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Why should scientists do experiments on the environment and greenhouse gasses?

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also, do you know that albert einstein quote where he says something like: a thousand experiments couldn't prove me right, a single disproof could prove me wrong or something. what was that?

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  1. Currently the people on the planet are experimenting with our future without knowledge of what will happen.

    The geologic evidence for the past half million years shows that CO2 ppm's never went above 300, today they are approaching 380.

    This evidence also shows that CO2 increases or decreases over time FOLLOWED planetary temperatures, they never PRECEDED temperature except in the special case of volcanic eruptions that do increase CO2 before temperature changes, but this is typically offset by the ash's effect to cool things down by reflecting heat back into space.

    Today, CO2 is over 70% above the geological peaks from the past half million years and leading temperature which is held down by the oceans absorbing it, raising sea level, becoming acidic, yet at the same time we are seeing unexpected things starting to happen with global oceanic current flows, especially the systems that transfer heat and cold.

    The assumed absorption of excess CO2 by the sea is now found to be counterbalanced by more upwelling cold water, full of dissolved gases which is replacing much of the CO2 absorbed in areas of warm seas.

    These complex inter-relationships are being modeled, the models are constantly being updated with more and more hard data so are becoming more reliable as time passes.

    So, instead of the train wreck we are causing, scientists are working hard on defining the factors we can control and what to do about it.

    Also consider that regardless of whether we control the greenhouse gas emissions or not, we will overheat the planet because all of our machines and power generation equipment wastes more heat than is used at about two-to-one, we waste two times more energy to dissipated heat directly into the world than is available as useful work.

    So a 1,000 megawatt nuclear power plant heats the world directly with 2,000 megawatts in turning the steam back into water, normally this is done by raising the temperature of the water body tied to the plant.

    This is true of every machine we make, this lost heat directly heats the planet and will overheat it as surely as greenhouse gas imbalance, it just takes a few more generations of people.

    If that sounds like a reprieve forget it, to take the waste heat from your car and transform it into useful work to reduce the entropy will take genius such as Einstein, only this will be someone at home with thermodynamics.

    That doesn't sound like someone with a remote in their hand ... if you want leadership in dealing with these problems, scientists are the only group of people able to create real solutions.


  2. Should anyone be allowed to experiment with our life-support systems by releasing significant amounts of greenhouse gasses without understanding the concequences? or dumping lage amounts of nitrates in the water supply; or releasing nuclear waste; of felling forests ...

    If you were on a spaceship would you risk it?

  3. yes they should, einstein's quote is right. good job

  4. Prior to doing experiments, scientists conduct an extensive and thorough review of the scientific literature related in any way to the proposed research topic.  For example, when I did a study about the structure and molecular spectroscopy of CH2Cl2, I read every paper about the spectroscopy of CHnXYZ where n =1..4 and X,Y,Z are halogens in advance.  A scientist evaluates how well the prior studies were done and does more experiments only if data is missing or can be improved upon.  At least in my field of molecular spectroscopy, a scientist does experiments with the intention that no one anywhere will be able to do a better job for at least 20 years.  As instruments improve, some future scientist will eventually be able to add another layer of refinement to current results.  This year I am training my 50th student as a future scientist and I hope that some of my students will improve upon my work in due course.  

    Coming back to the question about greenhouse gasses, there are very few recent papers because all of the fundamental science for important simple molecules was done very very well decades ago.  Current studies about greenhouse gasses tend to focus on absorption in the wings far from the absorption peaks.  The effects of greenhouse gas molecules on radiative transport are well understood and that is why there is a broad consensus in the scientific community that global warming is happening.  That being said, greenhouse gasses are an interference in spectroscopic measurements and there are hundreds of scientist like myself that look at them every day while measuring something else.  I have analysed spectra containing CO2 and H2O, as well as my sample perhaps 80,000 times.  If I saw something novel and could reproduce it, I would publish it.  The environment is a very complex system and, as I understand it as a non-expert in the field, there is still a lot of basic science to do.  

    Einstein did not mean that one badly done experiment could prove him wrong when thousands of well-done experiments support his theory.  Reproducibility of results is very important for scientists.  A single experiment does not disprove a theory unless it can be reproduced by anyone with the right equipment and training.  I have seen strange results many times.  There is an electron beam facility in the same building and when someone switches 2000 amps nearby there is an effect.  If that one-time result 'disproved' the AGW theory, should I publish it or repeat the experiment when the electron beam facility is not operating?  Scientists generally avoid making claims until they are certain that the result is reproducible and are especially cautious if the result is unexpected.  Being proven wrong quickly because no one else can reproduce the result is humbling and possibly career ending.

  5. Here's the quote:  "No amount of experimentation can ever prove me right; a single experiment can prove me wrong."

    Unfortunately, with global warming, traditional experimentation is impossible.  We don't have several Earths we can use for expirements.  (Relatively) small scale experiments may help scientists better understand some of the many factors involved in climate change prediction, but for the most part we have to rely on computer models.  The computer models can be used to replicate past climate changes to verify their potential accuracy, and this is basically making and testing predictions to verify a hypothesis (the core of the scientific method).

    Experimentation should be done to further strengthen or disprove the theory of AGW.

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