Source: http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/weekly.html
Al Gore calls for a day of prayer and reflection, and bothering your neighbor:
So please, take this day and the milestone it represents to reflect on the fragility of our civilization and and the planetary ecosystem on which it depends. Rededicate yourself to the task of saving our future. Talk to your neighbors, call your legislator, let your voice be heard. We must take immediate action to solve this crisis. Not tomorrow, not next week, not next year. Now.
Scientific American laments the plants
This measurement is just the hourly average of CO2 levels high in the Hawaiian sky, but this family’s figures carry more weight than those made at other stations in the world as they have faithfully kept the longest record of atmospheric CO2. Arctic weather stations also hit the hourly 400 ppm mark last spring and this one. Regardless, the hourly levels at Mauna Loa will soon drop as spring kicks in across the northern hemisphere, trees budding forth an army of leaves hungrily sucking CO2 out of the sky.
…
In the coming year, Scientific American will run an occasional series, “400 ppm,” to examine what this invisible line in the sky means for the global climate, the planet and all the living things on it, including human civilization.
Sorry, we already beat you to it when it comes to summing up what it means:
Since the world hasn’t ended (just like what happened with Y2K) we can now go forward from here.
T-shirts saying “I survived 400 PPM” will be made available if there’s enough interest in comments.
UPDATE: T-shirts now available due to popular demand. See here:
Ferdinand – re IPCC 1995 report, some here:
http://www.greenworldtrust.org.uk/Science/Social/IPCC-Santer.htm
“Santer also deleted these key statements from the expert-approved chapter 8 draft:
“None of the studies cited above has shown clear evidence that we can attribute the observed [climate] changes to the specific cause of increases in greenhouse gases.”
“While some of the pattern-base studies discussed here have claimed detection of a significant climate change, no study to date has positively attributed all or part [of the climate change observed] to [man-made] causes. Nor has any study quantified the magnitude of a greenhouse gas effect or aerosol effect in the observed data – an issue of primary relevance to policy makers.”
“Any claims of positive detection and attribution of significant climate change are likely to remain controversial until uncertainties in the total natural variability of the climate system are reduced.”
“While none of these studies has specifically considered the attribution issue, they often draw some attribution conclusions, for which there is little justification.”
“When will an anthropogenic effect on climate be identified? It is not surprising that the best answer to this question is, `We do not know. “‘
Santer single-handedly reversed the “climate science” of the whole IPCC report–and with it the global warming political process. The “discernible human influence” supposedly revealed by the IPCC has been cited thousands of times since in media around the world and has been the “stopper” in millions of debates among nonscientists.”
&
http://www.greenworldtrust.org.uk/Science/Social/IPCC-95-Ch8.htm
“Section 8.3.3.3
deleted: “While such studies help to build confidence in the reliability of the model variability on interannual to decadal time scales, there are still serious concerns about the longer time scale variability, which is more difficult to validate (Barnett et al., 1995). Unless paleoclimatic data can help us to ‘constrain’ the century time scale natural variability estimates obtained from CGCMs, it will be difficult to make a convincing case for the detection and attribution of an anthropogenic climate change signal.”
Section 8.4.1
deleted : “While none of these studies has specifically considered the attribution issue, they often draw some attribution-related conclusions, for which there is little justification.””
Ferdinand, there is no manmade discernible, not even considered in any studies..
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stewgreen says:
May 13, 2013 at 1:46 am
Someone else who understands what arbitrarily means..: http://tucsoncitizen.com/wryheat/2012/01/12/ice-core-bubbles-and-carbon-dioxide/
“After the bubbles are encased in solid ice, it was assumed that the relative amount of gases in the bubble could not change, but that is an unwarranted assumption. It has been shown that super-cooled water exists in the bubbles even at very low temperatures. This super-cooled water preferentially dissolves carbon dioxide compared to nitrogen, oxygen, and argon, leaving the gas component depleted in carbon dioxide. Also, at high pressure and low temperature, carbon dioxide is further sequestered in gas hydrates. The very act of drilling to collect ice cores decompresses the ice, and some of the gas hydrates decompose allowing carbon dioxide to escape into the drilling fluid thereby giving uncertain readings. For instance, Neftel et al. (1982) found gas bubbles with carbon dioxide ranging from 237ppmv to 436ppmv from a Greenland core and values of 257ppmv to 417ppmv from an Antarctica core. (They arbitrarily choose the lower values to represent the “true” reading.)”
This area is full of cherry picking, and hidden data..
Myrrh says:
May 13, 2013 at 1:12 am
As I expected already, your quote of the IPCC was about the influence of humans on climate change, adn have nothing to do with the influence of humans on the increase of CO2 in the atmosphere:
Ben Santer… …admitted last night on Jesse Ventura’s Conspiracy Theory national TV show, that he had deleted sections of the IPCC chapter which stated that humans were not responsible for climate change.
About volcanic gases: if CO2 reaches the station at Mauna Loa, it gives a lot more variability within an hour than where there is “background” (trade winds) air reaching the stations. If there is a volcanic component, that is also measured as elevated SO2 (and other tracers). These figures, together with wind speed, direction and distance were used to calculate the CO2 emissions from the different upslope volcanic vents. Indeed by a diffusion model, but validated by local measurements at the vents themselves. I don’t find back the study involved, but here some background:
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/obop/mlo/programs/esrl/volcanicco2/volcanicco2.html
The following criteria are used at MLO for detection of CO2 from volcanic vents:
Criteria: CO2 SD 1.0 ppm; wind direction sector 135°-225°; wind speed 1.35 m s-1.
In 1994 there were 24 hours influenced by volcanic vents, in 1995, 9 hours.
http://permanent.access.gpo.gov/websites/www.cmdl.noaa.gov/publications/annrpt23/chapter1_1.htm
Myrrh said “this background measurement is what is being measured and it is free of any local/seasonal variations because it mixes rapidly and thorougly”
The claim is that mixing spreads the seasonal wiggle from the northern hemisphere to the southern hemisphere. In the NH the measured wiggle is 10ppm or more. In Antarctica the measured wiggle is only a few ppm. Obviously mixing is not that thorough, but it is rapid enough to see the same wiggle without lag.
The specific claim which you seem to be refuting is that the wiggle is a worldwide result of the northern hemisphere’s vegetative cycle. That there really is a measured worldwide wiggle and that it is a result of vegetative growth and dieback. Another contributing factor is perihelion in January of each year which raises the global average temperature (a degree or two C IIRC) and that helps create the peak in April (there are a few months of lag).
Myrrh said “The claim is that high on top of the world’s largest active volcano surrounded by tons of volcanic activity from many nearby volcanoes also erupting, venting, …”
The claim is that the same rise and wiggle is measured worldwide. Above you said, re Lampedusa measurements: “That does not mean that the team at Lampadusa, or Jubany, are producing anything but accurate measurements of what they are finding.” and “So, I am not questioning the accuracy of the Lampadusa team’s measurements, but looking at what they have found.” Then you suggest that they are measuring variations in unmixed CO2 that blow in on the wind.
My question is why would those variations which blow in on random winds all show a diurnal cycle with some variability and all show an annual cycle with very little variability? Why would the annual cycle peak worldwide every April? How could random wind-driven CO2 cause those same observations to be repeated worldwide?
stewgreen says:
May 13, 2013 at 1:46 am
BTW I see Weatheraction are arguing it’s all a load of garbage anyway cos there have often been spurts over 400ppm, but this doesn’t show up in the ice core record due to an averaging effect as CO2 spreads across the ice core samples over time. http://twitpic.com/cq8agr/full
Indeed, the 400 ppmv is a load of garbage, not more interesting than the 10,000th visitor on a exposition… But the ice core samples are better than you think, at least over the past 150 years, a few of them have a resolution (smoothing) of less than a decade. The smoothing is not in the ice after closing the bubbels (there is some minor extra smoothing in “warm”, coastal ice cores, but that is negligible), but when the firn still has open pores with the atmosphere. That ranges from 8 years (Law Dome) to 560 years (Dome C), depending of snow accumulation rate.
Further, Weatheraction refers to the late Beck’s data, which were taken at completely unreliable sites (middle of growing plants, towns,…) for CO2 levels. Not the best reference:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/beck_data.html
-Thanks @ferdinand meeus Engelbeen strange how things tie together I have just a few minutes ago and yesterday been reading your reactions to Salby and to his study still not being published due to “conspiracy” (pity they didn’t put the new Frankfurt video up yet) .
– “ice core samples are better than you think” ..I don’t think anything yet ..I try to keep an open mind until the end of the game. But weather action cite that spikes have crossed the 400 limit inside the last 250 years and many times before.
– PLEASE some one tell me I am idiot for understanding why the Twitter feeds of the 2 official Moana measurers have still not given any days for the a readings over 400ppm
Myrrh says:
May 13, 2013 at 4:40 am
Someone else who understands what arbitrarily means..: http://tucsoncitizen.com/wryheat/2012/01/12/ice-core-bubbles-and-carbon-dioxide/
Sorry, but that story is mostly based on the very unreliable thoughts of the late Jaworowski. I had some direct correspondence with him about the reliability of ice cores. Main points: he insists that CO2 levels can migrate from lower to higher levels and that the average age of the enclosed air bubbles is the same as from the surrounding ice. That closed the door for me.
What he didn’t mention is that the Greenland ice cores are unreliable for CO2 measurements, because of frequent deposits of highly acidic dust from Icelandic volcanoes, which react with the often present carbonate deposits from the oceans in the ice. What he also forgets to mention is that Neftel showed that there was very much variation in CO2 levels where contamination of the ice with drilling fluid was found. The high levels found had nothing to do with the real values in the ice bubbles.
Further, as Jaworowski’s knowledge seems to have ended in 1992, he obviously didn’t read the 1996 work of Etheridge e.a. on three ice cores at Law Dome with three different drilling techniques (no difference in values). Neither any of the new techniques used to measure CO2: complete sublimation of the ice under vacuum and cryogenic separation of all components. That effectively destroys any clathrates and makes that water is of no hide for CO2.
See further:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/jaworowski.html
eric1skeptic says:
May 13, 2013 at 6:05 am
Myrrh said “this background measurement is what is being measured and it is free of any local/seasonal variations because it mixes rapidly and thorougly”
The claim is that mixing spreads the seasonal wiggle from the northern hemisphere to the southern hemisphere. In the NH the measured wiggle is 10ppm or more. In Antarctica the measured wiggle is only a few ppm. Obviously mixing is not that thorough, but it is rapid enough to see the same wiggle without lag.
And just how does it spread from the northern hemisphere to the sourthern?
Stewgreen, the official Mauna Loa measurements page doesn’t show 400 http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/ and doesn’t look like it will make it this year. Anything else is just hype. The number 400 is also hype since people who use the decimal system and don’t understand it think there is something special about a number like that. Also the media needed something to hype since we have had a lull in warming for a decade or more.
DJ says:
May 10, 2013 at 12:40 pm
…Can’t type……. …. turning blue…….. Plants taking over computer now……. barely hanging on….. …. love you guys…….
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Thanks for the laugh there DJ – that was FAF.
http://researchmatters.noaa.gov/news/Pages/CarbonDioxideatMaunaLoareaches400ppm.aspx
“Once emitted, CO2 added to the atmosphere and oceans remains for thousands of years. Thus, climate changes forced by CO2 depend primarily on cumulative emissions, making it progressively more and more difficult to avoid further substantial climate change.”
Every time it rains all the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is washed out and comes to the surface.
Water has a residence time in the atmosphere of 8-10 days.
The AGWScienceFiction’s Greenhouse Effect Illusion does not have the Water Cycle.
It has taken rain out of the Carbon Cycle.
This is a continuous cycle.
Carbon dioxide is being continually washed out of the atmosphere.
http://climate.nasa.gov/causes/
“Most climate scientists agree the main cause of the current global warming trend is human expansion of the “greenhouse effect”1 — warming that results when the atmosphere traps heat radiating from Earth toward space.
“Certain gases in the atmosphere block heat from escaping. Long-lived gases, remaining semi-permanently in the atmosphere, which do not respond physically or chemically to changes in temperature are described as “forcing” climate change whereas gases, such as water, which respond physically or chemically to changes in temperature are seen as “feedbacks.””
Nitrogen, oxygen and carbon dioxide do respond physically to changes in temperature. They expand when heated and condense when cooled.
That is the nature of gases.
That’s how we get our winds, convection in a fluid creating convection currents as hot gases rise and cold gases sink. Winds are volumes of atmosphere on the move, they do not cross hemisphere, but stay in their own.
http://science.howstuffworks.com/dictionary/physics-terms/expansion-info.htm
“Steam engines and turbines, rockets, and internal combustion engines are powered by the expansion of gases. Bread rises in baking because heat expands the carbon dioxide gas it contains.”
When a volume of gas is heated it expands, it becomes less dense, lighter under gravity and so lighter than air it will rise. When it loses its heat it condenses, it becomes more dense, heavier under gravity and so will sink.
Nitrogen, oxygen and carbon dioxide are therefore “feedbacks”, not “forcers” according to this explanation.
So what’s doing the forcing?
Myrrh asked “And just how does it spread from the northern hemisphere to the sourthern?”
Something along these lines: http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/pdf/10.1175/1520-0469(1997)054%3C2045%3AIEBSMO%3E2.0.CO%3B2 Basically the winter Hadley cell crosses the equator and mixes air with the opposite hemisphere. It takes a while to mix. So the southern hemisphere wiggle is very subdued and may come mostly from perihelion.
Ferdinand,
I disagree. There is enormous 13C depleted production in the oceans from SAR11 and other respiring critters. It may be almost immediately consumed by cyanobacteria in what I have called the nano carbon cycle because pelagic photosynthesis is also carbon limited, but who really knows?
gymnosperm says:
May 13, 2013 at 8:06 pm
I disagree. There is enormous 13C depleted production in the oceans from SAR11 and other respiring critters. It may be almost immediately consumed by cyanobacteria in what I have called the nano carbon cycle because pelagic photosynthesis is also carbon limited, but who really knows?
The d13C level of the deep oceans is between 0 and 1 per mil. The d13C level of the ocean surface is between 1 and 5 per mil, thanks to all biolife that preferentially uses 12C, which in part falls out of the surface into the deep oceans. The atmosphere was at -6.4 per mil but dropped over the industrial age to -8 per mil. Even taking into account the change in 13C/12C ratio at the water-air border and back, any substantial emissions from the oceans should increase the atmospheric 13C/12C ratio, not decrease… See:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/sponges.gif
Myrrh says:
May 13, 2013 at 2:29 pm
Every time it rains all the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is washed out and comes to the surface.
Solubility of CO2 in fresh water is very low. So that is a bold, unsubstantiated statement.
Further: many rain clouds are below a few thousands meters, but stations like Mauna Loa and near surface at Hawaii show similar CO2 levels, even if Mauna Loa is mostly above the clouds…
eric1skeptic says:
May 13, 2013 at 4:59 pm
Myrrh asked “And just how does it spread from the northern hemisphere to the sourthern?”
Something along these lines: http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/pdf/10.1175/1520-0469(1997)054%3C2045%3AIEBSMO%3E2.0.CO%3B2 Basically the winter Hadley cell crosses the equator and mixes air with the opposite hemisphere. It takes a while to mix. So the southern hemisphere wiggle is very subdued and may come mostly from perihelion.
But Hadley cells are part and parcel of the real world of why the winds don’t cross hemispheres –
http://www.windows2universe.org/earth/Atmosphere/hadley_cell.html
The flow of volumes of air is from the equator to the poles and back again to the poles, keeping to their own hemispheres. If there was no Earth’s spin this flow would simply be to the poles and back again. Volumes of the fluid gases air which are our atmosphere are heated intensely at the equator and expand becoming less dense therefore lighter under gravity, creating areas of low pressure, and so rise, and flow to the poles. [Heat always flows from hotter to colder spontaneously as water always flows spontaneously downhill; in the 2nd Law spontaneously is implicit, it takes work to change that. AGWScienceFictiion has added the word “net” to the 2nd Law changing its meaning.] The great difference between the hot equator and the cold of the poles makes the heat flow faster. Some on heat flow here: http://www.ftexploring.com/energy/heatflow.htm
This is heat transfer by convection the method of heat transfer in real gas fluids, compare with heat transfer in solids by conduction and and heat trasfer by radiation not requiring a medium. Our real gas atmosphere is a fluid, gases and liquids are fluids, a heavy ocean of gas air of mainly nitrogen and oxygen weighting 14lb/sq inch, pressing down a ton on your shoulders. Real gases move in that relative to their own weight (carbon dioxide heavier will sink, methane and water vapour will rise) and that changes when heated or cooled as they expand or condense. When the hot lighter volumes of air reach the poles their heat is grabbed by the cold and they lose their heat becoming more dense, now heavier under gravity these cold high pressure volumes sink and flow back to the poles to begin the cycle again.
Add in the spin of the Earth, the Coriolis effect, to get the patterns of our trade winds, and they do not cross hemispheres. These are powerful winds created by the great heat differential between the poles and the equator. There is insignificant mixing at the equator against this.
So, as with Mauna Loa, we have to go back to the original claim which is “rapid diffusion of gases in the atmosphere”, so “it takes a while to mix” and “forty years wind turbulence” doesn’t cut it..
The “rapid diffusion” is based on their claim that these are “ideal” gases not “real” gases. Ideal gases began as an imaginary construct which stripped them of all properties and processes of real gas. Ideal gas are hard dots of nothing, they have no mass on which gravity can act, no volume which Van de Waals pointed out would be useless in calculations. Ideal gases without mass have no attraction but bounce off each other at great speeds travelling under their own molecular momentum miles apart from each other in empty space without the volume of other gases to impede them. They are entirely an artificial construct, imaginary, and are useful in calculation only when when volume and the rest is put back in. No real gas obeys ideal gas “law”. The ideal gas “law” is an imaginary construct like “average”.
What AGWScienceFiction has done is create an imaginary world from an imaginary ideal gas scenario, brainwashing, there isn’t any other world for it, through the general education system that these are actually real gases and this is how real gases behave. You’ll hear the AGWSF meme in “pressure” arguments, that “gases bounce of the wall of the container”, this comes from explanations of ideal gas behaviour in beginning real world calculations by real scientists who know the difference between real and ideal in their use of the concept “container, but, AGW “warmists” don’t know the difference and don’t know they have no volume to put back in again, so they think this “container” is real. They think this is their imaginary invisible “container” which “like the glass of a greenhouse prevents the radiant heat flow from the Sun from entering at TOA – no longwave infrared from the Sun can enter – and against which from the inside their imaginary massless ideal gases bounce off so creating their “lapse” rates, or whatever convoluted argument they’re having throwing in lots of complicated mathematical equations for their “columns of air”.
So, they don’t have an atmosphere, they go straight from the surface into the empty space of their ideal gas scenario, substuting an imaginary invisible “container” keeping their ideal gases from flying off into outer space as they rapidly diffuse at great speeds under their own molecular momentum urestrained by the real container, the volumes of real gas air under gravity which constrains the movement of real gas molecules…
They don’t even know they have no sound in their world because they have taken out all the properties and processes of real gas substituting empty space, they have no volume of gas through which sound can travel. Here’s a good description of how sound travels through the medium of a volume of gas in the real world, teaching real applied scientists who need to make things that work: http://www.mediacollege.com/audio/01/sound-waves.html
“How Sound Waves Work
…
Note that air molecules do not actually travel from the loudspeaker to the ear (that would be wind). Each individual molecule only moves a small distance as it vibrates, but it causes the adjacent molecules to vibrate in a rippling effect all the way to the ear.”
No “ideal gas diffusing into the atmosmophere of empty space at great speeds under their own molecular momentum miles apart from each other” there…
So they have no Water Cycle because their gases aren’t bouyant in air, because they have no air for gravity to work on which gives mass weight; no rain in their Carbon Life Cycle because no attraction in their ideal gases; no winds, no weather, no sound, no heat transfer by convection no anything because they have excised the whole real gas atmosphere completely, all of it, from their AGWGreenhouse Effect Illusion.
So, they have no winds in the fictional ideal gas empty space atmosphere they have around their fanatasy world where their ideal gases diffuse rapidly all around their “Earth” bouncing of each other and their imaginary invisible container at great speeds, therefore, you can’t use real gas winds to argue “well-mixed by turbulence or creeping over a bit at the time” and “southern hemisphere net sink for carbon dioxide produced in the northern hemisphere”, not only because the real rapid winds don’t cross hemispheres and the creeping over at the equator isn’t rapid, but also because the real gas carbon dioxide is heavier than air and it’s not always windsy so it is always sinking to the surface and does not readily rise up into the atmosphere, because, it is heavier than air under gravity, and, because real carbon dioxide has attraction as a real gas and not the imaginary ideal of AGWSF so it is being continually washed out of the atmsophere as rain which is carbonic acid, all rain is carbonic acid, so, there is no hundreds and thousands of years available for it to “accumulate in the atmosphere and become well-mixed”.
Have I covered all the AGWSF fake fisics memes relevant to this?
Ferdinand Engelbeen says:
May 13, 2013 at 11:58 pm
Myrrh says:
May 13, 2013 at 2:29 pm
Every time it rains all the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is washed out and comes to the surface.
Solubility of CO2 in fresh water is very low. So that is a bold, unsubstantiated statement.
In the real world all natural unpolluted rain is carbonic acid, which is a pH or around 5.6 . Water and carbon dioxide are greatly attracted to each other and hate to be separated, carbonic acid isn’t another name for carbon dioxide..
This is not “acid rain” in traditional science which means by this extra acidity: http://pubs.usgs.gov/gip/acidrain/2.html
“What is acid rain?
The term “acid rain” is commonly used to mean the deposition of acidic components in rain, snow, fog, dew, or dry particles. The more accurate term is “acid precipitation.” Distilled water, which contains no carbon dioxide, has a neutral pH of 7. Liquids with a pH less than 7 are acid, and those with a pH greater than 7 are alkaline (or basic). “Clean” or unpolluted rain has a slightly acidic pH of 5.6, because carbon dioxide and water in the air react together to form carbonic acid, a weak acid. Around Washington, D.C., however, the average rain pH is between 4.2 and 4.4.
The extra acidity in rain comes from the reaction of air pollutants, primarily sulfur oxides and nitrogen oxides, with water in the air to form strong acids (like sulfuric and nitric acid). The main sources of these pollutants are vehicles and industrial and power-generating plants. In Washington, the main local sources are cars, trucks, and buses.”
“Clean” or unpolluted rain has a slightly acidic pH of 5.6, because carbon dioxide and water in the air react together to form carbonic acid, a weak acid.
See also: http://www.soest.hawaii.edu/GG/ASK/rain-creek-pH.html – as we’re in the area..
AGWScienceFiction has taken rain out of the Carbon Cycle (otherwise it would have to explain why it doesn’t have a Water Cycle, without which the Earth’s temperature would be 67°C, and couldn’t claim that carbon dioxide accumulates, etc.), it has replaced the real world dynamic cycle of water which has a residence time of 8-10 days in the atmosphere with its fictional fisics meme of “sinks”. It cannot account how the exchanges between sinks happen because its fisics has taken out the natural properties and processes of matter and energy, so for example, see the last link, we know that rocks are weathered by carbonic acid in the rain, wearing down mountains over geologic time, AGWSF has to exclude it in the atmosphere, has to avoid mentioning it. This is not easy to see if one doesn’t know this, but if one does one can then see how this is avoided in descriptions – hence my mnemonic, “they don’t have any rain in their carbon cycle..
Here’s an example at university level, a well written piece fully compliant with AGWSF fake fisics..: http://www.columbia.edu/~vjd1/carbon.htm
As you were taught the difference between real and ideal you will probably find these tweaks in the piece easier to spot than some others for whom the differences are completely new to them. These are very clever and subtle changes to real physics, using real physics terms but assigning different meanings to them, making up their own terms , changing and taking laws out of context and so on besides the ones I’ve mentioned in my last post to erik1sceptic..
Most of the confusion in these arguments comes from AGW/CAGWs with their own subtle variations thinking they are each arguming real physics but brought up on AGWSF doctrine, (CAGWs, I was told disparagingly, where the ones claiming there was an invisible barrier like the glass of a greenhouse stopping the longwave infrared from the Sun at TOA, while AGWs with their superior planckian understanding of ‘physics’ claimed the Sun produced insignificant amounts of longwave infrared – as this in the real world longwave infrared is the Sun’s thermal energy in transfer by radiation, thermal infrared, this means that neither group have any direct heat from the Sun. Neither group understands this because they both think visible light from the Sun heats matter, raises the temperature of matter by moving the whole molecule into vibration, which is impossible in traditional physics which knows visible light from the Sun works on the electronic transitional level and not the molecular vibrational of radiant heat, longwave infrared, aka thermal infrared to distinguish it from non-thermal shortwave infrared which isn’t hot and is classed in with Light as Reflective not Thermal.), interacting with some from traditional science which they know well from their own field, but may or may not know the basic traditional physics of other fields, and so will sometimes take AGWSF memes for granted because they have no reason to question them. You have to bear in mind here that this clever manipulation of physics was introduced into the general education system to promote the concept of AGW, it spread rapidly because the emotional energy of the greenie environmentalists which kick started this with Callendar/Ravelle/Keeling became endorsed by political clout. So Gore and the IPCC got nobbled Nobel prizes and the Hansens and the Manns got honoured by great science institutions of meteorology and geophysics – isn’t Landewsky (sp?) now working for the Met?
Anyway, this isn’t a simple argument about science, it’s horribly complicated by deliberate abuse of science for various reasons and this begins with changing the actual basics on which our understanding of the natural world around is built. All basics have to be re-considered however we acquired them, from general education or from picking them up because they are “well-known”; if we leave the desert before sorting this out traditional science which knows how things work will be lost to the majority.
Further: many rain clouds are below a few thousands meters, but stations like Mauna Loa and near surface at Hawaii show similar CO2 levels, even if Mauna Loa is mostly above the clouds…
..because they’re measuring the same volvcanic carbon dioxide?
The claim is that this a pristine site for measuring “well mixed background levels” –
http://www.npr.org/2013/05/13/182654937/atop-a-hawaiian-mountain-a-constant-sniff-for-carbon-dioxide
“Climate scientists have a good reason to want to get away from it all. To get an accurate picture of the amount of carbon dioxide in the Earth’s atmosphere, you have to find places where the numbers won’t be distorted by cities or factories or even lots of vegetation that can have a major local impact on CO2 concentrations.”
Hmm.., it continues:
“Starting in 1958, scientists from the Scripps Institution for Oceanography have been using an instrument on the top of the Mauna Loa volcano in Hawaii to measure CO2 in the atmosphere. Aiden Colton, an atmospheric scientist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, says NOAA now maintains the Scripps Institution’s CO2 analyzer, as well as one of its own.
“”We sample 24 hours a day on most of our instrumentation,” says Colton. “But what we’re most interested in is the extremely clean air coming down from the troposphere that’s been well-mixed traveling over 2,000 miles in every direction to get here.” The troposphere is where the bulk of Earth’s atmosphere resides. It’s the buildup of carbon dioxide in the troposphere that has climate scientists concerned.
“The air Colton analyzes comes from intake ports at the top of the 120-foot tower. Taking air from the top of the tower helps ensure it won’t be contaminated with outgassing from the volcano.”
That is the basic meme, the AGW poster pristine site well away from vegetation and volcanic activity from its vantage high up far and away from the trade winds below creating an inversion layer keeping sampling uncontaminated to get only the globally “well-mixed background” (take your pick, mixed up by winds from all directions or rapidly diffusing at great speeds into the atmosphere as per ideal gas), here it’s turbulent winds).
And, http://cdiac.ornl.gov/trends/co2/sio-mlo.html
“Because of the favorable site location, continuous monitoring, and careful selection and scrutiny of the data, the Mauna Loa record is considered to be a precise record and a reliable indicator of the regional trend in the concentrations of atmospheric CO2 in the middle layers of the troposphere.
“The Mauna Loa site is considered one of the most favorable locations for measuring undisturbed air because possible local influences of vegetation or human activities on atmospheric CO2 concentrations are minimal and any influences from volcanic vents may be excluded from the records. The methods and equipment used to obtain these measurements have remained essentially unchanged during the 51-year monitoring program.”
Meanwhile:
http://www.skepticalscience.com/Measuring-CO2-levels-from-the-volcano-at-Mauna-Loa.html
“The observatory near the summit of the Mauna Loa volcano in Hawaii has been recording the amount of carbon dioxide in the air since 1958. This is the longest continuous record of direct measurements of CO2 and it shows a steadily increasing trend from year to year; combined with a saw-tooth effect that is caused by changes in the rate of plant growth through the seasons. This curve is commonly known as the Keeling Curve, named after Charles Keeling, the American scientist who started the project.”
So there shouldn’t be any seasonal spikes from vegetation and they shouldn’t need to take out any volcanic activity from their poster child pristine site high above it all sampling only the the mythical “well-mixed background”.
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/about/co2_measurements.html
“In 1957 Dave Keeling, who was the first to make accurate measurements of CO2 in the atmosphere, chose the site high up on the slopes of the Mauna Loa volcano because he wanted to measure CO2 in air masses that would be representative of much of the Northern Hemisphere, and, hopefully, the globe. That goal has not changed. We still want to eliminate the influence of CO2 absorbed or emitted locally by plants and soils, or emitted locally by human activities. Dave Keeling also introduced the principle of a rigorous calibration strategy that we still employ today.
“The observatory is surrounded by many miles of bare lava, without any vegetation or soil. This provides an opportunity to measure “background” air, also called “baseline” air, which we define as having a CO2 mole fraction representative of an upwind fetch of hundreds of km. Nearby emission or removal of CO2 typically produces sharp fluctuations, in space and time, in mole fraction. These fluctuations get smoothed out with time and distance through turbulent mixing and wind shear. etc. etc.”
So, now it’s changed from “Keeling said the could measure the well mixed back ground from anywhere in the world .. But they don’t get baseline, or they wouldn’t be getting seasonal spikes.
Do you see the problems with this? I hope I’m explaining it well enough, the basic claim is that this is “global background well mixed uncontaminated by local sources” yet they have seasonal veggie spikes and spend a huge amount of time deciding which is volcanic and which not. It is contaminated it is not a pristine site, it is not capable of measuring what they say it is measuring. I’m with ann v here:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/06/04/under-the-volcano-over-the-volcano/#comment-403525
Global temperatures are not well-mixed… we wouldn’t be spending small fortunes getting to holiday spots basking in the heat from the Sun..
Myrrh says:
May 14, 2013 at 8:22 am
In the real world all natural unpolluted rain is carbonic acid, which is a pH or around 5.6 .
Sorry Myrrh, you only demonstrate that you have not the slightest knowledge of the chemistry of CO2 in water. CO2 dissolved in water/rain forms carbonic acid, but rain is not carbonic acid, it is 99.7% water with some 0.33% CO2 at near freezing point, even less at higher temperatures. See:
http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/gases-solubility-water-d_1148.html
Of the 0.33% total CO2, there is a little free CO2, a little H2CO3 (carbonic acid), more HCO3- (bicarbonate ions) and some CO3– (carbonate ions). Of all CO2 forms present in rain, less than 1% is CO2 + H2CO3, 90% is bicarbonate and 9% is carbonate. Thus carbonic acid is maximum 0.0033% in rain. Even so, the pH of this mixture is slightly acidic, because the dissolution of H2CO3 into bicarbonates and carbonates increases the H+ concentration.
So there shouldn’t be any seasonal spikes from vegetation and they shouldn’t need to take out any volcanic activity from their poster child pristine site high above it all sampling only the the mythical “well-mixed background”.
Now you are talking nonsens: there were 24 hours excluded from the averages influenced by the volcano in 1994. On a total of 8400 measured hours (one hour per day is used for calibration). That is 0.3% of the measurements. Is that the big deal?
As Mauna Loa measures (semi) global changes in CO2, that includes the huge changes (some 30 ppmv over the seasons) in the NH vegetation over the seasons. Be it that these are partly compensated by the simultaneous changes in CO2 from/to the oceans in opposite direction. The net result is about +/- 8 ppmv over the seasons at Mauna Loa and a much smaller change in the SH, because the SH has far less land vegetation.
The point is that these are (semi) global changes which must be and are included, because they are part of the (semi) global CO2 levels. Local disturbances like CO2 changes which may occur by upwind conditions from the vegetated valley must be excluded, as these are only of local interest.
Ferdinand Engelbeen says:
May 14, 2013 at 10:01 am
Myrrh says:
May 14, 2013 at 8:22 am
“In the real world all natural unpolluted rain is carbonic acid, which is a pH or around 5.6 .”
Sorry Myrrh, you only demonstrate that you have not the slightest knowledge of the chemistry of CO2 in water. CO2 dissolved in water/rain forms carbonic acid, but rain is not carbonic acid, it is 99.7% water with some 0.33% CO2 at near freezing point, even less at higher temperatures. See:
http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/gases-solubility-water-d_1148.html
Of the 0.33% total CO2, there is a little free CO2, a little H2CO3 (carbonic acid), more HCO3- (bicarbonate ions) and some CO3– (carbonate ions). Of all CO2 forms present in rain, less than 1% is CO2 + H2CO3, 90% is bicarbonate and 9% is carbonate. Thus carbonic acid is maximum 0.0033% in rain. Even so, the pH of this mixture is slightly acidic, because the dissolution of H2CO3 into bicarbonates and carbonates increases the H+ concentration.
Ferdinand, I can’t work out where you’re getting this, your link doesn’t say anything about it. Rain is acidic from the carbon dioxide dissolved in it, it has a pH or around 5.6-5.8. Bicarbonate is alkaline.. The abilility to give up an H is what makes it an acid.
I wonder if you’re getting your figures from carbon dioxide in the blood? Carbon dioxide in the body is essential to our health, we produce our own because we need around 6.5% of every lungful of air to be carbon dioxide for the transport of oxygen – hyperventilation isn’t the body not getting enough air, oxygen, but the body desperately trying to conserve carbon dioxide, iirc, 4.5% is the critical level, below that we’re dead. The quickest way to stop hyperventilating is to breathe back one’s own carbon dioxide, paper bag, cupped hands; large doses of carbon dioxoide given to asthma patients. Good page on some of the benefits of carbon dioxide here: http://theroadtoemmaus.org/RdLb/11Phl/Sci/CO2&Health.html
Anyway, Carbon dioxide is also essential in regulating our blood pH – which is where the bicarb comes in. I’ve had a look to see if I could find something more specific, there’s this: http://www.wisegeek.org/what-is-carbonic-acid.htm
“Carbonic acid plays an important role in keeping the body’s pH stable. The normal pH of bodily fluids is around 7.4 and must be kept close to this value in order for the body to function properly. If the pH changes, whether up or down, enzymes can stop functioning, muscles and nerves can start weakening, and metabolic activities becomes impaired. The bicarbonate ion released from carbonic acid serves as a buffer that helps resist changes in pH. This means it can act as an acid or a base as the need arises.
“Acids are defined as any substance that releases hydrogen ions into solutions. Bases are substances that accept those hydrogen ions. When excess hydrogen ions build up in the body — i.e. the fluids become more acidic — then bicarbonate ions accepts those extra hydrogen ions and keeps the body’s pH at a normal level. In the inverse, if the hydrogen ion levels drop too much — i.e. the fluids become too alkaline — then carbonic acid gives up hydrogen ions in order to keep the blood’s pH normal. This process is also seen during the transport of oxygen and carbon dioxide.”
The levels are critical in a body and this is when H disassociates. Our bicarb levels are important, this can be upset if we lose too much sweat, see the note about this re marathon runners where again the body tries to keep the balance. I’ve found something else on; this, but just to remind you, from the last link:
“Carbonic acid even appears as a normal occurrence in rain. As rainwater falls through the air, it absorbs carbon dioxide, producing carbonic acid. Thus, when it reaches the ground, it has a pH of about 5.5. This should not be confused with acid rain which is caused when emissions, such as sulfur oxides and nitrogen oxides, from burning fossil fuels rises to the air. As it falls, rain absorbs these components, producing acids which can make the pH in rain fall to as little as two.”
The rain that falls is acidic from absorbing the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, this is from a neutral level of 7 – each number down is ten times more acidic than the last.
http://www.chemistry.wustl.edu/~edudev/LabTutorials/Water/FreshWater/acidrain.html
“Natural Acidity of Rainwater
Pure water has a pH of 7.0 (neutral); however, natural, unpolluted rainwater actually has a pH of about 5.6 (acidic).[Recall from Experiment 1 that pH is a measure of the hydrogen ion (H+) concentration.] The acidity of rainwater comes from the natural presence of three substances (CO2, NO, and SO2) found in the troposphere (the lowest layer of the atmosphere). As is seen in Table I, carbon dioxide (CO2) is present in the greatest concentration and therefore contributes the most to the natural acidity of rainwater.
Carbon dioxide
CO2 : 355 ppm
Nitric oxide
NO : 0.01 ppm
Sulfur dioxide
SO2 : 0-0.01 ppm
http://web.mnstate.edu/provost/Chem400_4.pdf
“Biological buffering of blood
There are three major contributors to regulating the pH of blood. Bicarbonate,
phosphate and proteins
Blood pH Must be Kept Close to 7.4
– Hydrogen ion is extremely reactive and effects many molecules
which regulate physiological processes
– Blood pH is set at a slightly alkaline level of 7.4 (pH 7.0 is neutral
– A change of pH of 0.2 units in either direction is considered serious
– Blood pHs below 6.9 or above 7.9 are usually fatal if they last for more
than a short time
§ The bicarbonate system is the most important and is controlled by the
rate of respiration
– Carbon dioxide in water reacts to form carbonic acid
CO2 (g) CO2 (aq) + H2O -> H2CO3
Carbonic acid
– The pKa of carbonic acid is 6.35. the pH of blood is 7.4 so the acid
is greater than 1 pH away from the pKa and it is primarily
dissociated
H2CO3 -> H+ +HCO3-
Bicarbonate
– Under physiological conditions the equilibrium for the first reaction is far
to the left, and the combined pKa for the two reactions is 6.4:
– At first glance this does not look like a good buffer for blood. The buffering
capacity is poor. To maintain a pH of 7.4 there would have to be a ratio
of 11 to 1 of bicarbonate to carbon dioxide.
pH = 6.4 + Log [HCO3-]/[CO2]
Becuase this is an open system, the CO2 dissolved and the bicarbonate can
rapidly change
Changes resulting in loss of carbonic acid are replaced by CO2 dissolving – This is
an open system
Normal concentration of carbon dioxide is 1.2 mM and bicarbonate is 15 mM”
http://greenfieldgeography.wikispaces.com/IGCSE+and+GCSE+Weathering
Carbonation or solution
“This is caused by carbonic acid which occurs naturally in rainwater. Although only a very weak acid, it chemically reacts with rocks such as limestone and slowly dissolves them. Areas that have standing rainwater are going to experience higher rates of carbonation, therefore its is less likely to happen in dry countries and on steep slopes. The dissolved rock then gets washed away.”
http://www.xylenepower.com/Carbon%20Dioxide.htm
“Carbon dioxide in the atmosphere also directly dissolves in sea water. At present, the CO2 in solution near the ocean surface immediately becomes H2CO3 which then diffuses into the deep ocean where it combines with insoluble exposed metal carbonates such as limestone (CaCO3) to form a water soluble metal bicarbonate solution. The metal bicarbonate solution due to fossil CO2 will accumulate in the oceans until the supply of exposed marine metal carbonate is exhausted. For the metal calcium the relevant chemical equations are:
CO2(gas) + H2O(liquid) => H2CO3(weak acid)
H2CO3(weak acid) + CaCO3(limestone) => Ca(HCO3)2(calcium bicarbonate solution)”
But, your argument here is a distraction, even if all the rain came down as bicarb…, it would be for the same reason that its carbonic acid, that carbon dioxide and water in the atmosphere spontaneously and irresistably join to form carbonic acid which means that all the carbon dioxide around is removed from the atmosphere – every time it rains.
So, this typical bs from the great scientists pushing AGW http://researchmatters.noaa.gov/news/Pages/CarbonDioxideatMaunaLoareaches400ppm.aspx
“Once emitted, CO2 added to the atmosphere and oceans remains for thousands of years. Thus, climate changes forced by CO2 depend primarily on cumulative emissions, making it progressively more and more difficult to avoid further substantial climate change.”
Is what I am arguing against.. It’s impossible; in real world traditional physics this “carbon dioxide accumulation for hundreds and thousands of years” is gobbledegook, fantasy fisics.
But it is being taught throughout general education and so has dumbed down basic physics for a generation.. And rebuttals that ‘it is only a thousand or so’, or ‘ it is only for a few hundred years’ or ‘it’s only 200’, or ‘only 100’, are equally bs, carbon dioxide cannot accumulate in the atmosphere.
“So there shouldn’t be any seasonal spikes from vegetation and they shouldn’t need to take out any volcanic activity from their poster child pristine site high above it all sampling only the the mythical “well-mixed background”.
Now you are talking nonsens: there were 24 hours excluded from the averages influenced by the volcano in 1994. On a total of 8400 measured hours (one hour per day is used for calibration). That is 0.3% of the measurements. Is that the big deal?
Yes it damn well is a big deal, you’re giving only one figure and they’re constantly having to exclude becasue there is volcanic carbon dioxide being produced all around the Hawaiian islands all the time so what they decide, arbitrarily, to exclude as volcanic is just that, cherry picked, and is in no rational way proof that they are measuring anything but local carbon dioxide production – and the claim is as the man measuring gave it:
http://www.npr.org/2013/05/13/182654937/atop-a-hawaiian-mountain-a-constant-sniff-for-carbon-dioxide
“The air Colton analyzes comes from intake ports at the top of the 120-foot tower. Taking air from the top of the tower helps ensure it won’t be contaminated with outgassing from the volcano.”
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/03/07/us-volcano-hawaii-idUSTRE7260GC20110307
HONOLULU | Mon Mar 7, 2011
“Kilauea has been in constant eruption for 28 years”
“(Reuters) – Scientists were closely monitoring heightened activity at Kilauea Volcano on the Big Island of Hawaii, after a fissure sent lava spewing 65 feet in the air.
..
“Kilauea has been in constant eruption for 28 years. But geologist Janet Babb of the U.S. Geological Survey said this weekend’s activity indicates “new episodes in eruptions and further unknowns.”
“Saturday, one of the volcano’s crater floors, which is named Pu’u ‘O’o, collapsed 370 feet, the Geological Survey said. The event was accompanied by 150 small earthquakes, which were all confined to the volcanic area.
“Separately, on the volcano’s eastern side, a 535 yard-long fissure in the ground opened, spewing lava 65 feet in the air, the Geological Survey said. Also, another crater called Napau began erupting.”
“(Reporting by Jorene Barut: Editing by Alex Dobuzinskis)”
My bold. This is a dramatic hot spot on Earth creating volcanic islands! There are thousands of earthquakes every year, constant venting above and below in the water, in the warm seas all around the islands not just on Big Island, and that’s besides the new volcano being formed at Big Island .
http://hvo.wr.usgs.gov/volcanowatch/archive/2004/04_02_26.html
February 26, 2004
Activity update
Eruptive activity at the Pu`u `O`o vent of Kilauea Volcano continued unabated during the past week.
…
“Two small earthquakes were felt on the island during the week ending early February 26. Both occurred on February 22. The first was located 6 km (4 miles) south-southwest of Pu`u `O`o at a depth of 10 km (6 miles). The magnitude 3.2 shake was felt at Hale Pohaku and Hilo. About 7 hours later, a magnitude 3.5 earthquake shook the west side of the island and was felt from Honaunau to Kalaoa and also on the Hamakua Coast at Papa`aloa. This off-island earthquake was located 45 km (28 miles) west of Ho`okena at a depth of 42 km (26 miles).
“Mauna Loa is not erupting. The summit region continues to inflate slowly. Seismic activity remains very low, with no earthquakes located in the summit area since early February 19. P Visit our website (hvo.wr.usgs.gov) for daily volcano updates and nearly real-time earthquake information. ”
Oh gosh, no earthquakes on the summit of Mauna Loa since February 19.., a whole week without an earthquake.
The initial blurb of course follows the party line, as Casey pointed out..
How much volcanic activity is there really around all the islands? As I posted earlier – the official site says it has records for carbon dioxide, but all links have been tampered with and get either a blank page or re-direction to sulphur dioxide pages.
It is not reasonable to suppose they are giving accurate information at Mauna Loa because their claim of measuring “pristine well mixed background” can only be nonsense.
As Mauna Loa measures (semi) global changes in CO2,
Ferdinand, I put that comment in to show you how they change narrative to suit, the guy’s obviously embarrassed at having it pointed out that winds don’t cross hemisphere.. the poor sod doing the measring is still giving the original meme – as Keeling really gave it – that these measurements are global because Keeling claimed there was this “well-mixed background which he could measure from anywhere in the world”, he created a myth..
that includes the huge changes (some 30 ppmv over the seasons) in the NH vegetation over the seasons. Be it that these are partly compensated by the simultaneous changes in CO2 from/to the oceans in opposite direction. The net result is about +/- 8 ppmv over the seasons at Mauna Loa and a much smaller change in the SH, because the SH has far less land vegetation.
And no different to what it was a hundred years ago.. see Fig 2 http://www.anenglishmanscastle.com/180_years_accurate_Co2_Chemical_Methods.pdf
These measurements were made by people who were real scientists, their method of measuring sound, unlike the studies Callendar cherry picked, and, the comparison Beck makes here are considerable closer to ‘background’ than from the world’s most dramatic hotspot creating volcanic islands measured from the world’s biggest active volcano surrounded by active volcanoes erupting and venting and earthquaking..
..constantly.
The point is that these are (semi) global changes which must be and are included, because they are part of the (semi) global CO2 levels. Local disturbances like CO2 changes which may occur by upwind conditions from the vegetated valley must be excluded, as these are only of local interest.
“The air Colton analyzes comes from intake ports at the top of the 120-foot tower. Taking air from the top of the tower helps ensure it won’t be contaminated with outgassing from the volcano.”
“http://www.anenglishmanscastle.com/180_years_accurate_Co2_Chemical_Methods.pdf
There’s rather a lot of interesting stuff on this page re Keeling and Vostok, but this particularly re the discussion here:
http://www.rocketscientistsjournal.com/2006/11/gavin_schmidt_on_the_acquittal.html
“[One can’t claim that the Mauna Loa CO2 curves originated by Keeling are not comparable to the Vostok record. A valid question is, how are they comparable? Both data sets are processed, but the published MLO data are also averaged and appear to have been detrended, that is, a little over-processed. (I’d like to have raw data for MLO, including temperature and the wind vector for each reading.) Keeling warned that these MLO data were regional and restircted to a few layers of the troposphere. Climatologist ignore these caveats and simply glue one set of data on the end of another.
“[Keeling’s data contain a seasonal variation that appears to be a simple, almost noise free sinusoid. This is an improbable result. He suggested that the seasonal variation was due to the carbon cycle of the biosphere, and that the long term, accelerating baseline was due to man. Because we now reason that the residence time of ACO2 is short, and that the great bulk of it (all the natural part) comes from the ocean, there are better models for the Keeling observations.
“[First, the seasonal part of the Mauna Loa CO2 is closely correlated with temperature. The temperature in Hawaii is well-known to be a product of the ocean. Higher temperatures in the month mean warmer waters, and that means more CO2 outgassing. Simple, and consistent.
“[Second, here is a novel, alternative conjecture for the MLO data.
“[Hawaii sits ten degrees or so north and at least ten degrees west of a huge patch of ocean where most of the 107 Gtons/year of CO2 is exhausted into the atmosphere. The patch is about 20 degrees wide, centered roughly on the equator, stretching from the mid-Pacific to South America. Source is the International Geosphere Biosphere Program. See http://oceanworld.tamu.edu/resources/oceanography-book/carboncycle.htm, page 3. This area is included in the doldrums, an area of notoriously low wind and low pressure. The CO2 plume from this patch will enter a Hadley cell, rising and splitting poleward, where it then encounters the westerlies (or whatever lies in the tropophere above the westerlies). Thus in summary, Hawaii should lie in the plume of the bulk of the oceanic outgassing!
“[The CO2 at Mauna Loa should not be well-mixed, and it should have a strong regional component due to the outgassing plume. Variations in the strength of the CO2 measurements might well be accounted for by slow changes in deep ocean currents. If the plume slowly moves across the island, this could account for the rise measured over the last 50 years. We must leave it to the climatologists to make the appropriate calculations.
“[Man cannot be causing global warming by adding about 1% per year gross to the reservoir of atmospheric CO2, a greenhouse gas with less than one thirtieth the effect of water vapor. The global climate models are wrong, notwithstanding the measurements at Mauna Loa.
“[RSJ 11/21/06: The MLO data also need to be checked for volcanic influences from other known and unknown undersea volcanoes.]
Posted by RSJ on behalf of Borat | November 21, 2006 6:30 AM”
This from two months ago with pics::
http://www.hawaii247.com/2013/03/16/volcano-watch-kilaueas-summit-eruption-in-halemaumau-is-nearly-five-years-old/
Volcano Watch: Kilauea’s summit eruption in Halema‘uma‘u is nearly five years old
South winds permitted clear views into the south portion of the Overlook crater, which is often obscured by thick fume. The bright orange area is the location where lava at the surface of the lake sinks back into the system, with spattering and degassing common in this area. A broad ledge of recently deposited lava occupies much of the south portion of the crater. Photo courtesy of USGS/HVO
(Volcano Watch is a weekly article written by scientists at the U.S. Geological Survey’s Hawaiian Volcano Observatory.)
It wasn’t too long ago that tour buses shuttled hundreds of visitors a day to the Halema`uma`u parking lot. A short trail led the visitors to the Halema`uma`u Overlook, where they could look out over Halema`uma`u Crater and imagine its former eruptions and the famous lava lake from the 1800s and early 1900s. The screech of a koa`e kea (white-tailed tropic bird) nesting in the crater walls, or shuffling of other visitors, or a gust of wind, might be the only interruption to the tranquil view.
Things are much different now at Halema`uma`u. The visitor overlook – now closed to the public – has been destroyed. The ground around the overlook is littered with blocks and bits of spatter, a testament to recent explosive events. Gusts of wind whip a plume carrying suffocating concentrations of volcanic gas. A low, constant rumble and occasional crashing rockfalls broadcast that a lava lake is again active in Halema`uma`u.
The current summit eruption began on March 19, 2008, with an explosive event that created a new opening about 35 m (115 ft) wide, which we call the Overlook crater. During the first six months of the eruption, lava was deep and rarely visible. The Overlook crater produced a handful of small, explosive events that threw rocks and spatter several hundred meters (yards) away from the crater. Throughout 2009, the lava remained deep within the enlarging crater, often spattering from small sources or feeding brief lava ponds.
The eruption changed in February 2010 when a continuous lava lake appeared. This lava lake has persisted to today with one brief interruption in March of 2011. The Overlook crater has enlarged significantly over time and is now 160 m (520 ft) wide. Over the last year, the lava has crept higher and has recently been about 30-50 m (100-160 ft) below the rim of the Overlook crater. For all its change, the one consistent feature of the eruption is the continuous gas plume, which injects large amounts of sulfur dioxide into the air.
=============
So, from the link I gave earlier if we knew how much sulphur dioxide we could work out how much carbon dioixide…:
“Examples of volcanic gas compositions, in volume percent concentrations
(from Symonds et. al., 1994)
Volcano
Kilauea Summit
Tectonic Style
Hot Spot
Temperature
1170°C
H20 37.1
C02 48.9
S02 11.8
Myrrh says:
May 14, 2013 at 7:01 pm
Ferdinand Engelbeen says:
May 14, 2013 at 10:01 am
Myrrh says:
May 14, 2013 at 8:22 am
“In the real world all natural unpolluted rain is carbonic acid, which is a pH or around 5.6 .”
Sorry Myrrh, you only demonstrate that you have not the slightest knowledge of the chemistry of CO2 in water. CO2 dissolved in water/rain forms carbonic acid, but rain is not carbonic acid, it is 99.7% water with some 0.33% CO2 at near freezing point, even less at higher temperatures. See:
http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/gases-solubility-water-d_1148.html
Of the 0.33% total CO2, there is a little free CO2, a little H2CO3 (carbonic acid), more HCO3- (bicarbonate ions) and some CO3– (carbonate ions). Of all CO2 forms present in rain, less than 1% is CO2 + H2CO3, 90% is bicarbonate and 9% is carbonate. Thus carbonic acid is maximum 0.0033% in rain. Even so, the pH of this mixture is slightly acidic, because the dissolution of H2CO3 into bicarbonates and carbonates increases the H+ concentration.
Ferdinand, I can’t work out where you’re getting this, your link doesn’t say anything about it. Rain is acidic from the carbon dioxide dissolved in it, it has a pH or around 5.6-5.8. Bicarbonate is alkaline.. The abilility to give up an H is what makes it an acid.
Yet more nonsense from Myrrh, his lack of knowledge of Chemistry is amazing and yet he still keeps on pounding away about the equation of state of a gas as if he knew something about it and now misinformation on carbonic acid chemistry.
A drop of pristine rainwater in equilibrium with air at 25ºC containing 375ppm CO2 has the following composition: [CO2] 1.18 × 10−5 mol/l, [H2CO3] 2.00 × 10−8 mol/l, [HCO3] 2.23 × 10−6 mol/l, [H+] 2.23 × 10−6 mol/l.
What could you possibly know about rain? You don’t have rain in the AGWScienceFiction’s Greenhouse Effect Illusion…
You don’t have the Water Cycle at all – without water the Earth would be 67°C because the real gas atmosphere of mainly nitrogen and oxygen acts like a blanket keeping the Earth’s heat from being lost to space faster than the Sun’s direct radiant heat, longwave infrared, can replenish it. This is real thermal blanket around the Earth without which it would be -18°C – your priesthood lies about this and says that is the temperature without only its fake greenhouse gases. And ridiculously convinces you that a trace gas which is practically 100% holes in the atmosphere is this blanket.. You wouldn’t know a real gas carbon dioxide if it stared you in the face, all your fizzy drinks are flat.
There is no way that they are measuring anything but local volatile production of carbon dioxide artificially massaged to show an unrealistic steady rise without even the nous to relate it to real temperatures, because that became the intention of Ravelle/Keeling who saw Callendar made a laughing stock in the early sixties when the temperatures plummeted and he was pictured shovelling vast amounts of global warming off his drive.
This was the greenie environmentalists’ anti coal agenda and they could blame that when temperatures went up or down, the ice age scare which followed did precisely this. But coal got cleaned up and the arguments became more devious..
There are many good posts on the Willis discussion of Moana Loa which can’t be ignored:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/06/04/under-the-volcano-over-the-volcano/#comment-403530
Ernst Beck says:
June 5, 2010 at 2:44 am
Dear Willis,
I agree, the near ground data listed in my first paper do not reflect background data. Meanwhile I have found additional data which reflect CO2 background at that times. ( e.g. 1890 measured on islands at Baltic Sea or 1935 measured as a vertical profile over Helsinki)
Near ground concentrations are connected to the CO2 background (or MBL) over the vertical profiles. (please see our latest paper on http://www.realCO2.de: http://www.biokurs.de/treibhaus/CO2_versus_windspeed-review-1-FM.pdf). We can calculate annual background averages from near ground data.
You will find a graph of historical CO2 background based on that methods and updated historical station list on http://www.realCO2.de (http://www.biomind.de/realCO2/stations.htm.)
I have also prepared a new paper on the reconstruction of the CO2 background which is in peer review.
best regards
Ernst Beck
And several put fingers on the irrationalities and inconsistencies in the techniques and concepts of the measuring claims in this highly volcanic area in this strange panegyric to cherry picking data.
Myrrh says:
May 14, 2013 at 7:01 pm
In addition to what Phil said, here the reactions of what happens with CO2 when it dissolves in water (I use the = sign where normally arrows in both directions should stand, as arrows give troubles in the HTML language used in WordPress):
CO2 + H2O = H2CO3 = H+ + HCO3- = H+ + CO3–
Thus CO2 with water gives carbonic acid. That splits into a hydrogen ion and a bicarbonate ion and further again in another hydrogen ion and a carbonate ions. The relative amounts in equilibrium is what Phil said.
Thus it is indeed the hydrogen ions which make the solution of CO2 in water slightly acid. Bicarbonate and carbonate ions play no role in it. But bicarbonate and carbonate salts are mostly alkaline, if the salts are made from strong bases, as is the case for sodium bicarbonate (baking soda) and soda (sodium carbonate). In these cases it is the sodium which makes the difference.
The rest is for tonight…
This is basic meteorology.
Water and carbon dioxide in the atmosphere form carbonic acid.
Carbon dioxide is what gives rain its pH of 5.6-8
Which is acid not alkaline.
You do not have rain in your AGWScienceFiction’s Greenhouse Effect Illusion’s carbon cycle, you do not have the Water Cycle at all..
This shows conclusively that you are scamming pretending science.
Whatever you have to say will continue to be scamming until you come back to the real traditional physics of the real world of real gases which have volume, attraction, mass and weight under gravity as understood by real scientists who make things work.
Carbon dioxide cannot accumulate in the atmosphere.
Every time it rains all the carbon dioxide around comes down to our real Earth’s surface as carbonic acid.
Carbon dioxide cannot accumulate in the atmosphere because it is heavier than air.
Real gases are condensable, they expand when heat and contract when cooled.
Gas that expand become less dense and therefore lighter under gravity.
Gas that condense become more dense and therefore heavier under gravity.
Hot air rises, cold air sinks.
Volumes of hot air rise forming areas of low pressure.
Because they are lighter than air under gravity.
Because they weigh less.
Volumes of cold air sink forming areas of high pressure.
Because they are heavier than air under gravity.
Because they weigh more.
Winds blow from high pressure to low.
Winds are convection currents, volumes of the real gas air on the move created by differential heating of volumes of air.
Every wind that blows from high to low flows down and sinks into areas of low pressure.
All the cold volumes of air sinking to areas of low pressure at the surface are bringing down all the carbon dioxide in those volumes.
When the winds stop, the carbon dioxide heavier than air will displace the air in the volume it is in and sink to the surface.
Gases that are lighter than air rise and gases that are heavier than air sink.
You do not have rain and you do not have winds because you do not have real gases with mass with weight under gravity which separate out under gravity to give us our rain and wind – you do not have any weather at all in your imaginary AGWSF Greenhouse Effect world.
You do not have any climate.
You do not have any climate because you do not have the real atmosphere which is a heavy ocean of real gas air weighing down on us 14 lbs every square inch, a ton on our shoulders .
You have substituted empty space populated by your imaginary massless hard dots of nothing ideal gas without attraction miles apart from each other travelling at great speeds under their own molecular momentum through your empty space bouncing off each other and the imaginary wall of a container you have put around your imaginary earth.
You are on the other side of the looking glass with Al imagining any number of impossible fisics before breakfast.
You have no atmosphere at all because you have replaced the real fluid gas atmosphere with empty space.
There is not an imaginary container like the glass of a greenhouse around the real world, all your gases have escaped to outer space because you do not have gravity..
You can’t hear this because you have no sound in your world.
Myrrh says:
May 15, 2013 at 7:16 am
This is basic meteorology.
Water and carbon dioxide in the atmosphere form carbonic acid.
Which dissociates to form bicarbonate ions and hydrogen ions:
the following is basic chemistry,
CO2+H2O ⇌ H2CO3 ⇌ HCO3- + H+
In the present atmosphere at 25ºC that amounts to
[CO2] 1.18 × 10−5 mol/l, [H2CO3] 2.00 × 10−8 mol/l, [HCO3+] 2.23 × 10−6 mol/l, [H+] 2.23 × 10−6 mol/l.
As you can see most of the carbon is in the form of dissolved CO2 and the rest as bicarbonate ion, the hydrogen ion concentration is equal to the bicarbonate ion concentration.
pH= -log(2.23 × 10−6) = 5.65
Whatever you have to say will continue to be scamming until you come back to the real traditional physics of the real world of real gases which have volume, attraction, mass and weight under gravity as understood by real scientists who make things work.
Those real scientists and engineers who make things work use use the equation of state for gases at atmospheric conditions: PV=nRT
The ideal gas laws you despise so much!
Remaining nonsense deleted.
Ferdinand Engelbeen says:
May 15, 2013 at 2:33 am
Myrrh, it happens that I have a B.Sc in industrial chemistry. So I still think I know something of what happens with CO2 and water. Even if it is already some 50 years ago that I learned the equilibria equations (and my memory isn’t anymore what it was at that time).
Please ask it anybody who you may believe who has some basic knowledge of chemistry and he/she will affirm that what Phil and I said is right.
I have tried to explain it to you in different ways and as simple as possible. But I fear that your aversion against anything remotely connected to AGW makes you think that it must be wrong by definition.
Al what you have demonstrated until now is that you don’t have the slightest knowledge of physics of gases or even the most elementary knowledge of chemistry. And you have demonstrated that you aren’t willing to learn anything from people who have that knowledge, only because what they says is not what you believe…
So, any further response to you is just a waste of my time and I (still) have too many other hobbies to have fun with, without that.
A last some food for thoughts for you: CO2 is about 30% heavier than air. Helium is about 9 times lighter than air. Despite the huge differences, both substances are found at near constant levels between sea surface and 20 km height. That was measured in 1945:
http://acmg.seas.harvard.edu/students/Q_J_Roy_Meteor_Soc_1949_Brewer.pdf
The CO2 measurements gave the result that the CO2 content of the atmosphere (0.3 per cent) is substantially independent of height. Following the measurements of Gluckauf and Paneth (1945), who found only very small increases in the helium content of the air up to 25 km, the constancy of the carbon
dioxide content was expected.
How is that possible? There were no climate researchers in 1945, only physisists eager to learn what was happening in the atmosphere…