Friday, February 14, 2014

Global Warming part 2: Man's Contribution

 photo Carbon_Cycle_zpsc8e4a213.gif
This graphic is from the Skeptical Science site
I hope they don't mind.

Friday is usually a light day on this blog. Just a quick note to fill in a gap from the previous piece.

Many conservatives admit we are expericing warming of the planet but claim it's a natural cycle or that we can't know if our contribution to green house gases is really enough to be the culprit. I think we just think rationally about we would see it must be. There's a good site called Skeptical Science, that deals with this issue. Warning, it says it's "getting skeptical about global warming skepticism."

Climate Myth...

Human CO2 is a tiny % of CO2 emissions
“The oceans contain 37,400 billion tons (GT) of suspended carbon, land biomass has 2000-3000 GT. The atpmosphere contains 720 billion tons of CO2 and humans contribute only 6 GT additional load on this balance. The oceans, land and atpmosphere exchange CO2 continuously so the additional load by humans is incredibly small. A small shift in the balance between oceans and air would cause a CO2 much more severe rise than anything we could produce.” (Jeff Id)
Before the industrial revolution, the CO2 content in the air remained quite steady for thousands of years. Natural CO2 is not static, however. It is generated by natural processes, and absorbed by others.
this bit goes with the graphic above:
As you can see in Figure 1, natural land and ocean carbon remains roughly in balance and have done so for a long time – and we know this because we can measure historic levels of CO2 in the atmosphere both directly (in ice cores) and indirectly (through proxies).
But consider what happens when more CO2 is released from outside of the natural carbon cycle – by burning fossil fuels. Although our output of 29 gigatons of CO2 is tiny compared to the 750 gigatons moving through the carbon cycle each year, it adds up because the land and ocean cannot absorb all of the extra CO2. About 40% of this additional CO2 is absorbed. The rest remains in the atmosphere, and as a consequence, atmospheric CO2 is at its highest level in 15 to 20 million years (Tripati 2009). (A natural change of 100ppm normally takes 5,000 to 20,000 years. The recent increase of 100ppm has taken just 120 years).
Human CO2 emissions upset the natural balance of the carbon cycle. Man-made CO2 in the atmosphere has increased by a third since the pre-industrial era, creating an artificial forcing of global temperatures which is warming the planet. While fossil-fuel derived CO2 is a very small component of the global carbon cycle, the extra CO2 is cumulative because the natural carbon exchange cannot absorb all the additional CO2.
The level of atmospheric CO2 is building up, the additional CO2 is being produced by burning fossil fuels, and that build up is accelerating.

 So the balance remained for remained in balance, even there were times when climate changed naturally. In time of the Dinasours the earth was warmer than now. In the time of ice age it was much colder than it is now. It seems the Tipping point is that we began interjecting sources that did not balance. Natural source give and take corban dioxide, such as trees.

there's much more on that site so please look at that page

15 comments:

Dan Pangburn said...

Carbon footprint has no effect on Global Warming.

AGW does not and never did exist.

http://agwunveiled.blogspot.com/

Joseph Hinman (Metacrock) said...

"The term “carbon footprint” refers to the amount of carbon (C02) we emit individually in any one-year period. C02 is produced from many sources and is the primary gas responsible for Global warming and the resulting alarming changes in our climate. - See more at: http://www.marioninstitute.org/what-carbon-footprint?gclid=CMToquC_zLwCFRNp7Aod9QsAmA#sthash.92nAGrVw.dpuf"


"The GHG footprint, or greenhouse gas footprint, refers to the amount of GHG that are emitted during the creation of products or services. It is more comprehensive than the commonly used carbon footprint, which measures only carbon dioxide, one of many greenhouse gases."
carbon footprint

Dan Pangburn said...

The other ghgs have no significant effect on GW either.

Discover the two drivers that explain 90% of average global temperatures since before 1900 at the link above.

Joseph Hinman (Metacrock) said...

that's just more right wing BS. The idea that warming has ended is based upon really stupid ways of looking selectively at certain parts of the century rather than taking it as a whole. You obviously weren't in Texas in the summer of 2011 if you were you would know better.

the 2000 scientists in the IPCC know better, none of them are talking that way. Is that a liberal conspiracy or something?

Joseph Hinman (Metacrock) said...

think of all cars in the whole world and all the heaters and all the building being heated all over the world to think that has no effect on the level of warming it's stupid.

Joseph Hinman (Metacrock) said...

97% climate scientists agree with global warming and human input.


"Ninety-seven percent of climate scientists agree that climate-warming trends over the past century are very likely due to human activities,1and most of the leading scientific organizations worldwide have issued public statements endorsing this position. The following is a partial list of these organizations, along with links to their published statements and a selection of related resources."


really great chart that shows graphically all about it.

Dan Pangburn said...

If you had looked at the link, you would have seen that all of recorded temperatures, including those before 1900 are used.

A simple equation, using only two parameters calculates average global temperature anomalies since before 1900 with 90% accuracy and calculates credible anomalies back to 1610.

Joseph Hinman (Metacrock) said...

how moronic of those stupid 2000 scientists not to examine your stats. one would think 97 of scientists would read tables? Guess not.

Joseph Hinman (Metacrock) said...

Troposphere warming and stratosphere is not. more warming at poll than at equator. coutner to what would be expected if the sun was causing warming.

constant rise in temp decade after decade.

over the last three decades temperature goes up in a j curve and solar activity does not.

Dan Pangburn said...

Well, if you aren't curious enough to even look . . .

If you had looked, you would know that GRAPHS tell the story. Figure 1 for reported average global temperatures since before 1900 and Figures 2-4 which include estimates back to 1610.

Joseph Hinman (Metacrock) said...

before you get to sounding too sanctimonious about who looks at whose data, did you even look at the one that shows that solar activity and warming diverse completely over the last 30 years?

did you get it that I'm using multiple sources and multiple graphs that all agree? you have one set of data from a little right wing ideologue.

Dan Pangburn said...

I am quite familiar with the graph that shows separation between sunspot numbers and temperature. I also know what is wrong with it. Temperatures do not correlate with sunspot numbers as those graphs show but temperatures do correlate with the sunspot number time-integral as I show.

Just because most are barking up the same tree does not demonstrate that it is the RIGHT tree. They are motivated by paychecks that are funded by government grants. I have no such motivation.

Joseph Hinman (Metacrock) said...

That's a meaningless correlation. that doesn't prove it's sun spots causing warming. The presumption is clearly with the idea of human interaction since we put so much into the atmosphere.

what are you afraid of? why are you so afraid to change your way of life?

Dan Pangburn said...

I will try to summarize. Magnetic field from sunspots shields earth from galactic cosmic rays so fewer low altitude clouds form. Fewer low altitude clouds means fewer clouds so lower albedo and warming planet. Also, fewer low altitude clouds means higher average cloud altitude and thus lower average cloud temperature, less radiation from clouds to space and warming planet. A low but wide solar cycle can be as effective as a high narrow one. The integral takes both magnitude and duration into account. Thus more sunspot number time-integral means warming and less means cooling. The huge effective thermal capacitance of the oceans greatly slows both heating and cooling.

The GCR/low-altitude-cloud was discovered by Svensmark, corroborated by Marsden & Lingenfelter and again by the CLOUD experiment at CERN.

I calculated the sensitivity of AGT to low altitude clouds at http://lowaltitudeclouds.blogspot.com/

This is all discussed in much greater detail at the links and sub links.

I expect that my ‘way of life’ is far more environment friendly than you might think. I recycle, use CFBs, drive little, don’t litter, conserve energy, etc. Focus on CO2, which is not a pollutant (and is in fact, absolutely required for all life on this planet), distracts from real pollutants such as mercury, NOX, particulates & sulfur from power plants (all effectively removed by scrubbers in developed countries).

Joseph Hinman (Metacrock) said...

“Recent measurements of the cosmic ray intensity show that … even if cosmic rays enhanced cloud production, there would be a small global cooling, not warming.”

Here