Reposted from Jennifer Marohasy
The Available Evidence Does Not Support Fossil Fuels as the Source of Increasing Concentrations of Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide (Part 1)
Because the increase in the concentration of atmospheric carbon dioxide has correlated with an increase in the use of fossil fuels, causation has been assumed.
Tom Quirk has tested this assumption including through an analysis of the time delay between northern and southern hemisphere variations in carbon dioxide. In a new paper in the journal Energy and Environment he writes:
“Over the last 20 years substantial amounts of CO2 derived from fossil fuel have been released into the atmosphere. This has moved from 5.0 gigatonnes of carbon in 1980 to 6.2 gigatonnes in 1990 to 7.0 gigatonnes in 2000… Over 95% of this CO2 has been released in the Northern Hemisphere…
“A tracer for CO2 transport from the Northern Hemisphere to the Southern Hemisphere was provided by 14C created by nuclear weapons testing in the 1950’s and 1960’s.The analysis of 14C in atmospheric CO2 showed that it took some years for exchanges of CO2 between the hemispheres before the 14C was uniformly distributed…
“If 75% of CO2 from fossil fuel is emitted north of latitude 30 then some time lag might be expected due to the sharp year-to-year variations in the estimated amounts left in the atmosphere. A simple model, following the example of the 14Cdata with a one year mixing time, would suggest a delay of 6 months for CO2 changes in concentration in the Northern Hemisphere to appear in the Southern Hemisphere.
“A correlation plot of …year on year differences of monthly measurements at Mauna Loa against those at the South Pole [shows]… the time difference is positive when the South Pole data leads the Mauna Loa data. Any negative bias (asymmetry in the plot) would indicate a delayed arrival of CO2 in the Southern Hemisphere.
“There does not appear to be any time difference between the hemispheres. This suggests that the annual increases [in atmospheric carbon dioxide] may be coming from a global or equatorial source.”
********************
Notes
‘Sources and Sinks of Carbon Dioxide’, by Tom Quirk, Energy and Environment, Volume 20, pages 103-119. http://www.multi-science.co.uk/ee.htm
The abstract reads:
THE conventional representation of the impact on the atmosphere of the use of fossil fuels is to state that the annual increases in concentration of CO2 come from fossil fuels and the balance of some 50% of fossil fuel CO2 is absorbed in the oceans or on land by physical and chemical processes. An examination of the data from: i) measurements of the fractionation of CO2 by way of Carbon-12 and Carbon-13 isotopes; ii) the seasonal variations of the concentration of CO2 in the Northern Hemisphere; and iii) the time delay between Northern and Southern Hemisphere variations in CO2, raises questions about the conventional explanation of the source of increased atmospheric CO2. The results suggest that El Nino and the Southern Oscillation events produce major changes in the carbon isotope ratio in the atmosphere. This does not favour the continuous increase of CO2 from the use of fossil fuels as the source of isotope ratio changes. The constancy of seasonal variations in CO2 and the lack of time delays between the hemispheres suggest that fossil fuel derived CO2 is almost totally absorbed locally in the year it is emitted. This implies that natural variability of the climate is the prime cause of increasing CO2, not the emissions of CO2 from the use of fossil fuels.
Data drawn from the website http://cdiac.ornl.gov/trends/co2/contents.htm .
Tom Quirk has a Master of Science from the University of Melbourne and Master of Arts and Doctor of Philosophy from the University of Oxford. His early career was spent in the UK and USA as an experimental research physicist, a University Lecturer and Fellow of three Oxford Colleges.
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MikeF (25-3-2009, 20:20:19) :
2 points:
1. You attribute all of 4GtC to humans. Then you use this equation to prove that humans are responsible for extra 4Gt of carbon. Isn’t it a bit, well, circular?
2. If we use your line of reasoning, then without human emissions amount of CO2 would be constantly going down, causing global cooling (less CO2-lower temperature) until we either freeze to death of die of starvation (or both)?
1. I attribute 8 GtC to humans, as that are the emissions. The 4 GtC is what is found in the atmosphere (no matter the origin). As 8 GtC is larger than 4 GtC, it is impossible that nature caused a net addition (in mass) to the atmosphere. Thus the full 4 GtC increase is attributable to the emissions.
2. Without human emissions, next year CO2 levels in the atmosphere would go down with about 4 GtC (2 ppmv), one year later with 3.2 GtC,… Going down with a half life time of about 40 years, until we are back at the pre-industrial CO2 levels of about 280 ppmv. If that has an effect on temperature, that is an entiry different question…
Ferdinand E.,
Where did you get the half life of 40 years for CO2? Freeman Dyson and Jennifer Marohasy both state that it’s around 12 – 13 years.
“1. I attribute 8 GtC to humans, as that are the emissions.”
This equation only works if the two change at the same rate. So what you really have is:
X (natural carbon sources – natural carbon sinks) = -4 GtC
What is X?
I thought I was following along pretty well until I saw 14C historical measurements. Looking at the data from Wellington, NZ, 14C peaked in the early 60s at almost 700PPM and has dropped to under 250 PPM as of 1994. I think I understand that the 14C comes from the open air nuclear testing.
Where did the 14C go?
Does 14C absorb IR the same as 13C and 12C affecting or not affecting global temperature as you may prefer?
If 14C absorbs IR then why wouldn’t this be included in the overall CO2 climate temperature record discussion?
What is the Mauna Loa station actually measuring? 12C, 13C, or all CO2 including 14C?
Your humble gardner
Earl:
Mauna Loa is measuring CO2, irrespective of the isotope. The atomic mass of carbon is 12.011, which is the average of C12, c13 and C14. From the mass number, you can see that the C13 and C14 isotopes are relatively uncommon and that most carbon is C12. Since C14 is radioactive it is easy to measure.
Thanks to Chris Knight for that data on Pt Barrow Alaska. I always like it when a random thought turns out to be at least consitent with reality; even if cause and effect haven’t been proven. I was all ready to deep six Phil’s remark that CO2 didn’t dissolve in ice; and then it suddenly hit me. If there ain’t a lot of trees growing on the arctic ocean ice; could the ice growth itself be a cause of CO2 emissions. thinking of the phase diagram processes; I now don’t see how it can not be an important source of cyclic CO2. The 18ppm p-p annual cylce at the north pole seemed huge for simply a change in CO2 solubility as a function of temperature.
But when you think of the coldest of waters, which presumably harbor the highest CO2 concentrations required by Henry’s law, and then you get the total exclusion off that high CO2 level from every gram of water that freezes; that’s a bunch of CO2 in the arctic, based on what we agonized through last fall and winter.
Since I don’t have any institutional or government grants to research the quantitative numbers; I’ll bequeath the idea to those of you who do; see if you can make any numerical sense out of my thesis.
George
PS Bill D. Yeah I can just see how tough it is for you hanging out in those remote European Lakes for the good of science; what a rough way to make a living. What sort of flies are your favorites in those lakes?
Bill D
Thank you so much for your reply.
There is a huge spike in 14C measurement in Wellington NZ up to 700 PPM as documented here, http://cdiac.ornl.gov/trends/co2/well-gr.html
and up to 1000 PPM in Central Europe as documented here, http://cdiac.ornl.gov/trends/co2/graphics/cent-vegr.gif
so it seems that it was a world wide phenomonon, but the spike does not show up in the Mauna Loa record or any other record that I have seen in AGW discussions. It doesn’t make sense to me that it wouldn’t show up as CO2 in the other records.
Any thoughts on my other questions?
Where did the 14C go? When it deteriorates, what is the resulting Isotope? 13C?
Does 14C absorb IR the same as 13C and 12C affecting or not affecting global temperature as you may prefer?
If 14C absorbs IR then why wouldn’t this be included in the overall CO2 climate temperature record discussion? How can anyone say that 380 PPM is the higest concentration of CO2 in thousands of years if 14C has been measured at 700 PPM in NZ and 1000 PPM in central Europe?
Your humble gardner
Carbon 14 decays to Nitrogen 14 by beta emission.
Larry
Earl E Winter (16:17:18) :
There is a huge spike in 14C measurement in Wellington NZ up to 700 PPM as documented here, http://cdiac.ornl.gov/trends/co2/well-gr.html
and up to 1000 PPM in Central Europe as documented here, http://cdiac.ornl.gov/trends/co2/graphics/cent-vegr.gif
so it seems that it was a world wide phenomonon, but the spike does not show up in the Mauna Loa record or any other record that I have seen in AGW discussions. It doesn’t make sense to me that it wouldn’t show up as CO2 in the other records.
The C14 data refers to the fraction of the Carbon atoms which are C14, not the fraction of the atmosphere which is C^14O2.
hotrod (17:12:58) :
Where did the 14C go?
Carbon 14 decays to Nitrogen 14 by beta emission.
Larry
Yes with a half-life of 5730 years! The disappearance of the nuclear spike was due to exchange with the ocean and biosphere.
Phil,
Thanks for correcting me.
Ferdinand has made a number of good points in the past.
For example, the slope of the dCO2/dT (CO2 in ppm, temperature T in degrees C) is a problem for those who want to ascribe all CO2 changes to changes in temperature.
For recent decades, the ~9 month lag in CO2 after temperature has a slope 2 to 3 ppm CO2/dC.
For the past ~400,000 years, the ice core data has a slope of ~10ppm CO2/dC.
Since ~1980, Surface Temperature (Hadcrut3) has shown warming of ~0.5C and CO2 has increased ~50ppm, or ~100ppm CO2/dC.
Obviously there is a mismatch. One might conclude that there must be another source of CO2 to account for the recent increase of ~2ppm CO2/year.
That source may be humanmade CO2 emissions due to combustion of fossil fuels. Ferdinand uses the material balance argument to make his case.
One problem is the poor correlation of atmospheric CO2 with variations in fossil fuel consumption, such as during economic downturns in the past several decades.
Natural CO2 seasonal variation in the far North approaches ~20ppm per year – it seems plausible that the driver of the ~2 ppm annual increase in CO2 is mostly natural.
I expect that in the next few years we will have adequate data and insight to reach a better decision on this question.
Regards, Allan
Smokey (27-03-2009, 10:45:55) :
Where did you get the half life of 40 years for CO2? Freeman Dyson and Jennifer Marohasy both state that it’s around 12 – 13 years.
Depends which half life: the residence half life time, the average time that a certain molecule is in the atmosphere before exchanged is about 5 years (150 GtC exchange over the seasons of the 800 GtC in the atmosphere). That can be deduced from the residence time of 14C of the nuclear tests in the 1950’s. The half life time of an excess quantity in mass is about 40 years (4 GtC sink/year of 800 GtC in the atmosphere in the current year, thus much longer than the residence time). For the calculation, see Peter Dietze at:
http://www.john-daly.com/carbon.htm
Ohioholic (27-03-2009, 11:53:28) :
“1. I attribute 8 GtC to humans, as that are the emissions.”
This equation only works if the two change at the same rate. So what you really have is:
X (natural carbon sources – natural carbon sinks) = -4 GtC
What is X?
In the past 50 years, the difference between sources and sinks varied +/- 2 GtC (+/- 1 ppmv) around the trend, while the trend itself was about 55% of the emissions. It seems that there is little change in amplitude of the natural variation, while the emissions increased over time. And there is a strong dependency of the variability with temperature, about 3 ppmv/°C. Thus all together, the increase of CO2 in the atmosphere over the past 50 years is about:
dCO2 = 0.55 x emissions + 3 x dT
where dCO2 is for any time period (over the past 100+ years), emissions in ppmv and dT the temperature difference over the period of interest.
See what happened over the past 50 years:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/dco2_em.jpg
and compare that to the result of the above formula:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/egbn_trend.jpg
Earl E Winter (27-03-2009, 16:17:18) :
There is a huge spike in 14C measurement in Wellington NZ up to 700 PPM as documented here, http://cdiac.ornl.gov/trends/co2/well-gr.html
and up to 1000 PPM in Central Europe as documented here, http://cdiac.ornl.gov/trends/co2/graphics/cent-vegr.gif
so it seems that it was a world wide phenomonon, but the spike does not show up in the Mauna Loa record or any other record that I have seen in AGW discussions. It doesn’t make sense to me that it wouldn’t show up as CO2 in the other records.
The 14C measurements are expressed in per mil to a standard, that is not ppmv. The amounts formed by cosmic rays and nuclear tests are extremely small, compared to the bulk (which is near 99% 12C and over 1% 13C).
14C is only 0.0000000001% of the carbon in the atmosphere. But indeed it can be detected by radiation counting, but nowadays much faster and more accurate by mass spectroscopy.
See Wiki at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon-14
Allan M R MacRae (05:51:16) :
One problem is the poor correlation of atmospheric CO2 with variations in fossil fuel consumption, such as during economic downturns in the past several decades.
Natural CO2 seasonal variation in the far North approaches ~20ppm per year – it seems plausible that the driver of the ~2 ppm annual increase in CO2 is mostly natural.
There is an extremely good correlation between atmospheric accumulation and accumulated emissions over the past 100+ years. Here a graph over the past 50 years between emissions and the increase of CO2 at Mauna Loa and the south pole:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/acc_co2_1960_2006.jpg
There is some (increasing) delay between the NH and the SH as result of low intermixing of the hemispheres and increasing emissions.
And (relative) small changes in the economy probably have less impact on energy use and emissions compared to the natural variation in uptake (+/-1 ppmv)…
The variability in the North can be regional, but one should not underestimate the emissions over land (see e.g. the variability over Schauinsland), which may be transported up to the North via the Ferell cell. Most baseline stations are in the Pacific, which are measuring air from over the oceans and therefore are less variable.
Further, the yearly averages of the NH stations show little difference…
Ferdinand Engelbeen (11:28:46)
“There is an extremely good correlation between atmospheric accumulation and accumulated emissions over the past 100+ years.”
My comment:
Sleight of hand, Ferdinand.
Both parameters are increasing in a near-linear fashion – so what?
The same correlation would occur if you plotted CO2 versus human population, or even the number of yak farts.
Atmospheric CO2 grows at about half the rate of fossil fuel emissions.
And when you examine periods of economic decline when fossil fuel combustion slowed, you see no parallel slowing in atmospheric CO2 concentration.
The only significant signal in the data is that CO2 lags temperature by ~9 months.
Best regards, Allan
Sandy (22:00:56) : ” to 7.0 gigatonnes in 2000″
I thought World production of wheat was around 100 gigatonnes […]
Has anyone ever estimated the total annual growth of biomass? That 7.0 gigatonnes of guilt represents what proportion of the biomass’s CO2 turn over?
Well, there are tree species that grow about 25 to 50 tonnes / acre / year wet, or about 12 to 25 tonnes of dry matter per acre. Not all of that is carbon, but say we call it 11 tons total (shifting to the U.S. ton to conserve “n”s and “e”s lest we run out by using them all up 😉
That means it would take a tree farm about 1000 miles on a side to soak it all up. At the end of 100 years or so you would need to figure out what to do with the mature forrest…
Somehow I think there is more forrest on the planet than that 1000 mi sq.
Siberia and Brazil come to mind…
John A (03:20:04) : Can someone explain why the countries of Northern Africa have a persistently higher CO2 concentration that the heavily industrialized nations of Northern Europe?
And while you’re at it, why there is that nice global band at the latitude of Australia… and how the CO2 gets from the Evil U.S.A, China. and Europe to that band without raising the concentration in the blue band in the middle…
http://www.worldatlas.com/aatlas/infopage/tectonic.htm
I don’t know if this has ever been addressed, but if you follow that link, you will see that there is a rough correlation to the CO2 hotspots with tectonic plate collisions.
The African plate hits the Eurasian plate right about the same area as the orange spot on the map provided here, but it is filtered through water. The North American plate is above water, though (San Andreas), and corresponds with the red spot over North America.
I don’t know enough about which direction they are moving, and which are subducted and so forth, but does anyone else? Has this been addressed before? When you grind two huge masses of land together above ground or in shallow water, does it release CO2?
Mr. Engelbeen,
I am still not sure how you can have such a definitive conclusion when the variation around the trend is a full quarter of what you attribute to humans. For instance, if I said I was 95% confident I had $1,000, plus or minus $250, you would probably think I should pay better attention to my accounting, no? If I wanted to borrow money with such figures, you would probably eye my 5% lack of confidence with alarm?
Regards,
Dave
This map is from Mid-JULY when the N. Hemisphere is hottest, and not using so much heating fuel. It shows lots of CO2 where it’s hot and where the ocean currents are hottest (such as the Gulf Stream area) and not so much near Angola and Peru where cold currents flow…
I would really like to see a winter map of the same information. My first take on this is that hot water releases CO2 and cold water sucks it up… Oh, and it looks like vast areas of unbroken trees also show lower CO2 like Siberia, Amazon, and Canada. I might also be convinced that hot soils might release CO2 as decay / fermentation accelerates. Oh, and Tibet as high and cold seems to be a CO2 sink… as does Greenland (not to mention Antarctica).
Golly, could it be that direct? Not CO2 causes warming, but warming causes CO2? Causalities arrow shot the wrong way by the AGWers?
Taking coincidence and correlation and running off the causality cliff with it?
Oh, and doesn’t the 15 ppm or so variation / bias between where the Ice Cores comes from vs Hawaii where CO2 is measured mean that some of our projections about past GLOBAL CO2 levels might be off a bit? Not to mention the 25 ppm or so between the ice core areas and major industrial hot spots…
Pamela Gray (12:36:32) : Given the land based vegetation compared to an active global plankton bloom added to the already rich plant life in the oceans, I am beginning to think that forests and crops don’t hold a candle to the oceans.
Trees tons / acre best case: 25-50 tons / acre year.
Algae tons / acre best case: 276 tons / acre year achieved per these folk:
http://www.valcent.net/s/NewsReleases.asp?ReportID=277235
So at least there’s a theoretical case that algae beats the pants off of land based vegetation even before you get into the surface are differential and way before you get into comparing how much cubic growth you’ve got available in the ocean…
Crops and grasses are down in the single ton / acre to 10 ton /acre range.
So I’d say you’re right…
Pamela Gray (10:22:12) : What if the CO2 we now have in the atmosphere is another necessary ingredient for the oscillating plankton bloom that produces the oscillating fish population boom? Were we to somehow (not likely but I am just musing here) reduce this CO2 and then the plankton bloom were to happen, it would be short lived due to insufficient CO2.
My, but you do seem to be on a roll in this thread. These folks did a bunch of analysis and testing of growing algae to consume sewage. In most cases they were CO2 limited. You need lots of CO2 or the algae bloom stalls.
http://www.nrel.gov/biomass/pdfs/lundquist.pdf
So any time you have a rich soup of nutrients, you limit on CO2, which implies that in a more dilute soup you would also limit on CO2 until the point where the C : N : P ratio got back in line at 50 : 8 : 1
While there probably isn’t a lot of excess P in the oceans, it’s still the case that CO2 is in ppm and you need a lot of it…
Allan M R MacRae (18:53:07) :
Ferdinand Engelbeen (11:28:46)
“There is an extremely good correlation between atmospheric accumulation and accumulated emissions over the past 100+ years.”
My comment:
Sleight of hand, Ferdinand.
Both parameters are increasing in a near-linear fashion – so what?
The same correlation would occur if you plotted CO2 versus human population, or even the number of yak farts.
Because Allan, Ferdinand was replying to your claim that: “One problem is the poor correlation of atmospheric CO2 with variations in fossil fuel consumption, such as during economic downturns in the past several decades.” so if it’s so inconsequential why did you bring it up?
If there’s any sleight of hand it’s yours Allan.