Posted on 04/03/2007 1:38:33 PM PDT by ricks_place
NEW HAVEN, Conn., April 2 (UPI) -- U.S. geologists have found the sensitivity of Earth's climate to changes in the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide has been consistent for 420 million years.
A popular predictor of future climate sensitivity is the change in global temperature produced by each doubling of CO2 in the atmosphere. The study confirmed that during 420 million years, each doubling of atmospheric CO2 translated to an average global temperature increase of about 5 degrees Fahrenheit.
The scientists used 500 data points in the geological records as "proxy data" -- indirect measurements of CO2.
"Proxy data ... are a measure of the effects of CO2," said study co-author Jeffrey Park, a professor of geology and geophysics at Yale who created the computer simulations for the project. "While we cannot actually measure the CO2 that was in the atmosphere millions of years ago, we can measure the geologic record of its presence."
Led by Dana Royer, assistant professor of Earth and Environmental Sciences at Wesleyan University, the researchers simulated 10,000 variations in the carbon-cycle processes and evaluated the variations for a range of atmospheric warming conditions.
The study is detailed in the journal Nature.
(Excerpt) Read more at sciencedaily.com ...
This is another BS simulation!
Study funded by Greenpeace.
Translation: "We can guess."
Wow they condensed 420 million years into 500 data points. That’s one data point every 840,000 years, I’m not sure even Enron’s accountants would consider that level of statistical sampling comprehensive.
You'll just have to believe that it's higher now!
Sorry, but I’ll wait until people NOT funded by Grenpeace or some other eco-group have studied all the data.
I think it should be clear to all by now that...
THE SKY IS FALLING!!!!!
When the oceans get warmer, the solubility of CO2 in the oceans decrease, forcing more CO2 into the atmosphere, just like more CO2 foam is made when you shake a hot beer as opposed to a cold beer.
Does CO2 really drive global warming?
Increased atmospheric CO2 is a RESULT of global warming, not a cause.
What utter BS!
They carefully say that “each doubling of atmospheric CO2 translated to an average global temperature increase of about 5 degrees Fahrenheit.”
They don’t say which was cause and which is effect. The recent history shows strong increases in CO2 following 400 years after the earth warms up from our last six ice ages.
The CIA actually did some tests on plants with a few percent more CO2 and a couple of degrees more temperature. What they found from a variety of plants was 15% more biomass. The plants loved the combination.
CO2 is a temperature indicator, not a facilitator.
Treating the symptom, not the disease.
From your (great) link
What the evidence shows
So what we have on the best current evidence is that
* global temperatures are currently rising;
* the rise is part of a nearly million-year oscillation with the current rise beginning some 25,000 years ago;
* the “trip” or bifurcation behavior at the temperature extremes is attributable to the “opening” and “closing” of the Arctic Ocean;
* there is no need to invoke CO2 as the source of the current temperature rise;
* the dominant source and sink for CO2 are the oceans, accounting for about two-thirds of the exchange, with vegetation as the major secondary source and sink;
* if CO2 were the temperature–oscillation source, no mechanism—other than the separately driven temperature (which would then be a circular argument)—has been proposed to account independently for the CO2 rise and fall over a 400,000-year period;
* the CO2 contribution to the atmosphere from combustion is within the statistical noise of the major sea and vegetation exchanges, so a priori, it cannot be expected to be statistically significant;
* water—as a gas, not a condensate or cloud—is the major radiative absorbing–emitting gas (averaging 95%) in the atmosphere, and not CO2;
* determination of the radiation absorption coefficients identifies water as the primary absorber in the 5.6–7.6-µm water band in the 60–80% RH range; and
* the absorption coefficients for the CO2 bands at a concentration of 400 ppm are 1 to 2 orders of magnitude too small to be significant even if the CO2 concentrations were doubled.
Hey, dude. 420.
Ahem ... what I MEANT to post ...
What the evidence shows
So what we have on the best current evidence is that
* global temperatures are currently rising;
* the rise is part of a nearly million-year oscillation with the current rise beginning some 25,000 years ago;
* the “trip” or bifurcation behavior at the temperature extremes is attributable to the “opening” and “closing” of the Arctic Ocean;
* there is no need to invoke CO2 as the source of the current temperature rise;
* the dominant source and sink for CO2 are the oceans, accounting for about two-thirds of the exchange, with vegetation as the major secondary source and sink;
* if CO2 were the temperature–oscillation source, no mechanism—other than the separately driven temperature (which would then be a circular argument)—has been proposed to account independently for the CO2 rise and fall over a 400,000-year period;
* the CO2 contribution to the atmosphere from combustion is within the statistical noise of the major sea and vegetation exchanges, so a priori, it cannot be expected to be statistically significant;
* water—as a gas, not a condensate or cloud—is the major radiative absorbing–emitting gas (averaging 95%) in the atmosphere, and not CO2;
* determination of the radiation absorption coefficients identifies water as the primary absorber in the 5.6–7.6-µm water band in the 60–80% RH range; and
* the absorption coefficients for the CO2 bands at a concentration of 400 ppm are 1 to 2 orders of magnitude too small to be significant even if the CO2 concentrations were doubled.
The outcome is that the conclusions of advocates of the CO2-driver theory are evidently back to front: It’s the temperature that is driving the CO2. If there are flaws in these propositions, I’m listening; but if there are objections, let’s have them with the numbers.
Ditto what you said. CO2 trails the temperature increase reacting to the variability of the sun’s output.
...and with only an 800 year lag time between solar powered atmospheric temperature changes and the oceanic temperature changes that drive atmospheric CO2 levels, that crucial element to the puzzle wouldn't even show up on their graph. They'd need to multiply their data set by at least a factor of 10^3 in order for their graph to be capable of showing the truth.
You may be interested in this bit of amusing information. Scientists don’t like to use the word “guess” because it hints to lay people that they “might” not know what they are doing. Instead, they apply a Stochastic Process to their models.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stochastic_process
It appears to be very similar to playing a game of 20 Questions.
This reads like a revisionist “correction” to the implications of earlier studies that CO2 increases after warming, and not vice versa.
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