The number of bad things “scientists say” are due to “climate change” is certainly in the tens of thousands by now. The greenhouse effect amounts to a blocking of 150 W/m2 of infrared, IR, from the surface, about 30 W/m2of which can be attributed to CO2. The surface of the earth is 33 ºC (59ºF) warmer than it would be without an atmosphere. Some 6.6 ºC (12 ºF) of that warming is due to CO2. Climate scientists know that increasing CO2 concentration—by itself—has little effect on temperature even if the amount doubles. The claim is that the warming is amplified by the increase in the H2O greenhouse effect. In case you are wondering why the earth did not bootstrap itself into boiling temperatures during the Eemian Interglacial, the Holocene Climate Optimum, the Minoan Warm Period, the Roman Warm Period, the Medieval Warm Period,or thousands of other warnings, the answer is that the climate is not controlled by positive feedback—where hot weather begets even hotter weather—but by negative feedback—whereas things get hotter, they shed more heat. For the last half-billion years, this negative feedback system has kept the temperature of the surface of the earth within a few percent of its present 288 K. Perhaps the most important lesson to get from this discussion is that the heating effect of additional CO2 gets smaller and smaller as the CO2 concentration increases more and more. Hold onto your wallets as the classless political class attempts to “fight” “climate change.
