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:
ok well how about the sum total of all living species on the planet, including the billions of humans. How much co2 does the sum total of animal life exhale per annum? and if this stays in the atmosphere for 100 years (or 40 years seems a new favourite) , that is a huge amount of non-fossil fuel c02 that probably surpasses fossil fuel co2, and is addition to the carbon cycle.
Ferdinand – given these factors, there should be much more c02 than there is in the atmosphere. However, these exchanges of c02 are not measured, as its an impossible task at present, and so the figures are speculation. Given the diurnal-seasonal-annual-decadal-multidecadal trends in c02 – there is a suggestion that co2 molecules can be absorbed as quickly as they are emitted, and emitted as quickly as they are absorbed.
Anthony – have you forgotten ClimateGate? WUWT TRIPLED in readership – with Alexa readership increasing from 0.005% to 0.015% due to ClimateGate on Nov. 19th. i.e. 2/3 of your readers have come AFTER your WUWT post on Nov. 10.
Recommend showing the Alexa graph of the step increase due to ClimateGate.
DirkH: Read CO2 Houdini of Gases
Not very.
http://www.someareboojums.org/blog/?p=25
http://www.someareboojums.org/blog/?p=12
http://www.someareboojums.org/blog/?p=7
(Assuming you’re focussing on the extreme outlier (to put it charitably) views of Jaworowski in the canadafreepress article)
DirkH (16:18:32) :
“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.
I forgot that the Keeling curve corresponds to the integration of the emissions
There is an extreme good correlation between accumulated emissions and the increase in the atmosphere over the past 46 years. In itself a strong indication that the emissions cause the increase, as there is no natural process capable to follow the emissions in ratio to such a degree:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/acc_co2_1960_2006.jpg
The graph is for Mauna Loa and the South Pole trends, as these show that the increasing emissions in the NH give an increase in lag of the SH CO2 trend.
The trends compared with the temperature trend over the period 1900-2004 (CO2 levels in ice cores up to 1960):
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/temp_emiss_increase.jpg
Which shows that temperature is not the driving force for CO2 levels: CO2 still increases in ratio with the emissions, even if the temperature doesn’t increase in the 1945-1975 period and in the current period since 1998.
Uh… And what was I supposed to see in this article? I didn’t even see the picture posted here at WUWT in the link, and the article itself wasn’t very insightful, I’m afraid.
Was this the right link?
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/12/091230184221.htm
Mooloo (14:54:26) :
I agree. As all sea swimmers will tell you, the oceans are still warm in autumn, and even into winter to some extent, but cold in spring, and even into summer. So I would suspect that it takes less than six months. Not years. Six months. Perhaps ocean currents make a difference, bit what about large lakes? I understand there are a few in North America.
No we look at what is happening to the oceans. It seems, as I recall, that they are cooling. Not starting to warm up. The heat is not going into the oceans to come back and kill us all at some future tipping point.
I’m not sure what to think, but it does not seem as though we have anything to be alarmed about, does it?
Got it! I mistook the OTHER link as part of an ad, and just past it over!
Thanks Ferdinand – that’s the important correlation that’s broken now.
Ferdinand Engelbeen (15:37:42) :
From your link:
5.1:
This is non sequitur. The sinks will always expand to the level needed to counter the current forcing from whatever source. That is the nature of an equilibrium in a feedback system. All you have proven is that the known sinks are larger than the known natural inputs.
Let me reinterpret that. To your satisfaction, you have determined that CO2 levels were lower before the age of mass industrialization. Thus, you conclude that, because they are higher now, this is proof that the increase is from industrialization. This is post hoc ergo propter hoc.
5.2
This is your most powerful argument and, if I did not have strong mathematical reason to believe it to be physically impossible, I would probably accept it prima facie. But, what we really see are merely two increasing time series. They appear to be superficially correlated by the inflection between 1950-1965. It would be an understandable human impulse to presume that such a concurrence would be unlikely. However, if you graph the actual ice core data at Law Dome using the 20 year averages, it becomes apparent that the inflection in the atmospheric CO2 graph is not nearly so neat and tidy, and moreover that it is embarked on an entirely new slope by 1960, at a time the “accumulated emissions” is just getting ramped up. So, which came first? The upswing in anthropogenic CO2 production, or in atmospheric concentration? It appears the latter to me.
But, even more damning of your argument is the fact that, if you continue plotting the ice core data back to its earliest data point in 1832, it is apparent that the CO2 level has been increasing approximately quadratically (perhaps the upswing from the nadir of a sinusoid?) throughout the entire ice core record, and the data reflect a function essentially continuous in time, with occasional minor hiccups, starting from a point at which positing an AGW influence would strain credulity.
I would have to say, in addition, given the chicanery we have seen with fudging data sets, that I have low confidence that the “international inventory data base” has not been “adjusted” to reflect a desired outcome.
5.3
I don’t put much stock in the talk about isotopic ratios. Spencer showed some time ago that the ratio varies with the SST. And, there is this.
5.4
The 14C created by atomic testing is settling out, and this is evidence that fossil fuel burning is the main cause of the increase of CO2 in the atmosphere? Sorry, I do not follow that argument.
5.5
Argumentium ad ignoratiam. Process of elimination only works in a closed system for which all possibilities are known perfectly.
5.6
No, it is evidence that human emissions may be contributing to the increase in acidity of the oceans. It says nothing about the atmosphere.
Ferdinand Engelbeen (17:11:21) :
So how about fumaroles? How much co2 do they put into the atmosphere per annum?
hotrod (16:12:38) :
“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.”
Well, I’m afraid I’m going to take the ‘other side’ here. Radioactive decay is dependent on nothing but itself. CO2 is dependent on the ‘absorbers’ ability to remove the CO2. IE, the oceans ability to absorb would be dependent on the temperature and partial pressure.
DirkH (16:24:15) :
“Syl (16:03:11) :
We definitely need a cushion”
We have a big cushion: the oceans.
http://folk.uio.no/tomvs/esef/esef4.htm
——-
Nice link.
No that is not the cushion we need because it won’t help us after we’ve fallen into the cold cold depths of glaciation where in the past I believe the cold oceans absorbed so much CO2 that it dropped to around 200PPM….only when we come out of it after 90 thousand years will we get it back.
Anthony, of course you would be one of the first. That is why there are 4.888+ million hits and rapidly rising. Kazaam! OT, I got so interested in meteorite/asteroid/comet impact on earth as an important climate changer during the Holocene that reading took most of my day. (Kids are gone. What about football? Oh, well, there is the evening.)
Question: I notice that in the 2008 testy controversy re whether the 536-545 AD catastrophic weather events were caused by volcanoes or comets, a study of ice cores co-authored by K. Briffa (lead author L. Larsen) absolutely dismissed a comet collision. Given some careful (to a novice) research by D.H. Abbott ea, it seems like there is some strong evidence for an extraterrestrial contribution. Could one of the reasons that the warmists need volcanoes as well as CO2 be because they can say that volcanic contributions to climate change are finished in two years? Therefore, keep your gaze on CO2 and its “forcings”. Are they afraid that funding for search (for comets/asteroids) and rescue (of Earth) for these orbiting chunks would deflect government research funds? “They” — the anti-comet/meteorite-swarm crowd — seem strongly dismissive. (For example, a similar attitude seems to come from those arguing against Firestone, West, and Warwick-Smith’s thesis suggesting (with a lot of proof) that comet collisions did in Clovis culture and large mammals and initiated the Younger-Dryas cold. What say you or your associates?
hotrod (16:12:38) :
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 let’s say you add only red colored human CO2 to the atmosphere (containing 800 colourless GtC) in one shot of 100 GtC. The red color will disappear with a yearly exchange rate of 150 GtC/900 GtC or about 17% per year, as the 150 GtC input is all by colourless CO2 from the other reservoirs. That doesn’t influence the fact that still most of the 900 GtC is in the atmosphere, as the catch of a red CO2 prevents the catch of a colourless CO2, which remains in the atmosphere. Thus the extra 100 GtC (as mass, not as red molecules) still is in the atmosphere, minus about 4 GtC (at current rates) which is the extra amount absorbed mainly by the oceans and vegetation (no matter the colour). Thus we still have 896 GtC in the atmosphere. And so on.
You see the difference: the exchange rate (residence time) is 150/900, while the excess absorption rate is only 4/900, which means that the red coloured CO2 will be gone long before the total quantity of CO2 is back to the original level.
Reddy Kilowatt greets with ELECTRICITY the Age of Aquarius arriving with the “Mystery BLUE Spiral Over Norway” on the “Rare BLUE Moon” of January 1, 2010!!!
Recently there was an article about ocean fish causing more mixing of the oceans than previously thought. Think about it, another possible impact on CO2 levels could be related to over fishing. Or ocean pollution killing off ocean biology. By removing a necessary element of ocean mixing the top of the ocean becomes more concentrated with CO2 and that changes it’s absorption characteristics. The top layers also become warmer and out-gas extra CO2 as well as warming the atmosphere.
Big impact? Small impact? Who knows? Has anyone studied this possible factor?
While this may not be anything important, it does highlight complexity. Do scientists really think they have all the answers on such a complex subject?
Mapou (12:21:51) :
Let me see if I get this straight. The paper claims that the proportion of man-made CO2 retained in the atmosphere is more or less constant. In other words, if we generate a million tons of CO2 in a given period, about half a million (.55) tons are retained. This means that half a million tons are absorbed by the oceans, lakes, rocks, trees, etc. What is the physical mechanism behind this strange process, pray tell?
I mean, how does the earth know that it must retain only half of the man-made CO2? How about the naturally emitted CO2? How does nature tell the difference between the two types of CO2? I sense some unseen magic in the woodwork.
The earth doesn’t know what fraction it must maintain. The fraction (0.45 or whatever) is the result of two competing processes, 1)CO2 emission and 2)absorption in a multitude of sinks and souces, and their associated time-constants.
Some long time ago I took the total man-made emission from 1970 to 1990, then compared this to the increase in [CO2] in the atmosphere using a simple model along the lines that Bart outlined wayyyy back in this thread, and found the time constant (e-folding) for removal to be about 10 years. With the magnitude of emission then (1990) in effect I thought it would be very difficult to ever double CO2 in the atmosphere. Of course if the sinks, the places where CO2 is absorbed, give out, then concentration would increase much more rapidly, and so will it if emissions increase. But even so, a knowledge of the rates and time constants allows one to estimate a maximum CO2 level.
You aren’t serious?
Don’t you think that the IPCC covered that? The 10 um widow and all that? The spectral ‘peak’ for a 288K earth lying somewhere in that vicinity?
Say it isn’t true …
.
.
Amend that to say: Read the literature, stare at the ceiling, shake your head in disbelief, realize where Joel, RC et al are wrong … Then comment.
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Ferdinand Engelbeen (17:36:40) :
returning to the sources of c02: There’s animal respiration (all living animals) plants, oceans, fossil fuels, fumaroles, and so on. If this half life of 40 years, or residence time of 100 years (with an uncertainty factor of diurnal/5 years – 100 years – yes confusing) there must be one heck of a quantity of c02 in the atmosphere. Yet nature seems to etablish an equilibrium of 0.04% aerial. In looing through the siple dome data, there isn’t an increase between 1935 and ’45 – it stays constant, and otherwise, the record doesn’t follow a curve with fossil fuel emissions thereafter.
http://www.pnas.org/content/94/16/8343.full.pdf
One thing learned from ice cores is the trend of delay of 800-1500 years between temperature and c02 – and that given this delay, its obvious that warming can occur whilst c02 decreases through some prior sequence 800 years previously. Veizer is a data source on that, than Beck
So: Just what was the state of affairs 800 years ago that gives us a natural high cycle of c02 today? A clue is SST’s which have been higher over the 20th-21stCenturies than hitherto, and that the sea surface contains 1000GT’s of c02 – and as SST’s are 1C warmer than 140 years ago, where a 0.1C increase in temperature is enough to allow oceans to emit 6GT’s of c02 into the atmosphere Takahashi (1961) , which supposedly accumulates too, though it doesn’t as its always in transition. put simply – a 1C increase in temperatures at 30 metres is enough to put 600GT’s into the atmosphere (which is nearly all co2 in the atmosphere) which leaves less co2 to be emitted from tropical oceans – so it seems that most of the increase in c02 since 140 years has in fact been natural.
Ferdinand Engelbeen (13:53:22) :
“… if you double the addition to the atmosphere, the simple rule says that the uptake rate will double too, all the rest being equal (for the interested reader: the global carbon cycle acts as a simple first order equilibrium process).”
Is this what you mean? That the rate of change of the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere, dA/dt, can be expressed as
dA/dt = R – kA
where R is the rate of production of CO2 from all sources (incl man) and k is approximately constant. The “equilibrium” is then the steady-state at which dA/dt=0, R=kA. If that’s the case it’s quite easy to show that human produced CO2 is of no concern.
If I am understanding you correctly, do you have references? In particular on the sequestration rate of the form kA.
It might very well be that, considering the low levels to which CO2 falls during a glacial epoch (I agree with Syl above that a cold ocean is probably the major repository) and the threshold of about 150 ppm for plant uptake (below which they die and by extension, plant-eating animals, including man, all die), the best hope for survival is the CO2 that man is now pumping into the atmosphere. Of course, arable land may be at a premium for ~100,000 years, but without that extra CO2, the situation might be grim, indeed. That both animals and humans have survived prior glacial epochs gives proof that CO2 levels didn’t fall below threshold everywhere for long, but then humans weren’t very numerous, either.
It almost makes me wish CO2 was a better greenhouse gas than it is.
Well, the good news is that the oceans and plants continue to absorb a portion of our emissions at the same rate despite the pro-AGW set trying to claim that this was going to end.
But the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere is still increasing and it was increasing at a very slightly exponential rate before recently (the increase was increasing very slightly each year).
The latest data from Mauna Loa, however, shows that the exponential increase has slowed or let’s say the annual increase is flat now or has been for the past four years.
This is a subtle change but one has to extrapolate the changes out over 50 or 100 years to understand how that might be important. We are already just under the IPCC A1B scenario and a change from an exponential increase to a steady increase makes a big difference in the decades ahead.
1990 to 2009 CO2 from Mauna Loa
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/iadv/graph/xxx/xxx_single_ts_custom_4b3ebc71ee78a775302130.png
2000 to 2009 CO2 from Mauna Loa
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/iadv/graph/xxx/xxx_single_ts_custom_4b3eb8f163ebd455273417.png
Kevin Kilty (18:58:35) :
“The earth doesn’t know what fraction it must maintain. The fraction (0.45 or whatever) is the result of two competing processes, 1)CO2 emission and 2)absorption in a multitude of sinks and souces, and their associated time-constants.”
Only none of these sinks and sources are fixed. We just get back to the standard figures of c02 stored in vegetation, decay, detritus etc is three times that of the atmosphere, ocenaic c02 considerably more etc – yet nature prevents aerial co2 from accumulating, and tumbling erratically and maintains a uniform increase, even though all natural sources are vastly greater than human sources.