More interesting and excellent posts here … thank you everyone…

Result: the Atlantic ocean was in a very similar state as today. The Arctic warming at that times was stronger than today showing 4 °C since 1918 to 1936 (60-80N) in average.
Polyakov in 2004

POLYAKOV, I. V. et al. Variability of the Intermediate Atlantic Water of the Arctic Ocean over the Last 100 Years, J O U R N A L O F C L I M A T E, VOL. 17, NO. 23, 2004

http://www.frontier.iarc.uaf.edu/~igor/research/pdf/polyakov.etal.2004.pdf
brought evidence for a approx. 65 years (50-80) cycle of ocean currents ( and climate) with warm phases during the 20s and 30s (20th century) and today.
My data show clearly that the high CO2 at that times (20s/30s) came from the atlantic ocean, especially from the area Greeland/Iceland/Spitsbergen. This is one of two global netto CO2 absorption areas. Mauna Loa lies near the pacific netto CO2 outgassing area. Therefore the going down of the CO2 curve will be seen later than at measuring sites more northern.
The arctic warming in the 20s and 30s (20th century) was most extreme during winter times at Spitsbergen with >12°C heating (1918-1936). This has led to >364 ppm CO2 over sea surface at Spitsbergen in 1936 and the CO2 came from the sea showing for 1°C air temperature 25,25 ppm CO2 have degassed.
The consequence is clear: the cause of high CO2 ist the sea in the 20s/302 and today by a strong heating of the CO2 absorption area in the polar sea. This hold more CO2 in the atmosphere. In the cold phases of this ocean current/climate cycle (~1900 and ~1965) more CO2 had been absorbed in the colder ocean.

So my conclusion is: we have 65 year climate cycle (50-80 years according to Polyakov) showing warm ocean currents, high temperature and high CO2 in the warmer phase (1920-1940 and today) and cold ocean currents/temperature/ CO2 during its colder phase.
CO2 lags temperature within a short time (<5 years according to my historical data) and we will see a CO2 dropping soon.
As turned out in the Wilson paper the NAO and PDO clearly show the influence of the oceans .

The ~800 years phase lag CO2/ Temperature ( as Richard Courtney mentioned) is the result of the erroneous methods in ice core analysis. Oceans react slowly but within years not centuries.

Ernst Beck

http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/nsidc-seaice-s/from:1978/to:1983/offset:-12/scale:-1.3/mean:3/plot/esrl-co2/from:1978/to:1983/mean:3/derivative/scale:5

(and of course this also coincides with the NH growing season, so you can’t say either necessarily dominates)

@anybody:

Is there a commonly-accepted explanation for the truncated peaks of the CO2 derivative?

Thanks for the info. A recent Nat. Geographic special ‘Earth – The History’ detailed the imminent death of the world’s coral reafs due to higher acidic levels. I’ve been watching this very well produced special, but without exception there’s always part of each hour that is dedicated to some global warming fear.

Atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) concentration changes are observed to follow global temperature changes at all time scales. But the CO2 and the temperature do not correlate. And people often confuse coherence and correlation.

Coherence indicates that when one thing changes the other also changes (i.e. in this case each time that temperature rises then the atmospheric CO2 increases later, and each time that global temperature falls then the atmospheric CO2 reduces later).

Correlation indicates that there is a statistical relationship between parameters (i.e. in this case a concentration of CO2 would indicate a global temperature according to the AGW hypothesis).

There are several time scales that can be considered for assessment of coherence. At millennial time scales the CO2 changes follow temperature changes by ~800 years (as is indicated by the Vostock ice cores).

Annual and monthly time scales are mentioned in postings of this discussion. Since 1990 it has been known that changes to atmospheric CO2 concentration follow changes to mean global temperature by months (the original study was Kuo, Lindberg & Thompson, Nature (1990)) and several other studies have since confirmed this (e.g. Callendar, Nature (1992)).

The finding that global temperature and atmospheric CO2 concentration cohere such that atmospheric CO2 concentration follows temperature by months indicates
(a) that a change to the temperature induces a change to the CO2
or
(b) that changes to the temperature and CO2 are both induced by some other (unknown) parameter.

But global temperature and atmospheric CO2 concentration do not correlate and, therefore, the level of one is not determinate of the level of the other.

Many things cohere but do not correlate. For example, leaves fall off trees soon after school children end their summer break each year. This is clear coherence. But the number of leaves that fall does not correlate to the number of school children who return to school.

Coherence with absence of correlation is very suggestive of causation by some other (unknown) parameter. In the case of the children and the leaves, the time of year is the causative ‘other parameter’.

The decadal time scale is not considered in the above discussion (although it is mentioned with reference to Beck’s data). In our 2005 paper
(ref Rorsch A, Courtney RS & Thoenes D, ‘The Interaction of Climate Change and the Carbon Dioxide Cycle’ E&E v16no2 (2005)).

I presented information from that paper at the Heartland Institute climate conference in New York, and an audio recording of that presentation can be found at the following URL as follows:
http://www.heartland.org/NewYork08/audio.cfm
At the above URL scroll down to Tuesday 4 March, Session 8.45 – 10.15 am, Track 2 then clicking on Audio below my name. Also, my responses to questions can be heard by clicking on Audio after “Panel Q&A” at the bottom of that Session.

I said then conclusions from our qualitative analysis of the carbon cycle (that induced our model studies) included:
“The above qualitative considerations suggest the carbon cycle cannot be very sensitive to relatively small disturbances such as the present anthropogenic emissions of CO2. However, the system could be quite sensitive to temperature. So, our paper considered how the carbon cycle would be disturbed if – for some reason – the temperature of the atmosphere were to rise, as it almost certainly did between 1880 and 1940.”
and
“In the light of all the above considerations it would appear that the relatively large increase of CO2 concentration in the atmosphere in the twentieth century (some 30%) is likely to have been caused by the increased mean temperature that preceded it. The main cause may be desorption from the oceans. The observed time lag of half a century is not surprising. Assessment of this conclusion requires a quantitative model of the carbon cycle, but – as previously explained – such a model cannot be constructed because the rate constants are not known for mechanisms operating in the carbon cycle.”

A valid criticism of this conclusion is that – if the conclusion is correct – then it suggests the fall in global temperature from ~1940 to 1970 should induce a fall in atmospheric CO2 concentration in the coming decade. The conclusion would be disproved if such a fall were not to occur.

‘One swallow does not make a Spring’ and the single data point that has caused this discussion may be an aberration. However, I think everybody will understand that I eagerly await future data to observe if this is – or is not – the start of a trend reversal in atmospheric CO2 concentration.

Richard S Courtney

Trust my model, yesterday, it correctly predicted some CO2 revisionism “adjustments”.

Check out this post and especially the last few comments for a good summation on Acidification.

http://www.jennifermarohasy.com/blog/archives/003220.html

It would seem that once again the AWGers’ science (this time on Ocean Acidification) is sloppy.

Nice work… Glad it’s WFT has been useful for you. The temperature/CO2 relationship was one of the first things I used it for myself – see one of the examples:

http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/esrl-co2/isolate:60/mean:12/scale:0.2/plot/hadcrut3vgl/isolate:60/mean:12/from:1958

You can do the same thing with FFT:

http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/esrl-co2/detrend:70/fourier/high-pass:10/low-pass:25/inverse-fourier/scale:0.2/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1958/fourier/high-pass:10/low-pass:25/inverse-fourier

But please note – both in this and yours – that the magnitude of the temperature-related change is pretty tiny compared to the overall increase and even the annual variation. This is evidence of a positive feedback, but it’s a weak one.

I posted some more thoughts about this back in June:

http://wattsupwiththat.wordpress.com/2008/06/20/warming-on-11-year-hiatus/#comment-20296

Dee: I got your mail, sorry I’ve been a bit busy with my Real Job lately, and I can’t promise to add anything new in the short term.

When CO2 dissolves in water it forms carbonic acid.

“This would seem to be a negative effect of higher CO2 levels even though land-based plants benefit.”

Why would it be a negative? How do you know that? Most sea animals evolved when CO2 was much higher than it is now. Corals, for example, evolved when there was about 7000ppm CO2 in the atmosphere compared to less than 400ppm now. The CO2 levels we are talking about now were seen before relatively recently in the geological past and the seas were teaming with life.

“The AGW crowd is always harping on the acidification of the oceans angle”

Yup, they grab for any lever they can find to scare people into adopting their agenda with absolutely no proof whatsoever that it will hurt a thing. People hear “acidic” and think battery acid or something. That is why they say it, to scare people into adopting their agenda. And then when you ask for proof, they hand you some computer model that someone made up in a lab. Well, I can probably model a perpetual motion weapon that scares away three-headed dinosaurs but that doesn’t mean it will ever come to pass.

Ask them to show you proof that there was any negative impact to sea life when the atmospheric CO2 levels were double today’s levels in the past. Their answer is generally along the lines of asking for proof that increased CO2 won’t do harm. But it is impossible to prove a negative. You can’t prove that something can’t happen, you can only prove what does happen. The answer to their question is in the geological record.

While the term acidification is technically correct for the process, it leads people to think the oceans are getting more acidic, which isn’t true. Oceans are alkaline and increases in CO2 and hence carbonic acid results in the oceans getting a little less alkaline, but still a long way from being acidic.

It’s a bit more complex than that when you consider ocean temperatures. Warmer temperatures cause less dissolved CO2/carbonic acid and more alkaline ocean.

As with temperatures and CO2, it’s far from clear that more CO2 AND warmer temperatures result in ocean acidification. The claimed effect to date is tiny and isn’t based on actual measurements (despite what wikipedia says).

Heh!

(Stadler was Einstein, of course.)

There are other parallels one might draw, of course . . .

REPLY: see new post on main page of the blog – Anthony

2008 5 2008.375 388.48 388.48 385.33
2008 6 2008.458 387.99 387.99 385.76
2008 7 2008.542 384.93 384.93 384.54

ftp://ftp.cmdl.noaa.gov/ccg/co2/trends/co2_mm_mlo.txt