CO2 Soon to Bat 400. It’s been a Long, Long Time since we’ve seen that.
May 31, 2012
CO2 continues its relentless rise. Levels of 400 parts per million (ppm) are now being consistently measured above the arctic. The rest of the planet is following. The video above, a classic from the Climate Crocks archive, fleshes out the longer history of atmospheric CO2, and its influence on global climate.
WASHINGTON — The world’s air has reached what scientists call a troubling new milestone for carbon dioxide, the main global warming pollutant.
Monitoring stations across the Arctic this spring are measuring more than 400 parts per million of the heat-trapping gas in the atmosphere. The number isn’t quite a surprise, because it’s been rising at an accelerating pace. Years ago, it passed the 350 ppm mark that many scientists say is the highest safe level for carbon dioxide. It now stands globally at 395.
It’s been at least 800,000 years — probably more — since Earth saw carbon dioxide levels in the 400s, Butler and other climate scientists said.
Actually, a bit longer than that. The most commonly cited measures of atmospheric CO2 are those contained in Antarctic ice cores, which, so far extend about 800,000 years back. Several years ago, a team from UCLA actually pushed the credible measurements back quite a bit further, using isotopic analysis of shells in deep sea sediments.
You would have to go back at least 15 million years to find carbon dioxide levels on Earth as high as they are today, a UCLA scientist and colleagues report Oct. 8 in the online edition of the journal Science.“The last time carbon dioxide levels were apparently as high as they are today — and were sustained at those levels — global temperatures were 5 to 10 degrees Fahrenheit higher than they are today, the sea level was approximately 75 to 120 feet higher than today, there was no permanent sea ice cap in the Arctic and very little ice on Antarctica and Greenland,” said the paper’s lead author, Aradhna Tripati, a UCLA assistant professor in the department of Earth and space sciences and the department of atmospheric and oceanic sciences.“Carbon dioxide is a potent greenhouse gas, and geological observations that we now have for the last 20 million years lend strong support to the idea that carbon dioxide is an important agent for driving climate change throughout Earth’s history,” she said.By analyzing the chemistry of bubbles of ancient air trapped in Antarctic ice, scientists have been able to determine the composition of Earth’s atmosphere going back as far as 800,000 years, and they have developed a good understanding of how carbon dioxide levels have varied in the atmosphere since that time. But there has been little agreement before this study on how to reconstruct carbon dioxide levels prior to 800,000 years ago.Tripati, before joining UCLA’s faculty, was part of a research team at England’s University of Cambridge that developed a new technique to assess carbon dioxide levels in the much more distant past — by studying the ratio of the chemical element boron to calcium in the shells of ancient single-celled marine algae. Tripati has now used this method to determine the amount of carbon dioxide in Earth’s atmosphere as far back as 20 million years ago.“We are able, for the first time, to accurately reproduce the ice-core record for the last 800,000 years — the record of atmospheric C02 based on measurements of carbon dioxide in gas bubbles in ice,” Tripati said. “This suggests that the technique we are using is valid.“We then applied this technique to study the history of carbon dioxide from 800,000 years ago to 20 million years ago,” she said. “We report evidence for a very close coupling between carbon dioxide levels and climate. When there is evidence for the growth of a large ice sheet on Antarctica or on Greenland or the growth of sea ice in the Arctic Ocean, we see evidence for a dramatic change in carbon dioxide levels over the last 20 million years.“A slightly shocking finding,” Tripati said, “is that the only time in the last 20 million years that we find evidence for carbon dioxide levels similar to the modern level of 387 parts per million was 15 to 20 million years ago, when the planet was dramatically different.”Levels of carbon dioxide have varied only between 180 and 300 parts per million over the last 800,000 years — until recent decades, said Tripati, who is also a member of UCLA’s Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics. It has been known that modern-day levels of carbon dioxide are unprecedented over the last 800,000 years, but the finding that modern levels have not been reached in the last 15 million years is new.Prior to the Industrial Revolution of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the carbon dioxide level was about 280 parts per million, Tripati said. That figure had changed very little over the previous 1,000 years. But since the Industrial Revolution, the carbon dioxide level has been rising and is likely to soar unless action is taken to reverse the trend, Tripati said.“During the Middle Miocene (the time period approximately 14 to 20 million years ago), carbon dioxide levels were sustained at about 400 parts per million, which is about where we are today,” Tripati said. “Globally, temperatures were 5 to 10 degrees Fahrenheit warmer, a huge amount.”
Climate Denial Crock of the Week 
May 31, 2012 at 1:19 pm
Passing 400ppm seems like a benchmark that may have some resonance with the public. Particularly since it is a threshold not reached for such a long time.
May 31, 2012 at 1:21 pm
In Storms of my Grandchildren, James Hansen presents various lines of evidence to demonstrate how changes in atmospheric temperature have caused changes in CO2 in the last 1 million years. However, he also presented evidence that increased in atmospheric CO2 (due to the formation of the Himalayas) 60 to 50 million years ago caused a massive rise in temperature. Whereas the palaeoclimate of the last 1 million years is mostly deduced from ice cores, the rest has been deduced from oxygen isotopes in sea floor sediments (Zachos et al., 2001).
Therefore, for their next task, Tripati et al. can work on providing an atmospheric CO2 record to set alongside the temperature reconstruction of Zachos et al. going back 65 million years.
All but the most recalcitrant climate change denialists should be able to predict what will be confirmed… Irrespective of whether atmospheric CO2 or temperature changes first, the other also changes because that is how the Earth maintains its radiative energy balance (or at least it did until we came along and f_ck_d the whole thing up).
May 31, 2012 at 2:48 pm
Amidst so much disinformation, an interesting idea in the last paragraph Martin. Would like to see some meat around the bone in respect to the idea of a Gaian reaction to maintain radiative energy balance.
May 31, 2012 at 9:45 pm
There is no need to invoke any pantheistic Gaian hypothesis, Chris.
Fact – If it were not for the greenhouse effect, the Earth’s surface would be colder than it is; and it is only thanks to volcanic CO2 building up in the atmosphere that the planet ever emerged from its Snowball Earth phase.
Fact – Cold water holds much more dissolved CO2 than warm water, therefore when the the oceans and atmosphere warmed up at the end of each Ice Age, CO2 was released from the oceans until the additional CO2 traps more long-wave radiation (LWR) and the energy imbalance that caused the warming is eliminated.
Fact – If excess CO2 is pumped into the atmosphere the greenhouse effect will trap more LWR, which will cause the atmosphere to warm up; and warming will only stop once the radiative energy imbalance caused by the additional CO2 is again eliminated.
It is a well-understood self-regulating system that has helped to sustain life on Earth for billions of years. No mother Earth or planetary consciousness required. It’s just physics.
May 31, 2012 at 4:31 pm
If you’re sitting indoors, in a typical office, CO2 might be at 1000 ppm or more.
Sadly, we’ll probably never get it to 1000 ppm outdoors. But, even so, the ~100 ppm increase that we’ve managed to achieve with a century’s worth of burning fossil fuels has probably improved agricultural productivity throughout the world by at least 15%, perhaps more.
Until about 20 years ago, the rate of outdoor CO2 level increase was gradually accelerating, peaking at about +2 ppm/year, but for the last 20 years or so it has held steady at about that rate of increase. Since natural gas is increasingly replacing coal as the fuel of choice for new electric generation capacity, I suspect that we’ve seen the end of the acceleration in rate of CO2 increase.
Note that increased CO2 levels have had no discernible effect on the rate of sea level rise (SLR). If you think the SLR-as-a-global-thermometer theorists (Rahmstorf, et al) are onto something, then the lack of SLR acceleration in response to elevated CO2 has obvious implications for the global warming scare.
May 31, 2012 at 7:02 pm
“for the last 20 years or so it has held steady at about that rate of increase”
Do you just make this stuff up or what.
Let’s do something relatively unique! It’s called fact checking
ftp://ftp.cmdl.noaa.gov/ccg/co2/trends/co2_mm_mlo.txt
ftp://ftp.cmdl.noaa.gov/ccg/co2/trends/co2_gr_mlo.tx
t
2002 – 2011 20.72 ppm 2.07 ppm per year
1992 – 2001 16.00 ppm 1.60 ppm per year
1982 – 1991 15.10 ppm 1.51 ppm per year
1972 – 1981 13.95 ppm 1.40 ppm per year
1962 – 1971 8.88 ppm 0.89 ppm per year
That is a significantly increased in the growth rates from over 1% in 1990 to over 3% since 2000.
May 31, 2012 at 7:27 pm
http://www.pnas.org/content/105/13/5129.abstract?sid=6052cb57-2412-4b47-baca-d62ee5f013e9
Anthropogenic increase in carbon dioxide compromises plant defense against invasive insects
http://www.pnas.org/content/99/3/1730.abstract?sid=6052cb57-2412-4b47-baca-d62ee5f013e9
Nitrogen assimilation and growth of wheat under elevated carbon dioxide
With longer exposures to elevated CO2, wheat leaves showed a diminished capacity for NO photoassimilation at any CO2 concentration. Moreover, high bicarbonate levels impeded NO translocation into chloroplasts isolated from wheat or pea leaves.
May 31, 2012 at 7:48 pm
You’re right about one thing, Dave. Sadly, we’ll probably never get it to 1000 ppm.
May 31, 2012 at 7:51 pm
Rahmstorf, et al 2007:
Recent Climate Observations Compared to Projections
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/316/5825/709
We present recent observed climate trends for carbon dioxide concentration, global mean air temperature, and global sea level, and we compare these trends to previous model projections as summarized in the 2001 assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The IPCC scenarios and projections start in the year 1990, which is also the base year of the Kyoto protocol, in which almost all industrialized nations accepted a binding commitment to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. The data available for the period since 1990 raise concerns that the climate system, in particular sea level, may be responding more quickly to climate change than our current generation of models indicates.
http://www.aviso.oceanobs.com/en/news/ocean-indicators/mean-sea-level/
Mean Sea Level rise
Click to access 2008SLRSustain.pdf
…These results suggest that the rate of globalaveraged
sea-level rise since the mid-1980s is, indeed,
unusual and in agreement with Holgate and Woodworth
(2004), who pointed to the anomalous 1990s rise based on
tide-gauge data. Woodworth et al. (2008) recently
reviewed the evidence of changes in the rate of sea-level
rise and concluded that there was a strong acceleration in
the early 20th century, and a weaker deceleration during…
the mid-to-late-20th century,
June 1, 2012 at 1:54 am
Look, its really simple. 180 vs 280 vs 380. During the previous ice age, CO2 levels were ~ 180 ppm and this was mostly due to volcanoes. Milankovitch cycles triggered warming which resulting in an additional CO2 release. This positive feed back resulted in the ice age ending with CO2 levels hitting ~ 280 ppm. That was 11,700 years ago. Last month, this web site http://co2now.org/ reported CO2 levels of 396.18 ppm. Some of this additional release has got to be related to a combination of: humanity’s release of CO2 since the dawn of the industrial age; as well as other greenhouse gases like water vapor due to evaporation and methane from permafrost (which is no longer permanently frozen) and methane hydrates bubbling up from the ocean depths. Deniers like Spencer and Christy have searched for years for one item which would introduce a negative feed back (for cooling) but their search has been in vain (not sure developing cloud models in MS-Excel count for anything). But when you realize that we are 100 ppm past the 100 ppm that got us out of the ice age, then all I can say is that 7 billion humans are now in very dangerous territory.
June 3, 2012 at 7:14 am
[…] usual blather about ‘some scientists don’t think this is a problem’ or the like. Here is another look at 400 and what it means, from the Climate Crocks site. For the historical perspective, all you […]
June 5, 2012 at 12:22 pm
[…] 2012/05/31: PSinclair: CO2 Soon to Bat 400. It’s been a Long, Long Time since we’ve seen that [v… […]
June 6, 2012 at 3:19 am
This, among many other “facts”, is why I’m a denier and very proud to be among their ranks. The intellectual Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius (AD 121-180) must have foreseen Global Warmest. He said: “The object in life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane.” I’m not sure that “deniers” are in the minority, but you get my point.
There are some obsessed with the supposed increase of 280 ppm to 395ppm of CO2 and I hope that this information will help you to sleep better at nights.
This, I hope, will put this into some kind of a perspective that makes one understand just how insignificant this increase is.
A part per million is like 1 drop of ink in a large
kitchen sink.
A large kitchen sink is about 13-14 gallons. There
are 100 drops in one teaspoon, and 768 teaspoons
per gallon.
Some other things that are one part per million are…
One drop in the fuel tank of a mid-sized car
One inch in 16 miles
About one minute in two years
One car in a line of bumper-to-bumper traffic from
Cleveland to San Francisco.
One penny in $10,000.
I know that you understand that these 112 additional ppm are spread out over this 16 miles in different one inch segments and wouldn’t it be a task to be told to sort out the 392 pennies from the number that it would take to make up $10,000.
At 395, or what ever, parts per million CO2 is a minor constituent of earth’s atmosphere– less than 4/100ths of 1% of all gases present. Compared to former geologic times, earth’s current atmosphere is CO2- impoverished.
Let’s picture this in another way to really get an idea of the scale of CO2 compared to the total atmosphere. The Eiffel Tower in Paris is 324 metres high (1063ft). If the hight of the Eiffel Tower represented the total size of the atmosphere then the natural level of CO2 would be 8.75 centimetres of that hight (3.4 inches) and the amount added by humans up until today would be an extra 3.76 centimetres (1.5 inches)
http://a-sceptical-mind.com/co2-the-basic-facts
June 6, 2012 at 8:47 am
Jdouglashuahin: Your willingness to flaunt your scientific illiteracy in public is astonishing.
First, I would suggest you re-read the original post and/or my earlier comment. The important bit you failed to note goes something like this: “The last time the Earth experienced 400ppm…”
Second, assuming you accept the basic physical properties of atmospheric CO2 as a GHG, your entire argument falls apart because a 40% increase (since 1850) cannot have no effect; is already having an effect, and will continue to have a greater effect (because unless we de-carbonise our energy production we are heading for a 100% increase).
Third, I would suggest you enrol at night-school for some palaeoclimatology lessons. The fact that atmospheric CO2 concentration has been 4 or 5 times higher in the distant past is utterly irrelevant (although the temperature and absence of terrestrial ice at such times is not).
June 7, 2012 at 3:30 am
I do not dispute that temperatures have risen, they have been raising ever since the end of the last ice age and since the Little Ice Age ended, or it would not have ended, right. I most certainly dispute that it is due to CO2. How can one overlook all of the inputs regarding the earth’s climate and imagine that an ubiquitous, odorless, colorless, and benign trace gas essential for life on earth, CO2, that makes up .037% of the total atmosphere and is 1 & 1/2 times heavier than that atmosphere can be responsible for something as complex as the earth’s climate? Talk about some one needing night school. Why do you continue to not mention H2O that, in the atmosphere, is responsible for 95% of the green house effect? The amount of carbon dioxide in atmosphere is 4/100th of 1%. Man made carbon (5%) is therefore 2/1000th of 1%. Reduction of man made carbon to reach the target of 350 ppm would be ?? Clearly too small to withstand any reasonable margin of error.
Has it never entered you mind that the sun is responsible for what the climate does, as is shown below?
Svensmark, being a scientist, devised experiments of his own to test his theory and that demonstrates how science works. It is not about a group of self-serving charlatans proclaiming that “the debate is over”.
“Svensmark: Evidence continues to build that the Sun drives climate, not CO2”
http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.com.au/2012/04/svensmark-evidence-continues-to-build.html
Veteran science editor Nigel Calder, who brought the theory to wide public attention with the book The Chilling Stars, co-authored with the father of the theory Henrik Svensmark, has an explanation and background on his blog, here, and offers possible reasons on why the research, mooted in the late 1990s, has taken so long.
Svensmark, who is no longer involved with the CERN experiment, says
he believes the solar-cosmic ray factor is just one of four factors in climate. The other three are: volcanoes, a “regime shift” that took place in 1977, and residual anthropogenic components.
When Dr Kirkby first described the theory in 1998, he suggested cosmic rays “will probably be able to account for somewhere between a half and the whole of the increase in the Earth’s temperature that we have seen in the last century.”
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/08/25/cern_cloud_cosmic_ray_first_results/
“Sunspots and cosmic rays anticorrelate because sunspots are the result of a lot of magnetic field lines caused by circulating charges in the sun getting their act together and deflecting cosmic rays from the cosmos, not from the sun, from hitting the earth, not all, but quite a few. There is a clear experimental effect – lots of sunspots, less cosmic rays hitting Colorado. At the same time there are less clouds (Svensmark) when there are less cosmic rays. Less clouds means the earth heats up. So its a two step process. More sunspots, less cosmic rays, warmer earth. During the last 50 years or so, there have been record numbers of sunspots, low cosmic ray fluxes and somewhat higher temperatures. Read Nir Shaviv’s analysis of the effect leading to a maximum estimate of 1.3 degrees change for a doubling of CO2, assuming everything besides cosmic rays is due to CO2. That agrees with Roy Spencer’s latest CO2 sensitivity calc. And both of these are very generous to CO2.
Manmade CO2 is a disappearingly small effect.”
http://www.nature.com/news/2011/110824/full/news.2011.504.html
I challenge Martin Lack to direct me to an experiment that has been done that shows that CO2, in the concentrations present on earth, has anything to do with the earth’s climate, It will take many nights of school to come up with that information because it doesn’t exist.
This New York Times site is interesting to show just how much of the earth is cloud covered.
“One Year of Clouds Covering the Earth
At any moment, about 60 percent of the earth is covered by clouds,(Acording to a NASA web page 70% of the earth is covered by clouds) which have a huge influence on the climate. An animated map showing a year of cloud cover suggests the outlines of continents because land and ocean features influence cloud patterns.”
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012/05/01/science/earth/0501-clouds.html
If you doubt that CO2 is more dense than the rest of the atmosphere and never wondered at why it is used in fire extinguishers, look into these sites:
Carbon dioxide is one and one half times heavier than “air”. This point was sadly proven on Aug, 21, 1986 when Lake Nyor in Cameroon released about 1.6 million tons of CO2 that spilled over the lip of the lake and down into a valley and killed 1,700 people within 16 miles of the lake. “Carbon dioxide, being about 1.5 times as dense as air, caused the cloud to “hug” the ground.
“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L…
This coincides with the above fact about CO2:
ppm of CO2 with altitude and mass of CO2 in atmosphere to 8520 metres beyond which there is practically no CO2
http://greenparty.ca/blogs/169/2009-01-03/ppm-co2-altitude-and-mass-co2-atmosphere-8520-metres-beyond-which-there-practic
June 7, 2012 at 9:07 pm
note to all.
anyone that has a point to make, please make it, succinctly,
and then wait for a response.
I will not allow my site to be a dumping ground for gish galloping word salads like this.
I have an open door policy. Do not abuse it.
June 9, 2012 at 8:40 am
Greenman3610: I am sorry if you perceive my post as dumping on you and that it may have been because I had a few points to attempt to make and quickly put them together and posted them because I knew that I was going to be out of internet contact for a few days. I apologize if I have offended you.
I do appreciate the fact that you do allow opposing views to be aired and that is not the case with some of your fellow blog operators such as Greg Laden over at http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2012/06/03/the-sun-is-exploding/ He had one comment to this post.
I have on numerous occasions had him email me about some of his post and generally I pay no attention because he is unethical and has changed my comments and left my name attached. He allows course language but when some people post coherent comments they are many times removed to the point that now he has 12 followers and 6 or them are doing so because they are so bored being either in prison or an insane asylum that his blog site is better than nothing. Anyway, I thank you for being fair and balanced and though I find hardly anything that I agree with you on, at least you are that, fair and balanced.
I offered up a detailed reply to Martin Lack after he made this comment; “Have you nothing further to add regarding China in response to my earlier comment?” to be followed up by this uncalled for snarky remark; “Don’t hold your breath for a response, sailrick.When jdouglashuahin has no answer he does not waste time admitting it.” I felt that if he wanted a response that is what he would get; therefore, I put together the rather detailed comment that he, being the rather unpleasant person that he is offered up yet another insulting comment.
June 9, 2012 at 9:22 am
jdouglashuahin. I am sorry you think my remarks “unpleasant” but, that is how I respond to verbose repetitions of previously-debunked arguments. If you don’t like dismissive remarks, I suggest you change the nature of what you write. Also, I think you mean “coarse” language (but I am beginning to think that English is not your mother-tongue?)… However, thank for the inspiration: The whole of next week’s output (5 posts) on my blog will be devoted to China.
Given the amount of “word salad” you have regurgitated onto this site in the last few days, I think you should consider yourself very fortunate that Peter Sinclair has been as polite to you as he has.
At the risk of prompting another episode of verbal incontinence from you, nothing you have said falsifies my argument that climate change scepticism is essentially conspiracy theory; what David Aaronovitch calls “history for losers”. N.B. This is not meant as an insult, it is more of a prophecy: Those who pick a fight with history and science (i.e. Earth history and climate science) are highly likely to lose.
June 6, 2012 at 11:39 am
look at it this way.
at 395 ppm of blood alcohol, you are pleasantly relaxed.
At 800 ppm, you are legally drunk.
Let us know how your argument flies with the judge.
most folks here have probably seen the “Earth is Carbon Starved Video”,
perhaps you should as well, so as not to embarrass yourself in this
way in the future
June 7, 2012 at 2:59 am
I could have swore that the discussion was about CO2 and not alcohol. That makes a big difference, one would think, to some one that is following this.
June 7, 2012 at 1:33 pm
are you really that clueless, or just pretending to be?
June 9, 2012 at 2:21 pm
Just what is one to believe? It appears that no one was around about 248 million years ago
to know exactly what caused the Permian mass extinction; therefore, how will one ever know for sure other than various conjectures by people that also have no idea, for sure, about it.
“One of the most current theories for the mass extinction of the Permian is an agent that has been also held responsible for the Ordovician and Devonian crises, glaciation on Gondwana. A similar glaciation event in the Permian would likely produce mass extinction in the same manner as previous, that is, by a global widespread cooling and/or worldwide lowering of sea level.”
“The fourth and final suggestion that paleontologists have formulated credits the Permian mass extinction as a result of basaltic lava eruptions in Siberia. These volcanic eruptions were large and sent a quantity of sulphates into the atmosphere.”
http://park.org/Canada/Museum/extinction/ordcause.html
I’m sure that these people up in Canada have as valid of an idea about it as does Richard Alley, (Does Richard Room with Michael Mann at Penn. State?) but they seem to be much more realistic and give them selves four possibilities about what cased these extinctions, unlike you, Martin Lack and I guess now Richard Alley. How unsure of themselves can they be of an event that occurred 248 million years ago when there are those that know exactly what happened?
It is known though that when Tambora violently exploded in 1815 it caused the following year to be known as the year with no summer. Similar occurrences happened, a cooling of the earths climate, when Krakatoa erupted in 1883 and again in 1991 when Penatubo erupted but why would one want to consider these facts when it is possible to speculate on what happened 248 million years ago?
In September of last year I spent eight days climbing Kilimanjaro. Kilimanjaro is only one of several volcanic peaks in the area and that must have been some long and exciting time of change for what ever critters were on earth at the time when the eruptions began 750, million years ago and some claim that most of Kilimanjaro was formed during the Pleistocene, but the group of younger summit craters are apparently from trhe Holocene age. What ever, it is interesting to see in the Karanga Valley how the glaciers carved their way down the valley.
I may reply to the “are you really that clueless, or just pretending to be?” that I assume was prompted by my mentioning things that constitute l ppm, such as 1 inch in 16 miles, one min. in 2 years or 1 penny in $10,000 worth of 1 cent pieces. If these examples are incorrect, tell me about it but you need not wonder if I’m clueless for mentioning them.
June 9, 2012 at 3:12 pm
If you are citing generalized popular accounts from 1996 as your source, consider the possibility that working, publishing scientists now in the field may have a more updated understanding of the Permian. You have not increased your credibility here.
June 9, 2012 at 3:09 pm
I am not embarrassed at all but you should be. I really wonder at how you and your side kick, Martin, can be so dense. How can you attempt to compare the five quarts of blood held with in the confines of the average human body to the vastness of the earth’s atmosphere and that is what I am referring to? I know that you have seen the blue sky and you must have had enough sense to realize that it is blue because the atmosphere made up of up of 78.08% nitrogen, 20.95% oxygen, ( 99.03% of the atmosphere is made up of these two gases) .93% argon and .0001% neon, helium and krypton for constant components and .4% water vapor that constitutes 95% of what cause the green house affect and we had best not forget CO2 at .037% and the rest is made up of trace gases such as CH4,SO2,03 and NO, and NO2.. These trace gases are very important, H2O being the most important because it contributes 95% to the green house effect, and with out these gases the surface of the earth would too cool/cold to support life as we know it. Then for someone to try to compare the earth’s total atmosphere to blood that comprises about 8% of total body weight in a healthy adult and weighs about 2.2 pounds. This is almost unbelievable and then to be disparaged by you two who can’t even figure out this vast difference is beyond comprehension.
June 9, 2012 at 3:14 pm
ok, you are clueless.
But you make a good exhibit for my case, so you can stay. Just make em short and keep it clean.
June 10, 2012 at 11:08 pm
[…] comments made by someone called jdouglashuahin on Climate Denial Crock of the Week (this and this being just the tips of a couple of very large icebergs), I am going to devote the whole of this […]
June 12, 2012 at 9:59 am
I forgot to mention in my previous reply to you that my name is J. Doug Swallow and I live in Hua Hin, Thailand. For some reason WordPress.com. would not let me sign in under my name; therefore, the jdouglashuahin. I have no problem using my real name because I do not submit unsubstantiated assertions, nor do I lie.
Martin; It appears that you have problems even on your own blog and people immediately realize that your honesty and desire to tell the truth seems to be in question but they are quickly able to analyze you and your motives.
“Your language is emotive, your motive suspect, your ideology hateful. Scientist you are not.”
Markus Fitzhenry
28 February 2012 at 19:25
Martin – I too was there and have joined in at Climate Etc.. Why do you say this:
“I was not allowed to ask questions but Prof. Lindzen kindly invited me to email them to him instead”… when you asked what was probably the longest question, which was discussed publicly? Your second question, later on, was cut short, due to limited time and others wanting to ask questions..
Barry Woods
29 February 2012 at 10:35
“Getting facts straight. Is not side tracking. You were allowed to ask question, you just made a mess of it, Lindzen did try to get to what you were on about.
Why not clearly list, concisely, your three questions here. I’m sure that Mark would be interested as we both thought they were incomprehensible.”
Barry Woods
29 February 2012 at 13:25
“[Cross-posted from Judith Curry’s blog]
That’s an interesting reaction from Martin Lack, who complains in his comment of February 28, 2012 at 9:31 am that “ .. I was there. In an attempt to address one of the many misrepresentations or omissions of relevant facts, i was prevented from actually asking a question .. ”.
Contrary to what Martin says, Barry Woods nor Mark Brandon were not just being pedantic, they were correcting a blatant misrepresentation of the fact, a common trait among CACC supporters. I too was at the meeting
Perhaps if Martin is “ .. genuinely only after the truth .. ” then it’s time that he removed his environmentalist blinkers and took a look at the real world…………
As for his suggestion that James Hansen’s simple climate “ .. model is shown to be accurate .. this is called model validation .. ”, once again he is completely wrong. No climate model has been subjected to professional and independent Verification, Validation and Test (VV&T) procedures. All attempts at validation are made by the model developers or users themselves, not by independent VV&T specialists.
Of course I could have totally misinterpreted the data that I have found so if anyone considers that I have made misleading statements then please let me know so that I can consider whether or not an apology is warranted.”
Best regards, Pete Ridley
[snip]
peteridley
29 February 2012 at 17:58
http://lackofenvironment.wordpress.com/2012/02/28/an-open-letter-to-richard-lindzen/
June 12, 2012 at 11:32 am
Now then, this really is a bare-faced ad hominem attack… So, in addition to being statistically and scientifically illiterate (this is not an ad hominem attack – it is based on the evidence of things you have posted on this blog), you are also a hypocrite: Having failed to present any legitimate scientific evidence to refute the scientific consensus that I accept (apart that is from invoking conspiracy theory), you are now cherry-picking second-hand criticisms of me to try and discredit me. You are a truly shameless individual (and your grasp of English is pretty shoddy as well).
Given all of this – and the fact that you are now such a ridiculously long way off-topic – I would be amazed if that does not prove to be your last contribution to this website. However, if it should turn out to be so, no doubt you will claim it as evidence of our closed minds and refusing to debate… For the record, however, the debate was over 30 years ago:
http://www.skepticalscience.com/what-we-knew-in-82.html
June 12, 2012 at 9:44 am
Martin; I thank you so very much for the kind words and it truly gives me hope because I realize that most that read what I presented could understand it fully but it appears there are some not so blessed with the ability to comprehend the written word.
“In view of various unbelievably long and incoherent comments made by someone called jdouglashuahin on Climate Denial Crock of the Week (this and this being just the tips of a couple of very large icebergs), I am going to devote the whole of this week to the subject of China.”
http://lackofenvironment.wordpress.com/2012/06/11/polluting-pariah-or-green-superpower/
Please allow me submit a couple of quotes attributed to Karl Popper to help to elucidate what I stated above:
“It is impossible to speak in such a way that you cannot be misunderstood.”
Karl Popper
“No rational argument will have a rational effect on a man who does not want to adopt a rational attitude.”
Karl Popper
I read the first part of your copy/paste blog and I can not say that I anxiously await for the next installments so that I can get to this stage where “All references cited will be listed in Part 4 on Friday.”