(Note: this originally published on Dr. Spencer’s blog on April 25th, and I asked if I could reproduce it here. While I know some readers might argue the finer points of some items in the list, I think it is important to keep sight of these. – Anthony)
by Roy W. Spencer, Ph. D.
There are some very good arguments for being skeptical of global warming predictions. But the proliferation of bad arguments is becoming almost dizzying.
I understand and appreciate that many of the things we think we know in science end up being wrong. I get that. But some of the alternative explanations I’m seeing border on the ludicrous.
So, here’s my Top 10 list of stupid skeptic arguments. I’m sure there are more, and maybe I missed a couple important ones. Oh well.
My obvious goal here is not to change minds that are already made up, which is impossible (by definition), but to reach 1,000+ (mostly nasty) comments in response to this post. So, help me out here!
1. THERE IS NO GREENHOUSE EFFECT. Despite the fact that downwelling IR from the sky can be measured, and amounts to a level (~300 W/m2) that can be scarcely be ignored; the neglect of which would totally screw up weather forecast model runs if it was not included; and would lead to VERY cold nights if it didn’t exist; and can be easily measured directly with a handheld IR thermometer pointed at the sky (because an IR thermometer measures the IR-induced temperature change of the surface of a thermopile, QED)… Please stop the “no greenhouse effect” stuff. It’s making us skeptics look bad. I’ve blogged on this numerous times…maybe start here.
2. THE GREENHOUSE EFFECT VIOLATES THE 2ND LAW OF THERMODYNAMICS. The second law can be stated in several ways, but one way is that the net flow of energy must be from higher temperature to lower temperature. This is not violated by the greenhouse effect. The apparent violation of the 2nd Law seems to be traced to the fact that all bodies emit IR radiation…including cooler bodies toward warmer bodies. But the NET flow of thermal radiation is still from the warmer body to the cooler body. Even if you don’t believe there is 2-way flow, and only 1-way flow…the rate of flow depends upon the temperature of both bodies, and changing the cooler body’s temperature will change the cooling rate (and thus the temperature) of the warmer body. So, yes, a cooler body can make a warm body even warmer still…as evidenced by putting your clothes on.
3. CO2 CANT CAUSE WARMING BECAUSE CO2 EMITS IR AS FAST AS IT ABSORBS. No. When a CO2 molecule absorbs an IR photon, the mean free path within the atmosphere is so short that the molecule gives up its energy to surrounding molecules before it can (on average) emit an IR photon in its temporarily excited state. See more here. Also important is the fact that the rate at which a CO2 molecule absorbs IR is mostly independent of temperature, but the rate at which it emits IR increases strongly with temperature. There is no requirement that a layer of air emits as much IR as it absorbs…in fact, in general, the the rates of IR emission and absorption are pretty far from equal.
4. CO2 COOLS, NOT WARMS, THE ATMOSPHERE. This one is a little more subtle because the net effect of greenhouse gases is to cool the upper atmosphere, and warm the lower atmosphere, compared to if no greenhouse gases were present. Since any IR absorber is also an IR emitter, a CO2 molecule can both cool and warm, because it both absorbs and emits IR photons.
5. ADDING CO2 TO THE ATMOSPHERE HAS NO EFFECT BECAUSE THE CO2 ABSORPTION BANDS ARE ALREADY 100% OPAQUE. First, no they are not, and that’s because of pressure broadening. Second, even if the atmosphere was 100% opaque, it doesn’t matter. Here’s why.
6. LOWER ATMOSPHERIC WARMTH IS DUE TO THE LAPSE RATE/ADIABATIC COMPRESSION. No, the lapse rate describes how the temperature of a parcel of air changes from adiabatic compression/expansion of air as it sinks/rises. So, it can explain how the temperature changes during convective overturning, but not what the absolute temperature is. Explaining absolute air temperature is an energy budget question. You cannot write a physics-based equation to obtain the average temperature at any altitude without using the energy budget. If adiabatic compression explains temperature, why is the atmospheric temperature at 100 mb is nearly the same as the temperature at 1 mb, despite 100x as much atmospheric pressure? More about all this here.
7. WARMING CAUSES CO2 TO RISE, NOT THE OTHER WAY AROUND The rate of rise in atmospheric CO2 is currently 2 ppm/yr, a rate which is 100 times as fast as any time in the 300,000 year Vostok ice core record. And we know our consumption of fossil fuels is emitting CO2 200 times as fast! So, where is the 100x as fast rise in today’s temperature causing this CO2 rise? C’mon people, think. But not to worry…CO2 is the elixir of life…let’s embrace more of it!
8. THE IPCC MODELS ARE FOR A FLAT EARTH I have no explanation where this little tidbit of misinformation comes from. Climate models address a spherical, rotating, Earth with a day-night (diurnal) cycle in solar illumination and atmospheric Coriolis force (due to both Earth curvature and rotation). Yes, you can do a global average of energy flows and show them in a flat-earth cartoon, like the Kiehl-Trenberth energy budget diagram which is a useful learning tool, but I hope most thinking people can distinguish between a handful of global-average average numbers in a conceptual diagram, and a full-blown 3D global climate model.
9. THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A GLOBAL AVERAGE TEMPERATURE Really?! Is there an average temperature of your bathtub full of water? Or of a room in your house? Now, we might argue over how to do the averaging (Spatial? Mass-weighted?), but you can compute an average, and you can monitor it over time, and see if it changes. The exercise is only futile if your sampling isn’t good enough to realistically monitor changes over time. Just because we don’t know the average surface temperature of the Earth to better than, say 1 deg. C, doesn’t mean we can’t monitor changes in the average over time. We have never known exactly how many people are in the U.S., but we have useful estimates of how the number has increased in the last 50-100 years. Why is “temperature” so important? Because the thermal IR emission in response to temperature is what stabilizes the climate system….the hotter things get, the more energy is lost to outer space.
10. THE EARTH ISN’T A BLACK BODY. Well, duh. No one said it was. In the broadband IR, though, it’s close to a blackbody, with an average emissivity of around 0.95. But whether a climate model uses 0.95 or 1.0 for surface emissivity isn’t going to change the conclusions we make about the sensitivity of the climate system to increasing carbon dioxide.
I’m sure I could come up with a longer list than this, but these were the main issues that came to mind.
So why am I trying to stir up a hornets nest (again)? Because when skeptics embrace “science” that is worse that the IPCC’s science, we hurt our credibility.
NOTE: Because of the large number of negative comments this post will generate, please excuse me if I don’t respond to every one. Or even very many of them. But if I see a new point being made I haven’t addressed before, I’ll be more likely to respond.
Bob Boder:
At May 3, 2014 at 11:25 am you say (I think to me)
I disagree on three grounds.
Firstly, on the pedantic point of the article being discussed in this thread, “why co2 is rising” goes to the heart of point 7 from Roy Spencer. However, it is a relatively trivial point and – as I have repeatedly said – the matter has been adequately discussed in the thread and is now usurping the thread.
Secondly, the AGW-hypothesis has three parts; viz.
1.
Anthropogenic CO2 is inducing significant rise of atmospheric CO2 concentration.
2.
The rise in atmospheric CO2 concentration will induce significant rise in global temperature.
3.
The rise in global temperature will be net harmful.
If any one of those 3 parts were known to be wrong then the entire AGW-hypothesis would be known to be wrong. Part 1 is about “why co2 is rising”.
Thirdly, the carbon cycle is an interesting and complex field of study whether or not the AGW-hypothesis is right.
Richard
Bart says:
May 3, 2014 at 10:30 am
Bob Boder says:
May 3, 2014 at 10:12 am
“I say again the sun is heating the ocean and has been since the end of the little ice age. The oceans are emitting more co2 then they are sinking.”
This is true, but not likely the whole story.
Actually it’s not true, the oceans are a net sink.
Atmospheric CO2 is going to be driven by the partial pressure of CO2 at the oceanic boundary
Or vice versa when the equivalent of 4ppm/yr is being input to the atmosphere.
CO2_atm(boundary) = Kh*CO2_Oceans(boundary)
The Kh factor will increase proportionately with temperature and that, as you say, will cause CO2_atm to increase with temperature if CO2_Oceans is constant.
Follows the Van’t Hoff equation:
Kh(T) = Kh(To)*exp(-C(1/T-1/To))
So not proportional.
Bob Boder says:
May 3, 2014 at 10:12 am
The oceans are emitting more co2 then they are sinking. Which explains the lag and the apparent jump in co2 during el ninos.
Sorry, simply impossible and not as is measured.
– The sink rate in vegetation is calculated from the oxygen balance and is about 1 GtC/year nowadays.
– The sink rate in the ocean surface is measured on different places and shows a 3% rise in total carbon (DIC) compared to a 30% rise in the atmosphere, due to the buffer/Revelle factor. Or about 0.5 GtC/year.
– Human emissions are currently ~9 GtC/year, the increase in the atmosphere is ~4.5 GtC/year
– The difference of ~3 GtC/year must go somewhere, which is in the deep oceans, as other possible sinks are either too small or too slow.
Thus the deep oceans are sinking ~3 GtC/year more than they emit, no matter how much they emit.
Further, the temporal decrease in sink rate during an El Niño is mainly due to less uptake bij land and sea vegetation in the tropics and more forest fires, because there is less upwelling of the oceans – which implies less nutritients – and warmer/dryer conditions in parts of the tropical forests (which is reflected in a change of the 13C/12C rate of change).
See further:
http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/pubs/outstand/feel2331/maps.shtml
http://www.bowdoin.edu/~mbattle/papers_posters_and_talks/BenderGBC2005.pdf
http://www.biogeosciences.net/9/2509/2012/bg-9-2509-2012.pdf Fig.5
http://www.nasa.gov/vision/earth/environment/ElNINO_FIRES.html
N0 7: I fully agree with your closing statement – CO2 is plant food and vital to all mammals on earth since it is critical to all plant life on earth. However, I disagree with your postulate that it has to be man’s growing consumption of fossil fuels that has had the dominant impact.
72% of the world is covered by oceans and oceans outgas CO2 as they warm. Historical ice core data indicates that CO2 concentrations always rises and falls AFTER the Earth’s temperature (from proxies) rises or falls. That CO2 came from the oceans prior to humanities rise to dominance. CO2 concentrations have chanced rapidly in the past, and not by just 1% of recent changes but far closer to 90+% of recent changes.
Finally, show me the proof that the CO2 concentration in ice cores 1,000 to 100,000 years old are the same as the CO2 concentrations in the air that was initially trapped as the snow fell. That is a critical piece of science that no one talks about. Are there processes occurring during those 1,000’s of year that causes CO2 concentrations to decline? I think there are, but I have not found any discussion or proof that what we measure when the ice is finally melted in the labs is actually what the air contained when the entrapment occurred.
Finally, CO2 concentration measurements using the wet method have been as high as 430 during the 19th and early 20th centuries. That fact is being ignored with out proof that the wet method data is flawed.
It is the warming of the oceans that has contributed most of the CO2 concentration increase the past 130 years. Remember, the Earth and the oceans were up to 2C colder during the LIA. A 2C rise in ocean temperatures would release massive volumes of CO2. Man’s combustion of fossil fuels has been going on for centuries. The primary fuel has changes, as well as the annual usage, but man has been putting CO2 into the air for 50 centuries – from wood to peat to coal to petroleum and natural gas. As the efficiency of combustion has improved, the quantity of CO2 released into the atmosphere has declined per BTU. Our goal must be to maximize the efficiency of combustion of fossil fuels, not elimination of their use.
Bill
The point of the article is to marginalize people who threaten a money making machine it has little or nothing to do with science if it did it would be discussion of the points a not a summery dismissal.
I value your discussion on the subject and I agree it is fascinating. But the facts remain that atmospheric co2 can not raise the tempature of the ocean without a catastrophic increase in atmospheric temperatures first. But the ocean temp have risen so it is obvious that something else is the cause. But co2 control is a money maker and power accumulater so we must prop that up until when? Untill we all look stupid or greedy or evil. You already know the answer to AGW as do the rest of us it is minor issue and quite possibly a benefit not a problem.
@ur momisugly Richardscourtney
You said:
“The anthropogenic CO2 emission is a trivial addition to the CO2 circulating in the carbon cycle.”
and I replied with:
“All I’m saying is that we skeptics should accept that there is an anthropogenic CO2 emission contribution to atmospheric CO2. From what I understand, it is indeed minor or trivial.”
You then reply with:
“You have completely misunderstood perhaps because you are so certain of your opinion that you are unwilling to consider that the data does not support your view.”
Huh?
How is it that our views are the same, but the data does not support my view?
Are you there yet?….1000+? Took me 3 1/2 hrs to read through just this thread. Now I’m confused on what to say or not to say (well, not really). Was that the goal? Great comments by some very developed brains. btw, on non-scientific blogs, once one is identified as a skeptic, it really doesn’t matter what one says. Thanks Anthony, I always enjoy visiting from time to time.
Are we causing CO2 to go up?
I would like to start with this analogy. Suppose we had 100 men who are 30 years old and who have maintained a weight of 200 pounds for the last 10 years. Then on their 30th birthday, they decide to change nothing except eat an additional chocolate bar each day. Slowly but surely all gain weight over the next decade. However the gain was not steady. They weighed 2 pounds more after supper than before breakfast next morning. They even lost weight when they had the flu for a week. They gained more weight over Christmas when they ate more and worked less. Some said their kidneys were not as efficient so they retained more water. Others said they developed a digestive problem so the food was not digested properly. Others said humans are too complex to be able to figure out why they gained weight. And in the cases of 1 or 2, there could be some truth to these other reasons. But for 98 or 99 of the men, it was the extra chocolate bar that was at fault.
Applying this to CO2, air planes really started to add CO2 to the air in the 1940s. Slowly but surely, the CO2 concentration in the air went up. But it was not uniform. There were step wise changes during the year. As well, there were El Ninos and La Ninas that either doubled the CO2 concentration increase for a year or two or they may have made the increase come to a stop and briefly even reverse for a year or two. And we certainly are no where close to understanding all sources and sinks. But in my opinion, we should not discount the human contribution without proof.
I think we should apply Occam’s razor here:
“It states that among competing hypotheses, the one with the fewest assumptions should be selected.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam's_razor
All –
on Dr. Spencer’s blog he posted in a reply to Salvatore on April 25, 2014 at 12:32 PM :
Salvatore, I am not claiming CO2 will necessarily cause a significant rise in temperature…I’m saying the 10 arguments I listed above are bad arguments.
(Bold mine)
The lack of agreement regarding some of them here in “replies” seems to show that Dr. Spencer is correct: they are bad arguments.
Meanwhile, he did post some good arguments on his site, here (for those who didn’t see them):
http://www.drroyspencer.com/category/blogarticle/
Bart says:
May 3, 2014 at 9:55 am
Bart, you can fit any linear slope with another linear slope by a factor and an offset. In this case, if you choose a factor that more or less fits the amplitudes of the variations, the slopes don’t fit.
Further, the largest part of the increase in the atmosphere is from a slightly quadratic increase over time, while the temperature was linearly increasing and even not increasing in the last part. Its derivative is even negative. Therefore you invoked an increase in CO2 upwelling from the deep oceans, for which is not the slightest indication, to give the necessary increase in increase rate. Not only that, but such an increase in upwelling must be enormous ánd the sinks must be very fast to acommodate the increase in sources to dwarf human emissions which are already twice the observed rate of change in the atmosphere, including its slope.
Simply said: you invent proof for a theory which is based on an arbitrary factor and offset which doesn’t fit the slope of the derivative and violates a lot of observations, while the alternative does more than fit the slope and fits all observations…
Temperature indeed is the cause of the fast 2-3 years variations. It is not the cause of the increase in the atmosphere.
No, it does not. The Empirical evidence shows us that the sensitivity is in ppmv per K per unit-of-time.
Over the past 800,000 years the empirical evidence is that the sensitivity is in ppmv/K NOT per unit of time. It is a dynamic equilibrium where temperature changes incoming and outgoing fluxes until a new equilibrium is reached. The ppmv/K/ didn’t change beyond 4-5 ppmv/K (seasons to 2-3 years) and 8 ppmv/K (multi decennia to multi-millennia). The 5 ppmv/K is 10 ppmv/K/year over the seasons, 2 ppmv/K/year over Pinatubo and El Niño and the 8 ppmv/K is 0.0016 ppmv/K/year over a glacial-interglacial transition and 0.0008 ppmv/K/year for the opposite transition.
Merely an assertion, not a proven outcome.
Bart, if you add increasing amounts of CO2 from the oceans, the 13C/12C ratio in the atmosphere MUST increase, as the ratio in the oceans is higher than of the atmosphere. The same for an increasing addition of 14C depleted ocean CO2: the decay rate of the bomb spike should accellerate, not stay even…
What it is NOT tracking is human emissions, and the disparity is rapidly increasing.
Not at all:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/dco2_em4.jpg
Werner Brozek says:
May 3, 2014 at 12:27 pm
Are we causing CO2 to go up?……
…..And we certainly are no where close to understanding all sources and sinks. But in my opinion, we should not discount the human contribution without proof.
=========
No one seems to want to look that way…..why are the sinks not sequestering a mere 2ppm
Science says 2ppm is not even a drop in the bucket…..unless something is making the sinks give off CO2
Crops, forests, aquaculture, greenhouses, nitrification, ….growing pot in a closet…etc etc
…all common sense..and all say 2ppm would be gone so fast you couldn’t even find it
My opinion is…an additional outside source of 2ppm will never overwhelm this system……can not be accumulative…ratios be damned
William Yarber says:
May 3, 2014 at 11:55 am
William, there are a lot of points which were responded to in earlier comments. Here a summary:
– The oceans are currently net sinks for CO2, not sources. Any increase of temperature gives not more than 8 ppmv/K, that is the maximum for the warming of the oceans since the LIA. The rest of the 100 ppmv increase is from the 200 ppmv emissions by humans.
– The 100 ppmv change over the ice ages was in 5,000-10,000 years, humans did that in 160 years.
– As long as there are no chemical or biological reactions which remove or create CO2 in the ice cores, they are reliable. Therefore Greenland ice cores are not reliable for CO2: it is extra produced by highly acidic volcanic dust from Iceland. There is no relevant migration, removal or creation of CO2 in the cold inland Antarctic ice cores.
– Historical measurements were reasonable accurate for that time, but a lot of them were taken at the wrong places: midst of towns, forests, under, inbetween and over leaves of growing crops. Not suitable at all for “background” CO2 levels, but these makes the 1942 “peak” which doesn’t exist in any other proxy, including stomata index data…
– The release of CO2 from the oceans warming since the LIA is maximum 8 ppmv. It is an equilibrium reaction between oceans (+), vegetation (-) and atmosphere (+), which increases and decreases fluxes until a new equilibrium is reached.
Ferd
Why are the oceans warming?
You never address this.
Do you believe it because of an increase in co2 in atmosphere?
If so explain how a small increase of co2 in the atmosphere can increase the temp of an ocean that has a mass 250 times that of the atmosphere when it is debatable whether it is even increasing the temperature in the atmosphere it self.
If its not co2 in the atmosphere what is it and why wouldn’t that also cause the atmosphere temperature to increase as well?
Bob Boder says:
May 3, 2014 at 1:19 pm
Why are the oceans warming?
I do address that from time to time, but I think that this is less contradictory between the skeptics than the cause of the increase of CO2 in the atmosphere… Therefore the latter is a bad argument in any discussion with moderate opposants.
My take is that ocean currents are the main cause of the temperature variations on earth. For some of them it is obvious: ENSO, PDO, NAO,… all have a clear influence on earth’s temperatures. But there are slower swings at work: 1000-1200 years oscillations which did give the warmer Roman and warm MWP periods. And the cold LIA in between. Even longer cycles that caused the ice ages and interglacials.
What caused all these cycles? Some are partly proven, the sun-earth connections, others still are deep question marks. Solar activity? Clouds? Volcanic eruptions? Still a lot to research…
What role does CO2 play? In my informed opinion: a small role. The physical influence, based on absorption measurements and calculations shows ~0.9°C warming for 2xCO2. Without feedbacks. There is little evidence that the feedbacks are positive (as all climate models imply), some are even negative (clouds). Anyway, the current “pause” shows less and less sensitivity of the climate for the increase of CO2, the longer it gets…
A global average temperature is as meaningful as the number of testicles in the average human (the average human has somewhere near 1 testicle). Anyone can misuse statistics. THINK before you complain.
The entire argument surrounding a global average temperature based on land temperature stations is entirely meaningless. It is completely open to adjustment and bias. There is simply too many variables and adjustments involved. You seem to think a thermometer can tell the difference in heat from natural processes or air conditioners sitting next to it. You seem to think you can measure 20% of the earth and guess at the rest (land surface measurements). Even satellite measurements need constant tweaking to adjust for orbital and equipment changes – who is to say what adjustments are accurate (to within +/- 0.5 C).
You could argue a measurement taken from a distant point in space has meaning where the entire planet is measured as it revolves. But that isn’t the Global Average Temperature being bantered about.
There is no existing GOOD methodology for computing a Global Average Temperature that has scientific merit. PERIOD.
You can look at regional temperature averages, and changes, where good (well situated) measurement stations exist. The rest is speculation, not science.
I have been wondering since this post appeared why would Spencer post it at all. Is he not a busy man? Is he not a mainstream scientist in the climatology business? Nothing else to do?.
This coupled with the hurried loosely worded imprecise explanations. Is he not himself considered something of a skeptic?
I suspect his motives are not all that pure. Either somebody talked to him or he has decided to put some distance between himself and the body of skeptics. To reorient his position so to speak.
A lot of comments in this thread continue to be based on the argument that Henry’s Law governs CO2 solution/dissolution. According to climate science, that is not correct. Henry’s Law is only one term in the formula used to calculate CO2 dissolution (and, hence, ocean acidification) as shown in my comment here and related comments.
The money quote (Takahashi et al. 2009):
The alpha (α) parameter I believe incorporates Henry’s Law.
Since CO2 dissolution is primarily a function of wind speed (which itself is not measured but modeled), it is unclear to me how, according to AGW, CO2 affects/does not affect wind speed. This is not a skeptical question. It is one of understanding. I can agree or disagree with an argument I understand, but it is difficult to agree or disagree with an argument one does not understand.
As I stated before, there is very little actual data on CO2 dissolution in ocean waters and there is incomplete global coverage. Yet, it is taken as fact that the oceans are a major sink for anthropogenic CO2. I am not questioning that oceans can be a sink for CO2. I am merely pointing out that there is very little actual data and the two papers referred to in AR5, Takahashi et al. 2009 and Gruber et al. 2009 are heavily dependent on models and modeling assumptions, because of the lack of data. Furthermore, as I alluded to before, claims in AR5 that these papers are “independent” are questionable.
References:
Gruber et al. 2009: http://www.up.ethz.ch/publications/documents/Gruber_et_al._2009
Takahashi et al. 2009: http://eprints.uni-kiel.de/2294/1/683_Takahashi_2009_ClimatologicalMeanAndDecadalChange_Artzeit_pubid12055.pdf
Fred
So basically the rise in co2 is not causing warming of any significant amount in your option.
Co2 has always tracked a rise in tempature but lags in both the tempature rise and at slower rate in its fall with or with out mans influence.
The oceans may or may not be the main cause of this but we are not sure. we dont know if it makes any difference anyway.
And we still aren’t sure what the mechanism is heating the oceans.
Yet co2 is bad, I think
And the article we are discussing somehow makes sense.
Got it
Latitude says:
May 3, 2014 at 1:14 pm
My opinion is…an additional outside source of 2ppm will never overwhelm this system……can not be accumulative…ratios be damned
This is basically Le Chatelier’s Principle in action.
“If a chemical system at equilibrium experiences a change in concentration,temperature, volume, or pressure, then the equilibrium shifts to counteract the imposed change and a new equilibrium is established.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le_Chatelier's_principle
In our case, our atmosphere had a certain concentration. Then 4 ppm were added. The system adjusted by absorbing 2 ppm and leaving 2 ppm in the air every year in the recent past at least. According to this principle, the adjustments are always partial and never 100%.
JohnWho:
At May 3, 2014 at 12:08 pm you ask me
Our views are NOT “the same”.
As I have repeatedly pointed out, the available data does not indicate if the recent rise in atmospheric CO2 concentration is natural or is anthropogenic or is some combination of natural and anthropogenic effects.
You say
You are “saying” that “skeptics should accept” something which the data does not indicate so it may or may not be true.
Richard
Werner Brozek says:
May 3, 2014 at 3:04 pm
This is basically Le Chatelier’s Principle in action.
====
Werner, I will never agree with that.
Chemical formulas are used to describe things that are too difficult to describe any other way…
….our planet is biological, and that is almost impossible to describe with chemical formulas.
When a thing is limiting to biology, and you add very little, it should all be taken up…
Just like fertilizer, iron, nitrogen, etc
CO2 is no different. At our low levels it should all be taken up….unless it’s still so diluted/limited that biology can’t grab enough of it.
Latitude says:
May 3, 2014 at 4:12 pm
….our planet is biological, and that is almost impossible to describe with chemical formulas.
Part of the extra CO2 we put into the air does indeed increases photosynthesis. However the combustion of hydrocarbons is not a biological function. Nor is the ratio of partial pressures of CO2 in the ocean versus the ratio in the air which determines whether CO2 goes into the water or comes out.
You may be interested to read:
http://motls.blogspot.ca/2007/11/le-chateliers-principle-and-natures.html
Werner…..biology is multitudes faster
Biology gets first dibs……are you aware of how fast biology can drop CO2 levels to zero?
You just danced around what I said….
Like I just said….chemistry is easy…..biology is hard…..chemical biology is almost impossible
Question to everyone, does anyone here think that co2 in the atmosphere is causing the oceans to warm?
george e smith says, “Now I have always countered the “saturation question” by simply saying, it takes a thinner layer of air to contain enough CO2 molecules to grab nearly all available (candidate) photons. so the absorption / re-emission / re-absorption cycle just happens in more thinner layers; but the photons never stop escaping eventually, and during the delay, the sun just feeds in more solar spectral energy, hence the increased warming (of the surface)”; which states, There are only two ways to change the energy content of a system in raidative balance.
====================================================================
Thanks George, as this perfectly fits “David’s Law”, which states ; ” There are only two ways to change the energy content of a system in raidative balance, either a change in the input, or a change in the residence time of some aspect of energy within the system.”