From a long line of missing things in climate models and the University of Texas at Austin:
Symbiotic fungi inhabiting plant roots have major impact on atmospheric carbon, scientists say
AUSTIN, Texas — Microscopic fungi that live in plants’ roots play a major role in the storage and release of carbon from the soil into the atmosphere, according to a University of Texas at Austin researcher and his colleagues at Boston University and the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute. The role of these fungi is currently unaccounted for in global climate models.
Some types of symbiotic fungi can lead to 70 percent more carbon stored in the soil.
“Natural fluxes of carbon between the land and atmosphere are enormous and play a crucial role in regulating the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and, in turn, Earth’s climate,” said Colin Averill, lead author on the study and graduate student in the College of Natural Sciences at UT Austin. “This analysis clearly establishes that the different types of symbiotic fungi that colonize plant roots exert major control on the global carbon cycle, which has not been fully appreciated or demonstrated until now.”
“This research is not only relevant to models and predictions of future concentrations of atmospheric greenhouse gases, but also challenges the core foundation in modern biogeochemistry that climate exerts major control over soil carbon pools,” added Adrien Finzi, co-investigator and professor of biology at Boston University.
Averill, Finzi and Benjamin Turner, a scientist at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, published their research this week in Nature.
Soil contains more carbon than both the atmosphere and vegetation combined, so predictions about future climate depend on a solid understanding of how carbon cycles between the land and air.
Plants remove carbon from the atmosphere during photosynthesis in the form of carbon dioxide. Eventually the plant dies, sheds leaves, or loses a branch or two, and that carbon is added to the soil. The carbon remains locked away in the soil until the remains of the plant decompose, when soil-dwelling microbes feast on the dead plant matter and other organic detritus. That releases carbon back into the air.
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  IMAGE: This Eastern Hemlock stands at Harvard Forest.
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One of the limits that both the plants and the soil-dwelling microbes share is the availability of nitrogen, an essential nutrient for all life. Most plants have a symbiotic relationship with mycorrhizal fungi, which help extract nitrogen and nutrients from the soil and make that nitrogen available for the plants to use. Recent studies have suggested that plants and their fungi compete with the soil microbes for the nitrogen available in the soil and that this competition reduces decomposition in the soil.
There are two major types of the symbiotic fungi, ecto- and ericoid mycorrhizal (EEM) fungi and arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi. EEM fungi produce nitrogen-degrading enzymes, which allows them to extract more nitrogen from the soil than the AM fungi extract.
Examining data from across the globe, Averill and his colleagues found that where plants partner with EEM fungi, the soil contains 70 percent more carbon per unit of nitrogen than in locales where AM fungi are the norm.
The EEM fungi allow the plants to compete with the microbes for available nitrogen, thus reducing the amount of decomposition and lowering the amount of carbon released back into the atmosphere.
“This study is showing that trees and decomposers are really connected via these mycorrhizal fungi, and you can’t make accurate predictions about future carbon cycling without thinking about how the two groups interact. We need to think of these systems holistically,” said Averill.
The researchers found that this difference in carbon storage was independent of and had a much greater effect than other factors, including the amount of plant growth, temperature and rainfall.
Averill is a student in the ecology, evolution and behavior graduate program in the lab of Christine Hawkes, associate professor in the Department of Integrative Biology.
Additional contact: Lee Clippard, media relations, University of Texas at Austin, 512-232-0675, clippard@austin.utexas.edu
Pete in Cumbria UK says:
January 9, 2014 at 6:14 am
“Here goes Pete’ theory of Global Warming.”
—————
Pete, I enjoyed your theory of GW but there are a few things therein I would like to offer my learned opinion on.
The first being the Mauna Loa CO2 graph. You are right, there is “something seasonal” that is driving that sawtooth line …. and it begins in 1958 simply because that is when Charles Keeling first began to make accurate measurements of atmospheric CO2. And I am absolutely sure that same sawtooth line would be there if accurate measurements were being made during the previous 100+ years.
And to be more precise, the bi-yearly (seasonal) cycling of that sawtooth line rises an average of 8 ppm during the Northern Hemisphere’s fall and winter month and decreases an average of 6 ppm during the spring and summer months. This cycling is actually triggered by the Autumnal (September) and Vernal (March) equinoxes. In other words, when the Sun makes its bi-yearly crossing of the Equator. And just like “clockwork”, the CO2 reaches its high point about mid-May of each year and its low point about the 1st of October of each year. Reference: NOAA’s complete (55 years) monthly average Mona Loa CO2 ppm data ftp://ftp.cmdl.noaa.gov/ccg/co2/trends/co2_mm_mlo.txt
Now the difference between the bi-yearly 8 ppm average increase in CO2 and the 6 ppm average decrease in CO2 …. equals a 1 to 2 ppm average yearly increase in CO2 which accounts for the name and th upward slant of the “Keeling Curve” ….. and is a direct result of a gradual warming of the ocean waters that has been in progress ever since the end of the Little Ice Age in the early 1800’s.
And it cycles just like “clockwork”, which is “triggered” by the equinoxes, simply because it is being “driven” by the water temperature of the Southern Hemisphere oceans. When the Sun crosses the Equator (northward) on March 20/21st the ocean water in the Southern Hemisphere really starts cooling down and thus starts ingassing CO2 from the atmosphere (Henry’s Law). And when the Sun crosses the Equator (southward) on September 22/23rd the ocean water in the Southern Hemisphere really starts warming back up and thus starts outgassing CO2 into the atmosphere. Just like “clockwork” for the past 55 years and counting. Reference: Keeling Curve Graph with equinoxes and ppm notations http://i1019.photobucket.com/albums/af315/SamC_40/keelingcurve.gif
Now there is absolutely nothing that occurs in the Northern Hemisphere that could or would account for that steady and consistent “clockwork” bi-yearly cycling of atmospheric CO2 ppm.
Leaves don’t fall off of vegetation because of decreasing temperatures. They fall off because of decreasing hours of daylight. The majority of all microbial rotting and decaying of biomass occurs during the warm and moist Spring and Summer months (mid April thru mid August). Not during the dry and cool Fall months (mid August thru October) or the cold and freezing winter months (November thru mid April) …. because it would be in violation of the Refrigerator/Freezer Law …. which inhibits and/or prevents most all microbial ingestion of biomass. Those little buggers refuse to work iffen its too dry or too cold (like below 60F and fer sure below 42F).
And that’s nuff of my opinion for now.
Are we then likely to see the outlawing of truffle hunting and eating, considering ithe truffle’s carbon fixing properties?
Add the carbon emitting properties of champagne and the tragedy is total.
The above article states, to wit:
““This analysis clearly establishes that the different types of symbiotic fungi that colonize plant roots exert major control on the global carbon cycle,
The EEM fungi allow the plants to compete with the microbes for available nitrogen, thus reducing the amount of decomposition and lowering the amount of carbon released back into the atmosphere.
“This study is showing that trees and decomposers are really connected via these mycorrhizal fungi, and you can’t make accurate predictions about future carbon cycling without thinking about how the two groups interact. ”
———————-
Now I hate to be picky but, the author should not have stated “trees and decomposers” in the above paragraph ….. but should have continued with saying “plants”.
And I say that because the roots or root system of the majority of all trees are located deep within the soil, …. say 10 inches to several feet, ….. and thus are well below the top-most layer of dead biomass and/or the upper biomass rich layer of soil.
Thus, in heavily forested areas the microbes would not have to compete with said “plant root colonizing” EEM fungi for the available nitrogen in the biomass.
Along the lines of the observations of Dirk H. (at 3:05am) and Greg (at 5:13am) and M Courtney (at 6:30am),
Given this from the article: “… carbon remains locked away in the soil until the remains of the plant decompose, … EEM fungi allow the plants to compete with the microbes for available nitrogen, thus reducing the amount of decomposition and lowering the amount of carbon released back into the atmosphere.”
The Envirostalinists will TRY (won’t succeed, for truth always prevails — always) to use this type of study to control our economies using anti-nitrogen regulations. “Ooo, don’t use THAT fertilizer or do THAT process, it will result in releasing more CARBON and KILL THE PLANET.”
They tried this with nitrogen in the 1970’s and 1980’s (and beyond?) — trying to limit our liberty by misusing the true-but-no-need-to-prevent it fact that increased algae “kills” lakes.
These socialist con-artists are DISGUSTING.
Go, WUWT Science Giants! Truth, in the end, wins.
Yes, preventing algae growth from ruining swimming and boating and other desirable things IS a good thing, but, there is no need to force people (ultimately, at the end of a barrel of a gun) to do this.
http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a000000/a003500/a003562/
If you wanna see some visualizations of CO2 distribution rather than the single Keeling curve.
My null-hypothesis is: “CO2 doesn’t drive climate or temperature”.
So far, I have not seen one test that has falsified that. Nor one study that makes me start to fear CO2 for any another reason. A study like this on fungi may add some knowledge about fauna and flora but not to climate science. The only reason it gets attention is because CO2 has gotten a bad name. Unfortunately, since CO2 is plantfood. Nothng more, nothing less. I love CO2.
The CAGW hypotheses on the other hand gets falsified on a daily basis.
Still, the money keeps flowing and the demonizing of CO2 continues.
We live in a truly absurd timeframe.
Replace “programming language” with “CAGW alarmism”: [http://www.fullduplex.org/humor/2006/10/how-to-shoot-yourself-in-the-foot-in-any-programming-language/]
“The proliferation of modern programming languages (all of which seem to have stolen countless features from one another) sometimes makes it difficult to remember what language you’re currently using. This guide is offered as a public service to help programmers who find themselves in such dilemmas.”
C You shoot yourself in the foot.
C++ You accidentally create a dozen clones of yourself and shoot them all in the foot. Providing emergency medical assistance is impossible since you can’t tell which are bitwise copies and which are just pointing at others and saying, “That’s me, over there.”
JAVA After importing java.awt.right.foot.* and java.awt.gun.right.hand.*, and writing the classes and methods of those classes needed, you’ve forgotten what the hell you’re doing.
Ruby Your foot is ready to be shot in roughly five minutes, but you just can’t find anywhere to shoot it.
PHP You shoot yourself in the foot with a gun made with pieces from 300 other guns.
ASP.NET Find a gun, it falls apart. Put it back together, it falls apart again. You try using the .GUN Framework, it falls apart. You stab yourself in the foot instead.
Perl You shoot yourself in the foot, but nobody can understand how you did it. Six months later, neither can you.
Javascript You’ve perfected a robust, rich user experience for shooting yourself in the foot. You then find that bullets are disabled on your gun.
CSS You shoot your right foot with one hand, then switch hands to shoot your left foot but you realize that the gun has turned into a banana.
FORTRAN You shoot yourself in each toe, iteratively, until you run out of toes, then you read in the next foot and repeat. If you run out of bullets, you continue anyway because you have no exception-handling ability.
COBOL Using a COLT 45 HANDGUN, AIM gun at LEG.FOOT, THEN place ARM.HAND.FINGER. on HANDGUN.TRIGGER and SQUEEZE. THEN return HANDGUN to HOLSTER. CHECK whether shoelace needs to be retied.
LISP You shoot yourself in the appendage which holds the gun with which you shoot yourself in the appendage which holds the gun with which you shoot yourself in the appendage which holds the gun with which you shoot yourself in the appendage which holds the gun with which you shoot yourself in the appendage which holds ….
BASIC Shoot yourself in the foot with a water pistol. On big systems, continue until entire lower body is waterlogged.
FORTH Foot in yourself shoot.
APL You shoot yourself in the foot, then spend all day figuring out how to do it in fewer characters.
Pascal The compiler won’t let you shoot yourself in the foot.
SNOBOL If you succeed, shoot yourself in the left foot. If you fail, shoot yourself in the right foot.
HyperTalk Put the first bullet of the gun into the foot of the left leg of you. Answer the result.
Motif You spend days writing a UIL description of your foot, the trajectory, the bullet, and the intricate scrollwork on the ivory handles of the gun. When you finally get around to pulling the trigger, the gun jams.
Unix % ls foot.c foot.h foot.o toe.c toe.o % rm * .o rm: .o: No such file or directory % ls %
Paradox Not only can you shoot yourself in the foot, your users can too.
Revelation You’ll be able to shoot yourself in the foot just as soon as you figure out what all these bullets are for.
Visual Basic You’ll shoot yourself in the foot, but you’ll have so much fun doing it that you won’t care.
Prolog You tell your program you want to be shot in the foot. The program figures out how to do it, but the syntax doesn’t allow it to explain.
Ada After correctly packaging your foot, you attempt to concurrently load the gun, pull the trigger, scream and shoot yourself in the foot. When you try, however, you discover that your foot is of the wrong type.
Assembly You try to shoot yourself in the foot only to discover you must first reinvent the gun, the bullet, and your foot. After that’s done, you pull the trigger, the gun beeps several times, then crashes.
Python You try to shoot yourself in the foot but you just keep hitting the whitespace between your toes.
Tim Clark says:
January 9, 2014 at 10:46 am
I haven’t seen the correction for increased ocean life forms.
The increase (or decrease) of uptake of CO2 in the oceans by life forms is included in the oxygen balance. Most of the releases and uptake of CO2 by the oceans is direct (chemical) solubility and that doesn’t need/produce oxygen. But temperature plays a (small) role in the oxygen balance too: oxygen solubility of course is temperature dependent.
ROM
As a retired Soil Scientist, I can say that was a very good ‘rant’.
Samuel C Cogar says:
January 9, 2014 at 11:04 am
Now there is absolutely nothing that occurs in the Northern Hemisphere that could or would account for that steady and consistent “clockwork” bi-yearly cycling of atmospheric CO2 ppm.
Sorry to disappoint you, but it aren’t the oceans that cause the seasonal swings in the NH, it is vegetation. The mid to northern forests start to grow new leaves progressively northwards in spring and reach their maximum growth end summer when the cold starts getting in and progressively goes southwards. Meanwhile fallen leaves and debris from previous years is decaying all year round, somewhat more in summer and especially fall, but even under snow in the forests of Alaska…
That vegetation is leading the dance can be seen in the opposite swings of δ13C in the NH:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/seasonal_CO2_d13C_MLO_BRW.jpg
where the average 1990-2012 was caculated by zeroing the values on January of each year.
The southern hemisphere has a lot less land/vegetation and has very little seasonal variation:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/month_2002_2004_4s.jpg
Neither are the oceans or vegetation the cause of the increase: 1°C increase in temperature gives maximum 17 ppmv CO2 increase in the atmosphere (Henry’s law, solubility curve of CO2 in seawater) and any release of CO2 from the oceans would increase the 13C/12C ratio in the atmosphere, while we see a firm decrease…
And vegetation is a proven sink for CO2, not a source…
joe lori says:
January 9, 2014 at 7:22 am
There is some very sloppy writing here. At least twice the text includes ‘the amount of carbon released back into the atmosphere.’ I don’t think ‘carbon’, is what is released into the atmosphere, carbon dioxide is. The liberal media uses carbon in place of carbon dioxide to demonize CO2 all the time. Scientific pubs should be more accurate.
There is a simple reason that carbon is used and not CO2: while it is CO2 in the atmosphere, most CO2 in the oceans is not CO2 anymore, but bicarbonate and carbonate ions. Even more problematic in plants and food/feed: sugars, starch and cellulose, oils/fats and lots of other carbon containing molecules…
It is a lot simpler to refer to carbon, as that stays the same everywhere, in whatever form it may be transformed. It is carbon that must be in balance…
bwanajohn and Dabbio rightfully question the impact of this research on the increase of CO2 in the atmosphere.
One need to make a differentiation between what the climate models use and what they don’t use.
Climate models are not based on the carbon cycle. They are based on the Bern model, which describes the main speed of uptake by different sinks for any increase (natural or not) of CO2 in the atmosphere. The Bern model is an empirical model, which may be right or wrong (my take on it: right and wrong…).
Based on different scenario’s of future CO2 releases from fossil fuel use by humans, the climate models calculate the residual amount of CO2 in the atmosphere in the following decades up to the year 2100.
The Bern model takes into account several reservoirs, each with their own uptake speed and their own maximum uptake. The different uptake speeds seem quite right, but the problem is in the maximum uptake. The ocean surface is the fastest: an exchange speed which is high (1-3 years), that indeed has a limited uptake of CO2 (10% of the increase in the atmosphere), due to the buffer/Revelle factor. But there is not the slightest view on any limits of uptake by the deep oceans and vegetation, only limits on the uptake speed. That makes the Bern model and the resulting extremely long tail in uptake of the CO2 increase in the atmosphere rather questionable.
What is the influence of the carbon cycle on this all? The carbon cycle in the past was quite stable, even if it did take several thousands of years to reach the equilibrium between the three main reservoirs: atmosphere, oceans and vegetation. Only temperature did change the setpoint and CO2 followed temperature at about 8 ppmv/°C over the last near million years with a variable lag. Even today: the Keeling curve shows a global seasonal variation of 5 ppmv/°C over 6 months and there is a CO2 response to temperature changes over 1-3 years (El Niño/ENSO), again with 4-5 ppmv/°C.
Thus in all cases, all underlying natural causes of CO2 changes, temperature related or not (volcanoes), by quite different processes lead to a modest change in CO2. But we see some 110 ppmv CO2 increase, while there is hardly any temperature increase, there are no extreme volcanic events (the Pinatubo even caused a drop in CO2 increase rate) and no massive burning of one third of the world’s forests to give such an increase…
Human CO2 emissions since the start of the industrial revolution are about double the observed increase in the atmosphere. All observations are consistent with a human input. Vegetation is a proven sink for CO2 and the oceans are too high in δ13C to be the cause and don’t give more than 10 ppmv increase for the temperature increase since 1960 per solubility curve of CO2 in seawater…
The carbon cycle is only of academical interest, to know what processes are involved and where the CO2 sinks are: the partitioning between oceans and vegetation for the difference between emissions and the residual of CO2 in the atmosphere… It doesn’t matter that fungi/roots are double the sinks they were thought or that volcanoes emit 10 times more CO2 than earlier estimates. Somewhere halve the human emissions are stored and that is all that counts.
Ferdinand Engelbeen:
At January 9, 2014 at 4:05 pm you say
Assertion is not evidence.
The ice core data support your assertions of stable and low pre-industrial atmospheric CO2 concentration but the stomata data don’t.
There are good reasons to dispute both the ice core and the stomata data. Sadly, they are each championed by people who ignore one and reject the other. In reality, both provide useful information but each is a faulty proxy indication so neither can be used to make stark assertions as you do e.g. in the paragraph I quote in this post..
What can be said is that ice core data lack sufficient temporal resolution to be able to indicate whether or not the stable pre-industrial atmospheric CO2 concentration existed as you claim, and the stomata data indicates the concentration was both higher and more variable.
So, it is an error to build an edifice of theory from assumptions of low and stable pre-industrial atmospheric CO2 concentration which may or may not have existed.
We need to understand the carbon cycle and how it operates. Until we do understand that we cannot know why atmospheric CO2 concentration is changing now and how it is likely to change in future. But, as the above article clearly illustrates, we know little about the carbon cycle and we understand little of what we do know.
Richard
This article is about microscopic fungi, but what about us larger mushrooms who are kept in the dark and fed
Interesting. One of the great arguments in the CO2-dominant models is that anthropogenic CO2 has outstripped the ability of the natural systems to absorb it. I wonder if there is any correlation is between the increase in agricultural fungicides and the changes in the carbon level.\
Re: Mike Rossander at 6:45pm today
For the best lecture to date on this topic (in English after Deutsche intro.), see video below. To give you an idea of what it covers, a sample of my notes on this video:
[33:47] What controls atmospheric CO2 is net emission from ALL sources and sinks
[36:34] Native Source of CO2 – 150 (96%) gigatons/yr — Human CO2 – 5 (4%) gtons/yr
[37:01] Native Sinks Approximately* Balance Native Sources – net CO2
*Approximately = even a small imbalance can overwhelm any human CO2
[37:34] Since many native sources also involve Carbon 13, leaner than in the atmosphere, “ALL BETS ARE OFF.”
Dr. Murry Salby, Hamburg, Germany, April 18, 2013
Notes:
1) If you are a non-scientist as I am, watch it more than once and you will understand it.
2) Bart and many other of WUWT’s finest scientist commenters (NOT F. Englebeen who is a fine person, but not helpful on this topic, imo) have commented favorably on Dr. Salby’s research and conclusions.
I’ve changed the metaphorical “Carbon Footprint” terminology to the scientifically accurate “Carbon Dioxide Footprint”. Look for this new rhetoric to take effect in future scientific publications.
ROM says:
January 9, 2014 at 4:26 am
ROM,
You know, you’re amongst friends here. You don’t have to ‘hold back’ – Say what you really think!!
};>)
Epic Rant… and Spot On!
MtK
NEVER, underestimate the fungi.
JJ says:
January 9, 2014 at 6:39 am
“Then they have no ability for recursion on that parameter. Post time-step one, they become wrong even with respect to the scenario, and become worse with each iteration.”
If they included that, the models would blow up. That is because increasing temperatures unequivocally increase the concentration of CO2 in the air, and if you couple that with increasing CO2 increasing temperatures, you have a positive feedback loop, leading to runaway warming and CO2 concentration.
And that, in a nutshell, is why the sensitivity of temperatures to CO2 cannot be significant. There is no powerful negative feedback available to counteract that positive one, and the Earth would have fried eons ago.
Jimbo says:
January 9, 2014 at 6:40 am
“It seems as if every couple of months some new factor comes into play either unaccounted for, plays a bigger role or lesser role in our climate / carbon cycle.”
Yes, and if they’ve missed these factors, how many others are still missing?
dabbio says:
January 9, 2014 at 6:58 am
“If fungal carbon, or oceanic carbon, or any other input has a massive effect on atmospheric CO2, how come it does not SEEM to affect the Keeling curve?”
The Keeling curve has only a superficial resemblance to half of what would be the accumulated human CO2 emissions. It is an illusion, and not even a very good one. CO2 in the atmosphere is mostly driven by global temperatures, as the excellent fit between these two curves signifies.
It beggars belief that anyone with a scintilla of science or chemistry in their schooling would accept carbon dioxide being called carbon. If you were to do so in any elementary high school exam it would earn you a fail mark.
And as for AGW, it is not merely “in the air” but must be in the upper atmosphere in order to earn the epithet of being a “greenhouse gas” pray tell ANYONE, how does CO2 created at ground level by the burning of fuels make it’s way “up there”?
“There is no powerful negative feedback available to counteract that positive one, and the Earth would have fried eons ago.”
Note the premise here. If temperature is as sensitive to CO2 as is claimed, then it follows that there is no powerful negative feedback to counteract the instability. If there is a powerful negative feedback, then temperature is not sensitive to CO2 overall.
This is a “local”, in a mathematical sense, phenomenon, holding in the current state of the planet. It does not say that there is no greenhouse effect, or that all things being equal, the greenhouse impact of CO2 could not be significant. It says that all things are not equal, and the sum total impact of CO2 on temperatures is insignificant.
I hope this doesn’t result in some stupid plan to sequester carbon in a few species of fungi rather than have it in the atmosphere where it belongs aiding in photosynthesis and maintaining the abundance and diversity of more-complex orders of life.
richardscourtney says:
January 9, 2014 at 4:27 pm
The ice core data support your assertions of stable and low pre-industrial atmospheric CO2 concentration but the stomata data don’t.
Ice core data, which are direct measurements, not proxy’s, are far more reliable than stomata data, but have a worse resolution. The repeatability of ice core CO2 measurements is 1.2 ppmv for the same part of one core and less than 5 ppmv for different cores for the same average gas age. The resolution varies from less than a decade over the past 150 years to 560 years over the past 800,000 years.
Stomata data include a bias compared to the “background” CO2 levels because by definition they grow near ground over land. The local/regional bias is accounted for by calibrating the stomata (index) data against… ice cores and direct measurements over the past century. But there is no possibility to know how the local/regional bias changed over provious centuries due to land use changes in the main wind direction. Thus if there is a difference in average over any period longer than the resolution of the ice cores, the SI data are certainly wrong…
What can be said is that ice core data lack sufficient temporal resolution to be able to indicate whether or not the stable pre-industrial atmospheric CO2 concentration existed as you claim
The resolution over the past 1000 years and especially the past 150 years is more than sufficient to show that there is no similar increase in the past comparable to the past 150 years. Even the worst resolution ice cores (Vostok – 600 years and Dome C – 560 years) would show the increase over the past 160 years:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/antarctic_cores_001kyr_large.jpg
There is even an overlap of ~20 years (1960-1980) between the high resolution Law Dome ice cores and the direct measurements at the South Pole:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/law_dome_sp_co2.jpg
Moreover, the decrease in temperature (~0.8°C) between the warm(er) Medieval times and the cold Little Ice Age triggered a drop of not more than 6 ppmv in the 20-year medium resolution Law Dome DSS ice core with a lag of ~50 years and sustained over ~200 years:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/law_dome_1000yr.jpg
A similar increase in temperature since the LIA thus is good for not more than 6 ppmv of the 110 ppmv increase…
So, there is no need to understand the carbon cycle in detail. Al we know is that we are currently way above the pre-industrial equilibrium, which triggers a counter reaction from the different equilibrium processes between atmosphere and oceans/vegetation. But of course it still is of scientific interest to know the carbon cycles in detail…
Janice Moore says:
January 9, 2014 at 7:08 pm
[33:47] What controls atmospheric CO2 is net emission from ALL sources and sinks
Agreed!
[36:34] Native Source of CO2 – 150 (96%) gigatons/yr — Human CO2 – 5 (4%) gtons/yr
[37:01] Native Sinks Approximately* Balance Native Sources – net CO2
*Approximately = even a small imbalance can overwhelm any human CO2
Small problem here: native sources: 96%, native sinks: 98%, net native: 2% more sink than source. Humans emissions: 4%, twice the net native (and its variability):
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/dco2_em2.jpg
Not in one year the natural imbalance overwhelmed the human emissions…
[37:34] Since many native sources also involve Carbon 13, leaner than in the atmosphere, “ALL BETS ARE OFF.”
Almost all native sources are higher in 13C/12C ratio than the atmosphere. That excludes the oceans and most volcanoes as sources of the extra CO2, as we see a firm decline in a very nice ratio with human emissions of fossil fuel CO2.
Vegetation decay is the most important possible source, but the oxygen balance proved that the whole biosphere is a net sink for CO2… Thus not the cause of the increase.
NOT F. Englebeen who is a fine person, but not helpful on this topic, imo
Janice, even a nice person can have his doubts on what Dr. Salby writes. I have been to his lecture in London (Parliament) and asked a few pertinent questions, unfortunately there was little time for discussion and his answers were rather evasive.
Main problems with his points of view:
There is no way that a small, sustained increase in temperature in itself can trigger a sustained, constant increase of CO2 in the atmosphere as Salby and Bart insist. That violates Henry’s law.
Salby calculates a theoretical migration of CO2 in ice cores to support his theory, a migration which simply doesn’t exist if one looks at the data over the past 800 kyears…