From the “CO2 is there anything it can’t do department” comes this ridiculous piece of research making the rounds in the MSM that worries about something that has not been observed to happen…oh, wait.
![Temporal variation of carbon at pressure levelZ[thinsp]=[thinsp]-6(altitude [sim] 101[thinsp]km) from the NCAR global mean model simulation.](https://i0.wp.com/www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/vaop/ncurrent/carousel/ngeo1626-f3.jpg?resize=302%2C240&quality=83)
Observations of increasing carbon dioxide concentration in Earth’s thermosphere
J. T. Emmert, M. H. Stevens, P. F. Bernath, D. P. Drob & C. D. Boone
Carbon dioxide occurs naturally throughout Earth’s atmosphere. In the thermosphere, CO2 is the primary radiative cooling agent and fundamentally affects the energy balance and temperature of this high-altitude atmospheric layer1, 2. Anthropogenic CO2 increases are expected to propagate upward throughout the entire atmosphere, which should result in a cooler, more contracted thermosphere3, 4, 5. This contraction, in turn, will reduce atmospheric drag on satellites and may have adverse consequences for the orbital debris environment that is already unstable6, 7.
However, observed thermospheric mass density trends derived from satellite orbits are generally stronger than model predictions8, 9, indicating that our quantitative understanding of these changes is incomplete. So far, CO2 trends have been measured only up to 35 km altitude10, 11, 12. Here, we present direct evidence that CO2 concentrations in the upper atmosphere—probably the primary driver of long-term thermospheric trends—are increasing. We analyse eight years of CO2 and carbon monoxide mixing ratios derived from satellite-based solar occultation spectra. After correcting for seasonal–latitudinal and solar influences, we obtain an estimated global increase in COx (CO2 and CO, combined) concentrations of 23.5±6.3 ppm per decade at an altitude of 101 km, about 10 ppm per decade faster than predicted by an upper atmospheric model. We suggest that this discrepancy may explain why the thermospheric density decrease is stronger than expected.
Paper (paywalled) available here.
Here’s a press release from one of the co-authors:
The researchers report evidence that CO₂ levels are increasing faster than expected in the upper atmosphere, which seems to be cooling and contracting at a pace that current models have not predicted. Reduction in atmospheric drag brought on by the resulting decrease in density could keep space junk in orbit longer, creating more congestion by orbital debris.
“CO₂ increases close to the Earth’s surface cause temperatures to rise but, surprisingly, CO₂ higher up results in just the opposite,” Bernath said. In the upper atmosphere, the density of CO₂ is too low to maintain greenhouse warming. Instead, the gas absorbs heat from its surroundings and radiates much of it away from Earth.”
Bernath’s work with the team of researchers derives from his role as mission scientist for the ACE satellite project, which has been collecting important information about ozone chemistry, climate change and air pollution since 2004.
Before joining ODU in 2011 as the chemistry chair, Bernath was a faculty member with the University of York in England and, earlier, with the University of Waterloo in Canada. While at Waterloo, he proposed the Canadian satellite project and assembled a scientific team to analyze data that the satellite instruments recorded and dispatched back to Earth.
During the past four decades Bernath has been credited with seminal discoveries in molecular spectroscopy and atmospheric chemistry, resulting in his election as Fellow of the Optical Society of America. He was granted a Ph.D. from MIT in 1981 and received the 2009 Alouette Award of the Canadian Aeronautics and Space Institute and the 2004 Excellence in Research Award from the University of Waterloo. Earlier this year, he was given the Faculty of Science Distinguished Alumni Award of the University of Waterloo.
The primary instrument on the ACE satellite, which is in orbit about 400 miles above the Earth, is a Fourier Transform Spectrometer (FTS) that analyzes the types and quantities of gases in the atmosphere. From the absorption of sunlight during sunrise and sunset, ACE is able to determine the composition of the atmosphere at various heights.
Data from the ACE-FTS has set the standard for measurements of the concentrations of constituents in the Earth’s middle atmosphere. This instrument routinely measures approximately 35 gas species in the atmosphere; some of these are in the parts-per-billion range in concentration.
When the project team led by Emmert checked measurements from 2004-12 by ACE-FTS at altitudes of about 60 miles, it found CO₂ concentrations that were surprisingly high. “To date, CO₂ trends have been measured only up to 35 kilometers (22 miles). Here, we present the first direct evidence that upper atmospheric CO₂ concentrations – the likely primary driver of long-term thermospheric trends – are increasing,” the researchers report.
The eight years of satellite-based solar occultation spectra they studied showed a trend of 23.5 parts per million increase of CO₂ per decade. “This rate is 10 ppm/decade faster than predicted by an upper atmospheric model, which may explain the stronger than expected thermospheric density decrease,” according to the article in Nature Geoscience.
Several possible explanations for this trend are considered by the authors, such as swings in solar activity. They even estimate the amount of CO₂ that may have been deposited in the upper atmosphere by the exhaust of orbital launch vehicles, but the total of 2,700 metric tons above 50 miles high cannot explain the overall trends they found.
If the thermosphere becomes more clogged with space junk, this would present a hazard for active launch vehicles and satellites. Although, some scientists have pointed out that cooling of this outer layer of the atmosphere could be good news for satellites such as the International Space Station, which should be able to stay in orbit longer without firing booster rockets.
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Nature Geoscience? – shouldn’t that become Nature Neoscience?
I used to read the cartoons in the newspaper.
Now, I read reports in WUWT.
The warming propagandists keep me in stitches.
Amazing effect for such a tiny Kelvin degree increase.
In 2009 NASA said the Sun was responsible.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/12/26/satellite-measurements-prove-our-quiet-sun-is-cooling-the-upper-thermosphere/
How could he be surprised? Good radiative absorbers are good radiative coolers as well. Surely, CO2 is contributing to the efficiency of radiative cooling at much lower altitudes as well.
The wonders of ubiquitous CO2 just keep coming.
As rather an old crumbly, I am whimsically put in mind of the old Flanders & Swann song about the Wompom. Google for the full lyrics
You can do such a lot with a wompom.
You can use every part of it, too.
For work or for pleasure, it’s a triumph and a treasure.
Oh, there’s nothing that a wompom cannot do.
……
So we make what we like from the wompom,
And it proves very useful indeed.
From streets full of houses, to the buttons on your trousers,
With the wompom, you have every thing you need.
etc etc.
“Instead, the gas absorbs heat from its surroundings and radiates much of it away from Earth.” Professor Wang who taught me Transport of Heat is ROFL. This statement is sense-free. Radiation heats or cools by “FLUX!” Heat cannot be transferred from a cool thing to a hot thing, no way no how. All gases, liquids and solids radiate all the time unless at Absolute Zero. CO2 doesn’t do anything different than the rest of the atmosphere. It absorbs some infrared radiated in the 15 micron band, which corresponds to -4 F, and heats up a little from this. It absorbs and emits photons exactly like the rest of the atmosphere.
This guy has a PhD???
“CO2 increases close to the Earth’s surface cause temperatures to rise but, surprisingly, CO2 higher up results in just the opposite,” Bernath said. In the upper atmosphere, the density of CO2 is too low to maintain greenhouse warming. Instead, the gas absorbs heat from its surroundings and radiates much of it away from Earth.
It seems rather odd that high up, there is too little CO2 to cause warming however there is enough to cause cooling.
The eight years of satellite-based solar occultation spectra they studied showed a trend of 23.5 parts per million increase of CO2 per decade. “This rate is 10 ppm/decade faster than predicted by an upper atmospheric model, which may explain the stronger than expected thermospheric density decrease,” according to the article in Nature Geoscience.
If we take the trend for CO2 for the last 8 years, we get a 1.9 ppm/year increase, or 19 ppm/decade. So the 23.5 is just a bit higher. Why would they expect only 13.5 ppm? After all, gases diffuse in all directions. Furthermore, gases dissolve in water so at lower levels, CO2 may get dissolved in falling rain. However there is very little water to absorb CO2 higher up.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/esrl-co2/from:2005/plot/esrl-co2/from:2005/trend
P.S. They only measured up to 35 km, but at the graph at right from the paper, interpolated to 101 km. It should be “extrapolated” since they went beyond known data.
The cow is almost to the moon. Gosh, who would have thought that CO2 would allow a cow to get so far.
So CO2 in the outer atmosphere is not dense enough to cause greenhouse warming, it causes
cooling. Human activity is placing more CO2 in the outer atmosphere, increasing the CO2 density, which will cause more cooling. This will cause the outer atmosphere to cool and contract, making it denser, which will reduce orbital drag, because denser equals less friction.
Did I get it right?
Michael Moon – ah, but CO2 transcends the mere Laws of Thermodynamics dontcha know …
It is indeed the wonderous Wompom of Flanders and Swann fame. It heats, it cools, it can save satellites and sabotage them, it makes plants grow, it kills corals …
From the Wikipedia article on “thermosphere”:
“Neutral gas constituents: Turbulence causes the air within the lower atmospheric regions below the turbopause at about 110 km to be a mixture of gases that does not change its composition. Its mean molecular weight is 29 g/mol with molecular oxygen (O2) and nitrogen (N2) as the two dominant constituents. Above the turbopause, however, diffusive separation of the various constituents is significant, so that each constituent follows its own barometric height structure with a scale height inversely proportional to its molecular weight. The lighter constituents atomic oxygen (O), helium (He), and hydrogen (H) successively dominate above about 200 km altitude and vary with geographic location, time, and solar activity. The ratio N2/O which is a measure of the electron density at the ionospheric F region is highly affected by these variations. These changes follow from the diffusion of the minor constituents through the major gas component during dynamic processes.”
In other words, by the time that CO2 rises high enough to be relevant…it is irrelevant.
This contraction, in turn, will reduce atmospheric drag on satellites
————
This conclusion from the paper is in direct contradiction to the headline.
“Anthropogenic CO2 increases are expected to propagate upward throughout the entire atmosphere, which should result in a cooler, more contracted thermosphere”
Sounds to me like they expect cooling in the upper atmosphere and are using dubious science to connect CO2 to it.
Like Myron Mesecke posted earlier, NASA blamed the sun for a contracted thermosphere a few years ago. Now it’s CO2? Give me a break…
These people will do and say anything to push their agenda.
“the gas absorbs heat from its surroundings and radiates much of it away from Earth.”
So, they’re saying in contrast to the reduction in radiant energy from higher cooler position meme that is incorporated into the catastrophic climate models the actual result from increased CO2 is an increase in radiant heat loss just like Lindzen and Choi observed?
http://www.drroyspencer.com/Lindzen-and-Choi-GRL-2009.pdf
PS: I’m trying to just ignore the CO2 density remark it’s not clear from the absence of a quotation mark whether it’s actually quoted from the authors of the paper or the author of the press release..
That must be why satellites are falling faster from orbit than expected. Oh wait, that isn’t happening. There are satellites in a sun synchronous orbit which have been orbiting for close to and in some cases more than 10 years. GeoEye for example has one. They’ve expected it’s orbit to degrade to the point of unusable for several years now but it keeps on doing it’s job.
Are we sure atmospheric drag has really increased?
Michael Moon says:
”It absorbs some infrared radiated in the 15 micron band, which corresponds to -4 F, and heats up a little from this.”
The temperature of a gas is a measure of the translational motion not vibrational motion.
Therefore:
It absorbs some infrared radiation that increases its internal energy a little.
Can’t get at the actual paper, but the press release states they are using satellite measurements from 400 miles up. So their 101 km (60 miles) data is in fact a measurement, not an extrapolation. The reference to 35 km is ambiguous; I think they are saying that previous studies only went that high, but their own extends the range.
Looks like another excellent addition to John Brignell’s classic list.
http://www.numberwatch.co.uk/warmlist.htm
“When the project team led by Emmert checked measurements from 2004-12 by ACE-FTS at altitudes of about 60 miles, it found CO₂ concentrations that were surprisingly high. “To date, CO₂ trends have been measured only up to 35 kilometers (22 miles). ”
NOTE: they do not say that CO2 was not found at these heights before, simply that it was not measured before. Though, if you word it right, it sounds like OMG, it never got _this_ high before.
“Here, we present the first direct evidence that upper atmospheric CO₂ concentrations – the likely primary driver of long-term thermospheric trends – are increasing,” the researchers report.”
Cool , direct evidence rears its ugly head again. And what does it say? It says global cooling.
“The researchers report evidence that CO₂ levels are increasing faster than expected in the upper atmosphere, …”
Expected by what ? Oh, the models were wrong about that as well. How “unexpected”.
“…which seems to be cooling and contracting at a pace that current models have not predicted. ”
OMG, so the cooling of the thermosphere is “worse than we thought” as well.
Good , bad or indifferent, it’s always unexpected , unprecedented and worse than we thought.
So having got the genuflections to Nature editorial staff out of the way, what if anything does this show?
Most obvious in the figure shown is an a.most perfect correlation between CO concentration and solar flux. Interesting.
Second, apart from the upwards, linear trend the CO2 curve looks like a pretty perfect anti-correlation. Interesting.
Thirdly, the CO levels are an order smaller than CO2 , so the COx metric seems rather pointless other than telling us the CO2 “trend”.
Now I have not researched atmospheric chemistry but at a wild guess I’d say UV is converting CO2 and O2 into O3 and CO. Solar driven upper climate change.
So over the relatively short period of data available we see CO2 apparently filtering up from lower atmosphere and helping evacuate heat out into space. a.k.a. negative climate feedback.
As often seems the case these days, good science is being done but wrapped up in the usual AGW language in order to get published.
Shouldn’t the headline be: “That CO2 is powerful stuff, now causes orbital debris to stay in orbit longer.”
“…some scientists have pointed out that cooling of this outer layer of the atmosphere could be good news for satellites such as the International Space Station, which should be able to stay in orbit longer without firing booster rockets”
A few years ago they were telling me that having the atmosphere expand was bad because it made satellites fall to earth too early.
Now I’m being told that not having the atmosphere expand because space junk won’t fall to earth.
Anthropogenic CO2 increases are expected to propagate upward throughout the entire atmosphere, which should result in a cooler, more contracted thermosphere.
An astonishing prediction, considering the thermosphere already collapsed.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/07/15/earths-thermosphere-collapses-film-at-11/
Could this be what they didn’t understand, that the dreaded Anthropogenic CO₂ amplified the collapse?
Oh well. Science (eventually?) moves forward, explains more.
Maybe someday it’ll explain why Anthropogenic CO₂ molecules are propagating upwards differently than the ordinary CO₂ released by ocean outgassing and other natural processes. Are they somehow heavier and slower so it takes them longer to get up there?
The authors attribute this dire fate to anthropogenic carbon. Does naturally derived carbon not do this? How do I separate anthropogenic and natural carbon? Heck, how do you distinguish between the two? Things were a lot simpler when I was doing research in organic chemistry, mass spec, carbon magnetic resonance and x-ray crystallography. But all that was before this new type of carbon was discovered.
“Here, we present direct evidence that CO2 concentrations in the upper atmosphere—probably the primary driver of long-term thermospheric trends—are increasing.”
All these years I have been under the mistaken assumption that Sun activity had a major effect on long term, short trend and cyclic thermospheric expansion and contraction. It must have been CO2 that brought Skylab down before its time. I guess I did not know how important CO2 was at that time to thermospheric trends and how irrelevant the Sun was to long trends, short trends and cycles.
/sarc/