Archives

The largest factor in this increase is the widespread adoption of cheap coal as an energy source. (http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jsq9Z0Y3w0JIgyZJd4_HCQY9orsAD96BIS880)

http://www.cleanmpg.com/photos/data/501/Coal_heading_towards_Coal_fired_plant.jpgRandolph E. Schmid - AP - Feb 14, 2009

If this is junk science - prove it. --Ed.

Chicago - Despite widespread concern over global warming, humans are adding carbon to the atmosphere even faster than in the 1990s, researchers warned Saturday.

Carbon dioxide and other gases added to the air by industrial and other activities have been blamed for rising temperatures, increasing worries about possible major changes in weather and climate.

Carbon emissions have been growing at 3.5 percent per year since 2000, up sharply from the 0.9 percent per year in the 1990s, Christopher Field of the Carnegie Institution for Science told the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

"It is now outside the entire envelope of possibilities" considered in the 2007 report of the International Panel on Climate Change, he said. The IPCC and former vice president Al Gore received the Nobel Prize for drawing attention to the dangers of climate change… http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jsq9Z0Y3w0JIgyZJd4_HCQY9orsAD96BIS880

From Article:

"Carbon emissions have been growing at 3.5 percent per year since 2000, up sharply from the 0.9 percent per year in the 1990s, Christopher Field of the Carnegie Institution for Science told the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science."

From NOAA

http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/

Here is the percentage increase from 1959 through 2008, I don't see an average if 3.5% for 2000+ or a .9 percent in the 1990s, looks more like 2% since 2000 and 1.5% in the 1990s. This is actual Co2 measured, not the "Carbon Emissions" stated by Christopher Field, but the increase doesn't seem reflected in actual measurements.

1959 0.95
1960 0.51
1961 0.95
1962 0.69
1963 0.73
1964 0.29
1965 0.98
1966 1.23
1967 0.75
1968 1.02
1969 1.34
1970 1.02
1971 0.82
1972 1.76
1973 1.18
1974 0.78
1975 1.10
1976 0.92
1977 2.09
1978 1.31
1979 1.68
1980 1.80
1981 1.43
1982 0.72
1983 2.16
1984 1.37
1985 1.24
1986 1.51
1987 2.33
1988 2.09
1989 1.27
1990 1.31
1991 1.02
1992 0.43
1993 1.35
1994 1.90
1995 1.98
1996 1.19
1997 1.96
1998 2.93
1999 0.94
2000 1.74
2001 1.59
2002 2.56
2003 2.25
2004 1.60
2005 2.53
2006 1.69
2007 2.17
2008 1.71

From Article:
"Carbon emissions have been growing at 3.5 percent per year ..."

From NOAA...

Here is the percentage increase from 1959 through 2008, I don't see an average if 3.5% for 2000+ or a .9 percent in the 1990s,...


Those aren't even percentages, they are 'ppm's. By portraying them as percentages (nevermind the wrong numbers), the original article is guilty of serious overstatement.
=====

PS. I spoke too fast, because two different things are being discussed. The NOAA numbers show that the atmospheric burden is not growing at multiple percent per year. The original article seems to be referring just to human-made emissions, which is a different. The change in the amount in the atmosphere is the sum of natural and human-made emissions, minus the natural amount removed.

-- Dean

Missed the ppm too, I knew the graph was PPM but missed the heading on the chart to the right.

So from the ppm chart 1990-2000 co2 levels went from 358.83 to 368.77 or over 10 years a change of 0.42% annually.

Then from 2000-2008 co2 leves went from 368.77 to 384.89 or over 8 years a change of 0.55% annually.

Still doesn't correlate well with changes in emissions.

Here is world carbon emmissions taken from International Energy Annual.

http://www.eia.doe.gov/iea/carbon.html

World co2 emissions went from 21,683.16 (Million metric tonnes) in 1990 to 24,823.3 in 2000 or over 10 years an increase of 1.45% annually, not 0.9%

World co2 emissions went from 24823.3 in 2000 to 29195.42 in 2006 or over 6 years an increase of 2.9%, not 3.5%.

I suppose the increase from 2006 to 2008 could be enough to get a 3.5% for 2000+ but with the oil crisis and world recession it seem unlikely that such an increase would have occurred, I'll have to check further,

Certainly the 0.9% increase in the 1990s is significantly off.

"Anny Cazenave of France's National Center for Space Studies told the meeting that improved satellite measurements show that sea levels are rising faster than had been expected.

And the rise is uneven, with the fastest rising areas at about 1 centimeter — 0.39 inch — per year in parts of the North Atlantic, western Pacific and the Southern Ocean surrounding Antarctica, she said."

Here is data from wikipedia which shows the red satellite data to look pretty much the same as the tide gauges, I can't see how it is faster than the tide gauges told us before?

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0f/Recent_Sea_Level_Rise.png

The satellite data is only 15 years old and they still aren't confident in the accuracy.

"Sea level rise estimates from satellite altimetry are 3.1 ± 0.4 mm/yr for 1993-2003 (Leuliette et al. (2004)). This exceeds those from tide gauges. It is unclear whether this represents an increase over the last decades; variability; true differences between satellites and tide gauges; or problems with satellite calibration."

"Because significant short-term variability in sea level can occur, extracting the global mean sea level information is complex. Also, the satellite data has a much shorter record than tidal gauges, which have been found to require years of operation to extract trends."

But let's assume they are accurate.

From 1900 to 2000 the trend was 1.85 mm/year.

From 1993 to 2007 the trend was 2.8 mm/year. From 1993-2003 the trend was 3.1mm/year the claim of unexpected rise was stronger if made in 1993.;)

But by eyeballing the 1900-2000 there are also trends of greater than 2.8 mm/year, like around 1930-1940 and 1977-1987. Certainly 2.8 mm/year isn't unusual over a short length of time.

Here is a closeup of the satellite graph.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/7/76/The_Rising_Sea_Level.jpg

Finally, if the satellite data is accurate there are indeed place that the sea level rise is 10mm/year, but this is not fully understood as there are also places that are dropping at -5mm/year too. Overall still 2.8mm/year since 1993.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6b/NASA_sea_level_change_trend.jpg

So a long term 100 year trend saw an increase in sea level of 7.3 inches per century.

A very short term trend of 15 years shows an increase in sea level of 11.0 inches per century.

Not enough for me to be alarmed about sea level rise.

I'd say there is a little junk in this science. :eek:

Coal IS our future. Environmental concerns pale when folks are trying to stay warm and keep the lights on. Sad.

The source stated growing in CO2 emissions not growth in total CO2.
The global mean CO2 is:
year ppm/yr
1980 1.68
1981 1.08
1982 0.99
1983 1.83
1984 1.31
1985 1.63
1986 1.02
1987 2.69
1988 2.21
1989 1.38
1990 1.24
1991 0.82
1992 0.64
1993 1.15
1994 1.68
1995 1.98
1996 1.08
1997 1.96
1998 2.93
1999 1.35
2000 1.24
2001 1.85
2002 2.39
2003 2.21
2004 1.61
2005 2.41
2006 1.79
2007 2.17
2008 2.28

Which is all the data not just the Mauna Loa data.

Total CO2 is sources minus sinks. And sources are up.

This is bad news. The climate melt down is speeding up and the
issue will not be the rising sea levels in the short term it will be
the destruction of the food supply. Irrigation in Pakistan and India
depend on snow melt to irrigate crops. With the glaciers in
the Hymalians rapidly disapearing it won't be too long before
Pakistan and India start fighting over water. With both of those
countries packing nukes its not hard to anticipate them used in the
next 10-20 years. Its also not inconceavable that they could lob
one our way for revenge.

The source stated growing in CO2 emissions not growth in total CO2.


As I stated in my first post, and addressed futher in my third post. I'm addressing points made in this article, not speculating on Pakistan vs. India.

The Mauna Loa (Keeling; Scripps) CO2 data is in a public spreadsheet, updated frequently, if anyone wants to see the thing in its original form:

http://scrippsco2.ucsd.edu/data/atmospheric_co2.html

DAS