Reply to: Global Warming

[Addanc]

Milankovitch cycles, it the Sun what done it sir. Oh look, we are at the peek of warm period.

[TimberWolf]

Are you referring to the carbon cycle, or the answer to

"Oh, woe, woe, woe, we are making CO2 and where does it go?"

The latter reaction from politicians (nobody who calls themself a 'scientist' should be saying it) is a bit reactionary.

The molluscs that produce shells (and much smaller critters that use it to make smaller structures) are predominantly in the oceans. They get their CO2 from dissolved CO2 in the oceans. Increase the CO2 and the plankton have a field day. (The whales will fix that provided we haven't hunted them to near-extinction.)

But green plants will also suck up what is there in the atmosphere.

You would have to work damn hard to overtake both those sets life forms and the ability to soak up carbon. The earliest green plants reduced the CO2 in the atmosphere from somewhere in the range 20%-40% (probably about 25%) down to near 0% and did so in incredibly quick time.

We'd have to clear entire rainforests to have an impact on what green plants can do. And we'd have to do something serious to find extra CO2, like open up all the gas fields and oil fields and burn their contents as fast as possible. Ideally, we'd want to be burning fossil fuels at a rate of at least 1 million years of deposition every year. (Carbon deposition was a very inefficient process.)

I wonder at what rate we are burning them?


This is a big part of the problem. We have cocked up so many constants and slow moving variables in the last couple of centuries that trying to predict what will happen in the next century is damn near impossible.

But the people who call themselves "scientists" who invent lies and the politicians that propagate them do not seem to realise that they are either trying to make a global change that is not necessary and thereby waste the last of the fossil fuel bonus, or dooming us to extinction. It is the lying that makes me angry - ignorance we can fix.

For sure we need to change. If not for climate change for something else we will run out of. Like space or food.

I thought it was single celled organisms rather than plants (which arrived pretty late on the scene - most of our ancestors only had one cell) that caused snowball earth and reduced the CO2 and produced the oxygen poisoned atmosphere.

[RichardCranium]

There are various theories, including one that the oceans are absorbing a lot.

Are you referring to the carbon cycle, or the answer to

"Oh, woe, woe, woe, we are making CO2 and where does it go?"

The latter reaction from politicians (nobody who calls themself a 'scientist' should be saying it) is a bit reactionary.

The molluscs that produce shells (and much smaller critters that use it to make smaller structures) are predominantly in the oceans. They get their CO2 from dissolved CO2 in the oceans. Increase the CO2 and the plankton have a field day. (The whales will fix that provided we haven't hunted them to near-extinction.)

But green plants will also suck up what is there in the atmosphere.

You would have to work damn hard to overtake both those sets life forms and the ability to soak up carbon. The earliest green plants reduced the CO2 in the atmosphere from somewhere in the range 20%-40% (probably about 25%) down to near 0% and did so in incredibly quick time.

We'd have to clear entire rainforests to have an impact on what green plants can do. And we'd have to do something serious to find extra CO2, like open up all the gas fields and oil fields and burn their contents as fast as possible. Ideally, we'd want to be burning fossil fuels at a rate of at least 1 million years of deposition every year. (Carbon deposition was a very inefficient process.)

I wonder at what rate we are burning them?


This is a big part of the problem. We have cocked up so many constants and slow moving variables in the last couple of centuries that trying to predict what will happen in the next century is damn near impossible.

But the people who call themselves "scientists" who invent lies and the politicians that propagate them do not seem to realise that they are either trying to make a global change that is not necessary and thereby waste the last of the fossil fuel bonus, or dooming us to extinction. It is the lying that makes me angry - ignorance we can fix.

[TimberWolf]

Yep, there are lots of processes that put greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere, there are lots that take them out. Greenhouse gasses may be rising as a proportion of the atmosphere.
That means zippo if the greenhouse effect has not been proven to be a real phenomonem
there are real doubts that a greenhouse effect could even exist

For sure the Earth had much more CO2 in the atmosphere than today's levels. Oxygen was a trace gas when life began. Then life poisoned the atmosphere with oxygen and our ancestors died, or had to eek out an anaerobic existence living in bogs and intestines.

[EternalOptimist]

Yep, there are lots of processes that put greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere, there are lots that take them out. Greenhouse gasses may be rising as a proportion of the atmosphere.
That means zippo if the greenhouse effect has not been proven to be a real phenomonem
there are real doubts that a greenhouse effect could even exist

[TimberWolf]

See above: mollusc shells and forest floors.

There are various theories, including one that the oceans are absorbing a lot.

[RichardCranium]

Subduction wasn't known about with regard to CO2 until quite recently?

Well, I know about it over 30 years ago. It was in the curriculum.

I believe the current situation is that they don't know where carbon dioxide goes.

See above: mollusc shells and forest floors.

[TimberWolf]

We did it in O levels, but not as a project.

CO2 dissolves in the sea.

Molluscs use the dissolved CO2 to make shells.

Molluscs die and form thick sea beds of chalk.

Tectonic plates move and the sea bed gets shoved under the adjoining plate.

As the chalky stuff hits the mantle, some gets squirted out of volcanoes as CO2 in huge quantities.

--- BUT, then photosynthesis and green plants came along and the atmosphere was very suddenly swept of its CO2 (causing a massive genetic destruction) and the rules changed:

Green plants suck the CO2 out of the air to make their bodies.

Green plants die and form thick layers of peat.

This keeps being squashed by more peat or even stuff that becomes rock and the dead plants become gas and oil and coal.

Tectonic plates move and the sea bed gets shoved under the adjoining plate.

As the carbon rich peat / gas / oil / coal hits the mantle, some gets squirted out of volcanoes as CO2 in immensely huge quantities.

--- ALSO

Carbon dioxide is also released produced by forest fires but this is fairly irrelevant and is "carbon neutral". It was plants and it becomes plants.

--- ALSO

Critters breathing out produces CO2. This is from food that was plant matter or animals that ate plant matter and will become plants again and so it "carbon neutral".




What has changed all this is that we are taking all the peat, coal, oil and gas we can find and shoving it into the atmosphere as quickly as we can. Personally, I think this is stupid because I do not believe we should destroy one-use-only fossil fuels for use as heating or transport fuel. It should be used to make things. Simply burning it is wasteful madness, regardless of the environmental impact.

Subduction wasn't known about with regard to CO2 until quite recently? I believe the current situation is that they don't know where carbon dioxide goes.

[sasguru]

Jeez, I haven't even got to asking trickier questions that will test your level of understanding of Newton and Einstein yet. Not that I expected any different.

Do you know why?
Do tell, you'll be the first person in the world who does

[TimberWolf]

Hence forth climate change is to be renamed climate "approximation".

-- youknowwho

[shaunbhoy]

Some people (SG) dont realise that whilst you can google for facts or opinion, you cannot google understanding


that takes work, and a darned sight more grey matter than HE possesses

FTFY

[TimberWolf]

Of course done from memory.

Some people (SG) dont realise that whilst you can google for facts or opinion, you cannot google understanding


that takes work

SG will just have to find someone in the office that can answer these basic questions for him. Unless he's at home and has to ask his mum.

[EternalOptimist]

Not bad if done from memory. Inverse square.

Of course done from memory.

Some people (SG) dont realise that whilst you can google for facts or opinion, you cannot google understanding


that takes work

[TimberWolf]

Why? I don't know. No one does.

Jeez, I haven't even got to asking trickier questions that will test your level of understanding of Newton and Einstein yet. Not that I expected any different.

[RichardCranium]

The carbon cycle is a lot more complicated than a school project.

We did it in O levels, but not as a project.

CO2 dissolves in the sea.

Molluscs use the dissolved CO2 to make shells.

Molluscs die and form thick sea beds of chalk.

Tectonic plates move and the sea bed gets shoved under the adjoining plate.

As the chalky stuff hits the mantle, some gets squirted out of volcanoes as CO2 in huge quantities.

--- BUT, then photosynthesis and green plants came along and the atmosphere was very suddenly swept of its CO2 (causing a massive genetic destruction) and the rules changed:

Green plants suck the CO2 out of the air to make their bodies.

Green plants die and form thick layers of peat.

This keeps being squashed by more peat or even stuff that becomes rock and the dead plants become gas and oil and coal.

Tectonic plates move and the sea bed gets shoved under the adjoining plate.

As the carbon rich peat / gas / oil / coal hits the mantle, some gets squirted out of volcanoes as CO2 in immensely huge quantities.

--- ALSO

Carbon dioxide is also released produced by forest fires but this is fairly irrelevant and is "carbon neutral". It was plants and it becomes plants.

--- ALSO

Critters breathing out produces CO2. This is from food that was plant matter or animals that ate plant matter and will become plants again and so it "carbon neutral".




What has changed all this is that we are taking all the peat, coal, oil and gas we can find and shoving it into the atmosphere as quickly as we can. Personally, I think this is stupid because I do not believe we should destroy one-use-only fossil fuels for use as heating or transport fuel. It should be used to make things. Simply burning it is wasteful madness, regardless of the environmental impact.