It's Not CO2 But What Could It Be?

What is it that causes the climate to change? I walk outside and tilt my face toward the sky and feel the warmth on my skin. I wonder, what it is causing my face and the air around me to warm? We now know it's not CO2 but what is it?
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EDMONTON, AB, May. 12, 2013/ Troy Media/ – It has been widely reported recently that the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere from all sources has reached 400 parts per million (ppm).

It has also been suggested that passing this “milestone” signals our failure to deal with climate change. But actually, reaching this milestone does something quite different.

Since there has been no significant warming for 17 years and none predicted by the UK Met Office until after 2017[ii]; since, according to the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change), there is no connection between extreme weather events and climate change[iii]; and since the population has continued to grow as C02 increases, this milestone really signals that the simplistic theory that man-made greenhouse gas “causes” global warming is not as viable a theory as many once thought it was.

The planet has had much higher levels of CO2 before – 20y times higher than the current concentration[iv]. The difference this time is that humans are a dominant species and we have been encouraged to see CO2 as “problematic” rather than the life force that it really is. CO2 at 400 ppm will accelerate plant growth, enabling faster absorption of CO2. It is likely that the average CO2 for 2013 will be not much different from that of 2012 – around 393 ppm.

The ice core samples and other evidence all suggest that, as the temperature rises, more CO2 is produced, causing further warming. What we have here is something different. CO2 levels have risen significantly since 1900 but the temperature rise has not been linear. Between 1900 and the present, warming is thought to be around 0.7C. A recent peer-reviewed study suggests that if, as some now predict, CO2 reaches 560 ppm by 2100, total warming over two centuries would be around 1.1 degrees – 0.4C warmer than the present[v]. A doubling of CO2 will not produce a massive shift in climate.

There is also a view among some scientists that the sensitivity of the climate to CO2 is much less than previously thought. Stephen Schwartz of Brookhaven National Lab concludes that the Earth’s climate is only about one-third as sensitive to carbon dioxide as the IPCC assumes, suggesting that the 400 ppm milestone is of very little significance.

Much of the science that sees 400 ppm as problematic is what we refer to as “virtual science” – science by model and machine. Dr. Jim Renwick, formerly a top UN IPCC scientist, has suggested that climate models do not account for half the variability in nature and thus are not reliable. “Half of the variability in the climate system is not predictable, so we don’t expect to do terrifically well”, he has said[vi]. Others point to the last 17 years of no significant warming and point out that none of the 21 climate models predicted this or can explain this.

Now that, using observation and evidence, we can see that high levels of CO2 are not leading to “catastrophic warming” – observations we can connect to related observations in science (e.g. the medieval warm period was warmer than the present, extended from Europe as far as Antarctica when C02 was considerably less than at present[vii]) – it is time to revisit the theory which is informing our understanding of the climate.

John Maynard Keynes, speaking to an opponent during Bretton Woods, said “When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?” – seems like an appropriate quote here. We are at 400 ppm. There is only modest warming in over a century and none for almost 20 years and none forecast for another four. CO2 is rising faster than anticipated. What do you do sir?

http://www.troymedia.com/2013/05/12/global-warming-milestone-proves-man-made-theory-wrong/

See http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/02/...achauri-acknowledges-no-warming-for-17-years/

[ii] See http://www.theaustralian.com.au/new...n-climate-debate/story-e6frg6n6-1226583112134

[iii] http://rogerpielkejr.blogspot.ca/2012/03/handy-bullshit-button-on-disasters-and.html

[iv] Nasif Nahle. 2007. Cycles of Global Climate Change. Biology Cabinet Journal Online. Article no. 295. http://www.biocab.org/Climate_Geologic_Timescale.html, and http://www.biocab.org/Carbon_Dioxide_Geological_Timescale.html. (But also see Vandenbroucke, T.R.A., Armstrong, H.A., Williams, M., Paris, F., Zalasiewicz, J.A., Sabbe, K., Nolvak, J., Challands, T.J., Verniers, J. & Servais, T. 2010. Polar front shift and atmospheric CO2 during the glacial maximum of the Early Paleozoic Icehouse. PNAS doi/10.1073/pnas.1003220107).

[v] See http://www.ecd.bnl.gov/steve/pubs/HeatCapacity.pdf

[vi] See http://nzclimatescience.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=23&Itemid=32

[vii] See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_Warm_Period

 

nice post...


John Maynard Keynes, speaking to an opponent during Bretton Woods, said “When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?” – seems like an appropriate quote here. We are at 400 ppm. There is only modest warming in over a century and none for almost 20 years and none forecast for another four. CO2 is rising faster than anticipated. What do you do sir?

 

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/histo...Since-the-Days-of-Ancient-Rome-187936271.html


Air Pollution Has Been a Problem Since the Days of Ancient Rome

Before the Industrial Revolution, our planet’s atmosphere was still untainted by human-made pollutants. At least, that’s what scientists thought until recently, when bubbles trapped in Greenland’s ice revealed that we began emitting greenhouse gases at least 2,000 years ago.

Célia Sapart of Utrecht University in the Netherlands led 15 scientists from Europe and the United States in a study that charted the chemi_cal signature of methane in ice samples spanning 2,100 years. The gas methane naturally occurs in the atmosphere in low concentrations. But it’s now considered a greenhouse gas implicated in climate change because of emissions from landfills, large-scale cattle ranching, natural gas pipeline leaks and land-clearing fires.

Scientists often gauge past climate and atmosphere conditions from pristine ancient ice samples. The new research was based on 1,600-foot-long ice cores extracted from Greenland’s 1.5-mile-thick ice sheet, which is made up of layers of snow that have accumulated over the past 115,000 years.

Sapart and her colleagues chemically analyzed the methane in microscopic air bubbles trapped in each ice layer. They wanted to know if warmer periods over the past two millennia increased gas levels, possibly by spur- ring bacteria to break down organics in wetlands. The goal was to learn more about how future warm spells might boost atmospheric methane and accelerate climate change.

The researchers did find that methane concentrations went up—but not in step with warm periods. “The changes we observed must have been coming from something else,” Sapart says.

That “something else” turned out to be human activity, notably metallurgy and large-scale agriculture starting around 100 B.C. The ancient Romans kept domesticated livestock—cows, sheep and goats—which excrete methane gas, a byproduct of digestion. Around the same time, in China, the Han dynasty expanded its rice fields, which harbor methane-producing bacteria. Also, blacksmiths in both empires produced methane gas when they burned wood to fashion metal weapons. After those civilizations declined, emis- sions briefly decreased.

Then, as human population and land use for agricul- ture increased worldwide over the centuries, atmospheric methane slowly climbed. Between 100 B.C. and A.D. 1600, methane emissions rose by nearly 31 million tons per year. According to the most recent data, the United States alone generates some 36 million tons of methane per year.

“The ice core data show that as far back as the time of the Roman Empire, human [activities] emitted enough methane gas to have had an impact on the methane signature of the entire atmosphere,” Sapart says.

Although such emissions weren’t enough to alter the climate, she says, the discovery that humans already were altering the atmosphere on a global scale was “tremendously surprising.”

The discovery will compel scientists to rethink predic- tions about how future methane emissions will affect climate. “It used to be that before 1750, everything was considered ‘natural,’” Sapart says, “so the base line needs to be reconsidered, and we need to look farther back in time to see how much methane there was before humans got involved.”

 

its odd now that there has been no warming for 17 years and the IPCC models have failed scientists start releasing stories...

about:

water vapor having an effect
methane having an effect
cows and agriculture having an effect
the tides having and effect
the sun having an effect

"Anti science" deniers were really the only people reading and reviewing real science and distinguishing it from the agw nutter bullshit passing for science.

Now the truth is coming out and we see CO2 is a byproduct of warming and it has a feedback effect it is small and therefore the human part is most likely insignificant.

 

Didn't you say you don't trust scientists , and the Universe is only 6000 years old ? ? ..

 

yeah, no warming for 17 years. You're a fucking joke and just like pisspoor you are lying sack of shit.

You two should just fucking shoot each other.

 

Only the politically motivated ones

NO dumb ass.

 

Stick it up your ass Futurecunt.

You can't even read that article and have a rudimentary understand of what it means you ignorant asshole.

You should just go jump back into the tar pit you crawled out of because you are just a dumbass with nothing worthwhile to contribute.

 

You're a lying sack of shit. You suck. You are a twisted fucked up person. As is jerm.

Fuck you.

 

How can one dispute such a well articulated scientific retort?