CO2 levels

[Andy Burns]

If this year is expected to have the biggest increase in CO2 levels due to El Nino making plants/trees less 'thirsty' for the stuff, then will the next La Nina year produce a corresponding smaller rise?

[Brian Gaff]

Oh you bin listening to the Science hour on world service again?

Brian

[Chris Hogg]

No idea, but the idea that El Nino events in the Pacific result in a particularly sharp rise in CO2 levels doesn't seem to be reflected in past data.

I looked at the CO2 data published by NOAA from here ftp://ftp.cmdl.noaa.gov/ccg/co2/trends/co2_mm_mlo.txt using the 'Interpolated data' column.

When plotted, it gives the well-known rising saw tooth plot, due to the seasonal variation in CO2.

If an El Nino event, with it's effect on global temperatures, results in less plant growth and consequently less CO2 absorbed, one would expect to see a sharper rise in CO2 in El Nino years than in other years.

For each year, I took the difference between the maximum and minimum values of CO2 as a measure of the change in CO2 for that year. I plotted these up as a function of date, together with the El Nino Index data from here

The resulting graph is here The changes in CO2 are the blue symbols; the red line is the El Nino index.

It's difficult to see any correlation between change in CO2 and the major El Nino events of 1965/66, 1972/73, 1982/83 or 1997/98. Only the

2015/2016 appears to correlate with a higher CO2 increase, and even then, it's hardly spectacular.

More alarmism?

[Cursitor Doom]

There was another of these "experts" on Radio 4 this evening stating that after a certain future date not too far off, plants and trees which currently take in CO2 will start belching it out instead! Quite how this reverse photosynthesis was supposed to work was omitted. It was just a bald claim. Unless I missed something (I didn't hear the complete item). Can anyone who did hear it all clarify this remarkable piece of "science" please? I'd be intrigued. ;->

[Nick Odell]

Plants already "belch" it out though "belch" is a bit of an exaggeration. The key elements of plant biology are respiration, transpiration and photosynthesis. I learned that at school.

Transpiration is the process of moving water through the cells using energy created by respiration and respiration is the process of burning the sugars created by the process of photosynthesis. There's a balance between the absorption of carbon dioxide for photosynthesis and the emission of carbon dioxide through respiration which usually works in the favour of other living things. Likewise the balance between oxygen created by photosynthesis and that used by respiration. That balance is dependent on the difference between light and dark and the difference between daytime and night time temperatures.

Now: what did that programme say?

Nick

[Chris Hogg]

Many decades ago, pre- and post-WW2 it was the norm for vases of flowers in hospital wards taken in by well-wishers, to be removed from the ward at night and returned the next morning. This was said to be because the flowers (i.e. the leaves) gave off oxygen in the daytime but CO2 at night, the latter being thought to be detrimental to patient recovery in some way.

As if it would have made any difference to the level of CO2 in the wards!

For the OP:

[Cursitor Doom]

Aha! So pollution will cause the orientation in space of our planet to change, eh? A likely story! :-D

[Andy Burns]

Quite possibly ... will have to see how their prediction turns out.

[Andy Burns]

I thought they had two mechanisms ... one absorbing O2 and emitting CO2 all day long, and another absorbing CO2 and emitting O2 only while photosynthesising?

[michael adams]

Over a single night there's clearly little or no effect. The C02 Oxygen balance simply reverses itself back during the day. However if you consider the cumulative effect over a long period, on the air composition in the ward then things may be different. Every night, if removed, any extra oxygen that the flowers made during the day will stay in the ward so that however long vases of flowers are kept in the ward the oxygen level in the ward will increase. Obviously air is exchanged with outside when doors and windows are opened, but if it's assumed this activity along with the number of patients and visitors is unchanged.

As oxygen is generally considered beneficial for health reasons, presumably the reason the practice was actually abandoned was simply so as to save money by employing fewer staff. So not only do they no longer have the time to move vases of flowers around, but in some cases it seems to properly care for the patients themselves either.

But of course, just as with climate change those who most stand to profit, big oil, or in this case cost cutting NHS contractors will do their utmost to undermine and ridicule the science. Ably abetted, as always, by their willing shills.

michael adams

...

[Roger Hayter]

I think you have hit on a real conspiracy here. More recently, the evil corporatist capitalists hit on the idea of putting up extra beds. Since fairly obviously one extra patient uses several orders of magnitude more oxygen than all the flowers you could reasonably cram into a ward could produce, this is even more effective.

Even more sinisterly, big science has now claimed, and got in all the standard textbooks, that extra oxygen is harmful to some patients. A conclusion so obviously wrong, and based on painstakingly forged mortality data, that only the EU could have foisted this on the NHS.

[Cursitor Doom]

I only heard a brief part of this "expert" pontificating and it seems no one else here heard the item, so I'm none the wiser, I'm afraid. :(

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Quite - remember why nurses removed flowers etc from wards at night?

I'd guess as usual Doom only heard what he wanted to hear.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Ah - right. But then you only ever listened to Farage about Brexit, so no change there.

[Roger Hayter]

That was an example of a little knowledge, and a total inablity to think quantitively, being a dangerous thing.

[newshound]

Predictions are so seldom checked in the popular media, though. Apart perhaps from Erlich in 1968:

"The battle to feed all of humanity is over. In the 1970s hundreds of millions of people will starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now. At this late date nothing can prevent a substantial increase in the world death rate".

[The Natural Philosopher]

So nothing new there, then.

[Cursitor Doom]

The plebs have short memories. That's why they can get away with this succession of endless scare stories that never amount to anything in the end. Sells "newspapers" though - or what passes for newspapers these days.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

The scare stories from Turnip etc about war breaking out in Europe due to the EU? Can't say I've read much about that in the papers. But I'd guess you and he have some very special ones.

[Cursitor Doom]

Oh but of course. TNP and I have been regular subscribers to Der Stürmer Since about 1946. :-D

Seriously though, if you have to resort to sly petty insults then you have already lost the argument.