THE Carbon Dioxide (CO2) Thread Pt. 3(merged)

[TWilliam]

From the article linked in the OP:

The satellites that measure the world's temperature all say that the warming trend ended in 2001, and that the temperature has dropped about 0.6C in the past year (to the temperature of 1980).

Ummm... excuse me, but a one year reversal over a span of decades (or even a 6 year pause followed by a 1 year reversal if you wish to see it that way) does not constitute a disproval of anything.

This whole article amounts to little more than a straw man. Climatologists do not assert that anthropogenic CO[sub]2[/sub] emissions are the cause of GW. What they say is that there are numerous, complexly interacting factors including (but not limited to) variations in solar input, cloud cover, surface reflectivity, forest cover, etc. There are also biological and geophysical feedbacks coming into play, such as CO[sub]2[/sub] and methane release from melting permafrost and ocean clathrates. The general consensus regarding specifically anthropogenic emissions is that they are likely a primary driver of the current warming trend, not that they are the cause.

Nothing to see here folks...

[Cashmere]

From the article linked in the OP:

The satellites that measure the world's temperature all say that the warming trend ended in 2001, and that the temperature has dropped about 0.6C in the past year (to the temperature of 1980).

Ummm... excuse me, but a one year reversal over a span of decades (or even a 6 year pause followed by a 1 year reversal if you wish to see it that way) does not constitute a disproval of anything.
This whole article amounts to little more than a straw man. Climatologists do not assert that anthropogenic CO[sub]2[/sub] emissions are the cause of GW. What they say is that there are numerous, complexly interacting factors including (but not limited to) variations in solar input, cloud cover, surface reflectivity, forest cover, etc. There are also biological and geophysical feedbacks coming into play, such as CO[sub]2[/sub] and methane release from melting permafrost and ocean clathrates. The general consensus regarding specifically anthropogenic emissions is that they are likely a primary driver of the current warming trend, not that they are the cause.
Nothing to see here folks...

What about the hot spot TW? Answer that:

The signature of an increased greenhouse effect is a hot spot about 10km up in the atmosphere over the tropics. We have been measuring the atmosphere for decades using radiosondes: weather balloons with thermometers that radio back the temperature as the balloon ascends through the atmosphere. They show no hot spot. Whatsoever.
If there is no hot spot then an increased greenhouse effect is not the cause of global warming. So we know for sure that carbon emissions are not a significant cause of the global warming. If we had found the greenhouse signature then I would be an alarmist again.

[Fiddlerdave]

I suggest you really do need to do some research on folks who claim they are right and so many others are wrong. Dr David Evans is NOT a climate scientists. In fact he is not a scientists at all. He is a electrical engineer, computer programmer and stock jock.
link
BTW Lavoisier are a fossil fuel packed GW denier organization.
link
Please do some homework other than just believing it is true because you read it in a newspaper.
Greg

What qualifies as a scientist? He has a PhD from Stanford in EE

I am trying to think of a single Electrical Engineering course requirement that gives someone a backround to scientifically evaluate GW.

Leveraging his involvement as a carbon bookkeeper (which also gives no backround into what the carbon he is counting actually does in nature) into sensational Denialist (and yet completely non-scientific) headlines earns him a good living, I am sure, but a credible source he is not.

[Cashmere]

I suggest you really do need to do some research on folks who claim they are right and so many others are wrong. Dr David Evans is NOT a climate scientists. In fact he is not a scientists at all. He is a electrical engineer, computer programmer and stock jock.
link
BTW Lavoisier are a fossil fuel packed GW denier organization.
link
Please do some homework other than just believing it is true because you read it in a newspaper.
Greg

What qualifies as a scientist? He has a PhD from Stanford in EE

I am trying to think of a single Electrical Engineering course requirement that gives someone a backround to scientifically evaluate GW.
Leveraging his involvement as a carbon bookkeeper (which also gives no backround into what the carbon he is counting actually does in nature) into sensational Denialist (and yet completely non-scientific) headlines earns him a good living, I am sure, but a credible source he is not.

Anybody keeping count?

The GW side has now offered the following in response to the OP - -
2 accusations of "denialist".
2 accusations of "uncredentialled".

Zero responses to the argument offered by our double E protagonist.

Any GW supporters out there want to answer the man's argument?

His argument is - NO HOT SPOT. REJOIN.

I put it in caps to make it easier to see through the fog of ad hominem hot air.

[AlexdeLarge]

Isn't it funny how people can dismiss the claims of some, yet accept the assertions of Algore......whose educational background is, at best, mediocre.

"Gore's undergraduate transcript from Harvard is riddled with C's, including a C-minus in introductory economics, a D in one science course, and a C-plus in another. "In his sophomore year at Harvard," the Post reported, "Gore's grades were lower than any semester recorded on Bush's transcript from Yale." Moreover, Gore's graduate school record - consistently glossed over by the press - is nothing short of shameful. In 1971, Gore enrolled in Vanderbilt Divinity School where, according to Bill Turque, author of "Inventing Al Gore," he received F's in five of the eight classes he took over the course of three semesters. Not surprisingly, Gore did not receive a degree from the divinity school. Nor did Gore graduate from Vanderbilt Law School, where he enrolled for a brief time and received his fair share of C's. (Bush went on to earn an MBA from Harvard). "

Gores Dubious School Record

[xironman]

He is pretty well debunked here

[TWilliam]

He is pretty well debunked here

Yep. And an additional factor they don't even mention is that overall average humidity at the altitude of the predicted 'hot-spot' that he is referring to has been decreasing, which allows increased radiation of heat to space (water vapor in the atmosphere of course being a major greenhouse component). Thus the predicted hotspot is absent, since the models until recently did not factor in the drop in humidity.



"This graph shows that the relative humidity has been dropping, especially at higher elevations allowing more heat to escape to space. The curve labelled 300 mb is at about 9 km altitude, which is in the middle of the predicted (but missing) tropical troposphere hot-spot. This is the critical elevation as this is where radiation can start to escape without being recaptured. The average annual relative humidity at this altitude has declined by 21.5% from 1948 to 2007!"

This (the absence of the predicted hot-spot) in no way disproves anthropogenic contributions to GW. The only thing it shows is that the models are incomplete (as they always are)...

[dissident]

Please give a citation for the figure. The following paper shows conclusively that there is an increasing humidity trend in the tropopause region based on observations: Soden paper

[TWilliam]

Please give a citation for the figure. The following paper shows conclusively that there is an increasing humidity trend in the tropopause region based on observations: Soden paper

The quote above, referencing the graph of relative humidity readings at various altitudes, is from a review of Ferenc M. Miskolczi's paper Greenhouse Effect in Semi-Transparent Planetary Atmospheres [PDF warning] at this website. Miskolczi's ideas are still hotly debated, so his conclusions are by no means confirmed. The dataset illustrated by the chart is from the NOAA Earth System Research Laboratory's Physical Sciences Division and can be accessed here.

[Cashmere]

He is pretty well debunked here

Yep.

So you're both on record with that, right? You cite to a blog?

And who writes that blog?

"Tim Lambert (deltoidblog AT gmail.com) is a computer scientist at the University of New South Wales."

Perfect example of unscientific approach of the GW guys.

Here's the interaction:


Anti GW guy says - GW models predict that there should be a hot spot.

Pro GW guy says - "The left [image] shows the pattern predicted for doubling CO2, while the right one shows the pattern for a 2% increase in solar output."

So Pro-GW guy doesn't actually come out and say, "we've found a hot spot." He goes into some distraction about stratospheric cooling. But then, realizing it's weak and he doesn't have the goods, he adds,

"If the hot spot <b>really is missing</b> it does not prove that CO2 is not causing warming, but it would indicate something wrong with the models. (Which might mean that things are worse than what the models predict.)"

!!!!!!!!

Now that, boys, says it all. And I'd like to thank all of you for making it so easy for me to make a good living without working too hard.

1. The guy says, "if the hot spot is really missing"!! He's not even sure! This is a flat out admission that he's unsure.

2. Instead of saying the scientifically accurate thing, giving the missing hot spot, he says, "the model must be wrong", and, in perfect, typical GW hysteria, throws in, "things might be worse!".

This is laugh out loud funny.

The GW cite to a blog entry by a guy who is not, by their own litmus, qualified to comment, and the guy's blog entry is a bloody mess.

What the guy should have said, were he honest, is - - - "there is no hot spot, and that is evidence that tends to make anthropomorphic GW less likely, but there is a chance that the models are incorrect, which needs further study."

But no.

Mr. Hysteria makes clear he is clueless, then throws in "maybe things are even worse!".

There are 3 types of people reading this thread.

If you are type 3, which means you are unsure about whether GW is caused by humans in whole or any part, they I strongly encourage you to read the OP's citation and that author's suggestion that a missing hot spot means that global warming is not being caused by a green house effect, and the deltoid blog link cited above.

Read both.

Read my comments on the deltoid blog.

Ask yourself, who seems more reasonable.

For your GW guys who cited to the blog - thanks! The inherent hysteria in Deltoid's response would have been the perfect example for me to cite!

Jeez, usually the other side makes me do all of my own leg work!

<b><i>if the hot spot is REALLY missing</b></i>

!!


Killing me here!

Hah!

[jbrovont]

I found a site where you can access maps and data from balloon launches for US weather balloons.

link

I also did some research on the cooling trend and found this in the wiki related to J. Hansen:

In August 2007 blogger Stephen McIntyre noticed that many U.S. temperature records from the Historical Climatology Network (USHCN) displayed a discontinuity around the year 2000. NASA corrected the data and reported that "data for 2000 and later years were inadvertently appended to USHCN data for prior years without including the adjustments at these stations that had been defined by the NOAA National Climate Data Center."[30] The correction resulted in a slight (0.15 degree C) decrease in U.S. average temperatures post-2000, and 1934 replaced 1998 as the warmest year in the U.S. Note that the years have changed rankings before: in a 2001 paper 1934 was marginally warmer than 1998. Hansen argues that using yearly rankings in this way magnifies tiny differences, and that addition of new data to an analysis always causes values to fluctuate slightly. He further states that the difference between the 1934 and 1998 temperatures is insignificant and that the adjustment effect on the global temperature record is invisible

On the topic of computer models, this article from 1995 by Ralph Khan is available at the NASA JPL Misr site.

By including the effects of aerosols, the models show unprecedented agreement with the 100-year historical record. Increased confidence in the model results is the key element behind the IPCC's new findings.

It's older, and a quick read, but combine this with Chinda burning lots of coal, and we may have a good candidate for a cooling effect.

Link

But, since we're questioning models, I would like to point out that the 10km hot spot is suggested by a model. It's absence in the presence of repeated measurements means that

a) CO2 isn't to blame or
b) the model doesn't work.

Since the paper in question cited a corresponding aberation in humidity, I did some searching on that and outgoing long-wave radiation (IR leaving the Earth) and found this excerpt from an article from the Hadley Center for Climate Prediction and Research (based on the Hadley Center Climate Model) ca. 2007

Stratospheric cooling causes decreases of the OLR in the carbon-dioxide and ozone bands, whilst surface warming increases the OLR in the region of the atmospheric window. The signal in the water-vapour bands is more subtle, due to a near cancellation between the effects of changes in atmospheric temperatures and specific humidities that have little impact on the relative humidity. The residual signal is shown to be related to small changes in upper-tropospheric relative humidity, although at some latitudes this relationship breaks down.

This took some digging, but here's the actual data, and some of the other predicted signatures made by the same model:



Predicted:

Zonal mean simulated atmospheric temperature change (ºC per century, 1890-1999), from two natural causes, three anthropogenic causes and one combined cause, simulated by the UN’s PCM model. The “hot-spot” signature of greenhouse warming is visible in (c) and (f). (IPCC, 2007, p. 675, based on Santer et al, 2003. See also IPCC, 2007, Appendix 9C).


The UN’s diagram shows the pattern of zonal mean simulated atmospheric temperature change from 1890 to 1999, in °C per century from six causes –

(a) natural radiative forcing from changes in solar activity;
(b) natural radiative forcing from changes in volcanic activity;
(c) anthropogenic radiative forcing from emissions of CO2 and other well-mixed greenhouse gases;
(d) anthropogenic radiative forcing from changes in tropospheric and stratospheric ozone;
(e) anthropogenic radiative forcing from pollutant sulphate aerosol particles emitted to the atmosphere; and
(f) all natural and anthropogenic forcings combined.

link

Immediately notice that the observed pattern doesn't match CO2's projected signature? Check. Also notice that it doesn't match natural warming signatures from solar radiance or volcanic activity. This came from an article also disputing APGW.

The model's projections don't look anything remotely close to what's actually happening, so I submit that we're probably just looking at a simulation that doesn't work. Therefore, since the dispute is based on the lack of the predicted 10k signature (actually from 8km to 12 km), and the model does not appear able to predict reality, it doesn't look very useful at proving or disproving causality.

[dissident]

The figure supposedly "proving" that there is no tropical troposphere temperature trend is obvious garbage. Where is the tropopause? It is not an accident that you can see the outline of the tropopause in all the model results. There are very sharp gradients at the tropopause that show up in anomaly plots since the stratospheric response is different from that of the troposphere. So we have one clown producing some BS plot while the rest of the world sees characteristic temperature changes in the troposphere from the same balloon and satellite data. Also, what is the crap about "UN climate models". There are no such things. There are GCM groups in the US, UK, Canada and other countries that can afford them. They don't work for the UN.

[jbrovont]

Excellent points! Maybe the tropopause is missing too, and that combined with the light reflected off Venus combobulating with the frequency response of Kryponite gas in the terrestriasphere proves that the Earth is about to go into an ice age.

I have to /agree with dissident here 100% - there seems to be too much wrong with the source information for this argument supposedly disproving greenhouse warming from the lack of the 10km zone heating. And I did some looking around - he's right - there is no "UN" climate model.

The figure supposedly "proving" that there is no tropical troposphere temperature trend is obvious garbage. Where is the tropopause? It is not an accident that you can see the outline of the tropopause in all the model results. There are very sharp gradients at the tropopause that show up in anomaly plots since the stratospheric response is different from that of the troposphere. So we have one clown producing some BS plot while the rest of the world sees characteristic temperature changes in the troposphere from the same balloon and satellite data. Also, what is the crap about "UN climate models". There are no such things. There are GCM groups in the US, UK, Canada and other countries that can afford them. They don't work for the UN.

[Vogelzang]

EPA to monitor eBay sales of personal carbon emissions

By: Scott Ott
Examiner Columnist

A little-noticed provision of President Obama's cap-and-trade plan to regulate greenhouse gases authorizes the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to monitor the sale of personal carbon dioxide offsets on eBay and Craigslist.

Carbon dioxide, a toxic gas exhaled by every American citizen as well as by domesticated and wild animals, recently came under the regulatory umbrella of the EPA, then moved to the head of the list of clear and present dangers to life on earth.

"Just as corporate carbon offsets penalize companies that manufacture things that experts say most Americans could live without," an unnamed EPA source said, "personal carbon offsets help people to make more planet-friendly lifestyle choices."

"Once the carbon dioxide emissions cap is in place," said the EPA official, "then those citizens whose exertions, or sheer immensity, generate outputs above federally-permitted levels, must purchase offsets from less hazardous citizens. Craigslist and eBay provide the ideal platform for this exchange, since most carbon-offset sellers already spend most of their time online."

"This could be a real goldmine for shallow breathers, you know, couch potatoes," the EPA source said. "And for those who over-exert, spewing out earth-threatening gas at an alarming rate, the penalty of paying for these offsets may induce them to reconsider the cost to humanity of all of that breathing."

Obama, who has had his own "lifelong struggle with excessive exhalation" due to frequent speeches and pickup basketball games, said he plans to purchase his personal offsets on eBay.

"My eBay watch list right now includes a lethargic 17-year-old gamer, and a middle-aged woman who just loves HGTV but never works in her home or garden," the president said. "I'm the leading bidder on both, and I'm hoping to get one of them for something less than the 'Buy it Now' price."

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opini ... 17952.html

[green_achers]

I think you mean "emission credits." Otherwise, it would be silly.

[timmac]

Are carbon credits for sale now ??.

So lets say I never buy any credits, can I still drive my RV in the future [coming years], or do I have to sell it, who is going to be the police, who is going to check my miles I drive, who checks how big my house is, does my house have 1 or 2 A/C systems, etc, etc, or is this just for big business.

Does anyone here know about the carbon credit sells and how does it affect the normal little guy..

Oh yea one more thing, who gets the money for the credits ???

[Sixstrings]

Ebay? Cragislist? This is insanity. What's next, Nigerian emission credit scams?

[Vogelzang]

Clean Energy and Security Act brings auditors into your home
July 1, 3:57 PM

H.R. 2454 is a 1400-page promise to audit every aspect of your home and life under the guise of creating jobs, clean energy and a sustainable world. However, before we get into the bill lets examine the way it’s been handled.

The secrecy of the bill and the speed of which the legislation is being railroaded is quite alarming. The last two times I’ve seen this was with the Patriot Act and TARP legislation.
Congressman Ron Paul told the Washington Times that no one was allowed to read the Patriot Act, and for that, we received one of the most anti-American legislations we’ve ever seen. Complete with secret arrests, indefinite detentions and forced DNA collection from “suspected terrorists.”
TARP had similar shenanigans, it was rushed through the house, no one could read it and threats of Marshal Law were made. Rep. Brad Sherman tells us in the clip what happened behind closed doors.

http://www.examiner.com/x-14613-Kansas- ... -your-home

http://www.prisonplanet.com/bureaucrats ... -bill.html

[pablonite]

For all your daily carbon offset transactions you might want to spend a minute or 3 everyday at this site to keep abreast of things...

http://www.carbonoffsetsdaily.com/

Of course it won't take long to find somewhere in 1400 pages of gobbledeygook a way to charge for each page view on the internets.

Extra for those dirty, filthy complex images

http://www.carbonoffsetsdaily.com/top-s ... h-3697.htm
Wissner-Gross has also calculated the CO2 emissions caused by individual use of the internet. His research indicates that viewing a simple web page generates about 0.02g of CO2 per second. This rises tenfold to about 0.2g of CO2 a second when viewing a website with complex images, animations or videos.

[Ferretlover]

Shell plans to use two depleted gas fields at Barendrecht to store CO2
from the Pernis refinery. This will be a demonstration project.
Go to http://www.shell.com to read an interview with Margriet Kuijper.