Vulcanism

[marchesarosa]

"Don't have relevant postgrad qualifications"

Oh, the self-congratulatory nonsense the little prat talks!

Do you ever listen to yourself, silly little girl?

[speakertoanimals]

Get back to me when you have a little more detail, STA.

Why, do you expect me to teach you everything?

And you're moving the goal posts again! The ISSUE, as I recall, was whether the CO2 increase (if there is one), could have been volcanic rather than fossil. The isotope data answers that one. We have a distinct lack of carbon 13 that needs explaining otherwise, which is WHY we are able to say that increase is down to human activity, rather than some other process. SO, volcanism doesn't have the right isotopic signature, and would be pretty much a fluke if volcanic CO2 increased JUST at the time we decided to have an industrial revolution..........

I've been looking for the carbon 13 ratio plots, but can't find them at the moment.

As regards CO2 in the past -- a LOT has happened over geological time, continents whanging about, dinosaurs roaming the earth, asteoid impacts, great coal forests, giant dragon flies, extensive glaciation -- doesn't mean that we'd want any of that back. Life then may have coped, but it wasn't our present ecosystem.

The CO2 is plant food line is also not as nice as some would like to make out:

www.skepticalscience.com/co2-is-plant-food-too-simple.html

[speakertoanimals]

"Don't have relevant postgrad qualifications"

Oh, the self-congratulatory nonsense the little prat talks!

Do you ever listen to yourself, silly little girl?

My, my who has lost their rag now! I thought this board was for mature scientific discussion, NOT insults and silliness!

As regards the details of isotopic geochemistry, I think looking at his academic qualifications is totally relevant. He has an undergraduate degree in geology, that's it. Hence WHY should we expect that he has the relevant knowledge when it comes to discussing isotope geochemistry, or the physics of the greenhouse effect? Given that I've caught him out in one out-right, glaring error (volcanic CO2 indistinguishable from fossil fuel, whereas isotope ratios says otherwise).

You can't say both -- he is a qualified geologist to legitimate his views, then object when I point out that he doesn't have any research degrees or research experience, AND makes clear errors in his claims.

[speakertoanimals]

Key question M, when you have calmed down a bit.

DO you (still) think that an increase in CO2 due to fossil fuels and the same injection of CO2 due to increased volcanism wouldn't be distinguishable at the isotope ratio level? Leaving aside the historical coincidence that would be needed in the latter case..................

Perhaps I should add a pre-question? DO you actually KNOW what an isotope is? Because if not (your who can tell after going through umpteen processes line would seem to indicate this is a possibility?), then you've no idea what is being discussed.............................

[marchesarosa]

The ISSUE, as I recall, was whether the CO2 increase (if there is one), could have been volcanic rather than fossil.

Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. You're mis-stating MY argument to suit YOUR agenda.

I have stated several times now the issue is over the PROPORTIONS of the various sources of CO2 in the atmosphere not the absolute quantities and certainly not the purported increase. The sources are not known with accuracy. In the absence of even basic knowledge like this how can alarmists demonstrate that x amount of extra CO2 (from whatever source ) can cause y amount of harm?

What IS known is that non-anthropgenic sources SWAMP any Co2 produced by mankind. Remember, according to Mauna Loa data (and I think its dubious), ALL the billions of tons of CO2 produced by mankind every year amounts to an annual increase of only a couple of parts per million of the total atmospheric CO2 already there. (Segalstad says the total anthropogenic CO2 remaining in the atmosphere is only 4% of the total and this represents only 0.2% of the CO2 EXCHANGED between the various sources and sinks every year.) Anthropgenic CO2, although an "extra", is piddling in comparison with all the other fluxes of the carbon cycle. And when the other sources have been grossly underestimated by alarmist spin (as in the silly US Geological Survey nonsense quoted) it makes that anthropogenic proportion even smaller and less significant.

That's why proportions matter, rather than attempts to scare people with absolute numbers of billions of tons. It's exactly the same alarmist strategy that claims volumes of water the size of "Lake Erie" are melting from Greenland every year. Sounds a lot, but it's not. It's another piddling proportion of the total Greenland icecap.

The whole debate about CO2 and the atmosphere, which STA tried hard to overlook is about proportions. Forget your hundreds of billions of tons. It's ultimately a trivial addition.

And, what's more, it's plant food.

[speakertoanimals]

I have stated twice now the issue is over the PROPORTIONS of the various sources of CO2 in the atmosphere. The sources are not known with accuracy.

Well, since volcanism is only about 2-3% according to current estimates, WHAT change of proportion do you think is feasible? Could it then fit the isotope data, remember, because that is the clear signal that the increase is down to human activity rather than other processes.

Frankly, I don;t CARE what yopu think the issue is, because you keep changing the goalposts anyway. The point is that the sources YOU supply to support your position turn out to be flawed (under-qualified geologists who make basic errors and downright untruths as regards isotope issues plus glaring errors of basic physics).

As I've said before, you are so keen to jump all over alarmists who make supposed errors, yet seemingly reluctant to admit that some of your sources may be flawed!

Point still remains -- different input processes would give different isotopic signatures, so how would you explain the decreased carbon 13 ratio and the historical correlation with the industrial revolution?

[marchesarosa]

I am indifferent to the minute fraction of atmospheric CO2 produced by modern fossil fuel emissions because your supposedly fearsome annual billions of anthropgenic tons is totally SWAMPED in camparison to the turnover of other sources already there and already endlessly recycled. And what is more, the plants are for the most part indifferent to the source, too, its ALL plant food, after all.



Let's not lose sight of the wood for the trees.

[marchesarosa]

But coming back to vulcanism, any underestimate of volcanic (and other natural sources) affects the relative importance of the already tiny residual which the "new" anthropogenic source of CO2 represents of the total.

[marchesarosa]

Here's another angle I just thought of in the bath.

The outgassing of CO2 from the oceans dwarfs the anthropogenic contribution to atmospheric CO2, that is uncontroversial. Segalstad says

" The apparent annual atmospheric CO2 level increase, postulated to be anthropogenic, would constitute only some 0.2% of the total annual amount of CO2 exchanged naturally between the atmosphere and the ocean plus other natural sources and sinks."

What proportion of that oceanic CO2 is from undersea volcanoes? Is there any isotopic signature remaining to distinguish it from common or garden CO2 emitted from the oceans? After all it has already been dissolved in the water - does it retain its isotopic signature when outgassed to the atmosphere?

When I googled "ocean outgassing of CO2" just now what was the very first of the references given after the obligatory "3 scholarly articles" at the head of the page? This. I could hardly believe my eyes.

The Carbon Cycle

The primary source of carbon/CO2 is outgassing from the Earth's interior at midocean ridges, hotspot volcanoes, and subduction-related volcanic arcs. Much of the CO2 released at subduction zones is derived from the metamorphism of carbonate rocks subducting with the ocean crust. Much of the overall outgassing CO2, expecially as midocean ridges and hotpot volcanoes, was stored in the mantle when the Earth formed. Some of the outgassed carbon remains as CO2 in the atmosphere, some is dissolved in the oceans, some carbon is held as biomass in living or dead and decaying organisms, and some is bound in carbonate rocks. Carbon is removed into long term storage by burial of sedimentary strata, especially coal and black shales that store organic carbon from undecayed biomass and carbonate rocks like limestone (calcium carbonate).

www.columbia.edu/~vjd1/carbon.htm

The "primary source of CO2" it said. Now I know that "primary" does not necesasarily mean the same as "biggest" or "main" source of CO2 but it doesn't sound to me as if the meagre output of anthropogenic CO2 is in the same league, somehow. Where does the claim that volcanic CO2 is only one hundredth that of anthropogenic CO2 come from?



You see, STA, the NATURAL sources, sinks and fluxes of CO2 are much more massive and complex than you or any warmist dare to acknowledge. That's why you try to keep dragging the argument back to the billions of tons annual increment of anthropogenic CO2. This is a deliberately obfuscatory smoke screen.

Incidentally, notice you never put forward propositions or questions yourself. You apparently have no queries, no pondering, no wondering, no curiosity about the matters discussed above. You merely have the answers, or you like to think you do.

[marchesarosa]

I don't think climate alarmists amongst the scientific fraternity "make errors" STA. I don't think they are "dim" or "stupid". I think they just don't know, any more than I do.

They are plain damned ignorant of all the myriad variables that contribute to climate and they haven't a clue how they all fit together - just like you. But they have "opinions"! Oh, yes, they certainly have opinions - assertions about the predicted future effects of a slight growth in C02 which are completely untested and unproven. But they have fish to fry - who can account for the motivation of individuals?

Climatechangeism is one of the world's few growth industries as well as being one of the very biggest recipients internationally of state funding. Climatechangeism is BIG SCIENCE. Why should climate scientists be immune to attaching themselves to its coat-tails?

[marchesarosa]

STA criticises Tim Casey ( a mere BSc) for saying anthropogenic CO2 is indistinguishable from volcanic but Tom Segalstad says the same.
 
”Segalstad (1992; 1993; 1996) concluded from 13-C/12-C isotope mass balance calculations, in accordance with the 14-C data, that at least 96% of the current atmospheric CO2 is isotopically indistinguishable from non-fossil-fuel sources, i.e. natural marine and juvenile sources from the Earth's interior. Hence, for the atmospheric CO2 budget, marine equilibration and degassing, and juvenile degassing from e.g. volcanic sources, must be much more important; and the sum of burning of fossil-fuel and biogenic releases (4%) much less important, than assumed (21% of atmospheric CO2) by the authors of the IPCC model (Houghton et al., 1990).
folk.uio.no/tomvs/esef/ESEF3VO2.htm

As a layman witnss to the AGW dispute I have to judge between the conflicting statements of various scientists about anthropogenic CO2. I see that the facts are indeed in dispute! So long as there is conflict the science is NOT settled and it is more than reasonable to demand more evidence and more elaboration of the models to fill the black hole of our abysmal ignorance of our planet’s functioning.

I would really like Louise and STA to justify their claim that anthropogenic CO2 emissions are 100 times greater than volcanic when even the most rudimentary text for children states that undersea sources of CO2 are the PRIMARY sources.

They must have gone to the same school as Sir Paul Nurse because he made a slightly less ridiculous claim on a recent Horizon program that anthropogenic CO2 emissions were (a mere) seven times greater than natural sources!

Someone is kidding us! It is the great and the good of the "learned" societies and they are not "in error" or "stupid`" or "dim" they are lying and spinning their heads off in support of a political ideology as pernicious as any other.

[marchesarosa]

Here is Christopher Booker's take on Paul Nurse's Horizon lies.

The most telling moment, however, came in an interview between Nurse and a computer-modelling scientist from Nasa, presented as a general climate expert although he is only a specialist in ice studies. Asked to quantify the relative contributions of CO2 to the atmosphere by human and natural causes, his seemingly devastating reply was that 7 gigatons (billion tons) are emitted each year by human activity while only 1 gigaton comes from natural sources such as the oceans. This was so much the message they wanted that Nurse invited him to confirm that human emissions are seven times greater than those from all natural sources.
This was mind-boggling. It is generally agreed that the 7 billion tonnes of CO2 due to human activity represent just over 3 per cent of the total emitted. That given off by natural sources, such as the oceans, is vastly greater than this, more than 96 per cent of the total. One may argue about the “carbon cycle” and how much CO2 the oceans and plants reabsorb. But, as baldly stated, the point was simply a grotesque misrepresentation, serving, like many of the programme’s other assertions, only to give viewers a wholly misleading impression....

www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/christopherbooker/8290469/How-BBC-warmists-abuse-the-science.html

Booker gives Nurse the benefit of the doubt saying his presentation was "misleading". I say Nurse is lying his head off for what he perceives as the greater good. NOT what we need from people who claim to call themselves scientists.

[marchesarosa]

A remark from Richard Feynman who I think STA will acknowledge is a giant of physics

When a scientist doesn’t know the answer to a problem, he is ignorant. When he has a hunch as to what the result is, he is uncertain. And when he is pretty damn sure of what the result is going to be, he is still in some doubt. We have found it of paramount importance that in order to progress, we must recognize our ignorance and leave room for doubt. Scientific knowledge is a body of statements of varying degrees of certainty — some most unsure, some nearly sure, but none absolutely certain.

Feynman died before the extraordinary era of climatechangeism took hold of the world via the IPCC.

I think he would have added another category to those of ignorance, doubt and uncertainty. In the realm of climate science we now have blatant misrepresentation and, indeed, lies, as outlined in the above discussion.

[speakertoanimals]

You see what happens when you poke her?

I am indifferent to the minute fraction of atmospheric CO2 produced by modern fossil fuel emissions because your supposedly fearsome annual billions of anthropgenic tons is totally SWAMPED in camparison to the turnover of other sources already there and already endlessly recycled. And what is more, the plants are for the most part indifferent to the source, too, its ALL plant food, after all.

Turnover isn't the point, we ALL know that the carbon cycle happens. What does matter is a NEW source of CO2 to add to the mix.

I dunno why others make that claim about CO2 from volcanic and fossil fuel being isotopically identical, because the actual FIGURES from isotopis geochemists say otherwise. So, what are we to believe, actual figures from chaps whose job it is to measure the isotope ratios, or someone that just quotes from some unspecificed source?

Gtranted, given ONE molecule of CO2, you can't tell where it came from. But given the measured fraction of carbon 13 in a sample, you can then compute HOW that ratio came about, and different sources have different ratios.

Gets even better -- you can't understand BASIC english! Let's look at the quote you gave:

Segalstad (1992; 1993; 1996) concluded from 13-C/12-C isotope mass balance calculations, in accordance with the 14-C data, that at least 96% of the current atmospheric CO2 is isotopically indistinguishable from non-fossil-fuel sources, i.e. natural marine and juvenile sources from the Earth's interior.

So Segalstad was using the SAME isotopic analysis as I've been talking about. Did he say that volcanic and fossil are indistinguishable?

NO! He is claiming that 96% of atmospherica CO2 is indistinguishable from non-fossil fuel sources. Which of course imples immediately that fossil fuel and non-fossil fuel sources (ie volcanic and outgassing) ARE distinguishable. Which was the point I was making all along, and that you claimed was not the case.

So seems you and Casey have both misunderstood Segalstad!

What Segalstad is actually saying, using isotopic analysis, is that a much lower percentage of CO2 in atmosphere can be linked to fossil fuel sources than others say, He is NOT saying that fossil fuel and non-fossil fuel CO2 are indistinguishable, which is the rubbish Casey was coming out with.

Hoist by your own petard, is the apposite phrase I think.

Plus many others, using isotopic analysis, disagree with Segalstad and say he has got his times in a twist, but that is another matter. They are just arguing over the exact proportion from fossil versus non-fossil, NOT the fact that you can distinguish using isotopic analysis (as Casey is).

I would really like Louise and STA to justify their claim that anthropogenic CO2 emissions are 100 times greater than volcanic when even the most rudimentary text for children states that undersea sources of CO2 are the PRIMARY sources.

O stop being such an idiot! Everyone knows that CO2 originally came from the interior of the earth, hence the word PRIMARY. It DOESN'T mean that since then it hasn't been passed around, captured by plants, buried at depth, then dug up by us and burnt as fuel. What did you think people were saying, that plants magically created carbon form nothing?

FRom Columbia university:

The primary source of carbon/CO2 is outgassing from the Earth's interior at midocean ridges, hotspot volcanoes, and subduction-related volcanic arcs. Much of the CO2 released at subduction zones is derived from the metamorphism of carbonate rocks subducting with the ocean crust. Much of the overall outgassing CO2, expecially as midocean ridges and hotpot volcanoes, was stored in the mantle when the Earth formed. Some of the outgassed carbon remains as CO2 in the atmosphere, some is dissolved in the oceans, some carbon is held as biomass in living or dead and decaying organisms, and some is bound in carbonate rocks. Carbon is removed into long term storage by burial of sedimentary strata, especially coal and black shales that store organic carbon from undecayed biomass and carbonate rocks like limestone (calcium carbonate).

Stored in the mantle when the earth formed, geddit! As opposed to delivered by comets or meteorites, or beamed down by aliens, or magically created by nuclear fusion by plants as you seem to think the rest of us believe!

The point being, we have taken some of that CO2 that was safely buried, and let it out of the bottle again. PRIMARY, in this context, DOESN'T mean that the current rate of out-gassing outweighs fossil fuel emissions (especially when carbon sink properties of oceanic crust are taken into account BTW).

As a layman witnss to the AGW dispute I have to judge between the conflicting statements of various scientists about anthropogenic CO2. I see that the facts are indeed in dispute!

Baby, you just clearly don't UNDERSTAND even the simplest statements about the issues! Sciebce is ALWAYS in dispute the natuire of the beast, you if you want to try and have a meaninful debate about the subject, you need to:

1) Be able to understand simple statements (e.g., primary source quotes above).
2) Check the validity of your sources (i.e., a BSc geologist who makes incorrect statements about isotopic analysis based on (how sweet!), possibly the same misunderstanding as you have just demonstrated!)
3) Weigh the evidence -- the spoutings of a few professional geologists, and even more unprofessional ones and rank amateurs, against a far larger weight of scientific evidence and the general consensus.
4) Be prepared to admit the possibility that your understanding may be incorrect, and admit it when it is.

So far, I can't find much eveidence of you doing ANY of these.

[speakertoanimals]

Just in case I've gone mad, I checked again what Casey says.

From carbon-budget.geologist-1011.net/

It is therefore unsurprising to find that Segalstad (1998) points out that 96% of atmospheric CO2 is isotopically indistinguishable from volcanic degassing. So much for the Royal Society's unexplained "chemical analysis". If you believe that we know enough about volcanic gas compositions to distinguish them chemically from fossil fuel combustion, you have indeed been mislead.

Which is kind of correct, although the 'chemical' thing is a bit weird.

But then later in the same document:

On the scale of atmospheric composition, the isotopic composition of volcanogenic CO2 is indistinguishable from fossil fuel CO2

So, now it has suddenly become the incorrect (or at best grossly misleading statement), that volcanic is indistinguishable from fossil fuel.

And again:

Furthermore, there is no fingerprint by which we may distinguish fossil fuel CO2 from volcanic CO2.

Which is in direct disagreement with everybody, including Segalstad! Because Segalstad DOES say you can distinguish between the two, just disagrees about the ratio of fossil in the atmosphere - he says only 4%, and 96% non-fossil.