This letter is in response to the article by Bill Metcalf entitled “Kootenay climate scientist responds to dire new IPCC report” (Trail Times, August 17, 2021).
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is the United Nations’ body for assessing the science related to climate change.
The IPCC has relied solely on computer climate models for its 30-year litany of failed doomsday scenarios.
Once again we are being asked to believe another dire forecast “based on better modelling”, even though the models are still incapable of describing historical climate changes.
The following facts will allow anyone to judge for themselves the authenticity of the most recent “dire IPCC report.”
These facts exonerate carbon dioxide (aka “CO2”, “carbon emission”) from all charges of causing the alleged climate crisis but, unfortunately, demonstrate that it is impossible to restore the optimal level of CO2 for plant growth (0.1%).
The facts:
- CO2 is a colourless, odourless trace gas (0.04%) that is responsible for greening the planet as a vital component of the carbon cycle.
- CO2 is as important as water, oxygen, and sunlight in sustaining life on the planet.
- Life is sustained by animals breathing oxygen and by plants ‘breathing’ CO2.
- The atmospheric threshold for terrestrial vegetation is about 0.015% CO2 while a CO2-free planet is a dead planet.
- The primary store of CO2 is the oceans with two per cent allowed to circulate through the atmosphere, thereby enabling terrestrial plant and animal life.
- The CO2 store has been severely depleted by natural processes to form sedimentary rocks such as limestone.
- As a result of this ongoing sequestration of CO2, the CO2 content of the atmosphere has been steadily decreasing from a more-than-optimal level of 0.2% during the dinosaur era to the current less-than-optimal level of 0.04%, a five fold decrease.
- When 100 tonnes of CO2 is emitted to the atmosphere, the increased partial pressure of CO2 suppresses the outflow from, and increases the absorption rate by, the oceans.
- This redistribution process achieves equilibrium conditions within a few months with and without the participation of the man-made CO2 molecules.
- The result is an increase of atmospheric CO2 of only two tonnes, not 100 tonnes.
- Accordingly, fossil-fuel emissions will increase the CO2 level from 0.04% to 0.05% over roughly 1,000 years at current consumption rates.
Therefore:
- The IPCC’s prediction of a 2 degree Celsius increase for a doubling of CO2 translates into a 0.0005 C increase per year.
- The IPCC’s own exaggerated forecast does not support the threat of a CO2-induced climate crisis.
Clearly, we must cherish our carbon emissions and allow them to replenish the atmosphere!
Otherwise, a real CO2-deficit crisis may replace the politically-motivated, imaginary climate crisis.
Thorpe Watson, PhD
Warfield
sports@trailtimes.ca
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