A simple back of envelope calculation
The
Royal Society unfortunately buys into the whole Anthropogenic Global Warming bullshit and they recently issued a "
report" with a stunningly bad error -- one that could have been caught with just a few calculations and five minutes fact checking. No, they drank the kool-aid then and they continue to drink the kool-aid now.
From Dr. Klaus L.E. Kaiser writing at the
Canada Free Press:
The Carbon Cycle and Royal Society Math
The recent �rebellion� by senior members of the Royal Society (RS) forced it to revise their guide �Climate change: a summary of the science�. The new guide, published on 30 September 2010, has a single paragraph under the heading The Carbon Cycle and Climate. In that, it says:�Current understanding indicates that even if there was a complete cessation of emissions of CO2 today from human activity, it would take several millennia for CO2 concentrations to return to preindustrial concentrations� [emphasis added].
One can easily (on the back of an envelope) calculate the order of magnitude of the amounts of carbon currently present in the atmosphere, and those burned in the world, hence the amounts of CO2 produced (assuming complete combustion). The former leads to approximately 5x10^14 kg C present in the atmosphere (of course in the form of CO2). The latter computes to 0.4x10^13 kg C (as CO2) per annum from oil, 0.7x10^13 from coal [1], or 10^13 kg C from coal and oil together. Any additional amounts from the combustion of natural gas and biofuels, or from natural sources (volcanoes) are excluded [2].
On that basis, if there were no CO2 removal processes, the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere should double every 15 years. But, in fact, over the last 100 years, at most it has increased by only 1/3, i.e. approximately from 300 to 400 ppm (parts per million in weight).
The much lower than expected increase (based on fossil fuel consumption) in the atmospheric CO2 can only be explained by a strong (natural) removal process.
It is also obvious then that the statement by the Royal Society that it would take �millennia� for atmospheric CO2 to return to levels at preindustrial times upon a (theoretical) complete and sudden cessation of all manmade CO2 release to the atmosphere cannot be true. If the CO2 were to stay in the atmosphere for millennia, why has its level in the atmosphere not doubled in the last 15 years, or gone up tenfold-plus over the last 100 hundred years? Furthermore, there are several peer-reviewed papers reporting the half life of CO2 in the atmosphere to be between 5 and 10 years. A half life of 5 years means that more than 98% of a substance will disappear in a time span of 30 years.
Obviously, that begs the question: WHAT IS WRONG HERE?
The answer is simple: THE ROYAL SOCIETY�S STATEMENT IS WRONG.
Dr. Kaiser then walks us through his assumptions and his sources.
The Royal Society is a policy organization, no longer a Scientific one.
Sad to see them fall from such a noble height...
Posted by DaveH at October 14, 2010 7:37 PM