Readers may recall these WUWT stories: Earth’s biosphere booming, California’s giant redwoods inconveniently respond to increased carbon dioxide, and Forget deforestation: The world’s woodland is getting denser and change could help combat climate change. NASA satellite imagery pointed this out long ago.
Now confirmation from another source: From the University of Colorado at Boulder
Earth absorbing more carbon, even as CO2 emissions rise, says CU-Boulder-led study
Planet’s carbon uptake doubles in past 50 years, researchers ponder how long trend can continue
Despite sharp increases in carbon dioxide emissions by humans in recent decades that are warming the planet, Earth’s vegetation and oceans continue to soak up about half of them, according to a surprising new study led by the University of Colorado Boulder.
The study, led by CU-Boulder postdoctoral researcher Ashley Ballantyne, looked at global CO2 emissions reports from the past 50 years and compared them with rising levels of CO2 in Earth’s atmosphere during that time, primarily because of fossil fuel burning. The results showed that while CO2 emissions had quadrupled, natural carbon “sinks” that sequester the greenhouse gas doubled their uptake in the past 50 years, lessening the warming impacts on Earth’s climate.
“What we are seeing is that the Earth continues to do the heavy lifting by taking up huge amounts of carbon dioxide, even while humans have done very little to reduce carbon emissions,” said Ballantyne. “How long this will continue, we don’t know.”
A paper on the subject will be published in the Aug. 2 issue of Nature. Co-authors on the study include CU-Boulder Professor Jim White, CU-Boulder doctoral student Caroline Alden and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration scientists John Miller and Pieter Tans. Miller also is a research associate at the CU-headquartered Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences.
According to Alden, the trend of sinks gulping atmospheric carbon cannot continue indefinitely. “It’s not a question of whether or not natural sinks will slow their uptake of carbon, but when,” she said.
“We’re already seeing climate change happen despite the fact that only half of fossil fuel emissions stay in the atmosphere while the other half is drawn down by the land biosphere and oceans,” Alden said. “If natural sinks saturate as models predict, the impact of human emissions on atmospheric CO2 will double.”
Ballantyne said recent studies by others have suggested carbon sinks were declining in some areas of the globe, including parts of the Southern Hemisphere and portions of the world’s oceans. But the new Nature study showed global CO2 uptake by Earth’s sinks essentially doubled from 1960 to 2010, although increased variations from year-to-year and decade-to-decade suggests some instability in the global carbon cycle, he said.
White, who directs CU-Boulder’s Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research, likened the increased pumping of CO2 into the atmosphere to a car going full throttle. “The faster we go, the more our car starts to shake and rattle,” he said. “If we drive 100 miles per hour, it is going to shake and rattle a lot more because there is a lot more instability, so it’s probably time to back off the accelerator,” he said. “The same is true with CO2 emissions.”
The atmospheric CO2 levels were measured at 40 remote sites around the world by researchers from NOAA and the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, Calif., including stations at the South Pole and on the Mauna Loa Volcano in Hawaii.
Carbon dioxide is emitted into the atmosphere primarily by fossil fuel combustion and by forest fires and some natural processes, said Ballantyne. “When carbon sinks become carbon sources, it will be a very critical time for Earth,” said Ballantyne. “We don’t see any evidence of that yet, but it’s certainly something we should be looking for.”
“It is important to understand that CO2 sinks are not really sinks in the sense that the extra carbon is still present in Earth’s vegetation, soils and the ocean,” said NOAA’s Tans. “It hasn’t disappeared. What we really are seeing is a global carbon system that has been pushed out of equilibrium by the human burning of fossil fuels.”
Despite the enormous uptake of carbon by the planet, CO2 in the atmosphere has climbed from about 280 parts per million just prior to the Industrial Revolution to about 394 parts per million today, and the rate of increase is speeding up. The global average of atmospheric CO2 is expected to reach 400 ppm by 2016, according to scientists.
The team used several global CO2 emissions reports for the Nature study, including one by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center. They concluded that about 350 billion tons of carbon — the equivalent of roughly 1 trillion tons of CO2 — had been emitted as a result of fossil fuel burning and land use changes from 1959 to 2010, with just over half moving into sinks on land or in the oceans.
According to the study, the scientists observed decreased CO2 uptake by Earth’s land and oceans in the 1990s, followed by increased CO2 sequestering by the planet from 2000 to 2010. “Seeing such variation from decade to decade tells us that we need to observe Earth’s carbon cycle for significantly longer periods in order to help us understand what is occurring,” said Ballantyne.
Scientists also are concerned about the increasing uptake of CO2 by the world’s oceans, which is making them more acidic. Dissolved CO2 changes seawater chemistry by forming carbonic acid that is known to damage coral, the fundamental structure of coral reef ecosystems that harbor 25 percent of the world’s fish species.
The study was funded by the National Research Council, the National Science Foundation and NOAA.
A total of 33.6 billion tons of CO2 were emitted globally in 2010, climbing to 34.8 billion tons in 2011, according to the International Energy Agency. Federal budget cuts to U.S. carbon cycle research are making it more difficult to measure and understand both natural and human influences on the carbon cycle, according to the research team.
“The good news is that today, nature is helping us out,” said White also a professor in CU’s geological sciences department. “The bad news is that none of us think nature is going to keep helping us out indefinitely. When the time comes that these carbon sinks are no longer taking up carbon, there is going to be a big price to pay.”
Walter H. Schneider says:
August 2, 2012 at 4:28 pm
It seems to me that you did not take in anything from Prof. Murray Salby’s presentation. Perhaps you did not watch it.
Murry Salby is wrong:
– The current variability of temperature introduces a variability of CO2 of 4-5 ppmv/°C over short time (seasons to years).
– The (very) long term reaction of CO2 to temperature changes (glacials-interglacials and MWP-LIA) gives some 8 ppmv/°C over decades to multi-millennia.
– The intermediate reaction of CO2 to temperature changes, according to Salby (and Bart) should give some 100 ppmv/°C at a rate of about 1.5 ppmv/year over the past 50 years, for a change of ~0.6°C.
– The same change of 100 ppmv over a glacial-interglacial transition needs some 5,000 years (and 15,000 years to go back). Thus a rate of 0.02 ppmv/year for a change of ~10°C.
– The fast-medium-slow responses are theoretically possible, but there is no known natural process that performs the medium response and the slow responses should completely overrule the medium responses, back to a low ratio.
– If the medium response was true, that would imply that for colder temperatures the CO2 levels could go to zero.
Further:
– The biosphere is a proven net sink for CO2, based on the oxygen balance.
– The ocean surface is a proven CO2 sink, based on ships surveys over the past decades and a few fixed stations with continuous monitoring.
– Rests the deep oceans, but these have a too high 13C/12C ratio (around zero per mil d13C), compared to the atmosphere (at -8 per mil). Any substantial addition of CO2 from the deep oceans should give an increase of d13C in the atmosphere, but we see a decrease in ratio with the human emissions.
– Last but not least, even if there was a natural source as cause, that implies that the human emissions disappear in a black hole and that the natural source exactly mimics the human emissions in strength and 13C/12C ratio. Quite remarkable for an independent natural process…
“If we drive 100 miles per hour, it is going to shake and rattle a lot more because there is a lot more instability, so it’s probably time to back off the accelerator,” he said. “The same is true with CO2 emissions.”
Only if drive beat up VW bus.
So that reminds me, let’s increase the speed limit to 90 mph.
And only get people who can actually build smooth roads.
to topic:
“The team used several global CO2 emissions reports for the Nature study, including one by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center. They concluded that about 350 billion tons of carbon — the equivalent of roughly 1 trillion tons of CO2 — had been emitted as a result of fossil fuel burning and land use changes from 1959 to 2010, with just over half moving into sinks on land or in the oceans.”
So we ever increasing amount CO2 emissions, and ever increasing the amount being adsorb by the life processes. So what happens when China runs out Coal- will life process continue to suck up large amount of CO2. And cause thereby cause serious shortage of Global CO2!
“It’s not a question of whether or not natural sinks will slow their uptake of carbon, but when,” she said.
You cannot make a statement like this! We don’t know! Scientists don’t know if this is true. It’s a rubbish statement!.
“If natural sinks saturate as models predict, the impact of human emissions on atmospheric CO2 will double.”
As models predict??? A model only knows what scientists know. They do not think for themselves!
They are of as much use as the scientists who build them!
Bart says:
August 2, 2012 at 8:57 pm
All anyone needs to know about atmospheric CO2 concentration is contained in this plot.
As we have been there already several times, that plot only shows that the variability of the rate of change in CO2 uptake is directly related to temperature (changes). That says next to nothing about the cause of the trend, as your offset is completely arbitrarely and a similar plot can be obtained by completely removing the temperature trend and adding a % of the emissions.
And it doesn’t work for any other period of time than the current one, simply because we had a near parallel increase of temperature and CO2 rate of change, that gives a completely spurious correlation.
Any temperature change of the oceans has a limited effect of maximum 16 ppmv/°C, no matter if that comes from the ocean surface alone or the deep oceans. In the latter case, the exchange flows are increased or decreased until the CO2 levels are back into equilibrium, but again limited in level and time. There is no known natural process that gives (near) unlimited CO2 releases for a small permanent increase in temperature.
And vegetation works in opposite direction…
See further the rest of the arguments in my previous message to Walter H. Schneider…
alcheson says:
August 2, 2012 at 10:39 pm
What you say is right, but that doesn’t change the fact that Ca(HCO3)2 is a weak buffer, where much of the buffer capacity is already used. That gives that any addition of CO2 will lower the pH (some 0.1 point since the industrial revolution) and thus a 100% increase in the atmosphere will give only a 10% increase in the ocean surface waters.
The deep oceans are a different question, as these are far from saturated.
But a better – chemical – explanation of the buffer/Revelle factor in the oceans can be found here:
http://www.eng.warwick.ac.uk/staff/gpk/Teaching-undergrad/es427/Exam%200405%20Revision/Ocean-chemistry.pdf
Well the general result is well known. The increased CO2 has caused an increase in plant growth. But it’s not enough.
——quote
Carbon dioxide is emitted into the atmosphere primarily by fossil fuel combustion and by forest fires and some natural processes, said Ballantyne. “When carbo
——–end quote
And this is wrong and badly explained. The general yearly turnover of CO2 is a lot higher than the anthropogenic increment.
The problem is that half the anthropogenic increment is staying in the atmosphere and is accumulating over time like a bank savings account.
Stephen Wilde says
During the 90s and up to 2000 the oceans were gaining energy as a result of more sunlight reaching the oceans during a period of reducing global cloudiness. That reduced their capacity to hold CO2 so the rate of uptake decreased.
———-
I reckon you just made this up and that the measurements of CO2 flux into the oceans over this period say you’re wrong. Would you like to look up the measurements to prove me wrong?
Indeed. A measure of the poor data behind such claims:
Them’s some error bars!!
Ferdinand Engelbeen says:
August 2, 2012 at 2:53 pm
Yes, but all sinks are natural, the few human sinks are negligible. Thus even if all human CO2 is captured within a minute by the next nearby tree or remains in the atmosphere forever, that doesn’t matter: the natural sinks are as large as the natural sources + halve the human emissions in quantity, whatever the exact mix which is removed.
Fred, we’re not *making* brand-new CO2 — we’re releasing 100% natural CO2 that was 100% naturally sequestered in the 100% natural past. We can’t overload the sinks because the CO2 we’ve been releasing (and nature’s been releasing) came from those sinks in the first place.
LazyTeenager says:
August 3, 2012 at 1:42 am
The problem is that half the anthropogenic increment is staying in the atmosphere and is accumulating over time like a bank savings account.
Did you forget that means half the *naturally* occurring CO2 is also staying in the atmosphere, or did you just choose to ignore it?
And these morons still bang on about ocean acidification.
Look at the geological records. It does not happen.
“Carbon dioxide is emitted into the atmosphere primarily by fossil fuel combustion and by forest fires and some natural processes”, said Ballantyne.
This statement is clearly calculated to give the impression that most emissions are due to humans. In fact natural emissions are around 30 times greater than human emissions.
I’m reminded of the NASA climate scientist who told an outrageous and demonstrable lie on the BBC program ‘Science Under Attack’. The ‘scientist’ stated clearly that mankind emits 7 times more CO2 than nature. The sad thing is that most ordinary people probably know very little about climate science, and they would naturally assume that the scientist had told the truth. Even Paul Nurse, who hosted the program, was clearly ignorant and he swallowed the lie. Ironically, he went on to ask why some people doubted it.
Mr Nurse, people doubt it because it’s a lie. You should be ashamed.
The program’s name, ‘Science Under Attack’, is appropriate. Science clearly is under attack. But it’s the scientists themselves who are attacking science, either through outright fraud or by staying silent.
I’m proud to be a sceptic, and I try to follow the Royal Society’s ancient motto: ‘Take no one’s word’.
It’s the sceptics who are fighting for the integrity of science.
Chris
Are these guys suggesting that photosynthesis is magically going to stop? Is there no hint of common sense that could stop this kind of idiocy before it makes it out of the ol’ pie hole?
Ferdinand Engelbeen says:
What you say is right, but that doesn’t change the fact that Ca(HCO3)2 is a weak buffer, where much of the buffer capacity is already used. That gives that any addition of CO2 will lower the pH (some 0.1 point since the industrial revolution) and thus a 100% increase in the atmosphere will give only a 10% increase in the ocean surface waters.
————————————–
First off thanks for the lively discussion. That said, what you say above is what is proposed byCAGW theory scientitsts. However, if you take a large home aquarium and sprinkle in some finely crushed calcium carbonate and then seal the atmosphere over the tank and then increase the CO2 to your 100% level, the increase you get will be way larger than 10%. This setup is more appropriate to test the theory than just relying on a calculation. The experiments I have seen done to date do NOT use any sources of limestone in the water…. they at best take sea water (minus any sources of limestone) and then do an experiment. SORRY… but experiments like that are NOT mimmicking the real world.
Putting the limestone in the water in finely crushed form of course speeds up the reaction to equilibrium MUCH faster than found in nature…. but the equilibrium is the same. I just dont think we need to wait a year or two to get to the equilbriium point for the experiment.
Henry says:
my question is: how much of that 70 ppm’s was due to natural warming?
Ferdinand Engelbeen says
For an increase of ~0.6°C over the past 50 years, the oceans are responsible for maximum 10 ppmv and probably halve of it, as vegetation was an increasing sink over the same period…
Henry now asks:
You tested this? How? Where are the results?
Duster asks:
What about the (bi) carbonate falling out as calcium carbonate?
Henry says
It happens a lot, but it is also governed temperature, as are the chemical reactions as shown in my previous post. More (natural) heat into the oceans meant less calcium carbonates. Which is why the coral reefs suffered, because they need calcium carbonate.
Lucky enough (for the coral reefs, at least) the natural global warming has now come to an end.
http://www.letterdash.com/henryp/global-cooling-is-here
CORRECTION ON PREVIOUS POST
Duster asks:
What about the (bi) carbonate falling out as calcium carbonate?
Henry says
It happens a lot, but it is also governed BY temperature, as are the chemical reactions as shown in my previous post.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/08/02/earths-co2-sinks-increasing-their-uptake/#comment-1050039
More (natural) heat into the oceans meant less calcium carbonates. Which is why the coral reefs suffered, because they need calcium carbonate.
Lucky enough (for the coral reefs, at least) the natural global warming has now come to an end.
http://www.letterdash.com/henryp/global-cooling-is-here
Bill Tuttle says:
August 3, 2012 at 2:47 am
we’re not *making* brand-new CO2 — we’re releasing 100% natural CO2 that was 100% naturally sequestered in the 100% natural past. We can’t overload the sinks because the CO2 we’ve been releasing (and nature’s been releasing) came from those sinks in the first place.
We are releasing very old, buried carbon that still would have been buried if we didn’t dig it up and burn it. We can’t overload the sinks, as what we release today will some day be buried again as coal or oil or chalk, even if that takes – again – millions of years. But we can overload the sink rate, as that has a limited capacity. If that wasn’t the case, there shouldn’t be any increase in the atmosphere…
Bill Tuttle says:
August 3, 2012 at 3:01 am
Did you forget that means half the *naturally* occurring CO2 is also staying in the atmosphere, or did you just choose to ignore it?
In fact the estimated exchange rate with other reservoirs is 150/800 or roughly 20% per year. Thus 80% of all original natural and human CO2 stays in the atmosphere and part comes back in another season. Only what is absorbed in the deep oceans will not return until a few centuries later. That doesn’t say anything about the quantities, as we add 8 GtC/year as CO2 and only 4 GtC/year is removed from the ~210 GtC (100 ppmv) over equilibrium. That is 50% of the total amount released by humans, but represents only 2% of the excess CO2 in the atmosphere or 0.5% of the total CO2 content in the atmosphere…
alcheson says:
August 3, 2012 at 7:40 am
Ferdinand Engelbeen says:
What you say is right, but that doesn’t change the fact that Ca(HCO3)2 is a weak buffer, where much of the buffer capacity is already used. That gives that any addition of CO2 will lower the pH (some 0.1 point since the industrial revolution) and thus a 100% increase in the atmosphere will give only a 10% increase in the ocean surface waters.
————————————–
First off thanks for the lively discussion. That said, what you say above is what is proposed byCAGW theory scientitsts. However, if you take a large home aquarium and sprinkle in some finely crushed calcium carbonate and then seal the atmosphere over the tank and then increase the CO2 to your 100% level, the increase you get will be way larger than 10%. This setup is more appropriate to test the theory than just relying on a calculation. The experiments I have seen done to date do NOT use any sources of limestone in the water…. they at best take sea water (minus any sources of limestone) and then do an experiment. SORRY… but experiments like that are NOT mimmicking the real world.
Sorry but yours does not mimic the real world, ocean surface water has a much more complex composition. For your experiment starting at atmospheric composition the pH will be 8.27 and the Ca^2+ concentration will be 0.47mM. Increase the Pco2 by about a factor of 3 to 10^-3 atm and the pH becomes 7.96 and Ca^2+ concentration will be 0.66mM, an increase of ~40%.
The real case of ocean water has an ionic composition of about 550 mM Cl^-, 470 mM Na^+, 28 mM SO4^2-, 53 mM Mg^2+, 10 mM Ca^2+ , 10 mM K^+, 2 mM HCO3^-……
These values are borne out by experiment
Ferdinand Engelbeen says:
August 3, 2012 at 8:27 am
@ur momisugly me (August 3, 2012 at 2:47 am):
But we can overload the sink rate, as that has a limited capacity. If that wasn’t the case, there shouldn’t be any increase in the atmosphere…
So far, it appears the sink rate slowly increases in synch (couldn’t resist that) with the increase — if the sink rate remained constant, there would have been no CO2 left in the atmosphere during those times when the CO2 level plummeted.
alcheson says:
August 3, 2012 at 7:40 am
However, if you take a large home aquarium and sprinkle in some finely crushed calcium carbonate and then seal the atmosphere over the tank and then increase the CO2 to your 100% level, the increase you get will be way larger than 10%.
Such a test is far from reality as doing that, you alter the equilibrium because pure limestone is undersaturated in CO2 and you increase the pH and thus the buffer capacity…
At every point of the oceans the equilibrium reactions are at work. For any part of the ocean surface, the temperature, pH and salt content gives the value for pCO2(aq). If that is higher than in the atmosphere, then CO2 is released (as happens near the equator), if that is lower, then CO2 is absorbed (as happens near the poles). Temperature is the most important driver for pCO2(aq), but if the pCO2(atm) increases for the same average temperature over the globe, then more CO2 is absorbed.
pCO2(aq) is frequently measured over the oceans surface and as area weighted average it is 7 microatm lower than pCO2(atm). Thus the oceans (surface + deep) are a net sink for CO2. See:
http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/pubs/outstand/feel2331/exchange.shtml and following pages.
HenryP says:
August 3, 2012 at 7:55 am
You tested this? How? Where are the results?
Lots of tests on seawater and seawater-like compositions which compared the pCO2 of seawater of different salt content and pH at different temperatures. Here some theoretical calculation, validated by reality:
http://my.net-link.net/~malexan/Appendix%20B.htm
Henry@ferdinand meeus
There are no “results” reported in the link you suggested. You cannot “calculate” that which has not been measured first.
This is what went wrong with this whole theory claiming that more CO2 causes warming.
There are no results. It is all a fairy tale/scam.
http://www.letterdash.com/HenryP/the-greenhouse-effect-and-the-principle-of-re-radiation-11-Aug-2011
Show me a graph with a correlation coefficient and I will believe you, that if you have a good fit and a good correlation, that you can calculate everything in between your measurements;
here is an example on how to do things scientifically:
http://www.letterdash.com/henryp/global-cooling-is-here
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-19077439
Palm trees? wow…..maybe also fruit from the palms? Antartic fruit?
Bill Tuttle says:
August 3, 2012 at 8:54 am
So far, it appears the sink rate slowly increases in synch (couldn’t resist that) with the increase — if the sink rate remained constant, there would have been no CO2 left in the atmosphere during those times when the CO2 level plummeted.
In fact the sink rate in average (besides the influence of temperature variations) is in ratio to the distance to the equilibrium dictated by the average (seawater) temperature. That the emissions/sink ratio is quite constant over the past 160 years or so (and certainly over the past 50 years), is a result of the slightly exponential increase of the emissions over time, which results in a slightly exponential increase in the atmosphere (and thus of the distance to the equilibrium) and a slightly exponential increase of the sink rate. The net result is a near constant ratio between the “airborne fraction”/sink rate and the emissions:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/acc_co2_1900_2004.jpg