New Study: global warming caused by bacteria

In a recent study, published before Ohio State lost after a cheap shot on WU quarterback:

Carbon dioxide production by benthic bacteria: the death of manmade global warming theory?

Daniel A Klein*, Mandeep J Gupta*, Philip Cooper**, Arne FR Jansson**.

*Department of Climatology, University of Arizona; **Department of Atmospheric Physics, Göteborgs Universitet (University of Gothenburg, Sweden.)

it is posited that my SUV is not likely the cause of the earth's warming, assuming arguendo that the "earth" is warming.

The above graph tracks [a correclation suggesting a connection to warming using the green house gas hypothesis] the exhalation of some critter in the mud, as far as I see it, and CO2 build up. These damn polluters throw out more than 300 times the CO2 than human activity. The article, click on title to read it, is full of formulae which clearly means it is real science. Here is an abstract and conclusion, which expresses trepidation at the prospect of personal attack, of the article from the Journal of Geoclimactic Studies:

Abstract

It is now well-established that rising global temperatures are largely the result of increasing concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. The "consensus" position attributes the increase in atmospheric CO₂ to the combustion of fossil fuels by industrial processes. This is the mechanism which underpins the theory of manmade global warming.

Our data demonstrate that those who subscribe to the consensus theory have overlooked the primary source of carbon dioxide emissions. While a small part of the rise in emissions is attributable to industrial activity, it is greatly outweighed (by >300 times) by rising volumes of CO₂ produced by saprotrophic eubacteria living in the sediments of the continental shelves fringing the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. Moreover, the bacterial emissions, unlike industrial CO₂, precisely match the fluctuations in global temperature over the past 140 years.

This paper also posits a mechanism for the increase in bacterial CO₂ emissions. A series of natural algal blooms, beginning in the late 19^th Century, have caused mass mortality among the bacteria's major predators: brachiopod molluscs of the genus Tetrarhynchia. These periods of algal bloom, as the palaeontological record shows, have been occurring for over three million years, and are always accompanied by a major increase in carbon dioxide emissions, as a result of the multiplication of bacteria when predator pressure is reduced. They generally last for 150-200 years. If the current episode is consistent with this record, we should expect carbon dioxide emissions to peak between now and mid-century, then return to background levels. Our data suggest that current concerns about manmade global warming are unfounded

Obviously, the article goes on with all manner of graphs, etc., The correlations regarding CO2 are interesting. At the end of the piece is a poke in the eye....

Discussion

It was not our intention in researching this issue to disprove manmade global warming theory. We have received no funds, directly or indirectly, from fossil fuel companies and have no personal interest in the outcome of the debate. We simply noticed an anomaly in the figures used by those who accept the "consensus" position on climate change and sought to investigate it. But the findings presented in this paper could not be more damaging to manmade global warming theory or to the thousands of climate scientists who have overlooked - sometimes, we fear, deliberately - the anomaly. We have found a near-perfect match between the levels of carbon dioxide produced by benthic eubacteria and recent global temperature records. By contrast we note what must be obvious to all those who have studied the figures with an open mind: a very poor match between carbon dioxide produced by burning fossil fuels and recent global temperature records.

Moreover we note that there is no possible mechanism by which industrial emissions could have caused the recent temperature increase, as they are two orders of magnitude too small to have exerted an effect of this size. We have no choice but to conclude that the recent increase in global temperatures, which has caused so much disquiet among policy makers, bears no relation to industrial emissions, but is in fact a natural phenomenom.

These findings place us in a difficult position. We feel an obligation to publish, both in the cause of scientific objectivity and to prevent a terrible mistake - with extremely costly implications - from being made by the world's governments. But we recognise that in doing so, we lay our careers on the line. As we have found in seeking to broach this issue gently with colleagues, and in attempting to publish these findings in other peer-reviewed journals, the "consensus" on climate change is enforced not by fact but by fear. We have been warned, collectively and individually, that in bringing our findings to public attention we are not only likely to be deprived of all future sources of funding, but that we also jeopardise the funding of the departments for which we work.

We believe that academic intimidation of this kind contradicts the spirit of open enquiry in which scientific investigations should be conducted. We deplore the aggressive responses we encountered before our findings were published, and fear the reaction this paper might provoke. But dangerous as these findings are, we feel we have no choice but to publish.

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The threat to the authors is real, I wish them luck. The Prof who taught Al Gore in university about the concern over the environment, felt Gore's venom when he coauthored an article, much later, saying the sky is not falling. Gore actually called Ted Koppel in order to attack the poor scientists. Koppel told him to f off.

In much the same way that the data above is ignored, so is solar flaring, as I discussed previously, though Columbia University recently computed the oversight. Similarly, math errors and bizarre algorithms are ignored. Michael Crichton has it right, Global Warming fits the model for the true believers' religion - the need for faith or banishment.