Continued from part 1…
Guest Post by Caleb Shaw
I will now tell you what I’ve learned, so you can subject it to your kindly WUWT peer- review. I’m fairly certain I’ve gotten some of it wrong, because it doesn’t entirely make sense.
For the purposes of this paper we will imagine a place where snow falls at a great rate, builds up and compacts swiftly, and turns to ice with little bubbles, in only sixty years. We will begin sixty years ago, in the year 1951, on an icecap where the temperatures are always below freezing.
When snow first falls it is called, “Snow.” I find this very relieving, because Climate Scientists have more words for snow than an Inuit. Their official reason for this is to respect other culture’s words for “snow,” and to demonstrate political correctness, as in Climate Science that correctness is more important than the mathematical sort, and they are exceedingly respectful towards all cultures, except Yankees. (In fact I imagine their secret reason for creating the snow-jargon is to keep Yankee laymen like myself confused, hoping the confusion will keep us from butting in where we are not wanted. It is almost as if they are saying, “Yankee go home,” but two can play that game. With the exception of the single word “firn,” I will only use Yankee lingo.)
The snow that fell in 1951 was dry, and around 95% air, but wind whipped it around and it became the sort of packed powder that is around 90% air. At this point the snow is 1951 snow, and the air is 1951 air.
As seasons pass this snow gets buried deeper and deeper by successive snowfalls, as temperatures never allow thawing. As 1951 turns to 1961, and 1961 turns to 1971, the sheer weight of the snow overhead causes changes in the packed powder. Despite the fact temperatures never rise above twenty below, the snow behaves as if it had thawed, and becomes “firn,” which involves the snowflakes becoming crystals of ice too large to be called flakes.
As decades continue to pass and pressures build the firn becomes what Yankee call “gritty snow,” (like granulated sugar,) and then becomes “corn snow,” and finally becomes “candle ice.” Then, in the year 2011, with over 400 feet of snow overhead, we arrive at a momentous occasion, wherein the air in the ice, which once was able to move with some degree of freedom through the firn, is locked into little bubbles. Firn is firn no longer, and has stepped over the frontier and become ice.
I’m sure Climate Scientists have a word for this frontier, but I can only research so long before my computer freezes up, and therefore I’ll make up my own Yankee jargon, and call the boundary between firn and ice, “The Firnopause.”
It is at the Firnopause that the formerly free air suffers the indignity of an icy chastity belt clamping about its freedom, forcing it to become what Climate Scientists call, “pristine.” And pristine it must remain, eon after eon, until at long last a gallant Climate Scientist rides up and frees it from its deplorable condition. (Sorry about the purple prose. Unfortunately that is a prerequisite, in Climate Science.)
And that gallant Climate Scientist then discovers a remarkable thing. As you remember, the snow originally fell in 1951, so the ice around the bubble dates from 1951. However the air within the bubble dates from 2011. Somehow the air from 2011 has made its way down through over 400 feet of tightly packed snow, and all the air from 1951 has been booted out.
Accepting authority, I try to get my mind around this amazing natural phenomenon, and to think of what natural factors could have caused it to occur.
It can’t be the kinetic movement of air, for that higgiltypiggilty movement would not cause 1951 air to only move up, even as 2011 air only moves down. Even the most frenetic kinetic motion would create a mix of airs from all the years between 1951 and 2011, with air from 2011 the least likely to be down that deep.
It can’t be due to expansion and contraction of summer and winter air, because, once you move down ten feet into the firn, temperatures remain constant, and air neither expands nor contracts.
The best solution involves the difference between a huge 950 mb winter storm and a huge 1040 mb winter high pressure area. Before my computer froze I determined this was a difference between 13.778 psi and 15.084 psi. (I haven’t a clue what this means in terms of volume; the peer-review of WUWT will help me out, I’m sure.) However, because I prefer math to be simple, I will state there is a ten percent difference in volume between the same amount of air in a 950mb low and a 1040mb high.
This is a significant difference. Stand by a cave with a large chamber and a small entrance as barometric pressures falls, and you will feel a breeze blowing out.
A cave is actually a poor analogy for firn, for firn in effect has a large entrance which funnels down to smaller and smaller cracks and capillaries. However, just to shut me up, assume that, as a 950mb low gives way to a 1040 mb high overhead, air actually can be inhaled 10% of the way down into the firn.
Big deal. That is only 40 feet, and leaves you with 360 feet to go, for 2011 air to be at the Firnopause in time to be clamped into little bubbles. Furthermore, as soon as the 1040 mb high starts to move off and pressures fall, the 2011 air gets exhaled out.
Obviously we need to discover a way to inhale the 2011 air down, and exhale all the pre-2011 gas out. Fortunately Climate Science is much like undone homework; if you have no excuse you can always make one up.
Therefore, to be helpful, I have invented the concept of “grabacules.” Grabacules are yet-to-be-discovered, gravity-activated, kinetic bonds on the sides of fresh air, but worn off the sides of stale air. Because they are gravity-activated, 2011 air slides freely downwards through the firn, but grabs onto the ice when any power tries to move it back up. In essence 2011 air stands aside for pre-2011 air, (which lacks grabacules,) to pass, and then moves downwards again the next time downward forces come into play. The 2011 air moves like an inchworm, moving foreword, grabbing, and moving foreword again.
Pretty cool theory, aye? Isn’t Climate Science wonderful!? (And if you think that idea is good, you should have heard my excuses for undone homework. A breathless hush would fall in the classroom, as I arose to speak…)
The problem with my admittedly brilliant idea is that the inch-worm gets shorter and shorter. Moving 10% of the way to your goal can never get you to your goal. Up at the surface of the firn, a huge change in atmospheric pressure may shove the 2011 air 40 feet downwards, but 100 feet from the firnopause the same change only moves the 2011 air 10 feet towards the goal, and 10 inches from the goal it only moves an inch towards its goal.
According to my layman’s calculations that is as far as the 2011 air gets, for by then it is 2012, the 2012 Air starts downwards, and the 2011 air, its grabacules all shot to heck, has to U-turn and start back upwards to make room for the 2012 air.
This leaves a space of nine inches the 2011 air never gets to. This is a very important space, for it is this air which is actually is incorporated into the little bubbles. If this air isn’t 2011 air, what is it?
First we must have a name for this nine inches, just above the Firnopause, and I suggest it be called the Yankeeopause, (named after me, of course.)
It is in this nine inches which a factor so tiny it is unseen, up at the surface, becomes glaringly apparent. It is a factor I call “Spongeosis.”
We all know that, when you squeeze a sponge, water comes out. The exact same thing happens when you squeeze snow, which is 95% air, and wind up with the Firnopause ice, which is at best 10 % air. The difference is that with a sponge you squeeze out water, but when you squeeze snow you squeeze out air. Where is that air to go? Nowhere but up.
This very weak, nearly imperceptible flow is unseen at the surface, where changes in barometric pressure have veritable tides of air inhaling and exhaling through the firn, but down in the quiet and still depths of the Yankeeopause, this flow is all there is. Like the bow-wave of a boat, it moves just ahead of the freeze-up at the Firnopause, and consists of the very last bit of air squeezed from the snow. It never holds air from above, and rather consists of a great many years worth of air all slowly pushed ahead like snow before a plow. Some of the air may be centuries old, and when a part of the Yankeeopause’s blended air gets left behind as a bubble in ice at the Firnopause, the CO2 level in that bubble will not represent any particular year, but rather an average. All peaks and valleys in the CO2 record will be smoothed out. The firn, in the end, has been a great equalizer.
And that is the end of my story, which I have told for your entertainment. It flies in the face of the desire of Climate Science, which is to move 2011 air down to inclusion in tiny bubbles at the Firnopause. However it’s my story, and I’m sticking to it.
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Myrrh says:
November 4, 2011 at 8:26 am
I think both these have views about Beck because of their preconceptions, their own biases. Beck makes perfect sense in my world where CO2 is local, the ‘background well-mixed’ an illusion, where levels fluctuated during the day depending on wind and photosynthesis, so for example, calm days will have higher levels because carbon dioxide being heavier than air will always sink displacing air unless work is being done to alter that, and so on.
I try to look at the facts, which are that there are places where there is very little variability in CO2 levels, and places where there is a lot of variability. In 95% of the atmosphere there is little variability in 5% there is huge variability. If you take the average over a year from places like Barrow near the North Pole via Mauna Loa to the South Pole ,from seaship surveys and airplane sampling, then you see the same averages (within 5 ppmv) and the same trend. That one can call background. That has nothing to do with bias but with facts…
What Ernst Beck has done is compiling a lot of historical samples from a lot of places, where most were in the 5% high variability part of the atmosphere. Then he concluded that that represents the whole atmosphere of that time. And that is where my objections against his results are.
I don’t think that you would agree with a temperature record where 90% of the data comes from the middle of large towns…
John West says:
November 4, 2011 at 7:32 am
OK, I have read the first part of the report now too (I didn’t before, as I was only interested in the results).
The researchers base their calculation on several points:
– the concentration of CO2 in water at the surface of Siple Dome at equilibrium is measured/calculated.
– a thin film of that CO2 rich water percolates through the firn until it encounters a layer cold enough to refreeze the water.
– when that refreezes soluble gases are freezed out, that is CO2, Ar, Xe and Kr, O2 and N2.
– these gases gets in a few bubbles left in the refrozen layer, part goes into adjacent bubbles and part escapes to the atmosphere by diffusion via still open pores.
– how much CO2 should be retained in the surviving bubbles is calculated based on the Xe/Ar, Kr/Ar and 40Ar/36Ar ratio’s of the different ice parts and the ratio in ice/water volumes between the melted and normal ice parts.
– then they compare the calculated retention of CO2 in the refrozen layer with the measured spread in the adjacent bubbles gradually away from the refrozen layers.
– they attribute the CO2 spread away from the refrozen layer to migration over time. In my opinion, that is a rather dubious claim: if refreezing is relative slow but porosity is quite small, the diffusion speed is reduced, but still may spread the CO2 levels over adjacent layers before all bubbles are fully closed.
About your questions:
Where did the “excess” CO2 come from?
According to the researchers, from the atmosphere by simple dissolving of atmospheric CO2 in liquid water until equilibrium.
If there really should have been 16k ppm as was “expected”, then why did the ice only capture 700 ppm?
The 16k ppmv was the ratio within water. While refreezing, CO2 is expelled from the ice into the present total bubble air volume, which gives an excess of 700 ppmv in air. Thus it is just a matter of water vs. air volume ratios…
In this case I am not defending this work, as I think that there still are too many unresolved questions, but it is a an attempt for quantification of the migration speed of CO2 in ice cores over extreme long periods, which is near impossible to obtain from laboratory setups. My interest was in the results: a small increase to a doubling of the resolution. Not a real problem, and certainly not proof that ice cores are unreliable sources of information, as some seems to think that this report shows…
Sorry, I need to leave this discussion now, will have a nice city trip to Barcelona in the next days… With restricted Internet access (and not much time, better things to do…).
Ferdinand
What a fun Read!!
“Firnopause” “Grabicules”
Gotta love it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
So what we are really saying here is that ice created in 1941 has air in it from the year 2001 and therefore any air sample taken from lower layers are all mixed/contaminated with the previous 60 years of atmospheric conditions? Which means no representation can be made as to the accuracy of ice core samples below that of a century scale and depending on the variability of atmospheric gas concentrations, the significant digit may be at 1% or more like 10%. That’s a pretty big error bar.
Ferdinand Engelbeen says:
November 4, 2011 at 6:58 am
Myrrh says:
November 4, 2011 at 3:38 am
So, carbon dioxide and water in the atmosphere have an irresistable affinity for each other in rain, fog, snow, dew, so stuff rusts, pure clean rain is carbonic acid. What we have is carbonic acid to add to the mix in these ice cores, isn’t it?
Snow at the high elevations of Antarctica is formed at about -80°C. Not much water there on the surface of the flakes, not even at the average -40°C when it deposits on the surface. Thus there is little absorption, if at all on the snow.
Carbon dioxide is alreay in the flakes, unless you’re saying that the flakes aren’t made of water.
Accurate CO2 measurements are done with water vapour removal over a cold trap at -70°C. That removes most of the water below the detection limits of CO2 measurements, without affecting the CO2 levels…
So it isn’t measuring the carbon dioxide in these ‘air pockets’? But in the whole lot. But, they do have measurements of other acids and such from ice cores, where can I find the measurements for carbonic acid?
Ferdinand Engelbeen says:
November 4, 2011 at 10:15 am
Myrrh says:
November 4, 2011 at 8:26 am
I think both these have views about Beck because of their preconceptions, their own biases. Beck makes perfect sense in my world where CO2 is local, the ‘background well-mixed’ an illusion, where levels fluctuated during the day depending on wind and photosynthesis, so for example, calm days will have higher levels because carbon dioxide being heavier than air will always sink displacing air unless work is being done to alter that, and so on.
I try to look at the facts, which are that there are places where there is very little variability in CO2 levels, and places where there is a lot of variability. In 95% of the atmosphere there is little variability in 5% there is huge variability. If you take the average over a year from places like Barrow near the North Pole via Mauna Loa to the South Pole ,from seaship surveys and airplane sampling, then you see the same averages (within 5 ppmv) and the same trend. That one can call background. That has nothing to do with bias but with facts…
Hi Ferdinand, I really don’t place any value on these ‘trends’, since they actually began when Keeling announced after less than 2years of data, that he had a positive trend that man made contributions of carbon dioxide were, etc. etc. Less than two years. What does that say to you? Have you read how they meaure CO2 levels there? They decide what is volcanic.. How the heck can they tell? And don’t give me, the other stations all show the same trend because first of all kept in the family, then taken over by ‘government’ which continues to produce this ‘trend’, Keeling began with an agenda to prove man-made contribution. That’s why he jumped at the chance of having an unlimited supply sitting on top of an active volcano, surrounded by active volcanoes, by continuous carbon dioxide earthquakes and other venting above ground and in the warm oceans around.. Yeah right, sold to us as “a pristine site for CO2 measurements, uncontaminated by local production”.. The only useful thing this graph shows is that carbon dioxide is unrelated to any temperature changes since it began..
..and, the only trend I see is that they are beginning to come to the Beck’s figures.
What Ernst Beck has done is compiling a lot of historical samples from a lot of places, where most were in the 5% high variability part of the atmosphere. Then he concluded that that represents the whole atmosphere of that time. And that is where my objections against his results are.
Carbon dioxide really doesn’t do tourism, Ferdinand.
I don’t think that you would agree with a temperature record where 90% of the data comes from the middle of large towns…
Apples and oranges. Carbon dioxide is heavier than air, wherever it is produced it is likely to stay in the general vicinity heading down displacing air, winds move it around, but, it’s not always windy. The atmosphere isn’t in a permanent tumble dryer. Plants exhale it too. This is what AIRS concluded, that it was clumpy, and they haven’t yet to my knowledge released any of the lower troposphere data, and as far as I know have never shown a proper telling of the mid troposphere. Unless one can get the raw data and do one’s own work on it, what they meant by lumpy isn’t readily seen. The bland picture they presented is mid-troposphere, could all be from planes that high…
Enjoy Barcelona, lovely place, great food and Gaudi.
=================================
Caleb – more bubbles for you, http://chiefio.wordpress.com/2011/01/27/fizzy-sky-ir-spectrum-is/
Appears that at -30°C carbonic acid goes into gas phase, not as widely believed, into water and carbon dioxide.
http://www.sciencecentric.com/news/11011131-international-first-gas-phase-carbonic-acid-isolated.html
Myrrh:
At November 4, 2011 at 8:26 am you say;
“I think both these have views about Beck because of their preconceptions, their own biases. Beck makes perfect sense in my world where CO2 is local, the ‘background well-mixed’ an illusion, where levels fluctuated during the day depending on wind and photosynthesis, so for example, calm days will have higher levels because carbon dioxide being heavier than air will always sink displacing air unless work is being done to alter that, and so on.”
There are no ”preconceptions” on my part. Indeed, I completely agree with your view that I quote here.
I twice attempted to provide a point-by-point refutation of the nonsense from SteveE but it has failed to appear. Perhaps the Mods can find it?
Richard
[REPLY: Can’t find the reply you are talking about. Please post again. -REP]
Richard S Courtney says:
November 5, 2011 at 7:13 am
Myrrh:
At November 4, 2011 at 8:26 am you say;
“I think both these have views about Beck because of their preconceptions, their own biases. Beck makes perfect sense in my world where CO2 is local, the ‘background well-mixed’ an illusion, where levels fluctuated during the day depending on wind and photosynthesis, so for example, calm days will have higher levels because carbon dioxide being heavier than air will always sink displacing air unless work is being done to alter that, and so on.”
There are no ”preconceptions” on my part. Indeed, I completely agree with your view that I quote here.
I twice attempted to provide a point-by-point refutation of the nonsense from SteveE but it has failed to appear. Perhaps the Mods can find it?
Richard – thank you for letting me know.
I hope you can repost it, seems odd that it’s got lost – have just looked for it in part 1 in case.., or tackle writing it again.
Re-reading some of the posts in part 1, I think this bias from Ferdinand is firmly in that he sees no reason to doubt the Keeling et al readings, and so naturally everything that is offered is fed back through that prism, for example, bacteria can’t be making that much of a difference, ‘because they don’t show up as making any difference in the ppm between the cores – http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/10/31/little-bubbles-part-1/#comment-785325
Indeed during glacial periods, there is less water vapour which gives less clouds and rain and, which brings more dust and bacteria even until far inland cores. But as the coastal cores always show much higher salt/dust/bacterial contamination and higher temperatures (-20°C vs. -40°C), that should reflect in the CO2 (and other) levels, but that is very limited: all ice cores are within 5 ppmv for the same periods in time…
Whereas I look at that and think, I do hope they’ve kept somewhere a real record of it all for future use in the scientific endeavour.
To save yourself the pain and drudgery of retyping and re-composing, install the Lazarus FireFox add-on. It automatically caches all typed entries in reply boxes, and you can specify how long to hold them. (default 14 hrs.; I have mine set for 54 weeks, just because.) Search the whole list, or right click in the relevant reply box and select “Recover text”, and you’re done.
Myrrh says:
November 4, 2011 at 4:24 pm
Just back from sunny and warm Barcelona…
So, carbon dioxide and water in the atmosphere have an irresistable affinity for each other in rain, fog, snow, dew, so stuff rusts, pure clean rain is carbonic acid. What we have is carbonic acid to add to the mix in these ice cores, isn’t it?
and
Carbon dioxide is alreay in the flakes, unless you’re saying that the flakes aren’t made of water.
Carbon dioxide is quite soluble in liquid water but insoluble in ice or snow. Just try to freeze carbonated water: when it freezes, all CO2 is pushed out and if the bottle is not strong enough, it can explode… Thus all CO2 that you have in snow is in the air inbetween the ice crystals of the snow. When the snow compacts, as long as there are open pores with the atmosphere, there is exchange of air possible, including CO2. Slower with depth, depending of the ice density / pore diameter.
So it isn’t measuring the carbon dioxide in these ‘air pockets’? But in the whole lot. But, they do have measurements of other acids and such from ice cores, where can I find the measurements for carbonic acid?
Of course they are measuring CO2 from the air pockets: by crushing the ice at -40°C, the air from the pockets is set free. But even at -40°C, some water evaporates, from veins (if salts are present) or the surface (even solid ice evaporates under vacuum). At -70°C, most of the water vapor condensates under the detection level for CO2 measurements.
Hi Ferdinand, I really don’t place any value on these ‘trends’, since they actually began when Keeling announced after less than 2years of data, that he had a positive trend that man made contributions of carbon dioxide were, etc. etc. Less than two years. What does that say to you?
Well, that says that his measurements were accurate enough to see the increase over two years, long enough to show that the increase was larger than the noise. See here over a few years:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/mlo_co2_seasons.jpg
Have you read how they meaure CO2 levels there? They decide what is volcanic.. How the heck can they tell? And don’t give me, the other stations all show the same trend because first of all kept in the family, then taken over by ‘government’ which continues to produce this ‘trend’
Yes, I have read how they decide that CO2 from the volcanic vents is mixed in. That is quite simple: if the measurements show a high variability within an hour, then there is volcanic activity interfering. Opposite, if there are upwind conditions, then the levels go down, because of depleted by vegetation in the valleys, In both cases the variability increases to +/- 4 ppmv at maximum. But that doesn’t change the average or the trend with more than 0.1 ppmv! Since they started at Mauna Loa, the total increase is 80 ppmv. The variability around the trend thus is peanuts compared to the trend itself.
Further, the measurements at the South Pole were first, before Mauna Loa: the same trend, but without the interference of any volcano or vegetation there…
And how do you think that Scripps reacts on their loss of the supervision of the world’s CO2 measurements? By doing their own measurements, independent of NOAA. If there was anything wrong with the NOAA measurements, don’t you think that they would point that out?
Carbon dioxide really doesn’t do tourism, Ferdinand.
It does in the first 200 m of the atmosphere: there you can find any CO2 level you want to find. Over 1000 m and everywhere over the oceans, the levels are within +/- 10 ppmv everywhere in every season.
Apples and oranges. Carbon dioxide is heavier than air, wherever it is produced it is likely to stay in the general vicinity heading down displacing air, winds move it around, but, it’s not always windy.
CO2 stays low, if emitted in huge quantities at once. If released with small amounts, it is moved around by Brownian motion and only slowly settles out if completely stagnant, like in the case of snow layers: an enriching of 1% at the bottom of firn over a distance of 72 meters in 40 years… Thus CO2 is moved around as soon as it is released and readily mixed with all air layers over time.
This is what AIRS concluded, that it was clumpy, and they haven’t yet to my knowledge released any of the lower troposphere data
AIRS doesn’t measure the lower troposphere. They measure the middle troposphere. That shows differences of +/- 10 ppmv (+/- 2.5%) at maximum all over the earth, including seasonal changes, while 20% of all CO2 in the atmosphere is exchanged with other reservoirs. Thus, in my opinion, that is well (and fast) mixed.
I think this bias from Ferdinand is firmly in that he sees no reason to doubt the Keeling et al readings, and so naturally everything that is offered is fed back through that prism, for example, bacteria can’t be making that much of a difference
When I read that bacteria are present (but hardly survive) in the Vostok ice core, I want to know how that influences the CO2 levels. At the places where the highest concentration of dust and bacteria was found, that would give a worst case difference of less than 1 ppmv…
I do make a lot of differentiation between genuine researchers like Keeling Sr., who devoted his entire life at keeping good records of the (still) best available techniques for measuring CO2 all over the world, and others who use these data for interpretation and political goals. Revelle and Keeling expected an increase of CO2, based on the limited capacity of the ocean surface waters to absorb all human emissions. But they saw that as beneficial, because of higher temperatures for agriculture. You seem to forget the timeline: Keeling started his first measurements in the 1950’s and the first continuous series at the South Pole in 1957, before the “global cooling” scare… And long before the “global warming” scare. Just read his fascinating autobiography:
http://scrippsco2.ucsd.edu/publications/keeling_autobiography.pdf
My impression is that a lot of skeptics don’t like the CO2 data, only because that is one of the cornerstones of the AGW scare. If that cornerstone is made of sand, the whole AGW scare is falling apart. Thus the CO2 data must be proven wrong with all means (or at least the origin of the increase must be natural), even if all observations show the opposite… As good as the ice core data must be wrong, because these show the same increase… Thus where is the bias?
Regards,
Ferdinand
Myrrh says:
November 4, 2011 at 4:24 pm
Some comment at:
Appears that at -30°C carbonic acid goes into gas phase, not as widely believed, into water and carbon dioxide.
http://www.sciencecentric.com/news/11011131-international-first-gas-phase-carbonic-acid-isolated.html
I have looked up what the amounts of carbonic acid in solution are. These are known: less than 1% of the amount of free CO2 and free CO2 is less than 1% of the total carbon in water, over 99% are bicarbonate and carbonate ions. Thus carbonic acid is less than 0.01% of total carbon in water when CO2 gets in solution. I don’t know how they made pure carbonic acid and how stable that is. I am pretty sure that it isn’t that stable, if you need to “freeze” it in liquid argon to find its structure. It seems mainly of academic interest, without much influence on CO2 measurements, but it may be of interest for the greenhouse effect of icy clouds, where temperatures are low enough and solid surfaces may act as a substrate…