UPDATED – see below
Monckton provides these slides for discussion along with commentary related to his recent post on CO2 residence time – Anthony
There is about one molecule of 13C in every 100 molecules of CO2, the great majority being 12C. As CO2 concentration increases, the fraction of 13C in the atmosphere decreases – the alleged smoking gun, fingerprint or signature of anthropogenic emission: for the CO2 added by anthropogenic emissions is leaner in 13C than the atmosphere.
However, anthropogenic CO2 emissions of order 5 Gte yr–1 are two orders of magnitude smaller than natural sources and sinks of order 150 5 Gte yr–1. If some of the natural sources are also leaner in CO2 than the atmosphere, as many are, all bets are off. The decline in atmospheric CO2 may not be of anthropogenic origin after all. In truth, only one component in the CO2 budget is known with any certainty: human emission.
If the natural sources and sinks that represent 96% of the annual CO2 budget change, we do not have the observational capacity to know. However, we do not care, because what is relevant is net emission from all sources and sinks, natural as well as anthropogenic. Net emission is the sum of all sources of CO2 over a given period minus the sum of all CO2 sinks over that period, and is proportional to the growth rate in atmospheric CO2 over the period. The net emission rate controls how quickly global CO2 concentration increases.
CO2 is emitted and absorbed at the surface. In the atmosphere it is inert. It is thus well mixed, but recent observations have shown small variations in concentration, greatest in the unindustrial tropics. Since the variations in CO2 concentration are small, a record from any station will be a good guide to global CO2 concentration. The longest record is from Mauna Loa, dating back to March 1958.
The annual net emission or CO2 increment, a small residual between emissions and absorptions from all sources which averages 1.5 µatm, varies with emission and absorption, sometimes rising >100% against the mean trend, sometimes falling close to zero. Variation in human emission, at only 1 or 2% a year, is thus uncorrelated with changes in net emission, which are independent of it.
Though anthropogenic emissions increase monotonically, natural variations caused by Pinatubo (cooling) and the great el Niño (warming) are visibly stochastic. Annual changes in net CO2 emission (green, above) track surface conditions (blue: temperature and soil moisture together) with a correlation of 0.93 (0.8 for temperature alone), but surface conditions are anti-correlated with δ13C (red: below).
The circulation-dependent naturally-caused component in atmospheric CO2 concentration (blue above), derived solely from temperature and soil moisture changes, coincides with the total CO2 concentration (green). Also, the naturally-caused component in δ13C coincides with observed δ13C (below).
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The naturally-caused component in CO2 (above: satellite temperature record in blue, CRU surface record in gray), here dependent solely on temperature, tracks not only measured but also ice-proxy concentration, though there is a ~10 µatm discrepancy in the ice-proxy era. In the models, projected temperature change (below: blue) responds near-linearly to CO2 concentration change (green).
In the real world, however, there is a poor correlation between stochastically-varying temperature change (above: blue) and monotonically-increasing CO2 concentration change (green). However, the CO2 concentration response to the time-integral of temperature (below: blue dotted line) very closely tracks the measured changes in CO2 concentration, suggesting the possibility that the former may cause the latter.
Summary
Man’s CO2 emissions are two orders of magnitude less than the natural sources and sinks of CO2. Our emissions are not the main driver of temperature change. It is the other way about.
Professor Salby’s opponents say net annual CO2 growth now at ~2 μatm yr–1 is about half of manmade emissions that should have added 4 μatm yr–1 to the air, so that natural sinks must be outweighing natural sources at present, albeit only by 2 μatm yr–1, or little more than 1% of the 150 μatm yr–1 natural CO2 exchanges in the system.
However, Fourier analysis over all sufficiently data-resolved timescales ≥2 years shows that the large variability in the annual net CO2 emission from all sources is heavily dependent upon the time-integral of absolute global mean surface temperature. CO2 concentration change is largely a consequence, not a cause, of natural temperature change.
The sharp Pinatubo-driven cooling of 1991-2 and the sharp Great-el-Nino-driven warming of 1997-8, just six years later, demonstrate the large temperature-dependence of the highly-variable annual increments in CO2 concentration. This stochastic variability is uncorrelated with the near-monotonic increase in anthropogenic CO2 emissions. Absence of correlation necessarily implies absence of causation.
Though correlation between anthropogenic emissions and annual variability in net emissions from all sources is poor, there is a close and inferentially causative correlation between variable surface conditions (chiefly temperature, with a small contribution from soil moisture) and variability in net annual CO2 emission.
Given the substantial variability of net emission and of surface temperature, the small fraction of total annual CO2 exchanges represented by that net emission, and the demonstration that on all relevant timescales the time-integral of temperature change determines CO2 concentration change to a high correlation, a continuing stasis or even a naturally-occurring fall in global mean surface temperature may yet cause net emission to be replaced by net uptake, so that CO2 concentration could cease to increase and might even decline notwithstanding our continuing emissions.
Natural temperature change and variability in soil moisture, not anthropogenic emission, is the chief driver of changes in CO2 concentration. These changes may act as a feedback contributing some warming but are not its principal cause.
Greg Goodman says:
November 24, 2013 at 4:06 am
Your suggestion that a one-size-fits-all model can be applied to 10 and 50 year change as well a 5000 years is, on the other hand, clearly unrealistic physically.
It is a multi-component model, where each component has its own decay rate for an excess amount of CO2 in the atmosphere. More or less like the Bern model, without the restrictions in capacity. Except for the ocean surface, which is saturated at 10% of the change in the atmosphere.
For short term responses (seasons) the exchange rate is huge (~150 GtC in and out), but limited in capacity (ocean surface, fast biological changes) net effect ~5 ppmv/K and mainly driven by temperature and extra-tropical vegetation in the NH.
For short term responses (2-3 years) the exchange rate is smaller (several GtC in and out) and mainly driven by (ocean) temperature, outgassing in the tropics and changes in uptake (even release) of CO2 by tropical forests at 4-5 ppmv/yr
For medium term responses (decades) the exchange rate is rather large (~40 GtC/yr for the deep oceans), less restricted in total capacity but restricted in flux rate and mainly atmosperic pressure (difference) related.
For very long term responses (centuries to multi-millenia), changes in (deep) ocean currents, area of ice sheets and vegetation all play a role.
The overall decay rate changes from 4-5 ppmv/K short term to 8 ppmv/K long term.
All these different decay rates are from equilibrium reactions, where a sustained step change in T (or P) will lead to a new equilibrium over time. Thus in all cases a decay in ppmv/K/yr over time.
We don’t have decadal scale resolution to compare with recent years, so we can’t do it.
Yes we have: the Law Dome DSS core has a resolution of ~20 years, fine enough to show a decrease of 6 ppmv for the ~0.8 K drop in temperature between MWP and LIA, this time with a lag of ~50 years of CO2 after T:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/law_dome_1000yr.jpg
again ~8 ppmv/K sustained over ~200 years for the temperature variation over the LIA until ~1800.
The same Law Dome ice cores shows an increase of 60 ppmv 1800-1980 (with a 20 year overlap with South Pole data) with a similar (smaller?) increase in T between LIA and current as the decrease in T between MWP and LIA with a 6 ppmv drop.
A difference of 10 times for the same temperature change? Nothing to do with human emissions?
Greg Goodman says:
November 24, 2013 at 4:16 am
“but the e-fold decay rate from an injection of extra CO2 is ~50 years:”
Where do you get that figure from?
I should have learned to give the references by now, but as the responses come at high speed, it takes to much of my time. But anyway:
The current increase in the atmosphere is 230 GtC(110 ppmv) above equilibrium (of ~290 ppmv) for the current temperature. The observed absorbance is ~4.5 GtC/yr (~2.15 ppmv/yr). That gives an e-fold time of 230/4,5/yr or ~51 years.
Ferdinand Engelbeen (November 24, 2013 at 2:46 am) “Yes, but Bart’s and Salby’s assumption says that the 1.5 ppmv/K is sustained for every year that the increase in temperature above an arbitrary baseline is sustained. According to Bart the 1.5 ppmv/K thus is 1.5 ppmv/K/yr, while Henry’s law is reducing the ppmv/K when the CO2 levels approach the new equilibrium at 16 ppmv/K…”
I agree except Bart uses per month units above: “0.19 ppmv/month/K” So I picked a year in which the temperature rose the most Jan 1997 to Jan 1998. I showed exactly one year in my graph to get a complete annual swing in CO2. I showed that for my cherry-picked year the temperature rose and the CO2 rose too with a ratio of about 4 or 5 ppm per degree K. That is higher that Bart’s 2-3 ppm per degree per year, but my year is cherry picked. My cherry-picked year also shows there is no correlation between CO2 and temperature in the short run (my second graph above), therefore a per month claim is unsupported whether using T or T minus Teq.
Greg Goodman says:
November 24, 2013 at 5:23 am
Doesn’t CH4 match the ‘plateau’ in temps quite well too?
Hardly:
http://www.aemet.izana.org/images/stories/news/CH4_IZO_1984_2009.pdf
Not even an effect of the 1992 Pinatubo or 1998 El Niño and little difference in slope for 1990-2000 and after 2000.
What I have heard is that the change in slope is mainly from better maintenance of natural gas lines/leaks, reduction in direct methane releases from oil exploration and transformation from traditional wet rice plantation to “dry” rice growing.
Ferdinand Engelbeen @ur momisugly November 23, 2013 at 10:39 am says:-
Ferdinand are you sure about that?
13Carbon dioxide clearly has a higher molecular weight than 12Carbon dioxide (assuming that the oxygen atoms in both molecules are of the same isotopic specie). Previously you have advised us that mineral calcium carbonate has a higher concentration of 13C than atmospheric carbon dioxide. Clearly the formation of crystalline calcite by the precipitation from solution of soluble calcium bicarbonate preferentially accepts the 13C carbonate anion over the 12C form.
This must be true, else calcite would not have the higher concentration of 13C observed. This is merely another way of stating the fact that gaseous 12Carbon dioxide, is more easily evaporated from water because its lower molecular weight means that less kinetic energy is required for surface escape.
My point is this:- it is the surface emission process that governs the fractionation into the atmosphere of 12C versus 13C and not the measured concentration of 13C in the produced mineral calcite.
Ferdi: “The current increase in the atmosphere is 230 GtC(110 ppmv) above equilibrium (of ~290 ppmv) for the current temperature. The observed absorbance is ~4.5 GtC/yr (~2.15 ppmv/yr). That gives an e-fold time of 230/4,5/yr or ~51 years.”
Thanks,
You appear to have assumed that the assumed pre-industrial value of 280 plus the assumed 10 ppm rise you attribute to temp increase is the current equilibrium without emissions.
You also assume all increase is residual emm. If those assumptions are not correct there is more thermal rise and more complete absorption of anth.em. , then the decay time will fall a lot.
That may be useful somewhere.
eric1skeptic says:
November 24, 2013 at 5:37 am
Sorry, did misunderstand what you meant…
There are more problems with Bart’s approach. To match the slope of the dCO2/dt increase, he needs a factor to match the slope of T in the direct measurements with the slope of dCO2/dt in the derivative. But the same factor also influences the amplitude of the fast variations of T. That makes that, depending of the difference in slopes, the amplitudes of the variability only match by coincidence.
For the “best match” in slope, the amplitude of the dCO2/dt variability caused by T variability is only a fraction of the observed variability if you use Bart’s “hard evidence“…
Conclusion: the short term variability in dCO2/dt is almost entirely from the short term
variability in T, but the slope of dCO2/dt has very little connection with the slope of T, which is from a different process, T dependent or not.
” http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/law_dome_1000yr.jpg
again ~8 ppmv/K sustained over ~200 years for the temperature variation over the LIA until ~1800.”
Law Dome DSS, there is about 8ppm drop across two data intervals (34y ) and then about 7ppm rise [from] 1750 -1800
I see no reason to believe that either rapid event lead to an equilibrium state. That gives average rate of change of 0.24 and 0.14 ppm/year. But Law Dome does not have a temp proxy , what are you using for that?
Ferdi: “Conclusion: the short term variability in dCO2/dt is almost entirely from the short term
variability in T, but the slope of dCO2/dt has very little connection with the slope of T, which is from a different process, T dependent or not.”
No, you still don’t get the way the relaxation response works. It’s not a different process, it’s the same one.
It starts out short term with the orthogonal reaction which you correctly state, then on longer time-scales the in-phase relationship starts to dominate. That is what Sably is on about and on that he is correct (whether his calculations are right remains to be seen).
The cross-over where the magnitude of each are the same is omega*tau=1 , so we need to know the time constant of the reaction to know when we should be expecting CO2 to correlate with T.
That is the model for a simple “single slab” ocean.
You are again correct that anything matching on the same scale is coincidental, the relative scaling again depends on tau.
http://climategrog.wordpress.com/?attachment_id=399
http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.fr/2013/09/mathematical-observational-proof-that.html
“If you can’t explain the ‘pause’, you can’t explain the cause…”
Neat.
Philip Mulholland says:
November 24, 2013 at 6:12 am
I have missed a similar question by Stephen Wilde. Here my knowledge:
The deep oceans have a δ13C level of around zero per mil, thus about the same level as the world wide used (V-PDB) standard.
The ocean surface with its biolife increases the δ13C level of the ocean waters by incorporating slighlty more 12CO2 than 13CO2, thus leaving an elevated 13C/12C ratio in the surface waters.
The surface waters, depending of the intensity of biolife are between 1-5 per mil δ13C.
There was a nice overview of the δ13C levels in different parts of the oceans by Anthon Duarte, but it has been (re)moved. But see:
http://epic.awi.de/30740/1/EGU2012-5065.pdf gives some clues, for a few places.
More can be found on the net.
Some of the organics drop out of the surface layer and are either destructed in the deep oceans or sedimented and transformed to oil and gas over very long time frames. With destruction, they lower the δ13C level of the deep oceans.
Some biolife (coccoliths) form calcite shells which also may drop out after the algue died. The calcite shells show the same δ13C ratio as of the seawater where it is formed. When these drop out in the more shallow oceans, they form thick calcite layers, still visible at a lot of places. When they drop out in the deep oceans, they dissolve and increase the δ13C level of the deep oceans.
Some more information is available from coralline sponges which grow until some 200 m dept, again building calcite layers, which give the δ13C levels in the ocean surface waters over 600 years:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/sponges.gif
In pre-industrial times there was a quite stable equilibrium of δ13C between (deep) oceans, atmosphere and vegetation. That changes only with small amounts, a few tenths of a per mil, over huge temperature and ocean/vegetation changes like over ice ages and interglacials.
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/296/5567/522.full (free access if registered for free)
Over the LGM-Holocene transition:
http://scar2012.geol.pdx.edu/doc/abstracts/Session_3.pdf
Over the whole Hocene little variation:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19779448
About the ocean-air and air-ocean isotopic changes:
The lighter isotopes will transfer faster than the heavier isotopes in both directions. That gives that there is a dop of about -10 per mil from oceans to air and a drop of -2 per mil from air to oceans (thus an increase of +2 per mil in air). With fluxes in equilibrium, that gives a drop of -8 per mil by ocean-air exchanges. See:
http://dge.stanford.edu/SCOPE/SCOPE_16/SCOPE_16_1.5.05_Siegenthaler_249-257.pdf
If the upwelling was directly from the deep oceans, that thus would give an equilibrium level of -8 per mil in the atmosphere (assuming the biosphere in equilibrium). But the upwelling places are exaclty the places with the most abundant biolife. Thus increasing the δ13C ratio near the surface. The rest of the oceans too are higher in δ13C, thus matching the atmosphere at between -7 and -3 per mil δ13C. As can be seen in ice cores, the pre-industrial mean equilibrium over the Holocene was about -6.4 per mil in the atmosphere…
Greg Goodman says:
November 24, 2013 at 6:52 am
But Law Dome does not have a temp proxy , what are you using for that?
Law Dome dD and d18O can’t be used, as the moisture catch area is from the nearby Southern Oceans and the inland ice cores are too coarse (but CO2 still is global). Thus I needed one of the many multiproxy temperature reconstructions over the past millennium (Esper or Moberg, can’t remember which one I used). In any case not MBH, as you may expect…
So you have a problem not knowing how the time resolution of DSS compared to that of the multiproxy temperature reconstruction. I would expect, by the nature of such a thing, a certain amount of averaging and damping to be mixing the resolution of each proxy (plus a good amount of running mean distortion thrown in for good measure).
If T and CO2 don’t come from the same core, dividing one by the other gets very suspect.
Law Dome may give us an estimation of d/dt(CO2) but I would not put much weight on ppm/K/a derived like that.
Paul Schauble: “Could corn used to make ethanol for motor fuels make a difference?”
Not in this context. The only point of distinction between a bio fuel and a fossil fuel is whether we’re regrowing the crop or not: They’re both bio fuels. So if we harvest down corn for ethanol, and replant, then we can — crudely — consider it a zero-sum condition. It puts 12C and 13C back in circulation for diffusion and respiration certainly, but the fixation preference of C4 plants remains.
The issue of interest is whether or not we can find preferential or neutral 13C fixation in animal life. As this permits a manner for the natural variation side of 13C ratio variation. And it simply must exist, as the ice cores show such variation themselves. On that end, I was popping back in to drop off a tidbit I scoured up on the subject. Which is that for rats, and then by assumption more mammals, there is indeed a significant preference to fixate 13c in muscle, liver, and collagen tissue. But a preference for 12c in fat. The balance, for exhaled CO2 is to be significantly depleted in 13C relative the diet of the animal. But this varies significantly depending on just what the diet is in toto. Specifically it’s not so much a preference for 12 or 13 C as such, but of plant molecules that have fixed those. An interesting bit to feed the brain and stir ideas: http://intl-icb.oxfordjournals.org/content/42/1/21.full
So I’ll call it a good guess generally. Or at least something that’s worth chasing if the info can be found, or the interest and funding intersects.
Greg Goodman says:
November 24, 2013 at 7:15 am
No, you still don’t get the way the relaxation response works. It’s not a different process, it’s the same one.
I don’t think so.
There are at least three different processes at work, near independent of each other:
– the seasonal swings (directly temperature related – mid- and high latitudes – mainly vegetation)
– the short term swings (temperature and moisture related – tropical – mainly vegetation)
– the long term changes (pressure difference related – deep oceans – partly in vegetation)
Besides human emissions.
Starting from Henry’s law, a change in temperature causes a change of 16 ppmv CO2/K over a relative short period (5-10 years) from the ocean surface.
Over the MLO period, the incease in temperature (HadCRU4) was 0.6 K thus a maximum increase of 10 ppmv from seawater temperature increase (less combined with land vegetation, but so what).
Thus whatever the short term variability, the maximum increase from the seawater surface is 10 ppmv over the recent 50 years if no other processes are involved.
About the seasons and short term variations: these level off after one year (seasons) to 5 years (short term). No trace left after 5 years. There is no connection between the short term variations and the trend over the past 50 years. Seasonal and long term variations work in the same direction: oceans: increased release, vegetation: increased uptake for increased temperature.
short term changes go opposite for vegetation: decreased uptake, even release for increased temperature. See:
http://www.bowdoin.edu/~mbattle/papers_posters_and_talks/BenderGBC2005.pdf
from point 70 on + Fig.7 and the conclusions.
Thus three processes with three different mechanisms and decay times.
Now if we look at the CO2 record, of the 70 ppmv over the past 50 years, maximum 10 ppmv is from the temperature increase only. As the temperature incease is rather linear, in the derivative that gives a flat positive offset of 0.012 K/yr and a flat positive offset of 0.2 ppmv/yr for CO2. Still both contain the full short term variability of the sinusoid as also can be seen in the derivative of temperature in Wood for Trees.
Thus in my opinion, the short term CO2 variability is entirely temperature (and moisture) dependent, but has nothing to do with the trend which is from another process, whatever that may be.
Ferdinand said:
“Now if we look at the CO2 record, of the 70 ppmv over the past 50 years, maximum 10 ppmv is from the temperature increase only”
That assumes that the temperature increase in the topmost layer of sun warmed oceans in the subtropics when global cloudiness decreased during the late 20th century is limited to the average global atmospheric temperature increase (leaving out the issue of UHI and data manipulation).
In reality, more sunlight into oceans is going to result in much greater local temperature increases possibly involving the extra solar input driving out CO2 from the water whilst the thermal inertia of the ocean bulk and increased evaporation minimises any bulk ocean temperature change.
I don’t think Ferdinand’s simplistic assumptions necessarily reflect the reality.
The topmost layer of a swimming pool can get a lot warmer than the bulk below and a lot warmer relative to the air temperatures above.it on a sunny afternoon.
Ferdinand Engelbeen says:
November 24, 2013 at 10:49 am
The cross-over where the magnitude of each are the same is omega*tau=1 , so we need to know the time constant of the reaction to know when we should be expecting CO2 to correlate with T.
That is the model for a simple “single slab” ocean.
If I understand that correctly (please correct me if that is wrong), that means that there is one process that regulates both the short term variations and the long term slope.
But that can’t be true, as we have at least three different source/sinks at work:
The ocean surface with a fast mixing, short reaction time but limited uptake
The deep oceans with a very slow mixing, longer reaction time but near unlimited uptake
Vegetation with a mix of fast mixing and slow mixing, a short (seasonal) reaction time + a longer (permanent) reaction time and unlimited uptake for the slower processes.
Vegetation may give a better example of a “single slab ocean” effect?
Dear Ferdinand, could you comment.
You offer equilibrated estimates like 5ppm/degree K, but the Earth is always in disequilibrium. If the Earth begins to cool, sinks will diminish quickly, but the primary source (oceans) will keep rolling for many decades. I predict that CO2 will spike sharply.
kingdube says:
November 23, 2013 at 1:49 pm
I expect it reasonable to predict that as the Earth cools, atmospheric CO2 will spike sharply from natural causes. (Of course the alarmists will then argue, when this occurs, that poor Mother Nature can no longer choke-down the anthropogenic emission – she has had her fill from us. But that will be a misinterpretation of this natural process.) Further explanation below:
During the Little Ice Age, natural sinks had overtaken sources so atmospheric CO2 fell (caused by cooling). The warming since then has stimulated natural sources which, in turn, have stimulated natural sinks. And the sources are now out in front, with our modest help to be sure. But both sources and sinks have been growing far more rapidly than our anthropogenic contribution in absolute terms. So if our contribution were to be removed in its entirety, there would be little identifiable change. Microbial and insect emissions would more than make up the difference if we let them**. And had we not contributed our 2%, the vegetative sinks would have been most likely under-stimulated by a somewhat similar amount such that there would be little identifiable change. (The water tub analogy where a spigot is filling the CO2 tub, while a drain is draining it, is entirely misleading in the way it is often presented as there is a clearly coupled relationship between changes to the rates of input and output – at least till a saturation event occurs.)
And if the Earth continues to be warm but then starts to cool, at some likely predictable point the photosynthetic sequestering sinks will saturate (so that their increasing capacity to sink CO2 will quit increasing; and then for the same continued cooling causes, these sinks will subsequently and rapidly reverse to a decreasing capacity to absorb CO2; while the emission sources more slowly respond; and the oceans, in particular, fail to respond for many decades). Then very steep atmospheric spiking will ensue just as it so often has in the past. It is very likely that photosynthetic sequestering (biological response) provides an enormous (geologically real-time) negative feedback to additional atmospheric CO2 until such time as it saturates. This predicted saturation event is not likely very near if the planet continues to slide sideways on temperature. However, a near-term solar-driven mini ice age may likely accelerate this predictable spiking event into the near term (i.e. atmospheric CO2 will likely increase sharply soon).
“If I understand that correctly (please correct me if that is wrong), that means that there is one process that regulates both the short term variations and the long term slope.”
No, there’s more than one process at work . The point I’m making is that the relaxation process (with respect to temp in this case) has both orthogonal and in-phase responses as part of the same process, not totally one or the other.
BTW, this is where Bart is going wrong IMO. He wants to regress this totally as one process (which is fine as an experiment) but then gets a rather dubious, approximate fit and declares it “perfect”.
I’d say it fits quite well but clearly there are significant variations that are not explained but such a simplistic model. This is why Salby brings in the “ground conditions” factor. I await more detail on what that is and how it is derived.
Nick Stokes says:
November 23, 2013 at 6:58 pm
“Slight? The amount of C we’ve emitted is about equal to the entire mass of vegetation. How can it be hidden?”
This is like one of those Congressional budgets sleights of hand wherein the opposition Party claims that the costs of a program are a staggering $XXX bajillion, but they don’t mention that, that is spread out over YY years.
Brian H says:
November 23, 2013 at 9:57 pm
I am so looking forward to that day, when we can put all this nonsense behind us!
Greg Goodman says:
November 24, 2013 at 1:30 am
“But that does not preclude a different component being present in long term change.”
It does, because the long term slope in temperature matches the long term slope in dCO2/dt. Human inputs also have a slope, but there is no (or, little) room for it when you have taken account of the temperature induced slope.
Ferdinand Engelbeen says:
November 24, 2013 at 2:46 am
I do not agree with the conclusion, but this was a very fair-minded post, and once again shows that Ferdinand Englebeen is a gentleman of the first order.
Greg Goodman says:
November 24, 2013 at 4:06 am
Bravo!
eric1skeptic says:
November 24, 2013 at 5:37 am
” showed that for my cherry-picked year the temperature rose and the CO2 rose too with a ratio of about 4 or 5 ppm per degree K.”
You are missing the point that this is an integration of temperature. Once you have established a temperature differential, CO2 keeps pumping into the air, at least in the near term (decades, centuries, millennia? – we do not yet know, but at least 1/2 century right now), whether the temperature continues increasing or not. You cannot shoehorn a dynamic relationship into a static model like you are attempting to do.
Ferdinand Engelbeen says:
November 24, 2013 at 6:33 am
“For the “best match” in slope, the amplitude of the dCO2/dt variability caused by T variability is only a fraction of the observed variability if you use Bart’s “hard evidence“…”
Or, vice versa. But, you will get different results depending on which temperature set you use. Which one do you use? The bottom line is that these are bulk measurements which are not really matched for the actual dynamics in the first place. It must be inferred from the quality of the fit that the simplest explanation is that the overall dynamics are captured in this model, but more research is needed to determine the best set of observations to use for a higher fidelity input/output model.
Greg Goodman says:
November 24, 2013 at 11:49 am
‘BTW, this is where Bart is going wrong IMO. He wants to regress this totally as one process (which is fine as an experiment) but then gets a rather dubious, approximate fit and declares it “perfect”. ‘
My point has always been that this process is dominant, and that it leaves little room for anything else of significance.
‘This is why Salby brings in the “ground conditions” factor. I await more detail on what that is and how it is derived.’
Me, too. I’m just a guy with a particularly applicable set of skills, and a little spare time. I look forward to the day when the professionals nail it down into a tight little ball.
Bart (November 24, 2013 at 12:03 pm) “You are missing the point that this is an integration of temperature. Once you have established a temperature differential, CO2 keeps pumping into the air, at least in the near term (decades, centuries, millennia? – we do not yet know, but at least 1/2 century right now), whether the temperature continues increasing or not. You cannot shoehorn a dynamic relationship into a static model like you are attempting to do.”
There is a long term relationship between CO2 and temperature with some allowance for natural variations in temperature due to weather: http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/esrl-co2/mean:12/from:1979/to:2013/scale:0.01/offset:-3.5/plot/rss/from:1979/to:2013 Doesn’t change too much if CO2 is raw instead of smoothed: http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/esrl-co2/from:1979/to:2013/scale:0.01/offset:-3.5/plot/rss/from:1979/to:2013
And here’s Jan 1997 to Jan 1998: http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/esrl-co2/mean:12/from:1997/to:1998/scale:0.1/offset:-36.3/plot/rss/from:1997/to:1998 But here is the following year: http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/esrl-co2/mean:12/from:1998/to:1999/scale:0.1/offset:-36.3/plot/rss/from:1998/to:1999 Therefore the relationship doesn’t hold year by year.
Within a single, cherry-picked year, there is no relationship: http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/esrl-co2/from:1997/to:1998/scale:0.1/offset:-36.3/plot/rss/from:1997/to:1998 Therefore there is no short term relationship. not from the CO2 signal just shown, and not from the derivative of the CO2 signal in that same cherry-picked year: http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/esrl-co2/from:1997/to:1998/derivative/scale:0.1/plot/rss/from:1997/to:1998
Obviously variation of weather due to temperature is the main reason that the relationship would change year to year, or month to month. But even where the relationship holds, the response is no more than 4-5 ppm per degree K. That is 30 times too small; it needs to be 140 ppm per degree K for this theory to work. It is not 4-5 ppm (or similar value) per degree K per year. That is clear from the 1998-99 graph where CO2 is positive and temperature is negative. It is not 0.19 ppm per K per month since that is clear from the 1997-98 graph where there is no correlation.
The only way the theory of CO2 causing temperature rise works is in my first two plots above. It is a nice theory but there is a better explanation that accounts for short term temperature fluctuations with no resultant change in CO2.
kingdube says:
November 24, 2013 at 11:31 am
You offer equilibrated estimates like 5ppm/degree K, but the Earth is always in disequilibrium. If the Earth begins to cool, sinks will diminish quickly, but the primary source (oceans) will keep rolling for many decades. I predict that CO2 will spike sharply.
Depends which mechanism wins: cooling gives less uptake by vegetation and more uptake by the oceans. But normally CO2 levels follow temperature: lower temperatures = lower CO2 levels. Thus if the earth starts to cool, normally CO2 levels start to go down, in several cases with a long lag.
In the current case, probably not, as human emissions still are increasing and the uptake in oceans and vegetation can’t follow that, even with a cooloibg earth. That is the mainstream opinion and also my opinion. But that is opposed by Salby and Bart…
eric: “That is clear from the 1998-99 graph where CO2 is positive and temperature is negative. ”
that’s because the primary fast relationship is with the derivative. plot d/dt(CO2) and it’s in phase and it works.