Guest essay by Martin Hovland, Geophysiscist and Professor Emeritus, Center for Geobiology, University of Bergen, Norway
The newly released satellite OCO2-data indicates that there is CO2 input in tectonically active oceanic areas. This becomes evident by pairing seafloor topography and tectonic data with the recently published OCO2-results. Thus, in the released OCO2 dataset, showing the average atmospheric concentration of CO2 over a period of about 6 weeks late in 2014, there are three curious, relatively week, but distinct CO2-hotspots over oceanic regions:
1) The Timor CO2-hotspot
2) the Fiji CO2-hotspot, and
3) the Emperor CO2-hotspot, see Fig. 1.
Using the Smithsonian Volcano database, it is seen that these CO2-hotspots occur above seafloor features which are suspected to issue CO2, CH4 and occasionally large amounts of heat (especially for FH and EH). Here, it can be seen that the TH occurs over a deep-water accretionary subduction wedge. This is a collision zone, where huge amounts of oceanic sediments pile up before they sink into and are swallowed up beneath the island masses to the north (Fig. 2). In such settings, it is well-known that continuous seepage of methane occurs out of the seafloor. Therefore, it is here speculated that the underwater and aerial oxidation of this excess methane gas provides the regional CO2-anomaly detected by OCO2.
The seafloor beneath the FH is also highly tectonized (Fig. 3), but in a completely different fashion to that of the TH. At Fiji, there are both colliding plates and rifting zones. The whole region is highly contorted and there are lots of seepage, both hot vents and cold, methane-dominated vents. Transmittal of methane and CO2 to the atmosphere is likely also here.
Because of the highly tectonized seafloor also underlying the Emperor CO2-hotspot, it is speculated that there is excess CO2 given off by the ocean also in this area. The effect of excess heat and gases seeping out of the seafloor hotspots, was illustrated already in 1988, in Fig. 10.4, by Hovland and Judd (in the book: “Seabed Pockmarks and Seepages: Impact on Geology, Biology and the Marine Environment”). A modified version of this conceptual idea is provided in Fig. 5.
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It’s odd that the lowest CO2 levels over land are found – in that month at least – over Siberia, India, Nigeria and the UK.
Remember that India with its invisible CO2 emissions is going to be kept at ransom in Paris at COP21 in December 2015 till it promises to “do more” even though it has about the world’s lowest CO2 emissions per capita due to under development.
China on the other hand with its clearly visible CO2 output is going to be Greenly applauded there for saying it will peak CO2 in 2030 (on ~ 50% of the world’s CO2 output?)
I doubt if anyone can hold India to ransom in Paris. India needs to provide reasonable and available energy to those thousands of villages which still are without electric power. This will probably be more important to the government than making any concessions about emission cuts.
http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/bihar-village-dharnai-nitish-kumar-clamours-for-real-electricity/1/375733.html
Also, India has spoken in no uncertain terms about their feelings for Greenpeace:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/06/19/crackdown-india-curbs-greenpeace-funding/
I don’t think the increased concentrations over southeast China is from anthropogenic CO2 emissions. It doesn’t really match.
http://www.wri.org/sites/default/files/uploads/china_coal_consumption.jpg
It’s time India and other countries give the finger to the green establishment and just stop showing up to these endless climate circuses.
If India were communist, they would get a free ride like China.
At the same time, India has an ever-growing nuclear power development program. Unlike most western countries, India is actively developing thorium based reactors (they have a lot of thorium and very little uranium) and fast neutron breeders that can burn up the nasty waste from other reactors.
http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/Country-Profiles/Countries-G-N/India/
It’s biological.
It’s geological.
And if you a squealing leftardulent AGW foamer, it’s diabolical.
But then, adding radiative gases to the atmosphere was never going to reduce the atmosphere’s radiative cooling ability. The petulant sobbing of the climate bitches was always a certainty.
No surprise there, as I wrote few days ago:
West and Central Europe is highly industrialised and densely populated, and yet only noticeable concentration of the CO2 is above the Balkan peninsula (the area I know well), the least industrialised with relatively low density of population.
This area is tectonically active: “Italy sits at the boundary between the African and Eurasian tectonic plates where the small Adriatic plate (marked by red dotted line) is being deformed”
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2014/12/09/23E7C33400000578-2866764-Italy_sits_at_the_boundary_between_the_U-a-11_1418124289152.jpg
East boundary of the plate is rising, and could be that the CO2 is seeping from the Earth’s interior. This also could be case to east of the Andes, Indonesia, parts of the Pacific and even south of Greenland (Reykjanes ridge) but perhaps not so for the southern Africa.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/12/29/three-scenarios-for-the-future-of-nasas-orbiting-carbon-observatory/#comment-1824391
The darkest of the red blob over Africa looks like it’s just to the west of a portion of the East African Rift. There’s some volcanism in that area too.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5a/EAfrica.gif
Lake Nyos in Cameroon, Africa outgassed CO2 in 1986, and wiped out villages downslope from the crater lake. Innocence and ignorance in the linear thinking level of climate science is symptomatic.
http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/gas-cloud-kills-cameroon-villagers
I made a comment in an earlier post about how the high concentrations of CO2 were consistent with CO2 coming from warming equatorial waters, rising and dropping with the trade winds. It then fills pockets surrounded by basins while it disperses else where. Although the postulate left a few of the pockets unexplained, I noticed that the concentration was not as high above the rift valley as above the Zaire jungle.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/12/29/three-scenarios-for-the-future-of-nasas-orbiting-carbon-observatory/#comment-1824645
Large CO2 emissions from non anthropogenic sources? Irrelevant, no even harmful to The Green Course, so shhushh.
Tax the Teutons! Eh…Tectons..tectonic plates, I mean 🙂 And if that won’t help, build huge subsea volcano-diapers to catch the offending gas.
An oil company in California has constructed a “tent” over a natural offshore seep to collect oil and gas that would otherwise escape into the environment.
Tectonic fart-catchers, eh?
Lieber Herr Frey, bitte übersetzen. Zu Ihren Vorschlägen äußere ich mich noch separat. Muss sie mir erstmal ansehen Mit besten Grüßen bin ich Ihr Michael Limburg
>
English would be good.
He said (more or less):
“Dear Mr. Frey, please translate. To your suggestions I express myself yet separately. Do they see me first Best regards, I am Yours, Michael Limburg”
Well that was a useful contribution. I’ll remember that one, next time I have an interview, and don’t know what to say…..
Observational data, who’d a thought?
Nobody thought of sea floor spreading ridges before someone actually observed and mapped them.
Bruce Heezan, Marie Tharp and a bunch of grad and post doc students at Lamont Doherty. By the way, I believe they had to work mostly off campus on this.
If you could go back in time to say 1970 I suggest you Google such common terms as:
Coronal Mass Ejections
Black Smokers
Where will we be in 2040 when we’re rewriting the textbooks concerning what we know about the Earth and the Sun yet again
Today the Wikipedia article says:
“Lake Nyos is one of only three lakes in the world known to be saturated with carbon dioxide—the others are Lake Monoun, also in Cameroon, and Lake Kivu in Democratic Republic of Congo. A magma chamber beneath the region is an abundant source of carbon dioxide, which seeps up through the lake bed, charging the waters of Lake Nyos with an estimated 90 million tonnes of CO2”
Now what we need (if Prof Hovland can oblige) is confirmation that the latest zero increase in global temperatures coincides with a ‘quiet spell’ in these ocean floor emissions.
There is no ”quiet spell” they emit CO2 all the time as do the seamounts which are extinct volcanoes.
Oh, but it’s natural. Organic. Climate change is still all your fault. Pay up.
What proof do you have of this? Is the ocean floor and tectonic activity truly uniformly constant through all time with no variations for all locations? Would not earthquakes and volcanoes occur as predictable clockwork if that was the case? I would love to see the data, if anyone has ever bothered to look.
Here is an idea. Why not locate a CO2 monitor on an active volcano in the middle of the ocean, and use the readings as “global CO2 levels”.
ferdberple, that would be ridiculous.
No-one would take Climatology seriously if they did that.
You guys forgot the /sarc tag. LOL.
Firstly, the arrow of causality is from temperatures to atmospheric concentration. The relationship can be clearly seen here to be of the form
dCO2/dt = k*(T – T0)
where CO2 is atmospheric CO2 concentration, k is a sensitivity parameter in ppmv/K/unit-of-time, T is the global mean temperature anomaly, and T0 is a baseline temperature anomaly.
What the observations show is that, when T leveled off, so did dCO2/dt, the rate of change of CO2. Meanwhile, the rate of human emissions has kept increasing.
http://i1136.photobucket.com/albums/n488/Bartemis/CO2_zps330ee8fa.jpg
If human emissions were the major driver behind atmospheric CO2 concentration, atmospheric concentration would be accelerating. Instead, it has decelerated to a fairly constant rate with fairly constant temperatures, in line with the differential equation above.
Let me repeat that: If human emissions were the major driver behind atmospheric CO2 concentration, atmospheric concentration would be accelerating. It is not.
A quiet spell in emissions from the ocean floor is not necessary to match observations, just steady outgassing to the atmosphere. The outgassing was accelerating when temperatures were increasing, but has slowed to a steady pace with the plateau in temperatures.
Your “relationship” falls apart if you use HADCRUT4 data
.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/esrl-co2/from:1979/mean:12/derivative/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1979/scale:0.22/offset:0.14
Looks even worse with GISS data
..
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/esrl-co2/from:1979/mean:12/derivative/plot/gistemp/from:1979/scale:0.22/offset:0.14
GISS is actually not too bad. HADCRUT4SH is excellent.
These temperature sets measure different things. They require different constants for the match, and some match better than others. If you argue that one of them failing to match perfectly invalidates the model, then you have argued that the temperature sets themselves do not match, and are therefore all invalid.
The best, most recent, highest accuracy measurements with the most extensive coverage are the satellite measurements, and they agree best with the model, too.
The GISS link.
The problem with that is that the IPCC has stated numerous times that they can tell the difference between naturally occurring co2 and Antro co2 by the ratio of isotopes in co2. Unless of course that was also something they made up. Thereby, being able to tell how much humans were adding to the atmosphere. Now you are still trotting out that formula as if it were true? I disagree with the straight line formula on that and retention rates. (see the current conversation about the 8,000 year ice core from Volstok)
Or is it the SST that influences outgassing?
rishrac
I think this is the data you are talking about
http://protonsforbreakfast.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/c13_mlo_spo.jpg
So Bart, how do you alter your dCO2/dt = k*(T – T0) to account for the difference in HADCRUT4 global an dHADCRUT4 SH data?
Bart…..
Your original chart uses a scale factor of .22, and an offset of .14
Your GISS chart uses a scale factor of .28 and offset of 0.03
Your HADCRUT4-SH chart uses a scale factor of .22 and offset of .10
…
What is your theoretical explanation for having to use different scaling factors and offsets?
Seems to me you are altering the display of the data to fit your “theory”
I see the chart ends in 2009.
rishrac @ur momisugly January 2, 2015 at 11:54 am
The formula is empirically true, no ifs, ands, or buts about it. Isotope ratios do not have a unique explanation – they’re just handwaving to give a false sense of rigor. See “snow job” in your dictionary.
David Socrates @ur momisuglyJanuary 2, 2015 at 11:59 am
“So Bart, how do you alter your dCO2/dt = k*(T – T0) to account for the difference in HADCRUT4 global an dHADCRUT4 SH data?”
How do you alter HADCRUT4SH to account for the difference with HADCRUT4? Obviously, that is a nonsensical question. Yet, that is what you are asking.
David Socrates @ur momisugly January 2, 2015 at 12:05 pm
Why are GISS and HADCRUT4 different? You are asking for a shoe that fits both size 6 and size 12. I am sorry, I do not have any in stock, and do not know where else you could find them.
I’m sure you must have some intelligent questions somewhere in your noggin. I wish I could see just one.
rishrac @ur momisugly January 2, 2015 at 12:07 pm
I just haven’t updated it. Do your own chart. Human emissions have only accelerated further, and CO2 is still chugging along at essentially constant rate coincident with temperatures.
You do need to plot it as the data detrended. http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/esrl-co2/from:1979/mean:12/derivative/detrend:0.05/offset:-0.15/plot/rss/detrend:0.2/scale:0.3
This is the difference between the line of best fit for each, scaled to be plotted over the same range. Nothing arbitrary, like David has done.
Its not a perfect fit but it we are talking about different estimates of global temperature anomalies that don’t line up perfectly and the derivative for the globe from single measurements on a volcano.
I notice Ferdinand puts up this plot http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/temp_dco2_d13C_mlo.jpg
to show that it is not vegetation. The derivative of the global concentration of carbon13? Surely there is no place in science for that? It would be from the warm equatorial seas anyway.
Bart, you have another big big problem
…
About 175,000 years ago, global temps were 2-3 degrees C higher than they are today.
Yet, we don’t see a spike in CO2 175,000 years ago
..
http://milo-scientific.com/pers/essays/figs/Co2-temperature-plot.png
Robert B, and Bart
…
When you can cook up a relationshipe for dCO2/dt that uses absolute temperatures instead of anomalies, then you might have a chance of establishing a relationship that can be grounded in the chemistry/physics of CO2 The slope of CO2 is significantly dependent on seasonal effects which you have glossed over by using the “mean’ function in WFT
Folks, I think the “Crux of the Biscuit” here is that CO2 and greenhouse gasses have done about as much as they can do from an “observation vs. theory” perspective. Where they come from is subsequently a rather moot point
David Socrates @ur momisugly January 2, 2015 at 12:28 pm
I have no problems. This is the old fallacy of extrapolating a local model beyond the confines of its application. What we know is what has been happening in the modern era since 1958. As this is the era in which most of the CO2 rise is recorded, it is all we need to have to conclude that the observed modern rise is not significantly due to humans.
The relationship is quite grounded. I really wish you had something substantive to offer, but you just keep picking at nits.
Robert B @ur momisugly January 2, 2015 at 12:22 pm
Detrending is unnecessary. The fit with the slope is just fine. Moreover, that is the reason that the observation disqualifies anthropogenic forcing as a significant contributor. With the slope in the rate of change of atmospheric CO2 explained by the temperature relationship, there is no significant room left for anthropogenic influences, as these also have a slope.
David, are you suggesting that I arbitrarily chose 12 month smoothing to cook the data? That I wasn’t aware that the cycle of seasons is over 12 months (ref: Sesame Street , 1975)?
The difference between data and line of best fit does not change if you use anomalies or absolute temperature. That is why I suggested it to Bart. Then, supposedly, nobody could claim arbitrary choices resulted in a good fit.
“About 175,000 years ago, global temps were 2-3 degrees C higher than they are today.” Did you miss the AGW shattering evidence at 275K BP?
Dawtgtomis, I’m not sure why where it comes from needs to be ignored. Can you enlighten me? (excuse me if it comes out narky but I really don’t get it).
If your “model” is constrained by the time frame it is applied to, it is useless.
…
The implicit assumption of your “model” is that atmospheric levels of CO2 are determined by temperature.
The graph I posted destroys the assumption your “model” is based on, destroying your “model”
“The difference between data and line of best fit does not change if you use anomalies or absolute temperature.:
…
Please show me a fit using absolute temperature.
David, you really have no idea what you are talking about. Henceforth, I am going to limit my responses to you to errors which are not patently obvious.
Bart, I sincerely apologize for punching fatal holes in your purported “theory”
Robert B, I apologize for butting in, it’s just that I don’t see a direct correlation between CO2 increases and global temperature during the ‘pause’. If the greenhouse effect has played it’s hand and then somehow been trumped, then the sources of CO2 become less important to the search for the real causes of climate change.
Dawtgtomis, don’t apologise for butting in. I’m fine with that. Using the analogy of an accelerator pedal (gas pedal), if you press down slowly then you see a correlation between how far you pressed down and the speed of the car. If you pump the pedal, the correlation with speed will be poor but the derivative will go up and down with the pedal.
The cycle of CO2 through the atmosphere and oceans is complex because of the equilibrium with hydrogen carbonate at different temperatures is not straight forward but there is no reason to expect it to reach equilibrium within a few years.
For David (and Bart), if the distance you push the pedal down is measured in km and the velocity varies from 80km/h to 100 km/h, the former will look like its 0 and there is no correlation. You will need to offset and scale the data to see the correlation. While obvious, Bart, you still need to explain it to some people.
”
Carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has no distinguishing features to show what its
source was. Elevated carbon dioxide over a region could have a natural cause —
for example, a drought that reduces plant growth — or a human cause”
I didn’t publish that statement, NASA did on the mission of this satellite.
@ur momisugly Bart.. you may believe that formula is true but it isn’t, it is wrong. The models over the last 18 years that depend on that formula have proven it so. Not only did the models fail, but the temps are out of the level where if co2 were stopped all together in 2002, the temps are below that level CO2 is not the driving force for temperature control of a planet. If it was, in the face of rising co2 levels, temperatures had to have risen, they didn’t. .
rishrac – you appear not to be following the discussion.
I am not arguing that CO2 controls temperature. I am arguing that temperature controls CO2. That is most assuredly not what any model from establishment climate science has been claiming for the last 18 years, or any other time of which I am aware. The formula is not their formula. It is, for all intents and purposes, a 180 degree reversal of their assumed dynamic.
More precisely, a temperature modulated process is controlling CO2. Outgassing of upwelling CO2 from undersea volcanic sources is most definitely a candidate for such a process. In fact, that scenario fits the data very well.
On the flip side, this dynamic means that any significant warming from CO2 in the present climate state is quite impossible, because that would constitute an unstable, positive feedback loop, and such a dynamic would have rendered the Earth uninhabitable long ago. This does not imply that the so-called Greenhouse Effect does not exist. It merely says that, in the present state of the Earth’s climate, there are powerful countervailing dynamics which render it, at worst, effectively null.
Looks like the alarmists are being hoisted on their own satellite.
A few years of orbiting would do them good.
Warmists on the starboard bow Scotty. Photons at the ready. Aye Aye Captain.
Ah, GeeJam, warmists would be on the port bow.
Wait for it mate.
The global warmists and alarmists will spin it some way to prop up the scam.
Don’t you mean homogenise the data and add a little smoothing and hey presto there is the ‘correct’ answer. Just look at their chicanery regarding sea surface and land temps as they try to with the model failures.
They will not change their tune. They said from the outset that it does not matter if the science is true. It is only what people BELIEVE to be true.
It is interesting that NASA released the dramatic model simulation a short time before OCO data was released, particularly as they seem to be somewhat contradictory. As someone who is colour blind it would have been useful if they could have utilised the same colour chart on both, but alas they are worlds apart, which makes it even harder for me to read properly.
So, despite the explaination for the model being out of sync with the observations, it seems nature is far more real vent in CO₂ production than man.
Is there a web page somewhere which “translates” graphics for those who are color blind? Doesn’t seem too difficult.
It is painfully obvious that you great unwashed fools are not familar with “FINAGLES FACTOR”.
Is anyone out there that is aware of this valuable scientific factor??
Weren’t we told that volcanic CO2 is not significant?
I’m learning to love this latest effort from NASA 🙂
Yes, we were. We were also told that the measurement for underground volcanic CO2 was based on seven volcanoes, but that there were over 3,000 volcanoes present. I don’t have a link, but I copied it, and it’s somewhere.
Your 3,000 may be of old or simple data sources. Try this –
Hillier & Watts (2007) surveyed 201,055 submarine volcanoes estimating that a total of 3,477,403 submarine volcanoes exist worldwide. According to the observations of Batiza (1982), we may infer that at least 4% of seamounts are active volcanoes. We can expect a higher percentage in the case of the count taken by Hillier & Watts (2007) because it includes smaller, younger seamounts; a higher proportion of which will be active. Nevertheless, in the spirit of caution and based on our minimum inference of 4% seamount activity from Batiza’s observations, I estimate 139,096 active submarine volcanoes worldwide. If we are to assume, in the absence of other emission figures for mid oceanic plate volcanoes, that Kilauea is a typical mid oceanic plate volcano with a typical mid oceanic emission of 870 KtCpa (Kerrick, 2001), then we might estimate a total submarine volcanogenic CO2 output of 121 GtCpa. Even if we assume, as Kerrick (2001) and Gerlach (1991) did, that we’ve only noticed the most significant outgassing and curb our estimate accordingly, we still have 24.2 GtCpa of submarine volcanic origin.
If guesses of this order are anywhere near the ballpark, then we can take it that either what has been absorbing all this extra CO2 is not absorbing as much or there has been some variation to volcanic output over the past 500 years or so. Both are normal assumptions given the variable state of the natural environment, and considering that vegetation consumed something on the order of 38GtCpa more in 1850 than today (see my Deforestation article for the quick and dirty calculation), it is hardly surprising that we were missing a large natural CO2 source in the carbon budget. The other possibility is that both Werner et al (2000: approx. 38 KtCpa) and Werner & Brantley (2003: approx. 4000 KtCpa) are correct, which could imply that volcanogenic CO2 emissions are increasing. This certainly would explain steadily rising CO2 observed at stations in regions most affected by volcanic emissions, it could partly explain the recent increase in ocean acidification discussed by Archer (2009, pp. 114-124), and further it would explain the more intense Spring melting centred on the Pacific Coast of Antarctica and along the Gakkel Ridge under the Arctic ice cap.
http://carbon-budget.geologist-1011.net/
Thanks, DD More.
Lake Nyos blew the whistle (unfortunately at the cost of thousands of lives) on another big Warmist lie. Analyses of the underlying vent and estimates of its flow rate reveal that it is a major source of CO₂. If the Lake Nyos vent is at all typical, estimates of total volcanic CO₂ are too low by one or two orders of magnitude.
This is an area where I expect extreme and immediate push-back (i.e., new, more frequent, and bigger lies) from the climate pseudoscience establishment. They need a week or two to think up some more lies, build some phony models, and, most important of all, perform some stunning character assassination. And, no doubt, flail about in journalistic circles with threats of “the big cutoff.”
Sounds like a conspiracy by the Volcanologists to get some of the AGW dollar flow by “proving” that all the CO2 coming out of the volcanos is recycled recent plant material
And then there was Gold and the CH4 coming out of fractured igneous rock in Sweden
Sure were, but who believes everything we were told?
It’s interesting that southern central Africa is “screwed” again for emissions given there is vast expanses of forrest, grasslands, savana, billions of roaming animals, a few hundred million humans and, relatively, little industrialisation.
Perhaps they will have to pay us instead. After all that’s the way this played out politically didn’t it? Larger producers of co2 pay the smaller? And what happen to the isotope ratios? I was pounded by the fact they could tell man made as opposed to natural co2. And now all of a sudden they can’t tell?
As long as the time for most of the C-14 to decay is exceeded [half life of about 6k years] — say for a few hundred k years — then our burning fossil fuels is indistinguishable from the “Earth Burping”
I let some of the CAGW go on about things sometimes. NASA says regarding this mission of this satellite is that they can’t tell where the co2 comes from. I have a direct quote on that. And to confirm that statement, they wouldn’t have spent the money for this mission if they could tell.
Wrong isotope
Not C-14….
…
The ratio is between the two stable isotopes, namely C13 and C12
Odd that the entire continent of N America is cut off on the map shown.
Check the earlier article about the OCO2 Satelite at this site.
Why do both of these maps lop off 20% of the map area to show the CO2 scale? When do you think we’ll see the entire mapped area clearly?
I am glad to see that the oceanic contributions to the heat and CO2 cycles and to oceanic currents are finally beginning to get recognition in ‘expert’ circles. Ever since the discovery of hydrothermal vents this contribution has been known, but lack of *empirical data* has prevented quantifying their effects, and thus they get completely omitted from the models.
This is all fascinating stuff. I wondered about the ocean floor contribution from a heat perspective when there were some hot spots coinciding with tectonic plate activity. If the research resources had been devoted to looking at possible natural causes for the last 30 years rather than trying to prove the AGW hypothesis we might know more about this mystery. But better late than never.
Could you please provide a link to the OCO2 info? The first graphic provided of the CO2 concentrations from NASA does not have a link to the original info. But the subsequent images of the seafloor volcanic activity has links back to their origin. I would like to also compare to other regions not viewed in the original graphic, most of North America and half of South America are not visible. Since the USA seems to be always portrayed as the evil emitter of CO2, it would be interesting to see how the US compares to the rest of the globe. Is there a data set to go along with the graphics from NASA?
You can look here:
http://oco.jpl.nasa.gov/
So, the Team’s “settled science” does not include the heat from tectonic plate movement nor the CO2 released from the movement. This on top of lack of understanding of clouds and the effect of water in general on a “water world”. Hmmmmm.
I guess they don’t need real world data to cry “Doomed! Doomed as doomed can be!” (and it can’t be natural darn it — must be anthropogenic)
I live in England and I want my CO2 back. We were told by the UK Met that we should expect a Madeira like climate in the not too distant future…come on please please give our CO2 back.
I shall expel methane in your general direction. No need to thank me.
FundMe — you’ve got your geography wrong — you want your CO2 back if you expect a Champagne-like climate
Professor, there is a good article on the web site
http://www.geologist-1011
It would seem that most of the atmospheric CO2 is volcanogenic.
John, that link is broken. I think you meant:
http://geologist-1011.com/
Sorry, try the new link and see. The info is very interesting.
Your link is a bit broken…
http://www.geologist-1011.com
Just tried it and yes I had the address wrong. Look into the pages and one is ”volcanic CO2”
The correct link is http://geologist-1011.net. .net The.com version is his regular website. “Preliminary findings, based on an initial and minor portion of the pre-research literature review, are documented at: http://geologist-1011.net.”
This data is a real show-stopper. Of note:
– biggest concentrations over South Africa, South America and South East Asia;
– most anthropic emission in NH, most CO2 in SH;
-Almost nothing over Europe or Middle East despite huge petro industry and gas burn-off;
– Some tropical oceans emit more CO2 than Europe and USA;
– CO2 elevated at seabed volcanic hot-spots
All of this must seriously question the significance of anthropogenic emissions.
What is the response of the climate establishment? – so far only embarrassed nonsensical mumbling.
On top of the study that identified geothermal hotspots under the West Antarctica peninsula glaciers by a study earlier this year which was linked to some of the melting, this is very, very interesting.
It’s totally amazing that you can look at six weeks of data and come to all those conclusions. The same sort of thing happens if I look out my window, see the snow falling, and as a result I determine the new ice age is upon us.
I can’t wait to see what you’ll conclude when you have 12 weeks of data.
What is your conclusion about higher CO2 release over the South Atlantic Ocean than over the industrial heartlands of USA and Europe? At any time of the year? (hiding behind a calendar won’t help you).
I’m not jumping to any conclusions, I’m going to wait for some more data to come in.
Phlogiston, it is known for decades that there is a continuous stream of CO2 from upwelling places near the equator and the sink places near the poles (~40 GtC/year in and out).
It is know for decades that there is a huge seasonal component in the CO2 levels at any place on earth, both on land (~60 GtC in and out within a year) and over the oceans (~50 GtC out/in, opposite to the vegetation stream).
Human emissions are currently ~10 GtC/year. After one or more full years it may be possible to show the contribution by humans.
But it is near impossible to conclude anything from 6 weeks of data midst of changing seasons (monsoon, ITCZ position).
If undersea volcanic spots have much contribution remains to be seen: if CO2 is released at 2000 m depth (over 200 bar pressure) how much CO2 is immediately dissolved in the deep oceans without ever reaching the surface (except distributed over lost more (bi)carbonate? How much may reach the surface? Or are the red spots just upwelling spots where CO2 rich cold waters reach the warm surface?
Why wait for more data? It apparently takes the ring pattern from just a single tree to “conclusively” demonstrate CAGW.
David Socrates, you care more for science than for a Nobel prize.
David,
I’m not jumping to any conclusions either.
I’m waiting for the data to to be adjusted.
I can’t wait to see what conclusions will be drawn then….
They mumble something about needing four or five years of data to draw any conclusion.
As if the NH anthropogenic CO2 will make a belated appearance.
I blame Oxygen, the stuff that makes steel rust, that makes poor old carbon become a pollutant, that anti-oxidants fight, the stuff that makes water heavy. Lets stop Oxygen taking over out atmosphere now.
Double, Double Toil and Bubble.
Shouldn’t there be a correlation between atmospheric CO2 ‘concentrations’ and Ocean pH/pOH?
Looking at the following I can’t see that.
That map displays sampling locations, not pH. I don’t see how you can come to any sort of conclusion by using that for comparison.
He used the wrong graphic from Willis’ recent article:
Apologies, my mistake. Thanks Philip for correction
And Willis’ pH map won’t work either, because it displays absolute pH per location, not pH “change”. The assertion isn’t that the ocean is “more acid” because the ocean is overall rather basic everywhere (although it is stated so carelessly as to give that impression) it is that it is becoming less basic. But “less” requires a reference and comparison over time, and this is a static figure.
However, there is little evidence in this figure that there is a correlation between areas where the ocean is “least basic” and comparatively high atmospheric CO_2. Indeed, the patch offshore of China, Japan, and Korea is one of the MOST basic visible in his map, and yet China is an active CO_2 source and as noted in the top article, the ocean itself appears to be a moderate source of CO_2 there, likely from upwelling/warming waters driven by tectonic activity at the bottom.
OTOH, places where the pH is comparatively low (more “acidic”) are the coldest and lowest CO_2 regions, far from any sort of production one can imagine, around the coasts of the Arctic ocean and Antarctica. In fact the whole pH map is puzzling — the least basic ocean is almost all in the high latitudes of the southern hemisphere, while the NH Atlantic and Pacific are almost all basic. If there is any sort of correlation, it is with temperature. Where the waters are colder, more CO_2 in solution, less basic? Where they are warmer (which doesn’t have to be very warm!) it quickly leaves solution and they remain quite basic? Or perhaps this is biological activity — half life of free CO_2 that is quite low due to ocean organisms eating/using the CO_2? It would really help if a rather huge fraction of the ocean, especially nearly the ENTIRE ocean in the critical ENSO region, were not “basically” unsampled.
One day, maybe, somebody in NOAA and/or NASA will actually take a look at these maps and start to systematically fill in the holes. There are several serious problems with climate science, but one of the MOST serious of them is the lack of high quality data that is anything but enormously sparse on a global basis. This encourages one of the second major problems: taking the decent data we have on the sparse set of samples we have and extrapolating according to some presumed model across vast unknown/unsampled regions, and then using the model result as if it were data in OTHER models. This is, perhaps, allowable (with large error estimates that reflect the high degree of uncertainty in the process while exploring the system and building hypotheses, but it is completely insufficient to provide well-founded conclusions. To really improve our understanding of the climate, we need less modelling and more measurements, especially measurements that systematically fill in the gaps in our past measurements and errors in our measurement methodology.
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rgb,
You are right that there is an enormous lack of good data for a lot of climate related items. But I have a few remarks about the pH measurements:
Until begin 1980’s glass electrodes were used for pH measurements. Due to their inaccuracy (+/- 0.1 pH unit) and the sparsely sampling, it is impossible to make any conclusion from the data about a theoretical pH drop of about 0.05 unit in the period 1850-1984.
Neither can any local CO2 plume of a few ppmv in the atmosphere be measured as a pH change in the local parts of the oceans, as a 110 ppmv change in the atmosphere is needed to give a ~0.1 pH unit change in the oceans…
Since 1984 other methods were used: colorimetric direct measurements and calculated: if several measurements were done, one can calculate the pH of any oceanic place based on TA (total alkalinity), DIC (total carbon), temperature and salinity. That gives a lot better results than direct pH measurements by glass electrodes. That is done since a few decades at several fixed places on earth:
http://www.tos.org/oceanography/archive/27-1_bates.pdf
and by regular ships measurements at the same spots, here below Japan:
http://www.data.jma.go.jp/kaiyou/english/oa/oceanacidification_en.html
The theoretical reduction in pH is confirmed by direct and calculated measurements in the past 30 years…
One can back calculate the curve of the pH reduction until 1850 (or even during an ice age), by taking into account the CO2 levels in the atmosphere over time. That -theoretical- curve of a few hundredths of a pH unit is largely within the huge local variability of pH measurements caused by latitude and season (temperature, bio-life)…
Ferdinand,
In other words, pH measurements are smaller than the error bars, so we really cannot say whether pH is changing or not.
Further, even if there is a change of 0.05, is that something to worry about? Oceans have changed much more than that, and we’re all still here.
The reactions presented as proof of falling pH do not include the bicarbonate part of the cycle that increases pH. So no there will be no connection.
I would have thought that there would be a marked change in pH/pOH around any natural source of CO2 especially as I would guess it exists in more than just trace amounts?
No. There is simply too little CO2 in the atmosphere to influence the ocean one way or the other.
If the atmosphere was pure 100% CO2 there would still be more CO2 in the oceans.
Takahishi’s oceanic CO2 Flux chart is interesting for this discussion and rib’s comments.
Figure 1. An estimate of the net CO2 flux into and out of the oceans, from Takahashi 1999. McKinley et al. say that the flux into the ocean is slowing.
Found in this thread:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/07/12/lowering-the-bar/
Certain researchers and CAGW advocates may just ignore this evidence, as they often do any with empirical evidence that’s contrary to their agendas. I hardly ever read how human’s paltry 3% contribution to the 0.04% total atmospheric CO2 can have any effect and since it’s highly doubtful that CO2 has any significant effect on global temps anyway……….
But, the obsessed aren’t interested in those matters. Studying this for the sake of learning about the carbon cycle and what the primary contributors are is fine, but I doubt this satellite was built and launched just to study the carbon cycle and find out our paltry addition is even less significant. The gravy train rolls on and on…..
Oh, just wait till the data has been properly adjusted, smoothed, renormalised, modelled – then we’ll see that it’s those nasty old Humans emitting toxic, evil CO2, and all that comes from volcanoes is kittens and rose petals. The Eco-taleban will then trumpet the proper data and maps with big red splodges over “The West”.
A month before the OCO-2 composite picture was release, NASA released a video of “Nature Run” – a simulation of how the CO2 produced moves around with weather patterns. The OCO-2 image kind of makes a mockery of it. The two are compared briefly: https://diggingintheclay.wordpress.com/2015/01/01/mists-of-time-missed/. The model supposedly assimilates real data, and volcanic production is supposedly accounted for by a few isolated plumes.
If I remember correctly, termites emit more CO2 than the whole mankind.So, as there seems to be “some” emissions from Africa, could it be that it is not just a vulcanic thing…