Some numbers that you may find interesting, graphed by Ed Hoskins from France.
Here’s more:
Another way of looking at the same data:
Comparison 1
Comparison 2
Growth of CO2 emissions
China is the biggest emitter now.
The data supporting this was all published by BP up from 1965 till 2011:
http://www.bp.com/sectiongenericarticle800.do?categoryId=9037130&contentId=7068669
It might be helpful to learn what RU, JP, CN, ZA, etc mean. I can guess at some of them, but others are unclear.
Ok, fine. How does this compare with natural c02?
I find it interesting that Australia is lumped in with the EU and NZ.
Although China burn it a significant amount of the CO2 from China comes from coal that originates in Australia.
Funny how we pay a carbon tax on amounts that are too insignificant to include seperately but we export to China huge amounts carbon tax free.
What a joke – we have a tax to reduce our emissions while we can’shovel the stuff to China quick enough.
I always said our Government was either dumb or a Fraud – or both !
And all of this is still completely dwarfed by natural sources of CO2
GlynnMhor says:
November 23, 2012 at 3:02 pm
It might be helpful to learn what RU, JP, CN, ZA, etc mean. I can guess at some of them, but others are unclear.
http://www.uspto.gov/patft/help/helpctry.htm
Funny how Australia is considered so insignificant it doesn’t deserve its own catagory.
Most of China’s CO2 from coal is sourced from Australia.
We pay a carbon tax for the small amount we burn and the Greenies are happy.
Our Government makes us pay while actively escalating tax free exports to China and encouraging plans to double that trade !
Now that sounds like a sensible environmental policy shaped by committed environmentalists.
Here’s why; for the last few years and planned several years in the future China’s building the equivalent of the entire UK’s generating capacity in coal-fired plant – every year. 1.25GW a week – that’s 2 large power stations worth every 7 days.
http://i49.tinypic.com/2937g46.jpg
From: https://selectra.co.uk/sites/selectra.co.uk/files/pdf/coal-firedpowerplants.pdf
It’s quite depressing really to see how totally irrelevant our co2 emissions are here in the uk yet no govt has been more enthusiastically trying to reduce them at great cost to industry and the public than ours.
Tonyb
So basically China likes plants better than the rest of us?
Go here for a list of country codes.
Chinese co2 per head is not far off that of the EU now, so I wonder if we might start to see a reduction in that impressive rate of co2 emissions growth.
The huge increase in CO2 by China, coincides very well with the period of zero warming. 😉
J Martin; China’s per capita CO2 passed the EU earlier this year.
So here in the UK (as part of Europe), our emmissions have been essentially flat since the early 1970s, yet they’ve announced today that we’ll be paying something like 7.5 billion on our energy bills to finance new green generation.
Over £100 per household extra, when we’re already suffering,to reverse a non-existant trend in our emissions for the past 40 years.
Vive La revolution!
This one reflects the demise of the USSR?
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2012/11/image_thumb5.png?w=644&h=468
Now lets see Greenpeace, WWF et al protesting in Cina and India, climbing up smoke stacks and trying to shu down coal fired power stations and block coal deliveries. They won’t because they are a bunch of chancer cowards who are happy to get a cheap photo opportunity so long as it in the safe comfortable West, they are as hypocritical as Gore…
As far as I am aware, CN is China.
Which makes those graphs a little suspect since it seemingly treats CN and China as different.
Hey, China has a huge coal mining industry of its own. It is not just Australian coal that they burn.
Plotting CO2 per head of population is really unreasonable.
CO2 output is directly related to economic output, so CO2 should be plotted against per capita GDP.
It looks significantly different if you do so.
It also makes it really clear that what they want is reduced economic output – back to the stone-age for the peasants. Of course, the special people will continue to live in increasing luxury.
I think the RU JP CN category is mis-labelled. CN seems to be Canada, not China, and RU seems to be former Soviet Union, not Russia.
Humor me on this one …. Assume that we accept that CO2 is causing horrible AGW and this will result in major destruction of our Earth. Because there’s no difference between CO2 from China, EU, USA, … we would have to admit that ALL increased CO2 adds to the problem. Yet, the UN seems to hold a double standard here on CO2. EU, USA, New Zealand, and Australia are expected to cut emissions, but China is given a free pass to increase emissions beyond the cuts. The chart showing “Growth of CO2 emissions” shows that CO2 output is still increasing. A logical mind would see that the problem is getting worse.
This suggests that controlling total CO2 emissions is NOT the main objective of the UN with so called “climate change”.
I always wonder how these charts of CO2 emissions correlates with atmospheric CO2 concentrations, like from the mauna loa record.
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/
BP’s numbers are rough guesses, at best. I suspect a lot of the numbers are backfit produce a clean line and match other records, like the CO2 concentration record.
There’s something wrong with the “RU JP CN” label. CN is the abbreviation for the People’s Republic of China, and they clearly have their own data series in these charts. Perhaps a klutzy abbreviation of Canada?
Please remember that co2 is a trace gas and man has increased it by a trace amount. Co2 is a greenhouse gas that has already done most of the warming that it can by itself. The rest falls on the AGW theory of positive feedback which has gone AWOL in the last 15 odd years.
From a geologic perspective the Earth is co2 impoverished. We have had 10 x higher levels in the past. No need to panic. The IPCC states that evidence for runaway warming is not supported in the climate literature.
I should have said:
The IPCC states that claims for runaway warming is not supported in the climate literature.
I’d like to see another pie chart showing total atmospheric CO2 and ’emitted’ CO2.
Nick Stokes says:
November 23, 2012 at 4:22 pm
I think the RU JP CN category is mis-labelled. CN seems to be Canada, not China, and RU seems to be former Soviet Union, not Russia.
RU = The greatly diminished Russian Federation. Russia.
CN might be China,Hong Kong S.A.R.?
Can everybody now see that lumping India with China regarding CO2 totally is misleading? It is lazy propaganda: measured facts count not mental projections.
nc says:
November 23, 2012 at 3:13 pm
Ok, fine. How does this compare with natural c02?
CO2 = CO2 🙂
+3.0 × 10^12 tonnes Total CO2 in atmosphere? You can do the %
The majority of living expenses correspond to relatively physical goods: houses or apartments, food, fuel, electricity, etc. Most of those tend to have CO2 emitted in their production in practice today. Although less per capita so far since relative to their large population, China’s strongly rising CO2 emissions provide a striking demonstration of their true and rising economic power. (And they aren’t communist anymore in the stereotypical meaning, by now combining a government which is less purely service-sector than Western governments in emphasis with a corporate income tax rate actually much lower than that of the Europe and the U.S.; in tax rate terms, they are significantly more capitalistic than Europe).
In contrast, much of the components of GDP counted from services and government are often skewed to misleading at best. For instance, as a thought experiment, if I were pay my neighbor $100 to mow my lawn, and he paid me $100 to mow his lawn, GDP would go up by the corresponding amount with our rise in incomes (despite our rise in expenses as well) compared to if we each mowed our own lawn, yet really that is just an illusion with regard to real prosperity (not like more physical production). As another example, when women moved into the workforce after the 1960s, not all but a portion of the gain in GDP in official statistics was overstated when, for example, a daycare worker’s services are counted in GDP but a mother raising a kid directly was not. Government spending counts as adding to GDP even if, for instance, supporting very extreme numbers of individuals studying some of the less-useful humanities subjects in college, despite how some majors are of no greater efficiency relative to practical applications than spending time studying computer games by playing them. In fact, the definition of and emphasis on GDP as a common metric seems to reflect the biases of macroeconomists being primarily employed by governments and universities (not entirely unlike the bias in climatology).
The root of prosperity is how much physical production is produced per capita. Even such as a large magnitude of international trade between large countries depends primarily on physical items going both ways in the end, even if temporarily large amounts of borrowing and debt financing have been possible. The U.S. has the advantage so far of the legacy of the past, prior infrastructure built up over decades, yet in new production is not so impressive compared to China.
However, the boom in fracking and U.S. fuel production recently is one of the few major net increases to U.S. physical production per capita recently, so preventing the CAGW movement from crippling it will be particularly important — for as much as they may assume GDP from other sources like extra lawyers, bureaucrats, and so on in a so-called “postindustrial” economy is substitutable, actually it isn’t, not for real economic prosperity.
http://photos.mongabay.com/09/forecast_co2.jpg
Ok we have a hockey-stick again but this time of Chinese origin. Let’s just do what Mike the Mann did with the upside-down Tiljander stuff to ‘prove’ AGW.
Let’s just invert what happened at Tiananmen Square to rigourously rebut ‘false’ claims that the ‘West is still the best!’
PS- Gotta admit that I think the Chinese are doing exactly the right thing by increasing their nations energy output. Good on you guys and gals. Just wish that our leaders were as clever as yours!
We has some wag on the radio here in Canada the other day talking about this growth in CO2 and so on. He had to admit Canada’s contribution is almost insignificant but we need to show leadership. Bull! We need to be as efficient as is practical and reasonably possible.
If I am reading the total CO2 released chart correctly, then there is about 1.13% of CO2 attributed to humans. 34,000,000,000 / 3.0 x 10^12 That probably does not count the exhale of 8 billion souls and the exhale of all the meat they raise to eat before they eat it. Then there is all the water vapor we exhale, and “Blazing Saddles.”
CO2 output by the USA has been fairly flat lately, just like global temperatures. Average world temperatures have not responded to increasing CO2 output by China. How can warmists explain this contradiction? Could it be that 2% of the world’s surface area really does drive climate change? Perhaps only CO2 emitted by the US is “dirty”, and the rest of the world emits “clean” CO2. /SARC
Henry Clark says:
November 23, 2012 at 5:14 pm
“Although less per capita so far since relative to their large population, China’s strongly rising CO2 emissions provide a striking demonstration of their true and rising economic power.”
Yes, all while the west plays the guilt game..shame on us for being successful and…oh we must save the planet. The Chinese invented capitalism. We choke it.
“The U.S. has the advantage so far of the legacy of the past, prior infrastructure built up over decades, yet in new production is not so impressive compared to China. ”
The Chinese are not burdened with the EPA and other hostile agencies that stymy their economy and inflate costs to the point of not being competitive.
Louis says:
November 23, 2012 at 5:36 pm
“CO2 output by the USA has been fairly flat lately, just like global temperatures.”
…and the economies of EU and US are also flat and in decline. less production, less energy demand, less CO2 produced, less consumption…less….less…zip…zap…gone.
When a tree takes CO2 out of the atmosphere, much of the carbon is transformed by the tree into wood (cellulose). When that wood is used to make furniture, or used in home construction, then that same carbon continues to be “imprisoned” (sequestered).
For me, this simple process raises a lot of questions: How much carbon imprisonment is going on “right under our noses”? Who is investigating furniture hoarding?
And, I didn’t even mention the carbon being hidden in landfills.
FREE the CARBON!!!!
clipe says: November 23, 2012 at 4:54 pm
“CN might be China,Hong Kong S.A.R.?”
No, I checked from the BP data. They have added HK etc into China. The 2011 emission fig for JP+RU+CN is the total for Japan + SU + Canada.
If 0.35% of the ice in the world was melted, it would absorb all the CO2 emitted in 2011. As at least half of it already disappears down various rabbit holes, it would take 0.175% to sop up the rest That also means that if the current rate were to continue (which is impossible as the resources do not exist to do so) it would take 570 years to emit more CO2 that would be absorbed by melting ice. If the catastrophists are correct and all the ice melted, the CO2 level would not rise higher than the present 392 ppm even if we continue to emit 33.6 billion tons per year for the next half-millenium. Hmm… Maybe water plays a more important role in stabilising the CO2 level that has been thought.
Rosco asked why Australia and New Zealand have been lumped in with the EU.
I’m guessing it’s because the carbon trading schemes of these countries have been linked together recently.
One very important CO2 graph seems to be missing. You can find it here:
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2009/01/50-years-of-co2-time-for-a-vision-test/
Katherine says:
November 23, 2012 at 8:24 pm
One very important CO2 graph seems to be missing. You can find it here:
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2009/01/50-years-of-co2-time-for-a-vision-test/
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
OK, now THAT is hilarious.
Nick Stokes says:
November 23, 2012 at 7:16 pm
clipe says: November 23, 2012 at 4:54 pm
“CN might be China,Hong Kong S.A.R.?”
No, I checked from the BP data. They have added HK etc into China. The 2011 emission fig for JP+RU+CN is the total for Japan + SU + Canada.
=======================
Glad that is cleared up.
Does this, in any way, relieve one of the onus of CFL bulbs ?
It is a burden.
Now I’m confused. Can I breathe out or not?
Bob Diaz says:
November 23, 2012 at 4:24 pm
“ . . . the UN seems to hold a double standard . . .”
Some months ago on P. Gosselin’s NoTricksZone there was a post about the writing of the Kyoto treaty (I can’t at the moment find it). There are indications that the German “Greens” incorporate a lot of politics from the former East Germany and that much of the treaty text was written by these folks. One of the ideas was to have a treaty that would constrain most “western” countries (read USA) and make them pay and transfer wealth and technology to less-well-off societies. Not being able to find the post I wanted, I found a short related comment. Here:
http://www.numberwatch.co.uk/german_kyoto_protocol_hoax.htm
As the UN is not a person, one should not give it attributes of a person. Find the people responsible and see who benefits (follow the money). You might also look at UN Agenda 21. Some folks do not like liberty and free people – they want control.
Here is a scary thought. On E. M. Smith’s site a comment included
My theory is, your opinion of your govt and its minions will never be higher than it is today. [John Robertson]
http://chiefio.wordpress.com/2012/11/23/bill-nye-the-science-fruit-loop/
2 things:
1) what took you so long to focus on this
2) China is just getting started, as their rate of growth and income increases then the carbon they produce explodes.
Note the sharp decline in Russian CO2 emissions after 1991. What declined at an even faster rate was aerosol emissions as heavily polluting Soviet era industry was shut down and, in part, replaced with modern much less polluting replacements.
beesaman says:
“Now lets see Greenpeace, WWF et al protesting in China and India, climbing up smoke stacks and trying to shu down coal fired power stations and block coal deliveries.”
You are right they wouldn’t dare, but Greenpeace and WWF also know they will never be able to shake down the Chinese like they do so easily in the US, UK, EU and Australian government. Kinda of funny really the Chinese government is doing to these ecotards what you would hope would happen in any real democracy – stand up to the green mafia. Hat’s off to the Chinese for giving the two fingers to these liberal ecotards.
This graph is perhaps a good proxy for economic success.
If I didn’t have to breathe the associated pollution, China would be where I’d grow tomatoes.
So?
Development needs energy, energy produces CO2. CO2 is not a pollutant! CO2 does not drive climate!!
Look at where the annual natural production of CO2 is- the southern hemisphere not the northern, and the natural producers far outweigh the paltry CO2 we emit.
Get real!
I found this picture on nasa’s earth observatory site:
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/CarbonCycle/images/carbon_cycle.jpg
“This diagram of the fast carbon cycle shows the movement of carbon between land, atmosphere, and oceans in billions of tons of carbon per year. Yellow numbers are natural fluxes, red are human contributions in billions of tons of carbon per year. White numbers indicate stored carbon.”
The diagram is from a March 2008 DOE report, but I don’t know what year the numbers represent:
https://public.ornl.gov/site/gallery/detail.cfm?id=445&topic=&citation=&general=carbon&restsection=BERPublic
It has human emissions at 9 gigatons per year. Are the graphs in this post supposed to be metric gigatonnes? I ask because, in the first graph in this post, the blue, red and cyan lines have all been around 5 gigatonnes for decades for a total of 15 and the other 4 lines have been above 1 for decades for a total of 19 gigatonnes. I know there are conversion differences, but 19 tonnes is about 20.9 short tons and 18.7 long tons. The 9 is not close to the 19, so I don’t think the discrepancy is due to a conversion error.
Whose numbers do you believe?
John M Reynolds
Bob Diaz says:
November 23, 2012 at 4:24 pm
Humor me on this one ….
…This suggests that controlling total CO2 emissions is NOT the main objective of the UN with so called “climate change”.
Coming soon: Bob’s next comment, asking us to humour him on the suggestion that the Pope is Catholic.
The German emissions story is fascinating. Isn’t the Russian story similar on at least one count? They started off with ‘Soviet era’ coal fired technologies and have been upgrading them ever since. The efficiency gain is large.
I agree the GDP number is misleading because a more efficient economy is rated as shrinking. In like vein the ‘standard of living’ number is a poor measure of moral education and ethical conduct. It is rather like a dipstick in the engine of the economy. Knowing how much oil is in the engine does not tell us where the car is going, no matter how precisely we measure it. The measure of the usefulness of an engine is not determined by knowing the quantity of its life-blood.
I find it hard to trust the data in this area of science because of it’s terrible track record. But!!
Looks like we have a healthy but small concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere, It will only be there for a approximately 80 years, lets hope the planet finds away to replenish it again as it gets removed by all the hungry plants and animals that want to grow up healthy and strong to produce little baby plants and animals, and all the other various sinks such as the likely possibility of the oceans once again going through the cycle of cooling down.
Less CO2 is a really really bad thing that is never ever talked about or explained properly climate change alarmist (otherwise know as the local village idiot), Who only nag everyone by pointing to only one half of the cycle that suits their point and being dishonest and irresponsible by ignoring the other half. When you remove CO2 it starves plants and animals that depend on it, If CO2 was lower in the past, wouldn’t the biospheres growth have been stunted? and wouldn’t there have been more frequent famines and less people that could have been sustained by less productive Biosphere? The answer is Yes. Simples!
As far as I can tell, the titles on some of the graphs are wrong.
The first graph “CO2 emissions growth 1965 – 2011: BP dataset ‘000,000 tonnes” implies that China’s emissions grew by 9,000,000,000 tonnes in 2011. That’s not true. China’s annual emissions in 2011 were about 9 billion tonnes. That’s what they were, that’s not how much they grew.
The graph titled: “Cumulative CO2 emissions compared 1965 – 2011: Developed – Developing Worlds: ‘000,000 tonnes” implies that the USofA has emitted zero CO2 for a long time because the width of its bar hasn’t increased. On the other hand, the line for China actually looks like it could be its cumulative emissions. AARGH!
I thought we were going to see some graphs other than the Mauna Loa CO2 record. Where else has CO2 ppm been monitored? Are there graphs to see on this in the southern hemisphere?
Sorry to complain but i don’t like that last 3D angled pie chart “CO2 Emissions 2011: 000,000 tons”.
Sizes of slices do not accurately reflect percentage values, I have come to expect better from WUWT. Please consider replacing with a true sized image. Thank you.
Also is there a graph (over the years) which shows how much CO2 is man made compared to how much CO2 is natural?
Reading threads like this, I am reminded that it has been said (by you Americans) that war is God’s way of teaching Americans geography.
Looks like the task has been taken over by Global Warming/Cooling…
Is CO2 a proxy for economic activity? Much more of a case for a real hockey stick. Good to see the second and third worlds starting to come into their own.
Now let’s do an overlay of CO2 emissions and economic growth and then find the point where both diminished enough to cause social unrest …
I’d like to see one more pie chart. Take the last pie graph and have it be a blow-out of the overall CO2 emissions (including natural sources) so we can see how those individual countries fit into the larger nature+man picture. It’ll have to be a blow-out/up because it will all but disappear in an overall pie.
Duncan says:
November 23, 2012 at 4:29 pm
I always wonder how these charts of CO2 emissions correlates with atmospheric CO2 concentrations, like from the mauna loa record.
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/
BP’s numbers are rough guesses, at best. I suspect a lot of the numbers are backfit produce a clean line and match other records, like the CO2 concentration record.
The BP (and official figures) are based on sales of fossil fuels, which are more or less accurately known from sales taxes. Maybe somewhat underestimated (especially in China). The increase of the CO2 level follows the emissions at a quite constant ratio, the “airborne fraction” is between 50-55% of the human emissions over the past 100+ years (without taking into account land use changes). See:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/temp_emiss_increase.jpg
and
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/acc_co2_1900_2004.jpg
J. Philip Peterson says:
November 24, 2012 at 5:06 am
I thought we were going to see some graphs other than the Mauna Loa CO2 record. Where else has CO2 ppm been monitored? Are there graphs to see on this in the southern hemisphere?
There are some 10 “baseline” stations in the oceans and coastal, plus the South Pole, where CO2 is continuous monitored by NOAA + some 70 others at pristine areas monitored by other organisations and countries:
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/iadv/
Here a few NH and SH combined:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/co2_trends.jpg
Also is there a graph (over the years) which shows how much CO2 is man made compared to how much CO2 is natural?
Not accumulated over the years, but the year by year contribution of nature over the past 50+ years is negative: more sink than source:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/dco2_em.jpg
Thus while the natural emissions in a given year are far larger than the human emissions, the natural sinks are larger than the natural emissions and nature didn’t add any net CO2 to the total CO2 mass in the atmosphere, to the contrary, it absorbed about halve of the extra injected CO2 (in mass, but not necessary from human origin).
I am intrigued as to why the official CDIAC data still only goes up to 2009. Are they afraid to show how much China’s emissions have gone up?
http://cdiac.ornl.gov/trends/emis/meth_reg.html
highflight56433 says:
November 23, 2012 at 5:29 pm
“If I am reading the total CO2 released chart correctly, then there is about 1.13% of CO2 attributed to humans. 34,000,000,000 / 3.0 x 10^12 That probably does not count the exhale of 8 billion souls and the exhale of all the meat they raise to eat before they eat it. Then there is all the water vapor we exhale, and “Blazing Saddles.””
Interesting…several years back, I asked the same question, viz, what is the relative contrbution from human activity to total CO2…I was referred to a table in the AR4 report (I did not save the link—DRAT!), but the math showed that anthropogenic CO2 constituted only 2.9% of the total.
So, we are now at roughly less than one half of that amount. Given that these data are estimates, the bottom line is that humans contribute a truly insignificant amount of CO2 in terms of whatever this gas might do as a “greenhouse gas.”
Bob W in NC says:
November 24, 2012 at 10:04 am
but the math showed that anthropogenic CO2 constituted only 2.9% of the total.
Bob (and others…), your math is right and wrong: indeed human emissions of CO2 are some 3% of the natural emissions (97%) per year, but you forget the other side of the equation: natural sinks are 98.5% of the combined emissions, while human sinks are near unexistent. As a result, there is some 1.5% of increase in the atmosphere.
Natural emissions and sinks are simply a cycle: partly continuous between equator and poles and partly seasonal over summer and winter. At the end of the year, the net result is a net sink of CO2, in quantity about halve of the current human emissions… Thus humans are fully responsible for the increase (with a minor part from warmer sea surface temperatures since the LIA).
J Martin says:
November 23, 2012 at 3:44 pm
Chinese co2 per head is not far off that of the EU now, so I wonder if we might start to see a reduction in that impressive rate of co2 emissions growth.
I do not expect that. It will still take some time to get to the same productivity. Expect it to increase to about double the pro head production or more.
Thanks Ferdinand Engelbeen for the links. I knew other charts must exist, This is one thing I most like about WUWT.
Heres a poser.I am an engineer who often works in areas that require me to wear gas meters for safety reasons.These meters measure oxygen in% and co2 in ppm and are calibrated every 6 months.Now I have only ever seen these meters indicate Oxygen at between 19% AND 21% and CO2 at 0ppm unless breathed on with cupped hands.Any explanation?Are these global CO2 readings actually taken inside this volcano in Hawaii.
MDH says:
November 24, 2012 at 1:45 pm
CO2 at 0 ppm unless breathed on with cupped hands.Any explanation? Are these global CO2 readings actually taken inside this volcano in Hawaii.
Depends of the sensitivity of the CO2 cell. That kind of safety equipment is meant to detect unsafe inside levels of CO2, which starts somewhere above 2%, or 20,000 ppmv. Your breath contains about that level of CO2. The outside ambient 400 ppmv may be below the detection level.
The measurements nowadays used for ambient “background” CO2 levels are sensitive for differences of less than 0.2 ppmv around 400 ppmv and calibrated automatically every hour with three calibration gases. See:
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/about/co2_measurements.html
Ferdinand Engelbeen:
In your post at November 24, 2012 at 11:32 am you assert
You know your final sentence is a non sequitor so I am surprised that you spoilt your post by adding it.
In the existing absence of adequate understanding of the carbon cycle, it cannot be known what difference – if any – there would be in the increase to atmospheric CO2 concentration if the anthropogenic emission were absent.
(ref. Rorsch A, Courtney RS & Thoenes D, ‘The Interaction of Climate Change and the Carbon Dioxide Cycle’ E&E v16no2 (2005) )
Richard
Ferdinand Engelbeen says:
“…Thus humans are fully responsible for the increase (with a minor part from warmer sea surface temperatures since the LIA).”
First of all, thank you for your response. But, question: You say that 98.5% of each year’s emissions are taken out by natural sinks. OK, no argument there. But since the sinks would not make a distinction between CO2 of natural and human origin (CO2 is CO2), wouldn’t that mean that the sinks available remove the relative amount of CO2 emitted by each source? Thus, 98.5% of the 97% from natural sources = 1.455% remaining from natural sources and 0.045% remaining from human sources, total = 1.5%. Consequently, humans would not be responsible for more than a trace percent of the increase in CO2 each year.
Maybe I missed something, wouldn’t be the first time; are the countries with rising CO2 also the ones with a rising GDP? Weren’t they in, for the most part, in trouble before CAGW began to influence policy? When I say “trouble”, I mean their citizens being taken care of. How are the citizens of the countries with a dropping CO2 doing?
FergalR says:
November 23, 2012 at 3:31 pm
“for the last few years and planned several years in the future China’s building the equivalent of the entire UK’s generating capacity in coal-fired plant – every year. 1.25GW a weeK”
China built 30 GW of coal fired plant in the first 10 months of 2012. 30/42 = A rate of about .71 GW/week. They have announced 28 GW more nuclear, 80 GW more hydro, 43 GW more wind and 19 GW more solar in the next 3 years. They have not announced how much coal fired power plant they will build. Any report that says otherwise is speculation.The Chinese 2015 Energy Plan was last updated in October 2012. There was no quantification about how much more coal fired capacity was expected. The build rate is slowing as well as the utilization rate of existing capacity. You be sure they won’t sacrifice economic growth…but they don’t know what economic growth will be over the 3 years.
jmrsudbury says:
November 24, 2012 at 3:29 am
“The diagram is from a March 2008 DOE report, but I don’t know what year the numbers represent: It has human emissions at 9 gigatons per year. Are the graphs in this post supposed to be metric gigatonnes?”
CO2 emissions are 3.67 times Carbon Emissions. (We need to include the weight of the Oxygen in the CO2….getting the 2 confused can create quite alarming results)
These numbers are not the product of direct measurement but are calculated from a model based on assumed energy consumption.
@MDH
>…I have only ever seen these meters indicate Oxygen at between 19% AND 21% and CO2 at 0ppm unless breathed on with cupped hands.Any explanation?
The personal exposure meter (PEM) is calibrated to show 0 ppm with a background of 392. It is easy. They feed in ordinary air and tell the machine that is a zero ppm level. It is quite common to calibrate in this manner because it automatically subtracts the background level. Then the ambient air to which the wearer is exposed shows as a deviation from the background.
Thank you DesertYote. The models are worth a discussion. Well worth a discussion.
I see it all, CO2 emissions from China cause cooling, using the same logic as team global warming. There is correlation here, global temps slow and then fall as the cooling CO2 from China equals and then overpowers the warming CO2 from the dreaded round eyes.
So ,again IPCC/UN logic, we in the West must burn every heavy CO2 producing fuel we can find or the Chinese CO2 will plunge us into an ice age.
This is impeccable alarmist logic, I expect all enviro-( self-snip) to rush out and buy the biggest SUV you can afford.Burn everything you can, the planet must be saved.
I think there should be a chart showing that CO2 levels were higher in the past few thousand years according to leaf stomata data. This would help counter the claim that CO2 levels haven’t been this high in hundreds of thousands or millions of years, which is based on ice core data that might have missed such spikes.
We can be glad the IPCC is wrong. Carbon taxes, carbon caps, carbon credits, and any other crazy carbon schemes wouldn’t make a difference big enough to satisfy their models. The entire world economy would have to be practically shut down. If Obama is serious about reducing carbon emissions he should ask the Fed to raise interest rates. The Fed could put the brakes on the economy with out passing any new laws. Can China keep finding enough carbon to burn even more?
Thanks harrywr2, but the two sets of numbers I found differ by a factor of about 2 not the 3.67 you suggest. There must be some other explanation.
John M Reynolds
“—— indeed human emissions of CO2 are some 3% of the natural emissions (97%) per year, but you forget the other side of the equation: natural sinks are 98.5% of the combined emissions, while human sinks are near unexistent. As a result, there is some 1.5% of increase in the atmosphere.”
Don’t agree with this entirely as human sinks are nearly as large as the natural type. (human sink out of human emission % v natural sink out of natural emission %) These are taken up via plants immediately around the surface and In this case they have almost a zero life in the atmosphere and are recycled from the sinks back to the atmosphere again regularly. This has been at least part responsible for the planet greening via satellite images. Releases of human CO2 well above the sinks especially via planes are so high up they can’t become part of sinks immediately. These are the human CO2 emissions that particularity stay in the atmosphere the longest and part of the 1.5% increase.
richardscourtney says:
November 24, 2012 at 2:34 pm
Indeed, we have discussed that many times… But as you know, I am convinced that the human contribution is the main (over 95%) cause of the increase, because that fits all known observations.
There are a lot of possible theoretical alternatives, but all of them fail one or more observations…
Regards,
Ferdinand
J. Philip Peterson,
I take much “IPCC” carbon-cycle data with an oceanic-sized pinch of salt. Appreciation of the huge variations in photosynthetic biochemistries has not yet dawned on many people.
If you’re interested, there are many avenues to explore.
E.g. http://oceandatacenter.ucsc.edu/home/Publications/Zehr%20and%20Kudela%202009.pdf
Personally, I am still hoping to see where the role of carbonic anhydrase is properly addressed by carbon-cycle models, especially wrt the effect on carbon-isotope ratios. The normal, uncatalyzed, exchange reaction of CO2 +H2O=H2CO3 is approximately 7 (seven!) orders of magnitude slower than when catalyzed by this biological catalyst which is expressed in significant amounts by essentially 100% of living organisms. It is active night and day, 24/7/365, come rain or shine, hell or high water wherever there is life, photosynthetic or otherwise.
Bob W in NC says:
November 24, 2012 at 2:41 pm
Thus, 98.5% of the 97% from natural sources = 1.455% remaining from natural sources and 0.045% remaining from human sources, total = 1.5%. Consequently, humans would not be responsible for more than a trace percent of the increase in CO2 each year.
Indeed the sinks don’t make a distinction between human and natural CO2 (except for the 13C/12C ratio, but that is of a different interest). Thus any addition of human CO2 (currently about 8 GtC/year) simply goes in the total amount of CO2 in thet atmosphere, together with the natural addition (90 GtC from the oceans and countercurrent 60 GtC from vegetation) and what already resides in the atmosphere (currently about 800 GtC). From that mixture, a quantity somewhat inbetween the natural emissions and the natural emissions + the human emissions is removed into natural sinks (currently about 92.5 GtC into the oceans and 61.5 GtC in vegetation). So far so good.
Thus the oceans are a net sink for CO2 (measured and calculated) and vegetation is a net sink for CO2 (calculated from the oxygen and 13C/12C balances, see:
http://www.bowdoin.edu/~mbattle/papers_posters_and_talks/BenderGBC2005.pdf )
Now what is responsible for the increase in total amount of the atmosphere? The human emissions: the amount added by humans is 8 GtC/year. The amount added by nature is ~150 GtC/year, but the amount removed by nature is ~154 GtC/year. Thus nature is a net sink for CO2, not a source. Even if the human contribution to the total mass in the atmosphere is only a few % of the natural contribution, and the total amount of original human CO2 molecules only reaches a few % in the total of the atmosphere over time, it is the only cause of the increase in total CO2 mass.
Let us compare it to a fountain with a nice, clear water bassin at ground level:
Some pump drives a huge flow over the fountain, which drips back into the bassin. Let’s say 200 liter per minute. Now the maintenance man opens a small supply valve into the discharge of the pump, delivering an additional 1 liter per minute of green coloured water (it is Saint Patricks day in Chicago…). That is only 0.5% of the main supply to the fountain. What will occur to the level in the bassin (not taking into account any spills or evaporation) and to its colour?
The added colour will be diluted by the total mass of water in the reservoir and in the circuit of the fountain, up to a few % at closing time of the small supply, but the increase in level of the bassin is 100% caused by the small supply…
From the policy makers point of view the clear message of this piece is;
As it is blindingly obvious that emissions flat line once a certain level of development is reached then, if CO2 must be controlled at all, our efforts should be on encouraging “developing” peoples to reach this level as soon as possible and not on reducing our own standards.
Off Topic PS: I was delighted this week to have witnessed the dropping of CO2 targets for the UK energy sector. Much still to be done…
Crispin in Waterloo says:
November 24, 2012 at 6:37 pm
The personal exposure meter (PEM) is calibrated to show 0 ppm with a background of 392. It is easy. They feed in ordinary air and tell the machine that is a zero ppm level.
Thanks, didn’t know that, but indeed that is logical for a PEM. Something new learned today…
Ferdinand Engelbeen says: @ November 24, 2012 at 11:32 am
…Bob (and others…), your math is right and wrong: indeed human emissions of CO2 are some 3% of the natural emissions (97%) per year, but you forget the other side of the equation: natural sinks are 98.5% of the combined emissions, while human sinks are near unexistent. As a result, there is some 1.5% of increase in the atmosphere.
Natural emissions and sinks are simply a cycle: partly continuous between equator and poles and partly seasonal over summer and winter. At the end of the year, the net result is a net sink of CO2, in quantity about halve of the current human emissions… Thus humans are fully responsible for the increase (with a minor part from warmer sea surface temperatures since the LIA)…..
______________________________________
while human sinks are near unexistent….
Let’s see if we can refute that.
#1) Lumbering.
Trees are cut down and made into furniture, structures, books and newspapers. Jim Hudson who calls himself a Garbologist gave a talk at one of the BostCon. He studies landfills. He uses old newspapers to date his excavations. In otherwords THEY DO NOT DECAY.
I am not going to bother looking it up but studies show new growth forests sequester much more CO2 than old growth CO2.
#2) Agriculture
Irrigation alone has increased the biomass in marginal areas. Liberation of CO2 has also caused an increase in plant growth world wide and C3 plants have become much more drought hardy due to the increase in CO2.
Perhaps the most critical point is brought out in this paper (Trees and most food plants are C3 not C4 so this speaks directly to food sources for humans and many other species)
Humans are returning much needed CO2 to the carbon cycle and therefore saving many species from extinction in the next glaciation. Remember plants are not dealing with just the % CO2 in the air but with the partial pressure of CO2 that decreases with elevation.
From the same study (PDF of full paper)
And another paper:
Matt G says:
November 25, 2012 at 6:31 am
Don’t agree with this entirely as human sinks are nearly as large as the natural type. (human sink out of human emission % v natural sink out of natural emission %) These are taken up via plants immediately around the surface and In this case they have almost a zero life in the atmosphere and are recycled from the sinks back to the atmosphere again regularly. This has been at least part responsible for the planet greening via satellite images.
There are hardly any human caused sinks: some additional forest plantations, largely overwhelmed by forest destruction on other places. All the other sinks in oceans and vegetation are natural sinks. It doesn’t matter if a human emitted CO2 molecule is absorbed within a minute by the next nearby tree (instead of a natural CO2, which then resides longer in the atmosphere, the net result is the same increase of CO2 in the atmosphere) or resides for 10 years before being absorbed by the oceans. What counts is the total amount absorbed. That doesn’t change because of the origin of the CO2 (except for isotopic differences), but it does change with the total CO2 pressure (= quantity) in the atmosphere: as well for the oceans, where an increased pressure difference for the same water temperature (= the same CO2 pressure in the water surface) at the sink places increases the uptake, as for plant alveoles, where a similar mechanism is at work.
The quantities absorbed by vegetation can be calculated from the oxygen use: plants produce oxygen when taking up CO2 and use oxygen when breaking down. The oxygen use by different fuels is more or less known (with some margins of error). That gives how much CO2 is absorbed or released by the entire biosphere over time, the rest is absorbed by the oceans. The main problem: the accuracy needed for the oxygen measurements: a fraction of a ppmv on 200,000 ppmv… See:
http://www.bowdoin.edu/~mbattle/papers_posters_and_talks/BenderGBC2005.pdf
Gunga Din says:
November 24, 2012 at 2:51 pm
Maybe I missed something, wouldn’t be the first time; are the countries with rising CO2 also the ones with a rising GDP? Weren’t they in, for the most part, in trouble before CAGW began to influence policy? When I say “trouble”, I mean their citizens being taken care of. How are the citizens of the countries with a dropping CO2 doing?
_________________________________
In the UK:
the Office of National Statistics confirmed that there were 25,700 more deaths in the winter of 2005/06 than in other parts of the year.
Officialdom blames the death on the flu:
The take home from this is COLD KILLS and high fuel cost helps cold kill the elderly and poverty stricken. Even the European Commission acknowledges this.
It is about time Officaldom started to notice their people are freezing to death.
Roger Knights says:
November 24, 2012 at 9:35 pm
I think there should be a chart showing that CO2 levels were higher in the past few thousand years according to leaf stomata data. This would help counter the claim that CO2 levels haven’t been this high in hundreds of thousands or millions of years, which is based on ice core data that might have missed such spikes.
While stomata index data have a better resolution than ice cores, they are a proxy with its specific problems which may question their validity for historical CO2 levels. Stomata index data are measured on leaves from land plants, which by definition live on land, where increased CO2 levels, are measured compared to background CO2 levels. These local/regional CO2 levels over a growing season are influencing the stomata density for the leaves over the next growing season.
The stomata index data are calibrated over the past century against direct measurements (1960-2000) and ice cores (1900-1960). The main problem is that there is no knowledge if the historical CO2 levels at the same place weren’t influenced by changes in the main wind direction over time: changes in sea/land area and land use: from water and marshes to land and agriculture, forests and factories… As is certainly the case in The Netherlands, one of the main historical sites used for stomata data. Even the main wind direction (and thus local CO2 levels) may have changed between the MWP and LIA…
Moreover, any spike in CO2 as seen in the stomata data must be followed by a similar downspike, as ice cores do smooth the spikes, but don’t change the average over the time frame of the resolution. As stomata data sometimes show too high average CO2 levels, these spikes are questionable.
Ferdinand Engelbeen says:
November 25, 2012 at 8:00 am
richardscourtney says:
November 24, 2012 at 2:34 pm
Indeed, we have discussed that many times… But as you know, I am convinced that the human contribution is the main (over 95%) cause of the increase, because that fits all known observations.
There are a lot of possible theoretical alternatives, but all of them fail one or more observations
_________________________________
What about the increase in Sea surface temperature? (Graph of increase straight from the EPA shown here ) Oceans account for 70% of the earth’s surface and a large part of the CO2 cycle. Henry’s law and all that apply.
From 1910 to the present the EPA graph shows an increase in SST of about 1.5F (~0.8C)
The way humans might cause warming is by reduction of vegetative cover including trees. It is well documented e.g. by Beerling and Berner 2005 that the evolution and spread of broad leaved trees drove down global temperatures (and CO2 with them) in the Silurian-Carboniferous. Vegetation and trees cool the planet by holding water on land, maintaining moist soil (weathered silicate) and by transpiration, plus by changing albedo.
CO2 is a huge red herring. In fact CO2 will mitigate warming from loss of vegetative cover by making the remaining plant cover respire and transpire and grow faster and more efficiently. A CO2 increase by itself, in the absence of change to vegetation, will cool the planet. (The radiative balance effect of CO2 is inconclusive in regard to water vapour interaction and feedback and in any case is logarithmic, thus declining in marginal effect and possibly close to saturation.)
Thus overall, CO2 and climate is more about biology than physics.
However if we lived on a lifeless arid planet covered in bare rock with no ocean then the CAGW crowd might have a point. (but hang on – if it was lifeless then.. O never mind…)
Gail Combs says:
November 25, 2012 at 9:12 am
while human sinks are near unexistent….
Let’s see if we can refute that.
Hello Gail,
It is quite simple: humans emit some 8 (or nowadays 9) GtC/yr as CO2. What the biosphere absorbs from that total amount is currently about 1.0 ± 0.6 GtC/yr, based on the oxygen balance. That includes all human use of wood, new plantations, rain forest destruction, all agriculture, all natural extra growth caused by the extra CO2 in the atmosphere and all animal and bacterial life.
Thus the whole biosphere, human and natural together, absorbs a net quantity of CO2 equal to 4.4-20% of the human emissions…
Gail Combs says:
November 25, 2012 at 10:06 am
such that a 1 ̊ increase in sea water temperature leads overall to a 4.23% increase in the equilibrium gas phase partial pressure (pCO2) of a sea water sample [Chipman et al., 1992]
The increase of temperature increases the pCO2 of seawater by about 16 microatm. Thus an increase of ~16 ppmv in the atmosphere is sufficient to restore the previous (dis)equilibrium. But as the biosphere increases its CO2 uptake at higher temperatures, the real near 2-million years change in dynamic equilibrium between temperature and CO2 levels is about 8 ppmv/ ̊C.
Ferdinand Engelbeen says:
November 25, 2012 at 9:42 am
“there are hardly any human caused sinks: some additional forest plantations, largely overwhelmed by forest destruction on other places. All the other sinks in oceans and vegetation are natural sinks.”
Regarding sinks it doesn’t matter whether human caused or not. If increasing the CO2 increases the uptake, then that will happen regardless. Existing plants increase their intake of CO2 up to 1500 ppm, we are still well short of this value. Virtually all the vegetation will generally increase their uptake of CO2. (1) Only half of the global human CO2 emissions showing up in yearly increases.
” It doesn’t matter if a human emitted CO2 molecule is absorbed within a minute by the next nearby tree (instead of a natural CO2, which then resides longer in the atmosphere, the net result is the same increase of CO2 in the atmosphere) or resides for 10 years before being absorbed by the oceans”
At trace values it does matter because plants can uptake a lot more CO2 available to them, then they already have. The extra CO2 will still be absorbed from human and natural sources until much higher atmospheric levels. The net result being the same would be the case when vegetation reached the CO2 threshold, but it hasn’t been reached yet. During the fossil record huge plants hundreds of millions of years ago were able to grow thanks to much higher CO2 atmospheric levels.
“The quantities absorbed by vegetation can be calculated from the oxygen use: plants produce oxygen when taking up CO2 and use oxygen when breaking down. The oxygen use by different fuels is more or less known (with some margins of error).”
The margins of error still big enough to have doubt on this and with regarding the human emissions not accounted for (1) there are either larger vegetation or ocean sinks from human emissions than claimed. Neither can be ruled out and we know plants take up the more CO2 the more they are given and these threshold atmospheric values have not been reached yet.
Matt G says:
November 25, 2012 at 1:14 pm
Regarding sinks it doesn’t matter whether human caused or not. If increasing the CO2 increases the uptake, then that will happen regardless. Existing plants increase their intake of CO2 up to 1500 ppm, we are still well short of this value.
I have a feeling that this is more a discussion of the meaning of words, not of what really happens…
The human caused CO2 movements are largely a one-sided addition of extra CO2 from the far past, not balanced by much human effort to remove a substantial part of that addition.
On the other side, the natural input is more than balanced by the natural sinks, including removing a part of the human input in total quantity, no matter which exact molecules are removed. Thus nature is a net sink for CO2, not the cause of the increase in the atmosphere.
Plants indeed increase their uptake at higher CO2 levels, as good as oceans do. But human emissions of 8 GtC by humans over a year is only 1% of the atmospheric level, leading to a 0.5% increase in uptake by plants (a 100% increase of CO2 leads to an average 50% increase in uptake by plants) and a similar increase in uptake by the oceans, no matter which the origin is of the CO2 molecules. Thus at the end of the year 50% of the human emissions as mass (not necessary as original molecules) still is left in the atmosphere and does add to the total atmospheric level.
If the human emissions would be reduced to the same amount as removed by the natural cycle, currently some 4 GtC/year, then the CO2 levels in the atmosphere would stay forever at the same level as today, at about 100 ppmv above the temperature dictated dynamic equilibrium.
That means that it takes quite a lot of time to remove any excess amount of CO2 above the equilibrium, even if we would stop all emissions today: the sink rate is about 4 GtC/year at a CO2 level above equilibrium of 100 ppmv or 210 GtC. That gives an e-fold time of about 53 years or a half life time of about 40 years for an extra injection of CO2 in the atmosphere, whatever the origin.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/11/26/acid_oceans_dissolve_pterepod_shells/
another fraudulent paper by the usual suspects. When are the MSM going to wake up to this claim of Acidification.
regards
Is Global Warming Caused by the Effect of Human Generated CO2
–or Is It Just a Human Population Effect?
Just as CO2 has measurably increased since man began burning first coal and then petroleum, global human population has increased exponentially from a level of about one billion people before 1800 to near seven billion at present, with half that increase occurring after 1967. I think one could just as easily attribute the 0.8 degree observed ‘Global Warming’ to the gross effect of human population on the planet, or at least on those parts of it where that temperature increase was measured. That could include land use change, deforestation, road-building, continuous industrial activity, and even the increased heat caused by local combustion.
All I am saying here is that I think a case could be made for this that might be more credible than blaming ‘Global Warming’ on the logarithmic effect of CO2. As Dr. Svensmark’s theory appears to have been shot down by the near perfect failure of recent low-cloud cover data to have any correlation with cosmic ray activity, it is hard to blame the sun for this effect.
Ferdinand Engelbeen:
In your post at November 25, 2012 at 8:00 am you reply to my post at November 24, 2012 at 2:34 pm which said
Your reply says
No, that is simply not true.
The lack of understanding of the climate cycle enables almost any interpretation to be put on the effect(s) responsible for observed changes in the limited and inadequately quantified observational data.
Therefore, and as I said, it cannot be known what difference – if any – there would be in the increase to atmospheric CO2 concentration if the anthropogenic emission were absent.
As you say, we have repeatedly debated this for many years including on WUWT so there is no point in repeating that again here: people who are interested can search the WUWT archives.
But I point out that
(a) Your view is constrained by your rigid adherence to a circular argument inherent in the ‘mass balance argument’; i.e. you assume the observed recent rise in atmospheric CO2 concentration is almost entirely induced by the anthropogenic CO2 concentration then construct all your arguments using that assumption.
and
(b) I don’t know if the anthropogenic CO2 emission is significant to the rise in atmospheric CO2 concentration or not (but I want to know,) and I consider the global temperature rise to be a much more likely cause of the rise than the anthropogenic emission.
Richard
Spector says:
November 25, 2012 at 9:10 pm
“As Dr. Svensmark’s theory appears to have been shot down by the near perfect failure of recent low-cloud cover data to have any correlation with cosmic ray activity, it is hard to blame the sun for this effect.”
While probably unintentional on your part, that is repeating false CAGW-movement propaganda. The graphs you see spread by their team members claiming overall divergent trends are based on what the ISCCP headquartered at Hansen’s GISS puts out. (Climate4you.com , while mostly a good site, also fell for that).
As noted at http://calderup.wordpress.com/2011/10/05/further-attempt-to-falsify-the-svensmark-hypothesis/ , there was an “accidentally” uncorrected error from change in ISCCP satellite viewing angle, and, as a graph there illustrates, other cloud cover datasets show trends over those years going the opposite direction from what the ISCCP claims. Trends in the other cloud cover datasets are more consistent with the picture suggested by albedo trends ( http://tallbloke.files.wordpress.com/2011/09/albedo.png )
Hansen’s GISS (and the ISCCP headquartered at it) is a compromised untrustworthy source in general; a quick smoking gun illustration with temperatures is http://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/briefs/hansen_07/fig1x.gif versus http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs_v3/Fig.D.gif where the former shows shows the 5-year mean of U.S. temperature in the high point of the 1980s was 0.4 degrees Celsius cooler than such in the 1930s but the latter is fudged to make the same less than 0.1 degrees Celsius apart. When people happily flock to employment at such an institution’s climate departments even now and rise to the top in the current political climate, fitting in, to expect them to be unbiased would be like expecting Greenpeace leadership to be unbiased.
For actual reality, see http://s10.postimage.org/l9gokvp09/composite.jpg (click to enlarge).
Spector says:
November 25, 2012 at 9:10 pm
“That could include land use change, deforestation, road-building, continuous industrial activity, and even the increased heat caused by local combustion.”
Those are indeed factors too, especially for temperature stations more likely to be in a city or at an airport than in the middle of nowhere.
You’d think by now that those creating data graphs would have learned that transmitting data usingonly colors is a really bad idea. These graphs are not the worst I’ve seen (mostly because of the limited number of data lines) , but it still leaves color deficient folks in the dark for at least 4
data sets. All that’s required is a small symbol (triangle, etc) or label at the beginning of each line,
which can remain colored to make it easier to follow for most folks.
“CO2 should be plotted against per capita GDP.”
You’re missing the eco-fascists’ goal — suppression of capitalism and GDPs.
richardscourtney says:
November 26, 2012 at 3:34 am
(a) Your view is constrained by your rigid adherence to a circular argument inherent in the ‘mass balance argument’; i.e. you assume the observed recent rise in atmospheric CO2 concentration is almost entirely induced by the anthropogenic CO2 concentration then construct all your arguments using that assumption.
That the Mass must balance is fundamental and any system must follow mass balance.
The mass balance equation for the atmosphere is as follows:
d[CO2]/dt= CO2source+ CO2anth-CO2sink
where CO2source=natural sources & CO2sink= natural sinks.
We know from observations that d[CO2]/dt= CO2anth/2,
given that the mass must balance then: CO2source-CO2sink= -CO2anth/2
No matter how you try to parse these equations this result is inexcapable.
Ask any of your chem eng acquaintances about mass balance equations.
RE: Henry Clark: “November 26, 2012 at 5:59 am”
“ ‘As Dr. Svensmark’s theory appears to have been shot down by the near perfect failure of recent low-cloud cover data to have any correlation with cosmic ray activity, it is hard to blame the sun for this effect.’
“While probably unintentional on your part, that is repeating false CAGW-movement propaganda. The graphs you see spread by their team members claiming overall divergent trends are based on what the ISCCP headquartered at Hansen’s GISS puts out. (Climate4you.com , while mostly a good site, also fell for that).”
On this site, David Archibald and Dr. Leif Svalgaard, especially the latter, referenced the official ISCCP data as authoritative evidence that the Svensmark theory had been “falsified” because the supposed correlation ‘disappeared as soon as it was discovered.’
Later, as a personal project, I checked the data myself and found that, despite some initial appearance of correlation, over the whole range there appeared to be almost zero net correlation between the variation from average of the ISCCP low cloud data and the data from the Oulu Cosmic Ray Station in Finland. Unless someone like Steven McIntyre could *prove* that the ISCCP data has been purposely manipulated to produce this result, I have to assume that the Svensmark theory is dead.
I filtered both data sets with one year moving averages to remove annual effects before attempting to calculate the cross-correlation using Microsoft Excel. I also calculated an accurate approximation function for the Oulu data so I could match the time scales.
So the first world already peaked. The BRICs et al cannot sustain their growth – they will burn out and fall fast.
Ferdinand Engelbeen says:
November 25, 2012 at 4:07 pm
“The human caused CO2 movements are largely a one-sided addition of extra CO2 from the far past, not balanced by much human effort to remove a substantial part of that addition.
On the other side, the natural input is more than balanced by the natural sinks, including removing a part of the human input in total quantity, no matter which exact molecules are removed. Thus nature is a net sink for CO2, not the cause of the increase in the atmosphere.”
Problem with the natural side this assumption balanced by natural sinks doesn’t explain increases and decreases between 180 ppm and 7000 ppm. if natural input were always balanced by natural sinks the CO2 level would never change and the past has shown massive changes do occur, so that’s one of the reasons I can’t agree. The human caused CO2 movements may well be the case of a part one-sided addition of extra CO2, but this is also relying on the recycled supposedly human fingerprint CO2 that inputs and sinks every year. Nobody knows how much human CO2 is used in plants immediately and recycled back in the air/ocean the next year. (guess at best)
This type of behavior messes with the CO2 c12 and c13 ratios. These are the reason why we think it’s human CO2 causing the rise, but as you say only one percent. The ultimate clincher will be if ever glaciers and global temperatures remain stable and compare how CO2 rises change then. Even better in this case how a cooling planet with increases glaciers would affect any changes in the rising CO2 levels. I still think human CO2 input is highly likely the biggest contribution of the rise observed over recent decades.
“I have a feeling that this is more a discussion of the meaning of words, not of what really happens…”
This could be the case, overall I do think there is little disagreement between us.
Phil.:
I appreciate your attempt to educate me at November 26, 2012 at 2:40 pm.
However, I like to learn from people with at least some knowledge and understanding of the subject. So, I will continue to disagree with Ferdinand – who does have immense knowledge of the subject – and I will ignore your uneducated waffle.
Richard
Of course, the MODTRAN terrestrial radiation emission calculator program developed as a calibration tool for the Air Force using atmospheric gas absorption and emission line spectra data, which is available as a web-tool from the University of Chicago, seems to predict a one degree C raw temperature increase for each *full* doubling of the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere, a relation that holds from CO2 concentrations from 20 PPM to well over 1000 PPM. At this time it appears doubtful that man will find enough economically recoverable, combustible carbon in the Earth’s crust to reach ever 560 PPM (required for a raw one degree C, human caused temperature increase.)
A Wikipedia MODTRAN spectrum plot shows the 15 micron, or 666 cycles/cm, CO2 absorption band limited to an effect like a one-foot diameter tree in the middle of a ten-foot wide stream of thermal energy leaving the Earth’s atmosphere. The difference between energy flow for 300 PPM CO2 concentration and 600 PPM is limited to a very small region on the very edges of the CO2 band. Thus it seems to me that all this concern over what to do about human CO2 generation is an exercise in futility.
MODTRAN Calculated Radiative Forcing – Double CO2
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:ModtranRadiativeForcingDoubleCO2.png
Spector says:
November 26, 2012 at 2:40 pm
“I checked the data myself and found that, despite some initial appearance of correlation, over the whole range there appeared to be almost zero net correlation between the variation from average of the ISCCP low cloud data and the data from the Oulu Cosmic Ray Station in Finland.
On the contrary, there is correlation able to be seen in the following:
http://s13.postimage.org/ka0rmuwgn/gcrclouds.gif
(click to enlarge)
————-
For the plots and sources of data commented on in the above:
Figure 1 source = http://www.climate4you.com/images/TotalColumnWaterVapourDifferentAltitudesObservationsSince1983.gif
(with the green line added to the original plot)
Figure 2 source: http://www.climate4you.com/images/NOAA%20ESRL%20AtmospericSpecificHumidity
%20GlobalMonthlyTempSince1948%20With37monthRunningAverage.gif
Figure 3 source (flipped vertically): http://cosmicrays.oulu.fi/webform/query.cgi?
startday=1&startmonth=01&startyear=1964&starttime=00%3A00&endday=30&endmonth=11&endyear=2012&endtime=23%3A30&resolution=Automatic+choice&picture=on
Figure 4 source: http://cosmicrays.oulu.fi/webform/query.cgi?
startday=1&startmonth=06&startyear=1983&starttime=00%3A00&endday=30&endmonth=12&endyear=2009&endtime=23%3A30&resolution=Automatic+choice&picture=on
Figure 5 source: http://www.climate4you.com/images/CloudCoverAllLevel%20AndWaterColumnSince1983.gif
Regarding ISCCP skewing from 2004 onwards:
http://calderup.wordpress.com/2011/10/05/further-attempt-to-falsify-the-svensmark-hypothesis/
Figure 6 source: http://www.space.dtu.dk/upload/institutter/space/forskning/05_afdelinger/sun-climate/full_text_publications/svensmark_2007cosmoclimatology.pdf
Figures 7, 8, and 9 come from http://www.drroyspencer.com/2011/05/indirect-solar-forcing-of-climate-by-galactic-cosmic-rays-an-observational-
estimate/
Figure 10 source: Laken et. al 2010, shown in http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/11/25/something-to-be-thankful-for-at-last-cosmic-rays-linked-to-rapid-mid-latitude-cloud-changes/
Figure 11 source: http://calderup.wordpress.com/2011/08/24/cern-experiment-confirms-cosmic-ray-action/
Figure 12 source: http://calderup.wordpress.com/2010/05/24/do-clouds-disappear-2/
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Spector says:
November 26, 2012 at 2:40 pm
the supposed correlation ‘disappeared as soon as it was discovered.’
That’s no coincidence at all. Around 2004 was precisely when the recently published work of Dr. Shaviv was getting recognized to have fearful consequences for the CAGW movement. That’s when it was realized they needed to make the reports less inconvenient. Such as the fudging of Envisat on sea level ( http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/04/12/envisats-satellite-failure-launches-mysteries/ ) and that on temperature (Hansen, Mann, etc.), arctic ice history (Cyrosphere Today etc.), and every major other critical quantity were all more daring. The ISCCP at Hansen’s GISS post-2004 in contrast? Even extremely few skeptics noticed, and it saved the bacon of a movement with the equivalent of billions (or trillions) of dollars at stake.
Chances are that if Dr. Shaviv, Dr. Svensmark, etc. had not published until years later, the ISCCP wouldn’t have been fudged until years later. The cycle that Dr. Shaviv observed in geological history was mentioned in a paper in the 1990s; I just didn’t realize the significance when first reading it.
Spector says:
November 26, 2012 at 2:40 pm
“I filtered both data sets with one year moving averages to remove annual effects before attempting to calculate the cross-correlation using Microsoft Excel. I also calculated an accurate approximation function for the Oulu data so I could match the time scales.”
One can tell more from graphical comparisons than from someone’s unsourced reported calculation of correlation or not implied as a single number output, since evaluating the accuracy and relevance of the latter requires far more data to check every step of their processing and assumptions. (And that’s after starting with a need to verify whether the claimed Excel spreadsheet exists). Reducing the huge number of bits of data in graphs to a single number equivalent to several bits would delete much information in the process.
If reduced to such a number, there would be mediocre correlation even between different measurements of global average cloud cover anomaly trends from different sources (like the graph in the link in my prior comment implied), even though such are theoretically depicting the same quantity. Even aside from how variation in cosmic ray flux is a major factor but not the sole influence on clouds (as, for instance, illustrated by Dr. Spencer’s adjustment for the ENSO ocean oscillation shown in figure 8 within http://s13.postimage.org/ka0rmuwgn/gcrclouds.gif ), one can’t expect cloud cover trends from every source to match the cosmic ray trend precisely when not even different measurements of average global cloud cover trends so match each other.
The evidence and correlations which can be seen in http://s13.postimage.org/ka0rmuwgn/gcrclouds.gif remain, though.
Matt G says:
November 26, 2012 at 4:26 pm
Problem with the natural side this assumption balanced by natural sinks doesn’t explain increases and decreases between 180 ppm and 7000 ppm.
The discussion is about the increase of CO2 levels in the past 160 years, not over geological times. During the Cretaceous, lots of CO2 was buried into sediments, some of it later pushed up and still visible as the white cliffs of Dover (UK) and at lots of other places. That makes that the equilibrium shifted from 10-12 x current CO2 and much higher temperatures in the Cretaceous to the pre-industrial high correlation between temperature and CO2 at a much lower CO2 levels, about 180-310 ppmv, over the temperature swings over the past few million years. Only in the past 160 years we see a steady increase of CO2 over the equilibrium level for the current temperature trend, which should be between 290-300 ppmv.
Nobody knows how much human CO2 is used in plants immediately and recycled back in the air/ocean the next year.
Most of all CO2 removed by plants during their growing season is released back to the atmosphere within one to a few years. Based on the oxygen (and 13C/12C) balance, some 60 GtC is taken away, mainly by mid-latitude plants, during the growing season and some 61 GtC is released by the breackdown of leaves, stems and wood over all seasons by bacteria, molds, etc. A large quantity already within a year, the rest over several years. Only a small part, 1 +/-0.6 GtC/yr is buried in longer lasting carbon storage: humus, roots, peat, (brown)coal… See:
http://www.bowdoin.edu/~mbattle/papers_posters_and_talks/BenderGBC2005.pdf
Human CO2 is a fraction of that, thus that hardly matters for the calculations, as most of it simply gets back into the atmosphere within a year.
The oceans surface (the upper few hundred meters) also is in fast equilibrium with the atmosphere: 1-3 years is sufficient to get in equilibrium for CO2 levels and 13C/12C ratios. As the oceans buffer factor is at work, any change of concentrations in the atmosphere leads to a 10% of that change in the oceans surface (the Revelle factor). Again no big deal for human CO2.
Of more interest are the deep ocean exchanges: what goes into the deep oceans at the near polar sink places is a reflection of the current atmospheric compostion. What comes out at the deep upwelling places near the (Pacific) equator reflects the atmosphere of 800-1200 years ago (plus some mixing within the deep oceans). Thus not influenced by any human emissions. That is of particular interest to estimate what the deep ocean exchanges may be. Human emissions have a low 13C/12C ratio, compared to the atmosphere. The breakdown of vegetation too has such a low ratio, but as the oxygen balance shows, since about 1990, there is more uptake by vegetation than release, so that doesn’t give a decrease.
With that in mind, we can look at the 13C/12C behaviour in the atmosphere for known human releases at different atmosphere – deep ocean exchanges:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/deep_ocean_air_zero.jpg
Thus the human releases together with some 40 GtC of CO2 circulation over the deep oceans, can explain the current trend in 13C/12C in the atmosphere. The discrepancy until 1970 is probably from vegetation, which is supposed to have been a net source of CO2 until then. From 1990 on, it was a net sink for CO2.
RE: Henry Clark: (November 27, 2012 at 3:34 am)
“One can tell more from graphical comparisons than from someone’s unsourced reported calculation of correlation or not implied as a single number output, since evaluating the accuracy and relevance of the latter requires far more data to check every step of their processing and assumptions. “
Quite true. I can only report why I came to that conclusion after Dr. Leif Svalgaard forcefully insisted that the Svensmark hypothesis had been falsified by the official standard ISCCP data that he referenced. I am in no position to question the validity of what appears to be official data, even if it might have become curiously independent of solar cycle variation after Svensmark published his theory.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/08/13/when-will-it-start-cooling/#comment-1057137
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/08/13/when-will-it-start-cooling/#comment-1064833
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/08/13/when-will-it-start-cooling/#comment-1065754
I may have wrongly attributed the first post here to David Archibald. My initial comment had been that if solar activity affected the weather by modulating the cosmic ray flux, then perhaps we should really concentrate on measuring these cosmic rays rather than the various indices of solar activity.
richardscourtney says:
November 26, 2012 at 7:11 pm
Phil.:
I appreciate your attempt to educate me at November 26, 2012 at 2:40 pm.
As you should Richard.
However, I like to learn from people with at least some knowledge and understanding of the subject. So, I will continue to disagree with Ferdinand – who does have immense knowledge of the subject – and I will ignore your uneducated waffle.
Allowing your prejudice to prevent yourself from learning about a subject from someone who knows much more about it than you do is an unfortunate trait of yours. As I suggested to you before ask one of your Chem Engineer friends to show you how to write the mass balance equation for the atmosphere with the appropriate flux terms, you might learn something.