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Comment on Quantifying the anthropogenic contribution to atmospheric CO2 by Mike Flynn

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Even worse.

Article contains model results, estimates, likelihoods, missing CO2 requiring adjustments, hopeful trend projections, meaningless expressions of probabilities, and all the rest.

Not terribly confidence inspiring, one way or t’other.

On probability. When you play Russian roulette with a six shooter, there is roughly 84% probability you will pull the trigger on an empty chamber. If an expert told you probability was really 99% because modelling showed that the bullet would tend to come to rest opposite the firing pin,would you be any more likely to play?

Not me. Well, probably not, with a high degree of confidence. Maybe.


Comment on Quantifying the anthropogenic contribution to atmospheric CO2 by dikranmarsupial

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The mass balance argument is not the same thing as the carbon budget (hint: why were scientists concerned about the “missing sink”? How did they know there was a “missing sink”?). I set the mass balance analysis out for you in detail earlier in this discussion, you would be better off engaging with it, rather than misrepresenting it – again!

Comment on Quantifying the anthropogenic contribution to atmospheric CO2 by Mike Flynn

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Up until about 18 years ago, it was absolutely certain that the correlation between CO2 levels and temperature would continue into the future. Settled science and all that.

Now it is absolutely certain that the correlation between rises in CO2 and ACO2 emissions will continue into the future. Settled science. No dissent allowed. Scientists are agreed.

Good grief.

Comment on What would it take to convince you about global warming? by krmmtoday

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I didn’t follow the Weitzman argument into the details but seems to be down to the fact that income and wealth aren’t well defined concepts as already has been observed in passing by our Lord Keynes in the General Theory (by referring to von Hayek as the originator).
And for any community that wants to be there for ever the discount rate has to be zero (and aggregate wealth and income are zero, very helpful).

With revenue neutral carbon tax producers can pass the tax along to consumers who can pay for it by the redistributed carbon taxes. No effect.
Actually it depends on the distribution of tax increases and reductions. May go either way.

Comment on What would it take to convince you about global warming? by Peter Davies

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Hindcasting the narrative or post hoc rationalisation seems to be what has been happening around the climate science traps but colour me unconvinced.

If Tomas Milanovic (not his real name) and Judith Curry were to jointly declare that dangerous global warming was occurring and if their data and code had been published, reviewed and accepted by Christopher Monckton and Freeman Dyson, I would believe it.

Comment on What would it take to convince you about global warming? by beththeserf

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And Clint Eastwood, mebbe.

Comment on Quantifying the anthropogenic contribution to atmospheric CO2 by dikranmarsupial

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curryja wrote “Note, the article says 90% probability that CO2 increase is above natural variability. This is very different from absolute certainty that 100% of the increase is caused by humans”

I’m sorry Prof. Curry, you have indeed misunderstood the article. The article does not say there is “a 90% probability that the CO2 increase is above natural variability”, it says that there is a (small) increasing trend in the airborne fraction that has a 90% probability of being above natural variability. The airborne fraction is not the CO2 increase itself, it is the proportion of anthropogenic emissions that remain in the atmosphere. I am very surprised that you appear not to grasp this fundamental distinction, and rather disappointed by your dismissive reaction (“No it doesn’t, read it again.”) to those who have pointed out your error.

Rather than asking for people who might write a guest post on dynamical models of atmospheric carbon, why not ask an expert, such as Prof. Le Quere, or Colin Prentice or Ken Caldeira or David Archer or Josep Canadell?

BTW, you can find the mass balance argument in this paper, co-authored by Prof. Le Quere:

http://www.globalcarbonproject.org/global/pdf/Raupach_et%20al.%202008.Anthrop%20&%20bioph%20contributions%20to%20atmCO2.Biogeosciences.pdf

Note Figure 1d the green line is the net flux from the natural environment into the atmosphere, inferred from the observed atmospheric growth rate and estimated anthropogenic emissions. This flux is clearly negative, indicating the natural environment is a net sink and the net sink is becoming stronger as time goes on. That shows the rate is 100% anthropogenic as nature is OPPOSING the increase.

Now, if you compare anthropogenic emissions and the growth rate, you can see that one is an almost constant multiple of the other. That is approximately the airborne fraction. A change in the airborne fraction is not a change in the growth rate, it is essentially the rate of change in the growth rate, and you can see that this has actually changed very little over the last 50 years. THAT is the change that Prof. Le Quere is talking about in her paper.

BTW, Prof. Prentice also mentions the mass balance argument in his rebuttal of Prof. Salby’s hypothesis:

“1. The rate of accumulation of CO2 in the atmosphere is
less than the rate of emission from fossil fuel burning. Therefore, the ocean and/or land are sinks for CO2″
.
http://climatefutures.mq.edu.au/files/file/How%20we%20know%20the%20recent%20rise%20in%20atmospheric%20CO2%20is%20anthropogenic.pdf

I suspect you will have difficulty in finding a paper that explicitly states the relative contributions of man and nature to the rise in atmospheric CO2 because it is obvious that it is anthropogenic emissions that are causing it. Research papers tend not to state things that are that well understood by the research community.

Comment on Quantifying the anthropogenic contribution to atmospheric CO2 by Lauri Heimonen

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Judith Curry

I agree with the comment of curryja; http://judithcurry.com/2015/05/06/quantifying-the-anthropogenic-contribution-to-atmospheric-co2/#comment-702338 :

”Are we getting anywhere in this discussion? I think everyone understands the concept of the mass balance. The issue is how/whether this relates to attribution, given that we have a dynamical system with feedbacks (including regional variations and temperature dependent feedbacks).”

In my view, the wickedly complex climate changes prevent us to reach any generally accceptable, working solution to the present problem on climate change and extreme events of weather.

A further excerpt from another comment of curryja; http://judithcurry.com/2015/05/06/quantification-the-anthropogenic-contribution-to-atmospheric-co2/#comment-700829 :

”We don’t have data for any of this. So I am not convinced by simple mass balance attribution arguments based on current observations. I think it unlikely that 100% of the increase in atm CO2 is caused by humans. It is not unreasonable to start from a point of 50-50 (Fred’s conclusion) and see if you can falsify natural variability as large as 50%. It may not be 50%, but I don’t think it is 0%.”

As I see, Judith Curry expresses no evidence on any potential, anthropogenic share of the recent increase of CO2 content in atmosphere.

Based on pragmatic logic, Tom V Segalstad expresses; http://www.co2web.info/ESEF3VO2.htm : ”Carbon isotopic trends agree qualitatively with fossil fuel CO2 emissions like stated by IPCC, but show quantitatively a fossil fuel CO2 component of maximum 4 % versus the 21% claimed by IPCC.”

David Wojick http://judithcurry.com/2015/05/06/quantifying-the-anthropogenic-contribution-to-atmospheric-co2/#comment-702981 :

”I am surprised to see that some people seem to still be arguing that human emissions must be causing the annual CO2 increase just because they are larger than the increase. This is wrong. The increase is caused by the sum of all changes in the system. ”

Concerning the anthropogenic share of the recent increase of CO2 content in atmosphere, in my comment http://judithcurry.com/2011/08/04/carbon-cycle-questions/#comment-198992 I agree with both Segalstad and Salby. Based on natural laws and pragmatic logic I have proved that all CO2 emissions from sources to atmosphere and all CO2 absorptions from atmosphere to sinks together determine how much CO2 is needed in atmosphere to make a necessary dynamic balance possible. As the anthropogenic share of total CO2 emissions is only about 4%, the CO2 content in atmosphere is striving for a dynamic balance, where even the anthropogenic CO2 content in atmosphere is about the same 4% of total CO2 content in atmosphere. Nowadays it means that the atmospheric CO2 content of about 400 ppm contains only about 16 ppm anthropogenic CO2 at the most.


Comment on Quantifying the anthropogenic contribution to atmospheric CO2 by climatereason

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Yes, but does all this increased co2 , probably caused by man, have any great influence on temperature?

Ferdinand appears to say not. I can’t see that today is any warmer than certain periods of the past so am doubtful of its impact over a certain concentration.

We have here a strange situation where Judith appears to believe that adding more co2 will increase temperatures but that the source of the additional co2 is not wholly man thereby partly exonerating him.

Many would agree with Ferdinand about the source, but would disagree with him about the overall effect.

Tonyb

Comment on Quantifying the anthropogenic contribution to atmospheric CO2 by Ferdinand Engelbeen

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Lauri,

You make an essential error (as many before you):
The natural carbon cycles were more or less in balance for about 800,000 years. The cycles are still more or less in balance, as there is little year to year variability (+/- 1 ppmv) and the natural cycles are more sink than source. That is what is measured.

That human emissions are (nowadays) only 6% of the emissions is true, but irrelevant. The 6% is one-way addition, the 94% is from a two-way cycle: 94% is going in, 97% is going out in all natural sinks, human sinks are virtually absent.
How much of this years human input is responsible for a part of the extra 2% output is a matter of extra atmospheric pressure:
The current extra pressure of CO2 is 110 ppmv above equilibrium (290 ppmv) for the current temperature per Henry’s law, whatever the cause. As we add ~4.5 ppmv this year, the extra pressure increases to 114.5 ppmv. Thus the human emissions of this year are good for 4% of the sink rate (in fact less, as the emissions are gradually, not one-shot), or 0.2 ppmv of the 2.15 ppmv which sinks in the oceans and vegetation.
That means that most of the human emissions remain in the atmosphere and are responsible for near all of the increase of this year (and all previous years).
Why is that not measured in the atmosphere? Because of the huge throughput of natural CO2 (the 94% in and 97% out), a lot of anthro CO2 is swapped with natural CO2. That is removal in concentration of aCO2, but not removal of total quantity of CO2 in the atmosphere, it is simple exchange.
Segalstad, Salby and many others err on this as they use the residence time (of ~5 years), which is about exchanges, instead of the excess decay rate, which is the time (~51 years e-fold rate) needed to remove an extra shot of CO2 in the atmosphere…

Comment on Quantifying the anthropogenic contribution to atmospheric CO2 by Ferdinand Engelbeen

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Hi Tony,

I am pretty sure that humans are responsible for the bulk of the increase of CO2 in the atmosphere. But I am as sure that current climate models overblow the effect of 2xCO2 and aerosols (which act in tandem in the models).
The physical effect of 2xCO2 is around 1°C, based on the absorption of IR where water vapor is not/less active. That is all what is certain. The rest is a matter of positive and negative feedbacks, where climate models add a lot of positive feedbacks, but nature seems to deliver negative feedbacks like displacement of heat via air and water, clouds, thunderstorms, rain,… which makes that the observed response of the earth is somewhere between 1-1.5°C for 2xCO2. That gets lower, the longer that the “pause” remains…

Much more interesting to discuss than the origin of the increase, which is as rock solid caused by humans as anything observed can be…

Comment on Quantifying the anthropogenic contribution to atmospheric CO2 by Ferdinand Engelbeen

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Fred,

It is not important if the residual CO2 increase (the “airborne fraction”) is 1% or 99%, in all cases human emissions are responsible for the total rise in the atmosphere, besides a small contribution of the increase in temperature…

Comment on Quantifying the anthropogenic contribution to atmospheric CO2 by Ferdinand Engelbeen

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Bart,

You still don’t (want to) get it.

Every response of CO2 to temperature in nature is quite linear, as seen over the past 800,000 years in ice cores, the current seasonal response to temperature and the year by year variability caused by temperature. Even Henry’s law gives a quite linear response for a small temperature change (less than 1°C). That is the base.

There is no reason to assume N is constant. There is not even any reason to assume fS is constant.

fS is proven constant: the sink or source rate of CO2 out/in the oceans is directly proportional to the ΔpCO2 between oceans and atmosphere. That is one of the points of Henry’s law.

N is not necessary constant, but if it is not increasing in exactly the same ratio as H, or quite constant, the increase in CO2 will not follow in ratio to H for a constant fS.

That CO2 follows H in rather exact ratio (+/- 20%) is what is observed. That N follows H (or CO2) is not observed at all.

Comment on Quantifying the anthropogenic contribution to atmospheric CO2 by climatereason

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Ferdinand

Presumably you saw this?

http://judithcurry.com/2015/05/06/quantifying-the-anthropogenic-contribution-to-atmospheric-co2/#comment-703036

I agree, the effect of the increased co2 on temperature is much more interesting than determining the source. Hope you can make a contribution as per Judith’s request?

BTW, I think what this illustrates is the capacity of scientists to get things wtr9ng. Many reputable scientists have been taking co2 measurements since 1820 (as per Beck) yet they seem to have mis-measured until Keeling.

If so, it illustrates the very real possibility that todays crop of climate scientists, as in previous centuries don’t know everything.

tonyb

Comment on Quantifying the anthropogenic contribution to atmospheric CO2 by cerescokid

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If so, it illustrates the very real possibility that todays crop of climate scientists, as in previous centuries don’t know everything.

While that should be self evident to almost everyone with a little common sense, based on many, many comments here and elsewhere, it appears not everyone accepts that. The curtain of hubris needs to be removed before the clarity appears. I hope the poor dears can handle the truth.


Comment on What would it take to convince you about global warming? by Tom Kiser

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Okay…..Please disregard for a minute that what I am proposing, if possible, would eventually result in extinguishing all life on the planet.
What if we had a magic wand type device which could be waved and cause atmospheric CO2 molecules to be reduced to 0 ppmv? I have two questions:

By how much would the average global temperature be changed?

How much reduction would there be of atmospheric molecular H2O?

And, by the way, a third question if you don’t mind: What percentage of atmospheric gases is H2O? There is a tremendous amount of literature that deals with the make-up of “dry” air. The problem is that in the driest places on the planet, (Interior Antarctica?, Atacama Desert?) there is still naturally a considerably greater concentration of H2O molecules than there are CO2 molecules. There is no “dry” air on planet Earth and each molecule of H2O that is present contributes to the planet’s greenhouse effect.

Comment on What would it take to convince you about global warming? by Block Head

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Does a carbon(sic) tax work?

Finland introduced the world’s first carbon(sic) tax in 1990.

http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/2013/07/16/factbox-carbon-tax-around-world

25 years of taxation – so far.

How long does it take for a carbon(sic) tax to stop the climate from changing?

Of course a carbon(sic) tax won’t stop the climate from changing.

But, if the objective is the re-distribution of wealth by un-elected, un-accountable UN bureaucrats under the cover of a climate trojan horse…

http://www.unric.org/en/latest-un-buzz/29623-figueres-first-time-the-world-economy-is-transformed-intentionally

It was never about the environment.

aka Mark M

Comment on True costs of wind electricity by aplanningengineer

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You are comparing specific new technology (61/40) to the average of what is out on the system now (EIA tables 45/33). It’s like comparing the average fuel mileage of all functioning car and trucks to specific advanced cars and trucks now. If you look at the EIA table 8.1 you can even with the averaging effect see the average Gas heat rate improving from 2003 to 2013 by almost 16%. That’s an amazing rise and I don’t think that many CCs were built in that time frame (A lot just before).

I didn’t procure the data myself but it appears credible and the fact that averages are different does not raise a red flag.

Comment on What would it take to convince you about global warming? by rtdeco

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And all this time, I had thought that the “fat tail argument” was a reference to Al Gore.

Comment on True costs of wind electricity by aplanningengineer

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