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Post by carnyx on Nov 9, 2010 8:35:43 GMT 1
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Post by marchesarosa on Nov 15, 2010 11:59:23 GMT 1
Just another of the unknown unknowns!
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Post by marchesarosa on Mar 18, 2013 19:12:23 GMT 1
Despite the fuss about CO2 emissions, on a global scale no one is quite sure where a lot of it ends up. Those mystery “sinks” draw in a large proportion of CO2. Here’s a big sink that just got twice as big!Science Daily Mar. 17, 2013 — Models of carbon dioxide in the world’s oceans need to be revised, according to new work by UC Irvine and other scientists published online Sunday in Nature Geoscience. Trillions of plankton near the surface of warm waters are far more carbon-rich than has long been thought, they found. Global marine temperature fluctuations could mean that tiny Prochlorococcus and other microbes digest double the carbon previously calculated. The trouble started when someone made an assumption. In making their findings, the researchers have upended a decades-old core principle of marine science known as the Redfield ratio, named for famed oceanographer Alfred Redfield. He concluded in 1934 that from the top of the world’s oceans to their cool, dark depths, both plankton and the materials they excrete contain the same ratio (106:16:1) of carbon, nitrogen and phosphorus. But as any gardener who has done a soil test knows, amounts of those elements can vary widely. The new study’s authors found dramatically different ratios at a variety of marine locations. What matters more than depth, they concluded, is latitude. In particular, the researchers detected far higher levels of carbon in warm, nutrient-starved areas (195:28:1) near the equator than in cold, nutrient-rich polar zones (78:13:1). “The Redfield concept remains a central tenet in ocean biology and chemistry. However, we clearly show that the nutrient content ratio in plankton is not constant and thus reject this longstanding central theory for ocean science,” said lead author Adam Martiny, associate professor of Earth system science and ecology & evolutionary biology at UC Irvine. “Instead, we show that plankton follow a strong latitudinal pattern.” He and fellow investigators made seven expeditions to gather big jars of water from the frigid Bering Sea, the North Atlantic near Denmark, mild Caribbean waters and elsewhere. They used a sophisticated $1 million cell sorter aboard the research vessel to analyze samples at the molecular level. They also compared their data to published results from 18 other marine voyages. Martiny noted that since Redfield first announced his findings, "there have been people over time putting out a flag, saying, 'Hey, wait a minute.'" But for the most part, Redfield's ratio of constant elements is a staple of textbooks and research. In recent years, Martiny said, "a couple of models have suggested otherwise, but they were purely models. This is really the first time it's been shown with observation. That's why it's so important." Are we farming plankton next? Will we get carbon credits? REFERENCES Adam C. Martiny, Chau T. A. Pham, Francois W. Primeau, Jasper A. Vrugt, J. Keith Moore, Simon A. Levin, Michael W. Lomas. Strong latitudinal patterns in the elemental ratios of marine plankton and organic matter. Nature Geoscience, 2013; DOI: 10.1038/ngeo1757 More here joannenova.com.au/
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Post by marchesarosa on Mar 30, 2013 10:14:03 GMT 1
Willis Eschenbach argues that since the amount of CO2 being produced is much greater than the growth in Net Primary Productivity there must be other factors at play, too, which keep the increase in the airborne fraction of CO2 less than would otherwise be the case. James Hansen Says Coal Is Greening The Planet!?! wattsupwiththat.com/2013/03/29/james-hansen-says-coal-is-greening-the-planet/ALL these processes need to be thoroughly understood.
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Post by alancalverd on Mar 30, 2013 11:46:03 GMT 1
There are two distinct phenomena involved, loosely linked.
Planetary temperature is controlled by the inherently unstable cyclic behaviour of water in the atmosphere.
When cloud cover is low and the planet is cold, plant life dominates and sequesters CO2 from the atmosphere.
In the absence of clouds, the surface gradually warms up and evaporates water at an increasing rate (since atmospheric water vapor has a strong positive temperature forcing function).
At high concentrations of atmospheric water at high altitude, clouds form.
When cloud cover increases and the planet is warm, invertebrate life dominates and converts plant material into CO2.
At some point the cloud cover reaches the point that rain and snow fall, the surface albedo increases, the planet cools again, and invertebrate activity diminshes.
So the CO2 graph follows the temperature graph with a few hundred years' lag - exactly as found by experiment.
In recent history the CO2 graph (and to some extent the H2O concentration) has also been driven by human activity, but this is a small and inconsequential anomaly.
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Post by nickrr on Apr 1, 2013 10:52:06 GMT 1
If you are really interested you only have to google "evidence for climate change". It's not that difficult.
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Post by nickrr on Apr 1, 2013 10:59:23 GMT 1
I provided that link to show another positive effect of climate change not as proof of it. Yet again you fail to read a post properly before replying.
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Post by nickrr on Apr 1, 2013 11:06:57 GMT 1
The premise of the Matt Ridley clip, which you appear to endorse, is that climate change caused by humans is having positive effects. You now say that there is no evidence that humans are having any effect on the climate.
Who is wrong - you or Matt Ridley?
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Post by alancalverd on Apr 1, 2013 11:12:35 GMT 1
Again, the illogical conflation of two phenomena.
Human activity has indeed added CO2 to the atmosphere and this makes the plants grow faster. Even to the extent that a local market gardener runs a diesel generator to provide so much extra CO2 for his tomatoes and cucumbers that his greenhouse is toxic to humans - and he sells the electricity (on a green tariff, of course) as a byproduct!
There is no evidence that anthropogenic CO2 has had any effect on climate, nor any scientific basis for believing that it could.
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Post by nickrr on Apr 1, 2013 11:38:33 GMT 1
He also acknowledges that greening is being caused by increased forest cover in the Northern hemisphere due to increased temperatures. My original point stands.
You can keep repeating the mantra that anthropogenic CO2 has no effect on climate but it won't make it any more true.
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Post by marchesarosa on Apr 1, 2013 15:25:41 GMT 1
I don't see a lot of difference between those two statements, nickrr.
But I am sure you know that a glacier can be ACCUMULATING ice at its head while RECEDING at its tail.
Glaciers are not the simple creatures you take them for. And neither are the majority of folk on this blog, unfortunately for you.
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Post by mrsonde on Apr 2, 2013 17:28:45 GMT 1
If you are really interested you only have to google "evidence for climate change". It's not that difficult. Well, all I can find is evidence for the GW part. Nothing at all for the A bit. Just computer models whose predictions have already and consistently been disproved; and a clunky O-level standard theory that was already out of date a century ago. Tell us - what was the evidence that persuaded you so convincingly that AGW was occurring? So convincingly that you're blithely willing to sacrifice hundreds of thousands of poor people's lives to it, and millions of people's economic wealth, and the hard-won standards of the scientific revolution, and the very canons of rational argument? Please don't tell us it was Al Gore.
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Post by alancalverd on Apr 2, 2013 23:30:05 GMT 1
You can keep repeating the mantra that anthropogenic CO2 has no effect on climate but it won't make it any more true. The absorption spectrum of CO2 is negligible, saturated and mostly dominated by that of water. Anthropogenic CO2 concentration has risen monotonically since 1945. Global mean temperature has not. Temperatures have been higher in the past, with lower CO2 concentrations. There is no proposed or conceivable mechanism by which the observed historic graph of CO2 concentration can generate the observed historic temperature graph. The temperature graph shows rapid upward excursions and slow declines, which are followed by changes in CO2. Therefore CO2 cannot have been the driver of historic changes. If you apply the AGW model to Mars, whose atmosphere consists mostly of CO2, the surface would be a lot hotter than it is. Science is not a matter of mantra or consensus but observation and logic. The logic is absent from the AGW hypothesis, and the observations are increasingly contradictory to it. The AGW mantra, in comparison, is that any observation that fits the hypothesis is climate, and any that doesn't, is weather. Such abuse of language is not science.
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Post by marchesarosa on Apr 3, 2013 5:38:11 GMT 1
Very well put, Mr Calverd.
I would add that the measured temperature record at the surface stations is grossly over-estimated, too, because the vast majority of stations which comprise the (GHCN) global mean temp database, are located in urban areas or at airports. These are impacted by the Urban Heat island Effect and, in fact, this warming effect is *smeared* around the more rural stations in the vicinity by means of the homogenisation procedure. Instead of urban temperatures being adjusted downwards the rural temperatures are adjusted upward! The GISS temperature record also demonstrates repeated adjustments which cool the past and warm the present in order to present a trend line which is more extreme in appearance to fit the AGW narrative.
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Post by mrsonde on Apr 3, 2013 7:58:36 GMT 1
The absorption spectrum of CO2 is negligible, saturated and mostly dominated by that of water. We need to do a lot better than this if the case for AGW is to be countered on a proper scientific basis. The first two statements are factually wrong; the last is almost certainly the reason why thank god the sensitivity is so low, through various negative feedback mechanisms. This is how the AGW alarmists will eventually exculpate themselves. Very little water vapour on Mars.
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