What Do We Think About Climate Change

Oh my God - that last post is about to get ripped.

[Marco1]

Your post has as much value as all the other mass hysterical scare mongering that is going on. Nothing new.
I won't even bother rebutting the worthless points made, and I must add probably in good faith, particularly the "danger levels for humans[ of CO2".

However it is worth revisiting my point about democracy. It is the western world form of government that allows this to happen. Of course I don't propose a revolution and subsequent monarchy, with me as king, only pointing at our weekness.
A small group of powerful people knowingly mislead a larger (yet still minor) group with extreme views like greens and environmentalist, who feet firmly set on high moral ground think they know better. A new religion is formed and our democratic government bows to vocal minority. The trend is set and just like any other vocal minority governments see a source of votes in it regardless of the value for the country, let alone the world.

The global warming religion has set in motion the modern version of the Spanish inquisition complete with its ritual burning of witches. The emission trading scheme...(the word emission invariably reminds me of passing wind) if adopted and if it achieved a reduction of 5% on the emissions of man made CO2, it would be like cutting one millimetre of a string that is one kilometre long...At a cost of trillions...and achieving absolutely nothing.

This equates to poring a concrete statue of an imaginary entity, say a green extraterrestrial on every square in the word and force people to kneel in front of it and pay tribute. Nothing new, it has been done before.
When I can fully understand from a psychological point of view why a person would join and embrace such ideas, it does not say much about such persons sanity, let alone discerning powers. Unfortunately as I stated before, most green people who think to know better and that run with this ideas are beside fervourous, also sincere. And that is the real waste in this religious movement.
I must emphasise that nothing in my post or my previous one has any animosity against any person who holds a different view. Yet I must use words that are as strong as the one used to support this tripe.

Kind Regards
Marco

[Knut Sand]

Originally Posted by Marco1

......if adopted and if it achieved a reduction of 5% on the emissions of man made CO2, it would be like cutting one millimetre of a string that is one kilometre long...

1 km is
1000 m is
1000000 mm.....

1000000 *5/100 = 50 000 mm....

Think I'll choose whose estimates I'll rely on.....

Oh, and no animosity from me neither... (ehh, whatever that means...)

[hoytedow]

Had a nice bonfire this weekend, made s'mores with a carbonated beverage to wash them down. Bubbly!

[Jimbo1490]

Originally Posted by ancient kayaker

Lets assume the equivalent rate of increase remains constant, then CO2 levels will reach danger levels in 660 years. It's a simple calculation.

Look at the graph that Guillermo just posted at #3535 and you can pick out numerous 'spikes' in CO2 concentration just as rapid as the recent one. So What? NEVER did the CO2 levels continue to rise until toxicity. Practical spectral saturation occurs at ~200ppm, so there's not even any additional GH warming of any significance from any of these spikes including the present one. And don't even bother to bring up that crap about the higher strata of the atmosphere taking up all the 'extra' CO2; those parts of the atmosphere are cooling, not warming!

Originally Posted by ancient kayaker

Now consider that most of the CO2 emissions are being absorbed by the oceans. Unlike the atmosphere, water does not have an unlimited capability to absorb CO2, so the rate is far more likely to increase than remain constant or decrease.

This has been covered numerous times. The oceans have, for all practical purposes, INFINITE capacity to absorb CO2 because of buffering reactions that precipitate CO2 out as carbonate mineral.

The most recent time that the atmospheric CO2 residence time was measured was in 1992. The residence time was not found to have lengthened from the 5-6 years average measured over the previous decades. This means that ocean uptake of CO2 has not slowed.

Try to remember that the oceans are always saturated with CO2, in that they always hold in solution all the CO2 they can, determined by the sea surface temperature (SST). When the SST goes up, atmospheric CO2 increases. But the oceans continue to uptake CO2 if the atmosphere happens to contain more CO2 than the ocean/atmosphere equilibrium concentration, which is in turn set by SST. This equilibrium concentration sets the atmospheric CO2 concentration, NOT the 'incidental' atmospheric CO2 sources like volcanism, human industry, forest fires, decomposition and etc.

An easy way to understand why this is so is to just look at the size of the various CO2 'sinks'. The atmosphere is said to contain ~780 billion tons of CO2. Estimates for the total CO2 contained in the ocean are pretty variable but at least 19 000 billion tons and possibly as much as 40 000 billion tons of CO2. If the numerous residence time studies are to be believed, then 135-150 billion tons of CO2 leave the atmosphere annually, fluxed by the natural carbon cycle. Variations in CO2 content of 5-7ppm occur in monthly, yearly and longer time scales. Each ppm represents ~2 billion tons CO2, so these natural variations represent ~10-14 billion tons added or subtracted from the total.

Because of the equilibrium concentration (described by Henry's Law), the CO2 in the atmosphere is very much like the tip of the iceberg for the ocean/atmosphere system (they DO function as a system, you know). As we all know, the part of the iceberg that emerges from the surface is only about 1/10 of the total iceberg mass/volume. If we observed an iceberg of say 20 tons above water and we wanted to double the visible part of the iceberg, we know that we would need to add not 20 more tons as that would only get us a 22 ton iceberg protruding from the water. Instead we would need to add not 20 but 200 tons, as the other 180 tons will just wind up below the surface. It's similar for CO2 except that the ratio is more like 50:1. At best our 8 billion tons CO2 emissions annually are only going to add 160-320 million tons to the atmosphere, an amount far below our resolution to measure concentration as it is a fraction of a ppm.

The isotopic mass-balance studies corroborate what I'm saying here; nobody posting to this thread has yet to present a study that shows that anywhere near 21% of the CO2 in our present atmosphere is from fossil fuels. This is the amount we should expect if human industry were responsible for the ~100 ppm rise in CO2 concentration over the last 100 years. Virtually all that 'new' CO2 is naturally sourced. We are simply in the midst of another one of those 'spikes' you see in Guillermo's graph at post #3535, and not even a very remarkable spike in the historical context.

Jimbo

[ancient kayaker]

"A small group of powerful people knowingly mislead a larger (yet still minor) group ..."

Aw cumon, Marco! Nobody is misleading me, knowingly or otherwide, though you seem to be giving it the good old college try. I take the trouble to obtain my data from the source http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/

This one will give you the longer term results http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/tr..._data_mlo.html

This site is run by scientists and merely reports the facts. There is no mention of global warming, pollution, emissions, no calls for affirmative action, no warnings or dire predictions, no comments on the meaning of the steady year-to-year increase of CO2 or the fact that the rate of increase itself is steadily rising, just the numbers.

This is nothing to do with democracy, religion, scare mongering, morality, the Spanish inquisition, witch hunts, statues of extraterrestrials or any of the irrelevancy in your post. Please do not try to patronize us. We are intelligent people with serious and justified concerns.

Rebut the facts if you can, but use facts, not opinions, arrive at conclusions based on those facts and include your sources as I do.

Here's a couple of numbers I find particularly scary regarding CO2 levels, available on the above web pages:
in 1960 the rate of increase, averaged over 5 years, was 0.24% pa
for 1985 that had risen to 0.4% pa, and by 2010 it was 0.5% pa

As a scientifcaly trained individual (I have a Physics degree), that tells me there is an established, medium term trend that shows no sign of abating and corresponds neatly with the world-wide rise in fossil fuel consumption.

Some would have me believe the earth is warming due to natural cyclical causes and the CO2 is a side effect. I don't believe that, it does not match what I know about CO2 behavior. In the distant past, atmospheric CO2 has risen at the end of short ice ages and well after the start of the longer ones; there is a lag. CO2 is, of course, less soluble in water at lower temperatures, and it takes a few hundred years for the ocean water to mix, taking the cooler water lower, presumably releasing the CO2 and thus warming the planet up again. neat feedback mechanism, like a thermostat turning on the furnace in cool weather. Perhaps as things warm up there is a corresponding air-conditioner effect as plants grow more rapidly due to longer growing seasons, absorbing CO2, the seas doing the same, so the lower CO2 levels allow things to cool again. I believe we are turning on the thermostat in warm weather, hopefully the air-conditioning will kick in soon. My furnace will beat the air-conditioner any day though, which is a bit worrying. Even more worrying is the lag of this natural mechanism, hundreds of years, considering the CO2 increases by a measurable amount every year and has become a source of concern to many thinking folks over mere decades.


Hoytedow: what is the average height above sea level of Florida? Here's an intersting fact "The Mean Elevation of the state of Florida is only 100 feet above sea level" check it out at http://www.netstate.com/states/geogr..._geography.htm
I don't think Florida is a good place to invest in real estate if you are looking at the long term ...

Jimbo: I've seen Guillermo's chart. I post results applicable over a few decades and you refer to a graph spanning 70 million years and claim you can see comparable rates of change! Your monitor must have a heck of good resolution! Let's see, that would be at least 1 million pixels. Where did you get it and how much did it cost? Your visual acuity must be formidable also, about 60,000 x human average!

[Jimbo1490]

Originally Posted by ancient kayaker

Aw cumon! Nobody is misleading me, knowingly or otherwide, though you seem to be giving it the good old college try. I take the trouble to obtain my data from the source http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/

Are you aware that NASA/NOAA removed pages from their websites that detailed recent works from NASA scientists on volcanism, works that show that our estimates of pollutant emissions from volcanism need to be revised upward by a factor of at least 4 but more than likely a factor 10 or more? Why do you think they removed these pages?

Isn't it amazing that people so mistrusting of the CIA, DEA, FDA, DOD, NSA and a host of others put complete blind trust in other arms of the same deceitful government

I guess it's the white coats

Jimbo

[ancient kayaker]

Is the extra CO2 from natural sources? Let’s look at the numbers.

Current worldwide oil consumption 84mbd (million barrels per day). Number of days in 50 years 365 x 50 = 18250 days. Amount of oil burnt in that period, assuming an average level of 60% of current rates over that time = 0.6 x 84 x 18250 = 919,800 million barrels, at 317 kg of CO2 per barrel that’s 317 x 919,800 / 1000 = 291 billion tonnes of CO2.

OK, now for the atmosphere. Area of the earth 510 million sq km or 510 million million sq m. Air pressure = weight of air over 1 sq m = 101 kN = 101 * 0.112 = 11.3 tonnes per sq m. Weight of entire atmosphere = 11.3 x 510 = 5,763 million million tonnes.

Human sources of CO2 released into the atmosphere over last 50 years = 291 billion / 5,763 million million = 50 ppm.

Increase of atmospheric CO2 over 50 years 70 ppm.

Do I have anyone’s attention yet? There’s some missing but note that I haven’t taken into account the use of coal, natural gas and the burning of the tropical forests to clear space for farming. My heating bills for natural gas exceed my gasoline costs over the course of a year. Now, I personally drive less than some but this suggests that natural gas is also a player, although perhaps not comparable with oil.

Human CO2 sources are such a good match for the overall atmospheric increase that I really wonder why people bother to try to explain it away as due to natural sources or claim it will all be absorbed by the oceans. It’s much more likely that those factors are simply offsetting each other, just as they have done for a couple of billion years.

[Marco1]

Aw cumon, Marco! Nobody is misleading me, knowingly or otherwide,

Ancient Kayaker

Well my friend Terry, if you knew you are being misled, I am sure you wouldn't be.... right?

I am not going to get into a pseudo science match with anyone, since such is done to death. There is a much more interesting debate to be had.

Suppose, just suppose I say there is no God.
In other times I would probably be killed an hung up to dry after being skinned.
Today if I said this in the middle east I would still be killed, in the western world...well, not killed but may be frown upon a bit I suppose.

Why?

Belief.
That is the key word. Neither you nor me have the means or the ability to find out by ourselves from scratch. We must buy premixed from the supermarket.
So it boils down to which brand you buy and which one do I buy. You chose to believe the guys who say the sky is falling unless we all go and live in a cave warmed up by mirrors and turn vegetarian.
I chose to believe the opposite view.
However as opposed to most who buy into the debate borrowing concept that they only half understand based on the number of letters displayed in front of the persons name doing the proclamations, I use a different method.
I look at who PAYS the person to say what he is saying.

Invariably it turns out that the "scientist" who proclaim we must go back to the stone age or else, would loose their grants INSTANTLY if they show a whiff of an incline to have a peep at any alternative possibility, something that is as opposed to the scientific method as a "bistecca alla Fiorentina" is from a Buddhist monk.

Who are the rest? Self proclaimed "experts" who are in bed with the government of the day or are the government themselves or have large interest in the so called "carbon" trade and set to make billions.

The one who oppose such nonsensical hysteria, do so at their own peril, are ostracised by their peers for doing so and many have lost their jobs and grants. They get little exposure from the media who is the tool that feeds this tripe to the masses who absorb it as gospel, plus are accused to be paid by the oil companies like I am being paid to post this. (Good money, if you want in it, give me a call.)

There is a God.

Such affirmation would fail every single scientific test. The existence of God can not be proven, yet that does not stop millions from believing God really exists.
There is another dimension in this debate and that is belief. Only Faith can make God real, just like believing there is a CO2 induced Global Warming after 11 years of cooling and substantial CO2 increases needs a strong faith since the lack of unbiased scientific proof is staggering. (key word is unbiased, not paid for)

Uhuu that was fun Mr Kayaker, I think I'll go to the kithchen to prepare some dinner. I made up a recipy for chicken I baptised "Liverpool chicken", I wish you could try it. I'll have to "emit" a bit of CO2 though, sorry about that. I'll hold my breath a while to compensate.

Kind Regards
Marc
PS
For the record my favourite boat is a Grand Banks 70' with twin 12V71 Detroit Diesel...Aaaah pure music !!!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DbgQz...eature=related

[Knut Sand]

Originally Posted by Marco1

Belief.
That is the key word. Neither you nor me have the means or the ability to find out by ourselves from scratch. We must buy premixed from the supermarket.

I look at who PAYS the person to say what he is saying.

Belief, true... None of us ine here KNOWS enough, but I believe that some of these "alarmists" in the process leading to some of the minor parts in the IPCC's reports (and other reports) that one person can be responsible for, have had the thought;

"ooops somebody in the system above me will not like this..." (Regardless of where the paycheck comes from...).
"gotta double check",
"second opinion",
"third opinion...".
"Ok, we gotta let this information go to similar colleaques....".

And, also this thought;

"If we drop this one, and we've screwed, I'll be responsible for filing reports and refilling the Xerox machine the next 5 years..."

And still the scenarios pointed out by some of these scientists can be pretty grim.

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/conten.../306/5702/1686

As to who pays... : Thank God; Oil companies, Gas companies, Coal companies are always 100% objective, and they'll never, ever fall for the temptation to lobby for their cause using false/ misleading information...

[Marco1]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7081331.stm


Last Updated: Tuesday, 13 November 2007, 10:12 GMT
E-mail this to a friend Printable version
No consensus on IPCC's level of ignorance
John Christy

VIEWPOINT
By John Christy
Professor of Atmospheric Science, University of Alabama

As the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) puts the finishing touches to its final report of the year, two of its senior scientists look at what the panel is and how well it works. Here, a view from a leading researcher into temperature change.

Al Gore at the Reichstag. Image: AFP/Getty
Politicians wave goodbye to the IPCC's objectivity, argues Dr Christy
The IPCC is a framework around which hundreds of scientists and other participants are organised to mine the panoply of climate change literature to produce a synthesis of the most important and relevant findings.

These findings are published every few years to help policymakers keep tabs on where the participants chosen for the IPCC believe the Earth's climate has been, where it is going, and what might be done to adapt to and/or even adjust the predicted outcome.

While most participants are scientists and bring the aura of objectivity, there are two things to note:

* this is a political process to some extent (anytime governments are involved it ends up that way)
* scientists are mere mortals casting their gaze on a system so complex we cannot precisely predict its future state even five days ahead

The political process begins with the selection of the Lead Authors because they are nominated by their own governments.

Thus at the outset, the political apparatus of the member nations has a role in pre-selecting the main participants.

But, it may go further.

Unsound bites

At an IPCC Lead Authors' meeting in New Zealand, I well remember a conversation over lunch with three Europeans, unknown to me but who served as authors on other chapters. I sat at their table because it was convenient.


Martin Parry
Read a different view on the IPCC from another of its leading scientists, Prof Martin Parry

IPCC: As good as it gets
After introducing myself, I sat in silence as their discussion continued, which boiled down to this: "We must write this report so strongly that it will convince the US to sign the Kyoto Protocol."

Politics, at least for a few of the Lead Authors, was very much part and parcel of the process.

And, while the 2001 report was being written, Dr Robert Watson, IPCC Chair at the time, testified to the US Senate in 2000 adamantly advocating on behalf of the Kyoto Protocol, which even the journal Nature now reports is a failure.

Follow the herd

As I said above - and this may come as a surprise - scientists are mere mortals.

The tendency to succumb to group-think and the herd-instinct (now formally called the "informational cascade") is perhaps as tempting among scientists as any group because we, by definition, must be the "ones who know" (from the Latin sciere, to know).

A scientist launches a weather balloon (copyright John Turner)
The Alabama team produces data on atmospheric temperatures collected by weather balloons
You dare not be thought of as "one who does not know"; hence we may succumb to the pressure to be perceived as "one who knows".

This leads, in my opinion, to an overstatement of confidence in the published findings and to a ready acceptance of the views of anointed authorities.

Scepticism, a hallmark of science, is frowned upon. (I suspect the IPCC bureaucracy cringes whenever I'm identified as an IPCC Lead Author.)

The signature statement of the 2007 IPCC report may be paraphrased as this: "We are 90% confident that most of the warming in the past 50 years is due to humans."

We are not told here that this assertion is based on computer model output, not direct observation. The simple fact is we don't have thermometers marked with "this much is human-caused" and "this much is natural".

So, I would have written this conclusion as "Our climate models are incapable of reproducing the last 50 years of surface temperatures without a push from how we think greenhouse gases influence the climate. Other processes may also account for much of this change."

Slim models

To me, the elevation of climate models to the status of definitive tools for prediction has led to the temptation to be over-confident.

Here is how this can work.

Computer models are the basic tools which are used to estimate the future climate. Many scientists (ie the mere mortals) have been captivated by an IPCC image in which the actual global surface temperature curve for the 20th Century is overlaid on a band of model simulations of temperature for the same period.


Supercomputer. Image: AP

Models 'key' to climate future
The observations seem to fit right in the middle of the model band, implying that models are formulated so capably and completely that they can reproduce the past very well.

Without knowing much about climate models, any group will be persuaded by this image to believe models are quite precise.

However, there is a fundamental flaw with this thinking.

You see, every modeller knew what the answer was ahead of time. (Those groans you just heard were the protestations of my colleagues in the modelling community - they know what's coming).

In my view, on the other hand, this persuasive image is not a scientific experiment at all. The agreement displayed is just as likely to do with clever software engineering as to the first principles of science.

The proper and objective experiment is to test model output against quantities not known ahead of time.

Complex world

Our group is one of the few that builds a variety of climate datasets from scratch for tests just like this.

Since we build the datasets here, we have an urge to be sceptical about arguments-from-authority in favour of the real, though imperfect, observations.

Chart of IPCC projections
This year's IPCC report projects major climatic changes ahead
In these model vs data comparisons, we find gross inconsistencies - hence I am sceptical of our ability to claim cause and effect about both past and future climate states.

Mother Nature is incredibly complex, and to think we mortals are so clever and so perceptive that we can create computer code that accurately reproduces the millions of processes that determine climate is hubris (think of predicting the complexities of clouds).

Of all scientists, climate scientists should be the most humble. Our cousins in the one-to-five-day weather prediction business learned this long ago, partly because they were held accountable for their predictions every day.

Answering the question about how much warming has occurred because of increases in greenhouse gases and what we may expect in the future still holds enormous uncertainty, in my view.

Explosive view

How could the situation be improved? At one time I stated that the IPCC-like process was the worst way to compile scientific knowledge, except for all the others.

Improvements have been adopted through the years, most notably the publication of the comments and responses. Bravo.

I would think a simple way to let the world know there are other opinions about various aspects emerging from the IPCC font would be to provide some quasi-official forum to allow those views to be expressed.


John Christy
We should always begin our scientific pronouncements with this statement: 'At our present level of ignorance, we think we know...'
These alternative-view authors should be afforded the same protocol as the IPCC authors, ie they themselves are their own final reviewers and thus would have final say on what is published.

At that point, I suppose, the blogosphere would erupt and, amidst the fire and smoke, hopefully, enlightenment may appear.

I continue to participate in the IPCC (unless an IPCC functionary reads this missive and blackballs me) because I not only am able to contribute from my own research, but there are numerous opportunities to learn something new - to feed the curiosity that attends a scientist's soul.

I can live with the disagreements concerning nuances and subjective assertions as they simply remind me that all scientists are people, and do not prevent me from speaking my mind anyway.

Wise teachings

Don't misunderstand me.

Atmospheric carbon dioxide continues to increase due to the undisputed benefits that carbon-based energy brings to humanity. This increase will have some climate impact through CO2's radiation properties.

However, fundamental knowledge is meagre here, and our own research indicates that alarming changes in the key observations are not occurring.

The best advice regarding scientific knowledge, which certainly applies to climate, came to me from Mr Mallory, my high school physics teacher.

He proposed that we should always begin our scientific pronouncements with this statement: "At our present level of ignorance, we think we know..."

Good advice for the IPCC, and all of us.

John R Christy is Professor and Director of the Earth System Science Center at the University of Alabama, Huntsville, US

He has contributed to all four major IPCC assessments, including acting as a Lead Author in 2001 and a Contributing Author in 2007

[Jimbo1490]

Originally Posted by ancient kayaker

Is the extra CO2 from natural sources? Let’s look at the numbers.

Current worldwide oil consumption 84mbd (million barrels per day). Number of days in 50 years 365 x 50 = 18250 days. Amount of oil burnt in that period, assuming an average level of 60% of current rates over that time = 0.6 x 84 x 18250 = 919,800 million barrels, at 317 kg of CO2 per barrel that’s 317 x 919,800 / 1000 = 291 billion tonnes of CO2.

Your assumptions about the rate are way off. More than HALF of the total CO2 released by human industry has been released since 1978. This is because industrial CO2 emissions have risen logarithmically. The trouble is, atmospheric CO2 levels have risen monotonically. When our emissions were only 1/10 of present, atmospheric CO2 was rising at about the same rate as today. Furthermore, the rate of CO2 rise has been leveling off recently, not accelerating as one would expect if the rise were due to the logarithmically rising human emissions.

Originally Posted by ancient kayaker

Human sources of CO2 released into the atmosphere over last 50 years = 291 billion / 5,763 million million = 50 ppm. Increase of atmospheric CO2 over 50 years 70 ppm.

Don't forget that the carbon cycle fluxed somewhere between 6750 and 7500 billion tons of CO2 out of the atmosphere over that same period. In a related matter, you forgot to divide the influx by a factor for Henry's Law. The factor should be somewhere between 25 and 50 to account for the equilibrium concentration of CO2 in ocean and atmosphere. Remember the iceberg analogy?

Originally Posted by ancient kayaker

Do I have anyone’s attention yet? There’s some missing but note that I haven’t taken into account the use of coal, natural gas and the burning of the tropical forests to clear space for farming. My heating bills for natural gas exceed my gasoline costs over the course of a year. Now, I personally drive less than some but this suggests that natural gas is also a player, although perhaps not comparable with oil.

You don't even really understand what's 'missing'. Your 'calculations' above seem to assume that all the CO2 humans ever put into the atmosphere is still there. That's an assumption that the AGW alarmists all make, and attempt to bolster with their claim of a long residence time for CO2 by computer modeling. If you do the math, and take into consideration ALL CO2 sources, natural and anthropogenic, and apply your 'math' (the system treats all CO2 the same regardless of origin), the we are missing half of the CO2 in the atmosphere! We should be at 800ppm! The AGW alarmists are, as usual, undaunted by this huge discrepancy, and instead of admitting that CO2 has a short atmospheric residence time, they are off on a Quixotic quest for the 'mystery sink' that has removed the ~410ppm they can't find.

Isn't it easier to just admit that the residence time is short, as the 35 studies on the subject already affirmed? Oh yeah, but that would mean industrial emissions don't matter. I almost forgot.

Originally Posted by ancient kayaker

Human CO2 sources are such a good match for the overall atmospheric increase that I really wonder why people bother to try to explain it away as due to natural sources or claim it will all be absorbed by the oceans. It’s much more likely that those factors are simply offsetting each other, just as they have done for a couple of billion years.

This is a problem. Just like with my iceberg analogy, you can't increase atmospheric CO2 by Xppm by adding Xppm to the atmosphere: you need to add 25-50Xppm, and THEN you might increase the concentration by Xppm. This is a product of the equilibrium concentration set by Henry's Law.

Is any of this sinking in?


Jimbo

[ancient kayaker]

Originally Posted by Marco1

Ancient Kayaker Well my friend Terry, if you knew you are being misled, I am sure you wouldn't be.... right? ...

-ditto



I created a simple chart with exponential growth approximating the levels of atmospheric CO2. I found a yearly rate increase of 2.2% matches the assumptions in my post #3542. It predicts 49.3% of the total was released over the 31 years since 1978. Jimbo: compare that with your figure of “over 50%” ... not a bad guess. In post 3548 I reported that the rate of increase of atmospheric CO2 has doubled in the last 50 years; my chart shows 49%, again very close. The model matches data for both atmospheric CO2 growth and CO2 release by human activities, data provided by an unimpeachable scientific source (the Mauna Loa observatory) and yourselves.

The model establishes beyond reasonable doubt that the increase of the CO2 in the atmosphere has increased exponentially for several hundred years andere is no reason to suppose that it will not continue to do so.

While it’s perfectly OK to disagree with the significance of these numbers, you should do so properly. Show the numbers, reveal the sources, opinions don’t count! If you can prove my math in error or does not match the recorded facts, do so. However, it is unacceptable to introduce religion, anecdotes, politics and other irrelevancies into this discussion.

A scientifically-based mathematical model is no use if it cannot predict the results of an experiment. The experiment I refer to involves the entire globe, and it will either peter out for reasons not apparent, or it will result in disaster for at least a large proportion of the human race. Once a significant proportion of humanity is destroyed, it is likely that the phenomenom will abate.

CO2 will not flatten off; as 2nd and 3rd World countries continue to industrialize it will keep going up. I see no reason to suppose natural CO2 sources are causing the increase or natural sinks will absorb it. This has little to do with the "carbon cycle" - the natural sources and sinks seem to be balancing each other and are not required to make the model work. It would be nice to think we will run out of fossil fuel, but we have only started to tap the readily available, easily exploited resources.

Human health is adversely effected by short term exposure to CO2 levels of around 5,000 ppm, nobody has done any work on the levels applicable to long-term exposure but if we follow normal public health practice and set a limit on CO2 of, say 1/10 of that figure, atmospheric levels are already above 70% and rising. Since CO2, unlike lead or mercury, is a naturally occuring substance that we have evolved to tolerate, perhaps 1/10 of the level that induces danger signs is to little. Maybe 1/3 would be better. Whatever, we will reach those levels in a few hundred years at best.

Please note, I want to keep it simple, Occams razor and all that stuff. I am not addressing global warming as either cause or effect, the effect of CO2 and other “greenhouse” gases, rising sea levels etc. just CO2 levels. Don’t complicate a simple issue.

[hoytedow]

Even a 50 ppm increase in CO2 is a negligible amount, overall and is essentially meaningless in the grand scheme of things, and that is assuming the data is accurate, and who says NOAA is always right?

[Jimbo1490]

Originally Posted by ancient kayaker

-ditto



I created a simple chart with exponential growth approximating the levels of atmospheric CO2. I found a yearly rate increase of 2.2% matches the assumptions in my post #3542. It predicts 49.3% of the total was released over the 31 years since 1978. Jimbo: compare that with your figure of “over 50%” ... not a bad guess. In post 3548 I reported that the rate of increase of atmospheric CO2 has doubled in the last 50 years; my chart shows 49%, again very close. The model matches data for both atmospheric CO2 growth and CO2 release by human activities, data provided by an unimpeachable scientific source (the Mauna Loa observatory) and yourselves.

It's not the second half of the model that's hard to get right; it's the first. If over half of all Anthropogenic CO2 was emitted after 1978, why was atmospheric CO2 rising in 1930? How about 1900? How about 1850? Yes atmospheric CO2 was rising then. You can go to the CDIAC site and look at the tabulated anthropogenic CO2 emissions yourself and see how puny our emissions were 100 years ago. Yet atmospheric CO2 levels were still rising.

I put the question to you that I put to Boston and bntii(Thomas):

What is the 'threshold of significance' for anthropogenic CO2 emissions?

When you come up with a number, go back to the CDIAC site and see where it is on the chart. Then go look at a historical CO2 chart (the Ernst-Beck chart is especially telling) and see what was happening with CO2 concentrations at the time your selected threshold was just crossed.

I promise you, the numbers will not add up!

If the earliest part of the CO2 rise was due to natural sources, why do you believe it is different now? Since the isotopic signature of 'fossil' carbon is not found at anywhere near the 'expected' levels, is that not proof enough for you that fossil fuels are not the source?

What would it take to shake your faith?

So far, we have:

• Henry's law says we'd have to add a truly stupendous amount of CO2 to the atmosphere to have caused the observed rise, 25-50X all cumulative emissions so far, and more than all the fossil reserves known (clearly impossible)
  
  
• When we tabulate cumulative emissions and natural sources and try to forensically reconstruct the atmosphere using your assumed long residence time, the atmosphere is missing half it's CO2. (Substituting the provable short residence time yields a result in harmony with reality, corroborating the short residence time with all that implies.)
  
  
• The isotopic signature of fossil carbon is largely missing; it's not nearly what we should see if the rise we're due to fossil fuel burning.

In the end you'll believe whatever you want to believe. Just don't come back and claim your belief is based on the simple physics of the matter.

Jimbo