Salby demolishes AGW theory

From that excellent blog Climate Etc, I have learned about a new paradigm-shifting scientific article by climate professor Murry Salby from Macquarie University. Well, strictly speaking it is a pod cast from a talk Salby gave at a policy forum of the Sydney Institute, so we cannot see Salby's graphs and other data, but nevertheless, it is important enough to warrant a discussion. Heck, the less data the more to discuss!

The Earth’s carbon cycle is not a topic on which I have any expertise. Therefore, I instead give you carbon cycle expert Andrew Bolt's summary of Salby's results:

Salby’s argument is that the usual evidence given for the rise in CO2 being man-made is mistaken. It’s usually taken to be the fact that as carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere increase, the 1 per cent of CO2 that’s the heavier carbon isotope ratio c13 declines in proportion. Plants, which produced our coal and oil, prefer the lighter c12 isotope. Hence, it must be our gasses that caused this relative decline.
But that conclusion holds true only if there are no other sources of c12 increases which are not human caused. Salby says there are – the huge increases in carbon dioxide concentrations caused by such things as spells of warming and El Ninos, which cause concentration levels to increase independently of human emissions. He suggests that its warmth which tends to produce more CO2, rather than vice versa – which, incidentally is the story of the past recoveries from ice ages.

Wow.

Wohohow!

Yippiyayayayay!

Wobedobedoboo!

If Salby’s analysis holds up, this could revolutionize AGW science. And I see no reason why it shouldn't hold up. It is sufficiently important that we should start talking about these issues. We can certainly do that without any graphs and other data. That just makes the discussion so much more open-minded and skeptical!

In the unlikely event that Salby turns out to be wrong, I can always write a post about that. If I can find the time.

Here are a couple of points we can discuss:

• Is it temperature that is driving CO2, and not the other way around?
• Does this mean that human CO2 emissions are insignificant? That they neither influence the CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere (or elsewhere) nor the temperature?
• Will the Team ever admit that they faked the hockey stick? Will there ever be reconciliation between skeptics and fraudsters? How long time should Michael Mann from Penn State serve in the State Pen?
• Why is Al Gore buying seaside real estate?

Here is some of my favorite data. As can be seen from this graph, CO2 and temperature are uncorrelated, and hence CO2 cannot drive temperature. This is an argument we skeptics always have made, and now we have been vindicated.

This graph on the other hand shows how well temperature and CO2 correlate. This is evidence that temperature is driving CO2.

Of course, the alarmists will try everything to wreck Salby's argument. For your benefit, this is how they can be countered. Think of the atmosphere as a bank account, and carbon dioxide as money.

The alarmist says: we know that human activities emit carbon dioxide. Yes, even more carbon dioxide than the increase in the atmosphere.

We answer: There are many people who deposit and withdraw money from the account. If the balance of the account goes up, how could be possibly tell that is was because a certain person made a deposit? Especially if we don't know how much each person deposits and withdraws? It is completely impossible. Same thing about carbon dioxide. There are many processes that add to or remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

But, says the alarmist, where does the human carbon dioxide go? Does it just disappear?

We reply: Haven't you heard about taxes? Money disappearing nobody knows whereto? It is the same thing with carbon dioxide.

But, argues the alarmist: Where does the added carbon in the atmosphere come from then? It is also increasing in the oceans and the biosphere.

We reply: Economic growth. Capitalism and free markets generate more money. Same thing with carbon dioxide.

But, grovels the alarmist, if a temperature increase of less than one degree C increases CO2 from 280 to 380 ppm, then the CO2 concentration during ice ages (around 6 degrees colder than now) must have been negative. That is impossible!

We reply: there is noting strange about negative numbers. Have you ever heard about debts? The kind of thing that your reckless liberal over-spending policies are causing all the time? Same thing with carbon dioxide. During the ice ages, there was a carbon dioxide debt. That's why there were not trees growing on the ice. Trees need carbon dioxide.

That should make the alarmists shut up, one can hope. Unfortunately, they don't really understand economy, so they may not get it after all.