Steven McIntyre got into it with Richard Betts on Twitter May 2, about how the evil IPCC report did not emphasize "global greening". Of course, everybunny knows that global greening will save the world, well, everybunny except those who actually study what increased atmospheric CO2 will do, that which there will be a fertilization effect, it is limited and there are countervailing, very countervailing effects from increased heat and messed up precipitation that will make things a lot tougher.
Richard basically told Steve that he was talking through his hat, in detail. Tony Watts thought that McI was just splendid. Eli, Eli thought McI was hilarious, mistaking the symbols for how increased CO2 in the oceans leads to acidification to that for the effects of atmospheric CO2. Tony, Tony was hopeless as he mangled the timeline in Steve's favor, sneeringly ignorant as it were. Both providing great examples of motivated bullshitting.
Twitter being Twitter, Eli thought he would learn how to Storify to put the thing in order. It is a long storify. Paying attention to the time stamps off we go. It starts with a post from Richard Betts on Carbon Brief about CO2 fertilization and climate change, to which great exception was taken by Tony and Steve.
There used to be storify for such things, but ephemeral is the net, it disappeared in 2018 so
Ironically, in a recent comment on my blog Steve McIntyre said Jeez, can't any of you read. Addmittedly, it was more an indication that he hadn't bothered reading, so seems apt, given the theme of this post.
ReplyDelete(The sneering was also a nice touch.)
ReplyDelete"Please do not keep insisting that I am wrong about this or that I am making some elementary mistake about it – I am not. If you think that the above comments are in error, then you don’t understand them."
ReplyDeleteMayor McNothingburger
Raffiniert ist der Hase, aber boshaft ist er nicht. Vielleicht.
ReplyDeleteSubtlety is lovely, but certain bunnies need to be held by the short hares.
ReplyDelete(Yes, I said it.)
Actually the fate and transport model(s) used by the IPCC for CO2 and Ch4 are incomplete and deeply flawed. Reading them, one would think they were written by 3 atmospheric chemists, a rocket scientist, and a guy from the ag school. Carbon cycles in the oceans and soils are orphans. WG1 offers a lot of factoids, but no coherent model consistent with biology, or the physical chemistry of CO2 and CH4 across gas, liquid, and solid phases.
ReplyDeletePeople see that there is a problem with WG1 and its descendants but cannot put their finger on just what it is.
We had a CH4 release in 1991. Yes, it showed up in lower atmosphere monitoring, but where is that carbon today? A real fate and transport model would tell us. Was it oxidized by OH- and Cl- in the upper atmosphere? Did the resulting CO2 become part of a blue whale or wood pulp for a milk carton? Or, did that CH4 dissolve into the oceans to be eaten by bacteria? Or, did it dissolve into the oceans to be carried in the rejected brine from sea ice formation to join sea floor clathrates? Or, was it eaten by bacteria in various river deltas? Did the whale or milk carton get converted back into CH4 by anaerobic bacteria?
Inquiring minds want to know, and the IPCC does not give us a clue. Talking about greening does not help either, because biomass can be converted to CH4. And, CH4 can be converted to biomass.
I look at global CH4 tracking, see the bump in 1997, and think that CH4 comes out of the oceans as El Nino warms surface waters. Perhaps the 1991 - CH4 just hid in the ocean for 6 years? You know, conservation of mass, and that kind of thing.
"My point remains unrebutted, ner ner ner", sounds like my 5 year old son
ReplyDeleteWhen are these muppets going to grow up
"All muppets, except one, grow up. They soon know that they will grow up, and the way Judith knew was this..."
DeleteI'm a bit confused.
ReplyDeleteDid Stephen McIntyre attend the Richard Tol School of Tediously Tendentious Argumentation, or did Richard Tol attend the Stephen McIntyre SoTTA?
The Space Auditor blazes his own trail, and he ain't NEVER comin' back to Earth.
DeletePretty far out, man.
A master class in how to stonewall after having been caught out.
ReplyDeleteGlobal greening is real!
ReplyDelete"The vine that ate the South" is an awesome grower, and it is really, really green. It is inhibited by sharp cold spells, less in evidence lately, so it has been spreading North.
Kudzu has been sighted in Ontario.