One of the few things that BOTH sides of the Carbon Dioxide and AGW debate seem to be able to agree on is the belief that CO2, as a trace gas, is “well-mixed” in the atmosphere. Keeling’s measurements at Mauna Loa and other locations worldwide rely on this being true, so that “hotspots” aren’t being inadvertently measured.
As support for this, if you do some Google searches for these phrases, you’ll get hundreds of results of the usage together:
“carbon dioxide” + “well mixed”
You’ll find complete opposites using the same “well mixed” phrase, for example:
Gavin Schmidt of Real Climate writes in comment # 162 of this thread on Realclimate.org
“A full doubling of CO2 is 3.7 W/m2, and so by looking at all well-mixed GHGs you get about 70% of the way to a doubling.”
Roger Pielke Sr. writes in April 2008:
“…and thus are not providing quantitatively realistic estimates of how the climate system responds to the increase in atmospheric well mixed greenhouse gases in terms of the water vapor feedback.”
You’ll also find the phrase in use in titles of scientific papers, for example this one published in the AGU:
New Estimates of Radiative Forcing Due to Well Mixed Greenhouse Gases
And you’ll find the phrase used in popular media, such as this article from the BBC:
Carbon dioxide continues its rise
In describing the emasurements of CO2 at Mauna Loa Observatory: “The thin Pacific air is ideal for this research since it is “well-mixed”, meaning that there is no obvious nearby source of pollution, such as a heavy industry, or a natural “sink”, such as forest which would absorb CO2.”
Hmm, “no obvious nearby source of pollution” I suppose the volcanic outgassing nearby doesn’t count as “pollution” since it is natural in origin.
So it seems clear that there is a broad agreement on the use of the term. I suppose you’d call that “scientific consensus”.
So it was with some surprise that I viewed this image from NASA JPL, a global CO2 distribution as measured by satellite:
Note the variations throughout the globe, ranging from highs of 382 PPM to lows around 365 PPM. There is a whole range of data and imagery like this above available here
My question is: how does this global variance translate into the phrase “well-mixed” when used to describe global CO2 distribution? It would seem that if it were truly “well-mixed”, we’d see only minor variances on the order of a couple of PPM. Yet clearly we have significant regional and hemispheric variance.
NASA JPL provides this caption to help understand it:
Although originally designed to measure atmospheric water vapor and temperature profiles for weather forecasting, data from the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) instrument on NASA’s Aqua spacecraft are now also being used by scientists to observe atmospheric carbon dioxide. Scientists from NASA; the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration; the European Center for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts; the University of Maryland, Baltimore County; Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey; and the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), Pasadena, Calif., are using several different methods to measure the concentration of carbon dioxide in the mid-troposphere (about eight kilometers, or five miles, above the surface). The global map of mid-troposphere carbon dioxide above, produced by AIRS Team Leader Dr. Moustafa Chahine at JPL, shows that despite the high degree of mixing that occurs with carbon dioxide, the regional patterns of atmospheric sources and sinks are still apparent in mid-troposphere carbon dioxide concentrations. “This pattern of high carbon dioxide in the Northern Hemisphere (North America, Atlantic Ocean, and Central Asia) is consistent with model predictions,” said Chahine. Climate modelers, such as Dr. Qinbin Li at JPL, and Dr. Yuk Yung at Caltech, are currently using the AIRS data to study the global distribution and transport of carbon dioxide and to improve their models.
As we’ve found with surface based temperature measurement, it seems the more we look at satellite data, the more we learn that our earth bound assumptions based on surface measurement don’t always hold true.
When measuring the planet, looking at the whole planet at one time seems a better idea than trying to measure thousands of data points at the surface, sorting out noise, doing adjustments to “fix” what is perceived as bias, and assuming the result is accurately representatiive of the globe.
UPDATE: 7/31/08 I got a response from the AIRS team on satellite CO2 measuremenst, see this new posting
We won’t have to rely on ground based CO2 measurements much longer.
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From one of the links from peer reviewer’s reference,
“Bacastow, R.B. 1979. Dip in the atmospheric CO2 level during the mid-1960’s. Journal of Geophysical Research 80:3109-14.”
Couldn’t find more than an abstract which doesn’t provide figures, but there was a significant drop over several years in the 60s of perhaps .2 or .3 C in temp according to 1988 Hansen, and I see no “dip” here
http://scrippsco2.ucsd.edu/images/graphics_gallery/original/co2_sta_records.pdf
– except for the dip used to treat horses and the wash used to treat hogs.
“This pattern of high carbon dioxide in the Northern Hemisphere (North America, Atlantic Ocean, and Central Asia) is consistent with model predictions.”
Interesting too because the models don’t make predictions, they make projections. IPCC says so. Since earth’s climate is a complex, non-linear, chaotic system unless you know the initial state of the potentially hundreds, maybe thousands of parameters the model would be incapable of ‘predicting’ the future state of the system. Projections aren’t much more than sensitivity runs to test the effect of individual parameters.
Here’s another interesting set of maps, one of ocean CO2:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Ocean_Data_Analysis_Project
The oceans give and take atmospheric CO2, and it seems atmospheric conditions above would vary with this to some extent. I wonder if it is commonly understood that ocean CO2 mixes as fast in the oceans as in the air…
2003?
Where is the most recent CO2 satellite data?
Seriously, this is a subject that I have been researching for over a year now, and I can not find any global satellite data for CO2 that is more recent than 2005.
So far, this is the best that I have located:
http://www.iup.uni-bremen.de/sciamachy/NIR_NADIR_WFM_DOAS
This movie tells me more things, than I could ever express:
http://www.iup.uni-bremen.de/sciamachy/NIR_NADIR_WFM_DOAS/scia_co2_ani_buchwitz.gif
Vegitation is a much more important contribution to global CO2 than humans will ever be.
This this why we do not see this satellite data more often?
If CO2 is as persistent in those atmospheric bands as the UN/IPCC and others claim, then those areas of high CO2 concentration should have a slightly higher temp, no?
Also, I agree with the comment on Brownian motion [*disclaimer* what’s coming next isn’t real science]:
Last Saturday evening I was reading on the bed, waiting for my wife to get ready to go out to dinner. She was talking to me from across the room; the hallway door was closed, and there was no apparent air movement. She opened her perfume bottle, and within a few seconds I could smell the perfume from across the room. Brownian motion would account for that, I guess.
Not that Brownian motion affects CO2 in these large bands around the planet. Air packets typically move in discrete chunks [like a cold front moving in], and take everything inside with them.
The image is from the AIRS(Atmospheric Infrared Sounder) site. This site contains many intersting product, including this surface temperature reader – (apparently not an O2 MSU device) at http://airs.jpl.nasa.gov/Products/SurfaceTemperature/
At this site:
http://airs.jpl.nasa.gov/News/Features/FeaturesNewGlobalMaps/
All the images are shown for January and for July. However, the CO2 map in the post only shows the July.
REPLY: Yes that is a bit odd. I also found this larger plot from a tip by another commenter, Alan Drennan. This needs some looking ino to see if more current data exists – Anthony
http://airs.jpl.nasa.gov/images/Aumann_SST_graph_543x409.jpg
There seems to be only bits and pieces here.
Steve H, thanks for the info on the German satellite data.
Very good info,
Mike Bryant
I too saw this image recently, but was not sure what to make of it.
My personal version of common sense tells me that CO2 concentrations will be highest immediately above the thing that is spewing out the stuff. As the wind blows (or the tooth fairy flies, or whatever it is that causes CO2 to move) the CO2 will spread up and sideways and, over time, might be distributed evenly once it has been thinned out sufficiently that any further spread cannot occur, and all the time the things that absorb it will absorb it thereby reducing the concentration.
Then more is produced and that is distributed but not necessarily in the same way as the previous lot because the tooth fairy has changed direction. But throughout the exercise, the one place that constantly has most is the place that constantly produces it. Concentrations elsewhere will increase for so long as the producer is producing in greater quantities than the absorber is absorbing but there can never be an even spread all over the world because for every molecule that travels from London to Papua New Guinea there are millions more molecules which remain far closer to home.
Even after travelling 5 miles up, it can only travel so far sideways in the time it has taken it to reach that height. The CO2 contained in my latest exhalation here in Highbury, North London, will not all gather exactly 5 miles above my house, but by the time one little bit does sit exactly 5 miles above my house will a single bit have reached Papua New Guinea? And by the time (if it ever happens) that the air above Papua New Guinea reaps the benefit of my fragrant breath I will have pumped out a lot more of the stuff, the vast majority of which I would expect to be much closer to home.
Assuming a roughly constant output and random forces spreading it about one would expect to see concentrations above the emitters; if the forces are not random but follow a pattern one would expect to see concentrations in the places to which those forces will carry it in the time it takes to get 5 miles up.
Once again, my version of common sense seems to have been defeated. As Mr Carson (16:25:56) pointed out, the difference between Permafrost Blue and Scotch Bonnet Chilli Pepper Orange on the image is only 20ppm, a tiny little bit (roughly equivalent to the proportion of Americans who claim to understand cricket).
Mr Counters, Mr Brendan H, you might like this next bit:
My first reaction when I saw the image was that it suggests CO2 concentrates in vast clumps at or near the source of production thereby throwing a spanner in the works of the IPCC models. But, because the difference between Blue and Orange is so minuscule in terms of ppm it seems to me that it shows remarkable efficient mixing. I have to say that the colour scheme used in the image misled me into believing it indicated a big difference between the variously coloured areas when it does not.
I think that all this CO2 satellite information is so precious that the government has it locked away in the dark vaults of the Smithsonian.
I’m sure they would like to lock up the satellite temperature data too.
REPLY: Lets leave the conspiracy theories out of the discussion please. – Anthony
Imagine the AIRS temperature, CO2 and water vapor data being visualized, compared and analyzed by a supercomputer. I bet someone has already started running the program. I just hope the team does not have an agenda. How would you like to straighten out that mess??
We need the data before it is massaged and adjusted.
They have a five year head start.
I meant to start my last comment by complimenting you, Mr Watts, on illustrating the piece with not just any mixed thing but mixed nuts. Very droll 🙂
REPLY: Well I am in Chico, CA, where they sell t-shirts that say “where the nuts come from” due to the booming nut tree orchards in the area.
My first thought, looking at the graph, is “why isn’t CO2 more uniform around the equator?”.
If CO2 mixes really well in the atmosphere, then surely it would be carried around by the winds (for mixing purposes)? In that case, would we expect to see uniform concentration (either high or low) around the equator? My understanding (which is quite liable to be completly wrong) is that the NH and SH atmospheres are reasonably seperate beasties.
Feel free to point out where I went off the rails with this one…
nasa has done a pretty good job of making the data available.
there are also multiple movies at
http://cdiac.ornl.gov/trends/co2/ ( i think)
I urge people to click on the co2 records from around the world.
its very difficult to explain that co2 is always higher in the north pole, its minimum is always greater, yet there are no cars or emission of co2 in the artic
furthermore, global warming numbers for averaged world temp are entirely caused by warmer winters in the artic and antartic. Co2 warming theory does not have an explanation as to why this should happen. There is no irradiation in the winter in the artic for heat to be trapped.
this is a plot of latitude by season for the Giss data set
http://www.flickr.com/photos/23668657@N07/
the actual temp has gone down quite a bit since 2006, the last year of the data set
http://cdiac.ornl.gov/trends/co2/
co2 is highest at the poles, and highest in the north pole
and
http://www.flickr.com/photos/23668657@N07/
gives warming by season and by latitude from Giss data until 2006. it is a lot colder now
global warming is entirely due to averaging high polar winter temps into much lower global tropical and -40 to 40 latitutde temps. But in winter there is no irradiation at all in the north pole, so it cant be trapped by co2.
the temps in the artic are unexplainable by co2 theory
I guess in upside down AGW-think land CO2 is taken up by oceans but not by raindrops.
No one has pointed out that 5 miles elevation is just above flight level 260, where many jet aircraft traverse. Leaving CO2, vapor trails, mixing stuff up, etc. as they go. I’ve spent many hours up there and above as I leave my huge carbon bootprint. So while “5 miles up” may sound exotic, it isn’t.
George M.
That makes me wonder if the Keeling curve matches the increase in passenger air miles since late fifties.
Agreed, let’s leave conspiracy out of science. At the bottom of the NASA/JPL page is the following final sentence:
http://www-airs.jpl.nasa.gov/Products/CarbonDioxide/
“The AIRS CO2 product is not yet available to the public. It is expected to be released in 2008.”
I would give them the benefit of doubt and see what happens.
I hope we get to at least peek at the CO2 product before any EPA restrictions.
Ric Werme (17:32:04) :
A CO2 molecule that has absorbed an infrared photon, will be slightly heavier, very slightly, than one that has not, due to E=MC**2 and conservation of energy. Picturing it as a balloon is not correct.
It is indicative that they call it a “product”. Products are for advertising and selling. In my humble opinion they are waiting for the laws on CO2 footprints to make money out of the maps. Already there is a US Purdue university project preparing for that.
This of course is a conflict of interest.
It is unfortunate that research results are treated as “products”. It may be ok for nanotechnology, but for such a crucial issue where decisions hang on whether CO2 is a natural factor or how much anthropogenic emmission contribute, the data should be free.
As far as the wiki link somebody gave here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:AYool_GLODAP_invt_aCO2.png
I cannot believe it. It has maximum 80 CO2 molecules per collumn of a meter square. For sure there are many more where in the collumn where I am sitting and printing this :). And we are talking of collumns kilometer high? 80 extra molecules playing ping pong will heat up the air over my head? Something off here.
Throwing a possible monkeywrench into some people’s idea of the AGW argument concerning CO2, from 2001 Hansen:
http://www.pnas.org/content/97/18/9875
“A common view is that the current global warming rate will continue or accelerate. But we argue that rapid warming in recent decades has been driven mainly by non-CO2 greenhouse gases (GHGs), such as chlorofluorocarbons, CH4, and N2O, not by the products of fossil fuel burning, CO2 and aerosols, the positive and negative climate forcings of which are partially offsetting. The growth rate of non-CO2 GHGs has declined in the past decade. If sources of CH4 and O3 precursors were reduced in the future, the change in climate forcing by non-CO2 GHGs in the next 50 years could be near zero. Combined with a reduction of black carbon emissions and plausible success in slowing CO2 emissions, this reduction of non-CO2 GHGs could lead to a decline in the rate of global warming, reducing the danger of dramatic climate change. Such a focus on air pollution has practical benefits that unite the interests of developed and developing countries. However, assessment of ongoing and future climate change requires composition-specific long-term global monitoring of aerosol properties.”
Non-CO2 gases said to contribute to warming are mainly methane, nitros oxide and CFC’s. These are said to have a “big” warming effect for short periods of time where CO2 is said to have “small” effect for a long period of time.
Yet all we hear about is CO2 killing us all next Thursday if we don’t stop drivin that hot rod Lincoln. If Hansen is right above (is he) that these non-CO2 trace gases had been declining from say 1988 to 2001, that might be the reason for the last 10 years of no warming, despite alleged rising CO2.
I wonder what “partially offsetting” meant with regard to aerosols:
http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2007/2006GL028356.shtml
“The amount of solar irradiance reaching the surface is a key parameter in the hydrological and energy cycles of the Earth’s climate. We analyze 20th Century simulations using nine state-of-the-art climate models and show that all models estimate a global annual mean reduction in downward surface solar radiation of 1–4 W/m2 at the same time that the globe warms by 0.4–0.7°C. In single forcing simulations using the GISS-ER model, this “global dimming” signal is shown to be predominantly related to aerosol effects. In the global mean sense the surface adjusts to changes in downward solar flux instantaneously by reducing the upward fluxes of longwave, latent and sensible heat. Adding increased greenhouse gas forcing traps outgoing longwave radiation in the atmosphere and surface which results in net heating (although reduced) that is consistent with global warming over the 20th Century. Over the 1984–2000 period, individual model simulations show widely disparate results, mostly related to cloud changes associated with tropical Pacific variations, similar to the changes inferred from the satellite data analysis. This suggests that this time period is not sufficient to determine longer term trends.”
Maybe the answer should be “I don’t know”?
Anna, that is the number of moles in the ocean, not over your head.
The oceans take CO2 from the air as well as give back. That picture of the Atlantic being high in CO2 stands to reason, since a lot of man made CO2 comes from the US and blows east over the ocean. My point is that Mauna Loa wouldn’t seem to be in a particularly good place to detect that, but a station say in the Bahamas would.