Net CO2 evidence (was Venus is not an example of runaway)

On 06/24/2013 05:45 PM, hitssquad wrote:
> --- In spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com 13243, Joel 'Twisty' Nye wrote:
>> Mankind makes a measurable and statistically very significant contribution to the CO2 buildup in our atmosphere.
> ...Then shouldn't that be reflected in comparative west-coast vs. east-coast atmospheric CO2 measurements?:
> http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/1998/10/981020074617.htm
No, it should not: The first is a total measurement, the second is a
study which hypothesizes a distribution model and discovers to its
surprise that its hypothesized prediction is false. (A study from
fifteen years ago?!? Really?) What the distribution model failed to
take into account is that the vast majority of the land between coasts
is comparatively unpopulated, and out of equilibrium, so of course the
east coast results are distant enough from the west coast concentrations
to yeild relatively low results... That's what I would expect from
population models, and downstream flow of heavy CO2 back westward from
the Rockies, as well as East coast CO2 flow out to the Atlantic. It
doesn't speak to the total increase planetwide nor the rising or falling
of local levels over years... simply to relative measures downwind of
high population to wide areas of low population and up again. The West
coast proved higher... surprised? They also say the unexpected uptake
inland was temporary... I wonder if that prediction is true or false
fifteen years later. It's not the first time I've seen a hypothesis try
to confirm a bias or favored conjecture and discover it was wrong...
science adapts theories and hypotheses to embrace evidence.