Sunday, June 1, 2014

Measurements of CO2 Via the Pettenkofer Method

As you can plainly see here, a significant portion of these reading are well in excess of 300 ppm and none of them were given so much as an ounce of credence by the IPCC. My friend and colleague, BB Idaho, says that it's preferable for us to wade through the data on our own. Well here's the damn data and if this isn't an incriminating piece of information against the alarmists, then I really don't know what to tell you.
 

3 comments:

BB-Idaho said...

Quite interesting, wasn't aware of that historical data. There are, of course, interpretations
regarding the wide variability, even within a single year. In general, these have to do with sampling methodology. Pettenkofer, used fairly rudimentary chemistry, to wit:
"his widely used method for the quantitative determination of carbonic acid the gaseous mixture is shaken up with baryta or limewater of known strength and the change in alkalinity ascertained by means of oxalic acid." ..which is somewhat akin to the current titration testing done for hard water, which seems fair enough. Currently, CO2 is determined by gas chromatography,
giving a quantitative 'peak' by
thermal detector. In either case, we note the problem of contaminants and the reliance of
measuring the initial volume. Some interesting work by Beck in evaluating CO2 in those years, concentrated on locale, elevation, sampling methodology,
wind velocity, humidity and other factors....seeking to explain the
wide variation in measurement, which looks almost random to the jaundiced eye. Pettenkofer, who was no mean chemist, became depressed when he was too old to
work in the lab and shot himself.
(so much for the scientific dictum-"old chemists never die, they just smell that way")

Will "take no prisoners" Hart said...

I'm aware that the methodology has gotten more reliable but the obvious point here is that there was a huge cluster of readings between 300 and 350 and fair number that were even higher than that and damned if the IPCC ONLY focused on the 260 and 270 readings and used those as the cherry-picked baseline.

Will "take no prisoners" Hart said...

Sorry to hear about Pettenkofer, btw.