Press Release 13-139
Seasonal carbon dioxide range expanding as more is added to Earth’s atmosphere
Northern Hemisphere land-based ecosystems “taking deeper breaths,” scientists find
![co2_weekly_mlo[1]](http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2013/08/co2_weekly_mlo1-e1376168771698.png?quality=75)
Levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere rise and fall each year as plants, through photosynthesis and respiration, take up the gas in spring and summer, and release it in fall and winter.
Now the range of that cycle is expanding as more carbon dioxide is emitted from burning fossil fuels and other human activities, according to a study led by scientists at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography (SIO).
The findings come from a multi-year airborne survey of atmospheric chemistry called HIAPER Pole-to-Pole Observations, or HIPPO.
Results of the study are reported in a paper published online this week by the journal Science.
The National Science Foundation (NSF), along with the U.S. Department of Energy, the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the Office of Naval Research funded the study.
“This research provides dramatic evidence of the significant influence the land-based biosphere can have on the amplitude [amount of change] in seasonal trends of carbon dioxide exchange,” says Sylvia Edgerton, program director in NSF’s Division of Atmospheric and Geospace Sciences, which funded the research.
Observations of atmospheric carbon dioxide made by aircraft at altitudes between 3 and 6 kilometers (10,000-20,000 feet) show that seasonal carbon dioxide variations have substantially changed during the last 50 years.
The amplitude increased by roughly 50 percent across high latitude regions north of 45° N, compared with previous aircraft observations from the late 1950s and early 1960s.
This means that more carbon is accumulating in forests and other vegetation and soils in the Northern Hemisphere during the summer, and more carbon is being released in the fall and winter, says study lead scientist Heather Graven of SIO.
It’s not yet understood, she says, why the increase in seasonal amplitude of carbon dioxide concentration is so large, but it’s a clear signal of widespread changes in northern ecosystems.
“The atmospheric carbon dioxide observations are important because they show the combined effect of ecological changes over large regions,” says Graven.
“This reinforces ground-based studies that show that substantial changes are occurring as a result of rising carbon dioxide concentrations, warming temperatures and changing land management, including the expansion of forests in some regions and the poleward migration of ecosystems.”
Adds Peter Milne, a program director in NSF’s Division of Atmospheric and Geospace Sciences, “We can easily measure the greenhouse gas budget from a single smokestack, but somewhat less well for a stand of trees. Knowing that for the entire planet is much more challenging.
“Taking advantage of the long-duration and high-altitude-profiling capabilities of the NSF Gulfstream V aircraft [also known as HIAPER], the HIPPO project was designed to take a ‘snapshot’ of the global troposphere [Earth’s lowest atmospheric layer] to see whether we can explain and model greenhouse gas distribution.”
In the study, the scientists compared the recent aircraft data with aircraft data gathered from 1958 to 1961 using U.S. Air Force weather reconnaissance flights.
The older data were analyzed by SIO geochemist Charles David Keeling, the father of Ralph Keeling, also an SIO scientist and a member of the research team.
These aircraft measurements were done at the time Charles Keeling was beginning continuous carbon dioxide measurements at Mauna Loa, Hawaii.
While the Mauna Loa measurements are now widely recognized as the “Keeling Curve,” the early aircraft data were all-but-forgotten.
Carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere have varied between 170 and 280 parts per million during the last 800,000 years.
When Charles Keeling began collecting data at Mauna Loa in 1958, the concentration had risen to about 315 parts per million.
In May, 2013, daily carbon dioxide measurements at Mauna Loa exceeded 400 parts per million–for the first time in human history.
Recent observations aboard the Gulfstream V were made during regular flights conducted during the HIPPO campaign, from 2009 to 2011.
The aircraft repeatedly ascended and descended from a few hundred meters to roughly 12 kilometers (40,000 feet) in the skies between the North Pole and Antarctica. The goal was constructing a unique snapshot of the chemical composition of the atmosphere.
Additional recent data comes from regular flights conducted by NOAA at a network of locations.
Increasing carbon dioxide amplitude since 1960 had already been observed at two ground-based stations: Mauna Loa and Barrow, Alaska.
Other stations operated by Scripps and NOAA only began measuring carbon dioxide in the 1970s to 1990s.
The aircraft-based observations uniquely show the large area in northern high latitudes where carbon dioxide amplitude increased strongly since 1960.
The exact reasons for the wider seasonal swings in carbon dioxide concentration remain to be determined, say the researchers.
Although plant activity can increase with warmer temperatures and higher carbon dioxideconcentrations, the change in carbon dioxide amplitude over the last 50 years is larger than expected from these effects.
Carbon dioxide concentration has increased by 23 percent, and average temperature north of 30°N has increased by one degree C, since 1960.
Other factors may be changes in the amount of carbon in leaves, wood or roots; changes in the extent or species composition of ecosystems; or changes in the timing of plant photosynthesis and respiration.
Simulating complex processes in land-based ecosystems with models is a challenge, scientists have found.
The observed change in carbon dioxide amplitude is larger than that simulated by models used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
While this underestimate does not call into question the response of climate to carbon dioxide concentration in the IPCC models, the researchers say, it does suggest that a better understanding of what happened during the last 50 years could improve projections of future ecosystem changes.
The bottom line, according to Graven, Ralph Keeling and colleagues, is that Northern ecosystems appear to be behaving differently than they did 50 years ago.
In addition to Graven and Ralph Keeling, Science paper co-authors include Stephen Piper, Lisa Welp and Jonathan Bent of SIO; Prabir Patra of the Research Institute for Global Change in Yokohama, Japan; Britton Stephens of NCAR; Steven Wofsy, Bruce Daube and Gregory Santoni of Harvard University; Colm Sweeney of NOAA and the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences at the University of Colorado, Boulder; Pieter Tans of NOAA; John Kelley of the University of Alaska, Fairbanks and Eric Kort of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.
-NSF-
Related Websites
NSF News: First Global Picture of Greenhouse Gases Emerges from Pole-to-Pole Research Flights: http://nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=121566
HIAPER Pole-to-Pole Observations (HIPPO) Study: http://hippo.ucar.edu/
NSF Award: Collaborative Research: HIAPER Pole-to-Pole Observations (HIPPO) of Carbon Cycle and Greenhouse Gases: http://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0628575
Equally the annual temperature cycle is similarly variable
http://climategrog.wordpress.com/?attachment_id=223
and since d/dt(CO2) is strongly correlated to temperature that could be a wee clue as to why the CO2 amplitude varies.
I don’t know if anyone fully appreciates what nature can do with a little additional atmospheric carbon dioxide. I was surprised – and surprised I was surprised once I considered the situation -when I learned the following tidbit: in the UK (specified only because that was the locale of the research) on a nice, warm sunny day, wheat crops stop growing in the afternoon. Wheat, a C3 crop, needs minimum atmospheric carbon dioxide to photosynthesize, but with levels far exceeding that, there is no problem,right? No, wrong. Imagine hundreds of acres of growing plants, all scrubbing the air of that gas. In that LOCAL environment, CO2 becomes too depleted by late afternoon for plant growth to take place. Now imagine that happening in C3 plants throughout the world, in ADDITION to plants growing in environments in which they would not otherwise grow. Clearly, it seems we have underestimated how CO2 ‘thirsty’ the plant world is.
why do these morons keep insisting that 250-280 ppm is “normal”?
Less “amplitude” is exactly what you would expect when something is limiting….
…and more “amplitude” is exactly what you would expect as it becomes less limiting
Sounds like the number of plants is increasing.
Pretty much what should be expected from increasing CO2 in the atmoshpere.
“Now the range of that cycle is expanding as more carbon dioxide is emitted from burning fossil fuels and other human activities,…”
What rubbish. The increase from human CO2 is almost zilch compared to that from the ocean and bio output. Those two are supplying ~97% of the increase. The cycle is getting larger because there is more, predominately NH, plant life sucking down on it every summer.
Plant life is a negative feedback to CO2 and global warming. (And eco-whackjobs want to cut down US forests to power electric power plants in England…)
As the human population expands, change in land usage has to be a significant factor. I found the following research most informative and have used it as a basis for my understanding of how CO2 rather than being evenly distributed, varies considerably over annual cycles and geography as must its effect.
“Mechanisms for synoptic variations of atmospheric CO2 in North America, South America and Europehttp”
http://www.atmos-chem-phys.net/8/7239/2008/acp-8-7239-2008.pdf
Maybe it’s just the ocean’s ability to absorb and release CO2 relative to temperature?
To Jtom. That seems to be a significant point! Are plants really that CO2 thirsty? What level CO2 would give them what they need? What would happen if they got to that level in terms of growth and expansion of the biosphere and the oceans.
Repeat after me: Co2 is a toxin.
Here are the results:
When the oceans of the world get cooler, more CO2 will be absorbed. What would the CAGW think if that became the case? They would say: “See, see – less CO2 and it is cooler!”
Here is the link to the abstract: http://www.sciencemag.org/content/early/2013/08/07/science.1239207
The original is still behind the paywall.
The inference that the change is due mainly to northern boreal forests comes from the geographical distribution of the change: 50% for latitudes 45 to 90 north; less than 25% of latitudes 10 to 45 north.
The text of the article has hedges: seems, may be, evidently. All of the estimates have estimates of uncertaintly.
Here is a quote: None of the CMIP5 models can account for the increase in CO2 amplitude north of 45°N at 500 mb between 1958-61 and 2009-11 (Fig. 4). Moreover, the recent CO2 amplitude varies strongly between models, with a range of 6 to 19 ppm compared to the observed value of 13.8 ± 0.7 ppm. Previous studies have similarly shown that most terrestrial ecosystem models underestimate the long-term trend in CO2 amplitude at Mauna Loa (34), and include large errors in the seasonal amplitude of NEP at eddy flux sites (35).
Data are available through urls included in table s7 of the supplemental material. It does not seem that they have posted computer code yet.
Large seasonal changes illustrate how quickly carbon enters and exits the atmosphere. Some have said C02 last a very long time in the atmosphere and if that was true then we would not see these large seasonal changes. Smoothing hides data. I bet there is a swing between day and night tool Is there an hourly graph somewhere?
Thank God the plants now have more CO₂ to breathe in.
My broccoli were panting!
Peter Milne [in the post]: “We can easily measure the greenhouse gas budget from a single smokestack … ”
Well – yes – since most of these would have a CO2 gizmo in them these days ?
” … but somewhat less well for a stand of trees.”
Huh?
Ok. Bit more difficult, but some agencies have started to do this. I have even considered setting something up for one of my stands of trees – with no expectation of getting a grant for it.
The tricky bit for me would be the airflow direction rather than the CO2 monitoring.
Paul at 1:47 –
“Where else in the world are carbon dioxide levels measured and how many parts per million are the readings for that, or those, monitoring stations?”
Short answer – your local tavern, anywhere there is a cold store, grain silo, “intelligent” AC system? Ok just kidding, that’s internal monitoring.
It’s not a stupid question. I would like to know the answer as well. Seriously. Millions of premises have CO2 monitoring, so why not outdoor spaces?
Am I the only person monitoring airflow off the SPO? My little rig can even give a warning of an upwind bushfire.
Argo buoys aren’t that cheap but several thousand have been chucked in the ocean.
SasjaL says:
August 12, 2013 at 2:36 pm
Gary Pearse on August 12, 2013 at 2:05 pm
“But Mauna Loa emits carbon dioxide, like any vulcano (active, dormant and “dead”)!
Doesn’t it affect the measurements ”
I asked this question myself some time ago but everyone seems happy that the measurements are okay. I think a look at the CO2 global distribution says even if they are “okay” they sure aren’t measuring global CO2 levels:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?release=2008-189
Surely there is a lot more to this seasonal fluctuation.
A quick look at the Scripps site for CO2 data shows the seasonal variation on southern hemisphere measuring sites to be only 1 or 2 ppm annual variation.
In more detail the March to May part of the graph above shows short term “cycles”.
There may be up to 4 cycles in a month which is about the frequency of weather systems moving through.
Is this the ocean breathing in and out as these high and low pressure systems go past?
Is the equilibrium then a direct relation to the ocean CO2 content and the changes in seasonal ocean temperature?
The way I understood Murry Salby’s presentations this is as he described.
A 2.5C water temp rise in summer could give 6ppm increase in CO2 from a base of 300ppm, and would then give a 9ppm change when the atmosphere /ocean system is at 400ppm (atmospheric),and the ocean 0.5C warmer than 50 years ago..
During that 50 year period, US/National trend line yields for corn have tripled. From around 50 bushels/acre to 150 bushels/acre.
http://www.agry.purdue.edu/ext/corn/news/timeless/YieldTrends.html
http://notrickszone.com/2012/12/29/higher-co2-concentrations-will-feed-a-billion-more-people/
Agriculture has expanded and crop yields exploded upwards with great assistance from that entirely beneficial gas, CO2. Those huge crops use more and more CO2 and the increasing CO2 is producing even bigger crops.
This is helping us to to provide food for a world population that has basically doubled during that same time frame.
http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.census.gov/population/international/data/idb/images/worldpop.png&imgrefurl=http://www.census.gov/population/international/data/idb/worldpopgraph.php&h=753&w=978&sz=58&tbnid=iLBnEugqzDPKuM:&tbnh=90&tbnw=117&zoom=1&usg=__u6_fmQldnR5wCBWaATtp2AmBmsw=&docid=G_LEIPJ61jT6nM&hl=en&sa=X&ei=NXoJUuXHDomayQHNkYDwDg&ved=0CD4Q9QEwAg&dur=805
Cutting back on CO2 emissions or if we see global cooling (of oceans) that causes them to absorb more CO2 at the same time that agriculture suffers from the irrefutable negative consequences when our planet cools, could make it very challenging to continue to produce enough food for the growing world population.
The day-to-day variation in the data points is very interesting. Sometimes rising continuously by minute amounts, sometimes falling continuously by minute amounts. Other times random distribution within the range. Why do you think that is?
Cynical Scientst says: “My suspicion is that what happens in the oceans (most of the planet) is a lot more important than what the forests are doing. It isn’t only the land that greens with higher CO2.” See also comments by JimS and Beesaman and Greg Goodman, above.
More shrubbery grows in the NH in Spring just before the CO2 drops. Therefore, the former causes the latter. Must be. Post hoc is one of the fumblemental principles of alarmist science, right below ad hominem. (/s) Of course, when it’s summer in the NH, it’s winter in the SH and the oceans there are cooling. Colder seawater (and rain) will absorb more CO2, so CO2 should drop as a result.
The NSF article pretends absolutely nothing is happening below the equator. Hint: record ice extent in Antarctica.
Mike Jonas on August 12, 2013 at 2:48 pm
Have doubts though. Close to the equator, where trees grows fast, it is possible to compensate within reasonable time. Here in Sweden, it takes 40-50 years to replace high quality pine …
It is more lucrative to cut down the trees and not planting anything new (despite prohibition, no legal sanction …) here. Same thing is also happening in Brazil, as shown on Swedish television (BBC produced program).
Doesn’t methane decompose to CO2 too?
According to World Bank’s Cereal Yields/hectare data, crop yields in the US have increased from 3,772kg/hectare in 1980 to 6,818kg/hectare in 2011, which is an 80% increase.
http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/AG.YLD.CREL.KG
Obviously a lot of the crop-yield increase can be attributed to improved irrigation, increased fertilizer usage, improved hybrid seeds, etc., but obviously increased CO2 fertilization from higher atmospheric CO2 concentrations has played a huge role in the phenomenal increase in crop yields over the last couple of decades.
I’d also like to see studies done on phytoplankton concentrations over the past 25 years, as I’m sure plankton levels have also increased substantially due to increased CO2 levels, which has improved the ocean’s ecosystem.
The warmunistas’ almost pathological aversion to attributing any kind of net benefit to increased CO2 levels is hurting the advancement of science. I’ll be happy to see the day when sanity is restored to climatology and other branches of science that have been infected with the CAGW virus..
Carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere have varied between 170 and 280 parts per million during the last 800,000 years.
Really? It seems CO2 neared 290 ppm around 128,000 years and 400,000 years ago, and was above 290 ppm over 332,000 years ago
http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/panorama/panorama11.html
Even then, what’s less than a million years in light of the hundreds of millions of years when CO2 levels were much higher than at modern times?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Phanerozoic_Carbon_Dioxide.png
CO2 is the currency of life in the biosphere economy. The more CO2 the more velocity in the economy. (Humans are 19% carbon.)
Sugar is the basic unit in botany, C6H12O6. Saccharides. Cellulose is polysaccharide, a chain of sugars linked together. 6 carbon atoms per saccharide. Each saccharide synthesis consumes 6 CO2 molecules. By weight that is 3 grams of CO2 per 2 grams of Sugar. 3:2 ratio.
1 gram of sugar equals 1.5 grams of CO2.
This ain’t rocket science, or climate science, this is biology. The biosphere is opportunistic. More CO2 equals more life, from primary producers on through the web to decomposers. This is surprising?