Every now and again its nice to be reminded that the Dork Side really are a bunch of swivel-eyed loons. So I’m thankful, so to speak, to Eli (and, now I look, Sou) for pointing me at Settled science? The IPCC’s premature consensus is demonstrated by the Orbiting Carbon Observatory. I didn’t bother read the rest, because that they’re nutters is all you need to know, the exact fuckwittery is only of interest to scholars of denial. Thrust, ah ha, king of the Impossible, and so on, in the unlikely even that anyone cares.
As to the headline: I thought I’d leave out the question mark just to wind you up :-). You get a prize if you can identify the source of the image, without looking at my Flickr feed. Though you might not want to admit to it.
Refs
* Despair of the Dork Side
* Oh good: the dork side still don’t like wiki
* Peer review isn’t good at “dealing with exceptional or unconventional submissions,” says study
wmconnolley: scienceblogs.com/stoat archive 
This foolishness is not just on this side of the pond:
Cheshire Claim: Rupert Darwall Copies Satellite CO2 Nonsense From Murry Salby.
In that case, Darwall (a Cambridge man, sad to say) takes Salby’s mis-use of SCIAMACHY and runs with it in a think tank’s magazine.
Satellites are good … too bad they have such a history of being over-interpreted and abused.
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I tried to read that article, and either I completely missed the point, or the authors are stupider than I thought possible. Are they seriously claiming that rising CO2 can’t be human-caused because CO2 levels are higher near the equator? Like, gases can’t move?
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It’s not this, but I immediately heard “MR. FIBULIII!!!”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pirate_Planet
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Sou takes a tentative step toward explaining the pattern observed, but neither he nor Eli really fills in the details. My guess is that the large orange blotches in Southern hemisphere have to do with the cycle of plant growth and decay as regulated by the rainy seasons. Is that right?
[I didn’t check, ter be ‘onest. Your explanation seems quite plausible. But (as Eli says below) this is a very short dataset; I really don’t see a great deal of point going into too much detail about exactly what it is showing -W]
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The figure is only for October, a time when a lot of the ground is burnt off in Brazil and Central Africa for agriculture (thus the large number of fires in both places). As to the annual cycle, take a look at the SCIACHMY page Eli linked that gives an idea of the annual cycle of emissions (also remember that the OCO data is for the entire column of CO2 and the free troposphere is pretty well mixed so you have to skin the onion.
But yes, it is a mystery how Ball got his degree, or maybe not.
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Though Ball is a serial straw-grasper, this is more bonkers than Monckers !
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CIP – re “explaining the pattern observed”.
There are several ways to get the answer from the HotWhopper article. Watch the video embedded in my article. You can click in the bottom right hand corner to watch full screen. If you’re short of time then start at 5:15 and if you have time, watch at least through Chris O’Dell’s talk.
If you don’t have time for that, then wander down the HotWhopper page a bit till you get to the quotes of Tim Ball quoting the BBC (just under the Humans are exonerated” heading). You could even click through to the longer articles at the BBC and Live Science.
If you don’t have time for that, then here it is in a nutshell. The measurements are picking up tiny weeny changes in concentration. In the map at HW this was from around 387 to 402.5 ppmv, which you can see from the legend at the bottom of the map. The colours show the sources and sinks.
The sources are primarily from biomass burning, fossil fuel burning and plants, which will alternate between being a source and a sink. The CO2 in the air is moved around from the source by wind.
Finally, right up the top I linked to a NASA article explaining the carbon cycle, with sources and sinks.
If you have a more specific question feel free to ask – there are lots of knowledgeable people who pick up on questions at HW.
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Big moustache and terminator eye
Perhaps that is a common combination?
Nope. Now, I have given up and cheated, I can see why you say “Though you might not want to admit to it.”. But doesn’t that rather beg the question of what sort of person would advertise such knowledge?
[:-) In my defence, I didn’t know in advance, I just knew I wanted a still from that movie -W]
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1) See Alex Epstein and Rupert Darwall promote Ball’s post.
2) ELi and Sou have covered much, but people also might take a look at the post I mentioned and specifically watch the fine NOAA animation of CO2 by latitude over time, one of my favorite visualizations.
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Said elsewhere (“Thrust”):
________________
“If you don’t know the science, or have read some words but found them too hard to understand, then you may fairly claim to not know for sure either way. In which case, you’re going to have to believe some authority; but you’re definitely not making any interesting contribution to the debate, because all you’re saying is “I haven’t been able to look”.
___________________
Wait, there’s a debate?
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And here I was just settling in to read some good science and you…well..you raised my heart rate. Please, don’t do that again. My Medicare deductible….
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