Why the CO2 increase is man made (part 1)

I wasn’t aware that this point was still up for debate…

Anthony, why are these opposing views? They’re discussing completely different issues and do not exclude each other.

As a left critic of AGW, I have little doubt that the majority of increase in CO2 in human caused. And I have been called a fascist and mass murderer – not to mention an idiot – on liberal web sites for expressing skepticism about the modeling and policy imperatives that the AGW community has inferred from the above basic observation.
First, there is a false precision about much of the scientific data presented – from temperature records to the relative greenhouse impacts of various gasses. I recall when I was in sixth grade how upset I was with the mathematical concept of significance – i.e. discarding 16 single units when another data point was measured to the nearest 1000 units. “How could one simply throw away 16 perfectly good units?” I protested.
Second, the geometric expansion of error in nearly every model developed makes any “prediction” practically worthless. The IPCC claim of a 7C temperature increase is nothing more than an Ouija board prediction of the future. The fact the many of the same modeling elements are used in long-range forecasts that predicted the barbeque summers in Britain or missed the recent record cold events in South American or snow on the Eastern Seaboard show the limitations of any long-range modeling. To what degree recent temperature increases are part of natural temperature fluctuations, rebound from the LIA, and greenhouse impacts remains uncertain.
Finally, the policy imperatives do NOT necessarily follow from any increase in CO2. Even if there is a moderate increase in world temperatures – which is by no means a given – there are a range of responses other than restriction of CO2 emissions and the concomitant impacts that this will have on human societies. One of the primary failures of Copenhagen – and it was a huge failure – was the underlying neocolonialism of the framing of carbon reduction. In other words, “We can drive, but y’all need to keep your oxcarts.” In Western nations, although public opinion tends to support AGW in vague generalities, when specifics are framed opposition tends to be strong. As a progressive, I am loathe to see CO2-based climate demands steal most of the oxygen from other, far more important issues that are the core of progressive values – human rights, equitable incomes, conflict resolution, and environmental sustainability.

Will Mr Engelbeen be as “responsible” when he’ll discuss Beck or just like on his page, simply biased?
REPLY: You’ll have to include me. I don’t think Beck’s work is worth much in the context of trends because many of the historical samples he cites were done by less accurate chemical reduction methods and taken in cities with little or no quality control from point to point or metadata. Like with temperature and UHI/siting issues, I don’t think cities are a good sampling place for global trends in CO2 either. – Anthony

Wouldn’t long-term effects of (pre-treaty) above-ground nuclear tests pose major problems for comparative 14^C? I am assuming that Ferdinand posits that anthropogenic CO2, being fossil fuel-based, will have almost no 14^C (thus 14^C levels will fall in atmosphere relative to 12^C with industrial activities?).

Pamela Gray says:
August 5, 2010 at 8:02 am
Is it just me or are these two posts about CO2 not counter points?
Indeed, there is no link between the two discussions, as mine is about the cause of the increase, while Tom Vonk’s is about the effect of the increase…
Still, some influential sceptics like (or hope) to prove that the increase is not anthropogenic (as several posts at WUWT from the -even recent- past show), as that makes that the influence doesn’t matter at all…
REPLY: Ferdinand, it’s a word borrowed from Tom Vonk’s title which had “counter view” in it, where I should have said “another” instead of “counter”. I’ve made a change to be more accurate. My point in the link was that we cover both sides of the CO2 issues here, pro and con. And, as we see in comments, no good deed goes unpunished.
You could, simply thank me for publishing both pro and con, unlike many other blogs on climate.
– Anthony

Well, aside from the sources of CO2, and the sinks, and the fact that the gas has been increasing in quantity lately, I see nothing which hasn’t been discussed to death previously.
So what if the CO2 is increasing? It was far higher in the geological record in the past, and the Earth’s temperature preceded both the rise and the fall.
What caused the Roman Warming period? What cause the Medieval Warm period? What caused the Little Ice Age?
Blaming CO2 for anything is like blaming a child for needing new clothes because he’s outgrown his current wardrobe.
Back to square one.

Apparently the rises in CO2 levels have been going on for about 150 years – and on a relatively straight upward curve.
I’m slightly confused by this, as early rises in CO2 seem to be larger than possible for human emissions alone, which were much lower at the end of the 19th century.
In fact according to my own graphs (amatuer I admit) it wasn’t actually possible for human emmision to be responsible for the entire rise in CO2 until the 1940s.
Yet another misnomer is the contradiction between exponential growth of human emissions and the linear growth of CO2 in the atmosphere.
Why doesn’t your Nasa figure show the largest Carbon Sink – Chalk. By far the greatest depositry for carbon, all of which must have been at some time in the atmosphere.

Interesting points made and yes possibly believable, although I always wonder at the validity of the measurements. You have to remember the statement for the last one hundred and fifty years, before that according to what I understand the co2 measurements were far higher some of the time so explain that away. I often think we dont know as much about these issues as is claimed. Where did all that co2 go in the past? How do you know where it is? I think a lot of these theories come from a desire to be an expert or a lust for the money.

If, as a previous post suggests, phytoplankton are decreasing, this would have a significant effect on CO2 in the atmosphere. They are one of methods the oceans use to sink CO2, using their CO2 intake to build their skeletons and then sink to the bottom of the ocean when they die. So perhaps the increase in CO2 we see is due to the decrease in phytoplankton. What causes the decrease in phytoplankton? Lack of nutrients would seem an obvious answer, perhaps due to pollution of the oceans? Has anyone proved that ocean warming can reduce the phytoplankton population rather than just correlating global temperature and phytoplankton numbers?

Basic logic error! The formula is:
dCO2(atm) = CO2(in1 + in2 + in3 + in4…) – CO2(out1 + out2 + out3 + out4…)
Where: in1, in2, in3, in4… ALL vary over time
The number of inputs may not have been fully defined
out1, out2, out3, out4… ALL vary over time
The number of outputs may not have been fully defined
And dCO2(atm) observations vary with time of day, season, wind speed,
location, altitude, temperature….
ALL are subject to interpretation (to put it mildly)

Why are the figures for the natural sinks so variable from year to year?

What I still don’t understand is that if the natural outflow is 4GT greater than the natural inflow, then how come atmospheric CO2 levels didn’t drop to virtually nothing after all the thousands of years before man started burning fossil fuels?

1) What efforts have been made to determine how constant incoming cosmic rays have been to earth on all timescales? Could a change in C14 production due to fluctuations in cosmic ray intensity be more responsible for any correlation in this regards?
2) My understanding is that C13, being a byproduct of decay of Nitrogen-13 (half-life 10 min), which is itself a product of proton collision with atomic Oxygen, could be a product of cosmic rays entering the atmosphere. So I reiterate question 1 with regards to C13, providing there is no physics reason I am unaware of that would prevent cosmic rays from creating N13 from H+O16 (too low KE, etc..)
Thank you for your time answering these questions.

Before I begin to discuss why I don’t buy this particular argument, let me just say that I do believe humanity has caused some increase in the overall levels of CO2. I find most of the discussion presented in this post hard to swallow, though because of the following points:
1. “As there are no processes in the atmosphere which convert CO2 to something else” that we know of. Even if that is true (and I’ll readily admit I don’t know), we don’t know, with any certainty, what the natural process’s net effect is. (see my next point).
2. “From all those flows very few are known to any accuracy.” In other words, there’s no way for us to determine what the natural world can actually do with CO2, but our limited amount of knowledge SUGGESTS blah blah blah
3. “Without any knowledge of any natural flow in or out of the atmosphere or changes in such flows, we know that the sum of all natural outflows is 4 GtC larger than the sum of all natural inflows. In other words, the net increase of the atmospheric CO2 content caused by all natural CO2 ins and outs together is negative.” If I’m reading this statement correctly, without human emissions, CO2 would eventually disappear from the atmosphere entirely because the net NATURAL increase is negative (meaning an overall decrease year after year).
4. “There is no net natural contribution to the observed increase, nature as a whole acts as a sink for CO2.” See item #2 where it is admitted that we don’t know the natural in and out flows with any accuracy. If we have no accurate measurements, how can this assertion be made?
5. “The Vostok ice core record shows that a temperature change of about 1°C gives a change in CO2 level of about 8 ppmv over very long term. That indicates an about 8 ppmv increase for the warming since the LIA, less than 10% of the observed increase.” I seem to remember a previous discussion on this blog about the reliability of ice core records due to diffusion of CO2 from the trapped air bubbles. Hasn’t it been shown that due to diffusion over long periods of time that the levels of various gases in the ice core samples should NOT be considered representative of the atmospheric conditions when the bubble was formed?
All that said, I am not naive enough to state that humanity has not added to the levels of CO2 in the atmosphere. That would require complete disregard for chemistry and common sense. What I am saying is that these bits of “evidence” are not very strong.
Most importantly, though, the ultimate questions remain. Where is there any shred of evidence that this increase in CO2 has done anything to warm the planet? What temperature SHOULD the planet be? Does a global average of temperatures (even if one could be accurately measured) mean anything when none of us are affected by the global mean temperature, but rather by our local weather?

Of course it is MANN-MADE!

There was one critical factor left out of the above, that is temperatures.
A certain percentage of CO2 I believe is emitted absorped according to the ocean temps. We know this mechanism does exist simply from ice cores that shows CO2 swinging up and down through the millenia. Could this be happening on shorter timescales. Well it must be, otherwise it wouldn’t happen over longer timescales, the question is then by how much.
Surely it isn’t just coincidence that when the SST is low there is a lower increase than when they’re high.
So are we saying this then?
i.e. in years that CO2 increases are low there are low SST’s is a pure coincidence, that just so happens to have been occuring consistently since CO2 measurements began.

Models vs measurement again. This is a large planet and lord knows what CO2 might be spewing out in the 67% that is covered by water and I did not see any measurement devices in the plumes when Pinatubo or Mt St Helens went off. I did see a pretty good analysis of ice core data that would lead one to believe that the CO2 increase corresponds nicely with population increase over the last 8000 or so years but I’m not sure who was doing the census back then. Also, still the cause and effect problem. I’ll give you a “possible” but not a “for sure”, by any means. Newton thought he had it pegged pretty well too and then came Einstein and even his results may only be an approximation of reality. Call it the “Jim G uncertainty principle”, kind of like the Heisenberg one of the same name but with less math, just logic.

Does anyone know of any sources of CO2 levels before the observatory was established on Mauna Loa? How accurate were these measures?
Also, has someone validated the various sources of CO2? How about sinks?
What is the lifetime of the average CO2 molecule in our atmosphere? Have read where some believe it is hundreds of years to a few years.
I have just assumed mankind is responsible for the rise in CO2; just didn’t think it would ever be an issue.
Good review article.

The difference in the atmosphere after a year is the sum of all inflows, no matter how large they are, or how they changed over the years, plus the human emissions, minus the sum of all outflows, no matter how large they are, wherever they take place.
Hang on a minute! Are we tacitly assuming here that the sum of all the other flows is not affected by human emissions? Why, for instance, would the net outflow from natural sources (which often depend on the process of osmosis) not be slowed down by the CO2 that humanity already puts into the atmosphere?
I suspect that we cannot actually predict what the present-day atmospheric CO2 concentration would be without human-induced emissions. It may end up exactly the same — natural sources making up for the loss of human-induced CO2.

Counter point. Review http://www.kidswincom.net/climate.pdf and draw your own conclusions. As to the IR issue, review http://www.kidswincom.net/CO2OLR.pdf.

There is another, equally useful discussion on this issue at:
http://www.barrettbellamyclimate.com/page20.htm
It has the merit to my mind of explaining how challenging AGW orthodoxy emphatically means endorsing mainstream physics.
Many of us who are scientifically more or less literate but are neither physicists not climatologists find the “slam dunk” (lovely phrase) arguments that have been resurfacing recently in the sceptic blogosphere confusing to put it mildly and not very helpful.
The premise that humans have caused most of the recent CO2 increases rests on a very strong empirical base and I for one will need some persuading that it fails. I’ve yet to see it.
So, looking forward to Pt II.

Questions for Ferdinand Engelbeen:
a) What is the NATURAL base line atmospheric ppmv of CO2 to be for planet earth ???
b) Is the natural atmospheric CO2 level dependant on temperature ???
c) What is the optimal atmospheric CO2 level for life on earth ???
d) What is a dangeruosly low atmospheric level of CO2 for life on earth ??
e) If we don’t have answers to the above questions how could we possibly engineer an atmospheric CO2 level that is correct for planet earth as proposed by the IPCC ???

Too many unmeasured exogenous intercorrelated variables and then there is the causality issue.

Response to: Why the CO2 increase is man made (part 1)
The linear increase of CO2 is your problem, or what is equilibrium, part II.
I object to some of the straight lines in fig. 3 In 1960 the annual increase of CO2 was around 1 ppm/y and the total amount of CO2 in the atmosphere was 315 ppm. Presently the increase is 2 ppm/y. Now, a total of 390 ppm CO2 is in the atmosphere, corresponding to 1000 Gigaton of Carbon. Presently, approx. 10 GtC fossil fuel are burned, which corresponds to 4.5 ppm/y when distributed fully into the atmosphere. In 1960 approx. 2 GtC of fossile fuel had been produced and burned, corresponding to roughly 1 ppm/y: This means, at that time basically all the CO2 remained in the atmosphere. Obviously, at that time, basically none of the CO2 has been sequestered elsewhere.
There is a very simple reason for that: the pre-industrial value of CO2 in the atmosphere had been 280 ppm. At that time, atmosphere and oceans have been in equilibrium concerning CO2 concentrations. (In the ice age with its lower temperatures, the equilibrium atmospheric concentration had been 200 ppm).
Around 1900, mankind started to burn fossile fuels in larger quantities. Atmospheric CO2 concentrations started to increase and to deviate from the equilibrium value. The simplest way to treat the deviation from equilibrium is to assume that the sequestering rate per year (into the oceans) is proportionate to the deviation from equilibrium in the atmosphere.
Now you can set up rate equations. With the simplifying assumption that the oceans, which contain a total of 40000 GtC of CO2, can take up eventually all extra CO2, you end up with a simple 1. order differential equation. You get the following results: Sequestering starts quadratically, not linearly, with deviation from equilibrium (as seen in the data). More importantly, eventually all emitted CO2 will be sequestered. This means that the atmospheric CO2 content gets saturated. Simple estimates give a saturation limit of approx. 450 to 480 ppm.
This can be seen quite easily: presently we have approx. 100 ppm excess CO2, and half of the presently emitted CO2 gets sequestered. with 200 ppm excess CO2, all of the then emitted CO2 gets sequestered. So the saturation limit is 280 + 200 = 480 ppm.
In this simplest of all models there is CO2 saturation in the atmosphere, there is no linear increase of CO2. IPCC keeps assuming a linear increase forever, models use 600 to 800 ppm CO2 for calculating warming in 2100. However, nobody bothers to argue why that simple model should fail.

jorgekafkazar says:
August 5, 2010 at 9:51 am
Peter says: “What I still don’t understand is that if the natural outflow is 4GT greater than the natural inflow, then how come atmospheric CO2 levels didn’t drop to virtually nothing after all the thousands of years before man started burning fossil fuels?”
They did, and they are.
Life forms have a nasty habit of being carbon based… they also have a nasty habit of dying and being buried in the ground… so overall biology can be seen as a carbon sink that accumulates in the ground.
CO2 levels have being dropping as life has evolved on earth… and they have been dropping towards dangerous levels in recent geologic times… luckily we have volcanoes, tectonic movements, natural gas, oil seeps and the WEATHER to naturally erode and re-cycle all that buried carbon… but best of all we have great big SUVs and AIRPLANES to so we can have fun while we help replenish the atmospheric CO2 levels which greens our planet and improves our harvests.
So adjust your lifestyle to address our CARBON challenged environment:
a) Get a bigger car and drive more.
b) Take more holidays abroad (and don’t forget to hire a car)
c) Rip out the central heating and put in a coal fire or wood burner.
d) Change you will to make sure you are cremated (so you don’t put your carbon in the ground)
ENJOY OUR GREENING PLANET – IT’S THE ONLY ONE WE’VE GOT!

Doug Proctor says:
August 5, 2010 at 8:50 am
The Barrow and the Mauna Loa CO2 concentrations drop between June and October, but do not in Antarctica. Is this reflecting the growing season in both a northern temperate forest and the oceanic phytoplancton?
Yes it is: the oceans have a larger capacity for changing the CO2 levels either way, but are relative slow emitters/absorbers, compared to the burst of greening in spring/summer of the mid-latitudes. That is a lot less in the SH, as there is less land and the ITCZ hinders the transport of air masses (including CO2, SO2, dust,…) between the NH and the SH.
That will be further explained in other parts…

Hi Ferdinand 🙂 Good to see you again in the debate!
1) In this little writing
http://hidethedecline.eu/pages/posts/co2-carbon-dioxide-concentration-history-of-71.php
– I have summarized some of the better pieces of evedence pointing to the “fact” that CO2 concentrations has fluctuated strongly earlier in the 20´ieth centure as well as in the stonage etc. This does not really support the idea that only humans can cause periods with larger CO2 concentrations?
2) Earlier i showed that Co2 concentration increase/year is smaller and smaller compared with global temperatures:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/12/17/the-co2-temperature-link/
So even if humans did indeed cause significant contributions to CO2 concentrations, it appears that “something” (the biosphere) is rapidly on the way to omit the human effect.
As I remember in the debate we had back then, you said that the facts could be interpreted in both your and my way. Thus i think you should be open to my viewpoint as a real possibility.
3) Finally, with just a simple trend through CO2 measurements of the ocean, it appears that the CO2 content in upper layers of oceans are indeed not rising in the latest decade. yes, not many people mentions this, but i think its rather relevant to be aware in this contexts as in contradicts the great dominating human effect to some degree. Humans are still emitting CO2, but the big ocean buffer does not show increase of CO2 anymore…
http://hidethedecline.eu/pages/posts/co2-carbon-dioxide-concentration-in-the-oceans-72.php
– how does this affect your thoughts?
Again: good to see you again in the debate 🙂
K.R. Frank Lansner

Ferdinand Engelbeen says:
August 5, 2010 at 10:25 am
Yes, but if humans add 8 GtC per year as CO2 a year and we see only an increase of 4 GtC per year in the atmosphere, then all other flows together, whatever their variation within or over the years, must remove the difference.
NO – you are not correct.
You have no idea what caused the observed increase and you have no idea whether your observed increase is correct.
Lets assume your formula is correct and your Carbon Cycle graphic is vaguely realistic
So the 5.5 “fossil fuels and cement production” (EM) in the graphic equals 8GtC.
Therefore, the ocean outgassing (OO) of 90 in the graphic equals roughly 131.
So lets retry your equation for ocean outgassing:
4 GtC = CO2(in1 + in2 + in3 +…) + 131 GtC – CO2(out1 + out2 + out3 +…)
See your problem?
CO2(in1 + in2 + in3 +…) – CO2(out1 + out2 + out3 +…) = -127
In fact it is a big problem for you!
Like I said:
Basic logic error!
The formula is:
dCO2(atm) = CO2(in1 + in2 + in3 + in4…) – CO2(out1 + out2 + out3 + out4…)

Jim G says:
August 5, 2010 at 9:22 am
Models vs measurement again. This is a large planet and lord knows what CO2 might be spewing out in the 67% that is covered by water and I did not see any measurement devices in the plumes when Pinatubo or Mt St Helens went off.
No model at all in this case: fossil fuel sales inventory vs. measured CO2 increase in the atmosphere. Simple straight-forward calculation. And the Pinatubo emitted some more CO2, but also cooled the oceans by reflecting sunlight away, which caused more CO2 absorption and thus less CO2 increase than in warmer years…

richard says:
August 5, 2010 at 9:37 am
Ferdinand,
To take a (silly) example to make my point, imagine if 100% of human emission were from burning wood or, better, grass. This carbon would have been a natural outflow via decay except for the fact that we are burning it. In other words, one of the inflow terms decreased by our human emissions. In that situation, you cannot attribute the CO2 rise to our emissions.
In the case of burning more or less fast renewable sources of carbon, that doesn’t count as emissions, as that (as all human and animal food) was captured a few months to a few years before from the atmosphere. The impact of this on current CO2 levels is negligible. If you burn fossil fuels, burried in an atmosphere of many millions of years ago (at much higher CO2 levels), that makes a difference in the current atmosphere.
The border between “renewable” and not is not that clear: If you burn a 1,000 year old oak, that is assumed “renewable”, while burning peat of the same average age is “not renewable”…

indeed near the full increase of CO2 in the atmosphere is caused by the human emissions. Only a small part might have been added by the (ocean) warming since the LIA.
People need to study this:
Volcanic Gases and Their Effects
http://volcanoes.usgs.gov/hazards/
gas/index.php
The numbers and volume of eruptions have increased a lot since 1998, you can type in the years and look for yourself. Eruption volume has gone up and down throughout history.
http://www.volcano.si.edu/world/find_eruptions.cfm
Eyjafjallajökull was recently pumping out the equivalent weight of 100+ to 200, 2,000 lb F-150 pickup trucks a second in eruption volume for a very long time.

One factor missing from figure 1 ( by NASA,) is volcanic activity. As Ian Plimer points out in his book Heaven and Earth, 80% of volcanic activity on Earth occurs on ocean floors, at mid-oceanic ridges and subduction zones. The CO2 released by this under water volcanic activity will be absorbed by cold water ( 4C) which is under pressure, so can hold a LOT of CO2. The “conveyor belt” system of ocean currents will eventually
( decades? centuries?) later bring this CO2 rich water to the surface, where, as it warms and the pressure decreases, it will release CO2 into the atmosphere. Is there any way to differentiate this CO2 from that produced by humans burning fossil fuels? For a dramatic example of cold, CO2 rich water suddenly deffervescing, do a Google search on Lake Nyos.

Fuerther to Caleb’s point about whether ice-core data is reliable, and to Slioch’s reiterating the pre-industrial CO2 level at 280ppm, there are some who question this figure and the reliance on ice-cores. TonyB is the man who knows all about this – where’s he gone? Are you there, Tony?

RHS says:
August 5, 2010 at 10:20 am
My only objection to the statement the CO2 cannot be created or destroyed (law of mass conservation) is that neither the Carbon or the Oxygen can be destroyed.
You are right, therefore CO2 is mostly expressed in GtC, as the carbon balance must be right, wherever the CO2 is absorbed or released, no matter in what form. For CO2 in the atmosphere itself it doesn’t matter, as there are no destruction or release reactions, except for a small contribution from the oxydation of organics (methane, natural VOS).

The mass balance claim is a non sequitur. We know that the total fluxes are far higher than the anthropogenic flux and we know that many of the other components are variable, but we do not know how variable. We simply do not know how much CO2 there would have been in the atmosphere at this time in the absence of anthropogenic emission. CO2 levels might have risen at the same rate, or stayed constant, or even gone down. They might even have risen faster! That CO2 levels have increased by a roughly constant third of the emissions is suggestive but not conclusive. Over so short a period, corresponding to an apparent warming trend over the past century, the correlation could easily be no more than coincidence. On this basis it’s more likely than not that the increase is man made, but it’s by no means certain. It’s an obvious conclusion that it is – but the obvious isn’t always correct.
Isotope ratios can’t answer the question either. Leaving aside important caveats about the various natural phenomena that can mimic fossil fuel emissions, all they could tell us is the fraction of CO2 currently in the atmosphere that comes from fossil fuel emissions. It still wouldn’t tell us how much CO2 there would have been in their absence. There is no reason to believe that the various fluxes are independent of each other (and strong reason to suppose that they’re not).

You are the real ‘Science Guy’, Anthony!
Thanks for ‘doing what you do’ so well!
And Thank You to Mssrs. Engelbeen and Vonk, for their most interesting posts!

@EthicallyCivil
Although isotopes are said to be “chemically identical” they do respond differently to some chemical reactions. The reason is that a complex chemical reaction can depend on precise timing and energy of the reactants. A heavier atom will be slower and may not have the same energy to achieve the required reaction potential.
Heavy water acts different than regular water and is toxic for this reason.
As with conventional separation methods the percentage difference in mass between the isotopes makes the chemical response in lighter elements more dramatic although there are processes that can even enrich uranium.

Ferdinand Engelbeen says:
August 5, 2010 at 12:07 pm
(oh, help!): http://www.statistics.gov.uk/hub/business-energy/index.html

Thanks for the link – makes interesting reading – especially in you live in the UK.
Inland Energy Consumption, 1980 to 2008 (million tonnes of oil equivalent)
http://www.statistics.gov.uk/resources/inlandenergyconsumption_tcm119-23574.jpg
Overall, consumption has grown by 19.7 mtooe (9.63%) in 28 years!
Of that increase 5.3 mtooe has come from Renewables and 3.7 mtooe from Nuclear.
So carbon emitting consumption has increased by 10.7 mtooe (5.23%) in 28 years.
However, the “dash to gas” reduced coal consumption by 48.43% (73.3 down to 37.8)
So I doubt the UK has had an upward impact on the Mauna Loa CO2 readings.

Frank Lansner says:
August 5, 2010 at 10:57 am
Hi Ferdinand 🙂 Good to see you again in the debate!
Indeed, good to see you (and others) again. Even if we still have a few unresolved disputes… About your last remark:
Finally, with just a simple trend through CO2 measurements of the ocean, it appears that the CO2 content in upper layers of oceans are indeed not rising in the latest decade.
You are looking at pCO2, but that is only about 1% of total carbon (CO2 + bicarbonate + carbonate) in the (upper) oceans and heavily influenced by temperature and alkalinity. In this case, the total carbon at Bermuda increased (until 2004, the last figures I have), while total alkalinity increased, causing a drop in pCO2:
http://www.bios.edu/Labs/co2lab/research/IntDecVar_OCC.html

The bottom line for me however is the indisputable record contained in the geologic column. A warmer earth with an atmosphere richer in CO2 is a greener earth. Compared to biosphere hay days like the Eocene optimum the present interglacial period looks close to death from exposure to the cold.
I mean to say if you prefer rocks and ice to plants and animals then be all means advocate reducing atmospheric CO2 and whatever else you can to cool the surface down. However, if you prefer a great abundance of plants and animals to rocks and ice then when it comes to fossil fuels —- Burn baby, burn!

Malaga View says:
August 5, 2010 at 10:59 am
NO – you are not correct.
You have no idea what caused the observed increase and you have no idea whether your observed increase is correct.
Lets assume your formula is correct and your Carbon Cycle graphic is vaguely realistic
So the 5.5 “fossil fuels and cement production” (EM) in the graphic equals 8GtC.
Therefore, the ocean outgassing (OO) of 90 in the graphic equals roughly 131.
So lets retry your equation for ocean outgassing:
4 GtC = CO2(in1 + in2 + in3 +…) + 131 GtC – CO2(out1 + out2 + out3 +…)
See your problem?
CO2(in1 + in2 + in3 +…) – CO2(out1 + out2 + out3 +…) = -127
I don’t see any problem at all. If we didn’t know what the human emissions were, there would be a problem. Then we can’t know the result of the emissions. But we know that the emissions are double the measured increase in the atmosphere: in your example, the one known extra natural input from the oceans is 131 GtC/year, the net result is an increase of 4 GtC/year, thus the sum of all outputs (to the oceans and vegetation) must take away 127 GtC/year extra to compensate for the increased ocean input. But one of the other inputs, human emissions, is 8 GtC, whatever one of the in’s (in1, in2, in3,…) it is. Thus the real natural output, whatever the extra more or less outgassing of the oceans is, must be 4 GtC more natural outs than natural ins.
Take it in another view: if there were no human emissions in the past years and today, would the CO2 level in the atmosphere have increased, decreased or stayed level? And next year(s)?

James Sexton says:
August 5, 2010 at 11:38 am
I see you answered part of my questions with a response to another person. Thanks, but if… [snipped]… is true then how did we get to 2000 ppmv CO2 100 million years ago?
Different times: different arrangement of the continents, different temperature/humidity, less calcite deposits,… The 8 ppmv/C only is for the last near million years, more ice age than interglacial, everything before that can’t be compared with current times…

Yet again we have charts presented in their “impressive” form.
Why is it that scientists won’t plot their data honestly?
Seriously. What number would represent NO CO2?
The chart at the top of the page starts at 375ppm.
All of these debates would be beyond boring if everyone plotted in a standardized way. What is done above is Chartmanship and is specifically called “Suppression of the Zero”. By suppressing the zero we suppress lots of pertinent information about the chart. Even grown scientists who know better get taken in by such tactics. This is why all presenters who employ such methods should be promptly slapped with an appropriately wet noodle.
Zero is a wonderful place to start for just about any metric.

winterkorn says:
August 5, 2010 at 9:13 am
4. We know that bacteria “eat” oil, presumably creating CO2. Is this process temperature sensitive? Is it limited to oil seeps or does it occur in deep oil collections such as shales and sands?
____________________________________________
That one I can answer. They have found bacteria chomping away on coal deep in the earth.
Go to the bottom of this article for references on subterranean bacteria such as:
A new species of bacteria found in deep, hot fossil fuels:
“Isolation and characterization of Thermococcus sibiricus…
The article is “creationist” but it is good for a one stop source of references.

Theo Goodwin says:
August 5, 2010 at 11:43 am
Maybe the later parts will add more to this account but, as it stands, it is an application of brute force, the use of a sledge hammer to kill a flee.
After near four years of discussions on this very topic, even with otherwise very wise (wo)men, I have used the sledge hammer as an alternative…
The argument is very simple. The present mass of CO2 is greater than preindustrial times, the present mass is less than what was added by mankind and, therefore, the oceans took on some of man’s excess but not all.
Yes that is what the sledge hammer procedure tries to hammer in some minds, but even that seems not to help with several respondents here…
See the sledge hammer. Is there anything in this argument that can be associated with the subtlety of science? Are there any physical hypotheses of note? Has our scientific understanding of the behavior of CO2 in Earth’s many environments been increased. No.
That may be somewhat compensated by the following parts, but I suppose that the law of conservation of mass must be followed, and that is a real sledge hammer item…
Is there a simple logical objection to this sledge hammer argument? Yes. As the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere increases, the rate at which the oceans absorb CO2 increases much faster.
I don’t see any reason that the oceans should absorb CO2 faster than the increase of CO2 in the atmosphere. That isn’t seen in the figures either: the increase in emissions and the absorption rate (oceans + vegetation) follow each other with a near constant ratio.
So, the argument raises more questions than it answers. Does the author present reasonably confirmed hypotheses about varying rates of absorption of CO2 by the oceans? Well, of course not. He could not make this sledge hammer argument if he did. Do we have such well-confirmed hypotheses? No.
Please look at my previous comments: the variability in absorption rate is directly related to ocean temperatures, that is where friend and foe agree with each other. Where some disagree (but all warmista’s and many sceptics agree) is the cause of the trend itself.
In sum, this argument exhibits all the defining characteristics of Warmista argument.
No comment, as that lacks any substance.

Paul Birch says:
August 5, 2010 at 12:06 pm
The mass balance claim is a non sequitur. We know that the total fluxes are far higher than the anthropogenic flux and we know that many of the other components are variable, but we do not know how variable. We simply do not know how much CO2 there would have been in the atmosphere at this time in the absence of anthropogenic emission.
Fluxes, no matter how large, add anything to the atmosphere, as long as these are in balance. Only the unbalance adds or removes mass to/from a reservoir. Human emissions are one-way additions. These add to the reservoir(s).
Over the last 800,000 years, there was a clear relation between temperature and CO2 levels in the atmosphere, where CO2 levels followed temperature with a lag. That relation was 8 ppmv for each degree C increase or decrease. Based on the current temperature, the responding CO2 level would be around 300 ppmv. We measure 390 ppmv today and humans have added about double that amount in the past 150 years. So, to me it is clear that humans are the cause.

Alexander Feht says:
August 5, 2010 at 12:38 pm
I don’t see how “natural sink” data could be used in good faith when there is no certain understanding of how much CO2 is really being absorbed by the biosphere (and, what is most important, how much CO2 will be absorbed by the biosphere if the atmospheric content of CO2 will keep rising).
I didn’t use any measured natural sink data, the sink rate is simply the difference between two known items: the emissions inventory at one side and the measured increase in the atmosphere at the other side. The difference between the two is the net natural sink rate or net natural emission rate (if the increase in the atmosphere was larger than the emissions).

JaneHM says:
August 5, 2010 at 12:41 pm
Ferdinand
The logic of your oft-repeated statement (below) is wrong if the system involves feedback mechanisms. If a system involves feedback mechanisms, it does NOT always follow that removing one source (or sink) would cause the net to decrease (or increase) by the flux associated with the removed source (or sink).
In this case, there is a solid argument that the removal of the one component that gives one-way addition makes a difference: there was a temperature-CO2 equilibrium, where we are now far above in CO2 level.

DN says:
August 5, 2010 at 1:23 pm
If increases in atmospheric CO2 concentration were principally due to anthropogenic carbon emissions, then changes in CO2 concentration would correlate closely with changes in aggregate WFC. It does not.
There is an extreme good correlation between accumulated emissions and the increase of CO2 in the atmosphere, but that is for next part…

Frank Lansner says:
August 5, 2010 at 1:37 pm
Ferdinand, this AR4 illustration (2007) goes a bit further than 2004, and its quite clear that both the Atlantic and Pacific stations used in AR4 shows no rise in pCO2 in surace water for a decade.
Why?
How much can atmospheric CO2 rise when ocean surface pCO2 has stoped rising?
And Ferdinand, even though this pCO2 of the ocean is measured in upper ocean layers, be aware that upper layers should be even easier to affect for human CO2. So still a stagnating ocean pCO2 is a nasty problem to get around if one believe that human CO2 rules the CO2 levels today.
Frank, as said in previous message: the total amount of CO2 in the upper ocean part increased, despite a decline in pCO2. pCO2 is directly related to pure dissolved [CO2*] where CO2* is the sum of CO2 and H2CO3 (together around 1% of total dissolved inorganic carbon ). Bicarbonate (around 83%) and carbonate (around 16%) ions don’t play any role in pCO2. So a change in pCO2, due to changes in pH, biolife, temperature or whatever, doesn’t say anything about the total amount of carbon (as CO2 + HCO3- + CO3– ) in the upper oceans…
Thus I don’t see any reason to expect any sink of CO2 levels in the atmosphere and the upper ocean waters, as long as we go on with the emissions…

Ferdinand Engelbeen writes:
“I don’t see any reason that the oceans should absorb CO2 faster than the increase of CO2 in the atmosphere. That isn’t seen in the figures either: the increase in emissions and the absorption rate (oceans + vegetation) follow each other with a near constant ratio.”
Of course you don’t, because you have not investigated it. I just offered that example as one alternative hypothesis. There are a million others. And we should all be honest and admit that all of them have to be investigated scientifically before we can claim that they can be taken for granted. That’s how science works. It is not engineering.
The general run of climate scientist constantly repeats a narrative created by Karl Marx. The narrative is very simple. There was a Garden of Eden, a Golden Age, “L’Age d’Or,” when Earth was perfect and had a static balance of energy and of CO2 molecules. It lasted until Capitalism hit the world, in about 1850 when Jones’ temperature record starts. Capitalists upset the balance of everything. The wonderful static world became DYNAMIC – HORRORS! We must return the world to its pre-Capitalist, pristine, static condition. Workers of the World Unite!
The history of science shows conclusively that scientific progress always yields an account of the world that reveals an unbelievably more dynamic and complicated world. The idea that Earth’s CO2 budget and its energy budget were somehow pristine and static in the past belongs to the most outrageous science fiction. Of course, Mann and company have been busting their buns to turn the Medieval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age into domesticated pussy cats, as they must if they are to pursue their anti-scientific Marxist dream. And when you think of computer models, think static, static, and static because that is what they are.
We know nothing of Earth’s energy budget and nothing of its CO2 budget. When we learn something about them it will be because we have created sets of hypotheses which actually describe the regularities that exist among the various processes involving CO2 absorption and related phenomena. Those hypotheses will be mind boggling. But somebody is going to have to get up from the computer, go outside, and perform some experiments. I don’t think climate scientists have it in them to do that.
Engelbeen again:
“That isn’t seen in the figures either: the increase in emissions and the absorption rate (oceans + vegetation) follow each other with a near constant ratio.”
When the first “Green Revolution” was launched in the Sixties, it occurred to no one to say that increasing CO2 would help crop yield. Only recently are we getting reports of increase in tree size from CO2. Where are the hypotheses, the real stuff not the guesses, that describe the regularities in this phenomenon? We do not have them yet and we would be fools to think that we could. The work is just beginning.

Ferdinand Engelbeen says: (in response to Malaga View)
August 5, 2010 at 1:24 pm
“Take it in another view: if there were no human emissions in the past years and today, would the CO2 level in the atmosphere have increased, decreased or stayed level? And next year(s)?”
We do not know! The natural cycle is so variable and uncertain, our understanding of all the relevant mechanisms so lacking, and our inability to carry out controlled experiments so limiting, that the realistic error range of any supposedly comprehensive “prediction” would far exceed the magnitude of the observed increase. My best guess is that, because of the warming since the little ice age, CO2 levels would still have increased, but probably not by quite as much. I couldn’t prove it, though. So weird are some of the possible feedbacks I couldn’t even give a rigorous proof that they wouldn’t have increased even more!

Ferdinand Engelbeen says:
August 5, 2010 at 1:24 pm
Take it in another view: if there were no human emissions in the past years and today, would the CO2 level in the atmosphere have increased, decreased or stayed level? And next year(s)?
I do not know – neither does anyone else!
We can all make guesses… but that is all they are: guesses!

Speaking of carbon dioxide, this just popped up on Chicago Tribune’s Breaking News:
Feds drop plans for FutureGen power plant
August 5, 2010 2:54 PM
CHAMPAIGN — The U.S. Department of Energy says it will drop plans to build a futuristic power plant in eastern Illinois but still use the location to store carbon dioxide underground.
The so-called FutureGen project originally was to include an experimental coal-fired power plant near Mattoon. Carbon dioxide from burning the coal would have been stored underground.
Now, the department says an existing plant in western Illinois will be retrofitted and carbon from that plant piped to Mattoon for storage.
FutureGen has been in the planning stages for years. Developers had been working the past 11 months to cut its costs.
— Associated Press
———————–
Doesn’t make a lot of sense to me to pipe carbon dioxide the width of the state!! What a waste of money!!

Ferdinand Engelbeen says:
August 5, 2010 at 2:06 pm
Paul Birch says:
August 5, 2010 at 12:06 pm
The mass balance claim is a non sequitur. We know that the total fluxes are far higher than the anthropogenic flux and we know that many of the other components are variable, but we do not know how variable. We simply do not know how much CO2 there would have been in the atmosphere at this time in the absence of anthropogenic emission.
“Fluxes, no matter how large, add anything to the atmosphere, as long as these are in balance. Only the unbalance adds or removes mass to/from a reservoir. Human emissions are one-way additions. These add to the reservoir(s).”
I presume you meant “don’t add anything…”. But your argument is still a non sequitur, because the natural fluxes are not in balance over any timescale. Sometimes they have been hugely out of balance. We have no independent measurement that could tell us whether or not they have been in balance over the past century, or by how much they have been in imbalance. Secondly, it does not follow that the natural fluxes are the same as they would have been in the absence of man-made emissions; you can’t assume their sum is unchanged; indeed, your own argument requires that it has changed, since the increase does not equate to the anthropogenic flux. Thirdly, human activities are not all “one-way”; agriculture and irrigation are obvious counter-example; less obvious are things like ploughing and engineering works that mobilise sediments, fertilising coastal waters and increasing natural CO2 take-up by plankton. In principle, such effects could even outweigh the direct CO2 emissions (they probably don’t, but it is not absurd to suppose that they might).

The Engineer says:
August 5, 2010 at 2:05 pm
The question still remains though. The rise in CO2 before the start of the 20th century was greater than can be explained by human emissions. The rise in CO2 in the first half the twentieth century can just be explained by human emissions if we assume that nature doesn’t increase absorption, while after 1950 nature suddenly decide to absorb HALF of human emissions.
This would seem to be a rather large conundrum unless you can explain it ?
The difference is probably in vegetation: based on the increase vs. emission rates (and d13C changes), the specialists on that matter suppose that until the last decades, vegetation was a source of CO2, nowadays an increasing sink. The first pages of the essay by Pieter Tans give an oversight:
http://esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/co2conference/pdfs/tans.pdf from page 5 on.
Not sure in how far human influences on land use change are included in the terrestrial emissions.
Further, in the first century, the emissions were quite low, within the natural variability…

Dave Andrews says:
August 5, 2010 at 2:28 pm
Slioch, 5th Aug 10.30am
According to the US EIA, world CO2 emissions from the consumption and flaring of fossile fuels increased from 18.5 billion metric tons in 1980 t0 29.2 billion metric tons in 2006.
An increase of 58%
At the same time CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere increased from 339ppm to 382ppm. An increase of 13%
So where do you find any correlation between the two figures?
You are comparing the year-by-year increase of fossil fuel consumption with the overall increase of CO2 over the same period, not the year-by-year increase of CO2… But more about that in part 2.

Dr A Burns says:
August 5, 2010 at 2:31 pm
“… That is sufficient proof for the human origin of the increase …”
You have got to be kidding ! What rubbish !!
Warming in the past has caused atmospheric CO2 conc. increases … you know, the bit that Mr Gore tried to hide … there is nothing to say it is still not happening.
If you can show that global temperatures have been falling, yet atmospheric CO2 conc has been increasing, you might have an ounce of credibility !
As already said several times: the effect of temperature is about 8 ppmv/C over long term. The LIA was maximum 1 C colder than today (not even taking Mann’s hockeystick in consideration), thus that makes 8 ppmv extra. But we see over 100 ppmv extra.
Further 1945-1975: cooling trend, CO2 rising. 2000-2010 no temperature trend, CO2 strongly rising.

Steven mosher says:
August 5, 2010 at 2:25 pm
I’m waiting for someone to argue that our burning of fossil fuels DIMINISHES
the C02 in the atmosphere.
Challenge accepted!
More fossil fuels burnt means more CO2 and soot in the atmosphere.
This causes the formation of additional, larger water droplets to form in clouds.
More CO2 dissolves into these larger droplets…
And by a cruel twist of fate the quantity of dissolved CO2 is greater than that released by burning fossil fuels.
I can not prove it is right! You can not prove it is wrong! But we both can speculate!
If you are not willing to take up that argument and offer proof, then the balance of the evidence is that we do add C02 to the atmosphere. The current value would be lower BUT FOR our additions.
The problem is about evidence… or more precisely the LACK OF EVIDENCE…
The balance of speculation is NOT PROOF – JUST SPECULATION…
And you talk about science – rolls eyes!

Theo Goodwin says:
August 5, 2010 at 2:39 pm
Ferdinand Engelbeen writes:
“I don’t see any reason that the oceans should absorb CO2 faster than the increase of CO2 in the atmosphere. That isn’t seen in the figures either: the increase in emissions and the absorption rate (oceans + vegetation) follow each other with a near constant ratio.”
Of course you don’t, because you have not investigated it. I just offered that example as one alternative hypothesis. There are a million others. And we should all be honest and admit that all of them have to be investigated scientifically before we can claim that they can be taken for granted. That’s how science works. It is not engineering.
Sometimes it helps to have had a working life as an engineer, to bring some scientists back on their feet… Of course I did look at the emission/absorption rates and they fit magically. But I can’t show all background I have sampled in over four years in one page. Thus that point is for the next part.
Don’t underestimate what science already has investigated about the CO2 cycle, as well in the atmosphere as in the oceans…

The logic seemed solid at first – We’ve added more CO2 to the atmosphere than is there now, so nature must have absorbed CO2 rather than added CO2. But there is a simple counter proof to demonstrate that that logic does not always hold. Water vapor. By burning fossil fuels we have released a great deal of water vapor into the atmosphere, but the concentration has risen only slightly if at all. That means nature is absorbing rather than adding to the water vapor in the atmosphere. Yet if we stopped adding water vapor, nature would just stop absorbing it and the levels would stay about the same. If somehow we managed to instantly remove all the water vapor from the atmosphere, nature would start rapidly adding water vapor to the atmosphere instead of removing it as it is doing now. It may well be that much of the water vapor in the atmosphere was put there by us, but that doesn’t mean the level would be any different if we hadn’t put it there. Of course my counter example doesn’t prove that we didn’t increase the CO2 levels.

So humans have added carbon….and?
Are we to assume then that warming is caused by humans? Or would that just be conflation?
Adding co2 to earths atmosphere does not warm the earth. There are other factors enacted in earths climate system from increased co2 that results in cooling the earth.

Paul Birch says:
August 5, 2010 at 3:08 pm
I presume you meant “don’t add anything…”. But your argument is still a non sequitur, because the natural fluxes are not in balance over any timescale. Sometimes they have been hugely out of balance. We have no independent measurement that could tell us whether or not they have been in balance over the past century, or by how much they have been in imbalance. Secondly, it does not follow that the natural fluxes are the same as they would have been in the absence of man-made emissions; you can’t assume their sum is unchanged; indeed, your own argument requires that it has changed, since the increase does not equate to the anthropogenic flux. Thirdly, human activities are not all “one-way”; agriculture and irrigation are obvious counter-example; less obvious are things like ploughing and engineering works that mobilise sediments, fertilising coastal waters and increasing natural CO2 take-up by plankton. In principle, such effects could even outweigh the direct CO2 emissions (they probably don’t, but it is not absurd to suppose that they might).
The accurate measurements we have in the past 50+ years show that the unbalance in natural fluxes is not more than +/- 2 GtC, which causes the year-by-year variability. Over the past 150 years we have two ice cores (Law Dome) with 8 years resolution. Any one year peak of 40 GtC or a sustained change of 4 GtC over a period of 10 years would have been noticed above the accuracy of the cores. Thus it seems very unlikely that there were very large unbalances in recent times. Of course the further back, the more coarse the resolution is.
As far as we know, there was a balance between temperature and CO2 levels: besides the possible year-by-year unbalances, there is a good correlation between the two even over thousands of years. That balance now is disturbed by the human emissions.
Agreed that humans also can help to sequester some CO2, but until now the emissions still by far overwhelm the sequestering…

Robinson says:
August 5, 2010 at 8:26 am
To be honest this discussion is really not very interesting. Does anyone still dispute the fact that mankind has increased the amount of Co2 in the atmosphere
I was thinking the same thing.
I think the reader is supposed to make the mental leap that this human caused increase in co2 proves humans are causing global warming, and also the predicted disasters from global warming are on the way from it. But all of us have gone around in that circle argument so many times that those who don’t think mankind is bringing disasters to earth from their car exhaust expect proof, a deeper explanation, that co2 actually does warm the earth and that these disasters are inevitable. Otherwise we are just running over the same old tedious ground.
But I do thank Anthony for this post since this comment thread is providing plenty of good reasoning why people should question every aspect of ‘global warming’. The more the ‘science’ of manmade global warming is brought out into the light the more people will see how poor the case is.

tallbloke says:
August 5, 2010 at 3:18 pm
Ferdinand,
The surface ocean flux of 1,020GT is the really interesting figure. The amount added by humans is a small percentage of that. Less than 1%
If there is a downward trend in the ocean surface flux of less than 1/2% of absorption annually, we are off the hook.
Be careful: the 1,020 GtC is what is in the reservoir, that is not the flux! The exchange between the ocean surface and the atmosphere is about 90 GtC (rough estimate), that is the flux, but even that is not of interest, as much of it returns in another season (or another millennium, via the deep oceans). Only the difference between the two fluxes in and out is of interest for the mass balance: about 2 GtC of CO2 mass is ultimately net absorbed by the oceans from the 8 GtC addition by humans…

Frank Lansner says:
August 5, 2010 at 1:40 pm
Wops, heres the link:
http://hidethedecline.eu/media/co2%20concentretions%20in%20oceans/b4.jpg
I made the illustration from AR4 illustrations as you can see. So who can “deny” that data are valid ? 😉
________________________________________
Frank does the pCO2 in the oceans correlate to the ocean oscillations? Perhaps with a bit of lag? It does look like it.
Atlantic (AMO)
http://digitaldiatribes.files.wordpress.com/2009/09/amoraw200908.png
Pacific (PDO)
http://icecap.us/images/uploads/PDO_Easterbrook.JPG

Frank Lansner says:
August 5, 2010 at 4:00 pm
Hi Ferdinand!
You say that pH controls pCO2 and therefore a decade of stagnation in CO2 is no problem for the idea that increasing human CO2 outlet controls CO2 levels?
But pH levels have stagnated too:
http://hidethedecline.eu/media/pH%20in%20oceans/e1.jpg
http://hidethedecline.eu/media/pH%20in%20oceans/d9.jpg
Dear Frank, I see that you still don’t get it: pCO2 is not the important factor for the total amount of carbon in the oceans. pCO2 is only related to free CO2 in solution, not to the bicarbonate and carbonate ions, which give the bulk (99%) of all CO2 in the oceans.
As the pH decrease seems to level off, that may be the reason that pCO2 and thus the free CO2 in the oceans levels off too. But that doesn’t influence the total amount of carbon in the oceans, which still is going up in parallel with CO2 in the atmosphere.
Not the reverse. If the CO2 levels of the oceans were the cause of the increase in the atmosphere, then the total carbon levels in the oceans would drop, not increase.
The same problem for more biolife in the oceans: that should reduce total carbon levels, but there still is an increase.
——————-
Wow, this is quite intense… Need some sleep now (it’s 2 AM here…).

Have a watch going on “global warming” & have noticed the climate alarmists’ new catch phrase is “undeniable” & no longer “settled science.”

Ferdinand Engelbeen says:
August 5, 2010 at 4:39 pm
You don’t need to know all detailed transactions of your bussiness during the day to know what your loss or profit was at the end of the day: just count what is in your cash register…

Yeah, that’s cute but misses the point when you don’t how much you have in the bank.
How much CO2 is in the deep ocean, Ferdinand?
Are you aware of the recent discovery of liquid CO2 coming of oceanic ridges and it’s so deep and cold it stays liquid for God only knows how long?
Do YOU know how long? Of course you don’t. Stop bluffing. This isn’t settled science.

John Hounslow says:
August 5, 2010 at 2:23 pm
I invite you to visit http://www.daviesand.com/Choices/Precautionary_Planning/New_Data/
and examine the CO2 growth deduced from the Vostok Ice Cores starting around 10,000 years ago, when there were few “men” to exert a man-made effect. Compare with the comparable phase of previous climate cycles. Something has changed in the current cycle. Why?
_____________________________________________________–
At that site the Vostok Ice Core data shows the CO2 dips below 200ppm almost to 180 ppm for long periods.
There is this statement:
“As CO2 is a critical component of growth, plants in environments with inadequate CO2 levels – below 200 ppm – will cease to grow or produce.” This is based on real life measurements by those dealing with greenhouses for a living.
http://www.planetnatural.com/site/xdpy/kb/implementing-co2.html
Another paper states under 200 pm CO2 trees starve, but has since disappeared . It was http://biblioteca.universia.net/ficha.do?id=912067
This entire article is refuted here: http://www.co2web.info/
This particular pdf looking at the dogma and politics behind the 70 years of CO2 measurement as well as the science. It is a very interesting read. http://www.co2web.info/ESEF3VO2.pdf
Unfortunately Dr. Segalstad of Resource- and Environmental Geology,
Geological Museum, University of Oslo is swamped and can not write a rebuttal to this article.

Doing a mass balance is not rocket science. It is done all the time in chemical processes. But as a matter of principle I dont trust the data for this one. May be Mr. Engelbeen should ask Steve McIntyre for an audit.

I think one thing has been clearly demonstrated by some physicists who Anthony evidently cherry-picked because they happen to support his beliefs — this is far from settled science as a greater number of equally qualified individuals have surfaced to call the OPs no more than opinion trying to masquerade itself as settled science.
Very little of the this “science” is settled. It’s mostly all correlations offered up as causation few of which are unbiguously supported by observation and experiment and most of which are supported only by theoretical models of reality. The QM descriptions are all over the board. Ask 10 physicists about deep questions in QM and you get different answers depending on which QM interpretation the responder has decided is the one that deserves his faith.
Settled science my ass. It’s bandwagon science.

Anthony appears to be doing what I’ve seen a whole bunch of young earth creationists do. They accept some fundamental but unproven and unprovable axioms of the random mutation plus natural selection crowd, namely the age of the earth, and say “well I’m willing to accept an old earth but God still designed it all”. This gives imparts a patina of at least accepting some of the science as being settled so the YEC isn’t labeled a total hopeless mystic crank.
I suspect if Anthony questioned the more fundamental axioms of the CAGW crowd he fears it would put him squarely in the crank category so, purely for appearance’ sake he doesn’t question certain beliefs masquerading as settled science. Beliefs like the like the so-called greenhouse effect being marginally functional and beliefs like CO2 rise being due to anthropogenic sources. These things are not settled science and it’s dishonest to pretend they are.

Ferdinand Engelbeen says:
August 5, 2010 at 12:23 pm

Werner Weber says:
August 5, 2010 at 10:26 am
The linear increase of CO2 is your problem, or what is equilibrium, part II.
That is for part 2, but I have no problems with a linear increase of CO2 (in fact it is slightly exponential, together with the emissions, see: http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/temp_emiss_increase.jpg )

A quick eyeball tells me that the increase in CO2 from that graph seems to relate much more closely to the increase in temperatures than anthropogenic emissions. That would support the argument that the increase is mainly dues to temperature rises.
Neither follow the amount of anthropogenic emissions well.
That’s just the way it looks….

Slioch says:
August 5, 2010 at 10:30 am
Of course, the interesting question is for how much longer the oceans are going to behave as a net sink for CO2.
Slioch, isnt the answer provided by Henry’s Law? (which simplistically put defines how the equilibrium between whats in the atmosphere and whats in the oceans is reached)
cheers
J

As a result of an article by Prof. Lance Endersbee, ‘Oceans are the main regulators of carbon dioxide,’ I have entertained the notion that the ocean might act as a huge temperature-sensitive reservoir of dissolved CO2. I find, however, that I cannot accept the high temperature sensitivity factors (over 100 ppm/deg C) required for this to be effective.
Thus, while I do think that CO2 levels should track major climate shifts and biota changes, I have no real reason to doubt the primary attribution of the recent CO2 rise to anthropogenic activity.

The carbon ratios demonstrate nothing other than that there are some human emissions from fossil fuels taking place. That such is occurring is obvious. It does not, however, follow that the changing carbon rations demonstrate that rising CO2 levels are due to fossil fuel combustion.
Consider for a moment, that if half of emissions are reabsorbed by the biosphere, if there were no emissions and sink was static, then CO2 would be declining year over year at about the rate it is now increasing. This suggests by the same logic of the IPCC that the mean surface temperature would fall by several degrees C in the next hundred years.
Of course no one believes that to be so because they believe that the sink is not static. If emissions slow down, the sink slows down. If you believe that, then the equilibrium concentration of CO2 is determined at least in part endogenously to the emissions themselves.
So, some but not all of the increasing CO2 concentration is due to man-made emissions.

RE: Dave Springer says: (August 5, 2010 at 5:55 pm) “I suspect if Anthony questioned the more fundamental axioms of the CAGW crowd he fears it would put him squarely in the crank category so, purely for appearance’ sake he doesn’t question certain beliefs masquerading as settled science.”
I believe there may be a point in letting the ‘other guy’ know that you are at least willing to hear him out. Perhaps he will respond in kind.

Another thought if the 144 GT of AC were 100% in the air, which is impossible, it would still only create 65 ppm Ferdinand your numbers do not even jive with the IPCC.
Anthony I know we have to give equal representation to all views and I support this concept but please let us have some presentations which can withstand even a moderate analysis.

BillD says:
August 5, 2010 at 8:44 am
Anyone who does not understand that the burning of fossil fuels is the main cause of the regular increase in CO2 that is has been documented over the last 50+ years is clearly unable to understand basic science. It’s also true that the two views posted here are not opposites and are not mutually exclusive. Also, to the best of my understanding, the first one on the greeen house effect does not really contradict the role of GHG in climate.
You neglect to consider the fairly linear rise in CO2 which was happening before the advent of mineral crude.
Additionally, what with China, India, et al., now contributing a far higher amount to that gas, the rate of rise is still linear.
Further, even with that continued rise, the global temperature isn’t rising, and indeed if not exactly static, is falling slightly.
Finally, in your expressed concern over the use of mineral crude, you neglect to consider one thing: If we humans don’t use it, nature will eventually suffocate us with it as it seeps to the surface, and there it will burn by happenstance.
So then, if it’s okay for nature to eventually sully the surface of the planet with that stuff, then so too should it be for humanity to dispose of it in the most ecologically beneficial and efficient way: By burning it.
More CO2 = more plants = more O2. What’s your beef with that?

“The Engineer has a very valid point. If fossil fuel consumption is the culprit, the percent CO2 increase should be increasing, not remain steady. ”
I marked that too. The reply from the author was a promise of a reasoned explanation. I am looking forward to the explanation.

So, you are saying the partial pressure of CO2 has no effect on the balance?? That is, if we put more CO2 into the atmosphere it won’t slow the release of CO2 from the oceans for a particular temperature??
Come on guys, TRY to get the science right won’t you??

RE:Spector: (August 5, 2010 at 10:30 pm)
It looks like I misposted this one – It was intended for “CO2 Heats the atmosphere…”

James Sexton says:
August 5, 2010 at 2:39 pm
Ferdinand Engelbeen says:
August 5, 2010 at 1:35 pm
James Sexton says:
August 5, 2010 at 11:38 am
I see you answered part of my questions with a response to another person. Thanks, but if… [snipped]… is true then how did we get to 2000 ppmv CO2 100 million years ago?
“Different times: different arrangement of the continents, different temperature/humidity, less calcite deposits,… The 8 ppmv/C only is for the last near million years, more ice age than interglacial, everything before that can’t be compared with current times…”
Ok, you didn’t respond to my last query and I’m a bit more inebriated, so I hope you’ll forgive me for what some may perceive as abrasion. My abrupt manner should not be conceived as a personal attack.
You said, ” different arrangement of the continents, different temperature/humidity, less calcite deposits,…”
Humidity? Did we have more or less H2O then than we do now? Really? I’d like an answer to that.
In what manner does the arrangement of the continents have to do with any thing relating to our discussion? Do you really think that passes as an honest answer? Personally, I can’t conceive of a better insult to a person such as myself.
Temperature was different then? No SH?T!!!!!! Again, I can’t conceive a better insult. Aren’t temperatures the [self snip] topic of our conversation!!??!!! Instead of being dismissive, why don’t you try to explain, for all the world to see, how you believe calcite deposits are relevant.
Anthony, sorry, but where in the hell did you get this guy? I thought he was here for a serious discussion. If I’m wrong, please point it out to me, but I loathe condescending SOBs that try to project some sort of graciousness by talking to us “little people”.

Ferdinand Engelbeen………. did you really imply the arrangements of the continents were pertinent to the atmospheric CO2 of earth? How so?
Did you really imply the global humidity was different in relation to atmospheric CO2? How so?
When you stated “different times”, does that mean atmospheric CO2 and the global temperature changes with time?
I’d love to hear about calcite deposits and then laws of conservation of mass.
Best wishes,
James Sexton

In my above post the equilibrium symbol that I tried to use ( ) didn’t print, so I’ll repeat the first equation using => :
CO2 + CO3– + H2O => 2HCO3-

Mindbuilder says:
August 5, 2010 at 4:14 pm
The logic seemed solid at first – We’ve added more CO2 to the atmosphere than is there now, so nature must have absorbed CO2 rather than added CO2. But there is a simple counter proof to demonstrate that that logic does not always hold. Water vapor. By burning fossil fuels we have released a great deal of water vapor into the atmosphere, but the concentration has risen only slightly if at all. That means nature is absorbing rather than adding to the water vapor in the atmosphere. Yet if we stopped adding water vapor, nature would just stop absorbing it and the levels would stay about the same.
The logic is the same, but the time frames involved are quite different: water vapor from combustion (including cooling towers…) indeed adds to the total amount of water. But the residence time of water vapor is only a few days, that of CO2 several years. If we stop all burning of fossil fuels, the extra water vapor above the temperature dependent natural equilibrium will be gone in a few days, the removal of CO2 (nowadays about 30%) above the temperature dependent equilibrium will take a lot of years…

Dave Springer says:
August 5, 2010 at 1:21 pm
The bottom line for me however is the indisputable record contained in the geologic column. A warmer earth with an atmosphere richer in CO2 is a greener earth. Compared to biosphere hay days like the Eocene optimum the present interglacial period looks close to death from exposure to the cold.
I mean to say if you prefer rocks and ice to plants and animals then be all means advocate reducing atmospheric CO2 and whatever else you can to cool the surface down. However, if you prefer a great abundance of plants and animals to rocks and ice then when it comes to fossil fuels —- Burn baby, burn!
___________________________Reply;
The AGW narrative is designed help facilitate a plan of world government of the elite over the working surfs, to keep the lower classes from becoming free on their own, they need to lower the CO2 content, remove the private ownership of land and keep people enslaved into the international mega corporations.
If the world were to warm up and have higher levels of CO2 (plant food) it would be easy for people to be free range and live with out the need of government programs funded by taxes that are wasted by the elite on keeping themselves in power.
“They” have already killed the housing market by pumping up the values then yanking the credit carpet out from under the first time buyers. Bailed out their banks, and shuffled the debt off onto taxpayers. The whole scare tactic they are still running with is just to keep the sheeple from jumping off of the grid, before they can bleed them dry, while starving the mass of the third world population to death to have better control, down the road a few more generations when the ice age comes back.
The more time we each spend in fighting this crime against humanity the less we are able to get free ourselves, due to the additional drain on our usable time, so it is to their benefit that this senseless arguing continue as a distraction as long as possible.
So their useless idiots consume themselves fighting reason, and there are even less of them as well in the end.

Milwaukee Bob says:
August 5, 2010 at 7:16 pm
Ferdinand Engelbeen said at 4:39 pm
Milwaukee Bob ….
All these flows are of not the slightest interest….
I am not a physicist or a chemist and I do not play either on TV so you can probably run circles around me spouting scientific formulas, but trust when I say, after 50+ years of owning and running business of all kinds successfully, if all you are doing at the end of the day is counting your cash AND ignoring ALL (but one of) the “flows” that put it there your an – – – – well, I don’t want this to be sniped so let’s just leave it at – you’re going to fall flat on your corporate butt! Very much like what you have done – – – ah, let’s just leave it at- “flows” are obviously not your strong suit.
I am sure that it is good bussiness to know all details of all transactions during the day, but if you are only interested in knowing if you made a profit or a loss at the end of the day, you don’t need to know all these details. Just looking into your cash register would do the job. That is the (als always bad) analogy with the CO2 levels in the atmosphere…
Another anology with bank accounts: you bring your daily profit to a local bank every day. At the end of the year, the bank publishes their bussiness record, which shows that they have a turnover of many millions per year. But their profit is less than what you have personally saved over the year. Without any knowledge of what others have loaned or saved during that year, wouldn’t you look for another bank to save your money?

Whats the point of all this? Of course C02 levels are rising. The question is are they the driver for climatic change and would the climatic change occur without them. Thats the big question we need answering.
As a follow up to that question, I watched Sky news (UK) earlier and they had a piece about the warming in greenland. They said warming was twice as fast there as anywhere else in the world.
They then went on to explain how farmers there are expanding their pasture and sheep flocks, and how the last time this was possible was when the vikings were there.
When they cut back to the studio, the anchor man even quipped how it really did look like a green land.
Why can’t people join the dots? If pasture farming was done by the vikings and the land was called Greenland for obviously non-ironic reasons, then just maybe….it is not unprecendented!

Gail Combs says:
August 5, 2010 at 7:32 pm
Ross Jackson says:
August 5, 2010 at 3:03 pm
My training, Physical Chemistry. I have also done plenty of background reading on many of the issues surrounding CO2. The more I learn, the more I realise how little we know! These comments are just to encourage you all to read more widely…..
____________________________________
Oh good another Chemist!
I have a question for you. Mauna Loa Observatory in the 50′s and 60′s took measurements with “a new infra-red (IR) absorbing instrumental method” In the seventies I tried, at two separate corporations, to use a infra-red (IR) Spectrophotometer for analytical work and gave up in frustration because I could not get reproducible results even when using an added internal calibration standard.
I don’t know for what purpose you needed IR spectroscopy, but for CO2, it is quite ideal for continuous measurements, with a minimum of maintenance, if working with a water trap and internal calibration. Checks done with alternative methods (cryogenic, GC and mass spectrometers) show essentially the same results.
From: http://www.co2web.info/ESEF3VO2.pdf
”At the Mauna Loa Observatory the measurements were taken with a new infra-red (IR) absorbing instrumental method, never validated versus the accurate wet chemical techniques.
This is one of the objections I have against what Segalstad wrote (there are more, had some discussion with him at a conference in Brussels with MEP Helmer, that will be for one of the last parts…): Keeling made a very accurate manometric instrument (1:40,000) to measure CO2 in the atmosphere and calibrated all NDIR instruments and all calibration gases against that instrument. That instrument was still in use until recently.
Most of the wet chemical methods of that time had an accuracy of 3% of the range or +/- 10 ppmv. Not even accurate enough to measure the seasonal variations. How can one validate an instrument with an accuracy better than 0.1 ppmv against a wet method with an accuracy of 10 ppmv?