There is quite a bit of buzz surrounding a talk and pending paper from Prof. Murry Salby the Chair of Climate, of Macquarie University. Aussie Jo Nova has excellent commentary, as has Andrew Bolt in his blog. I’m sure others will weigh in soon.
In a nutshell, the issue is rather simple, yet powerful. Salby is arguing that atmospheric CO2 increase that we observe is a product of temperature increase, and not the other way around, meaning it is a product of natural variation. This goes back to the 800 year lead/lag issue related to the paleo temperature and CO2 graphs Al Gore presented in his movie an An Inconvenient Truth, Jo Nova writes:
Over the last two years he has been looking at C12 and C13 ratios and CO2 levels around the world, and has come to the conclusion that man-made emissions have only a small effect on global CO2 levels. It’s not just that man-made emissions don’t control the climate, they don’t even control global CO2 levels.
Salby is no climatic lightweight, which makes this all the more powerful. He has a strong list of publications here. The abstract for his talk is here and also reprinted below.
PROFESSOR MURRY SALBY
Chair of Climate, Macquarie University
Atmospheric Science, Climate Change and Carbon – Some Facts
Carbon dioxide is emitted by human activities as well as a host of natural processes. The satellite record, in concert with instrumental observations, is now long enough to have collected a population of climate perturbations, wherein the Earth-atmosphere system was disturbed from equilibrium. Introduced naturally, those perturbations reveal that net global emission of CO2 (combined from all sources, human and natural) is controlled by properties of the general circulation – properties internal to the climate system that regulate emission from natural sources. The strong dependence on internal properties indicates that emission of CO2 from natural sources, which accounts for 96 per cent of its overall emission, plays a major role in observed changes of CO2. Independent of human emission, this contribution to atmospheric carbon dioxide is only marginally predictable and not controllable.
Professor Murry Salby holds the Climate Chair at Macquarie University and has had a lengthy career as a world-recognised researcher and academic in the field of Atmospheric Physics. He has held positions at leading research institutions, including the US National Center for Atmospheric Research, Princeton University, and the University of Colorado, with invited professorships at universities in Europe and Asia. At Macquarie University, Professor Salby uses satellite data and supercomputing to explore issues surrounding changes of global climate and climate variability over Australia. Professor Salby is the author of Fundamentals of Atmospheric Physics, and Physics of the Atmosphere and Climate due out in 2011. Professor Salby’s latest research makes a timely and highly-relevant contribution to the current discourse on climate.
Salby’s talk was given in June at the International Union of Geodesy and Geophysic meeting in Melbourne Australia. He indicates that a journal paper is in press, with an expectation of publication a few months out. He also hints that some of the results will be in his book Physics of the Atmosphere and Climate which is supposed to be available Sept 30th.
The podcast for his talk“Global Emission of Carbon Dioxide: The Contribution from Natural Sources” is here (MP3 audio format). The podcast length is an hour, split between his formal presentation ~ 30 minutes, and Q&A for the remaining time.
Andrew Bolt says in his Herald Sun blog:
Salby’s argument is that the usual evidence given for the rise in CO2 being man-made is mistaken. It’s usually taken to be the fact that as carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere increase, the 1 per cent of CO2 that’s the heavier carbon isotope ratio c13 declines in proportion. Plants, which produced our coal and oil, prefer the lighter c12 isotope. Hence, it must be our gasses that caused this relative decline.
But that conclusion holds true only if there are no other sources of c12 increases which are not human caused. Salby says there are – the huge increases in carbon dioxide concentrations caused by such things as spells of warming and El Ninos, which cause concentration levels to increase independently of human emissions. He suggests that its warmth which tends to produce more CO2, rather than vice versa – which, incidentally is the story of the past recoveries from ice ages.
Dr. Judith Curry has some strong words of support, and of caution:
I just finished listening to Murry Salby’s podcast on Climate Change and Carbon. Wow.
If Salby’s analysis holds up, this could revolutionize AGW science. Salby and I were both at the University of Colorado-Boulder in the 1990′s, but I don’t know him well personally. He is the author of a popular introductory graduate text Fundamentals of Atmospheric Physics. He is an excellent lecturer and teacher, which comes across in his podcast. He has the reputation of a thorough and careful researcher. While all this is frustratingly preliminary without publication, slides, etc., it is sufficiently important that we should start talking about these issues. I’ll close with this text from Bolt’s article:
He said he had an “involuntary gag reflex” whenever someone said the “science was settled”.
“Anyone who thinks the science of this complex thing is settled is in Fantasia.”
Dr Roy Spencer has suspected something similar, See Atmospheric CO2 Increases: Could the Ocean, Rather Than Mankind, Be the Reason? plus part 2 Spencer Part2: More CO2 Peculiarities – The C13/C12 Isotope Ratio both guest posts at WUWT in 2008. Both of these are well worth your time to re-read as a primer for what will surely be a (ahem) hotly contested issue.
I’m pretty sure Australian bloggers John Cook at Skeptical Science and Tim Lambert at Deltoid are having conniption fits right about now. And, I’m betting that soon, the usual smears of “denier” will be applied to Dr. Salby by those two clowns, followed by the other usual suspects.
Smears of denial and catcalls aside, if it holds up, it may be the Emily Litella moment for climate science and CO2 – “Never mind…”
@Dave Springer: “One might argue on the exact quantity but the bottom line remains is that we pretty much know how much oil, natural gas, and coal is taken out of the ground every year and burned.”
So what? If it all gets absorbed what difference does that make? What if the natural emissions of CO2 were 1,000,000 times greater than the anthropogenic emissions, and the Earth then absorbed 99.9999% of what was emitted? This is what is being suggested here – that the Earth is emitting massive amounts of CO2 and absorbing massive amounts of CO2 and mankinds fiddling around the edges is making precious little difference. Thus the “signature” of mankinds accumulated involvement simply isn’t present as it should be, and the Mauna Loa record only indicates not the increase in CO2 caused by your local power station, but a small temporary imbalance in the Earth’s natural CO2 recycling system.
Shaun Dunne says:
August 5, 2011 at 4:16 am
“I want a T-Shirt that says…
I GET MY SCIENCE FROM RON CRAM”
Oh sorry, we ran out of those, but we still have a hundred million “I GET MY SCIENCE FROM WILLIAM M. CONNOLLEY” in stock. They don’t sell as good as they used to.
The atmosphere is not very sensitive to changes in anthropogenic CO2 output (it has been up and down). It seems very sensitive to regular changes in natural seasonal output, and very sensitive to some kind of CO2 pump that out performs seasonal changes. This constant uptick , this constant relationship is rare in nature. I have two thoughts.
1. Something that outputs CO2 is growing at a steady pace and exponentially, like a population explosion, and CO2 sinks aren’t expanding to match it. The growth isn’t just adding one more unit per year, it is adding multiple units per year that expands each year.
or
2. The mathematical model that converts CO2 measurements into part per million has a calculations/methods flaw.
Richard Verney, you state:
“It is implausible, that the planet has similarly greened (in like linear fashion) each year.”
The above statement is an assumption by you. I don’t see any reason why the planet could not have been[] greening each year. Satellite photos even show greening of the Sahara desert. Stating an assertion does not make it so.
Salby’s talk via podcast is sufficient motivation for me to look more into the earth’s carbon dynamics prior to his book and paper coming out.
For me that is reason enough to praise Salby’s efforts and reason for me to thank him.
John
CO2 “hockey stick” and ice cores undermined here and here
Some here keep saying that the natural content in the atmosphere is a known quantity, because the anthropogenic content is a known quantity, thus what is left must be, by default, all natural……. Of course if the residence time of Anthropogenic CO2 is very short lived, ….. Then, as Professor Salby said…. All bets are off. Because then, if his view of the C12/13 ration is correct, then the natural CO2’s sinks, emissions and natural variation is unknown, meaning human influences are very minimal…… One just cannot say what portion of anthropogenic CO2 remains in the atmosphere, or for how long, because it is impossible to tell….. and considering that the warming started before major industrialization and the rate is not increasing. The AGW hypothesis becomes increasingly stressed.
The lack of a lag of CO2’s effects on global temps between the mainly industrialized northern hemisphere and the less industrialized south, should have been a good warning of problems with CO2 sinks and anthropogenic CO2 residence times…… To my mind anyway.
I produced a graph from the inter year changes derived from the Mona Loa data. It
is interesting that over a short time span the year to year rate of increase can vary from 0.4 to almost 3 ppm/year (1992 and 1998 for example). Since the fossil fuel burning of humans is increasing consistently the last 40 years, this wide variation shows that the CO2 increase in the atmosphere is due to more than just man’s combustion.
The almost 8X variation in yearly increase shows that is is not just a simple “humans are adding CO2 to the air” based increase. The big trend over 50 years may be due to warming, and out gassing of the oceans.
I look forward to the experts understanding the subtleties of isotope rations etc.
-Jay
Is there a witness protection program for climate scientists?………………………………
Funnily enough I was just reading this paper from PNAS
http://www.pnas.org/content/104/11/4249.full.pdf+html
Its about the changing carbon cycle monitored at Mauna Loa and discusses the fact that the annual increment of CO2 is strongly correlated with temperature and dependent upon respiration and photosynthesis complicated by the fact that the MLO signal is derived from different air masses at different times of year.
Perhaps we will now begin to see some attention paid to the nitrogen cycle which is completley dominated by anthropogenic inputs unlike the carbon cycle which is not – and unlikely ever to be and about which it might just be possible to do something without the cure being worse than the disease.
But then that would be old fashioned “ecology” wouldn’t it?
jh
LazyTeenager says:
August 5, 2011 at 4:43 am
If the extra CO2 in the air is coming from the oceans due to warming oceans, then the amount in the oceans should be going down.
As far as I know ocean CO2 is going up not down.
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Lazy, I’ve not been able to find one single record of pH change.
Do you have a link to an actual measured – not computer modeled – pH change?
As you can see from this, places like Monterey Bay would be the most vulnerable and would show the most change. Yet, there has been no change at all in either sea level or pH.
http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2011/07/25/monterey-bay-shows-no-change-in-sea-level-or-ph/
Dave Springer:
Your post at August 5, 2011 at 6:52 am is either naïve or disingenuous.
Yes, the rise in atmospheric CO2 concentration (i.e. CO2 in the air) is less than the tiny anthropogenic emission of CO2.
But it is also true that the natural emissions of CO2 dwarf the anthropogenic emissions of CO2.
And, importantly, the annual pulse of anthropogenic CO2 into the atmosphere should relate to the annual increase of CO2 in the atmosphere if one is directly causal of the other, but their variations greatly differ from year to year. In some years all of the anthropogenic emission seems to be sequestered from the air, and in other years almost none of it.
Furthermore, the annual increase of the anthropogenic emissions is about 0.1 GtC/year. The natural fluctuation of the excess consumption is at least 12 GtC in 4 months. This is more than 100 times the yearly increase of human production, which strongly suggests that the dynamics of the rapid natural sequestration processes can easily cope with the human production of CO2.
Whatever you try to assert, the fact is that the null hypothesis is that the rise in atmospheric CO2 is natural, and there is no evidence – none, not any, zilch – which suggests other than that the rise in atmospheric CO2 is natural.
Richard
Prof. Salby’s analysis, and comments, suggest ice-core CO2 most likely reflects muted fluctuations about a mean of atmospheric concentration. Well, so much for 400 ppmv being unprecedented over the previous million years.
@richard S Courtney says: August 5, 2011 at 6:41 am
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The system is never in equilibrium and cannot achieve equilibrium. the chaotic nature of clouds alone leads instrinsically to that result. The area and volume of clouds constantly changes and add to this the place where clouds are formed and the time when they are formed also changes. Obviously, cloud forming either side of midday, have more impact on the amount of solar energy received than do the same clouds say formed late afternoon, early evenning. Ditto, clouds formed over the euatorial/tropical regions have more impact on the amount of solar energy received than say similarly sized clouds forming over the Artic. The sheer variability of clouds, the changes in biomass and your point regarding changes in the concentration of CO2, means that the system can never achieve equalibrium, although it may ‘hunt’ around a stable equalibrium point moving one way or the other.
I agree with much of what Dave Springer says (see Dave Springer says:
August 5, 2011 at 6:52 am) and in particular with the comment “…empirical observation is that annual anthropogenic CO2 emissions are twice what natural sinks can absorb in that same year.” This ties into an earlier post of mine, namely, we need to investigate why natural sinks vary like this on an annual basis. For example, if the natural sink in 2008 had the same capacity as the natural sink had in 2010 there would in fact have been (or perhaps more correctly ‘there should in fact have been’) no increase in CO2 levels between the period 2008/9. In short, what was so different between the natural sinks in 2008 and 2010?,
AlanG says:
August 5, 2011 at 3:35 am
OT but, A British tourist has been mauled to death and four other people have been injured in a polar bear attack in Norway. The attack happened today in the Norwegian Arctic Archipelago of Svalbard.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/norway/8683416/British-tourist-mauled-to-death-by-polar-bear-in-Norway.htm
Does this have any bearing on the matter in hand?
Luis Dias:
At August 5, 2011 at 6:58 am you assert:
“At most, the temperature would have only affected 10% of the CO2 rise. Where did the other 90% come from?”
Really, only 10%? You know that? I am boggled at your hubris.
To now that then you would be able to quantify the entire carbon cycle system.
Nobody can do that.
Let me give you some insight into the nature of what you claim you can do.
The following are the major known processes of the carbon cycle and some of their interactions.
SHORT-TERM PROCESSES
1. Consumption of CO2 by photosynthesis that takes place in green plants on land. CO2 from the air and water from the soil are coupled to form carbohydrates. Oxygen is liberated. This process takes place mostly in spring and summer. A rough distinction can be made:
1a. The formation of leaves that are short lived (less than a year).
1b. The formation of tree branches and trunks, that are long lived (decades).
2. Production of CO2 by the metabolism of animals, and by the decomposition of vegetable matter by micro-organisms including those in the intestines of animals, whereby oxygen is consumed and water and CO2 (and some carbon monoxide and methane that will eventually be oxidised to CO2) are liberated. Again distinctions can be made:
2a. The decomposition of leaves, that takes place in autumn and continues well into the next winter, spring and summer.
2b. The decomposition of branches, trunks, etc. that typically has a delay of some decades after their formation.
2c. The metabolism of animals that goes on throughout the year.
3. Consumption of CO2 by absorption in cold ocean waters. Part of this is consumed by marine vegetation through photosynthesis.
4. Production of CO2 by desorption from warm ocean waters. Part of this may be the result of decomposition of organic debris.
5. Circulation of ocean waters from warm to cold zones, and vice versa, thus promoting processes 3 and 4.
LONGER-TERM PROCESSES
6. Formation of peat from dead leaves and branches (eventually leading to lignite and coal).
7. Erosion of silicate rocks, whereby carbonates are formed and silica is liberated.
8. Precipitation of calcium carbonate in the ocean, that sinks to the bottom, together with formation of corals and shells.
NATURAL PROCESSES THAT ADD CO2 TO THE SYSTEM
9. Production of CO2 from volcanoes (by eruption and gas leakage).
10. Natural forest fires, coal seam fires and peat fires.
ANTHROPOGENIC PROCESSES THAT ADD CO2 TO THE SYSTEM
11. Production of CO2 by burning of vegetation (“biomass”).
12. Production of CO2 by burning of fossil fuels (and by lime kilns).
Several of these processes are rate dependant and several of them interact.
At higher air temperatures, the rates of processes 1, 2, 4 and 5 will increase and the rate of process 3 will decrease. Process 1 is strongly dependent on temperature, so its rate will vary strongly (maybe by a factor of 10) throughout the changing seasons.
The rates of processes 1, 3 and 4 are dependent on the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere. The rates of processes 1 and 3 will increase with higher CO2 concentration, but the rate of process 4 will decrease.
The rate of process 1 has a complicated dependence on the atmospheric CO2 concentration. At higher concentrations at first there will be an increase that will probably be less than linear (with an “order” <1). But after some time, when more vegetation (more biomass) has been formed, the capacity for photosynthesis will have increased, resulting in a progressive increase of the consumption rate.
Processes 1 to 5 are obviously coupled by mass balances. Our paper (4) assessed the steady-state situation to be an oversimplification because there are two factors that will never be “steady”:
I. The removal of CO2 from the system, or its addition to the system.
II. External factors that are not constant and may influence the process rates, such as varying solar activity.
Modeling this system is a difficult because so little is known concerning the rate equations.
However, some things can be stated from the empirical data.
At present the yearly increase of the anthropogenic emissions is approximately 0.1 GtC/year . The natural fluctuation of the excess consumption (i.e. consumption processes 1 and 3 minus production processes 2 and 4) is at least 6 ppmv (which corresponds to 12 GtC) in 4 months. This is more than 100 times the yearly increase of human production, which strongly suggests that the dynamics of the natural processes here listed 1-5 can cope easily with the human production of CO2. A serious disruption of the system may be expected when the rate of increase of the anthropogenic emissions becomes larger than the natural variations of CO2. But the above data indicates this is not possible.
The accumulation rate of CO2 in the atmosphere (1.5 ppmv/year which corresponds to 3 GtC/year) is equal to almost half the human emission (6.5 GtC/year). However, this does not mean that half the human emission accumulates in the atmosphere, as is often stated. There are several other and much larger CO2 flows in and out of the atmosphere. The total CO2 flow into the atmosphere is at least 156.5 GtC/year with 150 GtC/year of this being from natural origin and 6.5 GtC/year from human origin. So, on the average, 3/156.5 = 2% of all emissions accumulate.
The above qualitative considerations suggest the carbon cycle cannot be very sensitive to relatively small disturbances such as the present anthropogenic emissions of CO2. However, the system could be quite sensitive to temperature. So, our paper considered how the carbon cycle would be disturbed if – for some reason – the temperature of the atmosphere were to rise, as it almost certainly did between 1880 and 1940 (there was an estimated average rise of 0.5 °C in average surface temperature.
As temperature rises the rate of the main CO2 production processes 2 (decomposition of organic matter) and 4 (desorption from the oceans) would rise, as would the rate of the consumption process 1 (photosynthesis). However, the rate of absorption in the ocean (process 3) will not be increased. The rates of processes 1a and 2a will rise more quickly than the rates of processes 1b and 2b, but it is not obvious which would rise most. Obviously, the net result would be an increase of CO2 production by desorption from the oceans. This is a relatively slow process, because the mass transfer coefficient between the sea water and its surface is relatively low (the rates of both absorption and desorption in the oceans have time constants that are probably of the order of decades). This would mean that a disruption by a temperature rise would result in a relatively slow increase of CO2 production. Gradually, the consumption processes 1 (photosynthesis) and 3 (absorption in cold ocean waters) will increase and slow down the excess CO2 formation.
As long as the anthropogenic production of CO2 is less than, say, 10% of the average natural production (2.5 times the present level), the CO2 level in the atmosphere might become 2.5 times higher than it was originally. However, it will eventually become much lower again, due to the delayed action of process 8 (the “true sink”).
The above considerations of available data strongly suggest that the anthropogenic emissions of CO2 will have no significant long term effect on climate. The main reason is that the rate of increase of the anthropogenic production of CO2 is very much smaller that the observed maximum rate of increase of the natural consumption of CO2.
And you say you know “At most, the temperature would have only affected 10% of the CO2 rise”.
I DON’T BELIEVE YOU. PROVE IT.
Richard
Moderators:
I have just posted a message in reply to Louis Dias comment at August 5, 2011 at 6:58 am.
It seems to have vanished. Do you have it or should I post it again, please?
Richard
[We’re working through a long queue. 8<) Robt]
Hmm, imagine that. When I use to play with CO2 injection in my extreme Aquaria, I had to crank to bubble rate way down during the hot days ( tank temp ~ 30 C). CO2 is created by kariote metabolism. The rate of Kariote metabolism is directly related to temperature. Its I dynamic system.
The keyboard and monitor of the system I used to post my last comment are at the back of my workbench. I have to reach over two other keyboards and squint at the monitor to post. I guess it shows 🙁
I do not know of many people who do not accept that there has been some moderate warming. The re-analysis of the HADCRUT3 data shows that there has been some moderate warming, although not globally. Some regions have cooled.
There has not been, neither is there any remote actual sign of, the extreme and catastrophic warming that the extremist end of the alarmist’s have been getting so hysterical about.
Even allowing for the warming that has been measured, there is no proof that it is mostly caused by mankind. The amount of warming which has been measured still fits within the boundaries of observable natural variability.
@Luis Dias…
There are several natural source of carbon dioxide. I’m not only referring to the well-known sources, like biosystems, volcanoes, and oceans, but to a vast source of carbon dioxide: sand and subsurface materials like rocks, water, etc. It has been observed that warming of the surface triggers the releasing of carbon dioxide towards the atmosphere. The higher the increase, the higher load of carbon dioxide released. This release of carbon dioxide from sand and subsurface materials fluctuates according to surface temperature and the latter fluctuates according with the load of radiation it receives from the Sun:
http://www.casnw.net/desertlabweb/members/Dongzhibao.files/%D2%D1%B7%A2%B1%ED%C2%DB%D6%F8/Estimate%20of%20total%20CO2%20output%20from%20desertified%20sandy%20land%20in%20China.pdf
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/320/5882/1409.full.pdf
So, China desert sands, as well as Saharian, Gobi, Atacama, Arabia, Arizona and Texas sands, are sinks of carbon dioxide that overwhelms any emissions from human activities.
The question is: why to bother by carbon dioxide? It is not a pollutant neither a warmer of the Earth; it is an essential part of life, same as water. Saying the carbon dioxide is a pollutant is the same madness as saying that water is a pollutant, and some AGW proponents have gone even to this extreme.
The results of an experiment only can be rebutted by another experiment. No other ways in science.
I’m pretty firmly in the skeptic camp, but if this article is true, I’m not completely sure it is good news. It could also be interpreted that a small increase in CO2 leads to warming, which leads to a much greater release of CO2. A classic positive feedback loop.
“The most pertinent criticism I think was quoted on Cetc but it was made by Gavin Schmidt. It is basically this point: if CO2 was so sensitive to temperatures”
Luis, I would like it better if there was a degree of firmness by Gavin, in instances where he seems to synonymize “temperature” and “temperature change”
Friends
It is an instrinsic part of the AGW theory that if man was not emitting CO2, CO2 levels measured in the atmosphere would not be increasing.
There is no doubt that man is causing CO2 to be emitted in to the atmosphere, however, it does not necessarily follow from this that these emissions are the cause of the increased levels of CO2 as measured in the atmosphere.
One cannot rule out the possibilty that if man was to stop all manmade CO2 emissions, the level of CO2 in the atmoshphere would still continue to rise. For example, it could be the position that for short periods (and in this I include periods of 100s may be 1000s of years), there is a relationship between total atmospheric CO2 levels and available natural sinks. This relationship may be such that available natural sinks will always increase in line with increased CO2 emissions (whatever be the reason for this emission, ie., natural and/or manmade) such that they will always be able to absorp approximately 50% of the increase in CO2 levels.
Thus it may the case that if man was to stop emitting CO2, the natural sinks would become less efficient/have less capacity so that they would be unable to absorp a greater proportion of CO2 which is being naturally outgassed with the result that one would still see a rising CO2 trend, may be a trend having exactly the same rate of increase as that being measured today, even though in this scenario, man was not emitting any CO2 at all.. Not only is a proper understanding of natural CO2 emissions required and what these may be a response to, but in addition, a proper understanding of nautural sinks and how they respond to increase in CO2 concentrations is required. I do not consider that presently, we have a proper grasp of this and without this, one cannot begin to evaluate to what extent mamade emiisions are playinng a significant role in the carbon cycle/increased levels of CO2 measured in the atmosphere these past 60 or so years.
Well then, it seems skeptics to the anthropogenic build-up of CO2 studies would have a difficult choice to make. Why, for example, didn’t CO2 reach the levels we see today during the Holocene Optimum, Roman Warm period, or much beloved MWP?
Answer: With all due respect Mr. Salby is incorrect. Current CO2 levels, far beyond the levels we seen for the past 800,000 years and probably longer are due to human industrial activities. The oceans have been net sinks of human carbon dioxide…this much is quite clear. Humans have taken the carbon from the fossil fuels and placed it in the atmosphere and oceans…end of story.