In Australia, the public is not in favour of a proposed carbon tax, but the mainstream media, particularly the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, keep pushing the proposal along with the idea we face inevitable catastrophic climate change unless we change our ways. The host of one commercial radio station, Alan Jones, has been putting the alternative perspective and is now being reprimanded… interestingly on the science.
Activist group, GetUp, claim Alan Jones is wrong to have broadcast that only 0.001 per cent of the carbon dioxide in the air if from human sources and claims the correct figure is 28 percent. I thought the official figure was something like 3 per cent.
The media release from GetUp follows:
“GetUp this morning announced that it has commenced proceedings under the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) Commercial Broadcastersʼ Code of Practice to demand Alan Jones publically and immediately revoke fabricated statements on climate science.
“It’s wrong for ultra-conservative shock-jocks like Mr Jones to deliberately mislead their audience and they must be held to account when they do so,”
GetUp Acting National Director Sam Mclean said. “We have standards in this country which demand the truth from our broadcasters.”
The complaint is being made under section 2.2 of the ACMA Code, which states that:
In the preparation and presentation of current affairs programs, a licensee must use reasonable efforts to ensure that:
a) Factual material is reasonably supportable as being accurate; and
b) Substantial errors of fact are corrected at the earliest possible opportunity.
GetUp said it would be targeting 2GBʼs Mr Jones, over his statement that:
“Nature produces nearly all of the carbon dioxide in the air. Human beings produce point 001 percent of the carbon dioxide in the air…”
“The statement that humans only produce .001% of the CO2 in the air is factually inaccurate,” Mr Mclean said. “Prominent scientists such as Professor Matthew England (Professor of the Climate Change research centre), Michael Ashley (professor of Astrophysics) and Steve Sherwood
(professor and co director of the Climate Change research centre) all agree that the humans contribute to at least 28% of the CO2 in the air.
GetUp said it would be registering a further complaint, based on section 2.3 of the Code that states all parties should strive to address different viewpoints in controversial topics.
“Alan Jonesʼs complete disregard for providing a balanced view of climate change on his show is unacceptable,” Mr Mclean said. “Our research indicates he has not interviewed any climate scientists who believe in the concept of human made climate change – this is completely unhealthy
for public discourse and a perfect example of why the ACMA Code was created in the first place.”
“Alan Jones has already been censured by ACMA for breaching the Broadcasting Code on multiple occasions, such in May and April in 2007 when he encouraged violence on his show and vilified people because of ethnicity or in May 2009 for presenting inaccurate information.”
The organisation said it would pursue further complaints, including against 2GB and MTRʼs Chris Smith, who has been at the centre of an anti-carbon tax rally to be held in Canberra today.
“This is a rally organised by shock-jocks who are misleading their listeners about the science of climate change and misleading their listeners about the impacts of a carbon price,” Mr Mclean said.
“It is truly a sad thing that broadcasters find preying on the concerns of Australians a better route to ratings than rational reporting and honest discussion.”
*************
So, what percentage of the air is human sourced carbon dioxide and how is this best calculated?
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
Isn’t it also wrong for governerment and other to mislead the public by repeatedly saying such things as
“If Australia does not introduce taxes to reduce carbon emmissions, it will mean the end of such things as the Barrier reef and Kakadu”
“It will never rain again”
“We have just been through the worst drought in history in SE Australia.”
“Australia is the largest global per capita producer of CO2”
“A labor government will not tax carbon before the next election”
Carbon dioxide is a pollutant, in other words a toxin”
ETC,ETC
Hear hear Doug !
It has to be a classic case of ‘pot call in the kettle black’
or maybe:
‘Those who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones’
or even:
‘Let he who is without sin cast the first stone’
ROTFL
If nothing else, there is no doubt that we have definitely been subjected to a breach of the very same section 2.2 of the ACMA code by the media loudly publishing the statements Doug has highlighted and so many others.
‘Get Up’ could find they’re shooting themselves in both feet.
I look forward to seeing some of the ‘scientific evidence’ that supports the claims on both sides of this debate.
I would like you to look at this from the point of view of the ‘average’ person who doesn’t go and find out for themselves.
When percentages are bandied about, that ‘average’ person then thinks of them incorrectly.
That statement needs to be explained, because those of us here who have checked and do understand those figures to a degree can actually differentiate one from the other.
The average person hears the question ….. “What percentage of the CO2 content in the Atmosphere is man made?” and there are answers that vary, like GetUp saying it’s at 28%, and others saying it’s as low as 3%.
Now, if you can see the point of view of the average person, he or she now thinks that the overall CO2 content of the Atmosphere is ….. and more often than not they will believe that GetUp figure of that 28%. They have failed to see the accentuation of the part that says ….. man made, or have misinterpreted it.
The original question has been misinterpreted by them, not the answer, whether they accept one figure or the other.
People look at me like I’m crazy when I try to tell them the overall CO2 content of the Atmosphere ….. not the fraction of that which is man made, but the whole overall content of CO2.
They ‘sort of’ understand the 390 PPM, but cannot equate that to a percentage, if you see what I mean by that.
That 390 PPM equates to 0.039% of the total Atmosphere, and as soon as I mention that, all of a sudden, I’m a raving loony, because everyone ‘knows’ it’s almost 30%.
When I then add that Water Vapor, the largest of the Greenhouse Gases is indeed 50 times greater, they don’t believe that.
When I then attempt to reinforce that figure of 0.039%, comparing that to Oxygen which stands at 20.54%, which is 525 times greater than for CO2, again, I’m the crazy one.
Then when I further add that by far the largest part of the Atmosphere is Nitrogen at 76.55%, I am immediately discounted as having no credibility whatsoever on the subject of CO2.
Because, right back to the start, they have misinterpreted the original question thinking that answer of the GetUp figure of 28% CO2 as the total content of the Atmosphere.
This is where the people using that 28% figure are winning, because they understand that the ‘average’ person ‘perceives’ the CO2 problem to be such a large amount, when in actuality it is in fact 0.039%, a figure that no one actually believes.
I’ve tried this on family members and even though I very carefully explain the whole thing, still they won’t believe it.
That’s why the AGW argument has such huge support, because people believe the most plausible thing as opposed to the actual facts.
Go and do this short simple ten question test:
http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/GlobWarmTest/start.html
Tony.
Tony, But what percentage of carbon dioxide is human sourced? Is it less than 3 percent of the 0.039 percent?
In fact, I might go so far as to say that the GetUp figure is closer at their 28% than the lower 3% figure.
If you take into account just electrical power generation, then the U.S. figure alone is 3.5 Billion tons. China is around the same, a little higher, because they have currently just surpassed the U.S. in total electrical power production.
If the U.S. is around one fifth, and China is at one fifth, then that leaves three fifths.
If 7 Billion equals two fifths then the total is around 17 billion tons. What complicates that is that the US has only 48% of power coming from coal fired sources, and the rest of the World is up around 80 to 85% from coal fired sources.
I have heard wildly differing totals for the overall total CO2 emissions, ranging from a low of 35 Billion tons per year to a figure of 150 Billion tons of CO2 per year.
So that 17 billion tons just from electrical power production would make the percentage greater than 3% in my estimation.
However, I did not you added the 0.039%, so even at that higher figure of 28%, it still amounts to a very tiny percentage.
Now, also keep in mind that the figure of that 390PPM has been rising at about the rate of 1PPM every 15 months, so the addition of even the man made portion of CO2 at the rate of even the average 50 billion tons a year is still only equating to a rise of less than 1PPM per year, or 0.001% per annum.
Again, complex argument, further adding to the reason why the perception exists that CO2 makes up a large portion of the Atmosphere, if you can see that point.
Again, Jennifer, sorry to take so much space here.
Tony.
What nonsense. The old flux vs net shell game.
Who cares what the concentration is – simply an appeal to “teensy weensy” – it’s the increase in radiative forcing that is the issue. As measured. As previously discussed. The end.
http://thesixtyzone.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/how-informed-is-the-public.pdf
a fun questionnaire
Q3. What % of CO2 do humans produce?
Respondent’s answers ranged from as high as 100% with most estimating it to be between 75% to 25% and only four said they thought it was between 10% and 2 %.
The Correct Answer: Nature produces nearly all of it. Humans produce only 3%. As a decimal it is a miniscule 0.001% of the air. All of mankind produces only one molecule of CO2 in around every 90,000 air molecules! Yes, that’s all.
No attribution but written by
Gregg D Thompson
Climate Researcher
Astronomer
Environmentalist
Author of two science books
Business Manager and Director of 3 companies
‘The tree ring and ice core data both show that the total change in the 13C/12C ratio of the atmosphere since 1850 is about 0.15%. This sounds very small but is actually very large relative to natural variability. The results show that the full glacial-to-interglacial change in 13C/12C of the atmosphere — which took many thousand years — was about 0.03%, or about 5 times less than that observed in the last 150 years.’
Picked this up from Real Climate.
It’s the wrong question. If you take a look at the carbon cycle, you’ll see that every year about 200 GtC enters the atmosphere from natural sources, and about 200 GtC leaves it (the numbers are hard to measure and have significant error margins), the imbalance between the two is about 2-3 GtC, and the human contribution is about 6 GtC. The ‘half-life’ of any particular molecule in the air is about 5 years – for any given ‘lump’ of CO2, about half of it gets absorbed by the oceans every five years, so after about 50 years only one part in a thousand of it is left.
The theory is that the natural world is normally in balance, that the 6 GtC is adding to it and causing the total to rise, and that natural sinks can only partially cancel it. Thus, humans are according to theory *responsible* for an accumulated excess (over 50-100 years) of about 40% of the CO2, but that as a percentage of the annual change, or as a percentage of the *actual* CO2 molecules *currently* in the atmosphere, very little of it is from fossil fuel.
If you start with three pints of milk in the fridge, use one pint a day, and buy a pint a day, there will continue to be three pints indefinitely. If a new person arrives and has a little splash in their coffee each day, gradually, the milk will go down. After several months, you find two pints of milk in the fridge, and ask who drank the other pint? In a sense, nobody did – the milk has been in the fridge less than half a week and the new guy has only had a tiny fraction of it. In a sense, you could say everybody did – everybody has been drinking milk, the new guy no more than anybody else, and it’s an arbitrary decision to single him out because he is new. If you counted up the contribution of any other person, you’d get the same answer.
And if it turns out that a couple of people had been taking less milk to compensate for the new guy, but a third person had independently got greedy and took more, it wouldn’t even be the case that the new guy ’caused’ the reduction. If they hadn’t turned up, the milk still would have gone just the same.
Thus, you not only have to know what all the contributions are, and how much they’ve changed, you also have to know how they affect one another before you can ascribe responsibility. That’s a part of the argument that most presenters leave out. Personally, I have little reason to doubt that humans are responsible for the change, (I see it as a credit, if anything), but I haven’t seen a complete and logical proof of it anywhere. It is in any case a distraction from the main point, which is what difference it makes to climate and whether that matters.
Tony, I have no idea how you, or Getup, get the 28 per cent figure as the percentage of carbon dioxide in the air from human sources. Can you show me/us how you get a 28 per cent figure working from first principles.
“Pre-industrial” CO2 = 280ppm
Current CO2 = 380ppm
“Human sourced” CO2 = 100ppm
(100/380)X100 = 28% approx.
I’m guessing this is their calculation.
Thanks Paul. There I was assuming much of the additional carbon dioxide was releases from the oceans given the warming since the Little Ice Age…
http://jennifermarohasy.com/blog/2008/02/carbon-dioxide-versus-temperature/
Paul, I would agree that is where GetUp gets the figure; it can be countered from the same AGW scientific sources.
Figure 7.3 from AR4 tells us how much of the total atmospheric level of CO2 is from humans, ACO2:
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/figure-7-3.html
The correct way of interpreting Fig 7.3 is the total of these fluxes is 218.2 Gt; of this 8 Gt is from human activity, or 3.67% of the total. The other relevant data is from the US Department of Energy
DOE shows of that 218.2 CO2 flux from fig 7.3 98.5% is reabsorbed leaving about 1.5% of emitted CO2 from all sources to remain at the end of the year. How much of that 1.5% is from human sources can be simply calculated by 1.5/100×3.67/100=0.000552. Put another way, after 1 year the human amount of CO2 [ACO2] is 1 in 1811.594203; in the second year it is 1 in 120772.9469 and so on.
The Knorr paper is also relevant but I don’t think I’ll go near that.
A quote from B Joyce today.
“if taxes cooled the planet, the place would already be an icebox.”
Jennifer,
Honestly, I have no idea of the truth of it.
That’s why I ask questions that seem so amateurish and stupid.
The 28% figure I mentioned was as a point of conjecture.
The truth about actual physical emissions from current World power generation is in fact that figure I mentioned of 17 Billion tons.
That is based upon this data, working up from the US data.
Coal burned shown at bottom left rolling 12 month total expressed as thousands of tons:
http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/electricity/epm/table2_1_a.html
Hence 980 million tons. Using the average multiplier of 2.86and the link for that is:
http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/coal/quarterly/co2_article/co2.html
So, that comes in at 2.8 Billion tons of CO2.
Natural gas power at this link, bottom left expressed as thousand mcf
http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/electricity/epm/table2_4_a.html
Hence 7.633 Billion mcf, and using that multiplier 122 pounds CO2 per mcf, that comes in at 470 million tons of CO2
Add on CO2 from other emitting power plants petroleum liquids and petroleum coke, around 50 million tons of CO2, the total comes in at 3.32 Billion tons.
China is the same as for the US, slightly higher giving us 6.7 Billion tons, which is around 40% of World electricity production.
Using that lower figure, because remember the rest of the World produces 85% of its power from coal fired sources while in the US it’s only 50%.
That 40% (US plus China) makes the overall total just from electrical power at just on that 17 Billion tons I mentioned above.
It’s also known that power generation alone produces 35 to 40% of all man made emissions, and that then takes the man made emissions total to close on 43 Billion tons, using the upper 40%.
I have seen quotes from different sources saying that TOTAL Worldwide emissions amount to only 50 billion tons, and the comment above yours quotes 200 Billion tons, and frankly, I’d prefer to go with that figure.
That being so, the 43 Billion tons from made made sources comes in at around 22%
I don’t know!
I want to know!
Millions of people couldn’t care less, and will believe anything.
Can you see the dilemma I face when I can easily work out totals for electrical power production only, and then extrapolate them upwards to a projected total.
Then when I see people saying that total emissions only amount to 50 billion tons, and I know electrical power generation alone produces 17 Billion tons, I don’t know where to look.
That’s why I ask questions.
I can’t relate what I know (17 billion tons) to totals that vary so wildly.
As I mentioned, that’s why I want to know.
I do know those figures for electrical power, and because they ‘sound’ so monumentally huge, people won’t believe a word I say, so that’s why it’s so hard for me to try and explain it, because the numbers are in fact astronomical, hence very easy to discount.
Again, Jennifer, I do apologise for taking so much space.
Tony.
The estimation (guesses, deliberate data manipulation or other thought bubbles ) of pre-industrial atmospheric CO2 is most probably wrong. Ernst Beck reviewed past measurements of CO2 from a large number of sources including measurements made by a number of Nobel prize winners in Chemistry and Physics see here http://www.biomind.de/realCO2/realCO2-1.htm He found that CO2 has varied from first measurements around 1820 to the period around 1960 when measurements began near the top of the active volcano at Mauna Loa Hawaii and that CO2 has been in that period possibly higher than present. The 280 ppm pre-industrial is a proxy taken from icecores (which has been much critised by many eg Prof Jaworowski et al Norsk Polar Institute report 119 Oslo 1992) The report by Prof Jaworowski has for 1989 the following Annual fluxes
Natural
Ocean 106
Land 63
Total 169
Man made
Fossil Fuels & land use 6
Various reconciliations of fossil fuel emission, emission from agricuture and pastoral persuits etc have found that less than 50% is found in the atmosphere. It is thought that plants (on land and in oceans) are absorbing 50% of man made emissions but no one knows. No one has accurately determined natural emissions of CH4 and CO2 from volcanoes (eg the Atlantic rift) and various deposits of oil, gas and coal.
Getting back to past measurements, a number of researchers found (including one in India and a important long term experiment by Kreutz 1941) found CO2 levels around 1940 similar to present. There has been some criticism of Kreutz but it appears the critics can not read German and have not had access to the orginal measurement data. Kreutz’s instrument which was very accurate (as good as today’s instruments) was capable of 120 measurements a day, and there were periods of a week when he took measurements every 20 minutes. Kreutz showed that there were daily, weekly and seasonal changes of CO2 level of upto 100ppm. Kreutz measured the sun’s radiation, air temperature, wind velocity and direction, rain and snow, air pressure, humidity and air density. It is very clear that air temperature lagged radiation from the sun, and that CO2 lagged temperature on a daily and seasonal basis. I think there was someone called Scholander who did similar measurements around 1960 in Norway or Sweden (can’t find the paper at present)
One thing that is very clear with regard to CO2 emissions is that there are now very much reduced wild fires (bushfires in Australia) around the world. No one knows exactly how much CO2 is formed from wildfires each year but there have been estimates that some individual fires have produced more CO2 in a week than the whole world fossil fuel burning of one year.
Even if humans have been contributing a little to atmospheric CO2 this has no affect on atmospheric temperatures as has been shown by a) CO2 lagging temperaature changes and b) by actual atmospheric measurements as explained in Dr Noor Van Andels paper.
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_percentage_of_carbon_dioxide_is_in_the_earth's_atmosphere
Got this from wiki.answers so it much be right
now is Get up just being hypocritical. Many might remember the adverts they ran against Tasmania’s approved pulp mill, see https://www.getup.org.au/campaign/NoPulpMill&id=621 The major image of this campaign was a devastated forest with people standing in front as if protesting about the destruction that the pulp mill would cause.
However this image is clearly photoshoped and also not of timber harvesting but of a Hydro lake at low level with its bank exposed.
The original image is at http://espanol.istockphoto.com/stock-photo-883324-clearfelled-forest-scene.php taken of the northern part of Lake King William from the road from Queenstown to Tarraleah.
So now to criticise a media commentator for pointing out that 0.039% of the atmoshere is CO2 by volume, and that a maximum 0.01% of the atmoshere could be human caused is certainly as hypocritical as Bob Brown burning old growth logs in his timber cabin as the Sydney Morning Helrald showed us at the weekend.
The Average Joe Sixpack is pretty good at comprehending a cartoon
See “Nursing the Satistics Back to Health” at
http://www.cartoonsbyjosh.com/
I have recently read a figure of a bit over 8GT per year from humans, which is about 1% of the 800 or so GT in the atmosphere. BUT don’t forget that with a residence time of 5-10 years(by some calculations) and an annual increase in output, human CO2 must be accumulating, so it’s a good question.
A better question for me is; with all of the fluctuations in both temperature and CO2 emissions and a bunch of other graphs, how come the Muna Loa graph is so steady?
Let’s face it No One knows. It’s all speculation.
read this
http://carbon-budget.geologist-1011.net/
and you’ll speculate some more.
Alan Jones is alleged by Jonathan Holmes to have said “Nature produces nearly all of the carbon dioxide in the air. Human beings produce point 001 percent of the carbon dioxide in the air…”
Given that CO2 accounts for 390 parts per million or 0.039% of the atmosphere , and anthropogenic CO2 is quoted as accounting for 3% of CO2 in the atmosphere, then anthropogenic CO2 would account for 0.00117% of the atmosphere. Presumably, that is what Alan Jones meant.
As there is always confusion when percentages of percentages are quoted in practice, it can be assumed that he did not set out deliberately to mislead, but was sloppy in his delivery.
Jonathan Holmes stated “The fact is that almost 30% of the carbon dioxide in the air is there because of human activity in the past two hundred years…”, and quotes Professor Matthew England and others as sources. England asserts “Atmospheric CO2 is now around 390ppm up from 280ppm pre-industrial — and humans have emitted more than enough to be responsible for all of this rise and more … So 110ppm rise due to us out of 390ppm there today, or approx. 28% of today’s atmospheric CO2 concentrations. ”
On the other hand, the IPCC asserts that 21% of the CO2 in the atmosphere is anthropogenic, whereas Tom V Segalstad of the University of Oslo in Norway concluded that it is about 4%.
If we take a starting point of 0.028% ( nearly everyone agrees on this number) of the atmosphere in say 1800, then subtract that number from the 0.039% of the atmosphere in 2011 we are left with an increase of 0.01% in 211 years.
So humans have increased that total by 0.01% or an increase of 28% over that period of 111 years, or an average of 0.00009% increase to the atmosphere per year.
But many would argue that the increase of 0.01% or 28% of the original number of 0.028% to 0.039% would not be entirely due to humans but warmer oceans emitting more co2 after natural warming after the end of the LIA.
But that total average increase per year of nine one hundred thousandths of one percent of the atmosphere or 0.00009% is an accurate number.
But probably due to a LIA recovery warming the oceans plus humans fossil fuel use as well.
Sorry Neville, the starting point of 280ppm is a fiddle from Keeling. It is supposedly based on icecore proxy in Greenland. Please go and look that graph on this website http://www.biomind.de/realCO2/realCO2-1.htm , then click on papers and download the peer reviewed papers. Under literature you will find a huge list of referenced some of which can be downloaded. Under history you will find some of data used for graphs in the peer reviewed papers (something that most of the so called climate scientist eh Michael Mann do not do)
If one takes the actual 1940 CO2 measurement then there has been no increase ie ZERO in the 71 years since then.
If the world actually starts to cool towards 2020 maybe there will be a reduction of CO2 in the atmosphere (ie following the temperature down) and a huge number of destroyed reputations but will that makeup for the trillions of dollars, Euros, pounds and Yen wasted by appalling governments.
Carbon Dioxide: Natural Human-Made Total Absorption
Annual Million Metric Tons 770,000 23,100 793,100 781,400
% of Total 97.1% 2.9% 100% 98.5%
Source: Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Climate Change 2001: The Scientific Basis
(Cambridge, UK Cambridge University Press, 2001), Figure 3.1, p. 188.
According to IPCC man is 3% of .039% so .00117 per cent.
Spare us the hyperbole, GetUp!!
Do you ever question the biased, hysterical, misleading rubbish spewing out of the taxpayer funded ABC on a daily basis?!
No, I didn’t think so!
Cement you may be proved right one day, who knows, but at the moment 0.028% is the accepted number.
Mkelly that 3% of 0.039% is not the question, it is what percentage increase is it from 0.028% to 0.039% over 211 years.
But I’m also sure that humans are only responsible for part of that increase.
Until someone can calculate how much anthropogenic CO2 increases the partial pressure of CO2 in the atmosphere REDUCING the natural release of CO2 from water, I would say that human contribution may even be less than .00117 or whatever.
Luke, you or some of your smart friends up to do some real life chemical analysis and computations instead of arm waving models??
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Neville, it is not me who is saying the base number of 280ppm is wrong. It is the results from many measurements made by competent people including Nobel prize winners that shows the figure is wrong. I personally have made CO2 measurements in the air and in furnaces in a number of countries (including Australia and some in Europe and North America) over many years, admittedly not to the accuracy of modern measurements but suitable for my purpose. I, at least understand how the past measurements were made and the errors involved.
Science should be about properly setting out experiments, taking account of all potential errors, stating exactly what has been done so others can replicate experiments, providing all the data so others can examine the results, and then only provide an analysis of results within the boundary limits of the experiments and ones understanding and competency of the technologies involved (including physical laws inherent in measuring equipment, and statistics)
The IPCC does not have any people who are competent in technology combinations such as thermodynamics, heat and mass transfer and fluid dynamics which are engineering subjects well beyond the knowledge of scientists. Lead authors of the IPCC have been involved in manipulating data and suppressing data release. Nothing produced by the IPCC and the lead authors is believable.
The only settled science is that climate is complex and that there have been long term changes of climate in many parts of the world (eg coal can be found in Antarctica and within the Arctic circle). Australia has been drier than at present and it has been largely underwater.
Jennifer’s quotes re the fabricated, false and un-referenced statements of shock jocks such as Jones and ‘scientist’ deniers such as Plimer are very pertinent. This public lying need to be prevented; persisting in spreading false claims on the media (as was done by the tobacco industry for many years) is I believe a crime.
Re man made CO2, there’s a lot of unnecessary, confusing argument about simple figures. First the percentage of CO2 in the atmosphere is a tiny – a small fraction of a percent but it enough to have a warming effect. Second the man made percentage of that small fraction of air that is CO2 is not small and it’s easily calculated. CO2 before industrial revolution was about 280 ppm; now it’s 390 ppm simple maths tells me that man is resonsible for 28% of what’s there now.
I would prefer that there was an outcry when leading politicians make false and misleading statements than when some radio announcer, who nobody relies upon as authorative anyway, makes a false and misleading statement.
I would like to see done a detailed “cost benefit analys” on halting global warming by a tax on CO2 emitters and that analysis subjected to the greatest scientific and economic scrutiny, before we set in concrete any tax with which we will be shakled for all time.
“CO2 before industrial revolution was about 280 ppm; now it’s 390 ppm”
Yes, and therefore that 110 ppm ACO2 is 0.001% of the atmosphere as Alan Jones said.
This estimate of CO2 emission by every person is worthy of consideration see here http://thinkearth.wordpress.com/2007/03/30/how-much-c02-do-we-each-breathe-out/ Julia Gillard emits more CO2 per year than the average Indian’s non-personal annual CO2 emission. What about Watermelon Brown he has already emitted double the amount of CO2 compared to the average Indian with their lower life expectancy.
@Jennifer and All…
Human contribution to [CO2] = 0.00117%, that is 11.7 ppmV per year, or 1.967 × 10-5 kilograms (0.00001967 kg). The current mass of CO2 per cubic meter of air is 0.000656 kg.
The total change of temperature by carbon dioxide in the air is 0.1392 °K.
Total ΔT = 0.1392 °K
ΔT-No human contribution = 0.1264 °K
ΔT-Only by human contribution = 0.0128 °K
That’s all… The carbon dioxide is not a cause of global warming. Its total emissivity is ridiculously low.
🙂
Nasif, thank you for that
I’m no scientist so I have a stupid question
where do you get those figures from?
Is there a source which can be quoted?
So Jones is on safe ground and has no case to answer?
@val majkus…
Please, your question is appropiate enough.
Yes, there are some sources on the human contribution of 11.7 ppmV:
http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/greenhouse_data.html
http://www.qohel.com/2011/03/05/pricing-carbon/
And from the IPCC AR4 report at:
http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/wg1/ar4-wg1-spm.pdf
although one should make some simple calculations:
Total: 880 Gtons per year.
Human contribution: 26.4 Gtons per year.
26.4 Gt / 880 Gt = 0.029, rounding up the cipher gives 0.03, that is 3%.
The remainder numbers on my post were obtained by applying the following formula:
ΔT = α (LN ([CO2] current / [CO2] standard)) / (4 * σ * T^3).
ΔT is change of temperature, α is power flux by CO2 per degree Kelvin (the IPCC and AGWers prefer to call it “CO2climate sensitivity” –it’s an arbitrary quantity, but I introduce the value they handle, i.e. 5.35 W/m^2 K), [CO2] current is for the current concentration of CO2, [CO2] standard is for the concentration of carbon dioxide that the AGWers and the IPCC consider “normal” (another arbitrary constant), σ is the Stefan-Boltzmann constant (5.6697 x 10^-8 W/m^2 K^3), and T^3 is the standard absolute temperature to the third power (Tstd = 290 K).
Here an example is:
ΔT = 5.35 (W/m^2 K) (LN (390 ppmV/ 280 ppmV))/(4*5.6697 x 10^-8 W/m^2 K^3*(290 K)^3) = 1.773 (W/m^2 K) / 5.53 (W/m^2) = 0.32 K
If I had an atmospheric temperature of 16.53 °C, the temperature of the carbon dioxide would be 16.85 °C.
If I had a fraction of carbon dioxide of 560 ppmV, the temperature of that volume of carbon dioxide would be 290.67 K (17.25 °C).
The problem with the IPCC and collaborators is that they use only the first portion of the algorithm:
ΔT = α (LN ([CO2] current / [CO2] standard))
This way, they obtain fictitious anomalies of temperature under different “scenarios”:
ΔT = 5.35 (W/m^2 K) (LN (390 ppmV/ 280 ppmV)) = 1.77 °K (it’s valid to write ° before K).
But this practice is easily debunked when one examine the units:
ΔT = (W/m^2 K) (LN (ppmV/ ppmV)) = W/m^2 K. This is not units for temperature, but for rate of power flux per degree Kelvin. Pseudoscience, that is what it is.
🙂
Nasif thank you for that great explanation
What A. Jones could have said and been correct is that human produced CO2 is only 0.001% of the total atmospheric air by volume. The statement “that humans only produce 0.001% of the CO2 in the air” is wrong. The current level of CO2 in the atmosphere is 390ppm (or 0.039%) by volume. The commonly accepted figure for pre- industrialization is 280ppm. The difference of 110ppm is the portion attributed to human activity, expressed as a percentage of the current CO2 level of 390, this is 28%.
Whether it is worthwhile taking out a court action over sloppy arithmetic and poor logic I will leave up to
GetUp
Brian,
the tiny amount of CO2 that man emits increases the partial pressure of CO2 in the atmosphere. Everything else being equal, an increase of the partial pressure of CO2 in the atmosphere will REDUCE the amount of CO2 emitted by the oceans. Please get one of your alarmist friends to compute this amount!! As it decreases the simplistically computed human contribution!!
Another non-modelled issue.
JohnC,
the oceans have been warming since the 280ppm number. Trying to blame the 110ppm increase on humans is worse than STUPID!!! It is the same fallacy when trying to claim that CO2 and other GGH’s are the reason the earth isn’t -15c or whatever the exact figure is computed at. When you exclude all other interactions it SEEMS that this might be true. It isn’t and claiming it only shows ignorance.
Kuhnkat,
in your March 30 comment you raised a couple of points, I will try to address.
Over the past 150 years atmospheric CO2 concentration has risen from 280ppm (by volume) to 390ppm. In spite of your apparent belief to the contrary this increase (~28%) is-
1. almost entirely due to the human activities of fossil fuel burning and land clearing, and
2. is not due to the release of CO2 from Ocean warming.
One way that the source of atmospheric CO2 has been positively established is through the measurement of Carbon isotopes and isotope ratios. All Carbon is a mix of three isotopes (C14, C13, and C12), chemically identical but of different atomic masses. C12 is most common, 99% of total, C13 is 1%, while there is only 1 C14 atom in 1 trillion Carbon atoms.
Fossil fuels are derived from ancient plants, and plants and fossil fuels have been found to have C13/C12 ratios about 2% lower than the atmosphere; when CO2 from fossil fuels is released into the atmosphere, the C13/C12 ratio of the atmosphere decreases. Using a technique based on using the age of tree rings and measuring the C13/C12 ratio in each ring (which has been found to closely track the atmospheric ratio, although not exactly the same as plants have a preference for C12), the C13/C12 ratio for the past 10,000 years has been established. At no time in the past 10,000 years has the C13/C12 ratio been as low as it is today. Further the ratio starts to decline rapidly from the time atmospheric CO2 concentration starts to increase. That is the carbon that is causing the isotope ratio to decrease has come from fossil fuels and plants, not from CO2 released from the ocean which has the same isotope ratio as atmospheric CO.
C13/C12 Isotope ratios have been measured for Ocean surface waters and, although the oceans are warming, the C13/C12 ratio is found to be falling but the total carbon content is increasing. This indicates that atmospheric CO2 is continuing to be taken up by the Ocean. However, the rate of take up is not able to keep up with the increasing CO2 levels and although the warming water may be reducing that uptake it has not reversed it.
Ocean chemistry is complex and the ocean acts like a double buffered solution so the CO2 uptake is only about a 1/10 of what might be expected if it were plain fresh water. The movement of CO2 from surface water to deep water is slow and with a time scale of centuries and this is a major limit on the ability of the ocean to take up excess CO2.
These links may be useful:-
http://ptonline.aip.org/journals/doc/PHTOAD-ft/vol_58/iss_5/16_1.shtml?bypassSSO=1
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2005/06/how-much-of-the-recent-cosub2sub-increase-is-due-to-human-activities/
http://scrippsco2.ucsd.edu/home/index.php
Alan Jones is correct ….. The concentration of the gas CO2 in the atmosphere is 0.04% of all gases. Humans are responsible for 3%. Therefore of the 0.04% humans account for 0.001%. The other 0.039% is all natural CO2.
From GetUp! – “They base this on the difference between the pre-industrial concentration of CO2 (about 280 parts per million) and the current concentration of about 390 parts per million.. ”
GetUp! are manipulating figures here for their advatnage. 390-280=110ppm and this is ~28% of the 390ppm. GetUp! is trying to say that from pre-industrial to now nature hasn’t released any CO2 into the atmosphere. They are telling us that the entire 110ppm is human based.