WUWT reader Anna V. alerts us to the preliminary report from the JAXA GOSAT Project. According to the project website:
The Greenhouse gases Observing SATellite (GOSAT) Project is a joint effort promoted by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), the National Institute for Environmental Studies (NIES) and the Ministry of the Environment (MOE).
NIES organized the research team dedicated to the GOSAT project within its organization in April 2004, and since then has been working for the research and development with respect to GOSAT “IBUKI”.
For a complete description of how GOSAT works, please read their summary here (PDF)
First let’s have a look at Global Methane (CH4):
Note that the areas with the most concentration of methane are in China, Middle East, Southern Europe, and Africa.
The real surprise comes from the GOSAT CO2 data analysis. This first global CO2 map released from GOSAT is shown below:
While this is just a short data set comprising a few days from April 20-28th 2009, it does show some surprising features for hotspots of CO2 in the atmosphere over many of the same areas methane had higher concentrations. One difference is that some spots in the Eastern USA, presumably the larger cities, show CO2 hotspots also. From looking at the large CO2 map, it appears Atlanta, Charlotte, and NYC are the three cities in the USA with higher CO2 concentrations.
However, China, India, Southern Europe, the Mideast and Africa have the majority of the CO2 hotspots.
Here’s what JAXA has to say about their CO2 analysis:
Carbon dioxide column averaged dry air mole fractions (XCO2) for clear-sky scenes analyzed using observations at shortwave infrared bands (radiance spectrum uncalibrated data) from the IBUKI greenhouse gas observation sensor (TANSO-FTS). Clear-sky scenes at individual TANSO-FTS observation points are determined using measurements from the cloud/aerosol sensor (TANSO-CAI). Data are excluded where the associated radiance spectra are saturated, and where noise is relatively large due to weak ground surface reflection.
In the initial analysis, the late April observation data shows a hemispheric gradient, with larger values over the Northern Hemisphere (Note 1), consistent with other measurements. Derived XCO2 values are generally lower than model predictions (Note 2). This is thought to be due to the analysis involving uncalibrated radiance spectrum data and due to the parameter adjustment for the analysis method not being finalized. High concentrations are observed over continental China and Central Africa, which may be caused by measurement interference due to the presence of atmospheric dust. Asian dust (yellow sands) were observed over continental China during the observation period, and the existence of dust storm-like and smoke-like phenomena were observed in the relevant locations in Africa. Future investigation is required to understand these errors. Data calibration, processing parameter adjustment, and product validation required for quantitative discussion of the analysis results, will be carried out in the future.
(Note 1) The analysis showed Northern Hemisphere results to be on average around 10 ppm higher than Southern Hemisphere results. An atmospheric transport model calculation predicts the difference between north and south at this time to be 2-4 ppm.
(Note 2) Southern Hemisphere values were on average approximately 17 ppm lower than the model calculation, while Northern Hemisphere latitude band average values were approximately 7-12 ppm lower.
It will be very interesting to see if the hotspot CO2 distribution holds with more data from GOSAT. If it does we’ll be asking the question of why the USA seems to have less CO2 concentrations than other parts of the world. I’m sure it will fuel some political and policy debate.
We’ll be watching for releases of more complete data with better coverage.
Ive been following the GOSAT project since it launched, and i think they have been very accommodating and forthwith about what they are doing, and results to date. I wouldnt knock these guys…. but looking at their initial findings, its become clear to me that us in the southern hemisphere should not be subsidizing the NH climate action… in fact i think we should be paid reparations just for living in the SH, and helping to dampen Global GHG rises. 😉 yup im starting to like the idea o this AGW stuff lol
I suspect there is a bit of political decision making involved in getting the CO2 data on the Third World (Africa) and developing counties (India, Russia, China) out first by the Japanese government scientists, since those are the countries that would be crying out for CO2 credit vouchers (a.k.a. free money) from the developed countries, such as Europe, the US, and Japan during the upcoming Copenhagen CO2 smoking powwow ceremony this December.
As others have pointed out, these preliminary data come with so many caveats that any speculation is probably premature. One of the first principles of measurement is to make sure you’re actually measuring what you think you’re measuring. 🙂
“It is also a stopover for researchers traveling either to Ellesmere Island or to the famed “Ancient Forest” on Axel Heiberg Island.”
Uh oh. Appears we destroyed the planet before, in a previous incarnation…
I’m sure Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle is applicable in AGW: when you try to measure something, you change its value so can you really measure it?
(From your humble correspondent, contemplating life over a beer in KL airport…)
TonyB:
“The reference to a book is here by Dave Gardner (05:42:27) :
“In response to oldjim wondering what the CO2 values were for Victorian London, there are plenty of old books that give those values. The particular book I’m using is ‘Physiography: An Introduction to the Study of Nature’ by T H Huxley published in 1885, the values converted to ppm are:
On the Thames at London, mean: 343
In the streets of London: 380
Top of Ben Nevis: 327
From the Queen’s Ward, St Thomas’s Hospital: 400
From the Haymarket Theatre, dress circle at 11.30 pm: 757
From Chancery Court, 7 feet from ground: 1930
From underground railway, mean: 1452
From workings in mines, average of 339 samples: 7850
Largest amount in a Cornish mine: 25000
The measurements were carried out by Angus Smith and are originally given in his book ‘Air and Rain’ published in 1872. The above locations are in London apart from Ben Nevis (mountain in Scotland, tallest mountain in UK) and the values recorded in mines. Out of that data, the closest to a background level would be the Ben Nevis value. ”
====
A question then: What is the “typical” (wind-disturbed and no-wind conditions) for CO2 variation with height above sea level?
Is CO2 materially changing in elevation that the very,very crude GSM 1000 km “cubes” of air can’t dupliacte/won’t duplicate?
Can a GCM that uses “cubes” that don’t vary with either upper elevation (do they consider the upper air masses the same as the lower air masses? ) nor of the lowest level of air masses (we know they don’t adjust for real mountains and hills and plains where the Gobi desert is at 12,000 ft plus, but the North US plains vary from 5000 ft in Denver to 150 ft in north Mississippi, from near 0 in the north Arctic to Canada’s and Siberia Urals.)
So, they claim very, very precise corrections for relative humidity with temperature – to many decimal places in fact, but what do the CGM’s “accept” as the “average” condition for each “cube” of air they are multiplying and dividing between?
Gary from Chicagoland (04:15:15) :
Allan M R MacRae (23:27:37) :
I have examined the 15fps AIRS data animation of global CO2 at
http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a000000/a003500/a003562/carbonDioxideSequence2002_2008_at15fps.mp4
CO2 seem to rising from Nov to March, then dropping for the next 6 months. Is this CO2 tread due to plants or temperature?
______________
HI Gary,
The answer to your question is “both”.
What you are seeing is apparently the net effect of the greater land area in the Northern Hemisphere (NH), and the net effect of seasonal photosynthesis that reduces CO2 during the NH growing season, and seasonal rotting of organic matter that occurs in the other half of the year.
Note that in the far North, the seasonal amplitude in CO2 is about 18ppm, and at the South Pole it is near-zero. Compare this to the ~2ppm average increase in atmospheric CO2 from year to year.
Also note that the only “signal” I’ve been able to detect in this data is that CO2 lags temperature (global averages) by about 9 months. See
http://icecap.us/index.php/go/joes-blog/carbon_dioxide_in_not_the_primary_cause_of_global_warming_the_future_can_no/
Honestly, I don’t think “mainstream warmist science” even know which drives which – there is strong evidence that CO2 does NOT significantly drive temperature, and there is some good evidence that temperature drives CO2.
What we cannot rule out is there is a significant human component to increasing atmospheric CO2.
I would allow for the possibility that the human component is negligible, but there is a “material balance argument” which speaks against that position.
Conclusions:
1. CO2 does not significantly drive Earth’s temperature (evidence is natural cooling and warming cycles throughout history, and recent cooling in ~1940-75 and ~2000-2009 when humanmade CO2 emissions were significant.
2. Temperature drives CO2. Evidence is ice core data and the above paper on icecap.
3. There may or may not be a significant human component driving modern atmospheric CO2, in addition to the natural component.
That is what the evidence says to me.
Hope this helps.
Regards, Allan
And Gary, I left out the impact of physical solution and exsolution of CO2 in water, which operates counter-cyclically to the photosynthesis-CO2 curve.
That is, warmer water liberates more CO2 from solution, and colder water holds more CO2 in solution. This is best viewed in annualized data that removes the seasonal effect.
Seasonally, the above solution/exsolution effect is dominated by the photosynthesis/rotting cycle.
Mark (06:08:06) :
Re: Allan M R MacRae (23:27:37) :
Wow, that movie was very well crafted in a way to elicit maxim danger.
_______________________
I think it just shows how little humanity has to do with the CO2 cycle – it is probable that almost everything your see is this animation is natural.
I cannot rule out a human cause for the ~2ppm/year increase in average global CO2.
However, I do know that during cold perods since 1958, 12-month interval CO2 concentrations did occasionally decline.
Regards, Allan
Nick Stokes,
“I notice that the ring of CO2 anomalies in the Sahara is echoed by similar CH4 spots. Also in Madagascar and Central Asia. It does seem they have dust issues.”
Yes, of course, that would also explain the high level of CO2 readings over those east coast cities. They have a bad dust problem also. Just ask any home maker or street sweeper!!
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Remember that the CH4 and CO2 are expressed as % of all molecules in a column of atmosphere. See above, Assy (02:24:34) : “The satellite is measuring concentration averages in a vertical column. It is not CO2 flux. To get that you obviously need to know the advection. That will depend on models, but will be tied closely to observations (most likely a reanalysis product). ”
The height of the column will also depend on the elevation of the ground, so that the Tibetan Plateau would not look similar to the desert depressions of the world.
I cannot understand how the CO2 is expressed in units resembling Mauna Loa readings. Even at sea level at ML there are substantially higher concentrations and the broadcast ML data are picked to avoid certain climate conditions that would expose this low-levil CO2. Maybe at ground level not much above sea level, with a bit of industry, the CO2 is many hundreds of ppm. It is also a heavy gas so it would be expected to drop off with altitude, though this is a function of mixing. I cannot imagine the measured column is so well mised that it is within a few ppm of the ML values.
Very interesting early GB values – they support the likelihood of a lot of CO2 at ground level. There are many publications giving high CO2 at ground.
Finally, the instrumentation works on the ratio of measured carbon dioxide to molecular oxygen to determine the concentration of atmospheric carbon dioxide to a precision of 0.3 to 0.5 percent. (NASA http://www.nasa.gov/pdf/312386main_oco.pdf) There is no justification for the colour banding used on the maps because the precision bins are too big. And you can bet your bippy that those estimates of precision are when everything is working 100% squeaky clean. It also depends on the constancy of molecular oxygen through the column.
Geoff Sherington (05:52:30) :
From the pdf pamphlet referenced above it seems they have a handle on measuring low level CO2 :
The CO2
absorption bands near 1.6 μm and 2.0 μm are
important since absorptions in these bands
provide information on the near-surface concentrations.
The absorption band around 14
μm is used for obtaining information mainly at
altitudes above 2 km.
I do not see why they could not give concentrations for near surface then.
The white areas on the maps represent cloudy conditions during the 8 day span which invalidate the measurement standards set up for this project, so the data is not processed. The GOSAT brochure mentioned by Anthony covers this point is some detail; see his opening statement – For a complete description of how GOSAT works, please read their summary here (PDF). The brochure has a graph showing that unprocessed data are taken over almost the entire globe.
There is still a lot of work to do before any meaningful analysis can be made of the graphs but one thing appears to be fairly certain is that emissions from the earth are very important, including perhaps the hot spot in northeast Canada, which is the site of a massive meteor strike which left a large crater. Sure would like to be there with a simple hand held CO2 monitor.
In the Nino thread
el gordo (20:04:25) :
On a slightly different bent in the same part of the world. According to Tim Curtin ‘the whole theory of radiative forcing allegedly arising from increasing concentrations of carbon dioxide over time has no validity at pristine locations like Mauna Loa.’
http://jennifermarohasy.com/blog/2009/09/warming-hawaii-part-2-a-note-from-tim-curtin/#more-6377
If he is right, then the games up for alarmist hotheads.
The link has a very interesting plot:
the temperature at Maona Loa and the CO2 at the same spot.
CO2 is going up, temperature is constant to maybe diminishing!!!
Points to what I was saying : since CO2 is not well dispersed and since we want to compare it with temperaturs to get a global average we should have a CO2 measurement geographically next to each temperature measurement used to get the global average. Elementary scientific consistency.
I suspect that the GOSAT data is similar to this one plot, showing the irrelevancy of CO2 in the real world and they are tied up in knots before the Copenhagen meeting. After all their bread is buttered by the people who are pushing global warming.
Seems to me that the majority of the CO2 and CH4 is in generally arid regions subjected to high pressure Hadley Cell effects, predominately descending air between the westerlies and the trade winds.
All,
CO2 measurements again…
To start with: CO2 is well mixed, worldwide.
That doesn’t mean that at every moment at every place on earth, the same amount of CO2 is measured, but that means that any source or sink (hot spot or cold spot) of CO2 is readily mixed with or replaced by other air parcels. Near huge sources (vegetation at night, soil -bacteria-, volcanoes, heating, traffic) one can measure hundreds of ppmv’s higher than background. Or much lower values during the day near vegetation.
But if we look at the yearly averages, there is little difference between places as far away from each other like Barrow, Mauna Loa or the South Pole:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/co2_trends.jpg
Why so little difference (besides the SH lag, which proves that the extra CO2 source is mainly in the NH)? Because the measurement sites were carefully chosen to have a minimum of local influences.
Since Keeling started at the South Pole (yes, Mauna Loa was a year later…), more is known about the distribution of CO2 with wind patterns. In general, the measurements above the inversion (up to 1,000 m) over land and everywhere above sea surface are deemed “background”. That represents 95% of the earth’s atmosphere.
More, very comprehensive background information about the CO2 data measurements and cause of the rise is here:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/co2_measurements.html
The historical data:
Compare the results of a few modern days in Linden/Giessen (Germany, 1/2 hour sampling) with data from “good” stations (all are raw data, including “outliers”!)::
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/giessen_background.jpg
Nightly data from Giessen can reach over 500 ppmv (with inversion), while photosynthesis during the day (more turbulence) sink to around 350 ppmv.
With this in mind, it is easy to understand that much of the historical data, even measured with reasonable accuracy (+/- 10 ppmv was quite good for that time), are essentially worthless. For Giessen, one of the cornerstones of Beck’s historical compilation, even the time of sampling (7 AM, 2 and 9 PM) influences the result to a large positive bias.
See my comment on Beck’s reanalysis:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/beck_data.html
Thus the only useable results from history are from over the oceans, on mountains (indeed, Ben Nevis!) and measured at the seashore with seaside winds. Callendar (years before Keeling Sr.) eliminated most of the land side measurements and made a graph going around 310 ppmv. 60 years later, his graph was confirmed independently by many ice core samplings.
Keeling’s first measurements were at Big Sur State Park in Califirnia. He measured CO2 during day and night and at the same samples measured the 13C/12C ratio. That revealed to him (and his boss at that time) that trees were heavily influencing the diurnal CO2 level. In deserts and at height, that was not the case and that was the main reason for him to look for another place where the he could measure the real background CO2 levels.
See his fascinating story, including a life long struggle with the different administrations to maintain the continuous CO2 measurements:
http://scrippsco2.ucsd.edu/publications/keeling_autobiography.pdf
More reactions in next message…
this is substantiating data for what has been said here for years. with epa unidirectional flux at 780 gigatons, with deep ocean flux at 300 gigatons, mans contribution is not more than 2 percent of natural flux and well within variation of that flux. furthermore a study of the emissions graph at ornl versus the co2 data from MLO shows no related rate relationship. In other words the rates of co2 changes in emissions do not track the rates of change in co2 at MLO. Classically this is because another process is causing the co2 changes. This process is mother nature.
Re: peerreviewer (07:01:44) :
” Classically this is because another process is causing the co2 changes. This process is mother nature.”
—
No, it is not holy mother nature. She died in 1889. It is Elve number Fifteen. This Elve digs out fossil carbon and burns it hidden-wise in order to change the C-isotope ratios in the atmosphere in a very special way (as has been proved already in 1961). To spook us, Elve number Fifteen started this work at first slowy to coincide with the industrial revolution, and ever faster to coincide with the modern large developing economies.
I have to wonder whether some posters ever check their assertions before calling out.
TonyB (12:16:24) , 14-sep-2009,
Hi Tony, some time ago since we met in South England…
About the historical measurements: don’t overestimate the accuracy! There were a few very good ones, which can measure with better than 1 ppmv accuracy, but most of that time were +/- 3% (or +/- 10 ppmv). The “portable” ones were worse (the one used at Barrow was +/- 150 ppm!). That was accurate enough for their purpose: measuring exhaled air (around 2% CO2, or 20,000 ppmv), not for measuring accurate CO2 levels in ambient air…
Further, not only European sites are not suitable for CO2 measurements: everywhere on land near (huge) sources or sinks you can find any value or average you (don’t) want. Only at height (plane, mountains), even in Europe (Zugspitse, also Schauinsland under certain conditions), or in deserts or over the oceans, one can measure similar to MLO values…
The historical CO2 measurements only from seaships and/or shoreline, all are around the ice core data for the same period. Unfortunately, for the peak in Beck’s reanalysis (1935-1950), there are no over the ocean data available.
anna v (00:02:53) :
Hi Anna!
Of course there is no link at all between local temperature and local CO2 levels. Even if there was a local CO2 level of 1,000 ppmv (somewhere near the ground), that is maintained only a few meters (up to a few hundred) and then it is fully dispersed. The total column CO2 on any given place on earth (as the satellite shows) differs only 10 ppmv from the average. The instant change in outgoing IR radiation that gives is about 0.1 W/m2. One cloud passing before the sun gives a change of 20 W/m2, to give some impression of what influences local temperature…
peerreviewer (07:01:44) :
Sorry, but there is little doubt that humans are at the base of the current rise of CO2 (the influence of that rise on temperature is a complete different and independent question). The figures you mention are about seasonal and permanent fluxes which are bidirectional, with a negative (!) balance over a year.
Humans emit about 8 GtC per year, of which about 4 GtC (2 ppmv) shows up in the atmosphere. That means that nature (vegetation, oceans) is a net absorber of CO2, not a source… It doesn’t matter that over a year some 10, 100 or 1,000 GtC circulates back and forth, only the balance at the end of the year matters.
Ferdinand Engelbeen (07:48:56) :
Hi Ferdinand,
Of course there is no link at all between local temperature and local CO2 levels. Even if there was a local CO2 level of 1,000 ppmv (somewhere near the ground), that is maintained only a few meters (up to a few hundred) and then it is fully dispersed. The total column CO2 on any given place on earth (as the satellite shows) differs only 10 ppmv from the average. The instant change in outgoing IR radiation that gives is about 0.1 W/m2. One cloud passing before the sun gives a change of 20 W/m2, to give some impression of what influences local temperature…
CO2 has such a small effect even when we know that its effect is logarithimic, where the numbers are high, more so it will be insignificant when dispersed.
We know that the urban heating effect exists. Part of it may be CO2 settling over the cities :), why not?
I am saying that as long as we take the average temperature of the surface, and not of the column of air, we should measure CO2 on the surface, concurrently with the temperature measurement if we want to be scientifically consistent.
I wonder what the same column of air that is used for CO2 has as an average temperature, as a function of time. It would be really interesting to see that. Satellites can do it. I suspect it will look like the plots in Jennifer’s blog that I linked to previously.
Hi Ferdinand.
It was about this time last year wasn’t it? I was getting worried about you, Anna and me had started discussing Beck and you hadn’t appeared 🙂
Did you ever look at the figures in Smith’s ‘AIr and Water’? Many of those were taken in remote places.
tonyb
anna v (11:24:29) :
If you look at what the satellite results (preliminary) were, then we have worldwide the same CO2 levels everywhere, ground to stratosphere +/- 3%. From direct measurements we know that only the first few hundred meters over land are chaotic, due to local sources and sinks, the rest is quite stable (less than 0.1 ppmv variability over a day).
From the satellite temperature derived data, we know that the temperatures fluctuate from the tropics to the poles, ground to troposphere and opposite above it, so that we have different avarages for every slice in all three dimensions. Further temperature changes hour by hour, with and without clouds,…
Thus you can make it yourself very difficult by measuring CO2 at ground level over land and averaging a lot of noise without much signal, or simply ignore this 5% of the atmosphere as unimportant (as the result of exchanges will show up in the rest of the atmosphere in short time).
And there is surely no CO2 “UHI” effect, as even with 1,120 ppmv in the first 1,000 meters, the effect is less than 0.07 degr.C warming (according to the calculations of Modtran) without feedbacks. That is the full theoretical reaction of the temperature for 4 times the pre-industrial non-urban CO2 level. I should call that a neglectable impact… And only if there was no wind or convection at all to mix temperature and/or CO2 levels away.
Are you sure that top red spot in the Southeast isn’t Nashville? Site of the Gore family mansion? The Gore Houseboat? Looks like Nashville.