AAPG on Global Climate Change
Peter D. Tillman
Nice discussion -- clearly not what the climate-change card preparers
were expecting....
Happy reading--
Pete Tillman
Daryl Krupa
<Till...@toast.net_DIESPAMMERSDIE> wrote:
> Who says petroleum geologists got no political smarts?
>
> http://climate.aapg.org/?p=9
>
> Nice discussion -- clearly not what the climate-change card preparers
> were expecting....
Pete Tillman:
Thanx; I especially liked the the final pie chart on the card:
it was based on
an unreferenced pie chart based on
a personal website put up by
a West Virginia mine safety inspector ("Hieb, 2002"):
http://www.clearlight.com/~mhieb/WVFossils/greenhouse_contrib.html
Next to a bar graph with similar info he refers to 5 sources for
his claim that 95% of global warming is caused by water vapour.
The only peer-reviewed source he cited for that claim
doesn't give a percentage for water vapour contribution to
global warming or greenhouse gas effects, but rather devotes itself
to
refinements of estimates of transmissivity of radiation by CO2.
That work,
S.M. Freidenreich and V. Ramaswamy
Solar Radiation Absorption by Carbon Dioxide, Overlap with Water, and
a Parameterization for General Circulation Models
Journal of Geophysical Research 98 (1993):7255-7264,
does appear as a reference in the text of another source,
just before a mention of that 95% claim, but
that claim is not referenced at that site:
http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/alternate/page/environment/appd_d.html
The 95% claim also appears in another non-peer-reviewed opinion,
without a reference, and the remaining two "sources" for the 95%
figure
don't mention anything of the kind.
One wonders about the level of scientific competence of
those who proposed the card.
-
Daryl Krupa
J. Taylor
wrote:
>On Feb 17, 9:48 pm, "Peter D. Tillman"
><Till...@toast.net_DIESPAMMERSDIE> wrote:
>> Who says petroleum geologists got no political smarts?
>>
>> http://climate.aapg.org/?p=9
>>
>> Nice discussion -- clearly not what the climate-change card preparers
>> were expecting....
>
> Pete Tillman:
>
> Thanx; I especially liked the the final pie chart on the card:
>it was based on
>an unreferenced pie chart based on
>a personal website put up by
>a West Virginia mine safety inspector ("Hieb, 2002"):
Very good Daryl, it is so hard to detect those subtle ad hominem.
It is completely irrelevant it was a personal website or the
occupation of owner of it.
What do you have to say about the pie?
JT
Jo Schaper
> Who says petroleum geologists got no political smarts?
>
> http://climate.aapg.org/?p=9
I would also suggest that people examine the other graphics on this
card. In several cases, the text and the graphics do not agree.
Also, graphic data may seem to say one thing to scientists and another
thing entirely to the public. For example, the first figure on page 2.
While a scientist may think this graphic is showing the non-correlation
of prehistoric temperature and CO2 levels (as said by the text, though
not entirely reflected in the graph), the non-scientist will mentally
'damp out' the minor variations and simply note the correlating peaks at
approximately 330,000, 230,000 and 130,000 years BP, coming to the
conclusion that there *is* a correlation between CO2 levels and lower
atmospheric temperature, which is not the conclusion drawn in the text.
Since we do not have the actual numbers from Sigenthaler, it is
impossible to determine if the text or the data is correct. Depending
where you pick your data points, and how many there are, you can prove
almost anything correlates to almost anything else. (Excel is wonderful
for this: this card does not tell us what the data sets are, or how
extensive they are, either.)
Some of the text is factually true, but seems to have been cherry-picked
to support a particular argument.(For example: the cite on p. 3 that
temperature trends decreased from 1998 to 2004.) Factually true, but
since climactic data is a jaggy curve, not a smooth line like the CO2
figures:(correlating a one-factor trend to a multifactor system)one
wonders how else the data may have been massaged.
If geoscientists truly want to address this issue of climate change,
they could best contribute by explaining the assumptions behind climate
change modeling, and how conclusions can be changed simply by changing
one's geographic or time frame of reference. The concept of measuring
change over time is basic to science, and intimately a part of geologic
thinking, but the public, caught up in the whirl of such change tends
not to think critically about it. We can help them out, so they can at
least begin to sort madness from reasonable thought on climate change.
For example: Only rarely do you see any indication of accuracy estimated
on any public presentation of climate modeling results. The importance
of knowing what standard deviation and standard error are on any dataset
manipulation is very valuable to understanding the veracity of the
conclusions--it was astonishing to me that the a course in elementary
statistics was not a requirement for a geology degree, even though
advanced calculus was.
Actually, not letting people out of high school without a course in
statistics (and a course in analyzing data manipulation--lying with
statistics, graphics, words and numbers) might be a very good idea.
Phil Hays
> What do you have to say about the pie?
http://www.clearlight.com/~mhieb/WVFossils/greenhouse_data.html
Table 1. Line 1 "Carbon Dioxide (CO2) (ppb)"
A) Pre-industrial baseline 288,000 (ok)
B) Natural additions 68,520 (???)
C) Man-made additions 11,880 (???)
D) Total(ppb) Concentration 368,400 (About correct for 1999)
Can anyone support the numbers quoted in (B) and (C)?
"Man-made additions" should be more than roughly an order of magnitude
higher.
"The estimated land-use emissions during 1850 to 1990 of 121 PgC
(Houghton, 1999, 2000) can be compared to estimated net terrestrial flux
of 39 PgC to the atmosphere over the same period inferred from an
atmospheric increase of 144 PgC (Etheridge et al., 1996; Keeling and
Whorf, 2000), a release of 212 PgC due to fossil fuel burning (Marland et
al., 2000), and a modelled ocean-atmosphere flux of about -107 PgC
(Gruber, 1998, Sabine et al., 1999, Feely et al., 1999a). The difference
between the net terrestrial flux and estimated land-use change emissions
implies a residual land-atmosphere flux of -82 PgC (i.e., a terrestrial
sink) over the same period."
http://www.grida.no/climate/ipcc_tar/wg1/100.htm
So land use changes + fossil fuel burning released about 366 PgC which
would have increased the atmospheric concentration by roughly 180,000 ppb.
"Natural additions" should be negative.
--
Phil Hays
Jo Schaper
> On 18 Feb 2007 19:56:47 -0800, "Daryl Krupa" <icyc...@yahoo.com>
> wrote:
>
> Very good Daryl, it is so hard to detect those subtle ad hominem.
>
> It is completely irrelevant it was a personal website or the
> occupation of owner of it.
>
> What do you have to say about the pie?
>
> JT
I would say it makes a very nice Pacman graphic, though it is the wrong
color. *|:-)
If folks are looking for a well-researched overview of the subject of
atmospheric composition/change etc.,with lots of data in a readable
format, but without only a tiny ax to grind, (what if scenarios
presented as predictions, not as inevitabilities) I recommend Global
Environment: Water, Air and Geochemical Cycles, By Elizabeth and Robert
Berner.
They quite ably explain, using hard numbers from journal and academic
sources, how the atmosphere works and what threatens it in a text which
is quite readable to college freshmen or reasonably well-educated high
schoolers. I refer people to it all the time--you can't explain change
without knowing from what it is changing.
No one disputes water vapor is a very effective or influential
greenhouse gas. The graphic on the final page showing water vapor as the
overwhelming contributor to the greenhouse effect is likely correct when
looking at the big picture (greenhouse effect as moderating
temperatures, acting as an insulator, redistributing humidity, etc.) It
is misleadingly used on the card, because it implies that because water
vapor is quite important in the greenhouse effect,(true) it is also a
large source of correlated directional temperature change (false).
The difficulty with quantifying water vapor as greenhouse gas with a
changing and humanly negative impact is because
a) water vapor acts differently depending upon residence in which
atmospheric layer;
b) it has an average residence time in the atmosphere of 11 days;
c) while there are decent weather records of daily relative humidity
(dependent on dew point), there are very scarce long-term records of
absolute humidity, since it is quite variable even over a 24 hr
period(from less than 0.01% to 3% of the atmosphere,depending on
latitude, altitude and weather conditions;
d) water vapor is comes from a wide variety of sources, and picking
apart anthropogenic water vapor (additions from irrigation, industrial
processes and increase due to breakdown of more complex human produced
gases) is extremely difficult;
e) the water vapor feedback mechanism, while understood qualitatively is
poorly understood quantitatively;
f)clouds are water vapor, but water vapor as clouds,or as ice has a
different effects on heat transfer than diffused aerosol water vapor,
including dissipation;
g) even people who claim atmospheric water vapor is rising have few
mechanisms to correlate a specific human activity to a quantifiable
specific increase (possibly stratospheric disturbance due to air flight,
but that's the only being proposed)(anyone seen any studies on change in
atmospheric water vapor due to irrigation?);
h) in short, the effects of human perturbation of the hydrologic cycle
and on the amount of atmospheric water vapor seem a reasonable
assumption, but this perturbation is very small (the butterfly in the
tornado) compared to the movement of water vapor by solar energy and wind.
See below:
http://lwf.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/gases.html#wv
Water Vapor
"Water Vapor is the most abundant greenhouse gas in the atmosphere,
which is why it is addressed here first. However, changes in its
concentration is also considered to be a result of climate feedbacks
related to the warming of the atmosphere rather than a direct result of
industrialization. The feedback loop in which water is involved is
critically important to projecting future climate change, but as yet is
still fairly poorly measured and understood.
As the temperature of the atmosphere rises, more water is evaporated
from ground storage (rivers, oceans, reservoirs, soil). Because the air
is warmer, the relative humidity can be higher (in essence, the air is
able to 'hold' more water when its warmer), leading to more water vapor
in the atmosphere. As a greenhouse gas, the higher concentration of
water vapor is then able to absorb more thermal IR energy radiated from
the Earth, thus further warming the atmosphere. The warmer atmosphere
can then hold more water vapor and so on and so on. This is referred to
as a 'positive feedback loop'. However, huge scientific uncertainty
exists in defining the extent and importance of this feedback loop. As
water vapor increases in the atmosphere, more of it will eventually also
condense into clouds, which are more able to reflect incoming solar
radiation (thus allowing less energy to reach the Earth's surface and
heat it up). The future monitoring of atmospheric processes involving
water vapor will be critical to fully understand the feedbacks in the
climate system leading to global climate change. As yet, though the
basics of the hydrological cycle are fairly well understood, we have
very little comprehension of the complexity of the feedback loops. Also,
while we have good atmospheric measurements of other key greenhouse
gases such as carbon dioxide and methane, we have poor measurements of
global water vapor, so it is not certain by how much atmospheric
concentrations have risen in recent decades or centuries, though
satellite measurements, combined with balloon data and some in-situ
ground measurements indicate generally positive trends in global water
vapor."
Peter D. Tillman
Jo Schaper <jospamnotschaper34@5socket78dot9net> wrote:
> If folks are looking for a well-researched overview of the subject of
> atmospheric composition/change etc.,with lots of data in a readable
> format, but without only a tiny ax to grind, (what if scenarios
> presented as predictions, not as inevitabilities) I recommend Global
> Environment: Water, Air and Geochemical Cycles, By Elizabeth and Robert
> Berner.
Thanks, Jo. I am currently catching up on this stuff, and appreciate the
recommendation.
Do you (or anyone) have a cooment on Wm. Ruddiman's _Earth's Climate:
Past and Future_. I greatly enjoyed his recent _Plows, Plagues &
Petroleum_:
<http://groups.google.com/group/rec.arts.sf.written/msg/33456dd413992186>
Cheers -- Pete Tillman
Professional geologist, amateur climatology student
J. Taylor
Thanks, here is something else from one of the authors of the card
Dr. Lee C. Gerhard, senior scientist emeritus at the Kansas Geological
Survey
http://www.kansasenergy.org/documents/Gerhard_Climate_Change.pdf
One of the things in the PDF is a graph showing carbon increase
follows temperature
What is going on there?
JT
Daryl Krupa
> Very good Daryl, it is so hard to detect those subtle ad hominem.
I do not know to what you refer.
> It is completely irrelevant it was a personal website or the
> occupation of owner of it.
No, it is not irrelevant.
The source is unscientific, and unreliable, and inaccurate.
That's why we should only consider peer-reviewed research as an
information source: it reduces the chance that our opinions will be
swayed by clumsy propaganda.
The pie chart is the product of a person who does not respect, or
perhaps does not understand, the logical arguments that support
scientific arguments.
A mine inspector is not someone who should autpmatically be
expected to be a credible authority on climate change, especially as
his credentials as a geologist may not require scientific
understanding, but rather engineering ability.
> What do you have to say about the pie?
It should not be considered to be truthful, as it has
no known factual basis.
-
Daryl Krupa
Phil Hays
> J.Taylor wrote:
>
>> What do you have to say about the pie?
>
> http://www.clearlight.com/~mhieb/WVFossils/greenhouse_data.html
>
> Table 1. Line 1 "Carbon Dioxide (CO2) (ppb)"
>
> A) Pre-industrial baseline 288,000 (source (1))
>
> B) Natural additions 68,520 (???)
>
> C) Man-made additions 11,880 (???)
>
> D) Total(ppb) Concentration 368,400 (source (1))
>
> Can anyone support the numbers quoted in (B) and (C)?
The internet archive can provide a copy of the source (1) he quotes for
table 1:
http://web.archive.org/web/20001016131618/http://cdiac.esd.ornl.gov/pns/current_ghg.html
Notice that (B) and (C) are not sourced by this.
What "other sources" provided these numbers? How were they calculated
or measured?
J. Taylor wrote:
> It is completely irrelevant it was a personal website or the occupation of
> owner of it.
It is completely relevant that the numbers on the website are wrong.
--
Phil Hays
J. Taylor
Wouldn't you have to answer these questions first, to know that?
"What "other sources" provided these numbers? How were they calculated
or measured?"
JT
J. Taylor
wrote:
>On Feb 19, 9:32?am, J. Taylor <nchiw...@earthlink.NOSPAM.net> wrote:
>> Very good Daryl, it is so hard to detect those subtle ad hominem.
>
> I do not know to what you refer.
>
>> It is completely irrelevant it was a personal website or the
>> occupation of owner of it.
>
> No, it is not irrelevant.
> The source is unscientific, and unreliable, and inaccurate.
> That's why we should only consider peer-reviewed research as an
>information source: it reduces the chance that our opinions will be
>swayed by clumsy propaganda.
> The pie chart is the product of a person who does not respect, or
>perhaps does not understand, the logical arguments that support
>scientific arguments.
> A mine inspector is not someone who should autpmatically be
>expected to be a credible authority on climate change, especially as
>his credentials as a geologist may not require scientific
>understanding, but rather engineering ability.
>
All this is saying, you do not know how to evaluate the problem so you
look for some thing you consider reliable to act as a substitute.
>> What do you have to say about the pie?
>
> It should not be considered to be truthful, as it has
>no known factual basis.
True, factual basis unknown, so should not be considered false either.
Which means it is unsupported and with out value, either positive, or
negative. Please show work.
JT
Jo Schaper
> On Feb 19, 9:32?am, J. Taylor <nchiw...@earthlink.NOSPAM.net> wrote:
>> Very good Daryl, it is so hard to detect those subtle ad hominem.
>
> I do not know to what you refer.
>
>> It is completely irrelevant it was a personal website or the
>> occupation of owner of it.
>
> No, it is not irrelevant.
> The source is unscientific, and unreliable, and inaccurate.
> That's why we should only consider peer-reviewed research as an
> information source: it reduces the chance that our opinions will be
> swayed by clumsy propaganda.
Well, I'm slightly disturbed by this assessment, Daryl. All personal
websites don't fit into this category; for one, I've bent over backwards
to make sure info on my website on Missouri springs, caves, karst and
geology is as accurate as humanly possible. I quite understand relying
on peer-reviewed articles for science citations; also, doing a reality
check on stuff one finds on the web--everything, including Wikipedia,
academic sites and even information posted in online papers published
Science or Nature. But not all of us out there are trying to bluff or
baffle the public. Interestingly, when (through the generosity of a
staff friend--not even an academic) this same web stuff was on an edu
address I got many more citation-- the information has not changed, just
the location. Granted one expects to find diamonds in a diamond mine not
a dunghill, but I'm not sure the web address of information means that
much anymore. Caveat emptor, regardless of the online source.
> The pie chart is the product of a person who does not respect, or
> perhaps does not understand, the logical arguments that support
> scientific arguments.
> A mine inspector is not someone who should automatically be
> expected to be a credible authority on climate change, especially as
> his credentials as a geologist may not require scientific
> understanding, but rather engineering ability.
I'm not sure this pie chart is original with Heib. It does show up on
the Lee Gerhard site, cited by J. Taylor as Dr. Lee C. Gerhard, senior
scientist emeritus at the Kansas Geological Survey
http://www.kansasenergy.org/documents/Gerhard_Climate_Change.pdf
In his powerpoint, Gerhard does not give a further citation to the chart.
I have no idea what Dr Gerhard's educational credentials are as climate
scientist, but he does seem to have reasonable credentials as a
geologist, including former KS state geo and former president of the
AAPG. He seems to have written a number of papers on climatological
subjects. I'm skeptical, of course, because I remember Iben Browning,
climatologist, who tried to play seismologist.
>
>> What do you have to say about the pie?
>
> It should not be considered to be truthful, as it has
> no known factual basis.
Well, if one is considering ALL factors which contribute to the
greenhouse effect (warming of the earth beyond a dry atmosphere)
water vapor is indeed a major player. The 95% seems overblown, but
taking a look at the explanation on
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=142 (check these fellows bios, to
ensure they at least theoretically have proper academic credentials)
it still ranks quite high (they cite water vapor alone accounts for
between 36% and 66% of the greenhouse effect, and together with clouds
makes up between 66% and 85%.)
Water vapor is usually neglected, because for the most part, we are not
contributing massive amounts of water vapor to the atmosphere--not in
the same way we are contributing CO2, and introducing entirely new
manufactured gases. Like solar insolation--there isn't much we can do
about water vapor in the atmosphere. We can do something about the minor
greenhouse gases.
See also
http://www.atmo.arizona.edu/students/courselinks/spring04/atmo451b/pdf/RadiationBudget.pdf
m and http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=220
The pie chart is disingenous because it compares water vapor (which
should be no more than 85%) to volcanoes/biologic activities to
manufacturing activities. Talk about comparing apples and ghosts and
kittens!
My guess where the 95% figure came from was it was not pulled entirely
out of a hat, but resulted when someone tried to compare the percentages
of H20 (g) to other known greenhouse gases on a ppm basis in a 'typical'
part' of the atmosphere. This difficulty with this is, of course, that
H20 is constantly variable-- with a little manipulation, you can come up
with any large number you like, because it is true that H20 is more
greatly abundant than even CO2 or other trace greenhouse gases. For
example:
take .0038 (CO2) and divide by .02 (midpoint of 0 to .04 often given for
% of atmosphere which is water vapor) This gives .19 or 2% CO2 vs 98%
water vapor. I could see how someone could get such a number, then use
Kentucky windage, and get from there to water vapor being 95% of all
greenhouse gases.
All this, of course, ignores the facts that though we are smart monkeys,
we do NOT entirely know how to manage an atmosphere; that the
temperatures needed to maintain water in all three states is a fairly
narrow range which we should do our best not to unbalance; and that the
effects of continually pumping greenhouse gases into the air are
basically unknown. We don't know (despite all the models) where the
tipping point is. I trust the scientific method to find the answers to
these things, (not the rabble rousing 'let's go back to the caves',
luddites) but prudence is in order, since we are experimenting on the
only habitable planet we know of.
The middle ground is always a tenuous place to stand.
Phil Hays
> Phil Hays wrote:
>>J. Taylor wrote:
>>> It is completely irrelevant it was a personal website or the
>>> occupation of owner of it.
>>It is completely relevant that the numbers on the website are wrong.
> Wouldn't you have to answer these questions first, to know that?
> "What "other sources" provided these numbers? How were they calculated
> or measured?"
To claim than the amount of carbon dioxide from fossil fuels and land use
changes is less than a tenth of amount reported in peer reviewed
literature is an extraordinary claim. The author should provide at least a
traceable source, to say the very least, for such an extraordinary claim.
--
Phil Hays
J. Taylor
To help, would you quote the claim and what you consider the amount in
peer reviewed literature.
NOTE: Am not arguing, just trying to follow what you are saying and
need to know what it is you are referring.
Thanks
JT
Daryl Krupa
> On 20 Feb 2007 01:37:42 -0800, "Daryl Krupa" <icycal...@yahoo.com>
> wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
> >On Feb 19, 9:32?am, J. Taylor <nchiw...@earthlink.NOSPAM.net> wrote:
> >> Very good Daryl, it is so hard to detect those subtle ad hominem.
>
> > I do not know to what you refer.
>
> >> It is completely irrelevant it was a personal website or the
> >> occupation of owner of it.
>
> > No, it is not irrelevant.
> > The source is unscientific, and unreliable, and inaccurate.
> > That's why we should only consider peer-reviewed research as an
> >information source: it reduces the chance that our opinions will be
> >swayed by clumsy propaganda.
> > The pie chart is the product of a person who does not respect, or
> >perhaps does not understand, the logical arguments that support
> >scientific arguments.
> > A mine inspector is not someone who should autpmatically be
> >expected to be a credible authority on climate change, especially as
> >his credentials as a geologist may not require scientific
> >understanding, but rather engineering ability.
>
> All this is saying, you do not know how to evaluate the problem so you
> look for some thing you consider reliable to act as a substitute.
Again, I do not know to what you refer.
Which problem?
A substitute for what, please?
What does this have to do with the source of the information
in the pie chart on the proposed AAPG card?
> >> What do you have to say about the pie?
>
> > It should not be considered to be truthful, as it has
> >no known factual basis.
>
> True, factual basis unknown, so should not be considered false either.
>
> Which means it is unsupported and with out value, either positive, or
> negative. Please show work.
Once more, I am puzzled as to your meaning.
What did you mean by
"Please show work."?
-
Daryl Krupa
Phil Hays
> To help, would you quote the claim and what you consider the amount in
> peer reviewed literature.
>
> NOTE: Am not arguing, just trying to follow what you are saying and need
> to know what it is you are referring.
http://www.clearlight.com/~mhieb/WVFossils/greenhouse_data.html
Table 1. Line 1 "Carbon Dioxide (CO2) (ppb)"
A) Pre-industrial baseline 288,000 (ok)
B) Natural additions 68,520 (???)
C) Man-made additions 11,880 (???)
D) Total(ppb) Concentration 368,400 (About correct for 1999)
Can anyone support the numbers quoted in (B) and (C)?
Robert Grumbine
Jo Schaper <jospamnotschaper34@5socket78dot9net> wrote:
>Daryl Krupa wrote:
>> On Feb 19, 9:32?am, J. Taylor <nchiw...@earthlink.NOSPAM.net> wrote:
>>> Very good Daryl, it is so hard to detect those subtle ad hominem.
>>
>> I do not know to what you refer.
>>
>>> It is completely irrelevant it was a personal website or the
>>> occupation of owner of it.
>>
>> No, it is not irrelevant.
>> The source is unscientific, and unreliable, and inaccurate.
>> That's why we should only consider peer-reviewed research as an
>> information source: it reduces the chance that our opinions will be
>> swayed by clumsy propaganda.
>
>Well, I'm slightly disturbed by this assessment, Daryl. All personal
>websites don't fit into this category; for one, I've bent over backwards
>to make sure info on my website on Missouri springs, caves, karst and
>geology is as accurate as humanly possible. I quite understand relying
>on peer-reviewed articles for science citations; also, doing a reality
>check on stuff one finds on the web--everything, including Wikipedia,
>academic sites and even information posted in online papers published
>Science or Nature. But not all of us out there are trying to bluff or
>baffle the public.
Certainly there are plenty of good personal sites. Some of
those personal sites are by folks who also write in the peer-reviewed
literature (realclimate, pharyngula, badastronomy, ... plus my own).
But as a statement of odds, you're more likely to find informed
content in the peer-reviewed literature than on a personal web page.
>Interestingly, when (through the generosity of a
>staff friend--not even an academic) this same web stuff was on an edu
>address I got many more citation-- the information has not changed, just
>the location. Granted one expects to find diamonds in a diamond mine not
>a dunghill, but I'm not sure the web address of information means that
>much anymore. Caveat emptor, regardless of the online source.
Indeed. But then again, there's the stability/findability issue.
A personal page at [insertyournamehere].com hasn't been on the
web long compared to the .edu site's, so it hasn't had time to
accumulate the links from outside that would raise its profile
on search engines.
[snip]
>Well, if one is considering ALL factors which contribute to the
>greenhouse effect (warming of the earth beyond a dry atmosphere)
>water vapor is indeed a major player. The 95% seems overblown, but
>taking a look at the explanation on
>http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=142 (check these fellows bios, to
>ensure they at least theoretically have proper academic credentials)
>it still ranks quite high (they cite water vapor alone accounts for
>between 36% and 66% of the greenhouse effect, and together with clouds
>makes up between 66% and 85%.)
The origin of that 95% number is something that William Connolley
(one of the realclimate folks) and I have been trying to track down.
Note that the 95% attribution by Heib (and the many copying him)
is for water vapor, not water + clouds. As best William and I have
found, the 95% was indeed plucked out of thin air. Not by Heib, but in a
different report that he copies from. That report presents a citation
to the Ramanathan source cited in
http://www.radix.net/%7Ebobg/climate/halpern.trap.html
(The Rev. Geophysics and Space Physics paper). And copies much of
the same table (with citation). The text, however, inserts a totally
uncited assertion of water vapor being 95% of the greenhouse effect.
It is this that Heib (et al.) quote, not the scientific citation
and result on the same page.
How that uncited assertion was put into the (US Govt, early in the
current Bush administration) report is still unanswered.
>Water vapor is usually neglected, because for the most part, we are not
>contributing massive amounts of water vapor to the atmosphere--not in
>the same way we are contributing CO2, and introducing entirely new
>manufactured gases. Like solar insolation--there isn't much we can do
>about water vapor in the atmosphere. We can do something about the minor
> greenhouse gases.
Actually, no, go back to realclimate for the discussion of why
water vapor is ignored. In brief, it is because water vapor is a
responder, not a source. That is, if it's warm, atmospheric water
vapor increases, which gives further warming (and amplifier of
warming, but not a runaway under earthly conditions). But without
the dry (noncondensing) greenhouse gases, the atmospheric water vapor
drops near zero rapidly, and hence provides essentially no greenhouse
warming. With more dry greenhouse gases, we also expect more
water vapor (and its amplification of the dry greenhouse gase warming).
[snip]
>My guess where the 95% figure came from was it was not pulled entirely
>out of a hat, but resulted when someone tried to compare the percentages
>of H20 (g) to other known greenhouse gases on a ppm basis in a 'typical'
>part' of the atmosphere. This difficulty with this is, of course, that
>H20 is constantly variable-- with a little manipulation, you can come up
>with any large number you like, because it is true that H20 is more
>greatly abundant than even CO2 or other trace greenhouse gases. For
>example:
>take .0038 (CO2) and divide by .02 (midpoint of 0 to .04 often given for
> % of atmosphere which is water vapor) This gives .19 or 2% CO2 vs 98%
>water vapor. I could see how someone could get such a number, then use
>Kentucky windage, and get from there to water vapor being 95% of all
>greenhouse gases.
An interesting calculation, which I'll keep in mind next time that
William and I go looking for the source of the 95% figure.
It's also incorrect. Water vapor approaching 4% of the atmosphere
(40 g/kg mixing ratio) is suitable for near-saturation in extremely
warm air, say 35 C (I'm being fast and loose with water vapor saturation
curve; you can research the details if you're so inclined. The gist
of the argument is unchanged). For ballpark purposes, the atmosphere is near
saturation (70% relative humidity), so you're ok there. Where this
goes wrong is that the atmosphere isn't near 35 C for much of its
volume and the saturation pressure drops rapidly with temperature
(approximately halving for each 10 C cooling). Temperature drops
rapidly with elevation (ballpark 6.5 C per km). Upshot being that
that 2% is itself a very high number for water vapor (saturation at,
say, 25 C -- a temperature above global average surface temperature
of 15 C at any rate).
The outcome of the 70% RH over the globe, through the depth of the
atmosphere is a global average column of water vapor is equivalent
to 2 cm liquid H2O at the surface (it is the 2 cm which is a hard
figure, not the above saturation curve numbers). About 20 kg/m^2.
Surface pressure being 10^5 Pa gives an atmospheric mass of 10,000
kg/m^2 (roundly). So water is not 2%, but 0.2%. CO2, at 380 ppm,
is 0.038%. If we take these as the only gases of interest (by number
counts they're the most common greenhouse gases, but as they're both
saturated in their band centers, number counts aren't the best way
to look for their climate effects), then H2O is 84% by number.
[snip]
--
Robert Grumbine http://www.radix.net/~bobg/ Science faqs and amateur activities notes and links.
Sagredo (Galileo Galilei) "You present these recondite matters with too much
evidence and ease; this great facility makes them less appreciated than they
would be had they been presented in a more abstruse manner." Two New Sciences
J. Taylor
>J.Taylor wrote:
>
>> To help, would you quote the claim and what you consider the amount in
>> peer reviewed literature.
>>
>> NOTE: Am not arguing, just trying to follow what you are saying and need
>> to know what it is you are referring.
>
>
>http://www.clearlight.com/~mhieb/WVFossils/greenhouse_data.html
>
>Table 1. Line 1 "Carbon Dioxide (CO2) (ppb)"
>
>A) Pre-industrial baseline 288,000 (ok)
>
>B) Natural additions 68,520 (???)
>
>C) Man-made additions 11,880 (???)
>
>D) Total(ppb) Concentration 368,400 (About correct for 1999)
>
>Can anyone support the numbers quoted in (B) and (C)?
>
>
>"Man-made additions" should be more than roughly an order of magnitude
>higher.
Are you sure about an order of magnitude?
That would mean
Pre-industrial baseline 288,000
Natural additions 68,520
Man-made additions 118,800
__________________________
New total 475,320
Which does not jive with Total(ppb) Concentration 368,400
>
>"The estimated land-use emissions during 1850 to 1990 of 121 PgC
>(Houghton, 1999, 2000) can be compared to estimated net terrestrial flux
>of 39 PgC to the atmosphere over the same period inferred from an
>atmospheric increase of 144 PgC (Etheridge et al., 1996; Keeling and
>Whorf, 2000), a release of 212 PgC due to fossil fuel burning (Marland et
>al., 2000), and a modelled ocean-atmosphere flux of about -107 PgC
>(Gruber, 1998, Sabine et al., 1999, Feely et al., 1999a). The difference
>between the net terrestrial flux and estimated land-use change emissions
>implies a residual land-atmosphere flux of -82 PgC (i.e., a terrestrial
>sink) over the same period."
>
>http://www.grida.no/climate/ipcc_tar/wg1/100.htm
>
>So land use changes + fossil fuel burning released about 366 PgC which
>would have increased the atmospheric concentration by roughly 180,000 ppb.
>
>"Natural additions" should be negative.
Natural additions" should be negative?
No wonder you can get the conclusion you want.
JT
J. Taylor
wrote:
>On Feb 20, 9:22?am, J. Taylor <nchiw...@earthlink.NOSPAM.net> wrote:
>> On 20 Feb 2007 01:37:42 -0800, "Daryl Krupa" <icycal...@yahoo.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> >On Feb 19, 9:32?am, J. Taylor <nchiw...@earthlink.NOSPAM.net> wrote:
>> >> Very good Daryl, it is so hard to detect those subtle ad hominem.
>>
>> > do not know to what you refer.
>>
>> >> It is completely irrelevant it was a personal website or the
>> >> occupation of owner of it.
>>
>> > o, it is not irrelevant.
>> > he source is unscientific, and unreliable, and inaccurate.
>> > hat's why we should only consider peer-reviewed research as an
>> >information source: it reduces the chance that our opinions will be
>> >swayed by clumsy propaganda.
>> > he pie chart is the product of a person who does not respect, or
>> >perhaps does not understand, the logical arguments that support
>> >scientific arguments.
>> > A mine inspector is not someone who should autpmatically be
>> >expected to be a credible authority on climate change, especially as
>> >his credentials as a geologist may not require scientific
>> >understanding, but rather engineering ability.
>>
>> All this is saying, you do not know how to evaluate the problem so you
>> look for some thing you consider reliable to act as a substitute.
>
> Again, I do not know to what you refer.
> Which problem?
> A substitute for what, please?
> What does this have to do with the source of the information
>in the pie chart on the proposed AAPG card?
That, "What does this have to do with the source of the information
in the pie chart on the proposed AAPG card" was my question.
Daryl, you first have to evaluate the chart before the value of the
website, or the individual saying it can be known. AND then, their
value does NOT effect the value of the chart. Which means it is
irrelevant.
>
>> >> What do you have to say about the pie?
>>
>> > t should not be considered to be truthful, as it has
>> >no known factual basis.
>>
>> True, factual basis unknown, so should not be considered false either.
>>
>> Which means it is unsupported and with out value, either positive, or
>> negative. lease show work.
>
> Once more, I am puzzled as to your meaning.
> What did you mean by
>"Please show work."?
factual basis unknown, factual basis could be know if the work was
shown
JT
Jo Schaper
Thanks for the clarification of my math error. The difficulty was in
sourcing down some place where both the CO2 and H2O were available in
the same units. Most of the places I found CO2 in ppm, but the H20 in
percent, not in ppm, because those authors had excluded H20 as
irrelevant to the discussion, not being an anthropogenic gas for the
most part.
(Decimal points and unit conversions--the main reasons I gladly defer to
others in math calculations!)
Looking at the whole water vapor pressure/temperature variability
problem over the whole planet gives me the willies over how that can be
modeled with any accuracy, even with a computer. Talk about a moving
target...
best
Jo
Phil Hays
> On Wed, 21 Feb 2007 14:05:38 GMT, Phil Hays <inv...@dont.spam> wrote:
>>"Man-made additions" should be more than roughly an order of magnitude
>>higher.
>
> Are you sure about an order of magnitude?
Where did all of the fossil fuel's carbon go? Almost completely into CO2,
right?
212 PgC makes a lot of CO2.
> Pre-industrial baseline 288,000
> Natural additions 68,520
> Man-made additions 118,800
> __________________________
> New total 475,320
> Which does not jive with Total(ppb) Concentration 368,400
Got a source for the "Natural additions" yet? That's the problem in your
addition, right there.
>>"The estimated land-use emissions during 1850 to 1990 of 121 PgC
>>(Houghton, 1999, 2000) can be compared to estimated net terrestrial flux
>>of 39 PgC to the atmosphere over the same period inferred from an
>>atmospheric increase of 144 PgC (Etheridge et al., 1996; Keeling and
>>Whorf, 2000), a release of 212 PgC due to fossil fuel burning (Marland
>>et al., 2000), and a modelled ocean-atmosphere flux of about -107 PgC
>>(Gruber, 1998, Sabine et al., 1999, Feely et al., 1999a). The difference
>>between the net terrestrial flux and estimated land-use change emissions
>>implies a residual land-atmosphere flux of -82 PgC (i.e., a terrestrial
>>sink) over the same period."
>>
>>http://www.grida.no/climate/ipcc_tar/wg1/100.htm
>>
>>So land use changes + fossil fuel burning released about 366 PgC which
>>would have increased the atmospheric concentration by roughly 180,000
>>ppb.
>>
>>"Natural additions" should be negative.
>
> Natural additions" should be negative?
Yes. Notice the quote above: "ocean-atmosphere flux of about -107 PgC
(Gruber, 1998, Sabine et al., 1999, Feely et al., 1999a)".
--
Phil Hays
J. Taylor
>J.Taylor wrote:
>
>> On Wed, 21 Feb 2007 14:05:38 GMT, Phil Hays <inv...@dont.spam> wrote:
>
>>>"Man-made additions" should be more than roughly an order of magnitude
>>>higher.
>>
>> Are you sure about an order of magnitude?
>
>Where did all of the fossil fuel's carbon go? Almost completely into CO2,
>right?
>
>212 PgC makes a lot of CO2.
Let's stay on point. The question ask, "....what you consider the
amount in peer reviewed literature."
Pre-industrial baseline _____
Natural additions _____
Man-made additions _____
Total(ppb) Concentration _____
Just fill in the blank
JT
Daryl Krupa
> "Daryl Krupa" <icycal...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> > J. Taylor <nchiw...@earthlink.NOSPAM.net> wrote:
<snip>
> >> All this is saying, you do not know how to evaluate
> >> the problem so you look for some thing you consider
> >> reliable to act as a substitute.
>
> > Again, I do not know to what you refer.
> > Which problem?
> > A substitute for what, please?
> > What does this have to do with the source of the information
> >in the pie chart on the proposed AAPG card?
>
> That, "What does this have to do with the source of the information
> in the pie chart on the proposed AAPG card" was my question.
Well, that's the first I've seen of it.
You do realise, I hope, that I do not know
what is in your mind unless you tell me
what's in there.
But I'm still confused; from your response,
I might divine that
you think that
you are the one posting from my email address.
You're no making much sense, I fear.
> Daryl, you first have to evaluate the chart before the value of the
> website, or the individual saying it can be known. AND then, their
> value does NOT effect the value of the chart. Which means it is
> irrelevant.
The word is "affect", and
the lack of pertinent references on Heib's website
re: the chart, in his list of references
re: the chart, means that
the value of Heib's website is low, and
the value of the chart is unknown,
except that it is useless until validated.
<snip>
> >> Please show work.
>
> > Once more, I am puzzled as to your meaning.
> > What did you mean by
> >"Please show work."?
>
> factual basis unknown, factual basis could be know if
> the work was shown
What "work"? Whose "work"? Why tell me to show it?
Oh, nevermind. I've had enough of this. You win.
Daryl Krupa
> >> It is completely irrelevant it was a personal website or the
> >> occupation of owner of it.
>
> > No, it is not irrelevant.
> > The source is unscientific, and unreliable, and inaccurate.
> > That's why we should only consider peer-reviewed research as an
> > information source: it reduces the chance that our opinions will be
> > swayed by clumsy propaganda.
>
> Well, I'm slightly disturbed by this assessment, Daryl.
> All personal websites don't fit into this category;
Jo, that is an untenable statement.
Surely, _some_ personal websites must fit into
whatever category you were referring to.
And anyways, a personal website's scientific credibility
is only as good as its list of peer-reviewed references.
Personal websites are valuable as compilations, digests, or
compendia; they are not, in themselves,
reliable sources of scientific information.
Everything on a personal website much be
confirmed by reference to its information sources,
in order to determine how much of the content of
the personal website is merely
the personal opinion of
the person who put up the website.
> for one, I've bent over backwards
> to make sure info on my website on Missouri springs, caves, karst and
> geology is as accurate as humanly possible. I quite understand relying
> on peer-reviewed articles for science citations; also, doing a reality
> check on stuff one finds on the web--everything, including Wikipedia,
> academic sites and even information posted in online papers published
> Science or Nature.
Good. You are behaving responsibly, and I am sure that
your references actually pertain to the matters
for which they are indicated as information sources.
But Heib's personal website did not even pass that basic test,
which would have been the first test in a peer review, so
it falls into the category of
"good examples of why people should not automatically consider
personal websites to be accurate sources of scientific information."
> But not all of us out there are trying to
> bluff or baffle the public.
Non sequitur; I never said that "all of [you] out there are trying
to
bluff or baffle the public."
> Interestingly, when (through the generosity of a
> staff friend--not even an academic) this same web stuff was on an edu
> address I got many more citation-- the information has not changed, just
> the location. Granted one expects to find diamonds in a diamond mine not
> a dunghill, but I'm not sure the web address of information means that
> much anymore.
I'm confused:
didn't you just state that an edu address changed your credibility?
> Caveat emptor, regardless of the online source.
I prefer, "Caveat lictor", regardless of whether the source is
online or not (although offline sources are intrinsically more
reliable).
> > The pie chart is the product of a person who does not respect, or
> > perhaps does not understand, the logical arguments that support
> > scientific arguments.
> > A mine inspector is not someone who should automatically be
> > expected to be a credible authority on climate change, especially as
> > his credentials as a geologist may not require scientific
> > understanding, but rather engineering ability.
>
> I'm not sure this pie chart is original with Heib. It does show up on
> the Lee Gerhard site, cited by J. Taylor as Dr. Lee C. Gerhard, senior
> scientist emeritus at the Kansas Geological Surveyhttp://www.kansasenergy.org/documents/Gerhard_Climate_Change.pdf
> In his powerpoint, Gerhard does not give a further citation to the chart.
Gerhard's Powerpoint (TM) notes give a reference to Heib's website,
as it appeared sometime in 2006.
Following the usual chain of cause-&-effect for
scientific publications, that would seem to indicate that
Gerhard got the pie chart from Heib.
But that assumes Newtonian physics, whereas
the World Wide Web is relativistic:
you never know who got what from whom, because
it's all updated willy-nilly.
Peer-reviewed scientific publications, once published,
stay as they are, without undocumented mutations.
Maybe Heib got it fron Gerhard.
Maybe Gerhard got it from Heib.
Maybe they each got it from the same third-party source.
Maybe they got it from independent sources.
Maybe it's some child's re-labelling of a tobacco industry
chart showing smokers' preferences in delivery systems
(95% cigarettes, 3% cigars, 2% pipes and incense burners),
dragooned into service to pad out a homework assignment on
the major constituents of fizzy bottled spring water.
We have no idea.
In any case, three out of five publications cited by Heib as
sources for the 95% figure in an equivalent bar graph
do not mention any percentage of water vapour, and
none of the five references use the figures Heib does
in his bar graph with the bogus references) or
in his pie chart (which has no accompanying references).
This thing has less provenance that Piltdown Man,
and maybe about as much as a 15th-Century landscape
painting with a Boeing 747 in amongst the clouds.
> I have no idea what Dr Gerhard's educational credentials are as climate
> scientist, but he does seem to have reasonable credentials as a
> geologist, including former KS state geo and former president of the
> AAPG. He seems to have written a number of papers on climatological
> subjects. I'm skeptical, of course, because I remember Iben Browning,
> climatologist, who tried to play seismologist.
<snip>
Hmmm, yass, that might be a bit like asking the author of
"The Wind in the Willows" to give a weather prediction for D-Day.
> Water vapor is usually neglected, because for the most part, we are not
> contributing massive amounts of water vapor to the atmosphere--not in
> the same way we are contributing CO2, and introducing entirely new
> manufactured gases. Like solar insolation--there isn't much we can do
> about water vapor in the atmosphere. We can do something about the minor
> greenhouse gases.
<snip>
Well, water vapour in the atmosphere is a zero sum:
at a given average temperature, the atmosphere will only hold
a certain near-constant amount of water vapour, because
excess water vapour has a habit of condensing into
other phases of matter and removing itself from the atmosphere.
We may indeed be contributing small amounts of fossil water
to the atmosphere (by well-water irrigation, e.g.), but the great
bulk of that water becomes liquid quite soon, and so does not
affect the overall concentration of water vapour in the
atmosphere to any noticeable extent, so there's really no point
in including it in calculations of temperature _change_ .
And that's why the pie chart is misleading and specious
and out-of-place in the AAPG card, whether or not its figures
have a basis in observed reality.
> My guess where the 95% figure came from was it was not pulled entirely
> out of a hat, but resulted when someone tried to compare the percentages
> of H20 (g) to other known greenhouse gases on a ppm basis in a 'typical'
> part' of the atmosphere.
<snip>
My guess is that it came from
a deconstructionist critical analysis of
the lesser-known mumblings of Edgar Cayce.
Either way, it does not belong on a document
that is intended to establish a scientific argument
on behalf of a geoscience-related professional group.
-
Daryl Krupa
P.S.: The followers of Captain Ned Ludd did not want to
live in caves; they preferred neat, clean, warm cottages
scattered about the English countryside, each supported
by its owner-occupant's home-based business.
The Luddites were your intellectual forebears -
any independent enterpriser who disses their values
disrespects herself, by extension.
If the laws passed to control the resistance of small businessmen to
corporate takeovers were still in effect today, one would constantly
quake in mortal fear of crashing Windows, for it were death for any
man, woman, child or slave to break a machine.
Orwellian historical re-write by dominating powers 1,
Luddite individualistic humanism Nil.
Don't believe everything you read about mythical Bogeymen.
Jo Schaper
pie chart. In fact, I was the first person to post for people to look at
it in a critical manner. Then I attempted to do so to the best of my
ability.
best
Jo Schaper
J. Taylor
wrote:
>J. Taylor <nchiw...@earthlink.NOSPAM.net> wrote:
>> "Daryl Krupa" <icycal...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>> > J. Taylor <nchiw...@earthlink.NOSPAM.net> wrote:
><snip>
>> >> All this is saying, you do not know how to evaluate
>> >> the problem so you look for some thing you consider
>> >> reliable to act as a substitute.
>>
>> >
gain, I do not know to what you refer.
>> > hich problem?
>> >
substitute for what, please?
>> > hat does this have to do with the source of the information
>> >in the pie chart on the proposed AAPG card?
>>
>> That, "What does this have to do with the source of the information
>> in the pie chart on the proposed AAPG card" was my question.
>
> Well, that's the first I've seen of it.
> You do realise, I hope, that I do not know
>what is in your mind unless you tell me
>what's in there.
> But I'm still confused; from your response,
>I might divine that
>you think that
>you are the one posting from my email address.
> You're no making much sense, I fear.
Your failure to understand something so simple as what is relevant and
irrelevant is not a failure of mine.
Have read your posts, you have impressed me as being brighter than
that.
To quote my post
"It is completely irrelevant it was a personal website or the
occupation of owner of it.
What do you have to say about the pie?"
Making it my question.
One possible explanation, you never read the post with the above quote
in it.
>
>> Daryl, you first have to evaluate the chart before the value of the
>> website, or the individual saying it can be known.
ND then, their
>> value does NOT effect the value of the chart. hich means it is
>> irrelevant.
>
> The word is "affect", and
>the lack of pertinent references on Heib's website
>re: the chart, in his list of references
>re: the chart, means that
>the value of Heib's website is low, and
>the value of the chart is unknown,
>except that it is useless until validated.
>
And how do you know any of this unless you first evaluated the
information?
If you have not, or cannot evaluate the information then you are just
showing bias and prejudice and it is your statements which have no
value.
No effect, I meant what was wrote, effect as a cause or agent.
Change the word effect to CAUSE for clarity, NOW can you see how it is
completely irrelevant?
Who the individual is, is completely irrelevant for DETERMINING the
answer to a problem.
The answer to 2 + 2 is not effected by who wrote the equation. The
answer maybe affected by the individual, but to know if the correct
answer requires working the equation first.
><snip>
>
>> >> Please show work.
>>
>> > nce more, I am puzzled as to your meaning.
>> > hat did you mean by
>> >"Please show work."?
>>
>> factual basis unknown, factual basis could be know if
>> the work was shown
>
> What "work"? Whose "work"? Why tell me to show it?
>
> Oh, nevermind. I've had enough of this. You win.
Since it is one particular webpage and individual in question, I
thought the reference would be obvious. A lot of questions could be
answered by his showing his work.
JT
J. Taylor
wrote:
>Jo Schaper <jospamnotschaper34@5socket78dot9net> wrote:
>> Daryl Krupa wrote:
>> > J. Taylor <nchiw...@earthlink.NOSPAM.net> wrote:
>
>> >> It is completely irrelevant it was a personal website or the
>> >> occupation of owner of it.
>>
>> > No, it is not irrelevant.
>> > The source is unscientific, and unreliable, and inaccurate.
>> > That's why we should only consider peer-reviewed research as an
>> > information source: it reduces the chance that our opinions will be
>> > swayed by clumsy propaganda.
>>
>> Well, I'm slightly disturbed by this assessment, Daryl.
>> All personal websites don't fit into this category;
>
> Jo, that is an untenable statement.
Sorry, it only requires showing one which does not, for "All personal
websites don't fit into this category" to be PROVEN TRUE.
That was done
Hardly an untenable statement
It maybe 99.9999% fit the category but it most definitely is not ALL
Of course, it maybe 99.99999% don't either, but unless you view EVERY
website and categories them ALL we will NEVER know with certainty what
is the percentage. What we do know for sure, it is NOT ALL
JT
Robert Grumbine
I sympathize with the problem. It's one of my complaints with my
colleagues, at least for their public pages. Once you're fairly
adept in the field, the conversion isn't hard. But we're supposed
to be communicating, at least some of the time, with folks who aren't.
One of the interesting things (to me at least) is that if you
follow the distribution of water vapor vs. CO2 through the depth
of the atmosphere, you find that as you go higher up, CO2 becomes
increasingly important, eventually being the dominant greenhouse
gas (or at least dominant w.r.t. H2O, O3 may be more important
than CO2 at those levels). This is offshoot of the fact that CO2
doesn't condense and is chemically stable -- so its concentration
is nearly constant through the depth of the atmosphere. With H2O
dropping rapidly with temperature, it drops under 380 ppm in, iirc,
the lower stratosphere.
>(Decimal points and unit conversions--the main reasons I gladly defer to
>others in math calculations!)
>
>Looking at the whole water vapor pressure/temperature variability
>problem over the whole planet gives me the willies over how that can be
>modeled with any accuracy, even with a computer. Talk about a moving
>target...
But then we get back to observables. The atmosphere doesn't
reach much supersaturation, so if we observe temperature, we
can easily put an upper bound on the H2O vapor levels. And
temperature is both easy to observe, and a single observation
is generally representative of a large area. The latter
is useful, and itself derived from observation. If your house
is warmer than usual today, then temperatures for a couple of
hundred km radius around you are also likely warmer than usual.
This can be, and is, made rigorous in the field.
But H2O vapor is also fairly easy to observe, at least where
there aren't clouds (which, I grant, is a major limitation) --
H2O vapor has strong lines in the microwave around 22 and 87 GHz,
and satellites with sensors there have been flying since
1978 and ca. 1984, respectively. (Plus radiosondes have been
observing it, at least for the lower atmosphere, where most
of the water is, for a half century.)
These different sources are then used to decide how bad
the models are -- whether the weather models or the climate.
In some cases, the answer is 'surprisingly not-bad'. Sometimes
even 'good'.
Daryl Krupa
wrote:
> If you've read elsewhere on this thread,
> I am *not* defending the 95% pie chart.
Jo Schaper:
Please accept my apologies if I seemed to have
accused you of supporting the veracity of that pie chart.
That was not my intention.
> In fact, I was the first person to post for people to
> look at it in a critical manner.
Um, no, I claim priority by 13 or 14 hours.
Mine is the second post in this thread, on the 18th,
dedicated to the subject of that pie chart;
yours is the fourth post, on the 19th.
> Then I attempted to do so to the best of my ability.
And your best was well done.
Cheers,
Daryl Krupa
don findlay
"..When the pie was opened the birds began to sing,
Wasn't it a dainty dish to set before a King. ... "
(Kings must have come for quite a lot of flack in their day. but
there's safety now, ... in rabbles of chooks, ....squabbling.about the
Big Issue.
Phil Hays
> Phil Hays wrote:
>>212 PgC makes a lot of CO2.
>
> Let's stay on point. The question ask, "....what you consider the
> amount in peer reviewed literature."
212 PgC is on point. Do you need help converting that into a ppb increase
in the atmosphere?
--
Phil Hays
J. Taylor
So all the carbon increase, in your opinion, is from man made sources?