Source: NOAA http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/
In the graph above, the black line is the seasonally adjusted value while the red is the monthly mean. This is based on data through March. May is normally the peak month. Here we see how Mauna Loa CO2 has lagged in its annual rise. The likely culprit: Pacific ocean cooling due to La Nina and increased solubility of CO2 in water.
This graph certainly supports the notion of the ocean’s importance in CO2 trends, something Roy Spencer did a guest post on CO2 and oceans here on this blog and was roundly criticized for it in some circles.
Given that May is normally the peak month for CO2, and because we still see a strong La Nina, the result could be a lower CO2 max in 2008 than 2007 for Mauna Loa. This has happened before in the 60s and 70s in the last cool PDO phase (lasting til 1977). Even if it stays even with last year’s level, this tells us a lot and sheds doubt on these ideas:
1. Anthropogenic accumulation (civilization is still producing CO2)
2. A CO2 residence time of several hundred years seems unlikely now
3. Giegengack’s thesis that if man stopped emitting CO2, the earth would emit more to compensate, the premise being that since man has for the first time “upset the balance” and is pressing CO2 into the earth, then once the balance is restored the earth will resume emitting it instead.
The global data plot below doesn’t show the same trend as Mauna Loa, so it appears that this CO2 dropoff at Mauna Loa is a regional effect due to Hawaii’s proximity to cooler ocean temperatures.
It will be interesting to see in the coming months what happens globally, should we see a drop-off or leveling of global CO2 in response to our quiet sun and La Nina, it will be difficult for AGW proponents to explain. Nature will indeed be the final arbiter of this debate.
We live in interesting times. Hat tips to Joe D’Aleo and Alan Siddon for portions of this post.
UPDATE: Lucia at the Blackboard has posted an interesting rebuttal to criticisms of this simple presentation above. It is worth a read.
Derek, thank you for contributing the “The Acquittal of Carbon Dioxide” by Jeffrey A. Glassman – an important and well-developped argument. I just noticed that Jennifer Marohasy discussed and summarized it in her blog of March 25, 2007. Worth comparing!
Francois’ input on the biological pump is also very important.
When I worked on global carbon cycling in grad school during the seventies, I gave up because it appeared much too complex and nobody had any satisfactory explanations (neither the textbooks nor my supervisors). I dabbled measuring stable carbon isotope ratios of the organic fraction in quaternary sediment cores. Never published the results – time to dig them out and correlate the sharp changes with glaciation records…
Francois,
How does the carbon cycle “know” that we emit CO2?
By partial pressures of CO2 in the atmosphere and the oceans, and wherever else. Differences in partial pressures across interfaces causes gas diffusion to the lower partial pressure side.
Lizi,
I would like to give you a few points to look at, first if you go to the article; “Scavenger Hunt, find the lump of coal” on this Blog, and look at anna v (21:27:46) you will see that she has some references to Co2, one of which is referring to Prof. Ian Plimers statement that ‘ the Milos (Greece) hot spring which is about the size of a table produces 2% of the worlds Co2 atmospheric levels, now when you consider that a ‘ New Scientist’ ref. by her show that there is, confirmed, over 300,000 active volcanoes under our oceans I think you need to leave the worrying about human Co2 emissions to Al Gore.
I must be a simple creature. When I do a plot experiment with fertilizer, my plot of grass gets bigger, stronger, and grows faster than the nonfertilized plot of grass. I can do the same with CO2. I can deprive plants of CO2 and they don’t do so well. When I reverse this, I get more plants. This leads me to hypothesize that with increased CO2 available to land and ocean plant life, plants, in a bit of a lag, bloom like crazy and spread, much like a desert AFTER a rain storm. Eventually this increased productivity reduces CO2 to levels not sufficient to maintain the increased plant levels. So plant levels decrease. I think CO2 levels have biological self-leveling cycles that occur on a long-term cycle, moderate cycle, and short term cycle. Temperature changes can disrupt this cycle or coincide with it. Ice core samples clearly show this kind of pattern. Me thinks we should be offering sacrifices to the god of CO2 because the animal kingdom (including us) has been riding on its coattails every time it rises and suffer from lack of food when it falls.
REPLY: CO2 – Occam’s fertilizer.
SteveSadlov: OMG.
Robert Wood,
Of course, of course. What I’m saying is that when we emit 1 GtC, 0.5Gt disappears. When we emit 2 GtC, 1Gt disappears, and so on and so on. So if 1Gt can be absorbed by the system, why isn’t it absorbed when we emit 1Gt?
Now have you ever looked at the difference in partial pressure between ocean and atmosphere? Little known fact, but the partial pressure in the oceans goes from 200 to 450 ppm or something like that, depending on location. Again, that’s mostly because of variations in phytoplankton productivity. Human emissions are equivalent to a couple ppm’s.
When we think of the carbon cycle as something in a delicate equilibrium, it just doesn’t make sense. It’s like every bit of phytoplankton, every tree leaf knows exactly how much CO2 to ingest to keep the system at perfect equilibrium, just so that our climate remains stable… we add a bit to the system, and off we go to a global catastrophe! Just doesn’t sound right to me. Whenever you enter life into the equation, you add a component that is highly adaptable. It’s not a linear physical system anymore. It’s a highly complex, nonlinear biological system.
WRT to air polution, the following is a link to a study by Ross McKictrik and the Fraser Institute out of Vancouver. It looks at Montreal, T.O., Calgary and Vancouver. A quick look at the particulate graphs indicates of the particulates examined, (SO2, TSP, NO2, CO and O3), only O3 looks to have maintained levels. That is, as Jeff C pointed out, despite significant increases in population in the cities
http://www.fraserinstitute.org/commerce.web/publication_details.aspx?pubID=3174
Regarding the above link, I can’t imagine the US differs much given the air quality standards south of the border are usually more stringent.
Allen Chappell,
I followed Anna’s links and I can’t seem to find anywhere in the article where it is stated that the 200,000+ undersea volcanoes (not 300,000) are active (as reported repeatedly by folks here). When I follow the article link to the abstract from AGU they specifically say that this includes “seamounts”. Seamounts are not active volcanoes.
As for the Milos (an extinct volcano) hot spring CO2 claim from Professor Plimer; I would like to know where he gets this “factoid” from (and what it means, as it is worded to vaguely to understand clearly). I have been unable to find a source for it myself. Does anyone here know?
Thanks
The other part of the equation is bacteria. Bacteria constitute by far the largest portion of the Earth’s biomass. Bacteria respirate: they eat stuff and emit CO2. When it’s warmer, they are more efficient, so they emit more CO2. That is the case both in soils and in oceans. But the metabolism of bacteria is VERY sensitive to temperatures, I mean by factors of 5, 10, 20 for a few degrees.
On land, for example, if you increase the CO2 in the atmosphere, then you fertilize the plants. They expand and grow. Eventually they die and rot, eaten by bacteria. That’s how the CO2 goes back to the atmosphere. But there is of course a lag between the two. The living plants constitute a reservoir (a sink) of CO2 that expands when CO2 in the air increases. But should the temperature go up, the respiration by bacteria will increase and emit more CO2. Eventually a new equilibrium is reached where the sink of living plants is greater, but the sink of dead, rotting matter decreases. But if only CO2 increases, then only the living matter sink increases. Hence CO2 is, in the end, dependent on temperature.
[…] Watts recently posted an interesting observation: The CO2 concentration measured at Manau Loa dropped two months in a row. He illustrated this with a graphic available at NOOA which shows a two month drop in CO2. Needless […]
What’s a little amusing and a lot revealing is what comments Tamino allows and which he deletes. It’s apparent to me on his latest post that this business of the dropping CO2 anomaly has him nervous.
===========================================
Anthony,
Thanks
Looking at the Mauna Loa plot, CO2 typically peaks in May and troughs in October, the same time period in the Northern Hemisphere where land plants are in their growth phase. Isn’t it just as plausable to claim the annual 2 ppm increase is due to land use changes? This way the AGW people can claim Man did it but we can discount fossil fuel use. If you look at the time period when CO2 increased this coincided with clearing of the land for farming and then replacement of the farms with suburbs. Lately, the Sahara Desert (also in the NH) is retreating, turning green, this obviously is taking CO2 out of the air. So it is equally plausible to blame annual CO2 rise on land use.
Now that everyone is planting trees for those so called carbon credits, the young trees are in a growth phase sucking up all the CO2. So in the short term re-forestation and the retreat of the Sahara Desert would tip the balance on total CO2 in the air. Couldn’t this account for an early decrease in the annual CO2 peak? Has anyone done a ground study on re-forestation?
Mauna Loa CO2 is measured in dry air. As are all CO2 quantitative assessments. Yet there is never a figure quoted for the water vapour content of the air at each assessment, i.e. (weight of sample before drying minus weight of sample after drying) *100/weight of sample as a percent. I wonder why not? Without the H2O quantity, the CO2 ppm are exaggerated.
If a 12 monthly rolling mean of the monthly series of CO2 is plotted, on the same graph as a similarly processed global temperature anomaly, the ENSO signal, and volcanic signals are clear on both, but the delay in the CO2 curve is clear by about 6 months.
The saw tooth shape of the raw CO2 plot is clearly indicative of the northern winter absorbtion of CO2. the colder NH this past few months is increasing the CO2 sink – snow and land held water. As the spring thaw progresses, the rate of CO2 outgassed will again pick up, unless northern SSTs are greatly depressed.
Arch Stanton (11:08:10) :
Here is a CO2 article by Prof. Plimer himself, where the Milos contribution is down to 1% of volcanic CO2. One would have to contact him directly to get at the difference, but knowing how reporters exaggerate it is possible that the percentage was miss attributed.
http://www.jimball.com.au/Features/Cold-facts-about-Global-Warming.pdf
Your question of how many of the detected 200.000 and estimated 3.000.000 are currently active is not answered by the survey. This probably can be done by checking known areas for activity and extrapolating from there.
We can make an upper limit guess from the Philippine volcanoes”
active 22
http://www.malapascua.de/Volcanoe-Map/hauptteil_vulcano-map.html#List-active-volcanoes
inactive 88
http://www.malapascua.de/Volcanoe-Map/hauptteil_vulcano-map.html#list-Inactive-volcanoes
This is 25%.
Even if 0.1% of the estimated 3.000.000 volcanic vents at the ocean bottom are active, that is a lot of volcanoes.
Arch Stanton (11:08:10) :
Here is a CO2 article by Prof. Plimer himself, where the Milos contribution is down to 1% of volcanic CO2. One would have to contact him directly to get at the difference, but knowing how reporters exaggerate it is possible that the percentage was miss attributed.
http://www.jimball.com.au/Features/Cold-facts-about-Global-Warming.pdf
Your question of how many of the detected 200.000 and estimated 3.000.000 are currently active is not answered by the survey. This probably can be done by checking known areas for activity and extrapolating from there.
We can make an upper limit guess from the Philippine volcanoes”
active 22
http://www.malapascua.de/Volcanoe-Map/hauptteil_vulcano-map.html#List-active-volcanoes
inactive 88
http://www.malapascua.de/Volcanoe-Map/hauptteil_vulcano-map.html#list-Inactive-volcanoes
This is 25%.
Even if 0.1% of the estimated 3.000.000 volcanic vents at the ocean bottom are active, that is a lot of volcanoes.
Ice is an open system. Any grad student using sphalerite inclusions would tell you that their work would be thrown out if they used secondary inclusions. Ice core data is corrupt. The fellows using it should know that it takes centuries for snow to become firn and ice. It’s probably variable but how would the researcher know?
People find what they look for and the minute a scientist believes his own hypothesis, he’s a dead duck as a scientist.
My hypothesis is climate change is not man-made.
The hypothesis runs:
It’s not solar irradiance alone.
It’s not sunspots alone.
It’s not CO2 above 18 C.
it’s not water vapour alone.
It’s not cosmic radiation alone.’
But it may be cosmic and solar radiation modulated by solar magnetic activity subtly changing the cloud albedo of Earth.
Beware the unintended consequences of sequestering plant food during the famine.
The saw tooth shape of the raw CO2 plot is clearly indicative of the northern winter absorbtion of CO2. the colder NH this past few months is increasing the CO2 sink – snow and land held water. As the spring thaw progresses, the rate of CO2 outgassed will again pick up, unless northern SSTs are greatly depressed.
Uhmmm, Chris, the CO2 level always drops from May to October, i.e. a negative trend. It is not the “winter absorbtion” of CO2 for that period is summer. Maybe I am misunderstanding your point?
In actuality it is the biological feedback of plant growth from May to October that is “a” major driver. Hint, March 20, 2008 marked the Spring Equinox, the first day in which there are 12 hours of sunlight in the NH. Since Solar Mins are accompanied by increased clouds and precip, what’s the response of plants to water?
However, there is one other driver not discussed by all those here present, that being open (cold) water. Notice that the melt phase of the NH ice pack is occuring from March (Hint, hint) to September, during this phase around 11 million square Km of open water is created at it’s peak, thus “allowing” this massive cold water surface area to be exposed to the atmosphere to absorb CO2. (and I’m not even develing into the marine biological feedback that occurs in these waters during this time period, hint, hint, hint) http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/current.365.jpg
Here’s a math problem for you professors out there, what is rate of solution of CO2 in 0C water per square meter? Now multiply by 11 million. What’s the amount of CO2 the Arctic Ocean can absorb during the summer?
Please notice that from October to May when CO2 trends positive again it basically means the CO2 that is constantly being produced on the earth year round is not being absorbed during this period. What two events in nature are occuring to cause this non-absorbtion? Plants go dormant and the NH ice pack covers the Arctic Ocean. What’s interesting is that the SH ice cover varies around 13 million square km 180 degree out of phase and does not smooth out the global CO2 value, which suggests the primary driver of CO2 regulation is plant growth or the absence thereof. Knowing that the bulk of land area is in the NH, that being the case by process of elimination the rising CO2 concentration is a result of land use changes and very minimally fossil fuel consumption.
Chemistry question here.
What happens to CO2 when it is ionized? Or bombarded with other components of cosmic rays?
Hmmm. I don’t see how CO2 can get ionized. (What would the ions be?)
anna v,
Thank you for the response and your further research.. I agree with you that in the case of Professor Pilmer the “press” could be responsible for the gross exaggeration of his Milos claim (particularly when the source in this case is a pro-mining site designed to encourage one to purchase shares of mining companies). The difference between “2% of atmospheric CO2 levels” and “1% of the planet’s volcanic CO2” is very significant. Without a cited source for this information even the 1% of volcanic CO2 figure is suspect in my mind particularly after reading Professor Pilner’s article and seeing what he presents as “not known” verses controversial interpretations he presents as facts. I also find it significant that he throws out the 1% statement as a fact and in the next breath talks about unseen undersea volcanoes leaking “huge quantities of CO2”. It would seem to me that he would need to better quantify the latter statement in order to justify the former statement.
I agree with you that the estimated 3,000,000 seamounts and volcanoes is a lot. I would also agree with you that to use the Philippines as a region to extrapolate the percentage of active volcanoes under the sea would be an upper limit of the estimation since the Philippines sits behind a tectonic subduction trench; an area known for it’s active volcanoes. I believe that the list of volcanoes you presented (88) in the Philippines does not come close to representing the number of volcanoes that would be included if we were to use the definition of volcanoes and seamounts (over 100 meters tall) used by Hillier and Watts http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2007/2007GL029874.shtml http://environment.newscientist.com/article/dn12218#comForm . According to the CIA https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/rp.html#Geo the Philippines includes over 7000 islands and atolls (not counting all seamounts). I would guess that just about each of these would represent a “volcano or seamount” in the Hillier and Watts paper. I would not be surprised if there were not an equal if not significantly greater number of seamounts that are not included in this number (albeit some of them may be active).
Back of the envelope calculations 88active volcanoes)/7000 (islands)= ~1.25% (active percentage of volcanoes)
1.25% x 3,000,000 (volcanoes & seamounts)= 37,770
37,770 is significantly less than 200,000.
I suspect that even this number may be on the high side but I honestly have little idea. Since we have little idea how many undersea volcanoes are active in the phillipines I would say that it would be unfair to include seamonts (the number of which we also do not know) in ths calculation. I have not.
You might want to check my math as I make math errors (often an order of magnitude or more) all the time. 😉
Arch
Arch Stanton (10:14:56) :
Can we agree then that more research is needed in this area?
Which means that the amount of heat entering the oceans is still an unknown and a guestimate?
anna v and Arch Stanton
I would agree with the 3,000,000 (and possibly more ) scenario if the word volcanoes was changed to geothermal activity, I would think that it is in the eye of the beholder to distinguish between the two, a vulcanologist would surely have some reference point as to the differance, but I do not, visiting Rotarua in New Zealand some years ago it looked like it was a city built on 10,000 active volcanoes, ( like Yellowstone only in 3D ) having sailed across what for me was a very big volcano in the Pacific but am unable to find any references to it, (Depth in excess of 2 miles, and water temp increasing 18c) Spending much of the summer in Italy where I regularly dive around the island of Stromboli where I have seen underwater volcanic (geothermal) activity of dozens of active mini volcanoes which in reality are vents, (cones arising from the sea floor 5-10 meters) but if one were placed in Central Park would immediately become a volcano.
As the water covers 70% of the earth and in places depths arrive to the limits of the earths crust, where logic says it must get hot,the information available on the activities under our oceans is equivalent to a grain of sand on one of New Zealand beautiful beaches.
Arch says, ” Can we agree then that more reseach is needed in this area?”
Given the size of the subject, I would think ‘more’ is not an appropriate word .
If I don’t insulate my attic, my warm air rises and a nice cold layer of air settles near the floor where I then freeze my little feet off during a midnight run to the bathroom. Does CO2 (which is heavier than O2) hitch a ride and rise with the warm air? Adding water vapor to the mix, is dry warm CO2 lighter than cold wet CO2? Also does atmospheric pressure (high’s and low’s) play a part in helping CO2 rise higher than its weight would predict? Might it then escape out the roof (in this case the roof being through the ozone layer). Might we have carbon sinks as well as periodic carbon escapes?
Just curious and on a learning curve.