We all know the story about the king who paraded with no clothes, as though everyone watching on was oblivious to the mistake. Parallels can be drawn with sources of CO2, I mean CO2 from factories versus CO2 from natural sources. There is no definitive distinguishing feature, yet in this case we are expected to be able to know the difference.
To be clear, the so-called experts claim to know if the CO2 is from fossil fuels or something else. When there is not necessarily any difference.
The bottom line is, the processes that created the isotopic signatures found in carbon from different fossil fuels are much the same processes at work today, especially in alpine plants, even fish in the sea.
I will be discussing all of this on Thursday 19th June @ 2pm Edinburgh time with geoscientist Philip Mulholland. This will be the sixth Zoom discussion in my series Towards a New Theory of Climate Resilience. You will need to register if you want to listen in for the first hour, and then in the second hour, there will be opportunity to join the discussion.
In order to register for this single session that will be at 11pm Brisbane time, ClICK HERE.
Philip Mulholland is a geophysicist who once worked with the British Geological Survey, that was long ago. He has a profile on ResearchGate (click here), where he is noted for interests spanning botany, meteorology, geology, and geophysics. He has published important research focused on geological and geophysical topics, and also more controversial work on Earth’s energy budget.
I am including a photograph of Bosham Harbour, West Sussex, that is one of Philip's favourite places. Also following is a photograph of a felled walnut tree stump in Elgin from the North of Scotland representing his ecological Masters of Science which involved a mathematical study of tree rings from dead trees in Epping Forest, Essex.
Bosham Harbour in West Sussex, Philip Mulholland has an interest in its beauty, history and geophysics.
Philip has suggested the title for this Zoom webinar be: Carbon Isotopic Fractionation Processes. There are three distinct processes:
1. Kinetic fractionation in methane formation, where microbes preferentially use ¹²C, leading to very negative δ¹³C (e.g., -60.00‰ in methane seep aragonite, citing Buckman et al., 2020).
2. Equilibrium fractionation in carbonate precipitation, where inorganic processes produce less negative or positive δ¹³C (e.g., +4.17‰ to +4.86‰ in Bahamian ooids, citing Geyman et al., 2022).
3. Biological fractionation in plants, with C3 plants (-33.00‰ to -24.00‰) showing stronger fractionation than C4 (-16.00‰ to -10.00‰) or CAM plants (-28.70‰ to -11.60‰).
A felled walnut tree stump in Elgin from the North of Scotland representing Philip's ecological MSc which involved a mathematical study of tree rings.
The feature image is AI art from Adobe Express. How much do most of us understand about photosynthesis that is fundamental to life on Earth and only after that can we perhaps hope to understand something about biological fractionation in plants.
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This post was edited several times within the first 12 hours, as I added clarifications and also changed and added photographs.
NASA will be eating humble pie when Jennifers theory is published.
Cohenite, you should ask expert climate scientists from NASA.
"Key Takeaway": BS.
Anyone who believes human emissions of CO2 have caused the atmospheric increase in CO2 and consequent climate catastrophes, none of which are happening, is either a useful idiot, a grifter or a commie.
Which one are Karen?
Jim Ross replies "Noel Degrassi,
FYI, recent 14C data (2014-2021) are shown in the following link to the Scripps CO2 Program:
https://www.scrippsco2.ucsd.edu/graphics_gallery/isotopic_data/c14_trends_going_backwards_in_time.html
Note that these data are preliminary and still subject to quality control. As such, they appear to indicate a flattening of the trend of Δ14C decline rate to near zero since 2018/2019."
This seems like the old "CO2 has paused" canard (look at a small section of scattered data and claim a trend that suits your argument) . Those data you link to clearly still trend down (due to addition of fossil CO2). The most recent readings are the lowest C14 readings since 1960 . The other review you reference clearly explains this (see figure 4).
"Key Takeaway:
Carbon dioxide in the atmosphere warms the planet, causing climate change. Human activities have raised the atmosphere’s carbon dioxide content by 50% in less than 200 years." - NASA
Karen Klemp,
Your NOAA quote is, in my view, disingenuous as stated by NOAA. “This increase is due to human activities, because scientists can see a distinctive isotopic fingerprint in the atmosphere.” Such a “fingerprint” would be a valid description if the incremental atmospheric CO2 had an observed δ13C of circa -28‰. It does not. What’s more, scientists such as Keeling et al (2017) have had some difficulty matching the observed trend of this “distinctive isotopic fingerprint”: https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.161924011