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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stevefitzpatrick says:
July 7, 2014 at 3:48 am
Dang decimals, always messing me up … I’m gonna give up on them, never use them again … you’re right, of course.
w.
SELF-DELUSION
To Willis and anyone attempting to quantify planetary sources and sinks of CO2:
Make no mistake –
For the UN FCCC, ALL planetary sources + sinks (ocean, soil, forests, savannah, etc.) are part of the GAIA COMMONS. The UNFCCC considers ALL HUMAN activities which produce CO2 (power plant, manufacturing and transportation, farming, ranching, etc., …) to be transgression against Gaia… with the caveat that the countries which for the time being are too poor to purchase climate indulgences receive a wink and a UN-sanctioned quota of climate sinning… for a tbd time.
The ONLY sinks which will be given credit (towards mitigating the coming climatic disaster, and thereby receiving the UN seal of sustainability) are those projects which have been earmarked by the UNFCCC and have been paid for using climate guilt funding. The rest is treated as a collective GIVEN.
Whatever CO2 flux data is derived through instruments (satellite-based or otherwise) will be processed in such a manner as to conform to the above principles.
Expecting anything else is self-delusion.
Kurt in Switzerland
Willis Eschenbach says:
July 6, 2014 at 4:48 pm
Dear Willis,
I see that the rain problem is already resolved by Steve Fitzpatrick. I had my CO2 solubility data from:
http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/gases-solubility-water-d_1148.html
The solubility is about 3.3 g/l at 0°C and 1 bar CO2.
As far as I remember from an older calculation, it needs 400 m3 of saturated air to form 1 l of rain, which means that the reduction of CO2 concentration at the height of cloud formation is negligible. The same for where it pours down. Thus I don’t think the current or even future satellites can measure these small CO2 level changes.
But as the water quantities involved are enormous, the total amounts circulating over the different areas may be huge. Despite that, it takes millions of years for CO2 to make the beautiful caves in carbon rocks…
As mentioned by others, the satellite(s) don’t measure CO2 fluxes. As far as I know, they measure CO2 column concentrations and calculate fluxes by a model, calibrated by ground stations (like tall towers measuring at different heights). Most fluxes over land are mixing in the first few hundred meters (over the oceans there is little difference with height). If they can measure at different levels near ground then they can directly calculate fluxes, but that would question the resolution in area they claim…
Greg Goodman says:
July 7, 2014 at 4:17 am
The lag is because it is T not dT/dt that you should be plotting. Adding a 12mo filter to Bart’s plot makes it a lot clearer. The lag disappears and the true causal relationship becomes evident
I fully disagree. Any temperature caused rise or reduction of CO2 follows temperature with a lag. That is the case for the last 800,000 years. It can be calculated that for short term variations the lag of CO2 is about pi/2 after temperature variability (*).
If you take the derivatives of both temperature and CO2, you shift the results pi/2 backwards with as result that temperature variations and CO2 variations show a perfect match in timing. But that has no physical meaning at all. dT/dt variations cause dCO2/dt variations with a lag.
From the synchronous δ13C changes in opposite direction it is proven that the short term variations are caused by temperature variations on (tropical) vegetation:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/temp_dco2_d13C_mlo.jpg
But vegetation is not the cause of the trend of dCO2/dt as its trend is zero to negative from the oxygen balance. The same for the trend in dT/dt: zero with a slight offset to accommodate for the small increase in temperature over time (which gives less than 10 ppmv CO2 extra, not 100+).
What causes a linear increase of dCO2/dt is the slightly quadratic increase of CO2 emissions which leads to a slightly quadratic increase of CO2 in the atmosphere and thus a linear increase of dCO2/dt.
Further, if you try to match the exact slopes of dCO2/dt with T, you influence the amplitudes of the variability. The lower the slope of T, the lower the factor between the slopes must be, which makes that the amplitude gets smaller too. If dCO2/dt is caused by dT/dt and the slope is caused by human emissions, there is no problem at all…
(*) 4th comment by Paul_K at:
http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2013/10/21/diary-date-murry-salby.html?currentPage=2#comments
Greg Goodman says:
July 7, 2014 at 4:39 am
Hey they’re in anti-phase because of the seasons. Who is lagging who? Trying to use that to support causation is a non starter.
You hardly can see a lag in increase of CO2 in the seasonal changes if the increase is much smaller than the seasonal variability, but if you look at a longer time frame it is clear:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/co2_trends.jpg
In 1959 the difference between the South Pole and Mauna Loa was smaller than today: the lag increases over time together with the increase in human emissions mainly in the NH.
Greg Goodman says:
July 7, 2014 at 5:45 am
The sharp trough does not look like a gradual onset of leaf decay but it does look a lot like the rapid trough in ice coverage
Ice coverage and temperature are linked, but leave formation and temperature are linked too. But one can distinguish between the two by looking at the δ13C changes: as these go up with CO2, then the oceans are responsible, if δ13C goes opposite to CO2, then vegetation is responsible.
In this case, vegetation is responsible.
Indeed there is a variation in sink speed in the North Atlantic, but the sink place shifts with the ice edge, as the main increase in density is around freezing ice…
(*) 4th comment by Paul_K at:
http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2013/10/21/diary-date-murry-salby.html?currentPage=2#comments
Thanks for the link, I’d not seen that discussion and Paul_K is highly competent with sort of thing. He explains it well. But I’m not sure that you got the significance. The exponential response is the reason why short term change , like the fast changes over the last few decades is close to T matching d(CO2)/dt yet the ice core record indicates T more closely matching CO2 , with a lag.
The time-constant of the response lies somewhere between those two extremes.
It is the finality of the relaxation response that gives a delta_CO2 proportional to delta_T
All of this is a description of CO2 change that is caused by temperature. The part you minimise, yet the short term record clearly shows it.
If you think that Paul’s post agrees with your idea of short term change matching temp to CO2 directly you have not understood it.
The roughly 9mo lag is pi/2 of the dominant circa 3 y variability that is left once you filter out the annual cycle. However the form is a very poor match because it is the derivative that dominates the response at that scale and the derivative is not just a rescaled and shifted version of the time-series for anything other than a single harmonic function.
F: but if you look at a longer time frame it is clear:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/co2_trends.jpg
Now you’re just retreating to where you started that I’ve already pointed out does not work. You’re just hiding any variability by plotting quantities that are cumulative integrals. You rate of change plot clearly showed that the series are simply lagged.
oops I mean : are NOT simply lagged,
Ferdi says: From the synchronous δ13C changes in opposite direction it is proven that the short term variations are caused by temperature variations on (tropical) vegetation:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/temp_dco2_d13C_mlo.jpg
===
So why is the variation much greater at Alert and in Germany if it’s caused in the tropics?
Greg Goodman:
You respond to Ferdinand at July 7, 2014 at 10:00 am by asking
I am sure Ferdinand can come up with a possible explanation but – as with all possibilities – its validity is not demonstrated by its being possible.
Your question emphasises the need for additional spatial information which it can be hoped the new satellite will provide. I think the bulk of CO2 emissions (both natural and anthropogenic) are sequestered near their emission sources, but there is so little data that my opinion cannot be shown to be right or wrong.
At present there is so little data that almost anything is possible as an explanation of the observations of atmospheric CO2 concentration.
Richard
From the Bishopshill link :Oct 27, 2013 at 9:04 AM | Paul_K
“Incidentally, the entire lecture is brilliant and his arguments are very coherent with one exception in my mind – well worth watching. Even though I remain ultimately unconvinced by his dismissal of the human addition to CO2, wherein I believe he sets up a logical paradox, he left me convinced that we have underestimated the strength of the temperature control knob on atmospheric CO2. ”
That puts him close to Gosta Pettersson’s position. If you want to argue with guys like that you’ll need to brush up on your maths.
Greg Goodman says:
July 7, 2014 at 9:51 am
You’re just hiding any variability by plotting quantities that are cumulative integrals.
Different lags for different processes… The seasonal lag is a matter of temperature within a year, separate for each hemisphere, the lag over the full period is a matter of extra CO2 source and the speed of exchanges for small differences in concentration between altitudes and latitudes/hemispheres.
The seasonal changes show some lag between altitudes, but that is not the main interest: the main interest is the lag of the year by year increase. That hardly shows up in the seasonal variability, except if you make yearly averages. It is the yearly averages which show that the increase is first in the NH and year after year increasing, including an increasing lag between NH and SH. Just plot all the yearly (or even monthly) data of Mauna Loa and the South Pole since the start of the measurements: the difference between the two increases over time.
Greg Goodman says:
July 7, 2014 at 9:52 am
So why is the variation much greater at Alert and in Germany if it’s caused in the tropics?
Different processes with different time frames involved:
The seasonal changes are dominated mainly by the uptake/release in the NH extra-tropical forests. Process:
– temperature increase: CO2 decrease, δ13C increase
– temperature decrease: CO2 increase, δ13C decrease
The 2-3 years inter-annual changes (like ENSO) are dominated by tropical vegetation: Process:
– temperature increase: CO2 increase, δ13C decrease
– temperature decrease: CO2 decrease, δ13C increase
The pre-industrial long term changes are dominated by the oceans. Process:
– temperature increase: CO2 increase, little change in δ13C
– temperature decrease: CO2 decrease, little change in δ13C
The past 1.5 centuries are dominated by humans. Process over the past 50+ years:
– temperature increase: CO2 increase averaged over 3 years, fast drop in δ13C
– temperature decrease: CO2 increase averaged over 3 years, fast drop in δ13C
Conclusion:
While the seasonal and inter-annual changes both are caused by vegetation, they are opposite in reaction to temperature changes and from different parts of the globe. The longer term change is mainly from the oceans, where vegetation again is an increasing sink with elevated temperatures (outside the tropics: longer growing seasons, increasing area after ice melt), but the ocean equilibrium with the atmosphere is dominant.
At present there is so little data that almost anything is possible as an explanation of the observations of atmospheric CO2 concentration.
Richard
Well not quite but it does require some proper physics and maths to eliminate certain possibilities.
Human emissions can’t explain the decadal scale variability , a simple relaxation model driven by temperature can. That is a lot more convincing than just roughly matching two slowly increasing integrals and concluding it accounts for the change.
Greg Goodman says:
July 7, 2014 at 9:42 am
From Paul_K:
The output response is phase-shifted relative to any sinusoidal temperature input; as response times get larger, the phase shift asymptotes to a shift of exactly pi/2. Hence, putting any realistic (i.e. long) transient response in place brings temperature exactly into phase with dCO2/dt.
and
The main message is that the observation of an approximate scale relationship between temperature and the time derivative of CO2 does not allow us to conclude that there is a simple underlying relationship of the form dCO2/dt = k(T-Te)
What we see is that the CO2 variability lags T variability and dCO2/dt lags dT/dt variability because the CO2 shift caused by a temperature shift takes time to complete. Here for the (deep) ocean exchanges of ~40 GtC/year:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/upwelling_temp.jpg
From seasons to ice ages, there is a straightforward relationship between temperature changes and CO2 changes of between 4 and 8 ppmv/°C over time frames from months to multi-millennia. Now in the past 50 years of increasing human emissions, there should be a new relationship of over 100 ppmv/°C without any influence from human emissions?
Greg Goodman:
At July 7, 2014 at 11:15 am you say to me
Hmm. Human emissions may be responsible for an alteration to the equilibrium state of the carbon cycle system and – thus – be the cause of the observed change to atmospheric CO2 concentration.
Ferdinand says the CO2 emissions from human activity directly cause the observed rise to atmospheric CO2 concentration.
I say the he CO2 emissions from human activity cannot directly cause the observed rise to atmospheric CO2 concentration but may be an indirect cause although recovery from the Little Ice Age (LIA) is more likely.
and I have been arguing this for a decade and since before publication of this
Rorsch A, Courtney RS & Thoenes D, ‘The Interaction of Climate Change and the Carbon Dioxide Cycle’ E&E v16no2 (2005)
The matter can be summarised as follows.
It is possible that the equilibrium of the carbon cycle system has been disturbed and the system is adjusting to the new equilibrium. Some processes of the carbon cycle have rate constants of years or decades and, therefore, the system takes decades to adjust to a new equilibrium.
Using that assumption we demonstrated it is possible to model the atmospheric CO2 rise indicated by the Mauna Loa data as being caused by any one of several mechanisms with either a natural or an anthropogenic cause. Each of our models matched the data to within reported measurement error for each year.
The assumption of anthropogenic CO2 overloading the carbon cycle induces the IPCC to use its Bern Model which requires unjustifiable 5-year smoothing to obtain agreement between that model’s output and the empirical data.
Also, the dynamics of the seasonal variation indicate that the carbon cycle can sequester all of the emitted CO2 (both natural and anthropogenic) of a year but it does not. This apparent paradox is explicable by the assumption that the equilibrium of the carbon cycle system has been disturbed and the system is adjusting to the new equilibrium.
The seasonal atmospheric CO2 variation happens as a result of the carbon cycle processes with short rate constants (hours, days, weeks and months).
The observed annual rise in atmospheric CO2 happens as a result of the carbon cycle processes with long constants (years, decades and centuries).
If the assumption is correct that the equilibrium of the carbon cycle system has been disturbed so the system is adjusting to the new equilibrium, then the observed rise in atmospheric CO2 concentration is a result of whatever has caused the equilibrium to change. The most likely cause is the rise in global temperature which is observed as recovery from the Little Ice Age (LIA), but other causes are possible and the anthropogenic emission of CO2 is one of them.
Hence, it is possible (although unlikely) that the anthropogenic CO2 emission is causing the rise in atmospheric CO2.
Richard
From seasons to ice ages, there is a straightforward relationship between temperature changes and CO2 changes of between 4 and 8 ppmv/°C over time frames from months to multi-millennia.
like I said you have not understood the relaxation response:
ΔCO2 = Asin(ωt) – Aωτcos(ωt) + Aωτexp(-t/τ’)
Note the ω in the second terms coeff. also note that A is frequency dependent for both terms.
This is exactly the same model that I discussed here in modelling temp response to radiative changes:
http://climategrog.wordpress.com/?attachment_id=399
Ferdinand Engelbeen:
I doubt there is any aspect of the atmospheric CO2 rise causation issue you and I have not disputed over the years.
One such issue again arises in your post at July 7, 2014 at 11:31 am where you say
Greg Goodman writes at July 7, 2014 at 11:49 am to provide one possible refutation of that.
My refutation is more fundamental than his.
You are assuming the carbon cycle system was the same in the last ice age as now. But there is only thing we know with certainty about that: We know the carbon cycle system is now very different from what it was in the ice age because the carbon cycle system is driven by biota and temperature variations which are not the same now as they were in the ice age. So, we know your assumption is invalid but we do not know the reality.
As I said, we need much more data to resolve the true cause of the observed recent rise in atmospheric CO2 concentration: at present, almost anything is possible as an explanation.
Richard
Greg Goodman says:
July 7, 2014 at 11:49 am
like I said you have not understood the relaxation response:
ΔCO2 = Asin(ωt) – Aωτcos(ωt) + Aωτexp(-t/τ’)
Indeed, I have some memory left of that kind of formulae from 45-50 years ago, but never used them again…
The problem I see with this kind of theoretical exercises is that it is all frequency analysis, which largely explains the short term response of CO2 to temperature, but human emissions have no frequency (or maybe an extremely long one) and no detectable response to the small variations in human input.
Thus all you do is trying to explain a long term trend from short term variability, while one of the largest input factors, about twice the observed increase in the atmosphere AND twice the inter-annual variability, goes undetected in a frequency analyses…
richardscourtney says:
July 7, 2014 at 12:02 pm
You are assuming the carbon cycle system was the same in the last ice age as now.
Richard, I never said or even implied that. Of course the carbon cycle now is different from ice ages. But why should it be different with the MWP or the Roman warm period and how different with the LIA?
The drop in CO2 between the MWP and the LIA is ~6 ppmv for a drop of ~0.8°C or 8 ppmv/°C, the same ratio as for the difference between all glacial and interglacial intervals. The current increase is 100+ ppmv with a temperature increase not higher than the MWP-LIA drop. Human emissions over the same time span were near 200 ppmv.
Do you really think that the current increase has nothing to do with human emissions?
Kinetic resolution (and spatial resolution, as discussed by Bart and Ferdinand upthread). Of course it depends on which fluxes are being investigated. For example, if a satellite passes overhead and makes a single measurement in the air column above an area of ocean at midday and again, say, 24 hours later at midday, what does that say about the daily photosynthetic flux? Not much probably, even if the two measurements differ significantly, and they may be the same within experimental error.
Probably worth repeating what Greg Goodman said upthread;
Other fluxes are also operating, not just lateral&vertical transport of CO2 by atmospheric motions. Surface exchange, thermo-chemical sources/sinks due to mixing/upwelling from below (where the satellite can’t measure, presumably). The satellite wasn’t even there to take measurements at midnight when the daily (negative) photosynthetic flux was reversed and positive due to respiration. Thermo-chemical processes may reverse in the opposite direction.
Many more rapid measurements=greater kinetic (time) resolution and may allow resolution of some of these fluxes. Whether the new satellite can start to make inroads into these fluxes would be interesting. I’m fairly sure the existing satellite doesn’t. The models are losing a lot of carbon as well as heat. If the Japanese satellite data had resolved the problems they would have turned the volume up to 11, trumpeted it from the rooftops, and saved NASA the price of a satellite.
Ferdinand Engelbeen:
You are being disingenuous in your post at July 7, 2014 at 12:45 pm when you ask me
You know full well that I do not have any idea as to whether the cause of the “current increase” in atmospheric CO2 is natural, or is anthropogenic, or is some combination of natural and anthropogenic causes.
In reality nobody knows because their is not sufficient information for anybody to know. Despite that there are people who claim to know the “current increase” is natural while others – including you – claim to know the “current increase” is anthropogenic.
As to your assertion concerning the MWP and LIA, that is merely an iteration of your misplaced belief that ice cores are sample bottles. That proxy data does NOT indicate actual historical atmospheric CO2 concentration.
Richard
Willis Eschenbach says:
July 6, 2014 at 12:33 pm
[In reply to this statement by richardscourtney] “However, that is not true. The natural emission varies with the time of year (this is the Mauna Loa variation)”
“No. That shows that the plants inhale CO2 in the summer and give off CO2 in the winter.”
—————-
And Sam C asks …. by what mechanism or process does plants or plant biomass give off or emit prodigious amounts CO2 in the winter time?
Surely not by rotting or decaying because that would be in direct violation of Nature’s Dry Storage & Refrigerator-Freezer Law that controls microbial decomposition of plant and animal biomass.
Now I don’t have a PhD ….. so you probably won’t believe or take my word for the above …. but that is no excuse for anyone to IGNORE or avert their eyes and their mind to the USDA mandates and/or recommendations for the storage and preservation of plant and animal biomass.
The following “source link” if for the State of California …. but all States ….. and all Public Health Departments abide by the USDA mandates and rules. To wit:
Proper Storage Temperatures and Moisture Conditions
http://www.cde.ca.gov/ls/nu/fd/mb00404.asp
The USDA mandates, rules and/or recommendations are based in their entirety on ….. Nature’s Dry Storage & Refrigerator-Freezer Law.
Humans are not very productive if they get too cold or too dry, ….. and neither are most all microorganisms. They both “slow down” as the temperatures decreases below 60F … and “stop” all activity when frozen solid.
milodonharlani says:
July 6, 2014 at 3:01 pm
“I’d like to think that the whole ~120 ppm gain since c. AD 1850 owes entirely to naturally warmer seas, but IMO evidence from the hotter than ….”
————–
Me thinks that your 1st mistake is in assuming that that “c. AD 1850” CO2 figure is accurate or correct.
Samuel C Cogar:
Thankyou for your support at July 7, 2014 at 1:09 pm.
As you say, that comment by Willis can be debated. However, his entire post which you address is an abberation which it would be kindly to forget. It is mostly aggressive rant and is entirely illogical; for example. and pertaining to your point, he asserts that the seasonal variation is not a natural imbalance of emission and sequestration without his providing any suggestion of what else it could be.
I suggest that it is best to ‘move on’ from that post.
Richard