Yet another bite taken out of the climate alarmists theories religion
The golden toad was last seen in 1989 in the Costa Rican cloud forest of Monteverde—and 5 years later, its disappearance was the first extinction to be blamed on humanmade global warming. New evidence, however, suggests that humans may not have been at fault after all.
Of course, it was blamed on CO2, Man is evil, man is bad, Man is guilty of being overwrought and hysterical and seriously jumping to conclusions. Wait, what?
But it’s hard to tell if the unusually dry conditions that contributed to the extinction were part of a natural cycle or connected to global climate change patterns. That’s because reliable temperature and moisture data for the Monteverde forests go back only to the 1970s. And due to the tropical climate, trees in Monteverde don’t form the rings usually used to study temperature and moisture patterns over time.
Ah, so those “professional scientists” were basically guessing? The hell you say!
Instead, Columbia University climate scientist Kevin Anchukaitis and paleoclimatologist Michael Evans of the University of Maryland, College Park, took samples the diameter of a pencil from two trees in the region. The duo then sliced the samples just 200 microns thick—about the width of a human hair—and analyzed them in a mass spectrometer to see what kind of oxygen isotopes they contained. Isotope ratios associated with dry conditions alternated with wetter conditions, allowing the researchers to establish the annual moisture cycle. The time-consuming analysis—there were 2000 pieces of wood to look at—created a climate record for the forest going back a century, which they describe online today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
“We expected to see some kind of trend related to global warming, yet when we developed the record it turned out the strongest trends were El Niño-related,†says Anchukaitis, referring to the cyclical weather pattern that affects rainfall and temperatures on the Pacific coast of North America. In Monteverde, El Niño caused an unusually severe dry season at about the time the golden toad was wiped out.
You have to give these researchers an A for honesty, particularly since the end of the article shows that they are pretty much alarmists. They expected it to be man’s fault, and, when they determined it wasn’t, but that pesky Mother Nature, they still published. Granted, as the story goes, their sample was small, and the field of oxygen isotope measurement is new, but, which makes more sense: nature and its 4 billion year history of mucking around, or Mankind, which contributes CO2 concentrations of around 3.4% of the 3.6% total atmospheric CO2 of the 2% of atmospheric greenhouse gases?
OMG, Teach. You never cease to amaze me with your ignorance. Not only is your mind full of loads of misinformation, but you can’t even get that misinformation straight. You throw in a bunch of percentages at the end of the post that don’t even make sense when put together.
Please, please, please, PLEASE, explain the percentages for me. PLEASE demonstrate how CO2 is 3.4% of 3.6% of 2%.
I’ll teach Kindergarten for you today Teach.
Green house gases overall represent about 2 percent of atmospheric compounds.
Approximately 3.6 percent of these gases are CO2. Of that amount, human contribution is only 3.4 percent of the total CO2. This would bring the total human contribution of CO2 to the atmosphere in total to .002448 percent.
Admittedly, I am no mathematician, but I think I am close enough for the East Anglia CRU
vego,
I was looking for an explanation, not a regurgitation of what Teach said. How ironic, by the way, that you claim to have to teach Kindergarten to me, when you believe one of the most widely debunked denier arguments to date. This is a great example of the kind of extremely simplistic and misleading arguments that deniers love to believe in and use. For a group of people who are supposedly so concerned about “real” science, you seem relatively uninterested in obtaining any real scientific answers. Now that you’re done teaching “Kindergarten”, I’ll teach you college-level atmospheric physics.
First of all, you should know that this set of simple percentages of content in the atmosphere doesn’t even remotely address the effect of the various greenhouse gases on the planet. It’s as if you don’t even believe in the greehouse effect, without which our planet would be about 59 degrees F colder right now. So, while it is true that greenhouse gases only make up a small minority of the content in the atmosphere, is that really relevant, or just a red herring, meant to mislead? I guess that depends on whether you consider 59 degrees to be a considerable effect.
Next, you claim that CO2 makes up only 3.6% of the greenhouse gases. This originated from a very biased and inaccurate source:
http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/greenhouse_data.html
The argument being made here is that water vapor is much more abundant, which makes CO2 and other greenhouse gases less relevant. The problem with this argument is that it ignores the atmospheric lifetime of the various gases, and therefore, the difference between a forcing and a feedback. You see, once water vapor makes its way into the atmosphere, it stays there for about a week or so. This means that its atmospheric concentration fluctuates IN RESPONSE TO temperature, making it a feedback. Carbon dioxide, however, stays in the atmosphere for over a century or more. Therefore, an increase in CO2 CAUSES a change in temperature, which CAUSES an increase in water vapor, which AMPLIFIES the original increase in temperature. Water vapor cannot CAUSE a change in temperature, as it does not stay in the atmosphere long enough.
So, while it is true that CO2 makes up a small percentage of the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere compared to water vapor, is that really relevant, or yet another red herring, meant to mislead?
Finally, you claimed that man’s contribution of carbon dioxide makes up only 3.4% of the CO2 in the atmosphere. This is actually false as well, as it disregards what is known as the planet’s natural carbon sink. It is true that there are natural CO2 emissions, but these emissions are also absorbed by plants and oceans. Therefore, the net natural emissions are negligible.
The atmospheric concentration of CO2 has shot up by over 35%, starting about the time of the Industrial Revolution, to about 387 ppm, which its the highest level in the last 800,000 years. This increase is not natural.
Once again, while it may be true that human CO2 emissions are a small percentage of the total CO2 EMISSIONS, is that really relevant, or just another red herring, meant to mislead?
Class dismissed.
I see the JackAss has come by to bray again.
You must be referring to vego, who felt the need to “teach Kindergarten”. I see you have no rebuttals?
“while it may be true that human CO2 emissions are a small percentage of the total CO2 EMISSIONS, is that really relevant”
That is all that is relevant in this particular discussion. with the phrase “small percentage” being a very generous overstatement. Human contribution is next to nothing. That is what is relevant. Not your irrelevant and inaccurate assumptions.
vego,
I think you meant “understatement”.
So basically, you don’t care about my scientific babbling about the greenhouse effect, forcings, feedbacks, and natural carbon sinks. That’s too complicated. You just know human contribution is small, so you want to stick with that, right?
Like I said, it’s ironic how your deniers all act like you are the enlightened ones. You know better than all of the world’s experts on this subject, based on a grade school calculation of the percent of man’s contribution of a gas, which discounts the most basic elements of climate science, specifically atmospheric physics. Hell, even skeptical climatologists like Roy Spencer and Richard Lindzen even understand these very simple issues. They may disagree on the sensitivity of our climate system, or on the direction of the water vapor/cloud feedback, but you won’t see them making this ridiculous argument about man’s contribution being negligible.
If you’re going to argue against the world’s experts on any given scientific subject, at least be sure that you understand and have applied the basics of that scientific field of study. Otherwise, you might end up looking foolish.
Seriously. Call a climate scientist.