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Tom Loeber at 09:58 AM on 12 October 2010It's freaking cold!
2/3 of Peru under state of emergency for cold not widespread enough for you? Multiple SA countries experiencing record cold not widespread enough for you? There was more too but it only takes one to counter your claim. KR, I am not saying that individual weather events are climate. All I was saying is there is evidence that the weather could snap to cold conditions with little or no warning. As far as I can tell the Hamaker hypothesis holds more credibility than the Milankovitch theory which is what I was and am still addressing. This is not the proper thread for that but as long as the moderators disagree and they cater to the idea that might makes right, perhaps the major fallacy of epistemic relativism along with "what you don't know can't hurt you" and "ignoranc is bliss" and "killing the messenger invalidates the message" they will continue to practice dysfunction. As far as that last goes, the mods somehow got the posts I made to the other thread to show up days after they had been posted, more pointed critique of the paper Mr. Bostrom linked to discounting noctilucents as a possible sign of climate change. I was presenting a possibility that the noctilucents are the missing piece of Hamaker's hypothesis that suggests global warming leads to a rapid climate change eventually with little warning trend, to ice age conditions. The mods went back after getting those posts to show and deleted them unless that too was a bug. I posted other recent research that found solar insolation is not to blame but actually earth's albedo and carbon dioxide concentrations are complicit with ice age starts, right in keeping with the Hamaker hypothesis. This selective recall of yours does not help. I mean, give me a break, you are inferring I'm quite the total idiot and it might just be fine and dandy with the mods for ad hominem to predominate against a person who does not kiss ass. I am very much into being open and honest and many do not have a world model that incorporates the utility of that. As far as I can tell this message board is dysfunctional, the mods are exhibiting dysfunctional behavior and many of the participants keep on arguing apples to oranges to suggest the place caters to the dysfunctional. Well, as a Homo sap on planet earth the lack of wherewithal of my fellow human beings is my failing too so I too am dysfunctional as I do not exist in a vacuum. I have even been know to make mistakes and I have tried to correct them here and in the other thread. The "lets all gang up on the one who seeks to be logical" scenario I seem to be witnessing here is, again, a consequence of this idea that majority opinion determines truth. If anyone is truly interested in pursuing a better understanding of what is going on and what we should be trying to prepare for and avoid, those who disagree with the adopted stance, as long as they are not totally wacko, should be given lots of room, see past my frailties as a human being and see that quite possibly, the long term predictions for extreme cold and harsh winters ahead are not just a bunch of baloney. Maybe some of those are based on sound information that we shouldn't just ignore due to their not fitting in with the theory that lets the fossil fuel profiting companies off the hook. Did you see that Project Censored item that the US pentagon is the top polluter on the planet? The description of what the "Policy" is here seems to be a list of what the mods think is okay for them to do and for anyone else who plays into supporting their perspective. Like many laws they are used against those who attempt to speak truth to power while letting the powerful get away with breaking them continuously and often. So it goes.Moderator Response: The Comments policy defines what is and is not acceptable on this site. Avoid irrelevant personal attacks, stay on topic, and don't stray into politics and you'll be fine. -
Joe Blog at 09:15 AM on 12 October 2010The sun upside down
I would be looking harder at the implications of the greater variation of UV, on climate, than direct forcing from variable TSI. Paper on modeled UV stratosphere/troposphere effects There is a fair bit o literature focused on it... and if the variations of UV are greater than what has been previously assumed, this will be quite an interesting lil discovery. -
wingding at 09:14 AM on 12 October 2010The sun upside down
I think it's quite unlikely this would be true over all solar cycles, because there is a detectable solar cycle influence in global surface temperature and and it's the way round you'd expect. Perhaps this is unique to the current cycle, but my guess is that it's more likely to be just wrong. -
It's freaking cold!
Tom Loeber - you were asked on that thread "Do you have any evidence for any of those claims of "wide spread record cold" ". You responded with multiple lists of individual locations that had experienced cold spells, not with anything indicating wide spread effects. As individual weather events are not climate (as was covered by several people responding to you), this thread on "Does cold weather disprove global warming" is entirely appropriate for that discussion. Your response to the question of evidence for "wide spread record cold" did not demonstrate what you wished - I'm just left wondering why that wasn't apparent from the multiple posts responding or the numerous moderator remarks directed to you. If you didn't note my response on extrema or the redirect, I can only presume you weren't reading the posts in the thread or the moderator notes to you. -
It's the sun
Ken Lambert - You incorrectly state that I "confuse Temperature trajectories with forcings". What I said was that non-zero temperature trajectories indicated non-equilibrium climate states (energy imbalance, to be more clear), and zero or non-zero, the state and trajectory of the climate include the effects of forcings at that time. Forcings are never zero (unless looking at some hypothetical object at 0°K). But when looking at how the climate has changed the we can compare changes in forcings (deltas). You have also yet to address the fact (shown in the data you've presented, as well as in mine) that changes (note: changes) in radiative forcings due to greenhouse gases since the beginning of the industrial era are an order of magnitude greater than changes of insolation. And that they correlate quite well with the heating since the 1970's. You have presented exactly zero evidence for any mis-measure of TSI at any point in this discussion, and hence have no support for your apparent theory of TSI causing global warming. Again - it's not the sun. -
Tom Loeber at 08:23 AM on 12 October 2010It's freaking cold!
This is not the appropriate thread. I was not posting that cold weather disproves global warming at all. It was not your post that alerted me as to where the conversation was happening, it was JMurphy's who started it out with my name. This place is too dysfunctional to facilitate understanding especially as the moderators appear to have a heavy hand with any one who does not adhere to their theories. -
muoncounter at 08:12 AM on 12 October 2010The sun upside down
See Its the Sun, comment #646 from CBD: The bit about the magnitude of any solar change being "dwarfed" by the increase in CO2 forcing makes it somewhat of a minor issue Interesting development, nonetheless. -
johnd at 08:03 AM on 12 October 2010The sun upside down
It will be interesting to see how well this correlates with some other indicators such as the AA magnetic index which have only been considered relevant by few researchers. How clouds respond or otherwise will be of considerable importance in determining the nett effect at the earth's surface both for present observations, and in trying to correlate it to past climate reconstructions. -
Riccardo at 07:57 AM on 12 October 2010The sun upside down
Karamanski a few numbers to put the variations in context. The irradiance change at 200 nm of the order of 0.5 mW/(m2 nm) over a value of about 7.5 mW/(m2 nm); something like 6.7%. At 500 nm it's about 0.3 mW/(m2 nm) over 1955 mW/(m2 nm), i.e. 0.01%. In the visible range I would not call it a conspicuous change. You can look at these numbers yourself here -
Stephen Baines at 07:51 AM on 12 October 2010The human fingerprint in coral
@13 Charlie A Isotopic fractionation (the preference for C12 over C13) definitely occurs for endosymbionts in corals, as it does for all photosynthesizing organisms. The degree of fractionation can be less if CO2 becomes depleted in the local environment, since you can't prefer one isotope over another if you use all of the available CO2. That doesn't affect the stable isotopic composition of calcareous skeleton however. The processes associated with depositing calcium carbonate do not fractionate nearly to the degree that photosynthesis does. -
Carbon Dioxide - Everyone's Favorite Pollutant
BP - I have to completely agree with CoalGeologist's post. Anthropogenic CO2 is by the definitions used a pollutant as defined in the Clean Air Act. As to your concerns about legal attribution of pollution to polluters, given the known emissions from anthropogenic CO2, assigning CO2 pollution to those emitters is extremely simple - much simpler than dividing costs/fees/taxes/etc., mind you. But it's extremely easy to establish those causal links. Simple accounting of how much coal/oil/natural gas is burned in a power plant, of the CO2 emitted by concrete manufacture based on total amount of concrete, etc etc. As to who is being harmed? Well, all of us, quite frankly. Your argument reminded of the tobacco industries attempts to deny responsibility for cancer, since any one particular case couldn't be directly attributed to a singular cause - that didn't hold up in the end, as the statistical data demonstrated that they were responsible for the majority of those who suffered. Societal damage and significant impacts on groups are perfectly reasonable to attribute - even if individual cases can't be causally linked, if you can determine that 80% of the suffering are suffering due to pollution, that's attribution. -
CBDunkerson at 07:04 AM on 12 October 2010The sun upside down
Karamanski #4: "Why did the satellites miss something this conspicuous?" A: It has not been established that they DID. The findings of this paper could be erroneous or anomalous to the short time frame studied. Odd that you missed those caveats from the authors of the paper. B: The magnitude of the changes in question is so small as to be easily overlooked unless being specifically checked for... which most satellites were not set up to do. So, not particularly "conspicuous". -
Karamanski at 06:48 AM on 12 October 2010The sun upside down
What a revolutionary finding. I'm intrigued by the fact that the satellites which have tracked total solar irradiance for the past few decades did not detect the changes in the spectra of solar radiation that this study finally disclosed. Why did the satellites miss something this conspicuous? -
michael sweet at 06:44 AM on 12 October 2010Carbon Dioxide - Everyone's Favorite Pollutant
BP: That is not what oil companies said. Lead was used in gasoline from 1923 until 1996 in the USA. Laws were started in 1973 (in the USA) to deter lead use, but lead was not banned until 1996. Lead is still used in gas in many countries- tell them lead is a known pollutant. If you don't like the lead argument try freon. The problem with the ozone layer was theoretical until after the agreement to ban freon was signed. In any case, the problem is your defination of pollution, see Coal Geologists post #149. -
michael sweet at 06:34 AM on 12 October 2010Carbon Dioxide - Everyone's Favorite Pollutant
Coal Geologist @149: your post was excellent and to the point. It is helpful to see the matter laid out so clerly. -
Berényi Péter at 06:28 AM on 12 October 2010Carbon Dioxide - Everyone's Favorite Pollutant
#147 michael sweet at 01:44 AM on 12 October, 2010 Where is the causal link between lead in gasoline and a specific injury to children? Come on, lead is known to be toxic since antiquity. -
Riccardo at 06:03 AM on 12 October 2010The sun upside down
Alexander you're right that we need extraordinary evidence. We apparently do not understand the sun spectral irradiance very well and it migt be related just to the solar cycle or even, say, the cycles after the early 20th century increase in overall activity. KR it is the 2004 to 2007 difference, not even half a cycle. As far as I know we do not have any reliable proxy for UV irradiance. -
Mike Palin at 05:50 AM on 12 October 2010The human fingerprint in coral
Roger A. Wehage @ 7, 8, 9 PDB is the standard for reporting the stable isotope ratio 13C/12C. Because it is many millions of years old, it contains no measurable 14C and so has nothing to do with dating. The use of PDB simply allows the 13C/12C ratio of a sample of carbon to be reported more conveniently - using d13C = -1.5 is much simpler than 13C/12C = 0.0112203. The 13C/12C ratio of dissolved carbonate in seawater varies from place to place in the modern ocean and has changed over geologic time as deduced from measurements of fossil carbonate. Because most of the carbon at Earth's surface is in sedimentary rocks, the 13C/12C ratio of the oceans at any time in the past gives geologists a snapshot of the proportions of this carbon that are stored as dead organic matter (lower 13C/12C) and carbonate (higher 13C/12C). Thus, during the so-called Carboniferous era (360-300 million years ago) when much organic matter was buried and evemtually turned into coal, oil and gas, the 13C/12C ratio of the oceans was shifted high (d13C = +4). Now that those 13-depleted hydrocarbons are being burned, the the 13C/12C of carbonate in the oceans is shifting downward. By the way, boron isotope ratios (11B/10B) are also reported in "delta" notation relative to the synthetic boric acid standard NIST 951. -
The sun upside down
As I understand this, the UV differences are over the 11-year solar cycle. Given that the Maunder Minimum seems to have been a different solar regime than we're currently in, is there any support for high UV levels during the Maunder Minimum? A 1000-fold difference in sunspots would likely have had other effects as well. -
muoncounter at 05:15 AM on 12 October 2010Carbon Dioxide - Everyone's Favorite Pollutant
#149: "under this definition, anthropogenic CO2 unambiguously qualifies as a pollutant." CG, Brilliant statement, concise and to the point. The EPA's Technical Support Document (warning, big pdf) makes the case in detail: CO2 is a long-lived (or well mixed) GHG, atmospheric CO2 concentration has increased due to anthropogenic emissions, other gases classified as such are already accepted as pollutants; thus anthropogenic CO2 is a pollutant. -
CBDunkerson at 05:04 AM on 12 October 2010Arctic icemelt is a natural cycle
Heh. "Prince of Cherries". Meanwhile the ice volume remained far below previous record lows through the end of September. Ice volume is now only about 20% of what it was in 1979 while extent is about 60%. However, the two factors ultimately ARE linked... if volume hits 0% extent perforce will as well. Unless the volume trend suddenly levels off for some reason Goddard only has a few more years (at best) of being able to play games with extent data. -
Alexandre at 04:30 AM on 12 October 2010The sun upside down
RealClimate had a post about this too. The way I understood, if this turned out to be right, TSI would have the opposite influence in surface temperatures than previously thought. (did I understand right?) I think this is the kind of claim that will need extraordinary evidence to hold. The influence of TSI over temps seems quite well established and well supported by evidence, like the Maunder Minimum and Little Ice Age, or the rise in temps until the middle of the 20th century. -
CoalGeologist at 03:24 AM on 12 October 2010Carbon Dioxide - Everyone's Favorite Pollutant
I have a quibble with an ambiguity in the original blog posting here, which has partly contributed to some of the useless bickering that has followed. The definition of "air pollutant" specified in the original blog refers to atmospheric emissions. This does not describe the CO2 dissolved in bottle of Kőbányai Világos lager, but the anthropogenic CO2 being emitted from smoke stacks and automobile exhaust pipes. This is CO2 that is being added to the atmosphere (in massive quantities, I might add) by oxidation (i.e. combustion) of carbon in fossil fuels. Reference to CO2 in any other context is a 'red herring'. The original post above concludes:"CO2 is a Pollutant When considering the legal definition of "air pollutants" and [the] body of scientific evidence, it becomes clear that CO2 meets the definition and poses a significant threat to public health and welfare."
To be precise, this statement should have specified "anthropogenic CO2". The referenced definition for air pollutant is a factual statement of the language in the Clean Air Act, and under this definition, anthropogenic CO2 unambiguously qualifies as a pollutant. BP and others have contributed their own personal definitions of pollutant, where CO2 does not qualify. With due respect, these arguments are circular (in that they presume the conclusion), and irrelevant. More significantly, they ignore the scientific evidence regarding the global impact of anthropogenic CO2 on climate, and by extension, on global ecosystems, which has at least the potential to exceed the effects of any natural disaster, aside from an extremely large meteorite impact. Just because the effects of anthropogenic CO2 will occur over the course of decades, does not mean they are not real. -
Bibliovermis at 03:19 AM on 12 October 2010Carbon Dioxide - Everyone's Favorite Pollutant
BP, Are you claiming that no gases should be considered pollutants? -
Global warming impact on tropical species greater than expected
Of some interest to this thread is the related Flowers blooming earlier now than any time in last 250 years discussion. I suspect that some of the more successful tropical species will be the ones that migrate pole-ward, as invasive species in the temperate zones. -
Charlie A at 02:37 AM on 12 October 2010The human fingerprint in coral
headpost: "Plants prefer carbon-12 over carbon-13. This means the ratio of carbon-13 to carbon-12 is less in plants than it is in the atmosphere." Does this preferential uptake of carbon-12 also apply to corals and their algal photosymbionts? -
Paul D at 02:11 AM on 12 October 2010SkS Housekeeping: right margin
The 800 px wide screen has been dying a death for a few years now. The BBC abandoned it some 2 years ago or so. 1024 is the new bottom end. I agree with mbayer it would be a good idea to optimise for 1024. -
michael sweet at 02:00 AM on 12 October 2010Global warming impact on tropical species greater than expected
Chris: From your link to coldest winter in 13 years: "This winter was still warmer than the long-term average." When we claim winters warmer than average are now cold that tells us what the trend is. From coolest September in five years: "The city had an average maximum temperature of 21 degrees, making it the coldest September in terms of daytime temperatures in three years. This is despite being warmer than the long-term norm of 20." Have the last five Septembers been the hottest five on record? If we limit our records to a single year it will always be the coldest year. -
michael sweet at 01:44 AM on 12 October 2010Carbon Dioxide - Everyone's Favorite Pollutant
BP, Where is the causal link between lead in gasoline and a specific injury to children? tThere is lead in the environment and also in paint. When scientists learned how dangerous lead is it was banned for all uses. Now, 40 years later, people are not getting exposed to lead like they were. Oil companies claimed it would make gasoline much more expensive, but they were wrong. It is the same with CO2. BP and RSVP, your claim that CO2 is "different" is ignoring the facts about previous pollutants that were controlled. If you ignore enough facts you can support any argument you like. -
adelady at 01:43 AM on 12 October 2010Global warming impact on tropical species greater than expected
Praise be. But what really concerns everyone is just how infrequent the record cold temps are compared to the frequency of the hot record temps. I really do not want to see what might happen if there were no record cold temperatures showing up anywhere in the world. Or is that comment related to the view of warming being like transposing music? I see so many people saying that if it's warming why can't I look forward to things being milder where I am (UK or US). It's not supposed to be like transposing a piece of music up a third from C to E. It's more like a couple of toddlers joining you at the piano and banging discordant keys anywhere and everywhere. -
archiesteel at 01:19 AM on 12 October 2010Carbon Dioxide - Everyone's Favorite Pollutant
@BP, GC: it's not very classy to try and recuperate the Hungarian tragedy as an argument against considering CO2 a pollutant. Excess CO2 is harmful to all, so considering a pollutant is spot on. -
archiesteel at 01:12 AM on 12 October 2010It's the sun
@Ken: don't be so arrogant when you keep missing the same point over and over again. In fact, by saying that "well-mixed greenhouse gases" is the same as "positive AGW forcing," you confirm the point I was making - and admit it's false to claim that it was a zero in 1750, because there *were* greenhouse gases in the atmosphere back then. Again, the reason these start in the middle of the graph is that the graph measures deltas, not absolute values. Wrapping your ignorance in a big layer of jargon isn't going to make it any more valid, I'm afraid. (See, I didn't even need to put numbers in my post to demonstrate yours was wrong. That's called logic - you should try it sometimes.) -
It's freaking cold!
Tom Loeber - The post you are referring to here was from me. I was following the request of the moderators to move the discussion to a more appropriate thread. You were asked repeatedly to move the discussion yourself; the deletion of off-topic posts (off topic in the ice age thread) has been a standard of this site since it began. It's worth reviewing the Comments Policy. That wasn't a cross post at all - it was a redirection to the appropriate thread. If we don't try to keep on focus in our discussions, it makes it impossible for anyone else to (a) see relevant postings and to (b) contribute to an ongoing exchange. If we toss useful information onto a thread where nobody will ever think to look for it, we're wasting our time! -
muoncounter at 00:53 AM on 12 October 2010Climate Cherry Pickers: Falling sea levels in 2010
The cherry-picking continues, but this one is on sea ice extent, so here's the more appropriate thread. -
muoncounter at 00:50 AM on 12 October 2010Arctic icemelt is a natural cycle
The Prince of Cherries is at it again. the ice itself is about to set a record high for the date in the DMI database (emphasis added). BTW, that database includes the years 2005-2010. We are about to set a record high for a specific date in a statistically insignificant 6 year period. Huzzah! With just 3 more years, we draw a different conclusion:
Note that the annual rebound of new ice is always steeper than the melt. And yes, even with globally increasing temperatures, there will still be winter in the Arctic.
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chris1204 at 00:11 AM on 12 October 2010The human fingerprint in coral
Thanks John - great job of fixing links :-) -
chris1204 at 00:04 AM on 12 October 2010Global warming impact on tropical species greater than expected
Funnily enough, Doug, I read today it was Sydney’s coldest winter in thirteen years and Sydney’s coldest September in five years. Additionally, we we had our coldest day in thirty years last June. But 2010 seems to be tied as the warmest year on record worldwide. -
chris1204 at 23:19 PM on 11 October 2010The human fingerprint in coral
I'll finish off the comment omitting some of the links, which are a bit hard to reconstruct. Basically, corals can adapt to some extent to a drop in pH and still make calcium carbonate but apparently at the cost of metabolic stress, which may in turn lead to less efficient growth and/or reproduction. Some species are much more adaptable than others. Temperature rise can lead to proliferation of algae . Temperature rises may also cause metabolic stress. Corals consequently face a potential double whammy. However, it's important to distinguish between reef damage attributable to drops in pH rises in temperature and damage arising from leaching of fertiliser from agricultural land which can trigger proliferation and expulsion of algae (which give corals their characteristic brown red colouration) thus causing bleaching. Interestingly, although corals first appeared in the Cambrian period, some 542 million years ago, fossils are extremely rare until the Ordovician period, 100 million years later, when Rugose and Tabulate corals became widespread. As readers of this site know well,CO2 was much higher in the late Ordovician although temperatures were much lower because solar output was also lower during these periods. At the same time, given the lower temperatures at the time, ocean pH would have been significantly higher as seas would have been more saturated with CO2. Admittedly, the Rugose and Tabulate corals of the late Ordovician are now long extinct and so may not tell us that much about what will happen with modern coral populations or their capacity to adapt to significant drops in pH.Moderator Response: If you could check your links in your comment at 6 above to see if they were what you intended, I think I fixed them. Previewing comments before submitting catches a lot of issues. :) -
muoncounter at 23:03 PM on 11 October 2010SkS Housekeeping: right margin
Nice new look. Does the increased central column width allow images wider than 450px? I second CBD's suggestion re comments policy, which needs to be up high. There's plenty of room in the right column (I'm not a big fan of twitter feeds on the front page). Would some form of advanced search or comment search be possible? By topic, date range, commenter all come to mind. With all the thread jumping to stay on topic, finding where a conversation went after it started can become a chore. -
mbayer at 23:02 PM on 11 October 2010SkS Housekeeping: right margin
The header background is being repeated horizontally for about 20 pixels. See http://i52.tinypic.com/2njvpk2.png and note the mouse pointer which indicates where the repetition starts. The header, http://www.skepticalscience.com/images/header3.jpg is more than 1024 pixels wide. The 800x resolution is used by about 1-2% of users worldwide, while the 1024x resolution by about 20-30% (decreasing, but still most popular). You may want to optimise for 1024 pixel width. Depending on the CMS you use, you could add support for mobile users, such as with http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wordpress-mobile-pack/ -
Alec Cowan at 22:58 PM on 11 October 2010The human fingerprint in coral
@ #7 Roger A. Wehage : Perhaps by combining "Plants prefer carbon-12 over carbon-13" plus the food chain starts with "plants" so any byproduct will reflect this preference plus much calcium carbonate in coral reefs being provided by coralline algae, you can find the reason for the value starting below "the measured standard for carbon stable isotopes". I was taught to firstly look for the answers within the system and look for an external event as a last resort. I find this approach not so common every time I read some debate about climate change written in English. Is there something I should know? -
Ken Lambert at 22:58 PM on 11 October 2010It's the sun
archisteel #668 The KR chart at #623 uses the same data as IPCC AR4 Fig 2.4 forcings which are labelled 'Anthropogenic' (AG my shorthand). Natural Forcing from Fig 2.4 is Solar irradiance. 'Well mixed greenhouse gases' forcing is a sum of CO2, CH4, N2O and Halocarbons - which are termed 'long lived greenhouse gasas' in same Figure. At 2005 CO2 contributed about 1.66W/sq.m and CH4 and the others about 1.0W/sq.m - total about 2.7W/sq.m - which aligns with the green curve in Chart #623. All these AG forcings are supposedly caused by fossil fuel burning and and did not exist before AD1750 - and were pretty small before AD1850. So 'well mixed greenhouse gase forcing' archisteel is in fact the main positive AG forcing - same thing. Maybe a short course in IPCC AR4 would help your understanding. -
Roger A. Wehage at 22:34 PM on 11 October 2010The human fingerprint in coral
Now I see that Mike Palin@2 explained it, but it didn't register with me, I guess. -
Riccardo at 22:33 PM on 11 October 2010The first global warming skeptic
Glenn Tamblyn the gaussian shape was used just to show the behaviour in the wings of the absorption. It's not really a gaussian but a convolution of different broadening mechanisms. The line width of an isolated molecule would be very small. It would be given by the so called natural width, which is a manifestation of the uncertainty principle applied to time and energy. If the molucule is not isolated, the two most important broadening mechanisms are Doppler and pressure broadening. The former is the well known Doppler effect applied to the emission of electromagnetic waves by moving molecules. The speed of the molecules depends on temperature, so the effect will be larger at higher temperatures. The latter is due to the influence exerted by nearby molecules on the emitting molecule. Usually collisions dominate, but there could also be an electrostatic contribution. It depends on pressure (through the number of molecules) and on temperature (through their speed). It depends also on the gas composition, i.e. the species that collide or otherwise interact with the emitting molecule. The broadening effects have been first noted exeperimentally, the theory followed to explain the mechanisms. The reason why different absorption lines have different strength is quantum-mechanical in nature and involves the probability of transition between quantum states. In classical physics terms, we may immagine the strength of the line as dependent on the change in the dipole moment during the vibrations. On passing, this is the reason why O2 and N2 in the atmosphere do not interact with IR waves, no change in dipole moment during the vibration. Absorption strength and line broadening are two really complicated issues; a proper treatment is way beyond the reach of a blog post. I apologize for being so generic. -
Roger A. Wehage at 22:28 PM on 11 October 2010The human fingerprint in coral
Perhaps the answer to my previous question in #7 might lie in the International PDB standard for Carbon Dating. The following definition was taken from the "Volcanic activity" reference in #7. Isotope ratios are, usually, expressed in δ-units. In the case of 13C/12C isotope ratio in carbon dioxide, the δ-value is given by: δ13C = (R13sample/R13reference-1), where R13 represents the abundance ratio [13C]/[12C]. Usually expressed in per mill (‰), it is referred to the PDB-standard material (Belemnite of the Pee Dee formation in South Caroline, [13C]/[12C]=11237.2 10-6). -
Roger A. Wehage at 22:05 PM on 11 October 2010The human fingerprint in coral
What is the justification for starting the delta 13C change at -1.5% in the graph? My first reaction to this post was, "Something must be missing. What about the CO2 12C/13C makeup in ice core samples?" Two articles, and there are others, shed more light on the subject: Preindustrial People Had Little Effect on Atmospheric Carbon Levels in Science Now and Stable isotope constraints on Holocene carbon cycle changes from an Antarctic ice core in Nature. I still don't understand the justification for starting delta 13C change at -1.5% in the graph. At what point in time was delta 13C change at 0%? Volcanic activity can also modify the 13C/12C ratios and bias the measurements. Does the report note any activity in the vicinity and make appropriate adjustments? -
Berényi Péter at 21:24 PM on 11 October 2010Carbon Dioxide - Everyone's Favorite Pollutant
#143 gallopingcamel at 16:09 PM on 11 October, 2010 I will send some money to that link you provided Thank you. All be aware there is an ongoing scam operation to divert donations using fake websites like http://www.Voroskereszt.Com http://www.HungarianRedcross.Com http://www.MagyarVoroskereszt.Com http://hungarianradio.com There may be others. Always double check sites like these before using them.
It is hard to understand the extent of such problems but I suspect it will be more severe than Chernobyl but less horrible than Bhopal.
Fortunately the scale is much smaller than Chernobyl and the stuff released is also more manageable (even if its sheer volume is enormous). Neither is it nearly as lethal as dioxin pollution at Bhopal. Still, it is bad enough. However, at least the Danube appears to be saved at the moment due to heroic efforts to neutralize pH of sludge.
We will also see to what extent and how fast Mother Nature is able to mitigate the effects by turning Sodium Hydroxide in sludge to baking soda (Sodium Bicarbonate) using atmospheric Carbon Dioxide. Heavy metal contents of the stuff is controversial. Government experts say it is hardly above environmental levels while Greenpeace claims it is extremely toxic. I think the problem may be some of the metals are bound in water soluble complexes now as opposed to their original insoluble state in source rocks.
I still think treating carbon dioxide as a pollutant in a legal context is a silly move. At the philosophical level one can rearrange concepts any way one likes, but the legal battleground is an entirely different matter.
Neither the liability insurance business nor the judical system can cope with emissions where you can't trace down causal links from those responsible for it to actual persons suffering damage using plain common sense or standard expertise. Therefore if actual pollutants, where this procedure is supposed to be straightforward get mixed up with other stuff in legalese, you get laws that are impossible to implement, opening up one of the richest sources of lawlessness this way.
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Doug Bostrom at 20:58 PM on 11 October 2010SkS Housekeeping: right margin
Mentioned only in case it elicits a "me, too!", the smartphone and twitter info is bleeding off the right side a bit here when running 1024x768. All good at 1400x1050.Response: Hmm, the width is now 1050 pixels. I might shave 30 pixels off the middle column just to bring it in under 1024. -
chris1204 at 20:34 PM on 11 October 2010The human fingerprint in coral
Some broken links - sorry - too hard and too little time to fix so the comment is somewhat incoherent :-( -
newairly at 20:33 PM on 11 October 2010SkS Housekeeping: right margin
Maybe my eyes are not what they were, but I view the pages in a slightly enlarged view (Firefox). When I get the centre column in new format at the size I used to use the right column overflows the screen unless I scroll over. That does not worry me if I can be sure that there is nothing that I need to be aware of on a normal basis.
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