Update on the nine alleged errors in An Inconvenient Truth

Several climate scientists have now examined the alleged errors in An Inconvenient Truth. At RealClimate Gavin Schmidt (NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies) and Michael Mann (director Penn State Earth System Science Center) write:

First of all, "An Inconvenient Truth" was a movie and people expecting the same depth from a movie as from a scientific paper are setting an impossible standard. Secondly, the judge's characterisation of the 9 points is substantially flawed. He appears to have put words in Gore's mouth that would indeed have been wrong had they been said (but they weren't). Finally, the judge was really ruling on how "Guidance Notes" for teachers should be provided to allow for more in depth discussion of these points in the classroom. This is something we wholehearted support - AIT is probably best used as a jumping off point for informed discussion, but it is not the final word. ...

Overall, our verdict is that the 9 points are not "errors" at all (with possibly one unwise choice of tense on the island evacuation point).

William Connolley (British Antarctic Survey) responds to Schmidt and Mann:

I think its too kind; e.g. on SLR and Katrina Gore is misleading; on evacuation he is simply wrong. But the lake Chad bit was interesting.

Michael Tobis (University of Texas Institute for Physics) writes:

I've watched the relevant scenes, and though I find the polar bear sequence a bit silly, I can find nothing whatsoever wrong with what Gore says in substance or in emphasis in eight of the nine cases.

The troublesome case is where Gore says:

"that's why the citizens of these Pacific nations have all had to evacuate to New Zealand"

There is certainly no case where all the inhabitants of a nation have evacuated, to date, although the prospect does not seem remote. This astonishing fact does not seem to faze the critics of the movie in the least. ...

Arguably, there is some subset of Pacific Islanders who have 'all evacuated' in the loose, emphatic sense of 'all'. I can certainly imagine a context in which the statement, with a little slack for Gore's vernacular, would be reasonable. ...

Other than that out-of-context evacuation comment, I can see nothing wrong with what Mr. Gore said or how the film presented it.

John Shepherd (UK National Oceanography Centre)and Chris Rapley (former director British Antarctic Survey)

In fact the judgement systematically refers to "errors" (using
inverted commas, which the media have generally ignored), and has some
wise words to say on the distinction between presenting and promoting
partisan views, and the balanced presentation of controversial issues
(which he decides does not require equal "air-time" for views which
are held only by small minorities). However, in his analysis of the
"errors"the judge has also expressed unwarranted confidence on
several issues which are still the subject of considerable uncertainty
among the scientific community. It would be fair to say that Al Gore
presents the more extreme (concerned) end of the range of scientific
opinion on several issues, and implies stronger evidence than is fair
on several others. However, overall the film still achieves an
exceptionally high standard of scientific accuracy, and it is
regrettable that the judge has triggered a media storm by the
injudicious use of the term "errors". Lawyers know not to rely on
ordinary commas to make their meaning clear; now judges must learn not
to rely on inverted commas either. ...

Overall evaluation from John Shepherd: In only three cases [lake
Chad, Katrina, drowning polar bears] can it realistically be argued
that the film presents an overstated or unreasonable argument, and in
only one case (hurricanes) is that in relation to a major issue. In no
case is there a scientific "error" as such. In three cases [sea level
rise, thermohaline circulation, Kilimanjaro] Gore presents a view
which represents the more extreme end of the range of scientific
uncertainty. In the remaining three cases the Gore presentation is
essentially correct. To refer to "nine scientific errors" is therefore
itself a very considerable misrepresentation of the facts.

Endorsement by Chris Rapley: The view of climate scientists with whom
I have spoken (and my view also) is that Al Gore's grasp of the
climate change issue is remarkable, and his ability to communicate it
quite exceptional. Having said this, there are some points Al makes in
Inconvenient Truth which a scientist would generally hedge with
caveats or avoid, because they are scientifically controversial,
uncertain, or too complicated to explain accurately and
succinctly. The snows of Kilimanjaro are a good example. As is the
case for almost all localised or regional climatic changes, the loss
of the ice cap has not formally be attributed to human actions. That
does not mean that it is not - simply that convincing evidence for the
link has not been presented. Even so, expert scientists working on the
issue have their views, and it seems that in this case Al's comments
may have been influenced by these. The other issues raised in the
court case are to a greater or lesser degree of the same nature. The
bottom line, as the judge noted, is that the message delivered by Al,
that climate change is real, now, and driven mainly by humans, is
"broadly correct". John Shepherd's excellent detailed analysis of the
issues addressed by the judgement comes to the same conclusion. I am
pleased to endorse and recommend John's evaluation.

Stung by the criticism he received for not doing any fact checking on the judge's decision, Michael Dobbs did what he should have done in the first place and checked with a climate scientist, Martin Parry (Co-Chair IPCC, Working Group II). Parry felt that the judge was right about Kilimanjaro, lake Chad and thermohaline circulation, and "technically correct" on Katrina and coral bleaching. Dobbs also had a comment from a NOAA coral reef scientist who backed Gore on coral bleaching.

While there is some disagreement amongst the scientists, if you look at the details, much of the disagreement is not about the science, but about what Gore said, and what counts as an error. This was not helped by the media misreporting the judge's findings as "AIT has nine errors", when the judge actually found that there were nine points which were either errors or departures from the mainstream. (The judge doesn't say which were which, but a little reading between the lines suggest that he thought that sea level rise and evacuation were errors and the other seven were departures from the mainstream.)

So let's look at the score on each of the nine points:

Sea-level rise: Four votes for Gore. Shepherd and Rapley say he has scientific support but at the extreme end of uncertainty, while Connolley thinks that Gore is misleading on this point. The difference of opinion here seems to be about what Gore said or implied. The judge and Connolley think that although Gore doesn't say it, he implies it will happen in the immediate future. While I would have preferred that Gore had said something like: "We don't know how long the ice sheets will take to melt, maybe it will be 100 years, maybe it it will be a 1000", I don't think that it would have made much difference to the impressions gained by viewers of the movie. In any case, all the scientists agree that this is not an scientific error.

Island evacuation: Five votes for Gore. Tobis says it's an editing error, while Connolley thinks that Gore is simply wrong. The differences here aren't about the science but about how to interpret what Gore said. Connolley takes the strictest interpretation, while the others are more generous.

Thermohaline circulation: Three votes for Gore. Shepherd and Rapley say he has scientific support but at the extreme end of uncertainty, Connolley thinks that Gore is misleading on this point, while Parry says the judge is correct. Again, the difference is not about the science, but how to judge what Gore said. The people voting for Gore say that he is correct to say that it's a possibility, while the ones saying that he is extreme/misleading think that his presentation makes it appear more likely than it is. I would have preferred that he had said that this was a possibility and not something that is likely, but I suspect that this would have made little difference to viewers. In any case, this certainly is not an scientific error.

Graph of CO2 vs temperature: Unanimous agreement that Gore is right and the judge is wrong.

Snows of Kilimanjaro: Three votes for Gore. Shepherd and Rapley say he has scientific support but at the extreme end of uncertainty, Connolley thinks that it is uncertain that the receding glacier is because of global warming, while Parry says the judge is correct. Once again the differences aren't about the science, but how strictly you judge what Gore said. They all agree that mountain glaciers are receding worldwide because of global warming, and that there is scientific evidence that Kilimanjaro is also receding because of global warming. I think that there were better examples he could have chosen, but it makes no difference to his main point. In any case, this certainly is not a scientific error.

Drying lake Chad: Four votes for Gore. Shepherd and Rapley and Parry say that the judge is correct. Again, everyone agrees that there is scientific evidence that global warming is partially responsible for the drying -- the differences seem to be about whether the evidence is strong enough fir Gore to use it as an example. In any case, this certainly is not a scientific error.

Katrina: Three votes for Gore. The other four agree with the judge. This one is also about how you interpret Gore. He never says that warming caused Katrina. Katrina is used as an example of the damage that stronger hurricanes could do and of the consequences of ignoring warnings from scientists. The scientists voting for the judge think he implies it. In any case, this certainly is not a scientific error.

Drowning polar bears: Five votes for Gore. Shepherd and Rapley agree with the judge, but they don't seem to be aware of the study that supports Gore here. In any case, this certainly is not a scientific error.

Coral bleaching: Six votes for Gore. Parry says that the judge might be technically correct. I think that this one goes for Gore.

Overall, there were only three points where a majority felt that the judge was right: thermohaline, Katrina and Kilimanjaro, and none of these were scientific errors, but rather cases where Gore should have said a little more about what was going on.

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But ... but ... I'm sure all seven voted "yes" when asked:

Is Al Gore fat?

If this is the same Dr. Mann who constructed the "Hockey Stick" graph that was subsequently broken by Canadian's Steve McIntyre and Ross McKitrick, then who the hell cares what he says. His fraudulent work disqualifies his opinions.

The "warmers" have to stop the lies and obfuscation.

By Mark Gray (not verified) on 18 Oct 2007 #permalink

"Mark Gray" illustrates a cardinal principle of the deniers: When you cannot construct an argument based on facts, just smear, smear, smear.

The "skeptics" need to "stop the lies and obfuscation." For example, "the Hockey Stick was broken by McIntyre and McKitrick."

Mark
Do you often walk around in public with the word moron tattooed across your forehead?(cause that is the equivalent of bring up the "broken hockey stick" on a ScienceBlog)

"His fraudulent work disqualifies his opinions."

I believe that applies more to a person from outside an area of expertise who paints an error by an expert as immoral behavior negating all the rest of the individual's work.

Now can we get back to the important business of discussing the policy implications to follow from "State of Fear"?

I thought the movie did a decent job of maintaining plausible deniability. The worst propagandistic excesses were cases where a literal reading of the script doesn't really show a problem - it's what you see *combined* with what is said that creates a predictable false impression in the mind of the viewer.

Take sea level rise. To illustrate the effect of a 20-foot sea level rise we are presented with graphics showing water rising by 20 feet in New York. Somebody has created a static model of the *existing* New York skyline and we get to see that how that static model looks against rising waters.

The fact that the New York skyline doesn't change at all - for instance, no new skyscapers show up - implies not much time is passing. Nobody can guess what New York will look like in a thousand years, but it's certain it won't look exactly like it does now. Nobody explicitly claims "this process will take less than thousands of years" but the visual context implies it. We think we've seen waters rise over the *current* skyline.

Another director might have chosen to put a timeline on that animation or changed it to more strongly indicate the passage of time. For instance, show the wobbling of the tides and the movement of the sun, slow at first and then speeding up faster and faster until you've reached the nessessary million-to-one speedup. The editorial choice to leave off that sort of indication creates a false impression in the viewer.

I am disappointed by the direction that the sane end of the blogosphere is taking on this. I read the judgement and I thought it was very sound and level-headed. In some parts it may not have been entirely in accord with the science, but I suspect that is the fault of the evidence presented by the Government. The judge is clearly a very intelligent man, a layman in climate science doing his best with the specialist evidence presented to him.

Above all, I think it is a mistake to concede to the deniers that the judge opposed AIT. That's almost the opposite if what happened. Focusing on points of disagreement with the judge plays into the hands of the deniers. Rather, our focus should be "Court says AGW is real, AIT supported by judge, to be shown in secondary schools, deniers lose case". That should be our headline here, the correct response to deniers who say "AIT rubbished by judge".

The upshot of the case is that teachers will get a printed guidance note with the DVD, rather than a link to a website, and the guidance note will have more detail on these particular points. There's basically no way this outcome can be viewed as a bad thing. So the reality-based community should be welcoming it.

The guidance notes are good, too. I've lost the link to them; can someone please repost it?

By Nick Barnes (not verified) on 18 Oct 2007 #permalink

Hi all

Elspi, this site is not about science.
And yes the HS is well and truely shattered.
You warmers are as gulible as Jews at a concentration camp, 'off for a nice warm shower yid.'

All the shit about the pacific islanders coming to New Zealand is bull.

Regards for New Zealand
Peter Bickle

By Peter Bickle (not verified) on 18 Oct 2007 #permalink

Warning: Thread Hijack in Progress:

I just got a flier from the Sierra Club today, in which they state that GW is occurring much faster than anyone predicted. Correct me if I'm wrong, and I know you will, but this does seem like a crock of shit.

/hijack

I just got a flier from the Sierra Club today, in which they state that GW is occurring much faster than anyone predicted. Correct me if I'm wrong, and I know you will, but this does seem like a crock of shit.

Well, certainly the artic ice melt this summer has raised a few eyebrows.

What exactly did the flyer say, and who was it from, the national organization or your state chapter?

On the sierra club's national site their lead for global warming is:

There's no more denying it: global warming is here. The good news is that we can slow and eventually stop it, but we must act now.

Which is in accord with mainstream scientific thought AFAIK.

And yes the HS is well and truely shattered.

You must know something that the [US] National Academy of Science does not know, then. I do hope you'll contact them with your exciting news soon!

I'm with Tim and Nick barnes.
Scoring it as the Judge 9, Monckton and twits nil

I'm sure we can't connect a single storm to global warming. But I haven't heard a reasonable hypothesis as to why global warming would not increase cyclone intensity. Is there a physics speed limit?

"Nobody can guess what New York will look like in a thousand years, but it's certain it won't look exactly like it does now."

Of all the stupid complaints...

The reason to use the current skyline is that people have some idea of the scale involved.

A bunch of unknown, unfamiliar buildings of unknown size would be of little use.

It's the same as diagrams that show a dinosaur next to a human and a bus, in order to help the reader visualize the relative sizes. Dinosaurs, humans, and buses never existed at the same time, but we have a good idea how big a person or a bus is.

The reason to use the current skyline is that people have some idea of the scale involved.

But if they had shown a future skyline, they could have had people with jetpacks! And who can argue against the notion that jetpacks would have made the movie better?

The claim about evacuations from Tuvalu is not supportable. In fact, it's nonsense.

Tasmanian scientist John Hunter (in a study sponsored by Greenpeace) estimated a sea level rise at Tuvalu of 0.8 ± 1.9 mm/year relative to the land (i.e. a rise smaller than the uncertainty).

A more recent estimate from the SEAFRAME project indicates a rise of 5.7 (95% CI ± 5.0) mm/year. (Again the estimate is close to the uncertainty).

Even taken at face values, such purported sea level rises are not going to cause anyone to "evacutate".

Using the current skyline as a point of reference is fine if you make it clear that's what you're doing, but the movie didn't make that as clear as it could have. There was nothing in the visual to suggest "we expect this to take a thousand years" and it looked kind of real, so vast throngs of moviegoers left with the impression they'd seen something that was actually going to happen soon.

Anyway, if you think *that* was a stupid complaint, you haven't heard the one that irked me the most, which was: the frog.

That a frog won't jump out of slowly heated water is an urban myth. AIT reinforces this myth with cute cartoony graphics of a frog that gets "rescued". Strangely, that one didn't make the top 9 points of contention... :-)

Mr. Gore recons the debate is over and those who disagree with his ideas on global warming have been 'purchased' in order to create 'the illusion' of a debate.
Nonsense - it's as if the Vice President and his allies in the environmental movement plan to win the debate through intimidation.

Interesting comment from James (#19) "sea level rise....relative to the land". I just wonder how much subsidence occurs on some small island atolls which are often made entirely of broken coral and have had many decades of quarrying, building roads, houses, traffic etc etc. Can we assume that these are all rolled into the sea level equation - I doubt it!

Thanks, John. The PDF of the guidance pack is here.

By Nick Barnes (not verified) on 19 Oct 2007 #permalink

THERE ARE MORE THAN NINE ERRORS IN AL GORE'S OSCAR-NOBEL BOOK AKA CONVENIENT LIES

#1 (p.25). "Carbon dioxide is the most important of the so-called greenhouse gases"

Water vapor (H2O) is larger by volume, and methane (CH4) is larger in forcing per ppmv.

#2 (p.27) "The problem we now face is that this thin layer of atmosphere is being thickened by huge quantities of human-caused carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases".

The quantities are not "huge": the gross emissions of carbon dioxide from burning of fossil fuels in 2006 (7.6 GtC) were less than one per cent of total atmospheric carbon dioxide (760 GtC in the 1990s); the net emissions were less than 0.5 per cent of the total (Source: IPCC, TAR, Land Use etc, CUP, 2000:30). If half of one per cent is "huge", what would count as small?

#3 (p.27). "As a result, the temperature of the Earth's atmosphere (sic) - and oceans - is (sic) getting dangerously warmer".

It seems likely that Gore Blimey meant to say "surface" rather than "atmosphere", as the atmosphere includes the troposphere (getting a bit warmer) and the stratosphere (a bit cooler). But when you win an Oscar and a Nobel, what's in a sphere, as Shakespeare might have said. A year has passed since the publication of AIT, but Gore Blimey would not be able to cite any place in the world that "is" now "dangerously warmer" than it was last year (not a single Australian state or territorial capital city has had any day this year that was the warmest ever. Source: daily weather reports in The Australian).

#4 (p.28) "... water vapor is a natural (sic) greenhouse gas that increases in volume with warmer temperatures, thereby magnifying the impact of all artificial (sic) greenhouse gases".

It is not clear why Blimey considers water as "natural" and CO2 as "artificial". But it is good news for swimming pool owners worldwide that global warming means that they will now need to spend less on topping up from the mains water supply in the summer. Blimey also swims in his pool(s) blissfully unaware that if implemented Kyoto would mean less atmospheric water vapor - and so less not more rainfall. Thanks to his AIT, English schoolchildren will never learn that burning of fossil fuels results in (in the case of jet fuel) 3.15 kg CO2 per kg fuel burned and 1.26kg H2O per kg fuel, IPCC, TAR, Aviation & the Global atmosphere, CUP 1999:33). Even the Nobel IPCC admits (TAR) that the residence in the atmosphere of water vapor generated by fossil fuels is at most 10 days, meaning that it descends to earth as rain (aka precipitation). That is why global rainfall is more now, not less, than it was in 1900, as Australian and South African data show clearly.

Enough for now, I will continue my excursion through AIT, but trust me, the above four incontestable gross errors in just the first four pages of the main text are par for his course. Thus when we reach his pages on coral reefs, Blimey shows total ignorance that without CO2 in the past there would now be no coral, and that without any in the future, as he proposes, there will be none ever again. Corals are living organisms for which CO2 is their lifeblood. Not only that, Blimey is unaware that although as he admits CO2 is not merely the safeguard against the excess freezing of Mars or the big heat of Venus, without CO2 we would all be dead from lack of food. Everything we eat derives from the photosynthesis (a word that is not in his book's vocab) that derives from atmospheric CO2, and the abolition Blimey proposes condemns us all to death. Targets for emission reduction of 60% of the 2000 level by 2050 ineluctably imply mass starvation and an incipient new Little Ice Age by c.2050, as shown by the basic math in Hansen (yes he of NASA-GISS) with Sato (2004). Atmospheric CO2 of less than the 1750 level by c.2050 as advocated by the Oscar and Nobel committees guarantees widespread extermination of most of the human race.

Just a quick one, but is there any reason why you did not mention atmospheric half life in your first point Tim?

By jodyaberdein (not verified) on 19 Oct 2007 #permalink

Tim,

Can you expend your considerable audit energy on actual science papers, rather than a movie?

See, the world has moved on, declared AGW real (so has Lomborg), and is debating action. So, Tim, please save the world from itself. Audit the science Tim and stop wasting your time on non-science. The decision-makers have been briefed on the science, see, and thus are deluded into action.

Save the world, Tim. Audit the science. Audit the science Tim. Auuuuudit the sciiiiiience...auuuuuuudit the sciennnnnnnnnnnce...auuuuu....

Best,

D

"this site is not about science."

That certainly applies to comments like: "CO2 forcing is decreasing is it not as every new molecule added adds less warming the the previous". Since each molecule of CO2 emitted now has 73% (to the nearest per cent)of the warming power of a CO2 molecule emitted in 1750, perhaps the person who made that comment thinks that 73% is practically the same as zero.

"And yes the HS is well and truely shattered"

Yes, trees suddenly changed their behaviour in 1428.

By Chris O'Neill (not verified) on 19 Oct 2007 #permalink

Hi jodyaberdein.

Climatologists are not aware of the economists' word "fungible". While I love to think that the CO2 breathed out by my ancestors since say 1200 is still up there (according to Houghton of the IPCC, in his 2004 book), I fear I cannot place their names on each of their molecules. Probably recently released CO2 jumps the queue to get absorbed in the photosynthesis process that the IPCC largely ignores or downplays (becuse it is lower in the troposphere), but in general atmos. CO2 is deemed to be "well mixed" so who knows whether it is your gran's or mine that is currently fertilising your/my tomatoes? So your question is really irrelevant. At least half of current CO2 emissions equal annual uptake by the earth's biome and/or ocean (the jury is still out on which is the more significant).

Going beyond that, to anticipate my page by page dissection of the Gore Blimey twaddle, why is it that AGW has caused Lake Chad to shrink, but not any of Lakes Nyasa, Tanganyika, Victoria, Michigan, Superior, Geneva, or even Lakes Eyre and George here in Australia, both wetter now than for about the last 4 years? Likewise if AGW has caused the glacier on Kilimanjaro to shrink (as it has since 1900, ie before AGW), why is there now double the ice on Mont Blanc than there was just 10 years ago?

Is 25 a joke? Please tell me somebody is spoofing.

A year has passed since the publication of AIT, but Gore Blimey would not be able to cite any place in the world that "is" now "dangerously warmer" than it was last year (not a single Australian state or territorial capital city has had any day this year that was the warmest ever. Source: daily weather reports in The Australian).

Dear Tim Burton,

let me advice you to NOT speak about the topic of "CLIMATE CHANGE" as long as you have not managed to understand the major difference between CLIMATE and WEATHER.

thanks,

sod

Atmospheric CO2 of less than the 1750 level by c.2050 as advocated by the Oscar and Nobel committees guarantees widespread extermination of most of the human race.

every now and then, i am convinced that a more stupid comment is impossible. this one brought me one of those moments.

dear Tim Curtin,

how exactly are all those evil Gores an climate scientists trying to filter all the CO2 out of the atmosphere?
exterminating the human race as it happened before in 1750???

yours,

sod

ps: sorry for misspelling your name before.

"Is 25 a joke? Please tell me somebody is spoofing."

While it is tempting to think that Tim C.'s contributions to this blog are a joke, if they are they're an extremely long-running joke with no punchline in sight.

By Ian Gould (not verified) on 19 Oct 2007 #permalink

Just briefly replying to #25, so we can stop discussing it:
1. As we all know, radiative forcing is the important quantity, here. And the latest IPCC FAR tells us that CO2 is responsible for 1.66 W/m2, while CH4 is responsible for 0.48 W/m2. While the FAR does call water vapor "the most abundant and important greenhouse gas", it's also careful to point out that water vapor is reactive, and its effects are included in the forcings for other gases.

2. The 20th century contribution changed CO2 concentrations from 275 ppm to 375 ppm - is 36% huge enough for you? CO2 produced by fossil fuels accumulates, obviously.

3. This seems a linguistic quibble at best. Since we don't live in the stratosphere, it's fair to say that the atmosphere is warming. And most of it is, except for the stratosphere, so what's your problem?

4. I'm not sure what you're trying to say here, exactly. More linguistic quibbling? If there's a scientific point here, I'm not sure what it is. Maybe that "more rainfall = better"? Or that Kyoto would produce dangerous droughts? Anyway, your attribution of more rainfall to the H2O contributed by *burning fossil fuels* seems like it must be a joke. Was it?

Double the amount of ice on Mont Blanc? Some things are arguable, but that one isn't. Thus we discover that Tim C. believes everything he reads in the right-wing blogosphere. Apparently he's beyond embarassment about that sort of thing.

By Steve Bloom (not verified) on 19 Oct 2007 #permalink

What exactly are 'inverted commas'?

Peter Bickle,

You comment was extremely distasteful.

Presuming nobody thinks justice Burton is dishonest, if his judgement has been so wrong as depicted it must have been the fault of the experts convened at the UK High Court. Evidently those experts were not knowledgeable enough to "show" to a climate-layman Judge what the science of climate change is at the moment.

If that is the case, instead of wasting time in blogging and interviews about it, people and especially scientists convinced that justice Burton's conclusions are wrong should contact the UK Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families offering their expertise to fight an appeal against the "9 Errors" judgement.

#39: why should we want to fight an appeal against the judgement? The upshot of the judgement was that the Government could send out AIT to schools.

By Nick Barnes (not verified) on 19 Oct 2007 #permalink

Can anyone in this blog full of geniuses explain why the southern hemisphere had the most terrible cold winter in almost 90 years? (and a cooler fall and summer too).

Yes, I know. Global warming makes things hot and cold, faster and slower, longer and shorter, etc, all at the same time. Try to cool your beer in your oven.

No saurahb: the IPCC said. Absolutely burning so called fossil fuels does inject H2O in the atmosphere. Look:

... (in the case of jet fuel) 3.15 kg CO2 per kg fuel burned and 1.26kg H2O per kg fuel, IPCC, TAR, Aviation & the Global atmosphere, CUP 1999:33).

Now, relatively it doesn't mean much, as it doesn't mean much the 0.048% increase in CO2 levels in Earth atmosphere since 1760.

35:
"1.The 20th century contribution changed CO2 concentrations from 275 ppm to 375 ppm - is 36% huge enough for you? CO2 produced by fossil fuels accumulates, obviously".

YET THE COMPOSITION OF THE ATMOSPHERE CHANGED BY JUST 0.01%. IS THAT "HUGE"?

"2. This seems a linguistic quibble at best. Since we don't live in the stratosphere, it's fair to say that the atmosphere is warming. And most of it is, except for the stratosphere, so what's your problem?"

I PREFER SCIENTIFIC PRECISION TO LINGUISTIC SLOPPINESS. THE TOTAL RECORDED INCREASE NOW IN TEMPERATURE OF THE TROPOSPHERE SINCE SATELLITE MEASUREMENTS BEGAN JUST 28 YEAR AGO IS 0.4oC NH AND LESS THAN 0.2oC SH. WHAT'S YOUR PROBLEM?

"3. ....If there's a scientific point here, I'm not sure what it is. Maybe that "more rainfall = better"? Or that Kyoto would produce dangerous droughts? Anyway, your attribution of more rainfall to the H2O contributed by burning fossil fuels seems like it must be a joke. Was it?"

NO. JUST A STATEMENT OF FACT. FOSSIL FUELS FORMED FROM COMBINING H2O AND CO2, AND THAT IS WHY THEIR MAIN EMISSIONS ARE H20 AND CO2. THEY ARE NEITHER POISONS NOR POLLUTANTS. USING SOLAR AND WIND POWER ETC WILL REDUCE BOTH H2O AND CO2. WITH NET TERRESTRIAL UPTAKE OF CO2 OF 3.6 GtC IN 2005 (AND GROWING AT 3.4% PA SINCE 1994), REDUCING EMISSIONS TO 90% OF THE 2000 LEVEL, i.e. 0.6 GtC(AS DEMANDED BY AUSTRALIAN CONSERVATION FOUNDATION AND PROD HOEG GULDBERG, UQ), WILL RAPIDLY REDUCE ATMOSPHERIC CO2 BY OVER 3 GtC P.A. NOW AND RISING FAST, TO PRODUCE AN ICE AGE LEVEL OF ATMOSPHERIC CO2 AS SOON AS 2046. LUCKILY THIS WILL NOT HAPPEN, AS THE CHINESE AND INDIANS ARE NOT AS STUPID AS THE ACF AND PROF. GULDBERG & CO.

MEANTIME I AWAIT YOUR EXPLANATION OF WHY LAKES GENEVA AND SUPERIOR ETC ARE NOT DRYING UP AS PREDICTED BY AL GORE? BTW, THE RETREATING GLACIERS ON KILI(WHICH I HAVE CLIMBED) ARE NOT, REPEAT NOT, pace BLIMEY, DUE TO NON-FREEZING TEMPERATURES, IT IS ALWAYS ALWAYS BELOW ZERO AT THE GLACIAL SUMMIT. FOR THE LIKELY EXPLANATION OF THE RETREAT TRY THE RECENT PAPER IN AMERICAN SCIENTIST.

I think people voting against Gore on Kilimanjaro are neglecting to actually consider the context. I watched the movie again before coming to any conclusions. Gore showed several retreating glaciers. The focus on Kilimanjaro as if it were presented alone is not Gore's.

I think the film can leave certain misapprehensions in the viewer. The Katrina and sea level portions may make a stronger impression than is warranted, but this is not due to any incorrect statements on Gore's part, so much as a decision to leave out describing the controversies in these matters.

On the whole, though, I would say that Gore is far more scrupulous in acknowledging uncertainties and complexities than his opponents usually are. This is always a judgment call. The important matter is to leave an impression that honestly represents to the general public the extent of the risk and the seriousness of the measures needed to address it.

This is a very difficult endeavor, and we are far better off that someone has made the attempt.

There should be a Darwin Award for "Blog comments so stupid they remove at a stroke the chance that sentient creatures will ever again see the poster's name without involuntarily thinking "fool" and starting to laugh".

How many stupidities are perpetrated by Tim Curtin in his one comment at #25 above? Here are just a few:
1. (As SOD or somebody said) thinks weather is climate
2. Thinks more water vapour in the atmosphere ipso facto means more rainfall (and goes without saying of course that rain should fall just where it's wanted).
3. Seems also to think that more water vapour in warmer air means less evaporation. (Should show working on this one).
4. Thinks that implementing Kyoto would reduce water vapour concentration (rather than slow the rate of increase).
5. Really does appear to think that it's the water created along with CO2 by burning fossil fuels, not the water evaporated by warmer temperatures, that is the issue to climate science.
5. Beyond stupid, but thinks that if we quit burning fossil fuels altogether then atmospheric levels of CO2 would drop toward zero. Truly has there been stupid of this level seen in Scienceblogs since, well, the last time Tim Curtin was here?

Enough already. Noboby should need more Darwin Blog Award credit points than this.

OK one more then:
6. Has taken to lecturing his huddled masses in All Caps.

Tim Curtin: Your parody of a AGW denier in Post #43 is hilarious but a little bit over the top! I've seen very few who are really ignorant enough to argue something like that if we don't keep pumping out the CO2 we will drop to something like that ice age CO2 levels in 40 years.

But still, your posts do provide considerable entertainment value! Keep up the satire!

By Joel Shore (not verified) on 19 Oct 2007 #permalink

Tim Curtin,

you do notice that this sentence

YET THE COMPOSITION OF THE ATMOSPHERE CHANGED BY JUST 0.01%. IS THAT "HUGE"?

is contradicting this one:

WITH NET TERRESTRIAL UPTAKE OF CO2 OF 3.6 GtC IN 2005 (AND GROWING AT 3.4% PA SINCE 1994), REDUCING EMISSIONS TO 90% OF THE 2000 LEVEL, i.e. 0.6 GtC(AS DEMANDED BY AUSTRALIAN CONSERVATION FOUNDATION AND PROD HOEG GULDBERG, UQ), WILL RAPIDLY REDUCE ATMOSPHERIC CO2 BY OVER 3 GtC P.A. NOW AND RISING FAST, TO PRODUCE AN ICE AGE LEVEL OF ATMOSPHERIC CO2 AS SOON AS 2046.

in one case you argue that the increase of CO2 in the atmosphere was minimal. in the other you claim that even a reduction to 90% of the emission will lead to an iceage!

let me repeat again: the combined CO2 emissions by humans so far has been TOTALLY irrelevant. but if we reduce or emission by 10%, we cause an ICE AGE!

at this moment in time, i m actually more worried about some editors allowing Tim Curtin to publish in their papers, than about global warming.

Joel Shore: try this arithmetic:

Terrestrial uptake in 2005 at 3.6 GtC growing at 3.4% p.a.(consistent with actual rates in 90s IPCC TAR and 2000s in AR4 and Hansen & Sato 2004) reaches 14.4 GtC by 2046, and with emissions down to 0.8 GtC by then (if there is universal adoption from 2008 of the ACF target of reduction to 10% of the 2000 level by 2050 (= 650 GtC), implying progressive annual emission reductions from 2006 level of 7.85 GtC at 5.75% p.a.), atmospheric CO2 is dropping by 13.6 ppm p.a. by 2046 and will have reached 280 ppmv, the level during the closing stages of the Little Ice Age in 1750. After all, it only requires a drop of 101 ppmv to get from today's 381 to reach 280. Other respondents here seem unaware that with world food production having increased by 60% since 1980 (FAO) there is a growing demand for CO2 for photosynthesis. Hansen & Sato recognized this and therefore called in 2004 for emission reductions only to the level of terrestrial uptake, i.e. 3.6 GtC in 2006, rather than Don Henry's 0.6 GtC. Or do all the abusive epithets hurled at me here also apply to dear old Jim Hansen?

40. "why should we want to fight an appeal against the judgement?"

If one really believes something wrong has been done in a court of Law, one should at least try to put it right. What kind of poor world we would live in if everybody caved in when confronted by an injustice?

But my feeling is that talk is too easy and too cheap and neither Tim Lambert nor any of the critics of justice Burton's decision really believe they can put together a case for an appeal.

"The upshot of the judgement was that the Government could send out AIT to schools"

This makes no sense as an "upshot". The Government had already decided to send AIT to schools.

The real upshot of the judgement is that pupils will be told by Teachers to think and not just take Gore's words for granted.

Hopefully they'll learn to apply a critical eye to the rest of their world too

#50: I don't believe that something wrong was done in a court of law. Parts of the judgement may have been poorly phrased, but the order made by the judge is to purely positive effect (i.e.: the deniers lost, the right of the Government to use AIT in schools was confirmed, and the materials provided to schools were improved). I think that the majority of the reality-based community would agree with this.

Something has been done wrong, repeatedly, by the media in reporting the case. The funders of the case, who appear to include leading deniers such as Monckton, have got their money's worth in this regard, have been provided with fuel for their toxic attacks on the truth.

Some of the wording of the judgement didn't help in this. For instance, use of quotation marks to set off the word "errors", rather than (say) an equivalent phrase such as "alleged errors". More care would have made it harder for deniers to make such a noise. But one can hardly appeal against the phraseology of a judgement! And, frankly, deniers appear to be prepared to go to any lengths in their attacks, whether given additional fuel or not.

By Nick Barnes (not verified) on 19 Oct 2007 #permalink

Terrestrial uptake in 2005 at 3.6 GtC growing at 3.4% p.a.(consistent with actual rates in 90s IPCC TAR and 2000s in AR4 and Hansen & Sato 2004) reaches 14.4 GtC by 2046

where exactly are those extra 10+ GtC going?

you are NOT seriously claiming, that the increase of CO2absorption will continue, when the concentration in the atmosphere is DECLINING?!?

http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/1605/ggccebro/images/NewFlowFig2.gif

http://www.globalchange.umich.edu/globalchange1/current/lectures/kling/…

Other respondents here seem unaware that with world food production having increased by 60% since 1980 (FAO) there is a growing demand for CO2 for photosynthesis.

are you trying to tell us, that e could NOT feed ourselves, if we hadn t been adding all that CO2 to the atmosphere?

the CO 2 - food production thing looks like a myth, btw...

http://www.logicalscience.com/skeptic_arguments/CO2-fertilization.html

and again:

the burning of all those fossile fuels did NOT change the balance of CO2, but growing tomatoes will?

insane?

Hansen & Sato recognized this and therefore called in 2004 for emission reductions only to the level of terrestrial uptake, i.e. 3.6 GtC in 2006, rather than Don Henry's 0.6 GtC.

i am pretty sure that ALL emission reduction plans are trying to establish a pre-industrialisation CO2 balance.

your claim is, that people would continue to reduce CO2, while mankind was exterminating via an ice age?

You cannot just walk into a court, you have to have standing which in this case looks like the plaintiff and the defendant only. At best someone could file a friend of the court brief. An amusing possibility might be for Gore to bring a separate libel suit against the plaintiffs depending on what was said, but neither thee or me could do so on his behalf.

Other respondents here seem unaware that with world food production having increased by 60% since 1980 (FAO) there is a growing demand for CO2 for photosynthesis.

Yeah, but, dude, we are producing precisely that amount of CO2. In real time. By breathing.

It's a cycle, dude.

Except for the fact that we are adding CO2 into the cycle by burning fossil fuels.

By David MarjanoviÄ (not verified) on 20 Oct 2007 #permalink

Maurizio: The initial purpose of the court action was to stop the showing of AIT in the school system. This was rejected by the court. While I do not know the details, I suspect that at the heart of this action was some doubt of the science that the film shows. Again, the judge accepted that science as sound and strongly supported. So on the two most important points, the judge sided with AIT.

The only problem the judge had was that several examples that Mr. Gore used were apparently not supported by the IPCC. When it comes to these details, I tend to agree with you, presenting tham as an exercise in critical thinking would be good. To that end, I have sent an e-mail to the Board of Education stating that an excellent starting point for critical review of the "errors" can be found here.

Regards,
John

By John Cross (not verified) on 20 Oct 2007 #permalink

From the Royal Society:

Carbon dioxide only makes up a small part of the atmosphere and so cannot be responsible for global warming.

What does the science say?

**Carbon dioxide only makes up a small amount of the atmosphere, but even in tiny concentrations it has a large influence on our climate.**

The properties of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide mean that they strongly absorb heat a fact that can be easily demonstrated in a simple laboratory experiment. While there are larger concentrations of other gases in the atmosphere, such as nitrogen, because they do not have these heat trapping qualities they have no effect on warming the climate whatsoever.

Water vapour is the most significant greenhouse gas. It occurs naturally, although global warming caused by human activities will indirectly affect how much is in the atmosphere through, for example, increased evaporation from oceans and rivers. This will, in turn, cause either cooling or warming depending on what form such as different types of clouds the water vapour occurs in.

Humans have been adding to the effect of water vapour and other naturally occurring greenhouse gases by pumping greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide into the atmosphere through, for example, the burning of fossil fuels and deforestation. Before industrialization carbon dioxide made up about 0.03 per cent of the atmosphere or 280ppm (parts per million). Today, due to human influence it is about 380ppm. **Even these tiny quantities have resulted in an increase in global temperatures of 0.75ºC.**

By Larry Siegel (not verified) on 20 Oct 2007 #permalink

Dear Tim,

I'm still confused as to why the half life of CO2 in the atmosphere is irrelevent. If it were extremely short surely that would be of relevence? Why not if it is much longer than the other gases you mentioned? I didn't quite follow your argument about particular molecules and names. Perhaps you could summarise the relevence of half life possibly with respect to radioisotope studies and the like. Keep it simple as I'm a lay reader and by no means a climatologist.

By jodyaberdein (not verified) on 20 Oct 2007 #permalink

**Well-Connected Skeptics Behind UK Attack on Global Warming Film**

Source: The Observer (UK), October 14, 2007

"The school governor who challenged the screening of Al Gore's climate change documentary in secondary schools was funded by a Scottish quarrying magnate who established a controversial lobbying group to attack environmentalists' claims about global warming," reports The Observer. Stewart Dimmock sought to ban "An Inconvenient Truth" from British schools, with help from Scotland's New Party. Nearly all of the small party's funds come from a quarry company owned by Robert Durward. Durward, along with a former advisor to Tony Blair, set up the group Scientific Alliance to "challenge many of the claims about global warming." In 2004, the group "co-authored a report with the George C Marshall Institute, a US body funded by Exxon Mobil, that attacked climate change claims." A UK High Court judge rejected Dimmock's request to ban the film, but did require schools showing the film to provide "Guidance Notes" to teachers, since the film touches on political issues. (The judge explained that his ruling "did not relate to an analysis of the scientific questions," though many news reports have confused the ruling, according to Tim Lambert.)

By Larry Siegel (not verified) on 20 Oct 2007 #permalink

> [T]he world has moved on, declared AGW real [...] and is debating action.

Where is that debate happening? I want to take part, or at least become informed.

I have repeatedly tried to raise these issues here but got no answers. Deltoid, at least, seems to still be stuck in the "is it real" phase of the conversation.

I am still waiting for an answer to my post in 41:

"Can anyone in this blog full of geniuses explain why the southern hemisphere had the most terrible cold winter in almost 90 years? (and a cooler fall and summer too).

Yes, I know. Global warming makes things hot and cold, faster and slower, longer and shorter, etc, all at the same time. Try to cool your beer in your oven."

I must note that spring in South America is also cooler than the previous 30 years -during the cooling scare of the 79s. Can anyone explain why are they cooling in the SH?

No takes?

Edward
Could you provide a cite for:
"...the southern hemisphere had the most terrible cold winter in almost 90 years".

Almost all of the southern hemisphere is called the pacific ocean, and unless you are a dolphin, I don't think you personally know what the weather is like in almost all of the southern hemisphere.

To Sod and others: It is a question of stocks and flows. Think of the atmosphere as a warehouse; some activities add to the stok of CO2, others reduce it. If there is a net outflow as a result of extreme emission reduction targets being implemented, the stock must fall. Unless I am much mistaken humans do other things with the carbon they absorb than just exhale it in equal amounts. World crop and other primary food production in 1750 was rather less than now; so I doubt 280 ppm up there will be enough to sustain our present levels.
To Jody: CO2 is fungible (not a word known to any of the 3000 IPCC Blimeys who share Al's award, and least of all to Sir John Houghton (see his 2004 book Global Warming) - he is no longer one of them but he thinks that even if no CO2 were emitted, what is up there will stay there for 800 years, implying that there is no photosynthesis if there are no emissions, in which case we are still doomed).

Dear Elspi: (#62)

Had you the ability to obtain trustable temperature records from the southern hemisphere, a corresponding ability to make Excel graphs out of the data, you could see this clearly.

Reports from extreme and anomalous low temperatures in South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, and most part of South America (up to Peru), give an account of the current cooling trend observed in the SH. It is well known that SH temperature trend has remained stable since late 1890s, and graphs showing that are available all over the web. One in Spanish is available in: http://www.mitosyfraudes.org/images-17/Arch-1.gif where you can see the current trend for the SH is cooling -you like it or not.

In the special case of Argentina and other parts in South America, the snowfall in Buenos Aires on July 9th, 2007 was the first one since 1918. In the plains on the central part of the country, the latest snowfall was 1971. It had snowed also in the north (subtropical) part of the country, as Tucumán.

Some graphs of Pilar rural station in the central part of Argentina, considered as an example of the entire region, shows that mean temperatures have been consistently from 2 tow 4ºC below the 1961-1990 average.

Pilar January 2007: http://www.mitosyfraudes.org/images-19/PilarEnero2007.gif
Both high and low temps are way under the "normal mean"

Pilar: February 2007: http://www.mitosyfraudes.org/images-19/PilarFEB2007.gif (mean temperature is 23ºC, against 21º.5C recorded

Pilar: March 2007: http://www.mitosyfraudes.org/images-19/PilarMAR2007.gif
Steady, at 1.5ºC below normal.

Pilar: April 2007: http://www.mitosyfraudes.org/images-19/PilarABRIL2007.gif
Cooling, at 1.4ºC below normal.

Pilar: May 2007: http://www.mitosyfraudes.org/images-19/PilarMAYO2007.gif
Going down at 2ºC below normal.

Pilar: June 2007: http://www.mitosyfraudes.org/images-19/PilarJUNIO2007.gif
Going down, at 2.1ºC below normal.

Pilar: July 2007: http://www.mitosyfraudes.org/images-19/PilarJULIO2007.gif
Going up, but still 3.3ºC below normal.

Pilar: August 2007: http://www.mitosyfraudes.org/images-19/PilarAGO2007.gif
Though it looks "slightly increasing" the mean is 4.2ºC below normal.

Pilar: September 2007: http://www.mitosyfraudes.org/images-19/PilarSEP2007.gif
Spring temps should be going up... not down. 2.1ºC below normal

The anomalous polar wave (or Mobile Polar Highs, as by Leroux) reached as far (on the east) to north of Paraguay, way above the Tropic of Capricorn, and in the west, where the cold Humboldt current helps to keep temperatures cold, caused in Perú snowfalls that killed more than 60 persons in the Andes and took a toll of 300.000 llamas, vicunas, alpacas, guanacos --in spite of those animals being used to cold temps.

We have heard the possible explanations of these extremes cold polar waves coming from Antarctica (in an abnormal frequency and intensity -one very 7-10 days) suggesting CO2 cools the stratosphere and makes cold air get trapped by the Antarctic Polar Vortex, and the weight of the cold mass pushes cold polar fronts towards south America, Australia, etc. The problem is: the Polar Vortex forms about mid august, causing the known "ozone hole". But the polar cold fronts have been going on since early January! And the lowest temperatures have been recorded in May and June, two months before the vortex forms.

Another "inconvenient truth" is that once the vortex is formed, nothing goes out of it, nothing enters it. The most plausible explanation seems to be that the Southern Hemisphere is cooling because, as happened in previous climatic changes in the past, it follows sun's magnetic field activity (not the slightly reduced irradiation) and begins to cool before the Northern hemisphere does.

I am not postulating any theory or denying anything. I am showing observed evidence and asking an explanation for those anomalies. I think that a 9 month severe cooling trend observed in the Southern Hemisphere is "anomalous" and should be taken into account in present climatic analyses.

Edward claimed:

It is well known that SH temperature trend has remained stable since late 1890s, and graphs showing that are available all over the web.[...]Some graphs of Pilar rural station in the central part of Argentina, considered as an example of the entire region,

Hmmm. OTOH, rather than look at one rural station, you could download and look at the data for the entire Southern Hemisphere. [Doesn't look to me like Southern Hemisphere temperatures have been stable since the late 1890's nor that in 2007 the Southern Hemisphere had the most terrible cold winter in almost 90 years.](http://anonymous.coward.free.fr/temp/hadcrut3vsh.png)

Edward,

I tried to warn you. I said "NO NO, DON"T OPEN THAT DOOR", but did you listen. No, and now the zombies have eaten your brains (can you say "still hungry"?)

When I said "Almost all of the southern hemisphere is called the pacific ocean", I was warning you to stay away from some "but it was cold in headupmybutticstan(Pilar)" gibberish.

Oh and that "graph" you linked to (Where did the "data" come from? Was the first draft in crayon?). It is on http://www.mitosyfraudes.org/, which has as its links

â¨21st Century Science & Technology:
Still Waiting for the Greenhouse
JUNK SCIENCE:
The Heartland Institute:
Virtual Climate Reports:

Not one legitimate link on the site. There is real science on the web, but none of it is in the same connected component as that web site.

The graph I showed are not "anomalies", but real temperatures. Besides, YOUR graph from HADCRUT3 shows a reMarkable similarity to my graph (if you move up the zero line), including THE COOLING TREND SINCE 2000.

Tim Lambert: if you make a graph of the data in .txt mode you linked me to, it will show the graph I linked to SH temperatures. So, what's new?

"scientists convinced that justice Burton's conclusions"

It stands to reason that if the evidence brings someone to this interpretation, then they are just as likely to decide that the evidence has demonstrated anthropogenic climate change to be a shaky proposition, and all the additional evidence in the world won't help. It's not the evidence, it's the ability to look at the evidence and say "Gore got trashed" when everyone else looks at the evidence and says "despite a few errors of detail, Gore was vindicated". How to bridge that gulf, I wouldn't begin to hazard a guess.

elspie: data from the graphs comes directly from the National Weather Service in Argentina ( http://www.smn.gov.ar/ ) data I get as daily reports. They contain raw data, not data doctored at GISS for correcting for UHIE, resulting in rural stations showing wamer tempratures than urban ones.

Then, we see the "guilty by association" falacy in you post? Or killing the messenger? Simply discuss facts and keep politics out of science. I thought people here knew better than childish arguments.

"On the whole, though, I would say that Gore is far more scrupulous in acknowledging uncertainties and complexities than his opponents usually are. This is always a judgment call. The important matter is to leave an impression that honestly represents to the general public the extent of the risk and the seriousness of the measures needed to address it."

Which is exactly the niche pried open by the adverse side. They're 100% written in the sky in letters of fire certain. "We" are only 99% certain. To a particular personality, seeking authoritative figures in a world too complex, that makes the final score one hundred to ninety nine.

And if "we" dumb the message down, "look, there really isn't any doubt", then it's "you're lying, overstating the evidence"

I am sorry I didn't realize you were a CON ARTIST.

When you write
"It is well known that SH temperature trend has remained stable since late 1890s, and graphs showing that are available all over the web. One in Spanish is available in: http://www.mitosyfraudes.org/images-17/Arch-1.gif where you can see the current trend for the SH is cooling -you like it or not."

silly me, I assume that the graph covers 1890 to the present (SINCE YOU SAID IT DID), but it actually covers 1980 to the present.

Life lesson number one: Never trust a troll

"There were nine points where Burton decided that AIT differed from the IPCC and that this should be addressed in the Guidance Notes for teachers to be sent out with the movie.
Unfortunately a gaggle of useless journalists have misreported this decision as one that AIT contained nine scientific errors
...
the usual suspects will, of course, ignore the fact that the judge found that Gore was "broadly accurate" and try to make it look as if there are serious problems with AIT and climate science." - TL

"What kind of poor world we would live in if everybody caved in when confronted by an injustice?
But my feeling is that talk is too easy and too cheap and neither Tim Lambert nor any of the critics of justice Burton's decision really believe they can put together a case for an appeal."

Wha'?

Edward:
You think a graph from 1980 to 2007 covers 90 years? Hmmm. Who taught you how to count -- Tim Ball?

Edward wrote:

Had you the ability to obtain trustable temperature records from the southern hemisphere, a corresponding ability to make Excel graphs out of the data, you could see this clearly.

Hey, Edward? I know you're a little busy using Excel for graphing but maybe you might want to consider using it for some other difficult problems, like calculating the difference between 1980 and 2007? Just a suggestion.

Here is the graph for the Southern Hemisphere since 2000 (note that you cherry-picked both time and place). Dots are monthly observations, the line is the 12 month moving average. Do you see a cooling trend?

Mitosyfraudes?
Isn't Eduardo Ferreyra a bit past it? I argued with him a few years ago online, but before i knew much about the science of climate change. Now, every time he pops up on science blogs or elsewhere its for a hit and run posting, so I don't get a chance to show where he is a liar and a fraud.

Ah ha! It is Eduardo. You old fraud, you.
So can you explain using your magic hand waving machine, why the Southern hemisphere ocean temperatures, even at night time, show warming:
http://hadobs.metoffice.com/hadisst/HadISST_paper.pdf

You do know the difference between weather and climate don't you?

Dear Tim,

Indeed, fungible does not appear in Houghton's index, or in the paragraphs where he deals with the carbon cycle. Thanks for providing the definition. I'm still not clear why the interchangability of one CO2 molecule for another is particularly relevent if you wish to discount the importance of half lives of CO2 molecules in the atmosphere in terms of their redistribution across the cycle. I'm sure that even if climatolgists don't use economic jargon they are more than familiar with the concept of dynamic equilbrium. Are you suggesting that a new equilibrium state would not take such a long time to develop as Houghton? What is your take on the timespan of atmospheric CO2 perturbations then?

By jodyaberdein (not verified) on 21 Oct 2007 #permalink

Hi Jody, thanks for your useful comments - and tough questions! The IPCC & co usually refer to atmospheric CO2 as being "well mixed" - otherwise one would expect to find only "old" CO2 higher up as new emissions got taken up by the oceans and land biomass first. However Berrien Moore and B.H. Braswell (Global Biochem. Cycles, 8.1, 23-28, March 1994) conclude (p.36) that the half-life of CO2 in the atmosphere with biospheric fertilization flux is 27 years. They also suggest that "terrestrial ecosystems are responding to the rapid increase in atmospheric CO2 concentration by producing more biomass and/or storing more soil carbon, thereby balancing the global carbon budget" - and my post-1994 data confirm this. I think Houghton is all too often less than honest especially as he offers no evidence for his claim that in the absence of CO2 emissions, the present atmospheric level (whether expressed as 380 ppm or 750 Gtc) would not reach the pre-industrial level for "several hundred years" (2004:39), implying as I said minimal future photosynthesis. In fact my model shows that zero emissions from 2008 and the latter at the present level and rate of growth would bring us to 280 ppmv by 2037 (compare the Moore-Braswell half-life estimate noted above). Ironically, given the enthusiasm of the ALP, ACF, and Tim Lambert & co for world wide adoption of the Houghton program, that would kill Australia's wheat industry stone dead; as a C3 crop it is dependent on CO2 being well above 280. Elsewhere maize (a C4 crop which is much less dependent on CO2) could replace wheat, cet. par (e.g. soils and rain)- but this country is notably unsuited to maize or most other C4 crops (unless there is massive irrigation availability, and there ain't) - Australia grew only 200,000 tonnes of maize p.a. in the 90s, and has grown over 25 millions tonnes of wheat (eg 2003, cf 315,000 t maize that year). In fact wheat thrives the higher the CO2 level, up to at least 1000 ppm, and even C4s like maize do well with more CO2 if not to the same extent. Another irony is that lowering CO2 to 280 ppmv will hugely REDUCE the C3 tropical forest and savannah land cover, in favor of C4 grassland and desert expansion (See Harrison & Prentice in Global Change Biology 2003 and their Fig.10.7 in James Ehleringer, A History of Atmospheric CO2, 2005).

Interesting discussion, and great summary in the original post.

The argument that they should have included a different NY skyline is silly.

By Blue Devil Knight (not verified) on 21 Oct 2007 #permalink

I think the author of "Wicked" is still too celebrity-driven - for a more common touch, perhaps the narrative of Christopher Monkey, 3rd Winged Monkey of Winkie Country who attempts to prove to his mistress that neither little girls nor water actually exist, only to find that his natural skepticism was mistaken in this case.

Oh wait, i'm confusing reviewing with science. Never mind.

By Marion Delgado (not verified) on 21 Oct 2007 #permalink

TimC, your recycled arguments were refuted about 3 recycling cycles ago. Not sure exactly when, but eas ach denialist recycling cycle is, according to my post-1994 data, about 4.28 months (R=.71, t=.68, SD 3.2 months), this means your recycled arguments were utterly refuted about, oh, November 2005.

Now, I know what you're going to quibble about (you're a denialist after all): the SD in my figgers means that your recycled arguments could have been utterly refuted as early as January 2005 or as late as June 2006, and with a wide range of dates, the analysis is questionable, therefore (insert standard denialist dodge here). Well, your denialist buddy, Hapless Benny Peiser, Googled the same data and found that your arguments couldn't have been utterly refuted as (insert some ridiculous quibble here that isn't germane to the argument).

Anyway, we all know the denialists are full of cr*p. The IDCC's (International Denialist Convention on Cr*p) FAR is the consensus document on you and your cabal's cr*pitude.

HTH.

Best,

D

Jody, Dano is right about Tim Curtin's argument. However, you did ask the right question. The basic answer is that there is no single lifetime because the carbon is sloshing between the atmosphere, the biosphere and the upper and lower oceans. On geological time scales you have to include carbon in carbonate rocks such as limestone. The three upper reservoirs equilibrate in relatively short times, maybe a couple of decades, and each starts with a relatively equal amount of carbon (since the CO2 changes form in various parts of the cycle it is easier to follow the carbon atoms)

A pulse of CO2 into the atmosphere, will spread to these other reservoirs quickly, a constant or increasing source term will also be distributed. The result it that about a third of the pulse remains in the atmosphere for a long time. The gorilla is the much larger reservoir in the lower ocean. It takes up to a millenium after the atmospheric pulse to equilibrate the increased concentrations in the upper three reservoirs with the lower ocean. Here is a link with links to other material including working models that you can play with. I think someone wrote on CO2 lifetimes in Real Climate recently too.

OTOH, Curtin's behavior is despicable. His claims are pure prevarication.

Eli

Is ClimateAudit's Steve McIntyre lying about the heat island anomalies he presented at his blog? Is that thread dspicable too?
This feels reamrkably like the Sov show trials for some reason.
http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=1859

Thanks all for the clarifications above. Sorry if I seem to be banging on about something that is off topic by the way.

To Tim in particular: The original question was as to why you neglected to comment on the 'half life' (now relegated to inverted commas due to the rather more complex dynamics required) of atmospheric CO2 in your initial point about the relative importance of greenhouse gases. It is indeed the case that both methane and water vapour are fungible, and therefore surely we should discount this as a specific CO2 issue? It is also the case that the 'biospheric fertilization flux' is only one part of the cycle and certainly not a 'deep' sink for the liberated fossil fuel CO2. Perhaps then you could comment specifically as to why you discount the likelihood of true equilibration taking a period of time as long as that suggested by Houghton?

By jodyaberdein (not verified) on 22 Oct 2007 #permalink

Hi Jody

Thanks again. LIke Eli I try to keep it simple, and I am not sure that the "half-life" (if any) of CO2 is meaningful, but if it is, it only strengthens my fears about the consequences that will flow from reducing CO2 emissions by 90% of the 2000 level, as now proposed by many.

Ironically, given Eli's abuse (but I am delighted to find he is even more abusive of Freeman Dyson whom many competent judges consider to be the finest mind of the last half century), my own model is very similar to Eli's own albeit much simpler. Here it is:

xC = aE - bM
where x, a, and b are year on year rates of growth from previous year-end values of C, E, and M, E is emissions from burning of all fossil fuels, which grew from 1980 to 2003 at 2.2% p.a. but since 2003 at a rate of a=5% p.a., M is the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide which now stands at 382 ppm, and increasing currently at a rate of b=0.51% p.a., and C is the inferred uptake of carbon by oceanic and terrestrial sinks through solution and photosynthesis respectively, growing at the combined rate x yielded by the equation.

Reducing a to minus 3.5% p.a. (for 60% reduction from 2000 level by 2050) or to minus 5.75% p.a. (for 90%)results in rapid depletion of atmospheric CO2 if current terrestrial takeup continues at its rate of 3.44% p.a. from 1994 to 2005 (faster since 2002). That will result, if atmospheric CO2 falls as low as 280 ppmv in a collapse of all C3 plant yields, especially wheat, and if it continues to fall (thanks to Eli's half life) to 200 ppmv, the tropical forest and savannah will shrink to 40% of their present area (according to Harrison & Prentice cited by me above). As for "equilibrium", there never is one, the globe is always in a state of flux.

So Tim

1. How did we avoid an ice age before industrialisation?

2. I assume you are predicting catastrophic freezing once we exhaust fossil fuel reserves?

By Ian Gould (not verified) on 23 Oct 2007 #permalink

Ian:
1. We did not - we had a Little Ice Age until about 1750 or so, and the Thames froze over most years.
2. We won't exhaust such so-called fossil fuels. Do read Freeman Dyson and his endorsement of Thomas Gold's book The Deep Biosphere: the myth of fossil fuels (Copernicus-Springer, 2001). Some casual empiricism: despite John Squiggle's belief in peak oil being last year, sadly my tonics for my gins (being mostly H2O plus CO2) still cost me more per litre than the petrol for my Berlina (despite the huge carbon tax already embodied in the price of my petrol, while the only tax in my H2O+CO2 tonics is GST).

"xC = aE - bM"

or, dimensionally speaking,

mass/time/time = mass/time/time - mass/time

First year University students of Physics or Applied Mathematics may think there is a problem with this but it is actually an application of Curtin's time non-dimensionality law, i.e. the law discovered by Curtin that time is a dimensionless quantity. This is clearly an even greater discovery than Curtin's First Law of atmospheric physics (the mass of the atmosphere is conserved) but we should also not forget Curtin's Law of Polynomials (that polynomials are a type of exponential).

What a wonderful career in Physics and Mathematics Dr. Curtin has had. How many people have come up with such profound insights, over and over again?

By Chris O'Neill (not verified) on 23 Oct 2007 #permalink

His claims are pure prevarication.

then

As for "equilibrium", there never is one, the globe is always in a state of flux.

Perfect! TimC responds right away with prevarication and mendacitization. Thank you for the buffoonization of the denialist arguments.

TimC and Hans should update the Abbott and Costello 'Who's on First' skit, maybe something like a 'Who's got consensus', or 'Who's on second' using 1934 as your prevarication point to comedically obfuscate the sfc temp record.

Best,

D

Reducing a to minus 3.5% p.a. (for 60% reduction from 2000 level by 2050) or to minus 5.75% p.a. (for 90%)results in rapid depletion of atmospheric CO2 if current terrestrial takeup continues at its rate of 3.44% p.a. from 1994 to 2005 (faster since 2002). That will result, if atmospheric CO2 falls as low as 280 ppmv in a collapse of all C3 plant yields, especially wheat, and if it continues to fall (thanks to Eli's half life) to 200 ppmv, the tropical forest and savannah will shrink to 40% of their present area (according to Harrison & Prentice cited by me above). As for "equilibrium", there never is one, the globe is always in a state of flux.

every point that Tim Curtin makes in this statement is FALSE:

1. he does assume a GROWING uptake of CO2 (water and earth), while air concentration is sinking. that is MORONIC.

2. he expects a massive CO2 reduction, the most unlikely outcome of the current situation.

3. he completely ignores all time lines involved. he assumes that the world would continue to reduce CO2, AFTER we notice negative side effects (which do NOT exist in this form, btw) of the reduction.

4. he is worried about wheat production, which has existed for ages.

5. he is worried about "rich" australian farmers, who are much more likely to be able to overcome any trouble than their poor third world counterparts.

6. he ignores all positive effects of a CO2 reduction.

7. his talk about "C3 plants" is basically an attempt to confuse people with science speak.

8. he is selectively using sources, mostly out of context and without giving links or exact citations.

9. his claim that tropical forests (beyond deforestation by landuse...)would shrink very fast is extremely hard to believe. i didn t even look at the source, but i am sure that he s quoting out of context.

10. of course there is a natural CO2 equilibrium. it is often disturbed by singular natural events (Volcanoes, solar activity, ...) and now by a MASSIVE release of CO2 by humans.

11. his theory is not backed up by any peer reviewed science.

oh i forgot,

12. it is MUCH cheaper to add CO2 to the atmosphere, than to reduce it. forest fires jump to mind. how exactly would those 40% rain forest dissapear?

for extra fun, look at this graph:

http://www.aip.org/history/climate/images/maunaloa.jpg

notice the pretty massive increase in CO2 concentration since 1958.

now based on what Tim Curtin told you about C3 wheat, form a hypotheses:

given this increase in CO2, what would we expect of wheat production, which is EXTREMELY dependent on high CO2 levels?

then look at at wheat production, worldwide and in australia.

http://www.gramene.org/species/triticum/images/wheatharvest.JPG

then savely deposit that hypothesis and Tim Curtin in the next litterbox you pass.

"This is clearly an even greater discovery than Curtin's First Law of atmospheric physics (the mass of the atmosphere is conserved) but we should also not forget Curtin's Law of Polynomials (that polynomials are a type of exponential)."

Let us not forget Tim's sterling contributions to economics such as his Noncompounding Theory of Economic Growth.

By Ian Gould (not verified) on 23 Oct 2007 #permalink

The simple fact is that plant growth is affected by far more than just CO2 concentration. Some of the increased CO2 has indeed been taken up by plants. The problem however for the Tim Curtins of this world is that they ignore the fact that uptake of CO2 is limited by local conditions of precipitation, temperature, and a variety of other things. Thus, the CO2 uptake never reaches the kind of optimum level that he and his ilk suggest it will, because of all the other constraints on plant growth.

Therefore, the view that wheat production is doign better now due to increased CO2 has no science to back it up. The science they claim does back it up refers only to field trials under controlled conditions, i.e. nothing like what happens in real life.

The science they claim does back it up refers only to field trials under controlled conditions, i.e. nothing like what happens in real life.

Yes, as we know many important crops are less nutritious and stressed under elevated CO2 regimes.

But of course we knew this years ago, but the denialist recycling must continue, as they have nothing but recycling refuted arguments.

Best,

D

Al Gore is a liar and a buffoon. He's a politician so he's always been a liar and as far as I can tell he's been a buffoon for even longer than he's been a lying politician.

He's no brainiac, that's clear. It still remains to be seen whether his errors are due to his lack of brain power or just that he's been completely duped by unscrupulous environmentalists who don't bother to recognize or tell the truth. Either way, time will tell that he and his alarmist friends have intentionally ignored the weight of the scientific evidence and twisted what little data supports their views into a contorted knot called "the global warming catastrophe that never was".

When will the so-called "environmentalist" get it? You can't control the people with pap and paranoid rantings or by attempting to enforce single-minded views through regulations. As people become more educated, those who twist the truth will find an ever shrinking audience for this type of nonsense. What's gonna happen in 15 years when the oceans haven't risen even a 1/2 inch? Lying enivornmentalist, like Gore, will claim victory. That's the "Disgusting Truth".

By D. Schoon (not verified) on 23 Oct 2007 #permalink

Hmm, anyone want to offer a bet with D Schoon regarding warming? They seem to be looking for one.

AS #37:

What exactly are 'inverted commas'?

"Scare quotes", I think.

"...twisted what little data supports their views ..."

Hilarious coming from someone who provides not a single fact or reasoned argument in their post.

Still name-calling and shouting over people obviously worked back in kindergarten, so why change?

By Ian Gould (not verified) on 23 Oct 2007 #permalink

What's gonna happen in 15 years when the oceans haven't risen even a 1/2 inch?

Ho-lee cr8p! D Schoon can see into th' FYOOCHER! He kin see that th' oceans ain't gonna rrrrrise!

Hey everybody! D Schoon sees into the future!

Hey, D Schoon! Buddy, pal! Friend o' mine! Hombre, what are the winning lottery numbers for next week? Who's gonna win the World Series, and in how many games? I gotta get me to Vegas! yee-haw!

Best,

D

First I would like to thank all respondents to my posts above, even the abusive sometimes make a contribution.

In order:
90 Chris O'Neill, aka Crass O'Noall. Back last July you misinterpreted my growth factors (as in "xC = aE - bM")
as exponents. The notation I used here to express growth rates is that of Alpha C Chiang's Fundamental Methods of Mathematical Economics, McGraw Hill 1984, p.278. I could have used say dC/dt, which = xC, or I could have gone into calculus, which blogs (and bloggers) are not much good at representing/understanding. xC is "simply the rate of change in C expressed in relative (percentage) [NOT exponential] terms, i.e. expressed as a ratio to the value of C itself". For Chris and others, consider the basic Keynesian equation, where Y = Income, C = Consumption ,and S = Savings. S is what is still in your bank account at the end of the year after your income has increased from 100 to 105 (by 5%) and your consumption has grown from 80 to 85 (by 6.25%), so S still = 20. If income (cf. emissions) drops by 10% to 94.5, and consumption (cf uptakes) continues at 85, new savings (cf. atmos. CO2) will be only 9.5, for a new savings total of only 29.5; repeat this for one more year, income is 85.5, consumption 85, new savings 0.5 for a total of 30; one more year of income down by 10%, income/emissions fall to 76.55; and with consumption/uptake still at 85, savings/atmos CO2 become negative, and accumulated savings fall by 8.5 to 21.5. Another year of falling income and sustained consumption, and savings fall yet again to below their initial value. That is what is proposed by those who advocate "deep cuts" in emissions, of up to 60% of the 2000 level by 2050 (Kevin Rudd et al), as emissions at only 40% of the 2000 level fall short of the current oceanic and terrestrial uptakes, and will soon lead to a disastrous decline in atmospheric CO2 if China et al are stupid enough to embark on such reductions.

So much for the arithmetic (I freely admit it is not rocket science).

Now for the "science". There is no reason pace Sod et al why CO2 uptakes should fall simply because emissions fall (in fact the IPCC states they fall only if CO2 emissions continue to rise, as stated yesterday, in Proceedings of National Acadmey of Science, according to reports by Australia's ABC, The Australian, 23 Oct 07, and Mike Raushage of CSIRO cited by ABC 23 Oct 07 and Canberra Times 24 Oct 07. Sod (92 above) considers all this to be "moronic", I do hope he will convey his view to the NAS, ABC, and CSIRO

Sod's other rather hysterical comments are actually quite supportive, as if he had anything substantive to offer, he would, and clearly he does not. Contrary to his allegation I have provided sources for every statement of fact I have made on this thread. BTW, C3 plants account for 95% of all plant life (Ehleringer again as referenced above), and they are all sensitive to the availability of CO2, and all show even in field conditions positive correlations with CO2.

For example, it was shown long ago that "CO2 is a minimum factor [for wheat]... and that even a very moderate increase of its external concentration raises the rate of photosynthesis appreciably". Moreover "the optimum temperature for apparent photosynthesis in wheat leaves was found to be as high as 25-30C". See Volkmar Stoy, Photosynthesis, respiration, and carbohydrate accumulation in spring wheet in relation to yield, Lund, 1965 (p.108). That optimum temperature is way above the IPCC projection for northern Europe.

Let us now consider rice, another crop the IPCC and CSIRO are determined to annihilate in their quest to exterminate us all.

From Yoshida 1976 (details below): "...the rice leaf photosynthetic rate increases with increasing CO2 concentration up to about 500 ppm...at high temperature however, there is no sign of saturation at 500 ppm even under a low light intensity [and] results in increased growth and hence increases grain yield...[in another study, Riley and Hodges 1969], rice yield increased from 10 t/ha at 300 ppm to 18.9 t/ha at 2,400 ppm CO2 in an interior area; and in a border area, from 13.4 t/ha at 300 ppm to 25.3 t/ha at 1,200 ppm CO2, and 21.2 at 2,400 ppm CO2" (p.212). See S Yoshida "Carbon Dioxide and Rice Yield", 211-221; and I. Tanaka, "Climatic Influence on photosynthesis and respiration of rice", 223-247, in Proceedings of the Symposium on Climate and Rice, IRRI, 1976.

Those are old studies, but, dear Sod, if you regress the FAO index on world food production against CO2 and/or emissions since 1980, you get much more significant coefficients and R2 etc than for a regression of temperature against emissions and/or atmospheric CO2. Try it.

I already gave the source for the claim by Harrison & Prentice that the area under tropical forests will shrink by 60% at 200 ppm CO2, their graph is reprinted in Ehleringer, loc.cit, Fig.10.7, p.224.

Sod's science clearly does not extend to knowledge of C3 and C4 taxa. Briefly, while C4 plants like maize have an internal CO2 concentrating mechanism, C3 (wheat rice and virtually all trees) photosynthesis "relies solely on diffusion of CO2 from the outside atmosphere', ibid., 214. C4 plants did not exist when CO2 levels were much higher than now, c100 million years ago.

Is it not time to press for the revocation of the Nobel "peace" Prize from an organization like IPCC that is hellbent on condemning 6 billion people to famine as soon as possible with their program for reducing CO2 fertilization of the world's main food crops?

"Atmospheric CO2 is the most important source of CO2 in crop pohotosynthesis in rice...(216)....carbon dioxide enrichment [in field conditions] increased garin yield by 30% over the control (217).

Tim,

I'm tempted to start on photosynthesis and crops, but I don't think the yield (he he) would be very good. You still haven't addressed the original point about equilibration particularly accurately. So what do you say of surface ocean, deep ocean sedimentation etc and how does your model sort that out?

By jodyaberdein (not verified) on 23 Oct 2007 #permalink

Hi Jody

I feel re oceans etc much like you do about photosynthesis. However here's a passage from an about to be published Note of mine:

"The problem with the [emissions reduction] target is that its proponents implicitly believe that greenhouse gas emissions are the only factor affecting the atmospheric level of carbon dioxide. They usually, like the report commissioned last year by Mr Gordon Brown (Stern Review) and by the IPCC's latest Reports (2007) discount the other known major influence on the atmospheric level of greenhouse gases, which is the uptake of carbon dioxide by both terrestrial and oceanic sinks. Their assumption is that these sinks will absorb less carbon dioxide exactly pro rata with reductions in emissions.

There is no basis for that assumption, least of all in the main citation for it in the Stern Review - P.Friedlingstein et al, Climate-Carbon Cycle Feedback Analysis. Journal of Climate. 19, 15 July 2006 [NB Friedlingstein is a major lead and contributing author to WG1, ch7, of AR4 of the IPCC, I call it the FARt as the third was TAR, tee hee]. The "unanimous agreement" of its "eleven coupled climate-carbon cycle models" is that "future climate change will reduce [sic] the efficiency of the earth system to absorb the anthropogenic perturbation", so that "a larger fraction of anthropogenic CO2 will stay airborne if climate change is accounted for" (2006:3337). Unfortunately, none of these models can be shown to have predicted the observed ability of the earth system to absorb most of mankind's emissions of CO2 over the last 100 years, as none was based on statistical evaluation of observations. This must cast doubt on their claimed predictive ability for the next 100 years.

Perhaps that is why the models disagreed on the relative importance of terrestrial and oceanic uptake of atmospheric CO2: eight models favoured the land, three favoured the oceans. Moreover the models achieved no consensus as to whether the terrestrial uptake depended more on net primary productivity (i.e. photosynthesis) than on changes in respiration. All this contrasts with the rigour of Einstein's equation E = MC2.

The real evidence on observed uptakes by the earth system is to the contrary, namely that the terrestrial and oceanic sinks will continue to increase their uptakes in the future as they have over the last 25 years, i.e. the period for which comprehensive data on CO2 emissions, atmospheric concentration, and global uptakes are available. This means that the reduction of carbon dioxide emissions arising from the burning of fossil fuels to just 40 per cent of the 2000 level (i.e. 9.65 billion tonnes of CO2 as against the 2005 level of over 27 billion tonnes) will lead to a much more than proportionate reduction in the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide. That in turn implies that instead of stabilizing at 450 ppm, the atmospheric concentration will fall rapidly to the pre-industrial age level of 280 ppm or even less, resulting in catastrophic global cooling and the concomitant collapse of world food production."

Best

Tim

TimC fails to note that graminaceous crops have less nutrition in their endosperm in higher CO2 regimes, nor does he note that most cereal crops are grown at or near their max heat tolerance, which is why CSIRO and others are trying to up the heat (& thus max PS capacity) tolerance of rice.

So all those purty words for a fancy-schmancy sounding dodge that doesn't pass the FUD smell test.

Best,

D

Now for the "science". There is no reason pace Sod et al why CO2 uptakes should fall simply because emissions fall (in fact the IPCC states they fall only if CO2 emissions continue to rise, as stated yesterday, in Proceedings of National Acadmey of Science, according to reports by Australia's ABC, The Australian, 23 Oct 07, and Mike Raushage of CSIRO cited by ABC 23 Oct 07 and Canberra Times 24 Oct 07.

please try to provide links. your citations are rather useless this way.

there is indeed no reason, why uptakes should fall, only because emission falls.

but there IS a reason, why uptakes should fall, when CONCENTRATION in the air falls.

and the same basic laws of concentration explain as well, why an INCREASE in CO2 concentration in the atmosphere will DECREASE the intake: "saturation of the sinks" is the term you are looking for.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7058074.stm

Sod's other rather hysterical comments are actually quite supportive, as if he had anything substantive to offer, he would, and clearly he does not.

i am very sorry for my absolutely hysterical reaction to your calm and reasonable argument, of humanities extinction by starvation during an ice age in 2050.

it might sound shocjing, but my SUBSTANTIVE OFFER is the CONSENSUS of the science community! no ice age, no starvation BECAUSE of CO2 reduction. fact.

BTW, C3 plants account for 95% of all plant life (Ehleringer again as referenced above), and they are all sensitive to the availability of CO2, and all show even in field conditions positive correlations with CO2.

again: the claim that 95% of all plant lifo on this palnet is dependent on human CO2 production is MORONIC.

Those are old studies, but, dear Sod, if you regress the FAO index on world food production against CO2 and/or emissions since 1980, you get much more significant coefficients and R2

link please.

Contrary to his allegation I have provided sources for every statement of fact I have made on this thread.

please start providing links. i am not going to waste an afternoon in a library, just to proof that you are WRONG.

please provide a SINGLE academic source that supports your thesis, and i will head to the library.

Mr. D: As you say it does not pass the smell test, but we also know what smells!

In the Beginning was the idea.
And then came the assumptions about linear CO2 growth.
And the assumptions were without form.
And the idea was completely without substance.
And the darkness was upon the face of the climate scientists.
And they spoke among themselves saying:
"This idea is a crock of shit, and it stinketh."

And the climate scientists went unto the IPCC, and sayeth: "It is a pail of dung, and none can abide the odor thereof."

And the IPCC reported, "It is a container of excrement, and it is very strong, such that none can abide it."

And the news media reported to the public "It is a vessel of fertilizer, and none can abide its strength."

And the skpetical bloggers spoke amongst themselves, saying one to another: "It contains that which aids plant growth, and is very strong."

And the skeptical bloggers went unto the climate doubters and sayeth to them, "It promotes growth, and is very powerful."

And the climate doubters went to Tim and sayeth unto him, "This new idea will actively promote growth in plants as well as promoting growth in confusion and FUD."

And Tim looked upon the idea, and saw that it was good.
And the idea became a paper. And this is how shit happens.

Best,
John

By John Cross (not verified) on 24 Oct 2007 #permalink

Dear Tim,

My comment about photosynthesesis and the terrestrial carbon cycle was intended to mean thatI didn't see the merit in entering into a discussion about it as my previous requests for clarification regarding 'fungibility' and whole cycle equilibration had resulted in comments mainly about photosynthesis, and hence my requests for clarification on photosynthesis were likely to engender more diversification. Personally I don't have much of an opinion, but I do know that it is only one corner of the carbon cycle.

However I'm glad you do comment on continuing CO2 absorbtion. So what is the evidence that the absorbtion from the atmosphere will continue at its current rate in the face of falling atmospheric concentration? Is this what carbon cycle models predict, and if not why not?

However if we must talk plants, I can recommend an old webcast from the Royal Society i just reviewed. The crop models bit starts at about 30 minutes in:

http://royalsociety.tv/dpx_live/dpx.php?dpxuser=dpx_v12

Go to 'environment and climate', then 'global warming in a chaotic climate: can we be sure?'

Secondly I'm impressed that you forsee such food shortages with falling CO2. What do you think of the predictions of coupled GCM-crop models then? I thought Hadley were saying that global crop yields would be seriously hampered with increasing CO2 towards 2100. Why are they wrong?

By jodyaberdein (not verified) on 24 Oct 2007 #permalink

just to illustrate:

imagine a half-full bottle of (non-sparkling) water. (a ratehr big one, if you want)

science tells us, that if we add CO2 to the air above the water, a part of it will be taken in by the water.

common sense tells us, that a higher concentration of CO2 will lead to a higher uptake by the water.

science tells us, that the water today is close to saturation point.

common sesnse tells us, that a reduction in the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere above the water will lead to a reduction of uptake by the water. actually it might even lead to the water giving CO2 away again!

not so in Tim Curtins world.

there an atmosphere with much less concentration of CO2 will lead to a continuos high uptake by the water, that is close to saturation point!

bizarre? yes indeed!

To S. You are indeed a lazy little sod! use the web editions of the cited newspapers. The NAS has yet to post the study cited. Contact them. Any university library should have either the print or the digital editions of the journal Global Change Biology (2003). As you are so clever you must be rich and well able to afford to order Ehleringer's History of Atmospheric CO2 (Springer, 2005) from Amazon books (try www.amazon.com or www.amazon.co.uk). And you are indeeed very clever, as you have shown that uptakes fall if the concentration of atmos. CO2 rises and also fall if it declines. So we are doomed if we do reduce the concentration and doomed if we don't. Hallelujah!
I will reply to Jody's more intelligent comments soon.

Which journal is about to publish that "Note" of yours, Tim Curtin?

Aplogies to Sod, the lead author of the NAS paper is Mike Raupach, and here is the link:

http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/abstract/0700609104v1

As you will se it actually came out last May, no doubt there is no link between Raupach going public it with it now in the middle of the election campaign and his own support for the ALP.

Frankis: I prefer to wait until it does appear in case you or one of the IPCC gang have it suppressed. But here is the announcement yesterday of my forthcoming lecture at ANU - see you there?
> http://billboard.anu.edu.au/event_view.asp?id=20203
>

Public Lecture
Economics of Climate Science
Nobel winners Al Gore and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) claim to base themselves on "climate science", but their views and reports are based on economic models that economists have made little contribution to. This raises concern that there are flaws in the application of IPCC's science to the development of policies that may have profound economic implications.

Speaker/Host: Tim Curtin
Venue: Molony Room, ANU Emeritus Faculty, Fellows Lane Cottage
Date: Wednesday, 20 February 2008
Time: 4:00 PM - 5:00 PM
Website: http://www.timcurtin.com/

The fraction of carbon dioxide entering the oceans is falling the fraction staying in the atmosphere is increasing. The fraction being taken up or emitted from the land is about the same, but appears to be increase in warmer years.

Dear Jody,

Many thanks for your helpful comments again - and I watched the Royal Society talk by Tim Wheeler, it's rather good albeit with some question marks.

Re my stress on photosynthesis, that is only because it seems clear that terrestrial uptakes are more significant than the oceans' (which IPCC show to be broadly in balance, with not much if any net increase in absorption).

You asked 'So what is the evidence that the absorbtion from the atmosphere will continue at its current rate in the face of falling atmospheric concentration? Is this what carbon cycle models predict, and if not why not?'

The models predict or rather assume without any evidence that uptakes will decline if emission growth continues. If they also assume that uptakes will decline in line with falling emissions, that implies the absurd conclusion that today's 382 ppmv is optimal and any change from it in either direction will be a Bad Thing. Even your RS' Tim Wheeler admitted that C3 plants thrive with more CO2, and so worse with less, and they account for most world food production and consumption except in Africa. H. Wayne Policy et al in Nature (7 January 1993) reported experiments on C3 and C4 showing that the former showed increased above ground biomass linearly and nearly proportionally with increasing CO2 concentrations - so reducing CO2 must have a similar linera negative impact.

You added: 'Secondly I'm impressed that you forsee such food shortages with falling CO2. What do you think of the predictions of coupled GCM-crop models then? I thought Hadley were saying that global crop yields would be seriously hampered with increasing CO2 towards 2100. Why are they wrong?'

They have no evidence to date for falling yields as a result of rising CO2 as there is none - even for C4s there is evidence for some albeit lower rises in yields despite rising CO2:
FAO data (in Annual Production Yearbooks 1992 and 2003) show
World Crop Yields
1979-81=100
kg/ha(Index)1999-2001
All cereals141.0746812
C3
Wheat147.1282877
Rice, paddy143.1322674
Barley130.3430079
Oats126.5791119
Groundnuts145.6016178
Sunflower103.7671233
Tomatoes129.6365197
Average C3132.3125623

C4
Maize130.5597127
Millet112.9985229
Sorghum95.73002755
Sugarcane114.2418629
Average C4113.3825315

Given the unprecedented increases in CO2 emissions and increases in global temperature since 1979-81, with other things like farm management rainfall and fertiliser use etc presumably not varying systematically depending on whether crops are C3 or C4, these figures are suggestive, prima facie at least! So Hadley are clearly wrong for the last 20 plus years, why should we believe them for the next 93? But I will get back to you on Hadley next time!

Best

Tim

Aplogies to Sod, the lead author of the NAS paper is Mike Raupach, and here is the link:

thanks, this explains why i was unable to find the source.

Tim Curtin will argue that those errors have led to policy proposals that, if adopted globally, may lead to global famine and a Little Ice Age starting as early as 2055.

any scientific source, that supports your argument?

The models predict or rather assume without any evidence that uptakes will decline if emission growth continues. If they also assume that uptakes will decline in line with falling emissions,

Tim, your thesis is obviously wrong. but please at least try to NOT make obviously FALSE statements as this one.

the correlation is ALWAYS between the concentration in the air and concentration in the sea, NEVER between "emmision" or even "growth of emmission" and uptake.

as my example above was obviously still too complicated:

imagine a market square and some tables of a starbuck in one corner of it.

the "concentration" of people sitting at the tables is correlated to "concentration" of people on the square.
on a more croweded square, more tables will be taken.

the correlation to raise of number of people on the square, is at best only an indirect one, at worst it is NIL.

If they also assume that uptakes will decline in line with falling emissions, that implies the absurd conclusion that today's 382 ppmv is optimal and any change from it in either direction will be a Bad Thing.

NO.

you are mixing up "emmissions" and "concentration" again.

when you start to understand the basic difference between those two terms, you will notice that there is no contradiction.

an increase in CO2 concentration in the atmosphere will lead to reduced uptake by the sea because of saturation.
a reduced CO2 concentration in the air will lead to a reduced uptake by the sea due to a smaller concentration difference.

my stress on photosynthesis, that is only because it seems clear that terrestrial uptakes are more significant than the oceans' (which IPCC show to be broadly in balance, with not much if any net increase in absorption).

i did not check more recent sources, but this 2001 IPCC figure shows the oceans taking up more CO2 than vegetation and soil.

http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/1605/ggccebro/images/NewFlowFig2.gif

Dear Sod

When you can get your mind around stock and flow analysis get back to me.

You also said: "Tim Curtin will argue that those errors have led to policy proposals that, if adopted globally, may lead to global famine and a Little Ice Age starting as early as 2055.Any scientific source, that supports your argument?"

Come and listen, but Einstein & Keynes are my main sources apart from yours truly (the IPCC's data in AR4 are supportive but beyond its own understanding, as so brilliantly demonstrated by Raupach in PNAS).

Tim

Yeah, there is no doubt that oceans take up more CO2 than the land, if only because a) there is more of them 2/3 of the surface in fact, and b) there is a lot of plant life in there.

The scary thing is that the percentage of emissions being taken up by the oceans is declining and that remaining in the atmosphere is increasing. As for the vaunted land uptake, well there are years when is is zero or maybe even slightly negative. Curtin is a clown. Do another trick for us Tim

We should all thank Dr. Curtin for providing an economic conservation analogue for the equation:

dC/dt = dE/dt - dM/dt

where C = inferred uptake of Carbon in tonnes/year
E = emissions of Carbon in tonnes/year and
M = mass of Carbon in the atmosphere in tonnes

Notice how the term dC/dt is measured in tonnes/year^2 (since C is measured in tonnes/year), the term dE/dt is measured in tonnes/year^2 (since E is measured in tonnes/year) and the term dM/dt is measured in tonnes/year (since M is measured in tonnes). This inconsistency in measurement units is not a problem of course because of Curtin's time non-dimensionality law which means we can ignore any inconsistency in the time units of the terms of any equation.

Although Curtin's time non-dimensionality law and his law of conservation of atmospheric mass may be difficult for even good economics students to understand, even a simpleton with the most basic knowledge of mathematics can understand Curtin's law of polynomial-exponential equivalence.

By Chris O'Neill (not verified) on 25 Oct 2007 #permalink

Dear Sod, When you can get your mind around stock and flow analysis get back to me.

i finally found out, why Tim Curtin is completely wrong on this: the model he is using is completely useless in our context!

being a nice guy, when he asked me to do some reading on "stock and flow", that was exactly what i did. being not a trained economist, the majority of it was far beyond my capacity. but finally i stumbled over a piece that explains the concept to 5th graders. this i could handle.

http://www.systemdynamics.org/conferences/2005/proceed/papers/ZUCKE523…

on page 5, you see the most obvious and basic models of stock and flow:

a bathtube, with added water, water sink and the level of water

and

a simple getting money, spending money and money saved as current stock.

so let me transfer the CO2 "stock and flow" situation into the money model first. the transfer is easy:

adding CO2 to the atmosphere is "earning money", the stock is CO2 in the air, and the "flow out" is CO2 going into water.
BIG problem: saturation of water transfers into a situation, in which nobody wants our money!
we are trying to spend money, but we can not get rid of it. our environment is "saturated" with money, they will not accept ours! if this happens often to you, please contact me!

so let us look at the bathtube instead. a big problem is the fact, that the level of water in the tube (CO2 in the atmosphere) obviously effects the amount that is drained by the sink. so we need a rather unusual tube, with several holes in the side, so that a higher level of water will lead to a bigger loss.
the tube needs to be placed in the cellar as well, so that the water that left it can "saturate" the room and reduce the amount of water lost.
another "non-standard" situation.

So Tim,

As we seem to be ignoring oceans and deeper sinks still, perhaps we should concentrate on plants.

For the last century would you say that forest or crops have been the larger part of the carbon sink, and why has one been more than the other? And do you think that this sink can continue to compensate into this century?

By jodyaberdein (not verified) on 25 Oct 2007 #permalink

Eli at 118: Error No. 1 "Yeah, there is no doubt that oceans take up more CO2 than the land, if only because a) there is more of them 2/3 of the surface in fact, and b) there is a lot of plant life in there."
You don't read your own Blog's links. Canadell et al Mark II (PNAS) is now available and shows in Table 1 that land uptakes have exceeded the oceanic since 1990-99.
Eli Error no.2 "The scary thing is that the percentage of emissions being taken up by the oceans is declining" Not according to Canadell et al, same Table. With an error rate of 100% per sentence, you are now eligible for the next Nobel Peace Prize. Congrats in advance.
Crass O'Noall at 119: Table 1 in Canadell et al has the same structure as my formula and thus repeats my errors, so I feel I am once again in good company.
Sod (120): well done! So now the problem is that your bath tube (sic) will cease to act as a store of water for your garden once the inflow is less than the outflow, which is what is proposed by Canadell et al. Only Hansen & Sato have seen that the inflow (of CO2 from fossil fuels to the atmosphere at 7.6 GtC p.a. in 2000-2006) need not be reduced to less than the total uptake (5 GtC p.a. in 2000-2006 or 5 petagrams acording to Canadell et al.) Canadell's Table 1 errs mainly in its wholly bogus figure for emissions from land use change (they admit it is a model figure, not data). In reality land use change has contributed positively to the land uptake.
Jody at 121: Those are big asks! - off the cuff I suspect crops have been ahead of forests, as their area has expanded relative to that of forests. Both will cease to be sinks if CO2 emissions are reduced below the current combined uptake, so the answer to your Q2 is No if demands for global cuts in emissions of 60% of 2000 level are accepted and implemented. Luckily the Asians like their rice too much to be that silly.

Best to all the above.

Nope timmy, we are both at 50%, Table 1 is the absolute amounts in PgC/yr. I refered to the percentage of the emissions. See Fig. 2. Also see the abstract:

"The third process is indicated by increasing evidence (P ~ 0.89) for a long-term (50-year) increase in the airborne fraction (AF) of CO2 emissions, implying a decline in the efficiency of CO2 sinks on land and oceans in absorbing anthropogenic emissions."

Figure 2 shows that the land fraction is highly variable but with a constant average, and the ocean fraction is decreasing.

Eli: still wrong, as the partition between land and oceanic uptakes is highly speculative, and cited amounts in the IPCC vary from TARt to FARt (in the former the land is only 0.7 +/- 1.0, and ocean 2.3 +/- 0.8 for a combined total of 3, as against reverse 2.7:2.2 in Canadell's 4.9 for the 1990s (but all such data are nothing better than guesses as the error bars show). Co-author Raupach as quoted in the Canberra Times (23 Oct) said the globe needs to reduce emissions by just the amount proposed by Kevin Rudd and the ALP (60% of 2000 by 2050). What serendipity! But that target implies global emissions by 2050 of just 2.6 GtC, just half of the average uptake of 5 GtC since 2000 (Canadell), and which if adopted will usher in massive C3 crop failures and tropical forest decimation along with the New Little Ice Age within 20-30 years.

Tim, tim tim, you still havn't explained why reducing human CO2 contributions will lead to crop failures.

Umm, Tim, even if Gold's theory were entirely correct, there are still a couple of slight problems in the way of your ever-increasingly carbonated Utopia.

First, the fact that oil and gas fields actually do deplete suggest we're drawing off the hydrocarbons faster than they bubble up from the Earth's core. (Say I wonder if anyone's gon checked old depleted oil and gas fields to see how much they've refilled by.)

Also it doesn't apply to the 50% of hydrocarbon use that comes from coal. Personally, I'd say the fossilised ferns and dinosaur remains are proof that coal originates on the Earth's surface but I'm sure you'll have your own unique take on that. Maybe the Earth's hollow and the organic debris gets in the coal from some equivalent of Edgar rice Burrough's Pellucidar.

By Ian Gould (not verified) on 25 Oct 2007 #permalink

Guthrie: Yes I did, eg at 49 and 80 above. C3 crops (eg wheat rice and all trees apart from a couple of shrubs) are wholly dependent on atmospheric CO2, and the more there is the more they like it. The ongoing CO2 increases correlate amazingly closely with rising yields of these crops and trees. It is well known that the yields will equally go down with declining CO2 and if we reach 280 within 20 years or so as implied by Canadell et al, yields will revert to medieval levels, and as the structural changes in the energy economy demanded by Rudd & co will not be easily reversed, another 20 years will see atmos CO2 at 200 ppm and the destruction of the tropical forest (not for the first time). Maize as a C4 is less dependent on CO2, although also liking it, cet. par., but also needs more warmth than you will have in Canada and England at 280 ppm.
All those who think like Flannery that the world is overpopulated will ululate at the decimation their policies wreak (see my forthcoming novel 2084). The fertilizer effect of CO2 on yields is what explains the much higher uptakes revealed by Canadell (at 5 GtC of which land 2.8)- Houghton and TARt had land uptake at only 0.7 GtC in the 1990s.

Ye syes, wholly dependent, like they are on water, sunlight, trace minerals, etc.
You do know that modern crops produce more due to centuries of selective breeding, therefore expecting yields to fall back to medieval levels on the basis of a fall in CO2 is not very clever?

Also, perhaps you can suggest how it will fall back to 280ppm in 20 years?

Actually, I'm getting a sense of deja-vu here, havn't we been through this already with him?

Yes, guthrie, and note how TimmyC mendacicizes about cereal yields and doesm't address the fact that their nutritive value is decreasing.

Shill, tool, take your pick.

Best,

D

Guthrie: so why have yields increased more rapidly since 1980 than ever before? Check out the data and then get back to me.
Dano: as always before and for ever in the future you are a waste of space. Your last comment is bullshit.

Eli, you copycat, I was the one who introduced Dante's inferno to this website, so please give credit where it's due. A nice acknowledgement my way would have been nice. Haaa, not to be.

As a dispassionate observer; as someone with no axe to grind in this debate; after reading + studying both sides of this argument and having spent time thinking about the points, i would have to give this debate to Tim B by a Texas mile.

Sorry, Eli, in my old debating days personal abuse and ad homs were always a sign the party was losing. Good luck next time. As you probably know but won't admit, Tim carried the more substantial arguments throughout. Frankly you were miserable, but I am pretty sure that it must have been a seris of off days.

Congrats Tim B: a well deserved win. Let me say you gave the interlopers a thorough beating.

Feel free to continue guys.

On crop yields and global temp:

Environ. Res. Lett. 2 (March 2007) 014002
doi:10.1088/1748-9326/2/1/014002

Global scale climate-crop yield relationships and the impacts of recent warming

David B Lobell1 and Christopher B
1 Energy and Environment Directorate, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore, CA 94550, USA
2 Department of Global Ecology, Carnegie Institution, Stanford, CA 94305, USA

Abstract. Changes in the global production of major crops are important drivers of food prices, food security and land use decisions. Average global yields for these commodities are determined by the performance of crops in millions of fields distributed across a range of management, soil and climate regimes. Despite the complexity of global food supply, here we show that simple measures of growing season temperatures and precipitation--spatial averages based on the locations of each crop--explain ~ 30% or more of year-to-year variations in global average yields for the world's six most widely grown crops. For wheat, maize and barley, there is a clearly negative response of global yields to increased temperatures. Based on these sensitivities and observed climate trends, we estimate that warming since 1981 has resulted in annual combined losses of these three crops representing roughly 40 Mt or $5 billion per year, as of 2002. While these impacts are small relative to the technological yield gains over the same period, the results demonstrate already occurring negative impacts of climate trends on crop yields at the global scale.
Keywords: climate change, crop yield, food production

"in an Email exchange with Tim Curtin, the ninth circle is being locked in one with jc."

Eli, I have never , ever, ever, never had an email exchange with you as far as I recall, duddleops. i never knew you existed unilt recently. Were we both drunk that night? Was it some superbowl eve when we just let our hair down for some romantic interlude? Remind me duddleops.

Guthrie: so why have yields increased more rapidly since 1980 than ever before? Check out the data and then get back to me.

i am absolutely unable to find a confirmation for this in data on the web.

there is COUNTLESS data, contradicting your claim.

satrt looking here:

http://maps.grida.no/library/files/world_production_of_wheat_corn_and_r…

http://www.gramene.org/species/triticum/images/wheatharvest.JPG

http://www.nrel.colostate.edu/projects/climate_impacts/images/antle1.gif

Dano: as always before and for ever in the future you are a waste of space. Your last comment is bullshit.

Ah.

Refutation of TimC's argumentation with facts = bullsh*t.

Got it.

It's not tool, but shill that best describes you, TimC.

Best,

D

I'm also interested in knowing how CO2 levels could drop 100 ppm in the next 20 years. I'd like to know how Canadell "implies" this. I'd like to know why crop yields would drop to that of medeival times and why modern agriculture has apparently contributed nothing to crop yields.

"You do know that modern crops produce more due to centuries of selective breeding, therefore expecting yields to fall back to medieval levels on the basis of a fall in CO2 is not very clever? "

Guthrie, if you think that's bad you should see what he writes in to the FT. Tim Curtin is perfectly happy to make things up for the sake of argument, even things as obviously fatuous as the above or as inane as the supernova of Curtin stupidity that Chris O'Neill has kept a record of, (a list to which I can add from my brief interactions), even as his behavior repeatedly reveals him for a dimwit. The public flogging he receives as a result discourages him not in the least. I guess what I'm trying to say is, if you can't ignore Curtin, you can't ignore anyone, (with the possible exception of JC). Food for thought.

By Majorajam (not verified) on 26 Oct 2007 #permalink

Curtin gets paid for stuff like this?
Majorajam, I usually manage to not read JC and Curtin, I have this ability to skim past them, learnt when arguing with ID/ creationists.

But that target implies global emissions by 2050 of just 2.6 GtC, just half of the average uptake of 5 GtC since 2000 (Canadell), and which if adopted will usher in massive C3 crop failures and tropical forest decimation along with the New Little Ice Age within 20-30 years.

again Tim:
this is complete RUBBISH. you still have not explained, why the uptake will remain constant when concnetration in the air is reduced MASSIVELY.
and why would people continue to reduce CO2, when an iceage starts?

your favorite source Canadell does indeed believe, that CONCENTRATION of CO2 in the atmosphere is important. this contradicts your idea!

(1) air-sea exchange of CO2,
driven by the difference in CO2 partial pressure (pCO2) between atmosphere and ocean surface
waters

http://www.globalcarbonproject.org/global/pdf/pep/ObservingVulnerableC…
(page 8. the whole papaer basically contradicts everything that you say. again.)

Sod (120): well done! So now the problem is that your bath tube (sic) will cease to act as a store of water for your garden once the inflow is less than the outflow, which is what is proposed by Canadell et al.

slow again for you:
adding more water to a bathtube that is leaking water from holes at different heights might actually be an INCREDIBLY STUPID and useless thing to do!
adding LESS water leads to LESS leaking. that is a GOOD thing, not a catastrophic scenario!

As a dispassionate observer; as someone with no axe to grind in this debate; after reading + studying both sides of this argument and having spent time thinking about the points, i would have to give this debate to Tim B by a Texas mile.

thanks for this unbiased comment. i was mislead to believe, that EVERYTHING that Tim Curtin said so far was WRONG. and that he is simply AVOIDING all our points. and NOT providing any USEFUL numbers at all.

so let me sum this up:
Tim Curtin and Jc believe, that the Kyoto protocol will lead to the extinction of mankind. in 2050 an ice age and starvation because of a lack of CO2 will kill every human being on earth.

Heres something of interest to the non-chemists amongst us. (Although I have to admit never using it since leaving uni)
Henrys law, with a random url to some university page explaining it:
http://dwb.unl.edu/Teacher/NSF/C09/C09Links/www.chem.ualberta.ca/course…

"The form of the equilibrium constant shows that the concentration of a solute gas in a solution is directly proportional to the partial pressure of that gas above the solution."

Richard at 135: Thank you, but I was already familiar with the Lobell and Field paper that you cited. There are several problems. First, the CO2 fertilization effect is not included in the regressions on the specious grounds that "year-to-year differences in the size of the CO2 increment were too small (sic) to result in a measurable yield signal" (p.6). True, CO2 emissions have been increasing over the period covered by the study at a mere 2% p.a. - but temperature changes (whether min, max, or mean) have been increasing in the range of mostly just -0.6 to +0.5 for t. min, and -1 to +1 for t.max over 40 years. Setting t.min (in oK) in 1960 at 100 and t/max 1960 = 100, these indices would be less than 101 by 2003 (according to that very unreliable source, the IPCC), while the index for CO2 emissions at 1960=110 is 229 by 2002 (the index for CO2 at Mauna Loa with 1960 = 100 is 118 in 2002). I tried to replicate the Lobell-Field analysis for the UK - ave summmer temp in 1960 was 18, and in 2002 18.1oC. But like them I took first differences in UK monthly summer temperatures from 1960-2002 and in wheat yields, to find a small but significant positive correlation, as most British farmers would expect.

Then the upper Lobell-Field confidence levels (95%) exceed the claimed yield falls for each crop by a wide margin. As ever it is all too easy to lie with statistics, especially - and incredibly - as here when the atmos. CO2 that the IPCC considers to be the main driver of the temperature change that excercises Lobell & Field is excluded from their analysis. However they do admit that "the effects of CO2 and climate trends have likely largely cancelled each other over the past two decades., with a small net effect on yields" (p.6) - that effect is of course omitted from the abstract.

More generally, a true scientific analysis would propose a hypothesis, in this case that warmer temperatures are worse for yield than cooler, with a model proposing why that should be when most farmers like the warmer wetter conditions depicted in their Fig.2. Their regression results are vitiated by their failure to report the coefficients on precipitation (Table 1). Their scatter diagrams and trend lines in Fig. 1 show both negative impact on yields of temperature changes and POSITIVE effects of the evident increasing precipitation, but the latter are airbrushed out of the reporting of their results. More honest statisticians would notice the correlation between warmer temperatures and increasing precipitation that Lobel & Field show in their scatter plots but exclude from their regressions. Less axe grinding authors would have done a genuine multi-variate analysis embracing all three of temperatures precipitation and CO2, which would then explain - as they do not- the stellar increases in actual yields (kg/ha) for all crops except sorghum in their Fig.1a. (The sole exception, sorghum, is a special case, as it is both drought resistant and non-responsive to increasing precipitation, as their Fig.2 shows clearly, and that is why it is known as an inferior crop used only as a backup to maize for insurance against a drought). No doubt Lobell and Field were peer reviewed by their spouses, but I would reject their paper because of (1) its defective econometrics (2) its exclusion of both precipitation and CO2 fertilization yield effects from its calculation of crop losses due to "climate", and (3) its exclusion of rainfall from "climate", although that will no doubt earn these authors both an Oscar and a Nobel next year (I hear they have a very fetching song and dance routine as they do their regressions).

Sod (137): I use the FAO, as do Lobell & Field. Your 1st source eluded me. Your 2nd source data on wheat is contradicted by both FAO and Lobell & Field. What is the message of your 3rd source?

Cce (139): If as Canadell et al claim, the combined oceanic and land uptake of CO2 is at 5 GtC as of 2006, and if the plan is to reduce emissions from fossil fuel burning to 2.6 GtC by 2050, that implies a minimum annual reduction of 2.4 GtC from the atmosphere from 2050, which equates (roughly) to 1.18 ppmv of atmospheric CO2 p.a. If the reduction is phased in starting now at just 2.21% p.a., we reach 2.4 GtC by 2050 and atmos. CO2 of 280 ppmv by 2061; if as some propose the rate should be accelerated, then we reach it that much sooner. This calculation disregards the Canadell assumption about land use emissions, as I believe these to be incorporated in the net land uptakes. But it also uses the Canadell growth rate for uptakes of 1.87 % p.a. from 1959-2006, whereas both emissions and uptakes have grown more rapidly since 2000. Cutting emissions of itself does nothing to reduce uptakes, and is at least as likely to increase them as reduce them, if Canadell et al are right about the bad effects of warm temperatures, in which case the cooling flowing from reduced emissions must in their model increase uptakes because of enhanced yields. But see my last post on that point. In reality the cooler temperatures associated with atmos. CO2 at only 280 ppm will enhance the impact of CO2 depletion on yields and hence on world food production. Of course modern agriculture has impacted on yields, aided by warming, higher rainfall, and rising CO2, but that effect is downplayed by Canadell et al. Given time I would like to do the necessary multivariate analysis that shows the relative contributions of all these factors. Until then be my guest!

"You can't control the people with pap and paranoid rantings"

Oh God... the irony... must not surrender...

Tim,

Perhaps you could point out, given that your take on the carbon cycle seems to be somewhat unusual when compared to most climate scientists, exactly where and why (with primary data perhaps rather than statments about how a highly complex system should behave), where this science paper has got it wrong?

'The Global Carbon Cycle: A Test of Our Knowledge of Earth as a System', P. Falkowski et al, Science Vol. 290, No. 5490. (Oct. 13, 2000), pp. 291-296

By jodyaberdein (not verified) on 26 Oct 2007 #permalink

Dear Sod (at 142). First, many thanks for the helpful link to Raupach and Canadell and their contribution to a new book to be published by Springer, and therefore likely to be ignored by the IPCC as has been the fate of James Ehleringer et al (Springer 2005). These poor chaps are also likely to lose their jobs next year (along with 164 other CSIRO researchers), in order to create savings for the next round of an extra $50,000 a year each for the top 10 CSIRO "executives" none of whom does any research (the non-researchers earn an average of $300,000, the researchers on average less than $150,000 (see Canberra Times today, p.1, report by Rosslyn Beeby). However given the rather variable quality of the research output of CSIRO we might be better off if they all became non-research executives, as is the trend at ANU across the road from CSIRO. ANU even has a Pro-Vice Chancellor (Research) - the website celebrates the sort of research we would all enjoy on the c$200,000 a year that Mandy Thomas enjoys: "Your average labcoat-sporting boffin doesn't get to hang out in the mall with teenage girls or cruise Sydney's suburbs in souped up cars with young men, but our shops and streets are [her] lab".

But I digress. You said I "still have not explained why the uptake will remain constant when concentration in the air is reduced MASSIVELY. and why would people continue to reduce CO2, when an ice age starts?".

First, dear Sod, the page you cite (8) from Raupach and his mate has no data at all. All sorts of maybe, but no facts.

Secondly, additions to and uptakes from the atmosphere are wholly distinct and separate processes. Uptakes will decline when there is an absolute scarcity of atmos. CO2 as at 280 ppm, and we will feel the impacts, by 2040 at latest if uptakes continue their recent growth at over 3% p.a. since 2000 and the 90% emission reduction target now widely demanded is implemented. There are such things as leads and lags (terms unknown to the IPCC). The uptakes will of course decline once there is hardly any CO2 to take up. Thirdly, the massive structural changes required in automobile travel and aviation and energy generation wil not easily be reversed. On the one hand the massive increase in crop areas required to meet Georgy Porgie's targets for replacement of Arab oil by Iowa corn will increase uptakes, on the other the reduced emissions will reduce not only CO2 but H2O (Did you hear the UN guy say today that the switch from food to biofuel production is "a crime against humanity"?) It is quite
easy to close down coal and nuclear power stations, not quite so easy or cheap to start them up again.

Finally, I give up on your bath "tube". Try taking a shower.

More generally, a true scientific analysis would propose a hypothesis, in this case that warmer temperatures are worse for yield than cooler, with a model proposing why that should be when most farmers like the warmer wetter conditions depicted in their Fig.2.

hint: not all farmers are located in BRITAIN! some farmers in africa might have a COMPLETELY different view on raising temperatures.

Sod (137): I use the FAO, as do Lobell & Field. Your 1st source eluded me. Your 2nd source data on wheat is contradicted by both FAO and Lobell & Field. What is the message of your 3rd source?

it does not work like this. just telling me that my source is wrong is not enough. you need to BRING ON data!

links please!

First, dear Sod, the page you cite (8) from Raupach and his mate has no data at all. All sorts of maybe, but no facts.
again: it tells you, that CO2 uptake by the oceans is dependent on the CONCENTRATION DIFFERENCE.
as oceans are close to saturation point, a lowered concentration in the air will lead to lower uptake or even emission from the oceans!

Secondly, additions to and uptakes from the atmosphere are wholly distinct and separate processes.

this is flat out WRONG.
there are many feedback effects.
a very important one, that you continue to ignore is that concentration of CO2 in the air determines how much the oceans take up.

Uptakes will decline when there is an absolute scarcity of atmos.

you are contradicting basic chemistry. did you read and understand Henry's law above?

The uptakes will of course decline once there is hardly any CO2 to take up.

NO. the uptake will decline PROPORTIONALLY to the concentration difference!

On the one hand the massive increase in crop areas required to meet Georgy Porgie's targets for replacement of Arab oil by Iowa corn will increase uptakes,

a nice example of a sentence, showing that you are wrong on EVERYTHING.

1. corn can still be eaten! no extermination by famine, while we are growing tons of corn for fuel!

2. uptake by growing corn: i have not seen any evidence, that human food production significantly reduces CO2 in the atmosphere.

"Table 1 in Canadell et al has the same structure as my formula and thus repeats my errors"

Dr. Curtin is far too modest. We can see his corrections to Canadell et al's carbon conservation equation previously published in http://www.globalcarbonproject.org/global/pdf/pep/ObservingVulnerableC… as (table 3):

d(atmospheric C mass)/dt = Ffossil + Flanduse + Foceanair + Fpermafrostair - d(terrestrial biomass C mass)/dt

where

Ffossil = carbon flux from fossil fuel burning

Flanduse = carbon flux from land use change

Foceanair = carbon flux from ocean to air

Fpermafrostair = carbon flux from permafrost to air

Dr. Curtin has of course corrected this equation to:

d(atmospheric C mass)/dt = d(Ffossil)/dt +
d(Flanduse)/dt + d(Foceanair)/dt + d(Fpermafrostair)/dt
- d(d(terrestrial biomass C mass)/dt)/dt

Canadell et al made the mistake of not applying the time differential operation to emissions and inferred uptake which Dr. Curtin has corrected. Dr. Curtin then applied his time non-dimensionality law to show that his resulting equation made sense. Dr. Curtin is the Albert Einstein of our time.

By Chris O'Neill (not verified) on 27 Oct 2007 #permalink

Dear Jody: thanks for yet another invaluable link.

But your Falkowski et al (Science 13 October 2000, available for $10)is all the same another assemblage of the usual suspects who ought to have been locked up in Casablanca back in 1941 or so.

The article has some amazing claims, e.g. "the oceans determine atmospheric CO2 concentrations, not vice versa". So we need to work on the oceans, not fossil fuel emissions.

More pertinent is the assertion that "phytoplankton photosynthesis lowers the partial pressure of CO2 in the upper ocean and thereby promotes the absorbtion of CO2 from the atmosphere....This process keeps atmospheric concentrations 150-200 ppmv lower that they would be if all the phytoplankton in the coean were to die".

"Our present knowledge of the factors that determine the abundance and distribution of key groups of marine organisms is so limited that it is unlikely we will be able to predict such changes within the next decade..." That does not deter the IPCC & Co.!

"On a global basis, terrestrial carbon storage primarily occurs in forests..."..."the sum of carbon in living terrestrial biomass and soils is approximately three times greater than the CO2 in the atmosphere".

"In C3 plants increasing CO2 [will saturate] at between 800 and 1000 ppmv [only in] the next century at the present emissions rate"...."recent results from long-term soil warming experiments in a boreal forest contradict the idea that the projected rise in temperature is likely to lead to forests that are now carbon sinks becoming carbon sources..."

Jody, many thanks.

Best

Tim

As ever crass, O'Noall. My formula is identical to that of Candell et al, with uptakes necessarily equal to the difference between emissions and additions to the atmosphere.

Shorter TimC participation in this thread here.

Best,

D

Thanks Tim,

However, there wasn't much need to quote the paper at me, after all I have read it. I think the request was to point out where and exactly why the authors are wrong, as opposed to quoting selected paragraphs which if read a certain way and out of context could provide support to the series of comments that constitutes your 'argument'. You know, like a kind of scientific discourse.

By jodyaberdein (not verified) on 27 Oct 2007 #permalink

Hi Jody - apologies, I thought you only had the abstract. Others here probbaly will not access the article. I broadly agree with much of it, as my quotes indicate. About to drive to Sydney so no time for more now, but I think our views are converging, or am I wrong? - if so, where?

Chris O'Neill: if you provide your email (as I do) I will send you my spreadsheet showing how it conforms to Canadell et al. We all use growth rates you know like interest rates like, geddit?

Sod: I give up, try and be coherent for once in your life.

Sod: I give up, try and be coherent for once in your life.

you mean COHERENT, like insisting from my very first post on this topic to the very last, that CONCENTRATION of CO2 in the air determines uptake by oceans?

yes, i ll try to be.

i m still sort of young. i ll be around in 2050. ZERO people will starve because of an ice age, caused by CO2 reduction.

people WILL starve because of climate change. that is what ALL your sources are telling you! if you for once read beyond the one or two lines, that fit into your "theory".

I think the request was to point out where and exactly why the authors are wrong, as opposed to quoting selected paragraphs which if read a certain way and out of context could provide support to the series of comments that constitutes your 'argument'. You know, like a kind of scientific discourse.

it is rather obvious that Tim Curtin is unable to do this.

if he was quoting a paper, that denies the existence of purple flying pigs, he would cite the part that says "there are many different sorts of pigs" as support for the EXISTENCE of purple flying pigs..

Tim,

I'm not sure our views have converged at all. I haven't expressed a view, mainly because I'm not a climatologist but a physician, and don't have much of a grasp of the essential scientific detail. Your views don't sit with what most of the scientific academies or climatologists say, nor with certain aspects of basic chemistry as pointed out above, nor with certain basic notions of how a scientific argument is generally structured. I've been dribbling a steady supply of questions to try and tease out some actual rational justification, but I think to no avail. I also think the other commentators are finding that frustrating. I happen to think that if you take a whole bunch of carbon that has been locked up for millions of years and release it into a cycle where the only point of return to million year sequestration is painfully slow and deep deep in the oceans then blythely suggesting that crops will sort it out seems a little hopeful.
Can I assume you agree with the authors then when they suggest that feedbacks will lead to weakened sink strengths, and that the propsect of retrieving anthropogenic CO2 using natural sinks is small?

By jodyaberdein (not verified) on 28 Oct 2007 #permalink

I should point out a couple of other brilliant insights by Dr. Curtin (beside the addition of the time-differential operators x and a in the carbon conservation equation xC = aE - bM). From #49:

"atmospheric CO2 is dropping by 13.6 ppm p.a. by 2046"

This of course means that 1 ppm atmospheric CO2 contains 1 Gt of carbon, not 2.181 Gt of carbon as is commonly believed.

"Terrestrial uptake in 2005 at 3.6 GtC growing at 3.4% p.a. .. reaches 14.4 GtC by 2046," while "atmospheric CO2 .. by 2046 .. will have reached 280 ppmv"

This is known as Curtin's Carbon Uptake Law, a.k.a. the "Thank God we keep burning fossil fuels faster and faster because carbon uptake keeps on increasing regardless of the level of CO2 in the atmosphere" law. Curtin showed that Henry's law (I believe it is called) of gasseous dissolution in water (as used in Raupach and Canadell is completely wrong and in actual fact CO2 dissolution in oceans is solely dependent on time and is exponentially increasing in time for all time to come at a growth rate of 3.4% p.a. Curtin also showed that the same uptake law applies to net primary production and soil respiration, again showing that the eqations used in Raupach and Canadell (table 4) are wrong. Hail the great Dr. Curtin, the Albert Einstein of atmospheric physics.

By Chris O'Neill (not verified) on 28 Oct 2007 #permalink

Crass O'Nowall: my equation is implicit in all carbon balance statements including Candell et al IPCC Tart and Fart and Houghton 2004. As none of these have comprehensive let alone accurate measurements of actual net uptakes, they achieve balance only by showing uptakes as a residual necesarily equal to the net change in atmospheric CO2 or carbon as measured at Mauna Loa and elsewhere after allowing for emissions as reported by IEA or some other agencies. I do in fact use the very same conversion rate between CO2 ppm and GtC as stated by Crass. When he shows he can do spreadsheets and send me one (by snailmail if preferred) I shall be glad to respond further.
Sod and Jody: my equation says it all, by projecting forward from now current rates of uptake, so that atmos. CO2 now becomes the residual after implementation of the 60% or 90% emission reduction targets. If Canadell et al are right that continuing emissions increases will reduce Uptakes (despite all contrary evidence to date), reducing emissions must increase uptakes. I don't think Eistein would have agreed that at any and all moments in time the then current level of atmos. CO2 would be the tipping point for Uptakes, down if emissions go up, and up if emissions do down - but then determined doom-mongers like you guys are quite capable of believing uptakes will go down whatever we do. If that is the case, declining Uptake MUST mean declining food production and widespread mortality which is what said doomsters actually want.

Tim C said (#89):

..we had a Little Ice Age until about 1750 or so, and the Thames froze over most years...

Really? What definition of "most years" are you using? In my world, 22 years out of 406 (1408 to 1814) is decidedly less than "most" and verges on the "very occasional indeed". Were you aware that (i) in 1830 the old London Bridge was torn down having been replaced by one with far less effect on river flow (wider arches, no weir - allowing tidal efefcts furtehr upstream), resulting in no freeze-overs thereafter, aren't you? And that prior to that century, the Thames had been considerably wider, and hence shallower and slower flowing anyway? Building embankments narrowed and deepened the river and quickened the flow.

So frost fairs aren't very useful as a proxy for cold weather; local conditions were the major factor in the freeze-overs.

By Robin Levett (not verified) on 28 Oct 2007 #permalink

Tim,

So we can take your equation as the final rebuttal to Falkowski et al? Glad that's settled then.

Jody

By jodyaberdein (not verified) on 28 Oct 2007 #permalink

Deltoid only sees one side of the Curtin phenomenon while lesser sites elsewhere enjoy the "Savant" part. I'm, like, totally sure about this diagnosis.

Thanks Chris for ref. to Einstein. One curiosity arising from his E=MC^2 is that on the one hand if we simply reduce energy in order to reduce emissions, and then plot the implied reduction in M, we get the very large reduction indicated by his equation, recalling that C^2 is the speed of light squared, while on the other hand if we only change the form of E by replacing fossil fuels etc with solar etc., what then happens to M, and what form does it take for equal amounts of joules in each case? Also possibly pertinent is that while conventional energy burning sends up both H2O and CO2 as part of M, while wind etc do not, what then?

But I think it is high time to limit my offerings to this thread. However I hope to add my spreadsheets and graphs etc to my website (www.timcurtin.com) by the week-end, including a no doubt apocryphal letter from Einstein to George Bush.

Finally to Jody: I thought I had indicated above (152)specific instances where I do not agree with Falkowski et al. including Canadell and Steffen (Science 13 Oct 2000). Thus I noted their amazing claim, e.g. "the oceans determine atmospheric CO2 concentrations, not vice versa". That is contradicted by most other authorities including Raupach and Canadell et al (PNAS May 2007), Canadell Raupach et al (PNAS Oct 07) and the IPCC passim, all of which indicate two-way fluxes and with the last showing a degree of amnesia by Canadell in his Table 1 showing a net oceanic SINK (i.e. uptake) of 2.2 GtC p.a. in 2000-2006, i.e showing an INVERSE correlation between the oceans and the atmosphere CO2 concentration over that period. Frankly I think CSIRO's luminaries Canadell and Raupach should be renamed Canada Dry and Rambo because of their inability to remember what they published yesterday or do correlations, probably because their team includes CB Field (noted above by me for his total perversion of econometrics in his paper with Lobell on crop yields under climate change).

Falkowski et al noted correctly that "phytoplankton photosynthesis lowers the partial pressure of CO2 in the upper ocean and thereby promotes the absorbtion of CO2 from the atmosphere..." - but omitted to comment that the phytoplankton photosynthesis itself is wholly dependent on absorbtion of CO2 and thus that there are TWO processes whereby the oceans reduce the atmospheric concentration rather than increasing it as their opening comment implied. Their further comment that "[the latter, i.e. lowering the partial pressure] process keeps atmospheric concentrations 150-200 ppmv lower than they would be if all the phytoplankton in the ocean were to die" is fine, but what if it were to die because of the depletion of atmospheric CO2 that they all advocate? Atmos. CO2 would rebound, but how long before the plankton did, meantime that villain atmos. CO2 is back to 150-200 ppmv HIGHER despite all efforts to reduce it by relying on the wind. Falkowski's caveat that "Our present knowledge of the factors that determine the abundance and distribution of key groups of marine organisms [eg plankton] is so limited that it is unlikely we will be able to predict such changes within the next decade..." should have been given more prominence.
But clearly I support the Falkowski et al view that "In C3 plants increasing CO2 [will saturate] at between 800 and 1000 ppmv [only in] the next century at the present emissions rate". But then their hopeful statement that "recent results from long-term soil warming experiments in a boreal forest contradict the idea that the projected rise in temperature is likely to lead to forests that are now carbon sinks becoming carbon sources..." contrasts with Gullison et al including Canada Dry, Field, and the ubiquitous Friedlingstein in their Tropical Forests and Climate Policy (Science 18 May 2007) where they assert that tropical forests are already sources (p.985). Is there any quality control at Science?

In conclusion, my view is that allowing scientists to dictate policy when their findings change so rapidly from paper to paper is a high risk strategy. The stringent custs in emssions that they propose to popular acclaim of as much as 90% reductions in emissions have the capacity to threaten not only plankton but all crop yields, putting humanity at risk of mass starvation or even more warming than the IPCC predicts! You pays your money...!

I happen to think that if you take a whole bunch of carbon that has been locked up for millions of years and release it into a cycle where the only point of return to million year sequestration is painfully slow and deep deep in the oceans then blythely suggesting that crops will sort it out seems a little hopeful.

I'd just like to point out that, even though joyaberdein admittedly isn't a climate scientist, the education in the natural sciences creates an instant busslh*t detector, the klaxons for which have been sounding for quite some time now over TimC's comments...

Best,

D

Eli.

Answer the question I left you at #136 below.

Don't ignore it. What email exchange have we ever had, nimbus.

"in an Email exchange with Tim Curtin, the ninth circle is being locked in one with jc."

Eli, I have never , ever, ever, never had an email exchange with you as far as I recall, duddleops. i never knew you existed until recently. Were we both drunk that night? Was it some superbowl eve when we just let our hair down for some romantic interlude? Remind me duddlepops.

"If Canadell et al are right that continuing emissions increases will reduce Uptakes"

Dr. Curtin is too modest as usual. Canadell et al observed reduced efficiency of carbon sinks over the past 30 years at the same time as continuing emissions but it wasn't until Dr. Curtin did his brilliant work that anyone knew that not only was the efficiency of carbon sinks reduced but also the absolute amount of CO2 absorbed by sinks was reduced. This is probably a corollary from his previous work on time-differential operators in the carbon conservation equation but his work is so brilliant it's hard for anyone else to understand. Could we all thank Dr. Curtin again for his "Thank God we keep burning fossil fuels faster and faster because carbon uptake keeps on increasing regardless of the level of CO2 in the atmosphere" law.

By Chris O'Neill (not verified) on 29 Oct 2007 #permalink

Thanks Chris for ref. to Einstein. One curiosity arising from his E=MC^2 is that on the one hand if we simply reduce energy in order to reduce emissions, and then plot the implied reduction in M, we get the very large reduction indicated by his equation, recalling that C^2 is the speed of light squared,

what? now it has been a while since i was involved with physics in anyway, but are you trying to tell us, that there would be a very LARGE reduction in mass (use) when we lower energy consumption?
the effect of course is the other way round. little mass gives HUGE amounts of energy.

while on the other hand if we only change the form of E by replacing fossil fuels etc with solar etc., what then happens to M, and what form does it take for equal amounts of joules in each case?

are you trying to tell us, that (significant amounts) of "mass" are used up, while burning fossile fuel?

this page seems to tell you, that it is not..
http://www.taftan.com/xl/fossil.htm

Also possibly pertinent is that while conventional energy burning sends up both H2O and CO2 as part of M, while wind etc do not, what then?

what would we do, without all the water in the oil/coal? too hard for you to see, that it s effect on climate is NIL?!?

Sod and Jody: my equation says it all, by projecting forward from now current rates of uptake, so that atmos. CO2 now becomes the residual after implementation of the 60% or 90% emission reduction targets.
sorry, but by "projecting" a constant uptake, you make a major ERROR.

If Canadell et al are right that continuing emissions increases will reduce Uptakes (despite all contrary evidence to date), reducing emissions must increase uptakes.

this logic is completely false. if you have different CAUSES, this does not follow at all. sorry.

I don't think Eistein would have agreed that at any and all moments in time the then current level of atmos. CO2 would be the tipping point for Uptakes, down if emissions go up, and up if emissions do down -

we are now approaching saturation point. that does NOT say, that at all time an increase would lead to less uptake.
while the fundamental law of concentration ALWAYS predicts a sinking uptake, with sinking concentration.

"Eli, I have never , ever, ever, never had an email exchange with you as far as I recall, duddleops. i never knew you existed until recently."

Funny, you've both been frequent commentators on Deltoid since well before it moved to Scienceblogs. I fear your memory fails you Tim.

By Ian Gould (not verified) on 29 Oct 2007 #permalink

Sod: Thanks - so if as you claim (#169) uptakes cease with reductions in emissions and consequent reduced concentration, what does that imply for crop yields and production? You are as loony as Nicholas Stern, equally ignorant of the concept of photosynthesis, and Falkowski et al who claim that oceanic photosynthesis derives from CO2 that was never in the atmosphere.
Ian: you must have been doing a Flintoff last night. I am not the author of that quote, it's your memory that's sod-en.

Thanks Chris for ref. to Einstein. One curiosity arising from his E=MC^2...

Out of curiosity, I did some quick calculations. Wikipedia claims world energy usage is roughly 5x1020 J, which is about 3.1x1039 eV. Using Einstein's famous equation and the conversion factor 1 eV/c2 = 1.79 x 10-36 kg, we find that a conversion of about 5600kg of mass into energy would provide for the entire world for one year. (And that's extremely generous, because it assumes none of that energy comes from the sun, either directly or indirectly).

Of course, I have no idea how you think Einstein's formula supports your argument, Tim. It's completely irrelevant.

Sod: Thanks - so if as you claim (#169) uptakes cease with reductions in emissions and consequent reduced concentration, what does that imply for crop yields and production?

the pure change of CO2 levels will have a VERY SMALL effect on food production.

it is accompanied by a WARMING effect, that will have some positive effect in some places (mostly RICH ones) and a negative effect in others (those that are already poor).
the warming effect will have a DIRECT effect on the lifes of people. an extended growth by more CO2 or a reduction in crops by reduced CO2 will only effect money bags!

Out of curiosity, I did some quick calculations. Wikipedia claims world energy usage is roughly 5x1020 J, which is about 3.1x1039 eV. Using Einstein's famous equation and the conversion factor 1 eV/c2 = 1.79 x 10-36 kg, we find that a conversion of about 5600kg of mass into energy would provide for the entire world for one year. (And that's extremely generous, because it assumes none of that energy comes from the sun, either directly or indirectly). ... Of course, I have no idea how you think Einstein's formula supports your argument, Tim. It's completely irrelevant.

yes, the formula is COMPLETELY irrelevant to this discussion. and Tim Curtin has managed to get the basics wrong. do not expect an answer.

So,

I just need to get this straight because I'm easily confused. Apologies for the length. Perhaps not for the girth.

I ask a simple question about something that I had previously thought was relevent, i.e. the length of time a greenhouse gas spends well, being a greenhouse gas. The reason I do this is because greenhouse gases are being compared in order of importance and yet this aspect of them is strangely left out.

Now perhaps I could have got a reasoned response along the lines of why one needn't consider half life in this situation. Actually if anyone can come up with a scenario where half life would be irrelevent then let me know. The best I can do is if emmissions and absorbtions where constant for all gases, but that seems like a trivial solution. Anyhow the resonse I'm met with objects to one aspect of CO2 which is equally applicable to the other gases in question and then deigns to bring my grandmother into affairs. It hints that the consensus view on how long CO2 hangs around in the atmosphere is way longer than in actuality, but provides no evidence for this bold statement.

Rather than grandmothers I thought I'd hint at the sort of thing I was after and so suggested maybe we could discuss perhaps what radioisitopes have to tell us about the fate of emmitted CO2. None the less I am met with the same response as above, albeit in a more curtailed form and keeping family members out of it.

Undaunted I pressed for clarification, and gently noted the generality of the 'fungibility' objection one the one hand, and the extreme unlikelihood of atmospheric scientists not being aware of dynamic equilibria. And gave another request for a reasoned response.

At last a reference is provided, and I am told that half life is 27 years. Actually this reference is to a short term biosphere model. Interestingly this article gives also 31 years, 72 years and 92 years as valuse for 'half life' depending upon assumptions made. Furthermore there was no actual comment on why these estimators are so much less than those of Houghton and the IPCC for example. Actually there are also estimators to be found elsewhere of the millenial magnitude, indeed this is an old question with no doubt a great deal of literature and expertise. Alas as a non climatologist I have been left with no help from Dr Curtin in terms of why his particular chosen reference is the truthful answer. For the interested reader I can point you to 'Measuring Time in the Greenhouse', O'Neill et al, Climatic Change 1997, 37:3

Concerned that the focus was tending toward photosynthetic uptake only, I pressed for an assurance that this was indeed much more important than the many other fluxes in the carbon cycle. At this point we are presented with a simple model, written in an economists version of calculus, which makes shall we say some considerable simplifications when compared with most carbon cycle models, which is said to predict some fairly drastic alterations to the globe at CO2 concentrations it has experienced for much of the past. In addition the notion of equilibrium in global processes is itself questioned.

Some other commentators pointed out some fairly basic problems with the model, e.g. using dimensional anaylsis, and the lack of historical compatibility.

A degree of clarification was provided, and more predictions about photosynthetic nastiness. But alas no model validation. I proceeded to request how the model dealt with other corners of the cycle. Apparently in 'much the same' way. This doesn't stop a criticism of other much more complex models for not being historically validated. I suspect actually that the IPCC modelers have spent a good deal of time trying to get this aspect right. However this doesn't stop Dr Curtin rather alarmingly from predicting the 'concominant collapse of world food production'. I'm not sure there is anything so bold to have come from the IPCC.

I requested some clarification about the assumptions Dr Curtin himself had made regarding sinks and his model, and also a discussion of crop growth models as I was feeling quite scared by this stage. I am told that terrestrial uptakes are more important than the oceans, again controversial and with no supporting evidence. I am met with the statement of recent crop yields, and some spurious accuracy. But alas model criticism there is none to speak of.

I wondered if forests or crops had been a more important sink, given that one cycles quickly and contains a low carbon mass as compared with the other. Alas the only evidence cited is 'off the cuff'. Not even a mention of northern hemisphere forest re-growth.

Somewhat frustrated I asked for a criticism of a carbon cycle review article from a leading scientific journal. Apparently criticism means selectively quoting the same article back at me peppered with some ad hominem attacks on its authors. When pushed further apparently a point by point rebuttal of this article is all contained in one of the beautifful solutions to Dr Curtin's equation. Shame my numerical methods are so rusty.

Well, so much for the accessible scientific discussion. It is actually my job to explain complicaed risky things to people, often when they are scared witless. I can safely say this has been my least successful attempt at a rational discussion probably ever.

By jodyaberdein (not verified) on 29 Oct 2007 #permalink

Davis: Thanks - and congrats on your impressive CV. But what if we reverse Einstein, so that E/c^2 = M, and M is all the CO2 that is proposed to be sequestered in deep holes. That is still quite a lot of energy, not lost for ever of course, but if it is no longer up in the sky is it still powering our crops and oceans?

Poor old Sod, more confused than ever - now you tell me that it is reducing CO2 emissions that will warm us! And that only the rich benefit from better crop yields. Oh dear. But it is true that rich yankee farmers are doing very nicely out of the biofuels craziness of your Great Leader, as shown by current soaring prices of corn etc.

Jody: Almost all my responses here have consisted of my commentary on various new and recent papers. I have never claimid to be a climate expert, but even a layman has to be allowed to point out inconsistencies. The rest of your summary is more than a little unfair. Why am I blamed for citing (at #80) the estimates on "the lifetime of excess atmospheric carbon dioxide" (Global Biogeochemical cycles, 8.1 23-38, March 1994 of Moore and Braswell? If their estimates are rubbish as they may well be write your own refutation to the journal in question.

Then you say: "I am told that terrestrial uptakes are more important than the oceans, again controversial and with no supporting evidence." I am disappointed that you whom I had thought to be honest now descends to the general mendacity of my critics. The IPCC's AR4 unlike its TAR puts the land above the ocean as do Raupach, Canadell, etc etc (all of whom involved with AR4 one way or another) - although their Observing Vulnerable Carbon's Fig.1 (forthcoming) shows some variability as to which is dominant from year to year, their just out PNAS paper (October 07) at Table 1 is unequivocal that Land Uptakes have exceeded oceanic since 1990, with the respective growth rates since 1959 at 1.87% p.a. and 1.25% p.a. My own equation abstracts from the disagreements of TAR and AR4 by only considering total uptakes as revealed by the gap between emissions and accretions to atmospheric CO2. I projected the inferred growth rate of total uptakes since 1994 through to 2050. As the rate has increased between 2000 and 2006, I had found this before the confirmation of this acceleration in Table 1 of Canadell et al, to take the slower rate from 1994 is quite conservative Why is that wrong? The IPCC projects emissions forward to 2100 on the basis of some 1990s economic "scenarios" that have yet to be amended to take into account criticisms of their basic assumptions by Castles and Henderson amongst many. None of the sources I have cited on this thread has devoted any attention to the impact of falling CO2 concentrations on agriculture and forestry. Gullison with Canadell et al in Science 18 May 2007 rely on arbitrary (not measured) estimates by Houghton on alleged emissions from tropical deforestation. Almost all such deforestation leads to agricultural producion on the cleared land, much of which absorbs annually more CO2 than the cleared forest ever did over its lifetime. I have given my sources for this so often I refuse to again.

You then go on "I am met with the statement of recent crop yields, and some spurious accuracy. But alas model criticism there is none to speak of". I gave above a very detailed critique of the paper by Lobell & Field with its spurious claims of falling yields with increased warming. You did not rebut any of my criticisms of their econometric model. Meantime you yourself have not made a single positive contribution, but if you can find evidence to support your faith that the proposed return of atmospheric CO2 to levels approaching the pre-industrial 280 will have zero impact on global food production (despite the vast increase in that since 1750), you have fame and fortune beckoning.

BTW, I am not and never have been Dr Curtin, as a cursory glance at my website would reveal. Nor as a largely self-funded retiree am I paid by anybody, not even Exxon, alas!

Jody:

interaction with professional mendacicizers, bamboozlers and obfuscators is almost never successful.

HTH.

Best,

D

But what if we reverse Einstein, so that E/c^2 = M, and M is all the CO2 that is proposed to be sequestered in deep holes.

Tim, the fact that you think all the M from CO2 gets converted into energy is a clear demonstration that you don't understand the physics and chemistry relevant to this situation. Please just stop trying to use this argument, unless your goal is to appear uninformed.

Almost all such deforestation leads to agricultural producion on the cleared land, much of which absorbs annually more CO2 than the cleared forest ever did over its lifetime

Here is one source of your confusion Tim. Agriculture absorbs annually nett CO2 that is far less than its gross absorption. Of course the crops are harvested with production of CO2 from the equipment used, firstly, but then when the crop is eaten we - the people and animals that consume the harvested crops - exhale their absorbed CO2 right back into the atmosphere. It's the whole crop cycle that counts, not just the growing season part of things. The razing of tropical rainforest to (allegedly) create cropland is a disastrous nett producer of CO2 in this way.

much of which absorbs annually more CO2 than the cleared forest ever did over its lifetime

But will never sequester as much as the forest did, esp. as rainforest is burned and much stored C is ejected into the well-mixed atmosphere. And rainforest soil is poor and does not produce without much fertilizer, which is made thru the high-energy Haber process, and and and and...

TimC isn't a good mendacicizer.

TimC, your market research here is failing. Do your normal - go back and rework your FUD, then return here for another round of smackdown.

Best,

D

Tim,

I think you have confused me with someone who has extreme and strongly held opinions about how the carbon cycle works. I thought I've asked you pretty open ended questions and recieved a rather dissimilar style of reply. Wrt land vs ocean I wouldn't believe anything the IPCC say by the way. After all they do plan to see us all starve.

By jodyaberdein (not verified) on 29 Oct 2007 #permalink

Davis: Thanks - and congrats on your impressive CV. But what if we reverse Einstein, so that E/c^2 = M, and M is all the CO2 that is proposed to be sequestered in deep holes. That is still quite a lot of energy, not lost for ever of course, but if it is no longer up in the sky is it still powering our crops and oceans?

slow for you again:
the formula E=Mc² has ZERO connection to CO2. the formula only works, when mass is DIRECTLY converted into energy. the mass will be GONE after this.

when we use fossil fuel to produce energy, NO mass is gone. instead it is a pure chemical process. mass is transformed into another chemical state, NOT converted into energy. the total mass after burning fossil fuel is the same as it was before!

Poor old Sod, more confused than ever - now you tell me that it is reducing CO2 emissions that will warm us!

sorry, but rather obviously i was talking about an INCREASE in CO2.
that is what is happening. if you want to talk about the HYPOTHETICAL and extremely unlikely situation of a decrease, you ll have to do adjust what i wrote above.
the pure CO2 effect on food will still be minimal. reduced heating will benefit poor farmers in the south (of the world, that is..)

And that only the rich benefit from better crop yields. Oh dear.
higher temperature benefits farmers in places, that are rather cool now. it hurts farmers, who are living in very hot places already. have you taken a look at a map recently?

but even a layman has to be allowed to point out inconsistencies.

NOT, if his pointing out includes the worst possible basic errors. you do not understand the Einstein formula. you do not know the most basic laws about concentration in chemistry.

you are trying to repaire a broken computer with a mechanical shovel excavator!

Almost all such deforestation leads to agricultural producion on the cleared land, much of which absorbs annually more CO2 than the cleared forest ever did over its lifetime.
this is total nonsense. how can a field of 1 m high wheat store more CO2 that 30 m high trees? and the food production CO2 will be in the air again in the SAME YEAR!

if you can find evidence to support your faith that the proposed return of atmospheric CO2 to levels approaching the pre-industrial 280 will have zero impact on global food production (despite the vast increase in that since 1750), you have fame and fortune beckoning.
there is little fame, in repeating what the MAINSTREAM is saying! nothing has changed in farming since 1750, but CO2 levels? ever been to a farm recently?

To be fair Sod, the comment:

"Almost all such deforestation leads to agricultural producion on the cleared land, much of which absorbs annually more CO2 than the cleared forest ever did over its lifetime.
-this is total nonsense. how can a field of 1 m high wheat store more CO2 that 30 m high trees? and the food production CO2 will be in the air again in the SAME YEAR!"

Isn't to the point- the wheat may well absorb more in a year than the forest, however the carbon it represents will be cycled back into the atmosphere pretty quickly, so yes, the forest will store more for longer. We already know that the carbon cycle is a great mystery to some people.

Another consequence of the great Dr. (well-deserved) Curtin's Law of Unconditionally Growing Terrestrial Carbon Uptake is that not only does the atmospheric CO2 drop to pre-industrial levels by 2046 but by my spreadsheet it drops to zero by around 2073 with an uptake of about 35 Gt C in the last year before it drops to zero.

So the message from Dr. (well-deserved) Curtin is: get to your heaters and air-conditioners and turn them both on full and leave them on. Get those carbon emissions maxing out asap. Your planet needs them.

By Chris O'Neill (not verified) on 30 Oct 2007 #permalink

So the message from Dr. (well-deserved) Curtin is: get to your heaters and air-conditioners and turn them both on full and leave them on. Get those carbon emissions maxing out asap. Your planet needs them.

Oh Noooooooooo!!! Another Ice Age is coming! Runnnnn for the hilllllls!

Best,

D

the wheat may well absorb more in a year than the forest, however the carbon it represents will be cycled back into the atmosphere pretty quickly, so yes, the forest will store more for longer.

thanks for pointing this out guthrie.

when i read Tim s comment:
Almost all such deforestation leads to agricultural producion on the cleared land, much of which absorbs annually more CO2 than the cleared forest ever did over its lifetime.

i thought he was comparing annual uptake by wheat production with lifetime uptake of a forest. and looking at the rest of his nonsense, i m still not sure that he didn t do that.

even if he was comparing the annual uptake of a wheat field with the different annual uptakes during a forests lifetime, i m unconvinced that he has it right.

i spend my childhood on a farm. we ALWAYS burned the straw after harvest (these days this is done to generate electricity, not on the field as in the past).
on the other hand, i ve seen growth of a wood in a clearing during the first couple of years, reach meter high underwood.

so even excluding the fact, that the majority of the wheat "C" will be back in the atmosphere within a short time, i still have doubts about the "annual" claim.

Sod: I am (hopefully for the last time) breaking my self-denying ordinance not to respond to pseudonymous twerps like you, on the grounds that people like you and Dano and Jody et al are probably one or all of the following: (1) cowards; (2) wife beaters, (3) pedophiles, and (4) all of the above, so likely to lose their jobs if your employers knew you were using company time to post garbage on sites like this, as has evidently become your fulltime occupation.

Now to your specifics such as they are:

The IPCC AR4 "Climate Change 2007: the physical science basis" is now available in hard copy (for about US$150). Of 985 pages only 3 mention photosynthesis (not even 0.3%). That is in itself worthy of an Oscar or Nobel, like Hamlet without the Prince.

The first (p.186) recognizes that increased CO2 concentrations can fertilize plants.... and decrease surface albedo. "The Rf due to this process has not been evaluated and there is a very low scientific understanding of these effects" (other than by Crass O'Nowall, Jody, Dano et al. et al.) but which does not deter the IPCC AR4 itself from making strong policy proposals.

The second mention (p.514) is agnostic. It cites the econometrically challenged Field and CSIRO's Raupach (if it's Monday, CO2 is down, if it's Tuesday it's up). The accompanying Mickey Mouse pic. on p.515 and the linked Table 1 on p. 516 are totally at variance with Canadell & Raupach (PNASD Oct 2007) by showing a net ocean-to-atmosphere flux of -2.2(+-0.5) and a net land-to-atmosphere flux of only -0.9(+-0.6). This is outright FRAUD. Both Canadell and Raupach are named as co-authors (and Nobel co-winners) of this stuff, but in the same month publish (in PNAS Oct 2007) totally opposite data. I have thrice been involved in due diligence exercises for IPOs on the Australian Stock Exchange. Such behaviour qualifies for prima facie jail terms (and in a just world they would be joined by O'Nowall et al).

In the 3rd and final references to at least the second driving force of atmospheric CO2 accumulation in 985 pages, IPCC AR4 reluctantly admits (526) that there is such a thing as CO2 fertilization (which implies defertilization if CO2 concentrations drop, a concept too far for the Sods, Jodys and O'Nowalls of this world). Then there is the usual IPCC cop-out (527): "it is not yet clear how strong the CO2 fertilization effect really is" (in IPCC speak, if it's not clear it does not exist).

As an exercise in charlatanry, the referenced work (Climate Change 2007. The Physical Science Basis: WG1, AR4, IPCC) well deserves its Nobel, as it is nothing more than an award for artistic licence in line for the 2008 Oscars.

Sod...

(yada)

Posted by: Tim Curtin | October 31, 2007 9:06 AM

Ah...ah...HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!

Best,

D

(still having coffee in the morning)

Tim,

Why are you so much less polite to the people if they disagree with you than when you think they are on your side? It is really of-putting, as if anyone actually needs to respond to comments like the above.

By jodyaberdein (not verified) on 31 Oct 2007 #permalink

"Eli, I have never , ever, ever, never had an email exchange with you as far as I recall, duddleops. i never knew you existed until recently."

Funny, you've both been frequent commentators on Deltoid since well before it moved to Scienceblogs. I fear your memory fails you Tim.

Posted by: Ian Gould | October 29, 2007 2:09 PM

That was me who said that gouldiechops.

JC, yes Tim C alreayd pointed that out.

I need to stop posting at 4.00 AM.

Sleep deprivation makes you stupid.

By Ian Gould (not verified) on 31 Oct 2007 #permalink

"Sod: I am (hopefully for the last time) breaking my self-denying ordinance not to respond to pseudonymous twerps like you, on the grounds that people like you and Dano and Jody et al are probably one or all of the following: (1) cowards; (2) wife beaters, (3) pedophiles, and (4) all of the above, so likely to lose their jobs if your employers knew you were using company time to post garbage on sites like this, as has evidently become your fulltime occupation."

Funny I don;t see "JC", "Nanny_govt_sucks" or "Ben" on that list.

I guess its only pseudonymous posters who disagree with you who are the wifebeaters and pedophiles.

By Ian Gould (not verified) on 31 Oct 2007 #permalink

I guess its only pseudonymous posters who disagree with you who are the wifebeaters and pedophiles.

Don't forget "alarmist warmers".

Best,

D

"Such behaviour qualifies for prima facie jail terms (and in a just world they would be joined by O'Nowall et al)."

There is no limit to the great Dr. Curtin's modesty. So modest is he that he wants recognition of his brilliance to be made illegal.

By Chris O'Neill (not verified) on 31 Oct 2007 #permalink

Hi Possums.

My comments about the pseudonymous abusers of those who attempt tom ake some contribution to knowledge and debate are exemplified by the following selection from Dano, whereas JC so far as I can see has never been abusive (I have had no debates so far as I am aware with nanny etc).

Dano the Great Scientist:
1. Save the world, Tim. Audit the science. Audit the science Tim. Auuuuudit the sciiiiiience...auuuuuuudit the sciennnnnnnnnnnce...auuuuu....
2. Anyway, we all know the denialists are full of crp. The IDCC's (International Denialist Convention on Crp) FAR is the consensus document on you and your cabal's cr*pitude.
3.TimC and Hans should update the Abbott and Costello 'Who's on First' skit, maybe something like a 'Who's got consensus', or 'Who's on second' using 1934 as your prevarication point to comedically obfuscate the sfc temp record.
4. Ho-lee cr8p! D Schoon can see into th' FYOOCHER! He kin see that th' oceans ain't gonna rrrrrise! Hey everybody! D Schoon sees into the future! Hey, D Schoon! Buddy, pal! Friend o' mine! Hombre, what are the winning lottery numbers for next week? Who's gonna win the World Series, and in how many games? I gotta get me to Vegas! yee-haw!
5. So all those purty words for a fancy-schmancy sounding dodge that doesn't pass the FUD smell test.
6.Yes, guthrie, and note how TimmyC mendacicizes about cereal yields and doesm't address the fact that their nutritive value is decreasing. Shill, tool, take your pick.
7.Refutation of TimC's argumentation with facts = bullsh*t.Got it.It's not tool, but shill that best describes you, TimC.

Is that enough to demonstrate Dano's commitment to truth and addition to knowledge? I could do the same for most other contributors including Crass O'Noall, who certainly has a great deal to be modest about,so far as I can determine from Google, he is as anonymous as Dano, and a liar to boot with his claims that my model used exponentials rather than growth rates. Gould is a disappointment, also Jody, but neither has made any contribution to the advancement of science that I can discern.

On the other hand I have never found JC to be abusive of anybody, eg here: "Sorry, Eli, in my old debating days personal abuse and ad homs were always a sign the party was losing". That comment applies to all of Dano, O'Nowall, Jody, and Gould. Rabett is honest enough to admit he is one, and to provide contact details, but he once suppressed a factual comment of mine to his Blog.

Regrettably, my rude comments about the cowards who hide behind their actual or de facto anonymity deflected attention from the serious, nay scientific, points I was making above at #189. Canadell et all (PNAS October 2007) comprises no fewer than six co-authors of the IPCC's Climate Change 2007; the Physical Science Basis (CUP October 2007). The latter states that the oceans are the main net uptake of CO2 emissions; the former states categorically (using methodology identical to mine) that land uptakes are dominant. The IPCC even at p.516 cites 2 of Canadell et al's authors in support of oceans no.1, while those 2 happily support Canadell that land is no.1 and has been since 1990. Why are there no disclaimers? In law, judges are expected to recuse themselves if there is a potential conflict of interest. Why did none of the Canadell Six resile from IPCC 2007 and its Nobel Gong for assertions that they do not believe in? Does Tim Lambert and his favoured Dano et al (never once disemvowelled as far as I know)consider that Canadell et al have behaved ethically? - but then that is not a word known to the Elis and Danos of this site. Canadell & Raupach work for CSIRO on the slopes of Black Mountain here in Canberra. If they announced on Monday that they had discovered a massive gold deposit in said Mountain and had formed a company to exploit it, whose shares they now invited you-me to subscribe to, only a week later to admit that all they had found was some iron pyrites (aka fools' gold), they would now be at risk of serious legal action. But in the world of the 'settled science' of the IPCC, anything goes, and its latest 985 pages have nothing of substance to say about terrestrial uptakes of CO2. For Deltoid & co, emissions up, uptakes down: emissions down, uptakes down. What does this view of the world tell us about global food production?

Here is Dano's likely response, to be echoed by O'Nowall, Jody et al et al:Auuuuudit the sciiiiiience...auuuuuuudit the sciennnnnnnnnnnce...auuuuu....

Bye!

Regrettably, my rude comments about the cowards who hide behind their actual or de facto anonymity deflected attention from the serious, nay scientific, points I was making above at #189.

Tim, in this whole discussion, you NEVER made a "serious" or "scientific" point. EVERYTHING you say is just completely FALSE.

i ll try to keep this short:

1. you cherry pick your answers. you simply do not reply to all the points, that clearly show that you understand NOTHING. how is E=Mc² related to CO2 again?

2. the report is not talking about fertilisation by CO2, because it is not well understood and NOT IMPORTANT.

3. the report does not examine the case of a massive fall in CO2, because it is unlikely and not harmfull. we have 2000 years of experience with LOW CO2 levels. we have ZERO experience with high ones!

4. looking at the available data, it seems as if uptakes by land and sea VARY. if you think the science on this subject is settle, you simply need to point out to the consensus papers.

5. i ve never seen on this blog anyone being accused of being a pedophile wife beater.

6. again: your "theory" has holes, big enough to push a skyscraper through. you got the basic physics wrong (see above) and the basic chemistry (concentration of CO2 in the air influences uptake by the sea.) citing random parts from random papers does NOT make any sense under this conditions. addressing small points you raise, is useless, as long as you are fundamentally wrong on everything.

7. you are constantly attacking scientists for the way they write their papers. why will i NOT find your ideas published in peer reviewed, mainstream often cited journals?

"On the other hand I have never found JC to be abusive of anybody,..."

So you feel that his repeatedly claims that I'm an admirer of Stalin and Pol Pot are fair and justified?

By Ian Gould (not verified) on 01 Nov 2007 #permalink

I can't recall I ever saying those things, Gouldiechops, but now that you bring it up......

Pol Pot? Naaaa. He was Asian and I'm thinking you're causcasian.

------------------

sod said: "let me advice you to NOT speak about the topic of 'CLIMATE CHANGE' as long as you have not managed to understand the major difference between CLIMATE and WEATHER."

Climate comes from weather, right? So what happens with the weather over and over is climate, isn't it? Of course you're correct they're not the same thing, but one leads to the other. So. Just mentioning it.

Anyway, back to AIT and the judge's decision. The way I see it, the "errors" are in the presentation of the details, and it seems to me the judge found they were political in nature, and that's the extent of it. So the items (issues?) are to be pointed out as being open to some interpretation. Certainly it's not anyone's fault if deniers use it as fodder (like using a .0x% correction to US anomaly record errors as an example of having a huge change in the global anomaly)

yadayadayada

Dear Jody: thanks for yet another invaluable link.

But your Falkowski et al (Science 13 October 2000, available for $10)is all the same another assemblage of the usual suspects who ought to have been locked up in Casablanca back in 1941 or so.

The article has some amazing claims, e.g. "the oceans determine atmospheric CO2 concentrations, not vice versa". So we need to work on the oceans, not fossil fuel emissions.

More pertinent is the assertion that "phytoplankton photosynthesis lowers the partial pressure of CO2 in the upper ocean and thereby promotes the absorbtion of CO2 from the atmosphere....This process keeps atmospheric concentrations 150-200 ppmv lower that they would be if all the phytoplankton in the coean were to die".

"Our present knowledge of the factors that determine the abundance and distribution of key groups of marine organisms is so limited that it is unlikely we will be able to predict such changes within the next decade..." That does not deter the IPCC & Co.!

"On a global basis, terrestrial carbon storage primarily occurs in forests..."..."the sum of carbon in living terrestrial biomass and soils is approximately three times greater than the CO2 in the atmosphere".

"In C3 plants increasing CO2 [will saturate] at between 800 and 1000 ppmv [only in] the next century at the present emissions rate"...."recent results from long-term soil warming experiments in a boreal forest contradict the idea that the projected rise in temperature is likely to lead to forests that are now carbon sinks becoming carbon sources..."

Jody, many thanks.

Best

Tim

Dear Jody: thanks for yet another invaluable link.

But your Falkowski et al (Science 13 October 2000, available for $10)is all the same another assemblage of the usual suspects who ought to have been locked up in Casablanca back in 1941 or so.

The article has some amazing claims, e.g. "the oceans determine atmospheric CO2 concentrations, not vice versa". So we need to work on the oceans, not fossil fuel emissions.

More pertinent is the assertion that "phytoplankton photosynthesis lowers the partial pressure of CO2 in the upper ocean and thereby promotes the absorbtion of CO2 from the atmosphere....This process keeps atmospheric concentrations 150-200 ppmv lower that they would be if all the phytoplankton in the coean were to die".

"Our present knowledge of the factors that determine the abundance and distribution of key groups of marine organisms is so limited that it is unlikely we will be able to predict such changes within the next decade..." That does not deter the IPCC & Co.!

"On a global basis, terrestrial carbon storage primarily occurs in forests..."..."the sum of carbon in living terrestrial biomass and soils is approximately three times greater than the CO2 in the atmosphere".

"In C3 plants increasing CO2 [will saturate] at between 800 and 1000 ppmv [only in] the next century at the present emissions rate"...."recent results from long-term soil warming experiments in a boreal forest contradict the idea that the projected rise in temperature is likely to lead to forests that are now carbon sinks becoming carbon sources..."

Jody, many thanks.

Best

Tim

Dear Jody: thanks for yet another invaluable link.

But your Falkowski et al (Science 13 October 2000, available for $10)is all the same another assemblage of the usual suspects who ought to have been locked up in Casablanca back in 1941 or so.

The article has some amazing claims, e.g. "the oceans determine atmospheric CO2 concentrations, not vice versa". So we need to work on the oceans, not fossil fuel emissions.

More pertinent is the assertion that "phytoplankton photosynthesis lowers the partial pressure of CO2 in the upper ocean and thereby promotes the absorbtion of CO2 from the atmosphere....This process keeps atmospheric concentrations 150-200 ppmv lower that they would be if all the phytoplankton in the coean were to die".

"Our present knowledge of the factors that determine the abundance and distribution of key groups of marine organisms is so limited that it is unlikely we will be able to predict such changes within the next decade..." That does not deter the IPCC & Co.!

"On a global basis, terrestrial carbon storage primarily occurs in forests..."..."the sum of carbon in living terrestrial biomass and soils is approximately three times greater than the CO2 in the atmosphere".

"In C3 plants increasing CO2 [will saturate] at between 800 and 1000 ppmv [only in] the next century at the present emissions rate"...."recent results from long-term soil warming experiments in a boreal forest contradict the idea that the projected rise in temperature is likely to lead to forests that are now carbon sinks becoming carbon sources..."

Jody, many thanks.

Best

Tim