On Sun, 28 Jan 2007 23:08:25 -0000, (Robert Grumbine)
wrote:

One thing at a time. Temperature records have nothing to do
with the sources of CO2 in the atmosphere. (I hope you can
agree to that.)

Nor is it essential to know the entire history of CO2 in
the atmosphere for the past 700 ky (much less the 4.5 billion
years some demand) in order to see that the last 200 years worth
of change are from human activity. This is no different than
being able to tell that someone is getting richer because of
a new job just by tracking his current income(s) and outgoes.
The prehistory isn't required to understand his current account
balance.

The CO2 case is much easier, because the carbon carries
tags as to its source. Unlike dollars which are all dollars,
carbon is fingerprinted as to whether it came from human activity,
volcanoes, biosphere, ocean, ... Those fingerprints show (in the
papers cited in the FAQ mentioned last time around) that
the source of the last 200 years increase is human activity.

I agreed with what you've said so far. I especially like how you
explained the way the carbon has it's own unique fingerprint to trace
its origin [this is something I have never been told before and I fear
it is the main reason we have so many skeptics]..but

I wanted to get this part cleared up:Volcanoes
I understand, unfortunately for a radio show hack, that past volcanoes
produced either a lot of CO2, ash or both. The theory went that this
caused warming and cooling to far greater degree than would be
possible through human activity. Do you agree or disagree? Can you
tell why or why not?

Also:Can I assume that weather, unless it is a very long period of
repeating events, is not related to climate and is not dependent on
climate on a global scale? Like when we get a heat wave for 2 weeks
and everyone says it's GW? Then in the same year get 2 weeks of
blizzard, etc? I am asking don't you agree that the weather is not a
good predictor or proof of GW? We should take the CO2 levels as a
static ingredient alone without needing weather phenomenon having to
back-up the claims?

I hope this made half sense to you. I'm being sincere in my questions.

I think comparing current CO2 levels to those 50 ky ago is somewhat
unnecessary. Humans (and especially our advanced civilization) were
not around 50 ky ago. So any changes back then would not have been
experienced by humans. I see your point of asking where the current
changes stack-up to previous levels. It is my understanding that
current levels are the greatest that have been in the past 650,000
years. Also, the rate of increase is significant (changing from ~280
ppm at the end of the 19th century to the current levels of ~380ppm,
+100ppm in a century).

I'm sure someone else with a deeper well of knowledge can expand or
refute the items above.

On Jan 28, 7:20 pm, Bob Brown . wrote:
On 28 Jan 2007 18:15:50 -0600, D Smith wrote:



So, are you convinced that the current increase in CO2 is from fossil
fuels, as Bob Grumbine has explained? This question is largely independent
of what has happened eons ago, as the methods Bob Grumbine described do
NOT require looking at CO2 levels prior to the current (say, past 50
years) time. Your other post, in reply to Grumbine, makes it look like you
still don't accept his argument, even though you don't point out anything
specifically wrong with it. Instead, you started to talk about periods
well into the past, which are irrelevant to the point Grumbine was making.

After all, if you catch me taking money out of your wallet, the judge
isn't going to ask you to demonstrate an entire history of previous
additions and removals of money from your wallet, for the entire time you
owned it, before I'll be convicted. All you'll need is a reliable witness
to the event of me taking the money out.

Now, to be specific: what is wrong with Grumbine's explanation, which
tells us how we can determine where the RECENT CO2 increase has come from,
regardless of what has caused CO2 changes in the distant past? If you
think his explanation has hidden assumptions about CO2 levels or fluxes
from the past, then what are they?I may being doing a poor job of asking this but here goes. My problem
is I will assume CO2 levels in the recent past have increased at
alarming rates. My problem with this is it seems to ignore the levels
of CO2 that existed before the CO2 levels he, or anyone, mentions.

If I can explain it this way: Go back 50K years and see what the
increases and decreases were in CO2. Do those variations mimic the
increases and decreases of CO2 in the recent past?

It just seems that everyone is focused on the "fossil fuel burning
era" of mankind and not looking at any measurements in the past to
compare with current increases.

I try to imagine a human making assumptions based on their first 10
years of life. They would assume that they would one day grow to be 50
feet tall and weigh several thousand pounds. We know, from experience,
that this is not the outcome. But, if all we did was look at brief
samples of history we would make the same mistakes as the 10 year old
child.

Am I explaining this well enough so that I could get a debate going?



I am being sincere in my questions and comments. I am not a climate
scientists NOR do I wish anyone to think I am trying prove that I know
more than anyone else.

So, if you now accept my argument that humans breathing (in increasing
numbers) is irrelevant, why do you still post that the number of humans on
earth now compared to some time ago is an issue? Your exact words we

"ALSO more people are alive today than the periods of time we
constantly hear people compare to today"

If this statement is NOT about the amount of CO2 we exhale, then what
is it about? It sure looks like the same thing.If I repeated the claim, that you clearly explained to me, then it was
a timing issue. I may have read a reply and replied to it, in a diff
thread, before reading and replying to your explanation to me.

I am sincere in wanting to know more and have some things answered.

My poor writing style and lack of understanding of this issue may make
my points and questions lost in translation a lot of times. I can't
avoid that but will try in the future to be more selective in the way
I ask questions and make points.
thanks

In article , Bob Brown . wrote:
On Sun, 28 Jan 2007 23:08:25 -0000, (Robert Grumbine)
wrote:

One thing at a time. Temperature records have nothing to do
with the sources of CO2 in the atmosphere. (I hope you can
agree to that.)

Nor is it essential to know the entire history of CO2 in
the atmosphere for the past 700 ky (much less the 4.5 billion
years some demand) in order to see that the last 200 years worth
of change are from human activity. This is no different than
being able to tell that someone is getting richer because of
a new job just by tracking his current income(s) and outgoes.
The prehistory isn't required to understand his current account
balance.

The CO2 case is much easier, because the carbon carries
tags as to its source. Unlike dollars which are all dollars,
carbon is fingerprinted as to whether it came from human activity,
volcanoes, biosphere, ocean, ... Those fingerprints show (in the
papers cited in the FAQ mentioned last time around) that
the source of the last 200 years increase is human activity.

I agreed with what you've said so far. I especially like how you
explained the way the carbon has it's own unique fingerprint to trace
its origin [this is something I have never been told before and I fear
it is the main reason we have so many skeptics]..but

I wanted to get this part cleared up:Volcanoes
I understand, unfortunately for a radio show hack, that past volcanoes
produced either a lot of CO2, ash or both. The theory went that this
caused warming and cooling to far greater degree than would be
possible through human activity. Do you agree or disagree? Can you
tell why or why not?

Note that I've been fairly specific about time frame -- the last
200 years. Note that the radio show hack is saying 'past' volcanoes.
'Past' covers a lot of time, about 4.5 billion years worth. There
have been episodes in that expanse where there was truly massive
vulcanism, the formation of the Deccan flood basalts around the
end of the Cretaceous (65 Mya) and the Siberian flood basalts around
the end of the Permian (250 Mya) for two of the largest and best-known.
But those events are of such vast scale that we are fortunate that
nothing like that is going on now.

Pinatubo was one of the largest eruptions of the 20th century.
It spewed out about 10 km^3 of material, earning it a Volcanic
Explosivity Index of 6. This is high (look up the list of such
eruptions, and note how infrequent they are). Let us make the
radically inaccurate assumption that the mass of the eruption
was entirely carbon dioxide (most of it, obviously, is ash
derived from the magma; by mass, carbon dioxide is a tiny
fraction of the ejecta). Give it a density of 3000 kg/m^3 (also
likely too high for Pinatubo magma). This translates to 30 Gt
of ejecta.

Per the faq (the figure is higher now than 10 years ago),
anthropogenic source, annually, is about 7.1 Gt carbon (carbon, not
CO2, this makes for 26 Gt of CO2).

In other words, even if there were a Pinatubo-scale volcano
going off every year, vs. the about one per century observed,
and even if absolutely all of the mass ejected, vs. a more
reasonable 1% or less, were carbon dioxide, volcanoes would _still_
only be barely the same order of magnitude contributor to human
activity.

When the serious work of tallying all volcanoes, both non-erupting
but outgassing, and erupting ones, is done, the averages come
out to only about 0.1 Gt carbon per year. (See faq for cites.)

So, for volcanoes to be important, they either have to be
added up over a far longer time than the time scale at hand
(say for millions of years, rather than decades), or they
have to be vastly greater in magnitude than Pinatubo (VEI 6)
or Tambora (VEI of 7, 1815; responsible for the 'year without summer').
Both do happen in the geologic record, but neither is going on
currently.

As to magnitudes, you can see some good scientific results in:
Hansen, J., A. Lacis, R. Ruedy, and M. Sato Potential climate impact of
mount Pinatubo eruption Geophys. Res. Letters, 19, 215-218, 1992
and
Minnis, P., E. F. Harrison, et al.
Radiative climate forcing by the Mount Pinatubo Eruption
Science, N59, 1411-1415, 1993
(I typoed the volume number in my at-hand reference, but it's probably 259).

The Hansen paper correctly predicted the timing and magnitude (0.5 C)
of the Pinatubo-induced cooling. (Incidentally giving the lie to
those who claim that climate models never make predictions, or at
least not correct predictions.)

So, for your last question as to magnitude/contribution of volcanoes:
The volcanic CO2 effect is vastly smaller than the anthropogenic CO2
effect. It, correspondingly, needs vastly longer in order to accumulate
to a point of having comparable effect to anthropogenic (there are
also other processes which make the volcanoes a less effective source than
human for changing atmospheric CO2 levels).

The ash effect (possibly more one of ejected sulphur being converted
to aerosols in the stratosphere) is strictly one of cooling. The
magnitude of that is order 0.5 C for Pinatubo (a VEI eruption on order of 6).
(Note that this doesn't scale linearly; a VEI of 7 doesn't necessarily
mean a 5 C cooling, and certainly not VEI of 8 giving 50 C.) The
ash and aerosols, however, fall out over a period of months to 2-3 years.

In terms of understanding the few months to few years dips in the
global mean temperature over the last 100+ years, we need to (and do)
consider the volcanoes. The warming side, though, is strictly other
things.


Also:Can I assume that weather, unless it is a very long period of
repeating events, is not related to climate and is not dependent on
climate on a global scale? Like when we get a heat wave for 2 weeks
and everyone says it's GW? Then in the same year get 2 weeks of
blizzard, etc? I am asking don't you agree that the weather is not a
good predictor or proof of GW? We should take the CO2 levels as a
static ingredient alone without needing weather phenomenon having to
back-up the claims?

Weather is the instantaneous state of the atmosphere. Climate
is the statistics of weather. Better phrased: Weather is what you
get, climate is what you expect.

A single event in a single place is weather. A long string of
events in a single place becomes climate. The folks who say
'there's no global warming, my back yard was 10 degrees below
normal this morning' are exactly as wrong (if more common in
my experience) as the ones who say 'global warming is proved, my
back yard was 10 degrees above normal this morning'.

When you get to being _consistently_ the other side of 'normal' locally,
then you've got a local climate change. This could be temperature,
but also precipitation totals, the timing of the annual maximum in
precipitation, a shift in what fraction of your rain falls in
heavy srms vs. gentle soakers, frequency of droughts, ...

The sense in which one can reasonably tie climate in to your
backyard's temperature is to observe that (when you're warmer
than former normals) being warmer than former normal is the kind
of thing you expect to see, and see more often, if the climate
is warming. But even with a general warming, you still expect
to see some cooler than 'normal' weather in your back yard.

--
Robert Grumbine http://www.radix.net/~bobg/ Science faqs and amateur activities notes and links.
Sagredo (Galileo Galilei) "You present these recondite matters with too much
evidence and ease; this great facility makes them less appreciated than they
would be had they been presented in a more abstruse manner." Two New Sciences

In article , Bob Brown . wrote:

[large snip]

I am sincere in wanting to know more and have some things answered.

So I'm assuming. Realize, though, you're liable to learn more by
signing up for a course at your local community college than by posts
to a usenet group.

My poor writing style and lack of understanding of this issue may make
my points and questions lost in translation a lot of times. I can't
avoid that but will try in the future to be more selective in the way
I ask questions and make points.

You've mentioned your writing style several times now. I agree that
I find it hard to tell exactly what you mean, or mean to be asking.
But since you mention it repeatedly: Is this because you're young?
Not a native english speaker? Never got a science education? Regardless
of which, you can make some progress by getting to a writing class
(adult education, community college, ...)

Regardless of any of that, it's a very good thing in talking about
science to try to be very specific about what you're asking about.
That includes keeping your own focus fairly narrow, so as to avoid
distracting your attention with irrelevancies. Not that they're
irrelevant to your ultimate quest for understanding, but irrelevant
to the step you're currently trying to take.

--
Robert Grumbine http://www.radix.net/~bobg/ Science faqs and amateur activities notes and links.
Sagredo (Galileo Galilei) "You present these recondite matters with too much
evidence and ease; this great facility makes them less appreciated than they
would be had they been presented in a more abstruse manner." Two New Sciences

Bob Brown . writes:

On 28 Jan 2007 18:15:50 -0600, D Smith wrote:

So, are you convinced that the current increase in CO2 is from fossil
fuels, as Bob Grumbine has explained? This question is largely independent
of what has happened eons ago, as the methods Bob Grumbine described do
NOT require looking at CO2 levels prior to the current (say, past 50
years) time. Your other post, in reply to Grumbine, makes it look like you
still don't accept his argument, even though you don't point out anything
specifically wrong with it. Instead, you started to talk about periods
well into the past, which are irrelevant to the point Grumbine was making.

After all, if you catch me taking money out of your wallet, the judge
isn't going to ask you to demonstrate an entire history of previous
additions and removals of money from your wallet, for the entire time you
owned it, before I'll be convicted. All you'll need is a reliable witness
to the event of me taking the money out.

Now, to be specific: what is wrong with Grumbine's explanation, which
tells us how we can determine where the RECENT CO2 increase has come from,
regardless of what has caused CO2 changes in the distant past? If you
think his explanation has hidden assumptions about CO2 levels or fluxes
from the past, then what are they?

I may being doing a poor job of asking this but here goes. My problem
is I will assume CO2 levels in the recent past have increased at
alarming rates. My problem with this is it seems to ignore the levels
of CO2 that existed before the CO2 levels he, or anyone, mentions.


I need a clearer explanation of what makes you wonder about past CO2
levels/changes in relation to the current changes (by current, meaning
past 50 years or so - the time period we do have good measurements and
isotope information).

Go back to Bob Grumbine's explanation, go to his web site
(http://www.radix.net/~bobg, IIRC) and read the FAQ written by Jan
Schloerer, and then do a detailed critique of Bob's explanation with the
following in mind:

- examine each point Grumbine has made, and try to figure out the
underlying reasoning for Bob saying that point
- ask yourself whether or not changes in CO2 in the distant past (from
whatever source you choose to imagine) strengthen, weaken, or are
irrelevant to Grumbine's evidence. Do this point by point.

Then, once you have come up with a reason why some change in the past
make's Grumbine's (or Schloerer's) analysis weaker, come back and point
that out to us.


If I can explain it this way: Go back 50K years and see what the
increases and decreases were in CO2. Do those variations mimic the
increases and decreases of CO2 in the recent past?

But why is this relevant? The answer must lie in exactly what you mean
by "mimic", which I can only speculate on. Do you just simply mean "goes
up and down with similar rates of change and similar total levels"?
Grumbine's post discusses a level of analysis that is far more detailed
than just looking at totals and rates of change - it discusses methods of
identifying where carbon comes from based on its isotopic composition. Is
this not independent of whatever (perhaps different) source that may or
may not have been active in the past?

I will go back to the analogy of me stealing money from your wallet.
(This may not help, but what the heck - it's my free time).

Let's imagine two scenarios. In both scenarios, I really am the one
that took the money. In both scenarios, you saw me pick up your jacket
earlier in the evening (where your wallet was), but you didn't actually
see me handle your wallet or take the money. The difference between the
two scenarios is the type of evidence available.

In scenario 1, you had $500 in mixed bills, accumulated from several
sources, in denominations you can't remember. It's now gone. You know you
had it yesterday, but haven't looked in your wallet since. The cops come
in, and everyone has to show what they have in their pockets. Three of us,
including me, have over $500 in cash, in denominations similar to what you
remember having (but you don't remember what you had EXACTLY, so you can't
say "that's mine"). You accuse me, I'm arrested and sent to trial. At
trial:

- there is no evidence that clearly shows the money in my pocket
matched the money in your pocket. All that is known is that $500
disappeared from your wallet, and three of us have $500 in ours.
- I provide evidence that you have been known in the past to lose
money, by having it fall out of an unsecured wallet lying around the
house.
- I provide evidence that the other two individuals who had $500 also
have criminal records for petty theft.
- none of the three of us have a good explanation of where we got the
money we have.

So, even though you saw me handle your jacket, is there reasonable
doubt that I took the money? Is the evidence I supply about your tendency
to lose money and the criminal records of other guests even relevant? Will
I be convicted?


Scenario 2: same amount of money, same observation that I handled your
jacket, except this time:

- you picked up the money from the bank machine just before the
get-together, and the bank has a record of the serial numbers of the cash
they put in the machine and an electronic record of the denominations that
you withdrew.
- the money in my pocket falls in the range of serial numbers the bank
put in that machine, and matches the denominations that you withdrew.
- the money in the other people's pockets does NOT fall in the range of
serial numbers from that bank, and does NOT match the denominations that
you withdrew.
- I have no evidence as to where I got my $500, but the other two have
ATM receipts that they made withdrawals in the past 24 hours, and the $500
that they each have matches the serial numbers and denominations that
their banks said were taken.
- your wallet has my fingerprints on it, and "my" money has your
fingerprints on it, even though we just met for the first time.
- I supply the same evidence of your tendency to lose money and the
criminal records of the other people in the room.

So, we ask the same questions. Is there reasonable doubt that I took
the money? Is the evidence I supply about your tendency to lose money and
the criminal records of other guests even relevant? Will I be convicted? I
think the answer in the second scenario is quite different from the first.
The fingerprint and serial number evidence is strong enough that it
shouldn't matter about you tending to lose things or other people being
thieves, in the past. Or should it? Is that ancient history important?

Getting back to the CO2 question, Grumbine' discussion is about
fingerprinting and identifying the source of the carbon. Is it strong
evidence? If so, and the source of carbon can be identified,is it relevant
that at some point in the past carbon came from different sources, even
if the CO2 levels and rates of change are similar??

It just seems that everyone is focused on the "fossil fuel burning
era" of mankind and not looking at any measurements in the past to
compare with current increases.

a) beyond a reasonable doubt, the current rise in atmospheric CO2 is
from burning fossil fuels (at least, a very high proportion). Unless
significant new evidence is found of a previously-undetected source of CO2
with the same finerprints as fossil fuels, there is little point in
re-opening the case.

b) in spite of a), there are lots of people that spend lots of time and
money trying to collect whatever information they can on past climates and
past CO2 levels. One reason they do this is to help understand the global
carbon cycle. For example, currently, natural systems remove about half of
the CO2 added to the atmosphere from fossil fuels. Will this remain
constant, or will the ratio rise or fall? This is important in being able
to predict atmospheric CO2 in the future, based on the amount of fossil
fuels that are consumed. Understanding past CO2 levels and how they change
will help.

Just because it isn't discussed in the places you have read (or
listened) doesn't mean it isn't being done.


I try to imagine a human making assumptions based on their first 10
years of life. They would assume that they would one day grow to be 50
feet tall and weigh several thousand pounds. We know, from experience,
that this is not the outcome. But, if all we did was look at brief
samples of history we would make the same mistakes as the 10 year old
child.

If the prediction is made on the basis of a simple extrapolation of
total weight and height, then yes. If you have an understanding of human
physiology and appply that knowledge, then you likely wouldn't make that
mistake.

Am I explaining this well enough so that I could get a debate going?

Yes, much better. But again, Grumbine's argument (well, his post - it
isn't his argument, he's just the messenger) is NOT based on looking
exclusively at the rates of change of atmospheric CO2, so past histories
do not count.

Another suggestion: go back and read Grumbine's post, and ask youself
"Is this method capable of determining the source of current atmospheric
CO2, even if the total amount of CO2 was not changing?" Does that help
illustrate the importance (or lack thereof) of pre-inductrial changes?

On Jan 24, 7:30 pm, Bob Brown . wrote:
If man is causing global warming then what caused the previous Ice
Ages before the burning of fossil fuels?

I've asked this before but usually only get political jabs at best. I
would think if the GW man-made point of view is solid then someone
should be able to address this question.

If not, then I have my answer.

If Abraham Lincoln was assassinated, then how did the previous
presidents die?

On Jan 26, 6:16 pm, Bob Brown . wrote:
On Thu, 25 Jan 2007 14:24:49 -0000, (Robert Grumbine)
wrote:





In article , Bob Brown . wrote:
If man is causing global warming then what caused the previous Ice
Ages before the burning of fossil fuels?

I've asked this before but usually only get political jabs at best. I
would think if the GW man-made point of view is solid then someone
should be able to address this question.

It's not a solid question. The anthropogenic effect is one, generally,
of warming. Ice ages are a result, mainly, of cooling. What do you
really want to understand?

In the mean time, which of the following do you disagree with, if any:
There is a greenhouse effect
Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas
Atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide has increased over the past
150 years
The source of that increase is human activity
Elementary physics shows that if concentration of greenhouse gases
increases, climate warms
The global surface temperature record shows the last 20 years to have
been warmer than the previous 100.

If you disagree, what is your scientific basis for disagreement?


I've noted your points in order, and will answer in a different --
logical -- order .

I disagree with the "source of that increase is human activity"
BECAUSE their were not precise enough measuring devices hundreds and
thousands of years ago to compare with today[1];ALSO more people are
alive today than the periods of time we constantly hear people compare
to today[2];ALSO fossil fuel burning has a short period of human history.
Am I to believe 200 years has done more than 500K years?[3]
Does anyone care about the orbit changes with the Sun and how this
relates to warming? Is the earth in the exact same orbital path it has
always been in?[4] Is the Sun the same size, shape and power today as it
was hundreds of thousands of years ago?[5]

Talking about fossil fuel burning and ignoring all those other factors
seems like a direct undeniable political agenda.[6] It is no wonder the
experts wish us to dismantle the very things that has made America an
economic giant. This seems too convenient a combination to just be a
chance happening.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

The PR types like to hide the _order_ in which this question was
raised.
FIRST, measuring average atmospheric CO2 is difficult. Around
industry, it is higher. So an "observatory" to measure it was
established on a mountain on the island of Hawaii. (The island is in
the state, but most of the state's population is on another island,
Oahu.)
SECOND, the measurements revealed a rend of increasing levesl. When
that was reported, the general scientific response was: "Uh oh. CO2 is
universally recognised as responsible for the erath's having a higher
tempreature than teh moon's average temperature. Does this mean that
we're going to heat up?" The PR answer was that the global
temperature, which had increased during the first four decades of teh
20th century, was not THEN increasing.
THIRD, the global average temperature began to increase again. A good
many tests have revealed that. NOW, the PR answer (aside from a few
denials that the temp is rising) is that there could be many
explanations for the rising temp. They lie to say that the scientific
community is responding to the rising temp with one explanation,
rather than having predicted the rising temp.
Now, you say that you accept that CO2 warms the earth, but you don't
accept that it comes from human activity. Many of your specifics,
though, are positing alternative explanantions for warminig. I'll
start with them.

[4] The influence of the earth's orbit on average temperature is well
known and has been studied. Sitting in your armchair, YOU may not know
what the present earth orbit is, but astronomers do. The answer isn't
that nobody but you has considered that there could be an influence.
The answer is that people who know things have CALCULATED the
influence. They did that long before this controversy started. (The
pre-historic record of earth temperature has been derived from
limestone for many decades.)
[5] Similarly, the influence of solar radiation has been long studied
and plotted. The evolution of stars is one of the major sub-studies of
astrophysics. The amount of solar radiation has been measured sinmce
sometime in the early 20th century. The record is available; it
doesn't explain present warming.
[1] You posit one way that temperatures COULDN'T be measured until
recently. Thermometers are quite recent. Then you ignore all the ways
that global mean temperatures in the past are calculated. The position
of mountain glaciers is recorded by morraines. (Look it up in a
dictionary.) The amount of water in all glaciers (mostly Antarctic) is
calculated from the percentage of O18 in limestone. These techniques
predate this controversy. The use of ice cores does not, but it
confirms the other measures.

Going on to the issue of human activity's contribution to the rise in
CO2, the question you say that you don't accept. Carbon cycles through
the atmosphere and te biosphere. The question of how much is in the
atmosphere (almost all as CO2) is the question of how much of the
cycling carbon is elsewhere. (There is another cycle involving
shellfish, limestone, and volcanos. I won't deal that, since it's so
long-term.)
When fossil fuels were formed, they were removed from the cycle. When
they are mined and burned, they return to the cycle. It turns out that
the increase in teh cycle is mostly in atmospheric and oceanic CO2.
The biosphere doesn't grow any more massive.

[2] More people are alive today? So what? Do you claim that less
carbon is in the biosphere because more of the biosphere is human? You
write unclearly, but this is beyond my powers to decypher.
[3] Fossil fuel burning has been going on for too short a time for it
to have an influence.
The influence isn't from how long we've been burning coal and oil. the
influence is from how much coal and oil is being burned.
While you are unwilling or unable to make the calculation, scientists
are not. The tons of carbon in the oil and coal burned in a decade is
significantly more than the tons of carbon added to atmospheric CO2
during the decade. (Oceanic absorption takes some, and deforestation
adds some.) The issue that it hasn't been going on very long is
irrelevant.

[6] Scientists are on one side. PR firms funded by oil companies are
on the other. You've decided taht PR firms are impartial, and
scientists must be biased. I won't argue with that, since facts can't
inflence such opinions.

Bob Brown, as recently as a week or so ago in this group, posed the
question of how much CO2 is produced by humans - not from burning of
fossil fuels, but from breathing. I posted a lengthy discussion of humans
as a carbon store, pointing out that humans today represent a larger
store of carbon than humans hundreds or thousands of year ago. More humans
= more biomass = more carbon stored. Thus, for the purpose of the global
carbon cycle, adding humans represents a sink for atmospheric carbon, not
a source. (The carbon is removed from the atmosphere by plants via
photosynthesis, then we eat the plants, or eat other animals that
ultimately get their carbon from plants. The carbon stays out of the
atmosphere until we die and our biomass decays and CO2 can return to the
atmosphere.)

UNLESS the humans displaced other animals. I seriously doubt (although
I have no figures -- does anyone? ) that there is more biomass in land
animals, including humans, than there was 300 years ago. there are
more humans, and more beef cattle. There are fewer elk and such.

BTW, neither figure counts for any great percent of the biomass. The
replacement of forest with cropland certainly does.

The CO2 case is much easier, because the carbon carries
tags as to its source. Unlike dollars which are all dollars,
carbon is fingerprinted as to whether it came from human activity,
volcanoes, biosphere, ocean, ... Those fingerprints show (in the
papers cited in the FAQ mentioned last time around) that
the source of the last 200 years increase is human activity.

I agreed with what you've said so far. I especially like how you
explained the way the carbon has it's own unique fingerprint to trace
its origin [this is something I have never been told before and I fear
it is the main reason we have so many skeptics]..but

Actually, the carbon is "fingerprinted." Most carbon is C12. There is
some C14, which emits a neutron and turns into something else over
time. C14 comes from nitrogen struck with cosmic rays; so there is
some C14 in plants at all times. As time goes on, the percentage of
C14 -- never very great -- decreases. Time has gone one in coal and
petroleum deposits to the extent that C14 is extremely rare in them.
The Atmospheric CO2 contains less C14 than it would if it came from
biomass.


I wanted to get this part cleared up:Volcanoes
I understand, unfortunately for a radio show hack, that past volcanoes
produced either a lot of CO2, ash or both. The theory went that this
caused warming and cooling to far greater degree than would be
possible through human activity. Do you agree or disagree? Can you
tell why or why not?

The volcanoes spew a lot of CO2 into the air. (That comes from
limestone, which ultimately comes from shellfish.) The CO2 produced by
volcanoes is:
1) Calculated.
2) Not any greater this century than it was in previous centuries.
Sure, the measures of atmospheric CO2 go up when a major volcano
spouts. For a week, it might be greater than human production. But
human production goes on and on.


Also:Can I assume that weather, unless it is a very long period of
repeating events, is not related to climate and is not dependent on
climate on a global scale? Like when we get a heat wave for 2 weeks
and everyone says it's GW? Then in the same year get 2 weeks of
blizzard, etc? I am asking don't you agree that the weather is not a
good predictor or proof of GW? We should take the CO2 levels as a
static ingredient alone without needing weather phenomenon having to
back-up the claims?

Depends. Heat waves, no.
Unusual weather, including snowstorms in NC, somewhat.
Ever live in a steam-heated apartment? The furnace produces heat,
which turns water into steam. The steam travels through pipes to
radiators, where it turns back into water -- releasing the heat.
The earth works a lot like that, only without the pipes. Water
evaporates mostly in low latitudes, it condenses -- on average -- in
higher latitudes, thus transfering the heat which is radiated out into
space. (Simple movements of air and seawater also trnsmit heat.) The
poles of earth are much closer in temperature to the equator than teh
poles of the moon are to the equator of the moon. So weather is how
heat is transmitted from where it comes to earth to where it is
radiated from earth.
If the pattern of heat radiation changes, one would expect the pattern
of heat transmission -- weather -- to change. I can't predict how,
but you'd expect weather patterns to be different.

On Mon, 29 Jan 2007 16:35:36 -0000, (Robert Grumbine)
wrote:

So, for your last question as to magnitude/contribution of volcanoes:
The volcanic CO2 effect is vastly smaller than the anthropogenic CO2
effect. It, correspondingly, needs vastly longer in order to accumulate
to a point of having comparable effect to anthropogenic (there are
also other processes which make the volcanoes a less effective source than
human for changing atmospheric CO2 levels).

The ash effect (possibly more one of ejected sulphur being converted
to aerosols in the stratosphere) is strictly one of cooling. The
magnitude of that is order 0.5 C for Pinatubo (a VEI eruption on order of 6).
(Note that this doesn't scale linearly; a VEI of 7 doesn't necessarily
mean a 5 C cooling, and certainly not VEI of 8 giving 50 C.) The
ash and aerosols, however, fall out over a period of months to 2-3 years.

In terms of understanding the few months to few years dips in the
global mean temperature over the last 100+ years, we need to (and do)
consider the volcanoes. The warming side, though, is strictly other
things.


Isn't the global ash coverage in the upper atmosphere a process that
also traps heat? If so, doesn't it deserve as much credit as fossil
fuel contributed global warming?


Also:Can I assume that weather, unless it is a very long period of
repeating events, is not related to climate and is not dependent on
climate on a global scale? Like when we get a heat wave for 2 weeks
and everyone says it's GW? Then in the same year get 2 weeks of
blizzard, etc? I am asking don't you agree that the weather is not a
good predictor or proof of GW? We should take the CO2 levels as a
static ingredient alone without needing weather phenomenon having to
back-up the claims?

Weather is the instantaneous state of the atmosphere. Climate
is the statistics of weather. Better phrased: Weather is what you
get, climate is what you expect.

A single event in a single place is weather. A long string of
events in a single place becomes climate. The folks who say
'there's no global warming, my back yard was 10 degrees below
normal this morning' are exactly as wrong (if more common in
my experience) as the ones who say 'global warming is proved, my
back yard was 10 degrees above normal this morning'.

When you get to being _consistently_ the other side of 'normal' locally,
then you've got a local climate change. This could be temperature,
but also precipitation totals, the timing of the annual maximum in
precipitation, a shift in what fraction of your rain falls in
heavy srms vs. gentle soakers, frequency of droughts, ...

The sense in which one can reasonably tie climate in to your
backyard's temperature is to observe that (when you're warmer
than former normals) being warmer than former normal is the kind
of thing you expect to see, and see more often, if the climate
is warming. But even with a general warming, you still expect
to see some cooler than 'normal' weather in your back yard.

I've heard/read many people who experience ONE above normal temp
summer or ONE above normal hurricane season declare it as being
absolute proof of man-made global warming. If this is the litmus test
for the non-experts then isn't the BELOW normal temps and lack of
hurricanes also non-expert proof of not having any man-made global
warming?

Understand that 99% of the public who are on the GW bandwagon do not
read scientific journals and simply base their opinion on movie stars
and politicians. If you understand what I am getting at?

Recall Katrina. This event received far more attention than it
deserved. If it were not for the fact that a Hurricane hit a city
surrounded by a lake with a levee and this city was below sea level
then it would have had far less impact. If the same size and strength
hurricane as katrina were to have hit the eastern coastline it would
have been a small story and would have received little attention.

It just reminds me of when a tornado hits a trailer park and kills
dozens of people. Great attention is paid to this because of the death
toll. But when a similar size and strength tornado hits well
constructed homes it is a 30 second mention in the news.

You cannot change the hurricane or tornado but you can change the
housing in which people choose to live in. Doing so changes the
ultimate outcome of the damage.

These events tend to get more attention than they deserve, and this in
turn causes the non-experts to make WILD conclusions as to what it all
means.


Again, thanks for your time.