Worst thing about all this climate change due to CO2 business is that the whole premise is flawed. Given that the protagonists have been banging on about it for about the last 30 years and nothing much has happened you have thought their media credibility would be worse than Chicken Little. I think tipping point in three years unless ... has been predicted at least 3 times now without period overlaps.
The so-called tipping point is physically impossible and increasing CO2 will have pretty much no effect on global temperatures. As anyone who ever goes out at silly o'clock on a winters morning will have noticed cloud cover controls surface temperatures. Clear, warm in the sun, winters day followed by clear night means 'kin cold or even ice first thing. Chilly cloudy day followed by cloudy night means merely chilly morning as the cloud reflects back much of the heat radiated from the surface during the night. Deserts don't do cloud so are notoriously hot during the day and cold at night.
Even if the so called CO2 band were completely blocked the actual amount of energy available to raise temperatures is limited. Despite the project CO2 fear graphs temperature cannot keep rising. I do, sort of, admire how the figures have been manipulated for presentation tho'.
The basic physics of the situation is that the earth is in radiation balance. It is warmed by radiation from the sun during the day and radiates heat back into space all the time. Temperature rises or falls to keep them in balance. Simple quantum physics allows us to calculate the exact amount of energy radiated, or absorbed, at any given temperature and specified wavelength by a theoretical construct called a Black Body that absorbs all the energy falling on it and re-radiates it. Its easy, but tedious, to convert things to real, non black body, things.
Above an average temperature of around -5°C clouds start happening. On any planet with a working hydrosphere and plenty of water (that's ours) the warmer it gets the more cloud you get. Clouds reflect radiation, look they are white so what do you expect, and control the temperature mostly because they reflect more energy from sunlight back away from the earth than they do back down to it. The sun is a lot hotter than the earth so more energy and disproportionately more in the wavelengths that cloud reflects well. In my neck of the woods actual insolation (fancy word for how much sunshine hits the ground) is about half the theoretical "always clear sky" level.
Doesn't help the climate change mob case when you note that the carbon dioxide band is about 60-70% blocked anyway. Mostly due to water vapour. I measured it back around 1980 something for a project at RARDE, but that was low level and not strictly directly applicable here.
Given the explicit cloud effects with basic earth and a not quite black body results is relatively easy to set up sanity check calculations to set realistic limits on temperature changes due to varations in the atmospheric spectral transmission windows.
Now obviously as a retired white male with approximately 30 years professional experience in designing, building and performance assessment of infra red guidance, homing and target identification systems my opinion counts for far less than that of a Swedish schoolgirl who has found the absolute all universe best excuse for late homework. Even more galling when I have actually written what could be called a climate modelling computer program that actually works, as in gives adequately accurate results.
The big worry is that its all further evidence of the flight from reality of the folk in charge into decisions made on the basis of sounds good on twitter level rubbish concepts rather than reality. I guess the dangerous passive smoking thing really started it. Unpleasant though it may be its easy to show that its approaching impossible to get seriously beyond a pack or so a year passively. Effectively passive smoke is a poison gas so if the risk is measurable the full fat version would kill you in about a year. Same sort of thing for the various local air pollution scares. Poisonous gases just don't work that way.
Sounds like the spirit of Lysenko is back to haunt us!
Clive
(Puts hobby horse back in stable.)
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