Guardian Continues To Spread Misinformation About Eyjafjallajokull ( CO2 Calculations ---)

Watts Up With That? ^ | April 21 , 2010 | Steven Goddard

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Yesterday WUWT reported on the inaccurate #1 environmental story at Guardian.

The Guardian article originally read :

The volcanic eruption has released carbon dioxide, but the amount is dwarfed by
the savings. Based on readings taken by scientists during the first phase of

Eyjafjallajokull activity last month, the website Information is Beautiful
calculated the volcano has emitted about 15,000 tonnes of CO2 each day.

After their article was written, more accurate information spread across the web – The Guardian numbers were off by more than an order of magnitude :

Experts said on Monday that the volcano in Iceland is emitting 150,000 to 300,000 tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) per day, a figure comparable to emissions released from a small industrial nation.

The Guardian responded by updating their article with better numbers, but failed to update their conclusions:

The volcanic eruption has released carbon dioxide, but the amount is dwarfed by the savings. Based on readings taken by scientists during the first phase of Eyjafjallajokull activity last month, the website Information is Beautiful calculated the volcano has emitted about 150,000 tonnes of CO2 each day. Worldwide, the US Geological Survey says volcanoes produce about 200m tonnes of carbon dioxide every year.

• This article was changed on 21 April. It originally said the volcano has emitted about 15,000 tonnes of CO2 each day. Information is Beautiful has since corrected this figure to 150,000; we have updated our article to reflect this.

So what is wrong with their correction?  Lots of things.

1. Their source of information now claims that the numbers are 206,465 tons saved vs. 150,000 tons emitted by the volcano.  Those two numbers are well within the margin of error of the volcano estimates, and are the very low end of what scientists are claiming.  If we use the average scientific estimate of 225,000 – the volcano was actually producing more CO2 per day than the savings from grounded aircraft.  Yet the Guardian story still claims that emissions are dwarfed by the savings.
2. The Guardian story claims that there have been 2.8 million tons of savings, and the math doesn’t work out.  At the time the story was written there had been six days of grounded flights.  206,465 tons/day X  6 days = 1.2 million tons, not 2.8 million tons.

3. The Guardian failed to research the actual volcano estimates, and again published the very low end numbers from an apparently unreliable source.
4. They failed to consider that the eruption has been going on for more than a month, while the flight ban has lasted only six days.  Total volcano emissions actually dwarf the savings from the aircraft.
5. They failed to consider Anthony’s point that people stranded by grounded aircraft seek other means of transportation, including cars, trains and battleships, etc.  The BBC estimated that these other modes of transport generate as much CO2 as the planes would have.
6. They failed to consider that the airlines will eventually run extra flights in order to catch up.

The evidence indicates that the net balance from the volcano is a large increase in CO2 emissions.  The Guardian article was just Plane Stupid.

Furthermore, we know that plants, soil and the oceans generate 30 times as much CO2 as all fossil fuel burning combined.  That is 200,000,000,000 tons of CO2 per year from natural sources, compared with The Guardian’s inaccurate claim of 2,800,000 tons in savings from aircraft grounded.  In other words, even their exaggerated claimed savings are less than 0.0014% of all natural emissions of CO2.

Numbers  from Woods Hole Institute

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Never a dull moment with the AGW crowd.

[USFRIENDINVICTORIA]

Apparently, math skills are not a job requirement for reporters — they might even be considered a detriment (never let the facts get in the way of a good story).

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks Ernest_at_the_Beach.

After their article was written, more accurate information spread across the web -- The Guardian numbers were off by more than an order of magnitude

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[ETL]

But the CO2-climate issue is largely bogus anyway. There is no evidence that CO2 leads to warming when concentrations are anywhere near as low as we have today. The recent warming trend which began around the turn of the century ended in 1995 and may well have been the result of solar activity, as were several prior episodes of warming and cooling, including the Medieval Warming Period and Little Ice Age.

THE ACQUITTAL OF CARBON DIOXIDE
by Jeffrey A. Glassman, PhD

ABSTRACT:

"Carbon dioxide in the atmosphere [historically] is the product of oceanic respiration due to the well-known but under-appreciated solubility pump. Carbon dioxide rises out of warm ocean waters where it is added to the atmosphere. There it is mixed with residual and accidental CO2, and circulated, to be absorbed into the sink of the cold ocean waters. Next the thermohaline circulation carries the CO2-rich sea water deep into the ocean. A millennium later it appears at the surface in warm waters, saturated by lower pressure and higher temperature, to be exhausted back into the atmosphere. Throughout the past 420 millennia, comprising four interglacial periods, the Vostok record of atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration is imprinted with, and fully characterized by, the physics of the solubility of CO2 in water, along with the lag in the deep ocean circulation.

Notwithstanding that carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas, atmospheric carbon dioxide has neither caused nor amplified global temperature increases. Increased carbon dioxide has been an effect of global warming, not a cause [historically -etl]. Technically, carbon dioxide is a lagging proxy for ocean temperatures. When global temperature, and along with it, ocean temperature rises, the physics of solubility causes atmospheric CO2 to increase.

If increases in carbon dioxide, or any other greenhouse gas, could have in turn raised global temperatures, the positive feedback would have been catastrophic. While the conditions for such a catastrophe were present in the Vostok record from natural causes, the runaway event did not occur. Carbon dioxide does not accumulate in the atmosphere."

http://www.rocketscientistsjournal.com/2006/10/co2_acquittal.html
_________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________

Here's a sunspot chart (below) showing the various peaks and dips throughout the past centuries. Note the "Medieval Max". It corresponds to the "Medieval Warm Period". The "Maunder Minimum" corresponds to the "Little Ice Age", and the "Modern Max" to the recent warming trend we had been experiencing, at least until the past 15 years or so.

"Changes in carbon-14 concentration in the Earth's atmosphere, which serves as a long term proxy of solar activity. Note the present day is on the left-hand side of this figure."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_activity
_________________________________________________________

From BBC News [yr: 2004]:
"A new [2004] analysis shows that the Sun is more active now than it has been at anytime in the previous 1,000 years. Scientists based at the Institute for Astronomy in Zurich used ice cores from Greenland to construct a picture of our star's activity in the past. They say that over the last century the number of sunspots rose at the same time that the Earth's climate became steadily warmer."..."In particular, it has been noted that between about 1645 and 1715, few sunspots were seen on the Sun's surface.

This period is called the Maunder Minimum after the English astronomer who studied it. It coincided with a spell of prolonged cold weather often referred to as the "Little Ice Age". Solar scientists strongly suspect there is a link between the two events - but the exact mechanism remains elusive."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/3869753.stm

[Dr. Bogus Pachysandra]

Thanks Earnest! I’m falling behind in my reading. Mushroom hunting you know!

[steelyourfaith]

Thanx !

 

Beam me to Planet Gore !

[Marine_Uncle]

Like some of the folks made comments on the WUWT site, instead of screaming about the amount of CO2 being belched out of the hole in the ground, people should be thinking about the potential for lead, arsenic, cadmium, mercury and sulfur being carried into high population areas across Europe.

[Marine_Uncle]

Meanwhile at the other side of the world, six hours ago Vostok reporting -110 deg F. Forecast for next five days here.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Saturday Night
Overcast. Low: -99 °F . Wind SSE 15 mph . Windchill: -135 °F

And I thought it was chilly last night here... .

[Marine_Uncle]

Looks like where Al Gore should move to. Permanently.

[Leo Carpathian]

and it can be seen on the Antarctic Core data 1 that temperature curves lead the CO2 curves, which this mortal would explain that amount of CO2 is dependent on temperatures (and solar cycle) and not the amount of dinosaur or human fart (whatever).
Where are the envirowackos picketing the volcano???

[ETL]

Yes, CO2 is released from the oceans when they warm up via some other process. But the important thing here is that the released CO2 hadn’t caused any *additional* warming, the so-called “runaway greenhouse effect” the global governance lefties try to scare us with.