On Mar 17, 2006, at 8:30 PM, Robin van Spaandonk wrote:
In reply to Horace Heffner's message of Wed, 15 Mar 2006 22:03:49
-0900:
Hi,
[snip]
Polar carbon dioxide increasing at surprising rate. See:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/story/0,,1729255,00.html
"In 1990 this key cause of global warming was rising at a rate of 1
part per million (ppm). Recently, that rate reached 2 ppm per year.
Now, scientists at the Mount Zeppelin monitoring station have
discovered it is rising at between 2.5 and 3 ppm."
Horace Heffner
This is actually catastrophic.
If it is indeed true then I could not agree more that it is
catastrophic. I think independent confirmation is badly needed, not
just at Mount Zeppelin but all over the polar regions. Too bad NASA
has been canceling earth science missions.
An exponential model doesn't rise steeply enough to cover the
change in the rate of increase (i.e. the acceleration).
If the data is correct then I think that implies that a stepwise
increase is occurring. An exponential model does not apply to a
stepwise increase. Assuming the numbers are correct, that means some
threshold has been crossed and there is an entirely new source of
CO2. Maybe methane oxidizes much faster than the rate implied by a
12 year half-life. Maybe the ocean warming is somehow releasing CO2
- or failing to sequester it due to massive krill death, etc. The
numbers are very hard to believe, but making the effort at
verification is obviously of great importance.
I see the article says: "The increase is also seen at other stations,
but our Zeppelin data show the strongest increase." This leaves the
possibility it is a fairly localized phenomenon, though if a stepwise
regime change can occur there it possibly can occur everywhere in the
arctic.
Horace please correct any egregious errors.
Not my job mann! I just work here. That's a management function. 8^)
Horace Heffner
