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.”
Note that a particular light level in a low temperature situation can produce more oxygen than CO2 but that the same light level in a high temperature situation can produce as much or more CO2 than oxygen.
It is a matter of balance between the different effects on growth of light and heat and nowhere have I seen a proper analysis of the changing relationship in the real world.
“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.”
No, it’s not temperature change but temperature level, and it’s not only variability of the change in CO2 – it’s total accumulation over a period observation.
Ferdinand Engelbeen says
To boil water at the center of a storm at 900 mbar, one still needs 90°C…
Henry says
You don’t know the force of nature. It goes much lower than 900 mbar, in the centre, that is, where it sucks up all the water vapor.
////
Natural warming also causes an increase in CO2. How much is that?
Ferdinand Engelbeen says:
16 ppmv/°C, certainly not more, probably less because of increased sinks, if the other Henry’s Law still works as proven so many times…
Henry says
yes, well, I will also keep my eyes on Henry.
Stephen Wilde says:
August 4, 2012 at 10:12 am
All that is necessary to skew the balance in favour of CO2 production is for the effect on growth of the higher temperature to have a larger influence than the effect on growth of the higher light levels.
Stephen, both processes increase the uptake of CO2: higher temperatures in general stimulate plant growth and more sunlight stimulates plant growth and as an extra bonus, higher CO2 levels stimulate plant growth. In all three cases, more CO2 is sequestered by the plants and more oxygen is released.
Higher temperatures may give a -temporarely- increase in vegetation decay (as happens in summer vs. winter and some natural oscillations like an El Niño may give a temporarely drought in normally high growth areas, too high temperatures combined with drought may even kill a lot of plants in some area, but the global average is more CO2 uptake and more O2 release for all processes combined.
The oxygen use is measured, what human used for fossil fuel combustion is calculated and the difference shows that the biosphere is a net source of oxygen, thus a net sink for CO2, whatever the processes (decay, temperature, precipitation or sunlight) involved.
Stephen Wilde says:
August 4, 2012 at 3:49 am
“Is Ferdinand only considering the response to the initial warming of a static parcel of water and ignoring the the disproportionate effect involving soil moisture and the response of the other CO2 sources to that warming (especially biosphere acceleration) ?”
Yes. He neglects the continuous inward flow of new CO2 versus the current outward flow. If the former is greater than the latter, then you will accumulate more and more of the gas in the surface system, including the atmosphere. Period, full stop. Any other assumption violates mass conservation. His argument against this accumulation relies on a nebulous assertion of rapidly evolving opposing forces, apparently without realizing that, if these ethereal reactions truly existed at such levels, they would operate with equal strength to oppose the introduction of human generated input.
Ferdinand Engelbeen says:
August 4, 2012 at 6:03 am
“But the derivative of the temperature, again shows the same lag as expected:”
You are showing the derivative of the temperature and the derivative of the CO2. Of course that is going to have the same phase relationship as the temperature and the CO2. This is trivial. What we see, though, is that the phases match when you plot the temperature and the derivative of the CO2. Temperature is driving CO2. The relationship could not be clearer, and you are sticking your head in the sand.
“Of course, if you ignore data you don’t like…”
And, of course, so do you. But, I have good reason to ignore the data I do not like, because they are fundamentally unverifiable, and made using inferior means. Besides which, the question is moot. If the proxy data are truly faithful, then there was simply a shift in the relative inflows and outflows sometime before 1958. Such sudden shifts in the climate states are not in any way rare or unusual.
You, however, are in the position of denying the best and most modern data in favor of unverifiable, inferior data from proxies. Because the best and most modern data without question soundly contradict your thesis.
“The relationship is real for the variability in sink rate, but completely spurious for the trend.”
You have no basis for this assertion. Zero. Zip. Nada.
“There is no known natural process that produces 70 ppmv CO2 from a temperature increase of 0.6°C.”
It’s not the temperature increase on the surface driving it. It is the difference with the equivalent temperature of the ocean currents which downwelled rich in CO2 centuries ago.
“The same close relationship can be obtained by the sum of two variables: temperature changes and emissions. “
Can’t. The phases of the variations do not align.
“But there are no data which show that the total upwelling fluxes are greater than the downwelling fluxes…”
Your own link contradicts you. Look at the content of the waters upwelling in the tropics, versus those downwelling at the poles.
“…that is only as long as the increase in the atmosphere is not reducing the inflows and outflows back to what it was before the temperature rise.”
No, until there is a match between the equilibrium conditions of the upwelling and downwelling waters from back at the time the currently upwelling waters initially downwelled.
“It doesn’t matter what the ancient CO2 level at the downwelling side was 800-1600 years ago. “
It most assuredly does, and you are violating mass balance to claim it does not.
Henry@Stephen Fisher Wilde
What did you think of my latest tables?
http://www.letterdash.com/henryp/global-cooling-is-here
Ferdinand and I are repeating arguments we have made to each other in the past. For any who are interested, more detail can be found in this thread.
Edim says:
August 4, 2012 at 10:37 am
No, it’s not temperature change but temperature level, and it’s not only variability of the change in CO2 – it’s total accumulation over a period observation.
No, it is a change in temperature which causes a change in pCO2 of the oceans, which leads to an increase of CO2 level (thus pCO2) in the atmosphere for an increased temperature. Once these are again equal in area weighted average, that is in overall, dynamic equilibrium (the sum of all inflows together and the sum of all outflows together are equal) there is no influence of the newly reached temperature anymore.
Temperature is variable, which causes the huge variability in the CO2 sink rate (average 4-5 ppmv/°C) and of course there is a residual trend of ~0.6°C over the past 50 years which, according to Henry’s Law, should give a 10 ppmv increase in the atmosphere at maximum (16 ppmv/°C). That will not even be reached as the biosphere goes the other way out with higher temperatures…
Even over glacial – interglacial transitions, the gain of a ~10°C increase over 5,000 years time is not more than 80 ppmv.
Thus the 70 ppmv increase over the past 50 years (at 100 ppmv/°C!) should be sought somewhere else. As humans emit about twice the observed increase in the atmosphere and the increase in the atmosphere follows the emissions at an incredible constant rate (not seen in any natural process), I don’t think you need to look any further…
Hi Henry.
I find your tables interesting and supportive of my general overview.
We just need some time to pass to validate or rebut both of our positions.
Stephen.
“The increase in the atmosphere follows the emissions at an incredible constant rate ”
Really ?
The rate of increase in the atmosphere is pretty steady but the rate of human emissions varies significantly.
We need to seek the cause of such a steady increase somewhere else.
Ferdinand Engelbeen says:
August 4, 2012 at 11:31 am
“No, it is a change in temperature which causes a change in pCO2 of the oceans, which leads to an increase of CO2 level (thus pCO2) in the atmosphere for an increased temperature… Thus the 70 ppmv increase over the past 50 years (at 100 ppmv/°C!) should be sought somewhere else.”
It is being sought elsewhere.This is not a closed system, and a change in surface temperature is NOT the only driving force.
You have a continuous inflow of CO2 laden waters from deep ocean upwelling, and a continuous outflow from downwelling. When the former is greater than the latter, you will accumulate CO2 in the atmosphere. It is NOT a change in surface temperature only which drives respiration from the oceans. It is a change in the relative equilibrium between inflowing and outflowing, which depends on more than just surface temperature.
I explained how the integral relationship comes about mathematically here.
Sorry, I explained it mathematically here.
Ferdinand.
You have ignored the fact that:
i) When it is dark there is no photosynthesis so oxygen is taken in and CO2 is given out.
ii) In a dim light the two process approximately cancel out
ii) In a stronger light carbon dioxide is taken in and oxygen is given out.
So if one increases temperature without increasing the available light that will skew the balance in favour of CO2 production and because increased temperatures reduce ocean absorption then CO2 will accumulate in the air.
If light increases as it did fractionally during the late 20th century warming period due to decreased global albedo then that will produce more oxygen and atmospheric oxygen may well increase but at the same time the temperature increase will nonetheless skew the overall balance in favour of more CO2.
We get more oxygen absorbed but even more CO2 respired because the effect of the temperature rise on plant growth is greater than the effect of the increase in light.
Now we know that the oceans are always a net sink. All that varies is the power of the sink.
You aver that the biosphere is a sink too.
If both oceans and biosphere are net sinks where do you think the natural CO2 in the atmosphere comes from ?
If both oceans and biosphere are natural sinks all the time then pretty soon no CO2 and no biosphere.
The truth is that the oceans vary as a net sink and the biosphere varies between a net sink and a net source depending on the temperature at any given time.
As far as I can see your oxygen increase data comes from an analysis comparing the O2 / N2 balance.
Where are figures for the O2 / CO2 balance ?
I say that both O2 AND CO2 increase in a warming world with an active sun and both decrease in a cooling world with a less active sun but in both cases the CO2 response is the larger.
As yet the oceanic buffer is hiding the effect of the less active sun but if the inactivity continues long enough then the data will follow.
Bart said:
“You have a continuous inflow of CO2 laden waters from deep ocean upwelling, and a continuous outflow from downwelling. When the former is greater than the latter, you will accumulate CO2 in the atmosphere.”
I have said several times that a period of high sea surface temperatures such as the MWP and low sea surface temperatures such as the LIA will introduce horizontal temperature variations along the entire length of the thermohaline circulation and are bound to have an effect on the CO2 balance when they emerge some 800 to 1000 years later.
However it is not the CO2 content of those waters that matters, it is the temperature.
During the MWP the surface waters were warm and would have contained LESS CO2 when they were subducted.
During the LIA the surface waters were cooler and would have contained MORE CO2 when they were subducted.
However, the resurfacing of the fractionally warmer MWP waters some 800 to 1000 years later would add to the warmth injected into the surface waters by solar activity or rather would cool those waters less than water from the LIA would have done and the effect would be to reduce sea surface absorption capability, add to the strength of El Nino relative to La Nina and lead to more CO2 production over land areas as per the link that Ferdinand helpfully referred us to.
That link clearly shows that warm sea surfaces such as during an El Nino lead to a significant increase in CO2 production by vegetation over land areas.
I have explained why that happens but Ferdinand cannot accept the implications of his own link.
Stephen Wilde says
I find your tables interesting and supportive of my general overview.
We just need some time to pass to validate or rebut both of our positions
Hi Stephen.
Thanks. I remember that it was you who gave me the idea to cut up the results to look at the speed of warming in successive sun cycle periods. Indeed the results turned out different than I had expected myself. I most certainly did not expect to find that it already has been cooling for so long. Don’t forget we are still looking at extremely small change.Most recently I am not too sure anymore of the satellite results, as far as accuracy, precision and global representativity is concerned.
Overall, yes, noting the nature of the relationship of the speed of warming/cooling in degrees C per annum versus time, I do think that I will now have to go with my idea that the whole global warming and global cooling cycle is governed by the UV-O2-O3 cycle. Most recently I heard that there is some shrinkage going on in the upper atmosphere? Do you know anything about that and why? (a shrinking atmosphere would also be a cause of an increase in ozone concentration)
goldie says:
August 2, 2012 at 5:27 pm
There is little doubt that rainforests etc have expanded in the past in response to warming – mainly because the equatorial climate belt gets larger. However, I have difficulty understanding how this is going to happen with the current aforestation that is occurring.
_________________________
Old trees are CO2 neutral while young trees sequester CO2. I am not a biologist so I am not up on the amount of CO2 up take of non-trees vs trees but the seasonal variation says it is big. I do know that forest margins and cut forests add greatly to “Biodiversity” from a talk by a biologists (The Greenpeace and Sierra club drones trying to close down the trails in ALL the state parks left in a huff.)
Englebeen is missing the point that at least in the USA we DOUBLED our harvests per acre since the early 1900s and the grain/food/cloth from that DOUBLED harvest is now sequestered in the greatly expanded human population. Think about it Humans sequester CO2 by increasing in number (snicker)
Englebeen also misses the point that humans by interfering are pushing plants towards maximum growth. For example I mow my pastures which not only puts down mulch that traps moist but stimulated additional young growth. If I do not mow the grasses “bolt” seed and quit growing. On top of that I over-seed in the fall with a second “crop” of grass giving me a tri-model growth curve with peaks in the fall, spring and summer instead of just one short summer peak. Not only do I get more overall growth I also get much higher protein levels through out the year.
“Climate Scientists” dismiss the annuals etc as not sequestering CO2 without taking into account the addition animal population supported per acre. Managing pastures correctly will DOUBLE the number of animals per acre. That is not pie in the sky either since my carefully managed pastures supports twice the pounds per acre the USDA “officially” says it will.
All of these management changes in both crops and livestock management is NEW within the last century or less. Which is what I originally tried to point out to Engelbeen but as usual he waved away.
OH, and Engelbeen, the CO2 in bubbles vs CO2 in ICE + Bubbles with CO2 in ICE + Bubbles ~ stomata data is from Jaworowski and Segalstad. I have typed part of a different article out below. (Could not find the specific one)
Why do I dot believe the simplistic assumptions spouted by ‘the Team’ CO2 to be fed to the believing masses and instead think Segalstad and Jaworowski make sense? Because I am a chemist and have done enough work at the ppm level to understand what Segalstad and Jaworowski are talking about. I realize the four assumptions mentioned are complete and utter crap.
For those who are not chemists here is some simple kitchen chemistry that will cast doubt on assumptions (2) and (3)
Take a glass jar of raw crushed garlic, a glass jar of dill pickles and a plastic jar of grape gatoraide. See how long it takes you to get rid of the smell in each of those vessels. the Second experiment is to take a sealed from the factory plastic bottle of soda pop and save it for a year or two. See whether ther is any CO2 fizz left when you finally open it.
When you start talking ppm (odors) the chemistry gets much more difficult. Analytical chemists often use only brand new glass because you just can not get the glass ‘clean’ when you start talking parts per billion and cross contamination can really muck-up the results.
Bart says:
August 4, 2012 at 11:06 am
Yes. He neglects the continuous inward flow of new CO2 versus the current outward flow. If the former is greater than the latter, then you will accumulate more and more of the gas in the surface system, including the atmosphere. Period, full stop.
No problem at all with that. Where you go wrong is that you expect that the unbalance goes on for a very long period. But what you don’t realise is that the equilibrium is regained quite fast.
– The input and output flows are directly proportional to the partial pressure difference of CO2 between the atmosphere and the ocean surface.
– Any increase in temperature will increase the pCO2 of the ocean surface waters.
– Any increase of the pCO2 in the atmosphere with the same change will restore the previous (un)balance.
– An increase with 1°C of the global surface waters will give a pCO2(aq) increase of ~16 microatm.
– An increase of 16 microatm (~16 ppmv) in the atmosphere will restore the previous (un)balance.
– An increase with 16 ppmv in the atmosphere is reached in a few decades with the change in (un)balance caused by the temperature increase. No problem if you have 5000 years for a change of 10°C. Or much faster with only 4 years of human emissions…
without realizing that, if these ethereal reactions truly existed at such levels, they would operate with equal strength to oppose the introduction of human generated input.
They do. At a rate of 4 GtC/year, for an unbalance of 210 GtC above equilibrium. Or an e-fold time of ~53 years. Or a half life time of ~40 years.
An increase with 1°C gives a new setpoint at 16 ppmv (32 GtC) above the initial setpoint. After ~40 years the increase in the atmosphere would be 8 ppmv, after 80 years 12 ppmv, etc…
With the help of humans, the new equilibrium will be reached (in fact already largely surpassed) in only 4 years…
You are showing the derivative of the temperature and the derivative of the CO2. Of course that is going to have the same phase relationship as the temperature and the CO2.
Of course that is what I am showing: temperature changes drive the CO2 rate of change changes. Your approach shows zero lag between a change in temperature and the rate of change which implies processes with extreme fast responses, quite rare in the carbon cycle… But still that doesn’t say anything about the cause of the trend itself…
It’s not the temperature increase on the surface driving it. It is the difference with the equivalent temperature of the ocean currents which downwelled rich in CO2 centuries ago.
No matter how rich the waters were in the far past, what counts is the pCO2 at the upwelling places. That will get higher if there is a higher carbon content in the upwelling. But we are not discussing that, we are discussing the influence of a temperature increase on the continuous input of enriched seawater. If we may assume that neither the enriched carbon content, nor the deep ocean flows did change over the past 50 years, then a 1°C temperature increase will give an increase of 16 ppmv over the pCO2 pressure difference between the ocean surface and the atmosphere. Or an increase from 350 to 366 microatm difference at the upwelling places or an increase of 4.6% in inputflow, whatever that may be. That will increase the CO2 content of the atmosphere until the atmosphere reaches an increase of 16 ppmv. At that moment the pCO2 difference is again the same as before the temperature increase and so are the inputflows.
Your own link contradicts you. Look at the content of the waters upwelling in the tropics, versus those downwelling at the poles.
The carbon content of any water residing at the surface doesn’t add or abstract any CO2 to/from the atmosphere if the pCO2 of both is in equilibrium. To drive a CO2 flux, there must be a pCO2 pressure difference, together with the mixing speed caused by wind, that is what gives the local flux over a year. The global balance of fluxes is what drives the CO2 content of the atmosphere. And that is negative: the outgoing fluxes into the oceans are larger than the incoming fluxes, despite the higher carbon content of the upwelling seawater near the equator. The oceans (surface + deep) are net sinks for CO2.
No, until there is a match between the equilibrium conditions of the upwelling and downwelling waters from back at the time the currently upwelling waters initially downwelled.
You are moving the goalpost from the influence of a temperature change which is fixed, whatever the upwelling carbon content, to the influence of some completely unknown change in the far past…
“It doesn’t matter what the ancient CO2 level at the downwelling side was 800-1600 years ago. “
It most assuredly does, and you are violating mass balance to claim it does not.
Again, no matter what is upwelling, if that changes in composition, that will change the CO2 content of the atmosphere, until the pCO2 difference with the CO2 source and sink places has changed enough to restore the equilibrium in input and output fluxes. That will be at about halve the difference with the intitial CO2 level and that of the far past (as far as not leveled off by the passage via the deep oceans).
Any influence of a temperature change on the pCO2 of seawater is additional and (practically) independent of a composition change of the upwelling waters and can be fully compensated by an equivalent change in pCO2 of the atmosphere.
Stephen Wilde says:
August 4, 2012 at 11:54 am
The rate of increase in the atmosphere is pretty steady but the rate of human emissions varies significantly.
I was not talking about the year by year changes (which are heavily influenced by temperature changes), but what is seen in the atmosphere and what human emitted over the years:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/temp_emiss_increase.jpg
and
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/acc_co2_1900_2004.jpg
And see what the correlation with temperature:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/temp_co2_1900_2004.jpg
Stephen Wilde says:
August 4, 2012 at 12:34 pm
“However it is not the CO2 content of those waters that matters, it is the temperature.”
It is relative temperature and partial pressure, as well as any processes occurring in the depths which would cause greater or lesser CO2 concentration when the waters reemerge at the surface. If we consider the case of constant partial pressure across 800-1600 years and assume nothing appreciable happens to change concentrations in the depths, then what would matter is the temperature differential between downwelling waters now and those at the time the currently upwelling waters downwelled. This is where Ferdinand goes astray – he is comparing temperature changes only over the last ~50 years, and ignoring the difference between now and then, “then” being centuries in the remote past.
Stephen Wilde says:
August 4, 2012 at 12:34 pm
That link clearly shows that warm sea surfaces such as during an El Nino lead to a significant increase in CO2 production by vegetation over land areas.
From the same link:
At the same time, drying of tropical regions leads to a net CO2 flux from the land biosphere to the atmosphere
That is an indirect effect of the El Niño on rain patterns in the tropics, which lead to more vegetation decay than uptake globally.
On the other side, the temperature increase of 0.6°C over the past 50 years (and the increase of 70 ppmv CO2 over the same period) did give that until ~1990 the biosphere was a small source of CO2 up to neutral, but since 1990, it is an increasing sink for CO2…
Gail Combs says:
August 4, 2012 at 1:12 pm
“Englebeen is missing the point that at least in the USA we DOUBLED our harvests per acre since the early 1900s and the grain/food/cloth from that DOUBLED harvest is now sequestered in the greatly expanded human population. Think about it Humans sequester CO2 by increasing in number (snicker)”
A lot of glib self-styled experts miss this important point. Just because CO2 returns to the atmosphere from decaying vegetation does not mean that growth in vegetation has no net effect. Maintaining a greater stock of vegetation locks up more carbon in that reservoir. Just because such a reservoir is dynamic, and tends toward equilibrium left to its own, does not mean it has a fixed capacity.
It is the same principle behind the “greenhouse effect”. Some hard-core skeptics believe CO2 cannot warm the atmosphere because, they reason, ultimately the inbound flux of energy has to balance the outbound flux, or the planet would fry to a crisp, and would have done so in the remote past. But, in the time it takes to reestablish equilibrium, the system gains the integrated differential of energy before that equilibrium is reestablished. So, all things being equal, an increase in CO2 should result in greater retained energy, hence an increase in temperature. All things are decidedly NOT equal, and we have seen that Nature is stubbornly refusing to abide by the hypothesis of CO2 induced global warming. But, the existence of mitigating feedbacks does not invalidate the fundamental premise that, all things being equal, increased CO2 concentration should result in increased temperatures.
Gail Combs says:
August 4, 2012 at 1:12 pm
Dear Gail, I do appreciate your hard work to defend the undefendable works of Segalstad (with whom I had a discussion in Brussels at a skeptics conference) and the late Jaworowski.
To be mild: what they said is at least completely passé, as Jaworowski’s knowledge of ice cores ended in 1992, and he obviously didn’t read (or didn’t like) any subsequent work on ice cores, the change in drilling techniques and in handling of the cores and the huge changes in analytical methods.
To begin with the work of Etheridge e.a. of 1996, drilling three cores with three different drilling techniques, wet and dry (no differences found), measuring CO2 in open pores, top down from the surface to closing depth and in the high accumulation (high resolution) ice cores from closing depth to resp. 150 and 1000 years ago (in gas age).
The found that CO2 concentrations in air bubbles from 150-year-old ice ranged from 300 to 2350 ppm.
The high levels were found where contamination with drilling fluid was present. Such values have nothing to do with the real CO2 levels of the past and that part of the ice core should be removed from the data. But the 1996 work of Etheridge not only confirmed the low values, but extended them to 1000 years back in time, followed by a lot of other cores of difference temperature and accumulation rate which all confirm the same CO2 values for the same average gas age.
(1) that the ages of the gases in the air bubbles is much lower than the age of the ice in which they are entrapped (e.g., Oeschger et al.,1985);
Proven by Etheridge in 1996:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/law_dome_overlap.jpg
(2) that ‘the entrapement of air in ice is essentially a mechanical process of collection of air samples, which occurs with no differentiation of gas components’ (Oeschger et al., 1985);
Not completely right, as the smallest molecules/atoms (O2. Ar) show a small last-moment deficit, but CO2 doesn’t, at least it is not detectable within the accuracy of the measurements.
(3) that the original air composition in the gas inclusions is preserved indefinitely.
Probably not indefinitely, but very, very, very long: the 800 kyr Dome C ice core shows a near constant 8 ppmv/°C ratio between glacials and interglacials. If there was a substantial migration of CO2 through the ice, that ratio would fade over time with each interglacial back in time…
Three different methods of gas extraction were used, and they produced different results. This is illustrated in Fig.2. It can be seen that in air from the same section of a pre-industrial ice core, after 7h ‘wet’ extraction of melted ice, the CO2 concentration was up to about 1000 ppm, and it was 1.5-4.5-times higher than after the 15 min ‘wet’ extraction. The ‘dry’ extraction, consisting in crushing or shaving the ice samples at about -20c, produced results similar to the 15 min ‘wet’ extraction.
What Segalstad/Jaworowski “forget” to tell you is that the ice used was from Greenland. Greenland ice is frequently dusted by highly acidic volcanic ash from Iceland. Combined with sea salt (carbonates) that gives higher CO2 levels in situ and in solution, higher the longer you let the reactions go on. Greenland ice cores are therefore not used for ancient CO2 levels, as not reliable.
Thus please Gail, don’t use the “arguments” of Jaworowski or Segalstad anymore. They are completely obsolete, some are quite misleading by omission of relevant information and some are simply stupid, like the objections against the difference between the age of the surrounding ice and the average gas age of the enclosed air bubbles, as good as another remark of Jaworowski, that CO2 migrates from the low levels within the core to the higher levels outside…
Ferdinand Engelbeen says:
August 4, 2012 at 1:42 pm
“Where you go wrong is that you expect that the unbalance goes on for a very long period. But what you don’t realise is that the equilibrium is regained quite fast.”
A) you have no basis for making that conclusion. Your analysis is flawed, as I explained here long ago:
“They do.”
Your reasoning is flawed. If an arbitrarily large constant influx of CO2 rich waters from the depths could be brought to a standstill “quite fast”, then the system would equally quickly bring the influx of human CO2 to a standstill. This is like saying a traffic wall would stop tractor trailer careening out of control at top speed, but would collapse if a Smart Car bumped into it.
“Of course that is what I am showing: temperature changes drive the CO2 rate of change changes.”
That is not what you are showing at all. Your link is plotting the temperature change and the CO2 rate of change, period. Not the “rate of change changes”.
“But we are not discussing that, we are discussing the influence of a temperature increase on the continuous input of enriched seawater.”
We are discussing the effect of temperature relative to a baseline. And, that baseline is determined by the CO2 concentration of the upwelling waters.
“The carbon content of any water residing at the surface doesn’t add or abstract any CO2 to/from the atmosphere if the pCO2 of both is in equilibrium.”
They are never in equilibrium. The cool waters upwelling in the tropics are always going to release CO2 to the warm air there. The frigid water at the poles is always going to pull CO2 out of the air there. To compare apples to apples, you must look at one of the nodes where the loop is continuous. What matters ultimately is the concentration of the water downwelling now versus the concentration of the waters which downwelled long ago, and are now resurfacing in the tropics.
“You are moving the goalpost from the influence of a temperature change which is fixed, whatever the upwelling carbon content, to the influence of some completely unknown change in the far past…”
I set no goal posts. I have stated clearly the mechansim from the very beginning, though perhaps you are only now realizing what I have been driving at. It is an unfortunate fact that the past, even the deep past, influences the present. The broken bones of my youth are causing arthritis in the present, even though that time is so far in the past I can barely remember it. As the old rock stars say, if I’d have known I would live this long, I would have taken better care of myself 😉
“Any influence of a temperature change on the pCO2 of seawater is additional and (practically) independent of a composition change of the upwelling waters and can be fully compensated by an equivalent change in pCO2 of the atmosphere.”
It is not a one-time deal. The upwelling waters are constantly pumping more CO2 into the system. The process will not equilibrate until the amount of CO2 downwelling is the same as that upwelling. The data confirm that we are nowhere near that point.
Bart says:
August 4, 2012 at 2:30 pm
…. But, the existence of mitigating feedbacks does not invalidate the fundamental premise that, all things being equal, increased CO2 concentration should result in increased temperatures.
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I have no problem with that. Few here at WUWT do. What we have a problem with is the cut and dried ‘Cartoon Science’ the ‘Team’ is trying to ram down our throats. Nature is a lot more complex than the assumptions made by the ‘Team.’ The fact that data and methods are hidden, data is messaged and cherry picked is all one needs to know we are looking at propaganda dress-up to look like science.
Also you do not spend thirty plus years in chemical plants troubleshooting problems without getting a good appreciation for just how badly the Ivory Tower research types can screw up. Blown up reactor vessels and blown out walls leave a lasting impression. So does the arrogant we KNOW attitude. One blown vessel was because an arrogant PhD Chemist would not listen to me and the plant foreman (Chem Engineer) and her PhD trumped our BS degrees in the eyes of the plant owners. Luckily no one was killed thanks to the plant foreman.
Gail Combs says:
August 4, 2012 at 3:30 pm
I read you loud and clear, and agree wholeheartedly. I was just trying to point out that one cannot believe in the warming effect of CO2 without also believing in the ability of the biosphere to sequester CO2 in increasing amounts.