Guest Post By Frank Lansner, civil engineer, biotechnology.
More words on the topic first presented here: http://icecap.us/images/uploads/FlaticecoreCO2.pdf
I wrote:
It appears from this graph that CO2 concentrations follows temperature with approx 6-9 months. The interesting part is off course that the CO2 trends so markedly responds to temperature changes.
To some, this is “not possible” as we normally see a very smooth rise on CO2 curves. However, the difference in CO2 rise from year to year is quite different from warm to cold years, and as shown differences are closely dependent on global temperatures. Take a closer look:
For this writing I have slightly modified the presentation of UAH data vs. Mauna Loa data:
The relatively rough relationship between CO2 growth per year and global temperatures (UAH) is:
1979: CO2 growth (ppm/year) = 3,5 * Temp.anomaly(K) + 0,7
2008: CO2 growth (ppm/year) = 3,5 * Temp.anomaly(K) + 1,2
1979-2008:
CO2 growth (ppm/year) = 3,5 * Temp.anomaly(K) + 0,95
For 2007, a UAH temperature anomaly approximately – 0,32 K should lead to CO2 rise/year = 0 , that is, CO2-stagnation.
These equations are useful for overall understanding, but so far they don’t give a fully precise and nuanced picture, of course. On the graph, I have illustrated that there is a longer trend difference between CO2 and Temperature. Thus, the “constant” of the equation should be a variable as it varies with time (1979: 0,7 2008: 1,2).
The trend difference means, that from 1979 to 2008 the CO2-rise per year compared to the global temperatures has fallen 0,5 ppm/year, or the other way around: It now takes approx. +0,15 K global temperature anomaly more to achieve the same level of CO2 rise/year as it did in 1979.
How can this be? The CO2 rise/year now takes higher temperatures to achieve?
With the human emissions rising in the time interval 1979-2008, one could imagine that it would be the other way around, that CO2 rises came with still smaller temperature rises needed. But no, its becoming “harder and harder” to make CO2 rise in the atmosphere.
So generally, the human emissions effect appears inferior to other effects in this context at least.
Which effects could hold CO2 rise/year down as we see?
The fact that we today have higher CO2 concentration in the atmosphere than in 1979 does not favour more CO2 release from the oceans. However the fact that we approx 500 million years ago had several thousand ppm CO2 in the atmosphere implies that the 385 ppm today hardly does a big difference.
My guess is, that what we see is mainly the effect of the growing biosphere.
In short: A period with higher temperatures leads to higher CO2 rises/year and thus of course after some years higher CO2 concentration in the atmosphere.
In the period of rising temperatures and CO2 concentration, the biosphere has grown extremely much.
The results of trend analyses of time series over the Sahel region of seasonally integrated NDVI using NOAA AVHRR NDVI-data from 1982 to 1999:
Source: http://www.eoearth.org/article/Greening_of_the_Sahel
Even if we put every European in “Plant a tree”-projects we could never reach a fraction of what mother nature has achieved in Sahel alone over these few years. In Addition, in these areas lots of more precipitation is occurring now. ( If we here have a “point of no return” im not sure Africans would ever want to come back to “normal”. We Europeans want so much to help Africans – but take away the CO2? What kind of help is that? )
In addition, the seas are much more crowded with life, plankton etc.
The biosphere is blooming due to CO2: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/06/08/surprise-earths-biosphere-is-booming-co2-the-cause/
So today we have a larger biosphere. Every single extra plant or plankton cell will demand its share of CO2. It takes more CO2 to feed a larger biosphere. More CO2 is pulled out of the atmosphere today than earlier. An enormous negative feedback on CO2 levels. Roughly: Any human CO2-influence would cause bigger biosphere that eventually omits the human CO2-influence.
A rather interesting scenario: What happens if temperatures go down below approx – 0,3 K UAH??
Well first it appears from my rough equation that CO2 levels will go down. We will have negative CO2 rise / year. But the bigger biosphere is still there (!!!) even though temperature and thus CO2 levels suddenly should drop and it will still demand its bigger share of CO2. And more, in these days of Cold PDO and especially more precipitation due to the solar condition, we might see more CO2 washed faster out of the atmosphere.
This adds up to my belief, that a cooling after a longer warming trend, mostly due to the bigger biosphere, could be accompanied by quite rapid fall in CO2 levels. Faster that temperature raise leads to CO2 rise? In short, I postulate: CO2 often falls quicker than it rises:
(I am very aware that the data Ernst-Georg Beck has gathered has had a lot of critic. I will not here be a judge, but I think its fair to show that Becks data to some degree matches my expectations, even though the level of CO2 appears high. But I am no judge of what is too high etc.)
So what to expect now? First of all, how about the present cooling??
We should be able to see the big Jan 2008 dive in global temperature in CO2? Well yes, this dive should 6-9 months appear thereafter. And if we take a look at Mauna Loa data released Aug 3, nicely in the 6-9 months time frame after Jan 2008, we saw a dive.
However, this dive was mostly removed from Mauna Loa data 4 Aug 2008, so its hard to judge anything about 2008.
Antarctic ice core data shows that in the period 1890-1940 there was a flat development approx 8 ppm from 300 ppm to 308 ppm.
We have seen first in this writing, that the CO2 is very responsive to temperature changes 1979-2008. So how come the warmer temperatures 1920-40´s has no effect at all on the extremely straight Antarctic CO2 curve?
Is there a mismatch between extremely flat Antarctic CO2 data on one side and Mauna Loa data/UAH data on the other side? If so, which data sets are correct? Mauna Loa/UAH or Antarctic ice cores?
“Mauna Loa data/UAH data totally wrong or is Antarctic CO2 data totally wrong”
I suspect that the Mauna Loa data might be correct for conditions at Mauna Loa and Antarctica ice might be correct for conditions in Antarctica.
Is there a set of Antarctice atmospheric CO2 data being taken now in the same way that the Mauna Loa data is being taken? If so, what is the difference in the two readings?
Atmospheric CO2 might be at a different level on a mountain on an island in the middle of the ocean than they are in the middle of a continental land mass.
What do real time collection data show? Is anyone collecting real time data in the area where the ice cores were taken?
Hang on. I have to go get my popcorn.
This is going to bring the alarmists raging forward with their graphs and links, I’ll bet.
Even I can see there’s flaws here, and I’m just a skeptic fan who likes to watch.
I suggest you to compare it with the sea temperature instead of the UAH satellite data for the lower troposphere. It is a known fact that a hotter sea will release more CO2 to the atmosphere than a colder sea. The correlation may be better.
You may be able to get the sea temperature anomaly from GISS. They publish land and sea+land temperatures, it should be posible to extract the sea part given that we know it is 70% of the total Earth surface.
Why do we only hear about CO2 data from Mauna Loa? Is there nowhere else in the world where CO2 is being measured and reported in the same way?
The science is settled ?
This should bring the cagw believers out.
nice work
WGN Chicago weather man said today there weather is two weeks ahead of “normal”
with below zero weather ( that is Fahrenheit ) at the 45th here we have been in signal digits for two weeks we have been four weeks ahead. this is more like February.
Phillip Bratby (23:21:36) :
Why do we only hear about CO2 data from Mauna Loa? Is there nowhere else in the world where CO2 is being measured and reported in the same way?
Plenty of places, Mauna Loa is the longest record though, will the South Pole do?
http://cdiac.ornl.gov/trends/co2/graphics/spo121e_thrudc04.pdf
Some others: http://cdiac.ornl.gov/trends/co2/sio-keel.html
My first thought was:
Mauna Loa, volcano, and CO2 emission.
Hmmm, an intersting place for baseline data.
Then came across this from the Mauna Loa Observatory website:
url: http://www.mlo.noaa.gov/programs/esrl/volcanicco2/volcanicco2.html
At night a temperature inversion forms near the ground, trapping volcanic emissions coming from Mauna Loa summit fumarloes in a layer tens of meters thick. Down slope winds sometimes transport these emissions to the observatory, where they are detected as a “noisy” increase above smooth baseline levels for some gases. A volcanic component can be estimated by taking the difference in concentration between periods when the plume is present and periods immediately before and after that exhibit baseline conditions. The most significant volcanic gas is CO2, which has been monitored since 1958 through three eruption cycles Volcanic CO2 is greatest shortly after an eruption and then decreases exponentially over the subsequent years. Right after the 1984 eruption, Mauna Loa emitted as much CO2 as an American city of 40,000 people.
Hmmmmm.
I have put the UAH temperature anomaly data together with the Mauna Loa CO2 differences on one time scale graph. And I do not obtain any relationship at all between CO2 and temperature. In my dataset (obtained from the obvious sources on internet) there is no 6-9 month time lag (not positive nor negative) between temperature evolution and CO2 concentration differences. Only around 1998 there is a coincidence between the two parameters.
If there would be a relationship then the plot of the one parameter agains the other would show some trend.
This is not so when CO2 increase is ploted against the temperature anomalies ! One obtain a blop of points spread over the whole area between min and max of the two parameters.
I have found sources where this relationship is claimed with 20 selected points ????!!!! I thought that a scientific claim should held for all observations ?!
I am very critical towards all claims made by the IPCC clerus that are supposed to be believed without any critisism or any scientific foundations. But manipulated and unclear claims as in the first italic sentence make a very negative impression on the scientific serieux of the IPCC critics.
Actually, it could be that both are wrong 🙂
This is a very interesting proposition. However, I think it is better not to
remark on the preliminary results of any scientific measurement published on the web. You mention an early result of a Mauna Load downtick in August 08, later corrected. People should know that there was a similar uptick in early results for October 08, later corrected. The fact that NASA and other US agencies publish so much data so quickly is a wonderful thing. The last thing that we want is for them to clam up to avoid criticism. For example, is is almost impossible to get any data from the CSIRO in Australia. In fact, there is a CSIRO operated CO2 monitoring station at Cape Grim in Tasmania. An earlier commenter asked about non-Mauna Loa CO2 measurements. I’d like to see the Cape Grim results published as quickly and publicly as the Mauna Loa results, but I think you will find it very hard to get access to them.
Lets congratulate the US Agencies for their work and wish that other countries agencies would be as open.
For previous work on this subject, please see
MacRae (January 2008)
http://icecap.us/index.php/go/joes-blog/carbon_dioxide_in_not_the_primary_cause_of_global_warming_the_future_can_no/
I am still pondering my conclusions in my paper – as some critics have noted, there are two drivers of CO2 – the humanmade component and the natural component, and both can be having a significant effect – critics suggest the humanmade component is dominant. If Earth cools significantly, perhaps we’ll see.
Following my email to him, Roy Spencer also wrote on this subject at
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/01/25/double-whammy-friday-roy-spencer-on-how-oceans-are-driving-co2/
Prior work, which I became aware of after writing my 2008 paper, includes:
Pieter Tans (Dec 2007)
http://esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/co2conference/agenda.html
Tans noted the [dCO2/dt : Temperature] relationship but did not comment on the ~9 month lag of CO2.
Keeling et al (1995)
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v375/n6533/abs/375666a0.html
Nature 375, 666 – 670 (22 June 1995); doi:10.1038/375666a0
Interannual extremes in the rate of rise of atmospheric carbon dioxide since 1980
C. D. Keeling*, T. P. Whorf*, M. Wahlen* & J. van der Plichtt†
*Scripps Institution of Oceanography, La Jolla, California 92093-0220, USA
†Center for Isotopic Research, University of Groningen, 9747 AG Groningen, The Netherlands
OBSERVATIONS of atmospheric CO2 concentrations at Mauna Loa, Hawaii, and at the South Pole over the past four decades show an approximate proportionality between the rising atmospheric concentrations and industrial CO2 emissions1. This proportionality, which is most apparent during the first 20 years of the records, was disturbed in the 1980s by a disproportionately high rate of rise of atmospheric CO2, followed after 1988 by a pronounced slowing down of the growth rate. To probe the causes of these changes, we examine here the changes expected from the variations in the rates of industrial CO2 emissions over this time2, and also from influences of climate such as El Niño events. We use the13C/12C ratio of atmospheric CO2 to distinguish the effects of interannual variations in biospheric and oceanic sources and sinks of carbon. We propose that the recent disproportionate rise and fall in CO2 growth rate were caused mainly by interannual variations in global air temperature (which altered both the terrestrial biospheric and the oceanic carbon sinks), and possibly also by precipitation. We suggest that the anomalous climate-induced rise in CO2 was partially masked by a slowing down in the growth rate of fossil-fuel combustion, and that the latter then exaggerated the subsequent climate-induced fall.
Kuo et al (1990)
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v343/n6260/abs/343709a0.html
Nature 343, 709 – 714 (22 February 1990); doi:10.1038/343709a0
Coherence established between atmospheric carbon dioxide and global temperature
Cynthia Kuo, Craig Lindberg & David J. Thomson
Mathematical Sciences Research Center, AT&T Bell Labs, Murray Hill, New Jersey 07974, USA
The hypothesis that the increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide is related to observable changes in the climate is tested using modern methods of time-series analysis. The results confirm that average global temperature is increasing, and that temperature and atmospheric carbon dioxide are significantly correlated over the past thirty years. Changes in carbon dioxide content lag those in temperature by five months.
Best regards to all for the Holidays!
Allan
Shear unbelievable crap.
13C and 14C budgets proove its all wrong. O2/N2 data do the same. The sahel lost enormous fractions of biomass in the 70s/80s but still CO2 level rise and rise.
One should better stick here to pictures of weather stations. At least they are focused.
Anthony, correct “concentraion” by placing a “t” after the “a” in this scentence
(second line above the “Greening” map.
In short: A period with higher temperatures leads to higher CO2 rises/year and thus of course after some years higher CO2 concentraion in the atmosphere.
Regards,
Ron
I think I would like to refer here to a link relevant to CO2 I read recently:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/co2_measurements.html
In it you will find compilations of CO2 measurements in various places and times.
I am not adopting the arguments of the link, just the data.
From previous discussions and readings and the plots in the link above I have come to the following tentative conclusions:
CO2 concentrations are as badly represented as temperatures and as depended on location as temperatures. People who do not accept that there can be one measure for temperature over the globe should not accept the CO2 measures either.
Let us see what is done:
For temperatures, the climate community has decided on the following algorithm: take high and low for the day , average it, take many stations and get a global average. Then find some time interval whose average is convenient and subtract from the global temperature and voila, the anomaly. This means that as an effect a two degree raise from -60 to -58 in Siberia will show as warming.
For CO2 it was a different school that took hold. They decided to find “stable” points, where updrafts,( more than 100ppm differences, see link) day and night variations ( more than 20ppm diffences) and seasonal variations( more than 20ppm differences) would be minimized , and use those numbers as world numbers, calibrating with icecore data and calling it “world CO2”.
Can you see the fallacy? to be consistent, either we should have 100 points measuring the temperature on a specific hour of the day on mountains and in the ocean, and no average world temperature, or we should do the same with CO2, measure high for the day, low for the day, average, and make a global average from many regions, and then define an anomaly on the same interval as the temperature anomaly in order to be consistent.
Now ice core temperatures are touted as the Lydian stone. Think where ice forms: either in and close to oceans, which are large sinks of CO2, or in huge areas of snow and ice where the only CO2 available is volcanic and geothermal . It is not representative of the vibrant live planet CO2.
Ferdinand in the link above argues that the oceans, which are 75% of the earth have isotropic CO2. I do not buy the argument. If one looks at the ocean/water temperatures http://weather.unisys.com/surface/sst.html there are enormous differences between the tropics, temperate and north, and enormous seasonal variations during the year which will affect CO2 absorption and emission, and there is a lot of biological activity in seas and waters that also are involved. Until the new satellite measurements come in, we are blind on this since AIRS can only see CO2 up in the 5 km range.
New satellite http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7769619.stm.
AIRS has been useful, because it has shown that even at that height there is no homogenization of CO2, and it has shown how the planet breaths.
The data in the link provided above explain also the discrepancies of last century chemical measurements and the sanitized Mauna Loa etc measurements. Location, time of day and season make an enormous difference.
The siting of the most significant C02 measuring center on Mauna Loa is interesting. It’s not just that it is a volcano, but that it is the most active volcano in the world. Not only that, but vog production (the gritty poisonous discharge residents of the Big Island have to wipe off their car windows) has significantly increased in the past two years, so much so as to negatively affect health, agriculture, and real estate prices. Is the major, sustained uptick in vog related to the solar minimum? Maybe, maybe not. Whatever is causing it, it sucks. http://archives.starbulletin.com/2008/05/11/news/story08.html
I would not be surprised in the least if the difficulty the record keepers are having with this year’s figures was related to increased degassing on Mauna Loa. Again, an interesting place to put an instrument that could affect world history.
The AGWers will likely be able to poke holes in Beck’s work to their hearts’ content. What should happen as a result of his efforts, however, is that concerned parties should begin to measure C02 directly around the world. In the same spirit that Anthony’s Army is correcting faulty temperature recording, C02 measurements should be carefully taken at the local level — worldwide. We would be less easily manipulated if that were to happen on an ongoing level, it seems to me.
Correct to perform a regression between CO2 levels and temperature. Far too often time is used as a variable, as a proxy for CO2 levels.
However, the known physical relationship between CO2 and warming is that its proportional to log (CO2 concentration).
You need to do the regression against this, not against time. Well, you need to both, and see which gives the better fit.
The data does need adjustment to remove volcanic effects, and solar effects before performing the regression.
A while ago I came up with this interesting plot:
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/esrl-co2/isolate:60/mean:12/scale:0.2/plot/hadcrut3vgl/isolate:60/mean:12/from:1958
This shows the 1-5 year cycles in both temperature (HADCRUT3) and CO2 – temperature clearly leads CO2 at this scale by about 9 months, as you suggest. But note that the CO2 range here is only 1ppm, a tiny fraction of the total change – here is the same CO2 change plotted against the (slightly smoothed) raw CO2 data:
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/esrl-co2/isolate:60/mean:12/offset:375/plot/esrl-co2/mean:12
I saw Frank Lansner’s chart on icecap (and tried it out on my data since I have all these metrics on a monthly basis back to the 1850s.)
There is a strong correlation of temperature increase to a lagged CO2 response back to 1958 when CO2 first started getting measured on a monthly basis. The lag seems to vary somewhat but an average lag of 5 months seemed to be the best fit.
Here is the same chart going back to 1959 (for Hadcrut3 and the CO2 annual increase).
http://img339.imageshack.us/img339/879/co2lagkz2.png
CO2 is still increasing in this chart. Temperature changes just result in slightly less CO2 increase or slightly more.
I heartily commend Frank’s focus on CO2/Temperature comparison. Following Nylo, the ocean surface temps are best compared with the seasonal signal in CO2 at Mauna Loa. Remember that this is a smoothed presentation. The daily fluctuation is on the order of 10ppm which is consistent with the AIRS data.
In otherwords, at Mauna Loa, the daily fluence of CO2 between the ocean and atmosphere impies a global daily flux, twilight to afternoon, of 80Gtons, or ten times the yearly anthropogenic contribution! Moreover, the seasonal signal is that of the SO surface temperature.
Unlike Beck’s data where CO2 is measured directly, CDIC at Mauna Loa dessicates the air by means of H2SO4 before measuring via IR. Beck’s work indicates this systematically understates CO2 by 20ppm.
Freeman Dyson is right. The state of the science is such that we don’t know enough to make any conclusions. The gaps in knowledge are enormous. Only a complete fool could develop sufficient hubris to declare that he knew what the climate is going to do over the next 100 years.
Some day soon, a response to Algore’s movie is going to show how stupid he and his followers have been. He will be a laughingstock for all time.
And “Hansen” will be the punchline for jokes (e.g. “that guy pulled a Hansen”).
just read this article in science daily and now i understand everything. It turns out that it was a drop in CO2 caused by a drop in human population that caused the LIA so that must mean we caused the warm period before that. Now that’s all arguments covered, so now we know for certain the LIA and MWP did not happen despite the history we all taught we knew but if they had happened it was our fault anyway so it does no matter. i am glad that is cleared up.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/12/081218094551.htm
If the beneficial aspect of CO2 increases in a lineal manner and the warming effect of CO2 decreases logarithmically, then does it not makes sense that at some point CO2 itself becomes a negative feedback?
A few questions. If the measurements of CO2 at Mauna Loa have a significant anthropogenic component should we not see a drop resulting from the world wide economic slowdown? What drop should we expect? How can we distinguish that drop from the drop caused by a cooling ocean? If there is no significant drop does that not prove the proposition that reduction in CO2 emissions will have no effect?
It seems to me that the world wide recession if the first “experiment” that can test the opposing hypotheses.
Hi Anthony,
I am not a scientist and the equation for your graph is over my head. I desperately want to know how to read the equation as it related to the graph.
1979: CO2 growth (ppm/year) = 3,5 * Temp. anomaly (K) + 0,7
What is 3,5?
Is it suppose to be a constant and is it suppose to be 3.5?
What is (K)?
And what is 0,7?
Is it a constant, too?
Thanks for the help and anything else that you might share to help a lay person like me.
Jeff Wiita
A good post.
All of the commentary has been directed to CO2-global temperature relationships. It might be useful to consider the phenomenon of GW as a train travelling to some unknown destination. But what is the engine, and what is the caboose? To me, given the history of climate change, the answer is less significant than the result. I live in a cold climate – the temperature this morning outside my front door is -28C with a wind chill warning, so let the train to warmer climate proceed!
Of much greaater significance, to my mind, are the data presented about the greening of the Sahel, and its suggested relationship to increased global concentrations of CO2. Now there’s a welcome result from CO2 concentration increases!
The best comparison is yet to come. AIRS hopefully will be able to depict the swirling globby mass of CO2 changes in time comparison with the swirling globby satellite temperature changes. We will also hope that 5 years does not a trend make with that comparison. But what the hey, if we can bail out poorly run businesses who send money to our campaign coffers (gee thanks Bush), we can throw money at green businesses who send money to our campaign coffers (gee thanks Obama). Serious scientific study devoid of bias be damned.
Astounding.
I rejoice in seeing Jaworowski’s claims getting confirmed so easily. The flat-line CO2 reconstructions from ice-cores are indeed smoothed and weakened signals, for the firn takes hundreds if not thousands of years to close.
Eye balling these charts I would say the first derivative of CO2 correlates pretty good with tropical temperatures and ENSO 3.4.
Jeff Wiita-
Europeans often use commas where Americans use decimal points, so the numbers are 3.5 and 0.7 (Americanized).
K refers to degrees Kelvin.
Question to you all!
I am wondering about the gas concentration of Air. I understand that CO2 is emitted somewhere and think that the CO2 concentration then is locally higher.
But how does it mix with the other gases which are in the Air?
What does wind do? Does it blow heavy gases around?
Where do we measure the CO2 concentration and is that reprensentative?
Is the CO2 concentration higher in the Rockies on top or higher in the valleys?
I would assume that there is no worldwide identical concentration!
We have local hotspots (generators) and probably low spots (rain forests)
Looking forward to some more insight,
Det
@Williem de Rode
You write
” Only around 1998 there is a coincidence between the two parameters.”
“If there would be a relationship then the plot of the one parameter agains the other would show some trend.”
Im not sure I follow you quite. You have made some plots not showing a common trend? Could you provide link for these?
The common trend between CO2rise/year and Global temperatures does rise the question of causality. Which is the case:
1) The CO2 rise/year leads to temperature rise?
2) The temperature leads to CO2 rise/year?
3) Both parameters are caused by a third influence (the sun etc.)
1: This scenario could easily be confused with the normal greenhouse gas thoughts: More CO2 leads to higher temperatures. But don’t make that mistake. CO2 rise /YEAR is a totally different story than total CO2 conc.
The greenhouse effect of CO2 is described as coming very graduate, as a logarithmic function of the entire CO2 concentration. A greenhouse effect corresponding to a rise in concentration/year has never been reported. Thus to believe in scenario 1) is not reflecting any known behavior of a greenhouse gas. It demands a new discovery of greenhouse gas physics.
This I believe leaves us with possible scenario 2 and 3.
There is some noise on the graphs, but if there should be any doubt about causality (I think not), yes, the year 1998 do provide us with a signal so strong that it lifts far beyond the noise level, and tells a clear story.
But never mind which of the 3 scenarios is correct: If there is a common trend between CO2/rise per year and global temperatures, then there is a severe problem for the extreemly flat Antarctic curves. Because the temperature curves are not that flat. For 1000´nds of years we should have had CO2 concentrations between 280ppm and 290ppm.
And the ratio CO2ppmrise/year = 3,5*temp(K) + const, makes it virtually impossible.
Notwithstanding the scientific evidence, this one will be a bitter pill to swallow by the naive environmentalists and watermelons (green on the outside, red on the inside) of this world: the notion that the biosphere is blooming goes against their emotional deep beliefs, risk shattering their whole raison d’être. You will thus, as with any cult, see a remodeling of their message, part denial, part adaptation, to explain why apocalypse did not happen, and why it is only but postponed, still very near to come.
And considering the influences of institutionalized mysticism (various organized religions, cults, etc) on human life’s organization, such human phenomenon should not be discounted.
@Nylo
Yes i could have used other temperature graphs etc, and i have indeed seen some similar graphs using GISS or RSS, practically same result.
But your Ocean temperature graph might be interesting, can you bring a link?
gary gulrud (05:30:19) :
Unlike Beck’s data where CO2 is measured directly, CDIC at Mauna Loa dessicates the air by means of H2SO4 before measuring via IR. Beck’s work indicates this systematically understates CO2 by 20ppm.
Actually they don’t!
Determinations of CO2 are made by using a Siemens Ultramat 3 nondispersive infrared gas analyzer with a water vapor freeze trap. This analyzer registers the concentration of CO2 in a stream of air flowing at ~0.5 L/min. Every 30 minutes, the flow is replaced by a stream of calibrating gas or “working reference gas”.
Thank You Scott
@richard Hill
“You mention an early result of a Mauna Load downtick in August 08..”
The corrections right or wrong does to me lead to some uncertainty how to use results of that year. The dip this year was not at all small. Are you sure they make corrections of that size every year?
@Allan M R MacRae
Thankyou for a very nice summary of this subject!
I have also seen it commented by John Daly when he lived.
You quote from “Cynthia Kuo, Craig Lindberg & David J. Thomson” :
“The results confirm that … temperature and atmospheric carbon dioxide are significantly correlated over the past thirty years. Changes in carbon dioxide content lag those in temperature by five months.”
Yes, and maybe we need to take these correlations a step further?!?
And merry christmas to you!!
@Georg Hoffmann
You seem to have “seen the light”. Please explain how come we can have 1000 years of non-changing CO2 levels when temperatures and CO2rise/year appears to be strongly correlated.
If you judge my writing as crap, could you bring the answer?
If not, take a look at the Beck graph of actual measurements from my writing.
You mention that in the seventies Sahel lost biomass. Yes but from what level? If there is just a little bit of truth I Becks graph, the seventies CO2 levels where far below 1940´ies. There fore Biomas decrease is not surpricing.
It was colder in the seventies. Don’t forget, it was in the 70´ies that many scientist claimed an iceage to be emerging. This they did because of cooling.
Pinatubo was quite conducive to better plant absorption of CO2 v.v. diffuse light, causing the CO2 dip. See paper I think by Nasa. Opposed Chicon spitted quite a different mix. Temp and CO2 lagging or leading? There’s a 12 month cycle, and it continues to be up. 386.20 was the latest trend figure… and all in those years of global cooling, but only if charts are chopped off showing only after 1.1.2001.
… the 385 ppm today hardly does a big difference.
What were the global temps 500-600 million years ago in an utterly different continental configuration? What was the ozone level back then in the stratosphere… was it conducive to allow live on land?
@Bill Illis
Your graph is very interesting!
Remember the difference in trend from 1979-2008? It showed that in 2008 the same temperature led to 0,5 ppm CO2 rise/year less than in 1979. I suggested, that this was mainly due to bigger biosphere. If so, the difference to some degree reflect size of biomass:
The higher the CO2 rise/year trend is compared to Temperature trend, the smaller biosphere.
The lower the CO2 rise/year trend is compared to Temperature trend, the bigger biosphere.
Bill, you graph thus indicates big biosphere on a falling trend around 1958. The falling trend in biosphere seems to continue to late 1970íes (?). Thereafter the biosphere grows again.
Becks data – unlike Antarctic data – reflects that, we should have had a bigger CO2 levels around 1940. If its true that more CO2 leads to bigger biosphere it definitely makes sense that 1958 shows a bigger biosphere in a falling trend.
Bill Illis´ graph:
http://img339.imageshack.us/img339/879/co2lagkz2.png
It wasn’t too long ago when the prevailing science belief was that a melting Arctic would stall the Atlantic current by freshening it and thus cause a deep freeze in the northern hemisphere. That was in what, 2003? But the current didn’t stall and yet we are in a deep freeze. So much for prevailing scientific belief.
My revies of these comments indicates that Mauna Loa is considered to be the sole source of volcanic out-gases (VOG). Kilauea is just south of there and has been continuously erupting for 30 + years. Whenever the trade wins stop blowing, the Kona (southery) wind blows. The Kona wind causes VOG to inundate the Big Island and other islands when prolonged. Kilauea is an intermittent source of CO2 emissions that will corrupt the data gathered at Mauna Loa. I am not aware of any explanation as to if and how the Mauna Loa data is adjusted to offset the Kilauea VOG.
Does any one know?
There are 3 sites from which CO2 data is readily available.
Mauna Loa, Barrow Alaska, and the South Pole Station.
You couldn’t ask for more widely separated sites. They all show essentially the same results with some seasonal variations which are to be expected.
http://tamino.wordpress.com/2008/08/07/a-brief-tale-of-three-sites/
So the intimations that volcanic activity has hurt the integrity of the data don’t seem correct.
This would also show that variations in CO2 concentrations due to local factors are not affecting these measurements.
As far as tracking CO2 regionally, there are satellites that do that. They show the sources and sinks of CO2 world wide. All the red shows up in populated areas like the NE US etc.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/09/29/comments-thread-airs-team-satellite-co2-paper-published/
Paleo climate studies have shown that GHG’s from volcanic eruptions in Siberia 250M ybp caused global warming, and the domination of sulfide producing bacteria that lead to extinctions. This happened over millions of years. There is no evidence of a self correcting mechanism in this case.
resulted in global
Frank. Lansner (08:55:36) :
@Nylo
Yes i could have used other temperature graphs etc, and i have indeed seen some similar graphs using GISS or RSS, practically same result.
But your Ocean temperature graph might be interesting, can you bring a link?
for a map:
http://weather.unisys.com/surface/sst.html
Maybe if you look around the site there might be global numbers, though from the map it is evident that as far as CO2 goes temperatures in the 30C and temperatures in the -2 at the poles should not be given the same weight without knowing the temperature dependence of CO2 absorption and emission in water.
@David :
You write:
“If the beneficial aspect of CO2 increases in a lineal manner and the warming effect of CO2 decreases logarithmically, then does it not makes sense that at some point CO2 itself becomes a negative feedback?”
The logarithmic relation is a physical proberty, the greenhouse effect as a function of CO2 concentration. This effect is indeed logarithmic. But I this context the focus is on the concentration of CO2 itself – A kind of negative feedback from a CO2-mediated growing biosphere hungry to eat the CO2, pull it out of the atmosphere. A negative feedback not on the effect of CO2 but working to decrease CO2 concentration and thus CO2 effect.
@Jeff Wiita:
You write:
“1979: CO2 growth (ppm/year) = 3,5 * Temp. anomaly (K) + 0,7
What is 3,5?”
The faktor 3,5 is the “best fit” between the correlating graphs of CO2 rise/year and temperature.
K is here like a degree Celcius, a little over 2 Farenheit.
Down to earth: If the global temperatures rise 1 degree Celcius, The CO2 rise per year seems to rise 3,5 ppm faster. That ism the CO2 concentration rises much faster with higher temperatures.
My point is not to describe quantitatively exact correlation as it is not possible. I just want to show, that very valid and respected data right in front of our eyes shows that CO2 varies very easily. This make the extremely flat “official” Antarctic CO2 graph virtually impossible. The would demand toatly constant temperatures for 1000 years.
@Det (08:37:18) :
CO2 concentrations:
– Are slightly higher near the ground than for instance 10 km up in the atmosphere, in the size 10 ppm.
– Are slightly higher in the northern hemisphere than the southern hemispere
– Varies from day to night
– Varies with seasons
– Are measured all over the world. We normaly refer to the Mauna Loa results as this is the longest data series, and Mauna Loa is not that far from the equator and thus to some degree reflects a globe – middle.
“Between 5,000 and 8,000 years ago, both methane and carbon dioxide started an upward trend, unlike during previous interglacial periods,” explains Kutzbach.
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-12/uow-sde121708.php
According to this guy, the AGW trend (including warming and CO2) is at least 5,000 years old.
I think it’s time to do introduce retroactive carbon taxing, which means we get to tax the bejeezus out of Europe and Asia. lol.
Frank since you are an engineer I assume that you’re familiar with differential equations?
The DE describing the concentration of CO2 is given below (a schematic of Emanuel & Killough’s detailed equation):
d[CO2]/dt=F(t)-Fo([CO2],T,t)-Fb([CO2],T?,t)
Where F is the fossil fuel source term, Fo is the net exchange with the oceans and Fb is the net exchange with the vegetation etc.
How could [CO2] not be a function of T? Also since we are dealing with the difference between large terms why would it not be sensitive to small variations in those terms from year to year?
Modeling Terrestrial Ecosystems in the Global Carbon Cycle With Shifts in Carbon Storage Capacity by Land-Use Change, William R. Emanuel & George G. Killough, Ecology, Vol. 65, No. 3. (Jun., 1984), pp. 970-983.
The grey/blue lines seem to indicate that the rate of temperature increase is faster than the rate of co2 increase. I would expect that if co2 was becoming a less effective forcer, that the slopes would be reversed. That is co2 slope would be > temperature…
E.P.A. Ruling Could Speed Up Approval of Coal Plants
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/19/business/19coal.html?_r=2
WASHINGTON — Officials weighing federal applications by utilities to build new coal-fired power plants cannot consider their greenhouse gas output, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency ruled late Thursday. Some environmentalists fear the decision will clear the way for the approval of several such plants in the last days of the Bush administration.
The Supreme Court ruled last year that the agency could regulate carbon dioxide, the most prevalent global warming gas, under existing law. The agency already requires some power plants to track how much carbon dioxide they emit.
But a memorandum issued by Mr. Johnson late Thursday puts the agency on record saying that carbon dioxide is not a pollutant to be regulated when approving power plants. He cited “sound policy considerations.”
“The current concerns over global climate change should not drive E.P.A. into adopting an unworkable policy of requiring emission controls” in these cases, he said.
John Walke, a lawyer at the Natural Resources Defense Council, said in a statement, “It’s a marvel to behold an E.P.A. action that so utterly disdains global warming responsibility and disdains the law at the same time.”
“Actually they don’t!”
Kauffman indicates their protocol does indeed include such dessication, e.g., at:
http://nzclimatescience.net/images/PDFs/ccr.pdf
Your link gives me no clue as to your bona fides as it doesn’t work for me. We have yet to examine the issues with the Siemens black box.
“” Harold Vance (11:32:24) :
“Between 5,000 and 8,000 years ago, both methane and carbon dioxide started an upward trend, unlike during previous interglacial periods,” explains Kutzbach.
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-12/uow-sde121708.php
According to this guy, the AGW trend (including warming and CO2) is at least 5,000 years old.
I think it’s time to do introduce retroactive carbon taxing, which means we get to tax the bejeezus out of Europe and Asia. lol. “”
I’ve never been able to figure out; is lol = LOL = Lots Of Luck or is it Laughing Out Loud ? I can’t kee p up with the jargon.
I get confused by AMO and am0 = Air Mass Zero, meaning outside the atmosphere.
But to the EPA refusal to label CO2 as a pollutant. The Supreme Court ruled that EPA “MAY” regulate CO2 as a pollutant; I don’t believe they said EPA must.
Since the ENTIRE rationale on which the case was brought to The Court was solely on the claims of global warming/climate change, and no evidence of CO2 having any other polluting properties (being an absolutely essential constituent of the atmosphere) the ONLY basis on which EPA would be able to regulate CO2 would be on the basis of the climate change/global warming threat; and if they claimed that they would have NO ALTERNATIVE but to hold WATER VAPOR in similar contempt, since it demonstrably has a much greater “greenhouse” effect than CO2 or an or all other GHGs.
So until EPA is ready to regulate water vapor as well, they have no basis for regulating CO2.
And trying to argue that water vapor is innocuous because it is removed from the atmosphere much faster than CO2, doesn’t wash, because if that were true on a climate time scale, then earth would be a frozen ball. The fact that we sit at +15C and not -15 C is definitive proof that water vapor is not removed from the atmosphere fast enough to not have an appreciable global warming /climate change effect.
That of course is all IMHO , but there’s an avalanche of lawyers willing to step up if EPA tries to weasel out of the unavoidable H2O/CO2 linkage. Either both are pollutants to be rergulated or neither is.
By the way, CO2 dissolves readily in H2O and moreso in cold H2O, so every time it rains/snows/etc, a whole lot of CO2 is washed out of the atmosphere.
I’ve read that the reason we don’t have 3000 ppm of CO2 in the atmosphere any more is because during the Cambrian when everything went nuts, there was so much plant growth, it sucked up all the excess CO2. Well I bet I have my Cambrian mixed up with my Permian or some other dinosphere; but you get the idea. All those ancient Kiwi Tree Ferns, is what cleaned up all that CO2 muck.
I’m not against EPA getting into some stringent controls of real pollution that may be associated with coal fired power; enough is known about clean coal that there is no reason for the (US) to put up with the kinds of gunk we used to. The greenies will have my support on that sort of cleanliness, but till they prove their case on CO2 driven climate change/global warming, we will be in disagreement.
If I understand Frank’s thesis, he still finds that warming (the cause) preceeds CO2 increase (the effect), even if only by 5 months.
A five month lag in a feedback loop is a formula for an oscillator; and not any decadal oscillator either.
I’ve never ever seen any climate feedback equation that includes the time dependent response; just a static condition, without any proof that the feedback system is stable. The Jubilee Diamond at 245.35 Carats is a cushion shaped Brilliant cut, that is so perfectly cut, that it can be balanced on its culet, which is less than 2 mm diameter.
But it isn’t in stable equilibrium in that condition. (interesting aside factoid).
But maybe John Walke needs to go and reread the Supreme’s words again. The “existing law” they referred to relates to pollution, so EPA would have to prove pollution.
Hey if I was the Supremes, I would take those Lawyers/plaintiffs money for a frivolous suit also.
The EPA doesn’t have ANY global warming responsibility, because nobody has EVER PROVED that global warming is harmful to the environment, and all the evidence points to it being harmless or even beneficial.
And for a half degree F out of a nearly 150 deg C range, I don’t see how one could come up with any such proof.
But frankly, if the US EPA wants to pursue that, knowing that it would doom the bulk of the world population to permanent poor status (and those Aussies too); well that will make a lot of friends for the US greenies; who after all really want to see homo sapiens sapiens become just another archeological fossil find, by the intelligent termites of a future green planet.
@Jason
The short term variation seems rather conclusive, temperature increase leads to CO2 peak. And the variation is just far too big for the flat Antarctic CO2-curves. The long term trend can have more explanations. Biomass growth is reality, its happening. CO2-forcing on a bigger scale, i dont know, its not provable from the graphs nor disprovable. However, the narrowing in between trends happends both before and after the 1970´ies, See Bills graph. Why do you think that is? (If you believe that the CO2 has been steadily rising the whole century). The difference between the graphs around 1960 equals the difference around the mid 1990´ies. This would make total sense if you accept Becks data to some degree, both as a result of Biomass and perhaps some CO2 forcing.
I meant to add in above, that a recent paper in Scientific American claimed that humans started global warming around 8000 years ago and even stopped an ice age in its tracks; based on the beginnings of Agricultere was the claimed reasoning. I can’t comment much since the authors were climatologists I think, who presumably know what they are doing. I seem to recall a Colorado linkage of some sort.
But as to CO2 measurements all over the world, the NOAA results are quite astonishing. If you think the land/ocean distribution north and south of the equator is way out of whack, wait till you see the CO2 assymmetry.
I found it at: http://www.mlo.noaa.gov/Projects/GASES/co2glob.htm for the decade 1987-1997; but I think noaa pulled it; but if you know their site, maybe you can locate where they hid it from prying eyes.
But the gist of it is, that whereas the annual CO2 cyclic variation on CO2 spewing Mauna Loa is about 6 ppm peak to peak, it is very much greater, and largest right at the north pole, and my Scripps Institute CO2 expert contact says it is actually 18 ppm at the NP. So much for a 200 year residence time, if 18 ppm is removed in a mere five months.
The phase of the cycle reverses at around -15 lat (seasons) and at the south pole there is almost no annual cycle and 0.5 to 1 ppm p-p amplitude at most.
The extreme assymmetry of an atmospheric component in what is purportedly a well mixed atmosphere is very puzzling.
The above link which I lifted straight off the graph including all the caps gives me a 404 error, but maybe you can dig around NOAA and find it; or try asking them why they censored it.
IRGA measures CO2 directly, as used by all the official sites.
Since when ?
If CO2 is not measured directly by IRGA, then how is the (raw voltage) data corrected ?
By constants the world over, or are the corrections measured (locally)…..Obviously this is not the case otherwise CO2 would have been measured directly, so no need for corrections, but the IRGA method can not measure CO2, O3, CH4, or N2O directly. It can only measure them overall, together, as one.
Well, certainly that was the case in the late 1950s or early 1960s.
Has it improved that much since ?
It’s good MLO now has a change log, in the past it would of made interesting reading….
Then there are the reference gases, air + CO2 originally, the holes there are obvious, there have been two other reference mixtures used since, yet no steps in the released data ?
There be many a slip between spoon and mouth.
Normally it is called fraud.
@george E Smith
You write:
“If I understand Frank’s thesis, he still finds that warming (the cause) preceeds CO2 increase (the effect), even if only by 5 months.”
-There are of course also longer terms relations. As shown in Antarctic icecores, trends of temperature are often 500-1500 years before CO2 trends. Of course the oceans take 500-1500 years to oscilate fully, so the short term variances are only the exchange with upper layers. Only the upper layers are heated up / cooled down by the short term atmosphere variances.
Frank, I think the CO2 temperature response is probably related to ocean absorption rates but I could be wrong.
Since 1958, oceans and plants seem to be absorbing about half of human emissions.
On average lately, we have been adding about 4 ppm per year of CO2 to the atmosphere but the concentration is increasing at only 2 ppm. (Average that is, the concentration is actually increasing at a slightly exponential rate – about 0.00187 ppm extra each month.)
I thought before the oceans were the cause. It seemed to me that a slightly cooler ocean is absorbing more CO2 than a slightly warmer ocean does. When global temps go down, the ocean surface seems to follow right along (or visa versa.) Cooler temps, more ocean absorption, less CO2 rise.
I think the 5 month lag is the key to answering whether it is oceans or biomass which is providing the factor causing the CO2 temperature response.
The oceans have longer lag responses than the land and biomass. But then there is a definitive up and down seasonal cycle in CO2 which is more tied to biomass cycles in the northern hemisphere (where there is more land than in the southern hemisphere).
So, I guess I am not sure anymore.
George E. Smith (15:39:01)
Have you seen the graph of CO2 vs Years 1997-1999 that Ferdinand Engelbeen posted at CA?
Re: Ferdinand Engelbeen (#182)
In this series of data the CO2 Measurements for Barrow, Alaska drop to a minimum each year during August (months 8, 20 & 32). My take on this is that in August the Arctic Ocean’s ice carapace reaches its minimum and consequently the maximum surface area of the coldest sea water on the planet is exposed to the atmosphere. Henry’s Law applies and the CO2 levels in the air above the ocean drop. These atmospheric levels recover each winter once the ocean freezes and the ice carapace reforms.
George E. Smith says:
What you are talking about is a hypothesis by Ruddiman, who is a well-respected climate scientist. And, while other climate scientists certainly respect Ruddiman, a lot of them are skeptical of this hypothesis. (And, I think even Ruddiman himself, while defending his hypothesis, doesn’t claim that he is sure it is correct…I think he concedes that it is just a hypothesis.) One reason for skepticism (among others)is that it seems to require a climate sensitivity at the high end…or beyond the high end…of the generally accepted range.
An interesting aspect of this is that when Ruddiman first presented this hypothesis, some AGW “skeptics” embraced it because it seemed to argue that mankind has done something good by putting these greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. Of course, the problem with this point-of-view is, as I noted, that his hypothesis seems to require large sensitivities to greenhouse gases…which seems to imply the most extreme warming scenarios from our current injection of considerably more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. And, of course, even if we did…unbeknownst to ourselves…do something good by increasing greenhouse gases a bit through agriculture (e.g., release CO2 by clearing land and release methane by growing rice), one can still have too much of a good thing. (As an analogy, if I pour some water over someone who is very thirsty, then he will appreciate that but not if I deluge him to the point where he is drowning in water.)
The air at the South pole is CO2 (and O2) depleted.
See the Wikipedia article on Vostok Station in the “Climate” section.
So there is less CO2 in the air there and so one would expect to find less CO2 in the ice cores taken from there.
We need to know what current CO2 concentration is at the boring location before we know anything about the historic levels relative to today. You can not compare Mauna Loa with Antarctica.
I have one more CO2 chart that some of you may not like, but based on the ice cores and the global (rather than Mauna Loa) CO2 measurements, and the average growth/acceleration rates over time in the CO2 numbers, we are likely to reach the doubled CO2 level of 560 ppm by 2070 or earlier (just 60 years away).
http://img155.imageshack.us/img155/1071/co2forecastwz0.png
I spent some time looking at some of the CO2 curves from various stations, specifically Mauna Loa. Here is the thing that makes me wonder:
A simple curve fit of data taken for the same month of each year reveals beautiful exponential curves with R^2 values over 0.99. This is just damn peculiar (to quote Capt Kirk).
Now there are all sorts of hand waving arguments as to why this is so, but the truth is that nobody knows why this should happen. Whatever the immediate cause for increasing CO2 might be, it has to be a random process. Now granted, there are all sorts of random processes out there, but they are all so unsatisfying.
One thing that does need to happen though, is that we need to understand the effects of age/entropy on the gas analyzing equipment itself. Although they are calibrated using “reference” mixtures continuously, there are still non-linearities in the machine itself that I am still trying to understand.
The name “Mona Loa” jumped out at me, too, especially as it’s due to erupt again soon, and has shown signs of reawakening. Frankly, I can’t think of a worse location for a CO2 monitoring site. I’d always assumed they used Mona Kea, which is believed extinct. Monitoring atmospheric CO2 on an active volcano (!) makes as much sense as having a temperature monitoring station in the middle of a parking lot.. oh, wait, they do that, too.
Sure you can compensate to a degree for the volcanic component, but why not have better, cleaner data?
Hrmmm, well, the key issue I see in the comments above is that if Mona Loa puts out that much CO2 during an eruption, it must be taxed, for the good of us all! I’d suggest sending the tax collectors into the caldera during the next eruption to collect said taxes. If the volcano refuses to pay, it will therefor become the nations largest (and hottest) criminal….
Seriously though, my sincere thanks to Mr Watts for cutting through the PC BS so many times. You are doing your coutry a great service, because if we avoid a debilitating “carbon tax” and other economic poison pills, it will only be thanks to you and people like you. Thank you.
“we are likely to reach the doubled CO2 level of 560 ppm by 2070 or earlier”
Okay, and that presents a problem? I don’t think it would cause a measurable difference in temperatures. Well, maybe just barely measurable. Yes, CO2 is a greenhouse gas but not a particularly efficient one. If a planet has no water vapor and the atmosphere is 100% CO2 (like Venus or Mars) then yes, the primary greenhouse effect will be from CO2.
Imagine someone wearing a t-shirt and a down parka. The t-shirt is CO2 and the down parka is water vapor. If they put on a second t-shirt, it isn’t going to make much difference in their temperature as the down parka is providing most of the insulation. Let me put it another way. Have two people standing outside at 4am on May 1. One is in Miami and one is in Tucson. Which one will be warmer? Both places have just exactly the same amount of CO2 in the atmosphere but one has much more water vapor. On May 1, 2008 Miami was 10 degrees warmer than Tucson at 4am. Doubling CO2 might make Tucson .05 degrees warmer or something practically immeasurable, but it isn’t likely going to change Miami at all because water vapor already blocks radiation over the same wavelengths that CO2 does (and more). So the person standing in Tucson has just a t-shirt (CO2) and no parka (water vapor). Miami has both. If both put on two t-shirts, it isn’t going to make any difference to Miami because that down parka swamps the impact of the shirt, but you might notice some difference in Tucson, but not much.
Bill, there is not one shred of evidence anywhere that CO2 is causing any temperature increase. All the evidence points to the fact that CO2 rises BECAUSE of temperature increase.
crosspatch (17:22:45) :
The air at the South pole is CO2 (and O2) depleted.
See the Wikipedia article on Vostok Station in the “Climate” section.
# A partial pressure of gases that is different from that which most humans are used to.
# A lack of carbon dioxide in the air, which leads to irregularities in a person’s breathing mechanism.
So there is less CO2 in the air there and so one would expect to find less CO2 in the ice cores taken from there.
We need to know what current CO2 concentration is at the boring location before we know anything about the historic levels relative to today. You can not compare Mauna Loa with Antarctica.
The air at the S Pole is not depleted in O2 or CO2 it’s just at a lower pressure, hence a lower partial pressure. Yes we can compare the two locations, allowing for the thinner air at the pole the pressures are comparable, in any case [CO2] is given as mixing ratio in ppm not as a partial pressure.
crosspatch says:
I think you are getting confused from a statement about there being less CO2 in total (because the air is “thinner”…i.e., there is less of all atmospheric gases there…due to a combination of elevation and the fact that the air thins out more as you go up in elevation near the poles than elsewhere). I am reasonably sure that the statement in Wikipedia was not meant to be a statement about the concentration of CO2 in the air there in PPMV (parts per million by volume), as the South Pole CO2 measurements show the CO2 levels there are in the same neighborhood as they are elsewhere.
They have been measuring CO2 levels in a variety of places, including at the South Pole, as Phil. noted in a comment above with this link: http://cdiac.ornl.gov/trends/co2/sio-keel.html
CJ says:
Volcanoes put out only a very small amount of CO2 in comparison to our emissions, which is why CO2 levels were (using accepted measurements, not Beck’s nutty ones) quite constant for the last ~10,000 years…and haven’t been above ~300ppm in at least the last 750,000 years. In fact, the major effect of significant volcanic eruptions is cooling due to the sulfate aerosols that they release (although in order to have a significant cooling effect, the eruption has to be large enough that it injects the aerosols into the stratosphere where they can stay around longer…and it apparently helps if the eruption is reasonably near to the equator).
gary gulrud (14:36:55) :
“Actually they don’t!”
Kauffman indicates their protocol does indeed include such dessication, e.g., at:
http://nzclimatescience.net/images/PDFs/ccr.pdf
No he doesn’t he quotes the same method that I did, they do not use H2SO4.
Your link gives me no clue as to your bona fides as it doesn’t work for me.
I have no link.
We have yet to examine the issues with the Siemens black box.
It’s not a black box, it’s a standard instrument and is very reliable, I used one in my lab for several years.
To: Bill Illis (16:50:50) :
Since 1958, oceans and plants seem to be absorbing about half of human emissions.
On average lately, we have been adding about 4 ppm per year of CO2 to the atmosphere but the concentration is increasing at only 2 ppm. (Average that is, the concentration is actually increasing at a slightly exponential rate – about 0.00187 ppm extra each month.)
—
Justify that claim: Calculate the Total mass of carbon and hydrogen “burned” by “man” over each of ten years (this would include all coal mined , all oil pumped, all natural gas burned, (and the vanishly small mass of wood burned by 4th world peasants). (Nukes are CO2-free, hydropower is CO2-free, but solar and wind, etc. are small contributors to electricity alone, not to mention their percentage of the total energy budget. A few more percentage points need to account for “cow farts” and farming, but what else is significant?
That mass of CO2 – from energy production – doesn’t add up to any fraction of your 2 ppm increase.
Biomass? Show the calculations that a “farmed acre” over twenty years is emitting/saving/transferring much different than a staic woodlands – which has much lower denstiy of plants. (Though trees are larger of course, but far fewer in number/sq acre. And the ground under a mature forest is pretty vacant. New growth? Much higher – but those “tree farms” or newly cleared tropics are rapidly re-growing.
The most common excuse is that “clear-cutting” and “destroying the rain forest” account for the other HALF the so-called human-caused CO2 increase.
Now, justify THAT claim. With real numbers.
…
Are people here serious about thinking that the CO2 rise in the past 50 years is due to oceans and not human emissions??? As another commenter pointed out, take away the human emissions, and the ocean+ecosystem is a net sink, not a net source.
Let me posit a simple thought experiment: Take an ocean with a temperature that follows a sine function plus whatever the atmospheric temperature is. The ocean CO2 sink depends on the ocean temperature. If the atmospheric temperature is constant, we’ll see a sinusoidal CO2 concentration.
For the sake of argument, assume that atmospheric temperature rises as CO2 rises (and falls at CO2 falls). There will be some positive feedback, such that the sinusoidal CO2 concentration will be larger than in the case where CO2 does not cause temperature change. Choose constants appropriately such that the feedback is not a runaway.
Now, assume that humans are dumping CO2 in the atmosphere every year. What do we see?
We see a rising atmospheric temperature with a superimposed sinusoid from the oceans. The ocean temperatures also show a sinusoidal temperature, with a steady rise (as it follows the atmosphere).
So, a naive analysis like Frank Lansner’s would look at atmospheric CO2 in this example and note that it follows ocean temperature much more closely than it does emissions – after all, the ocean gets both the trend right _and_ the year-to-year variability right!
But we set this example up. We _know_ that the long term trend is due to the human emissions.
The real world is a little more complicated, in that as CO2 in the atmosphere increases, we expect the partial pressure in the atmosphere to be out of equilibrium with the CO2 in the ocean. So, we expect that, on average, the ocean will be a CO2 sink. As the temperature of the ocean goes up (whether due to random variability like ENSO or due to global warming) the solubility of CO2 goes down, but this does not necessarily make the ocean a net source: it really just becomes a smaller sink. And of course, there is an ecosystem too, and humans burn both fossil fuels and chunks of rainforest, and there’s a small weathering sink, and melting Arctic ice caps exposes more ocean water that means more CO2 absorption, and lots of other issues: but the takeaway, “settled” science is that human CO2 emissions are the cause of _all_ (and more!) of the atmospheric increase in the Mauna Loa (and other CO2 station) records.
And we can see that the ocean is being a net sink because it is becoming more acidic, which means it is holding more CO2 not less (and by the way, “more acidic” is equivalent to “less basic”, regardless of whether you are at pH 7, 10, or 3. Just the way that -10 degrees is warmer than -12 degrees, even though both temperatures are darn cold).
According to Dr. Tim Ball, “Pre-industrial CO2 levels were about the same as today. How and why we are told otherwise?”
http://www.canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/6855
Dr. Ball states that CO2 levels were ~355ppm in the early 1800s and today’s levels at ~385 ppm aren’t significantly different. There’s no debate: CO2 levels haven’t changed in 200 years! The 280 ppm numbers from “pre-industrial” times were cherry picked!
Case closed!
Robert A Cook: 2.12 Gigatons of Carbon is about 1 ppm of atmospheric CO2. Humans have been burning about 7 gigatons of carbon per year (average of last 10 years. See http://www.eia.doe.gov/iea/carbon.html for numbers, multiply by 12/44 to go from CO2 to C). So, the mass of CO2 from energy production is _larger_ than 2 ppm.
On “farmed acre” versus “forest acre”: determining the carbon comparisons aren’t easy. Not only do you have carbon in trees versus carbon in veggies, but there are differing amounts of carbon that stay in the soils in the two systems. There are lots of arguments in relation to the new renewable fuels standard in EISA where people are trying to calculate indirect land use change emissions, because converting non-cultivated land to cultivated land typically results in carbon release. Now, if you char your plant waste and till it back into the soil, that helps. Similarly, if you grow tree farms, and then build houses with the trees, that helps store carbon. But it is complicated. http://www.bioenergywiki.net/index.php/RSB_Current_Debate_on_Land_Use
“Are people here serious about thinking that the CO2 rise in the past 50 years is due to oceans and not human emissions???”
No, we are serious in thinking that CO2 is absolutely harmless.
Humans dump about 3% of total CO2 emissions into the atmosphere. Decaying organic matter contributes about 30%. Currently burning coal fires contribute more CO2 than the combined automobile emissions on the planet. People have no sense of the scale and how SMALL the contribution of human activity is on the grand scale of things.
CO2 doesn’t cause warming, warming causes additional CO2. If leaf litter stays unfrozen for just one more week, the additional decay adds more CO2 to the air.
CO2 isn’t harmful, it doesn’t cause any significant warming of the atmosphere and in any case, the amount of emissions that we could actually cut wouldn’t amount to a pinch of owl scat in the grand scheme of things.
I propose that that we refer to CO2 in a more friendly way… Lets start referring to it as “plant food” since that’s what it is.
@Bill
Is it ok i make a new edition of your graph tonight, Danish time?
I think its super relevant, it does point more to Biomass as a cause of the difference in trends. If the difference in trends where CO2-forcing related, the tendensy from my graph 1979-2008 should be ongoing also from 1958.
No source shows a falling CO2 graph from 1958 to 1977. Therefore your graph – that “came from heaven” 🙂 – makes the CO2 forcing-explanation less likely. The biomass is recorded to fall even into the 1970´ies, and thus this effect is in best harmony with solid data. But obviously not “proven yet”. things just add up….
Another thing. Most researches shows that we had a lot warmer planet earth in the stoneage, 4-9000 years ago. And my my, the whole Sahara green and full of animals… Things just add up, it seems.
Marcus wrote:
Are people here serious about thinking that the CO2 rise in the past 50 years is due to oceans and not human emissions??? As another commenter pointed out, take away the human emissions, and the ocean+ecosystem is a net sink, not a net source.
No, just that the rise in CO2 is actually a Good Thing since plants need it to survive. In fact, commercial growers use CO2 enrichment systems to improve plant growth.
“Levels of 800 – 1800 ppm have proven to be optimal for the majority of crops grown under protected cultivation…. CO2 enrichment to levels of at least 800 ppm has been shown to increase the growth rate, yields and early harvests of many crops and is certainly economically viable for most high value crops.” — from Day-Night Temperatures and CO2 Enrichment
For the sake of argument, assume that atmospheric temperature rises as CO2 rises (and falls at CO2 falls).
Why should we assume that when real world measurements have shown it to be false?
“The hypothesis that the CO2 rise during the interglacials caused the temperature to rise requires an increase of about 6 °C per 30% rise in CO2 as seen in the ice core record. If this hypothesis were correct, Earth temperatures would have risen about 6 °C between 1900 and 2006, rather than the rise of between 0.1 °C and 0.5 °C, which actually occurred.” — from Environmental Effects of Increased Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide
I came to same conclusion about in april earlier this year and posted it in a thread here back then when just wanted to see if there was any relationship between temperature and CO2 increase.
I just compared yearly data to see if there where any connection and I where a bit amazed over how obvious it was. It didn’t even take a scientist to find out that the CO2 increase mainly seems to be controlled by global temperatures, not the other way around.
I found that CO2 would stop increasing if temperatures droped to -0.37C.
Yearly CO2 increase, Anthropogen CO2 emissions and temp anomaly:
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2056/2471196255_c3318ee700_o.jpg
Diagram relation ship CO2increase and temp anomaly.
X axis = PPM/year and Y-axis is yearly temp anomaly
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2142/2403439021_ff14af3781_o.jpg
“ecarreras (06:21:27) :
A few questions. If the measurements of CO2 at Mauna Loa have a significant anthropogenic component should we not see a drop resulting from the world wide economic slowdown? ”
There are no major changes in our CO2 emissions during ecenomic crises, but they are visible in the global emission data. See the years 1980-1982 and 1991-1993.
Due to the rate CO2 increase changes every year(following global temperatures) it is very hard to tell if economic crises has any meassureable effect at all.
@Bill Illis
“we are likely to reach the doubled CO2 level of 560 ppm by 2070 or earlier (just 60 years away)”
The critics of icecore measurements arguments that high CO2 levels are surpressed from several chemical reactions, ecpecially under pressure.
Therefor, the further you go down in ice layers, the lower is the possible max-CO2-concentrations. This will of course result in a curve that over estimates CO2 growth lately since earlier layers show too little CO2. So, yes if you believe these icecores as a solid way of measuring CO2 in the past, yes, then you might conclude a lot. But for “us-that-do-not-find-CO2-data-from-icecores-reliable” these results are of course of no importance at all.
“Are people here serious about thinking that the CO2 rise in the past 50 years is due to oceans and not human emissions???”
No, the co2 rise is mostly due to rising temperatures. Temperature rises, co2 rises, in that order. Sort out your understanding of cause and effect.
From someone who reads this stuff but whose ignorance is pretty profound. What is the possibility that increased CO2 is an effect not a cause?
It is indeed a good study on Temperature increase and the CO2 relationships
that tend to variation in different months.
But, the point is this that the period he has taken under study or observation
is so short that it does not give the exact result and hence, it can not be generalised for any Atmospheric change. The period between 1979-2008 can not be marked for any such change.Because, any weather change or the trend
of any change even needs longer period than this.
Climatically, any such change is observed at least for the 100 years or so..
Further, I may add that there are local conditions, Regional variations, and the rate of emission etc. affect all these changes. Industrial Towns and the non Industrial towns decidedly vary in CO2 emission and hence, the composion as well as concentration differs form place to place.
Therefore, it is very difficult to generalise any fact , more perticularly the
atmospheric changes. Thanks
Dave Dodd says:
If you believe this, there is really no hope of convincing you otherwise; it is climate science equivalent to young-earth-creationism. There is simply no evidence to believe that those early measurements were accurate and that the CO2 levels miraculously stopped undergoing huge oscillations just at the time when the modern way to measure CO2 began in the late 1950s.
Furthermore, the hypothesis that temperature causes the CO2 changes fails on many grounds. It doesn’t explain why CO2 went up in the 1960s when temperatures were not going up. It doesn’t explain why the evidence shows the oceans are taking up CO2 and becoming more acidic, not releasing it. It is contradicted by isotopic analysis. It would require a much stronger relationship of temperature driving CO2 than occurred during the ice age – interglacial oscillations (and it is also important to remember that those changes occurred over much longer timescales too…which is the presumed reason why there is a several hundred year lag time between temperatures starting to rise or fall and CO2 starting to rise or fall). And, it contradicts all of our theoretical understanding of the carbon cycle.
crosspatch says:
Your comparison is completely bogus. Yes, there are relatively large cycles of CO2 between the atmosphere, biosphere, and hydrosphere…but the point is that this is just moving carbon around and before human emissions it was pretty much in equilibrium. We, by contrast, are taking stores of carbon long locked away from the atmosphere and rapidly releasing them into the atmosphere.
David Holliday asks:
For the modern rise in CO2 levels, it is zero.
However, I encourage those AGW “skeptics” who believe otherwise to make this claim when they write to politicians or scientists; it will certainly help those people to decide how seriously to take the skeptic’s correspondence!
Here are some basic numbers for the Carbon cycle.
First, note we have to start talking about “Carbon” now rather than CO2 because in the Carbon cycle, the oceans take in CO2 and it gets converted it into various Carbonates, and vegetation takes in CO2 and converts it into various organic Carbon molecules. When the oceans and vegetation release that Carbon back to the cycle, it usually gets converted back to CO2. So, Carbon is the metric to use.
Total Carbon in the Atmosphere -> 760 billion tons.
Human emissions per year -> 8.5 billion tons.
Atmospheric concentration increasing each year -> 3 – 4 billion tons.
Ocean absorption each year -> 92 billion tons.
Ocean release each year -> 90 billion tons.
Vegetation and soils absorption each year -> 122 billion tons.
Vegetation and soils release each year -> 120 billion tons.
So, we are adding CO2 and Carbon to a system which was more-or-less in balance before and, hence, the concentration is increasing. But human emissions are dwarfed by the natural carbon cycle components.
The data indicates that as the atmospheric concentration has increased, the absorption rate of the oceans and vegetation has also increased which is keeping the annual increase lower than it would have been.
Nobody really knows if these absorption rates will increase or decrease in the future.
David Holliday: The probability that modern increased CO2 is an effect of temperature, not a cause, is zero. This is known and understood the way that the probability that I will suddenly start floating in the air is zero.
The details of the ocean and terrestrial sinks are not even close to fully understood yet, but that doesn’t detract from the above statement anymore than the issues of reconciling gravity and quantum prevent us from making predictions about falling objects.
I will note that this is also a very different level of certainty from the “it is likely that increased CO2 will lead to sufficient warming to cause problems for humanity and ecosystems”, which I will posit is likely, but if CO2 went up to 600 ppm and temperatures in 2100 only increased by a degree or so, I would be very surprised but would not feel like the laws of physics had been repealed.
If humans were to stop emitting CO2 tomorrow, and we did not see CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere start dropping _regardless_ of what the temperature was doing, I would feel like the laws of physics had been repealed. Similarly, if temperatures were to drop to -0.37 degrees, and CO2 were to stabilize for a decade despite continued human emissions, I would also feel like the laws of physics had been repealed.
Trust me: anyone who thinks that it is possible that the 70 ppm increase in CO2 concentration seen in the Mauna Loa record would have happened without human CO2 emissions has no idea what they are talking about.
ps. Katharine: have you heard of thought experiments and hypotheticals? I was trying to show how the analysis of Lansner and Jerker is fundamentally flawed in attributing CO2 rise to temperature change just because the fluctuations in the rate of change matched temperature.
@Marcus:
You write:
“Are people here serious about thinking that the CO2 rise in the past 50 years is due to oceans and not human emissions??? “
Marcus, in my writings I mainly show that the CO2 rise / year is very sensitive to temperature. This seems to knock out the flat Antarctic CO2 graphs as they would demand totally absurd flat temperature graphs, temperature graphs flatter than even the hockey stick. This is the primary result of my writing. And so far no one have been able to point out a single comma wrong in the argumentation.
I see you try to call my writing “naive”, but that kind of argument never wins a single truth seeking skeptic.
Then, the ground level upon which we do see temperature dependent CO2 variation can be caused by more reasons. The ground level can indeed be influenced by human emmissions. They can be influented by Biosphere, Ocean temperatures, Ocean acidification, Periods with more precipitation (as now). Its not impossible that the ground level would look different without human emissions.
But if you realy read my article (?), you have read:
“from 1979 to 2008 the CO2-rise per year compared to the global temperatures has fallen 0,5 ppm/year” .. “With the human emissions rising in the time interval 1979-2008, one could imagine that it would be the other way around, that CO2 rises came with still smaller temperature rises needed. .. So generally, the human emissions effect appears inferior to other effects in this context at least.”
So my words are so much more nuanced than your black/white quotation of me.
And then you write:
“For the sake of argument, assume that atmospheric temperature rises as CO2 rises (and falls at CO2 falls). There will be some positive feedback…”
The first sentence “Katharine” has dealt nicely with, the second:
“There will be some positive feedback”:
Will there? Who told you?
Consider the following:
Positive feedback is supposed to follow the following model, roughly:
Warm => more water in atmosphere / more Methane => more warm etc.
And then there´s big discussion if the increased water amount in the atmosphere really behaves like this.
But something else is wrong. There is not more water in the atmosphere today than around 1940. On the contrary. Darn!
So, Marcus, tell me how you imaginge positive feedback happening with no more water in the atmosphere? And Methan appears stagnated years ago.
And then you write:
“…the solubility of CO2 goes down, but this does not necessarily make the ocean a net source: it really just becomes a smaller sink…”
I cannot see what your words should change in this context?? What really is interesting is the outcome, that CO2 concentrations are extremely sensitive to temperature. This disqualifies Antarctic curves. Antony Watts site is read by a good number of people, even experts. So far not one has successfully objected to these findings.
I didn’t have time to read all of the comments above, so apologies if I repeat points made by others.
I have worked extensively on the issue of relating CO2 to temperatures, using a rate equation model, instead of just statistical correlations. Doing that, you get rid of the supposed “lag”. If there is a lag, it’s no more than about 1-2 months. My main conclusions so far do agree, however, with Frank’s in that the biosphere does seem to be more responsive to CO2. Not only does it absorb half the CO2 we pour into it, even that ratio is increasing slightly. But at some point, both the temperature data and the CO2 data are too uncertain to give a precise value to that effect.
I did, however, hypothesize that one factor has not so far been considered by most researchers in the field. That factor is adaptation by natural selection. Yes, that good old Darwinism. The point is that, not only will the biosphere expand by CO2 fertilization, but also the species, whether of plants or bacteria or phytoplankton, that fare better at higher atmospheric CO2 because they themselves are better at using it, those species will expand at the expense of those that don’t like CO2 that much. So in the end, you get a nonlinear response of the biosphere, that just gets better and better at eating up our CO2.
Just one example. Ocean phytoplankton is known to not generally respond to higher CO2. In other words, it’s not “fertilized” by CO2. But recently some researchers have found that some phytoplankton species do. So you wonder: if they co-inhabit an environment where CO2 increases, which species will expand the most? And if some mutation gives some individuals a better ability to ingest CO2, won’t they also thrive better?
Frank is also right in commenting that because of that, if temperatures do take a nosedive as they have done in the past couple of years, the expanded ability of the biosphere to eat up the CO2 will be even stronger. A couple of relatively cold decades (as some have recently predicted) could lead to a drastic slowing down of the CO2 increase, if not a reversal. This does depend on the CO2 response time. Some have claimed a very long response time, but my own analysis strongly points to a 1-2 year response time.
I’m still fascinated by the subject, but haven’t worked on it for a few months now. My initial excitement was based on a faulty conclusion that CO2 might be entirely driven by temperatures. There was a mistake in my model at the time. So the CO2 we see is clearly anthropogenic, however the rate of increase is greatly affected by the biosphere, and by the temperature, especially the ocean temperature. The Mauna Loa data are not that bad. However, the ocean temperature data are not that good. So it’s hard to figure out quantitatively exactly what’s going on.
@Jerker Andersson
You write : “I just compared yearly data to see if there where any connection and I where a bit amazed over how obvious it was.”
Exactly. This appears so obvious !?!! But its as though the skeptics have not really used this gold mine of arguments fully? I am still waiting for someone here to point out why this “fails totally”.. but… still waiting 🙂
You write:
“I found that CO2 would stop increasing if temperatures dropped to -0.37C.”
Ha, funny! My value of – 0,32 K may be warmer than your -0,37 K, because I use the trend values in 2008 to get the number, not an average value? The thing is, we want to know what temperature in 2008 would cause CO2 stagnation.
Joel Shore said:
Why didn’t you just accuse him of being a holocaust denier? It has more emotional power. Try not to dress your ad-hominems up too cleverly or they miss the mark.
@joel Shore
You write about Beck measurements:
“There is simply no evidence to believe that those early measurements were accurate and that the CO2 levels miraculously stopped undergoing huge oscillations just at the time when the modern way to measure CO2 began in the late 1950s. ”
I dont know how much we can use the Beck-pre-1900 numbers to.
BUT that an average of all those measurements is SO MUCH HIGHER than Antarctic CO2 data, so again its unrealistic to think all these Beck data are all wrong – and all just “happends” to be too warm ?!! ABSURD!
The oscilations etc, yes, i would maybe take a little care to use too much.
BUT! fraom 1860´ies all the way to 1930 form a long continuert rather smooth curve, just like we have seen in later decades.
So Joel, the Beck data is certainly not without smooth long periods. You must also remember, that these data are not from one continuert source!!!), so its wrong to expect one super smooth graph! A demand like that to Becks data shows ignorance and bad will to accept Becks data. Bad science. Anyway, no miracles needed, becks data also have continuert periods.
Apropos miracle: What a miracle that Becks graph “just happends” to go smoothly over in the Mauna Loa series in 1958 .. 😉 So suddenly in late 1950 its correct? hi ho ha…
You then write:
“It doesn’t explain why CO2 went up in the 1960s when temperatures were not going up.”
No. Lower temperatures than today can, even if they are not “going up” lead to ricing CO2 levels:
http://www.klimadebat.dk/forum/attachments/195405co2uah.gif
NO LAG. There doesn’t appear to be any lag by my analysis, except there is some leading / trailing depending on which year you look at. This is a preliminary result, I plan to look at the data in a couple of other ways to see if any other clear relationships develop.
I took the data used in the original article and used every data point for monthly CO2 and UAH MSU global available. I was careful to make sure that each month lines up correctly as the effect of the seasonal nature of the CO2 was removed (by 12 month averaging). The resulting chart shows a virtually instantaneous response of dCO2 to temperature. While some lag might be intuitively expected, remember, we are looking at the rate of increase of CO2 vs temp, so an instantaneous response makes a lot of sense.
I will be working on this for a few more days, but as a teaser, here is a chart:
I want to look at a few other methods of analyzing the data, for example a logarithmic method of analyzing CO2 and taking out CO2 seasonality might allow use of the data without any moving averages. Note: The 12 month moving averages are generated by the Excel trendline feature and I noticed that this alone introduces a small lag if used on one data set and not the other, so I let excel do both for the chart. I’m developing a work-around for that.
I’m also looking at a way of judging the response lag to see if that reveals anything. The 1998 El-Nino event shows a really striking response with no lag, while others show some leading / trailing. Taking this data with AMO / PDO, solar, etc. might explain some of these anomalies.
Anthony, if you could email me at naturalclimate at comcast.net I’d like to send you the sheet for your perusal once I get a little more work done on it. It is interesting indeed. Once we have the dCO2 element vs temp, it should be relatively easy to integrate dCO2 with some of the earlier known chemical CO2 analyses to drive a temperature proxy, and see if that matches with other temperature data sets going back earlier than this analysis.
Like I said, at first look, it appears there is a virtually instantaneous response of delta CO2 with temperature, as you might expect.
For anyone wanting to continue to look at the data backwards, an instantaneous change in delta CO2 causes an instant temperature response, just like you thought. (sorry, I had to throw that in).
Michael Smith
It looks like my link to the chart didn’t work. Here is another try:
and if that doesn’t work, paste this into your browser…
http://home.comcast.net/~naturalclimate/CO2_growth_vs_Temp.pdf
Francis O asks some good questions on the biosphere interaction
Just one example. Ocean phytoplankton is known to not generally respond to higher CO2. In other words, it’s not “fertilized” by CO2. But recently some researchers have found that some phytoplankton species do. So you wonder: if they co-inhabit an environment where CO2 increases, which species will expand the most? And if some mutation gives some individuals a better ability to ingest CO2, won’t they also thrive better?
With Phytoplankton there is another secondary and important effect,the modulation of the upper water temperature.
From Falkowsi and Dickie.
“Over 70% of Earth’s surface is covered by liquid water that absorbs about 95% of incident solar irradiance. In its upper 3 m the ocean contains the equivalent heat capacity of the entire atmosphere of the planet (Peixoto and Oort, 1992).As the average depth of the oceans is about 3800 m, this geophysical fluid acts as a huge heat storage system for the planet. That is, the oceans do not directly affect the radiation budget of the planet, but rather, affect the time constant by which the planet “experiences” changes in radiation.
As in the atmosphere, the direct physical interactions between solar radiation and
the ocean are wavelength dependent. Water itself effectively absorbs all incident
infrared solar radiation (e.g., Morel and Antoine, 1994),and this direct radiative
transfer process provides roughly half of the heat to the ocean surface waters. An
example of potential interactions between solar radiation and physical and biological
processes is, where the following sequence is illustrated
(1)forcing of the upper ocean physical condition through the input of solar radiation, including light, heat, and indirectly momentum at the ocean surface;
(2)upper ocean physical responses, including stratification and turbulent mixing that result in
(3) phytoplankton vertical and horizontal motions, which, in turn, lead to
(4) feedbacks on distributions of pigments and photosynthetic available radiation (PAR),
(5) modulation of the upper ocean heating via phytoplankton and their associated
optical properties. The balance between primary production and grazing determine
the concentration of phytoplankton at any moment in time and both processes must
be considered in biological–physical interactions.
Direct measurements of bio-optical as well as physical variables have been made in the warm-water pool of the western Pacific (Siegel et al., 1995; Ohlmann et al., 1998). This work is supportive of the previous assertions concerning the importance of the penetrative component of solar radiation and more generally biogeochemical processes. For example, it was determined that common values of the penetrative solar flux are about 23 W m−2 at 30 m (the climatological mean mixed layer depth), and thus a large fraction of the climatological mean net air–sea flux of about 40 W m−2. Synoptic scale forcing (e.g., wind bursts) were found to lead to tripling of phytoplankton pigment concentrations and a reduction in penetrative heat flux of 5.6 W m−2 at 30 m, or a biogeochemically mediated increase in the radiant heating rate of 0.138C/ month. In-depth analysis of the radiant heating and parameterizations of light attenuation for this experiment are given in Ohlmann et al. (1998)
A direct response to cold tongues in the subantartic ocean(44s) can be seen here
http://www.stuff.co.nz/4767410a7693.html
Tallbloke (04:00:42) :
“Are people here serious about thinking that the CO2 rise in the past 50 years is due to oceans and not human emissions???”
No, the co2 rise is mostly due to rising temperatures. Temperature rises, co2 rises, in that order. Sort out your understanding of cause and effect.
Yes you should, the cause is the year on year release of ‘new’ CO2 from fossil fuels in excess of what can be absorbed by the oceans and biosphere. The fluctuation of the sink terms (see below) causes the time dependence of the [CO2].
d[CO2]/dt=F(t)-Fo([CO2],T,t)-Fb([CO2],T?,t)
Where F is the fossil fuel source term, Fo is the net exchange with the oceans and Fb is the net exchange with the vegetation etc.
Michael S (12:06:06) : “NO LAG. There doesn’t appear to be any lag by my analysis….I took the data used in the original article and used every data point for monthly CO2 and UAH MSU global available. I was careful to make sure that each month lines up correctly as the effect of the seasonal nature of the CO2 was removed (by 12 month averaging)….”
Taking a 12 month average of the CO2 could not only remove the “seasonal nature” but other information, including the lag, as well. Twelve month averaging irons out the peaks and shifts them laterally, depending on how the 12 month average was taken. Which 12 months were used for each data point? Was the temperature data statistically smudged to remove its seasonal nature, as well? (You were working with dCO2, yes?)
Michael S (12:06:06) :
You said:
“NO LAG. There doesn’t appear to be any lag by my analysis…
…The resulting chart shows a virtually instantaneous response of dCO2 to temperature… …remember, we are looking at the rate of increase of CO2 vs temp, so an instantaneous response makes a lot of sense.”
Hi Michael,
I think there is a miscommunication here.
1. dCO2/dt happens with little or no lag when compared to temperature (both using global averages – which introduces its own complexities).
2. But CO2 (the integral of dCO2/dt) lags dCO2/dt and temperature by ~9 months.
3. Since the IPCC argues that CO2 (not dCO2/dt) is driving catastrophic global warming, it is CO2, not dCO2/dt that is most relevent to the argument.
See Figures 3 and 4 in my January 2008 paper at:
http://icecap.us/index.php/go/joes-blog/carbon_dioxide_in_not_the_primary_cause_of_global_warming_the_future_can_no/
Regards, Allan
jorgekafkazar (17:12:03) :
Taking a 12 month average of the CO2 could not only remove the “seasonal nature” but other information, including the lag, as well. Twelve month averaging irons out the peaks and shifts them laterally, depending on how the 12 month average was taken. Which 12 months were used for each data point? Was the temperature data statistically smudged to remove its seasonal nature, as well? (You were working with dCO2, yes?)
Jorge –
dCO2 was first taken over 12 months, then a new X axis value was created for the center of that 12 month average (it will be at a 1/2 month point, with 6 values in front, and 6 values behind). This keeps the X axis aligned. Then the dCO2 value is calculated monthly by subtracting the later month from the earlier, and another X axis value is created to center those values about the time involved. This way the data is always centered with the monthly temp data. Nothing was done with the temperature anomaly data at all. From this point, with both X axes aligned, the raw data is shown on the chart, but is a little difficult to interpret. As a convenience, I let excel chart 12 month moving average trendlines that it uses in its charting algorithms. This DOES introduce a lag compared to doing my own method of making sure X stays aligned, but the lag should be equal in the dCO2 and the temperature data since they were aligned to start with. You can see that Excel’s moving average has shifted both curves right compared with the original data. I’ll make my own algorithm that eliminates this effect, but for now, the data is time coherent.
I had also read the subject article on Icecap earlier and started this work to take all of the data instead of a few points to see what it would look like. It is interesting to say the least and supports the idea that small temperature changes have a large effect on dCO2, and if taken over time will produce considerable changes in CO2 levels. For CO2 to stay constant in previous centuries as the IPCC claims does imply an incredibly static temperature on earth, which is something that has never been observed. There is much more work to be done here, I hope to provide more info in the near future. I see from your blog that you have a strong background in mathematics. If there are any suggestions you could make as I analyze this further, I would like to hear from you. Thanks, – Mike S.
http://home.comcast.net/~naturalclimate/CO2_growth_vs_Temp.pdf
I provided the following summary elsewhere, and Allan asked me to copy it here. I hope it helps your discussion.
Many people have been misled into believing that the anthropogenic emission of CO2 is known to be the cause of the recent increase in atmospheric CO2 concentration. However, there is a problem with trying to state the truth of the matter. And that truth is that there is no conclusive evidence that any of the 20th century increase in atmospheric CO2 concentration is or is not due to the burning of fossil fuels.
The problem is that those who have been misled have adopted a ‘cultural myth’. Therefore, they assume that a statement of the truth is a claim that the 20th century increase in atmospheric CO2 concentration is not due to the burning of fossil fuels. And, it is very difficult to argue for the truth because people tend to hear only what they expect to hear.
The known facts of the matter are:
1.
The increase in atmospheric CO2 concentration each year is much less than the natural variations in atmospheric CO2 concentration within each year.
2.
The increase in atmospheric CO2 concentration over each year is the residual of the natural variations in atmospheric CO2 concentration within each year.
3.
The anthropogenic emission of CO2 each year is much less than the natural variation within each year.
4.
The change to the 12C:13C isotope ratio of atmospheric CO2 is in the direction expected if the recent increase in atmospheric CO2 concentration were caused by the anthropogenic emission of CO2.
But if the ratio changes then there is a 50:50 chance that it will change in that direction or the other.
5.
The magnitude of the change to the 12C:13C isotope ratio of atmospheric CO2 is much smaller than expected if the recent increase in atmospheric CO2 concentration were caused by the anthropogenic emission of CO2.
6.
The fact in point (5) indicates that most of the change to the 12C:13C isotope ratio of atmospheric CO2 and most of the recent increase in atmospheric CO2 concentration was caused by some unknown, natural (i.e. non-anthropogenic) effect.
7.
The fact in point (6) indicates that all of the change to the 12C:13C isotope ratio of atmospheric CO2 and all of the recent increase in atmospheric CO2 concentration may have been caused by the same unknown, natural (i.e. non-anthropogenic) effect.
Simply,
it is possible that none of the rise in atmospheric CO2 concentration and none of the change to the 13C:12C atmospheric isotope change were caused by anthropogenic emission
but were due to the unknown, natural (i.e. non-anthropogenic) effect that caused most of the change to the 12C:13C isotope ratio of atmospheric CO2.
8.
But the anthropogenic emission may have disturbed the carbon cycle such that the equilibrium state(s) of some parts of the carbon cycle have altered.
Therefore,
it is possible that all of the rise in atmospheric CO2 concentration and all of the change to the 13C:12C atmospheric isotope change were caused by the anthropogenic emission
that induced the unknown, natural (i.e. non-anthropogenic) effect that caused the observed change to the 12C:13C isotope ratio of atmospheric CO2.
9.
It is possible that both the effects noted in points 7 and 8 contributed to the change to the 12C:13C isotope ratio of atmospheric CO2 and to the recent increase in atmospheric CO2 concentration.
Therefore,
it is possible that some of the rise in atmospheric CO2 concentration and some of the change to the 13C:12C atmospheric isotope change were due to the anthropogenic emission.
10.
The change in atmospheric oxygen concentration in recent years is consistent with the amount of fossil fuel that was burned in those years.
In summation, the known facts (listed as points 1 to 10 above) demonstrate that
there is no conclusive evidence that any of the 20th century increase in atmospheric CO2 concentration is or is not due to the burning of fossil fuels.
Happy Christmas
Richard
Oh, and apparently there is just as much CO2 in the air at the South Pole as there is in Hawaii. That Wikipedia article is incorrect.
Allan M R MacRae (22:23:23) :
Hi Michael,
I think there is a miscommunication here.
Thanks Allan,
In the original article, http://icecap.us/images/uploads/FlaticecoreCO2.pdf Frank shows Hans Errens’ chart of dCO2 (ppm CO2/yr) which seems to show a 9 month lag between temperature and dCO2/dt. This is the part I could not reproduce. My analysis shows no lag and yours does as well which I think puts the original chart in question and that’s the point I was trying to make. Maybe the original analysis suffered from some of the pitfalls Jorge pointed out and resulted in lag that wasn’t there. So we both agree that dCO2/dTemp is virtually instantaneous, which makes a lot of sense.
The 9 month lag of CO2/dTemp peak to peak that you show in your paper also makes a lot of sense and is very interesting. The process reminds me of a capacitance circuit. So the question is, what is the size of the tank? And just exactly what units are we going to use for this capacitor? Does the time constant change with increasing CO2? (I can see a case where it gets faster based on a good conversation with a WuWT lurker) Does the temperature cycle length have an influence on CO2 lag? Fascinating stuff… Your thoughts?
Nice work Allan, I was hoping I was breaking new ground but it looks like you already planted a flag there… Mike S
“” Joel Shore (17:02:18) :
George E. Smith says:
>delete<
What you are talking about is a hypothesis by Ruddiman, who is a well-respected climate scientist. And, while other climate scientists certainly respect Ruddiman, a lot of them are skeptical of this hypothesis. (And, I think even Ruddiman himself, while defending his hypothesis, doesn’t claim that he is sure it is correct…I think he concedes that it is just a hypothesis.) One reason for skepticism (among others)is that it seems to require a climate sensitivity at the high end…or beyond the high end…of the generally accepted range. “”
Joel, I’m Sure that is the article I was referring to, and since I was just retrieving from memory, I likely was quite garbled on the details. I have tried to locate that issue, since I wanted to keep that article handy.
I don’t know if it was in that paper, or a differnt one by a different author, but I think it contained some graphs of some Antarctic ice cores going back just a few thousand years; nd what I found interesting was that two such ocres that he graphed showed exactly the opposite CO2 trends from each other over the same time frame that was in the last 1ooo years; one core was steeply rising, and the other was steeply falling at the exact same time.
But I can’t swear it was Ruddiman’s paper or another
The amount of different material that was in the paper, was far more than I could possibly research to verify, or find more detail on; so I typically take those articles at face value, and assume the author/s know what they are talking about; So I made no Judgement of Ruddiman as a result; I thought the idea was interesting. But like I say, I mentioned it from recent memory, so my recall was probably pretty scrambled..
SA’s articles have become far more political than they were when I started subscribing 45 years ago, and all of those earlier years issues are long gone
Quoting Stan:
“The state of the science is such that we don’t know enough to make any conclusions. The gaps in knowledge are enormous. Only a complete fool could develop sufficient hubris to declare that he knew what the climate is going to do over the next 100 years.”
And quoting Stans sound prediction:
Some day soon, a response to Algore’s movie is going to show how stupid he and his followers have been. He will be a laughingstock for all time.
And “Hansen” will be the punchline for jokes (e.g. “that guy pulled a Hansen”).
——
Not to mention all the people in the credits of the films The 11’th hour, What a way to go, BBC, Discovery, PBS, NOVA, The Nature of Things, thousands of scientists the world around, and 98.43% ~3% of the civilized population.
One more reference on this subject is by climate statistician William Briggs, at
http://wmbriggs.com/blog/2008/04/21/co2-and-temperature-which-predicts-which/
Thank you for your excellent summary Richard (Richard S Courtney (00:08:00)).
Richard concludes:
“there is no conclusive evidence that any of the 20th century increase in atmospheric CO2 concentration is or is not due to the burning of fossil fuels.”
Thank you for your comments Michael (Michael Smith (00:50:58).
Michael asks:
“Does the temperature cycle length have an influence on CO2 lag?”
Very good question – I think the answer is yes. Here is why:
We understand from Vostok ice core data that there is a ~600 year lag in CO2 after temperature. The temperature cycle here is perhaps 1500 years. I have not independently analyzed any of this data.
The work you and I have done shows a ~9 month lag in CO2 after temperature. The peak-to-peak cycle length is ~3 years, in my opinion.
Are there one or more intermediate time cycles where CO2 lags temperature? Ernst Beck has complied tens of thousands of analyses of early measurements of atmospheric CO2, and concludes that CO2 levels were much higher during the 1930’s warm period than the generally-accepted levels; CO2 dropped sharply during the cooling from ~1946 to ~1977; and CO2 increased since 1977 due to the recent warming, and is now at similar levels to the early 1940’s. Beck has suffered scorn from both sides of the climate debate, but this does not negate his thousands of data points, or prove him wrong. Time and honest data will tell the story…
Beck believes the delay in this intermediate cycle is ~5 years. The cycle length is probably ~60-80 years.
If Beck is right then there are at least three cycles – “a wheel within a wheel within a wheel”.
The next question is will the current global cooling cause a decline in atmospheric CO2, or is the humanmade component of CO2 sufficiently large to overcome the natural variation which is apparently driven by temperature?
If you want to pursue this further, I suggest you examine the CO2 records from various sites. The range of seasonal CO2 variation is ~16ppm at Barrow Alaska versus ~1ppm at the South Pole, versus an average annual increase in global CO2 of ~1.5ppm. The Northern Hemisphere seasons are clearly dominant in CO2 variations. The variation in “peak and valley” months at different locations is interesting.
These scientific questions are truly fascinating.
However the more important question is will the current cooling be mild or severe, as some researchers fear. It would be truly ironic if our society continued to obsess about global warming, only to face a deep freeze.
Best regards for the Holidays!
Allan
Barrow CO2
ftp://ftp.cmdl.noaa.gov/ccg/co2/in-situ/brw/brw_01C0_mm.co2
Mauna Loa CO2
ftp://ftp.cmdl.noaa.gov/ccg/co2/in-situ/mlo/mlo_01C0_mm.co2
South Pole CO2
ftp://ftp.cmdl.noaa.gov/ccg/co2/in-situ/spo/spo_01C0_mm.co2
Here´s a Hadcrut/CO2rise graph (Based on Bill Illis graph):
http://www.klimadebat.dk/forum/attachments/co2hadcrut.jpg
I get CO2 stagnation for Hadcrut = + 0,05 K anomaly.
The reason i made this was to visualize the trend difference better.
“Something” is eating the CO2 out of the atmosphere better in some periods than others. This “something” i symbolized with the green colour in the trend graph. As mentioned, part of this “somthing” could be the size of the biospehere. The “Biosphere” then seems to have had minimum around 1977.
Annualized Mauna Loa dCO2/dt has “gone negative” a few times in the past (calculating dCO2/dt from monthly data, by taking CO2MonthX (year n+1) minus CO2MonthX (year n) to minimize the seasonal CO2 “sawtooth”.)
These 12-month periods are (Month ending in):
1959-8
1963-9
1964-5
1965-1
1965-5
1965-6
1971-4
1974-6
1974-8
1974-9
Has this not happened recently because of increased humanmade CO2 emissions, or because the world has, until recently, been getting warmer?
Fair Warmings:
This topic is highly contentious, and has generally been dismissed by both sides of the climate debate.
I hope you all realize that by even discussing this subject in public, we will all be dragged before Al Gore’s Star Chamber and subjected to tortures perfected during the last such Inquisition…
Regards, Allan 🙂
George E. Smith (15:13:32) :
I’ve never been able to figure out; is lol = LOL = Lots Of Luck or is it Laughing Out Loud ? I can’t kee p up with the jargon.
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=lol
An archaic usage is Lots of Luck (what it meant to me in the 1980’s) now it almost universally means Laughing Out Loud.
Dear Frank,
thank you very much for supporting my work and using my data.
You will find the latest version ( dec 2008) of my data on my website: http://www.biokurs.de/treibhaus/180CO2_supp.htm. I have included unpublished data series and have compiled an uncorrected (yearly averages from raw data) and a corrected line (inclusive estimated errors). Since about 1865 the data show an accuracy range of within +-3% of the measured value. Comments on data, sources and corrections please see also on my website at the end (scoll down to: Compiled data of historic measurements – EXCEL .
Compared to the MLO and other background CO2 data the historical CO2 data are NOT selected and smoothed. Beside this we can compare modern CO2 background data with “my” historical CO2 series near ground using modern vertical profiles showing an average of the seasonal variation near ground in th order of 50 ppm. Thats typical for the uncorrected pre-Keeling CO2 data. ( please see my recent essay in E&E vol 18,7 2008.
Cross correlation with SST in the northern hemisphere reveals a lag of about 5 years after temperature, spectrum analysis shows an oscillation of about 65 years as SST in the polar ocean and the geomagnetic index.
So I am awaiting falling CO2 soon. It ´s an exciting time.
Ernst-Georg Beck (03:14:03) :
Ernst, can you explain the calibration technique of the instruments for ice core data? Among other things, we know about diffusion, the gaussian filter effect that takes out short term variability that might explain the smooth ice core data, etc., but when taking readings from the air samples in ice, what is the mechanism for accounting for the CO2 contained in the ice itself?
In other words, given X concentration of atmospheric CO2 when snow falls and is compressed to ice, (a) what was the original CO2 concentration in the water in the snow (presumably near zero due to a nearly perfect crystal structure), and (b) how much of what was in the air ends up being in solution in the ice after N years?, and (c), what method us used to recover the CO2 that was in air but is now in water?
I ask this because there seems to be a bias that increases with the age of the sample, compared to the chemical record. What is the mechanism that could introduce such a bias using the methods used at the time when the ice cores were analyzed?
Not sure if you saw this, but dCO2/dt is very sensitive to temperature and reacts instantaneously, and it would be very interesting to take this derivative and reverse-integrate over time with your CO2 data to see what deltaT would occur, then compare that to the temperature record.
http://home.comcast.net/~naturalclimate/CO2_growth_vs_Temp.pdf
Let me know what you think…
Thanks,
Mike Smith
would people (deniers (us)) stop referring to past co2 values obtained from glaciers (ipcc), antarctica and greenland, as being meaningful. please read Z. Jaworowski’s (with Segalstad and Ono) many papers on this subject of trapped gases in glaciers, where he discusses the over 20 mechanical and chemical processes that make accurate measurements impossible; even in shallow cores above the point where co2 is supposedly permanently trap in ice cavities in the firn, co2 concentrations are already 20-40% lower than those measured in air at mauna loa. this puts the notion (myth) that ice core values can be taken as the equivalent of direct measurements as a falsehood.
also read Ernst-Georg Beck’s compilation and discussion of over 90,000 direct co2 meaurements by the classical chemical method covering the period 1812-1961; inital accuracies being 15% error in the period 1812-1857 but reaching error levels of less than 3% from 1857-1961. he shows that co2 reached a level of 450 ppm in 1942; due to the warming in the period 1920 through 1940 plus the co2 output of world war 2; climbing from 320 ppm in 1920 and returning to 330 ppm in the 50’s. beck provides a real view of how much co2 can vary during the time the ipcc claims co2 remained almost flat before rising to 375 ppm today. ipcc glacier icecore co2 levels are a myth or a fraud.
peter bartner (06:54:17) :
I’ll read the articles… I can see the ice core data is too low, I was hoping if we knew the error conditions present in the data, it might be possible to back out the errors and still have something reasonably useful. I can think of a whole lot of processes to watch out for, but I’ll see what Jaworski says. I guess based on your reading, it’s hopelessly flawed data. Maybe we could give it to Hansen and he could fix it and make it all good again… Or has that already been done?
@Ernst-Georg Beck
Its very nice to see that you hold up your flag, because you have every reason to do so. We are many that are very grateful for the people who uses so much of their life on an issue that benefits the whole world.
Thanks to Beck, Watts, Steve McIntyre, Joseph D´aleo and many many others. Champagne for you guys!!! You are writing world history.
When i sometimes mention your work, beck, im met with non-arguments and very bad attitude. The present issue here at WUWT shows – as often before – that what realy IS ridiculous is the Antarctic icecore CO2 data, that we are forced to believe in.
@Peter Bartner: YES! Unless someone can defend Antarctic data much much beter than we have seen here, these data are to regarded as USELESS.
Best data sets we have – even if not 100% precise – is obviously Becks data.
Aother thing: No one has objected to my thought:
“Any human CO2-influence will cause bigger biosphere that eventually omits the human CO2-influence.”
But if its true… that changes somthings, i dare say?
Dear Mike,
I am sorry but am not an expert in ice core reconstruction technique. I have to point to the work of Jaworowski e.g. here:
Jaworowski Z. (1994) Ancient atmosphere – Validity of Ice records. Environmental Science & Pollution Research, 1(3):161-171 http://www.scientificjournals.com/sj/espr/Pdf/aId/7193.
And here you will find the important Neftl et al. papers from the 80s
http://www.biokurs.de/treibhaus/180CO2/neftel82-85.pdf showing high CO2 levels that they have ignored.
The bias that increases with the age of the sample, compared to the chemical record you mention could be the ice age/gas age difference which grows by depth and age.
By the way this difference is 30 years in the first half of the 20th century (Etheridge 1995). So ice cores cannot resolve the CO2 peak around 1940.
You know the discussion paper by J.J. Drake?
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/jdrake/Questioning_Climate/userfiles/Ice-core_corrections_report_1.pdf
He recalculates the ice core data without such a difference and comes to reasonable ice core values much higher than the notorious too low data. Such low CO2 sould have been noticed in a plant extinction but we have no evidence for that.
And finally there are living bacteria in the ice down in 2 km depth. Guess what C source they have used? CO2 and CH4 from the ice. And they do respiration. ( Christner et al. 2008)
For me the ice core CO2 levels could be recognized as what bacteria and diffusion had left back.
best regards
Ernst
Frank. Lansner
Another thing: No one has objected to my thought:
“Any human CO2-influence will cause bigger biosphere that eventually omits the human CO2-influence.”
But if its true… that changes somethings, i dare say?
Could you clarify a bit more your thought? Are you saying that extra human generated CO2 will generate a bigger biosphere which will be feeding off this human input? On the lines that the biosphere expands to fill the CO2 budge available?
sorry for
budge –> budget
Anna V.
Im just “thinking” here 🙂 Some times on a good day something usefull comes out of it.
But if its true that higher CO2 levels promote bigger biosphere (Well, they use 1200ppm CO2 in greenhouse because it works…) Then, a steady extra CO2 every year from humans should have the same effect? But in the same pace, with some lag, the biosphere will seak to eat that “CO2-food” and thus becom bigger and remove CO2 a little faster. So.. at least to some degree, a steady extra CO2 from human “should” only lead to so much extra CO2 in the atmosphere? Just a thought.
K.R. Frank, and merry Christmas.
“No he doesn’t he quotes the same method that I did, they do not use H2SO4.”
Indeed they have taken down the paper detailing the Mauna Loa protocol. Nonetheless, Kauffman is my source. Do you have one?
“Yes you should, the cause is the year on year release of ‘new’ CO2 from fossil fuels in excess of what can be absorbed by the oceans and biosphere.”
You have absolutely no reason or cause to assert this. As already stated, the daily fluence between the ocean and atmosphere dwarfs the yearly athropogenic contribution. Mere arithmetic verifies this. How is your notion even conceivable?
Off Topic
But I came across this interesting page at NASA from 2001. (not sure if anybody has referenced it previously.
http://www.gsfc.nasa.gov/topstory/20011207iceage.html
“A new NASA computer climate model reinforces the long-standing theory that low solar activity could have changed the atmospheric circulation in the Northern Hemisphere from the 1400s to the 1700s and triggered a “Little Ice Age” in several regions including North America and Europe.”
However what we are seeing here in Michigan, and much of the rest of the Northern Hemisphere this winter, its starting to look like NASA may have been half right in this statement:
“Changes in the sun’s energy was one of the biggest factors influencing climate change during this period, but have since been superceded by greenhouse gases due to the industrial revolution.”
Merry Christmas to all and to all a chilly night.
gary gulrud (11:28:37) :
“No he doesn’t he quotes the same method that I did, they do not use H2SO4.”
Indeed they have taken down the paper detailing the Mauna Loa protocol. Nonetheless, Kauffman is my source. Do you have one?
Yes as shown below, it’s evidently the same one as Kauffman uses since he quotes it verbatim! To reiterate they don’t use H2SO4!
http://cdiac.ornl.gov/trends/co2/sio-mlo.html
You can find a more detailed description at:
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/about/co2_measurements.html#infrared
“Yes you should, the cause is the year on year release of ‘new’ CO2 from fossil fuels in excess of what can be absorbed by the oceans and biosphere.”
You have absolutely no reason or cause to assert this. As already stated, the daily fluence between the ocean and atmosphere dwarfs the yearly athropogenic contribution. Mere arithmetic verifies this. How is your notion even conceivable?
I suggest you redo the math, the annual release of CO2 from fossil fuel consumption is twice the annual growth in CO2. The e-folding time of CO2 in the atmosphere is measured to be ~14 years which rather contradicts your daily fluence statement.
Richard S Courtney (00:08:00) :
The change to the 12C:13C isotope ratio of atmospheric CO2 is in the direction expected if the recent increase in atmospheric CO2 concentration were caused by the anthropogenic emission of CO2.
How do we tell ancient carbon from fossil fuels from ancient carbon from smokers at the bottom of the ocean? Do we know the isotope ratio of CO2 from mid-ocean ridges vs land volcanoes? (Land volcanoes are from subduction zones so I’d expect more rapid recycle of C from ocean sediment to yield a different isotopic ratio…)
Just curious… looks like an interesting technique.
I wandering off to learn more about C12 / C13 origins and ratios I ran into this gem. It does raise the interesting question: If MMCO2 dropped dramatically during the great depression, where is the signature in the record?
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20070611/cockburn
I should acknowledge one imprecision in my description of Dr. Martin Hertzberg’s graph in my first column–“the smoothly rising curve of CO2”–which prompted several intemperate responses, charging that I couldn’t possibly expect CO2 or carbon levels to drop just because of a one-third cut in manmade CO2. Indeed, I should have written, “One could not even see a 1 part per million bump in the smoothly rising curve.” Even though such transitory influences as day and night or seasonal variations in photosynthesis cause clearly visible swings in the curve, the 30 percent drop between 1929 and 1932 caused not a ripple: empirical scientific evidence that the human contribution is in fact less than a fart in a hurricane, as Dr. Hertzberg says.
From the same article by ALEXANDER COCKBURN, with questions…
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20070611/cockburn
As for the alleged irrefutable evidence that people caused the last century’s CO2 increase, the “smoking gun” invoked by one of my critics, Dr. Michael Mann, and his fellow fearmongers at realclimate.com, the claim is based on the idea that the normal ratio of heavy to light carbon–that is, the carbon-13 isotope to the lighter carbon-12 isotope, is roughly 1 to 90 in the atmosphere, but in plants there’s a 2 percent lower C13/C12 ratio. So, observing that C13 in the atmosphere has been declining steadily though very slightly since 1850, they claim that this is due to man’s burning of fossil fuels, which are generally believed to be derived from fossilized plant matter.
OK, so both C12 and C13 are stable and they are looking for a ‘plant’ signature in burned fuel, not a decay signature. One Small Problem… C4 metabolism plants absorb more C13 than do C3 metabolism plants. Over the last 100 years we’ve planted one heck of a lot more grasses world wide than ever before. Grasses are C4 metabolism…
Have they allowed for this? If so, how? I’m not sure how one would figure out the C4 vs C3 plant population ratio of the world, and certainly don’t see how you would figure out what it was 10,000,000 years ago.
On the naïve and scientifically silly assumption that the only way that plant-based carbon can get into the atmosphere is by people burning fuels, they exult that here indeed is the smoking gun: Decreases of C13 in the atmosphere mean that our sinful combustions are clearly identifiable as major contributors to the 100 ppm increase in CO2 since 1850.
This is misguided, simply because less than a thousandth of the plant-based carbon on earth is bound up in fossil fuel. The rest of the huge remaining tonnages of plant-based carbon are diffused through the oceans, the forests, the grasslands and the soil. In other words, everywhere. Obviously, lots of this C13-deficient carbon has the chance to oxidize into CO2 by paths other than people burning fuel, i.e., the huge amount of plant material that’s naturally eaten or decayed by the biosphere.
And as C4 plants have been sought out (they are more efficient, so more food per growth unit) we get more C13 in the plants. There are even efforts to transplant the C4 genes into C3 plants to get better yield. This would argue for more C13 being sequestered in soils over time as C4 plants have expanded. Have they examined the C12 vs C13 ratio changes in soils over time?
Perhaps even more significant, cold ocean waters absorb lightweight C12 preferentially, resulting in lots of C13-deficient carbon in the oceans. This low-C13 carbon most certainly would have been released massively into the atmosphere over the course of the world’s warming trend since 1850, when the Little Ice Age ended.
And would also argue that volcanic emissions from subduction zone volcanoes ought to be C13 deficient to the degree that ocean bottom ooze is being recycled. Has this been considered?
All of these larger natural pathways for emitting low-C13 carbon into the atmosphere have been considerably accelerated by this same warming trend. So once again, the greenhousers have got it ass-backward. The 100 ppm increase in CO2 can’t be uniquely attributed to humans because at least as plausibly it could be the effect, not the cause, of the warming that started after the Little Ice Age denied by Dr. Michael “Hockey Stick” Mann.
It looks to me like there are very significant issues in trying to assert that C13:C12 ratio changes in the air can tell you anything about CO2 origin in fuel burning…
From: http://www.springerlink.com/content/f5272856220314nk/
We get that the C12:C13 ratio is different in oils than in coals and varies in the source lipids from which oil is made.
Lipid fractions of organisms have consistently lower C13/C12 ratios than do the whole organisms. The average difference between nonlipid and lipid materials for all organisms studied is about 0.5% and ranges in individual species from as little as several hundredths to more than 1.5%. This suggests that petroleums and other noncoaly organic matter in ancient sediments are derived from lipids, or at least from certain components of the lipid fraction. In contrast, coal deposits apparently are derived from whole plants or from the cellulosic fraction of land plants, which is the major nonlipid constituent, of plant tissues.
Has the petroleum from around the world been tested for differences in C12:C13 ratio? I’d expect significant variation based on the above. Is this allowed for in the attribution of atmospheric CO2 to fuel burning?
From:
http://www.isgs.illinois.edu/pttc/Illinois%20petroleum/IP111%20Isotopic%20Identification%20of%20Leakage%20Gas%20from%20Underground%20Storage%20Reservoirs–A%20Progress%20Report.pdf
Bacteriogenic methane from Illinois generally has a C13 values in the range of -64 to -90% relative to the Peedee Belemnite ( PDB ) standard. The 11 samples from pipelines and storage reservoirs that have been analyzed have all had C13 values in the range of -40 to -46%.
Which seems to show that biological source methane can vary widely in C13 content and that pipeline gas is not the same signature as biological, coal, or petroleum. Has this been allowed for? If so, how? (Frankly, given the biological origin variance I don’t see how it’s possible…)
(I hand typed the above quote and there was what looked like maybe a sigma in front of the C13’s… could not get a cut/paste to work fast…)
It looks to me like there are more holes here than bucket… I don’t see how C12:C13 ratio can be reasonably used to make any clear assertion about where the CO2 in the air comes from. How much Clathrate out gasses each year on the ocean bottoms? With what C12:C13 ratio? How much natural gas leaks from the ground? What are the ratios for bacteria produced methane from various ecosystems including ocean bottom? Are they all the same? How do you know? Since bacteria have been shown to eat oil and natural gas, how do you distinguish their CO2 from those eating wood?
Frank. Lansner (14:58:14) :
But if its true that higher CO2 levels promote bigger biosphere (Well, they use 1200ppm CO2 in greenhouse because it works…) Then, a steady extra CO2 every year from humans should have the same effect? But in the same pace, with some lag, the biosphere will seak to eat that “CO2-food” and thus becom bigger and remove CO2 a little faster. So.. at least to some degree, a steady extra CO2 from human “should” only lead to so much extra CO2 in the atmosphere? Just a thought.
I think that is correct. More CO2 -> more growth -> steady state at new biosphere level. You ought to eventually ‘rate limit’ again when plant growth is high enough to suck up the CO2 enough to CO2 concentration limit again.
FWIW, the CO2 vs geologic time graph shows that most plants evolved during times of much higher CO2. The growth response to added CO2 says that plants are nutrient limited on CO2. THAT implies that they have not yet had time to adjust to present abnormally low CO2 levels… They are slightly suffocating and trying to adapt.
(Once a nutrient is available to a plant in sufficient amount, any added amount does not enhance growth. That is how the optimum level is determined. We are not anywhere near optimum CO2 for plant productivity.)
Since Mauna Loa is in the middle of the Pacific, and since we are in a cooling PDO, when should we see Mauna Loa CO2 dropping?
Mike
Mike Bryant (21:13:23) :
Since Mauna Loa is in the middle of the Pacific, and since we are in a cooling PDO, when should we see Mauna Loa CO2 dropping?
Mike
I wouldn’t hold your breath.
http://jisao.washington.edu/pdo/img/pdo_warm_cool.tif
“The change to the 12C:13C isotope ratio of atmospheric CO2 is in the direction expected if the recent increase in atmospheric CO2 concentration were caused by the anthropogenic emission of CO2.”
Last Jan. or Feb. Spencer posted here to the detriment of this hope. Suess was wrong; the 13C:12C ratio of the Mauna Loa seasonal and long term trend data are identical as measured by the F-Test. The source of each is SO SST.
Keeling was wrong; the seasonal signal is not biogenic.
“Yes as shown below, it’s evidently the same one as Kauffman uses since he quotes it verbatim! To reiterate they don’t use H2SO4!”
So if they no longer use H2SO4 then the Callendar-Keeling curve should show a discontinuity of 20ppm where the practice was abandoned, somewhere following the mid-’50s, having been used by the French volumetric method whose data they accept, no?
gary gulrud (06:41:52) :
Suess was wrong;
Actually he was bang on, he was referring to C14. Where do you get this stuff from?
gary gulrud (07:29:30) :
“Yes as shown below, it’s evidently the same one as Kauffman uses since he quotes it verbatim! To reiterate they don’t use H2SO4!”
So if they no longer use H2SO4
There’s no ‘if’ about it, they don’t, as I’ve shown you twice and your own source has confirmed!
Michael S, Peter bartner, Beck:
Besides the many mechanisms that limits CO2 content in icecores, These have another problem for recent years:
As many of you know, ice cores from around 1890 is supposed to hold Air from around 83 years later. Using this believe, that icecores hold 83 younger air made tha ice cores show results that continously fit the data of the 1970´ies.
Otherwise Antarctic data actually showed around 323 ppm for 1890 wich is nmuch too high. It should only show 290 ppm.
But this 83 year data transfer has another problem, i believe.
The argument tha cavities hold 83 yers younger air means, that there are cavities in the ice down to quite big depths. And therefore younger air can penetrade.
Hmmm.
If this is so, is it likely that exactly 83 year old ice-depths can obtain perfectly fresch air, and then 84 year old ice-depths suddenly are shut toatly of fresch air. This is of course extremely unlikely.
If air can come down at these depths, the realistic scenario is, that AIR FROM MANY DIFFERENT YEARS will be mixed. Air from perhaps 100 years earlier will meet and be mixed with air from today.
This means, that ALL smaller vatiations in the icecore air will not be seen. a peak like the one in the 1940´ies will have its extra CO2 mixed with maybe 100 years of atmospheres, making all peaks go away.
So this way, the Antarctis ice cores for sure will reflect very flat continuert curves only. a maybe 100 years-medium CO2 for each year.
So even if we knew a good factor for obtaining correct CO2 levels from Antarctic ice cores, the results would be way too flat.
@E.M.Smith (19:42:00)
Mr Smith, your writing is very interesting and learning indeed, and i can only reccoment everyone to “bookmark” this writing. Good points an usefull links to the subject. The C13/C12 ratio is an often used argument, so dont forget E.M.Smiths summarizing of the issue.
Thanks very much.
“Where do you get this stuff from?”
As noted, WUWT, the 13C:12C fraction of the seasonal signal and long term trends derive from the same source by virtue of presenting the same variance under F-Test. Therefore the ratio of neither can follow from the anthropogenic fluence, it is smaller than the error in measurement.
Freshman chemistry, the partial pressure of CO2 in the ocean, 50,000 Gtons dissolved, 100,000 Gtons precipitate, varies with temperature. The oceanic partial pressure controls atmospheric abundance.
E-folding does not pertain (spectroscopy unnecessary here). Seagalstad surveyed a couple dozen estimates for mean CO2 residence from 5 to 12 years. While the fluence bears mightily on residence time, calculating the former from the latter is impossible.
AIRS and Mauna Loa raw data, AIRS showing 6ppm daily fluctuation at 25,000 feet. Knowing that 1/2 of the atmosphere falls below, and CO2 heavier than air and poorly mixed, then a daily fluence into and back out of the atmosphere of 1/2 of 1/20th 3000 Gtons conservatively yields 80 Gtons. The anthropogenic ‘estimate’ is 30 Gtons.
The Kauffman paper I linked is newer than the one I referred to from memory. Now I do make errors, but the point that the French volumetric method did include this dessication does not depend on that paper. Callendar and Keeling use their data for their putative historic ‘steady state’.
Now, if you have an intelligible argument, why can the ocean not absorb another 30 Gtons? I will accept that it is too cold.
Comments?
Look at the 1991-1993 flattening of atmospheric CO2, especially at Barrow. Coincides with the Pinatubo volcanic eruption. So a little more CO2 (and a lot more SO2) is emitted by a volcano and atmospheric CO2 levels flatten or even decline for two years… …hmmm!
Maybe this is a bit more complicated than the simple mass balance argument would indicate. With apologies to Mies: “More equals less”.
Barrow CO2
ftp://ftp.cmdl.noaa.gov/ccg/co2/in-situ/brw/brw_01C0_mm.co2
Mauna Loa CO2
ftp://ftp.cmdl.noaa.gov/ccg/co2/in-situ/mlo/mlo_01C0_mm.co2
American Samoa
ftp://ftp.cmdl.noaa.gov/ccg/co2/in-situ/smo/smo_01C0_mm.co2
South Pole CO2
ftp://ftp.cmdl.noaa.gov/ccg/co2/in-situ/spo/spo_01C0_mm.co2
_______________________________
See also:
http://www.gsfc.nasa.gov/topstory/20011210co2absorb.html
December 10, 2001 – (date of web publication)
LARGE VOLCANIC ERUPTIONS HELP PLANTS ABSORB MORE CARBON DIOXIDE FROM THE ATMOSPHERE
New NASA-funded research shows that when the atmosphere gets hazy, like it did after the eruption of Mt. Pinatubo in the Philippines in June 1991, plants photosynthesize more efficiently, thereby absorbing more carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
When Mount Pinatubo erupted, scientists noticed the rate at which carbon dioxide (CO2) filled the atmosphere slowed down for the next two years. Also during 1992 and 1993, ash and other particles from the volcano created a haze around the planet and slightly reduced the sunlight reaching Earth’s surface and made the sun’s radiation less direct and more diffuse.
Many scientists previously thought the reduction in sunlight lowered the Earth’s temperature and slowed plant and soil respiration, a process where plants and soil emit CO2. But this new research shows that when faced with diffuse sunlight, plants actually become more efficient, drawing more carbon dioxide out of the air.
“There is evidence indicating that the drop in the atmospheric CO2 growth rate was probably too big to be explained by a reduction in respiration alone,” said the study’s lead author, Lianhong Gu, a researcher at the University of California Berkeley’s Department of Environmental Science, Policy and Management.
Gu added that the respiration rates of plants and soil are sensitive to temperature changes. But “in order to explain the drop in atmospheric growth rate of CO2, we would need an average drop in global temperatures of about 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit (2° C), but the temperatures only dropped by about one degree (0.9) Fahrenheit (0.5°C) globally.”
Plants take in carbon dioxide during photosynthesis in the day, and release it during respiration at night. But they don’t necessarily photosynthesize and respire at the same rates. Since decreased plant and soil respiration could not explain the drop in carbon dioxide entering the atmosphere in 1992 and 1993, Gu and his colleagues deduced that enhanced photosynthesis by plants must be involved.
After Mount Pinatubo erupted, while overall solar radiation was reduced by less than five percent, data showed a reduction of direct radiation by as much as 30 percent. So, instead of direct light, the sun’s rays were reaching leaves after colliding with particles in the air.
“Diffuse radiation has advantages for plants,” Gu said. That’s because when plants receive too much direct light, they become saturated by radiation and their ability to photosynthesize levels off. In the layers of leaves from top to bottom, called the plant canopy, only a small percentage of the leaves at the top actually get hit by direct light. In the presence of diffuse light, plants photosynthesize more efficiently and can draw more than twice as much carbon from the air than when radiated by direct light.
Gu and his colleagues tested the CO2 uptake in various plant ecosystems around the world-including Aspen forests, mixed deciduous forests, Scots pine forests, tallgrass prairies, and a winter wheat field-based on the amount of solar radiation striking the leaves. From these analyses, they generated parameters necessary for evaluating impacts of the Pinatubo eruption. On clear days following the eruption, they found that in all of the ecosystems, photosynthesis increased under the diffuse light.
While large volcanic eruptions are rare, this research has big implications for more regular phenomena such as the effects of aerosols and clouds on an ecosystem’s ability to pull carbon from the atmosphere. Aerosols, or microscopic particles like soot or black carbon in the air, occur naturally but have also been increasing due to human activities since the industrial revolution. Gu’s research indicates that the maximum uptake of carbon dioxide by plant ecosystems occurs when cloud cover is about 50 percent.
The research will be presented at a poster session of the American Geophysical Union (AGU) Fall Meeting in San Francisco, Calif. on December 14, 2001. A paper will be published soon in the Journal of Geophysical Research.
Aside from NASA, the study was also funded by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the Department of Energy, and other organizations, through the FLUXNET program.
Editor’s Note: AGU Title, Time and Location
“Roles of Volcanic Eruptions, Aerosols and Clouds in Global Carbon Cycle”
Friday, December 14, 2001, 8:30 AM, Moscone Center Hall
Question:
Even if one does not agree that ice core CO2 is an accurate indicator of past absolute levels of atmospheric CO2, can one state that directionally, ice core data has some validity, notwithstanding its bias to minimize the actual CO2 concentration/variation at the time of ice deposition?
An analogy would be global Surface Temperature (ST) data – while ST is likely to have a strong warming bias, the “ups and downs” of ST data correlate quite well with those of Lower Troposphere (LT) temperature data.
Oh, help!
I had a background discussion with Frank Lansner a week ago. I was not aware that he published his work here, until today…
Well as a teaser, I have a much better formula for the temperature-CO2 relationship than Frank, that holds for any time period longer than a few years(even for the pre-Mauna Loa period):
dCO2(ppmv) = 3 * dT (over the full period!) + 0.55 * emissions (cumulative)
And Pieter Tans included precipitation. Together with temperature, this explains about 2/3rd of the variation of the increase speed of CO2 around the trend.
See: http://esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/co2conference/pdfs/tans.pdf
Does the formula of Frank explain the trend? No way, temperature only does explain the variability around the trend. Even if you detrend the whole CO2 variability (as Allan MacRae did), you will find the same correlation (and a small lag) between CO2 and temperature. The trend itself is (near) independent of temperature, simply look at three different periods: 1959-1975 and 1998-2008 with near flat or even cooling temperatures and 1976-1997 with increasing temperatures. In all cases, CO2 simply goes up with 55% of the emissions.
That human emissions are the main cause of the increase in the atmosphere is simply a matter of mass balance: as long as the increase in the atmosphere is only halve the emissions, there can’t be any other (net) source, as nature as a whole acts as a sink… See further a lot of supporting evidence:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/co2_measurements.html
Then the ice core data: These are far more reliable than Jaworowski tries to convince you. Jaworowski hasn’t read anything about ice cores after 1991, or he should know better. Like that Etheridge has answered all of his objections in the Law Dome ice cores investigation. There is even an overlap of about 20 years between Law Dome gas bubble CO2 and the South Pole CO2 data of the same age. See:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/jaworowski.html
Then the historical data of Beck: most are at the wrong place (near huge sources) and wrong moment. Measurements at high wind speed and/or over the oceans show about the same CO2 levels as the ice core data of the same period. Other methods (stomata idex, coralline sponges) agree with the ice core data… See:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/beck_data.html
I must admit that I am a little tired of too many discussions about the cause of the increase of CO2 in the atmosphere. Indeed it looks like that too many are looking for alternative explanations (which all fail one or more observations), because that is one of the main points of AGW: if humans are not the cause of the increase, then GW is certainly not AGW…
But even if the increase in CO2 is human-made, that says nothing about the influence of the increase of CO2 on temperature. That should be the main focus of real climate skeptics, the increase of CO2 in the atmosphere is a topic where we only can loose credit…
Ferdinand Engelbeen (09:03:51) :
I think there exists a real reason to question the CO2 measurements and knowledge of sources and sinks. If, for example, the real variation is much less than what is depicted by the hundred or so selected “stable” measurement sites the specter of AGW is diffused; if the real variation in time and space is much greater, the selective measurements become again suspect as being cherry picked within natural tendencies ( like the hockey stick).
Temperature measurements have huge variations in time and space and during the years. I have not seen anybody advocating the CO2 solution: choose “stable” locations and take the measurements at a time where they are low. Take stable background temperatures, like at night in the desert or on top of a mountain in the morning. Rather, global integration is attempted of the average between maxima and minima. Why is not the same solution taken for CO2?
The basic question I have is on the “well mixed”. The AIRS data show that it is not well mixed at 5000 meters or so, and Beck’s compilation of data shows it is not well mixed on the ground level. There is huge diversity in the biosphere of the oceans and I do not accept the argument that it is well mixed there. I am looking forward to the new satellite data which will be able to measure at ground level and find sources (like fires and volcanoes and geothermal vents, and nigh respiration, and cows and cities and …) and sinks ( like forests and plankton etc).
Dear Anna,
There is a huge difference between temperature data and CO2 data. Temperature varies everywhere: diurnal, with sun/clouds, at latitude and altitude. CO2 does the same over land up to the inversion layer (5% of the atmosphere) but does differ much less (less than 5 ppmv NH vs. SH), averaged over a year, in the rest of the atmosphere. Only the seasonal changes, mainly in the NH, gives a change which is higher near ground (+/- 8 ppmv) and more leveled (+/- 5 ppmv) with a 1-2 months delay at height (MLO, 3000 m).
AIRS data are less reliable than atmospheric measurements: accuracy is about +/- 5 ppmv, against NDIR measurements +/-0.1 ppmv. But are interesting to detect and quantify regional sources/sinks. BTW, the AIRS data show similar differences between MLO and the south pole as the local measured data for winter and summer. The “not well mixed” CO2 is mainly the difference of seasonal variations between the NH and the SH, averaged over a year there is little difference and near identical trends.
I have seen you message at the start about CO2 in the oceans: there are huge differences in pCO2 there, but not as much as expected from the solubility curves (which are anyway different from pure water). That is because temperature increases from the poles to the equator at one side, thus increasing pCO2, but biological life increases from the poles to the equator, using CO2, thus decreasing pCO2. That doesn’t fully compensate, but it is not a simple equation. More info can be found at:
http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/pubs/outstand/feel2331/exchange.shtml
and following pages.
Ferdinand Engelbeen (12:57:48) :
Thank you for your reply.
In my humble physicist’s opinion, the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere is one more variable in what is a system of coupled nonlinear differential equations. A prime candidate for a chaotic system. Also in my opinion, averaged global temperature has very little meaning, but such as it is, I would like to see the same methodology applied to all prominent variables and not start comparing temperatures globally with CO2 locally, as is happening now.
Hypotheses are fine, which seems to be much of the content of the link you gave me. They bridge over unknown knowledge and make sense of data. But hypotheses have to be backed by hard and real data and not arguments that seem plausible.
This is more so because we are not discussing the esoteric workings of a scientific discipline with small impact on society. Society is asked to commit economic hara kiri on the basis of these handwaved data, and it is imperative that they are checked in as many ways as possible with hard data that exist now. It is very good that a new satellite will give ground data of all green house gases, so maybe in a year or so we will know much better what is really happening.
Has anybody seen an AIRS plot showing integrated global CO2 versus year?
I just realized I have only seen the animations, that show Mauna Loa climbing and the world getting red. Where is the nitty gritty plot of global CO2 versus year?
Ferdinand:
You yet again promote your flawed mass balance argument when you write here:
“Does the formula of Frank explain the trend? No way, temperature only does explain the variability around the trend. Even if you detrend the whole CO2 variability (as Allan MacRae did), you will find the same correlation (and a small lag) between CO2 and temperature. The trend itself is (near) independent of temperature, simply look at three different periods: 1959-1975 and 1998-2008 with near flat or even cooling temperatures and 1976-1997 with increasing temperatures. In all cases, CO2 simply goes up with 55% of the emissions.
That human emissions are the main cause of the increase in the atmosphere is simply a matter of mass balance: as long as the increase in the atmosphere is only halve the emissions, there can’t be any other (net) source, as nature as a whole acts as a sink… See further a lot of supporting evidence:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/co2_measurements.html”
Elsewhere I have repeatedly pointed out to you that your argument is based on a mathematical error and a circular argument.
And I have repeatedly explained to you that it is nonsense to assert – as you again do here –
“That human emissions are the main cause of the increase in the atmosphere is simply a matter of mass balance: as long as the increase in the atmosphere is only halve the emissions, there can’t be any other (net) source, as nature as a whole acts as a sink.”
Your assertion is rubbish!
It is a mathematical fact that the net effect of changes to two unknowns cannot indicate the change to either or both of them.
The natural sinks and the natural sources may both have varied to provide the resulting observed increase to the CO2 in the atmosphere. The variation of the sinks and the variation of sources are two unknowns each year. In any time period (e.g. 1, 5, 10 or 50 years), the sources may have increased or reduced, and the sinks may have increased or reduced. The resulting net effect of their changes tells nothing about how much (or in what direction) either changed.
For example, the CO2 in the air would increase if the emissions and sequestrations both reduced if the sequestration reduced by more than the emission reduced.
But you assert:
“as long as the increase in the atmosphere is only halve the emissions, there can’t be any other (net) source, as nature as a whole acts as a sink “
And it is important to note that in this assertion, when you say “the emissions” you mean “only the anthropogenic emissions”.
Your assertion is mathematically false because the natural emissions and the natural sequestrations may both be changing and the effect of their net change could be much greater than the anthropogenic emission.
Furthermore, it is an empirical fact that within each year the natural emissions and sequestrations do both change and by an order of magnitude greater than the anthropogenic emission (as I have repeatedly shown you).
Indeed, this is why I have repeatedly said to you:
“Any assessment of the causes of the rise of atmospheric CO2 concentration over a period of years requires assessment of the changes that occur each year (because the annual increase to CO2 in the atmosphere is the residual of the seasonal changes to CO2 in the atmosphere).”
And I have said this because the natural emissions and sequestrations are seen to both change and by an order of magnitude greater than the anthropogenic emission within each year.
So, in summation, it is my contention that your entire argument is based on a mathematical error.
I have repeatedly explained this to you and you have never provided a proper answer but continue to promote your flawed mass balance argument (as you yet again do here).
Happy New Year
Richard
Hi Anna,
Here is NOAA’s data for monthly global CO2. I’m not sure if this is exactly what you want – it’s a result of several measurement points around the globe, and results are a bit less than those at Mauna Loa. Data goes back to 1980 and takes a few months to arrive – the latest month available as of now is September 2008.
ftp://ftp.cmdl.noaa.gov/ccg/co2/trends/co2_mm_gl.txt
You can copy the data into Excel, then use “Data>Text to Columns”; then insert a “decimal year” column, and run an Excel x-y plot. Or you can go to my paper and spreadsheet, somewhat dated now, at
http://icecap.us/images/uploads/CO2vsTMacRae.pdf
and
http://icecap.us/images/uploads/CO2vsTMacRaeFig5b.xls
To see the large, attenuating natural annual variation in atmospheric CO2 from North to South, run the same plot for CO2 data for Barrow, Mauna Loa, Samoa and South Pole. Run it all on the same graph, and then just wonder at the stunning beauty of this data.
Barrow CO2
ftp://ftp.cmdl.noaa.gov/ccg/co2/in-situ/brw/brw_01C0_mm.co2
Mauna Loa CO2
ftp://ftp.cmdl.noaa.gov/ccg/co2/in-situ/mlo/mlo_01C0_mm.co2
American Samoa
ftp://ftp.cmdl.noaa.gov/ccg/co2/in-situ/smo/smo_01C0_mm.co2
South Pole CO2
ftp://ftp.cmdl.noaa.gov/ccg/co2/in-situ/spo/spo_01C0_mm.co2
Happy Holidays to all!
Allan
Hi Ferdinand and Richard,
I think it is safe to say that Ferdinand is convinced that the recent increase in atmospheric CO2 is definitely caused by fossil fuel combustion, while Richard and I regard this point as debatable.
Can we for the purposes of this note focus on what we agree upon.
Would you both agree that:
1. There is NO convincing evidence that global warming is driven primarily by increased atmospheric CO2.
2. There is significant evidence that global warming is NOT primarily driven by atmospheric CO2.
3. Global temperature increases and decreases are natural and cyclical.
4. Spending tens of trillions of dollars on CO2 abatement is a huge waste of scarce global resources.
Best regards, Allan
Thank you Allan,
Though this is not what I am looking for, it is interesting to look at.
I am sorry to say that I am not an EXCEL or any modern stuff adept, as my data analysis years, and therefore tools, ended in the year 2000 with retirement. Maybe old dogs can learn new tricks, but the motivation would have to be great 🙂
I am looking of an integration over the AIRS data, given vividly in http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a000000/a003500/a003562/
a colorful month by month animation. AIRS has the advantage that it sees the whole globe at 5000 meters and thus could provide a real integration of global CO2 at that height with no monte carlo interpolations.
Dear Richard,
I don’t think that we ever will reach an agreement, as solid arguments seems not to reach you. The mass balance is a very solid argument, as what is emitted by humans doesn’t disappear by magic and is added to the atmosphere, even if one second later some of the human CO2 is absorbed by plants or by the oceans, that is at the cost of natural CO2 which should have been used instead. Thus human emissions increase the total CO2 content of the atmosphere, no matter if the emitted molecules are captured in other reservoirs (oceans, biosphere) sooner or later…
You assert:
As I have repeatedly said, the height and variability of individual natural flows or even the sum of all sources or all sinks has not the slightest interest for the endresult. What counts is the sum of all natural in and outflows together over a year, as that is what influences the increase or decrease in the atmosphere, not a change in any individual or total input(s) and/or output(s). And the sum of all natural in and outflows together is known with reasonable accuracy, as that is the difference between the calculated emissions and the measured increase in the atmosphere, which is negative over the past 50 years.
Thus even if no one knows the distribution of CO2 in the natural sources and sinks with sufficient accuracy, the net result over a year is known.
The mass balance for any number of years is:
dCO2 = sum of sources – sum of sinks + accumulated emissions
in average per year:
4 GtC +/- 2.5 GtC = sum of sources – sum of sinks + 7 GtC
Thus the sum of sources – sum of sinks = – 3 +/- 2.5 GtC
So where is the mathematical error?
That simply means that the sum of the natural sinks for any year in the past 50 years was larger then the sum of the natural sources. Or nature did add zero net CO2 to the atmosphere in the past 50 years. No matter if the seasonal or continuous sum of sources was 50 or 100 or 1,000 GtC within a year, or changed from 100 GtC in one year to 200 GtC next year… the difference with the sinks within the same year was always negative and between -0.5 and -5.5 GtC…
Happy New Year to all
Dear Anna,
The yearly averages also can be found at the CDIAC web site at:
http://cdiac.ornl.gov/trends/co2/contents.html
But if you click on the individual sites, you will see an error message. That is because they are changing their file system. If you change the extension of the filename from .htm into .html everything works fine and you can use the data further in Excel or other programs.
I have made a plot of the yearly averages of a few base stations, including an outlier station (Schauinsland):
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/co2_trends.jpg
As you can see, there is little difference between the stations, the largest difference of a few ppmv is between the NH and the SH, as the ITCZ hinders the exchange of air masses between the hemispheres. That also points to the NH as the main source of the increase. The average of these stations can be used as “global”, but many use the Mauna Loa data as these have the longest record.
It is true that there are a lot of non-linear processes at work in the carbon cycles, therefore is remarkable that the influence of temperature on CO2 levels over short (months) to long (millennia) time periods is surprisingly linear: on short term about 3 ppmv/°C, on longer term (ice ages – interglacials) about 8 ppmv/°C. See the Vostok plot here:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/Vostok_trends.gif
That the Vostok ice core CO2 is smoothed (about 600 years) plays no role for the ratio between temperature and CO2 level, as an interglacial holds at least 10,000 years and an ice age about 90,000 years…
“even if one second later some of the human CO2 is absorbed by plants or by the oceans, that is at the cost of natural CO2 which should have been used instead.”
Ferdinand Engelbeen
“as what is emitted by humans doesn’t disappear by magic and is added to the atmosphere, even if one second later some of the human CO2 is absorbed by plants or by the oceans, that is at the cost of natural CO2 which should have been used instead.”
There is a logical slip here: if instead of “one second later” you substitute “one day later” it is quite possible that algae and plankton will happily reproduced with the extra deltaCO2 coming from humans an extra deltaGrams and will absorb it fully. You are not accounting for the great flexibility of the biosystem to expand to fill the food source available, and CO2 is a food source for plants. Have you ever seen the icky plankton covering kilometersquare of sea because of the fertilizers coming down from the rivers?
I am not saying it is so. I am saying that one needs careful measurements to say what is happening, because this may be so.
It is true that there are a lot of non-linear processes at work in the carbon cycles, therefore is remarkable that the influence of temperature on CO2 levels over short (months) to long (millennia) time periods is surprisingly linear: on short term about 3 ppmv/°C, on longer term (ice ages – interglacials) about 8 ppmv/°C.
Also on the uniformity etc of the official data: The AIRS data over the globe is not uniform within 15ppm. I am suspicious of cherry picking in the uniformity, particularly as I learned that the time of day and the location etc are carefully picked, and also that corrections are applied for volcanic CO2 in Mauna Loa. I need independent data, and a plot of global CO2 from AIRS would be one such source.
In my view, Vostock etc data even if all the criticisms on the way things are measured etc, and there are many, do not hold, are good for measuring what the CO2 was at those times in Vostock.
I do not accept the “well mixed” dictum without further solid independent experimental proof.
@Ferdinand
Hi again, and thanks for mail conversation earlier, as you mention.
You write above:
“No way, temperature only does explain the variability around the trend. …. simply look at three different periods: 1959-1975 and 1998-2008 with near flat or even cooling temperatures and 1976-1997 with increasing temperatures.”
So you expect that FLAT temperatures should lead to something in the CO2 curve?
The relationship obvious from the graph was roughly:
CO2 rise/year = 3,5*Temp.anomalyUah + 0,95.
CO2 stagnation at approx -0,32 K
So this means, that CO2 rise/year is dependent on the temperature level.
NOT if the temperature curve is flat, rising or falling. No. The temperature level!
So a falling temperature can lead to positive CO2 rise/year if the temperature level is not too low – over minus -0,32K UAH.
BUT!!!
My main point is NOT to establish some quantitative excact relationship.
My point was to show that variations in temperature leads to variations in CO2rise/year. And just few years with a changed temperature level will lead to a difference in CO2 level bigger than seen in thousand years of Antarctic ICE cores. This, Ferdinand, have you not mentioned. But its the main point.
If you have any real arguments here, please “come forward”.
k.R. Frank Lansner
Allan:
You ask Ferdinand and me:
“Would you both agree that:
1. There is NO convincing evidence that global warming is driven primarily by increased atmospheric CO2.
2. There is significant evidence that global warming is NOT primarily driven by atmospheric CO2.
3. Global temperature increases and decreases are natural and cyclical.
4. Spending tens of trillions of dollars on CO2 abatement is a huge waste of scarce global resources. ”
I agree with each of your four points listed above.
I cannot answer for Ferdinand because he and I do not agree on so much that I would not presume to speak for him.
Ferdinand:
Elsewhere we have debated at length and repeatedly why I cannot accept your ‘mass balance assertions’. Here I have again explained why I am certain that your argument is based on a mathematical error. Solid arguments always reach me, but logical errors fall off me like water from a duck. And, as Anna says, arguments concerning “one second later” are – at best – “a logical slip”.
Above, you ask me:
“The mass balance for any number of years is:
dCO2 = sum of sources – sum of sinks + accumulated emissions in average per year:
4 GtC +/- 2.5 GtC = sum of sources – sum of sinks + 7 GtC
Thus the sum of sources – sum of sinks = – 3 +/- 2.5 GtC
So where is the mathematical error?”
I answer:
Your mathematical error is that the natural ‘sum of sources’ and the natural ‘sum of sinks’ are variables but you assume they are constants.
Both the variables are observed to vary by an order of magnitude more than the annual anthropogenic emission each year. Hence, is extremely unlikely that the residual of their change is less than the anthropogenic emission each year.
Indeed, as I have repeatedly pointed out to you elsewhere, the annual anthropogenic emission is less than 0.02% of the carbon flowing around the carbon cycle. It is a very gross assumption that the carbon cycle varies by less than 0.02% p.a. because few – if any – other processes in nature are that stable.
Furthermore, as I have repeatedly explained to you elsewhere, the annual increase of the anthropogenic emissions is about 0.1 GtC/year. The natural fluctuation of the excess consumption is at least 12 GtC in 4 months. This is more than 100 times the yearly increase of human production, which strongly suggests that the dynamics of the rapid natural sequestration processes can easily cope with the human production of CO2 at each of the observed locations.
You and I have debated these matters repeatedly with no progress. Hence, having stated my reasons for rejecting your ‘mass balance assertion’ I leave it to others here to evaluate those reasons and I withdraw from the debate.
But if anybody here can tell me why my reasons for rejecting your ‘mass balance assertion’ are wrong then I would be grateful to learn that. In fact, I would be very, very grateful because I want to know the cause(s) of the recent rise in atmospheric CO2 concentration and – at present – there is no evidence that any of the recent rise in atmospheric CO2 concentration does or does not have an anthropogenic cause.
Richard
Dear Anna,
There is a relationship between CO2 levels in the atmosphere and the use of CO2 by the biosphere, mainly by land plants. But that is far from equal: a doubling of CO2 gives an increase of 1.2 to 1.8 in growth, all other necessities (temperature, sunlight, water, fertilisers, minerals) being available in sufficient quantities. But in many cases some of the other items is the limiting factor. For algues, iron and other minerals are the limiting factors and in most cases CO2 (as -bi-carbonate) is more than abundant available…
But CO2 is soluble in seawater and a higher pressure in the atmosphere will force more CO2 into the oceans. Again, as in many processes (natural or not), the system/cycle/process reacts against a disturbance, but that is seldom 100% in a short time.
Thus no matter what causes an increase in CO2, this will lead to a new equilibrium, which may be the old equilibrium after a one-time injection (e.g. volcanic) or an equilibrium at another level caused by a change in temperature or at a higher level caused by continuous emissions. Or never reach a new equilibrium if the emissions increase at a constant rate (which is the case by now).
The official data from continuous CO2 measurements are not uniform over the seasons. There is a relative huge variability near ground in the NH (Barrow), less at 3,000 m (MLO) and very low in the SH (south pole). This leads to differences of up to 6 ppmv between MLO and the south pole (and probably more between Barrow and SPO). The scale of the AIRS film is 15 ppmv, but that includes a 10 ppmv increase of CO2 levels in the period 2002-2008.
And I have looked for a comparison at specific months:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/month_2002_2004.jpg if you compare specific months with the AIRS data, then we see a similar result:
For July 2003, the difference between Mauna Loa (20 N) and the South Pole (90 S) data is 3-4 ppmv. According to the satellite measurements, it is 3 ppmv
For May 2003, the difference between MLO and SPO data is 6-7 ppmv. According to the satellite: 4 ppmv
Not bad for the “local” data… Anyway, the yearly average trends are similar for all places all over the world, away from local sources. It doesn’t matter if one includes or excludes outliers due to upwind (vegetation depleted) or downwind (volcanic increased) conditions in the Mauna Loa data, or if one uses the data of the south pole, or Barrow, in all cases the trend doesn’t differ with more than a few tenths of a ppmv… And the averages within one hemisphere are not more than 2 ppmv different.
The AIRS data show the same trend: if one compares the color changes for one specific month over 5 years, that represents about 10 ppmv increase, similar to the station data…
Dear Frank,
There are a problems with your temperature level dependent CO2 release.
In no case of the past, there was a continuous release or uptake of CO2 caused by temperature changes. If there was no equilibrium, then CO2 levels would go to (near) zero, killing all plants during ice ages. And during the Eemian, the previous interglacial, temperatures were 1-2 degr.C higher than today, thus a constant increase of 5 ppmv/yr during about 15,000 years would give an increase of 75,000 ppmv CO2… That is physically impossible.
The same for even more recent periods. Depending of the reconstruction one prefers, we may assume that the LIA was about 0.8 degr.C colder than today (Moberg, Esper, Huang). Thus a decrease below “zero” level of about -0.5 deg.C * 3.5 ppmv/yr * 200 years gives a drop larger than the CO2 content of the atmosphere…
And the same for the most recent pre-satellite period 1945-1975. If we may take the HadSST sea temperature data as alternative (the curve is quite similar to the satellite curve, be it that the trend is somewhat steeper in the overlapping period), the temperature was about 0.2 degr. below zero line, which would give a drop of 21 ppmv, while we see a rise of 20 ppmv in that period…
You may object that, except for the most recent period, these were other circumstances than today. But as there is little change in the configuration of the continents over the past million years, we may assume that the same changes in terrestrial/solar cycles will have a similar effect on temperature. And that the effect of temperature on CO2 levels would be unique for the past 30 years would be quite strange.
The alternative formula, that a change in temperature causes a change in dynamic equilibrium between CO2 release and CO2 absorption is far more normal in nature: higher temperatures lead to a new equilibrium at a higher CO2 level. The fast response from oceans and vegetation (opposite to each other) leads to a change of about 3 ppmv/°C, while the long term response (including ice sheet/vegetation surface area and -deep- ocean current changes) is about 8 ppmv/°C. Thus a temperature change leads to a limited CO2 change, not a continuous one.
So, what is the source of that extra CO2? The human emissions are a clear candidate for that role, as the increase in the atmosphere is about 55% of the emissions over 100+ years and parts of it… See:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/temp_emiss_increase.jpg
Ferdinand Engelbeen
It is not that I am saying you are wrong in your budget. I am saying that we do not have enough data to know whether you are right or wrong.
I am also saying that I do not trust the official data that are made by people with a clear AGW agenda, after the fiasco of the hockey stick. Before that I tended like most scientists to trust on the scientific integrity of the other scientific disciplines as I would expect them to trust in my discipline ( particle high energy physics). I had only seen political biases within the scientific community, n whose experiment would pass and that sort of thing, and the fights were above board and scientifically clear. I was rudely awakened byt the hockey stick fiasco, because I knew that there existed a mediaval warm period where Greenland was green. Why, it was not long ago that in the alps a mummy was found that showed that those passes were passable in the prehistoric past, and therefore warmer than now. So the hockey stick smelled from a mile away and made me start reading the IPCC report and start discovering more discrepancies with data.
So you will excuse me from not believing the CO2 compilations by people with vested interests until more data and from different people (like Beck’s compilation, and the new satallite) come to light. I do not trust handwaving and plots, I need hard numbers from the horse’s mouth.
BTW the scale is over 15 even if you stick to those July 2003 data which were the only ones published for years and years.
Allan:
You ask Richard and me:
“Would you both agree that:
1. There is NO convincing evidence that global warming is driven primarily by increased atmospheric CO2.
2. There is significant evidence that global warming is NOT primarily driven by atmospheric CO2.
3. Global temperature increases and decreases are natural and cyclical.
4. Spending tens of trillions of dollars on CO2 abatement is a huge waste of scarce global resources. ”
I agree to a large extent with these points, with some nuance: Based on physics, there must be a small influence of CO2 levels on temperature, but until now, that is not measurable in the data records (neither in detailed ice core records).
Richard:
I will show my viewpoint for the sake of new readers and refrain of further discussions, except for one point:
But I wrote:
Does that sound as assuming that the sum of sources (or sinks) was constant? The difference between sum of sources and sum of sinks is what is calculated as difference between calculated emissions and measured increase in the atmosphere and as that was always negative in the past 50 years, it shows a variability of sink capacity of nature between 0.5 and 5.5 GtC/yr. That is all. No matter how large the total in and outflows were. That is completely unimportant, only the difference between total inflows and total outflows is important. See:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/dco2_em.jpg
(1 ppmv is about 2.1 GtC)
That the year by year sink capacity variability is relative small (about 3% of the estimated total flows involved), may have to do with the fact that temperature works in opposite ways for oceans (higher gives more CO2 release) than for vegetation (higher gives more CO2 uptake), which makes that the overall variability is less than the individual variability…
As a much used example: You start a bussiness and add 1,000 euro to the cash register for the first day. After a lot of transactions (deliveries and sales) at the end of the day, you find 500 euro in your cash register. Next day you add 1,000 euro again to the cash register, thus starting the fresh day with 1,500 euro, to find back 1,000 euro after a lot of transactions at the end of the day. And so on… Bad bussiness anyway, as you will soon run out of credit…
Does one need to know (in detail or total) how much was sold or bought that day? Not at all, as the net result is obvious from what is counted in the cash register at the end of the day. And is anybody here thinking that there may be another source of the 500 euro per day increase seen in the cash register than the 1,000 euro of own money added each day, even if the 1,000 euro is only 0.02% of total sales/intake during the day?
Besides the mass balance, there are a lot of other indications that human emissions are the cause of the increase:
– the d13C decrease in the atmosphere and oceans: these exclude (deep) oceans as source, as deep oceans have a higher d13C level than the atmosphere, but levels are decreasing.
– the d14C decrease in the atmosphere: radiocarbon dating needed a correction after about 1870 for the addition of d14C depleted CO2 from fossil fuel burning.
– the decrease of pH in the oceans: this shows -again- that oceans are a sink for CO2, not a source.
– the oxygen use: oxygen use is slightly less than wat is calculated from fossil fuel burning. That means that the biosphere is a net source of oxygen, thus a net sink of CO2 and especially of 12CO2, thus can’t be responsible for the d13C decrease and total CO2 increase.
– the process characteristics: the whole CO2 balance behaves as a simple linear first order physical process on a continuous increasing disturbance, with a near-fit at 55% of the emissions. There is positive correlation with temperature when both go up, but a negative correlation if temperature goes down or is near flat, while CO2 levels are steadily rising.
More detailed reading at:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/co2_measurements.html
@Engelbeen
You write: “There are a problems with your temperature level dependent CO2 release. “
No there is not, mr Engelbeen.
You write: “If there was no equilibrium, then…”
I wrote: “The quick response up and down for CO2 trend shortly after temperature changes suggests that we see a “dance” around equilibrium conditions in nature. ”
You write: “thus a constant increase of 5 ppmv/yr during about 15,000 years would give an increase of 75,000 ppm CO2… That is physically impossible.”
I wrote in my first article, icecap that I know you have read: “Obviously much longer time trends could behave differently etc. But at least on the shorter scale no matter how you pick the data points…”
And then in the present WUWT article AND in the comments exactly the longer time trend has been discussed and analysed much further, for example:
“On the graph, I have illustrated that there is a longer trend difference between CO2 and Temperature. Thus, the “constant” of the equation should be a variable as it varies with time (1979: 0,7 2008: 1,2).
The trend difference means, that from 1979 to 2008 the CO2-rise per year compared to the global temperatures has fallen 0,5 ppm/year, or the other way around: It now takes approx. +0,15 K global temperature anomaly more to achieve the same level of CO2 rise/year as it did in 1979”
“So today we have a larger biosphere. Every single extra plant or plankton cell will demand its share of CO2. It takes more CO2 to feed a larger biosphere. More CO2 is pulled out of the atmosphere today than earlier. An enormous negative feedback on CO2 levels”
Long term trends, visible over some decades:
More CO2 => Bigger biosphere => Bigger biosphere keeps CO2 from rising faster.
Less CO2 => Smaller biosphere => smaller biosphere eats less CO2 and prevents CO2 levels from falling too much.
(there has been suggested more influences than biosphere for long term trends, but biosphere so far gives the best fit wuth data)
Short term trends, visible from year to year:
CO2 is very dependent on temperature levels.
CO2 is sensitive to vulcanic eruptions etc.
So long term trends act as negative feedback on CO2 levels, and therefore your physically impossible scenario is impossible indeed and has nothing to do with my writings or opinions in any way.
Before writing more, please read the article and discussion, and then im very very interested indeed in what your inputs are.
Anna V
We have had conversations in various forums re Beck, Co2 levels and the official mauna loa figures. I jokingly said if Anthony could come up with a co2 analyser at a popular price he would make a fortune as;
a) People would find it interesting to take measurements of c02
b) Some of us are increasingly sceptical about ‘official’ figures-such as the nonsensical global temperatures since 1850, sea levels and co2 measurements.
As a similar project to Anthony’s surface stations project if we could get a reliable, cheap, and easy to use analyser-and I don’t know if such a thing even exists-it would be interesting to have a number of people in various continents comparing data. It doesn’t need to be expensively precise-plus or minus 3% is close enough.
It has to be more reliable than the weather station I got for Christmas though, which together with my watch weather predictor and my existing internal weather station, are all telling me its been raining steadily for the last two days when in fact its been gloriously sunny but with a fairly high humidity (we live next to the ocean)
Anyone up for our own monitoring of co2 levels-if it is at all practical?
TonyB
Dear Frank,
It all boils down to the basic assumption that temperature is causing not only the variability around the trend but also is responsible for the trend itself. That is the basic problem.
Take your interpretation of the CO2/temperature curve as base, your graph at
http://www.klimadebat.dk/forum/attachments/195405co2uah.gif
shows three different rates for CO2 increase for a change in absolute temperature:
1958-1967: -0.315 K + 0.95
1967-1977: +0.105 K + 0.95
1977-2005: +0.630 K + 0.95
With other words, the factor one need, to obtain the observed trend in CO2 is not constant, even starts negative, as the period 1958-1967 was below the (2008 obtained) zero line, thus should give a decrease in CO2, while an increase is found. Thus the absolute temperature influence on CO2 levels does only hold for the past 40 years, where temperature and CO2 levels both go up, or are above the zero line.
All together, the formula doesn’t fit any of the previous periods, be it 1958-1967 (negative factor!), the LIA and the ice age / interglacials. And deducing any consequences for the reliability of ice core measurements on a formula that only holds for the past 40 years is a little premature…
Further, what happens with the human emissions? If you plot the emissions together with the UAH/dCO2 curve, you will see that the emissions are about twice the yearly increase of CO2 in the atmosphere:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/dco2_em.jpg
In your formula, the emissions have no influence on the trend at all. Well, that is physically impossible if you make a mass balance: if vegetation and oceans together were a net source, then we should find an increase in the atmosphere larger than the addition by the emissions alone. But the increase is less than the emissions, thus part of the emissions (not all, about 45%) is absorbed by the oceans and/or biosphere. From the oxygen and d13C balances, one may deduce that the biosphere absorbs about 1.4 GtC/yr and the oceans about 2 GtC/yr. No room for anything else than the emissions you left out in your formula to explain the increase in the atmosphere. See:
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/287/5462/2467
Thus you formula simply is wrong. Does that mean that there is no relationship between temperature and CO2 levels? Not at all, there is a short time, fast, relationship of 3 ppmv/°C (note: NOT 3 ppmv/°C/year!) around the trend. That increases to 8 ppmv/°C for long term changes in temperature. With other words, a temperature increase gives slightly more CO2 in the atmosphere, until a new equilibrium between ocean release/absorption and biosphere aborption/release is established. The total formula then is:
dCO2 = F * dT(°C) + 0.55 * (accumulated emissions)
where F changes with duration from 3-8
And the lag of CO2 after temperature changes also increases with duration.
This formula holds for all circumstances (as long as the emissions increase) over the past near one million years. That includes the full 150 years of emissions, the LIA cooling and the ice age/interglacial transitions…
Regards,
Ferdinand
Sorry, made a mistake, the emissions/increase/temperature curve I have plotted is based on the HadSST temperature data, not from UAH, as these start only after 1979… That doesn’t change much in the relationship temperature-CO2, only the HadSST trend is somewhat higher in the overlapping period.
Dear Frank,
About the ice cores:
Most of what you write is what you have read from Jaworowski. To say it politely, take everything that he says with a lot of salt. He has obviously not read anything from the scientific literature since 1991, or he should know better.
Most of the objections he wrote (and still writes) were answered by the thorough investigation by Etheridge of the Law Dome ice cores:
http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/1996/95JD03410.shtml
Three ice cores with very high accumulation rates (1.5 m ice equivalent/year) for two of them, drilled with three different techniques (wet and dry), without clathrates or cracks in the ice, were compared. And they included measurements of CO2 in air from the firn from the surface to the closing depth of the air bubbles in the ice, again with different equipment. The ice CO2 and the firn CO2 at closing depth was identical in level, thus no fractionation of CO2 was found.
The ice age – gas age difference was established by following the CO2 level in firn, which showed a difference of 10 years with the surface at closing depth, while the ice at closing depth was 40 years old. Thus the ice age – gas age difference for the two fastest accumulating cores is about 30 years. Nothing arbitrarely shifted at all:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/law_dome_firn.jpg
The average closing period was 8 years, thus the ice core CO2 in the bubbles is an average of 8 years of CO2 levels. Including this, there is an overlapping period of about 20 years between the ice core CO2 measurements and the south pole atmospheric measurements:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/law_dome_sp_co2.jpg
That the ice core CO2 levels are reasonable for CO2 measurements can be seen as different ice cores at very different snow/ice temperatures, inclusions (coastal salts vs. inland salts content), accumulation rates, ice age – gas age differences,… show the same CO2 levels (within 5 ppmv) for overlapping periods of gas age.
See further my comment on Jaworowski at:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/jaworowski.html
Dear Frank,
About Beck’s data:
While I admire the tremendous amount of work Ernst Beck has done, we differ a lot in opinion about what to make of the historical measurements.
The main problem: most of the data were obtained from places where huge local sources/sinks (forests, industry, towns) are at work. Such places vary enormously in diurnal, seasonal and yearly averages. See e.g. modern measurements at Diekirch (Luxemburg) over a few days in summer:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/diekirch_diurnal.jpg
And compare that to the CO2 levels for the same days at Mauna Loa (or you can take data from anyware, away from local sources):
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/mlo2005_hr_week.jpg
Note: while we used the same scale as for Diekirch, the MLO data are the raw hourly CO2 levels, without pre- or postprocessing, thus including local influences of upwind conditions (depleted by vegetation at about -2 ppmv).
The problem with the historical data (besides accuracy and repeatability and quality control questions,…) is that many of the series or single measurements were done at such places like Diekirch, which introduces a strong positive bias. Simply look at the wind speed – CO2 level of Diekirch: with wind speeds over 2 m/s, the CO2 levels are around the Mauna Loa values. That points to a better mixing with overlying layers of air, which have “background” CO2 level.
If one looks at the minima of the historical CO2 ranges in each year, these encompass the ice core levels, and the minima are (as in modern times) found at higher wind speeds. Most measurements over the oceans also are at the lower side and their averages are near the ice core CO2 levels, where the ranges overlap each other:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/beck_1930_1950.jpg
Further, if the averaging of CO2 measurements would be right, then the Law Dome ice core should show at least a part of the +80 ppmv rise in the period 1937-1950, with a 8 years smoothing. It doesn’t (even a dip, but that is within the error margin of the ice core measurement). Neither do stomata index data nor corraline sponges show a significant change if such a huge global increase and decrease of CO2 should have occured…
See further my detailed comments on Beck’s data here:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/beck_data.html
Thank you Anna,
I have examined the 15fps AIRS data animation of global CO2 at
http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a000000/a003500/a003562/carbonDioxideSequence2002_2008_at15fps.mp4
It is difficult to see the impact of humanity in this impressive display of nature’s power.
Still, as Ferdinand points out, annual CO2 concentration keeps increasing at ~1.5ppm/year – even as CO2 fluctuates by up to ~16ppm/year in its natural seasonal sawtooth pattern.
Questions for discussion by all:
1. IF annual atmospheric CO2 declines in the coming years contemporaneous with global cooling (or soon thereafter), what does this prove, if anything?
2. IF annual atmospheric CO2 continues to increase in the coming years contemporaneous with significant global cooling, what does this prove, if anything?
3. If CO2 drives temperature as the IPCC alleges, how is it that the only signal apparent in the data is that CO2 lags temperature by ~9 months? See
http://icecap.us/images/uploads/CO2vsTMacRae.pdf
4. Is the aforementioned ~9 month lag in CO2 after temperature consistent with the ~600 year lag in CO2 after temperature observed in ice core data?
Regards, Allan
Allan:
I provide my answers to your questions and anticipate different answers from others.
Questions for discussion by all:
1. IF annual atmospheric CO2 declines in the coming years contemporaneous with global cooling (or soon thereafter), what does this prove, if anything?
A1.
It would “prove” nothing but would be useful information. Anyway, it is a hypothetical question and, therefore, of no real interest.
2. IF annual atmospheric CO2 continues to increase in the coming years contemporaneous with significant global cooling, what does this prove, if anything?
A2.
It would “prove” nothing but would be useful information. Anyway, it is a hypothetical question and, therefore, of no real interest.
3. If CO2 drives temperature as the IPCC alleges, how is it that the only signal apparent in the data is that CO2 lags temperature by ~9 months? See
http://icecap.us/images/uploads/CO2vsTMacRae.pdf
A3.
I do not agree that CO2 drives temperature and, therefore, I cannot comment.
4. Is the aforementioned ~9 month lag in CO2 after temperature consistent with the ~600 year lag in CO2 after temperature observed in ice core data?
A4.
Yes. There are several possible reasons for temperature to affect atmospheric CO2 concentration and they have different time constants. For example, the 9 month lag could be a change to release of CO2 from the ocean surface layer in response to a temperature change which would occur within months. And the ~600 year lag could be an effect of alterations to temperature and pH of the ocean surface layer induced by return from deep ocean of water that entered the thermohaline circulation ~600 years earlier.
I hope these answers are what you wanted from me.
Happy New Year.
Richard
TonyB (15:24:16) :
Hi Tony,
Anyone up for our own monitoring of co2 levels-if it is at all practical?
If the price of a measuring device came below 100$ I would get one if we were trying to make a moonshine CO2 net :). The cheapest I found on the net were 399$, and had battery power for less than 48 hours.
I am in Greece and have some mobility. My summer house is on a small peninsula of the Corinth gulf, and there are mountains around Athens I can easily access.
Allan M R MacRae (04:25:03) :
Questions for discussion by all:
1. IF annual atmospheric CO2 declines in the coming years contemporaneous with global cooling (or soon thereafter), what does this prove, if anything?
That the turn around of CO2 is much shorter than the decades/aeons claimed by the AGW studies,
2. IF annual atmospheric CO2 continues to increase in the coming years contemporaneous with significant global cooling, what does this prove, if anything?
That there is a source of CO2: human, forest and carbon fires, volcanic, geothermal . Human connected wildfires should be a function of population and population rises. Maybe there is an increase in volcanic activity. It would have to be studied.
3. If CO2 drives temperature as the IPCC alleges, how is it that the only signal apparent in the data is that CO2 lags temperature by ~9 months? See
http://icecap.us/images/uploads/CO2vsTMacRae.pdf
It proves that it does not drive temperature.
4. Is the aforementioned ~9 month lag in CO2 after temperature consistent with the ~600 year lag in CO2 after temperature observed in ice core data?
Other sinks/sources than the obvious biological/solubility ones for the 9 months?
Dear Ferdinand!
Thank you for writing again, its very appreciated, and I find the dialog important.
You write: “It all boils down to the basic assumption that temperature is causing not only the variability around the trend but also is responsible for the trend itself. That is the basic problem.”
I dont say that temperature determines the long term trend of CO2 rise/year, where have you read that? We will get back to that.
In addition you have misunderstood my so called “rough” equation:
CO2 rise/year = 3,5 *TEMP(Kelvin) + 0,95.
http://www.klimadebat.dk/forum/attachments/195405co2uah.gif
1958-67:
0,67ppm/year = 3,5* TEMP(Kelvin) + 0,95 => TEMP near -0,09 Kelvin
1967-77:
1,07ppm/year = 3,5* TEMP(Kelvin) + 0,95 => TEMP near +0,03 Kelvin
1977-05:
1,60ppm/year = 3,5* TEMP(Kelvin) + 0,95 => TEMP near +0,18 Kelvin
The constant slope used is 3,5 all the way, and the constant used is + 0,95. For different temperatures we have different CO2 rise/year, but same constants are used.
You write your “version” of these:
“1958-1967: -0.315 K + 0.95
1967-1977: +0.105 K + 0.95
1977-2005: +0.630 K + 0.95
With other words, the factor one need, to obtain the observed trend in CO2 is not constant… “
It seems that you multiply the constant with the temperature and then obviously gets weird changing constants…? On this wrong approach you conclude a lot.
(The reason for my graphic at klimadebat was:
Someone misunderstood this in the debate and had the idea that a temperature below 0 K anomaly should then mean negative CO2 rise/year. But this is not the case, of course as long as Temp > -0,32K the CO2rise/year will be positive. )
Short term and long term trends.
Please take a look at the graphic 1977-2008 in the article above.
You can see the strong relationship between CO2rise/year and temperature, the “short term relation”. And you can see that the CO2rise/year curve and the temperature curve fits nicely from 1977 to 2008 except for the 0,5ppm/year that the long term trend shifts over the 30 years.
This means that the short term changes have a very large effect over for example a 30 year period compared to long term effects.
However, it seems that the ground level “long term trends” changes in a direction to eventually omit the short term relation. Equilibrium is constantly approached, and on the longer time horizon long term trend is probably very important.
You write:
“In your formula, the emissions have no influence on the trend at all. Well, that is physically impossible”
Short term trends:
The obvious short term CO2rise/year – temperature very strong connection has NOTHING WHAT SO EVER to do with our glorious human race, im sorry. Or will you explain to me, how human emission can lead to a 4 ppm/year rise in 1998 and then a 1 ppm/year rise in the colder 1999?? Does humans systematically produce more CO2 when its hot??? Please explain that idea.
Long term trends.
No, I think we can agree that a human-emission-effect should be located in the long term trends only.
You say it is physically impossible that human emission is not changing CO2 levels?
Maybe so. But the human influence could be much smaller than what you can imagine physically possible.
Engelbeen, if humans never let out any CO2, and then suddenly let out 2ppm in the atmosphere, then of course you would see this CO2-boom in CO2 data. But this is not the case!
Humans lets out approximately the same amount of CO2 every year. Therefore its very likely that the biosphere many many years ago has adjusted for this, qrown bigger and thus capable of eating the extra ration of CO2 every year. So Engelbeen don’t say its physically impossible.
Example:
What happened if you year out year in puts a constant level of extra food into a big cage with 100 mice? Do you then think after 30 years the same number of mice would be there and the food would be lying around in huge piles? No of course not, the mice would amplify, adjust to the extra amount of food every year, all food would be eaten. Nature always adjusts, no accumulation of food – alias CO2.
But back the the subject: I mentioned the human emissions in my article, please read.
Allan, thankyou so much for your contribution!
Your question
“4. Is the aforementioned ~9 month lag in CO2 after temperature consistent with the ~600 year lag in CO2 after temperature observed in ice core data?
”
If the rather quick response of CO2 rise/year just 5-9 months after temperature changes reflects equilibrium with the oceans, then we are only in physical contact with the upper meters of the ocean. But oceans has a turnover of 500 – 2000 years. This means, that “fresh” water is coming up from the lower layers constantly, and before the whole ocean is adjusted to new CO2 levels, it takes much longer time. There fore there is both a quick ad a slow response.
Yes yes, much more things influences, but i just mentioned an important mechanism.
Allan quest:
1. IF annual atmospheric CO2 declines in the coming years contemporaneous with global cooling (or soon thereafter), what does this prove, if anything.
Well, that would be business a s usual, nothing “new” is proven. CO2 has followed temp ever since Mauna Loa measurements started. So a few more years showing that obvious connection does not really prove anthing that wasnt already proved.
2. IF annual atmospheric CO2 continues to increase in the coming years contemporaneous with significant global cooling, what does this prove, if anything?
Well, then CO2 for the first time in 50 years behavior radically suddenly changes. If CO2 suddenly is no longer closely connected to temperature for years in a row, this would normaly be seen during an extraordinary event, liek a vulcano etc.
BUT this boring answer is not what you ment.
No, If CO2 changes behavior, yes, i would be surpriced and then one would have to study the new situation.
Anna V
So you are on the Greek coast and I am on the UK coast, both good places for proper mixing of co2. In fact the mixing is a bit too lively for me at the monment giving us a wind chill temperature of -4C!
I will have a hunt around to see if there is anything out there.
tonyB
Dear all,
Ferdinand Engelbeen ist constantly repeating erroneous statements on “my ” CO2 data and ignoring what do not fit in his views. The historical CO2 data have been measured with high accuracy manifold on different areas over the Atlantic Ocean near coasts and so on. Where are the forests and power plants there? Since about 1880 to 1925 “my” data show the SAME slow rise as the ice core records documented in >80 series on different places. The main “problem” is the period between 1925 and 1950. Here again we have differnent series at different places e.g. 1935 measured near Spitzbergen several times >350 ppm over the sea!!!
Ice core records have a very bad resolution of about 20-30 years (ice age gas age) looking at the period 1925-1950, so it cannot resolve a possible CO2 peak.
Please check my statements in my data here:
http://www.biokurs.de/treibhaus/180CO2/CO2databaserev3.pdf
Ferdinand, please stop your lies on my data. Nature is a nonlinear dynamic system, you are starring on the selected, smoothed linear Mauna Loa data in a 50 years time window at 4 km altitude. You will never find the truth.
Ernst
Hello Ernst
Thanks for the data you sent me recently concerning your new publication.
Having looked in detail at the 1930’s and 1940’s co2 measurements I can confirm they seem perfectly genuine. The methodology was good and the measurement related closely to the temperatures of the time. I will send you a link separately to an interesting item I have seen on co2 which may explain the previous variability as compared to todays relatively constant readings.
TonyB
Ernst, thankyou for setting things strait.
I took a look at the town Poona, india: Outside Poona around 1940 was a range of measurements of CO2 over 400 ppm.
It appears to be a city of around 10-20.000 thousand people. So what excuse is there that measurements in this area should be all wrong?
http://homepages.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~poyntz/India/images/PoonaKirkee1924.jpg
Dear all,
It is a pity that this blog doesn’t allow direct presentation of graphics, so I have to refer to the web.
About CO2 measurements near ground over land: for the first 20 m the CO2 sources and sinks are not mixed at all, except if there is sufficient wind speed. Thus any measurements near ground can reflect any value, depending of nearby sources, ranging from soil bacteria to car exhausts and factories. Thus measuring midst of villages, towns, grass fields or forests yield values which have no bearing with whatever can be measured in the rest of the atmosphere, above 1,000 m and far from sources, like over the oceans and in deserts. See the difference in CO2 levels from the intake of 20 m vs. 200 m at Cabauw (The Netherlands):
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/cabauw_day_week.jpg
The diurnal and momentary variability of samples (over 100 ppmv taken 15 minutes apart) was the reason for Keeling over 50 years ago to look for better places where such disturbances didn’t exist or were far less important. That was found at Mauna Loa and the south pole. Later more stations for continuous monitoring were added and now over 70 stations measure CO2 at low contamination places. Plus 400 more at other places, where they try to calculate the flux of CO2 over the seasons in crop fields, forests and industrial areas.
The 10 base stations (and the 60+ others) plus regular air flights in both hemispheres and very recently the AIRS satellite all confirm that for 95% of the atmosphere there are seasonal changes which are largest near ground and in the NH, but the yearly average trends for all are near identical with an about 12 months delay between the NH and the SH.
In the 5% of the atmosphere over land up to 1,000 m, there is a lot of exchange and the measurements there are unsuitable for the calcuation of any form of “global” CO2 level. With a few exceptions: if you have a place above 1,000 m and enough wind speed (as is the case for Schauinsland, Germany for 10% of the time) or at the coast with wind from the seaside (that is a hint for Anna and TonyB!).
About what Ernst Beck writes:
Ernst only shows averages in his graph for a given year, not the spread.
As we know from modern data, higher wind speed gives a better mixing and shows lower values, which approach the MLO data for the NH and the south pole data for the SH. Thus if one plots all the minima of the different historical measurements, that gives a better impression of the real “background” CO2 level than the averages: see
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/beck_1930_1950.jpg
The same for ocean data and coastal data: all are around the ice core level.
Ernst is a little economical with the truth by refering to only the highest Spitsbergen measurements. The 1936 data series is from only 7 measurements and shows a range from 152-368 ppmv, average 278 ppmv, ice core at 307 ppmv…
As a comparison, the average of CO2 measurements over land near Bern by Dürst:
Bern, on a plateau of a hill slope, forest, average of three years, measurements once a week:
Spring: average minimum 238 (with rain, morning), 321 (dry, morning), noon about the same, 395 ppmv at evening.
Summer: morning 375, noon 355, evening 308 ppmv.
Fall: morning 630, noon 530, evening 793 ppmv.
Winter: morning 299, noon 391, evening 412 ppmv.
Overall average for Dürst/Bern: 427 ppmv. Lowest minimum 179 ppmv (with several days of rain).
For the fall values, the author explicitely describes a mechanism where outgassing CO2 out of the (still warm) soils is increasing CO2 levels with mainly stagnant weather as we see often in fall.
Thus while over the oceans in 1936 in average about 280 ppmv is found, in the same year in Bern the average is 420 ppmv, or a difference of 140 ppmv, with enormous (diurnal and seasonal) variations around the averages.
Ernst simply takes the averages, modern science simply (and rightfully) ignores the Bern data as completely unreliable, as these are the equivalent of measuring temperature on an asphalted parking lot…
And modern science also would question these particular ocean data series as abnormally variable (modern automated ships measurements don’t show more than 10 ppmv difference in the air over the oceans from the poles to the equator)…
And finally, as already said in a former message, the Law Dome ice core has a resolution of 8 years, coralline sponges 2-4 years and stomata index data less than a decade. Short enough to see a change of 80 ppmv in 15 years if there was one…
I will repeat myself.
The logic that we have to go and look at a place where the variable is not varying is evading me.
Why not measure global temperature in my basement instead of outside in the shade? Why not take the lower temperature from outside in the shade of night?
To push the “shade ” meaning up to Mauna Loa height is close to hubris against the biosphere, imo.
And this without attributing ulterior motives ( like supporting CO2 AGW), just wrong scientific intuitions.
Engelbeen, Please explain/answer:
Realclimate gives the example, that in the middle of the heaviest traffic in Paris anno 2008 they get around 120 ppm over ground level. In a green area – but still in the middle of Paris they get only 40 ppm CO2 over ground level.
When a green area in the middle of PARIS with 8 million people and indeed one of the most traffic-polluted spots in the modern western world, we only get 40 ppm over ground level.
OUTSIDE the little village of Poona, India, around 1940 we measure more years in a row around 420 ppm. If your Antarctic ice core where correct, the ground level was only 300ppm. So Outside village Poona you say we have all measurements 120 ppm over ground level.
1) Howcome a green area in PARIS 2008 gives 40 ppm over ground level, when OUTSIDE village Poona, India 1940 should give 120 ppm over ground level for years in a row?
2) Can we go to Poona today and measure still 120 ppm over ground level? That would be 505 ppm.
3) If not, WHY??
Please use numbers 1), 2) and 3) for answers.
Dear all,
Ferdinand is picking the data from single measurements series and did judgements without to consider the influence of location, the season and so on. I have done this in detail and I am working to publish this soon. Meanwhile everyone can inspect copies of the original sources on my webpage.
And Ferdinand ignores the most part of the historical data since accaptable precision from 1857 (Pettenkofer). Lets give this method some time of getting more precise and start from 1880 (comparable with th modern preindustrial data series).
Since 1880 to about 1925 more than 80 data series seleced by me to represent typical yearly averagees (when possible) we have nearly identical CO2 values than the ice cores shows!!! (same methods as critisized in the 3Os and 40s, different locations). The result was: no high averaged CO2 through the years!!!
The same sort of measurements supply higher data since about 1925 up to about 1948. And the same measurements show again the same low CO2 from the beginning of the Keeling era 1955. (please see Steinhauser 1957/58 in the northern part of Vienna in the weatherstation of Hohe Warte yearly average 325 ppm.
Lets forget Duerst´s measurements that are strongly influenced by the forests at Berne (evening wave of CO2>150ppm) or Misra strongly influenced by monsoon and vegeation. But both data series allow comparison with modern measured influences to quantify the influence.
Buch had measured as others very low CO2 near the limit of sea ice with very cold water and best CO2 absorption. Thats normal but not typical for a seasonal average.
Why Steinhauser has measured right, Kreutz wrong, Buch wrong, Haldane wrong Kauko wrong++++++++ and from 1925 back in time again right?
Only Ferdinand knows!
I also know: What cannot be cannot exist.
regards
Ernst
Dear Frank,
My fault and misinterpretation of your formula…
Anyway, we agree on the following: temperature has a huge short-term impact on year by year CO2 increase rate. Where we disagree is if that also is the case for the long(er) term impact, that is the impact of temperature on several years to millennia.
Your formula implies that about half the increase in CO2 (the 0.95 constant) over the past decades is a constant (whatever the cause), and the other halve is caused by the overall temperature increase vs. a zero level. Our formula gives near the same variability of the temperature/CO2 relationship for yearly variations, but only a few ppmv increase in CO2, due to the slight (0.6°C) rise in temperature over the last century. Where is the difference? In our formula we imply that the short time impact is fast and huge, but the long term impact is limited. In your formula, there is no limit of the impact over time.
What is wise, is not deducable from the curve, as both give the same result on short and longer periods (over the past decades). The problems arise for previous periods, but then we depend on other observations than the continuous measurements of temperature by satellites and CO2 at MLO or other base stations. All different observations of past CO2 levels have their own problems, be it chemical measurements, ice cores, stomata data or coralline sponges. But no matter what method one uses, in the period 1850-2008 CO2 levels are continuously increasing, with a questionable peak around 1942 in non-selected chemical measurements and a smooth increase in the other three methods.
Not so in your formula, for the period where temperatures are below the -3.2°C level which is for the whole period 1900-1930, where all four methods give an increase of 5-10 ppmv. And of course for the whole LIA, where CO2/d13C levels were fairly constant for fairly constant CO2 levels, far below the -3.2°C level.
Why the difference between our formula’s? Your example is a nice illustration of the difference in approach: If you feed a lot of mice with a constant amount of feed, there will be a (sawtooth) equilibrium between amount of feed and number of mice. If you double the feed supply, the number of mice will initially increase fast, but stop increasing as a new equilibrium is reached at about a doubling of mice counts. That is what our approach says: a change in feed gives an initial fast, but limited change in number of mice over time. Your formula doesn’t include any constraint in time and simply says that for a doubling in feed the number of mice increases each time period with the same number, indefinitely. That may be right for a limited time period but that doesn’t hold for longer periods.
So what happens in the real world? Nature indeed will react on disturbances in the same way for temperature as for human emissions. An increase in temperature will increase CO2 levels, until a new equilibrium between absorption and release of CO2 is reached. For short term (ocean surface, existing biosphere) that is about 3 ppmv/°C, for longer term (including increasing biosphere area, changes in ocean currents) the ratio is about 8 ppmv/°C.
The same holds for human CO2 releases: an initial increase in atmospheric CO2 levels will lead to increased uptake by the oceans and biosphere, but a part of the increase will remain in the atmosphere, as long as CO2 is constantly added. A new equilibrium (at a higher CO2 level) can be reached, if the increase in atmospheric CO2 is sufficient to increase the uptake by the oceans and biosphere to the same levels as the continuous addition. But as the emissions show a constant increase, there is no new equilibrium in sight, despite a constant increasing atmospheric CO2 level (at 55% of the emissions).
I hope this made my viewpoint clear, why your formula may be right for a short time span of a few decades, but doesn’t hold for longer time spans in the past, while our formula holds for any time span, from a few years to one million years…
Regards,
Ferdinand
Anna v,
The same logic as not measuring temperature on parking lots, near AC outlets or near barbeques. The measurements at MLO, Barrow, Samoa, south pole represent 95% of the atmosphere, where only seasonal variations and a continuous increase are seen, not (or limited) the influence of local/regional biological decay or uptake, car exhausts or chimneys as in 5% of the atmosphere over land where such variations are measured for other reasons than a global CO2 level…
Frank,
With your figures:
1) There is no connection between Poona and Paris, and little within Paris at one place (green area) and another place (traffic). The green area in Paris during the day uses CO2, while the traffic area adds a lot of CO2. How fast the excess from the latter area to the other flows can be calculated, but that is not easy stuff.
I don’t know the local circumstances of Poona in 1940, thus that is difficult to judge. And there is no direct connection between these two places for CO2 levels with the ice cores CO2 level, as the latter represents the well mixed atmosphere (only hemispheric influenced by seasonal changes and continuous additions) above 1,000 m and everywhere over the oceans. But…
2) There may be an increase of about 80 ppmv if one should measure at exactly the same place as in the 1940’s at Poona in exactly the same circumstances of wind speed and other natural points (temperature, sunshine) and surroundings (no change in urbanisation, energy use, cars, same crops in the fields, same level of trees,…).
3) Point 2) may be very difficult to obtain, but there is hope, I just yesterday found modern measurements of Giessen, Germany, one of the places which is responsible for the huge peak of 1942 in the historical averages. Some increase in CO2 levels compared to the 1942 level should be visible. More to come…
Suggested reading
Veizer, “Celestial Climate Driver: A Perspective from Four Billion Years of the Carbon Cycle”, GeoScience Canada, Volume 32, Number 1, March 2005.
http://www.gac.ca/publications/geoscience/TOC/GACgcV32No1Web.pdf
Ferguson & Veizer, “Coupling of water and carbon fluxes via the terrestrial biosphere and its significance to the Earth’s climate system”, Journal of Geophysical Research – Atmospheres, Volume 112, 2007
http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2007/2007JD008431.shtml
Also Veizer and Shaviv (2003) – I’ll see if I can find the url later.
Best, Allan
@Ferdinand:
Many balls in the air.. I start with Poona. You dont know how to judge Poona, fair enough, i did little digging:
Poona was a village area 170 km outside the metropol of Mombai. I have tried to find some pictures from the area. It appears not to be neither jungle or dessert. A green area not that far from vegetation like Maybe countryside in France?
http://static.flickr.com/18/23212005_823d0611bb_m.jpg
http://www.realadventures.com/listingimages/1106/1106710/m_1106710a.jpg
http://k53.pbase.com/v3/64/556764/1/51006860.coloredcowingreengrass_8952.jpg
Poona – has grown quite since 1940, today it looks like this:
http://lh4.ggpht.com/tarunchandel/SE1vSESm3rI/AAAAAAAABB0/FK2c1mH5aY0/s400/Beautiful%20City%20of%20Pune%20Tarun%20Chandel%20Pune%20Trip.JPG
The choice of region Poona for CO2 measurements, seems at first glance quite sensible:
– Near equator (NH has higher CO2 than SH – the same argument that makes Mauna Loa a good choice)
– Appear to be average vegetation.
– The region was no less than 170 km from big city area, sound very correct indeed to me.
– Not far from the indian ocean.
Ferdinand, we know that a greener area might influence CO2 measurements so that CO2 got TOO LOW and not too high… So continous measurements in Poona around 420 ppm in the 1940´ies, what logic can be used to say these measurement where all 120 ppm too high? – And not to low?
Is it not so, that the only reason for rejecting these data are that you have another idea of how data should be?
Imagine that data said 300 ppm for Poona 1940. Would you then through them away? And as Beck says, measurement from SPitsbegen seem to agree with the peak around 1930-40. how on earth…?
@Ferdinand: Thank you for reply. And this time I get the feeling that you really seek “the truth”.
Many balls in the air.. I start with Poona.
Poona is a village area 170 km outside the metropol of Mombai. I have tried to find some pictures from the area. It appears not to be neither jungle or dessert. A green area not that far from vegetation like Maybe France?
http://static.flickr.com/18/23212005_823d0611bb_m.jpg
http://www.realadventures.com/listingimages/1106/1106710/m_1106710a.jpg
http://k53.pbase.com/v3/64/556764/1/51006860.coloredcowingreengrass_8952.jpg
Poona – has grown quite since 1940, today it looks like this:
http://lh4.ggpht.com/tarunchandel/SE1vSESm3rI/AAAAAAAABB0/FK2c1mH5aY0/s400/Beautiful%20City%20of%20Pune%20Tarun%20Chandel%20Pune%20Trip.JPG
The choice of region Poon for CO2 measurement, seems at first glance quite sensible:
– Near equator (NH has higher CO2 than SH – the same argument that makes Mauna Loa a good choice)
– Appear to be average vegetation.
– The region is 170 from big city area, sound very correct to me.
– Near the Indian Ocean.
Ferdinand, we know that a greener area might influence CO2 measurements so that CO2 got TOO LOW and not too high… So continous measurements in Poona around 420 ppm in the 1940´ies, what logic can be used to say these measurement where all 120 ppm too high? – And not to low?
You are 100% that if measurements said 300 ppm CO2, you would also have considdered the actual measurements useless? You are 100% objective?
🙂 – scientists should be you know…
Anna : The logic that we have to go and look at a place where the variable is not varying is evading me.
FerdinandThe same logic as not measuring temperature on parking lots, near AC outlets or near barbeques.
Wrong analogy. CO2 comes from diverse sources, the sun is one direct and strong source. Satellites measure everything, also coming from parking lots and asphalt, and this is correct. In some sense this is more correct as the temperature integration should take in all the heat. If all the surface of the earth were measured there would be no problem with having a measurement of the asphalt. Actually it would be imperative to have a measurement of the asphalt. The reason it is criticized at present is because it cannot be considered part of an unbiased representative of N kilometer square of earth area since most of the earth area is not asphalt, as population sampling techniques go.
In contrast, most of the earth area is a source of CO2 and thus ground and sea measurements are representative of the CO2 of the surface, as long as the counter is not next to the mouth of a cow. A few meters away are enough. How is it possible to know how much CO2 is in the atmosphere if non representative points are taken for measurements? It is against any statistical population sampling techniques.
The measurements at MLO, Barrow, Samoa, south pole represent 95% of the atmosphere, where only seasonal variations and a continuous increase are seen, not (or limited) the influence of local/regional biological decay or uptake, car exhausts or chimneys as in 5% of the atmosphere over land where such variations are measured for other reasons than a global CO2 level…
How is it possible to know how much CO2 is in the atmosphere if non representative points are taken for measurements? It is against any statistical population sampling techniques. The earth is three dimensional, actually four, counting time.What is being measured in these select spots is the CO2 at those selected spots. Not global CO2 by any means. Might as well measure the temperature in those spots and call it the global temperature.
The whole thing is bizarre, in my books.
Anna V.
Maybe the most interesting thing about the measurements these days are their direction? The development? So if Mauna Loa has a bad location, still, if CO2 now “desides” to fall, we should see this in all locations i suppose?
Thanks, K.R. Frank
Frank. Lansner (09:51:21) :
Yes. I am not saying there is no information in the Mauna Loa etc measusurements. I am saying it is truncated information and not a candidate of a well sampled population.
Of course there is a meaning when it rises and when it falls, even if it only tells us that the oceans breath with the breath of temperature.
@Ferdinand
You write: “we agree on the following: temperature has a huge short-term impact on year by year CO2 increase rate. Where we disagree is if that also is the case for the long(er) term impact, that is the impact of temperature on several years to millennia.”
No, we don’t disagree as you think. I will return to this in my next writing.
You write: “Your formula implies that about half the increase in CO2 (the 0.95 constant) over the past decades is a constant (whatever the cause).”
I wrote: “Thus, the ‘constant’ of the equation should be a variable as it varies with time”
and as mentioned we have discussed the nature of these much slower changes in the ground level “long term trends”.
You know just as well as I, that temperature in the first half of th 20´ieth century changed just as much as in the second half of the 20´ieth century.
I wrote: “Antarctic ice core data shows that in the period 1890-1940 there was a flat development approx 8 ppm from 300 ppm to 308 ppm.
We have seen first in this writing, that the CO2 is very responsive to temperature changes 1979-2008. So how come the warmer temperatures 1920-40´s has no effect at all on the extremely straight Antarctic CO2 curve?”
You see Engelbeen, the slow long term changes – that indeed is another and more complex case – cannot change the fact, that The short term changes are far to big for the flatness of the Antarctic CO2 curve to be true. Totally disregarded what effect are human etc.
Actually my CO2rise/year – UAHtemp connection seems to be underestimating the sensitivity. The same connection between CO2rise/year and HADcrut gives a factor not 3,5 but actually around 5… So lets say we have a temperature sensitivity in average 4.
Example. Not 50 but just 20 years with a temperature change of say 0,6 degrees gives a change of nearly 50 ppm using just the basic temperature dependence. It’s the “huge” Temperature sensitivity (as you call it) itself that reveals the total failure of the very flat Antarctic curves.
And yes! There are also in history many very BIG temperature changes which each of them shoud trigger BIG variation in CO2 levels. Unless temperature did not have that effect on CO2 levels in other centuries, but that’s absurd.
Just see the Maunder minumum MASSIVELY falling and later rising of temperatures on 1-2 degrees also over 20 years. And acording to the Antarctic curves, these huge changes in temperatures NEVER managed to get the CO2 level leave the 280-290ppm band I thousand years!!! Engelbeen, it IS impossible, face it. Antarctic curves are proven useless.
If you believe in the Antarctic curves Engelbeen, then explain why BIG temperature changes in history never change the totally flat CO2 curve?
No im not talking about the level of CO2 as result of temperature. No im talking about the total absence of big CO2 changes in connection with temperature changes. Hope it is now clear to you what i mean.
We spend lots of money measuring areas we know show CO2 outgasing (regardless of who or what causes it because the thing that measures “it” doesn’t care), yet we ignore measuring CO2 sinks. We know they exist but we never see the data. Maybe because humans don’t cause sinks? And if we can’t blame humans why study it, much less report it?
In other words, reporting flat measures or sinking measures is just as important in GW studies as the outgasses measures are. Why aren’t they reporting this? Why do some call them useless? It affects their bottom line research as much as the outgassing does so it should be part of the reporting, graphs and all.
@Ferdinand
You write: “A new equilibrium (at a higher CO2 level) can be reached, if the increase in atmospheric CO2 is sufficient to increase the uptake by the oceans and biosphere to the same levels as the continuous addition. But as the emissions show a constant increase, there is no new equilibrium in sight, despite a constant increasing atmospheric CO2 level (at 55% of the emissions).”
I believe this is written in connection with my writing earlier:
“the human influence could be much smaller than what you can imagine physically possible. Engelbeen, if humans never let out any CO2, and then suddenly let out 2ppm in the atmosphere, then of course you would see this CO2-boom in CO2 data. But this is not the case!
Humans lets out approximately the same amount of CO2 every year. Therefore its very likely that the biosphere many many years ago has adjusted for this, qrown bigger and thus capable of eating the extra ration of CO2 every year. So Engelbeen don’t say its physically impossible.”
So.. Yes, the changes from year to year could easier have some kind of effect on the CO2 level as you write: “as the emissions show a constant increase, there is no new equilibrium in sight”
This is 100% sound logic.
But if we only calculate possible human influence as merely difference in emission per year … … .. … then we have reduced effect of human influence to just a tiny fraction of what is normally considered by Global warming people.
Finally the long term trends. This I have hesitated to put in a formular because the nature of this is perhaps not quite clear yet to say the least!
The best clue of the nature of long term trends I know comes from this graphic showing CO2rise/year compared with HADRCUT, especially SEE THE GREEN GRAPHIC in the lower part:
http://www.klimadebat.dk/forum/attachments/co2hadcrut.jpg
Long term trend: “Something” is eating the CO2 out of the atmosphere better in some periods than others. This “something” is symbolized with the green color in the trend graph (see link above). As mentioned, part of this “something” could be the size of the biospehere. The “Biosphere” then seems to have had minimum around 1977. And a clear rise from 1977 and forward. This is what we see in real world. We also see that the “biosphere” decreasing up til 1977.
Anna & tonyb:
I live in E. Tennessee and would be interested in taking measurements of CO2. I do live in a forest but do have a mountain/hill (1700ft) at back of my property (it is called a mt. on USGS maps). If you find sensors at a reasonable cost let me know.
Thanks Mike
I have asked for quotations from three companies. The first came in at over $1500 dollars but seems much more elaborate than we need.I will let you know if the other quotes are more reasonable. We don’t need to be accurate to 2ppm but we do need to ensure we are measuring co2 and not thinking we are measuring it as per the thread elsewhere-incidentally thanks for your kinds comment over there.
TonyB
Anna V,
I have the impression that you are comparing the problems of CO2 measurements too close to the problems involved with temperature measurements. But there are huge differences.
Over land near sources and sinks of CO2, you can find any level of CO2, depending of wind speed, sunlight, inversion, rain, fog,… Diurnal variations can go over 100 ppmv with low wind speeds. If you dig a hole in the ground and measure CO2 levels there, you can find over 1,000 ppmv, due to bacterial life which breaks down organic material. Changes in wind direction/speed can give changes of over 100 ppmv within 15 minutes. That is even worse than temperature measurements! Sources at 100 km away can be measured downwind…
Down to ground level the highest levels are found, with height the amounts and variations in amounts are leveling off and levels approach the Mauna Loa values. See the CO2 levels of Cabauw (Netherlands) for different intake heights:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/cabauw_day_week.jpg
Up to 200 m, less and less influence of the variability at ground level is seen and above 1,000 m, the hour by hour or even day by day variability is completely gone, with the exception of a small factor, which is the overall change caused by the seasons. See the CO2 profile from air flights here:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/inversion_co2.jpg
Thus while at ground level over land the hour by hour (diurnal) variations are huge, that has little effect on global CO2 levels (“global” in this case 95% of the atmosperic weight content), as the local changes are only a tiny fraction of the total CO2 content of the total atmosphere.
A different point is the sum of all these local changes, if these are mixed into the bulk of the atmosphere. From different estimates we know (roughly) that about 90 GtC (about 43 ppmv) as CO2 is flowing in from the oceans during summer and about the same amount (slightly more) is flowing out in winter. For vegetation that is about 60 GtC taken away in summer and a little less coming back in winter. Because these flows are opposite to each other, the net effect at ground level (e.g. Barrow) is about +/- 8 ppmv over the seasons. At altitude (MLO, 3000 m) the effect is smaller and in the SH opposite and near absent.
What effect does that have on the hourly measurements?
If we take the largest influence of the seasonal changes as measured in Barrow: that is a change of 16 ppmv within a year or 0,04 ppmv per day or 0.002 ppmv per hour. Not even detectable with the best available techniques of today. Thus even the largest natural in/outflows of the atmosphere are not detectable in the bulk atmosphere in hour to hour or day by day measurements. Thus if you see a completely flat curve of CO2 measurements over a day, you are at the right place!
The human contribution is even so undetectable in hourly measurements: even if every part should stay in the atmosphere, the increase at 8 GtC/4 ppmv per year is undetectable in a day by day measurement.
Conclusion: never measure at places where huge hourly or day by day CO2 variations are seen, if you are interested in seasonal and/or global changes of CO2 in the atmosphere, because you are measuring mostly undefined local/regional sources and sinks of CO2, not what you are interested in.
Note: some insist that most of the influence of CO2 is in the lower meters of the atmosphere. If that was true, then the local/regional variations are of interest for the radiation balance. But the modtran program indicates that only 8% of the radiation absorption (including water vapor) takes place in the first 1,000 m of the atmosphere. A doubling of CO2 gives an extra absorption of 0.3 W/m2 for the first 1,000 m. That would give a theoretical increase of 0.1°C at ground level, hardly detectable in the general noise, if there is a real influence at all…
Dear Ferdinand,
I tend to agree with Richard Courtney that your mass balance argument fails.
We know that natural sub-annual variations in CO2 are huge and dwarf human emissions.
We also know that the only apparent signal in the detailed CO2 data is the ~9-month lag of CO2 after temperature. This is consistent with the ~600 year lag of CO2 after temperature in the ice core data (Different cycle lengths have different inherent lag times).
We have not not quantified accurately the factors that cause these large natural changes in atmospheric CO2, nor the interactions between them, nor the interactions between natural and humanmade changes.
It is possible that the observed annual increases in atmospheric CO2 are almost entirely natural and that humanmade emissions are practically irrelevant.
Best personal wishes for the New Year, Allan
Pamela,
Natural sinks are measured and reported as well. See e.g. the source/sink area’s of the oceans, where most important sources are near the equator and most important sinks are near the poles, especially the NE Atlantic:
http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/pubs/outstand/feel2331/maps.shtml
Over land there are a lot of ongoing research tests with continuous measurements from soil level to above canopea, but these are very difficult to interprete, as the CO2 level changes by fraction of meters and over the day/wind speed/rain/…. Here an example:
http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/117991531/abstract?CRETRY=1&SRETRY=0
And have a view at the video of the facilities of Wageningen University:
http://www.climatexchange.nl/
@Mike Davis
Dear Mike,
one of the best handheld low-budget analysers with an accuracy of about 2,5% is the EXTECH EA80 indoor air quality meter. Cost about $750.
regards
Ernst
Ferdinand Engelbeen
Conclusion: never measure at places where huge hourly or day by day CO2 variations are seen, if you are interested in seasonal and/or global changes of CO2 in the atmosphere, because you are measuring mostly undefined local/regional sources and sinks of CO2, not what you are interested in.
I respectfully disagree . What we are interested in is global temperature. You know? The one that is rushing to the tipping point? CO2 is as important for the IPCC models as global temperature measurements.
There are enormous differences in temperatures everywhere within a day, within a season, between years, upwind, downwind etc. A method has been devised to integrate over so that an “average” can be defined. As a physicist, I do not see why one variable is differently treated than another one, in the complex system called climate, particularly one that has so huge societal implications.
I do not expect you to agree with me. Just to see that there is another point of view on the matter, and both points might be resolved once the new OCO satellite starts measuring, if they do not keep the data secret.
AnnaV
The trouble is that there are so many ingredients within the pot pourri of ‘climate change’ that are at best dubious (co2) and at worst wildly inacurate and pointless. Of these surely the one labelled ‘global temperatures’ is the most absurd yet most frequently referred to as some sort of definitive proof of unprecedented warming.
Vincent Greys document is one of the better ones to explain the background.
http://www.co2web.info/Gray_Global-Warming-Scam_2008.pdf
There were 100 weather stations worldwide in 1850- the majority wouldnt stand any sort of scrutiny. Callendar only examined some 300 in order to come up with his ‘man causes warming through co2’ document in 1938. The number has been up to 6000 and down to a thousand or so.
Global temperatures have far too many variables to be tracked correctly-unless only the same sites and instruntruments are used. When we all try and parse global temperature records to a fraction of a degree dating back to 1850 we get into the realms of fantasy.
It is interesting how using long national records that are known to be reliable-which arent that many-often gives different answers to the global temperatures dataset which I increasingly think is ‘manufactured’ to suit various purposes.
Incidentally I think the co2 analyser you found seems the best value-I can’t find it at all-can you give me a reference?
TonyB
I claim first use of the word ‘instruntruments’ Some might think it was merely a misspelling in my post above, but it was of course the clever creation of a new word to denote ‘falsified and useless instrumental information appertaining to climate change…”
Happy New year to everyone!
TonyB
Anna V,
Why would you run in the same (probably worse) problems as with temperature integration, if nature has done most of the CO2 integration for you? And if you accept the AIRS data (I have downloaded the monthly averages 2002-2004, but need the right program to open the compressed .tar file), the ground station and airplane flight data show the same (seasonal variable) levels of CO2 as the satellites, be it more accurate…
Happy New Year to you and all…
Allan,
Still have to answer your questions:
1. IF annual atmospheric CO2 declines in the coming years contemporaneous with global cooling (or soon thereafter), what does this prove, if anything?
If there was a huge decline (far) lower than the 3 ppmv/K as in my (and Pieter Tans) formula, that would prove that the formula underestimates the influence of temperature on CO2 levels
2. IF annual atmospheric CO2 continues to increase in the coming years contemporaneous with significant global cooling, what does this prove, if anything?
That the strong reaction as supposed by Beck’s historical data doesn’t exist. In fact the reaction is already late, as after the peak of 1942, the CO2 levels dropped within 7 years to “normal”, now we are already 10 years after the 1998 peak…
3. If CO2 drives temperature as the IPCC alleges, how is it that the only signal apparent in the data is that CO2 lags temperature by ~9 months? See
http://icecap.us/images/uploads/CO2vsTMacRae.pdf
The action of temperature on CO2 levels doesn’t say anything about the action of CO2 on temperature. Both are at different time scales, where any (theoretical) influence of CO2 need to change the ocean temperatures over a sufficient long period (10-30 years), to be visible in the statistics.
4. Is the aforementioned ~9 month lag in CO2 after temperature consistent with the ~600 year lag in CO2 after temperature observed in ice core data?
Yes, the first reaction is the direct effect of temperature on the upper ocean layer and vegetation growth. Reactions on longer time frames (about 50 years LIA, 600 years glacial-interglacial, many thousands of years interglacial-glacial) involves (deep) ocean temperatures, ocean current changes, vegetation/land ice area changes,…
Further, about the mass balance:
We know that natural sub-annual variations in CO2 are huge and dwarf human emissions.
Not that much. While the individual flows are relative huge, the fact that oceans and vegetation are each opposite makes that the influence in the atmosphere is resticted: 16 ppmv in Barrow, 8 ppmv at MLO, 2 ppmv at the south pole. Global average over the latitudes and altitudes is about 5 ppmv or 10 GtC variation over the seasons. The current emissions are around 8 GtC/yr, thus of the same order. What rests in the atmosphere is about 4 GtC/yr.
There is not the slightest influence of any natural cycle, as long as the inflows are equal to the outflows, which is nearly the case: the variation in net sink rate (0.5-3.5 GtC) over a year is less than the increase measured in the atmosphere…
And use simple math: If you add 8 units of any kind per time unit to any reservoir (fountain, lake, atmosphere), and you see that the reservoir increases with 4 units per time unit, no matter how much is cycling through the system in and out, any net addition by all cycles together simply is impossible…
Dear Frank,
Again a lot of questions to reply to. In order of appearance, the most important, each for a different message…
Ferdinand, we know that a greener area might influence CO2 measurements so that CO2 got TOO LOW and not too high… So continous measurements in Poona around 420 ppm in the 1940´ies, what logic can be used to say these measurement where all 120 ppm too high? – And not to low?
Depends of what time of the day (and in what season) samples were taken: at night and mornings, the highest levels are found, as at night plants and soil bacteria respire CO2 and wind speeds are often low, thus all CO2 of all sources (including human sources) accumulate, typically with over 100 ppmv compared to background. During the day, although there is more uptake through photosynthesis, more turbulence happens either by increased wind speed or by increased soil heating by the sun or both. In these cases the near ground CO2 is more readily mixed with higher (“background”) air layers and the average over a day is biased to higher values. This was observed by Keeling already in 1955 midst of Big Sur state park, California. Reason why he was looking for better places to measure CO2:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/diurnal.jpg
As he measured the d13C levels of the same flask samples, he could know the sources: vegetation respiration at night, better mixing during the day.
And see the difference between Diekirch (not a typical rural area, but with a lot of forests in the valley) and Mauna Loa in modern times: during the day with sufficient wind speed, the Diekirch data are around the MLO values of the same days in July:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/diekirch_diurnal.jpg
and
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/mlo2006_hr_week.jpg
Thus I wouldn’t use any data from any place on earth where huge diurnal or day by day variations are seen, as that points (in general) to local sources/sinks and/or problems with sampling and/or handling and/or measurement accuracy.
The total variability (if you add all estimated flows together) over the seasons is about 75 ppmv in halve a year or less than 1 ppmv/day. Anything else is noise…
Should I reject the Poona, or even the Spitsbergen data (which show an average of 291 ppmv in 1936), if the average was around 300 ppmv in 1940?
Yes, as my objective criterium is that the variability over a day or consecutive days may not be more than a few ppmv in the current period (0.25 ppmv at MLO!), or let’s say +/- 10 ppmv for pre-Mauna Loa data, because of the inaccuracy of the methods used and the more elaborate sampling and handling.
Main question number 2:
I wrote: “Antarctic ice core data shows that in the period 1890-1940 there was a flat development approx 8 ppm from 300 ppm to 308 ppm.
We have seen first in this writing, that the CO2 is very responsive to temperature changes 1979-2008. So how come the warmer temperatures 1920-40´s has no effect at all on the extremely straight Antarctic CO2 curve?”
You see Engelbeen, the slow long term changes – that indeed is another and more complex case – cannot change the fact, that The short term changes are far to big for the flatness of the Antarctic CO2 curve to be true. Totally disregarded what effect are human etc.
To begin with, the ice cores are not the only indication that CO2 levels were not that much varying in pre-industrial times. Coralline sponges are an indication of d13C levels over some 600 years. The first 400 years show little variation, only the effect caused by the temperature changes, including the LIA. From 1830 on we see a faster and faster decline, as well as in the atmosphere as in the upper oceans. See:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/sponges.gif
An addition of any huge amount of any source should give a change in d13C of the atmosphere, as deep ocean CO2 is richer in d13C than the atmosphere. On the other hand, increased plant uptake increases d13C, while more decay decreases d13C of the atmosphere.
Thus two completely independent observations say that your formula doesn’t hold for the periods before 1940. The coralline sponges also indicate that your formula doesn’t hold for the period after 1940, as increased plant uptake + increased deep ocean release of CO2 (the only other fast source of huge quantities of CO2) both should increase the d13C level of the atmosphere and the upper ocean waters.
Why doesn’t match your formula with the observations? Your formula attributes a large part of the trend of CO2 over time to temperature changes, while the d13C changes show that a large part (if not all) of the increase in the atmosphere/upper oceans is from human emissions [1]. For the d13C levels of several parts of the carbon cycle see:
http://homepage.mac.com/uriarte/carbon13.html
There are only two sources of low d13C on earth: fossil fuels and vegetation decay, but as the biosphere is an overall carbon sink, thus specifically a 12C sink, it can’t be a 13C sink.
Other sources: volcanic, carbonate rock weathering, (deep) ocean upwelling,… are richer in 13C than the atmosphere.
Thus at one side we see a huge short term influence of temperature on CO2 variability, but conflicting results for longer term CO2 changes.
That is in fact resolved by our formula: The huge influence of temperature on CO2 increase speed still holds, but is limited in time, while the trend itself is completely attributed to the emissions:
dCO2(full period, ppmv) = 3 * dT (full period, K) + 0.55 * emissions (accumulated over the full period, ppmv)
This formula holds for any “full” period in time over the past few years to one million years. It holds for 50 years of CO2 increase at MLO, for 150 years of temperature/ice core data, for 600 years of coralline sponges…
Thus instead of asking why the ice core CO2 trend is “impossibly” flat, better ask why your formula conflicts with two different observations, which since a decade are proven to be reasonable accurate and robust (ice cores) to accurate, robust and very detailed (coralline sponges, resolution 2-4 years)…
Thus if my formula holds, there is no conflict at all, and a 0.8°C cooling during the LIA gives a drop of about 6 ppmv (which is observed in the ice cores, with a 50 years lag), the increase of 1°C in the period 1850-current gives ~8 ppmv increase, the rest is from the emissions, which nicely fit the curve with an incredible straightforward ratio:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/acc_co2_1900_2004.jpg
Compare that to the temperature-CO2 increase ratio:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/temp_co2_1900_2004.jpg
Where a temperature change of halve the full scale has little effect (3 ppmv/°C) compared to the full scale (80 ppmv/°C).
Which process do you think is more responsible for the increase of CO2 in the atmosphere?
Even so, fast, huge variations of CO2 increase rate, around the trend caused by human emissions are visible and caused by the huge near-momentary influence of temperature variations. But these are limited in time, as a new equilibrium (3 ppmv/°C) is reached fast, longer periods of increased or decreased temperature will have more influence (8 ppmv/°C), but still limited.
——————-
[1] The decrease of d13C in the atmosphere is about 1/3th of what can be calculated, if all human CO2 would stay in the atmosphere. But as about 150 GtC as CO2 over the seasons is exchanged between atmosphere and biosphere/oceans, a huge part (near 20%) of the “human” CO2 is replaced by “natural” CO2 each year, thus removing a part of the human d13C fingerprint.
TonyB
I agree that global temperature is a dubious measure. On the other hand, with the advent of satellite measurements there can be a meaning because there can be a well defined integration. It is hard to see how one could study temperatures the way one studies CO2 currently: specific locations where they are stable at specific times of day . That is why I am looking forward to OCO data.
I will look for the detector again. I had found it through a Yahoo search for CO2 detectors.
Anna V
Today I drove seven miles from our seaside town to another sea side town passing over a hill 500 feet high. The temperature varied in that short distance thfrom 1.5 to 6.5 degree C
How can that have any meaning to anybody-tomorrow if the wind is in a different direction the temperature profile might have reversed. I think the global temperature is bad enough but when someone appends the phrase …”to 1850″ Then I start to laugh uncontrollably.
tonyB
TonyB
http://www.gesensing.com/products/telaire7000s.htm?bc=bc_ge_telaire
http://www.eseasongear.com/cppco2mocap.html
I think though that to be effective, somebody with some knowledge of these devices should be advising us. It might be possible to order from China if one knew what was what.
Here is a cheap one but inaccurate, 50ppm:
http://www.globalspec.com/FeaturedProducts/Detail/ATIAirtestTechnologies/PM2200_Desktop_CO2_Temp_RH_only_16900/77336/0
Anna V
It seems to be for indoors use. Keeling used an analyser intended for indoor use for his first readings and look where we ended up!
Yes we need some assistance-I think Ernst Becks suggestion was probably the best one but its way too expensive to expect others to buy so we can ensure we can have a genuine monitoring system that has any validity.
I will keep looking-I am awaiting a couple more quotes but I expect the holidays have got in the way of their replies.
TonyB
TonyB
It is too much trouble finding this thread. It is on page three now. Lets agree to talk, even OT, on the most recent entries, if there is any news on this CO2 detector search. I check them even if I may not be responding.
anna
TonyB
There is an interesting O2 thread over at
http://www.greenworldtrust.org.uk/Forum/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=102&sid=ed9c80d78cc81f206edba9ba87db655e
@Engelbeen
Thanks for input. To my question :
“Ferdinand, we know that a greener area might influence CO2 measurements so that CO2 got TOO LOW and not too high… So continous measurements in Poona around 420 ppm in the 1940´ies, what logic can be used to say these measurement where all 120 ppm too high? – And not to low?”
You answer:
“Depends of what time of the day (and in what season) samples were taken: at night and mornings, the highest levels are found, as at night plants and soil bacteria respire CO2 and wind speeds are often low, thus all CO2 of all sources (including human sources) accumulate, typically with over 100 ppmv compared to background.”
Questions :
1 ) Am i to understand that the scientist that for years in the 1940´ies consequently got CO2 measurements directly from the atmosphere over 400 ppm, consequently took the measurements in the peak-hour of the days?
2 ) Obviously a scientist measuring CO2 is aware of the daily oscillations, so you are indeed saying that the scientist – and others that got these high CO2 concentration results in the period – chose to take samples in the peak hour? Why was that ?
3 ) And these peak hours then gave 100 ppm too much?
4 ) But 100 ppm too much requires a CO2 oscillation of 200 ppm, because 100 ppm too much is 100 ppm over middle value… To sum up: We have Poona values for years that are more than 100-120 ppm over the “correct” Antarctic level. This must then mean that oscillations each day has an amplitude of around 250 ppm? Is this what you are saying?
K.R. Frank Lansner
Dear Frank,
The Poona data are on line available at Ernst Beck’s web site:
http://www.biokurs.de/treibhaus/literatur/misra/misra1941.doc
Have a look at page 277, where the test data are published of five days measurements over bare ground:
Minima just after noon (14:00 h): 300-340 ppmv,
maxima (06:00 h): 510-870 (!) ppmv.
No wonder that one finds high averages, as the build-up of CO2 at night with low wind speeds gives an enormous bias. Despite the positive bias, some days even show an average of 300 ppmv if the wind speed is high enough.
As the minima are measured in the afternoon, when turbulence is at maximum, the CO2 measurements are approaching the “background” CO2 values. That can be seen in the old data (high wind speed gives values near the ice core levels) as good as in modern data. Thus of more interest are the historical minima where huge diurnal variations are measured than the historical averages, which are clearly influenced by local sources and don’t give any indication of something which can be called “background”.
The researchers in Poona were aware of the diurnal variations, but the tests were done specifically for research purposes in crop fields (jowar, sugar cane, betel vine), there was no interest in that period for “background” CO2 levels.
Thus about your questions:
1. No, they took CO2 samples at different hours of the day.
2. The researchers were aware of the diurnal variations, but were interested in the difference in CO2 levels under crops compared to bare ground. There was no interest that time in “background” CO2 levels.
3. The peak hours did give 200 ppmv more at night than during the day.
4. I am not saying that, the measurements show that…
General conclusion: never measure at locations with huge diurnal variation, if the intention is to calculate a “global” or “background” CO2 level, as that has always a positive bias of variable magnitude, depending of local release/uptake and wind speed/diurnal turbulence changes. Only the minima at high wind speed may be of interest, as these approach background CO2 levels.
The problem with the historical data is exactly that all measurement series which add to the “peak” value around 1942 are of the Poona type. Series with less diurnal variation show no peak at all. Or if one looks at all minima of all series in the period 1935-1950, the ice core data are included in the ranges:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/beck_1930_1950.jpg
Thus in my opinion, choosing the averages of historical data without looking at the diurnal variation gives a huge positive bias against the real “background” CO2 levels of that period in time.
Regards,
Ferdinand
Hi Ferdinand!
Thanks for answers, info and thanks for mail correspondance.
K.R. Frank
Dear Ferdinand!
And as Beck said: “A lot of CO2 data series are on the oceans and at stations without such extreme influence and they also show higher CO2”
Please see overview:
http://www.biokurs.de/treibhaus/180CO2/bayreuth/bayreuth2e.htm
Becks rather important comments:
The Giessen data
He conducted 64 000 measurements in 4 differnet altitudes using a high precision gas analyser invented by P Schuftan, Accuracy: 1,5%. The yearly average for 1939/40 was 385 ppm. Country air with lowest CO2 was in average 372 ppm. The seasonal amplitude was 54 ppm which was roughly 20 ppm more than the data measured at the coast of the Baltic sea at that times. Most interesting is that the about monthly variations correlate with the lunar phases (peak on full moon)
The Helsinki Background measurements 1935
The first background measurements in history; sampling data in vertical profile every 50-100m up to 1,5 km; 364 ppm underthe clouds and above
Haldane measurements at the Scottish coast
370 ppmCO2 in winds from the sea; 355 ppm in air from the land
Wattenberg measurements in the southern Atlantic ocean 1925-1927
310 sampling stations along the latitudes of the southern Atlantic oceans and parts of the northern; measuring all oceanographic data and CO2 in air over the sea; high ocean outgassing crossing the warm water currents north (>~360 ppm)
Buchs measurements in the northern Atlantic ocean 1932-1936
sampling CO2 over sea surface in northern Atlantic Ocean up to the polar circle (Greenland, Iceland, Spitsbergen, Barents Sea); measuring also high CO2 near Spitsbergen (Spitsbergen current, North Cape current) 364 ppm and CO2 over sea crossing the Atlantic from Kopenhagen to Newyork and back (Brements on a swedish island
Lundegards CO2 sampling on swedish island (Kattegatt) in summer from 1920- 1926;
rising CO2 concentration (+7 ppm) in the 20s; ~328 ppm yearly average
Why do you dismiss such data?
Engelbeen – I have a few more questions.
Your coralline measurements: Is there a proof that you can use C13 as an good indicator of CO2 level?? You have made this graph:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/sponges.gif
Where you have an CO2-axis to the left. How did this come about?
You write:” There are only two sources of low d13C on earth: fossil fuels and vegetation decay”- I then get the impression that you have not considered the influence of the explosion of grass uses in agriculture after 1750 ?
And then (finally) I want the focus back on my present article, as it seems to me you really do not understand the problem about Antarctic ice core measurements I show.
I wrote: “Antarctic ice core data shows that in the period 1890-1940 there was a flat development approx 8 ppm from 300 ppm to 308 ppm.
We have seen first in this writing, that the CO2 is very responsive to temperature changes 1979-2008. So how come the warmer temperatures 1920-40´s has no effect at all on the extremely straight Antarctic CO2 curve?
You see Engelbeen, the slow long term changes – that indeed is another and more complex case – cannot change the fact, that The short term changes are far to big for the flatness of the Antarctic CO2 curve to be true. Totally disregarded what effect are human etc.”
Your answer 2 days ago mostly focused on your own beliefs and results rather than any attempt – it seems – to understand what im trying to show you.
I said “ So how come the warmer temperatures 1920-40´s has no effect at all on the extremely straight Antarctic CO2 curve?”.
You try then to convince me that they are rather than answering the quetion: HOW COME?
How can you explain that an extreemly temperature sensitive CO2 graph should have been so extreemly flat in the period 1920-40, when temperatures where not at all flat! You obviously have some explaining to do if you will maintain your critic of my work.
Another thing, Engelbeen, why does your graph not match this:
http://www.icsu-scope.org/downloadpubs/scope29/images/fig3.4.gif
?
Its clear that “something” happends around 1930-40.
Your graph:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/sponges.gif
Its a problem when you want to use this to dismis my findings.
Link for the above graph:
http://www.icsu-scope.org/downloadpubs/scope29/chapter03.html
Onr more thing, Engelbeen – if you are still there: Its true that stronger winds gives better CO2-measurements. But is it not true, that the only data point you accept from Poona, is the situation where there was not only windy, but also strong monsoon rain? Rain will have the effect that it washes out CO2 from the air, ecpecially rain as strong as happends in India. There are data points from Poona with winds without the severe rain. These show no less than around 380 ppm CO2 in the 1940´ies.
Dear Frank,
Sorry for the delay, I was away on a nice (cultural) trip to Andalusia, should have send a note…
About the historic ocean data:
The range of most historical ocean data include the ice core data, so no problems with them. That is th