By Jim Steele
Around 400 million years ago during the Devonian, carbon dioxide concentrations were over 2000 ppm, 5 times higher than today’s level (graphic A). That allowed evolving land plants to rapidly spread across the land. Plant species diversified and increased so rapidly it was called the Devonian Explosion. Marine species likewise multiplied enabling greater fish speciation, so the Devonian was called the Age of Fishes. However, by the end of the Devonian, the increase in photosynthesizing plants had greatly reduced CO2 concentrations to near dangerous levels.
During the following geologic period known as the Carboniferous, great forests of primitive Lycopod trees now covered the earth’s wetlands. Trees buried in the swamps were slow to decompose, creating some of the earth’s greatest coal deposits (graphic G). That further sequestered CO2. Some research suggests CO2 levels fell as low as 150 ppm, plant starvation levels. That led to the Carboniferous Rainforest Collapse around 305 million years ago (graphic B). Low CO2 levels also correlated with a die-off of ocean algae known as the “Phytoplankton Blackout” (graphic D). This dramatic collapse in primary production on land and in the sea, disrupted the earth’s Permian food web and set in motion a series of long-drawn-out extinctions known as “Dead Clades Walking”.
The vigorous photosynthesis of the Carboniferous had also generated the earth’s greatest levels of oxygen (graphic C). Compared to our atmospheric oxygen of 21%, oxygen levels reached 30 to 35%. High levels of oxygen allowed giant arthropods to evolve (graphic E). It also enabled amphibian ancestors, that breathed by absorbing oxygen through their skin, to better colonize the land. However, as forest species and phytoplankton went extinct, oxygen levels plummeted (graphic C). As a result, the giant arthropods, as well as primitive amphibians like Euryops, (graphic F) adapted to more abundant oxygen, were the first to go extinct by the early Permian around 295 million years ago. Falling oxygen concentrations also reduced land animals’ ability to use high altitude ecosystems.
Starting with the Olson Extinction land plants experienced >60% extinction rates, rates lasting into the middle Triassic period. Plant eating reptile-like species, such as Diadactes and Edaphosaurus (graphic F), went extinct by 272 million years ago, along with the Dimetrodon predators, further restructuring ecosystems. Mid-Permian extinctions continued culminating in another mass extinction event known as Capitanian orLate Guadalupian extinctions between 262 and 259 million years ago with some regions indicating extinction of 74-80% of all vertebrate genera. Driven by the phytoplankton blackout, 35-45% of marine invertebrate species went extinct during this time, and all caused a cascade of biological disruptions.
The subsequent Great Dying or end Permian Extinction 252 million years ago was simply the culmination of “dead clades walking” that began with CO2 starvation, the rain forest collapse, and phytoplankton blackout. The end Permian saw 81% of the remaining marine species and 70% of remaining terrestrial vertebrate species go extinct. The loss of forests and their ecosystem continued throughout the entire Permian as reflected by the absence of coal deposits (graphic G).
However, biased by the rapid extinction event 66 million years ago when a meteor struck earth, many researchers looked for a similarly rapid extinction event, like a volcanic eruption. Despite the life-promoting benefits from high CO2 and increased biodiversity during the Devonian, researchers were biased by recent narratives suggesting rapidly rising CO2 is a deadly killer. So, several researchers blamed end Permian extinctions on a series of volcanic eruptions, the Siberian Traps, narrowly centered around 252 million years ago for the release of copious amounts of CO2. If history teaches us anything, because that release raised CO2 concentrations back to over 2000 ppm, it more likely enabled the new expansion of life on earth, like it did during the Devonian (graphic A), now with the rapid spread of flowering plants, the Age of Dinosaurs, and the further evolution of birds and mammals.
And again, if history teaches us anything, we must ensure that attempts to reduce CO2 concentrations do not result in devastating CO2 starvation ever again.
For more details watch “How CO2 Starvation & Plate Tectonics Caused the Greatest Mass Extinction, the Permian Great Dying.”
I went years without beer, but that was before I was 19. Go CO2!
Buy six cases of beer.
Store it in your garage, unopened
Apply for a DOE carbon capture grant.
I remember my Dad had a 6 pack he bought before the game (and kept refrigerated in an extra fridge in the basement) celebrating the Bengals winning the Super Bowl over the 49ers. The Bengals lost. (’82?)
My Dad died in 2001. We had to clean out the house.
One of my brother-in-laws found the 6 pack. He dumped the cans and threw them away.
No idea what they might have been worth to a collector.
This article is one of the best if not the best article I have ever read on Wattsupwiththat.com. Brilliant absolutely brilliant
Thank you for yet another clear and fascinating lesson in geological history of our planet. What has always struck me is the time scales involved where events that spanned millions to hundreds of million years are relatively “brief” periods. We’ve been around for maybe 100,000 years or so and expect to be wiped out any day now while the dinosaurs had a 125 million year run. Will our evolutionary descendants still be around a million or 10 million years from now? Maybe – we are, after all, smarter than the dinos.
H. sapiens: about 200,000 years.
Non-avian dinos: more than 172 million years.
Avian dinos: Still with us:
Are we?
“. . . we are, after all, smarter than the dinos.”
I sometimes wonder. The current crop of leaders seem determined to end human life.
The current crop of leaders
Not just them.
Social Media has either made the species dumber, or exposed its real stupidity. Either way, it’s obvious we’re a lot worse off than I used to think
Humans have been around a mere flash of geophysical time and now they think they can control events through legislation.
The Permian mass extinction event at the end of the Paleozoic Era was largest of the Phanerozoic Eon, but not the biggest ever. That was the Oxygen Catastrophe of the Paleoproterozoic Era of the Proterozoic Eon, about 2.0 to 2.5 Ga, which wiped out many of the then dominant anaerobic microbes. Its cause was too much O2, released by photosynthetic cyanobacteria, taking advantage of abundant CO2.
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That was one very selective meteor that killed the entire dominant class of animals and allowed the other lesser classes to survive. ALL of the dinosaurs perished, but the fish, amphibians, reptiles birds monotremes marsupials and mammals survived not to mention the mollusks arthropods worms etc.
What could do that? Disease could.
The impact was not selective. It wiped out 75% of all marine species and a great variety on land. Not just the non-avian dinosaurs, but many birds, mammals, reptiles, insects, all pterosaurs and some plants perished. At sea, ammonites and other mollusks, all mosasaurs and plesiosaurs, many sharks, teleost fish and plankton species died out.
A few bird species and some marine or aquatic, cold-blooded vertebrates survived, eg. sea turtles and crocs.
Overwhelming evidence of impact. No evidence of disease as cause of the K-Pg MEE:
https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2006087117
Volcanism also mostly ruled out.
I disagree with the notion of “no evidence of disease.” The Wuhan Institute of Paleontology has produced documented evidence of disease…originating, I believe, in bats.
No evidence of disease behind the K-Pg extinction.
Did you forget the
/humour tag?
“Volcanism also mostly ruled out.”
Not really, plenty of evidence that the Deccan Trap eruptions were causing problems before Chicxulub, most likely the sum of both.
https://geosciences.princeton.edu/news/deccan-volcanism-caused-mass-extinction-66-million-years-ago#:~:text=Multiple%20evidence%20reveals%20the%20killing,and%20acid%20rain%20on%20land.
A disease that is capable of wiping out 75% of the species on the planet?
Dinosaur, amphibian, fish, reptiles, marine reptiles, many species of birds mollusks, arthropods, etc?
No disease could do that.
You will have noticed, no doubt, that size played a not-insignificant role in that extinction level event. The big dinosaurs died off, the smaller dinosaurs and other animals adapted and survived. Disease would have been indiscriminate but decreasing the basic food supply that the food chain relied upon might well have done that.
Are you suggesting that small, non-avian dinosaurs are still with us? If size was a determining factor, why didn’t slow-growing juvenile dinosaurs survive?
There are bunches of reptiles, little dinosaurs, that are still here.
Three fun factoids extending Jim’s excellent post.
More fossil fuels, please.
C3 plants, the most common, would indeed start to starve and be stunted at 150 ppm, but C4 and CAM plants would survive.
C4 plants did not evolve until the Oligocene about 25 million years go
There were just as many of them in the “pre-industrial” Holocene, ie before about AD 1850, as now. Ditto CAM plants, which evolved in response to falling CO2 levels in the Miocene, c. 20 Ma.
I guess, in the distant future, if we are running low on CO2, we could bake CO2 out of limestone using dedicated nuclear power plants, in order to keep CO2 levels high enough to keep everything growing.
Tom, this brought an appreciative smile.
What good is baked limestone?
Burn fossil fuels
That serves a good purpose.
What good is baked limestone?
========$
After wood and rock, baked limestone is likely the most important building material on earth.
Are you trying to ruin a joke?
Baked limestone alone, without other ingredients, males quicklime.
Quicklime has a wide range of uses including in the production of iron and steel, paper and pulp, sugar refining, treatment of water, wastewater and flue gases, construction (soil stabilization), agriculture, mining industry, chemical industry,
joke …?
nobody is laughing (with you).
What do we do when fossil fuels are used up?
Breeder nuclear reactors that make more nuclear fuel than they use.
Baking limestone. Finally something good to do with the White Cliffs of Dover.
When fossil fuels run out in about 1000 years, mankind will have to find some other means for releasing CO2 back into the atmosphere.
Nuclear power + limestone.
That seems the most likely, using technology that is available today.
1000 years from now, who knows what technologies will be available?
In a 1000 years, humanity will have spread throughout the solar system.
No reason to let the plants on this planet die off.
Not everyone. The poor shlubs left here will still, unaccountably, want to live.
Sounds like a believer that everlasting batteries will soon advance by science or something?
My first question is why would humanity be spread throughout this solar system?
Most of this solar system is not a pleasant or easy place to live. Rips, tears, microscopic holes caused by sand size particles traveling 10s of thousands of miles per hour would shorten your existence during those very long, often one way flights.
There is massive wealth of minerals, metals, methane, frozen gases, in the solar system.
Energy? i.e. energy source of any sort to keep deep space cold at bay, for decades if necessary.
Food? Light is in short supply beyond Earth’s orbit.
Earth is 149,600,000 kilometers from the sun, 92,957,102 miles recently.
Mars is 227,900,000 kilometers from the sun, 141,610,451 miles recently.
Jupiter is 778,600,000 kilometers from the sun, 483,799,461 miles recently.
Mars is a further 48,653,349 miles from the sun.
At 29 miles per second velocity it would take a ship traveling from Earth some 40 days just to reach Mars.
Jupiter is a further 390,842,359 miles from the sun.
At 29 miles per second velocity it would take a ship traveling from Earth some 326 days just to reach Jupiter.
There are substantial reasons Earth’s orbit path around the sun is described at “Goldilocks”.
Light from the sun reaching Mars is half again farther from the sun than Earth is.
Physics indicates that sunlight falling on Mars is a fraction of the sunlight falling on Earth.
Or are you going to bring up a rocket scale nuclear engine that will power ship lights so they can cultivate food?
Better start by calculating how many acres are necessary per person for an annual reliable food supply.
Design, test, build mining gear for harvesting the Asteroid belt.
With abundant supplies of energy, we can supply some CO₂ back to the atmosphere, until the oceans begin cooling further.
Let short attention span, short tempered people stay around Earth.
At least until Earth can build two rockets, one for the soft science occupations and one for engineers and hard science scientists.
We can be so thankful to China that they have enough influence in the UN to have the coal they burn blessed by the climate clergy.
<u>So were it not for plate tectonics induced andesic volcanism (recycling limestone into CO2 and Ca) the world would ‘die’ in (130ppm/.31) about 420 years.</u>
That number was pulled out of a Stetson hat.
Earth’s atmospheric CO2 level has been decreasing for billions of years/
The low point is estimated at 180ppm 20,000 years ago, and several other times in the ice core era.
The evidence is that nature has been a CO2 sink for billions of years.
Atmospheric CO2 was getting low for C3 plants 20,000 years ago, despite all the volcanoes and venting in earth’s history.
Patrick Moore, Ph.D., has often discussed the decline of CO2 in the atmosphere. He has estimated a problem for C3 plants in 1.8 million years if there were no manmade CO2 emissions, recycling sequestered underground carbon ( CO2 recycling).
You seem to be claiming 420 years.
I believe that claim is BS
The correct answer is no one knows.
Earth’s CO2 levels haven’t been declining steadily over that time, Richard, there have been periods of decline and periods of slight recovery – these tend to coincide with glaciations and interglacials respectively.
I did not say CO2 levels in the atmosphere have been declining steadily.
But the large amount of carbon stored as rocks, shells, oil, coal and gas suggests our planet began with a lot more CO2 in the atmosphere than now.
It is possible for about 3,500,000,000 years CO2 was about 70% of our atmosphere and life flourished.
CO2 constitutes about 95% of the atmosphere of both Venus and Mars. Water and biology have consumed virtually all of Earth’s CO2…..
I don’t want to ruin it if this another joke.
So, before any comments … is this another joke?
Your comment is a joke
A bad joke
Nice article that explains much about CO2 effects.
Yes, good article.
I’d find it more convincing if it weren’t from Penn State and had gotten more support in the four years since its publication.
IMO, stretching out the end Permian extinction over 167 million years of the Permian, Carboniferous and Devonian periods verges on meaninglessness.
What do you mean “from Penn State” and my article “verges on meaninglessness.”
The article upon which you base your post is by Penn State faculty and grad students. Yours isn’t meaningless. Theirs is, as the idea that a mass extinction event lasted going on 200 million years is absurd. For most of that time, extinction rates were at the normal background.
“BASE MY POST”??? I have no idea what you are talking about!
Really? You cite and rely upon an article about this paper:
https://www.psu.edu/news/research/story/dead-clades-walking-fossil-record-provides-new-insights-mass-extinctions/
Yes Really Milo,
The concept of dead clades walking has been around since 2002 in the paper Survival without recovery after mass extinctions by David Jablonski. I now see that the title of the paper I used to illustrate that concept had its lead author from Penn State. I never saw your link. Nor was my article ever based on it.
My article was based on and relied on various research showing the string of extinctions through out the Permian, changes in CO2, O2 and the coal gap. Dead Clades Walking was simply the best way to frame that extended Decline culminating in the Permian.
You seem intent on demeaning the whole concept by simply referring to just that one paper, Dead clades walking are a pervasive macroevolutionary pattern” and its lack of citations, too launch an unscientific criticism that truly verges on meaninglessness.
Actually the phytoplankton species decline had been happening since the Ordovician. I cant paste the graphic to this reply for some reason, so I advise you to check out A review of Paleozoic phytoplankton biodiversity- Driver for major evolutionary events? Kroeck (2022)
There have been dead clades walking or swimming, as trilobites for instance after the Devonian, but to suggest that the huge number of species, genera, families, orders and classes which died out in the Permian mass extinction were all DCW is patently absurd.
Well Milo, you need to do better than just calling it “patently absurd”. I suggest you try to engage in a scientific analysis.
It’s absurd on its face. The history of mass extinctions shows your premise false for the interval you examine, ie the Devonian to Permian..
CO2 was high during the Devonian mass extinction event. No mass extinction occurred during the Carboniferous-Permian ice age. Then at the end of the Permian, while CO2 rose to record levels for the latter Paleozoic, the end Permian Great Dying occurred in at least two pulses.
High CO2 and/or temperatures of course aren’t always correlated with mass extinctions or loss of diversity beyond background. But the end Permian MEE is associated with high CO2, contrary to your assertion, trying to pin loss of diversity on low CO2 during the Carboniferous glaciation.
Conversely, intervals of high CO2 and temperatures have occurred without increased extinctions, such as the PETM.
The Permian MEE coincides with the formation of Pangaea, hence loss of continental shelf environments. Other factors contributed as well. More CO2 from the Siberian Traps erupting into coal beds, the favored explanation of climate alarmists, is probably less important then oceanic anoxia and euxinia.
A major ultimate cause is the superplume beneath the crust at that time. There was also an impact in Brazil, whose margin of error includes the MEE, but it wasn’t big enough by itself to wipe out so many marine and terrestrial species.
It is also absurd on its face to suggest that all species going extinct at the end of the Permian Period and Paleozoic Era were dead clades walking. As noted, the trilobites were, as down to a single order since the Devonian, but what other major animal, fungal and plant classes were similarly vulnerable?
Shades of the debate over possible declining non-avian dinosaur diversity in the Maastrichtian (before the K-Pg impact), an hypothesis now clearly shown false.
LOL On the face of it Milo you are grasping at straws. You throw in many irrelevant factoids that do not support your rants against the idea of dead clades walking at all.
First the history of mass extinctions does indeed support the notion of dead clades walking. Indeed as I wrote CO2 was high during the early Devonian which allowed the flourishing of land plants and the great diversity in the oceans. But I never argued low CO2 is the only cause of all extinctions. That is just another of Milo’s typical strawman arguments.
CO2 was plummeting as land plants flourished. Earlier land plants evolving in high CO2 would be struggling to deal with increased aridity as Pangea formed conflicted by the need to increase stomata to maintain CO2 uptake.
Several researchers suggest the Devonian extinctions were seven distinct events, spread over about 25 million years, with notable extinctions at the ends of the Givetian, Frasnian, and Famennian stages which is exactly what the notion of Dead Clades Walking suggests. As CO2 diminished so did the oceancs phytoplankton, the acritachs. Again read A review of Paleozoic phytoplankton biodiversity- Driver for major evolutionary events? Kroeck (2022) reporting how new phytoplankton precipitously declined from the Ordovician to the Permian.
Indeed if only the end Permian extinctions are considered it correlated with a rise in CO2. But 1) The end Permian extinctions, 252 MYA, were once conflated with the Capitanian or Late Guadalupian extinctions between 262 and 259 million years ago when no such increase in CO2 have been detected.
Like the 7 Devonian extinctions, the Guadalupian was part of the various extinctions throughout the Permian and end Carboniferous.
Finally, any increase in CO2 at the very end of the Permian will have very little consequence, given the extinctions of land plants and phytoplankton throughout the Pemian.
The Capitanian extinction shows your premise false. Earth was warmer and CO2 higher then than in preceding ages, thanks in part to extreme volcanism. CO2 increased even more rapidly during the end Permian, but the process started in the Capitanian.
The geographic extent and timing of the Capitanian extinction are also still not well constrained.
You have nothing. You’re way out of your depth. But if you really believe you’re onto something, submit a paper to a reputable journal. You’ll be savaged by specialists, but it’s worth a try. The probably scathing reviews might help you correct enough errors to get something publishable, altjough I doubt it.
LOL “ extent and timing of the Capitanian extinction are also still not well constrained.” but then you claim “the Capitanian extinction shows my premise false” that what?
The Carboniferous Rainforest didn’t collapse? and the phytoplankton blackout didn’t happen? and oxygen didn’t crash as a result?
You are an idiot Milo.
Not high CO2 during the Late Permian, vs. low in the Carboniferous-Early Permian ice age.
As Pangaea split up and continents moved away from each other during the Jurassic and Cretaceous, dinosaur diversity increased, as would be expected.
Question… When CO2 levels were many times higher than they are today what was the air temperature like, compared to now?
Sometimes colder, sometimes hotter. The Ordovician ice age began with CO2 concentration about 11 times higher than now, but the sun was 4% weaker.
Ultimately, the mass of carbon in the crust, oceans, and atmosphere is a static value … it only gets recycled into several chemical forms and is moved around, but is neither created or destroyed.
Carbon is only the 17th most common element by mass on Earth – effectively a trace element, yet its impact is immense … being literally the stuff of life. Treating carbon as an evil pollutant is madness.
The voracious appetite of earth lifeforms for CO2 is most telling. Demonizing this miracle molecule is symptomatic of either a chronic mental disease if you understand its importance, or terminal ignorance and stupidity if you don’t.
Recognize that there are death cults too.
Very informative….I remember learning a basic version of this evolution in 4th grade (late 60s) So what sort of propaganda are they teaching in schools now? I know I am being sarcastic, but if the basics are taught, NO ONE would fall for the “climate CO2 hoax”
I fear many would not notice the disconnect if they were taught paleohistory with high CO2 levels at the same time they are blanketed with CAGW demon CO2 propaganda.
So we’re saying it’s not a good idea to mess around with CO2 levels that we have adapted to cope with over millennia?
Agreed.
“And again, if history teaches us anything, we must ensure that attempts to reduce CO2 concentrations do not result in devastating CO2 starvation ever again.”
Did you skip over this part, Rusty?
Not good at reading comprehension.
The obvious answer is that CO2 levels are way too low. For safety we need to double or triple the atmospheric levels.
Agree, but double or triple CO2 for better C3 plant growth, not for “safety”. Ask any greenhouse owner.
Current CO2 levels are probably in the lowest 5% of the CO2 range for Earth’s history.
C4 plants such as corn and sugar cane can survive with as little as 10ppm CO2.
I have read at least 200 CO2 enrichment plant growth scientific studies since 1997.
At least 95% were for C3 plants,
The few studies of C4 plants found small growth improvement from CO2 in about the 600 toi 800ppm range.
Ideal CO2 levels are FAR higher than current levels.
Humans are adapted to a large range of CO2.
In a closed bedroom, can easily reach 2000ppm.
The problem is plant-life…. which THRIVES on greatly increased atmospheric CO2.
There is no scientific evidence that CO2 causes any untoward warming, (or any warming at all, actually)….or ever will…
…. you have proven that many times.
But far-leftist pseudo-environmentalists don’t give a stuff about plant life, do you. !
You would rather see it on starvation rations…
Just as a matter of interest, what concentration of carbon dioxide was reached in Apollo 13 before they jury rigged the square peg round hole scrubber?
In a person with healthy lungs respiration is controlled by carbon dioxide receptors. Whereas a person with COPD respiration is controlled by oxygen receptors.
This means that the former has oxygen saturation levels of 95% or more which can be maintained by supplementary oxygen. For the latter oxygen saturations need to be between 89% and 92%, high concentrations of supplementary oxygen can be fatal.
Therefore I would suggest that humans do have a reversionary mechanism already in situ, however this may not be reversible to higher oxygen levels.
https://www.wikidoc.org/index.php/Hypoxic_drive
Have heard that submariners often experience 8000 ppm for reasonably long periods of time.
According to this website, CO2 levels topped out at 19,600 ppm.
https://space.stackexchange.com/questions/41990/was-the-apollo-13-co2-problem-a-matter-of-capacity-or-of-rate
Sad attempt … bent nail
Another excellent essay Jim. Now one challenge will be to get this science into schools where “carbon” is demonized.
In other words, Send Money to Elon Musk and Occupy Mars.
Rough estimates of the climate 300 million years ago could be far from reality
Most important is the proxies have NOTHING to do with the effect of manmade CO2 emissions
Author Steels has previously implied with other articles that all, or almost all, climate change is natural
There are over 100,000 scientific studies and almost 100% of climate scientists, including almost all skeptic scientists, such as Richard Lindzen and William Happer, both Ph.D.’s who contradict Steele.
AGW deniers are a very tiny minority of scientists. They are either geniuses or fools.
You already know what I think.
Greene, your obsessive hatred for anything I write has become expected as a constant. But please, quote Happer and Lindzen contradicting what I wrote here!
I specifically referred to your AGW denial in previous articles.
I have never read anything about the climate hundreds of millions of years ago in writings of Lindzen and Happer.
I don’t hate everything you write
I just disagree with your AGW denial
Concerning this subject, there are other opinions. I have no idea who is right.
The Carboniferous Rainforest Collapse around 305 million years ago is believed to be a minor extinction by most scientists. You seem to disagree but did not mention the general consensus. That could be called data mining.
The Carboniferous rainforest collapse (CRC) was a minor extinction event that occurred around 305 million years ago in the Carboniferous period. The event occurred at the end of the Moscovian and continued into the early Kasimovian stages of the Pennsylvanian (Upper Carboniferous).
So Richard, You seem to be weaseling out of your comment “almost all skeptic scientists, such as Richard Lindzen and William Happer, both Ph.D.’s who contradict Steele”
Disagree all you want with the science, but you mindlessly engage in personal attacks all the time. It gets boring but laughable
You fail to defend your false conclusion that all, or nearly all, climate change is natural.
I read all your articles and frequently see that conclusion implied or directly stated.
You AGW denial is contradicted by 100,000+ scientific studies and nearly 100% of scientists on this planet since 1896.
Your AGW denial is also contradicted by a majority of evidence since 1975 that points to manmade causes of the arming versus a minority of evidence that points to natural causes of that warming,
The correct answer is no one knows the percentage of warming after 1975 that was manmade versus natural
Anyone who claims to know is speculating rather than being a fair and balanced scientist.
One month ago, your article here claimed:
… “Evidence That Solar Heating Is Warming the Oceans, Not CO2”
NOAA’s Graph Provides Best Evidence That Solar Heating Is Warming the Oceans, Not CO2 – Watts Up With That?
Since the oceans cover 71% of our climate, that can be interpreted as a 71% AGW denier
Never in any of your articles can I recall any admission that manmade CO2 emissions causes global warming
To be fair, I will ask for your current opinion that can be answered with one number from a multiple choice question:
How much global warming since 1975 had manmade causes?
(1) Little, or none
(2) At least one third
(3) At least two thirds
(4) All, or almost all
(5) (Pick any number from 0% to 100%)
Let’s see if I have correctly interpreted your position since about 2015.
Do you have the courage to answer this simple question, or will you throw one of your angry fits again?
I do have the courage to punch back and call you a self-righteous prk and wannabe influencer who constantly avoids discussing the issues at hand such as what this article presents.
Indeed I posted “Evidence That Solar Heating Is Warming the Oceans, Not CO2” and I stand by that 1000%. You failed to refute a single word I presented. You always fail time and time again, so you launch your off topic attacks to cover up your constant failures!
Jim Steele proves himself to be an angry old man … once again.
He refused to specify his opinion on how much global warming has been caused by humans since 1975
I interpret his writings since 2015 to claim little or no AGW. This non answer insult post supports that view.
No one knows the percentage of warming since 1975 that was manmade.
Anyone who claims to know is a liar
You appear to claim to know, but evade a specific answer to my simple question
That makes you an AGW denier
Over 100,000 scientific studies recognize AGW and almost 100% of scientists also do.
For an AGW denier to be right, every one of those studies and scientists must be wrong.
You are revealing yourself to be an AGW denier, but you are also a coward who won’t admit your position on AGW.
I gave you an opportunity to clarify your position on AGW, and you evaded my question like a coward.
“I don’t know” would have been a very satisfactory answer, and a correct answer.
Your angry insults and tantrums refute nothing I have written. You are just making yourself look bad by evading a simple question about AGW that everyone here could answer with one word, or one sentence. Except you.
I will proudly accept your constant “angry old man” characterization. I am proud to be angry with dishonest self-righteous scum like you Richard who tries to bully the discussion away from the points in this article to launch your personal problems.
You abuse Happer’s statements to pretend you are a good skeptic while dishonestly attacking skeptics. You are rally just a troll!
To repeat, “You need to show to all of us that you are not a scumbag liar trying to distort the issues just to suit your personal attacks, by contacting Will Happer and asking him how much he agrees with you that he contradicts me.
Here’s his contact :
William Happer <happer@princeton.edu> and have him CC me so we know you are not making up things again.
Then post EXACTLY what he says here for all to judge!
Your silence will indicate just another of your long line of dishonest failures.”
Steele has a long history of writing about climate and weather with a focus on natural causes of climate change and weather events
That adds up to an AGW denier
Anyone writing about climate who never writes about AGW must be an AGW denier.
There is no other explanation for avoiding the subject of AGW.
When asked to define his AGW position, angry old man Steele resorts to childish, hostile insults.
Honest people answer questions
Dishonest people evade questions
You evaded my simple question about AGW
Therefore, you are a dishonest person.
Honest people answer questions
Dishonest people evade questions
You need a mirror.
You haven’t presented any “studies” that show scientific evidence for warming by human released CO2.
It is almost as if you actually know that no such paper exists. !!
“Believing”, without scientific evidence, is AGW-cultism. !
Explain your theory that global warming since 1975 was 100% natural
UAH shows absolutely NO WARMING from human CO2.
I know you want to break away from the IPCC definition of AGW being by human CO2.. but that is so you can hide behind urban warming and such
global warming since 1975.?..
No measured human warming in the atmosphere,
Localised URBAN warming and adjustments and smearing of surface data .. but only the local part of that is real and human caused .. and it is NOT global. (despite making up a large proportion of the so-called global surface fabrications, they actually only represent a small part of the land surface)
The “homogenisation and adjustments” based warming .. is not real.
btw… you still haven’t produced any scientific papers proving warming by human released CO2
UAH shows temperature averages
UAH does not show the causes of c;imate change
If UHI is a primary cause of warming, how does UHI explain the ocean’s warming in the UAH database?
Clearly showing your utter incomprehension of Lindzen and Happer’s actual position.
Lindzen and Happer estimate the warming effect of CO2 x 2 and you think they deny AGW?
If they denied AGW, then the warning effect of manmade CO2 emissions would not have been estimated. It would be zero.
Have you been drinking and posting?
Richard, You are a victim of all your bullshit strawman arguments and suggestions of what you blindly believe I deny.
Will Happer and I totally agree on the CO2 greenhouse effect and have talked many times. Please ask him his opinion of my understanding before you start trying to ignorantly and dishonestly slander me.
We both accept the greenhouse effect and it’s importance in keeping earth’s average temperature above freezing. We also both agree the lower troposphere is nearly saturated with CO2, so that a doubling of CO2 now would only increase CO2’s back radiation by 1%.
Your petty attacks are always clear. You dont discuss my articles. You simply take my postings as an excuse to launch another attack unrelated to the article being discussed and push your biases. Did I hurt your feelings so badly sometime in the past that you have become so incessantly and mindlessly vindictive?
I read all of your articles because so few people write about natural causes of climate change and extreme eathert. Lucky you
What I see is an almost complete absence of discussion of manmade causes of climate change. The absence of such information implies you believe manmade causes of climate change are not important
Your insults refute nothing I write and only make me stronger. I will point out unsupported conclusions and lies no matter who writes an article.
A typical Happer quote:
“CO2 does indeed cause some warming of our planet, and we should thank Providence for that …”
Happer never said the oceans are not warmed by the greenhouse effect.
But you wrote that here one month ago.
(link and quote in my prior post)
So don’t tell me you agree with Happer when you contradicted him HERE just one month ago.
You are so full of shit Richard. YOu totally avoid dicussing in a civil manner what was posted here. Instead you made the dishonest statement that Happer contradicts whatever I have claimed. Then you try to weasel around your BS with twisted irrelevant comments.
You need to show you all of us that are not a scumbag liar trying to distort the issue to suit your personal attacks by contacting Will Happer and asking him how much he agrees with me or not. Here’s his contact William Happer <happer@princeton.edu> and have him CC me so we know you are not making up things again.
Then post EXACTLY what he says here for all to judge!
Your silence will indicate just another of your failures.
Once again you reveal yourself to be an angry old man who deflects questions and challenges with juvenile insults.
You wrote an article here just one month ago claiming CO2 does not warm oceans.
William Happer uses HITRAN (or MODTRAN) to support his estimate of the effects of CO2.
The last Happer number I saw was about +0.7 degrees C. for the ECS of CO2.
That would be similar to using HITRAN with no water vapor positive feedback (actually slightly lower).
That +0.7 figure assumes the greenhouse effect applies to all of Earth’s surface.
If the greenhouse effect did not apply to the oceans, then Happer’s +0.7 would be much lower.
I already know you are an evader of simple questions and refused to state your opinion on AGW
And you are distorting Happer’s conclusions to defend your claim that the greenhouse effect does not apply to the 71% of earth consisting of oceans.
I am smart enough to spot your
doubletalk, and:
Evasions of simple questions about AGW,
Conclusions in articles not backed by accurate data, or ignoring all contrary opinions and data
AND
The shameful distortion of William Happer’s conclusions, in a failed effort to defend your bizarre claim that the greenhouse effect does not apply to the 71% of our planet’s surface covered by oceans … from your article here just one month ago.
I await your next science free, angry, childish insult rant. They are very entertaining.
I have seen ECS of CO2 estimates in a +0.7 to +5.0 degree C. range.
The +0.7 would have no water vapor positive feedback while +5.0 would have a huge water vapor positive feedback
The last Happer number I read was about +0.7, which would not include a water vapor positive feedback
What makes you think Happer is right and every other scientist with a higher ECS of CO2 is wrong?
And I also never read Happer saying the greenhouse effect does not warm the oceans, as you did, in an article here one month ago.
More slimy evasions and misdirections by the dishonest troll Richard Greene.
You falsely claimed Happer contradicts my understanding of the greenhouse effect, and your lying ass is being called on it. Now produce your proof or shut up!
I just did explain what Happer claims and what you claim are contrary
You claim CO2 can’t warm oceans and Happer does not make that claim
The usual Steele hostility and insults followed.
Greene continues his dishonest trolling and claiming he knows Happer contradicts me. But Green know he can’t ask Happer directly for the truth.
To repeat, “Greene needs to show to all of us that he is not a scumbag liar trying to distort the issues just to suit his personal attacks, by contacting Will Happer and asking him how much he agrees with Greene that Happer contradicts me.
again here’s his contact :
William Happer <happer@princeton.edu> and have him CC me so we know you are not making up things again.
Then post EXACTLY what he says here for all to judge
Greene’s failure to produce a Happer reply will indicate just another of Greene’s long line of dishonest failures.”
Steele is an AGW denier
Steele refuses to admit he is an AGW denier
Steele falsely claims his greenhouse effect beliefs match William Happer
Steele spews hostile insults like an angry child.
That’s enough lying and evasion of simple questions for one day, Steele
I challenged you, and your hostile responses revealed your character.
Honest people try to defend their conclusions
You are not an honest person
Future generations will wonder in bemused amazement that the early 21st century’s developed world went into hysterical panic over a globally averaged temperature increase of a few tenths of a degree, and, on the basis of gross exaggerations of highly uncertain computer projections combined into implausible chains of inference, proceeded to contemplate a roll-back of the industrial age.
Richard Lindzen
I read that quote on the back cover of my copy of Ian Plimer’s “Heaven and Earth” book in about 2009, and it remains the best quote on climate science I ever read
I ADDED IT TO MY CLIMATE BLOG TODAY
The Honest Climate Science and Energy Blog
The influence of mankind on climate is trivially true and numerically insignificant.
Richard Lindzen
Actually more CO2 and warming is beneficial for plants and most climates.
10 minutes of snow shoveling one time this winter in SE Michigan
3 times last winter and 3 times the prior winter
Almost once a week in the late 1970s and early 1980s
We LOVE global warming
Our plants LOVE more CO2
Controlling carbon is a bureaucrat’s dream. If you control carbon, you control life.
Richard Lindzen
Smart guy
The home page of my blog says”
“There are over 100,000 scientific studies “
And yet you STILL cannot produce a single one of them that gives scientific evidence of warming by atmospheric CO2.
Not one single one… Here is your chance.. again.
It really is very funny watching you intentionally avoiding presenting that paper.., you know. !!
100,000+ studies and nearly 100% of climate scientists can not convince you that humans can affect the climate ….
… but just one good comment by me could change your mind?
You are joking, right?
If there are no manmade causes of climate change, then all climate change must be natural.
Please tell us the natural cause(s) of the global warming since 1975.
This would only require a few sentences.
Get someone to help you.
“Please tell us the natural cause(s) of the global warming since 1975.”
The same thing that caused the “global warming” in the Early Twentieth Century, which was equivalent to the current warming. CO2 was not an issue in the Early Twentieth Century yet temperatures rose just as much back then, as today.
I don’t know the exact cause of the Early Twentieth Century warming but it has to be driven by Mother Nature, not CO2. So if one period can warm without CO2, then why can’t Mother Nature be the driver of today’s equivalent warming? I think the correct scientific position is to assume that Mother Nature is the cause of cyclical warming, until proven otherwise, and it has never been proven otherwise.
Btw, you still haven’t produced one of those 100,000+ studies showing evidence that CO2 is measurably warming the Earth’s atmosphere. Just one would suffice.
We know you don’t have one, because none exist. If one existed, we would know about it.
Your move.
There have been 4.5 billion years of natural climate change, so the current climate change since 1975 must be natural too?
That is your position?
How are historical climate changes with no (or very little) manmade CO2 emissions useful as evidence of the climate effects of large amounts of manmade CO2 emissions after 1975?
the current climate change since 1975 must be natural too?
It is on those who claim otherwise to prove their position. Appeal to Authority and Argumentum Ad Populum are not proof.
Scientists HAVE collected more evidence of manmade warming since 1975 than evidence of natural warming.
It was in all the newspapers for over 40 years.
No one knows the exact percentage of manmade warming since 1975
If forced to make a guess I would guess 2/3 manmade and 1/3 natural
Based mainly in the ratio of new TMIN records to new TMAX record since 1975.
New TMIN records are most likely from an increased greenhouse effect and UHI changes — both manmade causes of warming
New TMAX records are most likely from more solar energy reaching Earth’s surface, from reduced air pollution (also part of AGW) and/or less cloud coverage.
The only thing I am sure of is the 2/3 and 1/3 guess is just as good as any other guess … except 100% manmade climate change, or 100% natural climate change.
I’m just happy the world is getting warmer rather than colder. They seem to be the only two trends.
You are describing URBAN warming…
… not warming by human released CO2
Guesses are NOT scientific evidence.
You, yet again.. have provided absolutely nothing in the way of scientific evidence.
Urban warming of the oceans too, per UAH data?
Give me a break
Richard,
You have said that you post all this here to counteract what you perceive as a problem with the skeptic community.
But instead (a) you post diatribes, not discussions, (b) you rely solely on logical fallacies, especially the two I previously mentioned, and (c) you continue to not address questions that you are directly and repeatedly asked.
If you really want to accomplish what you say, you should realize that you are failing dramatically.
It was in all the newspapers for over 40 years.
And again, Richard, you reply with the same logical fallacies, over and over.
“There have been 4.5 billion years of natural climate change, so the current climate change since 1975 must be natural too?
That is your position?”
No, that’s not my position.
I don’t have to go back 4.5 billion years to disprove CO2 as a driver of the Earth’s climate. All I have to do is go back to the end of the Little Ice Age.
After the Little Ice Age ended in the mid-1800’s, the temperatures, according to regional temperature readings from around the world show that it was just as warm in the 1880’s and the 1930’s as it is today.
The 1880’s, and the 1930’s are not considered to be unduly influenced by CO2 levels, yet the temperatures during those periods were just as warm as today, with higher CO2 levels today (280ppm then, verses 425ppm today).
So, equal levels of warming for three time periods. Two of those time periods had 280ppm of CO2 in the atmosphere while the last period had 425ppm of CO2 in the air, but it’s not any hotter today than it was in the recent past. Increased CO2 has not increased the temperatures beyond what they were in the past.
Your problem is you have been fooled into believing that the Earth’s temperature profile has a Hockey Stick shape, which causes you to ignore the recent past. And that was the objective of the Temperature Data Mannipulators. They wanted to fool people into believing that today is the hotterst time in human history and CO2 is the cause.
It’s all a BIG LIE, and you have bought into it.
Here is a chart created by Phil Jones showing the period after the end of the Little Ice Age. It is a bogus Hockey Stick chart but it does show a few things that are correct. It shows that all three warmings since the Little Ice Age were of equal magnitude, and it shows that the 1880’s and the 1930’s were equally warm.
The bastardization of the chart comes with Phil Jones showing the 1880’s and the 1930’s as being cooler than today. The real temperature profile would have all three periods on the same horizontal line on the chart. All equally warm.
You look at a chart like that and think today must be the “hottest time evah!”. But it’s all a fraud meant to create that thought process in your brain.
Without a bogus, bastardized temperature record, the climate alarmists would have nothing to point to that suggests CO2 is warming the Earth. That’s why they faked the temperature data, to give them something to lie about.
Richard, you are a believer in the back radiation story. That is, CO2 absorbs IR from the Earth’s surface and reradiates it back to the Earth’s surface, thus creating a warmer surface. Here is where I fail to understand the story.
Here is a paper outlining CO2 absorption bands
CO2 infrared absorption – Climate Auditor
How can CO2 reradiating at the 15 um band warm the surface? This is what I fail to understand. Do you have an explanation?
“How can CO2 reradiating at the 15 um band warm the surface? This is what I fail to understand. Do you have an explanation?”
From your link:
“Since 99.83% of the photons that may be absorbed by the atmospheric CO2 molecules will be from the 15 micron absorption band and these represent radiation from a source at 193.5̊K, they will not heat the Earth’s at its average surface temperature of 288.5̊K.”
Firstly the GHE is not “heating” by colder molecules of warmer ones.
It is the reduction of cooling.
A cold body cannot warm a warm body (2nd law of Lot) but there is an exchange of photons with the net effect that the warm body cools more slowly.
They do not represent “radiation from a source at 193.5̊K”.
This is often misconstrued here.
193K (-80C) is the temperature at which a radiating body emits most strongly (peak) at 15micron.
However the Planck curve shows that the power emitted from the Earth at 15microns is ~ 5x that emitted by a body at -80C whose peak lies at 15microns.
“It is the reduction of cooling. “
There is no evidence of that. It is a fiction made up by the AGW-scammers.
Nelson, heat flows from warmer to cooler. Photons aren’t “heat” until they are absorbed.
Photons from the SUN warm the surface….the back radiation from CO2 above the surface just “counteracts” the amount of 15 um photons (that was your choice) that can escape from that sunny surface.
No laws of thermodynamics are broken. ‘Heat’ still flows from warmer to cooler. When the surfaces are equal temperature…no “heat” flows…and the number of photons exchanged is equal and of irradiance determined by Planck’s law (ok pedantic physics Ph.D’s, for BB surfaces).
I can tell you that back radiation is measured and does exist. It is also increasing from more CO2 in the air
Back radiation is the greenhouse effect
If you deny back radiation, you deny the greenhouse effect and then I give you a hard time.
The author of the diatribe at the link you provided appears to be a fool/
He males the following claim:
“The laws of thermodynamics mandate that heat cannot flow from cold to hot so the return of some radiation back towards the Earth cannot cause surface heating as it is only a fraction of the energy being emitted from the surface”
In fact, back radiation (downwelling long wave radiation) does cause surface heating, which partially offsets the surface cooling of upwelling long wave radiation.
This is often described as impeded cooling for simplicity
Every object with a temperature radiates heat energy in all directions.
Every part of the atmosphere has a temperature, so every part of it radiates infrared radiation in all directions.
Some of this reaches the Earth’s surface and is absorbed.
It’s called back radiation because most of the heat content of the atmosphere (with the exception of the 77.1 W/m2 absorbed directly from sunlight) originated from the Earth’s surface.
If the planet had no atmosphere, none of the infrared radiation from the Earth’s surface would come back.
The amount of absorption by the atmosphere of infrared radiation from the Earth’s surface is strongly dependent on the atmospheric concentration of greenhouse gases.
“Not one single one… Here is your chance.. again.”
And you failed utterly and completely.. Well done. ! 🙂 🙂
Explain your warming is all natural theory, loser.
“Steele evades and insults as usual”
->”loser”
If there are over 100,000 scientific studies, I can guarantee that most are drivel written for “publish or perish”. If half of them came up with original ideas and added to our knowledge base we would know a lot more than we do.
They include almost every “skeptic” scientists too
The number of scientists who deny there is a greenhouse effect and manmade CO2 emissions are part of it must be very small because I have never located such a scientist or author in 26 years of reading about claimet science
And I read almost exclusively “skeptic” articles, not the usual consensus “CO2 will kill your dog” claptrap.
This is exactly the BS you constantly push Richard!
You say “The number of scientists who deny there is a greenhouse effect…blah blah blah” But 99% of us skeptics agree there is a greenhouse effect.
The issue is how much impact does the current increases of CO2 have on surface weather. To determine that one must examine all the natural causes before we can begin attributing the residual to rising CO2.
You never engage in discussing the natural factors. Instead you try to attack elucidation of the natural science and call it denial of the any greenhouse effect.You never attack the alarmists for ignoring all the natural factors. You always talk out of both side of your mouth. Makes it hard to trust your intentions! Ever!
elucidation
big word I never used before
and you spelled it right too
I have a blog with over 725,000 lifetime page views that has a daily recommended climate and energy reading list.
Almost every article recommended is anti-CAGW, anti-EV and anti-leftist.
The Honest Climate Science and Energy Blog
I have recommended many articles here including some of your articles over the years.
I’m just not going to recommend an article that claims the greenhouse effect does not apply to oceans. Which you wrote here.
Anyone reading the IPCC Summary would think natural causes of climate change don’t matter
Anyone reading your articles would think manmade causes of climate change don’t matter.
I disagree with both extreme positions.
There are a large variety of likely causes of climate change, and no one knows exactly what each variable does.
From my blog:
The following variables are likely to influence Earth’s climate:
1) Earth’s orbital and orientation variations (aka planetary geometry)
2) Changes in ocean circulation
Including ENSO, AMO, PDO, etc.
3) Solar energy and irradiance,
including clouds, albedo, volcanic and manmade aerosols, plus possible effects of cosmic rays and extraterrestrial dust
4) Greenhouse gas emissions
5) Land use changes
(cities growing, logging, clear cutting forests for farming or solar farms, etc.)
6) Unknown causes of variations of a
complex, non-linear system
7) Unpredictable natural and
manmade catastrophes
8) Climate measurement errors
(unintentional errors or deliberate science fraud)
9) Interactions and feedbacks,
involving two or more variables.
Greene doesnt understand climate science, he is not a scientist, having only an MBA and is striving to monetize his silly website that simply lists others’ headlines.
He creates a strawman argument that “Anyone reading your articles would think manmade causes of climate change don’t matter.” and then calling his interpretation of my science an extreme position. LOL The MBA troll can’t discuss the science, so to protect his interpretations, he tries to denigrate everyone who disagrees with him.
But I have always agued deforestation, lost wetlands and urbanization can change local weather. Clearly only Greene, not anyone, reading my articles doesn’t understand the complexities I discuss. So he keeps attacking whatever he doesnt understand!
Steele evades and insults as usual
Weather and climate are two different subjects
My blog is free
Has no ads
No donations asked for or accepted
No money or fame for me
My blog is a public service for fellpow conservatives
You evade the obvious fact that you are an AGW denier.
AGW applies to the climate, not the weather events you mentioned in your tirade.
As an AGW denier you claim the greenhouse effect does not apply to oceans. Only a greenhouse denier would make that claim.
Then you twist William Happer’s research to claim you two are in agreement when you re not: He never claimed the greenhouse effect only applied to land surfaces.
Steele is confirmed as
An AGW denier
An evader of simple questions
A liar about William Happer’s work
An extremely hostile person
That’s four strikes so far
Care to try for five?
After 40+ years… CO2 warming has never been observed or measured anywhere on the planet. Nor has there been any measurable influence on any sort of weather .
If there is any, it is basically immeasurable and totally insignificant.
And that is why dickie is still struggling to produce a single bit of scientific evidence for warming by atmospheric CO2…
So all the downwelling long wave radiation measurements are a hoax, 100,000+ studies are wrong about AGW and almost 100% of scientists are wrong about AGW?
But you are a genius?
Another Einstein?
Hint: You are a dingbat.
Warming is good! It is so cold everyone in the US has to live in heated houses ride in heated transportation and work in heated buildings. People here probably spend only about five percent of their time outdoors anyway so who cares if it warms up a couple of degrees?
The cost is astronomical, Bloomberg estimates $US200 trillion to stop warming by 2050, and other estimates are similar. There are about 2 billion households in the world and 90% of them can’t afford anything extra. So that is $1 million per household.
That’s ridiculous. Almost all those households would prefer a million dollars in the bank and a degree or two of warming. Plus additional CO2 is good for crops, farmers, and food prices.
Paleohistory shows consistently that when CO2 levels peak, temperatures fall. When CO2 levels are at a minimum, temperatures rise.
The opposite of what CO2 warming theory says. Which in any other branch of science except phrenology would get the theory thrown out on its head.
CO2 theory says CO2 can be a natural feedback to changes in ocean temperature and a manmade forcing from manmade CO2 emissions.
Both processes are now happening at the same time, but CO2 emissions are a much stronger process and affect temperatures much quicker. than changes in ocean temperatures.
A change if 1 degree in ocean temperature in a century coud change the atmospheric CO2 level by 15 to 20 ppm in one century.
Manmade CO2 emissions are currently increasing atmospheric CO2 by about 250 ppm in one century (+2.5 ppm a year rise rate)
You are criticizing the consensus of CO2 as a feedback and a forcing that you apparently do not understand
I thought temperature rise precedes CO2 rise in the geological record. So wouldn’t that imply we are topping off the natural CO2 rise?
This natural rise in CO2 occurs some 800 to 1000 years after the temperature rise.
It’s only been about 200 years since the temperature started rising out of the Little Ice Age. 1000 years ago, temperatures were starting to fall from the peaks of the Medieval Warm Period.
Warning oceans very gradually release CO2 as a feedback into the atmosphere
It appeared to take 100000 years for a cycle in the ice core era. A 5 to 6 degree C. in ocean temperature eventually outgassed or absorbed about 15 to 20ppm of CO2
“and affect temperatures much quicker”
Nonsense… There is absolutely no evidence of that.
It is just AGW-cult mantra.
You keep reinforcing that fact, by not producing any evidence..
Overdosed on stupid pills again?
Without enough CO2 in the atmosphere, there are no cyanobacteria and shelf algae blooms, and oxygen levels drop quickly. And how to live here?
“Atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration of about 0.036% is much lower than optimal for photosynthesis under favorable light conditions and appropriate temperature. Under optimal conditions, the rate of photosynthesis increases to a CO2 concentration of about 0.1%. At extremely low CO2 concentrations, respiration and photorespiration processes produce more CO2 than is assimilated in photosynthesis.”
https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=9087789
https://earth.nullschool.net/#current/chem/surface/level/overlay=co2sc/equirectangular
I love that chart!
Even the briefest of study looking back at the past history of the world shows us the uncomfortable (literally) range of natural variation the planet has been through. It is likely to go through those variations many times again, hopefully….
It is against that huge natural variation background I weigh the feeble transient impact the human species has had, is having and can ever have on this world.
When we try to place our efforts into the scheme of things affecting the climate, only a fool or an employee at the BBC/Guardian would consider our activities relevant.
Volcanic areosols play an extremely important role in global temperature changes.
“No volcanic eruptions, clean atmosphere, cooling and drought
The fourth type of abrupt climate change is very rapid cooling with widespread drought that appears to happen when the rate of volcanic activity decreases from a very high level to a very low level. The clearest example is known as the 8.2 ka event (Fig. 5, Fig. 7) (Cardinal Rate I, Table 1). At approximately 8175 years BP (Before Present) the temperature in Greenland dropped at least 3.3 °C in less than 20 years [192]. After 60 cold years, the temperature recovered in approximately 70 years.”
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0040609009000169
It follows that pure tropospheric air without water vapor is almost transparent to solar radiation.
https://earth.nullschool.net/#current/chem/surface/level/overlay=so2smass/equirectangular
Do you believe they could get such good resolution on their temperature measurements?
We are not, in fact, experiencing a great extinction at present but rather an explosion of life represented by the human population, the herds of domestic animals and cultivated crops.
The greening of the planet is a response to increased CO2 and may continue to increase to where oxygen becomes more abundant leading to the evolution of species adapted to the new (but not unique) conditions.
Many species of our world will either adapt and evolve into new forms or become extinct. Many wild species are already suitable to the new and will experience a rebound in numbers as human predation need is reduced by agricultural advances and competition for resources is reduced.
Human populations will likely stabilize and perhaps even begin to decline a bit to leave more habitat available to other species.
Technology and agricultural advances will mean less surface area will be required for the dietary needs of each human. Human population growth may become mostly restricted by the availability of harder resources such as metals and fuels.
A dying planet is once more resurrected in a different form as atmospheric CO2 increases. It may not even be the last cycle of death and resurrection but may be one of the shortest if not accepted as such.
Okay, this is a seemingly bizarre theory and scenario that resides mostly in my rather outlandish imagination but there are clues to its possibility that may be emerging.
From my own observation of wildlife in areas of rather advanced and stable human populations there has already been an explosion of of adaptable wildlife. Often seen as invasive but sometimes just locals that are opportunistic. Examples would include suburban dwellers and visitors such as certain deer species, Canada geese and coyotes that are quite noticeable, but probably include numerous insect species as well as birds, fish and plants. Look a bit and I am sure more can be identified.
Perhaps it would be better to wait and watch a bit before engaging in activities harmful to our economies and societies as a whole.
Take this as you will, but a moments thought may be worthwhile.
The giant arthropods.
Maybe they think that reducing CO2 will, somehow, increase O2 levels to ensure we have enough bugs to eat? (Before they eat us.)
A TRULY fascinating discussion! I have been pushing the CO2 dearth argument (to friends… and to “opponents”) for years, but I have NEVER seen the arguments connecting CO2 levels with the known extinction events of the past. I am going to have to send this to my geology professor (she was NOT “all in” on the current diatribe!) for her perusal.
She was GREAT, and I would have asked her out, had I not been already married to my second wife (still current thirty years later!). I wonder what she will think of this!
Jim.
Neat article, but I have a nitpick which might be caused not by you, but by the authors of your first graph. There is a large, orange-beige colour representing uncertainty about the atmospheric CO2. This envelope is shown getting narrower as the CO2 goes lower, looking as if the envelope is a constant % of the value. It is more likely that the envelope should be constant width in a case like this, until there is a change in methodology leading to a change in absolute uncertainty. Geoff S
It does appear that way. I’ll check out their methods
I miss Bob with his clear, affirmative comments to authors. Your post Mr. Steele is excellent. I’m sorry you have to put up with the Greene nonsense.
We must never challenge any articles here because WUWT should be an echo chamber for conservatives?
Any theory that denies the climate consensus is acceptable?
If you claim there is no AGW, that’s even better.
Let’s all play nice and be 100% anti-government and 100% anti-climate consensus?
Those leftists are 100% wrong on every subject, and if you don’t agree, then you are an enemy of WUWT?
Is that what you would prefer?
Steele presents himself as an authority of the climate 300 million years ago. Contrary data and conflicting opinions are ignored. Inconvenient.
In keeping with your standard of challenge, I respond to your comment.
You are a big poopy pants and your wife is fat.
Thanks Masterson. I’ve endured the dishonest rants of alarmists like Greene for many years now. He is simply a ignorant narcissist that protects his views by denigrating others. He never discusses the science at hand, so it is easy to dismiss his tirades as stupid trolling.
Greene has tried every dirty semantic trick he can to try denigrate me. This time he stated Happer contradicted my views. So asked him to contact Will and back up his bullshit claim.
I have had many conversations with Will. Will invited me to join his Coalition in 2018. Greene has no contact but makes up what he thinks Happer believes. To avoid exposing his own lies Greene shifted his first argument that Happer contradicts me to weasely statements like “Happer never said the oceans are not warmed by the greenhouse effect.” Greene is terrified to contact Happer so Will can provide Greene with the Truth. So guaranteed, Greene will continue make up false arguments to support his climate alarmism and narcissism.
I will not respond to Greene’s dishonest bullying anymore. He so clearly full of shit its a waste of space.
Excellent! There are many trolls here–it’s a mine field. However, our hosts seem to keep the peace. What surprises me is that out hosts can survive in an environment where opposing views are censored and cancelled.