New paper finds another non-hockey-stick in the Mediterranean Sea

A paper published today in The Holocene reconstructs temperatures in the central Mediterranean Sea over the past 2,500 years and finds another non-hockey-stick demonstrating warmer temperatures during the Medieval Warming Period and Roman Warming Period than at the end of the record in the year 2000.

d18O is a proxy for temperature and precipitation and shows warmer temperatures during the Medieval Warming Period and Roman Warming Period than at the end of the record in 2000. Graph source is a pre-print of the paper below.

Climate of the past 2500 years in the Gulf of Taranto, central Mediterranean Sea: A high-resolution climate reconstruction based on δ¹⁸O and δ¹³C of Globigerinoides ruber (white)

1. Anna-Lena Grauel1


2. Marie-Louise S Goudeau2


3. Gert J de Lange2


4. Stefano M Bernasconi1

1. 
   ¹Geological Institute, ETH Zurich, Switzerland
   
   


2. 
   ²Institute of Earth Sciences - Geochemistry, Geosciences, Utrecht University, The Netherlands
   
   

1. Anna-Lena Grauel, Department of Earth Sciences, University of Cambridge, Downing Street, Cambridge CB2 3EQ, UK. 

Abstract

We present a high-resolution isotope stratigraphy based on Globigerinoides ruber (white) over the past 2500 years in the Gulf of Taranto, central Mediterranean. G. ruber (white) reflects summer conditions in the Gulf of Taranto but is influenced by two major surface water masses: the Western Adriatic Current (WAC) and the Ionian Surface Water (ISW) and their variations on a decadal to multicentennial scale. Our analysis of the δ¹³C and δ¹⁸O of G. ruber (white) allows the distinction of several climatic periods: the ‘Roman Warm Period’ (RWP) (450–0 BC), with relatively wet and warm conditions and a higher influence of the WAC; the ‘Roman Classical Period’ (RCP) (AD 1–200) characterized by salinity increase resulting from circulation changes; the ‘Dark Ages Cold Period’ (DCP) (AD 500–750), where wetter conditions in the Gulf of Taranto region are coherent with an increase dominance of the WAC; the ‘Medieval Warm Period’ (MWP), with wet and warm conditions in the first, and a gradual drying in the second half; and finally, the transition from the MWP to the ‘Little Ice Age’ (LIA), which is characterized by continuing dry conditions.

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New paper claims reduced personal income from climate policies will only make you unhappy for 1 year

A paper published today in Global Environmental Change finds that a reduction in income, such as due to climate change policies, causes unhappiness for one year, but don't worry, after a year you'll adapt to it and the unhappiness will subside. According to the authors, "effects are however temporary and do not hold for a period longer than a year, probably for reasons of adaptation and a downward adjustment of reference consumption and income levels... Our results suggest that climate policy need not reduce happiness in the long run, even when it reduces income and carbon-intensive consumption." However, the paper does not mention the effect of climate policies which call for increasing reductions of income and consumption over time. 

 

Climate change, income and happiness: An empirical study for Barcelona

• Filka Sekulova^a, , , , 


• Jeroen C.J.M. van den Bergh^a, b, c, 

• ^a Institute for Environmental Science and Technology, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Spain


• ^b ICREA, Barcelona, Spain


• ^c Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, Institute for Environmental Studies, VU University Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Highlights

•

Experiencing forest fires, has a permanent negative effect on life-satisfaction.

•

Climate policy which affects income and consumption may not reduce overall happiness.

•

Happiness adapts to income decreases after one year.

---

Abstract

The present article builds upon the results of an empirical study exploring key factors which determine life satisfaction in Barcelona. Based on a sample of 840 individuals we first look at the way changes in income, notably income reductions, associated with the current economic situation in Spain, affect subjective well-being. Income decreases which occur with respect to one year ago have a negative effect on happiness when specified in logarithmic terms, and a positive one when specified as a dummy variable (and percentage change). The divergence in results is discussed and various explanations are put forward. Both effects are however temporary and do not hold for a period longer than a year, probably for reasons of adaptation and a downward adjustment of reference consumption and income levels. Next, we examine the implications of experiencing forest fires and find a lasting negative effect on life satisfaction. Our results suggest that climate policy need not reduce happiness in the long run, even when it reduces income and carbon-intensive consumption. Climate policy may even raise life well-being, if accompanied by compensatory measures that decrease formal working hours and reference consumption standards, while maintaining employment security.

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Obama's increased 'social cost of carbon' raises ire of critics

Greenhouse-Gas Fight Escalates

Administration's Higher Estimate for Cost of Carbon Raises Ire of Critics

By 

• KEITH JOHNSON

WASHINGTON—WSJ.COM 9/2/13:  A quiet move by the Obama administration to put a higher price tag on greenhouse-gas emissions has sparked a big fight, prompting new legislation in Congress and sniping in academic circles.

Buried in new energy-efficiency standards the Department of Energy released in May for microwave ovens was an administration estimate that the cost to the country for each ton of carbon dioxide emitted was $36 in 2007 dollars—up from its 2010 estimate of $21 a ton.

The number is important because the more costly carbon pollution is deemed to be, the greater the apparent economic benefits of new environmental regulations. The climate plan hinges on such regulations, including restrictions on new power plants that the Environmental Protection Agency is set to release in late September.

House Republicans passed a bill in August that would bar the administration from using the new estimates.

Critics said administration officials calculated the numbers behind closed doors without transparency. "You can't just step in and change the number, especially to that level, without some kind of input," said Rep. James Lankford (R., Okla.), chairman of the House Oversight Subcommittee on Energy Policy. He said he would prefer that Congress determine the price of carbon emissions. U.S. officials and advocates of carbon pricing dismissed the criticism.

Howard Shelanski, who heads the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, told the House the revised estimate reflects new research on the impact of climate change.

Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz said the $36 figure is in line with or lower than estimates used by many corporations and national governments. Exxon Mobil Corp. assumes a carbon price of $80 per ton by 2040 for investment decisions, while BP PLC, another oil giant, assumes a $40 price today, according to the companies. The British government pegs the 2020 price at the equivalent of about $47 a ton.

The administration has used "the most mainstream, the most well-validated, the most broadly accepted methodology for assigning benefits," said Michael Livermore, a cost-benefit expert at the University of Virginia law school. He said "the entire process has been on the record."

Putting a price on carbon emissions assumes that increased levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere will lead to greater climate change, which in turn is assumed to cause more hurricanes and rising sea levels. Not everyone agrees with those assumptions, which are shared by nearly all climate scientists. Even those who agree that climate change is bad disagree about how much it is worth today to prevent an additional hurricane in, say, 2050.

The effort to put a price tag on carbon emissions has been years in the making. Under the George W. Bush administration, a federal appeals court rejected new fuel-economy rules because they didn't put a price on greenhouse-gas emissions and, according to the ruling, understated the potential benefits of regulation. "We recognized the link between greenhouse gases and climate change, but the process of putting a dollar value on the impacts of climate change was extremely uncertain," said John Graham, who headed the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs in the Bush administration.

Early in the Obama administration, officials from nearly a dozen agencies, including the Department of Energy and the EPA, took a first stab, using several computer economic models. The administration said the figure would be continually revised.

Critics maintain the whole question is too uncertain to be entrusted to computer models. They fear the higher $36-a-ton figure will be used to justify tighter regulation on coal-fired power plants, which could raise consumers' electricity costs.

Robert Pindyck, an economics professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, slams the models in a coming paper to be published by the National Bureau of Economic Research, saying they use essentially arbitrary inputs and give a misplaced illusion of scientific certainty.

Though his work has given ammunition to skeptics of global-warming science, Mr. Pindyck said his point is really about the difficulty of modeling possible catastrophic impacts of climate change. "We know there's a social cost of carbon, and we know it's above $0," he said. "If anything, the cost of carbon could be higher" than the administration's models suggest.

Creators of the models concede they aren't perfect. But Yale economics professor William Nordhaus, the creator of the best-known model, said they have improved and can provide a starting point for policy makers. Damage estimates from warming "are based on literally hundreds of studies of the impact of climate change on different sectors of the economy," he said.

Related: Why Obama's social cost of carbon models are bogus

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New paper finds another problem with global carbon-cycle models: plant respiration is 'as different as night and day'

Just a few days following publication of a paper finding global carbon cycle datasets may be significantly biased, a paper published today in Nature finds carbon-cycle models do not take into account that the effects on plant growth of rising night-time temperatures are opposite to those of increasing daytime temperatures.

Biogeochemistry: As different as night and day

• Christopher Still

Nature

 

501,

 

39–40

 

(05 September 2013)

 

doi:10.1038/501039a

Published online

 

04 September 2013

An analysis of northern ecosystems shows that the effects on plant growth of rising night-time temperatures are opposite to those of increasing daytime temperatures — a finding that has implications for carbon-cycle models. See Letter p.88

An under-appreciated aspect of climate  change is the fact that Earth is warming at a higher rate at night than  during the day: over the past 50 years, daily  minimum temperatures have increased about  40% faster than daily maximum temperatures1.  This asymmetric warming may have impor- tant biological consequences, particularly for  fundamental ecosystem metabolic processes  that are strongly sensitive to temperature vari- ations, such as photosynthesis and respiration.  On page 88 of this issue, Peng et al.2 document  regionally significant, and in many cases  opposing, effects of year-to-year (interannual)  variations in daytime and night-time temperatures on plant growth and carbon cycling in  land regions of the Northern Hemisphere. Photosynthesis is driven by light and thus  happens only during the day, whereas plant  and microbial respiration occurs continu-

 ously. Therefore, faster night-time warming  presumably affects respiration more than it  affects photo  synthesis, and this could have far- reaching implications for how ecosystems react  to expected increases in warming in coming  decades. But remarkably little research has been done on how asymmetric warming influences  ecological function, especially at large scales.  To address this issue, Peng and colleagues have  analysed satellite-derived data sets of plant  greenness, which is a proxy for plant growth. The authors found that ecosystems in cool,  wet temperate and boreal regions such as  northwestern North America and Japan, and  those in cold regions such as Siberia and the  Tibetan plateau, seem to have benefited most  from daytime temperature increases over the  period considered (1982–2009). By contrast,  ecosystems in dry temperate regions, such as  central Eurasia and western China, showed the  opposite effect: increasing daytime tempera- tures correlated with decreasing plant green- ness. These contrasting responses broadly  agree with expectations for ecosystems in  which plant growth is limited primarily by  temperature (cool, wet climates) or moisture  (warm, dry climates).  More intriguingly, Peng and colleagues  found that ecosystems in many of the boreal  and wet temperate regions grew less well in  response to increases in night-time minimum  temperatures — the opposite effect to their  response to increasing daytime maximum 

 temperatures (Fig. 1). Conversely, in many  arid and semi-arid regions, such as the grass- lands of China and North America, increasing  night-time minimum temperatures correlated  positively with plant greenness. Peng et al. used a statistical approach to control for other contributing environmental vari- ables, such as solar radiation and precipitation.  This allowed them to isolate the interannual  greenness responses to daytime maximum and  night-time minimum temperature variations.  The authors confirmed the statistical validity  of their findings using other techniques, and  also analysed the sensitivity of the greenness  response to alternative interpolated climate 

 data sets and at individual weather-station  locations. Importantly, the different analyses  all confirmed the same broad conclusions. 

 A strength of this study is that the research- ers explored ecosystem responses to asymmet- ric warming using a variety of other large-scale  data sets, and found similar patterns. One data  set was for the net exchange of carbon between  land and the atmosphere — a quantity that  integrates photosynthesis and respiration, and  which was inferred from a multi-year analysis3.  Peng and co-workers found that this quantity  correlated positively with daytime temperature  variations for cool and wet boreal ecosystems,  but negatively with night-time temperatures  for these ecosystems. They also observed that  the amplitudes of the seasonal cycles of car- bon dioxide levels measured at Point Barrow,  Alaska, and Mauna Loa, Hawaii, vary in the  same way with daytime and night-time tem- perature variations in boreal regions, but not  in temperate areas. Peng et al. focused only on boreal and  temperate  ecosystems.  The response to  asymmetric warming of tropical and subtropi- cal ecosystems, which account for most CO2  exchange between the land and the atmos- phere, is not clear and merits further investiga- tion. Previous work4 at a well-studied tropical 

 forest revealed a negative correlation between  tree growth and annual mean daily minimum  temperatures, a response broadly similar to  Peng and colleagues’ findings for boreal forests. 

 Tropical forests are thought to be vulnerable to  warming5, with some evidence6 suggesting that  they are already near high-temperature thresh- olds above which growth could be restricted.  Future research could help to fill major gaps in  our understanding of thermal tolerance and  acclimation in tropical and subtropical plant  species, and thus their response to warming5,7. So what are the physiological mechanisms  that drive large-scale correlations between  temperature variations and ecosystem metabo- lism? The commonly discussed mechanisms  involve biochemical responses to temperature,  but with some interesting twists. For example,  the positive correlation found between night- time minimum temperatures and greenness in  semi-arid grasslands is puzzling, but might be  related to greater night-time plant respiration  that stimulates increased daytime photosyn- thesis8. Increases in night-time respiration  have also been invoked in a pioneering study9  of nocturnal warming that documented differ- ent plant responses in grassland: the dominant  grass species declined in response to increases  in night-time temperature during spring,  whereas other plant species that use a different  photosynthetic pathway increased in number. A research agenda to investigate these  mechanisms further should include manipu- lative field and mesocosm experiments (in  which small parts of a natural ecosystem are  enclosed and warmed). Experimental warm- ing studies are lacking for many ecosystems.  Even fewer night-time warming experiments  have been conducted so far, with most being  in shrublands10 or grasslands and croplands8;  warming experiments that truly impose asym- metry between day and night warming are  rare11. There is a particularly urgent need for  warming studies in forests, which dominate  the global carbon cycle and climate feedbacks.  However, there are substantial technological  challenges to conducting such experiments in  large-statured ecosystems. Forest mesocosm  experiments would require exceedingly com- plex and expensive facilities. Despite these  limitations, Peng and colleagues’ results argue  strongly for an increased focus on the dif- fering ecological impacts of night-time and  daytime temperatures, to improve our ability  to understand and predict how warming will  affect Earth’s ecosystems. ■

Asymmetric effects of daytime and night-time warming on Northern Hemisphere vegetation

• Shushi Peng,


• Shilong Piao,


• Philippe Ciais,


• Ranga B. Myneni,


• Anping Chen,


• Frédéric Chevallier,


• Albertus J. Dolman,


• Ivan A. Janssens,


• Josep Peñuelas,


• Gengxin Zhang,


• Sara Vicca,


• Shiqiang Wan,


• Shiping Wang


• & Hui Zeng

• Affiliations


• Contributions


• Corresponding authors

Nature

 

501,

 

88–92

 

(05 September 2013)

 

doi:10.1038/nature12434

Received

 

15 October 2012 

Accepted

 

04 July 2013 

Published online

 

04 September 2013

Article tools

Temperature data over the past five decades show faster warming of the global land surface during the night than during the day¹. This asymmetric warming is expected to affect carbon assimilation and consumption in plants, because photosynthesis in most plants occurs during daytime and is more sensitive to the maximum daily temperature, Tmax, whereas plant respiration occurs throughout the day² and is therefore influenced by both Tmax and the minimum daily temperature,Tmin. Most studies of the response of terrestrial ecosystems to climate warming, however, ignore this asymmetric forcing effect on vegetation growth and carbon dioxide (CO2) fluxes^{3, 4, 5, 6}. Here we analyse the interannual covariations of the satellite-derived normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI, an indicator of vegetation greenness) with Tmax and Tmin over the Northern Hemisphere. After removing the correlation between Tmax and Tmin, we find that the partial correlation between Tmax and NDVI is positive in most wet and cool ecosystems over boreal regions, but negative in dry temperate regions. In contrast, the partial correlation between Tmin and NDVI is negative in boreal regions, and exhibits a more complex behaviour in dry temperate regions. We detect similar patterns in terrestrial net CO2 exchange maps obtained from a global atmospheric inversion model. Additional analysis of the long-term atmospheric CO2 concentration record of the station Point Barrow in Alaska suggests that the peak-to-peak amplitude of CO2 increased by 23 ± 11% for a +1 °C anomaly in Tmax from May to September over lands north of 51° N, but decreased by 28 ± 14% for a +1 °C anomaly in Tmin. These lines of evidence suggest that asymmetric diurnal warming, a process that is currently not taken into account in many global carbon cycle models, leads to a divergent response of Northern Hemisphere vegetation growth and carbon sequestration to rising temperatures.

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Biochemistry professor explains why the lifetime of CO2 in the atmosphere is only 14 years

Dr. Gösta Pettersson, Professor Emeritus of biochemistry and specialist in reaction kinetics, further explains why the computer model ["The Bern Model'] used by the IPCC to predict CO2 lifetimes of over 100 years is highly flawed and is strongly contradicted by observations from both atomic bomb testing and atmospheric levels of CO2 [the Keeling Curve]. 



Dr. Pettersson finds "the IPCC extremely (about tenfold) underestimated both the speed of the final location for the natural disposal of atmospheric carbon dioxide" by natural sinks. The assumption of the "IPCC Bern model that 22% of atmospheric carbon dioxide surplus can never be removed from the air seems quite amateurish considering that the present empirical observations (Fig. 1) confirms that at least 95% of the bomb test excess of 14C-carbon dioxide has been removed "already" after 50 years." 



"Paper 2 shows the bomb curve estimated value of the CO2 relaxation time (14 years) and concludes that the IPCC-backed climate models overestimate future anthropogenic contribution to atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration by a factor of 3-15 depending on the emissions scenario and the considered time period. This means that emissions of fossil carbon dioxide can not be expected to lead to a politically unacceptable global warming (two degree target), even according to the IPCC's worst case discharge scenarios, the longest present experimentally determined estimate of the relaxation time, and the alarmist climate models' own estimates of the greenhouse effect strength."

"The IPCC has been scientifically untenable reasons turned a blind eye to the present very extensive and entirely consistent experimental results concerning CO2 relaxation and preferred to base their assessments on a mathematical model that lacks empirical support, and even contrary to the observations made."


Bomb Test curve - nature's simple answers to complex relationships

31/08/2013  156 Comments  Guest Post by Gösta Pettersson  [Google translation from Swedish + light editing]

Figure 1.   Time course (black data points) for the relaxation of the excess of 14C-carbon dioxide as the above-ground nuclear tests showed, indicating a much shorter atmospheric lifetime of CO2 than assumed by the IPCC [blue line of the Bern Model].

Peter Stilbs and Pehr Björnbom have in TCS messages noticed my book False alarm and my conclusion that bomb test curve (figure above) falsifies the underpinning for climate models projections of future carbon dioxide levels and global temperatures. The inserts gave rise to a rather intense debate. Many commentators stressed the complexity of the carbon cycle, and hinted that I underestimated this by basing my conclusion solely on bomb test curve. "There's more to it" was one comment. "Gösta makes it too easy for themselves," was another.

I can understand the doubt. Kolcykelproblematiken a whole is very complex. Hydrosphere uptake of carbon dioxide is dependent on wind, temperature, rainfall, etc. according to little-understood relationship (eg. Revelle effect). The spread of the absorbed carbon dioxide from the surface waters to deeper water layers can be made according to several different mechanisms and span time scales from the second level to centuries. The yield of carbon dioxide between the air and the biosphere is likewise by a variety of processes of widely different time scales. Are you interested in what happens to the carbon value after it has been transferred from the air to the outdoors in general, then you can be served by kolcykelmodeller who, like Bern model looking observe and describe the effects of the present heterogeneities and other mechanistic complications in the total carbon dioxide exchange .

The situation is completely different if you have the limited objective of ascertaining the extent to which anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions contribute to increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration (and hence an increase in the greenhouse effect). Then you only need to know the kinetics of an atmospheric CO2 relaxation (equilibration), ie. knowing how quickly and to what extent an excess of carbon dioxide removed from the air. Bomb Test curve provides just such information to more than 95% of the relaxation of the excess pulse of 14C-labeled carbon dioxide as the above-ground nuclear tests resulted. The graph shows the net result of the disparate events that helped to remove the anthropogenic input excess C14 emissions by transferring it from the air to the outdoors in general. The curve represents the empirically determined response that nature has given us the carbon cycle all complex relationships.

C14 carbon is carbon dioxide. The relaxation processes which reduced the excess air of C14 emissions are identical to those that continuously reduces such excess carbon dioxide as the atmosphere is supplied by human activities such as the use of fossil fuels, land use change and cement production. Because of the kinetic kolisotopeffekternas small size can be also as a good approximation to assume that C14 carbon disposed with the same speed and in the same degree as carbon dioxide with different isotope composition.

These simple facts provide bomb test curve an outstanding informative weight. It tells us that the air at the end of X should contain about 91% of the anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions in the year X-1, approximately 85% of emissions in the year X-2, and so on back in time. Based on available historical data for the amount of emissions since the industrial revolution, one can on the basis of the appearance of the bomb curve calculate how much human activities contributed to increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration up to an arbitrary subsequent years. Likewise, the curve us exactly the information we need to analogously calculate the likely future emissions of fossil carbon dioxide will contribute to increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide future.

So what these climatological fundamental calculations is concerned, it is not me who makes it too easy for me, but others that make it too difficult for them. One does not know why the bomb test curve looks the way it does. Suffice it to say how it looks and to base their calculations on this look. One need not resort to models that consider what happens to the carbon dioxide after it entered into the biosphere and hydrosphere. It is a mathematical model that provides an acceptable description of the bomb test curve, nature's answer to the critical question of how quickly and to what extent the excess carbon dioxide removed from the atmosphere.

And in that respect, it is clear from Figure 1 that the [IPCC] Bern model triphasic description of curve (blue graph) is substandard and unfit for the calculation. Statistical regression analysis shows that bomb test curve is best described as enfasiskt exponential (red graph), with a relaxation time in many consistent experimental studies found to be in the order of ten years rather than the hundred years that the IPCC states on the basis of the Bern model. The bomb curve appearance gives us ample information to enable us to conclude that the IPCC extremely severely (about tenfold) underestimated both the speed of the final location for the natural disposal of atmospheric carbon dioxide excess.

Why bomb test curve looks like it does is another question of mechanistic nature.The answer may, however, also a fair indication of the kinetic analysis of the curve. The IPCC states that the relaxation of atmospheric carbon dioxide excess is highly controlled by carbon dioxide slow transport from the ocean surface to the deep sea. I have commented on this by saying that I only need to glance at the bomb test curve to realize that the IPCC's claim is incorrect.

It is needed is not more than a glance to see that bomb test curve goes towards a final value which is close to zero and certainly less than 0:05. The information is all I need to be able to classify the kinetics disposal of excess air of carbon dioxide as a virtually irreversible process. Thus, the process must essentially have the same kinetic behavior as a completely irreversible process, ie. be more than 95% controlled by the air concentration of carbon dioxide according to law of mass action. There is not even a theoretical possibility that the slow processes in the ocean can influence more than, at most, 5% of the relaxation process.

This insight is likely only to specialists with good knowledge of the relaxation kinetics theory and practice. But for non-specialists, there is an easy alternative way to arrive at the same conclusion, since bomb test curve is found to follow an exponential progression.

Exponential decay of an excess concentration may be namely for purely mathematical reasons, then, and only then, the corresponding reaction rate is proportional to the concentration variable in question. The observation that bomb test excess of 14C-carbon dioxide removal in an exponential progression tells us, then, that the removal occurred at a speed which was proportional to the air concentration of the C14-labeled carbon dioxide. The observed part (95%) of the relaxation process has therefore been guided by the air content of C14-carbon dioxide, in accordance with the law of mass action applied to a completely irreversible process. Slow processes in the ocean can at most affect the removal of the remaining 5% of the excess carbon dioxide, ie. the final stage of the relaxation process that we have not yet had the opportunity to observe.

The conclusion that airborne carbon surplus raised virtually irreversible by natural sinks, one might also benefit from the IPCC, the data presented for the equilibrium distribution of carbon between the atmosphere (1.5%), and nature in general (98.5%). Bomb Sample curve only confirms that nature behaves as it theoretically might expect in such a case. In addition to consolidating the Uppsjön of published experimental measurements of atmospheric carbon dioxide retention (which invariably fall within the range 2-14 years) in principle is fully acceptable as estimates of carbon dioxide relaxation. IPCC lacks any any theoretical justification for its idiot explanation of climatic pioneers Bolin, Revelle, Suess et al. the ground that they measured the wrong kind of retention, one that is not relevant to the relaxation of excess carbon dioxide.

A scientific presentation of my kinetic analysis of the bomb test curve can be found in Paper 1 on the English-language website False alarm . There is also the scientific arguments showing that Bern model is in conflict with the present empirical data. From a theoretical aspect, Bern model grossest error prescribing the equilibrium distribution of carbon between air and nature in general is 22%: 78% ie. that the model makes natural uptake of carbon dioxide around 15 times reversiblare than what we know it is under the IPCC kolcykeldata.

Bern model's designers actually suggest that preindustrial atmospheric equilibrium concentration of carbon dioxide was about 5000 ppm, but apparently lack sufficient kinetic skills to realize that their model has this absurd consequence. Neither have the skills enough to realize that the reaction system equilibrium constants are fixed by the thermodynamic relations and not with a custom size in the construction of a kinetic model. Bern model of the IPCC accepted and utilized instruction to 22% of atmospheric carbon dioxide surplus can never be removed from the air seems quite amateurish considering that the present empirical observations (Fig. 1) confirms that at least 95% of the bomb test excess of 14C-carbon dioxide has been removed "already" after 50 years.

Paper 2 on the above website shows that in order it from the bomb cvurve estimated value of the relaxation time (14 years) concludes that the IPCC-backed climate models overestimate future anthropogenic contribution to atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration by a factor of 3-15 depending on the emissions scenario and the considered time period. This means that emissions of fossil carbon dioxide can not be expected to lead to a politically unacceptable global warming (two degree target), even according to the IPCC's worst case discharge scenarios, the longest present experimentally determined estimate of the relaxation time, and the alarmist climate models' own estimates of the greenhouse effect strength.

The IPCC has been scientifically untenable reasons turned a blind eye to the present very extensive and entirely consistent experimental results concerning CO2 relaxation and preferred to base their assessments on a mathematical model that lacks empirical support, and even contrary to the observations made. How can that be? My own answer to this question, I came to when I found that the corresponding section in the IPCC reports had Bern model two constructors as head writer (Siegenthaler in the first report and Joos in the subsequent three reports). The probability should be zero to those IPCC experts would realize his model shortcomings and persuade annul it. Something I with different slant cover in Chapter 15:5 - 6) of my book False alarm.

Other related posts

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Settled science update: New reaction described that is 'important' to production of climate-affecting aerosols

New Low-Temperature Chemical Reaction Explained

enlarge

Diagram illustrates the newly-discovered reaction that transforms molecules of ketohydroperoxide into acids and carbonyl molecules, after going through intermediate stages. (Credit: Illustration courtesy of Jalan et al)

Sep. 4, 2013 — In all the centuries that humans have studied chemical reactions, just 36 basic types of reactions have been found. Now, thanks to the work of researchers at MIT and the University of Minnesota, a 37th type of reaction can be added to the list.

The newly explained reaction -- whose basic outlines had been known for three decades, but whose workings had never been understood in detail -- is an important part of atmospheric reactions that lead to the formation of climate-affecting aerosols; biochemical reactions that may be important for human physiology; and combustion reactions in engines.



The new analysis is explained in a paper by MIT graduate student Amrit Jalan, chemical engineering professor William Green, and six other researchers, published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society.



Stephen Klippenstein, a senior scientist at the Argonne National Laboratory in Illinois who was not involved in this research, says, "I think this may be the best paper I have read this year. It uses a multitude of theoretical methods … to explore multiple aspects of a novel discovery that has important ramifications in atmospheric chemistry, combustion kinetics and biology."



The reaction's details sound esoteric: a low-temperature oxidation that results in the decomposition of complex organic molecules known as gamma-ketohydroperoxides. When he first described the reaction in the scientific literature 30 years ago, Stefan Korcek of the Ford Motor Company proposed a hypothesis for how the reaction might take place. The new work shows that Korcek had the right concept, although some details differ from his predictions.



The original discovery was the result of analyzing how engine oils break down through oxidation -- part of an attempt to produce oils that would last longer. That's important, Green points out, since waste oil is among the largest hazardous waste streams in the United States.



In analyzing the problem, Korcek realized that "there were fundamental things about the way even simple hydrocarbons react with oxygen that we didn't understand," Green says. By examining the products of the reaction, which included carboxylic acids and ketones, Korcek outlined an unusually complex multipart reaction. But for the next three decades, nobody found a way to verify whether the reaction or the steps he outlined could work.



Jalan says that the MIT researchers' analysis came about almost by accident. "I was looking at that paper for a different study," he says, "and I came across [Korcek's] work, which hadn't been verified either theoretically or experimentally. … [We] decided to see if we could explain his observations by throwing quantum mechanical tools at the problem."



In collaboration with the Minnesota researchers -- including Donald Truhlar, a co-author of the new paper and a leading expert in such calculations -- Jalan and Green were able to demonstrate exactly why the reaction works as it does. But they also found that part of the process must differ slightly from Korcek's original hypothesis.



Green says that understanding how this "very important reaction" works could be significant in several fields. 



The researchers' initial impetus was, in part, a colleague's exploration of biofuel combustion. The new understanding of the degradation that can take place as different fuels oxidize -- sometimes producing toxic or corrosive byproducts -- could help narrow the choice of fuel types to pursue, he says.



The process is also related to oxidations that take place in the body, contributing to the tissue damage and aging that antioxidant vitamins seek to combat, Green says.



Green points out that because this is an entirely new type of reaction, it opens the door to research on other variations. "Once you discover a new type of reaction, there must be many similar ones," he says.



"It's very odd to have so many reactions at once in such a small molecule," Green adds. "Now that we know that can happen, we're searching for other cases."



Anthony Dean, dean of the College of Applied Science and Engineering at the Colorado School of Mines, who was not involved in this work, says, "A particularly nice aspect of this work is to then consider how this finding might be applicable to other systems. In a broader context, this combined effort by two very prominent research groups illustrates the power and potential for electronic structure calculations [in] quantitatively important problems in chemical kinetics."



Klippenstein adds, "As a result of this clear exposition and the high level of theory that was applied, I believe this work will be widely accepted immediately. I certainly am already convinced by their conclusions."



The research was supported in part by the U.S. Department of Energy, and used computing facilities at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and the Minnesota Supercomputing Institute.

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