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September 25, 2012

Global warming is happening

The Norman Transcript

NORMAN — Editor, The Transcript:

Re: Article by Kathy Rand and Mary Francis, Sept. 22

Articles, like the referenced one, present a few facts and then draw conclusions from them. I would like to read some of the logic used to get from their facts to their conclusions. While they are it, I would like to see them address some of the ideas presented as follows.

Facts: Global warming is happening. Global warming has been going for 15 or so thousand years. Sea level has risen eight feet or so since man has evolved enough to develop settlements.

The northern ice caps used to cover a good part of what is now the United States as well as most of Canada: The sea level was low enough then that there was a land bridge between Asia and North America.

The CO2 green house effect exists.

Calories of heat always migrate toward the lower temperature.

There are four sources of heat that our globe sees: Below the surface of the globe, generated by natural sources on the surface, generated by the activities of civilization and from the radiation of the sun

Q: Does the CO2 layer influence the flow of heat only in one direction? I have seen nothing to support this idea.

If heat flow in the CO2 layer is bidirectional and the sun provides greater than 50 percent of the calories of heat to the surface of the globe, doesn’t the amount of calories from the sun decrease as the CO2 layer increases? Carrying this thought to the extreme, aren’t there fewer calories for the surface of the globe to dissipate during the night as the CO2 layer increases and the calories from the sun to the surface of the globe decrease?

Conclusion: Because calories of heat migrate toward lower temperatures, the deeper the measuring point of the ice is, the lower the temperature will go as long as the surface is colder. When the surface begins to heat up — global warming — the lower parts of the ice will also begin heating up. This means that in a plot of the melting rate of the glaciers, the curve will bend upward as the ice thins with global warming.

All this seems to indicate that all of the good things that are proposed to stop the global warming will only slightly slow the rate the ice cap melts. But those things should be done anyway for the well being of the global population. 

I would like to see an answer to the hypothetical question: What would happen to the climate if mankind and our effects were suddenly and completely eliminated and removed? Are the proponents of mankind’s effect on global warming prepared to approach that question?

JOHN BAUGHER

Norman

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