Abstract

Unlike the radiative forcing linked to CO2 and its cumulative storage in oceans since the start of the industrial era around two centuries ago, the Sun has heated the Earth for billions of years without accumulation and dramatic temperature drift. To overcome this obviously illogical difference in evolution, we first analyze several reasons showing that the current universally adopted relationship between carbon dioxide and global warming does not respect the fundamentals of Chemistry, Physics, and Thermodynamics. A recently proposed alternative mechanism, based on these hard sciences, is briefly recalled. In this new mechanism, heat on Earth is managed by water and its solid-liquid and liquid-vapor interphases equilibria before radiative elimination in space. Today, anthropogenic heat is increasingly seen as a complement to the solar heating although it is neglected in the universally adopted consensus. Anthropogenic heat releases are generally estimated from global energy consumption. A broader list of sources is established that includes the capture of solar thermal infrared radiations by artificial installations, including those acting as greenhouses. Three qualitative scenarios are proposed in which climate change depends on whether the ratio of anthropogenic heat releases relative to solar thermal contributions remains negligible, is acceptable or becomes so large that it could shorten the time until the next ice age. Currently, global temperature and ocean level are still very low compared to those in distant past. On the other hand, ice disappearance is indisputable, particularly at the levels of glaciers, floating ice, and permafrost. These features fit the scenario in which temperature continued to fluctuate as it did during the last 8,000 years of the current Holocene interglacial plateau while local rains, winds, floodings, droughts, etc., worsen in magnitude and frequency to help ice melt and evaporation manage excess heat. Policymakers should not wait to discover that decreasing atmospheric carbon dioxide has little effect on the worsening of climate events to begin mitigating of anthropogenic heat with the help of hard sciences scientists to work on quantification. Key points • Carbon dioxide-based radiative forcing as source of global warming does not resist to critical analysis based on fundamentals of chemistry, physics and thermodynamics • Thermal properties of water, water interphase exchanges, formation of clouds and radiative elimination to space control heat supplies and climate changes since water is present on Earth • Anthropogenic heat releases should not affect much temperature and ocean levels provided they remain negligible relative to solar heat supplies, but heat-dispersing local climatic vents should increase in strength and frequency