As we approach the Paris climate conference with BBC going full swoon on end of the world doomsayings and delegates priming up to feed their faces with the best of French cheffery, croissants and brandy for breakfast and lashings of garlic flavoured dumplings, it might be useful to look at what is on the bottom of the plate – when nobody is looking. One such myth is the idea that once co2 is generated by wicked humans and greedy industrialists it actually sticks around in the atmosphere for hundreds if not thousands of years so that every year more and more is added and the total co2 becomes a greater and greater nightmare, warming the planet until we are all burnt to a crisp. You won't have to fry your bacon – the climate will do it for you.
Well, it seems this idea is rather inflationary and co2 might be washed out of the atmosphere somewhat quicker than imagined – but that's rain for you. Fertilising the falling water seems like one of nature's artful tricks. In addition, long term co2 in the atmosphere has a half life of 40 years (if you are into half life's rather than the whole ones). In other words the hundreds and thousands of years spouted by fans of CAGW is a load of old flannel. Who is surprised by that?
I used to wear flannel trousers when I was a young lad – can't buy them now. They used to itch and you were always scratching your legs. Bit like scratching your heads at the CAGW doom laden message. At http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/11/24/co2-residence-time-said-to-be-40-y… … we have a guest blogger telling us his take on a recent study. He provides a link with the paper and includes the abstract which says co2 is removed from the atmosphere by natural sinks (presumably the oceans and the like) proportional to the surplus co2 concentration. In other words, it goes on, it undergoes exponential decay with a single decay constant. This conclusion is rigorously proven etc etc. I don't like the inclusion of the word 'decay constant' which may prove to be a weak spot in the argument. Is anything constant – forever and ever? Readers will have to make up their own minds by scanning the article in question, or studying it more closely.
More news of the German professor, Dr Ewert – go to http://notrickszone.com/2015/11/25/climategeology-professor-friedrich-ka… … the title sums it all up nicely. This kind of thing is widely accepted in the sceptic community who actively seek out the science behind the doomsayings rather than taking it at faith level. Of course it is not always possible to grasp the barely said undercurrents in climate papers but from a stance of common sense mixed with a critical eye one can isolate when the climate scientists are blathering rather than being constructive or rational. A lot of this is in the eye of the beholder – and people are encouraged to read further to get a better understanding of what they are being sold. Most people will not do that I suspect and will just switch off when CAGW is mentioned, but ignoring it doesn't make it go away. People need to get up to target on this as climate is a readily understandable subject – nothing too difficult (even for people with a non academic background). In other words you don't need to be a physicist. You just need to analyse the facts in the debate and then look at who brays a lot but shys away from outsiders looking at how they arrived at their numbers and projections. You will find that it is CAGW people that avoid discussing the science – are they are embarrassed? Those that take the position the science is out there will refer to the models and the peer reviewed papers as if they are fact and beyond debate or discussion. Some of them are fiction – stacked on the wrong shelf of the bookshop. They should be up there with Popeye and his 'spinach makes me stronger' as that is all they are worth. A tin of wet leaves with no goodness whatsoever.
Ewert's theme in the latest at Pierre's place are the climate models. He is scathing in his condemnation of them – pie in the sky. Like a raspberry ripple sunset. CAGW activists are fond of citing what they see as evidence – and these are the climate models. I just can't get my head around why the media would think a computer simulation is more real than the reality outside their windows – but even if there is a blizzard during the Paris Summit and it goes on to last for months the media will still spout global warming at every opportunity and the politicos will still fall into line like dummies in a shop window display awaiting the dresser.
PS … the recent warm autumn weather coincided with a huge coronal hole on the Sun that was going round and round and every time it came to an earth facing position it added to the energy reaching the top of the atmosphere, all readily explicable in a sun model that involves plasma injections but quite impossible in a comet model that excludes any effect from the sun apart from the constant of heat transfer. Eventually the science will override the models but for now co2 is the champion – as we shall learn next week when Paris kicks off.