What is the truth about climate scientists base # of 280ppm for CO2 levels?

Since you asked it twice, I repeated my answer. For some reason I had difficultly and it kept saying the question had been deleted.

You are asking religious nuts to believe something that threatens their cult. They clearly aren't willing to do that. Science and facts are something they seem to abhor while they think they cloak themselves in it. You are abolutely correct. Alarmism depends on that sole interpretation of ice core data. Glaciers take hundreds of years generally to form a solid enough fern to hold the gas and the atmospheric gases have various solubilities and mobility. The ice core data may be good for long term less precise CO2 measurement but it isn't going to give you very good data for periods less than 300 years. It is common sense but since it threatens AGW, it is ignored. Plant stomata data isn't explained away. It is ignored. That tells you something about what these people think about actual science.

There is a difference between free air measurements Jeff. Why is it that you believe graphs which meld the two in an obvious attempt to fool the gullible.

http://i90.photobucket.com/albums/k247/dhm1353/Cli...

This shows that Kouwenberg, 2004 showed that plant stomata data indicated a swing of CO2 from 400 to about 260 ppmV in just a few hundred years obviously naturally. This has to be explained. Either the plant stomatas are behaving in some unprecedented way, the data is corrupt, there is a fraud, or CO2 varies more than alarmists are willing to allow for. I think the latter is far more likely. In fact it is obviously so.

Hi Pat. The 280 ppm value is not an average over the entire history of the earth. It is a average of the high values for only the last 400,000 years. It is suppose to be representative of what the CO2 concentration would be if the industrial revolution had not occurred. The graphics in the link you post covers hundreds of millions of years, a thousand times longer than the period represented by figure 2 in this link. You'll need to scroll down to find it. If you can find a graph of CO2 and temperature of only the tertiary period that covers the past 400,000 years, it should show that the average high concentration is about 280 ppm. It is very difficult to see any association between CO2 and temp over that time period because other factors (super volcanoes, comets, etc). are not marked or graphed so their influence can be visually evaluated.

http://www.fs.fed.us/ccrc/climate-basics/climate-p...

The first paragraph of this article explains why the 280 ppm number is important.

http://www.oar.noaa.gov/spotlite/spot_gcc.html

In addition, the 280 ppm value for preindustrial revolution air concentration is support by ice core data.

http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/weekly.ht...

It is not made up out of thin air, but an attempt to estimate what the CO2 concentration would be now if human activity was not contributing to the concentration from using fossil fuels.

The factors that were affecting the climate over hundred of millions of year may or may not be in effect now. Orbital cycles and such that cause ice ages are still in effect (although some changes may be slowly occurring over that length of time), but the changes in the sun and earth that occur as they age are past and are not relevant now (the changes may not be cyclic - solar fuel has decreased, super-volcanoes not erupting as much (hopefully not anytime "soon"), so atmospheric chemistry has stabilized for this short period (400,000 yrs) compared to hundred of millions of years.

Also keep in mind that very fast changes in climate are likely associated with mass extinctions on the planet (notice the extreme drops in temps 450 million, 300 million and the small dip 150 million years ago). Do these periods correspond to mass extinctions? The current change is not as drastic as those periods, but the some of the ecosystems we have evolved with over the past 400,000 years may be sensitive o the very fast (in geologic time) changes in climate we may be inadvertently causing by digging up CO2 and releasing it back into the air. This could make life harder on human beings. Reducing emissions buys the systems more time to adapt and humans to develop mitigation and adaption strategies.

warmth islands are consistently taken into consideration and those temperature readings are regulate for that result. yet extra to the factor in case you look on any properly-known plotted climate map you will see that that there are hundreds of reporting stations in remoted factors, to no longer point out hundreds of ships at sea. at present the CO2 index is going up via some million to 2 ppm in step with 300 and sixty 5 days or 12 to 15ppm in step with decade. The index at present is approximately 390ppm. on the beginning up of the commercial Age the examining grew to become into 280ppm...a factor that grew to become into consistent for the previous 10,000 plus years. Its long gone from 280ppm 390ppm in under 200 years. ALL of that improve has to do with the burning of fossil gasoline and the destruction of forests. to earnings all this out look at what usa military has to declare in this concern. climate, climate and conflict battling at sea is their standard situation.

Actually this link explains how easy it is to pull the wool over denier eyes

http://geocraft.com/WVFossils/Carboniferous_climat...

As for the old stomata argument, one jim like to quote there is of course the Waggner paper to quote as long as nobody mentions the paper that debunked it's claims

http://www.sciencemag.org/content/286/5446/1815

whoops

So lots of retort comments, most of which seems to be the pretty standard and empty "I'm not, you are" rants of a child

I like the reference to Z. Jaworoski

a pretty standard denier expert, someone retired from an unrelated field who suddenly becomes a climate expert after retirement, I guess you don't mean actually today or any time in the last 14 months for his views as he died (in his mid 80s) over a year ago.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zbigniew_Jaworowski

On flossies cherry picking nonsense, WOW.

and these turnips wonder why they get thumbs down, hilarious.

Your reference contains the statement "Clearly, other factors besides atmospheric carbon influence earth temperatures and global warming." - do you think anyone disputes this ? Is there a point to your post .....e.g. CO2 levels have been higher in earths pre human history , therefore there is nothing to worry about?

The basis of the paper incidentally ( sigma oxygen-18 in carbonate fossils) is not considered accurate

The point of the "280ppm" is this the pre-industrial revolution atmospheric CO2 level - the increase to current levels being primarily driven by burning fossil fuels (which we know from looking at from C12:C13:C14 atmospheric ratios over last 150 years )

Perhaps you should prepare for Sagebrush's reply stating that the paper you posted is a total fraud (because the earth is less than 10,000 years old and radiometric dating is an atheist plot to mock god)

"CO2 data available at the time showed concentrations ranged between 250 ppm and 550 ppm " If you actually bother reading the original papers you would understand the rejections - this nonsense hasd been addressed so many times on Y/A. It relates to sampling methods & gas analysis Dont just regurgitate someone else lazy interpretations - read the actual science

A tiny extract from Callendars paper (you know , the one you didnt bother reading) : "At Kew the easterly winds from London averaged 10 % more CO2 than westerly winds from the country. Only the latter are included here." Here is todays homework Pat : speculate why!

FFS ""(which we know from looking at from C12:C13:C14 atmospheric ratios over last 150 years )" - What was the C12 ratio compared to the C13 ratio 125 years ago?:

You have no idea what I am talking about. Its not just C12:C13 ratios - its C12:C13:C14 ratio changes. Or are you with Sagebrush & think C14 is a wicked fraud to mock god? Seriously - dont talk about climate change if you dont understand how we measure these things - you are flaunting your ignorance

"I read Jeff Ms link on Callender's paper blah blah blah" but you obviously dont understand it. I guess thats why you just regurgitate what you pick up on the denier industry websites

You can read an overview here, precious http://www.bgc.mpg.de/service/iso_gas_lab/publicat... "big mouth and blow hard" - is that how the denier industry calls scientists?

EDIT - then you obviously are incapable of reading a scientific paper

There is a difference between free air measurements and non free air measurements. If you actually read Callendar's paper you would realize this.

http://www.tellusb.net/coaction/index.php/tellusb/...

Sagebrush: If you don't know what C14 is, or aren't intelligent enough to know, then you've just shown that your scientific understanding is based on belief rather than science. Not that you haven't done that many times before of course. Hint: Look up carbon dating.

During the Carboniferous Period, Earth was warmer than today. If Earth were to warm to that extent today, the ice packs in Greenland and Antarctica would melt and hundreds of millions of people will be looking for new homes.

Yes, life survived when Earth was warmer and richer in carbon dioxide than it did today. No one denies that. So, what? The meteor that struck the Yucatan 65 million years ago did not wipe out all life on Earth. That does not mean that I would want such a meteor to strike Earth every day.

Humans survived the last ice age, the fall of the Roman Empire, the Dark Ages, the plague, the Spanish Inquisition, The First World War, the Great Depression, the Second World War, the Nazi holocaust, the arms race, the attacks on the World Trade Center, and (to throw a bone to the extreme right wing) four years of President Obama. Not to mention every earthquake, flood, plague, drought, tornado, hurricane, volcanic eruption and tsunami since humans have walked the Earth. And unless some doomed island nation starts a nuclear war, we will survive global warming. In fact, even in an absoulute worst case scenio, where all of the polar ice melts, and most of the productive agricultural land turns to desert, I find it difficult to imagine less than a billion survivors.

http://www.skepticalscience.com/global-warming-pos...

<Global warming has presided over some of the best times in human history. Instead of mass famine we get massive food surplus. Instead of horrible drought and extinctions we get lush forests, increased plant growth and more inhabitable space for all creatures.>

Do you have some evidence to support this? You do realize that the Dark Ages happened during the Medieval Warm Period and the Industrial Revolution began during the Little Ice Age.

If you enjoy going around on details that quickly devolve into "yes-it-is-no-it-isn't", then more power to you. Frankly, there is too little of the data subject to multiple independent verification to qualify as meaningful in the hard predictive sciences that AGW tries to pass itself off as.

And even if the data was absolutely solid, AGW is trying to plot a complex poorly understood chaotic process with an absurdly small number of points.

This is why I usually just say:

"If man-made global warming was taken seriously by its supporters they would advocate genuine solutions such as adding small amounts of iron to the oceans to cause the microscopic plants to multiply and absorb the carbon dioxide back into the biosphere whence it originally came.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_fertil%E2%80%A6

A solution both practical and inexpensive.

Failing that, they would advocate replacing the base load electrical power generation with mass produced nuclear power plants as one of the quickest, cheapest and most effective means of reducing carbon emissions.

If its supporters don't take it seriously, why should anyone else?"

Climate realist: You are a typical Yank with your head so far up yourself your can see your breakfast.

How can you even mention the attacks on the World Trade Center in the same sentence as The First World War, the Great Depression, the Second World War, the Nazi holocaust, there is a world outside the USA you know.

The flu killed twice as many people after WW1 than the war did, but I suppose as they weren't in the US it doesn't count.

<Or are you with Sagebrush & think C14 is a wicked fraud to mock god?>

How did I get mixed up in this question? And when did I ever say C14 was a wicked fraud? Wow, you must think I am smarter than I am. So I will bless you with my input.

The truth is that urban areas were deliberately and admittedly taken out of the equation to promote AGW. This is only one way the 'environmentalists' stifle the truth. Let us put this in simple scientific terms (so maybe environmentalist can understand). Were urban areas included in the global data back around 1880? No? Are urban areas included in the global data of today? Yes? Well there you have it. You are comparing apples to oranges and that is not scientific in any way shape or form.