I’ve been getting a lot of requests to cover this story, probably 20 or so now with wonderings about “why haven’t you covered this yet?”
How quickly you all forget. WUWT was the very first to cover this story back on November 10th, 2009.
Everybody else in the media today is playing catch-up. So if you’d like to read the original press release and participate in the already ripe comments left then, see this WUWT story:
re Nick Stokes (15:19:46) :
Apologies, the second part of this comment responded to Jeff (13:46:47) :
On issues like global warming and evolution, scientists need to speak Up
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/31/AR2009123101155.html
http://www.peterrussell.com/Odds/WorldClock.php
I like this man’s ‘World Clock’ very well – but the ‘global temperature’ looks a little one wayish for my taste.
@Kim Moore
Accurate estimation of CO2 background level from near ground measurements at non-mixed environments
Selectet as “best paper”
and peer reviewed
So, the historic measurements Beck checked and published can now in certain circumstances be validated and verified.
DirkH (14:59:58) :
“So they say it’s taking the air from a power plants chimney that long to reach Hawaii? Through some hand-waving dynamics? “
Not exactly. If you elevate the rate at which you are forcing CO2 into the atmosphere, it takes a while to integrate into an observable change. Further, the change is being opposed by the natural sinks, so there is additional increasing phase lag of input frequency content within the -3 dB bandwidth of omega = 1/tau, and accelerating attenuation and phase delay of the components beyond this bandwidth.
Ferdinand Engelbeen (14:51:11) :
Nice to see you here again.
“The 212 GtC is not important at all, as some more is removed (216 GtC) at the other side of the globe and/or in another season. Even if it was 1,000 GtC in and 1,004 GtC out, this isn’t important, as long as more is removed by nature than added, only the emissions are important…”
This is something that has bothered me ever since I started studying this whole issue. It seems the carbon cycle is not a zero-sum game at all. Over the past 600 million years CO2 has been dropping almost steadily and I assume it has to do with life itself. CO2 down, O2 up. At some point, 180ppm I think, most photosynthesis will cease. We definitely need a cushion especially before the next glaciation hits!
Joel Shore (13:53:43)
(re well-mixed vs lumpy)
“The differences are still pretty small compared to the total change in CO2 levels since the pre-industrial…our current uncertainties in other areas pretty much swamp any uncertainty due to these fairly small geographic variations in CO2 levels.”
It seems anytime a discrepancy is noted, the effect is hand-waved away. Perhaps if more attention were paid to all these minor-doesn’t-really-matter details, the models would be in better shape.
The energy balance is screwed up. Even Trenberth says so. So get to work.
“THE Climategate scandal continues to unfold. The thousands of emails leaked to the internet from the Climate Research Unit of the University of East Anglia reveal a tight-knit, influential group of scientists whose attitude to their profession is, to say the least, distorted.
It seems that a religious belief in disastrous climate change has destroyed their common sense and their appreciation of what is the appropriate way to carry out research.
Climategate may at least demonstrate that the concept of a scientific consensus with regard to global warming is nonsense. There may indeed be thousands of scientists contributing to the reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, but on any particular aspect of the overall story all have to rely on the word of the few scientists who are directly involved. And when the particular aspect concerns experimental data on which the whole story rests, the data purporting to show the world is getting warmer, then the consensus argument is indeed on shaky ground.”
Boffins may be Illegal
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/opinion/boffins-may-be-illegal/story-e6frg6zo-1225815349833
If you looked at the half life as you would for radioactive decay I would think the average lifetime would directly imply the time to equilibrium. If the average molecule of CO2 is free in the atmosphere, before being absorbed, for between 5.4 and 7 years, than would not that be equivalent to the half life of a radioactive molecule where at some time interval 1/2 decay to another isotope?
As I am understanding this application of the average residence time free in the atmosphere, it would imply that a CO2 molecule has a half life of 5.4-7 years as an atmospheric molecule. Half would be absorbed sooner and half would survive longer. If that is true/ A rule of thumb used in establishing when a radioactive material is for all intents and purposes decayed away to zero is approx 7 half lives, or 37.8 – 49 years, thus a pulse of CO2 would be indistinguishable from the background levels after that time interval.
Maybe a statistician would interpret average life time differently, but I see it as being the time interval when 1/2 half the original population is re-absorbed.
Larry
First: It is silly to think that the ability of the planet to absorb atmospheric co2 is in any way a constant. It likely has negative and positive feedbacks in and of itself that are poorly understood if understood at all.
Second: The steady increase in measured CO2 in the atmosphere from Hawaii is actually devastating for those who want to blame humans. The reason for this is simple. We just went through the bad part of a major worldwide recession where even large numbers of Chinese lost their jobs. Yet the increase in measured CO2 didn’t waver one bit from it’s upward slope. So, if worldwide consumption falls, and brings CO2 emissions with it (as it must do), and CO2 still increases at the same rate…. doesn’t that demonstrate quite clearly that the human impact on CO2 in the atmosphere is negligible? Even assuming there is a lag time, you would expect the increase in CO2 to at least level off in an instantaneous measurement, that didn’t happen. So as far as I’m concerned, it’s back to square one to demonstrate that humans are even responsible for the measured CO2 increase.
David Middleton (14:50:35) :
It will be really funny when the “experts” figure out that 388 ppmv CO2 pretty well fits within the normal range of warm periods in the last 10,000 years.
The ice core CO2 data make for a very nice 200- to 500-yr moving average; but they can’t resolve decadal- and century-scale changes.
Depends of which ice cores. The Law Dome ice cores have an 8 year resolution over the pas 100 years and a 40 years resolution over the past 1,000 years.
I would think that the fact that the AIRS data show polar CO2 to be ~30 ppmv lower than low- to mid-latitude CO2 would be a clue that the ice cores systematically underestimate global atmospheric CO2.
You are looking at momentary CO2 levels by the satellite, in another season you will see a complete different picture, and the averages are quite similar: not more than 5 ppmv difference between Barrow and the South Pole, which would be near zero if not 95% of the emissions were in the NH. See one of the animations at: http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a000000/a003500/a003562/index.html
Plant SI data accurately depict CO2 with nearly annual resolution over portions of the last 10,000 years. SI data over the last 60 years match the MLO data and they can be empirically tested.
SI data have one big problem: a local/regional CO2 bias. As plants used for SI data by definition grow on land, they respond to local CO2 levels at leave height, which may change over time. Even if you calibrate the data (with an accuracy of +/- 10 ppmv…) to current CO2 levels (and/or ice cores), there is not the slightest guarantee that the local CO2 levels didn’t change over time: from swamps to grass to forests to fields and back in the main wind direction, besides increasing traffic and urbanisation. See e.g. the results of the tall tower experiments in The Netherlands:
http://www.chiotto.org/cabauw.html
“Bart (15:55:59) :
[…]
If you elevate the rate at which you are forcing CO2 into the atmosphere, it takes a while to integrate into an observable change. Further, the change is being opposed by the natural sinks”
Ok – i see. I forgot that the Keeling curve is the integration of the emissions. So obviously the curve must look different. The two graphics i linked to can thus not be expected to look the same. We would need to see the differential of the Keeling curve to compare it with the yearly emissions. My mistake.
DirkH (16:18:32) :
The one sentence should better read:
I forgot that the Keeling curve corresponds to the integration of the emissions.
“Syl (16:03:11) :
We definitely need a cushion”
We have a big cushion: the oceans.
http://folk.uio.no/tomvs/esef/esef4.htm
“Hundreds of householders were still without water yesterday as engineers worked to restore supply cut off by the freezing weather.”
Many homes in Northern Ireland still without water Supply
http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/local-national/many-homes-in-northern-ireland-still-without-water-supply-14616154.html
I’ve nothing more to add from what i’ve written on other threads on this matter. However, I still am highly amused with the obsession with c02. Its irreleveant to the climate, and there are no arguments to be developed anymre about its role, and I think the AGW lobby know this – that more c02 doesn’t mean more heat, or contrarywise that less c02 doesn’t mean any less.
Its the emotional obsession with c02 which is amusing from a scientific perspective – I think RLindezen covered it by saying that its because it goes after people to dwell on c02 and explode its role up to some phenomenal degree. Its effectively like claiming that if the air pressure is high, don’t walk outside as you’ll be trudging through something as dense as sludge.
for all those who still think ice cores are the holy grail of co2 measurements: It takes 80 years for air bubbles to close and anything could happen to the c02 content during that time – its something that isn’t well understood, so although they show a trend, they don’t show a precise resolution or an exact real time data match: neither could c02 from air bubbles at ground level over glacial areas be an exact proxy for what the c02 content was in the northern hemisphere, such as Mauna Loa, Italy, USA, France, Scandinavia, etc during the same time period that is indicated by ancient ice in subzero regions.
I would be more willing to accept some other gas or agent as a primary driver for anthropogenic global warming — an agent directly impacting the remaining open spectra.
All the concern about CO2 seems to have too much of the ’round up the usual suspect’ or ‘Billy did it’ aura to suit me. CO2 seems to have become the bête noir (black beast) of the greenhouse effect.
As an unrelated aside, I wonder if there has been any measured net change in the temperature and/or altitude profile of the tropopause over, say, the last 30 years. I would think this would have a direct bearing on the overall health of the convective heat transfer system in the lower atmosphere.
“Michael (15:39:33) :
On issues like global warming and evolution, scientists need to speak Up
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/31/AR2009123101155.html
”
Sanity to Intelligence: Looks like we lost the WashPost. Intelligence to Sanity: We never had them in the first place.
Kim Moore (15:02:43) :
Early in this discussion Marcus posted this link:
http://www.biomind.de/realCO2/realCO2-1.htm
According to the graph “Atmospheric CO2 Background 1826-1960″, CO2 levels were fairly stable from 1870 to about 1920 and then began a gradual upward trend. In the mid 1930’s the graph shows an strong annual increase of atmospheric CO2 which peaks in the early 1940’s, followed by a decline back to the prior levels for the early part of the 20th century. The mid-1930’s were very warm with a peak in 1934.
I have had a lot of discussions with Ernst about his graph. He has done a tremendous lot of work to gather the 90,000+ historical data. The main problem with the data is that the majority of the data responsible for the 1942 peak are not reliable, because taken on land where there is a huge positive bias of CO2 from a lot of sources (soil bacteria, fields and forests at night, urbanisation). Moreover, there is no special change visible around 1942 in high resolution ice cores, SI data or coralline sponges.
See my take on Beck’s data here: http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/beck_data.html
Joel Shore (12:41:20)
What you ignore is that there is a timescale associated with how long it takes the CaCO3 in the rocks to make it into the ocean to neutralize things, and unfortunately, this timescale is on the order of a thousand years or more.
Which would be correct if we use the abiogenic arguments,however as is well known the earth is inhabited by living species that have a remarkable property of increasing the topology (surface area eg koch curve) of the globe,which in turn increase or enhance the weathering and its subsequent effects on climate.
eg Biotic enhancement of weathering and the habitability of Earth
David W. Schwartzman* & Tyler Volk†
: AN important question in the Earth sciences is the role of the biota in the chemical weathering of silicate rocks, which affects atmospheric CO2 and therefore climate1-10. No comprehensive study of biotic influences, however, has quantitatively examined the climatic consequences were weathering to take place under completely abiotic conditions. Here we calculate that if today’s weathering is 10, 100 or 1,000 times the abiotic weathering rate, then an abiotic Earth would be, respectively, approx15, 30 or 45 °C warmer than today. The upper two temperatures are preferred estimates because of the probable almost complete absence of soil under abiotic conditions, suggesting that without a biota that significantly enhances weathering rates, the Earth today would be uninhabitable for nearly all but the most primitive microbes. Life may have been crucial in cooling early Earth and maintaining relatively cool conditions.
Whilst this has been known foe some time Dokuchaev, V.V 1879, Vernadsky 1922,the Cycle of Weathering: B. B. Polynov 1937, 1950 and its implication as a BVP seem to be overlooked by the IPCC and in the UEA studies Global Carbon Project etc ,Then again if you can quantify the carbon cycle whilst disregarding 50% of the earths biomass by volume (the microbial world ) and still “balance the books” within 3 significant figures,is it not legitimate to question the accuracy of the “outcomes” and hence forecasts.
There have been three times during the past 200 years when the concentration of CO2 exceeded 400 ppm. The earth did not end.
Happy completion of the trip around the thing that really runs the weather to all.
I find this story almost impossible to believe. Why? Because it’s the very foundation stone of the AGW hypothesis. I haven’t seen it covered in the mainstream at all. Are people busy preparing rebuttals?
Totally OT but something strange is happening in San Francisco (no kidding I know, but this is different)—it seems the seals have buggered off, perhaps as a food source has come closer to shore. Is the Pacific cooling off the western US?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8437395.stm
Ferdinand Engelbeen (15:37:42)
i admit some scepticism of the isotope ratios of c/12/13/14 ratios, and to the background of c02 as being a fixed pool that could not possible surpass 280ppm, since that is the maximum value that is inferred from old ice. We don’t have exact aerial measurements from direct chemical analysis from the period that is covered by ice core measurements – which are ice core proxies and not necessarily atmospheric c02 measurements, any more than we don’t have reliable arctic ice extents prior to 1979. However, since global temperatures are often inferred as greater than today and at much lower levels of co2 than today, then it suggests that either c02 has no influence on the climate, or that ice co2 measurements are not accurate as to the aerial co2 content of the time period they reflect. In fact both these statements could be true.
They’re both engineered (like satellite data) to produce a result. With isotopes, i’m sure you’re acquainted with Segalstaad’s investigation and have concocted a refutation of it – however, determining a ratio from isotopes is akin to scratching several molecules from a diesel locomotive’s engine piston and then elaborating exactly what its horsepower and torque is. Its a big leap of faith…
A total idiot (15:05:23) :
Furthermore, humans are *not* by any means the only source of light (c12 and c13) carbon on the planet. Human fossil fuel use is one source, however, methane clathrates tend to be light carbon, as do volcanic sources. (Including the Mauna Loa source). Counting the increase in ‘light’ co2 cannot account for all sources of such, including coal seam fires, methane seeps, and other sources.
On the other hand there are unrecognized ‘light’ sources from human influence, such as carbonate decomposition, etc, wherein acidic sources break down carbonate rocks
The most important sources on earth are on the high d13C side (around zero per mil): carbonate rocks, deep oceans, volcanic degassing and positive: near surface oceans. Only fossil and newly formed organic carbon is (highly) depleted in d13C. See: http://homepage.mac.com/uriarte/carbon13.html for a nice introduction.
How can we make a differentiation between light carbon of human origin and light carbon from other sources? By using the oxygen balance. We can calculate the oxygen use from fossil fuel burning from the burning efficiency of the different fuels. When measuring the trend of oxygen use, one can see if there is more or less oxygen used than calculated. In this case since about 1990 (when oxygen measurements were accurate enough), there is less oxygen used. That means that all other sources (mainly vegetation) produce more oxygen than they consume. Thus vegetation is a net sink for CO2, exceeding all other sources of light CO2 (except the human contribution). Of course, there still can be other (strong 13C depleted) sources, but that means that these sources (methane e.g.) should have increased considerably, of which is no proof (methane levels are quite constant in the past decade).
See: http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/reprint/287/5462/2467.pdf Battle ea. partitioning
http://www.agu.org/journals/gb/gb0504/2004GB002410/2004GB002410.pdf Bender ea. idem
http://www.bowdoin.edu/~mbattle/papers_posters_and_talks/BenderGBC2005.pdf until 2002.