Some people claim, that there's a human to blame …

thethinkingman says:
June 8, 2010 at 11:36 am
Got this off of American Thinker . . .
Posted by: tmead new
Jun 08, 06:23 AM
Definitive evidence already exists to prove/disprove global warming. The GPS Master Control System has been measuring average atmospheric drag on each of the GPS satellites for 35 years. This is needed to predict satellite positions to NINE decimal places. If the Atmosphere is warming, it expands. If the atmosphere expands, the amount of gas encountered by the satellites increases. Thus the average drag over an orbit increases. The USAF Space Command has this drag data recorded from 1975 onward. If the trend is up, warming is occurring, if the trend is level or down, it is NOT.
True but the GPS orbits are so high (20,000 km) that they’re well up in the exosphere (mainly Helium/H). The connection between the temperature/density up there and in the troposphere is limited, probably correlates well with the 10.7 flux.

Steve Fitzpatrick:
At June 8, 2010 at 10:44 am you assert to me:
“If you really do not know, then it might be a good time to apply Occam’s razor. The simplest and most probable explanation is that the data agree because they are measuring the same thing.”
No!
The simplest and most probable explanation is that the data agree because they have been adjusted such that they agree.
Personally, I prefer to admit my ignorance as to the true explanation for their agreement and not to assume anything.
Richard

Richard S Courtney says:
June 8, 2010 at 2:20 pm
“The simplest and most probable explanation is that the data agree because they have been adjusted such that they agree.”
If you really believe that, then there is not much more to discuss… good luck, I wish you well.

Willis, I am very late into this discussion, so I hope you find this contribution. I did all this about 5.5 years ago. It adds some insight to your observations. Hope it is useful. Note, I used “snip – snip” to indicate where I had clipped out part of the wording from a reference. This useage seems to have become inappropriate since then, but I don’t have time just now to edit all of this. Murray
1) http://public.ornl.gov/ameriflux/about-history.shtml
Just to set the stage:
snip”Yet, for many reasons our understanding of the global carbon budget is incomplete. At present, 40 to 60% of the anthropogenically-released CO2 remains in the atmosphere. We do not know, with confidence, whether the missing half of emitted CO2 is being sequestered in the deep oceans, in soils or in plant biomass. Uncertainties about flows of carbon into and out of major reservoirs also result in an inability to simulate year to year variations of the annual increment of CO2″. Snip.
This from a government site. Clearly the uncertainties in GCMs are much larger than the degree of certitude expressed by AGW advocates would suggest. We are not dealing with linear rates of change, and the results of analyses can change dramatically depending on the rate sensitivity of the factor being analyzed and the time period used.
2) http://cdiac.esd.ornl.gov/trends/co2/contents.htm
CO2 delta in the atmosphere from 1970 through 2004 averaged 1.5 ppm/yr. From 1958 to 1974 it averaged 0.9 ppm/yr. From 1994 through 2004 it has averaged 1.8 ppm/yr. Snip “On the basis of flask samples collected at La Jolla Pier, and analyzed by SIO, the annual-fitted average concentration of CO2 rose from 326.86 ppmv in 1970 to 377.83 ppmv in 2004. This represents an average annual growth rate of 1.5 ppmv per year in the fitted values at La Jolla. ” snip.
That’s the one site that can be seriously affected by nearby emissions. All eight regularly measured sites track precisely. The major measuring sites are widely spread from north to south, and the uniform measurement results indicate that CO2 emissions are quickly and well mixed in the atmosphere.
3) http://cdiac.esd.ornl.gov/ftp/ndp030/global.1751_2004.ems
From tables accessible at 2) and 3) we can do some decadal average annual analysis as:
Decade 1 2 3 4 5
Years ’54-63 ’64-’73 ’74-’83 ’84-’93 ’94-`03
Ave. annual fuel emissions (Gt/yr) 2.4 3.4 5.0 6.0 6.7
Percent change decade to decade 42 47 20 12
Ave. annual atmos. conc’n delta (ppm/yr) 0.8 1.1 1.4 1.5 1.8
Atmos. conc’n delta per Gt emission (ppB) 333 324 280 250 270
Implied atmospheric retention (Gt) 1.7 2.3 2.9 3.1 3.7
Airborne fraction (%) 71 68 58 52 55
Ocean uptake from fuel (Gt) 0.7 1.1 2.1 2.9 3.0
Deforestation factor (%) guesstimate* 1.03 1.06 1.09 1.12 1.15
Total emissions (Gt) 2.5 3.6 5.5 6.7 7.7
Airborne fraction of total (%) 68 64 53 46 48
Ocean uptake total (Gt) 0.8 1.3 2.6 3.6 4.0
*The above fuel emissions from 3) do not include any factor for deforestation/land use. Recent total emissions have been estimated by AGW advocates as slightly less than 8 Gt/yr total, giving about an additional 15% for deforestation/land use. As deforestation is to a degree linked to third world population, we can assume that factor was sequentially lower going back to prior decades. Using a higher factor for prior decades won’t change anything much. Column 3 fuel emissions data corresponds almost exactly with IPCC SAR figures.
While total average annual emissions have gone up by a factor of 3, ocean uptake has gone up by a factor of 5. That is hardly consistent with slow mixing or near saturation of surface waters. What seems to be happening is that increasing atmospheric partial pressure is increasing the rate of ocean uptake with the rate of increase slowed by surface warming/acidification. We can expect a large emissions
increase for the next decade, with corresponding relatively large increase in partial pressure. It remains to be seen how much of that will be offset. The decade to decade rate of increase in fuel emissions has declined very rapidly, from mid 40s% to about 12%. Based on the last couple
of years, one could expect the decade ’04-’13 to have total average annual emissions in the order of 9.0 Gt, with total fuel emissions near 7.6 Gt, (a decadal increase of 13%) and with an airborne
fraction near 45%. After that, with declining petroleum, CO2 sequestration for tertiary petroleum recovery, and rising fuel prices driving major accelerations of efficiency, nuclear and renewables, the annual emissions to the atmosphere are likely to begin declining, and to reach a very low level by 2060 or so. The IPCC 50% probability estimate (Wigley et al) is very close to 7.5 Gt near 2010, but goes to 15 Gt by 2060, requiring a compound growth rate of 15% per decade, which isn’t going to happen.
4) http://cdiac.esd.ornl.gov/pns/faq.html
snip Q. How long does it take for the oceans and terrestrial biosphere to take up carbon
after it is burned?
A. For a single molecule of CO2 released from the burning of a pound of carbon, say from burning coal, the time required is 3-4 years. This estimate is based on the carbon mass in the atmosphere and up take rates for the oceans and terrestrial biosphere. Model estimates
for the atmospheric lifetime of a large pulse of CO2 has been estimated to be 50-200 years (i.e., the time required for a large injection to be completely dampened from the atmosphere). Snip
This range seems to be an actual range depending on time frame, rather than the uncertainty among models. [See (5) below].
5) http://www.accesstoenergy.com/view/atearchive/s76a2398.htm
For the above decades 1 through 5, we have now had 4, 3, 2, 1, and 0 half lives respectively. From 3) and 5) and using an average half life of 11 years, (based on real 14C measurement) we get a total remaining injection in 2004 from the prior 5 decades of 139 Gt, which equates to an increase in atmospheric concentration of 66 ppm. The actual increase from 1954 to 2004 was very near 63 ppm. This result lends some credibility to the 50 year atmospheric residence time estimate. [See (9) below]. A 200 year residence time gives an 81 ppm delta since 1954, which is much too high.
Surprisingly, if we go all the way back to 1750 and compute the residence time using fuel emissions only we get a value very close to 200 years. (A 40 year ½ life gives a ppm delta of 99 vs an actual of 96 using 280 ppm as the correct value in 1750). If we assume that terrestrial uptake closely matches land use emissions, (this is essentially the IPCC assumption), and we know that the airborne fraction from 1964 through 2003 had a weighted average of 58%, to
shift to a long term 40 year ½ life from a near term 11 year ½ life, we would have to have prior 40 year period weighted average airborne fractions like 80% for ’24-’63, and 90%-100% before that. Since emissions in the last 40 years have been 3 times higher than in the period from 1924 to 1963 and 30 times higher than 1844 to 1883 it is not too hard to believe that the rapid growth in atmospheric partial pressure has forced such a change in airborne fraction. With rising SSTs we can expect the partial pressure forced rate of ocean uptake to be offset to a growing degree. (Of course we now know that since 2003 we have not had rising SSTs, rather a slight cooling.)As emission rates decline in the future, and with the delayed impact of ocean warming the half life can be expected to begin growing again but it seems very unlikely that the residence time for a pulse of CO2 would get back to 200 years.
6) http://www.hamburger-bildungsserver.de/welcome.phtml?
unten=/klima/klimawandel/treibhausgase/carbondioxid/surfaceocean.html
Here we find a nice description of atmosphere/ocean interchange mechanisms, with the major fault that it gives the impression that the exchange magnitudes are well known. While this was published sometime after 2001, the net ocean uptake from the atmosphere shown would be roughly correct for about the mid `70s, and has since well more than doubled, (see above) despite surface warming. This would suggest that a near surface increase in ocean carbon concentration
considerably upsets the exchange between the surface and deeper ocean waters. It seems possible that carbon fertilization plus warming considerably accelerate growth of ocean biota. The IPCC downplay this possibility, but do not outright deny it, which suggests a fairly high degree of probability to me.
7) http://www.grida.no/climate/ipcc_tar/wg1/105.htm
From the IPCC TAR we read snip In principle, there is sufficient uptake capacity (see Box 3.3) in the ocean to incorporate 70 to 80% of anthropogenic CO2 emissions to the atmosphere, even when total emissions of up to 4,500 PgC (4500 Gt) are considered (Archer et al.., 1997).snip. That’s a 3400 Gt sink capacity, and we are talking about sinking less than another 1000 Gt at a rate of about 4 Gt/yr peak, for a very few years at peak rate. However, the 3400 Gt additional capacity, which would add less than 10% to the ocean inventory seems like a very low value for 3 reasons. First the equilibrium concentration [see 8) below] is more than 3x the present concentration. Second, atmospheric concentrations were at least 5 times higher 100 million years ago, so seawater concentrations can be that much higher also. Third, experiments to test CO2 clathrate hydrate formation see formation at dissolved CO2 concentrations two orders of magnitude higher than the present concentration. Since 1900 total anthropogenic carbon emission has been about 300 Gt, (about 83% since 1945) of which about 170 are still in the atmosphere. In the next century, net emissions to the atmosphere may be no more than another 400 Gt., which would likely add less than another 90 ppm of atmospheric concentration. The idea that we are
saturating the ocean sink is not even remotely consistent with available numbers.
The IPCC goes on to say snip The finite rate of ocean mixing, however, means that it takes several hundred years to access this capacity (Maier-Reimer and Hasselmann, 1987; Enting et al., 1994; Archer et al., 1997). Chemical neutralization of added CO2 through reaction with CaCO3 contained in deep ocean sediments could potentially absorb a further 9 to 15% of the total emitted amount, reducing the airborne fraction of cumulative emissions by about a factor of 2; however the response time of deep ocean sediments is in the order of 5,000 years (Archer et al., 1997) snip. They then show a CO2 system diagram with sediment take up of 0.2 Gt/yr. The present
airborne fraction of 170 Gt would be taken up by the total system in only 800 years at that rate.
The SAR shows a net sink from atmosphere to ocean of about 2.2 Gt/yr. The problem here is that the level of uncertainty in the rate of ocean mixing, and in how that rate might change, is greater than the rate at which we are injecting carbon. [See 1) above]. The IPCC doesn’t discuss uncertainty. The increase we have already seen in the rate of ocean uptake [3) above] is 2x this number, but the difference is only 1% of the estimated round trip exchange.
For reference, also from the IPCC SAR we can find the following carbon inventory and exchange estimates. These were finalized in 1994, but some data may be base on mid `70s estimates.
a) Inventory
Intermediate and Deep ocean – 38,100 Gt; terrestrial soil, biota and detritus – 2190 Gt; surface ocean (down to about 400 m max) 1020 Gt; atmosphere – 750 Gt; ocean sediments – 150 Gt; marine biomass – 3 Gt. That’s a total of 42,213 Gt, excluding carbonaceous rock. I find
the level of precision amusing.
b) Annual Exchanges
Anthropogenic emissions to atmosphere – 5.5 Gt.
Atmosphere to surface ocean – 92Gt, surface ocean to atmosphere – 90 Gt, net to ocean – 2 Gt.
Surface ocean to marine biota – 50 Gt, reverse – 40 Gt; marine biota to deep ocean – 9 Gt; marine biota to DOC -1 Gt
Surface ocean to deep ocean – 92 Gt; reverse – 100 Gt; deep ocean to sediments 0.2 Gt; net ocean uptake 2.2 Gt.
8) http://cdiac.esd.ornl.gov/oceans/ndp_065/appendix065.html
There is a huge volume of data about the concentration of CO2 in seawater, including variability with both depth and latitude. The above reference is for the south Pacific. Data for the south
Atlantic showing variability with depth, but not with latitude is also available. The present concentration is about 25 mg/kg (2100 umol/kg). The variation in concentration, by both depth and latitude is similar in both bodies, varying about +-7% around the mean, with localized excursions up to +-13%. Since atmospheric concentration has increased about 32% in the last 150 years, and about 25% in the last 50 years, one would expect much greater variation in oceanic
concentration if the take-up by the deep ocean is slow. CO2 concentration varies directly with salinity, and inversely with temperature. Greatest concentrations are at depth (1500 to 2500 m),
and at higher latitudes. The equatorial regions are spoken of as a source for CO2, which must be a function of temperature as is the slightly lower surface concentrations. Heavy rainfall in the tropics may also contribute to reduced concentration. High latitudes are spoken of in the TAR as having “CO2 rich upwellings”, which is consistent with the observed data, but not consistent with the claim of slow mixing between surface and deep water. In deep, dark, cold waters, one would expect very slow local oxidation, so the likely source of deep water concentration would seem to be rapid transport from the surface, by the likes of the Atlantic Conveyer. Concentration would increase with both increasing salinity and decreasing temperature as the conveyer moves north.
There is essentially no variation with longitude except for the depth of the isolines in deeper waters. Curiously the partial pressure reaches a maximum at mid depths. Are currents near the
bottom carrying mixed relatively younger surface water with the lower partial pressures?
9)
http://ijolite.geology.uiuc.edu/02SprgClass/geo117/lectures/Lect18.html
Atmospheric gases in sea water
— saturation = equilibrium
Molecule Percent in atmosphere Equilibrium concentration in seawater (mg per kg seawater)
N2 78% 12.5
O2 21% 7
Ar 1% 0.4
CO2 0.03% 90
In surface sea water, atmospheric gases are close to their “saturation” concentration (or equilibrium concentration). But note that CO2 has a much higher solubility (equilibrium
concentration) than the other gases.
10) http://stommel.tamu.edu/~baum/paleo/ocean/node37.html –
snip Thermocline – Specifically the depth at which the temperature gradient is a maximum. Generally a layer of water with a more intensive vertical gradient in temperature than in the layers either above or below it. When measurements do not allow a specific depth to be pinpointed as a thermocline a depth range is specified and referred to as the thermocline zone. The depth and thickness of these layers vary with season, latitude and longitude, and local environmental conditions. In the midlatitude ocean there is a permanent thermocline residing between 150-900 meters below the surface, a seasonal thermocline that varies with the seasons (developing in spring, becoming stronger in summer, and disappearing in fall and winter), and a diurnal thermocline that forms very near the surface during the day and disappears at night. There is no
permanent thermocline present in polar waters, although a seasonal thermocline can usually be identified. The basic dynamic balance that maintains the permanent thermocline is thought to be one between the downward diffusive transport of heat and the upward convective transport of cold water from great depths. Snip There is a lot of variability evident in that quote, that makes giving firm single figure values pretty questionable. The mid latitude permanent thermocline has a maximum extent from about 40 degrees north to 40 degrees south. At latitudes above about
60 degrees there is usually no thermocline. The depth of the top of the thermocline can be from about 20 meters to about 400 meters, and the thickness can vary from less than 100 meters to about 400 meters. The depth of the bottom of the thermocline varies from less than 100 meters to about 900-1000 meters. The IPCC gives an average depth of the thermocline of 400 meters, but do not define whether they are considering top, middle or bottom. They seem to be taking the average depth of the top as 200 meters and the thickness as 400 meters average , but these would be very rough estimates at best, and could hardly justify the 3 significant digits they use.
Depth and thickness vary quite rapidly with both areal location and time, with time generally from hours to seasons, or in the case of ENSO to years. In a given location the thermocline depth can move up and down by 10s of meters diurnally and 100s of meters in a season, or, as noted above, can disappear altogether. Also in the near equatorial Pacific, where the thermocline is normally well established, there is also the well established “equatorial cold tongue”, a huge upwelling of cold water far from the high latitudes. The average depth of the oceans is generally taken as 4000 meters. The IPCC estimates the upper mixed layer as holding 2.6% of the total ocean CO2, (1020 of 39,120 Gt) which implies near 2.6% of the water or an average depth of 200 meters if it is taken to exist under 50% of the ocean surface. They refer to the water above the
thermocline as the “mixed layer” and consider the thermocline as a barrier that severely limits mixing between the intermediate and deep ocean. The intermediate layer is the thermocline zone. The deep ocean contains 90% of the total water, so the intermediate zone must be assumed to hold about 2.5% also where it exists. The other 5% of the water is in the upper 10% of the depth, where there is no thermocline.
There are major mixing mechanisms between surface and deep ocean other than diffusion through the thermocline. These include wave motion in the “furious fifties and screaming sixties” of the southern oceans, the giant delayed oscillator of the equatorial pacific, major sinks and upwellings, the Atlantic conveyer and the Antarctic Circumpolar Current. The surge at depth from passing swells can be felt clearly at a depth where the swell causes a 10% depth change, and can be detected at 5%. In the screaming 60s, where winter can find 1000 mile wavetrains of 20 meter waves, mixing can be expected to 400 meters. [This is consistent with Fig 4 in 11) below]. The ACC alone moves water at the rate of 130 million cubic meters per second, which is enough to exchange the entire Atlantic ocean in about 100 years. The IPCC says the thermocline is the cause of slow mixing between surface and deep waters. With it’s degree of variability in depth, extent and time it is more likely a mechanism of fairly rapid mixing. The total surface layer to about 200 meters depth, must hold near 5% of the total CO2 vs the 2.6% represented by the IPCC, and near half of the 5% must mix much more rapidly than the estimate used by the IPCC for the 2.6% they consider. Their exchange rate of about 100 Gt/yr between surface and intermediate/deep ocean is probably underestimated by a min. factor of 2 and maybe as much as 4 or 5. The differential between up and down transfer can easily be understated by an even larger factor. This would account for the observed ocean uptake rate of CO2 from the atmosphere, which is already 2x the IPCC estimate.
Wherever there is a great range of uncertainty in estimates, the IPCC seems to choose the extreme that will paint the most perilous picture. AGW advocates seem prone to this selective behavior.
11) http://www.aip.org/pt/vol-55/iss-8/captions/p30cap4.html See fig. 4
The first thing to note about Fig. 4 is that there is no evidence at all of a thermocline barrier at near 200 m depth. At 30 degrees S in the Pacific the 50 umol/kg concentration extends to beyond 400 m and at about 20 degrees N in the N Pacific the 40 umol/kg concentration gets to 400 m. The mid latitude Pacific is relatively warm, has relatively low saline concentration and can therefore be expected to have relatively low total CO2 concentration. Forty umol/ kg would be
about 2% anthropogenic CO2. The surface share of anthropogenic CO2 is about 2.5% in this region. Even though this is the zone that should have the strongest permanent thermocline, the anthropogenic concentration is well mixed way below the expected thermocline depth. In the colder and saltier N Atlantic, in the region which should at least have seasonal thermoclines, (30 to 60 degrees N), we find the anthropogenic share at 1.7% (65% of surface share) at a
depth of 1200 m.
We didn’t get to an ocean uptake equal to 10% of the last decade until about 1900, and yet we find the anthropogenic share equal to 10% of the surface share at a depth of >5000 m in the N. Atlantic. The Atlantic conveyer is certainly sinking surface anthropogenic CO2 emissions to the ocean bottom in less than a century. Since we have no longitudinal distribution, it may seem questionable to try and estimate the total Gt of anthropogenic CO2 in the oceans from Fig 4. However we know that there is little longitudinal variation in the Pacific, and probably the S. Atlantic is similar. In the N. Atlantic the share would be lower than shown to the west, but given that the N. Atlantic is much more saline than the N. Pacific, still higher than the N. Pacific. A rough estimate would be 120-140 Gt. Since we have emitted about 310 Gt since 1750, and about
>170 Gt is still in the atmosphere, the total ocean uptake is about 130-140 Gt, so this figure looks pretty realistic. If we accept Fig 4., which is based on measurement, then we have to conclude that the IPCC contention of slow mixing to the deep ocean because of the thermocline barrier is simply wrong.
12) http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/ocd/gcc/co2research
The key quote from this url is “The global oceanic CO uptake using different wind speed/gas transfer velocity parameterizations differs by a factor of three (Table 1)”. The IPCC seems to have used the lowest transfer rate. The actual current transfer rate is 2x the IPCC figure, and evidently some models support a rate of 3x the IPCC figure, which seems consistent with the above observations.
13) http://www.surfnewquay.co.uk/knowledge/articles.php?
A problem here, and probably in much of the IPCC work is the tendency to use averages. It is best to distrust averages. For example, this reference says it takes 1000 to 2000 years to turnover ocean bottom water.
Here http://calspace.ucsd.edu/virtualmuseum/climatechange1/10_5.shtml we find:
snip It takes, on the whole, one thousand years to renew the deep waters of the world’s ocean. This estimate is based on radiocarbon measurements from the CO2 dissolved within the ocean snip.
So we have already gone from “one thousand to 2 thousand” to “one thousand”. For purposes of CO2 take-up we are not concerned with the whole ocean bottom, or long averages. The relatively miniscule amount of C we are generating can be taken up by a very small fraction of the ocean. The present ocean inventory of carbon is about 39,000 Gt, and that gives a concentration of 25mg C per kg seawater. There are 1 million mg in a kg. Now we are going to add about 600 Gt by 2100, which if evenly distributed would raise the concentration by about 1.5% to 25.4 mg/kg. Since the variability of distribution of C in the ocean is +-7%, this addition isn’t even noticeable.
But what if we just penetrate 10% of the ocean in the short run? Then concentration in that portion goes temporarily to 29 mg/kg. And we do it in 100 years, not 1000 years. Then the ocean can spend the next 900 years equalizing the concentration. Thus it takes 1000 years to distribute our C injection, averaged throughout the ocean, but that has no bearing on the time required to take up the “pulse”.
Now lets look at the big currents. The first url in 13) above gives a speed of 0.5 km/hr in some of the trenches. (The gulf stream moving past South Carolina recently moved some stranded boaters 150 miles in 5 days. That’s 2 km/hr). If we assume an average speed of 0.2 km/hr, the current makes 4 complete circuits in 100 years. Given all the eddies along the way, it probably touches much more than 10% of the ocean and can transport a lot of C.