The CO2 – Temperature link

Hang on. I have to go get my popcorn.
This is going to bring the alarmists raging forward with their graphs and links, I’ll bet.
Even I can see there’s flaws here, and I’m just a skeptic fan who likes to watch.

I have put the UAH temperature anomaly data together with the Mauna Loa CO2 differences on one time scale graph. And I do not obtain any relationship at all between CO2 and temperature. In my dataset (obtained from the obvious sources on internet) there is no 6-9 month time lag (not positive nor negative) between temperature evolution and CO2 concentration differences. Only around 1998 there is a coincidence between the two parameters.
If there would be a relationship then the plot of the one parameter agains the other would show some trend.
This is not so when CO2 increase is ploted against the temperature anomalies ! One obtain a blop of points spread over the whole area between min and max of the two parameters.
I have found sources where this relationship is claimed with 20 selected points ????!!!! I thought that a scientific claim should held for all observations ?!
I am very critical towards all claims made by the IPCC clerus that are supposed to be believed without any critisism or any scientific foundations. But manipulated and unclear claims as in the first italic sentence make a very negative impression on the scientific serieux of the IPCC critics.

This is a very interesting proposition. However, I think it is better not to
remark on the preliminary results of any scientific measurement published on the web. You mention an early result of a Mauna Load downtick in August 08, later corrected. People should know that there was a similar uptick in early results for October 08, later corrected. The fact that NASA and other US agencies publish so much data so quickly is a wonderful thing. The last thing that we want is for them to clam up to avoid criticism. For example, is is almost impossible to get any data from the CSIRO in Australia. In fact, there is a CSIRO operated CO2 monitoring station at Cape Grim in Tasmania. An earlier commenter asked about non-Mauna Loa CO2 measurements. I’d like to see the Cape Grim results published as quickly and publicly as the Mauna Loa results, but I think you will find it very hard to get access to them.
Lets congratulate the US Agencies for their work and wish that other countries agencies would be as open.

Shear unbelievable crap.
13C and 14C budgets proove its all wrong. O2/N2 data do the same. The sahel lost enormous fractions of biomass in the 70s/80s but still CO2 level rise and rise.
One should better stick here to pictures of weather stations. At least they are focused.

I think I would like to refer here to a link relevant to CO2 I read recently:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/co2_measurements.html
In it you will find compilations of CO2 measurements in various places and times.
I am not adopting the arguments of the link, just the data.
From previous discussions and readings and the plots in the link above I have come to the following tentative conclusions:
CO2 concentrations are as badly represented as temperatures and as depended on location as temperatures. People who do not accept that there can be one measure for temperature over the globe should not accept the CO2 measures either.
Let us see what is done:
For temperatures, the climate community has decided on the following algorithm: take high and low for the day , average it, take many stations and get a global average. Then find some time interval whose average is convenient and subtract from the global temperature and voila, the anomaly. This means that as an effect a two degree raise from -60 to -58 in Siberia will show as warming.
For CO2 it was a different school that took hold. They decided to find “stable” points, where updrafts,( more than 100ppm differences, see link) day and night variations ( more than 20ppm diffences) and seasonal variations( more than 20ppm differences) would be minimized , and use those numbers as world numbers, calibrating with icecore data and calling it “world CO2”.
Can you see the fallacy? to be consistent, either we should have 100 points measuring the temperature on a specific hour of the day on mountains and in the ocean, and no average world temperature, or we should do the same with CO2, measure high for the day, low for the day, average, and make a global average from many regions, and then define an anomaly on the same interval as the temperature anomaly in order to be consistent.
Now ice core temperatures are touted as the Lydian stone. Think where ice forms: either in and close to oceans, which are large sinks of CO2, or in huge areas of snow and ice where the only CO2 available is volcanic and geothermal . It is not representative of the vibrant live planet CO2.
Ferdinand in the link above argues that the oceans, which are 75% of the earth have isotropic CO2. I do not buy the argument. If one looks at the ocean/water temperatures http://weather.unisys.com/surface/sst.html there are enormous differences between the tropics, temperate and north, and enormous seasonal variations during the year which will affect CO2 absorption and emission, and there is a lot of biological activity in seas and waters that also are involved. Until the new satellite measurements come in, we are blind on this since AIRS can only see CO2 up in the 5 km range.
New satellite http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7769619.stm.
AIRS has been useful, because it has shown that even at that height there is no homogenization of CO2, and it has shown how the planet breaths.
The data in the link provided above explain also the discrepancies of last century chemical measurements and the sanitized Mauna Loa etc measurements. Location, time of day and season make an enormous difference.

I saw Frank Lansner’s chart on icecap (and tried it out on my data since I have all these metrics on a monthly basis back to the 1850s.)
There is a strong correlation of temperature increase to a lagged CO2 response back to 1958 when CO2 first started getting measured on a monthly basis. The lag seems to vary somewhat but an average lag of 5 months seemed to be the best fit.
Here is the same chart going back to 1959 (for Hadcrut3 and the CO2 annual increase).
http://img339.imageshack.us/img339/879/co2lagkz2.png
CO2 is still increasing in this chart. Temperature changes just result in slightly less CO2 increase or slightly more.

Freeman Dyson is right. The state of the science is such that we don’t know enough to make any conclusions. The gaps in knowledge are enormous. Only a complete fool could develop sufficient hubris to declare that he knew what the climate is going to do over the next 100 years.
Some day soon, a response to Algore’s movie is going to show how stupid he and his followers have been. He will be a laughingstock for all time.
And “Hansen” will be the punchline for jokes (e.g. “that guy pulled a Hansen”).

If the beneficial aspect of CO2 increases in a lineal manner and the warming effect of CO2 decreases logarithmically, then does it not makes sense that at some point CO2 itself becomes a negative feedback?

Hi Anthony,
I am not a scientist and the equation for your graph is over my head. I desperately want to know how to read the equation as it related to the graph.
1979: CO2 growth (ppm/year) = 3,5 * Temp. anomaly (K) + 0,7
What is 3,5?
Is it suppose to be a constant and is it suppose to be 3.5?
What is (K)?
And what is 0,7?
Is it a constant, too?
Thanks for the help and anything else that you might share to help a lay person like me.
Jeff Wiita

The best comparison is yet to come. AIRS hopefully will be able to depict the swirling globby mass of CO2 changes in time comparison with the swirling globby satellite temperature changes. We will also hope that 5 years does not a trend make with that comparison. But what the hey, if we can bail out poorly run businesses who send money to our campaign coffers (gee thanks Bush), we can throw money at green businesses who send money to our campaign coffers (gee thanks Obama). Serious scientific study devoid of bias be damned.

Jeff Wiita-
Europeans often use commas where Americans use decimal points, so the numbers are 3.5 and 0.7 (Americanized).
K refers to degrees Kelvin.

@Williem de Rode
You write
” Only around 1998 there is a coincidence between the two parameters.”
“If there would be a relationship then the plot of the one parameter agains the other would show some trend.”
Im not sure I follow you quite. You have made some plots not showing a common trend? Could you provide link for these?
The common trend between CO2rise/year and Global temperatures does rise the question of causality. Which is the case:
1) The CO2 rise/year leads to temperature rise?
2) The temperature leads to CO2 rise/year?
3) Both parameters are caused by a third influence (the sun etc.)
1: This scenario could easily be confused with the normal greenhouse gas thoughts: More CO2 leads to higher temperatures. But don’t make that mistake. CO2 rise /YEAR is a totally different story than total CO2 conc.
The greenhouse effect of CO2 is described as coming very graduate, as a logarithmic function of the entire CO2 concentration. A greenhouse effect corresponding to a rise in concentration/year has never been reported. Thus to believe in scenario 1) is not reflecting any known behavior of a greenhouse gas. It demands a new discovery of greenhouse gas physics.
This I believe leaves us with possible scenario 2 and 3.
There is some noise on the graphs, but if there should be any doubt about causality (I think not), yes, the year 1998 do provide us with a signal so strong that it lifts far beyond the noise level, and tells a clear story.
But never mind which of the 3 scenarios is correct: If there is a common trend between CO2/rise per year and global temperatures, then there is a severe problem for the extreemly flat Antarctic curves. Because the temperature curves are not that flat. For 1000´nds of years we should have had CO2 concentrations between 280ppm and 290ppm.
And the ratio CO2ppmrise/year = 3,5*temp(K) + const, makes it virtually impossible.

@Nylo
Yes i could have used other temperature graphs etc, and i have indeed seen some similar graphs using GISS or RSS, practically same result.
But your Ocean temperature graph might be interesting, can you bring a link?

Thank You Scott

Pinatubo was quite conducive to better plant absorption of CO2 v.v. diffuse light, causing the CO2 dip. See paper I think by Nasa. Opposed Chicon spitted quite a different mix. Temp and CO2 lagging or leading? There’s a 12 month cycle, and it continues to be up. 386.20 was the latest trend figure… and all in those years of global cooling, but only if charts are chopped off showing only after 1.1.2001.
… the 385 ppm today hardly does a big difference.
What were the global temps 500-600 million years ago in an utterly different continental configuration? What was the ozone level back then in the stratosphere… was it conducive to allow live on land?

Bill Illis´ graph:
http://img339.imageshack.us/img339/879/co2lagkz2.png

My revies of these comments indicates that Mauna Loa is considered to be the sole source of volcanic out-gases (VOG). Kilauea is just south of there and has been continuously erupting for 30 + years. Whenever the trade wins stop blowing, the Kona (southery) wind blows. The Kona wind causes VOG to inundate the Big Island and other islands when prolonged. Kilauea is an intermittent source of CO2 emissions that will corrupt the data gathered at Mauna Loa. I am not aware of any explanation as to if and how the Mauna Loa data is adjusted to offset the Kilauea VOG.
Does any one know?

Frank. Lansner (08:55:36) :
@Nylo
Yes i could have used other temperature graphs etc, and i have indeed seen some similar graphs using GISS or RSS, practically same result.
But your Ocean temperature graph might be interesting, can you bring a link?
for a map:
http://weather.unisys.com/surface/sst.html
Maybe if you look around the site there might be global numbers, though from the map it is evident that as far as CO2 goes temperatures in the 30C and temperatures in the -2 at the poles should not be given the same weight without knowing the temperature dependence of CO2 absorption and emission in water.

“Between 5,000 and 8,000 years ago, both methane and carbon dioxide started an upward trend, unlike during previous interglacial periods,” explains Kutzbach.
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-12/uow-sde121708.php
According to this guy, the AGW trend (including warming and CO2) is at least 5,000 years old.
I think it’s time to do introduce retroactive carbon taxing, which means we get to tax the bejeezus out of Europe and Asia. lol.

The grey/blue lines seem to indicate that the rate of temperature increase is faster than the rate of co2 increase. I would expect that if co2 was becoming a less effective forcer, that the slopes would be reversed. That is co2 slope would be > temperature…

“Actually they don’t!”
Kauffman indicates their protocol does indeed include such dessication, e.g., at:
http://nzclimatescience.net/images/PDFs/ccr.pdf
Your link gives me no clue as to your bona fides as it doesn’t work for me. We have yet to examine the issues with the Siemens black box.

@Jason
The short term variation seems rather conclusive, temperature increase leads to CO2 peak. And the variation is just far too big for the flat Antarctic CO2-curves. The long term trend can have more explanations. Biomass growth is reality, its happening. CO2-forcing on a bigger scale, i dont know, its not provable from the graphs nor disprovable. However, the narrowing in between trends happends both before and after the 1970´ies, See Bills graph. Why do you think that is? (If you believe that the CO2 has been steadily rising the whole century). The difference between the graphs around 1960 equals the difference around the mid 1990´ies. This would make total sense if you accept Becks data to some degree, both as a result of Biomass and perhaps some CO2 forcing.

IRGA measures CO2 directly, as used by all the official sites.
Since when ?
If CO2 is not measured directly by IRGA, then how is the (raw voltage) data corrected ?
By constants the world over, or are the corrections measured (locally)…..Obviously this is not the case otherwise CO2 would have been measured directly, so no need for corrections, but the IRGA method can not measure CO2, O3, CH4, or N2O directly. It can only measure them overall, together, as one.
Well, certainly that was the case in the late 1950s or early 1960s.
Has it improved that much since ?
It’s good MLO now has a change log, in the past it would of made interesting reading….
Then there are the reference gases, air + CO2 originally, the holes there are obvious, there have been two other reference mixtures used since, yet no steps in the released data ?
There be many a slip between spoon and mouth.
Normally it is called fraud.

Frank, I think the CO2 temperature response is probably related to ocean absorption rates but I could be wrong.
Since 1958, oceans and plants seem to be absorbing about half of human emissions.
On average lately, we have been adding about 4 ppm per year of CO2 to the atmosphere but the concentration is increasing at only 2 ppm. (Average that is, the concentration is actually increasing at a slightly exponential rate – about 0.00187 ppm extra each month.)
I thought before the oceans were the cause. It seemed to me that a slightly cooler ocean is absorbing more CO2 than a slightly warmer ocean does. When global temps go down, the ocean surface seems to follow right along (or visa versa.) Cooler temps, more ocean absorption, less CO2 rise.
I think the 5 month lag is the key to answering whether it is oceans or biomass which is providing the factor causing the CO2 temperature response.
The oceans have longer lag responses than the land and biomass. But then there is a definitive up and down seasonal cycle in CO2 which is more tied to biomass cycles in the northern hemisphere (where there is more land than in the southern hemisphere).
So, I guess I am not sure anymore.

George E. Smith says:

I meant to add in above, that a recent paper in Scientific American claimed that humans started global warming around 8000 years ago and even stopped an ice age in its tracks; based on the beginnings of Agricultere was the claimed reasoning. I can’t comment much since the authors were climatologists I think, who presumably know what they are doing. I seem to recall a Colorado linkage of some sort.

What you are talking about is a hypothesis by Ruddiman, who is a well-respected climate scientist. And, while other climate scientists certainly respect Ruddiman, a lot of them are skeptical of this hypothesis. (And, I think even Ruddiman himself, while defending his hypothesis, doesn’t claim that he is sure it is correct…I think he concedes that it is just a hypothesis.) One reason for skepticism (among others)is that it seems to require a climate sensitivity at the high end…or beyond the high end…of the generally accepted range.
An interesting aspect of this is that when Ruddiman first presented this hypothesis, some AGW “skeptics” embraced it because it seemed to argue that mankind has done something good by putting these greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. Of course, the problem with this point-of-view is, as I noted, that his hypothesis seems to require large sensitivities to greenhouse gases…which seems to imply the most extreme warming scenarios from our current injection of considerably more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. And, of course, even if we did…unbeknownst to ourselves…do something good by increasing greenhouse gases a bit through agriculture (e.g., release CO2 by clearing land and release methane by growing rice), one can still have too much of a good thing. (As an analogy, if I pour some water over someone who is very thirsty, then he will appreciate that but not if I deluge him to the point where he is drowning in water.)

I have one more CO2 chart that some of you may not like, but based on the ice cores and the global (rather than Mauna Loa) CO2 measurements, and the average growth/acceleration rates over time in the CO2 numbers, we are likely to reach the doubled CO2 level of 560 ppm by 2070 or earlier (just 60 years away).
http://img155.imageshack.us/img155/1071/co2forecastwz0.png

The name “Mona Loa” jumped out at me, too, especially as it’s due to erupt again soon, and has shown signs of reawakening. Frankly, I can’t think of a worse location for a CO2 monitoring site. I’d always assumed they used Mona Kea, which is believed extinct. Monitoring atmospheric CO2 on an active volcano (!) makes as much sense as having a temperature monitoring station in the middle of a parking lot.. oh, wait, they do that, too.
Sure you can compensate to a degree for the volcanic component, but why not have better, cleaner data?
Hrmmm, well, the key issue I see in the comments above is that if Mona Loa puts out that much CO2 during an eruption, it must be taxed, for the good of us all! I’d suggest sending the tax collectors into the caldera during the next eruption to collect said taxes. If the volcano refuses to pay, it will therefor become the nations largest (and hottest) criminal….
Seriously though, my sincere thanks to Mr Watts for cutting through the PC BS so many times. You are doing your coutry a great service, because if we avoid a debilitating “carbon tax” and other economic poison pills, it will only be thanks to you and people like you. Thank you.

CJ says:

Hrmmm, well, the key issue I see in the comments above is that if Mona Loa puts out that much CO2 during an eruption, it must be taxed, for the good of us all! I’d suggest sending the tax collectors into the caldera during the next eruption to collect said taxes. If the volcano refuses to pay, it will therefor become the nations largest (and hottest) criminal….

Volcanoes put out only a very small amount of CO2 in comparison to our emissions, which is why CO2 levels were (using accepted measurements, not Beck’s nutty ones) quite constant for the last ~10,000 years…and haven’t been above ~300ppm in at least the last 750,000 years. In fact, the major effect of significant volcanic eruptions is cooling due to the sulfate aerosols that they release (although in order to have a significant cooling effect, the eruption has to be large enough that it injects the aerosols into the stratosphere where they can stay around longer…and it apparently helps if the eruption is reasonably near to the equator).

To: Bill Illis (16:50:50) :
Since 1958, oceans and plants seem to be absorbing about half of human emissions.
On average lately, we have been adding about 4 ppm per year of CO2 to the atmosphere but the concentration is increasing at only 2 ppm. (Average that is, the concentration is actually increasing at a slightly exponential rate – about 0.00187 ppm extra each month.)
—
Justify that claim: Calculate the Total mass of carbon and hydrogen “burned” by “man” over each of ten years (this would include all coal mined , all oil pumped, all natural gas burned, (and the vanishly small mass of wood burned by 4th world peasants). (Nukes are CO2-free, hydropower is CO2-free, but solar and wind, etc. are small contributors to electricity alone, not to mention their percentage of the total energy budget. A few more percentage points need to account for “cow farts” and farming, but what else is significant?
That mass of CO2 – from energy production – doesn’t add up to any fraction of your 2 ppm increase.
Biomass? Show the calculations that a “farmed acre” over twenty years is emitting/saving/transferring much different than a staic woodlands – which has much lower denstiy of plants. (Though trees are larger of course, but far fewer in number/sq acre. And the ground under a mature forest is pretty vacant. New growth? Much higher – but those “tree farms” or newly cleared tropics are rapidly re-growing.
The most common excuse is that “clear-cutting” and “destroying the rain forest” account for the other HALF the so-called human-caused CO2 increase.
Now, justify THAT claim. With real numbers.
…

According to Dr. Tim Ball, “Pre-industrial CO2 levels were about the same as today. How and why we are told otherwise?”
http://www.canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/6855
Dr. Ball states that CO2 levels were ~355ppm in the early 1800s and today’s levels at ~385 ppm aren’t significantly different. There’s no debate: CO2 levels haven’t changed in 200 years! The 280 ppm numbers from “pre-industrial” times were cherry picked!
Case closed!

“Are people here serious about thinking that the CO2 rise in the past 50 years is due to oceans and not human emissions???”
No, we are serious in thinking that CO2 is absolutely harmless.

Marcus wrote:
Are people here serious about thinking that the CO2 rise in the past 50 years is due to oceans and not human emissions??? As another commenter pointed out, take away the human emissions, and the ocean+ecosystem is a net sink, not a net source.
No, just that the rise in CO2 is actually a Good Thing since plants need it to survive. In fact, commercial growers use CO2 enrichment systems to improve plant growth.
“Levels of 800 – 1800 ppm have proven to be optimal for the majority of crops grown under protected cultivation…. CO2 enrichment to levels of at least 800 ppm has been shown to increase the growth rate, yields and early harvests of many crops and is certainly economically viable for most high value crops.” — from Day-Night Temperatures and CO2 Enrichment
For the sake of argument, assume that atmospheric temperature rises as CO2 rises (and falls at CO2 falls).
Why should we assume that when real world measurements have shown it to be false?
“The hypothesis that the CO2 rise during the interglacials caused the temperature to rise requires an increase of about 6 °C per 30% rise in CO2 as seen in the ice core record. If this hypothesis were correct, Earth temperatures would have risen about 6 °C between 1900 and 2006, rather than the rise of between 0.1 °C and 0.5 °C, which actually occurred.” — from Environmental Effects of Increased Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide

“ecarreras (06:21:27) :
A few questions. If the measurements of CO2 at Mauna Loa have a significant anthropogenic component should we not see a drop resulting from the world wide economic slowdown? ”
There are no major changes in our CO2 emissions during ecenomic crises, but they are visible in the global emission data. See the years 1980-1982 and 1991-1993.
Due to the rate CO2 increase changes every year(following global temperatures) it is very hard to tell if economic crises has any meassureable effect at all.

It is indeed a good study on Temperature increase and the CO2 relationships
that tend to variation in different months.
But, the point is this that the period he has taken under study or observation
is so short that it does not give the exact result and hence, it can not be generalised for any Atmospheric change. The period between 1979-2008 can not be marked for any such change.Because, any weather change or the trend
of any change even needs longer period than this.
Climatically, any such change is observed at least for the 100 years or so..
Further, I may add that there are local conditions, Regional variations, and the rate of emission etc. affect all these changes. Industrial Towns and the non Industrial towns decidedly vary in CO2 emission and hence, the composion as well as concentration differs form place to place.
Therefore, it is very difficult to generalise any fact , more perticularly the
atmospheric changes. Thanks

Here are some basic numbers for the Carbon cycle.
First, note we have to start talking about “Carbon” now rather than CO2 because in the Carbon cycle, the oceans take in CO2 and it gets converted it into various Carbonates, and vegetation takes in CO2 and converts it into various organic Carbon molecules. When the oceans and vegetation release that Carbon back to the cycle, it usually gets converted back to CO2. So, Carbon is the metric to use.
Total Carbon in the Atmosphere -> 760 billion tons.
Human emissions per year -> 8.5 billion tons.
Atmospheric concentration increasing each year -> 3 – 4 billion tons.
Ocean absorption each year -> 92 billion tons.
Ocean release each year -> 90 billion tons.
Vegetation and soils absorption each year -> 122 billion tons.
Vegetation and soils release each year -> 120 billion tons.
So, we are adding CO2 and Carbon to a system which was more-or-less in balance before and, hence, the concentration is increasing. But human emissions are dwarfed by the natural carbon cycle components.
The data indicates that as the atmospheric concentration has increased, the absorption rate of the oceans and vegetation has also increased which is keeping the annual increase lower than it would have been.
Nobody really knows if these absorption rates will increase or decrease in the future.

@Marcus:
You write:
“Are people here serious about thinking that the CO2 rise in the past 50 years is due to oceans and not human emissions??? “
Marcus, in my writings I mainly show that the CO2 rise / year is very sensitive to temperature. This seems to knock out the flat Antarctic CO2 graphs as they would demand totally absurd flat temperature graphs, temperature graphs flatter than even the hockey stick. This is the primary result of my writing. And so far no one have been able to point out a single comma wrong in the argumentation.
I see you try to call my writing “naive”, but that kind of argument never wins a single truth seeking skeptic.
Then, the ground level upon which we do see temperature dependent CO2 variation can be caused by more reasons. The ground level can indeed be influenced by human emmissions. They can be influented by Biosphere, Ocean temperatures, Ocean acidification, Periods with more precipitation (as now). Its not impossible that the ground level would look different without human emissions.
But if you realy read my article (?), you have read:
“from 1979 to 2008 the CO2-rise per year compared to the global temperatures has fallen 0,5 ppm/year” .. “With the human emissions rising in the time interval 1979-2008, one could imagine that it would be the other way around, that CO2 rises came with still smaller temperature rises needed. .. So generally, the human emissions effect appears inferior to other effects in this context at least.”
So my words are so much more nuanced than your black/white quotation of me.
And then you write:
“For the sake of argument, assume that atmospheric temperature rises as CO2 rises (and falls at CO2 falls). There will be some positive feedback…”
The first sentence “Katharine” has dealt nicely with, the second:
“There will be some positive feedback”:
Will there? Who told you?
Consider the following:
Positive feedback is supposed to follow the following model, roughly:
Warm => more water in atmosphere / more Methane => more warm etc.
And then there´s big discussion if the increased water amount in the atmosphere really behaves like this.
But something else is wrong. There is not more water in the atmosphere today than around 1940. On the contrary. Darn!
So, Marcus, tell me how you imaginge positive feedback happening with no more water in the atmosphere? And Methan appears stagnated years ago.
And then you write:
“…the solubility of CO2 goes down, but this does not necessarily make the ocean a net source: it really just becomes a smaller sink…”
I cannot see what your words should change in this context?? What really is interesting is the outcome, that CO2 concentrations are extremely sensitive to temperature. This disqualifies Antarctic curves. Antony Watts site is read by a good number of people, even experts. So far not one has successfully objected to these findings.

@Jerker Andersson
You write : “I just compared yearly data to see if there where any connection and I where a bit amazed over how obvious it was.”
Exactly. This appears so obvious !?!! But its as though the skeptics have not really used this gold mine of arguments fully? I am still waiting for someone here to point out why this “fails totally”.. but… still waiting 🙂
You write:
“I found that CO2 would stop increasing if temperatures dropped to -0.37C.”
Ha, funny! My value of – 0,32 K may be warmer than your -0,37 K, because I use the trend values in 2008 to get the number, not an average value? The thing is, we want to know what temperature in 2008 would cause CO2 stagnation.

@joel Shore
You write about Beck measurements:
“There is simply no evidence to believe that those early measurements were accurate and that the CO2 levels miraculously stopped undergoing huge oscillations just at the time when the modern way to measure CO2 began in the late 1950s. ”
I dont know how much we can use the Beck-pre-1900 numbers to.
BUT that an average of all those measurements is SO MUCH HIGHER than Antarctic CO2 data, so again its unrealistic to think all these Beck data are all wrong – and all just “happends” to be too warm ?!! ABSURD!
The oscilations etc, yes, i would maybe take a little care to use too much.
BUT! fraom 1860´ies all the way to 1930 form a long continuert rather smooth curve, just like we have seen in later decades.
So Joel, the Beck data is certainly not without smooth long periods. You must also remember, that these data are not from one continuert source!!!), so its wrong to expect one super smooth graph! A demand like that to Becks data shows ignorance and bad will to accept Becks data. Bad science. Anyway, no miracles needed, becks data also have continuert periods.
Apropos miracle: What a miracle that Becks graph “just happends” to go smoothly over in the Mauna Loa series in 1958 .. 😉 So suddenly in late 1950 its correct? hi ho ha…
You then write:
“It doesn’t explain why CO2 went up in the 1960s when temperatures were not going up.”
No. Lower temperatures than today can, even if they are not “going up” lead to ricing CO2 levels:
http://www.klimadebat.dk/forum/attachments/195405co2uah.gif

It looks like my link to the chart didn’t work. Here is another try:

and if that doesn’t work, paste this into your browser…
http://home.comcast.net/~naturalclimate/CO2_growth_vs_Temp.pdf

I provided the following summary elsewhere, and Allan asked me to copy it here. I hope it helps your discussion.
Many people have been misled into believing that the anthropogenic emission of CO2 is known to be the cause of the recent increase in atmospheric CO2 concentration. However, there is a problem with trying to state the truth of the matter. And that truth is that there is no conclusive evidence that any of the 20th century increase in atmospheric CO2 concentration is or is not due to the burning of fossil fuels.
The problem is that those who have been misled have adopted a ‘cultural myth’. Therefore, they assume that a statement of the truth is a claim that the 20th century increase in atmospheric CO2 concentration is not due to the burning of fossil fuels. And, it is very difficult to argue for the truth because people tend to hear only what they expect to hear.
The known facts of the matter are:
1.
The increase in atmospheric CO2 concentration each year is much less than the natural variations in atmospheric CO2 concentration within each year.
2.
The increase in atmospheric CO2 concentration over each year is the residual of the natural variations in atmospheric CO2 concentration within each year.
3.
The anthropogenic emission of CO2 each year is much less than the natural variation within each year.
4.
The change to the 12C:13C isotope ratio of atmospheric CO2 is in the direction expected if the recent increase in atmospheric CO2 concentration were caused by the anthropogenic emission of CO2.
But if the ratio changes then there is a 50:50 chance that it will change in that direction or the other.
5.
The magnitude of the change to the 12C:13C isotope ratio of atmospheric CO2 is much smaller than expected if the recent increase in atmospheric CO2 concentration were caused by the anthropogenic emission of CO2.
6.
The fact in point (5) indicates that most of the change to the 12C:13C isotope ratio of atmospheric CO2 and most of the recent increase in atmospheric CO2 concentration was caused by some unknown, natural (i.e. non-anthropogenic) effect.
7.
The fact in point (6) indicates that all of the change to the 12C:13C isotope ratio of atmospheric CO2 and all of the recent increase in atmospheric CO2 concentration may have been caused by the same unknown, natural (i.e. non-anthropogenic) effect.
Simply,
it is possible that none of the rise in atmospheric CO2 concentration and none of the change to the 13C:12C atmospheric isotope change were caused by anthropogenic emission
but were due to the unknown, natural (i.e. non-anthropogenic) effect that caused most of the change to the 12C:13C isotope ratio of atmospheric CO2.
8.
But the anthropogenic emission may have disturbed the carbon cycle such that the equilibrium state(s) of some parts of the carbon cycle have altered.
Therefore,
it is possible that all of the rise in atmospheric CO2 concentration and all of the change to the 13C:12C atmospheric isotope change were caused by the anthropogenic emission
that induced the unknown, natural (i.e. non-anthropogenic) effect that caused the observed change to the 12C:13C isotope ratio of atmospheric CO2.
9.
It is possible that both the effects noted in points 7 and 8 contributed to the change to the 12C:13C isotope ratio of atmospheric CO2 and to the recent increase in atmospheric CO2 concentration.
Therefore,
it is possible that some of the rise in atmospheric CO2 concentration and some of the change to the 13C:12C atmospheric isotope change were due to the anthropogenic emission.
10.
The change in atmospheric oxygen concentration in recent years is consistent with the amount of fossil fuel that was burned in those years.
In summation, the known facts (listed as points 1 to 10 above) demonstrate that
there is no conclusive evidence that any of the 20th century increase in atmospheric CO2 concentration is or is not due to the burning of fossil fuels.
Happy Christmas
Richard

Allan M R MacRae (22:23:23) :
Hi Michael,
I think there is a miscommunication here.
Thanks Allan,
In the original article, http://icecap.us/images/uploads/FlaticecoreCO2.pdf Frank shows Hans Errens’ chart of dCO2 (ppm CO2/yr) which seems to show a 9 month lag between temperature and dCO2/dt. This is the part I could not reproduce. My analysis shows no lag and yours does as well which I think puts the original chart in question and that’s the point I was trying to make. Maybe the original analysis suffered from some of the pitfalls Jorge pointed out and resulted in lag that wasn’t there. So we both agree that dCO2/dTemp is virtually instantaneous, which makes a lot of sense.
The 9 month lag of CO2/dTemp peak to peak that you show in your paper also makes a lot of sense and is very interesting. The process reminds me of a capacitance circuit. So the question is, what is the size of the tank? And just exactly what units are we going to use for this capacitor? Does the time constant change with increasing CO2? (I can see a case where it gets faster based on a good conversation with a WuWT lurker) Does the temperature cycle length have an influence on CO2 lag? Fascinating stuff… Your thoughts?
Nice work Allan, I was hoping I was breaking new ground but it looks like you already planted a flag there… Mike S

Here´s a Hadcrut/CO2rise graph (Based on Bill Illis graph):
http://www.klimadebat.dk/forum/attachments/co2hadcrut.jpg
I get CO2 stagnation for Hadcrut = + 0,05 K anomaly.
The reason i made this was to visualize the trend difference better.
“Something” is eating the CO2 out of the atmosphere better in some periods than others. This “something” i symbolized with the green colour in the trend graph. As mentioned, part of this “somthing” could be the size of the biospehere. The “Biosphere” then seems to have had minimum around 1977.

Ernst-Georg Beck (03:14:03) :
Ernst, can you explain the calibration technique of the instruments for ice core data? Among other things, we know about diffusion, the gaussian filter effect that takes out short term variability that might explain the smooth ice core data, etc., but when taking readings from the air samples in ice, what is the mechanism for accounting for the CO2 contained in the ice itself?
In other words, given X concentration of atmospheric CO2 when snow falls and is compressed to ice, (a) what was the original CO2 concentration in the water in the snow (presumably near zero due to a nearly perfect crystal structure), and (b) how much of what was in the air ends up being in solution in the ice after N years?, and (c), what method us used to recover the CO2 that was in air but is now in water?
I ask this because there seems to be a bias that increases with the age of the sample, compared to the chemical record. What is the mechanism that could introduce such a bias using the methods used at the time when the ice cores were analyzed?
Not sure if you saw this, but dCO2/dt is very sensitive to temperature and reacts instantaneously, and it would be very interesting to take this derivative and reverse-integrate over time with your CO2 data to see what deltaT would occur, then compare that to the temperature record.
http://home.comcast.net/~naturalclimate/CO2_growth_vs_Temp.pdf
Let me know what you think…
Thanks,
Mike Smith

peter bartner (06:54:17) :
I’ll read the articles… I can see the ice core data is too low, I was hoping if we knew the error conditions present in the data, it might be possible to back out the errors and still have something reasonably useful. I can think of a whole lot of processes to watch out for, but I’ll see what Jaworski says. I guess based on your reading, it’s hopelessly flawed data. Maybe we could give it to Hansen and he could fix it and make it all good again… Or has that already been done?

Dear Mike,
I am sorry but am not an expert in ice core reconstruction technique. I have to point to the work of Jaworowski e.g. here:
Jaworowski Z. (1994) Ancient atmosphere – Validity of Ice records. Environmental Science & Pollution Research, 1(3):161-171 http://www.scientificjournals.com/sj/espr/Pdf/aId/7193.
And here you will find the important Neftl et al. papers from the 80s
http://www.biokurs.de/treibhaus/180CO2/neftel82-85.pdf showing high CO2 levels that they have ignored.
The bias that increases with the age of the sample, compared to the chemical record you mention could be the ice age/gas age difference which grows by depth and age.
By the way this difference is 30 years in the first half of the 20th century (Etheridge 1995). So ice cores cannot resolve the CO2 peak around 1940.
You know the discussion paper by J.J. Drake?
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/jdrake/Questioning_Climate/userfiles/Ice-core_corrections_report_1.pdf
He recalculates the ice core data without such a difference and comes to reasonable ice core values much higher than the notorious too low data. Such low CO2 sould have been noticed in a plant extinction but we have no evidence for that.
And finally there are living bacteria in the ice down in 2 km depth. Guess what C source they have used? CO2 and CH4 from the ice. And they do respiration. ( Christner et al. 2008)
For me the ice core CO2 levels could be recognized as what bacteria and diffusion had left back.
best regards
Ernst

sorry for
budge –> budget

“No he doesn’t he quotes the same method that I did, they do not use H2SO4.”
Indeed they have taken down the paper detailing the Mauna Loa protocol. Nonetheless, Kauffman is my source. Do you have one?
“Yes you should, the cause is the year on year release of ‘new’ CO2 from fossil fuels in excess of what can be absorbed by the oceans and biosphere.”
You have absolutely no reason or cause to assert this. As already stated, the daily fluence between the ocean and atmosphere dwarfs the yearly athropogenic contribution. Mere arithmetic verifies this. How is your notion even conceivable?

“Yes as shown below, it’s evidently the same one as Kauffman uses since he quotes it verbatim! To reiterate they don’t use H2SO4!”
So if they no longer use H2SO4 then the Callendar-Keeling curve should show a discontinuity of 20ppm where the practice was abandoned, somewhere following the mid-’50s, having been used by the French volumetric method whose data they accept, no?

Michael S, Peter bartner, Beck:
Besides the many mechanisms that limits CO2 content in icecores, These have another problem for recent years:
As many of you know, ice cores from around 1890 is supposed to hold Air from around 83 years later. Using this believe, that icecores hold 83 younger air made tha ice cores show results that continously fit the data of the 1970´ies.
Otherwise Antarctic data actually showed around 323 ppm for 1890 wich is nmuch too high. It should only show 290 ppm.
But this 83 year data transfer has another problem, i believe.
The argument tha cavities hold 83 yers younger air means, that there are cavities in the ice down to quite big depths. And therefore younger air can penetrade.
Hmmm.
If this is so, is it likely that exactly 83 year old ice-depths can obtain perfectly fresch air, and then 84 year old ice-depths suddenly are shut toatly of fresch air. This is of course extremely unlikely.
If air can come down at these depths, the realistic scenario is, that AIR FROM MANY DIFFERENT YEARS will be mixed. Air from perhaps 100 years earlier will meet and be mixed with air from today.
This means, that ALL smaller vatiations in the icecore air will not be seen. a peak like the one in the 1940´ies will have its extra CO2 mixed with maybe 100 years of atmospheres, making all peaks go away.
So this way, the Antarctis ice cores for sure will reflect very flat continuert curves only. a maybe 100 years-medium CO2 for each year.
So even if we knew a good factor for obtaining correct CO2 levels from Antarctic ice cores, the results would be way too flat.

“Where do you get this stuff from?”
As noted, WUWT, the 13C:12C fraction of the seasonal signal and long term trends derive from the same source by virtue of presenting the same variance under F-Test. Therefore the ratio of neither can follow from the anthropogenic fluence, it is smaller than the error in measurement.
Freshman chemistry, the partial pressure of CO2 in the ocean, 50,000 Gtons dissolved, 100,000 Gtons precipitate, varies with temperature. The oceanic partial pressure controls atmospheric abundance.
E-folding does not pertain (spectroscopy unnecessary here). Seagalstad surveyed a couple dozen estimates for mean CO2 residence from 5 to 12 years. While the fluence bears mightily on residence time, calculating the former from the latter is impossible.
AIRS and Mauna Loa raw data, AIRS showing 6ppm daily fluctuation at 25,000 feet. Knowing that 1/2 of the atmosphere falls below, and CO2 heavier than air and poorly mixed, then a daily fluence into and back out of the atmosphere of 1/2 of 1/20th 3000 Gtons conservatively yields 80 Gtons. The anthropogenic ‘estimate’ is 30 Gtons.
The Kauffman paper I linked is newer than the one I referred to from memory. Now I do make errors, but the point that the French volumetric method did include this dessication does not depend on that paper. Callendar and Keeling use their data for their putative historic ‘steady state’.
Now, if you have an intelligible argument, why can the ocean not absorb another 30 Gtons? I will accept that it is too cold.

Ferdinand Engelbeen (09:03:51) :
I think there exists a real reason to question the CO2 measurements and knowledge of sources and sinks. If, for example, the real variation is much less than what is depicted by the hundred or so selected “stable” measurement sites the specter of AGW is diffused; if the real variation in time and space is much greater, the selective measurements become again suspect as being cherry picked within natural tendencies ( like the hockey stick).
Temperature measurements have huge variations in time and space and during the years. I have not seen anybody advocating the CO2 solution: choose “stable” locations and take the measurements at a time where they are low. Take stable background temperatures, like at night in the desert or on top of a mountain in the morning. Rather, global integration is attempted of the average between maxima and minima. Why is not the same solution taken for CO2?
The basic question I have is on the “well mixed”. The AIRS data show that it is not well mixed at 5000 meters or so, and Beck’s compilation of data shows it is not well mixed on the ground level. There is huge diversity in the biosphere of the oceans and I do not accept the argument that it is well mixed there. I am looking forward to the new satellite data which will be able to measure at ground level and find sources (like fires and volcanoes and geothermal vents, and nigh respiration, and cows and cities and …) and sinks ( like forests and plankton etc).

Ferdinand Engelbeen (12:57:48) :
Thank you for your reply.
In my humble physicist’s opinion, the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere is one more variable in what is a system of coupled nonlinear differential equations. A prime candidate for a chaotic system. Also in my opinion, averaged global temperature has very little meaning, but such as it is, I would like to see the same methodology applied to all prominent variables and not start comparing temperatures globally with CO2 locally, as is happening now.
Hypotheses are fine, which seems to be much of the content of the link you gave me. They bridge over unknown knowledge and make sense of data. But hypotheses have to be backed by hard and real data and not arguments that seem plausible.
This is more so because we are not discussing the esoteric workings of a scientific discipline with small impact on society. Society is asked to commit economic hara kiri on the basis of these handwaved data, and it is imperative that they are checked in as many ways as possible with hard data that exist now. It is very good that a new satellite will give ground data of all green house gases, so maybe in a year or so we will know much better what is really happening.

Ferdinand:
You yet again promote your flawed mass balance argument when you write here:
“Does the formula of Frank explain the trend? No way, temperature only does explain the variability around the trend. Even if you detrend the whole CO2 variability (as Allan MacRae did), you will find the same correlation (and a small lag) between CO2 and temperature. The trend itself is (near) independent of temperature, simply look at three different periods: 1959-1975 and 1998-2008 with near flat or even cooling temperatures and 1976-1997 with increasing temperatures. In all cases, CO2 simply goes up with 55% of the emissions.
That human emissions are the main cause of the increase in the atmosphere is simply a matter of mass balance: as long as the increase in the atmosphere is only halve the emissions, there can’t be any other (net) source, as nature as a whole acts as a sink… See further a lot of supporting evidence:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/co2_measurements.html”
Elsewhere I have repeatedly pointed out to you that your argument is based on a mathematical error and a circular argument.
And I have repeatedly explained to you that it is nonsense to assert – as you again do here –
“That human emissions are the main cause of the increase in the atmosphere is simply a matter of mass balance: as long as the increase in the atmosphere is only halve the emissions, there can’t be any other (net) source, as nature as a whole acts as a sink.”
Your assertion is rubbish!
It is a mathematical fact that the net effect of changes to two unknowns cannot indicate the change to either or both of them.
The natural sinks and the natural sources may both have varied to provide the resulting observed increase to the CO2 in the atmosphere. The variation of the sinks and the variation of sources are two unknowns each year. In any time period (e.g. 1, 5, 10 or 50 years), the sources may have increased or reduced, and the sinks may have increased or reduced. The resulting net effect of their changes tells nothing about how much (or in what direction) either changed.
For example, the CO2 in the air would increase if the emissions and sequestrations both reduced if the sequestration reduced by more than the emission reduced.
But you assert:
“as long as the increase in the atmosphere is only halve the emissions, there can’t be any other (net) source, as nature as a whole acts as a sink “
And it is important to note that in this assertion, when you say “the emissions” you mean “only the anthropogenic emissions”.
Your assertion is mathematically false because the natural emissions and the natural sequestrations may both be changing and the effect of their net change could be much greater than the anthropogenic emission.
Furthermore, it is an empirical fact that within each year the natural emissions and sequestrations do both change and by an order of magnitude greater than the anthropogenic emission (as I have repeatedly shown you).
Indeed, this is why I have repeatedly said to you:
“Any assessment of the causes of the rise of atmospheric CO2 concentration over a period of years requires assessment of the changes that occur each year (because the annual increase to CO2 in the atmosphere is the residual of the seasonal changes to CO2 in the atmosphere).”
And I have said this because the natural emissions and sequestrations are seen to both change and by an order of magnitude greater than the anthropogenic emission within each year.
So, in summation, it is my contention that your entire argument is based on a mathematical error.
I have repeatedly explained this to you and you have never provided a proper answer but continue to promote your flawed mass balance argument (as you yet again do here).
Happy New Year
Richard

Dear Richard,
I don’t think that we ever will reach an agreement, as solid arguments seems not to reach you. The mass balance is a very solid argument, as what is emitted by humans doesn’t disappear by magic and is added to the atmosphere, even if one second later some of the human CO2 is absorbed by plants or by the oceans, that is at the cost of natural CO2 which should have been used instead. Thus human emissions increase the total CO2 content of the atmosphere, no matter if the emitted molecules are captured in other reservoirs (oceans, biosphere) sooner or later…
You assert:

The variation of the sinks and the variation of sources are two unknowns each year. In any time period (e.g. 1, 5, 10 or 50 years), the sources may have increased or reduced, and the sinks may have increased or reduced. The resulting net effect of their changes tells nothing about how much (or in what direction) either changed.

As I have repeatedly said, the height and variability of individual natural flows or even the sum of all sources or all sinks has not the slightest interest for the endresult. What counts is the sum of all natural in and outflows together over a year, as that is what influences the increase or decrease in the atmosphere, not a change in any individual or total input(s) and/or output(s). And the sum of all natural in and outflows together is known with reasonable accuracy, as that is the difference between the calculated emissions and the measured increase in the atmosphere, which is negative over the past 50 years.
Thus even if no one knows the distribution of CO2 in the natural sources and sinks with sufficient accuracy, the net result over a year is known.
The mass balance for any number of years is:
dCO2 = sum of sources – sum of sinks + accumulated emissions
in average per year:
4 GtC +/- 2.5 GtC = sum of sources – sum of sinks + 7 GtC
Thus the sum of sources – sum of sinks = – 3 +/- 2.5 GtC
So where is the mathematical error?
That simply means that the sum of the natural sinks for any year in the past 50 years was larger then the sum of the natural sources. Or nature did add zero net CO2 to the atmosphere in the past 50 years. No matter if the seasonal or continuous sum of sources was 50 or 100 or 1,000 GtC within a year, or changed from 100 GtC in one year to 200 GtC next year… the difference with the sinks within the same year was always negative and between -0.5 and -5.5 GtC…
Happy New Year to all

“even if one second later some of the human CO2 is absorbed by plants or by the oceans, that is at the cost of natural CO2 which should have been used instead.”
Ferdinand Engelbeen
“as what is emitted by humans doesn’t disappear by magic and is added to the atmosphere, even if one second later some of the human CO2 is absorbed by plants or by the oceans, that is at the cost of natural CO2 which should have been used instead.”
There is a logical slip here: if instead of “one second later” you substitute “one day later” it is quite possible that algae and plankton will happily reproduced with the extra deltaCO2 coming from humans an extra deltaGrams and will absorb it fully. You are not accounting for the great flexibility of the biosystem to expand to fill the food source available, and CO2 is a food source for plants. Have you ever seen the icky plankton covering kilometersquare of sea because of the fertilizers coming down from the rivers?
I am not saying it is so. I am saying that one needs careful measurements to say what is happening, because this may be so.
It is true that there are a lot of non-linear processes at work in the carbon cycles, therefore is remarkable that the influence of temperature on CO2 levels over short (months) to long (millennia) time periods is surprisingly linear: on short term about 3 ppmv/°C, on longer term (ice ages – interglacials) about 8 ppmv/°C.
Also on the uniformity etc of the official data: The AIRS data over the globe is not uniform within 15ppm. I am suspicious of cherry picking in the uniformity, particularly as I learned that the time of day and the location etc are carefully picked, and also that corrections are applied for volcanic CO2 in Mauna Loa. I need independent data, and a plot of global CO2 from AIRS would be one such source.
In my view, Vostock etc data even if all the criticisms on the way things are measured etc, and there are many, do not hold, are good for measuring what the CO2 was at those times in Vostock.
I do not accept the “well mixed” dictum without further solid independent experimental proof.

Allan:
You ask Ferdinand and me:
“Would you both agree that:
1. There is NO convincing evidence that global warming is driven primarily by increased atmospheric CO2.
2. There is significant evidence that global warming is NOT primarily driven by atmospheric CO2.
3. Global temperature increases and decreases are natural and cyclical.
4. Spending tens of trillions of dollars on CO2 abatement is a huge waste of scarce global resources. ”
I agree with each of your four points listed above.
I cannot answer for Ferdinand because he and I do not agree on so much that I would not presume to speak for him.
Ferdinand:
Elsewhere we have debated at length and repeatedly why I cannot accept your ‘mass balance assertions’. Here I have again explained why I am certain that your argument is based on a mathematical error. Solid arguments always reach me, but logical errors fall off me like water from a duck. And, as Anna says, arguments concerning “one second later” are – at best – “a logical slip”.
Above, you ask me:
“The mass balance for any number of years is:
dCO2 = sum of sources – sum of sinks + accumulated emissions in average per year:
4 GtC +/- 2.5 GtC = sum of sources – sum of sinks + 7 GtC
Thus the sum of sources – sum of sinks = – 3 +/- 2.5 GtC
So where is the mathematical error?”
I answer:
Your mathematical error is that the natural ‘sum of sources’ and the natural ‘sum of sinks’ are variables but you assume they are constants.
Both the variables are observed to vary by an order of magnitude more than the annual anthropogenic emission each year. Hence, is extremely unlikely that the residual of their change is less than the anthropogenic emission each year.
Indeed, as I have repeatedly pointed out to you elsewhere, the annual anthropogenic emission is less than 0.02% of the carbon flowing around the carbon cycle. It is a very gross assumption that the carbon cycle varies by less than 0.02% p.a. because few – if any – other processes in nature are that stable.
Furthermore, as I have repeatedly explained to you elsewhere, the annual increase of the anthropogenic emissions is about 0.1 GtC/year. The natural fluctuation of the excess consumption is at least 12 GtC in 4 months. This is more than 100 times the yearly increase of human production, which strongly suggests that the dynamics of the rapid natural sequestration processes can easily cope with the human production of CO2 at each of the observed locations.
You and I have debated these matters repeatedly with no progress. Hence, having stated my reasons for rejecting your ‘mass balance assertion’ I leave it to others here to evaluate those reasons and I withdraw from the debate.
But if anybody here can tell me why my reasons for rejecting your ‘mass balance assertion’ are wrong then I would be grateful to learn that. In fact, I would be very, very grateful because I want to know the cause(s) of the recent rise in atmospheric CO2 concentration and – at present – there is no evidence that any of the recent rise in atmospheric CO2 concentration does or does not have an anthropogenic cause.
Richard

Dear Frank,
There are a problems with your temperature level dependent CO2 release.
In no case of the past, there was a continuous release or uptake of CO2 caused by temperature changes. If there was no equilibrium, then CO2 levels would go to (near) zero, killing all plants during ice ages. And during the Eemian, the previous interglacial, temperatures were 1-2 degr.C higher than today, thus a constant increase of 5 ppmv/yr during about 15,000 years would give an increase of 75,000 ppmv CO2… That is physically impossible.
The same for even more recent periods. Depending of the reconstruction one prefers, we may assume that the LIA was about 0.8 degr.C colder than today (Moberg, Esper, Huang). Thus a decrease below “zero” level of about -0.5 deg.C * 3.5 ppmv/yr * 200 years gives a drop larger than the CO2 content of the atmosphere…
And the same for the most recent pre-satellite period 1945-1975. If we may take the HadSST sea temperature data as alternative (the curve is quite similar to the satellite curve, be it that the trend is somewhat steeper in the overlapping period), the temperature was about 0.2 degr. below zero line, which would give a drop of 21 ppmv, while we see a rise of 20 ppmv in that period…
You may object that, except for the most recent period, these were other circumstances than today. But as there is little change in the configuration of the continents over the past million years, we may assume that the same changes in terrestrial/solar cycles will have a similar effect on temperature. And that the effect of temperature on CO2 levels would be unique for the past 30 years would be quite strange.
The alternative formula, that a change in temperature causes a change in dynamic equilibrium between CO2 release and CO2 absorption is far more normal in nature: higher temperatures lead to a new equilibrium at a higher CO2 level. The fast response from oceans and vegetation (opposite to each other) leads to a change of about 3 ppmv/°C, while the long term response (including ice sheet/vegetation surface area and -deep- ocean current changes) is about 8 ppmv/°C. Thus a temperature change leads to a limited CO2 change, not a continuous one.
So, what is the source of that extra CO2? The human emissions are a clear candidate for that role, as the increase in the atmosphere is about 55% of the emissions over 100+ years and parts of it… See:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/temp_emiss_increase.jpg

Allan:
You ask Richard and me:
“Would you both agree that:
1. There is NO convincing evidence that global warming is driven primarily by increased atmospheric CO2.
2. There is significant evidence that global warming is NOT primarily driven by atmospheric CO2.
3. Global temperature increases and decreases are natural and cyclical.
4. Spending tens of trillions of dollars on CO2 abatement is a huge waste of scarce global resources. ”
I agree to a large extent with these points, with some nuance: Based on physics, there must be a small influence of CO2 levels on temperature, but until now, that is not measurable in the data records (neither in detailed ice core records).
Richard:
I will show my viewpoint for the sake of new readers and refrain of further discussions, except for one point:

Your mathematical error is that the natural ‘sum of sources’ and the natural ‘sum of sinks’ are variables but you assume they are constants.

But I wrote:

No matter if the seasonal or continuous sum of sources was 50 or 100 or 1,000 GtC within a year, or changed from 100 GtC in one year to 200 GtC next year… the difference with the sinks within the same year was always negative and between -0.5 and -5.5 GtC…

Does that sound as assuming that the sum of sources (or sinks) was constant? The difference between sum of sources and sum of sinks is what is calculated as difference between calculated emissions and measured increase in the atmosphere and as that was always negative in the past 50 years, it shows a variability of sink capacity of nature between 0.5 and 5.5 GtC/yr. That is all. No matter how large the total in and outflows were. That is completely unimportant, only the difference between total inflows and total outflows is important. See:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/dco2_em.jpg
(1 ppmv is about 2.1 GtC)
That the year by year sink capacity variability is relative small (about 3% of the estimated total flows involved), may have to do with the fact that temperature works in opposite ways for oceans (higher gives more CO2 release) than for vegetation (higher gives more CO2 uptake), which makes that the overall variability is less than the individual variability…
As a much used example: You start a bussiness and add 1,000 euro to the cash register for the first day. After a lot of transactions (deliveries and sales) at the end of the day, you find 500 euro in your cash register. Next day you add 1,000 euro again to the cash register, thus starting the fresh day with 1,500 euro, to find back 1,000 euro after a lot of transactions at the end of the day. And so on… Bad bussiness anyway, as you will soon run out of credit…
Does one need to know (in detail or total) how much was sold or bought that day? Not at all, as the net result is obvious from what is counted in the cash register at the end of the day. And is anybody here thinking that there may be another source of the 500 euro per day increase seen in the cash register than the 1,000 euro of own money added each day, even if the 1,000 euro is only 0.02% of total sales/intake during the day?
Besides the mass balance, there are a lot of other indications that human emissions are the cause of the increase:
– the d13C decrease in the atmosphere and oceans: these exclude (deep) oceans as source, as deep oceans have a higher d13C level than the atmosphere, but levels are decreasing.
– the d14C decrease in the atmosphere: radiocarbon dating needed a correction after about 1870 for the addition of d14C depleted CO2 from fossil fuel burning.
– the decrease of pH in the oceans: this shows -again- that oceans are a sink for CO2, not a source.
– the oxygen use: oxygen use is slightly less than wat is calculated from fossil fuel burning. That means that the biosphere is a net source of oxygen, thus a net sink of CO2 and especially of 12CO2, thus can’t be responsible for the d13C decrease and total CO2 increase.
– the process characteristics: the whole CO2 balance behaves as a simple linear first order physical process on a continuous increasing disturbance, with a near-fit at 55% of the emissions. There is positive correlation with temperature when both go up, but a negative correlation if temperature goes down or is near flat, while CO2 levels are steadily rising.
More detailed reading at:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/co2_measurements.html

Anna V
We have had conversations in various forums re Beck, Co2 levels and the official mauna loa figures. I jokingly said if Anthony could come up with a co2 analyser at a popular price he would make a fortune as;
a) People would find it interesting to take measurements of c02
b) Some of us are increasingly sceptical about ‘official’ figures-such as the nonsensical global temperatures since 1850, sea levels and co2 measurements.
As a similar project to Anthony’s surface stations project if we could get a reliable, cheap, and easy to use analyser-and I don’t know if such a thing even exists-it would be interesting to have a number of people in various continents comparing data. It doesn’t need to be expensively precise-plus or minus 3% is close enough.
It has to be more reliable than the weather station I got for Christmas though, which together with my watch weather predictor and my existing internal weather station, are all telling me its been raining steadily for the last two days when in fact its been gloriously sunny but with a fairly high humidity (we live next to the ocean)
Anyone up for our own monitoring of co2 levels-if it is at all practical?
TonyB

Sorry, made a mistake, the emissions/increase/temperature curve I have plotted is based on the HadSST temperature data, not from UAH, as these start only after 1979… That doesn’t change much in the relationship temperature-CO2, only the HadSST trend is somewhat higher in the overlapping period.

Dear Frank,
About Beck’s data:
While I admire the tremendous amount of work Ernst Beck has done, we differ a lot in opinion about what to make of the historical measurements.
The main problem: most of the data were obtained from places where huge local sources/sinks (forests, industry, towns) are at work. Such places vary enormously in diurnal, seasonal and yearly averages. See e.g. modern measurements at Diekirch (Luxemburg) over a few days in summer:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/diekirch_diurnal.jpg
And compare that to the CO2 levels for the same days at Mauna Loa (or you can take data from anyware, away from local sources):
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/mlo2005_hr_week.jpg
Note: while we used the same scale as for Diekirch, the MLO data are the raw hourly CO2 levels, without pre- or postprocessing, thus including local influences of upwind conditions (depleted by vegetation at about -2 ppmv).
The problem with the historical data (besides accuracy and repeatability and quality control questions,…) is that many of the series or single measurements were done at such places like Diekirch, which introduces a strong positive bias. Simply look at the wind speed – CO2 level of Diekirch: with wind speeds over 2 m/s, the CO2 levels are around the Mauna Loa values. That points to a better mixing with overlying layers of air, which have “background” CO2 level.
If one looks at the minima of the historical CO2 ranges in each year, these encompass the ice core levels, and the minima are (as in modern times) found at higher wind speeds. Most measurements over the oceans also are at the lower side and their averages are near the ice core CO2 levels, where the ranges overlap each other:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/beck_1930_1950.jpg
Further, if the averaging of CO2 measurements would be right, then the Law Dome ice core should show at least a part of the +80 ppmv rise in the period 1937-1950, with a 8 years smoothing. It doesn’t (even a dip, but that is within the error margin of the ice core measurement). Neither do stomata index data nor corraline sponges show a significant change if such a huge global increase and decrease of CO2 should have occured…
See further my detailed comments on Beck’s data here:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/beck_data.html

Allan:
I provide my answers to your questions and anticipate different answers from others.
Questions for discussion by all:
1. IF annual atmospheric CO2 declines in the coming years contemporaneous with global cooling (or soon thereafter), what does this prove, if anything?
A1.
It would “prove” nothing but would be useful information. Anyway, it is a hypothetical question and, therefore, of no real interest.
2. IF annual atmospheric CO2 continues to increase in the coming years contemporaneous with significant global cooling, what does this prove, if anything?
A2.
It would “prove” nothing but would be useful information. Anyway, it is a hypothetical question and, therefore, of no real interest.
3. If CO2 drives temperature as the IPCC alleges, how is it that the only signal apparent in the data is that CO2 lags temperature by ~9 months? See
http://icecap.us/images/uploads/CO2vsTMacRae.pdf
A3.
I do not agree that CO2 drives temperature and, therefore, I cannot comment.
4. Is the aforementioned ~9 month lag in CO2 after temperature consistent with the ~600 year lag in CO2 after temperature observed in ice core data?
A4.
Yes. There are several possible reasons for temperature to affect atmospheric CO2 concentration and they have different time constants. For example, the 9 month lag could be a change to release of CO2 from the ocean surface layer in response to a temperature change which would occur within months. And the ~600 year lag could be an effect of alterations to temperature and pH of the ocean surface layer induced by return from deep ocean of water that entered the thermohaline circulation ~600 years earlier.
I hope these answers are what you wanted from me.
Happy New Year.
Richard

Allan M R MacRae (04:25:03) :
Questions for discussion by all:
1. IF annual atmospheric CO2 declines in the coming years contemporaneous with global cooling (or soon thereafter), what does this prove, if anything?
That the turn around of CO2 is much shorter than the decades/aeons claimed by the AGW studies,
2. IF annual atmospheric CO2 continues to increase in the coming years contemporaneous with significant global cooling, what does this prove, if anything?
That there is a source of CO2: human, forest and carbon fires, volcanic, geothermal . Human connected wildfires should be a function of population and population rises. Maybe there is an increase in volcanic activity. It would have to be studied.
3. If CO2 drives temperature as the IPCC alleges, how is it that the only signal apparent in the data is that CO2 lags temperature by ~9 months? See
http://icecap.us/images/uploads/CO2vsTMacRae.pdf
It proves that it does not drive temperature.
4. Is the aforementioned ~9 month lag in CO2 after temperature consistent with the ~600 year lag in CO2 after temperature observed in ice core data?
Other sinks/sources than the obvious biological/solubility ones for the 9 months?

Allan, thankyou so much for your contribution!
Your question
“4. Is the aforementioned ~9 month lag in CO2 after temperature consistent with the ~600 year lag in CO2 after temperature observed in ice core data?
”
If the rather quick response of CO2 rise/year just 5-9 months after temperature changes reflects equilibrium with the oceans, then we are only in physical contact with the upper meters of the ocean. But oceans has a turnover of 500 – 2000 years. This means, that “fresh” water is coming up from the lower layers constantly, and before the whole ocean is adjusted to new CO2 levels, it takes much longer time. There fore there is both a quick ad a slow response.
Yes yes, much more things influences, but i just mentioned an important mechanism.

Anna V
So you are on the Greek coast and I am on the UK coast, both good places for proper mixing of co2. In fact the mixing is a bit too lively for me at the monment giving us a wind chill temperature of -4C!
I will have a hunt around to see if there is anything out there.
tonyB

Hello Ernst
Thanks for the data you sent me recently concerning your new publication.
Having looked in detail at the 1930’s and 1940’s co2 measurements I can confirm they seem perfectly genuine. The methodology was good and the measurement related closely to the temperatures of the time. I will send you a link separately to an interesting item I have seen on co2 which may explain the previous variability as compared to todays relatively constant readings.
TonyB

Dear all,
It is a pity that this blog doesn’t allow direct presentation of graphics, so I have to refer to the web.
About CO2 measurements near ground over land: for the first 20 m the CO2 sources and sinks are not mixed at all, except if there is sufficient wind speed. Thus any measurements near ground can reflect any value, depending of nearby sources, ranging from soil bacteria to car exhausts and factories. Thus measuring midst of villages, towns, grass fields or forests yield values which have no bearing with whatever can be measured in the rest of the atmosphere, above 1,000 m and far from sources, like over the oceans and in deserts. See the difference in CO2 levels from the intake of 20 m vs. 200 m at Cabauw (The Netherlands):
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/cabauw_day_week.jpg
The diurnal and momentary variability of samples (over 100 ppmv taken 15 minutes apart) was the reason for Keeling over 50 years ago to look for better places where such disturbances didn’t exist or were far less important. That was found at Mauna Loa and the south pole. Later more stations for continuous monitoring were added and now over 70 stations measure CO2 at low contamination places. Plus 400 more at other places, where they try to calculate the flux of CO2 over the seasons in crop fields, forests and industrial areas.
The 10 base stations (and the 60+ others) plus regular air flights in both hemispheres and very recently the AIRS satellite all confirm that for 95% of the atmosphere there are seasonal changes which are largest near ground and in the NH, but the yearly average trends for all are near identical with an about 12 months delay between the NH and the SH.
In the 5% of the atmosphere over land up to 1,000 m, there is a lot of exchange and the measurements there are unsuitable for the calcuation of any form of “global” CO2 level. With a few exceptions: if you have a place above 1,000 m and enough wind speed (as is the case for Schauinsland, Germany for 10% of the time) or at the coast with wind from the seaside (that is a hint for Anna and TonyB!).
About what Ernst Beck writes:
Ernst only shows averages in his graph for a given year, not the spread.
As we know from modern data, higher wind speed gives a better mixing and shows lower values, which approach the MLO data for the NH and the south pole data for the SH. Thus if one plots all the minima of the different historical measurements, that gives a better impression of the real “background” CO2 level than the averages: see
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/beck_1930_1950.jpg
The same for ocean data and coastal data: all are around the ice core level.
Ernst is a little economical with the truth by refering to only the highest Spitsbergen measurements. The 1936 data series is from only 7 measurements and shows a range from 152-368 ppmv, average 278 ppmv, ice core at 307 ppmv…
As a comparison, the average of CO2 measurements over land near Bern by Dürst:
Bern, on a plateau of a hill slope, forest, average of three years, measurements once a week:
Spring: average minimum 238 (with rain, morning), 321 (dry, morning), noon about the same, 395 ppmv at evening.
Summer: morning 375, noon 355, evening 308 ppmv.
Fall: morning 630, noon 530, evening 793 ppmv.
Winter: morning 299, noon 391, evening 412 ppmv.
Overall average for Dürst/Bern: 427 ppmv. Lowest minimum 179 ppmv (with several days of rain).
For the fall values, the author explicitely describes a mechanism where outgassing CO2 out of the (still warm) soils is increasing CO2 levels with mainly stagnant weather as we see often in fall.
Thus while over the oceans in 1936 in average about 280 ppmv is found, in the same year in Bern the average is 420 ppmv, or a difference of 140 ppmv, with enormous (diurnal and seasonal) variations around the averages.
Ernst simply takes the averages, modern science simply (and rightfully) ignores the Bern data as completely unreliable, as these are the equivalent of measuring temperature on an asphalted parking lot…
And modern science also would question these particular ocean data series as abnormally variable (modern automated ships measurements don’t show more than 10 ppmv difference in the air over the oceans from the poles to the equator)…
And finally, as already said in a former message, the Law Dome ice core has a resolution of 8 years, coralline sponges 2-4 years and stomata index data less than a decade. Short enough to see a change of 80 ppmv in 15 years if there was one…

Engelbeen, Please explain/answer:
Realclimate gives the example, that in the middle of the heaviest traffic in Paris anno 2008 they get around 120 ppm over ground level. In a green area – but still in the middle of Paris they get only 40 ppm CO2 over ground level.
When a green area in the middle of PARIS with 8 million people and indeed one of the most traffic-polluted spots in the modern western world, we only get 40 ppm over ground level.
OUTSIDE the little village of Poona, India, around 1940 we measure more years in a row around 420 ppm. If your Antarctic ice core where correct, the ground level was only 300ppm. So Outside village Poona you say we have all measurements 120 ppm over ground level.
1) Howcome a green area in PARIS 2008 gives 40 ppm over ground level, when OUTSIDE village Poona, India 1940 should give 120 ppm over ground level for years in a row?
2) Can we go to Poona today and measure still 120 ppm over ground level? That would be 505 ppm.
3) If not, WHY??
Please use numbers 1), 2) and 3) for answers.

Dear Frank,
My fault and misinterpretation of your formula…
Anyway, we agree on the following: temperature has a huge short-term impact on year by year CO2 increase rate. Where we disagree is if that also is the case for the long(er) term impact, that is the impact of temperature on several years to millennia.
Your formula implies that about half the increase in CO2 (the 0.95 constant) over the past decades is a constant (whatever the cause), and the other halve is caused by the overall temperature increase vs. a zero level. Our formula gives near the same variability of the temperature/CO2 relationship for yearly variations, but only a few ppmv increase in CO2, due to the slight (0.6°C) rise in temperature over the last century. Where is the difference? In our formula we imply that the short time impact is fast and huge, but the long term impact is limited. In your formula, there is no limit of the impact over time.
What is wise, is not deducable from the curve, as both give the same result on short and longer periods (over the past decades). The problems arise for previous periods, but then we depend on other observations than the continuous measurements of temperature by satellites and CO2 at MLO or other base stations. All different observations of past CO2 levels have their own problems, be it chemical measurements, ice cores, stomata data or coralline sponges. But no matter what method one uses, in the period 1850-2008 CO2 levels are continuously increasing, with a questionable peak around 1942 in non-selected chemical measurements and a smooth increase in the other three methods.
Not so in your formula, for the period where temperatures are below the -3.2°C level which is for the whole period 1900-1930, where all four methods give an increase of 5-10 ppmv. And of course for the whole LIA, where CO2/d13C levels were fairly constant for fairly constant CO2 levels, far below the -3.2°C level.
Why the difference between our formula’s? Your example is a nice illustration of the difference in approach: If you feed a lot of mice with a constant amount of feed, there will be a (sawtooth) equilibrium between amount of feed and number of mice. If you double the feed supply, the number of mice will initially increase fast, but stop increasing as a new equilibrium is reached at about a doubling of mice counts. That is what our approach says: a change in feed gives an initial fast, but limited change in number of mice over time. Your formula doesn’t include any constraint in time and simply says that for a doubling in feed the number of mice increases each time period with the same number, indefinitely. That may be right for a limited time period but that doesn’t hold for longer periods.
So what happens in the real world? Nature indeed will react on disturbances in the same way for temperature as for human emissions. An increase in temperature will increase CO2 levels, until a new equilibrium between absorption and release of CO2 is reached. For short term (ocean surface, existing biosphere) that is about 3 ppmv/°C, for longer term (including increasing biosphere area, changes in ocean currents) the ratio is about 8 ppmv/°C.
The same holds for human CO2 releases: an initial increase in atmospheric CO2 levels will lead to increased uptake by the oceans and biosphere, but a part of the increase will remain in the atmosphere, as long as CO2 is constantly added. A new equilibrium (at a higher CO2 level) can be reached, if the increase in atmospheric CO2 is sufficient to increase the uptake by the oceans and biosphere to the same levels as the continuous addition. But as the emissions show a constant increase, there is no new equilibrium in sight, despite a constant increasing atmospheric CO2 level (at 55% of the emissions).
I hope this made my viewpoint clear, why your formula may be right for a short time span of a few decades, but doesn’t hold for longer time spans in the past, while our formula holds for any time span, from a few years to one million years…
Regards,
Ferdinand

@ferdinand meeus: Thank you for reply. And this time I get the feeling that you really seek “the truth”.
Many balls in the air.. I start with Poona.
Poona is a village area 170 km outside the metropol of Mombai. I have tried to find some pictures from the area. It appears not to be neither jungle or dessert. A green area not that far from vegetation like Maybe France?
http://static.flickr.com/18/23212005_823d0611bb_m.jpg
http://www.realadventures.com/listingimages/1106/1106710/m_1106710a.jpg
http://k53.pbase.com/v3/64/556764/1/51006860.coloredcowingreengrass_8952.jpg
Poona – has grown quite since 1940, today it looks like this:
http://lh4.ggpht.com/tarunchandel/SE1vSESm3rI/AAAAAAAABB0/FK2c1mH5aY0/s400/Beautiful%20City%20of%20Pune%20Tarun%20Chandel%20Pune%20Trip.JPG
The choice of region Poon for CO2 measurement, seems at first glance quite sensible:
– Near equator (NH has higher CO2 than SH – the same argument that makes Mauna Loa a good choice)
– Appear to be average vegetation.
– The region is 170 from big city area, sound very correct to me.
– Near the Indian Ocean.
Ferdinand, we know that a greener area might influence CO2 measurements so that CO2 got TOO LOW and not too high… So continous measurements in Poona around 420 ppm in the 1940´ies, what logic can be used to say these measurement where all 120 ppm too high? – And not to low?
You are 100% that if measurements said 300 ppm CO2, you would also have considdered the actual measurements useless? You are 100% objective?
🙂 – scientists should be you know…

Anna V.
Maybe the most interesting thing about the measurements these days are their direction? The development? So if Mauna Loa has a bad location, still, if CO2 now “desides” to fall, we should see this in all locations i suppose?
Thanks, K.R. Frank

@ferdinand meeus
You write: “we agree on the following: temperature has a huge short-term impact on year by year CO2 increase rate. Where we disagree is if that also is the case for the long(er) term impact, that is the impact of temperature on several years to millennia.”
No, we don’t disagree as you think. I will return to this in my next writing.
You write: “Your formula implies that about half the increase in CO2 (the 0.95 constant) over the past decades is a constant (whatever the cause).”
I wrote: “Thus, the ‘constant’ of the equation should be a variable as it varies with time”
and as mentioned we have discussed the nature of these much slower changes in the ground level “long term trends”.
You know just as well as I, that temperature in the first half of th 20´ieth century changed just as much as in the second half of the 20´ieth century.
I wrote: “Antarctic ice core data shows that in the period 1890-1940 there was a flat development approx 8 ppm from 300 ppm to 308 ppm.
We have seen first in this writing, that the CO2 is very responsive to temperature changes 1979-2008. So how come the warmer temperatures 1920-40´s has no effect at all on the extremely straight Antarctic CO2 curve?”
You see Engelbeen, the slow long term changes – that indeed is another and more complex case – cannot change the fact, that The short term changes are far to big for the flatness of the Antarctic CO2 curve to be true. Totally disregarded what effect are human etc.
Actually my CO2rise/year – UAHtemp connection seems to be underestimating the sensitivity. The same connection between CO2rise/year and HADcrut gives a factor not 3,5 but actually around 5… So lets say we have a temperature sensitivity in average 4.
Example. Not 50 but just 20 years with a temperature change of say 0,6 degrees gives a change of nearly 50 ppm using just the basic temperature dependence. It’s the “huge” Temperature sensitivity (as you call it) itself that reveals the total failure of the very flat Antarctic curves.
And yes! There are also in history many very BIG temperature changes which each of them shoud trigger BIG variation in CO2 levels. Unless temperature did not have that effect on CO2 levels in other centuries, but that’s absurd.
Just see the Maunder minumum MASSIVELY falling and later rising of temperatures on 1-2 degrees also over 20 years. And acording to the Antarctic curves, these huge changes in temperatures NEVER managed to get the CO2 level leave the 280-290ppm band I thousand years!!! Engelbeen, it IS impossible, face it. Antarctic curves are proven useless.
If you believe in the Antarctic curves Engelbeen, then explain why BIG temperature changes in history never change the totally flat CO2 curve?
No im not talking about the level of CO2 as result of temperature. No im talking about the total absence of big CO2 changes in connection with temperature changes. Hope it is now clear to you what i mean.

In other words, reporting flat measures or sinking measures is just as important in GW studies as the outgasses measures are. Why aren’t they reporting this? Why do some call them useless? It affects their bottom line research as much as the outgassing does so it should be part of the reporting, graphs and all.

Anna & tonyb:
I live in E. Tennessee and would be interested in taking measurements of CO2. I do live in a forest but do have a mountain/hill (1700ft) at back of my property (it is called a mt. on USGS maps). If you find sensors at a reasonable cost let me know.

Anna V,
I have the impression that you are comparing the problems of CO2 measurements too close to the problems involved with temperature measurements. But there are huge differences.
Over land near sources and sinks of CO2, you can find any level of CO2, depending of wind speed, sunlight, inversion, rain, fog,… Diurnal variations can go over 100 ppmv with low wind speeds. If you dig a hole in the ground and measure CO2 levels there, you can find over 1,000 ppmv, due to bacterial life which breaks down organic material. Changes in wind direction/speed can give changes of over 100 ppmv within 15 minutes. That is even worse than temperature measurements! Sources at 100 km away can be measured downwind…
Down to ground level the highest levels are found, with height the amounts and variations in amounts are leveling off and levels approach the Mauna Loa values. See the CO2 levels of Cabauw (Netherlands) for different intake heights:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/cabauw_day_week.jpg
Up to 200 m, less and less influence of the variability at ground level is seen and above 1,000 m, the hour by hour or even day by day variability is completely gone, with the exception of a small factor, which is the overall change caused by the seasons. See the CO2 profile from air flights here:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/inversion_co2.jpg
Thus while at ground level over land the hour by hour (diurnal) variations are huge, that has little effect on global CO2 levels (“global” in this case 95% of the atmosperic weight content), as the local changes are only a tiny fraction of the total CO2 content of the total atmosphere.
A different point is the sum of all these local changes, if these are mixed into the bulk of the atmosphere. From different estimates we know (roughly) that about 90 GtC (about 43 ppmv) as CO2 is flowing in from the oceans during summer and about the same amount (slightly more) is flowing out in winter. For vegetation that is about 60 GtC taken away in summer and a little less coming back in winter. Because these flows are opposite to each other, the net effect at ground level (e.g. Barrow) is about +/- 8 ppmv over the seasons. At altitude (MLO, 3000 m) the effect is smaller and in the SH opposite and near absent.
What effect does that have on the hourly measurements?
If we take the largest influence of the seasonal changes as measured in Barrow: that is a change of 16 ppmv within a year or 0,04 ppmv per day or 0.002 ppmv per hour. Not even detectable with the best available techniques of today. Thus even the largest natural in/outflows of the atmosphere are not detectable in the bulk atmosphere in hour to hour or day by day measurements. Thus if you see a completely flat curve of CO2 measurements over a day, you are at the right place!
The human contribution is even so undetectable in hourly measurements: even if every part should stay in the atmosphere, the increase at 8 GtC/4 ppmv per year is undetectable in a day by day measurement.
Conclusion: never measure at places where huge hourly or day by day CO2 variations are seen, if you are interested in seasonal and/or global changes of CO2 in the atmosphere, because you are measuring mostly undefined local/regional sources and sinks of CO2, not what you are interested in.
Note: some insist that most of the influence of CO2 is in the lower meters of the atmosphere. If that was true, then the local/regional variations are of interest for the radiation balance. But the modtran program indicates that only 8% of the radiation absorption (including water vapor) takes place in the first 1,000 m of the atmosphere. A doubling of CO2 gives an extra absorption of 0.3 W/m2 for the first 1,000 m. That would give a theoretical increase of 0.1°C at ground level, hardly detectable in the general noise, if there is a real influence at all…

Pamela,
Natural sinks are measured and reported as well. See e.g. the source/sink area’s of the oceans, where most important sources are near the equator and most important sinks are near the poles, especially the NE Atlantic:
http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/pubs/outstand/feel2331/maps.shtml
Over land there are a lot of ongoing research tests with continuous measurements from soil level to above canopea, but these are very difficult to interprete, as the CO2 level changes by fraction of meters and over the day/wind speed/rain/…. Here an example:
http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/117991531/abstract?CRETRY=1&SRETRY=0
And have a view at the video of the facilities of Wageningen University:
http://www.climatexchange.nl/

Ferdinand Engelbeen
Conclusion: never measure at places where huge hourly or day by day CO2 variations are seen, if you are interested in seasonal and/or global changes of CO2 in the atmosphere, because you are measuring mostly undefined local/regional sources and sinks of CO2, not what you are interested in.
I respectfully disagree . What we are interested in is global temperature. You know? The one that is rushing to the tipping point? CO2 is as important for the IPCC models as global temperature measurements.
There are enormous differences in temperatures everywhere within a day, within a season, between years, upwind, downwind etc. A method has been devised to integrate over so that an “average” can be defined. As a physicist, I do not see why one variable is differently treated than another one, in the complex system called climate, particularly one that has so huge societal implications.
I do not expect you to agree with me. Just to see that there is another point of view on the matter, and both points might be resolved once the new OCO satellite starts measuring, if they do not keep the data secret.

I claim first use of the word ‘instruntruments’ Some might think it was merely a misspelling in my post above, but it was of course the clever creation of a new word to denote ‘falsified and useless instrumental information appertaining to climate change…”
Happy New year to everyone!
TonyB

Allan,
Still have to answer your questions:
1. IF annual atmospheric CO2 declines in the coming years contemporaneous with global cooling (or soon thereafter), what does this prove, if anything?
If there was a huge decline (far) lower than the 3 ppmv/K as in my (and Pieter Tans) formula, that would prove that the formula underestimates the influence of temperature on CO2 levels
2. IF annual atmospheric CO2 continues to increase in the coming years contemporaneous with significant global cooling, what does this prove, if anything?
That the strong reaction as supposed by Beck’s historical data doesn’t exist. In fact the reaction is already late, as after the peak of 1942, the CO2 levels dropped within 7 years to “normal”, now we are already 10 years after the 1998 peak…
3. If CO2 drives temperature as the IPCC alleges, how is it that the only signal apparent in the data is that CO2 lags temperature by ~9 months? See
http://icecap.us/images/uploads/CO2vsTMacRae.pdf
The action of temperature on CO2 levels doesn’t say anything about the action of CO2 on temperature. Both are at different time scales, where any (theoretical) influence of CO2 need to change the ocean temperatures over a sufficient long period (10-30 years), to be visible in the statistics.
4. Is the aforementioned ~9 month lag in CO2 after temperature consistent with the ~600 year lag in CO2 after temperature observed in ice core data?
Yes, the first reaction is the direct effect of temperature on the upper ocean layer and vegetation growth. Reactions on longer time frames (about 50 years LIA, 600 years glacial-interglacial, many thousands of years interglacial-glacial) involves (deep) ocean temperatures, ocean current changes, vegetation/land ice area changes,…
Further, about the mass balance:
We know that natural sub-annual variations in CO2 are huge and dwarf human emissions.
Not that much. While the individual flows are relative huge, the fact that oceans and vegetation are each opposite makes that the influence in the atmosphere is resticted: 16 ppmv in Barrow, 8 ppmv at MLO, 2 ppmv at the south pole. Global average over the latitudes and altitudes is about 5 ppmv or 10 GtC variation over the seasons. The current emissions are around 8 GtC/yr, thus of the same order. What rests in the atmosphere is about 4 GtC/yr.
There is not the slightest influence of any natural cycle, as long as the inflows are equal to the outflows, which is nearly the case: the variation in net sink rate (0.5-3.5 GtC) over a year is less than the increase measured in the atmosphere…
And use simple math: If you add 8 units of any kind per time unit to any reservoir (fountain, lake, atmosphere), and you see that the reservoir increases with 4 units per time unit, no matter how much is cycling through the system in and out, any net addition by all cycles together simply is impossible…