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.
“””””…..Edim says:
August 31, 2012 at 11:13 am
GHE, is of course far from sure. The heat transfer problem at the surface and at TOA is not solved. On the face of it, CO2 cooling effect is more likely. Non-radiative fluxes dominate at the surface and at TOA there’s only radiation. CO2 emits, but the cooling effect is probably not significant. The bulk of the atmosphere (N2 and O2) insulates, the radiatively active gases cool the atmosphere by radiating to space. Then there’s clouds…..”””””
Why do you say at TOA, there’s only CO2 radiation; what about ALL of the roughly BB radiation from the surface, that is completely outside the CO2 bands (and other GHGs) that also goes out the TOA.
So N2 and O2 “insulate”, what does THAT mean ? We are told they don’t ABSORB or EMIT Infra-red. So they don’t absorb ir, but they insulate, so that just about limits it to “reflects”.
Actually they radiate IR just fine, but not in specific frequency molecular resonance spectra; just continuum thermal spectra due to their (collision) Temperature. CO2 spectra on the other hand, are not Temperature dependent (first order), but depend on molecular structure. Since gas molecular densities are much lower than liquid and solids, their absorption coefficients are much lower and so is their emissivity. But I suspect if you calculate the emissivity per molecule, you would find not much difference with phase; perhaps a collision frequency effect.
Edim says:
August 31, 2012 at 11:13 am
“The bulk of the atmosphere (N2 and O2) insulates, the radiatively active gases cool the atmosphere by radiating to space.”
Don’t forget that CH4 is also a significant GHG, which radiates at much higher energy levels than CO2. I believe that it is quite possible that, by radiating away additional energy at lower levels, added CO2 can actually decrease the amount of excitation of the CH4, which would actually result in a lower surface temperature, all things being equal. This is what I was alluding to when I mentioned that our atmosphere is not homogeneous.
Phil.
Really? So you believe that positive feedback can not occur?
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He didn’t say that. He said your example doesn’t support the argument you were trying to make at the time.
GHE, is of course far from sure.
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And yet another Oh My God moment. This thread has really fallen apart.
Bart;
In all the talk of colder objects heating warmer objects by radiant energy, I don’t see anyone addressing the real reason it is impossible. Firstly, the 2nd law of thermodynamics pertains to averages.
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The 2nd Law and SB Law can only co-exist if the exchange of energy is two way. Your answer goes on to talk about net transfer, and correctly describes it, but you neglect to consider the results in the absence of the colder object at all. If there is no colder object to consider, then the warmer object is simply radiating directly to space which has an effective temperature approaching absolute zero. A colder object is blazing hot by comparison to no object at all.
davidmhoffer says:
August 31, 2012 at 11:41 am
Phil.
Really? So you believe that positive feedback can not occur?
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
He didn’t say that. He said your example doesn’t support the argument you were trying to make at the time.
Actually he babbled away incoherently, you must be psychic to get any sensible interpretation from “Sorry, but you have not hereby discovered the long sought after verification of transluminal speeds. Unfortunately, we still cannot create a warp drive through microphone feedback.”
GHE by the radiatively active gases I mean. The bulk (N2/O2), which cannot radiate (cool) to space (according to the consensus explanation), does insulate and acts kinda like the cover (and walls) in a greenhouse, working as a barrier to air flow and therefore the convective cooling.
Leonard Weinstein says:
August 31, 2012 at 11:16 am
“Back radiation reduces NET radiation, but never directly heats the water. It only slows loss of energy.”
Could you be so kind as to explain this please.
Bart says:
August 31, 2012 at 11:37 am
Don’t forget that CH4 is also a significant GHG, which radiates at much higher energy levels than CO2. I believe that it is quite possible that, by radiating away additional energy at lower levels, added CO2 can actually decrease the amount of excitation of the CH4, which would actually result in a lower surface temperature, all things being equal.
CH4 absorbs/emits at around 1300 cm-1 whereas CO2 absorbs/emits at around 667 cm-1, why do you believe that absorption in the CO2 band from the Earth’s LWIR would deplete the CH4 band at 1300 cm-1?
Leonard Weinstein says:
August 31, 2012 at 11:16 am
Hi Leonard.
I agree with this:
“The simple fact is that the only source of energy absorbed by the oceans is short wavelength sunlight (neglecting volcanoes and internal Earth heating), and the temperature it goes to is based only on the ease in which that energy is removed. ”
and this:
“The ways it is removed are NET long wave radiation from the surface, evaporation from the surface, and conduction followed by convection to the atmosphere”
But what you have missed is the energy cost of a specific amount of evaporation which is set by atmospheric pressure because atmospheric pressure sets the ratio between the amount of energy required to cause evaporation and the enthalpy of evaporation which is 1 to 5 respectively at standard atmospheric pressure.
Thus, if 1 unit of energy from more CO2 in the air is applied to the ocean surface to cause one molecule of water to evaporate earlier than it otherwise would have done then 4 more units of energy need to be extracted from the local environment.
The easiest place for that energy to be extracted is from the extra energy from the CO2 in the air so the process of increased evaporation will proceed until all the extra energy from more CO2 is used up and then it will stop.
The effect on the background rate of energy flow from water to air being zero.
If you wish to discuss this with me direct then please feel free to contact me via climaterealists.com and we will see if we can resolve any misunderstandings either way.
Edim says:
August 31, 2012 at 11:06 am
The correlation between global temperatures (anomalies) and changes (accumulations) in atmospheric CO2 is very remarkable. Many forget, it’s not changes in global temperatures (warming or cooling) but temperature levels that cause changes in CO2. There is also a global temperature level (or whatever we’re measuring with the global temperature indices) at which d(CO2)/dt = 0. Lower than this, the change gets negative (decline in atmospheric CO2).
That is exactly the theory of Bart and it is wrong. There are no natural processes that can continue pumping CO2 out of the oceans for a small permanent offset in temperature. In two steps:
– Static:
If the temperature of seawater increases with 1°C, the equilibrium with the atmosphere increases with about 16 ppmv. No matter how much CO2 is in the (deep) oceans. An increase with 16 ppmv in the atmosphere is sufficient to compensate for a 1°C increase in ocean surface temperature. For most of the oceans surface layer, that process is quite rapid (1-2 years to equilibrium).
– Dynamic:
If the temperature of seawater increases everywhere with 1°C, the pCO2 (partial pressure of CO2) of seawater at the deep upwelling sources increases (from ~750 microatm to ~766 microatm). Therefore the CO2 source flux into the atmosphere increases substantially, as the pressure difference, that is the driving force of the fluxes, increases for the same atmospheric CO2 content (at 400 ppmv, which is about 400 microatm).
At the other side, an increase in temperature at the downwelling places increases the pCO2 (from ~150 to ~166 microtatm), thus decreases the pressure difference with the atmosphere, substantially reducing the sink flux.
Both lead to an increase of CO2 into the atmosphere. But as the CO2 level in the atmosphere increases, the pressure difference at the upwelling places gets smaller, thus the source flux gets smaller and the pressure difference at the sink places gets larger, thus the sink flux gets larger. The final result is that with an increase of 16 ppmv in the atmosphere, the source and sink fluxes are again in equilibrium for 1°C increase in global seawater temperature.
Thus whatever the static or dynamic (dis)equilibria were before the temperature changes, an increase of 1°C in global seawater temperature gives an increase of maximum 16 ppmv in the atmosphere, to reach the same (dis)equilibrium as before.
Bart says:
August 31, 2012 at 11:33 am
It will not be in equilibrium until equivalent global climate conditions which prevailed at the time it downwelled prevail again. Until then, it will keep pumping CO2 into the atmosphere continuously.
No it won’t, see Henry’s Law and van’t Hoff’s equation.
Edim says:
August 31, 2012 at 12:00 pm
GHE by the radiatively active gases I mean. The bulk (N2/O2), which cannot radiate (cool) to space (according to the consensus explanation), does insulate
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Gasp! How do gasses that you have defined as NOT being radiatively active accomplish this? Incoming SW goes right through. Out going LW goes right through. Where does the “insulation” part happen? To insulate, you have to STOP the energy from passing straight through! Which is what radiatively active gasses do! By definition!
Bart says:
August 31, 2012 at 9:59 am:
“In all the talk of colder objects heating warmer objects by radiant energy, I don’t see anyone addressing the real reason it is impossible.”
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For the third time on this thread, my point is very simple. Warmists mean that that is possible and actually works in case of alleged greenhouse warming, but there is apparently no experimental proof of that.
And in the science it is not so that a statement is considered valid until the opposite is proven, it is exactly the other way round.
“There are no natural processes that can continue pumping CO2 out of the oceans for a small permanent offset in temperature.”
Ferdinand, a small permanent offset is actually only the averaged story. In detail, there are latitudes and annual temperature cycles. There might be some kind of ‘pumping’ effect. I don’t suggest anything, I only comment on the correlation.
Bart says:
August 31, 2012 at 9:59 am
“Firstly, the 2nd law of thermodynamics pertains to averages. On average, a colder object (I will assume here that both objects are blackbodies for simplicity) cannot heat a warmer object above its own temperature. Instantaneously, when the colder object emits a photon toward the warmer object, and the warmer object absorbs it, the warmer object’s temperature increases.
But, it then releases another photon back at the colder object which cools the warmer object and heats the colder object back up. If they were exchanging equal numbers of photons, their relative temperatures would remain the same on average. But, the warmer object is releasing more photons, so it will cool and the cooler object will heat up, until both are at the same temperature, exchanging equal numbers of photons.”
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First you need to revise your understanding of the term “average” and also look up the term “net (result)”.
The 2nd law of thermodynamics was formulated on the basis of experiments and there were back then apparently no experiments confirming your notion of “average”, so no, it is not about “average”. If you mean otherwise – prove it.
The notion of photon was invented to explain certain experimental observations, so in this case too first come experiments. Your “photon calculation”, as I said before, is apparently not supported by any scientific experiments.
And generally, dear warmists, please do not confuse products of your imagination (even if they are to a degree logical) with scientifically proven facts.
Bart says:
August 31, 2012 at 11:33 am
Nature has no ability to “detrend” the temperature. It must act on it as a whole.
Your fit is based on a temporarely trend in temperature, which by accident fits the trend in CO2 increase, but doesn’t fit in other periods (like the 1945-1975 cooling period). Let even be for the MWP-LIA or glacial periods with ~ 100 kyr of below “baseline” temperatures.
To the degree that the observations are rock solid. It does not have to conform to observations which are themselves very dicey.
It gets quite problematic if the theory violates a lot of observations… Take e.g. 13C/12C ratio of the oceans. Everywhere, except near estuaria, observed as higher than in the atmosphere. Deep oceans and even more at the surface. No models involved, simple, direct measurements. Thus any substantial contribution of the (deep) oceans to the atmosphere should increase the d13C level of the atmosphere. But we see a steady accelerating decline, not caused by vegetation decay either…
Thus your deep oceans upwelling theory from the past violates the d13C level observations…
Or, it implies natural minus a little + all of the human emissions are absorbed somewhere. This is a semantical game you are playing. Carbon is carbon. It gets sequestered no matter its source.
I was talking about total mass that must be sequestered, not which molecules are sequestered. The point is that anyway the natural sinks are larger than the natural sources. That means that there is no net contribution from the natural cycles. No matter if the human CO2 is immediately absorbed by the next available tree are resides for decades in the atmosphere.
The human contribution + natural contribution leads to an increase in the atmosphere that is higher than of the human contribution alone. But as we only observe an increase that is equal to halve the human emissions, the sinks must absorb a total amount which is equal to the natural contribution + halve the human contribution. No matter which exact molecules are sequestered. Carbon is carbon…
Bart;
You’re wasintg your time with Greg House. Every explanation you provide will end with the same result, which is him declaring it not proof. I’ve given up on him as have many others including Robert G Brown.
Greg House says:
August 30, 2012 at 8:00 pm
davidmhoffer says:
August 30, 2012 at 6:36 pm:
“Then there’s Greg House who jumps in with his usual cold things can’t send energy to warm things argument”
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No, this is not true.
My argument is that apparently nobody has proven experimentally, that colder things can either warm warmer things or slow down cooling of the warmer things by means of infra-red radiation. Simply because no warmist I talked to on various blogs has been able to present a link to such a scientific experiment.
Well it’s easy to put an end to this, read an undergraduate text on radiation heat transfer, Hottel and Sarofim would be a good choice. There you’ll see many examples of experiments which show this and how engineers the world over use radiation heat transfer calculations involving this effect in their design calculations. Then we won’t have to put up with this fallacious argument any more.
Phil.
Well it’s easy to put an end to this, read an undergraduate text on radiation heat transfer, Hottel and Sarofim would be a good choice.
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He’ll find some reason to claim it isn’t applicable, he always does. He’s been referred to text books before. I’ve also suggested that he look at experiments that are part of university physics courses that are designed for the express purpose of verifying SB Law and he ignores those as well. Simple google search shows they aren’t hard to find:
http://sampa.if.usp.br/~suaide/LabFlex/blog/files/amjournalphys46.pdf
http://media.paisley.ac.uk/~davison/labpage/stefan/stefan.html
http://iopscience.iop.org/0031-9120/10/1/005/
http://fiziks.net/lifesciencesD/exp54.htm
http://faculty.ksu.edu.sa/Tahani_Al-Beladi/Documents/EXPERIMENTS%20SHEET/Exp.1%20.pdf
http://www.nikhef.nl/~h73/kn1c/praktikum/phywe/LEP/Experim/3_5_01.pdf
He’s drowning in evidence, but the bottom line is that he understands neither SB Law nor 2nd Law, doesn’t understand the math, and doesn’t understand how these exact experiments speak directly to what he claims isn’t proven, and so he just claims they aren’t proof.
Gail Combs says:
August 30, 2012 at 2:56 pm
What makes you think the “Team” has not messed with the CO2 measurements as they did with the temperature measurements???
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The analysis is only concerned about Mauna Loa measurements so the way how ice core data were spliced to it is irrelevant and so is it to my argument.
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Bart says:
August 30, 2012 at 2:46 pm
This is my favored working hypothesis. Current atmospheric CO2 levels depend not just on temperature differentials in the near past, but in the distant past as well, when currently upwelling ocean waters first descended into the depths.
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Your hypothesis looks intriguing but I am not sure there were significant enough changes in the past to explain the current trend this way. Ice core data don’t seem to support it … but again, there’s the known smoothing effect so who knows. Some analyses of deep ocean water CO2 contents might help there, especially comparison of upwelling currents vs downwelling currents, but I am not aware of any such. Sea level measurements may not tell much because deep sea CO2 may be quickly absorbed by phytoplankton when it gets close enough to the surface, delaying actual emission by unknown amount and spreading it over a long time.
davidmhoffer says:
August 31, 2012 at 1:08 pm:
“Bart;
You’re wasintg your time with Greg House. Every explanation you provide will end with the same result, which is him declaring it not proof.”
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Right, if a scientific experimental proof was asked for but only an “explanation” has been presented, then yes, the “explanation” is not the proof in question. This must be easy to understand.
“Gasp! How do gasses that you have defined as NOT being radiatively active accomplish this? Incoming SW goes right through. Out going LW goes right through. Where does the “insulation” part happen? To insulate, you have to STOP the energy from passing straight through! Which is what radiatively active gasses do! By definition!”
The atmosphere gains it’s energy from the surface by the non-radiative fluxes too and they’re actually dominant. The dominant planetary (at TOA) cooling flux is actually from atmospheric radiation, not surface radiation.
http://science-edu.larc.nasa.gov/EDDOCS/images/Erb/components2.gif
davidmhoffer says:
August 31, 2012 at 1:38 pm:
“He’s been referred to text books before.”
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Come on, nobody is going to buy your “text books” just to discover that they do not contain what you claim they do, in particular no layman, including journalists and politicians reading here. As I said before, repeated claims do not constitute a scientific proof and do not make a fact out of a tale.
It is a key assertion of the AGW concept I am questioning, and if there is an experimental proof of that then there must be a detailed description of the experiment somewhere on the internet, at least on the warmists sites. If there is nothing, then highly probable nothing exists. And until now I have not seen any valid link.
As for your references, the last time I checked your link it turned out to be unrelated stuff: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/08/14/why-we-need-debate-not-consensus-on-climate-change/#comment-1059271 .
Greg House,
I know you mean well. But you need to understand that the 2nd Law is statistical. I recommend Four Laws by Peter Atkins. It is an excellent intro to the Zeroth Law through the 3rd Law of Thermodynamics, and it’s only 124 pages long. Amazon probably has used copies for a few dollars. Sincerely recommended.