Seattle Times: "The truth about global warming"

Simple Question:   What temperature is the Earth supposed to be?

Y'all intend to dial in the correct temp?

I have heard that that millions of dollars are needed for additional research.  Good, maybe someday someone will gain real knowledge as to how climate works.

Simple Question: What temperature is the Earth supposed to be?

A spectacular question! . . .and a bit complicated.

First the simple answer: if we assume (falsely) the Earth absorbs all the radiation from the sun and re-emits it all, as a "blackbody", then the temperature would be about 289K (16 celcius) (note: I just helped a second year physics student with this problem several days ago) . But, the Earth has albedo so reflects light, thus the temperature would be decreased fairly significantly. But, the Earth has an atmosphere composed of gases which have resonance frequencies in the infrared band, and so these act as "green house" gases, warming the Earth again.

Let's look at the moon, without greenhouse gases but at the same orbit as the earth. The night side has a temperature of 110k (-173 celcius "cold") and the day side has a temperature of 380K (+110celcius "hot"). It should be noted that the albedo of the moon is similar to asphalt; very dark and so absorbs more light. Thus if the Earth had no atmosphere we would expect the day and night temperatures to shift in a similar way, although less extreme due to the decreased orbital period and increased albedo of the Earth. Still this would make it difficult to enjoy a cold brew or a day skiing .

So the atmosphere is a damper, it increases the minimum temperature more than lower the high temperature, leaving the average right above the freezing point of water. How wonderful is that?

So the question can't be "what is the correct temperature of the Earth" but it must be "what kind of temperature fluctuations can human culture withstand". In the end it is a question simply of what risks we are willing to take with a non-linear system, the climate. (by non-linear I mean "chaotic")

I hope this helps.
Matt

I think that is the key to recognizing the problem those living on earth face, that the atmosphere is a non-linear, chaotic system. That means that models of the anticipated change in global temperatures are not likely to be very accurate and it flies in the face of trying to match global warming models with changes that have occurred so far. Essentially, that type of "model matching" is likely to even more wrong as a future predictor the farther one goes out from initial or current conditions. The likelihood of the models having all the variables identified or of how the various systems may interact to correct or even to identify a range of boundaries is pretty much a joke.

The tendency is to throw out or modify solutions that overstate what has happened so far, but that doesn't mean that the most extreme solutions won't be closer to what might eventually transpire. The system is chaotic and way to complex to anticipate all of the various feedback loops that are operative in the atmosphere for whatever reason.

Those are good thoughtful answers to the first question. Gary - your viewpoint underscores why it is dangerous to wait until we have unanimous agreement among all scientists and have models that won't have any holes poked in them, versus the current state where we have more trends and an appearance that the current conditions are matching the majority scientific view. You both point out the nonlinear nature of the system, which is what is especially scary about the "let's not bother thinking about alternatives to our current course and speed - that would be extra work for us!" viewpoint, which brings me to...

I was amused by the second question:

Y'all intend to dial in the correct temp?

It makes me think of a southern variant of a classic:

"Y'all intend to just keep fiddling while Rome burns?"