This is quite a long interview with Adrian Hayes at 55 minutes but the main focus on his climate change views starts at 20 minutes in. His gradual realisation that the idea of CO2 controlling the world's temperature is far from certain is interesting and came after doing a detailed investigation. It is a journey that quite a lot of thinking people have made. What made this interesting for me was that I know Adrian's family, they were neighbours of mine.
(3) Adrian Hayes: Net Zero or Sustainability? | Tom Nelson Pod #203 - YouTube
We can go into labs and see the effect of co2 on infrared light. This was done in the early 20th century. If you notice the ice core data going back 800,000 years, co2 and temperature track each other very closely. That is no accident.
ReplyDeletehttps://news.climate.columbia.edu/2021/02/25/carbon-dioxide-cause-global-warming/
Oxygen and nitrogen don’t interfere with infrared waves in the atmosphere. That’s because molecules are picky about the range of wavelengths that they interact with, Smerdon explained. For example, oxygen and nitrogen absorb energy that has tightly packed wavelengths of around 200 nanometers or less, whereas infrared energy travels at wider and lazier wavelengths of 700 to 1,000,000 nanometers. Those ranges don’t overlap, so to oxygen and nitrogen, it’s as if the infrared waves don’t even exist; they let the waves (and heat) pass freely through the atmosphere.
With CO2 and other greenhouse gases, it’s different. Carbon dioxide, for example, absorbs energy at a variety of wavelengths between 2,000 and 15,000 nanometers — a range that overlaps with that of infrared energy. As CO2 soaks up this infrared energy, it vibrates and re-emits the infrared energy back in all directions. About half of that energy goes out into space, and about half of it returns to Earth as heat, contributing to the ‘greenhouse effect.’
Smerdon says that the reason why some molecules absorb infrared waves and some don’t “depends on their geometry and their composition.” He explained that oxygen and nitrogen molecules are simple — they’re each made up of only two atoms of the same element — which narrows their movements and the variety of wavelengths they can interact with. But greenhouse gases like CO2 and methane are made up of three or more atoms, which gives them a larger variety of ways to stretch and bend and twist. That means they can absorb a wider range of wavelengths — including infrared waves.
That is fascinating, but you did not mention that the wavelength bands, where CO2 absorbs, are almost saturated and so increasing the concentration of CO2 can have only a marginal effect, leading to a warming of only 0.7 degrees C. That is according to Professor William Happer who is a world leading expert on this subject.
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