Great Global Warming Challenge – Part 1. Do you know about climate science, or are you just a pretender?

Question

1. In which century did scientists first consider that CO2 could be involved in climate change?

2. In what year did G.S. Callendar publish his major paper on CO2 and climate change?

3. How old was Al Gore in that year?

4. When sunlight reaches the surface of the earth, what happens to it?

5. Which significant type of radiation is radiated from the earth back into the atmosphere?

6. What does a “greenhouse gas” do to this radiation?

7. Does CO2 have this property? Do the primary atmospheric gases of nitrogen (N2) and oxygen (O2) have this property?

8. Since 1958, atmospheric concentrations of CO2 have been directly measured – True/false?

9. What is the current approximate concentration of CO2 in parts per million (ppm)?

10. What was the concentration of CO2 two hundred years ago according to ice core evidence? What percentage change is this to the current day?

No links required. All answers are simple and widely known by scientists.

Answer 1

1. 1800's

2. 1950's?

3. ?? He was just a kid.

4. It's reflected back into space as infrared light.

5. Infrared

6. It absorbs the energy. Electrons get "excited".

7. Yes, No

8. True

9. 384ppm

10. 280ppm, approximately 35% increase.

Answer 2

I'm answering these off the top of my head, so, be gentle.

1. The early 19th century.

2. 1938.

3. Was he even born then? That would make him at least 70 years old, which I kind of doubt.

4. It is either absorbed or reflected.

5. Earth's radiation band peaks in the infrared at about 10 microns. (Note to J S: heat and infrared radiation are not the same thing.)

6. It absorbs it.

7. Yes, carbon dioxide is an efficient absorber in the 7-14 micron range. Nitrogen and oxygen are poor absorbers in this range.

8. True.

9. 380 ppm.

10. 260 ppm? If that's correct, that's a rise of 31%.

How many did I get?

Answer 3

1. 1800s.  I'd guess 1950s for general greenhouse gas theory and 1892 for additional insight that coal adn other fossil fuel burning might lead to climate change.

2. He developed the idea in the 1930s but he started other folks looking into it through the 1950s.  I don't recall the year of his paper but I'll guess 1934.

3.  I don't pay much attention to Al so I don't know his age today, but I suspect he wasn't born yet when G.S. Callendar published his paper.

4. Some is reflected back into space (due to albedo), some is absorbed adn converts to heat, some is re-radiated in the general direction os space.

5. Heat, i.e. infrared radiation.

6. Certain wavelengths are captured by the various greenhouse gases, capturing the energy and heat.  Since it essenatially radiates in all directions, some of that energy remains in the atmosphere and some is re-radiated back towards the earth, some of it successfully radiates into space.

7. Yes.  No.

8. True, on the summit of Mauna Kea since then (the CO2 conference last year celebrated the 50th anniversary) and later in other locations.

9. 385ppm, although I could have read that in an older paper or rpesentation and it could be 390s now.

10. Estimates vary, but around 280ppm seems to be an accepted figure, with "under 300" a safe generalization that I've seen as well.  I believe CO2 concentrations are up about 32% (and mankind's contributions to the total are easily measured via carbon isotope alaysis).

So if the skeptics are right, the1890s would be when the supposed scam/fraud/hoax/fake started, and everyone who started it, and their children, and their grandchildren, are all long gone now, but it's still in operation (somehow), and still no one has come forward to document in detail how it all works.  (Is it just me, or does that sound incredibly silly?)

For exact answers to the history questions, the American Institute of Physics has a nice page summarizing the history of CO2 science.

Answer 4

1 1900s or the 1800s depending on what exactly you are referring too.

2 ??? maybe 50s or 60s.

3 who cares?

4 some is reflected some is absorbed as heat some is converted into chemical energy.

5 infra red

6 it absorbs and remits it,

7 yes no

8 yes

9 around 380ppmv

10 280 ppmv

Answer 5

Al Gore was born in 1948.  I think the other questions have been adequately answered.

Answer 6

Pretty much a pretender like the rest . But here's some for you

1.Who first discovered spectrum

2.How was the church involved

3.Which church

4.is spectrum a illusion

5.who's more famous for prism

6.which country indoctrinated color blindness testing first

7. why

8.what constitutes a gas

9. what are the unique features of a gas

10. the equation for temperature.

Don't even have to be a scientist just simple answers.

Sorry just my sense of humor. The point is, I could ask questions like that forever. At best you would only get half of them right. If they were true and false.

Answer 7

1.  1800s

2.  1938

3.  31 (Oh, you probably meant his son.  He hadn't been born.)

4.  Some of it is absorbed and most of that is converted into heat (infrared radiation).  Some is simply reflected back.

5.  Some infrared, some visible.

6.  It absorbs some of the infrared portion (coming up from the Earth) and reradiates it in all directions.  Some of it goes back down, so it's as if the greenhouse gas reflects some heat back.

7.  Yes.  Not to any significant degree.

8.  True.  Actually direct measurements were made way before that, but they started to be done very systematically in 1958.

9.   380 ppm.

10. 290 ppm.  30%.

Sharpened some of your questions a bit, eh?

Answer 8

i know much about climatology. i could answer the majority of your questions. but i feel you lost your credibility when you said these answers are widely known by scientists. i find it very hard to believe it is "widely known" how old Al Gore was when G.S Callendar published his major paper on CO2 and climate change.

Answer 9

1. Early 19th century

2. I am pretty sure that it was in the 1930's sometime.

3. I have no clue how old Al is, but I assume he had not been born yet.

4. About 1/3 of the visible light is reflected back out into space by cirrus clouds, particulates, snow/ice, etc. What is not reflected is absorbed by the surface, warming it.

5. Longwave infrared.

6. Absorbs it (this is wildly simplistic, but I do not care to expand).

7. CO2 does have this property. N2 and 02, for the most part, do not interact with infrared radiation.

8) Mauna Loa's atmospheric CO2 measurements began in 1957, so your statement is false. Keeling started observations atop Mauna Loa in 1955 I believe, but you may or may not count that.

9) Last time I checked it was in the neighborhood of 385 ppm.

10) Around 280 ppm. So a 37.5% increase.

Answer 10

There are a few mechanisms that you haven't mentioned like the primary mechanism of cooling the surface of the Earth is convection - most radiation leaving the atmosphere originates from the atmosphere.

When you increase the opacity of the atmosphere to a particular wavelenth, you also increase the emissivity.  

A lot of sceptics are aware of the mechansims involved in the greenhouse effect, but are sceptical that AGW from CO2 is significant enough to measure.