Let’s Keep An Eye On The Science, Shall We?
Note: John Weckerle is a licensed professional geologist and has been at work in environmental consulting for 22 years.
by John Weckerle
In the August 27 of the Mountain View Telegraph, local climate contrarian Ken Johnson – now billing himself as a retired professor, although of what and from whence remains a mystery – renews his attempt to convince us all that climate change is a farce. In this particular case, Mr. Johnson uses a simplistic discussion of the reaction products of hydrocarbon combustion and a flawed description of carbon sequestration as a result of geologic processes.
Your editor – and others – have sparred with Mr. Johnson before. In a 2008 response to one of Mr. Johnson’s letters, I pointed out that Mr. Johnson was using, as the basis of his argument, the thoroughly discredited “Oregon Petition Project (While Mr. Johnson appears to know better than to use this reference to support his case in letters to the Telegraph, he still uses it elsewhere, most recently in a June 11 letter to the Santa Fe New Mexican).
Mr. Johnson’s attempt to trivialize the issue by reducing the carbon cycle to a discussion of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen atoms is grossly simplistic and ignores nearly all the processes involved in the cycle. Mr. Johnson either ignores or fails to grasp such issues as rate of change, cumulative effects, and the overall complexity of global climate response to the various factors affected by increases in greenhouse gases (GHGs). His statement that it has not been demonstrated that CO2 has any effect on global atmospheric temperature is both unsupported and unsupportable; the role of CO2 in the retention of heat in the atmosphere is accepted among all credible authorities on the issue. Mr. Johnson also ignores the fact that removing sequestered carbon (in the form of fossil fuels) by other than natural processes, especially at the rapid (geologically speaking) rate of withdrawal we require, and returning it to the atmosphere essentially short-circuits the “normal” operation of the carbon cycle.
Mr. Johnson’s assertion that CO2 represents a tiny fraction of greenhouse gases simply attempts to compare annual atmospheric carbon addition to the total content in the system. Assuming for the sake of argument that Mr. Johnson’s statement that annual anthropogenic CO2 emissions represent 0.5% of the total atmospheric content is correct, one would expect a 50% increase in the total over 100 years. It is widely observed that atmospheric CO2 increased on the order of 30% over a 100-year period – not a bad correlation given that emissions at the beginning of the period were lower at the beginning than they were at the end.
Mr. Johnson suggests that we try to imagine the trillions of tons of carbon that sequestered annually by the Mississippi River – and imagine is exactly what we would have to do. While carbon sequestration rates associated with river delta deposition are still under investigation, this is not to say that nothing is unknown about the subject; in fact, the U.S. Geological Survey has published an excellent paper on the subject of carbon export into the Gulf of Mexico as part of a 2008 Ocean Carbon and Biogeochemistry Scoping Workshop on Terrestrial and Coastal Carbon Fluxes in the Gulf of Mexico (VERY large PDF). Using the information in this report, it is easy to calculate that particulate carbon exported by the Mississippi River is likely between 4.1 and 12.3 million tons per year – a lot of carbon, but still many orders of magnitude less than Mr. Johnson’s trillions. The report also indicates that the Mississippi Delta is rapidly losing carbon to the Gulf, and that sedimentation and carbon deposition in the near-shore environment, both of which are necessary parts of the sequestration process, have declined since 1952, largely as a result of dam construction along the river. The delta (the sort of depositional environment in which carbon may be sequestered) would appear to be contributing approximately 205,000 tons of particulate organic carbon to the Louisiana shelf – certainly a drop in Mr. Johnson’s trillion-ton bucket.
While predictive models are still being developed and refined, much progress has been made, and the models correlate more closely with observations as research on carbon cycle mechanisms and the associated complex systems continues to supply previously missing pieces of the puzzle. More than ever, models disagree more in terms of intensity than on the nature of effects. Correlation is now sufficient to demonstrate that effects will occur and provide at least a narrowed field of scenarios that may form the basis of strategic discussions.
Mr. Johnson pretends that climate change resulting from GHG increases is still just a theory. It is not. Previously predicted effects are no longer just predictions – they are upon us. Sea level rise has already been recorded. Changes in ecosystems are already occurring. Increases – globally and regionally – in atmospheric temperature have already been measured. Northward shifts (in the U.S., at least) of marine species are already under observation. While it is not clear whether we can mitigate and/or reverse the effects of increased atmospheric GHGs, we should perhaps consider the possibility that this may be one area in which we should exercise caution, especially since we do not know how close we may be to a point of no return.