Comment from: Ferdinand Engelbeen April 1st, 2009 at 1:36 am

While the seasonal flows are huge (100 GtC back and forth between oceans and atmosphere, 50 GtC between the biosphere and the atmosphere), the endresult of these flows is zero over a year, if nothing more or less is released than taken away. Thus the absolute flows are of no interest, only the difference between inputs and outputs of the atmosphere is of interest. And that is calculated as the difference between emissions and what is measured in the atmosphere. The 3% of the natural flows is true, but not relevant at all.

Completely and utterly wrong. The fact that natural forces take out such an overwhelming amount of natural emissions places a limit on how slowly anthropogenic emissions will be removed, because nature does not discriminate between the two. Anthropogenic emissions will be removed with the same time vigor as the natural emissions.

“N15 -> C14 + H isn’t spallation?”

No, it is a thermal neutron reaction with nitrogen:

1n + 14N -> 14C + 1H

Gordon,

One need to make a differentiation between what is released to the atmosphere and taken away from the atmosphere due to the seasonal temperature changes within a year and what is a one-way addition from humans during a year.

While the seasonal flows are huge (100 GtC back and forth between oceans and atmosphere, 50 GtC between the biosphere and the atmosphere), the endresult of these flows is zero over a year, if nothing more or less is released than taken away. Thus the absolute flows are of no interest, only the difference between inputs and outputs of the atmosphere is of interest. And that is calculated as the difference between emissions and what is measured in the atmosphere. The 3% of the natural flows is true, but not relevant at all.

The measurements in the atmosphere are very accurate: less than +/-1 ppmv for each baseline station. That is better than 0.3% of the range.
Baseline stations are as far as possible from local sources/sinks. When contamination is found (volcanic vents, upwind depleted by vegetation), these data are flagged and not used for averages. The baseline stations represent over 95% of the atmosphere…

Stations within one hemisphere differ in yearly averages with less than 2 ppmv, the averages of the NH and the SH differ with about 3 ppmv (and growing lag), which points to a source in the NH (as good as the decreasing d13C levels show). The calculated emissions have a larger error margin, but even at minimum, there is not one year in the past 50 years that the emissions were smaller than the measured increase. Thus in every year, nature was a sink, not a source of CO2… See:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/dco2_em.jpg

If you back-calculate the emissions vs. the increase in the atmosphere over the past 100+ years, the zero emission level is around 300 ppmv, not that far of what can be found in ice cores of 100 year old gas age. The enclosed air in the ice, if handled with care, indeed still is the same air as at closing time, the oldest now about 800,000 years ago. The levels are no proxies in this case but real levels.

I have read what Jaworowski wrote about ice cores. What he says is simply physically impossible: how can you measure too low CO2 levels (according to him) 180-280 ppmv, because of cracks in the ice, while the outside world is at 380 ppmv? And as an ice core expert, he doesn’t even know that there is a difference between the age of the ice and the age of the exclosed air? See my comment on his take on ice cores:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/jaworowski.html

Similar problem with Beck’s data: ice core CO2 levels are within the huge range of data found at different places. The problem is that many historical measurements were performed near huge sources (factories, towns, agriculture,…), especially the measurements which led to the 1942 peak are suspect. Further other data from ice cores (Law Dome: 8 years resolution), stomata data and coralline sponges show no change in the 1935-1950 period of interest other than the influence of increasing CO2 levels with decreasing d13C. See:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/beck_data.html

[quote]Eric Adler “Now for the simple equation . Change of CO2= Human emisisons + Natural emissions Substitution of known variables in the above equations with nominal values, gives
4Gtons=8G tons- Natural emissions”.

Maybe you could take your figures to the IPCC. In Figure 7.3, Chapter 7, WG1, AR4, they mathemtically and subjectively spell it out for you. I’m not going throught the math again but the IPCC figures anthropogenic CO2 is about 3% of total CO2. On the previous page, they put it in words, claiming anthropogenic CO2 is a few percent of the natural CO2 fluxes. I figure a few percent is closer to 3% than to your 50%.[/quote]
I got my figures from the IPCC. They show in figure 1 that the anthropogenic sources from cement and fossil fuel consumptions are 8 +/- 1 GT with the uncertainty coming from deforestation. The uncertainty in the annual CO2 ppM increases in the atmosphere are quite small given the indentical data coming from the large numbers of sources around the world.
Click on the following to see this data:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/co2_trends.jpg

[quote]Anyway, please stay away from school children. They’ve had enough bs laid on them for one lifetime with this global warming pseudo-science.[/quote]
I talk to school children about this subject regularly. They need to understand the science behind this subject.

They also need to understand why their parents generation is refusing to see and act on the real problem of AGW. Here is what is happening:

http://www.draegerstiftung.de/HG/internet/SD/pdf/charts_marshall.pdf
The Psychology of Denial
Why do we find it so hard to act against
climate change?

“Eric Adler “This is a nonsense argument. The 2 types of data are totally unrelated…”

You need to read with a bit more attention, Eric. I pointed out the problem in my own argument already. The +/- 20% does not come from problems with deforestation, it is a disclaimer built in to Figure 7.3, Chapter 7, WG1, AR4 for CO2 fluxes into and out of the atmosphere. The IPCC is clearly claiming they cannot estimate CO2 fluxes any better than with a +/- 20% error. On the previous page they admitted the anthropogenic CO2 content was a fraction of the natural CO2 emissions and in Figure 7.3 they include their estimate of anthropogenic CO2 in the ocean, implying it is being recirculated. Only a ponce would do that and call it science.”

Your 20% uncertainty is related to the total emissions, and the total absorption from the atmosphere. We do know the difference between the between the emissions and absorptions with much greater accuracy than 20%, because the increase in CO2 in the atmosphere is measured more acccurately than that. We know the human caused emissions much more accurately than that as I have pointed out. By simple arithmetic we know the difference between natural emissions and natural absorption and can tell that the sign is negative.

[quote]How could they do any better? How would anyone estimate the amount of CO2 entering and leaving the atmosphere? I stated, probably correctly, that the +/- 20% figure was highly optimistic given the IPCC penchant for selling the CO2 warming paradigm. Based on that conclusion, and the amount of fudging they do to get a globally-averaged warming, I thought it probable that their estimates of a 270 ppmv pre Industrial CO2 density and the current 390 ppmv density were in the same error range.[/quote]

What you think is not based on any factual evidence.

[quote]How exactly do they arrive at exactly 270 ppmv pre-Industrial and 390 ppmv today? They do it with a whole lot of speculative math and proxy data, just as they do to guesstimate a 0.75 C globally-averaged warming over a century. Again, only an arrogant ponce would make such an assertion without generous error bars. The IPCC had the temerity to include error bars of a few tenths of a degree…pure arrogance.[/quote]
The pre industrial CO2 data is based on ice core data, and a number of chemical measurements made during the 19 and 20th century, as was shown by Callendar, once the data was scrubbed to eliminate samples downwind from contaminated areas.

[quote]Aksofu has argued that they conveniently forgot to include the expected natural recovery warming from the Little Ice Age. He went on to claim that with errors, the warming we are experiencing today is already accounted for. The IPCC did not need to look for a smoking gun, there was one already pointed at it, the LIA.[/quote]
You are mixing up temperature measurement issues with CO2 measurement issues. The concept of “recovering from the little ice age” whatever that means is irrelevant.

[quote]As I stated, I am very clear about the difference between the ppmv’s measured by CO2 detectors and the CO2 guesstimated to be flowing in and out of the atmosphere. The ppmv’s can be measured locally but the value measured is highly dependent on the immediate environment and locale, not to mention other variables. That 390 ppmv can change quickly. I am having a lot of trouble with 390 ppmv being declared a global quantity. How do they know that and what’s wrong with applying a +/- 20% quantity to such an unkown variable.[/quote]
The burden of proof is on you. After allowing for seasonal variations, the MLO, Barrow and South Pole facilities show the same annual increases in CO2 with a very slight lag.
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/co2_measurements.html
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/co2_trends.jpg

[quote]In electronics, it’s common to rate resistors with tolerances from 0.01% to 20%. The finer tolerances are relatively assured because the resistors are made from material that holds its resistance well. The carbon types do not and their resistance can be out up to 20%. In the same manner, it’s easy to put a close tolerance on a measurable value but how do you measure CO2 all over the globe? I don’t think you can, anymore than anyone can claim one particular temperature for the globe. It’s a stupid inference to make.[/quote]
The data from various CO2 sites shows that you are wrong, and CO2 increases in the atmosphere can be inferred from measurements with good accuracy.

[quote]If the satellite that crashed in February 2009 had made it, we might have been in a better position to check the global CO2 density because it was designed for that. There’s just no way anyone can say for sure that the global CO2 density is 390 ppmv. That goes doubly for the claim that pre Industrial CO2 had a density of 270 ppmv. That’s a carefully contrived derivation that ignored good evidence to the contrary and which relies heavily on proxy ice core sampling.[/quote]
The evidence to the contrary is not valid. The data shows that if one omits local sources of variation due to natural and human sources, the CO2 measurements show good agreement between distant stations.

The more I read about global warming, the more I see a sad hoax. I don’t think it was a contrived hoax, more of a comedy of errors. Many well-intentioned people have put their feet in their mouths just to be onside.

N15 -> C14 + H isn’t spallation?

” Very little entered and equilibrated over the troposphere as a whole.”

If that was the case then why the problems with carbon dating due to the tests if it is all in the stratosphere? In fact one can tell the age of a body born after 1943 by comparison of C14 levels in tooth enamel.

http://www.jyi.org/news/nb.php?id=509

of course it helps to know which hemisphere the person was in when the teeth were formed

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Radiocarbon_bomb_spike.svg

While Latter and Plesset did not look at mixing across the hemispheres there is data available if one adds this which you have omitted to the Wellington data.
http://cdiac.esd.ornl.gov/trends/co2/cent-verm.html

One can see from the above graph that it took about 5 years from the NH peak for equilibrium to be achieved you can see this also in Tom’s Fig 17 which charts the difference between the two data sets which shows it’s about 7 years.

Jan Pompe

You are correct in saying that 14C is produced in the troposphere. With atomic blasts yielding less than about 1Mton very little of the 14C enters the stratosphere. However above 1Mton almost all of the 14C produced in the troposphere is carried up by the rising heated air into the stratosphere. (1) 14C injected into the stratosphere did have a long residence time and did equilibrate over a number of years. However almost all the 14C injected into the troposphere settled out locally. Very little entered and equilibrated over the troposphere as a whole. Presumably this was why the authors were unable to make any conclusions about tropospheric mixing.

Tom Quirk did not do any of the analyses. His statement “A tracer for CO2 transport from the Northern Hemisphere to the Southern Hemisphere was provided by 14C created by nuclear weapons testing in the 1950’s and 1960’s. The analysis of 14C in atmospheric CO2 showed that it took some years for exchanges of CO2 between the hemispheres before the 14C was uniformly distributed…” is only true for the stratosphere. It is not true for the troposphere which is of interest for anthropogenic CO2. Hence the basic assumption of his analysis is false.

(Note: 14C is not produced by spallation which is the breakdown of atoms of high atomic mass into much smaller ones. 14C is produced by the capture of a neutron by 14N to give 15N and the loss of a proton to give 14C.)

In fact, it appears as if the north and south hemisphere regions of the troposphere equilibrate relatively quickly due to the Transequatorial trade winds and such phenomena as the Monsoons. It appears it probably takes about a year to equilibrate, (2)

1. Albert L. Latter and Milton S. Plesset
CARBON-14 PRODUCTION FROM NUCLEAR EXPLOSIONS
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 1960 February; 46(2): 241–247.

2. M.R. Manning, W.H. Melhuish
Atmospheric d14C Record from Wellington
National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research, Ltd.,
Carbon dioxide Information Analysis Centre Web site at
http://cdiac.ornl.gov/trends/co2/welling.html

Maybe you could take your figures to the IPCC. In Figure 7.3, Chapter 7, WG1, AR4, they mathemtically and subjectively spell it out for you. I’m not going throught the math again but the IPCC figures anthropogenic CO2 is about 3% of total CO2. On the previous page, they put it in words, claiming anthropogenic CO2 is a few percent of the natural CO2 fluxes. I figure a few percent is closer to 3% than to your 50%.

Anyway, please stay away from school children. They’ve had enough bs laid on them for one lifetime with this global warming pseudo-science.

You need to read with a bit more attention, Eric. I pointed out the problem in my own argument already. The +/- 20% does not come from problems with deforestation, it is a disclaimer built in to Figure 7.3, Chapter 7, WG1, AR4 for CO2 fluxes into and out of the atmosphere. The IPCC is clearly claiming they cannot estimate CO2 fluxes any better than with a +/- 20% error. On the previous page they admitted the anthropogenic CO2 content was a fraction of the natural CO2 emissions and in Figure 7.3 they include their estimate of anthropogenic CO2 in the ocean, implying it is being recirculated. Only a ponce would do that and call it science.

How could they do any better? How would anyone estimate the amount of CO2 entering and leaving the atmosphere? I stated, probably correctly, that the +/- 20% figure was highly optimistic given the IPCC penchant for selling the CO2 warming paradigm. Based on that conclusion, and the amount of fudging they do to get a globally-averaged warming, I thought it probable that their estimates of a 270 ppmv pre Industrial CO2 density and the current 390 ppmv density were in the same error range.

How exactly do they arrive at exactly 270 ppmv pre-Industrial and 390 ppmv today? They do it with a whole lot of speculative math and proxy data, just as they do to guesstimate a 0.75 C globally-averaged warming over a century. Again, only an arrogant ponce would make such an assertion without generous error bars. The IPCC had the temerity to include error bars of a few tenths of a degree…pure arrogance.

Aksofu has argued that they conveniently forgot to include the expected natural recovery warming from the Little Ice Age. He went on to claim that with errors, the warming we are experiencing today is already accounted for. The IPCC did not need to look for a smoking gun, there was one already pointed at it, the LIA.

As I stated, I am very clear about the difference between the ppmv’s measured by CO2 detectors and the CO2 guesstimated to be flowing in and out of the atmosphere. The ppmv’s can be measured locally but the value measured is highly dependent on the immediate environment and locale, not to mention other variables. That 390 ppmv can change quickly. I am having a lot of trouble with 390 ppmv being declared a global quantity. How do they know that and what’s wrong with applying a +/- 20% quantity to such an unkown variable.

In electronics, it’s common to rate resistors with tolerances from 0.01% to 20%. The finer tolerances are relatively assured because the resistors are made from material that holds its resistance well. The carbon types do not and their resistance can be out up to 20%. In the same manner, it’s easy to put a close tolerance on a measurable value but how do you measure CO2 all over the globe? I don’t think you can, anymore than anyone can claim one particular temperature for the globe. It’s a stupid inference to make.

If the satellite that crashed in February 2009 had made it, we might have been in a better position to check the global CO2 density because it was designed for that. There’s just no way anyone can say for sure that the global CO2 density is 390 ppmv. That goes doubly for the claim that pre Industrial CO2 had a density of 270 ppmv. That’s a carefully contrived derivation that ignored good evidence to the contrary and which relies heavily on proxy ice core sampling.

The more I read about global warming, the more I see a sad hoax. I don’t think it was a contrived hoax, more of a comedy of errors. Many well-intentioned people have put their feet in their mouths just to be onside.