Following Carbon Dioxide Through the Atmosphere
Carbon dioxide plays a significant role in trapping heat in Earth’s atmosphere. The gas is released from human activities like burning fossil fuels, and the concentration of carbon dioxide moves and changes through the seasons.
Using observations from NASA’s Orbiting Carbon Observatory (OCO-2) satellite, scientists developed a model of the behavior of carbon in the atmosphere from September 1, 2014 to August 31, 2015.
Scientists can use models like this one to better understand and predict where concentrations of carbon dioxide could be especially high or low, based on activity on the ground.
Wow, I guess the term ‘well-mixed’ may be wrong.
But still a cool video.
If CO2 is not well mixed within the Earth’s atmosphere, then bubbles trapped in ice cores cannot be considered representative of the Earth’s global atmosphere.
The “annual cycle” of atmospheric CO2 abundance has an amplitude at the south pole of -1 ppm p-p while at the north pole it is + 18-19 ppm p-p, and about 6 ppm at Mauna Loa.
The -1 at SP indicates it is 6months out of phase with the NP.
But still we have an 18-20 to 1 ratio of CO2 anomalies from pole to pole.
You want to ‘splain me again how CO2 is well mixed in the atmosphere, with only a 20:1 ratio over the earth surface ! moreover at the north pole where grows no trees, it only takes 5 months to get rid of that 20 ppm excess; not 200 years.
G
george e
It becomes increasingly “mixed – diluted” within the atmosphere the further away from the point of source it travels.
The animation in the video from is very selective in a number of ways
1. The use of data from 1st Dec 2014 through to August 2015 does not cover the mass transfer from the NH to the SH during late August to November.
2. The angle of view on the during the year is carefully selected or designed in the model, so that the mass transfer of atmosphere bearing most of the CO2 emitted in the NH is not shown transfering into the SH.and the Antarctic vortex.
3. Look at the Antarctic vortex region in the video from June onward and the traces of CO2 are evident entering the Antarctic vortex.
3. The model is not representative of the 30 images released in April of this year.
Your comment about the 6 month delay for the CO2 cycle, are you infering that it takes that long to reach the SP ?.
20:1 is your comparison of the magnitude of variation. Well mixed is talking about concentration. From the same figures the concentration difference will be (400+/-10 )/ 400 . This is aboutr +/-2% : well mixex.
So sayith: george e. smith – December 13, 2016 at 10:59 am
So what, George E., …….. there is 13,670 feet difference in elevation between the Barrow, Alaska Observatory and the Mauna Loa, Hawaii Observatory.
And Barrow, Alaska, the same as Mauna Loa, Hawaii, is showing an average yearly (May to May) 2 ppm increase in atmospheric CO2.
And the bi-yearly cycling of atmospheric CO2 at both Barrow and Mauna Loa is still “steady n’ consistent” with the changing of the Equinoxes.
NOAA monthly average CO2 ppm @ Barrow, Alaska, …… elevation – 9.8 feet
……. year mth CO2 ppm
BRW 2012 1 398.96
BRW 2012 2 399.03
BRW 2012 3 399.07
BRW 2012 4 400.12
BRW 2012 5 400.93
BRW 2012 6 397.35
BRW 2012 7 387.39
BRW 2012 8 381.51
BRW 2012 9 385.82
BRW 2012 10 393.70
BRW 2012 11 398.00
BRW 2012 12 399.22
BRW 2013 1 400.19
BRW 2013 2 402.01
BRW 2013 3 402.91
BRW 2013 4 402.57
BRW 2013 5 403.11
BRW 2013 6 400.18
BRW 2013 7 392.09
BRW 2013 8 387.36
BRW 2013 9 389.08
BRW 2013 10 394.63
BRW 2013 11 399.56
BRW 2013 12 402.10
BRW 2014 1 403.28
BRW 2014 2 404.69
BRW 2014 3 405.14
BRW 2014 4 405.23
BRW 2014 5 405.56
BRW 2014 6 402.62
BRW 2014 7 394.97
BRW 2014 8 389.23
BRW 2014 9 389.77
BRW 2014 10 395.18
BRW 2014 11 400.92
BRW 2014 12 404.46
BRW 2015 1 405.50
BRW 2015 2 406.84
BRW 2015 3 407.32
BRW 2015 4 407.17
BRW 2015 5 407.32
BRW 2015 6 402.98
BRW 2015 7 394.13
BRW 2015 8 390.15
BRW 2015 9 392.80
BRW 2015 10 397.24
BRW 2015 11 402.98
BRW 2015 12 407.58
ftp://aftp.cmdl.noaa.gov/data/trace_gases/co2/flask/surface/co2_brw_surface-flask_1_ccgg_month.txt
NOAA monthly average CO2 ppm @ Mauna Loa, Hawaii, …… elevation – 13,678 feet
year mth ————– CO2 ppm
2012 1 2012.042 393.12 393.12 392.91 30
2012 2 2012.125 393.60 393.60 392.83 27
2012 3 2012.208 394.45 394.45 392.88 31
2012 4 2012.292 396.18 396.18 393.40 30
2012 5 2012.375 396.78 396.78 393.51 31
2012 6 2012.458 395.82 395.82 393.53 28
2012 7 2012.542 394.30 394.30 393.89 29
2012 8 2012.625 392.41 392.41 394.19 31
2012 9 2012.708 391.06 391.06 394.45 29
2012 10 2012.792 391.01 391.01 394.38 30
2012 11 2012.875 392.81 392.81 394.87 29
2012 12 2012.958 394.28 394.28 394.98 30
2013 1 2013.042 395.54 395.54 395.39 31
2013 2 2013.125 396.80 396.80 396.03 28
2013 3 2013.208 397.31 397.31 395.72 30
2013 4 2013.292 398.35 398.35 395.47 26
2013 5 2013.375 399.76 399.76 396.37 31
2013 6 2013.458 398.58 398.58 396.26 27
2013 7 2013.542 397.20 397.20 396.82 28
2013 8 2013.625 395.15 395.15 396.98 31
2013 9 2013.708 393.51 393.51 396.97 28
2013 10 2013.792 393.66 393.66 397.02 30
2013 11 2013.875 395.11 395.11 397.17 30
2013 12 2013.958 396.81 396.81 397.59 31
2014 1 2014.042 397.81 397.81 397.66 31
2014 2 2014.125 397.93 397.93 397.15 27
2014 3 2014.208 399.62 399.62 398.03 28
2014 4 2014.292 401.34 401.34 398.46 30
2014 5 2014.375 401.88 401.88 398.49 25
2014 6 2014.458 401.20 401.20 398.88 30
2014 7 2014.542 399.04 399.04 398.65 31
2014 8 2014.625 397.10 397.10 398.94 25
2014 9 2014.708 395.35 395.35 398.81 28
2014 10 2014.792 395.96 395.96 399.32 26
2014 11 2014.875 397.27 397.27 399.33 29
2014 12 2014.958 398.85 398.85 399.63 30
2015 1 2015.042 399.98 399.98 399.83 30
2015 2 2015.125 400.28 400.28 399.51 27
2015 3 2015.208 401.54 401.54 399.95 24
2015 4 2015.292 403.28 403.28 400.40 27
2015 5 2015.375 403.96 403.96 400.56 30
2015 6 2015.458 402.80 402.80 400.47 28
2015 7 2015.542 401.31 401.31 400.92 23
2015 8 2015.625 398.93 398.93 400.76 28
2015 9 2015.708 397.63 397.63 401.09 25
2015 10 2015.792 398.29 398.29 401.65 28
2015 11 2015.875 400.16 400.16 402.22 27
2015 12 2015.958 401.85 401.85 402.63 30
ftp://aftp.cmdl.noaa.gov/products/trends/co2/co2_mm_mlo.txt
No.
G
Please read and comprehend my writing, to wit:
?s=6
It matters not a twit iffen you are measuring atmospheric CO2 at the Barrow Alaska Observatory or at the Mauna Loa Hawaii Observatory, …… you get the same graphic profiles, to wit:
Barrow Alaska monthly mean CO2 ppm profile – annual bi-yearly cycle
Barrow Alaska monthly average CO2 ppm concentrations
Mauna Loa Hawaii monthly mean CO2 ppm profile & monthly average CO2 ppm concentrations
http://i1019.photobucket.com/albums/af315/SamC_40/keelingcurve.gif
And “YES”, there is a greater bi-yearly decrease/increase in CO2 ppm at Barrow, Alaska, than there is at Mauna Loa Hawaii …… simply because of the differences in three (3) critical factors, which are, to wit:
Barrow AK ——- elevation above SL – 9.8 ft– 1-2% H2O vapor – latitude 71.29° N
Mauna Loa HI – elevation above SL – 13,678 ft – 0% H2O vapor – latitude 19.47° N
In Barrow, Alaska, springtime air temperatures begin to increase in the month of May and when the air temperatures begin to increase, so does the humidity (H2O vapor).
And when the humidity (H2O vapor) increases …… those large H2O molecules kinda “push n’ shove” the heavier air molecules out of that locale, thus causing a DECREASE in air pressure.
And given the fact that CO2 molecules are part of those “heavier air molecules” that get pushed out of the locale, …… then there is little wonder why the atmospheric CO2 ppm at Barrow, Alaska, DECREASES as much as 18-19 ppm (as George e stated) during the summer months of May to August.
Ps: the reason Keeling moved his Observatory to the top of Mauna Loa is because there is no H2O vapor in the air up there.
Well Samuel C, I don’t know what precipitated your sudden data gush.
NASA-OCO-2 sends us a fancy 3-D video of the entire planet over a period of time, showing clearly the full range of CO2 random variability from 0 to about 20 ppm from blue to red.
That matches in range a NASA-NOAA now disappeared three dimensional graph of CO2 amounts from pole to pole, over a number of years; I think it was about ten years.
And that graph shows a monotonic change in annual p-p CO2 cycle dropping from about 18-20 ppm at the north pole to about -1 ppm at the south pole, with Mona Loa falling into place at about 6 ppm, and the 0 ppm location being somewhat fuzzy.
That NASANOAA plot shows no observable altitudinal differences whatsoever.
Now the fancy video shows NZ permanently in the black, indicating no blue to red variations at all, which led me to facetiously say zero CO2 for NZ.
Certainly zero mixing variability shown by NASA-OCO-2 for New Zealand.
Now we are told that CO2 is “well mixed” in the atmosphere, and as I said, that to me means that any atmosphere sample obtained from any global location, would assay the same as any other location.
NOW ! Apparently that may not be true.
In which case, where a sample from anywhere is NOT the same as a sample form anywhere else we are immediately thrown into the area of “Sampled Data Systems”
So now it becomes mandatory to use a sampling process that conforms to the Nyquist criterion for sample data systems.
So please don’t insult me, by suggesting that Mauna Loa, and Barrow Alaska are valid global measures of atmospheric CO2 abundance. I’m quite happy to accept both of them as valid measures of atmospheric CO2 at Mauna Loa, and Barrow Alaska, but those are clearly worthless as global information and must be corrupted by an avalanche of aliasing noise. And NO statistical machinations made on the data from those two points can be shoe-horned into any valid global average CO2 measure.
And the 6 month phase lag from NP to SP is a consequence of the Seasons inverting in the Southern Hemisphere.
Here in late Autumn in Sunnyvale California, it is late spring in Auckland NZ or the SP. Soon we will have winter in Sunnyvale but it will be summer in Auckland, and as we move on to spring next March the Southern hemisphere will be going into winter instead, and finally they will have their Autumn as we are having Summer next July-4.
The six month phase shift is NOT a time delay, but a consequence of the earth’s axis tilt.
I thought the seasons was simple 4-H club science.
The OCO-2 video has embarrassingly shown that the global models assuming a uniform CO2 all over the globe are total rubbish.
G
george,
I think that that argument revolves around the definition of “well-mixed.” However, I suspect that CO2 is not as well-mixed as nitrogen or argon.
So sayith: george e. smith – December 14, 2016 at 11:28 am
Well now, Georgie boy, the fact is that it was precipitated due to your utter ignorance of the biological and physical science facts about the natural world that you currently exist in/on.
George E., it is about time that you started paying attention to what I have been telling you …… instead of you assuming that you know far more than I do, that you are far more intelligent than I am, that you are far better educated in biological and physical sciences than I ever will be and that you have a vastly amount more years of experiences in/of the functioning of the natural world known as earth’s biosphere.
George E., do you actually believe that those NASA/NOAA satellites can see, detect or photograph an atmospheric residing CO2 molecule? ……. BOY, ….. are you gullible.
Also sayith: george e. smith
George, you have given me plenty of opportunity in your postings to INSULT your weird beliefs and lack of factual knowledge …… and what you stated above is one of them.
So don’t be talking stupid, its unbecoming of you. CO2 measurements at Mauna Loa, and Barrow are VALID measurements INCLUSIVELY to those locations ONLY.
Also sayith: george e. smith
Well of course you think that, George, iffen your 4-H Club was the last place you ever learned anything about the seasons.
So New Zealand has NO CO2 in its atmosphere. That’s where we all should go to escape catastrophicglobalwarmingclimatechange.
g
very rarified air down here George. Less BS in the air also, but not by much. Like CO2 it flows down from the nH. However that flow is not seasonal.
Go here to see Co2 in NZ no difference to anywhere else generally speaking
https://www.niwa.co.nz/atmosphere/our-data/trace-gas-plots/carbon-dioxide
May I take my SUV along???
@ ttt – December 13, 2016 at 8:37 pm
ttt, to see New Zealand’s measured CO2 ppm quantities ….. your cited site is probably factual.
But the rest of the content of your cited site is laced full of “junk science” claims about atmospheric CO2.
The whole color scale is 20 ppm, about 5% of total. That’s sufficiently well mixed in my opinion.
you would be wrong … that’s not well mixed … just mixed
“well mixed” is relative to other GHG like water vapour which varies hugely between tropics and Antarctica.
Well mixed to me means no matter where I collect my sample,(in the atmosphere), the isotopic and elemental abundances remain the same. Always.
G
Well just be sure you abide by the same criterion, and never talk about global warming anomalies, instead of using the SI scale of Temperature to refer to the amount of global warming.
G
“So New Zealand has NO CO2 in its atmosphere. ”
NASA, in order to CTA, will claim it’s simply an “illusion” as to why their satellite can’t “see” any CO2 in NZ’s atmosphere.
An “illusion” that they will claim is the direct fault of New Zealand’s extremely HIGH atmospheric humidity (H2O vapor) …… which has absorbed all of the upper atmospheric CO2 ….. which now exists as carbonic acid molecules …… and are awaiting to be deposited on the surface during the next rainfall event.
Yours Truly, …… Eritas Fubar
george e. smith December 13, 2016 at 3:39 pm
Well mixed to me means no matter where I collect my sample,(in the atmosphere), the isotopic and elemental abundances remain the same. Always.
No George, that would be perfectly mixed, +/-2% certainly qualifies as ‘well mixed’. A similar notation is used in Chemical Engineering, the ideal reactor is a ‘perfectly stirred flow reactor’ where the entering reagents instantly mix throughout the reactor, the real ones which don’t quite make that standard are called ‘well stirred flow reactors’.
george e. smith December 14, 2016 at 1:57 pm
There is NO logarithmic relationship between concentration and forcing; neither experimentally or even theoretically.
The theoretical relationship between concentration and forcing arises because of spectral broadening and at our current concentration is expected to be a log dependence which has been verified experimentally.
The entire concentration scale ranges from about 388 ppm to 408 ppm, a variation of only +/- 2.5%, as greg states below. The scale meets the data requirements. Or does it? On the low end, the concentration drops off quickly to about 388 ppm. On the high end, it appear the color range may not cover the entire concentration range. One problem is that the emissions at their source is more like 10% (by volume), which would be impossible to show. So let’s ignore the high end, since it exists for only a few hundred yards downwind of the sources, at most.
Thus the CO2 is essentially well mixed, particularly if you take into account the logarithmic relationship between concentration and forcing, in which case the forcing variation is more like +/- 0.5%, or negligible.
There is NO logarithmic relationship between concentration and forcing; neither experimentally or even theoretically.
The logarithm function is a precisely defined function of mathematics. It isn’t found anywhere in the physical universe.
Use “non-linear” if you want to refer to an apparent data set, that doesn’t fit a linear equation. people throw around logarithmic and exponential as if they actually knew what those terms mean. They clearly don’t.
G
george e,
See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logarithmic_spiral
Yes, but rather than model where CO2 is going to be concentrated, why don’t they just measure it? Isn’t that the purpose of this satellite? (You’d think from the name of the satellite that such measurements would be its mission statement.)
This was my concern… its CO2 values mapped out over where a model says the atmosphere takes it. First question to ask is, has this model been validated? If it hasn’t then its time to reach for the salt.
Excellent! I’m glad to see other people asking the same thing. I’d rather see a straight animation of the data than a “modeled” piece of junk. Unless by “model” they mean animation of data. If this was just a visual rendering of the measured data, then it’s fine. But there’s no why to tell.
Michael,
It was more than just an animation. Color scales were chosen to emphasize the extreme values and suppressing intermediate values that carried information. The choice of rotation also suppressed information about what was happening in the southern hemisphere. Overall, it leads one to a different perception than what is obtained from the earlier published maps. The only thing new here was the impression that the CO2-deficient areas were at higher elevations than the high CO2 levels. However, I’m not sure that can be trusted because it seemed to be obvious from the earlier maps that CO2 dropped in the early-Summer when the trees leafed out. One would expect that to happen at tree-crown level. My personal feeling is that this ‘animation’ was purposely constructed to convey the consensus meme. Several people have commented that it doesn’t look like the earlier maps. Whether the lack of resemblance is because of the reasons I cite above, or if changes have been made to the data, only the producers know for sure. But, it seems to come very close to an example of “How to Lie with Maps.”
It’s like all the modern movies. They are just made up out of ones and zeros, and no real objects or actors are necessary.
OCO-2 My Foot !
Not so well mixed then?
The scale goes from 390 (blue) to 408 (red). That’s about a five percent variation. I guess it depends on what you call well mixed.
It looks like the video overstates the annual variation at sea level or the Mauna Loa observatory understates it a bit. I suspect that it’s not very important.
“I suspect that it’s not very important.”
———-
Oh, but think of the children.
I agree, commieBob, a range of 390 – 408 is remarkably well mixed.
Variability is very minor, at most.
Look at the scale. Almost half of it is colored neutral, and the high side has twice the range that the low side does.
Nothing like trying to color the results.
That’s a total extreme range of 18 ppm p-p, which is exacticly what happens at the North Pole every year. It only takes five months to go from red to blue. And that range is TWENTY TIMES what it is at the South Pole.
G
I also noted the 390-408 range. Not sure what the intention was of using that range, but the end result is that it looks like the North (i.e. Canada/US/Europe) are evil destroying the world, meanwhile the South (Australia etc.) is dangerously low on CO2 (maybe that is why nothing grows down there).
Gah. Give me the data *without* the model, thank you very much.
That being said, it seems that the presentation shows that CO2 is not a well mixed gas, and if that’s true, then the vagaries of its distribution need to be accounted for when building models – that is to say, CO2 concentrations are location dependent.
That takes it from a wicked problem to an impossible one, IMHO.
You’re too generous. It was already and impossible problem. This just makes it more impossible.
By the time we’ll have figured out how to model it correctly the problem will have been recognized for some time as a non-issue. Sort of like a well performing model of horse traffic in medieval cities.
It would be good to see the worldwide distribution of CO2 integrated over altitude and mapped onto the surface. If I correctly recall the earliest data released showed some surprisingly large concentrations over rain forests.
Without the model, you only know where the CO2 is, not where it came from (and hence would give a misleading impression of where CO2 is emitted and absorbed).
Nonsense.
Gasses only diffuse from regions of high concentration to regions of low concentration. Fick is not that difficult to understand. CO2 is produced in places with local maximum concentration.
Carbon dioxide appears to migrate to the North Pole the same way CFC’s supposedly migrate to the South Pole. Both are produced by humans at the surface predominantly in the Northern Hemisphere middle latitudes.
In both hemispheres CO2 appears to pile up against the “ring” of the limits of observation at high latitudes. One might wonder why it so loves the poles when it is a “non-polar” molecule.
Picky criticism that the color key and date stamp are difficult to access, and what is the “black” CO2 at low levels in the SH winter not apparently on the key?
Partly just annoyance that by far my greatest criticism is that the 3d version does not match the 2d version and I was going to overlay them to show you how bad the discrepancy is…with all this [deliberate] obfuscation it will have to wait until tomorrow.
sorry, I did not close the quote.
urederra, yes and to determine the rates of diffusion etc. you need a model. Of course diffusion is not the only factor on a rotating Earth with distinct atmospheric circulation patterns (e.g. the jetstream), which means to do a good job, you need to model more than just diffusion.
Hi Krischel,
the raw data is all available on NASA’s website. Feel free to download it and do something meaningful
with it. And I look forward to seeing it published in due course.
In this case the “model” is just how they display the data.
hmmm
combined the OCO-2 data with a model eh?
Unprecedented?
All that waste of money for nothing.
It good to examine and to survey everything. Not so good is to interpret the result trough politically influenced channels.
In the new Nasa view of the Earth, the Earth is flat? 🙂
Their models run on a flat earth too.
If there would be only flat, it would be a better model than their models. Their models are composed of points very far apart.
I thought that’s kind of neat — using a map projection to free the 3rd to show altitude . But I’d like to see it on the spherical “screen” NOAA developed and are now available in museums like our Colorado Springs Space center , https://www.discoverspace.org/discover/northrop-grumman-science-center — something I’d like to program displays for .
This data could be visualized with an outgoing long wave radiation data set (also available from NASA) I believe there’s a discrepancy in OLR due to albedo and clouds, so maybe it’s a meaningless visualization, or maybe it will correlate a little bit?
“The gas is released from human activities like burning fossil fuels”
I didn’t know that we humans invented this Carbon dioxide gas.
That was a VERY inaccurate sentence, indeed, mountain-a5.
Edited for Accuracy Version:
“The gas is released is LARGELY (over 95%) FROM NATURAL PROCESSES such as ocean CO2 outgassing. Further, that small % may be entirely taken up by the natural sinks which are TWO ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE GREATER than all human emissions.”
More propaganda for AGW. Whatever.
Earth (as in all warming is well within limits of natural variation) to Climate Hu$tler$:
AGW (and “climate change” and any other lame label you want to give it) is OLD NEWS. Old and boring and worthless junk news.
isJanice Moore December 13, 2016 at 10:23 am
you wrote:
““The gas is released is LARGELY (over 95%) FROM NATURAL PROCESSES such as ocean CO2 outgassing. Further, that small % may be entirely taken up by the natural sinks …°
You missed the important part of that issue.
Even if over 95% is released from natural processes, the same amount (even more) is collected as well from natural processes.
Just an example: 96% is released from natural processes, and 4% from human activities.
But even if 98% is collected by natural processes, 2% is not. And theese 2% are added year by year to the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere. and that’s the reason why the concentration of CO2 is rising year by year – within about 100years from about 300ppm to about 400ppm – which is about one third more.
This doesn’t say what this one third more of CO2 is causing – just that we add year by year a bit.
“The gas is released is LARGELY (over 95%) FROM NATURAL PROCESSES such as ocean CO2 outgassing. Further, that small % may be entirely taken up by the natural sinks which are TWO ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE GREATER than all human emissions.”
The natural sinks are greater even than the natural sources, which means the natural environment is a net carbon sink, not a source. If you are going to talk about natural sinks, then you need to apply them to the natural sources as well.
Whether atmospheric CO2 rises or falls depends on the difference between total uptake and total emissions, and anthropogenic emissions are currently about twice that (which is why the increase in atmospheric CO2 is about half our cumulative emissions).
Janice. Pretty much so. This simulation does not show at all the real CO2 fluxes each year: 120 GtC in and out the ocean, 100 GtC in and out the biosphere and, and…. 10 GtC from human emissions from which amount 5.5 GtC stays in the atmosphere and 4.5 GtC is absorbed by the ocean. These variations of few ppm of CO2 have no role in the variations of GH effect. There are not many climate change researchers who know that the contribution of CO2 in the GH effect is ready after 1 km altitude. No matter how much variations and changes there are above the 1 km altitude. No influence.
Dear Mr. Herbst,
The natural sinks are dynamic. They could be taking up 100% of the natural CO2 AND 100% of the human (or any combination, e.g., 100% of the human emissions + 97% of the natural emissions — they just “sink” CO2; they do not discriminate between natural and human emissions).
Which means: we add is not a statement that you can make. There is no evidence proving:
human CO2 is the cause of net rise in global atmospheric CO2 levels (it could be 100% natural CO2 causing the net gain).
You can GUESS at it (as you have), but not state it as a certainty.
Thanks for taking the time to give me your guess about the CO2 situation in earth’s atmosphere. You may be right! And I may inherit a million dollars tomorrow from a stranger who picked my name at random from the phone book. You just never know! 🙂
Janice
@ dikran “The natural sinks are greater even than the natural sources,”
We are talking about the atmosphere and the total number of input and outputs from the atmosphere, not the total planetary sinks. The atmosphere is a sink as well. It is true that on this currently Carbon Starved Planet, there is an unfortunate net sequestration, but that is the planet, not the atmosphere.
The atmosphere is a net sink, otherwise CO2 concentration would not be growing. The question is where the atmospheric increase is coming from. The drivel from your buddies at SKS is that since the atmospheric 12C is increasing, and fossil fuels are heavy in 12C (-24 PDB) to the tune of 9 GtC per year; the gun is smoking. Actually, they are smoking, for soils produce 60 GtC annually at -21 PDB.
Gymnosperm,
Your characterization of the atmosphere as being a sink is not the way it is defined. Indeed, a sink is something the removes CO2 from the atmosphere.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_sink
Sorry, an incorrect definition if we are talking about the planet. A sink is wherever the stuff goes.
gymnosperm,
You said, “Sorry, an incorrect definition if we are talking about the planet. A sink is wherever the stuff goes.”
You are using an unconventional definition of “sink.” Being a gas, the natural place of residency is in the atmosphere. However, it can be extracted by solution in water, incorporation into carbohydrates by photosynthesis, and removed from the seawater by shell building and chemical precipitation. Those provide alternative locations that temporarily remove the CO2 from the atmosphere, which is an important distinction because there is no possibility of the CO2 affecting the temperature when it resides as limestone or buried biomass. So, strictly speaking, the atmosphere is a sink, but for purposes of the argument about its role in heating, the atmosphere has to be treated as a special case from all other sinks.
Sure, but to establish the extent of human responsibility for the atmospheric increase (regardless the consequences), we have to understand the planetary Carbon cycle. We have to understand where the atmospheric increase comes from. The Carbon cycle does not revolve around the atmosphere. The atmosphere has a bit more than 300 GtC of inputs and a bit less in outputs. The total planetary flux is over 1000 GtC per year.
The equivalent of 1000 cubic kilometers of water in constant motion. We dribble in our 9 and puff all up like we are the bomb…
Yeah, they of course kinda left out an Inconvenient Truth. No doubt considered ‘unimportant’ for their agenda.
P.S. Mr. Herbst — Dr. Murry Salby ably addresses the human versus natural CO2 issue in this lecture:
Dr. Murry Salby — Hamburg, 2013
(youtube)
You will need to watch the entire lecture to avoid misunderstanding Dr. Salby (or taking him out of context or mischaracterizing his arguments as many do).
But, here is his main point (supported amply by the slides and lecture) from my notes:
52:25 IPCC Claimed in 2007: All of the increases [in CO2 concentration since pre-industrial times] are caused by human activity. Given the observed sensitivity of native emission of CO2 and C13, the IPCC’s claim is IMPOSSIBLE.
Allen M. R. MacRae, frequent WUWT commenter, has also very nicely summarized and repeatedly posted a tight argument that substantiates what Dr. Salby. Look for his WUWT comments on this topic (some are in the WUWT 10th Anniversary anthology, if that would be helpful to you).
Further reading:
If you care to read, there are MANY great threads on WUWT over the past years which address the C12 v. C13 issue. Bart/Bartemis prevails, in my opinion (perhaps, not in yours).
Janice wrote: ” There is no evidence proving:
human CO2 is the cause of net rise in global atmospheric CO2 levels (it could be 100% natural CO2 causing the net gain).”
This is not correct. Assuming conservation of mass (i.e. carbon is not spontaneously created or destroyed in significant amounts), then the fact that atmospheric CO2 is rising more slowly than the rate of anthropogenic emissions establishes beyond reasonable doubt that the natural environment (i.e. everything else) is a net carbon sink, i.e. uptake by natural sinks exceeds emissions from natural sources. This means the natural carbon cycle is opposing the rise, not causing it. This can be demonstrated (and indeed has been demonstrated repeatedly on WUWT by myself and others) and uses one equation (given in Prof. Salby’s lecture) and using two sources of data (both of which Prof. Salby says are reliable).
I am fed up explaining this again and again, so I’ll just leave a link to the article on SkS that I wrote about this: https://skepticalscience.com/salby_correlation_conundrum.html . I’d be happy to discuss any flaws you find in the argument there.
dikran…,
You said, “… i.e. uptake by natural sinks exceeds emissions from natural sources.” I’m troubled by this. I think that the logical conclusion is that before the arrival of Man, the natural sinks would have sucked all the CO2 out of the atmosphere. Yet, that didn’t happen. Further, it is generally accepted that the CO2 level was relatively constant immediately prior to the Industrial Revolution. Thus, it seems to me that the uptake by natural sinks has to be approximately equal to natural sources. (Actually, not too surprising.) Further, sinks have to have some elasticity because only about half of the anthropogenic sources are showing up in the atmosphere. Therefore, there is some interplay between what the sinks take in and what the partial pressure of CO2 in the atmosphere is. So, I think that you need to go back and make some changes in the article that you link to.
Clyde wrote: “think that the logical conclusion is that before the arrival of Man, the natural sinks would have sucked all the CO2 out of the atmosphere.”
No, natural uptake exceeds natural emissions at the moment because atmospheric CO2 levels have been pushed away from its equilibrium value by land use change and fossil fuel emissions. Before the industrial revolution, atmospheric CO2 levels were close to the equilibrium value and so natural emissions and natural uptake were approximately in balance. This is Le Chatellier’s principle, if you have a system of positive and negative feedbacks (such as the carbon cycle) that is in equilibrium, and you disturb the equilibrium, then the positive and negative feedbacks change to oppose the disturbance. It is precisely that which gives rise to an equilibrium in the first place.
Dikran…,
You said, “…,natural uptake exceeds natural emissions at the moment because atmospheric CO2 levels have been pushed away from its equilibrium value by land use change and fossil fuel emissions.”
This may be a definitional issue, but if the abundance of CO2 in the atmosphere is increasing, that would seem to imply that the uptake isn’t sufficient to keep pace with the increasing emissions. Ergo, your statement is backwards.
Clyde, no, anthropogenic emissions have pushed atmospheric CO2 above its equilibrium, the natural carbon cycle is attempting to oppose that rise by increasing natural uptake above the level of natural emissions. As I said, this is just Le Chatellier’s principle, and merely what you would expect from perturbing a dynamical system from its equilibrium state.
So how do they explain the readings in Hawaii (which we do not see)?
Yes, the original reason for the CO2 concentration increase in the atmosphere is in the human generated emissions. That is why the CO2 amount increase from 600 GtC in 1750 to 840 in 2013 is caused by the mankind. IPCC says very directly and openly that this increase of 240 GtC is all anthropogenic corresponding to the 28 % portion. This is not true. It can be measured, because the fossil fuels have a different 13C concentration. According to these measurements the anthropogenic CO2 amount in the atmosphere in 2013 was only 67 GtC (8 % portion). How this is possible? Simply therefore that each year about 25 % of the CO2 amount in the atmosphere is recycling between the atmosphere, the ocean and the biosphere. IPCC’s claim would be true only if there were no recycling.
Why IPCC makes this lie? The reason is that it serves even a greater goal. It means that even though the anthropogenic emissions were stopped one day, the anthropogenic CO2 woud not decrease in the atmosphere according to IPCC but it would stay there hundred of years.
I was laboring under the possible misapprehension that we were interested in the sources and sinks, Although quite pretty – this animation lost me as the map projection transformed to “flat” and the northern hemisphere went scarlet – when as I understand it the high northern latitudes are problematic for OCO-2’s spectrometer instrument.
This mission threw a spanner into Gavin’s models and I feel this is an attempt *not* to compare like with like
(Bold mine) Significant compared to what; water vapor?
It’s precisely that wording that showcases how little science there is in defending the claim that CO2 traps heat in the Earth’s atmosphere.
The vagueness of the term “significant role” reminds of a previous article where Anthony stated that water vapor is a “more important” greenhouse gas than CO2. Clearly, these are not scientifically quantifiable terms. Since Anthony has been studying this topic for years, and he doesn’t have any actual science at his disposal to bolster his claim of the purported greenhouse gas property, I accept this to mean that there is no actual science to bolster this claim.
This is why I have been asking for contributors here on this site, to defend their claim that CO2 is currently trapping heat on Mars. When, where and how much? If there is no science to support this claim, then … there is no science to support this claim.
Thomas Homer. Yes , I agree that the amount of scientific publications of the role of CO2 is very few. IPCC has to use the formula of Myhre et al. from the year 1998 for the radiative forcing of CO2. I just commented this issue in another essay and I let it be. My studies show that IPCC uses the positive waster feedback twice, and therefore climate sensitivity is not 1.85 C degrees but 0.6 degrees. IPCC does not even know what is the contribution of CO2 in the GH effect. But they do know what is its effect in 2100.
Significant, has significance. Its opposite is ‘has no significance’.
CO2 has significance does not mean apocalypse now. If only people remembered this.
That big red blotch over China shows how badly Obama got snookered in his bilateral AGW deal.
Why does this animation look completely different then the actual OCO-2 image?
Elmer,
Basically, I just asked the same question!
It takes time to develop proper adjustments.
Note the small range of values here corresponds only to seasonal changes associated with plant and plankton growth.
The animation has most of the CO2 coming from the industrialized areas when the actual data shows most of the earth’s CO2 actually coming from the rainforests.
No doubt they just didn’t consider that pesky non-human-sourced CO2. Out of scope. Above their pay grade. Not relevant. Criteria not in mandate. Look over there! Squirrel!
http://s28.postimg.org/eczk9obpp/squirrel_catching_peanut.png
In the above video, they obviously cut out the period from August to early November where the concentrations are highest in the southern hemisphere. They only showed the high concentration period of the northern hemisphere – not quite the description provided on the Nasa Goddard webpage.
Perhaps they don’t want to “confuse” anybody about the large releases from vegetation in the southern hemisphere.
https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2016/eye-popping-view-of-co2-critical-step-for-carbon-cycle-science
That’s what I suspected. That means it’s more fraudulent fake climate news.
“Why does this animation look completely different then the actual OCO-2 image?”
I was wondering the same thing.
Different modeling.
The data used to make the new 3D model was sufficiently Karlized to train out the much needed CO2 increase that would then match the already Karlized warming signal. Though instead of increasing the warming signal through using Ship engine intake temperature measurements, He obviously used the Jet Engine CO2 output measurement data to Karlize the increase in CO2 signal
See how similar Air Traffic patterns match the CO2 data.
Obviously Airliner Engine output monitering is the source for the Karilzed data
Almost, but not quite. right.
One is adjusted, or modeled, the other is raw data.
Good catch. It’s difficult to compare directly because the scales are different. It’s also tricky because much of the time the video obscures the southern hemisphere behind a wall of red above the northern hemisphere. On the other hand, I was struck that there seemed to be no high concentrations of CO2 in the southern hemisphere in any season in the video. The other thing is that the actual image (October-November) does not show CO2 north of 60 deg. N or south of 60 deg. S.
I would say there are important differences between the video and the actual satellite images.
They’ve cherry picked the time period. The animation runs from Nov 20 2014 – 21 August 2015, thus neatly avoiding the period shown in the image, which gives the average CO2 concentration between Oct 1 and Nov 11 2014.
Well for one, the image you posted was preliminary data from 2014, the new animation was for data gathered during 2015; secondly the new animation is 3D to show CO2 concentrations over the global with altitude as well as longitude and latitude, so naturally they are going to be very different.
I was wondering why every time my eye started to catch something unusual in the animation, NASA seemed to throw a text window over it; almost makes you think they are up to something!
Squirrel.
Elmer
Look at the thirty sequential OCO-2 images here
http://www.blozonehole.com/blozone-hole-theory/blozone-hole-theory/carbon-cycle-using-nasa-oco-2-satellite-images
Elmer,
I see seasonal variations in CO2 that are explained easily by photosynthesis and aerobic bacterial decomposition of plant detritus. However, what I don’t see is a continuous trail of CO2 from North to South. I’m also troubled by the fact that heating in the tropics causes rising air masses to move polewards, not just towards the Southern Hemisphere. One sees evidence of that in the ozone maps that frequently show anomalously high ozone levels outside the Polar Vortex prior to the Spring breakup of the ‘ozone hole.’
.
One thing they did which is sort of annoying is that they put the flat earth on a spinning platter. Which conveniently spins around and looks from the North, during the peak Northern co2 outgassing.
You cannot make any judgment about the source of the co2 when the whole screen is RED, obscuring the rest of the globe.
Its another form if deceit.
Lastly, the article says “scientists developed a model of the behavior”. Why do you need a model, when you have the data? more accurately, they should have created a visualization of the data, not a model.
The raw data is out there, I wish someone would do a proper visualization, more inline with the original image.
InMD
I must be missing out on something here. I see what is considered the massive concentrations appearing and sort of staying of areas of the globe that are suffering from the lack of warming. The area associated with what appears to be Antarctica is constantly showing a death spiral level of carbon dioxide, closer to the levels that they thing we should be at, and I am supposed to want to push for decreasing emissions? The circling video doesn’t help, nor does the musicbox soundtrack, but I don’t think I am impressed with the money that was spent creating this.
You’re not supposed to ask those kinds of questions.
Wasn’t there another video showing CO2 coming from South America and other areas that are not as industrialized as the US/
Australia seems to have no significant emissions. So, they don’t need to do anything “green”.
I was extremely puzzled by red puffs popping up in parts of Australia that are a long way from any cities or, I would have thought, any industry. Anyone have any ideas? (See near the 1 minute mark, for example.) The presentation was more than a little annoying.
This is all smoke and mirrors! Why give us a cute animation with silly music? A while back Willis posted an analysis from the Japanese Ibuku satellite, with some astonishing revelations, like the Democratic Republic of Congo being a major carbo-gasbag, not unexpected given the rate of deforestation there. I suspect OCO2 results are going to be a game-changer, and that NASA is dreading the day the truth comes out and biomass burning emerges to challenge fossil fuel as a major sources of the ghastly gas. A re-post of the Willis item would be very much appreciated, and might be useful to send to the mandarins in the new regime.
John Ledger
The Revenge of the Climate Reparations
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/07/05/the-revenge-of-the-climate-reparations/
That was easy.
These results appear quite different from what has been published previously. Notably, the high CO2 values in the Amazon, and over the tropical oceans, are missing. What had been modestly high CO2 values over the Northern Hemisphere land are now shown as very high levels.
Has anyone other than me experienced problems playing the animation?
The map displayed above at 10:16 by Elmer is one of the maps I was referring to.
What about carbon dioxide from living organisms? What about a water vapour tracking?
Calling all Scientists!
I know this is off topic but I am NOT a scientist and I need your help.
I want to know the answer to three simple questions in a language I can understand and relate to.
I know this is a Science Blog, and the contributors here are mostly scientists, but there are thousands of people who view this blog everyday that are not scientists. I am one of them. To me, most of you are like Sheldon Cooper. I am not like Penny, however, I’m more like Stewart. I’m nerdy and geeky and stuff like that – but I’m not an official scientist.
I could probably Google the answers to my questions – the problem is that I DON’T TRUST Google. I know the people who run Google are simply Democrat Propagandists – they facilitate the Socialist Agenda.
I don’t trust certain WUWT contributors like Nick Stokes, Tony Mc, Toneb, and Griff either. I don’t trust them at all. When they write about the about perils of the current Climate I see Robert Preston in the Music Man exaggerating the perils of Pool.
The first 20 seconds of that video encapsulates their entire message. In fact, it NAILS IT!
They are here to do only one thing – to create a need for a Worldwide Socialist Government.
You cannot fathom how many people in the World and the United States believe that 2015 was the HOTTEST YEAR EVER in the 4 billion year existence of the Earth. It’s not that they’re stupid, it’s just what they been led to think by the Media and people like Al Gore.
I bet Nick Stokes has never qualified the claim that 2015 was THE HOTTEST YEAR EVER to a layman. I bet Griff never said to them, “You know, it’s only the hottest year in the Thermometer Era – that goes back only a couple of centuries. The Earth has been much, much, warmer in its prehistoric past.” Toneb would never tell a layman this fact because he’d be too afraid the layman wouldn’t be worried. All of them, like Robert Preston, need a “problem” to solve. They’re all the same; agents of Oppression.
Anyway, I digress. Back to my questions.
Can someone tell me what the Average Temperature (F) of the Earth was thought to be during the warmest Hot Houses (like the Cretaceous, for example)?
Can someone tell me what the Average Temperature (F) of the Earth was thought to be during the coldest Ice Ages?
I guess I’ll just Google the Earth’s average Temperature. Google says it’s 14 degrees Celsius, which means it’s 57.2 degrees Fahrenheit. Is that what the Earth’s current average Temperature is? I have to accept that number by Faith.
This is what I’m looking for:
Hot Houses average around 72 degrees F.
Ice Ages average around 38 degrees F.
Today’s Earth is about 57 – 58 degrees F.
That’s all.
Please don’t direct me to any more charts and graphs, I can’t read most of them because they contain scientific notations, jargon, and acronyms. I simply don’t speak your language.
Remember, you scientists are as priests and prophets to the rest of us. You may have empirical knowledge but we generally have to accept what you say by Faith.
I thank you for your time and patience in advance.
Freedom
Do a search for Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum. The Wikipedia article seems reasonable and it gives some actual numbers.
Thanks, Clyde.
I looked it up. It says the world was about 8 degrees C warmer than it is now. In other words, about 71.6 degrees F. Still, the article itself was full of FEAR global warming BS.
The first thing you need to do is discard the notion that there is such a thing as an average world temperature or climate. It is an artifact of statistics that has no real meaning in the real world. It is not data, it is derived from data. Climate is a very localized phenomenon with many more variables than just temperature. It is not even singular, it is plural as in Climates. CO2 is a complete red herring.
I suggest you investigate what is known as the :
Köppen Climate Classification System
http://www.thesustainabilitycouncil.org/resources/the-koppen-climate-classification-system/
The Köppen Climate Classification System is the most widely used for classifying the world’s climates. Most classification systems used today are based on the one introduced in 1900 by the Russian-German climatologist Wladimir Köppen. Köppen divided the Earth’s surface into climatic regions that generally coincided with world patterns of vegetation and soils.
The Köppen system recognizes five major climate types based on the annual and monthly averages of temperature and precipitation. Each type is designated by a capital letter.
A – Moist Tropical Climates are known for their high temperatures year round and for their large amount of year round rain.
B – Dry Climates are characterized by little rain and a huge daily temperature range. Two subgroups, S – semiarid or steppe, and W – arid or desert, are used with the B climates.
C – In Humid Middle Latitude Climates land/water differences play a large part. These climates have warm,dry summers and cool, wet winters.
D – Continental Climates can be found in the interior regions of large land masses. Total precipitation is not very high and seasonal temperatures vary widely.
E – Cold Climates describe this climate type perfectly. These climates are part of areas where permanent ice and tundra are always present. Only about four months of the year have above freezing temperatures.
I will add that ALL these climates exist simultaneously all over the world. Just as all politics is local, all climate is local.
Thanks for your response Richard, I’m not getting many.
I understand what you’re saying, that the notion of an average world climate is dysfunctional at best, but that’s not how we look at it the Political Arena. Global Warming means Global Warming.
I want to be able to state, with scientific veracity, that the Earth’s Existential (rather than Natural) Climate Variation includes vast periods where the globe’s average temperature was “x”.
I have been able, through my own stumbling research, to narrow it down to this:
I believe I can safely say that the Earth has endured long periods where the Average Global Temperature was upwards to about 71 degrees F. It might have been even higher, but I want to be conservative.
I believe I can safely say that the Earth has endured long periods where the Average Global Temperature was downwards to about 45 degrees F. It might have been even lower, but again, I want to be conservative.
Is that correct?
Note the scale in the animation. 390 ppm to 408 (I think). The red is 400 to 408.
This seems to be a hell of a lot of money spent with the point being to obfuscate.
also to justify a budget increase.
Note that the scale runs from 390 to 408 (ppm — although it’s hard to read), a range of 4.6% The numbers are less scary than the red, yellow, blue and green swirls.
Note also “Vertical Exaggeration 40x.”
What a deceptive piece of drekk.
My first reaction was wow, CO2 not as well mixed as I thought. Then I saw the scale. It only goes from 393 to 408! So, pretty well mixed after all.
Then they’ve presented by altitude also. By picking the angle of observation, this tends to make large blue swaths appear over certain areas, and large red swaths over others. But you are actually looking “through” the atmosphere, and these things seem to vary by altitude. Well they should. CO2 is produced at the bottom of the atmosphere, and then mixes in to the rest. But the representation makes reds and blues look like they come from specific geographies when they are actually the result of mixing at altitude.
Maybe someone brighter than I can glean useful information out of this, but I cannot.
Can’t tell no data presented below about 390, so it could be anything from 150-390.
The trademark at the end says
“Your planet is changing – We’re on it”
At least they get productivity out of their “sloganeering” dept.
Should read “Your Government is changing – We’re on notice.”
Should read “Your Government is changing – We’re on notice.”
LOL
Their cartoon says what they released before was wrong….but then they say their cartoon was modeled based on what they released before
Any chance we could just defund them and start over?
It is all a matter of parameters…18 ppmv in differentiation, does not seem to amount to anything greater than the amount of CO2 expelled in the breath typing this word…hm. But it does seem to cloud the waters…speaking of waters…what about…aw forget about it.
Interesting little vidware. I would like to see them dial down the values to 350–393, so we can see all the places with the lower concentrations. Sometimes on nullschool, I see values -30 or -40 ppm lower than the Keeling curve values.
I am also,very interested in the humidity measurements that go along with this. There has to be some logic in the algorithm structure that removes the water vapor from the calc.
I’d also like to see it with 3 visualizations simultaneously…from above the equator, and the two poles, so we can see the CO2 slosh as the troposphere depth changes, and the gas moves to the stratosphere.
I can dream, eh?
Wanna bet this was cooked up special for AlGore movie & tour GK
Yes, I get the drift that they were planning to double down on this after the election anyway, but now there’s some desperation showing.
So is the next Dicaprio production by NASA going to attempt to model the direct effects of these CO2 concentrations on the local atmospheric temps at the various altitudes?
Let’s see the same model for water vapor.
Funny, they obviously have the capacity to show us geographically just where is CO2 being sourced and sinked but instead hide those bits behind “amazing” graphics.
I think it’s pretty clear that delineating the sources and sinks would disconnect from their agenda.
“PAY NO ATTENTION TO THAT LAND BEHIND THE CURTAIN!”
Shouldn’t over say 400PPM be colour green for all the good it will do for the planet ?
Red seems to indicate angry or hot .
Maybe I’m jumping to a huge and unjustified conclusion here, when I repeat Donald’s words-
Its A Hoax.
Its a complete and utter farce. A very bad joke. Total garbage. Junk.
They have spent ?? much $$$ on this satellite and after all the time its been flying, they come up with that.
Pretty pictures out of a computer model. And gullible stupid people are swallowing that.
Who are the bigger clowns here, us or them?
Star Trek technology does not yet exist and yet they think many people believe it does and produce this cr4p – eye candy straight out of an Avatar movie.
If the greenhouse Effect is so pronounced, so easily detected by everybody, why not measure it from the ground? Just as me or you might measure albedo with 2 back-to-back solar cells, why not construct a Down Welling Radiation Meter (tuned to the wavelength of CO2 (15 micron?)) and actually measure the Down Welling Radiation? Compare the upwelling with the downwelling. Easy
Would that not tell you the amount of CO2 above your head?
Why not just get onto ebay, buy a CO2 meter and put in your garden, airport, town, city, farm, forest wherever.
Why not build them into weather stations like all the personal weather stations linked together by Wunderground? They come in a $4000 so an extra $100 for a CO2 meter is nothing
Why not fly meters on weather balloons, or even book a bit of space on the 10s of 1000s of aircraft that take off and land every day?
Why not any of those things? Coz they will demonstrate that the Emperor is stark bollock naked.
Say it again Donald, louder this time – some folks seem a bit deaf.
How many times does it have to be said that you can’t trap heat?
Your question is upside down. There is no need to say that.
What is weird in engineers is the consistent need to try to use exact language where it is not applicable; like pointing out strawberry is not a berry by a given definition. Most of us try to understand what is meant by trapping heat. Some nerds do it other way around, they try to find a definition of trapping and heat which don’t work for the purpose.
Additional CO2 ceteris paribus add to surface temperature. How much, don’t know. We call that ‘trapping heat’ but making air mean temp warmer would be as good.
Blankets do. Also pullovers too, and sock. Yeah socks.
If you keep your eyes on the dates on the bottom left corner, you see the northern hemisphere turn from a scary, ominous, doom-threatening red in the winter to a nice soothing, swimming-pool blue by July-August.
In other words, those forests are doing their job, photosynthesizing away like mad in the growing season. I suppose they will keep on doing their job as long as they don’t get cut down to feed “biomass” generating stations.
As other commenters have noted, the range of CO2 concentrations from scary, ominous, doom-threatening red to nice soothing blue is only from 390 to 408 ppm
Also, if you pause it to look at the underlying map, the biggest mass of scary red is in the Arctic. This is a bit contrary to the implied message that it’s all our fault, because most fossil fuel burning is in what we used to call the temperate zone (in Newspeak that’s the “temporarily-temperate-but-soon-to-be-an-uninhabitable-wasteland zone”, but I like the old name better). How does the CO2 get to the Arctic so fast? And how does it get cleaned up by forests that are mostly thousands of kilometres away, so fast?
One wonders if there’s been some “adjustment” to the raw data. Gosh, they wouldn’t do that, would they? How could I have the audacity to even hint at such a thing about fellow scientists?
Smart Rock
The NH forrests are not taking up the CO2, the data showing the transport of most of the NH CO2 buildup down into the SH has not been used.
The carbon cycle as you are expecting to see is not real. It is an illusion, a fantasy. Forget what you were educated to believe.
The CO2 gets into the Arctic as part of the atmospheric mix that is transported into that region on a near continuous basis, sometimes in great volume. It is the same atmospheric transport that breaks up the ice and transports in heat.
http://www.blozonehole.com/blozone-hole-theory/blozone-hole-theory/carbon-cycle-using-nasa-oco-2-satellite-images
Seems that antartica is considerably lower than NH so how does this fit with vostok co2 proxies ?
Man
Perfectly. It records the historical CO2 variation in the NH during the glacial / interglacial periods.
Waste of money.
The website climatecentral.org makes the claim that “2016 will be the year that carbon dioxide officially passed the symbolic 400 ppm mark, never to return below it in our lifetimes, according to scientists.”
Then, a few paragraphs later, they say that “Tropical Storm Madeline blew by Hawaii and knocked carbon dioxide below 400 ppm for a day. But otherwise, we’re living in a 400 ppm world.”
Why would a storm reduce CO2 levels? A storm just moves air around. If CO2 is well mixed, moving air around should not do much to change CO2 levels. Or are they admitting that the CO2 levels are higher than average in Hawaii and don’t really represent a world-wide average?
If Jean Michel Jarre sow this while composing Oxygen he would have called it CO2. This planet lives and breaths CO2. Play it.
http://www.m4gw.com/images/GIFS/OCO-Animated.gif
https://youtu.be/P_I2ch8_TXc
Rafal
Make one of your moving images using the 30 images in the link below.
http://www.blozonehole.com/blozone-hole-theory/blozone-hole-theory/carbon-cycle-using-nasa-oco-2-satellite-images
Rafal,
That’s very nice. I am more familiar with the works of his father, however, Maurice Jarre. I love those biblical epics, Dr. Zhivago, and especially Lawrence of Arabia.
Contrast and compare NASA’s promo with the visualisation and
The NASA OCO-2 science leader pre-launch lecture
Why do they call it a model, when it actually is an adjustment?
This video presentation appears to be biased, CO2 emissions are greatest in the northern hemisphere in winter, because of the lack of foliage, but as the summer returns the added greenery makes the northern hemisphere a net absorber of CO2. The focus is on the northern hemisphere in winter, and then moves to the southern hemisphere in summer, so one does not notice the blue uptake of CO2 during that period. Incredible.
This is fake news. Why mix in computer models to add the angry red in the northern latitudes that are entirely absent from the actual observations. All that is needed is the mere truth – just the observations please, no modelling!
Here’s the observation (not the model):
Why can’t they publish a series of these images and remove the grey areas which are hiding a lot? This is a lot clearer.
Is there any observational data that, for example, suggests that there is an increased GHE over the red areas of Africa compared to that over the light blue areas of Africs?
How does measured DWLWIR change as airborn concentration of CO2 varies each month?
There appears to be seasonal variations of CO2 in the region of 20ppm so can the effect of this variation actually be measured on the ground?
The video is confusing to me, and strikes as purposefully obfuscating.
My critical thought prof in ’75 would call it pseudoscientific razmataz.
So, NASA has emerged full-force as an abstract-art video producer. Way to go, using your funding over there!
I think they missed the mark with the musical background, however — should have been something more scary. As is, it’s like one of those drug commercials where the narrator speaks of all the contraindications in soft, pleasant tones, against a backdrop of happy people doing happy things.
Put some flying dragons in there, … sculls and cross bones, … and, of course, billowing smoke stacks fading in and out of transparency floating across the scene. Come on, guys, cut loose, get those creative producer juices going! You’re getting a lot of money for this stuff, and you call THIS entertainment (Oh, it’s science – I was under the wrong impression, sorrrry).
I’m such an ungrateful dolt. Seriously, I DO love NASA’s visuals, especially the Hubble images. But the CO2 thing just lends itself to such humor, because of the absurd contradictions that are becoming more obvious these days to a few people, at least.
This is the visual equivalent of an artistic representation of the difference between 0.0 degrees and 0.5 degrees.
… 20 parts per million spread.
Hundreds of millions of $$$ wasted on a project providing no new information, an end result being a misleading visualization useful for little more than entertainment.
The brief period 1975-2005 when both CO2 and average global temperature both increased, misled a lot of folks into thinking there is a connection between CO2 and climate.
Thermalization and the complete dominance of water vapor in reverse-thermalization explain why CO2 has no significant effect on climate. Terrestrial EMR absorbed by CO2 is effectively rerouted to space via water vapor.
Dan
there is new information – it shows Gavin’s crew simulations / modelling to be just flat out wrong.
If you compare the observations that these swines have been aware of from the first whole earth scan to what they have been spouting there is a considerable credibility gap.
They have tried to paper over the chasm by fiddling with the data presentation so you can’t conveniently compare it to the model.
This is fraud.
“OCO-2 is an exploratory science mission designed to collect space-based global measurements of atmospheric CO2 with the precision, resolution, and coverage needed to characterize sources and sinks (fluxes) on regional scales (≥1000km). OCO-2 will also be able to quantify CO2 variability over the seasonal cycles year after year.” From the mission statement. http://oco.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/
Unfortunately, it succeeded in pinpointing sources and sinks which is why you are not allowed to view them.
Betapug +1
So where are the ground based seasonal measurements of DWLWIR corresponding to the atmospheric seasonal variations in CO2?
Is any of this being measured? What correlation is there on seasonal basis?
The presentation focuses on North America during winter with the map positioned to obscure the fact that so much of the emissions are coming from Asia and then the view shifts to Asia when summer comes and CO2 concentrations drop.
If someone didn’t know better they would think North America is the major source of emissions.
Purely accidental I’m sure.
References:
Trenberth et al 2011jcli24 Figure 10
This popular balance graphic and assorted variations are based on a power flux, W/m^2. A W is not energy, but energy over time, i.e. 3.4 Btu/eng h or 3.6 kJ/SI h. The 342 W/m^2 ISR is determined by spreading the average 1,368 W/m^2 solar irradiance/constant over the spherical ToA surface area. (1,368/4 =342) There is no consideration of the elliptical orbit (perihelion = 1,416 W/m^2 to aphelion = 1,323 W/m^2) or day or night or seasons or tropospheric thickness or energy diffusion due to oblique incidence, etc. This popular balance models the earth as a ball suspended in a hot fluid with heat/energy/power entering evenly over the entire ToA spherical surface. This is not even close to how the real earth energy balance works. Everybody uses it. Everybody should know better.
An example of a real heat balance based on Btu/h is attached. Basically (Incoming Solar Radiation spread over the cross sectional area) = (U*A*dT et. al. leaving the lit side perpendicular to the spherical surface ToA) + (U*A*dT et. al. leaving the dark side perpendicular to spherical surface area ToA) The atmosphere is just a simple HVAC heat balance problem.
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=7373
“Technically, there is no absolute dividing line between the Earth’s atmosphere and space, but for scientists studying the balance of incoming and outgoing energy on the Earth, it is conceptually useful to think of the altitude at about 100 kilometers above the Earth as the “top of the atmosphere.” The top of the atmosphere is the bottom line of Earth’s energy budget, the Grand Central Station of radiation. It is the place where solar energy (mostly visible light) enters the Earth system and where both reflected light and invisible, thermal radiation from the Sun-warmed Earth exit. The balance between incoming and outgoing energy at the top of the atmosphere determines the Earth’s average temperature. The ability of greenhouses gases to change the balance by reducing how much thermal energy exits is what global warming is all about.”
ToA is 100 km or 62 miles. It is 68 miles between Denver and Colorado Springs. That’s not just thin, that’s ludicrous thin.
The GHE/GHG loop as shown on Trenberth Figure 10 is made up of three main components: upwelling of 396 W/m^2 which has two parts: 63 W/m^2 and 333 W/m^2 and downwelling of 333 W/m^2.
The 396 W/m^2 is determined by inserting 16 C or 279K in the S-B BB equation. This result produces 55 W/m^2 of power flux more than ISR entering ToA, an obvious violation of conservation of energy created out of nothing. That should have been a warning.
ISR of 341 W/m^2 enter ToA, 102 W/m^2 are reflected by the albedo, leaving a net 239 W/m^2 entering ToA. 78 W/m^2 are absorbed by the atmosphere leaving 161 W/m^2 for the surface. To maintain the energy balance and steady temperature 160 W/m^2 rises from the surface (0.9 residual in ground) as 17 W/m^2 convection, 80 W/m^2 latent and 63 W/m^2 LWIR (S-B BB 183 K, -90 C or emissivity = .16) = 160 W/m^2. All of the graphic’s power fluxes are now present and accounted for. The remaining 333 W/m^2 are the spontaneous creation of an inappropriate application of the S-B BB equation violating conservation of energy.
But let’s press on.
The 333 W/m^2 upwelling/downwelling constitutes a 100% efficient perpetual energy loop violating thermodynamics. There is no net energy left at the surface to warm the earth and there is no net energy left in the troposphere to impact radiative balance at ToA.
The 333 W/m^2, 97% of ISR, upwells into the troposphere where it is allegedly absorbed/trapped/blocked by a miniscule 0.04% of the atmosphere. That’s a significant heat load for such a tiny share of atmospheric molecules and they should all be hotter than two dollar pistols.
Except they aren’t.
The troposphere is cold, -40 C at 30,000 ft, 9 km, < -60 C at ToA. Depending on how one models the troposphere, average or layered from surface to ToA, the S-B BB equation for the tropospheric temperatures ranges from 150 to 250 W/m^2, a considerable shortfall from 333.
(99% of the atmosphere is below 32 km where energy moves by convection/conduction/latent/radiation & where ideal S-B does not apply. Above 32 km the low molecular density does not allow for convection/conduction/latent and energy moves by S-B ideal radiation et. al.)
But wait!
The GHGs reradiate in all directions not just back to the surface. Say a statistical 33% makes it back to the surface that means 50 to 80 W/m^2. A longer way away from 333.
But wait!
Because the troposphere is not ideal the S-B equation must consider emissivity. Nasif Nahle suggests CO2 emissivity could be around 0.1 or 5 to 8 W/m^2 re-radiated back to the surface. Light years from 333.
But wait!
All of the above really doesn’t even matter since there is no net connection or influence between the 333 W/m^2 thermodynamically impossible loop and the radiative balance at ToA. Just erase this loop from the graphic and nothing else about the balance changes.
BTW 7 of the 8 reanalyzed (i.e. water board the data till it gives up the right answer) data sets/models show more power flux leaving OLR than entering ASR ToA or atmospheric cooling. Trenberth was not happy. Obviously, those seven data sets/models have it completely wrong because there can’t possibly be any flaw in the GHE theory.
The GHE greenhouse analogy not only doesn’t apply to the atmosphere, it doesn’t even apply to warming a real greenhouse. (“How Global Warming was Discovered” Spencer Weart) It’s the physical barrier of walls, glass, plastic that traps convective heat, not some kind of handwavium glassy transparent radiative thermal diode.
The surface of the earth is warm for the same reason a heated house is warm in the winter: Q = U * A * dT, the energy flow/heat resisting blanket of the insulated walls. The composite thermal conductivity of that paper thin atmosphere, conduction, convection, latent, LWIR, resists the flow of energy, i.e. heat, from surface to ToA and that requires a temperature differential, 213 K ToA and 288 K surface = 75 C.
The flow through a fluid heat exchanger requires a pressure drop. A voltage differential is needed to push current through a resistor. Same for the atmospheric blanket. A blanket works by Q = U * A * dT, not S-B BB. The atmosphere is just a basic HVAC system boundary analysis.
Open for rebuttal. If you can explain how this upwelling/downwelling/”back” radiation actually works be certain to copy Jennifer Marohasy as she has posted a challenge for such an explanation.
Nicholas,
You said, “Say a statistical 33% makes it back to the surface that means 50 to 80 W/m^2. A longer [sic] way away from 333.”
How did you arrive at the estimate of 33%? I can see that because of the curvature of the Earth, less than 50% of the downwelling radiation might make it to the surface. However, 33% seems low to me.
Weather patterns come in many pretty colors.
Yes, carbon dioxide is also known as carbonic acid anhydride. It ionizes when dissolved in water and its dissolution is highly dependent on temperature and pressure. Plus there are mineral/biologic buffers so tracking via pH is complex.
Nice visualization of the dynamics of political CO2 flatulence.
I don’t get how high altitudes, such as above Antarctica, can appear to be a “sink” when the surrounding air, and air below, appears to be at a constantly higher concentration. The reason why CO2 monitoring was selected at Mauna Loa was partly because altitude was supposed to eliminate low level inhomogeneities.
Pretty graphics, but something doesn’t add up.
Perhaps someone can check my vague recollection. I thought the well-mixed claim was introduced to prop up the the idea of a global average temperature.
“Why does this animation look completely different then the actual OCO-2 image?”
Keep the OCO2 satellite.
Fire the propagandist modelers.
v’