The myths about CO₂ - the Gas of Life

From Walter Starck writing at Australia's Quadrant Online:

The greenhouse with no roof
As an interdisciplinary study, climatology draws upon knowledge and techniques from a diverse range of other relevant disciplines. Almost all of the leading �climatologists� promoting the Global Warming alarm are in fact rebadged biologists, geographers, computer modellers and other specialists. Vanishingly few have any genuine expertise in the fundamental matter of the complex atmospherics physics involved in the so-called greenhouse effect. They have simply accepted it as a proven physical fact that increased CO2 must �trap� more heat in the atmosphere. The very term �greenhouse effect� implies this.

Unfortunately, the greenhouse simile is highly misleading in a most important respect. The greenhouse constructed by the climate alarmists has no roof. It cannot �trap� any heat because the hot air will rise and drift away just as it does in a hot air balloon. A greenhouse with no roof is something only an academic would design. Anyone with practical experience would know immediately it could not work.

Even at pre-industrial levels of CO2, the absorption of infrared radiation that is within the absorption spectrum of CO2 is virtually complete within a few tens of meters. Increasing levels of CO2 do not increase the IR emitted from the surface and only marginal effect on the total amount of IR energy absorbed. It mainly concentrates the absorption closer to the surface. However, as soon as the near surface air begins to warm it also begins to expand and bubble upward in convection. This distributes the heat energy through a hugely greater volume of the troposphere. As the total amount of thermal energy that is being absorbed is very small and the warm air is not being �trapped� near the surface, it makes little difference to the temperature of the troposphere whether the initial warming takes place within a few metres more or less from the surface.

Calculations by atmospheric physicists have estimated that a doubling of CO2 should result in an increased absorption of IR by only about 1.2% and a temperature increase of about 0.7C�. Most of this increment would come from the margins of the absorption spectrum as it is only there that absorption is not already saturated. Because of the low rate of absorption involved, this very mild additional warming would take place over a much longer path through the atmosphere and would thus have even less effect on near surface temperatures.

Walter closes with this paragraph:

A number of key people promoting the climate scare are repeat offenders with histories of past involvement in the business of prophesying looming disaster for fun and profit. Before climbing onto the GW bandwagon they were preaching about a new ice age, nuclear winter, the ozone hole, acid rain, resource depletion, overpopulation, massive famines and sundry other imminent crises which never eventuated. The only reasonably certain effect of increased CO2 is a significant increase in plant productivity accompanied by a global greening in arid regions. It is past time to end the climate change farce and start focusing on the very real and serious economic problems which confront us. Continuing to throw billions of dollars at every imaginary threat conjured up by self-anointed experts is an indulgence we can no longer afford.

Walter is one of Australia�s most experienced marine biologists, with a professional career of studying coral reef and marine fishery ecosystems. Global Warming is junk science -- there is no evidence for it in the last 18 years. The models that these people use are broken -- they do not take into account the fact that our sun is a variable star -- and is entering a time of low output. We should be preparing for lower than normal temperatures instead of trying to scrub the Gas of Life from our atmosphere.