Another paper for the Copenhagen train. This is an estimate according to the abstract. Here’s the abstract and the supplemental information, of course the publicly funded paper is behind the AAAS paywall.
From UCLA News: Last time carbon dioxide levels were this high: 15 million years ago, scientists report
By Stuart Wolpert October 08, 2009 Category: Research
You would have to go back at least 15 million years to find carbon dioxide levels on Earth as high as they are today, a UCLA scientist and colleagues report Oct. 8 in the online edition of the journal Science.
“The last time carbon dioxide levels were apparently as high as they are today — and were sustained at those levels — global temperatures were 5 to 10 degrees Fahrenheit higher than they are today, the sea level was approximately 75 to 120 feet higher than today, there was no permanent sea ice cap in the Arctic and very little ice on Antarctica and Greenland,” said the paper’s lead author, Aradhna Tripati, a UCLA assistant professor in the department of Earth and space sciences and the department of atmospheric and oceanic sciences.
“Carbon dioxide is a potent greenhouse gas, and geological observations that we now have for the last 20 million years lend strong support to the idea that carbon dioxide is an important agent for driving climate change throughout Earth’s history,” she said.
By analyzing the chemistry of bubbles of ancient air trapped in Antarctic ice, scientists have been able to determine the composition of Earth’s atmosphere going back as far as 800,000 years, and they have developed a good understanding of how carbon dioxide levels have varied in the atmosphere since that time. But there has been little agreement before this study on how to reconstruct carbon dioxide levels prior to 800,000 years ago.
Tripati, before joining UCLA’s faculty, was part of a research team at England’s University of Cambridge that developed a new technique to assess carbon dioxide levels in the much more distant past — by studying the ratio of the chemical element boron to calcium in the shells of ancient single-celled marine algae. Tripati has now used this method to determine the amount of carbon dioxide in Earth’s atmosphere as far back as 20 million years ago.
Aradhna Tripati
“We are able, for the first time, to accurately reproduce the ice-core record for the last 800,000 years — the record of atmospheric C02 based on measurements of carbon dioxide in gas bubbles in ice,” Tripati said. “This suggests that the technique we are using is valid.
“We then applied this technique to study the history of carbon dioxide from 800,000 years ago to 20 million years ago,” she said. “We report evidence for a very close coupling between carbon dioxide levels and climate. When there is evidence for the growth of a large ice sheet on Antarctica or on Greenland or the growth of sea ice in the Arctic Ocean, we see evidence for a dramatic change in carbon dioxide levels over the last 20 million years.
“A slightly shocking finding,” Tripati said, “is that the only time in the last 20 million years that we find evidence for carbon dioxide levels similar to the modern level of 387 parts per million was 15 to 20 million years ago, when the planet was dramatically different.”
Levels of carbon dioxide have varied only between 180 and 300 parts per million over the last 800,000 years — until recent decades, said Tripati, who is also a member of UCLA’s Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics. It has been known that modern-day levels of carbon dioxide are unprecedented over the last 800,000 years, but the finding that modern levels have not been reached in the last 15 million years is new.
Prior to the Industrial Revolution of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the carbon dioxide level was about 280 parts per million, Tripati said. That figure had changed very little over the previous 1,000 years. But since the Industrial Revolution, the carbon dioxide level has been rising and is likely to soar unless action is taken to reverse the trend, Tripati said.
“During the Middle Miocene (the time period approximately 14 to 20 million years ago), carbon dioxide levels were sustained at about 400 parts per million, which is about where we are today,” Tripati said. “Globally, temperatures were 5 to 10 degrees Fahrenheit warmer, a huge amount.”
Tripati’s new chemical technique has an average uncertainty rate of only 14 parts per million.
“We can now have confidence in making statements about how carbon dioxide has varied throughout history,” Tripati said.
In the last 20 million years, key features of the climate record include the sudden appearance of ice on Antarctica about 14 million years ago and a rise in sea level of approximately 75 to 120 feet.
“We have shown that this dramatic rise in sea level is associated with an increase in carbon dioxide levels of about 100 parts per million, a huge change,” Tripati said. “This record is the first evidence that carbon dioxide may be linked with environmental changes, such as changes in the terrestrial ecosystem, distribution of ice, sea level and monsoon intensity.”
Today, the Arctic Ocean is covered with frozen ice all year long, an ice cap that has been there for about 14 million years.
“Prior to that, there was no permanent sea ice cap in the Arctic,” Tripati said.
Some projections show carbon dioxide levels rising as high as 600 or even 900 parts per million in the next century if no action is taken to reduce carbon dioxide, Tripati said. Such levels may have been reached on Earth 50 million years ago or earlier, said Tripati, who is working to push her data back much farther than 20 million years and to study the last 20 million years in detail.
More than 50 million years ago, there were no ice sheets on Earth, and there were expanded deserts in the subtropics, Tripati noted. The planet was radically different.
Co-authors on the Science paper are Christopher Roberts, a Ph.D. student in the department of Earth sciences at the University of Cambridge, and Robert Eagle, a postdoctoral scholar in the division of geological and planetary sciences at the California Institute of Technology.
The research was funded by UCLA’s Division of Physical Sciences and the United Kingdom’s National Environmental Research Council.
Tripati’s research focuses on the development and application of chemical tools to study climate change throughout history. She studies the evolution of climate and seawater chemistry through time.
“I’m interested in understanding how the carbon cycle and climate have been coupled, and why they have been coupled, over a range of time-scales, from hundreds of years to tens of millions of years,” Tripati said.
In addition to being published on the Science Express website, the paper will be published in the print edition of Science at a later date.
UPDATE: Bill Illis add this graph in comments, which brings up the obvious correlation questions.
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Too soon to tell as others have noted. The implications aren’t clear.
We see only an abstract that isn’t too clear and a press release for UCLA news. The PR writer put in what he wanted to put in. And he selected quotes which may or may not mean anything. And he put in graphs he got from somewhere?
The first part of the actual abstract says she is using a boron/calcium ratio method to measure CO2 for 20 million years.
That is the science part. It may be successfully challenged or not. We don’t know yet.
The abstract continues with a second part that sounds like editorializing or off hand remarks about temperatures and glaciers and CO2 levels.
It isn’t clear if the second part is related to the paper or just seems like a good idea by the authors. And we won’t know until it is published.
“Tripati, before joining UCLA’s faculty, was part of a research team at England’s University of Cambridge that developed a new technique to assess carbon dioxide levels in the much more distant past — by studying the ratio of the chemical element boron to calcium in the shells of ancient single-celled marine algae.”
Am I the only one that finds that sentence rather puzzling? It’s definitely not an area where I have any real expertise, but my understanding of primitive single celled algae is that only some of them actually possessed a cell wall, and for those that did it was nothing like a shell. What exactly were they measuring to construct this proxy?
william (14:31:06) :
Sorry to rain on your warming parade, william, but most industry in the US has left the building. Perhaps the leaders of this country want to save the Planet by making all US citizens peasants.
Now, with this .0001 increase in atmospheric C02 over 100 years, why don’t you post up your favorite pictures of the ocean showing us the 100 foot rise?
But I’ll do you the favor: Tomorrow I will drive by Battleship Row in the Suisun Bay and let you know how much the sea has risen.
And maybe you should check into Relative Humidity and see how much % of air is displaced at RH=50%.
Your displacement of 100ppm C02 is the equivalent of 1 x 10E-10 %.
Your CRH is astronomically insignificant.
Doesn’t sound like a planet cooker to me. If we do get to 1000ppm C02, the most likely thing to happen is the Earth will grow plants more abundantly, like it used to do before Ice Ages hit and brought much life to a screeching halt.
Al Gore has it upside down and inside out: A warming planet is likely to result is slightly less landmass, but an incredibly more abundant ecosystem.
Speaking of Ice Ages, have you stopped to ponder why the call it an Interglacial? It’s because the Ice never really left, it’s just temporarily receeded.
Now that is truly humbling. Man has zero control over the Ice. If it decides to trundle on down over the top of us, what are we to do about it? The very same thing we can do about warming into the next Global Tropical Paradise:
Absolutely nothing.
I decided to check my memory on single celled algae and came up with this
Cell Walls of Algae
Algae are the plants with the simplest organization. Many of them are single-celled, some have no cell wall, others do though its composition and structure differ strongly from that of higher plants. They are good specimen for tracing back the evolution of the cell wall. Primitive cell walls do not fulfil the same requirements as that of higher plants.
It seems quite likely that a structure like that of the cell wall has developed several times in the course of evolution. All archaebacteria, eubacteria and blue-green algae (cyanobacteria or blue-green algae) have complex walls with an energetically rather costly biosynthesis. Neither in composition nor in biosynthesis do they have any common ground with the cell walls of plants.
Although the evolution of plants from early eucaryotic cells is not known in detail, is it commonly agreed on that primitive algae are flagellates closely related to the non-green flagellates. Many, though not all species of this stage of evolution, among which the euglenophyta are typical green representatives, have no cell wall. It is not only a simple membrane, but by a pellicle of already quite complex organization, that separates them from the surrounding. It consists mainly of glycoproteins organized in regular patterns the way two-dimensional crystals are. Helical ribs wind round the cell’s surface.
Most single-celled algae like the Volvocales possess real cell walls. The most-studied species is Chlamydomonas reinhardii. Its wall lacks long, fibrillary carbohydrates. Most of it is made up by glycoproteins, and even here can an extensin-like protein rich in hydroxyproline be found. Among the identified sugar residues are arabinosyl-, galactosyl- and mannosyl residues. In the electron microscope does it seem as if the wall consisted of seven layers. The middle layer contains an extensive grid-shaped framework of polygonal plates consisting mainly of the mentioned glycoproteins, while the layers above and below display fibre-like structures. The thickness of the outer layer varies since it includes components that the cell takes up from its surrounding.
This indicates a main function of the cell wall of simple, single-celled algae: it mediates between the cell and its surrounding. It protects not only the cell but serves, too, communication with cells of the same or other types. It has to be permeable for metabolites and regulators and / or to carry receptor molecules with which it may contact other cells. The diversity of these functions (and their specificity) caused the evolution of a variety of differently structured cell walls.
In many-celled plants is the communication via the whole cell surface largely restricted. Contact with neighbouring cells develops in the course of tissue formation. Strength is in this respect a decisive and limiting criteria. The exchange of compounds between cells occurs via specific openings in the wall (pits, plasmodesmata). The functions originally performed by one structure are now distributed onto two different structures.
Still don’t see any reference to shells.
I can’t imagine that this discussion was significantly different 100 years ago, nor will it be 100 years hence, but I do believe that today’s “Chicken Little Climate Paranoia” on the part of the public was non-existent then and hope it will be so again in less than 10 years. The difference of opinions in what causes what regarding the weather is not the frightening aspect; it is that the most ignorant among us (politicians) have taken to the streets and are using the doom-and-gloom side of the argument to scare the public into supporting their crazy “solutions” to climate warming. It’s pure and simple extortion without regard to the real welfare of the people who elected them into office. (Yes, I know that the people are just as guilty for their choice at the ballot box.)
William, first you point to the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere –
“Venus’ carbon dioxide-rich (96.5%)”
Then you state –
“We may be capable of emulating Venus if we get CO2 up over 1000ppm”
Surely you mean “if we can get C02 up over 965 000ppm?”, which would be 96.5%, wouldn’t it?
Then you state –
“It make take decades for increased CO2 levels to build up the inertia (perhaps by warming the oceans) to bump up Global temps by 3-5C. Why do you all expect the earth to respond instantly to that change.”
Firstly, can you please explain to me how increased CO2 levels in the atmosphere can warm the oceans? I think the salient issue here is the relative “thermal” energy content ( I don’t actually know how to say that properly… energy? heat?) and I think the answer is that the top 2 meters of the oceans contain the same heat/energy as the atmosphere.
And secondly – what inertia? Have you ever noticed how rapidly atmospheric temperatures change over a 24 hour period in the desert? 50 degree Celcius variations! I.e. no inertia) In the deserts you get the same amount of CO2 as everywhere else, right? So why doesn’t the lovely toasty CO2 keep them warm at night?
Robert, are you saying we can produce all the CO2 we want for 800 years???? Yes!!!! I pledge do my share of heavy breathing.
Adolfo Giurfa (11:18:27) :
Dear Anthony: It really surprises me I did not write any post before this one:
Adolfo Giurfa (12:06:20) :
After this one I wrote one more just saying that the very existence of big deposits of calcium carbonate demonstrates the contrary of what is stated above, because, as you know, these are formed out of CO2.
Best regards,
It is certainly difficult to separate the hyperbole from the salient. Dr. Timothy Patterson, Professor of Geology at Carleton College in Ottawa has published numerous articles about geology and climate as well as given many presentations on that subject. One presentation that might be relevant is:
http://www.tcsdaily.com/article.aspx?id=010405M
20 million years is relatively short geologically and the correlation [not causal relationship] between CO2 and temperature is fairly weak geologically. Temporally, the concentration increases of atmospheric CO2 follows temperature increases with an approximate 800 year lag.
According to Dr. Patterson, atmospheric concentration of C02 has been as much as 15 times present levels with temperatures approximately the same. Dr. Patterson has been a vocal critic of the CO2 theory of climate change.
rbateman
1) I’ve worked in the steel industry the last 27 years and there was almost as much steel made in the USA last year as there was 30 years ago.
2) you may not understand science as not all effects from a change are linear or immediate. Climate is a chaotic system. Changes we are making to CO2 today will take decades to be felt.
3) we are in an interglacial period and without all of the CO2 man has pumped into the atmo temps may have been suitable for civilization for another 10,000 years. However, with all the CO2 we are adding it’s probable we are disturbing whatever forces that change gradually to govern the ebb and flow of the onset of an ice age. We could be accelerating the onset of glaciation or postponing it. No one posting on this site will ever know for sure.
4) Why take a chance? why not learn to supply power in a better manner? The alternatives are not go back to the stone age or ignore the problem. It’s something in between. But to do nothing is to ignore the problem and hope it goes away. In mental health that’s called avoidance and governments practice it regularly because making smart hard decisions do not win them votes. Kicking the can down the road keeps them in office.
I’m in favor of tackling problems head on like we did with CFC’s and scrubbers for particulate matter, and regulations to govern landfills so toxins would not leech into ground soils and clean water standards. I’d prefer not to live and breath filth until it’s about to kill me or slowly destroy the environment until I wake up to do something about it.
I’m also still waiting for someone to define one reputable scientist that denies that increases in CO2 will not increase temperature.
Shiny
William
Let me ask One More Time. Why weren’t CO2 levels as high during the MWP as Today?
Is it the lack of SUVs at King Arthur’s Court?
OR, is this run-up from 280 ppm all due to OUR SUVs?
william, 14:38:36, I think you had better read a little further down because this is what Dr. Spencer “also” states! I quote:
Now, you might be surprised to learn that the amount of warming directly caused by the extra CO2 is, by itself, relatively weak. It has been calculated theoretically that, if there are no other changes in the climate system, a doubling of the atmospheric CO2 concentration would cause less than 1 deg C of surface warming (about 1 deg. F). This is NOT a controversial statement…it is well understood by climate scientists. (As of 2008, we were about 40% to 45% of the way toward a doubling of atmospheric CO2.) End Quote! This came out of the “Global Warming 101” article…
william asked for even one scientist who does not think that CO2 has an effect on the climate.
Most scientists believe that CO2 has a slight effect. Some probably still believe in catastrophic global warming [I very much doubt that Ms Aradhna Tripati believes in CAGW. Her website exhibits all the hallmarks of a rent-seeking government grant mercenary. She’s better looking than Pierrehumbert, though.]
The CO2=AGW conjecture not been proven. The belief comes entirely from computer models, which starkly diverge from what the real world is doing. Maybe the models are right, and maybe they aren’t. Time will tell. But the planet is not currently supporting the AGW crowd.
Here is a scientist who doesn’t think CO2 has an effect on the climate: click. He backs up his hypothesis with plenty of citations and facts.
As Einstein famously observed: “To defeat relativity did not need the word of 100 scientists, just one fact.” There are scant real world facts supporting the CO2=AGW conjecture. If you believe you have one, please post it.
Finally, when you say the camps are polarized, you show that you don’t understand scientific skepticism, which is a requirement of the scientific method. All skeptics are saying is: “prove it.” Prove your conjecture. Or at least, provide some solid, real world evidence that CO2 drives the climate. Empirical facts only, please. Computer models are tools, not data.
George E Smith says:
SciencExpress is for papers that have been accepted by Science to be published and are deemed sufficiently important that they merit immediate availability of the manuscript on the web (to those who are AAAS members) before they actually appear in print.
And, thanks for the (hypothetical) offer but I am a AAAS member and so I already have access.
william (13:47:07) : “…So what will it be, ignore the possibility that gigatons of CO2 added to the atmo every year is a problem or take some kind of reasonable preventive action to prevent some or all of the potential consequences that scientists are pointing out?”
The “preventive actions” proposed are neither reasonable nor are they proven to be preventive.
william says:
I think that is sort of a false middle. The scientific middle is around where the IPCC comes out, which is somewhere between Dr. Spencer and James Hansen, and in fact, probably closer to Hansen…and not all that far from where RealClimate is. This place is just sort of off of the charts!
wsbriggs says:
CO2 causes a relatively small radiative imbalance in percentage terms and the oceans are a big source of thermal initia…i.e., they take a lot of energy to heat up. As for 100ppm causing a 10 C temperature rise: that would imply a climate sensitivity for doubling CO2 of ~23 C as compared to the IPCC likely range of 2 – 4.5 C.
Smokey says:
Which is eerily similar to what “skeptics” of evolution are also saying. In fact Kent Hovind has a $250,000 challenge out “to anyone who can give any empirical evidence (scientific proof) for evolution.” ( http://www.kent-hovind.com/250K/challenge.htm ) And, he hasn’t paid up, which would seem to me by your logic to mean that evolution isn’t a very good theory either!
The Silence is Deafening. I’m beginning to think the hockey stick might be accurate.
If they’re right about the hockey stick, what else are they right about?
Wow I am really worried now,since I used to work in greenhouses with CO2 levels over 1,000 ppm.The plants never seem to complain,but then again they could be from Venus on vacation.Maybe that was why I had to visit the barber twice a month for haircuts?
Yes it is true that large greenhouses does have elevated CO2 in them because as growers knows,it greatly enhances growth and makes the plants look great! Recall those new bedding and vegetable plants newly arrived at the local nursery,how compact and dark green they are.Then when you take them home and plant them,they quickly loose that lustrous look.That is because they are now in LOW CO2 atmosphere,thus their robust health took a nosedive,to a lower level.
This paper may actually be accurate in the claims of CO2 levels in atmosphere over 15 million years,but fails miserably when trying to claim that it directly affect temperature changes.I see Bill Ellis has already exposed that,ROFLMAO!…… not even close.
I wonder how many people realize that at THIS time in history,the CO2 levels in the atmosphere are in the bottom 1% historically by volume,therefore very low levels at THIS time?
Talk about lack of historical proportions,sheesh!
Joel Shore (18:58:05):
Hogwash. Just because you’re steadily losing the argument is no reason to imply that skeptics are nuts, or whatever it is you’re trying to insinuate.
This site allows you to spend a large part of your life trying to convince people that CO2 will lead to climate catastrophe.
But if the tables were turned, and you were a skeptic arguing the way you do, you could not get one post onto the RealClimate echo chamber. RC would censor your comments. So don’t try to tell us that we’re ‘off the charts,’ when you have the freedom to post here. Instead, you need to come up with one piece of real world evidence that CO2 controls the climate. Models don’t count, only verifiable, falsifiable, fully archived data matters.
Joel, you could have written a book with the number of posts you’ve made here. You’ve even been offered the chance to write your own article, but you continue to duck that offer. Instead, you imply that RealClimate is normal — and you say the folks here are ‘off the charts.’
But guess what, the folks at RealClimate are only impotently nipping at the Big Dog’s ankles. No doubt you post here because unlike RC, WUWT gets lots of traffic. Better than the echo chamber, eh?
CodeTech (12:12:16) : “And Hearndon, the entire article is wrong. All of it. I’d check that she spelled her name right if I cared. There is nothing to argue, since it has clearly left the Science building and taken a stroll over to the Fiction wing.”
Agreed, CodeTech….and agreed about the “criminal” nature of this nonsense. In any other field, someone would be sued for malfeasance.
Why do we put up with it in Science??? That mystery remains to be solved, but all of it is unacceptable.
And if public money is being used to fund any of this….then don’t even get me started…..
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
**********************
Jim (16:00:22) :
“We estimate the permeation coefficient for CO2 in ice is ∼4 × 10−21 mol m−1 s−1: Pa−1 at -23°C in the top 287 m (corresponding to 2.74 kyr). Smoothing of the CO2 record by diffusion at this depth/age is one or two orders of magnitude smaller than the smoothing in the firn. However, simulations for depths of ∼930-950 m (∼60-70 kyr) indicate that smoothing of the CO2 record by diffusion in deep ice is comparable to smoothing in the firn. Other types of diffusion (e.g. via liquid in ice grain boundaries or veins) may also be important but their influence has not been quantified.”
http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/igsoc/jog/2008/00000054/00000187/art00012?crawler=true
**********************
If the CO2 levels by her technique correlated with ice cores, given the above statement, doesn’t that mean her technique does not work??
“Which is eerily similar to what “skeptics” of evolution are also saying. In fact Kent Hovind has a $250,000 challenge out “to anyone who can give any empirical evidence (scientific proof) for evolution.” ( http://www.kent-hovind.com/250K/challenge.htm ) And, he hasn’t paid up, which would seem to me by your logic to mean that evolution isn’t a very good theory either!”
Not REMOTELY simliar at all, Joel.
You are comparing….once again…apples…to blocks.
You have no business putting being skeptical of evolution and skeptical of AGW even in the SAME ROOM or mention them in the same sentence!!
MAJOR BS!
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
I think that is sort of a false middle. The scientific middle is around where the IPCC comes out, which is somewhere between Dr. Spencer and James Hansen, and in fact, probably closer to Hansen…and not all that far from where RealClimate is. This place is just sort of off of the charts!
No….you and your RC friends and Hansen….are off the charts.
Ever heard of mass delusion, Joel? It has happened before (even in the scientific community….may I remind you of Inquisition times)…and it has happened again (now).
Hansen is already suspected as being insane (a government employee paid for by the taxpayer galavanting around the world inciting unrest and civil disobedience in coal protests!).
No “middle” of nothing!!
Except……. [snippable so I will not say it]
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
Smokey (18:35:40) :
The CO2=AGW conjecture not been proven. The belief comes entirely from computer models, which starkly diverge from what the real world is doing.
It does not come from models it originates from the fact that CO2 is a strong absorber of the IR emitted from the Earth’s surface, as concentration increases the absorption increases.