Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach Much of the current angst at the UN regarding climate has to do with the idea of “climate reparations”. These are an imaginary debt supposedly owed by the major CO2 emitting nations to the countries of the developing world. As the story goes, we in the industrialized world have been “polluting” the atmosphere with the well-known plant food CO2, and despite the lack of any evidence of any damage caused, we’re supposed to pony up and pay the developing countries megabucks to ease their pain. 
In that regard, I’ve spent the morning laughing at the results I’ve gotten from the Japanese IBUKI satellite CO2 data. It shows the net CO2 flow (emission less sequestration) on a 1°x1° grid for the planet. Their website describes the project thusly:
The Greenhouse gases Observing SATellite “IBUKI” (GOSAT), developed jointly by the Ministry of the Environment Japan, the National Institute for Environmental Studies, and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (hereinafter the Three Parties), is the world’s first satellite designed specifically for monitoring atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane (CH4) from space.
The satellite has been in operation since its launch on January 23, 2009. The Three Parties will now publicly distribute the data of global CO2 fluxes on a monthly and regional basis for the one-year period between June 2009 and May 2010. These flux values were estimated from ground-based CO2 monitoring data and improved GOSAT-based CO2 concentration data.
It has been confirmed that uncertainties in CO2 flux estimates can be reduced by the addition of GOSAT data to the ground-based observations. This is the first concrete demonstration of the utility of satellite-based concentration data in the estimation of global CO2 fluxes.
It is expected that this progress in the field of global carbon cycle research will lead to more reliable climate change prediction and to the development of effective environmental policies for mitigating global warming in the future.
So why was I laughing? Well, let me unfold the story. First, here is the map showing the net emissions for 2010, the only full calendar year of data in the dataset:
Figure 1. Net emissions by gridcell, IBUKI satellite CO2 data. Click to embiggen.
Now, there are some interesting things about this map.
First, it appears to be pretty accurate. For example, if you look at the lower right part of Australia, you can see the two big cities of Sydney and Melbourne as red dots in the sea of blue.
Next, you can see that while the central Pacific is a net emitter of CO2 (yellow band from above Australia to South America), the intertropical convergence zone immediately north of that is a net absorber. I speculate that this is because of the large amount of rainfall in the area. Atmospheric CO2 dissolves in rain, which is why all rain is very slightly acid. This absorbs more CO2 than in the drier area to the south.
In addition you can see that the tropics emits about twice as much as the temperate zones per square metre … not what I expected.
Next, by and large where there are lots of humans there is a lot of CO2 emitted. Yes, there are also some areas where CO2 is being emitted without much human habitation … but generally, humans = CO2.
So … I figured I’d take the data and divide it up by country, to see how much CO2 each country either emits or absorbs. The answers were pretty surprising … Figure 2 shows the top 20 biggest net emitters of CO2.
Figure 2. Net emissions by country.
That’s where I started laughing … I can just see France demanding climate reparations from India, or the UK demanding reparations from the “Democratic” Republic of the Congo … It gets better. Figure 3 shows the top twenty sequestering nations …
Figure 3. Net sequestration by country.
Funnier and funnier … Sweden and Norway get to demand reparations from Russia, Finland can send a bill to the USA, while Australia can dun China for eco-megabucks.
Now … how can we understand some of these results? I will speculate, as I have no direct data … although it is claimed to be in the IBUKI datasets, I haven’t got there yet.
First, there are two big missing items in the previous standard CO2 accounting, sequestration and biomass burning. In most of the poor countries of the world, they are so ecologically conscious that they mainly use renewable energy for cooking and heating. And despite being all eco-sensitive and all these uncounted millions of open fires burning wood, twigs, and trash add up to a lot of CO2. Plus a bunch of pollution making up the “brown haze” over Asia, but that’s another question …
In addition, both India and China have huge permanent underground wildfires in their coal seams, spewing CO2 (plus really ugly pollution) 24/7. The other wild card is sequestration. In Australia, I speculate that it is due to the huge amount of exposed rock and sand. The mild acids in the rain and the dew dissolves the rocks and sand, sequestering the CO2.
In Canada, Norway, Sweden and Finland, I’ve got to assume that it has something to do with being far north and having lots of forests … but there are still lots of unanswered questions.
Anyhow, that was my fun for the morning … someone should write all of this up for the journals, I suppose, but I always feel like I have to give myself a lobotomy to write standard scientific prose.
Anyone want to go co-authors with me and handle the writing and the submission?
And my congratulations to my Argentinian, Brazilian, and Australian friends for winning the carbon lottery, they can demand climate reparations from every other country on the planet.
My best to everyone,
w.
BONUS GRAPHICS: Someone requested white color at the zero level:
And here are the breakdowns by region …
THE USUAL REQUEST: If you think that someone is wrong about something, please QUOTE THEIR EXACT WORDS. I SHOUT BECAUSE THIS IS IMPORTANT. QUOTE THEIR WORDS so that we can all understand exactly what you are objecting to. If you object to a long comment and all you link to is the comment, that’s not useful. We need to know exactly what you think is incorrect, the exact words that you find to be in error.
CODE: It’s ugly, but it’s here. It’s an 18 Mb zip file including code, functions, data (NCDF files), and product sheet. I think all parts are there, ask if you have questions.
SPREADSHEET DATA: I’ve collated the country-level data into a CSV file here.
DATA: It took a while to find it, because it’s at another website. You have to register first. Afterwards, log in, click on “Product Search and Order”, and select L4A global CO2 flux.
PRODUCT SHEET: The details of the various CO2 products are here, from the same website, not sure if you have to log in first. It’s also in my zipped file above.
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richardscourtney says:
July 6, 2014 at 12:26 am
If those Australian “red dots” are NOT because of concentrated human habitation, then are you claiming that it is just a coincidence that they are right on top of Sydney and Melbourne? And what on earth does that have to do with Africa?
It is not “improbable” that burning dung and wood emits CO2. Nor is it “improbable” that there are lots of people in sub-Saharan Africa doing just that. You can’t just wave your hands and say “extremely improbable”, Richard, that goes nowhere.
My essay neither says nor implies any such thing. I have made it abundantly clear that there are natural sources and sinks. And I have pointed out that places like Norway and Canada are likely natural sinks, irrespective of human activity.
No. That shows that the plants inhale CO2 in the summer and give off CO2 in the winter. The magnitude of that swing is indeed larger than the annual human contribution, but that swing is not a “natural imbalance”. In addition, the sum of the natural swings to date is ~ 0 … can you say the same for the sum of the human contribution?
Nope. I said I reported on the only full calendar year. In fact, the data goes from June 2009 through October 2011, a total of 29 months. Not being an idiot, I looked at all of the 12-month contiguous datasets, and found that there is little variation between them. So I picked the full calendar year and posted that graph.
Look, folks, if you think you’ve found some huge flaw in my work, don’t foolishly jump up like richard just did to proclaim that I’m wrong, wrong, wrong … ASK BEFORE ACCUSING!
Richard, stuff your “confirmation bias with respect to attribution”. I made it very, very clear that my ideas about attribution were SPECULATION, not claims. If you think that they are wrong, that’s fine … but claiming confirmation bias is a bridge too far.
On the other hand, me, I caution you about assuming I’ve made some mistake simply because I haven’t reported everything that I’ve analyzed.
I’d also caution you about confusing Australia and Africa. The red dots representing Sydney and Melbourne are not dependent on your claims about dung fires south of the Sahara …
w.
Greg Goodman says:
July 6, 2014 at 12:30 am
Say what??? RACook has given the reasons why the Antarctic is neither a net absorber nor a net emitter of CO2. It’s because ice neither absorbs nor emits much CO2. And the IBUKU data confirm his reasons.
For you to claim that this result means that they are “fabricating” the polar regions is a measure of your lack of comprehension coupled with a willingness to accuse others of scientific malfeasance … a bad combination.
w.
Joel O’Bryan says:
July 5, 2014 at 10:29 pm
…
One thing I always wondered about the Keeling Curve is, why it doesn’t seem to show economic slowdowns, like the 2009-2010 worldwide recession? Man-made CO2 output must have slowed but did a 2nd derivative of the Keeling Curve show this?
While some of the rise in CO2 concentration must be due to burning fossil fuel, I believe that most of it comes from poison-based agriculture killing soil organisms. CO2 is the basis of life (which makes me HATE alarmists) and the converse is: killing all those organisms causes decay, releasing their carbon back into the atmosphere as CO2. Earthworm counts have been done in India after 10 000 Indian farmers committed suicide after planting Monsanto’s seeds. It was found that this particular agriculture harmed the soils, (which means it is not sustainable) and that accounted for the crash in productivity which caused the despair.
Agriculture is not much affected by economic trends.
tokyoboy says:
July 6, 2014 at 4:04 am
Thanks, TB. I’ve fixed it in the text, I’m leaving it in the graphics, too much hassle to change.
w.
Jan Kjetil Andersen says:
July 6, 2014 at 12:09 pm
A sink does draw in material from surrounding areas. Depending on the level of activity, I would expect a dip might exist in the central portion, with an elevated “lip” about it. The area around a powerful source would be the inverse, spiking in the middle, with a surrounding trough.
You can’t extrapolate general behavior from the specific case of particular swatches of farmland. It may behave like that in general, or it may not.
Ferdinand Engelbeen says:
July 6, 2014 at 12:25 pm
“But as usual, I disagree with your last graph”
As usual, you ignore the fact that, since at least 2000, the rate of emissions continues steadily marching up, while atmospheric concentration is at a constant rate, completely in line with the temperature “pause”.
“…but the longer term trend in vegetation is opposite: more uptake with higher temperatures…”
As usual, you propose a mechanism which would lead to observable phase distortion in the temperature to CO2 relationship, which is completely unobservable in the data.
Willis:
I am astonished that at July 6, 2014 at 12:33 pm you say to me
Ye Gods Man!
I did NOT claim you were “wrong, wrong, wrong”. You cannot cite or quote any statement I made which did BECAUSE I MADE NO SUCH ACCUSATION(S).
But I did warn about confirmation bias. I said and you quoted my having said
Your response to that even handed warning was to say
I did NOT say you were wrong. That is your imagination.
I did NOT suggest you had made “some mistake”. That, too, is your imagination.
I did NOT “confuse Africa and Australia”, I used them as illustration of a point.
Do you remember this?
THE USUAL REQUEST: If you think that someone is wrong about something, please QUOTE THEIR EXACT WORDS. I SHOUT BECAUSE THIS IS IMPORTANT. QUOTE THEIR WORDS so that we can all understand exactly what you are objecting to.
Your objections to my points are fallacious.
And some of your points are psychological projection. For example, in your article you wrote
I accepted that you were telling the truth when YOU wrote “2010, the only full calendar year of data in the dataset” and I commented
Your response to that says
Willis, choosing 2010 as being a typical year is NOT the same as having 2010 as “the only full calendar year”.
I object to your saying I am wrong, wrong, wrong for commenting on what you say in your article because – you now say – I should have known what you wrote is wrong.
We had a terrible thread on WUWT last week where serious contributors to WUWT attacked each other. I regret that you seem to have adopted attack mode against me in this thread for no apparent reason.
Richard
Steve Fitzpatrick says:
July 6, 2014 at 6:28 am
I hate it when folks do this. You say that ocean uptake compared to global flus is “inconsistent with earlier estimates of of net ocean sequestration” … but which “earlier estimates”, and exactly how is it “inconsistent”? Without those details, your contribution as it stands is useless.
More to the point, Ibuki shows a net ocean flux of about -1.5 gigatons per year. There’s an “earlier estimate“, which is -2.0 ± 0.6 gigatons per year … so the IBUKI measurement is not even one standard error from the earlier estimate.
w.
Bart says:
July 6, 2014 at 12:57 pm
Jan Kjetil Andersen says:
July 6, 2014 at 12:09 pm
“Depending on the level of activity, I would expect a dip might exist in the central portion, with an elevated “lip” about it.”
There may be evidence for such behavior in the red ring surrounding the Congo Basin in Willis’ map. The Congo Basin has been called “the planet’s second lung”, ranked immediately below the Amazonian rainforest.
richardscourtney says:
July 6, 2014 at 1:08 pm
I said nothing of the sort. I said that you should ask before accusing, and I stand by that 100%.
w.
Willis Eschenbach says:
July 6, 2014 at 12:10 pm
As I read your article, it is a comment on the fact that some people think that a compensation between nations is meaningful. I took that as a precondition for the discussion.
If it had been meaningful, you show with your numbers that it would have the rather insane effect of transfer money from Congo to Scandinavia. I am commenting that this would not be so if you count the manmade emissions only, which is the only sensible way to measure it if you talk about compensations.
However, I am not in favor of compensation between nations, I am not a deluded green or a rent seeker, and I do not think I am an idiot either. I am just following up what I thought the article was all about. I think your comment is rather respect less. Let us have a civilized discussion.
If you take that as a precondition then I see no reason to discuss whether rich or poor nations have the highest emissions or sinks. The basis for your article then falls apart.
/Jan
Perhaps also about the Amazonian region itself. How else to explain the elevated red regions in Peru?
MattS says:
July 6, 2014 at 8:45 am
Sounds good, Matt … which is why I supplied all of the data as a CSV text file. That way, people who want some other analysis can have an easy way to do it.
w.
ladylifegrows says:
July 6, 2014 at 12:38 pm
In the Western countries hardest hit by the recession, emissions in 2009 fell noticeably, due to drops in manufacturing, transport & other economic sectors. The Global Carbon Project (grain of salt required, if not indeed an entire mine) calculated that 2009 emissions declined by 6.9% in the US, 7% in Germany & 11.8% in Japan. The Great Recession actually began in Q3 of 2008, however.
But despite these big drops in the West, global emissions fell by only one or two percent, because of continued economic growth in the developing world, especially China, whose emissions rose by 8% in 2009, while India’s grew by 6.2%. China, as you may know, emerged as the world’s top energy user during that decade.
Here are the annual CO2 growth rates as recorded at Mauna Loa:
year ppm/yr
1959 0.94
1960 0.54
1961 0.95
1962 0.64
1963 0.71
1964 0.28
1965 1.02
1966 1.24
1967 0.74
1968 1.03
1969 1.31
1970 1.06
1971 0.85
1972 1.69
1973 1.22
1974 0.78
1975 1.13
1976 0.84
1977 2.10
1978 1.30
1979 1.75
1980 1.73
1981 1.43
1982 0.96
1983 2.13
1984 1.36
1985 1.25
1986 1.48
1987 2.29
1988 2.13
1989 1.32
1990 1.19
1991 0.99
1992 0.48
1993 1.40
1994 1.91
1995 1.99
1996 1.25
1997 1.91
1998 2.93
1999 0.93
2000 1.62
2001 1.58
2002 2.53
2003 2.29
2004 1.56
2005 2.52
2006 1.76
2007 2.22
2008 1.60
2009 1.89
2010 2.44
2011 1.84
2012 2.66
2013 2.05
Note that the biggest annual gain was in 1998, the warm El Niño year.
Jan Kjetil Andersen says:
July 6, 2014 at 1:16 pm
Thanks for the reply, Jan. My apologies that I didn’t understand what you meant when you said:
I took that to mean that you wanted to start “meaningful talk of compensations”. My bad.
I don’t follow that. We’ve been told that money is owed, e.g. the UK owes money to India, because it is “polluting” the planet with CO2. I’m merely pointing out that on a net basis, India emits much more CO2 than the UK. How does that “fall apart” when I point out that there is no real-world actual basis for reparations because there is no observable damage?
I’m just trying to point out the foolishness of their position.
All the best,
w.
Willis Eschenbach:
At July 6, 2014 at 1:14 pm you say to me
Good. Perhaps you will adopt the practice you advocate because I made no “accusation” and I object to your accusation that I did.
I wrote, and your reply I have quoted here ignores
I stand by that 100%.
Richard
Bart says:
July 6, 2014 at 12:57 pm
<iAs usual, you propose a mechanism which would lead to observable phase distortion in the temperature to CO2 relationship, which is completely unobservable in the data.
Except if the trend in CO2 and dCO2/dt increase has litle to nothing to do with temperature, as is the case if human emissions are the cause of the increase of both and temperature is only responsible for the variability, as can be seen in the zero slope of dT/dt…
Richard Courtney, you say, and rightly:
However, you’re the guy who tried to bust my chops for only analyzing one year of data, without asking if I had analyzed more than that. And based on your misunderstanding, you went on to scold me on the basis that there was some big change due to the El Nino, when in fact their wasn’t. Plus you said I was a victim of “confirmation bias”.
In response, I said you should ask before making a bunch of statements that wouldn’t hold up.
I’m tired to the bone of being everyone’s whipping boy, Richard. I’m sick of folks assuming I’m too dumb to analyze all of the data. I’ve had it up to here with people who take a quick superficial read of my work, don’t look at the underlying data, don’t ask me any questions about what I’ve done, but just start in with some ludicrous claim that the red dots over Sydney and Melbourne must be wrong, because Africa is blah blah blah … here you go, your very claim:
Are you truly claiming that the red dots over Sydney and Melbourne are merely a galactic coincidence? That’s the dumbest thing I’ve read in the whole thread. What does Sydney have to do with Mali?
Now, I don’t mind dumb. I encounter that every day. But when someone accuses me of “confirmation bias” based on some cockamamie industrially-dumb claim about Africa, yes, Richard, I will bite back. Don’t lecture me about “confirmation bias” unless you have clear evidence of it.
I regret that my words have upset you, but that’s what happens when you accuse a man of “confirmation bias” without evidence. It’s a mistake to poke a grizzly bear with a stick. But let me take back whatever it is that you were offended by, apologize for whatever you are angry about and start over. Here we go:
My main message was, and is, ASK BEFORE ACCUSING, and I stand by that. If you think I’ve done something foolish or wrong, ASK FOR CLARIFICATION before you start in on my supposed errors.
You want to have a discussion, Richard, I’m your man. You want to accuse me of confirmation bias and not using all of the data without asking first, not so much …
w.
Willis Eschenbach
July 6, 2014 at 1:11 pm
I stand corrected, I had remembered, based on O2 concentration studies (apparently mistakenly), that the ocean was responsible for about 3/4 of the net CO2 uptake; recent studies actually suggest closer to half.
Ferdinand Engelbeen says:
July 6, 2014 at 1:50 pm
No exceptions.
Willis Eschenbach says:
July 6, 2014 at 1:27 pm
Apology accepted.
I see, and it is a good point-
However, if one counts the manmade emissions, only we get another picture. I would guess that the warm areas of the globe has more natural sources and the cold areas more natural sinks since CO2, like all gases, dissolves more easy in cold water than in warm. That was what I was pointing out.
If you then answer, as I perhaps erroneous interpreted it, something like; yes the numbers would be different with manmade emissions only, but it doesn’t count because CO2 compensation is idiotic anyway, then I think the basis for the article falls apart. Sorry if I in a haste misinterpreted you.
/Jan
milodonharlani: During the recession, China’s export industry slowed down as well. Yet the Mauna Loa readings show no effects whatsoever.
What is likely is that, as 98% of the CO2 is dissolved in oceans,
and as, according to the sea levels as indicators of dilation, the oceans warmed since the Little Ice Age,
the extra CO2 is mostly due to the chemical balance shift due to ocean warming.
Rather than due to human activity.
****
If you have a closed soda bottle and you inject extra CO2 in the air part of it, most will dissolve in the water and the CO2 in the air part will change little.
If you warm the bottle, the CO2 levels in the air part of the bottle will change a lot.
Lady life grows says, “Earthworm counts have been done in India after 10 000 Indian farmers committed suicide after planting Monsanto’s seeds. It was found that this particular agriculture harmed the soils, (which means it is not sustainable) and that accounted for the crash in productivity which caused the despair. Agriculture is not much affected by economic trends.”
Price volatility affects farmers more than any thing else besides an outright blight, infestation, or drought. What a silly string of statements. Organic activists are really getting outrageous and irresponsible in the claims they make on websites like these.
If any one wants to really understand how organic cotton or organic food crops are grown, please, take 3 minutes to watch this brief video by Leonard Gianessi, who discusses the use of hundreds of hours of bent over laborers to weed on organic farms. I promise you will not be sorry, and you will have a choice whether you want to pay five times more for organic products that use bent over human beings to pull weeds, or if you want to buy from a conventional grower who controls weeds with herbicides and by so doing spares slave labor, and increases yields by 30-50% in general.
Willis
I read this earlier today and thought it seemed like quite a nice bit of work. I don’t know anything about this data, I assume some changes in spectral responses as a proxy for CO2 flux, but assuming all these measurements are sound then this is a nice bit of work. Sure, you could knit-pick with your explanations or rather assumptions but I read those more as after thoughts…more like suggestion for further work. The analysis is interesting and certainly raises interesting questions. Good stuff.
Sorry nitpick 😉
And if we are concerned about the earthworms, the place to look is wind farms, which are copious sources of infrasound. Earthworms are very sensitive to lower notes as Darwin found out with his worm farm which was sitting on his piano.
The vibration from worthless windturbines is enough to break the enormous concrete pads they are set in. What do you think those vibrations in farm areas are doing to the worms? And yet they are continually placed all over the countryside in the UK, over the protests of the local residents, in order to meet EU targets for renewables.
ref: