Looks like the fat lady has sung on AGW

[brenthutch 444]

Amazon I am shocked. Did you not see my defense of your intellect by quoting your global warming posts? I am a big fan. You are right up there with kalland with respect to your intellectual gravitas? Your venom makes me all "butt hurt"

[Amazon 7]

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Amazon I am shocked. Did you not see my defense of your intellect by quoting your global warming posts? I am a big fan. You are right up there with kalland with respect to your intellectual gravitas? Your venom makes me all "butt hurt"

Cool.. I am sure you dig that.

[lawrocket 3]

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Your comments about groupthink imply that there is a serious alternative to AGW being proposed by those in oposition. In fact there isn't. It's volcanoes. It's the sun. It's cosmic rays. It isn't happening. It is happening but it's a natural cycle.

Even realclimate a couple of years ago ran some serious discussions on the pause in warming this decade and trying to find ways to explain it. This is to their credit - many of the climate elite were asking questions. Why don't they know.

When an event happens that it worse that projected for this point they go up in arms. "Why didn't we see this coming? Is it the physics?" Etc. But the same degree of scrutiny is not applied to the other side.

Except by the deniers. Deniers point out problems. They point out when the Alarmists are wrong. Alarmist point out when they are right.

The science IS NOT SETTLED. Physics is always being updated and climate science is physics. Modeling is SO hard to get right because it's so complex.

And like it or not, models are PREDICTIONS. Computer models are validated by raw data. No, raw data should not be validated by computer models but that's actually been argued! And the models won't be validated until 2080 or so.

That's what I'm saying. Don't tell me in 100 years it will be X because a computer said it would and take ot to the bank. I'm going to be skeptical.

ps - do searches for my posts on climates, modeling, etc.

My wife is hotter than your wife.

[StreetScooby 5]

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on the pause in warming

Based on what I've read, and tried to show here, nothing going on today can be directly attributed to AGW model predictions. Al Gore is a huckster. Hansen is a decent scientist who's selling something. Spencer is an excited guy trying to point this out via the scientific process, but it's not working.

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The science IS NOT SETTLED.

And in the papers I've been reading, they say that, though not quite like that.

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Modeling is SO hard to get right

Very true. When I was a chemical engineer, I was part of a 3 man team that modeled an entire chemical plant: reactors, compressors, separation processes, all down to the molecular level using proprietary equation of state models and full blown material and energy balances. Beautiful thermodynamics, man. We ended up with a system of 50,000 simultaneous highly nonlinear equations.

We took that model and mated it directly to the plant in real-time. Once the plant was in a reasonable steady-state, we took in 500 measurements, solved the model "backwards" to fit the model parameters to the plant, then solved the model "forward" with 50 degrees of freedom. We took the bounded absolute values of numbers coming out of that model and used those as setpoints for the plant's higher level control systems. We didn't fudge the numbers.

We nailed that plant. It reached the point where if the instruments didn't agree with our numbers, they went and fixed the instrument. Over the course of two years, the model moved the plant to it's optimum operating point, using an "objective function" put together by a committee of senior level production managers. It was one of the more satisfying experiences in my professional career to date.

That was 20 years ago. There is no way they can model the earth's weather system to that level of detail, at least not at this point in time. But, from what I'm reading, they're not trying to do that. If you know the thermo, you can get a pretty good idea of where things are headed without modeling to that level of detail. You might not know how long it's going to take, but you'll know direction and magnitude.

We are all engines of karma

[kallend 2,150]

latimesblogs.latimes.com/greenspace/2011/10/climate-skeptic-woops-the-majority-is-right-on-global-warming.html

...

The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

[lawrocket 3]

Thank, John. A fine example of how skepticism works. Didn't I just write that the deniers point out problems? I've talked about heat islands.

Gee whiz! Now there's a study that provides some evidence to plug that hole.

"But lawrocket, this proves that the deniers were wrong all along." To which I reply, "The evidence wasn't there to back up the assertions of the proponent. The fact that evidence is now put forth indicates the absolutely crucial role deniers play in the advancement of science."

My wife is hotter than your wife.

[StreetScooby 5]

Next installment....

Anyone out there still awake?

I decided to look further into human CO2 emissions and the impact they're having. What is the significance of 30GT (gigatons) of additional CO2 being pumped into the atmosphere that's directly attributable to humans?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_dioxide_emissions

In order to investigate this, you need to establish (in chemical engineering speak) your control volume. A control volume is a "pot". How big is that pot? How much CO2 is already in the pot? How much CO2 is coming into the pot from other sources? How much CO2 is leaving the pot?

The ultimate aim here is to get a feel for the effect 30GT is having on the concentration of CO2 in the pot. That concentration is important in this discussion because it's being used by the AGW models to produce their results.

*) How big is the pot?

Currently, CO2 is 0.04% of the atmosphere. That in itself doesn't help us here. The atmosphere is really big, with many different layers in it, each with their own composition. Since CO2 is heavier than air, it's reasonable to assume that the bulk of it's concentration will be in the lower level of the atmosphere, which is the troposphere.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmosphere_of_Earth.

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The troposphere begins at the surface and extends to between 9 km (30,000 ft) at the poles and 17 km (56,000 ft) at the equator,[6] with some variation due to weather. The troposphere is mostly heated by transfer of energy from the surface, so on average the lowest part of the troposphere is warmest and temperature decreases with altitude. This promotes vertical mixing (hence the origin of its name in the Greek word "τροπή", trope, meaning turn or overturn). The troposphere contains roughly 80% of the mass of the atmosphere.[7]

So, it's reasonable to consider the pot as the troposphere, and even better, that pot is can be considered reasonably well mixed due to weather systems. So we can treat the concentration of CO2 as reasonably uniform throughout this pot.

The weight of the total atmosphere can be found here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmosphere_of_Earth

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The atmosphere has a mass of about 5×1018 kg,

If I did the unit conversions properly, the weight of the troposphere works out to around 4,000,000 GT.

*) How much is already in the pot?

Again, CO2 is 0.04% of the atmosphere. Well, is that a mass fraction or volume fraction? Big difference between the two, especially when dealing with gases. This number is being quoted as a volume fraction. In order to translate 30GT of CO2 (a measure of mass) into a volume fraction, you need to use densities to translate. Calculating gas densities requires what's known as an "equation of state". For what we're dealing with here, the ideal gas law (PV = nRT) is suitable. Unfortunately, we'll need to take into account the variability of temperature through the troposphere. There isn't any "simple" calculation to deal with this. So, let's look and see if someone has already done this calculation, and we find this:
http://www.skepticalscience.com/human-co2-smaller-than-natural-emissions-basic.htm:

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The oceans contain 37,400 billion tons (GT) of suspended carbon, land biomass has 2000-3000 GT. The atmosphere contains 720 billion tons of CO2

There's several different definition of tons, and this particular quote isn't clear in which type of ton they're quoting. Dividing 720 GT by 4,000,000 GT gives a CO2 mass concentration of 0.018. So, we're in the ballpark with these numbers...

*) How much CO2 is coming into the "pot" from other sources? How much CO2 is leaving the "pot"?

The topic is phrased by others as "The Global Carbon Cycle", and both the topic and volumes discussed are huge. From here:
http://www.skepticalscience.com/human-co2-smaller-than-natural-emissions-intermediate.htm

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Man made CO2 emissions are much smaller than natural emissions. Consumption of vegetation by animals & microbes accounts for about 220 gigatonnes of CO2 per year. Respiration by vegetation emits around 220 gigatonnes. The ocean releases about 332 gigatonnes.

This paragraph doesn't say what happens to the 332 gigatonnes emitted by the ocean. Since nature was at equilibrium before mankind started emitting CO2, that value was also absorbed by the earth. So, the flux of CO2 being released and absorbed by the earth is around 552 gigatonnes per year.

We're adding 30GT/552GT = 5.4% to that flux on a sustained yearly basis, with current emission rates.

Of the 30GT humans are putting into the atmosphere, a significant portion is being absorbed back into the earth:
http://www.skepticalscience.com/human-co2-smaller-than-natural-emissions-intermediate.htm

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About 40% of human CO2 emissions are being absorbed, mostly by vegetation and the oceans. The rest remains in the atmosphere.

60% of 30GT is 18GT. Dividing this by 700GT give us 2.5%. So, we're adding a little over 2%/year to the carbon in the atmosphere.

From here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_dioxide_in_Earth%27s_atmosphere

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This addition, about 3% of annual natural emissions as of 1997, is sufficient to exceed the balancing effect of sinks.[17] As a result, carbon dioxide has gradually accumulated in the atmosphere, and as of 2009, its concentration is 39% above pre-industrial levels.[2]

So, mankind is changing this balance in a non-trivial way, especially considering we keep doing this same amount every year.

One last question here - what's the distribution of that 30GT of CO2 across the planet? From here, CO2 emissions by country as of 2008, converted to GTs:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_dioxide_emissions

1 China 7.0GT 23.33% of total
2 United States 5.5GT 18.11%
- European Union 4.2GT 14.04%
3 India 1.7GT 5.78%
4 Russia 1.7GT 5.67%
5 Japan 1.2GT 4.01%

What's really striking from this web page is the rate of increase in China's emissions. They're increasing their CO2 output by about 1GT/year!!! At that pace , in 5 years time, China will be emitting more CO2 that the rest of the listed countries combined.

Why I have I bothered to do this? In one of the earlier posts we had discussed the increase of CO2 from 0.032% to 0.04% over the course of 50 years. In order to calculate how long it would take for the doubling effect to occur, we had used 0.008% over 50 years, and calculated that it would be another 150 years before CO2 doubled from 0.032% to 0.064%. It's reasonable to expect the CO2 will double sooner than another 150 years under current emission rates. It's still a long time off, relative to human life span, but's it definitely coming if things don't change. This driving force will be set in our children's lifetime. Once that doubling gets here, mankind will have set in motion an increase in the ocean's temperature that will take 100s of years to manifest itself.

There's one more thing to look at here, and that's the magnitude of the change being predicted by AGW models. I'll start digging around for that next.

We are all engines of karma

[mnealtx 0]

CO2 is an effect, not a cause. There have multiple times in history when CO2 was many times higher than today and we never reached a 'tipping point'.

Mike
I love you, Shannon and Jim.
POPS 9708 , SCR 14706

[StreetScooby 5]

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CO2 is an effect, not a cause.

CO2, and other green house gases (GHGs) are actually a cause. From here:
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/globalwarming.html

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Without a natural greenhouse effect, the temperature of the Earth would be about zero degrees F (-18°C) instead of its present 57°F (14°C)

Essentially, all of the GHGs in the current concentrations are our friends.

How much of that effect is directly attributed to CO2, I'm not sure, yet. Water is the dominant molecule in total green house effect for the planet.

How much of an impact the the projected temperature change in global temperature will have on our quality of life, well, I don't know, nor do I have an opinion, yet. I still want to see what they're currently predicting, and what that's based upon.

I just looked at the charts you attached. Not sure what that is, to be honest with you. Can you give me a little insight, please?

We are all engines of karma

[mnealtx 0]

Quote

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CO2 is an effect, not a cause.

CO2, and other green house gases (GHGs) are actually a cause. From here:
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/globalwarming.html

Quote

Without a natural greenhouse effect, the temperature of the Earth would be about zero degrees F (-18°C) instead of its present 57°F (14°C)

Essentially, all of the GHGs in the current concentrations are our friends.

How much of that effect is directly attributed to CO2, I'm not sure, yet. Water is the dominant molecule in total green house effect for the planet.

How much of an impact the the projected temperature change in global temperature will have on our quality of life, well, I don't know, nor do I have an opinion, yet. I still want to see what they're currently predicting, and what that's based upon.

I just looked at the charts you attached. Not sure what that is, to be honest with you. Can you give me a little insight, please?

CO2 does not DRIVE temperature, it lags it by some 800 years.

Regarding the attachments; the first one is from a Greenland ice core, showing the Medieval Warm period to today - current period on right. Guess the MWP must have been from all the industrialization that the Vikings had going on, according to the alarmists.

The second shows historical CO2 levels, current period on left. Even the most conservative estimate shows levels near 1000 ppm, with no 'tipping point' having occurred.

Mike
I love you, Shannon and Jim.
POPS 9708 , SCR 14706

[StreetScooby 5]

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CO2 does not DRIVE temperature,

You're losing me here. Are you claiming there is no green house effect?

We are all engines of karma

[mnealtx 0]

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CO2 does not DRIVE temperature,

You're losing me here. Are you claiming there is no green house effect?

No, I'm not. CO2 increases happen AFTER temperature increases, not before...it's a *lagging* indicator.

Mike
I love you, Shannon and Jim.
POPS 9708 , SCR 14706

[StreetScooby 5]

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CO2 increases happen AFTER temperature increases, not before

It may do that also, if CO2 solubility becomes a factor in what's going on. If I heat up a bottle of Coca-Cola, the CO2 surrounding the coca-cola will increase because it's coming out of solution.

Adding CO2 to the atmosphere does cause the atmosphere to retain more heat, just by itself. The physics are well established for that. How long the CO2 stays warm before re-radiating that energy isn't something I've looked into. It's a good question.

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No, I'm not.

It sounds like you are.

We are all engines of karma

[lawrocket 3]

It's more complex than that. Energy in for the earth is calculated as "(Sunlight/4)*(1 - %albedo). The amount of sunlight is divided by four because the earth is a sphere, and thus only has 1/4 of its surface gets firect illumination at any one time. It is multiplied by 1 minus albedo because albedo is reflected light. This totals Energy in.

Now we have to look at energy out. That's a different story. "Greenhouse gases" act by absorbing and re-reflecting energy from the earth's surface back to earth. Picture a clear winter night versus a cloudy one. The clouds prevent the IR from the earth from radiating out and it gets reflected back to earth.

The Infrared Radiation (IR) that comes in and makes it to earth is short IR. The earth absorbs is and then radiates it back as long IR. CO2 lets the SIR in but absorbs LIR. The best way I've thought of explaining it is to picture a pot of water where the incoming heat is constant. You can keep the temperature at, say, a steady 160 degrees. Now put a lid on it and you can expect the temperature to go up to maybe 170 because it prevents energy from being radiated out the top. 170 degrees becomes the new equilibrium.

Ah! But we are also learning that energy in is not as steady as we once thought. We also have to look at how much the CO2 contributes to the lid. And there are things to know about it.

(1) CO2's heat adding effect is not linear. It is logarithmic. The more CO2 you add the less the marginal effect is. So, if temperature increase is linear than the increase in CO2 will have to be exponential. We've done a good job of that.

(2) Water vapor and methane are also big greenhouse gases. Water vapor is No.1. Wihtut it we'd be really cold.

(3) Greenhouse gas effects are marginal at the equator and far greater in the winter. In order to measure the effect of CO2 you need someplace dry and someplace cold. We want cold because it precipitates water vapor out fo the atmosphere. So it will better separate the signal from the noise. CO2's warming will be seen most in the upper atmosphere and in cold dry places - like over Siberia in the winter.

To suggest that CO2 is not having an effect is ludicrous. But so suggest that the effect is ike that we'd see in a lab by adding CO2 is similarly ludicrous because there is so much more going on. I disagree with Mike that CO2 is an effect instead of a cause. It can be both. Chicken and egg.

It's also a feedback loop.

THere is SO much to this - both intuitive and counterintuitive. I've spent the last five years reading up on it. I'd be foolish to think I could do the maths but the concepts are there.

My problem with the "alarmists" making predictions is that they KNOW how damn difficult it is to predict. But they do it anyway. That's an effect. What is the cause? Why are they doing it? And with such a record of being wrong why do they KEEP doing it?

I think it's funding. Well, I KNOW it's funding. Predict disaster and get it. Biden says rapes and murders will increase because Republicans are cutting funding. That's how you get it done.

My wife is hotter than your wife.

[mnealtx 0]

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CO2 increases happen AFTER temperature increases, not before

It may do that also, if CO2 solubility becomes a factor in what's going on.

No. It's not "it *may* do that", it *does* do that. CO2 lags temperature by some 800 years.

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Adding CO2 to the atmosphere does cause the atmosphere to retain more heat, just by itself.

Presuming that there is still unabsorbed energy in the CO2 absorption bands, yes....and on that matter, where's the heat since 1998? CO2 is still going up and the temp anomaly has gone DOWN.

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No, I'm not.

It sounds like you are.

Questioning the scope != questioning the existence.

Mike
I love you, Shannon and Jim.
POPS 9708 , SCR 14706

[StreetScooby 5]

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My problem with the "alarmists" making predictions is that they KNOW how damn difficult it is to predict. But they do it anyway. That's an effect. What is the cause? Why are they doing it? And with such a record of being wrong why do they KEEP doing it?

And that is why I've spent the last few days diving around this. Al Gore is a huckster, there can be no doubt about that.

What I'm seeing is inspiring confidence. There are guys out there doing real science, not that I ever doubted that, but seeing it for my own eyes is inspiring confidence.

What I haven't looked into yet are magnitude predictions, and what that magnitude will cause.

I believe we're all in agreement that man can't keep burning fossil fuels at an increasing rate forever without changing the environment. If GHG green house effect has given us 57 degF difference from what the sun alone can offer, is a couple more degrees going to kill us? I doubt that, but I'm also not sure I've phrased that question fairly. What is clear is we can't push the avg temperature too far above that. Where a medium is, I don't know, and it's not clear to me the scientists know.

We are all engines of karma

[StreetScooby 5]

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No. It's not "it *may* do that", it *does* do that.

Can't argue with that.

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Presuming that there is still unabsorbed energy in the CO2 absorption bands,

Yes, I've come across the saturation effect. Haven't spent time looking into it, yet. Valid question, IMO.

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and on that matter, where's the heat since 1998? CO2 is still going up and the temp anomaly has gone DOWN.

One of the articles I glanced over showed satellite measurements of thermal emissions from the earth across the bandwidth. Their measurements show a noticeable decrease in thermal emissions at the CO2 absorption band widths. Thus, inferring that CO2 is absorbing more heat, thereby implying that CO2 is increasing noticeably. There's nothing to say that earth isn't losing heat via other channels. The only channels it has to lose heat, though, is through thermal radiation.

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Questioning the scope != questioning the existence.

Same here...

As I'm googling away here, one site keeps popping up pretty consistently:

http://www.skepticalscience.com/

Though their name may indicate they're AGW skeptics, they're not. The stuff is pretty good, IMO. They have a piece somewhere in there regarding saturation effects. Haven't had a chance to read it, yet.

We are all engines of karma

[lawrocket 3]

[Reply]One of the articles I glanced over showed satellite measurements of thermal emissions from the earth across the bandwidth. Their measurements show a noticeable decrease in thermal emissions at the CO2 absorption band widths. Thus, inferring that CO2 is absorbing more heat, thereby implying that CO2 is increasing noticeably.

[billvon 3,120]

>If we look today it's going to be in balance.

Well, it's not; that's sorta the whole point. It will rebalance itself eventually at a higher temperature - the temperature will increase until the same amount of IR can escape, and thermal equilibrium will be restored.

[lawrocket 3]

Yeah. That's why we need lengthy records. We have to know what the balance is and how that balance shifts. I think we're saying the same thing, though you said it more clearly.

My wife is hotter than your wife.

[skiskyrock 0]

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Why I have I bothered to do this? In one of the earlier posts we had discussed the increase of CO2 from 0.032% to 0.04% over the course of 50 years. In order to calculate how long it would take for the doubling effect to occur, we had used 0.008% over 50 years, and calculated that it would be another 150 years before CO2 doubled from 0.032% to 0.064%. It's reasonable to expect the CO2 will double sooner than another 150 years under current emission rates. It's still a long time off, relative to human life span, but's it definitely coming if things don't change. This driving force will be set in our children's lifetime. Once that doubling gets here, mankind will have set in motion an increase in the ocean's temperature that will take 100s of years to manifest itself.

There's one more thing to look at here, and that's the magnitude of the change being predicted by AGW models. I'll start digging around for that next.

It looks like you have decided to run the numbers on this one. I'm a Chem E also (and analytical chemist), and I'm pretty sure you won't like what you find. A few points to keep in mind:

1) pre-industrial CO2 is 280-290 ppm, so we already are committed to substantial warming from the previous emissions. If you look at temperature data, an increase of CO2 from 210 to 290 is sufficient to reverse an ice age glaciation.

2) the rate of CO2 emissions is not a linear increase, but is accelerating due to both increased human emissions and decreased solubility of CO2 in water. CO2 is both a forcing and a feedback parameter

3) The uptake of 40% of human emissions by the biosphere is not well understood. The system must have a limit to what it can sink, but I don't know that we have any solid idea where that limit is.

4) The carbon tied up in the biosphere is available to be added back in to the atmosphere on short notice. For instance, the amazon (the other one) appears to be a carbon source or carbon sink, depending on rainfall: http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2009/03/05-01.html

[StreetScooby 5]

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It looks like you have decided to run the numbers on this one. I'm a Chem E also (and analytical chemist), and I'm pretty sure you won't like what you find.

I've never doubted we're having an impact. What I'm doubting is whether it truly is "alarmist". Does AGW justify Lisa Jackson's EPA shutting down 8% of our electrical grid now, especially considering it might make the entire thing unstable? That's what I'm trying to get a feel for.

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1) pre-industrial CO2 is 280-290 ppm, so we already are committed to substantial warming from the previous emissions. If you look at temperature data, an increase of CO2 from 210 to 290 is sufficient to reverse an ice age glaciation.

Good to know. So, we're not starting at 320ppm.

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2) the rate of CO2 emissions is not a linear increase, but is accelerating due to both increased human emissions and decreased solubility of CO2 in water. CO2 is both a forcing and a feedback parameter

My review of CO2 emissions by country was an eye opener, especially wrto China. I've heard of the acidification of the ocean being a "side" concern with AGW, and have understood the argument. That'll be something else to get my head around.

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3) The uptake of 40% of human emissions by the biosphere is not well understood. The system must have a limit to what it can sink, but I don't know that we have any solid idea where that limit is.

Agreed, all physical sinks have their limits. Right now, the natural CO2 flux is around 550GT/year. With 30GT/year emissions, we're impacting that by 5%. Yes, I can see where we'll be pushing up against sink limits in a "relatively" short time.

What blew me away when looking at the carbon cycle was the impact of just the North American growing season. That consumes 3-9ppm per year. Looks like there's a fair amount of room for crops to take up excess CO2, and turn it into dirt, if we made that a way of life. Not sure of the practicality of that, though. If it's so "easy", why aren't we already doing it?

Quote

4) The carbon tied up in the biosphere is available to be added back in to the atmosphere on short notice. For instance, the amazon (the other one) appears to be a carbon source or carbon sink, depending on rainfall: http://news.sciencemag.org/...w/2009/03/05-01.html

Interesting. My argument all along with people using AGW model predictions, especially to justify what I consider draconian policies, is the size of the system being modeled. There is alot going on, and I'm sure there's alot we don't know. I'm pretty impressed with the papers I've been glancing over. I never really doubted real scientists were involved in this, but it's nice to actually see some of their work.

If nothing else, we're going to better understand the Earth through these efforts. That's a good thing, IMO.

We are all engines of karma

[StreetScooby 5]

For anyone else interested in following along here, one of the things you'll bump up against while following referenced papers is the price journals want for a copy. Several of Hansen's referenced papers are only available at $25/copy. If you're looking to get to the collection of papers generally regarded as the starting point for AGW, try here:

The Warming Papers

Amazon wants $60 for a paperback version. There are some links I've come across claiming I could get it for $2, but they didn't pan out. Right now, I'm going to check this out of a library. If someone can find it for $2, please let me know.

We are all engines of karma

[skiskyrock 0]

Quote

For anyone else interested in following along here, one of the things you'll bump up against while following referenced papers is the price journals want for a copy. Several of Hansen's referenced papers are only available at $25/copy. If you're looking to get to the collection of papers generally regarded as the starting point for AGW, try here:

The Warming Papers

Amazon wants $60 for a paperback version. There are some links I've come across claiming I could get it for $2, but they didn't pan out. Right now, I'm going to check this out of a library. If someone can find it for $2, please let me know.

For individual papers you can check the author(s) websites, they frequently post PDFs or preprints and the journals don't seem to object.

If you can find someone currently enrolled in a college, they can generally get the papers for free throught their library's journal access program or can request them through inter-library loan.

Also the journals generally send the author a hundred or so courtesy copies. If you contact the corresponding author, they are usually happy to mail you one.

As a last resort you can visit a university library and dig the references out of the stacks. This will amaze most of the students who have no idea that a journal is a physical object.

[Amazon 7]

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What blew me away when looking at the carbon cycle was the impact of just the North American growing season. That consumes 3-9ppm per year. Looks like there's a fair amount of room for crops to take up excess CO2, and turn it into dirt, if we made that a way of life. Not sure of the practicality of that, though. If it's so "easy", why aren't we already doing it?

You may want to take into account a large area to the east of the Rockies in drought conditions...dead dried out plants that do not have water to grow... are not so good at fixing carbon.

Ahh.. there it is..
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/08/01/drought-by-area-impacted-is-worst-ever-though-majority-of-us-still-drought-free/

Change the climate.... you get to move deserts around... woo hoo.