. Can we remove this much or more?
- Some of the skeptics argue that two variables both trending in the same direction no matter how closely linked don't prove cause and effect. CO2 and temperature could be dependent as the consensus opinion holds, independent or maybe CO2 content is dependent on temperature (and not vice versa). It seems the radiation theory mechanism gives a nice explanation of how temperature is dependent on CO2 concentrations so this argument seems weak.
- Will the CO2 cross the equator or will we see higher concentrations in the Northern Hemisphere?
- Can increased production of SO2 or nuclear atmospheric testing cause temperatures to drop?
- How much water vapor is there in the atmosphere?
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