Here’s the latest global temperature plot from UAH:
From Eurekalert: Human emissions rise 2 percent despite global financial crisis
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  IMAGE: Human emissions rise 2 percent despite the global financial crisis.
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Despite the economic effects of the global financial crisis (GFC), carbon dioxide emissions from human activities rose 2 per cent in 2008 to an all-time high of 1.3 tonnes of carbon per capita per year, according to a paper published today in Nature Geoscience.
The paper – by scientists from the internationally respected climate research group, the Global Carbon Project (GCP) – says rising emissions from fossil fuels last year were caused mainly by increased use of coal but there were minor decreases in emissions from oil and deforestation.
“The current growth in carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions is closely linked to growth in Gross Domestic Product (GDP),” said one of the paper’s lead authors, CSIRO’s Dr Mike Raupach.
“CO2 emissions from fossil fuel combustion are estimated to have increased 41 per cent above 1990 levels with emissions continuing to track close to the worst-case scenario of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
“There will be a small downturn in emissions because of the GFC, but anthropogenic emissions growth will resume when the economy recovers unless the global effort to reduce emissions from human activity is accelerated.”
The GCP estimates that the growth in emissions from developing countries increased in part due to the production of manufactured goods consumed in developed countries. In China alone, 50 per cent of the growth in emissions from 2002 to 2005 was attributed to the country’s export industries.
According to the GCP’s findings, atmospheric CO2 growth was about four billion metric tonnes of carbon in 2008 and global atmospheric CO2 concentrations reached 385 parts per million – 38 per cent above pre-industrial levels.
According to co-author and GCP Executive Director, CSIRO’s Dr Pep Canadell, the findings also indicate that natural carbon sinks, which play an important role in buffering the impact of rising emissions from human activity, have not been able to keep pace with rising CO2 levels.
“On average only 45 per cent of each year’s emissions remain in the atmosphere,” Dr Canadell said.
“The remaining 55 per cent is absorbed by land and ocean sinks.
“However, CO2 sinks have not kept pace with rapidly increasing emissions, as the fraction of emissions remaining in the atmosphere has increased over the past 50 years. This is of concern as it indicates the vulnerability of the sinks to increasing emissions and climate change, making natural sinks less efficient ‘cleaners’ of human carbon pollution.”
More than 30 experts from major international climate research institutions contributed to the GCP’s annual Global Carbon Budget report – now considered a primary reference on the human effects on atmospheric CO2 for governments and policy-makers around the world.
Media Note:
Dr Raupach will be available to speak to the media at a briefing at the Powerhouse Museum in Sydney at 10.30am today.
For details go to: www.aussmc.org or contact Imogen Jubb on 0417 258 020.
Image available at: http://www.scienceimage.csiro.au/mediarelease/mr09-206.html
Further Information:
Dr Michael Raupach, CSIRO Marine & Atmospheric Research
Ph: +61 2 6246 5573
Ph: +61 408 020 952
Dr Pep Canadell, CSIRO Marine & Atmospheric Research
Further information available at: www.globalcarbonproject.org
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“Human emissions rise 2 percent despite global financial crisis.”
I call shennanigans. Frankly, this number does not seem possible, and since it is all based on estimation of consumption I tend to believe that 2-percent is well within the noise.
John F. Hultquist (21:57:47) :
CSIRO’s Dr Pep Canadell’s statement appears to disagree with this:
Ditto.
Rob Vermeulen (23:32:53) :
Same with 30 years. So where’s the problem ? The only way not to get a similar trend is to look at very small time intervals, where we know that making trends means nothing. So I would say: CO2 goes up, and so do temperatures.
I suggest you go to Leif Svalgaard’s homepage and look at the graphically illustrated relationship between temperatures and [CO2] under the listing “CET and CO2 past increases”. You will notice both positive and negative trends from different time periods indicating a 0.000% correlation between the two. You can plug in numbers from the USA and will only get a highly negative correlation since temperatures in the USA are on a negative trend while CO2 is increasing. After doing what I ask, you may then repost your rubbish.
edward (07:22:55) :
It’s very possible that we should be experiencing very cold temps now but that the extra CO2 is preventing that. It’s possible that the next upswing in temps will begin to become extreme with temp anomalies +1.0 or greater.
It’s also possible pigs could sprout wings. No, sorry, but the extra C02 is doing very little to affect climate, but it is doing a good job of increasing the rates of plant growth. And that’s a good thing, right? More food for us? Or, is that bad, because that only encourages us evil humans to reproduce even more, causing further planetary destruction?
“Should the sun continue in it’s quiet mode and, as seems likely, temperatures continue to fall, even the most fanatical of AGW believers will realise this”
You may be underestimating the degree of fanaticism among true believers. I could envision the White House burried under a glacier and the warmers still protesting global warming. Noble prize winner Al Gore said its getting warmer so it must be true.
David
It’s going to be really warm on this planet if we tap the geothermal heat potential a mile or two down. According to Nobel Genius Professor Gore there will be fountains of million degree heat boiling away our atmosphere once we hit the two mile marker.
Shiny
Ed
Bruce
I appreciate the attempt at humor but there is no scientific basis that allow for a pig spontaneously sprout wings. There is however, sufficient scientific basis to believe that increased levels of CO2 does increase temperatures. That increase may be limited to between +.4C-1.0C.
I do not believe there is a credible scientist in the world that will disagree with the above statement. The primary disagreement between skeptics and warmers is whether the feedback from clouds will amplify or dampen the effect of increased CO2.
If you can name a credible scientist that disagrees with the above I’d be interested in finding out who that is. Lindzen, Christy and Spencer would not be one of them.
Shiny
Ed
Dan Olner (03:53:27) : Purakanui (00:14:22) : “Equally, temperatures go up and so does CO2. Now, which causes which? The ice cores suggest an answer.”
Straw man: no-one ever suggested the ice core causal link was so direct. This nice little film actually quotes the relevant bits from the paper.
Dan Olner that film is actually a crock. If you see the ice core record that there is a causal link is obvious, as Al Gore pointed out. But he suggested the rising CO2 causes the temperature rise whereas since temperature rises AND FALLS (dont forget that) first and then CO2 follows after a lag clearly shows that CO2 cannot be the cause but is actually the effect of the temperature rise.
It was not a driver of the climate of the past, though now claimed to be a driver by the AGW hypothesis.
You say ” This nice little film actually quotes the relevant bits from the paper.”
WHICH PAPER?
The film starts off with J. D. Hays, John Imbrie, N. J. Shackleton’s paper. But then it goes on to quote Hansen’s paper and then Caillon et als paper, which is the one that states that “.. The radiative forcing due to CO2 may serve as an amplifier of initial orbital forcing, which is then further amplified by fast atmospheric feedbacks that are also at work for the present day and future climate.”
And then he goes onto ask- can anything be clearer as though he was talking about the original paper on orbital forcing.
The Hays et al paper says: “A model of future climate based on the observed orbital-climate relationships, but ignoring anthropogenic effects, predicts that the long-term trend over the next several thousand years is toward extensive Northern Hemisphere glaciation.”
In orbital forcing of the 3 influences on global temperatures the influence of eccentricity seems to be the weakest but it has the greatest effect in that all the past 8 ice ages have followed that periodicity. About this the paper says “Unlike the correlations between climate and the higher-frequency orbital variations (which can be explained on the assumption that the climate system responds linearly to orbital
forcing), an explanation of the correlation between climate and eccentricity probably REQUIRES AN ASSUMPTION OF NONLINEARITY.” (emphasis mine) –
Translation – we do not have a clue why the eccentricity seems to be responsible for the ice ages but it does and it outweighs the much greater influences of precession and tilt of the axis. One explanation offered is that the Earth enters a disk of interplanetary dust every 100,000 years which causes the ice ages.
The take home message is this – There is no danger of runaway global warming. It has never happened in the past with far greater levels of CO2. CO2 is not a driver of the climate.
The earth tends towards cooling and ice ages, WHICH IS THE PHASE WE ARE SLOWLY ENTERING NOW, and warm periods are brief interludes or anomalies which we should be grateful for.
Laws of Nature
Your argument is flawed. CO2 levels have consistently been increasing 1-2PPM per years since they started taking measurements in the 1950’s regardless of the swings in global temps.
Biomass has increased it’s uptake of CO2 but you cannot make the argument that the linear increase in CO2 is due to outgasssing from warming oceans. The oceans have not even been warming the last 5-6 years.
Shiny
Ed
John Phillips (08:40:54) : What the ice cores show is that CO2 increases with temperature, but that doesn’t mean its re-inforcing temperature rise. That’s the unproven leap that Hansen, the IPCC and others have taken.
Straightforward spectroscopy shows that CO2 acts as a greenhouse gas. This is not an ‘unproven leap’ and isn’t controversial. More CO2 means more warming. What is your proposal for a mechanism which would completely neutralise the greenhouse effect of that increasing CO2?
Edward,
The climate scientists cannot refute the basic laws of process control – and those dictate that CO2 is not the cause of global temperature changes.
The complete disconnect between CO2 concentrations and global temperatures is no surprise to process control engineers, some of whom have PhDs and decades of experience in the field.
http://sowellslawblog.blogspot.com/2009/02/chemical-engineer-takes-on-global.html
edward (09:50:50) :
ARGO chart of ocean cooling: click
Amount of natural CO2 emitted by the planet vs CO2 emitted by human activities: click
They need to falsify the hypothesis that the planet’s natural CO2 emissions are at least partly coincidental with the rise of modern society… If they can.
Icarius, right you are. I should have said it has not been proven CO2 is a “significant” warming reinforcement factor.
Leone (02:00:45) :
Here it is:
http://www.climate4you.com/GreenhouseGasses.htm#CO2%20and%20HadCRUT3%20diagram
Clearly, there is not a correlation between CO2 and temperature, as the IPCC insists.
Spend some time a climate4you. It’s a good site.
Impending Ice Age, Lava Age or just plain Age of Stupid.
Chicken Little a la Copenhagen.
How the West was Lost.
Vladimir Putin and Hu Jintao as the Dirty Harry Brothers. Go ahead, make our day. Your AGW is real, now run along and sacrifice your economies to Gaia. You first.
Here seems to be a very significant paper, which may require a separate post in its own right :
“Did glacials start with global warming? ”
Abstract
Correlation of paleoclimatic evidence with orbital changes shows that the build-up of polar ice accelerated when low obliquity coincided with perihelion in Northern Hemisphere winter. Under low obliquity the insolation was channeled to the tropics at the expense of both polar caps. As perihelion moved from winter solstice toward spring equinox, the solar beam in astronomic winter and spring became stronger than in summer and autumn. This orbital configuration under climate conditions like today would lead to warming of tropical oceans but cooling of the polar regions. The areally weighted global mean surface temperature, which is dominated by the low latitudes, would increase. Consequently, during the first millennia, the early glacial ice build-up was most likely accompanied by global warming. It was the associated increase of meridional insolation and temperature gradients, which were instrumental in the transition to a glacial.
A significant part of the current global warming is due to the gradual temperature increase of the tropical oceans. As the changing orbital configuration today resembles that of the last interglacial/glacial transition, the warming is likely to have a natural component.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6VBC-4G1WYBT-1&_user=10&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&_docanchor=&view=c&_searchStrId=1099275843&_rerunOrigin=google&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=5368e9358e893dfc0b75fd76cff0c97d
“Human emissions rise 2 percent despite global financial crisis”
Could this be adding credence to the theory that the recent rise in CO2 is due to the Medieval Warm Period as suggested by the apparent temp/CO2 lag in the Vostock Ice Core data?
The heading on the article say’s “C02 still going up but temperatures not following the same trend”.
It then concentrates on rises and some falls in C02 due to the recession.
Pardon me for pointing out the obvious in the graph.
Temps have gone down and flattened since 1998 but C02 has risen.
Clearly the connection is at least questionable or not there at all.
Common sense?
I may have missed this in past postings, but here goes. A lot of credence has been given to the accuracy of the Mauna Loa CO2 measurements. I am certain I will be corrected if I am mistaken (and would expect nothing less from everyone that frequents this site), but is Mauna Loa not a dormant volcano? As such, would not the existing vent structures on the flanks of the volcano emit CO2? What assurances as far as siting the measuring devices was performed during the intial construction phase (so as to not measure the local CO2 emissions vs. the ambient “global” air concentrations)? Where are the “control” CO2 measuring devices situated, either nearby Mauna Loa, or elsewhere on the earth to verify that measurements obtained at Mauna Loa are indeed “global”? I may be rehashing an old issue that more learned souls may already have retained in their craniums, but each time I read of the mountaintop CO2 measurements this issue arises in my mind. Thanks for any feedback.
MCR
Icarus (10:01:16) :
Increasing CO2 leads to higher temperature, higher temperature leads to greater water vapor content, higher vapor content and heat leads to movement of warmer/moister air to higher regions of atmosphere where air cools, precipitating water vapor out of air and net loss of heat to space.
All the increased CO2 does is increase the rates of precipitation, which increases rate of heat radiating into space.
Net result: equilibrium of heat content in atmosphere.
Something along those lines.
Your CO2 increase is a positive forcing of heat; precipitation of water vapor out of the atmosphere is a negative forcing. Don’t forget, the spectroscopic analysis you refer to indicates water vapor is the single most important greenhouse gas. Yet, there is a feedback mechanism maintaining a balance of moisture in the atmosphere. This is why there is no runaway greenhouse heating due to increases in water vapor.
“The current growth in carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions is closely linked to growth in Gross Domestic Product (GDP)…anthropogenic emissions growth will resume when the economy recovers unless the global effort to reduce emissions from human activity is accelerated.”
It seems to me they have come right out and said what they meant. The economy is recovering, and something must be done to stop it. And what is the benchmark of global atmospheric co2 concentrations they are using against our economy and standard of living?
“global atmospheric CO2 concentrations reached 385 parts per million – 38 per cent above pre-industrial levels.”
Icarus (10:01:16) :
John Phillips (08:40:54) : What the ice cores show is that CO2 increases with temperature, but that doesn’t mean its re-inforcing temperature rise. That’s the unproven leap that Hansen, the IPCC and others have taken.
Straightforward spectroscopy shows that CO2 acts as a greenhouse gas. This is not an ‘unproven leap’ and isn’t controversial. More CO2 means more warming. What is your proposal for a mechanism which would completely neutralise the greenhouse effect of that increasing CO2?
Tim Clark (09:03:26) :
I suggest you go to Leif Svalgaard’s homepage and look at the graphically illustrated relationship between temperatures and [CO2] under the listing “CET and CO2 past increases”. You will notice both positive and negative trends from different time periods indicating a 0.000% correlation between the two. You can plug in numbers from the USA and will only get a highly negative correlation since temperatures in the USA are on a negative trend while CO2 is increasing. After doing what I ask, you may then repost your rubbish.
“The current growth in carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions is closely linked to growth in Gross Domestic Product (GDP),” said one of the paper’s lead authors, CSIRO’s Dr Mike Raupach.”
Interesting. Here are growth rates of GDP and CO2 (as measured in Mauna Loa.)
Year GDP CO2
2000 3 1.74
2001 4.8 1.59
2002 2.2 2.56
2003 2.7 2.29
2004 3.8 1.56
2005 4.9 2.55
2006 4.7 1.69
2007 5.3 2.17
2008 5.2 1.66
2009 3.1
So, if
(1) the growth rate of CO2 emissions is closely linked to the growth of GDP
and
(2) the growth rate of of CO2 in the atmosphere is not correlated to the growth of GDP –
what does that say about the linkage of the growth rate of CO2 emissions and the growth rate of CO2 content in the atmosphere?
Philip_B (00:16:09) :
Whether human emissions are 4% or some other %age is irrelevant. What matters is whether the net effect of human emissions increases atmospheric CO2 and there is little doubt that they do.
I would concede without reservation that they do, as they must. The question is, by how much?
The reason is that natural emissions are in balance with natural capture of CO2. Therefore the net effect is zero (or so it is assumed)
But, that is no accident. They came to balance because that is where the negative feedback balanced the natural forcing. There is no balance in nature (or in human affairs) without opposing forces. As the forcing increases, so does the feedback. It has to, or there never would have been a balance established in the first place.
To the degree that the system may be linearized about the natural equilibrium, the increase in the output variable is proportional to the increase in the forcing input. Let U be the level of the output, be it temperature, CO2 concentration, whatever, and F be the forcing, composed of natural forcing Fn and anthropogenic forcing Fa, such that F = Fn + Fa. The change in U due to Fa is dU, specified by dU = K*Fa, where K is the sensitivity factor. Define Ko as U/Fn, being the gain of the system about the linear set point.
To date, we know Fa <= 0.04*Fn. Actually, it is more like Fa <= 0.01*Fn, but nevermind. The fractional change in U is dU/U = K*Fa/(Ko*Fn) = 0.17/0.04 = 4.25. The sensitivity to any added CO2 has to be greater than 4 times the average response to the 83% of naturally produced carbon. Actually, 17 times, if you accept Fa <= 0.01*Fn.
That is a very large amplification factor, which should compel large swings in CO2 content in the historical record due to variations in CO2 production. I just don't see it.
Philip_B (00:37:34) :
To a significant extent this was due to Kyoto, which shifted energy intensive industries (steel, cement, etc) from energy efficient, developed countries to energy inefficient China and other developing countries.
For example, it takes 50% more energy to make a ton of steel in China compared to Japan or Germany.
I’d like to see you back your statements up. I pretty much know where your number comes from, and all I would say is don’t use a number that you don’t understand. Good advice for anyont. In my work as a steel marketing analyst for a B2B company that sells into the steel industry globally, there has been very little in the way of “production transfer” since Kyoto. There has been a large boom in Chinese capacity, but the fact is that very little of this steel is dedicated to exports, maybe 10% of capacity for raw steel and another 5-10% for finished goods.
The fact is, China’s infrastructure development is using up most of their new steel capacity. Also, a little known facts about the US Steel Industry. Did you know that, on average, domestic steel production has been on the rise since the early 80s when the Japanese exports canabalized ~30% of our market. And truthfully had the US steel industry not been grossly mismanaged, that never would have happened, but that is a subject for a book and not web posts.
As far as taking 50% more energy to produce Steel in China vs. Germany, Japan, etc… let’s seperate fact from fiction. This is by and large NOT a product of them being less efficient. The primary reason it takes more energy has to do with the modes of production required, rather than the actual inefficiency of Chinese steel production. There is a natural production equilibrium point for each economy for primary vs. secondary steel.
In the US roughly 60% of our steel is recycled/secondary steel because we are no longer a developing nation. This is roughly the same fraction as the rest of the western world. China has the opposite situation. Only 20-30% of their steel is recycled. This is not because they are slackers when it comes to recycling, but rather because their economy is growing faster than their sources of scrap steel.
This trend will continue until their infrastructure is fully/mostly developed. Because China demands a higher percentage of primary steel, 70-80% of their production requires iron-making first, which is the most carbon intensive portion of the integrated steel-making process (75% of the emissions if I am remembering right.) BTW… if you want to see the US (or any other country) steel emission numbers tank, make us China’s primary source of steel. Then our production of primary vs secondary steel would be much closer to China’s, which would bring our emissions in line with where China is today.
If you want to get into a debate as to why steel production is in China vs. other countries in the world, we can have that debate, but it mainly boils down to a several reasons. First, the required capital investment for a greenfield steel site in China is roughly half of what it is in a developed nation. This would be true with or without Kyoto. Second, they produce more iron ore and coal than any other country. Production is located close to resources (the Carnegie model.) Third, that’s where the steel is being used. If you are going to build a new production facility, are you going to build it where your customer is, or are you going to build it in some non-sensical location like the US which has no need for additional primary steel capacity and a structural shortage of raw materials to meet the demand of a new steel plant?
Even if you could reduce the cost of building in the rest of the world to the Chinese costs, you still would have relatively little development in the US, Japan, Germany, etc… Why? Because you would build in China, Australia, Brazil, Russia, India and the Ukraine. These countries are where roughly 75% of the world’s iron ore is mined, not to mention coal as well. Since iron ore is roughly 35% Oxygen by weight, you would locate close to ore, coal or both to reduce overall freight charges, all other things being equal.
To lay blame at the feet of Kyoto, a non-binding treaty with 0 teeth, is ignorance at best and sound bite politics at worst. Take the blinders off, read real accounts of different industries development and don’t believe all the tripe spewed forth by talking heads, unless of course the head has done something else meaninfgul in its career other than talking, which many of them haven’t.
Bart (11:36:11) :
Let me clean that up a little. Since 1960, the change dU/U = 0.17. Thus, dU/U = K*Fa/(Ko*Fn) = 0.17/0.04 = 4.25.