Originally Posted by Tristan

The interesting thing is that since 1800 greenhouse emissions have risen by 100 parts per million and could rise by another 100,200 or even 300 parts per million.

It's going to rise by a helluva lot more than 100-300 ppm.

Mike, do you have anything showing the relationship between the price of oil and the price in the U.S. of oil products (gasoline, heating oil, etc.)?

Originally Posted by Brian Rush

Mike, do you have anything showing the relationship between the price of oil and the price in the U.S. of oil products (gasoline, heating oil, etc.)?

He has weekly charts going back to '95. Products track crude most of the time. Right now seems to be the products leading crude.

http://bohl.minot.com/

http://www.physorg.com/news96428666.html

Japan, US eye emission-free coal plant


Japan and the United States will lead a five-nation project to develop a coal-fired power plant which discharges no carbon dioxide into the air, a press report said Sunday.

The five nations, including China, India and South Korea, are expected to sign a deal this year on technological cooperation for the project, the leading business daily Nikkei said quoting Japanese government sources.

The new plant will cut carbon dioxide emissions by some 20 percent from the level of conventional models by gasifying coal with oxygen before burning it.

Then the carbon dioxide generated at the plant will be liquefied and locked in an underground storage facility, the report said.

At their meeting next Friday, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and US President George W. Bush are expected to reaffirm cooperation in combating global warming, it said.

The paper said that Tokyo aims to strengthen its alliance with Washington in the development of technology to control carbon dioxide emissions amid intensifying competition with Europe.

A pilot plant, with a relatively small capacity of about 280,000 kilowatts, will be built in the United States, with each of the four other countries contributing at least 10 million dollars to the project, the Nikkei said.

Most of the cost, estimated to top one billion dollars, will be borne by the United States, with Japan and other participants supplying technology.

The costs of building and operating the new power plant will initially be twice as much as a conventional coal power station. But the costs will be reduced to make the project profitable by the 2020s, it said.

Originally Posted by salsabob

http://www.physorg.com/news96428666.html

The costs of building and operating the new power plant will initially be twice as much as a conventional coal power station. But the costs will be reduced to make the project profitable by the 2020s, it said.

I think the technology ought to be developed, but don't see how the costs of storing all the carbon will be reduced to make it competitive with the old high pollution sites. I suspect some sort of 'incentive' (tax on carbon or some such) will be required before it happens at a large scale.

But this could well happen.

I'll also repeat the notion that we should be starting to develop several alternative solutions at this point, not betting the farm on one technology. We have this, the fusion reactor in France, and how many others?

Originally Posted by Bob Butler 54

I think the technology ought to be developed, but don't see how the costs of storing all the carbon will be reduced to make it competitive with the old high pollution sites. I suspect some sort of 'incentive' (tax on carbon or some such) will be required before it happens at a large scale.

But this could well happen.

I'll also repeat the notion that we should be starting to develop several alternative solutions at this point, not betting the farm on one technology. We have this, the fusion reactor in France, and how many others?

How about this scenario!

http://www.physorg.com/news96631073.html

In a recent study, scientists have demonstrated that a hybrid system of hydrogen and carbon can produce a sufficient amount of liquid hydrocarbon fuels to power the entire U.S. transportation sector. Using biomass to produce the carbon, and solar energy to produce hydrogen, the process requires only a fraction of the land area needed by other proposed methods.

According to Purdue University scientists Rakesh Agrawal, Navneet Singh, Fabio Ribeiro, and Nicholas Delgass, this appealing scenario is well within reach of current or near-future technology.

Enough technology exists to build the main concept of this process today,” Agrawal told PhysOrg.com. “H2CAR could also endure sustainably for thousands of years. [We hope that] this process will lead to the birth of a new economy, a ‘hybrid hydrogen-carbon economy.’”

The hybrid hydrogen-carbon (H2CAR) process takes advantage of the energy density of liquid hydrocarbons (currently provided from oil), but it uses a sustainable and environmentally-friendly method. Because the fuel is essentially the same, though, the H2CAR process could conveniently merge into the existing infrastructure and bypass delivery problems associated with other alternative energy carriers.

In their paper published in PNAS, Agrawal et al. analyzed and compared different variations of the H2CAR process. They found that an optimal method would use biomass (such as switchgrass or corn) to provide the carbon. The main source of energy driving the process would come from hydrogen. The hydrogen could be generated from solar energy or another carbon-free energy source, such as nuclear or wind power.

“Conventional processes treat biomass as a source of carbon atoms as well as a source of energy,” Agrawal explained. “This leads to the formation of a large amount of CO2 during the conversion process. The significance of the H2CAR process, on the other hand, lies in the fact that we are treating carbon in biomass or coal as primarily a source of carbon atoms and not a source of energy. This preserves all the carbon in the biomass and converts it to liquid fuel.”

The scientists explain how the gasification and liquid conversion processes work: In a conventional process biomass, O2 and steam are fed together to a gasifier, where they are transformed to gaseous products—primarily CO, CO2 and H2—through a gasification and combustion process. In this gasification gives CO plus H2 and a huge amount of CO2.

The next step is to transform the gas to a liquid fuel in a Fischer-Tropsch process, where an additional quantity of CO2 is produced. Usually, this large quantity of CO2 formed is released in the atmosphere and requires large amounts of land for the biomass-to-liquid process.

“The H2CAR method has a solution to these problems,” Agrawal explained. “H2 from a carbon-free energy source, along with CO2 from the gas to liquid conversion step, is co-fed to the gasifier. The presence of excess H2 in the gasifier not only suppresses formation of CO2 but also reacts with some of the recycled CO2. The same happens with CO and H2, which are unreacted in a ‘gas to liquid fuel process’ and also recycled. As a result, we don't lose any carbon atoms as CO2, a greenhouse gas, from the H2CAR.”

One concern about the use of biomass to produce fuel is the estimated amount of land area: in conventional methods, biomass would require 25-58% of the total U.S. land area to provide fuel for the country. Based on the current scenario of growth rates and gasifier efficiencies, the scientists estimate the H2CAR process to require about 15% of the land—and with reasonable future projections, just 6%. Significantly, this scenario would avoid the land competition with food growth.

This study comes nearly on the heels of the 2005 “Billion Ton Biomass Study,” which estimated that the current amount of recoverable biomass could meet just 30% of the U.S. transportation needs. But because the H2CAR process supplements biomass with hydrogen, the same amount of biomass could provide liquid fuels for nearly 100% of U.S. transportation needs, according to Agrawal et al.’s estimates.

“The reason for significant decrease in land area requirement for the H2CAR process as compared to conventional processes is that hydrogen production from solar energy is an order of magnitude more efficient than biomass growth, which typically grows with an average energy efficiency of less than 1%,” Agrawal explained. “This decreases the land area required to produce same quantity of liquid fuel by a factor of nearly one-third.”

As the scientists conclude, H2CAR solves many problems simultaneously.

“One is that it eliminates the need for CO2 sequestration from the chemical processing system,” Agrawal said. “The second is that it solves the grand challenge associated with hydrogen storage problem by storing the carbon-free hydrogen at a much higher storage density than currently known methods available. The third advantage is it needs nearly one-third biomass and, hence, land area to produce the same quantity of liquid fuel.”

As amazing as that sounds, the scientists also suggest that, when combined with other technologies such as plug-in hybrid electric vehicles—which can run short distances on electricity and solar cells—the H2CAR process would provide the greatest value. Liquid fuels would only need to provide for less than half of the total driving distance in the U.S., bringing up the possibility that excess biomass could be used for residential and commercial power. The scientists also point out that, in this scenario, the U.S. could even become an exporter of oil.

“The question that remains is of economics and not feasibility,” said Agrawal. “We are currently looking into the economics of the process. Major obstacles are attracting funding for research because gasification routes are generally capital intensive. Other obstacles include decreasing the price of hydrogen available from renewable sources such as solar, etc.” Another of Agrawal’s research areas is on making cost-effective solar cells.

Citation: Agrawal, Rakesh, Singh, Navneet R., Ribeiro, Fabio H., and Delgass, W. Nicholas. “Sustainable fuel for the transportation sector.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. March 20, 2007, vol. 104, no. 12, 4828-2833.

Free access to the article is available at http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/full/104/12/4828 .

This technology doesn't make sense. Chemically what they are doing is this:

1.1 H2 + CH2O --> CH2.2 + H2O

Here CH2O is a generic formula fro carbohydrate and CH2.2 is a generic formula for hydrocarbons. The hydrogen is produced from water via electrolysis so the process becomes (equations all on a gram-mole basis):

0.1 H2O + 63 kcal (electric) + CH2O --> CH2.2 + 0.55 O2

Suppose the electricity comes from a nuclear plant with basal efficiency of 0.38. Then the thermal energy required for the process would be 157 kcal. The energy content of a CH2.2 hydrocarbon is 157 kcal/mol. Thus the net process comes to:

O2 + CH2O + 157 kcal (nuke) --> H2O +CO2 + 157 kcal (fuel)

Biomass is burned to produce no net energy, but merely to facilitate the conversion of nuclear energy into chemical (fuel) energy.

It seems to me that it makes more sense to use the electricity directly in electric-hybrid cars. Such cars, if made from lightweight composites (which will be available by the time this technology would be developed) would get ~100 mpg on gasoline or a biofuel equivalent. That is, a transportation sector consisting of high efficiency vehicles might require 20-25% of the fuel the current one does. We can grow sufficient biomass to produce fuels for this more efficient sector. (Here I am assuming ethanol and biodiesel from non-food crops--which also will be available by the time this other technology can be developed).

For me the real question is what will we heat our homes with after natural gas is gone? Obviously if gas is gone then so is fuel oil. I can't imagine going back to coal. An attractive choice might be hydrogen produced from coal or biomass with CO2 sequestration:

C + 2 H2O + 20 kcal (heat) --> CO2 + 2 H2 or
CH2O + H2O + 20 kcal (heat) --> CO2 + 2 H2

Compare to the 114 kcal of electrical energy (ca. 290 kcal heat) needed to produce hydrogen from water via electrolysis.

The H2 would be produced at sites where sequestration is feasible (i.e. near places where natural gas or oil used to be produced). It would then be fed into the existing natural gas distribution system. The H2 would be contaminated with toxic carbon monoxide. The process would have to be adjusted to give a stream in which the toxic level of CO does not exceed the flammability level for the mixture. We already have a home heating system designed to deal with danger due to flammability. As long as toxicity is not a problem below explosion hazard levels then the existing safety features (i.e. introduction of ethyl mercaptan as an odorant, automatic gas shutoff in furnaces, etc.) should suffice for the new fuel.

The process above would be useful for producing hydrocarbons for use as chemical feedstocks. Here it is the hydrocarbon itself that is desirable, not the energy that comes from burning it. The energy needed could be produced by solar. Solar's lack of continuous availability (desirable for electrical power generation) is not a drawback for manufacture of chemical feedstocks.

Originally Posted by Mikebert

Not exactly. I was getting at that reality is a matter of consensus. For example if six people agree that the person whom Dr. Nash is talking to isn't there, it is Dr Nash who is the schizophrenic.

So if you go to a conference sponsored by these people
http://www.alaska.net/~clund/e_djubl...rthsociety.htm
and you are the only one who believes the Earth is round...?

Originally Posted by Mikebert

This technology doesn't make sense. Chemically what they are doing is this:

1.1 H2 + CH2O --> CH2.2 + H2O

Here CH2O is a generic formula fro carbohydrate and CH2.2 is a generic formula for hydrocarbons. The hydrogen is produced from water via electrolysis so the process becomes (equations all on a gram-mole basis):

0.1 H2O + 63 kcal (electric) + CH2O --> CH2.2 + 0.55 O2

Suppose the electricity comes from a nuclear plant with basal efficiency of 0.38. Then the thermal energy required for the process would be 157 kcal. The energy content of a CH2.2 hydrocarbon is 157 kcal/mol. Thus the net process comes to:

O2 + CH2O + 157 kcal (nuke) --> H2O +CO2 + 157 kcal (fuel)

Biomass is burned to produce no net energy, but merely to facilitate the conversion of nuclear energy into chemical (fuel) energy.

It seems to me that it makes more sense to use the electricity directly in electric-hybrid cars. Such cars, if made from lightweight composites (which will be available by the time this technology would be developed) would get ~100 mpg on gasoline or a biofuel equivalent. That is, a transportation sector consisting of high efficiency vehicles might require 20-25% of the fuel the current one does. We can grow sufficient biomass to produce fuels for this more efficient sector. (Here I am assuming ethanol and biodiesel from non-food crops--which also will be available by the time this other technology can be developed).

For me the real question is what will we heat our homes with after natural gas is gone? Obviously if gas is gone then so is fuel oil. I can't imagine going back to coal. An attractive choice might be hydrogen produced from coal or biomass with CO2 sequestration:

C + 2 H2O + 20 kcal (heat) --> CO2 + 2 H2 or
CH2O + H2O + 20 kcal (heat) --> CO2 + 2 H2

Compare to the 114 kcal of electrical energy (ca. 290 kcal heat) needed to produce hydrogen from water via electrolysis.

The H2 would be produced at sites where sequestration is feasible (i.e. near places where natural gas or oil used to be produced). It would then be fed into the existing natural gas distribution system. The H2 would be contaminated with toxic carbon monoxide. The process would have to be adjusted to give a stream in which the toxic level of CO does not exceed the flammability level for the mixture. We already have a home heating system designed to deal with danger due to flammability. As long as toxicity is not a problem below explosion hazard levels then the existing safety features (i.e. introduction of ethyl mercaptan as an odorant, automatic gas shutoff in furnaces, etc.) should suffice for the new fuel.

The process above would be useful for producing hydrocarbons for use as chemical feedstocks. Here it is the hydrocarbon itself that is desirable, not the energy that comes from burning it. The energy needed could be produced by solar. Solar's lack of continuous availability (desirable for electrical power generation) is not a drawback for manufacture of chemical feedstocks.

Okay, but maybe you'll like these numbers better -

A 2006 study found that the average American walks about 900 miles per year.

Another study found that Americans drink an average of 22 gallons of beer
per year.

That means, on average, Americans get 41 miles per gallon

;-)

Originally Posted by salsabob

Okay, but maybe you'll like these numbers better -

A 2006 study found that the average American walks about 900 miles per year.

Another study found that Americans drink an average of 22 gallons of beer
per year.

That means, on average, Americans get 41 miles per gallon.

This begins to suggest that if we want Americans to walk more, we have to start brewing more beer? The disadvantage to this approach being that Americans would still walk the same overall distance between bar and home, but relativistic curvature of the universe would make that distance subjectively longer?

Originally Posted by Bob Butler 54

This begins to suggest that if we want Americans to walk more, we have to start brewing more beer? The disadvantage to this approach being that Americans would still walk the same overall distance between bar and home, but relativistic curvature of the universe would make that distance subjectively longer?

I'll drink to that! No, I mean, I'll walk some more! ;-) Have a great weekend!

From the Left

Now imagine two lines on a piece of graph paper. The first rises to a crest, then slopes sharply down, then levels off and rises slowly once more. The other has no undulations. It rises in a smooth, slowly increasing arc. The first, wavy line is the worldwide CO2 tonnage produced by humans burning coal, oil and natural gas. On this graph it starts in 1928, at 1.1 gigatons (i.e. 1.1 billion metric tons). It peaks in 1929 at 1.17 gigatons. The world, led by its mightiest power, the USA, plummets into the Great Depression, and by 1932 human CO2 production has fallen to 0.88 gigatons a year, a 30 per cent drop. Hard times drove a tougher bargain than all the counsels of Al Gore or the jeremiads of the IPCC (Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change). Then, in 1933 it began to climb slowly again, up to 0.9 gigatons.
And the other line, the one ascending so evenly? That's the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere, parts per million (ppm) by volume, moving in 1928 from just under 306, hitting 306 in 1929, to 307 in 1932 and on up. Boom and bust, the line heads up steadily. These days it's at 380.There are, to be sure, seasonal variations in CO2, as measured since 1958 by the instruments on Mauna Loa, Hawai'i. (Pre-1958 measurements are of air bubbles trapped in glacial ice.) Summer and winter vary steadily by about 5 ppm, reflecting photosynthesis cycles. The two lines on that graph proclaim that a whopping 30 per cent cut in man-made CO2 emissions didn't even cause a 1 ppm drop in the atmosphere's CO2. Thus it is impossible to assert that the increase in atmospheric CO2 stems from human burning of fossil fuels....
We're warmer now, because today's world is in the thaw following the last Ice Age. Ice ages correlate with changes in the solar heat we receive, all due to predictable changes in the earth's elliptic orbit round the sun, and in the earth's tilt. As Hertzberg explains, the cyclical heat effect of all of these variables was worked out in great detail between 1915 and 1940 by the Serbian physicist, Milutin Milankovitch, one of the giants of 20th-century astrophysics. In past postglacial cycles, as now, the earth's orbit and tilt gives us more and longer summer days between the equinoxes.
Water covers 71 per cent of the surface of the planet. As compared to the atmosphere, there's at least a hundred times more CO2 in the oceans, dissolved as carbonate. As the postglacial thaw progresses the oceans warm up, and some of the dissolved carbon emits into the atmosphere, just like fizz in soda water taken out of the fridge. "So the greenhouse global warming theory has it ass backwards," Hertzberg concludes. "It is the warming of the earth that is causing the increase of carbon dioxide and not the reverse." He has recently had vivid confirmation of that conclusion. Several new papers show that for the last three quarter million years CO2 changes always lag global temperatures by 800 to 2,600 years.

For edificational purposes only. I'd hardly advocate going against Orthodox Dogma...

Justin, I have been repeating the ocean-as-flattened-soda-pop analogy to global CO2 levels like a broken record, and how it is an immensely greater store of CO2 than all of the fossil fuels combined.

But all I get are condescending remarks about having low intelligence and/or gullibility in the shadow the propaganda of evil oil companies.

Then I answer that gigantic oil companies benefit by creating artificial scarcities and huge regulations, because it inflates the price and keeps out the smaller fry from butting into their place in the catbird seat of geopolitics and economics.

Then they go back and repeat argument number one.

I am not an human-causing global warming denier, but I am a skeptic, and I maintain that it is FAR FAR more complicated than the global information disseminators at Reuters and API would have you believe.

Originally Posted by Ricercar71

Justin, I have been repeating the ocean-as-flattened-soda-pop analogy to global CO2 levels like a broken record, and how it is an immensely greater store of CO2 than all of the fossil fuels combined.

It is, however, a constant. We are concerned with increases in CO2 concentrations, not with total volume, and for that all constants may be ignored. Only variables matter.

Then I answer that gigantic oil companies benefit by creating artificial scarcities and huge regulations, because it inflates the price and keeps out the smaller fry from butting into their place in the catbird seat of geopolitics and economics.

Gigantic oil companies do not, however, benefit by restrictions that do not allow their products to be consumed, and DO benefit from subsidies offered by governments. Moreover, it may be confirmed by observation that the gigantic oil companies are funding propaganda against the anthropogenic global warming idea and not in favor of it, so any theory predicting that the oil companies are going to be in favor of it fails the most basic test of all.

There you go. Responses that do not fit into the pigeonhole categories you have suggested all responses occupy. Perhaps you've never seen these before? Or perhaps you just forgot them?

Originally Posted by Ricercar71

Justin, I have been repeating the ocean-as-flattened-soda-pop analogy to global CO2 levels like a broken record, and how it is an immensely greater store of CO2 than all of the fossil fuels combined... (Snip politics...)

I am not an human-causing global warming denier, but I am a skeptic, and I maintain that it is FAR FAR more complicated than the global information disseminators at Reuters and API would have you believe.

I definitely agree with more complicated. Are you willing to put up with how complicated?

There are cyclical effects working on different time scales. Largest and slowest is the sun moving in and out of galactic arms. This is a very powerful effect, on the order of 15 degrees total swing, but the cycle is over a period of hundreds of millions of years. In terms of the current global warming crisis, its effect is negligible, on the order of 0.0000024 degrees C per century.

There are the Milankovitch cycles. Earth's axis wobbles like a top. Jupiter and Saturn tug at our orbits. The effects might drive ice age / interglacial swings of up to 8 degrees if there are sufficient positive feedback elements. There are many cycles of different lengths, but they are generally measured in the tens of thousands of years. On average, if one gets 8 degrees of change over a cycle of 71,000 years, the changing effect of the Milankovitch cycles are also negligible over the period of a few centuries.

Solar Strength Variations

BP is Before Present

There are sunspot cycles. The base cycles run every 11 years. There are longer cycles which people don't entirely understand. The 'Little Ice Age' shows up in the above chart as the 'Maunder Minimum.' There is good reason to believe there is correlation between solar activity which is in part cyclical and global climate, and the current modern maximum is contributing to current warming. However, the solar cycles are messy enough that predicting the future is not considered reliable. I have heard one suggestion that we are due for another minimum in just under a century.

There are greenhouse gasses, notably CO2, SO2 and methane that cause heat to be retained, global warming. There are particles -- soot -- which cause cloud formation, reflecting sunlight, causing global dimming. fossil fuels, volcanoes, livestock, thawing tundra and the ocean release and / or absorb all of the above in various amounts. Some of these, such as volcanoes, are essentially random. Others, such as the ocean, are relatively predictable.

There are positive feedback elements. If the planet gets warmer to the point the polar ice cap and/or glaciers melts, less light is reflected back into space, and the planet gets warmer. If one melts the permafrost in polar regions, methane is released, which in turn decays into CO2. These greenhouse gases in turn make it warmer. Positive feedback items like this exaggerate trends. If it gets warmer, it gets even warmer. If it gets colder, the same mechanism forces a greater cold.

For much of Earth's History, for example, the Milankovitch cycles did not have that significant effect on climate. In the past 5,000,000 years or so, a small change induced by orbital mechanics results in glaciers forming or melting, which amplifies the effect of the orbital shifts. It is one thing to see how any one given mechanism might work. It is another thing to put them all together into a complex system in a coherent fashion.

Which is where computer models come in. The consensus of the peer reviewed scientific community have models that aren't perfect, but work. The critics don't.

***

I've seen the denialists try to use the ocean absorbing CO2 in two ways. The first argument acknowledges CO2 as a greenhouse gas, but claims the ocean has the capacity to absorb far more gas than humans have released. Thus, it is OK to continue to release more gas.

The problem is the rate of absorption. The oceans can absorb tremendous amounts of gas, but only at a limited rate. You can do fairly simple experiments with sea water and controlled atmosphere, varying the CO2 concentrations in water and air, as well as temperature, and understand the mechanisms of how much can go in what direction how quickly. Simply, humans are releasing CO2 into the air, and the oceans cannot absorb it fast enough. You can measure this in the wild and produce experiments in the lab and that's well established. The oceans are not absorbing man made gasses fast enough.

The second denialist argument is that heating causes the oceans to release CO2. This is true enough on slow time scales. Like melting solar ice, the ocean is a positive feedback mechanism. The warmer it gets, the less CO2 it absorbs, or if there is no surplus source of CO2, as was often the case in prehistoric times, the oceans might release CO2.

This effect is not occurring now. At the moment, there is a surplus of CO2 in the air, which the ocean is attempting to absorb. The net flow of CO2 is from air into ocean, not vice versa. As a result of this scrubbing, the ocean is becoming more acidic. This is not a good thing for marine life. In prior epochs, there have been massive extinctions due to acid oceans. While it is true that the ocean can absorb large amounts of CO2, it is not true that there are no side effects. (There was a Peak Fish thread on this board a while ago that for a while explored various ocean problems. Perhaps it might best be revisited...)

Thus, the notion that heating causes CO2 release from the ocean is good science. The problem is the assertion that CO2 is not a greenhouse gas. Some denialists assert that warming causes CO2 but CO2 doesn't cause warming. The peer reviewed consensus is more complex, and says CO2 causes warming which can cause CO2 release which causes more warming which...

I'll present three counter arguments to CO2 not being a greenhouse gas. The first argument is short and hot. Venus. If CO2 is not a greenhouse gas, why is Venus so hot?

The second is experimental. It is not difficult to shine IR light through air with various concentrations of CO2 and see what happens. Those who assert CO2 is not a greenhouse gas have to ignore the laboratory experiments which say otherwise.

The third is observation here on Earth. I'll repeat a chart I've printed before the last time the 'CO2 is not a greenhouse gas' argument was brought up.



The above reflects a mechanistic model, rather than a statistical. They attempted to measure sunlight, greenhouse gasses, sulfate particles, volcanic ash, etc, and calculate the measured concentrations against the expected net effects. The grey shadows around the modeled lines are the expected 68% and 95% natural variability levels.

The usual denialist argument is that the current models overestimate the effects of CO2, and underestimate the values of solar variation. In the extreme, the blue CO2 curve would be ignored, and the red solar curve would be multiplied by 3.5. There are a few problems with this. The red curve starts steep then turns shallow, while the blue curve starts shallow then turns steep. Also, the red curve shows the distinctive 11 year sunspot cycles. In short, if one removes the blue and amplifies the red, the model does not match the measured reality. In short, the proposed denialist theory does not match the data.

Putting the political grumbling snipped out back in...

Originally Posted by Ricercar71

But all I get are condescending remarks about having low intelligence and/or gullibility in the shadow the propaganda of evil oil companies.

Then I answer that gigantic oil companies benefit by creating artificial scarcities and huge regulations, because it inflates the price and keeps out the smaller fry from butting into their place in the catbird seat of geopolitics and economics.

Then they go back and repeat argument number one.

Yah. You got some of that stuff. It's not very satisfying. I get comparisons to Hitler, alleged membership in the Inquisition, and accusations that my motivation is religious rather than scientific. I sympathize with your complaints about scientific arguments getting political responses. I would prefer to deal more with the science and less with the ad-hominem, strawman and attacks on motives. If you feel the same, we can agree on something.

Still, Mike and I at least have been attempting to answer science with science. I'm still waiting for a report on 'invisible stars.' What sort of object could cause a change in cosmic ray intensity that would drive a .6 degree variation in a century? If such an object caused the 20th Century warming, why did we not observe a change in cosmic ray intensity?

This is the second time I've answered the 'CO2 is not a greenhouse gas' assertion. Justin did not address my position last time, but simply repeated another variation of the same theme. If you want to further allege that CO2 is not a greenhouse gas, be my guest. As far as I know, invisible stars and denying CO2 is a greenhouse gas seem to be the two main 'scientific' assertions from the deinalist side.

I don't feel I'm getting satisfactory scientific answers either. I'll try not to attack your motives if you don't attack mine.

I tried using this same chart back in another thread a while back to convince Justin that the GW, at least for the last 30 years, cannot be predominantly the result of solar influences; it didn't work. His selective hyper-skepticism against anything contradicting his beliefs is ridiculous.

Now imagine two lines on a piece of graph paper. The first rises to a crest, then slopes sharply down, then levels off and rises slowly once more. The other has no undulations. It rises in a smooth, slowly increasing arc. The first, wavy line is the worldwide CO2 tonnage produced by humans burning coal, oil and natural gas. On this graph it starts in 1928, at 1.1 gigatons (i.e. 1.1 billion metric tons). It peaks in 1929 at 1.17 gigatons. The world, led by its mightiest power, the USA, plummets into the Great Depression, and by 1932 human CO2 production has fallen to 0.88 gigatons a year, a 30 per cent drop. Hard times drove a tougher bargain than all the counsels of Al Gore or the jeremiads of the IPCC (Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change). Then, in 1933 it began to climb slowly again, up to 0.9 gigatons.

And the other line, the one ascending so evenly? That's the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere, parts per million (ppm) by volume, moving in 1928 from just under 306, hitting 306 in 1929, to 307 in 1932 and on up. Boom and bust, the line heads up steadily. These days it's at 380.There are, to be sure, seasonal variations in CO2, as measured since 1958 by the instruments on Mauna Loa, Hawaii. (Pre-1958 measurements are of air bubbles trapped in glacial ice.) Summer and winter vary steadily by about 5 ppm, reflecting photosynthesis cycles. The two lines on that graph proclaim that a whopping 30 per cent cut in man-made CO2 emissions didn't even cause a 1 ppm drop in the atmosphere's CO2. Thus it is impossible to assert that the increase in atmospheric CO2 stems from human burning of fossil fuels....

Why should they cause a drop in CO2 level? All that was affected was that the rate of addition declined. One would expect an effect on the rate that CO2 level rises with time. Here are the decadal rate of CO2 rise for the 20th century.

Decade CO2 rise (PPM)
1900's 3.2
1910's 3.3
1920;'s 3.3
1930's 2.8
1940's 2.8
1950's 4.7
1960's 8.3
1970's 12.6
1980's 15.5
1990's 15.5
2000's 22.6

Hmm, sure looks like the rate declined in the 1930's (worldwide depression) and 1940's (worldwide war).

We're warmer now, because today's world is in the thaw following the last Ice Age. Ice ages correlate with changes in the solar heat we receive, all due to predictable changes in the earth's elliptic orbit round the sun, and in the earth's tilt. As Hertzberg explains, the cyclical heat effect of all of these variables was worked out in great detail between 1915 and 1940 by the Serbian physicist, Milutin Milankovitch, one of the giants of 20th-century astrophysics. In past postglacial cycles, as now, the earth's orbit and tilt gives us more and longer summer days between the equinoxes.

Rising temperatures over the last 30 years do not reflect "a thaw" from 11000 years ago. This is simply silly.

As the postglacial thaw progresses the oceans warm up, and some of the dissolved carbon emits into the atmosphere, just like fizz in soda water taken out of the fridge. "So the greenhouse global warming theory has it ass backwards," Hertzberg concludes. "It is the warming of the earth that is causing the increase of carbon dioxide and not the reverse."

Has this guy never taken a physical chemistry course? Has he forgotten Henry's law? CO2 levels in the atmosphere are more than 25% higher than they were a century ago. This is a fact. Henry's law says that a 25% increase in CO2 partial pressure means a 25% increase in CO2 solubility in the oceans. The less than one degree rise in temperature over the past 100 years would serve to reduce the solubility of CO2 by a few percent. Thus the net result has been an increased capacity of the oceans to hold CO2. The net movement of CO2 has been into the oceans, not out. More than half of the CO2 generated by humans over this period is not in the atmosphere, most of it has been absorbed by the oceans.

Originally Posted by Ricercar71

Justin, I have been repeating the ocean-as-flattened-soda-pop analogy to global CO2 levels like a broken record, and how it is an immensely greater store of CO2 than all of the fossil fuels combined.

Don't you have a science background? It's bad enough Justin has forgotten his chemistry, have you too? Henry's Law.

Originally Posted by Odin

I tried using this same chart back in another thread a while back to convince Justin that the GW, at least for the last 30 years, cannot be predominantly the result of solar influences; it didn't work. His selective hyper-skepticism against anything contradicting his beliefs is ridiculous.

I'm not saying you are wrong, but after ranting about Godwin's Law I have to be a good boy and address science rather than world views and politics for a while. I agree, he does tend to repeat arguments which have been rebutted without addressing the rebuttals. After a while, I will likely get tired of repeating rebuttals and stop being polite.

A while back, I posted my own longer version of what you just said.

Originally Posted by Odin

I tried using this same chart back in another thread a while back to convince Justin that the GW, at least for the last 30 years, cannot be predominantly the result of solar influences; it didn't work. His selective hyper-skepticism against anything contradicting his beliefs is ridiculous.

Wrong-O Odin. My reluctance to simply oooh and aaah at pretty wiggly lines without going behind them to find out where they actually came from is what keeps me off any particular of the dogmatic sides. Much like how my disinclination to take one translation-of-millenia-old-book over another millenia-old book's translation as The Truth, unalloyed, keeps me from picking sides in religious conflicts.

Why is it, I wonder, that you think a picture can do your arguing for you? My four year old makes pictures at least as good as the one you keep flogging, but he doesn't try to treat them as if they themselves are some sort of Answer...

In the literature itself of your so-flogged picture, it is explained that the 'forcings' are not scientifically-based, but are rather the result of a series of parallel curve-fitters. That is, the models sole function from an empirical standpoint, is to as closely as possible reproduce the calibration data set from the calibration data inputs (do you understand what those words mean?). Good job. But predictive? No reason to think so.

Originally Posted by Justin '77

Wrong-O Odin. My reluctance to simply oooh and aaah at pretty wiggly lines without going behind them to find out where they actually came from is what keeps me off any particular of the dogmatic sides. Much like how my disinclination to take one translation-of-millenia-old-book over another millenia-old book's translation as The Truth, unalloyed, keeps me from picking sides in religious conflicts.

It came from Meehl, G.A., W.M. Washington, C.A. Ammann, J.M. Arblaster, T.M.L. Wigleym and C. Tebaldi (2004). "Combinations of Natural and Anthropogenic Forcings in Twentieth-Century Climate". Journal of Climate 17: 3721-3727. The article is available on line, but subscription is required.

Originally Posted by Justin '77

Why is it, I wonder, that you think a picture can do your arguing for you? My four year old makes pictures at least as good as the one you keep flogging, but he doesn't try to treat them as if they themselves are some sort of Answer...

In the literature itself of your so-flogged picture, it is explained that the 'forcings' are not scientifically-based, but are rather the result of a series of parallel curve-fitters. That is, the models sole function from an empirical standpoint, is to as closely as possible reproduce the calibration data set from the calibration data inputs (do you understand what those words mean?). Good job. But predictive? No reason to think so.

Big Lie.

This figure, based on Meehl et al. (2004), shows the ability of a global climate model (the DOE PCM [1]) to reconstruct the historical temperature record and the degree to which the associated temperature changes can be decomposed into various forcing factors. The top part of the figure compares a five year average of global temperature measurements (Jones and Moberg 2001) to the Meehl et al. results incorporating the effects of five predetermined forcing factors: greenhouse gases, man-made sulfate emissions, solar variability, ozone changes (both stratospheric and tropospheric), and volcanic emissions (including natural sulfates). The time history and radiative forcing qualities for each of these factors was specified in advance and was not adjusted to specifically match the temperature record.

In short, the Meehl et al paper did not use statistical curve fittings at all. Where did you get that idea? Did you make it up off the top of your head?

Just what are the academic credentials of your four year old? Has he had many of his works published in peer reviewed journals?

You continue to compare scientific methods for determining truth with religious methods. This is again Big Lie. Meehl et al did not depend on ancient translations of holy writ to create the above curves. Did your four year old son use ancient translations of holy writ to create his curves?

The strength of the scientific method is that any competent scientist can go out, get better data, derive better equations, achieve better match of model output to measured reality. If you want to get published, you want to have a better match of output to reality than others who have already published. The peer reviewed scientific consensus models that are getting published use similar values for CO2 forcing. Mike quoted them a while back. The skeptics attempting to suggest CO2 is not a greenhouse gas are not getting published, are not producing models that match the data. The one paper you did quote that supported your position on CO2 was an non-reviewed self published blog.

Give me one reason to take your position seriously? Are you willing to publish the curve produced by your son, along with the data, equations and algorithms he used to produce his curves?

Originally Posted by Bob Butler 54

It came from Meehl, G.A., W.M. Washington, C.A. Ammann, J.M. Arblaster, T.M.L. Wigleym and C. Tebaldi (2004). "Combinations of Natural and Anthropogenic Forcings in Twentieth-Century Climate". Journal of Climate 17: 3721-3727. The article is available on line, but subscription is required.



Big Lie.



In short, the Meehl et al paper did not use statistical curve fittings at all. Where did you get that idea? Did you make it up off the top of your head?

Just what are the academic credentials of your four year old? Has he had many of his works published in peer reviewed journals?

You continue to compare scientific methods for determining truth with religious methods. This is again Big Lie. Meehl et al did not depend on ancient translations of holy writ to create the above curves. Did your four year old son use ancient translations of holy writ to create his curves?

The strength of the scientific method is that any competent scientist can go out, get better data, derive better equations, achieve better match of model output to measured reality. If you want to get published, you want to have a better match of output to reality than others who have already published. The peer reviewed scientific consensus models that are getting published use similar values for CO2 forcing. Mike quoted them a while back. The skeptics attempting to suggest CO2 is not a greenhouse gas are not getting published, are not producing models that match the data. The one paper you did quote that supported your position on CO2 was an non-reviewed self published blog.

Give me one reason to take your position seriously? Are you willing to publish the curve produced by your son, along with the data, equations and algorithms he used to produce his curves?

One thing I've noticed is that AGW denialists, fundamentalists, kooks, ideologues, and charlatans, pull out some reference to the "Argument from Authority" fallacy mixed in with some bastardized reference to Thomas Kuhn whenever one puts peer-reviewed data in front of them. basically it's a way of putting one's fingers on one's and going "I CAN"T HEAR YOU!!!!!"

Originally Posted by Bob Butler 54

It came from Meehl, G.A., W.M. Washington, C.A. Ammann, J.M. Arblaster, T.M.L. Wigleym and C. Tebaldi (2004). "Combinations of Natural and Anthropogenic Forcings in Twentieth-Century Climate". Journal of Climate 17: 3721-3727. The article is available on line, but subscription is required.

Have you read it? (it took me like two seconds to find the full text. Here you go).

It's worth noting that the article you referenced is one purporting only to demonstrate the validity of a statistical method of breaking-down the results of a many-variant model into the results of several fewer-variant models (the summation of which would reproduce the many-variant model). I quote:

It has been assumed in a number of these studies that the response of the climate system to forcing agents is additive such that the response to a combination of forcings is equivalent to the sum of those forcings (e.g., Cubasch et al. 2001). One way to verify that this is correct (or at least a good approximation) is to run a global coupled climate model with single forcings as well as with equivalent combinations of forcings. For example, if AB is the result for A and B together, then one could compare the difference (A 1 B) 2 B with A [or (A 1 B) 2 A with B]. The better the agreement or similarity, the better is the additivity assumption.

No word is given in that particular paper at all as to the source of the coefficients; whether they be scientifically-based, or merely curve-fitted. I direct your attention to the summary tidbit you offered, with some emphasis:

This figure, based on Meehl et al. (2004), shows the ability of a global climate model (the DOE PCM [1]) to reconstruct the historical temperature record and the degree to which the associated temperature changes can be decomposed into various forcing factors. The top part of the figure compares a five year average of global temperature measurements (Jones and Moberg 2001) to the Meehl et al. results incorporating the effects of five predetermined forcing factors: greenhouse gases, man-made sulfate emissions, solar variability, ozone changes (both stratospheric and tropospheric), and volcanic emissions (including natural sulfates). The time history and radiative forcing qualities for each of these factors was specified in advance and was not adjusted to specifically match the temperature record.

Interesting. So, the coefficients were -- from the scope of this paper -- predetermined. How, exactly? I trust you must have an answer to that, since you are so quick to point the liar-finger at me...

It's not in the Meehl paper...

Just what are the academic credentials of your four year old?

Irrelevant. I'm not trying to claim that his drawings have any scientific significance. And Argument from Authority, Bob? I thought you were better than that...

Has he had many of his works published in peer reviewed journals?

His works are frequently reviewed by his peers. You could call the string-and-hole-punch a 'journal', too if you wanted. But again, not the point.

You continue to compare scientific methods for determining truth with religious methods. This is again Big Lie.

It is the Big Lie. That is, the continuous attempt to co-opt the hard-won reputation of science to the support of your unscientific "consensus-driven" methodology.

Meehl et al did not depend on ancient translations of holy writ to create the above curves.

They may has well have; they sure didn't depend on fundamental equations.

Did your four year old son use ancient translations of holy writ to create his curves?

I haven't asked. But again, his pictures aren't meant to explain anything (except maybe, 'this is what my cat looks like').

Give me one reason to take your position seriously?

Don't. You've already made up your mind -- including about the Infallibility of your doctrine -- and I really don't see reason penetrating to one who responds to rational inquiry with the waving of Documents (he himself poorly understands, apparently) and insistence that others have his Faith. I don't consider myself a missionary to the Orthodox. I aim more for the ones who haven't been fully lost yet.

Science is important; but not everyone has to understand that for civilization to keep going.

Am I one of the few who feels that global warming, whatever form you take it in, should not be the end to justify the means?

Is it the only way to convince people to practice environmentally sound policies in terms of gas emissions?

Originally Posted by Justin '77

Interesting. So, the coefficients were -- from the scope of this paper -- predetermined. How, exactly? I trust you must have an answer to that, since you are so quick to point the liar-finger at me...

It's not in the Meehl paper...

You asserted that the forcings were obtained by curve fitting:

Originally Posted by Justin '77

In the literature itself of your so-flogged picture, it is explained that the 'forcings' are not scientifically-based, but are rather the result of a series of parallel curve-fitters. That is, the models sole function from an empirical standpoint, is to as closely as possible reproduce the calibration data set from the calibration data inputs (do you understand what those words mean?).

Solar forcing (total solar irradiation) is measureable, and can be correlated with a variety of solar variables to give reasonably good historical estimates. (No "curve fitting" to temperature here). Levels of greenhouse gases (ghg) are measured, both for modern and historical periods. The forcings are obtained from radiative balance using the Stefan-Boltmann Law and the measured spectra of the ghgs and other parameters. This isn't "curve fitting" either.

So what exactly are you talking about?