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.
“…in order to maintain the level rate at 1/2 of the hot water input…” It is easy to forget all the variables we are talking about here are rates.
Ferdinand, I appreciate your points but observations must prevail.
According to the AIRS data CO2 ‘plumes’ are appearing downwind of warm oceans beneath the sunny subtropical high pressure cells thus the ocean is the source and we must try to ascertain how and why the facts you point to appear not to support that proposition.
I suspect that there are unknown or underappreciated aspects of the carbon cycle that provide the answer.
Likewise, according to the AIRS data there is no enhancement of CO2 downwind of human population centres so it must all be getting mopped up pretty much in situ.
That new information throws the entire debate into a melting pot and the suppositions that you have relied on so far cannot hold unless you can supply equally plausible reasons for the CO2 distribution as revealed by the AIRS data.
Ferdinand Engelbeen says:
September 9, 2012 at 7:48 am
“The essential point is that you didn’t include the constraint that the observed increase is less than the known input.”
As I stated above, L is always 1/2 of H. Always. So the constraint is built into the statement of the problem.
Just to drive the point home, let’s assume epsilon = 0.01, so a = 0.99.
Now, L = 0.01*(H + C) is the observed rise. But, this is equal to 0.5*H. Therefore
H + C = 50*H
C = 49*H
There are 49 parts of C for every one of H. With the hot water flowing, the rise is L = 0.5*H. With the hot water off, the rise is L = 0.01*C = 0.49*H(old).
If epsilon is 0.0001, similar reasoning will show that there are 4999 parts of C for every H, and with the hot water off, the rise is L = 0.0001*C = 0.4999*H(old)
The close “a” gets to unity, the more of the rise is due to C, and not to H. We can keep going until there are 49999999999999999 parts of C for every H, and turning the water off yields L = 0.49999999999999999*H(old). And more.
It all depends on the response of the sinks.
Stephen Wilde says:
September 9, 2012 at 10:42 am
According to the AIRS data CO2 ‘plumes’ are appearing downwind of warm oceans beneath the sunny subtropical high pressure cells thus the ocean is the source
Stephen, I suspect this is simply due to lots of co2 dissolving into the colder high latitude oceans, and coming out again as currents take it across the tropics, where it is then absorbed by biomass and re-emitted by the herbivores and omnivores etc. Also, the volcanic soils will be emitting, this is why the ‘ring of fire’ is also a co2 hotspot.
As you say, co2 plumes downwind of industry are not in evidence. This will be because the new discovery of the true scale of volcagenic emission along with other natural sources dwarfs the human contribution by far more than the IPCC says.
Bart says:
September 9, 2012 at 10:20 am
L is always 1/2 of H. That is the observational constraint.
No, that isn’t a constraint. The data show L between 0 and 1 * H. The average is ~0.5 * H (by coincidence, as result of the increasing inflow of H and the resulting increasing level in the sink), but there is nothing that says that this is a “must”. This is the basic error you did make in the assumptions.
For maximum C, take a = 1 – epsilon, where epsilon is a small number. Then
L = epsilon*H + epsilon*C = 0.5*H
The observations show that L is not fixed at 0.5*H (it may be 0.001*H or 0.999*H) and a is at minimum C/(C+H), or L would be larger than H, which is not observed and at maximum = 1, or L would be negative, which isn’t observed either. For a = 1, L = 0 * H and D = H + C
Thus if a = 1 – epsilon
then
L = epsilon*H + epsilon*C = epsilon2*H
where epsilon2 = epsilon * (H + C) / H
also very small and C doesn’t need to go to infinity to fulfill the result and is hardly of interest.
Bart says:
September 9, 2012 at 10:20 am
Some addition:
Assuming the cold waterflow constant, and starting with L = 0 (thus D = C) and you gradually increase, slightly exponential, the hot waterflow, starting from zero, over time. How will L react on that?
“Stephen, I suspect this is simply due to lots of co2 dissolving into the colder high latitude oceans, and coming out again as currents take it across the tropics, where it is then absorbed by biomass and re-emitted by the herbivores and omnivores etc. ”
Yes, I agree that recirculating ocean waters bring CO2 rich water back to the tropics.
Then the amount of sunshine reaching the ocean surface determines how much CO2 is released as the sunshine warms the top 200 metres or so.
If one then has decreasing cloudiness and widening of the tropics as we saw when the sun was more active it is inevitable that the release / absorption balance will be skewed in favour of more release
Thus the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere follows the water temperatures which follow the amount of sunlight which follows the shifting of the climate zones which is caused by the top down solar effect on the vertical temperature profile of the atmosphere.
Now we need to know why the ice core record fails to reveal the detail of the process on centennial timescales and resolve the isotope issue which must involve an adjustment to one or more of the prior assumptions about how the two isotopes are processed within the carbon cycle.
I’m sure the volcanic contribution comes into it but the real point is that human emissions are dwarfed and quickly disposed of almost in situ with a corresponding local increase in biosphere activity which results in little or no effect on the mass balance calculation globally.
Stephen Wilde says:
September 9, 2012 at 10:42 am
Stephen and Roger,
Think about the mass flows:
The human contribution is one-way 8 GtC/year.
The continuous fluxes between the warm upwelling places and cold downwelling places of the deep oceans are at ~40 GtC (my own estimate, based on the d13C “thinning” of the fossil signal).
The seasonal flux between the oceans and atmosphere is ~50 GtC and ~60 GtC between land vegetation and atmosphere.
Thus on average, the human contribution is less than 5% of the natural flows. No wonder that the human contribution isn’t visible in the AIRS data, simply because it is too small, compared to the natural flows.
Does that prove that humans are not the cause of the increase? Not at all. All natural flows are part of a cycle: what comes in goes near completely out, as well as for the permanent sources/sinks of CO2 of the oceans as the seasonal sources/sinks of oceans and vegetation, besides occasional and permanent sources like volcanoes and wildfires and permanent sinks like carbonate sedimentation and rock weathering.
What is important is the balance at the end of the year: humans add 8 GtC/year. In average the measured increase is 4 GtC/year. Thus some 4 GtC/year extra must be sequestered somewhere. Even when volcanoes are and if oceans were net sources for CO2, then all extra CO2 of these sources + 4 GtC/year extra must be stored in vegetation or rock weathering, making these sinks even larger. The net result must be that the total natural cycle is a net sink for CO2, not a source. Thus nature doesn’t contribute to the observed CO2 increase…
Ferdinand Engelbeen says:
September 9, 2012 at 12:34 pm
“No, that isn’t a constraint. “
Yes, it absolutely is in this thought experiment.
I am not trying to replicate the climate. I am trying to show you why, in a feedback system, simple accounting such as you are trying to use simply does not work.
So, start there. Assume it is a constraint. Your logic tells you the hot water must be driving the rise. I have demonstrated that it all depends on the feedback.
Ferdinand Engelbeen says:
September 9, 2012 at 12:45 pm
“Assuming the cold waterflow constant, and starting with L = 0 (thus D = C) and you gradually increase, slightly exponential, the hot waterflow, starting from zero, over time. How will L react on that?”
It depends on the feedback. If the feedback is arbitrarily rapid, L will react with an arbitrarily small proportional response.
And, I am using “feedback” and power or strength of the sinks interchangeably to describe how quickly the system reacts to sequester the input CO2 away, in case that is causing any confusion.
The key element here is that the sinks respond in proportion to the inputs. If this were not the case, if the sinks were completely static, inelastic and insensitive to the amount of the input, then we would have to conclude the rise was very probably from human inputs.
But, because the sinks do respond, and increase their uptake in proportion to the inputs, we cannot resolve attribution without knowing exactly how powerful the sink capacity is to respond. And, we have to know it very, very precisely indeed to convict human activity, since the relative flows of human origin are so proportionately small.
Bart says:
September 9, 2012 at 1:22 pm
Yes, it absolutely is in this thought experiment.
Bart, if you use illogical constraints, that leads to illogical conclusions.
Even in the water example, there is no reason why the increase in waterlevel of the sink must always be halve the hot water input.
In all cases, the sink flux and thus the increase in level, L, reacts on the total sources flux, cold and hot alike. Thus with a huge drain with a fivefold surface, you will see a small L, no matter if that is caused by C or H. With such an enlarged drain, the “sink borne hot water” would be 10% for the same total water influx, not 50%. Thus a stronger feedback leads to a lower increase rate, compared to H, no matter what C and H are.
Thus in your thought experiment, you are constraining the real feedback for H + C to its fivefold, which leads to the illogical conclusion that C must be very high to solve the equation.
About the CO2 levels in the atmosphere: the net sinks are quite exactly known: 4 +/- 2 GtC/year for a pressure difference of 100 ppmv above temperature dictated dynamic equilibrium. Humans add 8 GtC/year. Seems pretty straightforward to me.
Hi Ferdi and thanks for your reply to Stephen and myself. I think the easiest way to demonstrate how it could be possible that the rise in co2 is a natural response to the higher temperature would be to draw up a plausible budget which shows it. I’ll have a go and report back.
“humans add 8 GtC/year. In average the measured increase is 4 GtC/year. Thus some 4 GtC/year extra must be sequestered somewhere.”
Or:
i) The entire 8GtC/year is rapidly absorbed locally by a biosphere response that only occurred because of the presence of that human CO2
and at the same time:
ii) The ocean sources are running ahead of the biosphere sinks to the extent of about 4GtC/year as a result of decreased cloudiness, wider tropics and more sunlight into the oceans.
“The net result must be that the total natural cycle is a net sink for CO2, not a source. Thus nature doesn’t contribute to the observed CO2 increase…”
Or:
The total natural cycle is currently a source because of increased solar input to the oceans and humans don’t contribute to the observed CO2 increase because it gets sequestered locally by an enhanced local biosphere response.
Now we do know that there was reduced cloudiness and wider tropics during the late 20th century and we know that warmer water holds less CO2.
Is it actually proposed that the increased sunlight into the oceans during that period had no effect ?
Or that the effect was actually negative so as to absorb half the human output ?
I don’t think so.
Ferdinand Engelbeen says:
September 9, 2012 at 2:21 pm
“Thus with a huge drain with a fivefold surface, you will see a small L, no matter if that is caused by C or H…”
It is all relative. All you need is a more huge C.
“Seems pretty straightforward to me.”
I am sorry that you are unable to process what I have explained to you.
“Thus on average, the human contribution is less than 5% of the natural flows. No wonder that the human contribution isn’t visible in the AIRS data, simply because it is too small, compared to the natural flows.”
CO2 being a well mixed gas the AIRS sensors are actually displaying very small variations so my understanding is that they do reveal regions involving 5% variations or less.
http://airs.jpl.nasa.gov/AIRS_CO2_Data/About_AIRS_CO2_Data/
“The high spectral resolution and stability of AIRS allows a measurement accuracy between 1.5 ppm and 2 ppm, making it ideal for mapping the distribution and transport of carbon dioxide levels in the free troposphere.”
2 ppm is less than 5% of 390 is it not ?
Bart says:
September 9, 2012 at 3:37 pm
It is all relative. All you need is a more huge C.
That is your idée fixe from the beginning of our discussions. You started with the idea that the increase in the atmosphere was always at a fixed 50% of the human input. With that idea, of course you may need a huge natural input to explain the increase if the sinks are fast reacting. Besides that violates about all known observations, the basic assumption was wrong from the beginning.
Thus if the feedbacks are fast, that simply would show up as a very small increase for a huge disturbance, for natural and human changes alike. Of course, that can be compensated by a very huge change in natural input, but such a change needs to be orders of magnitude higher than the human emissions, which are already about twice the observed increase in the atmosphere.
The estimates for the total natural input and output flows are about 150 GtC/year back and forth, about 20 times the human emissions. To compensate for a huge feedback of the sinks which remove near all the human input, the extra natural input needs to be orders of magnitude higher, even orders of magnitude higher than the regular natural input, or you violate the equal reaction of the sinks to natural and human excess input.
I am sorry that you are unable to process what I have explained to you.
While I am a lot slower these days than I was in the past, what you wrote is perfectly clear:
Either you are right and there must be some unknown enormous inflow of extra CO2 in the past 160 years, by coincidence mimicking the human emissions at a perfect rate. Or I am right and the feedback is quite modest, simply too slow to react on fast temperature changes and too slow to remove all human emissions at once, but more than fast enough to follow the huge temperature changes over glacials/interglacials.
Last remark:
In my (and a lot of others) opinion there are at least two main processes at work: a fast one, which removes 10% of the CO2 increase (whatever the cause) into the ocean surface and in fast vegetation responses and a slow one which removes 90% of the CO2 increase into the deep oceans and more permanent carbon storage by vegetation.
That would explain both the fast response to temperature changes and the slower response to the emissions, as the oceans surface immediately responds to temperature changes, but the deep oceans or permanent vegetation sinks are far less influenced by temperature.
Just give it a try…
Stephen Wilde says:
September 9, 2012 at 3:40 pm
“The high spectral resolution and stability of AIRS allows a measurement accuracy between 1.5 ppm and 2 ppm, making it ideal for mapping the distribution and transport of carbon dioxide levels in the free troposphere.”
Be aware that the “free troposphere” is above the inversion layer near ground (in general zero to over a few hundred meters during the day, up to 1000 m at night), thus most of the CO2 movements near the surface are already mixed in. AIRS measures average mid-troposphere that is at about 5000 meter height. Thus most of what is measured is already distributed at least over a broad band in the main wind direction.
Even for direct measurements near huge human sources, the peaks in CO2 near ground are already leveled out at 200 m height:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/cabauw_day_week.jpg
The human emissions are about 4 ppmv per year or 0.4 ppmv per month. The monthly averaged AIRS data may have an accuracy of +/- 1.5-2 ppmv, but that is not accurate enough to detect the human contribution, even if these are concentrated in NH bands.
Stephen Wilde says:
September 9, 2012 at 3:27 pm
i) The entire 8GtC/year is rapidly absorbed locally by a biosphere response that only occurred because of the presence of that human CO2
No, the oxygen balance shows that not more than 20% of the human emissions in total mass is sequestered by the whole biosphere (land and sea plants, animals,…).
The ocean sources are running ahead of the biosphere sinks to the extent of about 4GtC/year as a result of decreased cloudiness, wider tropics and more sunlight into the oceans.
If the ocean sources exceed the ocean sinks with 4 GtC/year for whatever reason, then the biosphere must sequester the full human contribution of 8 GtC as extra sink, which is proven false by the oxygen balance.
The total natural cycle is currently a source because of increased solar input to the oceans and humans don’t contribute to the observed CO2 increase because it gets sequestered locally by an enhanced local biosphere response.
Even if you shuffle the cards, that doesn’t change the mass balance: if the increased solar input emits 4 GtC extra from the oceans and the biosphere sequester 8 GtC extra, that is all human input, still the total natural cycle has a deficit of 4 GtC and is not a net contributor to the increase…
Ferdinand:
In case there are onlookers who do not know, I point out that you state one side of the mass balance dispute when you write (at September 10, 2012 at 1:02 am)
The alternative view is, So what?
It says nothing about what the “deficit” would have been in the absence of the anthropogenic emission, or in the absence of a change to the volcanic emission, or in …etc.
At issue is how and why the carbon cycle is changing. You cannot start from an assumption that it is accumulation of a single emission (such as increase to the volcanic emission, or the anthropogenic emission) and conclude the assumption is right because a mass balance shows a “deficit” in the sequestration. That is circular reasoning.
Richard
Unfortunately I’m not confident that the assumptions based on the Oxygen balance are right either.
There is so much that is uncertain or unknown about the multitude of interacting chemical balances of the biosphere that any assumptions are tentative at present and not really suitable for diagnostic purposes.
On the other hand we do know that more sunlight warms water and that warmer water releases more CO2. And, so it appears, do lava fields, and soil moisture on land.
I don’t think one can ignore the overriding physical phenomenon of more warmth releasing more CO2 just because we don’t know enough about the Oxygen / Nitrogen ratio to explain why it seems not to fit with the huge natural process that is staring us in the face.
Much more likely that other assumptions are defective or incomplete.
It takes quite a leap of faith to rely on any ‘evidence’ that appears to show the unlikely conclusion that more suinlight does NOT cause more CO2 to be released or even more unlikely that the sign of the system response to more sunlight is negative but that is what you are suggesting and seeking to ‘prove’ by reference to the Oxygen balance which is very speculative.
One of the advantages of my legal training is the appropriate weighting to be attached to different pieces of information. I rank the assumed causes of the Oxygen balance as currently estimated far lower in value than the simple known fact that more sunlight releases more CO2 from water.
“if the increased solar input emits 4 GtC extra from the oceans and the biosphere sequester 8 GtC extra, that is all human input, still the total natural cycle has a deficit of 4 GtC and is not a net contributor to the increase…”
Surely that extra 4 GtC is a surplus not a deficit ?
Humans produce 8 and the local biosphere gears up to absorb that 8 = 0
Oceans produce 4 more than the global biosphere can take up (because it is magnitudes bigger than the human input) = 4 extra , not a deficit.
“The human emissions are about 4 ppmv per year or 0.4 ppmv per month. The monthly averaged AIRS data may have an accuracy of +/- 1.5-2 ppmv, but that is not accurate enough to detect the human contribution, even if these are concentrated in NH bands.”
Those figures are averaged globally but the main human population centres would give far, far higher local outputs well within the range of the sensing ability of AIRS.
We would expect to see something visible downwind of the largest conurbations such as Western Europe, North East USA and parts of China.
But there is nothing.
Meanwhile there are vast regions with higher CO2 readings downwind of sunshine illuminated oceans.
What we have here is huge sunshine related natural variations in the CO2 absorption / release balance between equator and poles.
Sometimes net release overall (as now) sometines net absorption (probably as in the LIA) with the human contribution barely discernible and lost in the natural ebbing and flowing of CO2 in the air.
If other indicators seem to run against that most obvious scenario then we most likely have an imperfect understanding of those other indicators and we must direct our attention to them.
Stephen Wilde says:
September 10, 2012 at 3:26 am
There is so much that is uncertain or unknown about the multitude of interacting chemical balances of the biosphere that any assumptions are tentative at present and not really suitable for diagnostic purposes.
There is little uncertainty in the oxygen balance: every biological process that incorporates CO2 releases oxygen at a fixed rate. Every process that breaks down carbohydrates to CO2 uses oxygen at a fixed rate. The main uncertainty is in the oxygen measurements themselves, which are at the edge of the analytical possibilities: less than 1 ppmv on 200,000 ppmv oxygen…
Thus even including the uncertainty of the oxygen measurements, there is little doubt that the current CO2 sink in the biosphere is only a fraction of the human emissions.
Further, if all human emissions would be captured by the most nearby tree, there wouldn’t be a drop of the 13C/12C ratio in the atmosphere. Plants use by preference 12CO2, thus an increase in uptake would leave more 13CO2 behind, thus the drop caused by fossil fuel burning (which is low in 13C) would be fully compensated, but that is not what is observed.
It takes quite a leap of faith to rely on any ‘evidence’ that appears to show the unlikely conclusion that more suinlight does NOT cause more CO2 to be released or even more unlikely that the sign of the system response to more sunlight is negative
Nobody says that more sunlight doesn’t (indirectly) causes an extra release of CO2. There is no direct reaction of CO2 on sunlight, but more sunlight does increase the surface water temperature. That increases the pCO2 of the seawater relative to the atmosphere, leading to more CO2 releases. But the system response is of course negative: any increase of CO2 in the atmosphere (whatever the source) leads to an increase of the uptake of CO2 at the sink places into the deep oceans and in the biosphere: the biosphere doesn’t make a differentiation if CO2 comes from humans or from a warmer ocean. The net result for a 1°C increase of a global ocean surface temperature is not more than 16 ppmv (Henry’s Law). The net result, including the biosphere is not more than 8 ppmv/°C (measured over the past 800,000 years in ice cores). That is all.
Surely that extra 4 GtC is a surplus not a deficit ?
Humans produce 8 and the local biosphere gears up to absorb that 8 = 0
Oceans produce 4 more than the global biosphere can take up (because it is magnitudes bigger than the human input) = 4 extra , not a deficit.
I still find it strange that a lot of smart people don’t understand what many housewives/men know for sure from their household budget.
The human emissions are one-way, the natural inputs and outputs are mostly two-way, thus the bulk of the “transcations” is simply passing through the atmosphere (the turnover of a bussiness) and don’t add to the total. The gain (or loss) at the end of a year is the net result of your bussiness. If you have added a lot of your own money into your bussiness and the result at the end of the year is less gain than the amount of money that you have invested, do you still think that you have earned a lot of money and have a good bussiness?
The total natural cycle, that is all natural input minus all natural outputs, is negative. That is what is important. No matter that some parts of the natural cycle are extra sources and other parts are extra sinks.
richardscourtney says:
September 10, 2012 at 2:46 am
The alternative view is, So what?
It says nothing about what the “deficit” would have been in the absence of the anthropogenic emission, or in the absence of a change to the volcanic emission, or in …etc.
We don’t know for sure what the natural cycle would have done without the human emissions, but that is not of interest. Volcanic vents/eruptions are part of the natural cycle and that has a negative balance, no matter how one shuffles the desk. The main point is that all natural inflows and outflows together were negative over the past 50 years, which makes that the human contribution is the sole cause of the increase…