Rushing to Judgment (Global Warming Questioned

Global Warming is a myth!

I want to initially concentrate on one point.

Tch,tch, from whence this CO2 being added? warming of the oceans by solar activity, changes in earths orbit increasing bio activity and biomass, as well as release from CO2 trapped in ice, & solution in oceans. But more importantly increases in water vapor in much higher measure as a concequence of ocean warming.

Are you SERIOUSLY suggesting that the increase in CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere is NOT anthropogenic? Please indicate if you maintain a) the majority of CO2 added to the atmosphere since 1850 is from human sources, primarily fossil fuels, or b) the majority of CO2 added to the atmosphere since 1850 is not anthropogenic.

I have to find out if you're credible on this point or not.

Responding to little things:

So data contrary to your view of things is characterised by you as propoganda. Sorry, doesn't fly.

I was referring to the OISM hoax survey in this case. I'm glad you didn't post that tripe again.

indicate if you maintain
a) the majority of CO2 added to the atmosphere since 1850 is from human sources, primarily fossil fuels, or
b) the majority of CO2 added to the atmosphere since 1850 is not anthropogenic.

You left out choice "c)" which you know I maintain.

c) the measured increase in CO2 concentration, whatever its source, is insufficient to induce measureable increase in global temperature.

The issue is not change in CO2.

Variable solar absorption/reflectance(i.e. aldebo) & solar output are the dominant drivers of earths heat balance with water vapor the primary mediator of the earth's greenhouse system.

Minimal CO₂-Temperature correlation with earth's surface temperature, and no causal link, as shown in the many studies cited above in reply #13 above, means nil effect on the earth's heat balance.

Any spectral absorption/reradiation of CO₂ is totally overwhelmed by absorption/re-radiation of H₂0 concentration making up 95% of earth's total greenhouse capacity.

Anthropogenic (man-made) Contribution to the "Greenhouse
Effect," expressed as % of Total (water vapor INCLUDED)

Based on concentrations (ppb) adjusted for heat retention characteristics % of All Greenhouse Gases
% Natural

% Man-made

Water vapor 95.000%
94.999%
0.001%

Carbon Dioxide (CO2) 3.618%
3.502%
0.117%

Methane (CH4) 0.360%
0.294%
0.066%

Nitrous Oxide (N2O) 0.950%
0.903%
0.047%

Misc. gases ( CFC's, etc.) 0.072%
0.025%
0.047%

Total 100.00%
99.72
0.28%

Climate Catastrophe, A spectroscopic Artifact?

"It is hardly to be expected that for CO2 doubling an increment of IR absorption at the 15 µm edges by 0.17% can cause any significant global warming or even a climate catastrophe.
The radiative forcing for doubling can be calculated by using this figure. If we allocate an absorption of 32 W/m² [14] over 180º steradiant to the total integral (area) of the n3 band as observed from satellite measurements (Hanel et al., 1971) and applied to a standard atmosphere, and take an increment of 0.17%, the absorption is 0.054 W/m² - and not 4.3 W/m².
This is roughly 80 times less than IPCC's radiative forcing.
If we allocate 7.2 degC as greenhouse effect for the present CO2 (as asserted by Kondratjew and Moskalenko in J.T. Houghton's book The Global Climate [14]), the doubling effect should be 0.17% which is 0.012 degC only. If we take 1/80 of the 1.2 degC that result from Stefan-Boltzmann's law with a radiative forcing of 4.3 W/m², we get a similar value of 0.015 degC."

Variation in CO₂ concentration is simply not a substantive factor in variation of global temperature of the earth, water vapor overwhelmingly dominates the greenhouse balance.

The UN/IPPC models claim a hair on a dog's tail wags the dog.

You obviously have missed the significance of the following graphical presentation of CO2 vs Surface temperature:

CO2 fell from 7000ppm 600 million years ago to the 320ppm today, variation of earth's temperature, there is nil correlation in response to that change.

Where is the missing runaway greenhouse effect, the (CO2 everything else) multiplier that is the built in presumption of the IPPC Global Climate Models? It does not exist.

I was referring to the OISM hoax survey in this case. I'm glad you didn't post that tripe again.

What survey? There is a petition supported by many in the scientific community in opposition to the claims of Kyoto, & UN/IPCC. The only thing fraudulent is the global warming hype mischaracterizing that petition but by no means countering its claim of "no convincing evidence".

This very debate proves the validity of that claim without a doubt.

Petition Project: http://www.oism.org/pproject/s33p357.htm

During the past 2 years, more than 17,100 basic and applied American scientists, two-thirds with advanced degrees, have signed the Global Warming Petition.

Specifically declaring:
"There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gasses is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth's atmosphere and disruption of the Earth's climate."

Signers of this petition so far include 2,660 physicists, geophysicists, climatologists, meteorologists, oceanographers, and environmental scientists (select this link for a listing of these individuals) who are especially well qualified to evaluate the effects of carbon dioxide on the Earth's atmosphere and climate.
Signers of this petition also include 5,017 scientists whose fields of specialization in chemistry, biochemistry, biology, and other life sciences (select this link for a listing of these individuals) make them especially well qualified to evaluate the effects of carbon dioxide upon the Earth's plant and animal life.
Nearly all of the initial 17,100 scientist signers have technical training suitable for the evaluation of the relevant research data, and many are trained in related fields.

PS, missed an intended graphic illustrating the relative impact of H₂0 radiative forcing in comparison with CO₂ radiative forcing:

Any spectral absorption/reradiation of CO₂ is totally overwhelmed by absorption/re-radiation of H₂0 concentration making up 95% of earth's total greenhouse capacity.

The UN/IPPC hair wagging the dog assertion is quite simply a fallacious presumption that is core to their erroneous analysis.

You left out choice "c)" which you know I maintain.

c) the measured increase in CO2 concentration, whatever its source, is insufficient to induce measureable increase in global temperature.

The issue is not change in CO2.

You're avoiding the point and the question, and it is critical and central to this issue. Notwithstanding the debate regarding the potential climate effects of increasing atmospheric CO2 concentrations (we'll get to that), I need to know if I first need to prove to you, incontrovertibly, that the increasing CO2 is primarily from human sources (primary among them being fossil fuel burning for energy production).

BECAUSE... you apparently alluded that the increasing CO2 concentrations might be a climate effect, i.e., a response to a natural climate trend. That's why I am asking for clarification. If you are harboring any sense that there is a possibility that the current trend of increasing CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere is not caused by humans, I need to dispel that completely.

You can easily say that a) is correct, and we can move on from there.

In the early and mid '80s I participated in high school and (briefly) college debate. For those unfamiliar with this activity, much of it revolves around researching the esoteric nonsense and coming up with arguments that provide the biggest "impact" (effect, e.g. number of bodies you can pile up). I realized there are all sorts of tried and true arguments that appear year after year because they are familiar and are used to argue that whatever the other side wants to do causes war, depression, nuclear war, and all sorts of horrible deaths.

Anyway, global warming has been a mainstay in academic debate competitions for many years, at least since the mid '70s. This is because people like Paul Ehrlich wrote books and articles that give good sound bites, exactly the "evidence" debaters are interested in. As a debater, I didn't care if published sources that I used for evidence made any sense; all I cared about was whether it existed. If the affirmative team was arguing an anti-poverty initiative, for example, I wanted to find a way to link that policy with nuclear war. As dumb as that sounds, it was often easy to do so -- precisely because the idiots screaming about global warming are fanatics who write great debate evidence, but little else.

Global warming has only been at the periphery of mainstream news for a decade (if that) or so. I've know about global warming theories for over 20 years. It was BS then, and its BS now. To the extent it exists, man has virtually nothing to do with it.

I apologize for "thinking out loud" in your presence, but with my background this note intrigued me:

To the consternation of global warming proponents, the Late Ordovician Period was also an Ice Age, with CO2 concentrations nearly 15 times higher than today-- 5500 ppm. According to greenhouse theory, Earth should have been exceedingly hot. Instead, global temperatures were no warmer than today. Clearly, other factors besides atmospheric carbon influence earth temperatures and global warming.

The reason that I'm thinking out loud is that something we'll return to repeatedly as we consider paleoclimate evidence is the apples-to-oranges comparison trap -- a trap that I'd like to avoid. If we are going to figure out what is happening now and what might happen in the future, we have to make sure that what we are considering is relevant. OK -- there's no doubt that "other factors besides atmospheric carbon [dioxide] influence earth temperatures and global warming". The rate of plate tectonics is a first-order driver over millions of years (something Berner, whom you cite, has studied extensively). But if we are considering climate changes over millenial or shorter timescales, then considering plate tectonic processes is pretty useless. I hope you agree with that.

Having said that, what is known about the Ordovician paleoclimate? Here's a good description, from my Cal-Berkeley friends:

Ordovician: Tectonics and Paleoclimate

Read it at your leisure. Summary: continents were moving around, mountains were rising, ocean currents were totally different tha today, eventually Gondwanaland made it to the South Pole when the Ashgillian glaciation took place. You know how long the Ashgillian was? About 10 million years. All of the Pleistocene glaciations took place in less than 0.5 million years.

So does the fact that CO2 was much, much higher in the Ordovician, when there was an Ice Age, cause me consternation? Not a bit. Because this is an apples-to-oranges comparison; it's virtually meaningless and it does not instruct us regarding processes that are relevant today. Because I know that there are other factors that affect Earth's climate other than CO2, particularly when the timescales under discussion differ by several orders of magnitude. It's also apples-to-oranges in terms of the overall climate setting, i.e., where the continents were, where the ocean currents where, where the continental shelves were, what the ocean chemistry was (note the end of the second paragraph on the linked page), etc.

But there is still an important question regarding whether or not CO2 was a paleoclimate factor. I'll get to that next week. This will be the last post for today and the weekend, but I'll be working on next week's submission in the interim.

I need to know if I first need to prove to you, incontrovertibly, that the increasing CO2 is primarily from human sources (primary among them being fossil fuel burning for energy production).

You don't need to prove anything as the issue is irrelavent, CO2 concentration regardless of source of emmission is increasing, but does not induce substantive increase of temperature with a high water vapor content atmosphere, futhermore, most CO2 is derived from natural sources in any case by a factor of greater than 10 to 1

If you are harboring any sense that there is a possibility that the current trend of increasing CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere is not caused by humans, I need to dispel that completely.

Less than 10% of CO2 emmissions are due to mankind thus less than 10% of any residual effect of increasing CO2 is due to mankind:

Contemporary Climate Change

6.4.1.1. Sources of Atmospheric CO2

Sources of atmospheric CO2 can today be divided into two groups: natural and anthropogenic. Natural sources include the respiration of animals (60Gt per annum) and the surface ocean (90Gt per annum) (Schimel et al., 1995). Anthropogenic sources include the combustion of fossil fuels (power stations and transport) and cement production (5.5Gt per annum)and land-use changes (mainly deforestation) (1.6Gt per annum)

Heat sinks do not distinguish anthropogenic CO2 from natural sources.

6.4.1.2. Sinks of Atmospheric CO2

The surface ocean also acts as a natural sink for atmospheric CO2, with an annual removal flux of 92Gt carbon. The interaction of CO2 between atmosphere and surface ocean was more fully addressed in section 5.3.1.2 (Equations 14 to 17). The other major natural sink is the primary productivity of land vegetation (photosynthesis), which sequesters 61.4Gt carbon every year (Schimel et al., 1995). The regrowth of Northern Hemisphere forests represents the only major anthropogenic sink of atmospheric CO2, although enhanced fertilisation effects due to elevated CO2 concentrations and other climatic feedbacks have also been considered.

BECAUSE... you apparently alluded that the" increasing CO2 concentrations might be a climate effect, i.e., a response to a natural climate trend.

It, without a doubt, is. As a consequence of warming and release of watervapor with warming through variation of aldebo/reflection of solar flux, there is more biomass to produce CO2, greater release of CO2 from solution in oceans and glacial ices ....

You can easily say that a) is correct, and we can move on from there.

a) is incorrect as well as irrelevant due to lack of capacity to effect substantive change in earth's global temperature in comparison to the substantive affects of water vapor, and we can continue from there.

CO2-Temperature Correlations

"(1) correlation does not prove causation, (2) cause must precede effect, and (3) when attempting to evaluate claims of causal relationships between different parameters, it is important to have as much data as possible in order to weed out spurious correlations.

***

Consider, for example, the study of Fischer et al. (1999), who examined trends of atmospheric CO2 and air temperature derived from Antarctic ice core data that extended back in time a quarter of a million years. Over this extended period, the three most dramatic warming events experienced on earth were those associated with the terminations of the last three ice ages; and for each of these climatic transitions, earth's air temperature rose well in advance of any increase in atmospheric CO2. In fact, the air's CO2 content did not begin to rise until 400 to 1,000 years after the planet began to warm. Such findings have been corroborated by Mudelsee (2001), who examined the leads/lags of atmospheric CO2 concentration and air temperature over an even longer time period, finding that variations in atmospheric CO2 concentration lagged behind variations in air temperature by 1,300 to 5,000 years over the past 420,000 years."

[ see also: Indermuhle et al. (2000), Monnin et al. (2001), Yokoyama et al. (2000), Clark and Mix (2000) ]

"Other studies periodically demonstrate a complete uncoupling of CO2 and temperature "

[see: Petit et al. (1999), Staufer et al. (1998), Cheddadi et al., (1998), Raymo et al., 1998, Pagani et al. (1999), Pearson and Palmer (1999), Pearson and Palmer, (2000) ]

"Considered in their entirety, these several results present a truly chaotic picture with respect to any possible effect that variations in atmospheric CO2 concentration may have on global temperature. Clearly, atmospheric CO2 is not the all-important driver of global climate change the climate alarmists make it out to be."

The rate of plate tectonics is a first-order driver over millions of years (something Berner, whom you cite, has studied extensively).

That my friend does not account for the total lack of variation in surface temperature with CO2 across paleological time frames.

So does the fact that CO2 was much, much higher in the Ordovician, when there was an Ice Age, cause me consternation? Not a bit.

Look again, remove the decreases to iceage conditions applicable to the Ordovician etc. tectonic movements. Where is the change that should be in place relating to your supposed CO2 driven warming/cooling? please point it out for us, somehow it seems to escape detection.

According to you, and the UN/IPCC modelers you support, a variation in CO2 should induce a commensurate change in global temperatures by a factor of several times the change that would be induce by CO2 alone. Where are these changes in the paleo-climatic record. Please point them out to us.

CO2 across the 500 million year period varied from 7000ppm down to less than 300ppm in an exponential decay, a factor of 35 to 1 that is about 5 doublings.

Look at the temperature line, flat lined except for occasional excursions into iceage conditions spread out along that flat temperature line.

Where is this alleged variation that should be present due to the 35 to 1 variation in CO2 across that geological record? There should be some evidence of that variation superimposed upon any variation you claim to be due to continental drift.

Taking the UN/IPCC's factors for a CO2 doubling of .75C to 4.5 degrees C according to the reported ranges of their models, we should see a decline of 3.75-12.5 degrees C superimposed on the temperature line below.

No such CO2 induced decline is evident, only declines clearly due to other factors than CO2 concentration are apparent in the data with no evidence of any response to changing CO2 concentrations.

Why? because atmospheric water vapor totally overshadows any marginal effects of CO2.

As pointed out the prior replies, atmospheric CO2 concentration has minimal correlation with the earth's surface temperatures and no causal link as is clearly demonstrated in paleo-climate studies and supported in analysis below:

Climate Catastrophe, A spectroscopic Artifact?

"It is hardly to be expected that for CO2 doubling an increment of IR absorption at the 15 µm edges by 0.17% can cause any significant global warming or even a climate catastrophe.
The radiative forcing for doubling can be calculated by using this figure. If we allocate an absorption of 32 W/m² [14] over 180º steradiant to the total integral (area) of the n3 band as observed from satellite measurements (Hanel et al., 1971) and applied to a standard atmosphere, and take an increment of 0.17%, the absorption is 0.054 W/m² - and not 4.3 W/m².
This is roughly 80 times less than IPCC's radiative forcing.
If we allocate 7.2 degC as greenhouse effect for the present CO2 (as asserted by Kondratjew and Moskalenko in J.T. Houghton's book The Global Climate [14]), the doubling effect should be 0.17% which is 0.012 degC only. If we take 1/80 of the 1.2 degC that result from Stefan-Boltzmann's law with a radiative forcing of 4.3 W/m², we get a similar value of 0.015 degC."

How about looking at the evidence in front of you nose for a change instead of the IPCC hype & flawed computer simulations. There is no CO2 dependant warming crisis.

Having said that, what is known about the Ordovician paleoclimate? Here's a good description, from my Cal-Berkeley friends:

Ordovician: Tectonics and Paleoclimate

Read it at your leisure. Summary: continents were moving around, mountains were rising, ocean currents were totally different tha today, eventually Gondwanaland made it to the South Pole when the Ashgillian glaciation took place. You know how long the Ashgillian was? About 10 million years. All of the Pleistocene glaciations took place in less than 0.5 million years.

Which does not explain the reason for the radical and very rapid GLOBAL cooling at the end of the Ordivician. The article states only that such occurred initiating a mass-extinction.

I suggest you read the following at your leisure which explains not only the rapid onset of the late Ordovician Ice Age, but the distrubution of mass-extinctions that occured as well.

Slow continental drifts do not induce rapid switches into deep iceages from the conditions like that of the Ordovician climate.

Gamma Ray Bursts and other astonomical events involving earths motion through the galaxy offer insight to the Ordovician glaciations and later similar decents in global cooling as well, including the rapid decent into our own Tertiary/Quaternary Ice Age with its repetitive 100kyr interglacial periods with that correlate with earths orbital inclination.

New Scientist article 27 Sept 03: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2003-09/ns-dag092403.php

Previous theories blame the two extinctions that occurred in the late Ordovician period on the start and end of an ice age at the time. But it is hard to explain what triggered the ice age itself, which started very suddenly at a time when the climate was quite warm.
Continental changes would have taken too long, and climate models have not been able to replicate the ice age. But a GRB that blocked out the sun could have caused it, points out Pat Brenchley, a retired palaeoecologist from the University of Liverpool, UK, calling the idea" an interesting alternative.

PDF source paper on this subject: Did a gamma-ray burst initiate the late Ordovician mass extinction...,

page 1;

ABSTRACT
At least five times in the history of life, the Earth experienced mass extinctions that
eliminated a large percentage of the biota. Many possible causes have been documented,
and gamma-ray bursts (GRB) may also have contributed. GRB (Mészáros, 2001)
produce a flux of radiation detectable across the observable Universe. A GRB within our
own galaxy could do considerable damage to the Earth's biosphere (Thorsett, 1995;
Scalo & Wheeler, 2002; Dar & DeRújula, 2002). Rate estimates (Thorsett, 1995)
suggest that a number of such GRB may lie within the fossil record. The late Ordovician
mass extinction shows a water-depth dependent extinction pattern that is a natural result
of the attenuation of the strong ultraviolet radiation expected to result from a nearby
GRB. In addition, a GRB would trigger global cooling which is associated with this
mass extinction.

INTRODUCTION AND HYPOTHESIS
As mass extinctions have become well-documented, interest in them has grown, partly
out of concern for our current environmental situation. Extraterrestrial causes have been
more seriously considered in recent years, as the extent of their possible impact becomes
known. It seems likely that a GRB has affected the Earth, and should have had a
substantial effect upon living organisms. We have found patterns of extinction in one
event that match expectations of a GRB-initiated extinction.

*****

page 5;

This extinction has been related to alternating global cooling and warming, each
associated possibly with what may be the two pulses of the late Ordovician mass
extinction (Brenchley et al., 1994; Brenchley et al., 1995; Orth et al., 1986). We do not
dispute the role global cooling may have played in mediating this extinction. Instead, we
emphasize that there is a natural link between GRB and global cooling. There exists a
correlation (Shaviv, 2002) between ice ages and the timing of spiral arm passage, which
has been ascribed to increased cosmic ray flux associated with increased star formation
and supernovae. We note that since GRB probably arise from star-forming regions and
produce opaque nitrogen dioxide in Earth’s atmosphere they provide a mechanism for
global cooling. Paleoclimate modeling (Herrmann and Patzkowsky 2002; Herrmann et
al. 2003) has shown that late Ordovician glaciation would not have proceeded without an
impulse such as reduced solar insolation.

We suggest that the late Ordovician extinction may have been initiated by a GRB. The
oxygen level of the atmosphere was not greatly different from that of the present (Berner
et al., 2003), so that an ozone shield should have been in place. Its destruction would
almost certainly involve similar catastrophic consequences to those observed in modern
organisms (Kiesecker et al., 2001; Hader et al., 2003). A GRB could have triggered the
global cooling, while presenting a host of environmental challenges to life on the planet
through the effects of increased radiation reaching the surface, acid rain, etc., followed
shortly by global cooling; the result: a one, two punch for life on the planet. Notably, the
kind of water depth dependence found in the late Ordovician extinction pattern would
emerge naturally from the attenuation of the UV radiation.

ADDITIONAL ARGUMENT IN SUPPORT OF HYPOTHESIS

Supernovae are known to be correlated, probably going off in chain-reactions of star
formation and detonation, which produce the “superbubbles” found in the interstellar
medium. Given the probable linkage between GRB and supernovae, proximity to one
event would suggest an enhanced probability of a second. The late Ordovician extinction
seems to have occurred in two pulses about 1My apart.

IMPLICATIONS

This hypothesis suggests that a closer look be taken at the geographical distribution of
extinctions in the late Ordovician along the line of what Anstey et al. (2003) have done.
A strong initial muon burst might seriously irradiate only one side of the Earth to
considerable ocean depth, while the other side would mostly be irradiated by post-burst
solar UV due to ozone loss. This suggests an extinction pattern emphasizing depth-dependent
extinction predominantly in one hemisphere, with more complete extinction in
the other hemisphere. We stress however, that such a pattern is likely only if the GRB
emission is isotropic and the event nearby. While at present we only see strong reasons for
associating a GRB with the Ordovician mass extinction, the entire fossil record bears 
examination in this light. Given the uncertainty in the evolution of the GRB rate, it is
possible that such events were involved in more than one mass extinction, or that more distant
GRBs could have a stochastic effect, providing small impulses to evolutionScalo & Wheeler, 2002).
A major challenge for astrophysics is to evaluate the likely flux and spectrum of cosmic rays
accompanying a burst.

Bump to mark for Global Warming list

Less than 10% of CO2 emmissions are due to mankind thus less than 10% of any residual effect of increasing CO2 is due to mankind:

Interesting way you put that. "Less than 10% of CO2 emissions are due to mankind." Perhaps that's true. However, why is atmospheric CO2 concentration increasing? You say (full exchange reproduced):

-----

cogitator: BECAUSE... you apparently alluded that the" increasing CO2 concentrations might be a climate effect, i.e., a response to a natural climate trend.

It, without a doubt, is. As a consequence of warming and release of watervapor with warming through variation of aldebo/reflection of solar flux, there is more biomass to produce CO2, greater release of CO2 from solution in oceans and glacial ices ....

cogitator: You can easily say that a) is correct, and we can move on from there.

a) is incorrect as well as irrelevant due to lack of capacity to effect substantive change in earth's global temperature in comparison to the substantive affects of water vapor, and we can continue from there.

-----

for review, "a)" states: "a) the majority of CO2 added to the atmosphere since 1850 is from human sources, primarily fossil fuels"

OK. Let me state this right up front. If you say that a) is incorrect, you're wrong. Totally and completely wrong. I had to figure out where your wrongness is rooted before I can address all the other areas you've brought up. However, I'm prepared to fight out this line if it takes all winter.

There are several different lines of evidence that indicate that the increase in atmospheric CO2 commencing about 1850 ("dawn of the Industrial Age") is almost entirely anthropogenic. They are discussed on this Web page:

Why does atmospheric CO2 rise?

I will provide summary statements of each separate line of evidence for the anthropogenic cause of increasing atmospheric CO2. You can read about them in the Web page for further elucidation. (I've edited a bit for brevity.)

1. Ice cores show that during the past 1000 years until about the year 1800, atmospheric CO2 was fairly stable at levels between 270 and 290 ppmv. The 1994 value of 358 ppmv is higher than any CO2 level observed over the past 220,000 years.

2. The rise of atmospheric CO2 closely parallels the emissions history from fossil fuels and land use changes [Schimel 94, p 46-47].

3. The rise of airborne CO2 falls short of the human-made CO2 emissions. Taken together, the ocean and the terrestrial vegetation and soils must currently be a net sink of CO2 rather than a source [Melillo, p 454] [Schimel 94, p 47, 55] [Schimel 95, p 79] [Siegenthaler].

4. Most "new" CO2 comes from the Northern Hemisphere. Measurements in Antarctica show that Southern Hemisphere CO2 level lags behind by 1 to 2 years, which reflects the interhemispheric mixing time.

5. ** Important point provided in entirety.* Fossil fuels contain practically no carbon 14 (14C) and less carbon 13 (13C) than air. CO2 coming from fossil fuels should show up in the trends of 13C and 14C. Indeed, the observed isotopic trends fit CO2 emissions from fossil fuels. The trends are not compatible with a dominant CO2 source in the terrestrial biosphere or in the ocean. [On the Web page, details of this point are provided in the next two paragraphs.]

Reviewing, you said: "As a consequence of warming and release of watervapor with warming through variation of aldebo/reflection of solar flux, there is more biomass to produce CO2, greater release of CO2 from solution in oceans and glacial ices .... "

I have now shown that this statement is clearly wrong. The page demonstrates beyond scientific doubt that the cause of increasing atmospheric CO2 since about 1850 is predominantly anthropogenic, primarily from fossil fuel burning. Do you now concede that this point is correct?

I have now shown that this statement is clearly wrong.

You have shown nothing actually, as the same article makes it very clear that anthropogenic additions to the atmosphere are less than 5% of total additions to the atmosphere.

Emmissions cited in the article:

2.1 Natural carbon fluxes
                                                                     GtC / year
    Terrestrial vegetation --> atmosphere         60 Respiration
    Soils & detritus --> atmosphere                 60 Respiration
    Surface ocean --> atmosphere                   90
===================================================
Total natural carbon emmissions to atmosphere        210 GtC

2.2 Anthropogenic carbon
     Carbon dioxide sources                             GtC / year
      Fossil fuel burning, cement production               5.5 (5.0-6.0)
      Changes in tropical land use                              1.6 (0.6-2.6)
==================================================
Total anthropogenic emissions                            7.1 (6.0-8.2)

The page demonstrates beyond scientific doubt that the cause of increasing atmospheric CO2 since about 1850 is predominantly anthropogenic, primarily from fossil fuel burning.

Hardly:

Do you now concede that this point is correct?

No I do not, As I stated before, the earth cannot magically distinguish between Carbon from anthropogenic sources and Carbon from natural sources thus all carbon sinks must be taken in aggregate with respect to all sources of Atmospheric CO2 rather than attempting, as the article does, to separate "Anthropogenic" CO2 emmissions from "Natural" emmissions when evaluating Carbon sinks. You cannot take a "net" value of the Natural CO2, and then look at the whole value of Anthropogenic CO2 in evaluation of respective contributions.
Your point is based in a fallacy and without scientific foundation.

In fact, your point is indeed a mere strawman argument to boot to draw away from the essential factor,

Regardless of source of atmospheric CO2, the impact of changing CO2 concentration on the earth's Climate is nil:

As pointout in previous replies, and I will continue to point out:

CO2-Temperature Correlations

(1) correlation does not prove causation,
(2) cause must precede effect, and
(3) when attempting to evaluate claims of causal relationships between different parameters, it is important to have as much data as possible in order to weed out spurious correlations.

***

Consider, for example, the study of Fischer et al. (1999), who examined trends of atmospheric CO2 and air temperature derived from Antarctic ice core data that extended back in time a quarter of a million years. Over this extended period, the three most dramatic warming events experienced on earth were those associated with the terminations of the last three ice ages; and for each of these climatic transitions, earth's air temperature rose well in advance of any increase in atmospheric CO2. In fact, the air's CO2 content did not begin to rise until 400 to 1,000 years after the planet began to warm. Such findings have been corroborated by Mudelsee (2001), who examined the leads/lags of atmospheric CO2 concentration and air temperature over an even longer time period, finding that variations in atmospheric CO2 concentration lagged behind variations in air temperature by 1,300 to 5,000 years over the past 420,000 years."

[ see also: Indermuhle et al. (2000), Monnin et al. (2001), Yokoyama et al. (2000), Clark and Mix (2000) ]

"Other studies periodically demonstrate a complete uncoupling of CO2 and temperature "

[see: Petit et al. (1999), Staufer et al. (1998), Cheddadi et al., (1998), Raymo et al., 1998, Pagani et al. (1999), Pearson and Palmer (1999), Pearson and Palmer, (2000) ]

"Considered in their entirety, these several results present a truly chaotic picture with respect to any possible effect that variations in atmospheric CO2 concentration may have on global temperature. Clearly, atmospheric CO2 is not the all-important driver of global climate change the climate alarmists make it out to be."

Global warming and global dioxide emission and concentration:
a Granger causality analysis
http://isi-eh.usc.es/trabajos/122_41_fullpaper.pdf

"We find, in opposition to previous studies, that there is no evidence of Granger causality from global carbon dioxide emission to global surface temperature. Further, we could not find robust empirical evidence for the causal nexus from global carbon dioxide concentration to global surface temperature."

Here Comes the Sun

"Carbon dioxide, the main culprit in the alleged greenhouse-gas warming, is not a "driver" of climate change at all. Indeed, in earlier research Jan Veizer, of the University of Ottawa and one of the co-authors of the GSA Today article, established that rather than forcing climate change, CO2 levels actually lag behind climatic temperatures, suggesting that global warming may cause carbon dioxide rather than the other way around."
***
"Veizer and Shaviv's greatest contribution is their time scale. They have examined the relationship of cosmic rays, solar activity and CO2, and climate change going back through thousands of major and minor coolings and warmings. They found a strong -- very strong -- correlation between cosmic rays, solar activity and climate change, but almost none between carbon dioxide and global temperature increases."

Again we revisit the Geophysical record of CO2 and it's correlation to global temperture, this time we remove the catastrophic initiations of ice ages due to factors clearly not associated with CO2 concentration.

From the geological record, we can see a remainder trendline of CO2 concentration with respect to temperature by running a trend through the peak global tempertures.

As you have acknowleged the initiation of the deep iceages are clearly due to other factors such as plate tectonics, Gamma Ray Bursts, Meteoric events, etc.which initiate atmospheric cooling incident to the creation of high altitude cloud cover & icefields altering the mean albedo of the earth. Such effects lower overall irradiation of the earths surface and hence cools the surface. Under such conditions the major multi-million year iceages are induced. Remove their effects on the overall record, and what is left behind is a residual that can be perceived, to the first order, as a correlation of CO2 and temperature if we assume an essentially constant Solar radiation flux, which the IPCC modellers insist as being true.

I bring your attention to the two redline additions to our favorite chart:

:

The upper horizontal red line represents a peak temperature of 22.8^oC as represented at the chart Cambrian CO2 peak of 7000ppm. The second and descending redline is a rough approximation of the average peak temperatures which should be somewhat representative of any residual correlation between CO2 & temperature, we note that the downtrending redline terminates at approximately 21.6^oC and today's 320ppm CO2 concentration.

It should also be noted here that the relationship between CO2 radiant absorption capacity varies logrithmically with concentration of the gas under consideration in the atmosphere. For any fixed multiplier of change in concentration there is a linear incremental change in absorbed energy of the gas. Thus doubling, or halving, the concentration of CO2 will result in a linear increment in the absorbed radiation at the wavelengths CO2 is responsive to where incident radiative flux is constant.

7000ppm/320ppm = 21.9 (~ 4.45 doublings) with 22.8-21.6 = 1.2^oC change in temperature.

Overall atmospheric correlation between CO2 & increment of energy absorbed of necessity includes any temperature/concentration linkages that may actually occur in the atmosphere.

for 1.2^oC & 4.45 doublings, CO2 doubles for ~ 0.27^oC increase in global temperature

A value which is much less than the lowest 1.5to2.5^oC/doubling estimate built into the UN/IPCC global climate models, which suggests the relationship between CO2 and temperature built into the IPCC models is substantially overstated and in error.

The geophysical coefficient of doubling of CO2 concentration for each 0.27^oC increase in temperature, by the way, agrees well with many other means of computing the CO2 correlation.

A Lukewarm Greenhouse
"The average warming predicted by the six methods for a doubling of CO2, is only +0.2 degC."

You need to learn to stay on point. Posting huge amounts of unrelated information over and over again does not further the discussion. I will not respond to ten points at once.

You have shown nothing actually, as the same article makes it very clear that anthropogenic additions to the atmosphere are less than 5% of total additions to the atmosphere.

And they account for the fact that atmospheric CO2 concentrations are increasing, AG. You're either accidentally or deliberately overlooking the point that fossil fuel CO2 emissions can be distinguished from natural sources -- didn't you read the part about 14C and 13C isotopes? You say that the Earth cannot magically distinguish between natural and anthropogenic CO2 -- but scientists can. That's why one of the major efforts to examine the Earth's carbon cycle has been to determine the size of the sources and the sinks.

Here's a simple analogy. You have a bathtub. You have the faucet on and the drain is open. The bathtub is completely full, but because the amount coming in from the faucet is the exactly the same as the amount going down the drain, the level of the water in the bathtub does not change. Do you see that??? Now, you take a thimble and once a minute you add a thimbleful of water to the bathtub.

What is going to happen to the level of the water in the bathtub, AG? It doesn't matter if the rate of water being added from the faucet, or the rate of water going down the drain, are 100x greater than the rate of water being added to the bathtub from the thimble.

Fossil fuel sources of CO2 to the atmosphere account for the increasing concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere, even though they are not nearly as large as natural sources and sinks. They are a new (since the mid-1800s) source of CO2. And all of the evidence that can be brought to bear on this issue indicates that.

This is not a strawman, nor does it detract from what you think is the main issue. You have to admit that this point is true, because it is directly related to the contention that CO2 in the atmosphere is increasing for some other reason. There is only one reason, and that reason is well-known. Do you admit it, or not? (I'll get to all the other points you raise in due time. But this is point 1.)

You need to learn to stay on point.

I am precisely on point and continue to be, though you choose to try to make the issue other than: Change in CO2 concentration has nil effect on global climate.

This is not a strawman, nor does it detract from what you think is the main issue.

Definition of a straw man is simply the introduction of an irrelavant factor to bypass the central the issue. The issue is global temperature and its relation to CO2 concentration. Increasing levels of CO2 is a strawman as Earth's global temperature is only marginally effected by changing CO2 concentration. Where there is minimal causality and correlation it does matter what change in CO2 concentration is or what direction it is going.

You have to admit that this point is true, because it is directly related to the contention that CO2 in the atmosphere is increasing for some other reason.

I don't have to admit to any point regarding changing CO2 concentrations until such time as it can be shown that CO2 is the dominant factor regarding changes in Earth's global climate.

I especially do not have to admit or otherwise acknowledge irrelavent strawman arguments.

A 21 fold decrease across the last 500million years can only be correlated with a 1^oC decrease in global temperature.

I by no mean concede that changing "CO2" concentration has any substantive relevance to the issue at hand.

Fossil fuel sources of CO2 to the atmosphere account for the increasing concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere, even though they are not nearly as large as natural sources and sinks. They are a new (since the mid-1800s) source of CO2. And all of the evidence that can be brought to bear on this issue indicates that.

The issue is change in Earths average global temperature,

1) whether or not it is actually occuring,
2) if (1) is supported, then probable and significant causes global climate variation is of interest with CO2 somewhere near the bottom of the list of possibilities as a prime mover.

CO2 has been shown not to have an appreciable effect on Earth's average global temperature, this is true in a geophysical sense as shown from the information above as well as from other more direct measures as well:

A Lukewarm Greenhouse
"The average warming predicted by the six methods for a doubling of CO2, is only +0.2 degC.

The dominence of water vapor, icefields and high levels clouds are the significant factors in regard to the greenhouse effect as manifested on the earth, along with variation of incident visible light and gamma ray effects on the atmosphere.

Anthropogenic CO2 (e.g. fossil fuel burning) rising or not rising is a negligible factor of less than 0.12% of the total greenhouse effect on the Earth.

Anthropogenic (man-made) Contribution to the "Greenhouse
Effect," expressed as % of Total (water vapor INCLUDED)

Based on concentrations (ppb) adjusted for heat retention characteristics	% of All Greenhouse Gases	% Natural	% Man-made
Water vapor	95.000%	94.999%	0.001%
Carbon Dioxide (CO2)	3.618%	3.502%	0.117%
Methane (CH4)	0.360%	0.294%	0.066%
Nitrous Oxide (N2O)	0.950%	0.903%	0.047%
Misc. gases ( CFC's, etc.)	0.072%	0.025%	0.047%
Total	100.00%	99.72	0.28%

Until you are prepared to accept the marginality of the role of CO2 in the Earth's atmosphere in regard to changing climate, you and I really have no basis on which to discuss this matter.

Atmospheric CO2 concentration is simply not a substantive causitive factor in changing Earth's climate.

I am precisely on point and continue to be, though you choose to try to make the issue other than: Change in CO2 concentration has nil effect on global climate.

That's your central contention; I'm aware of that. However, to address it we have to address the Earth's entire climate system. The indication that you thought/think that the currently increasing atmospheric CO2 concentrations are a climate effect (rather than having a primarily anthropogenic cause) tells me that you have only a minimal understanding of Earth's climate system. I would like to introduce into this discussion a couple of papers by Berner (one very recent one) that are utterly at odds with your stated contention above. However, in order to do that I first have to be convinced that you comprehend the basics of what's happening now. And one of the basic things that's happening now is increasing atmospheric CO2 concentrations due to energy production and land use changes. I will state that now as a postulate, so that we can move on to the next phase of the discussion. In essence, I'm going to have to ignore your intractability and take it as a sign of advancing senility. I'll do my best to work around it.

The issue is global temperature and its relation to CO2 concentration.

Precisely why it's important to know what is happening with atmospheric CO2 concentrations and why.

Increasing levels of CO2 is a strawman as Earth's global temperature is only marginally effected by changing CO2 concentration.

Not according to Dr. Berner. Here's a lead quotation from one of the papers I wish to introduce:

"Over Phanerozoic time a major control on global climate has been the CO2 greenhouse effect, and changes in CO2 have been a consequence of a combination of geological, biological, and astronomical factors."

That's totally at odds with your contention, AG. And you're an anonymous name to me. Dr. Berner is:

Robert A. Berner

Alan M. Bateman Professor of Geology and Geophysics (Yale University)

Member of National Academy of Sciences
Doctor Honoris Causa, Universite Aix-Marseille (France), 1991
Huntsman Medal in Oceanography (Canada), 1993
Goldschmidt Medal (Geochemical Society), 1995
Arthur L. Day Medal (Geological Society of America), 1996
Murchinson Medal (Geological Society-London), 1996

Lest you contend that this is an argument from authority, it's not. I am attempting to bring the published research statements of one of the most noted geochemists in the United States (and the world) into this discussion. And he basically says that your contention is wrong; that CO2 is a major climate factor.

I don't have to admit to any point regarding changing CO2 concentrations until such time as it can be shown that CO2 is the dominant factor regarding changes in Earth's global climate.

OK, then Dr. Berner's statement has been introduced into this discussion as a counterpoint to yours. Therefore, I state that is now relevant for you to admit the cause of increasing atmospheric CO2 concentrations, because Dr. Robert Berner states that the CO2 greenhouse effect is a major control on global climate over Phanerozoic time.

The issue is change in Earths average global temperature,

1) whether or not it is actually occuring,

Global temperatures are currently rising.

2) if (1) is supported, then probable and significant causes global climate variation is of interest with CO2 somewhere near the bottom of the list of possibilities as a prime mover.

Reread the statement by Dr. Berner that has been introduced into the discussion.

CO2 has been shown not to have an appreciable effect on Earth's average global temperature, this is true in a geophysical sense as shown from the information above as well as from other more direct measures as well:

Your statement above is at odds with Dr. Berner's statement.

The dominence of water vapor, icefields and high levels clouds are the significant factors in regard to the greenhouse effect as manifested on the earth, along with variation of incident visible light and gamma ray effects on the atmosphere.

Interesting that you should bring up icefields. So does Dr. Berner when discussing Dr. Veizer's research results, of which you are so fond. Dr. Berner does not find them nearly so compelling.

Until you are prepared to accept the marginality of the role of CO2 in the Earth's atmosphere in regard to changing climate, you and I really have no basis on which to discuss this matter.

It's hard to dislodge a tree whose roots have grown so deep, AG. However, the statements of the esteemed Dr. Berner indicate that your contention regarding the marginality of atmospheric CO2 concentrations on Earth's climate is incorrect. Until such time as you allow discussion so that you can demonstrate why and how Dr. Berner is incorrect, I will accept his statement over your contention (particularly since it is so hard for you to admit a simple statement of fact, that the rise in atmospheric CO2 concentrations occurring since the mid-1800s is due to fossil fuel burning and land-use changes).

I don't care if you decline to continue this discussion. But if I comment on a global warming thread, or if I see your commentary, my next step will be to introduce Dr. Crowley and Dr. Berner's recently published paper regarding CO2 and climate change. I'm being eminently fair here; now you can look up this reference and see what I'm talking about. Or we can continue on this thread.

What do you want to do next, AG?

By the way, AG, in an effort to get at some of your references, I went to your earlier post where it says this:

"Other studies periodically demonstrate a complete uncoupling of CO2 and temperature "

[see: Petit et al. (1999), Staufer et al. (1998), Cheddadi et al., (1998), Raymo et al., 1998, Pagani et al. (1999), Pearson and Palmer (1999), Pearson and Palmer, (2000) ]

All of the above are hyperlinked, but none of the links work. Would you mind getting me the titles and full author lists of these paper so I can look them up?

If there are new page links to those and other papers, you may wish to update them so that your information is more informative.

"Considered in their entirety, these several results present a truly chaotic picture with respect to any possible effect that variations in atmospheric CO2 concentration may have on global temperature. Clearly, atmospheric CO2 is not the all-important driver of global climate change the climate alarmists make it out to be."

I didn't know if this would work or not. But it did. Here's some more figures for discussion of CO2 and climate.

Figure 3.2: Variations in atmospheric CO₂ concentration on different time-scales. (a) Direct measurements of atmospheric CO₂ concentration (Keeling and Whorf, 2000), and O₂ from 1990 onwards (Battle et al., 2000). O₂ concentration is expressed as the change from an arbitrary standard. (b) CO₂ concentration in Antarctic ice cores for the past millenium (Siegenthaler et al., 1988; Neftel et al., 1994; Barnola et al., 1995; Etheridge et al., 1996). Recent atmospheric measurements at Mauna Loa (Keeling and Whorf, 2000) are shown for comparison. (c) CO₂ concentration in the Taylor Dome Antarctic ice core (Indermühle et al., 1999). (d) CO₂ concentration in the Vostok Antarctic ice core (Petit et al., 1999; Fischer et al., 1999). (e) Geochemically inferred CO₂ concentrations, from Pagani et al. (1999a) and Pearson and Palmer (2000). (f) Geochemically inferred CO₂ concentrations: coloured bars represent different published studies cited by Berner (1997). The data from Pearson and Palmer (2000) are shown by a black line. (BP = before present.)