Letter to the editor: A wish for Dr. Michael Mann to clear some things up from an errant PSU grad

Smokey says:
May 11, 2012 at 11:30 am
Robbie,
If you cannot see that the MWP [900 – 1300 A.D.] is the cause of much of the current increase in CO2, then your mind is closed, and I’m done trying to eduacte you.
Unfortunately for your thesis the temperature rise since the MWP is far too low to explain the increase in CO2. Check out Henry’s Law, and note that an increase in atmospheric CO2 due to direct emissions can be large enough to suppress any outgassing due to temperature change.

Werner Brozek:
At May 11, 2012 at 8:49 pm you say;
“However the cumulative effect of our extra emissions over the last 260 years was to increase the CO2 from 280 ppm to 390 ppm or about 40%. But who cares? It is good for us as we both agree.”
No!
That is plain wrong. Those extra emissions have NOT had a “cumulative effect” although they may have – but probably have not – caused the “increase”.
I again recommend reading the discussion in the thread at
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/05/06/the-bern-model-puzzle/
I offer the following ‘taster’ from it because it is clear my repeated recommendations have not been accepted.
Richard
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rgbatduke says:
May 8, 2012 at 7:41 am
Richard S Courtney said;
“The evidence suggests that the cause of the recent rise in atmospheric CO2 is most probably natural, but it is possible that the cause may have been the anthropogenic emission. Importantly, the data shows the rise is not accumulation of the anthropogenic emission in the air (as is assumed by e.g. the Bern Model).”
I would agree, especially (as noted above) with the criticism of the Bern Model per se. It is utterly impossible to justify writing down an integral equation that ignores the non-anthropogenic channels (which fluctuate significantly with controls such as temperature and wind and other human activity e.g. changes in land use). It is impossible to justify describing those channels as sinks in the first place — the ocean is both source and sink. So is the soil. So is the biosphere. Whether the ocean is net absorbing or net contributing CO_2 to the atmosphere today involves solving a rather difficult problem, and understanding that difficult problem rather well is necessary before one can couple it with a whole raft of assumptions into a model that pretends that its source/sink fluctuations don’t even exist and that it is, on average a shifting sink only for anthropogenic CO_2.
I’m struck by the metaphor of electrical circuit design when those designs have feedback and noise. You can’t pretend that one part of your amplifier circuit is driven by a feedback current loop to a stable steady state (especially not when there is historical evidence that the fed back current is very noisy) when trying to compute the effect of an additional current added to that fed back current from only one of several external sources. Yet that is precisely what the Bern model does. The same components of the circuit act to damp or amplify the current fluctuations without any regard for whether the fluctuations come from and of the outside sources or the feedback itself.
rgb

Werner Brozek:
Thankyou for your post at May 12, 2012 at 8:30 am.
Firstly, you ask me;
“Do you agree with Smokey that “But taking the past one year’s CO2 rise, it can only be that about 3% of it is from human emissions”? If so, then it is a matter of many years of extra 3% to make a much larger amount. Naturally, in 1750, our percentage would have been totally negligible.”
No, I don’t agree. Indeed, the data say it cannot be true although the anthropogenic CO2 emission may have been – but probably was not – the cause of the observed rise in atmospheric CO2 since 1958 when measurements began at Mauna Loa. I addressed the point in the thread which you have read at
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/05/06/the-bern-model-puzzle/
To save you finding my answer, I copy my pertinent two posts from that thread here together with another post. The three following posts from that thread address all the points in your posts that I am answering. For more detail see the comments of Robert Brown (I,e, rgbatduke) in that thread.
Please note that I say I think Ferdinand’s is the best of the ‘plumbing models’ but they are all based on the same false premise which is demonstrated by their need for unjustifiable smoothing of the empirical data to make them fit.
Richard
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Richardscourtney says:
May 7, 2012 at 2:09 am
Willis and others:
I understand the interest in the Bern Model because it is the only carbon cycle model used by e.g. the IPCC. However, the Bern Model is known to be plain wrong because it is based on a false assumption.
A discussion of the physical basis of a model which is known to be plain wrong is a modern-day version of discussing the number of angels which can stand on a pin.
I again point to our 2005 paper which I referenced in my above post at May 6, 2012 at 3:58 pm. As I said in that post, agreement of output of the Bern Model requires 5-year smoothing of the empirical data for output of the Bern Model to match the observed rise in atmospheric CO2 concentration.
The need for 5-year smoothing demonstrates beyond doubt that the Bern Model is plain wrong: the model’s basic assumption is that observed rise of atmospheric CO2 concentration is a direct result of accumulation in the air of the anthropogenic emission of CO2, and the needed smoothing shows that assumption cannot be correct.
(Please note that – as I explain below – the fact that the Bern Model is based on the false assumption does NOT mean the anthropogenic emission cannot be the cause of the observed rise of atmospheric CO2 concentration.)
I explain this as follows.
For each year the annual rise in atmospheric CO2 concentration is the residual of the seasonal variation in atmospheric CO2 concentration. If the observed rise in the concentration is accumulation of the anthropogenic emission then the rise should relate to the emission for each year. However, in some years almost all the anthropogenic CO2 emission seems to be sequestered and in other years almost none. And this mismatch of the hypothesis of anthropogenic accumulation with observations can be overcome by smoothing the data.
2-year smoothing is reasonable because different countries may use different start-dates for their annual accounting periods.
And 3-year smoothing is reasonable because delays in accounting some emissions may result in those emissions being ‘lost’ from a year and ‘added’ to the next year.
But there is no rational reason to smooth the data over more than 3-years.
The IPCC uses 5-year smoothing to obtain agreement between observations and the output of the Bern Model because less smoothing than this fails to obtain the agreement. Simply, the assumption of “accumulation” is disproved by observations.
Furthermore, as I also said in my above post, the observed dynamics of seasonal sequestration indicate that the system can easily absorb ALL the CO2 emission (n.b. both natural and anthropogenic) of each year. But CO2 is increasing in the atmosphere. These observations are explicable as being a result of the entire system of the carbon cycle adjusting to changed conditions (such as increased temperature, and/or addition of the anthropogenic emission, and/or etc.).
The short-term sequestration processes can easily absorb all the emission of each year, but some processes of the system have rate constants of years and decades. Hence, the entire system takes decades to adjust to any change.
And, as our paper shows, the assumption of a slowly adjusting carbon cycle enables the system to be modelled in a variety of ways that each provides a match of model output to observations without any need for any smoothing. This indicates the ‘adjusting carbon cycle’ assumption is plausible but, of course, it does not show it is ‘true’.
In contrast, the need for smoothing of data to get the Bern Model to match ‘model output to observations’ falsifies that model’s basic assumption that observed rise of atmospheric CO2 concentration is a direct result of accumulation in the air of the anthropogenic emission of CO2.
Richard
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richardscourtney says:
May 7, 2012 at 2:44 am
Willis and others:
I write this as an addendum to my post at May 7, 2012 at 2:09 am.
As several people have noted, the Bern Model is one example of a ‘plumbing model’ of the carbon cycle (personally, I think Engelbeen’s is the ‘best’ of these models).
Adjustment of the carbon cycle is akin to all the tanks and all the pipes varying in size at different and unknown rates. Hence, no ‘plumbing model’ can emulate such adjustment.
And the adjustment will continue until a new equilibrium is attained by the system. But, of course, by then other changes are likely to have happened so more adjustment will occur.
Richard
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richardscourtney says:
May 7, 2012 at 10:42 am
Nullius in Verba:
At May 7, 2012 at 9:16 am in relation to a ‘plumbing model’ you ask;
“The case with three or more reservoirs is not intuitively clear, but it seems clear enough with two – that if the buckets are of equal size that only half the water dumped in one ends up in the other. They cannot all return to their previous level – where would the added water go to?”
I answer:
It goes into a change in the volume(s) of the reservoirs.
In other words, the model is misconceived. Please see my above post at May 7, 2012 at 2:09 am and especially its addendum at May 7, 2012 at 2:44 am.
Richard