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The emissions of heat-trapping greenhouse gas that are now rapidly warming the earth are by definition invisible.

But what if we could see them? Might the United States have begun to regulate them long ago — as with other emissions we do see?

The Graphics Department of ABC News, working with technicians from the FLIR camera company, whose special “GasfinderIR – GF” cameras can “see” greenhouse gases, has created artist’s impressions of what it might look like if we could see our greenhouse gas emissions.
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Ancient Climate Cycles Are Why Scientists Are Frightened

Of course, there has been some greenhouse gas in the air, warming the earth, ever since life began … and, indeed, helping make life possible.

And of course, climate change has always cycled up and down through the eons for various reasons, which is precisely why the world’s climate scientists are so frightened.

They tell us that by burning ancient buried carbon (coal, oil and gas), which puts powerful invisible greenhouse gas CO2 (carbon dioxide) back up in the air, we are beginning to kick-start yet another natural warming cycle, but at a speed so unnaturally fast that civilization’s basic economies and water and food supplies are already under great stress.

FLIR (for ‘Forward Looking Infra-Red’)

Here’s where the FLIR camera company’s “GasfinderIR – GF” cameras come in.

They are tuned to “see” various kinds of the invisible greenhouse gases that leak from hoses and storage tanks and are emitted from exhaust pipes and chimneys.
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If seeing is believing, then obviously not seeing can make it easier to avoid believing – just as the fact we can’t see (nor feel) the earth spin on its axis meant that it took awhile after Copernicus and Galileo before most people believed that the sun only appears to set.

A growing number of middle school students can now explain all of the above. Sometimes their explanations even use animated graphics they find on those futuristic electronic pocket gadgets they’re often fiddling with. http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/technology/2011/11/what-if-greenhouse-gase
s-werent-invisible/ a really excellent (if horrifying) video down at the bottom of that article; if you can handle it, I highly recommend it. Especially the shot of methane rising from the Arctic snow.

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Earth at night from International Space Station. NASA image

In carefully negotiated language worked out among scientists from many countries, a new report on the effects of a warming climate on the world’s weather by the U.N.-sponsored Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) says that much of the world is already seeing more weather “extremes” — heavier downpours and more intense heat waves — at least partly because of the buildup of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

A sampling of lines from it:

On temperatures: “It is very likely that there has been an overall decrease in the number of cold days and nights, and an overall increase in the number of warm days and nights, on the global scale, i.e., for most land areas with sufficient data.”

On whether human beings are contributing to the change: “It is likely that anthropogenic influences have led to warming of extreme daily minimum and maximum temperatures on the global scale. There is medium confidence that anthropogenic influences have contributed to intensification of extreme precipitation on the global scale. It is likely that there has been an anthropogenic influence on increasing extreme coastal high water due to increase in
mean sea level.”

On hurricanes and tropical storms: “Average tropical cyclone maximum wind speed is likely to increase, although increases may not occur in all ocean basins. It is likely that the global frequency of tropical cyclones will either decrease or remain essentially unchanged.”
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The scientists do not make recommendations on what, if anything, ought to be done in response. They only offer a “summary for policymakers.”

The report is dense, and it’s on a subject that provokes strong and opposing opinions. Definitions of basic terms have been negotiated. For instance, “likely” means at least a 66 percent probability that a conclusion is true, and “very likely” means at least a 90 percent probability. http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/technology/2011/11/climate-change-report-w
eather-extremes-increasing/ draft report can be found at http://ipcc-wg2.gov/SREX/images/uploads/SREX-SPM_Approved-HiRes_opt.pd
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