For a another view on the CO2 issue, please see also the guest post by Tom Vonk: CO2 heats the atmosphere…a counter view -Anthony
Guest Post by Ferdinand Engelbeen
There have been hundreds of reactions to the previous post by Willis Eschenbach as he is convinced that humans are the cause of the past 150 years increase of CO2 in the atmosphere. For the (C)AGW theory, that is one of the cornerstones. If that fails, the whole theory fails.
This may be the main reason that many skeptics don’t like the idea that humans are the cause of the increase and try to demolish the connection between human emissions and the measured increase in the atmosphere with all means, some more scientific than others.
After several years of discussion on different discussion lists, skeptic and warmist alike, I have made a comprehensive web page where all arguments are put together: 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. That doesn’t mean that the increase has a tremendous effect on the warming of the earth’s surface, as that is a completely different discussion. But of course, if the CO2 increase was mainly/completely natural, the discussion of the “A” in AGW wouldn’t be necessary. But it isn’t natural, as the mass balance proves beyond doubt and all other observations agree with. And all alternative explanations fail one or more observations. In the next parts I will touch other items like the process characteristics, the 13C and 14C/12C ratio, etc. Finally, I will touch some misconceptions about decay time of extra CO2, ice cores, historical CO2 measurements and stomata data.
The mass balance:
As the laws of conservation of mass rules: no carbon can be destroyed or generated. As there are no processes in the atmosphere which convert CO2 to something else, the law also holds for CO2, as long as it stays in the atmosphere. This means that the mass balance should be obeyed for all situations. In this case, the increase/decrease of the CO2 level in the atmosphere after a year (which only shows the end result of all exchanges, including the seasonal exchanges) must be:
dCO2(atm) = CO2(in1 + in2 + in3 +…) + CO2(em) – CO2(out1 + out2 + out3 +…)
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. Some rough indication of the flows involved is here in Figure 1 from NASA:
From all those flows very few are known to any accuracy. What is known with reasonable accuracy are the emissions, which are based on inventories of fossil fuel use by the finance departments (taxes!) of different countries and the very accurate measurements of the increase of CO2 in the atmosphere on a lot of places on earth, including Mauna Loa.
Thus in the above CO2 mass balance, we can replace some of the items with the real amounts (CO2 amounts expressed in gigaton carbon):
4 GtC = CO2(in1 + in2 + in3 +…) + 8 GtC – CO2(out1 + out2 + out3 +…)
Or rearranged:
CO2(in1 + in2 + in3 +…) – CO2(out1 + out2 + out3 +…) = – 4 GtC
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. There is no net natural contribution to the observed increase, nature as a whole acts as a sink for CO2. Of course, a lot of CO2 is exchanged over the seasons, but at the end of the year, that doesn’t add anything to the total CO2 mass in the atmosphere. That only adds to the exchange rate of individual molecules: some 20% per year of all CO2 in the atmosphere is refreshed by the seasonal exchanges between atmosphere and oceans/vegetation. That can be seen in the above scheme: about 210 GtC CO2 is exchanged, but not all of that reaches the bulk of the atmosphere. Best guess (based on 13C/12C and oxygen exchanges) is that some 60 GtC is exchanged back and forth over the seasons between the atmosphere and vegetation and some 90 GtC is exchanged between the atmosphere and the oceans. These flows are countercurrent: warmer oceans release more CO2 in summer, while vegetation has its largest uptake in summer. In the NH, vegetation wins (more land), in the SH there is hardly any seasonal influence (more ocean). There is more influence near ground than at altitude and there is a NH-SH lag (which points to a NH source). See figure 2:
The net result of all these exchanges is some 4 GtC sink rate of the natural flows, which is variable: the variability of the natural sink capacity is mostly related to (ocean) temperature changes, but that has little influence on the trend itself, as most of the variability averages out over the years. Only a more permanent temperature increase/decrease should show a more permanent change in CO2 level. 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.
As one can see in Fig. 3 below, there is a variability of +/- 1 ppmv (2 GtC) around the trend over the past 50 years, while the trend itself is about 55% of the emissions, currently around 2 ppmv (4 GtC) per year (land use changes not included, as these are far more uncertain, in that case the trend is about 45% of the emissions + land use changes).
We could end the whole discussion here, as humans have added about twice the amount of CO2 to the atmosphere as the observed increase over the past 150 years, the difference is absorbed by the oceans and/or vegetation. That is sufficient proof for the human origin of the increase, but there is more that points to the human cause… as will be shown in the following parts.
Please note that the RULES FOR THE DISCUSSION OF ATTRIBUTION OF THE CO2 RISE still apply!
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.
Have you ever used an IR for analytical work and were you succesful? Remeber back then there were no computers attached to analytical instruments.
Mauna Loa Observatory states:
“4. In keeping with the requirement that CO2 in background air should be steady, we apply a general “outlier rejection” step, in which we fit a curve to the preliminary daily means for each day calculated from the hours surviving step 1 and 2, and not including times with upslope winds. All hourly averages that are further than two standard deviations, calculated for every day, away from the fitted curve (“outliers”) are rejected. This step is iterated until no more rejections occur.”
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/about/co2_measurements.html
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. Critique has also been directed to the analytical methodology and sampling error problems (Jaworowski et al., 1992 a; and Segalstad, 1996, for further references), and the fact that the results of the measurements were “edited” (Bacastow et al., 1985); large portions of raw data were rejected, leaving just a small fraction of the raw data subjected to averaging techniques (Pales & Keeling, 1965).
The acknowledgement in the paper by Pales & Keeling (1965) describes how the Mauna Loa CO2 monitoring program started: “The Scripps program to monitor CO2 in the atmosphere and oceans was conceived and initiated by Dr. Roger Revelle who was director of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography while the present work was in progress. Revelle foresaw the geochemical implications of the rise in atmospheric CO2 resulting from fossil fuel combustion, and he sought means to ensure that this ‘large scale geophysical experiment’, as he termed it, would be adequately documented as it occurred. During all stages of the present work Revelle was mentor, consultant, antagonist. He shared with us his broad knowledge of earth science and appreciation for the oceans and atmosphere as they really exist, and he inspired us to keep in sight the objectives which he had originally persuaded us to accept.” Is this the description of true, unbiased research?
The annual mean CO2 level as reported from Mauna Loa for 1959….“
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.
The Engineer writes:
“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.”
Cool. Tell us more. How is chalk the biggest sink and how does it do the job?
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.
With reference to IPCC 4AR page 515 fig 7.3 this is a very similar diagram to the NASA diagram shown in the article with the exception that the IPCC diagram breaks the carbon down into natural and anthropogenic ( black and red numbers) I am not sure where Ferdinand learned his mass balance calculation methodology from but there are some glaring mistakes in his assumptions and methods. Since the carbon passes between the ocean, land and air in varying fluxes depending on a number of conditions, ocean temperature being one, a mass balance can only be performed considering all three sinks as one total unit.
Back to fig 7.3, IPCC show the content of the ocean surface as 900 GT natural 18 GT anthropogenic but when this same water evaporates the vapour contains 70.5 GT natural and 20 GT anthropogenic, now the normal rules of mass balance would dictate that the ratio in the vapour must be the same as the ratio in the liquid which produced the vapour. Same for the air land exchange, there is a ratio of 597 natural to 165 anthropogenic in the air but the vegetation absorbs 120 natural to 2.6 anthropogenic please explain how this can happen.
If 20% of all atmospheric carbon is recycled annually then 20% of the anthropogenic carbon must be recycled and emissions to the air must be in the ratio of the contents of the land and water. I have posted this before so the recycle is a little higher but the principle of true mass balance is the same.
The following calculation shows the effect of human produced CO2 on our atmosphere.
There is approximately 860 GT of carbon in the atmosphere which is approximately 2.2 GT per ppm. A very conservative estimate of the total carbon cycled in and out of the atmosphere is 215 GT per year which is 25% of the carbon in the atmosphere, personally my calculations are closer to 400 GT per year. Break that down into weeks and you get 0.48 % per week of all the carbon in the atmosphere.
Now construct a simple Excel program which starts with 100 GT i.e.45.5ppm of anthropogenic carbon, deduct 0.48 % and on the next line you have the balance remaining after 1 week of the original amount i.e. 99.52 GT just repeat that calculation ( copy and paste ) and you have 78.24 GT of your original carbon left after 52 weeks.
This means 21.76 GT of the original anthropogenic carbon has been removed from the atmosphere but our output is only 9 GT per year so that does not balance.
To achieve a balance one must reduce the anthropogenic carbon to 18.8 ppm i.e. 41.36 GT. Now 21.76% of 41.36 is 9 GT per year thus the CO2 levels are not increasing because of human emissions they remain in equilibrium. Now if you assume a 400 GT carbon cycle per year the human contribution really becomes insignificant.
If you think my numbers are way out go to page 515 of IPCC AR4 fig 7.3 and check them out.
Pamela Gray says:
August 5, 2010 at 9:14 am
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 concur Pamela. Whether viewed in terms of percent OR in terms of PPM per year the atmospheric increase should be reflective of increase in anthropogenic CO2 emissions. That reflection being somewhat proportionate, which however, it is not.
There has been a long term trend of annual increase in atmospheric CO2. However, it is not consistent with emission levels. This graph is of the annual additions of CO2 to the atmosphere.
http://leekington.com/climatebuzz/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/corrected08co2.jpg
The graph covers Mauna Loa data from 1959 thru 2008. During that time span anthropogenic CO2 emissions have increased (some reports) by six fold. In 1959 about 1 ppm CO2 was added to the atmosphere. Rather than 6 ppm being added, due to man emitting 6x the amount of CO2, in 2008 there was only about 1.5 ppm of increase in CO2.
Going back to fig 7.3 in IPCC 4AR they do state that an all time total of 244 GT of anthropogenic carbon has been released but 100 GT has been sequestered in the ocean floor as carbonates, someone mentioned chalk well here it is. That leaves 144 GT between the ocean land and air but the air has 165 GT of carbon according to the IPCC well I guess they can create it out of nothing and they probably still believe in alchemy as long as it suits their political purpose.
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.
Oil (fossel fuels) is natural, man is natural. When man digs oil out of the earth and uses it to his benefit, its natural. If ants were doing the same thing, there would be a documentary on the miracles of nature.
I notice in the picture that nature provided oil is left out, as if evil man is creating evil oil all by himself.
The oil is a natural part of our earth, whether it is burnt or spilled. I don’t understand how man’s beneficial use of the oil changes much of anything other than a comfortable and convenient rearrangement of what is already here. Isn’t that what all creatures do?
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?
Whilst your article makes great sense, I see one potential flaw – the assumption that co2 levels at Vostok (a very cold place) represent global levels, and that one can draw a global response from it. The Vostok core shows only local temperature and co2 levels (and they are averaged over long periods of time). Co2 levels (and changes in the level) could be smaller in magnitude there than globally (due to the colder temps and more stable southern ocean temp) and would miss smaller scale changes. The 8ppm contribution from Vostok could actually be more globally, though this is all hypothetical and impossible to prove, it is worth noting there are still some uncertainties – particuarly when relying on only antarctic ice cores.
“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.
I have often debated with Ferdinand the meaning of measuring CO2 in high places over volcanoes and remote regions where there is no vegetation etc. I see also that Anthony tends to ignore Beck’s compilations some of which were made by the best scientists of the time.
For me there is no reason to discard chemical methods, particularly as validation to complicated radiation measuring devices which go to a number of convolutions ( meaning integrations with constants and parameters of choice) before numbers come out.
Let me put it another way: Accepting that Maona Loa and 14 or 50 or so other measurements represent world CO2 , is like using 14 or 50 measurements to get the global temperature, and those preferably at top of mountains.
Most of them are either with Keeling directly involved in the papers or Keelings’s students.
It also puts a lot of faith in “well mixed” which AIRS and now the Japanese data show that well mixed is a hypothesis.
Thus I think we have to wait a few years for the satellite measurements, and for the scientific climate to change from the AGW mantra that pushes everything into a mold.
So, even if I do not dispute that humans are adding CO2 in the atmosphere, I dispute that the data are unbiased, and the simplistic interpretations of summations and subtractions. This system is nonlinear too.
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??
I note in this discussion a reference to returning to a ‘ground state’ analogous to what an excited electron in an atom does. At the atomic level, the emission spectrum just corresponds to an allowed set of energy states. If this were the case with molecular vibration, I would think we would only see simple sharp spectral lines
However, when I look at the HITRAN data available online I see a broad array of many sharp spikes. This gives me the impression that molecular vibrations may be in a transition region between the quantum and the continuous worlds. I suspect that each band represents a vibration mode and perhaps each narrow spike represents one of the allowed modal vibration energy states. Imagine a bell that changes tone in steps as the vibration dies out.
As these molecules are continuously striking one another, each molecule should always be quivering in some agitated state. Perhaps any given photon emission or absorption just corresponds to a single quantum change in an allowed set of multi-level modal vibration energy states — food for thought.
RE:Spector: (August 5, 2010 at 10:30 pm)
It looks like I misposted this one – It was intended for “CO2 Heats the atmosphere…”
Jim Reedy
said, “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?
No, I don’t think so – or only marginally. CO2 is absorbed into the oceans not only by simply solution (which is where Henry’s Law would apply) but mainly by:
1. reaction with carbonate ion to form bicarbonate ion:
CO2 + CO3– + H2O 2HCO3-
The carbonate ions largely derive from weathering of terrestrial rocks, eg.
Mg2SiO4 + 2CO2 => SiO2 + 2Mg++ + 2CO3–
2. By being absorbed via photosynthesis:
6CO2 + 6H2O => C6H12O6 etc.
So the recently reported decline in phytoplankton is a concern for CO2 absorption, as well as other things related to the food chain and biodiversity.
So it is a lot more complicated than if the oceans were pure water and devoid of life. But, of course, both Henry’s Law and paleoclimatic evidence point in the same qualitative direction: the warmer the oceans the less CO2 they can hold.
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,
Do you have a copy of NASA’a Fig 1 above with error bounds? I’m particularly interested in the plus/minus figures for the carbon export into the deep ocean from the surface ocean. I think I’ve got them on my old computer but it’s a bit flakey, not least because I keep it in the shed.
TIA.
I cannot follow the logic of your argument, no doubt because I have not looked closely enough. My first reading is that you know perfectly (plus or minus) one part of the input to a pipeline but do not know the rest of the input with accuracy. You do not know what control valves are in the pipeline and whether other hands are on those valves. You do not know if there is a processing plant into which the gas flows to be altered into other forms (or, if you know about the plant, you don’t know details of its processes to any accuracy, nor even if it is changing other inputs into the output you are studying) and you don’t know within large error bounds what the outputs are at the other end of the pipeline. And yet you can assign the output change of one product accurately (plus or minus) because you know the increase of the input of that product. Hmmm.
I’m obviously missing something here — logic was never my strongpoint — but then I never followed the teleconnections argument either (I laughed when I first read that one, asuming it was a joke). I will think about it.
JF
Hint: look at the possible changes in the uptake, not just changes in the input.
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
DocMartyn says:
August 5, 2010 at 5:04 pm
quote
Finally, one has to look at Kellings isotope ratio’s very carefully. He is a top rate investigator and the work he has done on 12C/13C/14C is very interesting; more interesting is the changes he observes in Ar/N ratios. His data suggest that there has been a big change in gas exchange between the atmosphere and the oceans.
unquote
Have you any links to his work? My particular interest is this topic.
JF
Tony, the level of “discussion” goes down. You need better contributors.
To the post of Ferdinand Engelbeen>
Your putting of brackets in the mass balance Eq. is purely political. Mathematics tells us, addition is commutative and it is associative. Thus, your Eq. does not prove anything. Yet, it tells us that the “mankind CO2-emissions” is smaller than the uncertainties in the “natural” sources and sinks of CO2. Thus, the direct mankind CO2-emissions cannot be blamed for CO2 increase. This political preconceived satement diverts us from the search for the real cause of the observed CO2 rise.
To the post by Tom Vonk. May be, the guy studied physics a bit, but no more than that.
Ferdinand Engelbeen says:
August 5, 2010 at 2:18 pm
“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.”
Your “solid argument” rests on the claim that there was a long term temperature-CO2 equilibrium, and that without anthorpogenic inputs, this quasi-equilibrium would still exist. But, the only evidence you have for this is the ice core data, which you must first establish as incontrovertible and globally representative, coupled with the assumption that the conditions prevalent during the ice core fixation also would still exist to the present day. That is one unestablished proposition and one unsubstantiated extrapolation.
I say “quasi-equilibrium”, and assume you will not object, because you acknowledge it as such in this post:
Ferdinand Engelbeen says:
August 5, 2010 at 1:35 pm
“Different times: different arrangement of the continents, different temperature/humidity, less calcite deposits,… “
So, the conditions of the quasi-equilibrium can vary due to a variety of possibilities, some of which you acknowledge by your ellipses you have not considered, but presumably these can only change over geologic time, because otherwise you would have seen the variation in… the ice core data. So, basically, the foundation of your faith rests entirely on the ice core record. Do you begin to see that you may be carrying an awful lot of eggs in a single basket of dubious integrity?
Ferdinand Engelbeen says:
August 5, 2010 at 2:23 pm
“There is an extreme good correlation between accumulated emissions and the increase of CO2 in the atmosphere, but that is for next part…”
I expect it is too much to hope that there will be anything like a spectral analysis showing correlation across a substantial bandwidth – actually, I know it is, because I have done that analysis, and there is no observable overlap at all. I expect, as in past posts not necessarily from this author, we will be treated to a pair of integrated series that, mirabile dictu, will both be increasing on average and, when plotted on an appropriate scale, have a superficial resemblance in curvature.
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-
It’s always Marcia, Marcia says:
August 5, 2010 at 4:48 pm (Edit)
As in my comment above, I think the reader is to assume that man is causing global warming.
Well you are wrong. Ferdinand is simply trying to establish the basics. He is not trying to push some unspoken conclusion at you.
Ferdinand, thanks for the correction on the difference between ocean reservoir and ocean flux. If the ratio between the two is ~10:1 and most of that is seasonal, what is the ratio in that seasonal flux between temperature effect and biotic effect? The NASA cartoon at the top gives 9GT to biota and 90 to ocean/air, but you said 1C temperature rise causes around 8ppm increase in the atmosphere, presumably mostly due to ocean outgassing. So what process is responsible for the rest? Or does the seasonal outgassing/reabsorption due to temperature weigh 90GT?