Green World Trust

[FerdiEgb]

[Lucy Skywalker]

Just a quickie - I need to evaluate more that's written here in this thread, but I've updated the web page which is starting to look more like a proper research job - though God forbid that it should ever get lost in jargon and remote from this wonderful opportunity for online "peer-reviewing" from newcomers as well as specialists!

[Lucy Skywalker]

Still gotta work bit by bit, Beck and Jaworowski later! Ferdinand, your expertise is flooring me!! but also the fact that I neither totally agree nor totally disagree with you, is teaching me a heck of a lot, thanks. BTW, anyone needing "glossary" explanations please speak up, it helps not get too presumptive that everyone understands. Ferdinand, when you say "I will remake the century trend with the SST" will you put it onto your (very interesting) web page? I think it would be good if you refer us to your website as much as poss - with just a little teaser introduction! And what are "residuals"?

I've finally been looking at the whole of your CO2 page so I can see where you are at. Also been reading this January's Watts Up post from Roy Spencer on "oceans driving CO2" where you have contributed... A LOT... whew! I really start to wonder, who am I to argue? what the **** have I taken on? but at the same time, these feelings impel me to continue since a vital part of Reclaiming Climate Science is to make it once again ACCESSIBLE to ordinary folk.

Your website: one piece that jumps out is the r=.99 correlation between atmospheric CO2 and cumulative [manmade?] emissions. I'm filing this into my "think about it" along with Norm K (06:40:43) from Roy Spencer's thread:

[Lucy Skywalker]

Ian, fascinating about the oak proxy measurement for ancient CO2. Maybe it needs a separate thread.

This is an organic project that (sometimes) seems too big for me and (sometimes) seems wow, growing, and one just has to try to let it grow in the best way, not knowing exactly where this will take us... but...

I want to keep the focus on DISTILLING science wisdom to make stuff ACCESSIBLE again - reclaiming the science -

wow wow isn't this like what trees do, branch out then sequester all that yummy CO2?

[Questioning_Climate]

May I suggest the following paper:

ftp://sidads.colorado.edu/pub/DATASETS/AGDC/severinghaus_nsidc_0290/

The paper is available as a pdf, but you will also find the data.

It shows that fractionation takes place in both the firn and the ice at close-off. This is just one of many papers showing similar results. Humans cannot be attributed to changes in the concentrations of all gases and gas isotopes.
_________________
"Correlation is NOT Causation"

[FerdiEgb]

[FerdiEgb]

[Lucy Skywalker]

Ferdinand
I still haven't quite faced your mammoth debate with Spencer et al. I'm coming to feel you may have a point about increasing manmade CO2. However, I'm far from convinced, because knowing the huge size of the annual biological flux and the ability of plants to grow better with more CO2, at the levels we're dealing with, logic tells me the plants will, in time, sequester the lot; and maybe the oceans are still outgassing as the slow ocean currents can be quite a way behind the sun's changes.

Re 12C/13C - I'm sure I've read somewhere that this is affected, like O3 and 10Be, by the cosmic ray flux - and must therefore be taken into account - but I have no details here.

My sympathies re stretching too far.

[Lucy Skywalker]

Ferdinand
I'm trying to read your science debate with Spencer, and your own page, and six times I've tried and fallen asleep...

What are the lessons from this? for there are some interesting lessons:
(1) sympathy for Prof Bob Carter, describing Climate Science as a young science, where all the answers are not yet known
(2) sympathy for the many AGW who get "word-blinded" by the science and just go for the easiest option
(3) remember that even many peer-ref'd science papers get overturned quite quickly
(4) go back to my hunches
(5) look for basics that skeptics CAN agree, to present a sufficiently informed and united front for AGW to be forced to take us seriously.

I shall continue trying with your science. I still feel that since the flux turnover is so huge, and since plants grow more with increased CO2, it should be possible to easily absorb that extra human contribution. In which case, is it the Sun raising the CO2 level to a new "pressure" level, which would still have happened even if there had been no human contribution at all? Is the CO2 level we measure an index of PRESSURE, determined by the Sun, however much CO2 we put out, and not at all an index of ABSOLUTE QUANTITY?

I DON'T KNOW.

[FerdiEgb]

[Lucy Skywalker]

Hi Ferdinand
Yes I have taken on your point that there is a net sink of CO2. You also say "it is the difference that counts" and while I agree with you that this is significant, I regard the huge annual flux as equally significant. I'll try to spell it out more slowly.

Suppose that the level of CO2 in ppm represents, not a FIXED amount but a HEAD OF PRESSURE? Suppose that if the head of pressure goes up, this means simply that more CO2 gets sequestered than would have otherwise have been the case - CO2 flowing more efficiently through the system into the plants? You can imagine doing an experiment - two vessels full of water with a narrow pipe out the bottom. One vessel is 1m. above the narrow pipe, the other is 2m. above the narrow pipe. Which will lose more water in a set time - no matter where the water comes from? The one with the higher pressure.

I still have the picture of the biosphere providing an UNENDING potential sink for any extra CO2. And, with my picture of pressure above, suppose it could be the Sun providing the pressure, or the oceans' delayed outgassing? We know that the CO2 output can lag temperature by 800 years.

This still does not answer the 13C question. But here too, I would not like to assume too soon that there is no other explanation. That was the AGW original mistake!!!! God forbid we should repeat that one!

Therefore, I hear your reasonable arguments but do not feel sure enough to say, the science is proven. I could, however, edit my primer to this effect... unless you have more words of wisdom, or unless stuff jumps out when I can better grasp your debate on the Spencer threads... I had hoped to clinch this issue since it is important in helping people not worry about catastrophic climate change. But I'm really not sure we can - yet!

[ian]

Hey Lucy, for someone who describes herself as a layperson I really admire both your ability to absorb complex scientific concepts and your dedication to this site. Sometimes I feel as if I am a bit of a dead weight in these discussions because the more i read the more confused I become. I think I need to go to the local library and pick up a 'dummies guide to Physics' so I can at least fathom the terminology and get some basic grounding.

What I really want to express is my gratitude for all your dedication and hope that in the not too distant future I can contribute in some way.
Best wishes, ian

[Lucy Skywalker]

thanks Ian
hahahaha, I cannot get my head around a lot of the science myself! I've tried, where this has happened, to take other approaches... basically, the lawyer's approach... plus spirituality - I mean, simply paying attention to little intuitive clues...

(1) all the time I'm asking, what are the core issues? Do I really need to understand this bit, or is it just bluster (and is it sufficiently proveable, that this is just bluster?), or is there someone else I can trust who has done the work for me? Is this the work I am meant to be doing, in the cosmic scheme of things? This might sound silly or unproductive but over time I believe it builds up a whole resilience...

(2) on the physics of the greenhouse effect, I've quoted Monckton. Both the papers he's written and his hobby of puzzle design show he is an able and versatile mathematician. The fact that he answered Schmidt's "Cuckoo Science" line for line but Schmidt never responded, speaks volumes. Clearly Schmidt could not answer. Therefore I trust Monckton - even though I still have not followed the details right through!

(3) on the statistics of the hockey stick, I would be completely floored, but I trust the peer-review process at Climate Audit because I can see that Steve Mac is not the only capable statistician there, and it is all gloriously transparent. Jeff Id has produced some very interesting material but I'd like to see Tamino's and Gavin Schmidt's take on it, and see how Jeff can respond... then I would trust it! Tamino has his uses.

(4) this here oceans effect and the 13C and 12C... at the gross level, I'm frustrated. However, the whole experience is teaching me important items... I am sure the science is important here, but I've also come to feel that this is an area of Climate Science, as with the measurability and predictability of the Greenhouse Gas effect, where the fact this is a young science is particularly pertinent... I am not yet sure we have proved enough, though some might like to claim we have... all very watery ideas, this seems quite appropriate for an oceanic concept...

...aha!...

...when the inner experience ("watery") and the outer material ("oceans effects") come together, this is the sort of pregnant moment, the sense of heightened awareness, when I am likely to get a flash of realization... and there is extensive evidence that this is how all the greatest scientists have experienced their great moments of discovery... I trust in the vital contribution of the intuition to hard discoveries, and, trusting the intuition, I stay with it, so that even when I seem to be getting nowhere, I note and trust my intuitive feelings about this too... I get the feeling that this is why Great Spirit has put me on the path of Science, to reopen this trust for others again...

Have I lost you now, do you now see I'm just another idiot? However - I first thought Floor Anthoni had lost the plot, when he explained to me about the "atmospheric pipe effect"... then it suddenly clicked and I realized this was a crucial item of understanding the fluid dynamics of the oceans affecting CO2 levels... and he's now written up a whole section because I told him my experience. Cutting edge stuff, wow!

[Questioning_Climate]

Take a look at the mixing ratio of the gases with depth. Nearly all show a change through the firn. At pore close-off there is a pronounced change in slope. They all do it to some degree.

Why should CO2 be singled out as being different to the others?

In order for any substance to retain a permanent record of a gaseous mixture trapped within it, it has to form a closed system. Moreover, the concentration must not be affected during the capture process.
_________________
"Correlation is NOT Causation"

[FerdiEgb]