What really is man's fossil fuel co2 load

[curiousgeorge]

Jul 24, 2009 15:55:10 GMT sigurdur said:

Jul 24, 2009 12:12:46 GMT curiousgeorge said:

I'll assume you have read the legislation, so that being the case you likely know that it has very little to do with "controlling co2" and everything to do with controlling people. It is yet another milestone on the road to tyranny. Recall the people who have been put in positions of power by this President - John Holdren, Cass Sunstein, among others.

Yes, I am plodding through the bill passed by the US House. Seems to be alll about taxation and trading with, as you so well put it, nadda to do with reduceing co2 emissions. A sham of high order.

There's another one that's not as well known, that is making it's way thru the mill and you might want to take a look at : H.R.3202
Water Protection and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Introduced in House) . It also contains some substantial taxes, and grants for climate change stuff. Available at: thomas.loc.gov/home/c111query.html .

It just keeps on a comin'.

PS: if you search on the word "climate" at the above url you may be surprised at what you see.

[nautonnier]

Jul 20, 2009 22:26:13 GMT Ratty said:

Another aspect is how much water vapour is generated by burning fossil fuels ....

About twice as much as carbon dioxide

And don't worry there are already calls for EPA to start calling water vapor a pollutant.

[nautonnier]

Jul 21, 2009 2:49:39 GMT wylie said:

Gentlemen,

I took this answer to your question (at least partial) from an internet site:

cdiac.ornl.gov/pns/faq.html

The numbers sound reasonable. Hope this helps you.

Ian

************************************

Q. What percentage of the CO2 in the atmosphere has been produced by human beings through the burning of fossil fuels?

A. Anthropogenic CO2 comes from fossil fuel combustion, changes in land use (e.g., forest clearing), and cement manufacture. Houghton and Hackler have estimated land-use changes from 1850-2000, so it is convenient to use 1850 as our starting point for the following discussion. Atmospheric CO2 concentrations had not changed appreciably over the preceding 850 years (IPCC; The Scientific Basis) so it may be safely assumed that they would not have changed appreciably in the 150 years from 1850 to 2000 in the absence of human intervention.

In the following calculations, we will express atmospheric concentrations of CO2 in units of parts per million by volume (ppmv). Each ppmv represents 2.13 X1015 grams, or 2.13 petagrams of carbon (PgC) in the atmosphere. According to Houghton and Hackler, land-use changes from 1850-2000 resulted in a net transfer of 154 PgC to the atmosphere. During that same period, 282 PgC were released by combustion of fossil fuels, and 5.5 additional PgC were released to the atmosphere from cement manufacture. This adds up to 154 + 282 + 5.5 = 441.5 PgC, of which 282/444.1 = 64% is due to fossil-fuel combustion.

Atmospheric CO2 concentrations rose from 288 ppmv in 1850 to 369.5 ppmv in 2000, for an increase of 81.5 ppmv, or 174 PgC. In other words, about 40% (174/441.5) of the additional carbon has remained in the atmosphere, while the remaining 60% has been transferred to the oceans and terrestrial biosphere.

The 369.5 ppmv of carbon in the atmosphere, in the form of CO2, translates into 787 PgC, of which 174 PgC has been added since 1850. From the second paragraph above, we see that 64% of that 174 PgC, or 111 PgC, can be attributed to fossil-fuel combustion. This represents about 14% (111/787) of the carbon in the atmosphere in the form of CO2.

"Atmospheric CO2 concentrations had not changed appreciably over the preceding 850 years"

But in paleoclimatology the concentrations have varied considerably and have been well above current levels. So what is the value of the 850 years? Presumably around the 12th century they were higher.... this seems to be close to the medieval warm period.


"so it may be safely assumed that they would not have changed appreciably in the 150 years from 1850 to 2000 in the absence of human intervention."

Is this really a safe assumption?
What if the concentration of CO₂ is proportionate to the Ocean Heat Content? As little ice age ended and temperatures increase then the CO₂ sink of the oceans becomes less efficient

These assumptions would be safer if there was a solid reasoning and mechanism identified for the changes in CO₂ concentrations in the past before humans were around to blame.

[socold]

Jul 24, 2009 20:14:45 GMT nautonnier said:

These assumptions would be safer if there was a solid reasoning and mechanism identified for the changes in CO₂ concentrations in the past before humans were around to blame.

The assumptions are safe precisely because there is solid reasoning and mechanism identified for changes in co2 in the past.

-co2 has risen about 100ppm in the past 150 years, well above natural variation

-without human emissions co2 wouldn't have risen even a tenth as much

-co2 would have risen far higher if nature hadn't absorbed a lot of our emission accumulation

There is strong evidence behind all of these 3 facts and no counterevidence.

[stevenotsteve]

Or you could simply say that the solar induced warming after the LIA warmed the earth and caused the natural emissions of CO2 to rise significantly. Mankind added a few percent to this as well but it had no significant effect on the temperature.

[poitsplace]

Jul 24, 2009 21:40:49 GMT socold said:

The assumptions are safe precisely because there is solid reasoning and mechanism identified for changes in co2 in the past.

-co2 has risen about 100ppm in the past 150 years, well above natural variation

-without human emissions co2 wouldn't have risen even a tenth as much

-co2 would have risen far higher if nature hadn't absorbed a lot of our emission accumulation

There is strong evidence behind all of these 3 facts and no counterevidence.

It is a pretty safe assumption.

[socold]

Jul 25, 2009 16:47:06 GMT stevenotsteve said:

Or you could simply say that the solar induced warming after the LIA warmed the earth and caused the natural emissions of CO2 to rise significantly. Mankind added a few percent to this as well but it had no significant effect on the temperature.

It depends. Are you looking for an answer to your question (have you tried googling something like "co2 rise contribution"?) or are you trying to find justification for a particular answer?

[stevenotsteve]

Read what you write socold.

AGW has built it's models based on an assumption, they then call the results of these models facts.

There are no facts, it's just a deck of cards balanced on an assumption and those cards are falling down because the assumption was wrong.

If we all worked on the assumption that what is accepted as true is really true, there would be little hope of advance
- Orville Wright

[socold]

You ask a question "What really is man's fossil fuel co2 load" and without an answer you reach a conclusion.

What is that all about?

[sigurdur]

Jul 25, 2009 22:02:21 GMT socold said:

You ask a question "What really is man's fossil fuel co2 load" and without an answer you reach a conclusion.

What is that all about?

Socold. Yes, I asked the question, and Wylie provided an answer. My conclusion is based on that answer which no one has disputed, unless I missed a response?

[socold]

sorry thought stevenotsteve asked the question. stevenotsteve does not agree with wylie in any case.