From CSIRO:
“What we learned is that in spite of droughts, floods, volcano eruptions, El Niño and other events, the Earth system has been remarkably consistent in regulating the inter-annual variations in atmospheric carbon dioxide levels,”
Tropical ecosystems regulate variations in Earth’s carbon dioxide levels
Rising temperatures, influenced by natural events such as El Niño, have a corresponding increase in the release of carbon dioxide from tropical forest ecosystems, according to a new study out today.
The study, published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, found that a temperature anomaly of just 1ºC (in near surface air temperatures in the tropics) leads to a 3.5-Petagram (billion tonnes of carbon) anomaly in the annual CO2 growth rate, on average. This is the equivalent of 1/3 of the annual global emissions from the combustion of fossil fuels and deforestation together.
Importantly, the NASA Earth Exchange (NEX) study results provide scientists with a new diagnostic tool to understand the global carbon cycle as it undergoes major changes due to the influences of human activities.
NASA study co-author, CSIRO’s Dr Pep Canadell, said that the study’s 50-year analysis centred on temperature and rainfall patterns during El Niño years, when temperatures increase in tropical regions and rainfall decreases. An accompanying analysis assessed the effects of volcanic eruptions, which lead to decreased temperatures due to volcanic aerosols in the atmosphere.
“Our study indicates that carbon exchanges in tropical ecosystems are extremely sensitive to temperature, and they respond with the release of emissions when warmer temperatures occur”.
“Many processes involved in this response are the same as what is known as the carbon-climate feedback, which it is thought will lead to an acceleration of carbon emissions from vegetation and soils and into the atmosphere under future climate change.
“The observed temperature changes are more important than changes in rainfall in influencing concentration of atmospheric CO2“.
“Warming is the one thing that we know with most certainty will occur under climate change in the tropics, but there are still large uncertainties about the future precipitation in tropical regions,” says Dr Canadell, who is also Executive Director of the Canberra-based Global Carbon Project.
“What we have is a strong and robust coupling between seasonal variations in atmospheric CO2 growth and tropical temperatures over the past 50 years and this provides us with a key diagnostic tool to assist in our understanding of the global carbon cycle,” he said.
The team, led by Dr Weile Wang, analysed widely available data on atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration and global air temperature between 1959 and 2011.
“What we learned is that in spite of droughts, floods, volcano eruptions, El Niño and other events, the Earth system has been remarkably consistent in regulating the inter-annual variations in atmospheric carbon dioxide levels,” said Dr Weile Wang, lead author of the paper.
The team used the NEX platform to analyse outputs from several global dynamic vegetation models to understand the mechanisms underlying the persistent coupling and the role of tropical ecosystems in the observed coupling.
The study highlights the importance of long-term observations of temperature and carbon dioxide, simple yet crucial, for improving our understanding of the Earth system.
What they found was, unlike in other parts of the planet, year-to-year changes in temperature over the tropics act in concert on both photosynthesis (absorption of carbon dioxide) and respiration (release of carbon dioxide), the two important mechanisms that naturally regulate year-to-year changes in atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations.
“For example, a rise in temperature over the tropical regions results in a decline in photosynthesis as well as an increase in carbon losses through respiration, amplifying the temperature effect on carbon cycling” says Rama Nemani, Principal scientist for the NEX project.
The study highlights the importance of long-term observations of temperature and carbon dioxide, simple yet crucial, for improving our understanding of the Earth system.
The study was supported by NASA’s Earth Exchange project, the Australian Climate Change Science Program, and the Global Carbon Project.
Read more media releases in our Media section.
Wang A, Ciaisc P, Nemanid RR, Canadelle JG, Piaof S, Sitch S, Whitei MA, Hashimotoa H, Milesia C, Mynenij RB. 2013. Variations in atmospheric CO2 growth rates coupled with tropical temperature. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
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At the risk of boring regular WUWT readers, may I post this graph again?
CO2 is good for one thing: expanding the biosphere through airborne fertilization. But as we see, it does not affect global temparatures in any measurable way at current concentrations.
Lots of things are very good at one thing, but not good at all at other things. A cow is very good at producing milk. But it isn’t any good at jumping over the moon.
Just because CO2 is essential to life on earth does not mean that it controls global temperature at current concentrations. And that is the crux of the entire global warming debate, no?
Sufficient to explain long term CO2/T correlation in the ice cores. –AGF
3.5-Petagram (billion tonnes of carbon)
—————————–
I thought giga was a billion.
Maybe it’s people for the ethical treatment of grams?
This whole idea of “stable” temperatures, “stable” CO2 levels, stable anything…
….comes from ignoring biology
You can’t have biology, and have stable the way it’s been defined.;..
chemistry is easy, biology is harder….and chemical biology is hard
So we could eliminate 1/4 of global carbon emissions if we just eradicate the rainforests – and thus reduce global climate change more dramatically than if all of China went back to walking!
I have had a whole week of 90 degrees here in the UK which is not bad for a man of my age!
Earth’s self regulation of Carbon Dioxide is remarkably stable
————————————————-
Doesn’t that statement imply that the earth is sentient?
CO2 level is what it is; no “stable” or “unstable” level except what humans ascribe to it. Gaia isn’t desperately trying to balance out the CO2 man is contributing to the environment against some predetermined standard.
Maybe I am picking at nits, but it kinda bugs me when stuff like this creeps into the collective subconscious.
Hmmm, does this mean the warmists can start blaming tropical forests for a change instead of our SUV’s?
The study, published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, found that a temperature anomaly of just 1ºC (in near surface air temperatures in the tropics) leads to a 3.5-Petagram (billion tonnes of carbon) anomaly in the annual CO2 growth rate, on average. This is the equivalent of 1/3 of the annual global emissions from the combustion of fossil fuels and deforestation together.
____________________________________________________________________________
Surely, if CO2 is a strong driver of temperature then that much of an effect, especially in the exact part of the globe that should be most sensitive to it, would create an overwhelming positive feedback? Like, the sort of feedback that should have created runaway warming at some point in the past?
Unless, of course, CO2 doesn’t affect temperature very much after all. Just sayin’……..
“a temperature anomaly of just 1ºC (in near surface air temperatures in the tropics) leads to a 3.5-Petagram (billion tonnes of carbon) anomaly in the annual CO2 growth rate”
Are they saying a temperature increase drives the CO2 concentration?!
Oh, the Blasphemy!
What is the Global Carbon Project. Well, it’s an organization that, among other things, in December of this year is going to have a Radical Emission Reduction Conference. I copied these quotes directly from the Global Carbon Project’s website concerning this conference:
‘Today, in 2013, we face an unavoidably radical future. We either continue with rising emissions and reap the radical repercussions of severe climate change, or we acknowledge that we have a choice and pursue radical emission reductions: No longer is there a non-radical option. Moreover, low-carbon supply technologies cannot deliver the necessary rate of emission reductions – they need to be complemented with rapid, deep and early reductions in energy consumption – the rationale for this conference.
Details of the Conference
While there is a wealth of research and experience in delivering incremental reductions in demand, there is little cogent analysis of non-marginal, step-change and systemic reductions – either from a research or from a practitioner perspective. This conference is intended to catalyse such a critical transition in the climate change agenda and provide an evidence-base for developing radical-mitigation strategies.
More specifically the two-day conference, hosted at the Royal Society (London), will consider how to deliver reductions in energy consumption of at least 8% per year (~60% across a decade). It will foster an up-beat and can-do mentality.’
Pretty cool, huh? Now, what’s the likelihood that the Global Carbon Project is funded directly through taxpayer funds or indirectly through crony capitalism and rent seeking? I’d say very high. Wouldn’t it be nice if these vicious parasites had to fund themselves? Then they could live, not immune from, but under the direct consequences of their prescriptions. After all, if they’re recommending a “radical option” let them be the direct recipients as well. Moreover, I suspect, when the pedals get peeled from the rose, that the radical option will look a lot like Detroit. We can have a whole nation of Detroits? Nations of Detroits. And the developing world? Keep it there. That’ll cut CO2 by 80%. For some reason I suspect these climate warriors know that that’s the only radical solution that would work. Let them live it too. Make it part of the contract. Then let’s see how many other Earth amplification scenarios they continue to dream up for CO2 as the previous scenarios are found wanting.
Mark and two Cats says:
July 23, 2013 at 11:52 am
3.5-Petagram (billion tonnes of carbon)
—————————–
I thought giga was a billion.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Yes, but a tonne is a million grams
You did note that the author switched units between metric and imperial didn’t you? (grams v. tonnes) CSIRO may have been trying to keep it simple for the metric impaired.
“Warming is the one thing that we know with most certainty will occur under climate change in the tropics,…”
I thought it was the poles that would warm due to the lack of WV to impede CO2. Did the goal post change again?
This seems to provide a vindication of one aspect of Myrry Salby’s work.
It doesn’t at all imply sentience. A level regulating amplifier isn’t sentient yet will keep an output level to within a small variance of levels dictated by its component specifications over rather large input swings. If the Earth system is taken as a whole, the biosphere response could be (overly simply) modeled as a regulating amplifier for CO2 (all other inputs – sun, nutrients, water being sufficient to support the growth). As with any regulating amplifier, it can reach oversaturation, but looking at the geological record, I don’t think we will be reaching any of the extremes seen in the past that did not oversaturate this system. In the Earth model sense however, the components seem to have evolved by chance (or selected by a creator for those of a religious bent) to achieve this effect It also seems to be a bit imperfect at its task, or else the CO2 levels would be absolutely flat.
Ok, so my electronics background is coming out again – I always seem to come back to amplifiers for my analogies.
One primary characteristic of Biology is that of internal self-regulation, aka homeostasis.
It’s not surprising (to biologists) that eco-systems on a planetary scale for billions of years have produced an environment that promotes self-regulating characteristics, ie negative feedback. James Lovelock has been saying this for most of his life.
Physicists have no clue how the carbon cycle works on a planetary scale because they ignore biology. Atmospheric evolution is a study of biology. Earth’s atmosphere is entirely a product of biology, except Argon which is geological. Water is the fluid that ties biology to geology.
that observation thing gets in the way again! I always noted my fizzy drink goes flat faster on a warm day then a cold day…I wonder if it is related (/sarc)
Oh boy.
Whenever I hear climatologists talking about “robust” correlations my inclination is to place a call to Steve McIntyre. The press release does not give and r^2 value, without which the word “robust” is an empty claim.
… and what they found was a remarkable (and robust) correlation between the models’ output and the assumptions made when the models were created (95% confidence).
What this appears to say is they’ve found another positive feedback — warming releases more CO2, and all of course according to the models.
Joe confirms;
“The study, published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, found that a temperature anomaly of just 1ºC (in near surface air temperatures in the tropics) leads to a 3.5-Petagram (billion tonnes of carbon) anomaly in the annual CO2 growth rate, on average. This is the equivalent of 1/3 of the annual global emissions from the combustion of fossil fuels and deforestation together.”
See figure 4 in particular of my study into paleo proxies and more recent times. Anomalies of 1 degree are very common on an annual and decadal scale so co2 emissions ought to be all over the place
http://judithcurry.com/2013/06/26/noticeable-climate-change/
tonyb
Tonnes are thousands of kilograms, so a billion tonnes is indeed a petagram (10^15)
Owen in GA says:
July 23, 2013 at 12:16 pm
“You did note that the author switched units between metric and imperial didn’t you? (grams v. tonnes) CSIRO may have been trying to keep it simple for the metric impaired.”
There are many tonnes but only one metric ton, of 1,000,000 grams. Which they used.
Note that they still can’t put the chicken and egg back into any order of appearance. The problem is while there is no doubt that warm water holds less CO2 then cool water, if there is no CO2 – temperature feedback or feedback that is overwhelmed by water and other feedbacks then the released CO2 merely creates richer growth in the biosphere which is an endothermic feedback process.
They have in effect stated that fizzy drinks go flat faster in warm weather than in cold, which any observant school child could have told them.
tadchem says:
July 23, 2013 at 12:11 pm
Are they saying a temperature increase drives the CO2 concentration?!
Oh, the Blasphemy!
Martin A says:
July 23, 2013 at 12:26 pm
This seems to provide a vindication of one aspect of Murry Salby’s work.
Everybody agrees that the fast changes in temperature cause fast changes in CO2 absorbance. That may be opposite for different time frames:
– the seasonal temperature swing in the NH causes a global change of 5 ppmv/°C by more uptake from growing leaves in mid- to high latitude forests.
– an interannual increase in temperature causes more CO2 release by tropical corests, partly due to changes in rain patterns and partly due to more respiration, but still not more than 2 ppmv in one year, mostly fully compensated over the next year(s).
Very long term (MWP-LIA and glacial-interglacial transitions) show some 8 ppmv/°C change over the past periods of 50 years to 800 kyrs.
Medium term changes are where the discussion is: according to Salby (and Bart), by integration against an arbitrary baseline even over 100 ppmv/°C…
Ahh yes the metric ton which in the American literature is always fully designated as such…I should have guessed it though as an imperial ton is about 4,400,000 grams (2.2kg/lb *2000lb)so the math wouldn’t have lined up. Of course the math not lining up in a climate study wouldn’t have tipped me off to the error in my units, as maths do not seem to be required areas of study for climate scientists.
Thanks for pointing that one out.