What Will a Doubling of Carbon Dioxide Mean for Climate? - NYTimes.com
The topic under discussion is a number called “climate sensitivity.” Finding this number is the holy grail of climate science, because the stakes are so high: The fate of the earth hangs in the balance.
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During the Cambrian Period Earth saw the greatest expansion of life and diversification in its history. At that time CO2 levels ranged from 4,000 to 7,000 ppm,so a mere 400 is unlikely to cause any difficulty.If we manage to stay around long enough and CO2 continues its raise it seems we may live in interesting times.
Er yes! Climate sensitivity. Its a number is it? I thought it was a positive feedback due to the slight warming claimed to be caused by CO2 resulting in more atmospheric water vapour which is a much more powerful GHG than plant food CO2.
Of course if the author of the piece had mentioned this fact they might have been forced to acknowledge that the amount of H20 in the atmosphere has been dropping alarmingly over the past 10-15 years and that the remaining possible "back radiation" available from CO2 (which is about 5%) has far more work to do than the current CO2 levels (400ppm)ever accomplished (supposing as I do that the climate sensitivity hypothesis is correct).
Indeed current CO2 levels have so far managed to achieve a negative climate sensitivity and a big one at that.
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