Replies

*Thanks* for posting this article on Vostok. First of all, the article concedes a correlation between CO2 and atmosphere warming -- it just contends that CO2 lags and thus is not the driver.

Second, I am not persuaded by the inferential logic near the end of the article, where the website author writes:

"[T]hey and many others continue to hold to the view that the subsequent increase in atmospheric CO2 -- which is believed to be due to warming-induced CO2 outgassing from the world's oceans -- serves to amplify the warming that is caused by whatever prompts the temperature to rise in the first place. This belief, however, is founded on unproven assumptions about the strength of CO2-induced warming and is applied without any regard for biologically-induced negative climate feedbacks that may occur in response to atmospheric CO2 enrichment."

My response is: you've posted an article conceding there is 450,000 years of correlated data, you don't even dispute the correlation, and your concern is about the *strength* of CO2-induced warming? I SHARE that concern: I have NEVER said that the predictive models are accurate and that chicken little is right and we'll all die because of manmade global warming! I say: it's happening and let's not pretend Vostok and other ice samples don't say that it is. They do. BTW, this article does not talk about the objective measurements -- how the CO2 is at 380ppm and how that's just happened in the very present, on a steep slope rise since 1850.

*Thanks* for posting this article on Vostok. First of all, the article concedes a correlation between CO2 and atmosphere warming -- it just contends that CO2 lags and thus is not the driver.

... you've posted an article conceding there is 450,000 years of correlated data, you don't even dispute the correlation, and your concern is about the *strength* of CO2-induced warming?

The correlation indicates (but doesn't prove) that colder temperatures cause CO2 levels to drop and warmer temperatures cause CO2 levels to rise. That makes temperature the driver. (if you accept that a correlation is proof of causation)

But the opposite conclusion, that CO2 levels drive temperature changes, is impossible. Cause always precedes effect.

A reasonable theory can easily be constructed to account for temp. changes causing CO2 level changes. The planet cools and plant/animal activity decreases leading to lower CO2 levels. The planet warms stimulating plant/animal activity and CO2 levels rise. The long lag between temp. change and CO2 level change reflects the slow and measured response of dense concentrations of biomass (jungles/forests) to temperature changes. The CO2 levels are driven by biomass levels which are driven by climatic changes.
First cause, then effect.