Right-wing ranters in my Twitter timeline are pooh-poohing the whole climate discussion without doing their homework. So, here’s a little reader to aid and abet (sorry, early retired teacher and that all).Let’s start at the beginning:1. CO2 is measured at the Manua Loa station. Results are clear, robust, and stark: CO2 is increasing. And no, CO2 is not ‘following temperature’ as the latest lazymeme from the lazyright wants to have it. It’s following us. We’re causing it. A ‘mass balance’ approach yields that {human production of CO2} = {Δ CO2 in the atmosphere + Δ CO2 in the oceans}. Human production is, by the way, increasing. To dispel one myth about the interpretation of these results: sometimes it’s stated that gross flows are thus large that small net additions do not
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Merijn T. Knibbe considers the following as important: co2, environment, global warming, science, sources, Uncategorized
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Right-wing ranters in my Twitter timeline are pooh-poohing the whole climate discussion without doing their homework. So, here’s a little reader to aid and abet (sorry, early retired teacher and that all).
Let’s start at the beginning:
1. CO2 is measured at the Manua Loa station. Results are clear, robust, and stark: CO2 is increasing.
And no, CO2 is not ‘following temperature’ as the latest lazymeme from the lazyright wants to have it. It’s following us. We’re causing it. A ‘mass balance’ approach yields that {human production of CO2} = {Δ CO2 in the atmosphere + Δ CO2 in the oceans}. Human production is, by the way, increasing. To dispel one myth about the interpretation of these results: sometimes it’s stated that gross flows are thus large that small net additions do not matter. But that’s a fundamental misunderstanding of flow systems. Increasing the gross flow of water into a lake by 1% without an accompanying and matching increase of outflow will let this lake overflow.
2. We measure global temps by air (satellites), land (weather stations), and sea (with so-called drifters). This shows, as these measurements are independent, that climatologists use different sources and are not captured by groupthink when it comes to data about warming. Sadly, all independent sources show the same magnitude and pattern of warming. Hence here only one graph. Additional graphs based on the data of the European Copernicus satellite can be found here. Graphs showing weather station data can be found here. Graphs and maps showing data on ocean temperature can be found here.
3. The models. No, to dispel another lazymeme: it’s not just about CO2. It’s also about vulcanoes, sulphur dioxide, albedo, NOx and NH4, sea ice, land ice, aquifers, and whatever. Here, a quite complete description. In the end, however (see the graph). We’re killing it.