canoe

Wouldn't you expect the changes in CO2 to occur slightly before the subsequent change in temperature. I'd seriously doubt the reaction would be immediate I'd expect a slight delay between cause and effect.

dalem

Pretty pictures. Please explain to me what they mean, in your interpretation, and why.

-dale

ArmchairGeneral

I think that's kinda his point. Normally, these warming trends might take a few thousand to a few million years to accomplish. The problem with the current warming trend is that it's happening over the course of a century or two. Which may seem like plenty, but geologically or climatologically, it's an instant. Which means the climate, the environment, and humans would have little time to adapt.

__________________
"Apocalyptic thought is curiously pleasurable."
-Theodore Dalrymple

ArmchairGeneral

Looks to me like there's an undeniable correlation between CO2, methane, and temperature. The question is, which event causes which, or alternately, what other event causes all three? It would be nice to know whether they can tell from the data which of the three changes first. If temp changes first, it makes it kind of difficult to say that CO2 caused the temp change. OTOH, if CO2 changes first, it's possible that it contributed to temp change.

Fortudinae

It's just a Question of Trust, Gunnut.

Since these warming trends take from a century to a million years it's just plain unreasonly to expect proof yet. Be fair now.
You just have to trust them.
So just ignore the fact that they appear to have reverse engineered any data to fit their subjective wants, and swallow it whole as they have.

They obviously mean well, so we should all be nice and let them have control of our economic future and quit being unreasonable and selfishly nationalistic. After all haven't they just asked us to give them any proof that will convince us of their argument? I mean how unbiased can you get?

It's just a question of Trust.

dalem

How do you know how long each warming period is supposed to take? And how does a longer time base change the climate's ability to "adapt" to warming trends?

-dale

Fortudinae

Love that Krebs Cycle.
Takes sunlight and uses it to crack CO2 into oxygen and carbon based life. Of course it requires H2O - which it cracks into hydrogen and oxygen - then reassembles as carbohydrate with the carbon supplied by CO2.
Good thing we have this extra CO2 to accelerate production of carbon based fuel for all other life forms dependant on photosynthetic conversion of the inorganic into organic for food and breathable oxygen.
Perhaps I should say photosynthesis instead - in the dumbed down colleges and universities of today students are only required to remember that the Krebs Cycle means photosynthesis - not what photosynthesis is.

We need to cut down on all this dang CO2 - them plants are getting too uppity.

Fortudinae

The Wonderful World of Junk Science
by Henry Gibson
---------------------------------------------------------

Are you skating to a bachelors' in science on C's and D's?
Unfortunately you won't be able to get a paying job in your field, once they get a look at your grades.
You will be overqualified for the position of "technician" (bottle washer), and besides those jobs are reserved for the underprivileged.

So you go find yourself a foundation.
Preferably one that doesn't have anything to do with science - that way they won't know what you're talking about when you submit your grant proposal.
Your proposed research doesn't have to actually achieve any result - it just has to be packaged to appeal to their personal prejudices (along with some serious booty worship). Find the right anus and apply liberal lip massage.
Once you've got your grant you can goof off on some island getting a tan and living on the cheap.
When you have a little free time, do some research.
Keep all data that agrees with your thesis - discard and conceal any that conflicts with it.
When the money runs out, get some starry eyed wannabe to be your intern and type it up all nice on their computer (make sure they have a nice computer first) then submit your research to your funding foundation.
Your next grant depends on how well it appeals to their personal politics, so be sure to attend lots of their cocktail parties; listen and determine what they like to hear, and get a free drunk and fondue dinner.

If you ever get found out, blame it all on that lousy wannabe intern who broke up your chain of data by incompetence and losing that other data that empirically proved your result. Make sure they have really bad grades when you're checking out their computer - that will focus the blame on them. Then when you get your new grant, forgive 'em and give 'em a chance to make up for the dirty mess they made - as an unpaid intern.

Good luck with your career in Junk Science,
Henry-

brokensickle

Some people only read the stats Some use deductive logic to understand the subject as not to be duped. I would rather not be hamstrung by myriads of theoretical conclusions based on someones political ideology to control all of mankind.

Good post!

Ivan

__________________
"Evil opposes freedom and uses those who pervert it as pawns to destroy it."

Fortudinae

When the Fortudinous,
with eyes of Fire and Ice
unsheath and level their swords,
Flee Unrighteous!
to the bowels of the Earth
lest ye become the Fare of Foxes
and Feast for the Birds.

(author unknown)

LOL

canoe

To me they indicate there is a long tracking historic relationship between CO2 levels (greenhouse gases) and global temperature changes.

The core samples were able to let the scientists look back thousands of years and track trends in CO2, CH4 and temperature. Its probably the best indicator we have of the relationship between CO2 levels and mean surface temperature.

Be interesting if they took several other samples from the north pole and greenland and tried to develop a computer model from the data actually. Maybe they could develop a model that could fairly accurately predict the change in surface temperature at given atmospheric CO2 levels.

gunnut

But by the same token, the current trend in warming or cooling is a geological instant, which will return to normal in an instant as well. In this case, an instant is like a few decades to a few centuries. The world was cooling for 3 decades from the 40s to the 70s. The it decided to return to normal for the next few decades. All in a blink of an eye.

__________________
"Only Nixon can go to China." -- Old Vulcan proverb.

ArmchairGeneral

Perhaps you're referring to the Calvin cycle, also known as the dark, or light-independent reactions. The citric acid, or Krebs cycle is basically the opposite, takes acetyl CoA and produces CO2 and and a variety of energy carrying molecules. Also, the H2O is not consumed in the same cycle that the CO2 is consumed. The glucose (C6H12O6) is actually produced by adding hydrogen to the CO2. The cracking of H2O takes place in a separate cycle, the light-dependent reactions, where H2O is used as a source of electrons, and a certain corrosive, toxic byproduct is made- oxygen.

Don't knock modern colleges too hard- they may be a bunch of liberal weanies for the most part, but you can get a pretty good science education, if you want it.

ArmchairGeneral

Only, if I understand what I've heard correctly, it ain't normal for the temp to rise this much, this quickly. And thus, animals don't have time to adapt, and go extinct, and humans don't have time to adapt, and we have Manhattan waterpark, the bay of Bangladesh, etc, etc. And if we're really, really unlucky, the Gulf Stream goes haywire, or those frozen methate deposits melt, and we have even more wacko climate changes. Not that I think this stuff will happen, but I'm keeping an open mind. And I do question whether the risk of all this happening is worse than the known costs of cutting CO2 production.

gunnut

But the problem is we don't know if this is normal for the earth. We only have rudimentary data telling us the earth's temperature in blocks of thousands of years in the past, in trends. We never had clear and specific data of earth's past temperature in accuracy of single years or decades. It's like looking at the earth from an orbitting satellite. We can see the general terrain, but can't make out the roads and buildings.