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Post by icefisher on May 31, 2010 20:15:11 GMT
Not true GLC! You are looking at averaged and seasonally trended data. From May 2008 to November 2008 monthly average CO2 dropped 5.5 points per million. Thats more than twice the average annual increase. So the conditions you establish here for your opponents argument to be correct are established in the Moana Loa record. Yes - thanks for that, but we know all about the annual CO2 cycle. Using this as an argument is a bit like saying December was cooler than June - so the world is cooling.
2009 was higher than 2008 2008 was higher than 2007 2007 was higher than 2006 ..... and so on
Despite the considerable fluctuations in SST, CO2 levels have risen year on year. Even in 1992 during the Pinatubo cooling CO2 levels still rose. Its still speculation that Pinatubo cooled the world as our temperature record is probably only accurate within the range of cooling estimated. But regardless of that CO2 increases dived to about 1/2 part per million (about a 1/4 the background rate) over the next 2 years. I am only arguing against your statement: "The increase in CO2 concentrations over the past ~150 years is almost totally due the buring of fossil fuels." It seems Pinatubo alone marks your statement as exaggerated if 75% of the increases disappear for 2 years with cooling allegedly induced by a single volcanic eruption event unless you come up with another mechanism. In fact, since there was a robust El Nino 1991-1992 could be an explanation for why a Moana Loa CO2 estimate might not have dropped more during the Pinatubo event with all that warm water surfacing. It seems clear that a much more supportable statement might be that some significant portion of the CO2 increases are due to fossil fuel burning unless you can provide some other mechanism for changes to Moana Loa CO2 numbers coordinating closely with those events. One thing that has changed dramatically in recent decades is CO2 emissions from eastern Asia. Considering how fast weather systems cross the Pacific increasing CO2 levels from there may be reflective in part with that regional phenomena for the same reasons that China is increasing mercury concentrations in the Pacific in comparison to the Atlantic. You guys are just all to quick at chug a lugging whatever the flavor the kool aid handed to you. I fully expect the next 50 years to bring as much grief as the last 50 which is. . . .uh. . . .none. And to convince me otherwise its going to take a lot more than a bunch of college professors reading tea leaves.
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Post by glc on May 31, 2010 22:06:35 GMT
Its still speculation that Pinatubo cooled the world as our temperature record is probably only accurate within the range of cooling estimated.
All 4 main datasets indicate a drop in temperatures covering a period of ~2 years.
But regardless of that CO2 increases dived to about 1/2 part per million (about a 1/4 the background rate) over the next 2 years.
Yes but the level still went UP. It did not drop.
I am only arguing against your statement: "The increase in CO2 concentrations over the past ~150 years is almost totally due the buring of fossil fuels."
Have you another explanation? You've tried SST and that's clearly a non-starter. The rate of increase in CO2 is unprecedented even if the rise in temeprature is not.
It seems Pinatubo alone marks your statement as exaggerated if 75% of the increases disappear for 2 years with cooling allegedly induced by a single volcanic eruption event
Two things:
You clearly have no idea of the scale of the Pinatubo eruption. There is no exaggeration. It seems even a Pinatubo sized eruption is not able to negate the rise in CO2.
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Post by icefisher on Jun 1, 2010 5:31:35 GMT
Even when SST anomalies are negative CO2 levels continue to rise. What is your source and what is your anomaly in reference to?
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Post by glc on Jun 1, 2010 9:52:56 GMT
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Post by icefisher on Jun 1, 2010 16:24:32 GMT
Which period do you think exemplifies when temperature has changed enough so that CO2 concentration begins to diminish in the atmosphere? There are issues of equilibrium. I don't think one can make broad statements about what is actually happening as the systems were are dealing with are huge and complex and it may take a strong sustained reverse in temperature direction to reverse the other process. We see CO2 concentrations going up and down seasonally. After a delay of a several months from when global air temperatures peak and about 2 months before they start changing in the other direction, CO2 changes direction. So one would think there must be some major equilibrium issues involved. One cannot just simply point at a short term anomaly and claim it as proof of a hypothesis that excludes natural variation. Seasonally the globe changes temperature by about 2degC due mostly to the difference in ocean/land rations between the NH and SH and it takes about 3 quarters of that change and 4 months before the CO2 trend changes. Since we have not seen anywhere near that change in the past century much less since we have been recording CO2 at Moana Loa its not possible to claim CO2 should be diminishing with a minor negative temperature anomaly for a short period of time. So rather than just throwing a dataset at me, why not take a shot at making your case? Whats the matter GLC, talking through your hat again? The reason you don't my intuition tells me is that ultimately you will be forced to cast an anchor on an icecore somewhere dug up by some AGW zealot who thinks he is a tea leaf reader and you won't be able to find another proxy to validate you have a valid proxy.
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Post by poitsplace on Jun 1, 2010 16:52:39 GMT
Considering the recovery from the little ice age it IS possible that global temperatures haven't (since we've been keeping records) gone low enough even after the Pinatubo eruption to stop ocean warming...and therefore completely stop/reverse degassing if that is indeed what is happening.
BUT...its still quite reasonable to assume a significant amount of the carbon is likely from man's activity. We are burning a phenominal amount of the stuff.
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Post by glc on Jun 1, 2010 19:03:00 GMT
Which period do you think exemplifies when temperature has changed enough so that CO2 concentration begins to diminish in the atmosphere?
You seem to be having trouble understandng your own theory. If CO2 is driven by SST then CO2 levels will rise when SST rise but then fall when SST fall.
In other words CO2 should be lower in a 'cold' year than it is during a 'warm' year. If CO2 continues to increase regardless of SST then SST is not the main driver. SST moderates the rise so there is a bigger uptake during 'cold' years than there is during 'warm' years but that doesn' explain the continual year on year rise.
Atmospheric CO2 concentrations rise because we emit around 25 GT of CO2 every year.
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Post by icefisher on Jun 2, 2010 2:01:17 GMT
Which period do you think exemplifies when temperature has changed enough so that CO2 concentration begins to diminish in the atmosphere?You seem to be having trouble understandng your own theory. If CO2 is driven by SST then CO2 levels will rise when SST rise but then fall when SST fall. In other words you can't find an example of when CO2 should have fallen?
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Post by glc on Jun 2, 2010 8:26:19 GMT
Which period do you think exemplifies when temperature has changed enough so that CO2 concentration begins to diminish in the atmosphere?You seem to be having trouble understandng your own theory. If CO2 is driven by SST then CO2 levels will rise when SST rise but then fall when SST fall. In other words you can't find an example of when CO2 should have fallen? Using 13 month running means here are just a few examples In 1958 SST anomaly averaged around ZERO (-0.02) In 1964/65 SST anomaly had dropped to ~-0.3 deg In 1972/73 SST anomaly averaged +0.1 deg In 1975/76 SST anomaly had dropped to ~-0.3 deg. These were in a period when we were emitting less than 2/3 of current emissions. In 1998 SST anomaly averaged +0.45 deg In 1999 SST anomaly dropped to +0.2 deg In 2000 SST anomaly was +0.22 deg and finally the last 5 years 2005 0.38 380 2006 0.34 382 2007 0.27 384 2008 0.24 386 2009 0.38 388 This shows the SST anomaly with the atmospheric CO2 level.
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Post by icefisher on Jun 2, 2010 8:54:27 GMT
In other words you can't find an example of when CO2 should have fallen? Using 13 month running means here are just a few examples In 1958 SST anomaly averaged around ZERO (-0.02) In 1964/65 SST anomaly had dropped to ~-0.3 deg In 1972/73 SST anomaly averaged +0.1 deg In 1975/76 SST anomaly had dropped to ~-0.3 deg. These were in a period when we were emitting less than 2/3 of current emissions. In 1998 SST anomaly averaged +0.45 deg In 1999 SST anomaly dropped to +0.2 deg In 2000 SST anomaly was +0.22 deg and finally the last 5 years 2005 0.38 380 2006 0.34 382 2007 0.27 384 2008 0.24 386 2009 0.38 388 This shows the SST anomaly with the atmospheric CO2 level. LOL! My understanding is the base period for figuring the anomaly was 1961 to 1990. Thus with a warming trend during that time one would expect negative anomalies during the first 15 years and positives afterwards. So all you have shown above is a warming trend as all your negatives are in the first half of the base period. Get a life GLC! You simply are not cut out for this stuff! p.s. The two years 1975/6 CO2 grew by a bit less than 2 parts per million. In 1980/81 it grew by slightly more than 3 parts per million. Thus without any significant identified change in forcing a natural surge in underlying warming accelerated CO2 increases in 1980/81 by 50%. Since there are multiple examples of this in the record a significant portion of the increase in CO2 is coming from outgassing from the oceans due to warming SSTs and I expect SSTs to be the last to decline once it does start cooling from the inertia that oceans represent by virtue of their ability to absorb SW. Here is another example of how even the moving average declines when you get a change in global temperature. The blackline represents a moving average for the 7 adjacent seasonal cycles and note carefully there are a lot of declines with a pronounced one in 2008 and you can see the 2009 el nino in the co2 record also. So very clearly short of attribution of all warming to fossil fuel burning the natural warming of the oceans is contributing a very significant portion of the change in co2 levels in the atmosphere. And if you want to attribute all warming to fossil fuel burning you better start working on brushing up CRU's and Michael Mann's reputations and get back to hockey stick reconstructions cause the other warm periods of the Holocene are just staring you in the face.
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Post by glc on Jun 2, 2010 19:45:21 GMT
LOL! My understanding is the base period for figuring the anomaly was 1961 to 1990. Thus with a warming trend during that time one would expect negative anomalies during the first 15 years and positives afterwards. So all you have shown above is a warming trend as all your negatives are in the first half of the base period.
Get a life GLC! You simply are not cut out for this stuff!
Ok , let's look at a longer term trend. Between 1958 and 1977 SST have a slightly negative trend. However, in the same period CO2 levels increased from ~315ppm to ~334ppm. How did this happen?
Can you also tell me what would cause CO2 levels to fall?
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Post by icefisher on Jun 2, 2010 21:42:58 GMT
But, in any case, let's look at a longer term trend. Between 1958 and 1977 SST have a slightly negative trend. However, in the same period CO2 levels increased from ~315ppm to ~334ppm. How did this happen? Can you also tell me what would cause CO2 levels to fall? Just to answer your question about the overall trend. If SST was the main driver for CO2 levels (which it clearly isn't) then I would expect CO2 levels to be higher now than in 1958 - fine!. HOWEVER I would NOT expect CO2 levels to show a year on year rise. They should track SST which means they should fall some years. Your claim is ludicrous. Considering we have longer term warming and cooling phases that are multicentennial science isn't advanced enough to fully understand the inertia issues. Opening ones mouth and blabbing an answer says more about ones credibility than it does about the real answer. Further you point out during the periods of your analysis that SST cooling statistically did not occur, merely a leveling of temperatures. In such a circumstance one should expect continued expulsion of CO2 from the ocean but at a diminished rate of some unknown magnitude which you agree is the case. If you look at the chart at the top of the page comparing CO2 growth rates and temperature you will see it fluctuates wildly with the general warming trend we have been experiencing for the past 200 years. The fact it may fluctuate as much as 600% (.5ppm to 3ppm) says a lot. Obviously those fluctuations are not due to folks leaving their SUVs in the garage. And until we better understand the inertia issues caused by deep ocean mixing we cannot estimate what resistance there is to a cooling period making CO2 atmospheric concentrations to actually start reducing as the negative forcing has to first overcome a non-instantaneous equalizing period of unknown duration before the ocean becomes a net absorber. The pH level of the ocean could be an argument in your favor but I have serious problems with the only metric floating around being a tenth of a point pH in the last 250 years. I have no faith in any pH measurements that old to that level of accuracy. I'm a 20th century gardener with a 20th century pH chemistry kit and I can't tell you the pH level of my garden to that level of accuracy much less the global oceans. And of course none of that deals with confirmation bias. When you have somebody counting the annual fluctuation of a component of the atmosphere that makes up .04% of the atmosphere and fluctuates an average of about 1/2 of 1% per year I would worry that confirmation bias alone could create a generation or more of increases. . . .but it is important to note that you don't need to know that to question what is going on. Ultimately in my view this issue is settled and what it is settled at is the majority of people are not going to be convinced by anything beyond feeling the effect of AGW themselves. Any politician that doesn't understand what it means to have a tea party that comprises almost a third of the nation ready to throw the tea in the harbor simply was not paying any attention during their social studies and civics classes.
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Post by glc on Jun 2, 2010 23:30:04 GMT
Considering we have longer term warming and cooling phases that are multicentennial science isn't advanced enough to fully understand the inertia issues. Opening ones mouth and blabbing an answer says more about ones credibility than it does about the real answer.Why don't you read Lubos Motl's blog here motls.blogspot.com/2007/11/ocean-carbon-sink-henrys-law.htmlIn particular, this conclusion from ice age temperatures The correlation used to be nearly perfect but you see that the increase by 8 Celsius degrees leads to the increase of atmospheric CO2 by 100 ppm.In other words a 1 deg rise in temperatures results in ~12 ppm increase in CO2. The temperature increase since 1850 is less than 1 deg so the rise in CO2 due to temperature is ~10 ppm - which is a figure I quoted about 20 posts back. Read all of Motl's post. It might help. Note this bit..... It is no coincidence that the number 13 appeared again: in both cases, the number says that the present direct production of CO2 is 13 times more important than the concentration change induced by outgassing.
Again, we see that the temperature-dependence of outgassing is relatively a very small effect. Further you point out during the periods of your analysis that SST cooling statistically did not occur, merely a leveling of temperatures. The response by CO2 to temperature is fairly immediate. That's why we get the annual saw-tooth effect. The ppm drops when the southern oceans cool (and NH growth season kicks in). There were several years during the period when SST dropped substantially but there was no drop in CO2 levels. If you look at the chart at the top of the page comparing CO2 growth rates and temperature you will see it fluctuates wildly with the general warming trend we have been experiencing for the past 200 years. The fact it may fluctuate as much as 600% (.5ppm to 3ppm) says a lot. Obviously those fluctuations are not due to folks leaving their SUVs in the garage.The fact that it fluctuates a "lot" tells us that the INCREASE in CO2 levels respond to temperature - immediately. BUT they don't go down only up which tells us that the source for the increasing CO2 is not part of the natural cycle. If there were no human emissions, CO2 levels would fluctuate around some equilibrium level (~285 ppm) which might - just might - have risen to ~300 ppm over the past 150 years.
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Post by icefisher on Jun 3, 2010 5:07:45 GMT
The response by CO2 to temperature is fairly immediate. That's why we get the annual saw-tooth effect. The ppm drops when the southern oceans cool (and NH growth season kicks in). There were several years during the period when SST dropped substantially but there was no drop in CO2 levels. If you look at the chart at the top of the page comparing CO2 growth rates and temperature you will see it fluctuates wildly with the general warming trend we have been experiencing for the past 200 years. The fact it may fluctuate as much as 600% (.5ppm to 3ppm) says a lot. Obviously those fluctuations are not due to folks leaving their SUVs in the garage.The fact that it fluctuates a "lot" tells us that the INCREASE in CO2 levels respond to temperature - immediately. BUT they don't go down only up which tells us that the source for the increasing CO2 is not part of the natural cycle. If there were no human emissions, CO2 levels would fluctuate around some equilibrium level (~285 ppm) which might - just might - have risen to ~300 ppm over the past 150 years. So what you are doing is taking a simple small scale lab experiment and extrapolating it to a world. And in the process of that extrapolation you substitute the pure liquids used in the lab experiment with essentially the primordial stew. As the author of your reference points out: "These effects don't deserve to be discussed by anyone except for people who are scientifically interested in them and it is very irresponsible and dishonest to emit these statements - inpenetrable for most people - combined with irrational gloomy sentiments because such an explosive combination almost certainly leads laymen to completely incorrect conclusions"Impenetrable indeed GLC! Come on man! Lets not latch instantly on the latest greatest instantaneous all explaining theory like some apologist being dragged around with a nose chain. The world is complex. . . .get used to it. Instantaneous outgassing due to Henry's law is likely only one process in which CO2 is exchanged between the atmosphere and ocean. For example the ocean has growing seasons also. After all there needs to be some explanation for why only 4% of the carbon in the atmosphere is anthropogenic and carbon has increased by 35%. I am sitting here making the claim that the science isn't settled and it rather clearly is not; yet you just spout some arcane physical fact as if there were no complexity in these processes and offer it as the end all be all solution. I think thats idiotic! And so does your source.
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Post by glc on Jun 3, 2010 8:49:58 GMT
Icefisher
There are apparently 2 views on this issue. The first is held by the world's scientists, both sceptical and pro-AGW, who are aware that the increase in atmospheric CO2 over the past is almost entirely due to the increase in fossil fuel burning over the past 150 years. The second view is held by posters on blogs such as this who don't understand that pumping 7 Gt C into the atmosphere will change the concentrations. They also fail to grasp that the isotope ratios tell us exactly what we already know is happening. They frequently cite Henry's Law but have no idea how to apply it and so cannot show us how much outgassing can be expected from a ~0.5 deg rise in the oceans.
In some desperate attempt to rescue your argument, you quote my source as follows
As the author of your reference points out: "These effects don't deserve to be discussed by anyone except for people who are scientifically interested in them and it is very irresponsible and dishonest to emit these statements - inpenetrable for most people - combined with irrational gloomy sentiments because such an explosive combination almost certainly leads laymen to completely incorrect conclusions"
But my source is arguing against you. He is arguing against the 'outgassing' argument. He is making the point that the oceans are not at some tipping point where they can no longer absorb CO2. Motl is a sceptic. There are many, many sceptics who know that human emissions are responsible for at least 90% of the growth of CO2 in the atmosphere.
At the end of your post you make this statement
I am sitting here making the claim that the science isn't settled and it rather clearly is not; yet you just spout some arcane physical fact as if there were no complexity in these processes and offer it as the end all be all solution.
No - you are sitting there desperately grasping at straws trying to argue against an indisputable fact. The science might not be settled on AGW - particularly with respect to feedbacks - but the reasons for the increase in CO2 are well established.
Ooops - nearly forgot the point about diffusion in ice cores that those who don't accept the human influence continually spout. Ice core data shows that, for thousands of years, CO2 levels have varied by just a few ppm - consistent with fluctuations ocean temperatures. The exceptions being the ice age periods when CO2 dropped by ~100 ppm - because there was a huge temperature change.
All readings are consistent with known physics and chemistry. But that 's not good enough for the pseudo-blog-scientists. According to them diffusion is causing a significant loss of of CO2. BS! Diffusion rates of CO2 in ice are tiny.
Every argument put forward on this issue can be thoroughly debunked.
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