weatherwonderman wrote:
Did anyone read the sunday times today ,it shows how easily facts about the
glaciers in the himalayas can be misconstrued and like the proverbial
chinese whispers ,be
contorted without anyone really checking back to the scource to see if it
stands up to rigorous peer review.

No I didn't see that article, but I did notice the sister daily paper's
article on the Himalayas and the effects of Chinas smoke stack
industries putting soot on the glaciers (in combination with AGW).

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/new...cle6907919.ece

While on the subject of source data ,worldwide CO2 measuring equipment over
the years must have changed ,
did anyone calibrate the old equipment against the new.

How dumb do you think these guys are? The labs do inter comparisons and
tests using flasks of sampled air and reference materials.

Keelings basic technique for CO2 measurement hasn't changed all that
much but the error bars have become narrower as instrumentation has
improved. Scripps has put most of their data online:

http://scrippsco2.ucsd.edu/program_h...e_lessons.html

Ronald Raygun had several goes at removing funding from Keelings long
term CO2 work because the evidence it produced was inconvenient and
conflicted with the Republicans trash the environment policies.

Ironically climate sceptic President Dubya had to give Keeling the US
National Science Medal in 2002 for his lifetimes work.

And it isn't just the concentration of atmospheric CO2 that is changing
- the isotope ratios are shifting to match the signature of the fossil
fuel CO2 we are burning at an increasing rate.

http://scrippsco2.ucsd.edu/graphics_...pic_ratio.html

These days the methods are available relatively cheaply for anyone who
wants to do it for a few thousand pounds. The uniqueness of the Keeling
data is that he was the first to do it and it now covers many decades
(and several key locations).

Just to add to the conspiracy theory , I bet the new equipment gave
generally higher ,more sensitive and more accurate readings than the old ,so
you of course will see a spike in the more recent levels

They give the same values with slightly tighter error bars. Measuring
CO2 was pretty routine and well inside the instrumental capabilities
even when he started. The early kit was actually rather good with better
than 3 sig fig precision and accuracy. Depending on the monitoring
station you also see the annual CO2 change from seasonal photosynthesis
which gives a pretty good sanity check on their data.

Keeling's son developed a commercially available paramagnetic oxygen
monitor to a standard of reproducibility where it can measure the
corresponding decrease in oxygen concentration resulting from the
combustion process which requires more than 5 significant figures.

http://scrippso2.ucsd.edu/

This shows that 43% of the CO2 we emit ends up in the oceans and is
causing measurable changes in acidity which will damage sensitive
calcium fixing organisms like corals.

It would be great to get hold of some old equipment and compare the new to
it.
What do you other cleaver newsgroup guys think.?

You are paranoid.

Regards,
Martin Brown