An important new paper published today in Global and Planetary Change finds that changes in CO2 follow rather than lead global air surface temperature and that “CO2 released from use of fossil fuels have little influence on the observed changes in the amount of atmospheric CO2” The paper finds the “overall global temperature change sequence of events appears to be from 1) the ocean surface to 2) the land surface to 3) the lower troposphere,” in other words, the opposite of claims by global warming alarmists that CO2 in the atmosphere drives land and ocean temperatures. Instead, just as in the ice cores, CO2 levels are found to be a lagging effect ocean warming, not significantly related to man-made emissions, and not the driver of warming. Prior research has shown infrared radiation from greenhouse gases is incapable of warming the oceans, only shortwave radiation from the Sun is capable of penetrating and heating the oceans and thereby driving global surface temperatures.
The highlights of the paper are:
► The overall global temperature change sequence of events appears to be from 1) the ocean surface to 2) the land surface to 3) the lower troposphere.
► Changes in global atmospheric CO2 are lagging about 11–12 months behind changes in global sea surface temperature.
► Changes in global atmospheric CO2 are lagging 9.5-10 months behind changes in global air surface temperature.
► Changes in global atmospheric CO2 are lagging about 9 months behind changes in global lower troposphere temperature.
► Changes in ocean temperatures appear to explain a substantial part of the observed changes in atmospheric CO2 since January 1980.
► CO2 released from use of fossil fuels have little influence on the observed changes in the amount of atmospheric CO2, and changes in atmospheric CO2 are not tracking changes in human emissions.
The paper:
The phase relation between atmospheric carbon dioxide and global temperature
- a Department of Geosciences, University of Oslo, P.O. Box 1047 Blindern, N-0316 Oslo, Norway
- b Department of Geology, University Centre in Svalbard (UNIS), P.O. Box 156, N-9171 Longyearbyen, Svalbard, Norway
- c Telenor Norway, Finance, N-1331 Fornebu, Norway
- d Department of Physics and Technology, University of Tromsø, N-9037 Tromsø, Norway
Abstract
Using data series on atmospheric carbon dioxide and global temperatures we investigate the phase relation (leads/lags) between these for the period January 1980 to December 2011. Ice cores show atmospheric CO2 variations to lag behind atmospheric temperature changes on a century to millennium scale, but modern temperature is expected to lag changes in atmospheric CO2, as the atmospheric temperature increase since about 1975 generally is assumed to be caused by the modern increase in CO2. In our analysis we use eight well-known datasets; 1) globally averaged well-mixed marine boundary layer CO2 data, 2) HadCRUT3 surface air temperature data, 3) GISS surface air temperature data, 4) NCDC surface air temperature data, 5) HadSST2 sea surface data, 6) UAH lower troposphere temperature data series, 7) CDIAC data on release of anthropogene CO2, and 8) GWP data on volcanic eruptions. Annual cycles are present in all datasets except 7) and 8), and to remove the influence of these we analyze 12-month averaged data. We find a high degree of co-variation between all data series except 7) and 8), but with changes in CO2 always lagging changes in temperature. The maximum positive correlation between CO2 and temperature is found for CO2 lagging 11–12 months in relation to global sea surface temperature, 9.5-10 months to global surface air temperature, and about 9 months to global lower troposphere temperature. The correlation between changes in ocean temperatures and atmospheric CO2 is high, but do not explain all observed changes.
Bart says:
September 4, 2012 at 1:05 pm
Phil. says:
September 4, 2012 at 11:46 am
Read the comment here for a better understanding. Cooler temperatures mean more CO2 in the downwelling water. Lower atmospheric CO2 due to temperature implies an increase in the oceanic fraction. When that water rises in a warmer climate, it must release the CO2 it has stored.
That comment shows no understanding and merely perpetuates your misunderstanding.
I’ve corrected your statement below:
“When that water rises in a warmer climate, it must release the CO2 it has stored” as long as the atmospheric pCO2 is lower than the equilibrium pCO2 given by Henry’s Law at the temperature of the sea surface. If the equilibrium pCO2 given by Henry’s Law at the temperature of the sea surface is higher then the water will absorb CO2 from the atmosphere.
BTW, if you want a page reference for what I wrote in the last paragraph, read section 7.3.1.2 of the AR4 WG1 report, page 514, and note figure 7.3, where the red arrow indicate the changes in the land-air and ocean-air fluxes since pre-industrial times. They show that the land sink is thought to have STRENGTHENED by 2.6 GtC per year, the oceanic sink has STRENGTHENED by 22.2 GtC per yeas and oceanic emissions have STRENGTHENED by 20 GtC per year.
Note the natural sinks are thought to have STRENGTHENED relative to natural sources to the tune of 4.8 GtC per year, so clearly the sinks are not assumed to be weak or “flaccid”.
Bart says:
September 5, 2012 at 9:20 am
Indeed. It is the subject of the paper I linked. And, the correct figure is 30%.
Have a look at the Revelle factor at your reference to the IPCC (page 531):
Revelle factor (or buffer factor) = (Δ[CO2] / [CO2]) / (Δ[DIC] / [DIC]) (7.3)
All over the oceans, the Revelle factor is between 8 and 13, that means that in average the total carbonate (DIC, CO2 + bi + caronate) in the oceans changes with 10% when CO2 in the atmosphere changes with 100%. But that is only the case at equilibrium.
The ocean surface is in rapid equilibrium with the atmosphere (the IPCC even says within 1 year). Thus only 10% of the change in the atmosphere is rapidely absorbed by the oceans surface layer (the ocean surface layer contains near as much carbon in mass as the atmosphere).
The situation of the deep oceans is quite different: at the sink places, the seawater is highly undersaturated (150 microatm, the atmosphere at ~400 microatm), and so are the deep ocean waters at the temperature down there. Thus while the IPCC shows a 30% uptake by the oceans, they don’t specify where it happens, but as the oceans surface is saturated by a 10% increase, the rest must have been captured by the deep oceans. While the deep oceans can absorb enormous quantities of CO2, the air – deep ocean exchanges are limited, thus the capturing of CO2 by the deep oceans is much slower…
Ferdinand Engelbeen says:
September 5, 2012 at 1:22 pm
BTW, the same graph 7.3 of estimated change in fluxes/reservoirs since the industrial revolution, referenced by Dikran, shows an increase of 18 GtC in the oceans surface layer and an increase of 100 GtC in the intermediate layer, or a ratio of 18:100 in increased carbon storage.
dikranmarsupial says:
September 5, 2012 at 10:28 am
“The mass balance analysis, when applied to the observations, shows that the natural environment is a net carbon sink…”
No, that is not correct. I have shown you mathematically why it is not correct. You do not have enough information.
It is a trivial problem for someone versed in feedback theory. You only know N – U, and part of U is a response to the anthropogenic input, and so does not represent only natural output. If you removed the anthropogenic inputs, U would decrease, and N-U would no longer necessarily be negative.
These are dynamic variables, to which you are trying to apply a static analysis. That is an elementary analytical error, and it is leading you to an erroneous conclusion.
Ferdinand Engelbeen says:
September 5, 2012 at 1:22 pm
I’m tired of arguing this point. The paper clearly states 30% within a year. You say 10%. I don’t really care, because you’re both wrong anyway.
You are whipping out these back-of-the-envelope calculations, without writing out your equations so we can see where you got them I might add, in a desperate attempt to avoid confronting the fact that the data say that the rate of change of CO2 is affinely related to temperature, and this relationship forecloses the possibility of significant human attribution.
You can sing and dance around the facts all you like, but you are grasping at straws. CO2 levels in the atmosphere are determined by temperatures, and that is that.
Bart says:
September 5, 2012 at 2:09 pm
I’m tired of arguing this point. The paper clearly states 30% within a year. You say 10%. I don’t really care, because you’re both wrong anyway.
Bart, please… The paper says that 30%/year of the (mass of the) human emissions are absorbed in the oceans. Not where and how in the oceans these are absorbed.
Only the surface is in direct contact with the atmosphere and is going rapidely in equilibrium. But the Revelle factor says that a 100% increase in the atmosphere gives only a 10% increase in the ocean waters at equilibrium. Thus the increase in the atmosphere is followed by the oceans surface waters by taking 10% away, nothing more.
The rest is absorbed by the deep oceans, not because these react to the small increase over a year, but because the overall increase over the years gives enough extra pressure difference at the sink places to give an extra sink flux into the deep oceans: from 150 (300-150) microatm in pre-industrial times to 250 (400-150) microatm today. Taking into account the opposite reaction at the upwelling side, the deep oceans moved from near neutral to a substantial sink over the years. That is the background of the physics involved.
The essence is that the deep ocean sinks are a lot slower than the ocean surface, reason why the CO2 is accumulating in the atmosphere: the fastest sinks are limited in capacity, while the near unlimited sink capacities are limited in flux…
“The essence is that the deep ocean sinks are a lot slower than the ocean surface, reason why the CO2 is accumulating in the atmosphere: the fastest sinks are limited in capacity, while the near unlimited sink capacities are limited in flux…”
Whether true or not at some level, it is beside the point. The data do not show any significantly segregated response. The dominant process, whatever it may be, is temperature driving CO2.
You are hand-waving, and trying to cobble something together which will allow you to avoid the issue. In the words of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s famous detective:
“It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts.” – Sherlock Holmes
You have the data which say that CO2 rate of change is affinely related to temperature. Build your theories on that, don’t twist it to suit your theories.
Bart, you asserted that the mass balance argument assumed the sinks were weak and flaccid. I gave a page reference to the IPCC, who use the mass balance argument, that shows that actually the sinks are generally accepted as having strengthened and strengthened faster than the sources. I aslo pointed out that this is consistent with the mass balance argument which only tells you that the gap between sources and sinks is widening, but tells you nothing of their magnitudes. You would have been better off admitting your error rather than evading the issue by asserting the mass balance is a static analysis, which isn’t true either, as has been pointed out to you repeatedly.
If you will admit that you were wrong, and that the sinks are not assumed to be weak or flaccid, then I will continue the discussion, the choice is yours.
dikranmarsupial says:
September 6, 2012 at 2:27 am
I have demonstrated that the so-called “mass balance” argument is flawed in elementary terms. If the sinks are arbitrarily powerful, then the net contribution from human inputs can be made arbitrarily small. Only by assuming they are relatively weak can you make the argument for significant human influence.
Your intransigence on this matter is not painting you in a particularly flattering light. If you will admit that the “mass balance” argument has no bearing on culpability for the rise in atmospheric concentration, then I will deign to continue the conversation. Otherwise, I see no particular benefit to be gained.
The key mental block you (and Ferdinand) have erected for yourself is in considering the sinks to be all natural. They are, in the one sense that all the sinks arise from natural processes, but they are not, in the sense that they respond dynamically to both natural and anthropogenic forcing.
You can only say that Nature is a net sink if the response to natural forcing alone, assuming on anthropogenic forcing at all, is negative. But, you have no information on that account. You only have the difference between natural forcing and sink activity induced from all forcings.
It is subtle, but essential for understanding why the “mass balance” argument is useless for assigning responsibility for the rise in atmospheric concentration.
”…assuming noanthropogenic forcing at all…”
O.K., so you are not willing to accept that your assertion that the mass balance argument assumes that natural sinks are weak and flaccid is contradicted by the IPCC WG1 report. There is little point in continuing the discussion.
Ferdinand Engelbeen says:
September 5, 2012 at 3:50 pm
The essence is that the deep ocean sinks are a lot slower than the ocean surface, reason why the CO2 is accumulating in the atmosphere: the fastest sinks are limited in capacity, while the near unlimited sink capacities are limited in flux…
Thanks Ferdi, that turned on the light for me. The increasing sources are outweighing the increasing sinks, and so the airborne fraction increases.
So the main culprit will be a source which is much larger than the human contribution which has increased. I think I know what that is.
Remember my post a couple of months ago where it turned out the IPCC has been using a ludicrously low value of 0.138Gt/year for all global volcanic sources? And it turned out that some Italian field researchers had found that the old lava fields in central Italy alone were producing around 75 times that figure?
Well it occurred to me that the recent papers on cloud diminishing over Spain, and China, and worldwide since the 60’s as measured by ground observation, and the ISCCP satellite project, and the Earthshine project means that more sunshine has been hitting the lava fields over the last 50 years. It’s low albedo stuff is frozen lava. And it’s porous. And when it get’s warm, it releases lots of co2.
http://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2012/04/18/uncertainty-the-origin-of-the-increase-in-atmospheric-co2/
Ah, my mistake, the figures are 0.26Gt globally according to the IPCC ‘preferred estimate’ and 35 times that figure from Central Italy alone according to people who actually went and measured in the field.
The projected 2010 anthropogenic CO2 emission rate of 35 gigatons per year is 135 times greater than the 0.26-gigaton- per-year preferred estimate for volcanoes. But if central Italy alone produces 9Gt per annum from it’s lava fields,the true worldwide figure will be many times the human contribution.
I’m sure you get the point.
dikranmarsupial says:
September 6, 2012 at 10:27 am
OK, so you are unwilling to read what I wrote and comprehend it, and are unwilling to admit that your reasoning has been flawed. This isn’t even a close argument, even remotely subject to differing or ambiguous interpretations. The facts are elementary. The “mass balance” argument has no bearing on attribution whatsoever without knowledge of the feedback potential of the sinks.
Little point, indeed.
“…your assertion that the mass balance argument assumes that natural sinks are weak and flaccid is contradicted by the IPCC WG1 report.”
“…you are unwilling to read what I wrote and comprehend it…”
One. More. Time. “Weak” is a relative term. You must define a standard against which “weak” can be measured. For human attribution to hold up, the sinks must have a weak feedback potential. Otherwise, human inputs will be rapidly sequestered and have little effect on atmospheric concentration (which, in fact, is the case).
Since the IPCC attributes the rise almost entirely to humans, their assumption of feedback potential of the sinks is that they are weak and flaccid with respect to human inputs. It’s really a tautology, and cannot be contradicted.
Bart: take a look at my response to Ferdi just above. It’s important.
Here the link to the abstract of the relevant paper, but read the post at my site too.
http://meetingorganizer.copernicus.org/EGU2011/EGU2011-7778-1.pdf:
Thanks, Rog. This does, indeed, fit with the data, in which you have temperature modulating a rate of change of CO2. Combined with deep ocean upwelling and perhaps other processes which have not been recognized or fully accounted for, such temperature dependent processes are necessarily what is responsible for the rise of CO2 in the past century, not the insignificant input of humans.
Rog (tallbloke).
Interesting point about degassing from non eruptive volcanic regions. Surprising amounts involved.
Consider too the implications of what Murry Salby suggested, namely that soil moisture on land will also degas in a warmer world and there is lots of soil moisture lying around being constantly replenished by rainfall with a higher CO2 content because it forms at a height cooler than the surface.
I don’t think there is anything like a good enough grip on the carbon cycle to claim that human emissions are at all significant.
Of course it then follows that ice core samples are far too coarse a technique to reveal the actual short term swings in atmospheric CO2 levels. Plant stomata show much larger short term swings but they are likely too coarse too because the slow rate of genetic changes in response to environmental variability.
Atmospheric CO2 could well be far more variable naturally than ever previously thought.
Note too that the densest plumes of CO2 are downwind of oceans and not downwind of inhabited areas:
http://climaterealists.com/index.php?id=9508
“Evidence that Oceans not Man control CO2 emissions “
Bart says:
September 6, 2012 at 9:47 am
If the sinks are arbitrarily powerful, then the net contribution from human inputs can be made arbitrarily small. Only by assuming they are relatively weak can you make the argument for significant human influence.
The natural sinks don’t make a differentiation between human inputs and natural inputs. If they are extremely powerful, they are extrmely powerful for human inputs, volcanic inputs and deep ocean inputs alike.
And on September 6, 2012 at 10:01 am
They are, in the one sense that all the sinks arise from natural processes, but they are not, in the sense that they respond dynamically to both natural and anthropogenic forcing.
The natural sinks respond dynamically to the sum of both natural and anthropogenic forcing, but still are 100% natural sinks.
You can only say that Nature is a net sink if the response to natural forcing alone, assuming on anthropogenic forcing at all, is negative. But, you have no information on that account.
Here you have a clear mental block: we never said or meant that the net sink is a response to the natural forcings alone, only that the net cause of the increase are the human emissions, because all natural sinks together are larger than all natural sources together. Thus nature is a net sink for CO2, not a source, even if all human CO2 is instantly exchanged by natural CO2. But an exchange doesn’t change the total amount of CO2 in the atmosphere. Only a flux difference does and that is negative for the natural fluxes over the past 50 years…
It is not of the slightest intererest what the natural carbon cycle would do without the human contribution. Because the observed natural contribution with the anthropogenic contribution is a net sink over the past 50 years.
But Le Châtelier’s principle says that a disturbance of a system in equilibrium is counteracted by the system, in this case by a decrease in some of the (ocean) sources and an increase of some of the sinks (oceans surface, deep oceans, vegetation).
Bart: you are very welcome, and as soon as I saw your plot, the temperature driving co2 link became obvious to me and got me thinking about a source which was temperature sensitive. Lava and soil degassing fit the bill nicely. Then Ferdi’s comment about the slow rate at which the deep ocean sinks operate made it all click.
Stephen: According to Tom van Hoof, the stomata density indicated swings in co2 matched nicely with the Greenland cores, until they got recalibrated to the Antarctic cores.
http://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2010/12/28/tom-van-hoof-historical-co2-records/
Also, I wouldn’t be too sure that changes in stomata density are slowly evolving genetic modifications. Experiments found that one orchid variety tested, ‘switched on’ about 500 dormant genes when the co2 level rose above 500ppm. This is epigenetics we’re talking about.
Bart says:
September 6, 2012 at 11:32 am
One. More. Time. “Weak” is a relative term. You must define a standard against which “weak” can be measured. For human attribution to hold up, the sinks must have a weak feedback potential. Otherwise, human inputs will be rapidly sequestered and have little effect on atmospheric concentration (which, in fact, is the case).
OK, here some real life figures:
– the overall global setpoint of the temperature – CO2 equilibrium changes with 8 ppmv/°C
– 10% of all extra CO2 (human or natural) above setpoint is sequestered within a 1-3 years in the ocean surface layer. That is very fast, but limited in quantity.
– 100% of all extra CO2 (human or natural) above setpoint (including the extra from the ocean surface layer) is sequestered with a half life time of ~40 years in the deep oceans and semi-permanent carbon storage on land.
The first is very fast but limited, the second is slower but practically unlimited (it is not unlimited if humans would burn all available oil and a lot of coal).
The first allows the permanent accumulation of 90% of all extra inputs (human and natural). The second allows the temporarely accumulation of a continuous extra input (human and natural), where the accumulation depends of the speed and change in speed of the input.
Independent of the human and some natural inputs (like volcanoes), there is the influence of temperature on the equilibrium setpoint. For the ocean surface, any increase or decrease gives an immediate change in setpoint of 16 ppmv/°C (leading to an overall global reaction of 4-8 ppmv/°C, depending of the time frame). For the deep oceans, there is hardly a response, as the pCO2 difference at the sink places is already 250 microatm (350 microatm at the upwelling places), thus a 1°C change only changes the in/out fluxes with a few %, until a new (dis)equilibrium is reached.
The current disequilibrium of the atmospheric CO2 levels is about 100 ppmv above the temperature dictated equilibrium (70 ppmv since 1960), no matter if that is caused by natural or human factors. That means that the CO2 sequestering reactions are slow enough to allow substantial accumulation in the atmosphere over decades from any extra input, but fast enough to follow temperature changes over centuries to millennia.
Erratum, switched on ~50 genes, when co2 hit 500ppm
I’ll try to find the article.
tallbloke says:
September 6, 2012 at 11:01 am
Thanks Ferdi, that turned on the light for me. The increasing sources are outweighing the increasing sinks, and so the airborne fraction increases.
So the main culprit will be a source which is much larger than the human contribution which has increased. I think I know what that is.
There is a little problem with that reasoning: the mass balance doesn’t fit…
Let us assume that the volcanic degassing for some reason (earthquakes, lunar spring tides,…) increased in one year with some 20 GtC extra, compared to the previous year. That gives the following mass balance:
increase in the atmosphere = human emissions + natural sources + 20 GtC – natural sinks
we know the human emissions and we measure the increase in the atmosphere, thus:
4 GtC = 8 GtC + natural sources + 20 GtC – natural sinks
or natural sources = natural sinks – 24 GtC
or any extra natural supply by any natural process must be compensated by an equal natural sink to obtain the mass balance, as long as the increase in the atmosphere is less than the human emissions.
With other words, even if volcanoes have a much higher contribution than estimated, that is fully compensated by the higher total amount of sinks. Even the 1992 VEI 6 impact of the Pinatubo didn’t show a peak in CO2 rate of change, to the contrary, the resulting cooling was stronger in absorption, thus showing a dip in the rate of change…