[This message has been edited by avengador1 (edited 04-20-2016).]

The most puzzling statement from Richard Lindzen in the "Prager U" (~avengador1) comes at 3:06 into the 5:04 long video segment.

Lindzen has divided the "players" into three groups. Group 1 are the scientists who are confident that human activities are a major cause of significant global warming. Group 2 are the scientists who are skeptical that human activities are actually a major factor, or even skeptical that there is any appreciable global warming. Group 3 includes publicly elected or appointed officials, the news media and advocacy groups.

It's well known that the three groups are not perfectly orthogonal That is a math geek's way of saying that there are those people who cross over group boundaries. Some scientists have become advocates for one kind of policy direction or another, without giving up their "day jobs" as scientists. But on the whole, I think the idea of these three "kind of" separate groups is sensible as a first approximation.

At 3:06 Lindzen begins a statement "Most importantly, the scenario that the burning of fossil fuels leads to catastrophe isn't part of what either group asserts."

I have it queued up:
https://youtu.be/OwqIy8Ikv-c?t=186

He's talking about the scientists--the "AGW believers" (Group 1) and the "AGW skeptics" (Group 2).

That strikes me as a false note. What does it mean without some specifics in terms of a definition for "catastrophe"..? And it's not hard to find scientists that are being quoted by name in the news media in connection with statements that are (more or less) along the lines of "Humanity as we know it will soon be up the proverbial creek without a paddle, if there are not timely and significant reductions in the world's production of carbon emissions from fossil fuels."


How many more of these videos do I need to complete in order to receive a handsome diploma that is suitable for wall display from Prager U..?

[This message has been edited by rinselberg (edited 04-23-2016).]

One of the questions that has been put to me in the course of this discussion is about the spatial distribution of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, and specifically, about how carbon dioxide is distributed vertically in the atmosphere, from ground level upwards; to wit (as I am prone to say):

Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2 (OCO-2) Launch; NASA Press Kit; July 2014
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/new...launch-press-kit.pdf

If anyone wants a comprehensive online "read" about Carbon Dioxide (CO2) and the Greenhouse Effect, you can't go wrong with this PDF-format "NASA Press Kit". It's actually fairly straightforward and easy to follow. It's a primer for a general audience. It's not like most peer-reviewed journal articles that present challenging math and statistical calculations and lots of "insider" jargon. Not here. Just work your way down past all of the spacecraft-related stuff until you find the section that starts with "Why Study Carbon Dioxide?" in large, bold lettering.

This is an excerpt:

quote Carbon dioxide is the most significant human-produced greenhouse gas. (Greenhouse gases contribute to warming Earth’s atmosphere by absorbing radiation emitted from Earth’s surface.) It is also the principal human-produced driver of changes to Earth’s climate. Carbon dioxide is a long-lived gas in Earth’s atmosphere. While more than half of the carbon dioxide emitted is removed from the atmosphere within a century, about 20 percent remains in the atmosphere for thousands of years. Though generated at Earth’s surface, carbon dioxide rises into the free troposphere, which begins at roughly 1.2 miles (2 kilometers) above the surface. There, winds (weather systems and jet streams) transport it around the globe, across oceans and continents.

Carbon dioxide is heavier than air. If the atmosphere were perfectly calm, without winds and updrafts, all CO2 emissions from human activities would be concentrated in a dense layer close to the ground, and close to their point of origin. CO2 emissions from road vehicles and ships would be concentrated near major highways and traffic zones, or along shipping lanes. The only exception would be air traffic, but if the atmosphere were perfectly calm, even the CO2 emissions from aircraft engines would eventually sink to ground level.

The reality is that CO2 emissions from human activities and natural processes are spread all around the globe and into every part of the atmosphere, from ground level all the way upwards and beyond the stratosphere, all the way outwards to the boundary where the last vestiges of atmosphere end and interplanetary space begins.

Another excerpt:

quote Locating the sources and sinks of carbon dioxide is a daunting assignment. Concentrations of atmospheric carbon dioxide rarely vary by more than two percent from one pole of Earth to the other (that’s eight parts per million by volume out of a total concentration of about 400 parts per million). In addition, the global, rapid transport of carbon dioxide in Earth’s atmosphere makes it difficult to spot sources and sinks. Scientific models have shown that we can reduce uncertainties in our understanding of the balance of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere by up to 80 percent if data from the existing ground-based carbon dioxide monitoring network can be augmented with high-resolution, global, space- based measurements of atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration accurate to 0.3 to 0.5 percent (about one to two parts per million) on regional to continental scales. The Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2 will have--not "will have", but "has"--it went operational in 2014--just such a level of precision.

This is a color-coded world map of CO2 levels in the troposphere (lower atmosphere) derived from OCO-2 observational data. You can see that the CO2 is distributed fairly evenly across the entire globe. There were a few spots where the measured concentration was as low as 387 ppm (parts per million) and a few spots as high as 402 ppm. For most places, it was close to or just above 400 ppm. This data is from 2014.


CLICK TO ENLARGE

NASA's Spaceborne Carbon Counter Maps New Details
December 18, 2014
http://www.nasa.gov/jpl/oco...ter-maps-new-details


OCO-2 observational data files are freely available online for downloading. I have not attempted it, because it looks to be something of a "project" requiring some basic programming skills and/or user level knowledge of some kind of database or spreadsheet software. I have no doubt that there are Pennock's members who could download and process this data if they wanted to do it.

Product Info; Orbiting Carbon Observatory
http://oco2.jpl.nasa.gov/science/ProductInfo/#


The ACE (Atmospheric Chemistry Experiment) satellite (funded mostly by the Canadian Space Agency) provided measurements of carbon dioxide at the most distant extremes of the atmosphere.


CO2 concentration at 100 kilometers altitude (~62 miles) measured by ACE (blue circles) and predicted by a model of the chemistry and physics of the global upper atmosphere (green crosses). The purple line shows the linear trend of the ACE data. Credit: U.S. Naval Research Laboratory

My takeaway is that CO2 levels at 62 miles high--at the very edge of space--are not as concentrated, compared to the lower atmosphere, but are still appreciable. You can see this marker at about 205 ppm in 2004, and climbing steadily to about 225 ppm in 2012. So to my "eyes", this high altitude concentration of CO2 has been tracking at somewhat above half the amount of CO2 in the lower atmosphere.

Scientists detect carbon dioxide accumulation at the edge of space
November 11, 2012
http://phys.org/news/2012-1...-co2-space-junk.html


The oldest continual monitoring station for atmospheric carbon dioxide--starting in the 1950s before there was any satellite data--is near the peak of the Mauna Loa volcano in Hawaii.

quote Mauna Loa Observatory (MLO) is a premier atmospheric research facility that has been continuously monitoring and collecting data related to atmospheric change since the 1950's. The undisturbed air, remote location, and minimal influences of vegetation and human activity at MLO are ideal for monitoring constituents in the atmosphere that can cause climate change. The observatory is part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) - Earth System Research Laboratory (ESRL) - Global Monitoring Division (GMD). We have confidence that the CO2 measurements made at the Mauna Loa Observatory reflect truth about our global atmosphere. The main reasons for that confidence are: The Observatory near the summit of Mauna Loa, at an altitude of 3400 meters (~ 11,100 feet), is well situated to measure air masses that are representative of very large areas. All of the measurements are rigorously and very frequently calibrated. Ongoing comparisons of independent measurements at the same site allow an estimate of the accuracy, which is generally better than 0.2 ppm.

The Latest Measurements of Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide at the Mauna Loa Monitoring Station

Week beginning on April 10, 2016: 408.69 ppm

Weekly value from 1 year ago: 404.10 ppm
Weekly value from 10 years ago: 384.93 ppm

Last updated: April 23, 2016

Data about the seasonal variations of atmospheric CO2, and also about trending going back as far as 1972:
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gm...g/trends/weekly.html

[This message has been edited by rinselberg (edited 04-24-2016).]

[This message has been edited by jmclemore (edited 04-24-2016).]

[This message has been edited by rinselberg (edited 04-24-2016).]