Controversial new climate change results
University of Bristol Press release issued 9 November 2009
New data show that the balance between the airborne and the absorbed fraction of carbon dioxide has stayed approximately constant since 1850, despite emissions of carbon dioxide having risen from about 2 billion tons a year in 1850 to 35 billion tons a year now.
This suggests that terrestrial ecosystems and the oceans have a much greater capacity to absorb CO2 than had been previously expected.
The results run contrary to a significant body of recent research which expects that the capacity of terrestrial ecosystems and the oceans to absorb CO2 should start to diminish as CO2 emissions increase, letting greenhouse gas levels skyrocket. Dr Wolfgang Knorr at the University of Bristol found that in fact the trend in the airborne fraction since 1850 has only been 0.7 ± 1.4% per decade, which is essentially zero.
The strength of the new study, published online in Geophysical Research Letters, is that it rests solely on measurements and statistical data, including historical records extracted from Antarctic ice, and does not rely on computations with complex climate models.
This work is extremely important for climate change policy, because emission targets to be negotiated at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen early next month have been based on projections that have a carbon free sink of already factored in. Some researchers have cautioned against this approach, pointing at evidence that suggests the sink has already started to decrease.
So is this good news for climate negotiations in Copenhagen? “Not necessarily”, says Knorr. “Like all studies of this kind, there are uncertainties in the data, so rather than relying on Nature to provide a free service, soaking up our waste carbon, we need to ascertain why the proportion being absorbed has not changed”.
Another result of the study is that emissions from deforestation might have been overestimated by between 18 and 75 per cent. This would agree with results published last week in Nature Geoscience by a team led by Guido van der Werf from VU University Amsterdam. They re-visited deforestation data and concluded that emissions have been overestimated by at least a factor of two.
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Here is the abstract from GRL:
Several recent studies have highlighted the possibility that the oceans and terrestrial ecosystems have started losing part of their ability to sequester a large proportion of the anthropogenic CO2 emissions. This is an important claim, because so far only about 40% of those emissions have stayed in the atmosphere, which has prevented additional climate change.
This study re-examines the available atmospheric CO2 and emissions data including their uncertainties. It is shown that with those uncertainties, the trend in the airborne fraction since 1850 has been 0.7 ± 1.4% per decade, i.e. close to and not significantly different from zero. The analysis further shows that the statistical model of a constant airborne fraction agrees best with the available data if emissions from land use change are scaled down to 82% or less of their original estimates. Despite the predictions of coupled climate-carbon cycle models, no trend in the airborne fraction can be found.
Knorr, W. (2009), Is the airborne fraction of anthropogenic CO2 emissions increasing?, Geophys. Res. Lett., 36, L21710, doi:10.1029/2009GL040613.
According to Pat Michaels at World Climate Report:
Dr. Knorr carefully analyzed the record of anthropogenic CO2 emissions, atmospheric CO2 concentrations, and anthropogenic land-use changes for the past 150 years. Keeping in mind the various sources of potential errors inherent in these data, he developed several different possible solutions to fitting a trend to the airborne fraction of anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions. In all cases, he found no significant trend (at the 95% significance level) in airborne fraction since 1850.
(Note: It is not that the total atmospheric burden of CO2 has not been increasing over time, but that of the total CO2 released into the atmosphere each year by human activities, about 45% remains in the atmosphere while the other 55% is taken up by various natural processes—and these percentages have not changed during the past 150 years)
Here is Figure 1 from the Knorr paper:
Figure 1. The annual increase in atmospheric CO2 (as determined from ice cores, thin dotted lines, and direct measurements, thin black line) has remained constantly proportional to the annual amount of CO2 released by human activities (thick black line). The proportion is about 46% (thick dotted line). (Figure source: Knorr, 2009)
The conclusion of the Knorr paper reads:
Given the importance of the [the anthropogenic CO2 airborne fraction] for the degree of future climate change, the question is how to best predict its future course. One pre-requisite is that we gain a thorough understand of why it has stayed approximately constant in the past, another that we improve our ability to detect if and when it changes. The most urgent need seems to exist for more accurate estimates of land use emissions.
Another possible approach is to add more data through the combination of many detailed regional studies such as the ones by Schuster and Watson (2007) and Le Quéré et al. (2007), or using process based models combined with data assimilation approaches (Rayner et al., 2005). If process models are used, however, they need to be carefully constructed in order to answer the question of why the AF has remained constant and not shown more pronounced decadal-scale fluctuations or a stronger secular trend.
Michaels adds:
In other words, like we have repeated over and over, if the models can’t replicate the past (for the right reasons), they can’t be relied on for producing accurate future projections. And as things now stand, the earth is responding to anthropogenic CO2 emissions in a different (and perhaps better) manner than we thought that it would.
Yet here we are, on the brink of economy crippling legislation to tackle a problem we don’t fully understand and the science is most certainly not settled on.
UPDATE: A professional email list I’m on is circulating the paper, read it here: Knorr 2009_CO2_sequestration
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WAG, your bathtub has a few holes 😉 If the amount of CO2 emitted keeps going up faster and faster and the amount sequestered is also going up (just not quite as fast), your drain must be getting bigger and bigger by just enough to keep the CO2 increase almost linear. Until you can explain precisely how that works your argument/analogy doesn’t hold water 😉
Note, if my data is wrong please let me know. The last I saw China’s emissions were going through the roof with additions from many other developing countries.
Bart, your little model is ill-posed from the first line. You have a first-order term for carbon leaving the atmosphere, and a zero-order term for carbon naturally coming into the atmosphere. Why? There isn’t any physical meaning to any of that.
I’ll use made up numbers, but let me try to explain the basic dynamics:
Say there is only ocean and atmosphere. In any given year, 100 units of CO2 go from ocean to air, and 100 units of CO2 go from air back to ocean. On net, the amount of carbon in either place is unchanged.
Now, man starts putting 4 units/year of CO2 into the air directly. Now, 102 units of CO2 go from air to ocean, and 100 units of CO2 go from ocean to air. The amount of CO2 in both ocean and air go up by 2 units/year each. In the terms of the Knorr paper, AF = 50%. Yes, it’s insanely simplified, but I don’t know how else to overcome this difficulty people are having with the transfers.
Bart, if you want your model to actually be able to predict these transfers, you’ll pretty much end up writing a pretty complicated gridded global model.
Smokey (16:19:51) :
Please, make this a speech for the US SENATE!
Ferdinand,
I analyzed the same data and got a 0.15k/ppm relationship which is close to your 8ppm/k. Plotting SSTs calculated from isotope depletion data and SSTs from the .15k/ppm relationship shows they track together up until about 4000 years BC. The tracks begin to deviate linearly until about 1800 were the relationship calculated SST rises exponentially to give you a classic hockey stick. The later calculated values are unrealistically high while the isotope data values are in good agreement with measured SSTs.
carrot eater (17:30:23) :
“…and a zero-order term for carbon naturally coming into the atmosphere. Why? There isn’t any physical meaning to any of that.”
Of course there is:
Without it, the CO2 of the atmosphere would soon be depleted. This is all part of the carbon cycle, with which any reader of this website should at least have some passing familiarity.
“Now, man starts putting 4 units/year of CO2 into the air directly. Now, 102 units of CO2 go from air to ocean, and 100 units of CO2 go from ocean to air. The amount of CO2 in both ocean and air go up by 2 units/year each. In the terms of the Knorr paper, AF = 50%. Yes, it’s insanely simplified, but I don’t know how else to overcome this difficulty people are having with the transfers.”
It is not that simple. At all. Not all CO2 goes into the ocean, and the ocean reservoir itself is vast and has its own natural sequestration mechanisms. See here:
And, there are other natural mechanisms for carbon sequestration being discovered all the time.
Bart: Of course it isn’t that simple; I said as much. My comment was meant to show your model was poorly formulated, and to try to explain how huge volumes go around the cycle, without causing accumulation in any one part. If you’re going to go wikipedia, you might as well just stare at the cute carbon cycle there: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Carbon_cycle-cute_diagram.svg
Staring at that diagram and tracing all the flows will be more beneficial than trying to write your own model from scratch. Yes, there is some uncertainty in some of the numbers on there, but it’s good enough for the purpose here.
You’ve identified various ways carbon enters and leaves the atmosphere. My complaint is that you’ve arbitrarily made the entrance term to be zero order, and the departure term to be first order with respect to the atmospheric concentration. It’s those decisions that have no physical basis, within your simplistic model.
Hilarious!
WAG, do you actually believe your model of a bathtub at 15:15:31 has any place in this discussion? Truthfully, that’s the kind of explanation you’d give a 6 year old. I especially liked the condescending claptrap at the beginning about what “we” don’t “get intuitively”.
Your little tirade fails to take into account that said bathtub is capable of growing and shrinking, there are differing levels of evaporation from the tub depending on its water level, water enters at varying temperatures, and overflowing won’t cause any serious harm because there’s a giant floor drain right beside it.
However, if your understanding of atmospheric gases is that minimal, hey, don’t let anyone talk you out of it. I do, however, recommend an excellent line of books for you written by Dr. Seuss.
Reply: Back down the tone please, this is pushing well over the line. ~ charles the moderator
Fred – you’re right, the bathtub analogy is a little simplistic. The carbon cycle acts as a dynamic equilibrium – small oscillations around a constant level – which is not captured by a simple analogy. However, the mechanism you’ve proposed does not explain the massive, sustained increase in CO2 unprecedented in the last 400,000 years (and likely 15 million).
Smokey – please explain how you would empirically “test” AGW *without* using a model, considering that the point is to predict what is going to happen in the future? And considering that by the time the earth has warmed enough to have “tested” AGW theory it will be too late to reverse, what should we do in the present in the face of less-than-100% certainty? What, specifically, would you have to see for you to accept AGW?
Also, considering that you demand such a high bar for evidence, I find it a little odd that you dismiss what I’ve said by asserting that it’s “unconvincing.” Dismissing arguments out of hand without engaging them is the sure sign of someone “whose mind is made up.” If you had consulted your Monty Python, you would know that an argument is a series of connected statements meant to establish a proposition; Contradiction is the automatic gainsaying of whatever the other person says.
Please explain why increasing the rate of a flow into a stock does not cause the stock to increase. Also, please explain why a study finding that the AT has not increased yet proves that it NEVER will. I hear AIG is hiring.
Carrot eater – thanks. I’ll be posting that info soon.
Bart (18:05:33) That’s a dodgy reference that you have there,
Quite wrong. CO2 reacts with carbonate ions in solution to produce bicarbonate. By removing the carbonate ions, it makes CaCO3 more apt to dissolve. It is dissolved CO2 that promotes formation of limestone caves.
J. Bob (16:50:19) :
D. King (17:17:55) :
in bill (06:19:36) I wrote
Mauna Loa Do not take readings when wind direction can pull in volcanic etc CO2.
There are many different sites, and a couple of different measurement methods – Flask and in situ
The ML readings are then algorithmically shifted to represent the CO2 values on 15th of each month.
“Values above represent monthly concentrations adjusted to represent 2400 hours on the 15th day of each month. ”
Multi site CO2 data here:
http://cdiac.ornl.gov/trends/co2/sio-keel.html
CO2 growth rate:
ftp://ftp.cmdl.noaa.gov/ccg/co2/trends/co2_gr_mlo.txt
Plotted here:
http://img687.imageshack.us/img687/8276/growthrateco2year.jpg
Growth rate certainly seems to have an upward trend (although stalled for last 5 years)
Other sites data for CO2
ftp://ftp.cmdl.noaa.gov/ccg/co2/flask/month/
Here’s a plot of Co2 from a few places, included is CH4
http://img527.imageshack.us/img527/6153/co2manysitesch4.jpg
In this plot from only a couple of years you can see that most of the annual variation happens in the NH. but only at South Pole does a SH annual cycle predominate. The most annual variation occurs around the arctic circle.
bill (19:14:25) :
Mauna Loa Do not take readings when wind direction can pull in volcanic etc CO2.
As the wind blows?
Please tell me I’m not the only one who has a problem with this.
Anne van der Bom (04:16:49) :
Ron de Haan (02:53:56)
“Do you have an explanation for the 0.7 degrees of warming since pre-industrial times? Since CO2 rose by 35%, according to prof. Lindzen’s paper, that should have been no more than 2 tenths of a degree. What caused the other 0.5 degrees?”
Anne, I think that the Urban Heat Island Effect is the only real and measurable Anthropogenic influence on temperatures and all the rest is due to natural cycles.
This is a volcanic planet and despite major volcanic events that screwed up the climate over several years, no tipping points were reached and everything went back to normal.
The bear fact that we are present at this planet despite a number real big volcanic eruptions and huge fluctuations in global temperatures is sufficient reason for me not to worry about a few tenth’s of a degree variation in Global Temperatures we measure today.
And I don’t see any reason to mitigate our CO2 emissions, change our civilization and replace it by a polished up version of communism, because that s what behind this entire theater.
So if you want to live in a society where the President of the USA is granted absolute powers only because a few loons made up a Bill that says we are in a crises if the atmospheric CO2 level reaches 450 ppm, be my guest, but not in my life time.
D. King (19:39:22) :
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/about/co2_measurements.html
The observatory is surrounded by many miles of bare lava, without any vegetation or soil. This provides an opportunity to measure “background” air, also called “baseline” air, which we define as having a CO2 mole fraction representative of an upwind fetch of hundreds of km. Nearby emission or removal of CO2 typically produces sharp fluctuations, in space and time, in mole fraction. These fluctuations get smoothed out with time and distance through turbulent mixing and wind shear. A distinguishing characteristic of background air is that CO2 changes only very gradually because the air has been mixed for days, without any significant additions or removals of CO2.
At Mauna Loa we use the following data selection criteria:
The standard deviation of minute averages should be less than 0.30 ppm within a given hour
The hourly average should differ from the preceding hour by less than 0.25 ppm.
Hours that are likely affected by local photosynthesis are indicated by a “U” flag in the hourly data file,
In keeping with the requirement that CO2 in background air should be steady, we apply a general “outlier rejection” step,
ctm – sorry, I withdraw the last sentence. But only that one… 🙂
WAG to Smokey – “Please explain how you would empirically “test” AGW *without* using a model, considering that the point is to predict what is going to happen in the future?”
Well, the AGW alarmists could start, EMPIRICALLY, by presenting real, observable data…that proves (and I mean “prove” in the strict scientific sense) their case.
But they can’t….because the data is either not there, or can be explained within the bounds of natural climate variation.
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
In looking at the above graphs noted by Bill, all the graphs, save one in Canada’s NW Terr., border the Pacific. Any others from Europe, Africa or Asia. Just a thought, but one common thread is the loss of plant life (less CO2 absorption) and urban growth (increasing temperatures). Any correlations out there?
If the Bristol paper shows that 55% of anthropogenic emissions (no more, no less) are ALWAYS taken out of the atmosphere by natural processes, then what is the point of issuing carbon credits for man-made sinks?
Any reductions in airborne CO2 brought about by planting trees, soil tillage – or even CCS – will be cancelled out automatically by adjustments in the natural program.
WAG to Smokey “And considering that by the time the earth has warmed enough to have “tested” AGW theory it will be too late to reverse, what should we do in the present in the face of less-than-100% certainty?”
Do you really think your Non Causa Pro Causa goes unnoticed here?
Regardless of that, so what you are saying is, “It doesn’t matter if it is proven, we have to do something NOW, before its too late.”
It is exactly THAT gloom and doom HUSTLING of this pet theory (We call it pseudoscience) on the reasoning world, the same HUSTLING that is poised to cap and trade (and make billionaires out of Gore and his friends) the world back to the Stone Age….it is exactly THAT which makes the “we’ve got to do something now” argument…so reprehensible.
Two separate arguments here.
If the alarmists said they wanted to end AGP (Anthropogenic Global Pollution), I would be *somewhat* on board.
(I mean…who doesn’t want to clean up pollution, right?).
But they don’t stop there. They equate manmade pollution with climate change, which is grossly unproven.
And, contrary to what Lisa Jackson wants to think, CO2 is not a pollutant.
Coal dust is, but CO2 is not.
That is the worst problem here: They have an environmental agenda, but then they tack that environmental agenda to pseudoscience.
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
WAG to Smokey: “What, specifically, would you have to see for you to accept AGW?”
That’s easy: A complete technical, scientific proof of the AGW theory.
Until then….it is a just a theory….and not a strong one at that. In fact, in line with other ideas about natural climate variation, it is a weak, weak, sickly sister.
And in reference to the phrase “accept AGW”:
Indicative of the whole startlingly *evangelical* tone this devastatingly embarrassing chapter of science has taken, no doubt.
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
savethesharks (20:31:57),
I thought I had made my point to WAG pretty clear when I pointed out that the alarmist crowd has been deliberately withholding the information necessary for experimental replication and falsification of their claimed results. That is the central problem.
It’s not that I am setting the bar too high like WAG claims. The problem is that the promoters of the hypothesis deliberately refuse to cooperate with requests for the raw data and methodologies they used to arrive at their conclusions.
Until they make their data and methods transparent, and fully cooperate with the requests of other scientists, people will remain skeptical of their conclusions.
savethesharks (20:31:57) :
That’s better!
DaveE.
WAG to Smokey: “Also, considering that you demand such a high bar for evidence, I find it a little odd that you dismiss what I’ve said by asserting that it’s “unconvincing.”
Huh? You are shooting yourself in the foot on that one. Look at what you are saying.
At any rate, glad that you appreciate and observe his high bar of evidence.
It’s the natural place to be for a skeptic.
Perhaps you could learn something.
Wag to Smokey: “Dismissing arguments out of hand without engaging them is the sure sign of someone “whose mind is made up.”
Pot Callingimus Kettle Blackimus Uniterruptedness.
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
WAG to Smokey: “Please explain why increasing the rate of a flow into a stock does not cause the stock to increase.”
Take the Dead Sea, for example. Now I am sure the rate of flow of the Jordan River varies….but it is not sufficient to cause the Dead Sea to fill up and overflow.
Evaporation is a very strong beast.
WAG to Smokey “Also, please explain why a study finding that the AT has not increased yet proves that it NEVER will.”
Huh??? Wha???
WAG to Smokey: “I hear AIG is hiring.”
I’ll bet you are just what they are looking for! 🙂
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
carrot eater (18:22:24) :
“My complaint is that you’ve arbitrarily made the entrance term to be zero order, and the departure term to be first order with respect to the atmospheric concentration.”
In actuality, I made the input “u” a constant, and considered the term “delta_u” to be linear in time. That is why I stated “delta_u has a form which, since 1950, has been more or less linear [in time]”. It was not arbitrary. It was based on the Figure 1 graph in the Knorr paper shown above.
As far as the departure term, that is simply a standard linear feedback. The rate at which carbon leaves is (at least) proportional to the amount in the atmosphere. That is also suggested by Figure 1.
So, I think perhaps you have leapt to some conclusions, and need to think it through a little more carefully.
Evidence of increased atmospheric CO2 effecting Marine life
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/320/5874/336