Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach
There’s an interesting measure of atmospheric CO2, called the “airborne fraction”. The airborne fraction is the fraction of the CO2 emitted each year which remains in the atmosphere. When humans emit say 9 gigatonnes of carbon, only about half of that remains in the air. The other half of the emitted carbon is absorbed, “sequestered” in some semi-permanent fashion, by various carbon sinks in the land and the ocean.
Dr. James Hansen of NASA, another in the long line of climate alarmists who don’t mind shafting the poor with expensive energy, has come out with a most surprising statement in his latest paper, Climate forcing growth rates: doubling down on our Faustian bargain, hereinafter Hansen 2012. The statement involves Hansen et al.’s explanation for a claimed recent decrease in the airborne fraction. Here’s their graphic showing the changes in the airborne fraction since 1960.
Figure 1. Hansen 2012 Figure 3. I’ve added a vertical line highlighting June 1991.
[ORIGINAL CAPTION] Fossil fuel CO2 emissions (left scale) and airborne fraction, i.e., the ratio of observed atmospheric CO2 increase to fossil fuel CO2 emissions. Final three points are 5-, 3- and 1-year means.
I do wish people would show the underlying data and not just averages, but setting that aside, here are the authors’ claims about the drop in the airborne fraction (blue line) post 2000:
We suggest that the surge of fossil fuel use, mainly coal, since 2000 is a basic cause of the large increase of carbon uptake by the combined terrestrial and ocean carbon sinks. One mechanism by which fossil fuel emissions increase carbon uptake is by fertilizing the biosphere via provision of nutrients essential for tissue building, especially nitrogen, which plays a critical role in controlling net primary productivity and is limited in many ecosystems (Gruber and Galloway 2008). Modeling (e.g., Thornton et al 2009) and field studies (Magnani et al 2007) confirm a major role of nitrogen deposition, working in concert with CO2 fertilization, in causing a large increase in net primary productivity of temperate and boreal forests.
This is an interesting argument, but it has a few moving parts. Let me list them.
1) Increased coal use leads to increased net primary productivity (NPP) .
2) Increased NPP is evidence of increased carbon absorption.
3) Increased carbon absorption leads to increased biologically driven carbon sequestration.
4) Increased biologically driven sequestration explains the post-2000 decrease in airborne fraction.
I’m good with claims number 1 and number 2, but from there they get increasingly unlikely for various reasons. I’ll go get the data and show the actual airborne fraction, but first, let me quote a bit more from Hansen 2012, this time regarding Pinatubo.
Remarkably, and we will argue importantly, the airborne fraction has declined since 2000 (figure 3) during a period without any large volcanic eruptions. The 7-year running mean of the airborne fraction had remained close to 60% up to 2000, except for the period affected by Pinatubo.
and also …
Thus we see the decreased CO2 airborne fraction since 2000 as sharing some of the same causes as the decreased airborne fraction after the Pinatubo eruption (figure 3).
I looked at the chart, and I looked at the dates. Pinatubo was in June of 1991. Here’s what I get from the data:
Figure 2. Annual airborne fraction (red line), along with 7-year average (blue). Green line shows theoretical airborne fraction assuming exponential decay of excess CO2.
So to start with, from both his graph and mine I’m saying absolutely no way to Hansen’s claim that there was a “decreased airborne fraction after the Pinatubo eruption”. Hansen seems obsessed with Pinatubo. He previously has claimed (falsely) that it represented a successful test of his GISS climate model. See here, here , and here for a discussion of how poorly the models actually did with Pinatubo.
He is now claiming (again falsely) that there is some drop in the airborne fraction after Pinatubo. I’m sorry, but that’s a totally false statement. There’s no sign of any unusual drop post-Pinatubo in this record at all, neither in the annual data nor in the average data. The majority of the drop he seems to be pointing to occurred well before Pinatubo occurred …
In passing, let me comment that any reviewer who let any of that Pinatubo nonsense past them should resign their commission. It was the first thing I noticed when I looked at the paper.
There’s a second problem with what Hansen et al. have done. They say regarding their 7-year average (blue line) that: Final three points are 5-, 3- and 1-year means. Sadly, this means that the final point in the 7-year average is forced to be equal to the last point in the raw data … easily the worst choice of ways to handle the final points of any average, almost guaranteed to have the largest error.
But that method does have one advantage in this case. It greatly exaggerates the amount of the recent drop. Note for example that had the data ended one year earlier, the final point in his average would have had a value 60% … here’s what the 7-year average figured their way would have looked like if the data had ended in 2010.
Figure 3. As in Figure 2, but with the 7-year average ending in 2010 using their method. Note that the final point is forced to equal the 2010 value.
As you can see, their curious treatment of the 7-year average at the end of the data is the only thing that makes the trend look so bad. When changing the data length by one year makes that kind of change in an average, you can assume that your results are far, far from robust.
But neither of those is the main problem with their claim. The main problem is that the general slight decrease in the airborne fraction is an expected result of the exponential decay of the excess atmospheric CO2. As the green line shows, the actual results are in no way different from the value we’d expect to see. The green line shows the result of the exponential decay of the excess CO2 if we assume a half-life of about 46 years. The expected value decreases slightly from 1970 to 2011.
It’s worth noting that if CO2 emissions leveled off entirely, the airborne fraction would gradually decay to zero. This is because if emissions level off, eventually the excess CO2 level will be such that the annual sequestration will equal the annual emission with nothing to remain airborne.
To close, let me return to their claim:
We suggest that the surge of fossil fuel use, mainly coal, since 2000 is a basic cause of the large increase of carbon uptake by the combined terrestrial and ocean carbon sinks.
I must confess that I hadn’t looked at fuel use by type in a while, so I was unaware of a large spike in coal use.
Figure 4. Carbon emissions by fuel type. Note the steady rise of natural gas, which will only increase with the advent of fracking.
So yes, coal use has indeed spiked since 2000, with a jump in coal emissions putting it back out in front of oil. I assume, although I’ve not checked, that this is the result of the huge increase in coal for electricity generation in India and China. And good on them, the folks in that part of the planet desperately need cheap energy.
Returning to the claims in Hansen 2012, it is true that the carbon uptake by the various sinks has constantly increased over time. This increase, however, appears to be much more related to the exponential decay of the CO2, and has less to do with the changes in the biosphere. We know this because the change in the amount sequestered is much larger than the change in the NPP.
Here are the figures. In 1960 the natural sinks were sequestering about 1 gigatonne of excess carbon annually. By 2011, this had risen to 4.5 gigatonnes annually. I agree that CO2 fertilization is real, but clearly this 4.5-fold increase in total tonnage of excess carbon sequestered cannot all be the result of increased NPP from CO2 fertilization.
So while I’m glad to hear that Hansen thinks that coal is good for something, I fear his explanation for the increase in the amount sequestered is not correct. The increases in the amount sequestered have been much, much larger (450% since 1960) than the increase in the amount of sequestration due to greater NPP.
Before I leave, let me remind folks what cheap electricity and energy from coal does for us all, rich and poor alike, every day of the year.
Figure 5. Daily output of coal energy. SOURCE
That huge benefit to the poor and the rich is what Hansen is trying to get rid of … but he and others have very little with which to replace it. So all that happens is that the price of energy goes up, and the poor once again are impoverished the most.
Brilliant plan, that fellow Hansen truly cares about the future … he just doesn’t seem to care if he hurts people in the present.
My best to everyone,
w.
Ferdinand Engelbeen says:
March 30, 2013 at 7:37 am
including the knowns for average recent years:
4 GtC = 8 GtC natural releases – natural sinks
Of course needs a + sign inbetween:
including the knowns for average recent years:
4 GtC = 8 GtC + natural releases – natural sinks
The half-life of CO2 in the atmosphere is about 10 years. We happened to perform the experiment by injecting 14C into the atmosphere through nuclear testing [1]. A spike of about 2x the natural concentration of 14C in 1963 has been decreasing since then, back toward normal levels. Quick and dirty analysis of the chart (190% in 1963, 145% in 1973, 122% in 1983, 111-115% in 1993) suggests 10 years is about right, and the 100% level may not be as constant as the chart implies. Too bad we can’t see a clear 14C variation that would likely be due to cosmic ray flux changes.
On the paper, if CO2 is taken up at a higher rate and converted to wood, or falls to the bottom of the ocean as sediment, then NPP-> greater sequestration in absolute quantity would be true. However, would ‘excess’ CO2 be taken up with the same efficiency? In other words, if there were 10% more CO2, would there be 10% more wood or diatom skeletons falling to the ocean floor? If this process is the basis of environmental homeostasis, then you would expect the efficiency to decrease if CO2 falls and increase if CO2 levels rise (negative feedback). Obviously, if CO2 levels fall too far, organisms die and CO2 will subsequently rise. So that part of the story seems likely. Eventually, there would be a level of CO2 too high for many organisms to survive, but that level is unlikely ever to be achieved in the atmosphere.
Regarding CO2 in the atmosphere, let it ride, baby.
1) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Radiocarbon_bomb_spike.svg
Willis a simple question, where does the data for the annual airborne fraction percentage in figure 2 come from?
Hansen’s paper should have been titled ‘Biosphere is becoming more productive due to Increased Atmospheric CO2 level!!!’ and should have included a P.S. ‘Global warming has stopped need to re-examine GMC model assumptions something is fundamental incorrect !!!’ rather than ‘Climate forcing growth rates: doubling down on our Faustian bargain’
C3 Plants (trees, scrubs and cereal crops, all plants except for grasses lose roughly 50% of their water due to trans-respiration. C3 plants are gasping for CO. To get sufficient CO2, C3 plants must produce more stomata on their leaves, which increase water loss. When levels of atmospheric CO2 increase, C3 plants produce less stomata on their leaves which enables them to lose less water, which leaves more water at their roots. The increase in water at the plant roots increases the number of synergistic nitrogen fixing bacteria to live on the plant roots.
The fact that C3 plants including rice and other cereal crops can survive and thrive with less water will reduce the amount of water that is required for irrigation. Plant growth rates and yield increases by roughly 40% to 50% due to a doubling of CO2. One would think that would be a good thing as opposed to a Faustian bargain.
I do not see anything in the paper Hansen reference that provides a proof that the biosphere is expanding due to global dimming and SO2 and NO2 emissions from coal plants. It is odd Hansen’s paper completely ignores hundreds of peer reviewed papers concerning the benefits of increased CO2 on plant growth and health. Commercial greenhouses inject CO2 at 1000 ppm to 1500 ppm to increase plant growth rate and yield. Cereal crop yields increase by 30% to 50% when atmosphere CO2 increases from 280 ppm to 560 ppm.
http://www.omafra.gov.on.ca/english/crops/facts/00-077.htm
Carbon dioxide (CO2) is an essential component of photosynthesis (also called carbon assimilation). Photosynthesis is a chemical process that uses light energy to convert CO2 and water into sugars in green plants. These sugars are then used for growth within the plant, through respiration. The difference between the rate of photosynthesis and the rate of respiration is the basis for dry-matter accumulation (growth) in the plant. In greenhouse production the aim of all growers is to increase dry-matter content and economically optimize crop yield. CO2 increases productivity through improved plant growth and vigour. Some ways in which productivity is increased by CO2 include earlier flowering, higher fruit yields, reduced bud abortion in roses, improved stem strength and flower size. Growers should regard CO2 as a nutrient.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2003/05/030509084556.htm
Greenhouse Gas Might Green Up The Desert; Weizmann Institute Study Suggests That Rising Carbon Dioxide Levels Might Cause Forests To Spread Into Dry Environments
The Weizmann team found, to its surprise, that the Yatir forest is a substantial “sink” (CO2-absorbing site): its absorbing efficiency is similar to that of many of its counterparts in more fertile lands. These results were unexpected since forests in dry regions are considered to develop very slowly, if at all, and thus are not expected to soak up much carbon dioxide (the more rapidly the forest develops the more carbon dioxide it needs, since carbon dioxide drives the production of sugars). However, the Yatir forest is growing at a relatively quick pace, and is even expanding further into the desert…. ….Plants need carbon dioxide for photosynthesis, which leads to the production of sugars. But to obtain it, they must open pores in their leaves and consequently lose large quantities of water to evaporation. The plant must decide which it needs more: water or carbon dioxide. Yakir suggests that the 30 percent increase of atmospheric carbon dioxide since the start of the industrial revolution eases the plant’s dilemma. Under such conditions, the plant doesn’t have to fully open the pores for carbon dioxide to seep in – a relatively small opening is sufficient. Consequently, less water escapes the plant’s pores. This efficient water preservation technique keeps moisture in the ground, allowing forests to grow in areas that previously were too dry.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/07/090731-green-sahara.html
The green shoots of recovery are showing up on satellite images of regions including the Sahel, a semi-desert zone bordering the Sahara to the south that stretches some 2,400 miles (3,860 kilometers).
Comment:
It is interesting to note there are periods of millions of years when atmospheric CO2 was high and the planet was cold and periods when atmospheric CO2 was low and the planet was warm. The extreme AGW paradigm’s explanation for a lack of correlation of planetary temperature VS CO2 levels is climate was different in the past. Another explanation for lack of correlation, is there is something fundamentally missed in the modeling and basic theory for the upper atmosphere which explains why the greenhouse gas warming phenomena saturates higher in the atmosphere. If the planet were to start to cool now, everyone would be more receptive to listening to an explanation as to why.
William Astley says:
March 30, 2013 at 9:59 am
Commercial greenhouses inject CO2 at 1000 ppm to 1500 ppm to increase plant growth rate and yield.
=============
exactly William, and they have to keep adding CO2 to keep it from becoming limiting again…..all 100% correct
..there is absolutely no way that the miniscule amount of CO2 added by man….is responsible for this increase
David Schofield says:
March 30, 2013 at 3:53 am
Ah I see now!
Half of man made CO2 warms the atmosphere, half goes into plants and the other half acidifies the oceans. Amazing stuff.
===============================================================
Half plus Half plus Half is 150%…
?? Have you been going to those alarmist sites again… they exaggerate everything.. LOL
Nick Stokes says:
March 30, 2013 at 4:00 am
Thanks, Nick. Here’s your numbers that I had problems with:
The emissions are very, very different from the CDIAC numbers I used. In addition, the data from the website you reference above gives the following values:
From those, I get the yearly growth in ppmv …
The problem is … none of these look like your numbers for the annual CO2 growth in ppmv …
What am I missing?
w.
Andor says:
March 30, 2013 at 6:11 am
Yes, I suppose the thousands and thousands of plant fossils in the coal beds around the planet are just pretty pictures and not real fossils …
Andor, climb down off of your high horse. While there certainly may be abiotic coal, we know damn well that there is biotic coal. We know that coal is a fossil fuel because coal is FULL OF PLANT FOSSILS, which is why we call it a “fossil fuel”, and why we make what to you is a foolish claim, that coal is made out of plants … crazy, huh?
And while there may also be abiotic oil, we also know damn well that there is biotic oil. We know that because we can see physical examples of all of the different stages of biotic oil formation, and we understand the physics and chemistry of the biotic pathway by which the oil was formed.
w.
Hoser says:
March 30, 2013 at 9:02 am
The half-life of CO2 in the atmosphere is about 10 years. We happened to perform the experiment by injecting 14C into the atmosphere through nuclear testing [1].
Half lifes of different items. The half life of the bomb spike is based on the exchange of CO2 from the atmosphere with CO2 from other reservoirs. That exchange is huge, about 150 GtC from the 800 GtC present in the atmosphere. Or near 20% per year that is exchanged between the reservoirs. Or a residence time of about 5 years for any individual CO2 molecule in the atmosphere, whatever its origin. As part of the 14C spike returns in the next season from fallen leaves or the ocean surface, it takes more than 5 years to halve the spike than expected from the residence time, but that is not the main point.
The main point is that the residence time has nothing to do with the half life of some excess amount of CO2 above equilibrium: the extra amount of CO2 sequestered from the atmosphere is about 4 GtC/year (2 ppmv) from the near 210 GtC (100 ppmv) that we are currently above equilibrium, whatever the cause of the increase. That gives an e-fold reduction of 210/4 or 51.5 years, or a half life time of about 40 years.
Thus two completely different half lives… The IPCC uses a half life of 100 years and beyond, based on the Bern model, which is a combination of half lives for sequestering in different reservoirs, but that takes into account a saturation of different sinks, which may be true if we burn all available oil, gas and a lot of coal (10 to 20 times the current total human carbon emissions since 1850), which is by far not the case…
Björn says:
March 30, 2013 at 9:19 am
Good question, Björn. Airborne fraction is annual emissions (CDIAC) divided by annual atmospheric CO2 increase (NOAA) expressed in gigatonnes. To convert ppmv of atmospheric carbon to gigatonnes, multiply by 2.18
Regards,
w.
Here are the figures. In 1960 the natural sinks were sequestering about 1 gigatonne of excess carbon annually. By 2011, this had risen to 4.5 gigatonnes annually. I agree that CO2 fertilization is real, but clearly this 4.5-fold increase in total tonnage of excess carbon sequestered cannot all be the result of increased NPP from CO2 fertilization.
Have you, or has anybody, calculated the increase in NPP? I seem to remember reading something, but I have forgotten details.
johnmarshall says:
March 30, 2013 at 4:01 am
John, you are conflating two measures, the residence time and the half-life. The residence time is how long an average CO2 molecule stays in the atmosphere. As you indicate, this is about 5-7 years.
The half-life is totally different. It is how long it takes for a pulse of emitted CO2 to decay back to the pre-emission level. It has nothing to do with the residence time. I estimate the half-life to be somewhere on the order of 40-60 years.
w.
Hoser says:
March 30, 2013 at 9:02 am
Hoser, you, like John above, are conflating residence time with the half-life. What you quote is the residence time.
w.
ferdberple says:
March 30, 2013 at 6:50 am
Ferd, if you’d give an example of the alleged “intolerance” you’re disappointed by, you’d look a lot less like a refugee from some kind of institution. What is it about quoting someone’s words and providing details that people find so hard?
What I’m trying to say, Ferd, is that I don’t have a clue what “intolerance” you are babbling about. It certainly might be something real, but from your pathetic lack of information it’s impossible to tell.
Quotes, dear friends. Facts. Citations. Details. That’s what we need. The kind of nonsense Ferd is retailing above is just meaningless accusation and handwaving. If you have a question or a complaint, SPELL IT OUT or don’t bother.
w.
wws says:
March 30, 2013 at 7:35 am
“Hansen is not stupid, Gleick is not a moron, Mann is not a dunce and Jones is not ignorant .”
Permit me to strongly disagree with these opinions.
—————————–
There were not really opinions but rather ass u me (tions).
Bad move in science, eh?
cn
Great article, Willis, but I have a nit to pick. It’s mostly just a terminology quibble, but CO2 doesn’t “decay,” exponentially or otherwise. “Decline” would be a better word. The rate of dissolution of CO2 in water increases with atmospheric CO2 concentration (partial pressure), and the rate of CO2 uptake by plants increases with atmospheric CO2 concentration due to carbon fertilization, causing CO2 levels to decline.
So, yes, excess CO2 levels do “naturally” decline toward equilibrium on a roughly exponential curve, but part of that decline is due to carbon fertilization greening the planet.
One other interesting bit is this “moving part” that you quoted: “One mechanism by which fossil fuel emissions increase carbon uptake is by fertilizing the biosphere via provision of nutrients essential for tissue building, especially nitrogen, …”
Nitrogen! When I argue with warmists over on ClimateCrocks (the only warmist blog site I’ve found that doesn’t censor me), they pooh-pooh CO2 fertilization, claiming that its efficacy is generally limited due to water & nutrient depletion, including nitrogen. But Hansen says the opposite: that burning fossil fuels “especially” fertilizes the biosphere with biologically-available nitrogen through generation of NOx & consequent nitrogen deposition.
Matthew R Marler says:
March 30, 2013 at 12:01 pm
The NASA website shows some estimates of the carbon cycle, where human emissions have increased the uptake by plants with about 3 GtC/yr over the estimated 120 GtC/yr of photosynthesis. That is a 2.5% increase in CO2 uptake for a 30% increase in CO2:
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/CarbonCycle/
The extra growth in greenhouses by injecting high levels of CO2 shows an average 50% increase in carbon uptake for a 100% increase in CO2. But that is in the most optimal conditions of light, temperature, water, minerals, fertilizer and soil.
Many of these conditions may be the limiting items for plant growth in the real world, not CO2.
More on half life and residence times here: – perhaps useful.
http://web.viu.ca/krogh/chem302/residence%20time.pdf
Sigh — I rewrote the last four lines of this poem. Bad poets rewriting their work is the same as beating a dead horse. Nevertheless I post.
Old Death Train Hansen —
Always Good For A Laugh
More holy-than-thou
He warns us of Venus
The only thing now
That hardens his penis
He rants at the crowds
A coot with the hypers
Him mind in the clouds
A load in his diapers
He quotes from the Greens —
We work for the many!
(Diversity means
The colors of money)
He quotes from the Reds —
Consensus is dictum!
(Good socialist heads
Are all up one rectum)
From manic to funk
He’s always alarming!
His science is junk —
There’s no global warming.
Eugene WR Gallun
Ferdinand Engelbeen:
I said I would not engage in another of our interminable debates. Some of those have been on WUWT so anyone who wants to know the totality of our mutually respectful but severe disagreement can refer to the archives to read it.
However, at March 30, 2013 at 7:15 am you have replied to my saying at March 30, 2013 at 2:37 am
Your reply begins by saying
No, your claim is an unsubstantiated assertion which cannot be justified. Your assertion is supported by the dubious ice core data (which you cite) and refuted by the sparce stomata data (which you do not mention).
This sums-up the difference between those – including me – who look at the totality of the available data and say,
“We don’t know what has caused the recent rise in atmospheric CO2”
and those – including you – who make statements of certain knowledge about the cause based on selecting only the data which fits what they want to be true.
The remainder of your post is similar. It asserts
That is simply false. Indeed, your dismissal of the example I provided relies on an assumption that observed carbonate change
The ocean surface layer is mostly governed by biotic activity and not simple inorganic chemistry. In another post in this thread you mentioned that the Dover White Cliffs are an end result of biological sequestration of CO2 in the ocean surface layer. Nobody knows how the postulated additional volcanic sulphur would affect DIC because few if any of the biological interactions are adequately understood.
The whole edifice is constructed from assumptions. I repeat that I don’t know if the cause of the recent rise in atmospheric CO2 is entirely anthropogenic, or entirely natural, or partly natural and partly anthropogenic but I want to know. And I will know when the edifice of assumptions is replaced by empirical evidence.
Richard
It’s not just CO2 or NOx that plants enjoy. Most have an absolute requirement for some sulfur in their diet. There is a marvellous example of what happened when the Brits equipped their coal-fired power stations with flue-gas desulfurization. Suddenly the French bread developed problems. It transpired that the wheat fields, particularly in the French north, were no longer receiving free sulfur via atmospheric transport from Britain. The wheat was therefore low in gluten, a sulfur compound. The French farmers had to buy gypsum from the British coal plants to spread it on their fields and get bread quality back up.
Willis,
I see the problem. Your table is of annual averages. So if you subtract the average value through 1991 from the average value through 1992, you get a different result from subtracting Dec 1991 from Dec 1992. The latter is what is shown in the plot and table that I linked here. Subtracting the annual averages means that you smooth over the 1992 post-Pinatubo dip in rate.
I think the emissions issue is units – I also linked this CDIAC Table from which I took the numbers in the second column. The units are megaton C (I wrongly wrote Gton). Your units may have been Gton CO2 (=3.666* Gton C). That comes out when you convert to airborne fraction using the appropriate factor.
“if you subtract the average value through 1992 from the average value through 1991”
I mean, of course, subtract 1991 from 1992.
[Fixed. -w.]
It should be noted that the C13/C12 ratio of petroleum and particularly “natural” gas does not match plants. That fact is one of the reasons why Thomas Gold and Russia/Ukraine geologist assert that the source of the earth’s hydrocarbons is from a deep earth source.
That theory is relevant to the discussion, as it explains (when details of the mechanism is worked out) why atmospheric CO2 varies in geological time and during the glacial/interglacial cycle.
(See this simplified explanation Thomas Gold/Russian/Ukraine theory.)
http://origeminorganicadopetroleo.blogspot.ca/2011/01/thomas-gold-professional-papers.html
Comment: The Thomas Gold/Russia/Ukraine deep earth theory explains why: 70% of the planet is covered in water, provides the reason why there are massive concentration of hydrocarbon such as the 1.2 Trillion barrel heavy oil concentration in the Canadian province of Alberta (that oil flowed to the cover sand picking up heavy metals during the flowing process, the puzzle with the biological theory is why the massive concentration, what is source of the pressure and so on), the reason why Saudi Arabia was 25% of the world’s oil with a single field that has 50% of their total, explains why the solar wind has not stripped off water from the planet (i.e. CH4 is continually released from planet core which disassociates to form H2O and CO2), explains the composition of the atmosphere, explains why the atmosphere C12/C13 has remained constant with geological time (there is constant new source of high C12 from the core contained in CH4.)
There are two theories to explain how water and hydrocarbons came onto the earth: the late veneer theory and the deep CH4 theory. Roughly 100 million years after the earth was formed a Mars sized object struck the earth. That event formed the moon and stripped the mantel of light elements. There are two theories to explain why there are light elements on now on the earth’s surface. The late veneer theory hypothesis: Comets struck the early earth after the big splat event covering the very hot earth with hydrocarbons. The late veneer hypothesis requires that the earth had a Venus like atmosphere (atmospheric pressure of say 60 atmospheres) for the early earth, except with methane.
There are multiple problems with the later veneer hypothesis (See Thomas Gold’s Book Deep Hot Biosphere for details. One of the key problems is the observation that the percentage of heavy gaseous elements in the earth’s current atmosphere does not match that of comets (Comets are residues of the early solar systems. The comet elemental composition does match that of the sun). The late veneer theory’s explanation for the miss match of isotopes in the earth’s atmosphere to that of comets is that the early solar system had a close encounter with another solar system which temporary provided a limited source of comets to cover the earth but not significantly change the element composition of the sun.
The second hypothesis is the deep earth hydrocarbon theory. This theory hypothesizes that massive amounts of hydrocarbons (5% of the total core mass) are located in the earth’s core. As the core cools these hydrocarbon (CH4) are released. At very high pressures the CH4 forms longer chain molecules. The release of CH4 is still occurring as the upper surface of the ocean is saturated with CH4 which indicates that CH4 is being released from some source.
http://origeminorganicadopetroleo.blogspot.ca/2011/01/thomas-gold-professional-papers.html
Interpretations Based on the Carbon Stable Isotopes
The study of the distribution of the carbon isotopes in relation to petroleum and natural gas has a very extensive literature. We shall discuss here only one aspect of it: can isotope measurements determine whether a hydrocarbon compound was derived from biological material or whether it is primordial? Because many petroleum geologists have considered that such a distinction can be made, and that petroleum and natural gas appear on that basis to be usually of biological origin, it is clear that we must address this aspect here.
A selection process that enriches one or other isotope is usually referred to as a process of “fractionation.” The resulting fractionated material is referred to as isotopically light or isotopically heavy, depending on the ratio of the lighter to the heavier isotope. Measurements of the slight variations in the carbon isotope ratio in different samples is usually not done in absolute terms, but by comparison with a norm, and the small departures from this norm are then the quantities noted. The norm that has been selected for this purpose is a marine carbonate rock called Pee Dee Belemnite, or PDB, and this norm has a carbon isotope value that is about in the middle of the distribution of all the marine carbonates. The measurements are then quoted as the departure of the 13C content of the sample from that of the norm, and the figure is usually given in parts per thousand (permil) and referred to as the d13C value of the sample.
See Carnegie Institute of Sciences Deep Carbon Workshop presentations if you interested in this subject.
https://www.gl.ciw.edu/workshops/sloan_deep_carbon_workshop_may_2008
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/09/090910084259.htm
http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/v2/n8/abs/ngeo591.html
In reply to
Ferdinand Engelbeen says:
March 30, 2013 at 8:11 am
richardscourtney says:
March 30, 2013 at 6:13 am
The sequestration of the biosphere is not “relative easy to know” because the bulk of the world’s biota is in the oceans. … ….You forget that each year 20% of all CO2 in the atmosphere is exchanged by CO2 from other reservoirs. That makes little difference for the 13C/12C ratio if the exchange is with the ocean surface or the biosphere, as most of the exchange is bidirectional in short time (seasonal to a few years). What makes a difference is the longer term sequestering in the biospere (humus, peat, roots) and the deep oceans. The latter absorbs the current 13C/12C ratio into the deep, but releases the 13C/12C ratio of many hundreds of years ago. That can be used to estimate the deep ocean – atmosphere exchanges:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/deep_ocean_air_zero.jpg
The mismatch in the early years is interpretated as more CO2 release from the biosphere than sequestering. Thus based on the 13C/12C changes and the oxygen balance, neither the oceans, nor the biosphere are the cause of the increase in CO2 and all other known sources (rock weathering, volcanic vents,…) have 13C/12C ratios above the current atmospheric ratio…
William: Thank-you your comment was insightful.
Why is it that the “airborne fraction” becomes a topic for Alarmists only when Alarmist climate science faces an imminent train wreck of epic proportions? For years, I have attempted to get Alarmists to discuss the airborne fraction but found not one taker. Is it because Alarmists, true to form, make presumptions about such matters and refuse to investigate them empirically?
One good outcome of Alarmists’ new found interest in empirical investigation of the airborne factor is that some more of them are now looking at the role of some natural processes in climate. I hope all of them send a note to Trenberth explaining that it is not possible to reverse the Null Hypothesis.
Yes, manmade CO2 does influence the airborne fraction but the natural processes which mostly determine the airborne fraction must be understood through empirical investigation if scientists are to make sense of the manmade influence.