Josh writes:
I had a request from Richard Betts to do a cartoon on this paper in Nature about soil CO2 emissions. The abstract says soil emits “60 petagrams of carbon per year to the atmosphere as carbon dioxide”.
It made me wonder why they talked about ‘carbon’ and not ‘carbon dioxide’ – after all, carbon is not a greenhouse gas. And why use petagrams and not gigatons, or is it gigatonnes?
I found out that a petagram is the same as a gigatonne or metric gigaton, but not a UK or US gigaton. Also the reason scientists use ‘carbon’ and not ‘carbon dioxide’ is that they are referring to the carbon cycle (carbon as fossil fuel burns to create CO2 which is reabsorbed by plants and converted back to carbon).
But between the scientists, the politicians and the media it is easy to get a bit confused. For example at Information is Beautiful you get this lovely infographic where they talk about 39 gigatons(!) of CO2 but call it ‘our carbon budget’. Their actual number for a ‘carbon budget’ should be 10.6 gigatonnes not 39 (though they do note the confusion in a footnote). Richard Betts says the amount of carbon in manmade CO2 emissions from fossil fuels are, in fact, 8 gigatonnes per year.
When you look at the data behind the infographic they add to the confusion by talking about ‘carbon emissions’.
Back to the Nature paper, we learn that “the response of soil microbial communities to changing temperatures has the potential to either decrease or increase warming-induced carbon losses substantially.”
Add this to the 60 petagrams of soil emissions, which dwarfs the manmade emissions of 8 Petagrams, and you have a lot more uncertainty – of the natural kind.
Many thanks to Richard Betts and Nic Lewis for helping with the research, educating me and correcting mistakes.
I believe the main source of the Keeling graph is dying soil organisms. I have seen contradictory claims about how much carbon we get from fossils and other sources. So my conclusions are uncertain.
Our current farming methods are not sustainable. That means they will be replaced and all will be good. But in the meantime, we are doing a lot of damage. Learning faster is better.
Man Bearpig September 8, 2014 at 2:12 pm
Why peta though? It can only be to make it sound bigger.
Because that’s the system of prefixes that are used by scientists, makes for much easier calculations.
Ah Phil-dot, you’re so cute when you try to be a condescending ass.
By not using the Reply function, you made it harder to see how you badly you butchered his original comment:
With the full comment you can see the reference to using petagrams instead of gigatonnes as mentioned in the original post, by using inches instead of miles.
By carefully truncating his comment, you got to portray Man Bearpig as a scientific doofus and showed yourself to be so much smarter than that mere climate change skeptic.
You must be so proud of yourself, using such tactics to belittle Man Bearpig and make yourself feel so much better. It’s a pleasure to see you work your magic. Your mother would be so proud of you as well.
Phil is our own Walter Mitty, imagining himself a true scientist, mowing down the doofuses with the ta-pocketa-pocketa of his dry razor wit.
With the full comment you can see the reference to using petagrams instead of gigatonnes as mentioned in the original post, by using inches instead of miles.
I was referring to his remark that using peta was done to make it seem bigger rather than the proper application of the International system of units, exactly why a ‘quadrillion grams’ seems larger than a ‘billion tonnes’ is not clear. As I pointed out proper use of the prefixes makes calculation easier without the difficulty of using two conversions which is necessitated by the use of the non-SI unit, tonne. Referring to inches instead of miles introduces problems associated with non-decimal systems such as imperial units which is entirely different, had he said 100,000,000 cm there would be no difficulty in making the conversion, but the convention would to be to use 1000 km.
By carefully truncating his comment, you got to portray Man Bearpig as a scientific doofus
No, just someone who apparently doesn’t understand the way scientific units are used.
From Phil-dot on September 10, 2014 at 6:29 am:
Ah, Phil-dot, we saw what you did. Man Bearpig’s original comment shows he knows. Inch or mile, gram or tonne, gauss or tesla, select the units based on the scale of the work. Do you wonder what is the average Mauna Loa CO2 increase every 3.1558*10^7 seconds?
@ur momisugly Ferdinand Engelbeen: September 8, 2014 at 3:23 pm
“And the processes are quantified:
– human emissions: 9-10 GtC/year {??? during the past 55 years}
– biosphere: net sink of ~1 GtC/year {??? during the past 55 years}
– ocean surface: net sink of ~0.5 GtC/year {??? during the past 55 years}
– deep oceans: net sink of ~3 GtC/year {??? during the past 55 years}
– global natural variability in the past 55 years: +/- 2 GtC/year”
——————
Ferdinand, how do you plan on quantifying … your 1st four (4) above “fuzzy math” calculated quantities with these statistical facts of/for …. the past 55 years, to wit:
Increases in World Population & Atmospheric CO2 at Decade End
year –– world popul. — % incr. —– CO2 ppm – 10y % incr — avg CO2 incr/year
1950 —- 2,556,000,053 – 11.1% ____ 310 ppm – 3.1% —— 1.0 ppm/year
1960 —- 3,039,451,023 – 18.9% ____ 316 ppm – 3.2% —— 0.6 ppm/year
1970 —- 3,706,618,163 – 21.9% ____ 325 ppm – 2.7% —— 0.9 ppm/year
1980 —- 4,453,831,714 – 20.1% ____ 338 ppm – 3.8% —– 1.3 ppm/year
1990 —- 5,278,639,789 – 18.5% ____ 354 ppm – 4.5% —– 1.6 ppm/year
2000 —- 6,082,966,429 – 15.2% ____ 369 ppm – 4.3% —– 1.5 ppm/year
2010 —- 6,809,972,000 – 11.9% ____ 389 ppm – 5.1% —– 2.0 ppm/year
The balance can be calculated for each year of the past 55 years, here in graph form:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/dco2_em2.jpg
The average increase per year increased from 0.6 ppmv/year in 1960 to 2.2 ppmv/year in 2013. The human emissions are appr. double that.
The oxygen balance shows that the biosphere was a small emitter of ~0.5 GtC/year up to a small absorber of CO2 of currently ~1 GtC, growing since ~1990.
The ocean surface follows the atmosphere at ~10% of the increase (Revelle/buffer factor) in the atmosphere in 1-3 years.
Of course there is some correlation with world population, including world production, transport and consumption, but the main increase is from human CO2 emissions, modulated by year by year temperature variability.
@ur momisugly Ferdinand Engelbeen: September 10, 2014 at 12:41 pm
“The balance can be calculated for each year of the past 55 years, here in graph form:”
——————–
“YUP”, and I betcha you could “calculate the mass balance” for each year of the past 55 years, for the total tonnes of turnips grown in Ireland …. relative to the total tonnes of Llama feces produced in Peru …… and then generate 2 or 3 pretty colored graphs to prove that the “mass balance” between Irish turnip consumption and Llama feces emissions has a direct effect on the mosquito population in Antarctica.
====================
“The average increase per year increased from 0.6 ppmv/year in 1960 to 2.2 ppmv/year in 2013.”
——————
Ferdinand, to wit: “Visual illusions reveal that perceptions generated by the brain do not necessarily correlate with reality. Hallucinations, dreams, and delusions illustrate the same point.”
Ferdinand, this is reality, to wit:
…… mth
1958 5 1958.375 317.50
1959 5 1959.375 318.29 ….. 0.79 ppm increase from year before
1960 5 1960.375 320.03 ….. 1.74 ppm increase from year before
1960 10 1960.792 313.83 ….. 6.20 ppm total flux quantity Y1960
1961 5 1961.375 320.58 ….. 0.55 ppm increase from year before
1962 5 1962.375 321.01 ….. 0.43 ppm increase from year before
1963 5 1963.375 322.25 ….. 1.24 ppm increase from year before
2011 5 2011.375 394.21 ….. 1.17 ppm increase from year before
2012 5 2012.375 396.78 ….. 2.57 ppm increase from year before
2013 5 2013.375 399.76 ….. 2.98 ppm increase from year before
2013 9 2013.708 393.51 ….. 6.25 ppm total flux quantity Y2013
2014 5 2014.375 401.78 ….. 2.02 ppm increase from year before
===================
“The human emissions are appr. double that.”
——————
“SURE NUFF”, Ferdinand, ….. you will always be 103% correct as long as you continue to claim that your visual illusions of “human emissions are approximately double” …. whatever the “quantity” is that your “fuzzy math” calculations determined the “average increase in atmospheric CO2 ppm is/was”.
Conscious thought consuming religious beliefs will “rot your mind”, … ya know. And when said persists for too long, …. the damage is irreversible and “reality” will never again be a factor in one’s decision making.
Cheers
“Thus at the current pCO2 in the atmosphere, the 120 ppmv extra pushes 1 GtC extra in the biosphere and 3.5 GtC extra in the oceans.
[snip]
The e-fold decay rate of the extra CO2 [n the atmosphere] is slightly over 50 years, or a half life time of ~40 years.”
—————
The CO2 secret they don’t want you to know.
There is a nasty ole Anthropogenic Global Warming secret about CO2 that the proponents of CAGW are not telling you.
Surprise, surprise, there are actually two (2) different types of CO2 …… with both types having the same isotope variations.
There is both a naturally occurring CO2 molecule and a hybrid CO2 molecule that has a different physical property. The new hybrid CO2 molecule contains an H-pyron which permits one to distinguish it from the naturally occurring CO2 molecules.
The H-pyron or Human-pyron is only attached to and/or can only be detected in CO2 molecules that have been created as a result of human activity. Said H-pyron has a Specific Heat Capacity of one (1) GWC or 1 Global Warming Calorie that is equal to 69 x 10 -37th kJ/kg K or something close to that or maybe farther away.
Thus, said H-pyron is very important to all Climate Scientists that are proponents of CO2 causing Anthropogenic Global Warming (CAGW) because it provides them a quasi-scientific “fact” that serves two (2) important functions:
1) it permits said climate scientists to calculate an estimated percentage of atmospheric CO2 that is “human caused” …….
and 2) it permits said climate scientists to calculate their desired “degree increase” in Average Global Temperatures that they can then claim are directly attributed to human activity.
As an added note, oftentimes one may hear said climate scientists refer to those two (2) types of CO2 as “urban CO2” and ”rural CO2” because they can’t deny “it is always hotter in the city”.
And there you have it folks, the rest of the story, their secret scientific tool has been revealed to you.
Yours truly, Eritas Fubar
Samuel, what I wrote is true for all CO2, no matter its origin. The 110 ppmv extra CO2, whatever the cause, pushes 2.15 ppmv extra CO2 into oceans and vegetation. That is what is measured. That gives an e-fold decay rate of slightly over 50 years or a half life time of ~40 years. Less if you take into account the extra emissions from land use changes…
Shur it is, Ferdinand, …. it is as approximately “true” …. as is your “true” approximation of human emissions.
Such mathematical wizardly via use of abstract numbers should never be questioned by anyone.
Bart September 9, 2014 at 6:25 pm
Phil is our own Walter Mitty, imagining himself a true scientist, mowing down the doofuses with the ta-pocketa-pocketa of his dry razor wit.
No Bart, I am a true scientist, you appear to be an undergrad who thinks that ‘wiggle matching’ is the answer to all problems and that the lack of knowledge of the underlying science, (something you demonstrate every time you post here), is no impediment to understanding a problem.
You appear to be an unimaginative, dull-witted functionary who never had an original thought in his life, and who takes textbook formulas as holy writ, with no understanding of how they are derived or under what circumstances they are valid.
kadaka (KD Knoebel) September 10, 2014 at 11:28 am
From Phil-dot on September 10, 2014 at 6:29 am:
“No, just someone who apparently doesn’t understand the way scientific units are used.”
Ah, Phil-dot, we saw what you did. Man Bearpig’s original comment shows he knows. Inch or mile, gram or tonne, gauss or tesla, select the units based on the scale of the work. Do you wonder what is the average Mauna Loa CO2 increase every 3.1558*10^7 seconds?
Precisely, which is why in SI units the correct unit is Pg (peta-gram), usually the prefix is chosen so that the number falls between 1 and 999, i.e. 100.1m not 10010 cm nor 0.1001 km. Again I referred to his objection to the use of Pg rather than Gt which is why I made no reference to his comment on inches and miles since that had no bearing on the issue. You appear to be picking a fight about something which I did not say.
Phil-dot, if you choose the unit based on the scale of the work, and you’re agreeing with that, why choose the tiny gram instead of the many times larger tonne when referring to such enormous masses of carbon (dioxide)? So you can use larger (and scarier) numbers, which Man Bearpig was correct on in his original comment.
And how often have you complained when climate scientists talk of gigatonnes of carbon emissions instead of petagrams?
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/ch7s7-3-2-2.html
The IPCC in AR4 was using gigatonnes (Gt). Point me to your great denunciations of the IPCC for their not using the proper scientific units.
Phil-dot, it is obvious by what you said in your original comment what you meant:
You said prefixes, not units. It is obvious what you did, if you had used the rest of Man Bearpig’s comment your mumbling about prefixes wouldn’t have worked.
kadaka (KD Knoebel) September 10, 2014 at 8:54 pm
Phil-dot, if you choose the unit based on the scale of the work, and you’re agreeing with that, why choose the tiny gram instead of the many times larger tonne when referring to such enormous masses of carbon (dioxide)? So you can use larger (and scarier) numbers, which Man Bearpig was correct on in his original comment.
You don’t choose the unit, the whole point of the SI system is that there is only one unit for any quantity, for mass it is the gram, the prefixes are chosen so that the numbers are a maximum of three digits before the decimal point. So in this case the correct SI unit is the Peta-gram. In this case the number is the same whether you use Pg (SI) or Gt (non-SI) so your point about ‘larger (and scarier) numbers’ isn’t valid. Man Bearpig was somehow suggesting that use of the correct scientific nomenclature was intended to scare the reader. He then made an incorrect analogy, which I ignored but seems to have you all riled up.
Phil-dot, even scientists don’t adhere strictly to the SI system, for which you blather on in your dissembling as if it was a requirement for science. The use of the gauss has not been banned from publications. The climate scientists you revere continue to use gigatonnes.
Where are all those numerous past denunciations of yours from all the many times they used gigatonnes instead of petagrams in the IPCC reports, in the peer-reviewed papers, in the press releases? Surely you must be quite worked up at how unscientific the IPCC and the climate scientists have been!
It is Man Bearpig who is denouncing the use of peta-gram with the implication that it was done for nefarious motives, I merely pointed out that it was the proper use of the international system of scientific units and actually made for simpler calculations. I did not denounce the use of the Gigatonne, despite your ravings to the contrary.
The only post I can recall posting on a related matter was to deprecate the use of ‘million km^2’, which while convenient conceptually, frequently leads to errors in calculation due to the use of multiple prefixes (an SI no-no). Should be Mm^2 but that’s a lost cause.
Phil-dot, with so many others using gigatonnes, how can using petagrams simplify calculations? When does adding numerous unit conversions simplify a calculation?
When done there will be complaints you are not using the commonly-used units thus your results are not directly comparable. Will you stick to your principle and insist it is all those others that have done it wrong and they should change their numbers, or will you also provide your results in the commonly-used units?
You are making me believe Bart’s assessment of you as a “unimaginative, dull-witted functionary” etc by appearing to not understand sarcasm.
That is the point, you do not denounce, you do not complain. All this time you have been silent as scientists and quasi-scientific organizations freely use the gigatonne instead of the petagram.
And now suddenly you claim you were moved to complain about Man Bearpig’s comment by saying that’s how science uses prefixes, while saying what you meant is in science one uses petagrams instead of gigatonnes which is what you were really complaining about, when you have not previously complained about scientists and quasi-scientific organizations not being unscientific by their not using the proper scientific units.
That you clipped Man Bearpig’s comment so you could denigrate him was the obvious conclusion. Your circumlocution to evade the obvious conclusion has collapsed, leaving the obvious conclusion even more clearly obvious.
Phil-dot, it is obvious by what you said in your original comment what you meant:
“Because that’s the system of prefixes that are used by scientists, makes for much easier calculations.”
You said prefixes, not units. It is obvious what you did, if you had used the rest of Man Bearpig’s comment your mumbling about prefixes wouldn’t have worked.
The rest of his comment no made sense: ‘You dont explain to soneone that is lost to follow the road for 120,000 inches then turn left’, because that’s not what they did.
Wow. Great diatribes/debate re: CO2 accounting. I’ve followed this debate thread here & on judithcurry.com as it pops up repeatedly. I learn some stuff from Engelbeen but Bart’s insistence on dynamical feedbacks seems decisive to me, at least at a conceptual level.
Can’t anyone write an animated bit of computer graphics that illustrates the whole source/sink/flux argument? Such that one could adjust assumptions / numbers and see what happens graphically?
Of course, to Bart’s point – there are interacting feedback loops (a few? a dozen? thousands!?). Visualizing those may be impossible.
I am always confused by this argument, but it seems like a more productive confusion than just taking an activist’s hyper-simplification at face value – “humans are emitting one milliion tons of CO2 per hour”!!!! Oh no!!!!
Bludgeon me over the head with a big number and I will submit. 😉
Rhyzotika:
Thankyou for that.
Ferdinand and I have been arguing the matter for more than a decade with no progress although others have joined the debate especially in recent years. For a simple comparison of the difference between his and my views please see my above post here and responses from Ferdinand.
Ferdinand basically supports the IPCC opinion that human activities (anthropogenic activities) are the cause of the observed rise in atmospheric CO2 concentration sine 12958 when measurements began at Mauna Loa. For a clear explanation of this please see his excellent web site which is the ‘goto-place’ for collated information on atmospheric CO2.
I assess that it is not possible to determine if that rise has an anthropogenic or a natural cause in part or in whole
ref. Rorsch A, Courtney RS & Thoenes D, ‘The Interaction of Climate Change and the Carbon Dioxide Cycle’ E&E v16no2 (2005)
Bart asserts that the rise is a response to global warming and, therefore, is entirely natural.
Richard
since 1958
not
sine 12958
Sorry
Well, not entirely a response to global warming, but natural and modulated by global temperatures anyway.
@ur momisugly Rhyzotika: September 11, 2014 at 6:09 pm
“Wow. Great diatribes/debate re: CO2 accounting. I’ve followed this debate thread here & on judithcurry.com as it pops up repeatedly. I learn some stuff from Engelbeen but Bart’s insistence on dynamical feedbacks seems decisive to me, at least at a conceptual level.
I am always confused by this argument, but it seems like …………….”
——————–
Rhyzotika, assuming that you are not well learned in the Physical Sciences then your confusion doesn’t surprise me in the least.
But it is not all your fault ….. simply because the supposedly learned individuals are, quite often, guilty of authoring “confusing commentary”.
And me thinks the primary “root” cause of your confusion is the aforementioned authors use of the term “global warming” which is a per se “catch-all” term which should only be used when talking in generalities and/or discussing non-scientific issues.
Rhyzotika, the literal fact is that there are two (2) specific types of “global warming”: … 1) Interglacial Global Warming (IGW); … 2) Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW);.
The former one (IGW) having begun some 22,000 years ago and is still in progress as far as anyone knows, …. whereas the latter one (AGW) only came into existence post-1958 but was, per se, “mathematically reversed engineered” (interpolated) back to 1880 …. whereat said time it (AGW) “high-jacked” all the calculated “increases” in Average Surface Temperatures.
In other words, ….. all increases due to the IGW “warming” of the near-surface atmosphere …. are now being credited to AGW …. and/or the increase in atmospheric CO2 ppm (CAGW).
Tis an amazing thingy that the IGW suddenly terminated in circa 1880 when the NWS decided that was the “official start” of the thermometer based Surface Temperature Record.
And a highly questionable Record, ….. to say the least.
Cheers
Rhyzotka,
The main difference in view between Bart and me is the speed at which the sinks respond to an increase in the atmosphere and therefore what causes the increase.
There is no difference in opinion about the short-term reactions of CO2 to temperature: seasonal changes are caused by the influence of temperature mainly on the NH forests, year by year variations are caused by ENSO (El Niño / La Niña) mainly on tropical forests. Both are opposite to each other.
The difference is in what causes the long term trend. What is known is that the long term increase is NOT caused by vegetation, as that is a proven small but increasing sink for CO2.
According to Bart, the increase is (near) entirely caused by temperature, as you can fit the variability and the trend of the derivative by a factor and an offset against an arbitrary baseline. That is simply curve fitting and doesn’t say anything about the cause of the trend, as the variability of the rate of change and the trend are anyway from different processes and a common factor is just a matter of choosing the right offset…
Further, it is impossible that a temperature increase of ~0.5°C will give a 70+ ppmv increase without feedback from the increased pressure in the atmosphere. The historical T-CO2 relationship is 8 ppmv/K, thus at maximum 4 ppmv is what can be expected.
Bart’s theory is from an increased input from the oceans, but even a 10% increase either from ocean current overturning or CO2 concentration can’t give a constant CO2 increase in the atmosphere without feedback from the increased CO2 pressure. Here such a reaction for a 10% increase in ocean input:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/upwelling_incr.jpg
A constant increase in CO2 input gives a limited increase of CO2 in the atmosphere. To give a constant increase in the atmosphere, one need an increasing input, which fits the human emissions, but which is not observed in the ocean input, to the contrary…
The same for a temperature increase of the oceans:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/upwelling_temp.jpg
Again a limited increase for a fixed temperature increase, not a continuous increase.
Talking about curve fitting. Bart’s curve fit is better than your “mass balance” curve fit. What you have done by assuming that anthropogenics account for all the long term rise and making residual difference all sink rate is a poor form of curve fitting. There is a strong correlation between your residual sink rates and ENSO, which is strong evidence that temperature is having a long term effect. You can get an idea about the relative contributions of each by doing a multiple regression on both anthropogenic emmision rates and an ENSO proxie temperature. The resulting coefficents take care of unit conversions. Using those coefficients, you can separately plot the contributions of each. Try it. I have.
Fred, I didn’t assume anything, I only looked at the probabilities: if humans emit twice the amount which is found in the atmosphere as increase, it must be a hell of a coincidence that some natural input just started to increase at exactly the same moment and in exact ratio with the human emissions and the increase in the atmosphere.
As the human emissions further fit all known observations and none other explanation does, then it is clear to me that humans are the cause of the CO2 increase. Have a look at the human emissions – increase ratio since 1960:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/acc_co2_1960_cur.jpg
and compare that to the influence of temperature, including ENSO over the past 17 years. Zero temperature increase and 40 ppmv added. Even if that is from the oceans or volcanoes (which is impossible as the 13C/12C ratio of both is too high), that had nothing to do with temperature.
The residuals are hardly visible in the trend. By focusing on the derivative you only look at the cause of the small variability around the trend, not at the cause of the trend…
You are now assuming probabilitys. Do the regression that I have asked you to do and you can get a measure of the probabilities. We observe that atmospheric CO2 concentrations lag temperature on all time scales. Should we expect the rate of rise in CO2 concentrations to decline some time in the future? It has been declining since 1958 while the rate of anthropogenic emissions has been increasing along with increasing temperature until the last 17 years.
Fred, the rate of change of CO2 in the atmosphere increased a fourfold since 1958, together with a fourfold increase of human emissions and a fourfold increase in sink rate:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/dco2_em2.jpg
Some focus on the -temporarily- “pause” in the increase rate for still increasing human inputs, but that indeed is natural variability and may last a decade or more, as it has in the past and then catches up.
The equilibrium between oceans and atmosphere is between 4 and 17 ppmv/K, as good static as dynamic. Any temperature increase over the past 55 years is good for not more than 8 ppmv/K (the historical average). That is based on the solubility of CO2 in seawater.
You can try to find a multiple regression solution, but that has no real solution if you have two variables which both (partially) trend up and one has a huge influence on the variability, while the other has not. Better look at what the physical constraints are…
kadaka (KD Knoebel) September 12, 2014 at 2:02 pm
Phil. “I merely pointed out that it was the proper use of the international system of scientific units and actually made for simpler calculations.”
Phil-dot, with so many others using gigatonnes, how can using petagrams simplify calculations? When does adding numerous unit conversions simplify a calculation?
Performing calculations in the base units is simpler since it requires no conversions.
When done there will be complaints you are not using the commonly-used units thus your results are not directly comparable.
Hardly, since Pg is the commonly used unit. Just as a check I googled ‘global CO2 fluxes’, 7 out of the first 10 papers used Pg, the remaining 3 used Gt.
Will you stick to your principle and insist it is all those others that have done it wrong and they should change their numbers, or will you also provide your results in the commonly-used units?
See above.
And now suddenly you claim you were moved to complain about Man Bearpig’s comment
I made no such claim. Man Bearpig said “Why peta though? It can only be to make it sound bigger”
which I answered by saying that’s how science uses prefixes, I made no complaint.
while saying what you meant is in science one uses petagrams instead of gigatonnes which is what you were really complaining about, when you have not previously complained about scientists and quasi-scientific organizations not being unscientific by their not using the proper scientific units.
This is a figment of your imagination.