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Another 150,000 Years of CO2 Data
An anonymous reader writes, "We've known since 2004 that the past 440,000 years have shown atmospheric carbon dioxide levels varying between about 200 and 300 ppmv, the difference in extremes being the difference between advancing ice sheets and our current clime. In 2005 the data were analyzed back to 650,000 years and were found to be much the same — Al Gore was proud to be able to show that then-new analysis in his 2006 movie An Inconvenient Truth. Now all 800,000 years of the ice column have been analyzed, and the data show much the same pattern, according to the researcher: 'When carbon dioxide changed there was always an accompanying climate change. Over the last 200 years human activity has increased carbon dioxide to well outside the natural range' — to 380 ppmv."
Just one more reason to support the colonization of Mars -- it is obviously that we shouldn't be keeping all our eggs in one basket...especially when the people steering the basket are pretty sure the world is only 6,000 years old and everything that happens upon it is the will of Xenu.
Mars ho!
These stories are free but worth money.
I reject any conclusions that could be drawn from this on the basis that it's cooler than normal in my neck of the woods. Obviously, even though I don't understand the science behind any of this, I have cleanly disproven all silly liberal claims about "global warming" and whatnot that are about to pop up.
No, you can't have another planet. Learn to take care of the one you got first.
I'll turn this rocket right around!
We need to start working on carbon sequestration right now, unless you want 140 degree summers across the entire midwest belt. And we need to use carbon taxes as our main source of governmental revenue, not stupid things like employment taxes.
I really think that unless we do something immediately, the habitability of at least half the landmass on Earth will be be jeapordy.
True leaders will rise to lead the people ahead of a crisis, and not just react. In the world arena, I do not see any one nation or leader that can motivate human kind into action to reduce CO2. Therefore we will have to endure severe devestation, and then with the pain and suffering that it brings, people will THEN react to rectify the problem.
O'Reilly points out that if igorants in a 3rd-world country like Brazil can wean it off oil and onto ethanol, there is no reason why people in the supposedly most technologically advanced country (i.e., the USA) cannot do the same. O'Reilly claims that the reason for America's still being dependent on foreign oil is that Washington is in the pockets of Big Oil: ExxonMobile, Chevron, and Shell.
"Our position is that the unnatural levels of CO2 are the direct result of the Left's insistence upon breathing and speaking. Our studies show that, if they were to halt both of these annoying habits, a more natural level of CO2 would be quickly achieved. The course of action is clear. You are either with us or against us. Period. The End."
I really liked the move, I've got just one complaint. There are way too many shots of Gore being driven around in a big car or being flowin around in a jet. The whole movie, he talks about reducing our carbon footprint, but he doesn't use public transit once in the movie. I can't believe the filmmakers didn't see this jumping right out at them.
We need to start working on carbon sequestration right now, unless you want 140 degree summers across the entire midwest belt. And we need to use carbon taxes as our main source of governmental revenue, not stupid things like employment taxes.
;)
Hey, I live in Canada... Up here global warming sounds like kind of a nice idea, unless you like shoveling snow...
Try to hack my 31337 firewall!
If you are going to claim that as CO2 went up, the climate changed, and vice versa, then you are stating, unequivocally, that CO2 drives climate. So, the question then becomes, if the CO2 varies from 200-300ppm over the last 800,000 years, then what drove those changes?
s un.html and http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/milankovitch.html
9 /5613/1728 Although the folks at RealClimate like to just sweep this little fact under the carpet as unimportant. http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=13 To them, apparently, man made CO2 causes instant warming, but natural CO2 takes up to 800 years to have an effect.
Once again, this article confuses correlation with causation. If you are going to state that CO2 changes cause climate change, then you must also demonstrate a mechanism for the changing CO2. If, on the other hand, climate change causes changes in CO2 levels, then you need only explain climate change, something which has been adequately explained by solar cycles. http://solar-center.stanford.edu/sun-on-earth/var
In fact, it's more correctly stated that CO2 levels tend to lag behind climate changes by up to 900 years. http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/29
Again, be very careful about assigning cause and effect in a system as complex as the atmosphere.
In other words, this extra datum is nice to have, but it changes nothing in any ongoing debate.
Life, the Universe, and Everything... in my image.
"You mean, we have no idea how to properly predict climatology? Any changes we attempt to make may be a moot point, because the planet in the end may have complete control?"
The climate scientists do appear to be making predictions. Those predictions aren't pleasant. Further, they are making these predictions based -- now -- on 800,000 years worth of ice core data (rather than ~600K years of data as before). There are other indicators, from tree ring data to a range of species from warmer regions migrating up north and down south as temperatures change. And then there's all that glacial freshwater being dumped into the sea due to arctic warming, as well as unprecedented permafrost melts.
There's plenty of data to back the assertion that human activity is the cause for increasing CO2 density in the atmosphere. --M
Carbon dioxide that's generated from metabolic proccesses come from carbon present in what we eat. Since all our food get's its carbon in turn from the air (plants via photosynthesis, animals via eating plants), the total carbon in the system remains in balance.
This is the same reason why biofuels aren't considered a greenhouse gas contributor - it takes as much carbon from the air to produce them as they release when burned.
Erotic is when you use a feather. Exotic is when you use the whole chicken.
>But now, with all theses numbers, what should I do ?.. What should we do ?..
Until the rich are gasping for air alongside the poor, nothing will be done.
Steve
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
As usual, what's good for the environment/consumer/voter takes a back seat to politicians' special interests.
I would start stockpiling perri-air immediately if I were you. Also, begin constructing a large starship capable of transforming into a maid. You'll thank me later.
If you'd like to use some of the data these articles discuss, the EdGCM project has wrapped a NASA global climate model (GCM) in a GUI (OS X and Win). You can add CO2 or turn the sun down by a few percent all with a checkbox and a slider. Supercomputers and advanced FORTRAN programmers are no longer necessary to run your own GCM.
Disclaimer: I'm the project developer.
Space and Computers.
Not only does Gore fly around in a jet and drive a big car, but none of his multiple homes use the more-expensive Wind Power that is available from his respective local utilities.
I got one for you: he doesn't sequester the carbon dioxide that comes out of his nose. He complains about carbon dioxide and in the same breath he contributes to the problem with carbon emissions from his multiple nostrils. What a hypocrite. Clearly nothing needs to be done about this. Do I win a cookie?
Now, as always, we can cue a horde of astroturfers and deluded followers, rushing in to tell us all how global warming is a myth, and that the shocking recent rise in CO2 levels is somehow not demonstratable, or not significant, or something.
Well, that's okay: Now that the Siberian permafrost is melting, along with Antarctica, it looks like the Earth's processes have been pushed into a region within which global warming will continue, even if humans reduce their carbon emissions, which itself isn't likely. So congratulations, guys: you won. You kept us from doing something about the problem until it was too late, and now we're going to be stuck with it.
You "skeptics": in twenty years, when the problems caused by global warming make Katrina and heat waves that kill 35,000 people look pretty trivial, are you going to look back on your postings on slashdot -- and whatever else you're doing to spread the idea that global warming can be ignored -- and feel ashamed? Are you going to feel partly responsible?
Probably not.
Increased CO2 levels trap more heat in the atmosphere making it *warmer*, not colder. And what do you know! consistent with this prediction, the the global temperatures are on the rise and the glaciers are melting. Why don't you learn a little about the issue before opening your mouth?
___
If you think big enough, you'll never have to do it.
Ice that has been in my freezer for a few months tastes different from that fresh made.
For one, there are no leftovers in the antartic/antartica to transfer the flavor...
Secondly this ice is burried under meters upon meters of packed ice.
And lastly... You should really consider leaving a box of Arm and Hammer in your freezer.
Seriously man... The last thing I want to taste with my cold lemonade is left over fish or mother's ham "suprise".
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
I take it you make a lot of assumptions about people without actually knowing anything about them and sprinkle smiley faces into your comments to make it seem like what you are saying isn't a thinly-veiled(or not so thinly veiled) invective.
I used to watch the O'Reilly factor with one of my conservative friends. He lost me within the first five minutes. I'm not sure if it has changed since then. I can't stand how the text on the right side of the screen mirrors what he says. I can't stand how he sucks out a lot of the nuances and complexities of issues to make them match his (in my view) simplistic moral world-view. In short, I think he's full of crap most of the time.
He's a bully. He doesn't let people speak if he disagrees with them - even if he says that he's going to give them the last word. He lies, often blatantly("I've been in combat!").
His show is definitely not the no-spin zone it is billed to be and he is definitely not an independent.
You disagree, obviously. You have your O'Reilly world and I have my world, where just telling someone to shut up does not win you an argument, and does not promote a reasoned, bipartisan discussion of the issues. We'll just have to agree not to cross each other.
Problem: they've weaned themselves off dead dinosaurs, and on to TOPSOIL. Before irrigation, Egypt was green. GREEN! Now it's a fucking desert. The same is in Brazil's future if they elect to continue to overproduce sugar cane in order to make ethanol out of it so that they can use it to make fuel.
The simple fact is that agriculture should be kept at a bare minimum, to preserve topsoil which takes up to hundreds of years to build, so that we can use it for food production - if we must. Ideally, ALL agriculture would go hydroponic at some point. Brazil is only growing economically and if they continue to expand, then they will end up with a soil crisis, where we have an oil crisis, and peak soil is a fuck of a lot more serious than peak oil.
Don't point to Brazil as a positive example. They're currently in the process of destroying their country. The only way they're superior to all us oil-guzzlers is that for now, they're only hurting themselves, as opposed to our "stomp around the globe in heavy boots" tactics of securing oil.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Don't worry the dimwits are on both sides.
Want to see how many of them pointed to the last two years of above normal Atlantic hurricanes as "proof" of global warming? Most experts stated that the Atlantic was in a natural peak hurricane cycle.
So far this year is running below normal. I guess global warming is over.
In this case both sides seem equally willing to abuse science to prove their point.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
With respect to the first knock yourselves out. With respect to the second pull your heads from the magical oil sands.
But for the third here is what you can do: Contact your reps.
Those of you in the U.S. will find that election day is fast approaching. The Mid-term congressional elections as well as many state elections are next week!. Now is the time to call, write, and fax your elected reps. Quote this data to them and demand to know what they will do telling them, in plain form, that they will forefit your vote and your money if they do not make you happy.
Don't just focus on the federal politicians California recently showed how a state can aggressively (start) limiting greenhouse gasses. States also control the vast majority of funding for public transit and are in charge of monitoring many polluters. Local Govenrments can do more as well by tackling transit issues as well as local pollution control efforts.
Right now many of them are desperate and worried. Now, more than ever, they can in should be bombarded with calls and moved very clearly in the right direction.
I know that it's fun to sit on
Those of you in other countries do the same thing neither whining nor lunatic dreams of carbonless oil will get us there.
Karma is not action.
For one, there are no leftovers in the antartic/antartica to transfer the flavor...
Not true. Scientists have noted a distinct Mammoth-y flavor to many of the ice core samples. Areas with high sodium bicarbonate deposits do not exhibit this phenomenon, however.
4. Watch the atmospheric CO2 and water vapor escape into space
5. Get baked to a crisp during the next solar flare
But CO2 levels we are low on the million year scale, if you believe stuff in wikipedia...
5 .html
Graph at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_dioxide levels were 10x what they are now
"Changes in carbon dioxide during the Phanerozoic (the last 542 million years). The recent period is located on the left-hand side of the plot, and it appears that much of the last 550 million years has experienced carbon dioxide concentrations significantly higher than the present day."
Plus, mars is warming with receding ice caps. Maybe solar effects are what is driving our change? http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/nation/336237
I am always a bit skeptical, since I was the generation that had both Igloo effect and global warming in the same textbook in middle school...
We're currently approaching a minimum in solar output (end of 2006) for the current 11-year cycle. The high was more than 5 years ago. 2005 was the hottest year on record.
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
For those actually paying attention, there is no "ongoing debate" in scientific circles over human influence in climate change. The only people "debating" it are the conservative politicians and anti-environmentalist special interest groups, in order to seed doubt and to prevent any action to be taken.
Which "developing countries? As far as I can tell, the only developing countries that have not signed the Kyoto Protocol are the US and Australia.
Look at the map and list of List of Kyoto Protocol signatories. China, Russia, the EU, all of South America, Canada, Asia (inc both N. & S. Korea) have all signed and ratified the treaty. That means that those countries will be reducing their emissions to 55% of their 1990 levels.
Tell the truth and you won't have so much to remember.
Sure we can, just fire off all our nukes at once and you'll see our temprature change. the big point is, is that after all that is said and done, the 1 and only major contributor to the average global temprature is the amount of energry radiated by the sun, by about 99.999999%.
Actually, studies of just this have indicated that changes in the sun's output account for about 30% of the changes in global temperature. That's significant to be sure, but still leaves 60% to be accounted for from other sources.
And even at the most basic, think-about-it-for-five-seconds common sense level, there are clearly at least two major contributors to global temperature: 1) the amount of energy received by the sun and 2) the amount of energy retained. Or does it drop to a few degrees K where you live at night when you're only receiving energy from the stars? Do you not believe in greenhouses?
The enemies of Democracy are
Care to cite a source on this? The whole region (the Sahara) was much greener in the past, this is true, but desertification started long before the advent of agriculture, and has been creeping along for the last 30,000 years or so. Egypt, at least as long as it has held civilization, always been mostly desert, which is why the largest population centers there (now, and thoughout history) have been next to the Nile. Also do a brief refresher of Egyption mythology to see the importance of annual Nile flooding for their agriculture thoughout the ages. 60,000 years ago Egypt indeed might have been more grassy than today, or even 30,000 years ago, but it changed previous to the advent of heavy agriculture.
I think Brazil is doing much better ecologically than we are, even if this "risk" to topsoil is real. Top soil can be managed through intelligent farming techniques, it can even be retained and replenished thanks to modern farming technology. Even fertilizers can be used to replenish mineral and nitrogen content of the soil, and while if used unintelligently this can lead to enviromental impacts, this is not a necissary consiquence.
In the end, the enviromental consiquences of ethenol is much much less than using fossil fuel (which, BTW, has nothing to do with dinosaurs, or even prehistoric fauna, it is the result of ancient, but much after dinosaurs, swamps and boglands decaying).
I really don't see how Brazil is destroying their economy. All indicators say that their succesfully applying a socialist model to it, with great results. Granted, their not quite up to "first world" standards, but in light of the region, and history, they're doing great for an progressive emerging economy.
A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government. -edward abbey
I would have to disagree. Aside from the simple correlction of timing of changes, and accounting of carbon dioxide emissions, there is the analysis of carbon isotopes in atmospheric carbon dioxide. In summary, by measuring the ratios of different carbon isotopes in the atmosphere, and knowing that carbon from fossil fuels will have different isotope ratios than carbon from natural sources, it is possible to establish how much of the recent change in atmospheric carbon dioxide levels are due to human activities through burning of fossil fuels. The results are that the rise in carbon dioxide levels of the past 200 years are almost entirely anthropogenic.
I have never seen any credible evidence to support the counter claim that the change in atmospheric carbon dioxide levels is not due to human activity. It is true that in terms of the total carbon dioxide produced in the carbon cycle, human produced carbon dioxide is just a fraction, but if I have a tank that is draining water at 10 liters per minute and having water added at 10 liters per minute then adding more water, even at a small fraction of that rate, will cause the otherwise stable tank to overflow. In terms of change human factors are very relevant, and quoting other figures about total carbon produced is, while accurate, disingenuous and misleading with regard to the actual issue at hand.
Well this isn't something that can be "proved", but in terms of history (last 800,000 years) we are in the middle of an interglacial which peaked some time ago, so we shouldn't be expecting further increases in temperature from the galcial/interglacial cycles. From a more recent historical perspective (last 200 years or so) the recent warming is quite unprecedented according to almost all historical temperature reconstructions (and there are many). In terms of our current understanding of climate and all the things that could effect it, without including atmospheric carbon dioxide changes, we cannot properly account for the present warming. That is, to the best of our current knowledge the warming is not natural. That could change, but we would have to learn some significant new informnation to change our understanding of the climate for that to occur.
As noted above, recent increases in carbon dioxide levels are the only way to account for the recent warming given our curent understanding of climate. Also noted above is the fact that human activity has been a major factor in increasing levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide. If you want more details on how attribution of recent warming has been determined so far the IPCC TAR attribution chapter is a good place to start - it summarises a number of different studies using a variety of techniques to attempt to determine the most likely factors driving the current warming.
That is certainly being worked on. I'll again refer to the IPCC TAR for a figure showing various radiative forcings, which is to say factors affecting global warming (both positive anmd negative effects). There are several besides atmospheric carbon dioxide. One of the most s
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You intentionally (it seems) misinterpret the information provided. There are very few people who actively disagree with the concept of global warming. No, the disagreements are threefold:
1) The rate at which the warming is occuring.
2) What proportion of it is due to human activity.
3) Whether spending several trillion dollars trying to prevent it is a worthwhile activity.
My personal belief is that YES, global warming is a reality. But I also believe that it is more to do with the Sun, than with our burning fossil fuel. I also believe the consequences are/will be less severe than predicted. Also, I do not believe that science is yet at the stage where a prediction about efforts to stop global warming are anywhere near accurate.
ALL (without exception) predictions in the past have been 100% wrong: over population, over pollution, lack of food and even Global Cooling (!! Remember all the predictions in the 70s and 80s that we were heading into an ice age??) -- all have proven to be completely false.
Now, you want us to accept that THIS time the scientists are right, and that we should expend a significant proportion of the world's income on reducing emmissions - when we have no idea if it will do what we hope it will?
Sorry, that's no way to spend a few tens of trillions dollars.
Far better to invest that money in protecting humanity from global warming, and to continue to develop strategies and techniques to live on a changeable and changeing world - just as we have always done.
How many escape pods are there? "NONE,SIR!" You counted them? "TWICE, SIR!"
We need to start working on carbon sequestration right now, unless you want 140 degree summers across the entire midwest belt. And we need to use carbon taxes as our main source of governmental revenue, not stupid things like employment taxes.
Oh great, tax people for working out, breathing out CO2, and not the fatties, storing carbon in their blubber.
That won't backfire, will it?
I really think that unless we do something immediately, the habitability of at least half the landmass on Earth will be be jeapordy.
And as I demonstrated above, your plan will hit their hitability. By gods man! What's a few floods compared to that?!
You can't take the sky from me...
Before irrigation, Egypt was green. GREEN! Now it's a fucking desert.
I'm sorry, but this is exactly the kind of falsely alarmist crap that's causing so many people to be skeptical of the environmental movement.
Egypt and the surrounding desert was green about 6,000 BP because of an period of unusually heavy precipitation in the region called the Neolithic Subpluvial. It supported agriculture in what is now desert, yes, and also a pastoral economy. Desertification resumed about 5,000 BP not because of these activities -- there were, for example, no forests to cut down -- but because the rain stopped. (And this was also not due to human activity, which was at a relatively low level at the time.) Agriculture in the Nile Valley has ever since, and until the construction of the dams at Aswan, been reliant on the annual Nile flood. This flood irrigates fields all by itself, without human intervention. There was a degree of artificial irrigation, true, but it had little effect on the progress of desertification.
Stick to the truth; you'll be more convincing.
And the brethren went away edified.
ALL (without exception) predictions in the past have been 100% wrong: over population, over pollution, lack of food and even Global Cooling (!! Remember all the predictions in the 70s and 80s that we were heading into an ice age??) -- all have proven to be completely false.
These aren't really fair comparisons. Overpopulation was a concern, if population growth had continued along trends current at the time. It's still a concern, as someone else pointed out, in areas like India and China where the population is still growing. What came as something of a surprise here was that economic prosperity is the chief indicator of zero population growth.
Over-pollution was indeed a problem. You're probably too young to remember the Cuyahoga River catching fire, and how hazardous it once was to come into contact with the waters of the lower Hudson River. (The river itself was a Superfund site!) It stopped being a problem because we put significant pollution controls in place. Again, had current trends continued the problem would have been serious. It became less so because we did something about it.
There is a food problem in much of the world. Count yourself fortunate that you don't live in a place where this is so. But for unanticipated technological advances in farming, even the US would be a tad hungry right now.
Global cooling theories were creations of the media. They never represented the consensus opinion of climatologists.
The lesson here is not that problems go away on their own, but that we have it in our power to do something about them when they arise. We did it for the ozone layer, which is now recovering thanks to the banning of the substances that were damaging it. If a significant proportion of global warming is in fact anthropogenic, then what you have really shown us here is that not only should we do something about it, but that we probably can.
And the brethren went away edified.
Now that's still a defensible position - most climate scientists agree about the approximate magnitude (several 2.5-4 degrees C) and timescale (a century or two), but not about the intermediate path to that, and certain not about localized phenomena.
Yes, by definition. When a scientific community comes to consesus, whatever it presently concludes is accepted as correct until it's proven wrong. That's how science works. If you don't believe the climate science community, you don't believe science.
A signification proportion? Let's be realistic here - we're talking about taxing emissions at the level of a sales tax. That's what we've always been talking about. While we've been sitting on our thumbs, gas has increased in price far more than any proposed carbon taxation would have done. And shockingly, the sky hasn't fallen.
Why should you wear a seat belt? After all, there's no evidence you're going to get in a crash today, and you're a safe driver. The reason is that the risk is non-negligible and the consequences are extremely severe. And nobody forbids you to drive on account of the risk, just to take some mitigating steps by buckling up. That's what the climate science community is saying - take mitigating steps: reduce emissions as quickly as is feasible, without draconian economic measures (e.g. bans on oil) or other measures that might shock the world's economy.
As it happens, most human infrastructure on the planet has been developed in an extraordinarily short period of time, and hence we have felt approximately zero climate change on our timescale. So maybe, just perhaps a good place to start protecting ourselves from global warming is to stop causing it in the first place. Like, ya know, if you're slipping on the ice out front, maybe turn the hose off or something.