From BINGHAMTON UNIVERSITY and the “worse than we thought, doubling down on CO2 for Paris” department, comes this claim that we are well on our way to a hothouse Earth. Except, the study isn’t confirmed yet, by the researcher’s own admission (see end of PR). he needs more data, but that won’t stop the headlines leading up to Paris. Meanwhile, present day climate sensitivity seems to be far less than 3°C, if fact there’s quite a number of papers suggesting that sensitivity to CO2 is lower than IPCC model predictions.
Study: Earth’s climate more sensitive to CO2 than previously thought
Return to hothouse climate may take less carbon dioxide than expected
A team of Binghamton University researchers including geology PhD student Elliot A. Jagniecki and professors Tim Lowenstein, David Jenkins and Robert Demicco examined nahcolite crystals found in Colorado’s Green River Formation, formed 50 million years old during a hothouse climate. They found that CO2 levels during this time may have been as low as 680 parts per million (ppm), nearly half the 1,125 ppm predicted by previous experiments. The new data suggests that past predictions significantly underestimate the impact of greenhouse warming and that Earth’s climate may be more sensitive to increased carbon dioxide than was once thought, said Lowenstein.
“The significance of this is that CO2 50 million years ago may not have been as high as we once thought it was, but the climate back then was significantly warmer than it is today,” said Lowenstein.”
CO2 levels in the atmosphere today have reached 400 ppm. According to current projections, doubling the CO2 will result in a rise in the global average temperature of 3 degrees Centigrade. This new research suggests that the effects of CO2 on global warming may be underestimated.
“Take notice that carbon dioxide 50 million years ago may not have been as high as we once thought it was. We may reach that level in the next century, and so the climate change from that increase could be pretty severe, pretty dramatic. CO2 and other climate forcings may be more important for global warming than we realized.”
The only direct measurement of carbon dioxide is from ice cores, which only go back less than 1 million years. Lowenstein and his team are trying to develop ways to estimate ancient carbon dioxide in the atmosphere using indirect proxies. He said that their approach is different than any ever undertaken.
“These are direct chemical measurements that are based on equilibrium thermodynamics,” he said. “These are direct laboratory experiments, so I think they’re really reliable.
Lowenstein wants to look at nahcolite deposits in China to confirm the results found in Colorado.
###
The study, “Eocene atmospheric CO2 from the nahcolite proxy,” was published Oct. 23 inGeology.
That picture with the article… was that their sample?
It looked like a very stuffed ham, cheese and lettuce sandwich to me but I was feeling peckish at the time.
It looks yummy
Well it’s a Trilobite Coprolite.
But; to each his own taste.
g
Ee-e-e-ew-w, george. That’s gross!
As Climat Paris 2015 approaches the need is for Headlines. Headlines are what people remember. Facts are not required as they are boring to the masses. Every day is forecast to be 2 degrees hotter than the forecasters know it will be. When the day arrives, people have no idea what temperature it is, but they remember the headline.
Don’t worry; the “masses” have long since moved on to something more interesting.
Their eyes glaze over at any mention of it. All except the 4% or so “hand-wringers” who think this gives them membership in the Green Virtue Cult.
Goldrider: Not only more interesting but more essential to survival. Even Gore had to acknowledge the massacre that took place in Paris.
“The significance of this is that CO2 50 million years ago may not have been as high as we once thought it was, but the climate back then was significantly warmer than it is today,” said Lowenstein.”
But, but but but but bututututuut….how is that possible? C02 is what drives temperature!!! So how could the Earth POSSIBLY have been significantly warmer than it is today….if the C02 wasn’t as high as we once thought it was??????? *snark*
These people are so incredibly stupid they can’t even utter an entire sentence without contradicting something they’ve said previously.
Not only that, but the temperatures didn’t cycle into overdrive and create a ‘Venus’ effect or any other kind of tipping point.
This chart of CO2 vs temperatures over millions of years clearly shows how CO2 drives temperatures.
http://www.americanthinker.com/legacy_assets/articles/old_root/%231%20CO2EarthHistory.gif
Ok, you might need a cherry picker to actually see it.
Cherry pick? Or get hit in the back of the head with a brick and cross my eyes?
My copy of this graph shows a huge greyed zone of uncertainty.
So what exactly happened at the Permian Triassic boundary, to cause that unprecedented Temperature spike above 22 deg. C ??
Enquiring minds want to know. That spike is bigger than what the Temperature spike has been in the last 150 years.
g
Obviously with proxy data extreme caution needs to be taken, and no doubt there are large error bounds.
But subject to the veracity and appropriateness of the proxies, one can see many instances of anti correlation, and anti correlation is usually a big no no.
There are time when CO2 is high, and temperatures are low, times when Co2 is low and temperatures are high, and there are times when CO2 and temperature swing in opposite direction.
Look at the dramatic rise in CO2 in the Cambrian without any corresponding change in temperature.
At the end of the Ordovician, CO2 rises but temperatures plummet, and then at the start of the Silurian CO2 plummets whilst temperatures rise substantially and quickly. WUWT?
Look at the substantial rise in CO2 during the early Devonian but with no rise in temperatures. And then look at the extremely dramatic fall in CO2 in the mid to end Devonian with only modest fall in temperatures, and look how CO2 and temperatures get way out of step in the Carboniferous.
Again look at the problem in the boundary between Jurassic and Cretaceous, and look how CO2 falls throughout the Cretaceous whilst temperatures do not.
A reasonable observer would conclude that there is zero correlation between CO2 driving temperature in that plot.
So the issue here is how accurate and reliable is the proxy data? What are the error bounds not simply on the CO2 temperature proxy, but also the temperature proxy and of course on the dating of the various proxies? Plenty of scope for wide error margins, but subject to that the paleo evidence would appear a significant hurdle for the hypothesis that CO2 drives temperatures and is the control knob of the climate on planet Earth.
Richard Verney,
Extreme caution, indeed:
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_cHhMa7ARDDg/SoxiDu0taDI/AAAAAAAABFI/Z2yuZCWtzvc/s1600/Geocarb%2BIII-Mine-03.jpg
(click in chart to embiggen)
The biosphere is currently STARVED of harmless, beneficial CO2.
dbstealey (November 17, 2015 at 4:31 am)
I am not doubting that in the past CO2 was very much higher than today. The point I make is how accurate are the proxies, with respect to CO2, with respect to temperature, and of course, with respect to time? Your plot, although interesting, does not address that point.
Your plot well illustrates that IF the CO2 proxy is correct then we should not fear cAGW in that there can be no strong positive feedback or otherwise when CO2 was circa 8,000 ppm , which is approximately 5 doubling from the claimed figure for pre-industrial levels, we would have seen huge water feedback warming with runaway temperatures.
it appears that the temperature was only about 10 to 15degC warmer than today so that would put a maximum cap on Climate Sensitivity of 2 to 3 degC, but of course with different land masses, and ocean distribution etc, it does not necessarily follow that Climate Sensitivity is a constant over such times.
But you probably know that I am one of these people who does not rule out the possibility that Climate Sensitivity at current levels (circa 350ppm and above) is zero, or so close to zero that we cannot presently detect and measure it.
My issue is that I consider that the bounds of natural variation are large, and the temperature data sets so poor with substantial limitations and error bounds that we cannot, from observational evidence, presently rule out the possibility that Climate Sensitivity may be as high as about 1.3degC. I do not for one moment consider it to be likely that it is as high as that, but I do consider that there are arguments to be made that it could be that high.
It seems to me that the last 35 years have been wasted in failing to narrow Climate Sensitivity (if any at all), but I am optimistic that we will probably know a lot more in the next 10 years.
If [we] here on earth are twice as sensitive to CO2 than previously thought, then why the pause? why the pause? I am twice as skeptical as I was before reading the post. I am twice as skeptical as I was before reading the post.
Why the pause?
Why it’s the guy in the corner with the crazed look and gun of course. Goes by the name the
Sun.
“The significance of this is that CO2 50 million years ago may not have been as high as we once thought it was, but the climate back then was significantly warmer than it is today …” etc.
==============================
Circular reasoning on stilts.
I was chemical engineer for 35 years and never heard the term “equilibrium thermodynamics”. Sounds made up to me.
Ralph it’s a synonym for ” isothermal heat transfer ”
g
Perhaps carbon dioxide isn’t the primary driver of atmospheric heat…
So the headline could read, “Measured temperature even further below revised models than expected”.
I just literally choked on my drink! LOL!
It’s not in the Antarctic, it’s not in the deep ocean, it’s not in the troposphere.
Yeah, all the heat has been carried off by the underpants gnomes into their underground cavern.
Or some such thing.
Any way there’s now twice as much that’s gone missing.
I love this stuff.
When does the Broadway musical come out?
It’s been pulled into the core where it’s caused the temperature to rise to millions of degrees.
/sarc
Yeah, maybe we could employ M.Mann historical correction services, in order to provide a graph showing that prior to this modern event, the earth’s core was as cold as ice!!
True story:
Ages ago in grad school, I had a job working for a somewhat crooked business professor who did marketing analyses of prospective locations for restaurants. It had all sorts of fancy looking calculations, which today we would call a “model”. The thing was , however, there really was not sufficient data to plug in for all the parameters . I was to estimate those going backward from the desired result. You can’t make this sort of thing up. The resulting, considerable stress caused me eventually to walk away from a job that paid far too little for such ethical and logical angst. Come to think of it, I believe the prof had given me a motivational raise when I started struggling to meet deadlines – based on my prior demonstrated skill in fudging up to to that point, I’m ashamed to say.. The time was only a few years removed from Watergate, for what its worth…
I’ve wondered if that experience has something to do with the shudders I feel when I read about climate studies such as this one under discussion. I would never in my most cynical moments have believed that “hard” science could fall into such a state as this.
Warmer temperatures cause more CO2 to enter the atmosphere because warmer water cannot hold as much CO2 as cooler water. But there is no real evidence that the added CO2 adds to the warming. If greenhouse gases added to the warming then H2O has got to be the primary culprit. Molecule per molecule, H2O is a more powerful absorber than CO2. H2O in the atmosphere increases because the surface of bodies of water warm but increasing CO2 is a matter of huge volumes of water warming. Apparently H2O causing warming all by itself is not part of the AGW conjecture. The “research” that we are talking about says nothing about H2O, the primary greenhouse gas.
If CO2 really affected climate then one would expect that the increase in CO2 over the past 30 years would have caused a noticeable increase in the natural lapse rate in the troposphere but that has not happened. There are no practical applications where CO2 is used as an insulator. We must remember that good absorbers are also good radiators so what ever LWIR radiation CO2 absorbs it also radiates away. Actually in the troposphere, much more heat energy is moved by conduction and convection then by LWIR CO2 absorption band radiation even where CO2 molecules are involved. In the lower troposphere, between the average time that an IR photon is absorbed and then reradiated by a CO2 molecule that same molecule has, on the average, a billion physical interactions with other molecules where heat energy is shared. The AGW conjecture totally misses that fact.
The research we are talking about has no real basis in claiming that their findings say anything about climate change.
Don’t they ever do a reality check to avoid looking stupid? Over the past 18+ years, CO2 has been rising, but temperatures are flat. This disproves their notion.
Short answer “No” they don’t care about the data or reality, it’s the models all the way down.
So ‘pretty’ is a science term now? That is pretty surprising!
“The significance of this is that CO2 50 million years ago may not have been as high as we once thought it was, but the climate back then was significantly warmer than it is today,” said Lowenstein.”
—only significant if CO2 is the sole controller of temperature.
I’m calling deni@l of the blessed hockey stick, here. No one should be admitting that it was ever warmer than today!
In the past it was much warmer with only modest CO2 uplifts…
Therefore
Either:
(a) Global warming is not linked to Carbon dioxide
or:
(b) CO2 has a massive effect on global warming.
Odd how they always pick (b).
I previously thought that the climate sensitivity of CO2 is 0.0. Based on this new research I now want to double what I previously thought the sensitivity of CO2 is. So based on this new research I now think that the climate sensitivity of CO2 is 0.0 X 2.0 = 0.0 So this new research changes everything.
Quite!
Sounds like a load of Coprolite to me.
From all the papers I have read here on CO2 sensitivity and elsewhere,
this is simply not true. I still haven’t seen any study that concludes with facts that CO2 is the “control knob” for global warming, or climate change for that matter.
Maybe they are getting their scientific information from Bernie Sanders.
Andrew Lacis, Gavin Schmidt and others published a paper in science, with the title, “Atmospheric CO2: Principal Control Knob Governing Earth’s Temperature ”
The paper itself is just BS PR for the GISS Model E climate model, but the control knob precedent is set. Gavin clearly believes it’s true, because the CO2 control knob claim is still up at the GISS web site, and Gavin is the boss.
The data to show CO2 has no effect on average global temperature already exists.
The relation between mathematics and the physical world mandates that, for a forcing to have an effect, it must exist for a period of time. The temperature changes with time in response to the net forcing. If the forcing varies, (or not) the effect is determined by the time-integral of the forcing (or the time-integral of a function thereof).
The atmospheric CO2 level has been above about 150 ppmv (necessary for evolution of life on land as we know it) for at least the entire Phanerozoic eon (the last 542 million or so years). If CO2 was a forcing, its effect on average global temperature (AGT) would be calculated according to its time-integral (or the time-integral of a function thereof) for at least 542 million years. Because there is no way for that calculation to consistently result in the current AGT, CO2 cannot be a forcing.
Variations of this demonstration and identification of what does cause climate change (R^2 > 0.97) are at http://agwunveiled.blogspot.com
Dan, why haven’t you published this in a journal (or have you)? It’s amazing work and it deserves a much larger audience I think.
Anthony? Have you seen this? Any advice to Dan on how to get it into a refereed journal?
Evidence from paleo data CO2 has no effect on climate is presented in the peer reviewed (refereed) paper at Energy & Environment, Vol 26, No. 5, 2015, 841-845 . Identity of the two factors which explain the average global temperature trajectory since before 1900 is disclosed in a peer reviewed paper published in Energy and Environment, vol. 25, No. 8, 1455-1471. These papers might be a bit easier to follow but the link above includes essentially the same stuff plus it explores smoothing of the measured data. Abstracts to the papers and the above link have free access.
The ‘name’ journals refuse to ‘get it’ and cling to their prior perceptions. Mother Nature will eventually prevail.
Dan Pangburn writes: “The ‘name’ journals refuse to ‘get it’ and cling to their prior perceptions. Mother Nature will eventually prevail.”
Disappointment doesn’t begin to express my reaction to this news. Outrage comes much closer.
I have enough experience with mutli-variate regression models to know what you have here is a knife in the back of the AGW theory. Assuming the numbers check out (and I admit I haven’t yet repeated your experiment but I fully intend to) this puts the entire argument to rest. CO2, all CO2, has no statistically significant effect on average global temperature. That’s astounding, and I can’t find any fault at all with your methodology. Your model describes 97% of the variability in AGT using two variables and CO2 as a third variable appears to fail the “F to Enter” test; it’s useless.
Really amazing work Dan. I’ve been reading this subject for over 10 years and I haven’t found anything like what you’ve one here in literature. This *has* to get out somehow. I’ve known for a long time the “big” journals were biased against work like this, but refusing to publish this paper verges on criminal negligence given governments the world over are considering actions that might cost both blood and treasure. People could literally die because this research is being suppressed.
What’s even worse, the data points to a *real* impending disaster in the upcoming 20 years. There’s a chance global food production could be hit very hard by a solar minimum even if the loons in control don’t get their way with carbon taxes and starve a bunch of people.
There must be something we can do to correct this. There has to be.
EDITOR! If you haven’t already read this paper, PLEASE do! There’s GOT to be a way to get this work in front of the public?
And I didn’t mean to type “mutli”. This is pure bred science we’re talking about…
Bartleby – Thanks for the support. It is inspiring to see comments which reveal understanding. If you are so inclined, you can find my current email address at Engineering & Environment Multi-Science. They include it in the Introduction to my last paper.
I suspect lots of folks got misled by CO2 being a ghg and/or looking at TSI and not realizing that there is more to the story. Some (e.g. Skeptical Science) also apparently do not understand that, whatever the forcing is, it influences temperature according to the time-integral of the forcing and not according to the instantaneous value of the forcing itself.
On an entirely different front, a whole lot of careers and pay checks depend on CO2 being a problem. Some have even committed science malpractice by changing the data to corroborate an agenda. My hope is that ‘they’ won’t do too much damage to prosperity before Mother Nature makes it profoundly obvious that ‘they’ got it wrong.
The fact that there are periods of millions of years in the paleo record when atmospheric CO2 is low and the planet is hot and periods when atmospheric CO2 is high and the planet is cold, indicates there are obvious fundamental errors in the ‘greenhouse’ gas warming calculations,
The cult of CAGW’s error of the scientific century is that ‘greenhouse’ gases cause increased convection cooling which reduces the lapse rate, that causes surface cooling. Hot gases rise, which causes colder higher elevation atmosphere gases to fall. Convection cooling offsets the ‘greenhouse’ gas warming. Big surprise the wet lapse rate (atmosphere with water vapor) is half of the dry lapse rate (atmosphere without water vapor).
P.S. Curious there is no official calculation of what would be the earth’s surface temperature with an atmosphere of pure nitrogen, no greenhouse gases, same pressure as current. The silly ‘greenhouse’ calculation compared vacuum to current atmosphere and tells us the entire surface warming (atmosphere vs no atmosphere) is due to ‘greenhouse’ gases which is a pile of bull droppings.
The so called 1 dimensional CO2 doubling calculation done by Hansen and friends to determine surface forcing for a doubling of atmospheric CO2 assumed no change in convection cooling with increasing CO2 which is ludicrous.
As changes in atmospheric CO2 has almost no effect on surface planetary temperature (higher regions in the atmosphere do warm which explains the notch for top of the atmosphere measurements), something else is forcing the planet’s climate (it is the sun and changes in GCR that occur as the solar system moves in and above the Milky Way’s galactic arms).
If the above assertions are correct and if I understand what is currently happening to the sun, we are going to experience in your face cooling. (Has anyone noticed that the Pacific ocean Northern latitude warm blob is cooling and the Atlantic ocean cooling is back.)
P.S. Mann attempted to make the Medieval warm period disappear which is pathetic. The planet cyclically warms and cools and driven by solar cycle changes.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/09/05/is-the-current-global-warming-a-natural-cycle/
Greenland ice temperature, last 11,000 years determined from ice core analysis, Richard Alley’s paper. William: The Greenland Ice data shows that have been 9 warming and cooling periods in the last 11,000 years. There was abrupt cooling 11,900 years ago (Younger Dryas abrupt cooling period when the planet went from interglacial warm to glacial cold with 75% of the cooling occurring in less than a decade and there was abrupt cooling 8200 years ago during the 8200 BP climate ‘event’).
http://www.climate4you.com/images/GISP2%20TemperatureSince10700%20BP%20with%20CO2%20from%20EPICA%20DomeC.gif
Well the 342 NWEs is a very significant discovery; because that is exactly one NWE for each and every W/m^2 of TSI insolation of the Kevin Trenberth et al earth model.
Ergo, the Trenberth Kiehl earth model, must be correct.
g
Ice cores are the Ouija board of climate science, an entertaining parlor game, too much uncertainty for useful data.
Whilst I accept your reservations with respect to proxy evidence, the fact remains that we have been unable to detect the signal to CO2 in any of the data sets (whether thermometer, satellite or proxy).
All one can say about Climate Sensitivity is that it is less than the noise of natural variation and the limitations and error bounds of our best measuring devices, such that its signal (if any at all) is so small that it cannot presently be isolated and detected.
Of course if we could get a better handle on the bounds of natural variation and why and how it fluctuates, and/or if we could reduce the limitations inherent in our best measuring devises including measurement error bounds, and errors inherent in the data set that they produce, maybe there will come a day when we will be able to extract the signal to CO2.
But if natural variation is not a substantial player (as the IPCC would have one believe) and if the limitation and error bounds of our measurement devices and their resultant data sets that they produce is small (as Climate Scientist would have one believe) then Climate Sensitivity (if any at all) must likewise be small. If of course, the forcings from natural variation are large and/or the errors and limitations of our measurement devices and their data sets is large, then Climate Sensitivity (if any at all) could likewise be large.
wrong the earth’s is not more sensitive to co2.
They forgot the following from their abstract:
First we assume our approach is more accurate than any other method used to determine CO2 levels 50 million years ago.
Second we assume samples from one location is representative of CO2 across the globe.
Third we assume we completely understand how the global climate system worked 50 million years ago.
Fourth we jump two or three sharks to base our conclusion on the assumption that CO2 was the ONLY reason the climate was significantly warmer 50 million years ago.
Fifth and finally we declare making assumptions is the same as discovering compelling new knowledge.
Don’t know how it could be, but somehow the authors of this paper remind me of the Three Stooges.
“The significance of this is that CO2 50 million years ago may not have been as high as we once thought it was, but the climate back then was significantly warmer than it is today,” said Lowenstein.”
Here in 2015, we are getting different estimates, some widely varying for climate sensitivity to CO2, by numerous sources, while monitoring with accurate measurements, along with an increasing understanding of the physics. ……but have been narrowing the range with time,
How do we narrow the range even more?
I know, let’s go back 50 million years and use that data.
So, we are to believe that recent estimates, using our comprehensive understanding of physics and advanced/precise instrumentation might all be too low because of a data point in time from 50,000,000 years ago (that up until now, we all thought represented a time with higher CO2 levels) that should now get some(significant?) weighting in determining climate sensitivity to CO2 here in the year 2015.
Right
Not that we can’t learn “something” from studies like this but pinpointing CO2 levels to a useful range from 50,000,000 years ago, just based on this study telling us that we might have been wrong about it before, along with correlating it with temperatures at the same time…..which would also have to be in a fairly narrow range in order to hone in our current understanding of climate sensitivity to CO2 is not one of them.
What is worse is the cherry-picked genesis of trona deposits (soda ash) by BingU researches. Experts still don’t agree how they formed. It seems that semi-arid conditions are essential and I’m sure with elevated temperature of the Eocene there was more than a little semi arid regions as there are today because of mountain barriers dehydrating winds that pass over them.
Trona was precipitated each year in the summer from Little Soda Lake and Big Soda Lake, Nevada in the latter half of the 19th Century and soda ash was harvested each year as the lakes shrank. This has nothing to do with the vapor pressure of CO2. Sodium carbonate appears to form over igneous terrains (rhyolite lavas, etc.) and sodium sulphate (salt cake) over sedimentary terrains and there are even sodium carbonate volcanoes in a few places (Kenya?). In some places bacterial activity in soils creates CO2 which reacts with sodium rich waters. They are described as evaporites which also give us gypsum (calcium sulphate), potash, sodium chloride, and other salts.
Clearly the Wyoming one is the result of the evaporation of a large, internally draining basin lake in an arid region and was preserved by burial. It also contains sodium chloride, some sodium sulphate and a host of varieties of sodium carbonate and bicarbonate compositions formed as these different salts dropped in reverse order of the solubility.
The BingU guys might have benefited by phoning the Geological Survey of Wyoming, or maybe they did and didn’t like the answer.
This one is a gift.
Foot meet buckshot.
The Earths Climate MAY be more sensitive to CO2 than previously thought.
Thats right, that sensitivity we still cannot measure.
Claim CO2 up =Temperature up.
Duh temps flatlined, CO2 steadily rising.
No measurable effect today, best measuring systems ever since 1979….unmeasurable.
Extrapolation into the distant past…. correlation for sure.
Paris parasites feast coming soon.
+1
Too small to measure bearing in mind the noise of natural variation and the limitations and error bounds of our best measuring devices.