Throg, not banned yet, lapogus

This came out of a lifetime's reading, without keeping a list of references.

Any references I put up would be from Internet sources. You can use the list as a starting point for Google or Google Scholar searches just as well as I, with the added confidence that you are dodging any spin I might apply.

I've no great desire to turn this into a game of reference tennis.

My take on this is that you/we are dealing with a closed mind which will not accept anything contrary to the current contents.

Sandy s

Harold W can tell you that he once showed me I was wrong on a specific point and I changed my mind. However, you need proper evidence.

You may need a bit of a run up to get over my confirmation bias, but my mind is, if not open, at least ajar. :-)

HAROLDW JACK COWPER

I went to KNMI Explorer and fetched the HadSST3 values for 0-70W, 0-30N. [I wasn't 100% sure what you meant by "1M to 30N" -- perhaps you can clarify?] M1 SHOULD READ N1 AS IN NORTH (DOH) Averaged the JASO months' values. The curve was fairly jagged, but showed a consistent rising pattern. TAKE ANY MONTH OR ALL TOGETHER OR THE MEAN 2000 TO 2010 VALUES THEN SUBTRACT PRE 1900 TO PROVIDE AN ANOMALY CHART FOR THE AREA AND YOU END WITH THE AFORESAID CHART. PLOT THE TEMP FOR ANY SITE WITHIN THE RESULTANT WARM ZONE AGAINST AGW DATA SUCH AS GISS AND THE 'CONSISTENT RISING PATTERN' WILL CONFORM TO THE GISS DATA????? THIS BECOMES ESPECIALLY RELEVANT WHEN IT IS NOTED THAT THE TEMP OF WATER FLOWING INTO THIS ZONE BEARS NO RESEMBLANCE TO THE AGW FIGURES - WHY, HOW????? WHAT MECHANISM PROVIDES THIS SST WARMING???
I'm not entirely sure what the point was which you are trying to make. It's gotten warmer, OHC has increased (in that area) -- OK. The rate of increase does not seem to be tracking the forcing, however. Again, perhaps you can clarify. HAVING ESTABLISHED THE WARMING IS CONSISTENT WITH AGW, EXAMINE WHAT FACTORS CAN PRODUCE SUCH A CONSISTENT COHESIVE WARMING ZONE THAT DOES NOT CONFORM TO KNOWN OCEAN CURRENTS!!!! THE ONLY MECHANISM THAT CAN PRODUCE THIS FEATURE WITH THESE SPECIFIC CHARACTERISTICS IS A RELATIVE INCREASE IN ISOLATION DUE TO REDUCED CLOUD COVER - EASTERLY WAVE STRATA-CUMULUS, 80% ALBEDO, DIMINISHING WESTWARD FROM THE AFRICAN CONTINENT WITHIN THE ITCZ. THIS CAN BE CHECKED BY PLOTTING THE SST VARIABILITY AGAINST PRECIPITATION UPWIND (RELATIVE TO THE TRADES) SINCE THE SAME CLOUD FORMATION THAT PROVIDES THE SUB SAHARAN RAIN IS THAT WHICH PROVIDES THE JASO CLOUD COVER OVER THE WARMING ZONE. AGAIN THIS VARIABILITY REMAINS CONSTANT BETWEEN THESE TWO APPARENTLY DIFFERING CLIMATE EVENTS!!!!!!

As to comparing the SST with that flowing into the region -- I don't see that KNMI Explorer provides that sort of information. Perhaps you'd give some information about how to obtain this data, or post a graph yourself. FOR SIMPLICITY I TOOK DATA READINGS FROM 22N AWAY FROM THAT OF 15N ON THE W AFRICAN COAST (hadisst1): READINGS FROM THE SAME SEA CURRENT BUT INSIDE AND OUTSIDE THE WARMING ZONE. SINCE THE ACTUAL PUBLISHED TEMP IN THE RAW DATA IS IN EFFECT A COMPOUNDED FIGURE, IT IS NECESSARY TO FIND THE ACTUAL WARMING IN ANY TIME FRAME, THUS THE REASON FOR MINCING ABOUT WITH THE DATA INSIDE/OUTSIDE THE ZONE. I HAVEN'T USED KNMI SO CANT HELP YOU THERE BUT ALL THE REFINED DATA AND AN EXPLANATION IS ON UTUBE: 'THE NILE CLIMATE ENGINE'. THE THING KNOWN AS AGW IS CAUSED BY THE ACCIDENTAL MAN MADE ALTERATION TO TWO OF THE PRECURSORS TO EASTERLY WAVE CLOUD FORMATION................... READ IT AD WEEP!

HaroldW
Mid last year Entropic Man also agreed that the rate of sealevel rise was not accelerating but not that it wasn't related to GW/CC. So in the face of data feet will be shuffled.

It's why I don't like the use of the word accelerated to describe what is in fact an increased rate of change but a constant rate with variations. To a casual reader it might imply that sealevel is rising faster every year. As far as I can see it isn't

As Lapogus found a lot of the references are in terms of climate research quite old and contentious. The age being the major issue, The much maligned Not Proven has to apply to those.

Harold W
O2 decrease is not necessarily complementary to CO2 increase.Feb 13, 2014 at 1:11 PM | Unregistered CommenterEntropic man

Absolutely, Entropic man, we agree on that point.
Atmospheric oxygen depletion, or increase, is also dependent on much larger environmental factors than combustion of fossil fuels, or even forests.

Bear in mind that CO2 increase is a small change measured against a fairly small [absolute] background level. Oxygen change is a small change measured against a background level much more than 100x greater in relative terms. Like CO2 it also has a thermal component and a geochemical component. Oxygen levels are used as part of a circular argument to shore up shaky models of the carbon cycle.

Gross oceanic photosynthesis [hence gross O2 production] is said to be much larger than land-based photosynthesis. I have heard it said that the daily (24 hourly!) photosynthetic turnover of the oceans is equivalent to 10% of the carbon in the biosphere. Yet major oceanic photosynthetic species have biochemical pathways that can shift from oxygen as an electron source/sink to Nitrogen, depending on light intensity (specifically UV), and nutrient levels. (Interesting point to consider: Cellulose the major land-based structural biochemical polymer contains only carbon hydrogen and oxygen. Chitin, the oceanic equivalent of cellulose, contains nitrogen. So do the peptidoglycans of bacteria at large.

The modelers have been active in this region as well. Their laborious, sorry I meant to say half-burnt, calculations of oxygen levels in the mixed upper layers of the oceans have recently been compared to reality
Results: Ouch!
Not only did reality fail to comply with the models, the two were anti-correlated!

Next up,

Think for example of anaerobic desperation.

OK, I think that is probably software playing tricks on you, unless you are referring to the mental state of the enviro-political movement against carbon dioxide.

Then,

However, since most of the anthropogenic increase in CO2 is by combustion of fossil fuels or oxidation of limestone for cement, so its a good approximation.

No, it's an approximation. It's not a good approximation. As mentioned above, it is neither an independent verification of, nor an internal-standard for, the carbon cycle. The oxygen trend may fit with the generalized conception of the stoichiometry of carbon oxidation, but in the face of all the other factors, a "going up" or "going down" assertion is not good enough for me.

Lastly, CO2 production of carbon dioxide from cement is not an oxidation reaction, and will not affect atmospheric oxygen levels. C'mon EM, this is basic 'O'-level Chemistry I learned before I was a teenager. As a retired high-school science teacher, you can do better.

That is, the thermal reaction of limestone to produce calcium oxide CaCO3=CaO +CO2.

Michaelhart

We'll agree to differ on the detectability of an O2 decrease of comparable scale to the CO2 increased. Follow on from here and you'll find more discussion and data.

http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/obop/mlo/programs/coop/scripps/o2/o2.html

" Anaerobic desperation "

Still wrestling with the spell checker on my tablet. It also insists on turning insolation into insulation, which reverses the meaning!

Cement is indeed produced by thermal decomposition , not oxidation. It increases CO2 directly, without absorbing O2.

However, there is a secondary absorption of oxygen by the fuel burned to generate the heat. Overall, the process generates considerably more CO2 than it absorbs oxygen, but the size of the industry produces considerable O2 depletion.

In Ulster there are still a number of traditional lime kilns, where limestone was burned with peat to produce quicklime. I once helped operate one. It took two tons of limestone and an unbelievable amount of turf. It also took two days.

I should have expanded a bit further on this.

As a man who tried to read his sandwiches and put his Kindle in the fridge yesterday I plead senility. :-)

Michaelhart

Stramma et al reported their first model, along with its poor performance. More power to them..

You may have been luckier, but much of my life has been spent achieving occasional success after trying all the possible ways of getting it wrong. How else does one improve?

Entropic Man

As a man who tried to read his sandwiches and put his Kindle in the fridge yesterday I plead senility. :-)

Something which affects both sides of this debate as I know to my cost as well. Who put my reading glasses in the fridge?

Breath Of Fresh Air

Sorry about the CAPS, I was just wanting to distinguish my responses from Harrys questions. Anyway all is good and and it seems that real progress will be made next week since Dr Alan Gadian has tied (as opposed to nailed) his olours to the same mast.
c

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Harold W

The decrease in O2 is what you would expect if the CO2 was from combustion or decay. If it was entirely from volcanoes or other abiotic sources there would be no consequent change in O2.

Just another piece of the pattern.

Entropic man
If the proportion of one constituent of the atmosphere increases by something other than conversion then ALL the others will naturally decrease. Not sure about the figures you've used, perhaps you could supply the link? That might give an indication, but there are so many variables* which have no accurate measure then there'd still be room for debate.

*My current conundrum is CO2 from sub sea volcanic vents dissolving then out-gassing some undetermined time later due to oceans warming. I'm not even sure how or if it would work.

Thanks
Sandy

Harold W, Sandy S

Living organisms consume six oxygen molecules for each glucose molecule respired and release six carbon dioxide molecules. This is the Respiratory Quotient. For carbohysrates this ratio of CO2 out to oxygen in is typically 1:1. For fats the ratio is less because they contain a smaller proportion of oxygen, 0.8:1 is typical.

Since coal is essentially a carbohydrate and oil is fat you would expect fossil fuel combustion to show an intermediate ratio to have an intermediate ratio.

If you assume 0.9, then every nine CO2 molecules released by burning fossil fuels would require the uptake of 10 O2 molecules.

Bear in mind that about half of the CO2 from fossil fuels ends up in carbon sinks. That means that for every nine molecules of CO2 accumulating in the atmosphere, we should expect to see twenty molecules of O2 removed

In terms of quantities, each ppm of CO2 increase should go with a reduction Of 2.2 ppm in oxygen content, a 1:2.2 ratio.

This is, of course, only my biologist's logic. :-) However, your atmosphere data gives a ratio of 30:67 ; which is also 1:2.2.

QED?

My figure is certainly an approximation.

Given complete information about fuel use you could probably get a lot closer. Unfortunately there are also natural sources and sinks to confuse the issue.

Interesting thesis. From Table 4-2 I was interested to note that the net decline from agriculture is twice the decline due to fossil fuels ; both are much smaller than primary production and some other natural processes.

Since most of the natural processes affecting O2 concentration are in equilibrium the changes we see are mostly anthropogenic.

Like many another issue around climate change, exactitude is going to be impossible. Hopefully we can be confident enough. :-)

"Since coal is essentially a carbohydrate..."
Mar 1, 2014 at 5:50 PM | Unregistered CommenterEntropic man

No, coal is not wood. And wet coal is not even like dry wood. Mass/weight of the fuel consumed is also not the important factor here.

If you are trying to make a point about the stoichiometries of oxidation of fossil fuels w.r.t. mols oxygen consumption per mol carbon oxidized to CO2, then I suggest you take the reasonably representative extreme cases of, say, anthracite coal (close to pure carbon) and natural gas (close to pure methane). Perhaps that's what you meant when likening coal to carbohydrate?

Pure carbon will consume 1 mol O2 per mol CO2 produced, while pure methane will consume 2 mol O2 per mol CO2 produced. Wood/coal will tend towards the pure carbon end of the spectrum, and oil(s) will be part way towards the methane end.

So there is a maximum potential error of a factor of two, depending on the type of fuel used (we'll ignore sulfur here). Then we can add the uncertainties in the total anthropogenic carbon-based fuel use (how much methane is, and was, vented from oil/gas fields? How much O2 consumed by forest burning, organic soil content changes etc?).

Then we have the much, much, larger natural sinks (and sources) of O2 due to photosynthesis and decay of organic matter in the biosphere. Again, many of these will have an indeterminate oxygen-demand due to the similar carbon chemistry.

In the oceans, these big numbers are also associated with chemical changes complicated by the nitrogen cycle. Cellulose may be the predominant land-based photosynthetic polymeric product, but in the oceans it is chitin, a polymer of N-acetylglucosamine. Which contains a non-trivial amount of nitrogen.

Big, big, error bars go with these big numbers.

As I mentioned before, there is then the thermal, non-chemical sources/sinks, and oxygen depleted waters up-welling from the cold depths.
As far as I can tell, the atmospheric O2 changes are calculated from the O2/N2 ratio. Not only are these figures susceptible to ignorance of the absolute nitrogen budget, but the Argon/Nitrogen ratio shows some pretty striking changes too. Look at figure 3 in this paper.

I'm still digesting what this may actually mean, but I hope the IPCC isn't going to go so far as suggesting humans are having a catastrophic effect on the Argon cycle?

The favoured IPCC carbon-cycle sucks. But they fudge it, and say all the excess CO2 must be going somewhere, dunno where exactly..., some in the oceans..., some in the trees..., trust us..., the numbers all add up in the credit-debit column. But they cannot measure the big numbers well enough to assign meaningful certainties to the small numbers. Having fudged those numbers, it appears they then use the same results to fudge the oxygen budget, using some more 'Hail Mary' assumptions.

Then we come to the kinetics.
The atmospheric O2 curve should be showing a sharp curvature in the last couple of decades if the IPCC carbon-use/oxygen-demand story is to be believed. Let's take a look. I think that may be from Canadell et al., 2007, but it looks similar to the usual graphs I see touted around the web.

Key question: where is the inflexion in the rate of O2 change? Like the one that "should" be seen in sea-level rise, I just cant spot it. If I am seriously missing something, please help me.

To summarise, regarding the oxygen budget and the plausible, but very incomplete, explanations based on the chemical stoichiometry of high school Organic Chemistry:-
For me, it doesn't yet pass the 'smell-test'. As with the deep ocean temperature measurements, and the earth's radiative balance, these hopeful explanations are not borne out by the evidence but it doesn't seem to trouble the proponents. Possibly this is because they can, for the present, hide amongst the uncertainties and the experimental-error bars. We're heading up into Trenberth-country

Michael hart

At what date did you expect inflections to occur. I see none in the CO2 graph, let alone in the oxygen. Are you sure that you have not just knotted together another straw man?

You talk at considerable length about error bars. Could you be more specific about their size and how you calculated them.