His new research applies observed changes of climate and atmospheric tracers to resolve the budget of atmospheric carbon dioxide. It reveals the mechanisms behind the evolution of CO2, including its increase during the 20th century. Thereby, the analysis determines the respective roles of human and natural sources of CO2, with an upper bound on the contribution from fossil fuel emission.
Watch the video from London, 17th March 2015
h/t to Andrew Montford and Philip Foster
he found a job again?
Yet another logical fallacy from Daniel and his was 1st post… congrats, I’m sure.
And if you look at the timestamps, you can see he barely listened to the first 5 minutes of the whole lecture.
Pointman
Extra bounty for first post.
Sounds as though he has not yet got steady employment.
Unintended Consequences Bowman? Good book 🙂
Hey Pointman –
I suspect Daniel simply doesn’t know that it isn’t a still picture, but it is a video.
/grin
Ouch (but in a good way)
Literally choked on my breakfast! LOL!
that’s actually a very funny comment 🙂
Thank you Daniel for that in-depth refutation of Dr. Salby’s science.
Alinsky would be proud.
Stupid git.
a video is not science.
a paper is not science.
a blog comment is not science.
When Salby publishes his data and his methods ( code ), Then and only then will folks have a rational obligation to examine his conclusions. Video, papers, comments, are merely ADVERTISEMENTS for the real science.
Until such time as he publishes (anywhere I might add) no one is under any rational obligation to refute, believe, question, or even view his advertisement.
We are constantly told that research materials by themselves do not constitute ‘valid science’ unless and until there has been positive peer review of at least one published scientific paper which describes the research material and which defends any conclusions which flow from said research material.
This would mean that a failure to publish automatically invalidates the research work that was performed, and also invalidates any conclusions which might have been reached, regardless of any other circumstances or considerations which are extant.
In the YouTube video, Salby says he has been denied access to the body of scientific research material he produced while he was employed as an atmospheric physicist. He says this situation prevents him from publishing papers describing the research he produced. Presumably, the research material he has been denied access to includes the data he collected and the methods he used to analyze the data.
Does Salby’s current lack of access to the research materials he produced while he was employed as an atmospheric research scientist constitute a valid excuse for not publishing the data and the methods he used to reach his conclusions?
Beta Blocker,
The data Dr. Salby used in the first 10 minutes are publicly available, so that wouldn’t be a problem to be a basis for any publication. But even simply publishing on line the data, reasoning and methods he used in his above video and answering the objections as given here would clarify a lot…
Steve, are you not aware that Einstein paper on the Theory of Relativity was not published, or peer reviewed. So from you comments I am to assume Albert’s work was not science. May you should tell you peers that I certain they all need a good laugh.
Mosher
Why does your set of requirements apply only to Dr Salby, and not Dr Mann and his crowd?
Beta Blocker April 13, 2015 at 1:27 pm
You’ve entirely misrepresented what Mosher said, and unfortunately others have followed your lead. Mosher did NOT say it needed peer review. He did NOT say it had to defend any conclusions. He said this:
Nor did Mosh say the publication had to be in a scientific journal. Instead, he said:
If you look at my comment you’ll see that I have exactly the same issues with Dr. Saxby’s work. As Gertrude Stein remarked, the problem with his work is that there’s no “there” there …
Folks, this misunderstanding is a good example of why I ask people to QUOTE THE EXACT WORDS YOU DISAGREE WITH. Beta Blocker is attacking a ghost of his/her own making, as are others following his/her lead. Mosh and I often disagree on the science, but he’s not all the things you are projecting on him. Read his words, find the ones you disagree with, and quote them exactly. Otherwise, you’ll end up in this kind of trouble:
Mark Luhman April 13, 2015 at 6:14 pm
Sorry, Mark, but Steven Mosher said nothing about peer review. You are assaulting a chimera of your own making.
Chip Javert April 13, 2015 at 7:56 pm
Mosher has been among the forefront of those saying “no data, no code, no science” to people on both sides of the climate divide. He asks the same thing of every scientist that I ask of them—data as used and code as used for the study. Your idea that Mosher doesn’t apply his requirements across the board is entirely false.
Best to all,
w.
“his data and his methods” are not science either. Those two and the others are part of science. the individual going through the work and any objections with a fine tooth comb to be satisfied everything adds up is science.
The last thing that is science is just someone’s conclusion but to refer to Dr. Salby’s as advertisements is a bit low.
In addition to what Willis and Mosher said,
Dr. Salby never responds to any objections about his thesis. Not in London (where I was last year), not here at WUWT where he would be more than welcome to defend his theories.
It is quite easy to give a lecture with good sounding arguments where most of the audience is unaware of the background. But it is something different to defend the same for an audience which has more knowledge and has the time to find things out and recalculate what is said…
The mosh has a point here, I think, although he goes further than I would.
Gray stuff is sticky (but not to be entirely ignored).
The original question I posed, one which was fairly simple and straightforward, was this:
Ferdinand Engelbeen responds:
Willis Eschenbach responds:
I interpret Ferdinand’s and Willis’ responses thus …. it can be successfully argued that regardless of Dr. Salby’s lack of direct access to the research materials he produced while he was employed as an atmospheric research scientist, there is still much he could do in defending his conclusions which he has not done.
To wit, their point is that Dr. Salby has chosen of his own accord not to cite publicly-available material which could be marshaled in support of his conclusions, in lieu of the material now being withheld from him; and that Dr. Salby has chosen of his own accord not to provide written descriptions (at least) of the withheld data and the withheld analytical code.
In summary, as I interpret Ferdinand’s and Willis’ responses, it is possible for Dr. Salby to compensate for his lack of direct access to the research materials he had produced while he was employed as an atmospheric research scientist, but that he has chosen of his own accord not to do so, with the ultimate result that his conclusions cannot and should not be taken at face value.
You have to give a lot of credit to the WIWT folks for putting up with this “Daniel Kuhn” character. Can you imagine one of the warmist sites tolerating this level of trolling?
WUWT.
All who comply with site policy are welcome here. The more who oppose us, the better, because that’s how we learn.
hey Evan, you still owe me an answer on YT 🙂 i am still waiting , you promised me 🙂
REPLY – The dressing down I promised or something else? ~ Evan
Daniel:
Sorry, Daniel. I missed the mathematics in your refutation of Dr Salby’s presentation.
You do understand mathematics, don’t you?
i missed his publication in the scientific literature.
Daniel,
Salby has published a lot:
http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0,29&as_ylo=2009&q=murry+salby
But publication isn’t what makes someone a scientist. That requires practicing the scientific method, ie making testable predictions, the results of which tests are repeatable.
Daniel Kuhn April 13, 2015 at 9:46 am
milodonharlani April 14, 2015 at 10:47 am
Thanks, (S)milodon. While I find a lot of publications by Salby at Google Scholar, as near as I can tell only two of them are on CO2, and they are presentations to a conference, not scientific publications … what am I missing?
w.
Daniel
All day every day
If you hover your cursor over the photograph, and push the left button on your mouse, or select the red button with the triangle on it, a “movie show” should begin, wherein the man will move and talk, and relay information. Information that may or may not influence your opinions. Likely no, since you already made your opinion known before listening to the information.
You are sitting at home, furiously clicking, and reloading WUWT, so that you can, 1) say something in response to you many critics, and feed your need to be heard. 2) attempt to disrupt the natural flow of thoughtful discussion at WUWT, the worlds most visisted site on climate science.
Well, I would like to read one of you many scientific papers, publications. Based on the frequent and abundant snap of half sentences and attempts at one-liners, I doubt that you every learned to read anything that required research, thought, disciplined contemplation, reflection and maybe reconsideration of a previously held position, the hallmark of science.
Copernicus wrote about you and people like you in his letter to Pope Paul III prior to his publication of the revolution of the Spheres. He refers to you as “Drones amongst the bees”. That is a person who feeds off the hard work of others and contributes nothing by his own right, and further, appears to be a contributor by making himself sound like, look like and otherwise appear like a one of the contributors by saying science-like phrases and interjecting doubt, like a man of science might.
Well, you are fooling nobody. You, in fact, are the fool. In every great gathering of people you have the people who are there to do the work, and those who are there to serve drinks, sweep up the mess, or pick up the forgotten dishes. You are the entertainment. The 1/2 wit comic in the small room where people go to stop thinking about big ideas. I wager you are a performer, a musician or a person from the entertainment industry. A person who says short, thoughtless quips, to draw attention to himself but say nothing really of substance. the clown, the village idiot.
Be my monkey. Perform for me… performer.
Well, I got the monkey suit you sent me, but it’s the wrong size.
===============
It’s supposed to be. Man up!
China’s CO2 increase
The VERY rapid increase in human CO2 emissions around 2002 appears to be driven by China’s CO2 emissions. e.g. by a rapid increase in coal fired power plants.
Or in a lagged response to the 1999 super El Niño. Who knows?
See EIA’s China CO2 Emissions and dramatic graph
I see that many of the people who are commenting on Salby’s presentation have not watched the presentation and/or do not understand his analysis and are not aware that there are multiple independent observations/analysis results that support Salby’s findings/conclusions.
The following is a summary of Salby’s recent technical findings and their implications.
Using two independent analysis techniques: 1) Mass balance/Sink Change and 2) Phase Analysis, Salby determines an upper maximum limit of 33% as to what portion of the recent rise in atmospheric CO2 is due to anthropogenic CO2 emissions.
The analysis appears to bullet proof, is supported Humlum et al’s peer reviewed phase analysis results, and is completely supported by the recent data from the NASA speciality CO2 monitoring satellite. It is interesting to note that the NASA satellite data refutes the IPCC CO2 sink and source model. It is curious that there has been no official announcement or media comments, of the astonishing fact that the IPCC CO2 sink and source model has been falsified by observations.
Cult science is the name used for the groups of scientist who support and continue to push theories that have been invalidated by observations. In normal science theories change or replaced by new theory when the original theory has been invalidated by observations. Normal scientists’ objective is to solve scientific problems and are hence interested when observations invalidate the standard theory.
The following are the implications of Salby’s findings:
1. The assumed model for carbon sinks and sources not correct. There is one or more large sources of CO2 into the atmosphere that are not taken include in the standard assumed carbon source sink/model. The assumed major source of new CO2 into the biosphere is volcanic eruptions. The assumed model for carbon sinks and sources is based on the late veneer theory which postulates that a late bombardment of either comets or asteroids provide the light elements to the surface of the planet after big splat impact which formed the moon and removed the majority of the light elements from the earth’s mantle. The competing theory (theories must compete) is deep core CH4 theory which was brought the Western world by late Nobel Prize winning astrophysicist, Thomas Gold. As the core of the earth solidifies it extrudes super high pressure liquid CH4. The high pressure liquid CH4 breaks through the mantel and moves up to the surface of the planet. As the liquid CH4 moves through the mantel is dissolves organic metals which explains the super concentrates of metals in the surface region of the crust.
Gold has 50 observations to support the deep CH4 hypothesis. I have found another 20 or so. The deep core CH4 mechanism provides the force that moves the ocean floors, explaining why the oldest ocean floor on the earth is roughly 200 million years. The super high pressure liquid CH4 concentrates uranium and thorium for example and provides a pathway for the helium that is produced from radioactive decay of uranium and thorium to move into oil reservoirs. (The only source of commercial helium is oil reservoirs.) This explains why helium is associated with oil reservoirs.
The core CH4 theory explains why the ocean is saturated with CH4 and explains why there sites all over the ocean floor where CH4 is constantly released and explains why there are massive deposits of methyl hydrate on the ocean floor in the Arctic.
2) The planet is about to abruptly cool due to the interruption of the solar magnetic cycle. The cooling has started different regions. There is a mechanism that is inhibiting the cooling mechanism in regional areas. The inhibiting mechanism is starting to abate. There are cycles of warming and cooling the paleo record that correlate with solar cycle changes.
3) If the planet does significantly cool we will by observations be able to determine what portion of the warming in the last 150 years was due to solar cycle changes and we will be able to determine what portion of the rise in atmospheric CO2 was due to anthropogenic CO2 emissions vs natural CO2 sources.
William Astley,
Dr. Salby goes completely wrong on the first two points in your analysis:
1. The mass balance argument shows that the natural carbon cycle is more sink than source over the past 55 years. Thus nature is not responsible for the bulk of the increase in the atmosphere, it is responsible for the absorption of halve the human emissions (in mass, not in original molecules).
2. One can’t deduce the cause of any trend by doing a phase analysis of the variability around the trend, if more than one possible cause is involved and one of them shows a huge variability with little trend and the other shows little variability but a huge trend…
Thus far from bullet proof, his analyses doesn’t hold water.
One can’t deduce anything from 6 weeks of satellite data. Just wait and see for a full year of data and preferably several years…
William Astley April 14, 2015 at 10:41 am
In addition to Ferdinand Engelbeen’s most cogent objections to your claims of what Dr. Salby says, I am in the same position—Dr. Salby has provided no data and no code to back up his claims.
As I said above, William, once he publishes his results anywhere (including on the web) and makes his data and code available, we will have something to discuss. But until then, we’d just be discussing your claims about his work, and not discussing his own claims and data and code.
I am curious why you find it acceptable for him to not publish his data, his code, and most of all to not publish his results …
w.
It appears many of the people commenting in this thread do not understand Salby’s analysis and/or are not aware there are multiple independent analyses that support Salby’s assertions. Salby’s analysis and conclusion supports the assertion that there is no anthropogenic CO2 emission problem to solve.
The following is additional data (NASA CO2 satellite, regional CO2 high and low anomalies) and Phase Analysis of CO2 changes by hemisphere Vs temperature. Both sets of data and analysis supports Salby’s assertion that anthropogenic CO2 has contributed less than 33% of the rise in atmospheric CO2 in the last 150 years. Salby’s analysis also confirms the half life resident time for CO2 in the atmosphere is less than 8 years. The implication of this analysis is the theoretical IPCC’s carbon sink/source model is fundamentally incorrect. The IPCC model assumes the half life resident time of CO2 in the atmosphere is around 200 years, assumes there is small net new input of CO2 from natural non anthropogenic sources, and hence assumes there is long resident time for CO2 in the atmosphere (non reversible sink rate is small). All of these IPCC CO2 model assumptions are incorrect.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/12/20/agu14-nasas-orbiting-carbon-observatory-shows-surprising-co2-emissions-in-southern-hemisphere/
I seem to recall that there would be an update every 3 months.
Where is the update to the December data?
It is important to see how the seasons may impact upon the distribution of CO2 before one can draw firmer conclussions, from the unexpected December snapshot.
In reply to:
In reply to:
Willis Eschenbach
1) Clarification: Ferdinand Engelbeen’s most cogent objections
William,
Engelbeen is parroting what has stated in a paper that asserted that Humlum et al’s analysis must be incorrect due to mass balance reasons. The mass balance analysis however was based on the IPCC carbon/sink source model that has been invalidated by three separate and independent analyses. The balance paper is comical. Rather than acknowledge the fact that IPCC sink/source model is incorrect based on three separate observations/analyses, the author is asserting that Humlum’s analysis must be incorrect based on the invalidated IPCC sink/source model.
2) Clarification as to why Salby has not published.
William,
Willis you appear to be ignorant as to what happened to Salby. Salby was fired as he had found unequivocal proof that IPCC source/sink model has incorrect. He received an email that he has fired when he has in Europe, ironically making presentation explaining his analysis and results. At the same time as he was fired by email with no opportunity to refute the reason for his firing and/or his analysis, all of his data and analysis results in Australia were removed and he no longer has access to them. (The University stated that his work, results, and data has the property of the university.)
Salby’s result that anthropogenic CO2 emissions is responsible for at most 33% of the rise in atmospheric CO2 and the IPCC CO2 source/sink model is fundamentally incorrect is the most important climate change analysis/conclusion in the last 50 years.
There is an in your face effort to hide/cover up the fact that there is no CAWG problem to solve. There is an sad, pathetic attempt to block research/analysis results that unequivocally supports the assertion that there is no CAWG problem to solve.
William,
I don’t need the IPCC to point to the flaws in someone’s reasoning…
1. The mass balance: no matter the individual CO2 fluxes in and out the atmosphere, all what counts is the net result at the end of each year: 55 years more natural sinks than natural sources. Thus nature is a net sink for CO2 not a source, no matter how you torture the data to prove the opposite.
Humans emit twice the amount per year which shows up in the atmosphere. That doesn’t escape to space. If that isn’t the cause of the increase in the atmosphere, then nothing can be the cause.
2. The residence time.
For the 100th time: residence time says nothing about the time needed to remove an extra injection of CO2 above equilibrium. The latter is the excess decay rate expressed as e-fold time, which for CO2 currently is slightly over 50 years or a half life time of ~40 years. The ~5 years residence time is how long in average an individual CO2 molecule resides in the atmosphere before being exchanged with a CO2 molecule from another reservoir. That doesn’t change the total quantity in the atmosphere. Only the excess decay rate does.
It is like the difference between the throughput of capital (as goods) in a factory and the gain (or loss) of the factory at the end of the year…
3. The satellite data.
Please have some clue about the huge CO2 fluxes involved:
Some 60 GtC goes in and out vegetation (mostly in the NH forests) over the seasons.
Some 50 GtC goes in and out the ocean surface (mostly in the SH) over the seasons.
Some 40 GtC/year comes in from the warm equatorial deep ocean upwelling and goes out at the sinking cold polar waters into the deep.
The balance of the above huge fluxes is a net sink of ~4.5 GtC/year.
Some 9 GtC/year is added by humans, mostly in the NH.
The satellite data were for 6 weeks in NH fall and SH spring. What these show is the huge natural fluxes over that part of a year, but that doesn’t (in)validate anything as the same places which are sinks in one season will be sources in other seasons and the permanent sinks outpace the permanent sources.
You need at least a year of data to have some clue about the human contribution.
4. The phase relation.
Human emissions show a huge trend, hardly any variability.
Temperature shows a huge variability, but hardly any trend.
Of course, if you look at the variability, you will find a close relation – with a lag – between temperature variations and CO2 rate of change, but that says nothing about the cause of the trend, which is not caused by the same (temperature dependent or not) process.
The main cause of the variability is the influence of temperature and drought on the mostly SH tropical forests (El Niño).
The main cause of the increase is in the NH where 90% of human emissions are. The SH lags the increase with 1-2 years.
So he can’t publish this important science until he recovers his research (see Q&A) . It would seem he has been treated like or worse than than Dr. Soon. Maybe some public pressure on McGuire U. would be appropriate and timely. Obviously, his work is a huge problem for the AGW activists.
“Obviously, his work is a huge problem for the AGW activists.”
his not working was a problem for the university he worked for.
Why can Daniel and other trolls not deal in truth or fact ?
I have always found that it it only people who know they are wrong who need to lie.
Daniel
Ok, so you got the trivial ad hominem attack ou of the way (my opinion: it reflects more on you rather than on Dr Salby).
Do you have a substantive comment on Dr Salby’s atmospheric physics presentation?
Chip
I am still waiting on Daniel substantive argument on anything, don’t hold your breath getting an answer either.
So …. nothing actually wrong with the presentation? Just think he should still be unemployed? Lazy ad hom
His not toeing the party line was the reason for his treatment. One thing socialists can’t stand is someone who has independent thought about any subject. That said, if George Bernard Shaw of Fabian fame were judging these replies based on their merit to the whole conversation, you would be marked for extermination based on your contribution. LOL
It is obvious to any thinking person that Professor Salby’s information is locked away because the Warmists such as you can’t afford to make data available that annihilates your precious CO2 argument. Altho this is only one presentation, it is one of a growing number that reveals CAGW as propaganda. They all show that real world observations don’t match any predictions based on climate models, or blatant lies put out there by leftist politicians and their scientist lackeys to scare the general public. Virtually every so-called climate prediction mouthed by those on the left has been followed by the opposite thing happening in the real world. Therefore, all those lefties out there calling for the destruction and death of scientists like Salby should be very careful of what they utter considering that phenomenon.
Contrast what is being presented in that video with video of Warmists trudging through late spring snow in Canada protesting against Global Warming.
“Just think he should still be unemployed?” Not at all.
Daniel
Maybe he could be a paid troll, he certainly would be better then you
there are paid trolls? who finances that?
Kuhn
Well, one California billionaire just last year offered 53 million in bribes (er, campaign donations) directly to any democrat Senators who would advance his CAGW beliefs. That was blatantly illegal (exchanging money for specific legislative actions) but illustrates the private money being thrown around the political process. Gates, Google, Soros, Buffet, and other billionaires are active democrat donors as well. The government itself has several “initiatives” and “educational programs” out there with 125 million dollar plus budgets (each) to “promote solutions to global warming” and “educate the public” in just such campaigns.
Yes, there are paid Internet trolls. Lots of them, employed by government, business, ideological & political organizations, notably Soros’ Moveon.org, & individuals.
There have been lawsuits involving the practice of hiring boilerrooms to influence markets, public opinion & elections.
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2013/10/confirmation_of_paid_democrat_trolls.html
There are ads on Facebook to recruit them.
Daniel:
How cute; you say you don’t think he should be unemployed.
Yet facist tactics have been used to deprive Dr Salby of a livelihood as well as his own intellectual property.
How cute.
(facist definition: A form of political behavior marked by obsessive preoccupation with community decline, humiliation or victimhood and by compensatory cults of unity, energy and purity, in which a mass-based party of committed nationalist militants, working in uneasy but effective collaboration with traditional elites, abandons democratic liberties and pursues with redemptive violence and without ethical or legal restraints goals of internal cleansing and external expansion. [Robert O. Paxton, “The Anatomy of Fascism,” 2004])
“Yet facist tactics have been used to deprive Dr Salby of a livelihood as well as his own intellectual property.”
oh really? do you have evidence of those accusations?
Does any one know where transcripts of Salby’s talks might be found?
a reference anyway –
http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.com/2015/03/a-recent-seminar-presentation-by.html
Dr. Murry Salby is a clear example of a honest researcher who has been targeted by academics that have demonstrated themselves as non scientists, flaunting their bias and inability to consider the lead of data. Daniel above confirms this inability above, as well as abuse, of his privilege, to comment on a serious thread. He relishes the persecution and damage done to this fine scientist which can only be described as Orwellian.
While Dr. Salby should be recognized with a Nobel prize, Daniel should be recognized by his non-contribution and comments as drivel. Daniel thinks “climate disruption” means that he should disrupt any and all threads concerning climate. Why?? Because WUWT is the ONLY blog which will publish his autistic tendencies. GK
[Snip. Total ad hominem comment. Stop it. ~mod.]
“While Dr. Salby should be recognized with a Nobel prize”
for what? what groundbreaking discovery has he made? and in which Journal did he publish it?
I have a copy of Salby’s ” Fundamentals of atmospheric Physics” and his chapter on radiative transfer is a impressive piece of mathematical exposition. The book is published by Academic Press , and if you have never heard of them , be assured by me that they are probably the second most important scientific publishing firm after CUP (Cambridge University press). To be asked by their editorial board to submit a book is indeed an honour .
Some trolls will say a text book is not peer reviewed . A stupid comment which only exposes ignorance of the academic life. In my experience textbooks are used for teaching, read by at least a generation of students and researchers before they become dated , are the subject of seminars and tutorials , student essays , and the opening references of countless MS and PHD theses. They receive more critical attention than a paper in , say , Nature Climate , which is down loaded and then left forgotten in personal folders for perpetuity.
When one of your pals , or an alter ego , warrenlb made the same arrogantly stupid claims about Salby’s scientific abilities (he called his work worthless) I challenged him to take one of the problems from the chapter on radiative transfer and solve it for us in public so that we can see how immeasurably superior he (warrenlb ) is .
He has not so far responded to the challenge. So why don’t you since you are as superior to Salby as warrenlb .
“Some trolls will say a text book is not peer reviewed . A stupid comment which only exposes ignorance of the academic life.”
I fully agree.
but writing a text book is not enough for a Nobel Prize i think.
one would have to make a big discovery and even then its not sure you get one.
i simply asked for what Salby should get one.
Need I remind you of Al Gore. Why not ask him? GK
“Need I remind you of Al Gore. Why not ask him? GK”
are we talking about the Nobel Peace Prize? or the real thingy?
i meant the real thing. not that Booby prize
Daniel Kuhn
You ask concerning Dr Salby
I answer. None, he has – as most scientists do – confirmed what was already known.
I refer you to my post in reply to more of your nonsense which you have yet to answer where I wrote saying to you
I repeat that I still await your reply.
Richard
richard, you still have no evidence for your claim that the IPCC calls the ARs “political documents”?
btw, Richard. are you saying AGW is not happening? i was under the impression that WUWT accepts AGW,
you disagree with WUWT?
Define your politically-corrupt propaganda terms before you begin trying to use them in front of people who do not blindly accept your political propaganda:
If total warming since 1880 is 6/10 of 1 degree, man-made warming “might be” 1/10 of 1 degree. Natural variation in the earth’s climate is thus 5/10 of one degree, and “man-made global warming” is indeed accepted” at this site as “likely to be occuring”.
Is such warming any problem at all?
No.
Is the total global warming beneficial to all in the world?
Yes.
Will such total global warming be likely to continue until the year 2100?
No. We are very near the short-term oscillations at the peak of the latest natural 900 year long cycle in climate history, and thus 2100 is very likely going to be cooler than today’s world as it slides down towards the Modern Ice Age. It may well be that man’s release of fossilized carbon into the atmosphere will be the only thing that saves the world from the next Massive Ice Age.
and isn’t it amazing that you that claims to have been involved with the IPCC, have no clue what evidence the scientific community presented for AGW?
not accepting the conclusions drawn from the measurements or rejecting the measurements is one thing. but you evidently are not aware of what the scientific community presented as evidence.
when no evidence has been presented, how come WUWT accepts AGW? or does WUWT now deny AGW?
“Is such warming any problem at all?
No.
Is the total global warming beneficial to all in the world?
Yes.”
oh really? can you show me some scientific studies that concluded this?
See also Murry Salby’s updated tour de force: Physics of the Atmosphere and Climate 718 pages Cambridge Hardcover – January 16, 2012 ISBN-13: 978-0521767187 ISBN-10: 0521767180 Edition: 2nd
Salby is an academic. You need to be careful with that tar brush. There is no disjunction between “honest researcher” and “academic.” Salby got himself crosswise with the climate mafia because his work implies their work is a waste of grant money. That has little to do with “academics” and lots with economics.
Actually his problem has been his dishonesty, in connection with misuse of federal funds, see:
http://www.nsf.gov/oig/search/I06090025.pdf
As a result of this investigation he was debarred from receiving federal funds for three years.
As for his presentation, it’s a great demonstration of a GIGO model.
Actually no. There is quite some innuendo, bluster and handwaving in that pdf (made available by DeSmogBlog) but no hard facts. And of course, you don’t know the whole story, because there is more to it than that.
Further, I seriously doubt you have taken the time to understand his presentations. Probably haven’t even listened to it and are just taking someone else’s word for it.
However, GIGO is a fair descriptions of quite a few models who claim ability to predict the future, but so far have failed miserably. Do you know which ones I am referring to?
Jonas N April 13, 2015 at 12:46 pm
Actually no. There is quite some innuendo, bluster and handwaving in that pdf (made available by DeSmogBlog) but no hard facts. And of course, you don’t know the whole story, because there is more to it than that.
‘That pdf’ was provided by the Office of the Inspector General of NSF, and contains very explicit charges and evidence. Since it only covered two grants it is likely that there were further financial irregularities.
Further, I seriously doubt you have taken the time to understand his presentations. Probably haven’t even listened to it and are just taking someone else’s word for it.
No I did listen to it and I understand it very well, as he puts it you really can’t trust an ‘activist’ like him (snaps fingers).
Just ignore him and his ilk. Babes in the woods.
Would that there were a transcript available.
Being almost unable to comprehend spoken English, I really hoped there were public, good, automated ways to get transcripts.
The google’s implementation is so drastical failure that I don’t even try.
To be honest, I just recently went to check Salby’s claim that growth of atmospheric CO2 is uncorrelated with growth of human emissions and my conclusion was that this claim is not supported by observations. There’s strong influence of temperatures on instaneous CO2 change rate but I found human emission rate including its changes (up until 2011, i.e. including the 2002 change he refers to) clearly embedded (or at least easily embed-able) on background of temperature-driven fluctuations. I don’t think it means he’s all wrong but for me that’s the point when I’m starting to be careful about his other claims.
I still have to listen to this whole talk, though. I may come with more comments later.
elaborate, please
Bubba,
CO2 goes up and down with temperature with a lag of a few months over the seasons. That is the influence of temperature on mainly NH vegetation (the changes in the SH are much smaller – less vegetation).
The same (but opposite) for the influence of ENSO (El Niño) on tropical forests over periods of a few years.
That are changes of 4-5 ppmv/°C lasting a few months to 2-3 years.
The long term change now is already 110 ppmv since the start of the industrial revolution. Warming vegetation in general absorbs more CO2. Warming oceans release more CO2, but the equilibrium according to Henry’s law of CO2 solubility is only 8 ppmv/°C.
Meanwhile humans emitted over 200 ppmv of CO2.
So in my informed opinion, based on all observations, humans are the main cause of the increase of CO2 in the atmosphere over the past 160 years and temperature is the cause of the year by year variability in the rate of change (and maximum 6 ppmv of the increase).
Ferdinand – thank you.
I couldn’t fathom what Kasuha wrote – I wasn’t disagreeing – simply, the writing wasn’t clear to me.
So, thanks for your clarity and, I confess, I encourage folks to be especially clear about climate matters.
(Plus I am internet challenged – really bad satellite is best I can get here with narrow bandwidth, limited download . . . so I simply can’t load the video presentation . . . and, for now, must rely on others’ comments, which is risky. Will bookmark for elsewhere.)
Best
Your claim is patently absurd, Ferdinand. There is a system here which takes temperature as an input, and produces the rate of change of CO2 as an output. That system takes in the short term variability of temperature as well as the long term.
READ CAREFULLY. You keep entirely missing the point on this.
In order for the long term change in the rate of CO2 to NOT have a significant influence from the long term change in temperature, there would have to be a filtering operation, a high pass response which filtered out the long term change and only produced tracking of the short term change in temperatures,
But, such operations have to obey particular laws in this universe, one of the principle ones being one of continuity. It is impossible to have a zero phase, instantaneous (in frequency) filter cutoff. There would be a transition region, in which long term influences were gradually lessened, and phase shifted ahead 90 degrees.
There is no such transition period to be observed in the data. Tracking of temperatures in the rate of change of CO2 is excellent across the entire spectrum. As a result, the long term change in temperature is responsible for the long term change in the rate of change of CO2.
There is no doubt about it. The trend in temperatures is responsible for the trend in the rate of change of CO2. And, that means that the trend in human emissions is NOT responsible for the trend in the rate of change of CO2.
This is very ordinary behavior for a regulatory feedback system, which attenuates disturbances such as our tiny input, and enforces the natural level dictated by the boundary conditions.
Sorry for mistakes in my english, it’s not my native language.
Anyway, my check ended up with two badly formatted excel charts showing the correlation on total amount and its derivative and it was rather impressive for any claims on the opposite. I did not keep the file since I was doing it just for myself.
It’s not hard to replicate, all it needs is to take two datasets – known human emissions since 1950 and Mauna Loa measurements, then convert them properly to the total and its derivative and evaluate the correlation for both. It definitely came out as a surprise for me, I did not expect such a good match.
I’ll maybe do it again more thoroughly when I have time but sorry, can’t spend it on proving it for you just now. Xou can try it yourself in the meantime.
Bart,
That system takes in the short term variability of temperature as well as the long term.
Indeed the short term variability over months to 2-3 years is 4-5 ppmv/°C.
The very long term change is 8 ppmv/°C over the past 800,000 years.
That means that the ~0.8°C temperature increase since the LIA is good for ~6 ppmv CO2 increase.
That is all. The rest of the 110 ppmv increase since ~1850 is from humans…
There is no reason for filtering as most of the increase has nothing to do with temperature, only a relative slow (~50 years) e-fold rate is sufficient to show a simple addition of human emissions and the temperature caused variability without distortion.
This is very ordinary behavior for a regulatory feedback system
Of course there is a feedback from the earth’s carbon cycle on any disturbance of that cycle. If the reaction is much slower (~50 years e-fold rate) than the variability (months to 2-3 years), as is the case here, that hardly influences the timing/frequencies of the variability. Show us your figures…
“There is no reason for filtering as most of the increase has nothing to do with temperature”
That can only be the case if the trend in temperature IS FILTERED OUT. You cannot have the short term driving CO2 rate of change, and the long term not unless the long term IS FILTERED OUT.
There is no evidence of such a filtering process. Ergo, the long term trend in temperatures is driving the long term trend in CO2 rate of change.
And, that fact disqualifies human inputs from being the driving force.
I explain this over, and over, and it makes not dent, indeed, elicits no counterargument or even acknowledgement. Do you even read what I write?
Bart,
The rate of change of temperature is 0.01°C/year over the past decades. The long term increase of CO2 is 8 ppmv/°C thus for the past 55 years maximum 0.08 ppmv/year. The increase in the atmosphere was 1.5 ppmv/year or 20 times larger than the long term increase caused by the temperature increase. Human emissions were about double that or 40 times the temperature influence. The variability around the increase was +/- 1 ppmv, 12 times larger than the long term increase per year caused by temperature.
Please show me the math and graphs which show that the long term CO2 increase caused by temperature has any influence on amplitude, frequency or timing from the different inputs for an e-fold decay rate of ~50 years.
Okay, I replicated my attempt and here is the output:
Salby’s comparison of human emissions with CO2 increase rate:
http://i.imgur.com/nt6jljq.png
My imperfect match of the two:
http://i.imgur.com/brNy7EN.png
Note that unlike Salby’s graph, mine goes from 1958 to 2009 so the record is a bit longer. Also please excuse missing year marks, I’d need to spend more time than I intended to put them in.
2002 is clearly visible but I wouldn’t say that global CO2 rate didn’t budge after that. Rather, the rate is drowning in noise. And that’s after already smoothing the CO2 rate with gaussian filter (just probably shorter than Salby used).
Also please consider that I used very simple and inaccurate way of matching the two wiggles. The correlation between rates is poor thanks to all the noise, my point was that it just can’t be simply ruled out.
And here is scatter plot of CO2 levels versus total human emitted CO2. It’s comparing totals (starting at 0 in 1958), at 2002 the total was 214,000 on X axis and there is no clear deviation starting at that point. The match is outstanding, given irregularities and nonlinearities on both records.
http://i.imgur.com/1ap3WPs.png
Kasuha @ April 13, 2015 at 3:55 pm
There is always a perfect affine fit possible between two affine functions. That’s basically all you’ve got here. It’s trivial. The temperature record, on the other hand, matches not only the trend in atmospheric CO2 rate of change, but all the ups and downs as well.
“…but I found human emission rate including its changes (up until 2011, i.e. including the 2002 change he refers to) clearly embedded (or at least easily embed-able) on background of temperature-driven fluctuations.”
Low order polynomial type behavior which is not difficult to match superficially, and spuriously, by chance alone. The temperature data fits the rate of change of CO2 in every detail, both long term and short.
There is no doubt about it. Human emissions are not in the driver’s seat.
And, when you integrate the curve, jpeter, you get an excellent fit. Now, please, stop polluting the thread with this.
So what? You have to work out different curve fitting parameters just to make the temperature sets themselves match. That does not mean they are all wrong. It just means they are measuring different things, and weighting different areas differently.
The best fit is with SH data, suggesting that the oceans are likely the dominant factor. But, the data themselves are uncertain, and the exact mechanism is unknown at this time. Nevertheless, the SNR is high enough that we can readily see that the major activity is due to a temperature dependent regulation of atmospheric CO2 levels.
Now, stop finding excuses. Stop focusing on trees. There is a whole forest here to gaze upon if you just lift up your eyes.
Devil is in details. You can hide whole human emission history in that scale, offset, and remaining noise. I’m not questioning that temperature swings affect CO2.
j.peter,
The “excellent fit” of Bart is by choosing the best factor and offset to match two straight lines. The problem for him is that variability and increase of the rate of change (caused by a slight quadratic increase of human emissions and increase in the atmosphere) are proven to be caused by two independent processes. Thus either his two lines match, but then the amplitude of the variability doesn’t, or the reverse happens.
If you look at smaller periods like 1976-1996, the slopes correlate even negative: a decreasing rate of change with increasing temperatures and increasing CO2 emissions…
“…are proven to be caused by two independent processes.”
They aren’t. This is just Ferdinand’s fantasy of how he would like things to be. There is no evidence, only assertion. Indeed, there is counter-evidence, in that there is no phase distortion in the relationship, as discussed above.
“If you look at smaller periods like 1976-1996, the slopes correlate even negative…”
Not at all a show stopper over short periods where the SNR is small. These are stochastic data. Step back and look at the forest.
j.peter,
Bart calls everything that does disprove his theory “assertion”.
In this case it is quite simple to prove:
If a change of CO2 is caused by the oceans, the δ13C ratio will parallel the CO2 changes as any release of CO2 from the oceans will give a small increase in δ13C of the atmosphere.
If a change of CO2 is caused by vegetation, the δ13C ratio will oppose the CO2 changes as any release of CO2 from vegetation will firmly decrease the δ13C level of the atmosphere.
All short term (seasonal to 2-3 years) CO2 changes are opposite to δ13C changes in the atmosphere.
Thus all short term variability in CO2 and δ13C is caused by a (temperature) effect on vegetation.
But…
Vegetation is NOT the cause of the longer term increase of CO2 in the atmosphere, neither of the firm drop of δ13C in the atmosphere (and ocean surface) over periods longer than a few years: based on the oxygen balance (and satellite measurements of chlorophyll on earth), the biosphere as a whole is a net, increasing sink for CO2 and preferentially of 12CO2, thus not the cause of the firm δ13C decline in the atmosphere. The earth is greening.
Neither are the oceans, as these would enrich the δ13C level…
Salby noted that there was NO quantitative correlation between CO2 emissions and temperature.
Okay I watched the whole video.There’s a lot of assumptions and regressions in the play and I’m definitely not certain they’re all valid. For instance he seems to assume that all CO2 “storages” except atmosphere have infinite capacity. But maybe it’s covered by some factor I missed in his talk. It would be nice to have his data and try to replicate his results while checking correctness of each step. I wish I had time for that. This way I’m left in doubts.
All CO2 produced by energy production is presumed to be of previous biological origin. That can be debated, but for this purpose can be treated as a given. If so, then all the carbon in circulation has been in circulation before. You do not need “infinite” sinks because the supply is not infinite. It is arguable based on geological evidence that life has been fairly steadily reducing biologically available carbon by sending it to sinks where it does not become available again within a biologically useful span.
If you study the geological literature, one consistent pattern in carbon availability is that between about 500 Mya and 250-300 Mya, atmospheric carbon was steadily being removed from the atmosphere; from levels of more than 10 times present levels to very close to those of the present at the close of the Permian. It is important to note that halving current levels of atmospheric CO2 would critically reduce primary productivity placing the entire system near the lower bounds for CO2, beneath which primary productivity shuts down.
Following the Permian extinction CO2 levels recovered to about half their maximum Phanerozoic levels. They have since that point – ca. 150 Mya – declined steadily until the planet is once again in a state that is a near duplicate of the Permian prior to the great extinction event. The most probable cause of an ecological collapse in the nearish geological future is lack of available CO2, not an excess.
Kasuha, you stated in a previous comment in this thread, “Sorry for mistakes in my english, it’s not my native language.” Might I enquire as to your native language? I have studied language diplomatics for over 30 years and after parsing your commentary here, have had some insight into the nature of your narrative which I would like to validate.
Duster says:
The most probable cause of an ecological collapse in the nearish geological future is lack of available CO2, not an excess.
Allan says:
Sadly, yes.
I don’t think you’ve characterized Salby’s claims accurately. I suggest to watch the video and listen carefully.
My layman understanding of Salby’s main point is this.
Mankind released CO2 is increasing — but the amount of CO2 being added to the atmosphere is far greater than can be explained by only mankind released CO2. In other words the natural environment is releasing much greater and ever increasing amounts of CO2. The increasing natural release of CO2 makes the increasing CO2 released by mankind irrelevant.
He then points out that if all mankind released additions of CO2 to the atmosphere were to cease immediately — atmospheric CO2 levels would continue to increase at nearly the same rate because of the natural increasing release of CO2 by the environment.
Towards the end of his talk he also makes the point that carbon based fuels will run out in a hundred years ending mankind’s addition of CO2 to the atmosphere but that the natural increase of CO2 will continue — so whatever horrible calamity warmers fear from CO2 will happen anyway — if such could happen.
Salby’s body of the talk gives various methods that determine that mankind’s release of CO2 is minor compared to the increasing natural release of CO2. His arguments seem very sound.
That in a nutshell seems to me to be Salby’s main point.
Eugene WR Gallun
Eugene,
CO2 released by humans is about 9 GtC as CO2 per year.
The measured increase of CO2 in the atmosphere is about 4.5 GtC per year.
That means that somewhere 4.5 GtC more CO2 is stored in natural sinks that emitted by natural sources. No matter how big the natural sources and sinks are.
If nature was releasing more CO2 than it stores, the increase in the atmosphere would be larger than for human emissions alone.
Thus whatever Salby tries to prove: no matter how big the natural releases, human emissions are one-way additional, while the natural carbon cycle is more sink than source. If human emissions ceased today, there would be a drop of ~4.5 GtC (~2 ppmv) next year, a little less a year later, etc. until the old equilibrium of ~290 ppmv for the current temperature would be reached. That is with an e-fold time of slightly over 50 years or a half life time of ~40 years.
Ferdinand,
Except that is not the case. Due to China’s increased CO2 output and opening a few Coal plants each week (month?) that accounts for the sudden increase in CO2 output as Salby notes. Couple that with the graph that is widely published and readily available after 2 seconds of typing in Google and there is NO jump in the record. This is what Salby is pointing out. If global CO2 were directly related to FF output, there would be a jump from the 2 ppmv/yr to approximately 3x that value since CO2 emissions tripled, thus his argument is quite simple: FF emissions jumped, but global CO2 didn’t, thus there has to be a natural source/sink that accounts for keeping the CO2 concentration increasing nearly linearly. As well, our emissions are nearly Exponential, so it should follow that concentration is exponential, but it’s not. Another thing to note is that IPCC material show the Human contribution (5.5) and the Natural sources and sinks were 2 orders of magnitude higher.
I would also like to point out the that Salby uses a widely understood graph of CO2’s affect on radiative forcing (logarithmic) and shows quite clearly the affect between the current 400 vs the previous 280 (0.18K) however, it’s completely overshadowed by the Radiative-Convective equilibrium and as he mentioned, that line tracks earth’s actual agreed upon temperature quite closely. This means that Radiative gases are important, but not the main heat transport. It’s well understood that convective affects are always the most important. It’s the reason that there is insulation placed in houses and they just aren’t painted black to increase their temperature. Blankets and coats work to keep you warm and warm you up based on the physics of convection and that’s what he is arguing as well that the saturated CO2 bands (by H2O IR) are contributing very little to the overall warming affects.
rangerike1363,
The year to year variability of human CO2 releases is less than 0.2 ppmv/year. As about halve the extra input (whatever the source) is removed by extra sinks at the end of the year, the variability of maximum 0.2 ppmv/year ends as a variability of maximum 0.1 ppmv/year, whatever the output of the extra Chinese emissions.
The accuracy of the current CO2 measurements in the atmosphere at Mauna Loa and other stations is better than 0.2 ppmv. That means that the variability in human emissions is undetectable in the measurements. Only the longer term trend (a fourfold increase in rate of change 1960-current in the atmosphere) is detectable if you plot the full length of the record, not a few decades around 1990, as he did.
That the natural sources and sinks are an order of magnitude larger doesn’t matter at all. That doesn’t change the CO2 level in the atmosphere. All what matters is the net balance between the two: more sink than source over the past 55 years and the year by year variability is quite modest: halve the human emissions and not increasing.
Further, both human emissions and increase in the atmosphere are slightly quadratic. See Wood for Trees. Which gives a surprisingly linear ratio between accumulated emissions and increase in the atmosphere between 50-55% since 1900…
Wow, the clarity of the argument was remarkable.
I only disagree on how he estimated fossil fuel limits and its use. 1) If there is one thing that seems clear to anyone in petroleum geology is that limits on fossil fuel reserves are a function of price and technology. 2) He assumes that countries which have large reserves will share those reserves (well, sell them) until extinction of the reserves. I doubt this will happen – industrialized countries that have large reserves will eventually limit their export to conserve them, thus the use of fossil fuels will not peak as rapidly nor fade as quickly.
These are minor disagreements and do not change his argument’s outcome by anything measurable.
I love the way he came at the problem from multiple angles and bracketed the results. Very clear and easy to follow.
While there is a lobby active in the US to open up US production to exportation, the US has not exported petroleum crude since the early ’70s. The big producers here would love the market to open up because they can get so much more for it over seas. There are also politicians who would love to be able to export oil to specific markets (Israel for instance) because of the huge political and economic leverage it would provide.
Duster,
The export and import of crude is much more complicated than you suggest. The current US crude that would be exported is lighter than US refineries are designed to process. You are missing the concept that we would export lighter crude to foreign countries that are not designed to process the heavy crude, while we would continue to import the heavy crude which many US refineries are well designed to handle and make a better margin on since it is cheaper.
Keep in mind that we still have a net crude import especially on the East coast since there are no significant pipelines to move the crude East. Also the US refineries have been providing product to many countries who may not have the capability to produce certain products.
Unfortunately the Golf Coast refineries cannot ship product to the East coast due to Maritine rules that prohibit foreign flagged ships from shipping goods from one US port to another US port. The number of US flagged oil ships is nil due to union rules.
The entire logistics of moving crude around the world is too complex for a progressive Senator or Congress person to understand. Let the free market do it, as they do it best.
Can you tell me how much crude we export to Israel? The logistics seems to be difficult due to the shipping costs when there are closer markets, how would it make sense to export crude to the middle east when they are awash in oil?. Crude oil is fungible.
I agree, Robert. Ironically, he is subject to this criticism of his work mainly by his more “friendly” peers. In my experience, many “warmists” predict that we’re near the “end of oil” anyway.
I am not a scientist but as an engineer question the assumed continuous rise in natural co2 levels. If the oceans start to cool off wouldn’t natural co2 also level off?
Hang around a while. We will all be finding this out together through the collection of real-world data with great accuracy.
I think the explanation is that the ocean responds over long periods and wouldn’t even register the 18years of static to cooling temperatures. The ocean has been warming since the Little Ice Age of the 1400-early 1800s. If the cooling lasts for an extended period, then natural emissions of CO2 should then begin to attenuate. But notice that measured CO2 has been rising steadily since 1950s, even though there was a cooling period of about a similar length after 1950s. A mere 0.8C of warming in over a century, including the 1990s warming, isn’t a lot of heat input into the surface of the ocean.
The long term equilibrium between ocean temperature and CO2 levels in the atmosphere is 8 ppmv/°C. The increase in temperature since the LIA (of ~0.8°C) is thus good for 6 ppmv CO2 increase since the LIA. That is all. The rest of the 110 ppmv increase thus is not from temperature…
I have followed the first 10 minutes, but already know enough:
Dr. Salby looks at the variability of the increase rate, which is largely caused by temperature changes and mainly its influence on tropical forests (proven by opposite CO2 and δ13C changes). Everybody, including AGW-enthusiasts, agrees on that:
http://esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/co2conference/pdfs/tans.pdf from slide 11 on.
His main error, as like many others, is that he assumes that the cause of the rate of change is the same as the cause of the trend in the atmosphere, but that is proven wrong. The increase of CO2 over time is NOT from vegetation: the biosphere as a whole is a proven net, increasing sink for CO2 over time. The earth is greening…
Moreover the whole natural cycle is already 55 years more sink than source:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/dco2_em2.jpg
Thus while the increase of CO2 in the atmosphere is certainly caused by the human contribution, the variability is mainly caused by the influence of temperature on the net sink capacity of the natural cycle, not the source rate.
As he uses the mass balance: nature is a net sink for CO2, not a source over the past 55 years, thus not the cause of the increase of CO2 in the atmosphere…
I agree with Ferdinand. To put it more simply, imagine there was a constant human source with time, superimposed by natural variations (natural sources not balanced with natural sinks). I’d guess Salby’s analysis would not be able to identify the size of the constant human source.
If I am wrong, someone please correct me.
It is quite impossible, Dr. Spencer. See above. Temperature alone, particularly your UAH data, explains the entire record of CO2 since you began collecting data.
In addition, surface data going back to 1958, when reliable CO2 measurements became available, while not quite fitting as well as your more reliable satellite data, show that the relationship has extended back to at least that time.
In the modern era since at least 1958, atmospheric CO2 has been driven by a temperature modulated process. Human inputs are not temperature dependent, ergo, they are not the driver. This is perfectly ordinary behavior for a feedback regulated system.
Hello Bart, you are back…
Temperature just explains the variability, temperature can’t explain the increase in the atmosphere as higher temperatures in general stimulate plant growth and oceans give not more than 8 ppmv/°C in static or dynamic equilibrium.
The rate of change of CO2 has been driven by a temperature modulated process, the increase is NOT driven by temperature as it is NOT a feedback regulated process, there is hardly any feedback from CO2 on temperature…
It is right in front of your eyes, Ferdinand. You are just covering them, and insisting that reality is what you say it is, and not what the data tell us.
Why is it that when the data opposes what AGW theory calls for ,as Dr. Murry Salby ,shows so clearly that some excuse has to be made to say the data is wrong rather then the theory?
I am with Dr. Salby 100% and guess what the data supports it.
I have said AGW theory is the only theory that says the data must conform to the data rather then the other way around.
CORRECTION- I have said AGW theory is the only theory that says the data must conform to the theory rather then the other way around.
Savatore,
AGW may be overblown, but all the observations show that the CO2 increase in the atmosphere is caused by the human emissions. There is not a single observation violated.
Bart’s theory violates every observation, thus can’t be right.
Ferdinand’s case is completely circumstantial, and is inconsistent with the fundamental evidence that the rate of change of CO2 tracks temperature.
“I’d guess Salby’s analysis would not be able to identify the size of the constant human source.”
True, but it ought to be able to calculate the relative proportion of the human contribution to natural contributions using only variation in the rate-of-change of known human contributions and observe the rate-of-change in atmospheric measurements.
It’s like one person peeing in a river, versus three people doing so. If the river does not rise, then each person’s contribution is rather insignificant. In this experiment it doesn’t really matter the absolutely contribution by each person peeing in the river, what matters is how much of an impact did it make on the river going from one to three:
[N+(3p)] / [N + (1p)] = change ratio going from one person to three persons peeing in the river where “N” is the natural contribution. If p=0 then each person’s contribution to the total is zero and the ratio is 1, all natural. In the case that N=0, then your ratio is 3/1, meaning the entire increase is human.
At no point do you need actual quantitative measures; it is the known change in rate of human contribution that creates this analytical opportunity.
It is sufficient on its face to challenge IPCC assumption that the entire increase is anthropogenic at least as a direct effect (pump CO2 into the air and there it is!)
Indirect effects (feedbacks) doubtless exist but those feedbacks ought to have tracked the increase in carbon dioxide from any source — and if anthropocentric contribution is slight, then it is tracking itself, in other words natural CO2 is creating its own feedback for more natural CO2 — which, if true, one might wonder what stops this increase. Carbon taxes certainly aren’t going to in that case.
Correct, Salby assumes in his model that the natural sources are a function of temperature whereas the sinks are not. However, due to Henry’s Law the Ocean sink is a function of temperature, also photosynthesis is a function of temperature.
Roy and Ferdinand,
You are of course correct and Salby is comically mistaken). I do not understand why this same issue has to be argued over year after year at this blog. Adding sand to a bucket makes it heavier. Adding CO2 to the atmosphere in increases the concentration. Nothing complicated here…. nor in the many earlier post on the same subject.
There are lots of legitimate arguments to refute much of the tripe promoted by CGW advocates, but this isn’t one of them. Anthony would do well to eliminate this subject from his blog.
Roy Spencer and Ferdinand, has anyone taken several of cubic metre samples of seawater and evacuated the CO2 from it to definitively determine the C isotope content? I understand lack of C14 is supposed to be the fingerprint for human fossil fuel CO2 emissions, plus some marginal difference in C12/C13 ratios. We have had some of these emissions redissolved in the sea, we have had natural coal seam fires, forest fires, a generation of nuclear testing, nuclear electrical generations, cosmic ray generation of C14 in the CO2 in the atmosphere, bacterial activity, half the human race burning dung, etc. Might we also not expect the lighter C12/13 isotope bearing CO2 to have a different solubility than the heavier CO2 molecules? This could cause evolution of a higher proportion of lower molecular weight CO2 from the oceans.
Would these not confound the simple isotope accounting that is so confidently applied to this subject. Have the experts have taken these thinks into account and have they satisfactorily sampled the sea water? I hope, with the supposed end of life on this planet because of this nasty substance, we have measured everything we could before we spent the 2 trillion that we already have so far!!!
Michael 2,
As said somewhere else (it gets difficult to track all what I have said already…), human emissions show very little year by year variation, only a more or less linear increase in yearly emissions. That makes that there is no detectable variation in the yearly increase of CO2 in the atmosphere due to human emissions and that near all variability is caused by the influence of temperature variations on the sink rate of vegetation.
But if you look at the average increase of the rates of change over time, then you can see that the human emissions increased a 4-fold since 1955. So did the average increase of CO2 in the atmosphere (within the noise) and so did the sink rate:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/dco2_em2.jpg
On the other side, the variability of temperature and the variability of CO2 rate of change show little to no change over time, except for the 1992 Pinatubo and the 1998 super El Niño, the variability stays within +/- 1 ppmv around the trend.
Thus it looks like that more and more human emissions are peeing in the CO2 river…
Salby draws the same conclusions based on two or three different schemes and the results of each are in close agreement. He describes the tactic as a “double blind” experiment, since each individual approach depends upon discrete data. That is an advantage of watching whole blasted presentation. He’s a horrible speaker and probably his own worst enemy in that.
One of the problems he explores several ways is how to separate human effects from run of the mill natural effects. He uses IPCC figures for estimating total CO2 output and uptake (emissions and sinks) and then derives upper bounds for what humans contribute what is natural. He also provides an estimate of residency time calculated using nuclear test atmospheric effects and some confounding by nuclear plants in line with experimental data (ca. 8 – 10 years) again to derive an upper limit on residency.
He argues that if you can separate out natural effects, you should be able to cancel them leaving only anthropic effects. His conclusion, following all the caveats one could hope for, is that once you have controlled for the natural effects, there simply is no evidence of the anthropic effect. He does say there must be some, simply that it is far too low to discern.
Duster,
I haven’t looked at all his calculations, but his estimate based on the 14C bomb spike decay is certainly wrong: the 14C spike decays is faster than for a 12C (99% of all CO2) spike decay, due to the fact that what returns from the deep ocean has a 14C level of ~1000 years ago, thus long before the bomb spike. That makes that his estimate is a factor 3 too short…
Phil. April 13, 2015 at 12:10 pm
“However, due to Henry’s Law the Ocean sink is a function of temperature, also photosynthesis is a function of temperature.”
It doesn’t work. Human emissions have been increasing in rate roughly linearly, and temperatures have been increasing roughly linearly. So, if these two effects were combining to drive atmospheric CO2, the rate of change of atmospheric CO2 would be roughly quadratic.
Instead, atmospheric concentration has been increasing in rate roughly linearly. To the degree it departs from linearity, it is toward sublinearity, not super. You have to match the form of the input and output, or there will be inconsistency. When polynomial degree is different, the two will diverge.
stevefitzpatrick @ April 13, 2015 at 1:09 pm
“Adding CO2 to the atmosphere in increases the concentration. Nothing complicated here…. nor in the many earlier post on the same subject. “
Thank you, Cardinal Bellarmine.
Bart,
The CO2 rate of change increased linearly, which makes that total human emissions increased slightly quadratic. So did the increase in the atmosphere over the full 55 years and so did the sinks. All three rates of change increased a factor 4 over the full period, with ups and downs over years and decades. The current “flat” increase rate is no exception.
Temperature increased linearly, which causes – for a small change as is the case here – a quasi-linear increase in equilibrium with the atmosphere of maximum 5 ppmv. That is all.
Exactly, Ferdinand. The CO2 rate of change increased linearly. If Phil’s description were correct, it would have increased quadratically. That is the point.
Bart,
The human emissions rate of change increased linear.
The temperature increased linear.
Assuming that temperature has some discernible influence on the CO2 rate of change (which I don’t think), that change is linear,
Human emissions and temperature have no measurable influence on each other.
Both influences are simply additive, thus linear, not quadratic (it is not ocean upwelling which has a small non-linear influence from temperature).
No, the influences are multiplicative.
Surely you are not suggesting that if you took the current world and made the human contribution 0, that CO2 would be decreasing? CO2 is on the way up whether we are here or not. Can we agree on that first, please, because my (possibly flawed) reading of your analysis is that the relatively small human contribution is overwhelming some delicate balance, and it is simply not the case. Our geologic proxies tell us we are in a phase of increasing CO2, period, and the balance is not very delicate at all – there are large fluctuations on large timescales.
ckb,
The balance over the past 800,000 years is that the influence of temperature on CO2 is about 8 ppmv/°C. With CO2 lagging temperature at all times, except the past 160 years.
The MWP-LIA cooling of ~0.8°C was good for a drop of ~6 ppmv in the high resolution (20 years) Law Dome ice core. The warming since the LIA thus is good for 6 ppmv CO2 increase. Not the 110 ppmv as measured, which is far beyond the equilibrium of ~290 ppmv for the current ocean temperature.
Humans have emitted ~200 ppmv CO2 in the same period. It is a matter of response on any disturbance that makes that a disturbance has a measurable influence or not. The response of the carbon cycle on an injection of CO2 (whatever the cause) is ~50 years e-fold time. That is too slow to remove the yearly human emissions at once but fast enough to balance temperature and CO2 over periods of 5,000 years and longer over glacial-interglacial intervals and back.
“Thus while the increase of CO2 in the atmosphere is certainly caused by the human contribution, ” How can you use the word “certainly” when 1) we don’t know all the sources and sinks, 2) the quantities of the known sources/sinks are estimates not actual measurements, 3) the error assigned to some of the sources/sinks is the same magnitude as the human source. The truth is far from certain.
Johnny,
You don’t need to know any of the many single in/out fluxes, as we know the net result:
increase in the atmosphere = human emissions + natural emissions – natural sinks
which is the mass balance that Dr. Salby showed in the first minutes.
4.5 GtC/year = 9 GtC/year + X – Y
X – Y = – 4.5 GtC/year
or nature was more sink than source for the past 55 years, no matter what X and Y were or what any individual influx or outflux was.
Wrong, wrong wrong, wrong, wrong.
This is the famed “mass balance” argument. It is stupid beyond rational thought.
This is a dynamic system. The natural sinks respond to artificial forcing. To claim that nature is a net sink, you have to take away that portion which responded to artificial forcing first.
As I told you Bart too many times: all what you have is a fit between two straight lines. For the rest all your theory does is violating all known observations.
The only way that the mass balance argument can be suppressed is if the natural carbon cycle increased a fourfold, in exactly the same period and completely synchronized with the fourfold increase of human emissions and also the increase in the atmosphere did. For which is not the slightest indication. To the contrary: the latest estimates of the residence time show a slight increase over time as is the case for a rather stable throughput in an increasing CO2 content of the atmosphere…
“…all what you have is a fit between two straight lines.”
No, that is what you have. The match between emissions and atmospheric concentration is just a straight line with no detail. It is entirely superficial. And, moreover, it is currently diverging, as the hiatus in temperature rise has produced a similar hiatus in the rate of change of CO2.
The match of the rate of change of CO2 with temperatures is very detailed across the entire spectrum. It is conclusive.
“The only way that the mass balance argument can be suppressed …”
The “mass balance” argument is not even an argument. It is a naive fallacy put forward by people who do not understand dynamic systems.
This is a dynamic feedback system. What you think is unlikely is, in fact, assured.
Bart,
Your theory implies that human CO2 is preferentially absorbed by the sinks and all increase is from natural sources. That violates the equality principle for any CO2 molecule, whatever its origin (except for a small difference between isotopes).
Whatever you do, you may double the natural sources and sinks that doesn’t make that human emissions are not the main cause of the increase, as long as the natural sinks are larger than the natural sources and less than the sum of natural and human sources.
@ferdinand meeus. If the sinks absorbed and released CO2 at a rate divorced from the concentration of CO2 then the simple mass balance would stand. However, we clearly see one sink, the biologic, absorbing and releasing CO2 at rates that are partly a function of the concentration of CO2. What if the efficiency of many sinks were a function of CO2?
Thus the mass balance could be:
sources – less efficient natural sinks = change in concentration
sources + human – more efficient natural sinks = same change in concentration
Leaving temperature the only reason the atmospheric concentration ever changes.
“Certainly” relies on assuming things that which we are not certain about.
Johnny,
Both the oceans and vegetation are influenced by any increase of CO2 in the atmosphere:
The oceans release CO2 (at the equatorial upwelling places) as a function of the CO2 pressure difference (pCO2) between the warm oceans and the atmosphere and absorb CO2 (at the polar sink places) as a function of the pCO2 difference between the atmosphere and the cold ocean waters. Thus the net overall source or sink rate is directly coupled to the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere. The same for CO2 uptake by plants (but not for the release of rotting or eaten vegetation).
Human additions anyway are one-way additional. All what happens is that the natural sinks increase with increasing CO2 levels in the atmosphere, but that is not fast enough to remove all human CO2 (in quantity, not as original molecules). That still implies that (near) all increase is from the human contribution, whatever the natural fluxes may be.
Natural variability of the carbon cycle is quite small: +/- 1 ppmv around the trend which is currently about 2 ppmv CO2/year and human emissions at over 4 ppmv/year.
Thus the sinks did grow over time, together with the increase of CO2 in the atmosphere and the ocean source did decrease over time because of the increased CO2 pressure in the atmosphere…
“You don’t need to know any of the many single in/out fluxes, as we know the net result:”
My point of this conversation was the certainty that the change in CO2 is human related.
You made a point about the net result, but I countered in a round about way (by saying that sinks might not be linear or some might be starved) that that doesn’t tell us the source of the net.
One side question. Is cold ocean water that has started to descend at pCO2 equilibrium with the atmosphere?
Johny,
For the current average ocean surface temperature, the equilibrium CO2 level with the atmosphere would be around 290 ppmv. As we are near 400 ppmv, the oceans are a net sink for CO2.
Problems:
The surface is in fast (1-3 years) equilibrium with the atmosphere, but has a limited buffer capacity at about 10% of the change in the atmosphere (the Revelle/buffer factor).
The deep oceans have an enormous capacity, but a limited exchange rate with the atmosphere.
That makes that the response time at this moment is around 40 years half life time to bring the current CO2 levels in the atmosphere back to equilibrium. After 40 years thus 345 ppmv, after 80 years 317.5 ppmv, etc…
The influence of temperature on the equilibrium is quite linear over the past 800,000 years (at 8 ppmv/°C) and the influence of the increase in the atmosphere also seems to be quite linear on the sink rate: the current e-fold decay rate for the 110 ppmv extra is slightly over 50 years, somewhat faster than calculated 14 years ago by Peter Dietze:
http://www.john-daly.com/carbon.htm
Dr. Engelbeen
I found your comment with accompanying graph difficult to relate to the global temperature.
In this graph I moved sink rate up so for the 10 year period ~1987 to ~1997, sink and atmosphere are in an ‘artificial balance’.
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/CO2.gif
Would it be possible for you to explain by relating to the global temperature what is going on prior to 1987, 1987 – 1997 and finally post 1997.
If Dr. Spencer is also willing to add a comment it would be appreciated.
Thank you.
vukcevic,
Temperature, CO2 emissions and increase in the atmosphere directly:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/temp_emiss_increase.jpg
The correlation between emissions and increase in the atmosphere is perfect, between temperature and CO2 less perfect: the period 1946-1975 has a negative temperature trend, but CO2 is increasing in the atmosphere. The same after 2000: flat temperature, increasing CO2…
The derivatives from temperature, CO2 and δ13C show a nice correlation between the variability’s, where in the derivatives CO2 variability follows T variability with a small lag and δ13C variability is synchronized with CO2 variability but opposite. The latter proves that the CO2 variability is caused by vegetation:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/temp_dco2_d13C_mlo.jpg
Here it is clear that the temperature rate of change drives the CO2 and δ13C rate of change for the variability, but as the temperature rate of change has zero trend, it is not the cause of the slope of the CO2 rate of change. The more that vegetation is a net, increasing sink for CO2 over periods of more than a few years.
Not shown is the rate of change of human emissions and its slope, which is about twice the slope of the rate of change of CO2 in the atmosphere.
Thanks Dr Engelbeen
“Here it is clear that the temperature rate of change drives the CO2 and δ13C rate of change for the variability…”
What is clear is that they are 90 deg out of phase with temperature leading, and your model is wrong.
Bart,
As CO2 changes lag temperature changes with some time. For a sinusoidal change in temperature, CO2 follows with a 90 deg. lag.
If you take the derivatives, you shift a sinusoid 90 deg. back in time. Thus dCO2/dt (and synchronized opposite dδ13C/dt) still follow dT/dt with a 90 deg. lag.
Because of the lags and the shift by taking the derivative, T changes and dCO2/dt changes do synchronize, but that has no physical meaning.
Ferdinand Engelbeen @ April 13, 2015 at 3:09 pm
Mathematical gibberish. You cannot wave away the lag as inconsequential. There must be a mechanism for it. You must be able to describe it mathematically. And, the mathematical description is that atmospheric CO2 evolves according to the integral of temperature. There is no way around it.
Bart,
If you increase the temperature of seawater with 1°C step, CO2 integrates to a new equilibrium, which is 8 ppmv higher that the old equilibrium.
If temperature changes with a sinusoid, CO2 integrates into a sinusoid which lags T with a 90° lag,
If you take the derivatives, you shift both sinusoids 90° back in time.
Still dT/dt integrates into CO2 with a 90° lag, which has zero slope and a very small offset, hardly influencing the CO2 rate of change or total CO2.
The shift in the derivatives makes that T changes and dCO2/dt changes synchronize, which has no physical meaning and as there is no lag, T changes don’t integrate into dCO2/dt changes.
Again, gibberish. The 90 deg phase lag means there is an integral relationship. You must match the phase, and the only way you can do that is to integrate the temperature.
This is the empirical relationship. It does not matter if you want the relationship to be directly between temperature and CO2. It is verified empirically that it isn’t. The data trump any other speculation. The data demand that the relationship is between temperature and the rate of change of CO2. There is no way around it.
Bart,
There is a 90 deg. lag because it takes time to integrate the CO2 increase to the new equilibrium. Thus there must be a 90 deg. lag or there is no integration.
There is a 90 deg. lag between T and CO changes and there is a 90 deg, lag between dT/dt and dCO2/dt.
There is no lag between T and dCO2/dt, thus no integrating connection between these two.
See what Paul_K wrote for the mathematical side:
http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2013/10/21/diary-date-murry-salby.html
page 2 of the comments, 4th comment:
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)
No lag between T and dCO2/dt means that CO2 evolves as the integral of T. That is what it means. 2 + 2 = 4.
Paul K was holding out hope of some kind of low frequency cutoff. There is none. There is no observable phase distortion which would necessarily accompany it.
Ferdinand,
Pluses and minuses question…
Emissions + sink rate = atmosphere, correct? ie increasing sink rate yields a greater NEG number magnitude correct?
ok.. saw above at 10:38am
I am interested in what is exactly proven wrong, and how.
The initial data from OCO-2 showed a remarkable amount of carbon dioxide over equatorial waters, as well as over rain forests and deserts, but very little over the populated and industrial areas where it would be expected.
xyzzy11,
The satellite data are from 6 weeks of observations. One need at least a year of data and preferably several years to know where the global sources and sinks are…
The variability in the increase rate is from the influence of temperature on vegetation, that is clear from the opposite movements of CO2 and δ13C (the latter is a measure for the 13C/12C ratio, which is a lot lower in plants than in the atmosphere).
But the increase in the atmosphere is not the result of vegetation changes: vegetation is a net, increasing sink for CO2 as can be deduced from the extra release of oxygen.
Thus two different processes at work…
I see that I should have added the word “variability” in the rate of change, as the variability of the rate of change and the increase in rate of change are caused by different processes…
Ferdinand’s analysis is airtight unless there is a large, unknown, temperature dependent source of 12CO2.
Phytoplankton remain such a possible source. While there is lots of data at 5m depth from ships, little is known of the ocean surface/air boundary. The following from the Plankton Atlas shows how little we have studied phytoplankton compared to zooplankton as of 2013:
Paleo Carbon isotope excursions dwarf the “human excursion” used as evidence for exclusively human atmospheric 12CO2. The following from Saunders and Reichow shows the <3per mil boost in 12Carbonate after the Permian extinction:
IMO, biological dark matter remains a large potential source of temperature dependent 12CO2 independent of Henry's Law.
Gymnosperm,
In principle, all bio-life is included in the oxygen balance: phytoplankton also produces oxygen while it uses CO2. If that gets above the solubility of oxygen in seawater, that will reach the atmosphere.
The situation of marine plants is quite different from that of land plants: there is abundant CO2 (under form of mainly bicarbonate) present and the δ13C level in the oceans is much higher than in the atmosphere.
In the deep oceans, the δ13C level is around zero, in the surface layer 1-5 per mil, due to bio-life and a net sink of low-13C organics out of the surface layer from the food chain.
Thus while a sudden death of a lot of phytoplankton may cause a drop in δ13C, I doubt that it would have much influence on the δ13C level of the atmosphere.
Interesting that the large P-T extinction was accompanied by such a huge drop in δ13C over a few thousands yars, although don’t underestimate the current change of 1.6 per mil δ13C in only 160 years…
Ferdinand, the fungi (and other respiring microbes) after the extinction were doing essentially what we are doing. A huge fire or other Armageddon could in principle do the same thing: produce a lot of 12CO2 and 12charcoal. To my mind the implication is that in non ice age in the large sense, non carbon limited environments there is biological potential in the oceans that sapiens has never experienced. In the Proterozoic way before lignified plants were on land there was a much larger 12C excursion.
I realize that photosynthesis on land tends to convert CO2 to woody structure and photosynthesis at sea to carbonate. Yet when the entire biosphere grows, including the respiratory side, more 12C will be cycling through the system, including the atmosphere, and at a faster rate. The ice age we live in can be likened to a 12C economic depression.
1h40m of a talk. brrr…
anybody digests in a few sentences a message this jobless guy tries to deliver?
I understand, he wants to prove, its all natural…(huh?).
But what is his “argument”?
No.
Pointman
Alex:
Guess you didn’t watch the first part of the video.
If you disagree with the presentation, state your technical points of disagreement. Otherwise you’ve just wasted a whole bunch of whining and severe punctuation.
alex “anybody digests in a few sentences a message this jobless guy tries to deliver?”
If it was that simple the presentation would be a few sentences.
“I understand, he wants to prove, its all natural…(huh?).”
Your understanding appears incomplete. I believe he argues that changes in carbon dioxide levels are mostly natural, offering an IPCC chart as an example of carbon budget. It shows human contribution of 5 gigatonnes per year and with natural sinks and sources of around 150 gigatonnes per year.
The human part is mostly cumulative since no sink is shown for the human contribution. However, to the extent that natural sinks track natural sources, the sinks will also track unnatural sources.
But what is his “argument”?
His argument is that in 2002 the rate of increase of human carbon dioxide tripled. This will and must show a matching increase in the rate of increase of global warming according to the proportion of human carbon dioxide as compared to all carbon dioxide
Since the rate of global warming did not triple, and by his charts isn’t even perceptible, the significance is that human contribution to global warming is negligible. That there IS global warming from time to time is almost indisputable (everything is disputable but some things not worth discussing).
The reasoning seems good; the truth of it depends upon the accuracy and truth of the data going into the analysis.
All of these analyses can be confounded by other processes so I accept everyone’s arguments and put each on a shelf until ALL of these processes are understood and undebated.
But in the meantime I accept as possible that most of the observed temperature increase is natural. It could also be anthropogenic. I’m not sure that I care enough about it to sacrifice my life over it. Yours, maybe, since that’s what mitigation is all about 🙂
Michael 3,
One small problem with that reasoning: if the effect of the change in rate of change is small, it may be undetectable in the observations.
That is one of the problems of looking at the variability: the year by year variability of human emissions is too small to be detected in the rate of change of CO2 in the atmosphere, or temperature would not be the sole cause of the variability.
The same problem for the increase of temperature: a doubling of CO2 (280 to 560 ppmv) gives a theoretical increase in temperature of ~1°C. The tripling of human emissions did give a CO2 increase of ~30 ppmv over the past 1.5 decade. That is good for about 0.1°C increase in the atmosphere over 15 years in all the temperature noise. Just try to measure that…
Sorry was not intended for your brother, Michael 2…
“His argument is that in 2002 the rate of increase of human carbon dioxide tripled. This will and must show a matching increase in the rate of increase of global warming according to the proportion of human carbon dioxide as compared to all carbon dioxide”
////////////////////
“rate of increase” is the second derivative, right? In 2002?
Given that CO2 has huge annual oscillations, how can he find the second (!) derivative of a highly oscillatory curve with any reasonable accuracy??? And then “compare it” with the miniscule human-induced “rate of increase”!
Nonsense.
May I be excused for a while, my brain is full.
You’re dapper in plaids Lord Chris.
https://twitter.com/tan123/status/584849140011536384
Given that I do not see how human contributions to the GHG effect can change the balance which has always been CO2 is governed by the climate, forestation and biological,geological processes rather then the other way around.
Co2 always follows the temperature ,that is what all of the data has shown.
Yes I believe in the GHG effect but I think it is a result of the climate amongst other items (mentioned above)not the other way around
Salvatore,
You need to make a differentiation between the cause of the increase (110 ppmv yet) and what remains of the original human contribution in the atmosphere.
Humans emitted 200 ppvm directly into the atmosphere, the result is an increase of ~110 ppmv, or about 30% above the natural equilibrium between oceans and atmosphere for the current temperature. Both the oceans and the biosphere are net sinks for CO2, not sources. Thus almost all extra CO2 is from the human emissions.
That doesn’t say anything about how much original molecules from the human emissions still remain in the atmosphere: about 20% of all CO2 in the atmosphere every year is exchanged with CO2 from other reservoirs. Thus even if humans are responsible for almost all extra CO2, only a few % of the original human CO2 remains in the atmosphere.
If that will have much impact is a different question. In my opinion not much, but that doesn’t change the fact of the human cause of the increase…
Well, most of it, as you’ve shown that the release from oceans due to temp increase is ~8ppmv. The increase in atmospheric Oxygen confirms the increased sink rate of the biosphere, which confirms that Mother Nature was hungry for CO2 and we’ve done her a big favor.
The increase will be overwhelmed by natural processes, so it does not matter.
Ferdinand when the global temperature trend reverses later this decade and the oceans cool the CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere will start to decrease. If they do not then you may have a point.
“Both the oceans and the biosphere are net sinks for CO2, not sources.”
Not proven. Please do not proffer the woefully idiotic “mass-balance” argument again.
“Thus almost all extra CO2 is from the human emissions.”
Does not follow.
Salvatore Del Prete @ April 13, 2015 at 9:37 am
“…and the oceans cool the CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere will start to decrease.”
Depends on how much it decreases. But, we will see a marked deceleration, and a continuing divergence of emissions from atmospheric concentration.
http://i1136.photobucket.com/albums/n488/Bartemis/CO2_zps330ee8fa.jpg
Salvatore:
You wrote: “Ferdinand when the global temperature trend reverses later this decade and the oceans cool the CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere will start to decrease. If they do not then you may have a point.”
So what is your prediction for annual average Mauna Loa CO2 for 2020?
Bart – What is your prediction?
My prediction is 410 ppmv.
My prediction for temperatures is this
http://i1136.photobucket.com/albums/n488/Bartemis/tempproject_zps16578eaa.jpg
I would have to integrate that to predict CO2. Sometime, I will do that, but you are welcome to on your own. For now, I must go. I will not be responding to this board for the next several days. Hopefully, someone else will pick up the ball and keep calling Ferdinand down on his empty assertions.
Salvatore,
Global temperatures decreased 1946-1975, CO2 increased with ~15 ppmv (human emissions with ~35 ppmv).
Global temperatures are flat since about 2000, CO2 increased with ~30 ppmv.
Only to stop the increase of CO2 in the atmosphere at the current rate, the oceans need to cool with 0.33°C/year…
No, Ferdinand. The sensitivity is in ppmv/K/unit-of-time.
Mike M,
Assuming that the economic crisis will soften somewhat, that would give an increase of ~2.3 ppmv/year or +11.5 ppmv.
Taking Bart’s temperature graph as base, the small cooling 2015-2020 will give a drop ~1.6 ppmv
Thus my bet would be 409.9 ppmv in 2020. Seems that we largely agree…
Bart, the overall change of CO2 is ppmv/K.
No matter the time needed to reach a new equilibrium, even if that is millennia.
No matter if that is for a beaker in a laboratory or the whole earth for all vegetation and the full depth of its oceans exchanging immense amount of CO2 each year with the atmosphere.
That is what Henry’s law of solubility of CO2 in seawater says, including all the chemical (buffer) reactions involved.
@ferdinand meeus
How does nature tell which is human CO2 and which is natural CO2 in order to leave behind a residual which we attribute to man?
Whatever as yet not fully understood processes cause extra CO2 shortly after warm periods and less after cool, how would those sources and sinks be (chemically) able to tell the difference between the molecules to leave behind half of the man emitted ones?
I think the point is, whatever is driving the variability of atmospheric CO2 would simply see the extra ACO2 as part of the sum released naturally when temps are warm. Mans contribution is only about 5% so it’s not like it is really outside the range of error for a system responding in that way. It probably just thought it was a touch warmer than it really was.
Incidentally, the exchange between you and Bart has been one of the most interesting I have seen at WUWt for a long time.
The sinks don’t take up the natural and leave the anthropogenic in the atmosphere. If we have an accumulation rate of 2 ppm a year at a concentration of around 400 ppm with natural fluxes at least 20 times anthropogenic fluxes, the sinks are absorbing around 95 % of both. What I think is happening is an accumulation of the lighter CO2 in the near surface of oceans and soils (decaying organic matter). Some of that accumulation comes from anthropogenics. This lighter CO2 re-enters the atmosphere some years later to give us an apparent e-fold of years. Also, the more CO2 the biosphere absorbed, the more Lighter CO2 will be emitted from the near surface years later.
agnostic2015,
Nature doesn’t differentiate between natural and human induced CO2, but as nature is a net sink over all the 55 past years, near all increase is caused by humans.
The cause of the decrease/increase after temperature changes was investigated and is mainly the effect of temperature (El Niño) and drought on tropical forests. Anyway clearly caused by the influence of temperature on vegetation, as the opposite changes of CO2 and δ13C show.
The sink rate is not the result of the momentary CO2 emissions, it is the result of the total increase of CO2 (+110 ppmv) over the equilibrium (290 ppmv) for the current temperature. That is pressure related and hardly influenced by temperature (8 ppmv/K)…
@ferdinand meeus
Nature doesn’t differentiate between natural and human induced CO2, but as nature is a net sink over all the 55 past years, near all increase is caused by humans.
Thanks for your reply, but I am sorry that it does not follow, and I think that’s one of the major sticking points between yourself and Bart. Incidentally, I am not convinced on this either way, but I am seeing bigger problems with your logic than I am with Bart’s atm.
Obviously humans can be contributing to the increase, but it seems CO2 levels rise and fall independently of mans emissions correlating with temperature but with a lag. Supposing there would not be ANY ACO2 for a moment, and my previous statement is true, then any long term increase temperature would be accompanied by a similar long term increase in CO2.
Since the long term increase is not exactly the same rate as ACO2 emissions – atmospheric CO2 has been increasing at roughly half the rate of ACO2 while its reasonable to suspect a residual effect, it does not necessarily follow that absent mans influence CO2 would not have increased. By my reckoning, half of ACO2 has been absorbed by the biosphere – which is only small fraction of the total cycle.
It just so happens that the long term increase of CO2 and ACO2 emissions happen to correlate. It’s very reasonable to assume that ACO2 is helping total CO2 along, but correlation does equal causation – society may well have developed alongside temp increases (as it has done in the past), and its the temp increases that have also indirectly contributed to ACO2 increases.
Click on my name to review my blog where I try to quantify the relative contributions and answer for my self the controversy between Bart and Ferdinand. I have recently revised it to answer some comments that Ferdinand and others had made about the earlier version.
Agnostic,
but it seems CO2 levels rise and fall independently of mans emissions correlating with temperature but with a lag.
No, CO2 levels rise continuously at average halve the amount as emitted by humans. The correlation between the two is almost perfect, even if both increase slightly quadratic:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/acc_co2_1960_cur.jpg
Temperature and increase is less perfect:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/temp_co2_1960_cur.jpg
A temperature jump of halve the total warming has little effect on CO2 levels, but the full warming should give 80 ppmv extra?
The rise is not constant, but varies with temperature changes. That is the reason for the correlation between temperature (rate of change) changes and CO2 rate of change changes, but that doesn’t give you any clue about the cause of the rise of CO2 in the atmosphere.
Human emissions don’t show much variability (undetectable in the CO2 measurements), thus don’t correlate with the variability. But blowing up the variability masks the net result: a variability of only +/- 1 ppmv around an average rise of 2 ppmv/year for human emissions of over 4 ppmv/year.
Have a look at the net effect of the temperature variability on the rise of CO2 in the atmosphere in WfT…
it does not necessarily follow that absent mans influence CO2 would not have increased.
Absent human emissions, CO2 would have increased ~5 ppmv over the past 55 years, as that is the very long term influence of temperature on CO2 levels in the atmosphere and that is the equilibrium change between seawater and the atmosphere for an increase of 0.6°C (per Henry’s law)…
Ferdinand,
“To halve” is a verb, meaning “to cut in half”. You mean to say, “at half the rate”, etc, not “at halve”.
milodonharlani,
Thanks, will try to remember… Sometimes the fine nuances of English do escape my Flemish/Dutch background…
Spelling differences between spoken and written English are worse than in Dutch, but logic rules for spelling are much worse in Dutch: we have general rules, exceptions on the rules, exceptions on the exceptions,…
Kinda OT, but Is there a known saturation point relating to CO2 and LWR?
I recall reading someone’s comment on such a while ago, but could not find it again. Not sure, but I think it may have been RGBduke?
Regards Ed
It’s referenced in the video. I don’t remember the exact figure, but it happens below 300 ppm. Most of the frequency is already absorbed by water vapor and most of that left over has been absorbed at that level. There will only be a minute increase in radiative warming caused by CO2 in the future. At least that’s one of the many things I got from the video.
ossqss “Is there a known saturation point relating to CO2 and LWR?”
Saturation is when the atmosphere is 100 percent carbon dioxide. Obviously that’s impossible.
Carbon dioxide is not “opaque”. It is better to think of it as slowing-down the flow but the flow does go through, eventually all of it flows through.
Consider a colander for straining spaghetti noodles. Fill it with water; the water flows out many holes but not instantly. Put another colander inside the first but with a small space so water can still find the holes. Fill the inner colander, the water flows out but hits a bit of resistance as it finds the holes in the next colander in the stack. Repeat. To cut the flow in an additional half you need to double the number of colanders in the stack.
The water will all flow out, but it takes longer.
If you are filling it from a faucet at a particular rate in liters or gallons per minute, the more resistence the flow, the higher it will get in the top colander. This pressure pushing through the holes is equivalent to “temperature”.
Sunlight, at around 5000 degrees Kelvin hits the Earth pretty much regardless of how much carbon dioxide exists. Going the other way is a different story; about half of the earth’s principle radiation wavelengths are vulnerable to capture by carbon dioxide and/or water vapor (and other things).
The energy gets out, but it takes longer. So, longer going out but not longer coming in means more energy “piles up” near the surface, hence warmer.
It appears that the Earth was once a “snowball” frozen from pole to equator. It would have stayed that way forever but atmospheric carbon dioxide reached an astonishingly high level from volcanoes over many millions of years, around 100,000 parts per million (a whopping 10 percent of the atmosphere). That was enough to finally start melting the ice and anything that loved carbon dioxide found itself in heaven.
http://www.snowballearth.org/capcarbs.html
Dr Salby deserves honor for his research. I am optimistic that history will remember him well. Meanwhile, the game is in the final period and the zealots are resorting to skulduggery.
I saw this video yesterday and sent the link to Anthony.
It’s about an hour and 10 minutes of Dr. Salby and 25 minutes or so of questions.
It’s quite technical, but Dr. Salby pretty much lays out the case, not that CO2 has no influence on our climate, but that it’s too small to measure and ultimately will have little to no effect.
It’s worth the watch.
Despite what many of the commenters have said about Dr. Salby’s issues with academia. NO ONE IS DISPUTING HIS SCIENCE!……
I suspect from what I have researched, that there has been a great deal of “witch hunting” against him for the obvious reason of not accepting the bilge science that the “warmest” have perpetrated.
Give him a hearing…..it will be well worth your while…..
BTW, Dr. Salby makes the case that TEMPERATURE LEADS increased CO2, not the other way round that the IPCC wants the world to accept.
Exactly, they are in denial of the data.
The Pleistocene ice core record shows this clearly. It is also a major problem in attempting to construct a balance sheet for CO2. The increase lags are on the order of 800 years, meaning that the Medieval Warm Period change should be arriving now and would be in ADDITION to the expected instantaneous change and anthropic driven changes. So, any change we see at present is composed of the lagged shift due to the MWP + any effects due to the end of the LIA + the instantaneous change driven by seasonal and directional changes in ocean temperatures + anthropic sources + natural sources – whatever biological and geological sinks are active.
I dug into Salby after his Hamburg lecture was posted on line. This new one in London is not substantially different. I found he overstated his case, and his final conclusion is as wrong as the ‘CO2’ control knob. There are several lines of reasoning.
1. Henry’s Law guarantees that ocean dissolved pCO2 must eventually equilibrate with its atmospheric partial pressure. This is the largest ‘source/sink’. Ice cores from Antarctica and Greenland suggest that this process takes at least 200, and most likely about 800 years. CO2 lags temperature in both directions. That lag is so long that the affect over 50 years is hardly measurable. (a) Given the observed MLO rise in CO2 concentration since ~1950, the oceans should be a slow net sink, not source, at present. Indeed, measurements since 1990 at station Aloha (barren Pacific north of Hawaii, so minimal biological impact) show a corresponding surface water increase in pCO2 and corresponding reduction in surface pH. But not at depth. Observed ocean equilibration is far too slow to explain Salby’s observational ~55 year time frame.
2. Carbon Budget accounting. The seasonal variation in MLO CO2 proves that on annual time frames, NH terrestrial biological activity is a net sink (for about 1/4 the annual increase). (a) Terrestrial Greening observed by satellite shows this (e.g. NPP studies, about 56 billion metric tons/year net NPP). (b) Greening Sahel ‘proves’ it. This is because C3 plants grow with less water in the presence of more CO2, not because the Sahel became wetter. (c ) The pH changes with upwelling in the photic zone (roughly upper 100 meters where ocean photosynthesis takes place) show this to be so for about the other half of the overall biological sink (and not seasonal). Some of this is permanent (diatom, coccolithophorid calcification). See essay Shell Games for details.
3. The observed atmospheric temperature/CO2 relationship is affected by ocean surface T variations, as the ‘pause’ shows in falsifying GCM’s. AMO, PDO, all that. Salby’s calculations do not take this adequately into account. To this extent, his tight correlations are therefore also spurious correlations.
4. To the extent Salby’s mechanisms must be primarily ‘fast’ biological, rather than the slow oceanic Henry’s Law, (by his own math, using his own graphs), the ‘pause’ falsifies Salby’s theory (temp cause CO2) no differently than the opposite IPCC theory (CO2 causes temp) embedded in GCMs. Both overlook the enormous heat capacity of the oceans, and how overturning, change in rate of thermohaline circulation, … conditions what the atmosphere ‘feels’ from the oceans. And ARGO data only covers a decade, half of the pause. Not good enough to say anything yet.
I agree with Kasuha and FE upthread.
“Henry’s Law guarantees that ocean dissolved pCO2 must eventually equilibrate with its atmospheric partial pressure. “
There is no law that says pCO2 of the oceans must be constant.
“Given the observed MLO rise in CO2 concentration since ~1950, the oceans should be a slow net sink, not source, at present”
Begging the question.
“Indeed, measurements since 1990 at station Aloha (barren Pacific north of Hawaii, so minimal biological impact) show a corresponding surface water increase in pCO2 and corresponding reduction in surface pH.”
This is a two-way street. It can come about from atmospheric forcing of the ocean, or oceanic forcing of the atmosphere. However, one is the elephant, and one is the flea in this relationship. The atmosphere is not the elephant.
All the rest of your points fall into this category as well. You assume a relationship, and convince yourself the evidence is consistent with it. However, the evidence is consistent with the opposite relationship, as well.
It all comes down to the fact that atmospheric CO2 can be entirely described since at least 1958 by the temperature relationship. The temperature leads the CO2, hence it is the cause, not the effect.
I am not (necessarily) saying that temperature is driving everything, but a temperature modulated process of some description is the main driver of atmospheric CO2 level. Human inputs are not temperature modulated. Hence, they are not the main driver.
Bart,
Your integration of temperature implies that at a fixed temperature offset the increase of CO2 goes on until eternity without any reaction from the increased CO2 pressure in the atmosphere on the influx. That violates Henry’s law where an increase of pCO2 in water gives an increase in the atmosphere until a new equilibrium is reached.
You violate your own feedback model where sources and sinks react on the increased pressure in the atmosphere…
“Your integration of temperature implies that at a fixed temperature offset the increase of CO2 goes on until eternity without any reaction from the increased CO2 pressure in the atmosphere on the influx. “
It means nothing of the kind. It simply means that any restorative dynamics are not observable in the 57 years of reliable data collection. But, 57 years is not a long time for climate dynamics. However, those 57 years are enough to see what is happening now, and to disqualify human inputs from being the driving force.
I like your analysis here. On #1, I do not like the use of ice core data for the short-term comparison you are attempting. That data is pre-smoothed… We don’t really even know how smoothed it is. It is great for very large time scale trends but using it for 50, 200, 800 year gives me no confidence. I do not think we have the granularity to make your conclusion. We cannot rule out a 50-year geologic history that matches closely to what we have seen in the last 50 years. Not only can’t we rule it out, there’s no reason to think it’s either possible or impossible, plausible or implausible – we don’t have the data.
I do not think you are being unfair saying Salby overstates his conclusions. Well the surety of them anyway. I do think he is on to something with the short/long timescales, just not sure what yet.
ckb,
The resolution of ice cores is between a decade and 560 years, depending of the snow accumulation rate.
The drawback is that with high accumulation the time span is smaller when reaching bedrock of the core.
The repeatability of ice core CO2 measurements is 1.2 ppmv (1 sigma) for multiple samples of the same part of the core.
The current increase of 110 ppmv over 160 years would be measurable in all ice cores, including the 800,000 year time span of Dome C in that core as a peak of ~15 ppmv.
The current increase can be seen in a lot of ice cores:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/antarctic_cores_001kyr_large.jpg
and even the small change of ~6 ppmv between the MWP and LIA is visible in the Law Dome ice core, including an overlap of ~20 years with direct measurements in the atmosphere:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/law_dome_1000yr.jpg
From Etheridge e.a. 1996.
An interesting perspective on the level of uncertainty we are confronted with.
AJB,
The net result of the – still theoretical – diffusion of CO2 in relative “warm” (-23°C) coastal ice cores is that the resolution broadens from ~20 to ~22 years at average depth and from ~20 to ~40 years at full depth. Hardly a problem to detect a 110 ppmv increase over a period of 160 years.
Migration does shave the peaks, but doesn’t change the average CO2 level over longer periods: what was removed from the peaks was added to the lower values. Which makes that the lower values originally would have been (a lot) lower than measured.
That would be problematic for a lot of plants as about 180 ppmv is measured over very long periods of time, which is borderline the survival level.
There is no detectable migration in the cold (-40°C) inland ice cores like Vostok or Dome C. If that would be the case, the ratio of 8 ppmv/°C between glacial and interglacial periods would fade over time, each 100,000 years back in time, for which is not the slightest indication…
I agree somewhat with Kasuha and FE – there’s cause for skepticism about some of Salby’s arguments.
I haven’t seen anyone address the Carbon-14 argument however (the NTBT cutoff and the resulting exponential decay in C-14 concentration). That data looked pretty clean and convincing as to the time constant for carbon mixing.
Would love to see someone smarter than I address the NTBT inadvertent experiment argument.
I haven’t had time to analyze his discussions about exponential decay in detail but in general tau is when 37% of the original value is left, so “when it has no effect” is usually 2 * tau or 3 * tau, not 1*tau, so those arguments are a bit confusing where he talks about there being no effect (e.g. from a cutoff of all anthropogenic emissions)
Peter,
What Dr. Salby didn’t take into account is that the decay rate of the 14CO2 spike is much faster than for a 12CO2 or total CO2 (~99% 12C, ~1% 13C) spike. The same problem occurs with the dilution of the “human fingerprint” of the decline of the 13C/12C ratio from fossil fuels in the atmosphere. Both are the result of the deep ocean exchanges:
Besides the ratio changes at the ocean surface border, what goes into the deep oceans is the current isotopic mix of (in 1960) high 14C and low 13C. What comes out of the deep oceans is the isotopic mix of ~1000 years ago, thus long before the atomic bomb tests and with a much lower 14C level (and higher 13C level) than in the atmosphere. That makes that for the 1960 situation the then already increased CO2 level in the atmosphere is good for a 2.5% (~1 GtC/year) more sink than source for the deep ocean exchanges, but that less than halve the 14C spike going into the deep oceans returns the same year from the deep:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/14co2_distri_1960.jpg
Assuming that the atomic bomb tests about doubled the 14C content in the atmosphere in 1960.
That makes that the decay rate of 14C in the atmosphere is about a factor 3 faster than for 12CO2 or total CO2 and his 9 years (I have seen 14 years…) is about 50 years e-fold decay or about 40 years half life time…
“3. …To this extent, his tight correlations are therefore also spurious correlations.”
Agreed. Interesting and useful but still too simple for a complex system.
“4. … Both overlook the enormous heat capacity of the oceans … Not good enough to say anything yet.”
Agreed. Even so, I find Salby’s thesis interesting and useful. I find debate most useful.
Actually Ristvan your forgetting about a lot of processes, some we know about and some that we don’t. But for the biological carbon pump, which rapidly removes carbon from the surface to the deep ocean, you should research “Copepod biological pump”.
To be clear, there is a permanent fast biological removal of carbon in the form of monster copepod fecal pellets that operates much faster than henry’s law in an equilibrium situation.
How much data does one need to show that CO2 is a consequence of the oceans, forestation, biological processes and geological activity?
CO2 has never governed the climate ,has never led the temperature in the past and it will never achieve this going into the future.
As I have said many times CO2 concentrations are the result of the temperature not the cause.
Dr. Salby, has just verified this through the use of data which AGW enthusiast are in denial of.
why don’t we just assert that CO2 doesn’t exist at all?
There, problem solved. 😉
I have said it exist and it does cause warming but it is a symptom of the climate not the cause.
I maintain that a given GHG effect is proportional to the warmth of the climate to put it simply. The warmer the climate the more pronounced the GHG effect will be and vice versa.
Until the data shows either a CO2 increase in response to a temperature decrease, or the temperature trend rises in some kind of a correlation with increasing CO2 concentrations the thoughts put forth by AGW theory are nothing more then speculation.
Show me the data until then you have speculation.
Salvatore, are you saying that the huge human CO2 source (which is indisputable) is all being absorbed by nature, but the small temperature-based source isn’t being absorbed?
Amazing that the biosphere can tell the difference, and absorb only the human-emitted CO2 but not the natural CO2.
😉
“…the huge human CO2 source…”
At most about 3% of natural flows is not “huge”.
“…[but] the small temperature-based source isn’t being absorbed?
The temperature based source is not small. It is, in effect, unlimited.
“Amazing that the biosphere can tell the difference, and absorb only the human-emitted CO2 but not the natural CO2.”
It is a matter of scale. Human inputs are relatively puny.
exactly….and until someone qualifies that the planet is greening…it’s all moot
Latitude- there is all manner of evidence that the planet is greening. NASA used to make such data readily available through their reports on satellite studies of the biosphere since ’68, but such data is now very difficult to find… small wonder, given the politicization of the topic.
@Alan Robertson April 13, 2015 at 10:40 am and for Latitude
Here’s a link –
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=1804
Thanks for that link Bubba Cow.
Interestingly, NASA’s discussion on that page attributes Northern Hemisphere greening to increased temperatures, with nary a word about any effects of CO2. A quick look through several other NASA links on the subject shows a similar lack of references to CO2. Hmmm…
sorry guys…I don’t realize when I’m firing over someone’s head
You measure human contribution of CO2 by the ratio of isotopes….
….you can’t do that when your base line is changing, when what you are comparing it to changes
Until they qualify that the planet is greening…and not staying the same
while I love plants, that made it much easier on my mind
Dr. Spencer, Dr. Salby ,has the support of actual data to back up his assertions, it is not speculation.
Dr. Spencer, he just showed through the data that the rate of growth of CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere does not correlate with human contributions.
Do you question the data?
But CO2 in the atmosphere correlates beautifully with emissions. If someone can tell me how to put a graph in one of these posts, I will show you.
It doesn’t. It is only low order polynomial similarity, which is not difficult to match simply by chance. It does not fit like this.
Salvatore,
All what Dr. Salby showed was that the rate of change of temperature and CO2 correlate. That is a correlation of the natural variability, which is +/- 1 ppmv around the trend. That is all.
The CO2 trend meanwhile is 110 ppmv above the very long term equilibrium which is the equilibrium between seawater and the atmosphere over the past 800,000 years; 290 ppmv for the current temperature.
Even if there is zero correlation between the variability of human emissions and the variability in sink rate, that says nothing about the cause of the trend, as variability and increase in the atmosphere are caused by different processes without any connection between the two.
Mike M.
If someone can tell me how to put a graph in one of these posts, I will show you.
Simply by inserting the exact address (URL) of the picture in the text, WordPress does the inserting of any ,gif, .jpg, etc. picture for you. You can try it out at the test page if WUWT…
Salvatore Del Prete:
Dr. Spencer, he just showed through the data that the rate of growth of CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere does not correlate with human contributions.
No?
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/acc_co2_1960_cur.jpg
Salvatore,
As said by me and many others, everybody agrees that the variability of the growth doesn’t correlate with the variability of human emissions, for the simple reason that there is no detectable variability in the rate of change caused by the variability of human emissions. All variability is from the influence of temperature changes on (tropical) vegetation.
The problem is that a correlation of the variability doesn’t say anything about the cause of the increase in the atmosphere itself, which in this case is proven not from the same process as what caused the variability.
Thus while the data show the cause of the variability, the data also show that the cause of the variability is not the cause of the increase in the atmosphere. Or do you question the data?
Ferdinand Engelbeen @ April 14, 2015 at 1:39 pm
“The problem is that a correlation of the variability doesn’t say anything about the cause of the increase in the atmosphere itself…”
The trend in the temperature data also correlates with the trend in dCO2/dt. The former causes the latter. Of this, there can be no doubt.
Since, human emissions also have a trend, there is nowhere to put it, because the trend is already explained by the temperature increase. Hence, human inputs are not the driver.
Yes Bart and human emissions just disappear in space…
As said and proven many times to you, variability and trend are caused by different processes, where the variability is certainly caused by the influence of temperature on vegetation, while the trend is not caused by vegetation.
No matter if the trend is caused by a temperature dependent process or not, there is not the slightest reason that variability and trend will have the same T to CO2 factor. Thus your not-so-good “match” is pure coincidence.
Moreover, the match of the variability says nothing about the cause of the trend or the temperature influence on the trend.
“No matter if the trend is caused by a temperature dependent process or not, there is not the slightest reason that variability and trend will have the same T to CO2 factor.”
They have the same T to dCO2/dt factor. That is the empirical observation. It does not matter if you have a reason or not. It simply is an observable fact.
Observe first, hypothesize after. That is the scientific method. Data trumps speculation. When you observe that the system evolves contrary to your hypothesis, it is the hypothesis that has to be dismissed, not the data.
Bart,
If variability and trend are caused by different processes, which is proven beyond doubt, then there is no reason to assume that temperature is the cause of the second process, even if it has – by pure coincidence – the same factor (which it hasn’t, either the amplitudes don’t match or the slopes don’t match).
Further your alternative theory fails all known observations, while human emissions do fit all observations, but then the observations must be wrong or at least unreliable, because your theory is the only one which is true…
It is not proven at all, Ferdinand. It is just firmly fixated in your mind.
It’s not an alternative. There really is no alternative. There is zero doubt that the trend in temperature causes the trend in dCO2/dt, and thereby, human influence is insignificant. It fails no observations. It only fails what you want the observations to mean.
“why don’t we just assert that CO2 doesn’t exist at all?”
We could, but then we’d be arguing over carbonated oxygen.
I am simple when it comes to this subject ,show me the data to make your case.
CO2 in the atmosphere ALSO escapes into space! Where are the calculations/estimates/measurements on that? Is space NOT a huge sink as well?
you are joking, right? Is our atmosphere escaping to space, or can only CO2 magically do that? Where is the resulting worldwide decrease in surface barometric pressure as a result?
so aphan forgot gravity, something easily overlooked
mmh maybe the CO2 is atacking NOAA15 and slowing it down?
We seem to be approaching a Hydrogen tipping point (from loss to space) which should dry out the planet in some billions of years… CO2- nope..
I sincerely hope that he is joking. Considering that CO2 is heavier than air, and precious little of our air “escapes into space”, one would certainly hope that wasn’t a serious comment.
actually, aomic oxygen IS attacking NOAA-15 and slowing it down. That’s why satellite orbits decay over time.
[“Atomic” oxygen, (O) ? Or Ozone? .mod]
Particle density vs. altitude.
“actually, aomic oxygen IS attacking NOAA-15 and slowing it down. That’s why satellite orbits decay over time.”
i know. and thank you 🙂 learned that from your work.
He might be referring to that”
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/05/090529-sun-stealing-atmosphere.html
COS? Aphan, it is suspected that some hydrogen escapes into space as water vapour at high altitudes is dissociated by ultraviolet. Thius is the first I have heard that CO2 left for greener pastures.
Arrgh – COS -> CO2
I think Dr. Salby says that CO2 is primarily driven by surface temp, lagging by about 10 years. Given that temperature has probably been steady for 15 or so years, there should be some indication that CO2 should be flat. Perhaps it may take another several years for the data to be clear. But I seem to recall that someone said this has already occurred. Of course there is the CO2 satellite map that says CO2 is highly non-uniform.
It is the rate of change which has flattened. And, it is rather glaring, given that atmospheric concentration has settled into a steady rate, consistent with the integral temperature relationship, while emissions have accelerated forward. See above.
Did he not say 10 months, NOT 10 years? 23 min out in the video?
Dr. Spencer, what I am trying to say is natural sources for CO2 are and will continue to overwhelm human contributions. This is what has occurred thus far. In order to have human sources for CO2 to compete and be viable with natural sources for CO2 ,the human sources are going to have to be many times larger then at present according to the data thus far.
For now CO2 concentrations seem to be 100% linked to natural processes.
“what I am trying to say is natural sources for CO2 are and will continue to overwhelm human contributions.”
yes natural emissions dwarf Anthropogenic sources.
and even more so when it comes to CO2 sinks.
which might be a clue.
Salvatore,
I hope you don’t have a business to run, or maybe you have a clever accountant who does the math for you. The natural CO2 cycle is what shows in the turnover of your business as the amount of capital (as goods) which goes in and out. The variability in the turnover gives some variability in what you gain (or loose) at the end of the fiscal year.
Now you add some 3% of the turnover from your own money as fresh capital into your business each year in the hope of getting more gain out of it. At the end of each new year, you see that the capital of your business increased with 1.5%.
Do you really think that the increase of capital is all caused by your business doing fine?
My point Ferdinand is CO2 does not govern the climate it is a symptom of the climate and the paper today supports those conclusions. Until data shows otherwise anything else AGW spouts off is just speculation.
This is a good way to end the conversation.
Ferd.
However that capital i put into the business went to capital improvements these improvements increased the efficiency of my business altering the enter formula.
I am not arguing for or against doctor Salby, but the system is not a zero sum game, the change creates change which alters the formula and quite possibly and maybe even probably in a non-linear fashion. Your chariterization are too simple.
Bob,
I agree, it is simplistic, but I always wonder that so many quite smart people have a lot of trouble with seeing the difference between large in/outs and the net result of these in/outs and what a small disturbance can do. While most housewives with a strict household budget know the difference…
BTW, the reaction on more CO2 in the atmosphere (and changes in temperature) are surprisingly linear, even if a lot of underlying processes may be far from linear. That points to an overall simple first order process that governs the CO2 levels in the atmosphere…
I have done a statistical analysis of available data to determine the probable contribution of anthropogenic emissions to global concentrations of CO2 and come to similar conclusions. You can review my results by clicking on my name or going to http://www.retiredresearcher.wordpress.com. I would appreciate technical comments.
Thanks, Anthony, Andrew Montford and Philip Foster.
Dr. Murry Salby’s lectures are always interesting to watch.
BTW, the AMO index just went to zero.
See http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/cgi-bin/gcos_wgsp/tsanalysis.pl?tstype1=91&tstype2=0&year1=1854&year2=2015&itypea=0&axistype=0&anom=0&plotstyle=0&climo1=&climo2=&y1=&y2=&y21=&y22=&length=&lag=&iall=0&iseas=1&mon1=0&mon2=11&Submit=Calculate+Results
A couple of comments, one about comments. first, yes, he assumes that all fossil fuels will be used to generate energy for simplification. The truth is, all fossil fuels won’t be used to generate energy since more and more of the petroleum is turned into plastics and other synthetics as it is.
Second, I was dismayed with the comment about investing in contraception, although it probably was made more for comic relief, if you will. However, I found the curve matching “fossil fuel emissions” growth being compared to population growth rather interesting. Certainly carbon dioxide emissions from humanity does increase with increase in population, but the vast majority of population increase is in areas that are not contributors to “fossil fuel” emissions. If the curves match so closely, it must be because we breathe, more than we drive, and that is universal for all people. Thus the suggestion in that graph is that fossil fuel emission is even less a percentage than he is suggesting.
When he mentioned the 2 trillion dollars “wasted” on bird mashers and bird blinders, I couldn’t help but think to myself how far ahead would we be towards finding that universal source of energy that is going to be needed for everyone to enjoy the fruits of civilization had that money been properly spent in research, instead of knee jerk reactionism.
“If the curves match so closely, it must be because we breathe, more than we drive, and that is universal for all people.”
This ought to be balanced against the decline, if any, in the numbers of other large mammals. Assuming that 7 billion people exhale carbon dioxide is true but confounded by the diminished numbers of elephants and Bengal tigers.
ls it correct that increases in CO2 lead to the greening of the planet. ?
lf that is the case, then would not that in itself lead to warming independent of the effects of CO2 as a greenhouse gas.
Taxed, perhaps, since foliage is green and has lower albedo. But it is not so simple. Terrestrially, NPP is about 1% of insolation energy yearround in the tropics. That by itself is equivalent to 1% increase in tropical albedo. Increased transpiration (plus plant transpired organics like conifer terpenes or iodocarbons from ocean algae or dimethyl sulphide from phytoplankton (the CLAW hypothesis) are also known to increase low cloud formation and albedo. Net net is hard to say.
amazing lecture ….:>) I had caught one other that I believe Janice had posted and found it very good . I am speaking at a much lower pay grade then the majority of the board posters but in a simple way can hook onto what Professor Salby has offered up to the skeptics . The AGW science guys have usurped the truth with a inverted fallacy that has left integrity of science and math on the fringe of truth .
Is it not time for the skeptics to put together a team to challenge those other harlots on the other side of the debate to crush them once and for all ? .
NIPCC?
“Is it not time for the {warmists, skeptics} to put together a team to challenge {skeptics, warmists} to crush them once and for all ?”
All reports of crushing the other side are premature. Part of the difficulty is the existence of more than two sides. Do you want to crush all-but-yours? That would be difficult. Perhaps a coalition of all-but-one could crush the one, then a new coalition formed to crush something else (as in the game of RISK).
Hey, did someone say my name?? #(:))
Hi, Terry,
Here is the other Dr. Murry Salby lecture (Hamburg, 2013) just FYI
(youtube)
Here is the youtube link for the London lecture
(Note: I added a space in between the last two characters in the link (the 5 and the 8) so it would not create a control window in this comment box:
Dr. Murry Salby (London, 2015)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5g9WGcW_Z5 8
(youtube)
IT TOOK ME ALL DAY TO MAKE TIME (here and there) TO WATCH (and take notes) SLOWLY AND UNDERSTAND!
How did you all do it??? Wow. This is a site full of VERY smart people!
Excellent.
Janice
P.S. Unlike somebody above, I thought his London lecture SIGNIFICANTLY expanded upon and or supplemented (e.g., additional information about Carbon 14) the Hamburg lecture. Dr. Salby also did not discuss ice core proxies at London as he did at Hamburg. I highly recommend watching BOTH.
When you pit government against individuals/small organizations, it is like a football game with the N. E. Patriots against a High School team.
All governments are corrupt; it is the degree of corruption that matters. IMO, the W. developed economies, once a bastion of freedom/liberty and hero-worship to emerging economies/dictatorships, have reached a level of financial corruption unparalleled in history.
Education, Science, and the incestuous relationship of gov’t with our International Corporations (which own most of the media) have all come under the thumb of government funding/regulations.
This political agenda doesn’t care about the science, it never did.
There is no bigger lie in my lifetime than Global Warming. IMO the future is bleak as the Patriots will win. The non-elite citizens will lose.
So…Roy Spencer and Chang..no atmospheric escape from planet Earth? No sputtering, no knockon, no impact expulsions? CO2, being such a heavy molecule, never rises in our atmosphere to the point where the required escape velocity is much weaker…ever?
Never ionizes and gets sucked off the planet at the magnetic poles in the planetary winds (NOT solar winds)?
Never exits in massive waves accelerated by asteroid impacts, or Sun flares, or perhaps nuclear explosions or even shuttle launches?
Ok. I’ll be sure to refer anyone who claims otherwise to you personally. 🙂
Yeah, that’s about right. I think you’ve got it.
Aphan- you’re looking in the wrong direction for “escape” of CO2 from the atmosphere. CO2 escapes from the atmosphere in the form of limestone and certain other sedimentary rocks.
Salby is completely right about one thing. CO2 emissions are proportional to global population. Cheap energy from fossil fuels have enabled population growth since the industrial revolution. It would be far more efficient now to invest in contraception rather than renewables to reduce carbon emissions.
Asking people to abstain from burning fossil fuels and return to ‘natural’ subsistance living, is like asking people not to sin. It simply won’t work.
“Asking people to abstain from burning fossil fuels and return to ‘natural’ subsistance living, is like asking people not to sin. It simply won’t work.”
Asking people to stop burning fossil fuels is not just asking them to stop sinning, but rather, it is asking them to die. Without cheap energy most of the planet’s 7+ billion people would die. Asking them to stop using energy is asking them to commit suicide. That simply won’t work as you say.
And one must ask; why? What is the fear of CO2? I saw a graph that had CO2 at approximately 7,000 ppm in the distant past. Did the earth perish then? I saw that the dinosaur era might have had about 1,000 ppm and there was no “runaway” warming due to some mystical feedbacks then.
If CO2 warms the planet, like the prevailing myth says, why does warmer temperatures always come before CO2 rise. Molecule time travel? (hey, a movie plot!)
Mark, you cryptically answered your own question. The fear of CO2 is because of a movie plot!
I say now is the time to hold AGW theory accountable with the data. I am so sick and tried of AGW theory being able to oppose the data as if their theory is correct and the data is wrong. Usually when a theory keeps failing data after data test it is time to move on to something else.
I will send a list of many of the data test this theory has failed to verify against next. It is amazing.
Salby is completely right about one thing. CO2 emissions are proportional to global population. Cheap energy from fossil fuels has enabled exponential population growth since the industrial revolution. It would be far more efficient now to invest in contraception rather than than pretend that renewables can reduce carbon emissions.
Asking people to abstain from burning fossil fuels and return to ‘natural’ subsistance living, is like asking people not to sin. It simply won’t work.
AGW theory has predicted thus far every single basic atmospheric process wrong.
In addition past historical climatic data shows the climate change that has taken place over the past 150 years is nothing special or unprecedented, and has been exceeded many times over in similar periods of time in the historical climatic record. I have yet to see data showing otherwise.
Data has also shown CO2 has always been a lagging indicator not a leading indicator. It does not lead the temperature change. If it does I have yet to see data confirming this.
SOME ATMOSPHERIC PROCESSES AND OTHER MAJOR WRONG CALLS.
GREATER ZONAL ATMOSPHERIC CIRCULATION -WRONG
TROPICAL HOT SPOT – WRONG
EL NINO MORE OF -WRONG
GLOBAL TEMPERATURE TREND TO RISE- WRONG
LESSENING OF OLR EARTH VIA SPACE -WRONG? I have a study showing this to be so.
LESS ANTARCTIC SEA ICE-WRONG
GREATER /MORE DROUGHTS -WRONG
MORE HURRICANES/SEVERE WX- WRONG
STRATOSPHERIC COOLING- ?? because lack of major volcanic activity and less ozone due to low solar activity can account for this..
AEROSOL IMPACT- WRONG- May be less then a cooling agent then expected, meaning CO2 is less then a warming agent then expected.
OCEAN HEAT CONTENT TO RISE- WRONG – this has leveled off post 2005 or so. Levels now much below model projections.
Those are the major ones but there are more. Yet AGW theory lives on.
Maybe it is me , but I was taught when you can not back up a theory with data and through observation that it is time to move on and look into another theory. Apparently this does not resonate when it comes to AGW theory , and this theory keeps living on to see yet another day.
Maybe once the global temperature trend shows a more definitive down trend which is right around the corner (according to my studies ) this nonsense will come to an end. Time will tell.
Salvatore, nobody is perfect! 🙂
Excellent presentation. Very much appreciated.
The 2 pictures at the links below provide pictorial evidence that his points are legit.
If CO2 emissions from humans were as dominant as in this 2005-2007 SIMULATION of CO2 created by a NASA computer model:
http://www.nasa.gov/press/goddard/2014/november/nasa-computer-model-provides-a-new-portrait-of-carbon-dioxide/
Then, the reality of our first actual measurements of CO2, below would match up closer to the simulation:
http://www.nasa.gov/jpl/oco2/nasas-spaceborne-carbon-counter-maps-new-details/
Since the 2nd picture, based on actual measurements does not show the US as the propagandized massive source of CO2 from industry and heating/cooling and transport and with the unexpected sources in the Southern Hemisphere, it’s clear that some large unaccounted for sources of CO2 not related to burning fossil fuels is taking place.
Please Mike,
The first video is from a full year of simulation, the second from 6 weeks! Let’s wait for a full year (and preferably several years) of data…
Ferdinand,
Fair enough. Additional measurements of CO2 for a one year period, will show seasonal variations better than anything we’ve guessed at up until now. Additional years will add to our understanding.
Agree with you that it is premature to make any conclusions based on just 6 weeks of data because of this fact. However, one can say that there were some early surprises.
As someone who hates watching “scientific” videos, I’ve been waiting for years for Dr. Salby to actually publish something with, you know, logic, and descriptions of methods, and data, and code, and footnotes to references that I can actually look up … have I missed it?
If and when Dr. Salby decides he’s tired of being a video star and deigns to write down his ideas, I’ll pay attention. Until then, I consider his lack of written ideas, lack of data, and lack of code to be a deliberate choice on his part.
And while I wait for him to put his thoughts down on paper, in a perhaps ill-advised attempt to interject rude numbers into the discussion, the ice core data (Vostok) shows the following:
As you can see, from the ice ages to the interglacials there is a peak to peak CO2 swing of about 100 ppmv. And there is a corresponding global temperature swing estimated at around 6°C peak to peak.
So … using rough numbers, the temperature-driven change in CO2 is on the order of
100 ppmv / 6°C = 17 ppmv CO2 increase per degree of increase in global surface temperature
I’m sure y’all can see the problem. At 17 ppmv CO2 increase per degree of warming, the ~ 0.6°C warming over the last century leads to a change in CO2 levels on the order of ten ppmv … and that’s an order of magnitude too small to explain the 100 ppmv change in CO2 levels over the same period.
w.
The ice core data can’t capture possible short excursions above ~330 ppmv such as experienced during the recent past decades. While I agree that some portion of the gain in CO2 since the depths of the LIA some 300 years ago is liable to be man-made, there is no good way to measure that portion with any precision or accuracy. If we had valid observations from Hawaii stretching back a million years, then we could talk about probable human influences. But we don’t.
milidonharlani,
The current increase of 110 ppmv over 160 years would be measurable as a 15 ppmv peak in the 560 years resolution of the Dome C ice core over the past 800,000 years and higher peaks in all other ice cores with a better resolution (but smaller time span). See here.
Sorry reference here…
IMO Antarctic ice core data lack sufficient resolution for high 300s or 400s ppmv during multidecadal intervals of the Medieval & prior Holocene & previous interglacial warm periods:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/01/01/antarctic-ice-cores-the-sample-rate-problem/
Nevertheless, I agree with your analysis that at least some important part of CO2 increase during the Modern WP is liable to have been man-made.
Willis, as usual, I can only agree with you…
Dr. Salby never responded to any critique on his stories, not even when directly asked (as I did in London last year).
The ice core data indeed show a direct correspondence between CO2 in the atmosphere and temperature, I do find the ratio somewhat lower at 8 ppmv°C/:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/Vostok_trends.gif
and surprisingly linear.
Most of the deviations are from the huge lags of CO2 changes (longer during cooling than during warming) after temperature changes.
The literature shows equilibrium changes between seawater and atmosphere from 4 to 17 ppmv/°C.
Anyway far too small to explain the current increase…
Thanks, Ferdinand. My back-of-the-envelope calculation of 17ppmv appears to be within the range of the literature that you cite. However, your figures and mine are about equivalent. The reason is that you are looking at the temperature changes in the Antarctic alone, whereas I used an estimate of the corresponding global temperature changes. Global temperature changes between glacials and interglacials are generally thought to be about half of the polar changes, a conversion factor that I used above. That’s why your number is about half of mine.
And as you say, in either case it’s far too small to explain the current CO2 changes.
w.
I’ve always had a ‘meeting of the minds’ with what Willis writes. I can’t recall ever being in disagreement. Not so with Ferdinand Engelbeen.
For quite a while early last year I argued with Ferdinand over the source of the rise in CO2. I thought it was mainly due to the 800 ±200 year lag in ocean outgassing from the MWP. But with admirable patience, along with plenty of facts and evidence, Ferdinand convinced me that the recent rise in CO2 is due almost entirely to human emissions. I’ve encorporated that into my thinking, and I very much appreciate his taking the time to explain repeatedly, until it sunk into my hard head.
That is an example of the difference between climate alarmists, and skeptics (the only honest kind of scientists, IMHO). Skeptics are willing to change their minds when the facts and evidence support it. Not so alarmists. They never seem to change their beliefs. Instead, they alter their arguments with confirmation bias: cherry-picking only those factoids that support their man-made global warming (MMGW) narrative. They reject all contrary evidence and reasoning.
Dr.Salby can change my mind, too. But to do it he needs to be completely transparent, by disclosing all of his methods, data, methodologies and metadata. It’s what we demand from folks like Michael Mann (who has never been very transparent). Climate skeptics can’t get away with hiding anything just because they say what many of us want to hear.
Truth is the goal, and in the long run it is all that matters. Only by putting everything on the table and hashing it out can we arrive at what is currently considered scientific truth. The job of skeptics is to deconstruct all Conjectures and Hypotheses (and Theories and Laws, if possible). When the smoke clears, only those facts and evidence that remain standing are considered valid. Anything else is an appeal to priestly authority, and that takes us in the wrong direction: back into witch doctor territory.
is comparing temperatures from a local proxy with CO2 (well mixed gas?) from that proxy a good idea?
Daniel,
If you are referring to the temperature proxy’s in the inland ice cores of Antarctica, the δD and δ180 measured in ice cores reflect the temperature of the seawater of the catch area where most of the water vapor originated where the snow was formed of.
For coastal cores, that are the nearby oceans. For inland cores that is most of the SH oceans. So these more or less reflect the temperatures of the whole SH. With a lot of caveats, of course…
Dank U wel.
Willis,
Are you aware that Salby also thinks that current methods underestimate CO2 levels in ice cores? His conclusions are at time 25:00 in this presentation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HeCqcKYj9Oc (Hamburg 2013) (I’m just a lay person though – apologies if I have misinterpreted)
GregS,
Dr. Salby was completely wrong on that point:
– There is a theoretical migration of CO2 in relative warm (coastal) ice cores, but all what that gives is that the resolution gets from ~20 years to ~22 years at middle depth and to ~40 years at full depth of the core. There is no measurable migration in the much colder inland ice cores
– Migration does shave the peaks, but that doesn’t change the average over a larger period: if a peak was originally 3000 ppmv and you measure 300 ppmv (a factor 10 as Salby alludes), then the 3000 ppmv was distributed over the rest of the ice core which thus originally had far less CO2. That means that the 180 ppmv measured during the coldest periods, 90% of the total time, originally was around 150 ppmv, enough to kill already a lot of plant life.
– Migration doesn’t stop after one glacial period. As the first period was 3000 ppmv some 100,000 years ago, the second period needed to be 12000 ppmv to measure the same 300 ppmv in the ice core after 200,000 years, etc… Effectively killing all life on earth in the in-between periods with far too low CO2, even negative for the next periods…
yes.
By your “logic”, we should ignore everything you post about here, since you can’t get any papers published by credible journals. Which is not surprising, since you’re not a scientist. To be a scientist, you have to practice the scientific method, which you ignore.
Catherine Ronconi
Please state to whom your rant was addressed.
Richard
Catherine, if you are referring to me, I’ve had my work published in journals including Nature magazine. However, I don’t see where I said that anything not published in “credible journals” should be ignored.
Perhaps if you made it clear who you are referring to, and if you quoted what they said that you object to, your comment might make more sense. As it stands, it is long on heat but short on light …
All the best,
w.
Sorry.
To Willis.
It is laughable to claim a letter to Nature as “work”.
Catherine Ronconi April 14, 2015 at 10:23 am
Catherine, it appears you are totally unfamiliar with Nature magazine. My submission to Nature was a “Communications Arising”. This is different from a letter to the editor. A “Communications Arising” is a short article which is peer-reviewed by three different reviewers, has different length limits from letters to the editor, and allows for a Figure. See how you look when you start displaying your ignorance?
As such, I fail to see why you think it is “laughable” to get a peer-reviewed short article published in Nature … perhaps you could inform us why you think it is funny. The editors of Nature didn’t see the humor in it, nor did the peer-reviewers.
Or perhaps you could establish your bonafides by listing for us the “Communications Arising” or any other peer-reviewed work that you’ve published in Nature …
I’ve also published in a couple of other journals, so your claim that I “can’t get any papers published by credible journals” is an outright fantasy on your part. I advise you to do your homework before uncapping your poison pen, it just makes you look like an idiot when you make such easily falsifiable statements. Today I got notice of the following citation to my work on extinctions published in Diversity and Distribution:
Not only published, but cited … sorry, Catherine, but you didn’t do your research.
Finally, you seem totally clueless regarding the fact that whether a scientific article is in a journal or not has nothing to do with whether the article is true and correct or not. I see that rather than deal with any of my scientific statements, you foolishly think it is enough to try to diss my publication record … can you say “ad hominem attack”? I knew you could …
Catherine, I have no clue what your day job is, but if it has something to do with science, I pity your employers.
w.
Willis
In the questions and answers he was asked when he will publish and his reply was that he won’t until he retrieves his data that the talks were based on and is reinstated into the field. As far as I know, and that is not far, he has never gained access his the work since the university dismissed him while he was out of town. I have never heard any more of what is going on there since the last piece on Jo Nova’s site in which he set out a series of facts as he perceived them about his and the University’s actions .
Thanks, DMA. Look, was Dr. Salby mistreated by Macquarie University? Quite possibly.
Having said that, I note that Dr. Salby says that Macquarie agreed to assist him to:
However, he says, they failed to do provide the resources necessary to do that. Fair enough, sounds like he has a legitimate beef with the University.
But even so, he still should have a computer model with several hundred thousand lines of code, comprising numerical models and analyses. BUT there is apparently a huge difficulty, one that has frozen his research in its track … the program won’t run in Australia.
So where’s the problem? Is the fact that his program won’t run in Australia the reason he hasn’t published his results? Really?
If another scientists can’t replicate your results, you are in trouble. But if you can’t replicate your own results …
w.
PS—As a programmer with fifty years of experience, I’d have to see his reputed model with “several hundred thousand lines of computer code” to believe it. I’m not saying it doesn’t exist … I’m simply a “trust but verify” kind of guy.
I agree it would be nice to see a reproducible paper from Salby, even through unofficial channels.
Regarding ice core data, personally I see his approach to interpreting them presented in his earlier videos as pretty solid, though. We don’t see actual CO2 levels in ice cores, we only see strongly filtered mean and it’s impossible to figure out what was really happening on shorter time scales. What we see now in Mauna Loa measurements is too short time scale to be directly compared to ice cores.
Kasuha,
The minimum peak at length that can be detected depends of the resolution of the ice core. That depends of the accumulation rate at the place where the core was built. For coastal cores that can go to 1.5 meters of ice equivalent per year, for high altitude far inland cores a few mm/year.
That makes that two of the three Law Dome ice cores have a resolution of better than a decade, but only cover 150 years of history before reaching bedrock, while Dome C has a resolution or 560 years, but covers 800,000 years of history.
Law Dome cores even have a ~20 years overlap with direct measurements at the South Pole:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/law_dome_sp_co2.jpg
Anyway, the current increase of 110 ppmv over a period of 160 years would be measurable in all ice cores, with a minimum amplitude of 15 ppmv for the Dome C ice core, spanning 800,000 years…
Ferdinand
You say
Sorry, but no. That is another of your infamous circular arguments.
The longest time series of direct measurements of atmospheric CO2 concentration is from Mauna Loa, and it began to be obtained only 57 years ago in 1958.
The 160 years derives from displacing ice core data in time and then splicing that temporally displaced ice core data to the 57 years of Mauna Loa data. Even if that data adjustment and splicing were correct, you cannot use the ice core data as evidence of its own indication.
Richard
Richard,
The 160 years derives from displacing ice core data in time and then splicing that temporally displaced ice core data to the 57 years of Mauna Loa data.
What?
Richard are you still using that enormous blunder from the late Jaworowski? There was no “displacing of ice core data” at all. Jaworowski simply looked at the column of the ice age, not at the column of the average gas age of Neftel’s ice core research at Siple Dome.
When I confronted him with that (by email), he replied that there was no difference between the ice age and gas age as in all ice cores there are plenty of remelt layers which isolate the gas diffusion from the atmosphere.
Neftel saw only one remelt layer near bubble closing depth and calculated the ice age – gas age difference accordingly. See for the data and references:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/jaworowski.html
Further, the gas age – ice age difference was confirmed by the 1996 work of Etheridge e.a., measuring CO2 levels top down in firn and ice at Law Dome.
Other measurements in proxies also show the same increase in CO2 and the drop in δ13C:
Your beloved stomata data show a smooth CO2 increase from 1900 to 2000, compared to ice core data until 1960 and Mauna Loa data after 1960 in ratio to human emissions over the full period.
Coralline sponges show a smooth decline in δ13C since ~1850 in ratio to human emissions over the full period. If you back calculate the δ13C changes to the increase of CO2 in the atmosphere, you do find the ice core CO2 levels again. The resolution of the coralline sponges is 2-4 years.
If the ice cores didn’t reflect real CO2 levels and/or the timing of the average gas age wasn’t correct, or if there were huge peaks from natural releases from whatever source, all or at least some curves should show a gap or bump where the difference occurred.
I haven’t seen any discussion yet of several things from that video. First, if you assume his Carbon14 curve is anywhere close to reality, human-caused CO2 disappears from atmospheric circulation in about 9 years. I assume that would be true of all atmospheric CO2. One could then conclude that CO2 emitted today will be gone from the atmosphere by 2025, absorbed by sinks. He said in the questions period that he used 5 different methods to calculate the turnover in CO2 and that this one was close to the longest period he derived.
A particularly fascinating point is that even if we cut fossil fuel emissions by 50 percent the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere will reach the same amount just over ten years later, according to Professor Salby . A lot of misery with little gain. He also removed man’s estimated contribution and at the present rate of increase, the same level was reached around 2120, instead of 2092. You may as well stand on the tracks and try to stop a locomotive under way by attempting to halt it with your hands.
The other big problem here in the discussions is that despite increasing CO2, there has been no measurable change in average temperatures over 18 years now and it is probably now starting to edge downward along with the PDO and AMO. Soon, we should see the rate of atmospheric CO2 increase start to edge downward if temperature is the major cause of CO2 increases.
Meanwhile, it appears to me that the lesson to be learned here is that governments around the world should be working to decrease the effects of industrialization and fossil fuel use on the environment and let Earth take care of its climate. In reality, there doesn’t appear to be a choice in the matter.
What is the lag time between when CO2 is absorbed at the poles and out gassed at the equator? Would that matter?
Johnny,
The lag time is about a two years for the increase in the far NH to reach the South Pole, but the deep ocean sinks need about 1000 years to go from the poles to the equatorial upwelling places.
It doesn’t matter much for total quantities of CO2, but it does matter for CO2 isotopic composition: what sinks is the current composition (13C/12C, 14C/12C), what is upwelling is the isotopic composition of ~1000 years ago. Additional in both cases is the shift in composition at the surface boundary…
Is the concentration of dissolved CO2 lagging by 1000 years too?
JohnnyCrash
Is the concentration of dissolved CO2 lagging by 1000 years too?
Indeed, but the variability doesn’t make much difference for the bulk of CO2.
Assuming that e.g. the MWP of thousand years ago was as warm or warmer than today, that would give somewhat less (about 3%) CO2 dissolved in slightly warmer seawater at the sinks of that time and thus 3% less CO2 getting into the atmosphere from upwelling waters today.
That is only true if there was no mixing with the bulk of the deep oceans and no carbon enrichment from dead plankton/shells, fish (excrements) into the deep oceans where the flows are passing…
In reality the changes play a minor role in the carbon budget.
Ernest,
There was a temperature drop 1946-1975, but CO2 increased with 15 ppmv.
There is a flat temperature since ~2000, but CO2 goes up without problems.
There is no reason to expect that CO2 levels will drop with increasing human emissions even if the temperature drops substantially every year…
The problem with the 14C drop speed is that what is going into the deep oceans is the isotopic composition of today, while what comes out is the isotopic composition of ~1000 years ago. That means that the 14C spike drop is a lot faster than for 12C. The same problem occurs with the low-13C CO2 from fossil fuels: that is “diluted” by high-13C CO2 circulating from the deep oceans. That makes that the ~14 year e-fold decay rate of the atomic bomb tests spike is some factor 3 too small. The decay rate of any substantial CO2 spike (whatever its origin) in the atmosphere is around 50 years.
Thanks for your time and input.
What I don’t think has been properly dealt with is the recent greening of the planet. If CO2 was a wonderful 280ppm when 1/3 of all Finns died of starvation because of crop failure during the LIA and it took 100ppm addition to give us bumper crops and a greening planet and this is supposed to be worrisome. Further, when historically in the MWP we had wine grapes growing in Scotland and a host of other accounts supporting the existence of a more lush climate, how can there be any logic in a steady 280 ppm at that time.
No, ladies and gentlemen with all your arithmetic and frozen fingers and y=mx +b, the world was in another “greening” phase that comes only with higher CO2. Similarly, the Sahara was once green with jungle/grass land animals (the area around Lake Chad, complete with the animals represents a vestige island of green left behind when the desert passed south).
Okay, history and archeology don’t count, so let’s go to logic. If you believe there was a Holocene Climate Optimum, Minoan Warm Period, Roman Warm Period, MWP which were about as warm and warmer than now, how did it get there? What do you suppose the CO2 level was? Be careful how you answer! If you believe that the CO2 had to be around what it is today or higher to have a temperature at or higher than now, then you have to reckon something wrong with the analyses of the ice cores (I believe resolution is a very likely problem). If you believe that CO2 was below 280, then you have to believe that CO2 and temperature don’t in fact correlate. Or you have to believe that Scotland grew a hardy grape that could do without sunshine and could cope with ‘starvation’ CO2 and today’s unremitting rain and lousy weather. Back of the envelope doesn’t always give credible results.
Gary,
Temperature and CO2 where tightly coupled over the past ~800,000 years at about 8 ppmv/°C, with a (long) lag of CO2 changes after T changes.
Until about 160 years ago. After that, CO2 levels did rise and δ13C levels (and 14C levels) did drop in complete lockstep with human use of fossil fuels.
Thus the ice cores do show the right (but smoothed) CO2 levels of the past, where temperature was the driver of CO2 levels, but that doesn’t exclude the much increased CO2 levels of today to have a (small) influence on temperature.
In my opinion, both higher CO2 levels and a modest increase in temperature are beneficial for plant growth and nature as a whole…
For what it’s worth as a side point, all atmospheric helium eventually “boils” into space from the upper atmosphere, because a fraction of its velocity distribution (ambient temperature) exceeds gravitational escape velocity. That fraction will leave, to be replenished by thermal redistribution from the remainder of the distribution. That’s why it is so important to conserve terrestrial supplies. Basically, it is generated geologically through radioactive emissions of alpha particles (which when electrically neutralized become helium) and trapped in likely basins such as petroleum deposits. But everyone knows this, so it is not a controversial point.
Ernest CO2 concentrations will follow the temperature curve with various lag times but they will follow as they have always done.
http://c3headlines.typepad.com/.a/6a010536b58035970c0133f64fd3c5970b-pi
One of several data sources that shows CO2 has never had nor will it correlate with the temperature trend. Co2, as has been the case will never lead the temperature which was explained quite well today.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/12/07/a-brief-history-of-atmospheric-carbon-dioxide-record-breaking/
Good data showing there is nothing special about co2 concentrations on the rise today.
Salvatore,
You shouldn’t read only the articles you do agree with, but also read the comment section below the same article, you will find my name very often there…
Regarding the interesting correlation between global population and CO2 emission, one might remember that correlation does not identify the direction of causation. I suggest it is more likely that that the increase in the use of fossil fuels is the cause of the population increase. Without the means to produce useable energy, human productivity and populations grew slowly over millennia. It is the development of industrial civilization and all the associated services and inventions that has allowed humans to live longer and their children to survive into adulthood. It is this change that has caused the population to expand dramatically.
At THE HOCKEY SCHTICK we see the headline “Swedish scientist replicates Dr. Murry Salby’s work, finding man-made CO2 does not drive climate change”
http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.com/2013/07/swedish-scientist-replicates-dr-murry.html
Note that this is an old link. Still, I thought it interesting.
Mark,
Dr. Pettersson could replicate Salby’s estimate, because he made the same mistake: assuming that the decay rate of the 14C bomb spike is the same as for a 12CO2 spike, while the 12CO2 concentration in the upwelling is the same as at the sinks, but the concentration of 14C at the upwelling was only halve of that at the sinks in 1960…
See my comments below the article you cited…
Oh, I can see what he did wrong – he made the mistake of asking whether increasing concentrations of CO2 is really due to human contribution. Good question, but not popular. Personally I think he will be vindicated, but not necessarily in his lifetime. I have often wondered why the global concentrations of CO2 did not follow global economic activity – i.e. why did it not falter at all during the 2008 global financial crisis?
Salby goes on to the derive several independent approaches a conservatively high upper bound of the anthropogenic contribution (%) of the total CO2 volume mixing ratio (ppmv) in the atmosphere circa 2007. He finds the 2007 upper bound value of anthropogenic contribution of atmospheric CO2 to be less than 33% in one approach and less than 28% in another approach, he thinks it the actual value of anthropogenic CO2 is likely significantly less than these conservatively high upper bounds.
Salby does not show that there is no anthropogenic contribution to atmospheric CO2. He shows that it is likely relatively very small compared to what the IPCC and its endorsed research shows.
John
NOTE: The 28% and 33% represent the contribution upper bound for the increase in the atmospheric growth of CO2 for that year of 2007.
John
For a more detailed statistical analysis, click on my name to review my blog on the subject. I welcome comments there and wish that others would expand on it.
John,
Humans emit about twice the measured increase of CO2 in the atmosphere.
The increase in the atmosphere is the result of the human emissions minus the net sinks.
The net sinks depend of the pressure of CO2 in the atmosphere in the atmosphere above the equilibrium pressure with the oceans.
The equilibrium pressure with the oceans depends of the ocean temperatures.
All these factors are known and the net result can be calculated. That is the red line in the following graph:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/dco2_em4.jpg
The calculated increase in the atmosphere is for 95% caused by human emissions, 5% by the (ocean) temperature increase since 1959.
The calculated trend is largely within the natural variability of the observations…
Ferdinand,
Your figure of % contribution of yearly increase in CO2 that is anthropogenic appears in roughly at least three times (and likely much more than 3 times) that of Salby’s calculated upper bound. So, discussion centers on the observations of that are the basis of Salby’s calculation of the conservatively high upper bound for the yearly anthropogenic % contribution to the yearly increase in atmospheric CO2. Do you have problems with the observations he bases his calc on? His calcs seem very straightforward.
I think a position that the large natural sinks and sources (compared to the anthropogenic emissions source) should not be the major part of the yearly change, prima fascia, seems unrealistic.
This discussion of Salby versus the IPCC in CO2 contribution of yearly increases seems in the same form as the argument about the of attribution of temperature increases as entirely do to man versus being dominantly natural. It seems unrealistic to claim the majority is man causes in temperature or in CO2 discussions. It looks like a return to more realistic attributions versus exaggerated attribution about climate change.
John
John,
The main problem with Salby’s interpretation is that he tries to extrapolate a trend out of the variability of the trend. Have a look at the difference in dimensions.
The variability has hardly any influence on the trend of CO2 and mostly levels off to zero after a few years.
Further, there is simply no process on earth which can increase the CO2 levels from the small trend in temperature as is observed in the past 55 years.
Secondly, he looks at the residence time of the 14C spike as result of the atomic bomb tests of the 1950’s. But he forgets that the residence time of 14C is reduced because what goes into the deep oceans today’s 14C concentration, but what comes out is the concentration of ~1000 years ago, thus long before the 14C spike. That makes that 14C is removed about 3 times faster than a 12C/human CO2 spike and thus the maximum human contribution calculated by Dr. Salby is a factor 3 too low…
The huge CO2 in/outs are mainly temperature driven: seasonal and 2-3 years (Pinatubo, El Niño),with changes of 4-5 ppmv/°C. The natural carbon cycle shows surprisingly little variation over a full seasonal cycle: +/- 1 ppmv around the trend.
The current increase and accompanying sink rate is mainly a matter of pressure: the increased pressure in the atmosphere causes an increased uptake in the oceans and vegetation.
Two completely different processes with hardly any cross influence between them.
“Further, there is simply no process on earth which can increase the CO2 levels from the small trend in temperature as is observed in the past 55 years.”
Maybe there is, per my comment up thread.
A very serious objection would be yours and Willis’s ice core analyses which show small temperature dependent CO2 swings somewhat higher than allowed by Henry’s law.
What could be the difference between current and historic temperature dependence?
Human CO2. It’s greening everything else…
If you watch the facial and body expressions of Salby you can definitely see an “I’m right, they are wrong” arrogant attitude portrayed. That’s guaranteed to make anyone that disagrees with you angry from the outset.
Peter Sable – Maybe Salby’s demeanor came across to you as arrogance, but you can rarely know precisely what’s going on in a the head of a person you are less than well-acquainted with. It’s more likely you saw something of yourself in him.
Peter Sable,
Salby came across to me as having premeditated thoughtfulness; as having deliberated directness. I did not get arrogance vibes as you did.
Interesting differences in impressions between you and I.
John
Peter, If you are correct how did we get a bunch of politicians who get elected who exhibit the I’m right attitude when they don’t have a clue of the facts. Know any who have done this?
Peter, If you are correct how did we get a bunch of politicians who get elected who exhibit the I’m right attitude
Because politicians are expert at hiding their true feelings and projecting the appropriate image for the appropriate moment. I suspect Salby is not such an expert.
Salby came across to me as having premeditated thoughtfulness
Really, you didn’t see the look down his nose smirk dozens of times?
I’m critiquing his presentation style completely independent of any technical merit. Presentation style only how many people listen and their emotional reaction, not if you are factually or theoretically right or wrong.
Maybe Salby’s demeanor came across to you as arrogance, but you can rarely know precisely what’s going on in a the head of a person
I’m not sure what’s going on in his head, but I’m speaking to his presentation style, which if he’s not self-aware of, means it doesn’t matter what was going on in his head, only what the audience observed.
And the science of what an audience observes is settled.
Peter,
Have you missed the arrogance of John Kerry and others in the administration when they call those who disagree with them as flat earthers, d*****, etc.
From graph above: ‘The calculated increase in the atmosphere is for 95% caused by human emissions,…’
I assume .005% is caused by “Nature”. I understand and I could be wrong over the course of one year I emit more Co2 than my car. I understand and I could be wrong, the world’s ant population exhales more than the human population Which brings me to ask a stupid question. Has anybody calculated how much Co2 animals and insects contribute to Co2 each year? If so, how did they manage to count all the animals and insects or did some just guess?
….and insects or did someone just guess?
old construction worker,
All living creatures use carbon derivatives which was first captured by photosynthesis and use oxygen to capture its energy and exhale CO2 as result. That is a (mainly seasonal) cycle on its own, where ~60 GtC is going in and out over the seasons: leaves/wood/seeds/fruits growing in spring/summer/fall and leaves and other debris and food/feed decaying/eaten all year long, but extra decay in fall/spring.
How do we know what the balance of all these exchanges is: that can be seen in the oxygen balance.
CO2 uptake by plants releases oxygen. Plant decay and food/feed uses oxygen. Fossil fuel burning also uses oxygen, but that can be calculated on the base of fossil fuel sales (taxes!) and burning efficiency.
Since about 1990 it is possible to measure the oxygen decline in the atmosphere with sufficient accuracy to see what happens with the oxygen balance. That shows that somewhat less oxygen is used than calculated from fossil fuel burning. That means that the biosphere as a whole (land + sea plants, bacteria, molds, insects, animals) is a net producer of oxygen, thus a net, increasing sink of CO2:
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/287/5462/2467.short
and more elaborated (free!)
http://www.bowdoin.edu/~mbattle/papers_posters_and_talks/BenderGBC2005.pdf
Thus whatever you exhale or burning wood of a few decades old or pushing organics on a pile of compost doesn’t alter the CO2 content of the atmosphere over the long term: all what you do is bringing CO2 back into the atmosphere which was captured out of the atmosphere by plants a few months to a few decennia before…
In contrast, CO2 from burning fossil fuels does add to the current atmosphere, as that was captured millions of years ago in an atmosphere much richer in CO2 than today…
I appreciate very much these “bite sized” explanations. It is much easier to grasp little principles than to try to cope with the entire system all at once.
A very enjoyable presentation. No doubt there will be strong disagreement from some.
The problem with the conventional view on CO2 is that it relies on co-incidence to explain observation. That the CO2 sinks and sources and their derivatives are co-incidentally in just the exact right balance to explain the observations. I find this co-incidence an unlikely explanation.
Salby tackles the problem from a different angle without the reliance on co-independence and get a different answer. Is he right? Not sure, but if he is then there is a great danger in the government policies being proposed. They are no different than ordering the tides to stop rising.
History is full of examples of government crusades down the wrong path.
The problem with Salby’s approach is that he tries to explain the sea level change based on the change over the tides. Besides the difference in size (for CO2 the opposite way), there is nothing that connects the trends with the variability…
Any pot growers worth her bud knows to augment greenhouse CO2 to 1200 – 1500 ppm.
And it is interesting to note that optimal temperature for growth increases from 24 degrees C (without CO2 augmentation) to 32 degrees C (with CO2 augmentation).
Flowering plants love much more CO2 + warmer temperatures. The increase in yield is astonishing.
On a side note, in the state of Oregon, USA, it will be legal to grow and possess pot as of July 1st.
So, in the beach town where I live, for the local Fourth of July parade it will be legal to walk:
— nude (so long as not sexually aroused)
— with an open beer
— smoking a joint
— carrying a loaded AR-15 over the shoulder
God bless America.
(Being a pretty serious athlete, I don’t drink or smoke, but if I did, I’d be … um … packin’.)
Excellent…. except pot growers/smokers rarely get out to vote. Fantastic nugget of info though.
We won’t know that for sure until there is no stigma or penalty for admitting to it nationwide. The number of untested individuals who hide those behaviors is only a guess and there are no exit polls that (I know of) from places that have legalized it. What you you said could just as easily be stated about binge drinkers and home distillery operators. Failure to vote is a symptom of the same frustrations with the system which motivate folks like Timothy McVey in a more active way.
Max, I once read that pot was almost extinct in the US and the strains were limited to only propagated populations. Maybe this is like bringing back a species from near-extinction.
Most of the good stuff is grown indoors. Read why here: http://www.theweeklings.com/kago/2013/03/12/the-mexican-connection-part-i-cannabis-wrecks/
Scroll down until you see a picture of “Katie Arnoldi, volunteer for Operation LOCCUST.” It’s a long article so read the end of it. She describes how Mexican cartels are planting in CA national parks and hauling up young impoverished Mexican farmers who have nothing to do with the drug trade. They make them sleep on the ground, and tend the plants for 3-6 months.
The problem is this:
This is scary:
Three-fourths of the marijuana sold in this country to teenagers comes from these Mexican cartel grows. That’s why they have to legalize this quickly, so that the kids and adults who buy this stuff can be assured they are getting it from a good source.
Are these chemicals going into Nestle’s bottled water?
Exactly. The current ice age biosphere is both temperature and Carbon limited.
I have just finished watching and found it very well presented, I don’t claim to understand it all but it follows a very well thought out path using measurements and data and holds together much better than WE’RE RIGHT YOUR WRONG that I see used as reasoning from the pro CAGW brigade.
James Bull
What an improbable world where humans account for only 3% of the CO2 and natural processes account for 97%, but homo sapiens are blamed for upsetting the CO2 apple cart.
A few thoughts.
1. Strange assertion that homo sapien is not part of natural processes. Evolutionary science might be interested in the development of this new species that is not part of nature. Until Evolutionary science confirms a new unnatural species has emerged, it is reasonable to state 100% of CO2 is created by nature.
2. The argument is the 97% of CO2 by nature is OK because nature automatically balances (via sinks, oceans, vegetation, temperature, whatever) for any increase or decrease in natural CO2. Apparently either nature is mad at humanity (see 2a below) or being a new unnatural species (see 1. above) nature refuses to handle humanities CO2 in it’s natural process of balancing.
2a.) If you believe some intelligence has consciously decided to only balance out non-man-made CO2, then you might want to give a shout out at intelligent design central.
3. Fossil fuels was, is and always will be a naturally made and is good at being burned and therefore an excellent fuel for advancing civilization. Add some music and dancing girls and “It don’t get more natural than fossil fuel.” would make a good jingle.
4. A whole lot of mathematics can sometimes add up to a whole lot of nothing. It happens.
5. A new psychiatric diagnosis code might be considered : Maximous-Infatuation-Humanus-CO2itus.
Alx April 13, 2015 at 6:41 pm
What an improbable world where humans ACCOUNT for only 3% of the CO2 and natural processes account for 97%, but homo sapiens are blamed for upsetting the CO2 apple cart.
So you have a swimming pool with a constant circulating flow rate with a natural loss rate of 2% and to make up for that you add a hosepipe and constantly add 4%. Who do you think is responsible for the pool overflowing?
Phil asks “Who do you think is responsible for the pool overflowing?”
Susan!
How about we just set aside a place on earth that is completely self sustainable no matter warming or cooling( a Noah’s ark if you will) and just keep on keeping on business as usual. If it as bad as the alarmist say than fine the human race will survive. If it’s not then no harm no foul. This debate is a useless “Tit for Tat”. I personally could not give a f@@ k any more. Whatever!!!!
“How about we just set aside a place on earth that is completely self sustainable no matter warming or cooling”
It’s called Borneo.
In response to a few earnest pleas above for a transcript, I am posting my 8 pages of notes on Dr. Murry Salby’s 2015 London, United Kingdom, lecture.
For those who so easily toss aside Dr. Salby’s horrendous treatment (his research files have been STOLEN from him), harshly judge him as foolish to not publish anyway, and sneer at his publishing only his slides in a video format, I say: there are, even so, MANY examples of his reasoning and his calculations in those slides. I hope that all intelligent WUWT readers of integrity (with normal hearing/vision) will be inspired from my notetaking (quite simpleminded and not as complete as they should be, to be sure) below to watch or listen and read the slides and graphs in this fine presentation by one of the finest atmospheric scientists in the world.
*************************************************
Dr. Murry Salby, London, 2015 Lecture — Janice’s Notes
Youtube link to lecture: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5g9WGcW_Z5 8 {Note: space added between last two chars, the 5 and 8 to prevent video control window from appearing here}
3:00 – During 1990’s, fossil fuel emission increased linearly .08 GtC/year (IF retained in
atmosphere, this = .04 ppmv/year) {“ppmv”: parts per million by volume}
3:22 – After 2002, fossil fuel emission rate increased: .275 GtC/year, an increase of 300%
(Total at end of period nearly 2x greater); atmospheric CO2 increase, IF retained, would be
.14 ppmv/year.
3:45 – 1995 – 2002, atmospheric CO2 increased linearly 2.1 ppmv/year;
— After 2002, atmospheric CO2 increased at the same rate.
4:10 – “The growth of fossil fuel emission increased by a factor of 300%; the growth of CO2
didn’t blink. How could this be? Say it ain’t so.” lol
4:40 – Estimated CO2 Budget (Source: IPCC) {Anthropogenic CO2 emissions = 5 Gt/year;
Natural (150 Gt/year) greater than human by 2 orders of magnitude.}
5:12 — Re: Net Atmospheric CO2 – for human CO2 to dominate, natural would have
remain in nearly perfect balance, i.e., even a minor imbalance in natural CO2 would
either overwhelm the human CO2 emissions or act as a net sink of all the human CO2.
5:50 – CO2 reaching the atmosphere from earth is “conserved,” that is, it is neither multiplied
nor destroyed; CO2 is only rearranged by atmospheric circulation. Thus, to restate,
atmospheric CO2 growth rate = Net CO2 emission from earth.
7:20 – Net global CO2 emission (all sources and sinks, natural and human). Note: it is not
linear, i.e., does NOT resemble IN THE SLIGHTEST human CO2 emission rate.
— Human CO2 and Net CO2 Emission records are incoherent. That is, net global CO2
emission evolves INDEPENDENTLY OF HUMAN EMISSION.
9:12 – Since 1997, global temperature has varied little (constant, except for weak cooling).
9:35 – Natural CO2 emission has strong sensitivity to surface properties (of land and of
ocean) – Human CO2 is independent of surface properties.
10:05 – Correlation of .93 (net global CO2 emission and surface properties).
10:55 – Temperature (the main surface property driver) correlation: .80.
11:05 – Integrating thermally-induced CO2 emission backward, i.e., subtracting therm. CO2 for
each preceding year (year x-1) from current CO2 (year x), repeating this going back to
1980, gives an accurate estimate of net natural CO2 (since most net natural CO2 emission
is thermally induced).
12:20 – Before 1980, there are no observations of global temperature; must estimate from
surface thermometers (limited coverage of earth).
13:50 – Integrating thermally induced atmospheric CO2 backward revealed no human NO
human CO2 component; this means the human CO2 component is not zero, but it is so
small that it cannot be measured. Upper bound for human CO2 emission can be
determined:
15:10 — Using uncertainty range of pre-1980 thermally-induced atmospheric CO2,
integrate forward (from 19th century thermally-induced CO2).
15:30 – 19th c. human CO2 close to zero, i.e., the natural, largely thermally-induced CO2 is
dominant; as you integrate forward, the thermally-induced CO2 should start to
diverge from observed atmospheric CO2 (the discrepancy would reveal the human CO2
component)
18:12 – Upper bound of human CO2 in 2007, (r(A)) <= 33% (corresponding to the lower
Bound for thermally induced natural CO2 of 67%). {Taking 280 ppmv as generally
accepted min.). {See also Salby infra at 40:00}
19:10 – Conservation equation of CO2. dr/dt = E – A.
19:45 – Absorption Time (i.e., exponential rate of decay of CO2 using normalized absorption
rate, α) which, yields (1/ α) Residence Time of CO2 (i.e., after introduced, how
long CO2 remains in the atmosphere).
21:20 – To find α requires {method #1 in this lecture}: r (Abundance of CO2 in gigatons of
carbon, per IPCC: 750 GtC) and A (absorption rate: per IPCC 150 Gt/year) absorption
rate (α) is 5 years-1 yielding Residence Time: 5 years).
22:00 – Dr. Salby has “little confidence” in this result for “A is little more than a guesstimate …
highly variable … not observed.” (“r is well-determined)
22:18 – Better method {#2 in this lecture} of determining absorption rate α : cross
correlation of CO2 (itself, not emission) with temperature.
22:50 – Cross-correlation (CO2 – temperature) i.e., how large a change in CO2 results from a
change in temperature along with the relative timing.
23:15 — A change in temperature is followed 10 months later by a change in CO2; thus, like
emission, CO2 is strongly dependent on temperature, lagging behind it; “unambiguous
which is the horse and which is the cart.”
23:42 – Theoretical constraints – the Conservation Equation governs evolution of CO2, thus, it
also must govern CO2’s cross-correlation with temperature; the more CO2, the faster it
is absorbed (i.e., absorption, A, is a function of CO2 abundance, r).
24:17 – Approximating each by a first order Taylor equation reduces the Conservation Equation
to linear dependence on temperature and CO2 abundance (r).
24:45 – Thus, the change in thermally-induced emission is proportional to the change in
Temperature and the change in absorption of CO2 is proportional to the change in
abundance of CO2.
(gamma = the correlation between observed emission and temp.)
(alpha = “normalized absorption rate” value: TBD (to be determined – there are a number
of CO2 evolutions, each with a different absorption rate, alpha).
26:10 – Taking as a given the IPCC’s alpha of 5(to the minus 1) , result is cross-correlation of CO2 and temp.
of (see slide).
26:24 — {Third Way to Determine α – other 2 at: 1) 21:20 and 2) 22:18 — Experiment} – A
Tracer of CO2 in the Atmosphere (goes where CO2 goes). A small, uniquely identifiable
subset of CO2 = good tracer: C14 (only a trace contribution (<1%) to overall atmospheric,
C12 mostly, carbon, so it can change without significantly altering total C in atmosphere).
{27:35} — C14 half-life = 5,000 years; conserved in atmosphere (thus, wherever
CO2 goes, C14 goes – its analysis reveals absorption of CO2.
{See: Gosta (?) Pederson (sp?) of Sweden for similar analysis}
28:00 – C14 Discussion
a. How C14 forms – Cosmic rays
b. How C14 forms – human
1) nuclear bomb fission – NTBT end 1963 –
in 20 years extra C14 virtually gone from atmosphere (decayed)
30:00 – C14 decays almost perfectly exponentially (See figure “Absorption of CO2”) – correlation between observed C14 and exponential decay is .996 {32:02} (which means that the first order Taylor series where absorption is proportional to abundance is “not just an approximation, it’s close to exact.”
Exponential decay means that absorption of CO2 (α) is proportional to the abundance (r) of CO2.
2) {30:50) Nuclear power plants (1970’s and 1980’s = significant increase)
This artificially extended the apparent absorption time of C14 (from the bomb testing)
{31:20} IPCC Models use “so called” Bern Model – 200 years – even then, 30% of C14 remains in the simulated world,
32:34 — Fossil Fuel Emission – Conservation Equation {See 45:10 – independent upper bound}
Easily solved (no supercomputer necessary, heh), i.e., it is completely defined.
32:55 Anthropogenic CO2 Perturbation – with an initial CO2 level and the subsequent CO2 emission, the evolution of anthropogenic CO2 is entirely determined.
Fossil Fuel Emission During 1995-2015
Increased linearly – after 2002 rate increased 300%
35:00 Increased human CO2 abundance ALSO increase its absorption rate, eventually in balance; net human CO2 then, 0.
35:25 Equilibrium level of human CO2 (equation for when emission = absorption)
After about 10 years, human CO2 “will disappear.”
36:45 – At 2002 fossil fuel emission level, human CO2 = 30ppmv
After 2002, 300% increase in CO2 per year matched by absorption rate, eventually they will be in equilibrium differing only by a constant (two parallel lines) – 37:30 — net emission then becomes a constant, thus, CO2 growth (in abundance) is constant, increasing linearly like emission
Absorption of human CO2 (equilibrium) drifts higher.
CO2 at any instant = its equilibrium level 10 years prior (see graph) – “limited memory” (never “catches up” to the equil. Level) – “EMISSION FROM EARLIER TIMES IS INCONSEQUENTIAL.” – any influence has been erased by absorption.
40:00 – Upper Bound of Human CO2 Emission {See also at 18:12 infra} – Note: actual human CO2 less (shaded area in graph)
40:22 – Human CO2 emission increases steadily with population
41:15 – Re: Ability of government to control human CO2 emission: to date, nearly $2 Trillion dollars has been diverted to “renewable energy.” – it hasn’t made a dent in the above relationship.
42:25 Conservation Equation solved with exponentially related CO2 emission/historical population level – 42:45 for a direct comparison of atmospheric CO2 Conservation Equation result with human, start in instrumental era, ~1960 (Note: approx.. 20ppmv of T. 30 human CO2 since 19th c. was after, like most pop. Growth, 1960)
43:35 — In 2007, the human CO2 contribution to atmospheric CO2 was 28% (natural 72%) —
45:10 The natural CO2 (thermally induced) component must be >= 67%; human, therefore, <= 33% {upper bound on human} – Note: This upper bound is INDEPENDENT of upper bound found from above analysis of fossil fuel emission.
45:48 Together, these two analyses of upper bound for human CO2 effect a double blind test
46:00 – Two Questions
1) How Would CO2 Emissions Have Evolved Were Human CO2 Absent (post 1960)
Cuban Missile Crisis example – lesson (Per Salby): American bureaucracy failed Kennedy (mis-information) Moral: even IF gov’t. could control human CO2 emission, can’t control bulk which is natural CO2 emission.
2) 53:00 When Will Fossil Fuel CO2 Emission Reach 50% {53:35 in 2014 < pot. max. 30% (boundary) human – Note: models assume 69!%} of Total CO2 Increase?
That is: if fossil fuel use down to zero and can’t even eliminate half of CO2 increase (CO2 still increasing), what is the point?
54:35 The post-2002 300% increase in fossil fuel emission must be mirrored in an increase in atmospheric CO2 — fossil fuel component mirrored, should have increased CO2 >100% more than observed increase – it did not (see graph).
55:05 Models over-estimate human CO2 (far over (2.5x) observed upper boundary) using Bern model and eventually human CO2 erroneously becomes nearly ALL the CO2 increase.
56:15 — Per above α analysis (Salby’s), in 2092 is the first year that human CO2 could possibly reach 50% of the total CO2 increase – Note: emissions today are irrelevant (only the preceding 1 or 2 decades’ human CO2 emissions will be relevant, i.e., 2072’s at earliest).
57:33 – Fossil fuel depletion rates of reserves by 100 years or so {As noted by another commenter, this is likely not the outer limits of world fossil fuel reserves} – models assume fossil fuel emission continues indefinitely
59:00 – When fossil fuel emission is halved, equilibrium (absorption-emission) is halved
1:00:00 — THUS, Answer to above Q: Never. {anthro reach 50% of total CO2} {Note: Underlying assumption: before it can, fossil fuel reserves will be exhausted.}
1:00:30 – Atmospheric absorption/opacity (water vapor takes up any extra heat) – CO2 gets “scraps” – increase of total net CO2 increases atmospheric opacity ~6% — but already at 80, opacity has plateaued, so irrelevant beyond that (human % less than 1% – negligible).
1:02:35 – Radiative Equilibrium (calculation of CO2 heat affect, “temperature perturbation,” on earth) – adds (per above calc.) less than .2 of one degree K. It can be amplified or negated by feedback mechanisms which are “countless.”
1:03:10 – A dominant mechanism is Convective Feedback – overturning of air – compared to other feedbacks’ time periods (weeks, months, longer), convective feedback is instantaneous (leaves impact, “horse in race,” in the dust) – 1:04:00 – illustration of Convective Feedback on radiative temperature – 1:07:00 – Radiative Convective Equilibrium reduces the temperature perturbation if increased CO2 (above at 1:02:35) from .2 K to less than .1 K.
1:07:40 – What will temperature perturbation of increase in CO2 be not just for a doubling (from 280 of 19th c. (taking this as a given; not proven, btw) to 560), rather, setting that aside, let’s ask: What would be effect of CO2 emissions of ALL fossil fuels used down to level zero?
Answer: 1:07:50 Around 2100, atmospheric CO2 (if continues on trend) will be around 690ppmv. Atmospheric opacity up by 1.1% (only 40% of that due to CO2 from fossil fuel emission) – surface temp. increased < .6 K, reduced by convective equilibrium, net temp. perturbation: < .1 K.
1:08:35 – Context (graph) for temperature perturbation above – Global mean temp. 1850 – present up .8 deg (due to just 2 decades) – NO systematic change — clearly no systematic relationship to CO2 which increased steadily. 1:11:11 – the “anthropogenic perturbation isn’t even detectible.”
— Conclusion: global temperature is controlled by just about everything BUT fossil fuel emission. — 1:12:00 CO2 is not measurably/detectibly influenced by fossil fuel emission, therefore, even less could fossil fuel emission affect what is affected (which is not much per above) by total atmospheric CO2.
1:12:30 – This subject is closed. There is no rational reason to further analyze CO2. Personal reason became, “by accident” interested in CO2 analysis: writing a new book on atmosphere and climate, 1:13:00 he was struck by fundamental contradiction between “what was being sold versus what the atmosphere was clearly doing.” – 1:13:34 But for the university in Australia taking away his research resources (the only reason he entered into production of that book – all he could do at that point), he would never have done his CO2 investigation:
Lololol Amazing irony. (God’s, imo)
1:14:00 – 1:40 Questions from Audience (for an American, the accents are DELIGHTFUL)
1) Laudation from Christopher, Lord Monckton
2) Q: When are you going to publish in a respected journal?
A (Salby) 1:15:00 I cannot publish THIS material until I publish the material from which it is derived and THAT material cannot be published until I recover my research files and been reinstated in the field.”
3) 1:16 Q: (…. hm…about pause and explaining, etc… hard to understand questioner)
A: 1:18 (Salby):
YES!!!
#(:))
“cause of so called ‘pause’ = “return to normality” – more interesting question is what caused the warming in 1980’s and 1990’s – models got tuned for CO2 covariance with temp. increase and no reasonable basis for this; not really related – … .
4) 1:25:30 Q: Re: upper bound for residence C14 time.
A: (Salby) I used the longest residence time – if I’d used the shorter of the (est. error bar ranges per questioner 4 – 25) times… I used 3 different ways to explore residence times… did total of 5 and the other 2 methods yielded even shorter res. times. Key: whether it is 1 or 4 or 8… it is not TWO hundred years (as per Bern model IPCC bases models on)
5) 1:28:20 Q: Re: Club of Rome etc… skipped
6) 1:28:42 Q (Monckton): Re: Negative conductive feedback – How did you quantify that feedback? And did you consider another, short-acting, feedback, the evaporative feedback (3 times as strong as models assume)?
A. (Salby) Evaporative feedback is coupled to convection – vertical transport of both water vapor and of temp./heat – the convective feedback I considered has evaporative feedback (i.e., latent heat transfer v. sensible (?) heat transfer) built into it – all is calculated v. a v. saturated (not dry) stability – Quantified by comparing rates of equilibrium structure with rates of convective structure (homogenizing is happening, from “skin” (tropopause at top) to bottom, … reduce by about half at the bottom…
7) Q (really, a little speech) (1:32:09): (Norwegian parliament climate bill – neat accent) — Norwegian politicians say, “is this really true” (ridiculousness of ‘climate change’ arguments)?? Well! They are going to discuss and do something! You do it, too, you British.
8) Q: 1:35:00 What is your confidence that CO2 emissions will remain positive over the century to come?
A: (Salby) top of ice firns shows CO2 increasing over last century – if temp. stays about where is, temp.-induced (natural) CO2 likely stay about where it is (this is the basis) – on the other hand, if temp. were to “come down substantially” (not like anything seen within record of last century), then, CO2 could stop increasing OR, at least, rate of increase may slow
9) Q: 1:37 We’re told CO2 levels higher than in last 30 million years, any times in past where CO2 higher?
A: (Salby) Absolutely (yes). Higher in other periods. Proxies ( but, with careful damping and the like calculations can better estimate) can grossly underestimate the CO2 level when formed.
10) Q: ~1:39 — So it is natural, NOT human CO2 which is responsible for the net increase in CO2?
A: Yes. Slide at 1:39:45 used to answer this.
End.
I hope this is helpful to some of you!
Janice
Yes, thank you for that, as a non-scientist I was a bit disappointed by the dismissive comments from some regular contributors whose opinions hitherto I have respected.
I appreciated Dr Salby’s empirical approach, given the paucity of reliable data prior to the satellite era.
That CO2 concentration rose ~280ppm — ~310pp, if proxies are to be believed, without significant human emissions is a puzzle and the assumption that natural emissions exactly match natural sinks at all times also seems unwarranted.
the assumption that natural emissions exactly MATCH natural sinks at all times also seems unwarranted.
There is no such assumption, in fact as posted by Ferdinand on multiple occasions the evidence is that natural sinks are greater than natural sources during the period during which we have been releasing fossil fuel generated CO2 into the atmosphere.
That is impressive work, given how hard it was to watch. Thanks.
You are so very welcome, Chris Hanley and Duster. Thanks for your kind words and for taking the time to write them.
Re: Dr. Salby’s Mistreatment by Macquarie University of Australia:
1. “This email’s accusations (if true I have independent confirmation now, title changed to reflect this – Anthony) is quite something, it illustrates the disturbing lengths a university will go to suppress ideas they don’t agree with. So much for academic freedom at Macquarie University.”
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/07/08/professor-critical-of-agw-theory-being-disenfranchised-exiled-from-academia-in-australia/
2. “On closer inspection the NSF report used by people to attack Salby does not appear to be the balanced, impartial analysis I would have expected. Indeed the hyperbolic language based on insubstantial evidence is disturbing to say the least.” (Jo Nova)
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/08/11/murry-salby-responds-to-critics/
Great notes! Either I lost mine or didn’t take any…whatever he may lack in interpersonal skills, whatever reasonable and honest objections may be raised by Ferdinand, Willis, and others, there is absolutely NO way his argument can be currently ruled out. There is absolutely NO way a researcher of his stature should be fired and have his efforts confiscated.
Janice:How do you do this? 2700 words in your “notes”. Excellent job.
Oh, Monsieur (Mister?) Javert, thank you. Just pretended I was back in the classroom… . Plus, Dr. Salby is such a hero for the truth that I was quite motivated. Thank you for your so generously and kindly acknowledging my efforts!
#(:))
l love YOUR witty slam-downs of Daniel above (and that horrid M0sher — that man makes me SICK; he has money in this game, still does work for Enviroprofiteers, if I’m not mistaken (and I don’t think I am, but, good to put that little modifier in, heh) … and when is he going to disgorge the third volume of those “Climategate” e mails he’s been sitting on for years, now?… last I heard… (a WUWTer asked, he was “working on it”…) — and your day-in-day-out excellent wit, too — glad you are in the WUWT regular commenting squadron with your powerful speech!
Finally finished all the comments, This is rock solid work from Dr Salby, congratulations. And thanks to the tireless work of Op the posters and the trolls. One can always determine how close to the target one is by the quality and quantity of the flack. Such a logical and precise mind that developed this lecture is terrifying to the rent seekers. The argument leaves no holes, so they determine that the Man must be denigrated. I enjoy especially the trolls (in a dark fashion), as when using the scientific method, answers that are 180 degrees out still point to the truth. Dr Salby has crushed the keystone of AGW.
Hey, Bill McCarter — I just want to say to YOU — Way — to — go. What a guy to read ALL those comments. Yes, Bart and others have some EXCELLENT knowledge to add.
Nice comment by you. Hear, hear.
Now, I’m going to go have a snack!
Bill McCarter says “Dr Salby has crushed the keystone of AGW.”
Not really. AGW is crushed when you no longer see it except for its dust. How many times have I seen warmists claim to have crushed skeptics? That’s not for either side to claim.
There’s a big IF in the presentation; several probably, and the big IF is the accuracy of the presentation. Does the data exist and does it say what Dr Salby says it says? If his data is accurate and his interpretation correct then yes, it is compelling.
Take a look at what I have done with the available CO2 data by clicking on my name, and come to your on conclusions about the relative natural and anthropogenic contributions. I welcome your comments on my blog.
I keep reading folks saying that Dr Salby’s work has been confiscated by his previous University employers. This confuses me.
My main issue is that unless there is something unusual about his scientific work, it should be replicable by others. But in this case it sounds like he can’t even replicate it himself … does that seem odd to anyone but me?
Perhaps if he were to publish a list of what he is missing, it would make more sense. But I’m not seeing why he can’t replicate the work.
Does anyone have any kind of authoritative list of what he says he lost? What is he missing, and why can it not be replaced, re-obtained, or duplicated?
Look, I understand that there are datasets that are unique … ice core measurements, say. That’s why people like the Moseley-Thompsons not archiving their data is so egregious.
But given Dr. Salby’s focus, that seems unlikely. I’ve not read that he did expeditions to gather new one-of-a-kind data.
And I understand that if you lose your computer code, it could take a while to replace it … but that’s just time.
So I’m afraid that “the University ate my homework” doesn’t seem to me like all that believable a long-term explanation. Yes, it would set you back … but if you can’t replicate your own work, you’re just out of luck.
w.
The “university grabbed my research data” is the sour note in the talk. He also says that is why there is no publication of the work. That said, aside from the terrible pace of the presentation, what he says is clear and easy to follow, well illustrated by charts and equations. He takes a suspenders and belt approach and shows multiple ways in which he derives the same results using independent data.
Willis – Salby’s conclusions seem interesting enough to merit further research. Your questions have merit also. Perhaps they should be addressed to him directly – but by someone who can frame them genuinely, without insinuation.
Thanks, Vic. I have no idea if “Salby’s conclusions seem interesting enough to merit further research”, nor do you, because he hasn’t revealed his code and data. When and if he ever gets around to doing so, we’ll be able to see if his work has enough value to merit following his ideas.
Finally, the idea that one should have to ask him politely and nicely and kiss his Papal Ring before getting an answer is nonsense. If he wants to be a scientist he needs to answer the questions that he doesn’t like. Answering questions you do like and not answering those posed in some other-than-pleasant fashion is for politicians, not scientists
w.
To each his own. Matched with other insights I’ve received over time, the conclusions seem interesting to me (must I explicitly say that that’s my opinion?), and I presume others, from the comments I’ve seen here, feel the same. The same apparently can be said of your position.
As far as whether to be confrontational or neutral in communication style… well, go ahead and ask your questions with attitude. I think you’re less likely to get useful answer. In fact, I think you’re more likely to get an answer – or non-answer – that fits your preconceived notions.
VicV April 14, 2015 at 11:09 am
Thanks for the reply, Vic. I fear that until he posts his data and code I’m uninterested in his speculations, because I can’t follow them anywhere without his data and code.
I always enjoy the folks who claim that the world would be all rosy if only people asked scientific questions in a nice, polite, Vic-approved manner … people have asked Dr. Salby many times to back up his claims and in a number of different manners. And his universal response is no response at all. So I fear you have no data upon which to lay a claim that a nice question would have elicited a response, and in fact all available data indicate the exact opposite.
Finally, what gave you the impression that I’m asking Dr. Salby questions? I have no questions for him, just a request that he publish his data and code if he wishes to be taken seriously. Once he does that, many people might have questions, but until then he’s just flapping his lips and making unsubstantiated, unreferenced, unsupported claims that are not worth questioning.
w.
Willis says “I understand that if you lose your computer code, it could take a while to replace it”
I don’t lose mine. Multiple redundant backups in encrypted repositories so nobody can tamper with the source code.
“So I’m afraid that ‘the University ate my homework’ doesn’t seem to me like all that believable a long-term explanation.”
It also shows a lack of foresight in not preparing for that eventuality. Considering the trillions of dollars at stake everyone involved in climate science ought to treat data with the same “integrity assurance” procedures that would be useful for evidence to be presented in a court of law. In the case of digital data files, having it signed by PGP or GPG by several diverse persons of impeccable reputation and stored redundantly in different repositories would go a long way to alleviating claims that the data was invented yesterday.
What exactly is missing? You and Mosh are all up about “wull he didn’t publish his code”. What code? Take screenshots of his graphs, it never stopped you before. The equations are all there. Abide by your own standard. What exactly do you disagree with in his equations? Ferdinand isn’t whining. He makes very specific and reasonable objections. Murray makes a new and interesting argument. Maybe it’s right, maybe it’s wrong, but it deserves far better than yours and Mosh’s piffle.
I suggest it is more likely that that the increase in the use of fossil fuels is the cause of the population increase.
=================
population density is directly related to available energy. our modern cities would be impossible without transportation of food and water in, and waste materials out.
funny how ice ages always end when CO2 is at its lowest, and always begin when CO2 is at its highest. The only conclusion possible from this is that CO2 causes cooling.
http://www.brighton73.freeserve.co.uk/gw/paleo/400000yearslarge.gif
Ferd,
Interesting plot with the tracking between CO2 and temperature .
It seems that temperature generally follows CO2 change on the way down but not much on the way up. Is that because of the scale being such that it does not show?
Also it shows that the rise is much quicker while the falling is much less so with more zig zags.
Any comments
Correction, CO 2 change follows temperature change, big error in words on my part!
Longwinded and over complicated presentation of what should be something simple to explain.
The assumption that we will run out of fossil fuel soon, is a club of Rome idea for fruition 15 years ago, that will keep being extended as new reserves are found.
Thank you all for the fine insights and discussion of Dr. Salby’s presentation. The detail, whether settled science or not tells this layman that the science is not settled. Somewhere around minutes 45 – 48, Dr. Salby uses an example of significant government policy decisions being made based upon bad, or rather, incomplete information and assumptions. This layman understands that the “MET’ reading have shown increased global (even as just a few really old measurement sites have been in continuous use) temperatures; well before the industrial revolution. His main point in my mind is that mitigation actions are being hoisted by governments (carbon taxes, etc.) using global warming / climate change / it is (not) raining out side arguments. Were these mitigating actions NOT to be taken by governments, there would be No Fundamental impact on what’s going on outside my window today, next week, next month, next ….
For those who say that only peer-reviewed journals publish REAL science.
Alfred Wegener wrote a book about his theory of mobile continents. Books are not peer-reviewed. Science magazine and other journal were publishing rebuttals but nothing much in support of mobile continents (continental drift). Science published a letter that called Wegener’s theory as “Teutonic pseudoscience”.
James Croll was a museum curator or janitor. Croll’s work on the orbital theory of the causes of continental glaciation was widely discussed, but generally disbelieved. He wrote a book setting out the theory of continental glaciation. Today Milankovitch is credited by most for Croll’s work. But the fact is that Milankovitch’s role was to improve the calculations.
Unpopular theories do not pass peer review, which is why we get revolutions in science. Instead of gradual evolution of theories, we get more or less complete exclusion of new theories until the promoters of the [old] theories retire or die.
Now that government has corrupted the scientific process, we may have to depend on the political process rather than the aging process.
Lest anyone accuse me of ageism, let me say that I am well past the retirement age for academics and scientists in government service.
[or should that not be: “promoters of both the new and the old theories die” ? .mod]
“science advances one funeral at a time.”
Max Planck
I agree with you completely Fred. Many scientific areas suffer from the same “resistance to change”. It took 50 years for hand washing to be accepted in medical practice and they ran the good doctor who realized it out of the tribe. same thing is happening with the lipid hypothesis and others. One would think after seeing this time and again throughout human history, we would realize and change our ways, maybe this points to some human understanding issue?
Salby presents clear data that turns the AGW Theory on its head. The temperature data also turns AGW predictions on their heads. Sooner or later the results will outweigh the theories and new theories will be uncovered or revisited that are able to track historical climate proxies, if those proxies are any good?
It is obvious that there were ice ages and warm periods in the past without Humans, so I have a really hard time believing that we have any control or affect on the climate. I look at the last century and a half and it clearly shows, like Salby says, that there were only 4 decades of warming and 8 decades of cooling or no change, so I have a hard time when the temperature graph stays flat or goes down while the CO2 graph continues climbing in obvious increasing divergence during the last decade. the last problem I have is clear, the science has been obviously hijacked by governments and NGO’s for profit or control or both. So I believe it will be a long time before the truth comes out, even if the data is completely divergent from the theories. Today we are here fighting over nonsense, as the world stays constant or cooling and the CO2 increases linearly! Salby is one of a few that seems to show that CO2 is not running climate and could not even if it has huge increases or decreases, I see the solar guys predicting a cooling sun, thus cooling planet…the data seems to be favoring the Non CO2, solar processes to me.
If temperature indeed were the main driver of observed changes atmospheric CO2, why are the CO2 levels not higher in the medieval warm period, or during the holocene optimum? Dr. Salby would need to explain that. It is a pity that he does not seem to engage online, either here or anywhere else.
Salby’s conclusions made me think of Stephen Wilde’s “Hot Water Bottle Effect.” These ideas seem wholly compatible. Variances in the CO2 and other component make-up of the atmosphere relative to the temperature of the atmosphere (which seems the most volatile major segment of the earth’s spherical layers) can be attributed to natural variances in mechanisms such as that which creates temperature lag-times. In other words, specific conditions can modify the observed effect of a major factor, but those variances don’t negate the dominance of that major factor.
He does, Mr. Palmer. In his Hamburg (2013) lecture, he makes a powerful case that CO2 lags temperature by a quarter cycle. I posted that lecture (youtube) here: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/04/13/new-video-dr-murry-salby-control-of-atmospheric-co2/#comment-1906025
Thanks, Janice. I actually did watch that lecture a while ago, and I don’t recall that it contained a clear explanation, at least not for the holocene optimum – which is a couple of thousands of years in the past. The ice core record does not support a lag between CO2 and temperature as great as that.
No one knows with precision what CO2 levels were during the MWP and other previous warm periods, all warmer than now.
Ice cores lack sufficient resolution and in any case depend upon snow deposition rates. Stomata data are also lacking.
There well might have been decades during the MWP in which CO2 concentrations at least in some regions were in the 300s. It’s possible and plausible, if not probable, but adequate observations are lacking.
We do know however that in Europe in the early 19th century, with the LIA still in effect, ambient CO2 was well over 400 ppm from direct measurements.
Sorry Catherine,
Many of the historical direct measurements were taken in the middle of towns, forests etc. with huge diurnal changes and even then already a lot of local contamination. CO2 levels in the first few hundred meters over land are simply unreliable then and today.
If you look at only the CO2 measurements over the oceans or coastal with wind from the sea, these are all around the ice core levels for the same period. See further:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/beck_data.html
Ferdinand,
I know. I don’t suppose that the average global CO2 concentration was in the 400s during the LIA. But I also don’t think that ice cores have sufficient resolution to know with acceptable precision what were ambient levels for 30 to 60 year intervals during the Medieval Warm Period, for instance, or indeed during other of the hottest decades during past several hundred thousand years.
I could be wrong, of course. And I also consider it likely that some possibly large part of the gain since c. 1850 is man-made, but don’t know whether that might be 70 or 100 ppm.
Catherine,
I think that you underestimate the resolution of some of the ice cores:
For the past 1,000 years there are ice cores with a resolution of ~20 years, which show a drop of ~6 ppmv in the LIA, which is about 8 ppmv/K assuming that the temperature reconstructions of Moberg or Esper have some value (Mann’s reconstruction not used…).
The LIA lasted some 200 years, thus no problem for such ice cores.
The average level over the last 20 years was 380 ppmv, which would show up in that ice core over the full 1,000 year period.
For the last 70,000 years, we have an ice core (Taylor Dome) with a resolution of ~40 years, that would show a peak of 365 ppmv…
After having time to think about this, I think the truth is human emissions of CO2 are causing the total concentrations of CO2 in the atmosphere to be higher then if they were not present. Does added CO2 cause some warming ? I think it does. Do natural sources for CO2 account for most of the CO2 concentrations? Yes they do.
Given that, the question comes down to this. How much added contributions of CO2 from human emissions are needed to off set natural processes? I think the answer to this question given the contributions from human versus natural emissions of CO2 is human emissions will have to be much greater then they are today UNLESS the amounts of CO2 emissions coming from natural resources stays at a steady state.
The greater the natural emissions of CO2 stray from this steady state the less significant will be the overall human impact.
I would say unlike the last 150 years, going forward emissions of CO2 from natural sources are no longer going to continue to rise but fall. With this said I think it will only take a tiny drop in CO2 emissions from natural sources to fall which would be able to overwhelm the human added contributions of CO2 to the atmosphere.
The increase of CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere over the last 150 years being mostly due to natural emissions. The test will come when CO2 emissions from natural sources begins to fall when /if the temperature trend begins to fall. How big of an impact this may or may not have on future CO2 concentrations will depend upon the magnitude, lag time and the duration of time that lower natural emissions for CO2 take place.
Does this reasoning sound logical? If not why?
Salvatore,
Your logic is good, but you overestimate the effect of the natural cycle: the current net effect of the natural cycle is more sink than source: about half what humans emit in quantity.
Temperature of course has an effect, which can be seen in seasonal and year by year changes of 4-5 ppmv/°C. The long term change was 8 ppmv/°C over the past 800,000 years.
Thus to compensate for the current ~2 ppmv/year increase in the atmosphere, you need a drop of 0.25°C per year (!) in temperature, which is hardly to be expected…
Another factor that comes into play is the saturation factor. How much of a difference are increases in CO2 concentrations at this level going to contribute to the overall GHG effect? The argument is at this level any increases in CO2 concentrations would be minimal.
I think this is a highly entertaining and provocative presentation by an unusually gifted scientist, though it will require another couple of watches before I’ve really digested it.
However, surely Salby is way off about fossil fuels running out. Hasn’t he heard that reserves of fossil fuels keep growing? They are much greater now than they were twenty years ago, and will presumably be greater twenty, fifty, or a hundred years from now than they are today.
Also, I thought the stuff about the Cuban missile crisis was a bit ill-advised. After all, if it’s true that the warheads were in Cuba, and if they were all set up and ready to fire (I’m still skeptical), that wouldn’t necessarily mean a thermonuclear exchange would have to break out right away.
I talked with Murry afterwards regarding the FF reserves. (I believe they are enormous). He explained that he was using the figures others have generated, as that area is not his field of academic research or expertise.
He may have a view, but that is not part of his purpose in the lecture.
Duster says above on 13April2015 at 1050am:
The most probable cause of an ecological collapse in the nearish geological future is lack of available CO2, not an excess.
Here are some relevant comments from last month:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/03/14/matt-ridley-fossil-fuels-will-save-the-world-really/#comment-1883937
I have no time to run the numbers, but I do not think we have millions of years left for carbon-based life on Earth.
Over time, CO2 is ~permanently sequestered in carbonate rocks, so concentrations get lower and lower. During an Ice Age, atmospheric CO2 concentrations drop to very low levels due to solution in cold oceans, etc. Below a certain atmospheric CO2 concentration, terrestrial photosynthesis slows and shuts down. I suppose life in the oceans can carry on but terrestrial life is done.
So when will this happen – in the next Ice Age a few thousands years hence, or the one after that ~100,000 years later, or the one after that?
In geologic time, we are talking the blink of an eye before terrestrial life on Earth ceases due to CO2 starvation.
________________________
I wrote the following on this subject, posted on Icecap.us:
On Climate Science, Global Cooling, Ice Ages and Geo-Engineering:
[excerpt]
Furthermore, increased atmospheric CO2 from whatever cause is clearly beneficial to humanity and the environment. Earth’s atmosphere is clearly CO2 deficient and continues to decline over geological time. In fact, atmospheric CO2 at this time is too low, dangerously low for the longer term survival of carbon-based life on Earth.
More Ice Ages, which are inevitable unless geo-engineering can prevent them, will cause atmospheric CO2 concentrations on Earth to decline to the point where photosynthesis slows and ultimately ceases. This would devastate the descendants of most current [terrestrial] life on Earth, which is carbon-based and to which, I suggest, we have a significant moral obligation.
Atmospheric and dissolved oceanic CO2 is the feedstock for all carbon-based life on Earth. More CO2 is better. Within reasonable limits, a lot more CO2 is a lot better.
As a devoted fan of carbon-based life on Earth, I feel it is my duty to advocate on our behalf. To be clear, I am not prejudiced against non-carbon-based life forms, but I really do not know any of them well enough to form an opinion. They could be very nice. 🙂
Best, Allan
thanks to the CO2 conentration we have, we don’t expect the next 2 glacial periods to unfold. despite the orbital forcing.
Who are “we”?
The next two glacial cycles would be over 200,000 years. Present elevated CO2 levels will return to whatever the basic processes of the earth would have them be within at most 1000 years, according to none other than the “Father of Global Warming”, Wallace Broecker.
The Pleistocene glaciations began with CO2 levels higher than now. Antarctic glaciation grew under even higher concentrations.
Lunt, et al, 2008, tried to connect late Pliocene Greenland glaciation with lowered CO2, but their effort was modeling all the way down.
Whoever “we” might be, they & you are obviously scientific illiterates.
Ask yourself, by how much has the temperature changed so far due to the human production of CO2, and by how much does it change during glaciation and deglaciation? Even with the most wildly exaggerated models, AGW is vanishingly small in comparison.
Daniel, what is your educational background, and what is the educational background of the people you are quoting?
Ernest Bush April 13, 2015 at 1:04 pm
Ernest, it appears that you (and perhaps Dr. Salby) are conflating two very different things—residence time of CO2, and half-life or e-folding time of CO2.
Residence time is how long an individual CO2 molecule stays in the air. Depending on how you measure it, you’ll get something from about 6 to 9 years.
But that’s not the issue in question. We want to know something very different, which is, how long will it take for a pulse of CO2 added to the atmosphere to decay back to the previous atmospheric concentration? This is measured in one of two ways, as a “half-life” or an “e-folding time”. Half-life is how long after being boosted by the introduction of a pulse of CO2 it takes for the atmospheric concentration to get halfway back to the equilibrium value.
“e-folding time” is similar, but it measures the amount of time for a pulse to decay to 1/e (about 37%) of the original increase in concentration.
The e-folding time for a pulse of CO2 is much longer than the residence time. Estimates of the e-folding time range from about 40 to about 170 years or so.
If Dr. Salby did not make that distinction between residence time and e-folding time crystal clear, then shame on him.
w.
Willis – A response above to “Thanks, Vic. I have no idea…”
The e-pulse time and the e-folding time are one and the same thing if, and this is the big if, the CO2 flux leaving the ocean into a hypothetical CO2-free atmosphere is linear, that is, proportional to the CO2 concentration in the ocean, and the CO2 flux leaving the air into a CO2-free ocean is proportional to the CO2 concentration in the air.
If the ocean is in the linear-range of that Henry’s Law relationship for equilibrium with the air above it, which is a reasonable assumption given its nearly neutral pH, and if the non-deep ocean mixing is such that it exposes enough sea water to the air that the ocean is holding, what is it, about 30 times the CO2 as the air, then pretty much everything Dr. Salby is saying in the talk rings true.
Is the ocean anywhere near the saturation concentration of dissolved CO2? If it is, Dr. Salby needs to “go back to the drawing board.”
Paul,
There mixing between ocean surface and the atmosphere is fast, but limited in capacity due to the Revelle/buffer factor, which caps the uptake to ~10% of the increase in the atmosphere (which is caused by the ocean carbonate chemistry).
Atmospheric content is ~800 GtC, ocean surface at ~1000 GtC. For the 5 GtC extra per year in the atmosphere, the ocean surface captures about 0.5 GtC extra.
The deep oceans have much more capacity, but the exchange rate with the atmosphere is only ~40 GtC/year, which due to the increased CO2 pressure in the atmosphere shows an unbalance of ~3 GtC extra retained by the deep oceans. Thus the enormous mass of carbon derivatives in the deep oceans is not of much help over short periods (even if it – contrary to the Bern model of the IPCC – doesn’t show any sign of saturation).
Vegetation then is good for an additional 1 GtC/year extra uptake, thanks to the extra 110 ppmv CO2 pressure in the atmosphere.
All together the total sink rate at an atmospheric pressure of 110 ppmv (~μatm) above equilibrium is about 4.5 GtC/year or ~2.15 ppmv/year. That gives an e-fold decay rate of 110 / 2.15 = 51.2 years for a linear process, which the CO2 cycle seems to be over very long periods.
Why the difference with the 5-9 years residence time? The residence time is based on the throughput of CO2 through the atmosphere during a year. The atmosphere contains ~800 GtC CO2, the throughput is estimated around 150 GtC/year in and out, which gives a residence time of 800 / 150 = 5.3 years.
The difference is that in this case, the throughput is two-way exchange: what goes in goes out in the same year without affecting the total mass in the atmosphere, besides the small difference between the ins and outs.
In the case of the residence time, most of the (huge) fluxes are driven by temperature changes. In the case of the e-fold decay rate, that is near entirely driven by pressure differences. There is hardly any cross connection between the two…
In addition: one of the arguments of Salby is based on the 14C bomb spike decay rate. The problem there is that the isotopic ratio which goes into the deep oceans is the ratio of today, but what comes out is the ratio of ~1000 years ago, including the influences of processes in the deep.
That makes e.g. that for the CO2 increase already in 1960, some 97.5% of all CO2 going into the deep oceans (99% 12CO2) returns in mass from the deep, but only 45% of 14CO2.
Which makes that the 14C bomb spike decay rate is a factor 3 faster than of a 12CO2 or total CO2 spike and his decay rate is a factor 3 too small…
I gotta say … I found this National Science Foundation (NSF) document linked above to be quite unsettling. Here’s the Executive Summary:
Not encouraging … when the NSF finds “an extensive pattern of
deceptive statements made by the Subject [Dr. Salby] to his University and to NSF” and bars him from receiving NSF funds for five years, on my planet that’s a very bad sign.
w.
The NSF exhibits an extensive pattern of deceptive statements:
http://www.nsf.gov/news/special_reports/climate/
As of course also does the IPCC.
Thanks, Milodon. The NSF has fully documented the reasons behind its findings. Unless you can contradict those reasons, I fear that what the NSF does elsewhere is not very relevant.
w.
Of course it’s relevant. The NSF actively participates in the conspiracy to silence skeptics.
milodon, the NSF has presented a series of claims of fact, and they have given their findings and their action (no grants for five years). Either you or Dr. Salby are free to show that they are in error regarding the facts and findings. It’s not surprising that you haven’t done so, as you don’t have a dog in the fight. But to me it’s surprising that Dr. Salby has not done so.
Instead of showing that any facts are in error, you make the unsupported assertion that “The NSF actively participates in the conspiracy to silence skeptics” as though that meant something.
Now, the NSF is a very large organization. Who is in on the “conspiracy”? Other skeptics have gotten NSF grants. However, I know of no other skeptics who have had their funding cut off for five years for keeping two sets of books and double-billing the NSF. Yes, the NSF predominantly funds global warming adherents … but that’s three orders of magnitude different from Dr. Salby’s case.
And why would they bother with Dr. Salby? He hasn’t published anything, so why would they want to silence him?
In any case, if you wish to claim a pattern of behavior at NSF, you need to come up with some other examples where the NSF denied funding to skeptics by successfully accusing them of double-billing the government.
I’m sorry, milodon, but as far as we can see the evidence against Dr. Salby in this situation is overwhelming … and if Dr. Salby didn’t do those things, then why is he not out thunderously defending his reputation? I know if someone did that to me I’d be screaming to high heaven. I would quote and refute every one of their claims against me, detail by detail. Here are some details he would need to refute:
Now, he’s free to explain to us how that’s all not true, just like you or I or any falsely-accused innocent man would do. Since he has not done anything of the sort, well, you’re free to draw your conclusions from that. I know what mine are.
Finally, be very clear that his scientific claims are a separate subject. Regarding his science, his personal ethics are meaningless—his scientific claims either stand or fall on their own merit, without reference to the NSF or anything else. That’s the beauty of science.
My regards to you,
w.
Willis,
The climate studies of which climate skeptics have been funded by NSF?
Its board is clearly on board with the administration’s war on science (& coal). Read its climate statement, largely the product of NSF grantees at my alma mater.
You’re right that I don’t know the justice or injustice of NSF’s charges against Salby, but I do know the terrible power of the federal government. Assuming that its minions are good, decent, hard-working, disinterested, honest people is IMO the height of naivete.
Best regards & long may you wave.
The NSF is like the rest of the totally corrupted “scientific” establishment.
Government funded “science” has produced trough-feeding swine like those at major universities and once worthwhile agencies such as NCAR and GISS. Now they’re just worse than worthless GIGO factories.
Willis,
You should read the entire report all the way to the end. Dr. Salby was debarred for 3 years not 5. The reason given was due to a duplicate proposal to two different federal agencies, neither of which were funded. Everything else was essentially dropped because of insufficient evidence. The two proposals were similar in language to about 53%, which makes their claim of identical false. Nor do they provide a timeline. In general I doubt a conspiracy exists, however government regulations are extremely complex and modified over time with no actual record of modification. Finally I would like to point out that the whole thing was a civil matter relating to accurately following procedures. No fraud, Nothing about bad science etc. Please don’t perpetuate attacks on someone just because you don’t care for his opinions or science.
milodonharlani April 14, 2015 at 5:35 pm says:
I certainly agree that the NSF is fully on board the alarmism train. It is also true that they give very little money to skeptical scientists. With that said, they have funded William Gray’s work at the University of Colorado. But neither of those matter to the question at hand, which is, did they manufacture evidence against an innocent man?
Thanks for the wishes. I make few assumptions about the minions of the NSF, other than to assume the typical government mix—90% time servers working to rule, 5% trying to actually do something, and the final 5% determined to stop the other 5% from doing anything at all …
Catherine Ronconi April 14, 2015 at 5:55 pm says:
Thanks, Catherine. For me, I fear that such sweeping generalizations don’t advance the discussion much.
David Riser April 14, 2015 at 6:51 pm says:
You are correct that although the investigators recommend 5 years, the final sentence was 3 years … but you say that as though that makes him innocent. It does not. See below.
Regarding the projects, the report says that they were funded. See Table 1 inter alia.
No, it wasn’t. The findings are clear. All but one of the findings were upheld. There was one and only one finding dropped for insufficient evidence, as follows:
Debarment is a very serious response, and is only done in cases of serious wrongdoing.
You go on to say:
This was not a matter of “accurately following procedures”. It had nothing to do with whether regulations are “extremely complex”. It didn’t happen because the regs are “modified over time”. It was a scam, pure and simple. As the report says:
I’ve worked under a variety of government contracts before, so the exact setup he used was of interest to me. The way he did it was actually quite clever. On most government contracts you can only use a certain percentage or a fixed amount of money for administration overheads, including his salary.
But with his setup, he could have his shell company bill the government as a sub-contractor to the project, and all of that money could flow directly to him by way of the shell company with no cap on the amount. Bad scientist, no cookies. I note that the report appends the list of the actual evidence for this setup. You seem to think that Dr. Salby got confused. The evidence, however, disagrees. It’s only half a matter of confusion … the “con” half …
Mmmmm … I have little opinion on Dr. Salby’s CO2 science, because to date he hasn’t written about it, nor has he provided either data or code to allow us to replicate his work.
And to reiterate what I said above, the question of his ethics is a totally separate issue from his science.
w.
Willis,
You are correct, the science and the ethics are separate issues. Yet you are driving home the ethics issue and implying motive when you have no evidence, ON A SCIENCE BLOG.
You are stating he did it all on purpose. That is not what NSF found after reviewing his rebuttal which you apparently did not read. NSF listed one and only one reason why he was debarred. In the investigation it is very clear that neither proposal was funded! He was debarred for 3 years for failure to check a box on a proposal that wasn’t accepted.
Investigations are not a hearing before an impartial judge or jury. They are just the opinions of an investigator until the evidence is weighed, accepted or thrown out. In this case the agency itself, did not take it to a judge, an administrator reviewed the investigation and made a determination. This is typical in a case where the outcome is administrative in nature and non punitive. Debarment is a procedural recourse for procedural errors. Not criminal! Not actionable in a civil court. Procedural.
Science Blog Willis!
Willis,
How can the NSF not fund professor emeritus & Father of Hurricane Science Bill Gray?
Sorry, but you’ll need a better example of funding a skeptic who isn’t also an icon of meteorology. Maybe a younger, less eminent skeptic without a nationwide TV audience.
Dr. Salby, is very impressive and makes so many valid points. The IPCC, along with AGW theory have no data to back up any of their claims. Dr. Salby ,presented data to back up what he had to say, thus his credentials on the climate are far superior to the pathetic IPCC for that reason alone. The IPCC being all talk with many claims and predictions in the face of data that does not support anything they have to say or predict. At least Dr. Salby ,has data.
What is worse is since AGW theory has come about, all of a sudden the accepted data has either been ignored, questioned or said to be in error.
This theory (AGW), is the only theory that has data conform to it rather then the other way around.
https://twitter.com/tan123/status/587764580517949440
This data alone proves AGW theory is in a word WRONG.
Dr. Salby, presentation is fantastic. I am going to listen to it several times.
All that should be posted are the charts and my commentary. thanks
My problem is that Salby’s work is simply confirming what myself and many other geologist types have been saying/thinking for years – and that is that the whole anthro versus natural thing is being swept under the carpet. You simply cannot ignore the fact that when the oceans ‘sneeze’ or ‘gulp’ (due to thermal changes) the resultant CO2 change far surpasses any human derived element. It’s probably the same for the rainforests and other co2 sinks/emitters. Ultimately, the potential for natural variation in co2 is seemingly and logically far greater than any anthro portion? The co2 ‘budget’ is an estimate, sure – but even as an estimate it shows that a few % change in the large sinks (or emitters) will swamp the human element. His presentation is good and shows a good degree of logical deduction/analysis. I do think that until full published workings are shown and reviewed/validated, it will be ‘dissed’ as some comments have suggested though.
Kev,
Warming oceans give 4-17 ppmv/K extra at equilibrium.
Warming vegetation in general is an increasing sink.
Warming/cooling earth shows an average 8 ppmv/K over the past 800,000 years, except for the past 160 years.
How does the natural carbon cycle overwhelm the 200 ppmv extra human contribution?
Ferdinand your problem is you think you know to much. Your conclusions have been proven to be false by the data Dr. Salby presented. Pretty clear cut.
Then again as is the norm in the science of climate if the data does not agree with ones conclusions either change it ,ignore it , or manipulate it to make it agree.
Salvatore,
In my (long passed) working life, I have had a lot of practical experience in chemical (control) processes, thus I know something about what can and can’t be true when someone makes claims about what CO2 does in the atmosphere. Be it that my theoretical knowledge is from far in the past and completely rusty.
In no way are my conclusions been proven false, to the contrary: what Dr. Salby (and others) said is based on the residence time of CO2 in the atmosphere and the variability around the increase. Both have not the slightest connection to the cause of the increase of CO2 in the atmosphere. Which proves that Dr. Salby can’t be right…
Thus please, before assuming who is right or wrong, have a better look at what the data mean…
My impression is that if WUWT continues on this path it is truly finished. The Steven Goddard Fiasco eliminated 50% of your clients. This sort of crap will eliminate the other half. You might as well allow Moshers, Daniles et al to take over (which they apparently are doing). Just look at Moshers CV on the interne, but of course you will not allow a linkt). You have really lost it. I am out of here.
Eliza, I’m not clear what you mean by “this path”, as in “if WUWT continues on this path”. As far as I can tell WUWT is on the same path as always, which is the path of providing interesting scientific articles and inviting people to comment on them. What path do you think we’re on?
As to your claim that “The Steven Goddard Fiasco eliminated 50% of your clients”, say what? WUWT didn’t lose any significant amount of readership when Steven was no longer a regular guest author. It appears you don’t have access to the blog stats, because that’s just plain wrong.
Finally, you say “just look at Moshers CV on the interne [sic], but of course you will not allow a linkt [sic])”. Say what? There are dozens and dozens of links here on WUWT, including a link to my CV.
Eliza, there is no need to announce your leaving as though people should care about the departure of a random anonymous internet popup. Don’t worry, you’ll be replaced very soon by someone equally featureless, folks like you are fungible.
However, there is also no reason for you to leave. Yes, you don’t like the comments on this post … but if so, let me suggest that you stay and fight for your point of view by providing facts, references, logic, math, citations, and whatever other weight you can bring to bear. Don’t just give up and walk away. Put your ideas out there and go for them.
Anyhow, as you can see, either course is fine by me. You are more than welcome to stay, and you are more than welcome to go.
w.
Anyone looking for the coding of Salby’s research can ask CRU; I am sure they will provide it unless, of course, they ‘lost’ it.
From Janice’ notes: (Thank you!!!) http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/04/13/new-video-dr-murry-salby-control-of-atmospheric-co2/#comment-1906063
Unless I am missing something, this part totally confused me. Dr. Salby seems to be saying that CO2 will steadily go up regardless what we do. Is that correct? If so, here is my problem. Suppose I earn $20 a month but my bank account goes up only by $10 a month, then half must be spent. However suppose I earn $20 a month, but my bank account goes up $60 a month. Then there must be another source for the $60 and only then could it be claimed that it would not matter what I did with the $20 that I earned. Unless I missed it, where does Dr. Salby suggest the other “$60” comes from? But if the increase in the bank is less than I earn, why is it even necessary to invoke another source of income?
He did mention warming, but there was not enough continuous warming over the last 1000 years to explain the 120 ppm increase in CO2 since 1850.
Werner Brozek
You ask
Oh dear! The ridiculous mass balance argument yet again rises from the grave!
The following facts are important.
1.
Almost all the CO2 circulating in the carbon cycle is in the deep ocean.
2.
None of the total fluxes in exchanges of CO2 in the carbon cycle are quantified.
3.
A slight change of e.g. the exchanges of CO2 between deep ocean and other parts of the carbon cycle would completely swamp effect of the tiny amount of additional CO2 flux into the atmosphere from human activities.
Your ‘bank balance analogy’ is completely negated by the facts notated 1 to 3 because the analogy assumes only human activities (i.e. your income) significantly vary what goes in and out of the atmosphere (i.e. your bank): in the real world “the other “$60” comes from” variations in CO2 fluxes in the carbon cycle that are much larger than CO2 emission from human activities. The true cause of variations in ‘your bank balance’ may be factors other than your income and variations of some of the factors may negate any effects of your income by, for example, increased growth of biota (which is like an income tax rising to 100% when a threshold income is reached).
And it is an assertion and NOT a fact that “there was not enough continuous warming over the last 1000 years to explain the 120 ppm increase in CO2 since 1850”. That would only be a fact if we knew the relationship of warming to atmospheric CO2 and temperature together with all the lags of atmospheric CO2 concentration behind temperature. Henry’s Law applies to a purely chemical effect and does not apply to the Earth’s carbon cycle where the dominant exchange mechanisms and equilibrium states are determined by biota. Your assertion seems to be supported by ice core data which lack temporal resolution to indicate previous warming periods similar to the recent warming period, but your assertion is denied by stomata data.
The cause of the rise in atmospheric CO2 concentration (e.g. as measured at Mauna Loa http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/ ) may be the human emission or some natural effect most probably the warming from the LIA. The irrelevant and mistaken ‘mass balance argument’ is easily refuted and it hinders determination of the true cause of the rise in atmospheric CO2 concentration because its refutation could be mistaken as being a refutation of the possibility of an anthropogenic cause.
Salby argues for a dominant natural cause of the rise in atmospheric CO2 concentration. Others (e.g. Engelbeen) argue for a dominant anthropogenic (i.e. human) cause. Available data favours a natural cause (as Salby says) but does NOT refute the possibility of an anthropogenic cause.
I hope this brief answer is sufficient.
Richard
Thank you for your reply!
I must say that I still find the mass balance argument compelling. Yes, there are many unknowns, but the MWP showed no huge rise in CO2 1000 years ago nor did the Roman warm period 2000 years ago show huge rise. So what is different now other than a huge human contribution that was not there 1000 nor 2000 years ago? I am sure there were just as many unknowns 1000 and 2000 years ago as today.
I suggest richard, that you talk to some of the chemical engineers you worked with at Stoke Orchard about the necessity for mass balance. They will doubtless point out your errors to you.
Werner,
I know, the mass balance argument is quite rock solid, that you can’t have an extra natural source as long as the increase in the atmosphere is less than the human contribution. That seems not sufficient for some, they prefer a natural source where human emissions simply disappear in the noise…
There is one exception on that rule: if the natural cycle increased a 4-fold over the past 55 years, as human emissions and the increase in the atmosphere did and the sinks were very rapid responding, the resulting increase in the atmosphere would be the same and largely caused by the increased natural cycle.
Only there is not the slightest sign that the natural cycle increased in speed, to the contrary, the recent estimates of the residence time are slower than the older estimates…
Phil.
No, I don’t need to speak to chemical engineers to be told I made no errors and you have not – and cannot cite – any I made.
Richard
Ferdinand
No, the mass balance argument is silly. It assumes effects are constant when they are not, and the argument is circular; i.e. it assumes that if the anthropogenic emission over a year is greater than the total sequestration over a year then the small anthropogenic emission is the cause of the rise in atmospheric CO2 emission over a year.
An assumption that something is true is not evidence that the something is true.
Richard
Werner Brozek
You say to me
It is not known if the atmospheric CO2 increased in the RWP and the MWP as it has now. The ice core data says it did not and the stomata data says it did.
We are now months – n.b. not years – from a complete year of OCO-2 data. That will show if the suggestion of the mass balance argument is right or not. As I explain here, the preliminary OCO-2 data refutes that the anthropogenic CO2 emission overloads the sinks for CO2 over the reported month, but data from 12 months is needed to discern if this indication is true when averaged over a year.
I and some others want to know the true cause of the recent rise in atmospheric CO2 concentration. We are willing to wait the remaining months until a year of OCO-2 data is available while others champion their opinions as to the unknown cause of the rise.
Richard
Richard,
it assumes that if the anthropogenic emission over a year is greater than the total sequestration over a year then the small anthropogenic emission is the cause of the rise in atmospheric CO2 emission over a year.
That is not what I assume: what is measured is that the increase in the atmosphere is smaller than the small human emissions. Thus the net difference between the large sources and large sinks is smaller than the human emissions and the latter are the cause of the increase.
Further your points 1 to 3:
1. Almost all the CO2 circulating in the carbon cycle is in the deep ocean.
While true, that is completely irrelevant: not how much is circulating is important, but how much the difference is between what goes into the oceans and what comes out.
Current estimates: 3 GtC/year more sink than source in the deep oceans, 0.5 GtC/year in the ocean surface.
2. None of the total fluxes in exchanges of CO2 in the carbon cycle are quantified.
The most important fluxes are reasonably quantified, but again that is not relevant: the net result of all in/out movements is quite exactly quantified and that is ~4.5 GtC/year more sink than source.
3. A slight change… …would completely swamp effect of the tiny amount of additional CO2 flux…
Completely right, but the data don’t show such changes: maximum +/- 1 ppmv around the trend from year to year, while the trend itself is 2 ppmv/year and human emissions over 4 ppmv/year. Thus the changes in natural fluxes don’t swamp the tiny increase caused by humans. Human emissions swamp the tiny natural variability…
BTW, the next 6 weeks of OCO-2 data are available at:
http://disc.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/datareleases/First_CO2_data_from_OCO-2
Which already shows a small (seasonal) shift of CO2 releases to the NH.
Ferdinand
The mass balance argument DOES make the assumption you dispute: please read my post addressed to Werner.
But so what?
It is less than a year until the OCO-2 data will indicate whether the suggestion of the mistaken mass balance argument is right or wrong. I hope to be around to see those results.
Richard
Thank you for your replies. We will see what future results show. In the meantime I will go with Occam’s razor.
It appears the people who are negatively commenting on Salby’s presentation have not watched the presentation and/or do not understand his analysis and are not aware that there are multiple independent observations/analysis results that support Salby’s findings/conclusions or will continue to support the invalidate IPCC carbon source/sink model regardless of the fact that it has been invalidated. The sink time of carbon in the atmosphere is less than 8 years. I notice the people in question ignore the fact that the recent NASA satellite CO2 regional anomaly data completely supports both Humlum et al’s paper results and Salby’s analysis.
The following is a summary of Salby’s recent technical findings and their implications.
Using two independent analysis techniques: 1) Mass balance/Sink Change and 2) Phase Analysis, Salby determines an upper maximum limit of 33% as to what portion of the recent rise in atmospheric CO2 is due to anthropogenic CO2 emissions.
The analysis appears to be bullet proof and is supported by Humlum et al’s peer reviewed phase analysis results, and is completely supported by the recent data from the NASA speciality CO2 monitoring satellite. It is interesting to note that the NASA satellite data refutes the IPCC CO2 sink and source model. It is curious that there has been no official announcement or media comments, of the astonishing fact that the IPCC CO2 sink and source model has been falsified by observations.
Cult science is the name used for groups of scientist who support and continue to push theories that have been invalidated by observations. In normal science theories change or the theory in question is replaced by the correct theory when the original theory has been invalidated by observations. Normal scientists’ objectives are to solve scientific problems and are hence interested when observations invalidate the standard theory.
The following are the implications of Salby’s findings:
1. The assumed model for carbon sinks and sources not correct. There is one or more large sources of CO2 into the atmosphere that are not taken include in the standard assumed carbon source sink/model. The assumed major source of new CO2 into the biosphere is volcanic eruptions. The assumed model for carbon sinks and sources is based on the late veneer theory which postulates that a late bombardment of either comets or asteroids provided the light elements to the surface of the planet after the big splat impact which formed the moon and removed the majority of the light elements from the earth’s mantle. The competing theory (theories must compete) is the deep core CH4 theory which was brought to the Western world by the late Nobel Prize winning astrophysicist, Thomas Gold. As the core of the earth solidifies it extrudes super high pressure liquid CH4. The high pressure liquid CH4 extrude by the core as it solidifies, breaks through the mantel and moves up to the surface of the planet. As the liquid CH4 moves through the mantel is dissolves organic metals which explains the super concentrates of metals in the surface region of the crust.
Gold published a series of peer reviewed paper that support his theory and a book that The Deep Hot Biosphere: The Myth of Fossil fuel.
http://www.amazon.com/The-Deep-Hot-Biosphere-Fossil/dp/0387952535
Gold’s book includes 50 observations to support the deep CH4 hypothesis. I have found another 20 or so from recent peer reviewed geological papers. The deep core CH4 mechanism provides the force that moves the ocean floors, explaining why the oldest ocean floor on the earth is roughly 200 million years. The super high pressure liquid CH4 concentrates metal in the crust such gold, uranium and thorium for example. The high pressure liquid CH4 breaks the mantel and hence provides a pathway for the helium that is produced from radioactive decay of uranium and thorium to move into oil reservoirs. The only source of commercial helium is oil reservoirs. This explains why helium is associated with oil reservoirs. Helium is of gaseous at all pressures and temperatures in the crust. The helium gas hence cannot travel through the mantel to be concentrated in oil reservoirs. The fact that the only super concentrations of helium gas is in oil reservoirs provides support for the assertion that the oil reservoirs were formed from super high pressure CH4 that that is extruded from the core when it solidifies.
The core CH4 theory explains why the ocean is saturated with CH4 and explains why there are sites all over the ocean floor where CH4 is constantly released and explains why there are massive deposits of methyl hydrate on the ocean floor and in the Arctic tundra.
2) The planet is about to abruptly cool due to the interruption of the solar magnetic cycle. The cooling has started different regions. There is a mechanism that is inhibiting the cooling mechanism in regional areas. The inhibiting mechanism is starting to abate. There are cycles of warming and cooling the paleo record that correlate with solar cycle changes.
3) If the planet does significantly cool we will by observations be able to determine what portion of the warming in the last 150 years was due to solar cycle changes and we will be able to determine what portion of the rise in atmospheric CO2 was due to anthropogenic CO2 emissions vs natural CO2 sources.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/12/20/agu14-nasas-orbiting-carbon-observatory-shows-surprising-co2-emissions-in-southern-hemisphere/
The following is additional data (NASA CO2 satellite, regional CO2 high and low anomalies) and Phase Analysis of CO2 changes by hemisphere Vs temperature. Both sets of data and analysis supports Salby’s assertion that anthropogenic CO2 has contributed less than 33% of the rise in atmospheric CO2 in the last 150 years. Salby’s analysis also confirms the half life resident time for CO2 in the atmosphere is less than 8 years. The implication of these three separate analyses is that the IPCC’s theoretical carbon sink/source model is fundamentally incorrect. The IPCC model assumes the half life resident time of CO2 in the atmosphere is around 200 years, assumes there is small net new input of CO2 from natural non anthropogenic sources, and hence assumes there is long resident time for CO2 in the atmosphere (non reversible sink rate is small). All of these IPCC CO2 model assumptions are incorrect.
William Astley
You say
It would be more correct to say,
It is interesting to note that the preliminary NASA satellite data seems to refute the IPCC CO2 sink and source model.
I commend this essay on WUWT where Ronald D Voisin considers “Three scenarios for the future of NASA’s Orbiting Carbon Observatory”.
In particular, I ask people to peruse the illustration at the link which shows ‘Average carbon dioxide concentration Oct 1 to Nov 11, 2014 from OCO-2’. The very low CO2 concentration over highly industrialised northern Europe and especially the UK contradicts the ‘overload hypothesis’ used e.g. by the IPCC to assert that anthropogenic CO2 emissions are overloading CO2 sinks and, thus, causing the recent rise in atmospheric CO2 concentration. The low concentration in that region indicates that over the short time of the illustration the natural and anthropogenic CO2 emissions were all being sequestered local to their sites of emission. Clearly, this finding directly contradicts the ‘overload hypothesis’: however, it is for a very short time period and, therefore, the finding may be misleading.
When at least an entire year has been monitored by OCO-2 then it will be possible to observe if the anthropogenic CO2 emissions are or are not overloading the ability of the CO2 sinks to absorb them.
Richard
Yes. Like you, I expect these observational data to overthrow most of what we thought we knew about CO2 fluxes.
William,
PLEASE don’t repeat the same litany again and again. It is far too long and with far too many items, which were already comment by me and others far up the thread…
Cool and completely agree, solar is the driver! Everyone is fighting over a trace gas in the PPM range, this is laughable! Salby agrees with other papers and observations that the trace gas is of little consequence. the paleo record also supports AGW is a farse as the climate cooled and warmed without humans for millennia.
William, people that do not accept Dr. Salby’s conclusions are simply in denial of the data which is the common theme that all AGW theory enthusiast have.
No matter what the data shows the norm is, if it does not agree with the absurd theory it is either wrong, ignored or manipulated.
AGW theory unlike other theories demands the data conform to it rather then the other way around.
Salvatore,
I am a luke-warmer, but as critical against claims made by skeptics as those made by climate alarmists.
If I point to fundamental errors in the reasoning of Dr. Salby (backed by Dr. Spencer, who certainly is a not an alarmist), then it is because such fundamental errors undermine the case of all skeptics against the AGW mainstream. where other items are far more relevant: like the lack of warming in the past 14/18 years with ever increasing CO2 levels.
The (huge) deviation of the climate models from reality is the best argument that skeptics have to counter the “consensus”. That the CO2 increase is not caused by humans is not only a bad argument, it is simply stupid to use it, as all observations show that humans are the cause of the increase:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/co2_origin.html
Fair enough because the answers are very elusive and if that were not the case the wide divergence of opinions on this matter would not be present.
Salvatore Del Prete April 15, 2015 at 7:54 am
Thanks, Salvatore, but because Dr. Salby has not provided a link to either his data or his code, I fear it’s not even possible to be “in denial of the data” … to date, there’s no linked data to deny.
w.
William,
OK, one last time:
1. I have listened to Salby’s previous lecture in Hamburg, was present in London at his lecture a year ago and have listened to the first 10 minutes here. Also have read the excellent summary by Janice (thanks Janice for that work!). I do understand what he has done and do disagree on several points,
2. Multiple, independent claims do all fail, if they all make the same fundamental mistake: they are all based on the residence time, which in this case doesn’t say anything about the decay rate of an extra shot of CO2 into the atmosphere. The residence time may be 5-9 years, the e-fold decay rate of extra CO2 is over 50 years. The IPCC estimate is also largely overestimated, as that is based on the saturation of the deep oceans (the Bern model), for which is not the slightest indication.
3. The mass balance is near full proof that the increase is almost all human caused.
4. The phase analyses only shows what the cause is of the variability around the increase, it says nothing about the cause of the increase as the main cause, human emissions, gives no detectable variability in the atmosphere.
5. The satellite data series is too short to have any value for what happens in the atmosphere over a full seasonal cycle. Thus can’t refute the IPCC source/sink model.
6. The source/sink model may be adjusted in the future as better measurements come in, no matter (a)biogenic methane or other natural CO2/CH4 sources. But that doesn’t alter the net mass balance which shows that nature is a net sink for CO2 over the past 55 years…
7. I have no opinion about future natural cooling or warming, the sun-earth connection, a-biogenic methane etc. That is also not relevant for the discussion about the current work of Dr. Salby…
Good summary.
A different way to attack the GHG effect is through water vapor concentration changes in the atmosphere which is the major contributor to the overall GHG effect.
OBSERVATION- Recent observations have indicated contrary to AGW theory( which is almost always the case) that the mixing ratios in the tropics (water vapor) have been falling not rising as called for by AGW theory. No hot spot for example.
My thought is rather then evaluate the future GHG effect based on CO2 concentration changes in the atmosphere maybe a better way to go about it might be through future water vapor concentration changes in the atmosphere.
After all water vapor accounts for some 75% of the atmospheric opacity. Therefore even a very slight change in this greenhouse gas concentration level is going to impact the overall GHG effect regardless of CO2.
I CAN say regardless of CO2 concentrations, because the data has proven conclusively, that the positive feedback between an increase in CO2 concentrations and water vapor does NOT exist. If anything the opposite is happening. That is what the data says to the dismay of AGW enthusiast , but they will ignore it as usual.
That aside a cooling climate (oceans cooling) should diminish the amounts of water vapor in the atmosphere due to the fact less evaporation would be taking place. Under this scenario convection would be less which would cause the corresponding temperature of the surface of the earth to drop less if the GHG effect were in a steady state. However the GHG effect would be less due to the lower amounts of water vapor in the atmosphere due to less evaporation from the cooler oceans. The diminish role of convection although causing less cooling per say in regards to the surface temperature of the earth would not be able to compensate for the overall cooling due to the diminish GHG effect therefore the temperature trend would be negative.
This argument is the opposite of the false argument AGW theory is trying to put upon the public presently which is increasing concentrations of CO2 will create a positive feedback with water vapor(increasing it) which will amplify the temperature rise from CO2 . Although convection would increase under this scenario a cooling mechanism it would only be able to retard the overall temperature increase due to the overall increase in the GHG effect.
I have just proposed the opposite take and the data thus far is more supportive of my scenario rather then the scenario AGW theory has put forth.
If I got parts of the lecture right, Dr Salby states that from the warming of the last hundred odd years humans contribution to increased Co2 is under a third of the rise seen and that the bulk of the increase is due to thermal factors. i.e. earths temperatures warming regardless of Co2 increases and in fact the warmth causing the other two thirds of c02 increases -hence his statement about which is the horse and which is the cart. But back to the co2 created thermally, is that an established scientific principle?
The last thing I would say is I was shocked by the shock on Chris Moncton’s face when Salby told him there were no papers to be published and he wouldn’t do anything until he was reinstated in the scientific academic world.
Lawrence,
It is as Willis more or less said: no data, no methods, no calculations, no proof of anything.
Increasing seawater temperatures are good for 4-17 ppmv/°C change in equilibrium with the atmosphere (experimental, confirmed by ocean data).
Increasing temperatures in general give more net CO2 uptake by the biosphere.
Ice cores show changes of 8 ppmv/°C over the past 800,000 years.
The warming of the oceans over the past 55 years thus is good for ~5 ppmv increase in the atmosphere.
The current increase is 110 ppmv above equilibrium.
Human emissions were 200 ppmv over the same period of increase.
Seems quite clear that mainly humans are responsible for the increase…
Mr. Engelbeen, I just wanted to commend you for again exhibiting preternatural patience.
I aspire to that level of patience but never get anywhere close.
So does this precise knowledge of ‘thermally’ produced co2 actually exist? Of course like many I want to believe that Murry has just grasped that there are severe misunderstandings of our understanding of how the atmosphere works and we’ve all been looking at it the wrong way, but his theory strongly rest on this thermally induced co2. I don’t want to be rude but there were amongst that scant video audience some weird people who just never asked the right questions. Why some of the questions were so whacko that Murry had to feign he couldn’t hear them. But back to that thermally created co2 -is that real or not?
Lawrence,
Of course CO2 is released from the oceans when the planet warms. The question is to what extent and how rapidly. There is Henry’s Law, but the ocean-atmosphere interface is not lab simple.
Other “thermal” sources of CO2, I don’t know.
Joe Bron,
Over 20 years ago, at the early years of the Internet, grass roots movements were the first to see and use the benefits of the Internet. There was an action group against the dangers of dioxins and its causes. Chlorine and PVC were the main enemies to fight against according to them. As I worked in such a factory at that time, I entered the discussion, defending my job with facts and figures. The reactions were furious, so I decided to stay calm and always on topic, as that was the only way to get not banned from the discussion list (at the end they banned me anyway, as Greenpeace pressed the list owner to do that). Of course the die-hards weren’t convincible, but the majority, just sympathizers and lurkers got on my hand over time…
So I am rather hardened by that experience, where the reactions on WUWT are very modest, compared to what I have endured at that time…
Lawrence13 and Catherine Ronconi ,
For the ocean surface, it is quite easy: that is in direct contact with the atmosphere and has a high exchange rate (1-3 years), thus that is in rapid equilibrium. According to Henry’s law, the in/decrease of the ocean-atmosphere equilibrium is somewhere between 4 and 17 ppmv/°C, both measured in laboratories and in the field. For practical purposes: about 8 ppmv/°C, as that is the (very) long term average.
For the deep ocean exchanges, that is more difficult: a lot of CO2 is going into the deep near the poles and returns some ~1000 years later at the upwelling sites near the equator. The amounts are estimated at ~40 GtC/year, based on the dilution of the 14C bomb spike and the 13C “fingerprint” of fossil fuel burning.
The 40 GtC/year at equilibrium is what goes in and out without disturbing the equilibrium between oceans and atmosphere.
The outgassing of the oceans at the upwelling places is directly proportional to the CO2 pressure (pCO2) difference between ocean surface and atmosphere: 750 μatm in the equatorial oceans, 250 μatm near the poles and around 400 μatm (= ~ppmv) in the atmosphere everywhere.
See: http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/pubs/outstand/feel2331/maps.shtml and previous and following pages.
Thus the 40 GtC/year in is the result of 350 μatm CO2 pressure difference at the equator and 40 GtC/year out is the result of 250 μatm pressure difference at the polar sink places at equilibrium. Wind mixing and surface area do the rest of the job.
If the seawater temperature increases everywhere, the pCO2 of the oceans changes with ~8 μatm/°C, which makes that the pressure difference increases a few % at the upwelling and decrease a few % at the sink places. That gives more influx to the atmosphere and less outflux into the sinks and as result, CO2 levels do increase in the atmosphere.
Any increase in the atmosphere, whatever its cause, will decrease the CO2 influx from the oceans and increase the CO2 outflux into the ocean sinks for the same reason: pressure difference changes.
The net result is that with an 8 ppmv/°C increase in the atmosphere, the warming of the oceans is fully compensated and the original fluxes are restored. That is at exactly the same increase for the dynamic deep ocean – atmosphere exchanges as for the relative static ocean surface exchanges. In graph form:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/upwelling_temp.jpg
which was made for a 17 ppmv/°C change, but the principle is the same…
Lawrence and Catherine,
Some addition (a repeat from down the reactions, but it belongs here):
I was not sure at first, but after repeatedly listening to the video, here is a the point in his speech where he introduces the “thermally induced CO2” (from Janice’s transcript):
11:05 – Integrating thermally-induced CO2 emission backward, i.e., subtracting therm. CO2 for each preceding year (year x-1) from current CO2 (year x), repeating this going back to 1980, gives an accurate estimate of net natural CO2 (since most net natural CO2 emission is thermally induced).
Where he assumes that the full CO2 year by year increase (variability + offset) in de/increase is thermally induced (thus all natural), not easily to decipher, but that is what he really does.
Of course that shows that the whole in/decrease is from natural causes as he simply uses not only the variability but includes the offset, while the offset of the curve in rate of change is for 95% what humans introduced…
In reply to Ferdinand Engelbeen April 15, 2015 at 8:16 am
William,
Every one of your comments is incorrect. You appear to have no understanding as to what are or are not the issues and what are the logical implications of the observations. Listen to Salby’s presentation and think about the subject before you comment. You also need to read Thomas Gold’s Deep Hot Biosphere: The Myth of Fossil Fuels which is directly related to this subject. There is a much larger source of CO2 into the biosphere than volcanic eruptions. There is hence also a much larger sink of CO2. The Bern model is not correct.
William,
Observations do not support the Bern model. That is fact. Repeating the Bern model assumptions and they are assumptions does not make the Bern assumptions correct. Do you understand what is an assumption and what is fact?
William,
Salby’s analysis includes a new case (new video more analysis, you however have not listened to the video and repeat the same silly comments without thought) that uses ‘mass’ balance in addition to phase analysis. The rise in atmospheric CO2 does not track the rise in anthropogenic CO2 emissions. There has been a 40% increase in anthropogenic CO2 yet the rise in atmospheric CO2 continues to track temperature. The IPCC model analysis assumed the CO2 sinks would decrease as atmospheric CO2 rises. There is a magic wand that forces a higher percentage of CO2 into the sinks. As Salby notes in his presentation there is no physical explanation for that paradox.
William,
Your comment is irrational. You do not understand what phase analysis and hence do not understand what is the implication of Humlum et al’s paper result that in 7 out 8 case atmospheric CO2 increase when temperature increase rather than temperature increases when atmospheric CO2. Salby confirms Humlum et al’s conclusion with CO2 mass balance analysis and find it too supports the assertion that the majority of the increase in atmospheric CO2 is due to natural CO2 emissions rather than anthropogenic CO2 increases.
William,
The very first issue of the NASA CO2 satellite data refutes the IPCC source/sink model, as does Humlum et al’s paper, as does Salby’s mass balance analaysis, and as does the bomb C14 data. The fact that there has been no new update of the NASA CO2 satellite data indicates the data in question refutes the IPCC source/sink model.
Flip this problem around. What do you think the public, media, and political opposition reaction will be if they find that more than 73% of the rise in atmospheric CO2 is due to natural sources, the majority of the temperature rise in the last 150 years was due to solar cycle changes, and almost 2 trillion dollars has been wasted on green scams that do not work.
The outrage could be greater. Imagine there is evidence of a massive cover-up of the science/observations that confirm the above assertions.
The cult of CAGW will end abruptly when the planet abruptly cools and atmospheric CO2 levels abruptly drop. The solar cycle has been interrupted. Each and every time the solar cycle abruptly slows down the planet cools.
William what do you of my thoughts that I posted at 8:31 am? Thanks
correction– William what do you think about my thoughts posted at 8:31 am ? thanks.
William,
Please reply on what I have said, not on what you think that I have said…
1. I didn’t use neither defended the IPCC’s Bern model, to the contrary.
I did say that all defenses of the Salby models were based on the residence time (as noticed by Janice), which doesn’t say anything about the increase or decrease of CO2 in the atmosphere. Thus Salby and the IPCC are equally wrong.
2. The rise in atmospheric CO2 does not track the rise in anthropogenic CO2 emissions.
The increase in the atmosphere does track human emissions extremely well:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/acc_co2_1960_cur.jpg
By looking at the variability in sink rate and cherry-picking the two periods, Salby does create a false impression of discrepancy, which disappears if you look at the full length of the record and isn’t even important at all: as long as the increase in the atmosphere is smaller than the human emissions, the increase is caused by human emissions. No matter if that is 5% or 95% of the human emissions…
3. I do not understand what phase analyses does.
May be not, so please explain to me how you can separate two CO2 inputs to the atmosphere with phase analyses:
One with a huge variability and little trend.
The other with no detectable variability and a huge trend.
Humlum made the same mistake as many others before and after him: he uses the residence time instead of the excess decay rate. And indeed, in almost all cases, CO2 follows temperature changes with 4-8 ppmv/°C except over the past 55/160 years which is what we are discussing now.
4. I don’t believe in conspiracy theories. The full data of NASA’s satellite will be published soon and will be used to adjust the IPCC CO2 cycle estimates, but there is not the slightest sign hitherto that human emissions are not the cause of 95% of the increase…
The next 6 weeks of OCO-2 data are available here:
http://disc.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/datareleases/First_CO2_data_from_OCO-2
http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052748704194504575031404275769886
In support of less water vapor as a cause for a lesser GHG effect.
regarding the mass balance argument: in my opinion, no realistic carbon balance or budget has been demonstrated with reasonable basis in science (estimates of this and that – are not really science!). I also would suggest that any such carbon balance/budget is a pipe dream to derive or determine. For a start, there is a heck of a lot of carbon stored in carbonates around the world, along with subterranean volcanic co2, methane clathrates, organic muds/slimes, etc, etc – the potential SUM of which, to my knowledge cannot be reasonably determined/estimated.
Similarly, the outgassing (or sinking) from such sources cannot be reasonably determined (again, in my opinion). The whole earth ‘carbon cycle’ is comprised of an immense sum of many many parts. Hence, whilst I agree that Salbys work requires confirmation and scientific analysis before it can be accepted – his summary point, that co2 is rising naturally (as well as with an anthropogenic component) is almost certainly the most likely state of play. Ignoring the GHG part of the argument of CO2 – and concentrating on the source and sinks of CO2 seems fairly more likely to yield some productivity towards our overall understanding. Also, given the clear misunderstanding and overstating of the climate sensitivity to CO2 ‘in the atmosphere’ as amply demonstrated by many people – this should probably now be considered a dead end for research UNTIL we know the true scale of the carbon mass balance/budget meme.
It is quite a point for the observation that the CO2 rise is not correlating with actual (albeit estimated) fossil fuel use over the decades, don’t you all think? As a slight aside, cross correlate that observation, with the apparent 800 year lag between temps rising and increases in CO2 and it is quite feasible that the major part of this current CO2 gradual increase is derived from several hundred years ago? Obviously we cannot say for certain which of the many ‘sinks’ are failing (though the loss of rainforest would be a good start!) or which of the many emitters are surging (if at all). But the point is that if you have billions of tonnes of carbon/co2 in storage and a large total carbon cycle (lets call it the freely ‘moving’ carbon cycle) – isolating one or even a few ‘parts’ part as being contributary or not (either way) is extremely difficult, if not impossible?
I can think of many examples of things that we know or believe are changing, I already mentioned the rainforest (obv human caused!) but there are things like corals, algae, sea-life in general, all of which may be growing or declining in varying degrees. Plankton blooms must ‘sink’ carbon – equally when they dont occur, this ‘sink’ is lost – and this kind of discussion can be had for probably every part of the carbon cycle – i.e. what is actually happening and how much could it cause or affect the ‘net’ changes as observed? Basically, I am with Salby in his indication that it is likely the major factor is naturally derived – but unfortunately with the current science, I don’t see how we can ever know as we don’t know what we can comparing observations to? Hope that makes sense.
Kev,
Nobody can make a mass balance of the carbon cycle in sufficient detail, although the larger sinks/sources are reasonably known. But that is not necessary to know the net balance at the end of the year: nature is more sink than source for the past 55 years. Here again that graph, which is based on only the calculated human emissions and the measured increase in the atmosphere:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/dco2_em2.jpg
As long as the increase in the atmosphere is smaller than human emissions, humans are responsible for the increase in the atmosphere.
Besides a small contribution caused by the increase in temperature (~5 ppmv), the natural carbon cycle added zero, nada, nothing more CO2 to the atmosphere, no matter how much cycled through the atmosphere, no matter the residence time, no matter how much each individual in or outflux changed over time… To the contrary, nature removed a lot of CO2 out of the atmosphere, each year again.
The increase in the atmosphere is not from vegetation, as that is a proven net sink for CO2 out of the oxygen balance.
The increase in the atmosphere is not from the oceans, as that would increase the δ13C level in the atmosphere, while we see a firm decrease in lockstep with human emissions, thus also not from 800 years ago.
As already said to William, the increase in the atmosphere tracks human emissions extremely well if you plot it over the full period and do look at the total, not the year by year variability or even a few cherry-picked decades as Salby did…
Again your data is geared to benefit your argument which does not make it correct.
As for me I am on board with Dr. Salby, and William.
Ferd (is the abbreviation ok?)
I’m sorry, but your argument is missing the point I was trying (probably badly) to make. which is that the natural sources and sinks are largely unknown, evenmoreso if you consider that we don’t know what they are ‘doing’ at any given time. If you cannot see the ‘big picture’ with respect to the carbon cycle, I’m afraid that’s your problem! Seriously, you accept that a carbon cycle is undefineable in sufficient detail – bit you stil concur that human emmisions are the source based on some graph produced by others?? That’s illogical ! and unscientific! The graphs you post mean NOTHING without appropriate scientific backing – they are still essentially ‘guesswork’!
Kev (Kevin?),
Ferdi is OK,
While the main in/out fluxes are roughly known, based on O2 and δ13C measurements, what is rock solid is what I plotted above:
Human emissions are calculated from fossil fuel sales (taxes!) and burning efficiency. They are probably more underestimated (by under-the-counter sales…) than overestimated.
CO2 increase in the atmosphere is very accurately measured in the atmosphere.
The difference is the net sink of CO2 somewhere in nature, as no CO2 escapes to space.
Thus without knowing any individual in/out flux or how that changed from year to year or how some sources became sinks and reverse… we know exactly (within reasonable error bars) what humans emitted and what the increase was in the atmosphere and what nature contributed. The latter was more sink than source in every year of the past 55 years.
If you think that nature in any way (besides a very small increase due to slightly warmer temperatures) was the cause of the increase in any year, please show me how that can be true and in such a case what happened with the human contribution…
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-E71CzjwDuYE/UxJu7sz_1iI/AAAAAAAAAbo/IlmNk7_47lY/s1600/Atmospheric_carbon_dioxide_concentrations_and_global_annual_average_temperatures_over_the_years_1880_to_2009.png
For my money if/when the temperature trend were to decline back to around 1900 levels the amount of CO2 increase at the very least would slow down significantly. By how much is the question but I doubt the current rate of increase would continue. The question is over what duration of time? What would be the lag effect?
On the other hand it would not go back to the lower levels it was around 1900 due to human input.
As I had mentioned earlier a better way to attack AGW theory I think is by what effect would lower sea surface temperatures have on water vapor in the atmosphere. The correlation between increases in CO2 and water vapor proving to be incorrect.
continued reply to Ferdinand:
What I am contending is that ANY and ALL assessments of sinks/emitters versus the actual natural CO2 concentration (as measured) is entirely ‘fictional’ – ok, maybe not ENTIRELY fictional, but certainly onley generic and geared to an agenda. If you KNOW a ‘base level’ then you can perhaps ‘observe’ an imposed change. Without that ‘base level’, frankly, you are pissing in the wind! And that is without applying any real testing scientific criteria!
and also – how the feck does anyone know (scientifically, and reproducibly) what the main sinks/emitters are doing? FFS, we can’t even predict when earthquakes will happen despite numerous measurements (and models!) of movements of the earths crust! And you think we know where all the Co2 comes from???
Kev,
There is a lot of literature out there, based on measurements which tries to make an inventory of the carbon budget: tall towers over land (measuring in/out fluxes) over many places, including the Amazon, nowadays satellites, etc. Several million of sea surface and deep ocean data (pCO2) to measure in/out fluxes of the oceans, O2 and δ13C measurements which show the difference between oceans and vegetation as sources/sinks, etc…
Some links:
http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/pubs/outstand/feel2331/exchange.shtml about the ocean exchanges
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/287/5462/2467.short and
http://www.bowdoin.edu/~mbattle/papers_posters_and_talks/BenderGBC2005.pdf about the distribution of CO2 between the oceans and vegetation…
Salvatore,
The influence of temperature on CO2 levels is 4-5 ppmv/°C over short term (seasons, Pinatubo, El Niño) to 8 ppmv/°C over (very) long periods: MWP-LIA, glacial-interglacial changes.
Thus all what the 0.8°C increase since 1880 does is adding some 6 ppmv CO2 to the atmosphere. The opposite is visible in the Law Dome ice core (~20 years resolution):
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/law_dome_1000yr.jpg
Where the ~0.8°C cooling did give a drop of ~6 ppmv.
Since ~1850, CO2 increased with ~110 ppmv. If temperature was responsible, that would need an increase of over 12°C of the ocean surface…
Re Salvatore Del Prete April 15, 2015 at 3:14 pm
Unless someone looks carefully at this plot one might think that Temperature is linked to CO 2.
1) First if the plot continued to 2015, on would see that there is no temperature increase although CO 2 continues to rise at an all time high rate.
2)Looking at the period from 1880 to 1910, the temperature fell circa 0.5 degrees while CO 2 rose circa 10 ppm.
3) Again in the late 30’s to the 50’s the temperature fell circa 0.5 degrees while Co 2 rose almost 15 ppm
These numbers might be off base since the plot is so clear.
On the other hand we see that there are seasonal variations in the order of 15 ppm at one station so the station seems to track CO 2 changes caused by seasonal sink rates with good precision, see below:
http://scrippsco2.ucsd.edu/sites/default/files/graphics_gallery_images/co2_sta_records.png.
It seems strange that seasonal CO 2 change is significant relative to the above lack of linkage.
I think Salby also showed similar historical disconnects between temperature and CO 2 which makes it difficult to accept the claimed CO 2/temperature link .
Catcracking,
Different processes at work in the variability:
1. Seasonal processes: mainly the influence of temperature over the seasons on the mainly NH forests.
Higher temperature: lower CO2, higher δ13C (which points to vegetation as main cause), ~5 ppmv/°C.
In/out: ~60 GtC/season
Difference: ~1 GtC/year more sink than source.
2. Short term (2-3 years) processes (Pinatubo, El Niño): influence of temperature on tropical forests.
Higher temperature: higher CO2, lower δ13C (vegetation decay in the tropics by drought and fires)~, 4-5 ppmv/°C.
In/out: temporarily with temperature, levels out after 2-3 years.
Difference: about zero over longer term.
3. Long term processes (centuries, multi-millennia): influence of temperature on the (deep) oceans.
Higher temperature: higher CO2, higher δ13C, ~8 ppmv/ δ13C.
In/out: surface (seasonal): ~50 GtC/season, deep oceans (permanent): ~40 GtC/year.
Thanks to the different influence of temperature on CO2 and δ13C it is possible to know the dominant cause of some increase or decrease in the atmosphere.
Besides that, we have human emissions which are independent of temperature but have their own “fingerprint”: low δ13C and zero 14C. As vegetation is a net, increasing sink since ~1990, all δ13C decline in the atmosphere is caused by human emissions, be it diluted by the deep ocean exchanges which return higher δ13C from the deep oceans to the atmosphere than reverse…
Ferd…
I probably have not made my point clear.
Looking at the plot below, there are 3 significant periods up to 40 years long where the temperature declined although CO 2 was increasing significantly. No one has explained adequately the lack of linkage claiming CO 2 increase causes increase in temperature especially since the alarmists recently claimed that CO 2 rules over natural forcing functions..
I’m an engineer, no engineer would use such a lack of correlation to design a component that is expected to be safe and reliable.
Also I find it amusing that climate scientists argue constantly about the sensitivity to temperature rise versus CO 2 increase when we have adequate data to show it is actually all over the place including negative.
To claim any linkage one would need to admit that other forces such as natural are significantly stronger and variable.
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-MW_NJp28Udc/VNS3EAEqpOI/AAAAAAAAAUs/hjhuLZFkdoM/s1600/hadcrut4%2Bhiatuses.png
Catcracking,
I agree, natural variability of temperature is far more driven by natural influences, whatever they may be (solar, clouds, ocean oscillations,…) than by CO2.
All climate models (over)focused on the period 1976-2000 where there is a parallel increase of CO2 and temperature, but that link is opposite in the period 1946-1975 and zero since 2000.
The period 1946-1975 was explained away by using aerosols as scapegoat, where there is a huge offset between the climate sensitivity for CO2 and aerosols. But the scapegoat was already killed in the 1990’s: while SE Asia increased its SO2/aerosol emissions, the US and Europe decreased it, so that in balance there was/is little movement in aerosol emissions. Big problem for the climate models and especially for the models with huge sensitivity for CO2 and SO2…
But the (non-)correlation between temperature and CO2 goes two ways: while there is a huge correlation between short term (seasonal, 2-3 years) temperature variability and CO2 rate of change variability, there is hardly any influence of temperature on CO2 levels, contrary to what Dr. Salby (and many others) try to prove…
In reply to:
Ferdinand Engelbeen April 15, 2015 at 2:04 pm
You do not understand Salby’s calculation and you do not understand the issues. There is a much larger natural source of low C13 CO2 and there is a much larger natural sink (likely do to more mixing of the deep ocean with the surface ocean which is required for heat to hide in the ocean).
The CO2 sink has increased in effectiveness by 300%. As Salby notes in his video that is not physically possible. The CO2 sink’s effectiveness is proportional to the total CO2 in the atmosphere not the increase in CO2. The sinks should remain roughly the same effectiveness, with the exception of plants which thrive when there is more CO2. For example, if the sink was 50% effective then when atmospheric CO2 rises it should continue to be 50% effective.
What is observed is there is no change in the rate in rise of atmospheric CO2 (Now 2 ppm per year average with the increase in atmospheric CO2 tracking the integral of average planetary temperature not the integral of anthropogenic CO2 emissions) yet anthropogenic CO2 emissions have increased by 60%.
Salby does a mass balance calculation using the information from this graph to calculate a maximum portion of the recent rise in atmospheric CO2 of 33% that is due to anthropogenic CO2 emissions.
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/dco2_em2.jpg
William,
You do not understand Salby’s calculation and you do not understand the issues. There is a much larger natural source of low C13 CO2 and there is a much larger natural sink
William, I do perfectly understand what Salby has done and by looking further in detail, it is only getting worse…
There are only two main sources of low 13C: recent organics and fossil organics. All other sources (oceans, volcanoes, carbonate rock weathering) are richer in 13C than the atmosphere.
Recent organics do exchange a lot of CO2 with the atmosphere over the seasons: about 60 GtC/season in and out.
Vegetation takes CO2 away in spring-summer-fall and releases it back as decay in fall-winter-spring.
Taking CO2 out of the atmosphere by photosynthesis decreases the total CO2 in the atmosphere (as can be seen in the NH summer) and increases the δ13C level in the atmosphere, as photosynthesis uses 12CO2 by preference. Thus more CO2 uptake by plants gives a higher δ13C level and more O2 in the atmosphere. More decay from the same plants (or its use as feed, food by insects or animals) will increase CO2 and decrease the δ13C and O2 level in the atmosphere.
The O2 balance shows that the biosphere as a whole is a net producer of O2, thus a net user of CO2 and preferential 12CO2. Thus not the cause of the firm decline of δ13C since about 1850, in lockstep with human emissions…
The CO2 sink has increased in effectiveness by 300%. As Salby notes in his video that is not physically possible. The CO2 sink’s effectiveness is proportional to the total CO2 in the atmosphere not the increase in CO2.
Salby is completely wrong on this: human emissions increased a 4-fold over the past 55 years, so did the increase speed in the atmosphere and so did the extra pressure in the atmosphere: from 25 ppmv above equilibrium in 1960 to 105 ppmv above equilibrium today and so did the sink rate, be it within natural variability.
Have a look at the calculated increase in the atmosphere, based on the emissions and the calculated sink rate caused by the extra CO2 pressure in the atmosphere above the equilibrium for the temperature of any given year (the red line in the graph):
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/dco2_em4.jpg
largely within natural variability…
Ferdinand could you please provide a link – to the data – that you used to make this graph.
This is an interesting subject.
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/dco2_em2.jpg
William,
Human emissions:
Carbon dioxide emissions inventory from the US Department of Energy (DOE) since 1750:
were here: http://www.eia.doe.gov/pub/international/iealf/tableh1co2.xls but the link is dead
the update since 1980 still is at:
http://www.eia.gov/cfapps/ipdbproject/IEDIndex3.cfm?tid=90&pid=44&aid=8
CO2 measurements:
Yearly averaged carbon dioxide concentrations at Mauna Loa Observatory, Hawaii, 1958 to last full year, NOAA:
ftp://ftp.cmdl.noaa.gov/ccg/co2/trends/co2_annmean_mlo.txt
Sink rate is simply CO2 measurements minus emissions.
Found an alternative database for the emissions since 1751:
http://cdiac.ornl.gov/trends/emis/tre_glob.html
I was not sure at first, but after repeatedly listening to the video, here is a quite remarkable point in his speech (from Janice’s transcript):
11:05 – Integrating thermally-induced CO2 emission backward, i.e., subtracting therm. CO2 for each preceding year (year x-1) from current CO2 (year x), repeating this going back to 1980, gives an accurate estimate of net natural CO2 (since most net natural CO2 emission is thermally induced).
Here he assumes that the full CO2 year by year increase (variability + offset) in de/increase is thermally induced (thus all natural), not easily to decipher, but that is what he really does.
Of course that shows that the whole in/decrease is from natural causes as he simply uses not only the variability but includes the offset, while the offset of the curve in rate of change is for 95% what humans introduced…
Sorry, but I am getting a very bad feeling here…
https://twitter.com/bigjoebastardi/status/577264038893252608
I think the better way to go about in proving AGW theory is wrong is to attack it from the CO2/water vapor positive feedback claims which the data keeps showing to be incorrect.
My post Apr. 15 at 8:31 addresses this
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/03/06/nasa-satellite-data-shows-a-decline-in-water-vapor/
This is where my focus is, in trying to show AGW theory is a house of cards ready to fall and be consumed by natural climatic forces chief among them solar variability.
to Ferdinand:
the abstracts of the three references you suggested all show the point I am trying to make, namely that CO2 sources and emmitters are a bugger to determine!
ref 1: ”Accordingly, the distribution of pCO2 in surface waters in space and time, and therefore the oceanic uptake and release of CO2 , is governed by a balance between the changes in seawater temperature, net biological utilization of CO2 and the upwelling flux of subsurface waters rich in CO2.”
Clearly, no-one knows how much CO2 may be upwelling from deeper waters? In which case, how do they know how much of any CO2 measured in the near surface waters (mixing layer) is from the atmosphere or from below?
ref 2: ”Recent time-series measurements of atmospheric O2 show that the land biosphere and world oceans annually sequestered 1.4 ± 0.8 and 2.0 ± 0.6 gigatons of carbon, respectively, between mid-1991 and mid-1997. The rapid storage of carbon by the land biosphere from 1991 to 1997 contrasts with the 1980s, when the land biosphere was approximately neutral. Comparison with measurements of δ13CO2 implies an isotopic flux of 89 ± 21 gigatons of carbon per mil per year, in agreement with model- and inventory-based estimates of this flux. Both the δ13C and the O2 data show significant interannual variability in carbon storage over the period of record. The general agreement of the independent estimates from O2and δ13C is a robust signal of variable carbon uptake by both the land biosphere and the oceans. ”
Note the word variable in the last sentence!
ref 3: ”From 1994–2002, We find the average CO2 uptake by the ocean and the land biosphere was 1.7 ± 0.5 and 1.0 ± 0.6 GtC yr respectively; these numbers include a correction of 0.3 Gt C yr due to secular
outgassing of ocean O2
. Interannual variability calculated from these data shows a strong
land carbon source associated with the 1997–1998 El Nino event, supporting many
previous studies indicating that high atmospheric growth rates observed during most
El Nino events reflect diminished land uptake. Calculations of interannual variability in
land and ocean uptake are probably confounded by non-zero annual air sea fluxes of O2. The origin of these fluxes is not yet understood.”
Again, see last sentence!
regards
Kev
Kev,
What is the problem? The huge fluxes between oceans, biosphere and atmosphere are roughly known to +/- 50%. That is of academic interest and it gives an idea how the CO2 sinks are distributed between land and (deep) oceans.
But that doesn’t change the fact that the net result of all these fluxes is known to +10/-5 % as that is the estimated accuracy of the fossil fuel emissions, the accuracy of the CO2 measurements is better than +/- 0.01%.
Sorry,
are roughly known to +/- 50%
should be read as:
are roughly known to +/- 50% of the net sink rates.
The large exchange fluxes themselves are known to +/- 10%
If a GHG effect does exist which I think is correct and an increase in CO2 all things being equal is going to cause a temperature increase,a tropical hot spot,and OLR to decrease, why is it that none of this is happening?
?w=614
The most sensible explanation is there must be a flaw in AGW THEORY and how it views the GHG effect.
When one looks at the data objectively the data shows no temperature increase despite CO2 increases, no reduction in OLR radiation despite CO2 increases, no lower tropospheric hot spot despite CO2 increases, and a lower mixing ratio/ specific humidity trend in all levels of the atmosphere from varied data sources,despite CO2 increases. Given that one has to conclude perhaps a flaw in AGW theory exist. That flaw being the strong positive feedback claim it makes between CO2 and water vapor.
For if this feedback between CO2 and water vapor were as strong as AGW theory suggest the tropospheric hot spot would have been in evidence beyond a doubt by now, and humidity levels through out the atmosphere would not be dropping. They would instead be in a definite up trend.
This leads me to believe that there is either no positive feedback between CO2 and water vapor or that a stronger positive feedback probably exist for water vapor then CO2. That stronger positive feedback being sea surface temperatures. Evidence of this being strongly supported by the drop in specific humidity levels in the tropics which have been shown to correlate very strongly to the phase of the PDO. A warm PDO being associated with higher specific humidity levels and vice versa.
My post at 8:58 am Apr. 16 ,shows the data between the PDO , and specific humidity levels in the atmosphere.
This makes sense because evaporation the source for water vapor in the atmosphere is less when water is colder and or in a cold environment, in contrast to when the water is warmer and or in a warmer environment.
If one follows this train of thought going forward it is easy to see why in response to prolonged minimum solar conditions ,water vapor in the atmosphere would lessen. The reason being sea surface temperatures will become colder because the visible light and long wave UV light emissions from the sun would decline and since they penetrate the skin of the ocean surface waters to several meters in depth in contrast to IR radiation which can only penetrate the skin of the ocean surface to a depth of 1 mm or so, it stands to reason solar variation is the major force in the determination of sea surface temperatures, and ultimately water vapor concentrations in the atmosphere. Reduced solar activity correlating to reduced sea surface temperatures and vice versa.
With a decline in sea surface temperatures in response to lower solar activity this would lead to reduced evaporation which would then lead to reduced water vapor in the atmosphere hence making the GHG effect as called for by AGW theory at the very least being diminished, if not null and void.
This is why the data between sunspots and water vapor correlate so strongly. This is also why I think the data keeps showing CO2 concentrations following the temperature rather then leading it. CO2 never being the major driving force of the GHG effect, but subjugated to water vapor concentrations. Thus when water vapor concentrations in the atmosphere decrease the temperature trends on earth decrease which eventually leads to the trend in CO2 concentrations to decrease.
AGW theory has it backwards. It is water vapor that is the driving force behind the GHG effect not CO2. One could say CO2 is correlated to water vapor but water vapor is not correlated to CO2.
See data below.
As far as the convection factor I talked about that in my earlier post at APR. 15 8:31 AM.
Sorry,
are roughly known to +/- 50%
should be read as:
are roughly known to +/- 50% of the net sink rates.
In reply to:
Ferdinand Engelbeen April 16, 2015 at 8:14 am
William,
So when you state the rise in anthropogenic CO2 emissions exactly equals the rise in atmospheric that statement is true as you have subtracted the assumed sinks – the line ‘sinks’ on the below graph is not a measured variable but rather a subtraction, a calculated variable that is forced to increase.
As I noted from Salby’s lecture the natural sinks efficiency is dependent on the total amount of CO2 in the atmosphere and remains roughly the same percentage that is sequestered for all sinks, except for plants which thrive when CO2 increases so the amount of CO2 that is sequestered by plants increases when CO2 increases rather than remains the same or decreases as the IPCC has assumed. Salby uses the maximum acceptable increase of CO2 sequestered by plants and finds the calculated sink is too large, not possible physically based on the Bern model.
His calculation creates a paradox using the Bern model assumptions as to what are the sources and sinks and the amount of the sources and sinks. As I noted the paradoxes goes away if there is much larger sink into the deep ocean or sequestering of CO2 to the bottom of the ocean floor by chemical and biological action. A large sink requires a larger natural source of CO2 which is not volcanic eruptions.
The IPCC has not answered the question: Why are the natural sinks increasing by 300%?
The IPCC assumed the natural sinks would decrease the percentage of CO2 that is sequestered, not increase the amount of CO2 that is sequestered from 50% to 70%.
Salby also does a calculation on the net change year by year of C13 and finds there is evidence of a massive low C13 source. The change cannot be explained by gas changes of anthropogenic CO2 in the ocean surface waters. There is a change of 300% between highest and lowest.
There have been a series of recent papers that have discovered active emitting CH4 sources on the ocean floor and recently in the State of Utah. There is a paper that notes the natural seepage of liquid oil into the ocean floor exceeds the total amount of commercial oil that is transported by ship. These observations (50 or so additional observations in Thomas Gold’s book and Gold’s peer reviewed papers) support Gold’s assertion that there is massive source of liquid high pressure CH4 that is extruded when the core solidifies. As I noted there the C13 content in geological formations does not change with time which requires that there be a continuous source of low C13 carbon dioxide.
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/dco2_em2.jpg
William,
You are sometimes difficult to follow…
So when you state the rise in anthropogenic CO2 emissions exactly equals the rise in atmospheric
I never said that the rise exactly equals human emissions, I said:
The increase in the atmosphere does track human emissions extremely well
With a 50-55% overall ratio and a R^2 of 0.999 almost perfect…
Why are the natural sinks increasing by 300%
First, it is about 400% – a fourfold over the past 55 years.
Second, human emissions per year increased a fourfold over the same 55 years and the increase in the atmosphere also was a fourfold since 1960: from ~25 ppmv to ~105 ppmv above the natural equilibrium. The increased pressure in the atmosphere is the reason for the fourfold increase in uptake.
Salby also does a calculation on the net change year by year of C13 and finds there is evidence of a massive low C13 source.
Salby – again – looks at the variability around the trend, which is caused by the variability in the uptake by vegetation, which is a source or sink for CO2 and thus sink or source for preferably 12CO2.
The huge declining 13C/12C ratio trend is caused by burning fossil fuels, but if the net sink in vegetation decreases, the 13C/12C ratio decrease speed is more rapid than with increased uptake by vegetation. Around the 1990’s there was even a halt in the decline caused by an extra CO2 uptake in vegetation.
As vegetation is a net, increasing sink for CO2, it is not the cause of the declining 13C/12C ratio, only the cause of the variability:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/d13c_trends.jpg
As said before, I have no opinion about abiotic methane, but I don’t see any reason why that would be a sudden extra source at exact the same moment and rate as humans started to release more and more methane (by mining and later exploring + increased rice cultivation) and CO2…
http://wattsupwiththat.com/reference-pages/sea-ice-page/
In reply to:
Ferdinand Engelbeen April 16, 2015 at 2:56 pm
William,
I am not sure whether you fail to understand the observations/analysis or you do understand and have decided a decade or so ago that you belong to the cult of CAGW and will hence keep repeating the Born model which has been falsified by observations.
The Born model is made up of assumptions, not observations. The only CO2 source which will know with certainty is anthropogenic. The other sources and sinks is a calculated guess.
Salby has found an observational paradox related to how atmospheric CO2 has changed vs anthropogenic CO2 emission, that falsifies the Born model (puts the science in question into a crisis).
That is a fact. Furthermore the observational paradox is fairly simple to find and to explain to a non-technical audience.
The increase in atmospheric CO2 does not track anthropogenic emissions of CO2. The year by year increase in atmospheric CO2 is averaging at 2 ppm, flat lining, not increasing to say 3 ppm per year or 4 ppm per year as the IPCC predicted based on the Born model as anthropogenic emissions are increasing year by year.
Planetary temperature also does not track the increase in atmospheric CO2. It also is flat lining which is a paradox as atmospheric CO2 is increasing at 2 ppm per year.
I would assume you understand that atmospheric pressure has not changed and the ocean temperature has warmed slightly so the amount of gas that is entering the surface layer of the ocean is the same and will track the partial pressure of CO2. Also wind speed has not change and temperatures at the poles until very recently are not colder (the south pole has for unexplained reasons started to cool which explains why there is now record sea ice around the Antarctic for every month of year, where the IPCC predicted a reduction in sea ice) so the amount of gas that is moved into the deep ocean has not changed. The CO2 sinks should according to the Born model be less efficient not more efficient with the exception of plants which thrive when atmosphere CO2 increases.
As I noted Salby used the estimate sinks from the Born model and then did a mass/balance calculation. The result of that calculation is 33% is the maximum contribution of anthropogenic CO2 to the increase in atmospheric CO2.
What you and others in this forum cannot get their heads around, as you keep repeating the Born model assumption, ad infinitum, is the Born model is an assumed model and is based on the assumption that volcanic eruptions and recycled CO2 is the only source of new CO2 into the biosphere.
That assumption is not correct. There is a massive source of low C13 from CH4 that is emitted throughout the planet which explains why the methyl hydrate deposits on the ocean floor exceeds the carbon reserves of all fossil fuels. Note the ocean floor moves under the continents and the oldest ocean floor is 200 million years which will release the methyl hydrate. i.e. There needs to be a constant new source of low C13 CH4 to cover the ocean floor with methyl hydrate.
The CH4 increases when the sun is active as does volcanic activity as does the number of earthquakes. The release of CH4 caused the massive drop in the ocean floor that caused the Thailand tsunami. Gold has an entire section in his book that explains that deep earthquakes where the earth drops can only be caused by the movement of a liquid such as high pressure CH4. i.e. The mantel cannot disappear to enable vast sections of the ocean floor for example to drop.
William,
Even as I have a lot of patience, it has its borders…
As repeatedly said: I didn’t use or defend the IPCC’s Bern model, as that is as wrong as using the rate of change to “prove” that human emissions are not the cause of the CO2 increase in the atmosphere.
The only CO2 source which will know with certainty is anthropogenic.
Yes and the increase in the atmosphere is exactly measured (+/- 0.2 ppmv).
Thus we know with quite certainty the net result of all the unknown sinks and sources in nature: more sink than source. That is simple arithmetic: human emissions are larger than the measured increase in the atmosphere, thus nature is a net sink for CO2, not a net source, already 55 years long.
Salby has found an observational paradox related to how atmospheric CO2 has changed vs anthropogenic CO2 emission
Salby didn’t find a “paradox”. He compared the change in the rate of change in one period with another period. As Alex somewhere up thread said, that is looking at the second derivative to declare a paradox in a very noisy system. That is like saying that there can’t be a sea level change, because the second derivative of the waves in some periods doesn’t fit such a change…
The increase in atmospheric CO2 does not track anthropogenic emissions of CO2.
Again, that is pure nonsense: the graph I have given somewhere up thread, shows a 99.9% correlation between total emissions and increase in the atmosphere.
It doesn’t matter what the variability of the rate of change or the variability in variability does. As long as the increase in the atmosphere is positive and less than human emissions, human emissions are fully responsible for the increase.
It doesn’t matter that in one year the increase is 1% of the human emissions and next year 99% or a constant 53%. The variability is in the sink rate, not the source rate.
The natural sinks for whatever reason have increased recently as they also did temporarily in the period 1976-1996 with increasing temperatures and increasing CO2 emissions, but a decreasing rate of change in the atmosphere…
And please don’t use the word “Bern model” anytime again against me or anyone else on this thread, as nobody here uses it or want to defend it.
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/webdata/ccgg/trends/co2_data_mlo_anngr.png
CO2 changes into the atmosphere on a year to year basis. It looks like since the temperature pause CO2 increases into the atmosphere have slowed.
Yes. The increase in atmospheric CO2 tracks the integral of planetary temperature, not the integral of anthropogenic CO2 emissions.
Salby also showed the variance in atmospheric C13 supports the assertion that there is large source of low C13 into the biosphere and the source is not anthropogenic CO2 emissions.
This is an interesting problem as there is sufficient information to work out the basic framework of the mechanisms. Key to the problem is understanding the mechanisms related to the of rate change of the release of CH4 from the deep earth.
I have promised a couple of time to provide a summary of Gold’s deep earth CH4 theory (basically a Coles Notes review of his book and a couple of related recent papers) and the fifty or so observations and 20 new observations that support it, for this forum. I have started the summary and will commit to finishing it by the end of the summer.
The deep earth CH4 mechanisms explains why there were very, very, large deep earthquakes during the recent very active solar period. The number of large earthquakes peaked at ten times normal and very recently dropped back to normal.
People in this forum are confusing an argument where people pick sides and argue to try to win a silly game, with the methodology one uses or should use to solve holistic scientific problems were there are multiple fundamental theory errors. There is one physically correct set of theories/mechanisms that makes all of the paradoxes anomalies go away.
They are so busy defending the standard incorrect set of theories they do not attempt to work out and understand the competing theories.
Salvatore,
If you take the period 1976-1996, the ppmv/year trend is even negative, while temperature and CO2 emissions did go up.
That is simply natural variability in sink rate, which shows huge variability over years to decades.
Over the full period, the average human emissions increased a fourfold, the increase in the atmosphere also increased a fourfold and so did the sinks. Thus the long term increase in the atmosphere follows human emissions.
Further, even if that was not the case, it doesn’t matter: as long as the increase in the atmosphere is less than human emissions, human emissions are the cause of the increase. No matter if that is 1% or 99% of the emissions…
Posted in 2012 – but I am actually an agnostic on this subject – see my next post.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/07/10/unexplored-possible-climate-balancing-mechanism/#comment-1036650
A worthwhile dialogue gentlemen, thank you.
I think the secrets reside in the data. No surprise there.
In 2008 I wrote that dCO2/dt varies ~contemporaneously with temperature and CO2 lags temperature by ~9 months. I referred to Jan Veizer’s papers and think Jan was generally on the right track.
http://icecap.us/index.php/go/joes-blog/carbon_dioxide_in_not_the_primary_cause_of_global_warming_the_future_can_no/
I also observed in 2008 that there was no similar detailed relationship between variations in fossil fuel combustion and atmospheric CO2 levels – the “wiggles” did not correlate.
I was recently fascinated by the observation that the urban CO2 data from Salt Lake City exhibited NO human signature – only the natural daily cycle was apparent.
http://co2.utah.edu/index.php?site=2&id=0&img=30
One wonders if these clever Mormons are all driving Chevy Volts – like the Vikings were driving Volvos during the Medieval Warm Period. 🙂
It seems to me there is evidence that the biosphere is CO2-starved or at least CO2-limited. Since we cannot (except perhaps in winter) see the human signature of urban CO2 emissions AT THE URBAN SOURCE OF THESE EMISSIONS, are these humanmade CO2 emissions being captured close to their source and causing increased biomass in the process? Is there any other explanation? And not all that increased biomass decays in the Spring.
I’m sorry Ferdinand – you are a gentleman and I like you, but I don’t like your mass balance argument. I think atmospheric CO2 concentration is part of a huge dynamic system with biological and physical components on land and in the ocean, and this huge system dwarfs the humanmade CO2 component and is generally unaffected by it. That is what the data says to me.
Variations in biomass (e.g. deforestation and reforestation) may be the huge variable that would make your mass balance equation work better – I agree that we are not exporting CO2 to other planets.
Posted in 2013
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/11/06/the-oldest-ice-core-finding-a-1-5-million-year-record-of-earths-climate/#comment-1469229
Re Allan MacRae says: November 7, 2013 at 7:47 pm
Ferdinand Engelbeen says: November 8, 2013 at 1:38 am
Allan, we have been there before: the current increase in CO2 is not from temperature but from human emissions.
Allan again:
Ah Ferdinand, now we are back to the Mass Balance Argument (MBA), which for newcomers is about the cause (source) of increasing atmospheric CO2.
I specifically excluded discussion of the MBA from my previous post because, while it is of great scientific interest, I strongly suggest that in the global warming policy debate it does not matter – it is, perhaps shocking to some, irrelevant!
Why? As discussed above, climate sensitivity to atmospheric CO2 (ECS) is demonstrably insignificant or even nonexistent – therefore the only impact of increasing atmospheric CO2 is beneficial – to plants, the environment and humanity. In fact, atmospheric CO2 at this time is too low, dangerously low for the longer term survival of carbon-based life on Earth.
More Ice Ages, which are inevitable unless geo-engineering can prevent them, will cause atmospheric CO2 concentrations on Earth to decline to the point where photosynthesis ceases. This would devastate the descendants of most current life on Earth, to which, I suggest, we have a significant moral obligation.
My above conclusion, I suggest, puts the Mass Balance Argument into perspective. You could be correct about the MBA, or your able opponent Richard Courtney could be correct. I don’t know, and as I stated above, it really does not matter for current CO2 abatement policy, since increasing atmospheric CO2 can only benefit the environment, plants and animals, including that interesting subspecies to which Richard, you and I belong.
Returning to the MBA (because it IS scientifically interesting), I wonder if you have ever quantified the clearing and burning of the rainforest in Brazil and the Far East, which has been done to produce biofuel feedstocks of sugar cane and palm oil. I wonder if in fact this foolish and destructive clear-cutting and burning of the rainforest for nonsensical “green energy” biofuels is a more significant source of increased atmospheric CO2 than the combustion of fossil fuels.
In addition to the quantities of CO2 involved, there is also the observation that fossil fuel combustion typically occurs in close proximity to humanity and the plants that we co-exist with, and it has been suggested that CO2 is sufficiently rare and heterogeneously distributed that it is quickly consumed by plants close to its source, when present in excess amounts and when the growing season permits.
As I have stated previously, the humanmade CO2 signature is notably absent in urban environments such as Salt Lake City, where the only observable CO2 signature is natural, despite significant local humanmade CO2 emissions. Conversely, satellite data has shown significant increased atmospheric CO2 concentrations in areas of clear-cut rainforest.
Finally, if I can digress from the scientific for a moment, the clear-cutting and burning of rainforest for biofuel feedstock is another example of the Law of Unintended Consequences. The Greens were clearly responsible for the initiation of this outrage against the environment – a perverse and destructive effect contrary to what was originally intended. This is what happens when you let scoundrels and imbeciles drive the school bus.
Since about 1990, the Greens have been a highly destructive force, causing great damage to humanity and the environment.
I suggest that as a society we can do better, very much better.
Best personal regards, Allan
Dear Allan,
The diurnal and seasonal natural changes in the atmosphere are huge:
– local diurnal CO2 levels can change between 250 and 450 ppmv by day and night under inversion, mainly due to night respiration and day uptake of CO2 by vegetation. The human input in this is much smaller in comparison, but still visible in urban rush hours, like here in Diekirch (Luxemburg) in the extra peak on weekdays vs. weekend:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/diekirch_diurnal.jpg
Although the influence is small, the drop of CO2 on Sunday starts immediately when sunshine comes in, on other days, it starts later. Except on Monday, which shows little peak with more wind speed than on other days, as the inversion layer was destroyed.
As human emissions are, even locally, only a few % of what vegetation emits and absorbs diurnally and over the seasons, it will be difficult to make a differentiation between the local influence of vegetation and the human contribution. The main point is that most of the vegetation – atmosphere exchanges are bi-directional, with slightly more sink that source (based on the oxygen balance), while human emissions are one-way addition…
Best regards,
Ferdinand
Ferdinand,
You have sound logic if we were talking about a physical only system. But biological sinks are not simple, they are almost always resource limited to some degree. CO2 is usually a limiting factor as demonstrated by greening; more growth when more CO2 is available. By adding in our small amount, it literally just feeds the plants. This is demonstrated in numerous ways, most importantly in the preliminary satellite based CO2 data.
v/r,
David Riser
Interesting data, thank you Ferdinand.
This data seems to show a human footprint on local daily CO2 levels, unlike that of Salt Lake City.
This is probably a function of the areal density of cars and trucks.
I suggest that this daily signature of humanmade CO2 is only apparent where nearby plant sinks are insufficient to consume the excess CO2 close to its source.
David,
The advantage of the biosphere in the equations is that it uses or emits oxygen. Analytical problem was the detection limit of the measurements (one needed to see changes of a few tenths of a ppmv in 210,000 ppmv…), which were resolved in the 1990’s. That makes that we can detect – together with the δ13C changes – if the changes in CO2 are from/to inorganic or organic sources, after taking human emissions into account.
That gives that the whole biosphere is a net, increasing, but still limited sink of ~1 GtC/year of CO2, the earth is greening, but not fast enough to remove all extra human CO2 input… See:
http://www.bowdoin.edu/~mbattle/papers_posters_and_talks/BenderGBC2005.pdf
AGW theory is flawed and it has something to do with the positive feedback it assumes between water vapor and CO2 not being correct,and the interactions water vapor has with various atmospheric gasses (ozone comes to mind) and atmospheric processes (interception of emissions of OLR)and water vapor concentration changes at various altitudes in the atmosphere which will produce the ultimate temperature profile of the atmosphere and the ultimate GHG effect.
The dynamics of evaporation( water vapor concentrations in the lower atmosphere) and precipitation events (influencing water vapor concentrations in higher levels of the atmosphere) apparently are more positively correlated with water vapor concentrations in the atmosphere then CO2 concentrations resulting in AGW theory to have flawed assumptions and conclusions.
It is in this area where AGW theory is off ,somewhere in this area and this is where the focus should be, rather then saying there is flat out no GHG effect.
As they say the devil is in the details which I do not know but I think this is the general area that needs to be focused on.
Comments on Positive Feedback Nonsense
The challenge of 2012 to the warmists to provide real evidence of alleged Positive Feedbacks in the climate system is still awaiting a credible resonse.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/01/07/a-small-milestone/
[excerpt]
Having said that, I’d like to challenge the global warmists to provide some real evidence to support their claims that recent (now stalled) global warming is humanmade AND dangerous.
I am convinced that the warmists are wrong in their claims of positive feedback and high sensitivity of Earth’s climate to increased atmospheric CO2, but I’m open to new evidence.
However, I have yet to see any evidence that the warmists’ claims are technically valid.
The Climategate emails demonstrate that the warmist case has been contaminated not just by technical incompetence, but by severe academic misbehavior, including misrepresentation, conspiracy and fraud.
Rather than hearing more from the abusers and haters, let’s hear from those who truly believe in the technical validity of the warmist case, and will provide real evidence to support their claims.
I believe, based on the evidence, that recent global warming (circa 1975 – 2000) is overwhelmingly natural and cyclical, and that natural global cooling will soon follow. I’ve been studying this subject since ~1985 and I’m still waiting for the warmist case to be supported by facts. We’ve seen too much hatred , particularly directed at us climate skeptics (aka “global warming deniers”). It’s time to end that and get back to a real scientific debate.
Here is the challenge to the global warmists: Show us the scientific evidence to support your claims. I haven’t seen any, and I strongly doubt that it exists.
More Comments on Positive Feedback Nonsense
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/01/09/strange-new-attractors-strong-evidence-against-both-positive-feedback-and-catastrophe/#more-54515
[excerpt]
Earth has been much warmer in the past, and catastrophic runaway global warming has never happened.
So the feedbacks to warming in the climate system must be negative, not positive.
The fact that we are still here, having this conversation, is proof enough.
I have also previously stated that natural global cooling will soon recur. I wrote in 2002 that cooling would start by 2020 to 2030. This was based in part on NASA’s now-obsolete prediction that SC 24 would be strong but SC 25 would be weak. SC24 now appears to be weak, so cooling could happen sooner.
I have also stated many times that global cooling is a much greater threat to humanity and the environment than global warming. The threat to food production of even modest global cooling is significant. Do we even store significant reserves of grain anymore? Global cooling is what our foolish governments should be worried about – not small fractions of a degree of natural global warming.
Too often, we are governed by scoundrels and imbeciles.
Mosher said:
Until such time as he publishes (anywhere I might add) no one is under any rational obligation to refute, believe, question, or even view his advertisement.
******************************
I say (all from memory, I have limited time this morning):
One of Salby’s early graphs in his 2015 presentation is dCO2/dt versus time. This is verified with ALL the data and calculations in a spreadsheet as follows:
I used UAH temperatures and global CO2 data back to 1979. I later (unpublished as I recall) verified dCO2/dt versus time back to 1958 using Hadcrut3 temperatures and Mauna Loa CO2 data.
This is one core element of Salby’s argument and it was demonstrated to be true seven years ago.
In 2008 I wrote that dCO2/dt varies ~contemporaneously with temperature and CO2 lags temperature by ~9 months. I consulted with several competent parties before I published. My paper is located at:
http://icecap.us/index.php/go/joes-blog/carbon_dioxide_in_not_the_primary_cause_of_global_warming_the_future_can_no/
My paper was peer reviewed with considerable opposition on Climate Audit and withstood all critiques. The lag of CO2 after temperature was later verified by Matt Briggs by completely different analytical methods. I subsequently was made aware of Pieter Tans’ similar paper that reportedly was presented a month or two before mine, but his graphs were published after mine, and he provided no data or calculations. Tans and other warmists, as I recall, called this dCO2/dt relationship a “feedback effect” which I suggest is a Cargo Cult argument.
I did not reproduce Salby’s analysis that concludes that most (70%) of the atmospheric CO2 growth is natural. This question has been ably debated for years by Richard S Courtney and Ferdinand Engelbeen via Ferdinand’s Mass Balance Argument, and anyone can read their debate on wattsup.
Salby also concludes that ECS is near-zero, and I suggest this is now self-evident from the data – while atmospheric CO2 has increased steadily for many decades, since ~1940 global average temperature trend has decreased for ~35 years, then increased for ~25 years, and now remained relatively flat for about ~18 years.
Claims of ECS greater than 1C require strong positive feedbacks for which there is no evidence. These feedbacks, if they exist at all, are negative. If ECS exists at all, it is very small, so small that the alleged global warming crisis does not exist.
So, in summary, I disagree with those who are dismissive of Salby because they say he has not published his work. If you have the ability and time (one or two big if’s), you should be able to reproduce Salby’s work. I do not have the time.
Regards, Allan
Allan,
interesting post.
I repeat again my post that shows 3 significant periods up to 40 years where the temperature declined although CO2 increased continuously.
Someone needs to explain these deviations to convince me that they know how CO 2 increase increases temperature with such arrogance the the Science is settled.
“Ferd…
I probably have not made my point clear.
Looking at the plot below, there are 3 significant periods up to 40 years long where the temperature declined although CO 2 was increasing significantly. No one has explained adequately the lack of linkage claiming CO 2 increase causes increase in temperature especially since the alarmists recently claimed that CO 2 rules over natural forcing functions..
I’m an engineer, no engineer would use such a lack of correlation to design a component that is expected to be safe and reliable.
Also I find it amusing that climate scientists argue constantly about the sensitivity to temperature rise versus CO 2 increase when we have adequate data to show it is actually all over the place including negative.
To claim any linkage one would need to admit that other forces such as natural are significantly stronger and variable.”
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-MW_NJp28Udc/VNS3EAEqpOI/AAAAAAAAAUs/hjhuLZFkdoM/s1600/hadcrut4%2Bhiatuses.png
Scientists Say New Study Is A ‘Death Blow’ To Global Warming Hysteria
Aerosol have less impact on cooling than claimed.
http://dailycaller.com/2015/03/31/scientists-say-new-study-is-a-death-blow-to-global-warming-hysteria/
“A new study out of Germany casts further doubt on the so-called global warming “consensus” by suggesting the atmosphere may be less sensitive to increases in carbon dioxide emissions than most scientists think.
“A study by scientists at Germany’s Max Planck Institute for Meteorology found that man-made aerosols had a much smaller cooling effect on the atmosphere during the 20th Century than was previously thought. Why is this big news? It means increases in carbon dioxide emissions likely cause less warming than most climate models suggest.”
What do aerosols have to do with anything? Well, aerosols are created from human activities like burning coal, driving cars or from fires. There are also natural aerosols like clouds and fog. Aerosols tend to reflect solar energy back into space, giving them a cooling effect that somewhat offsets warming from increased CO2 emissions”
FYI Catcracking:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/09/28/models-fail-land-versus-sea-surface-warming-rates/#comment-1432696
Reposted below regarding evidence of aerosol fudging of climate models, from DV Hoyt.:
[excerpt]
Meanwhile, back at the aerosols:
You may ask why the IPCC does NOT use the aerosol historic data in their models, but rather uses assumed values (different for each model and much different from the historic data) to fudge their models (Oops! I guess I gave away the answer – I should not have used the word “fudge”, I should have said “hindcast”).
.
[excerpt from]
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/09/15/one-step-forward-two-steps-back/#comment-1417805
Parties interested in the fabrication of aerosol data to force-hindcast climate models (in order for the models to force-fit the cooling from ~1940 to ~1975, in order to compensate for the models’ highly excessive estimates of ECS (sensitivity)) may find this 2006 conversation with D.V. Hoyt of interest:
http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=755
Douglas Hoyt, responding to Allan MacRae:
“July 22nd, 2006 at 5:37 am
Measurements of aerosols did not begin in the 1970s. There were measurements before then, but not so well organized. However, there were a number of pyrheliometric measurements made and it is possible to extract aerosol information from them by the method described in:
Hoyt, D. V., 1979. The apparent atmospheric transmission using the pyrheliometric ratioing techniques. Appl. Optics, 18, 2530-2531.
The pyrheliometric ratioing technique is very insensitive to any changes in calibration of the instruments and very sensitive to aerosol changes.
Here are three papers using the technique:
Hoyt, D. V. and C. Frohlich, 1983. Atmospheric transmission at Davos, Switzerland, 1909-1979. Climatic Change, 5, 61-72.
Hoyt, D. V., C. P. Turner, and R. D. Evans, 1980. Trends in atmospheric transmission at three locations in the United States from 1940 to 1977. Mon. Wea. Rev., 108, 1430-1439.
Hoyt, D. V., 1979. Pyrheliometric and circumsolar sky radiation measurements by the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory from 1923 to 1954. Tellus, 31, 217-229.
In none of these studies were any long-term trends found in aerosols, although volcanic events show up quite clearly. There are other studies from Belgium, Ireland, and Hawaii that reach the same conclusions. It is significant that Davos shows no trend whereas the IPCC models show it in the area where the greatest changes in aerosols were occurring.
There are earlier aerosol studies by Hand and in other in Monthly Weather Review going back to the 1880s and these studies also show no trends.
So when MacRae (#321) says: “I suspect that both the climate computer models and the input assumptions are not only inadequate, but in some cases key data is completely fabricated – for example, the alleged aerosol data that forces models to show cooling from ~1940 to ~1975. Isn’t it true that there was little or no quality aerosol data collected during 1940-1975, and the modelers simply invented data to force their models to history-match; then they claimed that their models actually reproduced past climate change quite well; and then they claimed they could therefore understand climate systems well enough to confidently predict future catastrophic warming?”, he close to the truth.”
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Douglas Hoyt:
July 22nd, 2006 at 10:37 am
MacRae:
Re #328 “Are you the same D.V. Hoyt who wrote the three referenced papers?”
Hoyt: Yes
.
MacRae: “Can you please briefly describe the pyrheliometric technique, and how the historic data samples are obtained?”
Hoyt:
“The technique uses pyrheliometers to look at the sun on clear days. Measurements are made at air mass 5, 4, 3, and 2. The ratios 4/5, 3/4, and 2/3 are found and averaged. The number gives a relative measure of atmospheric transmission and is insensitive to water vapor amount, ozone, solar extraterrestrial irradiance changes, etc. It is also insensitive to any changes in the calibration of the instruments. The ratioing minimizes the spurious responses leaving only the responses to aerosols.
I have data for about 30 locations worldwide going back to the turn of the century.
Preliminary analysis shows no trend anywhere, except maybe Japan.
There is no funding to do complete checks.”
Catcracking – I did not see your earlier post – thank you for your comments.
I agree with you. Your analysis suggests that Equilibrium Climate Sensitivity (ECS) is so low as to be insignificant.
The 9 months lag of CO2 after temperature also implies that ECS is so low as to be insignificant or even nonexistent.
There is no global warming crisis.
Best, Allan MacRae, P.Eng.
As a final note on this whole discussion:
Where is Dr. Salby?
WUWT is the forum to defend your theory with fellow skeptics and guest “warmers”.
His absence here is striking. The critiques Willis, others and I have are about his interpretation of data which are publicly available, thus no need to hide behind the data retention by his former employer…
I would like very much for Dr. Salby to publish his work, either here or elsewhere. It is also, as Ferdinand says, an excellent form to defend his theory. I invite Dr. Salby to come and let us know where we’ve misunderstood or misrepresented his work.
Thanks to all,
w.
I posted above:
1. “In 2008 I wrote that dCO2/dt varies ~contemporaneously with temperature and CO2 lags temperature by ~9 months.”
I suggest this is now accepted as fact, after receiving considerable opposition when published.
This does NOT necessarily mean that temperature is the primary driver of increasing atmospheric CO2. Other factors such as fossil fuel combustion and/or land use changes could dominate the ~2ppm annual increase in atmospheric CO2.
I also posted above:
2. “I did not reproduce Salby’s analysis that concludes that most (70%) of the atmospheric CO2 growth is natural. This question has been ably debated for years by Richard S Courtney and Ferdinand Engelbeen via Ferdinand’s Mass Balance Argument, and anyone can read their debate on wattsup.”
Point 2 is the critical unproven issue in Salby’s work, and while it is of great scientific interest, this issue is unnecessary to resolve the question of whether humanmade global warming is serious or dangerous. The important question for global warming is the magnitude of climate sensitivity to increasing atmospheric CO2 (ECS), and I suggest that there is convincing evidence is that ECS is below 1C and probably much less than 1C, and so there is no real global warming crisis. Two approaches are presented above to support the contention that ECS is very low.
Regards to all, Allan