Reposted from Jennifer Marohasy
The Available Evidence Does Not Support Fossil Fuels as the Source of Increasing Concentrations of Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide (Part 1)
Because the increase in the concentration of atmospheric carbon dioxide has correlated with an increase in the use of fossil fuels, causation has been assumed.
Tom Quirk has tested this assumption including through an analysis of the time delay between northern and southern hemisphere variations in carbon dioxide. In a new paper in the journal Energy and Environment he writes:
“Over the last 20 years substantial amounts of CO2 derived from fossil fuel have been released into the atmosphere. This has moved from 5.0 gigatonnes of carbon in 1980 to 6.2 gigatonnes in 1990 to 7.0 gigatonnes in 2000… Over 95% of this CO2 has been released in the Northern Hemisphere…
“A tracer for CO2 transport from the Northern Hemisphere to the Southern Hemisphere was provided by 14C created by nuclear weapons testing in the 1950’s and 1960’s.The analysis of 14C in atmospheric CO2 showed that it took some years for exchanges of CO2 between the hemispheres before the 14C was uniformly distributed…
“If 75% of CO2 from fossil fuel is emitted north of latitude 30 then some time lag might be expected due to the sharp year-to-year variations in the estimated amounts left in the atmosphere. A simple model, following the example of the 14Cdata with a one year mixing time, would suggest a delay of 6 months for CO2 changes in concentration in the Northern Hemisphere to appear in the Southern Hemisphere.
“A correlation plot of …year on year differences of monthly measurements at Mauna Loa against those at the South Pole [shows]… the time difference is positive when the South Pole data leads the Mauna Loa data. Any negative bias (asymmetry in the plot) would indicate a delayed arrival of CO2 in the Southern Hemisphere.
“There does not appear to be any time difference between the hemispheres. This suggests that the annual increases [in atmospheric carbon dioxide] may be coming from a global or equatorial source.”
********************
Notes
‘Sources and Sinks of Carbon Dioxide’, by Tom Quirk, Energy and Environment, Volume 20, pages 103-119. http://www.multi-science.co.uk/ee.htm
The abstract reads:
THE conventional representation of the impact on the atmosphere of the use of fossil fuels is to state that the annual increases in concentration of CO2 come from fossil fuels and the balance of some 50% of fossil fuel CO2 is absorbed in the oceans or on land by physical and chemical processes. An examination of the data from: i) measurements of the fractionation of CO2 by way of Carbon-12 and Carbon-13 isotopes; ii) the seasonal variations of the concentration of CO2 in the Northern Hemisphere; and iii) the time delay between Northern and Southern Hemisphere variations in CO2, raises questions about the conventional explanation of the source of increased atmospheric CO2. The results suggest that El Nino and the Southern Oscillation events produce major changes in the carbon isotope ratio in the atmosphere. This does not favour the continuous increase of CO2 from the use of fossil fuels as the source of isotope ratio changes. The constancy of seasonal variations in CO2 and the lack of time delays between the hemispheres suggest that fossil fuel derived CO2 is almost totally absorbed locally in the year it is emitted. This implies that natural variability of the climate is the prime cause of increasing CO2, not the emissions of CO2 from the use of fossil fuels.
Data drawn from the website http://cdiac.ornl.gov/trends/co2/contents.htm .
Tom Quirk has a Master of Science from the University of Melbourne and Master of Arts and Doctor of Philosophy from the University of Oxford. His early career was spent in the UK and USA as an experimental research physicist, a University Lecturer and Fellow of three Oxford Colleges.
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I always knew it was just a quirk of nature!
” to 7.0 gigatonnes in 2000″
I thought World production of wheat was around 100 gigatonnes, suggesting a biomass at harvest of around 700 gigatonnes.
So in wheat alone Man strips more CO2 out of the air than he replaces with fossil fuels.
If farmers collected the non-harvestable part of the wheat they could present it to power companies as ‘captured carbon’.
Has anyone ever estimated the total annual growth of biomass? That 7.0 gigatonnes of guilt represents what proportion of the biomass’s CO2 turn over?
Simply amazing!!
These severe problems for the CO2 hypothesis just keep coming!
Tick tick tick
Another nail in the coffin. AGW is dead!
Well, the transport issue would explain why CO2 levels are considered to have dropped slightly during WWII, which is absurd, prima facie. They use an Antarctic ice core proxy for that period (never mind the problems with CO2 ice core proxies). That’s about as far away from the action as one can get. But we’ve always been told that CO2 distributes itself worldwide in no time flat.
I have been banging on the WWII drum for a long time, bringing it up whenever CO2 measurements come into question.
The constancy of seasonal variations in CO2 and the lack of time delays between the hemispheres suggest that fossil fuel derived CO2 is almost totally absorbed locally in the year it is emitted.
That’s the gold speck. If that turns out to be true, a lot is answered.
But one must also ask that if Anthropogenic CO2 is absorbed locally, then why does this posited natural CO2 accumulate? And if overall conditions create more capacity for CO2, then why is the anthropogenic stuff absorbed at all?
It’s not clear that a simple model would tell much, since CO2 fluxes from fossil fuels are small relative to uptake and release from plants and bacteria, while the net changes are primarily due to burning fossil fuels. Using isotope ratios is still the best way to trace ancient carbon from fuels versus carbon in circulation.
Sandy–I just did a Google quick Google search and found that World wheat production in on the order of hundreds of millions of tons. Gigatons are billions of tons, so CO2 release from fossil fuels is a 1000 times higher than wheat production. Check you numbers before posting.
Actually, there are hundreds of scientific papers in which various sources and sinks for CO2 are calculated for a worldwide budget. The overall results can be found in basic biology, ecology and environmental science text books. The amounts of CO2 released by fossil fuels and sources and sinks from land biota are well established. The biggest source of incertainty is the amount of CO2 absorbed by the oceans and how this may vary seasonally and with weather conditions, such as El Nino. Both old and newer studies can be found by typing a key word or two into Google Scholar. You should at least look at a few of these studies before concluding that they don’t exist or are based on fantasy rather than good data.
hi just to say Christchurch n.z on the 22nd march 2009 had a new record cold max air day temp by my records. max temp of 11.3c.
If you look at the classical Keeling Curve from Mauna Loa, it shows CO2 concentration rising at a fairly constant rate, with an annual saw-tooth pattern overlain on top of that.
If, as has sometimes been suggested, this saw toothed annual variation in atmospheric CO2 is a seasonal vegetation overprint, due to leaf growth and then leaf fall in the northern deciduous forests (the leaf growth absorbing CO2 and temporarily depressing the rising curve), we should also consider the next logical possibility:
That the longer term, steady increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide may simply be due to another, bigger vegetative signal: our year-on-year, relentless destruction of the global forest cover.
As anybody who has worked in the field in SE Asia, Indonesia, PNG or South America can attest, a great deal of this destruction is taking place in the equatorial regions and in the major southern hemisphere forests. And not only would this rob the land of an immense CO2 sink, mostly replacing it with mud and the occasional oil palm, but a lot of what is cut down is then immediately burnt.
Here in Western Australia, we have replaced a lot of that forest with seasonal wheat, but I doubt if that is much of a substitute for the permanent eucalyptus forest that was there before.
So, if we are looking for an equatorial or global cause for rising CO2 emissions, as this post implies, forest destruction should be a pretty good candidate.
And looking at the oceans as an alternative candidate, I realise that by far the largest area of the planet is covered in ocean. But the ocean has a practically flat-surface interface with the atmosphere. Trees on the other hand stick right up into it, presenting a huge surface area to the air, which blows endlessly through their rustling leaves.
As against the rippling West Australian wheat, which is closer in form to another ocean, and may be far more like one as far as CO2 absorbtion is concerned.
With regards,
Larry Kirk
(Green AGW-Skeptic Geologist)
Well it’s not related to human activity because Mongolia is surely not the Hub of Asia nor Adelaide the hub of Australia.
Doesn’t the equatorial air rise as it’s heated, move north and south to around latitude 30 where it finally falls and returns to the equator as the trade winds?
The equator and the Southern Hemisphere haven’t warmed one bit over the past 30 years – the only temp increase is in the northern hemisphere.
Correction, para 5 line 2: for ’emissions’, read ‘atmospheric concentrations’
Bill D.,
The paper acknowledges the sources you refer to, but suggests that in the scheme of things, that are not that significant.
The paper suggests that emissions from fossil fuels and many other sources are fixed locally.
The increase in carbon dioxide is driven by something else …
Bill D., I beg to differ. The amount of annual CO2 sequestration from land biota is NOT well known at all. Yes, there have been some models built and some guesstimates made, but there are billions of tons of missing sinks, which may include terrestrial biota. For that matter, the amount of atmospheric CO2 and the rate of change are not all that well known.
There is a tendency to cite numbers with confidence, but that confidence is overstated, IMHO. The Quirk study is also data-lite, IMHO. His analysis is clever, and I would like to think his findings are valid, but I doubt the data too much.
If Quirk’s findings are accurate, they imply that fossil fuel use in the NH is NOT the primary source of global atmospheric CO2 increase. That completely undermines a lot of common assumptions (and attendant political hair pulling). As you note, isotope (C13) theory is in contrast to Quirk’s findings, but there again the models are based on sparse data.
If I summarize this:
– the guy says it takes one year for CO2 to reach the south pole
– then he says that there is “no delay” between Mauna Loa and the South pole
So what about this:
– if it takes one year for CO2 to reach the south pole, then the south pole will show increases and decreases of the CO2 exactly at the same period of the year as Mauna Loa.
Maybe it’s more subtle that that, but the paper is paying ($18), even the editorial of this “special issue” (by Bob Foster, who would have guessed?)…
Larry – I think you could be on to something here – maybe the relatively recent felling of forests in Indonesia and Malaysia (for palm oil plantations) could account for the significant ‘under-estimation’ of CO2 emmisions they made so much about in Copenhagen?
By the way, your correction applies to para 6 line 2.
evanmjones
But one must also ask that if Anthropogenic CO2 is absorbed locally, then why does this posited natural CO2 accumulate? And if overall conditions create more capacity for CO2, then why is the anthropogenic stuff absorbed at all?
Absolutely! What kind of physical process would lead to manmade CO2 streaming into the ocean (or wherever) while some other CO2 is streaming out. And why would this natural source have been absent before the last century, and then cranked up at close to 150% of our rate of burning (assuming the proposition is that all manmade CO2 disappears somewhere).
Do people who believe this really think that our CO2 birning and CO2 accumulation in the atmosphere are unconnected?
“A correlation plot of …year on year differences of monthly measurements at Mauna Loa against those at the South Pole [shows]… the time difference is positive when the South Pole data leads the Mauna Loa data. Any negative bias (asymmetry in the plot) would indicate a delayed arrival of CO2 in the Southern Hemisphere. There does not appear to be any time difference between the hemispheres. This suggests that the annual increases [in atmospheric carbon dioxide] may be coming from a global or equatorial source.”
The dominating global factor are the extent of the oceans compared to land mass, where the southern seas are of a greater expanse than northern waters. Could it be that we are witnessing increasing atmospheric levels of CO2 due to the oceans, and this increase may actually be over a much longer period than initially realised.
“Sandy–I just did a Google quick Google search and found that World wheat production in on the order of hundreds of millions of tons. Gigatons are billions of tons, so CO2 release from fossil fuels is a 1000 times higher than wheat production. Check you numbers before posting.”
100s of millions of tonnes to single gigatonnes is of the order of ten (add in rice et al. !)
For the millionth time don’t exaggerate 😛
About a year ago I was writing on CA that (a) the atmospheric CO2 at the South Pole visually lags the barrow Arctic temp by about 4 years, but their altitudes are rather different (b) those charming little annual wriggles in the Mauna Loa data look horribly like artificial texture when they show up at the South Pole too, given the wind systems they must cross – and CO2 is said to be well-mixed in the atmosphere (c) even earlier, the literature about early data at Mauna Loa refer to abundant cherry picking and much more variation in CO2 and much higher values lower down on the island and (d) that if there really were genuine annual wiggles at the South Pole, I’d be looking for a CO2-ocean solubility system from nearby, not to the leaves of the trees of Canada.
Bill D – a quick check with references shows:
A gigatonne according to Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metric_ton is 1000 million tons.
Also from Wiki, manmade CO2 in 2004 was about 27 000 million (=27Giga) tons of which the carbon content was 7 400 million (=7.4giga) tonnes.
The worldwide production of wheat in 2008-2009 is about 656 million tons
http://deltafarmpress.com/wheat/wheat-outlook-0611
and the grown biomass at harvest is probably an order of magnitude larger – at least 7 000 million tonnes.
Hence the two values are comparable and surely the total biomasss grown and harvested by humans across all crops must be much greater than the mass of carbon in the manmade CO2 production.
Not all human grown biomass becomes CO2 of course, but I am sure that the AGW crowd have already worked out the numbers needed to show that biomass CO2 from any and all sources are negligible.
Sandy (22:00:56) :
” to 7.0 gigatonnes in 2000″
I thought World production of wheat was around 100 gigatonnes, suggesting a biomass at harvest of around 700 gigatonnes
Nope about 2 billion tons
http://earth-policy.net/Indicators/Grain/2006_data.htm#fig3
But the biomass issue is an interesting one, my guess is the Biomass of the planet is relatively constant, if one takes in bacteria etc in soils into consideration, sunlight soils rainfall climate determine biomass.
Co2 being absorbes locally is a possibility, we know that increased co2 causes an immediate growth response in plants, on a calm sunny day over the amazon the co2 content of the near atmosphere is almost zero, the plants remove it all and are in fact starved for co2, similar effects have been observed over growing crop fields, till the wind sturs things up.
For the argument that some global or equatorial source is the cause of observed co2 levels at the equator and at the pole being similar within a close timeframe then the mechanism must involve the oceansin both absorbing and releasing co2.
Can someone explain why the countries of Northern Africa have a persistently higher CO2 concentration that the heavily industrialized nations of Northern Europe?
Anyone?
After a major de-forestation in the UK, (15 million trees were ripped up overnight in the 1987 “Great Storm”), coincidentally the annual rate of increase at Mauna Loa fell for several years following. Ten year average 78-87 was 1.52 ppmv per annum, ten year average 88-97 was 1.45ppmv.
Shouldn’t the rate have increased?