Guest post by Lance Wallace
The carbon dioxide data from Mauna Loa is widely recognized to be extremely regular and possibly exponential in nature. If it is exponential, we can learn about when it may have started “taking off” from a constant pre-Industrial Revolution background, and can also predict its future behavior. There may also be information in the residuals—are there any cyclic or other variations that can be related to known climatic oscillations like El Niños?
I am sure others have fitted a model to it, but I thought I would do my own fit. Using the latest NOAA monthly seasonally adjusted CO2 dataset running from March 1958 to May 2012 (646 months) I tried fitting a quadratic and an exponential to the data. The quadratic fit gave a slightly better average error (0.46 ppm compared to 0.57 ppm). On the other hand, the exponential fit gave parameters that have more understandable interpretations. Figures 1 and 2 show the quadratic and exponential fits.
Figure 1. Quadratic fit to Mauna Loa monthly observations.
Figure 2. Exponential fit
From the exponential fit, we see that the “start year” for the exponential was 1958-235 = 1723, and that in and before that year the predicted CO2 level was 260 ppm. These values are not far off the estimated level of 280 ppm up until the Industrial Revolution. It might be noted that Newcomen invented his steam engine in 1712, although the start of the Industrial Revolution is generally considered to be later in the century. The e-folding time (for the incremental CO2 levels > 260 ppm) is 59 years, or a half-life of 59 ln 2 = 41 years.
The model predicts CO2 levels in future years as in Figure 3. The doubling from 260 to 520 ppm occurs in the year 2050.
Figure 3. Model predictions from 1722 to 2050.
The departures from the model are interesting in themselves. The residuals from both the quadratic and exponential fits are shown in Figure 4.
Figure 4. Residuals from the quadratic and exponential fits.
Both fits show similar cyclic behavior, with the CO2 levels higher than predicted from about 1958-62 and also 1978-92. More rapid oscillations with smaller amplitudes occur after 2002. There are sharp peaks in 1973 and 1998 (the latter coinciding with the super El Niño.) Whether the oil crisis of 1973 has anything to do with this I can’t say. For persons who know more than I about decadal oscillations these results may be of interest.
The data were taken from the NOAA site at ftp://ftp.cmdl.noaa.gov/ccg/co2/trends/co2_mm_mlo.txt
The nonlinear fits were done using Excel Solver and placing no restrictions on the 3 parameters in each model.
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Robert Brown says:
June 5, 2012 at 6:27 pm
Actually, it turns out that MLO is quite a good place for a CO2 measuring station … see my post “Under the Volcano, Over the Volcano” for a discussion of the issues. I also discussed the Beck data there, and Dr. Beck posted a response, I was stoked. His response starts by saying:
Read his whole comment here.
w.
richardscourtney says: @ur momisugly June 5, 2012 at 10:45 am
“ …I repeat the important question is
Why don’t the natural sequestration processes sequester all the emissions (natural and anthropogenic) when it is clear that they can?”
Re-reading your question Richard, I ‘m not sure I understand it fully.….
As I stated previously, the system will continue to chase equilibrium in time and space, and fortunately for life on this planet, that dynamic equilibrium at this time results in sufficient atmospheric CO2 to maintain photosynthesis.
The CO2 sequestered in thick beds of limestones, dolomites, coal, lignite, peat and petroleum all over the planet was once, I presume, part of Earth’s atmosphere.
I also assume that over time, continued sequestration of atmospheric CO2 in these sediments will ultimately lead to atmospheric CO2 concentrations that are too low to sustain photosynthesis.
Barring an earlier natural catastrophe, will this mechanism lead to the end of life on Earth as we know it, as photosynthesis shuts down and the food chain fails?
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.
– T.S. Eliot, “The Hollow Men”
[ Not to worry – an asteroid strike will probably get us long before then. 🙂 ]
Bart says:
June 5, 2012 at 4:55 pm
A) we do not have reliable measurements from those times
We do have reasonable good temperature measurements for the period from 1850 on. That would give an impression of the alleged increase in CO2, according to the 1950-2010 fit. The fitting period is already 1/3rd of the whole period. Thus the verification period would show if the fit gives a reasonable answer for the whole period, even if we only have sparse data for CO2.
Right now, in the modern era, these parameters hold, and they explain the last several decades of atmospheric CO2 concentration and rule out singificant human contribution to it.
Again, by tightly connecting the fate of human emissions to temperature, you have ruled out the influence of the emissions. But as these are largely independent variables, one can fit the same decades with a factor of the emissions, without any arbitrary offset, leaving 0% to 100% influence of temperature on the trend, but still 100% influence of temperature on the variability of the rate of change.
“And still I am waiting for any knowledge of a physical process that delivers 70 ppmv CO2 over 50 years only from a continuous small elevated [temperature] level…”
Deep ocean upwelling, as I and others have commented.
There is no indication that the deep oceans have had a measurable change in temperature (which is impossible in such a short period), only the upper 700 meters have and that only can cause at maximum a 16 ppmv increase in the atmosphere since the LIA, thus a few ppmv in the period of interest, according to Henry’s Law. Further, an increase in turnover speed from/to the deep oceans only changes the throughput, not the amounts in the atmosphere, as far as there was any increase in turnover. It is alleged that increased temperatures would reduce the turnover (which isn’t proven, but the opposite is very unlikely). And the 70 ppmv increase of CO2 since 1960 would only push more CO2 into the cold sinks and reduce the release of CO2 from the Pacific warm pool, according to Le Châtelier’s Principle… Thus the deep oceans are a net sink for CO2, not a source.
Robert Brown says:
June 5, 2012 at 6:16 pm
Expecting MLO to generalize to “the Earth” is a bit egregious.
MLO is not even used to calculate the “global” CO2 dataset, only sealevel stations are used for that purpose. But it is used as reference, because it has the longest continous record. Measurements at the South Pole started one year earlier, but have a gap of a few years in the continuous record, be it that that can be filled by 14-day flask samples taken in that period.
But for the trend, it doesn’t matter what you take as reference, as all trends are near equal, there is only a lag of the SH after the NH and a lag with altitude, which indicates that the main source of the increase is near ground in the NH:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/co2_trends.jpg
You can compare the data yourself from lots of stations here:
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/iadv/
Further, the “cleaning” procedure at MLO and other stations doesn’t change the average or the trend with more than 0.1 ppmv, no matter if you include or exclude the outliers. The outliers at MLO are clearly those measurements that contain local contamination (downslope wind from the the volcano, upslope wind from the valley), these are rightfullt discarded, but that doesn’t affect the trend.
Brian H says:
June 5, 2012 at 6:02 am
FerdiEgb says:
June 5, 2012 at 3:23 am
“spagetthy”
Not even close. Spaghetti.
I prefer tagliatelli, much easier to eat an spell…
richardscourtney says:
June 5, 2012 at 10:45 am
… I repeat the important question is
Why don’t the natural sequestration processes sequester all the emissions (natural and anthropogenic) when it is clear that they can?
I think that the problem is in the different causes of the increase/decrease.
There is a fast response to temperature, as can be seen in the seasonal swings. A temperature increase/decrease gives a near immediate response from the ocean surface and opposite from vegetation. On global average, that combined response gives some 5 ppmv/°C. The temperature swing over the seasons is about 1°C globally, mainly due to the higher temperature response in the NH. Most of the CO2 response is from the NH mid-latitude vegetation, as the d13C record shows.
This seasonal temperature swing forces an enormous flux in and out the atmosphere. But that is a rather fixed flux, where the variability in flux is mainly due to year by year temperature changes. The overall change as well as over the seasons (at ~5 ppmv/°C) as around the trend (at ~4 ppmv/°C) seems rather small compared to the huge fluxes involved, but that may be a result of the countercurrent action of the two main flows involved.
Thus CO2 changes from temperature changes have a fast component over the seasons and over interannual periods. There is also a very slow component which gives the changes over multidecades to multimillennia as seen over the MWP-LIA change that gives changes of around 8 ppmv/°C. In that case, deep ocean exchanges and land/ice area changes are involved with much longer response times.
The current discussion with Bart now is about the response to temperature for interannual to decadal changes. According to him (and others), that may be hundreds of ppmv/°C. One never knows, but it would be very remarkable that the response is small on high frequency changes and on very low frequency changes, but extremely high in between.
Now what happens if some source (volcanoes, humans) inject some extra CO2 into the atmosphere?
The natural processes will respond to that, as the above, temperature driven, dynamic equilibrium is disturbed. Some of it goes very fast in the upper ocean layer (response time 1-2 years), but that is maximum 10% of the disturbance, due to ocean chemistry (the Revelle factor).
Some is going into the deep oceans and vegetation, but that is a much slower process. Vegetation grows faster with more CO2 in ideal circumstances, but in the real world, the circumstances are not always ideal (water, nutritients, sunlight,…) and even in the best circumstances, the extra growth is average 50% for 100% more CO2. The deep oceans also take in some of the extra CO2, depending of the increase in CO2 level (the pCO2) compared to the oceans surface pCO2 at the sink places. But that process is much slower than the absorption or release of CO2 of the surface layer, due to a limited exchange flux between atmosphere and deep oceans. The response time for the combined deep ocean/vegetation to an extra CO2 injection is in the order of 50 years.
There still are many other processes which can respond to such disturbances, but these are all much slower.
Thus in summary, while the response to temperature in first instance is very fast, the response to a disturbance of the overall equilibrium is much slower, because that is mainly governed by slower processes than which are responsible for the response to temperature.
Willis Eschenbach:
Thankyou for your interest in this subject. At June 5, 2012 at 6:40 pm you ask me
I answer:
You are “missing” any consideration of the behaviour of the carbon cycle system as exhibited by both the seasonal and the diurnal variations in atmospheric CO2 concentration.
The annual rise in atmospheric CO2 concentration is the residual of the seasonal variation of each year.
I remind that above, at June 5, 2012 at 2:41 pm, I wrote
In other words, it is hard to understand why the sequestration processes do not sequester all the annual emission.
This failure to sequester all of the annual emission is clearly not because the system is near to saturation because the rates of sequestration do not indicate that. Unfortunately, I lack your ability to post figures here, but if you look at Figure 2 in the item I emailed to you a few weeks ago then you will see it is of
“Rise and fall of carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere at four sites, Mauna Loa Hawaii, Estevan Canada, Alert Canada, Shetland Islands. Here three years are selected from the long term graph 1991- 2000, C.D. Keeling and T.P. Whorf. “On line trends”, cdiac.ornl”
(Incidentally, my above quotation of my words in this post are also copied from the same document which contains the illustration).
In each case in that Figure, the atmospheric CO2 plummets in the Spring then makes an abrupt reversal. The sequestration does not gradually reduce before reversal as it would if the sequestration processes were nearing saturation.
This behaviour (i.e. rate of sequestration and rate of reversal) indicates that the sequestration processes are not near to saturation, they can easily sequester all the anthropogenic emission, and
(a) the sequestration processes abruptly cease absorbing at the end of the Spring
or
(b) the emission processes are much faster than the sequestration processes and they abruptly start emitting at the end of the Spring
or
(c) a combination of (a) and (b).
Furthermore, as Allan MacRae says at June 4, 2012 at 7:38 pm
Simply, at a local level the diurnal variation of atmospheric CO2 is observed to be independent of known pulses of CO2 into the atmosphere. This, too, is evidence that the variations in atmospheric CO2 concentration are determined by some balance of the natural emission and sequestration processes, and it suggests that the balance is established at each geographic position. (This geographical conclusion is supported by the differences between the curves in the Figure 2 which I mentioned earlier in this post).
Clearly, something is adjusting the ‘set point’ of atmospheric CO2 concentration hour-by-hour, day-by-day, month-by-month, and year-by-year so it appears to act independently of known inputs of CO2 into the air.
I hope this answers your question
Richard
Allan MacRae:
Thankyou for your clarification at June 5, 2012 at 9:42 pm. It says:
I am sorry that I was not adequately clear.
I agree that “the system will continue to chase equilibrium in time and space”. Indeed, I said as much in my post at June 5, 2012 at 10:45 am where I wrote
But, again, that merely rewords my question. It changes my question to become
“Is the carbon cycle adjusting to a new equilibrium by not sequestering all CO2 emissions and, if so, why?”
Richard
Gail Combs:
Thankyou for your posts. At June 5, 2012 at 2:41 pm, I tried to get people to recognise that the complexity of the carbon cycle makes problematic any simplistic analyses of its changes. I think your posts make the same point but more clearly.
Richard
Robert Brown:
Your post at June 5, 2012 at 6:27 pm begins by saying
I write to provide a sincere and friendly warning.
For more than a decade, I have made the same (and other) points concerning the MLO data as you are making. But I have found it is fruitless making such points because the only responses are refusals to consider the facts and – if the points are pressed – personal abuse.
It is interesting to ponder why there is such refusal to consider the obvious limitations of the MLO data.
In my opinion the refusal is because the MLO data is the longest continuous record of atmospheric CO2 concentration and very little other quantification exists for any part of the carbon cycle. Therefore, almost all existing consideration and modelling of the carbon cycle is built on use of the MLO data. So, any doubt of the accuracy, precision and reliability of the MLO data is perceived as being an attack on the work of each person who has made any consideration and/or model of the carbon cycle.
About a decade ago I tried to investigate the entire business of the MLO data. My investigation included studying the published accounts of experimental procedures to obtain the data, visiting the site of the MLO lab., observing the surroundings of the MLO lab.from a helicopter, and attempting (without success) to get an interview with Keeling jnr.. I concluded that the MLO data is very far from being trustworthy.
I then attempted to draw attention to my conclusions in closed email groups of interested persons. I suspect that Ferdinand and Willis can remember the acrimonious responses I obtained.
So, I have concluded that consideration of the accuracy, precision and reliability of the MLO data is pointless: nobody wants to know, and the only thing achieved is ‘bruises’.
Richard
fhhaynie says:
June 4, 2012 at 1:32 pm
Myrrh,
If you look at the at the raw event flask data, you will find many spikes in the CO2 data that are flagged and not included in monthly averages. Most of these spikes are not errors because there is usually a corresponding spike in the 13CO2 data. The recorded monthly averages represent background levels that vary with latitude but not longitude. I think that cold water in clouds is absorbing the CO2 and transporting it to the upper atmosphere and the poles.This process is moderating the measured concentration near the surface and gives the appearance of “well mixed”.
Also, it can explain the higher concentrations in the upper atmosphere in the mid latitudes. The equator is the source and the cold water near the poles are the sinks.
=======
[I’ve just done the two sections below and thought I’d better come back up to do some sort of introduction to it.., except I still don’t know where I’m going with it except as I read more descriptions of Hawaii and Mauna Loa it still niggles me for several reasons, and I’d like to sort it out.]
It was watching a programme on the Water Cycle in Hawaii given by a geologist from the university, don’t recall his name, it was before I took an interest in Mauna Loa, where I learned that without the Water Cycle temperatures would be 67°C, not the 15°C we have, because warm moist air rises it takes away the heat from the surface of the Earth and as the water vapour condenses back into liquid at colder height temperatures it gives up this heat which continues to flow from hotter to colder up and away. Hawaii is a good study for the Water Cycle: http://www.hawaiihistory.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=ig.page&PageID=365
“Water Cycle
The water cycle on an island follows the same principles and properties of water anywhere, but ocean island geology and geography create unique details in how the cycle plays out.
The island water cycle begins with ocean evaporation. Moist air cools as it rises and as the humidity level of this air increases to 100%, water vapor condenses to form clouds. Most rainfall in Hawai`i results from orographic lifting, the lifting of clouds as they’re pushed up against the islands’ central mountains by northeast tradewinds. As prevailing winds push the moisture-laden air to approximately 2,000 meters, the air reaches its saturation point where cloud vapor condenses to water and rain results.
The areas with the greatest rainfall are also those areas with the most persistent uplifting, that is, areas on the windward sides of the islands. Large valleys form under the most intense rainfall. Rain shapes small gullies in areas of less intense rain. Leeward plains can remain essentially uneroded; rainfall comes there only when the heaviest storms push clouds over the mountains.”
===============
My italics. Northeast tradewinds: http://wings.avkids.com/Book/Atmosphere/instructor/wind-01.html
“General Wind Patterns
As mentioned, local wind patterns are the result of pressure differences in the immediate area: land, sea, mountain, etc. But there are global patterns that we can observe as well. Let’s start by following movement in the northern hemisphere. Hot air rises from the equator, creates a low pressure area, and flows towards the north pole. The upper wind flow is deflected to the right by the Coriolis effect, which causes it to pile up and move from west to east. The piled up air cools, creating a high pressure area, and sinks; and as it accumulates on the surface it flows towards both the equator and north pole. The air moving toward the equator is influenced by the Coriolis effect and moves from the northeast, and because of its direction is called the northeast trade winds. (Wind is classified according to the direction from which it is blowing.) The poleward moving air also moves to the right and is called the prevailing westerlies. The third wind belt develops as cold polar air sinks and moves south, is deflected to the right, and is therefore called the polar easterlies. The same air pattern occurs in the latitudes of the southern hemisphere, except that the deflection of the wind is to the left rather than right. (In the southern hemisphere the trades are called the southeast trade winds.)
Roughly speaking, trade winds occupy the area between 0 (the equator) and 30 degrees latitude; prevailing westerlies the area between 30 and 60 degrees; and polar easterlies the region between 60 and 90 degrees (the pole).”
======================
So, there are two things in play here, the local conditions and the Northeast tradewinds. Descriptions of how and what they’re measuring on Mauna Loa to claim that it is “pristine” for background is two-fold; the diurnal winds moving upslope in the heat of the day flow back downslope as they cool, and, the Northeast tradewinds claimed to be bringing in pristine untouched by local, well-mixed background. Here’s a map of the Hawaian islands: http://www.worldatlas.com/webimage/countrys/namerica/usstates/hi.htm
How they can claim that anything in the downslope winds is free of local production is weird in itself when they at the same time claim it is local air thoroughly mixing for two or three years above them, but its not going to be same volume of air, wind, coming down as going up and Hawaii, according to those who fly around its skies (which greatly increased traffic day and night is ignored), is well known for its mixing winds, the Northeastern trades must be going into a kind of trap here, held captive in the mix. This is a very warm ocean in an area of great volcanic activity – yet – that volcanic activity is never ever mentioned except as their decision of cut off point, claiming they are taking away whatever huge amounts are around from the venting, eruptions and so on and arbitrarily deciding when that no longer affects their samples. They decide in other words what the ‘background’ is, and then take away what doesn’t fit. Exactly as Callendar did…, ignoring all the spikes and outliers that don’t fit in with their agenda of proving “man made CO2 is rising globally every year” – and as I said earlier, Keeling claimed to have proved this with less than 2 years data. Some scientist. Why would you trust the figures of a scientist who claimed this?
This Mauna Loa station is the poster child for their claims their stations are all in “pristine” positions, uncontaminated by local CO2 production – how can they claim that for Hawaii when they have to admit to having to continually juggle with such great local outpouring of it which they then subtract and, where of what they measure of what’s left is this anywhere claimed to be man-made? Good grief, that ‘scientists’ defend the method is beyond rationality, we expect those with bent for things scientific to see flaws in the premise, but warmists can’t, anymore they can see any of the fudges in the method.
Not all convection taking warm CO2 laden air up around them is going to turn in rain against their mountain, or the other mountains on the islands, or their odd idea that depleted levels of carbon dioxide coming upslope is always from plant uptake (because they ignore all other reasons for it as they do for its higher levels, such as plants when not actively synthesising will be breathing out carbon dioxide just as we do, and, some 90% of the oxygen in our atmosphere is produced by photosynthesis in the oceans so how can not be a factor in measuring on islands?).
And looking at that line of islands, the Northeast tradewinds which they claim are bring in “pristine untouched by local CO2”, come over all the other islands before getting to Hawaii (thousands of earthquakes a year much underwater and etc. etc. the other carbon dioxide production)
So this great emphasis they put on “pristine Northeast tradewinds travelling across thousands of miles of uncontaminated by local ocean” is nonsense just for that, they pass through the whole island chain before getting to Hawaii, but, they measure, different crowd I imagine, stuff coming in from China!
All that has to be ‘local’. Local is whatever readings you get from all the factors in play locally.
Their mythical “well mixed background” is an arbitrarily chosen cut off point excising whatever doesn’t fit, lying that it’s a pristine site by ignoring or fudging all other factors – which they’ve achieved from the get go by starting with a ridiculously low cherry picked Callendar/Keeling beginning number. And, on top of that there’s no way of showing any difference between volcanic and ‘man-made’, it’s an illusion which keeps being fudged in presentation by pro AGWs and in Mauna Loa’s descriptions they’re not differentiating. There is no way Keeling could claim that his arbitrarily chosen cut off point in Hawaii was showing a trend of man-made CO2 of his mythical global well-mixed background.
What really pisses me off, is that I’m not a scientist and can spot all the tweaks and fudges and propaganda of “say it enough times and people will believe up a mountain which is itself the world’s largest active volcano in an area of constant volcanic activity in a warm sea, etc. is pristine site”, and I have to argue with those who claim for themselves the ability of “scientific thinking” defending this crap by regurgitating the meme tweaks.
But I’m really fed up with the well-mixed meme, the endless crap fisics which ignores its relative weight etc. even when there are glaring disjuncts as in the AGW Hawaii explanations that they have to wait until carbon dioxide from their volcanic activity has settled because it’s heavier than air. Why do we need to teach climate ‘scientists’ this?? How can anyone thinking themselves a climate scientist not know the real properties of carbon dioxide? It’s not an effin ideal gas in a lab, the atmosphere isn’t empty space. How can these people not understand that the volume of atmosphere around us is a heavy voluminous fluid gas, or we wouldn’t hear sound? But no, they firmly state that molecules of carbon dioxide spontaneously diffuse and speed through the empty air at great speeds bouncing off other such weightless volumeless molecules and so thoroughly mixing. What is it with them? Can’t they see the disjunct between a fluid gas atmosphere, in which we have sound, and empty space? And then there’s Brownian motion also given as a reason carbon dioxide is thoroughly mixed – WUWT??
Without real world physics of properties and process then any made up explanation will do -empty space ideal gas diffusion or fluid volume of gas in Brownian motion which works on nanodistances, and as if carbon dioxide is something apart from the medium.. They have no convection in their models because they have no atmosphere and then they give Brownian motion as a reason Carbon Dioxide ‘diffuses as does scent from a bottle opened in a classroom’ – they need to reassess their capacity for ‘scientific’ thinking if they still regurgitate these nonsense memes when this is pointed out to them. Incapable even of understanding gravity because it doesn’t exist in their empty space ideal gas world. At the very least they should investigate this for themselves, instead they get on a general warmists support bandwagon knocking real world physics.
Anyway, anyone claiming the station at Hawaii is producing real figures showing increase of man-made global carbon dioxide production who can ignore not only one example of the contortions they go through to claim it’s a pristine site and their method sound, but a whole list of reasons hiding the fact that even this claimed well-mixed background is not proven to exist, is not an effin scientist. Full stop.
Some disjuncts:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Ocean_Data_Analysis_Project
“Additionally, analysis has attempted to separate natural from anthropogenic DIC, to produce fields of pre-industrial (18th century) DIC and “present day” anthropogenic CO2. This separation allows estimation of the magnitude of the ocean sink for anthropogenic CO2, and is important for studies of phenomena such as ocean acidification.[3][4] However, as anthropogenic DIC is chemically and physically identical to natural DIC, this separation is difficult.”
Oh, but they’re improving the method of finding the difference… So didn’t Keeling find it? What have we been fed all these years?
No wonder Keeling was delighted to get to work at Hawaii, the Antarctic just wasn’t producing enough carbon dioxide for his desired manipulations..
So between these two fudge memes, that carbon dioxide is well mixed gas and that Mauna Loa is ideal place to measure this supposed global background which meme Keeling himself started, is all the junk science created to support it, including showing one picture every now and then from AIRS which is totally at odds with its stated official conclusion that CO2 is lumpy to their great surprise, and, which anyway is withholding upper and lower troposphere data. Of course they were surprised, because the fictional fisics of AGW has created a different world with different properties and processes. It admits, for example, that water vapour is not well-mixed, but lumpy, but says that all the other gases are – and this is simply, astonishingly, accepted without blinking.
So water vapour somehow can lump in an empty atmosphere where the other gases are in ideal empty space bouncing off each other – without attraction – so their carbon dioxide can’t join with water vapour and their clouds appear by magic. But AIRS found that carbon dioxide is lumpy, really lumpy, and they were surprised because they’d been brought up on fictional fisics regurgitated by warmists, if they hadn’t been they would know what real scientists still know:
http://www.skepticalscience.com/news.php?n=433#29253
“In real air there is no uniform distributon of the masses of the consituents including water vapor and clouds in the atmosphere in space and time as is shown by daily weather maps of the various regions of the earth. High pressure cells have more mass of the gases than do low pressure cells, and thus there is no uniform distribution of CO2 in the atmosphere. Air containing water vapor is less dense than dry air and has less mass of the fixed gases and of CO2 both of which will vary with humidity. Mountains are a prominent geological feature of the continents and the density of the air in them is less than at sea level and diminishes rapidly with elevation.”
The Mauna Loa data must be junk science because they’re measuring something that doesn’t exist, their silly manipulations with measuring notwithstanding. And until those defending it deal with all the disjuncts their analysis of Mauna Loa and the rest will never make sense because their base premise is flawed.
The claim: http://cdiac.ornl.gov/trends/co2/sio-mlo.html
Pristine Northeast tradewinds, Mauna Loa measuring dust storms from China:
http://co2now.org/Know-CO2/CO2-Monitoring/mauna-loa-atmospheric-science-and-wonder.html
More examples of pristine Northeast tradewinds, sometimes there sometimes not fudge: http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/about/co2_measurements.html
“Nearby emission or removal of CO2 typically produces sharp fluctuations, in space and time, in mole fraction. These fluctuations get smoothed out with time and distance through turbulent mixing and wind shear. A distinguishing characteristic of background air is that CO2 changes only very gradually because the air has been mixed for days, without any significant additions or removals of CO2.”
So which is it – pristine Northeast tradewind air or local mixing?
Like ideal gas spontaneous diffusion in empty space and Brownian motion, whatever tweaking meme necessary to obfuscate, they’re not describing the real world. And even this is believed when they actually describe their own methods of measuring and show they’ve made it up:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/10/02/global-warming-potentials/#comment-757687
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/10/02/global-warming-potentials/#comment-757726
But it’s always the same old same old impossible to separate out man-made global creaping up year by year so they can ignore the world-wide spikes of Pinatubo as well as their own continuous production of it while producing pictures out of time and mislabled http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/07/29/co2-well-mixed-or-mixed-signals/
and
And Ferdinand, releasing a few pictures years after the relevant data was known showing a time of as little of variation they could and not showing any pictures completely at odds with this from which their own astonished conclusion about all their collected data, that carbon dioxide is lumpy and not well-mixed, is no basis from which to do your own calculations, is it?
Also, the inescapable conclusion: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/10/02/global-warming-potentials/#comment-757955
“The pdf is 65 pages long and rips apart the whole CO2 data base including Ice Cores and Manuna Loa. There are a lot of references to back up the anaysis too. So yes the data has been “adjusted” like Hansen’s temperatures. No wonder the Mauna Loa data shows a nice linear increase in CO2. Without the CO2 is “well mixed” assumption the whole house of cards collapses.”
So, Gail’s conclusion there is what we really have to deal with, not which curve arguments.
Where’s the proof of the Mauna Loa premise that there is such a thing as well-mixed because nothing they show in their methods of measuring and idiotic fudging of everything around them is any kind of proof that such a critter exists to fit to a curve.
Further, the “cleaning” procedure at MLO and other stations doesn’t change the average or the trend with more than 0.1 ppmv, no matter if you include or exclude the outliers. The outliers at MLO are clearly those measurements that contain local contamination (downslope wind from the the volcano, upslope wind from the valley), these are rightfullt discarded, but that doesn’t affect the trend.
I know it is a bit of an anomaly here, but I stand corrected, by both you and Willis. Not anomalous that I stand corrected (I know perfectly well that my knowledge is limited and often mistaken) but there are days on WUWT that I think nobody can ever be corrected…;-)
If I understand you correctly, the correlation between NH leading SH and so on makes anthropogenic sources (in the far more industrialized NH) more likely, although still far from proven given that NH temperatures also lead (or are generally higher than) SH temperatures and Bart’s temperature-CO_2 connection is not inconsistent with that. So we are right back where we started, with Richard’s model conclusions (that we don’t yet know what is responsible for CO_2 rise) still true, although some models may be less likely than others on the grounds of sheer physical chemistry. Is that a fair assessment?
rgb
Laws of Nature says:
June 3, 2012 at 4:58 am
>> Ferdinand Engelbeen says:
“Again the same discussions com up every few months…”….
____________________________________________________
Law of Nature, F.E. is not going to budge from his position no matter what facts, peer-reviewed studies or information is thrown at him. I went round and round on one of the IPCCs most basic premises, that CO2 is uniformly distributed, and got nothing but double speak.
I figure FE is one of the WUWT trojan horses, guaranteed to show up and defend the IPCCs position on CO2. We have several of them who have a specific patch of IPPC “Science” they are dedicated to defending. Quite fascinating to watch and keeps the discussions lively.
These CO2 graphics are interesting (h/t to Willis):
Carbon tracker animation
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/carbontracker/
CO2 Weather Map
The big CO2 blob on 1Jan2010 near Newfoundland is very interesting – it is undoubtedly caused by all those Newfies home on pogey for the winter recreation season – driving their Skidoos, burning wood in their stoves and smoking all that dope.
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/carbontracker/co2weather.php?region=nam&date=2010-01-01
On a global scale, the powerful impact of Spring is evident in this 1May2010 image – and apparently the Newfies have moved on, to party with their good friends in highly industrialized, overpopulated Sakhalin Island.
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/carbontracker/co2weather.php?region=glb&date=2010-05-01
sarc off/
As I hypothesized earlier, there is the possibility of urban impacts on CO2 over Western Europe and parts of China in this winter image, also 1Jan2010.
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/carbontracker/co2weather.php?region=glb&date=2010-01-01
In the big global picture, I think these images further support my premise that human emissions of CO2 are overwhelmed by natural seasonal CO2 flux. Since the system is highly dynamic, not static, the “mass balance” argument does not hold – the system just accommodates the human emissions and makes natural adjustments as its seeks its’ own equilibrium.
I don’t think human fossil fuel combustion is contributing significantly to the observed atmospheric CO2 increase – I think it is all, or almost all natural.
Bill Illis says:
June 3, 2012 at 6:12 am
Just noting that the AIRS satellite has a number of videos for mid-tropospheric CO2 concentrations covering 6 or 7 years now.
Just search “Airs CO2″ on Google…. You will see there is considerable variability and it is entirely possible that someone might measure 500 ppm in Europe or some locality every few days…..
___________________________________________
What is also interesting is what NASA says of AIRS,
Nadir is looking straight down so this is the minimum column of air scanned. I am assuming that the “footprint” represents a column of air 13.5 km thick by 800 km/90 foot prints or 8.9 km wide.
Another page (the one I was looking for) states AIRS reports the daytime and nighttime global distribution of carbon dioxide in the mid-troposphere at a nadir resolution of 90 km x 90 km. So it looks like the “footprints” above are combined to give a reading.
Another page on AIRS says:
And AIRS is STILL finding variations from foot print to foot print despite all the combining and averaging being done.
http://airs.jpl.nasa.gov/data/about_airs_co2_data/about_airs_co2_data_files/index.jpg of “The monthly average of carbon dioxide in the middle troposphere made with AIRS data retrieved during July 2003
A real kicker: http://joannenova.com.au/2011/11/co2-emitted-by-the-poor-nations-and-absorbed-by-the-rich-oh-the-irony-and-this-truth-must-not-be-spoken/
We have ample evidence that the data for temperature is adjusted, homogenized, sliced and diced and yet when it comes to CO2 data the same people who view temperature data with a critical eye believe there is no collusion despite Callendar, who greatly influenced Charles Keeling starting off the measurement of CO2 with cherry-picking low readings from the historic data! For the history see: http://noconsensus.wordpress.com/2010/03/06/historic-variations-in-co2-measurements/
So somehow we are to believe data from ice cores and data from Mauna Loa represent the CO2 for the entire earth. This is despite the clear cut evidence from greenhouses that the atmosphere could never be below 200 ppm without wiping out C3 plants at a minimum.
Gail Combs says:
June 6, 2012 at 6:03 am
Law of Nature, F.E. is not going to budge from his position no matter what facts, peer-reviewed studies or information is thrown at him. I went round and round on one of the IPCCs most basic premises, that CO2 is uniformly distributed, and got nothing but double speak.
Well, Gail, if you have really good arguments, I will be the first to say that you are right and I am wrong. The difference between us is that I am as skeptic towards something that is said by fellow skeptics as towards what is said by the “warmist” side.
But you seem to accept any explanation of anyone, no matter how wrong and impossible, as long as it seems to undermine every single bit that the other side (IPCC) says. Take e.g. your quote of the late Ernst Beck about the 1942 “peak” in historical measurements and a little further you quote the stomate data as “proof” that there was far more variability in the CO2 data. But if you look at the stomata data, these show no peak at all in 1942 (neither do ice cores or coralline sponges or any other carbon related proxy I know of). Thus two of your quotes are completely contradictory…
And again, if you find that the AIRS data show that the CO2 is not well mixed, then you have a different definition of well mixed than I have. Well mixed doesn’t mean that any huge injection or removal of CO2 in/out the atmosphere is instantly distributed all over the earth. It only says that such exchanges will be distributed all over the earth in a reasonable period of time. In the case of CO2, that is days to weeks for the same latitude and altitude band, weeks to months for different latitudes or altitudes and months to 1-2 years between the hemispheres.
Or what do you expect that happens if you exchange 20% of all CO2 in and out of the atmosphere in a few months over the seasons? If AIRS only shows a 2% (+/- 4 ppmv) change of full scale over the same months, then a lot of the change is already mixed out.
I figure FE is one of the WUWT trojan horses, guaranteed to show up and defend the IPCCs
position on CO2. We have several of them who have a specific patch of IPPC “Science” they are dedicated to defending. Quite fascinating to watch and keeps the discussions lively.
Just received my paycheck from Fenton Communications for this month…
Ferdinand Engelbeen says:
June 6, 2012 at 12:15 am
“Thus the verification period would show if the fit gives a reasonable answer for the whole period, even if we only have sparse data for CO2.”
I haven’t really looked at it, but it is worse than just sparse, and I doubt very useful at all. There really is no need. The best modern data we have shows that the temperature/CO2 derivative relationship holds for the last 54 years. It undoubtedly held before then, so any contradiction from any other record would have to be decided in favor of the modern record.
“But as these are largely independent variables…”
They are not. The CO2 generated is subject to the same sequestration processes.
“…one can fit the same decades with a factor of the emissions, without any arbitrary offset, leaving 0% to 100% influence of temperature on the trend, but still 100% influence of temperature on the variability of the rate of change.”
Only if you fantasize that the climate acts as it pleases, without regard for physical laws. You cannot accept the variation of the temperature as influencing CO2, and dismiss its trend from doing so – that would be an unphysical high-pass response. And, that trend accounts for the entire curvature in the CO2 measurement record, leaving no avenue for a significant human influence.
“There is no indication that the deep oceans have had a measurable change in temperature…”
As the cold deep ocean water surfaces, it warms to come into equilibrium with its surroundings. That is what releases the CO2. The set point for CO2, “To” in my analogous system, changes as a result.
Joachim Seifert says:
June 2, 2012 at 3:58 pm
All this means that CO2-doubling will be completed by 2050 along with
the climate forcing of 3.7 W/m2…… thus earlier than 2100 as given by
AGW…
Which GMT would result in 2050?
;————————————
It’s physically impossible for CO2 to trap heat on the minor sideband of 15 microns (the lifetime of the excited state after the absorption is to short.)
At the peak frequency of the outbound radiation of the Earth, namely 10 microns, the forcing has the wrong sign.
In short, the climate forcing parameter of 3.7 W/m^2 will have no impact on GMT regardless of the year or the sign.
“It undoubtedly held before then”
At least, in the near past (some number of decades, at least) from the start of the record in 1958. Most likely, it holds all the time, with either slow variation or some sudden jumps, due to a change in the equilibrium conditions, as dictated by the upwelling of the deep oceans.
This is an actual physically realizable hypothesis which is consistent with all the data. Your handwaving and arbitrary apportionment of the flows – these are not physically viable propositions. Until you can come up with a causal, stable set of differential equations which can describe behavior such as you posit, you are just imagining the system as you would like it to be, with no physical anchor into the real world.
Ferdinand:
I am replying to your post at June 6, 2012 at 1:50 am because it is so rare for you and me to agree that it is a pleasure when we do. You conclude your post saying to me:
That is my opinion, too. Indeed, I said it above at June 5, 2012 at 10:45 am where I wrote
The problem is that we lack sufficient data to know if that is true or not. Indeed, if you accept that opinion (n.b. OPINION and not fact) then – as my same post explained – the existing data allows the system to be modelled in a variety of ways whether one assumes the anthropogenic emission is affecting the equilibrium or not.
Richard
FerdiEgb says:
June 6, 2012 at 1:50 am
“The current discussion with Bart now is about the response to temperature for interannual to decadal changes. According to him (and others), that may be hundreds of ppmv/°C.”
There are two different temperatures coming into my analogous model, the sea surface temperature “T”, and the equilibrium temperature “To”. “To” varies on a long term basis, and can be large, due perhaps to the differential heat content of the deep oceans upwelling to the surface. Since 1958, “To” has been significantly offset from “T”, and that has driven the linear trend portion of the CO2 rise, which is the greater part.
Additionally, around 1990, there appears to have been (though the data and the manner in which they have been processed are uncertain) a step change in “To”. Or, perhaps there is a continuous change in “To” which, unfortunately, is very difficult to plot using the WoodForTrees tool.
richardscourtney says:
June 6, 2012 at 9:50 am
“The problem is that we lack sufficient data to know if that is true or not.”
What we lack is people open-minded and skilled enough to use the information we have.
Did you read my post here? This is such a simple example that surely you will clap your hand to your head and realize Bart was right, and we can then work constructively to resolve the issue.
And, you can also take the opportunity to assuage all of the aggrieved puppy lovers out there you have angered with your quoted comments.
Bart says:
June 6, 2012 at 9:30 am
I haven’t really looked at it, but it is worse than just sparse, and I doubt very useful at all. There really is no need. The best modern data we have shows that the temperature/CO2 derivative relationship holds for the last 54 years. It undoubtedly held before then, so any contradiction from any other record would have to be decided in favor of the modern record.
There is probably no contradiction in the temperature change / CO2 derivative variability. But as said before, the problems are in the slope and offset. But see further.
“But as these are largely independent variables…”
They are not. The CO2 generated is subject to the same sequestration processes.
No, they are completely different:
The reaction of the biosphere (land plants, algae, soil bacteria) in average is more uptake of CO2 at higher temperatures and more precipitation. That is a fast process, with a reaction time of 1-2 years. The reaction of land plants to increased CO2 levels is a matter of decades. Extra growth by CO2 and temperature or precipitation are independent of each other, be it that the uptake is constrained to a certain temperature range and sufficient precipitation. The influence of the seasonal temperature change is about 90 GtC in and out, the influence of the current increase in CO2 at ~100 ppmv (70 ppmv in the period of interest) is ~1.5 GtC/year more uptake. Thus there is a huge difference in reaction type and uptake speed.
The reaction of the upper ocean layer to increased temperatures is an overall release of CO2 in accordance to Henry’s Law: about 16 ppmv/°C. The reaction to more CO2 in the atmosphere is more absorbance of CO2 into the surface layer, if that exceeds the equilibrium according to Henry’s Law.
Thus both in the biosphere as in the upper oceans the reaction processes involved for temperature changes and extra CO2 are largely independent of each other, even opposite for the oceans.
Without any extra CO2 injection, an increase in temperature would lead to an increase in CO2 release from the ocean’s surface layer and an increase of CO2 uptake by the biosphere, until a new dynamic equilibrium between all processes is reached and there it stops. That is also seen in the ice core records for any period in time before 1850 as a change of ~8 ppmv/°C.
But the deep oceans can be involved, see further…
Only if you fantasize that the climate acts as it pleases, without regard for physical laws. You cannot accept the variation of the temperature as influencing CO2, and dismiss its trend from doing so – that would be an unphysical high-pass response. And, that trend accounts for the entire curvature in the CO2 measurement record, leaving no avenue for a significant human influence.
Again, the variation in temperature matches the variability in increase rate, even if you completely detrend the increase rate. But there is no physical or statistical law that says that the slope and offset must be attributed to the temperature influence. And if the removal of the human emissions is slow enough, as it seems to be, then most of the slope and the bulk of the increase rate can be attributed to the human emissions.
As the cold deep ocean water surfaces, it warms to come into equilibrium with its surroundings. That is what releases the CO2. The set point for CO2, “To” in my analogous system, changes as a result.
Only marginally so: maximum 16 ppmv for 1°C. That is all what you get if the deep ocean upwelling remains the same. If the upwelling increases, that must be compensated by more down welling elsewhere anyway, which means more throughput but no change in atmospheric CO2.
The only difference could be if the deep ocean upwelling increased substantially in CO2 content. But that is a remote possibility and has nothing to do with temperature.
—————————————
From your second message:
There are two different temperatures coming into my analogous model, the sea surface temperature “T”, and the equilibrium temperature “To”. “To” varies on a long term basis, and can be large, due perhaps to the differential heat content of the deep oceans upwelling to the surface. Since 1958, “To” has been significantly offset from “T”, and that has driven the linear trend portion of the CO2 rise, which is the greater part.
Your formulae are here:
dC/dt = (Co – C)/tau1 + k1*H
dCo/dt = -Co/tau2 + k2*(T-To)
No problem with the first line. But problems with the second one, where you establish the influence of temperature on Co and thus indirectly the dependence of the removal speed of human CO2.
Of course there is a dependence of Co on temperature, but that is a fixed one, not an eternal gliding one. That is what the physics from air-oceans and air-biosphere changes says.
The second line needs a stop function when the new equilibrium setpoint would be reached:
dCo/dt = -(Co-Coo)/tau2 + k2*(T-To)
Where Coo is the original equilibrium CO2 level at To and Co is the new equilibrium CO2 level at T. Further k2 ~4 ppmv/°C increasing to ~8 ppmv/°C for very long periods. The 4 ppmv/°C is the current temperature changes – increase rate changes ratio and the 8 ppmv/°C is what is observed in the past via ice cores.
That implies that tau2 is very short (as observed) and tau1 is relative long (as observed)…
If you make Co a gliding one, then there is no stop in either direction if T passes To, which for every time frame beyond the current leads to huge deviations from reality.
richardscourtney says: @ur momisugly June 5, 2012 at 10:45 am
…I repeat the important question is
Why don’t the natural sequestration processes sequester all the emissions (natural and anthropogenic) when it is clear that they can?….
=============
Because as i’ve touched on in my last post, the carbon dioxide molecule is different in AGWScienceFiction fisics and it’s this critter that represents anthropogenic. It’s a supermolecule which wears its knickers on the outside, not only driving hurricanes and moving jet streams, it is an ideal gas in an ideal gas empty space atmosphere of like ideal gas molecules oxygen and nitrogen (but not water vapour) so as per ideal gas description these all zip around at enormous speeds through their empty space AGWSF world’s atmosphere bouncing off each other and so thoroughly mixing in elastic collisions and as per ideal gas it has no weight so can accumulate for hundreds even thousands of years bouncing off and zipping around unattracted to any other molecules around it. Phew. Not that you’ll find any method for sequestration into sinks for natural – they just happen, as do clouds – because in AGWSF fisics carbon dioxide has no way of getting back to Earth except it bounces into it; rocks can’t be sinks because ideal gases bounce without attraction so they don’t have rain which is carbonic acid which does the weathering and of course their clouds appear by magic because gases aren’t buoyant in air and anyway water vapour is being bounced around by all the ideal gas molecules bouncing it around, so how can it form?, and so on, and so on, so don’t be thinking that because they say water vapour isn’t an ideal gas but lumpy, that they have any way of producing it in their empty space atmosphere so enthralling to the likes of Spencer who is so clearly out of his depth when some engineer or other applied scientist comes along and says you can’t use vacuum and radiation because it ignores convection because he’s ignoring that there is a something between Earth and the vacuum of space – they don’t know what convection is because they don’t have real molecules but ideal, so they freak out if you mention gravity…
They really have no concept of the atmosphere above our heads and all around us at all, they don’t understand volume.
Anyway, that’s why anthropogenic doesn’t get swallowed up in the same sinks as natural, they avoid explaining how it does for natural because they don’t know as it can’t be explained by their strange fisics, they merely parrot real world physics general descriptions like “rain”, which can’t form in their fisics. The problem is that scientists who do understand real molecules and real atmosphere don’t know they’re talking to people who have a completely different fisics, who are describing a totally different world, so there’s a lot of talking past each other because warmers don’t understand they don’t know real physics.
But still insist they do. Heck it’s taught at uni level, the PhD in physics who taught me about this blew my mind, I couldn’t believe at first that he was serious. He said he’d fail me in the exams he set (in Scotland), so I questioned him to make sure I was really hearing that carbon dioxide spontaneously diffuses into the atmosphere as per ideal gas to bounce off other ideal gas molecules and so thoroughly mix.. At first he refused to accept that carbon dioxide would separate out at all, until I showed him real world examples, volcanoes venting dangers, breweries, and so on, then he removed his post, moderator status, in which he said CO2 could never separate out and came back with this really weird idea that some large amounts of CO2 together would bring down the ‘package’ of air with them, so not really separating out. You couldn’t make it up… Except someone did to create this AGW Science Fiction world. That’s when I said, OK, so we agree that Carbon Dioxide can pool on the ground, so, there’s a room where carbon dioxide has pooled on the ground and nothing changes to original conditions which allowed it to pool, no work done, no windows opened, no fan put on, I say it will stay pooled on the ground because it is one and a half times heavier than air. He said it wouldn’t, it would spontaneosly diffuse into the atmosphere of the room as per ideal gas and through collisions at vast speeds of ideal gas in empty space would very quickly become thoroughly mixed and couldn’t become unmixed without a great deal of work being done. And I bet every warmist believing or taught that is reality is going, yeah yeah, that’s how it is…
So, they don’t have any fisics to get their MightyMolecule into carbon sinks and can’t explain how natural does it.
And, that’s why they don’t understand your question.
================
Willis Eschenbach says:
June 5, 2012 at 6:49 pm
Robert Brown says:
June 5, 2012 at 6:16 pm
As one might expect, it suggests that we would be far better served by an entire globe spanning set of CO_2 concentration monitoring stations than by “just one”, sitting on an active volcano that is used as if it is representative of the entire atmosphere at 4200 meters above sea level at all temperatures and latitudes.
Actually, we do have a bunch of stations, one in Samoa, one in Barrow, Alaska, and the like. They lead to things like this: picture
On the other hand we have:
“1.2 The Location of CO2 Monitoring Station in regions enriched by volcanic CO2
Volcanic CO2 emission raises some serious doubts concerning the anthropogenic origins of the rising atmospheric CO2 trend. In fact, the location of key CO2 measuring stations (Keeling et al., 2005; Monroe, 2007) in the vicinity of volcanoes and other CO2 sources may well result in the measurement of magmatic CO2 rather than a representative sample of the Troposphere. For example, Cape Kumukahi is located in a volcanically active province in Eastern Hawaii, while Mauna Loa Observatory is on Mauna Loa, an active volcano – both observatories within 50km of the highly active Kilauea and its permanent 3.2 MtCO2pa plume. Samoa is within 50 km of the active volcanoes Savai’i and/or Upolo, while Kermandec Island observatory is located within 10 km of the active Raoul Island volcano. etc.” continue on: http://carbon-budget.geologist-1011.net/
Willis Eschenbach says:
June 5, 2012 at 6:55 pm
Robert Brown says:
June 5, 2012 at 6:27 pm
… But then, locating “the” CO_2 observatory for the world on an active volcano is insane. Having just one (or just five, or just ten) for the world is insane. From a statistical point of view.
It is not impossible that 100% of the Mauna Loa increasing CO_2 “signal” is due to a steady, occult, increase in CO_2 outgassing due to volcanic processes within Mauna Loa itself and surrounding islands. I don’t suggest that this is the mostly likely/plausible explanation, only that the only way one could check is with an observatory on top of Mount Everest, another on Kilimanjaro, ten thousand (or a hundred thousand) more moored on weather balloons at 20,000 feet in some sort of regular grid covering the planetary surface. Or performing some very complex and dubious geophysical research (since even if you excluded ML itself, there would be outgassing from vulcanism on the surrounding pacific floor to consider, and still more confounding factors). Expecting MLO to generalize to “the Earth” is a bit egregious.
rgb
Actually, it turns out that MLO is quite a good place for a CO2 measuring station … see my post “Under the Volcano, Over the Volcano” for a discussion of the issues. I also discussed the Beck data there, and Dr. Beck posted a response, I was stoked. His response starts by saying:
Dear Willis,
I agree, the near ground data listed in my first paper do not reflect background data.
Read his whole comment here. http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/06/04/under-the-volcano-over-the-volcano/#comment-403530
========
A couple of things, firstly thanks for the link because his link http://www.biokurs.de/treibhaus/CO2_versus_windspeed-review-1-FM.pdf gave me the same moment of enjoyment I had the first time I saw his comparison Fig 1 – his, “Note the different scales of the 2 plots!”
Good man himself.
Secondly, which is why I decided to reply to your posts here, Mauna Loa is sold as, because claimed by Keeling, the definitive record of global well mixed background, which is always this unproven and explained by strange fisics “global well-mixed background” – Beck is talking about local well-mixed which is on par with one of the explanations of Mauna Loa method, of local mixing by winds etc. – from which range of data global could be worked out. The paper he linked to in your discussion was carbon dioxide versus wind speed – in AIRS they didn’t even understand winds, they said they’d have to go and do some work to understand them because carbon dioxide was lumpy and not well-mixed.
If anyone could work out what global was it would be BECK, our great loss, it certainly ain’t anyone juggling the numbers at Mauna Loa in contradicting methods arbitrarily deciding levels claiming that it’s pristine global they’re reading.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/09/23/obituary-ernst-george-beck/
“Due to his immense specialized knowledge and his methodical severity Ernst very promptly noticed numerous inconsistencies in the statements of the Intergovernmental Penal on Climate Change IPCC. He considered the warming of the earth’s atmosphere as a result of a rise of the carbon dioxide content of the air of approximately 0.03 to 0.04 percent as impossible. ”
Impossible. Those brought up with the tweaked into comic parody fisics in the corrupted science education of AGW cannot understand Beck. I really don’t know what it would take for these to understand they don’t understand because the tweaks are subtle and cover a huge range of science fields.
We could make a start…, carbon dioxide heavier than air would only take stuff we have in the kitchen, vinegar and bicarb of soda, and a lit candle on which to pour the invisible stream of fluid gas from above it to put it out.. As shown on QI a short while back when Stephen Fry did this on air, (BBC prime time).
Huge task to deconstruct all their experiments and teaching of fisics.
Aggh, sorry, missed close italics after: “Dear Willis,
I agree, the near ground data listed in my first paper do not reflect background data.
Read his whole comment here. http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/06/04/under-the-volcano-over-the-volcano/#comment-403530 ”
Please fix mods if possible, thanks.
Have just taken a closer look at Beck’s old website – looks like not being maintained – does that mean the work he had on it is unavailable? http://www.biomind.de/realCO2/