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Comments 76501 to 76550:

  1. Skeptical Science celebrates its 4th birthday
    Happy Birthday SkS and all the best John - your work is valuable and much admired.
  2. GHG emission mitigation solutions - a challenge for the Right?
    Scaddenp: The policy is apparant, or so I thought. I would support a program of building nuclear to replace coal as electrical generation stations.
  3. Skeptical Science celebrates its 4th birthday
    Happy Birthday!
  4. Skeptical Science celebrates its 4th birthday
    Happy birthday SkS. Well deserved congratulations John.
  5. Daniel J. Andrews at 13:26 PM on 24 August 2011
    Skeptical Science celebrates its 4th birthday
    Happy birthday! Love your app--perfect for reading through some arguments to refresh my memory or learn new things.
  6. GHG emission mitigation solutions - a challenge for the Right?
    camburn, interesting but still ducking the question of what policy you would support that will effectively change the balance. You have proposed an effective technology, no doubt about it, but not a means by which it can be introduced quickly, if you were convinced that it had to be.
  7. Skeptical Science celebrates its 4th birthday
    Happy birthday to SkS! And congratulations on the new position. Seeing as you have created the best site on the Web for rebutting the the arguments that climate skeptics have with the science, I imagine you're ideally placed to do well in your new job. And of course you have a handy resource to find those pesky papers when you need them :) Well done!
  8. GHG emission mitigation solutions - a challenge for the Right?
    scaddenp@87: I didn't get involved in the regulatory burden/process. I studied the stream flow of the Missouri, and determined that there was enough flow to cool a large plant without large scale alterations of stream temperature. My Senator, who is my neighbor, got the development part of the State to start the process. After about a year, it was determined that the length of time to get permits, the seemingly changeing permit requirements etc made it not practicle to proceed. To me we are in an ideal location. Remote, tetonics are very stable, water supply was not an issue, transmission lines are already in place, or the corridors for such in place to allow expansion. Seemed like a win win to me. There was a lot of NIMBY. People are familiar with coal fired power plants. They do not fear the pollution from them, and we do have very clean emissions as the state PSC is diligent about that. To me, nuclear is such a clear cut solution. I would not mind living next to a plant at all. Of course, my cousin has an influence. If he feels safe having his family live 10 miles from where he works, then I feel safe is one was located near me. As far as liability, I have no problem having the federal government guarantee that as I think it is very very much in the publics interest to build these, whether they agree with that assumption or not. Kinda funny about libertarian views. I am a Ron Paul supporter, as I deem President Obama ineffective and not understanding basic economics. The present batch of Republican Candidates are really bone heads, and not critical thinkers. So, I hope I am wrong, but it looks like the USA will have 16 years of idiots occupying the White House.
  9. Skeptical Science celebrates its 4th birthday
    Happy Birthday SkS! And John, thanks for being a much needed voice of reason out in the internet ether.
  10. Republican Presidential Candidates vs. Climate Science
    What is the correlation between not accepting climate science, and not accepting evolution among the candidates? I know the positions on evolution of Perry, Bachmann, Palin and Huntsman, but I'm not sure of the others. KenH
  11. Republican Presidential Candidates vs. Climate Science
    It seems to me that Jon Huntsman's comment: "The minute that the Republican Party becomes the party - the anti-science party, we have a huge problem" is well founded. The challenge is to turn that potential problem into a very real problem. It is a glaring political weakness, even in the US.
  12. Settled Science - Humans are Raising CO2 Levels
    Doug, It is not my contention that the addition CO2 is coming from the oceans. That was my response to the hypothetic question posed by muon. If you have another potential answer, please share.
  13. Republican Presidential Candidates vs. Climate Science
    @Philippe Chantreau #7: I have interacted with apiratelooksat50 for quite few years and I can vouch for his sincerity in posing his question.
  14. Republican Presidential Candidates vs. Climate Science
    "Just believing in global warming is risky territory for Republicans. Backing environmental regulation would be a dangerous leap in the primary with little hope of payoff in the general election." The above is the concluding paragraph of an excellent article, "Huntsman, Romney believe in global warming, but not action" by Rachel Weiner posted on the Washington Post's The Fix on Aug 23, 2011. Weiner's article nicely supplements Dana's.
  15. Settled Science - Humans are Raising CO2 Levels
    ETR: Degassing? Didn't you read post 10? For one thing the oceans have not warmed enough to have been the source of CO2
    3. Not enough warming You may remember from post 8, that warm water can hold less CO2 than cold water. Our knowledge of Henry's Law and the CO2 equilibria allow us to calculate the increase in seawater temperature that would be needed to cause the observed increase in pCO2 in the atmosphere (i.e. the partial pressure (or 'concentration') of CO2). The results show that to explain the 100 ppm of additional CO2 added to the atmosphere since preindustrial times by ocean warming, the average temperature rise of the surface ocean needs to be about 10o C, much larger than has occurred. As we noted in post 8, the Henry's Law coefficient, KH, is dependent on temperature (and salinity to a lesser extent). However, there is no exact expression as seawater is sufficiently complex that the values for KH for seawater have been experimentally determined. For constant salinity, the pCO2 in the atmosphere doubles (i.e. =200% the initial concentration) for every 16oC increase in seawater temperature*. Atmospheric CO2 is now 140% of the preindustrial value (it increased by about 110 ppm from 280 to 390 ppm). Thus the temperature change required to sufficiently change the Henry's Law coefficient is 140/200 × 16 = 11oC.** This calculation shows that the surface ocean would on average have to have warmed by about 10oC since about 1750 if the oceans had been the source of the CO2. Plainly the ocean does not have a uniform temperature, so the changes would actually need to be even more extreme in some places. Of course, no such warming has occurred. *for the interested this is explained in detail in the appendix to: Takahashi et al. "Seasonal variation of CO2 and nutrients in the high-latitude surface oceans: A comparative study" Global Biogeochemical Cycles, 7(4), 843-878.
    ** actually a simplification of a partial dertivative
  16. Tar Sands Impact on Climate Change
    More frightening facts about the Alberta tar sands... Deposits of thick, tarry bitumin underlie about 140,000 square kilometers of northeastern Alberta, an area about the size of the state of Florida. Producing synthetic crude from tar sands requires natural gas to heat water for steam to separate the oil from the sand. Tar sands operations currently use about .6 billion cubic feet of natural gas a day. By 2012, that level is expected to rise to two billion cubic feet a day, more than all the gas available from the Mackenzie Gas Project to the north. The process water is discharged into growing toxic tailings ponds already the size of the city of Vancouver Source: "222 Arrested at White House Sit-ins Against Tar Sands Pipeline", ENS, Aug 23, 2011 To access this in-depth article, click here.
  17. Skeptical Science celebrates its 4th birthday
    Congratulations to John and to all who have and continue to contribute to making SkS such a valued source of information, review and comment. Your Fellowship is richly deserved.
  18. Settled Science - Humans are Raising CO2 Levels
    EtR#47: "degassing of the oceans" We all know that is not happening. "why would you think it is not anthropogenic? " I have ample reasons to understand that the increased CO2 in question is anthropogenic. I'm glad you now admit to agree with this mainstream understanding; we're making progress. As far as my 'riddles' were concerned, they were just questions, not riddles. I apologize for using a turn of phrase from the old Batman TV show.
  19. GHG emission mitigation solutions - a challenge for the Right?
    Followoing Badgersouth's links to Tokyo Tom, I find his proposed solutions are as follows:
    "4. Is a small-government, libertarian climate/green agenda possible and desirable? So what is a good libertarian to suggest? This seems rather straight-forward, once one doffs his partisan, do-battle-with-evil-green-fascist-commies armor and puts on his thinking cap. From my earlier comment to Stephan Kinsella: As Rob Bradley once reluctantly acknowledged to me, in the halcyon days before he banned me from the "free-market" Master Resource blog, "a free-market approach is not about “do nothing” but implementing a whole new energy approach to remove myriad regulation and subsidies that have built up over a century or more." But unfortunately the wheels of this principled concern have never hit the ground at MR [my persistence in pointing this out it, and in questioning whether his blog was a front for fossil fuel interests, apparently earned me the boot]. As I have noted in a litany of posts at my blog, pro-freedom regulatory changes might include: [1] accelerating cleaner power investments by eliminating corporate income taxes or allowing immediate depreciation of capital investment (which would make new investments more attractive), eliminating antitrust immunity for public utility monopolies to increase competition, allow consumer choice, peak pricing and "smart metering" that will rapidly push large potential efficiency gains (as identified by McKinsey), [2] ending Clean Air Act handouts to the worst utilities (or otherwise unwinding burdensome regulations and moving to lighter and more common-law dependent approaches), [3] ending energy subsidies generally (including federal liability caps for nuclear power and allowing states to license), [4] speeding economic growth and adaptation in the poorer countries most threatened by climate change by rolling back domestic agricultural corporate welfare programs (ethanol and sugar), and [5] if there is to be any type of carbon pricing at all, insisting that it is a per capita, fully-rebated carbon tax (puts the revenues in the hands of those with the best claim to it, eliminates regressive impact and price volatility, least new bureaucracy, most transparent, and least susceptible to pork). Other policy changes could also be put on the table, such as: [6] an insistence that government resource management be improved by requiring that half of all royalties be rebated to citizens (with a slice to the administering agency), and [7] reducing understandable NIMBY problems by (i) encouraging project planners to proactively compensate persons in affected areas and (ii) reducing fears of corporate abuses, by providing that corporate executives have personal liability for environmental torts (in recognition of the fact that the profound risk-shifting that limited liability corporations are capable of that often elicits strong public opposition and fuels regulatory pressure)."
    (Numbering introduced to facilitate ease of reference) I will discuss these proposals myself when I have a little more time, but in the meantime, what do our resident libertarians think of them; and more importantly, how will they bring about a reduction of CO2 emissions to zero by 2050 (which is frankly not apparent in most cases)?
  20. Philippe Chantreau at 08:16 AM on 24 August 2011
    Republican Presidential Candidates vs. Climate Science
    Pirate is just trying to find fault with SkS. It's rather amusing, considering how vastly superior a site it is to the stupid mudfest known as WUWT, or the false accusation factory (which produces FOIA requests on an industrial scale too) ran by McIntyre. The republican party has now long been the party of anti-science. It culminated with G.W. Bush, on record saying that "the Jury is still out on evolution." The rest of them have picked up on the fact that this kind of message resonates with the base, or they actually sincerely believe it because they are scientifically incompetent and close to innumerate. The way Joe Barton had to be reminded (if he ever knew it in the first place) in a congressional hearing that landmasses have changed position over geological ages is unfortunately representative of how Republicans are nowadays. Rather sad. But, hey they indeed are representatives; they wouldn't be there if the people who elected them knew better. There lies the real problem.
  21. Stephen Baines at 08:11 AM on 24 August 2011
    Settled Science - Humans are Raising CO2 Levels
    This is a great post...although I do find it depressing that there is a need for it. If there is one thing we know with almost absolute certainty it is that humans are responsible for the current increase in CO2. As for the settled science debate, I'm with DM...I try to imagine what would overturn the case for human impact on CO2 and it is very very hard.
    Response:

    [dana1981] Thanks.  I agree, and that's probably why we took so long to address this myth.  It's one of those totally settled issues that whenever it comes up, you just think "are you really denying this?".  We've got another one in the pipeline on the 'CO2 is a trace gas' argument.  They're such lame arguments that you wish people would just stop making them.  But they won't, so we have to add them to our database.

  22. Republican Presidential Candidates vs. Climate Science
    Palin and others who say CO2 is harmless are wrong. OSHA's maximum safe level is 3%; lethal concentration (death in 30 minutes) is 10% Would Palin go to sleep in a room with 5% CO2? Of course, "safe levels" have nothing to do with global warming. I do not see how anyone can believe the science is a hoax. The science is supported by thousands of scientists, of different disciplines, hundreds of institutions, and speaking dozens of languages. Every major scientific organization from China to the USA has endorsed the findings. Read more: http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_much_carbon_dioxide_intake_is_lethal#ixzz1VtHmDBuF
  23. Settled Science - Humans are Raising CO2 Levels
    Muon, I only used the word believe to indicate that I did not agree with the premises in your riddle.
  24. Settled Science - Humans are Raising CO2 Levels
    I guess if you assume it is not anthropegenic, then the only logical source is degassing of the oceans. But why would you think it is not anthropogenic?
  25. Republican Presidential Candidates vs. Climate Science
    When Perry makes comments about climate scientists falsifying data, why is it in my mind people like Spencer, Lindzen, Soon, et al come to mind.
  26. GHG emission mitigation solutions - a challenge for the Right?
    Camburn - so what change in regulation is needed? When someone says regulations make it impossible, I really dont know what that means. In Australia, there is a law which says you cant build nuclear plants. That's straightforward but not the case in US. Do you mean regulations dont make it economically feasible? When I have seen this argument, the proponents are mostly arguing for relaxation of laws which make operators responsible for plant safety. But libertarian ideals emphasis responsibility for consequences. In short, tell me what you would like the government to do that would making replacing coal with nuclear plants of some form a reality.
  27. Climate Skeptic Fool's Gold
    On 2, 11, 14, 17, Anthony Mills' statements... It's strange how this (emphasis mine):
    Central to computer climate models is the coupling at the air-ocean/land interface through a surface energy balance in which the latent heat component... Can this component be calculated using"solid fundamental" physics with a meaningful error bound? If not ,I doubt whether the models can make satisfactory "predictions" of CO2 effects.
    which is a clear question and evidence of ignorance on the matter, supplemented by a skeptical but utterly foundation-less doubt. This later turned into this confident declaration:
    I simply wish to make the point that"computer climate models" do not use "solid fundamental physics" to describe some important phenomena,and should not be overrated. ... I would like to see a citation to a latent heat transport model based on fundamental physics that has been used in a computer climate model.
    So where did this conclusion come from? What is the evidence for it? Why the sudden change from question to confident knowledge? His response to a response to his vague request for evidence (and isn't it odd how he needs evidence to prove his assumption wrong, but not to make it in the first place?):
    Your comments are inappropriate. Your references are irrelevant. ...learn something about the topic. I suggest you study...
    As if no one can understand the mystical complexities of latent heat but someone who posts four very vaguely worded and utterly unsupported comments on a blog comment thread... comments which do nothing more than utterly without supporting foundation question the validity of the models. And yet, from the original post above:
    Today's climate models are so advanced in their representation of the Earth's complex climate, that they run on some of the world's fastest supercomputers.
    Hmmm. So whom should we trust here?
  28. Settled Science - Humans are Raising CO2 Levels
    EtR#45: "CO2 is increasing and being dissolved in the oceans." Thanks for the clarification. I used the word belief (noun variant of the verb believe) because you stated what you believe. The CO2 increase in question is atmospheric CO2; the measured increase is a multi-year trend (~70ppm in ~50 years), distinct from regular annual cycles. CO2 increase in the oceans is also measured; there are local differences, but the trend is up. You stated here and Sphaerica provides research confirming that biomass is increasing. So now we have to provide a source for all this CO2; if not anthropogenic, where is it coming from? "There are a lot of measurements reported, some which contradict each other." This statement is too ambiguous. What measurements, where, when; how do they contradict? But your answer to the prior question is far more important to this discussion. Where is all that CO2 coming from???
  29. Tar Sands Impact on Climate Change
    @noble_serf #37: On Adapatation In a four-degree warmer world, adaptation means "put your feet up and die" for many people in the world, Oxford's Chris West said. Adaptation is expensive, difficult (don't know how or what is coming or when ) and impossible in many situations. FYI Mitigation means reduction in emissions ie no Keystone.
  30. Tar Sands Impact on Climate Change
    Tipping Point The Oil sands... great arial videos.. http://www.cbc.ca/video/#/Shows/The_Nature_of_Things/1242300217/ID=1769597772
  31. Skeptical Science celebrates its 4th birthday
    John congrats on hanging in for four years and making SkS into an 'institution' in the best sense of the word. And bigger congrats on the appointment - we need way more CCSC fellows but good to start with one of the best.
  32. Settled Science - Humans are Raising CO2 Levels
    Muon, Ok, I will rephrase my statement: CO2 is increasing and being dissolved in the oceans. Not sure about your second paragraph though. There are a lot of measurements reported, some which contradict each other. If you can be more specific, then I could answer your question. I am not sure why you keep mentioning "belief" with regards to measurements either.
  33. Skeptical Science celebrates its 4th birthday
    John, you are a remarkable leader, always (well, almost always!) maintaining an "even keel" and bringing others along with you. May you go from "strength to strength" in your new position!
  34. Settled Science - Humans are Raising CO2 Levels
    EtR#42: "because I do not believe that CO2 is not increasing or being dissolved into the oceans" Can you rephrase this without a double negative? Do you believe that atmospheric CO2 is increasing? Do you believe that CO2 is 'being dissolved' into the oceans? Do you understand what it means if what you believe is in contradiction with direct measurement? Do you accept that others, possibly a vast majority of others, might say that measurement is more relevant here than 'belief'?
  35. Settled Science - Humans are Raising CO2 Levels
    40, Eric the Red, Here is a simple, factual discussion of carbon sinks (from the EPA). No hand waving and generalized, unproven statements of relative quantities. Anyone who actually wants to read about and understand this, rather than go with vague but unsupported pronouncements and claims, is directed to Trends in the sources and sinks of carbon dioxide (corinne le Quéré, Michael r. raupach, Josep g. canadell, gregg Marland et al., 2009) Note that CO2 uptake by land has generally been greater than ocean, and increasing over the past decades. This is a semi-permanent uptake (meaning an increase in biomass as opposed to an annual uptake and release), however as common sense will tell anyone, this increase cannot continue forever, and contrary to hopes and wishes, can and will actually reverse. Repeated claims that warming means more, better precipitation are just that, mere claims. Actual studies show quite the opposite. This is a good page to look at for a good, accurate summary of what the future will likely hold: Climate Change Drought which includes the following animation. You can figure out for yourself what is really going to happen to all of those carbon sinks without simply accepting the word of the hopeful and dangerously optimistic.
  36. Republican Presidential Candidates vs. Climate Science
    pbjamm is correct - this article is about the scientific accuracy of climate statements made by politicians, not about politics.
  37. Settled Science - Humans are Raising CO2 Levels
    Muon, I cannot answer your riddles, because I do not believe that CO2 is not increasing or being dissolved into the oceans. Someone else will have to answer them. The CO2 which re-enters the atmosphere from plants is that which is burned, whether for heat, food, or clearing. Looking around (as you suggest), most reports show increases in world forestation (in spite of the continued slash and burn policies), and carbon sequestration. The seasonality trend increases towards the northern latitutse, with Barrow, Alaska showing an annul difference of ~16ppm compared to the ~1 at the South Pole. In fact, the entire southern hemisphere shows very little seasonality, presumably due to the much larger emissions in the NH. http://www.geology.iastate.edu/gccourse/chem/gases/gases_lecture_new.html Since plants have expanded and sequestered more carbon during the recent warming, I see no reason for this trend to not continue. In fact, it should accelerate if temperatures and precipitation continue to rise. The last area of carbon uptake is calcification, although this most likely pales in comparison to plant and ocean sequestration
  38. Republican Presidential Candidates vs. Climate Science
    apiratelooksat50 "No politics. Rants about politics, ideology or one world governments will be deleted." While the article is about politicians, it is not about their politics. It is about their stance on AGW science and science in general. Also, it is not a political rant ($PARTY is evil and wants to destroy $COUNTRY!) but a list of statements made by politicians. While I would prefer that SkS stay away from politics discussing the statements of politicians is fair since they are so important to how policy will be shaped (or not) by the science.
  39. GHG emission mitigation solutions - a challenge for the Right?
    Some thoughts and possible approaches:- Appeal to the individualist I can imagine a pitch of micro-generation which emphasises independence (from government and from large power supply corporations) which could appeal to suburban and rural dwellers. Disadvantages: 1. You can’t sell micro-generation to people living in city apartments. 2. It’s an individual sales pitch, competing with all other sales pitches. Appeal to patriotism This is the large-scale version of the appeal to the individualist - we want a country that is independent from foreign sources of a critical supply. (This is a justification for a national underwriting of a smart grid mentioned by Lloyd Flack and others.) Approach to subsidy In general, the Right has a philosophical dislike for state subsidies. The difficulty here is that any new technology starts off expensive and only gets cheaper as volume expands (the manufacturing learning curve), so substituting a new technology for an old is difficult when the new technology is not inherently cheaper. Some technologies get cross-subsidised (I’m thinking of nuclear, kick-started for military reasons). There may be good reason for subsidising others - particularly things like a grid that need to be done at a national level - the issue is making a good enough case for national interest overcoming the distaste for state intervention. The other part of the subsidy issue is to ensure that existing technologies are not given unfair advantages by the state (by means of tax breaks, grants, etc.)
  40. apiratelooksat50 at 04:04 AM on 24 August 2011
    Republican Presidential Candidates vs. Climate Science
    I am seriously only curious, and not trolling. Is this not against the Comments Policy? "No politics. Rants about politics, ideology or one world governments will be deleted."
  41. GHG emission mitigation solutions - a challenge for the Right?
    PS to Badgersouth #84: Tokyo Tom's tome, "Towards a productive libertarian approach on climate, energy and environmental issues" was suggested reading by Grypo to his SkS post, The Libertarian Climate Conundrum. As it trns out, Tokyo Tom actually posted on the comment thread to Grypo's article.
  42. Settled Science - Humans are Raising CO2 Levels
    EtR#40: "If anything, plants are likely to sequester have even larger percentages in the future." Eric, Eric. Look around. Plants die; their stored carbon goes back into the atmosphere/soil - especially in those parts of the world still doing slash and burn. Look at the seasonal atmospheric CO2 cycle: decreasing during the active NH growing season followed by increasing in the fall. The magnitude of the peak-to-trough change is very consistent from year after year. That's not a sign of sequestration. The only plants that may store carbon for any length of time are trees, but we still deliberately burn them. None of that is about to change 'in the future' under BAU. And riddle me this: - If CO2 is not actively going into seawater, why is seawater increasing in acidity - due to the formation carbonic acid, for that matter? - Despite the sinking of some CO2 into increasing biomass and increasing ocean acidity, atmospheric CO2 keeps on rising. If its not coming from our emissions, where does it come from?
  43. GHG emission mitigation solutions - a challenge for the Right?
    @Sphaerica #82: A rather in-depth answer to the challenge question can be found in a blog post by a self-proclaimed libertarian. The post is: "Towards a productive libertarian approach on climate, energy and environmental issues" by Tokyo Tom. It is posted on the website: "TT's Lost in Tokyo: Unconventional analysis from a right-leaning enviro-libertarian." To access the article, click here.
  44. GHG emission mitigation solutions - a challenge for the Right?
    LloydFlack#80: "good at identifying the costs and undesirable effects" The US Libertarian Party platform (sec 2.2) states: Free markets and property rights stimulate the technological innovations and behavioral changes required to protect our environment and ecosystems. We realize that our planet's climate is constantly changing, but environmental advocates and social pressure are the most effective means of changing public behavior. This strikes me as a difficult framework for marshalling the funds and engineering expertise necessary to solve a climate-related problem, which will demand a large scale international effort. I wonder if there are examples of success in such projects when conducted without active government support. Of course, 'climate is constantly changing' is most likely code for 'natural cycles' -- in which case, they don't believe that the problem is ours to solve.
  45. Republican Presidential Candidates vs. Climate Science
    Suggested reading: "Republican Presidential Candidates on Climate Change" by Timothy Hurst posted Aug 22 on Ecopolitology. While his profiles are not as detailed as Dana’s, Hurst does provide some valuable insights. In addition, the caricatures of the candidates done for the Hurst article are a hoot!
  46. Tar Sands Impact on Climate Change
    Unexpectedly, this post has been re-published by The Guardian.
  47. Tar Sands Impact on Climate Change
    @noble_serf #37: You’ll also want to check out the Climate Change Library of the Climate Change Economics website. The library is chocked full of good stuff about climate change adaptation and mitigation.
  48. Tar Sands Impact on Climate Change
    @noble_serf #37: An excellent primer on climate change mitigation and adaptation is posted on Climate Change Economics. You should give it a careful read. The title of the post is “Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation: What's the difference, and how do they relate to each other?” You can access it by clicking here
  49. Tar Sands Impact on Climate Change
    Badger, Thanks for that link. I especially liked Palin's hair. I feel that climate change will only be an issue in the coming election with regards to its impacts on the economy. I echo Canburn's statement that a carbon tax has virtually no chance of passage, especially in this economy in an election year.
  50. Settled Science - Humans are Raising CO2 Levels
    Sphaerica, While temperatures and lack of precipitatino could become too high for certain species in certain regions, much of the world's plantlife exists in Northern latitudes well below limiting temperatures. Prediction temperature and precipitation increases in these areas would be more than sufficient to counter any potential losses in the more arid regions. My point was a counter to Doug statement about all the missing CO2 from the atmosphere making its way into the world's oceans. Apparently more is being sequestered by plants. I strongly disagree with your contention that all the extra carbon will eventually get back to the atmosphere. If anything, plants are likely to sequester have even larger percentages in the future.
    Moderator Response: [Dikran Marsupial] "Prediction temperature and precipitation increases in these areas would be more than sufficient to counter any potential losses in the more arid regions." reference please. Note the Amazon is not in Northern lattitudes, neither are the central African rain forests. The arid regions tend to be in mid-lattitudes. "If anything, plants are likely to sequester have even larger percentages in the future." reference please.

    Note Sphaerica is correct in that much of the CO2 used by the biosphere for photosynthesis is released back to the atmosphere by plant respiration and by the decay of dead plant matter. CO2 is only sequestered by permanent increases in plant biomass. This is unlikely to increase indefinitely as human population increases and puts pressure on the land available for forrest. However if you have a verifiable source that suggests otherwise, I would be glad to hear about it.

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