Does the world owe Australia bezillions of dollars in carbon credits? With years of La Nina rainfall on arid outback Australia, “we” (or rather the citizen plants of Australia) have apparently been sucking down the CO2 at a phenomenal rate: “almost 60 per cent of carbon uptake attributed to Australian ecosystems.” But, sigh, call me unconvinced. I think what this paper demonstrates is that consensus and simulations are not worth much, and that we don’t know where global CO2 is going.
And anyway, the Australian outback vegetation explosion is ephemeral. While there may have been a lot of carbon sucked out of the atmosphere in 2011, as noted in the paper, it quickly gets oxidized and goes back into the atmosphere over the next year or two when the grasses and flowers die. So maybe hold off on those bezillions of dollars of carbon credits.
Global carbon markets turnover $50-180 billion a year with the aim of changing global carbon dioxide levels. (Yes, that’s what they say these markets are for.) But the brutal truth is that we are still guessing where exactly our carbon emissions end up. The consensus was that probably tropical forests were doing extra global sucking and were the mystery sink. A few weeks ago it was Indian wetlands. Today, this new study suggests it is really the arid lands of Australia. There goes the consensus on land sinks of CO2.
Apparently the sinks are not doing too badly at keeping up with the sources. Those annual rises and falls in both don’t seem to have a lot to do with human civilization.
Figure 1a | Interannual variability of NEE and FPAR anomalies. a, Annual NEE, where positive values represent carbon uptake, blue is LPJ, red is MACCII, and the residual land sink is in grey. The standard deviations are 60.58 PgCyr21 for LPJ, 60.4 PgCyr21 for the inversion, and 60.8 PgCyr21 for the residual (see Methods).
Anyone think its a bad idea to launch global markets based on a ubiquitous molecule produced and used by every bit of Life On Earth, which has a cycle we haven’t figured out yet. Anyone? No mention of this in Nature.
Of the roughly 10 billion tonnes of carbon emitted each year from human activity, only around half remains in the atmosphere, with the rest being absorbed by the oceans and by plants on land. This CO2 sink has been growing steadily, but the situation could change as shifts in climate and human land use intensify.
…the land sinks seems to be highly sensitive to variations in temperature and rainfall over yearly timescales.
Where was that land sink? Don’t tell me the “simulations” were wrong?
“…large-scale assessments of carbon budgets have indicated that the culprit is somewhere on land, and simulations went one step further by pinpointing tropical forests as the prime suspect. So far, so simple, until 2011 — when scientists estimated an extraordinarily high value for the land sink which seemed to be linked not to tropical forests as the prime suspect, but to semi arid ecosystems in the Southern Hemisphere.
Their results challenge the current consensus about what regulates atmospheric CO2 from year to year…
I think most of this paper is based on simulations and calculations, but satellites do show 6% more green in arid Australia.
Methods: We use multiple data sources, including carbon accounting methods, carbon-cycle
model simulations, and satellite-based vegetation products to investigate the magnitude
and mechanisms driving variability in the terrestrial carbon sink.
I’ve put in this graph because it has nice colors and shows that all the action is happening in Australia. FPAR means “fraction of photosynthetic active radiation”.
Seasonal AVHRR FPAR anomalies (z score) for the year 2011. Figure 2 extended data
These graphs have some of the most impenetrable captions I’ve seen.
Caption: The z score is calculated relative to the long-term seasonal mean and standard deviation of FPAR (1982–2011); see legend to Fig. 1c. The seasons DJF, MAM, JJA and SON are defined by the first letter of each month. [So lets look at Figure 1: Interannual variability of NEE and FPAR anomalies. c, AVHRR FPAR anomalies for the southern (S) and northern (N) hemispheres with respect to the 1982–2011 long-term average where the seasonal anomalies were calculated as the z score for each season (s) and each grid cell (i,j) for each year (y); Equation not reproduced here.]
ABSTRACT (Poulter et al 2014)
The land and ocean act as a sink for fossil-fuel emissions, thereby slowing the rise of atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations1. Although the uptake of carbon by oceanic and terrestrial processes has kept pace with accelerating carbon dioxide emissions until now, atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations exhibit a large variability on interannual timescales2, considered to be driven primarily by terrestrial ecosystem processes dominated by tropical rainforests3. We use a terrestrial biogeochemical model, atmospheric carbon dioxide inversion and global carbon budget accounting methods to investigate the evolution of the terrestrial carbon sink over the past 30 years, with a focus on the underlying mechanisms responsible for the exceptionally large land carbon sink reported in 2011 (ref. 2). Here we show that our three terrestrial carbon sink estimates are in good agreement and support the finding of a 2011 record land carbon sink. Surprisingly, we find that the global carbon sink anomaly was driven by growth of semi-arid vegetation in the Southern Hemisphere, with almost 60 per cent of carbon uptake attributed to Australian ecosystems, where prevalent La Niña conditions caused up to six consecutive seasons of increased precipitation. In addition, since 1981, a six per cent expansion of vegetation cover over Australia was associated with a fourfold increase in the sensitivity of continental net carbon uptake to precipitation. Our findings suggest that the higher turnover rates of carbon pools in semi-arid biomes are an increasingly important driver of global carbon cycle inter-annual variability and that tropical rainforests may become less relevant drivers in the future. More research is needed to identify to what extent the carbon stocks accumulated during wet years are vulnerable to rapid decomposition or loss through fire in subsequent years.
For the carbon accounting nerds…
METHODS SUMMARY
We use multiple data sources, including carbon accounting methods, carbon-cycle model simulations, and satellite-based vegetation products to investigate the magnitude and mechanisms driving variability in the terrestrial carbon sink. NPP (the total photosynthesis minus plant autotrophic respiration losses) is simulated by the LPJDGVMand also estimated independently with the MODISNPP algorithm,MOD17A3. The balance between carbon uptake from NPP and losses from soil respiration and disturbance (NEE) is quantified from the Global Carbon Project, the LPJ DGVM, and the MACC-II atmospheric inversion system (http://www. copernicus-atmosphere.eu/).NEP(the balance between gross carbon inputs from photosynthesis and losses from ecosystem respiration, excluding disturbance) is estimated from upscaled gridded flux tower observations.Optical and passive microwave satellite are employed to assess vegetation greenness trends (AVHRR FPAR3g) and vegetation structure or vegetation optical depth (VOD). Monthly and seasonal precipitation fluctuation is quantified fromTRMM3B43v7 (http://mirador.gsfc.nasa.gov) and NCEP-DOE Reanalysis II (http://www.esrl.noaa.gov), and the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) TS3.21 (http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/). Regional summaries of the global gridded data followed boundaries from the eleven land regions specified in the TRANSCOM atmospheric inversion experiment. We further differentiate North and South Africa to distinguish between wet and semi-arid climateswith the ratio of precipitation to potential evaporation set to 0.7. Historical (1860–2005) simulations of net biome production, equivalent to NEE, from the Fifth Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP5) are merged with the Representative Concentration Pathway 8.5 (RCP8.5) to create temporal composites spanning 1860–2099 for 15 Earth system models.
Thanks to dissident-robert for help.
REFERENCES
Metcalf, D. (2014) Climate science: A sink down under, Nature, doi:10.1038/nature13341
Poulter, B. et al. (2014) Contribution of semi-arid ecosystems to interannual variability of the global carbon cycle Nature http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nature13376 (2014).
The growth kinetics of plants are a strong function of pCO2: http://books.google.de/books?id=HVDluoCh-rQC&pg=PA236&lpg=PA236&dq=CO2+at+150+ppm&source=bl&ots=4FkSK4m1Ve&sig=v1MwPQ1OohShPHgKM6asylZDwys&hl=en&sa=X&ei=7_uVUavNAYrUswaL7oGADw&ved=0CDoQ6AEwAg#v=onepage&q=CO2%20at%20150%20ppm&f=false
These data are for ground level C3 plants. One figure I have seen is 29% increase in growth rate so far compared with pre-industrial CO2, about right.
However, there is a second factor, not appreciated by most people, but the subject of work initiated by Freeman Dyson at Argonne Nat.Lab.. It’s the effect of pCO2 on growth of trees. The issue is that the forest canopy absorbs atmospheric CO2, reducing its concentration so lower trees can’t grow so well. As pCO2 increases, you get higher pCO2 lower down, a 3-D diffusion problem. Thus increased pCO2 not only increases individual tree growth, but it also increases dramatically the area density of viable trees. The gain has in one instance been quoted as up to a factor of 200% increase in CO2 sequestration rate by temperate forests for doubled pre-industrial pCO2.
I expect that CO2 will plateau at about 450 ppmV in 20 years or so.
80
PS The greening of deserts is because the stomata diameter in the epidermis of plant leaves can be much smaller for higher concentration CO2 than for lower concentration. This reduces water loss rate so the plant suffers less water stress.
100
Crossed the simpson desert last july , it was so intensely green i was beginning to think it had been mislabelled a desert.
10
Yep, Apparently around 250ppm is their maximum inefficiency.. plant survival below that is pretty hard work.
I wish the Anti-CO2 fools would realise that a SENSIBLE level of at least 700ppm would be far better for the whole world.
We are starting to see quite large benefits even with just a small rise above that bare subsistence level that the world was at for so long.
30
“I expect that CO2 will plateau at about 450 ppmV in 20 years or so.”
Darn, I hope not. 🙁
TOWARDS 700 ppm ! 🙂
51
I prefer a balmy Carboniferous level of 7000ppm.
20
BA4 driveby in 3, 2, 1 …
40
“More research is needed…….”
Of course, absolutely right, top priority must always be given to keeping wide open the access to climate change’s huge financial troughs. After all, there are lots of comfortable lifestyles to be maintained.
Claiming Australian deserts are saving the world by taking huge amounts of CO2 out of the atmosphere requires more than a little stretch in imagination, even with the 6% greening effect which Jo refers to. But if the models say it’s true, I guess there is not much more to be said……..Sigh……
Anyhow, putting my greenie, left wing hat on, I have to ask, “This is blatant desertism, how can you discriminate against the Atacama, Gobi and Sahara deserts, what’s so special about Australian deserts?” A ridiculous comment for an equally ridiculous paper, but such is climate science today…………Sigh……..
160
I have a feeling it’s a drought then flooding rains thing.
Some say that Australian deserts have more unpredictable rainfall than most deserts. See here” Alice Springs has an average of 250mm annually but got 54mm in 1985 and 903mm in 1974.
Curiously, this book also goes on to say that Winton was the hottest area on Earth in 2003 (Mildrexler, Zhang, and Running 2006) with a temperature of… 69.3C
Surely that’s a typo?
60
Jo,
Currently the Woomera region is as green as…………well a green billiard table i suppose but alas it will soon turn back to an arid s…t hole soon.
The point is it is so variable here you cant call it an average
cheers
90
“Surely that’s a typo?”
Maybe measured next to Winton racecourse on race day, a couple of metres behind a V8. 🙂
Data says otherwise (yeah I know its BOM data, but I doubt they could have adjusted a record down that much)
41
In Brisbane you generally get droughts OR flooding rains and not much in between.
http://www.australiasevereweather.com/links/rainrec/brisbane.htm
40
Jo,
Some people I know were in Alice Springs towards the end of 1974 and ran into an old ringer in a pub who avowed
“First normal season since 1923”
(I think that was the date but you get the idea)
40
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/10/hottest-temperature-ever-recorded_n_3568030.html
10
Correction, plants are dying off so fast in Australia it is contributing to a drop in bee numbers.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-reese-halter/bees-dying-quickly-from-n_b_5362425.html
Safety Guy’s first law of climate theories. For every climate theory there is an equal and opposite climate theory.
150
This could be true, a small desert in Brussels currently sucks 97% of intelligence from the planet!
300
Brilliant.
And the locals are moving overseas to get away from the shambles.
70
Come on Peter. It is sort of traditional for the rest of the world to pick on Australians.
70
That should have been attached to #3.
Looks like the joke blew back on me. Hmmm
50
Why wouldn’t the plants be sucking up gazillions of CO2?
Relative to geological periods in the past, plants find themselves starved for CO2. They will gobble up as much as they can get.
After all 400 parts CO2 per million parts of air is not much. There are 7 billion people in the world, 400 PEOPLE per million would give 2.8 million, roughly about the size of Brisbane with all its suburbs. Just a speck, invisible on a world map. Same with CO2 molecules in the atmosphere: quite sparse.
The increase in CO2 may be why satellite imagery shows the world is getting greener. NDVI (Normalized Difference Vegetation Index) maps have been prepared that show the world is getting greener decade by decade even in the Sahel (south of the Sahara Desert).
Bjorn Lomberg reported this some time ago, but you don’t have to rely on anybody’s authority.
Do a search of NDVI with Google and you will see that biologists are well aware that forests, grasslands, steppe and tundra are now all much greener than they were a generation age. The oceans are greener too in the sense that phytoplankton fare much better with high levels of CO2. Thus the whole marine food chain has benefited.
50
“Why wouldn’t the plants be sucking up gazillions of CO2?”
I don’t question that plants per se could be the ultimate carbon sink, but I doubt these particular ones are. I know that arid territory too well …
Plus one of the top carbon modelers in the world is across the hall. He used LandSat images to calculate Australia’s carbon accounts on every 25m square block of Australia month by month for Kyoto. Look up FullCam. 😉 Developed by G Richards and D. Evans.
50
Stop think about whether the figures are right or wrong, think like a politician on the make!
Look Jo, this report is great news for Australia!
Australia could be a net carbon sink. It’s easy with a little thought –
All that is needed is moisture, some fertilizer, and CO2.
The government of Australia just institutes a “Piss on the Desert Day”. A monthly event when everyone comes outback to the desert and takes a quick widdle.
So, just set aside on sizzling Saturday a month to piddle a puddle in the desert and end ‘Carbon Payment’ worries for ever.
And don’t forget as soon as the blooms start to show, apply to the UN for the rebate.
🙂
20
Even if the paper attracts criticism, it is peer reviewed and published in what used to be the world’s pre-eminent journal. To digress a fraction, that it and it’s American counterpart are now largely discredited is due to their stance on climate science (John Maddox would be aghast at the damage to his journal). Notwithstanding all of this, this peer reviewed paper should give some ammunition to the Australian PM Tony Abbott in his direct action approach to lowering CO2 levels. However as Australian media promotes the concept that the atmosphere above Australia is contained in an invisible cylinder extending into outer space and is separate from the rest of the earth’s atmosphere he may not get much traction. I make that comment about the Australian atmosphere because even if Australia cut CO2 emissions to zero it would make virtually no discernible difference to global CO2 levels but the Australian media would have you believe that the Australian “carbon” tax will save the planet from it’s fiery fate. Unfortunately many Australians believe this drivel.
90
Here’s more good news. Polls show 4.8% less Green in arid Australia.
160
That’s quite good, Andrew.
40
Very good in fact 🙂
50
I’ll assume you’re both talking about the joke and chalk it up as a good recovery then. 😉
Will this mean I go through to the next round of Nova’s Got Talent ?
It all depends on the 3rd judge’s score…
40
I think I’ll stay out of this one…
00
Where’s your scepticism? More modelling and magic. Satellites – more modelled indices – are yo’all sure? Read the methods summary holy dooley – Jo is uncharacteristically enamoured. But it is peer reviewed so must be good. I guess too much to read the paper….
“We use multiple data sources, including carbon accounting methods, carbon-cycle model simulations, and satellite-based vegetation products to investigate the magnitude and mechanisms driving variability in the terrestrial carbon sink. NPP (the total photosynthesis minus plant autotrophic respiration losses) is simulated by the LPJDGVMand also estimated independently with the MODISNPP algorithm,MOD17A3”
jeepers !
110
Tiresome, I think you’re being a little severe. Jo does say:
… as well as mocking simulations in other places in her post, and criticising the underlying logic of the paper (“And anyway, the Australian outback vegetation explosion is ephemeral.”).
Describing this as “uncharacteristically enamoured” is a bit wide of the mark.
81
Jo clearly say “But, sigh, call me unconvinced.”
Keep your mephitic slop to yourself until you learn to read. Fool.
71
Do you actually understand that terminology and how it is supposedly applied Tiresome or are you just sounding off without a clue on what you are talking about?
Sounding off because somebody ie Jo is so much smarter than you are and you like all the other warmista alarmists can’t stand the thought of just one Skeptic being one hell of a lot smarter than the total sum of a whole group of alarmists.
As for peer review, that also is now being severely questioned due to the flagrant corruption and complete failure of so much of the peer review process.
Peer review is highly beloved of the alarmists as they can organize Pal review as was outlined in a” how to corrupt peer review” example in the Climate Gate mails.
And just for interest, from Michael Nielsen’s Three myths about scientific peer review
“of Einstein’s 300 plus papers were peer reviewed? According to the physicist and historian of science Daniel Kennefick, it may well be that only a single paper of Einstein’s was ever subject to peer review.”
And Einstein objected very strongly to that as well.
Peer review has arguably destroyed as many significant advances in science when those reviewers who had a vested interest in maintaining the status quo [ climate alarmism ? ] advised rejection of ground breaking papers because they went against the peer reviewers interests and beliefs.
Michael Nielsen gives quite a lot of papers where significant advances were made in science but which peer reviewers rejected them as they didn’t fall into line with the beliefs of the per reviewers and the prevailing science dogma.
There have been no radical ground shifting papers along the lines of Einstein, Niel’s Bohr, Fermi, and etc and numerous other pre WW2 scientists and their advances since peer review became the norm in science after WW2.
Probably only the DNA paper of Watson and Crick based entirely on Rosalind Franklin’s X ray diffraction photos who died soon after Watson and Crick claimed all the glory for the unravelling of the double Helix of DNA and deliberately left Franklin out so as not to share the claims, that paper is probably one of the very, very few radical ground breaking papers that have got through the corrupted peer review process since peer review was brought in to serve the interests of the science publishing industry some 60 or more years ago.
And what are you and your dogma driven alarmists going to do in the next few years ahead when Jones and Trenberth and a whole cosmic array of the great and good and not so good of the global warming faith admit that they were wrong and the world is heading for a colder climatic period [ unfortunately ] as a most of the solar scientists are now postulating?
121
“or are you just sounding off without a clue on what you are talking about”
Say no more !!!
Really Rom, why waste more than a sentence or two (short one) on this malignant pestilence.
61
Projecting a fair bit there ROM. Fascinating account of science history but irrelevant to the topic.
Jo is clearly editorializing and the level of analysis of of this style of paper is always light on.
07
Tiresome:
‘Jo is clearly editorializing and the level of analysis of of this style of paper is always light on.’
–
Your level of substantiation is negligible.
30
So boring ROM. Just more waffle from your Tea Party hymn sheet. What a massive waste of a comment.
04
You certainly know about wasting a comment.. Its all you do !!
A waste of space.. a gap filler !
10
Tiresome, have you heard of Diederik Stapel?
You do not need to read the full article, just the caption under the photo: “…published fabricated data in 30 peer-reviewed papers.”, to realise that peer-reviewed papers can be completely and utterly WRONG. One thing that is interesting to note is why no-one seems to be investigating why or how so much nonsense can get past peer-review. Is the concept of peer-review so vital as to become sacrosanct?
20
I know this will probably be snipped, but it is a quote from Steven Goddard..
It is probably the most appropriate statement I have ever seen regarding the CAGW meme.
(I have edited out a couple of letters so that the meaning is still conveyed)
“It doesn’t matter how many flies eat s**t, it is still s**t.”
ps .. this seems an appropriate response to posts from Tiresome.
131
–
Tiresome’s special ability is to be able to regurgitate sh*t. He learned it at Skepticalscience!
51
So Griss you’re the self appointed border patrol or corporate immune response unit. More difficult would be to make a comment on the paper itself. Leadership in commenting versus playing tag. What do think about LPJ−DGVM versus MACC II Inversion?
16
Its good to know you are able to copy/paste acronyms.
31
“immune response unit”
…..is only needed against noxious malodorous diseases.
10
“More difficult would be to make a comment on the paper itself”
Ahh , so that’s why you haven’t.
10
Hey Tiresome.
Welcome back.
So you read the paper?
Can you read this?
I’m having trouble reconciling this graph from Global integrated drought monitoring and prediction system by
Zengchao Hao, Amir AghaKouchak, Navid Nakhjiri & Alireza Farahmand
Scientific Data (2014) doi:10.1038/sdata.2014.1
Received 12 November 2013 Accepted 10 January 2014 Published 11 March 2014
Can you help me?
Iv’e referred to the texts of the experts.
They’re in agreement. They foretell the end of the world:
NASA:
“For most places, global warming will result in more frequent hot days and fewer cool days, with the greatest warming occurring over land. Longer, more intense heat waves will become more common. Storms, floods, and droughts will generally be more severe as precipitation patterns change.”
Thanks for yor help in advance.
41
Well Handjive I don’t think you’re having that much trouble. But a scholar and not an activist would have sampled the wider literature on such an interesting subject and not relied on a cherry pick or a single analysis. I’m sure you might be able to lecture us on the many issues associated with drought, the PSDI and other indices. Or perhaps not. And NASA predicted all this would be happening right now did they? Oh come now. More projection.
(Try to cite better than an NBC news clip)
15
Ah Tiresome, truly and appropiate psuedonym that describes yourself to a “T”
And your reference to Grumpy Old Men immediately brands you as likely a puppy still wet behind the ears and with one hell of a lot of life’s hard lessons still to be learned.
One of those lessons being the belief you also will never grow old and in fact like all us Grumpy Old Men in our youth, you also believe you are immortal and absolutely right and that everybody else who disagrees with you are ignorant pissants and utterly wrong.
Those “Grumpy Old Men” you in your ignorance so vehemently disparage have in many, possibly most cases occupied some very high status positions in science, business, industry, law and politics, positions and status which you in your youthful wet behind the ears arrogance are very unlikely ever to achieve if you continue with your present rigid dogmatic contempt laden and fixated “Get Up” attitude for any who do not agree precisely with your ideology.
Vent all you want.
We laugh at your gullibility because we in our Grumpy Old Age have seen it all before and we know from experience and watching through our lifetimes, it doesn’t give the promoter of such verbiage one iota of advantage, in fact just the opposite when it comes to achieving life’s advancement.
Continue with your current attitude to any who disagree with you and you will just be another of life’s numerous failures.
Nothing has changed.
You are tiresome for you are merely another of those still wet behind the ears specks of humanity out of a line a couple of million of years long who think all over again that they are inventing another strike against those Grumpy Old Guys and Gals who know nothing and who are too ignorant to understand that the world has changed yet again.
Been there
Done that along with all those other Grumpy Old Men and Gals and now we just laugh at you and your arrogant ignorance.
71
I’ll add ROM to my confirmed grumpy list.
14
Tiresome @ #11.5
“Jo’s demographic are over 50 grumpy right wing white males”.
And I’ll add Tiresome to my confirmed list of racists
41
– as you like but still doesn’t change your problematic demographic.
12
I’d add Tiresome to my meaningless twerp list.
If I could be bothered keeping one.
How do you get through life knowing that you have absolutely nothing to offer to anyone or anything !
A meaningless existence.
Let me guess, a uni arts student.
21
Well a real meaningless existence would be camped out here 24×7 making inept comments and playing border patrol. But I guess that’s what over 50 angry white right wing males with no life might do.
SkS – more projection and shadow boxing – the first sign of dementia – happens over 50 you know …. gun the medical research.
14
Seems I was right.. a uni arts student..
You do know your future is a “unemployment”, don’t you… unless you learn to make coffee.
21
And you will be making that coffee for me. 🙂
21
“white right wing males ”
Jealousy does not become you, T.
When you grow up a lot , you will eventually be one too. 🙂
21
“camped out here 24×7 making inept comments”
And you are here, aren’t you…. still.
21
Poor Tiresome.. A teenager with nowhere to go on a Friday night.
Sad, sad, sad.
21
I did 5 hours work today. $4 figures….. eat your heart out, little child. 🙂
Try earning that as a barista.
y’see , that’s the beauty of being a white 40’s + right wing male with an education.
Just work on the education (not arts, it doesn’t pay) and when you grow up , maybe you can find a job too.
21
So your drug running business is booming. Anyway all your money hasn’t brought you a social life has it – slumming around here with the extreme right anti-science crowd. Playing bumper cars and making up stories. Anyway – how tedious – old money doesn’t require hard work dear boy. But hey the drive by shooting has been fun – back to your circle jerk of d [snip] ism.
[unsupported “d” word warning] ED
14
No little child.. Like most alarmist leftists your imagination is tainted with the hallucinogenics you take.
But keep projecting your lifestyle onto others if that makes you happy.
A teenage on a Friday night.. nothing better to do..
Too many pimples ??
21
The Griss; I may not espouse your technique, but I have to admit it works. You’ve got Tiresome doing rank, full-on ad hom.
And you made it look easy!
21
“But hey the drive by shooting has been fun”
I hope your foot recovers soon .
Seems you will be limp all of your life.
21
Hi Bullocky.. 12 years maths teaching in Western Sydney.. 🙂
I wonder if I met his mum 😉
21
“Anyway all your money hasn’t brought you a social life has it”
You are here aren’t you.
What more could I possibly ask for 🙂
Anyways…., Bingo Wednesday night, Cards last night. Pool with the boys tomorrow afternoon if I can get my walker out of the cupboard. 😉
Busy, busy ! Its good to sit down and relax for a while.
21
Seems SkS is now recruiting junior high school students.
How are they paying you, T, .. in cuddles ?
21
edit..
“Seems SkS is now recruiting junior high school students.”… or the equivalent (to cover what I wrote in #10.5.1.1.2)
21
Hey Tiresome.
Thanks for your time again.
And thanks for playing.
I was just trying to get the paper further up the comments list because it is very important and the graph very relevant to this Jonova post.
21
Hey , that graph looks to have a significant downward slope.
Does that mean that droughts are becoming LESS frequent and severe?
11
Well HJ – as they say drought + flood divide by 2 is probably average (pity not median though)
14
You know nothing about the Australian climate do you.
That comes from living in your grandma’s basement all your life.
21
And you know how to divide by 2.?
Well done for an arts student.
21
Now, now, girls. It is time to stop this petty playground name-calling. Kiss and make up.
00
Sorry RR..
Calling someone an arts student is a bit petty..
Me bad. 🙁
11
Hahahahahahahahah..(breathe)..hahahahahahahah…..
–
Very, very entertaining!
10
Now you see that right there Griss, this is one I call the Bimani Twist right, now oncet this hook is tied in it aint never gonna come loose and aint never gona break, see so all we do now is select the correct bait for the particlar fish we lookin for and whoa looks like we gots a bite, oh yeah, see how little effort it takes – they just can’t help it – hook emselves right up they do, used a few drops of tuna oil with some specially selected psychological triggers and old Tiresome bit right down, now all we gots to do is play him for a while till he gets tired then let him go. See they not good for anything and they got a short attention span, anything out of their particular focus is just incomprehensible to them.
Buts it’s good for a giggle.
21
Its fun for sure, watching them writhe around, becoming more and more incoherent and erratic.
But why should we let him go?
21
Remember the short attention span I done told you about – well that goes along with a short term memory loss and he’ll come right on back at you again and again from the same direction see.
Just wait for a bit and you can hook im up all over as many times as you like.
21
That’s why we need border control….
To stop little fish like him escaping.
He’s actually still on the hook, but just doesn’t realise it. 😉
11
Tiresome,
I want you to know that I have nothing but the highest regard and respect for both you and your achievements in the motion picture industry.
11
What do you mean not in the motion picture industry…
My apologies to you Tiresome, I take it all back – I thought you were Pee Wee Herman.
11
Unfortunately, BA4 could not appear on this post today, playing the role of BA4, the angst-ridden, young socialist, craving attention and validation will be Tiresome.
41
The barrel has a hole right through the bottom, from continued scraping.
21
This is really OT,
To make ends meet a 67 year old sex industry worker is paid to take sexually explicit phone calls from other persons who presumably pay to exploit the worker’s sexuality for their own sexual gratification.
The worker calls our Prime Minister on talk back radio and says it’s all the fault of his budget that she is forced to supplement her meagre pension in this degrading manner.
Our Prime Minister winks at the radio announcer across the table for whatever reason before responding to the caller and is then accused by the socialist green team of being: creepy, slimy and disgusting.
As I’ve written previously – that sure is some f#cked up sh#t right there.
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I actually found it pretty amusing.
Its one of the best demonstrations I have seen yet of the ABC’s manic obsession with talking down the PM, and the Government at every opportunity. The fact that the ABC managed to get 24 hours and counting of headline news out of it is a condemnation of their left leanings that couldn’t be provided by any opponent. If you suggested that the ABC would attack Abbott for 24 hours over a wink, you would have been discounted as an anti ABC right wing nutbag, but as usual, they do all the work for us.
I guess this was “balance”…
“He said that he was on radio. Jon Faine raised an eyebrow like ‘do you want to continue with this call’, something like that, and the Prime Minister winked back at him to say ‘it’s ok mate’,” Ms Bishop told ABC radio.
“Now he couldn’t speak because he was on radio.”
The Minister said she did not find anything sexist about the action.”
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She must also be able to see into the future and scored this job since the last election. Handy since she knew it was needed with the budget on its way.
I prefer to think that he winked because he realized why her voice sounded familiar.
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There is no truth to the rumour has it that it was Julia Gillard using ‘Change My Voice’ app.
Any chance to point out misogyny where ever she sees it.
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“says it’s all the fault of his budget that she is forced to supplement her meagre pension in this degrading manner”
um….. deary, the budget has only just been bought down, and you seem to have been working in that job for a while.
I can only assume that mean one of the previous budgets…
So blame Swan , Rudd, Wong or Gillard.!
ps could this caller be none other than Vilma 🙂
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This would add weight to my hypothesis that Jo’s demographic are over 50 grumpy right wing white males. But perhaps we need to add a preoccupation with the sex industry too? Or maybe more data would be required for the latter. 7 ticks !
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Tiresome071:
=
0 evidence, 7 ticks and a consensus of 1.
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Or 0 sense and 71 IQ?
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As opposed to you, a pre-pubescent green zealot.. still waiting to determine your gender.
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Hi Tiresome, guess what – your own psychological projection of sexual preoccupation includes you in the demopgraphic.
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Huh, red thumb ay Tiresome, I see you don’t like being profiled and steryotyped – have a talk to your mate Lewandowsky to analyse if your attempts at self gratification through autonomic approval and validation are being acknowledged.
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As Tiresome rightly infers, handjive is no climate scientist.
But, mention self gratification, and there is no second prize.
Mind, many have tried to claim the crown.
Anyone who says otherwise is a liar.
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Jeepers HJ – I’m now a pre-pubescent green zealot, gender would be male as we know no ladies frequent this blog (apart from our wonderful host of course), and now I’m a mate of Lewandowsky – gee a bit of projection and verballing, but I think it only goes to add evidence to my demographic analysis.
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Not pre-pubescent; you are obviously 13-14 (by mental age). Tell us your real age and we can work out your IQ.
Everybody, why don’t we have a sweep on Tiresome’s IQ ? Should we bother including a ticket over 100?
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“why don’t we have a sweep on Tiresome’s IQ ”
please allow for single digit entries.
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There are actually several very intelligent females that frequent this forum.
And if you want to mate with Lewandowsky.. go ahead.. but no links to pics please.
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“gender would be male ”
If you could figure it out yourself.
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Tiresome:
‘and now I’m a mate of Lewandowsky – gee a bit of projection ……’
–
jeepers!
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And to think, I actually gave you a green thumb before I realised you were referring to me.
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Please excuse me for going off topic this early in the Thread, but I just saw this new TV ad from Origin Energy, and I went and chased it up.
I’ve bookmarked the page to do a serious search of all the links there, but as a teaser, at the bottom of the page at this link, they have posted that new TV ad.
A little oversimplified for me, and I think the younger people will now probably get an incorrect idea of power generation, but so far, a couple of the links I have followed seem to me as more for the purpose of marketing than telling the true facts.
So like the analogy of asking a child where milk comes from, and the reply is the supermarket, this ad may engender this response. So, where does electrical power come from? A man delivers it is a van.
Still, I do suppose that these days, those power Companies need to do something to soften opinion.
You guys can also be my guides here. Perhaps some of you who do look there might ask some questions about it.
Again, sorry to go off topic like this.
Tony.
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One of my geologist mates was directly responsible for one of the largest coking coal mines in the world. Yet he hates coal power generation with a vengeance because of the eyesores, death toll of miners and real pollution [dust/ash/particulates etc] that coal power generation creates. He loves nuclear and off grid solar.
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As is usual in so much of climate science, the abstract above is generalised in it’s claims and conclusions to the point of being close to useless to a layperson for the understanding of the effects the various plant species have on atmospheric CO2.
Can I point one and all to one of The Chiefio’s blog entries , [ Chiefio aka E.M. Smith,] a very bright guy indeed who in 2010 went into considerable depth as he is wont to do in his blog threads, on the amounts of CO2 different plant species in his own house yard take up out of the atmosphere.
Its a long commentary but very good background material on plant take up of CO2 at the ordinary laypersons level and not some high falutin sciency sounding generalised paper which never gets down to understanding the common backyard plant and tree growth and their efective CO2 take up and CO2 emmissions
Got Wood?
_______________________________
And in view of some of the most recent discussions on Jo’s blog another read of Chiefio’s would be the short ; Respect, Lies, and Power Politics
________________________
A request;
Could somebody somewhere, even climate catastrophe believers, please point out one single instance, one single unchallengable item where climate science within the last 25 years has actually produced something of an actual real definable, obvious and visible benefit to mankind and which is leading to an improvement in our lives and our living standards?
Something that is making a positive difference, a positive improvement to our lives and to the lives of the all of mankind on this planet?
Darned if I can think of anything at all that climate science has actually produced that is of ANY practical and beneficial use to humanity.
After 35 years and a trillion dollars, climate science can’t yet even predict if or if not we are going to have a ENSO event during the following season
It can’t predict the phase of any ENSO event only some 6 months or so ahead.
It can’t even predict the strength of that ENSO event only two months ahead from the predicted onset of the event.
Increased knowledge of the forces that drive the climate certainly, an increased knowledge bank that is deliberately misused and deliberately misinterpreted by the alarmists. to further frighten the public. Now a strategy that is becoming an increasingly obvious failure that has started an escalating backlash against the excesses of climate alarmism and it’s practitioners.
Climate science and the science emanating from alarmist science sources is stumbling along like a drunken whore and is only adding to our knowledge base in very small steps.
There is nothing that can be turned to hard practical use as yet and maybe never will be for most of that recently acquired climate background knowledge.
And Climate is not Meteorology which has shown significant improvements over the last couple of decades
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“Could somebody somewhere, even climate catastrophe believers, please point out one single instance, one single unchallengable item where climate science within the last 25 years has actually produced something of an actual real definable, obvious and visible benefit to mankind and which is leading to an improvement in our lives and our living standards?”
I can: your wallet is now much lighter, you will not need to be a burden on the public purse and have a hip/ knee replacement! That’s a benefit!!
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Peter
Having just written out our power bill, definitely a thumbs up for that contribution 🙂
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So these rocket scientists figured out that when it rains in the middle of Australia the plants grow? Stunning! Why are we paying them?
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You tell me….
“The Climate Projection Center upped the odds of an El Niño occurring this summer – from 50-50 in March – because of a giant underwater swell known as a Kelvin Wave. The wave is increasingly pushing cold water toward the bottom of the sea and warm water upward.”
http://www.sfgate.com/science/article/California-drought-Odds-of-El-Ni-o-grow-5466924.php
50/50 was even a serious projection?????? Half a billion dollars in tax payer funding will get you “gee I dunno, your guess is as good as mine”.
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“gee I dunno, your guess is as good as mine”.
That would seem to be the current state of climate science knowledge. Is it any wonder that it can be manipulated by power brokers?
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Ye gods. Cold water sinks and warm water rises. Does not need a fancy wave named anything.
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It must be important knowledge. And I figured it out a long time ago. Can I get on the payroll?
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This is an interesting paper and it impacts on the idea that human CO2 [ACO2] is entirely responsible for the increase in atmospheric CO2.
Ferdinand Engelbeen, although a sceptic, has been one of the leading advocates that ACO2 is responsible for all the atmospheric increase in CO2.
Ferdinand’s formula is:
Natural sources and natural sinks are assumptions and this paper shows that sinks have been completely under estimated.
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Does that mean the sinks are sunk, once and for all?
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It was reported about 5 years ago that a US team came to investigate the halving of rainfall in Australia about 50,000 years ago. This coincided with the arrival of humans and fire. Even Tim Flannery noticed all the megafauna died out precisely at that time.
So the question, or in aboriginal terms the burning question, is what to do about it? If we could double the rainfall by reestablishing the flora which covered the continent, should we? Of course we can.
The problem with climate alarmism is this idea of stopping everything. Civilization in particular. Industry specifically and electricity most urgently. Earth, wind and fire, the Shaman icons. Soon we will start building stone henges.
However if we decide that the world could do with a Green Australia, why not send the waters south, build something like the $800Million pipeline as in Victoria which was turned off after causing flooding and Green the country? Even a sprinkle of rain makes a huge difference and of course the world owes us billions for our greening, so we can send a trillion dollar invoice to the UN. Surely Helen Clarke will pay?
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Filling Lake Eyre which lays some 15 metres below sea level by means of a channel from Spencer Gulf was first proposed and debated by the government [ SA ] in 1883.
There have been a number of similar schemes to bring vast amounts of water back from the coastal areas into Centralia put forward since.
All about Lake Eyre
Floods of Lake Eyre
Ideas: Fill the Lake?
Plus ; Lake Eyre Yacht Club
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You could pipe the water from lake argyle and green the desert on its way down (thud……..another greeny just died with one leg in the air).
plenty of lakes to fill, Island Lagoon would be good but not Lake Hart, full of UXO’s
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Just watching a propaganda indoctrination progrom on Imparja called Earth: The making of a planet.
Apparently all the co2 was absorbed by all the rocks which meant the temps dropped to -50C and we had snowball earth then eventually the volcanos made it through kilometers of ice and released heaps of co2 and the planet warmed. The indoctrination was so thick they even use the old “co2 acts like a blanket” trick.
what a joke
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Fyck me now ozone acts like a blanket to
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*too*
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Crakar,
Did they discover the origin of the Tooth Fairy by any chance? I’m sure she must go back that far, just waiting for little boys and girls to lose a tooth so she could replace it with a coin under their pillow, all the time never being seen by anyone. I just know she must have been around back then. I mean, she’s never seen by anyone and hasn’t been seen as far as I know, forever. I’m sure she must have been around, unseen but they must have looked.
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Hang on a second…………..no one has ever seen the tooth fairy and no one can see co2, the tooth fairy sneaks in does the business and then leaves with out a trace just like co2 can cause floods and drought and yet leave no trace, co2 is a trace gas, co2 works as if by magic, are you trying to tell me the tooth fairy and co2 are one the same?
What an interesting hypothesis.
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Close, Crakar, close. But no cigar as they say.
What I was implying is that the research on the origin and the history of the Earth and research into the origin of the Tooth Fairy are about equally useful in determining anything about today’s weather.
Actually I think the Tooth Fairy has a slight edge in the usefulness department. The Tooth Fairy comes with at least a little sense of humor and some joy for a child. These climate change people have no sense of humor and they do nothing but trouble our children with predictions of doom and gloom.
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Since 70% of the planet are oceans, I would be surprised if the green deserts were sequestrating more carbon dioxide than the oceans. But as Joe says when it dries the carbohydrate will oxidised back into carbon dioxide with little overall gain. Whereas if you have plantation forests the wood formed (cellulose and lignin) can be used for solid wood products and kept out of the carbon cycle, say, 100 years for housing and furniture a little less perhaps. If carbon dioxide is a problem, and personally I don’t think so because there seems to be no correlation between CO2 levels and temperature, then productive plantation forests (not taxation scams) and solid wood products are one way of reducing CO2 levels a little, perhaps. A figure of about 5 tonnes of carbon/Ha./annum is feasible. ( Mean annual increment of plantation about 20 cubic metres/ha./an, 50% of this water and 50% of the dry wood is carbon) A cubic metre of green wood is approx. 1 tonne.
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The rule of thumb is that about 30% of phytoplankton biomass sinks to the anoxic deep where it transforms to dissolved polysaccharides. These are the major sink for World carbon. therefore, as phytoplankton growth accelerates, subject to sufficient Fe, there is another powerful sink for carbon.
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I am still cranky that I have not been getting paid for “FARMING MULGA” to save the planet!!!!!!!
This could be another one of the ripper comedy series to run in about 50 years time on the foibles of mankind influencing climate by any measurable quantity.
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I am still cranky that I have not been getting paid for “FARMING MULGA” to save the planet!!!!!!!
This could be another one of the ripper comedy series to run in about 50 years time on the foibles of mankind influencing climate by any measurable quantity.
00
What about the oceans? Have they no color for photosynthesis in the oceans?
By the way, it sure was nice of them to put the Latitude Longitude numbers on the graph. I would have forgotten where the equator was otherwise……..
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The latitude of the equator just might be a confidential piece of information in the eyes of some universities and other austere “bodies”.
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0 degrees, 0 minutes, 0 seconds is indeed a proprietary number. It belongs to the University of Queensland and was made a trade secret years ago by John Cook to protect his climate models from discovery. Unfortunately too many people still remembered the number and spilled the beans — all over the equator too. What a mess.
I guess 0 is just too easy to remember. Poor John tried his best, with the full weight of the university behind him to protect his interest but, alas, it availed him nothing.
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Mark,
In the preset world we should all be glad the equator remembers where it is. It might otherwise end up in UN headquarters or Antarctica or someplace like that and we would lose it.
Just think of all the trouble that could cause. Maps would all be wrong, GPS would be wrong, a sextant wouldn’t give accurate navigation information either. Flight 370 redux, in Spades.
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I know some of the designers of carbon markets personally. Their chief motivation was to create markets that would draw in suckers to trade on their terms (better still, get governments to require them to do so by law) where they would have the benefit of excellent insight into order flow and superior market intelligence. Saving the planet is strictly for the PR department.
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Well, all I can do is wonder how they figure all this. You in Oz are getting bad rap. First southern ocean winds control precipitation in Australia and then Australian deserts control global CO2 levels. What’s next? Maybe the discovery that the Sydney Opera House is the home of the Phantom of the Opera who is secretly the man behind the curtain puffing himself up to intimidate Dorothy and in his spare time manipulates world carbon markets and such? There’s just no end of possibilities once you step into the Twilight Zone and Rod Serling starts controlling the horizontal and the vertical. Who knows? Maybe Australia is inside out and you don’t know it.
My god! Maybe you all better be afraid. 😉
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Please, you warmists, can we get a break from your prognostications? Besides which, prognosticating can make you go blind. Didn’t you’re mother tell you not to do it?
And you do it in public too. Shame, shame, shame.
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E U R E K A!!! I think I’ve solved the mistery of the CO2 “disappearing act” and the disturbing temperature discrepancies. I should apply for a couple of million dollars and 2-3 years of study, But… I’m such a genius that solving complex problems in my sleep it’s natural!
Here we go:
Plants suck up CO2 as “sink” (Key word) sink usually have s bends, after a difficult process whatever goes down the sink ends up at the sewer works, from the sewer works all ends up in the ocean, CO2, Heat and any other nasties.
All misteries revealed! Gaia is happy.
Next sermon at Sydney sewer works 10Am Wednesday. Why Wednesaday? Wednesday is also known as Hump Day in Honour of the blessed Hump Back.
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“it quickly gets oxidized and goes back into the atmosphere over the next year or two when the grasses and flowers die”
But not so if it is burnt! Carbon from charcoal from wildfires is very stable and will remain in the soil for millions of years. In fact, we use that fact in California for paleo studies of wildfires in the past. Dig a trench and look for the charcoal. Wildfires actually help to sequester large amounts of carbon and keep it out of the carbon cycle.
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In reference to crosspatch’s comment on carbon staying in the soil for millions of years. I don’t know about millions of years but carbon can be and is locked up in plant phytoliths for at least 30,000 years.
Phytoliths also called Plant Stones are microscopic grains of silica found on the boundaries of the cells in the stems and branches, the woody parts of just about every plant species. The Phytoliths lock up carbon molecules within the molecular framework of the silica grain.
Silica grains are found in the cell walls of the stems of just about every plant species including trees.
Quite few years ago there was a genetic line of a number of varieties of wheat which had a very hard brittle straw .
When you had to handle that straw one collected a good number of straw splinters which are very irritating and usually with in a day or so start to fester.
Looking back as is noted in the article I have linked to on Phytoliths / Plant Stones we were probably growing a variety of wheat that had a high concentration of silica grains in it’s stem material which gave it that brittleness.
It probably was also taking up a lot of carbon in the Phytoliths contained in those stem cell walls.
As the carbon is contained within the silica grain structures and the silica is very resistant to fire and water and foes not break down very easily , there are deposits of almost pure silica phytoliths found in some places which are some 30,000 years old , dated I assume by carbon dating the silica grains.
__________________________
Sequestration Of Phytolith Occluded Carbon PhytOC
The global potential for bio-sequestration via phytolith carbon (from bamboo and/or other similar grass crops) is estimated to be ~1.5 billion t-e-CO2 y-1
Farming for the Future Now
[ quoted ]
We have recently discovered that a process which occurs naturally in plants could play an important role in countering CO2 emissions and global warming. This process is termed plantstone carbon – also referred to as phytolith occluded carbon.
Plantstone carbon is estimated to currently extract 300 million tones of CO2 p.a. from the atmosphere and to store this carbon securely in the soil for thousands of years. We believe the rate of this natural process could be readily accelerated many times by the adoption of simple agricultural practices.The current potential for this process with existing species and cultivers of those species is 1.5 billion tonnes of CO2 equivalants annually (Parr et al 2010). Planstone Pty Ltd. holds IP on procedures for plant breeding, carbon quantification and for the practical application of this process as well as both granted AUS Patent 2005279679, US Patent 7927884B2 and pending international patent applications on the use of these procedures for the purpose of carbon sequestration and carbon trading.
Plantstones form as microscopic grains of silica in the leaves and stems of some plants. They are prolific in grass-based pastures and crops such as sugar cane and wheat. Plantstones are present in all agricultural, lawn and native grasses as well as some herbs, shrubs and trees. During plant growth a small proportion of organic carbon becomes encapsulated within these silica grains. Regardless of whether the plant dies, burns or is harvested, the carbon entrapped in the plantstone is highly resistant to decomposition. Therefore, unlike most plant matter which readily decomposes in soil returning CO2 to the atmosphere, the carbon in plantstones effectively removes CO2 from the atmosphere for millenia.
It seems clear that this process, if incorporated into agricultural crops and crop choice decisions on land under active vegetation management, could make a major contribution to lessening atmospheric CO2 concentrations. We have developed and hold IP on proceedures for quantification and for the practical application of this process as well as both a granted and pending international patent applications on the use of these proceedures for the purpose of carbon sequestration (Parr and Sullivan, 2004).
Our research into crop plantstone interactions has shown that different plant types produce greatly varying amounts of plantstone carbon. Some crops have been shown to produce over 100 times more plantstone carbon than others. Moreover, varieties within a single crop type such as sugar cane, have been found to produce widely differing quantities of plantstone carbon. This indicates that the farmer’s choice of crop type and variety can have a considerable impact on the amount of CO2 extracted from the atmosphere and securely stored in the soil within planstones.
[ more ]
________________________________
Abstract from the PDF
Abstract
The rates of carbon bio-sequestration within silica phytoliths of the leaf litter of 10 economically important bamboo species indicates that (a) there is considerable variation in the content of carbon occluded within the phytoliths (PhytOC) of the leaves between different bamboo species, (b) this variation does not appear to be directly related to the quantity of silica in the plant but rather the efficiency of carbon encapsulation by the silica. The PhytOC content of the species under the experimental conditions ranged from 1.6% to 4% of the leaf silica weight. The potential phytolith carbon bio-sequestration rates in the leaf-litter component for the bamboos ranged up to 0.7 tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) equivalents (t-e-CO2) ha−1 yr−1 for these species. Assuming a median phytolith carbon bio-sequestration yield of 0.36 t-e-CO2 ha−1 yr−1, the global potential for bio-sequestration via phytolith carbon (from bamboo and/or other similar grass crops) is estimated to be ∼1.5 billion t-e-CO2 yr−1, equivalent to 11% of the current increase in atmospheric CO2. The data indicate that the management of vegetation such as bamboo forests to maximize the production of PhytOC has the potential to result in considerable quantities of securely bio-sequestered carbon. [ / ]
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