An excellent entry into interesting and high quality articles on the net can be found at Arts & Letters Daily. I found an interview of physicist Freeman Dyson. In the interview, the writer is trying to understand how someone of Dyson’s stature could be skeptical of anthropogenic global warming. Basically, Dyson is skeptical of the models used and is skeptical of the assumption that the pre-industrial climate is automatically a valid baseline climate. Dyson accepts that there may be more desirable climate scenarios and that climate change is not automatically bad.

What is lost in most of the public discussion is the history of climate over the past million or so years. The fossil and geological record does not support the assumption that the global climate is static. We’re presently 10 or 12 thousand years past the latest glaciation episode in a series of glaciation episodes. As I recall, the interglacial periods in North America have averaged something like 10-15 thousand years.

What happens to atmospheric CO2 levels as the temperature rises or falls? Does rising atmospheric CO2 lead to a temperature rise or is it a result of a temperature rise? I have not encountered an adequate explanation taking into account the temperature sensitivity of carbonate equilibrium.

CO2 is not an inert substance. It reacts strongly with water to form carbonate.  Obviously CO2 will get absorbed by the biosphere. Do the atmospheric models take the various carbon sinks into account? Perhaps a reader knows.

Water vapour is a potent greenhouse gas and is certainly more abundant than CO2. It must account for some aspect of atmospheric temperature change. Do cloud aerosols and sea spray absorb significant CO2? It’s kinda complex.