JUST D'OH!
Posted on 03/21/2007 10:31:06 AM PDT by rrr51
I was listening to the hearings and just heard AlGore say that natural CO2, such as CO2 produced by volcanos, is heavier than CO2 produced by man. Did I hear right? Is that what he said? Is it true? Does anybody know?
"Falls out of the air" to....where?
I heard that to, but what he did was segueing from the question and start talking about particles put into the atmosphere and didn't actually answer the question.
Natural gases are much more important, especially if you point to what gases are actually forcing functions in some of the climate models. Methane being one of them, commonly known around our area as swamp gas. Methane causes a much stronger green house signal than does CO2, even though the trace quantity of methane in the atmosphere is much lower. SO2 is another, a high forcing function gas, put out in prodigious quantity by volcanoes -- It's that stink you smell around volcanoes and other vents in the Earth.
Water vapor is the most prolific greenhouse gas of them all, accounting for about 95% of the total. Water vapor drives the weather. Man caused CO2 is about 0.28%. Volcanoes, algae, oceanic biologic, terrestrial biologic, birds all amount to about 4.72%
To think that 0.28% of the total is driving the train is ludicrous on it's face. How much is the reduction if we implemented all those draconian changes the Goracle wants? The purpose is to try and convince you that man caused CO2 is the most sensitive forcing function, when in fact it is the least.
BTW, as an aside, man made atmospheric Fluorocarbons are way down, the ozone hole is bigger than it's ever been. So much for your air conditioning causing the ozone hole. Don't hear much about this anymore do you?
Why would the carbon in a volcano be any "younger" than that contained in fossil fuels?
JUST D'OH!
I love watching an idiot make a complete idiot out of himself. I didn't think Al Gore could make himself look any more stupid; I was wrong.
Nice try, but Carbon 14 is not stable and decays. That's how they can use it for carbon dating. "Natural" CO2 is the same as man made CO2. Forest fires produce "natuarl" CO2.
I have no idea. I was usually hiding out, smoking in the bathroom during science classes. :-)
a molecule is not a molecule?
Exactly. Gore did not finish law school and also was a failed Nashiville newspaper reporter. Son of a senator, he was annointed to become an idiot politican from the cradle. His life experiences are as a tobacco grower, a zinc mine owner and a negligent landlord (did ever fix that toilet?)
Referring back to very old memories, CO2 from volcanos and petroleum should weigh roughly the same.
Once released into the atmosphere, a small percentage reacts with solar radiation and becomes carbon 14 which would be a little heavier. This carbon 14 gradually releases extra neutrons with a very long half-life. This is how carbon 14 dating works.
One could argue that petroleum and volcano produced CO2 would be slightly lighter than biomass produced CO2. Although the difference would be neglegible.
No. First of all the amount of stable C13 in the atmosphere does not depend on cosmic rays.
The amount of C14 made in the troposphere could vary even if humans did not exist could it not?
Yes, but there are other ways to measure the variation in the flux of cosmic rays, so we can account for that.
Why would volcanic CO2 have less C14 than petroleum? Both have been locked in the earth for many half-lives?
I loved it when he exclaimed that scientists have been saying this about C02 and heat for 100 years. 180 years. That's what we call an untested hypothesis, algore. and you decided to run with an untested hypothesis. Now tat the data is coming in, it does not agree. Go to the back of the line and try again.
I suppose it is possible that one co2 molecule could be heavier than another (some carbon atoms have more neutrons than others) but the probability that en mass its true has to be around zero..
Man made CO2 is not disgronified. When it goes through the disgronification process it weighs the same as natural CO2.
FWIW, the answer is basically yes. The carbon (and the oxygen) in CO2 can be of different isotopes. They have the same basic chemical interactions but different masses, and therefore possibly different physical effects. So, anyhow, 'natural' CO2 from, say, volcanic eruptions tends to be of the heavier 14C variety whereas hydrocarbon fuel emissions tend to be of the lighter 12C variety. This is basically because plants have a preference for lighter isotopes.
Wouldn't that mean the plants prefer to suck up the CO2 that is caused by us 'humans'? Isn't that a GOOD thing?
See #136.
The fact that Gore is correct about the different weight of fossil fuel CO2 indicates that in fact most of the people posting to this thread are dumber than him.
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