With some hubub recently over the 350.org day (designed to highlight the opinion that we must return the Earth to a 350 parts per million atmospheric CO2 level) I thought it might be a good idea to have a look at what the reversal might gain us.
For this, I’m drawing on the excellent guest post made by Bill Illis here on 11/25/2008 titled:
Adjusting Temperatures for the ENSO and the AMO
One of the graphs (along with a model in a zip file) that Bill presented in that guest post was this graph, which I’ve annotated to show the 350 PPM desired by activists, versus the 388 PPM (MLO seasonally corrected value) where we are now:
Here is the same graph, annotated again with intersecting lines and values, and zoomed on the areas of interest.
Depending on whether you believe the models or the actual observations determines what value would be gained from a reduction to 350 PPM.
For belief in the models we’d get approximately 0.5°C drop in temperature.
For belief in the observations (RSS HadCRUT3 data) we’d get approximately 0.3°C drop in temperature.
Split the difference if you don’t like either and call it 0.4°C.
The key point here is that to get to 350PPM, it would be extremely difficult if not impossible to accomplish. Alternate energy just hasn’t risen to the challenge yet, and the world populace that depends on electricity isn’t likely to tolerate shutting down their energy use to get there.
China and India have said they won’t go along with suggested reductions, and are coming up with their own ideas prior to Copenhagen. Thus is the quandary faced by 350.org supporters.
As a side note, the 350PPM target was Dr. Jim Hansen’s idea:
Target Atmospheric CO2: Where Should Humanity Aim?
Since Hansen can’t even predict the effect of climate change 20 years out in his own neighborhood, one wonders why some people take the 350 PPM target suggestion seriously.
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Icarus (14:03:10) :
a jones (13:05:45) : As I have pointed out before fossil fuel burning has little effect on CO2 levels in the atmosphere.
Then how do you explain this?:
http://www.ipcc.ch/graphics/syr/fig2-3.jpg
a) consider the source – the IPCC, land of the hockey stick
b) a hugely condensed horizontal scale – 10,000 years
c) the bottom two-thirds trimmed off the vertical scale – it would look completely different if the ppm scale started at zero
d) IPCC, Climate Change 2001: The Scientific Basis – humans contribute 2.9% of the total CO2.
Mike McMillan (14:06:13) is right. CO2 is beneficial. More CO2 is better. Increased atmospheric CO2 grows plants much faster: click1, click2. It is, after all, a plant nutrient.
Further, CO2 levels in the geologic past have been an order of magnitude higher without causing ocean acidification, or runaway global warming, or decimation of polar bears, etc., etc., etc. In fact, there is no causation between higher levels of CO2 and temperature: click.
Regarding the UN/IPCC chart linked by Icarus above, we must keep in mind that the IPCC is run by political appointees who have their marching orders, not by climate scientists. That’s where that ginned-up hockey stick chart that Icarus posted comes from.
Arbitrarily selecting a very recent cutoff of only the past 10,000 years is simply cherry-picking. The IPCC does this sort of thing all the time: click. They are incredible; that is why they refuse to debate their extremely questionable assertions, or answer skeptiks’ questions, or make their data and methodologies transparent. And they always seem to cut off the most recent decade from the global temperature: click.
For a peer-reviewed chart going much farther back in time, see here [click on the chart to expand].
Furthermore, almost all the possible warming due to CO2 has already occurred. More CO2 will cause almost no additional warming: click. But it will greatly benefit all life on Earth, because CO2 is as harmless and as beneficial to life as H2O.
The atmosphere is currently starved of the trace gas carbon dioxide. If CO2 levels increase, then agricultural productivity will increase.
Given the facts, anyone who truly cares about the fact that there is still starvation in the world would certainly want CO2 levels to increase.
Mike McMillan (14:06:13) : A return to 350 ppm would disastrously reduce agricultural productivity.
Illinois corn ran around 130 bu/acre when CO2 was 350 ppm. At the current CO2 level, it runs about 180 bu/acre.
Sorry, but that’s utter nonsense. Dramatic improvements in yield are due to breeding programmes, better irrigation, multiple crops, more fertiliser and other factors like that. CO2 is irrelevant unless you’re growing strawberries in a greenhouse or something.
Icarus (13:48:15) :
“Surely the point of the ‘350′ campaign is that we need to stop the continued rise in CO2 – it’s not just a matter of going from 388 to 350. The paleoclimate evidence suggests that we might have an ice-free world at 450ppm, but who wants to bet a human-friendly climate on that figure being exactly right? What if it’s actually 400ppm? We’ll probably be there in less than a decade at this rate.”
May I be so bold as to ask you for the source of your wisdom and your Scientific Credentials!!!
If CO2 is so bad then why are farm workers exposed to elevated levels of CO2 in the production of Tomatoes? It seems it is acceptable to go to levels of above 700ppm (see below). What I am unable to find out is the effect on temperature within greehouses with elevated CO2.
http://www.hortnet.co.nz/publications/science/n/neder/co2_nr4.htm
Elly Nederhoff – HortResearch, Palmerston North
“The previous article in this series showed that CO2-enrichment to 700 or at maximum 1000 ppm clearly increases growth and production in lettuce, cucumber and capsicum crops. In tomato, however, the response to CO2-enrichment is sometimes less clear than in most other crops.”
http://www.hortnet.co.nz/publications/science/n/neder/co2_nr1.htm#top
“CO2 in low concentrations is not dangerous for humans; it is also the gas that gives the prickles in fizzy drinks. The advised maximum concentration in working places is 5000 ppm.”
Icarus (13:53:34) :
1: CO2, unlike water vapour, is fairly evenly distributed throughout the atmosphere.
Must be why they located the current facilities on top of the Mauna Loa volcano.
Icarus (14:03:10) :
Then how do you explain this?:
http://www.ipcc.ch/graphics/syr/fig2-3.jpg
GIGO
“Gains in land productivity have come primarily from three
sources—the growing use of fertilizer, the spread of irrigation,
and the development of higher-yielding varieties.”
“With corn, now the world’s largest grain crop, the early
breakthrough came with hybridization in the United States. As
a result of the dramatic advances associated with hybrid corn,
and the recent, much more modest gains associated with genetic
modification, corn yields are still edging upward.”
“In the United States, which accounts for 40 percent of the world corn harvest, yields are now approaching an astonishing 10 tons per hectare. Even though fertilizer use has not increased since 1980, corn yields continue to edge upward as seed companies invest huge sums in corn breeding.”
However: “High temperatures can… dehydrate plants. When a corn plant curls its leaves to reduce exposure to the sun, photosynthesis is reduced. And when the stomata on the underside of the leaves close to reduce moisture loss, CO2 intake is also reduced, thereby restricting photosynthesis. At elevated temperatures, the corn plant, which under ideal conditions is so extraordinarily productive, goes into thermal shock.”
CO2 has no significant effect on world grain crops, but temperature and drought certainly do.
Still think elevated CO2 is a good idea?
http://www.earth-policy.org/images/uploads/book_files/pb4book.pdf
Mike McMillan (14:31:50):
With the y-axis [vertical axis] starting at zero, an honest CO2 chart is much less alarming: click. [Hey! Where did that IPCC hokey stick go??]
The IPCC is deliberately alarming; they have an agenda to fulfill, and it has nothing to do with science. To achieve their goals, they must alarm the populace. But they don’t have the science to back them up, so they diddle with the y-axis on their CO2 charts, like this: click. See what happens when the y-axis is started near current CO2 levels? The IPCC is doing the same thing, except on a 10,000 year x-axis. The result is a scary looking hockey stick. But it’s not an honest representation.
The IPCC is trying to convince people that “carbon” [by which they mean CO2, a tiny trace gas] is some sort of demon that will destroy the climate. Dr Roy Spencer’s CO2 chart shows an honest perspective: click [look close, or you’ll miss the CO2 boogeyman].
Icarus (14:20:21) :
“None of this changes the fact that atmospheric CO2 is closely correlated with global temperature for many millions of years into the past… It’s a fact that higher temperatures are correlated with higher CO2, and lower temperatures are correlated with lower CO2.”
Icarus, Don’t get correlation confused with causation. It doesn’t necessarily follow that because you see a correlation in temperature with the calculated levels of CO2, that the temperature rise has been caused by the CO2, it may well be that the elevation in CO2 has been caused by the rising temperatures which themselves may be caused by some other event.
Just a note, in Northern Illinois we don’t irrigate corn.
Interesting. usual disclaimer.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/6425269/The-real-climate-change-catastrophe.html
Kindest Regards
Elevated levels of CO2 are used in the greenhouse production of various fruit & veg. CO2 levels of 700 – 1000 ppm are used with clear benefits. [http://www.hortnet.co.nz/publications/science/n/neder/co2_nr4.htm]
And in terms of a polutant “The advised maximum concentration in working places is 5000 ppm.”
So, it is acceptable for people to work in greenhouses with elevated levels of CO2. What I cannot find is whether the extra CO2 makes for a hotter greenhouse?
Antarctic glaciation began with CO2 levels around 450ppm. The reason for the cooling phase is unclear, but it is a well established scientific fact that cooling results in lower CO2 levels as it follows temperature downwards. Once glaciation begins, increases the albedo leading to even greater cooling and even lower CO2 levels. It is however, a logical fallacy to conclude that glaciation forms when CO2 levels fall below 450 ppm, and I am amazed that this has gone.
To then apply an error bar to get a lower limit and advocate 350 ppm as some sort of maximum to prevent deglaciation, achieves a perfect score in idiocy. Antarctic albedo is now so high, that it is inconveivable that it will melt away if CO2 levels are above 350ppm.
Icarus (14:51:23):
“CO2 has no significant effect on world grain crops…”
Is that just your unfounded opinion? Let’s listen to what Prof Freeman Dyson says:
Claiming that CO2 has no significant effect on crops is ridiculous. Without CO2 there would be no crops.
@Icarus,
are you shure about yr choosen name?
Icarus burnt his feathers whilst flying too high.
Are you shure not following his path?
from a Deadalus-kind-of-mind
It looks like a few from the pro-350 movement, who have never looked at the actual data, have found the site.
@Icarus. When an alarmist can complete a sentence about the effect on temperature of CO2 in the atmosphere without any qualifiers (could, should, might, possibly, probably, effectively, proxy, etc.) AND provide a valid study completely sourced, with computer code, for examination by the readers of this blog, then AGW will have some credibility. Do you know of such a study? Send it to Anthony.
The state of play as it stands now is, in laymen’s terms “we can’t account for all the warming so it must be man-made CO2”. The models were instructed to make it so and the rest is history.
Skeptics have exhaustively, competently and repeatedly analyzed such data as can be coerced out of AGW proponents who continually act in a non-professional manner regarding their models and studies. I wouldn’t buy a used car from a guy who conducted himself in the manner of Hansen, Briffa or Schmidt. The end result is that 20 years in to this situation we still don’t know how Hansen made the determinations he made. We just know that his predictions were wrong. Pretty sad for a guy who maintains that he and his sidekick Schmidt are infallible.
I believe that no one here would be a barrier to viable, realistic renewable energy technology that would sustain the current standard of living in the world and allow for growth. Many have said that they live in highly energy efficient homes and drive various energy saving vehicles. No one is a Luddite on renewable energy, but the bottom line is that for 60 or so years the majority of the energy generated on this planet is going to come from coal, gas, hydro and nuclear plants. Remove any of those sources in the interim and mankind will suffer tremendous hardships.
Is this the legacy alarmists seek to leave the world? Is theirs a darker agenda to depopulate the world?
Juraj V.: You ran through a sequence that included, “most of the temperature increase during the 20th century occurred in 1900-1950 period, when CO2 did not increased much (but Sun cycles ramped up like hell)”
Whose TSI reconstruction are you referring to? The TSI reconstructions like Lean (2000) and like Hoyt and Schatten were manufactured to allow GCMs to show a rise in global temperatures during the first half of the 20th Century. The majority of the IPCCs models were still relying on obsolete TSI data for this reason for the IPCC’s AR4 20th Century hindcasts.
http://bobtisdale.blogspot.com/2009/03/ipcc-20th-century-simulations-get-boost.html
If you assume that there was no increase in TSI during the 20th century, then you have to rely on ocean cycles to make your logic work. And you should be able to do that. But I would also suggest you replace the PDO with ENSO, since ENSO has known mechanisms to vary global temperature while the PDO does not. A smoothed curve of ENSO should provide you with what you’re looking for.
http://i43.tinypic.com/33agh3c.jpg
Regards
A. Jones,
Thanks for the link to CO2Science.org – I found this reminder of mankind’s contribution refreshing:
“With such short residence times for atmospheric CO2, Essenhigh (2009) correctly points out that it is impossible for the anthropogenic combustion supply of CO2 to cause the given rise in atmospheric CO2. Consequently, a rising atmospheric CO2 concentration must be natural. This conclusion accords with measurements of 13C/12C carbon isotopes in atmospheric CO2, which show a maximum of 4% anthropogenic CO2 in the atmosphere (including any biogenic CO2), with 96% of the atmospheric CO2 being isotopically indistinguishable from “natural” inorganic CO2 exchanged with and degassed from the ocean, and degassed from volcanoes and the Earth’s interior (Segalstad, 1992).” ~
http://www.co2science.org/articles/V12/N31/EDIT.php
Smokey (15:14:40) : Claiming that CO2 has no significant effect on crops is ridiculous. Without CO2 there would be no crops.
You’re being obtuse. The claim was:
Mike McMillan (14:06:13) : “A return to 350 ppm would disastrously reduce agricultural productivity. Illinois corn ran around 130 bu/acre when CO2 was 350 ppm. At the current CO2 level, it runs about 180 bu/acre.”
The claim is nonsense because the substantial increase in grain productivity over recent decades is due to breeding, irrigation and fertiliser, so reducing atmospheric CO2 to 350 would certainly not “disastrously reduce agricultural productivity”.
@Greg S (14:53:59) :
[B]
…
Is this the legacy alarmists seek to leave the world? Is theirs a darker agenda to depopulate the world?
…[/B]
Indeed, it seems.
Icarus (14:34:21) :
Sorry, but that’s utter nonsense. Dramatic improvements in yield are due to breeding programmes, better irrigation, multiple crops, more fertiliser and other factors like that. CO2 is irrelevant unless you’re growing strawberries in a greenhouse or something.
.
The only thing Illinois farmers are doing differently now is incorporating to keep the government taxman from taking their farms when they die.
Illinois corn yields have tracked CO2 closely since the end of the LIA. So closely that they make the IPCC CO2/temperature assertion look laughable.
http://i29.tinypic.com/120ilbc.jpg
No extra fertilizer, no extra irrigation, no multiple crops (in Illinois??), no vastly improved hybrids, no nonsense, and no strawberries. Remember that we hit 350 ppm only recently, in the late 1980’s.
Vincent (15:08:24) : …To then apply an error bar to get a lower limit and advocate 350 ppm as some sort of maximum to prevent deglaciation, achieves a perfect score in idiocy. Antarctic albedo is now so high, that it is inconveivable that it will melt away if CO2 levels are above 350ppm.
So what *is* the maximum? On what basis do you calculate it? What are the margins of error? How do we find out for sure without actually going there, by which time it would be much too late?
Lord Moncton has the following approach:
His assessment is that we need to reduce CO2 by 1 trillion tons in order to forestall the temperature by 1 degree Fahrenheit.
Our World economy and our societies produce only 30 billion tons of CO2 emissions per year.
This is the equivalent of shutting down our entire societies world wide for a period of 33 years.
This is an entirely pointless and unachievable operation.
we can’t influence the earth temperature in any way.
This now measured and verified finding (Lindzen) makes the mitigation of any CO2 emissions superfluous The last thing humanity needs is an International Climate Climate Treaty to resolve this non existent problem and a Totalitarian World Government to take control over our economies and it’s people
http://www.breitbart.tv/the-b-cast-interview-lord-monckton-defends-his-warning-for-america/
Icarus (14:34:21) :
Mike McMillan (14:06:13) : A return to 350 ppm would disastrously reduce agricultural productivity.
“Illinois corn ran around 130 bu/acre when CO2 was 350 ppm. At the current CO2 level, it runs about 180 bu/acre.
Sorry, but that’s utter nonsense. Dramatic improvements in yield are due to breeding programmes, better irrigation, multiple crops, more fertiliser and other factors like that. CO2 is irrelevant unless you’re growing strawberries in a greenhouse or something.”
—
Does additional CO2 only work in greenhouses then? Is that why it’s called a greenhouse gas?