Robbie Andrew from the Center for International Climate and Environmental Research – Oslo has created an interesting animated graph showing the growth of CO2 in the atmosphere. While it has the typical “climate proponent” view attached to it, it is interesting to watch because it clearly shows how CO2 jumps faster when ENSO is strongly positive.
He writes:
Drivers of Atmospheric CO2
Discussion
While we measure the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere in mere parts per million (ppm), this small amount has a substantial effect on the temperature at the surface of the Earth. The amount has now increased by 40% since the industrial revolution, leading directly to increased temperatures worldwide.
There are four main drivers of the changes in the level of CO2 in the atmosphere.
The seasonal cycle
The first is the seasonal cycle, dominated by the forests of the northern hemisphere, absorbing CO2 via photosynthesis in summer and spring, and then, in autumn and winter, the decay of their fallen leaves to release some of that CO2 back into the atmosphere. This cycle can be seen here as a pulse, sometimes imagined as the planet ‘breathing’.
Emissions
The second most important driver is our emissions from burning of fossil fuels and deforestation. This transfers carbon that has been stored for a very long time underground into the atmosphere in the form of CO2. Nature partially compensates for this increased level of CO2, with both forests and oceans absorbing more (the latter leading to acidification of the oceans), but this amounts to only a little over half of the new CO2, with 44% of each year’s emissions remaining in the atmosphere.
The El Niño Southern Oscillation
The third driver is often referred to as El Niño, or more correctly as the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO). ENSO describes a naturally occurring cycle of pressure and temperature differences across the width of the Pacific Ocean. In El Niño years there tend to be more droughts in important forested areas, and that reduces the productivity of forests, in turn reducing their absorption of CO2 from the atmosphere. The drier conditions can also lead to increased wildfires, sending even more CO2 into the atmosphere. Strong El Niño conditions can be seen in here 1983, 1988, 1998, and 2015.
Volcanoes
The fourth major driver is the periodic eruption of volcanoes, the most significant of which in the last few decades was Mt Pinatubo in the Philippines in June of 1991. The enormous amount of fine debris thrown into the atmosphere – probably the largest since Krakatoa in 1883 – stayed there for many months, blocking sunlight, reducing global temperatures by about 0.6°C, but also increasing diffuse sunlight, which stimulates tree canopy growth, with the overall effect of increased natural carbon sinks. Note that it’s not about the CO2 volcanoes emit when they erupt: Pinatubo emitted about 50 MtCO2 in 1991, compared with our own emissions of about 29000 MtCO2 in the same year.
Relative effects
The relative effects of ENSO and our emissions on the growth of atmospheric CO2 can be determined by analysis of these data. The bars at the bottom of the animation above show these effects, with the effect of emissions being always positive and growing, while that of ENSO flicks between positive and negative depending on whether the planet is currently in El Niño (to the right) or La Niña (to the left). The effect of the sea-surface temperatures used to measure ENSO on measured atmospheric CO2 is delayed by several months because of the natural processes involved. The year 2015 was a particularly strong El Niño year, and, when combined with our record-high emissions, atmospheric CO2 levels rose more sharply than usual.
Sources
NOAA releases weekly average concentrations of CO2 measured at Mauna Loa, Hawaii here. These data are similar to, but not the same as, estimates of global average concentration. Mauna Loa data are often used because they are the longest set of measured data.
Global emissions data are from the Global Carbon Project.
ENSO temperature data are from the Hadley Centre’s Sea Surface Temperature dataset HadSST.3.1. Note that data for October 2016 were not available at the time of writing.
For the relative effects of ENSO and emissions I have relied on the relationship found by Richard Betts and colleagues.
Anthony adds:
One thing worth noting is that Mr. Andrew’s opinion about the nature of ENSO and climate differs from the view of the NOAA ESRL author of this graph:
Klaus Wolter says:
El Niño/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) is the most important coupled ocean-atmosphere phenomenon to cause global climate variability on interannual time scales.
What is clear from his MEI graph above, is that since 1976, we’ve spent far more time in the positive (warmer) phase of ENSO than we have in the blue (colder) phase. This is backed up by a BAMS paper in 2005 by Hartmann and Wendler, who say this about the climate of Alaska:
The 1976 Pacific climate shift is examined, and its manifestations and significance in Alaskan climatology during the last half-century are demonstrated. The Pacific Decadal Oscillation index shifted in 1976 from dominantly negative values for the 25-yr time period 1951–75 to dominantly positive values for the period 1977–2001.
Mean annual and seasonal temperatures for the positive phase were up to 3.1°C higher than for the negative phase.
This shift not only translates to Pacific ocean warming and subsequent climatological effects in Alaska, but also outgassing of CO2 due to CO2 having less solubility in warmer water (think warm soda pop).
Roger Andrews noted this in 2012 in a comment left at Tallbloke’s Talkshop:
The graph compares ICOADS global SST anomalies with the Mauna Loa CO2 record, with both records 12-month smoothed to remove seasonality. The scales are adjusted so that CO2 visually tracks SST.
To illustrate the change in SST, I’ve added arrows to show the dramatic change in slope that occurred in the mid to late 70’s with SST.
The breakpoint in 1976/77 is known as the Great Pacific Climate shift, and was identified in a paper by Ebbesmeyer et. al in 1990.
In 2009, WUWT published a press release about the paper:
“The surge in global temperatures since 1977 can be attributed to a 1976 climate shift in the Pacific Ocean that made warming El Niño conditions more likely than they were over the previous 30 years and cooling La Niña conditions less likely” says corresponding author de Freitas.
“We have shown that internal global climate-system variability accounts for at least 80% of the observed global climate variation over the past half-century. It may even be more if the period of influence of major volcanoes can be more clearly identified and the corresponding data excluded from the analysis.”
The paper: http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2009/2008JD011637.shtml
So while CO2 emissions have certainly increased globally since 1958…so has the positive effect of ENSO. One has to wonder what the climate argument would be like today had the great Pacific Climate Shift not occurred. I’m betting that Dr. James Hansen would not have testified in 1988 about global warming, or need to turn off the air conditioner in the hearing room to dramatize his point, but likely would have been more concerned about cooling.
Earth’s carbon cycle contains 46,713 Gt (E15 gr) +/- 850 Gt (+/- 1.8%) of stores and reservoirs with a couple hundred fluxes Gt/y (+/- ??) flowing among those reservoirs. Mankind’s gross contribution over 260 years was 555 Gt or 1.2%. (IPCC AR5 Fig 6.1) Mankind’s net contribution, 240 Gt or 0.53%, (dry labbed by IPCC to make the numbers work) to this bubbling, churning caldron of carbon/carbon dioxide is 4 Gt/y +/- 96%. (IPCC AR5 Table 6.1) Seems relatively trivial to me. IPCC et. al. says natural variations can’t explain the increase in CO2. With these tiny percentages and high levels of uncertainty how would anybody even know? BTW fossil fuel between 1750 and 2011 represented 0.34% of the biospheric carbon cycle.
Mankind’s modelled additional atmospheric CO2 power flux (W/m^2, watt is power, energy over time) between 1750 and 2011, 261 years, is 2 W/m^2 of radiative forcing. (IPCC AR5 Fig SPM.5) Incoming solar RF is 340 W/m^2, albedo reflects 100 W/m^2 (+/- 30 & can’t be part of the 333), 160 W/m^2 reaches the surface (can’t be part of the 333), latent heat from the water cycle’s evaporation is 88 W/m2 (+/- 8). Mankind’s 2 W/m^2 contribution is obviously trivial, lost in the natural fluctuations.
One popular GHE theory power flux balance (“Atmospheric Moisture…. Trenberth et al 2011jcli24 Figure 10) has a spontaneous perpetual loop (333 W/m^2) flowing from cold to hot violating three fundamental thermodynamic laws. (1. Spontaneous energy out of nowhere, 2. perpetual loop w/o work, 3. cold to hot w/o work, 4. doesn’t matter because what’s in the system stays in the system) Physics must be optional for “climate” science. What really counts is the net W/m^2 balance at ToA which 7 out of 8 re-analyses included in the above cited paper concluded the atmosphere was cooling, not warming (+/- 12.3 W/m^2). Of course Dr. Trenberth says they are wrong because their cooling results are not confirmed by his predicted warming, which hasn’t happened for twenty years. (“All of the net TOA imbalances are not tenable and all except CFSR imply a cooling of the planet that clearly has not occurred.”) Except it also hasn’t gotten hotter.
Very interesting comment above. The small perturbation mankind has had on CO2 flows has been claimed for a long time now to be “not relevant” by CAGW alarmists. They seem to get away with this by claiming the isotopic “finger prints” of fossil fuel burning are on the “exactly correct” (i.e., model estimated) percent of the CO2 in the atmosphere. I have always found this claim fascinatingly suspect. Can someone list all the reasons why it weakly supported (if at all)?
Or if you prefer, advise on which scientific papers support this belief and “finger printing analysis”, but include in the considerations that “ancient” CO2 “buried” deep in the cold ocean (back long before the first half of the 20th century) — and potentially as ancient as fossil fuel buried underground — can also have worked its way to ocean surface and into the atmosphere, confounding the isotopic “finger prints” analysis done, whose authors only want it to point to fossil fuel burning (and not ancient CO2 from the deep ocean).
Nicholas,
Even if the natural cycle was 100 or 1000 times larger than the human contribution, that has zero interest for the cause of the increase. Most of the natural cycle is a two way cycle, human contribution is one way addition. As long as the increase in the atmosphere is less than of what humans add, nature is a net sink for CO2, not a source…
The main natural CO2 fluxes are seasonal. that is about 60 GtC in and out (mainly NH) vegetation and in opposite direction about 50 GtC out and in the ocean surfaces with temperature. Besides that, there is a near continuous CO2 flux between equatorial warmed upwelling deep ocean waters and the sinking cold waters near the poles of about 40 GtC/year. The year by year natural variability of all these fluxes together is +/- 4.5 GtC.
The human contribution is currently about 9 GtC/year. The natural variability thus is only half the human contribution. Moreover, in average only half the human contribution (as mass, not the original molecules) remain in the atmosphere. That means that the natural cycle over a longer time frame is more sink than source. Near all the accumulation is caused by humans, only a small part by temperature: according to Henry’s law about 16 ppmv/K for the solubility of CO2 in seawater.
Yearly CO2 levels follow human emissions almost perfectly:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/temp_emiss_increase.jpg
While in the derivatives, the influence of temperature variability on CO2 rate of change is clear, still the average increase in the atmosphere is only half the human contribution:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/dco2_em2.jpg
See further for a detailed number of reasons why human emissions are the cause of the increase:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/co2_origin.html
The thing to bear in mind is that the temperature anomaly around the1940s has been continually adjusted downwards such that it has been reduced by about 0.3 to 0.5deg C.
But for these repeated adjustments, the validity behind them being moot, It is quite possibly the case that the planet is no warmer today than it was in the 1940s.
IPCC’s numbers displayed on Figure 6.1 and in table 6.1 are pulled square out of their butts. The speculative net contribution of 261 years worth of fossil fuel rearranged 0.34% of the carbon balance,160 Gt out of 46,713 Gt.. Nobody really knows with certainty or precision how much carbon/CO2 there is, where it comes from, where it goes, nothing but WAGs and SWAGs.
FE
Your 9 Gt/y are partitioned – 4 Gt/y remaining in the atmosphere, 5 (4.9) Gt/y sequestered by oceans and land in conveniently and magically appearing new sinkage. (Figure & Table 6.1) There is no scientific or actuarial justification for this arbitrary partitioning of anthro C/CO2 alone, it is done simply to make the numbers look right and focus on anthro C/CO2 as IPCC’s mandate dictates.
Natural variation is the null hypothesis. “They” claim natural variation cannot explain the increase in atmospheric carbon (0.51%) between 1750 and 2011. Considering the magnitude of the stores (46,713 Gt) and fluxes (100’s Gt/y) and a total uncertainty of 1,700 Gt (+/- 1.5% – Yeah, right like they know the numbers before 1750 to that level.), there is no way anybody can disprove the null hypothesis.
Nicholas,
It is of zero interest for CO2 in the atmosphere how much carbon in different forms is in the oceans or vegetation or carbonate rocl layers, as long as it stays there.
It is of zero interest for the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere if there is a huge exchange between the atmosphere and other reservoirs, as long as release and uptake are equal…
Only the unbalance between release and uptake by other reservoirs (and humans) does change the CO2 levels in the atmosphere.
Human emissions are reasonably known as 9 -0.5/+1.5 GtC/year. CO2 increase in the atmosphere is accurately measured as 4.5 +/- 0.4 GtC/year. Somewhere, somehow the difference is absorbed in natural sinks. As long as the increase in the atmosphere is less than what humans add, nature contributes zero, nada, nothing to the atmospheric CO2 increase…
These sinks are not new sinks, these are existing carbon cycles which react on the increased CO2 pressure in the atmosphere: both the oceans and vegetation take more CO2 in than they release over the seasons (or different areas) with an increased CO2 pressure in the atmosphere.
The amount of CO2 taken away by oceans and vegetation only depends of the extra CO2 pressure (pCO2) in the atmosphere above (dynamic) equilibrium, not of the momentary CO2 emissions in any year.
If humans would halve their emissions, oceans and vegetation still would take the same amount away at the same pCO2, that amount then is near in equilibrium with the emissions and CO2 levels would stay the same…
If humans did stop all emissions, CO2 levels will drop fast at ~4.5 GtC/year the first year, next year a little less, as the pCO2 dropped a little, etc… until the CO2 levels are again in (dynamic) equilibrium as dictated by the average ocean surface temperature (Henry’s law): the releases and uptakes are again in equilibrium. For the current average ocean temperature, that is around 290 ppmv, while we still are at 400 ppmv and growing…
“It is of zero interest for CO2 in the atmosphere how much carbon in different forms is in the oceans or vegetation or carbonate rocl layers, as long as it stays there.”
Except through natural variations it doesn’t stay there. The burden of proof is on you to demonstrate that it stays there and with the numbers and uncertainties you have, you cannot do that.
“It is of zero interest for the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere if there is a huge exchange between the atmosphere and other reservoirs, as long as release and uptake are equal…”
Except they aren’t. The burden of proof is on you to demonstrate that equality exists and with the numbers and uncertainties you have, you cannot do that.
“Only the unbalance between release and uptake by other reservoirs (and humans) does change the CO2 levels in the atmosphere.”
“Unbalance” is due to natural variations. The burden of proof is on you to demonstrate that the unbalance is due to anthro CO2 and with the numbers and uncertainties you have, you cannot do that.
Nicholas,
My second graph shows you the real life variability in rate if change of the yearly CO2 increase in the atmosphere over the past 55+ years and human emissions, The net sink rate = human emissions – increase in the atmosphere.
1. All what counts is the accuracy of the emissions inventory (which is sufficiently accurate) and the accuracy of the CO2 measurements (which is highly accurate). That is all you need to calculate the net result of all natural in and out fluxes between atmosphere and other reservoirs. You don’t need to know any individual natural CO2 flux or its variability or the quantities in any reservoir.
2. In every year the increase in the atmosphere was less than human emissions. That means that nature’s contribution to the increase was less than zero, nada, nothing. Nature was a net sink for CO2 every year in the past decades. Whatever the height of the natural cycles, whatever the change in fluxes, even if some input or output doubled or halved from one year to the next, even if some reservoir changed from a net sink into a net source… The net result for all natural fluxes together is a sufficient accurately known net, variable sink in the past decades…
3. Imbalance is partly caused by natural variations, in this case mainly by temperature variations. As can be seen in the second graph, the natural variability is not more than +/- 1 ppmv around the trend, +/- 1.5 ppmv for the extremes (Pinatubo, El Niño). That is a natural variability of about half human emissions around a trend that also is about half human emissions.
That is all for natural variability, despite enormous reservoirs (in the deep oceans and carbonate rocks) and huge in/out fluxes between atmosphere and these reservoirs…
4. Imbalance is mainly caused by increased CO2 pressure (pCO2) in the atmosphere above the dynamic equilibrium with the ocean pCO2 for the average ocean surface temperature, which is 290 μatm while we are at 400 ppmv (~μatm) in the atmosphere.
That results in a calculated increase of ~0.5 GtC/year in the ocean surface, based on ocean chemistry.
That results in a calculated increase of ~1 GtC/year in the biosphere, based on the oxygen balance.
That results in a residual increase of ~3 GtC/year in the deep oceans.
The rest of human emissions end as a measured increase of ~4.5 GtC/year in the atmosphere.
You see, not so difficult to show that the natural variability is less than half human emissions and has zero contribution to the increase in the atmosphere…
Over half of the sequestered anthro CO2 occurs in the land flux. What does the partial pressure handwavium have to do with that?
Nicholas,
Why do you think that glasshouse owners add 1000 ppmv CO2 and more into their glass houses? Higher CO2 pressure means more CO2 uptake in the plant’s water via the alveoles, In ideal circumstances (as is usual the case in glasshouses), plants therefore grow a lot faster…
Even in the real world: even the (semi)deserts are greening…
Ferdinand,
You say, “Even in the real world: even the (semi)deserts are greening [emph. add.]…” I note the use of “real world” appears especially apt. That single empirical fact means that land-based sinks are expanding with increased atmospheric CO2. Like the CO2-temperature lag which plagues the “model world” of climate change, the sink-CO2 relation should reflect a lagged response of sinks to the changes in CO2. .The estimation of a declining sink rate by simply using the negation of the atmospheric trend appears to be mere guess work. In fact visual inspection of your second graph indicates that the indicated “decline” in the sink rate is likely to be impossible. Far more likelyt is a lagged increase in sink rate, which would be consistent with the empirical evidence of increased green plant mass.
Since CO2 does not remain at a fixed level in the atmosphere at any time span in geological history, your argument that natural processes are irrelevant is quite mistaken. CO2 has never been in equilibrium in the atmosphere during the last 600 MY. While there is no question that human generated emissions must have an effect, it is highly questionable that they can be more than roughly estimated, and since natural atmospheric CO2 changes as climate changes, you can not rigorously demonstrate that human CO2 emissions do more than alter isotope ratios. No exhaustive description of natural emissions and sinks exists.
Duster,
You need to look at the time frames and the observed effect of temperature on CO2 levels.
In very short time frames like seasonal and 2-3 years (Pinatubo, El Niño), the effect of temperature is fast, but limited to 5 ppmv/K, where the effect of temperature is opposite between seasonal and 2-3 years variavility, both mainly effects on vegetation.
On longer time frames, the effect is 8 ppmv/K (MWP-LIA) up to 16 ppmv/K (glacial-interglacial), mainly the effect on (deep) oceans.
Vegetation and oceans are acting in opposite ways on temperature, where on short term vegetation is dominant, on long term the oceans are dominant.
Thus, even if there was never a full equilibrium, the maximum effect of temperature on CO2 levels was 16 ppmv/K after thousands of years with a “speed” of increase during a deglaciation of 0.02 ppmv/year…
According to Henry’s law the solubility of CO2 in seawater is between 4-17 ppmv/K in the literature. Some 3 million samples of seawater find about 16 ppmv/K, not surprisingly what is found as maximum effect of temperature on CO2 levels.
The current increase speed is over 2 ppmv/year, thus about 100 times faster than in the far past, with human emissions over 4 ppmv/year. No wonder that nature can’t follow that speed of extra CO2 addition, as besides the fast but limited uptake by the ocean’s surface layer, all other sinks are much slower. The average decay rate for any extra CO2 above (dynamic) equilibrium is around 35 years half life time.
Human CO2 emissions are based on fossil fuel sales and burning efficiency. The sales include heavy taxes for the different states and are at least accurate, at worst underestimated. No way that these are overestimated…
The uptake by plants can be calculated from the oxygen balance: photosynthesis produces oxygen when CO2 is incorporated and the decay/eating of plant material uses oxygen. That -and the 13C/12C ratio- makes it easy to distinct between oceanic and plant/fossil CO2. That shows that the biosphere as a whole is a small, but growing sink for CO2, currently around 1 GtC/year. The oceans still are the main sink for ~0.5 GtC/year (calculated and measured) in the surface layer and ~3 GtC/year in the deep oceans.
Where many here are mistaken is that you need a detailed inventory of all natural CO2 fluxes and cycles. That is not at all necessary, as the net result of all these natural fluxes is the difference between human emissions and what happens in the atmosphere. Which is known with sufficient accuracy. Which shows that in the past 55+ years nature was always a net sink for CO2, despite all temperature variability…
Ferdinand,
Soils are a one way source to the atmosphere to the tune of 60 GtC/year. Their contribution, some 6 times current human, is too close isotopically to distinguish.
I agree with your reasoning that since the increase is less than human emission, the rest of the planet is a net sink, but insist that we add soils as also one way to the human side of the equation. This means that we have 70 GtC/year soils+human isotopically indistinguishable and a lot of sink to find.
This lower than -20PDB Carbon soils and humans produce is premium and preferred by photosynthesis. It will go first, making it somewhat easier to find the biological sinks. The ocean atmosphere physical interface also fractionates. Ocean inhale prefers 12C to the tune of about -2 PDB, leaving +2 to the atmosphere, but ocean exhale fractionates more strongly, preferring 12C at -10 PDB to the atmosphere. The ocean/atmosphere fluxes are closely balanced with a slight edge to sink or inhale, so that means the oceans are a net source to the atmosphere of 12C and no help in getting rid of the soil/human surplus.
The wild card is temperature. Nobody understands the relationship between temperature and soil CO2 production. It is also moisture dependent with to wet producing anaerobic conditions (bog methane has been measured at -100 PDB) and too dry also inhibiting.
This is a tough business. Separating the trend from the variability around the trend with a 6x co producer and a temperature wildcard is very difficult.
NOAA releases weekly average concentrations of CO2 measured at Mauna Loa.
Can anyone tell me why we MUST trust the Mauna Loa data? Is the collection and record keeping function audited by a “disinterestedness” third party?
They could try to fudge it for a while but eventually those induced errors would build up and some other independent parties would notice and the gig would be up.
Same with sea ice. NOAA could fudge the numbers for a week or two, maybe a month, but fortunately there are enough independent eyes on it, they would get exposed in a long running scam.
Sea ice extents and CO2 measurements are quatifiable entities. But a globally averaged surface temp anomaly is just some made-up number with a tonne of assumptions and in-filling. Fudge that they can.
Thank you for your response. Can we assume some other institution has accurately measured total additions of CO2?
Ron, there are multiple earth watching stations and their data sets are available.
One is at Cape Point, South Africa. It has a CO2 monitor which is automatically calibrated daily. They also measure mercury and other trace gases. It is manned by volunteer scientists weeks to months at a time. They also record wind speed and direction so the gas readings can be traced to their sources.
I believe it is every bit as good as the Hawaiian record, just not for as long.
The assumption is that out at Mauna Loa the air has had time to heavily blend the CO2 concentration after traveling over the ocean, so it’s a ‘pristine’ sample point that produces an averaged value by natural blending instead of mathematical weighting. Exactly the opposite of 80% of the thermometer locations globally.
Ron,
There are some 10 base stations under supervision of NOAA all over the world, mostly on islands in the oceans and coastal, or midst of (ice) deserts to avoid local contamination. Besides that, Scripps still uses their own (flask) measurements at Mauna Loa and other places and many other countries and institutions measure CO2 on other places, some 70 in total at least contaminated places. Some 400 other stations and tall towers try to measure CO2 fluxes over forests and industrial areas and nowadays there are a few satellites trying to measure CO2 column levels, but still have their problems…
Several station results can be found on the “carbon tracker” website of NOAA, not only for CO2 but for a lot of other gases too:
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/dv/iadv/
NOAA makes and tests the calibration mixtures to calibrate all instruments worldwide, but still Scripps (and the Japanese) make their own calibration mixtures. Scripps was the first institute to make such mixtures and was not very happy that the WMO did give that privilege to NOAA…
Dang, the AMO failed to make the cut again.
Amazing, isn’t it.
One of the main drivers of NH temperatures.. DOH !!
I don’t think anything is clear from this sort of animation. It is probably much easier to imagine you are seeing something that may or may not be there.
If there is some such relationship it should be presented as a conventional graph of the appropriate quantities and if helpful some kind of correlation statistic.
.
The main cooling effect of volcanoes is from sulphate aerosols not the “fined debris” , that last several years after the eruption. One wonders how well the author of this animation knows the subject.
Quite so Greg. Although a disinterested observer might speculate the fine debris could have an effect on warming or cooling.
But, can you show us where the volcanoes are in the GCMs or CMIPs or whatever they are called these days. It’s my impression that they only use volcanoes to help tune models to cooling episodes in the past. In other words, we are asked to accept that volcanic activity is over and will not reappear.
Which of course is nonsense.
Intersting
Looking at all of the CO2 surface stations that were recording at that time North, South, East and West, there is no record of the release of CO2 in the atmosphere anywhere in the world. The trends are constant
One of the early IPCC reports had a plot showing how CO2 goes up during El Nino and down during La Nina. Not news, and there are published papers addressing why.
Henry’s law is still a physical chemistry law? Who knew?
The details of globally-relevant, regional natural CO2 sources and sinks is poorly constrained. That major gap in understanding is what the NASA OCO-2 mission is supposd to fill-in. OCO-2 launched in July 2, 2014. The first 6 months was calibrations and testing to understand sensor performance.
But disgressing for a moment. Before man had invented the telescope, we knew the sun and planets revolved around the Earth. But in the decades after men began building telescopes and began examining Jupiter, it was apparent it had moons that went around Jupiter, and also Sturn had orbiting moons. And the geocentric model failed to explain all the detailed motions using telescopes and careful observations. Wild attempts with ever more complex epicircles were built by dogmatic mathematicians to explain the motions. But those attempts failed in the face of ever more telescopic observations. Heliocentrism was a paradigm shift for the ages. The Roman Catholic Church resisted this paradigm change mightly, purely on dogmatic grounds.
Now we have built more telescopes, but this time put them in orbit and turned them toward the Earth. As data rolls in, the OCO-2 data will also likely force a CO2 emission-sink paradigm shift that will be resisted by the Church of CAGW on dogmatic grounds as well.
At this point we should be getting nice regular pictures of about every 2 weeks of global CO2 concentration coverage so that seasonality of the natural sources and sinks can begin to be understood. This would be level 3 and 4 products. However, OCO-2 level 3 and 4 data is not forthcoming from the NASA data teams, despite several years of level-2 data now available, with a few outside independent analyses/presentations of that data,
Where is it? Is the Church of CAGW suppressing embarrassing OCO data?
Very interesting.
“These analysis results would appear to leave very, very little doubt that EPA’s claim of a Tropical Hot Spot, caused by rising atmospheric CO2 levels, simply does not exist in the real world. Also critically important, even on an all-other-things-equal basis, this analysis failed to find that the steadily rising Atmospheric CO2 Concentrations have had a statistically significant impact on any of the 13 temperature time series analyzed.” Wallace etal 2016
“The amount has now increased by 40% since the industrial revolution, leading directly to increased temperatures worldwide.” Drivers of atmospheric CO2
Salby shows no correlation of anthropogenic CO2 emissions and atmospheric content. Wallace shows no correlation of CO2 and Temperature.
So this author got one the drivers wrong as well as the results. But the graph is fun and may show a relationship worth study.
Does this mean (prove) there is no correlation of anthropogenic CO2 emissions and atmospheric content? Ditto for temperature and CO2?
Well said Ron.
Note; While we measure the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere in mere parts per million (ppm), this small amount has a substantial effect on the temperature at the surface of the Earth. The amount has now increased by 40% since the industrial revolution, leading directly to increased temperatures worldwide.
So if they “claim” Co2 has gone up and there is as they claim a correlation, why has not temperature gone up 40% ??? Look back on years and you will see rise and fall of Co2 and the temperature, it’s just the normal cycles, there is no man made global warming, well in very small amounts there are, as before us there was no New York, and today there is, thus in the area on New York, its warmer now than before it was there, but that does not add with all the Citys on the World to warming, as I said just look at charts from Millions of years ago and to now, and the Temperature goes up and it goes down, same with Co2.
Wayne
Yes see
http://notrickszone.com/2016/08/07/astrophysicist-murray-salby-compares-co2-pseudo-science-to-the-medical-quackery-of-blood-letting/
and
http://icecap.us/index.php/go/new-and-cool
for connections to the referenced work.
No. We don’t know nearly enough to assert we “know” anything. There is no reason not to think that at a minimum carbon isotope ratios are affected by human emissions. While the known facts are really scant, it is reasonable to hypothesize that at least some of the Mauna Loa increase is due to human emissions, but just what does that mean? Arguably, we could be increasing planetary biological productivity (which would mean increased sink rates). The link between planetary temperature and CO2 is not reflected geologically – so anyone that wants to argue that CO2 does effect planetary climate needs to better delineate how the natural systems really work. One of the realities of science is that quite often something that makes perfect sense in a lab may not be so simply coupled to natural processes out the lab door.
Salby’s argument that human CO2 emissions and atmospheric content are unrelated is wrong. The way he shows it is wrong, and when done correctly a decent correlation pops up, supporting the “official” claim that about half of our emissions stay in the atmosphere. I did it myself as a homework some time ago and some time later it even popped up here on WUWT:
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/04/19/the-secret-life-of-half-life/
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/11/25/about-spurious-correlations-and-causation-of-the-co2-increase-2/
I don’t quite trust any of Salby’s conclusions since then. He had enough time to fix his errors but he’s still presenting the very same talk with the very same images and errors he did years ago.
It’s a lousy correlation. Basically a flip of the coin that they both have shallow, roughly positive curvature.
Bart,
It has an R^2 of 0.9993, nothing less. But indeed that doesn’t prove that one is the cause of the other. What proves it is the combination of all observations, where none disagrees with the human origin of the increase in the atmosphere. Integrated temperature on the other side fails every single observation.
I thought that failing one observation was enough to discard a theory?
DMA,
Dr. Salby was wrong on this point (and several others) for the simple reason that he looks at the derivatives of temperature variability and CO2 rate of change variability. These show a quite high correlation, but that only proves that the variability in rate of change of CO2 is influenced by temperature. That says next to nothing about the cause of the increase…
If one looks at the derivatives, most of the increase itself is already removed and the varibaility gets overblown. In reality the most extreme temperature variability (Pinatubo, El Niño) doesn’t give more than 1.5 ppmv variability around a trend of +70 ppmv since 1959, caused by over 150 ppmv human emissions…
The correlation between total emissions with hardly any variability and total CO2 has an R^2 of 0.9998, Between total CO2 and temperature it is 0.8000.
From my POV … There is a problem… Forget ’emissions’, forget ‘targets’, forget what may or may not happen sometime circa 2150 according to a model ensemble …
I care about THIS Winter and my survival. And our eco-loons don’t understand this.
CO2 can go up or down by a few percent (ppm), the temperature of an entire Planet can move by a few 10ths of a degree over 100 years … I… DON’T… CARE!
If I get too cold and there is no fuel then I will burn ‘greens’ to stay alive!
You want to see ‘anarchy’ replace what we have … Cut off the energy, cut off the light …
This is old news, but it is still not getting adequate attention. I stated in my January 2008 paper:
http://icecap.us/images/uploads/CO2vsTMacRae.pdf
The rate of change of atmospheric CO2 (dCO2/dt) correlates closely and ~contemporaneously with global temperature, and its integral atmospheric CO2 lags temperature by about nine months in the modern data record. CO2 also lags temperature by ~~800 years in the ice core record, on a longer time scale.
Therefore, CO2 lags temperature at all measured time scales.
Last time we looked, the future cannot cause the past.
Therefore, the catastrophic global warming (CAGW) hypothesis fails.
I suggest the rational conclusion is that temperature drives atmospheric CO2 much more than CO2 drives temperature. This does not preclude other drivers of CO2 such as deforestation and fossil fuel combustion.
Consider the implications of this evidence:
*********************************************
CO2 lags temperature at all measured time scales, so the global warming (CAGW) hypothesis suggests that the future is causing the past. 🙂
See Figures 1 to 4 in my 2008 icecap paper or this plot:
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/esrl-co2/from:1979/mean:12/derivative/plot/uah/from:1959/scale:0.22/offset:0.14
This plot shows the strong correlation between the rate-of-change dCO2/dt and global temperature T.
Warmists want to ignore this compelling evidence, or wave it off with the following specious claims:
“We KNOW that CO2 primarily drives temperature (a fundamental tenet of warmist religion), therefore:
1) The observed lag of CO2 after temperature MUST BE a feedback effect; and/or
2) “There must be a time machine somewhere that causes this lag.”
Sorry folks, but I do not like your logic – although I do enjoy your feedback and time machine fantasies. 🙂
See also Humlum et al, January 2013, written five years after my icecap.us paper:
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0921818112001658
Highlights
– Changes in global atmospheric CO2 are lagging 11–12 months behind changes in global sea surface temperature.
– Changes in global atmospheric CO2 are lagging 9.5–10 months behind changes in global air surface temperature.
– Changes in global atmospheric CO2 are lagging about 9 months behind changes in global lower troposphere temperature.
– Changes in ocean temperatures explain a substantial part of the observed changes in atmospheric CO2 since January 1980.
– Changes in atmospheric CO2 are not tracking changes in human emissions.
I remain reasonably confident that the future cannot cause the past (in our current space-time continuum). 🙂
Regards, Allan
Alan
Interesting paper. From what I can see the CO2 trend is Mauna Loa ?, and you are using the average global temperature trend. Is this correct.
Sorry – Allan
Hi ozonebust – re your question.
I used global average CO2 in my 2008 paper, but the WFT plot is from Mauna Loa. The two are fairly close.
From memory, the annual amplitude of the Keeling Curve for CO2 ranges from about 16-18ppm at Barrow Alaska to about 7-8 at Mauna Loa to about 1-2ppm at the South Pole. I believe this primarily reflects the dominant larger landmass of the Northern Hemisphere. This seasonal “sawtooth” curve also lags temperature by several months, as one would expect.
It is amazing how little attention this valid observation has attracted – it seems few scientists want to be challenged about their deepest religious beliefs regarding what drives what in the climate system. Atmospheric CO2 is clearly NOT the primary driver of global temperature – that is a proven falsehood, unless the future can cause the past. 🙂
I think Allan MacRae was the first person to point this out.
Now it is common knowledge and even the warmers are using it.
Thank you Bill Illis for your kind words.
It is not at all apparent that the warmists understand the implications of my conclusion, which, I suggest, disproves the CAGW hypothesis (that increasing atmospheric CO2 is causing dangerous global warming).
While CO2 is increasing, due possibly to multiple causes, the only signal in the data is that CO2 changes lag temperature changes in time, and thus CO2 cannot be the primary cause of these earlier temperature changes.
I in turn salute you for your work on this other important topic, a competent model of what actually drives multi-decadal temperatures:
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/10/14/the-divergence-between-surface-and-lower-troposphere-global-temperature-datasets-and-its-implications/comment-page-1/#comment-2320319
NOT A WHOLE LOTTA GLOBAL WARMING GOIN’ ON!
Bill Illis’s work on this concept predates mine by years. Somehow I missed his stuff and thought I had discovered something new – Haw! Bill’s post is here.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/09/23/lewandowsky-and-cook-deniers-cannot-provide-a-coherent-alternate-worldview/comment-page-1/#comment-2306066
____________
I suggest we still need a good longer-term (multi-century) temperature model. I am encouraged by the work of Dan Pangburn, but I have not had the time to duplicate tis work, as I usually do. See Figure 10 here:
http://globalclimatedrivers2.blogspot.ca/
Best personal regards, Allan
Well, maybe if you’re a quark.
/sarc(quk)
Thanks Allan, Bill
Let me pose some thoughts for a pleasant exchange.
When the ocean and atmosphere exchange CO2 the discussion is in terms of equilibrium. Is there a chart available that shows the variation in adsorbent behaviour between the two bodies (temperature of water with various atmospheric temperature) – an equilibrium chart. Not only in ppm but in relative saturation. e.g. if the water is 10C and the wind that travels over it fluctuates between 10C and 20C it will change between adsorbent and release.
The glacial to interglacial transition in both ppm and relative saturation (especially the atmosphere) for example. My own immediate conclusions are that the RS% of the atmosphere drops considerably when temperaures rise, and has higher values during cooling. RS% is not temperature dependant for a reference point, ppm is.
Do plants have a ppm relationship or a relative saturation relationship with CO2 in the atmosphere?
I look forward to your thoughts
Interesting question, ozone b:
http://www.omafra.gov.on.ca/english/crops/facts/00-077.htm
https://www.google.at/search?q=greenhouse+plants+CO2+saturation&oq=greenhouse+plants+CO2+saturation&aqs=chrome
Johann
Thanks for the links I will view later in detail later in the day.
Given the difference in atmospheric humidity (water) both entering into and coming out of interglacial this also would have an effect. When coming into an interglacial the atmosphere temperature is increasing faster than the ocean – along with biospheric (all sea surface etc) significantly increasing CO2 consuption. There is no way CO2 can lead temperature as the atmosphere is in a serious state of negative disequilibrium as the temperature rises when measuring it in a state of relative saturation (RS%).
Your second link of canabis ideal growth at 0.12% RS at ALL temperatures is a point in case. During the rise out of an interglacial the atmopsheric RS% of CO2 would get as low as 0.005% (est).
My conclusions are that when an equilibrium chart in relative saturation of CO2 in the atmosphere covering the transition between glacial to interglacial the discussion could move foreward. RS% rules. Every rise in atmospheric temperaure that leads the sinks causes a medium to strong negative RS% disequilibrium depending on the rate of temperature rise.
FWIW
ozone b,
don’t know where you got that second link
other than showing there’s different approaches in Google to that topics.
Huh?
Johann
The reference was on one of the sub links of the Google search.
The point I am making above is – That if CO2 lags temperature rise when exiting a glacial period and ramping up temperature into an inter-glacial – as it does without question, then the relative saturation/density of CO2 in the atmosphere is significantly reduced.below the normal average.
This is basic stuff. If the relative saturation / density is lower then it completely negates any claims of warming by increasing CO2. The constant focus on CO2 ppm as the sole measurement becomes circular, as the discussion has no reference point unless temperature is introduced. Then you must always ask when considering the ppm value and temperature – is it in a state of cooling or increasing in temperature.
Move away from ppm to relative saturation and the discussion changes. What is the relative state between the sinks and atmosphere. Is it in or out of equilibrium, positive or negative. Or the same discussion that has been taking place for the past eight years, will still be discussed over the next 8 years. I would do the calculations myself but that is not my expertise
Alan,
There is one exception in the rule that CO2 follows temperature at all time scales: the past 165 years:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/law_dome_1000yr.jpg
If we may assume that the Middle Ages were at least as warm as today, the drop in temperature of ~0.8 K into the Little Ice Age was good for a drop of ~8 ppmv, some 50 years after the temperature drop. A similar warming since the LIA thus is good for some 8 ppmv increase (maximum 16 ppmv, according to Henry’s law).
The rest of the 110 ppmv increase is from human emissions…
Hello Ferdinand.
I dispute your allegation that “There is one exception in the rule that CO2 follows temperature at all time scales: the past 165 years:” If you think about it, your statement as written is a non-sequitur – it is illogical and even irrelevant to what I am saying.
You and Richard S Courtney have been beating this “mass balance argument” to death for decades now. I have enjoyed your debate, but please do not overstate what I am saying.
Unlike some others, I feel no need to insist that temperature is the only major driver of CO2. While they may be correct, I am satisfied to say that temperature drives atmospheric CO2 much more than CO2 drives temperature, and other drivers such as fossil fuel combustion and deforestation can also contribute.to increasing CO2.
This graph proves that , even for the past decades, dCO2/dt correlates strongly with temperature, and CO2 lags temperature by about 9 months in the modern data record:
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/esrl-co2/from:1979/mean:12/derivative/plot/uah/from:1959/scale:0.22/offset:0.14
The most important observation is that increasing atmospheric CO2, from whatever cause, is entirely beneficial for humanity and the environment, and does not cause dangerous global warming.
I spoke with Richard recently and he is not well.
I wish you both my best personal regards, Allan.
Allan,
Not only the mass balance, but every single observation does support that mainly humans are responsible for the increase of CO2 in the past 165 years…
The point where you (and especially Bart) go wrong is in comparing the variability in temperature with the variability in CO2 rate of change. All you do prove is that there is a huge correlation between both, but that says next to nothing about the cause of the increase, as that is caused by a different process, independent of the short-term variability.
As proven by the opposite CO2 and δ13C rate of changes, the variability in CO2 rate of change is caused by the influence of temperature on -tropical- vegetation. That zeroes out in 2-3 years and over longer periods, vegetation is a net sink for CO2, as proven by the oxygen balance. Even if temperature was the cause of the CO2 increase, that has its own time constants and factors, independent of the short-term variability.
It simply is impossible that 0.8 K temperature increase since 1850 will give 110 ppmv CO2 increase in the atmosphere (but 200 ppmv human emissions can do that…). That violates Henry’s law for the solubility of CO2 in seawater. The observed ratio is between 4-5 ppmv/K (year by year), 5 ppmv/K (opposite seasonal) up to 16 ppmv/K (glacial-interglacial over millennia). Not only that, but the current extra pressure of CO2 in the atmosphere drives extra CO2 into the oceans and vegetation as observed, not the opposite…
——————
It is a pitty to hear that Richard is not well, I was already wondering why there were no reactions by him lately. I hope that he may recover soon, so that we can have further (friendly) fights…
Ferdinand my friend,
You are forgetting something important here, which we resolved on wattsup months or years ago.
Please re-read this paragraph, excerpted from my above post:
“Unlike some others, I feel no need to insist that temperature is the only major driver of CO2. While they may be correct, I am satisfied to say that temperature drives atmospheric CO2 much more than CO2 drives temperature, and other drivers such as fossil fuel combustion and deforestation can also contribute.to increasing CO2.”
I recall you acknowledged my “agnostic” position some time ago, but I cannot easily locate the thread.
Here are some relevant “Blasts from the Past”:
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/06/13/presentation-of-evidence-suggesting-temperature-drives-atmospheric-co2-more-than-co2-drives-temperature/#comment-1969461
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/04/09/how-to-convince-a-climate-skeptic-hes-wrong/#comment-1902509
Best personal regards, Allan
The pseudo-mass balance argument is dumb beyond measure. Anyone who gives it credence is unqualified to opine on the subject.
“The point where you (and especially Bart) go wrong is in comparing the variability in temperature with the variability in CO2 rate of change.”
Nope. I compare the long term behavior as well, and it is a match.
Allan,
I don’t agree with your statement:
This graph proves that , even for the past decades, dCO2/dt correlates strongly with temperature, and CO2 lags temperature by about 9 months in the modern data record:
Have a better look at your graph: there is zero lag between temperature and CO2 rate of change. That is normal, because the lag is between temperature and total CO2 levels on (near) all times and between the derivatives. If you take the derivatives of both, you shift both 90 degrees back in time and still have the same lag. If you only take the derivative of CO2, there is no lag left with temperature changes…
You need to compare temperature with CO2 levels and the temperature rate of change with the CO2 rate of change. That gives a quite different view on what happens: the derivative of temperature has all variability and no slope, only a slight offset from zero, while all trend is in the CO2 rate of change, because human emissions and as result CO2 levels increased slighty quadratic over time. Its variability lags the temperature variability, as it should do…
I know, for the rest you are agnostic about the cause of the increase, but the above s6tatement doesn’t fit reality…
Best wishes,
Ferdinand
“Nope. I compare the long term behavior as well, and it is a match.”
Bart, this is THE chink in the engelbeen armor. He has absolutely no answer for this except to say that it’s a product of “curve fitting”. Yes, it is easy to match the slope of two curves, but it isn’t easy to match the trend features of those curves having done so. (ain’t gonna happen)…
Ferdinand Engelbeen wrote on November 1, 2016 at 11:34 am
Dear Ferdinand.
I read your response earlier this evening and it made no sense. I chose not to comment at that time.
I revisited your comment later this evening (now) and it STILL makes no sense.
I shall read it again in the morning, but my hope to find credible meaning in your post is waning.
I honestly do not know how you can take exception to what I wrote, as you did.
Best, Allan
Post Script:
I found this post from 2009, quite by accident;
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/01/30/co2-temperatures-and-ice-ages/#comment-79426
Hi Ferdinand,
You said above:
“Contrary to what Alan MacRae believes, it is perfectly possible that two variables show a positive feedback on each other, despite a lag of one of them.”
I am sometimes surprised to learn what I allegedly believe (or do not believe). Perhaps it would be more appropriate if you were to state what you believe, and I were to state what I believe.
Alternatively, you could continue to act as my spokesman and I could act as yours, but I suggest this could result in a certain lack of clarity.
Best personal regards, Allan 🙂
P.S. I still believe your mass balance argument falls short, but you could be right.
Fonzie:
Bart, this is THE chink in the engelbeen armor. He has absolutely no answer for this except to say that it’s a product of “curve fitting”. Yes, it is easy to match the slope of two curves, but it isn’t easy to match the trend features of those curves having done so. (ain’t gonna happen)…
It is quite easy to match both slope and amplitude of two variability related variables by choosing both the right offset and the right factor. That says next to nothing about the cause of the slope, as any other additional variable with a slope but without much variability can be the cause, including a temperature related one.
As is proven by the opposite CO2 and δ13C variations, the variability in CO2 rate of change is largely dominated by the reaction of (tropical) vegetation on temperature changes. That levels off to zero in 2-3 years and over longer periods, vegetation is a small but growing sink for CO2. Thus not the cause of the slope…
That is what is observed: variability and slope are not caused by the same process and combining them by using one formula is only curve fitting without any physical base…
Allan,
I made it not clear enough:
Over the past millions of years, CO2 levels followed temperature with some (variable) lag.
If you take the derivatives, the rate of change of CO2 follows the temperature rate of change with a similar lag, as the derivative of a (more or less) sinusoid only shifts 90 degr. back in time and gives a similar sinusoid. The temperature derivative has no slope at all, only a small offset and still shows all variability. The temperature itself is increasing more or less linear which results in zero slope of the derivative. Human emissions increased linearly over time, leading to a slightly quadratic increase of total CO2 emitted, which translates into a linear slope in the derivative. So does the increase in the atmosphere.
If you compare the temperature curve with the CO2 rate of change, the latter is shifted back some 90 degrees and with some manipulation with an offset and slope, there is a perfect match between the two, without a lag.
That has no physical base, as variability and slope are caused by different processes. Indeed the CO2 variability (both direct and in the derivatives) lags temperature, but the slope doesn’t lag temperature: it is way higher than what temperature dictates over any time frame…
Have a look at the small influence that temperature has on the increase of CO2 in the period 1985-2000, thus including the Pinatubo and El Niño effects:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/wft_trends_rss_1985-2000.jpg
Still visible is the lag of CO2 after temperature changes but with minimal influence on the slope…
Bart,
Anyone who doesn’t take into account the mass balance and all other observations doesn’t know where he/she is talking about.
The uptake of CO2 in the oceans (and vegetation) is a surprising linear function of the CO2 pressure increase above the long term dynamic equilibrium between oceans and atmosphere. As human emissions were larger than the observed net sink rate for every year in the past 55+ years, that leads to an increase of CO2 in the atmosphere. That is the basic mass balance.
The only way that humans could not be the cause of the increase is if there was a gigantic increase in natural circulation (a fourfold since 1959, the same as the increase in human emissions and net sink rate), or you violate the physical equality of CO2 from whatever source.
In short:
There is zero evidence which supports an increase in natural circulation and zero evidence for any other natural cause.
All observations support the human cause…
Ferdinand, my friend, thank you for your clarification.
Repeating, verbatim, from above:
“Ferdinand my friend,
You are forgetting something important here, which we resolved on wattsup months or years ago.
Please re-read this paragraph, excerpted from my above post:
“Unlike some others, I feel no need to insist that temperature is the only major driver of CO2. While they may be correct, I am satisfied to say that temperature drives atmospheric CO2 much more than CO2 drives temperature, and other drivers such as fossil fuel combustion and deforestation can also contribute.to increasing CO2.”
I recall you acknowledged my “agnostic” position some time ago, but I cannot easily locate the thread.”
Let me restate my position in another way:
I accept that “SomeFactors” are causing the increase in atmospheric CO2, allegedly from the high 200’s to now ~400 ppm. I suggest that these SomeFactors could be primarily manmade or primarily natural. While you and others want to take a strong position on one side or the other in this matter, I do not, because at this point in time this question is technically interesting but NOT CRITICAL to humanity or the environment, because there is overwhelming evidence that increasing atmospheric CO2 is NOT CAUSING dangerous global warming; au contraire, increasing atmospheric CO2 certainly IS CAUSING greening of the planet, and IS CAUSING increased food crop yields, and IS BENEFICIAL TO HUMANITY AND THE ENVIRONMENT.
Even at 400 ppm, atmospheric CO2 is not alarmingly high, it is in fact alarmingly low for the continued survival of life on this beautiful blue-water planet. During the last Ice Age, atmospheric CO2 dropped to about 180ppm, only ~20ppm above the extinction event for C3 plants that make up the great majority of terrestrial plant species, including almost all of our food crops.
The real immediate crisis humanity now faces is that our politicians have become convinced there is a manmade global warming crisis, and these foolish politicians have squandered trillions of dollars of scarce global resources and have damaged our critical life-giving energy systems to try to “stop dangerous global warming ”, which does NOT exist, except as a figment of their imaginations.
My 2008 observation, that the only “signal” that is apparent in this huge equation is that atmospheric CO2 LAGS temperature by ~9 months in the modern data record, and CO2 lags temperature by ~~800 years in the ice core record, leads to this important conclusion:
“Temperature drives atmospheric CO2 much more than CO2 drives temperature. There is NO catastrophic manmade global warming.“
Best regards, Allan
Allan
Catagorically temperature leads CO in the historical sense when when glacial to interglacial periods, then CO2 lags (higher) during the cool down into glacial. I produced a chart in 2007 that was published with an article in E+E during 2008 depicting this fact. Your comments about relative saturation being silly, are in fact not. I worked in equilibriums on a near daily basis, and made systems that altered equilibriums. I will provide a link to the mentioned chart when I dig it out. Not on this post but whenever I see your comments. It allows any time related Vostok data of temperature and CO2 to be used and it will tell if Earth was warming or cooling. Today it is irrelivant. It points to atmospheric saturation / density, and it is always lowest when earth was warming. So if the AGW theory is that higher levels of CO2 density will cause warming based on glacial to interglacial, their garbage theory is bust.
It is an indication of saturation / density of CO2 in relation to temperature. If you use ppm you must have a temperature reference as atmophereic saturation varies. That is why the debate will always be inconclusive like a cat chaing its tail usin ppm.
Your paper is well reasoned and reflects the historical perspective clearly.
If you are using Mauna Loa as a CO2 reference site for measuring the delay between temperature and CO2 it is fraught with problems in the modern era. At the point of emissions there is an imediate response to CO2 uptake, volume controlled by temperature. The vast percentage of human emissions are into cold dense atmosphere. Cold Bay during winter records the flow of cold saturated atmosphere into the low pressure area just south, and tas well as the volume that flows into the Arctic. That same wind that breaks up ice.
Mauna Loa only records the build up of emissions during the NH winter and increased circulation in spring, then the only values its records is the diluted transport down to the SH Antarctic vortex. The CO2 values that are recorded during this period are only those that remain in the troposphere. The carbon cycle is not a simple tropospheric closed cycle, CO2 goes vertical up through the entire atmospheric column every year.
Given that the entire vertical column out to 90km high is increasing at the same decadal rate as MLO (5%) and past >100km at 12% supports this claim. See my link to this paper at near the bottom of this main post. Ferdinand’s comments on surface density are relevant at first look. The only reason the tropospheric annual density can increase incrementally is if the entire vertical column increases, as it has done. Verical equlibrium.
With kind regards. I look forward to future discussion.
ONE CAN EASILY MATCH THE SLOPES OF TWO CURVES, BUT HAVING DONE SO, ONE CANNOT MATCH THE TREND FEATURES OF THOSE TWO CURVES
Fonzie,
No problem at all:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/rss_co2_emiss_2000-2015.jpg
Contains:
RSS temperature * factor + offset.
Derivatives of:
CO2 observed.
CO2 emissions.
CO2 remaining in the atmosphere, calculated from emissions alone (on base of ΔpCO2 atm-ocean surface).
CO2 remaining in the atmosphere, calculated from emissions + natural variability caused by temperature.
Further the linear slopes of temperature, observed and calculated CO2 rates of change.
The graph shows exactly the same slopes while the variability of temperature and calculated CO2 rate of change has exactly the same timing, be it with different amplitude factors for the transient response from CO2 on temperature changes…
The calculated CO2 remaining in the atmosphere contains no factor and is only based on the observed decay rate (2.15 ppmv / 110 ppmv) of an excess CO2 pressure above steady state. The latter based on Henry’s law (~16 ppmv/K).
This graph is over a short period to enhance the view on the timing of the variability, the graph over the full RSS satellite era is available too. Will be updated for the most recent years, when the official emissions data are available.
You see, it is easy to match both the slopes and all variability when one variable is entirely responsible for the variability and another (or the same) variable is largely responsible for the slope… Any mix between 0-100% will do the job (if the slopes are not too different from each other).
It’s all so stupid. Temperatures are overwhelmingly the dominant influence upon atmospheric CO2 concentration. Rate of change of atmospheric CO2 is proportional to appropriately baselined temperature anomaly.
http://i1136.photobucket.com/albums/n488/Bartemis/scale%200.22_zpsaybcyxnp.png
The relationship holds across the entire modern era since accurate measurements began. The less accurate surface data do not match as well as the satellite data, but the relationship is robust across data sets.
http://i1136.photobucket.com/albums/n488/Bartemis/nopause_zpscjndrosf.png
As readily seen above, emissions are currently accelerating, but atmospheric concentration is not.
As temperatures decline over the next decade, the divergence between emissions and atmospheric concentration will ultimately become too great for all the ad hoc claims of increasing sink activity to support. Then, finally, we will be able to bury the utter scientific fiasco that is AGW.
“It’s all so stupid.”
Yeah, Bart, but the question is, WHY is it “all so stupid”? (what, have all the climate scientists come down with an acute case of “ferdinitus” or something?) This really is bizarre. How do they get away with this? And if we see extended cooling with the growthrate subseqently going down, will they just keep ignoring it? Even skeptics (including anthony apparently) seem to stumble and bumble through the science here. i just don’t get it…
Postscript:
Ferdinand, you remain preoccupied with the “baseline” increase in CO2 and what is causing it, which you insist is fossil-fuel combustion. Maybe your mass balance argument is correct, but who cares, since the impact of increased atmospheric CO2 is overwhelmingly positive, and increasing atmospheric CO2 clearly does NOT cause dangerous global warming. That is why, unlike some others, I do not say that temperature is the only or primary driver of CO2. OK? I do not make that claim. I only claim that temperature drives CO2 much more than CO2 drives temperature. How many more times do you want me to repeat this? You continue trying to enlist me in a debate that I take no position on. I don’t know what the answer is on this point, I am agnostic, and I really do not think it is critical to the argument. With or without this mass balance argument, the conclusion is the same: “Increasing atmospheric CO2, from whatever cause, is NOT causing dangerous global warming.”
Allan,
What bothers me is that you use the same arguments as Bart to show that CO2 lags temperature on all times. In recent times – the past 165 years – that is only true for the variability around the trend, not for the trend itself, which does lead temperature, as that is already 110 ppmv above what the current CO2 levels should be for the current average ocean temperature. The CO2 levels for the current (area weighted) average ocean temperature should be around 290 ppmv, not 400 ppmv as shown in the CO2 levels over MWP and LIA and glacial-interglacial transitions and always followed temperature over the past few million years with different lags…
On that point the “consensus” stands very strong and observations support that the current CO2 levels are too high for the current temperature, whatever the cause of the increase. Every single observation shows that humans are to blame. If one wants to show that humans are not to blame, one need to bring in very strong arguments, which aren’t in conflict with any observation. Showing a match in graphs is not sufficient…
Insisting that the increase in CO2 follows temperature over the past 165 years – or 55+ years since Mauna Loa started – undermines your credibility – and that of all skeptics – in discussions with undecided persons for the points where the consensus is really weak: the real influence of CO2 on temperature and its consequences, including failing climate models…
Ferdinand
You are absolutely correct. In the past 165 years there has been a reverse of the historical temperature / CO2 relationship. CO2 leads temperature purely because of the unusuall release of carbon bound in coal and oil, in ways not seen in historical times. The vast majority of the increase in CO2 leavels is from sinks beneath the earths surface, removed by human, combusted and sent into the atmosphere. Future generations with more intelligence than the current lot will see it as a positive turning point in that it acts as a fertiliser. There is a positive equilibrium when compared to periods longer than 200 years ago.
The issue in trying to measure the lag time today, is where and how do you achieve that. Most of the emissions are between the 20 to 40N latitudes, so measuring it at Mauna Loa is fruitless. Why use the global temperature, it is pointless when considering the location of the emissions, all you are doing is measuring dilution and transport times. There is also a very great need to fully understand what exactly Mauna Loa records before using the site as a reference.
Ferdinand you wrote:
“That is where my objections started here: there is one exception in the rule that CO2 always follows T, that is in the past 165 years, even while the (small) fast variability in T still leads CO2 variability, the increase in total CO2 leads T with currently 110 ppmv, whatever the cause…”
But your statement “the increase in total CO2 leads T with currently 110 ppmv” is not only trivial, it is false, because during this period it appears* that CO2 has continued to increase, but global temperature T warmed to ~1940, then cooled to ~1975, then warmed to ~2000, and has since remained about the same (with the usual short-term fluctuations due to ENSO, etc.).
There is thus NO credible correlation which shows that atmospheric CO2 causes (drives) T in the modern data record, and to suggest that one exists is not valid.
According to your above rational, you could similarly state that CO2 leads almost anything over the past 165 years – for example, according to your logic, CO2 leads the population of Europe (which increased and decreased due to its wars), the production of automobiles (which increased), and even the production of buggy whips (which decreased). Your above statement makes no rational sense, in my opinion.
Regards, Allan
* We only have good quality CO2 data since ~1958 at Mauna Loa.
Also, annualized Mauna Loa dCO2/dt has “gone negative” a few times in recent decades, specifically during the global cooling decades for 12-month intervals ending in:
1959-8
1963-9
1964-5
1965-1
1965-5
1965-6
1971-4
1974-6
1974-8
1974-9
Yes Bart CO2 definitely drives temperature adjustments
Yes, that is how they fudge the numbers to try to show CO2 is driving temperature. But, the fact is that temperatures are driving the rate of change of CO2, and if there were a significant sensitivity of temperatures to CO2, that would comprise an unstable positive feedback loop that could not be stabilized even with T^4 radiation.
The whole thing is an utter fiasco from square one:
A) We are not significantly affecting CO2
B) Even if we were, temperatures are not significantly influenced by CO2 content in the present climate state
C) Even if were were and they were, warmth is good, and more CO2 is beneficial for life on this planet
Hi Bart, Fonz and Andy.
I posted this elsewhere but he thread got eaten up with nonsense. I hope it will do better here.
“You can recognize truth by its beauty and simplicity.” – Feynman.
🙂
Quotes from Richard Phillips Feynman (May 11, 1918 – February 15, 1988) on The Value of Science
Thank you all for causing me to look up these gems, written by Richard Feynman. They are all exquisite, but the one I was looking for is: “THE TEST OF SCIENCE IS ITS ABILITY TO PREDICT.”
It should be noted that ALL the predictions (aka “projections”) of the global warming alarmists have failed to materialize, and there is no evidence that they ever will materialize. Their computer climate models are self-fulfilling nonsense, programmed to over-predict global warming. Global warming alarmism is the very epitome of cargo cult science.
For a successful predictive multi-decadal global temperature model, see here:
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/10/27/report-global-warming-debate-at-rice-university-soon-vs-sass/comment-page-1/#comment-2328941
As I first wrote in January 2008, “CO2 LAGS TEMPERATURE AT ALL MEASURED TIME SCALES”. This is the simple but beautiful reality that, I suggest, demonstrates the truth of the dominant Climate-CO2 relationship and the falsehood of the global warming alarmist hypothesis.
I remain reasonably confident that the future cannot cause the past (in our current space-time continuum). 🙂
Regards, Allan
Allan MacRae, P. Eng.
Calgary
Reference:
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/09/23/lewandowsky-and-cook-deniers-cannot-provide-a-coherent-alternate-worldview/comment-page-1/#comment-2307537
The rate of change dCO2/dt changes ~contemporaneously with temperature and therefore its integral atmospheric CO2 concentration lags atmospheric temperature by about 9 months in the modern data record. This dCO2/dt vs. temperature correlation is remarkably strong for a natural global phenomenon.
CO2 also LAGS temperature by about 800 years in the ice core record. Thus CO2 LAGS temperature at all measured time scales.
This close dCO2/dt vs temperature relationship indicates that temperature drives CO2 much more than CO2 drives temperature. This does not preclude other drivers of CO2 such as deforestation and fossil fuel combustion.
See also Humlum et al, January 2013, written five years after my icecap.us paper:
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0921818112001658
Highlights
– Changes in global atmospheric CO2 are lagging 11–12 months behind changes in global sea surface temperature.
– Changes in global atmospheric CO2 are lagging 9.5–10 months behind changes in global air surface temperature.
– Changes in global atmospheric CO2 are lagging about 9 months behind changes in global lower troposphere temperature.
– Changes in ocean temperatures explain a substantial part of the observed changes in atmospheric CO2 since January 1980.
– Changes in atmospheric CO2 are not tracking changes in human emissions.
______________________________________________________________
Quotes from Richard Phillips Feynman (May 11, 1918 – February 15, 1988) on The Value of Science
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Richard_Feynman#The_Value_of_Science_.281955.29
The test of science is its ability to predict.
We’ve learned from experience that the truth will come out. Other experimenters will repeat your experiment and find out whether you were wrong or right. Nature’s phenomena will agree or they’ll disagree with your theory. And, although you may gain some temporary fame and excitement, you will not gain a good reputation as a scientist if you haven’t tried to be very careful in this kind of work. And it’s this type of integrity, this kind of care not to fool yourself, that is missing to a large extent in much of the research in cargo cult science.
There is one feature I notice that is generally missing in cargo cult science. … It’s a kind of scientific integrity, a principle of scientific thought that corresponds to a kind of utter honesty — a kind of leaning over backwards. For example, if you’re doing an experiment, you should report everything that you think might make it invalid — not only what you think is right about it; other causes that could possibly explain your results; and things you thought of that you’ve eliminated by some other experiment, and how they worked — to make sure the other fellow can tell they have been eliminated.
The first principle is that you must not fool yourself — and you are the easiest person to fool.
We are not to tell nature what she’s gotta be. … She’s always got better imagination than we have.
You can recognize truth by its beauty and simplicity. When you get it right, it is obvious that it is right—at least if you have any experience—because usually what happens is that more comes out than goes in. …The inexperienced, the crackpots, and people like that, make guesses that are simple, but you can immediately see that they are wrong, so that does not count. Others, the inexperienced students, make guesses that are very complicated, and it sort of looks as if it is all right, but I know it is not true because the truth always turns out to be simpler than you thought.
**************************************************
Hi Allan, i think of ferdinand as being the anti-feynman (’cause he ain’t gonna bend over backwards for nobody… ☺)
Unfortunately, there continues to be just enough wiggle room for people to delude themselves. Continuation of past patterns is never guaranteed, and regime changes do occur. But, I do hope that the ~60 year cycle in temperatures continues, and that global temperatures start to fall soon to give us greater observability. The last monster El Nino is obscuring the long term behavior, but some indices are plunging on schedule, as they should. I am hopeful that a clearer picture will emerge within the next year.
If temperatures decline, the rate of change of CO2 will decline with it. Emissions will continue to accelerate, because the world’s energy appetite can only grow. A marked deceleration in CO2 accumulation will provide too great a discrepancy for continuing denial.
Hi Bart, you may find this 2009 post of interest:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/03/24/study-hemispheric-co2-timing-suggests-that-annual-increases-may-be-coming-from-a-global-or-equatorial-source/#comments
Hi Ferdinand,
Please take a big step back and examine the big picture.
CO2 in Vostok ice core data lags temperature by ~~600 years.
CO2 in modern measurements lags temperature by ~9 months.
The above are natural cycles, each with its own period and its own delay.
There could be other such cycles as well, with their own periods and delays – for example a cycle intermediate between the above two, perhaps with a period of ~~60-90 years and a delay of ~~10 years.
Annualized Mauna Loa dCO2/dt has “gone negative” a few times in recent decades, specifically for 12-month intervals ending in:
1959-8
1963-9
1964-5
1965-1
1965-5
1965-6
1971-4
1974-6
1974-8
1974-9
Has this not happened recently because of increased humanmade CO2 emissions, or because the world has, until recently, been getting warmer?
Frankly, I don’t think we yet know the answer to that question.
While I am officially, as you should know by now, an agnostic on this specific scientific question, most or all the evidence points to CO2 lagging temperature at all known time scales.
This does not preclude a human influence on atmospheric CO2 due to fossil fuel burning, but other possible causes do exist that are largely natural.
I suspect Richard (Courtney) is correct, insofar as “there is no conclusive evidence that any of the 20th century increase in atmospheric CO2 concentration is or is not due to the burning of fossil fuels”.
Best regards, Allan
P.S.
Please examine the 15fps AIRS data animation of global CO2 at
http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a000000/a003500/a003562/carbonDioxideSequence2002_2008_at15fps.mp4
It is difficult to see the impact of humanity in this impressive display of nature’s power.
In the animation, does anyone see the impact of industrialization? USA? Europe? India? China? Anything related to humanity? I don’t.
The animation does make it look like we Canadians and the Russians have lots of heavy industry emitting megatonnes of deadly CO2 in the far northern Arctic. Not so – it’s all natural!
P.P.S.
On the more pressing scientific and political question, it has long been obvious that the recent increase in atmospheric CO2 is an insignificant driver of global temperature, and that carbon dioxide abatement schemes such as the Kyoto Protocol are a criminal waste of scarce global resources.
Allan,
Your link to Tom Quirk’s story contains a lot of comments from my side… Jack Barett and I wrote a rebuttal for E&E, as Tom made a fundamental error: there is a “lag” between the NH and SH if you look at the seasonal variations within yearly periods, but that doesn’t prove anything, as there is the same lag – or lead – for any additional period of 12 months…
In reality the SH lags the NH for the same CO2 levels with 1-2 years and the source of extra CO2 (and low 13C) is obviously in the NH, not near the SH equator…
Further:
CO2 in modern measurements lags temperature by ~9 months.
Is not right, only short term CO2 changes in CO2 measurements lag changes in temperature. In the periods 1945-1975 and 2001-2015, temperature was slightly cooling (a negative correlation!) or enterily flat while CO2 goes steadily up…
The resolution of AIRS is simply not fine enough to detect the human influence in the much larger natural “noise”. Humans add some 4.5 ppmv/year, that is 0.01 ppmv/day… Even concentrated in 10% of the earth’s surface it will be a hell of a job for the newer OCO-2 satellite to detect the emissions, although it can focus on smaller areas during some prolonged periods…
Where we do agree is that the impact of CO2 on temperature is minimal and doesn’t warrant the enormous costs involved to reduce emissions. But I always wonder why so many skeptics shoot in their own foot by insisting that the increase in CO2 is not man-made, while all observations point in that direction…
Ferdinand, my friend, you wrote:
“CO2 in modern measurements lags temperature by ~9 months.
Is not right, only short term CO2 changes in CO2 measurements lag changes in temperature. In the periods 1945-1975 and 2001-2015, temperature was slightly cooling (a negative correlation!) or entirely flat while CO2 goes steadily up…”
Ferdinand, please do not enlist me in your (less relevant) mass balance debate with others, and kindly reread what I have written:
“Notwithstanding whether global temperature falls (~1940 to ~1975), rises (~1975 to ~~2000), or stays about the same (~~2000 to present), the only apparent signal that survives in the data is that dCO2/dt changes ~contemporaneously with temperature and its integral atmospheric CO2 LAGS temperature by about 9 months in the modern data record. This proven observation does not preclude other drivers of CO2, such as deforestation, fossil fuel combustion, deep ocean upwelling and exsolution, etc. However, this observation shows that the “CO2-drives-dangerous-global- warming-hypothesis” fails, because the future cannot cause the past.”
All you are doing is creating confusion about these irrefutable facts.
Again, here is the pertinent plots (thanks to Bart):
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/esrl-co2/from:1979/mean:12/derivative/plot/uah/from:1959/scale:0.22/offset:0.14
http://s1136.photobucket.com/user/Bartemis/media/scale%200.22_zpsaybcyxnp.png.html
http://s1136.photobucket.com/user/Bartemis/media/nopause_zpscjndrosf.png.html
Repeating, I am interested in your different question, but not much at this time. I do not insist, as do some others, that temperature is the ONLY (or primary) driver of increasing atmospheric CO2 – I am agnostic on this point – other sources of CO2 could indeed be major drivers as well, but there is NO evidence that increasing atmospheric CO2 primarily or significantly drives dangerous global warming, and there is ample evidence that disproves this failed hypothesis.
You did say this, which I applaud – and this is extremely important right now because we are both correct on this vitally important point:
“Where we do agree is that the impact of CO2 on temperature is minimal and doesn’t warrant the enormous costs involved to reduce emissions.”
Allan,
OK, we do agree on the basic point, that no matter the cause of the CO2 increase, its effect on temperature is minimal and probably more beneficial than negative…
About the cause, what Bart and you are doing has nothing to do with the mass balance: Bart and you are comparing apples with oranges by comparing the straight forward temperature with the CO2 rate of change and then you compare the total CO2 (= the integral of the CO2rate of change) to show a lag with temperature. That doesn’t make sense, as the lag is between total CO2 and temperature or between temperature rate of change and CO2 rate of change.
There is zero lag between temperature and CO2 rate of change, thus no direct connection between the two. Of course there is an indirect connection, as a temperature jump does introduce an initial jump in CO2 rate of change, but it is completely absurd to integrate some arbitrary temperature offset as the cause of the CO2 increase, which is what Bart does…
All Bart has done is using a fudge factor: an arbitrary offset and factor to match the slopes of temperature and CO2 rate of change. That is curve fitting and has no bearing in any physical process. If one compares both derivatives, it is clear that the derivative of temperature has near zero slope and while all variability in CO2 rate of change is caused by the variability in temperature rate of change, there is no way that the temperature rate of change is the cause of the slope in CO2 rate of change.
That still means that the lag you see between CO2 and T (or their derivatives) is entirely in the variability and that the bulk of the increase doesn’t lag temperature, it leads temperature since about 1850…
Hello again Ferdinand,
You wrote:
“There is zero lag between temperature and CO2 rate of change, thus no direct connection between the two.”
Your above statement is false – the very close relationship between temperature and dCO2/dt is certainly not a coincidence, and there is a lag.
The (much-simplified) sequence of events is:
1. The tropical central Pacific warms during an El Nino event, as can be measured by warming of the Nino3.4 area, and this ocean warming increases the amount of water vapour, starting in the tropical atmosphere.
2. About three months after Nino3.4 warming, tropical Lower Tropospheric temperatures increase.
3. About four months after Nino3.4 warming, global Lower Tropospheric temperatures increase.
4. About 13 months after Nino3.4 warming, average global CO2 increases.
The drivers for this observed CO2 increase are biological and physical (Henry’s Law).
Other drivers of increasing CO2 such as deforestation, fossil fuel combustion, deep ocean upwelling/exsolution, etc. are also driving increases in CO2, but seem to have little impact on the observed close correlation of dCO2/dt with Temperature, since this close relationship is the only signal that is apparent in the data.
See Bill Illis’ work or my later work on points 1 to 3, and my 2008 icecap.us paper on point 4.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/10/14/the-divergence-between-surface-and-lower-troposphere-global-temperature-datasets-and-its-implications/comment-page-1/#comment-2320319
See also Humlum et al, January 2013, written five years after my icecap.us paper:
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0921818112001658
Highlights
– Changes in global atmospheric CO2 are lagging 11–12 months behind changes in global sea surface temperature.
– Changes in global atmospheric CO2 are lagging 9.5–10 months behind changes in global air surface temperature.
– Changes in global atmospheric CO2 are lagging about 9 months behind changes in global lower troposphere temperature.
– Changes in ocean temperatures explain a substantial part of the observed changes in atmospheric CO2 since January 1980.
– Changes in atmospheric CO2 are not tracking changes in human emissions.
I remain reasonably confident that the future cannot cause the past (in our current space-time continuum). 🙂
Regards, Allan
Allan,
Your above statement is false – the very close relationship between temperature and dCO2/dt is certainly not a coincidence, and there is a lag.
Allan, have a very close look at Bart’s graph (and Bill Illis’ graph): it has zero lag between temperature and CO2 rate of change.
The lag is between temperature changes and CO2 changes and between their derivatives, not between temperature and the CO2 rate of change…
How can that be? If you have a more or less sinusoidal waveform and take the derivative, the derivative shows about the same waveform, but about 90 degrees shifted back in time. As a transient response of CO2 levels follows temperature with about 90 degrees, comparing temperature changes and changes in CO2 rate of change show an exact match in timing and much of the waveform… Thus indeed that is not a coincidence but the result of a transient response at one side and taking the derivative of the lagged component on the other side.
About 13 months after Nino3.4 warming, average global CO2 increases.
Again you are conflating the CO2 rate of change change with CO2 change… Global CO2 increased for every year in the past 55+ years, regardless of El Niño / La Niña conditions or Pinatubo eruptions. The variability is in the rate of change, which lasts maximum 2-3 years and zeroes out in that short period. The net effect on CO2 levels is +/- 1.5 ppmv around the trend for the extremes where the trend itself goes on and on with currently average over 2 ppmv/year, where it leads temperature with 110 ppmv…
As proven by the 13C/12C ratio changes, the variability is mainly caused by the influence of temperature (and humidity) changes on (tropical) vegetation, while the oxygen balance proves that the biosphere is a net, growing sink for CO2, thus not the cause of the trend…
There are severe problems with the work of Humlum e.a., see:
https://troyca.wordpress.com/2012/08/31/comment-on-the-phase-relation-between-atmospheric-carbon-dioxide-and-global-temperature/
Hell Ferdinand,
My work predates Humlum et al by five years, and there is nothing wrong with my work.
BIll Illis’s work is also solid – because I “re-discovered” much of it myself.
I cannot spend any more time on this. We will have to disagree.
“Hell” was meant to be “Hello”
This keyboard reads minds.
Allan,
Again, the point where you go wrong is:
dCO2/dt changes ~contemporaneously with temperature and its integral atmospheric CO2 LAGS temperature by about 9 months in the modern data record.
dCO2/dt changes with temperature changes without a lag, as the lag is between dT/dt and dCO2/dt not between T and dCO2/dt changes.
CO2 lags T changes with ~9 months only for the variability around the total increase.
The bulk of the CO2 increase leads T by currently 110 ppmv.
The latter is relative to what Henry’s law dictates for the current area weighted average ocean surface temperature.
You do attribute all the increase of CO2 to temperature on the base of the variability in the CO2 derivative, but by taking the derivative you have removed most of the cause of the long term increase only to inflate the noise caused by temperature changes. The same problem as with what Humlum has done…
Think it through… and see you next round again…
Regards,
Ferdinand
Dear Ferdinand, you wrote:
“You do attribute all the increase of CO2 to temperature on the base of the variability in the CO2 derivative, but by taking the derivative you have removed most of the cause of the long term increase only to inflate the noise caused by temperature changes. The same problem as with what Humlum has done”
That statement is false – no, I do not attribute as you allege. You insist on enlisting me on the opposite side of your mass balance argument, and I do NOT take a side. That is my position and has been my position for many years, pending further data.
In closing, I refer you again to our exchange from 2009.
Regards, Allan
Post Script: Ask yourself one question Ferdinand – why does your “base of the variability”, aka “long term increase” (in atmospheric CO2) have NO apparent impact in global temperature, which has gone down, up and sideways since 1958, even as CO2 has increased. Sooner or later, you will come to this conclusion: “Temperature, among other factors, drives CO2 much more than CO2 drives temperature.” That is my oft-stated position, and it is true. If this were not true, the dCO2/dt vs T signal would not exist, and clearly it does exist. In short, the only clear result of your “baseline” increase in CO2 is the greening of the planet – no warming or cooling is apparent from it – it is highly beneficial to humanity and the environment, and apparently irrelevant to the global warming debate.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/01/30/co2-temperatures-and-ice-ages/#comment-79426
Hi Ferdinand,
You said above:
“Contrary to what Allan MacRae believes, it is perfectly possible that two variables show a positive feedback on each other, despite a lag of one of them.”
I am sometimes surprised to learn what I allegedly believe (or do not believe). Perhaps it would be more appropriate if you were to state what you believe, and I were to state what I believe.
Alternatively, you could continue to act as my spokesman and I could act as yours, but I suggest this could result in a certain lack of clarity.
Best personal regards, Allan 🙂
P.S. I still believe your mass balance argument falls short, but you could be right.
Dear Allan,
When you say:
The rate of change dCO2/dt changes ~contemporaneously with temperature and therefore its integral atmospheric CO2 concentration lags atmospheric temperature by about 9 months in the modern data record.
That implies that you first compare the T trend + variability with dCO2/dt trend + variability and then jump to the conclusion that the integral of dCO2/dt, thus the total CO2 lags T with 9 months. By doing that you compare one variable to both the derivative and the integral of another variable, including its trend, and attributing trend + variability of CO2 to temperature.
You should compare dT/dt with dCO2/dt and T with CO2 and you will see that dT/dt has zero trend + all variability while dCO2/dt has all trend + variability and lags the variability of dT/dt with ~9 months.
It is proven beyond doubt that the trend in CO2 (and dCO2/dt) is from a different process than the variability around the trend, which is certainly largely caused by the influence of temperature variability on vegetation, while the trend is not caused by vegetation: that is a net, increasing sink.
Thus your conclusion:
CO2 concentration lags atmospheric temperature by about 9 months in the modern data record
is only valid for the variability around the increase, not for the bulk of the increase in CO2 concentration, which makes your conclusion that CO2 lags temperature on all time scales is not proven for the increase over the past 165 years…
Not that the reverse, CO2 on temperature, has much influence, that is a different, independent question where we largely agree in our responses…
Dear Ferdinand,
To be clear, I really do not care much about your “mass balance argument”” because it is really not that important – it is largely irrelevant to the utterly flawed “dangerous manmade global warming” hypothesis.
You stated in your latest post:
“That implies that you first compare the T trend + variability with dCO2/dt trend + variability and then jump to the conclusion that the integral of dCO2/dt, thus the total CO2 lags T with 9 months.”
Wrong again. It is clear that you have never carefully read my 2008 paper, because Fig. 1 to 4, and especially Fig. 3 and 4 clearly show that CO2 (the integral of dCO2/dt) lags Temperature by ~9 months. This is not “implied” or a “jump to a conclusion”, it is a clear observation, as can be seen by the inflection points in the CO2 curve in Fig. 3 and 4.
I fear you have become unduly fixated about your “mass balance argument”. When I refuse to take a side in your argument with others, you state that I “imply” something which is the opposite of what I clearly state – this is simply not correct, or acceptable in an honest debate.
Like the warmists who claim increasing CO2 MUST BE causing the current (almost nonexistent) global warming, you insist that your Mass Balance Argument means that fossil fuel combustion MUST BE the cause of the increase in CO2. Remember, “Correlation is not causation.”
There are many possible causes of the current increase in atmospheric CO2, including fossil fuel combustion.
As I said before, I really don’t care, but here are some observations I have made over the years that could cast doubt on your hypo:
1. The satellite data of CO2 concentrations shows that high CO2 levels are mostly located in non-urban areas, distant from fossil fuel combustion.
2. The highest amplitude of the seasonal “sawtooth” CO2 Keeling curve occurs at Barrow Alaska in the far north, distant from fossil fuel combustion.
3. The many Keeling curves measured all around the world all show that temperature and sunlight drive the huge CO2 seasonal cycle, which is vastly greater than man’s comparatively puny combustion of fossil fuels.
4. The satellite data does shows high CO2 levels in tropical areas that have been deforested and the forest burned, ironically often for the cultivation of biofuels.
5. CO2 data in urban areas shows CO2 following temperature, sunshine and photosynthesis, with little or no peaking at traffic rush hours.
6. CO2 also lags temperature by ~~800 years in the ice core record, on a longer time scale, probably due to exsolution of deep ocean CO2 over time – and the Medieval Warm Period ended ~~800 years ago.
But in the end Ferdinand, I just do not care much about your mass balance argument, which is largely irrelevant. Whatever the cause of increased atmospheric CO2, you and I agree that increasing atmospheric CO2 is NOT causing dangerous global warming – that is the important point.
All you are doing is creating confusion about this irrefutable fact.
Regards, Allan
Dear Allan,
You wrote:
Wrong again. It is clear that you have never carefully read my 2008 paper, because Fig. 1 to 4, and especially Fig. 3 and 4 clearly show that CO2 (the integral of dCO2/dt) lags Temperature by ~9 months.
I have re-read it and still have the same conclusion: if you take the integral of the CO2 derivative, you do obtain the original CO2 levels. That is all variability and all slope. In this case CO2 shows a slightly quadratic slope, as dCO2/dt has a near linear slope.
Now look at your figure 3: you have detrended temperature and CO2, thus the remainder shows almost all variability and no slope. Then you conclude that (implied full!) CO2 follows T with ~9 months.
What you didn’t take into account is that the graph only shows the variability in CO2 which follows the variability of T with ~9 months, as you have removed near all of the real increase in the atmosphere by detrending. Thus your conclusion that CO2 follows T at all times is only proven for the variability, not for the bulk of the increase. The bulk of the increase is 110 ppmv leading above the long-term CO2/T ratio, no matter what the cause of the increase is, no matter the mass balance.
The variability in CO2 which lags T variability with ~9 months in general is only +/- 1 ppmv around the 110 ppmv trend (70 ppmv since Mauna Loa), maximum +/- 1.5 ppmv in extreme years (Pinatubo, 1998 El Niño). That is just noise, while the trend itself is from a different process, even if it was temperature related…
Here a graph which shows the real amplitudes of temperature and its result on CO2 (both oceans – per Henry’s law – and vegetation – per observed changes -) and human emissions vs. observed and calculated total CO2 levels. The latter is the accumulation of the difference between emissions and observed (surprisingly linear) sink rate over the past 55 years:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/rss_co2_emiss.jpg
In very deep detail, you still can see the lag of CO2 variability after T variability but the graph also shows that looking at only the variability doesn’t give you the slightest idea of the real influence of the different actors on the CO2 levels in the atmosphere…
For the rest, the natural cycles are much larger than the tiny human contribution, thus hardly measurable in the huge natural fluxes. That doesn’t prove that the human contribution is negligible, as the natural carbon exchanges are two-way where the net result, the total year by year sink rate + variabilty is -4.5 +/- 4.5 GtC/year, while humans add 9 GtC/year one-way…
Still, am bothered that skeptics shoot themselves in the foot by not accepting that humans are the cause of the increase, while all observations point in that direction. On that point the “consensus” is really strong…
Hello Ferdinand,
A few observations:
1. Figure 1 in my 2008 icecap paper is not detrended, but the close dCO2/dt vs Temperature (and thus CO2-lags-T signal) remains.
See also this plot, which is also not detrended:
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/esrl-co2/from:1979/mean:12/derivative/plot/uah/from:1959/scale:0.22/offset:0.14
2. Other drivers of increasing CO2 such as deforestation, fossil fuel combustion, deep ocean upwelling/exsolution, etc. could also be driving increases in CO2, but seem to have little impact on the observed close correlation of dCO2/dt with Temperature, since this close relationship is the only signal that is apparent in the data. In short, the only clear result of your “baseline” increase in CO2 is the greening of the planet – no warming or cooling is apparent from it – it is highly beneficial to humanity and the environment, and apparently irrelevant to the global warming debate. This ~15% greening of the planet is huge as well – and there is still much we do not know about the water-CO2 cycle.
3. Much (or all?) of the “apparent warming” from 1982 through ~1996 is due to natural recovery of the atmosphere from these two volcanoes: El Chichon from 1982 and Pinatubo from 1991 (each for about 5 years). See my equation and graph below:
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1078059648938263&set=a.1012901982120697.1073741826.100002027142240&type=3&theater
See also Bill Illis’s more detailed equation and graph, referred to below.
CONCLUSIONS:
a. THERE HAS BEEN INSIGNIFICANT NET GLOBAL WARMING DUE TO CO2 IN THE SATELLITE ERA.
b. THE IMPACT OF INCREASING ATMOSPHERIC CO2 ON GLOBAL TEMPERATURE IS SO CLOSE TO ZERO AS TO BE MATERIALLY INSIGNIFICANT.
Reference:
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/09/23/lewandowsky-and-cook-deniers-cannot-provide-a-coherent-alternate-worldview/comment-page-1/#comment-2306447
Bill Illis’s work on this equation predates mine by years. Somehow I missed his stuff and thought I had discovered something new – Haw!
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/09/23/lewandowsky-and-cook-deniers-cannot-provide-a-coherent-alternate-worldview/comment-page-1/#comment-2306066
My simpler equation using only Nino3.4 is:
UAHLTcalc (Anom. in degC, ~four months later) = 0.20*Nino3.4IndexAnom + 0.15
Data: Nino3.4IndexAnom is at: http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/data/indices/sstoi.indices
Here is the plot of my equation:
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1078059648938263&set=a.1012901982120697.1073741826.100002027142240&type=3&theater
Bill’s equation adds considerable value, especially wrt the impact of volcanoes El Chichon from 1982 and Pinatubo from 1991 (each for about 5 years).
Much (or all?) of the “apparent warming” from 1982 through ~1996 is due to natural recovery of the atmosphere from these two volcanoes.
Not sure how much impact the AMO has on Bill’s equation, but I agree with Bill that THE IMPACT OF INCREASING ATMOSPHERIC CO2 ON GLOBAL TEMPERATURE IS SO CLOSE TO ZERO AS TO BE MATERIALLY INSIGNIFICANT.
Bill’s equation helps to explain why the only “signal” apparent in the “temperature vs atmospheric CO2” relationship is the one I demonstrated in January 2008 – that dCO2/dt is closely correlated with global temperature T and its integral “atmospheric CO2 concentration” lags global temperature by about 9 months in the modern data record. See Figures 1 to 4 in my 2008 icecap.us paper
http://icecap.us/images/uploads/CO2vsTMacRae.pdf
or this plot:
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/esrl-co2/from:1979/mean:12/derivative/plot/uah/from:1959/scale:0.22/offset:0.14
My conclusion was re-stated here in 2015:
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/06/13/presentation-of-evidence-suggesting-temperature-drives-atmospheric-co2-more-than-co2-drives-temperature/
Observations and Conclusions:
1. Temperature, among other factors, drives atmospheric CO2 much more than CO2 drives temperature. The rate of change dCO2/dt is closely correlated with temperature and thus atmospheric CO2 LAGS [Lower Tropospheric] temperature by ~9 months in the modern data record
2. CO2 also lags temperature by ~~800 years in the ice core record, on a longer time scale.
3. Atmospheric CO2 lags temperature at all measured time scales.
…
I remain reasonably confident that the future cannot cause the past (in our current space-time continuum). 🙂
Regards to all, Allan
Dear Allan,
It is hard to convince you where it is going wrong, but here a last attempt…
1. Figure 1 in my 2008 icecap paper is not detrended, but the close dCO2/dt vs Temperature (and thus CO2-lags-T signal) remains.
As said many times, you are comparing apples with oranges: if you want to prove that temperature leads CO2, then compare the full numbers of T and CO2 or the derivatives of T and CO2. Not T with dCO2/dt and not detrended. The variability in T and CO2 or dCO2/dt will always -largely- match, but there is no lag between T and dCO2/dt, none, zero… The lag is between T and CO2 and between dT/dt and dCO2/dt, where dT/dt has zero slope, only a small offset from zero. T is only slightly warming with a very small supply of CO2 as result (less than 5 ppmv in the satellite era).
By using a complete arbitrary factor and offset, it is always possible to match two straight slopes and if the slopes are not too different, even the amplitudes of the variabilities do more or less match. That is what you are doing by comparing T with dCO2/dt.
The CO2-lags-T-signal remains only in the variability, which is hardly visible in the total increase of CO2 in the atmosphere: the full plot of T vs. CO2 shows a steadily increasing CO2 regardless of what temperature does. Total CO2 currently leads T with 110 ppmv.
2. Other drivers of increasing CO2 … seem to have little impact on the observed close correlation of dCO2/dt with Temperature
Again, the close correlation between dCO2/dt and temperature is a false comparison as by taking the derivative of one variable and not of the other one, you have largely detrended only the first. The same close correlation is visible for the comparison between dT/dt and dCO2/dt, but dT/dt has no slope and dCO2/dt lags dT/dt:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/temp_co2_der.jpg
As you can see: there is the lag which shows that dCO2/dt follows dT/dt with ~9 months. If you integrate both you will find the same lag in the variability but hardly any influence of temperature on total CO2 levels. Temperature thus is responsible for near all the variability around the trend but not responsible for the bulk of the CO2 increase: negative for vegetation, small for oceanic releases (16 ppmv/K)…
3. About the influence of CO2 on temperature)
Here we largely agree, but again disagree on the CO2 lag after T, which is for the variability only, not for the bulk of the increase…
Allan,
Here a plot of the maximum addition of CO2 by temperature, based on the maximum change of CO2 with temperature over glacial-interglacial transitions (16 ppmv/K over millennia):
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1960/to:2017/scale:16/offset:320/plot/esrl-co2/from:1960/to:2017/mean:12
Even that is overblown, as the measured lagged variability in the atmosphere around the trend is much smaller. No matter that, the absolute maximum contribution of the warming oceans to the atmospheric CO2 is 10 ppmv (the biosphere is a net sink), the rest of the 85 ppmv increase since 1960 is not caused by temperature and thus leads temperature…
Bart,
As usual, you are looking at the derivatives, which show a good correlation between temperature variability and CO2 rate of change variability, but that says next to nothing about the cause of the increase…
The increase simply follows human emissions at one side and the uptake by oceans and vegetation, which is a simple linear function of the extra pressure in the atmosphere above the steady state between ocean surface and atmosphere for the average ocean temperature:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/dco2_em6.jpg
While there is a “pause” in emissions for the past years, the calculated CO2 increase in the atmosphere even goes down, because the CO2 levels in the atmosphere still go up and thus the sink rate increases…
Your emissions data do not match my emissions data.
You are fooling yourself with your epicycles.
Bart,
Same source as you up to 2008.
2008-2012: http://www.eia.gov/
2013-2015: https://www.iea.org/newsroomandevents/pressreleases/2016/march/decoupling-of-global-emissions-and-economic-growth-confirmed.html
Further: still ignoring any data that disproves your theory? Including violating Henry’s law for the solubility of CO2 in seawater (no matter if that is static or dynamic).
Your second link says:
“Global energy-related carbon dioxide emissions (CO2) – the largest source of man-made greenhouse gas emissions – stayed flat for the second year in a row, according to analysis of preliminary data for 2015 released today by the International Energy Agency (IEA).”
So, it is not a full accounting, and you are mixing sources.
And sorry, no about Henry’s Law. We’ve been over and over it. No point doing it again.
Bart,
Preliminary data need some quality checks, but can be used for preliminary graphs… There were no recent data at CDIAC after 2008, so I did search for other datasources, but I will compare both as they now seems to be up to date again. Not that I expect large differences. From the past I know that economical crisis show a temporarely “pause” in human emissions…
Still thinking that an increase in atmospheric CO2 pressure has zero effect on CO2 uptake by the oceans?
Of course it does. But, since there is a continual flow, it begets a sensitivity in ppmv/degC/unit-of-time. That is precisely what we see in the data.
Bart,
In your formula there is zero influence of the increased CO2 pressure in the atmosphere. Only temperature, where a small offset above an arbitrary baseline gives a CO2 flux until eternity which is physically impossible without negative feedback from the increased pCO2 in the atmosphere.
Any CO2 release from upwelling waters is in ratio to the pCO2 difference between water and atmosphere.
Any CO2 uptake by sinking waters is in ratio to the pCO2 difference between water and atmosphere.
All what temperature does is increasing the pCO2 of the ocean surface with 16 μatm/K at any place on earth. That increases the CO2 release at the upwelling places and reduces the uptake at the sink places. That results in a CO2 increase in the atmosphere until 16 ppmv/K extra is reached. At that moment the original in/out fluxes are restored and no further release due to increased temperature is happening…
That is the same 16 ppmv/K for a single sample in a flask per Henry’s law in equilibrium with the air above it as for a dynamic system which the oceans are…
“In your formula there is zero influence of the increased CO2 pressure in the atmosphere.”
Wrong. I’ve been over this with you many times before. I’ve provided all the formulas and showed how they result in an integral relationship from temperature to CO2.
As Roy says above, the link between ENSO and CO2 growth rate has been known for a long time. What appears to be missing is any detailed analysis of the d13C data. My preliminary analysis shows that the long term average d13C is circa -13 per mil, but during a strong El Nino it decreases to circa -26. More significantly, during a strong La Nina, it increases to circa zero – i.e. the entire incremental CO2 during a La Nina is likely from the deep oceans, as one would expect if the source of the CO2 is driven by the upwelling of deep waters associated with a La Nina. Is this documented anywhere or should I pursue?
Jim Ross,
Good observation! The δ13C levels for Mauna Loa and other stations can be downloaded from the NOAA carbon tracker website:
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/dv/iadv/
While the deep oceans surely play a role, the main effect seems to be in tropical vegetation: warmer oceans makes that rain patterns change and large parts of the Amazon are drying out (including frequent fires): less uptake and more decay, emitting a lot of low-13C CO2. During La Niña, the Amazon catches up growth and then absorbs a lot of relative more 12CO2 than 13CO2:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/temp_dco2_d13C_mlo.jpg
The Pinatubo had the opposite effect, not only by a small temperature drop, but vegetation growth was enhanced by light scattering as some leaves normally in the shadow of other leaves during a part of the day received more sunlight…
Cute graph. It isn’t news, is it?
“Nature partially compensates for this increased level of CO2, with both forests and oceans absorbing more (the latter leading to acidification of the oceans)”
The part in brackets is a load of COBBLERS. !!
Antarctic recorded 400ppm recently..
Yet no warming in the whole of the satellite era.
So much for polar amplification !!!
In fact, the ONLY regions that have experienced any warming at all are those affected by El Nino and ocean oscillations such as the AMO.
There is no sign of any CO2 based warming in the whole of the satellite data.
That ZERO trend goes all the way back to 1957. Official temps from the Amundsen-Scott station at the south pole.
https://legacy.bas.ac.uk/met/READER/surface/Amundsen_Scott.All.temperature.txt
Thanks Bill, I’ll convert that to monthly graph later.
Lunch time now. 🙂
Bart, and some others, so you actually believe these charts ??? Do you really think that big firms have been giving data in for all these years ??? Actually, I think there’s a misconception that CO2 emissions are measured. What you try to do is to measure how much fuel is burned and if you know how much carbon is in the fuel, you can calculate how much CO2 must be produced, and very seldom is that, in fact, measured.
How much to you think Temp. has risen in the last 100 years ???
Wayne
Wayne,
The CO2 emission inventory is not based on measurements but on sales of the different fuels and average burning efficiency of each fuel. As you know, sales = taxes and in the early days, the statistics were part of the financial department.
In the best case, the figures are quite accurate, in the worst case they are underestimated by under-the-counter-sales…
Hi Fer,
I would not think they are at all accurate, how on earth can anyone think they could work all this out, there are so many things putting Co2 and other things in the air. Ok tell me if it’s so easy and accurate, how much Co2 is put up in the air in one year by all, aeroplanes, all factory’s, and all trees, as you did say it’s accurate.
Wayne
Wayne,
I don’t know how the customs are working in your country, but here they are extremely eager to know how much oil and gas is sold, as that is a large part of the state’s income…
In that way the CO2 inventories from fossil fuel burning are at worst underestimates, pretty no chance that they are overestimates… That only makes it worse for a natural contribution: if human CO2 emissions are larger, that only means that the sink rate in some natural sinks (vegetation, oceans) is larger…
Trees are part of the natural cycle, but the whole biosphere (plant growth and decay, bacteria, molds, insects, animals,…) today is a net sink for CO2, as can be deduced from the oxygen balance: plants produce oxygen when absorbing CO2 and use oxygen when decaying, burned or eaten… See:
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/287/5462/2467.short
and
http://www.bowdoin.edu/~mbattle/papers_posters_and_talks/BenderGBC2005.pdf
Always been global warming and cooling, there is “no” man made, it’s proven if you look back in time, and even now in the lat 100 years, the average temp.
Note; While we measure the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere in mere parts per million (ppm), this small amount has a substantial effect on the temperature at the surface of the Earth. The amount has now increased by 40% since the industrial revolution, leading directly to increased temperatures worldwide.
So if they “claim” Co2 has gone up and there is as they claim a correlation, why has not temperature gone up 40% ??? Look back on years and you will see rise and fall of Co2 and the temperature, it’s just the normal cycles, there is no man made global warming, well in very small amounts there are, as before us there was no New York, and today there is, thus in the area on New York, its warmer now than before it was there, but that does not add with all the Citys on the World to warming, as I said just look at charts from Millions of years ago and to now, and the Temperature goes up and it goes down, same with Co2.
https://www.google.co.uk/search…
Wayne
“NOW” look at the ups and downs on a longer scale, and geuss what, yes at this moment in time, we could say we are in a mini isc age.
http://www.drroyspencer.com/…/Loehle-2000-years-of…
Wayne
Round and round and round and round and round and round and….
Wayne, I don’t even think they are measuring temperature either and if they are they’ve been faked.
Very interesting graphic. thank you.
Here are my results on these relationships
1. yes, there appears to be strong correlation between atmospheric co2 and surface temperature
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2861463
2. but no evidence that changes in atmospheric co2 are related to fossil fuel emissions on an annual time scale
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2642639
I should also mention that the correlation presented by climate scientists and the ipcc between cumulative fossil fuel emissions and surface temperature (temperature = cumulative warming) is spurious and therefore it does not serve as empirical evidence for anything.
1. why correlations between cumulative values are spurious
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2853163
2. demonstration that the correlation between cumulative values are spurious
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2725743
3. a youtube video on the spuriousness of correlations between cumulative values
Chaamjamal,
You can prove that a series of random points can result in a spurious correlations when integrated, but that doesn’t prove that every good correlation between integrated variables is spurious…
Chaamjamal,
Some time ago I offered to show you that your second paper is wrong:
SImply add two influences to CO2 levels:
– a slightly quadratic increase of CO2 supply without any variability.
– a sinusoid temperature resulting in a sinusoid CO2 level without any trend.
The result is a sinusoid with a slope over time
Now detrend the result.
– you will find near zero correlation with the first variable.
– you will find a near 100% correlation with the second variable.
Your conclusion:
“A statistically significant correlation between annual anthropogenic CO2 emissions and the annual rate of accumulation of CO2 in the atmosphere over a 53-year sample period from 1959-2011 is likely to be spurious because it vanishes when the two series are detrended. The results do not indicate a measurable year to year effect of annual anthropogenic emissions on the annual rate of CO2 accumulation in the atmosphere.”
Is entirely wrong, because by detrending you have removed the cause of the trend and as the “emissions” have zero year by year variability, they show no correlation…
Chaamjamal,
In addition, the correlation between total CO2 emissions and total CO2 in the atmosphere:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/acc_co2_1960_cur.jpg
Where MLO = Mauna Loa and SPO = South Pole
In comparison the correlation between temperature and total CO2 in the atmosphere:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/temp_co2_1960_cur.jpg
Which shows that a fast change in temperature results in a small change of CO2, while overall there should be a large result. The latter is in reality much smaller than here projected, thus largely spurious…
What temperature data Ferd?
We already know that the “adjustments” are a very close match to CO2 in the US, and almost certainly in GISS since its from the same stable.
AndyG55,
I did use the HadCRUT3 data for that graph, but they too are “corrected” over time, mostly one-way: the current data up the past down…
Only makes it even more unlikely that temperature was the cause of much of the increase in CO2…
Bart,
The integral of CO2 emissions is a defined unit: total amount of CO2 emitted over time. That makes sense.
The integral of temperature is defined as what? °C-months? Doesn’t make sense…
Ferdinand,
What exactly are you implying with your plot of atmospheric CO2 increase vs. cumulative CO2 emissions? Are you suggesting this plot shows that cumulative emissions are driving the atmospheric CO2 increase such that the increase is directly proportional to the cumulative emissions? If that were true, then atmospheric CO2 could never decrease, even if we stopped all emissions.
I strongly suspect that the linear relationship shown in your plot is spurious.
willb01,
That the increase in the atmosphere is roughly half the total emissions is the result of the slightly quadratic increase of human emissions.
The sink rate in the oceans (and vegetation) only depends of the extra CO2 pressure in the atmosphere above dynamic equilibrium (which is governed by the average ocean surface temperature per Henry’s law), no matter how much humans in any year release. The sink rate has a surprisingly linear ratio: currently about 2.13 ppmv for an extra pressure of 110 ppmv above equilibrium. That gives an e-fold decay rate of ~52 years or ~35 years half life time for any excess CO2 above equilibrium, whatever the cause. That was fairly constant over the past 55 years. Humans currently emit about 4.5 ppmv/year, that makes that the difference with the sink rate remains in the atmosphere.
Human emissions increased linear over time and so did the pressure in the atmosphere and thus the sink rate. That makes that if you plot total CO2 emissions, increase in the atmosphere and total sinks against each other, you will have straight lines.
That is only the result of the increasing human emissions. If these were constant, atmospheric levels would go asymptoting towards a fixed increase until sinks are equal to emissions. If human emissions did stop completely, levels in the atmosphere would go down in ratio to the extra CO2 pressure until the dynamic equilibrium between CO2 in the atmosphere and the ocean surface is reached again…
The calculated remainder of human emissions in the atmosphere (as mass, not the original molecules) is here as the red line in the graph.
Momentary temperature changes (Pinatubo, El Niño) have a huge influence on the momentary CO2 rate of change, but that levels off within 1-3 years to (near) zero effect.
This is a trivial correlation, Ferdinand. This one is better
http://i1136.photobucket.com/albums/n488/Bartemis/tempco2_zps55644e9e.jpg
Bart,
Besides what Henry’s law says about the (dynamic) equilibrium between ocean surface temperature and CO2 levels in the atmosphere, the rest of the increase by temperature is entirely spurious. By using the temperature anomaly, you do introduce a fudge factor into your temperature integral. By choosing the right offset, you can match any slope of CO2, no matter the real cause of the CO2 increase.
Not so for the yearly CO2 releases, which are added from zero and the integral simply reflects the total amount of CO2 emitted by humans. That integral has about twice the slope of the CO2 increase in the atmosphere. The difference with the increase in the atmosphere is what the oceans (and vegetation) have absorbed in direct ratio to the increased CO2 pressure in the atmosphere above steady state for the average ocean temperature.
Has anyone crunched any numbers yet on how much atmospheric CO2 would have increased just by warming the oceans by whatever amount they have since 1900 or so? IOW, if humans weren’t adding any CO2 to the atmosphere, how much would the oceans have given up just by warming to their present degree?
James,
IF (and only if) the ocean surface temperature data are more or less reliable, that gives an increase of maximum 16 ppmv for maximum 1 K temperature increase since the depth of the Little Ice Age.
That is according to Henry’s law for the solubility of CO2 in seawater, confirmed by (nowadays) over 3 million in situ seawater samples all over the oceans.
See: http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/pubs/outstand/feel2331/exchange.shtml and following sections for the compilation of the first 2 million samples.
For anyone trying to balance the carbon cycle, the paper in the link below needs to be taken into consideration. The only discussion is lower troposphere charts. Here is an excellent paper with continuous readings at 80, 90 and 100 Km ALTITUDE. The rate of increase > 100km is 12% per annum whereas from 90km down to Mauna Loa it is only 5% per annum.
CO2 is not recorded above this level. The entire vertical column is in positive disequilibrium with a constant outflow. Note the concluding comments from the author. It will lead to the full paper.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/281034394_Increasing_carbon_dioxide_concentration_in_the_upper_atmosphere_observed_by_SABER
Ozonebust,
I suppose that you mean a constat CO2 inflow, not an outflow as CO2 levels everywhere are going up?
It takes time for CO2 to reach the upper air levels and always will lag the ground levels, as long as CO2 is continuously emitted near surface… Some lag is observed between Mauna Loa at 3,400 m and near sea suface level stations and between SH and NH stations, as the exchange of air masses between NH and SH is only 10% per year. That points to a source of CO2 at the NH surface – where 90% of human emissions are located:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/co2_trends_1995_2004.jpg
Ferdinand
I stated that there is a near continuous outflow of CO2 from the troposphere to the higher altitudes measured up to 100km high. The paper quatifies that outflow. The rate and timing of transport out of the troposphere is controlled by seasonal factors. The concluding remarks in the paper clearly state that there is a real problem with the current circular carbon cycle theory that is supposed to be contained to the tropopause. As a result the entire vertical column up to and beyound the 100km altitude is increasing in density, hence the increased surface density.
Your statement that only 10% of atmosphere exchanges to the SH from the NH is not representative of what actually occurs. Atmospheric transport is not well understood.
1, Your CO2 Trends chart. Given that 90% human emmissions in the NH peaking through Dec to Feb, 10% in SH. When one looks at the actual curve trend at the South Pole sampling station it has the longest incline curve of all surface station charts. There is a near constant flow southward from the NH. Also given the near linear relationship between the values of the sites you plot, all we are seeing is a dilution of CO2 due to mixing as it travels south. By the time it gets to the South Pole station it has passed over the Southern ocean and all others in between. If the ocean were sinks there should be a greater disparity between the SP and other stations close to NH source such as Samoa.
2, If one looks with a critical eye and open mind at the thirty sequential OCO-2 satellite images released in April you will see a massive transport of atmosphere bearing CO2 towards the Antarctic vortex. Again this shatters the elusion of a the NH sinks taking up the emissions. The vast majority of NH CO2 emissions end up in the SH headed to the Antarctic vortex, starting in May. Why do you think it is so hard to find the latest OCO-2 CO2 images.
After many years of observation living in New Zealand I dont need the monthly temperature anomoly chart to know that the NH temperatures remained almost unchanged during the month of October for example. This is particularly noticable between July to January.
Regards
Ozonebust,
My wrong, I misinterpreted the “out”flow…
I thought that the exchange between troposphere and stratosphere was rather limited mainly to huge tunderstorms in the tropics, but I can be easily be wrong on that topic…
If the ocean were sinks there should be a greater disparity between the SP and other stations close to NH source such as Samoa.
The ocean surface is only a small sink for CO2 as any change in the atmosphere is followed with a change of total inorganic carbon (DIC) in the oceans of only 10% of the change in the atmosphere (both in % and in GtC). The main sinks are into the deep oceans: around Antarctica and the largest one in the NE Atlantic, part of the THC. In average, the ocean surface absorbs some 5% of human emissions (in quantity), deep oceans some 35% and vegetation some 10%, the rest remains in the atmosphere. That gives that there is not much gradient due to ocean absorption. There is more gradient due to migration speed between latitudes and altitudes and passing the ITCZ…
I suppose that the OCO-2 satellite still has a lot of problems, as some results are not compatible with other observations; the yearly average CO2 levels over the NE Atlantic are at the highest in the OCO-2 observations, while that is the largest sink place, because the pCO2 of the sinking waters is much lower than of the atmosphere. See the net sink fluxes calculated from in situ ocean surface water pCO2 measurements and wind (mixing) speed:
http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/pubs/outstand/feel2331/mean.shtml
Ferdinand
The problem is not with the OCO-2 satellite images, the problem is the entrenched view of what was expected to be seen by most observers. When a picture shows something different from a long held assumption, there must be something wrong with the picture. The images confirmed what I had suspected but could not proove since 2007.
It is also assumed that ALL atmosphere bearing CO2 comes in contact with the ocean surface and the biospheric sinks – it does not. There is reality and there is the assumed. The OCO-2 images are a breath of fresh air on a stale discussion. How long it takes the wider scientific comunity to comes to terms with reality is going to be interesting. When the sceptics have a closed mind and dont see the gold that is revealed in the OCO-2 images we have real problem.
So far mine is the only interpretation of the images in the 6 months since release.
http://www.blozonehole.com/blozone-hole-theory/blozone-hole-theory/carbon-cycle-using-nasa-oco-2-satellite-images
Ozonbust,
I have read your theory, but I disagree about the cause: it is near impossible that large quantities of CO2 are going into the mesosphere…
I think that you forgot to take into account the differences in air mass of the troposphere, the stratosphere and the mesosphere…
99% of the air mass is in the first 30 km above ground, the rest is in the other aire layers. Thus even if the mesosphere and part of the thermosphere show faster increasing CO2 levels (in ppmv) than the troposphere and stratosphere, that is negligible in quantity…
Ferdinand
Agreed, but look at the volume / area / cubic capacity of the mesosphere compared to troposphere. Plus only a portion of it is residing there, the vast majority of CO2 is passing through out past 100km altitude, the same as all the other surface stations, just passing through, apart from the residual annual growth through column weight increase.
Hello ozonebust and thank you for your June 2016 paper – are you Martin D. Cropp? I am pleased that you cited Richard S Courtney’s 2006 paper.
Ferdinand and Richard have entertained us for more than a decade with their discussions about Ferdinand’s Mass Balance Argument. Richard and I remain agnostic on this issue.
I wrote this in 2012 – according to your 2016 paper, I made an error in the last sentence, where I wrote: “I agree that we are not exporting CO2 to other planets.” My bad. 🙂
Also Ferdinand, does not your Mass Balance Argument assume a closed system for CO2? What is the impact on your Mass Balance Argument if ozonebust’s June 2016 paper proves correct?
Regards to all, Allan
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/07/10/unexplored-possible-climate-balancing-mechanism/#comment-1036650
A worthwhile dialogue gentlemen, thank you.
I think the secrets reside in the data. No surprise there.
In 2008 I wrote that dCO2/dt varies ~contemporaneously with temperature and CO2 lags temperature by ~9 months. I referred to Jan Veizer’s papers and think Jan was generally on the right track.
http://icecap.us/index.php/go/joes-blog/carbon_dioxide_in_not_the_primary_cause_of_global_warming_the_future_can_no/
I also observed in 2008 that there was no similar detailed relationship between variations in fossil fuel combustion and atmospheric CO2 levels – the “wiggles” did not correlate.
I was recently fascinated by the observation that the urban CO2 data from Salt Lake City exhibited NO human signature – only the natural daily cycle was apparent.
http://co2.utah.edu/index.php?site=2&id=0&img=30
One wonders if these clever Mormons are all driving Chevy Volts – like the Vikings were driving Volvos during the Medieval Warm Period. 🙂
It seems to me there is evidence that the biosphere is CO2-starved or at least CO2-limited. Since we cannot (except perhaps in winter) see the human signature of urban CO2 emissions AT THE URBAN SOURCE OF THESE EMISSIONS, are these humanmade CO2 emissions being captured close to their source and causing increased biomass in the process? Is there any other explanation? And not all that increased biomass decays in the Spring.
I’m sorry Ferdinand – you are a gentleman and I like you, but I don’t like your mass balance argument. I think atmospheric CO2 concentration is part of a huge dynamic system with biological and physical components on land and in the ocean, and this huge system dwarfs the humanmade CO2 component and is generally unaffected by it. That is what the data says to me.
Variations in biomass (e.g. deforestation and reforestation) may be the huge variable that would make your mass balance equation work better – I agree that we are not exporting CO2 to other planets.
Allan,
Some more knowledge about human releases in populated areas:
http://meteo.lcd.lu/papers/co2_patterns/co2_patterns.html for Diekirch (Luxemburg) see section 4.1 for the dual peak in CO2 of traffic rush hours under inversion. During the day, wind speed increases and human emissions are readily dispersed in the bulk of the atmosphere…
Even in populated areas you need periods without much wind, or it is diffucult to detect human emissions…
Allan,
Salt Lake City has currently some 100 ppmv higher levels of CO2 than the surrounding urban places and valleys:
http://co2.utah.edu/index.html
And as I wrote in the past on a similar remark of yours (graph not available anymore):
Further, have a better look at the Salt Lake city CO2 levels: the second peak between 05:00 and 08:00, while vegetation starts to absorb CO2 under increasing sunlight. Seems rush hour to me…
Seems similar as what is measured at Diekirch…
Of course, I assume that the earth is a closed system for most gases. With a few exceptions: hydrogen which has the right velocity and weight to escape from the earth’s gravity and to a certain extent helium (not sure about the latter). CO2 is much too heavy to escape.
Thus while some CO2 escapes to the higher air layers, the quantities involved are less than 1% of the change in the troposphere and part stratosphere.
Density plays no role in ppmv, as ppmv is a volume ratio, which doesn’t change with density. Thus the maximum error by not accounting for any escape to the higher air layers is 1%…
In closing, Ferdinand my friend:
I think we are talking past each other. I fully understand what you are saying and have understood it since about 2008. Your argument is with others, who insist that temperature is the ONLY significant driver of CO2 – I do not make that claim. Please do not re-iterate your mass balance argument yet again – I get it, I just allow that other possibilities exist.
Let us ASSUME for the moment that you are correct, and that the combustion of fossil fuels is the primary driver of increasing atmospheric CO2. OK – so what – if true, it is still almost irrelevant to the very important global warming debate.
There remains the incontrovertible fact that the only clear signal that is apparent in the modern data is described by my Observation (2008):
“The rate of change dCO2/dt is closely correlated with global temperature, and its integral CO2 lags temperature by ~9 months in the modern data record.”
This Observation is significant, and suggests a scientifically important causative relationship, one that is much more important than your entire mass balance argument. This observation is clearly not just Henry’s Law (ocean exsolution), because it is highly improbable that the minor contribution from Henry’s Law would survive as the only clearly signal in the huge seasonal CO2-water cycle, which is dominated by the larger Northern Hemispheric land area, and terrestrial photosynthesis/decay.
Instead of fixating on your relatively unimportant mass balance argument, why don’t you apply your significant intellect and knowledge to explaining exactly what causes the dCO2/dt relationship – this is what matters and is significant – your mass balance argument is not even of secondary importance, because whatever the cause, the observed increase of atmospheric CO2 is beneficial to humanity and the environment.
Regards, Allan
Dear Allan,
The problem with your reasoning is that you do compare apples with oranges and then conclude that there is a variability in apple juice content in the apple/orange juis mix following the variability in apple supply, Then you go further to declare that the future can’t cause the past, which makes no sense for the mix as that remark only covers the apple juice content…
This Observation is significant, and suggests a scientifically important causative relationship, one that is much more important than your entire mass balance argument.
As said many times, all what you have proven is that there is a significant relationship between the variability in CO2, lagging the variability in T, but that says next to nothing about the cause of the increase in CO2 as it is scientifically proven beyond doubt that variability and increase are caused by different processes.
The variability has zero effect on the increase as the main cause of the variability is the response of (tropical) vegetation on T variability, while a T and CO2 increase sinks more CO2 into vegetation – the earth is greening…
In other words, the causative relationship in variability between T and CO2 has zero importance for the cause of the increase of CO2 in the atmosphere…
why don’t you apply your significant intellect and knowledge to explaining exactly what causes the dCO2/dt relationship
I have done that step by step in every detail, which you have commented on, but maybe not have followed in detail, as you were eager to defend your own theory…:
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/11/25/about-spurious-correlations-and-causation-of-the-co2-increase-2/
The theory starts to be interesting from point 2.3 on… Please reread it again…
Dear Ferdinand
You wrote in your referenced article:
“Conclusion: The “match” between the slopes in temperature and CO2 rate of change is entirely spurious.”
If you are saying that the correlation between dCO2/dt and global temperature T is entirely spurious, then you are entirely wrong.
Furthermore, you keep trying to place me on the same side of the mass balance argument as others such as Salby and Bart, which is in itself false. I take no position in that argument – I am officially agnostic, I have stated this position since 2009 or earlier, and yet you refuse to accept that.
That is your blind spot. You keep fixating on your mass balance argument, which is largely unimportant and even irrelevant to what I have been saying since 2008.
Regards, Allan
Dear Allan,
If you are saying that the correlation between dCO2/dt and global temperature T is entirely spurious, then you are entirely wrong.
I didn’t say that the correlation between dCO2/dt and global temperature T is entirely spurious, I did say that the match between the slopes of T and dCO2/dt is entirely spurious. That is quite a difference.
The real correlation indeed is between the variabilities, no matter if that is between T and CO2, dT/dt and dCO2/dt (both with a lag) or T and dCO2/dt (without a lag!), not between the slopes…
You say that you don’t have a stance in what causes the increase, but by insisting that CO2 lags T in all time periods you imply that for the CO2 increase over the past 165 years too, which isn’t true… No matter what caused the increase (volcanoes, meteor impact, methane clathrates, humans,…)
That is where my objections started here: there is one exception in the rule that CO2 always follows T, that is in the past 165 years, even while the (small) fast variability in T still leads CO2 variability, the increase in total CO2 leads T with currently 110 ppmv, whatever the cause…
Regards,
Ferdinand
Robbie Andrew says:
“There are four main drivers of the changes in the level of CO2 in the atmosphere”:
Seasonal Cycle/Emissions/ENSO/Volcanoes
Where does oceanic out-gassing of CO2 rank as a driver in his thinking? He does not even give it an honorable mention as part of the seasonal cycle – despite the Earth’s surface being 70% water. Difficult to take the rest of his conclusions seriously with that omission.
The noticeable increase in the ‘rate of CO2 increase’ during big El Ninos is more likely driven by out-gassing due to the higher temperatures during the El Ninos.
Bernard,
The oceans are much slower reacting on temperature than land. Over the seasons the main driver is NH land vegetation with ~60 GtC in and out over a year, while the oceans show the opposite trend with ~50 GtC out and in. That leads to some global change of ~10 GtC (~5 ppmv) for ~1 K temperature increase where NH and SH have opposite signs and hardly any seasonal changes are visible in the SH due to more ocean than land.
How is it known that vegetation is dominant? The 13C/12C ratio (measured as δ13C) of the CO2 in the oceans is higher than of the atmosphere, while the CO2 from decaying plants is much lower in δ13C.
CO2 changes and δ13C changes parallel each other if the CO2 change is from the oceans and are opposite to each other if the CO2 change is from vegetation. That is clearly the case over the (NH) seasons:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/seasonal_CO2_d13C_MLO_BRW.jpg
Where MLO is Mauna Loa at 3,400 m, representing the average NH mixing ratio, with some delay and BRW is Barrow at near sealevel, representing the CO2 levels at near-ground of most of the high latitudes.
What’s it like to herd cats Ferdinand?
Tony,
Needs a lot of patience… Even so, some will never listen to any argument that doesn’t fit their preferred theory…
“Needs a lot of patience…”
and a lot of lies…
Fonzie,
Lies by whom? Some have a lot of fantasy, like CO2 piling up in the oceans, because there is a continuous supply of new (CO2 rich) water near the equator, but don’t fully take into account that as much (and more) CO2 is absorbed by the same quantity of – then cooled – water that sinks into the deep near the poles…
That are not lies, only an attempt to prove a theory that is only based on curve fitting…
The link between the SST ( tropics) which are at most influenced by ENSO and the annual grow rate of CO2:
http://www.dh7fb.de/ninos/co2gr.gif
Hello Frank.
Your plot shows no lag between “CO2 annual growth rate” and “tropical SST”.
I believe there is a lag of dCO2/dt after SST. By how many months did you offset CO2 in your above plot?
What data sources did you use for SST and CO2?
Regards, Allan
Knew it, no answer as on my questions. Seems more and more go for the Temps go up and down over many years, and the Co2 goes up and down over many years, we humans have basically nothing to do with the rise and falls of temp. be whats knew, most people would not fall for that, its quite easy to see its a Government scam, but what I will say, C02 is good for everything, but this scam will cut down on the other crap going into the air, thus a good thing.
Wayne
Wayne, you said:”
“C02 is good for everything, but this scam will cut down on the other crap going into the air, thus a good thing”
Actually, the global warming anti-CO2 scam is increasing atmospheric pollution. Why? Because China is continuing to build coal-fired power plants – several hundred more this year alone. Based on the very poor current air quality in urban China, It is probable that these plants are not equipped to properly control real air pollution, to remove NOx, SOx and particulates. This emissions-control equipment is relatively inexpensive and effective.
In contrast, the cost to control atmospheric CO2 emissions from coal plants is extremely expensive. The enviro-radicals have succeeded in confusing the public on this issue, by including colorless, odorless, utterly beneficial CO2 with real air pollutants. That is the scam, and it is costing society trillions of dollars per year.
China is forging ahead with more coal plants, while North America is hamstrung with false environmental crises that have driven up our energy costs and driven our manufacturing jobs offshore. We should have the lowest electricity costs in the world, but many venues (such as Ontario) have severely damaged their energy grids and driven out industry and jobs due to their foolish green energy policies,
Green energy schemes such as grid-connected wind and solar power are not green and produce little useful energy. Ironically, these green energy scams are intended to “fight global warming”, which is not actually happening.
The only significant result of increasing atmospheric CO2, allegedly caused by fossil fuel combustion, is an increase in food crop yields and the greening of the planet.
Best personal regards, Allan
wayne: We humans have nothing to do with the annual up’s and downs, the source are the variations of tropic SST ( they can absorb more or less CO2 from the atmosphere) . We h a v e to do with the long time increase.
Frank:
You wrote: “We h a v e to do with the long time increase.” Where is your evidence?
The evidence I have seen suggests that the sensitivity of climate to increasing atmospheric CO2 (from whatever cause) is so close to zero as to be insignificant. Most or all of the warming in the satellite era (since 1979) is natural recovery from two major volcanoes, El Chichon from 1982 and Pinatubo from 1991 (each for about 5 years). For the evidence, see
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/10/14/the-divergence-between-surface-and-lower-troposphere-global-temperature-datasets-and-its-implications/comment-page-1/#comment-2320319
Regarding the “long time increase”, one interesting hypo is that of Dan Pangburn, which suggests that long-term global temperatures correlate with the integral of solar activity, moderated primarily by the PDO/ENSO:
http://globalclimatedrivers2.blogspot.ca/
Regards, Allan
Allan,
frankclimate’s remark is about the increase of CO2, not the (non)increase in temperature…
Thank you Ferdinand – if indeed Frank is referring to CO2, not temperature, then you are correct (provided your mass balance argument is also correct). 🙂
If temps are responsible, even in part, for rising CO2 in the instrumental record period, then I’d love to see these points addressed, which seem to me to speak against that notion;
1) There was a ‘pause’ in global temps from 1940 to the 1970s. During this time, atmospheric CO2 rose. How did that happen if temps are responsible for CO2?
2) There was a slowdown in rise of global temps from 1998 to 2014, but CO2 rise was the fastest over that period than it had been since the 1950s. Why faster rate with little temp change?
3) During the Quaternary glacial transitions atmos CO2 changed by about 100ppm over the long term, while global temps changed by about 5C. Where is the 5C global warming preceding the 110ppm rise over the last century or so? MWP warmed by at most 2C global, so that can’t be it.
Om 3) I’d like to see a hypothesis that can be falsified. How about a value for increase in CO2 from 1C global warming? State any lag required, then we can test the theory.
Ferdinand has given figures for that upthread, arguing that temps can’t be responsible for recent 110ppm rise. Have any of the advocates of temp leads CO2 in the recent record given a value also – one that we can test to falsify?
I admit skipping after getting halfway through this long thread, but I hadn’t seen anything from proponents of temp-leads-CO2 in the modern period that could be falsified – hence, no useful theory. Only curve-fitting, which is definitely not what the proposition of falsifiability requires.
Did I miss something that could be used to test the hypothesis for the modern period? Feel free to link to it.
Regards, barry.
Barry wrote:
“If temps are responsible, even in part, for rising CO2 in the instrumental record period, then I’d love to see these points addressed…”
Hello Barry, here is what I think we know with confidence:
1. Global temperature T warmed to ~1940, then cooled to ~1975, then warmed to ~2000, and has since remained about the same (with the usual short-term fluctuations due to ENSO, etc.).
2. We have quality CO2 measurements since 1958 at Mauna Loa (and elsewhere since) – before that we have various estimates that may or may not be accurate. Average atmospheric CO2 since 1958 has generally increased annually by 1-2 ppm, with the seasonal Keeling curve “sawtooth” declines during each Northern Hemisphere (NH) summer, apparently dominated by NH terrestrial photosynthesis. Annualized Mauna Loa dCO2/dt has “gone negative” a few times in recent decades, specifically during the global cooling decades for 12-month intervals ending in: 1959-8; 1963-9; 1964-5; 1965-1; 1965-5; 1965-6; 1971-4; 1974-6; 1974-8; 1974-9.
3. The rate of change dCO2/dt changes ~contemporaneously with global temperature T in the modern data record, and its integral atmospheric CO2 lags temperature by ~9 months. This natural relationship is robust – comments about “curve fitting” and “spurious correlation” are specious in this case.
4. Because of points 1 and 2, I do not conclude that temperature is the only or even the primary driver of CO2.
5. I do conclude that since this dCO2/dt signal and resulting ~9 month lag is the only clear signal in the modern CO2-vs-T data record, therefore “Temperature, AMONG OTHER FACTORS, drives CO2 much more than CO2 drives temperature”. That is your testable hypothesis.
6. There could be other drivers (causes) of increasing atmospheric CO2 that include deforestation, fossil fuel combustion, deep ocean upwelling/exsolution, etc., but the dCO2/dt signal and resulting ~9 month lag survive loud and clear. These other possible “causes of increasing atmospheric CO2” are largely irrelevant to the global warming debate, because increasing atmospheric CO2 clearly does not cause significant global warming – if it did, temperature would lag rather than lead CO2 in time, and it clearly does not.
7. Furthermore, Earth is clearly CO2-deficient, and this increase in atmospheric CO2, from whatever cause(s), is beneficial to humanity and the environment.
8. In summary, the future cannot cause the past – the alleged global warming crisis is a fiction – it does not exist in scientific reality.
Regards, Allan MacRae
Post Script:
Others will probably weigh in with more comments, which are intended to support a further conclusion about the cause of the increase in atmospheric CO2. I suggest that these comments are irrelevant, in that whether correct or incorrect, they do not effect this hypothesis.
Thanks for the reply, Allan.
I do conclude that since this dCO2/dt signal and resulting ~9 month lag is the only clear signal in the modern CO2-vs-T data record, therefore “Temperature, AMONG OTHER FACTORS, drives CO2 much more than CO2 drives temperature”
Without some values given, I don’t see any way to falsify this hypothesis with any confidence. Could you state a way to do this with data available?
But I’ll do my best to ‘break’ this hypothesis as stated. No doubt you have made attempts yourself, or you wouldn’t be posting it with any confidence. I’d be curious to know how you’ve attempted to ‘break’ it.
One way I can think to break the hypothesis is to test various periods and see how well CO2 rise and temp rise correlate. As there is a purported lag of 9 months, then I need to choose a longer period. Of course, the annual cycle means that I need to choose a period longer than a year. And in case the ENSO fluctuations given in the OP have merit, I’d have to allow for a few cycles, so I’m going to go with a minimum of a decade, hopefully more.
Essentially, I’m going to look for the longest cooling or flat period in the instrumental record and see if atmos CO2 ceased rising (after 9 months?) or slowed or decreased. I’ll also compare with periods that have a strong rise in temps.
I’ll choose HadCRUt data for temps, and the ML data set, as that is the longest instrumental record we have of atmos CO2.
1959 – 1980 (Dec) temp trend is flat, at -0.003 C/decade.
CO2 rate = 0.97ppm/yr
1974 – 1997 (Dec) gives a warming rate of 0.18C/decade
CO2 rate = 1.37ppm/yr
1998 – 2012 (Dec) temp trend = 0.05 C/decade
CO2 rate = 1.77ppm/yr
First period (22 years) shows flat temps with CO2 rise.
Second period (24 years) shows strong warming trend with accelerated CO2 rise.
Third period shows ‘slowdown’, but accelerated CO2 rise.
These are the best periods I could think of to try to break your hypothesis. I think these quick and dirty tests throw a fair bit of cold water on the notion that temps have had much to do with the long-term CO2 rise. I think it is pretty well demonstrated by you (and the OP) that CO2 fluctuates interannually by temps.
Annual atmos CO2 rise has been nearly monotonic, with some acceleration. This correlates well with anthro emissions, but not with the much more various temp record. (Derivatives greatly magnify tiny fluctuations. href=http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1959/plot/esrl-co2/from:1959/derivative>Here is what the graph looks like without scaling and factoring).
I’d be curious to know what your best methods for breaking your hypothesis would be.
It would be great to get a value for predicted CO2 rise from 1C of global temp rise.
For example, If 5C temp rise over 5000 years gives us 100ppm from the last ice age to the current interglacial, what does that give us for about 100 years and 0.08C rise?
Or perhaps you have another way to calculate this?
Hi Barry.
Like some others, you are making a fundamental error: Please address what I have written on this subject, not what others have said. Others, who say temperature is the only or primary cause of increasing atmospheric CO2, may be taking my hypothesis “a bridge too far”, when there is no real need to do so. To falsify the false global warming alarmist hypothesis, one only has to show that CO2 lags and does not lead temperature, and why, which I have done.
I have used up my allotted time talking with Ferdinand, so I will “cut to the chase”.
My hypothesis was discussed extensively in 2008-2009, because it contradicted the popular notion that increasing atmospheric CO2 primarily caused rising temperature, which was false. Both sides of the fractious global warming debate (the warmists AND the skeptics) bitterly contested my hypothesis.
The close dCO2/dt relationship and resulting 9-month lag of CO2 after temperature is now generally accepted, even among many warmists. The best counter-argument the warmists have suggested is that the ~9-month lag “must be a feedback effect”, which is a cargo-cult argument:
“We KNOW CO2 drives warming (our paychecks depend on it), therefore it MUST BE a feedback effect.”
You have not read the relevant information above on this thread. Here is one depiction of the subject dCO2/dt vs T relationship, although I think it is slightly different mathematically from my own, which I suggest is technically more correct.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/esrl-co2/from:1979/mean:12/derivative/plot/uah5/from:1979/scale:0.22/offset:0.14
If you want to check my math, the 2008 spreadsheet is here – see Figures 1 to 4.
http://icecap.us/images/uploads/CO2vsTMacRaeFig5b.xls
I used UAH LT and Hadcrut3 for temperatures, and global CO2 concentrations back to 1979. The dCO2/dt vs T correlation holds.
In a separate unpublished spreadsheet I used Hadcrut3 and Mauna Loa CO2 back to 1958 and the correlation still held.
I no longer use the surface temperature data, Hadcrut or other, because I have lost confidence in its accuracy, especially due to all the recent “adjustments”.
In conclusion, I remain reasonably confident that the future cannot cause the past (in our current space-time continuum). 🙂
Regards, Allan
Post Script:
Statistician Bill Briggs also examined my hypo in 2008 using a completely different approach, and supported my conclusion (even though I did not like his methodology much. because it only examined a 12-month lag).
http://wmbriggs.com/post/122/
See also Humlum et al, January 2013, written five years after my icecap.us paper:
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0921818112001658
Highlights
– Changes in global atmospheric CO2 are lagging 11–12 months behind changes in global sea surface temperature.
– Changes in global atmospheric CO2 are lagging 9.5–10 months behind changes in global air surface temperature.
– Changes in global atmospheric CO2 are lagging about 9 months behind changes in global lower troposphere temperature.
– Changes in ocean temperatures explain a substantial part of the observed changes in atmospheric CO2 since January 1980.
– Changes in atmospheric CO2 are not tracking changes in human emissions.
****************
Thanks again, Allan. It seems my reply has prompted you to repeat much of your earlier comments. I’ll try and distill.
1) In what ways have you attempted to break your own hypothesis? What statement/s have you made that could be falsified, and how have you attempted to do this?
2) The derivative of CO2 shows interannual fluctuations consistent with temperature (which I expect and accept), but does not help us demonstrate long-term growth, because that function removes the trend. It does, however, reveal a small acceleration – there is a trend in the derivative itself, albeit orders of magnitude smaller than the actual CO2 trend. You are not in any way addressing long-term Temp–>CO2 growth that I can see, only interannual variation. Hence the thrust of my original questions.
Here is a graph of the derivative of temps since 1979 plus the trend of that. As you can see just about perfectly flat. Derivative function removes linear trend, thus you cannot demonstrate temp–>CO2 link to long-term change using this function, only interannual fluctuation (which is accepted).
It is troubling that you cannot furnish a value for CO2 rise from temps. This makes the hypothesis unfalsifiable, as there is no quantification for the relationship over time, hence my repeated requests for something more concrete.
To sum up, the derivative of CO2 shows interannual fluctuations and a slight acceleration in the trend. But it cannot reveal that temperature rise over the long term is responsible for any CO2 rise. Thus, we need a quantitative equation or statement on this that can be tested.
I’d add (again) that the aceleration demonstrated by the derivative of CO2 is consistent with anthropogenic source.
I know you don’t agree with the mass balance argument, but it is quite a difficult stumbling block for your theory. If anthro emissions are about twice that of the annual increase over time, and this relationship is quite consistent (it is), then rejecting that argument requires some pretty tortuous logic. Allowing for slight interannual variation, the long-term correlation is astoundingly good.
Allan,
You are using false arguments:
The best counter-argument the warmists have suggested is that the ~9-month lag “must be a feedback effect”
That is not what warmists or luke-warmers like myself say. The ~9 month lag is the transient response of (mainly tropical vegetation) CO2 to temperature (and humudity) changes. That is clearly said by NOAA’s Pieter Tans at his speech at the 50 years Mauna Loa data festivities in 2007 (that is before the publication of your theory):
http://esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/co2conference/pdfs/tans.pdf from slide 11 on.
What you still don’t see is that the ~9 months lag is solely for the small variability around the trend, not for the trend itself. By including the slope of dCO2/dt with some “trend matching” arbitrary offset and factor, you attribute all the trend to temperature, which is completely bogus, as you compare T with dCO2/dt, where in dCO2/dt most of the slightly quadratic increase in the atmosphere is already removed. Only a linear increase in dCO2/dt remains, but that is not caused by temperature, as the derivative of temperature is completely flat and the increase in T is down, up, flat, while CO2 is always up, every year of the past 55+ years…
Again, comparing T with dCO2/dt is not done: either you compare T with CO2 or dT/dt with dCO2/dt. Comparing T with dCO2/dt has no physical meaning.
That all has nothing to do with the mass balance or any of the many other observations that point to the human cause for the bulk of the CO2 increase in the atmosphere. This is simple logic which shows that you (and Humlum) compare apples to oranges and then conclude that red apples are oranges, because they have the same color…
Barry – now you are talking like a Ferdinand clone. I won’t address your comments in detail because they are largely irrelevant, as were Ferdinand’s. Repeating, I do not care about the source of CO2,
You are asking me to sift through and retrieve almost a decade of correspondence on this subject to satisfy your lack of reading.
FYI, Ferdinand and I both made monthly predictions of CO2 based on temperature many years ago on wattsup, for up to ~9 months into the future – see if you can find them.
Allan,
Our discussion boils down to one point only: does the 110 ppmv CO2 increase (80 ppmv since Mauna Loa) leads or lags temperature?
Hello Ferdinand – my answer to your question follows:
I stated above:
“Global temperature T warmed to ~1940, then cooled to ~1975, then warmed to ~2000, and has since remained about the same (with the usual short-term fluctuations due to ENSO, etc.).”
During this time period, atmospheric CO2 generally increased, with a few 12-month reversals during cooling periods.
In answer to your question:
There is NO clear relationship between TOTAL atmospheric CO2 and temperature – total CO2 neither leads nor lags the temperature curve. The observation that CO2 is generally increasing says nothing about lead/lag or cause/effect. You seem to disagree on this point but you should not.
Nevertheless, there is a clear signal in the modern (since 1958) data that dCO2/dt varies ~contemporaneously with temperature T, and its integral atmospheric CO2 LAGS temperature by ~9 months. This relationship has a clear lead/lag and cause/effect, in which temperature LEADS CO2 by about 9 months.
One possible interpretation, which you favour, is that there is an underlying primary cause of most of the CO2 increase, and you attribute that cause to fossil fuel combustion. You may be right, but it is also possible you are wrong. I do not really care, nor do I take a position on this point, because I see no need, pending more CO2 satellite data. I regard this point, which you deem of great importance, to be largely irrelevant to the fractious global warming debate.
The fact that this clear dCO2/dt signal survives “on top” of your alleged underlying “cause of most of the CO2 increase” suggests that, regardless of the cause of that “base CO2 increase”:
1. Temperature, among other causes, drives CO2 much more than CO2 drives temperature.
2. Therefore, the alleged global warming crisis is a fiction, and the squandering of trillions of dollars to “fight global warming” is a waste of scarce global resources that should be spent on much more important human and environmental needs.
3. Furthermore, atmospheric CO2 is not alarmingly high, it is alarmingly low for the continued survival of terrestrial carbon-based life on Earth.
4. In a decade or less, this increase in atmospheric CO2, from whatever cause, will be viewed as beneficial and not harmful.
That is my position
Best personal regards, Allan
Allan,
1. The observation that CO2 is generally increasing says nothing about lead/lag or cause/effect.
Regardless of the cause or the short term variability, there is Henry’s law for the solubility of CO2 in seawater with temperature. That is surpassed with some 110 ppmv by now, which is not seen in any ice core in the past 800,000 years. What else do you need as proof that total CO2 leads total T over the past 165 years?
2. dCO2/dt varies ~contemporaneously with temperature T, and its integral atmospheric CO2 LAGS temperature by ~9 months.
The integral of dCO2/dt doesn’t lag T. The integral is the full CO2 increase which doesn’t follow T at all: it is increasing much faster, slightly quadratic, compared to any up and down influence of temperature on CO2 from oceans (16 ppmv/K) or vegetation (a net sink of average ~1 GtC/year). The lag is only for the small influence of temperature (+/- a few tenths of K) on the variability in CO2 (+/- 1.5 ppmv) around a trend of 80 ppmv…
3. Temperature, among other causes, drives CO2 much more than CO2 drives temperature.
You can’t conclude that on the base of the lag of CO2 variabilty after T variability: the temperature to CO2 effect is only 4-5 ppmv/K. That is the only lag you have with certainty. That is no proof that the 110 ppmv rise since ~1850 has no effect on temperature, as you haven’t proven that there is a lag of CO2 after temperature for the total increase. It may have been reversed: the extra CO2 may have caused (part of) the T increase…
No problem with the other points…
Ferdinand you wrote:
“What else do you need as proof that total CO2 leads total T over the past 165 years?”
With respect, your definition of “leads” is meaningless, because the 20th-century data shows there is NO correlation in which increasing atmospheric CO2 caused a significant increase in global temperature – in fact, increasing CO2 occurred when temperature went up, down, up and sideways.
Using your definition Ferdinand, increasing CO2 leads everything, and thus could be the primary cause of the declining production of buggy whips.
Allan,
There is certainly a reasonable correlation between CO2 and temperature:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/temp_co2_1960_cur.jpg
That doesn’t prove causation, but you can’t conclude that there is no causation either way…
Ferdinand you wrote:
“There is certainly a reasonable correlation between CO2 and temperature…”
Sorry, but your above statement is unsupported by the data – it is false.
Here is a Surface Temperature (ST) data record, starting with Mann in 1981, and then mutating to GISS 2014 – after all the “adjustments”.
Source: https://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/alterations-to-climate-data/
I regard the Mann 1981 data as the least corrupted. As CO2 (allegedly) strongly increased after ~1940 due to fossil fuel combustion, (there is quality data only after 1958, at Mauna Loa), surface temperature DECREASED from ~1940 to ~1975, INCREASED to ~2000, and has since stayed about the same.
Thus your alleged correlation of temperature with CO2 has been down, up and sideways – actually, no correlation at all.
Regards, Allan
Allan,
I used the HadCRU data, except for the past few years – after the NOAA manipulation – less manipulated than GISS, but that doesn’t matter much, there is still a reasonable correlation if you use the shorter RSS or UAH data periods.
So we agree that temperature did go up and down in the past decades, but in general up, certainly in the period 1975-2000, but in general since 1850, when also CO2 started to increase.
Statistically it doesn’t mean anything that temperature in some periods goes down and in others goes up, that is natural variability.
Sea level goes up and down with meters per minute by waves and meters twice a day with the tides, still there is a -statistical- increase of a few mm/year deducable from tide gauges, even if you need 25 years of data before it can be calculated with sufficient accuracy…
In the case of T and CO2, it is certain that both did go up at least since 1976, statistically significant. Both UAH and RSS give a (for a natural process at one side) reasonable correlation (the 2016 extreme temperature peak excluded):
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/acc_temp_rss_uah.jpg
The correlation is heavily influenced by the 1998 El Niño. The steeper UAH temperature curve gives already a higher correlation and longer periods where both go up will only make it better…
Still you can’t say that there is no correlation and that CO2 can’t influence temperature over longer periods…
That doesn’t mean that I don’t agree with you that the influence of CO2 on T is minimal and harmless, but you have no proof of zero influence of CO2 on T, even if the (small) variability in CO2 around the (huge) CO2 trend lags the (huge) variability in T around the (small) T trend…
Ferdinand my friend, you wrote:
“So we agree that temperature did go up and down in the past decades, but in general up, certainly in the period 1975-2000, but in general since 1850, when also CO2 started to increase.
Statistically it doesn’t mean anything that temperature in some periods goes down and in others goes up, that is natural variability.”
Re your points:
1. Temperature increased since ~1850: I suggest a this was a natural recovery after the Little Ice Age. Also a recovery from the cooling effect of the huge Mt. Tambora eruption (1815), a VEI-7 event. I suggest there is no evidence that atmospheric CO2 played a significant causative role in the warming since ~1800 or ~1850.
2. Temperature increased from 1975-2000: This warming corresponded to the Great Climate Shift of 1977, which was also naturally-caused. Also, much of the warming since the satellites were launched in 1979 was a natural recovery from the eruptions of El Chichon (1982) and Pinatubo (1991). Please see
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/10/14/the-divergence-between-surface-and-lower-troposphere-global-temperature-datasets-and-its-implications/comment-page-1/#comment-2320319
NOT A WHOLE LOTTA GLOBAL WARMING GOIN’ ON! Please see and understand this plot:
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1106756229401938&set=a.1012901982120697.1073741826.100002027142240&type=3&theater
Please also see Bill Illis’ plot here, which is excellent predates my work on this subject:
3. Statistically, your correlation is NOT causation. In fact, your correlation is very poor, because of the natural cooling that occurred from ~1940 to ~1975, just as fossil fuel combustion strongly accelerated, and the so-called “Pause” since ~2000, all as CO2 increased. Also, the slope of the warming up to ~1940 is the same as the slope of the warming from ~1975-2000, so again there is no evidence that increasing CO2 was the cause of any part of this warming.
4. The logical conclusion is that the Null Hypothesis stands – there is no evidence that anything other than natural climate variability has governed the last 150-200 years of global temperature and climate change.
5. I will allow that your Mass Balance Argument could be correct and fossil fuel combustion could be the primary cause of increased atmospheric CO2. I just allow for other possibilities to exist in the huge CO2/water cycle. I am officially agnostic on this point, pending further data from new satellites.
Richard Feynman wrote: “The test of science is its ability to predict.’
Let me close by asking you to predict global temperature over the next few years:
I wrote in 2002 that global cooling will be start by 2020-2030; I now say it will probably start by 2020 or perhaps sooner, because of low solar activity.
What do you say, my friend?
Others are also welcome to play. Ladies and germs, faites vos jeux!
Best personal regards, Allan
Allan,
I do largely agree with all what you wrote, except the null hypothesis:
That is not that I can’t prove that CO2 has some influence, it is that you can’t prove that there is no influence.
There is certainly a small positive trend in temperature with a large variability around it. There is certainly a huge trend in CO2 with a small variability around it. Yearly or decadal variations in slope of temperature don’t change that, one only need to be careful with begin and endpoint bias.
While I do agree that natural variability (PDO, ENSO, Pinatubo,…) has the largest influence, that doesn’t prove that CO2 has zero influence. Theoretically, some 2 W/m2 since 1850 (without any feedback) or some 0.5°C: about half the total warming. Even RSS and UAH show a warming of resp. 0.35°C and 0.42°C over the past 36 years (before 2016) There is nothing in the data which refutes that the warming is partly caused by the increase of CO2.
Of course you can predict temperatures a few months ahead by looking at tropical seawater temperatures etc.. Again that says nothing about the cause of the warming oceans, including ENSO…
My best guess is that we will have a continuing of the plateau since 2000, maybe even with a little upjump as was the case after the 1998-2000 super El Niño / La Niña, until 2030…
Ferdinand you wrote:
“That is not that I can’t prove that CO2 has some influence, it is that you can’t prove that there is no influence.”
Ferdinand, I always thought the onus was on the person who wanted to disprove the Null Hypothesis (in this case by proving that CO2 significantly drives global warming) to do so. If you cannot disprove the Null Hypothesis, then it stands, as follows:
“Major changes in global temperature are overwhelmingly natural and are not caused by human activities.”
This does not preclude minor local temperature effects due to land use changes, energy usage. etc., but there is no evidence that increasing atmospheric CO2 is a major driver of global warming – thus the alleged dangerous manmade global warming crisis is a fiction. It is also extremely costly, wasteful and dangerous, the latter due to foolish “green energy” policies that have driven up energy costs, destabilized the electricity grid, and increased Excess Winter Mortality, especially among the elderly and the poor.
I suggest the work of Bill Illis helps to provide an upper bound on the very small impact of increasing CO2 on temperature. Bill’s plot is above, and his equation is:
[Tropics Troposphere Temp = 0.288 * Nino 3.4 Index (of 3 months previous) + 0.499 * AMO Index + -3.22 * Aerosol Optical Depth volcano Index + 0.07 Constant + 0.4395*Ln(CO2) – 2.59 CO2 constant].
Using this formula, total warming due to the CO2 increase from 280 to 400 ppm is LESS THAN 0.2C. This upper bound of <0.2C would be consistent with much of my work on this subject.
In the longer term, ocean temperatures are probably driven by the integral of solar activity, as suggested by the work of Dan Pangburn, among others.
Remember, my position is NOT that increasing atmospheric CO2 has NO influence on global temperature – it is that
"Temperature, among other factors, drives atmospheric CO2 much more than CO2 drives temperature."
I do appreciate much of your most recent post. I suggest that we agree more than we disagree – it just took a long time to get to this conclusion.
Best, Allan
Post Script: I really hope you are correct in your temperature prediction and I am incorrect – humanity and the environment do much better in a warmer world.
Today is Remembrance Day in Britain and the Commonwealth.
I shall sign off for the rest of the day.
Regards, Allan MacRae
I recommend these videos:
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/video/2014/nov/11/remembrance-day-last-poppy-tower-london-video
https://www.theguardian.com/world/video/2014/nov/11/tower-of-london-poppies-aerial-view-video
In Flanders Fields
by Lt. Col. John McCrae MD, May 3, 1915
In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.
Allan:
Major changes in global temperature are overwhelmingly natural and are not caused by human activities.
If that is your null hypothesis, you have only proven that the changes over the year by year variability +/- 1.5 ppmv CO2 around the trend is overwhelmingly natural, but you have not proven that the trend of 80 ppmv since Mauna Loa is not caused by human activity and that such an increase has no influence on temperature. Thus the null hypothesis still stands…
BTW, my late father was a WWI veteran, captured after 10 days by the Germans and spent 4 years as war prisoner in Germany, the last years – lucky for him – by working at a farm, so he had at least some food… not all were that lucky and many did never return… His grave is on the war memorial of the two WW’s…
Allan,
The second part of your null hypothesis:
and are not caused by human activities
is not disprovable, as the increase in temperature can be a mix between 0-100% of natural and human causes. Only if temperature goes down over longer periods and CO2 (NOT dCO2/dt) goes down over the same -long- period, that can be seen as proof.
Until now, the opposite happens: CO2 goes up regardless of what temperature does, only the rate of change is influenced by temperature variations, the trend hardly is. For me sufficient proof that humans are at the base of the CO2 increase (and may somewhat influence temperature)…
All,
If you have the chance to come to Flanders, Belgium. have a visit to the many graveyards from WWI, reachable by bike (rentable at Ypres railway station) all along the WWI frontline or by car.
Everybody who has seen the countless graves in Flanders Fields is impressed by the madness of war, where so many young men died for the glory of a few mighty who only wanted more power…
“Clone”
This is meant to dismiss, but doesn’t it occur to you that two individuals correctly see the imperfections in your reasoning, and that this corroborates, rather than detracts from, the veracity of the criticisms?
Actually, no.
Reprise – for John MacDonald – looks like you got your wish John.
Best personal regards, and best wishes for America, from Allan
Allan MacRae, P.Eng., Calgary
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/10/24/the-clintons-renewables-plan-would-create-green-jobs-but-would-also-destroy-real-jobs/comment-page-1/#comment-2326086
Hi John MacDonald,
My serious comments in the above post were these, and they were very serious:
“A USA election is imminent. For most countries, I suggest that the question of a Hillary vs a Donald would come down to “who gets energy right (Donald), and who gets it utterly wrong (Hillary).”
Cheap, reliable abundant energy is the lifeblood of society, and our very cheap fossil fuel energy should provide our two countries with an overwhelming economic advantage, IF the greens would stop sabotaging our economies to advance their far-left political objectives.
Since the USA is a global power, there are more issues than just the domestic economy.”
I tend to agree with your comments John, regarding the risks to “liberty and freedom, the rule of law and the survival of the Constitution”. However, as a Canadian I do not think I should comment on these matters. The American people have a critically important choice to make, and you should understand these issues far better than I do.
I hope your voters do not get dragged down by the mud-slinging that is going on, and focus on the facts that matter. For the Clintons to focus on Trump’s alleged sexual misconduct, given Bill’s sordid history, is a remarkably bold attempt to influence the stupidest voters in America.
I have never liked campaigns to “get out the vote”. I would be much happier if there was a campaign to urge really stupid voters to stay home – something like a skill-testing question on a billboard, with the caption:
“If you are too stupid to answer this question, STAY HOME – you’re way too stupid to vote!” 🙂
Regards, Allan