Guest post by Frank Lansner, civil engineer, biotechnology.
(Note from Anthony – English is not Frank’s primary language, I have made some small adjustments for readability, however they may be a few passages that need clarification. Frank will be happy to clarify in comments)
It is generally accepted that CO2 is lagging temperature in Antarctic graphs. To dig further into this subject therefore might seem a waste of time. But the reality is, that these graphs are still widely used as an argument for the global warming hypothesis. But can the CO2-hypothesis be supported in any way using the data of Antarctic ice cores?
At first glance, the CO2 lagging temperature would mean that it’s the temperature that controls CO2 and not vice versa.
Click for larger image Fig 1. Source: http://www.brighton73.freeserve.co.uk/gw/paleo/400000yrfig.htm
But this is the climate debate, so massive rescue missions have been launched to save the CO2-hypothesis. So explanation for the unfortunate CO2 data is as follows:
First a solar or orbital change induces some minor warming/cooling and then CO2 raises/drops. After this, it’s the CO2 that drives the temperature up/down. Hansen has argued that: The big differences in temperature between ice ages and warm periods is not possible to explain without a CO2 driver.
Very unlike solar theory and all other theories, when it comes to CO2-theory one has to PROVE that it is wrong. So let’s do some digging. The 4-5 major temperature peaks seen on Fig 1. have common properties: First a big rapid temperature increase, and then an almost just as big, but a less rapid temperature fall. To avoid too much noise in data, I summed up all these major temperature peaks into one graph:
Fig 2. This graph of actual data from all major temperature peaks of the Antarctic vostokdata confirms the pattern we saw in fig 1, and now we have a very clear signal as random noise is reduced.
The well known Temperature-CO2 relation with temperature as a driver of CO2 is easily shown:
Fig 3.
Below is a graph where I aim to illustrate CO2 as the driver of temperature:
Fig 4. Except for the well known fact that temperature changes precede CO2 changes, the supposed CO2-driven raise of temperatures works ok before temperature reaches max peak. No, the real problems for the CO2-rescue hypothesis appears when temperature drops again. During almost the entire temperature fall, CO2 only drops slightly. In fact, CO2 stays in the area of maximum CO2 warming effect. So we have temperatures falling all the way down even though CO2 concentrations in these concentrations where supposed to be a very strong upwards driver of temperature.
I write “the area of maximum CO2 warming effect “…
The whole point with CO2 as the important main temperature driver was, that already at small levels of CO2 rise, this should efficiently force temperatures up, see for example around -6 thousand years before present. Already at 215-230 ppm, the CO2 should cause the warming. If no such CO2 effect already at 215-230 ppm, the CO2 cannot be considered the cause of these temperature rises.
So when CO2 concentration is in the area of 250-280 ppm, this should certainly be considered “the area of maximum CO2 warming effect”.
The problems can also be illustrated by comparing situations of equal CO2 concentrations:
Fig 5.
So, for the exact same levels of CO2, it seems we have very different level and trend of temperatures:
Fig 6.
How come a CO2 level of 253 ppm in the B-situation does not lead to rise in temperatures? Even from very low levels? When 253 ppm in the A situation manages to raise temperatures very fast even from a much higher level?
One thing is for sure:
“Other factors than CO2 easily overrules any forcing from CO2. Only this way can the B-situations with high CO2 lead to falling temperatures.”
This is essential, because, the whole idea of placing CO2 in a central role for driving temperatures was: “We cannot explain the big changes in temperature with anything else than CO2”.
But simple fact is: “No matter what rules temperature, CO2 is easily overruled by other effects, and this CO2-argument falls”. So we are left with graphs showing that CO2 follows temperatures, and no arguments that CO2 even so could be the main driver of temperatures.
– Another thing: When examining the graph fig 1, I have not found a single situation where a significant raise of CO2 is accompanied by significant temperature rise- WHEN NOT PRECEDED BY TEMPERATURE RISE. If the CO2 had any effect, I should certainly also work without a preceding temperature rise?! (To check out the graph on fig 1. it is very helpful to magnify)
Does this prove that CO2 does not have any temperature effect at all?
No. For some reason the temperature falls are not as fast as the temperature rises. So although CO2 certainly does not dominate temperature trends then: Could it be that the higher CO2 concentrations actually is lowering the pace of the temperature falls?
This is of course rather hypothetical as many factors have not been considered.
Fig 7.
Well, if CO2 should be reason to such “temperature-fall-slowing-effect”, how big could this effect be? The temperatures falls 1 K / 1000 years slower than they rise.
However, this CO2 explanation of slow falling temperature seems is not supported by the differences in cooling periods, see fig 8.
When CO2 does not cause these big temperature changes, then what is then the reason for the big temperature changes seen in Vostok data? Or: “What is the mechanism behind ice ages???”
This is a question many alarmists asks, and if you can’t answer, then CO2 is the main temperature driver. End of discussion. There are obviously many factors not yet known, so I will just illustrate one hypothetical solution to the mechanism of ice ages among many:
First of all: When a few decades of low sunspot number is accompanied by Dalton minimum and 50 years of missing sunspots is accompanied by the Maunder minimum, what can for example thousands of years of missing sunspots accomplish? We don’t know.
What we saw in the Maunder minimum is NOT all that missing solar activity can achieve, even though some might think so. In a few decades of solar cooling, only the upper layers of the oceans will be affected. But if the cooling goes on for thousands of years, then the whole oceans will become colder and colder. It takes around 1000-1500 years to “mix” and cool the oceans. So for each 1000-1500 years the cooling will take place from a generally colder ocean. Therefore, what we saw in a few decades of maunder minimum is in no way representing the possible extend of ten thousands of years of solar low activity.
It seems that a longer warming period of the earth would result in a slower cooling period afterward due to accumulated heat in ocean and more:
Fig 8.
Again, this fits very well with Vostok data: Longer periods of warmth seems to be accompanied by longer time needed for cooling of earth. The differences in cooling periods does not support that it is CO2 that slows cooling phases. The dive after 230.000 ybp peak shows, that cooling CAN be rapid, and the overall picture is that the cooling rates are governed by the accumulated heat in oceans and more.
Note: In this writing I have used Vostok data as valid data. I believe that Vostok data can be used for qualitative studies of CO2 rising and falling. However, the levels and variability of CO2 in the Vostok data I find to be faulty as explained here:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/12/17/the-co2-temperature-link/
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Barry Moore,
Stomata index data are calibrated, using… ice cores. The SI data are accurate to +/- 10 ppmv (at best). But the main problem is that the calibration is at a the recent (local for stomata) CO2 level. Thus if you compare the SI index in The Netherlands of the past century with ice core/atmospheric CO2 from Antarctica, you level off the local bias (at 20 m height for oak leaves in this example) of the past century.
If you then compare the SI levels say of the MWP or LIA, you can see a larger variability than the ice core data, not because the “global” CO2 levels were that different, but because the ecosystems changed from marshes to forests and destruction/use forests by humans over the centuries (as been recorded for The Netherlands), thus the “local” CO2 levels were more variable, as these are today. See:
http://www.chiotto.org/cabauw.html
I can never understand why some commentor’s here are rude to Leif. I for one always appreciate his posts and wish others would treat him with the respect he obviously deserves.
You don’t have to agree with someone to be polite to them.
mcates 10 42 44
I agree with you entirely. The conversation heree is normally civil but one or two people seem to think it acceptable to drop the rules of polite discourse when it comes to Leif.
TonyB
Leif,
The 0.05 seems a little underestimated, as there is an inverse correlation between (low) cloud cover and TSI. See fig.1 in Kristjánsson e.a.:
http://folk.uio.no/jegill/papers/2002GL015646.pdf
Whatever the mechanism that changes the cloud cover (GCR or not), this should fortify the solar influence.
Further, Stott e.a. show that current GCM’s (which include only TSI changes) probably underestimate solar with a factor 2 (maybe more):
http://climate.envsci.rutgers.edu/pdf/StottEtAl.pdf
Joel Shore,
The deuterium correction by Jouzel, Vimeux, e.a. alters the temperature record somewhat, which gives even a better correlation with the CO2 record, but doesn’t alter the timing: the temperature (and CH4 record) still is at minimum before the CO2 record starts to decrease. In my graphic of the Eemian, both the Petit, Fisher, e.a. and the Jouzel, Vimeux, e.a. temperature interpretations are plotted:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/eemian.html
Leif says:
Not that it makes a big difference to your argument, but shouldn’t the temperature difference be the fourth root of the TSI change? Or is there some logarithmic behavior going on?
Oh, wait, dS = 4aT^3dT …
Sorry, ignore me.
Brian Macker said a bunch of very interesting and correct looking things, and then said:
I though WsubS = 1/2kx^2 … which would suggest that the work varies as the square of the distance required to compress the spring, but that work/length ratio should be linear in the distance to be compressed? Am I hopelessly muddled here?
Evan Jones said;
“And even said small underlying signal may be due or mostly due to a steady (c. 1°F) three-century long recovery from the low point of the LIA to the current Optimum. AGW supporters loudly pooh-pooh this premise, but not for any convincing reason I have ever read.”
This graph of Hadley CET is based on actual unsmoothed data. Are we recovering thron the episode 300 years ago or the one in the late 1800’s? Perhaps we need to define a little ice age so we can better tell when it ended!
If we are recovering from the mid 1800’s episode the rebound might be expected to continue for some time-at present it is exceptionally weak.
http://cadenzapress.co.uk/download/menken_hobgoblin.jpg
Ellie in Belfast.
Thanks for your kind comments on my Beck posting. To those who comment on any of my posts-kind ot otherwise- I am sorry if I do not always reply to you (if one is needed) but it is becoming increasingly difficult to keep track of all the threads as they are growing so fast.
The ability to link directly to someones comments and numbering (as per CA) would greatly help conversations. This is not a criticism of a great blog but just a recognition that WUWT’s deserved popularity is making it difficult to keep a handle on everything.
TonyB
“” DAV (13:05:59) :
George E. Smith (11:09:07) : At Vostok Temperatures, the atmosphere has to be essentially devoid of water vapor or water in any form, and quite often it can be devoid of CO2 as well, with CO2 ice on the ground.
Hmmmm… where’d the ice come from? “”
Maybe from the warmer oceans, which are not at “Vostok Temperatures”
My Handbook of Chemistry and Physics does not have saturated water vapor pressures below -15 C.
It is well known that Antarctica is the driest continent on earth. And Vostok does have a summer. I’ve never seen any number for the depth of the Vostok ice cores; only that they go back 7-800,000 years. Can’t go back much further because you run into liquid water; and they don’t want to bore into Lake Vostok, or whatever thery call that pool of water under the ice.
—
I dunno. Depends on the ice cores. I don’t think CO2 is all that well mixed over the south pole. The north pole is over water with thinner ice so is a different environment.
CO2 levels ‘too low’ in Vostokh because all vegetation would die out doesn’t really mean much if the levels are not global. After all, where is the vegetation in Antarctica that would die? 🙂
My colleagues and I have attempted to post dozens of comments to this site only to have them blocked. Are you afraid of a real scientific discussion? Sad, because without discussion, there is no science.
You, and your guest bloggers, are certainly not “scientists.”
REPLY: Well with an email address that doesn’t resolve “akjdflka@fjadsk.com” which is what you posted under, I tend to doubt your claim. Feel free to contact me with your name and organization, here to: info { at } surfacestations dawt org and I’ll be happy to ensure you get heard, otherwise I think you are just another angry anonymous ranter.- Anthony
The topic of CO2 and climate from long ago periods brings to mind a missing piece from opinions that I am reading here. Climate depends on your address. Does now. Did then. Old addresses migrated around the globe both latitudinally and longitudinally. And from low to high altitude. What was once ocean front property could now be in the middle of a current continent. Old fossels that were once next to the beach at sea level are now at the top of a mountain peak far from any body of water. Therefore CO2 had different sinks and sources during these old periods than we have now. Climates and CO2 sinks and sources back then must be put into “back then” address context and must be talked about in terms of weather variations possible within each of those contextual climates.
I would think that the body of water that surrounds England would have a rather large affect on England’s temperature. Why is this elephant in the room not the major first point of weather variation but they will take the flea and examine its every orifice?
@Leif Svalgaard (06:52:32) :
Frank Lansner:
“Therefore, what we saw in a few decades of maunder minimum is in no way representing the possible extend of ten thousands of years of solar low activity.”
Svalgaard:
“Ten thousand years of Maunder Minimum Sun would cool the climate system 0.05 degrees.”
Yes, I do not agree with you on the impact of solar activity, but this is not my essential point here.
Some believe roughly: “You cant find any other way to explain bigger tempereature differences than CO2, and despite CO2 is lagging temperature etc. we have to accept CO2 as the reason.” .
Whatever caused major temperature differences (for ex. the Maunder minimum), it was not caused by CO2 (– according to any CO2 graph I have seen). So if whatever condition caused such temperature changes continued 20-25.000 years, what temperature effect would that have? That’s the point here, sunspots or not.
“I think it is time for real scientists in the climate community to take stock and decide that the GCM models do not work”
Indeed. If models’ performance could be improved by adusting to past data, you’d think we’d have crossed this Rubicon. Instead it’s past data that’s being adjusted. Whatever the intent, science is no longer practicable when this is done other than by the observers themselves for systematic error.
Roger Sowell (22:01:22) :
“AGWers, and Deniers both should read this!”
http://www.fotuva.org/feynman/what_is_science.html
Thank you for the reminder. Why is it that whenever I read Feynman I end up with a catch in my throat and find it difficult not to weep? Rhetorical question, I guess, but Feynman cuts through the carp in a gentle way then bam hits you with the underlying nugget of truth he’s prepared you for. And the beauty of that truth is such a relief from the day-to-day intellectual struggles that one simply lets go.
Very difficult to express, but I take a deep slow breath and feel refreshed.
“Matt, you are wrong in saying “Except that is not true” because your second sentence is completely consistent with Eric’s statement. Thus it’s obvious that you didn’t understand it. What do you think “another 300 lbs” means? It means 600 lbs for two inches, then 900 lbs for three, etc.”
I know how a spring works. I have an engineering degree, and I race cars for funzies on the weekend.
In my example, it takes 300lbs to compress 1 inch, but it does NOT require any more than another identical 300lbs to compress it another inch. Unless, of course, it is a progressive rate spring….
@TonyB and Beck
Thanks for input!! I will study it much more.
@Lucy
Er du fra Norge?
Anyway, its true that one the article i linked to about vulcanic-global warming link is a little so-so! A very pro GW article, just so that any GW´ers reading could see that also their own side saw this link.
or has it already found it’s proper place here as only a few off topic comments in a popular blog? – Mike Bryant
Well, that’s where it started life, when I thought of it yesterday. I’d been musing over the lines,
First a solar or orbital change induces some minor warming/cooling and then CO2 raises/drops. After this, it’s the CO2 that drives the temperature up/down. Hansen has argued that:
…which seemed to have logic backward, and put the cart before the horse. And that set me thinking about horses and carts. The same logic applied to them would be that carts really only needed to be given a slight nudge to set them rolling, with the horses just galloping along in front of them thereafter. Which seemed sort of crazy – unless the horse and cart was on a downhill slope, in which case the logic would fit almost exactly. And that led into an imaginary DownhillWorld, in which everything was like that, and where everything had its ‘tipping point’ after which some ‘runaway’ unstoppable avalanche began. DownhillWorld stood in contrast with Flat Earth, in which horses really do pull carts, because there’s no gravitational acceleration helping to move carts. Or where gravitational acceleration was cancelled out. Flat Earth is maybe what you find at the bottom of a gravity well, and DownHillWorld is maybe what you find at a gravity peak (I may have inverted things here). At the bottom of a gravity well, things can’t fall any further. At a gravity peak, it’s a hard job to stop them falling.
And these two worlds seemed to describe the difference between the ‘flat earth’ sceptics and the global warming alarmists, with their tipping points and runaway warming. Alarmism (which can be lumped together with catastrophism of every kind) involves a sense that the world is very fragile, and things can fall apart at any moment, given a slight nudge. ‘Flat earthers’, by contrast, don’t see the world as being at all fragile, but instead as being very difficult to change at all. ‘Flat earthers’ try to change things for the better in small ways. Alarmists want to stop change, because change threatens the ever-so-delicate balance of the world.
This seemed like a good way to describe the differences underlying the two frames of reference, the two mentalities, without prejudicing either. We could be living in DownhillWorld, or on Flat Earth, or somewhere in between. The laws of physics are the same in all of them, but produce very different outcomes. So how can we tell which one we’re living in? There are lots of little catastrophes that take place in our world all the time. Everyone has the experience of when a cup of coffee reaches its ‘tipping point’ at the edge of a table, and a ‘runaway’ process begins. There are ‘runaway’ avalanches of rocks and snow. There are ‘runaway’ forest fires. There are ‘runaway’ epidemics like bubonic plague. We even make use of these catastrophic processes, as when we pour milk out of a bottle into a cup of coffee, tilting it to the ‘tipping point’ where a ‘runaway’ milk flow commences. So it’s not as if our world is devoid of some DownhillWorld behaviours.
But that’s about as far as I’ve managed to take the idea, after just a day or so of turning it over, like some found object on a beach. Maybe it can go places. But I don’t see a book in it just yet. I guess it just looked to me like an interesting way to think about where ‘alarmists’ and ‘denialists’ might be coming from, what underpins their thinking, and in that manner maybe enabling a better dialogue between the two rival systems. Is it really a complete accident that Jim Hansen comes out of NASA, where just everybody spends their time thinking about moving bodies in free fall? Perhaps DownhillWorld is what is naturally found in outer space.
(I should mention that I’m currently constructing a computer simulation model of the solar system, so I’ve been thinking about these things. I came here a few weeks ago to ask for (and gratefully receive) advice how to get the positions and velocities of the planets (I was directed to NASA, of course). The simulation is now working, and it looks very good. The planets stay in pretty stable orbits, and go round in pretty much the time they are supposed to. I’m now trying to construct a spinning earth, with the continents mapped onto it, to slot into the model. I may be back for more advice soon.)
MattN,
Yeah, and 300 lbs + 300 lbs = 600 lbs. Which is more force than is needed at one inch of compression. What the Eric said was correct when he said, “… as you compress the spring more and more, it requires greater force to move the spring an equivalent distance ” You certainly can not compress the spring the equivalent distance using the same or less force. You have to use greater force. You have to push with the same force as before plus some more, which means it’s greater force.
You don’t just push with 300lbs of force stop at one inch and then push with another 300lbs of force to get it to compress two inches. You push with 300lbs of force and it will stop compressing at one inch, then you must push with 600 lbs of force to get to two inches.
This is different from pushing a box along a level surface which requires the same force no matter how far you push it.
Joel Shore (09:59:02) :
However, integrated over the yearly cycle, the amount of solar radiation reaching the earth is very nearly unchanged as the eccentricity of the orbit changes (or, for that matter, the tilt of the axis changes in magnitude or precesses)…Hence, there is very little radiative forcing due directly to this change.
Can you provide a paper that backs up your statement?
Richard Sharpe (11:27:17) :
Work is force over a distance. In the example used, the ideal spring rated at 300lbs/in will exert zero resistive force when fully extended and 300 lbs when compressed to an inch. The behavior is linear so the average force you need to expend is 150 lbs over that first inch of movement. So 150 pounds times one inch is 150 pound inches.
Over the second inch you need to push 300lbs at first increasing linearly to 600 lbs. Which is an average of 450 lbs force pushed over a distance of another inch, another 450 pound feet of work.
Add that to the work done over the first inch and you get 600 pound feet to move it two inches.
If it required 300 lbs of force to push a box over a floor then you would expend 300 pound inches of work over the first inchs, same for every other inch. The amount of work done rises linearly with the distance. Push it 100 inches and you’ve done 30,000 pound inches of work.
The reason the work goes up as the square of the distance with the spring is because both the distance traveled and the force applied increase the further you compress the spring.
The work is actually the integral (area under) of the graph of the force applied. In the case of the box the force line is horizontal ( force y axis, distance pushed x axis) and the area under the graph grows linearly as you move along the x axis.
With the spring the graph of force is a line that slopes up. For a spring rated at 1 lb/inch the slope would be 1. The line goes through the points (0,0), (1,1), (2,2) etc. If you imagine it on graph paper you will see that only the bottom right half of the first unit square is below the graph, and has an area of 1/2. By the time you are at one inch you gain an additional full unit square, plus another 1/2 square. So the total 1/2 (from the first inch) + 1 1/2 from the second inch, which comes to 2. Which is (2)^2)/2
Move another inch, to inch three and you gain another 2 1/2 squares. Added on that makes 4 1/5, which is (3)^2/2.
BTW, I didn’t bother looking up the formula for the work that is required to be applied to a spring to compress it a certain amount. I merely deduced it.
Not sure how to interpret your sentence. If you are saying that you think the same amount of work is needed to compress a spring the next inch as you expended in the last inch then you are wrong. Springs push back with greater force as you compress them so of course the work involved goes up.
If springs didn’t push back with greater force as you compressed them then mounting things on springs wouldn’t work. If the spring compressed at all it would immediately bottom out. Suppose it was the spring of our example and a 300 pound object was on top and it had compressed by one inch. If the spring didn’t push with more force as it was compressed then we could add just one pound to cause it to bottom out, since the spring would never push up with more than 300 lbs of force. Thus unable to resist the 301 pound weight.
You don’t see your shocks bottoming out every time you get in the car, right?
Brian Macker says
F = kx …
I think you are falling foul of the ambiguity of English.
It takes 300lbs of force (I wish you would use Newtons) to compress the spring 1 inch, it takes another 300lbs of force to compress to the next inch (for a total of 600lbs for two inches of compression).
Your wording above leaves open the possibility that it takes 900lbs to get to two inches of compression.
Would 3 planets and 1 large moon with an atmosphere fit the bill for solar forcing, independent of man & TSI?
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/02/070228-mars-warming.html
http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2002/pluto.html
http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/060504_red_jr.html
http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/1998/triton.html
I would certainly hope so, else what is the point of all this back & forth if all that can be accomplished is gridlock?
I don’t even care if it is TSI. Why should that bother me?
If 3 planets and a moon warm up, not including Earth, it can only be
from an external source to the planets and that moon.
It surely is not Man.
Maybe it’s aliens (yuk!).
What else do we got external to the planets besides the Sun and the Galaxy?
Dark Energy or Dark Matter patches?
The Black Holes at the Galaxy Center?
Strobes from Quasars?
My point is if we are not actively looking for the cause of Solar System Warming or Cooling, we are not going to find the answer.