“Tobjorn: Let me also add that I have very little concern about the natural system recovering from what we do to it. It has taken far worse blows in the past and recovered with new types of biodiversity after massive extinction events. Its just that I have some small concern about our own survival from the consequences of what we do to the natural system ;)”

Apparently we are discussing different things. When I said you were cherrypicking data it was for natural occurences since these are the events that we can test biological recovery against. I agree that if you are concerned that our survival as a species are important and could be a dramatically different process than recovery of a biosphere, a different timeline may make more sense.

However, our economy and technology is a late invention so then you would have practically no baseline left. I guess if I were interested I could perhaps pick up the reason to the 650 000 year restriction, which isn’t obvious to me. But I’m not, really. I was originally merely reacting to your first statement on natural carbon dioxide levels.

wolfgang says:

“> the whole “scary” part of climate change is the rapidity of the “change”.

Torbjorn,”

I didn’t say that, Hiranya did. You should direct your commentary accordingly.

‘Thales says that it is water’. ‘it’ is the nature, the archê, the originating principle.

Old thoughts, new and improved factual ideas, of measure? Imagine, Weighing Water?

Both the mean gravity field and the monthly maps of the time-variable gravity field are useful tools for scientists as they study the Earth’s changing climate. The mean gravity field helps scientists better understand the structure of the solid Earth and learn about ocean circulation. Likewise, scientists use time-variable gravity to study ground water fluctuations, sea ice, sea level rise, deep ocean currents, ocean bottom pressure, and ocean heat flux.

So?

> There is a logical fallacy in saying we should not cut CO2 emissions
I did not suggest we should not cut CO2 emissions.

And I do not need to ‘make up my mind’ what I am arguing, since my opinion is pretty simple to understand: CO2 is growing slower than exponential, which is
significant because CO2 forcing is proportional to ln(C) and other greenhouse gases are ‘flattening’ even more. Thats all.
And since I explained my opinion more than enough already, I really think there is no need to discuss this further.

yes, indeed writing from the South Pole. I try to read as much of this eminently interesting blog during the short hours that we have an internet connection to teh outside world. I really enjoy your responses and your enthousiasm for responding. I have to say I would not be as pastient as you are. Where are you now ?
We have a NOAA station here at South Pole making the same measurements as those from the Mona Loa plot so there are a couple scientists with whom to discuss some of these issues. I wonder if “the Inconvenient thuth” is going to make it to the internet. Otherwise, I’ll have to wait anotehr 6 month to see it.
cheers,

Denis

(i) Mann et al. (=the RealClimate team) applied a nonstandard way of normalization to their data (i.e. subtraction of the 20th century mean rather than the overall mean), with the result that their principal component analysis gave undue emphasis on the North American bristlecone pine data. (This is the point explained at length in the article I linked to at #7.)

(ii) The North American bristlecone pine data cannot sensibly be regarded as reflecting temperature. (This point is also touched on in the article I just mentioned, and McIntyre has a new blog entry on this point at http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=697 )

So, when the RealClimate team says “Only if you remove significant portions of the data do you get a different (and worse) answer.”, they are ignoring point (ii), rather than answering it. Also, the fact that their result can be obtained even without the use of principal component analysis is irrelevant, as long as the new method also allows the bristlecone pine data to dominate. (I actually don’t know if the RealClimate team’s new method really allows the bristlecone pine data to dominate just as their original method does. But according to McIntyre, it does, and I don’t think the RealClimate team has responded to this criticism.)

The bugs leave a ring around the outside of the wood that protect it from the cold weather. A dead tree after infestation, has no bark left.

The second factor is climate change. Historically, beetle populations have been limited by cold winters; however, the absence of cold temperatures in the interior has allowed large populations of beetles to successfully survive the winter under the bark of the pine trees. Furthermore, the warming trend in the interior has produced ideal conditions for the mountain pine beetle. Hot, dry summers have allowed the beetle infestation to spread to higher elevations and more northern latitudes while producing drought-stressed trees which are more susceptible to attack.

If it is warm, they will survive. If the temperatures do not drop to -30 celcius or below, for a three week period or longer, they will live because of ths anti-freeze they inject, which gives it this “blue coloring” when you cut the dead tree down.

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2006-05/02/content_582103.htm

Indian rice cultivation emitted an estimated 3 Teragrams of methane in 1994.
http://www.ias.ac.in/currsci/dec102005/1904.pdf
The US estimate for this quantity was 38 Teragrams, more than 10 times the Indian estimate.

US emissions in 2000 as per Hiranya’s link was 28 Teragrams.

according to Lubos Alaska had record low temperatures this year. This might take care of the bug problem. I do not know anything beyond that about it and will really tune out of this thread now.