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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foinavon (14:06:49) :
“Although the Antarctic ice cores indicate that the rise in atmospheric CO2 lags warming in Antarctica, the Greenland cores indicate that Greenland warming follows the rise in CO2. So the rise in atmospheric CO2 during ice age transitions (glacial –> interglacial) is both a consequence and a cause.”
It’s hard to teach an old dog new tricks, isn’t it? I think what you’ve pointed out is a correlation. Now what could be the lurking variable in this case? I’d say you discovered the, wait for it, ocean!. CO2 is well mixed, no? If as you say the SH oceans warmed first, then the rise in CO2 from the SH ocean mixes in the atmosphere long before the ocean heat reaches Greenland.
Thus the warming in Greenland was due to the warmer ocean even if a rise in CO2 preceded it and may have had a slight effect.
foinavon (17:33:01) :
Thanks for pointing out the D-O cycles. I hadn’t seen that before. I don’t know how to translate O18 to temperature, but the correlation is there, and obviously something significant was going on there! That looks like a heck of lot of variation to me, especially compared to the more recent past.
To my earlier point, these recent cores will record much higher detail than the older ones. It’s not so much an effect of trapping air, it’s that the gases actually are in solution in a semi-permeable material. Granted, the diffusion process is very slow, but given enough time, the gases will move through the ice after being trapped from one layer to adjacent layers, thus smoothing the signal, with the rate being proportional to the differences in concentrations between layers or sections. Newer ice will show a more jagged signal than older ice due to this effect (and on the time scales we are talking about, it means the diffusion process is very slow). This doesn’t mean necessarily that more recent climate has more signal, it has less loss of signal… I’ll bet these same jagged O18 signals were present in the longer time scale cores (same climate phenomena present), but have been washed out over time. Speculation, no data… Interesting stuff…
In reply to E.M. Smith and P202: Right now Earth is nearest the sun during northern winters, farthest from the sun during northern summers. If E.M. Smith’s theory is correct, we’re headed for another ice age in the near future.
foinavon (14:31:43) in reply to me basically argues that CO2 can have some warming effect. I never doubted it. But the amount of CO2 warming deduced by foinavon himself is a good deal lower than the impression created by Gore in his movie. That is my point.
Oxana Lansner (17:32:57) :
Please forgive Frank for all the time he has spent working on this and
other submissions here. I’m sure there have been some long nights in
there, but everyone here appreciates his work.
Your method of data aggregation invalidates the analysis. These are serial, and serially correlated data. They are not independent, replicated data points. Moreover, none of the relationships you seek to explain, e.g. solar insolation, CO2 conc. and global temperature are linear relationships. The CO2 lag is one that developed as the glacial-interglacial cycles proceeded from their approximate initiation 2.4 million years ago. This is expected because CO2 is influenced by other factors, such as carbonate burial are recycling, and rates of erosion associated with, e.g. orogeny. None of this new. Observation of the lag is not new. It fits quite well with the temperature-greenhouse model, and this was recognized long before the problem of modern anthropogenic global warming was brought the to the attention of the broader scientific community.
Alan D. McIntire (18:49:15) :
In reply to E.M. Smith and P202: Right now Earth is nearest the sun during northern winters, farthest from the sun during northern summers. If E.M. Smith’s theory is correct, we’re headed for another ice age in the near future.
Which means that efforts to pull CO2 out of the atmosphere en masse will ultimately hasten the onset of another Ice Age. This is the part that really gets under my skin. They don’t understand the process yet, but are fully prepared to go through with the sequestration and climate cooling doomsday efforts.
Full speed ahead, boys, this ship is unsinkable !!
E.M.Smith (17:42:33)
Yup, I’m a ChemE. Will have a look at this.
Although, on an earlier thread (cannot remember which one, but seems like maybe a couple of weeks ago), this was discussed. My sceptism as a Chemical Engineer is that CO2 absorbed into the ocean does not have the requisite conditions for effective mass transfer.
From a simplistic standpoint, if the 100 ppm increases in CO2 in the interglacial eras are associated with temperature increases of about 10C, then why haven’t we seen such a temperature rise in the 20th century as CO2 levels soared another 100 ppm? Why don’t the alarmists claim that rising CO2 levels are actually postponing another glacial period and should therefore be increased ? Personally, I believe that CO2 has very little to do with climate change but I wonder what Obama actually thinks when talking to Hansen and Gore on this issue.
Alan D. McIntire (18:49:15) :
Thst shift is called the precession of the equinoxes and has a period of 26,000 years, not long enough the graphs in question here. In only 12,000 years the perihelion will be in July.
david elder:
This is certainly true in the sense of the appearance from those graphs that Gore shows. However, when he quotes IPCC projections and such, those are done using the best estimates of the climate sensitivity…which I believe amount to CO2 being responsible for only about 1/3 of the temperature change seen between the glacials and interglacials (rising to about 40% of the temperature change once you add in the other greenhouse gases).
At least one way that the fraction of 1/3 is arrived at is by estimating the fraction of the contribution of the radiative forcing due to the change in CO2 levels between the glacial period and now to the total estimated radiative forcing between the glacial period and now. (The bulk of the rest of the forcing is understood to be from the change in albedo from the growing and shrinking ice sheets, with a smaller contribution from changes in aerosol levels in the atmosphere. The Milankovitch oscillations themselves cause very little net radiative forcing…They just change the distribution of the solar radiation hitting the earth, but this change is still very important since it is what is ultimately responsible for the ice sheets starting to grow or shrink.)
Since the radiative forcing due to CO2 levels is known to quite good accuracy, the only way to hypothesize that CO2 has much less of an effect is to come up with some big honkin’ radiative forcing that is being left out of this calculation…or is being vastly underestimated. I haven’t heard many suggestions for what such a large radiative forcing could be. (And, even then, you would still be faced with the fact that other independent empirical estimates of the climate sensitivity, such as those derived from the Mt. Pinatubo eruption, also seem to favor about the same sensitivity as is obtained from looking at the change from glacial to interglacial conditions.)
john stubbles says:
First, see what I wrote in my previous post…that CO2 is only believed to be responsible for about 1/3 of the rise. Second, the 10C change from ice cores is an estimate of the temperature change at at high latitudes and is roughly double what the global temperature change is believed to be. Third, as foinavon noted, some of the warming from the current very rapid rise in CO2 is still “in the pipeline”. And, fourth, the expected rise in temperatures from CO2 alone over the past 100 years has been offset to some degree by the cooling effects of pollutants (sulfate aerosols) [although admittedly, there are also some warming effects due to the other greenhouse gases].
Thank you so much for having a website dedicated to the truth. These past six months I have been reading have shaken me to the core. I feel like I have dropped down a rabbit hole, and I cannot believe anything the MSM tells me.
I once had a phisophy teacher state that the only valid reason to believe something is because it is true. As a child you may believe in Santa Claus. It makes you happy and you behave better. As an adult, you don’t believe in it because it is not true, even though believing in it might make you happy and better behaved.
Al Gore and others want people to believe in AGW because of the effect it has on people. It is to manipulate them into doing things they wouldn’t do otherwise. They view the net effect as good because it advances their agenda. It is the utter hatred and fear of the truth that has shocked me to the core. People do not want to know the truth, they hate you for it.
I love the truth, I would rather know the truth and find out I was wrong, then swallow a lie and believe I am right.
In the end, the truth wins, because they will huff and puff, but they cannot command the sun and the oceans to do their bidding. Thank you. Thank you for opening my eyes to world not matter how shockingly painful it has been.
Rob (17:40:04) :
I have read the Hansen et al article (Atmos. Sci. J., 2, 217-231). It is not a scientific paper , but an advocacy paper for policy. Not too long ago the scientific community would not publish advocacy papers because it poisons your scientific objectivity. Too bad that has been abandoned.
Hansen is simply painting a climate of fear based on his stated opinion that “CO2 thus becomes a primary agent of long-term climate change, leaving orbital effects as‘noise’ on larger climate swings.” Everything else is circular reasoning.
There was no discussion that explains my criticism. Only a snow job from a blizzard of questionable caluclations. So perhaps Ron you can explain it for me.
Lets refer to Figure 5 in Frank’s post and look at the horizontal green line for experiment 1 representing 264 ppm. If CO2 is responsible for maintaining the temperature why is the same amount of CO2 only able to maintain a temperature that is 4 degree colder as we approach a glacial minimum? And if, as Hansen claims, that CO2 is he main driver, why at the same amount of CO2 is the temperature rising at A and then again falling at B?
You can’t have t both ways.
Since the radiative forcing due to CO2 levels is known to quite good accuracy, the only way to hypothesize that CO2 has much less of an effect is to come up with some big honkin’ radiative forcing that is being left out of this calculation
Why, certainly. The backing off of solar wind leading to increased cosmic rays which interact in the lower atmosphere in the UV to reflect off incoming sunlight and the 1/3 shrinkage of the upper atmosphere that equates to loss of “R” value. Ask Corning Insulation rep what “R” value means. Ask a Mars scientist what the thin CO2 atmosphere of Mars can hold vs incoming. Ask a Venus scientist what the thick CO2 atmosphere of Venus can hold vs incoming.
Since we are on C02 life support.
I don’t know if anyone else has commented on this. It is hard to read all the comments.
What I notice- and this is just from eyeballing Figure 1 – is how sharp the raise AND FALL is initially of the temperature. Then there seems to be an increase of temperature which is much different from the initial spike which in turn decays much more slowly until the next sharp upward spike in temperature. The CO2 rises and begins to fall sharply too, but is interrupted in its sharp fall by the secondary raise in temperature.
This is obscured in the subsequent figures – which show the temperature gradually tapering off.
Seems to me there are a number of mechanisms at play here. It is hard to work with the scale here, but I wonder if the oceans degassing might be a part of the second period of warming each cycle.
I would be interesting to play with this. Any way Frank that you could post the raw data for Figure 1? I went to the link you provided, but it seems on reading it that the data has been worked over in a number of ways.
I’ve been looking for the elusive CO2 data from the GISP2 ice core for quite a while. The files that I have seen only contain samples from cold periods during the last glacial period (lots of data points at 300ppm during cold periods). Seems rather hard to believe that no one has taken samples of CO2 from either GRIP or GISP2 during the interglacial. I would love to see a plot of temperature vs CO2. I would suspect it would be much more variable for the northern hemisphere than the southern hemisphere.
“I haven’t heard many suggestions for what such a large radiative forcing could be”
……..The sun maybe? lol!
Oh and I forgot to add to my other post,
CO2 is sequestered in the formation of calcium carbonate in our oceans, needed for most living things in the ocean. Clams, oysters, etc to build their shells. Something that’s been done for a billion years, give or take a billion.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_dioxide
The only form of calcium carbonate for the formation of a shellfish for fresh water clams or mussel is out of the fresh water. Where do think they got that calcium carbonate from? Hmmmm?
Here we are sending up all these probes and satellites for Earth and the rest of the planets. Why not use the other planets to help us get a firm grip on the question of solar forcing via complicated mechanisms?
Do we see changes in other planets recently?
I suspect we do. Let’s solve for Earth.
The worst part of this is the fact that Obama is now going to spend $170 billion on foolish attempts to sequester CO2. This, while our economy dips lower than a Maunder Minimum.
Now that is change we can all believe in!
Joel “Since the radiative forcing due to CO2 levels is known to quite good accuracy”
I have been searching for over 10 years for any scientific proof to support this statement if you have it please post it.
I have read many papers by eminent scientists which prove with meticulous mathematical precision the opposite to your statement. The justification for the formula F=5.35 ln(C1/C0) which is the one I assume you are referring to is 100% empirical and if you apply this formula to the individual periods over the past 130 years when the temperatures were rising then falling you will find the formula does not even begin to past the simplist validation test.
If you wish I can post this analysis since I have done the calculations.
This is not, as someone said above, good science.
But can the CO2-hypothesis be supported in any way using the data of Antarctic ice cores?
The ignorance of the above statement is astounding. That it comes from a non-climate scientist – as so much anti-AGW “science” does – just reinforces the doubt that sentence alone engenders. That statement is akin to saying the study of genes is irrelevant to understanding traits.
And, pray tell, why is this great science not found in a science journal?
Now that we are done with what would be ad hominems were they not accurate, lets’ look at the rest of this “science”….
One problem: there is no science in the article. Do you people not know what science is? Taking others work and reinterpreting it no *doing* science. BTW, did anyone notice the CO2 line in the third graph was altered from the other two?
All this is is an exercise in opinion with zero research done to back it up. And the conclusions are silly. It pays lip service to CO2 having an effect, but just to pretend at objectivity. Claiming the argument is that CO2 drives temps is a strawman that ignores the nature, and the very meaning, of positive feedbacks.
Meh… more garbage in to get your garbage out.
Call us when you’ve got some science.
Joel Shore (20:14:53) :
The Milankovitch oscillations themselves cause very little net radiative forcing…They just change the distribution of the solar radiation hitting the earth
The 100,000 yr Milankovitch cycle delivers an estimated 25% reduction in TSI at its most elliptical point in the orbit cycle. And I cant help but remind everyone, this is another cycle brought to you by our friendly Jovian planets.
superDBA (13:31:24) :
There is an obvious explanation: Hot water rises. If the warming is taking place at the surface, warm water will tend to stay at the surface and get warmed further. When cooling happens, chilled water will tend to sink in many places, tending to leave warmer water on the surface. Atmospheric temperatures are affected by the surface of the water so the atmosphere is warmed by the warmest ocean water, not by the average temperature of all ocean water.
Surface ocean currents are wind-driven, so in some places warm water gets blown against the edges of continents just as it now does. Cold water upwells upwind of those flows, so there is a smaller surface area of cold water exposed to atmosphere than there is warm water. There will be downwelling at edges where warm water currents encounter cold (polar) conditions, but the warm water stays in contact with the atmosphere until the entire volume of the end of the current cools below the temperature of the underlying water. The entire surface tends to warm, while deep water is warmed at only a few places — places where the atmosphere cooled the water (and the atmosphere was warmed).
The sudden-rise behavior is consistent with either a global warming of the surface or with a few intensely hot underwater sources. Heating of the bottom of the ocean would tend to also heat the deep cold water, which is not consistent with the steep rise-steep fall tendency unless underwater heat sources are isolated enough to create plumes of hot water which reach the surface quickly enough to not warm most of the ocean. This seems unlikely (such sources would probably be due to geothermal heating which would leave several geological and chemical traces), so the sudden-rise behavior suggests widespread heating of the surface.
Re: E.M.Smith (15:32:27) :
4) WARM is GOOD. COLD is BAD.
Bravo!
Re: barry moore (15:43:55) :
I would like to point out that the assumption has been made that the ice core sample CO2 data is accurate. There are many eminent scientists in this field who challenge the accuracy of this data.
Is there a competing hypothesis for the CO2/other GHG peak in the earlier interglacial periods?
re: barry moore (16:06:12) :
It does not. CO2 radiative forcing flattens out at about 50 ppm thereafter it has no effect on temperature reference Dr. John Nichol’s paper which in my humble opinion is the best analysis using the fundamental laws of radiation physics.
Link? I have searched for and not found experimental verification of the GHG theory. I recall reading one description of a very basic experiment that claimed that the CO2 green house effect damped out very quickly with length of column. Maybe this is so basic and long ago that no one points it out. Since we are dealing with very subtle effects, I hope that the underlying physics has a strong experimental basis.
re: Rob (17:40:04) :
What AGW proponents do NOT claim, despite what you say, is that CO2 is the only driver throughout geologic history.
Do they claim that it is the primary driver? If not, what?