Mr Rumelhart <br><br>An interesting graph. Before reading your comments, I took a look at the figure and almost immediately said "What the hell ?!?!" Man-made emissions EXCEED the total atmospheric concentration of CO2? Personally, I think it's all those people TALKING about global warming, exhaling copious amounts of CO2, resulting in such a spectacular increase as illustrated.
<br><br>In all seriousness though, this is the kind of "science" which leads to the Chicken Little syndrome. And this is government science to boot! (Thought - is that an oxymoron??) Depending on one's viewpoint, one can find any amount of data to support any claim. I really need to go back and find some of these data for posting. For example, NOAA had a study a few years ago showing about the same thing (total atmospheric CO2 and the human-contribution to the increase) but with the human contribution amounting to around
2.5% of the total.<br><br>In another "study" a group in England I believe (forgive me for not being totally accurate - I'm pulling this out of my memory, but I shall see if I can locate this stuff again) gathered data on regional temperature changes in Europe and Asia, correlating that with sunspot activity. As sunspot activity went up, "global warming" went up. At a gut-level reactionary way, this makes perfect sense to me - solar radiation (
i.e. heat), zips through space to bathe our delightful little planet, and keeps us warm. Solar radiation output increases, more radiation zips through space and our little planet gets a little warmer. Naaaaaaaaaaaaaaa - way too simple.
<br><br>However, regardless of one's stand on global warming and potential causes (if one subscribes to such a thing) I don't see a problem with changing your lifestyle a bit since it either A) helps all of us out a bit, B) helps us individually a bit (I can live with spending less for gas for my car, gas for my furnace, cutting down on piles of grocery sacks and MPDN papers which fall over on me, or C) all of the above. What I do have a problem with is having some politically-based agenda (IPCC for example) or guilt (It's YOUR FAULT that poor drowning polar bear is starving!) thrust down my throat.
<br><br>It seems a bit Narcissistic of us to say "Look what WE piddling lifeforms did to this huge planet." Even more so to think we can do anything of major consequence about it (e.g. IPCC proclaiming that "Global warming shall be limited to a maximum of 2 degrees C. Period. End of story." Hey, can we also limit hurricanes, tsunamis, earthquakes, volcanoes (hey - do they contribute to greenhouse gases??) since they are bad thing too?
<br><br>For my part, I ride my bike, use a push mower, bag my groceries in a backpack, and don't talk a lot. Purely self serving - I'm hoping my buildup of carbon credits can offset the water I use to keep my lawn lush.
<br><br>Schwaller<br><br><br><div><span class="gmail_quote">On 5/13/07, <b class="gmail_sendername">Paul Rumelhart</b> <<a href="mailto:godshatter@yahoo.com">godshatter@yahoo.com</a>> wrote:</span><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
<div bgcolor="#ffffff" text="#000000">
I have been looking into Global Warming, and I have some questions that
have come up as I've been attempting to educate myself on this topic.<br>
<br>
First, look at this graph from the Energy Information Administration
which appears to be part of the Department of Energy (from
<a href="http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/1605/ggccebro/chapter1.html" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)">http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/1605/ggccebro/chapter1.html</a> in case your
email doesn't show it): <br>
<br>
<img alt="Trends in Atmospheric Concentrations and Anthropogenic Emissions of Carbon Dioxide" src="cid:part1.09090703.05070300@yahoo.com" height="262" width="411"><br>
<br>
I've been attempting to understand this graph for a little while now,
and something about it seems strange to me. Hopefully, I have
misunderstood it completely. The text for this image states: "Figure 1
is a line graph showing the trends in atmospheric concentrations and
anthropogenic emissions of carbon dioxide.". Ok. We're talking
millons of metric tons of carbon in the atmosphere here, with a scale
that goes from 0 (in 1860 or so) to about 6,600 at present. I had at
first assumed that they were showing the total amounts of carbon int he
atmosphere on the right hand side, but the numbers are way too low for
that and they start at zero. There is supposedly right now about 730
billions metric tons of carbon in the atmosphere, so that top 7,000
million tons number must mean something else. It's somewhat close to
the current number for billions of tons of carbon put into the
atmosphere by "Fossil Fuel Combustion and Industrial Processes", which
appears to be an annual number. To make these numbers come together, I
have to assume that the above graph is showing the amount of change in
millions of tons of carbon each year since 1750.<br>
<br>
So my question is, what happened in the 1960s? That is the point at
which the lines cross. So, if you look at 1860 you see that the entire
amount of carbon increase each year in the atmosphere (the orange line)
is about 2400 million tons. So that's the baseline for the
non-anthropogenic increases. It would basically have been going up by
that amount without our help every year, anyway. Perhaps we had some
effect before 1860 burning wood and coal, cutting down forests and so
on, but presumably not the steep incline we see later - so we're not so
much to blame here.<br>
<br>
Now, if you look at 1950, you see that the total anthropogenic amount
is about 1500 million tons, yet the total atmospheric increase is about
3600. Subtracting the two, you get a difference of 2100 million tons
instead of the 2400 million tons that I would have naively predicted.
It gets hugely worse in the 1960s, where the graphs actually cross. At
that point, the total amount of atmospheric change per annum is due to
anthropogenic changes. From that point forward, the amount of
atmospheric change would have been dropping, if not for the huge spike
in anthropogenic change. We have the strange situation where the total
amount of atmospheric change is less than the total amount of
anthropogenic change, which is just flat-out weird. What this seems to
say is that if you simply stopped burning all fossil fuels and stopped
all industrial processes, the amount of carbon in the air would drop
quite quickly.<br>
<br>
This is why I'm skeptical that we are going to have as disastrous an
effect as seems to be assumed by global warming proponents. <br>
<br>
Take a look at the next graph on that site:<br>
<br>
<img alt="Global Carbon Cycle (Billion Metric Tons Carbon)" src="cid:part2.09000701.04060304@yahoo.com" height="351" width="603"><br>
<br>
<br>
We are focusing so much on the dashed line heading from the factory to
the atmosphere that we seem to be ignoring the question of why 90
billion tons of carbon come out of the atmosphere and end up in the
ocean while only 88 billion tons makes its way back. Same with
vegetation and soils - 120 from atmosphere to vegetation/soils, 119
goes back. Even the changing land-use figures are in our favor, by 0.2
billion tons. This seems to mesh with the previous graph, i.e. if you
stop all industrial process altogether than the amount of carbon in the
atmosphere will drop by 3.2 billion tons every year. Since the article
stated that certain greenhouse gases have increased by 25% since 1850,
then there must have been 730 / 1.25 = 584 billions of tons of carbon
in the air at that time. Thus, it would take (730 - 584) / 3.2 =
45.625 years to get back to pre-industrial levels. Of course, these
changes are probably not linear - I'm sure they all change with great
complexity, which is why relying on those numbers in the other
direction without better understanding them seems foolish.<br>
<br>
I'm not saying that we shouldn't be pressuring our government and that
of other countries to lower that 6.3 number, but maybe we should also
be trying to find ways to increase the differences in those different
areas. The only way that comes to mind right off hand is to take much
of our current vegetation and sink it to the bottom of the ocean so
that when it grows back it will have to take it's carbon from the
atmosphere. Of course, that's not a viable solution for a whole host
of different reasons - but the idea is to "think outside the box" (gods
I hate that phrase) and look for other solutions at the same time we
are trying to convince those lunk-heads in charge that depending on
fossil fuels is a Bad Idea for many different excellent reasons.<br>
<br>
Just to forestall some things: I am not saying that global warming
isn't happening, obviously it is. I'm not saying we aren't having an
effect on it, obviously we are. That's a change in my thinking since I
started learning about this. I was skeptical at first that we could
have such an enormous effect. While that 6.3 number is small compared
to the amount of carbon going into the air from the oceans or from
vegetation, it's much larger proportionally than I would have guessed.
My position, if you would call it that, is that this whole process is
so bloody complicated that we shouldn't be sounding the Trumpets of
Doom and Gloom all the time until we have some better numbers and a
model that we can use that has shown itself to be predictive. The
above is talking just about the relatively simplistic carbon cycle, and
doesn't even touch on the other greenhouse gases, their interactions,
or what the various numbers given above are going to do as the earth
warms even more or even what their current rates of change are at this
moment.<br>
<br>
If we do need to sound the trumpets, think about this - what if we have
set into motion a series of processes that will dump so much carbon
from the atmosphere before they stop that we will *need* to keep up our
anthropogenic changes or risk freezing to death? I'm not actually
serious here, just trying to illustrate why "doom and gloom" doesn't
really help the debate.<br>
<br>
Paul<br>
<br>
<br>
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