Global Warming Cont...

[randerizer]

The data is in for this Jan. Warmest ever. Shocking, I know.

http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2007/s2798.htm

Interestingly, there was also a decrease in fossil fuel consumption relative to last January, as we had less need to heat our homes.

An anthropogenic feedback system?

[arkansasbob]

That is the whole point of the greenhouse effect and is at the heart of the CGW - greenhouse gases (mostly water vapor) trap heat from the sun which make the world hotter (without the greenhouse gases we could not live here). Thus water vapor increases temperature (via greenhouse effect) allowing for higher water vapor concentrations in the air (because the air is now hotter). It is a simple positive feedback loop. This seems so basic, what am I missing?

Post No. 100. Woo hoo!

not to mention the fact that the air is not saturated through most of the atmosphere most of the time. so even if reaching the saturation point would slowdown a runaway water greenhouse effect, we're nowhere near that point yet.

my post count fast approaches the date of the founding of louisiana Tech.

[saltydawg]

Zbigniew Jaworowski (1994), Ancient atmosphere - the validity of ice records, Environ. Sci. & Pollut. Res. 1(3): p. 161-171.

Jaworowski, Z.; Segalstad, T. V.; Ono, N. Do glaciers tell a true atmospheric carbon dioxide story? Science of the Total Environment (1992), 114 227-84. CODEN: STENDL ISSN:0048-9697. CAN 116:261505 AN 1992:261505 CAPLUS (peer-reviewed journal published by Elsevier)

Should add - his background is in the transport of heavy metals and heavy metal ions in soil, ice, etc. He's published over 50 papers on these subjects in the past 15 years, as found with a quick SciFinder search. I just didn't feel like providing all of that.

Here is a rebuttal to the questions he raised in the 1994 article.

http://www.someareboojums.org/blog/?p=7

[saltydawg]

That is the whole point of the greenhouse effect and is at the heart of the CGW - greenhouse gases (mostly water vapor) trap heat from the sun which make the world hotter (without the greenhouse gases we could not live here). Thus water vapor increases temperature (via greenhouse effect) allowing for higher water vapor concentrations in the air (because the air is now hotter). It is a simple positive feedback loop. This seems so basic, what am I missing?

Post No. 100. Woo hoo!

Congrats on the #100 post. The reason why there is not a runaway greenhouse effect with water vapor is because (1) the surface temperature is not that high, (2) there is plenty of water on the planet and (3) the atmospheric pressure turns it into water thereby cooling the temperature. Bascially, the whole system settles into an equilibrium which requires external cooling or heating to change it. As the Earth gets cooler, water vapor goes down and as the earth gets hotter water vapor increases.

[saltydawg]

Correct - a finite life-span on the order of the entire carbon cycle. Still exists at some concentration in all sources of emitted CO2.

You can use it to "date," although this still is not quite a closed problem. You cannot, however, use it to distinguish ACO2 from volcanous CO2 from CO2 emitted from surface water evaporation from anything else.

As a separate issue, I fully understand that carbon-dating is a primary technique used to establish a date for ice core samples. However, the fundamental assumption in carbon-dating that I question is that once an ice sample is frozen, the mass transfer of carbon stops. In other words, you are locking the system in place, so the total molar quantity of CO2 stays the same, and only the ratio of the carbon isotopes changes. If you take CO2 from 60000 years ago, and mix it with a collection of CO2 from 50000, 40000, 30000, and 20000 years ago, and what date will it tell you? Your dates get skewed. This is likely to occur in ice samples, as the content of water in ice (and therefore the mass transfer properties) should theoretically INCREASE with pressure (and therefore depth), and this water will in general flow down due to density differences. Add to this the pressures caused in a drilling process. Hence, the accuracy of the dating is still in question.

Simultaneously, water can "wash" CO2 out of the "sample," which is why the magnitude of CO2 in each ice core sample is in serious question.

And I should add, Guisslap presented the evidence for the last case from Jawoworski several days ago. In light of that, the only real thing we can see from the ice core data is that CO2 cycles in a period of roughly 100k years. Your only refutations of these points have been that he's a "polish scientist" and that the "consensus" disagrees. Care to get back to the heart of the discussion?

C14 is not created by the burning of fossil fuel. C14 gets created in the atmosphere---10 kilograms a year-- and is thus fixed in the carbon of trees and plants by the process of photsynthesis. After millions of years the C14 has decayed naturally into another carbon isotope.

By the way, you guys can't have the ice core data to prove anything if you think it is tainted. So you guys just forget about Co2 cycles of 100k years. LOL!

[Guisslapp]

C14 is not created by the burning of fossil fuel. C14 gets created in the atmosphere---10 kilograms a year-- and is thus fixed in the carbon of trees and plants by the process of photsynthesis. After millions of years the C14 has decayed naturally into another carbon isotope.

By the way, you guys can't have the ice core data to prove anything if you think it is tainted. So you guys just forget about Co2 cycles of 100k years. LOL!

Our criticisms of the ice core data would affect the magnitudes of the peaks and not necessarily the periodic nature of the fluxes.

[Guisslapp]

Here is a rebuttal to the questions he raised in the 1994 article.

http://www.someareboojums.org/blog/?p=7

Not exactly a strong rebuttal.

Summary of Jaworoski's paper and the blogger's blog - Jaworoski points out unreasonable assumptions made by ice core analysts that cause historical CO2 levels to appear lower than actual. Jaworoski explains some principles that support some of the bases for the lower-than-actual historical CO2 levels. Jaworoski cites some third party researchers who have done some work related to the principals to further his point. Some blogger weakly criticizes "inferences" of the third party research and Jaworoski's character. This blogger seems to miss the forest for the trees. I don't think the indicted inferences are critical to Jaworoski's own expert opinion.

My above summary just shows the weakness in the argument at the logic level (assuming that the blogger is in fact correct). I am sure Randerizer will show up at some point and opine more on the substance of the argument raised by the blogger.

[Guisslapp]

Congrats on the #100 post. The reason why there is not a runaway greenhouse effect with water vapor is because (1) the surface temperature is not that high, (2) there is plenty of water on the planet and (3) the atmospheric pressure turns it into water thereby cooling the temperature. Bascially, the whole system settles into an equilibrium which requires external cooling or heating to change it. As the Earth gets cooler, water vapor goes down and as the earth gets hotter water vapor increases.

So a negative feedback loop then? CO2 = increase temp = increase water vapor = cooling?

But if increased water vapor makes it hotter... ah forget it

[randerizer]

Here is a rebuttal to the questions he raised in the 1994 article.

http://www.someareboojums.org/blog/?p=7

I'm not going to dig into the whole thing, but I will address the ONLY discussion in this of the question of water in samples.

"(3) ” … contains liquid water …”
This is just one of many deceptive statements, delivered in rapid-fire. Jaworowski likes to point to some published result, hint at a problem with measurement of gases in ice cores, and move on quickly. He says:

This is because the ice cores do not fulfill the essential closed system criteria. One of them is a lack of liquid water in ice, which could dramatically change the chemical composition the air bubbles trapped between the ice crystals. This criterion, is not met, as even the coldest Antarctic ice (down to –73oC) contains liquid water[2].

Mulvaney, Wolff and Oates were reporting on concentrations of H2SO4 in extremely tiny volumes at the boundaries between ice crystals. Many of Jaworowski’s claims reveal a lack of understanding of the relevant chemistry, but it is unlikely that even he believes that significant quantities of CO2 are dissolved in these interstitial volumes."

I think there is NO ANSWER in this, except to say that "Jaworowski does not know what he is talking about." As proven by the CNN article I just posted earlier, there is a significant flow of water through the ice sheets, into a series of huge lakes under antarctica. This water can dissolve CO2 and wash it out of the ice. Hence, it is inherently NOT a closed system. Moreover, this suggests that ice core CO2 levels should be expected to UNDERESTIMATE actual atmospheric CO2 levels.

You think that there is no exchange of molecules between ice crystals and liquid water flowing past them? Yet you point out vapor-liquid equilibrium theory to explain that the atmosphere is saturated with water vapor? Solids and liquids of the same compound (or different compounds, for that matter) exist in a state of equilibrium as well. There is a continuous melting and reforming of ice crystals in contact with water. If given infinite time, the crystallinity will tend to exclude imperfections (i.e., CO2), which provides an additional mechanism to kick the CO2 out of the ice sample.

Out of curiosity, is ANYONE besides salty confused about these statements? Am I alone in thinking that they have not been adequately answered?

[randerizer]

C14 is not created by the burning of fossil fuel. C14 gets created in the atmosphere---10 kilograms a year-- and is thus fixed in the carbon of trees and plants by the process of photsynthesis. After millions of years the C14 has decayed naturally into another carbon isotope.

By the way, you guys can't have the ice core data to prove anything if you think it is tainted. So you guys just forget about Co2 cycles of 100k years. LOL!

Didn't say it was created by the burning of fossil fuel - I'm suggesting that it's already present in the fossil fuel in at least trace amounts from the last time that carbon was in touch with the atmosphere. Here's a good question for you, as you are obviously scientifically minded - if the half life of C14 is 5370 years, how long before 100% of the C14 has been converted into nitrogen? :icon_wink:

But actually, I'm not so sure that the burning of fossil fuels cannot create C14. It's an energy bombardment that we're talking about. I'm quite sure that the energies involved in combustion are substantially less than the radiative energies seen in the atmosphere, but I'd have to do a little more research to convince myself that no C12 can be converted to C14 under combustive conditions.

[Guisslapp]

^^ right on que (or is it "cue").

[saltydawg]

Our criticisms of the ice core data would affect the magnitudes of the peaks and not necessarily the periodic nature of the fluxes.

What peaks??? What fluxes??? If the data is bad, it's bad. You can't have you cake and eat it too!

[saltydawg]

Not exactly a strong rebuttal.

Summary of Jaworoski's paper and the blogger's blog - Jaworoski points out unreasonable assumptions made by ice core analysts that cause historical CO2 levels to appear lower than actual. Jaworoski explains some principles that support some of the bases for the lower-than-actual historical CO2 levels. Jaworoski cites some third party researchers who have done some work related to the principals to further his point. Some blogger weakly criticizes "inferences" of the third party research and Jaworoski's character. This blogger seems to miss the forest for the trees. I don't think the indicted inferences are critical to Jaworoski's own expert opinion.

My above summary just shows the weakness in the argument at the logic level (assuming that the blogger is in fact correct). I am sure Randerizer will show up at some point and opine more on the substance of the argument raised by the blogger.

I'm not sure jaworoski is an expert on the ice cores. It takes more than one article to make one an expert, especially if one's area of expertise is in another field. You guys have some more experts that support Jaworoski's claims that the ice core date is bad, or is he the lone wolf out there?

Actually Jaworoski's claim to fame is that he claims that the Earth is headed for another ice age!
The exactly the kind of guy I would want to put on the witness stand..

[Guisslapp]

What peaks??? What fluxes??? If the data is bad, it's bad. You can't have you cake and eat it too!

Exactly the kind of misleading, oversimplified, and incorrect argument I would expect out of an Al Gore disciple.

[Guisslapp]

Spring practices need to begin soon. I am starting to get a bruise on my forehead from the time spent on the Paw-litics boards.