Newly published research is congruent with the belief that carbon dioxide does not give rise to anthropogenic global warming.

The global warming alarmist position …

Carbon Dioxide  is a greenhouse gas which can trigger advanced global warming. Since man-made carbon dioxide is steadily increasing in the industrialized world, the planet is being placed at further risk from a “runaway” global warming event which will result in climatic catastrophes which will greatly affect man’s life on this planet.

The global warming skeptics position …

Carbon Dioxide is a greenhouse gas whose presence is necessary and beneficial for life. The rise in atmospheric carbon dioxide levels lags the rise in the global mean temperature by 600 –1000 years, so carbon dioxide can hardly be considered a “causal” factor.

That macro-factors such as the Sun’s output, the Earth’s orbit around the Sun, the Earth’s precession and rotational dynamics, the volcanic activity and plate tectonics, the deep ocean currents and the largest greenhouse gas, water vapor, have more effect on the global mean temperature than does carbon dioxide.

That there is no direct proof of environmental catastrophe other than the scenarios developed from computer models whose assumptions and data may be flawed.

The politicians and special interest’s position …

Because control over Carbon Dioxide would allow the government to exert control over all energy producers and consumers, we must legislate for carbon emission control.

The special interests, including the scientists studying the issue, see government grants, subsidies and monopoly mandates as being good for business.

Reality and the appearance of normalcy …

It appears that there is a simple explanation that accounts for the temperature rise and the rise in atmospheric carbon dioxide. The rise in carbon dioxide appears to result from the warming of our oceans. As the oceans warm, dissolved carbon dioxide is emitted into the atmosphere where it seems to have little or no effect on the gross climate changes predicted by computer climate models.

Think of opening a cold beer on a warm day. As the beer warms, the carbon dioxide comes out of solution and enters the atmosphere.

Nature as a self-regulating feedback loop …

As we have observed over our limited time on Earth, nature is a constantly changing phenomenon and the Earth seems to have built-in safeguards for regulating its physical processes. The congruence of life and nature is one of continuing physical adaption to the “elements” and that the processes of natural phenomenon are likely to continue in the future as they have in the past. We have observed, through climate proxies (tree rings, ice cores, ocean sediments) and direct temperature measurements, that the Earth has been much warmer, much colder, with more atmospheric CO2 and will less atmospheric CO2. And, since early days, man’s life of Earth has been one of adaption and acclimation – and this pattern is likely to continue in the future. 

To illustrate how a feedback loop works, consider the warming of the oceans which contain approximately 95% of the heat retained by the Earth. As the oceans warm, more water vapor is created by evaporation. This evaporation produces clouds which screen out solar energy and further cool the Earth. As the Earth cools, the water vapor condenses and is returned to Earth as precipitation which further cools the Earth. And the cycle repeats. Since all weather is local, conditions – as they say – will vary. While various man-made factors can enter into this equation, including deforestation, tilling of the soil, and increased urbanization, the effects remain local and do little or nothing to affect global climate change – especially when one considers the natural variability of the Sun and other physical processes.

Specifically of interest, is the apparent self-regulating feedback loop between atmospheric carbon dioxide and the carbon dioxide dissolved in our oceans. It appears that there is more-or-less a stable relationship between the levels of atmospheric CO2 and dissolved oceanic CO2.

Consider the work of Wolfgang Knorr at the University of Bristol who reanalyzed available atmospheric carbon dioxide and emissions data since 1850 and considered the uncertainties in the data. He found that, in contradiction to some recent studies, that the airborne fraction of carbon dioxide has not increased either during the past 150 years or during the most recent five decades.

From the Press Release announcing the publication of Knorr’s work in the Geophysical Research Letters …

“New data show that the balance between the airborne and the absorbed fraction of carbon dioxide has stayed approximately constant since 1850, despite emissions of carbon dioxide having risen from about 2 billion tons a year in 1850 to 35 billion tons a year now.”

“This suggests that terrestrial ecosystems and the oceans have a much greater capacity to absorb CO₂ than had been previously expected.”

“The results run contrary to a significant body of recent research which expects that the capacity of terrestrial ecosystems and the oceans to absorb CO₂ should start to diminish as CO₂ emissions increase, letting greenhouse gas levels skyrocket. Dr Wolfgang Knorr at the University of Bristol found that in fact the trend in the airborne fraction since 1850 has only been 0.7 ± 1.4% per decade, which is essentially zero.”

“The strength of the new study, published online in Geophysical Research Letters, is that it rests solely on measurements and statistical data, including historical records extracted from Antarctic ice, and does not rely on computations with complex climate models.”

Bottom line …

There is absolutely no reason to tolerate the increasing intrusion of government into our lives. It appears that this is a man-made crisis for promoting the self-interest of politicians and others and not a valid climatological reason which would justify bigger government, higher taxes, higher costs of all goods and services, and in a reduction of your personal freedoms and liberty.

While we know that there is a phenomenon of global climate change, we do not know the optimum mean temperature of our planet, the cyclic frequency of climate change, the amplitude of such changes, the maximum and minimum temperatures that can be encounters and where in the climate cycle we may be – even though we understand that climate always regresses to some unknown mean.

For those people who are claiming catastrophic warming, perhaps they should consider the beneficial effects of a warmer – rather than a colder – climate.

For those people concerned with pollution, by all means, legislate the clean-up of our air, water and land. It is foolhardy and dangerous to allow gross polluters to continue polluting, even if they have purchased government indulgences which purport to arise from not cutting down additional  rainforest areas in lower crapistan.

For those people who want to continue researching the subject, by all means do more science.

For those people who are realists, you may want to invest in better shelters, cleaner water, improved sanitary facilities and improved efficiencies in food production. But before embarking on these worthwhile activities, consider that it will be within the realm of human nature for some of our fellow citizens to attempt to control these man-made resources for their own self-interests.

And for those who want to curtail our freedoms and impose their own world view on Americans using the faux arguments of global warming – eff you!

-- steve

Reference Links …

Knorr et al. Is the airborne fraction of anthropogenic CO2 emissions increasing? Geophysical Research Letters, 2009; 36 (21): L21710 DOI: 10.1029/2009GL040613