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
Good grief. dU/U = K*Fa/(Ko*Fn) = 4.25. OK, now it fits in with the rest.
Something strange seems to be happening. Bits of my message are falling out.
I know what it is. Those inequality signs are being picked up as html tags.
The end result is K/Ko is greater than or equal to 4.25. Or 17 for the lower amount of anthropogenic forcing.
I thought I was losing my marbles there for a while.
Seth Borenstein is at it again:
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstechnology/2010287025_apscicarbonpollution.html
includes reference to a paper published in Nature Geoscienceby US DOE Oak Ridge National Lab that contains interesting data of the amount of US emissions reduction compared with other major emitters globally. As usual Borenstein spins and tortures the meaning of the data to limit the damage it does to upcoming negotiations in Copenhagen.
“According to the study, the fossil fuel emissions increase was smaller than normal for this decade. Annual global pollution growth has averaged 3.6 percent. This year, scientists are forecasting a nearly 3 percent reduction, despite China because of the massive economic slowdown in most of the world and in the United States.”
“The U.S. is still the biggest per capita major producer of man-made greenhouse gases, spewing about 20 tons of carbon dioxide per person per year. The world average is 5.3 tons and China is at 5.8 tons.”
“Last year, the U.S. emissions fell by 3 percent, a reduction of nearly 192 million tons of carbon dioxide. Overall European Union emissions dropped by 1 percent. The U.S. is still the No. 2 biggest carbon polluter overall, emitting more than the next four largest polluting countries combined: India, Russia, Japan and Germany. China has been No. 1, since pushing past the United States in 2006.”
The data from 2007 to 2008 in a table contained in the print version of the article shows CO2 emissions from burning fossil fuels:
“Largest emissions decrease:
US -192; EU (27 nations) -43; Australia -20; Spain -19; Italy -10; Finland -7; UK -7; Germany -7′ Denmark -3 Czech Rep -3 (units are in millions of tons).”
“Largest emissions increases:
China +490; India +134; Russia +32; Saudi Arabia +32; Brazil +29; South Africa +22; South Korea +19; Indonesia +19; Iran =15; Poland +10.”
My reading of this is that the US has voluntarily reduced emissions by 40% more than the combined nations sign have under ETS and Kyoto quotas.
Jack Simmons (11:04:39) : 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.
Then the same would have to apply to *any* forcing, including variation in solar irradiance – ice ages and interglacials could never have occurred, and the temperature of the Earth would always have been constant. As we all know, this is not the case.
On the contrary – the palaeoclimate evidence suggests that the Earth is actually rather sensitive to forcings, needing only relatively small changes in forcings to transition between ice ages and interglacials and ice-free states. That’s why the human impact on climate is causing such concern.
Incidentally the increased water vapour content that you cite is a *positive* feedback, since water vapour is a very effective greenhouse gas in its own right.
Maybe those scientists in the 1970’s talking about a new ice age were right and all this CO2 is the only thing keeping us from “The Day After Tomorrow?”
Yeah, right.
L. Bowser
Kudos to Mr. Bowser on a lucid example from a real industry that I also work in. There are plans to build additional Steel plants in India since that is where there is untapped iron ore. Do not expect China and India to slow down their industrial development and per capita CO2 emissions to assuage the environmental guilt of Jim Hansen and Al Gore. Those countries and their citizens want what the USA has, prosperity and cheap energy and they are not going to impose burdens on themselves unless the US or Europe funds it.
The truth of the matter is that India and China will continue to build coal plants and CO2 generating industries until CO2 hits levels well over 450 ppm. You could drive all the electric cars you want in the USA but unless you start building a couple hundred nuke plants there will be nothing to power them if you start shutting down coal plants.
Shiny
Ed
Icarus (13:02:34) :
“Then the same would have to apply to *any* forcing, including variation in solar irradiance…”
Possibly, but not necessarily. It depends on where the forcing comes into the loop, and these two actions are different, with CO2 playing a supporting role, i.e., CO2 does not create heat independently, it merely traps a greater portion of the solar irradiance than would otherwise be the case.
Quote of the Week, by Sam the Skeptic:
“Your assumption, Philip, is that humanity is not part of nature”.
Cheers,
Neil
Bart (14:58:41) :
Icarus (13:02:34) :
“Then the same would have to apply to *any* forcing,
including variation in solar irradiance…”
Possibly, but not necessarily. It depends on where the forcing comes into the loop, and these two actions are different, with CO2 playing a supporting role, i.e., CO2 does not create heat independently, it merely traps a greater portion of the solar irradiance than would otherwise be the case.
Jack’s claim started with “Increasing CO2 leads to higher temperature…” and drew a conclusion based on that higher temperature. If he’s right then it makes no difference what causes the higher temperature. Of course there are differences in the effect of increasing greenhouse gases vs. increasing solar irradiance (which is one of the reasons we know that the current global warming is due to human activity) but there’s no such subtlety in Jack’s claim. Perhaps *you* could try to explain why higher global temperature from the greenhouse effect might be negated by precipitation, whereas higher global temperature from solar irradiance might not.
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?
Answer me one question Icarus. When the Earth regularly and inevitably cools into an ice-age, or glacial period if you wish, it does so after temperatures have been rising AND CO2 has been increasing and providing “more warming”, according to you. This has happened like clockwork every 100,000 years as per the ice core records.
What is the mechanism that completely neutralises the greenhouse effect of that increasing CO2 when this happens?
It is not any sudden or dramatic change in orbital configuration if thats what you are going to fall back on. The orbital configuration and any corresponding “forcing” is extremely gradual, yet it is more than adequate to not only completely neutralise the greenhouse effect of that increasing CO2 but rather increasing CO2 seems to be an impotent follower and not a driver of the climate.
The paper I referred to (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) points out that such conditions (which favour a descent to glaciation) are present today and in the last glaciation(s) they were preceded by global warming – coincidentally which has also happened in the last century.
Dear edward (09:50:50) ,
this sounds like you would know/predict what happens on the border between near surface and deep sea water?
Or perhaps you can explain the 00 year lag between temperature and CO2 seen in ice cores . .wait a minute, did we have a global warm time just abut 800 years ago!?
All the best regards,
LoN
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
Anthony, you said this:
by scientists from the internationally respected climate research group, the Global Carbon Project (GCP)
this is what these alarmists have just reported!
“The world is now firmly on course for the worst-case scenario in terms of climate change, with average global temperatures rising by up to 6C by the end of the century”
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/world-on-course-for-catastrophic-6deg-rise-reveal-scientists-1822396.html
Icarus wrote
”
Jack’s claim started with “Increasing CO2 leads to higher temperature…” and drew a conclusion based on that higher temperature. If he’s right then it makes no difference what causes the higher temperature. Of course there are differences in the effect of increasing greenhouse gases vs. increasing solar irradiance (which is one of the reasons we know that the current global warming is due to human activity) but there’s no such subtlety in Jack’s claim. Perhaps *you* could try to explain why higher global temperature from the greenhouse effect might be negated by precipitation, whereas higher global temperature from solar irradiance might not.
”
Perhaps you might like to explain why the NH tends to be warmer than the SH.
janama (16:52:36) : by scientists from the internationally respected climate research group, the Global Carbon Project (GCP) this is what these alarmists have just reported!
“The world is now firmly on course for the worst-case scenario in terms of climate change, with average global temperatures rising by up to 6C by the end of the century”
Not only that but also “Such a rise – which would be much higher nearer the poles – would have cataclysmic and irreversible consequences for the Earth, making large parts of the planet uninhabitable and threatening the basis of human civilisation.”
Those swines should be sent to Siberia (or Alaska) now! The whole of Russia is a sea of white from Moscow to the pacific. Sure they believe in Global warming and how bad it will be.
Have a look at the pictures of the snow cover of the northern hemisphere and Europe and Asia today over here: http://www.natice.noaa.gov/ims/
CO2 is a colorless odorless gas. Well I couldn’t smell anything in Roy’s picture; but I sure as heck could see something coming out of those cooling towers, and what I could see sure wasn’t any CO2. I would guess it was water in either droplet (liquid) or solid form; aka clouds.
So why does CO2 get all the flak, when it clearly is H2O that is polluting the atmosphere ?
Just like the warmists focus on Arctic sea ice for their apocalyptic predictions, I wonder if any analysis has been done on the snow cover of the Northern hemisphere? This would be just as important for the albedo as sea ice.
I had a look at the snow cover for the 18th of Nov 2008, 18/11/2007 and 18/11/2005. The snow cover today is way more than those previous years. A little less in the US and Canada but way more in Asia, China, Mongolia, central Asia.
I wonder if someone could make a chart or animation to see the position.
“”” Paddy (12:59:31) :
Seth Borenstein is at it again:
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstechnology/2010287025_apscicarbonpollution.html
includes reference to a paper published in Nature Geoscienceby US DOE Oak Ridge National Lab that contains interesting data of the amount of US emissions reduction compared with other major emitters globally. As usual Borenstein spins and tortures the meaning of the data to limit the damage it does to upcoming negotiations in Copenhagen.
“According to the study, the fossil fuel emissions increase was smaller than normal for this decade. Annual global pollution growth has averaged 3.6 percent. This year, scientists are forecasting a nearly 3 percent reduction, despite China because of the massive economic slowdown in most of the world and in the United States.”
“The U.S. is still the biggest per capita major producer of man-made greenhouse gases, spewing about 20 tons of carbon dioxide per person per year. The world average is 5.3 tons and China is at 5.8 tons.” “””
Well that ain’t true; not nearly !
——————————————————————————–
Science 16 October 1998:
Vol. 282. no. 5388, pp. 442 – 446
DOI: 10.1126/science.282.5388.442
Prev | Table of Contents | Next
Reports
A Large Terrestrial Carbon Sink in North America Implied by Atmospheric and Oceanic Carbon Dioxide Data and Models
S. Fan, M. Gloor, J. Mahlman, S. Pacala, J. Sarmiento, T. Takahashi, P. Tans
So google up this paper, and then tell me again that the USA is the biggest emitter of carbon on the planet; when in fact we are the ONLY land based carbon sink on the planet (large one).
I’ll gladly accept apologies from all of those other world polluters.
I have no idea what all that junque is or where it caem from.
Maybe Chasmod, can squish that long list for me.
George
Icarus (13:02:34) :
You asked what mechanism might mitigate the increase in CO2 we have seen in the industrial age. I responded with the notion there would be increased release of heat due to the normal precipitation of water from the atmosphere.
Increased heat retention from CO2 will result in more water vapor in the atmosphere and more heat, leading to more precipitation and more heat released into space. Hence, an automatic feedback mechanism maintaining an equilibrium of total heat content for the planet.
No runaway heating.
As I said, an increase in water vapor leads to more precipitation which leads to more cooling.
This whole debate centers on the sensitivity of the climate to forcings.
The IPCC has assumed the earth is very sensitive to forcings, including the forcing of CO2 increases.
You appeal to what have been historic forcings in the past. Well, I guess nature has her way with the climate, with or without mankind. We are just along for the ride.
CO2 is not forcing anything. Please see the chart at http://www.climate4you.com/GreenhouseGasses.htm#CO2%20and%20HadCRUT3%20diagram.
Some process overcame the greenhouse effect of CO2 from 1958 to sometime after the mid-70s. Again, some process has overcome the CO2 greenhouse effect from 2001 to the present.
During the early 70s we were being told mankind was causing a net cooling of the planet, including one of Obama’s advisors. This was cooling alarmism. Now we are hearing from literally the same people about a warming crisis.
You asked for some mechanism that could overcome CO2 greenhouse warming. I made a suggestion. No doubt this suggestion is far too simplistic to really account for the natural processes mitigating against the increases in CO2.
But there is no doubt, SOMETHING is preventing the greenhouse effect of CO2 from driving the climate.
Again, look at the chart referred to above and explain why you believe increasing CO2 levels leads to increasing global temperatures.
Learn to read what the instruments are telling us.
Icarus (13:02:34) :
By the way Icarus, my reasoning above would not apply to “any” forcing.
Again you asked specifically about the forcing due to increased CO2 levels. That is what I was responding to.
Obviously, the water cycle here on earth would not overcome the forcing of the sun going super Nova. Or several other possible forcings.
It wasn’t enough to overcome the forcings resulting in the Roman Warm Period, or the Medieval Warming, or the Little Ice Age.
By the way, those were not due to CO2 levels. They were due to something quite natural.
Icarus (15:34:46) :
“Perhaps *you* could try to explain why higher global temperature from the greenhouse effect might be negated by precipitation, whereas higher global temperature from solar irradiance might not.”
Perhaps both might be. Solar irradiance has been pretty high in recent history, after all. Maybe this is about as hot as it gets.
Even if it were possible to measure the mean global temperature, it is meaningless
How many times do I have to say this, without knowing even local humidity, a temperature reading has no validity as to the local energy.
Apply that to the globe & maybe you’ll see what I mean.
DaveE.
“DaveE (21:01:23) :
Even if it were possible to measure the mean global temperature, it is meaningless
How many times do I have to say this, without knowing even local humidity, a temperature reading has no validity as to the local energy.
Apply that to the globe & maybe you’ll see what I mean.
DaveE.”
Matters not! Look at how many people seem to think the recent film 2012 is real? I mean, it makes me think of “The War of The Worlds” broadcast by H.G. Wells in 1938. Are Yanks *THAT* stupid?
Icarus
Do you accept the generally discussed concept that co2 doubling could cause around only 1 deg C warming without water vapor content?
pardon me,
that should read increased water vapor absorption due to that higher temperature?