Vostok Data and CO2 Acquittal
{Rev. 11/12/09} The shaded area represents the interface of the ocean surface layer with the atmosphere. The ocean has circulation components that carry light weight water poleward in the surface layer, cooling along the way and thus absorbing more CO2 as Henry's Law requires. It becomes more dense as it cools and is freshened from land runoff in the classical model. But as shown here, it also increases in density as it loads with CO2. It's the surface component of a ThermoHaline Carbon Circulation, THCC.
The subsurface component is labeled as the Conveyor Belt. The THCC headwaters are at the poles, where it has a CO2 concentration corresponding to a perpetual temperature of 0ºC to 4ºC, and proportional to the existing CO2 concentration in the atmosphere. The THCC emerges at the surface approximately one millennium later to outgas according to Henry's Law in proportion to the CO2 concentration and surface temperature at the time and place of discharge. The bulk of this outgassing, perhaps 80%, occurs in the Eastern Equatorial Pacific.
Thus the hypothesis is that the volume of CO2 outgassed by the ocean is proportional to the CO2 content then, a millennium ago, and the sea surface temperature now. {End Rev. 11/12/09}
Several processes are simultaneously underway in the Carbon Dioxide Stream of Figure 23. Superimposed on a latitude–temperature graph is the solubility curve (shown without its ordinate axis). Solubility gets a shaded thickness to suggest the temperature dependent potential to absorb or release CO2 everywhere.
The atmosphere is a cloud to portray the global mixing of atmospheric gases by the winds. The CO2 exchange should occur to some extent distributed over the surface of the ocean. It should also occur focused by the ocean’s meridional overturning circulation, also known as the thermohaline circulation, and popularly called a conveyor belt. The circulation descends at the poles and rises to touch the surface dominantly in the Indian Ocean and the Eastern Pacific. When the belt rises to the surface, the current is saturated with CO2 because of the rising temperature and falling pressure. It is ripe to release the gas.
Insofar as the thermohaline circulation governs the rate at which deep waters are exposed to the surface, it may also play an important role in determining the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
Wikipedia, Thermohaline Circulation. The Wikipedia entry also gives 1200 years as the period of the circulation, which is quite close to the observed lag, supplying additional corroboration for the model. See Figure 11, above. This source supplies no hint of the accuracy of the period, or of the probable geographic locations for the release of the CO2. See also http://www.grida.no/climate/vital/32.htm for a nice diagram of the circulation. For a recent revelation that integration of the ocean patterns into the GCMs was still a decade away, see IPCC [2001], Ch. 14 Advancing Our Understanding, ¶14.2.3.2 Thermohaline circulation. http://www.grida.no/climate/ipcc_tar/wg1/508.htm .
The distribution of evaporation and precipitation over the ocean (its hydrologic cycle) is one of the least understood elements of the climate system. However, it is now considered one of the most important, especially for ocean circulation changes on decadal to millennial time-scales.
The Ocean Component of the Global Water Cycle, Raymond W. Schmitt, Department of Physical Oceanography, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, [2002]. http://www.earthscape.org/t1/scr01/scr01a.html.
The atmosphere only holds a few centimeters of liquid water, or 0.001% of the total.
heating one part in 100,000 of the water, he seems to attribute to the Man Behind the Curtain that
[i]n a stronger CO2 greenhouse climate it is hypothesized that the hydrologic cycle will intensify.
Id. The cause and effect perversely get reversed. Intensification of the hydrological cycle through heating of the ocean should increase the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere, where it will have a minute effect on atmospheric temperature.
Along the distributed path, the solubility effect observed in the Vostok data could represent a global average. Alternatively, in the conveyor belt path, the Vostok data could represent the release of CO2 at its focused contacts with the surface. Geometric modeling and calculations would help resolve the better model or a mix of the two mechanisms. The lag in the CO2 record suggests that the conveyor belt is the dominant flow.
We should revisit occasionally what the proper role of government is. As the constitution was a good sense of direction, we need a core set of principles to add in order to deal with the future.
So many want to engineer society, remove risk, assist certain groups, rather than let individuals thrive and raise communities. Why?
Is Democracy where we all "get it good and hard" or is it the best means to a free society?
Should we roll with the special interests, or make the government achieve its proper role, what is that role, and how to do this?
When do deficits and governments become too large?
Government is becoming more elitist while trying to sell corrections to problems it created, what makes this possible?
This could also be inserted into the field above, or erased
Currently as a society, we are having a most difficult time discussing political issues. What is driving this? And why a rebirth in political culture would be a good thing.
Are "markets" dead as some would conjecture? Or is free enterprise what got us here?
At the heart of economics there are several possible economic schools of thought, the essence of these schools of thought and how they relate to our lives.
