OT: Weird. Just gotta talk to someone.

F.James Cripwell wrote:

I think you're just running into a common searching problem. Unless "effectiveness" is a such a clear term of art that it is the only term used to describe what you're looking for and it is consistently used everywhere this concept is investigated, you'll have a lot of research that won't be turned up by googling on those search terms. Also, scholarly work is very hit or miss on google. Many journals and authors don't have information easily accessible through google, and if they do, the information may be limited to just an abstract, or even just a title. My hunch is that you just haven't hit on the appropriate term of art to find what you're looking for. It's not always obvious, even if you have a reasonable acquaintance with the concepts you're trying to investigate. I get 6200 hits on google scholar for "'carbon dioxide' greenhouse effectiveness". Another strategy is to find a journal or two that deals with the area you're interested in (e.g., "Climactic Change" might be one you'd check) and look through their articles. That can give you an idea what sorts of terminology might get you closer to what you're looking for. Another strategy is to find the names of some key researchers in the field and look through their articles to see if you can find mention of some better search terms. By the by, does this get you any closer?

wishes, Ericka

The same type of thing happened to me a few years back, before the term "digital divide" was commonly used to describe the inequities of distribution in internet services.

I tried searching on such combinations as "social policy", "telecommunictions", "ethics", "big business" and didn't come up with a single useful hit.

I almost came to the conclusion that telecommunications and big business isn't interested in ethics. I had to find some other conclusion, however for the paper I was writing.

Phyllis Maurer

Thanks Ericka. I have tried some of your suggestions, but I have not got any closer. I tried cdiac, and it came close, but not close enough. What I did find was the name of someone in New Zealand who seems to have the same sort of ideas that I have, so I have written to him. Maybe he has been more successful that I have been. One of the troubles I have found is that some people use the term "effectiveness" when they really mean something completely different. This makes it tough sorting out the wheat from the chaff.

-- Jim Cripwell. From Canada. Land of the Key Bird. This creature of doom flies over the frozen tundra in winter, shrieking its dreaded call; "Key, Key, Key, Key rist but it's cold!!"

This is always the problem when you are seeking information on academic or scientific information, the search engines are simply looking for those terms without context. It also may be that the term used in the field is very different from what you are searching for, jargon can be like that :)

If I were you, I would start searching scientific journals. There are more than a few services in the internet that allow a wide variety of journals to be searched - though you will probably have to go to either a library (or more likely) a university library to be able to access these services

- they are not free. I used to know the name of more than a few of them back when I was working on my thesis, but how quickly we forget such things :)

Catherine K

Jim -

I'm not clear exactly what you're looking for in discussing "effectiveness" vs. "effect". If you google "greenhouse effect" and "carbon dioxide", there are more than 300,000 hits, but the very first one is Wikipedia and it references some scientific journals that may lead you in the right direction. Also, "Greenhouse effect" and "methane" leads to a page specifically discussing methane's role.

HTH, Sue

F.James Cripwell wrote:

You are making my point of what I find to be so wierd. There are millions of articles, and billions of words, written on the greenhouse effect of carbon dioxide. Yet not one single one of them, so far as I have been able to find, quantifies the greenhouse "effectiveness" of carbon dioxide. From what I can see, it is simple physics, yet no-one at all has done it. Sure it is not physics 101, but it is not that complicated. If no-one can quantify the greenhouse *effectiveness* of carbon dioxide, how on earth can people claim that it is the carbon dioxide that is causing the earth to warm up? If I have not made myself quite clear, "greenhouse effect", is an expression that carbon dioxide acts like a blanket, and stops the world from cooling. "Greenhouse effectiveness" is quantifying the idea, and specifying, in numerical terms, how much carbon dioxide it takes to cause the earth to warm up a certain amount.

-- Jim Cripwell. From Canada. Land of the Key Bird. This creature of doom flies over the frozen tundra in winter, shrieking its dreaded call; "Key, Key, Key, Key rist but it's cold!!"

Forgive me, since I'm many years removed from my physics classes, but isn't that what the page I quoted previously addressed, either through the GWP estimates or the values for radiative forcing? The radiative forcing is expressed in Watts per square meter rather than temperature, but it seems to be a similar concept. And they do address that one of the complicating factors is that the gasses interact with each other and global sinks to create different effects.

Best wishes, Ericka

I am not sure how relevant this is to rctn, but I vaguely understand GWPs. The article on radiative forcing looks at the history of the earth, and from what I could understand, radiative forcing is much the same as a GWP. But neither equate to my idea of how much carbon dioxide does it take to raise global temperatures by, say, 1 degree celsius per year.

-- Jim Cripwell. From Canada. Land of the Key Bird. This creature of doom flies over the frozen tundra in winter, shrieking its dreaded call; "Key, Key, Key, Key rist but it's cold!!"

It looks like maybe the term you need is "climate sensitivity" which relates forcings to change in global temperature. The IPCC estimate for climate sensitivity was something like 1.5-4.5 deg C for a doubling in CO2. However, there does not seem to be a simple equation for this. They appear to get the numbers from simulation modeling, which might explain why you can't find a formula.

Best wishes, Ericka

And I just read these posts and wish so much that I understood what you're talking about. :-) How I envy the mathematical mind. My brother has one. I was on the wrong conveyer belt.

Dianne

Ericka Kammerer wrote:

Ericka Kammerer , blest us all with:

As I understand it , you describe exactly how we [.au] arrive at GWP indices for industry. Laymans terms? This product used in this fashion ( Ø ) will create x number of degrees rise as a warming factor for CO² when released in this y quantity.

AFAIK the whole deal is simulation with some speculation. What is the alternative? Sit back and watch it happen , then say..ooooops!

jLb

I know for sure someone has done this because we learned about it in geology class I had last year. If I could find my notebook I could at least tell you the phrase they use to indicate how much heat is help in by x amount of CO2, H2O, CH4, etc. This may be what you're looking for, this one shows a chart that shows the effects of different gases:

explains how to convert concentrations to contributions.Otherwise, try this page for now... it says in the bottom half that scientists have modelled the effects: luck Jim.~Sara

This is what I googled: "carbon dioxide" "greenhouse effect" "methane" "water vapor"

X-No-Archive: yes "F.James Cripwell" wrote

No one claims that it's *exclusively* CO2 that makes the world warm up. There are lots of other greenhouse gases as well - N2O (nitrous oxide) and methane and assorted CFCs. The comparative effectiveness depends on all kinds of factors such as volume, reactivity and lifespan. Those are addressed in the site that Erica posted.

emerald

Thanks. Let me look into this more thoroughly.

-- Jim Cripwell. From Canada. Land of the Key Bird. This creature of doom flies over the frozen tundra in winter, shrieking its dreaded call; "Key, Key, Key, Key rist but it's cold!!"

Thanks. Something else for me to follow up on.

-- Jim Cripwell. From Canada. Land of the Key Bird. This creature of doom flies over the frozen tundra in winter, shrieking its dreaded call; "Key, Key, Key, Key rist but it's cold!!"

LOL! You`re not alone, Dianne!

Pat P

*THANK YOU*, Thank you, Thank you, Sara!!!!!!!!! Yes I am shouting. Isn't RCTN wonderful!! I search for weeks, and get nowhere. Put a message on rctn, and in a couple of days, almost like magic, someone finds what I am looking for. It does not matter what the subject is, it happens every time. Again, many thanks Sara!!!

-- Jim Cripwell. From Canada. Land of the Key Bird. This creature of doom flies over the frozen tundra in winter, shrieking its dreaded call; "Key, Key, Key, Key rist but it's cold!!"

Let me see if I can explain things in non-scientific terms. There is a lot of writing that the earth is warming up, which is bad, and the cause is carbon dioxide, whose concentration is increasing in the atmosphere, due to mankind burning things like fossil fuels. I read this, and my scientific instinct convinces me this is all smoke and mirrors. I do a little bit of science, and "prove" to myself that I am correct; whatever is causing global warming, it is not man-made carbon dioxide. Now I want to find someone else who has done the same sort of thing. Some

*science*, maybe to prove I am right; maybe to prove I am wrong. I search and search, and find nothing. Sara points me straight to someone who has done the same sort of thing I have, and has come to the same conclusion. Thank heaven the USA has had the sense to ignore Kyoto and stay out of this nonsense. What I am trying to do is persuade my Member of Parliament that I am correct, so that Canada can join the USA on the side of the angels.

-- Jim Cripwell. From Canada. Land of the Key Bird. This creature of doom flies over the frozen tundra in winter, shrieking its dreaded call; "Key, Key, Key, Key rist but it's cold!!"