What you are engaging in is contrarianism, not skepticism. Another group exhibiting this type of behavior are creationists when they attempt to dismiss evidence for an earth older than 6000 years old.
The basis for contrarian argument is when the arguer knows very little on the subject, but due to some kind of bias takes a stake against a certain position. When you don't know anything to argue against it, the best you can do is simply claim as much as possible is unknowable. Afterall if we don't know anything about it then there is nothing to need denying.
The tactic is simple - try to find any means to claim nothing can be known. Many of your arguments in your posts follow this template, in fact the first one is an example, not the only one:
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Originally Posted by Cato
In that case, so what? CO2 concentrations rose for 50 years. It's a blip on the geologic time scale. It means nothing to machinations which take thousands, even millions of years.
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"It means nothing.."
The contrarian goal is to make everything look like it means nothing, as therefore there is nothing left to even need to deny.
"We can't prove it" is another argument often employed, as if you either have 100% concrete proof or know absolutely nothing, without any inbetween.
To you the co2 ice core records, the co2 measuring station trends, the compiled co2 emission trends mean nothing because you want them to mean nothing. It's a convenient way of brushing them asside when you don't actually have any grounds to dispute them.
Here's another example of you doing this:
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The carbon cycle might be understood, but we are far from understanding how other parts of the system interact with it. You don't have to take my word for it. Just ask the IPCC.
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A argument which can be rewritten to demonstrate how generically junk it is:
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The cycle of the seasons might be understood, but we are far from understanding how other parts of the system interact with it. You don't have to take my word for it. Just ask the IPCC.
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Both are true, and yet the absurdity of trying to use the 2nd argument as a basis for concluding seasons are not caused by tilt of the earth's axis, shows that the argument is a junk one.
The argument invokes other areas where we don't know to try and imply "we know nothing" in another area (and never mind that invoking the IPCC there is a bad idea seeing as they would strongly disagree with you..along with virtually every climate scientist in the world)
As well as trying to claim these things mean nothing, you also attempt the other contrarian tactic of claiming the data is unreliable as much as you can. This is an insurance policy on your part. Even if the data does mean something, you can still turn around and claim the data is unreliable and still reach your goal of concluding "we know nothing".
Here's an example of you doing this when you try and write off the co2 measuring stations (you've already said the records they produce "mean nothing", now you attempt to claim the records are unreliable too):
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They are from one observatory, measuring a very localized space of the troposphere. A space that might be downwind of any number of natural processes that would cause a steady rise in CO2 concentrations measurements. The other observations are likewise taken from very localized spaces and nowhere near indicative of world wide atmospheric CO2.
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Doesn't matter that your argument doesn't take into account that co2 is a well mixed gas, and so levels are mixed throughout the whole atmosphere meaning most local areas are representative of the global level. Nevermind that scientists would be capable of detecting any erroneous biases in a local area and wouldn't continue producing biased trends. Nevermind that bias can hardly explain such a nice smooth upward curve with seasonal variation. Just what are you proposing is happening? That co2 levels are only rising coincidentally in local areas in which these stations are located? And all simultaneously these seperate areas have co2 increase at the same rate by another great coincidence? Its just an absurd argument that hasn't been thought through, and can only mean you are saying it just on the off chance it will stick.
There is no doubt in my mind that if this thead had continued as it had you would be also nit-picking over ice core data in a few posts time too. Any means to write off the meaning of the data and the data itself..
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15 billion tons over 46 years means 690 gigatons of CO2. That's even more striking. I don't know where you got the 2300 gigatons of CO2 in the atmosphere, my sources show between 650 and 750 gigatons. I'll use that unless you want to show me your source for 2300.
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750 gigatons carbon in the atmsosphere =~ 2750 gigatons co2. A co2 molecule weights 3.7 times a carbon atom. Not converting values to the same unit will result in the final result being incorrect. If you are going to use 15 billion tons co2 as an emission rate then you have to express the atmosphere in billions tons co2 too, not billion tons C.
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So, we have the MLO telling us that CO2 concentrations increased 19%
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Which is about 60ppm, or about 440 billion tons co2.
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, but you're arguing that the net increase of anthropogenic should've been along the lines of somewhere between 90% and over 100%, depending on which estimate you use and how you want to calculate it. But clearly, the vast bulk of the CO2 in the atmosphere would have to have come from Man since 1957.
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And it has. The rise in co2 has been about 440 billion tons co2 (2750 - 2750 / 1.19)
In that time period humans have emitted over 800 billion tons co2 (added up the years
http://cdiac.ornl.gov/ftp/ndp030/global.1751_2003.ems)
So humans have emitted about twice as much co2 as co2 levels have actually risen. This is also true on an annual scale. Take 2003:
27 billion tons emitted by humans
co2 rose about 2ppm (~16 billion tons)
You are still in the undefendable position of explaining how human emissions of
27 billion tons co2 in a year is irrelevant to a rise of
just 16 billion tons co2 in a year.
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Then we would have to look at the entire CO2 cycle. There's about 40,000 gigatons of carbon in the oceans, plus another 2000 gigatons of carbon in the biosphere. So, that's 42,000 gigatons of carbon, or roughly 155,400 gigatons of possible CO2. We'll go ahead and add the 750 gigatons of CO2 in the atmosphere for a grand total of about 156,150 gigatons of possible CO2. So, our additional 690 gigatons of CO2 contributed .004% to the total CO2 on the planet.
Something's not quite adding up, onon.
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Yes your methodology doesn't add up. The issue is rise in atmospheric co2, not rise in planetary carbon storage. You assume all these carbon storages are storing carbon in the form of co2, which isn't true. And also we aren't adding any carbon to earth at all - the carbon already exists in any fossil fuels burnt, it's just getting moved around.
The relevant calculation is: amount co2 has risen in the atmosphere since 1960 vs amount of co2 humans have emitted since 1960
The values are 440 billion tons co2 vs 800 billion tons co2
That is we have emitted twice as much co2 into the atmosphere over the past 46 years than co2 has actually risen in the atmosphere.
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This part:
"Population estimates were not available to permit calculations of global
per capita estimates before 1950."
So, in other words, we have closer estimates for the past 50 years, but before that we don't really know.
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That only applies to the per capita trends. We aren't even talking about those. We are talking about the global emission trends.
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Oh, I like that. Did you read it? So, they looked through some old "publications" (government? trade? personal?) on "historical energy statistics" (like how many people are burning fires, for how long, all over the world). Really, onon, how accurate do you think these estimates are?
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Fossil fuel inventories are well kept and this is what they are talking about (not "burning fires"). If you know the amount of fossil fuels burnt then you can easily calculate the co2 produced. The amount burnt is tied to the amount produced, which of course is very accurately monitored especially in modern times when it really matters (when co2 emissions are far higher). Seeing as we know how many barrels of crude are being produced each day and where they are shipped etc, it is very easy to get accurate co2 emission numbers. Being off by as much as 5% in a given year does not make a huge difference to anything (plus it's just as likely to underestimate as overestimate)
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Show me the data points for all the CO2 levels and temperature. Show me where you're getting this, "It always has to change 10C before CO2 will change 100ppm." Then show me where it changed .5C and a relatively massive 10ppm in CO2.
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The ice core data shows the close correlation between temperature and co2 trends. It demonstrates about 10C temperature rise was needed to cause a 100ppm co2 rise:
http://www.logicalscience.com/images...k-ice-core.jpg
In this context is is absolutely clear that you cannot explain the 100ppm rise in the past 200 years as being due to 1 <1C rise in temperature. The correlation just isn't there at all.
Shows the little ice age:
Image:2000 Year Temperature Comparison.png - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
And the co2 drop during that time is seen in the previous image
The Keeling curve and rise in CO2 in the atmosphere