Sadly ,G.T.W. , I know of no 'extreme science' sites to allow us the chance of doing the same. We're stuck with science papers ,reviews and the IPCC........

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And so here is a 'key issue' of AGW , updated for last years numbers;

http://www.wmo.int/pages/mediacentre/press_releases/documents/GHG_bull_6_en.pdf

looks like Methane (from the permafrost/wetlands/tropical wetlands) is on the way up.

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A key issue?

The free market demonstrates its creativity in the face of a potential human disaster -

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn19878-carbon-trading-tempts-firms-to-make-greenhouse-gas.html

A handful of Chinese and Indian chemicals companies seemingly have the world over a barrel – or rather a large number of barrels of a super-greenhouse gas called HFC-23, which is 14,800 times more potent than carbon dioxide.

This week, apparently following Chinese threats to vent stockpiles of HFC-23 into the atmosphere, a UN panel issued two million valuable carbon credits to a company called Juhua. It has a factory in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province, where the gas can be destroyed.

Nobody needs HFC-23. It is a waste by-product of the manufacture of a refrigerant called HCFC-22, used mostly in developing nations. To curb the release of HFC-23 into the atmosphere, the signatories to the Kyoto protocol agreed to pay carbon credits to refrigerant manufacturers that agree to capture and destroy it. The manufacturers can then sell the credits to western companies that want to offset their obligations to cut emissions of other greenhouse gases, under a Kyoto scheme known as the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM).

The offer only applies to HCFC-22 plants that were built before 2000. Even so it has proved highly lucrative. By some estimates, the value of the carbon credits is up to 100 times the cost of incinerating HFC-23. The resulting income of Chinese companies alone is estimated to reach $1.6 billion by 2012.

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A key issue?

The free market demonstrates its creativity in the face of a potential human disaster

Whoops! Hopefully that loophole will be closed. Carbon credits are definitely a tricky business. I'm not sure how I feel about them.

Of course, you'd only consider the venting of HFC-23 a problem if you believe that the greenhouse effect exists. Sadly some people are still arguing it doesn't, which is another key issue!

A key issue?

The free market demonstrates its creativity in the face of a potential human disaster

By threatening to vent the stockpile?

What would be really impressive is if the free market invented a way not to produce the stuff in the first place.

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A key issue?

The free market demonstrates its creativity in the face of a potential human disaster

Whoops! Hopefully that loophole will be closed. Carbon credits are definitely a tricky business. I'm not sure how I feel about them.

Of course, you'd only consider the venting of HFC-23 a problem if you believe that the greenhouse effect exists. Sadly some people are still arguing it doesn't, which is another key issue!

Yes. Very sad that nations take a stance like that, but, that is the way that power politics works.

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Yes. Very sad that nations take a stance like that, but, that is the way that the Mafia works.

 

 

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Yes. Very sad that nations take a stance like that, but, that is the way that the Mafia works.

 

 

Indeed. Sometimes I wonder how one can tell the difference.

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Very nice article about comparing the various surface and satellite temperature series

http://tamino.wordpress.com/2010/12/16/comparing-temperature-data-sets/#more-3206

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Very nice article about comparing the various surface and satellite temperature series

http://tamino.wordpress.com/2010/12/16/comparing-temperature-data-sets/#more-3206

Thank you soooo much for that link Ulric!!!

It's been a tad frustrating relying on my 'understanding' and words to explain to folk why they are 'wrong' in their interpretations (Watts verbatum) of these 'discordent' data.

And a very Merry Christmas to you!

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There is a lot of very very good stuff on that blog. Always taken step by step and always thorough.

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Does anyone have a link to information about past CO2 levels in terms of how accurate the ice core data is and whether any adjustment has been made for any possible erosion of data as time goes back, in as much as possible loss of gases from these air bubbles in the ice over time possibly leading to a lower reading than was actually the case? Or does that not happen so no adjustment is necessary?

Also how is it measured now? I see the figures, incredibly high, deeply worrying, but this seems to be from one measuring station? Mauna Loa, is that right, which sounds as if it is in Hawaii somewhere.

Having just had my eyes opened as to the dizzying heights the CO2 levels are reaching, I wish to find out more about it, and it is surely the key issue, all we hear about is CO2, isn't it?

I just keep finding the same charts, though, and wondered if anyone had dug up some other info.

Many thanks

Actually I have found the mauna loa website, which seems a good place to start....forgive my total ignorance of, apparently, even how to do a web search!

 

So total atmospheric CO2, currently running at 389 ppm, works out as 0.0389 % of the atmosphere? Just feeling my way through here, but 4 tenths of a percent? Does it really have this massive impact?

 

Off to do more reading :)

The important thing about CO2 levels is that they have doubled due to industrial emissions. As a proportion of the whole atmosphere greenhouse gases may not constitute much but the way the physics works means that they are an important constituent of the atmosphere.

A useful explanation of the history of the science can be found here

http://www.aip.org/history/climate/co2.htm

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The important thing about CO2 levels is that they have doubled due to industrial emissions. As a proportion of the whole atmosphere greenhouse gases may not constitute much but the way the physics works means that they are an important constituent of the atmosphere.

A useful explanation of the history of the science can be found here

http://www.aip.org/history/climate/co2.htm

 

Thankyou very much for that link. It answers a lot of questions, and I was glad to see that the questions I have been asking have actually been asked by scientists, and answered. This stuff never gets as far as the papers, though, does it? I was quite the fence-sitter before, but now I see why people are so deeply worried by this.

I was looking at the Milankovitch cycles, too, to try and see where we are on them, but it is pretty difficult to figure out - not one page says "we are at x,y,z points on these cycles and therefore the globe should currently be cooling/warming. It looks as if we should broadly be at or approaching peak temperatures as a result of the Milankovitch cycles, and at some point in the next 10,000 ought to start to cool down again. That is quite a long time, though, and with the unknown effect of the high CO2 levels in terms of whether they might counter that cooling cycle, or whether we will still be around by then due to having boiled ourselves off the planet, it is rather difficult to say what will actually happen.

The problem is most people are pretty parochial at the end of the day, and simply can't worry about global effects, or effects in even 100 years, let alone 10,000, which is partly why it's so difficult to get this message across. There is also the question of whether we can actually make any difference now, or if it's too late. Quite a lot of people I know say things like, "this global warming business is highly debateable, and besides if those greenies are to be believed it's too late to change it now so what's the point?" So the one message that did reach the public consciousness is the one that leads to the most apathy, sadly.

Anyway, that's an extremely useful link you have there, very in depth, but really readable. Thankyou.

Thank you.

The best thing about reading the scientific history is that it is free of modern political agendas since the science was largely written before it became a 'hot' issue.

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The trouble with scientific history is that it is out of date. Science moves on.

Science is based on predicates just like Law. If you have not studied the case history, making pronouncements about the outcome is unwise.

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The important thing about CO2 levels is that they have doubled due to industrial emissions.

Minor quibble is that it's still some way short of doubling. Pre-industrial ~280ppm, to current ~390ppm. The big picture is most important of course but it's good to get the details right.

As a proportion of the whole atmosphere greenhouse gases may not constitute much but the way the physics works means that they are an important constituent of the atmosphere.

Yep the absolute concentrations may be low but essentially they make the atmosphere opaque to most wavelengths of infrared. That is, if you fired a beam of infrared radiation towards Earth from the moon, the vast majority of that beam would not reach the surface - it would be absorbed and then re-radiated by the GHGs in the atmosphere.

 

Minor quibble is that it's still some way short of doubling. Pre-industrial ~280ppm, to current ~390ppm. The big picture is most important of course but it's good to get the details right.

Yes, accepted. Just me being lazy.

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