Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Good news – we’re finally about to hit a tipping point. The only problem is, nobody will be able to tell the difference.
Climate change ‘tipping point’ could be reached in four weeks
6.6.16 is almost the devil’s number, but it might be much more than that if a leading scientist’s prediction on climate change is correct.
CSIRO fellow Dr Paul Fraser has earmarked June 6 (“plus or minus a week”) as the day when carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere will hit the point of no return, 400 parts per million (ppm).
The atmospheric measuring station at Cape Grim in Tasmania has recorded the current C02 levels in the atmosphere at 399.9ppm.
Dr Fraser said the difference between 399 and 400ppm was trivial, but when it does hit 400ppm mark it would be a “psychological tipping point”.
“Once it reaches 400ppm at Cape Grim it’s very unlikely to drop below 400 again,” Dr Fraser told ninemsn.
…
Cape Grim’s stable environment offers a clearer forecast for the world’s climate change.
“When you get away from the cities and into the background air, that’s the one that really drives climate change, that’s in terms of representing the entire globe,” Dr Fraser said.
To put the 400ppm into perspective, Dr Fraser said if you stood near a highway with cars going past, you could be hit with 500ppm of CO2.
At the higher end of the scale, a smoggy day in the densely polluted cities of Beijing or Shanghai could see carbon figures as high as 600ppm to 700ppm.
When 400ppm becomes the norm in country air, the cities will feel the pain a whole lot more.
The part the authors leave out, with all this talk of “cities in pain”, is that 400ppm CO2 will have no noticeable health impact on people. According to US government documents, navy personnel in charge of US submarines, including nuclear submarines charged with delivering the final response to a nuclear first strike, typically live for months on end at an average CO2 level of 3500ppm, ranging up to 11,300ppm. If 400ppm had any health impact whatsoever – how could sick people be trusted to be in charge of nuclear weapons, at CO2 levels an order of magnitude higher than normal air?
I know its easy to poke fun at climate scientists, for their endlessly embarrassing pronouncements of impending doom which never manifest, but at least the scientists who make such outrageously wrong predictions show real commitment to their ideas. Calling this non event a “tipping point” trivialises the drama of all those other efforts to entertain us.
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Got pretty close to record low temperatures last night. Global cooling?
How could 400ppm possibly have an effect on human health when exhaled air contains 4% CO2 ? That’s 40, 000ppm.
Not quite correct. The amount of CO2 in exhaled breath is a function of the partial pressure of CO2 in the blood – measured as 45 mmHg.
Since at sea level, the atmospheric pressure is 1013.25 Pa, 14.696 psi, 29.92 inHg or 760 mmHg, then the concentration of CO2 in exhaled air is actually 6% – 60,000ppm.
But that is only with normal breathing. If you are panting as after running a mile in 4 minutes 11 seconds, then you are taking in an awful lot of air with very little time to swap the oxygen for CO2, so surely the CO2 concentration will be low. But if you hold your breath for 40 seconds the CO2 concentration can be so high as to blow the alarm on a gas meter.
Well, if that is a “tipping point”, why are we trying to reduce our carbon footprint? Further “resistance is futile”.
over the past 550 million years
1,000 to 2,000 ppm: The level of CO2 at which plant growers like to keep their greenhouses 40,000 ppm: The exhaled breath of normal, healthy people.
8,000 ppm: CO2 standard for submarines
2,500 ppm: CO2 level in a small hot crowded bar in the city
2,000 ppm: The point at which my CO2 meter squawks by playing Fur Elise
1,000 to 2,000 ppm: Historical norms for the earth’s atmosphere
1,000 ppm: Average level in a lecture hall filled with students
600 ppm: CO2 level in my office with me and my husband in it
490 ppm: CO2 level in my office working alone
390 ppm: Current average outdoor level of CO2 in the air
280 ppm: Pre-industrial levels in the air, on the edge of “CO2 famine” for plants
150 ppm: The point below which most plants die of CO2
20,000 ppm when chest heaviness/deeper respiration & 30,000 doubles rate breathing ( 50,000ppm breathing 4 times more). (2012) “Is CO2 an indoor pollutant? Direct effects of low-to-moderate CO2 concentrations on human decision-making performance”, by Satish,et.al correlated “basic activity, applied activity,focused activity,task orientation,initiative,information orientation,information utilization, approach breadth & basic strategy” under 600/1,000/2,500 ppm CO2. Information orientation & focused activity were only dynamics where level of c CO2 was irrelevant; initiative & strategy were very poor at 2,500ppm.
Unless I have outside air exchange when in bedroom CO2 builds up over 1,000 while sleep, even with door to rest of house open or ceiling fan on. Pet dogs have always preferred to be covered up even in tropics. I think they use tactic to shut off sense of smell distracting them & more than that think like the higher CO2 making them drowsy.
I am still trying to see if there is any
……..”cheese at the bottom of this rat hole”
as Albert Yu use to ask.
CSIRO fellow Dr Paul Fraser claims several trite or indeterminate things
…1. “psychological tipping point”. – yes, well, there are good doctors for mental problems
…2.”… when I started measuring CO2 in the atmosphere in the 1970s…” a newbie,
…..tell me about the Minoan and Roman warm periods.
…3. “…unlikely to drop below 400..” so what?
…..Very limited data being rudely extrapolated?
So, he is here now, he measures something, “world ended, details at 11”
=> how much of his salary is he willing to bet and on what?
I really disliked folk I hired who were the “center of (their) universe” and were always whining about how the “world will end” if we don’t promote them.
..We are about to hit PEAK stupidity, then the world will come to it’s senses and put these people back in their “Little White Rooms”, padded of course !
We’d better hope there won’t be triffids.
I’m keeping an eye out. Find some very odd plants in my garden sometimes… 🙂
“but when it does hit 400ppm mark it would be a “psychological tipping point”.”
There it is folks. There’s no real physical tipping point. It’s nothing more than a figment of alarmists’ imaginations. They’re coming right out and saying it yet all the useful idiots still believe it’s real.
I’ll make sure to grill some steaks and chicken on my Weber charcoal grill on 6-16-2016 after I fill my car up with gasoline.
Oh, that would drive the green nuts crazy,… we’ll have an annual “stuff the atmosphere with co2” event.
I think he is wrong on the tipping point. I believe it is probably more like 401.5 or maybe 402.3.
Better get some funding to study that one!
Yet another boy crying “wolf!” … again.
This explains everything ethical and scientific about this whole mess 😀
http://s3.amazonaws.com/thumbnails.illustrationsource.com/huge.102.514464.JPG
So now the crazed fraudsters go for Christian symbolism?
Don’t get cross
At our nearby university here is a part course outline for environmental studies. Also I cannot find any climate scientists but can find atmospheric scientists, interesting.
ENSC 201 – Weather and Climate
This course explains the fundamental processes of weather and climate, and leads the student toward an understanding of how the atmosphere works and how to interpret the weather. Topics introduced include: atmospheric energy, solar and terrestrial radiation, the “Greenhouse Effect”, and climate change, air quality and stratospheric ozone, humidity, clouds, precipitation, storms and weather systems, hurricanes and tornadoes, stability and thunderstorms, wind and atmospheric dynamics, and weather forecasting.
The chair of, Chemistry, Environmental Science and
Environmental Engineering, writes a science column in the local paper which can be quite good but he goes off the rails when it comes to climate, he is a big supporter of AGW, CAGW and being the chair well there is bias.
Also this university in partnership with the city just renewed a four year lease on a Nisson Leaf. Now we are in a northern climate which in the winter degrades the performance of the car. The uni is up hill from city hall with a total distance of about 15 k, flat and uphill combined. Now in the winter that car will only make it oneway to the uni but with the heater off, and wipers off. In the last four years the car has low mileage as hardly driven and not useful especially in winter, but lease renewed anyhow.
Another tipping point blather,whoopie doooo!!!
Yawn….. Zzzzz……
Just 3 million years ago CO2 levels were greater than .04% yet no climate tipping point was encountered. There is no real evidence that CO2 has any effect on climate.
And compelling evidence that CO2 has no significant effect on climate.
So let me add a little more to what I have posted.
Despite all the claims, there is no real evidence that CO2 has any effect on climate. There is no such evidence in the paleoclimate record. There is evidence that warmer temperatures cause more CO2 to enter the atmosphere but there is no evidence that this additional CO2 causes any more warming. If additional greenhouse gases caused additional warming then the primary culprit would have to be H2O which depends upon the warming of just the surfaces of bodies of water and not their volume but such is not part of the AGW conjecture. In other words CO2 increases in the atmosphere as huge volumes of water increase in temperature but more H2O enters the atmosphere as just the surface of bodies of water warm. We live in a water world where the majority of the Earth’s surface is some form of water. Models have been generated that show that the climate change we have been experiencing is caused by the sun and the oceans over which Man has no control.
The AGW theory is that adding CO2 to the atmosphere causes an increase in its radiant thermal insulation properties causing restrictions in heat flow which in turn cause warming at the Earth’s surface and the lower atmosphere. In itself the effect is small because we are talking about small changes in the CO2 content of the atmosphere and CO2 comprises only about .04% of dry atmosphere if it were only dry but that is not the case. Actually H2O, which averages around 2%, is the primary greenhouse gas. The AGW conjecture is that the warming causes more H2O to enter the atmosphere which further increases the radiant thermal insulation properties of the atmosphere and by so doing so amplifies the effect of CO2 on climate. At first this sounds very plausible. This is where the AGW conjecture ends but that is not all what must happen if CO2 actually causes any warming at all.
Besides being a greenhouse gas, H2O is also a primary coolant in the Earth’s atmosphere transferring heat energy from the Earth;s surface to where clouds form via the heat of vaporization. More heat energy is moved by H2O via phase change then by both convection and LWIR absorption band radiation combined. More H2O means that more heat energy gets moved which provides a negative feedback to any CO2 based warming that might occur. Then there is the issue of clouds. More H2O means more clouds. Clouds not only reflect incoming solar radiation but they radiate to space much more efficiently then the clear atmosphere they replace. Clouds provide another negative feedback. Then there is the issue of the upper atmosphere which cools rather than warms. The cooling reduces the amount of H2O up there which decreases any greenhouse gas effects that CO2 might have up there. In total, H2O provides negative feedback’s which must be the case because negative feedback systems are inherently stable as has been the Earth’s climate for at least the past 500 million years, enough for life to evolve. We are here. The wet lapse rate being smaller then the dry lapse rate is further evidence of H2O’s cooling effects.
The entire so called, “greenhouse” effect that the AGW conjecture is based upon is at best very questionable. A real greenhouse does not stay warm because of the heat trapping effects of greenhouse gases. A real greenhouse stays warm because the glass reduces cooling by convection. This is a convective greenhouse effect. So too on Earth..The surface of the Earth is 33 degrees C warmer than it would be without an atmosphere because gravity limits cooling by convection. This convective greenhouse effect is observed on all planets in the solar system with thick atmospheres and it has nothing to do with the LWIR absorption properties of greenhouse gases. the convective greenhouse effect is calculated from first principals and it accounts for all 33 degrees C. There is no room for an additional radiant greenhouse effect. Our sister planet Venus with an atmosphere that is more than 90 times more massive then Earth’s and which is more than 96% CO2 shows no evidence of an additional radiant greenhouse effect. The high temperatures on the surface of Venus can all be explained by the planet’s proximity to the sun and its very dense atmosphere. The radiant greenhouse effect of the AGW conjecture has never been observed. If CO2 did affect climate then one would expect that the increase in CO2 over the past 30 years would have caused an increase in the natural lapse rate in the troposphere but that has not happened. Considering how the natural lapse rate has changed as a function of an increase in CO2, the climate sensitivity of CO2 must equal 0.0.
This is all a matter of science
There’s no evidence that salt or saturated fat cause illness, either, but that doesn’t prevent millions from parroting the “facts” that “everyone knows.” I agree we’re about to hit “Peak Stupid.”
For me there is such evidence since too much salt and too much fat makes me feel bad. As I have posted above, there is plenty of scientific reasoning that also supports the idea that CO2 has no effect on climate.
Should the EPA regulate CO2? At what level?
Of course the EPA must regulate CO2. Just look at the dangers of Hypercapnia.
At 1% concentration of carbon dioxide CO2 (10,000 parts per million or ppm) and under continuous exposure at that level, such as in an auditorium filled with occupants and poor fresh air ventilation, some occupants are likely to feel drowsy. Carbon dioxide concentration must be over t 2% (20,000 ppm) before most people are aware of its presence unless the odor of an associated material (auto exhaust or fermenting yeast, for instance) is present at lower concentrations. Above 2%, carbon dioxide may cause a feeling of heaviness in the chest and/or more frequent and deeper respirations. If exposure continues at that level for several hours, minimal “acidosis” (an acid condition of the blood) may occur but more often is absent. Breathing rate doubles at 3% CO2 and is four times the normal rate at 5% CO2. Toxic levels of carbon dioxide: at levels above 5%, concentration CO2 is directly toxic. [At lower levels we may see the effects of a reduction in the relative amount of oxygen and not direct toxicity of CO2.]
So I guess the EPA should monitor the CO2 levels, and when they reach 10000 ppm they will have to regulate it. (I am only half-way kidding, indoor concentrations can reach these levels).
https://lenbilen.com/2012/01/26/should-the-epa-regulate-co2-at-what-level/
CSIRO mission statement: … Carbon Sequestration In Rear Orifice … ?
Time for Champagne. The more CO2 the better -> more plant growth.
Traditionally, the Australian banana industry (large scale) stopped at Stuarts Point, a bit north of where I live on the mid-north coast of NSW.
And the Australian banana industry still stops at Stuarts Point, a bit north of where I live on the mid-north coast of NSW.
Because nothing in our local records (late 1800s for rain, early 1900s for temps) gives cause to believe that we are living in anything but the same old mid-coast climate. (All months set their record average max here between 1910 and 1919, except August, hottest in 1946. Driest year was 1902, hottest was 1915, wettest was 1950. Heaviest rain occurred over a couple of freaky days during the 1963 flood, which was not, however, as bad as the flood of 1949. Figures for neighbouring regions are wildly different, of course, except all copped the drought of 1902 and the drenching of 1950.)
Mind you, Bananageddon could come to the Cavendish via disease…but then us resourceful humans will just grow and eat something else, won’t we?
Next tipping point!
I cant wait until I visit the woods tonight, I thought I seen a group of students go up to the old log cabin, been sharpening my knives all day, happy coincidence, some say! Oh like man made climate change is more realistic ffs, “tipping point”? seriously???
For (at least) 800,000 years CO2 has been frighteningly low, and yet climate has been all over the map, from ice ages to interglacials and everything in between. But carbonophobes will look at that and see DOOM.
Good point. Thanks for making it.
Those of us who don’t think CO2 has any effect (or so small you can not measure it) on average temperatures in the real world have noticed your point. It is evidence for our contention.
This must the day when this “scientist” runs out of money and needs another federal grant.
CO2, is it “Carbon Pollution?” A Limerick.
So, it happened again. Global warming was the word, then it became climate change, then it was briefly global climate disruption. Since we have not had any global warming at all for the last 17 years and the latest sign is that we will enter a new little ice age, Obama and the EPA are desperately trying to change the alarmists catchphrase again. This time they came up with “carbon pollution.” It is true, chimney sweeps know all about carbon pollution. Chimneys must be swept, or else we may have a chimney fire. Is that what they mean? It must be, for CO2 is a totally clean gas. It has an effect on humans in large concentrations. Nuclear submarines try to keep the CO2 levels below 8000 ppm for breathing air , or about 20 times current levels. Recent research indicate levels should be kept lower, maybe being capped at around 1500 ppm (see fig at link: https://lenbilen.com/2013/08/15/co2-is-it-carbon-pollution-a-limerick/ )
The results are interesting. CO2 levels seem to affect initiative and strategic decision making the most. So it is because of all the people full of hot air in congress nothing gets done! However, it is to be noted that this test was performed without allowing for the test subject to accommodate to their new environment. When you climb mountains you have to adjust for weeks before you react normally again. This test is therefore very suspect. While it is true that the people is the subs do not like the air they are forced to breathe, it is not because of CO2, but regular body odor and other pollutants. They get used to it, and their decision making process is not negatively affected except for an occasional cabin fever.
On a serious note, the 17% increase in CO2 the last 30 years has made the earth about 10 % greener, and we can support another one billion people on earth without starvation, increase wildlife and plant life by about the same amount. Why could that be called “carbon pollution?”
Obama, why carbon pollution?
Ban coal is no real solution.
CO2, it is clean,
Makes our earth much more green.
Now that is the green revolution.
I thought we’d already passed several projected tipping points? ….and nothing has happened except to change the “tipping point” to some later date.
How many failed tipping points does it take for them to realize the whole CAGW theory has toppled?