I've had this rant slowly building up for around two months and have magically been denied the opportunity to spread it among the Climate Change deniers I work with. I have realized some of you may find it useful/interesting/insightful or some other bullshit, so I thought I might post it. Here goes...
Let's talk about temperature. How does a planet become the temperature it is at? This is determined by the difference between how quickly the planet's sun provides it energy and how quickly the planet loses that energy. So, let's take Mercury for example. We know how hot the sun is, because we have satellites monitoring it. Doing math based on how much light hits a satellite's detector, we can calculate how much light (energy) the sun is putting out over a particular area at a certain distance from the sun. This should be a fairly intuitive, non-controversial fact of physics. We can also determine this from Earth doing some much more complicated math to account for the atmosphere reducing the intensity of the light. In other words, it isn't worth the trouble to do it this way. Now, if you deny the existence of satellites, you can go look up this other method and come back with acceptance that we know how hot the sun is. I have no intention of explaining that. Now, as my earlier statement implied, the energy output of the sun is based on the area it is shining on, and the distance from the sun. But, lastly, we must consider how much of that light is reflected by the planet's surface. This property is called a planet's "albedo". We will come back to this, so remember it for a minute.
Conversely, how does a planet cool? Long ago, you likely learned in school that there are three ways for heat to transfer. Conduction, convection, and radiation. Conduction is when two solids touch and heat transfers from hot to cold, like electricity transfers from positive to negative. Convection is the same, except it deals with liquids and gases. Radiation however is different. Radiant heat is emitted constantly by all objects in the form of light, just typically not light we can see. This is actually how thermal imaging works, it picks up the infrared light that makes up the bulk of the radiant heat we have on our planet and our solar system. As an object gets hotter, its radiant heat can eventually reach the visible spectrum, which is how incandescent light bulbs work (which is also why they're terrible and no one uses them anymore, but that's another story). With these three methods of heat transfer in mind, which does a planet use to cool? Planets are not touching anything else, so they cannot lose heat from conduction or convection. This leaves radiation. The sole method of a planet cooling is radiant heat.*
*This paragraph actually explains everything you need to know to move onto how an atmosphere affects a planet's temperature.
So, we now know that a planet's temperature is based on how quickly it gains heat and how quickly it loses it. This means we can describe a planet's temperature as whatever temperature makes these two things equal (in equilibrium, more technically). I will not attempt to explain the mathematics in detail, just know that this is math astronomers have been doing for a very long time, and that the concept is fairly intuitive if you stop and think about it. Because how quickly a planet radiates heat is based on its temperature (Higher temperature means faster loss of heat) there will eventually be a point at which the heating from the sun equals the cooling from radiant heat. Astronomers have used this information to calculate the expected average surface temperatures of Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, and many other planets. For those four, they are expected to be 160 degrees C, -42 degrees C, -19 degrees C, and -63 degrees C respectively. You may have noticed that Earth and Venus are horrendously wrong. Mercury and Mars however are pretty close. "Ha! Those scientists don't know shit!" some of you are shouting. That's because this calculation left out one more very important factor.
You have probably long been told that an atmosphere is what keeps a planet from being stupidly cold. Mercury and Mars have little to no atmosphere, hence why the expected surface temperature is pretty close. Venus and Earth however have quite substantial atmospheres, especially Venus. This is why they are so much hotter than expected. However, it isn't actually specifically the atmosphere, but what composes that atmosphere. Chemists in both industry and academia make extensive use of an analytical technique called infrared spectroscopy. While there are numerous methods of applying it, essentially a sample of some compound is exposed to infrared light and a detector measures how much of the light shines through and at what wavenumbers. Some compounds absorb far more infrared light than others. In particular, organic (carbon containing) compounds do this, though it is by no means limited to organics.
Infrared spectroscopy theory originated with quantum mechanics, formulated by Schrodinger in the 1920s. After extensive study of its theory and development of proper tools, infrared spectroscopy emerged in the 1960s as a commercially available analytical tool, used to figure out what in the hell it was those chemists were making. This is the big point all of this has been culminating to. What I am about to explain, those of you who may be "skeptical" of my point, is a very fundamental piece of science that has been experimentally proven several times over and lays the ground work for a ubiquitous analytical tool that is responsible for huge advancements in the field of chemistry. If you try to deny this, you are in effect saying that every chemist in the world, and nearly every chemical company, and every pharmaceutical company, and countless physicists, are all "in on it" and trying to push the existence of climate change to ruin the petro-chemical industry because that totally makes sense for the petro-chemical industry to ruin itself.
Atoms and molecules all absorb light in several different ways. When they do this, they gain heat and raise in temperature. Of note is "vibrational absorption," which is the type of absorption that makes infrared spectroscopy work. Molecules have a property called a "dipole" which can be thought of kind of like how much a magnet they are. There are two factors that change a dipole, the magnitude of a charge imbalance and how far away from each other on the molecule the equal and opposite charges are. Any molecule that can vibrate in such a way that its dipole will change (Also note that changing from 0, as in no dipole, is still changing the dipole) will have vibrational absorption, which just happens to absorb infrared light. This is also the predominate method by which anything absorbs infrared light. Recall from way back near the beginning of this rant that radiant heat is in the form of infrared light. You see where this is going? Now recall that a planet cools solely through radiant heat. So the reason Earth and Venus are so much hotter than it should be is that they have molecules in their atmosphere that have vibrational absorption.
Finally, after all of this... Let's talk about carbon dioxide, or CO2. CO2 is in the form of a straight line. It's an oxygen atom bonded to a carbon atom bonded to another oxygen atom. These oxygen atoms are the same distance from the carbon atom but in exact opposite directions. The best way to explain what I'm about to talk about without putting you through an actual chemistry course, is to think of molecules as being balanced on a point. If a molecule can be balanced while standing on any of it's atoms, it has 0 dipole**. The more imbalanced it is, the bigger the dipole is. So, let's take the straight line that is CO2 and stand it straight up and down on either oxygen atom. Can this be done? Yes, there's nothing sticking out to the sides so it will balance if you do it right. It's just a straight line after all. Let's turn it 90 degrees and balance it on the carbon atom. Will it work? Yes, the two oxygen atoms cancel each other out and it balances. So CO2 has 0 dipole. Now, what if one oxygen atom vibrated? So we stand the CO2 on an oxygen atom straight up and down and it still balances, but when we try to balance it on the carbon atom, one oxygen atom will be closer or further to the carbon than the other. This means that it will be imbalanced and have a dipole. In fact, the dipole will be constantly changing as the oxygen atom vibrates. This means that CO2's dipole can change if an atom begins vibrating, meaning that it has vibrational absorption and can absorb infrared light. Since it absorbs infrared light, it reduces the amount of radiant heat leaving a planet that has CO2 in its atmosphere, like Earth and Venus do, thus reducing the rate that the planet cools and causing the average surface temperature to rise. In fact, Mars actually has a predominately CO2 atmosphere (what little of an atmosphere there is), and that CO2 is why Mars is marginally warmer than it should be.
**This is basically how I got through that portion of freshman chemistry and I've been trying to put my process to words for years.
[general summary for tl;dr]This is also why methane, water, NOx, SOx, and CFCs, among others, are also considered "Greenhouse Gases" and why they do in fact cause a planet to warm. Some might call the process... Global Warming. To summarize, after this massive rant... A planet's temperature is determined heavily by how quickly it dissipates heat through radiant heat. This follows intuitively from the fact that the other two methods of heat transfer will not allow a planet to transfer heat away from itself. Denying that fact is dumb. Radiant heat is how thermal imaging and things like that work, and it happens to be in the infrared spectrum. That's why thermal cameras are called infrared cameras. This is a scientific fact you can witness with your own eyes (ironically). Denying this is dumb. Certain molecules absorb infrared light, which is the basis for a hugely important analytical tool for chemists. Denying this is dumb. We can show both empirically (with an infrared spectrometer***) and theoretically (with... simplified... quantum mechanics or rigorous quantum mechanics) that CO2 absorbs infrared light. Denying this is dumb. Logically, if a planet's atmosphere contains more of a thing that absorbs infrared light (radiant heat) its temperature will increase. Denying this is dumb.[/general summary for tl;dr]
***By the way, I have personally used an infrared spectrometer on numerous occasions and have had to run a background scan each time. The background scan clearly shows the absorption peaks that correlate with CO2, water, and other junk in the air.
Lastly, there is one singular thing you need to accept in order to believe climate change is a thing that is happening. CO2 levels on Earth are rising. How can I prove this? Well, next to no one denies it. All available data says yes, that is a thing that is happening. Fox News, one of the glorious sanctums of climate change denial, admits that CO2 levels on Earth are rising. [bad oversimplification]But, let's say you're insane and don't trust data. Would you say there are a lot of cities, roads, and buildings on Earth? Yes. What do you think covered the ground before those things? Plants, right? And what do plants absorb? CO2. So, would you say there are now fewer plants on Earth? Yes. Now what do our cars emit? CO2, right? (And water, NOx, SOx, CO, and other crap, but let's not go there...) So would you say that if there are fewer plants on Earth to absorb CO2 and there are now cars (among countless other things) to emit CO2, there is in total more CO2 on Earth? Denying that is dumb. You don't need sophisticated data to figure that one out. That also coincidentally lays the ground work for the argument that all of this is caused by humans. I won't go there.[/bad oversimplification] I have left several things open though. I have made no comment on whether or not climate change is necessarily bad (obviously it is at a certain point, but is there a level at which it could potentially be good? I am personally open to such an argument and can see a few ways to make that argument) and I have made no comment on what to do about it. That is what people should be talking about, not whether or not it is happening.
OH MY FUCKING GOD THIS IS LONG AS SHIT AND I SPENT TWO HOURS NON STOP TYPING THIS. I DON'T EVEN KNOW HOW I GOT TO THIS POINT. IT WASN'T THAT LONG IN MY HEAD I SWEAR TO GOD.
But hey, Longest Rant Award 2016. This is getting tl;dr'd so hard and I don't even care.
Let's talk about temperature. How does a planet become the temperature it is at? This is determined by the difference between how quickly the planet's sun provides it energy and how quickly the planet loses that energy. So, let's take Mercury for example. We know how hot the sun is, because we have satellites monitoring it. Doing math based on how much light hits a satellite's detector, we can calculate how much light (energy) the sun is putting out over a particular area at a certain distance from the sun. This should be a fairly intuitive, non-controversial fact of physics. We can also determine this from Earth doing some much more complicated math to account for the atmosphere reducing the intensity of the light. In other words, it isn't worth the trouble to do it this way. Now, if you deny the existence of satellites, you can go look up this other method and come back with acceptance that we know how hot the sun is. I have no intention of explaining that. Now, as my earlier statement implied, the energy output of the sun is based on the area it is shining on, and the distance from the sun. But, lastly, we must consider how much of that light is reflected by the planet's surface. This property is called a planet's "albedo". We will come back to this, so remember it for a minute.
Conversely, how does a planet cool? Long ago, you likely learned in school that there are three ways for heat to transfer. Conduction, convection, and radiation. Conduction is when two solids touch and heat transfers from hot to cold, like electricity transfers from positive to negative. Convection is the same, except it deals with liquids and gases. Radiation however is different. Radiant heat is emitted constantly by all objects in the form of light, just typically not light we can see. This is actually how thermal imaging works, it picks up the infrared light that makes up the bulk of the radiant heat we have on our planet and our solar system. As an object gets hotter, its radiant heat can eventually reach the visible spectrum, which is how incandescent light bulbs work (which is also why they're terrible and no one uses them anymore, but that's another story). With these three methods of heat transfer in mind, which does a planet use to cool? Planets are not touching anything else, so they cannot lose heat from conduction or convection. This leaves radiation. The sole method of a planet cooling is radiant heat.*
*This paragraph actually explains everything you need to know to move onto how an atmosphere affects a planet's temperature.
So, we now know that a planet's temperature is based on how quickly it gains heat and how quickly it loses it. This means we can describe a planet's temperature as whatever temperature makes these two things equal (in equilibrium, more technically). I will not attempt to explain the mathematics in detail, just know that this is math astronomers have been doing for a very long time, and that the concept is fairly intuitive if you stop and think about it. Because how quickly a planet radiates heat is based on its temperature (Higher temperature means faster loss of heat) there will eventually be a point at which the heating from the sun equals the cooling from radiant heat. Astronomers have used this information to calculate the expected average surface temperatures of Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, and many other planets. For those four, they are expected to be 160 degrees C, -42 degrees C, -19 degrees C, and -63 degrees C respectively. You may have noticed that Earth and Venus are horrendously wrong. Mercury and Mars however are pretty close. "Ha! Those scientists don't know shit!" some of you are shouting. That's because this calculation left out one more very important factor.
You have probably long been told that an atmosphere is what keeps a planet from being stupidly cold. Mercury and Mars have little to no atmosphere, hence why the expected surface temperature is pretty close. Venus and Earth however have quite substantial atmospheres, especially Venus. This is why they are so much hotter than expected. However, it isn't actually specifically the atmosphere, but what composes that atmosphere. Chemists in both industry and academia make extensive use of an analytical technique called infrared spectroscopy. While there are numerous methods of applying it, essentially a sample of some compound is exposed to infrared light and a detector measures how much of the light shines through and at what wavenumbers. Some compounds absorb far more infrared light than others. In particular, organic (carbon containing) compounds do this, though it is by no means limited to organics.
Infrared spectroscopy theory originated with quantum mechanics, formulated by Schrodinger in the 1920s. After extensive study of its theory and development of proper tools, infrared spectroscopy emerged in the 1960s as a commercially available analytical tool, used to figure out what in the hell it was those chemists were making. This is the big point all of this has been culminating to. What I am about to explain, those of you who may be "skeptical" of my point, is a very fundamental piece of science that has been experimentally proven several times over and lays the ground work for a ubiquitous analytical tool that is responsible for huge advancements in the field of chemistry. If you try to deny this, you are in effect saying that every chemist in the world, and nearly every chemical company, and every pharmaceutical company, and countless physicists, are all "in on it" and trying to push the existence of climate change to ruin the petro-chemical industry because that totally makes sense for the petro-chemical industry to ruin itself.
Atoms and molecules all absorb light in several different ways. When they do this, they gain heat and raise in temperature. Of note is "vibrational absorption," which is the type of absorption that makes infrared spectroscopy work. Molecules have a property called a "dipole" which can be thought of kind of like how much a magnet they are. There are two factors that change a dipole, the magnitude of a charge imbalance and how far away from each other on the molecule the equal and opposite charges are. Any molecule that can vibrate in such a way that its dipole will change (Also note that changing from 0, as in no dipole, is still changing the dipole) will have vibrational absorption, which just happens to absorb infrared light. This is also the predominate method by which anything absorbs infrared light. Recall from way back near the beginning of this rant that radiant heat is in the form of infrared light. You see where this is going? Now recall that a planet cools solely through radiant heat. So the reason Earth and Venus are so much hotter than it should be is that they have molecules in their atmosphere that have vibrational absorption.
Finally, after all of this... Let's talk about carbon dioxide, or CO2. CO2 is in the form of a straight line. It's an oxygen atom bonded to a carbon atom bonded to another oxygen atom. These oxygen atoms are the same distance from the carbon atom but in exact opposite directions. The best way to explain what I'm about to talk about without putting you through an actual chemistry course, is to think of molecules as being balanced on a point. If a molecule can be balanced while standing on any of it's atoms, it has 0 dipole**. The more imbalanced it is, the bigger the dipole is. So, let's take the straight line that is CO2 and stand it straight up and down on either oxygen atom. Can this be done? Yes, there's nothing sticking out to the sides so it will balance if you do it right. It's just a straight line after all. Let's turn it 90 degrees and balance it on the carbon atom. Will it work? Yes, the two oxygen atoms cancel each other out and it balances. So CO2 has 0 dipole. Now, what if one oxygen atom vibrated? So we stand the CO2 on an oxygen atom straight up and down and it still balances, but when we try to balance it on the carbon atom, one oxygen atom will be closer or further to the carbon than the other. This means that it will be imbalanced and have a dipole. In fact, the dipole will be constantly changing as the oxygen atom vibrates. This means that CO2's dipole can change if an atom begins vibrating, meaning that it has vibrational absorption and can absorb infrared light. Since it absorbs infrared light, it reduces the amount of radiant heat leaving a planet that has CO2 in its atmosphere, like Earth and Venus do, thus reducing the rate that the planet cools and causing the average surface temperature to rise. In fact, Mars actually has a predominately CO2 atmosphere (what little of an atmosphere there is), and that CO2 is why Mars is marginally warmer than it should be.
**This is basically how I got through that portion of freshman chemistry and I've been trying to put my process to words for years.
[general summary for tl;dr]This is also why methane, water, NOx, SOx, and CFCs, among others, are also considered "Greenhouse Gases" and why they do in fact cause a planet to warm. Some might call the process... Global Warming. To summarize, after this massive rant... A planet's temperature is determined heavily by how quickly it dissipates heat through radiant heat. This follows intuitively from the fact that the other two methods of heat transfer will not allow a planet to transfer heat away from itself. Denying that fact is dumb. Radiant heat is how thermal imaging and things like that work, and it happens to be in the infrared spectrum. That's why thermal cameras are called infrared cameras. This is a scientific fact you can witness with your own eyes (ironically). Denying this is dumb. Certain molecules absorb infrared light, which is the basis for a hugely important analytical tool for chemists. Denying this is dumb. We can show both empirically (with an infrared spectrometer***) and theoretically (with... simplified... quantum mechanics or rigorous quantum mechanics) that CO2 absorbs infrared light. Denying this is dumb. Logically, if a planet's atmosphere contains more of a thing that absorbs infrared light (radiant heat) its temperature will increase. Denying this is dumb.[/general summary for tl;dr]
***By the way, I have personally used an infrared spectrometer on numerous occasions and have had to run a background scan each time. The background scan clearly shows the absorption peaks that correlate with CO2, water, and other junk in the air.
Lastly, there is one singular thing you need to accept in order to believe climate change is a thing that is happening. CO2 levels on Earth are rising. How can I prove this? Well, next to no one denies it. All available data says yes, that is a thing that is happening. Fox News, one of the glorious sanctums of climate change denial, admits that CO2 levels on Earth are rising. [bad oversimplification]
OH MY FUCKING GOD THIS IS LONG AS SHIT AND I SPENT TWO HOURS NON STOP TYPING THIS. I DON'T EVEN KNOW HOW I GOT TO THIS POINT. IT WASN'T THAT LONG IN MY HEAD I SWEAR TO GOD.
But hey, Longest Rant Award 2016. This is getting tl;dr'd so hard and I don't even care.
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