Guest Post by Bob Tisdale
Yesterday, in the press release Greenhouse gas benchmark reached, NOAA announced:
Global carbon dioxide concentrations surpass 400 parts per million for the first month since measurements began.
The press release begins:
For the first time since we began tracking carbon dioxide in the global atmosphere, the monthly global average concentration of this greenhouse gas surpassed 400 parts per million in March 2015, according to NOAA’s latest results.
“It was only a matter of time that we would average 400 parts per million globally,” said Pieter Tans, lead scientist of NOAA’s Global Greenhouse Gas Reference Network. “We first reported 400 ppm when all of our Arctic sites reached that value in the spring of 2012. In 2013 the record at NOAA’s Mauna Loa Observatory first crossed the 400 ppm threshold. Reaching 400 parts per million as a global average is a significant milestone.
After a few general discussions, the press release ends:
James Butler, director of NOAA’s Global Monitoring Division, added that it would be difficult to reverse the increases of greenhouse gases which are driving increased atmospheric temperatures. “Elimination of about 80 percent of fossil fuel emissions would essentially stop the rise in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, but concentrations of carbon dioxide would not start decreasing until even further reductions are made and then it would only do so slowly.”
“…difficult to reverse…”? I’ll let you comment on that.
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Time to crack open a beer!
No No No, the carbonation will escape into the atmosphere! 😉
Had to start a new oxygen bottle this morning, with all of this CO2 I’m suffering from diminished O2 in the brain. Maybe that’s what the warmist need: a new bottle of O2!
No more CO2 in Beer only O2, that’s de-carbonizing isn’t it??
Why ?? I haven’t noticed anything at all happen.
No thunder; no lightning, no category five hurricanes hitting the USA .
Not even close to a doubling yet since ML started recording.
Maybe I’ll wait till the weekend to have that beer.
Rule for Beer : If it is still the same color, after you drink it, then it wasn’t beer !!
g
My garden is very happy to hear this news.
Where is your garden? ;>)
If your garden is in California, it may not be so happy.
Everything in California is turning brown. If only we could get rid of the clown.
Or it might be unseasonalyy cold and wet..
https://chiefio.wordpress.com/2015/05/07/raining-in-san-jose-in-the-drought/
Our brain dead doofus Governor Brown moonbeam, says that all Californians should let their lawns die, and replace them with sand and stones, that don’t need watering.
Seems like my browning lawn always has dew on it in the mornings; but I never ever have seen dew on my driveway, which is concrete.
I believe it is the lack of vegetation around the base of Mt Kilimanjaro, that is the reason why the ice cap sublimes. The natives cut down what forestry there used to be there.
For the record, it is now Ocho de Mayo, and my front lawn sprinkler system has not seen any electric currents in its coils at any time in 2015, and yet the lawn hasn’t ever looked better.
Well getting rid of the tree that kept sun and rain off the lawn and didn’t suck everything out of the ground, has made my lawn into a bowling green. Yes tree fell down due to getting too heavy in the foliage department, for its own good.
Earth to moonbeam Brown. Hey Jerry, we already have deserts in California; so why build new ones, when we are still watering the old ones.
Why not just stop watering the old deserts that we already have. Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer fought tooth and nail to try and keep those California deserts in their pristine bone dry condition.
The Earth is a lot greener with so much fertilizer!
Co2 = life on earth….event at well over 1000ppm. I live at 45N in USA….I want warmer weather but this hasn’t seemed to help much.
CO2 plus sufficient water = life on earth.
Chris, increased CO2 content reduces a plant’s water need. So another reason to increase CO2. More life=more hope.
When it reaches 800ppm the global temperature will rise by 1.1C according to some estimates. At 2ppm per year increase (which incidentally does not depend linearly on anthropogenic CO2), this should take about 200 years.
It’s going to be a long time before they grow grapes in Siberia.
When it reaches 800ppm it may be warmer, colder, or the same temperature. We will all be long dead from old age by then so it will be up to our decendents to laugh at history’s supertistions and quackery
Bill Gray identified a wrong assumption in the models: intense storms dry the upper troposphere, not humidify it. ECS is consequently about 0.3K. CO2 won’t help much in warming the planet.
http://tropical.atmos.colostate.edu/Includes/Documents/Publications/gray2012.pdf
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10207073747150995&l=4a7ea74d00
Reverse what? Remove 80% of 4% that of course would make a difference especially to BA, EasyJet and Rynair, that’s 200,000 UK jobs gone at a stroke. No doubt Obama will finally admit that the world just cannot afford AirForce 1? Oil is 95% of our lives and allows us to feed 7.5 billion people how does this klutz imagine we can deliver food to Tesco in 42 ton trucks without having access to diesel what planet do these guys live on?
In the UK we are being inundated with wind turbines to save the planet but those who advocate this idiocy don’t appear to understand that you cannot have turbines without fossil fuel because as funny as it may seem we don’t have any residual iron ore in the UK and exactly how do you service maintain and repair offshore turbines without kerosene for the helicopters or do these Muppets believe you just attach a long lead to a turbine?
We have an election today and if Labour manage to stitch a deal with libdems then Siemens automatically get more orders to destroy our environment but save the planet as though our environment is not the planet.
They really do have their heads where the sun don’t shine.
Doesn’t matter which of the main parties in the UK win, they all have the same energy policy and all voted for the ridiculous Climate Change Act! Only one party has shown common sense on the issue, and that’s UKIP, who, unfortunately will be lucky if they get more than a couple of MP’s elected.
Exactly true but UKIP wont have much of a say unfortunately but Miliband Cleggy and Davey will so prepare for inundation!
And the people who are making a fortune from the wind farm subsidies are all staunch Labour supporters, aren’t they?
Update: in yesterday’s election Clegg, Davey and Milliband all lost their seats.
Or: Global carbon dioxide concentrations surpass 0.0004 for the first month since measurements began.
Or: If the atmosphere was made up of oranges and CO2 was an apple then for every 2,500 oranges you would find 1 apple. It takes 18 oranges to make 1 carton of a well known brand of orange juice, hence you’d have to buy 139 cartons on average to get yourself the juice of 1 apple. But that 1/18th of a carton will cause the other 138 cartons to heat up to catastrophic temperatures.
We’re all doomed
Don’t forget that it’s CO2, = 1 x C atom + 2 x O atoms, so we’re effectively enriching the oxygen content of the atmosphere too!
Err, is this a joke?
You obviously dont realise that the production of one CO2 molecule takes 2 O2 atoms from the atmosphere.
It does not create O2!!
Not quite correct in your analysis. Remember that the 400 ppm figure for CO2 is in “Dry Air”.
Still have only one atmosphere, so it is not 0.0004 percent, but 400 / 1,040,000 = 0.000385 , considering 4% water vapor.
That makes it closer to 2,600 oranges per apple and not 2,500.
CO2 Concentration Surpasses 400ppm , temperatures done nothing and yet the totally failure of underpinning of the claimed cause and effect behind CAGW , has made no difference to the ‘faithful
which shows what ever it is , it certainly is not science we are seeing in action.
I wondered how long it would be until someone pointed out the material point.
And the ‘pause’ continues WUWT?,
Previous WUWT headline:
“Global Temperature down in April, just 7/100ths of a degree above normal”
When gore, decaprio, and all the other alarmists give up their beach front mansions, private jets, and fleets of autos, then i may start to worry.
Don’t forget prince chucky – and remember, if you follow the clowns you will only end up at the main flap at the circus…
This is how it will end I think – as the climate worriers become ever more detached from reality, their lunacy will become irrefutably obvious.
NOAA’s announcement lacked the final comment – “And we are all going to die!”
That omission is a shame. There’s a lot of observational evidence for that – for a change.
All Flesh is Biomass. 🙂
Besides c02 going from 270 to 400 ppm and the observation of the greenhouse effect in a laboratory what else do warmists have to prove their case? I’m under the impression that most people that believe in this cause are under the impression that greenhouse effect is what the propaganda and the IPCC are claiming causes all this catastrophe. They have no idea what the amplification of warming is from the positive feedbacks plugged into the computer models is. They also believe from propaganda that the computer models are generally accurate which we all know is a joke. I’m not wiling to accept that direct heating from the greenhouse effect in a laboratory is interchangeable to our atmosphere but that would be a more reasonable amount of warming to consider. Most regular people like me actually think the greenhouse effect is interchangeable with CAGW and that it is a well demonstrated theory. This is what i thought many years ago. Maybe if more people would just understand this basic point we could finally cut into this nonsense hysterical propaganda.
The problem is two-fold. First, in sunlight, CO2 is saturated, absorbing and emitting IR, and converting a small fraction of IR energy into atmospheric heat and also in reverse. Basically, it’s a wash. But, at night, water vapor and CO2 are radiative gases and, unopposed by sunlight, convert atmospheric heat to IR which is lost to space. The global climate models are daytime 24//7 and do not include this constant darkside heat loss.
The above is the fall back position for the warmists and is NOT the greenhouse effect they claim. The second problem is that the greenhouse effect they claim involves the tropical upper troposphere. This region, according to their claims, HAS to be warming Earth’s surface and itself must be warming faster than the surface. Not only is this region or “hotspot” not warming, it has been found to be gently cooling for over 30 years. Furthermore, this region is -17 deg C and the surface is 15 deg C. It is patently impossible for a cold body to warm a hot body. Their trash science (not even good enough to be junk science) has so failed that they fall back and, by misdirection, pretend that CO2 in general simply heats the atmosphere directly, which it does not.
The night time effects of these radiative goes is apparent when you notice how quickly the air chills after sunset and how rapidly when little breezes kick up in the shadows of moving clouds on a sunny day. If anything, more CO2 means we will be cooler.
Yes it is not possible directly for colder body to heat warmer body. But if you have external heat source for warmer body and colder body is part of insulation of warmer body than temperature of warmer body directly depends on temperature of colder body. If temperature of colder body increases temperature of warmer body increases proportionally too due to lower heat loss.
It is same case as with insulation of house. Inside you have 20C, outside you have -20C. If temperature outside rises to -15 and if you not turn lower your heater inside temperature will go to 25C. This is exactly same case with Earth atmosphere. It works like insulation and any change in gradient of temperature in atmosphere has direct (not immediate) effect on surface temperature.
It is because Earth is source of heat too.
“The global climate models are daytime 24//7 and do not include this constant darkside heat loss.”
I find this very difficult to believe. What I WOULD believe is that there is a 24/7 “daytime” model, but which is applied to only about half-the Earth’s surface. Not doubting you, but do you have a reference for your claim? Thanks.
This is terrible! Within 100 years we’re all going to die! Well, almost all of us. Maybe we’ll die a tenth of a degree warmer, if even that much.
Steady CO2 increase, but no temperature increase in 18+ years! The sun activity, clouds, cosmic particles and ocean heat capasity controls the temperature, in cycles, that controls the CO2.
Pls look at Dr Salby’s latest april presentation on co2, its causes and its effect on temperature and also how ling it stays in the atmosphere
You lost me at its effect on temperature. Increasing CO2 with no change in lower trophoshereic temperatures in 18 years. That’s simple enough for anybody to grasp except you. Also, how long CO2 lingers in the atmosphere is a subject for lots of debate still.
As a true environmentalist and lover of life, I favor longer growing seasons and more plant food in the atmosphere.
+1
I have just taken a look outside.You will be pleased to know the world hasn’t ended./sarc
Well had I know 400 PPM was the apocalypse as Pieter Tans argues I’d have worked harder to get us there sooner….
#ClimateApolalypts
I’m sure I had seen reports this record broken before, widely reported in the Independent and the Guardian as prophesying the end of the world (but then all their headlines say that).
But when I read the first paragraph of the press release that Bob puts up, I see it has been reported before. First in 2012 from an Arctic site, again in 2013 at Mauna Loa and now again somewhere unspecified. Since CO2 is supposedly a well-mixed gas in the atmosphere how come these reports are 3 years apart? I suppose it keeps the fear-factor going.
Next we James Butler saying “it would be difficult to reverse the increases of greenhouse gases which are driving increased atmospheric temperatures”. What increased temperatures. Where has he been?
The preceding article on Global Temperatures makes it clear that there has been no warming for over 18 years. But the band wagon rolls on oblivious to reality (but I think the wheels are starting to fall off now).
MikeB,
As human emissions are 90% in the NH and the Arctic sites have the largest seasonal amplitude, they were the first to reach the 400 ppmv benchmark: big fanfare and press release.
Mauna Loa at 3,400 m height and Passat winds has a smaller seasonal amplitude, thus reached the 400 ppmv one year later: big fanfare and press release.
As the global average is calculated from a lot of sea level stations in the NH and SH, the latter lags the NH with 1-2 years, the 400 ppmv is reached this year: big fanfare and press release.
Maybe next year the last site on earth where the 400 ppmv will be reached: the South Pole at 3,000 meter height: last big fanfare and press release.
Repeat that every year for 410, 420, 430, 440 and extra festivities at 450 ppmv,… 500 ppmv festivities at the end of this century (with frost fairs on the Thames) are already in preparation…
Or how a non-news can be repeated again and again to keep people aware that the end is nigh…
Some at NOAA hasn’t made the calculations:
Humans emit about 4.5 ppmv/year.
The atmosphere increases with about 2.3 ppmv/year.
Net sinks are around 2.2 ppmv/year.
Thus if we lower human emissions to 2.2 ppmv/year, there is a break-even between human emissions and sink rate.
Seems more like a 50% reduction, not 80%, for an end of the increase and below that the start of a reduction in atmospheric CO2 levels. Even not so slowly: a half life time of ~40 years is not that slow…
And indeed: a new record CO2 level, but no significant temperature increase? I suppose that most plants, especially those in dry areas, are quite happy with all that extra CO2…
Ferdinand, don’t forget that the sink rate is increasing, which means that in about 20 to 40 years, mankind will need to increase their rate of CO2 emissions just to maintain the CO2 level.
I don’t think that the sink rate is increasing beyond what the increase in the atmosphere is pushing as extra pressure into the oceans: Pieter Tans said that three consecutive years show over 2.3 ppmv/year increase in the atmosphere. But one never knows what the future will bring…
Ferdinand,
The net sink of 2.2 ppmv/year is largely the flux difference between the atmosphere and the ocean. It is a function of the partial pressure difference at the interface so the net sink will not be a constant 2.2 ppmv/year if human emissions change significantly. I can’t say for certain that NOAA has done the calculation correctly, but your simple argument is not correct.
MarkB,
Sorry Mark: if the net sink is 2.2 ppmv/year caused by the 110 ppmv difference between the atmospheric CO2 and the equilibrium pressure for the current ocean temperature, then adding 2.2 ppmv/year would maintain the 110 ppmv difference and thus the 2.2 ppmv/year sink rate…
At the current 4.5 ppmv/year human emissions, the levels still go up, so does the sink rate…
Hello Ferdinand.
I am very interested to learn how the anthropogenic CO2 emissions are actually converted in ppm/year.
I never have come across of any such information,,,,,,, this does not mean that there is no any.
Can you point me where I can learn such a “magic” please.
Who else apart from you says that humans emit about 4.5ppmv/year?
Since when emissions are measured in ppm!
I will appreciate a lot your reply to this and any direction to some information in this particular issue.
Thank you.
Cheers
Whiten,
From a long time ago:
Humans emit CO2, which is counted as “carbon” (factor 44:12), because CO2 in the atmosphere is indeed CO2, but it is only 1% CO2 in the oceans, the rest is bicarbonate (~90%) and carbonate (~9%). In vegetation it is sugars, cellulose and hundreds of carbon containing chemicals… Carbon is the base for them all and it is the carbon balance that must fit.
In the atmosphere, CO2 is measured as ppmv: parts per million by volume. The volume of CO2 compared to the volume of air is in a molar ratio: one mole CO2 has the same volume as one mole O2 or N2.
Thus 44 g CO2 has the same volume as (0.8 * 14 + 0.2 * 16) = 14.4 g air.
If you have the total weight of all air in the atmosphere (app. 5.3 E15 ton), you can calculate the total weight of carbon (from CO2) in the atmosphere for a volume ratio CO2/air of 400 ppm: that is about 850 GtC (nowadays more and more written as PgC, which is of the same order), a factor 2.13.
There is some discussion about the total weight of the atmosphere, as water vapor adds to the weight, but that makes that the factor is between 2.11 and 2.13, no big deal.
Too hasty…
Molar weight of O2 is of course 32 and N2 is 28…
Thus 44 g CO2 has the same volume as 28.8 g air.
Didn’t make the calculations myself, the factor 2.13 was calculated by Willis some time ago…
…and what does that say about their little theory
More like .035 percent of the atmosphere.
“Many people don’t realize that over geological time, we’re really in a CO2 famine now. Almost never has CO2 levels been as low as it has been in the Holocene (geologic epoch) – 280 (parts per million – ppm) – that’s unheard of. Most of the time [CO2 levels] have been at least 1000 (ppm) and it’s been quite higher than that,” Happer told the Senate Committee. “Earth was just fine in those times,” Happer added. “The oceans were fine, plants grew, animals grew fine. So it’s baffling to me that we’re so frightened of getting nowhere close to where we started,” Happer explained.
Dr. Will Happer’s Testimony Before the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming – May 20, 2010
“My name is William Happer, and I am the Cyrus Fogg Bracket Professor of Physics at Princeton University. I have spent my professional life studying the interactions of visible and infrared radiation with gases – one of the main physical phenomena behind the greenhouse effect. I have published over 200 papers in peer reviewed scientific journals. I am a member of a number of professional organizations, including the American Physical Society and the National Academy of Sciences. I have done extensive consulting work for the US Government and Industry. I also served as the Director of Energy Research at the Department of Energy (DOE) from 1990 to 1993, where I supervised all of DOE’s work on climate change”.
http://www.climatedepot.com/2013/05/14/co2-nears-400-ppm-relax-its-not-global-warming-end-times-but-only-a-big-yawn-climate-depot-special-report/ and
http://www.climatedepot.com/2010/05/21/prominent-princeton-scientist-dr-happer-testifies-to-congress-warming-and-increased-co2-will-be-good-for-mankind/
+1
Sadly, Dr. Happer was testifying to elitists who don’t listen to genuine science but love to tell us what we must do.
Bubba – you are right the Earth has been several millenia with CO2 levels considerably higher than this with only positive effects. But you will note the weasel words in NOAA’s release: ” since we began tracking carbon dioxide in the global atmosphere”
As demonstrated by the cessation of ‘warming’, there is zero proof that CO2 is actually doing anything in the real world other than increase the greening of the planet and the global crop yields. But NOAA has to please its paymaster.
FYI the CO2 measurements began in 1958. So “since we began tracking” means over the last 57 years. Notice how the press release very studiously avoided giving the proper time frame.
http://www.climatecentral.org/library/climopedia/the_longest-running_project_for_measuring_carbon_dioxide_in_the_atmosphere
Agreed Bubba.
I wrote the following on this subject, posted on Icecap.us circa December 2014:
On Climate Science, Global Cooling, Ice Ages and Geo-Engineering:
[excerpt]
Furthermore, increased atmospheric CO2 from whatever cause is clearly beneficial to humanity and the environment. Earth’s atmosphere is clearly CO2 deficient and continues to decline over geological time. In fact, atmospheric CO2 at this time is too low, dangerously low for the longer term survival of carbon-based life on Earth.
More Ice Ages, which are inevitable unless geo-engineering can prevent them, will cause atmospheric CO2 concentrations on Earth to decline to the point where photosynthesis slows and ultimately ceases. This would devastate the descendants of most current [terrestrial] life on Earth, which is carbon-based and to which, I suggest, we have a significant moral obligation.
Atmospheric and dissolved oceanic CO2 is the feedstock for all carbon-based life on Earth. More CO2 is better. Within reasonable limits, a lot more CO2 is a lot better.
As a devoted fan of carbon-based life on Earth, I feel it is my duty to advocate on our behalf. To be clear, I am not prejudiced against non-carbon-based life forms, but I really do not know any of them well enough to form an opinion. They could be very nice. 🙂
Best, Allan
Few know what 400 ppm even means, or how it can be compared to other gases, case in point my 6th year old who is a pretty good science student was listening to the radio yeaterday in the car and during a window commercial he heard them mention argon, he said “That’s the gas they put in windows right dad”? I said “Yup” then I explained “It’s pretty common stuff, making it cheap to make, it’s even in the air we breathe, what do you think is more common in the air, CO2 or Argon?”. He quickly said said CO2 and didn’t believe me when I said Argon, the forgotten gas, is actually about 25 times more common than CO2. I was thinking the “what has a higher % in the atmosphere, CO2 or Argon” would be a quick way to discredit the typical science-illiterate warmist.
Correction 6th grader not 6 year old.