Guest Post by WUWT Regular “Just The Facts” 
While the Pause in Earth’s temperature continues, currently 17 years and 10 months based upon RSS satellite data, it is important to note that Fossil Fuel and Cement CO2 emissions are at their highest levels ever.
We have been told by NASA “that carbon dioxide itself is a potent greenhouse gas (GHG)” and by NOAA’s UCAR that “the current spike in carbon dioxide is sure to result in a rapid increase in global temperature”. Anthroprogenic CO2 emissions have increased by over 60% since 1990;
and “the world added roughly 100 billion tonnes of carbon to the atmosphere between 2000 and 2010.”
“That is about a quarter of all the CO₂ put there by humanity since 1750. And yet, as James Hansen, the head of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, observes, ‘the five-year mean global temperature has been flat for a decade.’” Economist
In order to make it easier to watch Atmospheric CO2 levels rise;
while Earth’s Temperature does not, we are pleased to introduce WUWT’s newest addition, the WUWT CO2 Reference Page. The WUWT CO2 Page offers an array of graphs on Atmospheric CO2, Anthropogenic CO2 Emissions and Land Use Change Based CO2 Estimates. In addition to the WUWT CO2 Reference Page. if you have not had the opportunity to our other Reference Pages they are highly recommended:
- Atmosphere Page
- Atmospheric Oscillation Page
- CO2 Page
- ENSO (El Nino/La Nina Southern Oscillation) Page
- “Extreme Weather” Page
- Geomagnetism Page
- Global Climate Page
- Global Temperature Page
- Great Lakes Ice Page
- Northern Polar Vortex Page
- Northern Regional Sea Ice Page
- Ocean Page
- Oceanic Oscillation Page
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- Potential Climatic Variables Page
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dbstealey says:
August 6, 2014 at 8:23 pm
Produce a chart showing the claimed causation; a chart showing that changes in CO2 are the cause of subsequent changes in temperature, on a global scale.
That is a different issue and one that I cannot prove. The dragon slayers would agree with you though. I am not going to go there at all.
Allan MacRae,
Thanks for the detailed reply. It will take me a while to digest it all. I’m glad to see others grappling with this problem. It is an unexplained discrepancy that goes to the heart of the entire global warming / carbon debate.
I don’t know about others, but in my view this question has enormous consequences. The argument from the beginning has been that a rise in anthropogenic CO2 will cause substantial to runaway global warming. Why is there no evidence whatever to support that conjecture?
The answer is obvious: CO2 just does not have the claimed effect. I am still not willing to say it has no effect. But whatever warming it may cause, it is so minuscule that it is not measurable using current instrumentation. Such a pitifully small effect — if it even exists — completely destroys the alarmist argument. But I would welcome any disagreement, because that way we can get closer to the truth.
Werner,
Thanks for your reply. This is not a ‘dragon slayer’ issue, this is a major discrepancy that must be addressed. Sorry you’re not up to it at present, but if you find a chart that shows that changes in CO2 cause changes in temperature, or if you decide to find the answer as to why there is no such evidence, either one will be welcome.
This is major, Werner. And Ferdinand. It cannot be ignored forever.
Ferdinand Engelbeen says:
…our charts show that T is not the cause of the recent rise in CO2, while you still defend that…
I posted charts confirming what I’ve commented on. But when you say “our charts”, where are they? All I’m asking for is a chart showing that changes in CO2 are followed by changes in T. Is that so hard to produce?
Apparently so. And if no such charts exist, then, being a good scientist, you must reassess your original conjecture to take that lack of evidence into account. There is only evidence showing the causation: ∆T causes ∆CO2. The reverse is a baseless, evidence-free conjecture.
You must revise your conjecture, Ferdinand. Like a good scientist.
Below is the abstract for the aforementioned recent paper by researchers from the Netherlands.
Here are some of my earlier meanderings on this subject:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/08/11/murry-salby-responds-to-critics/#comment-1395118
(PLANT) FOOD FOR THOUGHT
CO2 is such a scarce and excellent plant food that it is gobbled up very close to the source during the growing season.
In urban environments like Salt Lake City where CO2 is emitted, it is gobbled up so quickly by plants that there is NO DISCERNIBLE HUMAN SIGNATURE IN THE DAILY CO2 RECORD.
For proof, see http://co2.utah.edu/index.php?site=2&id=0&img=31
Recognizing the CO2 is NOT that well-mixed in the atmosphere..
http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a000000/a003500/a003562/carbonDioxideSequence2002_2008_at15fps.mp4
That url is gone – please see this one instead:
http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a000000/a003500/a003562/carbonDioxideSequence2002_2008_at15fps.mp4
… this may be where the “Mass Balance Argument” (fossil fuel combustion is the certain cause of atmospheric CO2 increases (NOT)) falls apart.
Let’s suppose that humanmade CO2 from fossil fuel combustion is quickly gobbled up by plants close to its (usually urban) source. The rest of the world and its carbon cycle just carries on, unaware in every way that humankind is burning fossil fuels. It also may be that humanity IS causing the observed increase in atmospheric CO2, but that increase may be primarily due to other causes such as deforestation, agriculture, etc. Fossil fuel is just a convenient bogeyman – everyone hates the oil companies when they gas up their car – it’s just that the alternatives are worse.
Regards, Allan
Researchers get in Dutch: “…the average gradients of fossil fuel CO2 in the lower 1200 m of the atmosphere are close to 15 ppm”.
http://www.atmos-chem-phys.net/14/7273/2014/acp-14-7273-2014.html
Simulating the integrated summertime Δ14CO2 signature from anthropogenic emissions over Western Europe
D. Bozhinova1, M. K. van der Molen1, I. R. van der Velde1, M. C. Krol1,2, S. van der Laan3, H. A. J. Meijer3, and W. Peters1
1Meteorology and Air Quality Group, Wageningen University, the Netherlands
2Institute for Marine and Atmospheric Research Utrecht, Utrecht, the Netherlands
3Centre for Isotope Research, University of Groningen, Groningen, the Netherlands
Abstract. Radiocarbon dioxide (14CO2, reported in Δ14CO2) can be used to determine the fossil fuel CO2 addition to the atmosphere, since fossil fuel CO2 no longer contains any 14C. After the release of CO2 at the source, atmospheric transport causes dilution of strong local signals into the background and detectable gradients of Δ14CO2 only remain in areas with high fossil fuel emissions. This fossil fuel signal can moreover be partially masked by the enriching effect that anthropogenic emissions of 14CO2 from the nuclear industry have on the atmospheric Δ14CO2 signature. In this paper, we investigate the regional gradients in 14CO2 over the European continent and quantify the effect of the emissions from nuclear industry. We simulate the emissions and transport of fossil fuel CO2 and nuclear 14CO2 for Western Europe using the Weather Research and Forecast model (WRF-Chem) for a period covering 6 summer months in 2008. We evaluate the expected CO2 gradients and the resulting Δ14CO2 in simulated integrated air samples over this period, as well as in simulated plant samples.
We find that the average gradients of fossil fuel CO2 in the lower 1200 m of the atmosphere are close to 15 ppm at a 12 km × 12 km horizontal resolution. The nuclear influence on Δ14CO2 signatures varies considerably over the domain and for large areas in France and the UK it can range from 20 to more than 500% of the influence of fossil fuel emissions. Our simulations suggest that the resulting gradients in Δ14CO2 are well captured in plant samples, but due to their time-varying uptake of CO2, their signature can be different with over 3‰ from the atmospheric samples in some regions. We conclude that the framework presented will be well-suited for the interpretation of actual air and plant 14CO2 samples.
Citation: Bozhinova, D., van der Molen, M. K., van der Velde, I. R., Krol, M. C., van der Laan, S., Meijer, H. A. J., and Peters, W.: Simulating the integrated summertime Δ14CO2 signature from anthropogenic emissions over Western Europe, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 14, 7273-7290, doi:10.5194/acp-14-7273-2014, 2014.