scalbers

Perhaps off-peak power could be used to charge plug-in hybrids or the like to help even the load?

By the way, what's the story on these micro-nuclear power plants? http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/nov/09/miniature-nuclear-reactors-los-alamos

I think the dielectric coatings are what is used with precise thicknesses to take advantage of interference. In contrast, the Low-E have metallic coatings in the mix so another process may be going on besides interference.

My guess is that the fringes are closer together, hence one would need narrower slits (yielding lower intensity) so they wouldn't get washed out (and look "weaker"). Perhaps with an interferometer using collimated mirrors and such you can get the wider beams again to give more intensity.

Is it simply the spectral characteristics of these somewhat metallic coatings?

To some extent this sort of thing should be expected, as the actual universe is larger than the visible universe, and the visible horizon is currently shrinking with respect to the number of galaxies we can see. I think the more significant aspect of this is talking about inhomogeneities from a time prior to inflation, if this is in fact demanded by the observations.

Sounds good - a link to this talk might be of interest.

A cloud is different than water vapor so wouldn't directly bear on how strongly WV absorbs/emits IR. I'm showing an example of how downward radiation from the upper atmosphere can have an impact of net warming on surface temperature. While cirrus clouds would cool the surface during the day, WV absorbs less solar radiation thus reinforcing the net warming of WV overall. Interestingly, I believe more cirrus clouds by themselves would actually cause a net warming of the earth and is one of the uncertainties of climate models. Also, as I implied earlier, I agree with Chris C that having absorption and emission occur at high altitudes helps to warm the surface both for radiative and convective (adiabatic warming) reasons. Steve

One possibility is that there is an anti-reflection coating on one or more of the panes. These coatings are based on interference, and their color characteristics depend on wavelength and angle of incidence. I've seen an unusual coating once that transmits yellow and reflects blue (or was it the other way around)?

Sounds like you're getting set up in your new home. Perhaps looking at the candle through the glass it is brighter and the greenish color is washed out, as color perception depends on the intensity of an object. The reflection would be dimmer and perhaps the color shows more easily? I think our vision shows colors best with an optimum intermediate brightness. On the other hand I've seen unusual secondary transmission through windows that are offset and dimmed and perhaps colored, so perhaps there's some weirdness going on after all.

I think heat is radiated even from the cold upper atmosphere to the surface, after all the cold upper atmosphere is still much warmer than the alternative of outer space. So if the upper atmosphere warms, the net downward IR radiation increases. One can notice that a night with high cirrus clouds tends to be warmer than a clear night. Therefore when you increase the emissivity in the upper troposphere (either from more CO2 or more cirrus clouds), the surface becomes warmer. Yes, I think all the slight factors are illustrated in the radiation diagram I linked to previously: http://www.euronet.nl/users/e_wesker/gh.gif

I think the absorption of solar IR would be a slight factor, though much of it would continue to be reradiated downward to the surface as IR. The main point remains that there would be more increased IR radiating down from the CO2 (both day and night) compared with the solar IR being blocked (only during the day). Note the back radiation (and atmospheric absorption) arrow in this diagram - http://www.euronet.nl/users/e_wesker/gh.gif I actually loosely think of a second argument about what greenhouse gases can do. If hypothetically all wavelengths were blocked by CO2 in the upper atmosphere, then there may be a net warming at the ground. This would be due to the adiabatic temperature changes between the level where radiation is absorbed/emitted (up in the atmosphere) and the ground, where the pressure is higher. It's also true that water vapor is often omitted in the discussion and how it has an important amplifying effect on global warming.

Another anecdote about CO2 driving global warming is very warm conditions at the time of the dinosaurs (e.g. greenery in Antarctica) when CO2 values were roughly 2000ppm. So carbon can be pretty powerful. Clearly it is we humans that are causing the present increase in carbon as well. So both carbon and humans are powerful enough.

Actually one doesn't really need to have a super accurate climate model to understand the basic physical processes going on, and that we are on a course of action that is too slow to adequately deal with the global warming issue. There is basic physics of CO2 radiation transfer, amplification of the greenhouse warming by water vapor, and the time it takes for CO2 to be removed for the atmosphere & oceans as well as the time it takes society to change. It is pretty clear to me that these factors all add up to the notion that we should accelerate our actions. These concepts should be fairly straightforward to grasp as I have mentioned them in different forms several times in this thread.

Couple of quick notes. I think the methane half-life is somewhere in the 5-10 year range instead of 1 year. It has leveled off this decade though it increased noticeably in the past year or so. It's true that soil is an important carbon repository. One global warming solution involves the use of pyrolysis to make biochar that can possibly create agriculture and energy production that is carbon negative. This is one of the few reasonable ways I can think of to try and reverse global warming. If you look up 'terra preta' one can read the fascinating story about how the ancient Amazonians apparently used such a farming practice. And I agree in general that we can increase investment to a few percent of our economies to tackle global warming without a significant loss in standard of living. It's true that business as usual would bring the 1000ppm values mentioned eventually and would have a quite significant effect on climate. Clearly investments should be increased since emissions have been on an increasing trend, and the emissions have to be cut around 70% globally (90% in industrialized nations if we assume parity between all countries) just to stabilize the current CO2 concentration. The longer we wait means the sharper the needed cuts become even beyond what I'm mentioning. That means it would be cheaper to act now instead of later. As a footnote I can say it's interesting how non-linear and dynamic the CO2 ocean processes are. Around 10-20% of the CO2 will remain in the atmosphere for many thousands of years before the ocean can take it in. And remember what I mentioned previously about ocean acidification so eventually all CO2 emissions would have to be prevented to deal with this, and to prevent that 10-20% figure I mentioned from piling up.

Regarding the doubling of ice melting and such, recall the present sea level rise is dominated by the thermal expansion of the oceans and is a linear effect of temperature (roughly). There is a smaller component that is caused by glacier/icecap melting. However this is the component that may well be exponentially increasing, so even if the present overall sea level rise is steady, it could accelerate drastically as the icecap component starts to dominate. I do think the rate of sea level rise has been increasing in the past couple of decades, from about 2mm/yr to 3mm/yr. So Jim Hansen's numbers that were mentioned earlier would remain as plausible.

It's fine to point out the uncertainty, however this shouldn't paralyze us from prudent and much needed action. This is the danger of being preoccupied with the skepticism. Is there any real doubt that the Earth's climate sensitivity to a doubling of CO2 beyond natural levels is about 3 deg C. And is there any real doubt about the other points I made in post #413? And if the top of the envelope of uncertainty is the maybe 10-20% chance of Jim Hansen being right about Greenland, isn't that a reason for concern? Also, the rate of warming may increase for a while due to the decreased albedo of the Arctic Ocean, and our cleaning up of cooling particulates in the atmosphere.

Remember also that the CO2 we emit stays in the atmosphere/ocean system for many thousands of years. So the more we emit, the more we would really need to suck back out of the atmosphere by some new technology. It is less risky to act soon to cut emissions. CO2 levels right now are likely higher than has been seen for millions of years. That in my opinion is too much human impact. In the big picture we have twin issues of warming in the atmosphere and acidification in the oceans.

Sounds like a good overall assessment of energy and some aspects of warming. However I would suggest differently about the amount of time we have. If we wait until the planet warms a certain amount we want to tolerate before deciding it's too warm, then it's too late. There is a lot of inertia present in several ways. This includes ocean heat inertia, carbon residence time in the atmosphere/oceans (thousands of years to get it all out), and societal inertia in reversing the trend in emissions rates. There is also inertia in the sense of the tipping points of ice cap melting and permafrost release. If you buy Jim Hansen's suggestion to return to 350ppm CO2 then it's already too late and we need things like biochar to reverse the CO2 concentrations. Another way to consider this is that almost any emissions we make will increase the long term CO2 concentration in the atmosphere/ocean system as the sinks are likely inadequate. If we say the CO2 will eventually be absorbed in the oceans we still have the issue of ocean acidification. A good way to frame this discussion is how much eventual warming (and eventual CO2 levels) shall we tolerate. I would personally like to keep the eventual warming to be no warmer than today. This would suggest the CO2 concentrations roughly around the 350ppm value. And incidentally, snowfall in some areas actually increases with warming, since warmer air can hold more moisture. Steve

Just a play on words, is that we are all solar and fusion powered. After all, fusion in the sun created energy that shone upon the Earth. This fed the plants that later became buried and became fossil fuels - that we use today. Back to the discussion at hand. Solar and wind are now very economical at least in the favored areas. This would be the desert SW US for solar (consider PG&E's announced large plant). NanoSolar's thin film is also very economical (about break-even with coal) and avoids the cost issues of silicon. Wind energy is abundant in the high plains of the US. With good transmission lines this could become even more significant. And as for fusion power plants, why is the US zeroing out its funding for ITER in the latest congress?

Here's some info about DEMO, which is the proposed demonstration plant after ITER: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DEMO And this figure about "Beyond ITER" http://www.iter.org/Future-beyond.htm Meanwhile, here's a good article with an update on geothermal power: http://www.earth-policy.org/Updates/2008/Update74.htm

To help clarify this a bit, I would suggest that investing a few more billion today in the "flying cars" of the future may help hasten the day in the future they come to fruition. This could be done without interfering in any way with the near-term development of wind and solar. I believe the fusion investment is underfunded (recently brought back down to zero in the U.S. for ITER) from what I've heard.

Yes, I've been mentioning quite a bit about solar in this thread and I support what you're saying. I'm wondering though if we can increase development simultaneously of short term things like solar and long term things like fusion? I think it might be interesting to add a discussion of these farther off technologies into the mix. Kind of like walking and chewing gum at the same time. This is one way of acknowledging the skeptics comments about diversification.

Right, fusion isn't available as of yet. This is why I'm bringing up the subject in the context of whether increasing the funding can hasten the day when it may be available. In the long run this could be rather relevant. In the spirit of trying all possible options we might bring more solar and wind online in the short term while we research the more challenging methods for the long term. The room temperature superconductor seems to have some relevance to the discussions of wind and solar as it could help with power transmission from areas that have lots of wind and sun to the areas where people are.

I've been mentioning solar lately as it seems to be an energy source that has the potential to grow quite a bit. Public support for research and development may help accelerate the ongoing expansion, particularly if more people become aware of recent developments. Speaking though of diversification, I'd like to see more funding on the ITER and DEMO fusion projects to accelerate their development as well.