The CO2 – Temperature link

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.

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

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.

@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.

@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.

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.

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

@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.

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.”

“” 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.