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What to make of this?

post #1 of 11
12/3/09 at 10:13am
Thread Starter 
http://www.larouchepub.com/eiw/public/2007/2007_1-9/2007-9/pdf/04_709_sci.pdf

Sent to me by a friend, this was supposed to "completely change my view".  I'm ill-equipped to comment either way, but it appears to be a bunch of hyperbole based on a tiny bit of science-sounding stuff.  Perhaps you guys could offer your take?
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post #2 of 11
12/3/09 at 11:29am
Oh it's totally dumb.  The methods used to measure atmospheric CO2 prior to the Mauna Loa record were highly inaccurate, in case it's not obvious from this graph:

 

Gee I wonder why it was so noisy before the Mauna Loa record, and so smooth afterwards!

In fact that's exactly why Keeling began the Mauna Loa record.   A good discussion of the many flaws in Beck's work here.
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post #3 of 11
12/3/09 at 1:10pm
Thread Starter 
Thanks, Dana.  I took some time away from debates and any kind of forum for the past several weeks, since my wife passed away.  I'm just getting back into "normal" mode again, though not visiting Y!A has brought down my stress levels a lot.
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post #4 of 11
12/3/09 at 1:27pm
Oh man, I'm really sorry to hear about that Cap'n.  I can only imagine how devastating that must be.
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post #5 of 11
12/3/09 at 5:10pm
Cap'n:  How are you holding up?  That sort of loss can be devastating, I'll send good thoughts your way.  Of course, with my personality, that's not worth so much.

The quick rebuttal to the above graph of CO2 is that most 19th and early 20th century CO2 measurements are taken indoors.  Especially in the days of heating through open fireplaces and stoves, elevated air-phase CO2 concentrations were the norm.  Since this wasn't appreciated at the time, and it wasn't possible to collect flask samples from outside and bring them inside anyway, well, the data were very noisy and also typically elevated above atmospheric background.  This is the true explanation for the time series shown above. 

Scientists who are serious about studying historical records of atmospheric CO2 appreciate that much of the early direct measurement data is corrupt, which is why it is ignored over the ice core data.  Scientists who aren't serious, like Beck (the source of that figure), ignore this and just bull forward without really understanding what they are doing. 

I love climate skeptics. 
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post #6 of 11
12/3/09 at 6:17pm
Thread Starter 
Thanks for weighing in, GCNP.  It is amazing what skeptics choose to be skeptical about :)

I appreciate the good thoughts, guys.  It has been a damn rough few weeks.  I'm doing alright though.  Getting my life back on track and working through things.  I'll be OK.  It is pretty crazy and still hard to get my mind around.  My wife, Laura, was 29 years old and had no medical issues at all.  It was a total shock.

Thanks again.
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post #7 of 11
12/3/09 at 8:38pm
Wow, I bet it was.  What happened, if you don't mind my asking?  If you don't want to talk about it, feel free to ignore the question.
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post #8 of 11
12/3/09 at 9:05pm
Sorry to hear your bad news Captaint! Best of wishes for you and a big hug!

Gas sampling and analysis is troublesome even today. If you go to most industrial plants doing it you could find gross faults with their anaylsis system, both auotmated and with manual sampling or feeding into the analysis equipment. Chemical absorption, which I imagine they used for the old samples, is very difficult to replicate results on. 0.1% is doing very well for run of the mill work with the old methods.

To think that people had it right 100 or 200 years back at the ppm level is not thinking well!
 
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post #9 of 11
12/4/09 at 6:30am
Thread Starter 
Thanks, Russ.

I don't mind talking about it at this point, Dana, though I won't go into too much detail.  If you're interested just send me a PM and I'll tell you all I know.  Her and I went to sleep, as normal, on Sunday October 18th.  The next day I woke up to the sound of her alarm going off at about 5:00 am.  I got up, shut her alarm off and tried to wake her.  I was unsuccessful.  When I turned the light on I could see that she was gone.  I called 911 and tried CPR, but it was far too late.  She had passed at some point earlier in the night.  We are still waiting on results from toxicology, which could come any day now.  We have no idea what caused it.   
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post #10 of 11
12/4/09 at 10:01am
Captaint - I'm so sorry to hear about your wife. I cannot imagine what this is like to go through so I don't know what to say but I hope you're hanging in there.
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post #11 of 11
12/6/09 at 10:35am
oh cap'n t how awful! i am so sorry for your loss. what a shock, so young. makes me count my blessings.
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