Which greenhouse gases is the most powerful?

[NileQueen]

http://www.cmdl.noaa.gov/ccg/figures/co2rug.jpg
Bystander, care to interpret this pretty picture?
It loox to me like CO2 is much higher at the pole than at the equator. And the quantity of
CO2 rises and falls with the seasons? Therefore the peaks and troughs in the 'fabric' of the graph?

 

[Bystander]

NQ-
You read it the way I read it. Interpretation? 'Less CO₂ has a large "boreal-tropic" negative diffusion coefficient (to fight prevailing winds and concentrate stack gases from populated latitudes), the major source of the 15-20 ppm increase in winter concentrations is located somewhere within the Arctic Circle. Next question for all the climate crowd out there: "What could that source possibly be?" Hint: review your high school and freshman year chemistry and physics.

Piece at a time, folks --- stick to the basics --- do not attempt the "grand synthesis" ab initio/ovo ---understand and review the data --- and, the methods. Conclusions follow hypotheses rather than preceeding them as some (I, for one) might argue in this particular area of inquiry.

"Experts" arise from the quality and utility of their work, rather than by self-acclamation --- that's the ooolllllddddddd days of ignorance, superstition, and myth, when witch doctors, shaman, and temple priests were forever fouling things up beyond all recognition/recovery/redemption/belief.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Ivan Seeking:
A scientist loox closely at the evidence and questions it. If it passes the test, he builds on it.

Does he also ignore everyone elses work; just work in isolation and draw his own conclusions?

How do other authorities answer these objections? It seems to me that any fair representation of the facts demands that the the opposing explanations are presented.

Bystander, generally speaking, do you accept the data from ice cores?

 

[Ivan Seeking]

I.S.

Best guess?! You are making a big mistake when you let others do your thinking for you.

Do you seriously believe that the average person has the time or knowledge to figure this for themselves. They do vote though. How are they to judge?

 

[Bystander]

Ice core data? Data - the assays aren't trivial, but look to be competent. When you say "data," I get the idea that you really mean "interpretation." The assumptions that are made regarding mobilities of species in ice are not something I've reviewed all that closely --- until I get the time to examine that set of assumptions in more detail, I've no position at all regarding "accepting" or rejecting interpretations of ice cores.

How do other authorities answer these objections? It seems to me that any fair representation of the facts demands that the the opposing explanations are presented.

One presents data, good or bad, not fairly, not unfairly, but completely (methods, conditions, estimates of uncertainties, descriptions of standards and controls, ta-da, ta-da, ta-da). The discussion of the significance of the data vis-a-vis support or refutation of this, that, or the other model, hypothesis, or confirmation of previous work, or as a higher precision refinement of previous work is up to the author. It's good form to cite Doe & Jones' results which are totally contrary to your own, and reviewers may demand or recommend that such be done, or they may not. "Fair" ain't part of the game --- you scoop me on the errors the global warming crowd has made to date, and it's your name on the paper. You reproduce the mean sea level studies, or do a review of mean sea level studies and have a blinding flash of insight, or spot the absolutely "sore thumb" obvious oversight missing from all the previous summaries and reviews, you don't have to wallow around in the stacks hunting down every paper that's been done on integration of temperature-density profiles of sea water --- you state the material you've reviewed, and you introduce the missing information, and state the obvious, and sit back and wait for the hate mail to come in.

 

[NileQueen]

I.S.

Does he also ignore everyone elses work; just work in isolation and draw his own conclusions?

No, he puts their conclusions to the test, and tries to replicate their results.

I.S.

Do you seriously believe that the average person has the time or knowledge to figure this for themselves. They do vote though. How are they to judge?

It's all in where you put your priorities Ivan. There are those who will watch sitcoms and tv for hours, there are those who will surf the internet, or play solitaire (or other games) for hours. You make time for what's important to you.
How are they to judge? Well they have to get informed, and then apply their critical thinking skills to the issue.
Bystander:

Next question for all the climate crowd out there: "What could that source possibly be?" Hint: review your high school and freshman year chemistry and physics.

1. methane hydrate from the sea floor
2. IF permafrost melts, then that methane source will release to the atmosphere...

 

[NileQueen]

The tropopause is about 9 km at the pole, 11 km at midlatitude, and 15.5 km at tropical latitudes. Maybe that is a factor

 

[NileQueen]

Okay on second thought it is not methane hydrate. That is not going to be cyclical seasonally and there isn't a seasonal mechanism to release it. There is freezing and thawing going on even above the Arctic Circle. Freezing may prevent CO2 from being absorbed by the ocean, so it stays in the air in the winter...

 

[Bystander]

The tropopause is about 9 km at the pole, 11 km at midlatitude, and 15.5 km at tropical latitudes. Maybe that is a factor

Gotta be involved in the rate of mixing/homogenization of the atmosphere, but, won't be sorting gas species by latitude.

Okay on second thought it is not methane hydrate. That is not going to be cyclical seasonally and there isn't a seasonal mechanism to release it. There is freezing and thawing going on even above the Arctic Circle. Freezing may prevent CO2 from being absorbed by the ocean, so it stays in the air in the winter...

Check. Check. Check. Check. And, close. Veerrryyyy cllooosssseeee.

 

[NileQueen]

Okay the source. Well you have reindeer and polar bears and Eskimos or Inuits and other native peoples in the far north exhaling CO2. Any people living above the Arctic circle in winter will build fires or have some source of heat that may give off CO2.
Wind patterns. If the CO2 is emitted but cannot be absorbed by the ocean, the Arctic air also must not be mixing too well with the lower latitudes or we would see a more uniform reading across the latitudes.

 

[Bystander]

Now you're getting "colder." Think about your "freezing" speculation. Ever put your soda in the freezer to cool it faster? And forgotten about it?

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Well, if we treat this more as a forum for peer review rather than for education, then I guess it is fair that we recognize that these arguments are drop in the bucket; a few of thousands of arguments that surely carry no more academic weight than published materials.

 

[NileQueen]

Bystander:

Now you're getting "colder." Think about your "freezing" speculation. Ever put your soda in the freezer to cool it faster? And forgotten about it?

No I hadn't. I usually don't drink soda. I googled a bit but didn't find anything definitive. So I found some GV grapefruit soda, and put some in an empty plastic water bottle, and some in an open plastic cup and put them in the freezer. I came back in a few hours and of course the liquid in the old water bottle had expanded. I unscrewed the cap and it hissed with escaping vapor.
I pressed the frozen drink out of the plastic cup and there were holes in the sides of the ice chunk.
So then I conclude that:
When the soda freezes, the pressurized CO2 is forced out of solution. So when the sea freezes, any CO2 in it is forced out.
There you go.
I wonder if some might be trapped inside the ice...
[spin]
no tornadO...

 

[Bystander]

You got it. Trapped gases? Sure --- it's nowhere near equilibrium conditions (reversibility) for the actual freezing process in the Arctic --- also, slightly higher concentrations of solutes in the 4 C water falling to the bottom at the "top" end of the Atlantic conveyor, plus dissolved salts. At the same time, this (containing trapped solutes) is a pretty mushy, low melting point ice that differentiates fairly quickly into cleaner ice and salty water.

 

[NileQueen]

Okay thanks for the enlightenment Bystander.

 

[Bystander]

This is an update on the NOAA-CMDL link for greenhouse gases.
http://www.cmdl.noaa.gov/gallery/ccgg_figures/co2rug_mlo