Here’s an entry from another (sketical) blog talking about and entry on an AGW blog. (wonderful thing the web) :cheese:

Realclimate.org stated in their latest blog:

“a study about how much of the human emissions are staying the atmosphere (around 40%) and whether that is detectably changing over time. It does not undermine the fact that CO2 is rising. The confusion in the denialosphere is based on a misunderstanding between ‘airborne fraction of CO2 emissions’ (not changing very much) and ‘CO2 fraction in the air’ (changing very rapidly),”

Can someone explain to me the difference between these two in layman’s terms? I would ask on the RC blog but the comments thread is ridiculously long.

[REPLY – In this case, RC is right. All the study claims is that 60% of what is being emitted is being reabsorbed (either immediately or over time), and that this percentage is not decreasing because the sinks are reaching their ‘capacity” to absorb. The other 40% accumulates. An estimated 8 BMTC (anthropogenic) per year is emitted, and atmospheric carbon is c. 770 BMTC or so. So CO2 atmospheric carbon (at 40% of 8) goes up by a little under half a percent per year. Now my contention is that CO2 does not have the effect (esp. re feedbacks) that RC claims it has, but that is a separate argument. ~ Evan