Equating CO2 Growth to Warming

WaPo’s Chris Mooney: ‘The U.S. has caused more global warming than any other country. Here’s how the Earth will get its revenge’

'Looking back over time, the United States is far and away the number one emitter. This analysis from the World Resources Institute shows that from 1850 to the year 2011, the United States, a single country, produced 27 percent of the total carbon dioxide emissions of the world. No other single country was close — indeed, the U.S. even outdistanced all the nations of the European Union combined.'

While Chris is hand wringing over the historical CO2 emissions of his homeland a majority of his fellow countrymen remain unperturbed. For 25 years they have been hearing about the coming apocalypse of dangerous man made climate change without so much as a blip on their radar. Predictions of pre-eminent scientists, celebrities and politicians have fallen by the wayside of time. Just more people who do not know what they are talking about.

Chris has left out the effect on temperature that CO2 is supposed to have so let us draw his attention to that metric as well. Over the last 25 years, according to the GHCN anomalies  temperature dataset as CO2 has gone up by 45 parts per million (ppm) the temperature rose by .42C. A comparable 25 year period of warming took place between 1920 and 1944 when  the temperature scorched our ancestors with a .48C rise and CO2 rose by a measly 8 ppm.

In other words, a 5.6 times increase in CO2 in the air over the last 25 years is associated with a lower temperature increase than the earlier 25 year period of warming. Is this what is meant by the heat trapping super powers of CO2?

Chris, you might want to check your premises about CO2 as a causal mechanism for temperature. Does it really look to you like CO2 causes temperatures to rise? Might we need a new star for our climate drama? Write about that, Chris and you might begin to understand why the majority of your countrymen don’t think global warming is a threat. There is a reason why Antarctica is sparsely populated.

The WAIS is safe from CO2 melting but it may not be so secure given the active geophysical processes recently discovered beneath it which is fueling its warmth. Mother Nature and not humanity is responsible for the occasional collapse of the WAIS ice wall into the ocean. POGO science takes another hit as scientists at MIT determine from NASA satellite data that Antarctica is cooling.

Just because there is more CO2 in the air does not mean that the temperature is getting warmer. Geological history disputes that association.

CO2 is an invisible harmless trace gas essential to life on Earth. It is not pollution. CO2 has been exhaled during the creation of this post. No living thing was harmed. Some even liked it.