Andrew Bolt (via his reader John Coochey) of the Herald Sun notes an astonishing incongruity with expert claims on CO2 warming retention times made about 24 hours apart on radio programs in Australia.
Climate scientist and warmist Andy Pitman on Thursday:
If we could stop emissions tomorrow we would still have 20 to 30 years of warming ahead of us because of inertia of the system.
Climate Commissioner and warmist Tim Flannery on Friday:
If the world as a whole cut all emissions tomorrow the average temperature of the planet is not going to drop in several hundred years, perhaps as much as a thousand years
As he titles the post:
Twenty years or 1000? One of these “experts” is hopelessly wrong
Heh, ya think?
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
eadler,
The link to U.S. CO2 emissions confirms what I wrote: U.S. CO2 emissions have started to decline.
eadler should check these things before shooting himself in his own foot. Next, eadler states: “The human population was not 7Billion people during these past times.”
And the human population is not 7 billion now. But what do facts matter to religious CAGW true believers? Emotion is what maters, and fear is a strong emotion.
hunter is right: “If it can be construed as something bad, it is caused by CO2 and is worse than predicted.”
Adler’s response: “The expected damage from CO2 is not in the past, but rather in the future.”
Translation: Mr Smokey is 100% correct; there is zero evidence of damage from CO2. It is all in the future – and it always will be. That way, no evidence is required, the scientific method can be safely ignored, and the CAGW scare can be perpetuated by the ignoratii.
A 40% increase in CO2 is not minor, it is a big increase. But eadler can not identify any damage caused by that substantial rise. Rational folks conclude that CO2 is not the problem claimed. But the eadlers of the world have so much of their egos invested in their evidence-free CAGW belief system that they can’t accept reality. So eadler’s incredibly weak rejoinder is: “The expected damage from CO2 is not in the past, but rather in the future.” Pure cognitive dissonance: The flying saucer didn’t arrive as I predicted, but that doesn’t mean there is no flying saucer…
eadler, there is no flying saucer. And there never was.
And Latitude has a good point: U.S. CO2 emissions have been declining without the proposed EPA regulations, while China. Brazil, India, etc., etc., are all ramping up their CO2 emissions.
=======================================================
eadler says:
March 27, 2011 at 7:16 am
Latitude, is wrong. US emissions are on an increasing trend, which has halted temporarily in 2008 by the recession
=================================================
Latitude is not wrong eadler
” From 2005 to 2006, emissions from fuel combustion decreased for the first time since 2000 to 2001″
” After experiencing a decrease from 2005 to 2006″
” Emissions from fossil fuel combustion decreased from 2007 to 2008″
” From 2008 to 2009, fossil fuel combustion emissions experienced a decrease of 6.4 percent, the greatest decrease of any year over the course of the twenty-year period.”
EPA
2. Trends in Greenhouse Gas Emissions
2.1. Recent Trends in U.S. Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Sink
http://epa.gov/climatechange/emissions/downloads11/US-GHG-Inventory-2011-Chapter-2-Trends.pdf
Someone on this board once observed that, in the absence of wind, a patch of growing corn would suck all the CO2 out of the atmosphere above it in about 15 minutes.
Plants thrive on CO2. So would it not be reasonable to assume that if atmospheric CO2 continues to increase, plant life on Earth will increase proportionately, sucking more CO2 out of the atmosphere?
More plants, more food for animals (like humans), a greater range of shirtsleeve temperatures (assuming the Alarmist models are right and the plants don’t use all the CO2 up)—if that’s “damage,” I’ll take more of it!
/Mr Lynn
REPLY: It is already happening and measure, see my post on The Biosphere is Booming: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/03/24/the-earths-biosphere-is-booming-data-suggests-that-co2-is-the-cause-part-2/
-Anthony
For disasters however they want to give the highest estimate, for the same reason. That’s what I call second order cherry picking.
Mr Lynn,
I’ve quoted Prof Freeman Dyson a few times. Here’s what he wrote:
“A field of corn growing in full sunlight in the middle of the day uses up all the carbon dioxide within a meter of the ground in about five minutes. If the air were not constantly stirred by convection currents and winds, the corn would stop growing.” [source]
Others can correct me but I can think of only two ways for this infamous inertia to exist.
A-) Once released into the atmosphere, CO2 molecules get in a line waiting to be ushered into the seat of warming. So what you belch today may not cause any warming for 20-30-1000 years.
Hmmmm that’s just bull$hit. Once in the air, all CO2 molecules adhere to the same physical laws. There are none hiding around the corner like a boogey man waiting to get us some decades into the future.
B-) CO2 molecules do cause warming immediately upon release, but this warming is sequestered in the vast oceans, primed and ready to warm the atmosphere for 10-20-1000 years.
Problem with inertia B is that this sequestered warmth had to be in the atmosphere first, but there has only been 0.7DegC of it over the last 100 years or so (this is disputed). It can only be released if the atmosphere is cooler than the ocean and then it can only re-warm the atmosphere by 0.7DegC i.e back to square one. A patch of ocean at say 14.7DegC can’t warm the air above it to 14.8DegC
So if all emissions were to stop now, the atmosphere cannot possibly keep warming under inertia B.
Inertia my a$$
Myrrh says:
March 27, 2011 at 4:34 am
“Pre-Industrial levels” is an AGW scam, no such thing. Only an idiot or a conman would think to measure the unproven “background level C02″ from the top of the world’s biggest active volcano in a region of great volcanic activity.
Before saying things like this, please look at where CO2 is measured: at some 70 places they measure “background” CO2 in air, including regular ships cruises and buoys over the oceans, airplanes and nowadays satellites. There are relative huge seasonal variations, mainly in the NH, but the yearly averages are within 2 ppmv for each hemisphere and maximum 5 ppmv between the NH and the (lagging) SH. See:
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/iadv/
Compare the differences between the stations and the trends of several stations from near the North Pole to the South Pole:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/co2_trends.jpg
CO2 is local everywhere it’s local, it’s heavier than air and doesn’t readily rise into the atmosphere
Indeed all CO2 levels are “local”, but some are more local than others. 95% of the atmosphere has about the same CO2 level, if averaged over a year. Only the first few hundred meters over land show huge variability and is unsuitable for “background” measurements.
That CO2 is heavier than air only plays a role if huge quantities are released at once, once mixed it stays mixed until captured by the oceans or vegetation. That is the case for all gases, including very heavy molecules like CFK’s, which can be measured up to the stratosphere… See Brownian motion:
http://www.aip.org/history/einstein/brownian.htm
That humans are the cause of the increase of CO2 over the pre-industrial level was discussed several times here on WUWT, but a good overview is here:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/co2_measurements.html
Baa Humbug, on your inertia point B, do you think CO2 in the atmosphere should cause the ocean to warm immediately or slowly. Those are your choices.
@ur momisugly
Jimbo says:
March 27, 2011 at 2:49 am
…From memory I recall that some of the worst hurricanes occured during the Little Ice Age.
Dang. How old are you?
Ferdinand Engelbeen says:
March 27, 2011 at 12:36 pm
Re My “Pre-Industrial levels” is an AGW scam, etc.”
Before saying things like this, please look at where CO2 is measured: at some 70 places they measure “background” CO2 in air, including regular ships cruises and buoys over the oceans… etc.”
Ferdinand, please, believe me, I’ve said this before. I have looked at these, and your site. Have you ever bothered to read any of my links?
The beginning is as I’ve said above in my post, a scam. No scientist worth his salt would think of going to the worlds largest active volcano in arguably the world’s most active volcanic region with the intention of measuring “background CO2” surrounded by thousands of earthquakes a year spewing out CO2 into the warm ocean and surrounded by other active volcanoes doing the same in the air. It’s ABSURD.
That this is officially the poster child station of AGW and officially described as “a pristine site” for measurement, i.e., that this station is uncontaminated by local production, is equally absurd.
Who came up with the idea of “background CO2”? – Keeling. There’s no such thing. This is the man who took the lowest readings of the then extensive research on CO2 levels, but only from an already well known and discredited research method, and ignored all the other data. He cherry picked. He then claimed after LESS THAN TWO YEARS of measuring this ‘background CO2’ on a sodding volcano, that he had detected a definite trend of rising global levels from man-made emissions. HOW???!!!
That’s scientific method? Less than two years to establish ‘global’? He could tell man-made from volcanic? How? What’s ‘global’ about that particular site? Trade winds coming from the ring of fire and massive local volcanic production. He had an agenda, he didn’t like coal.
Did he produce anything, anything at all, to explain this ‘global background’? No. Because it’s nonsense. And, co-ordinated nonsense it continued to be because his son took over being in charge of this ‘station’ data at Scripps and as the movement spread so did the interests coming on board, until in the 70’s it became a government organised scam, and all the data is now co-ordinated to fit. NOAA and NASA have been proved to be complicit in fixing temperature data, what on earth would lead you to think that there is any real science behind all these ‘stations’ monitoring CO2 levels?
Here’s an in a nutshell background to the original work on measuring CO2: http://www.real-debt-elimination.com/real_freedom/Propaganda/Global_Warming_Myth/carbon_cycle-modeling_and_CO2.htm
There was absolutely no scientific method employed, but instead deliberate manipulation to create the results desired to fit a particular agenda. That hasn’t changed.
Re my “CO2 is local everywhere it’s local, it’s heavier than air and doesn’t readily rise into the atmosphere.”
Indeed all CO2 levels are “local”, but some are more local than others. 95% of the atmosphere has about the same CO2 level, if averaged over a year. Only the first few hundred meters over land show huge variability and is unsuitable for “background” measurements.
That CO2 is heavier than air only plays a role if huge quantities are released at once, once mixed it stays mixed until captured by the oceans or vegetation.
Oh right, the old “well-mixed” meme. And somehow large amounts of CO2 are sticky? Or what?
So how is it different for CO2 in large quantities than isn’t applicable to an individual molecule of CO2?
See Brownian motion: http://www.aip.org/history/einstein/brownian.htm
Yes, thanks, but I can’t see it, my computer doesn’t load java. Describe it.
That is the case for all gases, including very heavy molecules like CFK’s, which can be measured up to the stratosphere..
? Not that I’ve ever seen convincing proof for.
That humans are the cause of the increase of CO2 over the pre-industrial level was discussed several times here on WUWT, but a good overview is here: http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/co2_measurements.html
See my first link. A scam from the beginning doesn’t morph into real science by adding more assumptions, why should Antarctic ice cores show anything but local CO2? Not exactly huge CO2 production factories are they? Although they do have volcanic activity also. This still isn’t proof of “background”. A vague average per year showing a steady increase to fit in with Mauna Loa cherry picked and pre-determined is no proof that such “background” actually exists. AIRS satellite data showed CO2 was not “well-mixed”, but lumpy and the conclusion was they would have to rethink the part winds played in this, it came as a shock because they believed the meme that it was “well-mixed and stayed well-mixed”. Also bearing in mind that this was mid-troposphere level and since it isn’t always windy and CO2 is heavier than air and doesn’t readily rise up into the atmosphere, then volcanic activity and planes are the most likely sources of anything measured that high. (ditto volcanoes for CFC’s)
Again, you claim you can tell how much of this “background” is man-made, but this geologist says you can’t: http://carbon-budget.geologist-1011.net/
One of you is wrong.
Please read it, he also has something interesting to say about Keeling and his method, that he chucked observation for statistical fantasy – which as has also been covered extensively on WUWT, and is the new science of computer modeling in AGW: set your own nonsense parameters and get nonsense results bearing no relation to the real world.
In the real world Brownian motion is the movement of random particles suspended in a fluid, i.e. liquid or gas, and distance measured up to millimetres. Why? Because real gases have volume, have weight, are subject to gravity and atmospheric pressure. Only imaginary ideal gases which don’t have volume or weight, zip through the imaginary empty atmosphere at these amazing speeds to “mix-thoroughly” by diffusion.. No sound in the AGW atmosphere, except empty vessels making much noise.
Look up Brownian motion, wiki’s page on it is good, and look up wiki page on diffusion.
From wiki on diffusion: “While Brownian motion of large molecules is observable under a microscope, small-molecule diffusion can only be probed in carefully controlled experimental conditions. Under normal conditions, molecular diffusion is relevant ony on length scales between nanometer and millimeter. On larger length scale s, transport in liquids and gases is normally due to another transport phenomenon, convection.
Therefore, some often cited examples of diffusion are wrong: If cologne is sprayed in one place, it will soon be smelled in the entire room, but a simple calculation shows that this cannot be due to diffusion; the cause can only be convection. If ink is dropped in water, one usually observes an inhomogeneous evolution of the spatial distribution, which clearly indicates convection; diffusion dominates only in perfect thermal equilibrium.”
The Earth’s atmosphere is not a perfect thermal equilibrium. CO2 does not mix thoroughly by Brownian motion or diffusion any more than does heat. That’s why a lot of people choose to go to warmer countries for their holidays, because they know from observation of the real world that heat doesn’t diffuse to mix thoroughly ..
AGWScience is imaginary, it describes an imaginary world, through the looking glass with Alice impossible world. Only in such an imaginary world does CO2, which is one and half times heavier than air in the real world, diffuse into the atmosphere to mix thoroughly and then can’t be un-mixed. Where have such ideas come from? From an agenda, and achieved by taking physical laws out of context of the specific constraints in application.
Myrrh says:
March 27, 2011 at 5:43 pm
I agree w/ your statements about Mauna Loa , I have flown over the area many times in the last 10 years. Planes (especially since the volcano has erupted) going to the other islands circle the mountains coming and going, night and day. Check the flight patterns. When landing at Maui almost all the time they go by the volcano as they are decending. I have seen the Mauna Loa complex also. That has to have an effect on the Co2 levels as a lot of flights fly by constantly. Also the CFC farce was just as political as CO2. They had other reasons to stop production as it was ez to produce dangerous gasses for a weapon. It was also a test run for the CO2 scam . CO2 and Halon fire extingushers can be sprayed over a very hot fire with the hot gasses shooting up into the air and they still fall over the flames like a heavy blanket otherwise they would not work so well.
Re plant consumption of CO2:
Thanks. Missed that one; hard to keep up with the flood of good stuff.
Five minutes, not fifteen as I remembered! How can we get every so-called ‘science reporter’ to appreciate the significance of this fact?
How long would it take for Earth’s green biota to suck up all of the CO2 generated by burning fossil fuels in, say, a year? Realizing that increased CO2 means more plant life, and realizing that the human component of atmospheric CO2 is a tiny fraction of the total, probably not long.
/Mr Lynn
Myrrh says:
March 27, 2011 at 5:43 pm
Myrrh,
Without reopening the whole discussion again, here a few remarks:
– That pre-Mauna Loa CO2 levels were higher in some years is based on the work of the late Ernst Beck. I have read his work in detail. The main problem with his work is that many of the historical measurements were done over land, where you can measure any level of CO2: extremely high at night and near huge sources, very low during daylight near vegetation. The 1942 peak value is mainly from two long series over land (Giessen, Germany and Poona, India), with huge variability (Giessen: 68 ppmv – one sigma). In the same year at the other end of the world (US) values of 250 ppmv were measured. Both series and the value from the US can’t be used to estimate backgound CO2 levels of that period. Measurements on ships over the oceans and coastal with wind from the seaside show values around the ice core CO2 levels for the overlapping periods. There is no 1942 “peak” visible in ice cores, neither in stomata data or d13C values of coralline sponges.
– Segalstad is wrong on many counts: there is not the slightest connection between residence time and excess CO2 decay time. Residence time only shows how much CO2 is exchanged over the seasons, but that has nothing to do with how much CO2 is added or removed at the end of a full seasonal cycle. That is what counts, not which molecules (human or natural) are left. And as humans add twice the amount which is measured as increase, that makes that humans are fully responsible for most of the increase.
– new infra-red (IR) absorbing instrumental method, never validated versus the accurate wet chemical techniques.
How can you validate a new technique with an accuracy of +/-0.1 ppmv against a wet chemical method “accurate” to +/-10 ppmv? Keeling validated the new method against an extreme accurate manometric method (1:40,000 for CO2 levels, still in use at Scripps).
– Jaworowski tells stories from 1992, which were fully refuted in 1996 by the work of Etheridge e.a.: Etheridge measured CO2 levels top down in the firn from near the surface to closing depth. That shows that the CO2 levels at 72 m depth in average are some 10 years older than at the surface (with similar levels in ice cores and firn), while the ice is already 40 years old. Thus Jaworowski is completely wrong that there is no difference between ice age and gas age in ice cores. See:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/law_dome_overlap.jpg
Further, it is physically impossible to measure lower CO2 levels in ice cores, if the outside CO2 level is much higher and there would be cracks in the ice which allow exchanges with the outside world.
– Volcanic CO2 is estimated less than 1% of human emissions. Even the largest volcanic eruption of the past 50 years, the Pinatubo, caused a drop in CO2 increase rate, as the cooling resulting from the ash cloud caused more absorption than the extra addition of CO2 from the eruption. Moreover, what Timothy Casey missed is that volcanic CO2 is higher in d13C than the atmospheric CO2, but we see a decrease in d13C, not an increase.
About your own objections:
– Mauna Loa was not the first station where CO2 was measured, the South Pole was first. Mauna Loa only confirmed the South Pole measurements.
– Mauna Loa monitors the CO2 levels continuously. If there is a huge variability within an hour of the 10-second samples, then the data are not used for averaging. That happens with downwind conditions. In fact these data (some +4 ppmv) are used to calculate the emissions from the volcano. The same for upwind conditions, where slightly depleted levels (-4 ppmv, caused by vegetation in the valley) are found. Taking these values into the averaging doesn’t change the average with more than 0.1 ppmv, neither changes the trend. See:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/mlo2004_hr_raw.jpg and
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/mlo2004_hr_selected.gif
– and all the data is now co-ordinated to fit
This is pure nonsense. The only thing that is coordinated by the WMO via NOAA is the preparation and calibration of calibration mixtures (even so, Scripps still has its own calibration mixtures). The 70 baseline stations are operated by different people from different organisations in different countries. Nobody tells them to “fit” some agenda. Or do you think that not one of the hundreds of people involved would bring that out?
– Oh right, the old “well-mixed” meme. And somehow large amounts of CO2 are sticky? Or what?
It is a matter of mixing speed: If you release a huge quantity at once, that amount is residing near ground, eventually killing trees (Mammoth Lakes) and humans (African lake). But within hours, the wind disperses and mixes CO2 within other molecules. To distribute that worldwide needs time: days to weeks within one latitude and altitude, weeks to months within one hemisphere for different altitudes and latitudes and some 14 months between the hemispheres. That are the differences you see in the monthly satellite data: some +/-8 ppmv over the seasons (look at the scale!). If that isn’t well mixed, then I don’t know what is well mixed according to you.
And the trend everywhere is +60 ppmv over the past 50 years, far beyond the temporary differences over the seasons.
– Brownian motion: If molecules can transport heavier items over any distance, then there is no reason that they can’t carry much smaller molecules to any place in the atmosphere, even if these are relative heavier than the average. CO2 levels at 3,400 m at Mauna Loa are the same as at sea level (Cape Kumukahi) on Hawai. While wind and convection are the main mixing items, Brownian motion is what keeps CO2 and any other gas in the mix.
For CFC’s in the stratosphere, see:
http://visibleearth.nasa.gov/view_rec.php?id=9549
CO2 levels are amongst the best measured and quality controlled data I know of. It doesn’t matter if you use the Mauna Loa data or any of the other baseline stations (the “global” CO2 data are the average of several sealevel stations, Mauna Loa not included). All show the same trend. One can only hope that one day the temperature data will be of the same quality…
Mr Lynn says:
March 27, 2011 at 9:54 pm
How long would it take for Earth’s green biota to suck up all of the CO2 generated by burning fossil fuels in, say, a year? Realizing that increased CO2 means more plant life, and realizing that the human component of atmospheric CO2 is a tiny fraction of the total, probably not long.
About 38 years half life for removing the excess CO2 by land plants end oceans, see:
http://www.john-daly.com/carbon.htm
A doubling of atmospheric CO2 increases growth speed of different plants with 0-100%, average some 50%, thus not all extra CO2 is absorbed in the same year (and some comes back at the end of the growing season), but there is definitely an increase of more or less permanent carbon sequestering. The same in the ocean surface layer, but that is limited to about 10% of the atmospheric increase (due to equilibrium reactions with bicarbonates and carbonates). The deep oceans store the differences. In total some 50% of the yearly human emissions in quantity (not necessary the same molecules) are absorbed by plants and oceans…
Latitude Said,
Latitude is not wrong eadler
” From 2005 to 2006, emissions from fuel combustion decreased for the first time since 2000 to 2001″
” After experiencing a decrease from 2005 to 2006″
” Emissions from fossil fuel combustion decreased from 2007 to 2008″
” From 2008 to 2009, fossil fuel combustion emissions experienced a decrease of 6.4 percent, the greatest decrease of any year over the course of the twenty-year period.”
EPA
2. Trends in Greenhouse Gas Emissions
2.1. Recent Trends in U.S. Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Sink
http://epa.gov/climatechange/emissions/downloads11/US-GHG-Inventory-2011-Chapter-2-Trends.pdf
The original argument was that the EPA does not need to regulate CO2 emissions because there is a declining trend in emissions without it.
I argued that there is no declining trend, and the most recent decline is due to the recession. The link that you provided does say there were some years in which there was a decline, but the reason for the latest decline does not give us confidence that there is a trend that will last. Explaining the decline between 2008 and 2009, it says:
The following factors were primary contributors
to this decrease: (1) a decrease in economic output resulting in a decrease in energy consumption across all sectors;
and (2) a decrease in the carbon intensity of fuels used to generate electricity due to fuel switching as the price of coal increased, and the price of natural gas decreased significantly.
As the economy snaps back and there is more energy consumption, this decline should not be expected to continue of its own accord.
http://www.nicholas.duke.edu/thegreengrok/2009emissions-proj
The US emissions target for 2020 is a paltry 17% reduction below 2005. This is clearly insufficient to impact climate change due to GHG’s.
Jim K says:
March 27, 2011 @ur momisugly 8:45 pm
I agree w/your statements about Mauna Loa, I have flown over the area many times in the last 10 years. Planes (especially since the volcano has erupted) going to the other islands cirecles the mountains coming and going night and day..
Keeling wasn’t interested in real observation, he said that – my geologist link above. Ferdinand thinks Keeling is a real scientist so thinks all the explanations coming from this promoted view are real science and so tries to make them make sense, but Keeling decided that the Antarctic wasn’t good enough for his purpose, not enough change, so where better to go than the world’s great hot spot for volcanic activity? To have such an abundance of CO2 to play with in the pre-determined agenda of showing a rising global yearly trend.
So eager to establish this, he couldn’t even wait 2 years before making the announcement! In what scientific field would such data be acceptable as proof that there is a yearly increase of anything? Ferdinand misses these little things or dismisses them as unimportant, but those who objectively observe such unscientific tweakings being made are the real scientists, that see the volcanoes sending up CO2 and the planes, increasingly heavier traffic over the decades, releasing it day and night into the Keeling measuring flasks from which AGW claim to be able to extract non-local production of CO2 with such great precision.
Ferdinand – I’m not going to answer all your points, since you ignore them anyway, but one thing I do find strange is your dismissal of all previous studies of the variable local production of CO2, as Keeling et al did, because they ‘can’t be used in establishing background’, when they are actually showing the real state of CO2 in our atmosphere because the only way you can claim this mythical ‘background’ exists is by torturing ideal gas laws.
Because CO2 is heavier than air it is generally, normally, limited in distance travelled, this variable local CO2 is CO2 in real life. It is subject to local winds and warmth and rain. Some certainly from the tops of volcanoes will go shooting into higher wind patterns, but even then, being heavier than air it will always gravitate downwards, because, something, anything, heavier than air will displace air to reach the ground, or will come down in the rain.
It takes energy to move something heavier than air into the mid and upper atmosphere, neither CO2 nor CFC’s have any ability to do this of their own volition. Brownian motion is limited to nanometers and millimeters – a molecule can not travel at such speeds through the fluid atmosphere which is the gas Air, which also has great weight – do you know how heavy air is on every square foot of ground? Ideal gas laws cannot apply here, because ideal gases have no volume, no weight, are not subject to gravity, etc.
The air above us, our atmosphere, is a very heavy fluid in which molecules do not move very far at all. That’s why sound travels the way it does; the vibration of sound causing molecules to bash the others next to them in the line of sound and pass that on as they themselves vibrate back to their own places and stop. They may well be moving very very quickly on the spot, but going nowhere fast unless something else is moving them through the much thicker volume around them. Our atmosphere is the gas Air, it has weight and volume, it is not empty space.
Within that the molecules of CO2 are heavyweights compared with Nitrogen and Oxygen, and push these nitrogen and oxygen molecules aside as they come to earth with a bump. Poetic licence. Likewise CFC’s, even heavier than CO2. Even more illogical in natural established science to think that these can rise from the ground up into the stratosphere on their own volition or by the impossible ‘ideal gas’ laws, which describe an imaginary gas, not a real one. I urge you to investigate this further, because you’re taking on trust that which is not credible in our normal, day to day, physical reality.
Myrrh says:
March 29, 2011 at 7:40 pm
Keeling wasn’t interested in real observation, he said that – my geologist link above.
Well your geologist is wrong at least on one important point: volcanic CO2 is not the cause of the increase of CO2, simply because its 13C/12C ratio is the other way out, compared to the observations. That shows to me that he either hasn’t looked at the data or simply ignored them.
Moreover, if volcanic activity was the cause, why would there be a near constant increase at about 50% of human emissions? CO2 levels didn’t peak at Mauna Loa when the volcano there erupted, neither showed a decline after the eruption.
I didn’t find any remark on Keeling’s attitude: Keeling was hardly interested in “global warming”, as far as that was an item at all in the 1950’s, it was seen as something beneficial! The only interest of Keeling was good, continuous, measurements of CO2, which costed him a lifetime of struggle against several administrations. See:
http://scrippsco2.ucsd.edu/publications/keeling_autobiography.pdf
Keeling decided that the Antarctic wasn’t good enough for his purpose, not enough change
What a nonsense: The measurements at the South Pole still are done since the start: continuously from 1957 to 1963, before (1956) and after that with (bi-)weekly flask samples, later again with continuous equipment. The variability indeed is less than at Mauna Loa, simply because the SH has less vegetation, thus less seasonal variability. And less outliers (except for mechanical problems in the harsh conditions there), because there is no vegetation and no volcano at least 1,300 km away. Even so the the trend is exactly the same as at Mauna Loa (except for a lag of about 14 months). Here a plot of the increase of CO2 in the atmosphere at Mauna Loa and the South Pole since 1960, versus the human emissions:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/acc_co2_1960_2006.jpg
If you think that the increase is from some natural source, I am very curious which one can follow the human emissions in such an exact ratio.
And indeed, Keeling could declare that there was an increase of CO2 in the atmosphere after only one-two years of measurements (at Mauna Loa and the South Pole): his new method was accurate enough to detect the increase (which was already presumed, but couldn’t be confirmed with the wet chemical methods).
your dismissal of all previous studies of the variable local production of CO2, as Keeling et al did
Keeling did exactly the opposite: he observed a huge variability in local CO2 levels in the Big Sur forest (California), but also measured the 13C/12C ratio, so he did know that vegetation was the main cause of the variability. He also found that in the afternoon, levels were leveling everywhere, showing about the same CO2 level over fields, in deserts and over the oceans. That was the reason for him to look at places where the least contamination by sources and sinks of CO2 were.
CO2 levels in the first 200 meters above land are extremely variable, simply because CO2 sinks and sources are adding and substracting CO2 and the air mass is not completely mixed. Even so, some 400 CO2 monitoring stations (including tall towers) are trying to establish CO2 fluxes over large areas. Above 500 m over land and everywhere above the oceans, deserts and icefields, air masses are well mixed, be it with a delay for the huge seasonal exchanges from oceans and vegetation. That is for 95% of the atmosphere. The 5% of the atmosphere with high variability is of no interest at all for any discussion about the greenhouse effect. Even if there was 1,000 ppmv CO2 in the first 1,000 meter, the radiation absorption effect would give less than 0.1°C increase. For 95% of the atmosphere, the CO2 levels are within +/-3 ppmv worldwide for yearly averages. Confirmed by stations, ships, airplanes and nowadays satellites. That are solid data, unlike temperature data.
It takes energy to move something heavier than air into the mid and upper atmosphere, neither CO2 nor CFC’s have any ability to do this of their own volition.
Brownian motion takes the energy from collisions with air molecules. It carries much heavier stuff than CO2 or CFC molecules and keeps them within the air, without dropping out. It is the wind and convection which mixes CO2 into the rest of the air and everywhere around the world, but Brownian motion keeps the CO2 in (only in total standstill, some small increase – ~1% – at the bottom of 72 meter of firn after 40 years can be measured). Please consult anyone familiar with gases and vapours about this item, he/she will confirm what I say.
And this is based on observations, not any theoretical consideration.
I had some figures about how much CO2 is absorbed in rain, but lost them, all I remember is that it was negligible for CO2 level measurements.