Co2 Acquittal

[freeztar]

Originally Posted by Turtle

We have a lot more scientific reasons to reduce reliance on fossil fuels than CO2.

Likewise, there are scientific reasons to not acquit CO2, such as ocean acidification.

Although the natural absorption of CO2 by the world's oceans helps mitigate the climatic effects of anthropogenic emissions of CO2, it is believed that the resulting decrease in pH will have negative consequences, primarily for oceanic calcifying organisms...
While the full ecological consequences of these changes in calcification are still uncertain, it appears likely that calcifying species will be adversely affected. There is also some evidence that the effect of acidification on coccolithophores (among the most abundant phytoplankton in the ocean) in particular may eventually exacerbate climate change, by decreasing the earth's albedo via their effects on oceanic cloud cover[10].

Ocean acidification

So many feedback loops...

[Turtle]

More science thatn you can burn a stick with.

Three million underwater volcanoes & Unrecognized Underwater Volcanic Activity - can.general | Google Groups

Originally Posted by John Hillier

Hillier then extrapolated the data to estimate how
many volcanoes exist beyond the areas the research
vessels sounded out.


If you've read "Not by Fire but by Ice" then you
understand how important this is. When I
started writing this book, scientists thought
there were 10,000 underwater volcanoes in
the entire world.


Now they think there are three million!


As I've been saying all along, it's not global
warming, it's ocean warming ((heated by
underwater volcanoes), and it's leading us
into the next ice age.

Global distribution of seamounts from ship-track bathymetry data

Originally Posted by Hillier,Watts

Abstract
The distribution of submarine volcanoes, or seamounts, reflects melting within the Earth and how the magma generated ascends through the overlying lithosphere. Globally (±60° latitude), we use bathymetry data acquired along 39.5 × 106 km of ship tracks to find 201,055 probable seamounts, an order of magnitude more than previous counts across a wider height-range (0.1 < h < 6.7 km). In the North Pacific, seamounts' spatial distribution substantially reflects ridge-crest conditions, variable on timescales of 10 s of Ma and along-ridge distances of ∼1,000 km, rather than intra-plate hot-spot related volcanic activity. In the Atlantic, volcano numbers decrease, somewhat counter-intuitively, towards Iceland suggesting that abundant under-ridge melt may deter the formation of isolated volcanoes. Neither previously used empirical curve (exponential or power-law) describes the true size-frequency distribution of seamounts. Nevertheless, we predict 39 ± 1 × 103 large seamounts (h > 1 km), implying that ∼24,000 (60%) remain to be discovered.

Received 2 March 2007; accepted 31 May 2007; published 6 July 2007.

[Turtle]

Originally Posted by freeztar

Likewise, there are scientific reasons to not acquit CO2, such as ocean acidification.


Ocean acidification

So many feedback loops...

Yes, very many. And since no one knows exactly how many volcanoes we have underwater and their pertinent measures, then there is no valid basis to say what part of the hole other contributors make to warming and cooling the Earth.

Fortunately, scientific study of underwater volcanism is proceeding, if perhaps only at a turttle's pace.

http://www.pnas.org/cgi/reprint/0400323101v1.pdf

Originally Posted by Ryan C. Bay*, Nathan Bramall, and P. Buford Price

Bipolar correlation of volcanism with millennial climate change

Analyzing data from our optical dust logger, we find that volcanic ash layers from the Siple Dome (Antarctica) borehole are simultaneous (with >99% rejection of the null hypothesis) with the onset of millennium-timescale cooling recorded at Greenland Ice Sheet Project 2 (GISP2; Greenland). These data are the best evidence yet for a causal connection between volcanism and millennial climate
change and lead to possibilities of a direct causal relationship. Evidence has been accumulating for decades that volcanic eruptions can perturb climate and possibly affect it on long timescales and that volcanism may respond to climate change. If rapid climate change can induce volcanism, this result could be further evidence of a southern-lead North–South climate asynchrony. Alternatively, a volcanic-forcing viewpoint is of particular interest because of the high correlation and relative timing of the events, and it may involve a scenario in which volcanic ash and sulfate abruptly increase the soluble iron in large surface areas of the nutrientlimited Southern Ocean, stimulate growth of phytoplankton, which enhance volcanic effects on planetary albedo and the global carbon cycle, and trigger northern millennial cooling. Large global temperature swings could be limited by feedback within the volcano–climate system. ...

[freeztar]

Originally Posted by Turtle

Yes, very many. And since no one knows exactly how many volcanoes we have underwater and their pertinent measures, then there is no valid basis to say what part of the hole other contributors make to warming and cooling the Earth.

No valid basis?
As far as the thread title goes, we do have a valid basis to say that CO2 concentrations do affect climate and if we can lessen that single "part of the whole" then we can at least help slow/mitigate any additional heating caused by "other contributers".

We know CO2 is a greenhouse gas. We know that humans have been emitting CO2 at increasing rates. We know that we are in a warming trend (for whatever reasons).

We can't influence solar activity or volcanoes (at least not with current tech). We can influence CO2 concentrations.

The problem I see with your CO2 acquittal argument, Turtle, is that it implies that because we don't know all contributions to the whole, it is silly to assume we have any effect and therefore it is silly to take any action (for climate's sake) until all the facts are in. How long will that take (if ever)?

Fortunately, scientific study of underwater volcanism is proceeding, if perhaps only at a turttle's pace.

http://www.pnas.org/cgi/reprint/0400323101v1.pdf

I don't know much about underwater volcanoes and their differences from terrestrial volcanoes, but I'm going to assume they are similar in approach, if different in deployment.

Let's take a familiar example of a terrestrial volcano that is active, Mount St. Helens. I remember when you made the claim against GW causing glacial recession by noting that the glaciers are actually increasing in the middle of an active vent.
Perhaps we will find similar events happening on the frigid ocean bottom...
Perhaps not...

[Turtle]

Originally Posted by freeztar

The problem I see with your CO2 acquittal argument, Turtle, is that it implies that because we don't know all contributions to the whole, it is silly to assume we have any effect and therefore it is silly to take any action (for climate's sake) until all the facts are in. How long will that take (if ever)?

No, what I imply and have explicitly stated elsewhere is that spending money to bury charcoal or any such carbon sequestration or reduction plan is money not spent toward any remedial action. By all accounts this is about the effect on people. We need to find energy sources other than fossil fuels because they're finite, they add particulates, carbon monoxide, sulphur compound, etcetera, bad stuff to who laid the chunk. How much less carbon in the air if Gore had them mail his trophy from Norway? Inconvenient truth indeed.

Originally Posted by Freezter

I don't know much about underwater volcanoes and their differences from terrestrial volcanoes, but I'm going to assume they are similar in approach, if different in deployment.

So your whole rebuttal is laying on an assumption based on facts not in evidence?

Originally Posted by Freezenheim

Let's take a familiar example of a terrestrial volcano that is active, Mount St. Helens. I remember when you made the claim against GW causing glacial recession by noting that the glaciers are actually increasing in the middle of an active vent.
Perhaps we will find similar events happening on the frigid ocean bottom...
Perhaps not...

Speaking of heat on the frigid bottom, and volcanoes aside, how many hydrothermal vents are on the ocean floor and what is their contribution to heating & chemical compounds directly? What of their newly discovered ecosystems? How many tons of carbon in these cycles now & historically?

All of these rebuttals don't deny the Sun's role, volcanoes' roles, hydrothermal vent's roles, they just marginalize and minimize them with rhetoric. The models are only as good as the data going in, and incomplete data is as good as bad data. In mathematical terms, this is a 'complex system', as in 'complex system theory' previously know as 'chaos theory'. Claiming it's all about CO2 is like looking at the bulbous black outline of the Mandelbrot set and saying you know what it looks like.

Here's more heresy: >>
Ocean: Hydrothermal

Originally Posted by NASA

The hydrothermal processes had been predicted. What was unpredicted and created quite the scientific stir was the existence of thriving communities of lifeforms at these sites.
...
Chemosynthesis
What is happening is that hydrogen sulfide is oxidized, so oxygen is necessary for this process, and the energy released from this oxidation of this hydrogen sulfide molecule is used to power, the fixation of carbon dioxide into small organic compounds. So this cycle ... is the same metabolic pathway that is utilized by plants in photosynthesis ... takes inorganic carbon dioxide and fixes it into organic compounds that are then food. But, the difference here, the critical difference, is that rather than using sunlight, these animals and bacteria are completely independent of sunlight. They utilize chemical energy to power that reaction.

[freeztar]

Originally Posted by Turtle

No, what I imply and have explicitly stated elsewhere is that spending money to bury charcoal or any such carbon sequestration or reduction plan is money not spent toward any remedial action. By all accounts this is about the effect on people. We need to find energy sources other than fossil fuels because they're finite, they add particulates, carbon monoxide, sulphur compound, etcetera, bad stuff to who laid the chunk. How much less carbon in the air if Gore had them mail his trophy from Norway? Inconvenient truth indeed.

I wasn't discussing charcoal or sequestration. I know your views on fossil fuels and I certainly was not implying that you thought rampant coal burning was ok. Gore is a whole different topic as well.

So your whole rebuttal is laying on an assumption based on facts not in evidence?

My rebuttal was based on logic. We have certain factors that we can influence, certain factors we can't. We should act accordingly.

Speaking of heat on the frigid bottom, and volcanoes aside, how many hydrothermal vents are on the ocean floor and what is their contribution to heating & chemical compounds directly? What of their newly discovered ecosystems? How many tons of carbon in these cycles now & historically?

Good questions.

All of these rebuttals don't deny the Sun's role, volcanoes' roles, hydrothermal vent's roles, they just marginalize and minimize them with rhetoric.

Rhetoric that marginalizes and minimizes?

The models are only as good as the data going in, and incomplete data is as good as bad data.

[Scottish accent]We're givin'er all she's got Capt'n[/Scottish accent]

In mathematical terms, this is a 'complex system', as in 'complex system theory' previously know as 'chaos theory'. Claiming it's all about CO2 is like looking at the bulbous black outline of the Mandelbrot set and saying you know what it looks like.

Nobody serious can claim that "it's all about CO2", Turtle, and no one has made that claim here.

[InfiniteNow]

I want to thank Turtle for bringing an opposing viewpoint. It's helpful to consider different perspectives when approaching an issue so complex.

I do though assert with confidence that the strawman/red herring argument of censorship and presumed heresy is one which I find hardly applies to the area of global climate change research. I shared some of my reasons for this viewpoint previously in this thread. Primarily, nobody is censoring deniers. It's just that nearly every attempt they make to refute the data fails upon scrutiny.



The recent posts above regarding volanism are important, but they do nothing to negate evidence surrounding human contributions of CO₂ to the atmosphere and the consequent impact on global climate. Volcanic forcing has been demonstrated to be a significantly smaller forcing factor than human emissions. Volcanic forcing must be considered, but it in no way negates the overall dominance of the impact humans contributions have on climate.


As I have said repeatedly in this thread, these issues have already been addressed by my sources. Nobody has argued against volcanism's impact, just the relative scope of it. Please also note that nobody has succesfully challenged the validity of any of the data I have provided. It's unfortunate people are not reading them (or, completely ignoring them), and it's further unfortunate that so many false claims have been presented here to our readers.


Speaking specifically to the issue of volcanism, please see the excerpts below. I welcome challenges to the data. I welcome healthy debate. I discourage logical fallacies like strawmen, red herrings, false dichotomies, ad hominems, and all types of appeals (to ignorance, to shame, to ridicule, etc.).


If you wish to challenge the data I've presented, please do so. Posting of links from non-peer reviewed sources or from articles that have already thoroughly been debunked should be avoided.



http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-re...1-chapter2.pdf

The combined anthropogenic RF is estimated to be +1.6 [–1.0, +0.8]2 W m^–2, indicating that, since 1750, it is extremely likely that humans have exerted a substantial warming influence on climate. This RF estimate is likely to be at least five times greater than that due to solar irradiance changes. For the period 1950 to 2005, it is exceptionally unlikely that the combined natural RF (solar irradiance plus volcanic aerosol) has had a warming influence comparable to that of the combined anthropogenic RF.

Since the start of the industrial era (about 1750), the overall effect of human activities on climate has been a warming influence. The human impact on climate during this era greatly exceeds that due to known changes in natural processes, such as solar changes and volcanic eruptions.

http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-re...1-chapter9.pdf

Simulations of global mean 20th-century temperature change that accounted for anthropogenic greenhouse gases and sulphate aerosols as well as solar and volcanic forcing were found to be generally consistent with observations. In contrast, a limited number of simulations of the response to known natural forcings alone indicated that these may have contributed to the observed warming in the first half of the 20th century, but could not provide an adequate explanation of the warming in the second half of the 20th century, nor the observed changes in the vertical structure of the atmosphere.

Differences in the temporal evolution and sometimes the spatial pattern of climate response to external forcing make it possible, with limitations, to separate the response to these forcings in observations, such as the responses to greenhouse gas and sulphate aerosol forcing. In contrast, the climate response and temporal evolution of other anthropogenic forcings is more uncertain, making the simulation of the climate response and its detection in observations more difficult. The temporal evolution, and to some extent the spatial and vertical pattern, of the climate response to natural forcings is also quite different from that of anthropogenic forcing. This makes it possible to separate the climate response to solar and volcanic forcing from the response to anthropogenic forcing despite the uncertainty in the history of solar forcing noted above.

It is very unlikely that the 20th-century warming can be explained by natural causes. The late 20th century has been unusually warm. Palaeoclimatic reconstructions show that the second half of the 20th century was likely the warmest 50-year period in the Northern Hemisphere in the last 1300 years. This rapid warming is consistent with the scientific understanding of how the climate should respond to a rapid increase in greenhouse gases like that which has occurred over the past century, and the warming is inconsistent with the scientific understanding of how the climate should respond to natural external factors such as variability in solar output and volcanic activity.

Nevertheless, ozone, solar and volcanic forcing changes are generally not found to have made a large contribution to the observed NAM trend over recent decades (Shindell et al., 2001a; Gillett et al., 2003a).

Although natural internal climate processes, such as El Niño, can cause variations in global mean temperature for relatively short periods, analysis indicates that a large portion is due to external factors. Brief periods of global cooling have followed major volcanic eruptions, such as Mt. Pinatubo in 1991. In the early part of the 20th century, global average temperature rose, during which time greenhouse gas concentrations started to rise, solar output was probably increasing and there was little volcanic activity. During the 1950s and 1960s, average global temperatures levelled off, as increases in aerosols from fossil fuels and other sources cooled the planet. The eruption of Mt. Agung in 1963 also put large quantities of reflective dust into the upper atmosphere. The rapid warming observed since the 1970s has occurred in a period when the increase in greenhouse gases has dominated over all other factors.

In addition, differences in the timing of the human and natural external influences help to distinguish the climate responses to these factors. Such considerations increase confidence that human rather than natural factors were the dominant cause of the global warming observed over the last 50 years.

Estimates of Northern Hemisphere temperatures over the last one to two millennia, based on natural ‘thermometers’ such as tree rings that vary in width or density as temperatures change, and historical weather records, provide additional evidence that the 20th-century warming cannot be explained by only natural internal variability and natural external forcing factors. Confidence in these estimates is increased because prior to the industrial era, much of the variation they show in Northern Hemisphere average temperatures can be explained by episodic cooling caused by large volcanic eruptions and by changes in the Sun’s output. The remaining variation is generally consistent with the variability simulated by climate models in the absence of natural and human-induced external factors. While there is uncertainty in the estimates of past temperatures, they show that it is likely that the second half of the 20th century was the warmest 50-year period in the last 1300 years. The estimated climate variability caused by natural factors is small compared to the strong 20th-century warming.

Chapter 2 concludes that it is exceptionally unlikely that the combined natural (solar and volcanic) radiative forcing has had a warming influence comparable to that of the combined anthropogenic forcing over the period 1950 to 2005.

Since my previous posts seem to have gone ignored, I hope the above is specific enough to warrant attention and due consideration.

[Turtle]

Originally Posted by freeztar

I wasn't discussing charcoal or sequestration. I know your views on fossil fuels and I certainly was not implying that you thought rampant coal burning was ok. Gore is a whole different topic as well.



My rebuttal was based on logic. We have certain factors that we can influence, certain factors we can't. We should act accordingly.

You misunderstood my rebuttal to your rebuttal. I am not referring to what we can change, rather to the fact that poor estimates -poor by anyone's estimation because it is lacking*- of the extent of underwater volcanism and hydrothermal vents and their biotic colonies, means the models of the whole system using or not using those (presumably underestimated) values is by necessity increasing the apparent % of influence of other known sources of CO2 & it's ilk. If too little of the contribution is attributed to these 2 underwater systems then too much is logically accorded to the usuasl suspects. It's worth repeating that the biota at hydrothermal vents, the extent of which is unknown, are fixing CO2 at a happy rate. Is that part of the CO@ cycle in the models?
* note one of my links put the unknown underwater volcanoes at 60%

Originally Posted by Freezmaster

Good questions.

Rhetoric that marginalizes and minimizes?

Yes thank you, & the general rebuttal rhetoric, not your own impeccable personal rhetoric. I refer to the same slippery words and phrases they use to recuse the disenting view; words like 'unlikely', 'mostly', 'little if at all' , or 'almost all...'.

Originally Posted by Freezeneer

[Scottish accent]We're givin'er all she's got Capt'n[/Scottish accent]

You got that right. And then there's the heat of the engine room. If no one knows how many volcanoes underwater, fur sure, or hydrothermal vents, fur sure, then we have yet another serious accountiung error about where the heat is coming from that the bad ol' gasses are trapping. Lucy! You got some splainin' ta do!!!

Originally Posted by Freezator

Nobody serious can claim that "it's all about CO2", Turtle, and no one has made that claim here.

I wouldn't touch that one with a 10 foot poll. ..........

[Turtle]

Originally Posted by freeztar

...
As far as the thread title goes, we do have a valid basis to say that CO2 concentrations do affect climate and if we can lessen that single "part of the whole" then we can at least help slow/mitigate any additional heating caused by "other contributers".

We know CO2 is a greenhouse gas. We know that humans have been emitting CO2 at increasing rates. We know that we are in a warming trend (for whatever reasons).

We can't influence solar activity or volcanoes (at least not with current tech). We can influence CO2 concentrations. ...

I want to touch on this before moving to some more heretical inconvenient truths. So Freezy, taking the above and making an anology with your work with runoff, soils, etcetera. Given that you know some particular piece of property is susceptable to 100 year floods, or some such other period, do you spend the owners money on efforts to keep the flooding from happening via weather control or other means, or do you spend the money on projects to control the consequences of these events?

Now to a logical error on the part of many of those 'damning' rebuttals on the influence of the Sun on global warming.

We start with the Sun, Earth, & Moon and all that gravitationaly driven water sloshing we call tides. There is at one level a relatively high frequency level, that of the daily double cycle of ebb & flow; a change every 6 hours. On top of that, the arrangement of all 3 bodies has a result of higher than normal and lower than normal when all three align, called sysygy. On top of that, the distance between Earth/Moon & Earth Sun varies with the eccentricity of orbit, so that when sysygy occurs during the closest approaches, the perigees, then the highs and lows are even more extreme.

Moving this principle then to the Sun cycles, both inter-solar-system and galactic, the same compounding of cycles make for some very long intervals of time to coincident peaks. Discounting a particular scientific study about an element of solar forcing related to a short cycle, is tantamount to discounting the possibility of a neap tide after 10 days of watching tides. Not good if you're a boater. This is a real problem to the logic that says 'things' have never been this high/low before when in fact the highs and lows may simply have not occured often enough to even have meaning. You cannot say some flood is a 100 year flood until you get one. Moreover, the Sun observers thought they knew the limits of Sun outbursts when they calibrated SOHO, and yet, last year a CME blew out that was off the scale they didn't think existed.

Anyway, that's another rap from mah shell.

[Turtle]

Just when you don't want another inconvenient truth about energy contributing to Earth warming, let alone a newly discovered one, what comes along but exactly that and right into our Hypography laps (thank you C1ay for this and all the others!). Given this data is no more than 8 months old, I assure you no climatologist has figured it into their model. No matter how small the contribution yet of the energy added to Earth by magnetic coupling, as the measures are only now starting as the discovery advances. What matters is that this addition means some other estimated input is overestimated.

http://hypography.com/forums/space-n...ies-about.html

Originally Posted by Goddard SpaceFlightCenter

NASA Spacecraft Make New Discoveries About Northern Lights

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A fleet of NASA spacecraft, launched less than eight months ago, has made three important discoveries about spectacular eruptions of Northern Lights called "substorms" and the source of their power.

NASA's Time History of Events and Macroscale Interactions during Substorms (THEMIS) mission observed the dynamics of a rapidly developing substorm, confirmed the existence of giant magnetic ropes and witnessed small explosions in the outskirts of Earth's magnetic field. The findings will be presented at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco in December. ...