Simple calculation - from wikipedia

atmosphere mass is 5.0E18 kg

we produce 21.0E12 kg of CO2 per year from burning fossil fuels

that's about 4 PPM per year

"they" think half of it gets absorbed into ocean each year. That's a seperate problem because it makes ocean acidic which changes what life forms can exist.

So CO2 in atmosphere increases by 2 PPM per year which is what we've observed the last 50 years.

You have to be a real "denier" to not acknowledge this - like you're being paid off by the fossil fuel industry so they can continue making profits burning fossil fuels

Yep, and the nonsense that CO2 increases follow temp increases is just that. It may have happened in the past, and that can make sense, but when we KNOW how much WE are creating, WE KNOW it's not because of a temp increase because WE KNOW HOW MUCH CO2 we are extracting from the earth. +1 Jerry.

Those extractions are 'bound' to cause serious positive feedbacks also.

I've been wanting to mention the way the Rogosphere likes to talk about CO2 as food. Oxygen is pretty important in Biology also. That fact did not save the Apollo 11 astronauts from being burned from high concentrations of it. (Rog, I understand that those concentrations were higher than what the CO2 increases have been). Nevertheless, the analogy stands, and 'puny' Man has seriously altered his own atmosphere.

Edited by wildlife on 09/16/2012 13:58:32 MDT.

As I've said several times, CO2 does follow temperature rise - as the ocean warms it can absorb less CO2 so CO2 in the ocean is released into the atmosphere.

It's complicated and confusing - CO2 increase causes temperature increase which causes more CO2 increase...

But, I'll almost agree with Rog that we poorly understand how much the CO2 will increase temperature. Maybe things won't be that bad.

And we little understand how the climate changes with time. If we see climate change, we won't know for sure if it's because of increased CO2 or just a natural change.

But we shouldn't just burn fossil fuel with abandon until we prove how bad it will be.

Jerry, are you familiar with Stockholm Syndrome;

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stockholm_syndrome

You throw your quiver of facts out the window when you say things like, " I'll almost agree with Rog......"

Rog will lose his bet with Dean Fellabaum.

Edited by wildlife on 09/16/2012 16:09:27 MDT.

I totally disagree with Rog's conclusion that global warming is a conspiracy of climate scientists and we should continue burning fossil fuels like crazy.

But any climate change we've seen so far is like that shower from the first rain band of the hurricane.

So, what's Rog's bet with Dean, I'm too lazy to look back : )

Dan Says:
The human emissions have been quantified and and without exaggerating - they are far far way beyond anything 'Nature' is throwing out.

Without including the co2 emissions from volcagenic soils which adds an unknown amount to the grand total (9Gt/yr from central Italy alone), Human Co2 emission of ~8Gt/yr is estimated to be around 5% of natural Co2 emission. But don't take my word for it, check for yourself - instead of shooting your mouth off from a position of utter ignorance.

Dan says:
The way you try to hide reality is much more serious that what East Anglia meant by 'hiding the decline'. Your untruths, and East Anglia was exonerated, are 1,000 times worse than what you supposed they did.

East Anglia was whitewashed. You are the one hiding reality. The 'Inquiry' asked Phil Jones which evidence they should examine in order to investigate him. Pretty poor 'Inquiry' which asks the subject of the Inquiry what evidence they should consider wouldn't you agree?

No-one knows everything about climate. The most important difference between me and them so far as the taxpayer is concerned is that they are costing the taxpayer hundreds of millions, whereas my research is costing them nothing, but may help save them hundreds of millions more.

Jerry says:
atmosphere mass is 5.0E18 kg

we produce 21.0E12 kg of CO2 per year from burning fossil fuels

that's about 4 PPM per year

"they" think half of it gets absorbed into ocean each year. That's a seperate problem because it makes ocean acidic which changes what life forms can exist.

So CO2 in atmosphere increases by 2 PPM per year which is what we've observed the last 50 years.

You have to be a real "denier" to not acknowledge this - like you're being paid off by the fossil fuel industry so they can continue making profits burning fossil fuels

Hi Jerry,I have no problem acknowledging your figures, apart from the 'half is absorbed by the ocean' claim. I will point out that the ocean is still alkaline though, and will continue to be alkaline even if we carry on burning fuel at the rate we do until it runs out. It might become slightly less alkaline, but since it's alkalinity varies more across a meridional transect than it will by burning all available fossil fuel, I doubt the fish will worry.

The main problem with trying to work out how much of the airborne increase in co2 belongs to us as opposed to how much we put up there is that we don't know how much nature puts up there, or how how much the amount it puts up there has changed, or how much nature absorbs, or how much the amount it absorbs has changed.

As I pointed out to Dan a week ago, scientists built half a dozen different models, all equally valid, half of which found the increase was mostly human caused and half of which found it was mostly naturally caused.

Data and theory from which you can conclude equally valid but opposite results tells us nothing about which of those results is correct.

Since that paper was published in 2005, more evidence has come to light which suggest to us the increase is mostly natural. But we don't know for sure.

Whether or not it is natural, it doesn't have much effect on temperature anyway, unless there's a strong water vapour feedback, which hasn't been observed.

Jerry says:
I totally disagree with Rog's conclusion that global warming is a conspiracy of climate scientists and we should continue burning fossil fuels like crazy.

I don't think it's a conspiracy, I think it the herding instinct of the well paid consenseless. They all head towards the grant money.

I think we should husband our fossil fuel resources as best we can, without increasing the number of folks dying of cold related diseases in winter. Of which there are a lot more than there are dying of heatstroke in summer.

The real money is from the fossil fuel industry - if there's any herding instinct it's to fossil fuel industry grant money

It's not that people are dying of global warming induced heatstroke. The effect of global warming will take 100 or 1000 years. We are just beginning to see the effects, thus you can argue that it's just natural.

"With a 9.3-metre fibreglass sailboat, Nicolas Peissel and his crewmates were able to do what seasoned explorers on hulking Arctic ships attempted over centuries but never succeeded.

They crossed the northernmost route of the Northwestern Passages, which connects Baffin Bay to the Arctic Ocean in Canada's far North."

http://www.edmontonjournal.com/technology/Ship%20historic%20crossing%20signals%20extent%20Arctic%20melt/7176411/story.html

Jerry says:
It's complicated and confusing - CO2 increase causes temperature increase which causes more CO2 increase...

But, I'll almost agree with Rog that we poorly understand how much the CO2 will increase temperature. Maybe things won't be that bad.

You're understanding is nearly there Jerry. Temperature increase does indeed cause co2 increase in the air. This is shown by the ice cores and by our plot of rate of change of co2 against temperature change.

But if the increase in co2 then caused the temperature to rise further, we would be in a positive feedback loop and we would all have quantifried long ago when co2 was at 8000ppm - 20 times higher then now. Didn't happen. Because Co2 doesn't cause a temperature increase in the real atmosphere. There is no evidence that it does, no matter how much Dan gnashes his teeth and calls me a liar.

Even the IPCC knows this. That's why they have to invoke a fictional water vapour feedback to make co2 increase do anything exciting in their models. But the water vapour feedback hasn't happened. Water vapour in the real atmosphere has hardly changed in 60 years of observations, while co2 has increased by 30%.

When the CO2 was 8000 PPM, was it warmer than it would have been otherwise?

So difficult to know that far back in time.

I think we'll find out, but then it will be too late to do anything about it because it takes 1000s of year for the CO2 to go back into the earth.

We are doing big science experiment

Jerry says:
it will be too late to do anything about it because it takes 1000s of year for the CO2 to go back into the earth.

Again, without knowing the rates of change of natural co2 emission and absorption, calculating the e-folding time of co2 or it's 'halflife' isn't possible. The IPCC projections put it at around 240 years, but this is totally unproven and unsupported. We know the time before absorption of any average co2 molecule is around 5 years, but this is not the same thing as the e-folding time. However, we do get some clues by looking at temperature oscillation in the modern record and comparing them to the detrended co2 level. These studies suggest that on an annual scale, co2 lags temperature by around 6 months. When a big 2 year El nino/La Nina ENSO event occurs the lag increases to around 15 months. On the scale of a 60 year oceanic cycle, the e-folding time is going to be around 15 years.

So if we're right and co2 change is mostly a natural, temperature driven phenomenon, then if as we believe it will, temperature falls over the next couple of decades, we should expect to see co2 starting to fall in around 2025. That would then be the proof that we're right.

Provided that temperatures don't start increasing at an alarming rate outside of what we've seen in the past from natural variability, I think it is reasonable and sensible to keep studying and observing while we await the outcome of the decisive experiment nature might be getting around to performing for us.

"Provided that temperatures don't start increasing at an alarming rate outside of what we've seen in the past from natural variability, I think it is reasonable and sensible to keep studying and observing while we await the outcome of the decisive experiment nature might be getting around to performing for us."

No

When we see large temperature rise then it will be too late to do anything about it

It takes 1000s of years for Calcium and Magnesium to wash out of rocks, into ocean, get combined with CO2 to form carbonate, and get deposited into earth. All the while we'll be stuck with the increased CO2.

Better to switch to renewable energy sources now

Besides, there are many other reasons to switch, like it's getting progressively harder to get fossil fuels

When the martians land with their death rays it'll be too late as well. We should spend billions on defenses now!

Show me some observationally based evidence that co2 has caused any measurable temperature rise, and I'll take your argument more seriously.

While there's no observed water vapour feedback like the models use, no dice.
Anyway, how can we "switch to renewable energy sources now" when renewables aren't capable of providing a tenth of our power needs?

Such an argument would only be advanced by someone in the pay of 'Big Wind'.

Edited by tallbloke on 09/17/2012 13:44:54 MDT.

Picture being worth thousand words:



#1 - Now, we know CO2 level is way higher than historic levels and it's because of burning fossil fuels. Warming or other weather effects are barely visible.

#2 - In a few 10s of years the weather will be obviously effected. Rog concedes bet to Dean.

#3 - If we start transitioning to alternate energy now, it will still take 10s of years before we can stop all CO2 emmisions. Weather effects will get much worse than the #2 obviously effected level.

#4 - If we wait for Rog to concede, the CO2 level will get much higher before we are able to stop all CO2 emmisions. And the transition period will be much more chaotic because we'll be desperate. Rog's grandchildren will deny being related to Rog : )

Well, it's an intriguing graphic Jerry. I'll deal with the notes first and then come back to it.

#1 - Now, we know CO2 level is way higher than historic levels and it's because of burning fossil fuels. Warming or other weather effects are barely visible.

As I patiently explained above, we don't know how much of the rise in atmospheric co2 is due to human emission and how much is due to the natural warming which has been ongoing since around 1700.

#2 - In a few 10s of years the weather will be obviously effected. Rog concedes bet to Dean.

We have not seen any measurable increase in temperature over and above the natural recovery from the little ice age which can be attributed to co2. The model predictions can't be relied on because they use unrealistic and unobserved feedbacks from water vapour. My bet with Dean falls due in 2020.

#3 - If we start transitioning to alternate energy now, it will still take 10s of years before we can stop all CO2 emmisions. Weather effects will get much worse than the #2 obviously effected level.

What weather effects? Evidence?

#4 - If we wait for Rog to concede, the CO2 level will get much higher before we are able to stop all CO2 emmisions. And the transition period will be much more chaotic because we'll be desperate. Rog's grandchildren will deny being related to Rog : )

Desperate about what? You need to clean that crystal ball of yours.

Now, the graphic. Any chance of some numbers and labels on some axes, or do we have to put up with your worrying for an indeterminate length of time? ;-)

Seriously Jerry, the flat temperature curve of the last decade should be giving all you warmies serious pause for thought. Which natural variation has overcome the mighty theoretical power of co2 and the (unobserved) theoretical water vapour feedback which was meant to give it teeth??

"The world's greatest snow-capped peaks, which run in a chain from the Himalayas to Tian Shan on the border of China and Kyrgyzstan, have lost no ice over the last decade, new research shows.

The discovery has stunned scientists, who had believed that around 50bn tonnes of meltwater were being shed each year and not being replaced by new snowfall.

The study is the first to survey all the world's icecaps and glaciers and was made possible by the use of satellite data. Overall, the contribution of melting ice outside the two largest caps – Greenland and Antarctica – is much less than previously estimated, with the lack of ice loss in the Himalayas and the other high peaks of Asia responsible for most of the discrepancy.

Bristol University glaciologist Prof Jonathan Bamber, who was not part of the research team, said: "The very unexpected result was the negligible mass loss from high mountain Asia, which is not significantly different from zero."

The melting of Himalayan glaciers caused controversy in 2009 when a report from the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change mistakenly stated that they would disappear by 2035"

This 'report' turned out to be WWF funded, not peer reviewed etc etc. This didn't stop IPCC chief and soft p*rn writer Rajendra Pachauri describing the work of some Indian glaciaologists who previously found the IPCC position to be completely and utterly wrong as:

"Voodoo science"

.

"We have not seen any measurable increase in temperature over and above the natural recovery from the little ice age which can be attributed to co2...What weather effects? Evidence?"

Ice ages - caused by change of tilt of earth?

Little ice age - who knows?

So far - warming is barely visible and easy for you to discount.

You have to go back 55 million years to the most recent case as described in Scientific American. Increase in CO2 from volcanic activity. Then temperature increase. Based on analysis of sedimentary layers in Antarctica and Greenland.

Hi Jerry,

Ice ages are millions of years long and likely caused by the passage of the Earth through the spiral arms of the galaxy

Glacial/interglacial periods in the present ice age come along every 100,000 years and are caused by changes in the shape of Earth's orbit, it's axial tilt, and the precession of the equinoxes.

The 'little ice age' is the cold period between the C14th and C18th which was preceded by the Medieval Warm Period and succeeded by the Modern Warm Period, which reached the top of the curve in about 2005. It's downhill from here to 2350, and the ~974 year cycle is associated with a cycle of angular momentum exchange in the solar system.

Then there are the ~210 year De Vries cycles, the ~80 year Gleissberg cycles, and the ~75 year lunar declination cycle and ~45 year inner planet return cycle, which combine to create a quasi ~60 year cycle which has been strongly visible in the temperature record over the last 120 years.

So if you meant co2 warming is barely visible I'd nearly agree. Where you get the idea that it's lurking round the corner somewhere and is going to jump out and get us I have no idea. :-)