It is quite humorous, isn't it anteachtaire? 

 

Has anyone even answered my question of how can we not predict the weather for 2 weeks into the future, and yet we are so sure that the world will end it it goes up or down a degree?

 

Science is not religion... nor is it able to predict the future.  It can only take and prove or disprove a theory, at that point in time.  Humans need to stop trying to play God.

James Randi :

Just a few days before he said nothing of the kind regarding his opinion on AGW, though that article was titled AGW, Revisited. Reading that article one might surmise that in fact his opinion of AGW was more along the lines of the Lomberg or The Petition Project:

My point is this: a sceptic recanted. He recanted and recast his opinion into clearly saying "AGW is likely true" which is exactly what the strongest united opinion on AGW states as evidenced by the 4rth IPCC report. 

Happy New Year!!!

 

 

WTF. 

Your question is idiotic.  You base it on the notion of the world being destroyed by a change in heat content of 1 degree.  Who says this, and were does their certainty come from?   Regarding weather prediction.  That is a tough one.  I think it seems more accurate than the farmer's almanac.  Do a study.

Happy New Year!!!

 

You can't read can you.  To recant, one must actually hold an opposing opinion, not simply make a slightly ambiguous statement that is taken out of context.  Clarifying that statement is not recanting.

 

"My point is this: Al Gore recanted. He recanted and recast his opinion into clearly saying "AGW is likely true" which is exactly what the strongest united opinion on AGW states as evidenced by the 4rth IPCC report."

 

You wouldn't write this if Al Gore had to clarify something, would you?  Happy new year, no breeding please.

Obvusly........lol

In the article titled AGW, Revisited Randi never stated: agw is likely true.

He wrote a followup and made the statement: agw is likely true.

There is nothing ambigious about that. 

It is strongly suggested that in AGW, Revisited his opinion is that agw is possible but not worth being concerned about.  Going from this position to 'agw is likely true' is not clarification.  From possible to likely. 

 

 

 

 

 

Well, at least you know.

Link.  Nothing to see here, move along.

Actually there is something to see here. What's here is entirely the opposite of the implication that you're trying to make.

First visit the link you provided http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/12/091230184221.htm and you find the following.

No Rise of Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide Fraction in Past 160 Years, New Research Finds

"ScienceDaily (Dec. 31, 2009) — Most of the carbon dioxide emitted by human activity does not remain in the atmosphere, but is instead absorbed by the oceans and terrestrial ecosystems. In fact, only about 45 percent of emitted carbon dioxide stays in the atmosphere."

The article goes on to conclude "In contradiction to some recent studies, he finds that the airborne fraction of carbon dioxide has not increased either during the past 150 years or during the most recent five decades."

Seems pretty damning doesn't it? But wait the true story is somewhat obscured. The key phrase is that "only about 45 percent of emitted carbon dioxide stays in the atmosphere."

This is not saying that the percentage of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has not increased in either the last 150 years or in the last 5 decades. This is only saying that the percentage of emitted carbon dioxide that stays in the atmosphere and is not absorbed by oceans and terrestrial ecosystems is what has stayed the same over long periods of recent history.

If you go down to the bottom of the article a couple of source links are provided which if you chase around a bit you end up with the following.

http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2009/2009GL040613.shtml

This link gives you the abstract of the article and you need to be a member or purchase the article to get the full work but basically the conclusion stated in the abstract is that "the trend in the airborne fraction since 1850 has been 0.7 ± 1.4% per decade, i.e. close to and not significantly different from zero." In other words the fraction of emitted carbon dioxide that actually stays in the atmosphere has been increasing at a small rate that is "not significantly different from zero." The point is that this fraction is by no means going down either.

If this is indeed the case then this is no surprise. It's been long known that a bit more than half of the emitted carbon dioxide gets absorbed by the oceans and plant life and even if this ratio stays the same this represents the continued increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide that we're all familiar with.

There is a similar study which comes to slightly different conclusions. Basically this study has found that the percentage of emitted carbon dioxide that remains in the atmosphere has actually increased in the last 50 years from 40% to 45%.

http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/v2/n12/full/ngeo689.html

These two studies are compared in the following article which concludes "There are several differences in methodology between Knorr 2009 and Le Quéré 2009. Knorr's result does not include the filtering for ENSO and volcanic activity employed by Le Quéré. However, when Knorr does include this filtering in his analysis, he finds a trend of 1.2 ± 0.9% per decade. This is smaller than Le Quéré's result but is statistically significant.

http://www.skepticalscience.com/Is-the-airborne-fraction-of-anthropogenic-CO2-emissions-increasing.html

The bottom line is that this does not say what deniers wish it to say which they would have you believe that this study indicates there has been no increase atmospheric carbon dioxide levels in the last 150 years.

If anything this says that the percentage of emitted carbon dioxide that actually stays in the atmosphere has stayed constant which is where the assumption has been all along.

However if corrected for "ENSO and volcanic activity" it actually indicates that the percentage of emitted carbon dioxide that actually stays in the atmosphere is increasing. That would be a double whammy.

Do you guys ever critically read the articles you provide or do you simply just read the headline and hope that what you believe is true?

I didn't 'wish it' to say anything, numbnutz.

Oh, and Happy New Year.

Then don't post it, asswipe.

When I read that article, that wasn't the impression I got.  The absorbtion rate is increasing as the level of CO2 does.  This conflicts with the idea that it will take the ecosystem thousands of years to balance out with the new level, a major factor in the mythical tipping point where everything goes to hell in a hand basket and the earth becomes a desolate wasteland...

 

You know they're still pimping that bullshit at the climate summits right?

Not your game to ref, sweetness.

Then you better read it again. Also read the additional links I gave as well.

Even the study that was being hyped said "the trend in the airborne fraction since 1850 has been 0.7 ± 1.4% per decade, i.e. close to and not significantly different from zero." In other words the trend was a 0.7% per decade increase in the airborne fraction which is a decrease in the sequestered fraction. Of course since the error range of ±1.4% per decade is greater than the trend then that is statistically zero but once the corrections are made for the El Nino La Nina cycle (ENSO) and volcanic perturbations then even the hyped study shows a small but statistically relevant increase in the airborne fraction of emitted carbon dioxide.

There is no study that claims that the absolute absorption rate is increasing. While it is true that warming ocean waters can indeed absorb more carbon dioxide than cooler ocean waters it is clear that this is not keeping up with the temperature increase associated with the increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide levels. At best we're breaking even and it's likely that we will continue to keep falling behind. As you well know even breaking even is essentially the status quo where 45% or so of all emitted carbon dioxide simply stays in the atmosphere. If we do ever get to the point of saturation and the ability of the oceans and plant life to absorb carbon dioxide begins to decline then that will in fact be a "tipping point".

I apologize for seemingly to tell you what you can or cannot post. You are certainly welcome to post whatever it is that you want. My response was merely a convenient sentence onto which to add asswipe in response to your numbnutz.

In reality I should have only responded with "asswipe" as that was the key point to my reply.

Sweetness was the nickname of the late, great Walter Payton and so I‘m forced to take that as a compliment, but in general I think most reasonable people try to avoid personal references that may have a negative connotation unless of course they really want to get into name calling. I would like to think that we're both more mature than that, but if you're going to stoop to name calling on a consistent basis then you should be OK with any return shots I take. I would prefer not to be that petty but if you force it to be that way then that's your choice, it's just not my preference.

Also listed in those papers are about a quarter of the CO2 emitted that they can't account for. They have their calculation of what we emit, a calculation of how much is absorbed and direct measurements of what is retained in the atmosphere - and the numbers just don't add up. By nearly 25%. Almost a quarter of what we emit, they can't account for. It's clearly going somewhere, but damned if they know where.

The ocean will never get to the actual "saturation" point, where the CO2 content reaches the solubility limit in water. There is obviously a rate limiting factor in how fast it can take up carbon, but the total volume needed to saturate it is well beyond anything we could put out. Cold water under pressure can hold a LOT of gas. Even warm water can hold quite a bit; current estimates are that the oceans hold fifty times as much CO2 disolved as the atmosphere does, with or without any contribution from us.

And yes, most of the IPCC models assume a severe reduction in biological and oceanic carbon uptake to allow for emitted carbon to get us to 600 ppm or more for the doomsday scenarios. At least one assumes we get to 1000 ppm, which we simply cannot do if the ocean keeps absorbing more than half of what we put out. The point this paper seems to be pointing out that we haven't reached the point where the oceans are showing any significant decline in uptake ability.

 

That impression, Mumbles.

 

 

Eh?  This be backwards.  Warmer oceans hold less CO2.

Oh OK. You could be a little more verbose about it. I would assume that is something that only the gullible (or someone desperate for an ideologically desirable article) would really believe but that did seem to be the impression that the original article was trying to make.

I did not know that. However that implies that the potential feedback is positive, not negative, which seems to me to give more credence to the pro AGW position over the anti AGW position.

However perhaps it is a transport issue and not a capacity issue as Willy suggests. If the deep cold water capacity is as Willy suggests then perhaps the slight positive feedback of warming shallow waters is not important. Like I've said many times I make no claims to being a climatologist, I'm picking up all of this as I go along.

I'm not aware of this either. Do you happen to have any source (preferably peer reviewed reputably published) that backs up that claim?

Also while I'm at it do you have any reputable links that support the oceans CO2 capacity argument as well?

The two papers that I referenced (once the first is corrected for ENSO and volcanoes) seemed to imply a decline on the order of 1% per decade. I don't know if you'd consider that significant or not.

But that 25% you mentioned is troubling me, I will indeed chase that but if you can give me a reference I'd appreciate it.

I have stated that I am at least somewhat incredulous of doomsday scenarios. I'm not sure where that boundary really is. I can buy a temperature increase of 2-3°C and a sea level rise of 2-3 meters but I don't see that as wiping us off the planet. Annoying (and costly) but not catastrophic.

I haven't gotten the chance to watch this in it's entirety but it seems pretty interesting so far.

http://www.agu.org/meetings/fm09/lectures/lecture_videos/A23A.shtml

That's not climatology, that's basic chemistry. Nearly all gases are more soluble in cooler solvents, and nearly all solids are more soluble in warmer solvents. All gases are more soluble at higher pressure.

If even assuming 25 C as a mean ocean temperature, CO2 is soluble at 1.45 g/L of water at atmospheric pressure. Total ocean volume is ~1.3 billion cubic kilometers, which translates to ~1.3 x 10^21 liters. This in turn can disolve ~1.9 x 10^21 grams, or 1.9 x 10^18 kilograms of CO2. For reference, total CO2 in the atmophere today is about 3.0 x 10^15 kilograms. All numbers courtesy of Wikipedia.

Obviously this is a back of an envelope type calculation. I picked room temperature, rather than the 10-15 C that the actual ocean mean temperature would fall. This would boost solubility 35-60%. I also ignored salinity, which would decrease solubility by a factor I couldn't easily find (there are papers on it, but I'm not a subscriber).

I also ignored pressure. Again, all the papers I've found were inaccessible*. More importantly, it would be a disaster of estimates, as pressure changes vastly over the depth of the water column (every ~34ft of water adds another atmosphere of pressure). Then estimate how much area of the ocean is what particular depth, etc. Better to ignore pressure and actual temp, especially given that the intentionally-lowballed estimate shows the ocean can absorb the entire atmosphere's carbon content nearly 500 times.

*found a reference in a paper to the solubility of CO2 at depth. At 2000 meters, CO2 solubility is in the range of 140 g/L. Of course, that drops pH to below 3.5, but the point is that solubility at depth is 100 times my lowballed assumption of solubility.

That's not to say it will, of course. It's an equilibrium. When you add to one side of it, the other side absorbs it until they reach equilibrium again. To get the oceans to saturation would require the atmosphere to be all CO2. But the point is that there is effectively no upper limit on how much the ocean can absorb, just on how fast it can absorb.

That came from one of your links in #633. I'll admit I put the numbers together myself, but they list fossil fuel CO2 output at 8.7 +/- 0.5 Pg per year and the uncertainty in the global carbon budget at +/- 2.1 Pg per year. Land use change contributed 1.5 +/- 0.7 Pg which I didn't consider, so it's closer to 20% than 25%

It's not likely there is a huge totally unknown process responsible, just that they haven't measured known processes accurately enough to have their contributions correctly calculated. Check the section listed as "Filling the gaps in the global CO2 budget".

http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/v2/n12/full/ngeo689.html

As for references for the total solubility, there are none. That is a complete hypothetical on my part, as no one is seriously looking into the maximum possible solubility of CO2. People are looking into deep ocean solubility as a means of preventing emissions from entering the atmosphere, though. This link is an example, although they calculate how much could be dumped (effectively bypassing the absorbsion-rate issue I pointed out, getting the carbon into the ocean manually) without sinificant disruption of the water chemistry. As they point out, this would be highly dependant on carbonate reactions with the CO2 after it is in the ocean, so this is a minimum, not a maximum.

http://www.terrapub.co.jp/e-library/dod/pdf/0143.pdf

The only chemistry that I've had was junior year in high school in 1969. About the most I remember from then is 6.022x10²³.

This is the kind of answer I was interested in. To me there's a big difference between simply being unable to fully quantify processes that we at least have a decent handle on and some totally unknown process that accounts for 1/4th of all emitted CO2.

So what's the bottom line? Do you agree that the uptake may indeed be declining at 1% per decade as these studies imply?

It's at least plausible, although it is far more likely the land component is responsible for any decline than the ocean system.

Given the amount of deforestation that has occured recently that seems a reasonable assumption. However if the presumed increase in the atmospheric fraction of emitted CO2 from 40% to 45% over the last 50 years is anything like linear then deforestation probably is not the reason for the increase.

I do realize that there are a lot of if's here but I think the one thing that *can* be concluded is that there is no evidence that the atmospheric fraction of emitted CO2 is declining which means that there is no magic bullet that will suddenly come into play and start absorbing greater and greater amounts of our atmospheric CO2 emmisions.

On the flip side I agree that if a "doomsday scenario" depends on some sudden and catastrophic decline in the percentage of CO2 absorbed by oceans and plant life then I would conclude that is very unlikely given our current state of knowledge.

Do you agree that this is this a fair statement of the situation?

Depends. In an absolute sense, the ocean *is* absorbing more. It is absorbing less as a fraction of what we emit because our emmissions are scaling up faster than the absorbsion is. That is why they are discussing it in terms of absorbed fraction rather than absolute absorbed tonnage. What this means is if we reduced emmissions to a certain point the absorbed fraction would go up, until the atmospheric, oceanic, and terrestrial fractions are in relative balance again.

That was always a given. Any time you get into a "tipping point" argument, it requires you to assume the climate is an unstable equilibrium system, which there is no evidence to support.

Mostly the doomsday scenarios require massive changes in Antarctica. Simple thermal expansion can't account for even a single meter of sea level rise. Estimates of current sea level rise are about 3 mm a year for the past few decades, or 1.8 mm/y for the last century. Other data shows we are in a continuous sea level rising trend for the last few hundred to couple thousand years. Note those are specific locations not global mean.

http://www.cmar.csiro.au/sealevel/sl_hist_few_hundred.html

On another note, here is more evidence that the MWP and LIA actually did exist, and were not just local phenomena. In actual peer-reviewed research papers, no less (some only have abstracts available).

http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2002/2001GL014580.shtml

http://earth.usc.edu/~stott/stott%20papers/Newton%20et%20al.,%202006.pdf

http://www.springerlink.com/content/g15qv13t1v12np00/

Also, there is http://www.co2science.org/. While it is clearly ideologically slanted toward the skeptic/denier side, it does list an impressive number of scientific papers that support the claim that MWP/LIA were not simply regional phenomena, and that the hockey stick's handle is not as straight as we are expected to believe.

I'll take a look at your links when I get a chance.

I have no ideological prohibition against this being a realistic possibility. I have always had some concern that there is not sufficient record from elsewhere over the globe to know one way or the other. My claim is simply that MWP or LIA do not in and of themselves disprove anything related to AGW.

I know the abstract only issue and I'm certainly not going to try and join some group or pay money for stuff. But you must admit that there is just so much "chatter" out there whose only real purpose is to obfuscate the discussion that it just makes life so much easier to only give credence to peer-reviewed research papers.

If I was a skeptic I would personally be more pissed off at deniers than I am being a proponent (or believer if you wish). I can accept true skeptics as reasonable and rational but the people like Watts simply give them a bad name.

Like I said I will give your links a read and I thank you for the work it took to find them. I'm quite aware of the effort this sometimes takes.

We've increased CO2 production by about 20%, the oceans have warmed slightly, and the tropical rain forests are almost gone.  I'd say 1% per decade over the last fifty years is showing a remarkable lack of effect.  The 20% increase in uptake requirements, in combination with less soluble water and a lot fewer forests is supposed to have done more damage, thus the missing 25%.