Guest essay by David Bennett Laing, Asst. Prof.of Geology, Univ. of Maine (retired)
Two different styles of volcanic eruption appear to have been the principal determinants of climate change throughout geologic time.
The very fact that opinions on climate change could have become as polarized as they have, even in scientific circles, suggests we may still have much to learn. Despite the best efforts of many of the world’s brightest minds, and the claims of some that “the science is settled,” climatic enigmas still persist.
For the past nine years, Peter Langdon Ward has been working steadily in retirement from his career as a geophysicist and volcanologist with the US Geological Survey to try to demystify some of these enigmas. Two years ago, I joined my old friend and colleague in his quest. Last month, we published a new theory of global warming that we feel accounts far better for temperature change over the past 100 years and throughout the Phanerozoic Eon than the currently favored greenhouse warming theory.
In view of the extreme difficulty in getting peer-reviewed journals to publish papers that question greenhouse theory, we decided to present our observations in a semi-popular book, “What Really Causes Global Warming? Greenhouse Gases or Ozone Depletion?”. The book is available in hardback, paperback, and ebook versions on amazon.com and on other book-seller sites. The book and the science are explained in detail at WhyClimateChanges.com, where autographed copies of the book are also available.
In brief, we find that major temperature changes throughout Phanerozoic time can be fully explained with two different styles of volcanic eruption: explosive volcanism causing global cooling and effusive volcanism causing global warming. It is well-known that aerosols from explosive volcanoes, such as the 1991 eruption of Pinatubo, reflect and scatter sunlight, causing global cooling. What we found is that all volcanoes emit chlorine and bromine, which are observed to deplete the ozone layer, allowing increased irradiance of Earth by solar UV-B radiation, causing global warming. UV-B is 48 times more energy-rich than Earth’s IR radiation absorbed by carbon dioxide. The following graphic summarizes the processes involved (Note that in Panel 2, CFCs proxy for effusive volcanism, shown in Panel 3. Their global warming effects are similar, as discussed below).
Global Warming and Global Cooling Related to Ozone Depletion
Panel 1: Under conditions normal before 1965, ultraviolet-C (UV-C) warmed the upper atmosphere, UV-B primarily warmed the ozone layer, and UV-A and visible light warmed Earth.
Panel 2: CFCs, when they rise to the level of very cold polar stratospheric clouds (PSCs), release chlorine that depletes ozone, causing more UV-B than usual to reach Earth’s surface, thus cooling the ozone layer and warming Earth.
Panel 3:Effusive volcanoes emit chlorine and bromine, which deplete ozone, leading to global warming.
Panel 4: Explosive volcanoes similarly deplete ozone, but also eject megatons of water and sulfur dioxide into the lower stratosphere, forming globe-encircling aerosols whose molecules soon grow large enough to reflect and scatter sunlight, causing net global cooling.
In the case of explosive volcanoes, the aerosol cooling effect overwhelms the warming effect from ozone depletion, but since effusive volcanoes don’t eject substantial amounts of gases into the stratosphere, warming prevails. Effusive eruptions are also much longer-lasting and can be extremely voluminous. Massive effusive eruptions in Iceland occurred precisely at the time when Earth warmed out of the last ice age (see Preboreal Warming in the following illustration).
GISP2 Volcanic Sulfate From 9 to 16 Ka
Periods of greatest warming coming out of the last ice age are contemporaneous with times of sulfate anomalies in numerous contiguous layers (note blue circles containing the number of layers). Red bars show volcanic sulfate deposited in individual layers of ice in the GISP2 borehole. The purple line shows the δ18O proxy for temperature adjusted for gas age. The Preboreal warming is contemporaneous with the largest sulfate deposit observed. The Bølling warming is contemporaneous with the largest number of contiguous layers containing volcanic sulfate. Dryas periods of increased glaciation are contemporaneous with little or no volcanism.
Less massive effusive eruptions coincided with every one of the numerous, enigmatic Dansgaard-Oeschger warming events during the ice age (see numbers 0 to 1 on the right side of the above illustration and numbers 2-12 on the right side of the next illustration).
GISP2 Volcanic Sulfate from 22 to 46 Ka
Dansgaard-Oeschger sudden warming events (numbers on the right side) all correspond to times of continuous volcanism. Red bars show the amount of sulfate in individual layers of ice in the GISP2 borehole. The purple line shows the δ18O proxy for temperature adjusted for gas age. Numbers in blue circles show the number of contiguous layers containing sulfate deposits at the time plotted. H2 to H5 are Heinrich events when large numbers of icebergs suddenly appeared in the northern Atlantic Ocean.
Much more massive effusive eruptions accompanied extreme warming events during the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum, the End-Permian Extinction, the Cretaceous-Paleocene boundary, and many other times of major rapid temperature change throughout the Phanerozoic.
We view the dramatic warming event of the late 20th century as anthropogenic, but not due to carbon dioxide. The event coincided with the release of chlorofluorocarbon (CFC) gases to the atmosphere, which are broken down by UV solar radiation in polar stratospheric clouds in late winter to release chlorine, thus mimicking the ozone depleting and global warming effects of effusive volcanism. The Montreal Protocol ended CFC production and thereby ended global warming, thus explaining the enigmatic “global warming hiatus” that prevailed from 1998 through 2013 (see following illustration). No other convincing explanation for the “hiatus” has been proposed or generally agreed upon (See ozonedepletiontheory.info/gg-warming-hiatus.html). A warming effect from the massive effusive eruption of Iceland’s Bárðarbunga volcano in late 2014 and early 2015, the largest since 1783, will likely make 2015 the warmest year on record.
Distinctly Different Trends
Trends in temperature (red bars), (NOAA), tropospheric chlorine (green line) (Solomon, 1999), and ozone depletion (black line) (Staehelin et al., 1998) (WOUDC, 2014) over the past 70 years are distinctly different from trends in concentrations of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide (blue dashed line) (NOAA, 2014). Ocean heat content (Levitus et al., 2012) inceased with increasing ozone depletion and continues to increase while ozone depletion remains greater than levels prior to 1970. Carbon dioxide levels appear related to ocean heat content through the solubility of CO2 as a function of water temperature.
Global temperature has plateaued rather than fallen, ice masses still continue to melt globally, and ocean heat content continues to rise, because chlorine remains in the stratosphere and continues to destroy ozone catalytically. This will continue for several decades, and due to heat storage in the oceanic thermal reservoir, it is likely that eventual lowering of global temperature will not occur unless there is a series of explosive volcanic eruptions. Until (and if) these occur, it seems equally likely that we will simply have to adapt to a world that is about one Fahrenheit degree warmer than it was in the mid-20th century, but at least we shouldn’t have to worry about “climate Armageddon” due to further warming, as long as we remain vigilant against further releases of existing CFC stockpiles and other chemicals that deplete the ozone layer.
In the book, we also discuss apparent problems with greenhouse warming in considerable detail on both theoretical and observational grounds. An exhaustive literature search revealed that only one actual experiment has ever been performed to test greenhouse warming theory empirically. It was done by Knut Ångström in 1900, and he concluded that any warming effect from increasing atmospheric CO2 concentration was negligible. Accordingly, Peter Ward has issued a $10,000 challenge to anyone who can demonstrate by experiment that greenhouse gases are more effective at warming Earth than ozone depletion. To date, he has had no takers (see WhyClimateChanges.com/Challenge/).
Meanwhile, we sought to assess the relative response of global temperature to mean monthly variations in ozone depletion and in atmospheric carbon dioxide over the same time interval in the northern hemisphere and found, in the following graph, a close correlation with temperature anomalies in the case of ozone depletion, but we also found that the carbon dioxide peak lags the temperature anomaly variation curve by two months, indicating little possibility of a significant influence of carbon dioxide variation on global temperature. A possible, but slight, influence is evident in the small upward deflection of the temperature anomaly curve in June.
The Relationship of Ozone Depletion to Temperature
Mean monthly values of northern hemisphere temperature anomalies (red) and ozone depletion anomalies (green) for the period 1975 to 1998 and of atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations at Mauna Loa, Hawaii, (blue) since 1961, normalized as percentages. Carbon dioxide values, peaking in May, show only a minor effect on temperature anomalies, but coincidence of the peaks in ozone depletion and temperature in March suggest a possible causal relationship.
We would welcome your thoughts on the foregoing, especially if they follow a careful reading of the book or the website WhyClimateChanges.com. It is clearly rather important for all living things on Earth that we get this right.
Figures can be added with captions as
1. http://whyclimatechanges.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/FrontCoverFinal.jpg
2. https://ozonedepletiontheory.info/ImagePages/global-warming-sulfur.html
3. https://ozonedepletiontheory.info/ImagePages/TempClOzCO2-5.html
4. https://ozonedepletiontheory.info/ImagePages/sulfate-9-16ka.html
5. https://ozonedepletiontheory.info/ImagePages/sulfate-22-46ka.html
6. https://ozonedepletiontheory.info/ImagePages/monthly-ozone-temperature-percent.html
Or just as jpegs as
1. http://whyclimatechanges.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/FrontCoverFinal.jpg
2. https://ozonedepletiontheory.info/Images/global-warming-sulfur.jpg
3. https://ozonedepletiontheory.info/Images/TempClOzCO2-5.jpg
4. https://ozonedepletiontheory.info/Images/sulfate-9-16ka.jpg
5. https://ozonedepletiontheory.info/Images/sulfate-22-46ka.jpg
6. https://ozonedepletiontheory.info/Images/monthly-ozone-temperature-percent.jpg
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
I have carried out hundreds of spectral analyses using the application by name Spectral Calculator. There are several spectral analysis tools available and they all use so called line-by-line (LBL) method. The tools can take into account the actual concentrations of all GH gases and they do not need any odd manipulations. The results are in line with real measurements. For example the absorption by CO2 has been checked in the real climate conditions and the accuracy is better than 1 %. David, have you published any studies, where you can show that the LBL-method is not scientifically on the solid basis?
I can show a simple analysis that the decreased ozone concentration does not cause cooling but warming. The incoming amount of radiation is about 238 W/m2 and it is a sum of two radiation fluxes: the absorption flux by the atmosphere 71 W/m2 and the SW radiation absorbed by the surface 167 W/m2. Because the Earth obeys the 1st law of thermodynamics, the outgoing LW radiation (OLR) at TOA (Top of the Atmosphere) is exactly the same: 238 W/m2. The borderline of the TOA is about 80 km.
If the decreased ozone concentration reduces the SW absorption – let us say by 3 W/m2 – the incoming SW radiation at the surface increases about the same amount. No actual effect on the Earth’s energy balance and no effect on cooling or warming. But ozone has also a role in the GH effect by absorbing LW radiation and its portion is about 5 % (water 82 %, CO2 11 %, CH4 & N2O 2 %). If the ozone concentration decreases, it has a cooling effect, because the LW absorption in the atmosphere will decrease. The net effect of reducing the ozone concentration will be cooling.
The stratosphere, where the ozone plays its role as absorbing both SW and LW radiation is an essential part of the Earth’s energy balance. You cannot leave it out but it must be included. The researchers – IPCC minded or not – accept this as a fact.
Dr. Antero Ollila
I haven’t published such studies. Why do you say in your second paragraph that decreased ozone concentration causes warming, but in your third paragraph that decreased ozone concentration causes cooling? Attempting to balance Earth’s energy budget using computations involving W/m^2 is misleading because the effectiveness of absorbed radiation is frequency dependent. Radiation of frequencies below the activation threshold of any process of interest are irrelevant. Simple summation of radiant fluxes across bandwidths fail to take this important constraint into account and are therefore of questionable value.
The effect of Ozone concentration varies with altitude as shown for example by Clough and Iacono, see below:
tweb.aer.com/rc_kcp.gif
Looks like that link doesn’t work here, try again:
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-WD_Yh20cTis/VV9hGG9_O6I/AAAAAAAAHOk/ogIGLHCU0Fg/s1600/strato%2Bcool.jpg
Dr. Ollila said:
“If the ozone concentration decreases, it has a cooling effect, because the LW absorption in the atmosphere will decrease. The net effect of reducing the ozone concentration will be cooling.”
It will be at its location in the stratosphere but a cooling stratosphere raises the height of the tropopause and if one does that then deeper convection can occur and it is convection that stores surface kinetic energy as potential energy which can be returned to the surface as kinetic energy once more in convective descent.
So, deeper convection stores more energy in potential form so that more kinetic energy can be returned to the surface beneath descending columns which offsets any cooling effect for a zero net thermal effect overall.
To get any net thermal effect one must alter global albedo so that there is a change in the proportion of incoming solar energy entering the Earth system and being retained rather than radiated straight out.
In reality the ozone effects differ at different heights and latitudes as per the link that I referred David to:
http://www.energianews.com/newsletter/files/c80b5c6f82d91f6a669a11f6a6d1b643.pdf
and it is the information in that link which tends to support my ozone based hypothesis for solar induced climate changes:
http://joannenova.com.au/2015/01/is-the-sun-driving-ozone-and-changing-the-climate/
Note the underlying point that since the energy content of the Earth system (kinetic plus potential energy) is set by atmospheric mass, the strength of the gravitational field and the intensity of incoming radiation then any changes in total energy content when those three factors remain the same can only be affected by overall albedo changes and not the radiative capability of internal system components.
Albedo determines the proportion of incoming radiation that can enter the system and be retained longer than simple radiation in and radiation straight out again instantly at the speed of light.
It is the increase in the time taken for transmission of radiation through the system over and above that for a wholly radiative exchange that raises the surface temperature above the S-B expectation. Accordingly it is conductive and convective processes that raise the surface temperature and convection always counters radiative imbalances:
http://www.public.asu.edu/~hhuang38/mae578_lecture_06.pdf
Note the recent ideas of David Evans who points out that varying the radiative capability of one system component simply results in a change in the radiative capability of another component by switching the flow of outgoing radiation between multiple routes which he describes as ‘pipes’.
I have proposed the appropriate mechanism which involves changes in lapse rate slopes creating convective changes that adjust the various emission heights as necesssary.
http://joannenova.com.au/2015/10/for-discussion-can-convection-neutralize-the-effect-of-greenhouse-gases/
Climate change is simply the shifting around of the various permanent climate zones as the necessary NEGATIVE system response to ANY attempt at disruption of thermal equilibrium and the net thermal effect at the surface must always be zero if the hydrostatic balance of an atmosphere is to be retained for the long term.
Dr. O. is correct in asserting that a decreasing ozone concentration has a cooling effect, but not because of decreased LW absorption. Decreased SW (UV-B) absorption reduces the amount of O3 dissociation, which reduces temperature because fewer dissociated O3 molecules are contributing their kinetic energy to maintaining a warmer stratospheric temperature. What you say about increased convection in a deepened troposphere providing increased potential, and hence kinetic, energy makes sense and is consistent with observed tropospheric temperature increase under a cooling stratosphere.
To your paragraph beginning “Note the underlying point…” I’d add the heat capacity of the world ocean. I also feel that the thermogenic potential in UV-C and UV-B absorption by stratospheric ozone is a key contributor.
I resonate strongly with your last paragraph.
I agree with the ocean point since I have previously suggested that the ocean waters should be regarded as having their own greenhouse effect separate from that of the atmospheric gases.
In fact I formed the view some time ago that ocean heat content is determined by the weight of atmosphere bearing down on the water surface as explained here:
http://www.newclimatemodel.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/TheSettingAndMaintainingOfEarth.pdf
Thus, for a planet with a 70% water surface the temperature is dominated by the ability of water to retain energy and that water then determines the temperature of the atmospheric gases.
In the end though it is atmospheric mass that controls the energy content of the water so we come back full circle to conduction from surface (water or solid gtound) to atmosphere and then convecting up and down which determines how far above the S-B prediction a planetary surface beneath an atmosphere can warm up.
Your volcanic events can indeed shift the global air circulation around so as to change climate regionally and temporarily but I still judge that solar variations in the background (modified by internal ocean cycles) are the primary cause of lonmg term clmate variations.
Professor Laing: It would be a great benefit to your readers if you presented time series data showing time on the X axis. Although I understand that a clever mind may be able to transpose the visual data presented, it does nothing to make your arguments more accessible.
Further, presenting dimensionless data doesn’t advance the argument either.
As I mentioned previously, the graphs in the book are presented in accordance with your criterion. I apologize for the added inconvenience of having to compensate for the unorthodox presentation in my post. I chose to use normalized (dimensionless) data in my CO2/Temp/O3 depletion graph in order to render the three curves more readily comparable at the same scale. Again, I apologize if this resulted in undue inconvenience.
The notion that there is one normal way to view time series is, IMHO, way too narrow. On graphs, it is essential to look at both the X and Y axis. Time can run right or left, up or down. To expect otherwise is to assure you will be perpetually bothered. ~”Wanting what you cannot have is the root of unhappiness, so let go of the wanting.” Buddhist teachings…
The graphs are fine, they show YOUR POV, which is what is desired, and novelty reminds us of our own thought ruts and the need to escape them… Do not apologize for being uniquely you, it is all you really have in life.
Tx! 🙂
It was only a suggestion, I’m a retired journal editor by trade. Old habit die hard… 🙂
As chief editor of our book, and of many other scientific and technical publications, I understand perfectly! 😎
The most interesting aspect of Professor Laing’s work from my point of view is that it demonstrates that radiatively active material at lower levels (effusive eruptions) results in warming due to absorption dominating whereas at higher levels (expolsive eruptions) it causes cooling due to emission to space dominating.
That fits well with my work here:
http://joannenova.com.au/2015/10/for-discussion-can-convection-neutralize-the-effect-of-greenhouse-gases/
especially Fig 3 relating to non condensing GHGs which applies equally to any non condensing radiatively active material including volcanic ejecta. I show the inflection point at which absorption dominates at lower levels in both rising and falling columns.
It would take some time (up to a century for very large eruptions) for the negative system response described in my work to restore the pre existing equilibrium so to that extent I agree with his basic findings.
I only have reservations concerning the longer term effects which I still consider to be attributable to internal solar variability up to a millennium or two with Milankovitch cycles dominating over geological timescales.
Either way, I do accept that volcanic outbreaks and ocean cycles cause disruptions to the longer term solar influences.
Your effusive vs explosive dichotomy seems pretty much the good ol’ mafic/felsic. Large igneous provinces are predominantly mafic or effusive. LIP data is available from LIP.org or somesuch. Over deep time the LIP production is less supportive of your conclusions.
An interesting result of the investigation was that the Siberian Traps were not at all impressive in the LIP scheme of things and the Deccan Traps quite a bit before the extinction.
The massive shields of effusive LIP’s preserve better than the tuffs of explosive volcanics. It would be nice to have better explosive data in deep time.
Thanks for a provocative post.
Yes, it’s the old primitive mantle basalt versus evolved crustal magma dichotomy. It would be nice to have a more useful reference than “LIP.org, or somesuch.” That brought up “lip.net,” which refused to load. What is the source of your fuzzy graph? As far as I can tell, the rather coarse time series don’t seem inconsistent with our conclusions overall. The temperature curve over the past 150 ma seems quite responsive to the intensity and duration of LIP development, and the dip in temperature between ~160 and ~180 ma coincides with a quiescent period, as does the steep temperature decline through the Neogene. Termination of the LIP record at 250 ma and 65 ma renders interpretation prior to and following this interval problematic to impossible. Without knowing the source of the graphic, I nonetheless find the long duration and the low intensity of the CAMP LIP at the J-Tr boundary interesting, especially with respect to an earlier comment questioning why the CAMP apparently didn’t produce a strong temperature response. This is consistent with the idea that rifting in the middle of Pangaea was slow and laborious, and warming effects from effusive volcanism were likely suppressed by the profusion of explosive volcanoes that doubtless developed over the circumsupercontinental subduction zone(s) that must have encircled Pangaea as it commenced its outward expansion.
David,
Sorry to coming back so late, Yes, there was an error in the sentence:”I can show a simple analysis that the decreased ozone concentration does not cause cooling but warming”. It should have been other way around: …does not cause warming but cooling.
I do not understand why anthropogenic CFCs should be considered very important. The problem of CFCs is that if they end up in the stratosphere, they get converted to chlorine (plus other compounds). However, it is my understanding that the volume of chlorine entering the stratosphere far exceeds the anthropogenic volume. So, why do we care about anthropogenic CFCs?
I meant to write “…the volume of volcanogenic chlorine entering the stratosphere far exceeds the anthropogenic volume.”
Would you please substantiate your understanding with a reference? Tx!
Reference:
Maduro, R. A. and Schauehammer, R., 1992, The Holes in the Ozone Scare, 21st Century Science Associates, 356 pages, ISBN 0-9628134-0-0.
Sorry. I should have specified a peer-reviewed, fact-based, scientific reference of the kind that we provide in abundance in our own book.