The science behind global warming as described by Todd Whitcombe (Feb. 7) is correct but incomplete. Arrhenius did indeed predict that burning fossil fuels would change the atmosphere, but in 1906 when he became aware of the Stefan-Boltzmann Equation he recalculated his work and determined that additional CO2 would produce only very minor warming, so for more than 100 years it's been known that fears of anthropogenic global warming (AGW) are baseless. James Hansen apparently ignored Stefan-Boltzmann when he made his temperature predictions some 30 years ago, which explains why he turned out to be so wrong.
Human emissions only account for three per cent of CO2, far less than just the normal variations in natural emissions. Dozens of studies have determined that CO2 remains in the atmosphere from five to 10 years at most, again demonstrating that AGW fears are groundless. (Contrary to all science on the subject, the IPCC says 50 to 200 years because otherwise their case would collapse.)
It's known that CO2 absorbs heat in the lower troposphere and that if CO2 was responsible for warming, the tropospheric temperature increase at the equator would be considerably faster than on the surface. In spite of decades of searching, such tropospheric warming is absent, so the warming cannot be due to CO2, human or natural.
The logarithmic nature of CO2 warming is also well known. Just as visible light is a spectrum, so is the infrared (radiant heat) and most of it has no effect on CO2. It's primarily the 14.99 micron band that does and most of that one is already absorbed by existing CO2, there's very little left over. Thus the more CO2 in the atmosphere, the less effect any additional CO2 will have.
The 1995 IPCC report contained the statement that "No study to date has positively attributed all or part of observed climate change to anthropogenic causes." After the scientists had signed off, an IPCC bureaucrat, fearing he could soon be out of work, deleted that and 2 other statements and inserted, "The balance of evidence suggests a discernable human influence on global climate". Fraud has been the hallmark of the global warming movement ever since.
If you really want to understand the motives of the skeptics, read "Taken By Storm" by Christopher Essex and Ross McKitrick, and/or "Climate: The Counter-Consensus" by Robert M Carter and you will join the skeptic side.
Art Betke
Prince George
