Michael Brown 09 October 2014 “Carbon Dioxide Hits 400 ppm – Does it Matter?” In Discover magazine’s top 100 Science stories of 2013 the third place story is “Carbon Dioxide Hits 400 ppm – Does it Matter?” by Tom Yulsman. Yulsman explains that on May 9th of 2013 the instruments atop Hawaii’s Mauna Loa volcano measured carbon dioxide levels above 400 parts per million (ppm) of the first time. Yulsman spoke to Pieter Tans from NOAA and Ralph Keeling from Scripps Institution of Oceanography and they pointed out that it was an opportunity to remind the world that CO2 levels are rising fast and that rate has increased of the last decade according to Tans. Tans also noted that “the press was looking over their shoulders, and of course they were going to announce it”. Yulsman questions if this was a historic announcement as he discusses that global warming only became big news in 1988 when climate scientist James Hansen testified before congress that the rise in CO2 levels were not from normal climate variation but was instead cause by human activities. He notes the level of CO2 had already passed 350ppm at that point . Yulsman again questions the significance as he points out that although climate change regularly made headlines nothing actually changed in the Earth’s climate system when we hit 400ppm. He explains that soon after this announcement the CO2 levels dipped back below 400ppm is the growing season in the Northern Hemisphere started and the plants soaked up CO2 through photosynthesis. Tans admits it will take a couple more years, as the CO2 levels increase, before the annual global average will surpass 400ppm. Yulsman conclude his article by speaking to paleoclimatologist from the University of Colorado who points out that 400ppm is “a mile marker you pass on the interstate while flying by at 60 mph” (14). And continued by saying he would not be surprised if we get to 800ppm. Yulsman says “Over centuries, that amount of CO2 could cause enough warming to melt all ice on land and bring sea levels up by 80 meters”. In a Current Science article “Digesting 400 ppm for global mean CO2 concentration” G. Bala explains the data coming from Mauna Loa Observatory as being important due to the fact that it is located at an altitude of 3400 meters in the northern subtropics in a remote location. At this location CO2 measured represents the globally averaged, horizontally and vertically, CO2 concentration since there is little local influence at this site. Bala explains how big a ppm is by using simple arithmetic stating “the mass of the global atmosphere and molecular weights of dry air and CO2, one can show that 1 ppm is equivalent to approximately 2 billion tonnes of carbon or 7.5 billion tonnes of CO2” (1471). He then points out that the average emissions over recent years has been 10 billion tons of carbon per year. Half of the 10 billion tons has been absorbed by terrestrial plants and oceans. Last thing to note from Bala is that he mentions “in the past several million years, in the absence of human influence, CO2 has naturally fluctuated between 180ppm and 280ppm during glacial and interglacial periods” (1471). A lot of emphasis has been put on the paper “Quantifying the consensus on anthropogenic global warming in the scientific literature” (Cook et al. ERL 8.2 2013). This is the research that President Obama has claimed proves that there is an overwhelming consensus on climate change and that is not considered a myth but is a science fact. Cook and his team started their investigation by searching the ISI Web of Science for articles published from 1991-2011 using the topic search for “global warming” and “global climate change” in March of 2012, and then did an updated search in May 2012. The search generated 12465 papers in which 11944 papers would be used for their analysis (3). Cooks team consolidated the papers into three groups, endorsements of anthropogenic global warming (AGW), no position, and rejections with initial analysis results of 97.1% endorsing AWG (3). Cooks team then emailed 8547 authors to rate their own paper and receive 1200 responses (14% response rate) (4). After excluding papers that were not peer reviewed, not climate related, or had no abstract, 2142 papers received self-ratings from 1189 authors with an endorsement rate of 97.2% (4). In Cooks conclusion he notes that public perception of a scientific consensus on AGW is a necessary element in public support for climate policy, however there is a significant gap between public perception and reality with only 57% of the US public either disagreeing or unaware that scientist overwhelmingly agree that the Earth is warming due to human activity (6). One reason for the skepticism could be from the scientists that were involved in the study in the first place as pointed out in an article from populartechnology.net named “97% Study falsely classifies Scientists’ papers, according to the scientist that published them” (K.Andrew) in this article several of the scientist were emailed and asked if the categorization by Cook et al. was an accurate representation of their papers. Their responses were considered eye opening and evidence that Cook et al. team falsely classified scientists’ papers as “endorsing AGW”. Without going into the specifics of each paper I will give some quotes that will help us understand how the scientist fell about the report. Dr. Scafetta’s paper “Phenomenological solar contribution to the 1900-2000 global surface warming” Cook et al. characterized as explicit endorsement and quantifies AGW as 50+%. Dr. Scafetta “What my paper says is that the IPCC view is erroneous because 40-70% of the global warming observed from 1900-2000 was induced by the sun.” He added “Please note that it is very important to clarify that the AGW advocated by the IPCC has always claimed that 90-100% of the warming observed since 1900 is due to anthropogenic emissions. While critics like me have always claimed that the data would approximately indicate a 50-50 natural anthropogenic contribution at most.” Dr. Shaviv’s paper “On climate response change in the cosmic ray flux and radiative budget” Cook et al. categorized as explicitly endorses but does not quantify or minimize. Dr. Shaviv states “Nope… it is not an accurate representation. The paper shows that if cosmic rays are included in empirical climate sensitivity analyses, then one finds that different time scales consistently give a low climate sensitivity, this means that part of the 20th century should be attributed to the increased solar activity and that 21st century warming under a business as usual scenario should be low (about 1 degree Celsius).” Finally Dr. Carlin’s paper “A multidisciplinary, Science-based approach to the economics of climate change” Cook et al. categorized as explicitly endorses AGW but does not quantify or minimize. Dr. Carlin says “No if Cook et al. classifies my paper as explicitly endorses AGW nothing could be further from either my intent or the contents of my paper. I did not explicitly or even implicitly endorse AGW and did quantify my skepticism concerning AGW.” Dr. Carlin Continued by explaining “Both the paper and the abstract make this clear. The abstract includes the following statement: The economic benefits of reducing CO2 emissions may be about two orders of magnitude less than those estimated by most economists because the climate sensitivity factor is much lower than assumed by the UN because feedback is negative rather than positive and the effects of CO2 emission reductions on atmospheric CO2 appear to be short rather than long lasting.” Dr. Carlin also goes on to state that he would classify his paper as explicit rejection with qualification. Carlin also puts into question with the other misrepresentations stated above and others not listed that he wonders if Cook et al. may have reverse engineered their paper. I tend to agree with the scientists that were interviewed by populartechnology.net. It’s not that I don’t have a concern for the planet but when governments starts to open our wallet they tend to have an agenda in place and in order to receive the funds, the fund receivers are asked to prove what the funders would like to be proven. We should all be concerned about the Earth and the CO2 levels but the more intelligent way to clean the air is to use what nature provides us. Planting more forests could be the simplest way to start lowering the CO2 levels. But when we put the keys in the hands of extreme thinkers that don’t seem to want to lead by example it should be a warning sign to us all that there is money involved. Al Gore is a hero to some and his carbon foot print is as big as some African countries if he was so concerned don’t you think he would lead by example? Our president would have us choose between heating our homes or driving to work, both of which we would have to sacrifice food to do, as his family flies around the world in separate jumbo jets on vacations none of us could afford but then tells us we must learn to sacrifice. Since the 1970’s we have been paying more for energy to help the planet while the elite continue to live high on their horse and laugh at the peasants that can’t afford food and heat but should be taxed for our carbon foot print. The concern will be when the level reaches 800ppm and that will be at least 100 years; from what science and our governments have been saying over the last 20 years humans will no longer be around by then anyway. Works Cited Yulsman, Tom. Carbon Dioxide Hits 400 Ppm — Does It Matter? Discovery Jan/Feb. (2014).14. Print. Bala, G. Digesting 400 Ppm For Global Mean CO2 Concentration. Current Science 104.11 (2013). 1471-1472. Academic Search Complete. Web. 28 Sept. 2014. Cook, John, Dana Nuccitelli, Sarah A. Green, Mark Richardson, Barbel Winkler, et al. Quantifying the Consensus on Anthropogenic Global Warming in the Scientific Literature. Environmental Research Letters 8. 2. (2013). 1-6.Web. K, Andrew. 97% Study Falsely Classifies Scientists Papers, According to the Scientists That Published Them. Popular Technology.net. n.p., 21 May 2013. Web.
Posted on: Sun, 02 Nov 2014 19:42:33 +0000
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