Oh the paradox! Human emissions upset the delicate balance and drive up global CO2 levels by 2ppm a year, but lordy, at the same time, that delicate balance roils and rolls with the seasons by a far larger range. Get the feeling there is more to Life on Earth than humans?
There are places on Earth when CO2 swings every year by 16ppm or more – like Point Barrow. Then there are places like the South Pole, where it barely changes all year round — a bit like the level of greenery there which varies from white to white. And there’s a clue. The other part of the world where CO2 levels don’t swing is at the equator — where it’s 100% green all year long. The big changes in terrestrial CO2 occur in the zones where plant life ebbs and flows.
Tom Quirk tracks the seasonal shifts in CO2 and finds that the northern Boreal forests are probably drawing down something like 2 – 5 gigatons of CO2 every year, and because the seasonal amplitude is getting larger each year, it suggests there is no sign of saturation. Those plants are not bored of extra CO2 yet. This fits with Craig Idso’s work on plant growth which demonstrates that the saturation point — where plants grow as fast as possible (and extra CO2 doesn’t help) is somewhere above 1000 and below 2000ppm. We have a long way to go.
Burn oil, feed the starving plants of the world I say! — Jo
Figure 3: Satellite derived measurements[4] of changes in net primary productivity (NPP) which is the net intake of CO2 by plants. The tropical forests and the boreal forests in the far North show NPP of 1.0 to 1.5% annual growth.
—————————————————————————————————
Where have fossil fuel emissions gone?
Guest Post by Tom Quirk
The standard explanation for the yearly rise in atmospheric CO2 is that it is due entirely to fossil fuel and cement production emissions. However if the recent analysis[1] of the isotopic composition of atmospheric CO2 is correct then only a fraction say 10% of fossil fuel emissions find their way into the atmosphere.
If only a fraction of fossil fuel CO2 emissions finds its way into the “well mixed “ atmosphere, what sinks have the capacity to absorb the balance?
One of the clues comes from the growth in the amplitude of the yearly seasonal variations of atmospheric CO2. This analysis assumes that the growth in the seasonal amplitude is a result of increasing vegetation, a “greening of the earth”.
The Scripps Institute of Oceanography (SIO) provides both raw and smoothed time series measurements of atmospheric CO2. The smoothed data has had the seasonal variations removed. Thus the difference of the raw from the smoothed measurements exposes the seasonal variations. Seasonal variations are shown in Figure 1 for two examples from Mauna Loa and Point Barrow.
Figure 1: Seasonal variation extracted from raw and smoothed measurements (SIO)
The amplitudes for the seasonal variations are shown in Figure 2 for a number of latitudes.
The changes in seasonal amplitude extracted from the SIO analysis are given in Table 1.
Table 1 Seasonal variation data derived from SIO analysis
|
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 5 |
6 |
|
|
Location |
Period |
Month for minimum CO2 |
Seasonal amplitudes ppm |
Annual increases in seasonal amplitudes |
|
|
Initial |
Final |
ppm per year |
|||
| 82 N Alert |
1985-2010 |
August |
14.17 |
16.01 |
0.074 |
| 71 N Point Barrow |
1974-2010 |
August |
14.55 |
17.98 |
0.095 |
| 33 N La Jolla |
1969-2010 |
August |
8.51 |
12.44 |
0.096 |
| 19 N Kumukahi |
1979-2010 |
September |
7.97 |
8.77 |
0.025 |
| 20 N Mauna Loa |
1960-2010 |
September |
6.04 |
6.99 |
0.019 |
| 2 N Christmas Island |
1975-2010 |
October |
2.93 |
2.94 |
0.000 |
| 14 S American Samoa |
1982-2010 |
February |
0.61 |
0.99 |
0.014 |
| 29 S Kermadec |
1984-2009 |
May |
0.97 |
0.96 |
0.000 |
| 41 S Baring Head |
1978-2009 |
January |
1.04 |
1.04 |
0.000 |
| 90 S South Pole |
1960-2010 |
March |
1.06 |
1.03 |
-0.001 |
The analysis shows that the seasonal growth increases occur in the northern latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere. This is where the Boreal forests and peatlands of Canada and Russia (and other lesser forest) are estimated to contain some 350 Gt of carbon.
There are a number of estimates of forest growth:
Sweden2: “tree basal area and biomass increased by 19% between 1997 and 2010 with the main increase occurring in established birch forest,”
Russia3: Over the period 1961-1998, Lapenis et al. found that “aboveground wood, roots, and green parts increased by 4%, 21%, and 33%, respectively,” such that “the total carbon density of the living biomass stock of the Russian forests increased by ~9% from 4.08 to 4.44 kg C m-2.” In addition, they report there was an “increase in the area of the Russian forests (from 695.5 x 1010 m2 in 1961 to 774.2 x 1010 m2 in 1998),” which equates to ~11%.
Europe4: “An upwards trend of forest NEP (Net Ecosystem Productivity) of 1 ± 0.5 g C/m2/year between 1950 and 2000 across the EU 25,” ending with “a mean European forest NEP of 175 ± 52 g C/m2/year in the 1990s.” And that “61% of the change in NEP [over the last half of the 20th century] was attributed to changes in CO2, 26% to changes in climate, and 13% to changes in forest age structure.”
These three reports give an annual forest growth of between 0.5% and 1.6% while the annual growth rates for the seasonal variations are between 0.5% and 0.9%.
While no growth in the seasonal variation appears at Christmas Island (20 N) and little in Hawaii (190 N), these seasonal variations are a reflection of the more northern latitudes mixing into the lower latitudes.
So using just the boreal forest estimates from Canada and Russia would give a carbon sink with an annual removal of 1.9 to 5.5 Gt C of CO2 from the atmosphere. This sink would operate during the summer months as would temperate zone forests. However there are satellite analyses showing growth in the tropical region that has not been taken into account.
NASA satellite data5 suggest that for more than two decades there has been a gradual greening of plants on a global scale.
In particular, in the northern latitudes of Earth the growth has been as much as 1.5% annually.
Figure 3: Satellite derived measurements[4] of changes in net primary productivity (NPP) which is the net intake of CO2 by plants. The tropical forests and the boreal forests in the far North show NPP of 1.0 to 1.5% annual growth.
…
Unless there is an alternative explanation for the growth of the seasonal CO2 amplitude, it is a strong indicator of forest growth. In addition it shows no sign of saturation.
1 See Figure 3 of http://quadrant.org.au/opinion/doomed-planet/2013/09/ipcc-never-taken-seriously/
2 Hedenas, H., Olsson, H., Jonasson, C., Bergstedt, J., Dahlberg, U. and Callaghan, T.V. 2011. Changes in tree growth, biomass and vegetation over a 13-year period in the Swedish Sub-Arctic. Ambio 40: 672-682.
3 Lapenis, A., Shvidenko, A., Shepaschenko, D., Nilsson, S. and Aiyyer, A. 2005. Acclimation of Russian forests to recent changes in climate. Global Change Biology 11: 2090-2102.
4 Bellassen, V., Viovy, N., Luyssaert, S., Le Marie, G., Schelhaas, M.-J. and Ciais, P. 2011. Reconstruction and attribution of the carbon sink of European forests between 1950 and 2000. Global Change Biology 17: 3274-3292.
5 http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/GlobalGarden
As gleaned from David Middleton’s 2012 WUWT essay, from 1750 to 1875, atmospheric CO2 levels began rising (from about 277 ppm to 290 ppm) about 100 years before anthropogenic CO2 emissions increased significantly enough to be detectable on a graph:
———-
http://i90.photobucket.com/albums/k247/dhm1353/Law17501875.png
———-
More recently, however, the opposite of the 1750-1875 trend has been occurring. Since the early 2000s, anthropogenic emissions of CO2 have increased exponentially, more than doubling the yearly rate of increase from 1.5% (1973-2000) to 3.1% (2000-2011) according to Hansen et al., 2013*. However, during this very same period that the rate of yearly increase of anthropogenic CO2 emissions has more than doubled, the rate of increase in atmospheric CO2 has remained flat, or even decelerated somewhat. According to NOAA, the averaged rate of increase in atmospheric CO2 was 2.15% for 2002-2007, but it has slightly slowed to 2.08% for 2008 to 2013.
———-
2002: 2.53
2003: 2.29
2004: 1.56
2005: 2.52
2006: 1.76
2007: 2.22
2008: 1.60
2009: 1.89
2010: 2.43
2011: 1.84
2012: 2.66
2013: 2.05
———-
The flattening of the CO2 rate of change is also consistent with the trend found in the recent fossil fuels-to-CO2 airborne fraction ratio identified by James Hansen et al. (2013), as this graph and commentary from the paper illustrate:
———-
http://ej.iop.org/images/1748-9326/8/1/011006/erl459410f3_online.jpg
“However, it is the dependence of the airborne fraction on fossil fuel emission rate that makes the post-2000 downturn of the airborne fraction particularly striking. The change of emission rate in 2000 from 1.5% yr to 3.1% yr (figure 1), other things being equal, would [should] have caused a sharp increase of the airborne fraction….”
———-
Source:
*J. Hansen, P. Kharecha, M Sato, 2013 “Climate forcing growth rates: doubling down on our Faustian bargain” Environmental Research Letters 8 011006
241
Thankyou.
01
As the system gets further away from equilibrium natural responses that would tend to act to counter the imbalance will increase. This will include green uptake and also oceanic absorption.
At least to a first approximation, the rate of absorption is proportional to the difference in partial pressures in the ocean and the atmosphere.
That would tend in the direction of a flattening, though I have not looked in more detail at the numbers, that kind of tendency would be expected.
10
So why are the airborne CO2 fraction and fossil fuel emissions rates headed in the opposite directions?
http://ej.iop.org/images/1748-9326/8/1/011006/erl459410f3_online.jpg
00
Another factor is that it is the cold waters of the Arctic that are a major sink because the equilibrium concentration of any gas species is greater in cold water than warmer water.
The general movement of ocean thermo-haline overturning is sinking of cold, dense water in the Arctic and an arrival of previous warmer surface water from lower latitudes ( hence less absorbed CO2 ).
The notable reduction is Arctic sea ice area over the last 30 years. particularly in the summer months, will thus expose a much greater area of water capable of absorbing atm CO2.
comparing the same SIO data the author used, here from Alert station in Canada, to Arctic ice coverage is quite interesting too:
http://climategrog.files.wordpress.com/2014/07/co2_nh_ice_area_2001.png
http://climategrog.wordpress.com/?attachment_id=996
01
Global sea ice has been sitting above the 30-year average for most of the last 2 years, so this hypothesis regarding more open water in the Arctic doesn’t fit from a global perspective.
01
A longer view of the same data shows the inter-annual variation follows fairly well, too.
http://climategrog.wordpress.com/?attachment_id=997
while the german Black Forest shows a very similar annual cycle to the canadian Arctic.
http://climategrog.wordpress.com/?attachment_id=985
01
NASA has a website on carbon sinks. In general, there are two mechanisms. Physical in the oceans thanks to Henry’s Law and LeChatellier’s principle. Evidenced by ‘ocean acidification’. Slow-lags from 200 to 800 years depending on ice core analysis thanks to the thermocline below the mixed layer. See essay Cause and Effect in new ebook Blowing Smoke. And biological (greening of terrestrial vegetation from enhanced C3 photosynthesis, and enhanced calcium carbonate formation by oceanic diatoms and coccolythophorids). Conventional wisdom is that about half of biological sequestration is terrestrial. And it is the terrestrial vegetation growth that causes observed CO2 seasonality. ‘Proven’ since most land is in the NH, and the seasonal CO2 component corresponds with NH summer/winter almost exactly. See essay Carbon Pollution in same book.
Carbon sinks are either not modeled at all (CMIP3) or sometimes but then not well (CMIP5) which is yet another reason long term model projections just cannot be correct. Carbon sinks are a negative feedback, since more CO2 provably results in a higher sequestration rate, and both sink mechanisms are far from saturation. See essay Models all the way Down.
Great informative and nicely illustrated post. This comment is just a supplemental details footnote.
412
Sorry about accidental downvoting. +1
81
Dear NASA. Can the entire food chain in the oceans have some too please?
Oh and is it ever politically correct to mention undersea lakes of CO2 unless they are manmade and we are predicting disaster?
Do we even think about undersea lakes soaking into the mantle faster to become more abiotic oil!
110
See SF’s post at #29…
Yes.. the ocean plant life can have some .. lots if it wants. 🙂
The world’s plant life, land and sea, is obviously really enjoying the extra CO2 that we humans are partially responsible for.
More carbon bought back into the carbon cycle from accidental burial. 🙂
It would be very stupid of us to stop de-sequestering that CO2.
80
What I notice is when I start winning arguments about CAGW, the mods on most F******x rags shut comments off…..
Sore losers me thinks…..
What I do notice is the pretence of it not being Socialist driven has been dropped now – its quite blatant now.
30
How much of the atmospheric CO2 increase since 1750 is man-made?
Can substantially less than 100% of the atmospheric CO2 increases since 1750 (277 ppm to 399 ppm) have been derived from fossil fuel burning and other human activities?
Pulling a few sentences from Dr. Murry Salby’s 2012 textbook, Physics of the Atmosphere and Climate, we find that naturally-derived CO2 emissions (from ocean outgassing, biomass respiration and decay, etc.) easily overwhelm man-made CO2 emissions by two orders of magnitude (100X).
http://www.atmosfera.unam.mx/jzavala/OceanoAtmosfera/Physics%20of%20the%20Atmosphere%20and%20Climate%20-%20Murry%20Salby.pdf
“Together, emission from ocean and land sources (∼150 GtC/yr) is two orders of magnitude greater than CO2 emission from combustion of fossil fuel. These natural sources are offset by natural sinks, of comparable strength. However, because they are so much stronger, even a minor imbalance between natural sources and sinks can overshadow the anthropogenic component of CO2 emission.” pg. 546
———-
The IPCC (2013) also acknowledges that substantially more CO2 emissions are derived from natural versus anthropogenic sources. This can be determined by analyzing a graph (Figure 6.1) found in IPCC AR5 that denotes the natural versus anthropogenic CO2 emission ratio (in gigatons of carbon, or GtC from here on) as of 2013. (h/t to Richard C (NZ) for his original analysis)
———–
http://www.climatechange2013.org/images/figures/WGI_AR5_Fig6-1.jpg
———–
1. Natural annual CO2 emissions total: 198.2 GtC (primarily 78.4 GtC from ocean outgassing, and 118.7 GtC from biomass/respiration)
———–
2. Anthropogenic annual CO2 emissions total: 8.9 GtC (7.8 GtC from fossil fuels, 1.1 from land use changes)
———–
3. Ratio in terms of 100% of total CO2 emissions (207.1 GtC) released per year (2013): 95.7 (natural) to 4.3 (anthropogenic)
———–
So anthropogenic CO2 emissions—mainly from fossil fuel burning—were still only 4.3% of total annual GtC in 2013 even though they had more than doubled in the last 44 years, or risen from 4.3 GtC per year in 1970 (per the IPCC) to 8.9 GtC per year in 2013.
———–
Furthermore, using the IPCC’s conversion factor [2.12 GtC = 1ppmv CO2] and the Mauna Loa CO2 ppm values for 1970 and 2013 (per NOAA.gov), we learn that the change, or increase, in all GtC for 1970 to 2013 was 150.1 GtC [396.48 ppm (2013) – 325.68 ppm (1970) = 70.8 ppm x 2.12 GtC = 150.1 GtC].
———-
1. Natural CO2 emissions per-year increase from 1970 to 2013: 145.5 GtC (150.1 GtC – 4.6 GtC)
———-
2. Anthropogenic CO2 emissions per-year increase from 1970 (4.3 GtC) to 2013 (8.9): 4.6 GtC
———-
3. Ratio of natural CO2 emissons to anthropogenic CO2 emissions in terms of the total increase in yearly GtC from 1970 to 2013: 96.8 (natural) to 3.2 (anthropogenic).
———-
The standard response to the affirmation that natural CO2 emissions dominate anthropogenic emissions in the carbon cycle is that natural sinks simply expand and therefore absorb the equivalent of all the extra naturally emitted CO2 per year. And because of this presumed ∼100% sink absorption, the overall atmospheric CO2 levels do not change when subjected only to (growing) natural CO2 emissions. This is why CO2 levels stayed quite stable, or between about 265 ppm and 275 ppm, for the last several thousand years prior to 1750.
———-
And it is further explained that these same natural sinks that swallow up all the extra natural CO2 emissions just cannot handle the extra load of anthropogenic CO2 emissions added from one year to the next, even though the per-year change (increase) is but a fraction of the total anthropogenic emissions generated per year, which is just ∼3 or 4% of total emissions. So the anthropogenic portion of CO2 emissions, and the anthropogenic portion alone, does not get absorbed by the natural sinks that only expand enough to absorb naturally emitted CO2. Therefore, the overall atmospheric CO2 concentration is only augmented by anthropogenic emissions, and not by natural emissions. Or so this is how it is usually explained. Below are a few questions about how this process works.
———-
1. How are these natural CO2 sinks able to so clearly discriminate between whether they absorb natural CO2 emissions or anthropogenic CO2 emissions? Considering that substantially more total yearly CO2 emissions are derived from natural sources rather than anthropogenic sources, wouldn’t the sinks necessarily have to possess a certain amount of discriminating “intelligence” to decide that they will only absorb natural CO2, and not anthropogenic CO2?
———-
2. How do the anthropogenic emissions of CO2 avoid mixing with the natural emissions prior to absorption by sinks?
———-
3. Since it is presumed that most, if not all, of the increases in atmospheric CO2 ppm levels in the last century and a half can be attributed to anthropogenic emissions, or fossil fuels, and since it is also accepted that all of the changes in atmospheric CO2 ppm levels (ranging from 180 ppm to 8,000 ppm throughout the last 500 million years) prior to anthropogenic influences were necessarily 100% caused by natural emissions and their imbalances with natural sinks, exactly how did the attribution to atmospheric CO2 increases (277 ppm to 399 ppm in recent times) change from being100% naturally derived in the past to something close to 0% naturally derived in recent times? How do 100% causes of physical phenomena get reduced to (nearly) 0% with the introduction of a new physical cause that “takes over” as the primary cause?
———-
621
Particularly liked the last paragraph.
Lots of logic there.
KK
220
I absolutely agree with Keith.
Your last point number 3, is actually the question that the warmists must answer.
I dare say the weasel-word factory are on to it, and a diktat will arrive in short order.
280
The answer has been given many times:
We do not debate in public
A wonderful tactic
190
Yes, indeed.
Right now is the twenty fifth anniversary of the Berlin wall starting to coming down.
And the old Communist/Socialist tactics are still being utilised, to avoid any meaningful debate or the sharing of information.
170
Could it be that virtually all the recent increase in CO2 is due to the removal of CO2 sinks through land use change?
30
1. Of course CO2 sinks sinks CO2 whatever is the source 🙂
2. Of course we have a homogenized ! mix
3. Quote from CO2 Science :
“In a paper recently published in the international peer-reviewed journal Energy & Fuels, Dr. Robert H. Essenhigh (2009), Professor of Energy Conversion at The Ohio State University, addresses the residence time (RT) of anthropogenic CO2 in the air. He finds that the RT for bulk atmospheric CO2, the molecule 12CO2, is ~5 years, in good agreement with other cited sources (Segalstad, 1998), while the RT for the trace molecule 14CO2 is ~16 years. Both of these residence times are much shorter than what is claimed by the IPCC. The rising concentration of atmospheric CO2 in the last century is not consistent with supply from anthropogenic sources. Such anthropogenic sources account for less than 5% of the present atmosphere, compared to the major input/output from natural sources (~95%). Hence, anthropogenic CO2 is too small to be a significant or relevant factor in the global warming process, particularly when comparing with the far more potent greenhouse gas water vapor. The rising atmospheric CO2 is the outcome of rising temperature rather than vice versa. Correspondingly, Dr. Essenhigh concludes that the politically driven target of capture and sequestration of carbon from combustion sources would be a major and pointless waste of physical and financial resources. “
20
DO you have a link for that Rolf?
00
I formed the view a while ago that all our emissions are being neutralised locally and regionally by the biosphere.
Evidence and discussion here:
http://www.newclimatemodel.com/evidence-that-oceans-not-man-control-co2-emissions/
192
So..here in Australia, we are responsible for less than 1% of less than 4% of total CO2 emissions!???!!!…and we want to reduce our emissions by 5%???…reduce the total emissions by 0.0076ppm???
Just makes you feel warm and fuzzy all over.
321
The Climate Institute wants our CO2 emissions reduced to zero: http://www.skynews.com.au/news/national/2014/11/10/aust-urged-to-focus-on-post-2020-emissions.html.
40
I want to see them do it first.
They must NOT do any activity that relies on the production of CO2 as a beneficial side-product.
No gas, disconnect from the electricity grid, no petrol, no food transported or produced using anything relate to any of these.
Come on punks.. put your action where your mouth is !!
130
So they must favour nuclear and hydro electric options. There are no other options other than carbon (dioxide) capture and storage.
30
TedM
They’ll have to build those nuclear and hydro electric generating plant without concrete – as concrete manufacture is a major source of CO2.
60
Pedantic comment: ‘Those plants are not bored of extra CO2 yet.’
No, no, no!
It should be ‘bored with’.
Unfortunately ‘bored of’ seems to have crept in during recent times. Please, no more!
170
If we don’t bore them (or make a board out of them) how are we going to see the rings that Mikey makes his hockey sticks with?
30
This is a very interesting study and confirms what I learned in school more than 1/2 a century ago. “Its the carbon cycle, stupid” to paraphrase Bill Clinton.
Anyone who mows their grass will know there are seasonal and annual variations in the rate of growth and hence rate of CO2 uptake.
It also raises another very important point. The alarmist would have us believe that the earth’s CO2 levels have been stable (based on ice cores) for 800,000 years, until the industrial revolution.
But how can this be? Using the ice cores as a baseline and then patching data from other climate regions for the last 200 years seems to be total nonsense.
150
GrahamP, where you mention here: (my bold)
Going on the premise of the main article then, it would seem that the places where they find their ice cores to take their readings from are in regions where CO2 levels are always very low, so the point I take from this is that ….. now, even the ice cores are being discredited as a measure of CO2, because it varies throughout the World so wildly.
I’m going to love hearing how warmists explain this away.
Tony.
170
While no expert on ice, I also wonder about the way ice is built up in the Antarctic. As well as rare snow, the accumulation would plausibly contain wind-driven detritus from previous deposition, thereby smearing the signal. But I supposed people have linked dust deposition events and looked at this. I wonder, though, how wind-blown ice can —fail— to get into the accumulation. It has to go somewhere.
30
I noticed that they only ever get ice cores from places that are cold.
That has to bias the results.
I wonder why that is, by the way? 🙂
20
“And it is further explained that these same natural sinks that swallow up all the extra natural CO2 emissions just cannot handle the extra load of anthropogenic CO2 emissions added from one year to the next, even though the per-year change (increase) is but a fraction of the total anthropogenic emissions generated per year, which is just ∼3 or 4% of total emissions.”
Do the proponents of this explanation explain why the natural sinks can’t absorb that extra CO2? This idea suggests that the natural sinks “know” how much natural CO2 is produced, then cut off absorbing exactly at the right time to prevent the “unnatural” CO2 that has been queuing up separately from entering. How truly fantastic nature is! I suggest Gaia at work?
110
Saturation is an assertion without basis. Yhemphysical mechanism will never saturate. Based on greenhouse experiments, C3 synthesis does not stop improving yield until something well over 800 ppm depending on plant species. Mauna Loa does suggest that the rate of uptake is not keeping up withnrising emissioms. Rate has nothing to do with saturation. Saturation says there is no more net uptake at all.
61
You have actually answered you own question, plants in a good season can equilibriate with CO2 levels pretty quickly such that CO2 availability limits their growth, it is not the 3% extra that plants can’t equilibriate with, its the increase in the 3 % each year. If mankind (and Gaia) kept emissions constant, within 5 years the earth would reach a CO2 equilibrium. The plants need to grow and proliferate to equilibriate, this takes time so they are always behind the moving goalpost, this difference will accumulate. Not that that is a bad thing, CO2 is good for us except for the fact that you will need to mow the lawn more often.
60
I saw a study once about the daily change in CO2 over a field in the growing season.
Started off quite high in the morning, around 600ppm iirc, then this valuable CO2 supply was used up quite quickly, until by early afternoon, the level had dropped to less than 200ppm..ie unusable ….. so plant growth stopped for the day.
Now imagine if you could start the day at say 1000ppm.. so much more growing period !!!
PLANT LIFE NEEDS MORE CO2
200
Didn’t growers of a certain illegal crop discover this connection a couple of decades ago? Perhaps the legalisation of mj could have its benefits after all. A new greening of the suburbs to save the planet. But then there are the emissions. I can see a grant application in the making.
90
Growers of ‘certain crops’ actually have a very good grasp of the benefits of CO2, it’s just the grasp on reality that’s suspect.
A local in my area recently turned his entire house into a ‘green crop biosphere’ with fantastic results, the police were so impressed they turned up in droves and took lots of pictures while helping out with the harvesting process, how nice and the police get such a hard time from the public…..
170
I live in the Great State of Washington. Our enlightened populace realized having public servants helping with harvests and such was not very wise. Thus, we legalized the use and growing of the crop and are starting to regulate (think fees) and profit (think taxes) from this Gaia-given gift. The repeal of Prohibition in the United States was accomplished with the passage of the 21st Amendment to the US Constitution in 1933. The reasoning was somewhat similar.
42
I never got to studying the finer details, but how the hell do you measure the air over a field with any accuracy? Air moves. Only in a greenhouse can you do it. Or for part of the time when the air is not moving over the field.
The agronomists turned me into a sceptic a very long time ago by declaring moisture loss through plant transpiration to be a figure which happened to be far in excess of the quantity of available moisture. No further explanation.
One must give them credit for some intelligence, so, presumably they had indeed measured the transpiration at that level. So, if that is so, either the time for which this is happening is very short, or there must be an unmentioned source of moisture. Dew, perhaps? Do the plants inspire moisture when the sun is not shining? I never got around to finding out.
But their science was a long way from complete 50 years ago. Maybe they are only now bringing it up to date.
30
It always seems to me that they try to massively over complicate a simple mechanism. They appear to latch on to only one of 100 mechanisms at play in a complex chaotic system and attempt to use it to prove some pet theory. I think they do it more for the obfuscation factor to hide the fact that they’re only looking at one thing and are only interested in “proving” their pet theory. Dozens and dozens of mechanisms influencing climate and they pick the one with an unmeasurable influence. That makes it easier for them to make a bunch of complicated, misleading stuff up that they then defend by saying “prove it wrong.” It’s a huge pseudo-scientific con job.
90
I’m only going from vague memory, but this was a longish term project, and they had several well spaced CO2 sensors hooked up.
The readings given were the average CO2 pattern for the days when there was virtually no wind.
30
Griss, I think it was the FACE (something like free atmospheric carbon experiments or something close to that).
10
This is one report that will never see the light of day on “their” ABC. Will the kiddies be taught that CO2 increases plant growth or will they learn that CO2 is a pollutant? A lot of people from politicians down should be in the dock for spreading lies. Send this to that useless Greg Hunt so that he might be educated.
170
G’day Lawrie. It won’t happen for a while. First we have to reeducate the teachers.
It’s way past time for Tony Abbott to stand up and fight. It seems to us that cracks are developing in the AGW edifice, but the Al Gores are still calling the shots.
70
Re-educate teachers, I’m for that. Problem might be the very left wing teacher unions.
R-COO- K+
110
But before we re-educate the teachers, we need to re-educate those that are teaching the teachers….
it’s turtles all the way down!
60
7 November 2014
Our kids need to learn about climate change
https://theconversation.com/our-kids-need-to-learn-about-climate-change-33833
Not interested in teaching the truth:
No warming for 18+ years.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/11/07/on-climate-the-right-is-right-global-temperature-update-the-pause-is-still-18-years-1-month/
60
Imagine if the teachers weren’t busy indoctrinating: They have time to teach reading, writing and arithmetic, leading to the ability of their students to independently construct rational thoughts.
80
I guess they’re covered when the hoax finally dies. They never complained about CO2 pollution- it was always “carbon pollution”.
In the final washup, they will claim they were “profoundly misled”, though until then, they will still call anyone who challenges the orthodoxy “anti-science”.
80
Great post! It leads one to the thought that preciptation is the key climate issue not temperature. Isnt rainfall the limiting factor on plant growth and co2 take up at least in Australia? We need the BOM and other parties to increase the focus on rainfall rather than temperature. There are historical figures for rainfall and river hts going back centuries. I believe most climate forecasts for precipitation are derived from temperature projections, should it be the other way around?
90
Climate model predictions for rainfall are all over the place, and basically meaningless.
Even if the models were correct on temperature, they would tell us nothing about rainfall trends.
And the models are are way off when it comes to temperatures. Forget about the models !!
All the water eng guys can do is work with the data they have and assume business as usual.
In Australia, that means droughts and flooding rains. !
91
Milne’s warmer wetter world – https://twitter.com/senatormilne/status/432811290893893632
vs
Flannery’s drier world – http://www.abc.net.au/landline/content/2006/s1844398.htm
Dept. of ENV’s Less Rain – http://www.climatechange.gov.au/climate-change/climate-science/climate-change-future/rainfall
vs
The Conversation’s more rain – http://theconversation.com/increases-in-rainfall-extremes-linked-to-global-warming-11933
Stay tuned as we spin the climate chocolate wheel again for a more up to date prediction.
160
I just lost a perfectly good breakfast with the first one Safety, thanks 🙁
Chocolate wheel is quite apt considering the amount of fudging that’s gone on. 🙂
100
Unfortunately, for most plants CO2 uptake and water loss are linked because plants take up CO2 when the stomates are open, which is when they lose water through the stomates.
With higher CO2 plants can get by with smaller stomates to reduce water loss so they use less water. CO2 and water availability are both major limiting factors for plant growth in Australia.
90
Plants in in higher CO2 environments also apparently spread their stomata further apart.
At around 250ppm they are packed as tight as they can, which explains why plants start to struggle much below this value.. too much transpiration.
In a way, it also explains why the historical level has apparently not dropped much lower…. some plants start dying and return their CO2 to the atmosphere.
What we are seeing now, with the slight boost to atmospheric CO2 due to human de-sequestration and a slight warming due to strong solar levels, is a growth in the plant food supply, hence an increase in plant growth world-wide.
Now the sun has gone for a snooze, we simply MUST, MUST, MUST keep up our output of fossil fuel CO2 de-sequestration or the world biosphere will head back into another dip.
This is a message that we MUST somehow get out into the world. !
Thank goodness China, India, Germany have continued to pump out the gas of all life on Earth, an ESSENTIAL part of the carbon cycle.
40
Jeebus, Richard, that’s the last thing we need.
Give the BOM two years with our rainfall record and they’ll homogenise the recent Brisbane floods out of existence and then seek the reinstatement of Tim Flannery for his visionary prediction that the dams would never fill again.
Nah . . let’s not go there. 😉
And why haven’t we heard much from Tim lately?
Not even a peep on the latest regurgitation of the AR5 synthesis? It’s very unlike our Tim to miss an opportunity to join the (un)happy throng.
10
Of course human co2 emissions have recently soared from the non OECD countries ( China, India etc) and nearly flat-lined from the OECD.
http://www.eia.gov/cfapps/ipdbproject/iedindex3.cfm?tid=90&pid=44&aid=8&cid=CG6,CG5,&syid=1980&eyid=2012&unit=MMTCD
In fact the near flat-lining has really extended since 1980 if you look at the link. IOW the mitigation of so called CAGW is a con and a fraud and new co2 emissions are all coming from India, China etc not the OECD.
10
OT. Read this without shedding a tear.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/11/05/how-i-got-my-life-back-my-hearing-has-been-restored-to-near-normal/
80
Yeah read it yesterday, agreed.
30
I read it when it was first posted. It’s very moving and I certainly shed some tears.
10
REAL technology has advanced so much. 🙂
Thanks to a good supply of consistent, abundant, cheap, coal driven electricity.
Meanwhile climate science is going backwards into the dark ages, and wanting to take the rest of the world with it.
30
OT: Arctic sea Ice.
I didn’t expect that little red line to do that. I thought it would hug the other lines.
Measurement anomaly or real ? Time will tell !
60
Man Bear Pig predicted it’ll all be gone by now, so take a picture cause in one month’s time no more Arctic ice, and this guy is never wrong. 🙂
40
It seems that Obama has another renewable energy disaster on his hands.
It looks like the poor taxpayer will have to keep funding this con job. Most of the energy produced is the because of fossil fuels.
http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.com.au/2014/11/is-obamas-latest-green-energy.html
60
What did you expect? Obama wouldn’t know a kWH if it walked up and kissed him.
30
My little corner of the world grows and ships all sorts of things, hay and apples being two of the best known. The hay is shipped quite dry while the apples have a lot of water in them. One doesn’t usually think of wine grapes in this manner but should you see the vine pruning process you will realize that much of the plant’s growth gets left in the vineyard. Corn, a fast growing plant, can depleted the air about it of CO2 if there is no wind. There is a company in this region that takes crops such as corn, carrots, peas, …, and green beans and processes these into packages of frozen vegetables that get shipped far and wide. This is at about 47 degrees North Latitude.
So, with most of our air blowing in from the North Pacific we take out the CO2 and package the Carbon part in fascinating and diverse ways; here are 2:
http://www.anderson-hay.com/double-compressed-options/
http://www.columbiafruit.com/appletour.html
Any questions?
90
John, you sound like the Sand Country of central Wisconsin, except for the fruit trees. So perhaps SW Michigan across the Great Lake where apples. cherries, asparagus amd such grow thanks to the Lake effect? If so, regards from a Wisconsin dairy farmer. Glad to trade my meat, milk, and cheese for your northern fruits and vegatibles. Although we do grow sometimes enough veggies in our half acre garden to suffice for the entire winter with put ups. The way the world was, and would be again if Greens have their way. But they are not welcome at my farm. Ever. My family will prosper. Most of them would starve and freeze on the same policies. Oh, and we can heat and cook with wood the entire winter if need be, with water coming from the old/new hand pump well…
Not the way most could survive. Which is my pointed point.
30
John, I now realize (having clicked on your links) that you are from the Spokane region of Washington ( my sister lives up on a 750 acres ranch more than a few miles to your northwest, near Tonasket) , not the lower penninsula of Michigan. But for all Aussies here, both are still agricultural heaven. And for Americans, I pit my Wisconsin Uplands farmland against anybodies for sustainable productivity of forestry products, meat, milk, and surplus forage crops imcluding maize. Email, lets compare productivity and climate. I have records going back 100 years, and personally over 30. So now have personal familiarity with ‘Climate Change’. Not just a Farmer…
40
Actually, we live in the rural area near Ellensburg – so south and a bit west of Tonasket. I was going to mention the garden and the brush and trees – but there would be no links.
The Columbia River dams provide inexpensive electricity and we have an all-electric house with a wood stove for emergencies. The brush and trees are relentless. Trees are a mix of not much but I cut and give it to neighbors with the need.
20
Even some of the socialists in Germany are backing the use of coal.
http://notrickszone.com/2014/11/09/federal-minister-of-economics-sigmar-gabriel-ending-coal-is-mass-disinformation-of-the-people-an-illusion/
80
Neville:
Greenpeace turned up with 8 tons of coal (dumped at door) and demanded immediate shutdown of some coal fired stations and the rest to go by 2030.
They got their way once and nuclear is going, but that has resulted in new coal plants being built and old plants kept going (by law) to meet demand when wind and sun don’t cooperate, and emissions are rising. Perhaps the Minister doesn’t want to sit out the coming winter with no lighting or heating. Different for Greenpeace, they’re used to dimness.
O/T but interesting comment on economics of power supply by gallopingcamel.
http://diggingintheclay.wordpress.com/2013/06/02/electric-power-in-florida/
90
Hmm! 30 seconds supply.
Tony.
100
hmmm.. Gees, I didn’t realise that Greenpeace was in the coal retail business. 🙂
60
I wonder if they paid the Carbon Tax on that ! ? 🙂
60
Watch this short (just under 2 minutes) video at this link of a coal train on the same line which passes through Rockhampton on its way to Gladstone barely 10KM from where I live.
This has 5 Locomotives hauling 98 hoppers, and it varies from 94 to 100 hoppers.
When loaded with coal, each hopper contains 100 tonnes of coal, so in effect, what you see here would be 10,000 tonnes of coal.
That coal is most probably going to China, where it will probably supply just ONE of their new USC coal fired power plants, which is running two units each with a generator of 1,100MW, so a Nameplate of 2,200MW.
What you see here on this video is 12.5 hours supply for both units at that power plant.
12.5 hours.
In that 12.5 hours, this plant will generate 27,500MWH of electricity.
The largest Wind Plant in Australia is Macarthur in Victoria, rated at 420MW Nameplate, with 140 towers covering 55 Square Kilometres. That plant cost around $1 billion, more than half of that being in the form of outright grants from both the Federal and State Governments. It takes Macarthur Wind plant, on average, 9 days to deliver that same amount of power.
Between four and five of these coal trains travel down this line to Gladstone every hour, 24 hours a day, and 365 days a year, and the only thing which stops them is a flood.
What you see there on that coal train is 28,600 tonnes of CO2.
In 12.5 hours of operation.
Tony.
140
Add Newy to the coal export system.. It does more coal than Gladstone, iirc. !
Recently spent a few days at a friend’s place in Maitland, pretty close to the railway line. 🙂
50
In Newy, the loaded trains are pretty much downhill all the way. so only use 3 locomotives.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3smLRKUBOB4 (not my video)
50
Depends on which mine the train was loaded at
The Bowen Basin coking coal mines sell mostly to China, Japan, South Korea
The thermal coal mines sell mostly to Japan, South Korea, Taiwan – very little to China, which has itself very large resources of thermal coal but precious little coking coal
20
Graeme No 3.
Thank you for that link. This is the one thing which “closes the loop” for me and explains the extreme ‘belief’ of politicians and gigantic corporations in the CAGW story.
The last two comments show exactly why big finance (the sector with the most lobbyists and with the deepest pockets for campaign contributions) loves subsidized renewals, in spite of the pitiful economics of the sector as detailed in that excellent article: http://diggingintheclay.wordpress.com/2013/06/02/electric-power-in-florida/
60
Green village to be bulldozed and mined for lignite in Germany’s quest for non-nuclear fuel
“Proschim is just one of a cluster of east German villages and farms set to make way for new lignite mines.
The fossil fuel is intended to “bridge” a widening energy gap resulting from the closure of Germany’s nuclear power plants.
Sigmar Gabriel, Chancellor Merkel’s Energy minister, claims that more lignite mines are vital:
“We need strategic reserves of gas and coal power for the times when the wind doesn’t blow and the sun doesn’t shine,” he said.”
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/green-living/green-village-to-be-bulldozed-and-mined-for-lignite-in-germanys-quest-for-nonnuclear-fuel-9760091.html
80
While all the extra CO2 is highly beneficial for the world’s plant life, Germany were pretty darn stupid to close down those nuke plants !!
60
Would someone like to explain or describe how and where CO2 measurements are being made around the world. From a quick web search it seems there are fairly few sites and mainly across the Pacific Ocean. And how is it known that CO2 density is reasonably homogeneous, so sampling at one location is a valid representation for the whole world?
Or is there a summary website with this type of info?
70
Ditto. I too crave information about CO2 measurements but felt too dumb to ask. Nice to know I am not alone.Can somebody help?
50
I’ve found a few sites –
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/06/04/under-the-volcano-over-the-volcano/
… and follow the links …
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/about/co2_measurements.html
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/carbontracker/
40
Thanks for that. I have some reading to do.
10
The CSIRO’s Cape Grim air sampling station in the NW corner of Tasmania is one of the main global air sampling stations in both the Southern hemisphere and the global air sampling system of stations as it is about the one station that has no potential air contaminating land mass for an incredible 17,000 kms up wind towards the west .
Cape Grim sits below the 40th parallel of latitude which passes through Bass Strait and well south of South Africa and only meets it’s first land mass when crossing mid way up Argentina, a distance of roughly 17,000 kms of clean air uncontaminated by any land mass of any size or consequence for all of that distance.
The link to the CSIRO’s Cape Grim site gives a lot of information as to where the main global air sampling stations are located along with the data on air samples plus the methods used to both collect and then analyze the collected samples.
Or alternatively with some atmospheric gases the data is collected directly.
Just Google / Bing/ etc ; Cape Grim air sampling site for many more articles on global air sampling with particular reference to Cape Grim.
20
I think it’s fair to say that it is not known. They do it with a bit of modeling and data infilling where the data is absent (which is most places, most of the time). And you thought some of the temperature measurements were a bit sketchy…
They launched the Orbiting Carbon Observatory in July to try and make up for the lack of data. I think it might yet provide some surprises for everyone. I hope the data is made freely available on the web.
70
Erko,
Have you looked at Cape Grim, Tasmania. From our own BOM
http://www.csiro.au/greenhouse-gases/#Carbon-Dioxide
20
Peter C – thank you. And also thanks michael hart for the info about the Orbiting Carbon Observatory.
10
So if the South Pole and the Equator both with little CO2 ppm variation are so opposite in average temperature where does this 350.org now stand?
This CO2 350 ppm Goldilocks idea has always been an easily proven scientific joke, I challenge any MSM outlet to publish the information posted here and let the public decide what’s the truth, what have they got to loose…..
141
‘what have they got to lose…’
Sorry I was being a bit loose on details much like 350.org.
40
They can loose their grip on my wallet.
20
All of the coal in the ground, oil in the ground, limestone in the sea is derived from carbon that came from the atmosphere – If we really care for the biosphere we really ought to put it back where it belongs – to make it available again.
130
Lawrie Ayres –
this report (& study) do get reported, of course…btw it’s a MAJOR report, says Latika:
10 Nov: SMH: Latika Bourke: Climate policy needs to look beyond 2020, says major report
And a second, separate study has found investment in renewable energy has fallen 70 per cent since the election of the Abbott government.
The first study, by the Climate Institute, calls on the Australian government to announce an “independent, transparent” process for setting its post 2020 targets…
The Climate Institute says that for Australia to fairly contribute to a global attempts to limit temperature increases the government should announce next year that it will reduce its emissions by 40 per cent over the next decade and lay out a pathway of achieving a minimum 65 per cent reduction on 2000 levels by 2035.
“Australia’s decarbonisation goal should be to achieve a net zero-emissions economy between 2040 and 2050,” says the report…
The second report from the Climate Council has found investment in renewable sources of energy in Australia is lagging behind China and the United States.
“Unfortunately the lack of federal government commitment to renewable energy is hurting the industry. In the past year investment in Australian renewable energy projects dropped 70 per cent,” said report co-author Professor Tim Flannery.
The report says China installed more renewable energy capacity than fossil fuels in 2013
http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/climate-policy-needs-to-look-beyond-2020-says-major-report-20141110-11jitp.html
60
I’m not convinced that the use of isotopic measurement of CO2 concentrations can validly be used to assert that a particular fraction (say 10%) of fossil fuel emissions “find their way into the atmosphere”.
There is a lot more interchange of CO2 between ocean and atmosphere than is indicated by the annual budget.
81
btw woke up this morning to a Fran Kelly promo on RN for her Friday “5 with Fran” Breakfast prog segments (didn’t realise it’s a weekly thing – oh dear). Fran voiced the promo with inserts of an attack on the Govt for wanting to repeal the RET – no doubt quotes from one of the endless Breakfast prog attacks on the Govts CAGW policies.
following the promo, it was a TED Hour which RN broadcasts. it included the following, paraphrasing:
David Christian: i remember growing up during the cuban missile crisis; for a few days the entire biosphere seemed to be on the verge of destruction and the same weapons are still here & they are still armed. if we avoid that trap, others are waiting for us. we’re burning fossil fuels at such a rate that we seem to be undermining the goldilocks conditions that made it possible for human civilisation to flourish over the last 10,000 years.
and
Louise Leakey: we’ve only been around for 200,000 years, yet we’ve reached a population of more than 6 & a half billion, but our technology has removed the checks & balances on our population growth;
evolutionarily speaking, we’re just a blip, sitting on the edge of a precipice…when u look at fossils & u realise a species is there, & it’s abundant for quite a long period of time, then at some point, it’s no longer there, u realise u change, or u adapt, or u go extinct.
QUESTION: do you think we’ll be around in 5,000 years?
Leakey: i couldn’t answer that question. i often think about it. as a species, yes, but in what numbers? possibly far fewer if we are going to sustain ourselves on the planet…the question is, as homo sapiens, are we going to be able to adapt to the change that we are part of, that we are causing such dramatic changes to the planet.
http://www.npr.org/programs/ted-radio-hour/357837221/how-it-all-began
& then came the news headlines, with Flannery & Co’s “major” pronouncements.
70
It must be Groundhog Day.
80
Well, jump then, like the lemmings are reported to do …
50
‘There are places on Earth when CO2 swings every year by 16ppm or more’, so what? The truth is co2 has risen since the start of the industrial revolution because of fossil fuel burning. The wider picture has the whole story, tut, tut, thou shall not cherry pick, indeed it should be the first law of the science.
‘Since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution (taken as the year 1750), the burning of fossil fuels and extensive clearing of native forests has contributed to a 40% increase in the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide, from 280 to 392.6 parts per million (ppm) in 2012’
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_gas
129
As usual you miss the obvious logical conclusion. If the largest rises and falls of CO2 occur with plantlife and oceans, and not with mankind, the most sensible uncherry-picked conclusion is that a significant part of the rise in the last 300 years is due to the warming of oceans and land, which all started before our industrial revolution, and continues in a linear long term fashion, unrelated to the accellerating curve of human emissions.
310
As usual you miss the obvious logical conclusion. If the largest rises and falls of CO2 occur with plantlife and oceans, and not with mankind, the most sensible uncherry-picked conclusion is that a significant part of the rise in the last 300 years is due to the warming of oceans and land, which all started before our industrial revolution, and continues in a linear long term fashion, unrelated to the accellerating curve of human emissions.
18
For a silly moment there Chester I thought you had written something logical, only to find you had screwed up your use of the quote button….. oh well…..
30
Yep, the only part that showed human intelligence was the part not in the block quote.
That block quote is the incoherent ravings of a total nincompoop !
30
Ah, The Gristle: willing to call black white just to try and be Jo’s favored lap dog. What a sad old man you must be Gristle – your every minute seems to be spent here waiting to maul you next victim with your worn out, fetid little lettuce leaf. Still, I guess if Jo’s illogic brightens your day and gives you a reason to get out of bed in the afternoons, then maybe you should be paying her for the service.
04
Wow, great rabid dog rant.. 🙂
Junior high now beckons you.
20
Huh? Your interpretation makes NO sense whatsoever!
20
Mediocre propaganda:
Jo was talking about CO2 levels, which are measured on an annual basis, and you respond with a comment about seasonal temperatures without showing the relationship and without explaining the seasonal differences across different latitudes.
Spectacular failure.
30
” co2 has risen since the start of the industrial revolution because of fossil fuel burning. ‘
WELL DONE HUMANS !! 🙂
KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK !!
160
BA,
Show me your evidence that CO2 can do what that Wiki article says it can do. I’ll bet you can’t.
The ball’s in your court. It’s time to put up or shut up.
100
That Wiki article has William M. Connolley’s finger prints all over. Sorry, it can’t be trusted.
40
Bruce. if you look at this chart it provide categorical PROOF THAT CO2 DOES NOT warm the atmosphere.
If the peaks in the CO2 caused warming… the temperature WOULD NOT DROP !!!
20
10 Nov: The Conversation: Martin Rice: Australia is losing ground as the climate policy race gains pace
(Martin Rice is Research Manager, The Climate Council of Australia and Honorary Associate, Department of Environment and Geography at Macquarie University)
United States: stepping up to the plate
Similarly, there have been positive developments by another global energy giant, the United States…
http://theconversation.com/australia-is-losing-ground-as-the-climate-policy-race-gains-pace-33941
9 Nov: Boston Globe: James Carroll: Scientists, speak up on climate change
‘Science has spoken,” UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said the other day, presenting the latest dire warning on climate change…
One could almost feel the breeze stirred by the broad population’s collective shrug at this news coming from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change meeting in Copenhagen. Almost as astonishing as the looming threat that carbon poisons pose for the planet is the indifference that average Americans seem to feel about it. Such climate denial, now decades old, translates into a lack of political pressure on Washington, which in turn results in the failure of both presidential administrations and Congress to rise vigorously in defense of the environment…
What would it take for the public to get clear both on the unanimity of climate scientists, and on the urgency of what they see coming? An answer from the recent past suggests itself: scientists, instead of merely providing activists and journalists with irrefutable climate data, must leave their cloistered laboratories to become activists themselves. Scientists must take to the streets and lead, even if that means taking hits in the contentious public square.
It happened before, when scientists helped steer the human species away from suicide. The Cold War nuclear arms race might well have run on to Armageddon had not a remarkable cohort of physicists, astronomers, mathematicians, and physicians put their detached analysis at the service of moral fervor…
http://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2014/11/09/scientists-speak-climate-change/Ht0r44A5PWPmr4uJL8167N/story.html
11
Hmm a few commenters from this site in the conversation article you cite. Is Richard O’Mear ROM? Maybe not, he kept his comments to less than a few thousand words.
05
Good thing you only use 30 words. Even those were a waste.
61
I didn’t bother reading all the comments but didn’t spot any names I recognised. There were far too many opinions and too little fact, and a desperate attempt to ‘shout’ the other side down, to keep going. For you to claim that commentator X might be Y on the basis of some similar letters says more about you and your thought processes than you might like.
The article itself somehow fails to mention that the Pugwash Conferences started in 1957, at least 20 years before the supposed breakthrough of reason. In the opinions the rubbish claim that 97% of scientists believe in global warming gets its usual run. The original study took 79 (out of over 3000) and asked 2 questions. 75 replied favourably, and it was trumpeted as “proof”. That’s like asking Dracula “would you like the keys to the Blood Bank?”, or the members of the Flat Earth Society “how many believe the Earth is flat?”
On that last bit, I point out that the Flat Earth Society supports the notion of “Global Warming” (whatever that means.
10
We can’t loose that race fast enough in my opinion. We should be heading in the exact opposite direction. Let the rest of the First World go to Hell in a Handbasket if they will.
50
The cultural cringe is alive and well: “Australia left behind!” Oh noes! We’re second rate again! We’re losing the cricket! Nobody thinks we’re important! Abbott and Putin AWKWARD!
How about “Australia leading the world in climate change common-sense?”
20
8 Nov: Washington Times: Tom Harris: Unquestioningly one-sided climate-change coverage
Reporters unskeptically repeat U.N. tales of climate doom
When introducing the IPCC Synthesis Report, Mr. Ban confidently told media representatives, “Human influence on the climate system is clear — and clearly growing . The atmosphere and oceans have warmed … science has spoken. There is no ambiguity in their message.”
Why did not a single reporter present ask the secretary-general how his remarks jived with the 18-year pause in global temperature rise evident in balloon, surface and satellite temperature records? Why did they not point out that the oceans have not warmed since 2003?
More importantly, why did journalists not ask Mr. Ban how he could be so confident that climate calamity is imminent when the computer models he is relying on have repeatedly failed in the real world? Why did reporters not point out that the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change, the reports of which cite thousands of scientific references in leading peer-reviewed journals, demonstrates that there is massive ambiguity in the messages coming from scientists?.
In other words, why didn’t reporters do their jobs?
It is not just the journalists present at last week’s news conference who are letting us down with their naive reporting on climate change. Most media covered the event without criticism…
Traditionally, skepticism is usually associated with those on the left of the political spectrum, people who disdain absolute assertions from powerful authorities. When it comes to global warming, though, skepticism and their much-vaunted tolerance for alternative viewpoints vanishes, and left-wing reporters become mere propagandists, morphing into what they claim to despise…
Whether emissions of carbon dioxide from human activity are causing dangerous climate change or not is an exceptionally difficult science question. Leading experts cannot agree on the causes of these changes or what future awaits us. It’s about time the media stopped pretending they know the answers to these mysteries and just tell us the whole story.
(Tom Harris is executive director of the Ottawa, Canada-based International Climate Science Coalition)
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/nov/7/harris-one-sided-climate-change-coverage/
60
Everybody’s talking about Carbon dioxide, great but what about the other side of the photosynthesis reaction providing us with oxygen to breathe and carbohydrate to provide the energy for life itself! Animals do not synthesise carbohydrate.
140
It is ABSOLUTELY ESSENTIAL that mankind continue to de-sequester CO2 for the carbon cycle
The world and all life on it absolute depend on that CO2!
( sorry for shouting.. but we really do need to start shouting !)
110
Yep, if global cooling gets a grip we’ll all be in strife. Eurasia becomes the first cab off the rank.
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/gistemp/nmaps.cgi?sat=4&sst=3&type=trends&mean_gen=02&year1=1989&year2=2014&base1=1951&base2=1980&radius=1200&pol=rob
40
Its aklso essential that the north of Australia be opened up much more for agriculture.
I’m sure the Asians (China, Japan etc) as well as the US will be more than willing to help ! 🙂
We should aim at getting a nice balanced mix of agriculture nationalities with huge dams etc etc.
60
All that dark red in the Arctic… yet !!!
GISS always seems” dubious”.. maybe its because of the guy in charge..
Gavin would never, “bend” the data to fit his ideals, now would he ! 😉
60
With nowhere left to run to and nowhere left to hide, why are they still going?
Nuts! I keep forgetting. It’s politics, not science.
90
Easy mistake to make in todays pseudo-climate Roy. 😉
70
Too easy, Yonni. I’ve always been a hands-on technologist type guy and adapting to the political side of life has never been easy. I might just tell the truth when it wouldn’t help the situation. I can figure out what’s wrong with a computer program or fix a clothes dryer faster than I can grasp what’s going on in the mind of a politician.
The former is easy. The latter is hard work.
20
Roy you just inspired a Yonni-quote: ‘Politics is frustration for the practical.’
20
Politics is easy, once you know the language.
The secret is to never be direct with anybody.
For example, when a political staffer makes a “right royal stuff-up”, the appropriate response to say, “Well, that was an interesting exercise, perhaps we should try a different approach next time, and see if we get a different response”.
Just like empirical science when you think about it.
10
You from down under sure have some colorful metaphors. At least I’ve been assuming that “stuff-up” means what I think it does. We have our equivalent that Jo wouldn’t permit. So maybe I’ll start adopting yours. 😉
00
Don’t forget that is isn’t just “science” it is “the science” as though that elevates it to some lofty, incorruptible state.
Now from grade school up to and including my college courses we never studied “the science” we studied theorems, hypothesis, and laws which were made up of experiments, observations of those experiments, and data resulting from those experiments. This was of course according to the scientific method.
In physics when we conducted experiments regarding the interactions of force and mass we weren’t trying to replicate “the science” we were trying to replicate the results of prior experiments which were the basis of the theories and laws that resulted in the equations that many of us had first learned in high school.
The way the language regarding scientific experiments and hypotheses has been twisted and distorted it’s no wonder no one understands “the science” because there is no such thing.
90
Yes siree! The sceptics find themselves in quite the dilemma!
027
SF, a donkey dressed as a clown.
You STILL have zero to offer to rational discussion.!
From your posts, you have very obviously never seen any real science, just the clown joke that is “the climate science”
111
Yep skeptics are faced with quite a dilemma, unfortunately what you continue to fail to realize is the dilemma is how to educate someone as obviously immature and incapable of learning as you. Sadly we can’t get any funding to find a solution because the government prefers we don’t educate people like you since it makes it so much simpler for them to lie to you.
130
Yes, indeed Robert. Not only have they got
The Missing Temperature Rise
The Missing Heat problem, and now
The Missing CO2 problem.
It would lead anybody of normal intelligence to query if Climatology was really settled?
Still, you can lead a sillyfilly to the facts, but you can’t make her think.
140
Stupid horse is now a bug splat on the windscreen of the logic bus …
90
a dilemma.. yes!!!
How to overcome the brain-washed ignorance of the below average CAGNW cultist..
….and actually get them to LEARN something !
41
Silly,
I have no dilemma. The doom and gloom isn’t happening ANYWHERE. And if it ever does then I’m prepared to reevaluate my position. Until then I’m sleeping quite well at night and it looks like the warmists are scrambling night and day for a way to stay relevant. The dilemma is on your side of the fence.
60
Intersting study:
Where does our CO2 go?
“The ocean is a major carbon sink, absorbing perhaps a third of anthropogenic CO2 emissions, but there are considerable uncertainties as to the distribution and rate of CO2 capture. Khatiwala et al. present an observationally based reconstruction of anthropogenic carbon uptake in the ocean during the industrial era. They map the regions where it is most concentrated, and track the accumulations over time. The findings indicate that uptake of anthropogenic CO2 in the oceans has increased sharply since the 1950s, with a small decline in the rate of increase in recent decades. The Southern Ocean is the biggest sink, with over 40% of total uptake. The results also suggest that the terrestrial biosphere was a source of CO2 until the 1940s, subsequently becoming a sink.”
also:
Increase in observed net carbon dioxide uptake by land and oceans during the past 50 years
Nature 488, 70–72 (02 August 2012) doi:10.1038/nature11299
“Here we use global-scale atmospheric CO2 measurements, CO2 emission inventories and their full range of uncertainties to calculate changes in global CO2 sources and sinks during the past 50 years. Our mass balance analysis shows that net global carbon uptake has increased significantly by about 0.05 billion tonnes of carbon per year and that global carbon uptake doubled, from 2.4 ± 0.8 to 5.0 ± 0.9 billion tonnes per year, between 1960 and 2010. Therefore, it is very unlikely that both land and ocean carbon sinks have decreased on a global scale. Since 1959, approximately 350 billion tonnes of carbon have been emitted by humans to the atmosphere, of which about 55 per cent has moved into the land and oceans”
All’s well in science!
022
Yes, one would expect the ocean biosphere to take up a lot of CO2 now that it is finally available.
Note that the land biosphere is also a net sink.
PLANT LUV CO2. !!
The world’s biosphere, land and oceans.. thanks us for de-sequestering that CO2.
90
that should be
40
ps I like making little typos like that, because it allows me to re-iterate the FACT that..
30
You go girl, keep tossing out gems like that one that prove beyond doubt that you haven’t a clue about science.
110
In other words they don’t actually know, but given more funding might be able to find out.
Gosh, that is some long term research. I am impressed. Who made these observations over the past two hundred years of the industrial era? Was it a family where the duty was handed down from father to son over multiple generations? And I would be interested to know how they “observed” the CO2 going into the oceans? I always thought it was transparent.
So it wasn’t just done over the last two hundred years, it was also done at lots of places! How many dedicated families did they need to do that? Was it a secret religious order, perhaps?
Phew, back onto firmer ground here. Except, how did they distinguish between the anthropogenic CO2, and all the other sources of CO2? Interesting question, wouldn’t you say? Still at least they manage a mention of 1950, the year when the end of the world was supposed to have started.
Any kid with an atlas can see that the Southern Ocean is the largest. But we need to remember that the wind cycles in opposite directions in the two hemispheres — anticyclones in the North and cyclones in the South, so not a lot of wind crosses the equator. But since 70-80% of industry is in the Northern Hemisphere, how do they explain the process whereby CO2 manages to migrate to the southern hemisphere?
Am I the only person who thinks there is something wrong here?
160
“Am I the only person who thinks there is something wrong here?”
Nope..
I was even starting to ask which model they used, and where the measurement data came from…
…. but decided instead to stress the beneficial nature of CO2, and the massive expansion of Earth’s whole biosphere, including the ocean biosphere, due to that small amount of extra CO2 that humans are, thankfully, releasing from were it was accidentally buried.
70
Add to that this little gift that Wikipedia does not know about –
Nature Geoscience 4, 839–842 (2011) doi:10.1038/ngeo1294
Received 24 May 2011 Accepted 14 September 2011 Published online 16 October 2011
Indeed reference to it is in a paper “Recent Changes of Arctic Multiyear Sea Ice Coverage and the Likely Causes” by Polyakov et al. As a side note on page 149 Polyakov says this of Butman’s report –
40
Attribution link
The second quote from Polyakov is from the publication February 2012, American Meteorological Society, and is a study supported by JAMSTEC (IP), NOAA (IP, JW), NASA (grant NA06OAR4600183, IP, RK), and NSF (IP, JW) grants.
Recent Changes of Arctic Multiyear Sea Ice Coverage and the Likely Causes
by Igor v. Polyakov, John E. Walsh, and Ronald Kwok
AMS2012 (http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10.1175/BAMS-D-11-00070.1 )
20
That would mean the biosphere was dying. Yaaaee for humanity!
30
This is the point I have been trying to make.
CO2 levels were dangerously low. and have been for a long time.
Fossil fuel use has not only allowed the massive development of mankind, but also helped lift the biosphere out of starvation rations.
61
Griss
For a long time I have been trying to make a related point. Planckton can double in population in just one day given the right conditions.
So lets play with the unreliable numbers from SiFi above in an even less reliable way for an imaginative example.
“The Southern Ocean is the biggest sink, with over 40% of total uptake.”
Correct conditions come along due to something like ocean fertilisation from a comet tail or volcanic eruption and one day later that is 80%. Then each day it continues means another doubling. After two days 160%, 3days 320%, 4 days 640%, 5 days 1280%, 6 days 2560% and at one week we have 5120%. So just one week later and the rate of Southern ocean uptake is 128 times what it was. If things then stabilised for three days that is a years worth gone in those three days but the dust could keep falling for another two years and the endothermic photosysnthesis would assist Henry’s law.
20
Not only the plankton but also many other microbes, animal and plants. These short-lived surface dwellers soon die, their dead bodies becoming that hazy ‘rain’ that continually falls in the deep oceans. This rain of detritus falls to the bottoms of all the oceans and remains as a sludge until buried and compressed by yet more ‘detritus rain’. This has happened since the just after the dawn of life.
All this sludge and dead body detritus is carbon based and originally was atmospheric CO2.
Go figure – there megatons of the stuff raining down to the ocean depths daily. How much was CO2?
20
That was partly because of land use. Deforestation and agriculture. Most arable land is now under cultivation world wide.
01
Interesting post, indeed, very interesting, but not one word about my notion that the expanse of the forest line further into the tundra is caused by higher levels of CO2. The warmists point to this expansion as indicating global warming. Could it be they are wrong yet again. Can anyone point to a study looking into this notion. Heck, even I, a mere non climate scientist, could devise a cogent experiment. Simple, in a temperature controlled colder atmosphere see the results of higher levels of CO2 on plant growth. This whole post is about greater biomass in a higher CO2 world. Yet only the barest mention, in passing, of increased Boreal forest in Siberia.
70
It is quite plausible that the net effect of c02 on humans, and the biosphere, is positive for at least the next few hundred years, and possibly forever. If this was the case, it wouldn’t be the first time radical academia has once again stuffed up.
Because most of the world’s landmass is currently nearer to the poles, and subject to extensive ice build-up and freezing conditions, a small increase in net warmth is actually a good thing for all concerned.
A small increase in warmth and a slight rise in sea level as well as minor shifts in climate zones, might be just about all that occurs from making the world into a more humane, more equitable, more diverse, and more socially free and responsible planet and biosphere.
As usual, the academics contracted to study the issue, have quickly lost all sense of proportion.
They are engaged to monitor and advise (not control), various aspects of the market, like emissions of trace gases, but they quickly forget this primary task, and without adequate evidence claim that minute increases in a trace gas seriously threaten humanity and the earths’ well being, whilst at the same time rarely seeing the good things that occur by utilising sources of such a trace gas for energy, as well as the various other good things that increases in the trace gas produce, (such as world greening).
One of the ironies of academia is that their job function is actually supposed to be about developing a sense of proportion, but often it’s the very first thing they lose all sense of. C02 might not ultimately be the demon they claim it to be.
50
Let’s presume that the increase in CO2 levels is 100% anthropogenic, and we reversed that until CO2 levels fell to 280 ppm. How we we handle the resultant global famine?
30
Tom Quirk,
Why didn’t you also use the Cape Grim, Tasmania data for your analysis? It is our own Australian site and is supposed to be a good source for a well mixed atmosphere, being far from land (given a prevailing westerly wind) and far from the Northern Hemisphere.
Now that I look at it again the measurements seem to be a bit lower than Mauna Loa. Initially I had thought that the measurements at Cape Grim and at Mauna Loa were the same.
Could you supply a map showing the locations of all these CO2 measurement stations?
30
Actually I have missed the point a bit.
Cape Grim is in a location of well mixed air, and in the Southern Hemisphere, and hence the annual variation in CO2 concentration is very low. Less than Mauna Loa. The actual average concentration of CO2 is the same as Maina Loa.
00
is this an appeal to the evangelicals? LOL.
7 Nov: CBS Chicago: When You’re Shivering Next Week, Blame ‘Bombogenesis’
Remember the “Polar Vortex”? That term refers to wind currents over the North and South poles; they had an unusually strong impact on the United States during the last winter.
The slangy “Bombogenesis” describes a rapid drop in pressure that will occur to the north. The bombogenesis will create a ripple effect that sends artic air to the Chicago area.
What’s that mean for us? It could make autumn feel more wintry than usual next week, CBS 2 Meteorologist says…
The silver lining: If you’re a winter-sports enthusiast you may get an early skiing and snowboarding season, CBS 2’s Jeremy Ross reports.
http://chicago.cbslocal.com/2014/11/07/when-youre-shivering-next-week-blame-bombogenesis/
20
9 Nov: Vox: What aliens can teach us about global warming
Updated by Joseph Stromberg
There’s no doubt that global warming on Earth is a human-driven trend.
But what if the tendency of intelligent species to alter their planet’s climate was a more common phenomenon than we think?…
That’s the idea put forth by astrophysicist Adam Frank and astrobiologist Woodruff Sullivan in an interesting new paper. “It’s a change in perspective,” Frank says. “What we’re saying is that what our species is going through right now, from an astrobiology perspective, is probably not unique. It probably happens all the time — and we can learn from that.”
It’s a provocative way of looking at a familiar problem. I recently spoke to Frank to hear about the concept in greater detail…
http://www.vox.com/2014/11/9/7174157/global-warming-aliens
Wikipedia: Vox
Founded in 2003 as SportsBlogs, Inc., by political strategist Jerome Armstrong, freelance writer Tyler Bleszinski, and Markos Moulitsas (creator of Daily Kos), the network now features over 300 sites with over 400 paid writers…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vox_Media#Vox.com
20
You can tell from the atom bomb graph that radioactive C14 takes 2 years to cross the equatorial barrier, so the amplitude in the Southern Hemisphere would be very interesting. (you can also get the decay rate of CO2 with a half life of 14 years) For this data though, apart from the South Pole, this is all Northern Hemisphere where most of the land is.
Amplitude measurements in the Southern hemisphere below the tropics would be most interesting. Most of the land is in the North and most of the people, say 80% North of the equator. Below the tropic of Capricorn, very little land (leaving out Antarctica) and only 2% of the people. That is why Australia was the mythical Great Southern Land, supposed to balance up the planet.
There is also the real expectation that if CO2 comes from that dissolved in water (50ml of liquid CO2 per 1 litre of water), you could actually predict the amplitude in CO2 from the amplitude of the variations in surface temperature. Check the graph of the solubility of CO2 in water against temperature. Antarctica would be an exception where there is no water and it is much colder than the arctic (CO2 is close to solid in winter at -56C) So while Antactica goes from -50 to -20 summer to winter, the Northern Hemisphere around 70, say Point Barrow can go from -50 to +25, producing the greatest variation in CO2 released under Henry’s Law.
40
As Prof Turney and his ship of fools found out, the Southern Hemisphere is not the same as the Northern.
It is impossible to believe an alleged climate scientist could think they were the same. It is like saying North America is the same as South America, but North.
The idea proposed is to compare amplitude results from say the Latitude of San Diego (La Jolla) but in the Southern Hemisphere. say Newcastle, Australia. If you draw a line on the Mercator projection above and through NewCastle, north of Sydney, you can see there is very little land at that Latitude. In fact almost no Africa. Of course there is the plankton in the ocean but still, you would expect a greatly decreased amplitude if it is plant life, but possibly not if it is ocean surface temperature.
I would even go so far as to say areas of greatest variation in ocean surface temperature would be the ones with the highest variation in CO2. Possibly. Either way, it has nothing to do with fossil fuels, which is the point.
40
Dear Jo,
Might be of interest to you!
Cutting edge science from Bangalore, India:
http://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/bangalore/bangalore-wakes-up-to-polluted-air/article6541860.ece
“Between 5 a.m. and 7 a.m., carbon dioxide (CO2) levels shoot up to 490 part per million (ppm), well over levels found in non-polluted atmosphere — approximately 280 ppm. It is considerably lower in the evenings — 395 ppm, says a new research paper published in the international journal Environmental Science and Pollution Research.
Indicating rising traffic, biomass burning and polluting industries – primarily cement factories around the city – the greenhouse gas is also responsible for an increase in temperature in the city, says the paper.”
10
I commented on a YouTube video a few days ago regarding this topic after Gavin Cawley (a Skeptical Science contributor) surprisingly replied to me and thought that the idea of the oceans causing an increase in CO2 while absorbing nearly all of our emissions violated the law of conservation of mass and summarily deemed it ‘absurd’. He probably wasn’t expecting such a thorough counterargument from a random guy on YouTube.
Unfortunately for Cawley – unlike on Skeptical Science – there is no option on YouTube to delete the comments of obstreperous skeptics.
Quote:
It is difficult for those who don’t understand Henry’s law to get their heads around the idea that the oceans could outgas vast quantities of CO2 while at the same time mopping up vast amounts of anthropogenic CO2 – about 98% of anthropogenic CO2 at equilibrium in accordance with the 1/50 partitioning ratio. It’s not only possible, it’s demanded by a physical law of chemistry and scientists like Segalstad and Jaworowski have published papers as far back as 20 years ago pointing this out, but unfortunately Henry’s law and Le Chatlier’s Principle have been quietly swept under the carpet by the IPCC and overlooked by not-so-conscientious skeptics. Henry’s law blows a hole in the CAGW-theory a mile wide. Because of the fast-equilbria of Henry’s law it is not possible for anthropogenic CO2 to accumulate in the atmosphere for hundreds of years as the IPCC claims. The increase in CO2 is most likely coming from the oceans (after all, there is a near-perfect correlation between SST and the CO2 increase and satellite measurements show the highest increases in CO2 are coming not from industrialized areas where human CO2-emissions are highest but down-wind of warm waters) and we all know the ice-core data contradicts other paleo-climate data and hence may be underestimating ancient CO2 levels. We also know that the C12/C13 isotopic argument by warmists does not hold up to scrutiny. I think we already have enough evidence to suggest the CO2 increase is very likely natural and that man’s small contribution is, well, small.
Segalstad’s work on this subject, especially his papers on Henry’s law, is definitely underappreciated by warmists and skeptics alike. While I was in primary school reciting my ABCs Segalstad was already publishing papers refuting the IPCC. His work deserves a lot more credit.
130
Well said.
KK
10
The idea which is missing, the idea which is essential in physical chemistry, the idea I put to our Climate Commissioner, Prof Will Steffen was that of equilibrium, which not only allows for simultaneous absorption and release but insists on it. Physically gas is always leaving the ocean and always going in. The reason the fossil fuel CO2 vanishes is that there is 50x as much CO2 in the oceans as in the atmosphere. Steffen simply referred to the IPCC when he knew the answer.
So if you label a Carbon atom a man released one, the chance that it is exchanged for another man made one is remote, so the man made CO2 seems to vanish. You can see this in the rapid decay of C14 after the atom bomb blasts. However the IPCC ascribe a half life to this exchange in the order of 80 years, a factor which is used to multiply its effect. This is demonstrably not true.
However what happens to the CO2, why it increases and where it went are secondary to the fact that neaerly all the man made fossil fuel CO2 is gone. That is absolutely proveable. You can radio carbon date the air itself and it is not old enough.
50
That’s fantastic. Just to put that into perspective 0.5 petagrams is the same as gigatonnes. 0.5 gigatonnes of carbon converts to 1.8 gigatones of CO2 which corresponds to 0.23ppmv. The Keeling Curve tells us that atmospheric CO2 is increasing at the rate of 2ppmv/year. Therefore the contribution from rivers could account for as much as 11.5% of the increase in CO2 per year. And I thought it was already ‘settled science’ that the entirety of the increase was human-induced. If the rivers alone can contribute 11.5% to the CO2 increase per year imagine what the oceans can do.
70
news.com.au is currently running a lead story “Why Global Warming is making it freezing” on a freezing cold spell in the US and goes on to explain why Global Warming is melting Arctic ice and coupled with the jet stream, is cooling everything, presumably except for the arctic. They even go on to say that it is also producing extra ice in Antarctica. Why not go for the lot?
So much for science. We have now crossed into the Bizarro world, where things where everything works in reverse and only specially gifted climate scientists know why warming produces cooling except where it is warming, especially as satellites tell us it is not warming. Cue spine chilling noises. Woooooooooo. Wooooo. This is so busted and rapidly falling apart. So if we stop the CO2 increase we stop the warming which is not measurable but producing dramatic cooling which is measurable? Maybe Tim Flannery can explain again why rain will not fill dams?
100
http://www.news.com.au/technology/environment/as-the-climate-warms-it-could-actually-be-generating-more-cold-outbreaks-in-the-usa-heres-how/story-fnjwvztl-1227118716283
10
I stood on a dam in Tasmania, and the rain was going upwards… at least it was in my vicinity…
(of course I should say that it was very windy, and the raindrops were not large, but why should I let the facts get in the way of a good story?)
10
That must mean it was a drying rain. 🙂
Its a “climate change” thing 😉
10
India plans to double coal production within 5 years. But don’t worry our bee’s dick reduction of 5% by 2020 will really make a difference.
http://www.thegwpf.com/india-intends-to-double-coal-production-within-5-years/
30
Yep, the world’s CO2 supply isn’t dropping any time soon 🙂
20
????
VIDEO: 9 Nov: ABC Landline: Carbon Farming
SEAN MURPHY: To make his stations free of feral animals and natives, such as kangaroos and emus, Peter Yench has invested heavily in total grazing pressure fencing. It costs $4,000 a kilometre and he’s installed about 40 kilometres so far. It’s expensive work and comes at the same time as he’s been engineering his paddocks to better use his meagre annual rainfall. All this despite two years of drought. He’s done it with money earned from carbon farming.
PETER YENCH: With the carbon farming coming in, that gives you the opportunity to make money out of your harder country and then to reinvest it in better country and make it even better again.
SEAN MURPHY: Peter Yench has pledged to conserve native forest on half of Balgoo Station for the next ***100 years. In return, he’s been promised an annual income for the first 20 years.
So after 20 years and when you’re long gone or if you want to sell the property, does the carbon conservation become a liability?
PETER YENCH: No, it certainly doesn’t. And the reason being that you’ve got access to funds for 20 years. If you can’t improve that 25 – 50 per cent of your property in that 20 years to far outweigh the cost, well then you’re not much of a manager. You should be living in town…
SEAN MURPHY: Peter Yench is in a scheme run by the Sydney-based company GreenCollar. It’s owned by barrister Lewis Tyndall and former World Bank consultant James Schultz, who met while working to conserve forests in Indonesia. Their company has written up 95 per cent of Australia’s native forest carbon abatement, most of it in the Western Division…
LEWIS TYNDALL, GREEN COLLAR: The difference is that the Government is buying them under a reverse auction process, and before, the polluting companies were paying for them. We need policy certainty and by having the Emission Reduction Fund passed by the senators recently, that gives certainty for us to go ahead. In the future there might be a different kind of carbon price mechanism, but at the moment we’re content that we’ve got certainty and we can go ahead…
http://www.abc.net.au/landline/content/2014/s4124482.htm
00
handjive –
not just Germany!
10 Nov: UK Independent: Tom Bawden: UK carbon emissions: The stench of missed targets as the Coalition’s green credentials are ‘torn up and thrown out’
The UK is set to miss key targets on carbon emissions, because too many of the country’s most polluting coal-fired power plants are set to stay open far longer than the Government had pledged, a new report warns.
Promises to introduce policies that would force coal plants to close have not been fulfilled, says the report by Imperial College London…
This means a significant portion of the hugely inefficient coal plants from the 1960s and 1970s – a major source of carbon emissions – are likely to keep operating into the 2030s, making it virtually impossible for the UK to meet key targets…
Chris Todd, of the Campaign for Better Transport lobbying group, said: “The Government is tearing up its green credentials and throwing them out of the window. On the same day it announces a massive road-building programme, we also discover that dirty coal plants are going to be staying open for longer.”…
***Experts say the UK must reduce emissions from the power sector – which make up nearly half of the country’s total – to one tenth of today’s level if it is to meet its climate goals…
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/uk-carbon-emissions-the-stench-of-missed-targets-as-coalitions-green-credentials-are-torn-up-and-thrown-out-9850180.html
***”Experts say”!!!! what a nonsense.
wonder if Climate Council’s Martin Rice will update his “Australia is losing ground as the climate policy race gains pace” piece for The Conversation with coal news out of Germany & UK? nah.
20
Both countries are “paying the price” for believing the Greens and other illogical and/or hysterical lemmings. They installed vast amounts of expensive wind and solar, and shut down nuclear and coal fired plants. When “renewables” turned out to be unreliable they have to build new power stations, while keeping old ones going.
The disaster is completed by the erratic supply of electricity from “renewables” sold at a low price because the subsidies cover the loss, has driven the lower emitting but higher priced sources (hydro, CCGT, CHP) out of the market, so only coal is left.
The only good news for the lemmings is that new coal fired stations have lower emissions than the old ones.
20
All predicted over 20 years ago, of course, but:
While one may reasonably be expected to have cheap laughs at the vain-glorious dills who socially engineered this, I feel real sadness for the populace struggling to cope with an unreliable and increasingly expensive power supply – the situation is actually quite dangerous
10
QUT Business School’s School of Management finally gets what sceptics have been saying for years – CAGW is a scam!
10 Nov: Phys.org: Niki Widdowson : “Carbon violence” underlies the green sheen of carbon offsets
Queensland researchers have coined the term ‘carbon violence’ to describe the effects of G20 and other developed countries’ investments in African plantation forestry to offset carbon emissions in a report for US think tank, the Oakland Institute…
Green Resources holds almost 12,000 hectares of Ugandan land, which has been planted with monocultural stands of trees to sequester or absorb carbon. The sequestered carbon is then sold via global markets to offset pollution by developed nations, with the Swedish Energy Agency a major buyer.
Dr Richards said Green Resources claimed to have invested more than $125 million in plantation forestry in Africa, with some of those funds coming from the Norwegian and Finnish owned development finance institutions, Norfund and Finnfund…
“But in many cases acquisition of land by foreign interests dispossesses local populations, which has profound impacts on the essentials needed for survival: food, water and shelter.
“The real benefits accrue to those acquiring the land – the plantation forestry company and their investors who are all seeking a return on capital.
“In interviews with 152 local villagers, environmental workers, company staff and journalists, it was found that up to 8000 subsistence farmers had been evicted from their land, with some subjected to physical violence by unknown security forces…
Dr Richards said making poorer nations pay for the excesses of the wealthy-world carbon pollution was not ethical, particularly when it involved social upheaval, disruption to livelihoods, food insecurity and environmental degradation such as chemical pollution and biodiversity loss…
“In addition, wealthy nations need to urgently act to reduce carbon emissions rather than outsource our problems to the global poor.”
http://phys.org/news/2014-11-carbon-violence-underlies-green-sheen.html
20
Martin Rice – more real info for when u update your article!
10 Nov: Financial Times: Peabody sees reprieve from US carbon cuts push
Lucy Hornby in Beijing
Shares in Peabody Energy, the largest US coal producer, have risen 13 per cent since last Tuesday, when the Republicans won a sweeping victory in midterm elections for the Senate that secured the party full control of Congress.
Mr Boyce said his company advocates building “supercritical” power plants worldwide that pollute less per unit of power produced than traditional plants. But he said the Environmental Protection Agency’s provisions requiring them also to be fitted with technology for carbon capture and storage technology, which isolates carbon dioxide emissions and stores them deep underground, is impractical and potentially very costly…
Mr Boyce said any attempt to push the regulations through would have led to court challenges from the affected industries that would have delayed implementation by four or five years.
“So you know, it was never going to happen in the near-term,” he said…
China itself has unveiled plans to limit coal use in prosperous eastern cities while expanding coal mining, power generation and processing in the more remote western region. Peabody has plans to invest in one of those mines, near Hami, an oasis known for its cantaloupes in the western province of Xinjiang…
http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/8c0d3370-689c-11e4-af00-00144feabdc0.html#axzz3IhzJrHxB
10
just when you think it can’t get sillier!
11 Nov: UK Daily Mail: Jonathan O’Callaghan: Global warming will SPEED UP after a pause, scientists warn: Climate temperature could rise faster than expected
University of Washington and MIT scientists say Earth’s warming will pause
But it will then undergo a rapid rise due to the amount of emitted CO2
As the icecaps melt, more high-energy solar rays will be absorbed, which means that climate change will continue unabated
Earth will experience a switch from long-wave to short-wave radiation
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2828910/Global-warming-SPEED-pause-scientists-warn.html
a final one for Martin Rice, when he corrects his Conversation piece!
26 Sept: USA Today: Wendy Koch: U.S. carbon emissions rise despite Obama climate plan
U.S. emissions of heat-trapping carbon dioxide have risen 6% in the last two years despite the Obama administration’s efforts to curb global warming, federal data show…
The EIA data, released this week, show that energy produced from coal has fallen slightly, replaced by an uptick in natural gas. The biggest change in fossil fuels, though, is the production of crude oil — up 31% during the first half of this year compared to 2012…
http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2014/09/26/us-carbon-emissions-rise-despite-obama-climate-plan/16276811/
00
Thanks pat.
Say, I wonder why the EIA would say this (or perhaps the journalist writing the article would say this):
When it can be proved from the EIA’s own published data that the opposite is in fact true.
Now, look at the data at this link.
Coal fired power is the left column.
The top entries are by year and note the increase in generated power from 2012 to 2013.
Now, scroll to the bottom of the list and note the Year To Date columns and the Rolling 12 Months columns, all of which show an even further increase from 2013 to 2014.
OK, that covers electricity generation, so now, go to the data at this link, which shows coal consumption in the electricity generation sector. Note here that the data is expressed in thousand tons, so that very bottom figure you see there is 874,894,000 tons of coal burned, yes, almost a billion tons of coal burned.
Again, look at the data for the same years, all of which show an increase in coal consumption, 4.3% from 2012 to 2013, and 2% so far this year.
Note here how the figures expressed as a percentage give the impression of being relatively small.
That actual increase in emissions is 101 million tons of CO2 for 12/13, and 50 Million tons for this current year.
Now, I’m not sure, but saying there has been a decrease when that data shows an increase is, umm,, well, not quite correct, now, is it?
Tony.
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Could it be..
more coal… used inefficiently because of ramping for wind and solar => less overall energy ?
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[…] on the blog of Joanne Nova, the Australian science writer who uncovered the vast amount of money driving the […]
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[…] on the blog of Joanne Nova, the Australian science writer who uncovered the vast amount of money driving the […]
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“Unless there is an alternative explanation for the growth of the seasonal CO2 amplitude, it is a strong indicator of forest growth.”
I’m sure the Climate Change Clingers will come up with some ‘alternative explanation’ post haste!
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CO₂ is Plant Food.
Learn it,
Love it,
Release it.
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[…] on the blog of Joanne Nova, the Australian science writer who uncovered the vast amount of money driving the […]
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