Quote:
Originally Posted by onon
It's not just me though is it. You are arguing with all the scientists out there. NASA, NOAA, every scientific body accepts the recent co2 rise is anthropogenic.
|
I'm arguing with anyone who claims conjecture is fact. Let's begin with your original statement:
Quote:
|
The net effect is that nature removes more co2 from the atmosphere than it adds.
|
... and keep that in mind as we explore.
The short of it is this admission by you:
Quote:
|
Nothing is provable but this stuff is certain to the point of 99.99%.
|
But you'll call that true scientific fact, so we'll have to move on.
1) How much carbon is sequestered on this planet today? Either in the air, ocean, biomass, or wherever you think it might be. Do you have all carbon sinks? Is it possible, in an open system, there are other sources and sinks of carbon we don't know about? When you tell me the number, tell me what the error band is. Make sure you include the error band for each source.
2) How much carbon was sequesterd on this planet in 1750? I'll need the error band.
3) How much carbon has been released into the atmosphere due to Man since 1750? I'll also need the error band on that.
4) How much carbon has been emitted naturally since 1750? This will also have an error band.
5) How much carbon has been absorbed naturally since 1750? Error band here, too.
6) How much more carbon is in the air today than in 1750? You guessed it, there should be an error band here.
Now, I'm going to assume you won't provide me with that information. Partly because you won't be able to. In an open system, and a system as complex as this planet, you can't know if you've got all the sources and sinks of carbon. But I'll let you use just the ones we know about.
And partly because you probably feel it doesn't make a difference. You read your numbers somewhere, maybe even quite a few places, and by Gaia, you're going to stick to them. The surprising thing is, you're right in assuming it doesn't really make a difference, because it doesn't. Given the error rates, there are no absolute conclusions we can come to.
1) How much carbon is sequestered on this planet really depends upon whether or not we know where it all is. Given that we're still unable to account for the carbon sink that would allow us to balance the carbon budget, my guess is we don't know where it all is. That 13 gigatons you claim the planet is absorbing? We don't know where it's going. Therefore, either we made some mistakes with our estimates and it isn't going anywhere, or we don't know as much about the carbon cycle as you repeatedly claim we do.
Even if we take just the known carbon sources and sinks, you'd better be pretty accurate. Because this is going to be a massive number. Being off a fraction of a percent will skew your answer dramatically.
2) Same problem with figuring out how much carbon was sequestered on the planet in 1750, only much, much harder. There will be a big range of possible numbers on this.
3) We could probably get fairly close to how much carbon Man has emitted since 1750. "Close" being a relative term. Perhaps within 5%.
4) How much carbon has been emitted naturally since 1750 really depends upon whether we know all the sources. Again, that whole open system problem rears its ugly head. But if we just stick to the known carbon sinks and sources we're still dealing with a huge number. Even an error rate of less than 1% would probably equate to being off by dozens of gigatons.
5) How much carbon has been absorbed since 1750 would have a huge error rate given that carbon sequestration depends upon so much - like the amount of sunlight, the quantity and type of aerosols, temperature, location, etc. Most of which we can only take an educated guess on to determine global sequestration 250 years ago.
6) We could, of course, solve for this one; if we knew how much carbon was in the atmosphere in 1750 and how much is in the atmosphere today. And at least one of those numbers has a huge error band.
We could actually solve for any of these numbers as long as we're willing to plug in some numbers. But those numbers are just going to be guesses. And since they are guesses, they have a low range and a high range. Do the error ranges give you the sense that your hypothesis is 99.99% correct? Or is it something else?
Quote:
|
So yes it really is a creationism like position where you are going to have to imply that there is some massive hoax going on in the scientific (and skeptic) community
|
I never claimed, nor implied, there was any hoax.
As to this claim:
Quote:
|
Without human co2 emissions the co2 levels in the atmosphere would start falling.
|
It really should be self-evident why this is erroneous. But seeing as how you know more than the IPCC on this issue, I'll just keep my mouth shut. I'll just leave this one quote:
"In sum, a strategy must recognize what is possible. In climate research and modeling, we should recognize that we are dealing with a coupled non-linear chaotic system, and therefore that the prediction of a specific future climate state is not possible." -- Final chapter, Draft TAR 2000 (Third Assessment Report), IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change).