Guest Post by Steven Goddard part 1 is here
Ice cores clearly demonstrate the close relationship between atmospheric CO2 levels and temperature, as seen below.
This relationship has been well understood by geologists for longer than Al Gore has been alive.
As ocean temperatures rise, the solubility of CO2 in seawater declines. Thus increasing ocean temperature moves CO2 from the ocean into the atmosphere, and decreasing ocean temperatures move CO2 out of the atmosphere and back into the ocean. As you can see in the graph below, a 10C shift in temperature causes about 30% reduction in dissolved CO2. Closely corresponding to what we see in the measured ice core graph above.
Ice ages are driven by orbital cycles of the earth, and as ocean temperatures change, atmospheric CO2 levels respond – in accordance with the laws of chemistry. The relationships are uncontroversial.
Unfortunately, some educators besides Al Gore have taken liberties with the ice core data. Children’s global warming author Laurie David published the incorrect graph below, which shows that CO2 levels changed prior to the temperature levels. The graph misleads children into believing that ice ages are driven by changing CO2 levels, rather than the other way around. It is difficult to understand how this error could have happened accidentally.
http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/images/stories/papers/other/graph1.gif
This week is National Engineering Week in the US, when elementary school children are encouraged to learn math and science. Don’t they deserve and need accurate information? Are Laurie David’s book and Al Gore’s movie acceptable in a science classroom?
Whether or not you believe that the burning of fossil fuels significantly affects the earth’s temperature, the ice core data offers no evidence to support that – no matter how big the graph is.
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Well, Steven… Didn’t Larry David leave Laurie and when he came home, alone,
he switched all the lamps with old bulbs on … and hence warming this poor planet even
more….[from another “Steven”…]
Typo in the article. This sentence :
As you can see in the graph below, a 10C shift in temperature causes about 30% reduction in atmospheric CO2.
should read:
As you can see in the graph below, a 10C shift in temperature causes about 30% reduction in dissolved CO2.
I had to laugh when I saw in a review that David’s book claims that hungry polar bears have been spotted in “Halifax” (the city in Nova Scotia where I live) and “Ontario, Canada” (a province which extends north to Hudson Bay and would therefore be part of the polar bear’s normal range) scrounging through garbage cans.
Halifax is south of 45 and we do not ever see polar bears. 8-]
I had the impression that was Halifax, Yorkshire. Polar bears all the way down.
Soon there won’t be any ice cores to study. I expect Polar sea ice to diminish somewhat because of the increased ocean current velocities, but the recent Antarctic chart from NSIDC is troubling. http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/images/daily_images/S_timeseries.png
When comparing today’s ocean temperatures around Antarctica now with earlier years in the archives at Unisys Weather I don’t see justification for the present graph. http://weather.unisys.com/surface/sst.html .
Orwellian
It’s always nice to see how a graph and a relative small text make a rock solid case.
I am afraid that that an exhaustive repeat of known doctrines and endless recitals of crooked IPCC reports will haunt this posting for the remainder of the day.
I could even mention the names of the posters who will pull every trick in the book to convince us that CO2 emission have to be cut in order to prevent the greatest disaster in history but… who am I to intervene in the quest for “discussion” to prevent the AGW science from being “settled”.
I rather prefer the numerous honest and intelligent discussions about untainted climate science that promote factual knowledge and provide useful insights about the real climate drivers and how they are inter linked. The real WUWT.
Besides, don’t you know that Laurie David is a scientist and understands climate science better than us shills? How dare you doubt the Gospel of the Goracle and the Green Gods!
I blogged on a similar issue recently …
I have borrowed this issue and parts of the story from Joseph D’Aleo and his website ICECAP. I feel the matter is important enough that it needs to be brought to the attention of as many people as possible. I do not intend to steal ICECAPS thunder….. Please visit his site ICECAP to read the full details / full story.
Books and videos for the ‘teach in’…… read mental conditioning and brainwashing session.
On video: Jon Isham and Eban Goodstein talk about their recent books on building the global warming solutions movement– Fighting for Love in the Century of Extinction (Goodstein) and Ignition (Isham and Waage)
Gary Braasch’s Earth Under Fire
Gary and Lynne Cherry’s How We Know What We Know About Our Changing Climate: Scientists and Kids Explore Global Warming,
Laurie David’s Down to Earth Guide
Jay Inslee and Bracken Hendrick’s Apollo’s Fire and Fight Global Warming Now from Step it Up.
HERE is a LINK to the PDF for the program.
http://icecap.us/images/uploads/National_teach-in.pdf
As the note on ICECAP says:
Icecap Note: this is another attempt to present a biased, flawed and failing story on global warming to brainwash young America AND influence congress in order to try and accomplish alarmist goals.
The author mentions a 10C degree shift in ocean temperatures. Is he referring to the temperature gradient of the oceans between the tropics and the poles? Or is the temperature difference occuring between the ice ages and today’s climate?
Religious and political indoctrination of children is not new. It has proven over time to be very successful. It is therefore not at all surprising to find the same strategy adopted by the foremost political and religious movement of the late 20th and early 21st centuries – environmentalism.
If Nazism, Communism and the religious isms of the 60’s and 70’s are to to be used as yard sticks of the sticking power of childhood indoctrination, we will likely see the lingering effects for several generations – long after the climate/CO2 connection is fully, and publicly, debunked.
Then again, maybe it is my own indoctrination in logical thinking, science and technology from the 50’s and 60’s that is clouding my ability to accept the reality of the new truth.
Recently we started a home fish aquarium and this fact, solubility of a gas in water, is something that I’ve run across in making sure the fish have adequate dissolved oxygen levels. As I studied the temperature and dissolved CO/O levels possible it became painfully obvious and CRYSTAL clear that increased CO levels in the atmosphere are BECAUSE of higher temperatures and not the cause… Warmer temperature water simply cannot hold as much dissolved oxygen or carbon dioxide. It’s unfortunate that so many have manipulated information (and taken advantage of public scientific ignorance) to mislead the general public for their own purposes.
Thanks for the excellent article!
If there are polar bears in Halifax, they would be at the zoo. I definitely saw two of them in Vancouver, BC (also at a zoo).
Fresh from ICECAP.US
Feb 20, 2009
Satellite Data Show No Warming Before 1997. Changes Since Not Related to CO2
By Arno Arrak
A simple explanation: For some reason Lurie David has allowed time to go right to left (we all know that it always moves right, don’t we?). But she has not changed the diagram, thus reversing the causality. Or?
Gösta Oscarsson
Stockholm
RH.
You said “Soon there wont be any ice cores to study.”
You might want to look at this link.
http://www.wunderground.com/history/station/89606/2009/1/20/MonthlyHistory.html
Vostok, Antarctica (where the ice cores come from) never got above -6F (-21C) this summer. There has never been a temperature higher than 0F recorded there. The ice gets thicker every year, and never melts at all.
Mike Campbell Wrote:
“I had to laugh when I saw in a review that David’s book claims that hungry polar bears have been spotted in “Halifax” (the city in Nova Scotia where I live) and “Ontario, Canada…”
Mike had you seen this:
http://dianea.files.wordpress.com/2008/01/polar.jpg
Regarding the Laurie David graph, you state “It is difficult to understand how this error could have happened accidentally.” Laurie David has stated that it was an accidental mislabelling of the graph which will be corrected:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/laurie-david/the-childrens-book-that-_b_64998.html?page=2&show_comment_id=9940902#comment_9940902
I agree that it was a bad error which should have been picked up before publication, but actually find it easy to understand that such an error could happen accidentally. Sloppy work, but not evidence of deliberate misrepresentation.
I ckecked out the site from which you got the image, SPPI, and find them recommending for children the book “”The Sky’s NOT Falling” by Holly Fretwell –
http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/sppi_ewire_10_11_2007/should_laurie_david_s_new_kids_book_be_renamed_an_inconvenient_error_.html
In this book Fretwell states (p.34):
“Most of the two largest ice sheets today, in Antarctica and Greenland, flow over the ocean and are already below sea level. If they were to melt, sea level would not rise very much.”
– now that is indeed an example of extraordinary disinformation that it is very difficult to understand being the result of accident.
Do you think Fretwell’s book is acceptable in a science classroom? Will you be drawing attention to its errors as you have drawn attention to David’s mislabelled graph?
Just inversing the flow of time does wonders to a graph. Nice.
I might add that anyone who has ever opened a warm beer is aware of the fact that CO2 solubility decreases with temperature.
I have previously posted this graph here which seems particularly relevant in view of this thread. It covers Hadley CET to 1660 and historic co2 measurements taken from the work of Ernst Beck. The blue line along the bottom is man made co2.
http://cadenzapress.co.uk/download/man_vs_nature.xls
The UK has a relatively low mean average temp (on left hand side) It varies betwen around 7C during the little ice age depths up to around 10.5C today. Most of the co2 action takes place between 270 and 400ppm (with a few outliers)
The Uk sea temperature varies from around 8C in mid winter to around 18C in high summer although obviously this depends on depth and location. Now the atmospheric co2 and co2 dissolved in sea water is not a direct correlation but surely the considerable peaks and troughs Beck recorded worldwide since 1820 (greater than Mauna Loa since 1958 in a constantly outgassing Pacfic ocean) become more credible if the formula Steve gives is correct?
TonyB
RH (08:42:42) :
“Soon there won’t be any ice cores to study.”
Just when is soon, tomorrow, next month, next year? I thought the Vostoc ice cores record about 450,000 years of history, with thousands of years where the earth was warmer than it is now or will be in the next century (even in the most alarmist “models”), and you are telling me they will now suddenly disappear?
On thefull size graphic Steven links to
http://www.brighton73.freeserve.co.uk/gw/paleo/400000yearslarge.gif
each pixel equates to around 570 years.
Just thought it might help people visualize the timescales involved.
RH (08:42:42) :
“Soon there won’t be any ice cores to study. I expect Polar sea ice to diminish somewhat because of the increased ocean current velocities, but the recent Antarctic chart from NSIDC is troubling. http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/images/daily_images/S_timeseries.png
When comparing today’s ocean temperatures around Antarctica now with earlier years in the archives at Unisys Weather I don’t see justification for the present graph. http://weather.unisys.com/surface/sst.html.”
RH,
I am sorry to disagree with you but we will be in ice over our ears.
Your statement under the current conditions that show a massive increase in Ice volume at both of the pole’s can only be qualified as pure alarmist at the least.
Just take a look at the sat images and you know you’re wrong, very wrong.
And for your claims of the near future?
You will not live the day to see either of the Pole’s without ice.
Correction- Vostok
Whatever Laurie David’s explanation is, the use of the graph by Al Gore and herself is misleading, because the graph tells us nothing about how recent increases in CO2 will affect temperature. If they understood that, Al wouldn’t have stood on a ladder next to a 20 foot high graph of the Vostok data.