Physicist Dr. Denis Rancourt, a former professor and environmental science researcher at the University of Ottawa, has officially bailed out of the man-made global warming movement, calling it a ‘corrupt social phenomenon’.
He writes this in an essay on science trust issues plus adds this powerful closing passage about climate science:
And there is a thorough critique of the science as band wagon trumpeting and interested self-deception [4]. Climategate only confirms what should be obvious to any practicing scientist: That science is a mafia when it’s not simply a sleeping pill.
Now he thinks that fossil fuel burning isn’t a problem of significance based on the scale. Excerpts below.
Is the burning of fossil fuel a significant planetary activity?
by Denis G. Rancourt
This essay was first posted on the Activist Teacher blog.
After all, the Earth is a planet. Is even the presence of humans significant on the rough and diverse thin surface of this planet?
We certainly make every effort to see ourselves as significant on this spinning ball in space. We like to point out that the lights from our cities can be seen from our extra-atmospheric “spaceships” at night and that we have deforested continents and reduced the populations of large wild mammals and of fishes but is all this really significant in the planetary web known as the biosphere?
INSIGNIFICANCE OF FOSSIL FUEL BURNING ENERGY RELEASE
The present (2010) historic maximum of anthropogenic (caused by humans) fossil fuel burning is only 8% or so of global primary production (GPP) (both expressed as kilograms of carbon per year, kg-C/y). GPP is the rate at which new biomass (living matter) is produced on the whole planet. And of course all biomass can in principle be considered fuel that could be burned with oxygen (O2) to produce CO2 gas, H2O water, energy, and an ash residue.
This shows the extent to which anthropogenic energy production from fossil fuel burning is small in comparison to the sun’s energy delivery to Earth, since biomass primary production results from the sun’s energy via photosynthesis.
…
In summary, the total amount of post-industrial fossil fuel burned to date (and expressed as kilograms of carbon) represents less than 1% of the global bio-available carbon pools.
More importantly, bio-available carbon is a minor constituent of the Earth’s surface environment and one that is readily buffered and exchanged between compartments without significant consequences to the diversity and quantity of life on the planet. The known history of life on Earth (over the last billions of years) is unambiguous on this point.
…
This ocean acidification side show on the global warming science bandwagon, involving major nation research centers and international collaborations, is interesting to compare with the 1970s-1980s hoax of boreal forest lake acidification. [1][2]
More importantly, scientists know virtually nothing about the dynamic carbon exchange fluxes that occur on all the relevant time and lengths scales to say anything definitive about how atmospheric CO2 arises and is exchanged in interaction with the planet’s ecological systems. We are barely at the point of being able to ask intelligent questions.
…
For left progressives to collaborate with First World governments that practice global extortion and geopolitical wars in order to pass carbon schemes to undemocratically manage and control the developments of non-First-World communities and sovereign states is obscene, racist, and cruelly cynical.
====================================
Here’s a video interview:
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Dave Springer says:
September 23, 2010 at 4:56 am
Actually what you can see from ice cores is that temperature swings wildly from ice age to interglacial while CO2 remains relatively stable and what variation there is in the CO2 level is a result of temperature swings not a cause of them.
Did I say something different? “Relative stable”, that is relative: a difference of 100 ppmv on a scale of 300 ppmv is quite large…
The lack of ability to influence temperature becomes much more dramatic when looking at the geologic column outside of ice ages where we see that CO2 levels up to 20 times higher didn’t result in detrimental overheating but rather accompanies the most verdant periods in the earth’s history where the earth is green from pole to pole and where the fossil fuel beds were laid down in the first place like a person in their peak earning years saves for retirement.
You can’t compare the influence of CO2 changes over different geological times that easy (even the sun was far less active in the far past). Besides the accuracy of the proxies towards the past and the timing problems, there were huge differences in placing of the continents.
But nevertheless, even in the past 800,000 years with minor geological changes, the influence of CO2 on temperature is small, see:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/eemian.html
Dave Springer says:
September 23, 2010 at 5:22 am
It demonstrates that sinks and sources of CO2 vary independantly of anthropogenic emissions on decadal timescales.
Agreed, but besides the influence of temperature (which explains about 70% of the short term variability), the decadal variations are quite small (+/- 2 ppmv, of which a large part even can be from the accuracy of the ice core measurements). In the past 50 years with more accurate direct measurements only +/- 1 ppmv…
While the resolution towards the past is worse, the different ice cores with overlapping periods show the same averages (+/- 3 ppmv) for the same gas age. That doesn’t point to more variability in the past, to the contrary, but of course we can’t prove it as we have no such fine resolution in ice cores for the far past and other measurements in proxies like stomata data with a better resolution have their own accuracy problems…
Alan Sutherland says:
September 22, 2010 at 11:30 pm
re; methane production
Yes, rice cultivation is responsible for about half the anthropogenic methane emission and the largest rice producers are not western civilizations. Western civilization is the designated scapegoat for
global warmingclimate changeglobal climate disruption so indeed you are right that the major source of methane is off-limits with regard to amelioration. Adding insult to injury is that methane, which could be easily and greatly reduced by modifying the mix of agricultural products and better capture of leaks in the fossil fuel industry, accounts for half the ostensible greenhouse gas effect that CO2 has. Basically we get beef and rice (instead of say soybeans and chickens) in return for rapidly rising atmospheric methane (methane rise is near twice as rapid as CO2 rise). On the flip side anthropogenic CO2 emission accelerates both cultivated and non-cultivated plant growth, reduces water requirements per unit of plant growth, even as it provides a ready source of cheap energy that enables the growth of industrial civilization and the great advances in technology that are concommitant with industrial growth.If anyone is truly concerned about the growing amount of greenhouse gases and not using it speciously to promote some underlying unvoiced Malthusian agenda then we’d be talking about methane not CO2 as the primary means of limiting the greenhouse effect. In fact since methane has a rather short lifetime in the atmosphere reducing production of it might actually have a measurable effect in a matter of years instead of decades and if we didn’t like the effect we could just as quickly reverse the change. Methane is a lot more friendly to experimentation that way. The truth of the matter is that few warmists are intested in experimentation or actually reducing the greenhouse effect. What they’re interested in is blaming western civilization for global climate disruption and that can only done if CO2 is the bogeyman.
Paul Birch, it’s quite hilarious that you think the entire body of established scientific literature on this is somehow logically in error, you accuse me of misrepresenting the literature, and yet you won’t even answer the question of which papers you’ve read on the subject. Your beliefs about isotopic ratios are not shared by any of the scientists in numerous disciplines who use them as reliable indicators of a wide range of phenomena.
Your logic, meanwhile, is deeply, deeply flawed. Observations show rising CO2 in atmosphere and oceans, and declining 13C content in atmosphere and oceans. It’s very simple and natural to understand that this is due to the release of ~1000Gt of CO2 from fossil fuels, which accounts for the magnitude of the observed rise in CO2, decline in 13C, and the time at which both these phenomena began.
You, on the other hand, seem to believe some alternative hypothesis, although you haven’t specified what it is. Your alternative hypothesis would need to explain where all the fossil fuel CO2 went, thus requiring an unknown CO2 sink capable of absorbing about 1000Gt of CO2. It would also invoke another source of CO2 of comparable magnitude. It would also have to explain why this vast source and vast sink only appeared when major fossil fuel burning began. And it would need to explain why δ13C is declining in both the atmosphere and oceans, and why the decline started at the same time as major fossil fuel burning began.
I await the details with great interest.
The rock salt panes for a greenhouse is no urban myth at all. If you read the references provided, you would see a wealth of historical information about the experiments of Tyndall and many others, including the old and recent rock salt greenhouse experiments. You are still repeating some of the old myths about how the gardener’s greenhouse warming occurs. The Earth is not warmed by the atmosphere insulating the planet like a blanket. The atmosphere is not warmed by the reflection of longwave IR radiation to the Earth’s surface. These and other myths associated with the pseudo-scientific jargon of AGW climate science is an illustration of how such newspeak is used to indoctrinate the general public with faulty concepts.
Dave Springer says:
September 23, 2010 at 6:41 am
Yes but on average some or all of the the CO2 sinks have been growing parallel with increasing anthropogenic CO2 contribution.
Yes, but two comments:
– A doubling of CO2 doesn’t double plant growth, not even with higher temperatures:
http://www.co2science.org/subject/g/summaries/temp+co2ag.php
– An increase of CO2 in the atmosphere will increase the net oceanic absorption above the average solubility, but again not 100%, as the oceans are slow emitters/absorbers: some 40 years needed to halve the difference. Not relevant on geological times, but relevant over decades.
Thus in both cases, some CO2 (about 45%) is absorbed, some (55%) remains in the atmosphere, as long as we go on with (increasing) emissions.
My guess is that the atmospheric carbon cycle today would be 993 gigatons instead of 1000 gigatons and the observable change in the biosphere and the climate would be negligible.
Just a guess, but science is beyond guessing: human emitted 340 GtC, increase in the atmosphere is 210 GtC, the rest absorbed by nature. Thus nature was a net sink for CO2, not a source. Maybe in some years, but more sink in other years and sink only in the past 50 years. Increase in the ocean mixed layer match, increasing biomass matches, isotopic changes match, oxygen use matches,…
I am quite sure that a modest increase in temperature would be beneficial for nature and mankind. Even if I prefer icy destinations (Norway, Iceland, Greenland, Alaska,… Antarctica still on my -expensive- wish list) for visiting, my garden prefers a better climate than it has now…
Dave Springer says:
September 23, 2010 at 5:22 am
Glad you mentioned that. While atmospheric CO2 was growing consistently during those decades there was no increase in global average temperature which again shows that rising CO2 doesn’t precipitate higher temperatures but rather higher temperatures precipitate higher CO2 concentrations.
You’re now beginning to contradict yourself. You say “CO2 was growing consistently during those decades there was no increase in global average temperature” then “higher temperatures precipitate higher CO2 concentrations” Which is it? Surely if temperatures were flat or falling then CO2 levels should have been flat or falling.
The temperature trend throughout 1950s, 60s and 70s was flat because there was a natural cooling cycle in place. CO2 concentrations in 1970 were ~325 ppm. The forcing relative to the pre-industrial era is ~0.7 w/m2 (i.e. 5.35*ln(325/285)). This implies a warming of ~0.2 deg C which is easily offset by natural climate varibility.
You need to get some perspective of the timescales and the magnitude of the forcings involved. The CO2/tmepratue relationship is ~10 ppm per deg C. We’ve seen more than 100 ppm increase for a temeprature rise of ~0.7 deg. Your numbers don’t stack up.
Ferdinand Engelbeen says:
September 23, 2010 at 2:58 am
“The logical, scientific basis is in the (geological recent) past: the ice ages and interglacials show a quite linear relationship between temperature and CO2 levels, where CO2 levels lag temperature. Which means that all natural processes together led to a dynamic equilibrium, which was quite stable over the past 800,000 years, only influenced by temperature changes. We are now 100+ ppmv above that equilibrium.”
————–
So if the undisputed leader in this dynamic equilibrium has always been temperature, and we have observed that temperature has never responded to changes in CO2, while always being quite forceful in making CO2 respond to its lead, one wonders why all the sudden worry that CO2 may take the lead in this relation, just because of our adding the equivalent of a trickle in a pool whose drains (which are quite elastic) handle daily flows many many many times larger. It seems obvious these two (CO2 and Temperature) cannot have a mutually reinforcing influence on each other, else they would have spiraled in a runaway whirls long ago. One leads, and the other follows the lead.
Every single floor of the CAGW edifice seems to me fraught with wild speculations and carefully guided assumptions that attempt to mask our overwhelming ignorance of the whole system, from the analysis of pre-industrial CO2 levels, to the carbon cycle, to CO2 forcings, to climate sensitivity, to feedbacks, to sea levels, to ocean acidification, to the reconstructions of past global temperatures (and even current ones), to the effects of a 1 or 2 deg C increase in global temperatures, and to the astonishing assumption that all the bizarre carbon credit schemes will ever have any measurable effect on anything other than wealth transfers. This whole edifice is made of thin paper cards miraculously kept up by self-sustaining greed. This has to be one of the most spectacular cases of mass delusion in history.
Francisco says:
September 23, 2010 at 11:14 am
So if the undisputed leader in this dynamic equilibrium has always been temperature, and we have observed that temperature has never responded to changes in CO2, while always being quite forceful in making CO2 respond to its lead, one wonders why all the sudden worry that CO2 may take the lead in this relation, just because of our adding the equivalent of a trickle in a pool whose drains (which are quite elastic) handle daily flows many many many times larger. It seems obvious these two (CO2 and Temperature) cannot have a mutually reinforcing influence on each other, else they would have spiraled in a runaway whirls long ago. One leads, and the other follows the lead.
Not too fast… That temperature was (always) leading in the past, doesn’t exclude any influence of CO2 levels on temperature. We know since Tyndall times that CO2 captures IR/heat thus there must be some reaction. And as there are huge overlaps during transitions from cold to warm periods over the ice ages, that allows climate researchers to include huge feedbacks of CO2 on temperature. But there is one exception, the end of the Eemian (the previous interglacial): CO2 levels remained high while temperature was falling to a minimum. Then CO2 levels started to go down, but the 40 ppmv drop didn’t show a measurable influence on temperature. Based on that, all we can say is that the influence of CO2 is small. Smaller than what the climate models (and the official sensitivity range) indicate.
BTW, temperature and CO2 can have a mutually reinforcing influence on each other without reaching a point of no return, as long as the combined reinforcing factor is less than 1.
“”” Dave Springer says:
September 22, 2010 at 9:15 pm
D. Patterson
re; greenhouse effect
It’s not that bad of misnomer. Glass lets shortwave pass through and blocks longwave just like atmospheric gases. It’s true that the major effect of the glass in warming the greenhouse is convective cooling but that doesn’t mean it has no other effect at all. In fact it has quite an effect and you can see it all around where I live. Naive people build some grand houses with magnificent south facing views here in the Texas hill country and before the second summer passes by you’ll see sunscreens blocking the view out those windows. The sunscreen isn’t blocking convection it’s blocking light because that light is being absorbed inside the house and re-reradiated in longwave which doesn’t make it back out through the window. The house is being made warmer in exactly the same way that greenhouse gases do it. “””
Well Dave, I wish it was all that simple; the glass blocking the thermal radiation. Of course it isn’t and the glass doesn’t.
It is true that the glass does absorb the LWIR that is generated inside the “greenhouse”; it does not reflect it (much).
In fact the glass absorbs that LWIR energy; and that is why the glass gets hot; very hot in fact if it is a good enough absorber.
And then of course the heated glass itself radiaties LWIR thermal radiation correcposnding to its Temeprature; and half of THAT thermal emssion happens outside the greenhouse and it escapes.
But the convection blocking is of course always happening too.
Curiously the earth”s atmos-pehre absorbs a lot of LWIR radiation that it was supposed to block, and then it radiates about half of that in the secape direction; just like the greenhouse glass does.
Unfortunately for your thesis, other sources for d13C concentrations in the atmosphere, soils, and marine environments often differ or contradict the trends and magnitudes of d13C changes in the time periods.
There is just one example of how a source reports paleontological evidence of an increase of d13C concentrations well beyond 0.1 mil after 1800, whereas you are claiming there is an undisputable decrease in d13C in some of the same time period. You also fail to acknowledge the innumerable ways in which atmospheric d13C concentrations can be and often are significantly diluted by means other than a fixation upon anthropogenic combustion of fossil fuels. Why have you never considered and addressed the way in which fluvial depositions of organic matter derived from anthropogenically cultivated C3 agricultural crop enriches the marine environments, where planktonic life relies upon the d13C depleted nutrients for their emissions to the atmosphere? Why do you neglect the effects of methane producing crop productions? Why do you neglect the effect of methane clathrates being released to produce d13C carbon dioxide following the end of warm climate episodes?
In short, you give every appearance of jumping to unscientific conclusions by failing to undertake the scientific due diligence required to experimentally exclude a plethora of other evidence that contradicts your chosen source of information supporting a preconceived conclusion.
As you know from our previous discussions, I consider your uncritical reliance upon the predominant interpretations of the ice core evidence as invalidated by other evidence, such as the demonstrated biological contamination of the ice core samples. Although you disagree, your argument that the gas molecules could not exfiltrate the ice despite the proven ability of the biological lifeforms to infiltrate the ice core sample is not a rational analysis, in my opinion.
The Vostok ice cores, if I recall correctly, were obtained at least in part using diesel fuel oil as the drilling medium. When the ice cores were studied for their utility in establishing biological protocols for future studies of Martian samples, the researchers were surprised to find the Vostok ice cores had been infiltrated by bacteria. The pattern of infiltration was decreased from the outside surface of the ice core to levels not fully extending to the center of the ice core. This pattern suggests the bacterial contamination and infiltration must have taken placce at some time during and/following the drilling of the ice core. If the bacterial contamination had been present before drilling of the ice core, there would have to be an explanation for the pattern increasing towards the outer surface of the ice core instead of a uniform or random ditribution throughout the ice core.
Your reasoning failed to explain how it is supposed to be impossible for gas molecules to migrate through the ice in situ or exfiltrate the ice before, during, and after drilling, when there is direct evidence of bacterial lifeforms of far greater sizes infiltrating the same ice. Given these contradictions, your reliance upon the claimed findings for the ice cores without adequate critical examinations tends to make all other analyses using this data as suspect in their findings and conclusions as well.
“The oceans are” possible and not “impossible as source of extra CO2 for several reasons.” For one example, methane clathrates formed during cold climate cycles are warmed during warm climate cycles and release vast quantities of methane from the seafloor to the atmosphere. The methane clathrates were formed from lifeforms that were depleted in the d13C isotope, so the methane is also depleted in d13C relative to other fossil fuels and the carbon dioxide isotopic balance standards. The methane deccomposes into atmospheric carbon dioxide that is also relatively depleted in d13C. The mixing of the d13C carbon dioxide gases released from the methane clathrates thusly decrease the percentage of d13C in the atmospheric carbon dioxide during its time of residence in the atmosphere.
PDO and MAO cycles and other factors governing oceanic currents and upwelling of benthic nutrients modulate the isotopic carbon such as d13C emissions from the hydrosphere to the atmosphere.
RW says:
September 23, 2010 at 7:43 am “Paul Birch, it’s quite hilarious that you think the entire body of established scientific literature on this is somehow logically in error”
No, I know that you (RW, Ferdinand and a few others) are persistently promoting a blatant logical fallacy, of ascribing sole causation to just one arbitrarily chosen factor out of many in an underspecified sum. Until you can recognise that basic fallacy, nothing you say has any value or validity, so I will not debate with you, or even bother reading what you say. You clearly do not understand the science (where much of the crucial biochemistry and physical chemistry is quantitatively uncertain) or the scientists (who are not saying what you erroneously think they are saying) or the scientific method (which must not assume its conclusions), so there is no point in discussing the scientific literature with you. It would be like debating the finer points of theology with an atheist. However, since you do seem to be authority worshippers, allow me to inform you that I have had considerable scientific experience with isotope abundance controversies, most notably the Martian N15 problem, and I cannot recall ever having come across a case in which the isotope evidence has proved conclusive or convincing, except as a confirmation of what was already well established from other sources.
D. Patterson says:
September 24, 2010 at 1:51 am
There is just one example of how a source reports paleontological evidence of an increase of d13C concentrations well beyond 0.1 mil after 1800, whereas you are claiming there is an undisputable decrease in d13C in some of the same time period. You also fail to acknowledge the innumerable ways in which atmospheric d13C concentrations can be and often are significantly diluted by means other than a fixation upon anthropogenic combustion of fossil fuels. Why have you never considered and addressed the way in which fluvial depositions of organic matter derived from anthropogenically cultivated C3 agricultural crop enriches the marine environments, where planktonic life relies upon the d13C depleted nutrients for their emissions to the atmosphere? Why do you neglect the effects of methane producing crop productions? Why do you neglect the effect of methane clathrates being released to produce d13C carbon dioxide following the end of warm climate episodes?
As you example indicates: the d13C change is a proxy for light intensity derived from organic matter from one species of foraminifera, not of atmospheric or sea (surface) d13C levels. The latter can be derived from calcite deposits from coccoliths, sclero sponges and corals, as these reflect the INorganic d13C levels from the (bi)carbonates in the mixed layer of the oceans.
In contrast, the ice cores give global averages for CO2 and d13C in the atmosphere and the sponges for large areas of the oceans: near the whole North Atlantic gyre for the Bermuda sponges.
The same for the river discharges: these may show huge differences in local d13C, but ultimately that is dispersed over much larger volumes of ocean waters and peanuts compared to the massive quantities of high d13C already in the deep oceans.
Methane production by humans is part of the human emissions and add partly to the CO2 increase and d13C decline, that is simply additional (as good as land use changes are additional) to the use of fossil fuels. Clathrate decomposition now is not different from previous periods in history: the previous interglacial (the Eemian) was globally a few degrees warmer than this period, with temperatures in the Nordic areas over 5 degr.C higher than nowadays. Forests did grow up to the Arctic Ocean in Alaska and Siberia, halve of the Greenland ice sheet was melted away. The North Pole was largely ice free, at least in summer. Thus clathrate decomposition (from melted permafrost and oceans) would be higher than today. Despite that, CH4 levels were not more than 700 ppbv, nowadays around 1800 ppbv.
CH4 levels were quite stable 600-700 ppbv in the past 11,000 years of this interglacial, until around 1750 and increased very rapidely after that date:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/law_dome_ch4.jpg
No matter how you look at the data, there are no known sources of low d13C in nature which can explain the rapid decline of d13C in the atmosphere and ocean mixed layer in the past few hundred years. Not the deep oceans (too high in d13C), not volcanic eruptions (too high in d13C), not vegetation (more O2 production -> more 12CO2 uptake -> more 13CO2 left in the atmosphere).
As the CO2 and CH4 increase and the d13C decrease all coincidence with the increase in agriculture, land use changes and the use of fossil fuels and no other known natural massive releases of low d13CO2 exist, the only conclusion possible is that the CO2 increase is caused by these human factors.
D. Patterson says:
September 24, 2010 at 1:51 am
The Vostok ice cores, if I recall correctly, were obtained at least in part using diesel fuel oil as the drilling medium. When the ice cores were studied for their utility in establishing biological protocols for future studies of Martian samples, the researchers were surprised to find the Vostok ice cores had been infiltrated by bacteria. The pattern of infiltration was decreased from the outside surface of the ice core to levels not fully extending to the center of the ice core. This pattern suggests the bacterial contamination and infiltration must have taken placce at some time during and/following the drilling of the ice core.
Some reference please?
It is possible that cracks occur during drilling and relaxation of the ice cores, allowing outside air and bacteria to penetrate into the ice. That doesn’t influence the ice core readings that much (except for large cracks), as the two methods used have not much problems with such contamination:
– of all ice cores, the outer part is removed and only the inner part of the ice core is used.
– for the grating technique: sample is brought into a chamber, vacuum is applied (which should remove contaminated air from the cracks) and then the ice is crushed, releasing about 80% of the air from still closed bubbles. That is what is measured for the different constituents.
– for the sublimation technique: initially vacuum, then the temperature is increased just below the sublimation point. All parts of the ice are cryogenically solidified and afterwards separated and measured with mass spectrometers. Mostly used for isotopic composition measurements (and checks of the grating method).
Moreover, where serious contamination of the ice cores occured, drilling fluid is detected in the ice core parts and highly fluctuating levels are found in the same part of the core. The contaminated parts show much higher CO2 levels than the uncontaminated parts, which is normal, because the outside air is at 390 ppmv nowadays (and drilling fluid may have absorbed some extra), while the CO2 levels in the ice core are measured at 180-300 ppmv…
Paul Birch says:
September 24, 2010 at 3:51 am
No, I know that you (RW, Ferdinand and a few others) are persistently promoting a blatant logical fallacy, of ascribing sole causation to just one arbitrarily chosen factor out of many in an underspecified sum.
It is not only the “underspecified” sum (which is sufficient evidence on itself), it is the evidence of all observations which makes that there is only one causation left. In my professional carreer, I frequently solved chemical and physical problems much faster by eleminating the impossibilities, rather that by looking at the possibilities. As there are only two (relative) fast sources and sinks of CO2: the oceans and vegetation, and both are clear sinks for CO2 (mass balance and O2 balance) and both increase the d13C levels of the atmosphere, and the d13C and CO2 levels follow the emissions with an incredible tight ratio, I don’t see any other possibility than that the emissions are the cause of the increase, as these fit all observations.
If you know of any other theoretical or real alternative that fits all observations, I am very interested.
I note, Paul Birch, that you refuse again to specify which papers you’ve read, and which if any support your views. All you’re doing is tiresomely repeating your dislike of isotope ratios. It has been patiently explained to you that there are many independent lines of evidence which prove the same thing. And yet you persist in believing some unspecified alternate hypothesis.
Time to come clean – you’re not actually interested in the science, are you?
REPLY: Since you’ve brought it up, yes time to “come clean”. RW, when will you stop hiding behind shadows while accusing others who have the courage to put their name to their words? Since these sniping posts of yours originate at a college, are you certain they fall within the Acceptable Use Policy? Given the demeanor of your behaviour here, I think it would be valuable for you to read. -A
[blockquote]
Ferdinand Engelbeen says:
September 24, 2010 at 6:52 am
[….]
It is possible that cracks occur during drilling and relaxation of the ice cores, allowing outside air and bacteria to penetrate into the ice. That doesn’t influence the ice core readings that much (except for large cracks), as the two methods used have not much problems with such contamination:
– of all ice cores, the outer part is removed and only the inner part of the ice core is used.
– for the grating technique: sample is brought into a chamber, vacuum is applied (which should remove contaminated air from the cracks) and then the ice is crushed, releasing about 80% of the air from still closed bubbles. That is what is measured for the different constituents.
– for the sublimation technique: initially vacuum, then the temperature is increased just below the sublimation point. All parts of the ice are cryogenically solidified and afterwards separated and measured with mass spectrometers. Mostly used for isotopic composition measurements (and checks of the grating method).
Moreover, where serious contamination of the ice cores occured, drilling fluid is detected in the ice core parts and highly fluctuating levels are found in the same part of the core. The contaminated parts show much higher CO2 levels than the uncontaminated parts, which is normal, because the outside air is at 390 ppmv nowadays (and drilling fluid may have absorbed some extra), while the CO2 levels in the ice core are measured at 180-300 ppmv…
[/blockquote]
The problem with your articles is your unbridled assurances that you have everything under consideration, everything accounted for, and everything pretty much fitting together to make the solution to the puzzle with little doubt to get in the way of a happy ending to the desired story. Unfortunately, it just doesn’t add up. For example:
You contradict your own argument. You admit that there can be and are cracks in the ice cores, but you assert that a crack simply “doesn’t influence the ice core readings that much[…]as the two methods used have not much problems with such contamination:[….]
You omit mentioning to the readers that the protocols for sampling the ice cores begins with discarding the cracked ice cores and using only the ice cores having no detectable cracks to provide a detectable means of ingress for the bacterial contamination through cracks or other forms of fissures in the ice cores. You also omitted the fact that the ice cores have been tested with deliberate contamination by laboratory grade tracer bacterial cultures to determine the extent to which a known source of bacteria is able to infiltrate the ice core.
The testing of unintentional contamination and deliberate contamination has demonstrated it is possible to remove virtually all significant contamination resulting from drilling and post-drilling handling by bacteria, lead, DOC (Dissolved Organic Compounds) such as those from kerosene jet fuel), and other contaminants through the removal of the outer portions of the ice core. Consequently, the remaining bacterial cultures found within the inner portions of the ice core being sampled for carbon dioxide demonstrate the presence of past to present biochemical activities within the ice and air bubbles actually being sampled for its carbon dioxide content. In other words, we have direct evidence of the carbon dioxide discovered in the ice being potentially affected by at least one, if not more, factors already present in the inner ice core and perhaps introduced later in the outer ice core.
Your descriptions of the protocols used to sample the carbon dioxide in the samples are inaccurate and incomplete in key instances. The protocols avoid the use of a contaminated outer ice core, rather than using a vacumn to evacuate contaminated air. Since the protocols typically do not use the contaminated outer portions of the ice cores to sample the carbon dioxide, it remains to be explained what makes you think the untested outer portion of the ice cores with the “contaminated parts show much higher CO2 levels than the uncontaminated parts”? Who did such testing for carbon dioxide levels in the contaminated outer portion of the ice cores?
You have made a wide range of claims too far beyond the scope of this simple reply. However, given your responses apparently being unaware of so many elements associated with the details of the methods used to produce the conclusions regarding ice cores you rely upon so heavily, I have to wonder if you are at all aware of how many untested assumptions, untested models, adjusted data, and just plain wild guessing went into the production of those conclusions about ice cores and atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations?
Anyone tempted to just jump to a provisional conclusion that the present state of science in regard to the ice cores is likely to be as solid as the ice itself may want to think twice about pondering a fundamental problem with the conclusions. The Vostok ice core sampling for one example reports atmospheric carbon dioxide levels as low as 182.5 to 198 ppmv for very long periods of time, relatively speaking for plants wishing to survive. Someone is going to have to explain how the atmospheric carbon dioxide levels went below 200ppm for such very long periods of time without causing the extinction of nearly all life on the Earth as a consequence of photosynthesis coming to a halt or a very major decrease during those periods of time and thereby causing a great collapse of the planetary food chain? How did this nearly unique great extinction event in the geologically most recent and well evidenced past go unnoticed by the paleontologists and geologists?