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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Smokey,
Please read more carefully what you give as “proof” of what you say: algues in the oceans use CO2, they don’t emit CO2, thus don’t add to the atmospheric increase. But as other ocean organisms use the algues as food, and transfer that back into CO2 and organic waste, it is the ultimate balance which is of interest. That is measured at different sites and a rough estimate is that about 6 GtC as organic carbon is sinking into the deep oceans. The interesting point is that this carbon has a low d13C level (organic…), thus leaving higher levels of d13C in the upper parts of the oceans.
See: http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/CarbonCycle/Images/carbon_cycle_diagram.jpg
But how do we know how much CO2 the biosphere (ocean + vegetation + soil bacteria) produces or uses? Well indeed we have O2 as referee: if more O2 is used by fossil fuel burning than calculated, then more CO2 is produced than used by the biosphere and reverse if less O2 is used.
Well, since about 1990, the analytical accuracy of the O2/N2 ratio in the atmosphere is fine enough to measure what happens over the years. That shows that about 1.4 +/- 0.8 GtC/year is taken away by the biosphere. It is quite difficult to know how that is partitioned between oceans and land, but it simply proves that biological life as a whole is a sink for CO2, not a source.
See: http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/287/5462/2467
Thus while the seasonal exchange between oceans/vegetation and the atmosphere is huge, the net effect over a year is small, smaller than current human emissions…
I ment subduction, not ‘sublimation’ @ur momisugly 11:45:53
Hello Anna,
The seasonal exchange between oceans and atmosphere is estimated at some 90 GtC/year, the seasonal exchange between the biosphere and the atmosphere is about 50 GtC/year (see the link in the previous message). But these two are in countercurrent: higher temperatures give more CO2 outgassing from the oceans but more uptake by vegetation. If we take the seasonal changes over a the globe as base, then we see an average of about 10 GtC change per °C or 5 ppmv/°C. That is not only from the oceans, but the combined increase/decrease from oceans + biosphere. The variability at MLO is near double (+/- 4 ppmv), but that is for one hemisphere and the temperature variability in the NH is about double too.
More about ocean temperature/bioactivity can be read at the pages of Feeling e.a.:
http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/pubs/outstand/feel2331/exchange.shtml
The 6 ppmv between MWP and LIA is what is seen in the Law Dome ice core, the one with a medium accumulation rate. The resolution is about 40 years average for the gas samples. As the LIA lasted a lot longer, that is not a problem.
See: http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/law_dome_1000yr.jpg
The Law Dome ice cores (all three) overlap with the south pole atmospheric measurements for a period of about 20 years, which gives confidence in their accuracy for measuring ancient atmospheres.
The temperature trend is taken from the reconstructions with the highest temperature difference between MWP and LIA (the smallest difference is by Mann’s reconstruction…), in this case Moberg and Esper. See the “spaghetty” graphs…
If there is an 800 years delay at all (which I doubt, there seems to be a 50 year delay between cooling and CO2 drop in the Law Dome ice core), the effect would be minimal: The 800 years delay during an increase from an ice age to an interglacial caused an increase of about 80 ppmv for an increase of about 10°C. Thus about 8 ppmv/°C. If the ratio stays the same for smaller increases/decreases, then the amount of CO2 coming out of the warmer MWP (after the “cold” period between the Roman Empire and the MWP), would give not more than 6 ppmv increase of CO2 in the current period…
Frank Lansner (10:54:02) :
– You said that 20.000 years of zero solar activity would result in 0,05 temperature decrease.
How much of the maunder minimum do you expect that the low solar activity led to? Just roughly of course.
I do not understand your question. My answer [based on that non-understanding] would be “all of it”. The Maunder Minimum is the name given to a period of ‘zero’ solar activity. Or more precisely: to a period of few visible sunspots. The magnetic cycle was still operating [cosmic rays were still modulated].
Oh dear. There seems to be a correlation emerging between the posting of aggressive or offensivene comments and the assumption of contrived pseudonyms, behind which the offenders choose to hide. I had hoped that this otherwise excellent forum was above such cowardice.
nobwainer,
As an update to my last post, I have managed to find something that talks about how the global annual mean solar insolation varies with the changing eccentricity of the earth’s orbit ( http://web.sfc.keio.ac.jp/~masudako/edu/text/quatbook/variat/node5.html ):
So, it appears that the direct radiative forcing due to the change in eccentricity should indeed be quite tiny. Again, it is the changes in distribution (in location and time of year) of the solar insolation that allows the growth or shrinkage of the ice sheets, which then (along with the change in greenhouse gas levels) creates a more significant radiative forcing through the ice albedo effect.
Ferdinand,
What I wrote was this: “…the algae are emitting O2 as a waste product.” [my emphasis]
Algae are plants. Plants convert CO2 to O2. Or am I mistaken?
And I never said “proof.” Why are you changing what I wrote?
Smokey.
You are old like me. Algae have not been considered plants since the Five Kingdom taxonomy was introduced. The are part of Kingdom Protista.
It too was once taught Algae were plants, but that is no longer the case.
Well, I’ve been corrected by two experts. I was wrong.
But I learned something! So it’s all good.
Joel Shore (15:22:43) :
As an update to my last post, I have managed to find something
Masuda’s statement flies in the face of conventional wisdom and he doesnt back up his statement.
If we look at one of the papers from Berger who takes his numbers from Milankovitch he very clearly in a number of places shows how the Wm-2 value at the equator differs significantly over 100 kyr.
http://www.cfa.harvard.edu/~wsoon/DaveLegates03-d/Bergeretal03.pdf
Anyone want to help me with AIRS? The web site has changed and I can’t find anything. They report that there is CO2 data up to and including December 08 but I can’t find it.
Smokey (10:08:57) :
There are more than a billion organisms in every square meter of the ocean’s surface in the top one meter alone. They are constantly taking in CO2 to build their shells, and the algae are emitting O2 as a waste product.
Not ‘constantly’, only about half of the time, the other half of the time the process is reversed.
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Take heart!
While you may have been technically incorrect in calling algae “plants”, I believe your central assertion is still correct re: algae and CO2>O2 regardless of what the taxa for algae are.
“What’s in a name? that which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet …”
Pamela,
The data can be found at:
ftp://acdisc.gsfc.nasa.gov/data/s4pa/Aqua_AIRS_Level3/AIRX3C2M.005/
But I don’t know which type of program that can read the files…
Smokey,
Sorry, my mistake. You were talking about algues and in next sentence about more CO2 released from the oceans. I mixed them up. Nevertheless, algue indeed use CO2 and produce O2. Hard to know how that varies over the years. There are only two places on earth where a longer term trend is measured, Bermuda for the Atlantic and somewhere in the Pacific. A few years ago a lot of floating devices measure CO2 all over the oceans, as well in the atmosphere as in the ocean’s surface. The variability of the sink capacity of the oceans is quite high, about 50% of the average for the North Atlantic ocean, but still it is a sink for CO2, not a source, despite increasing sea surface temperatures (until a few years ago), which contradicts the formula of Frank Lansner that temperature is the cause of the rend in CO2. See:
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/298/5602/2374
Ed Scott (17:39:30) :
A new car company with no emission products. The insanity is just getting underway.
————————————————————-
Obama Motors!
http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/8027.
That would be the american version of the Trabant – maybe the USA should hire some east german engineers to help make it.
Larry Kirk (13:55:50) :
Oh dear. There seems to be a correlation emerging between the posting of aggressive or offensivene comments and the assumption of contrived pseudonyms, behind which the offenders choose to hide. I had hoped that this otherwise excellent forum was above such cowardice.
Cowardice and a Lack of actual evidence to support their position – kind of like being naked in the middle of the street – the ad-homs are an attempt to distract the observer from noticing the nakedness of their arguments.
Any good argument will be appropriately clothed in valid evidence with good providence.
Leif Svalgaard (13:49:01) :
Frank Lansner (10:54:02) :
“- You said that 20.000 years of zero solar activity would result in 0,05 temperature decrease.
How much of the maunder minimum do you expect that the low solar activity led to? Just roughly of course.”
Leif:
“I do not understand your question. My answer [based on that non-understanding] would be “all of it”. The Maunder Minimum is the name given to a period of ‘zero’ solar activity. Or more precisely: to a period of few visible sunspots. The magnetic cycle was still operating [cosmic rays were still modulated].”
As i understand you a minimum of sunspots would have the same effect in 50 years as it would in 20.000 years?
Hmm. I dont think so.
Lets take your 0,05 K. after roughly 1000years (APPROX) the whole ocean would have adjusted to that lower temperature.
But as the example was 20.000 years, well the minimum-sunspot-effect is still there and would roughly affect in the same way it did 1000 years earlier – that is resulting in a 0,05 K dive in temperatures.
But after the first 1000 years, this effect is now applied to a 0,05 colder eart, right?
ROUGHLY ROUGHLY we should see 20 times the effect after 20.000 years.
20 x 0,05 K = 1K.
And as the maunder minimum was a cooling of MANY times 0,05K the variance seen in ice ages is not really surpricing.
The essential: Whatever caused the big temperature changes we have seen “recently” – if this where allowed to proceed for 20.000 years, it would cool of the oceans in multible stages, and thus a 20.000 year cooling condition will have far bigger cooling potential than a 50 years cooling.
foinavon (08:51:19) :
It’s pretty straightforward isn’t it? The steady rise in atmospheric CO2 since the start of the industrial age correlates rather well with our emissions, especially if one factors in the proportion (35-40%) of these that have been forced into the oceans. When our emissions have been low, the rate of accumulation of CO2 in the atmosphere has been low….conversely when our emissions have been highest (around now!) so has the rate of accumulation been highest. Otherwise the interannual variability is understood pretty well. It seems largely to be due to ENSO-related effects on tropical forest productivity…
There’s a truly vast amount of relevant research on this subject in the scientific literature. Since well-informed policymakers and their scientific advisors are sourcing their information from these sources, we’d be silly to ignore them! We’re likely to end up with viewpoints that (a) don’t accord with the evidence, and (b) be progressively out of kilter with informed decision-making…
A couple of things wrong with the above…
[1] How is the amount of Atmospheric CO2 baselined prior to the Industrial revolution. I.e. How do we actually know what the CO2 level was prior to 1850.
[2] Politicians are often advised by QANGOs “Quasi Autonomous Non Government Organisations” who are driven by their own political agendas and are not accountable – hardly a recipe for objective, independent, and skilled advice.
? What is your definition of a well informed policy maker ?
Clarity (10:29:36) :
Mr. Lasner cannot specify which AGW theories the Vostok data refutes. The Vostok data is relevant to geologic ages long before humans had any affect on CO2 levels.
I have seen many blogs like “AGW is phony because CO2 lags temperature” and articles like this encourage such fallacious statements.
[1] The theory that is being debunked is “that CO2 is a significant driver for global temperature”, from the data at the head of this thread it is shown that CO2 is NOT a significant driver.
That being the case the whole AGW house of cards collapses. There is no need to restrain CO2, no need for a CAP and Trade, no need for increased taxation to subsidise wind farms, etc, etc.
[2] What is your evidence that CO2 does NOT lag temperature?
Please add some “Clarity” to the forum.
steve (02:36:26) :
Hi Foinavon,
You stated that we could use the formula T = (3.0/log(2))*(log(C))-9.39 to analyse CO2’s forcing effect.
This was in support of Hansen’s having “nailed” it which in turn was in support of the IPCC’s selected model projection
which much of future policy is being based on.
From these graphs if we ignore extrema and only look at periods of monotonic increase then we have the situation of
CO2 increasing from roughly 220 ppm to 280 ppm a 60 ppm change and we have a temperature change from -6 to 1 or 7 K change in Temperature. (I’m looking at the graphs only so there could be some errors in my calcs but I’d be happy to redo them if you can point me to the raw data).
From your formula we get Delta(T) = T(280) – T(220) = 1.04. So according to you and Hansen 6 K or roughly 86% of that change was due to natural variation…
sorry steve, I only just noticed your post.
The atmospheric CO2 variations between glacial and interglacial periods is pretty consistently between around 180 ppm (glacial) and 270 ppm (interglacial). That’s the case over the last three cycles. So within a 3 oC climate sensitivity, this gives a CO2-induced contribution to warming of near 1.8 oC. Since the global temperature rise from glacial to interglacial is 5-6 oC, the CO2 contribution (within a 3 oC climate sensitivity) is 30-36%.
nobwainer says:
I don’t see anything in Berger’s paper that contradicts what Masuda says. (Nothing I found there directly confirms it either although their description in the conclusions of “the positive feedback mechanisms which transform the
relatively small orbital forcing into global interglacial-glacial cycles” seems to support the general notion that the orbital forcing itself is small without the feedback mechanisms due to changes in albedo and greenhouse gas concentrations.) Berger is all about the insolation changes at various places over various times of year, not the global annual mean insolation.
I am also confused about which part of my argument (and that of Masuda) you disagree with. Do you not agree that when the orbit gets more eccentric there will be at least an approximate cancellation between the increase in insolation for the times when the earth is closer to the sun and the decrease when it is further away? Or, do you think that this approximate cancellation is not as good as Masuda says, i.e., do you think his claim that the remaining global mean annual insolation change goes as the square of the eccentricity is wrong? Or what exactly?
Graeme,
How is the amount of Atmospheric CO2 baselined prior to the Industrial revolution. I.e. How do we actually know what the CO2 level was prior to 1850.
We have ice cores, which show ancient atmospheres as they were inclused at the average time that the bubbles in the ice needed to be closed. For the medium accumulation ice core of Law Dome, that is about 40 years smoothing, sharp enough to see the change over half a century within the last millennium:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/law_dome_1000yr.jpg
As there is an overlap of about 20 years with the atmospheric measurements at the south pole with the three ice cores at Law Dome (2 of 8 years resolution, one with 40 years), we can be confident that the air bubbles still have the same composition as in that period.
Further the d13C record of coralline sponges show that little change occured until about 1850, not a direct indication of amounts in the atmosphere, but a direct indication of the source of any change in CO2 amounts: not from the oceans, not from vegetation growth but either from vegetation decay or from fossil fuel burning. As the oxygen use figures show that since about 1990 there is more vegetation growth than decay, that means that the change is solely from human use of fossil fuels. See:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/sponges.gif
Foinavon,
So within a 3 oC climate sensitivity, this gives a CO2-induced contribution to warming of near 1.8 oC
This is what the climate models expect, not what happens in reality… The 3°C for 2xCO2 is what Hansen needed to explain the warming during glacial-interglacial transitions, but that is just an estimate and hasn’t changed much since then.
But nobody knows e.g. what cloud cover did during such transitions, something that climate models don’t even approach in the real world of today. 1% change in cloud cover has about the same real effect as the theoretical effect of an increase of CO2 since the industrial revolution…
Further, there is no feedback effect visible of a drop of 40 ppmv CO2 at the end of the Eemian, the previous warm(er) period, neither any feedback of CO2 on temperature during the warming to the Holocene…
Frank Lansner (04:16:00) :
But after the first 1000 years, this effect is now applied to a 0,05 colder eart, right?
ROUGHLY ROUGHLY we should see 20 times the effect after 20.000 years.
20 x 0,05 K = 1K.
And for a minimum lasting 20 million years, we should have a cooling of ROUGHLY 1000K, right?