A forum for laundering pseudo-science

You really didn’t have to know anything at all about the history and practice of measuring CO2 to deduce that something was wrong with Beck’s theory that there were wild fluctuations in CO2 concentration that suddenly ended when the most accurate measurements started. But Energy and Environment published his paper.

Eli Rabett has links to comments from experts Harro Meijer and Ralph Keeling (the son of Charles Keeling), who explain where Beck went wrong. Meijer concludes:

It is shocking that this paper has been able to pass the journal’s referee system. “Energy and Environment” apparently has been unable to organise a proper peer review process for this paper, thereby discrediting the journal.

Well, I think E&E was already discredited, but it sure would be interesting to see who they got to review it. Jaworowski, perhaps?

While Keeling asks:

Is it really the intent of E&E to provide a forum for laundering pseudo-science?

Yes. Yes it is.

Comments

#1 bi
March 22, 2008

Now to top that up, they just have to pick 2 data point, ignore everything else, and conclude that oh noez itz globul kooling!!1111!!! (Wait, maybe they did that already. I see an arrow labelled “1857″ and another arrow labelled “1957″…)

In related news, “Schulte (2008: in press)” is out. (John Mashey, you there?) I can’t access the paper, but the abstract is a hoot:

Fear of anthropogenic “global warming” can adversely affect patients’ well-being.

Oh, really. How did Schulte test for this claim in the first place? Maybe he sorted his patients into two groups, and subjected one of the groups to repeated continuous replays of Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth. Or something.
#2 bi
March 22, 2008

Seriously, the only “scientists” who are touting the “global warming alarmist hurts patients, please think of the patients” theory are those from the Steve “I’m full of junk” Milloy camp.

Oh no, even mainstream psychologists are part of the Great Worldwide Satanic Conspiracy! Quick, get L. Ron Hubbard on the horn!
#3 ben
March 22, 2008

First off, that graph is pure genius, it captures the Frasseldoff background perfectly.

Second, I think that E&E must be part of a liberal conspiracy to make skeptics look bad. Nobody in real life is that dumb, at least nobody I know.
#4 ben
March 22, 2008

Sorry, I meant that it captures the Frasseldoff quarter waver perfectly. It’s already go the Mauna Loa background on there. :p
#5 Brian D
March 22, 2008

And yet, ben, those in the denialist camp still cite papers from E&E almost religiously, claiming they’re “peer-reviewed” (in name, at least). I actually ran into one about two weeks ago who cited *four* separate studies, insisting all were peer-reviewed, but he was completely unaware all four came from E&E.

A common thread in denialism is to avoid checking your sources. We see it here with Beck’s graph, in which he uncritically accepted the methods of earlier measurements instead of doing the reasonable thing and going “no natural concentration fluctuates that greatly; maybe the measurements are suspect”. We see it (perhaps?) with E&E’s ‘peer-review’ process (how else could some of this tripe get past peer-review?). We see it with people citing E&E (as shown above — I’m currently arguing with another guy who insists that Peiser refuted Oreskes, for instance, since Peiser’s website says so… despite that website stopping updating around the same time Tim released the abstracts and Peiser was ripped to shreds).

In fairness, though, sometimes we see this with the zealot warmers, especially those who haven’t been scientifically trained. However, in my experience, these people do not have the sheer media attention that the denialists get, so their voices reach fewer people — not to mention that their general position (i.e. “it’s a problem and it’s our fault”) has the support of mainstream science.

Is it too much to ask people to be critical of their sources, even ones they agree with?
#6 bi
March 22, 2008

Oh… and don’t get me started on that mudpile that has a nice-sounding title The IPCC Emission Scenarios: An Economic-Statistical Critique (from the January 2008 issue).

Which, as if that’s not enough, is just a rehash of the same talking points in IPCC SRES Revisited, which was published in E&E and totally trashed… back in 2003.

Maybe someone should just spoof these idiots, like Sokal did with the PoMos.
#7 ben
March 22, 2008

And yet, ben, those in the denialist camp still cite papers from E&E almost religiously, claiming they’re “peer-reviewed” (in name, at least).

See? It’s an entire vast conspiracy to make denialists look bad. First, they make up E&E to make skeptics look dumb, and then they have more “denialists” cite E&E to make the skeptics look extra dumb. Aha! Told ya, it’s a conspiracy!
#8 Vagueofgodalming
March 22, 2008

Perhaps we should start calling it “sub-prime science”.
#9 theo
March 22, 2008

Using identical methodology to EG Beck, I have a new study which will
blow the doors off one of the greatest mathematical conspiracies of all time!

Just take a look at those fluctuations! It’s not just irrational, it’s completely unpredictable!

Data
#10 John Mashey
March 22, 2008

re: #1 Frank
re: Schulte(2008): thanks, I don’t often look at E&E so I missed its appearance.

Well, I guess Sonja changed her mind and published it anyway. I’ll have to take back what I posted somewhere that maybe there was hope fo E&E yet, if she rejected the article.
#11 sod
March 22, 2008

Second, I think that E&E must be part of a liberal conspiracy to make skeptics look bad. Nobody in real life is that dumb, at least nobody I know.

nice one ben. we could of course look at all the other papers published by sceptics in peer reviewed magazins. oops, very few remain…

did i get you right, that you claim the Loehle paper should be ignored?
#12 z
March 22, 2008

“Told ya, it’s a conspiracy!”

“When a true genius appears in the world,
You may know him by this sign, that the dunces
Are all in confederacy against him.” -Jonathan Swift
#13 z
March 22, 2008

Here’s why the sun cannot be responsible for global warming: It does not exist!! < http://www.revisionism.nl/Sun/The-Mad-Revisionist.htm> Yet, try to get this stunning information published; the AGW skeptic cartel will not permit.

THE MAD REVISIONIST: We do not recruit; we convince. Truth has no need of coercion.

#14 Brian D
March 22, 2008

Theo, thank you. That was awesome.

(It’s a shame your data doesn’t include a massive blip for that “pi is exactly 3″ joke a while back….)
#15 ben
March 22, 2008

You’re all just a bunch of conspiracy deniers. Deny that, I dare you!
#16 Laser Potato
March 22, 2008

“You’re all just a bunch of conspiracy deniers. Deny that, I dare you!”
….wait, what?!
*is too busy listening to Goblin to care anyway…*
#17 bigcitylib
March 22, 2008

On the Climate Skeptic mailing list Sonja B.C. OFFERED a potential E&E author a choice between submitting a peer-reviewed vs. non-peer-reviewed article. I think it was O. “Iron Sun” Manuel.

Shit happens differently over there.
#18 Eli Rabett
March 22, 2008

Wadda yah mean no one pays any attention to Beck, why that paper was real big for our friends from the Nongovernmental (no one was silly enough to have them) International Panel on Climate Change. It’s a game of reverse telephone, bootstrap foolishness into other papers on the bet that no one will RTFR as snicker.
#19 huuan
March 22, 2008

Dude! fix your grammar!

“You really didn’t have to know anything at all about the history and practice of measuring CO2 to deduce that ? was something wrong ? Beck’s theory that there were wild fluctuations in CO2 concentration that suddenly ended when the most accurate measurements started. But Energy and Environment published his paper.”

H “entropy——>0″
#20 bi
March 22, 2008

More wonders from the latest issue of E&E:

The climate research community believes that published findings on global warming will have an equal probability of raising or lowering forecasts of climate change and its impact. [...] A survey of Science and Nature demonstrates that the likelihood that recent literature is not biased in a positive or negative direction is less than one in 5.2 × 10_-16. � — Patrick J. Michaels

This is so full of stupid that I don’t even know where to start.

How about the utter confusion between a priori probability and a posteriori probability?

Or the idea that the measurement of any quantity which initially has a large confidence interval absolutely must converge to somewhere near the means in order to count as “unbiased”?

Or the common canard that “climatologists over-estimate global warming in their forecasts, and successive forecasts tend to be more and more conservative”? (Oh right, I just recalled that denialist logic doesn’t have to be consistent.)

the costs of producing energy from high-carbon fuels are rising while those of producing energy from low-carbon fuels are declining. The greatest challenge of increasing energy use is the protection of the integrity of the biosphere while improving quality of life. Both are possible with higher energy use. � — Louis Villaire

Wha…
#21 Harold Pierce Jr
March 23, 2008

RE: Carbon Dioxide in Real Air.

The concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere as determined by analysis of ambient air at Mauna Loa is reported for “Standard Dry Air” which is air at 273.2 K and 1 atm pressure and is comprised of nitrogen, oxygen and the inert gases. These are the reference conditions always used for reporting the composition of the atmosphere based on analysis of ambient air at a particular site by various methods. The value is only valid for Mauna Loa and bear no relationship to the concentration of CO2 in “real air” at any other site. “Real air” is term for ambient air at the intake ports of air seperation plants and is used in the HVAC industries. GO:http://www.uigi.com/air.html for more info about real air.

In general, the composition and physical properties of real air are quite site specfic, variable and depend primarily on elevation and fluctuating temperature, air pressure, and absolute humidity and to a lessor extent on the seasons and weather, site surface and geophysical features (e.g., ocean, mountains, desert, forests, cropland, urbanization, etc) and on biological and human activities. Clouds and temperature of bodies of water will also effect the concentration of CO2 in the air in their vicinity.

For example, if standard dry air is heated to 30 deg C the mole number declines by about 10% but the relative ratios of the gases in the real air will remain about the same. This is origin of the phase “well-mixed gases in the troposphere.”

Standard dry air has 388 ml of pure CO2/cu. meter. At 30 deg C this value drops to 350 ml/cu. meter. If the air were to become saturated with water vapor (ca, 4% by volume), the amount of CO2 declines to about 336 ml/cu. meter

Air pressure declines about 1 psi per 2000 ft increase in elevation. This would lower the density of the air and thus the absolute amount of the gasses per unit volume. However, air temperature drops about 6 deg C per 2000 ft. increase in elevation. This would increase the density of air. Thus the absolute amount of the gases per unit volume of air becomes a complex function of these variables as well as the above mentioned fluctuating temperature, air pressure and absolute humidity.

Since clouds have a high surface area and CO2 is quite soluble in water, the amount of CO2 in the air will be altered and depend the cloud density, i.e, the amount of water per cubic meter. If the clouds move into warmer air and dissipate, the dissolved CO2 will be released to air. If the clouds move into cooler air and rain is formed, the dissovled CO2 will be transported to the surface and its disposition will depend on that surface. Over the oceans the CO2 will mix in the water quickly. Over the land, however, the nature of the surface will effect whether the CO2 is retained in the water (e.g., porous soil) or released back to the air (for example, hot concrete or rocks or plant leaves, etc).

Over water the amount of CO2 in the air will be influenced by the temperature of the upper layers. The solubility of CO2 declines rapidly with increasing water temperature and can be about 60% lower in water at 30 deg C than water at 0 deg C. As warm tropical water moves to the poles, its temperature slowly drops and by the time it reaches the polar region the water temperature can be about 0 deg C, and can hold about 2.5 times as much CO2 as the warm tropical water. How much CO2 is absorbed will depend on air presssure, wind, wave action, salinity and biological activity, etc.

Biological activity will affect the amount of CO2 in the air. In particular, green plants from alga to big trees fix CO2 in the daytime, but all animals and non-photosynthetic microbes respire. At night all plants and animals respire and release CO2.

Human activities will alter local and regional concentration of CO2 in the air. For example, in Southern California, the concentration of CO2 will start to increase at sunrise, continue to rise throughout the workday, and will be the highest near the end of the evening rush hour after which the concentration of CO2 will start to decline. How the CO2 disperses will depend on the weather (e.g., movement of highs and lows into and out of the region) and the direction of the wind(s). Presence of large airports as well as cement plants will certainly alter the local concentration of CO2.

Commercial and military aviation might alter significantly the concentration of CO2 and water vapor in the upper atmosphere around 35,000 ft in a non-uniform manner since most aircraft generally fly in designated fight paths.

What all of the above boils down to is this: There is no uniform spatial and temporal distribution of CO2 in real or ambient air as expessed in an absolute amount per unit volume of air. Climate models would probably give better results if the absolute amount of CO2 per unit volume is used (e.g., milligrams or millimoles/cubic meter) and some method for estimating the above mentioned spatial and temporal distribution(s). However, the fluctuating concentration of CO2 would be most prevalent in the lower troposphere, epecially over land, and might not apply in upper troposphere above ca. 40,000 ft. Over the middle of oceans (e.g., the Pacific), there will be a more uniform distribtion of CO2 since there is little human activity there.

Since standard dry air exists at no site on the surface of the earth, any “computer modeling experiments” using a value of 388 ppmv will give results that error on the high side.
#22 bi
March 23, 2008

Is Harold Pierce arguing that since all CO₂ measurements are bogus, therefore Beck’s bogus CO₂ measurement is not bogus? Great, yet another example of denialist smoke-blowing.

As if that’s not enough…

Over the middle of oceans (e.g., the Pacific), there will be a more uniform distribtion of CO2 since there is little human activity there.

The Mauna Loa Observatory is located in the Pacific. (At 11,135-ft level, to be precise.) You didn’t know that?

… And Harold, is Naomi Oreskes fat?
#23 Harold Pierce Jr
March 23, 2008

I glanced over Beck’s paper and didn’t find much to criticize, especially the historical review. Most of the CO2 determinations are for local air and not from ambient air at 12,000 ft on mountain in the middle of vast Pacific Ocean or other isolated sites nearby.

The wet chemical methods for CO2 are fairly accurate. The really tricky part of gas analysis is sampling. At any site you have measure air temp, atm. pressure and absolute humidity. You need this info to calculate the mass of air sample taken analysis. You also have to keep checking for leaks in the gas handling equipment and the calibration of guages and metering devices.

Wet chemical methods don’t require ref standards as do instrumental methods. For analyses at MLO, a series a master ref gas mixtures in steel cylinders was prepared at SRI, but I haven’t founds details of how this was done, what equipement was used and if composition of the mixtures was checked by independent analyses, preferable by a commerical laboratory that specializes in gas analysis.

These instrumental methods are becoming obsolete, because NOAA has statellites that can measure the con. of CO2 over most of the earth and at different heights. Once again I can’t find the link to these plots.
#24 bi
March 23, 2008

I glanced over Beck’s paper and didn’t find much to criticize, especially the historical review.

The “la la la la la la I’m not listening” methodology at work, I see.

Harold, is Naomi Oreskes fat?
#25 Tim Curtin
March 23, 2008

The heavy sarcasm of Rabett and Lambert directed at EG Beck is misdirected as theri source Ralph Keeling’s comment in Energy & Environment actually – if unwittingly – provides a complete vindication of Beck’s main point, just as Harold Pierce jnr also like Meijer puts Beck’s data compilation into context.

Keeling’s “refutation” cited with such glee by Rabett & Lambert “clinches” with this statement:
“Beck’s 11-year averages show large swings, including an increase from 310 to 420 ppm between 1920 and 1945 (Beck’s Figure 11). To drive an increase of this magnitude globally requires the release of 233 billion metric tons of C to the atmosphere. The amount is equivalent to more than a third of all the carbon contained in land plants globally”.

But Keeling’s version of Beck’s Fig.11 implies (233/110) that 2.118182 GtC produce an increase in the atmospheric concentration of 1 ppmv. That is almost exactly what is shown in the IPCC’s latest Report, AR4, where in Working Group I’s chapter 7, Table 7.1, and in the same authors’ later paper (Canadell et al., PNAS, October 2007), the average annual net amount of carbon released to the atmosphere in 2000-2006 (4.1 GtC) is associated with an average annual increase of 2.035 ppmv at Mauna Loa, or 2.015 in GtC. Not bad for Dr Beck, for if he is wrong about 1920-1945, then so now are the IPCC and Canadell et al for 2000-2006, not to mention R Keeling.

Keeling’s comment that Beck’s estimate is equivalent to more than a third of all the carbon contained in land plants globally shows his own carelessness. For given the hoary stylised fact that atmospheric CO2 has increased from 280 ppm in 1750 to 382 ppm now, an increase of 102 ppm, which by Keeling’s factor implies “release” of 216 GtC, in line with Keeling’s comment that it is about “equivalent to more than a third of all the carbon contained in land plants globally”. It would seem from Ralph that papa Charles has by his son’s figuring spouted as much rubbish as EG Beck.

Moreover Ralph Keeling’s unwitting support for Beck’s Fig.11 provides a basis for the known global warming that occurred between 1920 and 1945, followed by a cooler period until 1980.

The truth is that both Beck and Keeling snr have made invaluable contributions, the former with collation of historic data, the latter with his Mauna Loa measurements – but the latter are not the whole story any more than Beck’s is, as Harold Pierce jnr has shown so clearly here.

And now for the usual tirades of personal abuse from the majority of the contributors to this site, none of which will try to refute Keeling’s support of Beck.
#26 bi
March 23, 2008

More of the “la la la la la la I’m not listening” denialist methodology.

Ralph Keeling’s comment in Energy & Environment actually – if unwittingly – provides a complete vindication of Beck’s main point

Oh yeah, Keeling “unwittingly” showed that, despite the words he actually said, deep in his heart he was really supporting Beck’s thesis. And he’d have unreservedly expressed his complete, 100% support, if not for unspecified and undetectable threats of reprisal from the Great Worldwide Satanic Conspiracy headed by Al Gore the Antichrist.
#27 Haeold Pierce Jr
March 23, 2008

Hello Frank!

I didn’t say anything about “bogus analyses”. I was just explaining what these measurements mean and how various factors in the geosphere effect the conc CO2 in the atmosphere. The IPCC didn’t give an explanation to the reader or policy makers of what the conc of CO2 on Figure SPM-1 actually means. As a matter of fact, I doubt that these guys who wrote the SPM know that the values are for standard dry air.

I don’t recall Beck doing any CO2 analysis, but I will check this out. Nowaday, you can buy hand instruments that will measure CO2 in ambient air directly and in real time.

The value of MLO CO2 measurements is that the relative change in CO2 in the atmosphere over time can be estimated quite accurately. However, it is not the conc of CO2 in real air. The actual amount of CO2 in the atmosphere of real air is less than that based on the conc of 388 ppmv.

Presumably, the climate modelers use the distribution of CO2 in the atmosphere as determined by NOAA’s statellites for their most upto date calculations. Then again, maybe they don’t. This probably depends on how much money they want to spend on computer time.

I have decided to exile you to Cassiar, BC where you can work for the mining company that is recovering magnesium from asbestos tailings. After a winter of sub zero temperatures in the -20 to -30 deg range, you might come to think that global warming is not so bad after all! I have read that you can make $100,000 or more per year working in the far North.
#28 Tim Curtin
March 23, 2008

Thanks bi for fulfilling my prediction so promptly. No doubt there are more to come from those like bi whose math is challenged to breaking point by Ralph Keeling.
#29 bi
March 23, 2008

Harold Pierce:

I didn’t say anything about “bogus analyses”.

The graph is bogus, period. Lambert pointed this out. I pointed this out. Stop dodging and weaving.

I have decided to exile you to Cassiar, BC

Guess we need to add Harold Pierce’s pronunciations of “exilement” to ben’s “liberal conspiracy” theory.

Tim Curtin:

Thanks bi for fulfilling my prediction so promptly. No doubt there are more to come from those like bi whose math is challenged to breaking point by Ralph Keeling.

Yeah, whatever. Bring up another 400 of your zombie hordes of “skeptics” made up with your own mouth. By the way, do you realize you just unwittingly made a stirring, impassioned, unreserved endorsement of the IPCC report?

I could say that several of your “statistics” are purely made up, but that’ll just sow confusion — which is what you want.

I’ll just point out that the slope on Beck’s bogus CO₂ graph for 1920–1945 is different from the slope for 2000–2006. Yes, the slope is different. Different.

Now try to dispute that with your fancy math.
#30 Harold Pierce Jr
March 23, 2008

Hello Frank!

The _absolute_ amount of carbon dioxide in the earth’s atmosphere of real air is unknown because there is no network of stations that measures continously the absolute amount of CO2 per unit volume of sampled air in real time at the surface and as a function of altitude. To do this you would need thousands of stations all reporting to one computer which would compute the spatial and temporal the distribution of absolute conc of CO2 over the entire surface of the earth.

Now you show me that the above statement false.

I’ll find the link to plot of CO2 in atmosphere as determined by satellite measurements.
#31 Harold Pierce Jr
March 23, 2008

RE: #28
Hello Tim!

I would be most appreciative if you would forward my above posts to Dr. Vincent Gray, Dr. Bob Carter and your colleagues “Down Under” and have them check these comments for accuracy, especially #30.

How can any prudent government impose carbon taxes and implement the various GHG emission reduction schemes when the absolute amount of CO2 in the atmosphere is not known?

BTW: I have finished my study of the Quatsino temperature records and typing up the results.
#32 Bernard J.
March 23, 2008

Harold Pierce Jnr.

The value is only valid for Mauna Loa and bear [sic] no relationship to the concentration of CO2 in “real air” at any other site.

Could you please post your references that definitively demonstrate that Mauna Loa concentrations of CO₂ bear no relationship to CO₂ concentrations at any other site in the world?

Since standard dry air exists at no site on the surface of the earth, any “computer modeling experiments” using a value of 388 ppmv will give results that error [sic] on the high side.

Are you saying that ‘[s]ince standard dry air exists at no site on the surface of the earth’, the innumerable modern measurements of CO₂ that give a concentration of 388ppm (or thereabouts) are incorrect (within standard measurement error, as opposed to the error that you propose) in their values? It appears that this is your claim, as you immediately go on to say ‘using a value of 388 ppmv will give results that error [sic] on the high side’. This implies that you have an understanding of what the real values (I am presuming that you are referring to values of ‘temperature’) are that ‘computer modelling experiments’ should produce. Could you advise what the actual results of the ‘computer modelling experiments’ should be, and what your references for such are? And can you advise also of the references that indicate that modern instrumental measurement of CO₂ concentrations are inaccurate? And if they are inaccurate, is this a consequence of the scientists and technicians who perform these measurements being incapable of calibrating their instruments, or of collecting their samples appropriately, or of analysing their data correctly, or a combination of theses three? References?

If you are not claiming to have definitive knowledge of what ‘computer modelling experiments’ results should be, are you suggesting that the overestimated concentrations of modern CO₂, that you are critical of, will produce overestimates of temperature via a ‘greenhouse’ effect?

If so, then your claims elsewhere on Deltoid that global temperatures have not changed over the last century must be predicated on the premise that CO₂ concentrations have not changes since the Industrial Revolution began. In this case how can you not find ‘much to criticize’ in Beck’s paper, which claims major fluctuations in global CO₂ concentration over 200 years?

I don’t recall Beck doing any CO2 analysis, but I will check this out. Nowaday[sic], you can buy hand instruments that will measure CO2 in ambient air directly and in real time.

Do these instruments have the same measurement bias that you claim are (apparently) made by climate researchers? If so, are any CO₂ analyses that Beck might have performed likewise of dubious value?

Does the fact that you stated that Cassiar, BC has ‘winter[s] of sub zero temperatures in the -20 to -30 deg range’ imply that it is undesirable for a place near the poles of the planet to be thus cold? Is your comment that ‘you might come to think that global warming is not so bad after all’ a tacit acknowledgement that global warming is a valid concept? Or are you simply saying that it doesn’t exist, but if it did it would be a good thing? If the latter is the case, upon what audit of global good do you base this premise? References?

And reiterating my last question to you at New CEI Ad: “Al Gore: We call him fat” , ‘What magnitude of values for σ do your analyses produce? What amount of temperature change are you prepared to detect/accept that would imply climate change?’
#33 Eli Rabett
March 23, 2008

Harold darling, there are lots of stations that measure CO2, you can find a lot of them on the CDIAC site and they all are consistent with the Mauna Loa (ML) series with the local seasonal variation being due to latidudinal mixing, which takes a year or so. ML is just the longest one.

What these stations measure is the CO2 concentration in the air after it has been well mixed by winds and such. What Beck’s boys measured was local concentrations at ground level. Since most of the places they measured were dominated by local point sources, that is what they measured. Of course, there were cases where they measured the composition of the breath being emitted by the person doing the sampling (at the bottom a wonderful picture of Mr. Roland Ploennige messing up a sample). The total amount of CO2 in the gas phase is what determines the greenhouse IR absorption. Given how fast the horizontal and vertical mixing is, this is well represented by the background level (remember the seas cover 2/3 of the surface)

There were a few cases where the winds were blowing unpolluted air towards the detection sites, so they did measure background levels, which, lord be praised, turned out to agree with the ice core records and join smoothly onto the ML record. Even rural sites were prone to higher measurements by air packets blown from cities as Keeling found out in La Jolla and the Sierra.

In the few cases where there were inter-comparisons between the wet methods yielding higher values and the IR absorption method, it was shown that the wet methods were seriously in error (see the link) which is why they were abandoned. While wet methods CAN be reasonably accurate and precise, they require a significant amount of skill and are, even in the best hands, not as accurate or precise as the IR absorption methods.

There is so much more, but, oh yes, Harold, the INTERNET, allows you to send messages to New Zealand from Outer Space.
#34 bi
March 23, 2008

And in response to all the fact-free discussion about how the IPCC will exaggerate future warming, I’ll just say three words:

Rahmstoorf et al.

Overall, these observational data [MLO, HadCRUT, GISS, altimeter] underscore the concerns about global climate change. Previous projections, as summarized by IPCC, have not exaggerated but may in some respects even have underestimated the change, in particular for sea level.

So the IPCC models (as published in 2001, and independent of post-1990 data) were wrong in a way, but they were wrong in the wrong direction — it underestimated climate change.

Now, back to your regularly scheduled denialist talking point…
#35 Bernard J.
March 23, 2008

Harold Pierce Jnr.

BTW: I have finished my study of the Quatsino temperature records and typing up [sic] the results.

If some of the regulars here from around the globe, whom you so vehemently disagree with about the existence of global warming, were prepared to offer you temperature data of sites they selected, or if they were willing even to just direct you to some interesting locations (we don’t need to worry about selector bias, do we?), would you be prepared to analyse them using your insightful technique?

If your ‘studies’ produced results that indicated significant increases in temperature at these places, would you provide us with a typed report that reflected this, and what the implications for climate change might be? And because we are clever and well trained analysts, could we agree a priori what changes you would be seeking that would indicate warming?
#36 ben
March 23, 2008

Guess we need to add Harold Pierce’s pronunciations of “exilement” to ben’s “liberal conspiracy” theory.

But it really is a conspiracy theory. Well, more of a conspiracy conjecture, but that doesn’t mean it’s not true. Now hold on while I get my tinfoil hat out of the oven…
#37 Eli Rabett
March 23, 2008

The microwave ben, it is much more spectacular with tinfoil hats
#38 Yves
March 23, 2008

Hi Eli,

“What Beck’s boys measured was local concentrations at ground level.”

OK, if I make some Pettenkoffer CO2 measurements in my backyard tomorrow (or next month, I first have to learn the method) , and then in some crowded meeting room in my neighborhood one week after (don’t forget to call the local newspaper), then publish them in a peer-reviewed journal (E&E might be suitable for that respect), am I bound to become Beck great-grandson’s boy in 2070 in an peer-reviewed (in E&E’s standard) article showing that 113 years of precise measurements debunked the Keeling curve ?

But the task might be more difficult since the price for entering into such a shortlist could request recruiting some people to make many measurements (Beck claims 90000, of which 64000 at the same location), and convincing one or two Nobel prizes to add their names to the paper…

Best

Yves
#39 sod
March 23, 2008

Keeling’s “refutation” cited with such glee by Rabett & Lambert “clinches” with this statement: “Beck’s 11-year averages show large swings, including an increase from 310 to 420 ppm between 1920 and 1945 (Beck’s Figure 11). To drive an increase of this magnitude globally requires the release of 233 billion metric tons of C to the atmosphere. The amount is equivalent to more than a third of all the carbon contained in land plants globally”.
…
Not bad for Dr Beck, for if he is wrong about 1920-1945, then so now are the IPCC and Canadell et al for 2000-2006, not to mention R Keeling.

what part of LARGE SWINGS don t you understand? if you can t spot the difference in the graph between the 1920-45 and the 2000-2006 period, you should have your eyes examined!

the amount of CO2 released from fossil fuels is rather easysily calculated.

But the task might be more difficult since the price for entering into such a shortlist could request recruiting some people to make many measurements (Beck claims 90000, of which 64000 at the same location), and convincing one or two Nobel prizes to add their names to the paper…

yes, and their results are FANTASTIC. they got CO2 concentration wrong by 200ppm at the worst! (and we don t really know what the real CO2 concentration was at the place they were measuring!

but it s simply slightly more accurate today…

or do you doubt that?!?
#40 Yves
March 23, 2008

Hi sod,

“yes, and their results are FANTASTIC”.

One cannot expect less from the CO2 flying circus managers!

“they got CO2 concentration wrong by 200ppm at the worst! (and we don t really know what the real CO2 concentration was at the place they were measuring!”

They, IMO, are mostly Beck and ZJ when making global conclusions from local measurements from primary authors whose first purpose were not always CO2 levels, even local (see for instance Lockhart and Court 1942 available in docs.lib.noaa.gov/rescue/mwr/070/mwr-070-05-0093.pdf, about … oxygen depletion in Antarctica).

“but it s simply slightly more accurate today…”

In this link
http://www.af-info.or.jp/eng/honor/bppcl_e/e1993keeling.txt
Keeling makes the history of the CO2 measurements, noticing that in the 1880s a Belgian named Jules Reiset did measurements precise enough to see the seasonal variations on the Belgian coast. But later the interest in global CO2 levels waned, the infamous Pettenkofer method, less precise but easier, became standard and the seasonal variation was no more evidenced, before the measurements by Keeling starting in 1954 in California and later at Mauna Loa.

“or do you doubt that?!?”

I don’t doubt the use of quantities as arguments from authority in Beck’s stories. This Schulmeister seems indeed to be an excellent storyteller.

Best

Yves
#41 Harold Pierce Jr
March 23, 2008

RE: #39
Hello sod!
Here are the dates you requested:

The Sign of the Beast: Sept. 23, 24, and 25, 1926.

The -0.5 deg C entry: March 24, 2002.

Both max and min temp for this date are questionable.

Here is another example of a suspicious number:
Data is for mean monthly min temp for June 1940-49:

9.2 9.8 8.4 7.6 8.7 8.2 9.1 9.6 8.9 4.2?

Mean=8.8 with 4.2 excluded.
Mean=8.4 with 4.2 included.

I just excluded questionable values. Errors, like enemies, accumulate and screw-up the data.

GO: http://www.climate.weatheroffice.ec.gc.ca/climateData/dailydata_e.html.

Enter “Quatsino” in the box for a customized search. When the Quatsino page appears, use the drop down selectors to set the month and year.

If you want to printout a record, set margins for 6.25 mm all round and use legal size paper. Do not use the “Format for Print” option.

.
#42 bi
March 23, 2008

I see Harold continues to blithely ignore all the points made by Tim Lambert, Bernard J., Eli Rabett, and myself. “La la la la la la I’m not listening” — that’s the denialist way!

Harold, is Naomi Oreskes fat?
#43 Tim Curtin
March 24, 2008

Bi said with his innate charm: “Yeah, whatever. Bring up another 400 of your zombie hordes of “skeptics” made up with your own mouth. By the way, do you realize you just unwittingly made a stirring, impassioned, unreserved endorsement of the IPCC report? I could say that several of your “statistics” are purely made up, but that’ll just sow confusion — which is what you want”.

Which statistics? Ralph Keeling’s or those of the IPCC + Canadell et al? BTW I agree about the latter, some of the data I cited from IPCC+ Canadell was indeed made up by them, as that on land use change emissions is contradicted by earlier studies of two of their co-authors (Ciais and R Houghton). Their strictly fraudulent adjustment of the luc data of Ciais & Houghton is the basis of their false claim that the oceanic and terrestrial sinks of CO2 are already “saturated”. They recruited the named persons as two of many “co-authors” (of a 5 page paper) to ensure that they were not available for either (a) peer review, or (b) rebuttals on the basis of their own work. The Canadell et al PNAS paper (Oct 2007) was funded by the Howard Australian government but was the basis of a tendentious press release during the election campaign aimed at staking their claim to a bigger flow of largesse from Rudd. People like Canadell and Ciais are shameless. How much did the latter get from the AGO for agreeing to the suppression of all mention of his 2004 paper?

bi added: “I’ll just point out that the slope on Beck’s bogus CO2 graph for 1920–1945 is different from the slope for 2000–2006. Yes, the slope is different. Different.Now try to dispute that with your fancy math.” Flattery will get you everywhere, but all I used was Keeling’s arithmetic, which yielded the same ratio between emissions and CO2 concentration for 1920-1945 in Beck as for 2000-2006 in IPCC & co. Slopes are irrelevant, and are not mentioned by bi’s lover boy Keeling. Given the primitive measurements that Beck reported were all that were available before Chas Keeling gave us the one spot stats that Harold Pierce has shown abstract from the more nuanced ones reported by Beck, Beck did amazingly well to be vindicated by the IPCC.
#44 bi
March 24, 2008

Tim Curtin:

Beck did amazingly well to be vindicated by the IPCC.

Go fantasize all you want about Beck and Monckton and Singer and the whole gang being “unwittingly” “vindicated” by the scientific community. It won’t make an ounce of difference to the facts.

How much did the latter get from the AGO for agreeing to the suppression of all mention of his 2004 paper?

Why don’t you tell me? You can’t be bothered to look your facts before casting aspersions left and right?

all I used was Keeling’s arithmetic, which yielded the same ratio between emissions and CO2 concentration for 1920-1945 in Beck as for 2000-2006 in IPCC & co. Slopes are irrelevant, and are not mentioned by

Then your arithmetic is borked. Anyone with an eye and a brain can see that the slope — which is precisely the rate of increase in CO₂ — as shown on Beck’s bogus graph is vastly steeper for 1920–1945 than it is for 2000–2006 on the same graph. The slope is different.

bi’s lover boy Keeling.

Talk about hurling “personal abuse”…

Quick, call me more names. Call me fat. Is Naomi Oreskes fat too?
#45 Tim Curtin
March 24, 2008

bi: 1. Slopes are different from ratios.
2. Climate scientists like Canadell et al are even more available for hire than those stingily paid off by BP etc.
3. In all likelihood both you and Naomi are very fat, and as that is your sole contribution to this debate let’s leave it at that.
#46 Bernard J.
March 24, 2008

Harold Pierce Jnr.

At #66 on New CEI Ad: “Al Gore: We call him fat” you stated:

Upon examination of the temperature records from the Quatsino WS, I have that [sic] on several occasion errors in the records. For example, in one record I found -0.6, -0.6, and -0.6. Yikes! The Sign of the Beast! How this got by the data quality checker is a mystery to me. I have found errors such as -0.5 which should have been -5.0.

And at #41 above you said:

RE: #39 Hello sod! Here are the dates you requested:
The Sign of the Beast: Sept. 23, 24, and 25, 1926.
The -0.5 deg C entry: March 24, 2002.
Both max and min temp for this date are questionable.
Here is another example of a suspicious number: Data is for mean monthly min temp for June 1940-49:
9.2 9.8 8.4 7.6 8.7 8.2 9.1 9.6 8.9 4.2?
Mean=8.8 with 4.2 excluded.

I just excluded questionable values. Errors, like enemies, accumulate and screw-up the data.

Surely, surely, surely you did not mean what you said about three consecutive ‘-0.6′ values? I cannot imagine that you did, but for your comment about the data quality checker, and the fact that you repeated the reference to the Sign of the Beast in the second of these two quotes, with dates included. Even if you are only joking, you are severely eroding any (tenuous) credibility you may have ever had.

And I checked your reference to the Quatsino BC -0.5 vs -5.0 ‘error’. Using your links I see that the mean maximum temperature for March 02 at Quatsino was 7.0ºC, the mean of the daily means was 4.0ºC, and the mean minimum was 1.1ºC. Since your gripe was with a value of -0.5ºC that you think should have been -5.0ºC, I will consider only the minimum daily temperature values (to give you the best advantage possible)…

There is only one value of -0.5ºC, and it occurs on 19 March, not 24 March as you stated. However, I see that there are 22 values greater or equal to -0.5ºC for the month, and 9 values less than -0.5ºC. Given this, and the fact that the mean of the daily minimums is 1.1ºC, with a standard deviation of 3.0ºC, and that the extreme lowest value is -5.5ºC, I can only say that your premise that -0.5ºC “should be” -5.0ºC is so far off the mark that it is out of the galaxy.

And I see no problem with the maximum and minimum values for 24 March 02, other than (at a stretch) that the maximum (13.5ºC) is the maximum for the month. This is especially a stretch given that there were four occurrences of 8.5ºC; one each of 9.0ºC, 9.5ºC, 10.0ºC, 11.0ºC and 12.0ºC; and two of 10.5ºC. If you continue to see a problem here, perhaps you would offer your considered opinion for the following series of temperatures for an arbitrary site during March this year. I will avoid your predilection of ‘selecting’ an arbitrary historic comparison, and instead offer you the anomaly values with which to work, which is somewhat more appropriate. Frustratingly my efforts at html tags are unsuccessful in tabulating these data.

Date min anomaly max anomaly
01/03/08 13.5 -1.6 25.7 -0.5

02/03/08 13.3 -1.8 31.1 4.9

03/03/08 15.6 0.5 35.4 9.2

04/03/08 23.5 8.4 35.7 9.5

05/03/08 24.4 9.3 37.9 11.7

06/03/08 19.6 4.5 38.5 12.3

07/03/08 19.9 4.8 39.0 12.8

08/03/08 21.1 6.0 39.8 13.6

09/03/08 25.4 10.3 40.2 14.0

10/03/08 22.4 7.3 40.0 13.8

11/03/08 22.0 6.9 38.4 12.2

12/03/08 22.4 7.3 39.2 13.0

13/03/08 25.0 9.9 39.7 13.5

14/03/08 30.2 15.1 38.6 12.4

15/03/08 23.6 8.5 38.3 12.1

16/03/08 22.5 7.4 39.9 13.7

17/03/08 25.9 10.8 40.5 14.3

18/03/08 21.8 6.7 27.6 1.4

19/03/08 15.0 -0.1 27.0 0.8

20/03/08 13.3 -1.8 23.0 -3.2

21/03/08 11.8 -3.3 22.2 -4.0

22/03/08 13.2 -1.9 22.7 -3.5

23/03/08 10.9 -4.2 29.0 3.0

What are your criteria for ‘questionable values’. You need to be scrupulous in your a priori definition of such – you cannot just decide on this as you roll along. And I indicated to you in an earlier post that large datasets are usually robustly impervious to the ‘errors’ that you seem to be so irrationally fixated with. One cannot just blithely remove data because you ‘don’t like the look’ of them, and leaving them intact rarely makes too much of a difference. If they do, then one is probably considering a small dataset, and the likelihood of raw data errors being undetected is low in this event.

Last weekend I attended a community forum on climate change, and one of the principle speakers was the state government officer responsible for policy development and application on climate change. He is an economist by training and by decades of working, and he commenced his talk by acknowledging his employment for many years as a hired gun by big industry to discredit the existence of global warming – he grew rich on this. He also acknowledged that even he and his benefactors privately admitted in the past to the reality of climate change, and that they are no less certain of it today. He gave up a lucrative career to turn to the ‘light’ because he understood the gravity of the situation, and his most telling comment was that deniers are a minor and an almost irrelevant voice in global policy today – even the most conservative ideologues (outside of the fossil fuel industry) have figured out on which side their bread is buttered.

The only issue these days is that the Deniers, in which camp I firmly place you, obfuscate the understanding of the ‘general public’ with respect to the urgency of the climate change problem. If you have a valid counter to the >>97% of expert understanding that says that climate change is the major problem that the world faces today, them you will be given genuine consideration – as long as you speak sensibly and with informed understanding. You demonstrate none of this whatsoever, and the only effect that you and those of your bent have is to create a minor delay in changes that will inevitably come. Nevertheless, even such (relatively minor) delaying tactics can still have profound consequences for the planet, and given the gravity of the threat, and the essentially minor adjustments that would avoid the worst of it, it is sheer bloody-mindedness on your part to keep your head in the sands of ignorance, as you do.

Several months ago I offered this piece of advice to another denier. It is something I myself live by, and I suggest that you would benefit from serious consideration of it:

“You must always be students, learning and unlearning till your life’s end, and if, gentlemen, you are not prepared to follow your profession in this spirit, I implore you to leave its ranks and betake yourself to some third-class trade.”

Lord Joseph Lister (1827-1912)
#47 Barton Paul Levenson
March 24, 2008

Harold Pierce writes:

[[The absolute amount of carbon dioxide in the earth's atmosphere of real air is unknown ]]

No, it’s known pretty closely. I’ll do the calculation for you.

The present concentration of carbon dioxide in ambient air is about 385 ppmv. The total mass of the atmosphere is about 5.136 x 10^18 kg. CO2 has a molecular weight of 44.0096 while moist air averages 28.92. There are therefore 0.000385 x 5.136e18 x (44.0096/28.92) = 3.01 x 10^15 kilograms of carbon dioxide in the air, on average.
#48 Harold Pierce Jr
March 24, 2008

RE: #33
Hello Eli!

Go read #21, the first paragraph. For most all remote sites, the ratios of atmospheric gases is relatively constant and is independent of elevation. As I mentioned the ref state for reporting composition of the atmosphere based upon analysis of ambient air is “Standard Dry Air”.

The elevation of Mauna Loa is 11,200 ft and air pressure is about 9.5 psi or 0.65 atm. At STP the density of dry air ia 1.29 kg/cu. meter. The amount of CO2 therein is 388 ml. At 11,200 ft the density of dry air at 0 deg C would be about 0.8 kg/ cu. meter and the absolute amount of CO2 would be about 250 ml but the relative concentraion would still be 388 ppmv.

This is important: you can not use the value of 388 ppmv for computing the absolute amount of CO2 in the atmosphere.
The mean global temperature is about 288 K. The ideal gas law is: PV=nRT and rearranged is n/V=P/TR, where n is the mole number and R is the gas constant. For a mixture n is the sum of the mole numbers for the indivdual components.

If we assume a constant world pressure of 1 atm and V is constant, then the absolute amount CO2 in dry air would be about 368 ml /cu meter. In real air with water vapor this value will be less depending on the humidity.

GO: http://www.uigi.com/air.html for interesting info about air.

Any questions?
#49 Tim Curtin
March 24, 2008

BBL: well done! But your 820 GtC are growing very slowly, at around 0.5% p.a., while anthropogenic emissions are growing at over 3% p.a. How so?
#50 Bernard J.
March 24, 2008

Harold Pierce Jnr.

Despite all of your oogy-boogy cloak, smoke and mirrors rhetoric about how difficult it apparently is to obtain an accurate measurement of the concentration of atmospheric CO₂, the Universal Industrial Gasses site that you linked to in #48 noted that “[c]urrently, 385 ppmv +/- 5 ppmv is a reasonable value” (their emphasis). This seems to be a reasonably certain estimate from a site you found worthy to reference.

In the very next sentence they say “[w]orldwide, the average concentration of carbon dioxide is rising at a rate of about 2 ppmv per year” (my emphasis). Given that UIG’s margin of error is only +/- 5ppm, an annual increase of 2ppm would seem to be a specific, and an important, rate of increase.

Do you believe that CO₂ in the atmosphere is increasing at a reasonable approximate to this rate? Do you support Beck’s premise that there were wild fluctuations in atmospheric CO₂ concentration that suddenly ended IR spectrometry? After all, you are on record as saying “I glanced over Beck’s paper and didn’t find much to criticize”. If you do agree with Beck, what miracle of modern CO₂ measurement brought about a stabilisation in the rate of increase of atmospheric CO₂ concentration, and simultaneously made it more difficult to quantify than was possible with the old chemical measurements in which you found little in to criticise?

And I’ve asked this question previously (amongst many others) but I will do so again – do you understand CO₂ to be a greenhouse gas?
#51 Bernard J.
March 24, 2008

Harold Pierce Jnr.

At #46 above, the ‘arbitrary’ site is 35º South, and thus the temperature values, in ºC, are for early autumn. If it is not clear in the first line of the data, there are five columns – date, maximum temperature, max temp anomaly (wrt mean for the date), minimum temperature, and min temp anomaly (wrt mean for the date). The records go back for many, many years.

I await your conclusions with keen interest…
#52 Bernard J.
March 24, 2008

Harold Pierce Jnr.

Much to my chagrin, when I asked:

“Do you support Beck’s premise that there were wild fluctuations in atmospheric CO₂ concentration that suddenly ended IR spectrometry?”

at #50, I meant of course:

“Do you support Beck’s premise that there were wild fluctuations in atmospheric CO₂ concentration that suddenly ended with the advent of IR spectrometry?”

Obvious intent aside, sic one for me.
#53 sod
March 24, 2008

Slopes are irrelevant, and are not mentioned by bi’s lover boy Keeling.

this is simply false. Keeling does mention large swings, which implies steep SLOPES!
#54 sod
March 24, 2008

Surely, surely, surely you did not mean what you said about three consecutive ‘-0.6′ values?

i too was too shocked to reply immediately.

here s what hew is doing:

1. take a dataset that seems to show no warming

2. analyse a tiny part of that data set.

3. drop random data, because he thinks they are false.

simply horrible.

btw, if there realy was an error of 5°C on one day, it will effect the mean of the 6 year data by 0.00228310502. IRRELEVANT.
#55 El Niño
March 24, 2008

Dangerous game you play, Tim !

You won’t believe the trouble I got for suggesting that some bogus reconstructions published in E&E was “pseudoscience”.

http://www.climateaudit.org/?cat=63

But given the impressive E&E’s laundering track record, I remain dumbfounded that skeptics would go publish there with any expectation of being taken seriously. Sure, the peer-review system is far from flawless in climate journals, but it seems that E&E does not even know the concept of a review. Is there ONE example of a decent article with relevance to climate science ever published in there ?
#56 Yves
March 24, 2008

Hi Tim,

“BBL: well done! But your 820 GtC are growing very slowly, at around 0.5% p.a., while anthropogenic emissions are growing at over 3% p.a. How so?”

The 0.5%/yr relative growth of overall carbon content of atmosphere is to be compared with the current anthro emissions: 8 GTC/yr corresponding to ca 1%/yr. The difference being due to rapid recycling by biosphere and oceans.
The 3% growth is irrelevant in that respect: even though the emissions were decreasing by 3% the ratio would be the same. The rate of growth of the emissions is relevant to the evolution of dCO2/dt (in other words, would correlate with d2CO2/dt2) but with a huge noise in the short term due to climate/carbon cycle coupling processes: El Nino, La Nina, volcanoes, uptake/outgassing as consequence of variation of sea surface temperature. However, on about 5 to 10 years scale, dCO2/dt is still increasing, as expected.

Best

Yves
#57 Tim Curtin
March 24, 2008

Many thanks Yves (#56) for your useful contribution, but I think you are wrong when you say “on about 5 to 10 years scale, dCO2/dt is still increasing, as expected”. If you check my website (www.timcurtin.com) for my paper “Garnaut, the Greens, and the browning of the world”(submitted to Garnaut Review)for my Fig.1B, you will see that dCO2/dt at Mauna Loa has been growing but at a steadily decreasing rate since 1958 – the graph plots the annual absolute increments at Mauna Loa (from CDIAC) againt time and the logarithmic trend is flattening.

El Nino (#55): since E&E published Meijer & Keeling, does this answer your question “Is there ONE example of a decent article with relevance to climate science ever published in there?”? And what about McKitrick, Nobel material in due time?

Sod: there was no mention of slopes in my quote from Keeling; mentions elsewhere there are, but I addressed only the quote that vindicates Beck. Both Keeling & Beck may well make other statements that are questionable, but I prefer to take one at a time.
#58 Eli Rabett
March 24, 2008

Tim, those were not articles, they were comments on a published article which should not have seen the light of day.
#59 Yves
March 24, 2008

Hi Tim,

Thanks for the reference. Having seen the figure mentioned I noticed the huge fluctuations on a 1 year scale, and doubt that a log fits that better than a linear. Have you succeeded to show that at longer timescales (5 y) and from other sites (South Pole) ?

Best

Yves
#60 Bernard J.
March 24, 2008

Tim Curtin.

A morbid curiosity led me to look at the last several pfds on your website, and… well, let’s just leave the rest of this sentence hanging.

I have one question for you – do you stand by your two figures in your effort entitled “An Overdue Letter to President Bush from Albert Einstein”?
#61 Tim Curtin
March 25, 2008

Thanks Yves, I will try and do what you suggest.

Bernard, I trust your morbidity is no terminal. Yes I do stand by those figures, just as much as the IPCC projects wildly into the future ignoring logarithimic effect of CO2 on temperature and depending hugely therefore on a yet to be demonstrated positive feedback from clouds. My “overdue letter from Einstein” was penned before Freeman Dyson’s latest book came out (A many-colored Glass); unlike Bernard J, Dyson is a physicist of some renown and his book confirmed the point I was dramatising in my letter, which is that our problem with rising population and therefore food needs is that we shall soon have too little atmospheric CO2, not too much; Dyson states it is already scarce. Now whether reducing emissions will impact or not on the current oceanic and terrestrial uptakes of 5 GtC p.a. is an interesting question. If not, my Einstein letter’s figures stand and total atmospheric CO2 will fall back to the 1750 level and its little ice age. But if uptakes fall in line with emission reductions we will be worse off even sooner as shown in Figs. 3 & 4 of my second Garnaut submission (at my website, not his, as he dislikes contention). Current crop yields will decline ever faster the more extreme are the emission reductions pursued by Garnaut, as the resulting declining partial pressure of atmospheric CO2 reduces photosynthetic uptakes pari passu.

Re Eli, if you could name a journal whose editorial board is NOT stacked with IPCC luminaries and would consider a paper along the lines above, do tell. That IPCC AR4 WG1 could manage just 3 page refs in 985 on photosynthesis, and those are by the less than candid Canadell team, I doubt you can.

IMO, Beck’s E&E article was interesting both in itself and in the disagreements it provoked.
#62 sod
March 25, 2008

Sod: there was no mention of slopes in my quote from Keeling; mentions elsewhere there are, but I addressed only the quote that vindicates Beck. Both Keeling & Beck may well make other statements that are questionable, but I prefer to take one at a time.

Tim, if you do NOT understand the connection between “large swings” of a curve and its slopes, then i suppose you take math 101 before trying to write any more “scientific” papers.

——————

the “Einstein” paper has been discussed on this site before. Tim Curtin does NOT understand that the rate of CO2 uptake (for example by the oceans) is DIRECTLY linked to CO2 concentration in the atmosphere.

that CO2 uptake continues to rise, when concentration in the air is sinking (as in his graphs) was completely made up by him and is complete nonsense of course.

the paper makes two more claims, that can only be described as idiotic:

1. Tim thinks that people will continue CO2 reduction if faced with a dramatic reduction of CO2 concentration in the atmosphere.

2. Tim does believe that the increase in agricultural production is ONLY based on increased CO2 concentration in the atmosphere.
#63 Tim Curtin
March 25, 2008

Yves: I have done as you suggest,and both 5 and 10 year averages at Mauna Loa show a declining logarithmic trend, likewise for the South Pole data, there are the same positive but declining growth rates.

Sod (aka bi?): set up as many strawmen as you like but none of your claims as to what I say or believe is correct. Trying to take you seriously is a struggle, but if you can be serious please (1)provide your data for the rate of fall of uptakes with respect to decreases in the total atmospheric concentration (2) advise when you expect Ross Garnaut to revise his target for 90% reduction from 1990 by 2050 in order to mainatin yields. Of course I am aware that CO2 is not the only determinant of crop yields, but it is major, with a very high R2 and strongly significant coefficient with FAO agric yields from 1980-2005 (unlike temperature whose coeff. in the same regression is not significant). And without CO2 there would be no production at all of course, in fact growth ceases from about 220 ppm. So it is a necessary if not sufficient condition, hence no wheat in the Antarctic despite abundance of CO2. But as you raise single cause, why not criticise IPCC for its single cause modelling?

More generally, if I said the things about sod that he says about me, I would be disemvowelled.
#64 Harold Pierce Jr
March 25, 2008

Hello Bernard!

RE: #32 Somewhere on http://www.cdiac.ornl.gov in the sections on CO2 analysis, I saw: (Values are valid only Mauna Loa and may differ from that of other sites). I can’t find it, but I will keep trying.

Real air vs standard dry air: Do you understand what these terms mean? Go read the UIG article and check out the charts that show the effects of elevation, humidity and temperature on the composition and physical properties of real air.

RE: #46
I have the Sept 1926 temperature record in hand, and it shows “-0.6. -0.6 and -0.6″ Go check this out.

March 2002 should have been March 2003. Sorry about that!

RE: #50
“Despite all of your oogy-boogy cloak, smoke and mirrors rhetoric about how difficult it apparently is to obtain an accurate measurement of the concentration of atmospheric CO2, the Universal Industrial Gasses site that you linked to in #48 noted that “[c]urrently, 385 ppmv +/- 5 ppmv is a reasonable value” (their emphasis). This seems to be a reasonably certain estimate from a site you found worthy to reference.”

FYI I am analytical chemist and I tell you quantitave analysis at the trace levels where the analyte is less than 1% of the sample is very difficult. All you layman see is the final result. The UGI value represents the value for standard dry air which varies slightly from site to site and is in agreement with those values determined by Keeling et al.

RE: Beck’s Bump doesn’t bother me at all. The 1930′a and ’40′s were war years. Analyses for CO2 are probably not representive of the “backround level” of CO2 in the atmosphere.

Carbon dioxide is a minor trace component(i.e., less than 0.1%) of atmosphere and contributes very little to the green house effect. There is one and only one greenhouse gas: water vapor aka steam. GO:
http:/www.clearlight.com/~mheib/WVFossils/greenhouse_data.html. Monte Hieb is mine safety engineer.

“the old chemical measurements” These are OK. Wet chemical methods are still used for many types of analyses, e.g, the various components of blood.
#65 sod
March 25, 2008

i will keep this short, as most things about the Einstein paper have been said before and this is pretty much of topic.

Trying to take you seriously is a struggle,

same feeling over here.

(1)provide your data for the rate of fall of uptakes with respect to decreases in the total atmospheric concentration

this one is simple i and i will refer you to Henry´s law:

the concentration of a solute gas in a solution is directly proportional to the partial pressure of that gas above the solution

http://tinyurl.com/23pgkd

(2) advise when you expect Ross Garnaut to revise his target for 90% reduction from 1990 by 2050 in order to mainatin yields.

i am rather sure that mankind will stop reducing CO2 emmission, when your predicted ice age starts in 2050. (not because of some sun change, volcanos, meteors, but ONLY because of human reduction in CO2 emission…)

Of course I am aware that CO2 is not the only determinant of crop yields, but it is major, with a very high R2 and strongly significant coefficient with FAO agric yields from 1980-2005 (unlike temperature whose coeff. in the same regression is not significant)

i d love to see this graph/data!

More generally, if I said the things about sod that he says about me, I would be disemvowelled.

i stand by what i said about your arguments. i did not call you a pedophile wife beater, as you did when we were discussing this topic the last time:

http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2007/10/update_on_the_nine_alleged_err.php

ps: i had enormous fun this morning rereading Tim that topic. you definitely shouldn t miss the relationship between CO2 and Einsteins formula E=mc². (#146)

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?
#66 Harold Pierce Jr
March 25, 2008

RE: #64 Rats! Left out a “/”! I repost the link and “heib” should be “hieb”.

http://www.clearlight.com/~mhieb/WVFossils/greenhouse_data.html
#67 Harold Pierce Jr
March 25, 2008

RE: #51 Hello Bernard!!!

I like this puzzle! Tim should give the first poster of the solution a prize! I have already made a list of candidates.
#68 Harold Pierce Jr
March 25, 2008

RE: #65 Hello sod! Here is my responce to the clueless
Warmers and Enviros who believe the use of fossil fuels can be eliminated. I first posted this over at Gavin’s Garage.

RE: The Age of Fossil Fuels Will Last Forever!

I have said this many times here and elsewhere, I will say this once again here, and I will say this at RC for the very last time. We will always use increasing amounts of fossils fuels because there are no subsitutes with the requisite chemical and physical properties, and there never ever will be any reduction in the emission of carbon dioxide.

For example, boats, planes, freight trains and trucks, construction, mining and agricultural machines, most cars and light trucks, motorcycles, snowmobiles, ATV’s, all military vehicles, go-carts, golf course and sports field grass mowers, etc will require and use liquid fossils fuels becasue these fuels have high energy density and are easily prepared from crude oil by fractional distillation and blending, low energy processes that do not require the breaking of chemical bonds. Even catalytic cracking of heavier distillate fractions is a low energy process.

The “Fuels of Freedom” are chemically inert (except to reaction with oxygen. halogens and several highly reactive chemicals such as singlet oxygen) noncorrosive, highly portable, and can be stored indefinitely in sealed containers (e.g., steel drums) and under an inert atmosphere (e.g., nitrogen) in large tanks.

Fossils fuels will always be required for lime and cement kilns, metal smelters, steel mills, foundries and metal casting plants, metal cutting and braising torches, all factories that make ceramics (e.g., bricks, tiles, china, glass, etc), all food production, processing and distribution, space and water heating, cooking and baking, BBQ’s, manufacture of porcelain-coated metals, harvesting of wood and lumber manufacture, isolation of essential oils by steam distillation for prepartion of fragrances and flavors, etc.

The reasons we use thermal plants for generating electricity is that these plants have a small footprint, can be located close to consumers, and produce electricity reliably and at very high energy-densities.

Fossils are the feedstock for the petrochemical
industries (sometimes called the chemical process industries), which manufacture everything from A to Z, such as synthetic fibers. There is not enough suitable land for growing cotton, flax and sheep to meet world demand for fibers.

If you guys have any schemes that will replace fossil fuels for the above applications and uses, I’m quite sure the engineers will glady welcome your suggestions.

We will always have lots of fossil fuels because we can always use coal for manufacture of synthetic hydrocarbons. Germany did this on a massive scale during WW II, and South Africa uses this process, and it supplies about 40% of SA’s liquid hydrocarbons which can be manufactured into a wide range of useful materials. Google “SASOL” for more info.
#69 Tim Curtin
March 25, 2008

Hi Sod (or bi) (#65). You made a contribution, halleluja! Thanks.

But then you quoted me: “Of course I am aware that CO2 is not the only determinant of crop yields, but it is major, with a very high R2 and strongly significant coefficient with FAO agric yields from 1980-2005 (unlike temperature whose coeff. in the same regression is not significant)”

and said “i d love to see this graph/data!” Well, the regressions are there on my first submission to Garnaut (see his Review’s website but also on my own website in case he has deleted it by now, http://www.timcurtin.com). The data are from FAO and CDIAC – Mauna Loa + GISS.

Thanks for the reprint of my Einstein comment. The point I was making, albeit too opaque for most denizens of Deltoid (not to mention the Garnoids), is that whilst burning fossil fuels releases H2O and CO2 that have been buried for billennia, running windmills or solar panels (with their limited mass)seems to give you low cost power (on a running cost basis, so long as you do not factor in the cost of the spinning of thermal power stations for when the wind drops – or the sun stops shining). Solar and wind power do not yield the release of free long stored H2O and CO2 bye-products. Those pesky molecules are included in Eisntein’s equation but are largely absent from the formulae for solar and wind power. Strange as it may seem to bi/sod, H2O and CO2 are not pollutants but esential to life. My Garnaut Submission gave the formulae for propane and jet fuel that prove my point here. Dear sod/bi, show me the equivalent formulae for wind/solar and prove their equal yield in terms of FREE water and CO2.

I could spend the rest of my life trying to sell my comments here to the IPCC or all the journals its 2500 authors edit, but have better things to do. E&E might well, but would be derided for doing so.

BTW, I have never called you a pedophile or wife beater (at least not yet!).

Best

Tim
#70 Tim Curtin
March 25, 2008

Harold Pierce posted while I was responding to sod/bi – hsi comment is brilliant. Other readers could also usefully refer to Thomas Gold’s book for confirmation of Harold’s position, The Deep Hot Biosphere: the myth of fossil fuels, strongly endorsed by that other distinguished physicist, Freeman Dyson.

Ironically, while atmospheric CO2 does something to replenish (via photosynthesis) fossil fuels (if they exist)
Einstein’s equation also, as I forgot to mention in my last, explains the low yield of solar/wind, because of their low Mass. Remember, E=MCsquared. The Don Henrys et al of Greenpeace etc will never grasp even with a pneumatic drill boring into their thick skulls that a wind farm of 1000 MW does not deliver anything like 365*24*1000 MW hours of power, and a solar does less well, at 365*10*1000 at best, while UK and USA nuclear currently deliver 365*24*.92 per installed MW. Einstein is relevant even if abhorred by the neo-fascists and commies of Greenpeace like sod/bi.
#71 Yves
March 25, 2008

Hi Tim,

Thanks for the homework. Having myself plotted delta(CO2) for 5 years, I made a linear regression and a logarithmic regression. When plotted against t-1957 (years), the log regression gives better correlation coefficients (r²) than the linear, but not in a compelling manner:

delta co2 = 2.9258*ln(t-1957)-2.5514, r²=0.7422 for MLO

delta co2 = 2.9415*ln(t-1957)-2.8157, r²=0.7274 for SPO

compared with

delta co2 = 0.1240*(t-1957)+3.3865, r²=0.6912 for MLO

delta co2 = 0.1177*(t-1957)+3.4066, r²=0.6920 for SPO

and, when comparing the curves with the graphs, the logarithmic regression seems to underestimate the recent trend. Furthermore a log regression requires a further degree of freedom (t0) contrary to the linear.

So, I stand by my interpretation that dCO2/dt is still growing and that the fact that dCO2/dt growth rate decreases is undecided. Maybe, maybe not.

Best

Yves
#72 Barton Paul Levenson
March 25, 2008

Harold Pierce writes:

[[Carbon dioxide is a minor trace component(i.e., less than 0.1%) of atmosphere and contributes very little to the green house effect. There is one and only one greenhouse gas: water vapor aka steam.]]

You are, as usual, dead wrong. Carbon dioxide contributes 26% of the clear-sky greenhouse effect:

http://www.atmo.arizona.edu/students/courselinks/spring04/atmo451b/pdf/RadiationBudget.pdf
#73 Barton Paul Levenson
March 25, 2008

Harold Pierce, enjoying being a troll, writes:

[[We will always use increasing amounts of fossils fuels because there are no subsitutes with the requisite chemical and physical properties, and there never ever will be any reduction in the emission of carbon dioxide.]]

The same refutation of this drivel that I provided on RC also applies here. Fossil fuels are available in limited amounts and cannot increase without limit. And biomass fuels can substitute for fossil fuels, and electrification can as well. You’re just wrong.
#74 Barton Paul Levenson
March 25, 2008

Tim Curtin, even more bizarrely than usual, posts:

[[Solar and wind power do not yield the release of free long stored H2O and CO2 bye-products. Those pesky molecules are included in Eisntein's equation but are largely absent from the formulae for solar and wind power.]]

Einstein’s relativity equations include NOTHING about any particular molecule. And H2O and CO2 don’t have bi-products released by fossil fuel burning; they ARE the bi-products of fossil fuel burning.

Get ahold of some introductory high school science texts, read through them, and do all the problems.
#75 Tim Curtin
March 25, 2008

I said (#69) “… burning fossil fuels releases H2O and CO2 that have been buried for billennia”,

BBL said at #74: “H2O and CO2 don’t have bi-products released by fossil fuel burning; they ARE the bi-products of fossil fuel burning”.

BBL, go back to school and learn how to parse.

Tim Lambert: is it not time that cretins like BBL were banned?
#76 Barton Paul Levenson
March 25, 2008

Tim, you said “Those pesky molecules are included in Eisntein’s equation.” Your words, verbatim, from post #69 above. You’re wrong. There’s no equation Einstein ever put down that includes anything about any particular molecule. I can parse just fine. You said something that was blatantly false. I’m not accusing you of lying, just of not understanding basic chemistry and physics. Go study some introductory texts on the subject.
#77 Tim Curtin
March 25, 2008

Sod said (@ #65) “this one is simple i and i will refer you to Henry´s law:the concentration of a solute gas in a solution is directly proportional to the partial pressure of that gas above the solution http://tinyurl.com/23pgkd”

Your tinyurl says this: “The value of the Henry’s law constant is found to be temperature dependent. The value generally increases with increasing temperature. As a consequence, the solubility of gases generally decreases with increasing temperature”.

Thus Henry’s Law confirms both Fig 5 in my “Garnaut browns the World” paper (at http://www.timcurtin.com) and my “Einstein” figures. For evidently, if reducing emissions by 90% below 1990 a la Garnaut has the desired impact on atmospheric CO2 and temperature, then oceanic solubility INCREASES, and REDUCES what is available for terrestrial photosynthesis.
#78 Yves
March 25, 2008

Re Yves:
To prevent useless argutiating I precise my interpretation about delta(CO2) for 5 years:

1) Definition: delta(co2) = co2(t)-co2(t-5 years), in ppm

2) When seeing the curve I can notice the following:

i) the Mauna Loa and South Pole data are remarkably consistent,

ii)there are several successive trends for delta (co2):

- a rapid growth from the beginning to ca 1982

- a slower growth from 1982 to 1992

- a trough from 1992 to 1997

- a resumed growth from 1997 to 2005, slower than between 1957 and 1982 but still sustained.

Considering those successive trends (making armchair/Excel analyses I would tend to correlate the initial rapid growth to the rapid growth in burning fossil fuels in the 1960s, and the 1992-1997 trough to a combined effect of Pinatubo eruption and USSR collapse; but I’m not an expert and I’m sure more serious analyses have been done) I would say that neither the linear trend nor the log trend fits adequately. The linear regression is just a tool for quantifying the overall trend (positive, with a significant correlation), with all its shortcomings. But I think the log regression has the same shortcomings, plus one additional adjustment parameter (initial time). So:

- Tim would be right in noticing that the delta(co2) growth rate is lower in 1997-2004 compared with 1957-1982,

- but an overall and continuing decreasing tendency (of delta co2 growth rate) is not established.

Best

Yves
#79 Tim Curtin
March 25, 2008

BBL: you are just a schoolyard bully. Stop armwaving and admit (for no doubt the first time in your life) that you are wrong, in this case to accuse me falsely thus:

I said (#69) “… burning fossil fuels releases H2O and CO2 that have been buried for billennia”,

BBL said at #74: “H2O and CO2 don’t have bi-products released by fossil fuel burning; they ARE the bi-products of fossil fuel burning”.

YES OF COURSE, THAT IS EXACTLY WHAT I SAID.
#80 Tim Curtin
March 25, 2008

Yves: I agree with your assessment, with just one qualification: inserting YET in what you said “an overall and continuing decreasing tendency (of delta co2 growth rate) is not YET established”. Wait for this solar cycle to kick in fully! (both Paris and Canberra have been unseasonably cool for the last couple of weeks, I’ve been in both in that period!).

Best

Tim
#81 guthrie
March 25, 2008

Tim, you need to brush up on your reading comprehension.

You said:
“”… burning fossil fuels releases H2O and CO2 that have been buried for billennia”,”

The CO2 and water have not been buried for millenia.
#82 sod
March 25, 2008

i don t think that anything that i say can discredit Tim Curtin more than his own words/claims.

so i ll keep this short again:

1. you analysis of CO2 vs food (page 20 of the Submission to the Garnaut Review “paper” is horrible).

but let us get back on topic and do the “Curtin-Beck-analysis” of food production during the last centuries BACKWARDS.
according to the unite wisdom of the two of you, food production PEAKED (!!!) in the 1940s and was even higher in 1830!

2. you still do NOT understand Henry’s law at all. yes,cooler oceans can take up MORE CO2. but the conclusion you draw from this is completely false and far from scientific. (you know, you need to do some calculations and can t hand wave this, don t you?!?)

3. your remark on the Einstein – CO2 connection was simply false. my best advice is to just admit it.

4. you might want to reread your comment #189. (you probably are …)

http://tinyurl.com/3ddu7d

5. let me close with this priceless Tim Curtin quote:

Dear sod/bi, show me the equivalent formulae for wind/solar and prove their equal yield in terms of FREE water and CO2.

(world definitely depends on the water produced by burning fossil fuels…)
#83 Jeff Harvey
March 25, 2008

Tim Curtin said, “both Paris and Canberra have been unseasonably cool for the last couple of weeks”. Sigh. The same ‘let’s confuse weather with climate’ chestnut. In this case taken to extreme: short-term and very local conditions. What Tim did not add was that western Europe has had another unseasonably mild winter; in parts of Russia its been one of the warmest on record. March has also been very warm in Australia.

Tim, ya gotta stop pickin’ those cherries.
#84 Ian Gould
March 25, 2008

Jeff, the sad thing is that Tim would be the first one insisting that it’s simply absurd to seize on a single anomalously hot period (like Adelaide recently) as evidence of global warming.

Or perhaps he feels the need to tell us all that he’s been to Paris.

Poor old Tim.
#85 Bernard J.
March 25, 2008

Harold Pierce Jnr.

Surprising as it probably will be to all reading this thread, I am in concurrence with you on one point: I also believe that the energy density and transportability embodied in fossil carboniferous fuels is one of the inescapable fundamentals upon which modern societies are based, and it is an enormously complex challenge to overcome, if it is actually possible to do without substantial reorganisation of said societies.

We part company soon after though with respect to the continuing unfettered availability of oil and even of coal. My observation of the prices at the local fuel station reinforces what I told my laughing friends several years ago, and not a one of them is laughing now… The much derided ‘scaremongering’ of peak oil is materialising before our eyes (for heaven’s sake, even Time Curtin employs this concept in his graphs), and there is much considered expert opinion that vehemently contradicts your premise that we have endless supplies of coal – tear yourself from your SASOL fixation and read a little more widely, and with an open mind, and you might find food for thought.

And on Tim C’s infatuation with the geological origin and recharging of carboniferous fuels, if there were even a hint that such existed (isotopic contradictions aside), we’d be seeing replenishment that just hasn’t materialised to date.

Perhaps though this is because we are not using the correct instrumentation to measure it. Given Beck’s capacity for using instrumentation to alter the input of chemicals into the atmosphere, he might be similarly able to work wonders with arranging the appearance of ‘new’ carboniferous fuel in the lithosphere…

Harold, there are probably other issues pertaining to humanity’s energetic predilection that we would agree upon, but this thread is not the forum in which to gnaw upon that bone. I simply acknowledge this possible common ground so that you understand that I am not merely opposing everything you state simple for the sake of it.

Now…

I certainly understand the difference between “[r]eal air vs standard dry air”. You are simply trying to avoid a simple question – is it possible to determine a mean atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide? I will be generous and even allow you to state the standard deviation that you believe is most likely to arise with such a determination.

As to the bee you have in your bonnet about three consecutive days with a minimum temperature of -0.6 ºC, can you explain exactly, for the benefit of all those reading who haven’t gone to sleep yet, just what your problem is with this? I note that two of those days had the same maximum (13.3 ºC) as well: do you have an issue with this?

FYI I was an analytical chemist and biochemist for many years (university and hospital), and I have taught both analytical chemistry and biochemistry at tertiary level, aside from teaching at least four other different biological disciplines. I have worked in tumour immunology research (5 years), run a clinical pharmacology trial (four years), and worked on too many other immunology projects to list. I have three degrees to date, and I am finishing a PhD in ecology, a field I have worked in for ten years. I have used many of “the old chemical measurements”, and I have used “wet chemical methods” for the full gamut of blood diagnostic and research analyses – I was headhunted by one of the premier institutions in Australia for my expertise in this area. My record for NATA QC tests put me in the top 5% of analysts for the assays I performed.

“All you layman see is the final result”? I do not consider myself a layman in this area, and I am intimately acquainted with every minutia that occurs along the way to a ‘result’. And I can tell you that “quantitave [sic] analysis at the trace levels where the analyte is less than 1% of the sample” is not very difficult – if it were there would have been a trail of death, destruction and general havoc in many of the positions I have worked in.

“Beck’s Bump” is hardly a bump – it is a camel-train of Bactrians marching up hill and down dale. Do you agree with his ‘model’ of CO₂ concentration fluctuations over the last two centuries? And whilst you’re at it, what level of error in his estimations of CO₂ concentrations do you speculate exists, and how does this compare with the error in such that you believe occurs with modern measurements?

You say there is only one greenhouse gas – water. That might be news to a few atmospheric physical chemists I know. And yes, I do know several – one is my neighbour, and we have dinner together once a week, as well as working in the same building. Oh, and he measures ‘analytes’ in air to fractions of ppm. And ‘oh’ again, he spent two years in Antarctica investigating the upper atmosphere – he knows his stuff… Anyway, can you direct me to the peer-reviewed references that definitely discount the greenhouse capacities of carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, ozone and CFCs? My next dinner with my friends will inestimably benefit from your wisdom in this matter.

With respect to your comment “I like this puzzle! Tim should give the first poster of the solution a prize! I have already made a list of candidates”. I am presuming that you are constructing a list of candidate explanations for the series of anomalies that I presented – the exercise is not intended to be a pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey exercise to guess the location of the ‘ candidate’ site used.

I will stop at this point, because the backlog of questions that you are failing to answer will soon become a catalog.
#86 dhogaza
March 25, 2008

TimC made a typo, a minor, insignificant error, but still worth correcting:

And what about McKitrick, ~~Nobel~~ IgNobel material in due time?

There. That’s better.
#87 Harold Pierce Jr
March 25, 2008

RE: #72
Hello Barton Paul!

That number (26%) is just computational speculation and conjecture. Did you check out “Global Warming: A Closer Look at the Numbers”?
#88 Ian Forrester
March 25, 2008

Harold Pierce Jr. said: “FYI I am analytical chemist and I tell you quantitave (sic) analysis at the trace levels where the analyte is less than 1% of the sample is very difficult”.

What sort of an “analytical chemist” are you if you have trouble measuring anything under 1.0%?

When you first starting your pseudo-science nonsense on the various blogs you claimed to be a “Ph.D. organic chemist”. Now you claim to be an analytical chemist.

It is interesting that there is a “Harold Pierce Jr.” who used to be at Simon Fraser Univ in Vancouver. Are you really that person or have you just taken over his identity? I cannot see how anyone who is as ignorant of basic science as you could ever have held a faculty position in a Canadian University Chemistry Department. Do everyone a favour and stop your idiotic ramblings and spreading of junk science. You and Tim Curtin make a fine pair, both completely ignorant of some simple and basic science.
#89 Bernard J.
March 25, 2008

Harold Pierce Jnr.

For pity’s sake.

What with the endless parade of inane statements and pseudo-analyses that percolate from your direction I struggle and struggle not to be convinced that you have a hollowed-out pumpkin for a head with a rusted wind-up mouse for a brain. I too have to wonder whether you are employing a nom-de-plume, because the Internet is unforgiving in documenting one’s follies, and you are leaving a remarkable trail of incriminating idiocy for posterity to ponder upon, as is a certain other troll on this thread.

I have been patient with you only in the hope that the community at Deltoid might educate you on your purported ‘analyses’ which you perform with what are patently inappropriate techniques and statistics. Basically, I presumed that you were a misinformed lay person trying to take on a large body of trained expertise, and making a complete hash of it. Now I wonder…

I have no time for trolls, and up ’til now I have avoided placing you in this category, but you have failed abysmally to address the manifold issues that you have been called upon to account for, and methinks it’s time for into-the-killfile with ye. I have a supervised and colleague/peer-reviewed thesis to complete, and no inclination for now to expend one more iota of time or energy upon the likes of you.

Nevertheless, if you are a fraction of the analyst that you dream you are, you will set about to answer the many questions posed to you that you’ve left lingering on these pages. I (and I’m sure everyone else reading) will expect you to do so, and I will assume that any refusal to do so is a reflection of your underlying confoundedness with respect to climate analysis (or any other type thereof), and of your woeful lack of either formal or informal qualification to engage in such.

If you really are so firmly convinced of your genius, I suggest that you construct a nice (and Wayback-archivable, for the amusement of posterity) website laying out all of your materials, methods, results and discussions, just as Tim C has, and then mosey on over to Realclimate and challenge the likes of Gavin and raypierre et al who have standing in these matters, for them perhaps to review and thusly to admit their woeful inadequacies as scientists, scholars and gentlemen.

Imagine it… Harold Pierce Jnr, hunkered in his basement with his pencils and t-tests, smites – nay, demolishes – the might of the Evil Dogmatic Scientific Establishment, and frees the world from the myth of global warming. A glorious golden dawn of enlightenment will ensue, with much throwing of rose petals and cherry blossoms by diaphanously-swathed nymphs, and Harold the Almighty will be adored for all time for unshackling humanity from the Horrendous Conspiracy of Climate Scientists.

You might have to jostle with one or two others for the privilege though.

Insulsissimus est homo
#90 Harold Pierce Jr
March 25, 2008

RE: #85
Hello Bernard!

See #87. To date the IPCC and its affiliated “scientists” have produced only computational speculation and conjecture, and the so-called “computer modeling experiments” are theoretical computational exercises and don’t mean squat. You must surely know that many of the numerical parameters (e.g., forcings and feedback factors) used in climate modeling are not determined by measurements using instruments. These parameters are computed by using various theoretical equations and stat procedures. There are no instruments with requisite sensitivity and accuracy that can measure these values. For example, what instrument can measure a forcing of 0.01 of watt per square meter for linear contrails?

I should have said, “There is one and only one important greenhouse gas: water vapor aka steam” Real air has one very important property and that is this: Real air always has water vapor. And it doesn’t need any help from the molecular slug CO2 to produce and regulate the greenhouse effect.

“Anyway, can you direct me to the peer-reviewed references that definitely discount the greenhouse capacities of carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, ozone and CFCs? My next dinner with my friends will inestimably benefit from your wisdom in this matter”.

See #66. M. Hieb is a professional engineer and what he posted does not need peer review. BTW peer review does not mean anything these days. If it did, there would be none of this climate change claptrap and global warming gobblygook!

Why would you ever get a Ph.D. in ecology? There ain’t no money in that field.
#91 Harold Pierce Jr
March 25, 2008

RE: #88
Hello Ian!

I never held a faculty position at SFU. Google, H. D. Pierce, Jr. I worked in the Chemical Ecology Research Group. We isolated, identified and synthesized insect pheromones. My boss was Prof. John H. Borden. The group no longer exists since everbody has retired.

“What sort of an “analytical chemist” are you if you have trouble measuring anything under 1.0%?”

Quantitative measurment at the trace (PPM) and ultra trace levels (PPB and PPT) is no piece of cake. It very difficult to do. I am organic analytical chemist. Insects usually have nanogram quanities of pheromone(s).

I ain’t going away, and I’m going be in your face until all of this global warming nonsense collapses! Aa a matter of fact the Ice Age has cometh.

BTW: The guys at DeSmogBlog are unwitting PR agents of the ultra secret European Illuminati. Anybody interested in this theory?
#92 Harold Pierce Jr
March 25, 2008

RE: #89
Hello Benard!

Actually I only work now-and-then on the climate stuff. Presently I working on my new theory of poker: The Potential for Action of Poker Games.

Another project involves a new variation of poker code named STUD435.

When I not am doing the above, I’m playing in no-limit Texas Hold’em poker tournaments.
#93 Ian Forrester
March 25, 2008

HPJ said: “The guys at DeSmogBlog are unwitting PR agents of the ultra secret European Illuminati. Anybody interested in this theory?”

Harold, I have exactly zero interest in any “theory” you propose. The only reason I respond to your posts is to show how dishonest you are. You do not know what you are talking about and only post lies, distortions and obfuscations. You are a disgrace to the chemical profession.
#94 Yves
March 25, 2008

Hi all,

Far from this agitation, I made a visit to the old man in a cave

fergusbrown.wordpress.com

who IMHO needs it (some hiccup, and regrets not having commented sooner in his blog) …

Best

Yves
#95 Max Lini
March 25, 2008

You people here are really very entertaining to read. Keep up the good work!
#96 z
March 25, 2008

“Yes I do stand by those figures, just as much as the IPCC projects wildly into the future ignoring logarithimic effect of CO2 on temperature”

hmmmmm:
“Note that for CO2, RF increases logarithmically with mixing ratio.” < http://ipcc-wg1.ucar.edu/wg1/Report/AR4WG1_Print_Ch02.pdf>

is that some sort of clever way of saying you don’t stand by those figures, then?

#97 Lee
March 25, 2008

OK, Harold Pierce I’ve got figured out. There is no shortage of retired scientists wandering charmingly over their heads into a new field in their dotage.

Tim Curtin is more disturbing. Having just wandered over to his web site, I’m not sure of its more alarming to think that he doesn’t actually believe that stuff, is making it up, and actually expects that it will convince anyone, or that he DOES believe it himself. This dotage is not charming.
#98 z
March 25, 2008

“Solar and wind power do not yield the release of free long stored H2O and CO2 bye-products. Those pesky molecules are included in Eisntein’s equation but are largely absent from the formulae for solar and wind power. Strange as it may seem to bi/sod, H2O and CO2 are not pollutants but esential to life. My Garnaut Submission gave the formulae for propane and jet fuel that prove my point here. Dear sod/bi, show me the equivalent formulae for wind/solar and prove their equal yield in terms of FREE water and CO2.”

At last! scientific proof debunking the myth that there was life on earth billions of years ago! obviously, there cannot have been any life on earth before adam and eve started burning things!
#99 Ian Gould
March 25, 2008

“I ain’t going away, and I’m going be in your face until all of this global warming nonsense collapses! Aa a matter of fact the Ice Age has cometh.”

Isn’t it amusing how the people how rail about global warming “alarmism” in the face of a mountain of evidence are themselves wildly alarmist about “global cooling” and the economic catastrophe that supposedly awaits us as a result of attempts to reduce GHG emissions.
#100 z
March 25, 2008

“There is no shortage of retired scientists wandering charmingly over their heads into a new field in their
dotage”

Hmmm again. I think I’ve got it; there will always be fossil fuels, if the fossils are of bemused elder statesmen of science.

Seriously, how does our need for an infinite source of fossil fuels without negative side effects thereby prove the inexhaustibility of same? Without an appeal to benevolent deity?