Meanwhile today while CO2 is increasing, the Antarctic ice cap is also increasing.
Bill Illis writes about it:
Ice sheets formed in Antarctica about 35 million years ago when CO2 was about 1,200 ppm. Ice sheets also formed in Antarctica about 350 to 290 million years ago when CO2 was about 350 ppm. Ice sheets also formed in Antarctica about 450 to 430 million years ago when CO2 was about 4,500 ppm. The more common denominator is when continental drift places Antarctica at the south pole.
Below, Antarctica today.
New data illuminates Antarctic ice cap formation
From a Bristol University Press release issued 13 September 2009
A paper published in Nature
New carbon dioxide data confirm that formation of the Antarctic ice-cap some 33.5 million years ago was due to declining carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
A team of scientists from Bristol, Cardiff and Texas A&M universities braved the lions and hyenas of a small East African village to extract microfossils from rocks which have revealed the level of CO2 in the Earth’s atmosphere at the time of the formation of the ice-cap.
Geologists have long speculated that the formation of the Antarctic ice-cap was caused by a gradually diminishing natural greenhouse effect. The study’s findings, published in Nature online, confirm that atmospheric CO2 started to decline about 34 million years ago, during the period known to geologists as the Eocene – Oligocene climate transition, and that the ice sheet began to form about 33.5 million years ago when CO2 in the atmosphere reached a tipping point of around 760 parts per million (by volume).
The new findings will add to the debate around rising CO2 levels in the Earth’s atmosphere as the world’s attention turns to the UN Climate Conference in Copenhagen which opens later this year.
Dr Gavin Foster from the University of Bristol and a co-author on the paper said: “By using a rather unique set of samples from Tanzania and a new analytical technique that I developed, we have, for the first time, been able to reconstruct the concentration of CO2 across the Eocene-Oligocene boundary – the time period about 33.5 million years ago when ice sheets first started to grow on Eastern Antarctica. “
Professor Paul Pearson from Cardiff University’s School of Earth and Ocean Sciences, who led the mission to the remote East Africa village of Stakishari said: “About 34 million years ago the Earth experienced a mysterious cooling trend. Glaciers and small ice sheets developed in Antarctica, sea levels fell and temperate forests began to displace tropical-type vegetation in many areas.
“The period culminated in the rapid development of a continental-scale ice sheet on Antarctica, which has been there ever since. We therefore set out to establish whether there was a substantial decline in atmospheric carbon dioxide levels as the Antarctic ice sheet began to grow.”
Co-author Dr Bridget Wade from Texas A&M University Department of Geology and Geophysics added: “This was the biggest climate switch since the extinction of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago.
“Our study is the first to provide a direct link between the establishment of an ice sheet on Antarctica and atmospheric carbon dioxide levels and therefore confirms the relationship between carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere and global climate.”
The team mapped large expanses of bush and wilderness and pieced together the underlying local rock formations using occasional outcrops of rocks and stream beds. Eventually they discovered sediments of the right age near a traditional African village called Stakishari. By assembling a drilling rig and extracting hundreds of meters of samples from under the ground they were able to obtain exactly the piece of Earth’s history they had been searching for.
Further information:
The paper:Atmospheric carbon dioxide through the Eocene–Oligocene climate transition. Paul N. Pearson, Gavin L. Foster & Bridget S. Wade. Nature online, Sunday 13th September.
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I can’t believe any of my fellow geologists would dare make such an outlandish claim. This is simple correlation, not causation. It has already been established that CO2 FOLLOWS temperature changes by 800 years on average. Once you look back millions of years, the 800 year delay is lost in within the timescale. This does not show that CO2 is the cause, it merely indicates that CO2 follows climate changes millions of years ago, just like it does today. There is nothing new here.
very final response to Jeff:
here is a section from chater 2 IPCC
“the absolute growth rate of CO2 in the atmosphere increased
substantially: the first 50 ppm increase above the pre-industrial
value was reached in the 1970s after more than 200 years,
whereas the second 50 ppm was achieved in about 30 years. In
the 10 years from 1995 to 2005 atmospheric CO2 increased by
about 19 ppm; the highest average growth rate recorded for any
decade since direct atmospheric CO2 measurements began in
the 1950s.”
So we have the IPCC stating that increases of c02 in the 20th century are anthropogenic, then, directly from NASA’s information pages we have:
, “carbon dioxide exchange is largely controlled by sea surface temperatures, circulating currents, and by the biological processes of photosynthesis and respiration. carbon dioxide can dissolve easily into the ocean and the amount of carbon dioxide that the ocean can hold depends on ocean temperature and the amount of carbon dioxide already present. Cold ocean temperatures favor the uptake of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere whereas warm temperatures cause the ocean surface to release carbon dioxide.”
In other words, as the oceans have been warming during the 20thC, a 0.1C increase in temperature is enough to release 200GT of c02 ( a verified fact) in a year, which is 26 times that of man.
Now even a non scientist can see the contradiction between the two propositions
Incidentally, temperature didn’t follow c02 levels throughout the 20th century, or in this century. Disproving AGW (or climate change as it is now called, due to the fact that warming cannot be vouchsafed for) is really rather straightforward. C02 has been an intensively studied gas in the laboratory. In the field of photometric energy absorption and disippation its simply too weak to be a forcing or a heat retainer ( which is why the temerature plummets as soon as the sun goes down).
P Wilson (07:32:26) :
[Jeff: one of the reasons that saturation isn’t at an optimum is that there is hardly any longwave re-radiation for it to capture. Try using a thermal imaging camera one night to see how little heat there is re-radiated from the earth, in comparison to thermal images of animals, like us human beings.]
Actually P Wilson I’m surprised that you have made that statement. Your background seems pretty strong and yet you put out these statements way outside the accepted understanding of our radiative profile for earth. I am suspicious of your intellectual honesty. You know way too much to be putting out that kind of ignorance. Another words I don’t believe you are ignorant.
The sunlight coming in is about 49% infrared and the rest in other bands. As the energy hits earth it all has to leave the earth in the infrared band. This is where co2 becomes a differnt animal. Less resistance coming in and more resistance on leaving the earth’s atmosphere. This is what is causing the energy imbalance in radiative accounting. Earth has about .6 deg centigrade left in balance to catch up in the pipeline of present co2 in the atmosphere.
http://pvcdrom.pveducation.org/index.html
1.2. The Greenhouse Effect
Carbon dioxide absorbs strongly in the 13-19 mm wavelength band and water vapour, another atmospheric gas, absorbs strongly in the 4-7 mm wavelength band. Most outgoing radiation (70%) escapes in the “window” between 7-13 mm.
Human activities are increasingly releasing “anthropogenic gases” into the atmosphere, which absorb in the 7-13 mm wavelength range, particularly carbon dioxide, methane, ozone, nitrous oxides and chlorofluorocarbons (CFC’s). These gases prevent the normal escape of energy and potentially will lead to an increase in terrestrial temperature. Present evidence suggests “effective” CO2 levels will double by 2030, causing global warming of 1~4°C.
P Wilson wrote:
[Incidentally, temperature didn’t follow c02 levels throughout the 20th century, or in this century. Disproving AGW (or climate change as it is now called, due to the fact that warming cannot be vouchsafed for) is really rather straightforward. C02 has been an intensively studied gas in the laboratory. In the field of photometric energy absorption and disippation its simply too weak to be a forcing or a heat retainer ( which is why the temerature plummets as soon as the sun goes down).]
You are a very sharp person but saying all the ignorant science. [snip. No ad hominems, please ~ Evan]
The ocean is acidifying now, which means that it is absobing co2. That is very clear.
If the ocean and land did not reabsorb the dug up co2 from the earth we would be in the 500 ppm range now from all fossil fuels of the past history back to the early 1800’s.
The reson for increasing co2 concentrations in the atmosphere is that we are exceeding the earth’s capacity to reabsorb co2.
Jeff: What you mewan is: about hald the sun’s solar radiation enters the earth’s atmosphere – which is IR radiation. The other half is refflected at the protective outer levels of the atmosphere. This other half passes through the atmosphere and hits earth. /When converted into heat most of it disippates and re-emitted longwave heat is some 1% of the original heat budget. Solar radiation, being the optimum temperature possible, there is not way that any ghg can increase beyond that optimum. If you heat a stove at 60C, then put a layer of c02 above that stove, it will not heat it further to 62C.
Again, its proven that water vapour absorbs over a much wider spectrum ou longwave radiation than c02, which is why its the number 1 ghg. A small change in water vapour produces a far greater effect than a substantial change in c02. You can see this on a daily basis
Bill Illis says:
And, you know these values how? A major point of the Nature paper was to provide a good estimate of CO2 at one particular time because otherwise such estimates are very difficult to come by when you go back further than the 750,000 years of ice core data.
Furthermore, what were the locations of the continents and mountain ranges and such at that time. You seem very concerned about the quite modest differences that existed between 35 My ago and now but rather unconcerned about the much larger differences that existed when you go back further in time.
P Wilson: You have written lots of posts arguing various issues concerning the radiative effect of CO2. This is settled science, probably for close to half a century. Even skeptical scientists like Richard Lindzen and Roy Spencer accept that the radiative forcing due to doubling of CO2 levels is ~4 W/m^2.
By the way, all this argument about whether CO2 is saturated or not makes little sense. It is known that over the concentration ranges we are dealing with, the radiative forcing due to CO2 is approximately logarithmic in the concentration. A logarithm does not ever saturate. What it means is simply that the natural way to discuss the effect of CO2 concentration is in terms of fractional change since a given fractional change produces the same radiative forcintg (so, e.g., a doubling from 280ppm to 560ppm has the same effect as a doubling from 140ppm to 280ppm), whereas if the dependence were linear then the natural way to discuss it would be in terms of a given absolute change (e.g., an increase from 280ppm to 560ppm would have the same effect as an increase from 0ppm to 280ppm).
Juraj V. says:
What you are saying is the net difference between a planet with no atmosphere and our current planet is ~15 K. (I’ll take your word on this number…I have worked it out before and that sounds approximately right.) However, the way that breaks down is that the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere provide 33 K of warming due to the greenhouse effect and than 18 K of cooling from the increase in albedo. So, I think it is correct to say that the amount of greenhouse effect is 33 K; it is just that the condensed water vapor in the form of clouds contributes not only to the greenhouse effect but also to an increase in albedo that causes a cooling effect.
masonmart says:
And, (almost) noone is predicting runaway warming now either. They are just predicting a significant amount of warming. And, there are times in the past when the earth was indeed much warmer. Furthermore, when you go back hundreds of millions of years or more, you have to take into account such factors as the gradual brightening of the sun and the different locations of continents and mountain ranges.
TonyB: I am glad you and Tom P have now posted a link to Beck’s graph because one of the most amusing things about it is that his curve drawn through the data is so arbitary: http://www.biokurs.de/treibhaus/180CO2/bayreuth/bayreuth1e.htm He essentially choose to believe some points and ignore others. And, as Tom P points out, the measurements shown are all at or above the curve from the ice core measurements (and, in fact, there is a pretty strong clustering down pretty close to the ice core values). This is entirely consistent with the idea that some measurements were taken on suitably clean air that they yielded a good estimate and others were taken on air that contained higher CO2 due to localized sources.
This paper has to be an early (or late) April Fool’s joke!
This raises cherry-picking to new levels… They even direct people to “Cherry” Lewis for further information… 😉
The exactly correct microfossils, in the exactly correct assemblage, in the exactly correct location, analyzed in the exactly correct manner, using the exactly correct new and proprietary analytical means… Re-writes the historical geology of the Eocene-Oligocene boundary… Riiight.
This reads like the script to a bad science fiction movie.
Let’s look at the cast members…
The lead author is an “Advanced Research Fellow” at the University of Bristol with no departmental responsibilities and a keen interest in “using novel isotopic techniques to gain insights into… the mechanisms responsible for the CO2 changes that accompanied the waxing and waning of the ice-sheets throughout the Pleistocene.”
Professor Paul Pearson, Cardiff University is a micropaleontologist who “is interested in extracting climatic information from deep sea cores and sediments. He specializes in evolutionary and geochemical studies of planktonic foraminifera, and what they tell us about the long history of climate change on Earth. He has helped develop new proxies for determining past seawater pH and atmospheric carbon dioxide levels, and hence the history of the greenhouse effect.” And he “loves country walking”… Which probably came in handy in Tanzania.
And last, but not least, another micropaleontologist, Dr Bridget Wade from Texas A&M University… “She uses microfossils and their chemistry to determine patterns of evolution and extinction, ancient marine temperatures, productivity levels, global ice volume and sea level fluctuations.”
While she’s not doing all of that, she teaches freshman geology and a grad course in Applied Micropaleontology.
These three micropaleontologists have miraculously found the Paleogene equivalent of the Rosetta Stone near a quaint Tanzanian village and using a secret decoder ring, known only to Dr. Gavin Foster, they have found what no scientist has ever found before: Proof that CO2 has always driven climate change since the dawn of the Phanerozoic Eon.
Miraculously, they did all of this just in time for the UN Climate Conference in Copenhagen!
P Wilson says:
I don’t understand how this statement is even close to consistent with the fact that the radiative emission from the Earth has to be at least nearly in balance with the amount of energy it receives from the Sun. (It is understood to be slightly out of balance now because the Earth has not yet warned enough to be in equilibrium given the current levels of greenhouse gases, but the difference is only a fraction of a percent.)
Scott Mandia (19:54:42)
Smokey (15:44:54) :
The comment asserts:
“The greenhouse effect from natural greenhouse gas concentrations prior to the Industrial Revolution had kept the Earth’s surface about 33 degrees C warmer than with an atmosphere with no green house gases.”
We can test his hypotheses, that the atmosphere had kept the surface warmer then if it had no atmosphere. One assumes he is proposing an average temperature between night and day.
We can test the assertion by examining temperatures from the Moon, which one source gives 107 degrees C during the day, and 153 degrees C at night.
We can see the surface temperature of the Moon would boil water, but when the Sun ceases to provide light, the temperature drops 260 degrees. Its average temperature is -46 degrees C.
Thus, if the earth’s surface is about 33 degrees warmer because of its atmosphere then an atmosphere with not greenhouse gases is falsified. It keeps it 79 degrees warmer.
The earth must producing an enormous amount of heat, which is not accounted for in AGW theory, with the atmosphere smoothing the day & night temperatures.
Just a thought.
http://www.universetoday.com/guide-to-space/the-moon/temperature-of-the-moon/
WilliMc
Jeff Green,
Glad that you (implicitly) agreed with my figure of temperature sensitivity to CO2x2 of approx 1C. BTW, Wikipedia is not a scientifc authority on anything (except maybe well estabished textbook theory, of which AGW certainly is not).
These so called feedbacks are not understood at all. How do we gauge the stablility of permafrost? Is the feedback due to water vapour positive or negative? Water vapour is an IR absorber, but when it forms clouds it has a negative feedback. This is not a trivial matter because water/cloud feedback is reckoned by IPCC to be the most significant feedback by far. And yet, they also state there is a low level of scientific understanding regarding cloud dynamics. Hardly well understood, is it?
“Carbon dioxide absorbs strongly in the 13-19 mm wavelength band and water vapour, another atmospheric gas, absorbs strongly in the 4-7 mm wavelength band. ”
“These gases prevent the normal escape of energy and potentially will lead to an increase in terrestrial temperature. Present evidence suggests “effective” CO2 levels will double by 2030, causing global warming of 1~4°C.”
Present evidence? You mean the output from climate models. Computer output does not constitute evidence.
Pardon, since when has IR been measured in millimetres? Your facts, are, well, not exactly factual. CO2 absorbs at 4.3 and 15 microns, and water vapour absorbs at not only 4 – 7 microns but also everything above 15 microns. If you take the curve of radiation emissivity from the earth and integrate for all wavelengths you find that the area of absorbtion for CO2 only amounts to a couple of percent, and the 15 micron band competes with water vapour.
It is a well documented fact that the first 20 ppm of CO2 has a temperature sensitivity of 1.5C, but the next 20 ppm has a temperature sensitivity of only 0.3C and when you go from 380 to 400 you only add another 0.02C.
Smokey,
So you offer a bet, expecting me not to take it with the words:
“…it typifies the corruption at the heart of the climate alarmists’ failed conjecture. They have made it personal. And they run and hide from any honest, neutral public debate for the same reason.”
and yet when I take up your bet you respond several days later that you weren’t being serious!
Unlike you I won’t throw around any insulting generalisations. I’m sure readers will draw their own conclusions as to your own integrity, though.
Tony B
“Are you suggesting proxy glacier records are a substitute for actual temperature records, albeit only of their specific place and not an accurate global record however they may be portrayed.”
There are not any globally representative temperature records that go back 400 years as far as I know, so the derived glacier temperature history is not substituting for anything. It is however consistent with the known global temperature variation for the last 150 years.
Apart from its shape, what is your objection to the glacier temperature record as derived by Oerlemans?
Smokey,
“What is the Earth’s average temperature? Within one decimal place will do.”
Roy Spencer has an answer for you:
http://discover.itsc.uah.edu/amsutemps/execute.csh?amsutemps
Daily global average temperature at 14,000 ft /4.4 km/600 mb on September 13 2009 was 253.7 K, 0.5 K warmer than this time last year.
TonyB – About the same time I was wading through the labyrinthine paper on ice core proxies that you provided through a working link (thanks) , I googled Ernst Beck and stumbled upon a reference to Callendar . Someone was mystified that he had rejected CO2 measurements taken during the 1940s , some of which exceeded 400 ppm . Your comment above has helped to clarify why . Unfortunately , I lacked the inclination to delve deeper at the time . Once again , thanks .
Jeff Green (07:42:35) :
Have you never reflected that it is a rather strange coincidence that the Nile Delta, the Mekong delta, the Ganges delta etc etc are all almost exactly at the current sea level? After all sea level is changing all the time.
Well, it so happens that river deltas automatically form just above sea level, and adjust to follow it.
Incidentally the Nile Delta is going to disappear in a few centuries, completely independently of sea level and CO2 level, but that is due to the high dam at Assuan trapping nearly all the sediment that is required to maintain it.
Jeff Green (08:44:54) :
“As the energy hits earth it all has to leave the earth in the infrared band. ”
So you think the Earth’s surface is completely black in the visible band? I think I have rather strong empirical evidence against this. I can distinctly see the Earths surface, despite being blind in the infrared.
Jeff Green (08:27:26) :
Present evidence suggests “effective” CO2 levels will double by 2030, causing global warming of 1~4°C.
Present evidence says bollocks. In Arctic, where due to dry air the increased “GH efect” should manifest magnificently, we have got temperatures again reaching those in 40ties: http://www.climate4you.com/images/MAAT%2070-90N%20HadCRUT3%20Since1900.gif
Btw, wheres the tropospheric hotspot, bunnyfvck?
Jeff Green: “We are sccelerating in co2 faster than that time period and by that graph its only 2 deg centigrade over 30000 years. We will reach the 2 deg centigrade in less than 200 years. Many forms of life will become extinct on this account.”
—-
According to a new report, “Global Climate Change Impacts in the United States,” issued at a June White House briefing:
“The 190-page report, a product of the interagency US Global Change Research Program…states that ‘global warming is unequivocal and primarily human-induced.’ Among other key findings of the report…is that climate change will have numerous impacts on water resources, ecosystems, agriculture, coastal areas, human health, and other sectors.
These impacts include rising temperatures and sea level, increases in heavy downpours, changing growing seasons, more frequent and intense extreme weather including floods and droughts, and the continued rapid decline in Arctic sea ice. The report notes that ‘global average temperature has risen by about 1.5 deg. F since 1900. By 2100, it is projected to rise another 2-11.5 deg. F.” ~EOS June 30 ’09
So in the White House, they are talking about 11.5 degreesF now being the upper end of the range, and basing policy on it.
tty says:
What Jeff Green presumably meant is that all of the solar energy that is not reflected off of the Earth surface (or atmosphere) has to leave in the infrared.
WilliMc says:
It is probably not enough to just take the average temperature as halfway between the maximum and minimum. The distribution on the surface may be such that this is not the average. Furthermore, the moon will give you a different answer for a few reasons:
(1) Its albedo is different.
(2) The calculation that Scott Mandia did actually gives an UPPER bound on the average temperature of an object in the absence of an IR-absorbing atmosphere (and with a neglible source of internal heat). In the limit that the object has a uniform temperature, this is the value it would be but for an object at a non-uniform temperature, the temperature can be lower than this. (The reason why it is only an upper bound has to do with the fact that the radiative energy of an object is proportional to T^4, so it is the average of this quantity and not the average of T itself that must be balanced.)
The internal heat produced by the earth, by the way, is negligible in comparison to the amount that we receive from the sun and it can safely be ignored.
Dr Gavin Foster from the University of Bristol and a co-author on the paper said: “By using a rather unique set of samples from Tanzania and a new analytical technique that I developed…” Someone should tell Gavin Foster that something is either unique or it is not. “Rather unique” does not exist.
I meant to inquire why go to Tanzania to examine rocks that are only 33.5 million years old? The rocks at the bottom of the Maktesh Ramon (500 meters deep) are 200 million old. And, I believe, the wall of the North West face of the crater exposes a ontinuous history of rock starting well over 50 million years ago and ending with the present day. Since the crater is natural, is not volcanic (although the 50 square mile crater does contain an extinct volcano) and it was not formed as a result of a meteor strike, there were, and probably still are, a wealth of fossils from all ages to be found. Does Dr. Gavin Foster need a special type of fossil for his CO2 proxies? And if so, why?
It is probably not enough to just take the average temperature as halfway between the maximum and minimum.
Hmm. If you say so. But that is how they do it here on earth, you know.
Joel said
“TonyB: I am glad you and Tom P have now posted a link to Beck’s graph because one of the most amusing things about it is that his curve drawn through the data is so arbitary: http://www.biokurs.de/treibhaus/180CO2/bayreuth/bayreuth1e.htm He essentially choose to believe some points and ignore others
***
This sounds as if it is the first time you have actually looked at this graph, despite my-and others- referencing it at various times previously.
Your comment is a bit like me pointing to one chart in the AR4 and making some definitive comment about the rest of the 700 page content.
The previous link led to a five page presentation (click on the right hand number.) It is a bit rich complaining about cherry picking when that is exactly what Keeling and Callendar did. See my earlier comment when Keeling referred to a 400pmm reference by Saussure, agreed that his readings were good, then dismissed it.
This link leads to the main menu on Beck’s site.
http://www.biokurs.de/treibhaus/180CO2/bayreuth/menuee.htm
Do I think ALL the meassurents are accurate or reliable? NO. Nor does Beck. Do I think a fair proportion meet modern day standards of scrutiny? Yes.
Do I think they show over the period of record a higher and lower limit than the 280 pre industrial or 290 for the year 1900? Yes.
Why does it vary? You have been duelling with Richard Courtney on another thread and have partly covered this. The natural flux of co2 is huge and greatly exceeds that inputted by ourselves. This variable flux should show up in the record as a series of peaks and troughs. It doesn’t. Instead it shows a slow and steady small annual increase.
Becks figures are more logical and representative of co2 movement. They deserve proper official scrutiny and not be dismissed out of hand because they do not fit neatly into the AGW hypothesis that was based on the selection of historic figures that supported Callendars hypothesis.
Variable co2 levels explain previous warm and cold periods. However, if they occurred without co2 as a primary driver there is no reason the present warm period can’t do likewise.
TomP
We can agree to disagree about the merits of a global temperature in the first place, let alone one selected and sustained from such small numbers of historic stations that then changed so much in number and location.
P Walker
Thanks for your comment. It is indeed a labyrinthe that winds through a whole forest of cherry trees. 🙂
tonyb
Jeff Green and Joel Shore:
Thanks for saving me much typing today! And you both presented my position far better than I could have. 🙂
Joel
Sorry, my post 12 47 15 was already a long one, so there was no time left to get into the concepts of buffering or equilibrium 🙂
tonyb