Forget Climategate: this ‘global warming’ scandal is much bigger

a reply to: Phage

Yeah, somewhat. I was hoping you would bite and offer an explanation.

The basic problem with the claims are legion.

It seems, correct me if I am wrong, that the whole isotope thing is related to the fact that prehistoric c3 metabolism plants are responsible for most of the hydrocarbons we are burning and hence the burning of those hydrocarbons produces a specific isotope of carbon.

Carbon occurs in three types of atoms: 99% is the most common 12C with six protons and six neutrons in its nucleus, 1% is the slightly heavier 13C with six protons and seven neutrons, and the third isotope, 14C with six protons and eight neutrons, accounts for only 0.0000000001% of carbon atoms. It is unstable with a half-life of 5,730 ± 40 years and, although it is essential for determining the age of organic matter, it plays no part in this discussion. All carbon isotopes are chemically identical, they differ only in weight.

Ergo, the assertion is that 12c is of natural origins and 13c is from the burning of hydrocarbons, no?

Justoneman

So your going to cherry pick data and claim i am off base for answering phage's questions. As n environmental scientist in the field you would want to be aware of all the pollution not just the CO2 so i am stating what we look for when monitoring. AND i agree with all of you who say oil is bad for us in general to use. The point I made is the people who control oil revenues are not giving up and the people who want to tax carbon because they think it is bad are ignoring the alternative ideas that really work like the car that Dr. CLiff Ricketts built and made national news that would solve the problem of carbon. Someone powerful in our governments don't want oil to end as they are going to make money off of taxing us is a theme of my posts.

I am not exactly cherry picking anything here....just throwing pieces of the puzzle out there. CO2 being one large piece.

I am aware, studied this stuff a little in college, did not make a career out of it. I am not cherry picking when I refer to CO2 over and over again. CO2 is a start. We are pumping CO2 in the atmosphere and also measuring a significant increase of CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere. This also coincides with the industrial revolution. Figure out the link....

People have collectively made laws to protect the environment, the Great Lakes are a good example of cleaning up our mess. Locally a fertilizer ban went if effect during the rainy season so the run off will not lead to algae blooms as a result of the excess Nitrogen and other nutrients in the local lagoon. We have environmental problems and sometimes we can collectively come up with solutions.

That said, it is shameful how ill informed the average American is informed about the environment and a plethora of other issues. I am deeply saddened by those who can not see past the BS. It is in our interest to conserve what our planet has to offer, not exploit what is not renewable.

a reply to: mbkennel

When your global climate and health of your civilization is on the line,

Begging the question. AGW is supposed to prove that

1) man did it.

(.0004 of the entire atmosphere) x (.08 at the low energy end of the radiation spectrum) < 0.000032 of the room temperature radiation energy released from the surface of the Earth.

Is there some massive positive feedback mechanism? Otherwise no AGW.

2) Global warming going to be bad.

The Roman Warm Period and the Medieval Climate Optimum were times of easy living, economic prosperity and population growth. The opposite of alarmist hysterical propaganda.

3) That doing what alarmists demand will stop it.

Government programs never solve their problem, they do however provide jobs and power to the collectivists, and decrease wealth and progress through out society.

And during the growing process the CO2 will be absorbed from the atmosphere into biological matter. Hence you'd expect a larger seasonal variation but no secular trend. You get a secular trend when there is a very long term sink or source outside the rapid biological cycle.

Not all growth requires CO2. Some growth produces CO2. Stuff is rotting even as the growing stuff is taking in the additional CO2. Regardless of the graph, more biomass means more CO2 at decomposition.

All politically powerful data are dually suspect.

It isn't an assumption it's a measurement. And the warming hasn't (yet) been so significant to account for the huge increase in CO2 with any feed-forward mechanism. But if there is one, it means that it's going to start getting worse even faster.

If the experts could be trusted, there would have been no housing bubble, great depression, or world wars.

The OP is about manipulated data. None of the models are beyond suspicion either. The Hockey Stick was said to be like a goat, no matter what goes in -- the same thing come out. Also the Hockey Stick had no Medieval Climate Optimum.

Once again, do you really think you have figured something out that the people who do this for a living have forgotten about for 50 years or more?

AGW alarmism is an establishment sponsored industry, it will last as long as our current governance lasts.

“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.” Joseph Goebbels
www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org...

AGW alarmism has got the MSM and the herd of job seeking college graduates. The only thing that has to happen is a little bit of warming. Since the weather cycle is moving out of the little ice age, continued warming is a good bet.

Yes, I was using hyperbole when I said he was predicting water world, but a 20 foot sea level rise would cost billions if not trillions in damage, so it was not by any stretch an insignificant event he was predicting.

As to your other question, what would I consider a significant temperature increase, well at least 3 or 4 degrees, as temperatures according to ice cores have been oscillating by 4 degrees with very little impact from humans for about the last 12000 years. With that said even if the temperature rose 5 degrees next year, that does not necessarily mean the cause is CO2.

a reply to: bbracken677

Ergo, the assertion is that 12c is of natural origins and 13C is from the burning of hydrocarbons, no?

No, you have it quite wrong (actually backwards, pretty much) both are produced by "natural" origins. The burning of hydrocarbons produces both 12C and 13C because the plants absorb both. But plants retain more 12C than they do 13c so when their products (like forests and fossil fuels) are burned, more 12c than 13C is released. The result is an increase in the ratio of 12C to 13C.

You say that C14 is irrelevant but that is not the case. Since fossil fuels are plant material which died millions of years ago, it contains no C14, its gone away due to radioactive decay. Burn some recent dead plants and you will not change the C14 ratio because you are adding "new" carbon to the atmosphere. Burn fossil fuels and you will see a decline in the ratio because you are adding old "depleted" carbon.

The relative increase in 12C tells us that the source of the increased carbon is plant material. The relative decrease in 14C tells is that it is very old plant material.

a reply to: proximo

so it was not by any stretch an insignificant event he was predicting.

When did he say we could expect a 20 foot rise in sea level then. Or is that just more hyperbole on your part?

With that said even if the temperature rose 5 degrees next year, that does not necessarily mean the cause is CO2.

And if it did, it would be far too much to be accounted for by CO2.

originally posted by: proximo

originally posted by: Phage
a reply to: proximo

But no temperature increase either so simple logic tells you co2 is not nearly the whole equation when it comes to temperature increases.

No temperature increase?

Also the fact we are not living in water world as gore claimed we would be 15 years ago.

Source?

Well if there is one it is damn small, and certainly a lot less than you would expect from a 50 percent co2 change if it is really the danger it is made out to be.

Well said.

Both sides agree that there has been a 1 degree Celsius warming since the end of the little ice age, at about 1900 AD.
Or about 1 Degree Celsius per century.

And both sides agree that CO2 is at 400ppm.

originally posted by: Phage
a reply to: proximo

so it was not by any stretch an insignificant event he was predicting.

When did he say we could expect a 20 foot rise in sea level then. Or is that just more hyperbole on your part?

He says there will be up to a 6m rise in sea level in the wonderful movie that started the whole movement An inconvenient truth.

With that said even if the temperature rose 5 degrees next year, that does not necessarily mean the cause is CO2.

And if it did, it would be far too much to be accounted for by CO2.


Yes, I suppose that is true - but do you have any doubt that is what would be blamed in the media and by the average liberal dogooder if it did happen?

a reply to: proximo

He says there will be up to a 6m rise in sea level in the wonderful movie that started the whole movement An inconvenient truth.

How long did he say it would take? I read the book, by the way. Or tried to. It was horrible.

Yes, I suppose that is true - but do you have any doubt that is what would be blamed in the media and by the average liberal dogooder if it did happen?

So what? What matters is the science behind it but if global temperatures rose by 5 degrees next year it wouldn't really matter what the cause was. So, do you think your hyperbole is serving any purpose?

originally posted by: Phage
a reply to: Semicollegiate

That is, as the temperature increases so does natural biological production of CO2.

Not really.
But how is it then, that the isotopic signature of CO2 indicates that the increase primarily due to the combustion of fossil fuels?

How could increased temperature not increase biological growth? Less energy spent to maintain metabolic temperature means more energy spent growing, and most biochemical reactions procede faster at higher temperature.

Any CO2 that comes out of the ground could have a fossil fuel signature. Volcanos are close to subduction zones and would put out material accumulated on the sea floor that is hundreds of millions of years old. The sea floor rifts put out fossil fuel aged Carbon and the sea floor rifts might have something to do with the cyclic temperature changes as well. Any Carbon that has traveled under the crust has been exposed to higher radioactivity and so could have a higher proportion of C13 and C14.

a reply to: Semicollegiate

How could increased temperature not increase biological growth?

Who said it wouldn't? I don't know if it would or not. You can assume it would if you wish but I do know that many forms of life have narrow windows of survival. I do know that cooler seas are more prolific than warmer.
www.cmmap.org...

The sea floor rifts put out fossil fuel aged Carbon and the sea floor rifts might have something to do with the cyclic temperature changes as well.

Tell me, what is the 13C/12C ratio of the carbon which undersea plumes emit? How does it relate to the observed changes in atmospheric ratios?

Is there reason to believe that there has been an enormous increase in undersea volcanic activity in the past 100 years or so which would account for the rise in atmospheric CO2 levels? Levels that have rapidly risen to higher than have existed for more than 400,000 years?

On the other hand, we have been burning an awful lot of stuff, haven't we?

a reply to: Justoneman

The carbon gets naturally sequestered.

Yes it does. It took something like 2.5 billion years for plants to sequester all that carbon. We have put it all back in less than 2.5 centuries. You don't think that would cause problems?

The atmosphere was dominated by methane (CH4) until the oxygen producing cyanobacteria (blue-green 'algae') 'terraformed' it by out-competing the methane producing microbes that had previously dominated life on earth.

originally posted by: Semicollegiate
a reply to: mbkennel

When your global climate and health of your civilization is on the line,

Begging the question. AGW is supposed to prove that

1) man did it.

(.0004 of the entire atmosphere) x (.08 at the low energy end of the radiation spectrum) < 0.000032 of the room temperature radiation energy released from the surface of the Earth.

Is there some massive positive feedback mechanism? Otherwise no AGW.

Yes there are some positive feedback mechanisms, but yes the climate can be quite different with a 1% change in global radiative forcing.

2) Global warming going to be bad.

The Roman Warm Period and the Medieval Climate Optimum were times of easy living, economic prosperity and population growth. The opposite of alarmist hysterical propaganda.

If there were any physical reason to stop at that point, then that's find. But were not going to stop there by any means.

3) That doing what alarmists demand will stop it.

Government programs never solve their problem, they do however provide jobs and power to the collectivists, and decrease wealth and progress through out society.

How's your smallpox?

And during the growing process the CO2 will be absorbed from the atmosphere into biological matter. Hence you'd expect a larger seasonal variation but no secular trend. You get a secular trend when there is a very long term sink or source outside the rapid biological cycle.

Not all growth requires CO2. Some growth produces CO2. Stuff is rotting even as the growing stuff is taking in the additional CO2. Regardless of the graph, more biomass means more CO2 at decomposition.

If the experts could be trusted, there would have been no housing bubble, great depression, or world wars.

Ah yes, another meaningless and dangerous rhetorical diversion. Since Alan Greenspan was wrong, then "They" are lying to me about radiative transfer!

```If the experts could be trusted, there would have been no housing bubble, great depression, or world wars, so I will continue to spread my raw sewage over my neighbor's lawn and I don't care what any collectivist public health marxist says about those hoaxed mythical ````microbes''''.

The OP is about manipulated data.

Yeah, they're wrong.

Once again, do you really think you have figured something out that the people who do this for a living have forgotten about for 50 years or more?

AGW alarmism is an establishment sponsored industry, it will last as long as our current governance lasts.

"establishment sponsored industry", ha ha ha ha ha ha!

So, where are the climate billionaires?

“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.” Joseph Goebbels
www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org...

Unfortunately too ironic.

AGW alarmism has got the MSM and the herd of job seeking college graduates. The only thing that has to happen is a little bit of warming. Since the weather cycle is moving out of the little ice age, continued warming is a good bet.

What if it isn't a little bit?

originally posted by: proximo
Yes, I was using hyperbole when I said he was predicting water world, but a 20 foot sea level rise would cost billions if not trillions in damage, so it was not by any stretch an insignificant event he was predicting.

As to your other question, what would I consider a significant temperature increase, well at least 3 or 4 degrees, as temperatures according to ice cores have been oscillating by 4 degrees with very little impact from humans for about the last 12000 years.

And a zero trend. And there have been more than a billion people for a tiny fraction of that time. And the ice core is one location, not a global average.

Let's look at an estimate of the average. Hmmm, maybe more like change of 0.4C over thousands of years, not 4C suddenly.

www.realclimate.org...

There’s been a lot of great attempts here at conveying proper science and intellectual reasoning, and I for one really appreciate it. But at some point you also have to step back and realize you’re arguing with people who are convinced that THIS is just a natural occurrence:



It really doesn’t matter how much logic and empirical evidence you throw at them, you could go back and teach them the science from the 1950s on out. They still want to believe that THIS is perfectly natural:




Some debates, and some people, are just a lost cause unfortunately.

a reply to: Phage

I have never seen a study that involved c14 in the atmosphere relating to AGW. Not saying there isn't one, but I have not seen it.

Regarding the rest of my c12/c13 remarks... I took those from the IPCC, so if I have it backwards then they do to.

The basic issue is, that the prehistoric c3 metabolism plants are not unique. Something on the order of 95% of modern plants are also c3 metabolism. Add in the bias against heavier isotopes you wind up with a severely muddied situation where you cannot distinguish (as clear cut as is often portrayed) the difference between man-made atmospheric co2 vs natural source co2.

Personally, I think all one has to do is point to the 37-40 billion tons produced by man. That is much more straightforward than misportraying co2 isotopes.

a reply to: mbkennel

Where are the climate billionaires?

Al Gore was a millionaire prior to going "al green" (sorry, pun intended). Now he is a billionaire.

It is certain there are others, but I am not going to waste my time googling information that is available to anyone who is actually interested in finding the truth.

a reply to: bbracken677

Not saying there isn't one, but I have not seen it.

I guess you haven't looked.

I took those from the IPCC, so if I have it backwards then they do to.

You'd better read it again. 12C is increasing relative to 13C.

The basic issue is, that the prehistoric c3 metabolism plants are not unique.

That's right, that's why we know that the source of the increase in CO2 levels is due to the burning of plant material rather than some other source.

Add in the bias against heavier isotopes you wind up with a severely muddied situation where you cannot distinguish (as clear cut as is often portrayed) the difference between man-made atmospheric co2 vs natural source co2.

It's not muddy at all.

Personally, I think all one has to do is point to the 37-40 billion tons produced by man. That is much more straightforward than misportraying co2 isotopes.

Yes, that is strong evidence as well. But there are those who claim that rising CO2 levels are due to warming, not the combustion of fossil fuels. Silly idea, I know, but some people.

Ok, I showed the OP's data to my meteorologist who is a man made CO2 is going to warm us too much type. Very much like a couple of you are. He showed me HOW they manipulated the data, and it is complicated but uses data from the surrounding monitors in the area to smooth the data based on relocation of the monitor ,(YUK I don't approve as it is not like they moved it to the coast or up a mountain) I asked him why they do this because we will not be doing that to my ambient air pollution data like ozone and SO2. He AGREED with me that if you are into the purity of the RAW data, as darn well we should be IMHO, then he could see why I a pollution data analyst of all people would have a problem with the alteration of ANY data. Bad science to alter it IMHO and he seemed to see my point even though he is still leaning toward these trace amounts of CO2 are bad. He grabbed the NASA data did a graph of what they altered and is now not so confident in the IPCC/NASA reasons of adjusting the data.

Final conclusion from a warmist:
THEY ADJUSTED THE DATA, now a fact indisputable. Why is the debate we will have tomorrow.

I would not presume to speak for him but these records are coming up altered everywhere. There are some good links to reports on Matt Drudge Report today, that coincidentally refer to Arctic data being altered similarly.

woah nellie!

a reply to: rnaa

OK then, what is CO2 percent wise of the atmosphere for number one"? Number two what is the optimum temperature of mother Earth? I think you give way, way too much importance to this and have been sucked in by liars who need money from us to be rich and powerful. The dots are easy to connect if you care to try to know the truth. I suspect you do, like phage, but both of you fail to see the importance of the entire cycle of global temps not the small window the IPCC chose.

thanks for playing along with Al Gore guys.