Supertroll

Light reading . Note the date for the evolution of lignin, 450 million mya.

https://nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.1469-8137.2010.03327.x

And from the Wikipedia entry on the Carboniferous. Also references 15 to 20 therein.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carboniferous

"The large coal deposits of the Carboniferous may owe their existence primarily to two factors. The first of these is the appearance of wood tissue and bark-bearing trees. The evolution of the wood fiber lignin and the bark-sealing, waxy substance suberin variously opposed decay organisms so effectively that dead materials accumulated long enough to fossilise on a large scale. The second factor was the lower sea levels that occurred during the Carboniferous as compared to the preceding Devonian period. This promoted the development of extensive lowland swamps and forests in North America and Europe. Based on a genetic analysis of mushroom fungi, it was proposed that large quantities of wood were buried during this period because animals and decomposing bacteria had not yet evolved enzymes that could effectively digest the resistant phenolic lignin polymers and waxy suberin polymers. They suggest that fungi that could break those substances down effectively only became dominant towards the end of the period, making subsequent coal formation much rarer.[15][16][17]"

The Carboniferous trees made extensive use of lignin. They had bark to wood ratios of 8 to 1, and even as high as 20 to 1. This compares to modern values less than 1 to 4. This bark, which must have been used as support as well as protection, probably had 38% to 58% lignin. Lignin is insoluble, too large to pass through cell walls, too heterogeneous for specific enzymes, and toxic, so that few organisms other than Basidiomycetes fungi can degrade it. To oxidize it requires an atmosphere of greater than 5% oxygen, or compounds such as peroxides. It can linger in soil for thousands of years and its toxic breakdown products inhibit decay of other substances.[18] One possible reason for its high percentages in plants at that time was to provide protection from insects in a world containing very effective insect herbivores (but nothing remotely as effective as modern insectivores) and probably many fewer protective toxins produced naturally by plants than exist today. As a result, undegraded carbon built up, resulting in the extensive burial of biologically fixed carbon, leading to an increase in oxygen levels in the atmosphere; estimates place the peak oxygen content as high as 35%, as compared to 21% today.[19] This oxygen level may have increased wildfire activity. It also may have promoted gigantism of insects and amphibians — creatures that have been constrained in size by respiratory systems that are limited in their physiological ability to transport and distribute oxygen at the lower atmospheric concentrations that have since been available.[20]

Oct 11, 2018 at 3:02 PM |tomo

Attacking the independence of a Judge is a risky strategy, particularly in the minds of other Judges.

Are they Appealing Guilt, Sentence or both? Frackavists want to go out with a good bang, or bang-up, not a whimper

" ....... the defense team are presently anonymous beyond a few allusions to "human rights lawyers"
Oct 11, 2018 at 2:11 PM | tomo"

I expect some "human rights lawyers" have cars with internal combustion engines, house to heat, and eat food that requires cooking (even if someone else does it for them)

@AK: EM is fond of the idea that natural CO2 is good but the Man Made Magic Molecule (MMMM) is bad. That being the case, any increase in CO2 is not all MMMM: there will be natural emissions as well. I'm still waiting for a citation for his assertion that MMMM is leading rather than lagging T. If I find a negative reference on Google he will no doubt claim it invalid because it's not, as he has said, what he wanted to know. The thing is, if the science teacher was so sure of his argument I'm surprised not to see him on the many other blogs I go to for my education. Curious...

EM. What utter rubbish. Nothing could decompose lignin in the Carboniferous and that's why we have coals. Really? There are quite substantial coal measures in the earlier Devonian and a type of coal maceral (fusinite) produced by partial oxidation or fungal attack. What do you think fungii were doing at the time? Coals during the much later Cretaceous are abundant and widespread. Did the biota somehow lose the ability to decompose lignin? Suggest you read a more authoritative textbook.

Furthermore the alternation of coals with other sediments (producing coal measures) resulted from rapid and repeated sea level changes caused by different phases of an ice age, not because CO2 was withdrawn from the atmosphere. Suggest you keep away from geology until you know more.

As to sensitivity you have an initial CO2 concentration of 200 ppm and and increase of 80ppm (a 40 % increase not a doubling). I thought you determined sensitivity by reference to a full doubling. But perhaps I should stick to geology.

Robert Swan

About 400 million years ago a lucky plant evolved lignin. This made the plant stronger and its descendants covered the world with swamp forests. Nothing around at the time could decompose lignin, so enormous amounts of stored carbon built up and were subsequently buried and baked into coal. This may be why the Carboniferous ended with an Ice Age.

That carbon stayed out of circulation until we burned it. I do not see that as natural climate behaviour, so regerd it as forcing, rather than feedback.

Harry Passfield

You are uising the electronic engineer's concept of feedback, which works fine for circuitry , but is a poor fit to the behaviour of real world systems. Climate feedbacks are much more similar to the biologist's concept in which there is no external controller. Biological systems and climate systems tend to come to equilibrium and are self regulating. I suggest you research "equilibrium" and " homeostasis".

As for proof, there is an entire literature out there on the internet. May I suggest that you use a neutral search engine. Google has developed an alarming tendency to send me to websites telling me what it thought I wanted to hear, rather than what I needed to know.

Supertroll

Using the formulation of sensitivity as

total temperature change/ temperature change directly due to forcing

the Holocene deglaciation showa sensitivity of 5/1.2=4.16 for the Earth system. As you will know, but others may not, this is in line most of the other paleo calculations, whic include fast and slow feedbacks.

Sensitivity calculations based on the post-1880 temperature data only allow for fast feedbacks and tend to underread.

Have Climate Science theories EVER been challenged by Peer Review?