Hi Jennifer,
The recent paper by Ernst-Georg Beck, ‘180 Years of Atmospheric C02 Gas Analysis by Chemical Methods’
and his supporting data has been discussed here. Briefly, Beck looks at historical records of atmospheric CO2 measurements since 1812, and finds that many scientists recorded measurements much greater than the 290 parts per million (ppm) which has been accepted by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change as being the pre-industrial level of atmospheric CO2, before the increasing usage of fossil fuels began to raise atmospheric CO2.
This raises a number of questions. How accurate are the old measurements? Were they contaminated by nearby sources of CO2 emissions? How did the IPCC come to accept 290 ppm as the pre-industrial atmospheric CO2 level?
On the question of accuracy, Beck mentions three methods of measuring CO2, and explains that the apparatus used was calibrated against gas with a known CO2 content, and scientists also calibrated their apparatus against the equipment of other scientists. The accuracy of the most common technique, the Pettenkofer process, is +/- 3%. Obviously this is much less accurate than modern methods, but still enough to be confident that the results are not wildly inaccurate by tens or hundreds of parts per million.
Could the samples have been contaminated, such as by war activity, industrial processes, or other local sources of CO2? It is certainly possible. For example, a series of 25,000 measurements taken at Giessen, Germany, between 1939 and 1941, averaged 438.5 ppm. The influence of a city is estimated to be between 10 and 70 ppm increase in CO2 levels. Even allowing a 70 ppm increase for the proximity of the city gives a background level of about 370ppm, comparable to present day levels, but much higher than is generally thought to have occurred at that time.
Other sites are unlikely to have been contaminated. Lockhart and Court found CO2 levels in Antarctica between 200 and 1700 ppm, in 1940 and 1941. Hock, et al found CO2 levels averaging 400 ppm between 1947 and 1949 at Point Barrow in northern Alaska. Once again, these are much higher than the generally accepted values of that time.
So how did the pre-industrial figure come to be accepted as 290 ppm? As mentioned in Beck’s paper, Guy Callendar, a British engineer and scientist, was influential. He examined 19th and 20th century CO2 measurements and rejected those he considered inaccurate, the ones he selected leading him to conclude that the pre-industrial CO2 level was about 290 ppm (G. S. Callendar, “The Composition of the Atmosphere through the Ages,” The Meteorological Magazine,vol. 74, No. 878, March 1939, pp. 33-39.). Callendar was a proponent of the theory that CO2 emissions from industrial activity would raise global temperatures, and had written a paper to that effect in 1938, at a time when Europe had just experienced five warm years.
Among the criteria that Callendar used to reject measurements, were any that deviated by 10% or more from the average of the region, and any taken for special purposes such as such as “biological, soil air, atmospheric pollution”. The first criteria is a rather circular argument, while the second seems to ignore the accuracy of the results. Whatever the validity of these exclusions, it turned out that the mean of 19th century samples he included was 292 ppm. The mean of the samples he had available to include was 335 ppm.
Not everyone agreed with Callendar. Giles Slocum pointed out in 1955 that Callendar’s exclusions from the 19th century data were mostly higher than the ones he included, while those from the 20th century that he excluded were lower than the ones he included, in line with his theory that CO2 levels had risen and were causing increased temperatures. As Slocum diplomatically put it ” Much seems to depend on the objectivity of Callendar’s decisions as to which data to keep.”
The other official source of pre-industrial CO2 levels is, of course, ice core readings. Not everyone is happy with those either, as I will show in a later post.
Beck shows, in figure 14, that CO2 levels and temperature are correlated, if the historical CO2 measurements are used instead of the IPCC approved figures. This figure also shows that the chemical measurement of CO2, which ended about 1957, matches well with the Mauna Loa measurements, which began in 1958, with readings of about 315 ppm.
So were pre-industrial CO2 levels stable until Industrial Man disturbed the balance, or has there always been an ebb and flow? Beck’s paper certainly raises some interesting questions.
Regards,
Paul Williams
Adelaide, South Australia
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
Worry warts at play again hey no apologies Paul 2
All the methods and calculations here too are 2nd hand, 3rd hand or worse and I made a similar statement in another recent CO2 thread. All indirect analysis of historical atmospheric gas levels by non experienced i.e. technical reviewers is indeed purely academic. The reasons how and why any data was recorded remains a mystery despite modern attempts to filter it all again.
However its a very considered post by Paul Williams on a topic that seem to bother many of Jennifer’s current followers.
Paul: We can say they were on to something even if it was only to seek the standardization of all CO2 measurements in the International Geophysical Year program 57-58.
I can recall the scientific hub hub just after that quite clearly. Engineers then knew the records on background CO2 levels depended on particular professors and their districts of influence
Yes, a well considered post by Paul Williams.
I do have reservations about the CO2 ‘hockey stick,’ where measured CO2 data is grafted on to proxy ice core data.
The questions remain; can CO2 levels be manipulated downwards considering the long atmospheric life of CO2 and the rising emissions from China/India etc. and what is the actual sensitivity of climate to CO2?
Gavin, Beck has posted links to many of the original papers, so I don’t quite understand what you mean by the calculations being 2nd hand or worse.
If it is true that CO2 responds to temperature, rather than vice versa, AND we see cooling due to solar influences, could we see a decrease in atmospheric CO2?
Paul – well both – CO2 flux will depend on ocean temperature and terrstrial environmental conditions. But combustion of fossil fuels is ongoing and we know from isotopic studies that the CO2 increase in the atmosphere is from fossil fuels. We also know from similar studies that the ocean has abosrbed a fair bit of those emissions too.
If there is a cooling from solar influences – what’s the data set that shows it cooling and if it’s something other than luminosity how does it work?
Do you not find it strange that despite volcanic eruptions, El Ninos, and whatever that the SIO mid-ocean and South Pole network shows a continuous line overlaid with little annual northern hemisphere biosphere wiggles. No jumping around all over the place.
If you showed Beck’s graphs with the SIO Keeling data I think any statistician would say they’re from a different population of measurements.
IMO there is no current solar change driver. But this does not mean there never was and never will be a climate change driver.
And all the drivers interact – global temperature = product of solar energy + natural greenhosue effect – aerosol dimming + enhanced greenhouse effect (!?%).
Why does it have to be either or. Even Bob Carter agreed CO2 is a greenhouse gas (although he disagreed on the extent).
A cooler ocean could sink more CO2 but we’re not in equilibrium – every day of power station and vehicle fleet operation adds more and more CO2. You’d have to calculate the numbers.
Paul
CO2 responds and drives. The climate is a complex system, so both states are possible. It’s not a matter of “If it is true that CO2 responds”, it’s a fact that it does. It’s also a fact that it can be a driver of temperature, if the concentration is changed in the atmosphere.
The CO2 in the atmosphere isn’t going to suddenly disappear somewhere. That’s one of the points of the CO2 science, it persists in the atmosphere for
a long time.
“Each compound has a distinct capacity for greenhouse warming and a distinct chemical half-life – that is, the time a typical molecule spends in the atmosphere before reacting and forming a new compound. Many greenhouse substances, including methane and the halogen-containing compounds, contribute many times more pound-for-pound to the greenhouse effect than carbon dioxide. However, the sheer volume of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere compared to these other trace gases means that carbon dioxide is still by far the largest contributor to anthropogenic greenhouse warming. Additionally, while some greenhouse gases have a half-life of several decades, the half-life of carbon dioxide is on the order of a century. Most of the carbon dioxide we release today will still linger in the atmosphere in 2075 and even 2100. ”
http://www.climate.org/topics/climate/index.shtml
Sorry – “solar climate change driver”
Paul Williams has posed a very good question. The ice core data makes it clear that temperatures can drop by up to 6C with no response from CO2. This was followed by another rise and fall of the same magnitude, over 20 millenia, with no response from CO2.
So if solar influences are about to induce a cooling event then there is no guarantee at all that high CO2 emissions will delay or modify the outcome.
It is interesting to learn that even as early as 1938 there were certain academics capable of cherry picking (sorry, smoothing) data to support their own theories on AGW. The exclusion of earlier high readings would be bad enough but the subsequent exclusion of more recent low readings would appear to indicate that this whole circus has been tainted by fraud from the very beginning.
But how is this earlier fraud any different to using Mauna Loa as a surrogate for the whole planet when comparatively “clean” continental readings were showing only 354ppm in 2004 when Mauna Loa was showing 378ppm?
The UK Met temperature records exhibit a remarkably stable set of figures from 1800 to 1910 with the first temperature increase (0.5C) in the 1920’s and the second (0.7C) in the 1990’s. So where does this fit into a gradual CO2 increase from a pre-industrial level of 290ppm?
Luke said, “we know from isotopic studies that the CO2 increase in the atmosphere is from fossil fuels”. This wrongly implies that ALL the rise in CO2 is from fossil fuels.
The 1998 Mauna Loa data shows a total increase in CO2 of 9.1ppm from 360.19ppm in October 1997 to 369.29ppm in May 1998 which was then offset by a decline, due to summer transpiration of 5.39ppm to 363.90ppm in October 1998.
This is an increase of 3.71ppm that is then carried forward to subsequent years. And as each 1.0ppm amounts to 5.15Gigatonnes of CO2 then the total increase was 19.1Gt of CO2.
And we know that reported anthropogenic emissions today are only in the order of 7Gt a year (which includes at least 1Gt of claimed wood based emissions that have not taken place yet).
From this we must conclude that at least 13Gt (68%) of that years increase was not anthropogenic. So where did it come from?
This also highlights the fallacy of SJT’s little fireside chat about the “half life” of CO2. Yes, CO2 will remain in the atmosphere for up to 200 years, some say even 400, but that is only if the oceans or the rest of the biosphere don’t absorb it in the mean time.
The Mauna Loa data also makes clear that the amplitude of the monthly mean cycle of records has increased by a full 1ppm so at least an extra 5.15Gt of CO2 is now cycling through the biosphere.
Clearly there is a big difference between SJT’s theoretical age of atmospheric CO2 and the median age of atmospheric CO2 which is much less.
Luke, Beck’s measurements come from many and varied sources, some with only a few measurements, some with thousands.The CDIAC networks provide a more continuous record of measurements. So yes, they are from different populations of measurements. That doesn’t make the earlier measurements wrong, does it?
It appears that the later chemical measurements are similar to the early Mauna Loa measurements. Beck doesn’t cite any later chemical measurements that overlap with the ML record. Do you know of any?
It seems likely that the early records are reasonably accurate. Whether they are representative of the whole atmosphere is another matter. But IF they are, then it raises the possibility that CO2 could decrease in line with a decreasing global temperature, the additional CO2 from industry not withstanding. That is if increased CO2 is more the result of increased temperature than the driver of it.
Of course, if the AGW hypothesis is correct, then such a decrease of temperature AND CO2 cannot happen. Does that seem a reasonable proposition?
Ian, I was very interested to learn that Callendar had chosen data to support his theory of greenhouse warming. With my limited reading, I don’t wish to malign him, but at first glance it was reminiscent of a certain sporting implement that was in the news last year.
I don’t think Beck’s data tells us anything except you can have some variable CO2 measurements near the ground. So not getting into the accuracy argument – simply what do they really show you. I doubt they’re really helpful in any modelling of climate.
I find it incredulous that you could go from Beck’s up and down data series to the continuous SIO data set.
“if the AGW hypothesis is correct, then such a decrease of temperature AND CO2 cannot happen. Does that seem a reasonable proposition?”
That’s illogical – if you reduce the solar forcing of course that will happen. Paul – do you expect the if you remove the solar forcing that CO2 does a Popeye the Sailor – whips out a tin of spinach and suddenly develops super-CO2 strength. I don’t think you have a good grasp of AGW theory. Furthermore CO2 is essentially a recycler of solar energy – it re-radiates heats downwards – so remove the solar source and of course it will re-radiate less, the oceans will cool, and CO2 will be absorbed, amplifying the cooling some more.
Jeepers all this stuff interacts as a integrated system. It’s not either or !!!!
CO2 turbocharges the solar driver. It does NOT work alone. Think about it.
As for Ian’s 6 degree drops in temperature and saying CO2 is a bit weak. Same as above. Simply rhetorical bluster Ian — get us some estimates of the relative solar forcing involved in ice age perturbations and compare it to CO2 climate sensitivity, and ocean sink capacity. If the bum drops out of the solar flux, CO2 isn’t going to magically “pick up the slack” is it?? Very shoddy thinking.
And on the CO2 fossil fuel comment.
“CO2 produced from burning fossil fuels or burning forests has quite a different isotopic composition from CO2 in the atmosphere.”
The isotopic evidence from numerous sources in compelling.
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=87
The word is “reported CO2 emissions” – how much CO2 etc is leaking unaccounted for from mines in China, Russia and the undeveloped world. Just one example.
“so remove the solar source and of course it will re-radiate less, the oceans will cool, and CO2 will be absorbed, amplifying the cooling some more.”
I don’t remember seeing that on any of the IPCC “projections”. I do think that scenario is quite likely, with CO2 being a very small influence, otherwise temperatures would not be as stable as they are. And other, negative, feedbacks having a greater influence than CO2, as well.
Have you changed your mind about AGW, Luke?
Paul W; the old boffins from academia were talking nonsense regarding their predecessors work on background CO2 because the measurement itself was such a fragile thing even in the 1950’s. Ian too should first focus on peer reviewed methods of measurement leading to standards before exercising his math.
IMO we have but 50 years of solid results to value where any fool can see a smooth curve not a straight line and more importantly, not some historic wild fluctuations. It’s a fair bet we can look in either direction way in a scientific way from our smooth curve and find reasonable results on the same smooth line based on some modern “standard”.
I got a useful tip early 60’s from an old guy who was building his own instruments for this and that calibration. I too started calling up the head honcho Melb Uni Physics for advice on how local factors like G varied from text and in particular Greenwich!
All “standards” wherever are only what you make them at the time. Eliminating the wild stuff too is a clever craft.
Let’s say it again for Jennifer; science only grows from the background established in our engineering. Any good art depends so much on how discipline is exercised within a vivid “imagination”.
So your science basis for an imminent reduction in the solar forcing is what?
Variations in solar luminosity and their
effect on the Earth’s climate
P. Foukal1, C. Fro¨hlich2, H. Spruit3 & T. M. L. Wigley4 say the sun has had no appreciable influence in the last 30 year and probably since the seventeenth century.
Vol 443|14 September 2006|doi:10.1038/nature05072
Paul – I say it again – the global temperature is a product of solar forcing, greenhouse and aerosols. Not just one of the other.
“Paul – I say it again – the global temperature is a product of solar forcing, greenhouse and aerosols. Not just one of the other.”
Just so the message gets through.
Luke, I was merely speculating when I mentioned a decrease in both temperature AND CO2. Presumably AGW orthodoxy does allow for a decrease in temperature in the case of a decrease in solar forcings, while not apparently entertaining the notion that such a solar decrease is at all likely.
What I was trying to express was that AGW doesn’t allow for a DECREASE in CO2 levels in the atmosphere, in the apparently unlikely event of a temperature decrease due to other forcings.
Does that sound reasonable to you? If not, then I’m not sure under what circumstances a CO2 decrease could occur within the AGW hypothesis. Perhaps you could explain.
Are you and Little Sir Echo completely sure that is an exhaustive list of forcings given above?
gavin, are you saying that all the pre Mauna Loa chemical CO2 readings are too inaccurate to be of any use at all? Guy Callendar thought that some of them were accurate enough to use.
Paul
Well my take is that the IPCC see no compelling science to predict any short term change in solar output – they do see 100 years growth in CO2 emissions within various scenarios.
What would be different to an ice age scenario though is how much extra CO2 from fossil fuel combsution would make up for a marked reduction in solar output. There is no precedent for this unique combination in recent ice age cycles. i.e if the solar starts to move the CO2 will move with it. And no that doesn’t mean that the CO2 is not doing anything either.
However climate scientsis in general do a ll manner of experimental runs with GCMs. So the models aren’t necessarily wedded to any hypothesis. As previously posted recently indeed they have been used to study ice age climate as it’s the interaction of various forcings that gives the outcome.
The SPM lists a fuller range of forcings which you can address if you like. There’s a bar chart.
Folks,
A little bit of additional information regarding the “atmospheric life” of CO2.
CO2 does NOT have an atmospheric half life. CO2 does NOT break down into other substances as do the “other” IPCC recognised greenhouse gases (no water vapour here folks). CO2 does nothing more than move from reservoir to reservoir, the oceans and atmosphere being two of the main reservoirs, soils probably being the third (though little is known of the soil carbon pool in comparison with oceans, atmosphere and vegetation).
According to the IPCC the average residence time, this is not to be confused with the so called atmospheric life, for a molecule of CO2 in a reservoir is 4 days. That right folks 4 days. So from this we know that some molecules of CO2 rapidly move in and out of reservoirs, others do not.
The IPCC itself has discussed the complications with calculating the atmospheric life of CO2. Basically it does not have one. It just cycles through the different reservoirs until it is eventually absorded into long storage reservoirs, such as the oceans or soil, where it is not a forcing (as it is in the atmospheric reservoir).
So folks my question is how do we create new or manipulate existing carbon reservoirs so that they can store greater quantities of C for greater periods of time?
Once again, Luke is using extremes to try and establish a point. Changes in solar activity are not always major changes. Clearly, minor changes in solar activity could be offset by altered atmospheric composition, including CO2. That would certainly be the case if CO2 is as strong a forcing agent as the climate cadres claim it is.
And if Luke and SJT are continuing to claim that all the CO2 increase is anthropogenic then perhaps they can explain which anthropogenic source supplied the extra 13Gt of CO2 in 1998?
Come on fellas, you won’t weasel out of this one.
In fact, that claim is downright silly. Especially when lumping in Land Use Change with hydrocarbon emissions. The LUC and Forestry emissions, when they actually take place, are either from burning or decay. The annual change in CO2 due to seasonal cycles is about 7ppm or 50Gt. But this is still a net figure that masks a much greater volume, of photosynthesis that absorbs CO2, and respiration & decay that releases CO2.
And this invites the question, how exactly will Luke’s climate experts distinguish between the anthropogenic CO2 from my neighbours rotting fence palings and the natural CO2 from my (slowly) rotting habitat trees?
And given that we already have evidence of 24ppm variations from Mauna Loa (equivalent to 123.6Gt) then clearly, the RC studies claiming all the CO2 increase is anthropogenic is bunk.
Luke, you’re sidestepping a bit. I’m not talking about ice ages, or CO2 on steroids, just speculating about what might happen IF temperatures dropped, and IF CO2 was more of a reaction to temperature rather than a major forcer of temperature.
Could that lead to a DECREASE in atmospheric CO2?
In other words, what if Beck’s data was a valid picture. How would that sit with current AGW thinking? As far as I can see, AGW could not accept a decrease in atmospheric CO2, even if the temperature trended downwards. Because that would imply CO2 was not the driver of temperature, but rather that temperature was a driver of CO2.
You don’t think I have a good grasp of AGW theory. Why not focus on my speculative scenario and enlighten me?
I think Beck’s data is irrelevant – it’s a few studies of contaminated surafces areas not representative of the overall atmosphere. Properly run ocean stations show this – a consistent picture from Mauna Loa down through the station network to the South Pole – certainlty no bumps or major wiggles except for the annual biological cycle.
Thought I had enlightened but here’s another go .. .. ..
To do your experiment we would have to freeze ongoing CO2 emissions. OK let’s assume we have a spare planet Earth to play with and we can do that.
If you decrease the solar flux you would cool the planet and the oceans would cool and absorb more CO2. You also get a feedback affect as less greenhouse gas is now in the atmosphere and this would increase the cooling a bit more (by reducing the greenhouse warming component). AGW would be totally consistent with that.
BUT that’s not the case as we can’t freeze emissions.
OK if we theoretically could have a situation of a reduced solar flux and increasing CO2 output from further industrialisation and ongoing growth in China and India. Solar going down. But emissions going up.
What happens then is complex – how much does the extra CO2 make up for the reduction in solar output. Also the ocean chemistry is changing and it’s capacity as a sink is changing so it depends exactly when you do start “your solar decline”. There are “tipping points”.
Maybe global temperature might decline, it might level out, or it may go up at a different rate. All depends on the exact numbers you want to use for solar declines.
I suggest you still have not “GOT” that CO2 works as part of an interlinked global system with links and feedbacks. It’s not simply additive. It’s not simply “this solar” or “that CO2”. It’s BOTH ! Interlinked. Feeding back. Oceans included.
Which surprise surprise would lead you to eventually build a climate model to answer your question.
And we all hate those don’t we?!?!
Ian the fingerprint of CO2 in the atmospheric increase has fossil fuel and deforestation burning all over it. Read the RC post. That’s that.
Wouldn’t trust the inventories to be right. Or AGO’s numbers for that matter.
Don’t try Schiller’s teensy weensy nonsense mate. It’s silly. The numbers are the numbers from the physics. Philipona confirms the magnitude of the greenhouse flux on the ground to be close as damn it. So the numbers stack up – modelled physics versus observation. SPOT ON IAN !!!
Ian – Keep on the planet. Don’t try to squirm out of the fact that there’s a bloody truckload of evidence (and different lines of evidence) going only in one direction and the best you can do is play word games. Cherrypick bits and pieces to suit wankerous ideas.
I note the envelope has progressed to a spreadsheet. You’ll be downloading MODTRAN before you know it.
“I suggest you still have not “GOT” that CO2 works as part of an interlinked global system with links and feedbacks. It’s not simply additive. It’s not simply “this solar” or “that CO2″. It’s BOTH ! Interlinked. Feeding back. Oceans included.
Which surprise surprise would lead you to eventually build a climate model to answer your question.”
Ian’s envelope and spreadsheet are in fact models. All science is done using models. Models are not perfect, but for some reason, the climate models are extremely suspect.
Peter – “So folks my question is how do we create new or manipulate existing carbon reservoirs so that they can store greater quantities of C for greater periods of time”
But Peter is so clever when it comes to wood.
Peter: How we put carbon back in the box without sunlight is a better question.
Ian may want to give us stuff on putting genie back in the bottle re the ongoing old growth forest debate in Tasmania. 300 years is a good time for your average tree there.
A recent post by Brenda Rosser reminds me how so much young wood fails to survive there today. Folks may recall how I once used it for posts and poles on our hobby farm both treated and untreated, also in pulp and paper as short and long fiber.
Paul Williams asks “are you saying that all the pre Mauna Loa chemical CO2 readings are too inaccurate to be of any use at all? then reminds us “Guy Callendar thought that some of them were accurate enough to use”.
Paul I’m the greatest skeptic on earth when it comes to people we know (some on this blog) reading other’s old measurements. There is no one alive today who knows exactly what the background CO2 was long before 1960.
Anyone interested in CO2 measurement history needs to ask how we went from % to ppm. Let’s have apples and oranges not fruity froth. To be sure about any methodology ask the same questions about O2 and CO etc measurements from the same period flask by flask.
The study of natural gasses is incomplete. Think of the Bogle- Chandler Case
http://www.abc.net.au/science/news/stories/2006/1735996.htm
Forensic science standards are still evolving too. We have come a long way from looking at the structure of say pubic hair under a microscope but only recently.
Luke, I’m not talking about freezing CO2 emissions, but business as usual. I’m suggesting, as a thought provocation, that AGW theory would not support a decrease in CO2 (due to increased flow into CO2 sinks) with a mild decrease in temperature, whereas if CO2 REACTS to temperature rather than drives it, it is conceivable that atmospheric CO2 could decrease, even with ongoing emissions. Not that AGW is so one dimensional as to rely solely on CO2 as being either or.
Unfortunately you seem to have unerringly missed my point, which probably shows that I am a poor communicator!
gavin, parts per million and percentage are just different ways of expressing the same thing. The level of accuracy has improved, that’s all.
More on our faith in technology and how it grows: I collect opera on CD’s and listen through a big pair of Celestion Ditton 44’s but sadly one mid range is out. No matter; cause my ears are probably down too. Audiometric tests way back proved some typical tone loss for male/ industrial deaf audio philes. While playing a no brand Caruso tenor disc I ask where the fuzzy sound comes from and how good was he in the greater scheme of all things beautiful.
Paul: do I trust his peers or mine? Hardly, in the end it’s only my thing that matters.
Over the years I had some beaut instruments to play with, a dc to light spec analyzer,
confiscated commercial music recording gear etc. Graphing signals and looking for anomalies at various speeds becomes habit with experience however a lot of peers had trouble with both the visual and the math. Discontinuities in recordings only became court evidence recently.
Envelopes can change too. Code change as the modulator in RF can be seen but only after some wise calibration.
All this is very recent stuff hey.
Paul: your last response “parts per million and percentage are just different ways of expressing the same thing. The level of accuracy has improved, that’s all” is I feel a fairly blatant dismissal of a critical point in our transition on CO2 measurement some time back.
This is a discontinuity in our “evidence” for accepting or otherwise both Beck and Callendar.
Paul _ phew – we’re getting there. Blog communication eh?
I don’t know if you mean AGW theory or the climate models.
The IPCC future scenarios tested all assume some increase in CO2 depending on what humanity does about CO2. Formal CO2 balance with the atmosphere and biosphere need not be modelled formally modelled in the GCM itself if you’re holding the solar input constant. The CO2 evolution path is up to the scenario generators to construct – the climate modellers just run it/them.
However as listed in previous days with Arnost – complex climate/land/ocean models with feedback loops into the oceans and the terrestrial biosphere have been/are being developed.
There is no reason to suggest that the climate models per se can’t resolve a fall in solar output and any given CO2 scenario. That’s why we have the models !!
The bit that’s missing for you would be how much the biosphere and oceans interact with the CO2 levels in a cooling scenario. How do you build that in. How might CO2 levels change dynamically.
But none of this “is against” AGW theory per se. No holy writ has been intefered with. i.e. it’s cool man !!
It’s simply seen as an unlikely situation. On what basis does the IPCC assume a solar cooling which they don’t believe in – simply to make someone happy – not that scientific. Model run choice by voting on favourites??
You should be more worried about the scenario guys being wrong on the other side of wrong- i.e. the ocean’s changing chemistry drastically reducing its CO2 sink capacity. That’s a double CO2 whammy. More CO2 and more warming than thought !
You see – you can have errors in both directions !?!
Gavin,
I wasn’t referring to forests in my last post. “How can we put carbon back in its box without sunlight” it’s just another way of asking the same thing.
The old growth thing is is done. Sure the trees may be 300 years old, it’s almost at the limit of their life expectancy. What happens then is that they switch from leaky C reservoir to C emitter as they rot and die.
As for long fibre pulp from Eucalypts, sorry Gav, pull the other one. Conifers = long fibre, Eucalypts = short fibre. There may be some variation within Euc’s but even the longest fibre Euc’s are not equal to the shortest long fibred conifers.
Oh and good point regarding concurrent measures of atmospheric O2 and C. Why not throw in N as well. I reckon that it would be an interesting exercise if for no other reason than to see what sort of monthly/annual/decadal fluctuations exist for the other atmospheric gases.
Luke, yes, could the various CO2 sinks “soak up” the extra CO2 that we have put into the atmosphere, if cooling occurred? If Beck’s data is representative, and while I think it is of much poorer quality than the modern data I’m not convinced it is totally worthless, then the correlation with temperature that he found suggests that such “soaking up” could occur.
If that happened, the models would need some serious tweaking! So would the AGW hypothesis, in the sense that the importance of CO2 as a climate driver would have to be drastically reduced.
But it is far fetched, and as I said, just a bit of lateral thinking.
Now Peter’s mob would have us believe we have to cut down a forest to save its carbon.
Peter: The very old stringy barks on our place take about one hundred more years to fully decay.
Yeah long fiber = P radiata down the gully sure and it decays in half a year Its as bad as imported cardboard, wot rubbish! hey.
Besides work on well over a dozen paper machines, I was involved in lot of industrial scale trials with hydrapulpers with many on older recycled materials. The capacity of all fiber to go round and round before destruction is quite limited.
Composting mill waste is another whole experience, turning it into gas likewise. Making it solid again is more in the realm of “Gaia” than all our modern industry.
Les Monson on ABC Bush Telegraph today described his hopper fishing up the Leven (last of the Tasmanian untamed rivers) around Gunns Plains. He noted two things, one the declining grasshopper numbers, two he reinforced another’s observation; no seagull flocks follow farmers tractors ploughing fields around there now.
In the 80’s a veteran Table Cape farmer pointed to his worm depleted soils (red volcanics ) as his excuse to me for getting out of potatoes after generations of intense cropping.
Forest soils everywhere die in our hands. Nitrogen and its movement downunder is surely worth another thread.
Paul Biggs coppied a comuncation from Zbigniew Jaworowski towards the beggining of this http://www.jennifermarohasy.com/blog/archives/001971.html#comments thread.
Here’s a paper from Jaworowski – and amongst other issues, he does mention Beck.
http://www.larouchepub.com/eiw/public/2007/2007_10-19/2007-11/pdf/38_711_science.pdf
Along the same line are these papers from Dr. Syun-Ichi Akasofu (Director of the International Arctic Research Center of the University of Alaska Fairbanks).
http://www.iarc.uaf.edu/highlights/2007/akasofu_3_07/index.php
cheers
Arnost
Jaworowski – hehehee
Well blogging sure takes it out of you. I hadn’t been keeping up with reading. SO taking a lull in the shelling while Ian recalibrates his envelope what do we find.
.. .. we find paleo evidence of CO2 driving climate AND a paleo climate sensivity of AT LEAST more than 1.5C .. .. .. WOO HOO !!!!!
Nothing like doing the gimps slowly SJT !
I wonder if Jen will editorialise this stuff.
Vol 446|29 March 2007| doi:10.1038/nature05699
Climate sensitivity constrained by CO2
concentrations over the past 420 million years
Dana L. Royer1, Robert A. Berner2 & Jeffrey Park2
1Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Wesleyan University, Middletown, Connecticut 06459, USA. 2Department of Geology and Geophysics, Yale University, New
Haven, Connecticut 06520, USA.
In an effort to reduce the uncertainty of climate sensitivity,
DT(23), we turned to the Phanerozoic record (the past 542 Myr),
an interval that includes times when the Earth was both colder and
substantially warmer than the present day8. Phanerozoic records
generally show a positive coupling between CO2 and temperature9,10,
but determining DT(23) quantitatively has proved difficult because
there are no convenient proxies for global-mean surface temperature.
The GEOCARB and GEOCARBSULF long-term carbon cycle models
11,12 have been used to calculate multi-million-year patterns of
Phanerozoic CO2. Importantly, a critical factor in this approach is
the effect of atmospheric CO2 level on the rate of CO2 uptake by
weathering of calcium and magnesium silicate minerals. A rise in
temperature, accompanying a rise inCO2, increases the rate of silicate
weathering, which in turn accelerates atmospheric CO2 consumption,
forming a negative feedback loop.
Here, using the logarithmic relation between temperature change
and CO2, we examine how different values of DT(23) affect calculated
Phanerozoic CO2 levels for best estimates, and physically reasonable
ranges, of all other factors affecting CO2 in the long-term
carbon cycle. Such factors include solar evolution, changes in palaeogeography,
palaeolithology, palaeohydrology, global degassing,
organic and carbonate burial rates, and land plant population11.
We conclude that a climate sensitivity greater than
1.5 C has probably been a robust feature of the Earth’s climate
system over the past 420 million years, regardless of temporal
scaling.
Science 315, 87–91 (2007).
CO2-Forced Climate and Vegetation Instability During Late Paleozoic Deglaciation
Isabel P. Montañez,1* Neil J. Tabor,2 Deb Niemeier,3 William A. DiMichele,4 Tracy D. Frank,5
Christopher R. Fielding,5 John L. Isbell,6 Lauren P. Birgenheier,5 Michael C. Rygel5†
1Department of Geology, University of California, Davis, CA
95616, USA. 2Department of Geological Sciences, Southern
Methodist University, Dallas, TX 75275, USA. 3Department of
Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of California,
Davis, CA 95616, USA. 4Department of Paleobiology,
Smithsonian Museum of Natural History, Washington, DC
20560, USA. 5Department of Geosciences, 214 Bessey Hall,
University of Nebraska, Lincoln, NE 68588, USA. 6Department
of Geosciences, University of Wisconsin, Post Office Box
413, Milwaukee, WI 53201, USA.
The late Paleozoic deglaciation is the vegetated Earth’s only recorded icehouse-to-greenhouse
transition, yet the climate dynamics remain enigmatic. By using the stable isotopic compositions of
soil-formed minerals, fossil-plant matter, and shallow-water brachiopods, we estimated
atmospheric partial pressure of carbon dioxide (pCO2) and tropical marine surface temperatures
during this climate transition. Comparison to southern Gondwanan glacial records documents
covariance between inferred shifts in pCO2, temperature, and ice volume consistent with
greenhouse gas forcing of climate. Major restructuring of paleotropical flora in western Euramerica
occurred in step with climate and pCO2 shifts, illustrating the biotic impact associated with past
CO2-forced turnover to a permanent ice-free world.
Not so fast, Luke. You cannot simply avoid the fact that CO2 rose by almost 3 times anthropogenic levels in 1998 by developing a convenient mistrust of the whole global greenhouse inventory.
You cannot dismiss such a substantial piece of measured evidence by some sweeping throw away line that Philipona’s “numbers stack up”. Did Philipona consider the rise in CO2 in 1998 or didn’t he?
What the readers are seeing here, Luke, is a guy who regards near enough as equivalent to proof. But lets face it, your little diatribes may seem plausible to the gullible but whenever you get too close to detail you flounder and fall back on platitudes.
You have even admitted in other posts that CO2 does not act alone but function as part of a complex interaction of feedbacks etc, but you avoid any possible admission that ocean upwelling, as part of the historical cycle of carbon and deep ocean circulation, could also be contributing to rising CO2 levels as part of the same mix of complex interactions. Pathetic fella.
So I ask the same question, where did the extra CO2 in 1998 come from? Do you seriously expect us to believe that human emissions almost trebled in one year and then dropped back again the year after?
And SJT clearly doesn’t know the difference between a model and a factual record. This turkey thinks anything done by elecronic means is a model. My spreadsheet is not a model because it merely records a sequence of factual records in a way that enables me to analyse what has already taken place. A model would add a number of assumptions with a view to obtaining an estimate of what future records might be.
One is fact while the other is speculation. And therein lies the fundamental flaw in your cognitive function. You are unable to distinguish fact from fiction. To you a strongly held conviction is more powerful than a simple fact. And that is why you and your kind will be opposed at every step of this silly fantasy that you seek to impose on the whole planet.
Now run along, sunshine, time for your virtual prozac.
A mathematical analysis is a model. It doesn’t have to run anything. An equation 2+2=4 is a model.
Ian you’re not even near what the Philipona paper was about. Here readers we have Ian speculating and out of his depth. You’ll notice when he’s getting cornered out comes the biffo. (the CO2 measurements were actually actual -sigh)
And what’s this “admitted !!!! quip ” – cripes it’s always been that way – you guys are just starting to get it. I should charge for the valuable education you’re getting here.
Anyway what the trivia this time. 1998 – mega El Nino -? Check the SST anomalies – pretty warm.
We know very well what the ocean is doing in terms of isotopic indicators – give it away Ian.
Anyway la de da and moving right along – check out above. Read it and weep Ian. Game set and match. So having cleaned up here – what part of AGW do you want to be done like a dinner on next.
Here’s a free pressy for you Ian – you’ll like it. I’m sure I’ll regret showing you though.
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/carbontracker/index.html
Latest from Beck:
please notice updated supplementing webpage giving new and further information concerning my actual paper.
http://www.biokurs.de/treibhaus/180CO2_supp.htm
New (content of upcoming monograph ” History of CO2 Gas Analysis by Chemical Means”):
——————————————————————————————————————————-
Old chemical methods are as reliable as modern NDIR:
Steinhauser 1957 (Sampling method: Pettenkofer variant by Krogh 1923) at Vienna weather station Hohe Warte : 320 ppm ; see background approximation at the end of page
Same time Keeling 1957: (sampling method: NDIR) Mauna Loa : 318 ppm (adapted); pretty good within 3% error range
Further indication of validity for old data:
See compiled oxygen concentration for the 19th century (provisory):
Result: 1857 O2 Minimum correlates to 1857 CO2 maximum ( measured at different places by different scientists)
The actual measurement is accurate, it’s the sample that is the problem. Once this was realised, they went to great lengths to ensure they got better samples.
Accurate measurement of things non-representative?
Luke didn’t see this bit at NOAA.
“Uncertainties
It is important to note that at this time the uncertainty estimates for the sources/sinks are themselves quite uncertain. They have been derived from the mathematics of the data assimilation system, which required several “educated guesses” for initial uncertainty estimates, and did not take into account several additional factors noted below. The calculation was set up for sources/sinks to slowly revert, in the absence of observational data, to “first guesses” of close to zero net annual mean for ecosystems. This procedure may have produced a bias. Also due to the sparseness of measurements, we had to assume coherence of ecosystem processes over large distances, giving existing observations perhaps an undue amount of weight. The process model for terrestrial photosynthesis and respiration was very “basic”, and will likely be greatly improved in future releases of CarbonTracker. Easily the largest single annual mean source of CO2 is emissions from fossil fuel burning, which are currently not estimated by CarbonTracker. We use estimates from emissions inventories and subtract those from the total sources derived by CarbonTracker. A small relative error in the inventories would thus translate into a larger relative error in the annual mean ecosystem sources/sinks that have smaller magnitudes. We expect to add a process model of fossil fuel combustion in future releases of CarbonTracker. Finally, additional measurement sites are expected to lead to the greatest improvements, especially to more credible and specific source/sink results at smaller spatial scales”.
And what does carbon tracker tell us?
“North America is a source of CO2 to the atmosphere. The natural uptake of CO2 that occurs mostly East of the Rocky Mountains removes only ~30% of the CO2 released by the use of fossil fuels”.
But then we add the uptake from oceans (another 33%) and the uptake from all the low emission countries and we get more than 70% of fossil fuel emissions being removed by nature. And that leaves about 2Gt that is contributing to the increase in atmospheric CO2.
The only problem with this is that CO2 at Mauna Loa has been going up by 1.2ppm (6.18Gt) each year in the 1970’s, 1.6ppm (8.24Gt) each year in the 1980’s, 1.5ppm (7.72Gt) each year in the 1990’s and 2.0ppm (10.3Gt) for each of the past seven years.
So I must ask you again, Phlukeldinho, WHERE HAS THE EXTRA 8GT/YEAR OF CO2 COME FROM?
Well Motto-saurus-rex
Knew I shouldn’t have shown you climate tracker – would only get your hopes up.
Russian coal mines. Heaps of unaccounted fugitive emissions.
And where’s your graph of global fossil fuel usage?
But anyway – who cares – the SIO network is an accurate representation what is in the atmosphere, the isotopic studies show where it’s from. And it’s going up up up regardless of who’s sinking what & where.
But more importantly all your lag stuff has come a gutser.
What about the CO2 and temperature being tied eh eh eh. And the paleo climate sensitivity > 1.5 C AT LEAST ! Eh eh eh? Papers above hehehehehe.
Luke
If you want to keep Ian busy, maybe you should direct him towards String Theory. There should be enough in that to keep him busy for years. I know the scientists working on it are crying out for help.
Luke: Given Becks perseverance (thanks Paul) I quite prepared to debate the classic CO2 work of Schulze as shown in Becks papers.
IMHO Schulze had a good grip on the difficulties by 1868 see Fig 80. Unless Beck and others had their own go at CO2 detecting methods of the time they wouldn’t see half the issues that Schultze had to deal with.
From fig 80 we can see over a decent period readings averaging about 390 ppm with say 10% variation for the whole period 1868-71. Schultze was on the ball then by his own judgement. What we see though in his period 63-64 is about 355 ppm (similar variation) for the same place. What happened in between is critical for us and our view of the IPCC estimates.
Beck in his wisdom has ignored a discontinuity (between 64-68) in Schultze’s readings in Fig 76. If I read correctly, Schulze was already onto the Baltic Sea breeze.
Rostock region CO2 without local influence was perhaps even lower than 290 odd ppm for a greater part of that century.
Blatant hey
Thats it Luke, ignore the facts and just put your trust in the administrative hierarchy. What a tosser, what a sloppy throw away line, “Heaps of unaccounted fugitive emissions”, indeed.
This clown just invents a conveniently, and as yet undiscovered, pile of fugitive emissions that exceed the sum of all human activity in a single year.
All to maintain this sleazy, pathetic, green myth that all the increase in CO2 is from human causes.
And thank you for your admission that you are the type of person who is willing to be selective with the facts. You said, “(I) Knew I shouldn’t have shown you climate tracker – would only get your hopes up”. But we all already knew about your casual relationship with the facts, didn’t we Luke? The classic MO of Spivanthropus climatensis.
I guess Al Gore was right in one respect, Climate Change IS a moral issue, the age old one of honesty vs deception.
By the way, did anyone see the job “South Park” did on Al Gore on monday night? Al was there warning anyone who would listen about this major threat to the community called “Manbearpig”. This animal was half man, half bear and half pig (Gore’s numbers never add up) and was supposedly ravaging the countryside causing no end of harm to man and environment. And every time the folks tried to work on some problem, there was Al Gore demanding a strategy to deal with Manbearpig. They all felt sorry for him because it must be lonely being an ex Vice-President.
Ian
“You said, “(I) Knew I shouldn’t have shown you climate tracker – would only get your hopes up”. ”
Because it’s like giving a baby razor blades to play with, Ian.
oooo – temper.
I can’t help it if all your lag stuff and CO2 fishing expeditions has come a gutser.
And I said more than fugitive emissions numb nuts.
Anyway – you would have to be greatest dickhead God ever put breath into to think the the CO2 increase in the air is all natural ! Called denialism – go down to Wategos and bury your head in the sand.
Face it Ian – you’re through mate. Washed up.
Shonky tonks !
Ian, you try and you try, from all conceivable angles, but no matter how often youre proven wrong (or a liar) you just dont give up, and stick to your guns!
it would be entertaining if it werent so pathologically sad.
Carbon dioxide released by man near ground level is heavier than air and sinks in air relatively quickly rather than rising up to the upper atmosphere to become a so-called greenhouse gas in the upper atmosphere. While sinking, it stratifies from air. After sinking and stratifying, it tends to remain close to the ground and may find its way down to low-lying water bodies or down to ocean level where it can readily mix and react with water to form weak carbonic acid. Carbon dioxide is also removed immediately from the lower atmosphere by rainfall.
http://www.ocii.com/~dpwozney/carbondioxide.htm
David
what it is called ‘heavier’, I think that is just a simple explanation. It is in practice no heavier because the isotope that is heavier is only present in minute quantities. It can be measured with sensitive scientific instruments, but that is all.
Yes David Wozney – all very interesting about Mauna Loa – but the other SIO stations down to the South Pole are quite consistent.
So now Luke has stooped to suggesting that I am claiming that all the increase in CO2 is natural. Nevermind the fact that I have made repeated reference to the 7Gt of anthropogenic emissions, and the fact that thisd whole discussion has been on the issue of WHAT PORTION of the increase is anthropogenic and what portion is not.
Just keep it up fellas, there must be one reader of this blog who is dumb enough to believe what you say. Spivanthropus Climatensis desperately seeking Manbearpig.
Not talking – Manbearpig was really mean – I’m crying and needing counselling. You have hurt my feelings. Hope Easter Bunny brings you no choccies you meanie.
Q((((Technology News
April 3, 2007, 11:52PM
Top experts predict heavier activity this hurricane season
With El Niño gone, they see the Atlantic spawning 17 named storms
By ERIC BERGER
Copyright 2007 Houston Chronicle
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The leading forecasters of Atlantic hurricane activity have significantly ratcheted up their predictions for storms this year, saying it will be a “much more active” storm season.
The newest forecast, released Tuesday by William Gray and Phil Klotzbach of Colorado State University, calls for 17 named storms this year. Their earlier forecast, issued in December, called for 14 tropical storms and hurricanes.
The annual hurricane season starts June 1.
“El Niño is officially dead, and that was one of our main reasons why we didn’t go higher in December,” said Klotzbach, who now serves as lead author of the forecasts.
El Niño is a periodic warming of equatorial sea surface temperatures in the Pacific Ocean that tends to dampen hurricane activity in the Atlantic.
Forecasters generally agree that a strong El Niño during the latter half of the 2006 hurricane season held the total number of named storms, 10, below expectations.
The revised Klotzbach-Gray forecast also calls for nine hurricanes, up from seven, and five major hurricanes, up from three.
From 1950 to 2000 there were an average of 9.6 named storms per year, and 5.9 hurricanes.
Since about 1995, scientists agree, there has been an upswing in Atlantic hurricane activity, although there is disagreement over whether global warming or a cyclical warming of Northern Atlantic waters is to blame.
A forecast two months before hurricane season begins can be hit or miss. Of Klotzbach and Gray’s past six April forecasts, two have hit the mark, two others have been reasonably close, and two forecasts have been off by 50 percent or more.
Gray has issued forecasts since 1984. In recent years, with increasing interest surrounding hurricanes, other groups have begun making forecasts as well.
“The problem with that is these large-scale patterns which are used in the forecast are often not easy to predict so far into the future,” Chris Hebert, TropicsWatch supervisor for Houston-based forecasting service ImpactWeather, wrote via e-mail.
“In 2006, for example, no one had properly predicted the rapid onset of El Niño in late July. This caused strong wind shear (unfavorable winds aloft) across the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico, sparing the U.S. from any major threat.
“Seasonal forecasters like Dr. Gray and his student, Phil Klotzbach, will be using these same predictors for the 2007 outlook, so the outlook will be only as good as the ability to predict general atmospheric and oceanic conditions 3-6 months into the future.”
The important message, Hebert said, is to be prepared.
A big hurricane might hit Houston this year, but the odds are against it. However, he wrote, it’s “almost certain” that a major hurricane will strike Houston in the next decade or two during the current active cycle.))))))UnQ
Isn’t it amazing how the Hurricane experts, models and all, cannot predict with any reliable accuracy, yet the InterPlanetary Council of Crooks would have the world believe their modellers can predict with the accuracy of “Robbing” Hood.
Sigh – the old can’t predict the weather so can’t predict the climate scam
And generalise from one bit of phenomena in one location to everywhere and everything.
nevket: Smart hey. Your comment on ipcc predictions is like a dirty shovel short off flying …ie empty!
These days anything to do with governments is purely about risk assessment.
Even your average Aussie gambler has two bob each way on a sure thing.
The “Smothers Brothers’ Gavin & Luke.
Predictable arrogant, dismissive replies. I presume you two will be able to take medicine from now on that a “concensus’ of medical researchers think might be safe, or even fly around your G8 brawls in new planes that a “concensus” of engineers think might be OK to use.
One thing for certain, you are not scientists.
Just political activists.
Good to see Luke Smothers admitting to the climate scam. To claim I generalised after what the EcoMarxists claimed after Katrina went through is typical of the Genre. The next season was a DUD. So much for Models. No lengthy time frame so you could not be taken to task eh lads???
“These days anything to do with governments is purely about risk assessment”
Why just “these days” Even the Ceasars evaluated risks. Risk Assessments are subject to the same manipulations as your shonky “start with the result we need” models.
Just be honest for a change and admit the whole scam is a political one. The environmental aspect is a convenient” one in all in” platform.
Do you support equal funding between Pro and Anti scam research??? Politicians or Scientists??
nevket240 – actually I’m far from political – but all the eco-marxist clap-trap from gimps like you shits me. What a load of rubbish in terms of the real debate. Show me any serious climate change paper that says there will be hurricanes every year like Katrina. However there is good analysis to show that peak storm intensity of hurricanes/cyclones/typhoons has risen in all ocean basins world-wide.
How do the models start with the result they need. Actually if you don’t combine solar + greenhouse + aerosols you don’t get the right result at all.
Frankly nevket you’re talking out of your arse and haven’t got a clue what the debate is about. In terms of politics you’re the one bringing it up ! So perhaps you’re some reactionary right wing denialist nitwit.
Stop parroting what you read on political blogs and try reading the science for a change.
I don’t support funding for anything that’s demonstratably crap. And 90% of your contrarian gibberish utter drivel is spread by shonks, con-artists, ex-tobacco apologists and ratbags. Science is not about just making you feel comfortable.
Nevertheless science can only inform policy and politicians. If you can convince enough to vote it down well don’t complain to any scientists down the track. Tosser!
nevket240 too is right into Jukebox jingles www style.
IMO IPCC models can be appreciated by the general public and pollies alike
In today’s news we had the Australian climate scientist commenting from Brussels on expected problems downunder. This guy represents teams of experienced researchers based in Australia. Nothing much will happen over Easter, hey what a great day we have here under this cloudless sky
http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200704/s1891863.htm
http://www.aussmc.org/IPCCWG2.php
Even out federal environment minister reckons it’s all old hat!
Australian CSIRO scientist Kevin Hennessy is part of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
Thanks to nevket for his comments. I was laughing for 20 minutes straight.
Why is it that the IPCC fans always sound so bitter. Like old men hating the young.
Bu-huh, they have no respect for my facts – it is so hard on me!
But then again, when you have predicted a global desert and a 6 m rise of the ocean( can these be combined?) then maybe there is nothing to laugh about?
By the way: How many of the people on the IPCC would you say are real top experts on their field?
I know the ones they sent out from my country- Denmark- are not even close!