BP - before present .
Posted on 02/02/2004 12:16:15 PM PST by presidio9
UK scientists claim they now know how Earth recovered on its own from a sudden episode of severe global warming at the time of the dinosaurs. Understanding what happened could help experts plan for the future impact of man-made global warming, experts say.
Rock erosion may have leached chemicals into the sea, where they combined with carbon dioxide, causing levels of the greenhouse gas to fall worldwide.
UK scientists report the details of their research in the journal Geology.
About 180 million years ago, temperatures on Earth rapidly shot up by about 5 Celsius.
The cause is thought to have been a sudden release of huge amounts of methane from the sea bed. Methane is itself a greenhouse gas but it is short-lived.
However, it is easily oxidised to carbon dioxide (CO2) which lingers in the atmosphere for long periods of time.
Mass extinction
Plants and animals were affected by the sudden rise in atmospheric CO2. Scientists have found evidence of a marine mass extinction during this period that killed off 84% of bivalve shellfish.
Over a period of about 150,000 years, the Earth returned to normal and life continued flourishing. How this happened was a mystery, but now scientists from the Open University in Milton Keynes claim to have a possible answer.
"Our new evidence has shown that this warming caused the weathering of rocks on the Earth's surface to rapidly increase by at least 400%," said Dr Anthony Cohen, who led the research.
"This intense rock-weathering effectively put a brake on global warming through chemical reactions that consumed the atmosphere's extra carbon dioxide."
They discovered that the rock had been subjected to high rates of weathering facilitated by warm conditions during the Jurassic hot spell.
'Methane burp'
Weathering occurs through the action of rain. Although the researchers did not uncover direct evidence for increased precipitation, they believe there were no limitations on water during the period.
The warm conditions caused by the "methane burp" would have sped up the rate at which weathering occurred. This led to minerals such as calcium and magnesium eroding from rocks and pouring into the sea.
Calcium combined with CO2, for instance, would have caused the precipitation of calcium carbonate. This process of CO2 consumption would have lowered levels of the greenhouse gas on a global scale.
As CO2 levels fell, so did global temperatures.
"Global warming is affecting the climate today, but it's very difficult to predict what's going to happen," Dr Cohen told BBC News Online.
"The reason for doing these studies is that you get the whole history. If you learn what happened then, that can inform how you deal with [the same problem] in future."
Dr Cohen added that there are still vast reserves of carbon - possibly as much as 14,000 gigatons - locked up as methane ice in ocean sediments.
If global temperatures reach a critical point, it is possible they might suddenly be released into the atmosphere causing a similar event to the one that occurred during the Jurassic.
"What we have learned from these rocks is how the Earth can, over a long time, combat global warming. What we need to discover now is why and at what point it goes into combat mode, and precisely how long the conflict takes to resolve," he explained.
Dr Cohen and his colleagues based their results on studies of mudrock rich in organic material and collected near Whitby in North Yorkshire.
BP - before present .
Who'd have thought that Taco Bell had submersible franchises that long ago?
LOL you'd never tell it from the article.
Science - Never hedge a good story with the facts.
Not trying to make fun of methane burps, which I take very seriously (especially in small cars when the windows won't go down), but today I'm more concerned about the fact that global warming is actually making things colder where I live right now.
Some CO2 history from the Vostok ice cores ---appears to cycle
Some temperature trends from the Vostok ice cores --- also appears to cycle.
LOL, only problem is temperature increases occur before the increases in CO2.
Increased temperatures from deep iceages leads to growth of biomass & warming of oceans releasing higher concentrations of CO2 into the atmosphere.
- "(1) correlation does not prove causation, (2) cause must precede effect, and (3) when attempting to evaluate claims of causal relationships between different parameters, it is important to have as much data as possible in order to weed out spurious correlations.
***
Consider, for example, the study of Fischer et al. (1999), who examined trends of atmospheric CO2 and air temperature derived from Antarctic ice core data that extended back in time a quarter of a million years. Over this extended period, the three most dramatic warming events experienced on earth were those associated with the terminations of the last three ice ages; and for each of these climatic transitions, earth's air temperature rose well in advance of any increase in atmospheric CO2. In fact, the air's CO2 content did not begin to rise until 400 to 1,000 years after the planet began to warm. Such findings have been corroborated by Mudelsee (2001), who examined the leads/lags of atmospheric CO2 concentration and air temperature over an even longer time period, finding that variations in atmospheric CO2 concentration lagged behind variations in air temperature by 1,300 to 5,000 years over the past 420,000 years."[ see also: Indermuhle et al. (2000), Monnin et al. (2001), Yokoyama et al. (2000), Clark and Mix (2000) ]
- "Other studies periodically demonstrate a complete uncoupling of CO2 and temperature "
[see: Petit et al. (1999), Staufer et al. (1998), Cheddadi et al., (1998), Raymo et al., 1998, Pagani et al. (1999), Pearson and Palmer (1999), Pearson and Palmer, (2000) ]
- "Considered in their entirety, these several results present a truly chaotic picture with respect to any possible effect that variations in atmospheric CO2 concentration may have on global temperature. Clearly, atmospheric CO2 is not the all-important driver of global climate change the climate alarmists make it out to be."
Global warming and global dioxide emission and concentration:
a Granger causality analysis
- "We find, in opposition to previous studies, that there is no evidence of Granger causality from global carbon dioxide emission to global surface temperature. Further, we could not find robust empirical evidence for the causal nexus from global carbon dioxide concentration to global surface temperature."
I would submit that global warming is relative and the current cold temperatures over the last 2 million years or so is not Earth-normal.
It's just the cycle (cirle?) of life. Things come, things go. There is no good, no bad, just what is.
Perhaps the planet needs to divest itself of most life and restart every few millennia to keep itself in balance.
Or do you think humanity is somehow so important as to be worthy of changing the cycle?
Shalom.
Researchers at Woods Hole Institute have been theorizing that global warming could have a deleterious effect on the Gulf Stream for years.
The collapse of the ice dams holding Lake Agazzis was the 'trip-wire' for the Younger-Dryas 8BC event, that is used to infer the possibility of such a catastrophe today.
Fortunately there are no analogs of Lake Agazzis and it's ice dams left to perform the same task today. They have all melted from the 10oC warming across the last 10,000yrs that brought to our current climate conditions.
It began as an obscure theory from the fringes of scientific thinking on climate, the idea that `global warming' could conspire to plunge Europe and the northeast of North America into a new ice age - and do so within our lifetimes.
The theory basically says that an increasing influx of fresh water into the North Atlantic `could' disrupt the natural sinking of salt water in the Arctic seas off Norway which draws warmer water from the south - the Gulf Stream which warms Europe. With no Gulf Stream, Europe `could' plunge into similar climatic conditions as those of Labrador, Canada, which is on similar latitudes. In other words, global warming could trigger a new ice age in Europe.
And the precedent for this outlandish scenario? 10,700 years ago, such an event did occur - the `Younger Dryas', where humungous floods of fresh water running off the melting ice caps over North America and Europe did freshen the North Atlantic sufficiently to shut down the Gulf Stream for about 300 years. Once these ice caps had melted away, the North Atlantic became sufficiently salty again to allow the Gulf Stream to re-establish itself.
But where will these enormous quantities of fresh water come from today? The industry says, coyly, `more rainfall' - from global warming. This is an absurd proposition because no amount of rain could rival the massive melt-water runoff that occurred during the Younger Dryas. If the Gulf Stream were weakening, there would be an expansion of Arctic sea ice into the high North Atlantic where the Gulf Stream finally sinks to the ocean depths, returning via the ocean floor. But no such ice expansion is taking place. Indeed, some scientists claim that sea ice is shrinking, not expanding, which suggests the Gulf Stream is as strong, or stronger, than ever.
It's certainly worth studying.
It has been repeatedly, google "Younger Dryass", or "Lake Agazzis" you will find endless such studies.
I would submit that global warming is relative and the current cold temperatures over the last 2 million years or so is not Earth-normal.
|
Global Surface Temperature and Atmospheric CO2 over Geologic Time
Late Carboniferous to Early Permian time (315 mya -- 270 mya) is the only time period in the last 600 million years when both atmospheric CO2 and temperatures were as low as they are today (Quaternary Period ). Temperature after C.R. Scotese
|
Geological timescales and human timescales are clearly different by several orders of magnitude. I hope that there will still be humans alive on Earth in 150,000 years.
"The cycling is bounded by ~180 ppm and ~300 ppm over the past 420,000 years," Tom said geo-logically.
~180 ppm and ~300 ppm over the past 420,000 years
Hmmm, don't forget lagging temperature changes by more than 400 years.
- Consider, for example, the study of Fischer et al. (1999), who examined trends of atmospheric CO2 and air temperature derived from Antarctic ice core data that extended back in time a quarter of a million years. Over this extended period, the three most dramatic warming events experienced on earth were those associated with the terminations of the last three ice ages; and for each of these climatic transitions, earth's air temperature rose well in advance of any increase in atmospheric CO2. In fact, the air's CO2 content did not begin to rise until 400 to 1,000 years after the planet began to warm. Such findings have been corroborated by Mudelsee (2001), who examined the leads/lags of atmospheric CO2 concentration and air temperature over an even longer time period, finding that variations in atmospheric CO2 concentration lagged behind variations in air temperature by 1,300 to 5,000 years over the past 420,000 years."
[ see also: Indermuhle et al. (2000), Monnin et al. (2001), Yokoyama et al. (2000), Clark and Mix (2000) ]
- "Other studies periodically demonstrate a complete uncoupling of CO2 and temperature "
[see: Petit et al. (1999), Staufer et al. (1998), Cheddadi et al., (1998), Raymo et al., 1998, Pagani et al. (1999), Pearson and Palmer (1999), Pearson and Palmer, (2000) ]
In short changes in atmospheric CO2 levels and temperature effect in todays climate cannot be assigned to human agency with any certainty,
Human Contribution to Climate Change Remains Questionable
S. Fred Singer
EOS, Transactions, American Geophysical Society, Vol 80, page 183-187, April 20, 1999
http://www.sepp.org/scirsrch/EOS1999.html
and any greenhouse warming effect with regard to CO2 changes are speculative at best
" There is no dispute at all about the fact that even if punctiliously observed, (the Kyoto Protocol) would have an imperceptible effect on future temperatures -- one-twentieth of a degree by 2050. "
Dr. S. Fred Singer, atmospheric physicist
Professor Emeritus of Environmental Sciences at the University of Virginia,
and former director of the US Weather Satellite Service;
in a Sept. 10, 2001 Letter to Editor, Wall Street Journal
and negligible in the overwhelming effect of water vapor in the atmosphere.
Anthropogenic (man-made) Contribution to the "Greenhouse
Effect," expressed as % of Total (water vapor INCLUDED)
Based on concentrations (ppb) adjusted for heat retention characteristics % of All Greenhouse Gases % Natural
% Man-made
Water vapor 95.000% 94.999%
0.001% Carbon Dioxide (CO2) 3.618% 3.502%
0.117% Methane (CH4) 0.360% 0.294%
0.066% Nitrous Oxide (N2O) 0.950% 0.903%
0.047% Misc. gases ( CFC's, etc.) 0.072% 0.025%
0.047% Total 100.00% 99.72
0.28%
The reality is a doubling in a hundred years of atmospheric CO2 concentration over current levels, that the UN/IPCC "story line" pretends,
http://www.pacificresearch.org/pub/cap/2003/cap_03-02-20.html
"The Economist, which provides the best environmental reporting of any major news source, carried a small story last week about a simple methodological error in the latest U.N. global warming report that has huge implications. The article, "Hot Potato: The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Had Better Check Its Calculations" (February 15 print edition), reviews the work of two Australian statisticians who note an anomaly in the way the IPCC estimated world carbon dioxide emissions for the 21st century."
......
"The IPCC's method has the effect of vastly overestimating future economic growth (and, therefore, CO2 emissions) by developing nations. The fine print of the IPCC's projections, for example, calls for the real per-capita incomes of Argentina, South Africa, Algeria, Turkey, and even North Korea to surpass real per-capita income in the United States by the end of the century. Algeria? North Korea? The IPCC must be inhaling its own emissions to believe this."
even if it were true, could not induce significant temperature change whatever its source.
Climate Catastrophe, A spectroscopic Artifact?
"It is hardly to be expected that for CO2 doubling an increment of IR absorption at the 15 µm edges by 0.17% can cause any significant global warming or even a climate catastrophe.
The radiative forcing for doubling can be calculated by using this figure. If we allocate an absorption of 32 W/m2 [14] over 180º steradiant to the total integral (area) of the n3 band as observed from satellite measurements (Hanel et al., 1971) and applied to a standard atmosphere, and take an increment of 0.17%, the absorption is 0.054 W/m2 - and not 4.3 W/m2.
This is roughly 80 times less than IPCC's radiative forcing.
If we allocate 7.2 degC as greenhouse effect for the present CO2 (as asserted by Kondratjew and Moskalenko in J.T. Houghton's book The Global Climate [14]), the doubling effect should be 0.17% which is 0.012 degC only. If we take 1/80 of the 1.2 degC that result from Stefan-Boltzmann's law with a radiative forcing of 4.3 W/m2, we get a similar value of 0.015 degC."
The impact of substantive effects of rising solar activity since the Maunder Minimum (Little Iceage 1700's), is hardly negligible as the UN/IPCC global warming folks would have the world believe cogitatator. The IPCC modelers continue to find it necessary to reduce the role of CO2 in their models as more information about essential causes of warming are uncovered by measurements as opposed to hypothysized climate model guess factors.
Change in Life is inevitable and constant. The Global Warmists need to study more. But what am I saying...this is about getting noticed and power, not real science.
"Global warming" is a socialist politcalploy to destroy the US/capitalistic society.
The basis of global warming models:
Ramanthan (Journal of Geophysical Review, vol. 84, pp. 4949-4958) states:
"the direct radiative effects of doubled CO2 can cause a maximum surface warming [at the equator] of about 0.2 K, and hence roughly 90% of the 2.0-2.5 K surface warming obtained by the GCM is caused by atmospheric feedback processes described above."
In otherwords, CHAOS, butterflies create hurricanes by multiplying CO2 specific heat changes 10 times and more over that of any other possible source of thermal variation.
The atmospheric "feedback processes described" are those implemented into UN/IPCC climate models. They constitute speculative mechanisms at best, presumptive at worst, by which the atmosphere might respond to changes in radiative heat balance. None are based in any measured direct or parametric relation. Sensitivity (i.e. instability in the model) is inferred to cause a greater change than the initiating power input to the system.
A good read:
The Non-Science
of Global Warming
By Robert E. Stevenson, Ph.D. *
Published in 21 st Century Science & Technology magazine
(Winter 1996-97 edition, Vol. 9 No. 4, pp. 51-59)
http://mitosyfraudes.8k.com/INGLES/ocean-1.html
Along with the Douglas V. Hoyt's(Senior Scientist with Raytheon/ITSS) essay on the subject:
http://users.erols.com/dhoyt1/
But how does the current ~370 ppmv from air samples compare to current CO2 samples in ice ? The latest ice samples I saw are from 2000 yeas ago.
How can we say the air samples are too high without knowing that correlation ?
I do not think we can, without question, say a 370 ppmv air sample is significantly higher than an ice sample deposited 400,000 years ago without having a correlation between CO2 in air and CO2 in ice .
Also, what is the uniformity of CO2 in air samples across the entire earth surface --- I suspect there is considerable variation.
How can we say the air samples are too high without knowing that correlation ?
We can't! More importantly, what does a CO2 concentration above 300ppm matter?
Temperature change precedes the change in CO2 concentrations throughout the record. This indicates the CO2 concentrations are an effect not a fundamental cause of temperature change.
Furthermore it is well established that even a doubling of CO2 concentrations from current levels,(were such even possible) can only induce change in temperature well below the noise of normal weather as opposed to climate. On a hundred year basis it would not even be noticed through the noise that normally exists in the weather record.
Ramanthan (Journal of Geophysical Review, vol. 84, pp. 4949-4958) states:
"the direct radiative effects of doubled CO2 can cause a maximum surface warming [at the equator] of about 0.2 K, and hence roughly 90% of the 2.0-2.5 K surface warming obtained by the GCM is caused by atmospheric feedback processes described above."
The UN/IPCC models selectively multiply changes in heat balance for changes in CO2 concentration, a sensitivity 10 times and more over the sensitivity of other thermal inputs.
In otherwords, butterflies create hurricanes but dragon flies don't.
This is a gross discrepency that is shoved under the snowstorm of the global warming hype pushing minority components of the atmosphere as having an overwhelming and dispropotionate role in affecting climate.
Anthropogenic (man-made) Contribution to the "Greenhouse
Effect," expressed as % of Total (water vapor INCLUDED)
| Based on concentrations (ppb) adjusted for heat retention characteristics | % of All Greenhouse Gases |
% Natural |
% Man-made |
| Water vapor | 95.000% |
94.999% |
0.001% |
| Carbon Dioxide (CO2) | 3.618% |
3.502% |
0.117% |
| Methane (CH4) | 0.360% |
0.294% |
0.066% |
| Nitrous Oxide (N2O) | 0.950% |
0.903% |
0.047% |
| Misc. gases ( CFC's, etc.) | 0.072% |
0.025% |
0.047% |
| Total | 100.00% |
99.72 |
0.28% |
A most important statement --- that is usually missing from the press statements.
Years ago a PhD from Harvard or Yale was leading the publicity charge about the dangers of fertilizer runoff from farms destroying the environment .
Several communities and states were starting to pass laws regulating the amount of fertilizer farmers could apply.
It took a couple of years for the fertilizer industry to gather the necessary data -- but they got him at a national convention and publically shot his theories down in flames. --- He was quiet for a couple of years and then roared back on the national scene promoting energy concervation ---this activity was good, but it appeared he was mainly seeking publicity. --- Passing fertilizer laws suddenly quieted down.
Hmmm, don't forget lagging temperature changes by more than 400 years.
Irrelevant to the current climate situation, AG, and we've been over this ground before. I will also reply to gatex regarding the accuracy of the CO2 measurement. While I have repeatedly shown that the atmospheric CO2 concentration has a significant effect on climate and Earth's temperature, you have attempted to downplay it's significance (which is fine). However, what is significant about the present-day situation is that the atmospheric CO2 concentration is exceeding that 180-300 ppm envelope that existed for 420,000 years (as we have seen) by 70ppm and rising. There is an appearance of correlation with the rising global temperatures over the past 25 years.
I know that your position is that solar variability may be responsible for the recent increase in global temperatures, but this is a minority position with little experimental data to support it, and there are good lines of evidence from several sources which indicate that it is not a major factor at present.
In short changes in atmospheric CO2 levels and temperature effect in todays climate cannot be assigned to human agency with any certainty,
I sincerely hope that you are not trying to say that the current increase in atmospheric CO2 concentrations which has been occurring since the mid-1800s is mostly a natural climate effect! I hope not, because that position is laughably easy to refute. The temperature correlation may be debatable, but it is still well-supported.
I'll skip the rest of your tiresomely repetitive posting to get to the bottom summary:
The impact of substantive effects of rising solar activity since the Maunder Minimum (Little Iceage 1700's), is hardly negligible as the UN/IPCC global warming folks would have the world believe cogitatator. The IPCC modelers continue to find it necessary to reduce the role of CO2 in their models as more information about essential causes of warming are uncovered by measurements as opposed to hypothysized climate model guess factors.
As has been discussed, and more recently shown, the solar effect is primarily an early 20th-century effect. And please show where the "IPCC modelers" have found it necessary to reduce the role of CO2 in their models. In fact, I would like you to respond directly to this article:
Ocean Sponging Up Some Warmth Over the Next 50 Years
Most relevant paragraph:
"One of the leading reports on climate change, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report of 2001, suggests that between the years 1990 and 2100 the world's average temperature will rise between 0.6 and 2.5 °C or 1.1 and 4.5 °F. "The enhanced GCM shows that the average global temperature would rise between 0.4 and 1.2 °C (between 0.7 and 2.2 °F) through the year 2050, for plausible increases of greenhouse gases," Sun said."
Note that the decrease in projected global temperature is not due to a reduction in the role of CO2, it is due to an increase in the ocean's heat storage capacity.
Quoting from:
"Dual modes of the carbon cycle since the Last Glacial Maximum" Smith et al., Nature, 400, 348-250, 1999.
(delta and sigma cannot be copied; I put in d and s, but I may have missed a couple.)
All samples were taken from Taylor Dome, Antarctica (770° 48' S, 158° 43' E, elevation 2,374 m), drilled in 1993/94. The methods used for determining the CO2 concentration of air trapped in ice and the measurement of its carbon-isotope composition are described in detail elsewhere22,23. CO2 concentration measurements have an internal precision of 3 p.p.m.v. (2) and are calculated by comparison to three standards of precisely known compositions which are run with every sample. The Craig-corrected24 carbon-isotope measurements, performed on our VG Prism II isotope ratio mass spectrometer, have a 1s precision of 0.075, based on numerous analyses of the CO2 separated from an atmospheric air standard exposed to uncrushed ice, in order to simulate the conditions of a sample run and to check for fractionation during extraction. d13CO2 is reported in normal notation as the per mil difference between the isotopic composition of the sample and standard VPDB carbon, [(13C/12C)sample/ (13C/12C)VPDB - 1] 1,000).
The d13CO2 values reported here have been corrected for the gravitational separation of gases of different masses in the firn, and for the presence of N2O (which results in isobaric interferences with CO2 during mass spectrometry). Gravitational separation in the firn25,26 was determined by using the values of d15N2 of air trapped in Taylor Dome ice from Sucher27, following the approach of Sowers and Bender28. The gravitational correction for d13CO2 is 0.005 per m. C-isotope data are corrected for the presence of N2O on the basis of calibrations performed in our laboratory on CO2–N2O mixtures. The N2O concentrations of atmospheric air used for this correction, adapted from Leuenberger and Siegenthaler29, are linear interpolations of the following concentrations and dates: 275 p.p.b. (0–9.25 yr BP), 200 p.p.b. (16.1–27.2 kyr BP). The N2O correction is 0.001 per p.p.b. of N2O. The total 1 uncertainty in the reported d13CO2 of a single sample, including uncertainties in the gravitational and N2O corrections, is 0.085. Duplicate analyses of samples with air ages of 2.19 and 17.2 kyr BP have a 1s uncertainty of 0.060 and a triplicate analysis of the sample with an air age of 27.4 kyr BP has a 1s uncertainty of 0.049. The depth–age scale and air age–ice age differences were calculated using a combination of flow modelling, correlating variations in the d18O of the ice with the well-dated GISP2, and matching atmospheric CH4 concentrations and d18O of O2 with variations seen in GISP230
References 22 and 23 are
22. Wahlen, M., Allen, D. & Deck, B. Initial measurements of CO2 concentrations (1530 to 1940 AD) in air occluded in the GISP 2 ice core from central Greenland. Geophys. Res. Lett. 18, 1457-1460 (1991), and
23. Smith, H. J., Wahlen, M., Mastroianni, D. & Taylor, K. C. The CO2concentration of air trapped in GISP2 ice from the LGM-Holocene transition. Geophys. Res. Lett. 24, 1-4.
Essentially, if you think that the ice core/bubble CO2 measurements are not directly comparable with current atmospheric CO2 concentration measurements, you would do well to check with the scientists doing the measurements. Given the way that dedicated and knowledgeable scientists perform these analyses and cross-check them several different ways, and given the scrutiny that such important measurements have been given by research groups for which the data is essential input to other analyses, such as climate modeling studies, I am fairly confident that the paleo-CO2 concentration data from ice cores is accurate and comparable to present-day atmospheric concentrations. If you are interested in learning more, I think that you should attempt to track down reference 22 and report what it says to us.
Project ---"Project Description:
" The main purpose of this work was to measure the concentration and carbon-isotopic composition (d13CO2) of atmospheric CO2 from air trapped in ice over the interval between 27 and 1.3 thousand years before the present from Taylor Dome, Antarctica, in order to investigate the causes of the CO2 concentration increase which occurred during the transition between the last glacial maximum (LGM) and the Holocene. The d13CO2 data were collected between 09 February 1998 and 25 May 1998. The CO2 concentration data were collected between 07 January 1998 and 29 July 1998. All measurements were made in the laboratory of Martin Wahlen, at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California, San Diego, in La Jolla, California. "
Ref 22 appears to be measuring CO2 in > 1000 year old samples.
My point is I would like to see a comparison between atmospheric CO2 and the CO2 in the ice for the same point in time --- for example--measure the atmospheric CO2 and then one year and five years later, measure the CO2 in the ice to see if they are the same.
There is no question that the analysis of the CO2 in the ice is precise.
While I have repeatedly shown that the atmospheric CO2 concentration has a significant effect on climate and Earth's temperature, you have attempted to downplay it's significance (which is fine).
The lack of significance of the role CO2 plays is the whole issue.
The basis of the UN/IPCC global warming models:
Ramanthan (Journal of Geophysical Review, vol. 84, pp. 4949-4958) states:
"the direct radiative effects of doubled CO2 can cause a maximum surface warming [at the equator] of about 0.2 K, and hence roughly 90% of the 2.0-2.5 K surface warming obtained by the GCM is caused by atmospheric feedback processes described above."
However, what is significant about the present-day situation is that the atmospheric CO2 concentration is exceeding that 180-300 ppm envelope that existed for 420,000 years (as we have seen) by 70ppm and rising.
Since the relationship between direct radiative effects of CO2 and temperature is logrithmic, even a doubling of atmospheric CO2 can only induce a direct increase in temperature of 0.2oC
Any multiplication the above in isolation to other radiative effects, is merely speculative at best, and an outright deception at its worst. A selective multiplication is not observed nor supported in physical observations of the earths atmosphere.
There is an appearance of correlation with the rising global temperatures over the past 25 years.
I note that government revenues and the national debt of the United States have risen in an exponential manner in the same time frame. Are we to presume the political hot air that has been expended in achieving that observed growth is a cause of global warming?
They are correlated with rise in temperature as closely as any increases in CO2, infact it would be hard to distinguish a difference from the shape of the curves and timing thereof.
Appearance is the key word here, rising temperatures induce increasing CO2 levels through warming of oceans(which you point out as a factor in cooling down the atmosphere), melting glaciers & polar ice, as well as other factors.
As has been amply pointed out before,
(1) correlation does not prove causation,
(2) cause must precede effect, and
(3) when attempting to evaluate claims of causal relationships between different parameters, it is important to have as much data as possible in order to weed out spurious correlations.
Knowing
0.2oC incease can be expected in direct radiative forcing from doubling CO2 concentration, and
70ppm increase is a 23% change in CO2 vs 100% of doubling,
less than 0.07oC can be attributed to that 70ppm advance in CO2 direct radiative forcing in that 25yrs.
Since the relationship is logrithmic the remaining 75% of the doubling pretended to by the IPCC can only be of lesser sensitivity and effect.
At the same time solar activity across the same period can account for much more variation in thermal forcing through primary solar irradiation which is a linear relation, as well as measured changes in low level cloud cover associated with that increasing solar activity.
I sincerely hope that you are not trying to say that the current increase in atmospheric CO2 concentrations which has been occurring since the mid-1800s is mostly a natural climate effect!
Doesn't matter where it comes from the the effect of CO2 on temperature is negligible and cannot even be separated from the inherent noise of natural processes in the time frame of the CO2 increase.
And please show where the "IPCC modelers" have found it necessary to reduce the role of CO2 in their models.
NASA Finds Soot Has Impact On Global Climate
The researchers found the amount of sunlight absorbed by soot was two-to-four times larger than previously assumed. This larger absorption is due in part to the way the tiny carbon particles are incorporated inside other larger particles: absorption is increased by light rays bouncing around inside the larger particle.
According to the researchers, the larger absorption is attributable also to previous underestimates of the amount of soot in the atmosphere. The net result is soot contributes about twice as much to warming the world as had been estimated by the IPCC.
***
Both soot and the light-colored tiny particles, most of which are sulfates, pose problems for air quality around the world. Efforts are beginning to reduce the sulfate aerosols to address air quality issues.
"There is a pitfall, however, in reducing sulfate emissions without simultaneously reducing black carbon emissions," Hansen said. Since soot is black, it absorbs heat and causes warming. Sulfate aerosols are white, reflect sunlight, and cause cooling. At present, the warming and cooling effects of the dark and light particles partially balance.
Global atmospheric black carbon inferred from AERONET
Makiko Sato,*,† James Hansen,*,†‡ Dorothy Koch,*,† Andrew Lacis,*,† Reto Ruedy,*,§ Oleg Dubovik,¶ Brent Holben,¶ Mian Chin,¶ and Tica Novakov
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2003 May 27; 100 (11): 6319–6324
"We find that the amount of BC[BlackCarbon]in current climatologies must be increased by a factor of 2–4 to yield best agreement with AERONET, in the approximation in which BC is externally mixed with other aerosols. The inferred climate forcing by BC, regardless of whether it is internally or externally mixed, is ˜1 W/m2, most of which is probably anthropogenic. This positive forcing (warming) by BC must substantially counterbalance cooling by anthropogenic reflective aerosols. Thus, especially if reflective aerosols such as sulfates are reduced, it is important to reduce BC to minimize global warming.
More to soot, leaves less of the heat balance, i.e. temperature change across the last 25 yars attributable to CO2 sensitivity. Are you denying the role of increasing Soot coupled with reductions in sulphate aerosol production across that period?
Meanwhile on the Solar Activity front,
Conclusions of the Workshop on Ion--Aerosol--Cloud Interactions, CERN, 18--20 April 2001 (view: PDF)
A.W. Wolfendale
"In the case of the current global warming, there is increasing agreement that the climate model fits to the temperature record need to amplify the solar contribution by about a factor 3. The presently-assumed solar contribution is only from the (Lean et al., 1995) direct irradiance changes."
Not even counting additional observations suggesting solar activity related effects on cloud cover through Ion--Aeorsol--Cloud Interactions.
An additional, indirect, solar contribution could either decrease or increase the projections of the anthropogenic effects. (The latter possibility arises since an increased solar attribution during the last century could indicate a steeper anthropogenic rise in recent decades.) The satellite data analysis presented at the workshop by Svensmark indicates a solar cycle correlation with low cloud cover, suggesting that the solar-climate mechanism may involve clouds. Again, at this stage both electromagnetic radiation and GCRs remain as candidates. This may provide the first clue to the long-sought amplification mechanism linking solar and climate variability. However the underlying processes may involve subtleties since the observed solar correlation is confined to low clouds, and the global correlation map of low cloud cover shows no preference for high geomagnetic latitudes – both of which appear to be counter-intuitive at first sight. Vote: The distribution of votes on the question “Does cosmic ray ionization play a role in the climate?” was equally divided between “?” and “Yes”, with zero votes for “No”.
The role attributed to "greenhouse effect" per-se is rapidly deteriorating as measurments on the atmosphere and solar activity point out the substantive errors that are built into the UN/IPCC models as in the two examples above.
The issues are no longer if solar activity contributes more than assumed in the IPCC models, but how solar effects play their role, and how much more of a role should be added for the additional effects observed in cloud formation and lifetime.
By the way, the increased lower level cloud cover associated with increasing solar activity observed by Svensmark, and many others as well since his initial papers, is held by the UN/IPCC modelers to be a source of positive feedback normally attribruted by them to multiplying CO2 direct radiative forcing, as mentioned by Ramanthan above.
It has been shown that other forcings are directly correlated with changes in cloud cover at much higher confidence level than any relation to the "apparent" spurious correlations of CO2 might induce as a multiplying effect. That my friend reduces the hypothesized role that CO2 can be assigned in global climate change.
Most relevant paragraph:
More relavant is:
"One of the leading reports on climate change, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report of 2001, suggests ... "The enhanced GCM shows "
The point being, GCMs are not phyisical measurement nor observations, they are computer models that only demonstrate prejudgements, biases in implementation, and knowledge of process & input parameters, translating the inputs (i.e. "story lines") of their creators.
http://www.pacificresearch.org/pub/cap/2003/cap_03-02-20.html
"The Economist, which provides the best environmental reporting of any major news source, carried a small story last week about a simple methodological error in the latest U.N. global warming report that has huge implications. The article, "Hot Potato: The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Had Better Check Its Calculations" (February 15 print edition), reviews the work of two Australian statisticians who note an anomaly in the way the IPCC estimated world carbon dioxide emissions for the 21st century."
......
"The IPCC's method has the effect of vastly overestimating future economic growth (and, therefore, CO2 emissions) by developing nations. The fine print of the IPCC's projections, for example, calls for the real per-capita incomes of Argentina, South Africa, Algeria, Turkey, and even North Korea to surpass real per-capita income in the United States by the end of the century. Algeria? North Korea? The IPCC must be inhaling its own emissions to believe this."
Note that the decrease in projected global temperature is not due to a reduction in the role of CO2, it is due to an increase in the ocean's heat storage capacity.
LOL, having nothing to due with the many factors, that of necessity, decrease the role assigned to CO2 in acting as a source of radiative forcing.
The ocean's thermal capacity is not selective to the source of warming. Factors such as the recent measurements of the increased roles of soot & solar activity discussed above are not accurately implemented within the UN/IPCC CGMs thus results from them are severly in question.
Observed increases in the true value of radiative forcings due to factors other than CO2 decrease the CGM calculated theoretical sensitivity of CO2 concentrations.
The earths thermal balance is a finite boundry, the sum of its components must remain consistant with measurement. CO2 sensitivity in the models is dependant upon all other factors being accurate. To the degree that more accurate values of other factors add to the total forcing in the model, a step change CO2 concentration must assume a lesser effect to remain consistant with the physics of radiative interactions.
http://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/stories/20030903/
"The enhanced GCM showed the world's oceans were storing heat at a rate of about 0.2 W/m2 in 1951, and in the past 50 years, as atmospheric temperatures warmed, the rate of heat storage increased to about 0.75 W/m2, capturing more heat from the atmosphere. "This increase in ocean heat storage shows that the planet is out of energy balance," Hansen said. "This energy imbalance implies that the atmosphere and ocean will continue to warm over time, so we will see continuing climate change."
Merely a 2 year lagging component of temperature change. A well known effect and nothing new at all.
As atmospheric temperature rises the oceans sink heat, or add heat back where the ocean water is warmer than the atmosphere( high latitudes). The ocean mainly acts as a short term damp to variations. Net result is pick up energy at low latitudes, and tranfer it back to the atmosphere at night and at high latitudes through current transfer from equator towards poles, all with a short lag behind equalibrium.
Once global temperature change levels off or reverses, 95% of equilibrium is again reached within 3 time constants(about 6 years) the timing of a single El-nino cycle.
http://www.ecd.bnl.gov/steve/Empirical.pdf
EMPIRICAL DETERMINATION OF EARTH'S CLIMATE SENSITIVITY
Stephen E Schwartz
Brookhaven National Laboratory
TIME CONSTANT TO REACH THERMAL EQUILIBRIUM
"Exchange of energy from the ocean to the atmosphere is dominated by Stefan-Boltzmann thermal radiation"
"For ocean mixed layer depth 100 m, = 2 to 3 years.
This time constant is short compared to the duration of forcing over the industrial period, so the system is in near equilibrium with a lag of only 2 - 3 years."
Note that the decrease in projected global temperature is not due to a reduction in the role of CO2, it is due to an increase in the ocean's heat storage capacity.
There is no change in "storage capacity" it is merely a change in rate of heat tranfer due to temperature differentials. More energy tranfers to the ocean as atmospheric temperatures rise above ocean surface temp. Within a very short time frame it is also returns back to the atmosphere on temperature declines. If temperature differential between the atmosphere and ocean persists, the heat just transfers to the cooler body until both reach the same temperature.
In other words as long as the atmosphere is warmer than the ocean beneath it the atmosphere will be cooled. The rate of heat transfer(cooling) will increase linearly with the temperature difference between them.
No thermal runaway catastrophe in the works for global warming here. The ocean acts to dampens any such potential and is acts as a negative feedback to whatever is global climate change is in progress.
"This energy imbalance implies that the atmosphere and ocean will continue to warm over time, so we will see continuing climate change."
Actually this "energy imbalance" ("the rate of heat storage") shows no such thing, reverse the source of the imbalance(less solar activity instead of rising solar activity), the equilibrium point changes immediately, and the so-called climate change will reverse with nothing more than a lag in rate of change. Then the ocean will be called a culprit for global warming because it doesn't cool as fast as the atmosphere does in such a condition.
"The enhanced GCM shows that the average global temperature would rise between 0.4 and 1.2 °C (between 0.7 and 2.2 °F) through the year 2050,
Hehe, getting closer and closer to that magic number: 0.2oC per doubling, the multiplier keeps falling.
for plausible increases of greenhouse gases," Sun said."
Plausible is?
http://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/intro/sun_01/
"For the period 2000-2050 we applied two climate forcing scenarios: a "business-as-usual" (BAU) scenario, which yielded a forcing of ~2.9 Watts per square meter (W/m2), and an "alternative" scenario with slowing growth rates of greenhouse gases, which yielded an increase of 1.1 W/m2.?
Still using UN/IPCC scenario BAU & (BAU with Kyoto) inputs?:
http://www.pacificresearch.org/pub/cap/2003/cap_03-02-20.html
"The IPCC's method has the effect of vastly overestimating future economic growth (and, therefore, CO2 emissions) by developing nations. The fine print of the IPCC's projections, for example, calls for the real per-capita incomes of Argentina, South Africa, Algeria, Turkey, and even North Korea to surpass real per-capita income in the United States by the end of the century. Algeria? North Korea? The IPCC must be inhaling its own emissions to believe this."
link to article
"Quote from article ---"Because air bubbles do not close at the surface of the ice sheet but only near the firn-ice transition (that is, at ~90 m below the surface at Vostok), the air extracted from the ice is younger than the surrounding ice (Barnola et al. 1991). Using semiempirical models of densification applied to past Vostok climate conditions, Barnola et al. (1991) reported that the age difference between air and ice may be ~6000 years during the coldest periods instead of ~4000 years, as previously assumed."
It also serves as another demonstration of how hard scientists work to make their data accurate.
just say "NO" to fish farts!
The UN already did it for us, notice the Chart for CH4(fish farts)
Fishes are doing there part, as measured fish fart concentrations in the atmosphere can be seen to be falling way below the UN/IPCC lowest scenario and appear to be leveling off. (baby fishes are being taught to not fart sooner, thus CH4 concentrations no longer grow with fish population.)
One should also note, that CO2 concentrations are running below the lowest UN/IPCC scenario as well.
From Publications of the National Acadamy of Sciences website:
Fig. 2. Atmospheric CO2 and CH4 observations and range of IS92 scenarios (the solid red line is IS92a). [black line is atmospheric measurement of gas concentrations]
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