Evidence of variability of atmospheric CO2 concentration during the 20th century
Geo-Ecological Seminar University of Bayreuth, 17th July 2008 (see here)
Ernst-Georg Beck, Dipl. Biol
Summary of the presentation (printable PDF available here)
In 1958 the modern NDIR spectroscopic method was introduced to measure CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere [Beck 2007]. In the preceding period, these measurements were taken with the old wet chemical method. From this period, starting from 1857, more than 90,000 reliable CO2 measurements are available, with an accuracy within ± 3 %. They had been taken near ground level, sea surface and as high as the stratosphere, mostly in the northern hemisphere. Comparison of these measurements on the basis of old wet chemical methods with the new physical method (NDIR) on sea and land reveals a systematic analysis difference of about minus 10 ppm.
Wet chemical analyses indicate three atmospheric CO2 maxima in the northern hemisphere up to approx. 400 ppm over land and sea since about 1812. The measured atmospheric CO2 concentrations since 1920 –1950 prove to be strongly correlated (more than 80 %) with the arctic sea surface temperature (SST).
A detailed analysis of the Atlantic Ocean water during the arctic warming since 1918 – 1939 by Wattenberg (southern Atlantic ocean) and Buch (northern Atlantic ocean) indicates a very similar state of the Atlantic Ocean (pH, salinity, CO2 in water and air over sea etc.) These data show the characteristics of the warm ocean currents (part of global conveyor belt) at that time, indicating a strong CO2 degassing from the Atlantic Sea, especially in the area of Greenland/Iceland and Spitsbergen. More than 360 ppm had been measured over the sea surface.
In 2004 Polyakov published evidence for a multi-decadal oscillation of the ocean currents in the arctic circle, showing a warm phase (strong arctic warming during 1918 –1940 with high temperatures in the Iceland/Spitsbergen area) similar to the current situation, and a cold phase (around 1900 and 1960). Today the Iceland/Spitsbergen area is known for a strong absorption of CO2.
This multi-decadal heating of the oceanic CO2 absorption area and larger parts of the Northern Atlantic Ocean was followed by an increase of the atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration to approx. 400 ppm during the 30s and approx. 390 ppm today. The abundance of plankton (13C) and other biota supports this view.
Conclusion:
Atmospheric CO2 concentration varies with climate, the sea is the dominant CO2 store, releasing the gas depending on multi-decadal changes of temperature.
See several supporting graphs here: 180 Years of atmospheric CO2 Gas Analysis by Chemical Methods
NOTE: While this paper presents some interesting findings, I and others do have some concerns with the older chemically derived sources of CO2 concentration data, which are obtained from a chemical analysis process that has some significant variability. Beck seems to think he has accurate enough data from these methods, and he has another essay on the process of chemical analysis of CO2 gas concentration in the atmosphere here. I’d recommend reading it also. My personal opinion on this paper is that I’m “on the fence with it”, and I encourage a rigorous debate, pro and con. – Anthony
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See
http://www-airs.jpl.nasa.gov/Products/CarbonDioxide/
An interesting relationship between ocean CO2 and temps: click
[scroll down to the chart]
[I didn’t make it clear. Scroll down to the February 22, 2008 chart. Sorry.]
Mike Bryant
This link that I gave earlier also has a turning globe version.
http://www-airs.jpl.nasa.gov/index.cfm?fuseaction=ShowNews_DynamicContent&NewsID=10”
It seems that this “airs” business is not well coordinated, or somebody is suppressing data. 5 years to repeat simple plots is funny.
See the partial translation from “hoch Deutsch” (high German) into English By André Bijkerk
“Who was W. Kreutz in Gießen? or what’s wrong with atmospheric CO2?”
Note sampling at 0 m, 0.5 m, 2.0m, 14.0 m with 120 measurements per day. Note detailed analysis vs all major meteorological parameters. He measured daily variation with 1.5 hr sampling for a week. Furthermore,
“The weather factors under consideration are (solar) radiation, temperature, wind speed and precipitation.”
“In the next tables we give the average values of all the samples in thousands of percents during the period 1.5 years. The overall average of more than 25,000 samples is 43.85 (438.5 ppmv)”
Mike,
on your link the scatter plot and the comment are indicative.
It says “tropical oceans”, and the caption reads:
“CO2 derived from AIRS calibrated radiances since launch shows the steady rise in global levels due to human factors.”
. A look at their global map at the top of the page shows much less human factors in the tropical oceans than in the northern hemisphere!!!!
Why are they not scatter plotting where the human factors really are???
In addition one can see large concentration from areas that can only be attributed to volcanic activity.
It is possible that the data are being sat on to figure out a way of subtracting inconvenient truths. The five year delay means that it is hard to do so.
P.S.
Proof of bad coordination, at least, of these pages is that the figure on the top of the link says the data are from July 2003, and the caption January 2003! Both start with J and correlation is causation ::
In the link I had given above, of the same generic site,
http://www-airs.jpl.nasa.gov/index.cfm?fuseaction=ShowNews_DynamicContent&NewsID=10
It says July clearly.
The Justus Liebig University Geissen is running a
Free Air CO2 Enrichment Facility
See: “detailed description of the enrichment technique:
Jäger, H.-J., Schmidt, S.W., Kammann, C., Grünhage, L., Müller, C. & Hanewald, K. (2003): The University of Giessen free-air carbon dioxide enrichment study: description of the experimental site and of a new enrichment system. Journal of Applied Botany 77, 117-127.
Schmidt, S.W. (2003): Ein modulares System zur Untersuchung der Auswirkungen von erhöhtem atmosphärischen Kohlendioxid auf Grünland-Ökosysteme. Dissertation, JLU Gießen.
Quelle: http://geb.uni-giessen.de/geb/volltexte/2003/1125/ ”
Contact Persons
There is an:
“Air Quality Monitoring Station Linden of HLUG Phenological Garden and Air Quality Monitoring Station
“The Air Quality Monitoring Station Linden, located at the Environmental and Climate Impact Research Station Linden, is part of the air quality monitoring network of Hesse which is operated by the Hessian Agency for the Environment and Geology (HLUG).”
See: data of the monitoring station
This includes temperature and CO2 etc.
Perhaps KlausB or others could followup exploring Beck’s documentation and especially the work of W. Kreutz with subsequent CO2 data from Geissen or nearby sites.
As a lay person who is keenly interested in the ongoing research into AGW, I thoroughly enjoy lurking around and enriching myself. So thank you to all who contribute as you all make it much more enjoyable for me to continue my education!
In reference to a few comments made regarding the comparison of chemical wet method vs. IR method I ran across this paragraph in Beck’s repsonse to Keeling and Meijer…
“My E&E paper is an excerpt from my 113 page monograph (Beck, 2006/2007). In this monograph I compared the chemical measurements of atmospheric CO2, represented by the Steinhauser series for 1957/58 in Vienna (Austria), with the IR measurements at Mauna Loa. The average for chemical data for Vienna was 320 ppmv by chemical methods, and this is similar to the 318 ppmv obtained from Mauna Loa. This proves the validity of both types of measurement within the documented error range.”
Whether this is of any value I do not know, but it seemed to provide some compelling information.
I turn to the Mauna Loa data as a sort of “holy grail,” and expect accuracy, and therefore I find it upsetting to hear that 80% of the data is “thrown out.” In the interest of open scientific inquiry it seems the “thrown out” data should be made available, and the reasons for “throwing it out” should perhaps be made known.
I don’t like being suspicious all the time, however up until the Climateaudit- prompted re-re-adjustment of NASA data nearly a year ago, I deemed Hansen’s data a “holy grail.” We are approaching the first birthday of my skepticism.
As hard as scientists try to be objective, it’s human nature to be subjective and inclined to a sort of wish-fufillment, when scanning large amounts of data and attempting to see patterns. Therefore it is very important to be open with data, and to allow others to double-check our thinking. The worst thing Hansen and Mann have done is to withhold their data.
One reason I check the Mauna Loa data is because, according to some Alarmist papers, warming seas cause CO2 “outgassing.” Therefore Alarmists should expect cooling seas from the PDO switch and recent La Nina to have the opposite effect, and to predict some sort of dip in CO2 to appear. They could say it was “masking” Global Warming, and was “only temporary,” and so forth.
The ice-core data is another “holy grail,” and therefore my first responce to Zbigniew Jaworowski’s work was to deem him a crack pot. However the stuff he points out about lake-bottom leaf stomata, when used as a proxy, does tend to foster doubt in ice-core data.
I wonder if anyone has studied what happens to bubbles of CO2 in ice, under differing pressures, at different temperatures, in a lab? It ought be easy to set up such an experiment.
If the ice-core data becomes suspect, an awful lot of painstaking scientific work is going to have its foundations rattled and kicked-out-from-under. I can sort of understand why Zbigniew Jaworowski had his funding cut off, at one point.
In response to oldjim wondering what the CO2 values were for Victorian London, there are plenty of old books that give those values. The particular book I’m using is ‘Physiography: An Introduction to the Study of Nature’ by T H Huxley published in 1885, the values converted to ppm are:
On the Thames at London, mean: 343
In the streets of London: 380
Top of Ben Nevis: 327
From the Queen’s Ward, St Thomas’s Hospital: 400
From the Haymarket Theatre, dress circle at 11.30 pm: 757
From Chancery Court, 7 feet from ground: 1930
From underground railway, mean: 1452
From workings in mines, average of 339 samples: 7850
Largest amount in a Cornish mine: 25000
The measurements were carried out by Angus Smith and are originally given in his book ‘Air and Rain’ published in 1872. The above locations are in London apart from Ben Nevis (mountain in Scotland, tallest mountain in UK) and the values recorded in mines. Out of that data, the closest to a background level would be the Ben Nevis value. Beck’s historical instrumental CO2 curve seems to include the Ben Nevis data point. Rather than what the RealClimate bloggers and ‘Eli Rabbett’ would have you believe, these old CO2 measurers did fully understand that CO2 values varied with location.
One of the criticisms I’ve seen of Beck’s work is that you can’t use European locations to measure background CO2 – you have to go to exotic, out-of-the-way locations like Hawaii and the South Pole. But there are some modern European measurements (on the CDIAC website) recorded at rural locations and these compare very well with Mauna Loa:
Shetland Islands, Scotland elev 30m
356.89 ppm in 1993 to 370.97 ppm in 2001
Mauna Loa (elev 3397m)
357.04 ppm in 1993 to 371.02 ppm in 2001
Westerland, Island of Sylt, Germany near sea level
329 parts ppm in 1973 to 364 ppm in 1997
Mauna Loa 329.68 ppm in 1973 to 363.76 ppm in 1997
My view of Beck’s work is that it’s a fairly honest attempt to compile historical instrumental background CO2 data, and I’m amazed that he seems to have been the first person to attempt to do this, but I suspect that some of his rural locations may not be rural enough. It does look very suspicious to me that climate scientists prefer to use an elaborate proxy method like ice core data when it would appear to be simpler to use historical instrumental data and possibly then ‘correct’ it to allow for any discrepancy between modern and old-fashioned methods of measuring CO2.
Francois Quellette, yr 25th, 13:58
Keith Wooster, yr 25th, 17:15
David L. Hagen, yr 25th, 21:34
Francois, Keith,
David’s link ‘data of monitoring stations’ to the Linden
station gives current CO² datas for Giessen (Linden is
a suburb of the city of Giessen).
David,
thanks a lot for the links,
(darn… should have find them by myself).
Too, when you look on the stations available
on that link, there are Wetzlar and about 30
other stations in and around the state of Hesse,
Germany.
Hmmm, I put it onto my to-do-list, to try to get
some more stations with CO² datas and find the
files containing these datas. Would be really nice
to compare then these datas with datas from Beck’s
collections and current monthly Mauna Loa datas.
KlausB
Is it really true that human caused Co2 being absorbed into the sea might be sufficient to cause the oceans to acidify and melt the shells of sea life?
klausB your 26th (06:20:14)
Thanks for clarifying Linden’s location. Complements on identifying those other weather stations. Re: “Would be really nice to compare then these datas with datas from Beck’s collections and current monthly Mauna Loa datas.” Look forward to what you find.
Julian in Wales (yr 26th 07:04:12)
CO2 dissolving shells is conventional wisdom publicized by global warming alarmists. However, common sense suggests sea life has survived far higher CO2 concentrations than at present. e.g., see Figure 7 “Fluctuating CO2 but stable temperature for 600m years” in Climate Sensitivity Reconsidered, Christopher Monckton, Physics & Society, July 2008.
Monckton cites reports showing CO2 > 1,000 ppm from 65 to 248 million years ago, and from 360 to 560 million years ago!
See also recent research: Dynamics of dimethylsulphoniopropionate and dimethylsulphide under different CO2 concentrations during a mesocosm experiment Vogt, M., Steinke, M., Turner, S., Paulino, A., Meyerhofer, M., Riebesell, U., LeQuere, C. and Liss, P. 2008. Biogeosciences 5: 407-419.
Comments at OceanAcidification.org
Marine Ecosystem Response to “Ocean Acidification” Due to Atmospheric CO2 Enrichment
David L. Hagen
The BBC ( 18th July) and the New Scientist ( 26th July) are quoting Jon Egill Kristjansson ( University of Oslo) who claims, that he has shown no link between cosmic rays and cloud formation
New scientist quote “As a factor in climate change, it’s pretty clear that we don’t have any indication that this is important at all”
Given the good work in the past on cosmic rays what’s this about Anthony?
REPLY: It’s about interpreting data differently. Two researchers, different views, differnt results. It will hacve to run the gaunlet of additional confirmation or falsification before we can say for certain one way or another.
I have also wondered about the stairstep to heaven graph of CO2. It seemed suspicious to me from the beginning but I didn’t spend much time on the issue as other things that were solar and weather related peaked my interests more.
It seems to me that this measure would only make sense if the instrument were located near a “vent” of some kind. Is there a degassing area near this instrument, or some kind of swirling weather pattern (like what occurs in the Antarctic area seasonally that help create the ozone hole) that sucks in the CO2 being degassed nearby? Are there other graphs from other instruments located near CO2 sinks that don’t show this kind of regular pattern?
Is it possible that this station is measuring CO2 degassing and not some kind of human increase?
Pamela,
The “sawtooth” pattern is related to seasonal variation, and the rate of change from year to year is definitely related to outgassing from the oceans, if not the overall trend.
I’d like to know more about the data is discarded. If it wasn’t discarded, what would the graph look like? Would it be more like other types of climate data, with lots of “noise?” Are there patterns in the data that is discarded that might undermine the impression of a steady monotonic increase in CO2?
Is the methodology for discarding data documented anywhere, and is the raw data available anywhere?
This isn’t another GISS mess in the making, is it?
Basil
Philip B.
Do you know what constitutes the overwhelming majority of the Earth’s biomass? Surprise, surprise! It is… bacteria !! So most of the carbon cycle, whether on land or in the oceans, is really regulated by the action of bacteria, or rather, their respiration.
It is obvious that more CO2 means more plants, and more biological productivity in general. Life thrives on CO2.
There is an aspect that seems to be mostly overlooked in all the literature on the carbon cycle, and it is adaptation, or natural selection. As the CO2 in air increases, the effect is not only that plants will benefit from it. The effect is that the plants and other organisms that grow better in a CO2-rich environment will DISPLACE the other organisms, thus amplifyng the effect. We think of natural selection as being a slow process, but that’s for higher organisms. For bacteria and even for plants, it proceeds much more rapidly.
Syl : I was NOT trying to find the climate sensitivity. I was just trying to figure out how the carbon cycle is modulated by temperature. Because if there is, say, more outgassing when it’s warmer, it means that some of the CO2 increase is a RESULT of the temperature increase, and not its cause.
Gary Gulrud: O.K. maybe I overreacted. I know there is much emphasis on fluxes in the literature. I think it may be the wrong way to look at things, because it distracts you from the cause of the flux. So I looked at fluxes as being the result of a departure from equilibrium, and focused on finding how the equilibrium is itself a function of temperature, and even of the CO2 concentration itself. It is by no means a novel or original approach, and is rather standard, and even simplistic. I’m just doing this on my spare time, and don’t intend to make a carreer out of it! I was surprised to find out how you could, with that very simple model, get good agreements with the measurements. Just goes to show, IMO, that the average behavior of the carbon cycle is rather simple, despite all the local complexity. Much like the way we link volume of gas to temperature and pressure, without having to account for all the movement of individual molecules.
An interesting depiction of CO2 monitoring sites is at the following web address: http://scrippsco2.ucsd.edu/research/atmospheric_co2.html. Notice the concentration in the Pacific Ocean. These station locations do not appear to be “global” in the sense that I understand “global”. If I wanted to measure sulfur vents, I would put stations near volcanoes. If I wanted to measure degassing of CO2, I would want to put stations near degassing areas. If I wanted a control for sulfur, I would place it far away from a vent. If I wanted a control for CO2, I would place it far away from a degassing area.
Are there as many land based stations as there are ocean island based? I couldn’t find any other sites. Are we seeing skewed data that reflects a biased sample and not a true random “global” sample? What is CO2 doing over known sinks? Or do sinks have inactive periods? If sinks are not working well at the moment (due to?), CO2 elsewhere would increase. If sinks begin to work again (due to?), then CO2 measurements will begin to flatten and even fall.
hmmmm. It just seems to me that we could just be measuring degassing (which could be envisioned to act in a linear manner if degassing occurs in such a way), not human produced starts and fits of CO2 increases.
Maybe what we need is measurements from satellites that could determine CO2 in the upper atmosphere where the models predict it to do its “damage”. Who knows, maybe there are even holes in CO2 like there are for ozone.
It just seems to me that CO2 is being measured, talked about, and modeled with very few data points and that appear to be taken near biased locations, historically, as well as currently.
I just sent a post that has a URL in it. It points to a web site that shows CO2 stations. They appear to be located near CO2 degassing sites. The post is probably in the spam folder.
Basil
I understand the seasonal variation which is obviously related to short term temperature/solar regulated growing and reproduction seasons for both plant and animal life. Which should lead us to the next obvious hypothesis: If short term temperature/solar influences have such a strong influence seasonally, what happens when temperature/solar influences have long term swings?
The second question I have is how much of this very possibly natural long-term variation in CO2 is influenced by human produced CO2 due to energy consumption? The stairstep to heaven chart is always depicted as entirely human caused. I think not and the graph should include a pie chart related to how much is natural and how much is energy consumed CO2 emission.
Dave Gardner (05:42:27) : Thank you for the information.
Really enlightening – Cornish Mines really weren’t a nice place to work!
Pamela Gray
Re CO2 stations in the Pacific. Looks like those chosen as representative remote stations selected to span northern and southern latitudes.
Is this the URL you sent?Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center ORNL
Atmospheric Trace Gases, Carbon Isotopes, Radionuclides, and Aerosols
Further clues:
AmeriFlux Network
KlausB See:
FLUXNET project
FLUXNET Map Server
FLUXNET sites
There appear to be about a dozen FLUXNET sites in Germany.
<Pamela Gray noted:
Yes, and furthermore, the y-axis is deliberately magnified by beginning at a high value, instead of on a chart with a zero line.
This is what a non-alarmist CO2 Mauna Loa chart looks like: click
I’ve been up to the Mauna Loa volcano crater a few times. It has to be at least a mile or two across, maybe more, with a very deep caldera. Since Hawaii is geologically active, I’ve often wondered why they would cite a CO2 monitoring station there. Wouldn’t you think that at least some of the CO2 indications must come from natural venting?
David L. Hagen; Klaus B.; Pamela
Good information.
Keith