For a another view on the CO2 issue, please see also the guest post by Tom Vonk: CO2 heats the atmosphere…a counter view -Anthony
Guest Post by Ferdinand Engelbeen
There have been hundreds of reactions to the previous post by Willis Eschenbach as he is convinced that humans are the cause of the past 150 years increase of CO2 in the atmosphere. For the (C)AGW theory, that is one of the cornerstones. If that fails, the whole theory fails.
This may be the main reason that many skeptics don’t like the idea that humans are the cause of the increase and try to demolish the connection between human emissions and the measured increase in the atmosphere with all means, some more scientific than others.
After several years of discussion on different discussion lists, skeptic and warmist alike, I have made a comprehensive web page where all arguments are put together: indeed near the full increase of CO2 in the atmosphere is caused by the human emissions. Only a small part might have been added by the (ocean) warming since the LIA. That doesn’t mean that the increase has a tremendous effect on the warming of the earth’s surface, as that is a completely different discussion. But of course, if the CO2 increase was mainly/completely natural, the discussion of the “A” in AGW wouldn’t be necessary. But it isn’t natural, as the mass balance proves beyond doubt and all other observations agree with. And all alternative explanations fail one or more observations. In the next parts I will touch other items like the process characteristics, the 13C and 14C/12C ratio, etc. Finally, I will touch some misconceptions about decay time of extra CO2, ice cores, historical CO2 measurements and stomata data.
The mass balance:
As the laws of conservation of mass rules: no carbon can be destroyed or generated. As there are no processes in the atmosphere which convert CO2 to something else, the law also holds for CO2, as long as it stays in the atmosphere. This means that the mass balance should be obeyed for all situations. In this case, the increase/decrease of the CO2 level in the atmosphere after a year (which only shows the end result of all exchanges, including the seasonal exchanges) must be:
dCO2(atm) = CO2(in1 + in2 + in3 +…) + CO2(em) – CO2(out1 + out2 + out3 +…)
The difference in the atmosphere after a year is the sum of all inflows, no matter how large they are, or how they changed over the years, plus the human emissions, minus the sum of all outflows, no matter how large they are, wherever they take place. Some rough indication of the flows involved is here in Figure 1 from NASA:
From all those flows very few are known to any accuracy. What is known with reasonable accuracy are the emissions, which are based on inventories of fossil fuel use by the finance departments (taxes!) of different countries and the very accurate measurements of the increase of CO2 in the atmosphere on a lot of places on earth, including Mauna Loa.
Thus in the above CO2 mass balance, we can replace some of the items with the real amounts (CO2 amounts expressed in gigaton carbon):
4 GtC = CO2(in1 + in2 + in3 +…) + 8 GtC – CO2(out1 + out2 + out3 +…)
Or rearranged:
CO2(in1 + in2 + in3 +…) – CO2(out1 + out2 + out3 +…) = – 4 GtC
Without any knowledge of any natural flow in or out of the atmosphere or changes in such flows, we know that the sum of all natural outflows is 4 GtC larger than the sum of all natural inflows. In other words, the net increase of the atmospheric CO2 content caused by all natural CO2 ins and outs together is negative. There is no net natural contribution to the observed increase, nature as a whole acts as a sink for CO2. Of course, a lot of CO2 is exchanged over the seasons, but at the end of the year, that doesn’t add anything to the total CO2 mass in the atmosphere. That only adds to the exchange rate of individual molecules: some 20% per year of all CO2 in the atmosphere is refreshed by the seasonal exchanges between atmosphere and oceans/vegetation. That can be seen in the above scheme: about 210 GtC CO2 is exchanged, but not all of that reaches the bulk of the atmosphere. Best guess (based on 13C/12C and oxygen exchanges) is that some 60 GtC is exchanged back and forth over the seasons between the atmosphere and vegetation and some 90 GtC is exchanged between the atmosphere and the oceans. These flows are countercurrent: warmer oceans release more CO2 in summer, while vegetation has its largest uptake in summer. In the NH, vegetation wins (more land), in the SH there is hardly any seasonal influence (more ocean). There is more influence near ground than at altitude and there is a NH-SH lag (which points to a NH source). See figure 2:
The net result of all these exchanges is some 4 GtC sink rate of the natural flows, which is variable: the variability of the natural sink capacity is mostly related to (ocean) temperature changes, but that has little influence on the trend itself, as most of the variability averages out over the years. Only a more permanent temperature increase/decrease should show a more permanent change in CO2 level. The Vostok ice core record shows that a temperature change of about 1°C gives a change in CO2 level of about 8 ppmv over very long term. That indicates an about 8 ppmv increase for the warming since the LIA, less than 10% of the observed increase.
As one can see in Fig. 3 below, there is a variability of +/- 1 ppmv (2 GtC) around the trend over the past 50 years, while the trend itself is about 55% of the emissions, currently around 2 ppmv (4 GtC) per year (land use changes not included, as these are far more uncertain, in that case the trend is about 45% of the emissions + land use changes).
We could end the whole discussion here, as humans have added about twice the amount of CO2 to the atmosphere as the observed increase over the past 150 years, the difference is absorbed by the oceans and/or vegetation. That is sufficient proof for the human origin of the increase, but there is more that points to the human cause… as will be shown in the following parts.
Please note that the RULES FOR THE DISCUSSION OF ATTRIBUTION OF THE CO2 RISE still apply!
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I wasn’t aware that this point was still up for debate…
[Snip] Invalid email address. RT-mod
Anthony, why are these opposing views? They’re discussing completely different issues and do not exclude each other.
Is it just me or are these two posts about CO2 not counter points? I would have rather compared two posts about CO2’s ability to warm the atmosphere, or conversely, whether or not the increase in CO2 is measured correctly and that it is anthropogenic. The two posts presented really can’t be compared to each other in terms of classical debate structure.
REPLY: Pam, it’s a word borrowed from Tom Vonk’s title which had “counter view” in it, where I should have said “another” instead of “counter”. I’ve made a change to be more accurate. My point in the link was that we cover both sides of the CO2 issues here, pro and con. And, as we see in comments below, no good deed goes unpunished. – Anthony
As a left critic of AGW, I have little doubt that the majority of increase in CO2 in human caused. And I have been called a fascist and mass murderer – not to mention an idiot – on liberal web sites for expressing skepticism about the modeling and policy imperatives that the AGW community has inferred from the above basic observation.
First, there is a false precision about much of the scientific data presented – from temperature records to the relative greenhouse impacts of various gasses. I recall when I was in sixth grade how upset I was with the mathematical concept of significance – i.e. discarding 16 single units when another data point was measured to the nearest 1000 units. “How could one simply throw away 16 perfectly good units?” I protested.
Second, the geometric expansion of error in nearly every model developed makes any “prediction” practically worthless. The IPCC claim of a 7C temperature increase is nothing more than an Ouija board prediction of the future. The fact the many of the same modeling elements are used in long-range forecasts that predicted the barbeque summers in Britain or missed the recent record cold events in South American or snow on the Eastern Seaboard show the limitations of any long-range modeling. To what degree recent temperature increases are part of natural temperature fluctuations, rebound from the LIA, and greenhouse impacts remains uncertain.
Finally, the policy imperatives do NOT necessarily follow from any increase in CO2. Even if there is a moderate increase in world temperatures – which is by no means a given – there are a range of responses other than restriction of CO2 emissions and the concomitant impacts that this will have on human societies. One of the primary failures of Copenhagen – and it was a huge failure – was the underlying neocolonialism of the framing of carbon reduction. In other words, “We can drive, but y’all need to keep your oxcarts.” In Western nations, although public opinion tends to support AGW in vague generalities, when specifics are framed opposition tends to be strong. As a progressive, I am loathe to see CO2-based climate demands steal most of the oxygen from other, far more important issues that are the core of progressive values – human rights, equitable incomes, conflict resolution, and environmental sustainability.
“For a counter view on this issue, please see also the guest post by Tom Vonk”
Huh? One post is about why there’s more CO2 in the atmosphere. The other is about what that CO2 might do, while it’s there. These aren’t even close to being counter views on the same issue.
REPLY: Well I borrowed the word from his title, and I should have used “another view. I’ve changed it to “For a another view on the CO2 issue”, just to make you happy. I’m simply trying to point out that I cover both sides.
Thanks for recognizing that unlike some other blogs you frequent and support, we offer both pro and con sides of the issues, both in full posts and in comments. – Anthony
Will Mr Engelbeen be as “responsible” when he’ll discuss Beck or just like on his page, simply biased?
REPLY: You’ll have to include me. I don’t think Beck’s work is worth much in the context of trends because many of the historical samples he cites were done by less accurate chemical reduction methods and taken in cities with little or no quality control from point to point or metadata. Like with temperature and UHI/siting issues, I don’t think cities are a good sampling place for global trends in CO2 either. – Anthony
I have great respect for Ferdinand’s logic and math, but I think he may be wrong about this. Julian Flood posted here last week and said that there are different types of plankton in the ocean which prefer different isotopes of carbon. If I understood him correctly, at the moment, the plankton type which preferentially absorbs the ‘natural’ carbon isotope is in the ascendency. This leaves more of the ‘fossil fuel’ isotope in the atmosphere as the alleged fingerprint of human co2 emission being the cause of increased levels in the atmosphere.
Wouldn’t long-term effects of (pre-treaty) above-ground nuclear tests pose major problems for comparative 14^C? I am assuming that Ferdinand posits that anthropogenic CO2, being fossil fuel-based, will have almost no 14^C (thus 14^C levels will fall in atmosphere relative to 12^C with industrial activities?).
I think you have seriously underestimated the impact on the oceans outguessing CO2 as they warm! Look at the ice core data, CO2 has repeatedly risen 200 to 800 years after Earth’s temperatures began to rise. This happened repeatedly and long before man’s influence. The rate and magnitude of those changes are very close to what we see in the past 150 years, especially when you consider we are near historic lows for CO2 concentration for the past 10 million years. Oceans outgas CO2 as they warm, this is the source of the majority of the 100 ppm increase in CO2 concentration over the time since the end of the LIA. You need to seriously re-evaluate you mass balance estimates for the oceans. As they warm, they outgas CO2 in massive quantities!
Let’s also look at the opposite end of the equation. The ice core data also shows that CO2 concentrations drop 800 to 2,000 years after the Earth’s temperatures begin falling. Since vegation thrives under high CO2 and higher temps, it is obvious that vegetation will decrease as the temperatures fall. Therefore, the only sink for CO2 that can account for the measured decrease is the oceans! Again, man played no role in those temperatue or CO2 changes shown by the ice core data!
Pamela Gray says:
August 5, 2010 at 8:02 am
Is it just me or are these two posts about CO2 not counter points?
Indeed, there is no link between the two discussions, as mine is about the cause of the increase, while Tom Vonk’s is about the effect of the increase…
Still, some influential sceptics like (or hope) to prove that the increase is not anthropogenic (as several posts at WUWT from the -even recent- past show), as that makes that the influence doesn’t matter at all…
REPLY: Ferdinand, it’s a word borrowed from Tom Vonk’s title which had “counter view” in it, where I should have said “another” instead of “counter”. I’ve made a change to be more accurate. My point in the link was that we cover both sides of the CO2 issues here, pro and con. And, as we see in comments, no good deed goes unpunished.
You could, simply thank me for publishing both pro and con, unlike many other blogs on climate.
– Anthony
To be honest this discussion is really not very interesting. Does anyone still dispute the fact that mankind has increased the amount of Co2 in the atmosphere? I implicitly accept this as being the case whenever I start my car.
In my humble opinion what would be more interesting to know is whether nature has a mechanism (centennial, millennial) that will adjust to compensate, i.e. are CO2 levels (step changes notwithstanding) broadly stable? I think perhaps increasing CO2 + Land clearance (replacing vegetation with asphalt) will probably affect any such feedback, i.e. it will no longer function as it may have in the past.
Well, aside from the sources of CO2, and the sinks, and the fact that the gas has been increasing in quantity lately, I see nothing which hasn’t been discussed to death previously.
So what if the CO2 is increasing? It was far higher in the geological record in the past, and the Earth’s temperature preceded both the rise and the fall.
What caused the Roman Warming period? What cause the Medieval Warm period? What caused the Little Ice Age?
Blaming CO2 for anything is like blaming a child for needing new clothes because he’s outgrown his current wardrobe.
Back to square one.
I missed something here. Where did the 4GT/year come from?
The only accurate way would be to estimate it from the 2 ppm increase per year.
Apparently the rises in CO2 levels have been going on for about 150 years – and on a relatively straight upward curve.
I’m slightly confused by this, as early rises in CO2 seem to be larger than possible for human emissions alone, which were much lower at the end of the 19th century.
In fact according to my own graphs (amatuer I admit) it wasn’t actually possible for human emmision to be responsible for the entire rise in CO2 until the 1940s.
Yet another misnomer is the contradiction between exponential growth of human emissions and the linear growth of CO2 in the atmosphere.
Why doesn’t your Nasa figure show the largest Carbon Sink – Chalk. By far the greatest depositry for carbon, all of which must have been at some time in the atmosphere.
tallbloke says:
August 5, 2010 at 8:17 am
Julian Flood posted here last week and said that there are different types of plankton in the ocean which prefer different isotopes of carbon. If I understood him correctly, at the moment, the plankton type which preferentially absorbs the ‘natural’ carbon isotope is in the ascendency. This leaves more of the ‘fossil fuel’ isotope in the atmosphere as the alleged fingerprint of human co2 emission being the cause of increased levels in the atmosphere.
This first part is only about the mass balance, without looking at the isotope ratio’s. Only based on the mass balance, there is no room for any additional CO2 from nature. In one of the next parts, the isotope balance and the oxygen balance will be interpreted. These add to the evidence of the human origin, but don’t give absolute proof. But the mass balance does…
Interesting points made and yes possibly believable, although I always wonder at the validity of the measurements. You have to remember the statement for the last one hundred and fifty years, before that according to what I understand the co2 measurements were far higher some of the time so explain that away. I often think we dont know as much about these issues as is claimed. Where did all that co2 go in the past? How do you know where it is? I think a lot of these theories come from a desire to be an expert or a lust for the money.
Anyone who does not understand that the burning of fossil fuels is the main cause of the regular increase in CO2 that is has been documented over the last 50+ years is clearly unable to understand basic science. It’s also true that the two views posted here are not opposites and are not mutually exclusive. Also, to the best of my understanding, the first one on the greeen house effect does not really contradict the role of GHG in climate.
If, as a previous post suggests, phytoplankton are decreasing, this would have a significant effect on CO2 in the atmosphere. They are one of methods the oceans use to sink CO2, using their CO2 intake to build their skeletons and then sink to the bottom of the ocean when they die. So perhaps the increase in CO2 we see is due to the decrease in phytoplankton. What causes the decrease in phytoplankton? Lack of nutrients would seem an obvious answer, perhaps due to pollution of the oceans? Has anyone proved that ocean warming can reduce the phytoplankton population rather than just correlating global temperature and phytoplankton numbers?
Like “tallbloke,” my ears also perked up when I read Julian Flood’s ideas. Unfortunately I’m afraid such ideas do not get encouraged by funding, due the politics involved.
I always felt Jaworowki’s ideas about the ice-cores having flaws and weaknesses deserved more credit than he received. Instead he was treated like a modern day Copernicus.
My intuition tells me that CO2 must rise and fall more than the ice-core records show. Without any scientific backing, I feel major volcanic eruptions, especially the ones involving vents passing through limestone, should inject massive amounts of CO2 into the world-wide system, and should show in the ice-core record as sharp peaks followed by gradual valleys. Because the ice-core record shows no such events, even over hundreds of thousands of years, I imagine some sort of mixing process occurs in the ice, and the bubbles are not as “pristine” as so many people blithely assume.
Ideas such as the two I mentioned above could throw a wrench into the preconceptions people have about what CO2 is “man-made,” and what is the “normal” level of CO2 in the atmosphere. However I feel anyone who threatens the current preconceptions will be most definitely a pariah, more due to politics.
Basic logic error! The formula is:
dCO2(atm) = CO2(in1 + in2 + in3 + in4…) – CO2(out1 + out2 + out3 + out4…)
Where: in1, in2, in3, in4… ALL vary over time
The number of inputs may not have been fully defined
out1, out2, out3, out4… ALL vary over time
The number of outputs may not have been fully defined
And dCO2(atm) observations vary with time of day, season, wind speed,
location, altitude, temperature….
ALL are subject to interpretation (to put it mildly)
The Barrow and the Mauna Loa CO2 concentrations drop between June and October, but do not in Antarctica. Is this reflecting the growing season in both a northern temperate forest and the oceanic phytoplancton? As the pCO2 goes down during the warmer period of both areas, it can’t be degassing of the nearby ocean. Antarctica, being plant-free and a continental reading, wouldn’t show the biological changer, and doesn’t. The greater rise in pCO2 in the cool months … degassing and plant respiration during cold times???
If so, are we seeing the ability of the biosphere to remove CO2? Any sign of it increasing or decreasing through time?
Why are the figures for the natural sinks so variable from year to year?
Did anybody say we didn’t increase co2 in the air? I don’t get this who is he arguing against?
What I still don’t understand is that if the natural outflow is 4GT greater than the natural inflow, then how come atmospheric CO2 levels didn’t drop to virtually nothing after all the thousands of years before man started burning fossil fuels?