Science and Society

The eastward fromation may have much to do with the climate shift (not AGW). The magnetic pole has moved towards Siberia, volcanic and techtonic activity has increased under the Arctic and Greenland, the middle and eastern portions of N.A. is cooler and wetter while europe has remained hotter. The South Atlantic Magnetic Anomaly is active. The increased heat forms these storms so it makes sense that it formed farther east.

Quietman - how do you think the magnetic and tectonic and volcanic activity would be affecting this? I'm very doubtful that has anything to do with it (at least in the short term; obviously, continental drift and long-term geologic CO2 emission rate changes will affect climate, but nothing like that would be significant over such a short time as a few hundred years; volcanic eruptions of course have a short term cooling effect, but ... what eruptions and tectonic activity are you refering to? High latitude eruptions have a less potent cooling effect.)

who cares

Quietman:

In my thirty-five years in geophysics, that is the oddest admixture of nonsense I've ever seen written in one paragraph.It is, however, quite original. No geophysicist, geologist, or any other professional would dare blow that much smoke all at once. They'd never work again. Congratulations.

No, I happen to know that Quietman is a very kind and thoughtful man. That doesn't make him right, of course, but he is sincere. But he has decided that the AGW hypothesis is wrong and no one is going to budge him.

Why mention anything about this storm setting records? This serves as fuel for oil speculators. Do we need $10 gas by next week?

All I know is the last Bertha turned into a hurricane and hit us here in NC. It wasn't too bad but it was followed that year by several others including Fran that did several million in damage. The only thing I want to hear about Bertha is that she is heading the other way.

Oh boy! Here we go! For those not interested this is only the beginning besides humanities rising carbon footprint a weak geomagnetic field due to magnetic pole reversal and a star in the prime of it's life burning hotter than ever, this weather is just getting started! The Midwest is a disaster with off season tornado strikes and it makes sense that a Hurricane season of unprecedented proportions could follow. The signs for such are indeed promising! Those who don't care will after some of their relatives get hit, let me assure you that likelihood looks pretty for real!

t rasa
Everything I said I can quote a reference for, albeit science articles, not peer reviewed papers. Just what part have you not heard of before?

Jock
Thanks for the kind words.

Correction - I can quote a reference article for everything except South Atlantic Magnetic Anomaly, that I have only heard in a forum.

t rasa
P.S. I'm retired on disability - I will never work again anyway so why not speak my mind. That is an issue with AGW, if you take a position youre stuck with it because of political pressure. Hansen (NASA) can't afford to change his mind. I suggest that you read up on Dr. Rhodes Fairbridge's hypothesis about planetary gravity affecting the solar cycles.

John Smith
No, just a retired engineer. If you don't understand what I said, just say so.

Allen C. Morse III

Re: "a weak geomagnetic field due to magnetic pole reversal and a star in the prime of it's life burning hotter than ever"

The pole reversal I was discussing in the ABC forum but I can't find any information on it. Do you know of any articles or papers on it that I could access?

The burning hotter thing I don't know about. I was told the heat that reaches us is a constant of 1.99 or something like that. Can you be more specific?

t rasa

After rereading my original comment I see that I was not clear about the connection between the statements. Sorry about that.

There is a ridge under the Arctic that connects to the northern part of the mid-atlantic ridge. It normally spreads at about 10mm per year (very slow). Volcanos erupted quite violently along it in 1999 and 2001 and at about the same time there was a magnetic pole shift in the direction of siberia. I believe that these events are related.

The Multidecadal Atlantic Oscillation shifted gears last year and so did the PDO. The ENSO has been more severe since the late 1970's. I believe all of this is related to changes in currents in the magma.

Dr. Fairbridge explained that the gravitational forces of the planets, especially Jupiter, have an effect on the sun which increases with planetary alignments.

Logically, if a full alignment can affect the sun it also should have a similar effect on the earth.

The last full alignment occurred in 1976, exactly when the solar forcing stopped following the earth's surface temperature curve. I do not believe that this was pure coincidence.

Some how this will be Barack Obama's fault, LOL!

It's been an accurate observation for years from people living in the Gulf of Mexico regions that increased water temperature in the Atlantic increases the possibility for hurricane formation. Sorry, but it's hard for me to buy into the notion that moisture from the mountains in NE mountains are the origin of hurricanes in the Atlantic. It sounds like a denial of the obvious, global warming.

So, how will John McCain blame this one on Barack Obama too?

kathy - I think what was meant was that some portion of the seeds of the circulation patterns may get started (or altered?) in northeastern Africa; they are waves in the atmosphere's flow; some of these reach conditions over the ocean where they can fuel up with water vapor and turn into tropical cyclones.

Quietman - the known forcings (a large warming from anthropogenic CO2 and other greenhouse gas emissions accumulating in the atmosphere, a significant cooling from anthropogenic aerosols, some relatively small contribution from the sun and episodic volcanic eruptions) are sufficient and expected from the physics to result in the global warming observed. The knowledge of the mechanism of the greenhouse effect is established - I would only that there would be global warming if CO2 is added to the atmosphere. The burden of proof is satisfied for significant anthropogenic global warming; that their is some uncertainty remaining, particularly in cloud feedbacks and regional effects, does not set the burden of proof back on AGW as a significant and serious matter (not that you brought that up).

"I would only that there would be global warming if CO2 is added to the atmosphere."

Insert "expect" into the above after "only"

Patrick 027
While I freely admit that there is AGW, I disagree on CO2 being a strong forcing.

Paleoclimatology shows us that first it warms, then CO2 rises. I forget the numbers but it was roughly 10 times higher than current by the end of the cretaceous. It did not stop the ice age. As seen this year it is easily overcome by other natural forcings. BTW aerosols have not been significant for the past 10 years (JOC-06-0348.R3).

Also, may I bring to yor attention:

"Magma may be melting Greenland ice"
Hot spot could be contributing factor to Arctic island’s record melt
By Andrea Thompson , LiveScience Staff Writer, Thurs., Dec. 13, 2007

"On the Fundamental Defect in the IPCC’s Approach to Global Warming Research"
June 15, 2007
by Syun-Ichi Akasofu, International Arctic Research Center, University of Alaska Fairbanks

The Earth’s Changing Core - And Its Magnetic Field - Scientific Blogging, 22 June 2008

"North magnetic pole heading for Siberia"
Alaska might lose its Northern Lights in 50 years, scientists say
Dec. 8, 2005, AP

"Magnetic north pole drifting fast"
Alaska could lose its northern lights, scientists say - BBC News

"Mysterious Shift in Earth’s Gravity Suggests Equator is Bulging"
By Robert Roy Britt Senior Science Writer, August 2002

"The Northeast is Moving South"
Ker Than, LiveScience Staff Writer, Dec 16, 2005

"Scientists to Study ‘Gaping Wound’ Deep Under Atlantic" By Ker Than, March 07, 2007

"Volcanoes triggered ancient warming event" - Greenhouse gases injected into atmosphere and oceans causing temp rise
By Ker Than, Staff Writer, April 26, 2007

Bacteria - The Greenhouse Gas Source Everyone Laughs About - Scientific Blogging, 30 March 2008

"Fire under the ice - International expedition discovers gigantic volcanic eruption in the Arctic Ocean" Public release date: 25-Jun-2008

Healy Researchers Make A Series Of
Striking Discoveries About Arctic Ocean
ScienceDaily (Nov. 29, 2001)

"Rapidly changing flows in the Earth’s core" Olsen et al.
Nature Geoscience 1, 390 - 394 (2008) Published online: 18 May 2008 | doi:10.1038/ngeo203

Paleoclimatology - the last couple million years or so (maybe last 3 million?) have been characterized by ice ages and interglacials coming and going with prominent ~ 40,000 and ~ 20,000 years, and later (I think the last 700,000 to 900,000 years) ~ 100,000 years becoming dominant; typical interglacials have been relatively short but not all; given where the Milankovitch cycles are now, the current interglacial may be extra long even without AGW, though AGW may extend it significantly farther (tens of thousands of years more, I think).

During this glacial-interglacial time, it seems that astronomical forcing has, without a large globally and annually averaged climatic forcing, supplied a regional forcing that would make conditions in some places more or less favorable to the growth of ice sheets; these ice-sheets than had a globally-averaged climatic forcing that would cool (or with their shrinkage, warm) the global climate. This was amplified by a (bio)geochemical feedback that, in response to climate change, would remove or add CO2 to the atmosphere. (There were also changes in CH4 and N2O - or is it NO2... well you get the idea) While the mechanisms responsible for the CO2 changes, and why the climatic response has been more recently dominated by the 100,000 year cycle, are not fully understood (there are some plausable ideas, at least; I'm not sure how well developed they have become at this time), it is known that the CO2 had to have an effect, and significant in proportion to the effect of the snow and ice itself.

On longer timescales, changes in geologic emission and sequestration of CO2 have forced climate changes. These are generally slow processes; removal of CO2 from the atmosphere by chemical weathering of rocks is a slow process that provides a negative feedback on long timescales but is weak on short timescales. Changes in geologic emission can force changes in the CO2 level; warming or cooling will then have an effect on CO2 removal - equilibrium can be reached when the emission and removal are the same on average. Warming due to solar brightenning (significant over 100s of millions of years - so the very high CO2 levels in the more distant past will not result in as warm conditions as they would now, generally speaking) may be partly dampenned by the negative feedback of chemical weathering. The chemical weathering rate is also affected by geography and geology, and biology, and geography and ecology also affect weather and climate more directly.

High enough CO2 will prevent an ice age. Low enough CO2 will prevent an ice age from ending. It has to be high enough or low enough for other given conditions (arrangements of the continents, solar brightness, land cover). CO2 levels did fall quite a bit during the Cenozoic and this eventually allowed ice to build up on Antarctica, and then in other places, and then episodically over North America and northern Europe. That's not to say that other effects have not had importance - the movements of the continents and their effects on ocean currents, for example.

"As seen this year it [CO2] is easily overcome by other natural forcings."

- No. (First, there will still be place-to-place, hour-to hour, day-to-day, week-to-week, month-to-month, year-to-year, and decade-to-decade variability. Second, I'm not sure what it is this year that you've seen.)

Patrick 027

This past winter western europe was warmer than average but asia and the middle east were well below average. Here the eastern temperatures set record lows while the western temperatures were above normal.

Global average temperature a0 dropped, b)did not change or c)increased slightly, depending on what source you read - (there is no agreement on the proper method to record adjusted surface temperatures).

The 2007 arctic summer melt was caused by a strong anticyclonic storm which also was strong in 1978 and 1988 (Kay et. al. 2008).

My issue with the IPCC models is that they have committed to AGW and constantly adjust the model to reality while ignoring natural tectonic/volcanic and solar forcing to try to prove that CO2 is a pollutant rather than a normal part of the carbon cycle. Looking at all of the graphs the CP2 follows the temperature (with a short delay) rather than leading it. While it does provide feedback it is not the prime forcing in climate change and the past 10 years prove this if you only use the non-urban stations to eliminate the UHI effect (instead of playing the numbers game). There is AGW from all major cities and industrial centers but that AGW is ACTUAL HEAT, this is why the IPCC has to adjust the numbers to try to prove that its GHGs.

Don't adjust the numbers - use raw data and you soon discover what the AGW is.

Re: "High enough CO2 will prevent an ice age. Low enough CO2 will prevent an ice age from ending"

I strongly disagree. Ice core data from both Greenland and Antarctica show that not to be true.

Patrick 027

Reference:
14 MARCH 2003 VOL 299 SCIENCE

"Timing of Atmospheric CO and Antarctic Temperature Changes Across Termination III" Caillon, et. al.

"The sequence of events during Termination III suggests that the CO2 increase lagged Antarctic deglacial warming by 800 +/- 200 years and preceded the Northern Hemisphere deglaciation."

Quietman - I actually did give a good explanation for this but it dissappeared; I'm reposting it here (note the ironic beginning) (it was originally before my July 4 10:06 pm comment):

Paleoclimatology - the last couple million years or so (maybe last 3 million?) have been characterized by ice ages and interglacials coming and going with prominent ~ 40,000 and ~ 20,000 years, and later (I think the last 700,000 to 900,000 years) ~ 100,000 years becoming dominant; typical interglacials have been relatively short but not all; given where the Milankovitch cycles are now, the current interglacial may be extra long even without AGW, though AGW may extend it significantly farther (tens of thousands of years more, I think).

During this glacial-interglacial time, it seems that astronomical forcing has, without a large globally and annually averaged climatic forcing, supplied a regional forcing that would make conditions in some places more or less favorable to the growth of ice sheets; these ice-sheets than had a globally-averaged climatic forcing that would cool (or with their shrinkage, warm) the global climate. This was amplified by a (bio)geochemical feedback that, in response to climate change, would remove or add CO2 to the atmosphere. (There were also changes in CH4 and N2O - or is it NO2... well you get the idea) While the mechanisms responsible for the CO2 changes, and why the climatic response has been more recently dominated by the 100,000 year cycle, are not fully understood (there are some plausable ideas, at least; I'm not sure how well developed they have become at this time), it is known that the CO2 had to have an effect, and significant in proportion to the effect of the snow and ice itself.

Patrick 027
Yes, I remember reading most of that earlier - that is what I responded to above. But I responded in 3 parts, the first is missing and I don't remember what I wrote anymore.

Patrick 027

The paper above is on the Vostok core. The backup reference (below) did not say which core sample (I only have the abstract). Both papers clearly state that warming led CO2 and not the other way around, disproving the old GHG theory of Paleoclimates:

"Southern Hemisphere and Deep-Sea Warming Led Deglacial Atmospheric CO2 Rise and Tropical Warming"
Lowell Stott, Axel Timmermann, Robert Thunell
ABSTRACT:
Establishing what caused Earth’s largest climatic changes in the past requires a precise knowledge of both
the forcing and the regional responses. We determined the chronology of high- and low-latitude climate
change at the last glacial termination by radiocarbon dating benthic and planktonic foraminiferal stable isotope
and magnesium/calcium records from a marine core collected in the western tropical Pacific. Deep-sea
temperatures warmed by 2°C between 19 and 17 thousand years before the present (ky B.P.), leading the rise
in atmospheric CO2 and tropical–surface-ocean warming by 1000 years. The cause of this deglacial deepwater
warming does not lie within the tropics, nor can its early onset between 19 and 17 ky B.P. be attributed
to CO2 forcing. Increasing austral-spring insolation combined with sea-ice albedo feedbacks appear to be the
key factors responsible for this warming.

t rasa
I was speaking in reference to:
"There's been considerable research in recent years, showing that tropical storms and hurricanes really have their roots, not out in the Atlantic, but all the way over in the mountains of northeastern Africa -- near the Red Sea. Moisture from there, tumbling over the mountains and then picking up heat as it heads westward over the Sahara -- that's the genesis of many storms."
(as posted by Ned Potter in the article}. The events I mentioned are verifiable - Its cooler and wetter in the middle east this year and that is the stated origin of this storm. I am afraid that I don't understand "blowing smoke". If you are the expert on storm formation please explain. I was under the impression that they were caused by temperature inversions in the tropics where counter-rotational winds meet.

Quietman - thanks for responding.

That some warming will precede a rise in CO2 is not surprising. However, once the CO2 rises, this would add to warming.

The ice cores do not show that a strong/weak enough greenhouse effect could prevent an ice age/prevent an ice age from melting. But in the time of the glacial-interglacial transitions, the CO2 level itself has been changed by the climate, so the greenhouse has responded to climate changes. Had an external force held CO2 high, an ice age would not have gotten as cold; had CO2 been higher still, and held there, an ice age could have been prevented. Had an external force held CO2 low, an interglacial would not have gotten as warm; had CO2 been held low enough, and an ice age would not have ended.

There is the caveat of other conditions - for example, obviously, if the Earth were close enough to the sun or if the sun were bright enough, at some point removing all CO2, CH4, etc, from the air, even somehow removing H2O vapor and clouds, could not allow an ice age to start or stop an ice age from ending.

It does appear that changing CO2 has not been an initiator in the recent glacial-interglacial transitions. But if some externally forced changes in CO2 were to occur, that has the ability to initiate such a transition. But there is also the ice albedo effect, so if and when CO2 is the initiator, the same level of CO2 that allows an ice age to continue would not necessarily start an ice age, etc. This is most dramatically illustrated in the Snowball Earth concept - generally, a low latitude area of snow or ice has a stronger albedo effect because of the greater concentration of solar energy; if the greenhouse effect were low enough (for other given conditions), snow and ice could reach close enough to the equator that the positive feedback could become a runwaway feedback - that's when their is no stable equilibrium of intermediate value - the stable equilibrium would only be reach when the world freezes over and there would be no more space left for ice and snow to spread (except for dry parts of continents, where, especially given the extreme cold, it would take an extra long time for snow to accumulate). The level of CO2 (or whatever other greenhouse gas could be involved) would have to be much higher to melt the world from such a state than the level that would have been sufficient to prevent it. CO2 would over time build up in the atmosphere to such a high level due to the imbalance in geologic CO2 emission and the chemical weathering that would remove CO2 (such chemical weathering would be essentially halted by the extreme cold). Such Snowball Earth episodes may actually have occured in the distant past, in the Paleoproterozoic and Neoproterozoic times (the earlier may have been caused by the earlier dominance of CH4 as a greenhouse gas - high levels of CH4 would have been brought down by increasing atmospheric O2 (itself being aided by the high CH4 levels, which would have greatly enhanced H escape to space), and the negative chemical weathering feedback that would have allowed CO2 to rise in response may not have been fast enough to stop the freeze-over. The later snowballs may have resulted in part from a similar process, though with less methane and more O2 to start with, and a brighter sun than in the Paleoproterozoic (but still dimmer than present). Having the continents clustered at low latitudes may have also contributed, by weakenning the global effect of the chemical weathering feedback. One thing to keep in mind - no land vegetation back then (Generally, biological evolution can change they way climate responds to forcings over time by changing the physical and chemical interactions among ecosystems and climatic conditions). Another interesting thing to note is that the coriolis effect was stronger the earlier one goes - the Earth has been slowly slowing it's spinning due to tidal drag (to give you a sense, geologic evidence indicates an 18-hour day about 900 million years ago). I'm not sure but my guess is that a stronger coriolis effect would tend to reduce the poleward heat transfer for a given temperature gradient, which would affect ... etc...

Another interesting point - the Milankovitch cycles that seem to have great influence over the glacial-interglacial variations over the last couple million years or so - those cycles have been going on essentially for all of Earth's history (though not at the same rate - the same tidal drag that slows the Earth down also pulls the moon away, and that affects at least two of the orbital cycles). Yet the ice ages have not been coming and going the whole time. But the Milankovitch cycles can have other effects - variations in low-latitude monsoons in particular, and I think there is evidence for such variations occuring in the time of Pangea.

Patrick

A major reason that the Milankovitch cycles have a variable effect is continental drift or by it's newer nomer plate tectonics. There are some very good representations found at Palaeos.com showing where they think the landmasses were going back to Pangea.

Recent work has indicated that they have misunderstood a major factor in plate tectonics: the rate of drift is not a constant. The deleted post had the titles of recent articles about the shifting magnetic pole and changes in seafloor spreading under the arctic. In 1999-2001 there were major eruptions under the polar ice and those volcanos have remained active. ScienceDaily and LiveScience both have good articles on this subject.

If my memory serves me correctly, since at least 2000 landfall hurricanes have struck exclusively in the Atlantic basin and Gulf of Mexico. The moisture formation seedlings over the mountains in Africa may form a confluence with the warmer oceanic waters to produce them. But then why is that area more vulnerable to hurricanes than the east coast of the US?

kat
And the eruptions began under the arctic in 1999, changing the rate of seafloor spreading for at least the period 1999-2001, possibly longer.

Yes, continental positions, the rise and fall of mountains, the effects on the configuration of the oceans and their currents - very important in climate. But a higher or lower greenhouse effect will tend to make the globe overall warmer or cooler (as would a brighter or dimmer sun).

Faster sea floor spreading should occur with more rapid geologic emissions of CO2 to the ocean and atmosphere. This will tend to warm the climate. A new equilibrium CO2 and average climate would be reached when the increased warmth is enough so that the increased rate of CO2 removal by chemical weathering, +/- any changes in organic carbon burial, are enough to balance the geologic emission. (A sudden increase in the frequency of eruptions that release cooling aerosols will tend to cool the climate in the short term, but over a long period of time, CO2 builds up (until balanced by changes in chemical weathering and organic carbon burial), while aerosols are continually removed and don't build up over many years).

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(Plate tectonics, geologic CO2 emission, and generally (except in the immediate aftermath of a snowball episode, when conditions might be described as a carbonic acid sauna), chemical weathering, are very slow processes, and such short term fluctuations such as an increase in volcanic activity a few years ago are not going to have a significant global effect on CO2, nor will a change in the motion of continents over such a short time period have noticeable effects - unless some delicate threshold has been reached, in which case (if so delicate and so sharp and precise a threshold), one would think many random variations (like a localized landslide) could contribute to the exact timing of whatever event - PS I'm not saying such a delicate and precise threshold is even concievable - granted, over geologic time, gradual geologic processes would have at some point cut off the Pacific from the Atlantic at the isthmus connecting North and South America, a relatively sudden event in comparison, but still, it's not like the flow of currents between North and South America could have gone from full force to zero in a day - or even a hundred millenium, and the same goes for the openning between South America and Antarctica, without which, their could be no circumpolar current about Antarctica.)
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I expect the direct heating of the ocean and overlying ice from volcanic/hydrothermal activity to be highly localized. The global average of geothermal heat flow (a lot of which is just from the continouse conduction of heat through the crust) is a little less than 0.1 W/m2; the same should be true about any sufficiently large region containing volcanic activity (although with greater temporal variations). The radiative forcing of the increase in CO2 caused by human activity, on the other hand, is - globally averaged - ~ 1.4 (or 1.6 W/m2?), something like that (doubling CO2 is a radiative forcing of around 4 W/m2). If volcanic activity did significantly raise the Arctic ocean's temperature (strongly strongly strongly doubt that), it still had a head start from global warming, which is to say, the same volcanic eruptions a few hundred years ago would not be associated with the same sea-ice reduction, if their were any connection at all.
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The magnetic field is set up and maintained by convection in the liquid outer core, organized by the coriolis effect. The core must be losing heat to the mantle as this occurs; Changes in mantle convection, which carry that heat (and heat generated within the mantle by radioactive decay) away from the core, therefore can affect the core; a cool spot in the lower mantle could conceivable affect the organization of the core's convection currents. But the mantle can't change very fast. Changes in the magnetic field that occur in less than millions of years are probably just part of the chaotic turbulence of the outer core, just as day-to-day weather variations need no external forcing to be explained. (Not that external factors can't have an effect, but over such short time periods, the effects of small changes are generally likely to be buried in the heap of butterfly effects that make weather forecasts beyond two weeks impossible (but leaves climatic forecasts out for centuries still possible, because climate, though made of weather, is not the same as weather), and outer core forecasts beyond x centuries? ... etc.) PS I might need to clarify that later...
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It has been thought that faster sea-floor spreading should tend to raise sea level - the oceanic crust sinks down away from the mid-oceanic ridges as it cools; faster sea-floor spreading should result in ridges with wider profiles, thus displacing a volume of water. Though I thought I recently read something to the contrary, but it's possible I misunderstood the implications of what I had read.

Continental collisions that raise up mountain ranges should tend to lower sea level, by moving some volume of crust from below sea level to above it. Depending on the climate around such mountain ranges and plateaus, chemical weathering may be enhanced significantly. It is thought that the rise of the Himalayas helped lower the CO2 level over the last millions of years. (I'm not sure exactly what Tibet's contribution would be - the Tibetan plateau may also directly contribute to enhanced CO2 removal by weathering; I think it also enhances the Asian monsoon, which would affect the chemical weathering of the Himalayas.)

PS cold and dry weather tend to inhibit chemical weathering. But snow-capped mountains can still enhance chemical weathering, because the mountain glaciers mechanically weather underlying rock, and eventually carry sediment down the mountain when the sediment is dumped by the ice and reaches warmer levels, it can be chemically weathered. Mechanical weathering generally enhances chemical weathering by increasing the surface area of sediments. While during each ice age, chemical weathering is reduced, it's conceivable that over the course of glacial-interglacial variations, chemical weathering may be enhanced, because each ice age leaves behind glacial till.

In order to have a continental ice sheet, of coarse, one must have a continent in a cool enough location (that is not too dry). But their must also be a moisture supply. A continent in a polar region that is too large may not get much moisture in it's interior, and also, as large continents tend to experience greater seasonal temperature variations, the polar summers might yet get too hot to preserve last winter's snow, even if it was a bitterly cold winter (although an extremely snowy winter would help, but again, it may be dryer in the interior of a continent). (PS I think Greenland and eastern Canada can get some of their moisture from the Gulf Stream).

One thing I haven't explicitly gone over is the role of rapid (relative to geologic emission and sequestration, organic carbon burial and oxidation) CO2 fluxes among the surface and near surface reservoirs. Without changes in geologic emissions in particular, the atmospheric CO2 content can change relatively fast (but slow compared to human-driven changes) due to net shifting of C among the atmosphere, standing biomass, soil carbon, surface ocean, and deep ocean. This kind of shifting can explain how atmospheric CO2 has risen and fallen with the ice ages and interglacial times. During an ice age, atmospheric C and biomass and I think soil C were all lower, so the difference likely went into (and then came out of) the ocean. Cold water can hold more CO2 relative to the atmosphere above it; although saltier water can hold less CO2, but the cold effect I think was stronger - but this alone cannot explain the entire change. It's possible that a change in ocean circulation changed the distribution of chemical characteristics of different regions of the ocean, changing the way it took up and released CO2 from/to the air. Winds from dried-out land areas could also fertilize ocean planckton, increasing organic carbon burial, though I'm not sure if that could be rapid enough to explain much of the CO2 variation during glacial-interglacial transitions (as opposed to the overall CO2 reduction over millions of years leading to a time characterized by glacial-interglacial variations). PS as organic carbon falls through the ocean, it is not guaranteed to be geologically sequestered - some portion (My impression is most of it, actually) is oxidized at depth; however, this can pump C from the surface ocean to the deep ocean, where it can't be exchanged with the atmosphere until currents bring it to areas of upwelling (time depending on location and the configuration of the currents) Upwelling areas tend to be rich in nutrients, of course, so you can get a lot of planckton there (and fish!); upwelling itself is influenced by the winds and temperature variations; for example, upwelling off the coast of Peru is inhibited during El Ninos (when the easterlies weaken, so that the buoyant pool of very warm water near Indonesia sloshes back toward South America). Also, the sequestering of CO2 in carbonate minerals under the water (or in it, as in floating shells of microorganisms, some of which can sink eventually) can be temporary - increasing acidity (such as due to an increase in oceanic CO2) tends to dissolve carbonate minerals. The way CO2 is exchanged among the ocean and atmosphere is complicated because 1. only the surface ocean actually exchanges directly with the air and 2. CO2 doesn't just dissolve as a gas in liquid; it becomes bicarbonate ions, and the concentration of ions affects how much the water will hold relative to the air's concentration of CO2.

Some people will look at the size of the fluxes of C to and from the atmosphere from vegetation and the surface ocean and conclude that humanity's contribution is insignificant. But averaged over a year, and even more so over several years (over ENSO variations, especially hot summers and not so hot summers, forest fires and regrowth, etc.), the natural fluxes tend to balance. Of course they must not have been balanced at times in the past such as during glacial-interglacial transitions, though the unbalanced portion I think was generally smaller than what humanity's unbalanced (net) contribution is now. But it seems that was due to changes in climate - the large accumulations of change over time were not results of shorter-term random spontaneous blips (which should tend to cancel out over time). The current imbalances outside direct anthropogenic forcing of CO2 are largely due to the additon of CO2 to the atmosphere, to which plant growth and water-air exchange have responded by taking a portion of the added CO2 out of the air. As ecosystems and geochemistry respond to the climate change, however, the same response may not continue, and it can't be expected to continue anyway because of limited capacity for additional uptake, either in total (how much more vegetation can you have?) or at a given rate (the upwelling of deep water to replace surface ocean water, for example). PS some of each unit of addition to the air comes out of the air relatively quickly (within a year, I think - I'm a little fuzzy yet on why), while if we stopped emitting now, the CO2 level should drop as the remaining atmospheric portion continues to get more slowly redistributed. This takes time. Due to the faster fluxes that tend to be balanced, the average residence time of any given molecule of CO2 in the air is actually just a few years, but the time taken for the level of CO2 to fall back after a 'slug' (that's the term I've seen used) of CO2 has accumulated in the air is quite a bit longer.

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PS While there is CO2 fertilization of plants, it isn't going to affect all plants equally. The plant may or may not be able to take advantage of the opportunity effectively (just as some kinds of trees can't grow in Canada while others can). Food quality may be affected. Plants evolve over time for different conditions (a generally slow process). My understanding on the matter is that CO2 is particularly important where vegetation is limited by moisture - higher CO2 allows the plants to get the same CO2 without having their stomata open as much, thus not losing as much water. But this won't do anything for corn - corn leaves it's stomata open no matter what (I think), which is why it's not drought-tolerant. Changes in CO2 may also be particularly important with regards to elevation - as CO2 concentration rises, one can go higher up a mountain to get the same volumetric concentration of CO2 (You'll also tend to go higher up to get the same temperature - not by the same distance, necessarily). Anyway, as the climate changes, decomposition of organic matter may also speed up, releasing CO2 back to the air faster. Drought or other stresses (perhaps via pine bark beetles), either by forest fire or gradual die-off, may reduce vegetation C and add CO2 back into the air. CH4 can also be released (from thawing permafrost in particular, and also perhaps from methane hydrates/clathrates in the ocean); CH4 oxydizes to CO2 on average in a couple decades or so (I'm not clear on whether it's closer to 12, 15, or 20 years). But each molecule of CH4 has a much stronger climatic effect than a molecular of CO2 - so to avoid warming, you'd rather have an additonal atom of C in the air as CO2, if you have to have it there. Whether or not the release of CH4 adds more CO2 to the air upon it's oxydation depends on whether or not that C atom would have otherwise gone into the air directly as CO2 or not gone into the air at all.

The changes in low-latitude monsoons due to orbital (Milankovitch) forcing has an effect on the atmospheric CH4 level in particular.
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When there is an imbalance in the fluxes that accumulates over time, the other reservoirs involved will reflect this - regardless of how fast trees may be growing, dying and decaying, how fast organic C is added to soil, exhaled from it during decay, or removed by erosion (added to water bodies), ... etc., a climatologically important imbalance will manifest itself as a change in the amount stored over time - the difference in vegetative cover over time, for example (humans have driven a lot of that too, recently).

When CO2 goes into the ocean fast (as it is now, though not fast enough to avoid global warming), the pH level of the water will tend to drop - ocean acidification. Now, why wasn't that a problem in the Cretaceaous (and Cambrian, I think, etc...) when atmospheric CO2 was so high? I haven't read so explicitly, but pulling together what else I know, I think that when CO2 levels change slowly, and when the C content of the ocean in particular changes slowly, other chemical characteristics have time to 'catch up' - that is, the acidity can be buffered by ... dissolving CaCO3 in the sediments? - and adding Ca ions to the ocean by the slow (but generally faster in warm times) process of chemical weathering.

PS Chemical weathering in general - a mineral such as CaSiO3, under slightly acidic rain water (acidic due largely to dissolved CO2), turns eventually into SiO2 + dissolved Ca ions and CO3 ions (or HCO3 ions), which may then be precipitated as CaCO3, either abiotically or by organisms with shells. Burial and heat: SiO2 combines with CaCO3, igneous rocks (if complete melting occurs, otherise it would be metamorphic rocks) form with the mineral CaSiO3, while CO2 is outgassed (in an eruption, or more 'peacefully'). PS CaSiO3 itself is not that common (if it exists - if it doesn't, then I was actually thinking of Ca2SiO4 - one of the two is called Wollastonite - but anyway, Ca(x)SiO(y) is not that common, but generally, there are minerals that make up the bulk of igneous rocks and the crust as a whole, and the mantle, that are some combination (stoichiometrically speaking; their actually chemical formulae would be written differently) of A MgO + D FeO + E CaO + G Al2O3 + J Na2O + L K2O + M SiO2, where the coefficients A,D,E,G,J,L,M, may be 0,1,whatever. Mg and Fe are particularly prevalent in the mantle; there is relatively much less Mg in most crustal rocks. Ca and Mg dominate at cations in carbonate minerals.

Oh, I forgot to mention: Isotopic studies support the conclusion that the increas in atmospheric CO2 is essentially from human activity.

Different reservoirs of C have different mixes of C isotopes because of isotopic fractionation during processes involved in exchanges, as well as radioactive decay. Photosynthesis tends to incorporate C-12 preferentially over C-13, and I think there is fractionation in some other metabolic processes. Thus the inorganic carbon in carbonate minerals (from which cement is made, the process giving off CO2 - not the dominant anthropogenic CO2 source, but significant) should, I think, tend to have more C-13, and of course this can be measured. Fossil fuels are essentially devoid of C-14 because C-14 decays to N-14 with a half life a little over 5000 years. C-14 is produced from N-14 in the atmosphere by cosmic rays; the time since C has been taken up from the air, given the fraction of C as C-14 at the time in the air, determines how much C-14 is left. C-14 dating doesn't by itself give a precise date because of variations in the rate of C-14 production, and from variations in the amount of C in the atmosphere and variations in the fluxes, but an object of known age by other methods can be C-14 dated to callibrate C-14 dating. Of course, if two sources of C of different C-14 ages are mixed...

But anyway, the CO2 emitted from fossil fuel power plants, cars run on gasoline, etc, is essentially devoid of C-14.

Of course, we independently have a pretty good idea of what anthropogenic emissions are (at least from fossil fuels and cement production - deforestation (minus reforestation) is a bit less certain, I think). At issue would be whether or not anthropogenic emissions are the cause of the change in the atmospheric CO2 level. For example, it used to be thought that the ocean would buffer additions very effectively with some relative immediacy. Well, the rise in CO2 that has been observed seems to counter that idea. Of course, one could suppose that the oceans are in control of CO2 levels, and something is changing in the ocean that is driving CO2 up in the atmosphere regardless of what we're doing, but 1. it seems a bit coincidental that such a rapid increase in CO2 is occuring just when anthropogenic emissions are occuring, given the relative steadiness of atmospheric CO2 over the last thousands of years and, 2. that it seems to significantly be faster now even than during the deglaciation process... and 3. it's outside the pattern of natural variations for at least the last 650,000 years, 4. human emissions are plenty enough to explain the rise even allowing for significant removal of the additional CO2 by the ocean and vegetation, and 5. enough is understood about the mechanisms involved (how uptake by the oceans works, for example, and observations of land vegetation) to conclude that it's us.

Patrick

That's quite an explanation. Most of it makes perfect sense.

Re: "Isotopic studies support the conclusion that the increas in atmospheric CO2 is essentially from human activity." - possibly, but I will assume this to be true.
But I stil have a problem with the amount of forcing from JUST CO2. Neither the Vostok core samples nor the past 10 years support it.

CO2 has not always reflected surface temperature, in fact there was only coincidental reflection from about 1976 through 1998. 22 years is about two sunsupot cycles or about one full solar cycle, and the effect of solar cycles has a lag time of a few years.

So the question remains is CO2 induced AGW making the earth warmer or is that 22 year period a coincidence. Given that CO2 is an extremely weak GHG I think the latter is true.

CO2 can not explain why ENSO has gained in strength since 1978 (record El Nino events were 1978 and 1998). Recent evidence is that the El Nino cycle of ENSO is cause by undersea vulcanism off the coast of Peru near the S.A. subduction zones. Active vulcanism (or tectonic activity in recent terminology) heats the water causing upwelling currents which in turn affect the air currents at the base of the Andes (I don't remember the web site but it was one of the govenment dot-orgs).

When I say vulcanism has been effecting the polar melts I do not mean with direct heating of the ice. I mean that there have been shifts in ocean currents which in turn change air currents.

Sorry but I still use the terminology that I was taught in school, before continental drift was accepted and the term "plate tectonics" came into being. I have found that this causes some confusion with the younger people out there but I am more comfortable using the older terminology.

I do have a question on one thing in particular in the last of your comments. Exactly how does Nitrogen 14 turn into Carbon 14? Or more specifically, how does Nitrogen turn into Carbon in the atmosphere? This does not make any sense to me.

Re: "But anyway, the CO2 emitted from fossil fuel power plants, cars run on gasoline, etc, is essentially devoid of C-14."
This is quite understandable since fossil fuels should not show any measurable amount of C-14 to begin with. It's way too old.

Or is it how does Carbon 14 turn into Nitrogen 14? Still does not make sense since these are elements, not compounds and should not be transmutable.

C-14 N-14 - It is a nuclear reaction; C-14 is radioactive and decays to N-14; since N-14 has one more proton and one less neutron than C-14, I infer that it is beta-decay. I don't remember exactly how the reverse reaction occurs, but I think it's something like: cosmic rays bombarding the atmosphere kick off neutrons, a neutron collides with N-14 with enough energy, a proton gets knocked off (presumably this becomes H) and what is left is C-14.

Just to be clear, the great majority of C is C-12; C-14 is useful as a sort of label to us but it is a very tiny fraction of C, even of only atmospheric C. I don't think the nuclear and related chemical reactions involved play a significant role in energy or chemical budgets (though I do wonder if just maybe exposure to a supernova early in Earth's history could have actually helped in the origin of life by producing a lot of C-14 and H in the atmosphere, the C-14 then decaying to N-14 in sediments might have helped produce chemicals containing N besides N2.??)

PS from your comment about fossil carbon not having C-14, I'm inferring you didn't see that I said the same thing about it. Not surprising since my last few comments are missing; the C-14 discussion now appears to pop up from nowhere.

Yes, continental positions, the rise and fall of mountains, the effects on the configuration of the oceans and their currents - very important in climate. But a higher or lower greenhouse effect will tend to make the globe overall warmer or cooler (as would a brighter or dimmer sun).

Faster sea floor spreading should occur with more rapid geologic emissions of CO2 to the ocean and atmosphere. This will tend to warm the climate. A new equilibrium CO2 and average climate would be reached when the increased warmth is enough so that the increased rate of CO2 removal by chemical weathering, +/- any changes in organic carbon burial, are enough to balance the geologic emission. (A sudden increase in the frequency of eruptions that release cooling aerosols will tend to cool the climate in the short term, but over a long period of time, CO2 builds up (until balanced by changes in chemical weathering and organic carbon burial), while aerosols are continually removed and don't build up over many years).

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(Plate tectonics, geologic CO2 emission, and generally (except in the immediate aftermath of a snowball episode, when conditions might be described as a carbonic acid sauna), chemical weathering, are very slow processes, and such short term fluctuations such as an increase in volcanic activity a few years ago are not going to have a significant global effect on CO2, nor will a change in the motion of continents over such a short time period have noticeable effects - unless some delicate threshold has been reached, in which case (if so delicate and so sharp and precise a threshold), one would think many random variations (like a localized landslide) could contribute to the exact timing of whatever event - PS I'm not saying such a delicate and precise threshold is even concievable - granted, over geologic time, gradual geologic processes would have at some point cut off the Pacific from the Atlantic at the isthmus connecting North and South America, a relatively sudden event in comparison, but still, it's not like the flow of currents between North and South America could have gone from full force to zero in a day - or even a hundred millenium, and the same goes for the openning between South America and Antarctica, without which, their could be no circumpolar current about Antarctica.)
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I expect the direct heating of the ocean and overlying ice from volcanic/hydrothermal activity to be highly localized. The global average of geothermal heat flow (a lot of which is just from the continouse conduction of heat through the crust) is a little less than 0.1 W/m2; the same should be true about any sufficiently large region containing volcanic activity (although with greater temporal variations). The radiative forcing of the increase in CO2 caused by human activity, on the other hand, is - globally averaged - ~ 1.4 (or 1.6 W/m2?), something like that (doubling CO2 is a radiative forcing of around 4 W/m2). If volcanic activity did significantly raise the Arctic ocean's temperature (strongly strongly strongly doubt that), it still had a head start from global warming, which is to say, the same volcanic eruptions a few hundred years ago would not be associated with the same sea-ice reduction, if their were any connection at all.
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The magnetic field is set up and maintained by convection in the liquid outer core, organized by the coriolis effect. The core must be losing heat to the mantle as this occurs; Changes in mantle convection, which carry that heat (and heat generated within the mantle by radioactive decay) away from the core, therefore can affect the core; a cool spot in the lower mantle could conceivable affect the organization of the core's convection currents. But the mantle can't change very fast. Changes in the magnetic field that occur in less than millions of years are probably just part of the chaotic turbulence of the outer core, just as day-to-day weather variations need no external forcing to be explained. (Not that external factors can't have an effect, but over such short time periods, the effects of small changes are generally likely to be buried in the heap of butterfly effects that make weather forecasts beyond two weeks impossible (but leaves climatic forecasts out for centuries still possible, because climate, though made of weather, is not the same as weather), and outer core forecasts beyond x centuries? ... etc.) PS I might need to clarify that later...
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It has been thought that faster sea-floor spreading should tend to raise sea level - the oceanic crust sinks down away from the mid-oceanic ridges as it cools; faster sea-floor spreading should result in ridges with wider profiles, thus displacing a volume of water. Though I thought I recently read something to the contrary, but it's possible I misunderstood the implications of what I had read.

Continental collisions that raise up mountain ranges should tend to lower sea level, by moving some volume of crust from below sea level to above it. Depending on the climate around such mountain ranges and plateaus, chemical weathering may be enhanced significantly. It is thought that the rise of the Himalayas helped lower the CO2 level over the last millions of years. (I'm not sure exactly what Tibet's contribution would be - the Tibetan plateau may also directly contribute to enhanced CO2 removal by weathering; I think it also enhances the Asian monsoon, which would affect the chemical weathering of the Himalayas.)

PS cold and dry weather tend to inhibit chemical weathering. But snow-capped mountains can still enhance chemical weathering, because the mountain glaciers mechanically weather underlying rock, and eventually carry sediment down the mountain when the sediment is dumped by the ice and reaches warmer levels, it can be chemically weathered. Mechanical weathering generally enhances chemical weathering by increasing the surface area of sediments. While during each ice age, chemical weathering is reduced, it's conceivable that over the course of glacial-interglacial variations, chemical weathering may be enhanced, because each ice age leaves behind glacial till.

In order to have a continental ice sheet, of coarse, one must have a continent in a cool enough location (that is not too dry). But their must also be a moisture supply. A continent in a polar region that is too large may not get much moisture in it's interior, and also, as large continents tend to experience greater seasonal temperature variations, the polar summers might yet get too hot to preserve last winter's snow, even if it was a bitterly cold winter (although an extremely snowy winter would help, but again, it may be dryer in the interior of a continent). (PS I think Greenland and eastern Canada can get some of their moisture from the Gulf Stream).

Posted by: Patrick 027 | Jul 5, 2008 9:09:04 PM

One thing I haven't explicitly gone over is the role of rapid (relative to geologic emission and sequestration, organic carbon burial and oxidation) CO2 fluxes among the surface and near surface reservoirs. Without changes in geologic emissions in particular, the atmospheric CO2 content can change relatively fast (but slow compared to human-driven changes) due to net shifting of C among the atmosphere, standing biomass, soil carbon, surface ocean, and deep ocean. This kind of shifting can explain how atmospheric CO2 has risen and fallen with the ice ages and interglacial times. During an ice age, atmospheric C and biomass and I think soil C were all lower, so the difference likely went into (and then came out of) the ocean. Cold water can hold more CO2 relative to the atmosphere above it; although saltier water can hold less CO2, but the cold effect I think was stronger - but this alone cannot explain the entire change. It's possible that a change in ocean circulation changed the distribution of chemical characteristics of different regions of the ocean, changing the way it took up and released CO2 from/to the air. Winds from dried-out land areas could also fertilize ocean planckton, increasing organic carbon burial, though I'm not sure if that could be rapid enough to explain much of the CO2 variation during glacial-interglacial transitions (as opposed to the overall CO2 reduction over millions of years leading to a time characterized by glacial-interglacial variations). PS as organic carbon falls through the ocean, it is not guaranteed to be geologically sequestered - some portion (My impression is most of it, actually) is oxidized at depth; however, this can pump C from the surface ocean to the deep ocean, where it can't be exchanged with the atmosphere until currents bring it to areas of upwelling (time depending on location and the configuration of the currents) Upwelling areas tend to be rich in nutrients, of course, so you can get a lot of planckton there (and fish!); upwelling itself is influenced by the winds and temperature variations; for example, upwelling off the coast of Peru is inhibited during El Ninos (when the easterlies weaken, so that the buoyant pool of very warm water near Indonesia sloshes back toward South America). Also, the sequestering of CO2 in carbonate minerals under the water (or in it, as in floating shells of microorganisms, some of which can sink eventually) can be temporary - increasing acidity (such as due to an increase in oceanic CO2) tends to dissolve carbonate minerals. The way CO2 is exchanged among the ocean and atmosphere is complicated because 1. only the surface ocean actually exchanges directly with the air and 2. CO2 doesn't just dissolve as a gas in liquid; it becomes bicarbonate ions, and the concentration of ions affects how much the water will hold relative to the air's concentration of CO2.

Some people will look at the size of the fluxes of C to and from the atmosphere from vegetation and the surface ocean and conclude that humanity's contribution is insignificant. But averaged over a year, and even more so over several years (over ENSO variations, especially hot summers and not so hot summers, forest fires and regrowth, etc.), the natural fluxes tend to balance. Of course they must not have been balanced at times in the past such as during glacial-interglacial transitions, though the unbalanced portion I think was generally smaller than what humanity's unbalanced (net) contribution is now. But it seems that was due to changes in climate - the large accumulations of change over time were not results of shorter-term random spontaneous blips (which should tend to cancel out over time). The current imbalances outside direct anthropogenic forcing of CO2 are largely due to the additon of CO2 to the atmosphere, to which plant growth and water-air exchange have responded by taking a portion of the added CO2 out of the air. As ecosystems and geochemistry respond to the climate change, however, the same response may not continue, and it can't be expected to continue anyway because of limited capacity for additional uptake, either in total (how much more vegetation can you have?) or at a given rate (the upwelling of deep water to replace surface ocean water, for example). PS some of each unit of addition to the air comes out of the air relatively quickly (within a year, I think - I'm a little fuzzy yet on why), while if we stopped emitting now, the CO2 level should drop as the remaining atmospheric portion continues to get more slowly redistributed. This takes time. Due to the faster fluxes that tend to be balanced, the average residence time of any given molecule of CO2 in the air is actually just a few years, but the time taken for the level of CO2 to fall back after a 'slug' (that's the term I've seen used) of CO2 has accumulated in the air is quite a bit longer.

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PS While there is CO2 fertilization of plants, it isn't going to affect all plants equally. The plant may or may not be able to take advantage of the opportunity effectively (just as some kinds of trees can't grow in Canada while others can). Food quality may be affected. Plants evolve over time for different conditions (a generally slow process). My understanding on the matter is that CO2 is particularly important where vegetation is limited by moisture - higher CO2 allows the plants to get the same CO2 without having their stomata open as much, thus not losing as much water. But this won't do anything for corn - corn leaves it's stomata open no matter what (I think), which is why it's not drought-tolerant. Changes in CO2 may also be particularly important with regards to elevation - as CO2 concentration rises, one can go higher up a mountain to get the same volumetric concentration of CO2 (You'll also tend to go higher up to get the same temperature - not by the same distance, necessarily). Anyway, as the climate changes, decomposition of organic matter may also speed up, releasing CO2 back to the air faster. Drought or other stresses (perhaps via pine bark beetles), either by forest fire or gradual die-off, may reduce vegetation C and add CO2 back into the air. CH4 can also be released (from thawing permafrost in particular, and also perhaps from methane hydrates/clathrates in the ocean); CH4 oxydizes to CO2 on average in a couple decades or so (I'm not clear on whether it's closer to 12, 15, or 20 years). But each molecule of CH4 has a much stronger climatic effect than a molecular of CO2 - so to avoid warming, you'd rather have an additonal atom of C in the air as CO2, if you have to have it there. Whether or not the release of CH4 adds more CO2 to the air upon it's oxydation depends on whether or not that C atom would have otherwise gone into the air directly as CO2 or not gone into the air at all.

The changes in low-latitude monsoons due to orbital (Milankovitch) forcing has an effect on the atmospheric CH4 level in particular.
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When there is an imbalance in the fluxes that accumulates over time, the other reservoirs involved will reflect this - regardless of how fast trees may be growing, dying and decaying, how fast organic C is added to soil, exhaled from it during decay, or removed by erosion (added to water bodies), ... etc., a climatologically important imbalance will manifest itself as a change in the amount stored over time - the difference in vegetative cover over time, for example (humans have driven a lot of that too, recently).

When CO2 goes into the ocean fast (as it is now, though not fast enough to avoid global warming), the pH level of the water will tend to drop - ocean acidification. Now, why wasn't that a problem in the Cretaceaous (and Cambrian, I think, etc...) when atmospheric CO2 was so high? I haven't read so explicitly, but pulling together what else I know, I think that when CO2 levels change slowly, and when the C content of the ocean in particular changes slowly, other chemical characteristics have time to 'catch up' - that is, the acidity can be buffered by ... dissolving CaCO3 in the sediments? - and adding Ca ions to the ocean by the slow (but generally faster in warm times) process of chemical weathering.

PS Chemical weathering in general - a mineral such as CaSiO3, under slightly acidic rain water (acidic due largely to dissolved CO2), turns eventually into SiO2 + dissolved Ca ions and CO3 ions (or HCO3 ions), which may then be precipitated as CaCO3, either abiotically or by organisms with shells. Burial and heat: SiO2 combines with CaCO3, igneous rocks (if complete melting occurs, otherise it would be metamorphic rocks) form with the mineral CaSiO3, while CO2 is outgassed (in an eruption, or more 'peacefully'). PS CaSiO3 itself is not that common (if it exists - if it doesn't, then I was actually thinking of Ca2SiO4 - one of the two is called Wollastonite - but anyway, Ca(x)SiO(y) is not that common, but generally, there are minerals that make up the bulk of igneous rocks and the crust as a whole, and the mantle, that are some combination (stoichiometrically speaking; their actually chemical formulae would be written differently) of A MgO + D FeO + E CaO + G Al2O3 + J Na2O + L K2O + M SiO2, where the coefficients A,D,E,G,J,L,M, may be 0,1,whatever. Mg and Fe are particularly prevalent in the mantle; there is relatively much less Mg in most crustal rocks. Ca and Mg dominate at cations in carbonate minerals.

Posted by: Patrick 027 | Jul 5, 2008 11:52:25 P

Oh, I forgot to mention: Isotopic studies support the conclusion that the increas in atmospheric CO2 is essentially from human activity.

Different reservoirs of C have different mixes of C isotopes because of isotopic fractionation during processes involved in exchanges, as well as radioactive decay. Photosynthesis tends to incorporate C-12 preferentially over C-13, and I think there is fractionation in some other metabolic processes. Thus the inorganic carbon in carbonate minerals (from which cement is made, the process giving off CO2 - not the dominant anthropogenic CO2 source, but significant) should, I think, tend to have more C-13, and of course this can be measured. Fossil fuels are essentially devoid of C-14 because C-14 decays to N-14 with a half life a little over 5000 years. C-14 is produced from N-14 in the atmosphere by cosmic rays; the time since C has been taken up from the air, given the fraction of C as C-14 at the time in the air, determines how much C-14 is left. C-14 dating doesn't by itself give a precise date because of variations in the rate of C-14 production, and from variations in the amount of C in the atmosphere and variations in the fluxes, but an object of known age by other methods can be C-14 dated to callibrate C-14 dating. Of course, if two sources of C of different C-14 ages are mixed...

But anyway, the CO2 emitted from fossil fuel power plants, cars run on gasoline, etc, is essentially devoid of C-14.

Of course, we independently have a pretty good idea of what anthropogenic emissions are (at least from fossil fuels and cement production - deforestation (minus reforestation) is a bit less certain, I think). At issue would be whether or not anthropogenic emissions are the cause of the change in the atmospheric CO2 level. For example, it used to be thought that the ocean would buffer additions very effectively with some relative immediacy. Well, the rise in CO2 that has been observed seems to counter that idea. Of course, one could suppose that the oceans are in control of CO2 levels, and something is changing in the ocean that is driving CO2 up in the atmosphere regardless of what we're doing, but 1. it seems a bit coincidental that such a rapid increase in CO2 is occuring just when anthropogenic emissions are occuring, given the relative steadiness of atmospheric CO2 over the last thousands of years and, 2. that it seems to significantly be faster now even than during the deglaciation process... and 3. it's outside the pattern of natural variations for at least the last 650,000 years, 4. human emissions are plenty enough to explain the rise even allowing for significant removal of the additional CO2 by the ocean and vegetation, and 5. enough is understood about the mechanisms involved (how uptake by the oceans works, for example, and observations of land vegetation) to conclude that it's us.

Patrick
I was acknowledging the lack of C14 in fossil fuels, I have read about trace amounts found in coal but that only means that the coal was exposed to radiation recently.

The atomic weights 5 boron, 6 carbon, 7 nitrogen indicate that in order to transmute carbon to nitrogen it would have to gain weight, if it lost weight it would transmute to boron.

Re: "it seems a bit coincidental that such a rapid increase in CO2 is occuring just when anthropogenic emissions are occuring,"
No argument there. It's the relationship to warming that is an issue.

PS I do understand that C14 does transmute to N14 via beta decay but I don't understand how it can gain weight in "decay".

Patrick
I think, after reading your repost, that you have misunderstood what I said.
My argument is