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Old April 29th, 2009, 11:41 PM posted to soc.support.fat-acceptance,misc.consumers,alt.support.diet,alt.support.diet.low-carb,rec.autos.tech
ashsmh
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Default Thinner is better to curb global warming, study says

On Apr 23, 8:19 pm, (Don Klipstein) wrote:
In ,

Doug Freyburger wrote:
Hachiroku ハチロク wrote:
Don Klipstein wrote:
Hachiroku quoted:


http://www.rocketscientistsjournal.c...res/CO2-01.jpg


The time scale of that graph is very long. It does not show if
historical changes in climate happened before or after the CO2
levels changed. That detail is important when considering the
nature part of the cause and effect - If the historical CO2 levels
trailed the climate change then the CO2 level is the effect not
the cause. It weakens the human causation argument - Of
course anyone who thinks the percentage of human effect is
either 100% or 0% does not understand the issues.


They have determined roughly that atmospheric CO2 content, from a hew
hundred thousand years ago to the begining of the Industrial Revolution,
has on average lagged global temperature by 800 years. Warmer oceans hold
it less easily, so warming the oceans transfers CO2 from the oceans to the
atmosphere. During that time, atmospheric CO2 content was a major
positive feedback contributing to great global temperature change
resulting from the "eccentricity" one of the Milankovitch cycles (one less
restricted to a specific latitude zone).

Since the Undustrial Revolution, global temperature has largely lagged
atmospheric CO2 content by a few years. And warming is not transferring
CO2 from the oceans to the atmosphere - the oceans are actually removing
CO2 from the atmosphere. The atmosphere is gaining CO2 at a slower rate
than fossil fuel combustion is producing it.



You cited a chart showing how in the past few hundred thousand years CO2
has varied from about 185 to about 290 PPMV in response to the
Milankovitch Cycles, as one of the positive feedback mechanisms thereto.
Throughout that stretch, carbon content in the sum of the biosphere,
hydrosphere and atmosphere has been fairly constant.


Changes in solar output and in orbital/rotational inclination
may have been the cause of prior cycles, but what of
volcanic CO2 release? If CO2 is the cause not the effect
then tracking volcanic history is important.


Meanwhile, since the Industrial Revolution we have achieved 387 PPMV CO2
and going up by transferring carbon from the lithosphere to the biosphere,
hydrosphere and atmosphere.


And the volcanic input to atmospheric CO2 is also important.
In the case of human generated freon and volcanic released
chlorine even though the freon lasts far longer in the atmosphere
the volume of volcanic chlorine is so vast it still dominates by
orders of magnitude.


Volcanic chlorine is inorganic, largely chlorides, which end up
dissolved in cloud droplets and precipitation very quickly.

But how large is the volcanic release of
CO2 compared to humans burning fossil fuels and forrests?


On average, about 1/100 or 1/200 as much or so.

Given the CO2 effect of forrsts I tend to think burning the forrests
has a larger effect than either fossil fuels or volcanic release.


There are some figures in:

http://lgmacweb.env.uea.ac.uk/lequer...bon_budget.htm

Figures here are PgC, petagrams (metric gigatons) of carbon. 1 PgC in
the form of carbon dioxide is 3.667 petagrams of carbon dioxide.

SNIP from here

- Don Klipstein )


We should do our part to containing global warming by using Renewable
Energy Solutions. Checkout this website http://www.make-my-home-green.com
for some solutions