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To: Always Right
Here's my analysis of the alleged human contribution. There are four major CO2 buckets as shown in this picture: http://science.hq.nasa.gov/oceans/system/carbon.html Assume the land and ocean and atmosphere buckets all started with ratio X of 13C/12C 150 years ago and the fossil fuel bucket has X - 1%, call it 99% We know the decrease in the 13C/12C ratio in the atmosphere and ocean over 150 years was about 0.15%.

Using the flows from the diagram, six cups of diluted koolaid (99%) are dumped into the the 760 cup atmosphere bucket decreasing that 13C/12C ratio by 0.008%. The atmosphere bucket mixes well with the ocean surface bucket which is about the same size so really the 6 cups of water are mixed with 1560 cups of ocean/atmosphere to cause about a 0.004% 13C/12C decrease overall.

Plants prefer 12C so the land bucket takes more 12C and releases a small amount of 99% in forest fires. Similarly, the ocean takes in whatever the atmosphere offers, but plankton will only sequester 12C, not 13C. If fossil fuels should cause 0.004% decrease but we are only seeing a 0.001% decrease (0.15% averaged over 150 years), where is the missing decrease going? I.e. there must be more nonpreferential carbon storage somewhere to get rid of that extra 13C, or the numbers in the diagram are wrong, either case is enough to make the human component a nonissue.

The better question to answer is how long the CO2 hangs around on average in order to achieve a relatively low difference between the oceans and atmosphere for 13C/12C (I'm not sure we can measure the overall ratio on land). From sources like this http://www.fiu.edu/~vcorne01/paper.htm there is about a 1% greater 13C/12C ratio in CO2 in seawater than in atmospheric CO2. The fossil fuel ratio should be about 20% less than the atmosphere ratio. That implies a rapid rate of interchange between atmosphere and ocean although I have so far not figured out the rate of diffusion.

However people who have analyzed this (e.g. Tom Segalstad) here: Carbon Isotopes in Atmospheric CO2 show a CO2 lifetime of about 5 years, giving lie to the "centuries" claim made today by the IPCC.

7 posted on 02/02/2007 3:59:15 AM PST by palmer (Money problems do not come from a lack of money, but from living an excessive, unrealistic lifestyle)
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To: cogitator

My response to your water / food coloring analogy you made the other day (see post 7).


9 posted on 02/02/2007 4:00:14 AM PST by palmer (Money problems do not come from a lack of money, but from living an excessive, unrealistic lifestyle)
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To: palmer

Is it me or does it seem that the Global Warming Nuts have stepped up the rhetoric in the last few months? When serious scientists brought up the concept of the sun, it evidently panicked the socialists who were championing this hoax to gain advantage in their global socialist scheme and the redistribution of wealth that it would push.
There has been more and more evidence that Global warming is a natural cyclic phenomena. This threatens socialism and the socialists are now resorting tom the Chicken Little approach.


19 posted on 02/02/2007 4:13:32 AM PST by BuffaloJack
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To: palmer

A great post! Just curious...if the ocean swallows more CO2, wouldn't that bring on another ice age?


68 posted on 02/02/2007 6:32:36 AM PST by gallaxyglue (Have we lost our civilization as we know it?)
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