Guest essay by Mike Jonas
Introduction
This article is the third in a series of four articles.
Part 1 of the series (Part 1) is here
Part 2 of the series (Part 2) is here
In Part 1, simple mathematical formulae were developed to emulate the carbon dioxide (CO2.) contribution to global temperature change, as represented in the computer climate models.
In Part 2, the formulae were used to have a look at the Medieval Warming Period (MWP) and Little Ice Age (LIA).
Part 3 uses the formulae to have a look at the longer term – at the period used to great effect by Al Gore in his film An Inconvenient Truth.
Note : This article does not say anything new, or claim to find any new results. It has all been said many times before. But by using simple formulae that emulate the internal workings of the computer climate models, it allows the CO2 and non-CO2 components of global temperature change to be quantified using a spreadsheet [4] instead of a sophisticated climate model.
Please note : In this article, all temperatures referred to are deg C anomalies unless otherwise stated.
The data
In An Inconvenient Truth, Al Gore showed graphs of temperature and CO2 for the last 400,000 years. The data is available from studies of ice cores at Vostok in Antarctica [1] [2], and it looks like this:
Al Gore presented the graphs of temperature and CO2 separately, but the correlation between temperature and CO2 is perhaps easier to see if they are presented in a single graph, as in Figure 1.
There is a well-known connection between temperature and CO2 : as temperature rises, the oceans release CO2 into the atmosphere [3], thus a rising temperature causes rising levels of CO2. The result is clearly visible in Figure 1, with CO2 following some years after the temperature changes.
But what about the connection the other way, ie, CO2 warming the ocean? After referring to this time lag (“CO2 starts to rise about 800 years (600-1000 years) after Antarctic temperature”) RealClimate [3] puts it this way :
<blockquote>All that the lag shows is that CO2 did not cause the first 800 years of warming, out of the 5000 year trend. The other 4200 years of warming could in fact have been caused by CO2, as far as we can tell from this ice core data.
The 4200 years of warming make up about 5/6 of the total warming. So CO2 could have caused the last 5/6 of the warming, but could not have caused the first 1/6 of the warming.</blockquote>
Well, the formulae established in Part 1 can be used to test this idea.
The calculation
Applying the formulae established in Part 1 to the Vostok data gives the following picture of the CO2 and non-CO2 contributions to global temperature :
Before discussing this picture, some caveats are needed:
· The temperature range in Figure 2 is much greater than the temperature range used to establish the formulae. This makes the formulae unreliable over the period in Figure 2, as addressed in the following dot points.
· The basic formulae used, namely
Rcy = 5.35 * ln(Cy/C0) – j * ((T0+Tcy-1)^4 – T0^4)
δTcy = k * Rcy
(see Part 1) make no reference to the ice-free ocean area, but it is implicitly built in.
· As the temperature falls and sea ice area increases, the oceans’ influence on global temperature decreases, so CO2’s influence decreases too. (Extreme example : at 100% sea ice, ECS is zero). This means that CO2’s influence will in practice be less than as shown in Figure 2. Equilibrium climate sensitivity (ECS) will be lower at lower temperatures and the time taken to reach equilibrium will be longer.
· Similarly, at higher temperatures than today’s ECS will be higher, but since the average area of sea-ice is currently only a small proportion of the ocean surface (20m in 360m sq km) the increase in ECS would be very small.
· What the factors are that cause these major temperature changes is unimportant. The distinction in Figure 2 is between CO2 and non-CO2. All of the CO2 feedbacks claimed by the IPCC are built into the formulae and are accounted for fully in Figure 2. All the rest of the temperature change is non-CO2 regardless of the actual mechanisms, and regardless of whether those mechanisms are built into the computer climate models.
· At the low temperatures, it is possible that the CO2 feedbacks change too. Whether they increase or decrease is not known, but given that the oceans’ influence is lower at the low temperatures, and given that the feedbacks apply to radiative forcing (not just CO2 radiative forcing) and that non-CO2 radiative forcings must have been operating to produce the low temperatures in the first place, it is reasonable to assume that CO2’s overall contribution, including the feedbacks, is actually lower than as shown in Figure 2.
Now, looking at Figure 2, it is clear that CO2 has little influence on global temperature over this longer timescale. Note also that from about -130,000 to -100,000 CO2’s contribution remains at around its highest level while temperature falls more than 8 degrees. Similarly from about -400,000 to -350,000. In all of the major temperature increases, CO2 contributes no more than about 1/6 of the temperature increase.
In Part 2, there was some room for doubt about whether the Medieval Warm Period (MWP) was global, and attention was drawn to the accusation that climate scientists had tried to get rid of the MWP. With the very high publicity given to An Inconvenient Truth, and with the high reputation of the Vostok data (at least to the kind of accuracy needed here), it seems unlikely that anyone will attempt to “get rid of” the temperature and CO2 changes in the Vostok data. Even getting rid of the 800-year time lag of CO2 behind temperature would make no noticeable difference to Figure 2.
Conclusion
The picture of global temperature and its drivers as presented by the IPCC and the computer climate models is one in which CO2 has been the dominant factor since the start of the industrial age and other factors have had minimal impact. In order to support this picture, the IPCC has sought to portray CO2 as having been an important driver of global temperature in the past.
The idea that CO2 has been an important driver of global temperature over the last 400,000 years is not supported by the evidence.
The idea that CO2 has been the dominant driver of global temperature over the last 400,000 years is laughable.
Footnote
It is important to recognise that the formulae used here represent the internal workings of the climate models. There is no “climate denial” here, because the whole series of articles is based on the premise that the climate computer models are correct, using the mid-range ECS of 3.2.
Mike Jonas (MA Maths Oxford UK) retired some years ago after nearly 40 years in I.T.
References
[1] Historical Isotopic Temperature Record from the Vostok Ice Core
Jouzel, J., C. Lorius, J.R. Petit, C. Genthon, N.I. Barkov, V.M. Kotlyakov, and V.M. Petrov. 1987.Vostok ice core: a continuous isotope temperature record over the last climatic cycle (160,000 years). Nature 329:403-8.
Jouzel, J., N.I. Barkov, J.M. Barnola, M. Bender, J. Chappellaz, C. Genthon, V.M. Kotlyakov, V. Lipenkov, C. Lorius, J.R. Petit, D. Raynaud, G. Raisbeck, C. Ritz, T. Sowers, M. Stievenard, F. Yiou, and P. Yiou. 1993. Extending the Vostok ice-core record of palaeoclimate to the penultimate glacial period. Nature 364:407-12.
Jouzel, J., C. Waelbroeck, B. Malaize, M. Bender, J.R. Petit, M. Stievenard, N.I. Barkov, J.M. Barnola, T. King, V.M. Kotlyakov, V. Lipenkov, C. Lorius, D. Raynaud, C. Ritz, and T. Sowers. 1996. Climatic interpretation of the recently extended Vostok ice records. Climate Dynamics 12:513-521.
Petit, J.R., J. Jouzel, D. Raynaud, N.I. Barkov, J.-M. Barnola, I. Basile, M. Bender, J. Chappellaz, M. Davis, G. Delayque, M. Delmotte, V.M. Kotlyakov, M. Legrand, V.Y. Lipenkov, C. Lorius,
L. Pepin, C. Ritz, E. Saltzman, and M. Stievenard. 1999. Climate and atmospheric history of the past 420,000 years from the Vostok ice core, Antarctica. Nature 399: 429-436.
[2] Historical CO2 Record from the Vostok Ice Core
J.M. Barnola, D. Raynaud, C. Lorius.Laboratoire de Glaciologie et de Geophysique de l’Environnement 38402 Saint Martin d’Heres Cedex, France N. I. Barkov, Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute Beringa Street 38 St. Petersburg 199226, Russia January 2003
ftp://cdiac.ornl.gov/pub/trends/co2/vostok.icecore.co2
[3] RealClimate What does the lag of CO2 behind temperature in ice cores tell us about global warming? http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2004/12/co2-in-ice-cores/
[4] Spreadsheet “Part3” with all data and workings – here.
Abbreviations
AR4 – (Fourth IPCC report)
AR5 – (Fifth IPCC report)
CO2 – Carbon Dioxide
CWIS – CO2 warming already in the system
ECS – Equilibrium Climate Sensitivity
IPCC – Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
IR – Infra-red (Radiation)
LIA – Little Ice Age
MWP – Medieval Warming Period
SKS – Skeptical Science (skepticalscience.com)
WRI – World Resources Institute
If you let your opponent choose all the rules, and he still fails, then his defeat will be complete. IMV, that is what MJ is doing here.
+100
Mike,
Nice series!
You may have seen my comment at RealClimate, already from 2004, where I react on the article for the “help” that CO2 offers in the warming (or cooling). The in-line response says that the lag of CO2 at the onset of a new glaciation was “solved” by Jouzel e.a. but that isn’t true: while the temperature proxy remains higher over a longer time, the temperature is already at a new minimum (and the ice sheets at a new maximum) before CO2 levels start to drop at the end of the previous interglacial some 110,000 years ago. The effect of the following 40 ppmv drop of CO2 is not measurable in the temperature or ice sheet formation. See:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/eemian.html
Has anybody considered the statistical thermodynamics approach? Only one molecule in 2,500 in air is CO2. This is insignificant in terms of energizing the other 2,499 molecules.
Mike Jonas, you write
While I am sceptical of the reported high sensitivity for CO2, I do feel you are misrepresenting the position of the AGW crowd.
No-one is saying that CO2 has been the dominant driver over the past 400,000 years. Several years ago James Hansen produced estimates of ice age forcings. Albedo changes were clearly the main forcing. The contribution from CO2 was about -2.6 w/m2. This is consistent with your graph which shows warming of just less than 2 deg C (about right for IPCC sensitivity). It also agrees reasonably well with the Myhre et al formula, i.e. 5.35 x ln(280/180) – assuming a fall in CO2 of ~100ppm.
Secondly the global average temperature during the LGM is reckoned to be about 5 to 6 degrees below . In your Fig 2, you are comparing the CO2 global average contribution with the temperature changes in a specific region which has probably experienced polar amplification.
A lot of WUWT posters make the mistake of believing they’ve unearthed something that the AGW scientists have missed. They are usually wrong. The LGM is actually a tricky area for sceptics. It’s hard to argue for low climate sensitivity when the temperature shifts are so dramatic.
“
Joe Finn, I took, “The idea that CO2 has been the dominant driver of global temperature over the last 400,000 years is laughable. ”
to mean the inclusion of feedbacks. ECS.
Al Gore was clearly promoting the idea that CO2 was the dominant driver of climate. RealClimate.org actively promotes the idea too “CO2 could have caused the last 5/6 of the warming, but could not have caused the first 1/6 of the warming“. The idea is all-pervasive. And in Part 4 I cite two papers that explicitly promote the idea.
re “the temperature changes in a specific region” : The CO2 concentrations at Vostok show clearly that the oceans were experiencing a similar pattern of temperature. ie, the temperature pattern is indeed global. Was there polar amplification? The documentation here is dominated by the Arctic, with amplification from albedo change, but there is plenty of indication that there is little or no Antarctic amplification. eg. http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/04/24/tisdale-on-polar-amplification/ “Polar amplification is the greater temperature increases in the Arctic compared to the earth as a whole as a result of the effect of feedbacks and other processes. It is not observed in the Antarctic, largely because the Southern Ocean acts as a heat sink and the lack of seasonal snow cover. It is common to see it stated that “Climate models generally predict amplified warming in polar regions”, e.g. Doran et al.. However, climate models predict amplified warming for the Arctic but only modest warming for Antarctica.“. http://www.colorado.edu/geography/class_homepages/geog_4271_f10/presentations/Arctic_Warming_GEOG5271.pdf “If the global surface temperature is changed [] The albedo of the Antarctic polar area will not be affected [] The albedo of the Arctic polar area is easily affected“.[my emphasis]
Al Gore is (or was) a politician. His opinion is irrelevant.
Bingo!!! Mike Jonas, focus on the warming of the oceans, that is the smoking gun.
The oceans are that one experiment. Think in terms of a delta X causes Delta Y. The delta in CO2 simply doesn’t change much in the absorption of energy. That amount is 3.2W/^2. Is it reasonable to think 3.2W/M^ can trigger a hurricane? Extreme weather? Warm the oceans? No way in hell.
3.2W/M^2 is if CO2 reaches 560 ppm, but even so, 3.2/290 = 1%, or 11 BTUs. Can a difference of 11 BTUs warm the oceans? That is the question. Also, IR at 13µ to 18µ won’t warm H2O. I don’t think the models pick up the different physical qualities of these gasses.
Anyway, this whole AGW boils down to can a change in 3.2W/M^2 cause climate change and the warming of the oceans and atmosphere? Here is a hint, CO2 used to be 7,000 ppm and life thrived and temperatures never got above 22°C. Climate “scientists” are simply barking up the wrong tree.
David, I was unable to find the link. Please re-post it. I already knew CO2 won’t warm water, but a supporting document would help me make my case. Thanks.
I do not know why it is in moderation Link here repeated… CO2, and Mike J if you are interested, regarding LWIR heating of oceans, here are some experiments that were done…
https://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2015/07/30/the-atmosphere-why-the-dispute-over-what-causes-what-is/comment-page-1/#comment-104682
The experiment and the authors comments…
http://oi42.tinypic.com/2h6rsoz.jpg
To run –
fill both containers under the strong and weak LWIR sources with 40C water and observe their cooling rate. Both water samples cool at the same rate.
Next, repeat but put a couple of drops of baby oil on the surface of each sample to block evaporative cooling. Now the sample under the strong LWIR source cools slower. You should find at least 5C difference in 30 min.
Water does absorb incident LWIR, but it does so within the first 100 microns, well within the skin evaporation layer. While LWIR can add energy to slower water molecules, it can trip faster molecules into evaporation faster than they otherwise would. This means incident LWIR has little effect on water free to evaporatively cool.
This raises the question – If DWLWIR is not raising ocean temperatures above theoretical blackbody temperature of 255K for an average of 240 w/m2 solar irradiation, then what is? The answer is simply that the oceans are nowhere near a near black body.
As to what makes water so different to a near black body, there are two factors.
The first is that hemispherical LWIR emissivity is lower than SW absorptivity. This alone would allow an average of 240 w/m2 of solar SW to drive the oceans to 276K. (Still below the current 288K average).
The second and far more important factor is that water is SW translucent and LWIR opaque. The S-B equation simply cannot be used to determine temperature response to SW illumination of such a material. The reason is the S-B equation essentially treats all materials as opaque. The following two experiments show why –
http://oi61.tinypic.com/or5rv9.jpg
http://oi62.tinypic.com/zn7a4y.jpg
The first is the most dramatic. Both block have equal ability to absorb SW and emit LWIR. The only difference is that block A absorbs SW at depth and block B absorbs SW near the surface. To run –
First illuminate both block for around 3 hours with 1000 w/m2 of LWIR,. Both blocks heat to around 80C with the same internal temperature profile.
Next re-run the experiment with 1000 w/m2 of SW. Block B will heat as before, however Block A will now run around 20C hotter. The reason is that SW is absorbed at the surface of block B and some energy radiates away before it conducts into the block. For Block A, all SW is absorbed within the block, and must slowly conduct back to the surface before it can be shed as LWIR. This allows greater energy accumulation and higher temperature.
The is a radiative greenhouse effect raising surface temperatures, but it is in the oceans, not the atmosphere.
It is from experiments like these that you can derive five rules for SW heating of SW translucent / LWIR opaque materials –
http://oi59.tinypic.com/10pdqur.jpg
Do you have any reference for any peer-reviewed paper that reports this experiment?
Apart from completely misunderstanding what the Stephan-Boltzmann equation refers to, it seems to be a load of nonsense.
Please explain my misunderstanding. There is a quantifiable amount of energy contained within the 13µ and 18µ IR band, CO2’s contribution to warming is that band. The change in its contribution is the increased W/M^2 due to CO2 increasing from 260 to 400 ppm. Is that energy, radiated at 13µ and 18µ enough to warm the vast oceans? That is pretty simple. The fact that I can’t point to any “peer reviewed” research simply proves that the climate “scientist” haven’t even begun to answer the most basic questions for a “settled” science. But please, tell me where I went wrong, and provide the “peer reviewed” researching proving that this issue has been studied, addressed and a conclusion reached other than the one I have reached. I’ll all ears.
That makes my case even more. IR doesn’t penetrate the oceans to warm anything in the oceans. Oceans are blue because they transmit blue light. Blue light is extremely high energy light. Blue light can reach the the floor of shallow lakes, sea, rivers and oceans resulting in them warming. Rivers running over warmed rocks flow into oceans and lakes. Once again, plenty of warming, but none of it due to CO2. BTW, run the above experiment focused on the 13µ to 18µ wavelengths. My bet you won’t measure any temperature change at all, even with the oil. Use temperature 193°C not 288°C. No one challenges the GHG effect, the question is can the warming be blamed on CO2. To to that you have to isolate the impact of the 13µ to 18µ wavelengths.
Mike B
August 1, 2015 at 6:26 am
Do you have any reference for any peer-reviewed paper that reports this experiment?
Apart from completely misunderstanding what the Stephan-Boltzmann equation refers to, it seems to be a load of nonsense.
========================================
Do you have trouble with calling the oceans ability to absorb SW insolation a liquid GHE? How is there a complete misunderstanding of what the Stephan-Boltzmann equation refers to?
Here is the question that must be answered:
The oceans contain 352,670,000,000,000,000,000 gallons. A doubling of CO2 absorbs an additional 3.2W/M^2. The oceans have increased in temperature about 1°C since 1920.
http://www.rapid.ac.uk/rw/images/diagrams/n16_1_temp_anomaly_plot.png
The ocean heat content has increased 25×10^22 Joules since 1960. (360 joules/hr = 1W)
http://www.rapidtables.com/calc/electric/Joule_to_Watt_Calculator.htm
Simply put, does 3.2W/M^2 applied 12/hr each 24/hr since 1960 sum to 25×10^22 Joules? Can that amount of heat increase the oceans by about 0.6°C since 1960?
http://www.realclimate.org/images//heat_content2000m.png
co2islife says:
The greenhouse effect doesn’t stop anytime, so 24 hrs/day.
It is totally overwhelmed by the incoming visible light during the day. Any warming during the day is due to direct sunlight of the visible spectrum. @300°K the radiation of the earth is 460 W/M^2, the IR due to CO2 is a black body of temp 192°K is 77W/M^2. The incoming visible light has a temperature of around 5000 degrees and has a wavelength of 0.5µ the metrics are as follows:
Blackbody Temperature T 5000°K
Peak Wavelength µm 0.5µ
Integrated Radiation Intensity W/m2 35,440,000 or 3.5×10^7
The irradiation of the earth makes the ratio of the earth meaningless during the day. Either way, use 24 hrs/day, the numbers still won’t add up. It takes vast amounts of visible light to warm the oceans. No way in hell is CO2 warming the oceans.
BTW, Warmist claim that anthropogenic CO2 has a residence life of 200 or more years, and that man’s contribution is “cumulative.”
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/blog/2010/apr/21/iceland-volcano-climate-sceptics
If that is the case, Volcanos have been producing CO2 long before man. Why weren’t [their] “emissions” cumulative?
The more you look into the claims of the warmists, the more nonsensical they become.
co2islife,
Volcanoes are estimated at about 1% of current human CO2 emissions, based on several studies of CO2 vents around new and old volcanic fields.
Even the largest volcanic event in the past decades, the 1991/1992 Pinatubo, is not visible in the CO2 rate of change (which even drops after the event…).
The point is that the equilibrium between temperature, oceans and vegetation in the carbon cycle can easily cope with small disturbances like volcanic events, but not with the continuous emissions from humans. For the current CO2 level in the atmosphere, 110 ppmv above steady state for the current ocean surface temperature, the net sink rate is ~2,15 ppmv/year, while humans emit ~4.5 ppmv/year…
It drops significantly. Some might even say anomolously given current thinking 🙂
Not once in any of these mathematical expositions have the basic quantum mechanical equations that govern the absorption and emission of energy by CO2 been invoked. These are found in any textbook related to the quantum theory of light.
Without using these equations, which accurately incorporate differences in absorption and emission based on temperature differentials and pressure differentials, it is impossible to have an accurate picture of how CO2 effects the atmospheric and terrestrial energy balance.
Gavin Schmdit refers to the work of Plass in the 1950’s. However, Plass’s work was shown to be in error by Kaplan, over stating the effect of CO2 by at least a factor of two then.
It would be nice to see a discussion based upon the fundamental physics involved.
Very very true, climate scientists clearly don’t understand that the radiative transfer equations that apply to true blackbodies (Kirchhoff, Planck, Stefan-Boltzmann laws) do not apply to the molecular line-emitter CO2 (and H2O). The “most influential climate paper of all time” by Manabe et al in 1967 made numerous physically wrong false assumptions, including that CO2 is a blackbody that can have an unlimited emitting temperature for radiation, and shows in his model CO2 emitting temperatures of ~15um LWIR of up to 300K. This is physically impossible, as the emitting temperature of a perfect emitter true blackbody with peak emission at 15um is fixed at 193K regardless of the kinetic temperature at a given geopotential height, besides the fact that CO2 is far less than a true blackbody since it is a line emitter/absorber without a Planck curve and its emissivity < 1 & decreases with temperature.
These same false assumptions were repeated by Hansen in the GISS model and continue in today's current climate models.
One Volcano can produce 55 to 110 million tonnes of CO2 a year. That is 0.3% of what man produces. There are 550 known active volcanoes that we know about. That means Volcanoes can easily produce more CO2 than man, and once again, Volcanoes have been continually producing CO2 for billions of years.
http://www.geology.sdsu.edu/how_volcanoes_work/Volcano_tectonic.html
http://carbon-budget.geologist-1011.net/
co2islife,
The CO2 emissions of (near) erupting volcanoes are many times higher than after the eruption or when dormant. Thus extrapolating one erupting volcanoes to all (dormant) volcanoes is nonsense. Lavafields around mount Etna, one of the most active volcanoes in the world were (and are?) monitored for CO2 emissions, which show that there is a fast decline 2-3 years after an eruption.
There is a clear difference between volcanic and human CO2 in the 13C/12C ratio. Quite strange that a geologist doesn’t know that…
Want to extrapolate 150 years of mans CO2 vs Volcanoes having done it for BILLIONS of years? Volcanoes have been spewing CO2 for BILLIONS of years. Man for 150 years. Trust me, even at 10% per year of Man’s production, extrapolating billions vs 150 years pretty much makes man irrelevant.
Beginning to understand why warmist’s claims about the residence life of CO2 like the following are idiotic:
“This turnover takes 500-1000ish years. Therefore a time scale for CO2 warming potential out as far as 500 years is entirely reasonable ”
https://www.skepticalscience.com/co2-residence-time.htm
“Several long-term climate models, though their details differ, all agree that anthropogenic CO2 takes an enormously long time to dissipate. If all recoverable fossil fuels were burnt up using today’s technologies, after 1,000 years the air would still hold around a third to a half of the CO2 emissions. “For practical purposes, 500 to 1000 years is ‘forever,'””
http://www.nature.com/climate/2008/0812/full/climate.2008.122.html
Apply that process and include Volcanoes and you quickly understand how myopic and blinded by ideology these climate “scientists” are. Even at 10%, the continual production of volcanoes over billions of years would have us having a 100% CO2 atmosphere. In reality we have been de-gassing CO2 for millions of years. CO2 doesn’t accumulate in the atmosphere, is has been falling from over 7000ppm over the last 600 million years.
co2islife,
I never said or did agree with the long removal rates of CO2 as assumed by the IPCC, which are based on the Bern model.
The e-fold decay of any excess CO2 (volcanoes, humans, forest fires,…) is slightly over 50 years as the current sink rate shows, which gives a half life time of ~40 years. There is no sign of saturation of the sinks as assumed in the Bern model.
Thus a volcanic eruption which is overblown at 10% of human emissions (1 GtC) would increase the CO2 of the atmosphere with 0.5 ppmv in the year of the eruption. After the eruption, that will decline to 0.25 ppmv after 40 years, 0.125 ppmv after 80 years,…
If there were random volcanic eruptions around the world which in average represent 0.5 ppmv/year continuous volcanic CO2 addition, that would increase the CO2 content until an equilibrium is reached by the removal rate caused by the increase in the atmosphere and the continuous addition.
The current removal rate is 2.15 ppmv / 110 ppmv above steady state, or a removal factor of 0.02.
To get rid of 2 ppmv /year (the continuous contribution of volcanoes), the increase in the atmosphere should be 2 / 0.02 = 100 ppmv above the steady state for the current temperature, or around 390 ppmv. But as we see no decline in the increase in the atmosphere, there is no equilibrium between contribution and sink rate in sight…
If we do the same exercise with a more realistic estimate for the volcanic contribution at 1% of human emissions, or average 0.05 ppmv/year continuous addition, that needs some 10 ppmv extra CO2 pressure in the atmosphere to get rid of all volcanic CO2 over the past millions of years, at the condition that the oceans don’t get saturated…
The only way to have big increases of CO2 in the atmosphere due to volcanic eruptions is either by blocking the (ocean and terrestrial) sinks, as was possibly the case during “snow ball earth” or lots of volcanoes erupting at the same time during centuries, as was possibly the case during the eruption of the Deccan traps…
Wrong, see the comments above. A single Volcano can produce 0.3% of man’s annual CO2 production. You are simply wrong on that issue, but the very fact that you wouldn’t question such an obviously flawed metric highlights how believers simply believe, they don’t question. OBEY!!! Don’t think for yourself. Let others do that for you. Be a good climate change disciple.
co2islife,
A single erupting volcano can temporarily produce 0.3% of man’s CO2 momentary production (not yearly!). Non-erupting volcanoes produce much less.
And don’t try to insult me, I have the habit to question everybody and everything, no matter who says it and what is said. I have the impression that I may return the favor: you simply cut and paste comments from others which you like, without critical thinking about what is said…
“Out of an estimated 1,500 active volcanoes around the world, 50 or so erupt every year, spewing steam, ash, toxic gases, and lava. ”
It is estimated that there are millions of volcanoes worldwide, and most aren’t even known and are underseas. There are simply no good estimates for how much CO2 is truly produced by Volcanoes. A very very odd fact given the “settled” nature of this “science.”
co2islife,
Please, there are very few volcanoes which are spewing lava and lots of CO2 continuously over a full year. Most eruptions cease after days, weeks and few after months.
50 erupt every year, thus maybe at any day of the year one or two volcanoes are erupting. That is 0.5% of human emissions continuously. The rest of the volcanoes emit all together also 0.5% of human emissions or 2% or 5%.
Does it matter? Not at all: volcanic eruptions, even clusters of volcanic eruptions are not visible in the temperature record (see the articles of Willis Eschenbach on that topic), neither in the CO2 record (current and ice cores). Further, there is not the slightest sign of a sudden increase in volcanic activity since 1850 which could explain the 110 ppmv increase…
Mike: You are making the mistake of assuming that mean global temperature changes as much as the temperature at Vostok. This isn’t true. The change in MGST associated with ice ages is believed to be around 5 degC, less in the tropics and far more in polar regions. That data comes from sediment cores in the oceans which contain shells of organisms living near the surface (and others living near the bottom). These sediment cores can’t be dated as accurately as ice cores and don’t have annual resolution, but they are available from all oceans. CO2 rose about 40% as the last ice age ended which is half of a doubling (1.4^2 = 2). If ECS is 3.2, this would be 1.6 degC or about 1/3 of the warming.
That is a myth. Volcano CO2 and fossil fuel CO2 are indistinguishable. Mantle CO2 and Fossil fuels are both void of C14 and C13. Plants also prefer C12 over C13 so the “greening” of the N Hemi most likely alters that ratio, not burning Fossil Fuels.
http://carbon-budget.geologist-1011.net/
I forgot the link to this previous quote: BTW, the photos are worth a look.
Out of an estimated 1,500 active volcanoes around the world, 50 or so erupt every year, spewing steam, ash, toxic gases, and lava.
http://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2011/12/the-year-in-volcanic-activity/100209/
The date on Volcanoes is basically non-existent, and yet this “science” is settled. What a joke.
co2islife,
You are parroting nonsense from a “geologist” who doesn’t know where he is talking about.
Deep magma δ13C is between -4 and -7 per mil, while subduction δ13C is around zero per mil.
Atmosphere is at -8 per mil
Human emissions are around -24 per mil.
Thus please go out on the Internet and look yourself for the isotopic composition of volcanic CO2 that is even remotely near what humans emit. That doesn’t exist, as that can’t exist. All low δ13C carbon is organic, all inorganic carbon has a high δ13C level. That includes the oceans, carbonate rocks, etc…
The only exception may be CH4 which can be formed inorganic and still may have a low δ13C level.
Here some hints:
http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00445-010-0423-2?no-access=true
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0883292794900590
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2014GL059722/pdf
Plants also prefer C12 over C13 so the “greening” of the N Hemi most likely alters that ratio, not burning Fossil Fuels.
Which shows that you have no idea what that means: Plants prefer 12CO2 above 13CO2. As the earth is greening, plants take ~1 GtC more in than there is plant decay or burning or eating. That means that more 12CO2 is taken away than 13CO2 and thus the remaining CO2 is enriched in 13CO2. Thus the biosphere is NOT the cause of the firm decline of δ13C in the atmosphere since 1850, neither are the oceans (which are too high in δ13C) neither are volcanoes (same reason):
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/sponges.jpg
The volcanic emissions were discussed at WUWT here:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/11/16/another-known-unknown-volcanic-outgassing-of-co2/
with lots of comments, including from Willis and me.
And a nice explanation why volcanoes are peanuts compared to human emissions in EOS:
http://www.readbag.com/agu-pubs-pdf-2011eo240001
Given the more than 3 million volcanoes worldwide
Most of that number (if it is true at all) are underwater volcanoes, which CO2 releases mostly dissolve in the mass of deep seawater and stays there for centuries to millennia…
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/01/28/spencer-pt2-more-co2-peculiarities-the-c13c12-isotope-ratio/
C14 is also continually being created by cosmic rays and has a half life of about 5,500 years. Volcanoes turn materials millions of years old into CO2, so I doubt there will be much C13 or C14 in it. Care to explain how there could be C13 and C14 deep in the earth?
co2islife,
Volcanic and fossil CO2 is completely void of 14C, thus 14C can’t be used to make a differentiation between the two.
13C is a stable isotope and doesn’t change in billions of years, thus the 13C/12C ratio can be used to determine the source, if the differences are large enough.
In the case of volcanoes: either from subduction, thus mostly from melting seafloor carbonate sediments which are around zero per mil or from deep magma CO2 which is somewhat lower (worst case around the atmospheric δ13C of -8 per mil).
Deep magma CO2 is made from carbon probably already present from the original molten earth, its 13C/12C ratio is determined by the origins of the materials which formed the earth.
The atmospheric δ13C was -6.4 +/- 0.2 per mil over the whole Holocene (ice cores) until ~160 years ago. Since then it dropped to below -8 per mil, in complete ratio to human emissions over the same time span. Volcanoes can’t do that, as their δ13C is equal to or (much) higher than δ13C in the atmosphere.
Human CO2 is far lower (~ -24 per mil) in δ13C than both volcanic CO2 and atmospheric CO2. The only other source of low 13C is recent organics from e.g. decaying leaves, or methane seeps (which may be partially inorganic formed).
The latter is elevated in the atmosphere, put that is human caused, thus only add to the human caused δ13C decline.
The former is not the cause, as the biosphere as a whole is a net sink for CO2, thus INcreasing the δ13C level, while we see a firm DEcrease…
And if you cite an article in WUWT, also read the interesting discussions below the article, a few of mine here:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/01/28/spencer-pt2-more-co2-peculiarities-the-c13c12-isotope-ratio/#comment-4742 and
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/01/28/spencer-pt2-more-co2-peculiarities-the-c13c12-isotope-ratio/#comment-4756
Ferdinand Engelbeen how come when someone “parrots” with verifiable facts, you ignore and repeat the same nonsense again. Much of your material has no source(s).
The facts remain, the horse has the cart firmly behind it. CO2 smoothed & variance + RSS, smoothed. Shows C02 variances are temperature affected. The Stratosphere is unaffected except at the poles, even the though melt occurs from the sea.
http://woodfortrees.org/plot/rss/from:1996.84/mean:12/plot/esrl-co2/from:1996.84/isolate:30/mean:12/plot/esrl-co2/from:1996.84/mean:12/normalise
That CO2 is a cooling gas from the stratosphere and up. That Earth is slowly turning into an ice ball from atmospheric losses and plants don’t give a monkeys cuss what isotope of CO2 it is. This has already been blown totally out of the water. I’m amazed someone is still parroting it.
CO2 resonances go both ways. Its also a cooling gas when cold (reversing the GW effect) and at altitude it freely allows the molecules to burn off (resonate) their excess energy. We may be experiencing an increase in pressure to account for the minuscule incidental warming. (H/T to you, hockey schtick)
http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.co.uk/2014/08/why-does-co2-cool-stratosphere-warm.html
This blog post off Anthony? Hmmmm, I dunno.
Andij,
If someone cites what a “geologist” (that is relying on authority?) says about the fact that volcanic CO2 can’t be distinguished from human CO2 and I provide four links (found in a few minutes on the Internet) to field measurements which show that there are huge differences in 13C/12C ratio, who then is right?
C02 variances are temperature affected
I fully agree. That is true on all time scales: 800,000 years glacial – interglacial transitions and MWP-LIA transition in ice cores and the year-by-year variability in the current direct measurements.
The net effect is ~5 ppmv/K seasonal, 4-5 ppmv/K year by year, and up to 16 ppmv/K over the millennia.
That is NOT true for the 110 ppmv increase over the past 165 years, of which 70 ppmv since the measurements at South Pole and Mauna Loa started. Temperature can’t give over 100 ppmv/K increase, that is far beyond Henry’s law for the solubility of CO2 in seawater.
What you have plotted is the variability around the trend, which is not more than +/- 1 ppmv and certainly caused by temperature variability (and its impact on vegetation as origin), while the trend itself is over 70 ppmv (and not from vegetation as origin: that is a net sink for CO2) since 1959…
I am not a specialist in radiation, so seldom comment on that topic, but I know where I am talking about if it is about the cause of the current increase of CO2: that is human, certainly not the oceans, not the biosphere and not volcanoes.
What effect the increase has on temperature/climate is an entirely different question…
Reblogged this on Climate Collections and commented:
Part 3
Executive Summary:
Conclusion
The picture of global temperature and its drivers as presented by the IPCC and the computer climate models is one in which CO2 has been the dominant factor since the start of the industrial age and other factors have had minimal impact. In order to support this picture, the IPCC has sought to portray CO2 as having been an important driver of global temperature in the past.
The idea that CO2 has been an important driver of global temperature over the last 400,000 years is not supported by the evidence.
The idea that CO2 has been the dominant driver of global temperature over the last 400,000 years is laughable.
Footnote
It is important to recognise that the formulae used here represent the internal workings of the climate models. There is no “climate denial” here, because the whole series of articles is based on the premise that the climate computer models are correct, using the mid-range ECS of 3.2.