Guest Opinion: Dr. Tim Ball –
[Note: Some parts of this essay rely on a series of air sample chemical analysis done by Georg Beck of CO2 at the surface. I consider the air samplings as having poor quality control, and not necessarily representative of global CO2 levels at those times and locations. While the methods of chemical analysis used by Beck might have been reasonably accurate, I believe the measurements suffer from a location bias, and in atmospheric conditions that were not well mixed, and should be taken with skepticism. I offer this article for discussion, but I don’t endorse the Beck data. – Anthony]
The failed predictions (projections) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) are proof that there is something seriously wrong with the science. A useful analogy of how to analyze what we are witnessing is that it is like coming upon a car wreck. What you see and what happened is hard to figure out. It takes a lot of measurements and deconstruction to reconstruct what happened. Deconstruction of the IPCC wreckage must begin with determining what they did prior to the crash and those actions involved creating conditions for a self-inflicted crash. I know some of this material is not new. I covered some of it myself. However, it is time to revisit because more people are aware of what is going on and are now on the crash scene.
IPCC and their proponents drew the map, built the roads, and designed the traffic signals, but they also designed, built and drove the car. They did not plan to crash and did everything to reach their destination. The problem developed because of the assumptions they made and the manipulation of the data needed to pre-meditate the result of the trip; a crash was inevitable.
What were the conditions they considered necessary to reach their destination? There are two distinct lists. The first is a list of the assumptions made for the scientific part of the AGW hypothesis. The second is a list of the starting conditions necessary for the political part of the AGW objective.
Scientific Assumptions
1. CO2 is a gas with effectively one-way properties that allows sunlight to enter the atmosphere but prevents heat from leaving. It supposedly functions like the glass in a greenhouse.
2. If atmospheric CO2 levels increase, the global temperature will increase.
3. Atmospheric levels of CO2 will increase because humans are adding more every year.
Political Assumptions
1. Global temperatures are the highest ever.
2. Global temperatures rose commensurate with the start of the Industrial Revolution.
3. CO2 levels are the highest ever.
4. CO2 levels were much lower before the Industrial Revolution.
5. CO2 levels continue to rise at a steady rate because of the annual contribution of humans.
Data Sources
Major objectives were to start with a low pre-industrial level of atmospheric CO2 and have a steady rise over the last 150 years. Data sources included the following
1. Bubbles extracted from ice cores, but primarily the Antarctic record.
2. Stomata are the pores on a leaf through which plants exchange gases with the atmosphere. The size varies with atmospheric levels of CO2.
3. Approximately 90,000 instrumental readings from the 19th century. Measurements began in 1812 as science determined the chemistry of the atmosphere.
4. Modern instrumental readings primarily centered on the Mauna Loa record begun in 1958 by Charles Keeling as part of the International Geophysical Year (IGY).
5. The recently launched NASA Orbiting Carbon Observatory OCO2 satellite with the first published data of CO2 concentration for October 1 to November 11, 2014.
6. IPCC estimates of human production of CO2, known currently as Representative Concentration Pathways (RCP).
The first question is what are the non-human sources and sinks of CO2. The answer is we don’t know. All we have are very crude estimates of some of them but no actual useable measures. Remember what the IPCC said in Box 2.1 Uncertainty in Observational Records.
The uncertainty in observational records encompasses instrumental/ recording errors, effects of representation (e.g., exposure, observing frequency or timing), as well as effects due to physical changes in the instrumentation (such as station relocations or new satellites). All further processing steps (transmission, storage, gridding, interpolating, averaging) also have their own particular uncertainties. Because there is no unique, unambiguous, way to identify and account for non-climatic artefacts (sic) in the vast majority of records, there must be a degree of uncertainty as to how the climate system has changed.
It is important to note that they identify one exception because it is important to their narrative, but also for recreating the IPCC wreck.
The only exceptions are certain atmospheric composition and flux measurements whose measurements and uncertainties are rigorously tied through an unbroken chain to internationally recognized absolute measurement standards (e.g., the CO2 record at Mauna Loa; Keeling et al., 1976a).
The IPCC provide a bizarre and confusing diagram (Figure 1) that is more about creating the base scenario for their narrative than it is about providing clarification.
Figure 1
I don’t normally include the legend of a graph or diagram but, in this case, it is informative. Not that it provides clarification, but because it illustrates how little is known and how important it is to direct the focus on human production of CO2 over the Industrial Revolution period. This is not surprising since that is the definition of climate change they received in Article 1 of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). If you drive like this, a crash is inevitable.
——————————-
Figure 6.1 | Simplified schematic of the global carbon cycle. Numbers represent reservoir mass, also called ‘carbon stocks’ in PgC (1 PgC = 1015 gC) and annual carbon exchange fluxes (in PgC yr–1). Black numbers and arrows indicate reservoir mass and exchange fluxes estimated for the time prior to the Industrial Era, about 1750 (see Section 6.1.1.1 for references). Fossil fuel reserves are from GEA (2006) and are consistent with numbers used by IPCC WGIII for future scenarios. The sediment storage is a sum of 150 PgC of the organic carbon in the mixed layer (Emerson and Hedges, 1988) and 1600 PgC of the deep-sea CaCO3 sediments available to neutralize fossil fuel CO2 (Archer et al., 1998). Red arrows and numbers indicate annual ‘anthropogenic’ fluxes averaged over the 2000–2009 time period. These fluxes are a perturbation of the carbon cycle during Industrial Era post 1750. These fluxes (red arrows) are: Fossil fuel and cement emissions of CO2 (Section 6.3.1), Net land use change (Section 6.3.2), and the Average atmospheric increase of CO2 in the atmosphere, also called ‘CO2 growth rate’ (Section 6.3). The uptake of anthropogenic CO2 by the ocean and by terrestrial ecosystems, often called ‘carbon sinks’ are the red arrows part of Net land flux and Net ocean flux. Red numbers in the reservoirs denote cumulative changes of anthropogenic carbon over the Industrial Period 1750–2011 (column 2 in Table 6.1). By convention, a positive cumulative change means that a reservoir has gained carbon since 1750. The cumulative change of anthropogenic carbon in the terrestrial reservoir is the sum of carbon cumulatively lost through land use change and carbon accumulated since 1750 in other ecosystems (Table 6.1). Note that the mass balance of the two ocean carbon stocks Surface ocean and Intermediate and deep ocean includes a yearly accumulation of anthropogenic carbon (not shown). Uncertainties are reported as 90% confidence intervals. Emission estimates and land and ocean sinks (in red) are from Table 6.1 in Section 6.3. The change of gross terrestrial fluxes (red arrows of Gross photosynthesis and Total respiration and fires) has been estimated from CMIP5 model results (Section 6.4). The change in air–sea exchange fluxes (red arrows of ocean atmosphere gas exchange) have been estimated from the difference in atmospheric partial pressure of CO2 since 1750 (Sarmiento and Gruber, 2006). Individual gross fluxes and their changes since the beginning of the Industrial Era have typical uncertainties of more than 20%, while their differences (Net land flux and Net ocean flux in the figure) are determined from independent measurements with a much higher accuracy (see Section 6.3). Therefore, to achieve an overall balance, the values of the more uncertain gross fluxes have been adjusted so that their difference matches the Net land flux and Net ocean flux estimates. Fluxes from volcanic eruptions, rock weathering (silicates and carbonates weathering reactions resulting into a small uptake of atmospheric CO2), export of carbon from soils to rivers, burial of carbon in freshwater lakes and reservoirs and transport of carbon by rivers to the ocean are all assumed to be pre-industrial fluxes, that is, unchanged during 1750–2011. Some recent studies (Section 6.3) indicate that this assumption is likely not verified, but global estimates of the Industrial Era perturbation of all these fluxes was not available from peer-reviewed literature. The atmospheric inventories have been calculated using a conversion factor of 2.12 PgC per ppm (Prather et al., 2012).
—————————-
This is likely one the most remarkable examples of scientific obfuscation in history. Every number used is a crude estimate. The commentary says we don’t know anything but are certain about human CO2 production in the Industrial Era. To my knowledge, there are no cohesive, comprehensive, measures of CO2 exchanges for most of the land surfaces covered by various forests, but especially the grasslands. The grasslands illustrate the problem, because, depending on the definition the extent varies from 15 to 40 percent. The important point is that we have little idea about volumes or how they change over time. A supposedly knowledgeable group, the American Chemical Society, provides confirmation of this point. Of course, we know how professional societies were co-opted to support the IPCC positions. In an article titled “Greenhouse Gas Sources and Sinks” they present a diagram from the IPCC (Figure 2).
Figure 2
The text says from the American Chemical Society, who presumably knows about atmospheric chemistry says,
The sources of the gases given in these brief summaries are the most important ones, but there are other minor sources as well. The details of the sinks (reactions) that remove the gases from the atmosphere are not included. The graphic for each gas (or class of gas) is from Figure 1, FAQ 7.1, IPCC, Assessment Report Four (2007), Chapter 7. Human-caused sources are shown in orange and natural sources and sinks in teal. Units are in grams (g) or metric tons (tonne: international symbol t = 103 kg = 106 g). Multiples used in the figures are: Gt (gigatonne) = 109 t = 1015 g; Tg (teragram) = 1012 g = 106 t; and Gg (gigagram) = 109 g = 103 t.
As a professional group surely they should know about the lack of knowledge about gases in the atmosphere, yet they promote the IPCC illusions as fact. There are few caveats or warnings of the scientific limitations that even the IPCC include as in Box 2.1
Creating A Smooth CO2 Curve
A major flaw of the hockey stick involved connecting a tree ring record, the handle, with an instrumental temperature record, the blade. It was done because the tree ring record declined and that contradicted their hypothesis and political agenda. Ironically, a major challenge in climatology is to produce a continuous record from data gathered from different sources. H.H. Lamb spends the first part of his epic work, Climate, Present, Past and Future (1977) discussing the problems. He also provides a graph showing the length of possible climate time scales and the overlap problem (Figure 3). There are three areas, the instrumental or secular, the historic, and the biological and geologic.
Figure 3
Data from different sources had to link to create the continuous smooth curve of CO2 from the pre-industrial levels through to the present. This involved three data sources, ice cores, 19th century instrumental readings and the Mauna Loa record. Figure 4 shows Ernst-Georg Beck’s reconstruction of the three sources. If you remove the 19th century data, it is another example of a ‘hockey stick’. The ice core data is the handle, from a single source, an Antarctic core. The blade is the Mauna Loa instrumental measure. As the 2001 IPCC Working Group I Report notes,
“The concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere has risen from close to 280 parts per million (ppm) in 1800, at first slowly and then progressively faster to a value of 367 ppm in 1999, echoing the increasing pace of global agricultural and industrial development. This is known from numerous, well-replicated measurements of the composition of air bubbles trapped in Antarctic ice. Atmospheric CO2 concentrations have been measured directly with high precision since 1957; these measurements agree with ice-core measurements, and show a continuation of the increasing trend up to the present.”
These measurements are not well replicated and have many serious limitations. Some of these include
1. It takes years for the bubble to be trapped in the ice. Which year does the final bubble represent?
2. As the ice gets thicker, it becomes impossible to determine the layers and, therefore, the relative dating sequence. Some say that at 2000 meters it requires 245 cm of ice to obtain a single sample, but under the compression and melding that represents one bubble for several thousand years.
3. Meltwater on the surface, which occurs every summer, moves down through the ice contaminating the bubbles. As Zbigniew Jaworowski said in his testimony to the US Senate,
“More than 20 physico-chemical processes, mostly related to the presence of liquid water, contribute to the alteration of the original chemical composition of the air inclusions in polar ice.”
4. A study by Christner (2002) titled “Detection, Recovery, Isolation and Characterization of Bacteria in Glacial Ice and Lake Vostok Accretion Ice.” Found bacteria were releasing gases at great depth even in 500,000-year old ice.
Figure 4
A deconstruction of these portions of the crash reveals how it was achieved.
Professor Zbigniew Jaworowski was attacked viciously during the latter years of his life because of his views on climate change and ice core data. Like all who are attacked it is a sure indication they are exposing the deliberate deceptions of the global warming political agenda. Here are Jaworowski’s credentials that accompanied his presentation to the US Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation.
“I am a Professor at the Central Laboratory for Radiological Protection (CLOR) in Warsaw, Poland, a governmental institution, involved in environmental studies. CLOR has a “Special Liaison” relationship with the US National Council on Radiological Protection and Measurements (NCRP). In the past, for about ten years, CLOR closely cooperated with the US Environmental Protection Agency, in research on the influence of industry and nuclear explosions on pollution of the global environment and population. I published about 280 scientific papers, among them about 20 on climatic problems. I am the representative of Poland in the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR), and in 1980 – 1982 I was the chairman of this Committee.
For the past 40 years I was involved in glacier studies, using snow and ice as a matrix for reconstruction of history of man-made pollution of the global atmosphere. A part of these studies was related to the climatic issues. Ice core records of CO2 have been widely used as a proof that, due to man’s activity the current atmospheric level of CO2 is about 25% higher than in the pre-industrial period. These records became the basic input parameters in the models of the global carbon cycle and a cornerstone of the man-made climatic warming hypothesis. These records do not represent the atmospheric reality, as I will try to demonstrate in my statement.”
There was nobody more qualified to comment on the ice core record and here is part of what he said to the Committee.
“The basis of most of the IPCC conclusions on anthropogenic causes and on projections of climatic change is the assumption of low level of CO2 in the pre-industrial atmosphere. This assumption, based on glaciological studies, is false.”
Of equal importance Jaworowski states,
The notion of low pre-industrial CO2 atmospheric level, based on such poor knowledge, became a widely accepted Holy Grail of climate warming models. The modelers ignored the evidence from direct measurements of CO2 in atmospheric air indicating that in 19th century its average concentration was 335 ppmv[11] (Figure 2). In Figure 2 encircled values show a biased selection of data used to demonstrate that in 19th century atmosphere the CO2 level was 292 ppmv[12]. A study of stomatal frequency in fossil leaves from Holocene lake deposits in Denmark, showing that 9400 years ago CO2 atmospheric level was 333 ppmv, and 9600 years ago 348 ppmv, falsify the concept of stabilized and low CO2 air concentration until the advent of industrial revolution [13].
Figure 5 shows the stomatal evidence of CO2 levels compared with the ice core data that Jaworowski referencs.
Figure 5
Apart from the higher overall average, notice the smoothness of the ice core curve partly achieved by a 70 year smoothing average, an action that removes large amounts of information, especially the variability, as the stomata record shows.
The other reference Jaworowski makes is to a graph (Figure 6) produced by British Steam Engineer and early supporter of AGW, Guy Stewart Callendar.
Figure 6 (Trend lines added by the author.)
The dots represent the measures of atmospheric CO2 taken during the 19th century by scientists using rigid methods and well-documented instrumentation. The objective of the measures, started in 1812, was not related to climate. It was to determine the constituent gases of the atmosphere. It continued the work of Joseph Priestly who, though not the first to discover oxygen, was the first with published reports (1774). Figure 6 shows the samples that Callendar selected (cherry picked) to claim a low pre-industrial level. Equally important, he changed the slope from a decreasing to increasing trend. Figure 4 shows the same 19th century data plotted against the ice core and Mauna Loa curves.
Disclaimer: Ernst-Georg Beck sent me his preliminary work on the data, and we often communicated until his untimely death. I warned him about the attacks but know they exceeded anything he expected. They continue today, even though his work was meticulous as his friend, Edgar Gartner, explained in his obituary.
“Due to his immense specialized knowledge and his methodical severity Ernst very promptly noticed numerous inconsistencies in the statements of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change IPCC. (Translation from the German)
The problem with Beck’s work was it identified why Callendar dealt with the data as he did. In the climate community, the threat was identified and dealt with by a 1983 paper “The pre-industrial carbon dioxide level” published by Tom Wigley, then Director of the Climatic Research Unit (CRU). I recall the impact because I ran graduate level seminars at the time on the significance of the paper.
Criticisms of the 19th century records are summarized with one comment; they were random. Yes, in most studies randomly sampling is more desirable and representative of the reality than pre-selected, pre-determined sampling at specific points and specific levels as is currently done. That only works if you assume the gas is well mixed. One criticism is that Beck’s record shows high levels around 1942 compared to the Antarctic record. This is likely because CO2 is not well mixed, as the OCO2 and other records record indicate, but also that most of the records were taken in Europe during the war. Besides, with the 70-year period required to enclose the Antarctic gas bubble that record would only be showing up in 2012. The truth is there are no accurate measures of CO2 in 1942 other than the ones Beck used.
Another criticism says the locations, including the height at which measurements were taken varied considerably. Of course, that’s the point. They were not narrowed and manipulated like the current Mauna Loa and similar records, so they only provide measures at a few points that essentially eliminate all natural influences. It is obvious from the preliminary OCO2, the stomata, and Beck’s record that great variability from day to day and region-to-region is the norm. Further proof that this is the norm of this is that they tried to eliminate all this natural variability in the ice core record and at Mauna Loa. When outgoing longwave radiation leaves the surface, it passes through the entire atmosphere. The CO2 effect operates throughout, not just in certain narrowly chosen spots at certain altitudes like Mauna Loa measures. As Beck noted,
“Mauna Loa does not represent the typical atmospheric CO2 on different global locations but is typical only for this volcano at a maritime location in about 4000 m altitude at that latitude.
Charles Keeling established the Mauna Loa station with equipment he patented. As Beck wrote, the family owns the global monopoly of all CO2 measurements. Keeling is credited with being the first to alert the world about AGW. As Wikipedia’s undoubtedly vetted entry notes,
Charles David Keeling (April 20, 1928 – June 20, 2005) was an American scientist whose recording of carbon dioxide at the Mauna Loa Observatory first alerted the world to the possibility of anthropogenic contribution to the greenhouse effect and global warming.
Keeling’s son, a co-author of IPCC Reports continues to operate the facilities at Mauna Loa. The steady rise in the Keeling curve, as it is known, is troubling, especially considering the variability in the records not considered suitable for the IPCC story. How long will that trend continue? We know the global temperatures rose until the satellite data produced a record independent of the IPCC. There is no independent CO2 record, the Keeling’s have the monopoly and are the official record for the IPCC.
As Beck explained,
Modern greenhouse hypothesis is based on the work of G.S. Callendar and C.D. Keeling, following S. Arrhenius, as latterly popularized by the IPCC. Review of available literature raise the question if these authors have systematically discarded a large number of valid technical papers and older atmospheric CO2 determinations because they did not fit their hypothesis? Obviously they use only a few carefully selected values from the older literature, invariably choosing results that are consistent with the hypothesis of an induced rise of CO2 in air caused by the burning of fossil fuel.
Now they have the dilemma that the temperature has not increased for 19 + years but CO2, according to Mauna Loa, continues its steady rise. How long before we see a reported decline in the Mauna Loa record to bring the data in line with the political message? Fortunately, thanks to the work of people like Jaworowski and Beck, it is too late for them to mitigate the damage from the slow motion crash that is inevitably evolving? The hockey sticks of the entire team were broken in the crash.
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Dr. Ball, I would add another “science” assumption at the beginning of your list.
2. Bizarrely, water vapor, the most abundant greenhouse gas in the atmosphere, by far, isn’t counted as a primary greenhouse gas but rather is treated as “feedback” caused by CO2-caused warming. (This is akin to scientists arguing that no water vapor would exist in the atmosphere if there were no CO2 in the atmosphere).
I thought Anthony Watts was distancing himself from the sky dragons?
I think it’s those seeking to slay sky dragons that are personae non gratae.
mebbe,
If you’ve ever read the really vicious, ad hominem personal attacks against Anthony on the ‘Slayers’ blog, you will understand why the blog owners are not very welcome.
I don’t think Dr Ball is a “sky dragon”. Sky dragons typically just dismiss the greenhouse radiational physics — Dr Ball doesn’t do that.
Sorry Dr Ball, but there will be no forensic investigation into the car crash that is the UN, IPCC or CAGW hysteria.
Shovel and Lie (You shut up) is the UN Cliches only skill.
As with the CRU emails, any “official investigation” of this insanity will be an interesting spectacle in its own right.
This mass hysteria and the resultant waste of resources and lives, will never be investigated by the people who orchestrated it.
The official explanation for the crash; “The Natural Causes of Climate Change, leapt up and overpowered us.”
An act of the Gods for sure.
There is far too much attribution of motive than data. I prefer my science unadulterated with opinion.
“I prefer my science unadulterated with opinion.”
Good luck. Won’t happen until science is unadulterated by money and egos.
+ 10
Watson and Crick’s fame and fortune seemed to be one of the turning points to fame and fortune in science. Could be biased from my generational point of view …. but I remember the shift from primarily nerdy, quiet researchers to rock star pursuits.
Knute, I think you’d have to go back to at least Einstein to see such a shift.
The Cloud Mystery by Svensmark, Shaviv and Veizer…
. . .Best explanation of climate change … IMHO
https://youtu.be/_3jXCo3BVuA
And an update…awesome video
indefatigablefrog
October 17, 2015 at 8:03 pm
For anyone who is interested in the above, “Cloud Mystery” documentary, this has been taken up by Jasper Kirkby, conducting further related experiments at CERN. Physicists are commonly very suspicious of confident assertions regarding “consensus” climate science. Whether they publicly admit it, or not.
So it’s interesting that this research has managed to survive the alarmist takeover of science.
https://youtu.be/63AbaX1dE7I
The minutes of the APS workshop of January, 2014 expressed significant uncertainty about CAGW theory they just hadn’t the backbone to be up front about it. Download available on web, a 500 page slog.
Yes, Billy Liar, the moral at the bottom:
Belief should not be questioned, we are told.
97 percent of the common will says ‘the science is settled’.
Call for Isaac, Abraham is in the ‘following voices’ mode.
– Hans
Billy Liar,
: ‘Mariam Ben Isa’,
‘Marias Sohn Jesus – marians son jesus’:
the icon all that 97 percenters wahabitic consensus ‘common volunteers’ go clockwork.
____
religion is private property. And let’s leave the real world to the real world.
____
Thx – Hans
Since this post is about CO2, I thought I would put this reference from AGU in about Carbon sinks that I had not seen discussed here before although perhaps I missed it:
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2015GL064222/full
My gawd. .. it has just dawned on me. If and when CO2 NAAQS get published there will be be an explosion of lawyers hiring data validators and independent CO2 monitoring experts. Perhaps a company equipped with drone operated, real time analysis pumping big data to central control. Probably even a website displaying the data to see if you should contact Howie, Cheatham and Son.
Carbon sinks and carbon emitters. Maybe Google will have a real time map display.
Svalgaard of Stanford confirms: global temperatures since 1850 are correlated to the Earth’s magnetic field change, see here http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/10/18/weekly-climate-and-energy-news-roundup-201/#comment-2052183
Unfortunately, I do not find your plots well labelled or clear. Maybe, it is my poor eyesight.
What is the yellow line meant to depict?
What is the brown line meant to depict?
The yellow and brown lines appear well correlated until about 1970 when the brown line rises at a significantly different rate to the yellow line. But perhaps more significantly there are a lot of overshoots when you compare the yellow and brown lines to temperature. At times, they stay within close bounds, and at other times whilst the direction of travel may be similar, there are significant overshoots and this suggests that they are not so closely correlated as you may be inferring.
Obviously like many readers I have seen your many exchanges with Dr Svalgaard. What does Dr Svalgaard actually say about the claimed correlation between the yellow and brown lines with temperature and with the Earth’s magnetic field ? Does he claim that this is just another exercise in curve fitting?
Indeed, but as a good critical thinker knows, correlation is not causation. There are likely a million plus things that correlate with CO2, none of them prove causation.
Knute,
Of course a critical thinker knows correlation does not prove causation, but it is vital to any attempt at proving causation, right?
“There are likely a million plus things that correlate with CO2, none of them prove causation.”
Perhaps, but one of them is not (as of this writing ; ) temperature records, according to my eyes anyway. That other possibly causal factors have been detected and recorded, which said records do correlate with temperature change records (for now ; ) is at least worthy of some critical thought/consideration, it seems to me.
Good one JK. I like the concept of causations often begin as correlations. Of course then we seek evidence when we are honest.
Yup, Temp is not cooperating. The true believer then lurches to …. well, it’s of course just lagging. If temperature was actually getting colder, the true believer would make up some other nonsense. If CO2 weren’t increasing, we’d be looking for hidden indicators yet undiscovered.
The entire debate is gross and smacks of ridiculousness. It’s exhausting in real life to enter into the debate and reminds me of that ole truism that any discussion over politics or religion is likely to end up unresolved and the participants not walking off into kumbayah happy land.
The saddest (to me) thing of all this hooey is the wasted energy put into meaningless problem solving. Imagine all the anger and betrayal that will roll thru the land when the gig is finally up.
Sorry for the rant. Tough day.
So what. Temperatures since 1850 correlate to so many things that one more doesn’t matter. Anything with about ~60 year cyclicity can be correlated to temperatures, or detrended temperatures or inverted temperatures. And if you can even move the signals X years to improve the fit, then even an elephant can be made to correlate to global temperatures.
Javier,
“And if you can even move the signals X years to improve the fit, then even an elephant can be made to correlate to global temperatures.”
Any such signals must have a time delay aspect to any fitting they exhibit, as I understand global temperature change, to be considered rational candidates at all. Simultaneous signals would indicated co-effect relatedness, perhaps, but not causality. It’s the consistency and reasonableness of the time delay, that warrants attention in this case vukcevic is asking us to examine and consider, it seems to me.
PS, consideration does not equal acceptance . . or wedding ; )
CO2, CO2 ….. that is all anyone refers to in the global warming stakes. H2O however in the form of water vapour and cloud cover have a far far greater effect on global and local air temperatures than CO2′ which pales into insignificance in comparison
Only on Planet Alternate Reality could you codify CO2 as a pollutant and then try and tax it. I’m pretty sure even Planet Alternate Reality couldn’t pull off taxing H20, but I’ll put it in the suggestion box at the UN.
The priority should given to reducing H2O emissions not CO2 emissions as it is here on planet …..
Robert
So now we need to track clouds and water vapor in order to save the world ? I hope your just being silly and trying to tickle my funny bone.
There must be a planet out there in the multiverse similar to your planet alternative reality where there are oceans of CO2 but not much water vapour; the natives keep warmish by burning H2 with the inevitable perceived global warming and a downer on H2O emissions
Robert S October 19, 2015 at 9:44 am
There must be a planet out there in the multiverse similar to your planet alternative reality where there are oceans of CO2 but not much water vapor;
Wouldn’t that be Venus?
Venus has an opaque atmosphere and rains sulphuric acid not much primary radiation reaches the surface. On the multiverse planet they also burn H2 to drive their vehicles.
Interesting match between the 40s CO2 and warming blips.
Why the blips?
JF
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/06/04/under-the-volcano-over-the-volcano/#comment-403530
Read the PDF above, it is a short 17 pages, and as he stated in June, resolves many of issues of local and wind. Final take, “A validation check has been made for 3 historical CO2 series. The overall impression is one of continental European historic regional CO2 background levels significantly higher than the commonly assumed global ice-core proxy levels.”
DD More,
A reaction from Francis Massen is here, with a reaction of mine below it…
Main problem: too few data at high wind speed and still with a huge range to be of real use for the method that Beck/Massen used for the important Giessen series, which is at the base of the 1942 “peak” in Ernst Beck’s compilation…
So I take it figure one is not a good representation of what goes on. How much is wrong or missing? The pictorial is a good idea. Especially when i am trying to understand some of what you folks post here.
JBP
My concern with CO2 is a bit different. I don’t actually doubt the Mauna Loa numbers. It’s probably has been rising during the record period. In my book, that’s a good thing. I get nervous below 1000PPM and below 500PPM, I know every day is a gift. Imagine an asteroid strike or some other catastrophic event that reduced impinging solar flux, at the much vaunted 350PPM. Talk about an extinction event!
Excerpts from IPCC AR5 WG1 Chapter 6 Table 6.1
“The table does not include natural exchanges, (e.g. rivers, weathering) between reservoirs.”
Anthropogenic PgC 1750 – 2011
(.50 or .43 or .45)………………….+/- range….+/- %
Atmospheric Increase…. 240………….10………4%
Fossil Fuel & Cement……375………….30………8%
Ocean to Atmosphere…-155………….30……-19%
Land to Atmosphere
Net Land Use……..…….180………….80……..44%
Residual Land Sink………-160…………90…….-56%
Math Check……………….240
My point is that while the PgC (times 3.67 to get CO2 PgCO2) added by anthropogenic sources, FF & cement, is fairly well defined, +/- 4%, the natural sources and sinks are way not! Also note that the caption excludes natural exchanges. This table supposedly and exclusively WAGs exactly & precisely (Yeah, right!)how the 265 year anthropogenic increase was partitioned between global sources and sinks.
These guesstimates are just pulled out of someone’s +/- wide load rear end!!!!!
Rear ends footnoted below the table.
NS
“These guesstimates are just pulled out of someone’s +/- wide load rear end!!!!!”
Your not with them so your against them. Hoffer over 50 years ago was right. The mass movement is born of disillusionment with the present and future. Perhaps that’s why NASA was one of the first de-missionizing of this administration. It certainly provided a boldly go future. They took it away. Created more disillusionment with the future.
If you were to loft all boats with a new movement (Hoffer offers this as an alternative and as an aside it is often used to move a cultist away from the current cult), what would it be ?
Knute: Got science?
NS
Got _____________ .
Whatever it is in the US at least will have to counter the perception that CAGW simultaneously gives protected classes such as latinos better air quality and job growth. Here is a link to a Yale article that describes how Latino voters connect the issues. Yale is part of the Ivy intellectual elite that are promoting the disparate impact … CAGW movement. They feed the message to major NGOs, who then sub to smaller community targeted NGOs. The US agencies (as well as other well heeled elites like Soros, Silicon Valley and Hollywood) fund these smaller NGOs thru feeder grants. Occupy Wall Street, Hands Up, Green NGOs, are just a few of the splinter groups that come together as part of the mass movement.
http://www.yaleclimateconnections.org/2015/07/hispanics-and-global-warming/
Abe,
If you have real arguments why the overall difference in sinks and sources of CO2 doesn’t show that nature is a net sink for CO2 and thus that humans are responsible for the CO2 increase in the atmosphere, then we may have a discussion. Shouting about religion and thermometers are not arguments…
Ferdinand,
“…humans are responsible for the CO2 increase in the atmosphere,…”
Can you back this statement with certainty, with science & facts? Can you provide a comprehensive atmospheric CO2 mass balance, not just anthro and CO2 – not carbon, that shows clearly and precisely 1) how much CO2 is in the atmosphere, 2) where it came from, 3) where it goes?
A link, google category, publication book or paper, any would work.
Nicholas,
If all observations point in one direction and a theory doesn’t violate any observation, one can accept that theory as working base until proven wrong by even one observation.
The “theory” that humans are responsible for the increase of CO2 in the atmosphere does match:
– the mass balance
– the process characteristics
– the 13C/12C ratio changes
– the 14C/12C ratio changes
– the oxygen use
– the oceans pH and pCO2
– the short and long term influence of temperature
See: http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/co2_origin.html
Every alternative explanation fails one or more observations:
– The biosphere can’t be the cause, as the biosphere as a whole is a net sink for CO2, based on the oxygen balance. The earth is greening.
– The oceans can’t be the cause, as the 13C/12C ratio of the oceans is higher than of the atmosphere, thus should increase that ratio in the atmosphere, while we see a firm decrease in ratio to human emissions.
Moreover, CO2 (derivatives) levels in the ocean surface increase while pH drops, that means CO2 is entering the oceans from the atmosphere, not reverse.
– All other possible sources (volcanoes, rock weathering,…) are either too small or too slow.
If you know of any alternative theory that does explain the increase in the atmosphere without violating any observation, I like to hear it…
1) how much CO2 is in the atmosphere
Average 2014 397 +/- 2 ppmv globally, based on the average of several ground level stations and the variability over 95% of the atmosphere.
2) where it came from
~300 ppmv natural, ~97 ppmv human as origin of the mass.
~360 ppmv natural, ~37 ppmv human as original molecules.
See the remaining fraction of human CO2 emissions (FA = ~9%) after years of exchanges, still humans are responsible for the full increase in mass, except for ~10 ppmv by temperature:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/fract_level_emiss.jpg
Where FA is the remaining fraction of human CO2 molecules in the atmosphere, FL in ocean surface waters and tCA calculated total CO2 increase in the atmosphere, based on human emissions and sink rate.
3) where it goes
Although not relevant at all where exactly and how large the sinks are (only the total net sink is known with reasonable accuracy), some rough estimates per year:
From the ~9 GtC human emissions as mass (NOT the original molecules):
~1 GtC into vegetation
~ 0.5 GtC in the ocean surface layer
~ 3 GtC in the deep oceans
Not right at hand, hmmm. Would Jeopardy music help? Do, do, do, do, do doo doo……
Nicholas,
Sometimes I have another life than reacting on everything I know that is scientifically wrong…
BTW, I prefer classics like Beethoven, Schubert, Berlioz,…
So lots of jargon and hand waving, but no answers.
At 400 ppm CO2 in atmosphere I get 3.099 E15 kg, 3,099 Gt, 3,099 Pg of CO2. That’s 844.5 Pg carbon equivalent. Where’re your numbers?
Where does ALL that CO2 come from? IPCC AR5 says that between 1750 and 2011 anthropogenic sources added 555 Pg C or 2,037 Pg CO2. That’s 65.7% of the entire current amount!! Can that be correct? Does anybody check these numbers? Where are yours?
Where does ALL the CO2 go? IPCC AR5 says that 315 Pg of the anthropogenic C sank into the oceans and lands, +/- 50%, nice band of uncertainty, leaving behind 240 Pg of the anthropogenic C. And just whose butt did they pull that partitioning from?
What are all the non-anthropogenic sources and sinks up to? Where’s that comprehensive atmospheric CO2 balance?
Nobody really knows so let’s just make man’s fault.
Nicholas,
400 ppmv with a factor 2.12 gives 848 GtC in the atmosphere, so we do agree here.
Sources:
The amounts emitted by humans are known with reasonable accuracy, in the far past more estimated, in recent decades by inventories from each country based on fossil fuel sales (taxes) and burning efficiency. Error estimates +/- 0.5 GtC/year. My opinion: -0.5 to +1 GtC/year, more underestimated than overestimated, seen the human spirit to avoid taxes…
All inventories must be delivered in the same form, see:
http://www.eia.gov/cfapps/ipdbproject/IEDIndex3.cfm?tid=90&pid=44&aid=8
and especially the notes:
http://www.eia.gov/cfapps/ipdbproject/docs/IPMNotes.html
Human sources from land use changes are more problematic, but are more than compensated by the growing biosphere, which is a net sink see next item.
Sinks:
In the biosphere, based on the oxygen and δ13C balances:
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/287/5462/2467.short (full report after free subscription)
and
http://www.bowdoin.edu/~mbattle/papers_posters_and_talks/BenderGBC2005.pdf
In the ocean surface layer: 10% of the atmospheric change, due to the Revelle/buffer factor
The remaining difference between emissions and increase in the atmosphere in the deep oceans, as there are no other fast enough sinks. The oxygen balance gives following partitioning between emissions, atmosphere, biosphere and oceans for the years 1990-2000:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/bolingraph.gif
Nicholas:
That’s 65.7% of the entire current amount!! Can that be correct?
That is indeed correct and the main reason why you see an increase in the atmosphere: the increase over the equilibrium (steady state) with the oceans is only halve what humans have emitted in the past 165 years, nature can’t cope with the speed of the emissions (the e-fold decay rate is ~51 years, half life time ~40 years). Still the emissions remain increasing slightly quadratic, while the sinks remove between 10-90% of the emissions (as result of the total extra pressure, not the emissions in a particular year), modulated by temperature variability, 40-60% if averaged over decades and 53% overall rate over the past 57 years (even around 50% over the past 115 years).
Fossil fuel is about 2/3rd of the anthropogenic C.
Nicholas:
Fossil fuel is about 2/3rd of the anthropogenic C.
Yes, but emissions due to land use changes are more than compensated by the extra growth of vegetation, the overall uptake being ~1 GtC/year (~0.5 ppmv/year) by the whole biosphere. The remaining ~9 GtC/year human emissions from fossil fuel burning and cement manufacturing is far more certain and the difference with the ~4.5 GtC/year increase in the atmosphere is the net sink somewhere in nature.
Land use changes only add to that, thus the real sink in vegetation is the net sink of ~1 GtC/year calculated from the oxygen balance plus the human releases caused by land use changes.
All my calculations and graphs are based on emissions from fossil fuel use and cement manufacturing only.
Further:
What are all the non-anthropogenic sources and sinks up to? Where’s that comprehensive atmospheric CO2 balance?
Before humans emitted a lot of buried carbon as CO2, the only huge influence was temperature. What is seen in ice cores is a balance of ~8 ppmv/°C over the past 800,000 years, but as the temperatures at the poles changes twice as fast as global, the overall balance is about 16 ppmv/°C.
Henry’s law for the solubility of CO2 in seawater gives 4-17 ppmv/°C change. Thus 16 ppmv/°C is not far off.
Vegetation reacts opposite to temperature, thus on long term, the oceans win the battle.
Seasonal changes are mainly vegetation (NH extra-tropical forests) driven and show globally about 5 ppmv/°C change.
1-3 years fast variability also is vegetation (tropical forests) driven and also is around 4-5 ppmv/°C
That means that from the ~110 ppmv increase since 1850 some 10 ppmv may come from the temperature increase, the rest is human…
The assumption that the CO2 concentration is/was balanced or static therefore changes are due to man is fallacious.
http://marshall.org/climate-change/how-much-of-atmospheric-co2-increase-is-natural/
NS
“The assumption that the CO2 concentration is/was balanced or static therefore changes are due to man is fallacious”
Powerful point of uncertainty. When I make this point in public debate, you can often hear a pin drop with the associated brain scamper.
After recovery, the typical reply is :
“But surely you aren’t willing to put our future at risk by saying we shouldn’t DO something”.
Knute:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/antarctic_cores_001kyr.jpg
Ice cores precision: +/- 1.2 ppmv (1 sigma), difference between different ice cores maximum 5 ppmv.
Resolution: Law Dome DE-08 cores: less than a decade (past 150 years)
Law Dome DSS, Siple Dome: 20-25 years (past 1,000 years)
Taylor Dome: ~40 years (past 70,000 years).
Same curve for CH4, opposite curve for δ13C in ice cores. Same curve in stomata index data, opposite δ13C curve in coralline sponges taken in the ocean surface layer.
The only measurable change in pre-industrial times was temperature at 16 ppmv/°C that is all. Good for 10 ppmv extra in current times…
Nicholas,
The assumption that the CO2 concentration is/was balanced or static therefore changes are due to man is fallacious.
Come on Nicholas, that discussion was originally held at Dr. Spencer’s blog, where I did react a lot. At last I could convince him that the CO2 increase is almost all human…
In his current article (“Gimme Three Steps Toward the Renewable Energy Door”, http://www.drroyspencer.com/ ), he adds:
1. Do humans significantly contribute to climate change?
I actually mostly agree with him on #1. I believe humans have caused maybe 50% of the recent warming of the oceans and the atmosphere, say since the 1950s since we have a published paper analyzing that time period.
As many before you, you are looking at the noise around the trend. The natural unbalance is not more than +/- 1 ppmv around the trend, which zero’s out after a few years, thus has zero influence on the trend of meanwhile 110 ppmv above steady state equilibrium between atmosphere and oceans. Humans have emitted around 200 ppmv in the same period. Temperature is good for 10 ppmv increase over the same period per Henry’s law (and 800,000 years of history).
Thus humans are NOT responsible for the increase?
You need a damn good explanation to get rid of the human emissions and point to another source which mimics the human emissions in effect, in exactly the same time span and increase rate, without violating one observation…
Here’s the CO2 balance I was seeking.
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/research/themes/carbon/
Anthropogenic participation is about 4%.
And some more links unsettling the science.
http://notrickszone.com/2013/03/02/most-of-the-rise-in-co2-likely-comes-from-natural-sources/#sthash.DjSme7BG.dpbs
http://www.drroyspencer.com/global-warming-natural-or-manmade/
http://www.climatedepot.com/2013/06/10/climate-scientist-dr-murry-salby-explains-why-man-made-co2-does-not-drive-climate-change/
http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/greenhouse_data.html
https://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2011/01/10/man-made-co2-vs-natural-co2/
http://www.manhattan-institute.org/energymyths/myth10.htm
http://www.manhattan-institute.org/energymyths/
Nicholas,
Anthro “participation” in the cycle is currently about 6% (9 GtC/year / 150 GtC/season in and out), that is not much, but it is one-way addition, while the huge natural cycle is a cycle with even slightly more sink than source over the course of a year…
Which makes that despite whatever small the human addition is, there wouldn’t be an increase of CO2 in the atmosphere, except for the 10 ppmv from warming oceans…
Then the links:
– Notrickszone looks at the variability: 100% caused by temperature variability, but zero effect on the trend: vegetation is the cause of the variability, but is a net sink for CO2. Common error of many skeptics…
– Dr. Spencer says in his text that he thinks that humans increase the CO2 in the atmosphere…
– Dr. Salby makes the same error as described in Nothrickszone, plus a few more, but that was discussed in several pages of WUWT (look up “Salby”)
– Monte Hieb counts the “Natural additions” in his total balance, but forgets to subtract the “Natural sinks”, which makes a hell of a difference…
– Steven Goddard: nice joke, but his sentence:
“Nature generates 30X as much CO2 as humans, but it is happy CO2.” also forgets to add:
“Nature sinks 1.03x as much CO2 as it generates”…
– The Manhattan institute makes the same error: humans give 3% of the input, but there are zero natural sinks?
So where are the natural sinks in the skeptical balances?
FE
Allow me to mirror back.
You say that your data allows you to:
1. know the total quantity of CO2 on earth
2. know the average [CO2] worldwide at any moment
3. know the regional sinks and emitters with a yearly net
4. separate out natural vs anthropogenic CO2
Trying to simplify because it allows me to think more clearly.
Did I get it right ?
Knute,
1. know the total quantity of CO2 on earth
Only with high accuracy in the atmosphere: 397 ppmv +/- 0.1 ppmv or 841 +/- 0.2 GtC as CO2. The accuracy may be +/- 2 ppmv (+/- 4 GtC) for absolute global values, the +/- 0.1 ppmv is for the accuracy of the trend over the years.
Amounts in the ocean surface: 1000 +/- 100 GtC
Amounts in the deep oceans: 37,000 +/- 4,000 GtC
Amounts in sediments / carbonate rocks/layers: gigantic, not known to any accuracy…
2. know the average [CO2] worldwide at any moment
Again, only in the atmosphere +/- 2 ppmv globally in absolute levels, +/- 0.1 ppmv in trend. See:
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/global.html
3. know the regional sinks and emitters with a yearly net
Only roughly globally: +/- 0.25 ppmv (+/- 0.5 GtC) for oceans and vegetation, Very roughly for regional sinks and emitters, as that is an ongoing work with tall towers and satellites like the OCO-2, which are measuring local/regional levels and fluxes.
4. separate out natural vs anthropogenic CO2
With reasonable accuracy, based on δ13C and O2 changes, see the graph here
Be aware that is about quantities, mass, not how much original human emitted CO2 still is in the atmosphere. While about 90% of the current increase of about 30% in the atmosphere is caused by human emissions, only 9% of the current atmosphere is originally by human emitted CO2, the rest is distributed in vegetation, ocean surface and mainly in the deep oceans by the huge seasonal exchanges between the different reservoirs…
“Knute,
1. know the total quantity of CO2 on earth
Only with high accuracy in the atmosphere: 397 ppmv +/- 0.1 ppmv or 841 +/- 0.2 GtC as CO2. The accuracy may be +/- 2 ppmv (+/- 4 GtC) for absolute global values, the +/- 0.1 ppmv is for the accuracy of the trend over the years.
Amounts in the ocean surface: 1000 +/- 100 GtC
Amounts in the deep oceans: 37,000 +/- 4,000 GtC
Amounts in sediments / carbonate rocks/layers: gigantic, not known to any accuracy…
2. know the average [CO2] worldwide at any moment
Again, only in the atmosphere +/- 2 ppmv globally in absolute levels, +/- 0.1 ppmv in trend. See:
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/global.html
3. know the regional sinks and emitters with a yearly net
Only roughly globally: +/- 0.25 ppmv (+/- 0.5 GtC) for oceans and vegetation, Very roughly for regional sinks and emitters, as that is an ongoing work with tall towers and satellites like the OCO-2, which are measuring local/regional levels and fluxes.
4. separate out natural vs anthropogenic CO2
With reasonable accuracy, based on δ13C and O2 changes, see the graph here
Be aware that is about quantities, mass, not how much original human emitted CO2 still is in the atmosphere. While about 90% of the current increase of about 30% in the atmosphere is caused by human emissions, only 9% of the current atmosphere is originally by human emitted CO2, the rest is distributed in vegetation, ocean surface and mainly in the deep oceans by the huge seasonal exchanges between the different reservoirs…”
FB
First of all, I want to offer a genuine thanks. It would have taken me days to wade thru the relevant emails and links for the summation.
Second, I think you have a herculean challenge in being able to stay clearheaded concerning what you know and don’t know. The normal route of peer review science has itself become suspect concerning climatology, so I’m not sure where you can turn to seek CONSISTENT clearheaded review. It’s also clear to me that you are aware of the problem. You are likely to fail to get good review more often than you receive it under the current polarizing environment. Herculean indeed.
I’m not going to seize on one uncertainty vs another because there are just too many to be adequately addressed in my email. Instead, you’ve given me valuable focus by categorizing the areas of uncertainty. There is so much uncertainty, that there are subcategories of layers of it to individual items identified above.
I can’t help but be shocked (again) by the speed with which CAGW has gone from a hypothesis to a worldwide call to action. I’m also not going to drag you through an identification of the countless items that could be included in the total bell curve of risks we should be spending limited assets on.
Most times anecdotal stories are distracting, but I’ll share one from today. A friend’s daughter (4 yrs) was drawing during lunch and I asked her what she was doing. It was the earth and she had surrounded it with heat releasing yellow and pink lines and surrounded that with cold dark gray for space.
She said “well you see, the earth is putting out heat just like an egg does when you take it out of boiling water”.
I’ll probably be back with more questions and hope you’re around to point me in the right direction.
Knute,
Here one link to a similar view:
http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/ef200914u
My own view in detail:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/co2_origin.html
Most of the arguments made by Ferdinand in this thread and offered as ‘proofs’ such as the mass-balance argument, the isotope argument, the argument that the growth of human emissions and the growth of atmospheric CO2 are highly correlated, and the argument that the oceans cannot possibly explain the assumed 120ppmv increase are covered here: http://chipstero7.blogspot.co.uk/2015/07/the-revelle-factor-vs-henrys-law.html
Richard,
Of course all these factors are highly correlated, as they all are caused by the same source: human emissions! That is exactly the point.
If vegetation was the main source, the δ13C level would go in the same direction as what human emissions do (after all, coal is ancient vegetation). Then the oxygen use by rotting/burning vegetation would add to the oxygen use by burning fossil fuels, but one measures the reverse: oxygen use is less than from burning fossil fuels, so the biosphere as a whole is a net producer of oxygen, a net sink for CO2 and preferential of 12CO2, thus leaving relative more 13CO2 in the atmosphere, the opposite of what is measured.
Independently confirmed by satellites: the earth is greening.
If the oceans were the main source, the δ13C would go up, not down as is measured in direct ratio to human emissions and that would violate Henry’s law for the solubility of CO2 in seawater which for the current weighted average seawater surface temperature dictates a steady state (dynamic equilibrium) level of 290 ppmv in the atmosphere. The atmosphere is current at near 400 ppmv, thus the average flux is from the atmosphere into the oceans, not reverse…
Further the Revelle/buffer factor – Henry’s law link, has so many problems that it needs some full page to explain them. Here in short (?) a few remarks:
– Henry’s law indeed says what the ratio is between the atmosphere and dissolved CO2 as gas in the ocean surface. That would be all, if dissolved CO2 was the only species in water. In fresh water and coke, it is 99% free CO2, no problem. In seawater it is less than 1% free CO2, 90% bicarbonate and 9% carbonate. If the pCO2 (~ppmv) in the atmosphere doubles, dissolved CO2 doubles, but the other species only increase by about 10%, as that is a matter of equilibrium between CO2, bicarbonates and carbonates, which are heavily influenced by pH. The latter gets (slightly) lower with increased CO2. The Revelle factor thus shows the ratio between increase in the atmosphere and increase of all carbon derivatives, not only dissolved CO2, in the ocean surface. Both Henry’s law and the Revelle factor are right. See for the chemical explanation:
http://www.eng.warwick.ac.uk/staff/gpk/Teaching-undergrad/es427/Exam%200405%20Revision/Ocean-chemistry.pdf
Water has a phenomenal capacity for CO2-absorption as the existence of fizzy-drinks testifies.
At 6 bar CO2 pressure in the atmosphere it does. Poor it on a plate and wait a few hours and it will get flat in equilibrium with the atmosphere at 0.0004 bar pCO2 (per Henry’s law!)… Fresh water contains 10 times less CO2 than seawater at the same temperature, acid waters like Coke (phosphoric acid) even less…
– The residence time again… The residence time only shows how fast any CO2 molecule – whatever its origin – is exchanged with a CO2 molecule from another reservoir. That has zero effect on the total amount of CO2 in the atmosphere, as long as it is pure exchange. That says nothing about how long it takes to remove an extra shot of CO2 – whatever its origin – back to steady state. The residence time indeed is ~5 years, the e-fold decay rate for the extra 110 ppmv in the atmosphere currently is over 50 years…
It is the same difference as between the throughput of capital and goods through a factory – the turnover – and the gain – or loss – of capital at the end of a fiscal year…
That doesn’t imply that the IPCC’s Bern model is right. The Bern model is based on the saturation of the different sinks, which is only true for the ocean’s surface layer (per Revelle factor), there is no sign that the deep oceans are getting saturated and certainly not ever the biosphere…
– Tom Quirk: The constancy of seasonal variations in CO2 and the lack of time delays between the hemispheres completely wrong: he compared the seasonal changes between the hemispheres, but these are the same with zero, 12, 24, 36,… months lags… There is a real lag between the hemispheres see here.
I can go on with a lot of other points which are completely wrong, like what is said by the late Dr. Jaworowski about ice cores, but I think this is already sufficient…