Monday 28 February 2011

Climate Change: Its all about Density.

I do love the poor CO2-driven climate modellers. They're as nutty as a sack of walnuts. I mean, how on earth they came to believe that CO2, a gas which is minescule part of the atmosphere can drive huge climate patterns always amuses me.

I've always said that the main driver of climate on our planet is the Sun. It has to be, because its the most energetic thing in our solar system. We can feel its effects every day, providing many degrees different in the day and night temperatures.

Now obviously solar energy acts on atmopheric gases, producing immediate effects. We can all feel the effects in the warm summer breezes we get annually. But right there is where you can see that the atmosphere even when heated by the sun has little energy.

However, consider our oceans, which cover the majority of the surface of our planet. Now we all know that water is denser than air: every time we go paddling in the sea, we can feel its density as we attempt to move our legs through it.

The experience of moving through water directly correlates with the amount of energy required to move the water itself. Its very dense and very heavy and it takes a lot of energy to get it moving, to keep it moving, to change its direction or to make it stop.

Now if you think about it (and warmists may not be able to make the leap here) there must be a magnitude more energy involved in generating and maintaining ocean currents than atmospheric currents because of the difference in densities.

As an example, mariners know that the effects of the tide are greater than the effects of the wind. Sure the wind may disturb the surface of the sea, but that's all it can do because of the density difference: there isn't enough energy in the atmosphere to do anything else. Otherwise we'd see atmospheric effects travel deep within the oceans, which they don't.

We all know about Newton's law that describes the effects of one object on another. In practice we can do an experiment to graphically show how the atmosphere effects the sea. Take one snooker or pool ball and a pingpong ball. The snooker ball represents the ocean: very dense, very heavy. The pingpong ball represents the atmosphere: very light, a lot less dense. Now roll the pingpong ball into the snooker ball. Experience tells us that not much will happen, which is what happens with the interaction between the ocean and the atmosphere. All we get are waves on the surface.

Its the direct effects of the Sun's energy on the sea which is the primary climate driver. The atmosphere and especially a small constituent gas like CO2 has a relatively low dynamic effect.

The warmists can big it up all they want, but the truth is that the CO2 theory goes directly against scientific principles.

Even if the atmosphere did in some way hold in heat (which again is untrue: endure a night in a desert and you'll understand how little heat atmospheric gas can hold), the direct radiant effect of the sun on the ocean far outweighs the atmospheric effect.

I can see it, I just can't understand why warmists can't.

2 comments:

  1. Absolutely. Ever since the environmental movement was hijacked by the moneymen, we've been at risk of being bled dry by extortion: pay up or your kids suffer.

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