UPDATE: I received a reply tonight from Pieter Tans, who is the manager for the MLO data, it is another error in presenting the data, similar to what happened with GISS in October, a monthly data value was carried over. In this case, November to December. – Anthony
From: “Pieter Tans” <Pieter.Tans@xxxxx.xxx>
Sent: Sunday, January 11, 2009 7:24 PM
To: “Anthony Watts ” <awatts@xxxxx.xxx>
Subject: Re: Questions on currently posted 2008 MLO data
> Anthony,
>
> The posted December figure is an error. It will probably be fixed
> tomorrow. The error does not appear on my computer. Our web site is
> run by a separate server dedicated to communicate outside the firewall.
> At this moment I don’t know why it repeated the November value for December.
>
> Sorry about this mishap.
>
> Pieter Tans
The year end CO2 data for the Mauna Loa Observatory is out, and it shows that the trend of Co2 increase has slowed. This year saw the lowest increase in the annual mean growth rate ever in the Mauna Loa Co2 Record: 0.24 parts per million.
Whether this is real, a data error, or something else remains to be seen. As we’ve learned previously, the Mauna Loa record is not infallible and can be adjusted post facto. To MLO’s credit, they have been responsive to queries from myself and others, and have pledged to make improvements to the process. They now have a change log, but there is no mention of the December 2008 data in it.
Here is the graph recently posted by MLO. Notice the two dips in 2008.
The blue line represents the mean value, while the red line is the monthly values. Note that the red line shows seasonal variance related to earth’s own processes that emit and absorb CO2. In the case of the 2008 value of 0.24 ppm/yr it comes on the heels of 2007’s strong year of 2.14 ppm/yr which by itself isn’t that remarkable, being only the seventh highest year in the record.
What is interesting though is the correlation of lower CO2 to a cooler 2008, suggesting that natural mechanisms, particularly the oceans, played a role in the the lower Co2 value for 2008. There are also other likely drivers of this change. For the layman reader, this is essentially the “soda pop effect”. As anyone knows, warm soda pop tends to ‘fizz’ vigorously, while cold soda pop is more tame. This is because colder water can absorb more Co2 than warmer water, and warmer water releases it more easily, especially when agitated. Lesson here, and citing from experience; don’t leave a 12 pack of Coke in your car on a hot summer day. 😉
Here is a graph of Carbon Dioxide solubility in water versus temperature:
Here is the entire annual mean growth rate MLO data set:
year ppm/yr
1959 0.95
1960 0.51
1961 0.95
1962 0.69
1963 0.73
1964 0.29
1965 0.98
1966 1.23
1967 0.75
1968 1.02
1969 1.34
1970 1.02
1971 0.82
1972 1.76
1973 1.18
1974 0.78
1975 1.10
1976 0.91
1977 2.09
1978 1.31
1979 1.68
1980 1.80
1981 1.43
1982 0.72
1983 2.16
1984 1.37
1985 1.24
1986 1.51
1987 2.33
1988 2.09
1989 1.27
1990 1.31
1991 1.02
1992 0.43
1993 1.35
1994 1.90
1995 1.98
1996 1.19
1997 1.96
1998 2.93
1999 0.94
2000 1.74
2001 1.59
2002 2.56
2003 2.25
2004 1.62
2005 2.53
2006 1.72
2007 2.14
2008 0.24
Here a copy of the CO2 values of the last three months:
| Month | Mean | Interpolated | Trend(seasonally corrected) |
| 2008 10 | 382.98 | 382.98 | 386.34 |
| 2008 11 | 384.11 | 384.11 | 386.19 |
| 2008 12 | 384.11 | 384.11 | 385.03 |
Source data from MLO is here
Note the identical months of November and December. It could be a GISS October2008 kind of carryover error, it could also be real. The global values for December 2008 are not yet out. Mauna Loa is only one of many CO2 reporting stations.
If the data is real, there is a dead stop in the monthly numbers, which results, when seasonally corrected, in a considerable decrease, not seen in previous Decembers through the entire record.
As MLO points out:
“The last year of data are still preliminary, pending recalibrations of reference gases and other quality control checks.”
As I previously mentioned, some reasons could be cooling of oceans. In particular the Pacific where we’ve had a La Nina event. See this guest post from Dr. Roy Spencer on how the oceans could be driving the observed Co2 changes. The other possibility is the global economic crisis. This has led to lowered consumption of fossil fuels, particularly gasoline, which saw a significant drop in miles driven this past year due to high prices and other economic uncertainties.
Most probably it is a combination of events or possibly an error. Stay tuned.
h/t to Werner Weber and many other people who notified me
Have you seen today’s Day-By-Day cartoon? Somehow it seems on point.
http://www.daybydaycartoon.com/2009/01/11/#005003
Gripegut (13:29:54) :
CO2 is fast to respond (the rate of change is fast due to temperature changes). The time acting on the rate of change varies quite a bit depending on the duration and amplitude of the temperature change. There is 8 or 9 ppm variation seasonally, and great variation on short time scales, depending on the duration of the temperature cycle. Our ability to measure it in the past is very limited due to a lot of factors, but you can think of it as very highly (long duration) filtered data from ice cores. We can only detect gross changes, and in those gross changes, there is a great lag. All of the small changes are filtered out by diffusion and other processes in the ice cores. This also means that the actual changes had probably much higher peaks and valleys that we can’t see, as any original data that was filtered would.
There is one thing i find a but .. emm .. strange about Mauna Loa Observatory.
Why would anyone with half of brain put such observatory on volcanic island ?!
“The other possibility is the global economic crisis. This has led to lowered consumption of fossil fuels, particularly gasoline, which saw a significant drop in miles driven this past year due to high prices and other economic uncertainties.”
Sorry, but this is nonsense. Firstly, the amount of miles driven doesn’t appear to have been reduced during the economic crunch – there is no evidence to support this at all. Secondly, the addition of CO2 from vehicles is actually small. No one has ever carried out a collection of data on road transport (I know, because I’ve tried to get it for some time, and nothing RELIABLE exists). The estimates for addition of CO2 from road transport varies from just 6% to 17%. But it should be remembered that that is for ALL road transport. Hence, even if you removed a fraction of that (for the purpose of a economic downturn) the effect on CO2 would be pretty much zero.
REPLY: I was going by a report from the American Automobile Association in late 2008, citing reduced miles. I’ll see if I can find it again. But your point about contributions is well taken. – Anthony
Response of atmospheric CO2 due to ocean temperature change is a complex phenomenon. On one hand there is a direct an intermediate action due to the interaction of the ocean surface and the atmosphere, which is instantaneous without any time lag. The other effect, which is probably responsible to the approximately 800 years of time lag observed in ice cores is due to the thermohaline circulation. Salty cold water at the Arctic sinks and returns to the surface about 800 years later by upwelling around the West Coast of South America in the tropical Pacific Ocean. Since the water prior to sinking is very cold, it contains a fair amount of CO2 characteristic of the ocean temperature prevailing at the time of sinking. The upwelling takes place in tropical ocean waters, which hold much less CO2 and a significant portion of it is released.
It is obvious that since CO2 rises every spring and summer, we must therefore conclude that CO2 causes the seasons.
My first post, perhaps not to wise of me to start out with a poor joke… 😉
Anthony, great site.
Anthony
Any further info on the report at Canada Free Press regarding Al Gore being sued for Fraud? Worth a topic.
http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/7408
Trevor
REPLY: That article is broadly erroneous, which is why you won’t see me cover it here. No suit has been launched. – Anthony
Frank Lansner on 17th December here suggested that CO2 levels might rise more slowly then crash much faster; this idea really intrigues me, not least because it leaves more room to incorporate Beck’s fluctuating data when one has properly allowed for the worse-than-UHI biases of wind-blown industry and vegetation effects, to which the CO2 level seems vulnerable, and for which volcanic Mauna Loa is still perhaps better than anything continental.
I have to admit, I felt there had to be a drop in CO2 levels soon – but wait, let’s see if the figures stand up to rigorous checking! Somebody earlier here said they were going to do the chemical CO2 measurement at Mauna Loa and I’d really like to see how well the figures correspond; otherwise I have the impression we still have the problem of the sudden changeover of methods, just as with the Hockey Stick.
The drop is usually considered to be due to NH summer plant growth, but of course winter oceans are taking place in the SH at the same time. Due to delays in SH air reaching NH, NH changes are expected to reach Mauna Loa more quickly than SH changes. I think the seasonal drop is probably due to NH plant growth.
Ok Thanks for that info Anthony
About a year ago, Australia signed the Kyoto protocol – now we have this result of lower CO2.
The world is saved – all praise the wisdom of the Australian Federal Government.
(Whoops…).
Anthony … perhaps the computer crashed again.
Dr Ferdinand Engelbeen … please …… very funny ….hmmm… the {a ln (C/Co)}
Jeez …… many brahmas….. relax… (Jezz in brazil)
Reply: Already recovering from second hangover ~ charles the moderator aka jezz in brazil
On prior versions of the recent Monthly Mean CO2 at Mauna Loa I’ve looked at the monthly mean data and the seasonally averaged data were both current. On this one the monthly mean data point (red line) lags a month. I suspect what happened was the seasonally averaged point was calculated and posted without the monthly mean being updated.
“Errors in data … should we just ignore them? – Ignore them, they’ll be corrected within a week or two max anyway.”
Fine. And if they aren’t corrected because they’re real, how long should we wait before displaying this undoubted news on the premier weather investigation blog (as measured by Weblog Awards)?
1992 was the next lowest amount of annual increase in the last fifty odd years.
However, I note that the amount of variance from 2007 is 1.90 PPM. The variance from 1998 to 1999 was a shift of 1.99 PPM. 98 to 99 we had a drop in global temperatures.
What mechanism would couple the cooling to CO2 level increase so quickly? Phytoplankton population due to La Nina conditions present from mid to late 1998 into 1999 and again in recent times?
The concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere is a steady state; it is dynamic. CO2 is continually entering the atmosphere and continually being sequestrated from the atmosphere. The overall rise is due the human inputs. The sawtooth pattern is the difference between the biotic sequestration fluxes during the year. The fact that the rate at which the steady state falls in the late spring/summer is more than 20 times the rise due to human fossil fuel inputs demonstrates just how dynamic the system is. The half-life of Co2 in the atmosphere, before it disappears into a terrestrial sink, is about a decade. This is the same as that observed in the 14CO2 that was generated in the atmospheric H-Bomb tests in the 50s and early 60’s.
Assuming that human activity has had very little effect on the overall terrestrial sequestration influx, human burning of fossil fuels contribute about 35% of the total terrestrial to atmospheric efflux.
In a steady state, influx = efflux, and a monthly average reading of CO2 seems to be about right.
I would really like someone to do a 360 strip map of the globe using a chlorophyll filter so that we could match photosynthesis with the day of the year. It would then be relatively trivial to workout if ocean cooling/warming or carbon fixing was mechanism causing the sawtooth. My guess is that it is biotic, rather than due to changes in the CO2 solubility of the earths water masses.
In the monthly value data, is the “hitch” on the left side of each tooth due to the SH plant growth usage making a dent in the SH ocean outgas increase?
that the annual drop is more influenced by the NH plant growth than SH cool water CO2 “ingassing” but those 2 are working together to make the biggest annual spike.
The sawtooth nature of these curves is primarily influenced by plants and oceans each doing their thing in each hemisphere. Plants have an instantaneous influence as they suck up CO2. The bottom of each tooth aligns with the northern hemisphere late summer because NH land area is greater than SH. The other is a water temp driven effect where seasonal warming (or cooling) of the sea surface outgasses dissolved CO2 (or dissolves excess CO2 from the air). This effect starts immediately but my understanding is that it does not happen “fully” in each season. At the end of winter the cold water will still want to dissolve more CO2 from the air, but it will now start to warm and head toward a CO2 outgassing condition.
It may take 5 years for the air vs water CO2 concentration imbalance to fully equalize not as instantaneous as plants sucking up CO2 for their immediat growth needs. H has more land than the SH so the NH drop is greater than the SH occurrence 6 months later. I
I’m a pseudo-layman too
oops!. I only meant to send the 1st paragraph….the rest was some incomplete thoughts. Oh well!
The annual mean CO2 levels at Mauna Loa are corrected for the seasonal cycle using a 7-year moving average.
Anytime you use a moving average, the trends at the very end of the data set can be a little funky- best not to read too much into them.
If the world is truely in recession as the media keeps telling us, that could affect the amount of energy used and hence the amount of CO2 released.
There is more to it than just ocean, by the way. Decay of organic matter on land also adds CO2 and when it is colder, this decay process is retarded and virtually stopped during periods of freezing. When cold temperatures dip farther South, things like leaf litter decay slower releasing less CO2. Same for bogs and swamps.
The attribution of multiple phenological causes to the Mona Loa wiggle gets confusing. Freeman Dyson’s explication of the wiggle seems elegantly simple. As a layman, I need simplicity.
He points out that the Mauna Loa station, with its typical 7 ppm variation between fall and spring, is only one of several CO2 monitoring stations. The sampling station at the South Pole also shows a wiggle, but it only varies by about two ppm – and its direction is opposite to that of the Mauna Loa station (and other Northern stations) according to the season. In other words, it shows a decline of CO2 beginning in the northern fall, and an increase beginning in the northern spring.
Dyson’s interpretation of this is in his “The Question of Global Warming”.
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/21494
Dyson points out that this turnover of CO2 is fast. About 8% annually is taken up by the vegetation in its growth processes and released again in the decay process. This rapid transfer of matter from ground to atmosphere is important, if true, because warmers like the notion of multi-decadal, generation-altering tipping points as a scare tactic, and will base their formulas for cap-and-trade on as long a period as possible. (I have yet to see an explication of an 800-year lag time between temp/CO2 that’s any more believable than the warmer’s claims of the opposite.)
That growth of northern hemisphere vegetation would be slowed to a few years of reduced warmth, TSI (however slight), or cloud formation doesn’t seem that far-fetched. Though it may not account for the broader curve, it seems to work for the seasonal change.
I’m betting error, fixed soon (note that the December data point is not on the graph but an annual value is).
And soon to follow, an apology and explanation from Dr. Tans that should be accepted with equal grace. He does know we’re watching….
Steve Berry:
“Firstly, the amount of miles driven doesn’t appear to have been reduced during the economic crunch – there is no evidence to support this at all.”
With respect, actually there is data from EIA to support a rather small decrease in mileage driven in the U.S. in 2008, compared to 2007. The reduction was small, approximately 3 or 4 percent.
The recent statement for January 7th from EIA is:
“Over the last four weeks, motor gasoline demand has averaged 9.0 million barrels per day, down by 2.2 percent from the same period last year.
Distillate fuel demand has averaged 4.2 million barrels per day over the last four weeks, up by 0.3 percent from the same period last year.
Jet fuel demand is 9.0 percent lower over the last four weeks compared to the same four-week period last year.”
But the overall point is correct, such a modest reduction in vehicle miles driven is not likely the cause of MLO numbers declining.
I am no expert, but if man-made CO2 is 3 percent of total CO2 annual production, and the U.S. is only 25 percent of world petroleum consumption, and on top of that the U.S. petroleum consumption drops a mere 3 percent, the effect is negligible. ( 0.03 x 0.25 x 0.03 = 0.000225, or 0.0225 percent).
EIA petroleum numbers come out each Wednesday morning here:
http://www.eia.doe.gov/pub/oil_gas/petroleum/data_publications/weekly_petroleum_status_report/current/txt/wpsr.txt
Roger E. Sowell
Marina del Rey, California
http://www.eia.doe.gov/pub/oil_gas/petroleum/data_publications/weekly_petroleum_status_report/current/txt/wpsr.txt
trying the link again.
Roger