With the possibility of the coldest Super Bowl ever coming this week, this story about CO2 concentration seemed appropriate.
Ryan Scott Welch writes:
Anthony as you know, many people don’t know much about the earth’s atmosphere. For example, when questioned about how much CO2 is in our atmosphere most people give me a guess of somewhere between 30% and 70%. When I tell them that CO2 is only 0.04% or really about 395 ppm (parts per million) they generally look at me as if I was speaking some kind of foreign language. The layman simply cannot convert 0.04% of the atmosphere or 395 ppm into anything they can picture or relate to. In searching for some way to help the layman to understand the earth’s atmosphere, CO2, and the human contribution to atmospheric CO2, I came upon the idea of relating a sample of the atmosphere to something that nearly every person has seen, a football stadium.
So, instead of talking about ppm atmosphere, I talk about seats in a stadium. I put together a presentation using football stadium analogy and it goes something like this.
How much atmospheric CO2 is from human activity? If a football stadium represented a sample of our atmosphere, how many seats would be human caused CO2? The Dallas Cowboys Stadium seats 100,000 for special events.
Each seat represents one molecule of gas in our atmosphere.
Nitrogen is 78% of the atmosphere, Oxygen is 21%, and Argon is 0.9% giving you a total of 99.9% of the atmosphere.
So, where is the CO2? CO2 is a trace gas that is only 0.04% of the atmosphere which in this sample = 40 seats.
But of the 40 seats, or parts per 100,000 of CO2 in the atmosphere, 25 were already in the atmosphere before humans relied on hydrocarbon fuels (coal, gas and oil) leaving 15 seats.
And since humans only contribute 3% of all CO2 emitted into the atmosphere each year (97% is from nature), the human contribution is 3% of the 15 remaining seats in our sample. 3% of 15 is 0.45.
So in our stadium sample of 100,000 seats the human contribution of CO2 is less than half of one seat. That is less than one half of one seat from 100,000 seats in a Dallas Stadium sized sample of our atmosphere is human caused CO2.
[NOTE: per Dr. Robert Brown’s comment pointing out an oversight, this half-seat visualization analogy is on a PER YEAR basis, not a total basis – Anthony]
Here is my presentation uploaded on slideshare.net
http://www.slideshare.net/ryanswelch/how-much-atmospheric-co2-is-from-human-activity-23514995
REFERENCES:
Mauna Loa CO2 data: ftp://aftp.cmdl.noaa.gov/products/trends/co2/co2_mm_mlo.txt
Wigley, T.M.L., 1983 “The pre-industrial carbon dioxide level.” Climatic Change 5, 315-320 (lowest value of 250 ppm used)
Increasing Atmospheric CO2: Manmade…or Natural? January 21st, 2009 by Roy W. Spencer, Ph. D. http://www.drroyspencer.com/2009/01/increasing-atmospheric-co2-manmade%E2%80%A6or-natural/
Water Vapor Rules the Greenhouse System, Geocraft, http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/greenhouse_data.html
The Carbon Cycle, the Ocean, and the Iron Hypothesis, Figure based on Sabine et al 2004, Texas A&M University http://oceanworld.tamu.edu/resources/oceanography-book/carboncycle.htm
curious:
At January 28, 2014 at 9:21 pm you ask
Oh Dear!
Heat and energy are different things.
It is precisely because of ignorance such as I quote here that we have to be careful when informing the general public.
In hope of avoiding yet another side-track of the thread, I will answer the question.
Not all energy is in the form of heat.
The heat of a gas is expressed by its temperature which is an indication of the average speed (actually RMS speed) of the gas molecules. Increase the average speed of the molecules and the gas gets hotter. Decrease the average speed of the molecules and the gas gets cooler.
A photon is a quantum of electromagnetic (EM) radiation which has a wavelength related to the energy it carries. When it is absorbed by a greenhouse gas (GHG) molecule then it either increases the vibrational or the rotational energy of the molecule.
A GHG molecule gains energy but does not get hotter when it gets excited by absorbing a photon: it is raised to a higher quantum level (by increasing the vibrational or rotational energy of the molecule). Simply, the energy from the photon is stored in the GHG molecule and the GHG molecule does not change its speed.
The effects are quantised by the shape of the molecule and its bonds. Hence, vibrational absorbtion is possible for a CO2 molecule
C – O – C
Because the ‘angle’ between the C atoms attached to the O atom can change to provide the vibration.
But such vibrational excitation cannot occur to an N2 molecule (or an O2 molecule)
N – N
because the molecule has no ‘angle’ to change.
If the stored vibrational or rotational energy of a CO2 molecule is supplied by a collision to e.g. a nitrogen molecule then the nitrogen molecule is accelerated: the energy that was stored in the GHG molecule becomes kinetic energy in the nitrogen molecule so the gas gets hotter.
Similarly, if a collision causes kinetic energy of a nitrogen molecule to be transferred to be stored in a GHG molecule then the gas is cooled because the nitrogen molecule is decelerated but the GHG molecule is not accelerated. However, this very rarely happens because the collision would have to occur such as to transfer the energy into a vibrational mode only: most of the collisions would provide translational energy, fewer provide rotational, and least of all vibrational energy.
GHG molecules can lose their vibrational or rotational energy by emitting a photon.
Collisional deactivation dominates in the atmosphere near the Earth’s surface where the atmosphere is dense so many collisions occur. Near the Earth’s surface the average time for an emission of a photon (of the 15µ band of CO2) is milliseconds but the collisions occur about 10 times per nanosecond.
Radiative deactivation dominates in the upper atmosphere where the density is lower so collisions are less frequent and this gives more time for a molecule to release a photon.
Richard
richardscourtney says:
January 28, 2014 at 4:17 pm
Each of the models in that paper matches the available empirical data without use of any ‘fiddle-factor’ such as the ‘5-year smoothing’ the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) uses to get its model to agree with the empirical data.
Richard, as you know, I disagree on this, because only one “model” fits all available data: human emissions. All other models fail one or more observations…
The total biosphere is a net absorber of CO2:
http://www.bowdoin.edu/~mbattle/papers_posters_and_talks/BenderGBC2005.pdf
The oxygen balance shows that the whole biosphere is a net producer of oxygen, thus a net absorber of CO2 and preferential 12CO2, leaving relative more 13CO2 behind. But there is a sharp decrease in 13C/12C ratio in the atmosphere, not seen in the past 800,000 years in ice cores.
Here over the past 600 years in shallow oceans (coralline sponges) and the atmosphere (ice cores, firn and direct measurements):
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/sponges.gif
The 13C/12C ratio changed about 0.2 per mil over a glacial-interglacial transition (ice cores) and varied not more than +/- 0.2 per mil over the Holocene (ice cores) and the period of 600-160 years ago. The latter in the ocean surface, which follows the atmosphere with a 2-3 years lag (coralline sponges, resolution 2-4 years). Since about 1850, the 13C/12C ratio dropped with 1.6 per mil, completely in parallel with human emissions.
Of course, the human “fingerprint” is diluted by the 20% CO2 exchange per year with CO2 of other reservoirs, but that only leads to a less rapid decrease of the 13C/12C ratio. If the oceans were the main source of the increase in the atmosphere, then the 13C/12C ratio should have increased, not decreased…
That effectively excludes the oceans and the biosphere (land and sea plants, microbes, insects, animals,…) as main causes of the increase in the atmosphere. Other sources (volcanoes, rock weathering,…) are too small or too slow to be the cause…
Ferdinand Engelbeen:
At January 29, 2014 at 1:26 am you say to me
Ferdinand, as you know, it is not true that “only one “model” fits all available data: human emissions” …
Richard
Ferdinand:
OK, I was too abrupt in my post addressed to you at January 29, 2014 at 2:00 am .
We have been over this many times including on WUWT and up-thread I commended that people read each of our arguments and said how to do that. But you turn up and try to revisit all that yet again.
There is NO clear evidence that determines the cause of the rise in atmospheric CO2 concentration. If there were then I would accept it. Indeed, I want it.
You admit the isotope ratio data does NOT agree with a purely anthropogenic accumulation of CO2 causing the rise. However, you say that is because the ratio is “diluted”. Perhaps you are right, and perhaps you are wrong. But your ability to find an explanation for the disagreement with the isotope data at most indicates that the isotope data does not disprove an anthropogenic cause of the rise in atmospheric CO2 concentration. Your possible explanation of the disagreement of the isotope data with an anthropogenic cause of the rise certainly does NOT support your contention that the cause is anthropogenic.
The oxygen balance and rates of volcanism, limestone formation, etc. indicate NOTHING so are not relevant.
Each year the oceans alone pump more than an order of magnitude more CO2 in and out of the air than the anthropogenic CO2 emission. A changing equilibrium of the carbon cycle would alter the equilibrium between atmospheric CO2 and the ocean. This would not involve saturation of CO2 sinks with resulting accumulation of CO2 in the air. And the dynamics of the seasonal variation in atmospheric CO2 refutes that such saturation occurs.
This is the Mauna Loa data
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/weekly.html
The annual CO2 rise is the residual of the seasonal fluctuation of the CO2 variation throughout a year.
The seasonal fluctuation is a saw-tooth. The CO2 rises rapidly at near constant rate then reverses and falls rapidly at near constant rate, then reverses … This is NOT consistent with the sinks saturating. The rate of change should reduce as the sinks ‘fill up’ while approaching saturation. It does not.
It is consistent with altering equilibrium. The seasonal rise is a response to temperature through the year while the minimum (before reversal) of a year is the minimum set by the quasi equilibrium of that year as the carbon cycle system adjusts to an altered equilibrium state.
So, Ferdinand, your assertion of CO2 accumulation in the air is falsified by these observations of system dynamics.
The anthropogenic CO2 emission may have caused the alteration to carbon cycle equilibrium or something else may have caused it. The temperature rise from the LIA is the most likely cause, but available evidence does not enable determination of the true cause.
Richard
gymnosperm says:
January 28, 2014 at 9:47 pm
Ferdinand, Myhre e.a. is nothing but model. Nobody measured anything. More arm waving than geology…
Gymno, there are models and models…
The basic calculation model is Modtran and that is based on real laboratory measurements of line by line absorptions measured for different concentrations of GHG’s at different air pressures, independtly confirmed by outgoing radiation measurements by satellites. The formula Myhre showed is a simple curve fitting calculation, but the curve is what Modtran shows. Thus the simplified formula is indirectly based on measurements…
Ferdinand Engelbeen:
You make a good point when at January 29, 2014 at 2:45 am you say
Yes, a nothing is directly measured.
A mercury in glass thermometer does not measure temperature. It indicates the difference in thermal expansion between the mercury and the glass. And a model – based on calibration – is used to interpret that indication as being measurement of temperature(s).
As you say, “there are models and models”. Of importance is whether the model is valid, adequate and reliable.
Richard
richardscourtney says:
January 29, 2014 at 2:39 am
As said many times before, but for any new readers:
The oxygen balance and rates of volcanism, limestone formation, etc. indicate NOTHING so are not relevant.
The oxygen balance does prove that the whole biosphere is a net sink for CO2 of about 1 GtC/year. That is rock solid, no way that the biosphere could be a net source after a full seasonal cycle.
All other possible sources have a too high 13C/12C ratio. That includes (deep) oceans, most volcanoes, rock weathering and carbonate deposit/dissolution.
But your ability to find an explanation for the disagreement with the isotope data at most indicates that the isotope data does not disprove an anthropogenic cause of the rise in atmospheric CO2 concentration.
There are only two posibilities for the isotopic dilution: a simple exchange or an addition.
A simple exchange doesn’t alter the total amount in the atmosphere, only dilutes the human “fingerprint”. The exchange with the biosphere and the ocean surface is quite rapid and these simply follow the changes in the atmosphere. Only the deep oceans have a very long lag (~1000 years) between the isotopic composition of today’s atmosphere which is going into the deep ocean near the poles and the isotopic composition of what is released from the upwelling zones, mostly in the Pacific equatorial area. One can use the dilution effect to calculate the mass exchange between deep oceans and atmosphere:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/deep_ocean_air_zero.jpg
That gives a nice fit over the past decades at an exchange rate of ~40 GtC/year between deep oceans and atmosphere. The discrepancy in the earlier years is probably caused by an imbalance of the biosphere.
A similar 40 GtC/year exchange with the deep oceans could be deduced from the 14CO2 removal rate of the 14CO2 peak caused by the atomic bomb tests in the 1950’s.
If the deep oceans releases were additional, then the increase in the atmosphere would need to be a fourfold of the human emissions, thus currently some 40 GtC/year (~20 ppmv/year). Which of course is not what is observed.
Moreover, even if the increase of deep ocean CO2 emissions is absorbed somewhere else (wherever that may be, certainly not the biosphere), the increase in throughput would be visible in a reduction of the residence time, but we see a slight increase in residence time if one compares the later estimates with the earlier estimates, which is consistent with the increase of total CO2 mass in the atmosphere and a relative constant throughput…
Box of Rocks says:
-Really? The only thingie that the GHGs do is slow the rate of heat transfer from the surface of -the earth to space.
– “Venus has the grand daddy…”
– Is this all the better Yale can do?
– They need to take the calcs one step further…
Well, I think it answers most of your questions
– there was a good series of lectures from Stanford I saw on Youtube a few years ago that went through the theory of AGW from the first principles (i.e. starting from the quantum physics of heat)
– sorry, but I couldn’t find it yesterday when I was looking
– so this one from Yale was the closest I could find last night,
– it’s a long series (20+ lectures) so I’m sure the information you require is in there
– or just keep searching/googling for other, better explanations.
Ferdinand Engelbeen:
As you admit, we have been through all this before, and I have advised those interested to refer to our past discussions on WUWT.
I write merely to refute the three points in your post at January 29, 2014 at 3:18 am, and I will not reply further because this side-track is disruptive of this thread.
You say
Possibly. It can be argued. But if you are right, then so what?
As I said, it is irrelevant.
At issue is why and how the entire carbon cycle system is changing, and not what any individual part of the system is doing.
When considering the recent rise in atmospheric CO2 it would be useful to discuss individual parts of the carbon cycle if we knew all the individual parts, how they operate, and how they interact. WE DON’T.
And you assert
Ah, a classic circular argument. Ferdinand, you are known for them.
In this case you assume “dilution” then use that assumption to prove itself.
The isotope ratio changes in the direction which would exist if the atmospheric CO2 rise were accumulation of the anthropogenic emission. But there is a 50:50 change that it would be in that direction or the other.
And the magnitude of the isotope change differs by a factor of 3 from expectation if it results from accumulation of the anthropogenic CO2 emission. The direct indication of this difference is that the isotope change is NOT a result from accumulation of the anthropogenic CO2 emission. However, you show that the direct indication may be false because the large magnitude difference may be an outcome of “dilution”. But if almost all of the change is from assumed diluent(s) then all of it could be from the diluent(s).
As I said
And your claim beginning
is a Red Herring.
As I said, the oceans pump CO2 in and out of the air all the time. A slight reduction to oceanic sequestration would NOT provide additional oceanic source.
Ferdinand, there is nothing in this post which you and I have not discussed on WUWT before. Yet another reprise of these matters is pointless.
DATA DOES NOT EXIST WHICH COULD RESOLVE THE CAUSE OF THE RECENT RISE IN ATMOSPHERIC CO2 CONCENTRATION.
Richard
Willis Eschenbach Jan 28 12:57pm says “you cannot argue that simply because the ABUNDANCE of something is small, that its EFFECT is small“.
So, it was quite incorrect for Willis E Jan 27 10:59am to say “[Ryan Scott Welch’s] argument seems to be, CO2 is only a trivially small part of the atmosphere, so we can ignore it.“, RSW was simply using an analogy to help people understand the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere. RSW’s article had absolutely nothing to do with the effect of the CO2, so the idea that the CO2’s effect can be ignored is Willis’s only – not RSW’s – and Willis himself points out that just because an abundance of sonething is small that doesn’t mean its effect is small.
Willis, you demand high standards of others, you haven’t adhered to them yourself in this instance.
—–
RSW Jan 27 10:43pm asks “How could a human contribution of 3% of the yearly CO2 output become 54% of the increase?“. The answer is that you are looking only at one side of the equation. You have ignored a similarly large absorption of CO2 of which 0% is human.
Here is the result of googling for youtube football collisions. These occur at higher speed than in rugby, and perhaps are more unexpected, so the result is often less civilized (bad injuries):
http://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=youtube+football+collisions&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8
Mike Jonas:
At January 29, 2014 at 5:23 am you say
No, that is NOT “the answer”.
You are applying a simple mass balance and adopting the assumption that the anthropogenic emission is the only – or by far the most significant – variation to the inputs and outputs because the carbon cycle system is not changing significantly.
There is no reason to assume that, and there are good reasons to reject it. For example, the rise in atmospheric CO2 is about the same as HALF the anthropogenic emission, so the system IS changing otherwise ALL of the anthropogenic emission would remain in the atmosphere.
At issue is whether the anthropogenic emission is the major cause of the carbon cycle system changing or if something else is the major cause. Or, to put that in the form of a question,
What would the atmospheric CO2 concentration be in the absence of the anthropogenic CO2 emission, and if the concentration were different then by how much?
Nobody knows the answer to that question because there is no data which provides an answer, but some people think they know the answer.
Richard
NFL vs. Rugby hits:
richardscourtney says:
January 29, 2014 at 5:55 am
What would the atmospheric CO2 concentration be in the absence of the anthropogenic CO2 emission, and if the concentration were different then by how much?
The answer is quite simple: about 290 ppmv for the current temperature.
Over the past 800,000 years, there was a direct ratio of about 8 ppmv/°C with a variable lag. That is visible in ice cores with high accuracy (+/- 1.2 ppmv within one core – +/- 5 ppmv between different cores) and variable resolution (the highest accumulation cores less than a decade).
The high resolution ice cores even have an overlap of 20 years (1960-1980) with the direct measurements at Mauna Loa and the South Pole.
Only in the past 160 years there is a clear deviation from the historical ratio, as well as for CO2 levels, 13C/12C ratio and methane levels:
CO2 levels:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/antarctic_cores_001kyr_large.jpg
13C/12C ratio:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/sponges.gif
CH4 levels:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/law_dome_ch4.jpg
Stomata data (with a lot of caveats):
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/van_Hoof.jpg
If these changes are non-human, why they never happened in the past 800,000 years (the resolution of ~560 years of the Dome C ice core is sufficient to detect a similar change like over the past 160 years). And what kind of natural process would mimic the human emissions at exactly the same rate and timing?
Here was the lecture series I was think about
– it turns out if was from Chicago, not Stanford….
Here is lecture 6
Feels free to jump around the lecture series to find any info you want
Or just start at the beginning, and just work your way through it (as I did)
– after you’ve done that, you’ll understand why the OP was wasting everybody’s time
Quick summary
– the effect of CO2 on the atmosphere is well known & understood
– the size & nature of the feedbacks are more difficult to quantify!
richardscourtney says:
January 29, 2014 at 5:55 am
For example, the rise in atmospheric CO2 is about the same as HALF the anthropogenic emission, so the system IS changing otherwise ALL of the anthropogenic emission would remain in the atmosphere.
Of course, the system is changing, it was a system in equilibrium with only small year by year changes over the past 800,000 years, with one driver: temperature. If such a system is disturbed by adding an extra amount of one of the components, then the system will respond by changing the equilibrium in a direction opposite to the disturbance. That is Le Châtelier’s principle. In this case by reducing its inputs (from the oceans) and increasing its outputs (into the oceans and vegetation). Both oceans (in and out) and vegetation (output) are atmospheric CO2 pressure dependent.
But the cause of the extra uptake/less release is the increase in the atmosphere, which is caused by human emissions…
Ferdinand Engelbeen: Thank you for your response to my post of January 27th, and also the link to the MODTRAN model, which because it is interactive is proving to be interesting and enjoyable.
NotTheAussiePhilM says:
January 29, 2014 at 3:46 am
Yes really!
Same warmed over falsehoods. Carl Sagan wrong, very wrong and it appears that idiots still perpetuate his bad science.
In the Yale presentation there is presented a discrepancy on the theoretical value of the earth temperature and the actual.
How about doing a simple energy balance at that point and showing that the energy that can be absorbed and re-radiated can in fact account for the additional temperature. But of course one would have to go through the steps that convert the radiation ( potential energy) into something useful! And that step is never shown.
Or, maybe some of there assumptions are just wrong.
The lecture is a good first step in explaining he GHG phenomenon, But one thing that graduate level engineering classes have taught is that the equations that one needs while rooted in F = MA are several steps away generally in the same form.
We have a long way to go …. and we have yet to scratch the thermodynamics of the atmosphere. It is all about energy.
Ferdinand:
I have had my say and you have had yours.
I write to say I am withdrawing from the carbon cycle debate and, thus, leaving you with the last word in that debate.
I do this because I see no purpose in yet another reprise of arguments which people who want to see them can find using the WUWT Search facility, I am content for people to assess the overviews of our arguments which we have presented here, and we are side-tracking this thread.
Richard
The arsenic analogy is a favorite of alarmists, but it is a fallacious argument. If the body could handle .035% arsenic concentration, then it probably could handle .04%. All substances — even water — become “poisonous” at some level of concentration. CO2 at .035% is not poisonous, and it is not poisonous at .04%, nor at .05%, nor at .06%, nor at anything remotely close to .07%.
Arsenic is not like CO2 or water. Arsenic does not have a beneficial service to the body. However, water and CO2 do have a beneficial service to the ecosystem, and it is most likely that a CO2 concentration of .04% is more beneficial to the human race than .035%. If crop production went down by 20%, would you want to make the decision on who does not get food?
Matt says:
“that is nonsense. A single molecule of CO2 in the atmosphere does not behave like a gas because of it’s microscopic makeup as a single molecule…”&etc.
And:
“A single molecule of solid CO2 does not become gaseous only because it is single.”
As a matter of fact, it does. A single molecule of CO2 in the atmosphere is a gas.
===================
philjourdan says:
“matt – Chemistry 101 – Definition of MOLECULE 1 : the smallest particle of a substance that retains all the properties of the substance and is composed of one or more atoms
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/molecule
“See the bolded part? You are wrong.”
===================
Matt, what is your point? You started out arguing about water vapor, which is a gas. You say it is not a gas. Others disagree:
Water vapor is found throughout our lower atmosphere. It is a gas just like nitrogen and oxygen.
What point are you trying to make? Water vapor is a so-called ‘greenhouse’ gas. That is a scientific fact. Asserting otherwise is not a good argument.
@ur momisugly Gail Combs
Carbon starvation in glacial trees recovered from the La Brea tar pits, southern California
Full paper here:
http://www.pnas.org/content/102/3/690.long
An Inquirer said @ur momisugly January 29, 2014 at 8:52 am
If there is, we don’t yet know what that is. Rats’ life expectancy is increased by including extra arsenic in their diet. Extra because there’s arsenic in most foods. If you want to eliminate arsenic from your diet you’ll need to stop eating.
Forget about the human contribution to CO2. The main point is how to help non-scientists to visualize what a very small contribution CO2 actually makes to the overall atmosphere. Over the last 10 years, I’ve used two different analogies to help put the actual concentration into perspective for those who are not accustomed to thinking about such things:
If the atmosphere is represented by one hundred US dollars, the total CO2 in the atmosphere will amount to less than four pennies (4 cents).
Or alternatively, considering that the total atmospheric makeup may be represented by a 100 story building, the total amount of CO2 in the atmosphere is then only about 6 inches of that building (whereby I hold up one hand with my thumb and pinky fingers stretched apart).
richardscourtney Jan 29 5:55am – you say “No, that is NOT “the answer”“. Ferdinand Engelbeen explains why it is. Yes there are things we don’t know, so that getting exact numbers is maybe not possible, but the overall picture is clear enough to explain the ‘54%’.