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[Phys-l] Arguing Points (was Climate skeptic...)



On 2/19/2012 12:25 PM, John Mallinckrodt wrote:
Whenever debates like this get going among people who presumably CAN be persuaded by evidence and rational argument, I like to haul out a simple summary provided by Art Hobson a couple of years ago. I have yet to hear anything approaching a compelling response. Maybe this time will be different.

"The sudden atmospheric CO2 spike during only the past two centuries is unprecedented in at least 800,000 years of alternating ice ages and interglacials. This spike is of undeniably human origin; so far as I know, even climate skeptics agree with this statement. The natural greenhouse effect undeniably warms Earth’s surface by 33 degrees C
/remainder snipped/

--Art Hobson, The Physics Teacher, Vol. 48, pp 502-503, November 2010

John Mallinckrodt
Acting as the Devil's Advocate, I suppose I should mention the snippet of satellite lore I picked up at some point: "A spun object in near Earth orbit stabilizes at about 15 deg C."

If this is true, I would imagine the mean temperature of a spun object like Earth would also stabilize on a mean value of 15 deg C N'est-ce pas?

If this were the case the warming provided by atmospheric greenhouse effect given as 33 deg C would be questionable??

Brian W