Kudos to John O’Sullivan for finding this story; see the note at the end about the extraordinary response his post on this received.
———————————-
Who are the world’s worst “polluters”? According to a new high-spectral-resolution Japanese satellite — it’s developing countries.
Who knew detailed spectroscopic data on Earth’s atmosphere was available to figure out where the CO2 and other greenhouse gases are being produced and absorbed?
In January 2009, a Japanese group launched a satellite “IBUKI” to monitor CO2 and methane spectral bands around the world to establish exactly where the world’s biggest sources and sinks of greenhouse gases were. With climate change being the perilous threat to millions, this data would seem so essential you might wonder why didn’t someone do it before. As it happens, NASA tried — it launched the Orbiting Carbon Observatory in Feb 2009, which was designed to do exactly the same thing, but it crashed on launch. Oddly, NASA don’t seem to be prioritizing the deadly climate threat, as it will take NASA four years to figure out why the Taurus XL rocket failed and relaunch it.
The results from from Japan’s Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) show that Industrialized nations appear to be absorbing the carbon dioxide emissions from the Third World. (Can we get carbon credits for that?) The satellite shows that levels of CO2 are typically lower in developed countries than in air over developing countries.
CO2 sources and sinks, recorded by satellite. (Red dots indicate higher levels of CO2, Blue dots mean CO2 levels are lower than average). Official figure caption: Carbon dioxide column averaged dry air mole fractions (XCO2) for clear-sky scenes analyzed using observations at shortwave infrared bands (radiance spectrum uncalibrated data) from the IBUKI greenhouse gas observation sensor (TANSO-FTS). Clear-sky scenes at individual TANSO-FTS observation points are determined using measurements from the cloud/aerosol sensor (TANSO-CAI). Data are excluded where the associated radiance spectra are saturated, and where noise is relatively large due to weak ground surface reflection.
If the evil modern polluters were producing more CO2 (and it mattered to the global flux), then we’d see higher levels of CO2 (more red dots) over the first world. Right? But CO2 levels are lower than average (see the blue dots). The highest emissions, at least on this graph are predominantly in China, and central Africa.)
Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and the US midwest earn Gold Star environment awards for their low carbon dioxide levels.
Likewise, the methane picture is remarkably similar. (NB: This is just April 20 – 28. Different times of year will vary!)
Figure: Methane (column averaged dry air mole fraction) initial analysis (April 20-28 observation data). Methane column averaged dry air mole fraction (XCH4) for clear-sky scenes analyzed under the same processing conditions as the top graph above.
Cheifio sums up the Japanese results: “For now, I think it’s pretty clear that the “CO2 From the Evil Western Polluters” meme has a serious hole in it… “
Chiefio (E.M Smith) goes on to say:
This isn’t that much of a surprise to me. I’d figured out some time ago that trees and bamboo could consume far more CO2 than I “produce” via burning oil and gas. I’ve also pointed out that The West is largely letting trees grow, while mowing our lawns and having the clippings “sequestered” in land fills (along with an untold tonnage of phone books and junk mail…) while the 3rd world is busy burning and cutting down their forests. The simple fact is that “jungle rot” will beat out my “gallon a day” of Diesel any time. Basically, we in the west grow far more wheat, corn, soybeans, wood, lawns, shrubs, etc. than we burn oil. In the 3rd world, they burn their sequestering plants. (And it takes one heck of a lot more wood to cook a meal than it does coal via a highly efficient furnace / electric generator / microwave oven.) But it’s nice to see it documented in aggregate in the “facts in the air”.
You can see in the graph on the right (click if you want to look up close) that the Japanese satellites have got a seriously high quality spectroscope to figure out the levels of greenhouse gases.
These are the kind of results they are getting, the spectral bands over the south pacific in March 2009. Click to enlarge. Gawk at the detail. They are serious graphs. Source http://www.eorc.jaxa.jp/en/imgdata/topics/2009/tp090319.html
Chiefio has also posted a truly beautiful animated graphic. Watch as those Siberian forests, suck up CO2 in summer as they grow, thus reducing the levels to 360 ppm in August 2009 (but curiously not as much in August 2010). You really need to see the graph to appreciate just how dynamic the flux is.
Man-made emissions are only 4% of the total
Since 96% of all CO2 emissions are natural, those sinks and sources will make or break any theory based on whether man-made emissions are problematic.
This topic fits in with Murry Salby’s work — could it be that changes in the natural sources of CO2 drive the global level, rather than our emissions?
—————————————————–
John O’Sullivan Censored?
John O’Sullivan wrote this story up a few days ago (link defunct). After two years of writing for “Suite 101”, he has just been suddenly shut down without warning or explanation. He believes it is in retaliation. What did they think it would achieve? All the thousands of links to his archive of stories now point to defunct pages.
See John O’Sullivan’s page now.
—————————————————-
UPDATE: NOAA has a Carbon Tracker Program with similarish results
The NOAA program captures sample of air at 81 locations and records CO2 levels. Then they presumably do a bit of interpretation and smoothing and modeling to estimate the graphs below. The results agree broadly with what the JAXA satellite recorded.
We can bet that if those red dots had have been located over industrial countries the images would have appeared not just in media stories, but in school halls and posters on bus stations. (Presumably NASA and the OSO team know about the NOAA program and we all know how anxious they are to get that satellite working again…)
[Source: These are global graphs averaged from 2001 -2009]
One-degree fluxes (Left). The pattern of net ecosystem exchange (NEE) of CO2 of the land biosphere averaged over the time period indicated, as estimated by CarbonTracker. This NEE represents land-to-atmosphere carbon exchange from photosynthesis and respiration in terrestrial ecosystems, and a contribution from fires. It does not include fossil fuel emissions. Negative fluxes (blue colors) represent CO2 uptake by the land biosphere, whereas positive fluxes (red colors) indicate regions in which the land biosphere is a net source of CO2 to the atmosphere. Units are gC m-2 yr-1.
Possibly just as interesting is the uncertainty chart (below). Across Siberia and Europe there is a 200 ppm flux uncertainty. I imagine these are the sites with the largest yearly range. Presumably the white over the Sahara means there is not much uncertainty? (But then maybe they have no data – Antarctica is white too.)
(See graph above)
“CarbonTracker surface flux estimates are optimally consistent with measurements of ~31,500 flask samples of air from 81 sites across the world, ~27,800 four-hourly averages of continuously measured CO2 at 13 sites (10 in North America, plus observatories at Mauna Loa, Hawaii; Barrow, Alaska, South Pole; and American Samoa), and ~23,800 four-hourly averages from towers at 13 locations within the continent (see Figure 3). Eight of these towers sample air from heights more than 100m above ground level.”
It would appear that over the last few days what may be the beginnings of an organized suppression of this information has begun. Screenshots, saving of any graphs involved to local drives, and otherwise backing up of any articles you may find relating to this data may be prudent.
As Jo noted above, it appears John O was censored for making it known. Since they can’t counter skepticism with facts and actual data it appears they are showing their true colors and resorting to the censorship we would never hear the end of were it their views being censored.
Typical.
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[snip – gibberish –JN]
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Considering it is the type of thing you would do I’m not surprised you think it’s funny. You see Jo doesn’t censor like your ilk does. If she did we’d certainly hear you crying foul wouldn’t we?
As I said, typical.
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Oh come on. Scaredy cat proclamations of censorship? I suppose you also think that the SkS mod team will block and delete any mention of this release? The scientific majority will just wave their omnipotent hand and we’ll all forget about this AGW crushing data?
No, THAT is jibberish.
Chance of these pictures disproving anything? 0%
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The link between his material being taken down and his being fired immediately after doing a write up of this information is just coincidence then? Get real.
The data will still be out there, but not as easily accessible as it should be, at least I suspect until after the next conference discussing climate policies that are unnecessary and achieve nothing (as this data shows) are over.
Please explain to us all how when someone has been censored and someone comments on it having taken place it is a “scaredy cat proclamation” rather than a statement of fact? I realize facts are foreign to you but the spin you will put in your answer should provide far more humor than my comment.
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Tristan, sure, show us all that the media is not biased: link to all the mainstream headlines of this study as they come in.
Current list:
1. Japan news story
2. ……………..
3. ……………..
4. ……………..
We all know that if the red dots were on the evil first-world countries that “CO2 Pollution Seen From Space” would feature in every major daily.
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Presumably, if there were a story, someone would report on it, it’s not like The Australian doesn’t jump on chances to promote the idea that AGW is a beat-up.
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Joanne;
A modest proposal: Use a filter to replace Tristan’s posts with the phrase “yadda, yadda”. This will have several beneficial effects:
1) It is a favorite of his anyway, when he can’t think of anything else to say.
2) It captures concisely the effective content of most of his “arguments”.
3) It will save the rest of us the (admittedly short) time it takes to determine that his latest offering is vacuous.
Of course, just letting his posts stand lets everyone see this for themselves.
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If you can’t respond to the content, just insult the commentator, right Bob?
Of course, everyone can see this for themselves.
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What content would that be, Tristan?
Quite right, for once.
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Has no one [been told that plants need] CO2 to live. someone should start an organisation to save the plants on the earth campaign for more CO2.
—
Comment edited for comprehensibility […] –JN
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So what is producing all the CO2 and methane out in the Sahara desert?
Only 2% of atmospheric CO2 is anthropogenic so the plots are totally meaningless.
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Good question. Could it be that there is a lack of CO2-sucking vegetation in the Sahara?
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Maybe it’s due to vast amounts of limestone?
The main component of the “Hamada” part of Sahara is mostly limestone. Limestone (CaCO3) plus heat gives natural cement (CaO + CO2)! Mixed with other metal oxydes one get’s that grey fine powder which is one of the main components of concrete.
Cement producing industrie is a main contributor to man made CO2 partly by releasing the CO2 out of the limestone besides using fossil fuels for heating.
Concret hardens by incorporating crystal water into growing calcium silicat hydrat needles. There’s no CO2 intake during this process. So the cement producing process releases CO2 but concrete hardening doesn’t use CO2 again which remains in the atmosphere until being reduced by another process.
This very cement making process may take place every day in Sahara, Gobi and the Australian outback.
As for Gobi and the Australian deserts I didn’t find informations concerning the composition of the materials, on the fly. But maybe there’s enough limestone too, to account for the CO2 emissions over there.
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There is a lot of widely distributed gypsum & calcrete in many areas of arid Australia.
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JuergenK, its not likely to be the cause. To manufacture portland cement from limestone you need excessive heat, in the vacinity of 1400-1450 degC. The Sahara even at say 55-60 degC in the height of summer would strugle to achieve the energy levels required. Essentially you need enough “Gibbs free energy” for the limestone to break the very strong chemical bond and release the CO2 from the chemical structure, which is why it requires so much heat. According to the statistical thermodynamics I took as an undergrad, its theoretically possible, but in practice I’d guestimate it to be effectively zero.
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@Rohan Baker:
Yes, I know that, but I also know, that there’s never a static end of chemical processes. Every chemical process is in a dynamic balance. You need that high temperatur to create cement efficiantly, by that way producing tons of CO2. Sahara doesn’t produce tons of CO2 per square meter at 60°C but presumalby only some parts per square meter a day or so, which would be enough to enrich the atmosphere with CO2.
Like atmosphere and aquasphere the lithosphere isn’t a dead end. It only runs at considerably lower speed. May be the outgassing of CO2 in the Sahara and elswhere is one of the more vivid phenomenon of the lithosphere. Fact is, there does exist natural cement as a construction engineer and researcher in strata processing told me laterly.
But I don’t suppose to stop here. Let’t still look for other causes as well. Never stop thinking 🙂
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Hi, Jo – not much human activity either in the Sahara.
But here is not much cloud cover or greenhouse gases either or is there.
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@Jo,
the higher CO2/CH4 levels seemed to mostly correspond with a lack of vegetation due to hot or cold environments and a few of active volcanoes.
The air above the tropical oceans has probably got the highest CO2 levels but they aren’t shown on the map.
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The deserts on Earth are very important for providing minerals etc to off desert areas on Earth.
The South Americas rainforests gets about 60% from Sahara.
Maybe when soo much of the desert is trown up in the air it might react with the air?
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There’s a lot of industrial activity in the Sahara, particularly oil and iron ore.
Mauritania in the west is one of the largest producers of iron ore in the world, the diesel consumption in carting the dirt around is significant, and as has been said there is no vegetation to suck any of it up. Libya and Algeria have large oil extraction operations in the south of their countries, so you’re getting a lot of CO2 (from oil and gas reservoirs) and methane being emitted to the atmosphere. No surprise to me the methane is high in those areas too.
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There are many oil wells in the Sahara with brightly burning flares. There are also lots of people still burning wood and dung in their fires and as Jo says, there is little CO2 sinks.
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This should be cause for celebration among AGW proponents! Sensible progressive development and mechanization is the savior of our planet from the evil of man-made CO2. Moving the 3rd world away from slash and burn subsistence farming practices, deforestation and dodgy industrial practices, to microwave ovens, SUVs and brick veneer dwellings on 1/4 acre blocks with manicured lawns is the answer. Why do we not here the cheering? Could it be that those alarmists don’t really care about CO2 at all, but it’s more about Malthusian and anti-progressive ideology borne of misplaced and misanthropic Utopianism.
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Cool isn’t it?
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No, it is typical. If it supports your beliefs you want it spread far and wide but if it proves something different you want it suppressed.
Next you’ll be telling us they weren’t real scientists or they were paid by big oil. You really are predictable.
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Cool isn’t it?
Dill is a plant!
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Eh? I’m not suppressing anything. I am completely confident that the JAXA data conforms approximately to what we’ve observed of C02 flux from other sources. I provided that animation so you can see the way C02 is produced and dispersed through the troposphere.
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I like this one actually.
But some of the color ones out there are fun. Wonder what they will look like if the permafrost starts serious out-gassing??
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Not very good at linking things. sorry.
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Awesome.
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For the record, here is damning evidence that you guys were right all along, we are inconsequential
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But that graphic can’t be true, its from Skeptical Science!
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Good point, John
I never thought of that! Bravo.
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OOOh you Naughty Person.
And they are still cool graphics. 🙂
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Interesting what do all the white areas on the map mean.There seem to be a lot of white areas not including the oceans are they greater than 390ppm or less than 360ppm.And I thought the oceans were gobbling up CO2 so why does that not show.
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Given that they are showing CO2 concentration i’d say the white areas are ones for which they have no data on that date.
here
Here they show concentration over some parts of the oceans. In the white areas there is obviously CO2 present at some concentration but they don’t show it on these graphics. Maybe something to do with the satellites orbit??
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Bugger. linked wrong.
here:https://data.gosat.nies.go.jp/GosatBrowseImage/browseImage/XCO2_L3.gif
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Hi catamon.
To link to an address open the page you want to link to then copy the pages address then highlite the text you want to use as the link then select the link button on the reply window.This should give you a window in which you paste the address of the page you just copied then ok and that should be that.
At least thats the way it works on my linux system if you use windows then all bets are off. 🙂
Cheers
rukidding
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Regardless of your obvious status as an evil Linux using non conformist geek, on behalf of the Collective, Thanx!
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Ok Link Time!
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Notice that the graph represents CO2 emissions in september, not for the whole year. Any celebration is premature until we have a graph for the whole year. I would recommend caution or else this might turn up to be embarassing.
——–
See the animated Gif on Cheifios site. — JN
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I think it proves that industrialization has reduced co2 in regard to what Nature produces herself – it also shows that with reduced co2 output she has plenty of reserves in capacity to deal with any excess co2 produced.
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from everything I have read about the big bad fossil fuel countries I thought that America, India and China would be a storm of Red,
Coming from a farming family , this is something I would like to see,
May i introduce the Johnson Co2 generator for Greenhouses!!
NASA Earth Observatory- Northern Hemisphere has been greening over the last 30 years or so,
Area leaf index has been increasing world wide.
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I’m not surprised at the China and Subcontinent.
Anyone who has watched either the Indian F1 race or the Chinese F1 race on television will know those countries are horribly polluted. While co2 is invisible, all the other gunk that inefficient combustion throws out with it is quite visible.
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I have read studies from the past that North America was a CO2 sink, and have also believed that Australia was also. I have postulated that Australia needed CO2 monitoring stations to prove the point.
This is now not needed as the Japanese have proved the point.
The next problem is overcoming the MSM bias and disseminating the truth.
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I guess this means that my Australian property soaking up CO2 now gets a tax rebate from Comrade Gillard?
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Maybe I’m feeding the troll but I’d point out that some of China’s concentration must be due to coal from our (Au) mines being burned in their many power stations and our low concentrations are due to the lack of industrial output here.
Most of this continent enjoys high sunshine levels and is damp enough to be green to-day. Even our densest urban environments like Sydney are strikingly green when you fly over them. If anything, photosynthesis (or plant growth) is being limited by a CO2 starvation in some regions.
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I understand that Australia actually produces 2% of the worlds industrial output but prodeces less than 1.5% of the worlds CO2 emissions this is to do with the low carbon intensity of our economy. Australia emits about 500 tonnes of CO2 per $1 million of GDP while China, for example, emits about 2,200 tonnes of CO2 per $1 million equivalent of GDP.
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Sorry J Knowles, not sure if your “feeding the troll” but I’ll bite as you don’t appear to kmow much about China and/or coal.
China is the largest coal producer in the world at around 3200 Mtpa (51% of global production, which makes Australia’s ~ 450Mtpa look a bit piddling really.Relatively China doesn’t import a lot of coal at around 157Mtpa being 2nd to Japan at 190 Mtpa, ~ 90Mtpa from Australia. In fact until the 1990s I think, China was a nett exporter of coal. Of that total imported by China only about 30Mtpa (50% coking coal)comes from Australia.
The other thing to remember is that coal which is exported/imported tends to be the “better quality” coal i.e. greater energy value per tonne (for thermal)as if your paying for the transport you want to get the biggest bang for your buck or yen or yuan.
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Alan, Thanks for the numbers.
Perhaps my point was that if we export ~450Mt in 2011 it liberates ~1300Mt CO2 in Asia rather than at home. The GOSAT graphic suggests a net absorption scenario for Au which hides our true CO2 footprint and inflates Asia’s.
Personally, I doubt that it matters to climate which humans add more CO2 to the existing 0.04%. I was only making an observation about the data presented in Jo’s article.
What matters is that a few people are trying to index taxation to the amount of CO2 liberated by individuals and nations and this latest JAXA contribution suggests that the UN is peddling a theory with a flat tyre.
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Agree with your general conclusions but your figures are still in error.If its converted in Asia then that is where it should be accounted for, just as our middle-east oil consumption should be counted here, no double counting.
Sorry to be pedantic but that’s what us scientist tend to do. Aus only exports around 290 Mt of black (or hard) coal)which, due to its high energy value per tonne is only likely to produce around 650Mt CO2 and although largely,its not all to Asia,somewhere around 30Mt to Europe. All the figures are available via the ABARES website.
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I would have fired him were he working for me. I don’t have any problem with people publishing data. I have a problem with people publishing conclusions when its outside their field of expertise. In the fullness of time, his attempt at analysis (along with Mme Nova’s) will look rather ‘hasty’.
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Well, now of course you would now, wouldn’t you Tristan. Of course, you would also be best placed to judge that, eh?
The data does seem to suggest that some of the assumptions made by alarmists about sources of man made CO2 (and CH4) and flux variations in natural sinks in different areas of the globe are somewhat imprecise after all. Hardly surprising. So, increasing the trend of sending manufacturing to countries producing higher levels of CO2 for the commodity made or the energy generated would seem to be a bad idea, if you buy into the whole “CO2 is catastrophically warming the planet” ideology, don’t you think.
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O’Sullivan’s title: New Satellite Data Contradicts Carbon Dioxide Climate Theory*
JoNova’s title: CO2 emitted by the poor nations and absorbed by the rich. Oh the irony. (And this truth must not be spoken)**
Chiefio’s conclusion: For now, I think it’s pretty clear that the “CO2 From the Evil Western Polluters” meme has a serious hole in it…***
Actual story: Climate Scientists Hope New Satellite Data Could Help Refine Carbon Budget
* You’re fired!
** But this truth is about the same as the truth we had before…
*** Sorry mate, you’re a bit confused, the claim is that anthropogenic C02 comes mostly from the west.
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Ah we knew the spin would come. So provide proof of what the actual story is Tristan. You know the actual story that supports your beliefs which is therefore acceptable for publication in your view.
When the data supports the other claims this should be interesting to hear.
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I will rescind these comments and acknowledge their error when the data ends up supporting those headlines. Which of course aren’t spin. Because, like, they’re just not, OK?
Else:
I’ll just keep getting my pwn on. Booyah!
(You need to substantiate your claims) CTS
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Translation: You can’t provide any proof that the data does not support the other headlines based on the analysis and interpretations of those who do not share you views.
No surprise there.
It really would be nice if you learned how science is actually done before you come here telling us all that this or that only proves what you want it to prove when there can be (and are) multiple interpretations of the results.
So while you are looking for that proof you might also look for proof that there is any need for a CO2 budget to be managed (the data indicates there is not). It’s been quite a few years on this meme yet no one has proven that CO2 is responsible for any of what it is claimed to be causing.
Your delusions of grandeur don’t exactly substantiate that claim either. Though they do help to establish your mental age which explains the bulk of your posts here.
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(Snipped) CTS
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You had best hope that Jo doesn’t take this statement to be a true reflection of your beliefs, lest you then have to find another blog on which to post your inane dribble.
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But, the carbon (sic) generated in an area, stays in that area, in the atmosphere directly above said emitter, causing dangerous climate change:
The same WWF member David Karoly of UN-IPCC.
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OK. Global Socialism Plan B.
Rich countries should be made to pay poor countries for all the life giving CO2 they provide which rich countries are currently hoovering up for free.
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John Sullivan has received the same treatment by Suite 101 as Dr Tim Ball received from Canada Free Press. It’s called censorship.
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The XCH4 graph peaks out at 0.00018% of atmosphere so methane is hardly a significant atmospheric warmer. Also, methane’s narrow absorption spectra over-lap with H2O so as a GHG it is largely irrelevant. Maybe if the planet froze over and there was no water vapour, methane might become significant.
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If you look very carefully at the maps you will see the highest levels of CO2 and methane correspond directly with the areas of lowest rainfall (20-40 degrees latitude), frigid and and mountainous regions. This indicates the higher CO2/CH4 levels are primarily due to a lack of vegetation.
The CO2 levels are low in some of the most heavily populated, polluted and industrialised areas of the world including Brazil, EU, southern China, southern India, Southeast Asia and Equatorial Africa,
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Well, actually what it shows is that CO2 levels are shed loads higher than the 270ppm pre-industrial levels all over. Saying they are “low” anywhere is a bit of a stretchas the lowest concentration they are showing here is 360ppm.
You know there seem to be a lot of articles and references to the IBUKI stuff around for something that has been “censored” people.
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You say: Well, actually what it shows is that CO2 levels are shed loads higher than the 270ppm pre-industrial levels all over.
Please provide us empirical evidence proving this is a bad thing, any cause for concern, or otherwise worth all the money being dumped into policies that don’t actually address it, won’t change it, and do nothing other than make maintaining quality of living more difficult for the majority while only being economical beneficial to a select few.
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Continuous CO2 monitoring didn’t begin until 1958 at Mauna Loa.
All CO2 values prior to the late 19th century are based on proxies not direct measurements. To say that levels were 270ppm before the Industrial Revolution is essentially nonsense.
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Twaddle.
[based on proxies not direct measurements.]
So what?? In the absence of a time machine the calculations from the proxies are the best data available. Of course, if you want to ignore the proxies then we can just go with the measured fact that CO2 levels are higher now than when they were first measured in 58 and base all discussion on readings from then.
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catamon,
why are you ignoring the stomatal evidence?? Oh yeah, SKS doesn’t think they are any good but believes ice from millions of years ago!!
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
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@Tristan
The anmation you show is not real data as far as I know. We only have FEW poorly distributed NOAA CO2 stations around the world. So its beautiful colors made of a model.
Here – 30 sec into the movie – we also have CO2 levels from around the world illustrated, And the levels are just around 360 ppm:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wxNSjAgc5VI&feature=related
Mauna Loa CO2 levels varies around 10 ppm yearly. The Japanese data showed around 375 ppm, just very few spots reached the 390 ppm we have from NOAA.
The above film is from the press conference for the NASA OCO project, I believe the satellite that… crashed (!) and for some bizarre reason they wont send a new CO2 measuring satellite up until 4 full years from now.
IF IF IF Co2 was so dangerous… then postpone the measring of CO2 4 more years…?
It stinks, im sorry.
For me personally the most logical development now would be for CO2 levels to soon stabelize and then dive.
K.R. Frank
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Frank,
Generally when something like this goes wrong they do a thorough investigation into what went wrong.
Cheers
Crakar24
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Yes Crakar, but its NOT the CO2-measuring-satellite from OCO that made the rocket crash!!!!!
They can investigate all they want what was wrong with that rocket, but there is no excuse not to send up a new satellite with another rocket, is there?
K.R. Frank
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Its not a “bizarre reason” that stops them sending up a replacement satellite straight away. Its something to do with money and planning – which is hardly bizarre.
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You really must work on your reading comprehension.
Frank made the statement:
As he had speculated that were it truly as dangerous as claimed then getting a new satellite in place would be a priority.
The money would be found, and a launch does not take 4 years of planning. Manufacture of the replacement if it had to start from scratch could also be fast tracked IF CO2 was in fact the danger claimed and needed immediate monitoring. Satellite launches aren’t as complex as they were in the infancy of the space programs. A launch may require waiting for an optimal launch window (which also would not take 4 years or even 1 year) but it certainly could be expedited IF CO2 truly was the danger so many wish claim it is.
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What does it mean when the XCO2 graph says
Might they be referring to the lack of a definitive signal from the polar regions ?
I think we need more detail from JAXA.
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Link for the news article if it hasnt been posted yet
http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/30_13.html
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UPDATE: Since people are going to talk about it, (and I have a few minutes to spare) I’ve added the NOAA Carbon Tracker notes and images to the bottom of the post. As far as I can tell, the NOAA project is decent but limited in that they only have 81 stations around the world, and they model and smooth, but the results are not dissimilar.
I would think the data from satellites would be so much more complete, but it is nice to see ground measurements to compare it too.
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I wonder if CO2 stations have siting issues? Downwind from a fossil fuel generator, swamp, sewage treatment plant, any major city etc could provide interesting anomolies.
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One is on a volcano!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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Crakar24 – Which volcano? The most active volcanic areas are in the Ring of Fire in SE Asia. You have Etna, Stomboli in Italy, those two hard to pronounce
Iceland ones, Herd Island in the Antarctic and the Alaskan volcanoes. Take your pick eh, and how would they influence the CO2 in Australia or up in space.
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In Hawaii,
It is a volcanically active region, volcanos spew out CO2 ergo it can influence the measurements.
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It is great to have more than one source for the information.
But! You should not try to do a direct comparison (or correlation) between the CarbonTtracker and JAXA maps – they are different projections, and therefore have different spatial anomalies as you move further away from the point of centralisation.
Most of you will know this already – I am just sayin’ for the sake of our currently resident “confusatroll”.
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This is an odd report, certainly. It is also odd that such sites as Watts (WUWT) and others haven’t picked up on it, also. Something is off.
The Japanese graphic is childish, the one O’Sullivan promoted. Again, something is off.
My spidey-sense is tingling. When I looked up the JAXA prior results, I was less to not impressed that the industrialized world is a carbon sink. The northern portions of the world are covered in finely ground up glacial debris (till); much of the continental masses, at least along the rims, are carbonates from earlier geological periods. As others noted, there would be a lot of surficial absorption of CO2, though how fast the air would move into the ground is a question. Still, the idea that all measurements have been proven wrong with JAXA seems odd.
This is one potato I’d like to see discussed by those learned and familiar with JAXA, not a politically charged young lawyer.
I vote that wisdom is in the cautious on this subject.
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Doug,
Not sure what you meant by this
For what it is worth i have worked with JAXA a few times and if you are suggesting that they would “diddle the books” one way or the other then i can tell you it is not in their nature (japanese) to do such things. Therefore if JAXA show Gillard is full of crap (re Aus being highest poloooooder) then Gillard is full of crap and you can take that to the bank.
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Considering that the Japanese have a few million dead people still collecting old age pensions I wouldn’t say they are immune to fraud.
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Bananabender, where did you get that titbit from?
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http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/15/world/asia/15japan.html?_r=1&src=tptw
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BB,
Let me say this, you no not of which you speak. In other words you are full of crap if you think JAXA and pension fraud go hand in hand.
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Doug, I’m not sure what you mean “the measurements have been proven wrong.” What measurements? If you are aware of other measurements of atmospheric CO2 other than the NOAA ones, which the JAXA report broadly agrees with, I’d like to see them.
I would like more detail from JAXA. The only description of the cartoon-like JAXA graph you refer too comes from the news report link, not from a press release – though JAXA have a thumbnail on their site, they don’t provide (that I can find) any details on what the graph means or it’s technical description. Hence I didn’t link, though am curious.
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A commenter in Chiefio’s site (J. Heinrich) gave the following link to a JAXA online press release that shows the fluxes at all four boreal seasons:
http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=de&ie=UTF8&prev=_t&sl=ja&tl=en&u=http://www.jaxa.jp/press/2011/10/20111028_ibuki_j.html
[ the Japanese link is http://www.jaxa.jp/press/2011/10/20111028_ibuki_j.html ]
As one can see, except in the boreal summer, the northern hemisphere does seem to emit more CO2 than it absorbs.
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Uneven distribution of CO2 globally has been known for a long time. The late Ernst-Georg Beck trawled through historical data which revealed measured CO2 levels varying considerably in the Atlantic crossings of a research ship in the 1920’s (IIRC). Atmospheric CO2 levels were substantially higher in equatorial regions.
These results are significant because human impact would have been minimal; being above the surface of the ocean, away from possible UHI, agriculture, de-forestation, etc.. CO2 levels relate to the sea surface temperature, but the nett effect is complicated by biological activity, which increases metabolic rates at higher temperatures, allowing plans in the water to soak up CO2 in the presence of sunlight … and we also get back to clouds. (In my mind, I’m hearing Kevin Trenberth signing from the same song-sheet as Joni Mitchell.) It’s not just “missing” heat; it’s the sunlight that drives photosynthesis which binds the CO2 for potential sequstration to limestone.
Atmospheric studies by balloons and aircraft give a spotty picture of vertical distribution. But there’s enough to say that it’s not straight-forward.
I read some research documenting the out-gassing of CO2 from desert sands. All without human influence.
The rational, inevitable conclusion can only be that there’s no way of knowing exactly how CO2 is distributed, let alone how much of atmospheric CO2 is anthroprogenic.
How then somebody can build computer models based on uniformly distributed CO2 at an assumed average and treat the results with any seriousness is beyond reason. It’s literally irrational. Insane.
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It’s not surprising that CO2 concentration varies on a continuum. Not just across the earth’s surface, but vertically through the atmosphere.
Temperatures do the same.
A global average of either is utterly meaningless.
More importantly, I have never seen any measurements of temperature and CO2 concentration taken from the the same point on the planet. If one correlates with the other but the two parameters are not measured in synch with each other then any statistics are void of meaning.
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[…] Anyway, Japanese satellite measurements find more atmospheric CO2 over third world nations that the nations of the industrialized west. WTF? (ht Joe Nova). […]
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Nice, Jo.
Glad to see someone with a big voice on this.
As I said here, I’d love to see this blow up before the Carbon Trade Show convenes in Durban.
Could be more fun than Jokenhagen.
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(Snipped pointless attacks) CTS Similar waves of irrational, sensationalist propaganda preceded Copenhagen and Cancun. It’s not hard to understand why: IPCC AR4 pays their salaries. I can’t wait for Durban’s attempt to raise the bar on propaganda techniques and manipulation of news media. It’s a pity comedians are generally leftwing: reams of fabulous new material will go to waste.
(Please stay on topic) CTS
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Nah the theme for Durban is clear … the IPCC will be pushing the “all extreme weather events are attributble to climate change” meme. They are working on the paper as we speak. It was highlighted in the media a few days ago – I linked it here.
They had to move on from the man-made climate change statement because they already said man’s influence was unequivocal, and so there is no more mileage in that one. They need a new and more dangerous message…
See me after Durban and see if I wasn’t right 🙂
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(SNIPPED-gibberish) CTS
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Things look like they’re following the 10:10 plan to me.
But I thought the whole point by team catastrafaria was to export the evil polluderz to the developing world in the hope we could tax those evil poor people who make our crap for us?
This way we can bankrupt ourselves, preserve our natural resources and be able to blame the poor people for it as they strip their natural resources. Then maybe the eugenics movement can make a comeback under the guise of population control.
And the banks can make money every step of the way.
These graphs show the plan appears to be working so far. But it can only succeed if you all just shutup and be quiet.
Yours, the European Union branch of GS.
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Clearly the blame lies with those scumbag trees 🙂 (click thumbnail for pic).
If their carbon sequestration business wasn’t so unaccountable then the carbon broker’s profits would fix up the planet. Somehow.
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Jo,
I saw a comment from Anthony Watts on Judith Cuury’s site that recommended not wasting time on this. Apparently John O’Sullivan has some issues with credibility.
Is there anything directly from the Japanese about these results? It would be a shame if potentially game changing news like this were to be discounted due to the reporting source – i.e O’Sullivan.
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[…] has actually measured carbon dioxide emissions around the world. How the hell have they done it before then? Oh yes thats right, they just […]
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I think some caution is required. I do commend Joanne for giving this coverage, that action may force release of sufficient JAXA information and methodology for scientists worldwide to gain access for proper media interpretation. If valid information is withheld or indeed suppressed there is a huge risk with political/funding implications for the scientists involved, should they be caught out in some extended agenda to withhold information because of the Durban or to exclude for consideration in the IPCC report.
Japan has a great pride in the achievement of their scientists and satellite technology, so it won’t take Japanese journalists long to expose any dodgy concealment of results, so I would expect any concealment or deliberate suppression in those circumstances a scandal of huge political impact in Japan and of course the U.S.A.
Thank you Joanne, lets see where this progresses.
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Jo Nova,
the initial JAXA announcement that attracted John’s attention was that they had significantly REDUCED the uncertainty of the observations. Here is their paper:
http://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/sola/7/0/161/_pdf
Here is a direct link to the beautiful animation:
https://data.gosat.nies.go.jp/GosatBrowseImage/browseImage/XCO2_L3.gif
Over at Lucia’s Joel Heinrich suggested that all countries but Japan and German regularly filter or clean their data to remove peaks. Here are the charts he linked:
Ireland cleaned data
http://gaw.kishou.go.jp/cgi-bin/wdcgg/quick_plot.cgi?imagetype=png&dataid=200906040013
Germany full range
http://gaw.kishou.go.jp/cgi-bin/wdcgg/quick_plot.cgi?imagetype=png&dataid=200702142827
Greenland
http://gaw.kishou.go.jp/cgi-bin/wdcgg/quick_plot.cgi?imagetype=png&dataid=200702142206
Antarctica
http://gaw.kishou.go.jp/cgi-bin/wdcgg/quick_plot.cgi?imagetype=png&dataid=200702142995
Global graphs
http://gaw.kishou.go.jp/wdcgg/products/summary/sum35/11_plate2_co2.pdf
Home
http://gaw.kishou.go.jp/wdcgg/wdcgg.html
Interesting they feel the need to put so much effort into SHAPING the data!! Maybe to help reject Beck’s work showing that current levels of CO2 really aren’t much different from past measurements and to promote the fraud of the Ice Core mythologists?? Jaworowski and Segalstad are probably closer than Finglebeen.
This also tends to show that GHG’s are NOT well mixed. We alreday knew that about water vapor. Now we can start seeing the same for CO2!!!
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“Over at Lucia’s Joel Heinrich suggested that all countries but Japan and German regularly filter or clean their data to remove peaks.”
Must be some Axis powers habit.
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Perhaps we should just tax the third world countries,, 🙂
I see the usual trolls spinning like mad..
Great to see their responses..absolute comedic gold..
More please, 🙂
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The FACT is there is no empirical, scientific evidence for theoretical/imaginary catastrophic global warming, and the lack thereof can not have a cause. So we have a non-event without a cause which some would like to attributed to CO2?
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O/T: IT’s TIME TO TAKE ACTION ON EARTHQUAKES
This planet is out to get us. Earthquakes have claimed more lives than AGW in the last decade.
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I saw the data yesterday and I don’t understand the hype. Given man contributes overall about 4% to natural CO2 seasonal emissions, then even allowing for regional concentration, these composite CO2 charts are completely swamped by and thus essentially represent natural CO2 seasonal fluxes.
Therefore:
1. This will primarily help our understanding of natural carbon cycle.
2. You can’t compare areas in charts, as some have, without removing natural seasonal effects, i.e. by using only annual averages.
3. You can’t distinguish industrial from natural CO2, so you can’t possibly pull out the tiny industrial CO2 signal at the apparent accuracy of the data.
4. Unless we descend to the madness of accounting for and compensating for natural CO2 fluxes, it is premature to use it in the sceptic/warmist debate.
5. I am not sure how the data will fulfill the Japanese Institute’s claim:
But I am sure of the inevitable modelling papers, which will pull out adjusted CO2 signals orders of magnitude smaller than the satellite accuracy to argue climate political ends.
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Michael,
you are absolutely correct about the tiny contribution of man to the overall CO2 flux. What you ignore is that we are being told that the major contributions by humans are concentrated in the heavily industrialized countries and that we can solve the problem by cutting our use.
If this were even vaguely true we would be able to see SOME of that flux from our most heavily emitting areas. As only China shows up, and we don’t know it is their industry that shows as you point out, it hammers home the point that man’s contribution is totally innocous and mostly absorbed by sinks close to where produced leaving nothing man made building up in the atmosphere.
Yup, that is what Salby said and that is what the IPCC and rest of the alarmists cannot admit. We are NOT the source of the increasing CO2 levels.
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I really would be interested in what Ferdinand Englebeen thinks of this since he was a major critic of Professor Salby’s idea that ACO2 is not responsible for the increase in CO2.
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In regards to laying blame on who emits what, we need to be careful about reading too much into what’s in the atmosphere.
The atmosphere is turbulent. What gets emitted in one place quickly dissipates to another.
We always talk about the oceans as a carbon sink. However considering the bulk of the oceans is in the Southern Hemisphere, one would expect the greater seasonal fluctuations in that hemisphere.
But the opposite is true. The greater fluctuation is in the Northern hemisphere. this is where the great boreal forests live. These are the greatest carbon sinks of the planet.
So much so that it is claimed (for instance in the BBC documentary Planet Earth by David Attenbourgh) that during the growing season of just 3 months, the composition of Earths atmosphere changes measurably.
The Boreal forests (Taigas) take up immense amounts of CO2 and release enough Oxygen to raise Oxygen levels in the area to a level where regular forest fires occur even though temperatures are low and the ground is almost always moist.
I’m afraid we’ve spent plenty of money studying the effects of Global Warming on the mating habits of the three toed yellow bellied lesser frog and nowhere enough on the carbon cycle.
Something tells me that the AGW proponents would not want to know the truth about the carbon cycle.
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Something tells me the AGW proponents already know the truth about the carbon cycle and do all they can to keep it Hush Hush.
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Where are the climate boondoggle strong-arm pork-barrelling talks happening this year, Durban isn’t it?
Cue Danny DeVito…
S.A. Confidential – the climate celebrity scene where, dear readers, it is all very hush! hush!
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I don’t know Baa. I find this stuff quite interesting, because I haven’t thought about it before. As I understand it, the concentrations shown in the graphics are simply the total CO2 in a vertical column of atmosphere above that point. The similarity between methane & CO2 concentrations was (for me at least), surprising.
It is a shame, of course, that we couldn’t get satellite data like this before industrialisation 😉 Then we could see what changed.
Anyway, hopefully some smart person does some work on this and figures out why we see what is in the graphics.
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Sure and if you keep working at it we’ll regress to a point that is the same as pre- industrialization. Then you’ll have a whole bunch of things “to think about”.
If you are able to truly think.
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Hopefully John the smart person does it before we outlay trillions of dollars on something that does not exist.
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The oceans contain around 50x as much CO2 as the atmosphere. This means that atmospheric CO2 levels are controlled almost entirely by the temperature of the upper few hundred metres of ocean water according to Henry’s Law.
If you listen to David Attenborough you would assume that forests control CO2 levels. In reality they have a minuscule effect compared with geological processes. The overwhelming CO2 sinks are the production of insoluble carbonates in sea water and the weathering of rocks to form carbonate minerals. (Over 99.99% of carbon in the crust is stored as carbonate minerals). In fact if it wasn’t for regular volcanism all CO2 would eventually be sequestered as insoluble carbonates and all (non bacterial) life on Earth would cease.
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not for one moment do i believe poor countries will benefit from any of the tax-raising schemes being touted. in fact, i believe just as with the climate fund monies collected in the US, the monies will mostly go into general revenue:
3 Nov: Guardian: The G20 must tackle climate change
Action cannot be put off until the economic storm has passed. The poor countries most vulnerable to the extreme weather associated with climate change need help now
by Mary Robinson
(Mary Robinson, a former UN high commissioner for human rights and is president of Realising Rights: The Ethical Globalisation Initiative and honorary president of Oxfam International. She is a member of the Elders and supports the Every Human Has Rights campaign)
The poor countries most vulnerable to the floods, droughts, storms and other extreme weather associated with climate change need help now. The current famine in the Horn of Africa, where at least three-quarters of a million people are at risk of starvation, and the flooding across south Asia affecting more than 18 million people are just two examples of the sort of humanitarian emergencies already becoming more common.
It is rich countries whose emissions are overwhelmingly responsible for climate change. They have promised $100bn annually to help poor countries cope and to reduce their own emissions. But the fund agreed last year in Cancún has yet to be activated and no deal has been done to scale-up finance to those levels…
But there is a real chance that the G20, with the help of Bill Gates, could break the deadlock. His report on innovative financing for development, to be presented to leaders in Cannes, will propose two ways developed countries can raise the new revenues needed.
The first is a charge on the unregulated, high and rising carbon emissions from shipping and aviation. Both sectors must play their part in the fight against climate change, but in the near term, there is a particular opportunity for progress on pricing the emissions from ships – already responsible for more carbon pollution each year than Germany.
Oxfam and WWF have calculated that a moderate carbon price of $25 per tonne would generate $25bn per year by 2020, while raising the cost of global trade by less than $2 for every $1,000 traded…
A joint statement by the finance ministers of France and South Africa last month named shipping and aviation taxes as one of the building blocks of a potential deal when UN negotiations resume in Durban this month…
The political case for action is also strong. Polls show people want politicians to rein in banks’ bonus culture and make the financial sector pay its fair share and contribute to cleaning up the economic crisis it helped to cause. The spread of Occupy Wall Street type protests around the world shows the anger that is bubbling under the surface…
http://www.guardian.co.uk/global-development/poverty-matters/2011/nov/03/g20-tackle-climate-change
***note how they’re talking of taking in $700 billion in order to raise the $100 billion for a climate fund! and what a charming panel we have here:
Nov 2010: Bloomberg: Alex Morales and Jim Efstathiou Jr: Bank Tax, CO2 Auctions Recommended by Soros Panel to Help Climate Efforts
The panel, which includes billionaire investor George Soros and Larry Summers, director of President Barack Obama’s National Economic Council, said selling carbon-emissions permits would generate $38 billion and a financial transactions tax an additional $27 billion, according to the report released today.
The findings are intended to guide envoys at UN climate talks that start this month in Mexico as they seek ways to pay for $100 billion in climate aid that was pledged by 2020 to poor nations at last year’s summit in Copenhagen…
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon appointed the panel, called the High-Level Advisory Group on Climate Change Financing, in February. It’s led by Stoltenberg and Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi. The 21-member group also includes Soros, Summers and Deutsche Bank AG Vice Chairman Caio Koch- Weser.
The report didn’t specify what financial transactions would be covered by the tax beyond saying the focus would be on international currency sales…
“The ball is really now in the court of governments to move forward on generating these resources,” David Waskow, senior adviser on climate finance for the development charity Oxfam International, said in a telephone interview from Washington…
***A tax of 0.05 percent on financial transactions may raise as much as $700 billion a year, according to WWF, a Washington-based global environmental activist group…
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-11-05/soros-panel-draft-says-bank-taxes-c02-auctions-can-fund-climate-aid.html
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Pat
The thing is that taxing aviation and shipping you will be taxing mainly developing countries so will India and China go for being taxed on their aviation and shipping.
Seeing how China is making a push to source more of its raw material from Africa one could assume their shipping emissions are going to rise significantly.
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I notice from the noaa site the atmospheric CO2 growth rates have been falling for the last ten years how can that be if the emissions are rising year on year.
I guess Australia’s carbon tax is working already. 😉 🙂
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There are three real effects that would lower [CO2] growth rate recently.
* Biosphere sinking is up, because with higher CO2 the plants eat more of it, and warming improves growth too. I’m assuming this isn’t all released during decay in the dry season, and if you believe the fossil fuel theory of the origin of gas, oil, and coal, then you have to believe plants are a net sink over time. There is only so much bigger that plants can get within a given territory size so this pause is likely to be short lived. The plant “carbon bucket” has increased in size but it eventually fills up again. (Can’t say the same for algae in the oceans because they are limited by iron.)
* Anthropogenic sources are easing, because human population growth rate is decreasing across all income sectors.
* Hydrological sources are down, since the warming of the oceans stopped over the last decade they will vent CO2 at the same rate for a while until temperature changes.
Bonus:
* Rising global income means more efficient use of CO2 – that’s just a guess of mine, maybe you can find evidence for it???
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Of course, the counter argument for Australia is at http://www.csiro.au/greenhouse-gases/
Must compare apples with apples. The IBUKI data show global distribution, one place relative to another. Cape Grim shows a trend at one place.
I’m concerned by the lack of quantitative info in some of the JAXA material, like spectral analysis with absorption simply jabelled “higher” and “lower”. Probably I need to go to science papers rather than press releases.
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Actually, XCO2 shows CO2 CONCENTRATION in the column and not relative amounts. The animation is in XCO2.
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All very interesting.
Couple of things…
* Data preservation.
Jo you’re still hotlinking to JAXA for the main CO2 image
http://www.jaxa.jp/press/2009/05/img/20090829_ibuki_1e.gif
It may be a good time to rehost it on amazon (before JAXA get leaned on??)
* The blank areas.
The white areas in the animation are very inconsistent, sometimes it is coloured for the ocean, sometimes it is blank for the land. I hoped there was some sensor-related reason for this, otherwise it looks suspicious. In an older (Feb 2010) document from JAXA they say:
The spectral radiance data obtained by TANSO-FTS are selected by a condition that there is
no cloudy pixel within the view field of the FTS instrument.
…. GOSAT can provide data that are useful in comprehending the spatial and temporal variations
of the greenhouse gases over these regions whenever clear-sky conditions are satisfied.
Mmmm. The extent of blank area was still more than I would expect from cloud cover. So I checked. Intuition sucks! It is now obvious from the satellite animations that the Amazon jungle is practically a cloud factory, chugging out moisture every afternoon which blooms into clouds. Watch that page any day of the year and Brazil will probably look the same. It’s the same in March. This cloud persists long enough that it stops GOSAT from seeing all the CO2 that comes out of the jungle at night, but the few times it is clear sky it is indeed orange. This is one area where the ground based CO2 sensors can fill in the gap. Lots of blank gaps on equatorial Africa – same story. Puff puff puff goes the jungle!
So tinfoil hats are probably superfluous here.
* Carbon Hotspots
The only persistent carbon source that can be seen near China in the animation is… southern Vietnam and Cambodia, during the dry season. Not exactly a high-tech powerhouse, unless those Buddhist monks have found alternate ways of funding the temple upkeep! The fact it occurs in the coolest time of the year (January) is perhaps due to onset of more plant death by the much lower rainfall, but plant decay should peak at the warmest time (July) which is also when rainfall bumps up growth that absorbs the CO2 from previous season’s decay. This is my hypothesis for why January is the only time of a large net release from nature here. Also note the predominant wind pattern blows CO2 from China into Vietnam/Cambodia, so this jungle is absorbing perhaps around a quarter of whatever CO2 the Chinese industry produces.
* The dot in the Pacific ocean.
Obviously ocean measurements have been filtered out of the snapshot. But the main snapshot has a blue-green dot far off the East coast of South America. That’s not a mistake, it’s the Galapagos islands.
The dot is actually cyan-ish (00e6cd) and corresponds to 368ppm on the scale.
* Birds of a feather??
For comparison the area around Melbourne rates only slightly higher than the Galapagos, at 370..372 ppm for August, which is the same as Cairns, Arnhem Land, and … one spot in the Gibson Desert. In defence of nature, the desert scrub will be a carbon sink for half the year, whereas Melbourne itself will be a consistent source. When you consider the southern cape and Cairns are vastly more forested than the Gibson desert one has to question the accuracy of the snapshot. Best not to jump to conclusions about what is in the snapshot. The whole-year animation is surely closer to the truth.
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Good points Andrew; in respect of Australia, the Japanese research confirms what CSIRO already knew:
http://www.publish.csiro.au/paper/BT9920527.htm
That is, Australia is emission neutral with sinks adequately accommodating our emissions for the foreseeable future.
What was the justification for a carbon TAX again?
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To save the world and feel all warm and fuzzy.
BTW how much carbon offsets do we get for the foliage on the great dividing range.It must soak up a fair bit a year
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Thanks Andrew.
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As a useful comparison you should look at the population density map vs CO2 sources
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again, i ask the nuclear faction of CAGW to expose the scam seeing as they seem to have less at stake:
31 Oct: BBC: Belgium plans to phase out nuclear power
Belgium’s main political parties have agreed on a plan to shut down the country’s two nuclear power stations, but they have not yet set a firm date…
If alternative energy sources are found to fill the gap then the three oldest reactors will be shut down in 2015…
Belgium has seven reactors at two nuclear power stations, at Doel in the north and Tihange in the south. They are operated by Electrabel, which is part of GDF-Suez…
Belgium will need to replace 5,860 megawatts of power if it is to go ahead with the nuclear phase-out.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-15521865
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pat,
someone needs to figure out what percentage of Belgium would need to be covered with windmills and solar cells/reflectors to replace the reactors!!!!!
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Why is the XCO2 graph dated 29 August 2009?
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Its a fascinating capability, and another instrument of torture for the police superstate. This is all very well, for policing our future emissions though.
Don’t forget the UN already knew about this emmissions pattern, and constructed the notion of ‘historic climate debt’, or some such ( wish I could remrmber the exact term), to maintain the Developed World’s guilt in a healthy state of neuroses.
Most of the CO2 already up there, is supposedly theirs and not to mention it done most of the warming ( due to being first, what with the logarithmic effect an’ all that), so keep writing those cheques.
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What accounts for that extreme red dot, away up there in the Canadian Arctic ? (on the first world image above). .Is it real ?
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Oh Look, who doesn’t need a Carbon Tax the mostest, or could it be working already?
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I have to laugh at the replacement found on that Suite101 site, and the use of the words “global warming deniers” by the author:
http://www.suite101.com/news/japanese-study-of-carbon-dioxide-measurements—the-real-story-a395051
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So the red dots are correlated with high populations, and high populations are correlated with poverty..an argument over emissions per capita Vs emissions per country…boring. But WOOPS that means you have just published data that suggests humans contribute significantly to atmospheric C02 levels !! So now bring forth the loony arguments that C02 is not a greenhouse gas…
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Actually only SOME of the red dots are associated with higher population density and/or industrial/technological CO2 release. Your job, if you decide to accept it, is to find out why these dots, do not appear to have significant plumes which would show there is some chance that they would contribute to a general increase of Global CO2 levels as opposed to being absorbed by local sinks. The animation should assist you in this task, although not definitively.
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I think George Pell has all the answers.
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Jo,
Co2 was never the culprit. But heating of gases has changed the atmospheric density.
Currently there is vast amounts of cold coming down from the Arctic with populations unprepared with the AGW scare and economic crises(governments never admit this).
http://iceagenow.info/
Science still has no looked at the salt concentration changes to the surface of the oceans except to fluff it off as no meaning.
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Totally Wrong.
The red dots are mostly concentrated in arid regions with low populations and almost no industry. The highest levels are CO2 occur in the almost empty deserts of the Sahara and Inner Mongolia.
The slightly elevated CO2 levels are most likely due to a lack of CO2 absorbing vegetation rather than any human activities.
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This is a reply to Not a groupie #49.
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Did my comment get stuck in the spam filter?
—
REPLY: No all comments get checked the first time.
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Maybe we could get a version of this common graphic:
with the vegetation cycle for rich and poor nations shown separately?
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Sorry, image did not post. Link here.
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I wouldn’t mind IF they labelled it as the CO2 cycle rather than the “carbon” cycle.
Carbon is in a lot of things, we are carbon based, but the all of the frantic claims are dealing with carbon-dioxide. Granted carbon is a part of that gas, but it is the minor part, otherwise it would be C2O.
Letting people slide on that just allows for more crap science as anyone who has taken even a high school chemistry class should know the difference between CO2 and C.
As an example of how bad things have gotten a person who claims to be a nurse (professionally trained and educated in human biology one would hope) was reviewing their purchase of a carbon-monoxide detector and stated something along the lines of CO2 contamination being a risk of running portable generators after a hurricane (this person lives in Florida).
Unfortunately for this person a CO detector isn’t sniffing for CO2. But with all the use of the word carbon, carbon footprints, people writing Co2 rather than CO2, etc. most people don’t know what they hell it is they are talking about anymore. In their mind they may realize what they are intending to refer to but they don’t know how to correctly describe it any longer.
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What’s with the single red CO2 dot and the green methane dot in the Canadian Arctic? I blame the polar bears–there used to by 5,000 of them in the 1950s and now there are 20,000. It must be their fault.
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Eskimo flatulence?
Sorry, but I just had to.
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On top of the fact that as plants grow more quickly because of elevated CO2 they then absorb more CO2 as they become larger, there is evidence that deciduous trees are delaying senescence because of elevated CO2 thus increasing their total annual CO2 absorption even more.
“Future atmospheric CO2 leads to delayed autumnal senescence”
It seems that plants just can’t get enough of the stuff! I will speculate that the sharp NEGATIVE change of CO2 concentration we see for about 6 months out of every year is going to increase in magnitude due to increased plant production from both increased photosynthesis per day and from an increase in days via delayed senescence. It then becomes obvious that if the planet warms up enough to keep plants from freezing in early spring and late fall – the increases will overwhelm the rate of supply and slow the overall trend of CO2 increase.
The planet is on auto-pilot thanks not only to negative radiative feedback from cloud formation but apparently also from the dynamic relationship between plant life and CO2 itself. Two inconvenient areas of science that the climate gravy train shills seek to avoid, misrepresent or otherwise dismiss from the equation.
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To be filed under “It’s worse than we thought”, and surprisingly, for me, on topic 😛
http://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/greenhouse-emissions-exceed-worst-case-scenario-20111104-1mzzh.html
GHGs jumped up substantially in the last year, or as they like to say repeatedly “carbon pollution.” And the big three polluters? drum roll please… China, the US and India. Sorry Australia, you don’t come close to placing.
Odd isn’t it, that despite the massive increases in “carbon pollution” they make no mention that the temperature record is travelling largely sideways in the last decade.
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SMH is like that. Today they have their nickers in a twist about 50 earth tremors at gas project in England way back in May.
They for some reason beyond the ken of non-green/progressives don’t mention the 400 earth tremors at the clean green Icelandic geothermal plant in September. How could they be so neglectful? Shocking, it is, shocking!
It could be that I’ve might’ve resorted to irony. I blame the SMH for corrupting my delicate sensibilities.
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Being drawn into a discussion of the importance of CO2 levels pre-supposes the acceptance of CO2 induced cagw/cacc (catastrophic anthropogenic climate change). The only important CO2 levels is 150 ppm at which plants stop growing. Please don’t be tricked into accepting the orthodoxy that cagw/cacc is real.
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Jo –
Okay, bluntly: I think J O’S has picked up on some bizarre story badly done/worked up as a prank or punk on skeptics. CO2 emissions as noted on the other JAXA graph show the emitters as having higher CO2 airborne levels than the global average. Of course the curves will drift down away from the point sources (cities/industrial plants). Maybe even rotting vegetation shows up as a source for some of the year. Look at the up-and-down variation of CO2 in the Mauna Loa records as they reflect the summer and winter biologic cycle of the northern hemisphere. That graph could be a snapshot that means nothing – if it is real.
I don’t trust this J O’S story. I’d say he got fired for jumping the gun (or shark), for being too rabid with not enough facts behind him.
When a story is too good, sort of thing. As noted by at least one other of your readers.
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Doug,
you need to look at the animation of 2 years of data from Ibuki. Too bad no one has accessed their data and worked up some evaluations. Whether John or someone else displayed it, the data is what it is. The initial announcement was for them having substantially REDUCED the UNCERTAINTY in a very iffy detection procedure of CO2 in the atmosphere. Their data is probably the best available right now. Check the links in my post above for their paper and the animation.
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There is another effect to consider. In theory, the concentrations of gases at a place have to sum to 100%. If CO2 drops from one colour band to another in these images, that’s say 380 to 378 ppm, a change of 0.5%. That amount of change can easily be obscured by a change in concentration of water vapour of 0.5%. So, what you are seeing on these images is not just CO2, but also the dilution/concentration of other gases that change the way you sum to 100%. Indeed, I’d go so far as to say that the images represent water vapour more than CO2. You can get some confirmation of this by seeing if the same effect applies to methane, and it seems to be moving roughly the same way as CO2. So, please use care.
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This is more likely to be apparent, ironically, in desert areas where moisture levels are low and hence small fluctuations in water vapour are likely, as a percentage, to be a far greater proportional change. Perhaps this also explains the JAXA data showing increased CO2 fluxes in desert and sparsely populated regions.
Aside from this, I believe this JAXA data suggests that rather than a global concern, CO2 fluxes are likely to be far more loco-regional than was assumed by policy makers, who are merely trooping the colour for the “we all breathe the same air” doctrine to apportion blame to the West disproportionately. Certainly, it gives good credence to the idea that Australia contributes very little, if even at all, on a global level to CO2, and it is probably pretty absurd to talk of “average global temperature” and “average” global CO2 as if these concepts have any real bearing on reality. Deforestation and land clearing locally would seem to be a large pre-determinant of what contributes to atmospheric CO2 fluxes. The IPCC and their ilk seem to concentrate on over-emphazing amounts emitted, and treating amounts absorbed as some kind of global constant, which the booming biosphere clearly is not. Those countries that maintain good protection of forests (including plantation forestry when well managed), have good farming land management, etc allow their biosphere to compensate more adequately than those who physically negate the natural compensation mechanisms through poor land management practices. Emissions, and hence energy production which contributes mostly to it, IMO is the lesser part of the equation, and hence should not be targeted needlessly for punitive taxation and fraudulent carbon markets. So, even if you buy into CO2 being a problem (which I don’t), this data suggests to me that enhancing the natural compensation mechanisms of the planet would be a better point of emphasis if any “action” needs to be taken at all.
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Geoff, Winston, these are good points.
This tallies with my earlier observation that Melbourne, Arnhem land, and the Gibson Desert can get similar readings from GOSAT.
JAXA said it needed to be clear of clouds, but it had not occurred to me that water vapour in any form would throw off the readings.
I think you’ve nailed what’s wrong with this CO2 picture. Too much water noise, especially near a coastal forest like the Dandenongs and a humid forest region like Arnhem land. Even if we aren’t the experts on GOSAT, these alternate sources of noise seem plausible.
There’s unlikely to be moisture noise over deserts, so bright spots there would be real CO2 that has blown in from outside the desert and just stays there because there’s no rain to wash it into the ground and no plants to absorb it.
Winston, it seems the answer is that trees need to sell carbon credits to the atmosphere. How dare these forests proceed irresponsibly by sinking all this carbon with no receipts and accountability. The Ents are scamming the banksters out of money!
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That might explain the strange synchronisation of the CO2 and CH4 levels from JAXA. Someone needs to figure this stuff out.
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Geoff,
Here is the link to their paper again where thy claim a much improved reduction in UNCERTAINTY in the detection of CO2:
http://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/sola/7/0/161/_pdf
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Here’s Susan Solomon “We call this the 10, 10, 10 problem. A 10% drop in water vapour, 10 miles up has had an effect on global warming over the last 10 years.” Until now, scientists have struggled to explain the temperature slowdown in the years since 2000, a problem climate sceptics have exploited.”
I can see 3 ways that CO2 and water vapour get mixed up and are hard to unravel
1.The classical explanation that both absorb IR at various wavelengths and that there is a possibility of spectral interference
2. The similarly classical explanation that CO2 greenhouse effect is amplified by water vapour (the fedback in the sensitivity equation)
3.The gas dilution problem I summarised above. I know that they use mole fractions to express concentration, but they also have to assume various adiabats from dry to moist and estimate moisture content for the height profiles. This is an inexact science. An unremarkable error in estimation of water vapour content can lead to a shift in CO2 of a few ppm no trouble at all.
I’ve never looked into it, but if Susan Solomon’s earlier assertions are correct, then water vapour at stratospheric levels seems to have varied quite a lot, depending on altitude. See
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/327/5970/1219.abstract
Does this variation extend to ground level and affect CO2 levels at Cape Grim? I’ve never thought it through, the diluton effect only occurred to me today and I have not seen it in other papers. I suspect not. The Takagi paper does not seem to address this effect at all, unless I missed it in a quick read. Most emphasis has been on complex IR effects, not on simple additions to 100%.
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Geoff,
why don’t you just read the Japanese scientists’ paper?!?!?!?!?!
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KuhnKat,
I’ve read the paper for the 4th time and I can see only very oblique references to the point I have raised, such as the type of adiabat that they use in their calibration models. Most of the discussion is about reconciliation with CO2 sources and sinks and matching with ground-based measurements on a line from Charleville to Tokyo.
Let me be more clear. If (by an impossible mechanism) the amount of water vapour (a gas) was to double in the air, this would halve the molar concentration of CO2, since all has to add to 100%. Think of doing it in a flask – you would have to remove half the contents before adding the water. Use the same logic with more physical figures and you’ll find it possible that CO2 at surface is being affected by just the same mechanism, to an amount that JAXA claims it can see. Also note that the JAXA numbers in this paper have a “fudge factor” of over 8 ppm artificially introduced as an uncertainty.
Maybe to save me some time you could quote the para that you think answers my query. I’m interested, because in my general readings I have never seen this effect mentioned except in rather specialised locations, like ozone reaction altitudes and methane removal altitudes.
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Geoff,
Solomon’s issues have nothing to do with MEASUREMENT. What is your issue with MEASURING that you seem to think makes this BETTER data not worth looking at? (not saying it is perfect or without error)
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rarely do i see the MSM write articles about the billions of dollars of subsidies for the exploitation of fisheries by the EU, Asia, and others whose gigantic industrial trawlers (sometimes referred to as “floating football fields”) gobble up the oceans fish off Africa, Latin America, etc at an alarming and unsustainable rate. thousands of tonnes of unfavoured species are simply dumped overboard dead.
however, given a good “futuristic” CAGW storyline, the MSM are all over it:
4 Oct: SMH: AAP: Victoria Bruce: Aussie marine life climate change threat
Professor Carlos Duarte, director of the Oceans Institute at the University of Western Australia, was part of the study led by Scottish academic Dr Mike Burrows and published in the journal Science…
He said marine life in the oceans around Australia’s Coral Triangle, including waters off New Guinea, Indonesia and the Solomon Islands, was most at risk because of the speed of change.
“The velocity of climate change is much faster in the northern hemisphere and is particularly fast in the marine region north of Australia as well as the nation’s east coast,” Professor Duarte said.
Climate change wasn’t as rapid in waters south of Australia and was “moderate” off the west coast, he said…
http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-national/aussie-marine-life-climate-change-threat-20111104-1mzkw.html
that Carlos is partly funded by the EU and Spanish Govt doesn’t surprise me at all. and of course it’s all about taxes and monies:
7 Oct: The Conversation: Carlos Duarte: Loss of Arctic sea ice: don’t let the GFC distract you, climate change is happening
Disclosure: Carlos Duarte has received funding for research on Arctic ecosystems and changes from the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation and the European Union. He is Research Professor with the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), IMEDEA, Mallorca, Spain.
Addressing the environmental basis of human well-being requires the concerted action of governments, scientists and industry. There must be a focus on delivering solutions rather than restating the problems.
There is huge potential for innovation. It will be capitalised by those societies able to deploy an entrepreneurial approach towards generating the needed outcomes.
Australia is strategically poised to take a leading role in developing this potential. The persistence and salience of the carbon tax debate has ensured climate change remains high in the nation’s political agenda…
http://theconversation.edu.au/loss-of-arctic-sea-ice-dont-let-the-gfc-distract-you-climate-change-is-happening-3527
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Who knows what these early results mean. As usual sceptics doing a pile on with little thought. There are seasonal aspects, savanna fires (seasonal), droughted areas, flooded areas – lots of emitting and sinking of CO2 as the biosphere does its thing …. much of the global graphs are blank – who knows what radiometric and aerosol correction factors are needed to make sense of the CO2 imagery. The time trace simply isn’t long enough either.
http://cdiac.ornl.gov/trends/co2/sio-keel.html strange that a global transect shows a similar continuous evolving story of steady atmospheric increase with a smaller annual seasonal cycle..
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Andrew,
read their paper:
http://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/sola/7/0/161/_pdf
or do you prefer talking without information??
A hint, it is virtually impossible to detect CO2 concentrations through cloud cover.
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I think you can see from comments above that many of the posters are urging caution in interpreting this. What it does show, however, is that there is much we don’t know having such limited understanding of all the mechanisms involved, based on a number of assumptions that have as yet not been vindicated by observations, and often contradicted by them. Running around like headless chickens, acting for the sake of acting, taxing large swathes of the population without any idea whether it’s justified, compromising our energy sources and economic viability on the basis of half-baked suppositions, is STUPID. Or perhaps you’d like to attempt to justify the “direction” our political masters are taking as being the paragon of enlightenment, Andrew. So, who is it exactly that is showing “little thought”! We are the ones who are saying- Hang on a minute, don’t be so hasty! Until you know precisely what your doing, don’t make any rash decisions that compromise our viability as a nation, a global community or even as a species.
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Andrew Marven
November 5, 2011 at 1:15 pm · Reply
You state
Andrew, you need to revise what you say: This is directly opposite to what IPCC state:
You cannot have it both ways!
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China is no longer a “developing country”.
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Anyone with a growth rate consistently around 10% is developing pretty well…
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The term “developing” country is just the new politically correct term for what used to be second world… in the ranking first-second-third. The PC variant is now developed-developing-underdeveloped. Like words to describe ethnic minorities, they have to change from time to time because the previous versions become stigmatised and no longer acceptable to the PC crowd.
In my opinion, he distinction is best made on average per capita income, in which case China is certainly not developed world yet, but getting there rapidly. One has to remember that hundreds of millions of people in China still live in underdeveloped standards of poverty, despite all the flashy buildings appearing in the major cities. Nothing unusual about that.
Looking at wikipedia it appears the PC crowd are already starting to dislike the “developing” classification:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Developing_country
Expect a new norm to describe countries to appear in the not-too-distant future to satisfy the sensisbilities of the progressives.
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OT , on the unfolding crisis in Europe .
New cracks are begining to show in the financial edifice of Europe. French President insults UK’s Prime Minister and then a journalist in the same vein.
Apparently Monsieur Le President gets irritated by a small island nation meddling in the affairs of Europe.
Perhaps he now has some inkling of how it feels for all the small nations being dictated to & meddled with by his overbearing EU.
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Dear Jo and Community,
Thanks for this and for me it underscores a question I have and would appreciate any comments.
And my question is, How much is too much Carbon Dioxide?
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I decree that to be something over 5000, about what you have to breathe in a poorly ventilated and crowded office environment.
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The Australian workplace safety standard for CO2 is 5000 ppm for 8 hours continuous exposure. That’s about 13 times the present average atmospheric concentration. However most humans can readily tolerate CO2 up to about 10,000 ppm. At 30,000 ppm , the sort of exposure cave explorers can be subject to, it’s time to get really worried.
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Just to balance the ledger and for those warmists who seem to suffer brain extinction at as low as 400 ppm, excess O2 also can be dangerous:
“Oxygen toxicity is a condition resulting from the harmful effects of breathing molecular oxygen (O2) at elevated partial pressures. It is also known as oxygen toxicity syndrome, oxygen intoxication, and oxygen poisoning. Historically, the central nervous system condition was called the Paul Bert effect, and the pulmonary condition the Lorrain Smith effect, after the researchers who pioneered its discovery and description in the late 19th century. Severe cases can result in cell damage and death, with effects most often seen in the central nervous system, lungs and eyes. Oxygen toxicity is a concern for scuba divers, those on high concentrations of supplemental oxygen (particularly premature babies), and those undergoing hyperbaric oxygen therapy.”
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I forgot to point out the past success of life at such levels and higher.
(From Geo Craft)
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Something over 5000 eh?
So that’d be ~3.5 doublings of C02.
Using Jo’s apparent climate sensitivity of approx 1C per doubling, that’s a 3.5C rise in global temperature averages over today’s temperatures. Say goodnight, Gracie.
The problem is, Jo’s estimation of sensitivity isn’t supported by paleoclimatology, which estimates the climate sensitivity to lie somewhere within the 2C to 4.5C range.
Sure climate has changed a lot before in fairly short periods (like over 20,000yrs), and life persisted, but it resulted in mass extinctions.
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Tristan,
I see you are still SPECULATING as to the conditions that no human has ever seen again. It sure does make it a lot easier to make stuff up to support your bias doesn’t it??
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Bah, not even up to the Eocene Optimum.
But 3.5 C would get us nicely back to Miocene territory. Sounds yummy. I bags a villa on the coast near Mt Erebus, but not too close.
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Kuhnkat’s belief seems to be: If a human hasn’t experienced it, it’s speculating. Well, he can run with that.
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Tristan’s belief apparently is that if someone imagines something that supports what he wants to believe it must have happened.
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Amazing isn’t it? Historical records show that there have been periods where the CO2 level was much, much higher while temperatures were lower. It would also appear there have been periods where the temperature was higher but the CO2 level lower.
All of this in comparison to both values in the present day. The world continued to move along and didn’t burn up or become so cold that all life ceased.
Yet today, supposedly educated and intelligent people ignore the historical evidence to claim that CO2 will cause runaway warming, or extreme weather events, or whatever they can come up with to try and maintain a scare in order to drive a political agenda.
I don’t even know what to call it anymore they’ve changed the name so many times. But I fully expect if we wait long enough we’ll be seeing studies claiming anthropogenic C02 causes male pattern baldness, impotence, birth defects, and anything else they can cook up.
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The Late Ordovician Period was an Ice Age while at the same time CO2 concentrations were ~10 times higher than today.
However, it is the relationship between CO2 and solar output that largely determines temperature and the solar output was much lower back then.
The CO2:solar output:temperature relationship is supported, rather than disproved, by the paleoclimate record.
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I see you still have no proof that CO2 is causing any of what is claimed, just more quotes and claims from warmest sites which also can’t prove it is causing any of what is claimed.
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That’s interesting. What was the solar output back then Tristan?
How does that equate with the CO2 levels of the time to produce the said ice age. (some equations with TSI and CO2 warming in WM2 would be good)
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Baa,
The solar output was something like ~4% lower. If you want to explore the details of the glaciation that occurred during the late Ordovician and how it related to the C02 levels (I understand that the process started when CO2 was lower), I recommend asking someone with far more knowledge than me.
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Tristan how about we first do our own work instead of asking someone else. If we get stuck somewhere we can then ask someone whom we think knows better/more.
First go to this website
About halfway down the page you’ll find an interactive tool where you can adjust solar insolation to see what difference it makes to Earths temperature.
Let me know by how much Earths T drops with a solar insolation reduced by 4%. then we’ll add the extra forcing by the 10x CO2 to see if we can induce an ice age.
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I appreciate your offer, Baa, but no thanks. I don’t have the ability to evaluate whomever’s tool that is.
Feel free to explore that with someone more able to explain the relationship though! 🙂
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You don’t have the ability to push a slider back n forth? But you can type can’t you, that means you have the ability but are unwilling to get into anything which might expose your bullshit.
That also means the bulk of your statements are memes from others, as long as they’re from the pro AGW side. Pathetic.
So Tristan, you comment here at Jos not because you have something meaningful to contribute, but because you like to distrupt threads?
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I didn’t say ‘operate’ darlin, I said ‘evaluate’. Keep
troltrying to denigrate me, though, it illustrates a lot.10
I’ve read that US submarines which remain submerged for months on end work on a CO2 ceiling of 8000ppm. I guess CO2 scrubbers don’t work well down at 1000ppm.
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Actually, the radiative forcing of CO2 is required by the fundamentals of physics. If you feel like educating yourself, maybe someone at one of those warmest[sic] sites will help you out.
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Tristan,
The fact that radiative physics shows that CO2 absorbs and radiates IR says absolutely NOTHING about what happens before and after making it pointless to discuss our of the context of the actual atmosphere and WHERE in the atmosphere it is located as the net functions vary depending on temperature, pressure, and the amount of IR in the area. not to mention winds…
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Tristan @ 67.2.3
Fair suck of the sauce bottle mate. Up until only twelve months ago you and your high priests were insisting that Total Solar Irradiation (TSI) varied by too little to account for ANY variance in temperature. It’s in the IPCC reports, so it MUST be true – consensus science.
Besides, the only ESTABLISHED (by empirical measurement as opposed to ‘computer modelling’) “relationship between CO2 and solar output” is that decreased solar output causes the oceans to cool, thereby ABSORBING more CO2.
Since cooling oceans ultimately means cooling atmosphere anyway, we don’t actually NEED any junk science that attempts to link CO2 levels to explain anything.
As an aside, it also blows the whole “global warming causes ocean acidification” out of the water too.
You really do make it up as you go along, don’t you?
Pray tell, where in “fundamental physics” (outside of a climate science computer model) is “radiative forcing of CO2” required to to explain anything to do with atmospheric temperatures?
While I’m here, how did your chat with John Cooke go about his sly habit of “disappearing” skeptic comments over at Septic Science?
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Kuhn
That all sounds like hand waving to me. If you want to argue the science, the folk at SkS will be happy to oblige, although you’ll have to be polite. Don’t take my word for it, post there 🙂
Mv (my old friend)
Page 66 of IPCC’s First Assessment Report (1990).
Cook hasn’t responded, though I haven’t seen any untoward moderation. People get a lot of warnings. Anyway, I’d love to see you play Galileo over at SkS. 😉
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@Tristan
The problem has nothing to do with physics not working, the problem is the horrendous audacity to claim that the models using only rudimentary physics somehow represent reality. As only one example, they do not know the physics of cloud formation well enough to represent their effect accurately and that is ADMITTED by the IPCC.
Suppose earth’s temperature was the level of water in a bucket with water pouring in at the top and water flowing out of a bunch of holes at the bottom and some along the sides. The diameter of only ONE small hole at the bottom is inversely proportional to amount of CO2 concentration. Over half of the other holes are poorly understood, some holes aren’t even discovered yet. Those and there is a big valve called cloud cover regulating the rate of water flowing in and BIG assumptions were made about it.
So while you want us to focus on the physics of one small hole, you expect us to ignore the uncertainties of big ones like water vapor that not only provides 95% of the GH effect but form those clouds as well. You want us to ignore the unknown holes such as a recently discovered one concerning increasing dimethylsulfide from marine algae. Where’s THAT in your precious ‘model’?
Your climate models aren’t worth *&^$!
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Yet somehow these worthless models seem to perform alright.
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Wrong! We aren’t even quite as warm as Hansen’s Model scenario C which assumed we had made drastic CO2 emission reductions to hold CO2 to 368 ppm after year 2000.
That was the climate ‘modeling’ that he used in testimony to US Congress – the ONLY kind of ‘modeling’ anyone should care about because it’s that kind that led to wasting our hard earned tax money on subsidies for unproven ‘green’ technology, helped curtail oil and gas exploration raising prices, and gave the leftist media carte blanche to claim anyone who didn’t believe Hansen and the IPCC was a ‘denier’. BUT HE WAS WRONG! The proof of that is the temperature record itself which now makes you and John Cook the deniers.
It figures that you kowtow to someone like John Cook who back-edits his blog entries?
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Your response is ‘Hansen 1988’s model was wrong’? That supposedly invalidates GCMs?
Hansen definitely thought there’d be considerably more warming than we’ve seen. Hansen was wrong about two things. The BAU emissions rate and (probably) the climate sensitivity. The actual radiative forcings since his prediction are about 5% less than his scenario B. Climate sensitivity hasn’t been pinned down but it’s more likely than not that his value of 4.2C is too high, the best guess is more like 3.0C.
All the same, at the heart of it, Hansen made a pretty bold claim, and it was largely supported. He said the rate of warming would increase and it did. If you look here, compare the trend of the past 30 years of temperatures when he made that prediction (58-88), to the trend when you extend the analysis to today.
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For the record, I don’t kowtow to John Cook…I’d consider kneeling before Albatross though. 😉
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Here is another good comment on the whole CAGW movement. Sentiments that are hard to argue against.
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For you Perthites, you might not be aware that the Greens have brought their personal brand of crazy down to Fremantle this weekend:
http://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/a/-/national/11384078/greens-the-anti-absurd-party-says-brown/
But wait, what’s this? Brown says they are the party of sensible policy, the “anti-absurd party” as he put it. He was not slow to comment that this is also the party that wants to erradicate humans:
Presumably what the sensible party had to say after that was a tad too sensible for the media, because the caucus (a bit of a grandiose term for a clutch of cuckoos) voted to have the later sessions closed to the media. Oh to be a fly on the wall … one is always in need of a good bellylaugh.
At this point I think the following Python sketch seems apropos:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=31FFTx6AKmU
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OK this story is interesting:
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/higher-education/dutch-professor-faked-data-for-years/story-e6frgcjx-1226185685336
It appears a social psychologist in the Netherlands was faking data to publish papers. Well this isn’t climate science, I admit… but then I bet there’s a heck of a lot more money at stake in the climate field than social psych. The bigger the incentive, the greater the reward for cheating, and the greater need to cover it up and keep the money flowing.
It’s human nature, we know it happens… if in doubt read either of the Freakonomics books by Levitt and Dubner. Or watch the movie … or read the blog. Do deny humans cheat, even those in respectible positions of power, is to be self-delusional to the extreme.
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Good for the grad. students for detecting the fraud and for blowing the whistle.
Stapel’s previous collaborators were less wise, relying upon his authority.
All in the pursuit of fraudScience.
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Bulldust, good tip,
Link seems to be additionally picked up on and expanded today on WUWT Tips n Notes
http://wattsupwiththat.com/tips-notes-3/#comment-789242
Note also the paper on the remarkable errors in medical science inc generational errors!!. Transcription and publishing errors Jo would be v interested in; the field of medical research, particularly genetics and/or the huge investments won for projects premised on evidence which in turn support ‘evidence-based grants, policy’ and fed/state expenditure.
http://www.biomedicalcomputationreview.org/7/2/9.pdf
(cf Bob Oct 27th http://wattsupwiththat.com/tips-notes-3/#comment-779820)
The ever memorable Scarlet (18/10 WUWT http://wattsupwiththat.com/tips-notes-3/#comment-770643)….
Once a jolly Sheila
tried to run Australia
under the shade of a wind-turbine tree
and she laughed and she sang
as she introduced a carbon tax…….
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waltzing_Matilda)
seems to have beaten Tom Keneally at the post.
Tom, our very own Australian fictional-cum-historian, see Geoffrey Blainey’s [polite] account The Australian 5/11 of the ‘history’ Keneally has written about Australian[s].
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/arts/australian-stories/story-fn9n8gph-1226182254890 )
I mean.. Keneally also wrote The Chant of Jimmy Blacksmith, a tale detailing one individual and his anger [justified by Keneally] leading to retribution; a litany of the grossest slaughter of women and children if ever there was one.
And then as some Australian artistes are so capable of doing, Schepisi directed a film of Keneally’s ‘historical novel’, serving further to justify the slaughter of women and children by one angry male. Schepisi then outdid himself for $ once more and directed another film of injustice against women and children Evil Angels. After the fact.
One wonders how much longer decent men and women have to put up with the ‘cultural and historical illiteracy and deception‘ of which some Australian writers and musicians are monotonously culpable.
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Rohan Baker #3.1.1.2, you are spot on. For limestone to release its CO2, must be heated first to high temperatures. Similar as wood doesn’t release much carbon, unless burned. Coral / shells absorb carbon – limestone is full of it, but you are prepared to stick to the truth – good on ya.
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Are you sure?
Are there no chemical reactions that can be initiated which would result cause the limestone to release CO2? You know like in a solution that has free hydrogen ions? (Not that that’s likely in our alkaline oceans.)
Forgive me if I mis-remember or if the laws of chemistry have changed since 1977.
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bananabender #3.2 As one bananabender to another: it’s a great mistake to put CO2 together with methane. CO2 is fire retardant gas – methane is the most flammable, will not see it around volcanoes. Will not see any methane in deserts also, because UV burns it in minutes. The worse lies are circulating about methane – everything is wrong and back to front. See on the page ”methane CH4” on my website for correct proofs: http://globalwarmingdenier.wordpress.com
There are much more extensive proofs in the PDF form. In my book are even more detailed proofs. If you are from outside Brisbane’s rat-hole, where methane is produced; leave your postal address on my website – I will send you few copies of my book. Your address will not pear where people can see it. By the way, when on the subject; will somebody tell me: how to make comments from people that don’t use 4 letter words and similar – their comments; instantly to show?
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Stefan – unfortunately if you know chemistry there is a difference between thermodynamic and kinetic outcomes. CH4 has quite a high activation energy barrier, so it will persist in presence of O2 for quite a time. I haven’t read up on the subject (aside from PhD in chemistry and 30 years in that field) but I suspect the detailed mechanism for removal from the atmosphere is photochemical UV mediated, with the UV photons adding the required Ea to get over the energy hump. It may be singlet oxygen though that does it, which also is formed by UV. I’d favour the former though as if you hit a CH4 molecule and bust it up (eg CH4 -> .CH3 + .H) then the radicalized methane would latch onto any passing O2 molecule. Otherwise a singlet oxygen molecule would have trouble finding a CH4 to react with, give the concentration is ppm.
Of course if you are in the explosive range the CH4 will all go up in a rather er, energetic and fast reaction. But outside of the the right mix it will sit around quite happily for a long time. Which is fortunate otherwise it would be impossible to mine coal underground.
I should also note that measurements of climate sensitivity by people like Lindzen and Spencer are actually measuring a combined climate sensitivity including CH4, N2O etc, not just CO2. So a doubling of CO2 might not give an 0.7 C increase if CH4 did not also double at the same time. In any case a 2XCO2 value around 0.7 C is too low to be harmful.
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That is potentially the MOST inconvenient thing, (for alarmists), I have ever seen – that increasing CO2 in a MIXTURE of gases that include some of greater greenhouse potential than CO2, may in reality DECREASE the overall forcing of the mixture.
The idea emerged about a year ago from Nasif Nahle and now here is his paper that passed review last April.
(translated to English BTW)
If that is true it COMPLETELY explains the disconnect between the lame Hansen models and reality. CO2 may in fact truly have as much impact on earth’s temperature as do US postal rates as Joanne jokingly speculated a while back.
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The Skeptic text on this page is just as bias. 2] most of the commentators are passing themselves as Skeptics – but forget that CO2 + CH4 are not a Greenhouse gases – same as H2O is not a greenhouse gas. H2O + CO2 are ”shade-cloth affect gases” methane (CH4) doesn’t even get more than few metres above the ground, sinks in the ground, better than water from shower / heavy gas. And stays in the ground for million years.
Data of how much CO2 is on individual place in the atmosphere is misleading also. Depends what time of the day is collected. Because the surrounding oxygen is transparent to the sunlight; the two oxygen atoms are warmed by the carbon atom in the CO2 molecule – that extra warmth makes them to expand = during the day CO2 is high up. At night, the carbon atom in the CO2 molecule loses the benefit of intercepting sunlight / cannot keep the two oxygen atoms in the molecule warm – falls down – that’s why the trees are most active after 9PM. People that avoid reading what is on my website are ”the pretend Skeptics” THE TRUTH WILL WIN.
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Bruce of New Castle # 73.1 , anybody that; instead of simplifying it for the people on the street; instead piles up crap, has his / her own reason for it. Methane in New Castle has being in the coal for millions of years. If not disturbed, would be there for much longer. Where you learned in your chemistry knowledge about the UV in the coalminers… We are talking about methane above the ground. Imposing ”permission to fart tax” to the farmers.
For you looks very complicated to light methane, but person not suffering from Warmist disease; all he / she needs is, to click on the cigarette lighter. Methane was in the ground in New Castle, because is heavier than air on sea-level. What is above the ground, sinks as natural sequestration of carbon; without oxygen in it(what is the case in CO2 sequestration)
The amount of natural gas is burned is tremendous. Every molecule PERMANENTLY turns 4 oxygen atoms into 2H2O + CO2. How much oxygen is depleted PERMANENTLY from the atmosphere? ONLY CREATION OF NEW METHANE REVERSES THE DAMAGES!!! You are trying to argue with me… If you know any chemistry, you would understand, what less oxygen means for the atmosphere / climate. Only small example: Because of the earth’s centrifugal force – the polar caps don’t get as thick blanket of air / less oxygen as insulator = more extreme temperature on the whole planet.
Burning methane / natural gas is: destroying oxygen as free agent. Creating methane is; reversing the damages. Gas burned in industry, transport, household use, in those big flames on thousands of oil rigs… I am the only one trying to point those damages, others that promote gas are the shonky scientists. Can be reversed; at least part of the damages – you are trying to play a smart arsse… If you know chemistry – you don’t help me = you are twice as guilty!!!
Depleted oxygen: when something burning – produces more CO, than CO2. Think what that means for peoples health. When less oxygen in the air, combustion in the engine is not efficient = needs more fuel for same distance. The unlimited coldness in the stratosphere is getting closer to the ground by 200-300m. Instead of presenting your gibberish – you could have just said: that you are self-centred / irresponsible snob – prefer the truth not to be known.
Remember: politicians do, what the 80% on the street knows. Apart of Dennis Jensen, with knowledge in physics; no other politician would have listened to your gibberish. But when they hear what they can understand – they know that people on the street can understand – they start spiting the dummy. Most of them are solicitors (with cigarette lighters in their pockets)Explain to the other visitors to this website; why are you making fool of yourself, why complicating simple combustion?! For them to think that they need a degree, to be able to burn methane? Get on my website, learn the damages Warmist are doing / in progress… If you are a concerned citizen, read what is in PDF form – lots of pages. Slowly, you will get down from the clouds, solid ground is recommended: http://globalwarmingdenier.wordpress.com
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GOOGLE CACHE OF JOHN O’ SULLIVAN’S REPORT
SAVE IT AS AN MHT FILE, WHILE-U-CAN
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Hi Jo and Community,
If human kind can live in places as diverse as alaska and marble bar….and i am sure there are many more examples…..why cannot we live with more carbon dioxide and higher temperature…?
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Humans can live in a large range of temperatures and CO2 levels. Humans cannot live without fresh water or food.
A rise in unseasonably wet and dry conditions (which is predicted by the science) compromises food production and more powerful tidal surges compromises access to fresh water in certain areas.
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So I take it you never grasped that bio-fuels also compromise food production.
So where is your scientific proof of these “predictions” and who made them? The track record for “predictions” from the climate “scientists” isn’t very good. Any compromise to food production won’t be due to climate, it will be due to political policies based on this b.s.
Try again.
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Scince doesn’t predict anything.
People do. More often foolishly than not.
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Where did I mention biofuel?
As for predictions…
Springs will advance: check
Tree lines will rise and shift poleward: check
Humidity will rise: check
Glaciers will recede: check
Temps will rise: check
Sea levels will rise: check
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Get a grip Tristan. You are dribbling on about predictions – what are you a clairvoyant. The so called predictions are the output from models – the only decent model I’ve noticed for sometime was Elle and the out come from that is always rising temps, now I understand.
As for your list of predictions – have you actually read them back to yourself. OK now tell us all which ones are real, which ones are model outputs, which have been proven, and which ones are proven and proven to be caused by an increase in a trace atmospheric gas from 0.029% to 0.038%.
Oh and by the way what is the cause of the increase in humidity and what is the effect of that increase in humidity, any impact on temperatures?. As you are so clever why not split that into lets say polar, temperate and tropical regions. Oh and while your at it tell us how that compares to the natural variation in all these over say the last 10,000 years.
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The science predicted those things, they occurred. All the scoffing in the world won’t change that.
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Where is the proof that man or CO2 cause any of it? All the hedging in the world won’t provide it because no one has it. Try again.
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Keep moving those goalposts.
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Ah, so claiming we are moving the goalposts is your proof? Not very scientific but then you never are.
Shall we list all the numerous occasions of goal post moving by the scientists, politicians, activists, etc. who support the AGW meme that you support?
Apparently you don’t see it when you do it only when you think someone else has.
Still waiting for you to provide some proof to support your claims. As we always are.
One thing about you Tristan, you are almost as good at failing to provide proof as your “scientists” are. All you need is a PhD and you could be right up there with the rest of the charlatans.
You know, the entire thing started with claims of CO2 causing all sorts of things that no one has ever provided proof of.
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I can’t ‘prove’ that CO2 has caused warming. But I accept it. So does Joanne. Do you know that? That Jo Nova acknowledges that CO2 is a driver of climate? That Anthony Watts does as well?
The difference between Jo/Anthony and myself/science on this issue is the degree to which CO2 has contributed and the amount of warming we can expect in the future.
(Neither Anthony or Jo think CO2 is a driver of climate) CTS
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Tristan,
Springs will advance: check
Wrong. They have varied
Tree lines will rise and shift poleward: check
Wrong Trees have advanced both up and down mountain ranges. Not all tree lines have advance towards the poles. This prediction doesn’t even consider the fertilization by CO2 which allows vegetation to survive in wider temp and moisture ranges. Definitely not a proof of anything other than CO2 fertilization!!
Humidity will rise: check
Actually this is another problem for you. While they claim water vapor has increased in the lower trop it appears that it has NOT increased in the upper trop or tropopause where it is needed to support your AGW meme. Another fail.
Glaciers will recede: check
As usual, a very biased answer. Glaciers have been receding since the end of the LIA. In the last few years more glaciers are starting to GROW!!!! Another fail for you “predictions.”
Temps will rise: check
As with the glaciers, temps have been rising for hundreds of years. unfortunately for you they STOPPED rising over 10 years ago. Possibly earlier as our temp series seem to be rather poor with wide error bars. Another FAIL!!!
Sea levels will rise: check
You are nothing but consistent. See glaciers and temp. Sea levels have been rising a LOOOOOOONG time. This is the one I as a denier wasn’t expecting to see a big change in:
http://sealevel.colorado.edu/
and the Euro satellite shows an even WORSE story for you as it has had no changes since it was put up.
You BELIEVE what you are told. You do NOT operate on FACTS!!
The only increase I will grant you is the increase in CO2 which, according to Salby and physical evidence, is NOT due to humans!!
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Let it not be said that you aren’t dogged, Kuhn.
Unfortunately though, the path you have chosen will continue to be dogged by error.
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Show Kuhn’s errors. With factual evidence. Your beliefs are not evidence. Provide proof.
We are still waiting. Every time you are asked to provide proof you change the subject or run away. If anyone is in error it would be you Tristan as you cannot support your claims. We have no recourse but to reach that conclusion as you never provide proof of them.
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I could spend time playing the back and forth evidence game with you/Kuhn. But I won’t. Why? Because I don’t enjoy it and I’m not that good at it. If you want to play that game you are free to go find an opponent somewhere else. I suggested SkS. I can’t vouch for the other climate change sites as I haven’t spent much time in any other comments section.
I’m certain that Climate Change created by human forcings has and will increasingly continue to ruin lives.
I’m certain of the theory of gravity
I’m certain of evolution
I’m certain of abiogenesis
I’m certain that the earth is 4.5Bn years old
I’m certain that morality is subjective
I’m certain that there haven’t been any beings of divine origin.
And you know what, I can’t prove any of those things. I can’t answer many of the questions that the opposition asks. In each case, I have to assess the assessors and their assessments, because I can’t figure it all out myself. In each of the above cases, I have confidence in those I believe. I’m impressed by the rigour and internal consistency of their arguments and satisfied that their arguments reflect reality.
So I will continue to post here, and continue to point people at SkS when they want to dispute the findings of papers.
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Nice try for victim hood Tristan. I made no implication or suggestion that you should stop posting. I didn’t even suggest you should CHANGE what you post. I only pointed out how your arguments are WRONG. This is the difference between SKS and the blogs many of us frequent. SKS dictates, edits, suppresses… The blogs I frequent do none of the above.
By the way, whether Jeff Id, Steven McIntyre, Joanne Nova, Judith Curry, Anthony Watts, Jennifer Marohasey… all BELIEVE CO2 causes warming has little to do with whether man’s production of CO2 has CAUSED any problems with the climate of the earth. Among this group you will find varying BELIEF in how much warming is caused and whether it is or will be an issue that needs addressing.
Try and parse what I am saying carefully. I am not even saying that it doesn’t cause some small amount of warming. Only that it does not cause a PROBLEM with the climate and therefore I conclude that the insane expenditures of time and money and reorganization of our society are WRONG and dangerous causing far more damage than the alledged problem!! What’s more, the zeal with which its supporters demonizie and suppress all dissent prevents the advancement of Science and is itself a much larger problem than anything exhibited by the growing CO2 in the air.
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What is the temperature and carbon dioxide …and oxygen for people that live in high altitudes….
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Dennis,
natives in the Andes commonly chew coca leaves to relieve the symptoms of their extreme environment. Just a thought.
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Hey Dennis,
I was born in the mountains (northern rockies) and periodically end up back there for “home”.
As far as O2 levels (or maybe more accurately breathing) goes people acclimatize. After being there awhile your body gets used to it. Temperature wise it (like everywhere else) really depends on humidity, wind, cloud cover, and sun. It can get very hot and it can get very cold depending on the latitude. Though in general it is a bit cooler than say a sea level locale.
You would really need to specify an altitude range as “high altitude” to one person is middle of the mountain to another. Unless you’re getting into the big climbs where you need oxygen tanks and heavy duty cold weather gear being up in the mountains really isn’t much different from anywhere else if you are used to it.
It certainly beats the city though. Not much UHI to concern yourself with in the middle of a forest in the mountains.
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Tristan @ 68.3
How
hystericalhistorical of you to quote something from the 1990 IPCC Report.Only 21 years old. Quaint.
I can’t possibly think of a single reason why you didn’t quote from the much more recent 2007 IPCC Report.
You know, the one that relies entirely on the work of Judith Lean and Claus Frohlich to “substantiate” the claim that TSI did not vary enough to account for (current) global warming. That’s the paper that so fudged the facts that even the suppliers of the original data (Willson and Hoyt) disowned it.
.
Oh wait . . . . .
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The reason I chose FAR was to show that it’s been acknowledged since the beginning.
Very well though, from the IPCC AR4:
…empirical results since the TAR have strengthened the evidence for solar forcing of climate change by identifying detectable tropospheric changes associated with solar variability, including during the solar cycle (Section 9.2; van Loon and Shea, 2000; Douglass and Clader, 2002; Gleisner and Thejll, 2003; Haigh, 2003; Stott et al., 2003; White et al., 2003; Coughlin and Tung, 2004; Labitzke, 2004; Crooks and Gray, 2005).
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Tristan @ 68.3
Well, knock me down with a feather. Who’d a thunk?
Why on earth would I, or any other reasonably sane person, waste the time and electrons again writing comments that will only get “disappeared” the moment it becomes apparent that we are winning the debate?
Been there, done that.
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Tristan @ 77.1.3.2.2
Would that be like when Global Warming (GW) became Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) to blame humans, which then morphed into Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming (CAGW) when it became apparent that warming wasn’t happening as fast as predicted, which then changed to Catastrophic Climate Change (CCC) when it stopped warming altogether, and then just became Climate Change (CC) when it became obvious to Blind Freddy that a one degree rise in temperatures (if it happened at all) and a ten centimeter rise in sea level (if it happened at all) over the next 100 years, was not going to be the end of civilisation as we know it?
Or would you be referring to the years of “drought as the new normal” as predicted by Flim-Flammery, Karoly, Steffen and other CAGW luminaries right up until a few days after East Australia turned into a lake, when suddenly more rain was exactly what they had been predicting all along?
Or maybe you are talking about “snow being a thing of the past”, right up until Britain and much of the NH got buried in near record snow, which turned out to be a figment of everybody’s imagination until it happened the following winter when it was described as a “one in a hundred year event”, until, of course, it happened again last winter when we got ” global warming causes global cooling” which went over like a lead balloon with anybody with more than two brain cells, which has led to “China burning dirty coal” to explain in advance what everybody knows is going to happen in the NH over the next few months?
We skeptics move goal-posts?
If we did, we learned it from you climwits**.
.
**”Climwits” = Climate Witnesses”, as in “Jo-ho’s” = Jehovah’s Witnesses = people who go about attempting to proselytize their dogmatic religious beliefs to the rest of us heathens.
See:
Matthew 28:19-20 – “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations.”
Acts 1:8 – “Ye shall be witnesses unto me.”
And no, I didn’t make it up. The WWF now has a “Climate Witness” program.
http://wwf.panda.org/about_our_earth/aboutcc/problems/people_at_risk/personal_stories/
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If you’re talking to me, and you move the goalposts, I will call you on it.
Thanks for the O/T lecture though.
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The original set of goal posts is and always have been “Prove man and CO2 is the cause” which has never been done. Regardless of how many levels we may move up away from that question it is still the root question and one you still run away from whenever you are asked.
We aren’t moving the goal posts Tristan, you simply keep dodging them so you can claim they moved.
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Bruce #73.1 If you can help us with the big issue; methane produced by animals. As far as methane from coal – in the ground is no UV. When the coal is out of the ground and waits for transport on a pile – releases methane – UV ignites that methane and starts burning patches of coal.
What the Warmist issue is: to destroy Australian, NZ grazing industry – not only the methane tax, but hatred directed towards the farmers. Maybe is no cows in Newcastle, but there is milk, cheese, beef, leather. So please help us / join us.
Regarding methane, people can see on the petrol station where they buy gas for their bar-be-que, it says: warning highly flammable. The issue is 1] methane is heavy = sinks in the ground 2] UV burns it, without producing flame (flame is irrelevant, because is no continuation of burning from fart in the air) in presence of oxygen, UV destroys hydrocarbons.
gas is not easy to manage; but put half a bottle of petrol in a transparent bottle on the sunlight all day – after a week will start turning into water. 2] in my book says something like this: catch some methane from cow / sheep, or your own; in a transparent bottle, leave it on the sunlight – soon after, will turn into two droplets of water. b] if that fart was released in the air by the cow – the wind would have spread it into 100m3 of air – calculate how much more UV is on 100m3 than onto a bottle. Burns it in a jiffy, not 100y!
Greens demand organic fertilizer – do you know how much methane is produced to produce a small bag of organic fertilizer? Greens prefer millions of bisons, wilder-beast, elephants – but hate cows. Because the idiot next door, always makes bar-be-que, when the wind blows towards the Greens windows. They have to eat lentils… just to please Bob Brown… Bottom line: more methane = more oxygen in the air. Burning gas = depleting of oxygen.
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Denis # 77 The more CO2 is released – the more of it rain washes it into the sea and into the soil. That’s why crops grow much better from rainfall, than from equal amount of irrigation water.
All the remaining coal reserves can fit into Darling Harbour. Can you compare the amount of water in Darling Harbour – with the rest of the oceans water? More CO2 in the seawater = more algae / seaweed growing = more herbivore fish = more carnivore fish. More CO2 in the water better healthier and more prolific corals. What is wrong with that?
Concentration of anything too much is bad – that’s why the Greens are trying to pile up all the people in big city high-rise buildings. They are against people spreading, because the greens own the rest of the country…? Concentration = high pollution – the Urban Sheep thinks that the whole planet is as where they are.
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Bernd # 72.1 Another one who likes to split hair. Yes Bernd, limestone releases minuscule amount of CO2, without being backed. Wood does it also. But, the amount it releases can tell you; by limestone being there for 100 million years – most of the carbon is still trapped in. Therefore, the amount released is not worth writing home about. But if you want to make argument, the ”pretend Skeptics” to have a laugh – you are correct, chemistry in 70’s was same as today – happy now?
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bananabender #18 says:
November 3, 2011 at 10:16 pm ·
If you look very carefully at the maps you will see the highest levels of CO2 and methane correspond directly with the areas of lowest rainfall (20-40 degrees latitude), frigid and and mountainous regions. This indicates the higher CO2/CH4 levels are primarily due to a lack of vegetation.
Bananabender, that should only tell you that the data / map is completely misleading. CO2 travels long distances – is not where is produced. Methane doesn’t travel – sinks in the ground and stays there for million years. Truth: where is dry, methane is non-existent. It’s produced in rainforest and rice paddies. METHANE IS THE GOOD GUY.
to cover the comment from J Knowels. METHANE IS A ZERO GLOBAL WARMING GAS!!! It is one thing what the Warmist say – the truth is COMPLETELY the opposite. By creation of methane – extra FREE oxygen is produced. Oxygen is the best insulator, to keep the unlimited coldness in the stratosphere, away from the ground = makes milder climate. Burning natural gas destroys the oxygen in the atmosphere, by turning it into water molecules. We have enough water in the sea, but we need oxygen in the atmosphere, because is getting depleted every day, by burning lots of gas. That cover-up is the biggest crime done by the Warmist. Tell me: how to wake-up the Skeptics, to help me present the truth?
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A complete list of things caused by global warming http://www.numberwatch.co.uk/warmlist.htm
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[…] posted on Political Crush. H/T to Barnaby is Right and JoNova. Advertisement Eco World Content From Across The Internet. Featured on EcoPressed IBM's […]
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I’m no victim. I have had several posters accuse me of ‘running away’ and others saying I shouldn’t post at all. This was partly an address to those comments, but mostly a response to Robert.
You’ll find, Kuhn, that lots of people on these boards contest that CO2 has caused zero warming, that it’s a trace gas that the GHE is faulty science. And you know what? They’re rarely corrected.
I think this blog should censor more than it does. It could do with a good deal less vitriol and jibberish. I’d also stake money on you not getting censored at SkS, kuhn, as long as you follow the guidelines for posting and acknowledge the questions asked of you. Most people here don’t have the guts to try.
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Tristan,
go over to Dr. Pielke’s site and read his account of his interactions at SKS. I have no interest in trying to beat them into line.
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I watched it with interest. There was little snark, and what little there was came from both sides. Pielke failed to show that he understood statistical significance but agreed on the need to reduce carbon pollution.
There wasn’t any beating into line of anyone, it was pretty civil. But if you want to use him as an excuse…
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Your problem in a nutshell, Tristan, is that you think that things you believe in are facts and others should be “corrected” if they don’t agree. You even obligingly demonstrate that your beliefs are based on blind faith — Re: your spiel in 77.1.3.4.2.
Most on this blog think that “facts” are determined by “data”, and that “data” is based on actual observations of the world (not computer-generated virtual realities). I doubt this cognitive gap will be bridged, as we are not about to be converted to your faith and you don’t even recognize it. When kuhnkat tries to counter your claims with documented data, you don’t even try to answer, you just dodge, weave and change the subject.
Are you offering to self-censor? I doubt anyone will object.
Typical blatant, unsupported assertion. Really getting boring.
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@Tristan,
you write “And they are rarely corrected”.
You actually believe that you have the final truth like some overlord?
Challenge: You choose few themes from the climate debate and then show that you can argument your case all the way. If you cant do this, your “overlord” attitude is based simply on your HUNCH that the alarmist “must” be correct.
A HUNCH is not eneough to play overlord. Proove that you can back up your “knowledge” of who should be corrected.
K.R. Frank
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Interesting definition of blind faith. It is thanks to a couple hundred years of the application of the scientific method by thousands of scientists that the world is what it is today. It doesn’t mean that I accept what any scientist says carte blanche, that’d be madness. But when I step back and observe the inexorable process of science building the blocks with which to better answer a question, I need a pretty damn good reason to doubt it.
GCMs are only one piece of the picture, there’s a huge amount of data. I mean…where do you think the GCMs come from in the first place? A GCM is simply an applied analysis of the data combined with physical constraints.
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Well, actually, the standard definition of blind faith: “Belief without true understanding, perception, or discrimination.” Not too surprising you aren’t familiar with it.
So you only have blind faith in some scientists. How do you decide which ones? The only proven way to settle scientific controversies is by collection of factual observations. Historically, it often is the denigrated minority that proves correct. Without any engagement with the facts, you have no method beyond blind faith, arbitrarily bestowed. You seem to be OK with this, but the rest of us aren’t satisfied by such an intellectual capitulation.
What data? Nobody contests that the world has been warming for the last 200 years — we aren’t having Frost Fairs on the frozen Thames in London anymore (since 1820). Glaciers have been in retreat since 1850 — long before industrial society emitted any significant amounts of CO2.
The claim that warming is Human-caused is based on ignoring the warming before 1950 and promoting the weak correllation between CO2 concentrations and adjusted temperatures since then. (This correllation keeps getting better as older records are continually “readjusted”.) To conclude that warming is Anthropogenic, you must also ignore the unadjusted temperature record and the strong correllation of temperatures with Solar activity.
To the rational, this looks a lot like scientists engaging in blind faith — searching for reasons to support what they already are convinced of (or, in many cases, paid to support).
And, Global Circulation Models simply try to model global weather patterns and atmospheric circulation. There are many things we don’t understand enough to model from physical principles (like the average change of convective events such as thunderstorms, for which a 3% increase in is capable of nullifying a doubling of CO2), so they just put in parameters that represent a “best guess”. These parameters are adjusted to allow the models to match the climate over some short period in the past.
The claims of dangerous climate disruption by Humans are based on taking the projections of these fitted models into the future as actual predictions — there is no real data (that is, based on observations) that can support this — another example of blind faith. When the models are actually tested, it is found that they have essentially no predictive skill.
So, you have blind faith in scientists who, themselves, exhibit all the symptoms of blind faith. That these scientists’ jobs depend on them maintaining just this bias is unimportant to you.
You claim you need a “pretty damn good reason” to doubt these people? Try developing some knowledge of the actual data, and quit letting others do your thinking for you.
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the rest of us aren’t satisfied by such an intellectual capitulation.
I’ve explored both sides of the argument as deeply as my current level of comprehension allows. I have to defer to others regarding the physics, but when it comes to exercising logic and statistical reasoning, I’ve found little in the way of convincing arguments from the ‘skeptic’ side.
To conclude that warming is Anthropogenic, you must also ignore the unadjusted temperature record.
Perhaps you can explain what it is about the unadjusted data compared against the adjusted that you find so compelling.
…the strong correllation of temperatures with Solar activity.
The correlation certainly was strong when changes in TSI were the primary climate driver. But as this shows, the correlation has flown the coop over the past couple decades.
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Please Tristan, don’t try to pretend you are actually paying attention to the data — as you say, you’ve already gotten as far as your “…current level of comprehension allows”.
Recycling the kind of ignorant arguments that are common coin on Skeptical Science doesn’t add anything, and isn’t clever — but it does reinforce your reputation as a true believer.
If you would like to know what kinds of temperature adjustments I find interesting, take a look at what NOAA reports .
Without the “adjustments” there wouldn’t be much of a problem. Also note (and consider the probability of) almost all the adjustments going the same way. (Oh, wait; I’m actually asking you to think for yourself — that may be going too far. Just spend some time reading Skeptical Science and you’ll get over it.)
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You simply are “finding” what confirms your pre-existing beliefs. The claim that you are actually reasoning about this falls flat for several reasons:
1) Jo has practically made a career of exposing shoddy reasoning and statistics from the AGW side. Apparently, it has all been over your head.
2) I just linked to a site where an actual physicist (Lubos Motl) logically dissects the shoddy logic and shady “facts” used on Skeptical Science by former physics student John Cook. Probably over your head again, but not for those of us with degrees in engineering and physics (as well as the ability to reason).
3) Actual statisticians such as Steve McIntyre have demonstrated time and again the poor understanding of statistics (or the willingness to misuse it) by AGW “stars” like Michael Mann.
The pretense that you actually reason about this is absurd — you are simply a “true believer”, for whatever psychological reasons motivate such. I don’t post these replies so much for you as for the lurkers on the site who might be temporarily tricked into thinking you had something substantial to say. Of course, when they realize that you completely ignore most of the challenges to your comments the picture will come clear.
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But BobC, I’m sure that Tristan knows that NOAA is just another skeptical science group. Not to be trusted with the fate of the world.
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So let’s continue talking about the two points of yours I responded to.
1) I link you to an adjusted vs unadjusted graph of global temperatures.
You respond by linking me to an adjusted vs unadjsuted graph of US temperatures.
Some adjustments are up. Some adjustments are down. It roughly evens out, hence the close match in the graph I provided. Keep in mind that the US is 2% of the earth’s surface area. The US adjustments don’t have much impact.
2) Waiting for your response.
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The “unadjusted” data is not raw data — actual thermometer readings — but just the homogenized data that hasn’t yet been “variance adjusted”; a proceedure that tries to achieve the same variance per cell. (See here and here for the Hadley Center information on this.)
This tells you nothing about what was done with the raw data (the averaging, homogenization, etc.), so is irrelevant to my point.
Wrong again. I linked to the difference (as reported by NOAA) between the RAW and FINAL (that is, what they publish as THE temperature) temperatures in the US. Good luck getting anything this explicit out of Hadley.
Your further comments on the “adjustments” are completely irrelevant, since you don’t understand that I was talking about RAW data vs. PROCESSED data, and you only linked two data sets that differed only in one of the last processing steps, and has no known relationship (that Hadley will expose) to the actual temperature readings.
Really? You should try to keep you comments at least marginally plausable, Tristan.
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The “unadjusted” data is not raw data — actual thermometer readings — but just the homogenized data that hasn’t yet been “variance adjusted”; a proceedure that tries to achieve the same variance per cell. (See here and here for the Hadley Center information on this.)
This tells you nothing about what was done with the raw data (the averaging, homogenization, etc.), so is irrelevant to my point.
You’re right, I’m wrong. This is what I should have linked to. Zeke and Nick have done what anyone else with that much time on their hands (and technical competence) could do. They’ve taken the unadjusted, unhomogenised data and plotted it.
Waiting for your response regarding correlation between TSI and temperature.
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Funny, what they list as the “raw data” is nothing of the kind, and comes from SkepticalScience.com besides — not exactly a trusted depository of climate data. I’d rather go with NOAA.
(Besides, a number of the commentors have noted that they repeated many of the same mistakes in CRUTemp and GISStemp — namely spreading UHI around instead of correcting for it — resulting in an artificial increase of 0.5 C over the last half of the 20th century. At least NOAA admits it.)
OK. TSI is very weakly correlated with temperature, but other measures of Solar activity (such as cycle length) are strongly correlated — something you would know if you did as much investigation as you pretend.
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So in a nut shell you rely heavily on faith.
Now dont get me wrong faith is a wonderful thing Tristan.
faith allows us to maintain the theory of gravity even though there is not enough mass in the solar system to enable the Earth to be orbitally locked to the sun.
Faith allows us to believe in Gods or not.
Faith allows us to belive in our footy teams winning grand finals (cats supporter)
Faith allows us to persue our dreams
But where i draw the line is when your faith has a detrimental impact on me. I dont care if you have faith in AGW.
I dont care if your faith in AGW leads you to reading by candle light.
I dont care if your faith leads you to jumping at shadows when it rains/dosent rain/snows/doesnt snow.
I do care when your faith means that my life is now shit due to economically crippling taxation.
The definition of faith:
I do not believe in cows for i have seen them, i know they exist.
I believe in little green men, i have not seen them, i do not know if they exist.
When i die cows will live on but my belief in little green men will die with me.
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Crakar24,
don’t worry, when you die the left will keep your belief in little green men alive as part of Climate Science alarmism!! Remember the totally ridiculous report that aliens might be planning to wipe us out because we are too damaging to the environment??
http://pjmedia.com/tatler/headline/climate-change-zealots-warn-space-aliens-might-kill-us-to-prevent-global-warming/
I believe one of the authors was with NASA and got their name involved “accidentally”!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
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Yes i find it interesting how some converge reality with hollywood movies (the day the Earth stood still) just goes to show how stupid some people are to suggest such things but even stupider are the people that believe them.
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Hi Crakar24
Tristan – the eternal publisher – the constant commentator.
But!
If I had to try and summarise what he has said I couldn’t do it.
He reminds me of a Venn Diagram, you know the two intersecting circles that show a common area of interest?
When I think of him I see two circles with no common area of intersection,
and then there he is, another very small circle trying to figure out where he should be; like a lost circle in a Venn Diagram.
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I have thought for some time now that the slope of the constantly rising atmospheric CO2 graph is amazingly stable. I mean, the USA (and the Western countries in general) have been reducing their CO2 output – mainly because of decreasing economics. I mean that in the USA we don’t manufacture much anymore, but we do consume. Consumption doesn’t create much CO2, while manufacturing does! Where is all this stuff made? China. So, I would expect China to generate a lot of CO2. But, what about the Saharan desert? Whatever CO2 gets blown that way is not sucked in by plants – there aren’t any around to do that.
So, I have had two questions that have not been answered, even though I have asked the top AGW proponents, as well as many in the blogospere. Perhaps they will be answered here?
1. Just what is the exact mechanism for CO2 to increase atmospheric temperatures? I understand the greenhouse effect.
2. If the oceans are warming and the amount of CO2 being absorbed is increased when they are cooling, how is it that the oceans are getting more acidic? Increased CO2 in the water forms increased carbonic acid…
I will accept any response at all. I wish that your response would point me to a scholarly article on the subject. Thanks….
Oh, btw….I am religeous, just not in the same way as those who believe in AGW. I need facts, just the facts.
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Good grief, Jeffery! You are asking proponents of AGW to be logically consistent in their claims about AGW “science”.
This is impossible for them, as the only thing they consistently are for is the shutdown of industrial civilization — AGW is only a foil to lead the blind fools (as was “global cooling”, “nuclear winter”, the “Population Bomb”, “Silent Spring”, and etc, etc, before).
Strangely, the “solution” to all of these made-up “crises” is more power for the elite and serfdom (and starvation) for the masses.
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Jeff, have you asked over at SkS? They’ll be more than happly to politely explain. 🙂
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“”They’ll be more than happy to politely explain. :)””
Tristan – the eternal publisher – the constant commentator.
But!
If I had to try and summarise what he has said I couldn’t do it.
He reminds me of a Venn Diagram, you know the two intersecting circles that show a common area of interest?
When I think of him I see two circles with no common area of intersection,
and then there he is, another very small circle trying to figure out where he should be;
like a lost circle in a Venn Diagram.
Somebody needs a centre or maybe a belly button.
Anybody who offers non explanations for a non event needs to find something more concrete in their life – go for it!!
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Jeffrey #91 let me point few things: 1] forest doesn’t suck the carbon. All the rainforest in Brazil is carbon neutral. The amount of CO2 all that rainforest absorbs in a calendar year – same amount of CO2 releases. Otherwise, the rainforest would have exploded in 5 years, as atom bomb. All the rotting leafs, twigs, branches, logs and roots are releasing CO2 by the fungi that are rotting them. Only benefit of creating free oxygen is on places in the rainforest that rot is turned by bacteria into methane. Reason the lunatics are blaming methane.
2] carbonic acid is not acidic – your blood is full of it. They are conveniently confusing it with sulfuric acid. Coral, shells are consuming carbonic acid, to make their skeleton. B] some extra acidity is essential to go into the sea – all the rainforest creeks are acidic. All the chlorine / bleach and bleach products end up into the sea. Plus from the hills lots of lime, magnesium, potassium, salt ends up in the sea and is increasing alkalinity. Extra alkalinity is more harmful for fish / coral.
C] if alkalinity can get from pH8,3 down to pH7,5 everything would be better of in the sea (would need the carbon from 17000planets equal to earth’s CO2, to get it to pH7,9. Go to my website, learn the correct way – tell the Yankees, not to be conned by the lefty extremist. By inventing all those lies, they are genuinely insulting the creator of this planet. Learn how the atmosphere is cooling by expanding… when gets colder – air shrinks to intercept less coldness and much, much more. http://globalwarmingdenier.wordpress.com
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Apologies – I was wrong in my speculations about water vapour interference with CO2 estimations from JAXA Ibuki etc. Here is a tables showing some associated research organised by Japan. The CO2 mole fraction is corrected for water vapour dilution using estimated of moisture from IR absorption on other satellites (and maybe Ibuki itself). Here is some work in progress, due to be first reported early 2012.
http://www.gosat.nies.go.jp/eng/proposal/proposal.htm
It’s worth a read. The table is formatted so it’s hard to copy into here.
Interesting that there is a lot of work on secondary parts of the CO2 cycle, like effects of irrigation, of growing rice, on building the 3 Gorges Dam in China.
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That’s odd, the documentary “Great Global Warming Swindle” accused the warmist conspiracy of hampering third world development by limiting their emissions, and now, denialists are complaining about third world emissions?
The fact is, combating climate change won’t be easy. The UN (that great New World Order conspiracy) has various renewable programmes for the developing world, but watch that get shot to pieces as the denial movement accuse the warmist movement of giving away our cash.
(You need to back off on the use of the word Denialist) CTS
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The contraction and convergence model of emissions reduction probably wouldn’t impact on African development for a decade or two.
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the red dots in Central Africa most probably represent active Volcanic centres along the African Rift Valley and Cameroon – Central African Republic and Afar regions and oil gas burn offs in South Sudan, Libya and Algeria, Iron & steel plants in Liberia, Sierra Leone.
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[…] is driven from natural sources. This satellite infromation was debated at the brilliant Jo Nova site. Below, Anthony Watts from http://www.wattsupwiththat.com explains how Professor Murry Salby came to the […]
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