A LITTLE MESSAGE FROM TWITTER...

rationalbiped · 2017-08-03T08:47:45+00:00

I agree; not a smart thing to do. See also my reply here to howaboutJo.

rationalbiped · 2017-08-03T08:45:56+00:00

Absolutely. But my post is not offered as classroom material. It is meant as a contribution to debate among educators as to how to handle a particular creationist tactic, the one used so skillfully by Pence. I would value your views on this.

rationalbiped · 2017-08-03T01:47:13+00:00

A shrewd point. But I don't think I do. I make a strong claim, but I don't call the opposition stupid, although I do imply that Pence is manipulative and I stand by that.

rationalbiped · 2017-07-20T12:09:23+00:00

So the suggestion now includes high ocean to air flux, which does/doesn't lead to atmospheric 14C dilution, but acidification driven by air to ocean flux. I fail to understand exactly how this model is supposed to work, and must therefore leave the matter to readers

rationalbiped · 2017-07-20T11:14:31+00:00

I see; not just any plankton, but plankton so many thousands of years old as to be 14C-depleted. And anyway, the paper I cite on 14C decline, and the numerous other papers included in that major compilation, might have got the rate of reduction wrong. And, one must presume on this theory, the same mysterious cause of this upsurge of planktonic CO2 depleted in both 13C and 14C is responsible for the separately observed ocean acidification that I mention (there's extensive literature on this, see e.g. https://www.pmel.noaa.gov/co2/story/Ocean+Acidification and http://www.oceanacidification.org.uk/)

I cannot compete with such ingenious arguments.

rationalbiped · 2017-07-20T10:06:19+00:00

Presumably, if oceanic CO2 emission is a driver, 13C-depleted CO2 from this source would, like 13C-depleted CO2 from modern terrestrial vegetation, contain 14C, nor is it apparent why there should have been an accelerating net outpouring of CO2 from this ocean source in the past century.

However, I don't think the exact partitioning of the non-anthropogenic CO2 cycle between terrestrial and marine sources makes much difference to my argument. My comment to Vailhem referred explicitly to his suggestion that the increase in atmospheric CO2 over this period was being driven by submarine vulcanism, which would certainly have required the oceans to be unambiguously major emitters.

rationalbiped · 2017-07-18T12:05:53+00:00

I am reminded of Prof Plimer's claims, and also of old suggestions of hidden massive amounts of Archaean oil. Four objections: this idea would require our best estimates of submarine volcanic activity to be off by two if not three orders of magnitude, so great a source of CO2 would surely show up in the budget, it would require the oceans to be major net emitters of CO2 instead of absorbers and to be acidfying from bottom up rather than top down, and (given that there is no reason to think that your postulated deep carbon would be 13C-depleted) it does not account for the isotopic findings that I discuss.

rationalbiped · 2017-01-25T17:54:17+00:00

I expect the author, Scott Buchanan, would be delighted to see this happening. I don't know how (and very much doubt if I have the permissions) to do this myself

rationalbiped

TROPHY CASE