But your possible mechanisms are not unknown unknowns, typos aside, I haven't seen any evidence refuting that isotopic analysis strongly supports the theory that the increase in co2 in the atmosphere is due to fossil fuel burning and not any unknown mechanism
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Apologies john. You are quite correct.
https://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&q=global+dimming&meta=&gws_rd=ssl
Whether you consider it 'significant' depends on which documents you believe, and what percentage is considered significant enough to have noticeable effects.
Interesting, but studies after the eruption of mount pinotobo which had a similar effect, showed photosynthesis increased, not decreased. My use of the word intensity in my original post was incorrect. Apologies
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Are you suggesting that the biological part strives as with intent - rather than merely reacts to the prevailing state.
Are you referring to the Gaia Hypothesis?
Well, I'm not sure that the absence of (yet) known evidence against something is very strong as evidence 'for' it - but, in any event ...
... I am struggling a bit to understand what is being said about the isotopes. Most biologically produced CO2 comes, directly or indirectly from plants etc. - directly from plant respiration, indirectly by the respiration of animals that eat plants, or even more indirectly by the respiration of animals which eat animals which eat plants. If plants have an appreciably lower 13C:12C ratio than the atmosphere, that will also be true of the CO2 which those biological organisms release into the atmosphere. The same is seemingly true of CO2 released into the atmosphere when dead plants or animals decompose ('compost') aerobically, or when plant materials (e.g. fossil fuels) are burnt aerobically.
It therefore seems as if CO2 from any of those sources (plants being the ultimate source) will have a lower 13C:12C ratio than the atmosphere, and I therefore can but presume that the atmosphere only has a higher ratio because of persistent CO2 from original sources such as vulcanism and (very slowly) geological sources.
It therefore seems as if CO2 deriving from plant respiration, plant/animal decomposition, animal respiration or burning fossil fuels will all have a lower 13C:12C ratio than the atmosphere, and therefore that increasing the 'output' of any of those sources will have the effect of lowering the 13C:12C ratio of atmospheric CO2. Is that correct?
Kind Regards, John
No - essentially the latter. It's far too far from the weekend to be debating the philosophical question as to whether one should regard evolved biological behaviour as having 'intent'!
Kind Regards, John
It just sounded like that's what you were suggesting.
Theoretically Yes, although the decrease in the ratio seen post 1850 is significantly greater than any variation seen during the transition from glacial to interglacial over many thousands of years.
This is very strong evidence that there has been a massive increase in the level of co2 in the atmosphere from 1850 onwards, coinciding with the start of the industrial revolution.
There is no other evidence regarding a reduction in photosynthesis (in fact most limiting factors have increased, not decreased so should help decrease co2 levels), an increase in respiration is a non sequitur, as we and almost all other life on earth use sustainable fuel to feed our respiration, or any other mechanism
No, just a (strictly) 'bad choice of words'.
However, it is very common for us to use words which sort-of imply that an inanimate object has consciousness, an ability to think or 'intent' in what it does. For example (bringing this thread slightly back to 'Electrics'
) we might say that a voltage regulator "tries" (or even "strives") to keep voltage constant, that a thermostat "tries" (or...) to keep temperature constant or that a particular piece of electronic equipment "prefers" to be fed from a well-regulated power supply or that it "does not like" a poorly-regulated supply)!Kind Regards, John
Not really, as it is the same website that you quoted, but an older version before he tried to hid the fact that he is a cartoonist.
I misread your comment. The trend (at UHI-affected and non-affected sites) being similar (albeit not the same) is not surprising, no-one is denying that the world has got a tiny bit warmer over the past decades. The problem is that the UHI-affected sites bias the overall figures upwards. Especially when data is homogenised.
I don't know and nor does anyone else. Some will be due to CO2 slowing down the escape of heat to space. Most of the warming since the Little Ice Age happened before 1950, so anthropogenic CO2 can't be the cause of that and so is highly unlikely to be the main cause of recent warming.
If you are so sure then I am certain that you can name 30 or so such organisations. Care to do so?
And how about listing how much money they have put in. In the last two decades the US government has spent c. $150 billion, virtually all on the CAGW side.
While you are at it would you care to list all of the university climate science departments where CAGW is not the accepted paradigm?
So he is a guy on the net with a website. Quite possibly misunderstanding & misinterpreting the science. Why should anyone pay any attention to him?
And if his background is so benign why is he trying to hide it and pretending to be a scientist now?
Also, that site has a, well deserved, reputation for 'playing the man not the ball'. Scientists who take a contrary view are abused, comments asking questions about posts are attacked rather than answered or just made to disappear.
l'm not at all sure what point you are trying to make.
The CAGW idea is based on computer models. Those models failed to predict a flat period of even 15 years but there was a flat period of 17 years. Ergo those computer models were wrong. What other errors are there in those computer models?
As for a correlation between CO2 & temperature, there really is not one. The CO2 graph looks like this
http://woodfortrees.org/plot/esrl-co2
but the temperature graph looks like this
http://woodfortrees.org/plot/rss/from
You can draw a linear trend line on that but I doubt it has any physical meaning. To me that graph looks like a flatish period, then a jump at the El Nino, then another flatish period, then another jump at the next El Nino. And if we plot those two periods outside the El Ninos we get
http://woodfortrees.org/plot/rss/to:1995/plot/rss/to:1995/trend
http://woodfortrees.org/plot/rss/from:1998/plot/rss/from:1998/trend
Both of those show a tiny rise (0.1°C or less over 17), whereas the period in between them
http://woodfortrees.org/plot/rss/from:1995/to:1999/plot/rss/from:1995/to:1999/trend
shows a 0.5°C rise over 4 years.
So no, basically no correlation with CO2 rising the same amount each year.
Well, yes but I didn't think there was any doubt that CO2 levels had been increasing. Beyond that, as I said, it could be due to an increase in any of the processes I mentioned or (as I previously mentioned) a decrease in photosynthesis. As stillp has observed, the latter is what the experts were worrying (and 'shouting') about back in the 60s or thereabout.
Yes, but that just takes us back to the position of saying that burning fossil fuels in the only obvious known explanation of what has happened
I'm not sure that I understand that. The easiest way to get more CO2 being fed into the atmosphere by respiration (of any life form) is to increase the number of living organisms - something which is not unthinkable (and has certainly happened in some species!).
Kind Regards, John
AnthropomorphismNo, just a (strictly) 'bad choice of words'.
However, it is very common for us to use words which sort-of imply that an inanimate object has consciousness, an ability to think or 'intent' in what it does. For example (bringing this thread slightly back to 'Electrics'
Kind Regards, John
Increased CO2 levels improving photosynthesis is demonstrated millions of times each and every day. Commercial greenhouses supplement the CO2, at a minimum to counteract what is taken up by the plants and often to boost the level. Values of 800-1,200 ppm are common.
Observations have shown that this works in outside as well. Other research has shown increased CO2 levels make plants more drought-tolerant (or water efficient). As they need to do less to get the CO2 they need they have 'less' stoma (fewer or smaller, I can't remember) and so they transpire less.
But these animals eat plants that have absorbed carbon to create sugar, we eat the sugar and then release some of the carbon by respiration. More plants grow to feed the animals, lowering the co2 level during photosynthesis t's a key part of the natural carbon cycle. Burning fossil fuels releases carbon that is not part of the natural cycle (anymore)
It's the same way that burning trees is nearly carbon neutral- the tree absorbs the carbon, which is then released back into the atmosphere as it is burnt, to be absorbed back by future trees (assuming they are replaced).
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