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dana1981 at 06:13 AM on 1 April 2011Debunking Climate Myths from Politicians
Thanks chris. We need to get a hold of a transcript of the proceedings too though. That's where things got really bad in terms of myth propagation. -
pbellin at 05:24 AM on 1 April 2011Crux of a Core, Part 3... Dr. Ole Humlum
A rolling stone gathers no moss. Here is a gem from the referenced web site: "According to ice core analysis, the atmospheric CO2 concentrations during all four prior interglacials never rose above approximately 290 ppm; whereas the atmospheric CO2 concentration today stands at nearly 390 ppm. The present interglacial is about 2oC colder than the previous interglacial, even though the atmospheric CO2 concentration now is about 100 ppm higher." This is based, I believe on a single ice core, the Vostok Ice core in Antartica. The figure discussed in this post is just below the gem above. I imagine Dr. Humlum forgot to update the Greenland temps to the most recent date, and forgot to mention that the forcing from changes in carbon dioxide have not all been realized. I imagine this web site would provide a treasure trove of topics for brave-hearted debunkers.Moderator Response: [DB] As an FYI, the highest CO2 levels in the Vostok core were 298.7 ppmv and occurred 323,546 years ago. Not that anyone's counting.
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chrisd3 at 05:19 AM on 1 April 2011Debunking Climate Myths from Politicians
@dana1981 #26 Here is the written testimony of the speakers (not a transcript). Click the speakers' names. -
Rob Honeycutt at 05:18 AM on 1 April 2011Crux of a Core, Part 3... Dr. Ole Humlum
i have to say, Dr. Humlum has been very gracious in my communication with him. I wouldn't lump him in with the denier crowd at all. He's closer to a true skeptic but definitely with a lean toward "it's not so bad" as far as I can tell. I've told Dr. Humlum about this post but he says he's off on another trip into the field with students and will be out of touch. He might pop in to comment once he's back from that trip. -
bibasir at 05:04 AM on 1 April 2011Crux of a Core, Part 3... Dr. Ole Humlum
Great post! It is a shame that the likes of Humlum couldn't be put at the bottom of the hill to await the return of the boulder. He would excape the boulder if he would update his chart with the 2010 number and the CO2 for the present. Even though the addition of 2010 does not make the chart more accurate, atleast it shows the spike up to past records in one year. -
otter17 at 04:39 AM on 1 April 2011Debunking Climate Myths from Politicians
This seems like a great idea. Keeping tabs on what politicians say and what their viewpoint on climate happens to be is important information for the public. I concur with some of the ideas already mentioned in the comments so far. I follow Skeptical Science, Climate Crocks, and Desmog blog occasionally, and I think having information that complements Desmogblog would be awesome. Maybe a joint venture? It would be nice for the layperson to be able to determine which sources of climate science information have been incorrect in the past, and why. In this way, one can more easily determine which sources have a poor record, and get a better picture of the overall reliability of that source. For example, my father believes that the Heartland Institute, Sarah Palin, and Sean Hannity are "good people with good morals and political views". Now, that is his overall opinion of them, which is fine, but he also gets a totally skewed view of climate change from them. This database already looks like a great resource to help me show to him that he can't always trust political persons with climate science facts. -
chrisd3 at 04:35 AM on 1 April 2011Debunking Climate Myths from Politicians
@apsmith #25 It just makes you want to start banging your head on the desk, doesn't it? -
dana1981 at 04:35 AM on 1 April 2011Debunking Climate Myths from Politicians
apsmith - we will be doing an extensive response to today's House climate hearing. One aspect will be collecting all of the politician myth quotes. If somebody knows how to get a hold of a recording or transcript of the hearing, please let us know.Moderator Response: [DB] In days of yore, they were required to provide an official transcript of these. If they are made available online, let alone in a timely fashion, I no longer know. -
apsmith at 04:29 AM on 1 April 2011Debunking Climate Myths from Politicians
My notes from today's (March 31 in US) climate hearing in the House Science Committee, on arguments made. We'll need to put these into the quotes database when we have an online source for the actual quotes, hopefully in the congressional record? * Cravaack (MN) - global cooling in the 1970's * Hall (chairman) - IPCC predicts only 7-23 inches. * Brooks - global cooling * Rohrabacher - "case closed"?? and a variant on "it's the sun" * Hall again - closing comments that we've spent so much money and it's all still so uncertain... -
Chris Colose at 04:13 AM on 1 April 2011Understanding Solar Evolution Part 2: Planets
Another important point in the review article (also discussed in Hansen's Target CO2 paper) is that the CO2 inventory in the atmosphere is very small when compared to the Earth sources and sinks, so increased removal of CO2 with uncompensated output by volcanism after a Himalayan uplift would draw levels down to zero in a million years or so. This means a counterbalancing process is necessary, largely provided by a deceleration globally of weathering in regions un-impacted by the mountains due to temperature, which would help control the drawdown of CO2 in the Cenozoic. -
chrisd3 at 04:05 AM on 1 April 2011Debunking Climate Myths from Politicians
@Michael Sweet #18:Berkely Physicist Richard Muller, who has been hired to disparage the surface temperature record.
That may be a problem for Dr Muller. Apparently his own forthcoming temperature study (Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature, or BEST) is going to say that the reconstructions by NOAA, NASA, etc., are right on the money.Moderator Response: [DB] Indeed. It is already a problem, for several parties:
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Chris Colose at 03:52 AM on 1 April 2011Understanding Solar Evolution Part 2: Planets
Hi Bart, This review article back in 2000 is a good start http://www.essc.psu.edu/~brantley/publications/kump.pdf Since then, there's been a number of field studies (e.g., Dessert et al., 2001; Oliva et al., 2003; Gislason et al., 2008; Turner et al., 2010) that show weathering rates can go up with temperature and runoff, however there's also dependence on topographical factors, rock exposure and soil overlying that rock, etc which make for complications. There's also been debate when it comes to interpreting Strontium isotopes or other ways of diagnosing weathering rates in the past, but in general I don't sense much disagreement that this serves as an important negative feedback over sufficiently long timescales. I mentioned the Zeebe and Caldeira paper (see also David Archer's summary of that paper) simply because it was useful in testing an elusive (and largely theoretical) mechanism over the time-frame where ice cores exist. -
johnd at 03:49 AM on 1 April 2011Arctic Ice March 2011
Ken Lambert at 00:45 AM, with the colouring on the graph representing W/m2, the Latitude scale being evenly divided does not acknowledge the effect of decreasing area per degree of latitude change and thus allow that to be visually appreciated. In the same way, a map of the world without some form of equal area projection would provide a distorted impression of the real world. -
Gilles at 03:38 AM on 1 April 2011Debunking Climate Myths from Politicians
Nicolas Sarkozy, Président de la République Française (in French) http://www.rue89.com/2009/09/24/sarkozy-se-plante-encore-sur-le-trou-dans-la-couche-dozone?page=4#comment-1065723 "le monde va à sa perte si on continue à émettre du carbone qui crée un trou dans la couche d'ozone et qui brise les équilibres de la planète, ça c'est un constat" "The world goes to its destruction if we keep emitting carbon that creates a hole in the ozone layer and breaks all the planet equilibria, this is a fact"Moderator Response: [DB] Thanks for bringing this to our attention; you've just given us a great idea for a new post: Politicians-who-get-it-right. Understandably, a short post right now. -
Bob Lacatena at 03:27 AM on 1 April 2011Arctic Ice March 2011
I'm unsure why Ken is so focused on the energy that goes into melting. That energy is simply released again when the ice freezes, so it's a zero sum game (and it's inconsequentially small, to boot). But as I said earlier, and as adelady just reiterated, what matters is not the energy that goes into melting ice, but rather the energy that goes into the ocean after the ice has melted (and which otherwise would have been reflected back into space). This is the problem with melting Arctic ice, that after it has melted, it is further warming the planet by changing the albedo in a part of the world that receives 24 hours of continuous sunlight at a fairly direct angle. That the ice refreezes when the days are instead 24 hours long is irrelevant. When the ice melts and the sun is up, the Earth warms. When the ice melts that much sooner in the spring, then the Earth warms for that much longer. Which then helps to melt the ice even sooner the following year if the planet is unable to shed the extra heat by then. -
Nicholas Berini at 03:07 AM on 1 April 2011Debunking Climate Myths from Politicians
I think you've really hit something with the format here. I think it would apply perfectly to: -climate scientists -news publications -climate bloggers -none of the above (though monkton already has his own page :) Wish I had more free time to contribute - vacation is just around the corner! -
pbjamm at 02:51 AM on 1 April 2011Debunking Climate Myths from Politicians
SkS should adopt a slogan similar to The Straight Dope. "Fighting Ignorance Since 1973. (It's taking longer than we thought)" Keep fighting the good fight. -
Paul D at 02:50 AM on 1 April 2011A Plan for 100% Energy from Wind, Water, and Solar by 2050
Sean, how do you equate energy abundance with protection of the biosphere etc?? Energy enables humans to do more, which equates to using more resources. It may cut carbon emissions but I don't see how it would protect the biosphere in general. I don't think my footprint on the world would be improved by having 5 low carbon cars and abundant cheap low carbon energy to power them. -
lord_sidcup at 02:40 AM on 1 April 2011Debunking Climate Myths from Politicians
Here is one from the UK - Labour MP Graham Stringer: Climate jiggery-pokery The whole article is packed with conspiracy theory, smears and innuendo, but the low-point is probably the assertion: "We now know that the work done at Climatic Research Unit barely qualified as science" -
michael sweet at 02:05 AM on 1 April 2011Acidification: Oceans past, present & yet to come
H peirce I think your problem here is that in pure water only 1% of carbonic acid releases H+. This forms a solution about pH 5. The Ocean is about pH 8.2 so most of the new carbonic acid immediately dissociates an H+ ion. The dissociation is proportional to the pH (keeping in mind pH is a log function so 5-> 8 is 1000 times) and the Ocean is basic. Skeptics need to understand the background before they try to explain chemistry to other people. -
ejo60 at 01:58 AM on 1 April 2011Debunking Climate Myths from Politicians
@michael sweet : More on Miller in my blog link I will add new information here because I saw various tweets relating to Miller. If you watch his lecture then you see he violates nearly every rule in the arguments database in an eloquent way. -
michael sweet at 01:44 AM on 1 April 2011Debunking Climate Myths from Politicians
The Koch's have hired a new physicist who is willing to say the climate problem does not exist. The Los Angeles Times had a story today about Berkely Physicist Richard Muller, who has been hired to disparage the surface temperature record. He will testify in congress next week, even though he has not yet published anything on climate science. Among his other claims is that "Not a single polar bear has died because of receding ice." Apparently he has not read this article Record Polar bear swim where the cub drowned as the mother searched for food. It is certainly easier to find an expert when they do not have to publish a single paper or read the background information! Does he count as a scientist or a politician? -
adelady at 00:59 AM on 1 April 2011Arctic Ice March 2011
Ken Which is sort of the other side of the coin I offered. With a huge caveat. The amount of heat "absorbed" in the Arctic whether tiny or not has been enough to wreck the ice, and it won't be long before there are much longer periods with much larger areas of open water. Wherein lies two problems. Firstly the heat (however tiny or large) which was formerly directed into melting ice that was many metres thick will no longer be absorbed that way, because the ice isn't there any more. It will be freer to circulate in oceans and atmosphere. Secondly, the Arctic is exposed to more sun than the tropics during summer because of the day length. So more and more open water with much lower albedo than ice or snow is exposed for longer and longer periods to radiation from sunlight. The Atlantic and Pacific waters which were previously cooled by their entry into the Arctic will not be cooled and could in some parts be warmed. This is entirely new territory. -
Nick Palmer at 00:57 AM on 1 April 2011Debunking Climate Myths from Politicians
Thanks Chrisd3. I'm glad the actual figure was 10 mill, even though 2 mill is still a lot bigger than 31 k... I also see that I made my point above there too in comment 1! -
KR at 00:51 AM on 1 April 20112nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
Perhaps, then, DSL, 'the cool shall rule' by virtue of superior vision? -
Ken Lambert at 00:45 AM on 1 April 2011Arctic Ice March 2011
DB #25 Adelady #27 I imagine the same graph can be applied to Antarctica in the southern summer. So what does the colour on the graph mean DB? Is there a scale? Does that mean that Antarctica absorbs more heat in the southern summer than the tropics too?? I assume you mean 10N to 10S for the tropics. Adelady - my point is that the amounts of energy absorbed in Arctic ice melt are tiny compared with the purported amounts being absorbed by the Earth system globally.Moderator Response:[DB] The scale is on the graph. Black=zero insolation, white=the most insolation. The Arctic in summer receives more daily energy from the sun, both at the surface and the TOA, than does the equator (Antarctic altitude and albedo effects there lessen the impact of its summer insolation surplus):
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Gilles at 00:42 AM on 1 April 2011A Plan for 100% Renewable Energy by 2050
it's not a new kind of maths : you just mixed up GtC (of carbon) (actually I should have written Gtoe) and GtCO2 (of carbon dioxide). There is a factor three between them 14 g CH2 -> 44 g CO2. You may be surprised by the result, but it is just due to the forgotten fact that most SRES scenario assume much more than the proved reserves for at least one of the FF - sticking to proved reserves doesn't produce that much CO2. -
DSL at 00:41 AM on 1 April 20112nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
I would, KR, but if the light is coming from a cooler object, I won't be able to see the contribution. -
KR at 00:36 AM on 1 April 20112nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
DB - I understand the moderation role, not a problem. I would encourage everyone to form their own opinions of each poster's contributions in light of their content, and act accordingly. -
KR at 00:33 AM on 1 April 20112nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
A bit of summary here, then. I'll put it in the form of a proof for clarity. - Individual photons have energies, but these do not represent the temperatures of the objects that emitted them. You can say what objects could not have emitted that photon based on temperature, but not which one has. - Absorption of a photon by an object (warmer or colder than the emitting object) has a likelyhood based upon the absorption spectra and the energy of the individual photon; not the temperature of the emitting object. - The Earth's surface has an emissivity and absorptivity of ~0.98 in the IR spectra, so 98% of those photons impinging will be absorbed. - 98% of surface impinging atmospheric thermal radiation (aka "backradiation") will be absorbed by the Earth, as per the Earth absorptivity and atmospheric emissivity spectras. - Each photon absorbed, by the first law of thermodynamics, adds to the internal energy and hence temperature of the absorbing object. - The emitting mass of the atmosphere (due to the lapse rate) is colder than the Earth's surface. - Hence a colder object raises the temperature of a warmer object by it's presence. - Therefore: The assertion by Gerlich and Tscheuschner that a cooler object heating a warmer object violates the 2nd law of thermodynamics is categorically false. Q.E.D - Quod erat demonstrandum. --- I don't think that I need to say anything more on this topic. Adieu. -
chrisd3 at 00:29 AM on 1 April 2011Debunking Climate Myths from Politicians
@Nick Palmer #13I also think that the results that someone came up with that over two million US citizens (qualified by the OISM's terms) could have signed the OISM (but didn't!) should be far more widely trumpeted.
That was right here on SkS, and the number was actually over 10 million: http://www.skepticalscience.com/OISM-Petition-Project.htm -
KR at 00:22 AM on 1 April 20112nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
damorbel - I think you've been called out; "By thine own words shalt thou be condemned." To wit: "We are all familiar with the Planck spectrum, the amplitude of which is a function of the temperature, But taking one photon (with energy a function of frequency), or even one spectral component, does not represent the entire spectrum thus the temperature is not defined. Although a single photon has energy it does not have a temperature." - damorbel @70, this thread, 24/11/10 (thanks for pointing this out, muoncounter) versus: "But there is no need to have a certain number of particles to make a sample, so one particle with the same energy as the average energy of all the particles also has the same temperature as the whole sample." - damorbel @892, this thread, 31/3/11 Reductio ad absurdum - by contradiction you have disproven your own arguments. You are a troll - willing to say anything, even contradict yourself, in order to prolong an argument. Nothing you have written can be taken seriously, as you are not engaged in a scientific discussion. I have no idea as to your motivations. Perhaps you just like to argue - in that case I consider you a ( -snip- ). Perhaps you are arguing points you don't believe in for ideological reasons - in that case I consider you an ( -snip- ). Or perhaps you do this because it's your job? I'm familiar with that last case; my brother spent years as a denialist of second hand smoke dangers for a major tobacco company. In that case I would ask you the question I asked him - "How much does a soul go for these days?" Overall, I'm disgusted. Everyone - I would encourage you to consider this demonstrated behavior when evaluating anything that damorbel writes, whether here, or on his multiple attempts to redefine the Wiki page on thermodynamics.Moderator Response: [DB] I completely agree with you, word for word, but I have a role to fulfill. Sorry for the snips. -
les at 00:18 AM on 1 April 2011Temp record is unreliable
160 cloa513- both links work for me - and the 2nd is full of links to data sources as you asked for. Maybe you should try another browser or check your computer for malware? -
cloa513 at 00:08 AM on 1 April 2011Temp record is unreliable
scaddenp I did look at your links- first one is faulty. The second is a bunch of lame excusesModerator Response: [DB] Both links work quite well. If you have issues with discussing climate science, using the scientific method with the intended goal of gaining greater understanding of the science, then perhaps Skeptical Science is not the best place for you. -
CBDunkerson at 23:51 PM on 31 March 2011A Plan for 100% Renewable Energy by 2050
Gilles, is this some kind of new math? "giving 2 000 Gt of CO2. Given that the current production of 10 GtC/yr produce approximately +2 ppm/yr, this will eventually increase the CO2 concentration up to 540 ppm" 2,000 Gt CO2 / 10 Gt/yr = 200 years * 2 ppm/yr = 400 ppm + 390 current ppm = 790 eventual ppm, not 540 ppm. Mind you, I haven't checked if any of these figures are correct... I'm just noting that the basic mathematics don't pan out the way you say. -
Gilles at 23:38 PM on 31 March 2011A Plan for 100% Renewable Energy by 2050
so if we burn 400 Gt of coal, and may be 150 Gt of oil and 150 Gt of gas, we will burn approximately 700 Gt of C, giving 2 000 Gt of CO2. Given that the current production of 10 GtC/yr produce approximately +2 ppm/yr, this will eventually increase the CO2 concentration up to 540 ppm - you can do more sophisticated absorption models but that's the right order of magnitude. If we assume that it would be very difficult to keep the total concentration below 450 ppm, the difference between 540 and 450 ppm is S * ln(540/450)/ln(2) = 0.3 S where S is the sensitivity - actually that holds for the equilibrium temperature and not transient response. Note that if the production is decreasing, absorption will become larger than production and after some time, CO2 will also decrease (Bern absorption model predicts only 20 % CO2 staying permanently in the atmosphere). So taking into account this uncertainties, I would say that if we burn 400 Gt of coal, the difference with the best scenario and this one would be around 0.5 °C in 2100, plus or minus the usual uncertainty. I won't certainly kill myself for that. -
Composer99 at 23:26 PM on 31 March 2011Debunking Climate Myths from Politicians
With regards to creating a resource for poor climate science and/or unreasonable contrarian positions espoused or propagated by journalists, Deltoid over at ScienceBlogs has long been chronicling the misbehaviour of the Australian newspaper The Australian. -
Bob Lacatena at 23:06 PM on 31 March 2011Acidification: Oceans past, present & yet to come
h pierce, The experiment was well designed and meaningful. The results are therefore meaningful and should be taken as a warning that we are destabilizing too many things at once through our callous actions, and in a very dangerous way that is going to come back to haunt future generations. -
john mfrilett at 22:41 PM on 31 March 2011Debunking Climate Myths from Politicians
Thank you for another terrific resource to counter mythical climate arguments. Skeptical Science might consider posting the links to politicians supporting evidence based climate policy (are there any?)in response to anti science/education politicians. These climate myths espoused by anti science/education politicians often occurs in the political arena therefore should be answered by other politicians supporting evidence based policy. The former need support and publicity from sources such as Skeptical Science. The denier journalists and politicians already get far to much attention. It is all well and good that scientists step up to the plate but that isn't enough. There needs to be confident well informed politicians to counter the myths of climate change. Is Obama up to the task? -
Rob Painting at 22:37 PM on 31 March 2011Acidification: Oceans past, present & yet to come
H Pierce - In the real ocean any decline in the pH will occur very slowly Nope, that's wrong too. The mean ocean pH can only change slowly as new carbon is to the global inventory, however on local scales there can be large fluctuations as dissolved inorganic carbon is "shuffled" about the ocean. A classic case is the equatorial Eastern Pacific (west coast of the Americas) where the La Nina/El Nino phenomenon occurs. In a La Nina phase, plumes of cold water with high levels of dissolved CO2 reach the surface ocean from down deep. When they do, surface pH can fall dramatically. It's why coral reefs in the area are so poorly developed, patchy in coverage, weakly cemented and prone to high rates of bio-erosion. A useful way of thinking about it, is to liken it to the mean global surface temperature. That doesn't change much, but on local scales, and in short time-frames, there can be significant fluctuations. All marine life have the ability to adapt to fluctuations in ocean pH, and tolerance thresholds will of course vary , but if they couldn't they simply wouldn't survive. It's when the ocean pH falls and stays that way, that problems arise. -
CBDunkerson at 22:36 PM on 31 March 2011Of Satellites and Air – A Primer on Tropospheric temperature measurement by Satellite
BP #25: "All the decrease happened in two distinct steps, one in 1982-85 the other in 1991-94." This statement is simply false. Using the UAH data we get; 1981 was 0.3603 C cooler than 1978 (0.090 C/year) 1985 was 0.4431 C cooler than 1981 (0.089 C/year) 1994 was 0.1550 C cooler than 1985 (0.016 C/year) 2008 was 0.1763 C cooler than 1994 (0.012 C/year) Those numbers would indicate that roughly 55% of the total cooling took place during the years you identified... rather than the 100% ("All the decrease") you claimed. This shows fairly clearly that greenhouse cooling was ongoing before, during, and after the spikes caused by the volcanic eruptions. Of course, the longer term data supplied by Albatross makes that point even more clearly, but I thought it was noteworthy that the original argument was demonstrably false even using the data it was supposedly based upon. -
Nick Palmer at 22:14 PM on 31 March 2011Debunking Climate Myths from Politicians
Re Rohrbacher: I've posted this point several times to various "pro AGW" sites, including this one but nobody seems to have appreciated it yet. Basically, the OISM petition is worded so that even Hansen or Schmidt could just about sign up to it legitimately (certainly the second paragraph). The operative "sleight of hand" is that the OISM gets one to sign that human release of green house gases "is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic global warming". As we should know, the science is not *certain", just extremely probable but the OISM uses the terms "is" or "will" as an implication that climate science has made an absolute declaration and tens of thousands have blown the whistle on that. Rhetorically, those behind the OISM are implying that because even a legit climatologist could sign (because the scientist knows the science isn't 100% certain) that the 31,000 signers are disputing that there is any "convincing scientific evidence" at all Text from the second paragraph of the OISM: "There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gasses is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth's atmosphere and disruption of the Earth's climate." I also think that the results that someone came up with that over two million US citizens (qualified by the OISM's terms) could have signed the OISM (but didn't!) should be far more widely trumpeted -
alan_marshall at 22:01 PM on 31 March 2011Debunking Climate Myths from Politicians
Should We Include Journalists? In Australia, they are the worst peddlers of misinformation. Would it be useful to include them in the database? For example, the ABC program Media Watch, which monitors the quality and accuracy of broadcasting in Australia, recently took to task Sydney radio talk-back host Alan Jones for the following comment: Nature produces nearly all of the carbon dioxide in the air. Human beings produce point 001 percent of the carbon dioxide in the air... It is not as if this was just a passing ignorant comment. It is part of an orchestrated political campaign by Jones against the government’s proposed carbon tax. On such an important reform, people in the media are entitled to express their opinions, but they are not entitled to mislead the public with blatant falsehoods. The organisation Getup has launched proceedings with the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA), demanding Jones correct his statements. I also pass on the following comment made by a visitor to the Media Watch site: .... anyone can make a complaint under the ACMA commercial radio code of practice directly to the radio station involved. You should find a web form or similar for complaints on each radio station's website. The station is obliged to respond to you within 60 days. If they do not, or if you are not satisfied with the response, you can then complain directly to ACMA. For those of you stateside who enjoy the impartiality of Fox News, the same media baron owns “The Australian” and other newspapers in Australia. They like to regularly publish articles by Bjorn Lomborg. Prominent skeptic journalists with these newspapers who deserve scrutiny include Pies Ackerman, Christopher Pearson and Andrew Bolt. -
Rob Painting at 21:56 PM on 31 March 2011Acidification: Oceans past, present & yet to come
H Pierce @ 18 - Carbonic acid is a weak acid and produces little H ions in water at 20 deg C So how do you think the pH of the global oceans is falling?. What's causing all those hydrogen ions to disassociate from seawater?. Just wondering, because thus far you haven't made much sense. Also only about 1% of the dissolved CO2 is converted to carbonic acid. Carbonic acid & dissolved CO2 make up less than 1% of dissolved inorganic carbon in the ocean. If you are suggesting that carbonic acid itself is what ocean acidification is about, then sorry that's just a fallacy. The oceans are becoming more "acidic" because the concentration of hydrogen ions are increasing, and because it's an inverse logarithmic scale, pH falls. Bicarbonate releases very little H ions See my comment at @15 which accompanies the graphic. You have that back-to-front, the excess hydrogen ions combine with carbonate ions to form bicarbonate. This carbonate buffering process is what causes problems for calcifying marine life, because it reduces the carbonate "building block" which many marine organisms use to build their shells/skeletons. For any interested readers I refer you to Ocean acidification due to increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide - The Royal Society 2005. Click on the pdf on the top right-hand corner. It thoroughly covers the subject, without being incomprehensible. -
CBDunkerson at 21:54 PM on 31 March 2011Debunking Climate Myths from Politicians
MidwestHES, yeah the 'Alabama pi' thing was a spoof on congressional Republican efforts to legislate that global warming doesn't exist. BTW, Alan's aside about citing 'journalists' who spread these myths might not be a bad idea either. Of course, if you went as far as including blogs among the 'journalists' you might have more material than you could handle. -
h pierce at 21:51 PM on 31 March 2011Acidification: Oceans past, present & yet to come
Paul at 17 I was trying to keep it simple. Although the ocean floor and beaches are littered with shells, I recall that shells contain small amounts of calcium silicate that acts as cement to give them strength and a more compact structure. Thus the shells don't release carbonate easily. Unless they are ground to micro bits by pounding surf from a big storm. Another objection to the experiments is that poor little larva were given "pH shock treatment". In the real ocean any decline in the pH will occur very slowly. It is quite possible the species will adapt overtime to the new conditions. -
alan_marshall at 21:25 PM on 31 March 2011Debunking Climate Myths from Politicians
Dana, John Congratulations on setting up this very useful tool. I have long toyed with the idea of setting up a “rogues gallery” that profiled people in public life (politicians, journalists, etc.) who are climate change deniers. The idea was to shame them over time as the increasing impact of climate change forced them to eat their words. But I realised that many of these “rogues” were actually decent people who just had climate change “blind spot”. I decided that belittling them in itself did not advance the public debate. Your approach however, targets the words rather than the man. In rebutting their specific statements, it serves the public good and has my full support. I endorse Chemware’s list of quotes by Australian politicians, and will be adding a few more names myself. Photos of Australian politicians can be found at www.aph.gov.au. Is it necessary to restrict ourselves to current politicians? If former politicians, such as George Bush, have in the past made misleading statements, and have not since corrected them, are they fair game? -
h pierce at 21:23 PM on 31 March 2011Acidification: Oceans past, present & yet to come
Rob at 15 and 16 Equation 2. Carbonic acid is a weak acid and produces little H ions in water at 20 deg C, ca 0.0001 moles per liter . Also only about 1% of the dissolved CO2 is converted to carbonic acid. Equation 3 Bicarbonate releases very little H ions. The second ionization constant is 4.9 x 10 exp-11 for K2=(H)(CO3)/(HCO3) The diagram is misleading. It I were doing the experiment, I would have added a bed of clean marble rocks and quartz sand. -
Bart Verheggen at 20:32 PM on 31 March 2011Understanding Solar Evolution Part 2: Planets
Chris, Could you elaborate on the "status" of this thermostat hypothesis, in comparison with competing hypotheses (of which you metnion the organic CO2 burial and uplifting)? I'm thinking of a "consilience of evidence" style argument: How strongly are the different hypotheses supported by the combined evidence? and in relation to that, how would you characterize the disagreement about these hypotheses amongst experts? I'm trying to get a feel of how strong the evidence and, as a consequence, the consensus is about this topic. -
Paul W at 19:55 PM on 31 March 2011Acidification: Oceans past, present & yet to come
@ H Pierce the situation is a little more complicated with seawater than what you have modelled with your simple experiments with CaCo3. There is other buffers at work in sea water. Sulphates, borates and organics from life. The experience of aquarium keepers with salt water is that attempts to buffer sea water aquariums with ground up shells is that this is not workable as the pKa shifts from about 8.1 to 7.6 with simple addition of CaCO3 powder over shorter and shorter periods. In short adding base but shifting the kPa to lower values is counter productive. A commercial buffer is used with a properly mixed set of buffers at about 8.1 pKa is long term workable.
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