New evidence suggests that the correlation between atmospheric carbon and warming may not be as clear as previously believed
Global warming is an extremely sensitive topic. Some ardently believe that man is pushing our planet towards global ruin, while others believe that proponents of anthropogenic warming theory are pushing the global economy towards financial ruin. Surprisingly, though, the evidence is not as black or white as either group would like you to believe.
A recent study looking at atmospheric carbon when combined with a recent summary of global atmospheric temperatures over the past 30 years sharply illustrates this uncertainty.
Why do I have a feeling Al Gore won’t be happy about this part:
With the international community puzzling over expensive climate change legislation, it is important to consider carefully what landmarks by which to gauge “success” amid the uncertainty of cyclic variation. Furthermore, critics and proponents aside, the wisest approach seems to be to avoid schemes that throw money into the wind, such as carbon trading or carbon sequestration.
The Copenhagen talks are going nowhere.
#7 – gmknobl,
Interestingly, a new senate bill regarding climate change is just 32 pages, highly readable, simple, and not prone to huge costs in oversight or finagling from businesses. In fact, it even limits the amount of money available in the carbon trading market … and would give most of the money from it back to taxpaying citizens instead of to Wall St. and other major corporations!!
No way in hell this will pass. It’s nice to dream though.
In case you didn’t notice the link in the Grist article, here’s the link to the full text … all 32 pages (pdf).
#9 – jackquack,
@gmknobl
Why not just tax carbon? Super simple. Emissions are already monitored. So just tax at a flat rate. It just seems like the easier solutions.
Actually, I would prefer that to cap and trade as well. I like the bill I posted above though for setting the monitoring right at the source, either when it is dug up or when it is imported. That’s the simplest and cheapest time to tax or record the carbon.
33, I hear there will be or already are proposals in some states to tax people on the mileage people drive with their vehicles.
It’s a great way to get people to move out of a state.
#14 – bobbo,
How big a turd do you allow in your punch bowl while continuing to drink out of it?
ROFL!! Apparently for some, this seems to depend on the amount of almond flavored* kool-aid in the punch bowl.
When the going gets tough, the tough drink out of the toilet.
* http://tinyurl.com/ycqh6pl
#19 – MikeN,
Not sure when they said that temperatures have to increase every single year in their theory.
Very astute observation.
Another study came out lately that showed that even as CO2 was increasing in the atmosphere, the total percentage being retained is the same. The same percentage of new carbon every year is being absorbed by the carbon sinks in the ground. They are not being saturated, yet.
This I would question for a couple of reasons:
1) The carbon dioxide level in the atmosphere is indeed increasing, so the sinks can’t possibly be absorbing it all.
2) The effect on the ocean, the mother of all sinks, is possibly more catastrophic than the effects of warming on their own will be.
http://tinyurl.com/cbn5ub
http://tinyurl.com/cx6htu
#29, Mr. Scott,
I don’t understand how anyone sees these graphs and does not see soaring temperatures? Someone please explain the disconnect to me.
It is because the wing nuts want America to fail. If America fails, then we can revert to stone age living, only they’ll have guns and can then do their Rambo impersonations. Its a Rush Limbaugh thing.
Admitting the truth will not get America to fail.
Mr. Scott & Mr. Bobbo,
“How big a turd do you allow in your punch bowl while continuing to drink out of it?”
ROFL!! Apparently for some, this seems to depend on the amount of almond flavored* kool-aid in the punch bowl.
I can only guess that is why so many right wing nuts bring their own forks.
#34 Guyver: going to the Telegraph article which Thomas links to, proves my contention. He’s spinning like crazy.
I guess he wanted to be a Doubting Thomas. Here, Thomas, put your hand in my ozone-free halo. The buzz you feel is not due to ionization.
Incidentally, one of the main carbon sinks is the ocean, and we’re finding that acidification of the top layers of ocean, due to cumulative and increasing (in amount!) carbon uptake, is contributing to dramatic changes in aquatic populations. You might learn to like calamari, but a real good business opportunity would be to find a way to make jellyfish delicious and nutritious. There’s no shortage of either.
Fusion you’ve got it backwards. If Obama succeeds then America fails. His goal is a failed America.
As far as AGW goes, If the solution involves a downsized lifestyle, the solution is worse than the problem.
The data is being manipulated as usual. Notice how it conveniently stops at the year 2000? Why is that…. hmmm? could it be that global temperatures have been falling for 10 years and it would hurt the effect to include them?
How about we just show the last 10 years or so.
(separated to levels in the atmosphere)
How about we show the full history instead of just a tiny nano fraction… eh?
If there is an ultimate truth to a pending catastrophe because of CO2 (and I’m not saying there isn’t), then why do you have to tell lies (selective and manipulated data) to make a point?
I went to a university where most of the faculty were ardent supporters of the theory that human activity is the cause of global warming. My thoughts on the subject are simple. Given any scientific question with so many factors and so much data that’s almost impossible to make any real conclusions, if someone tells you they know the answer or the cause, do not trust that person. That person is the victim of cognitive dissonance at best, and intellectual dishonesty at worst. I no longer trust the mainstream “scientific” community to give us the answers and instead try to make my own conclusions wherever possible.
Scott, yes atmospheric carbon levels increase. The point is how much of the increase is being absorbed instead of staying in the atmosphere.
There appears to be conflicting studies on this point, both reported by WattsUpWithThat.
The idea is that if 50% of the carbon emitted was absorbed, and 50% stayed in the atmosphere, leading to an increase of 3ppm, then 20 years later, still 50% of new carbon is being absorbed, even though much more carbon is being emitted.
47, You don’t even have to go to those “extremes” since the mere fact you exhale CO2 contributes to the very thing you despise talking about.
How much creature comforts do you want society to have? Should we stop importing out-of-season produce? Should we force people to drive less by increasing taxes on fuels and begin taxing people for mileage driven? Should we have scheduled black outs? Should we stop looking for the next pain killer or a cure for cancer? Do you want to slow down the pace of technological innovation? Do you want a spike in the price of your basic necessities?
On the matter of why people / govt / corps turn a blind eye to news of pollution, I would say it’s a mix of our “putting out fires” culture instead of preventing them along with if it’s not in your backyard then it’s not your problem.
Should we collectively do a better job of conserving? Sure. But if you want to use the force of government to provide these changes, how much in the way of taxes should everyone pay to subsidize environmental concerns?
Contrary to Obama’s promise to not raise taxes on the middle class and poor, he’s already raised excise taxes which affect everyone. Do you honestly believe Cap & Trade affect the “greedy” rich alone? Do you believe a raise in tobacco tax hurts the rich or the poor? What about alcohol? Who consumes the most alcohol?
Do you suppose that raising taxes in a deep recession is going to help the poor and middle class? Do you suppose unemployment is going to go down with higher taxes? Do you suppose hyper-inflation of the dollar is going to make your life savings carry you through retirement?
Oh we can probably do a lot more about the environment. But how do you suppose to “fix” things? There’s no such thing as a free lunch. There will be unintended consequences.
Everyone, please- Fusion is a troll. Don’t feed the trolls!
#45, David
I went to a university where most of the faculty were ardent supporters of the theory that human activity is the cause of global warming. My thoughts on the subject are simple. Given any scientific question with so many factors and so much data that’s almost impossible to make any real conclusions, if someone tells you they know the answer or the cause, do not trust that person.
So you failed your courses. You told your teachers they didn’t know what they were talking about. People that have spent decades of their lives learning and you decided they don’t know. Riiiiight!!!
I’m wondering, do you realize how intelligent that makes you look? Have you ever seen a Kung Fu movie where the student thinks he knows better than the teacher? Riiiiight!!!
#50,
are you part of that famous gay duo, neil and bob?
our bastard spawn is gay too. he has a pet goat too. maybe you and pedro should get together. or maybe not. pedro has an oozing asshole. there is green stuff coming from it. he writes like you too. do you stink like him.
pedro’s goat’s name is dick. pedro likes dick. but dick didn’t make his asshole ooze green stuff. the other dick made that.
i have an idea. why don’t you and neil get together for a threesome with pedro. you could call it the pedro neil and bob show. then you and pedro could write your nonsense all day in between your bobbing and kneeling. just remember not to talk with your mouth full, you might swallow down the wrong pipe.
You know at this point I don’t really give a flying monkey fuck. I live on high ground in the midwest. Even if all the ice melted I would be above anything but a biblical flood (pics or it didn’t happen.) So F’em.
Mr. Fusion. Intellectual dishonesty is still dishonesty, whether it comes from an ivy league professor or even a former vice-president. The amount of time spent studying the subject has nothing to do with it. There are scientists who have studied evolution for decades and still support creationism. So you’re saying we should suspend our critical thinking and just believe them?
#54–David==you raise the most critical of issues: “How do we know what we know, and how do we change our minds?”
The bell shaped curve shows most people in the middle with declining numbers at both extremes.
Imagine YOURSELF cloistered away somewhere studying whatever. After 20 years, you publish your thoughts. Then YOU pre-imagination say: there are two many variables for me to trust what you have spent your life studying===besides, f*ckhead over here did the same thing and disagrees with you.
Footnote: YOU has published a treatise modifying slightly what 95% of others in the field have agreed on, and f*ckhead is unique in his opinions also disagreeing with the other 5% of disagreers.
If we aren’t an expert in the subject at hand, how are we to decide?
PANIC, the sky is falling. Act now or die! Not a moment to lose!
Put the entire economy in the hands of the government. Jack up prices of energy to astronomical levels. Stop production of coal and oil. Rely on unreliable expensive solar and wind. Transfer whatever wealth and manufacturing is left in the nation to China and India.
What could possibly go wrong?
Bobbo, that is usually how science advances! Haven’t you studied any history?
#57–father==my post is too poorly constructed to REQUIRE comprehension, but my point was just the opposite. Science proceeds by years of constant sutdy, experiments, confirmation that forms consensus.
Science DOES NOT PROCEED, by someone who knows NOTHING and so armed “doubts” the work product of others.
Its my error.
@Guyver #49,
You missed my point entirely. Let me re-phrase, Global Warming is a red herring. The REAL problem is pollution, pollution affects everyone today. Not twenty years from now, not 100 years from now, today. Why hasn’t something been done about the fact that you can’t go fishing in Minnesota and actually eat the fish more than once per month because of the mercury? What happened to acid rain, did it just cease to occur? If so, why?
I suspect the biggest polluters are the greatest supporters of climate change resolutions around the world, it keeps the attention off of them.
#44 – 01001010 01101001 01101101 01010010,
The link I posted analyzes the record including the last 10 years you think of as cooling. Note that statisticians find no such trend when reviewing the numbers.
Their opinion is, unlike yours, not biased since they were not told that the numbers were global average temperatures. They had no idea what trend they were analyzing. They just looked at the numbers and found the trend to be decidedly increasing, i.e. warming.
So, your 10 year cooling is just total bullshit.
Sorry.
Check my post #29 again since you obviously missed it.
Bullshit article with so many math mistakes I don’t even know where to start. So I won’t bother.
#1 Science overwhelmingly favors climate change. It is the anti-climate change religious zealots that are hanging on to myth passed out by Exxon and the Coal lobby.
#44 – two neurons,
The first graph you have there is a graph of deltas, not temperature. Most of them do show a positive number, indicating increase in temperature. So, the graph looks relatively flat as a slightly positive line of delta temperature. In other words, the numbers that are above zero, i.e. most of them, indicate positive change over the prior year.
#46 – MikeN,
WhatsUpWithThat is a blog by a retired weatherman. He has no training in climatology. I picked his blog apart once before when he showed a graph to make his point and instead made the point that warming is real. You really should watch your sources carefully.
Further, how much is not being absorbed is still the real issue. The increase from 280 ppm to 385 ppm is huge.
Lastly, you ignored my prior point about the ocean damage being caused by that absorption. Imagine a world with no fish. Is that one in which you want to live? About a billion people rely on ocean fish for the bulk of their protein.
Uncle Dave . . . . . . what a goddamn dumbass.
The scientific antidote to dumbassery:
http://www.realclimate.org/
I’m not too worried about ocean absorption. It isn’t acid being added to an ocean, it is CO2, which is what is needed to build the shells that are supposedly thinning. Those shells are always being shed, and they get replenished by additional CO2.
The point is that the increase is not from 280 to 385 ppm, it is from 280 to 700 ppm, with 315 of that 700 gets absorbed. Another 6ppm the next year, and 3 more get absorbed. So the sinks have been been absorbing larger additional amounts each year, showing no signs of saturation.
The fact that WattsUpWithThat links to a paper, makes the paper worthless? Then I guess he should just link to all the papers RealClimate links to, and you will become a skeptic!
Re#46, Mis Scott, Your post #29 Is as much BS as any of the charts I posted. There is no indication of the original source of the data, who the independent statisticians were, and if they were arms length from the IPCC, or NASA. The data was presented from the Associated Press. Very scientific and trustworthy. (Not)
“Published peer-reviewed scientific research generally cites temperatures measured by ground sensors, which are from NOAA, NASA and the British, more than the satellite data.”
Satellite data gives cooler temperatures, so let’s NOT use that data because it might screw up our unbiased high temperature data.
Your lack of comment on the real trend as shown in my second posted chart in post #44 speaks volumes on your biased agenda.
The sky is not falling Chicken Little.