97% consensus Carbon dioxide

EPA document supports ~3% of atmospheric carbon dioxide is attributable to human sources

11 years ago
Anthony Watts

NOTE: this post has an error, see update below. – Anthony

From a Wry Heat reprinted with permission of Jonathan DuHamel

A new post on The Hockey Schtick reviews a new paper “that finds only about 3.75% [15 ppm] of the CO2 in the lower atmosphere is man-made from the burning of fossil fuels, and thus, the vast remainder of the 400 ppm atmospheric CO2 is from land-use changes and natural sources such as ocean outgassing and plant respiration.”

This new work supports an old table from the Energy Information Administration which shows the same thing: only about 3% of atmospheric carbon dioxide is attributable to human sources.  The numbers are from IPCC data. 

Look at the table and do the arithmetic: 23,100/793,100 = 0.029.

URL for table: http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/1605/archive/gg04rpt/pdf/tbl3.pdf

EPA_Table3pct

If one wanted to make fun of the alleged consensus of “climate scientists”, one could say that 97% of carbon dioxide molecules agree that global warming results from natural causes.

===============================================================

UPDATE:

Thanks to everyone who pointed out the difference in the chart and the issues.

I was offered this post by the author in WUWT Tips and Notes, here: http://wattsupwiththat.com/tips-and-notes/#comment-1696307 and reproduced below.

The chart refers to the annual increase in CO2, not the total amount. So it is misleading.

Since the original author had worked for the Tucson Citizen I made the mistake of assuming it was properly vetted.

The fault is mine for not checking further. But as “pokerguy” notes, it won’t disappear. Mistakes are just as valuable for learning. – Anthony Watts

wryheat2 says:

July 28, 2014 at 12:28 pm

Mr. Watts,

John Droz suggested I contact you.

On my blog, I commented on the reasearch by Denica Bozhinova on CO2 content due to fossil fuel burining. She apparently scared The Hockey Schtick into taking down his post on the matter. However, there is an older table from EIA which I reproduce on my post.

Denica Bozhinova has commented extensively, and frankly, I can’t understand her position since she seems to contradict what she wrote in the abstract to “Simulating the integrated summertime Ä14CO2 signature from anthropogenic emissions over Western Europe”

See my post here (you may reprint it if you wish):

http://wryheat.wordpress.com/2014/07/19/only-about-3-of-co2-in-atmosphere-due-to-burning-fossil-fuels/

Jonathan DuHamel

Tucson, AZ

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JJ
July 29, 2014 9:22 am

Nick Stokes says:
It can’t be sustained, whereas our continual additions are.

Entirely unsupported assertion, contrary to known facts. When we started pumping CO2 into the atmosphere, only half of what we figured we were adding stayed in the atmosphere. That demonstrates that Nature’s carbon sinks can change capacity. As anthro CO2 emissions have gone up, the proportion of them apparently sequestered has remained constant, indicating that the increase in sink capacity has not only been sustained, but has grown.
No one knows the mechanism by which this annual vanishing CO2 operates. Our concept of the earth’s carbon budget remains unbalanced, and not by a small amount. Until our great grandchildren succeed in sorting it out, pronouncements about carbon sources to the atmosphere are merely the results of political inkblot interpretation.

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Jeremy Shiers
July 29, 2014 9:23 am

DMA and Greg Goodman
several other people, including me, have had a go at reproducing Murray Salby’s work showing CO2 is proportional to integral of preceeding global temperature (anomaly).
Here’s my attempt which includes links to data, code and spreadsheet
http://jeremyshiers.com/blog/murray-salby-showed-co2-follows-temperature-now-you-can-too/
In this post I compared CO2 levels with RSS. I have also compared CO2 against HadCrut4 and got a similar result (though not identical). Yet to post that though.
Have a play and tell us what you find

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Tom J
July 29, 2014 9:25 am

What’s really the point behind these IPCC figures adopted by the EIA in the table above? In the end they’re just numbers burdened by interpretations with the interpretations themselves burdened by the numbers. I assume the listed anthropogenic source of 23,100 million metric tons of CO2 is probably modestly accurate since the records on fossil fuel extraction, sales, and consumption are likely well documented. Unless they’re not, because the stated increase in atmospheric CO2 is considered to be from anthropogenic sources, and that stated increase of 11,700 is almost exactly 1/2 of that 23,100 source. Oh, I know, the biosphere takes up the other 11,700- million metric tons of that 23,100 source! Now, of course that same biosphere can suck up a whopping 770,000 million metric tons (a number itself subject to measurement error and interpretation) of CO2 from natural sources with such precision that there is no net gain whatsoever but add to that volume a mere 23,100, or 3% and, by golly, it just can’t suck up any more. But, it can somehow eat up the first half of that and then it’s belly is full? No further distention than that? Why not? No one knows? Every single one of the numbers in that table; 770,000 million metric tons of CO2 naturally sourced; 23,100 mmt anthropogenic; 793,100 mmt natural and anthropogenic total, 781,400 mmt absorbed, and 11,700 mmt of CO2 annual growth; can be interpreted and explained in more ways than there’s numbers shown. And every one could be wrong.

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policycritic
July 29, 2014 9:33 am

So, the anthropogenic CO2 addition to the atmosphere is calculated by subtracting 280 PPM (pre-industrial) from 400 PPM (current concentration)? That’s how you arrive at 120 PPM as the human contribution?
So: no new trees grew since the pre-industrial age, and no deforestation? No additional crops or chorophyll? No volcanoes belched? The deep ocean water doesn’t slap up the side of Peru in the ENSO cycle, or the Kelvin wave when the trade winds play peek-a-boo? Cosmic rays don’t increase carbon-14.
It’s all the fault of cars and choo-choos, cement and air-conditioning, and the increasing global population exhaling every five seconds.
Do you know how stupid this sounds to a regular person?

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sleepingbear dunes
July 29, 2014 9:36 am

Mistake and embarrassment or not, this was a good airing out of the issue and a good chance for those with the knowledge to share it with others. An educational moment for all.
All things considered, a good post.

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policycritic
July 29, 2014 9:38 am

Tom J says:
July 29, 2014 at 9:25 am
What’s really the point behind these IPCC figures adopted by the EIA in the table above?

No kidding. Where’s the water vapor?

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TonyG
July 29, 2014 9:39 am

The fault is mine for not checking further. But as “pokerguy” notes, it won’t disappear. Mistakes are just as valuable for learning. – Anthony Watts
And more honest, too. Something sorely lacking elsewhere. Thank you.

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claimsguy
July 29, 2014 9:40 am

Policycritic: I would hope that a regular person would think about this a little more deeply than you suspect. A regular person would probably figure out that trees grew both before and after humans industrialized. Likewise volcanoes. Likewise ENSO. All of those things happened before us and will happen after us. They are a given. What’s new since we industriaized? Only a few things relevant to this: we added carbon dioxide in amounts that the planet cannot readily absorb, and we insitituted land use changes. I think the regular person understands all of this. We took a planet in rough balance and tipped the scales. I think a regular person can figure that out.

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PMHinSC
July 29, 2014 9:42 am

claimsguy says:
July 29, 2014 at 9:13 am
“But we do have a planet’s worth of infrastructure that is based on certain assumptions we’ve made about rainfall, temperature, available water supplies and sea level. If those assumptions prove to be incorrect, we will have to do something about it: relocate cities….”
Even if these assumptions are correct cities such as Las Vagas with average July temps of 105 Deg F and annual rainfall of around 10″, use a disproportionate and unsustainable amount of water and energy. You don’t have to believe in CAGW to understand that the earth is getting more crowded putting ever increasing pressure on natural resources. And you don’t have to believe in CAGW to believe that thru land use policies and albedo changes (e.g. carbon soot) man is effecting his environment.

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richardscourtney
July 29, 2014 9:43 am

MikeB:
At July 29, 2014 at 4:56 am you say

It is easy to see that, without the human contribution, the natural CO2 sinks on the planet could cope with CO2 naturally produced but when human-made CO2 is included these sinks are overloaded and there is an excess of 11,700 tonnes of CO2 left in the atmosphere each year.

NO!
Considering the dynamics of the seasonal atmospheric CO2 variation (see e.g. here), it is easy to see that the natural CO2 sinks on the planet can cope with all the CO2 produced naturally and anthropogenically.
The seasonal variation has a saw-tooth form. It plummets as net sequestration occurs then rapidly reverses. There is NO reduction to sequestration rate as sinks fill: clearly, the sinks do NOT fill.
However, the annual rise of atmospheric CO2 is the residual of the seasonal variation of atmospheric CO2. So, although the dynamics of the seasonal atmospheric CO2 variation clearly show that the sinks could sequester all the CO2 of a year, the annual rise shows they don’t.
These observed effects are explicable as being a result of adjustment towards changed equilibrium state of the carbon cycle system. The seasonal variation is response to processes with short (i.e. minutes, hours, days, months) rate constants, and the annual rise is response to processes with long (years, decades, centuries) rate constants.
If this explanation of the recent rise in atmospheric CO2 is correct then there are several possible causes of the altered equilibrium. The anthropogenic CO2 emission is one possible cause but the temperature rise from the Little Ice Age (LIA) is more likely.
Please note that by using this assumption we were able to model the rise in atmospheric CO2 concentration as being caused by a variety of effects both natural and anthropogenic.
(ref. (ref. Rorsch A, Courtney RS & Thoenes D, ‘The Interaction of Climate Change and the Carbon Dioxide Cycle’ E&E v16no2 (2005) )
Each of our models matches the Mauna Loa data to within stated measurement accuracy for each year.
The good fit of each our models with the Mauna Loa data contrasts with the poor fit of the Bern Model used by the IPCC: the Bern Model requires unjustifiable 5-year smoothing of the data to obtain agreement with the data. This need for this unjustifiable smoothing is not surprising because the Bern Mode assumes the CO2 sinks are overloaded when it is clear that they are not.
Richard

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JimS
July 29, 2014 9:50 am

A regular person should figure out that humans probably contributed one more CO2 molecule per 10,000 atmospheric parts. That one CO2 molecule joined the other 3 that were already there, making four CO2 molecules per 10,000 atmospheric molecules. That is quite the accomplishment for little ole man. If he keeps adding more CO2 molecules like that, who knows what could happen?

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Latitude
July 29, 2014 9:59 am

MikeB says:
July 29, 2014 at 4:56 am
It is easy to see that, without the human contribution, the natural CO2 sinks on the planet could cope with CO2 naturally produced but when human-made CO2 is included these sinks are overloaded and there is an excess of 11,700 tonnes of CO2 left in the atmosphere each year.
===
so the planet is static….and every time a volcano erupts and increases the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere…..it stays there
..and man emits a special kind of CO2 that accumulates
tonnes sounds like a whole lot….doesn’t it?

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wryheat2
July 29, 2014 10:02 am

Mr. Watts,
First, I apologize for any embarrassment or misunderstanding my post may have caused. I wrote the post before Hockey Schtick took down their post.
It seems that I, and several commenters, did not appreciate or catch the distinction between annual emissions attribution and annual concentration increases.
The comments have been both interesting and helpful. They also show that there is still controversy about the “balance of Nature.”
Jonathan DuHamel

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Steven Mosher
July 29, 2014 10:15 am

Greg
“Until he does make some proper account of his calculations public, it is incorrect there is no validity in comments of the form “Further he showed that … ” He didn’t. He did a video presentation, a lecture.”
I wish more people would get this point.
papers, videos, blog posts, comments are not science. they are advertisements for science.
the Science is the actual work done. the actual data and the actual code.
not a description of the data but the actual data used.
not a description of the math in words, but the actual math or code.

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Nick Stokes
July 29, 2014 10:18 am

wryheat2 says: July 29, 2014 at 10:02 am
“I wrote the post before Hockey Schtick took down their post.”
The first comment at your blog was from the author, pointing out that Hockey Schtick had grossly misinterpreted the paper, and on being told of this, taken down the thread (with her comment).
It was five days later that you recommended the post for reproduction at WUWT.

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policycritic
July 29, 2014 10:24 am

claimsguy says:
July 29, 2014 at 9:40 am

Yes, the correlation is simplistiically obvious. But Leif Svalgaard taught me a valuable lesson when I grilled him about his insisting on using the term “correlation” and not causation after 400 years of scientists observing the effect of solar rays on the planet. I don’t recall the exact issue he was making, because his answer was far more important to me. His answer was, and I paraphrase, ‘because we don’t know the physics, and until we do, all we can say is that there is a correlation’.
How do you know that we “cannot readily absorb” additional CO2? Where are those measurements and how does that work in the infrared where all the absorption–all the global warming caused by CO2–apparently takes place. The absorption band for CO2 in the infrared is roughly 13µ to 18µ with radiative opacity at 15µ. That’s where CO2 acts like a greenhouse gas, unless I’ve been reading the science all wrong. The Kelvin temperatures for that range are from -58F to -170F. That’s got to be at the top of the troposphere, no? And since the CO2 molecule itself is 1.5 heavier than the air, it’s the winds that assure it’s well-mixed in the atmosphere.
So where is the physics and where are the papers that describe only naturally derived CO2 molecules make it to the top of the troposphere to perform the natural job of acting like a good greenhouse gas keeping us from freezing, while the evil additions by man lurk close to the earth’s surface where no radiative absorption of CO2 goes on and act like a pollutant and a poison according to the latest riffs from activists who know zip about radiative physics? I’ve been looking for those papers. And although I am not a scientist, I am one of those boring people who read the scientific papers referred to in articles, whether I can understand them or not, to break through my column of ignorance and educate myself.
Frankly, saying 400-280 = 120 PPM, therefore anthropogenic in as many years, is BS. It’s based on supposition. We understand about 3% of what the oceans are doing. The first infrared satellite went up in 1985. Our knowledge of plate tectonics is 50 years old; the uppy-downy of continents is barely understood. And our satellite temperature record is 35 years old. I’m ready to be convinced, but I need to see something solid.

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Samuel C Cogar
July 29, 2014 10:25 am

Article says:
“This new work supports an old table from the Energy Information Administration which shows the same thing: only about 3% of atmospheric carbon dioxide is attributable to human sources.
Look at the table and do the arithmetic: 23,100/793,100 = 0.029.”
————————————————-
Table 3: Global and Anthropo Sources and Absorption of G-h Gases in the 1990s
………Gas ……………. Natural ….. Human Made … Total ….. Total …. Annual Increase
Carbon Dioxide Emissions Absorption
(Million Metric Tons) … 770,000 ……. 23,100 …..… 793,100 …. 781,400 …….. 11,700
Human made emissions of 23,100 MMTs and distribution of these emissions (atmospheric absorption 11,700 MMTs, ocean absorption 6,200 MMTs, and land absorption 5,100 MMTs)
—————————————
Given the above Table data, humans are responsible for an annual 11,700,000,000 metric ton increase in atmospheric CO2 during the 1990s.
But the Mona Loa record shows that atmospheric CO2 was 357.29 ppm in 1990 … and was 371.51 ppm in 2000 …. for a total increase of 14.22 ppm in the 1990s ….. or an average 1.422 ppm/year during the 1990s.
And if the average mass of the atmosphere is about 5 quadrillion (5,000,000,000,000,000) metric tons ….. and the atmospheric CO2 was at 357 ppm ….. there was approximately 1,785,000,000,000 (1.785 trillion) metric tons of CO2 in the atmosphere in 1990.
Thus, each one (1) ppm of CO2 is equal to 5,000,000,000 (5 billion) metric tons of CO2
And if there was an average 1.422 ppm/year increase in CO2 during the 1990s then that means there was an average yearly increase of 7,110,000,000 metric tons of CO2.
Which is only 7,110 Million Metric Tons of CO2 …. and which is 4,590 MMT (40%) less than what the above Table is claiming to be the Annual Increase was (11,700 MMT).
Does anyone know what happened to that average yearly loss of 4,590 Million Metric Tons of a decade’s worth of Anthropogenic CO2 emissions?
That’s roughly 45,900 Million Metric Tons of missing Anthropogenic CO2 emissions.

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Bernard Lodge
July 29, 2014 10:50 am

Alan Robertson says:
July 29, 2014 at 9:10 am
Bernard Lodge says:
July 29, 2014 at 6:50 am
_______________________
Are you attributing the annual Northern Hemisphere change in CO2 concentration solely to temperature change? I didn’t see where you mentioned that the NH biosphere begins thriving in Spring and returns to dormancy each Autumn.
*********
The seasonal fluctuation of CO2 is a global phenomenon, though the degree of fluctuation does vary by location. My mention of ‘northern’ spring and fall was to avoid confusion with reversal of seasons in the southern hemisphere. To be clearer, the levels of CO2 at Mauna Loa drop 7 ppm in March/April every year then jump by 9 ppm in Sept/Oct each year. The cause of these changes in is believed to be growth in vegetation in the ‘warming’ hemisphere (northern summer) sucking up CO2 due to increased photosynthesis combined with the cooling southern hemisphere (southern winter) causing increased absorption of CO2 into the oceans – both affects happening at the same time. In Sept/Oct, the process reverses as vegetation growth slows down in the north while ocean temperatures rise in the south, both causing global CO2 levels to rise. Don’t forget that the northern hemisphere has most of the land and the southern hemisphere has most of the oceans so the effects don’t cancel out.
So the answer to your question is that yes, the CO2 is changing due to the temperature changing and not the other way around as the IPCC claim. Hence my really basic question .. can a dependent variable be an independent variable at the same time?
Clearly, CO2 levels are driven by seasonal temperature changes every year yet we are told that changes in CO2 cause changes in temperature! This is not a trick question, I really want to know what is the explanation of this?

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policycritic
July 29, 2014 11:13 am

PMHinSC says:
July 29, 2014 at 9:42 am
Even if these assumptions are correct cities such as Las Vagas [sic] with average July temps of 105 Deg F and annual rainfall of around 10″, use a disproportionate and unsustainable amount of water and energy.

When the Colorado River rights were carved up in 1924, California got approx 4 million acre ft per year, Arizona approx 2.2 million acre ft/yr, Utah a little less, and Nevada got 400,000 acre ft/yr because they thought no one would live there.
The entire state of Nevada makes do on 400,000 acre feet of water each year, 1/10th that of California.
So who are the water conservation experts In Nevada? The casino owners. Specifically Steve Wynn, who decided to solve it as soon as he got to town in the 80s. The Mirage and Treasure Island, built in the 80s, were double-plumbed to catch all the grey water (shower, bath, sink). Wynn built water-treatment plants in the basements so that he could use the water to irrigate his golf courses and fill his fountains.
Then he invented, or had someone invent, an absolutely revolutionary way to water the golf courses and lush gardens he wanted for his resorts. (That heat evaporates 60% of the water from over-the-ground sprinklers.)
Las Vegas soil is caliche and as hard as tooth enamel. It contributes to lethal flash floods when it rains because it’s like raining on marble. The soil is ‘hard’ and super alkaline. You can’t put a metal pipe into the ground without deposits forming, clogging them.
Wynn invented irrigation grids of PVC piping placed 20″ below the surface to draw the roots down, and run his grey water through them. The problem was the “+” attachment connecting each square in the grid pattern. They would clog, and he couldn’t dig up his golf courses to fix them. Whatever it was he invented to fix the problem gave him an instant patent. He runs the entire system with a computer monitoring system.
Wynn got the other casino owners to build their casinos his way, and as a result, all the Las Vegas casinos (except the old dives) are so efficient in their water and electrical use, they return 1/3 of their water to the Colorado River every year. They only use 3% of Southern Nevada’s total water usage, even with all their perfectly green golf courses and bright lights. Residential customers used 60% to 75% of the remainder, and industry the rest. So the Southern Nevada Water District went on a campaign to pay people to give up their lawns and embed 3 ft PVC pipes vertically beside each tree’s rootball. Watering whatever remained is on strict schedules monitored by water police. Southern Nevada now supplements their water supply by buying from counties in the middle of the state.
Las Vegas is about the most water and energy aware city in the country.

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Mark
July 29, 2014 11:18 am

johnmarshall says:
This claim is totally a guess. Volcanogenic CO2 is more plentiful than anthropogenic CO2 and both are isotopically identical. How can you differentiate?????
IIRC when people have actually looked at isotope ratios of “fossil fuels” they have found that they can vary markedly depending on the source.
Also such fuels can oxidise without any human intervention.

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Eric S.
July 29, 2014 11:20 am

Yes folks, the natural CO2 molecules from the table know they should devote themselves to absorption, so the man-made ones can stay in the atmosphere. (Do I need to put a sarcasm warning?) Because, you know, only the man-made component has changed. Sheesh.

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Mike McMillan
July 29, 2014 11:29 am

I have a truncated copy of that chart that I copied from WUWT, dated July 19, 2009.

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Alan Robertson
July 29, 2014 11:30 am

Man’s first miniscule contributions to atmospheric CO2 concentrations could probably be attributed to the Romans, who set about making cement by heating limestone.
Considering that for most of Earth’s history, atmospheric CO2 concentrations were much higher than they have been in the past 450K years, one could surmise that geologic processes do not ultimately keep up with C sequestration. It is possible that the level of CO2 available to the biosphere could fall to a point unable to sustain life as we know it, without man’s involvement.
Fabled virgin sacrifices to the volcano would have better served all of planetary life had their purpose been to exhort the volcano to erupt.

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Ferdinand Engelbeen
July 29, 2014 11:51 am

I had added several comments at the article on the HockeySchtick, which all disappeared together with the article. Not so nice that the article disappeared without any comment why. Thanks to Anthony that this blog is of a far better standard of fairness to show that mistakes can be made, but will be corrected if that is pointed to. Not the Skeptical Science way of rewriting history…

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Hockey Schtick
July 29, 2014 11:59 am

Wow, I’m quite surprised to see this post at WUWT 6 days after I temporarily put my post back in draft mode while I continue to correspond with the lead author before re-writing my post. This was disclosed in the tip to WUWT from Mr. DuHamel, the author of the Wry Heat post quoted here. Note the EPA document on emissions was added by Mr. DuHamel to his post and nowhere in the Hockey Stick post were emissions conflated with background levels of CO2 as many commenters above have incorrectly blamed upon the Hockey Stick post.
The correspondence with the lead author has been delayed waiting ~5 days for a reply from the author to questions, including about the following.
The Hockey Stick post quoted the conclusions of the paper which state “…the 6-month average CO2ff concentrations in the lower 1 km of the atmosphere across Western Europe are between 1 to 18 ppm” and earlier in the paper stated the mean of CO2ff across Western Europe was 15 ppm. The paper defines CO2ff as “CO2 mole fractions of particular origin, expressed in the index as follows:… ff – fossil fuels…”, thus CO2ff is defined as the mole fraction of CO2 in the lower atmosphere of fossil fuel origin.
I have asked the author if she instead meant to write in the 1st conclusion of the paper, “…the 6-month average CO2ff gradients in the lower 1 km of the atmosphere across Western Europe are between 1 to 18 ppm” and I am still waiting for a reply from her before re-writing the post.
There’s obviously a big difference between absolute concentrations/mole fractions and gradients, and thus could be quite misleading if the paper uses the two interchangeably.
I’ve also asked the author if she has a reply to this comment at Wry Heat before re-writing the post:
http://wryheat.wordpress.com/2014/07/19/only-about-3-of-co2-in-atmosphere-due-to-burning-fossil-fuels/comment-page-1/#comment-5149
As soon as I receive her replies, I will re-write the post incorporating her replies.
Thanks to several other commenters above including richardscourtney, johnmarshall, philjourdan, steve short, fhhaynie, Bernard Lodge, Jeremy Shier, and others demonstrating that the EPA & IPCC assumptions that all of the rise in CO2 levels is anthropogenic is based upon little to no evidence and there are many unanswered questions.
As to the claim that Salby has never written about his work in this area is false. It appears in his textbook, Physics of the Atmosphere and Climate:
http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.com/2013/05/climate-textbook-explains-why-man-made_21.html
In addition, I ask all the “know it alls” here to explain why the airborne fraction of man-made CO2 has declined 20% over the past 60 years, according to none other than James Hansen:
http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.com/2013/03/hansens-mea-culpa-says-man-made-global.html
A decreasing airborne fraction of man-made CO2 over the past 60 years as man-made emissions increased by 4 times is inconsistent with man-made CO2 as the primary source of the increase atmospheric CO2.

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