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I don't want to get into this little tête–à–tête, but it would have probably been more instructive/informative if Archer's papers had been linked or an explanation of the reasoning he uses to derive the carbon lifetime in our planet's active carbon cycle. For instance:
Atmospheric Lifetime of Fossil Fuel Carbon Dioxide
http://climatemodels.uchicago.edu/geocarb/archer.2009.ann_rev_tail.pdf
(full paper available for review at above link)
Millennial Atmospheric Lifetime of Anthropogenic CO2
http://www.pik-potsdam.de/~victor/archer.subm.clim.change.pdf
(again full paper available for review at the above link)
Anytime we use popular press quotes, we have to expect a loss of context and qualification, that is why science demands the use of formalized, published statements with all the attendant context and proper qualification of terms and situations. I consider myself lucky to count both David Archer and Raymond Pierrehumbert as acquaintances and the two most important sources and influences in what I know and understand about AGW and Climate Science in general. Their writings (both journal and popular), their lectures (both public and in coursework), and their discussions (both personal and in public - they are both participants at real climate) have, and continue to, shape and refine my considerations and understandings.
There is more fruit in the discussion of their actual published statements and conclusions than there is in the discussion of any journalist's take on the "quoted" researcher's out-of-context blurb,...in my opinion.
Thanks Trakar but don't think I have not taken any look or discussed some of those, even those published just this year -and cited by many- and a few unpublished -and not Internet based or Google reached
It's a matter of "you need the Doom Day ir order to be doomed". Of course there's a fraction of Cant that remains stuck in the atmosphere once ocean-atmosphere equilibrium in reached. If I am not forgetful, one of your papers set that at around 25% of the total Cant (if a paper doesn't say it's over 20% it's very difficult for it to be published). The problem is: it depends on how far from the original equilibrium you have felt. Those values around 25% are only consistent with carbon emissions rising some 2 or 3% a year non-stop way into the twenty-second century and towards the twenty-third century, then the tautologic "we're doomed if we're doomed" becomes a reality, and those percentages, maybe to be taken seriously.
All those calls for "don't you see this has not way back!" omit that little detail. Their prognoses become wrong the moment mankind does anything, say, what we're being doing the last 10 years and what we're going to do during the next 50.
The give-and-take of papers is common in real scientific environments. Conducted that way, citing journalistic terror and then backing with curricula vitae and papers selected to back a similar position and not to illustrate the knowledge on the subject nor the state of the debate, it is not science but what Jack "College" Six-pack thinks science looks.
Basically the "carbon dioxide is going to stay during millennia" bit comes attached to some parameters taken as a given -basically, the case for uncontrollable emissions- and that is not clearly stated when the bit is used to instil fear and manipulate people into specific actions.
So, this little posting skirmish has had two aspects. The sociological one, which starts with macdoc's "Greenland melting down!?", followed with myself taking one of many points used in the way I've just described and mocking it; macdoc doubling the bet and supporting the bit exactly the way I've just described with argumentum ad verecundiam and argumentum ad googlum, to be followed by myself dismissing it with my usual diplomacy and sweet Latin charm, and so on, and so on. On this sociological aspect I only have to say that I won't remain mute when terror is being instilled or lies are being spread.
The scientific aspect, if anyone is interested, I know that you Trakar are, is about estimating the role of the oceans in the capture of carbon dioxide. Just to start the scientific debate, this is the content of Cant in the ocean according to three different methods. Cant in oceans totals roughly 150 pg if you want to do some checkings.
The figures, by definition, offer some interesting insights on the way the oceans manage the new carbon.
