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. 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
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
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?