Note slide 16 & 45 and its limiting factors, where the bulk of marine photosynthesis occurs. http://academic.engr.arizona.edu/HWR/Brooks/NATS101sec48/lectures/4-1-2003.ppt#298 Note the high levels of marine growth off of the Sahara and in the subarctic.

The essence of AGW claims is that more CO2 is being produced than absorbed by nature. The problem with that claim is nature’s ability to absorb CO2 is highly variable just as weather it is certainly not constant. What Goodridge is saying is that we haven’t considered adequately all the ways in which nature absorbs CO2, one of them being marine photosysthesis.

Not true. It’s clear that increasing CO2 levels come from the burning of fossil fuels. One reason we know that the ocean is not the source is because the CO2 concentration in the ocean has been increasing. Further, C12/C13 isotope ratios confirm FF as a source for atmospheric CO2 increases.

“Monthly values are expressed in parts per million (ppm) and reported in the 2003A SIO manometric mole fraction scale. The monthly values have been adjusted to the 15th of each month. Missing values are denoted by -99.99. The “annual” average is the arithmetic mean of the twelve monthly values.
In years with one or two missing monthly values, annual values were calculated by substituting a fit value (4-harmonics with gain factor and spline) for that month and then averaging the twelve monthly values.”

“Atmospheric CO2 concentrations (ppmv) derived from flask and in situ air samples collected at the South Pole”

Notice that the chart starts in 1957 and has a virtual straight line slope to 2004, so atmospheric CO2 was rising before they even heard of Global Warming. Very odd indeed. Notice all the other graphics have a similar straight line trend with minor squiggles to 2004.

There is an important implication in this colloration, there is an optimum ice coverage that either increases or decreases CO2 uptake from the atmosphere to the water as reflected in the seasonal CO2 cycling. If the Northern and Southern CO2 reading cycling in reverse of each other, i.e. in phase with their respective seasons, then we should see a statistically significant difference between the Northern and Southern Hemipheric CO2 readings. Which leads me to a suspicion: If the Southern Hemisphere has shown no Global Warming according to the temperature data, and that the averaging in of the Northern Hemisphere with the Southern Hemisphere gave us the appearance of “Global Warming” when in fact it was Northern Hemispheric warming, have we been similarly mislead with planetary CO2???? What is the Southern Hemisphere’s CO2 history????????????????????

Re: Evan Jones,
I don’t know the latest values either, but I have two possible reasons. The first is the authors may not all be up to date. Using the graph above, ~353ppm could be from a source in the early 90’s, 380 ppm is much more recent. The second possibility could be the units. Some measurements are in parts volume and some in parts mass. CO2 is heavier than N2 and O2, which dominate the atmosphere, so it should read higher in parts mass than in parts volume.

The possiblility that it could be different in different places seems to be settled by a perverse argument that the poor localized mixing of CO2 causes such random variations that it is impossible to measure, yet we can safely assume uniform mixing throughout the world so that we can use the reliable measurements we can make in locations that are both extreme and remote to represent the real values all over the world.
If I argued the same with temperature, it would be laughed out of the park. Especially after it was clear that I chose Hawaii and Antarctica as my representative samples.
Maybe they are right. But it looks to me as if they choose to accept this rather than test it. On the other hand, they clearly don’t accept any of the old proofs of a Medievel Warm Period that was as warm or warmer than today.
This seems to me to be rife for scientific exploration. Properly done, we could gain great knowledge of sources, sinks, dispersion, diffusion and mixing.
We believe that almost half of what we add to the skies gets taken out by some sink, with the rest getting nearly instantaneously well mixed througout the atmosphere. If that is true, the levels have to be higher downwind of sources, being reduced downwind of sinks. Since we are adding to levels, the ocean should be a relative sink. But is it? If the readings are higher the closer you get to Asia, and lower the closer you get to the Americas, then we would know just how well the ocean is acting as a sink.
A researcher could even phrase all his research proposals as truly being necessary to fully understand anthropogenic global warming.

Watt’s Up With That?

And what IS the actual number? (And what’s the +/-?)

My take on this is as ice cover decreases over the arctric during the summer time, more water surface area is exposed to dissolve the CO2. Note that the Southern Hemisphere runs in reverse with ice cover naturally, however the seasonal “variation” melting is vastly larger. As a consequence, Global Sea Ice coverage (North and South combined) peaks during the Northern Winter and troughs around spring time. So one might say, that due to the Southern Ice coverage and North spring growth of plants, CO2 is pulled out of the atmosphere at a phenominal rate. Given this amount of CO2 uptake, the claim mankind has anything to do with this is just absurd. The amount of CO2 in the air is largely dependent on the surface water temperature and ice coverage and both of these are directly influenced by the sun.

I agree with everything in the essay, but I get nervous when people who are smarter than I engage in deception even by accident.

The above charts can be blamed on Excel. By default it makes charts that look like this.

brad