By Steven Goddard
Yesterday WUWT reported on the inaccurate #1 environmental story at Guardian.
The Guardian article originally read :
The volcanic eruption has released carbon dioxide, but the amount is dwarfed by
the savings. Based on readings taken by scientists during the first phase of
Eyjafjallajokull activity last month, the website Information is Beautiful
calculated the volcano has emitted about 15,000 tonnes of CO2 each day.
After their article was written, more accurate information spread across the web – The Guardian numbers were off by more than an order of magnitude :
Experts said on Monday that the volcano in Iceland is emitting 150,000 to 300,000 tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) per day, a figure comparable to emissions released from a small industrial nation.
The Guardian responded by updating their article with better numbers, but failed to update their conclusions:
So what is wrong with their correction? Lots of things.
- Their source of information now claims that the numbers are 206,465 tons saved vs. 150,000 tons emitted by the volcano. Those two numbers are well within the margin of error of the volcano estimates, and are the very low end of what scientists are claiming. If we use the average scientific estimate of 225,000 – the volcano was actually producing more CO2 per day than the savings from grounded aircraft. Yet the Guardian story still claims that emissions are dwarfed by the savings.
- The Guardian story claims that there have been 2.8 million tons of savings, and the math doesn’t work out. At the time the story was written there had been six days of grounded flights. 206,465 tons/day X 6 days = 1.2 million tons, not 2.8 million tons.
- The Guardian failed to research the actual volcano estimates, and again published the very low end numbers from an apparently unreliable source.
- They failed to consider that the eruption has been going on for more than a month, while the flight ban has lasted only six days. Total volcano emissions actually dwarf the savings from the aircraft.
- They failed to consider Anthony’s point that people stranded by grounded aircraft seek other means of transportation, including cars, trains and battleships, etc. The BBC estimated that these other modes of transport generate as much CO2 as the planes would have.
- They failed to consider that the airlines will eventually run extra flights in order to catch up.
The evidence indicates that the net balance from the volcano is a large increase in CO2 emissions. The Guardian article was just Plane Stupid.
Furthermore, we know that plants, soil and the oceans generate 30 times as much CO2 as all fossil fuel burning combined. That is 200,000,000,000 tons of CO2 per year from natural sources, compared with The Guardian’s inaccurate claim of 2,800,000 tons in savings from aircraft grounded. In other words, even their exaggerated claimed savings are less than 0.0014% of all natural emissions of CO2.
Numbers from Woods Hole Institute
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Mike Haseler (08:00:37) : “Danish, Swedish and to a less extent Norwegian and pronounced roughly in line with how they are written. But from what little Icelandic I’ve heard it seems to be very much a insular Norse dialect were there is very little resemblance between what is spoken and what is written.”
I would say that Danish is the Scandinavian language whose pronunciation has departed the most from the written language.
Anyway, yes, Icelandic orthography is roughly the same as it was 800 years ago, while the pronunciation has changed quite a bit. It’s kind of like if English had kept its orthography from before the great vowel shift. Oh, wait…
Regarding volcano cooling they used to think that volcanoes make it colder by ash blocking sunlight. But ash should warm the air as much as the ground is cooled because it absorbs sunlight. So, the updated theory is that sulphur released as SO2 etc forms sulphuric acid clouds in the stratosphere reflecting sunlight.
If so, how can Venus be so warm when its ground is permanently shrouded in such thick sulphuric acid clouds?
AGW theory says that Venus is warmer than Mercury because of the greenhouse effect of its carbon dioxide atmosphere. Being closer to the Sun at 0.72 AU Venus gets about 1.9 times the E-M energy as Earth. And it is actually about twice as hot in Kelvin as Earth. But due to these sulphuric acid clouds Venus’ Albedo is listed at 0.65 — twice that of Earth’s 0.367. By that reasoning shouldn’t it wind up about the same temperature as Earth?
Paul Clark (12:40:04) :
Venus has a very dense, high pressure atmosphere. PV = nRT
High pressure means high temperature. Just like on earth, where surface temperatures are as much as 90C warmer than temperatures at 35,000 feet.
Random question.
If Branson believes these reports that his planes put out more CO2 than the volcano, where should he stick his CO2 filters?
Pictures (graphics) worth a thousand words?
Here are some links to “Eykull” (pronounced ‘Eye-kull’) that you may not have seen yet and that will keep you up to date on what is happening, at least graphically.
Main with all links at –
http://hraun.vedur.is/ja/Katla2009/
Tremor Activity –
http://hraun.vedur.is/ja/Katla2009/gosplott.html
Seismic Activity –
http://hraun.vedur.is/ja/Katla2009/eyja_uppsafn.html
PS: Secret to Icelandic pronunciation for anyone not from Iceland or the Great Northwest of Europa: Take the first 2 or 3 letters in the local name and add these to the last 4 letters (“Eyjafjallajokull” = “Ey” + “kull” {pronounced ‘eye-kull’}).
Pamela Gray (06:59:43) :
Check out http://www.llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch.com/ which refers to other places, like Tetaumatawhakatangihangakoauaotamateaurehaeaturipukapihimaungahoronukupokaiwhenuaakitanarahu and a volcanic affliction, Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanokoniosis.
Paul Clark (12:40:04) :
It is – if you sample the part of the atmosphere where the air pressure is close to the surface pressure on Earth (1 bar). As you go further down, assuming the atmosphere is mixing well, then the temperature increases with the “lapse rate”.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/apr/23/stranded-britons-british-airways-seat-prices
Airlines are running extra flights as fast as they can to catch up with the backlog. All that extra CO2……..
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/transport/article7107033.ece
Just a small point I’d like to make. The last Battleship was decommissioned in the early 90s. Carriers, Amphibs and the like, while large ain’t no gun toting battlewagon!
Here you can see how this story is spread to MSM in the western world;
This is in VG, the biggest tabloid in Norway;
http://translate.google.no/translate?js=y&prev=_t&hl=no&ie=UTF-8&layout=1&eotf=1&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.vg.no%2Fnyheter%2Fvaer%2Fartikkel.php%3Fartid%3D10004233&sl=no&tl=en
They dont dare to give the name of the journalist. They only say its from “NTB” (Norwegian Telegram Bureau) which can be compared to Reuters.
They are hammering in the AGW message. No logic, no data. They just have a “feeling” its so. Therefore it is possibly so. And later in the minds of the reader, it IS so.
Goebbels tactics.
Who has the calculations that document the claimed ~440K tonnes (metric tons) per day of CO2 from EU air traffic? Looks at least a power of 2 too large(?) (or the numbers below are low by the same amount – or some split).
From http://www.bts.gov/xml/air_traffic/src/index.xml
The site documents that U.S. airlines are currently flying around 1000 billion (1 trillion, 1e12) seat miles per year. Using 5 cents per seat mile for JP4 fuel (occupied or not) and $3 a gallon for JP4 we can estimate ~130,000 tonnes of fuel use per day * 3.2 tonnes CO2 per tonne of JP4 is ~450K tonnes per day for U.S. carriers. The U.S. has a much more dispersed population and travels by air 3-4x the number of times an equivalent 3-4x the distance that those do on the continent. To say nothing of the EC having a fast system of trains dedicated to moving people cross-continent (at almost the speed of air given airport processing issues).
Also omitted from the impact statement is the “new water” being outgassed from the mantle/subduction layer into the atmosphere by the volcano (doesn’t this have a much larger greenhouse impact per tonne than CO2?).
stevengoddard and Ric Werme thanks for the replies. I agree the temperature on Venus appears to be related to pressure. Like on Earth average temperature and pressure decreases with altitude for some kilometres up. Yet, it doesn’t explain that thermal gradient with altitude.
PV = nRT is useful for changes such as a gas container that doubles in size. But, in nearer-equilibrium situations such as the Earth’s atmosphere pressure needn’t have anything to do with temperature.
Put it this way: shouldn’t the high temperature and pressure of the Venusian atmosphere repel itself thus expanding its volume? And shouldn’t the air below eventually warm the air above? Why doesn’t gravity determine the amount of air a planet gets? I have heard the theory that rock absorbs the extra air pressure on Earth compared to Venus, but 92 atm difference?! That’s a lot!