Guest essay by Eric Worrall
CO2 forcing is logarithmic – the more CO2 you add, the less effect additional CO2 has on the climate system. So how do you make this diminishing return sound scary? By creating a fantasy, or course.
Near miss: the importance of the natural atmospheric CO2 concentration to human historical evolution
ABSTRACT
When fossil fuel energy was discovered, the timing and intensity of the resulting climate impacts depended on what the natural CO2 concentration in the atmosphere was at that time. The natural CO2 concentration is thought to be controlled by complex, slow-acting natural feedback mechanisms, and could easily have been different than it turned out to be. If the natural concentration had been a factor of two or more lower, the climate impacts of fossil fuel CO2 release would have occurred about 50 or more years sooner, making it much more challenging for the developing human society to scientifically understand the phenomenon of anthropogenic climate change in time to prevent it.
Read more: http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10584-016-1725-y
The crux of the argument appears to be the following;
… The set point of the CO2 thermostat depends on the intensity of sunlight received at the Earth’s surface, among many other things (Berner and Lasaga 1989; Berner 1997). According to the Berner formulation, if the temperature at the surface of the sun were just 1 % hotter, or if Earth were just a few percent closer to the sun, a significantly lower atmospheric CO2 concentration would have been needed, for weathering to balance the same rate of CO2 degassing (Fig 1a and b). A 10 % change in the albedo of the Earth, or in the age of the Earth (putting us later on the timeline of a warming sun), would also have had a significant impact on the steady state atmospheric CO2 concentration. The CO2 degassing rate could be a bit lower than it is. If any of these factors had been different at the time in Earth history when industrial society arose, the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere could have been much different than it turned out to be, either higher or lower. …
Read more: Same link as above
Essentially the author is arguing that if humanity had evolved millions of years later in our planet’s history, when the sun was a little warmer, we would have encountered serious climate problems decades earlier in our industrial history than today, and therefore have been a lot less able to deal with them.
The problem with this argument is, despite the author’s assertions, we still haven’t encountered any “challenging” problems with the global climate. Despite wild claims about climate refugees and worsening storms, the reality is the global climate is benign. Our biosphere is growing more productive, more benign, thanks to greening from anthropogenic CO2.
If the Earth really was currently experiencing major anthropogenic climate related problems, there would be no need to invent fantasies about how it could have been worse.
If CO2 had started out lower, none of us would be here to worry about it!
That’s true, john. During glacial epochs, CO2 drops to about 185 ppmv, and below that level plants start to die off. And few of us are able to eat just rocks or dirt and stay alive.
That’s correct for C3 plants. Not for C4 plants.
C3 plants include small seeded cereal crops such as rice, wheat, barley, rye, oats, soybeans, peanuts, as well as most trees.
C4 plants are limited to the angiosperms which make up about 3% of all land plants.
Your comment regarding the survivability of C4 plants is noted but it would make little or no difference regarding our own survivability–most mammals, including humans, wouldn’t survive without C3 plants.
Exactly right. Lower CO2 during the last ice age would have eliminated photosynthesising plants, then most fungi and all animals. Oh, and Santa Baby re C4 plants: yes, they still photosynthesise and stay alive, but they don’t grow. OK for a few years at max, but 1,000? Dead like all the rest.
Just be aware that whether C3 or C4, there’s virtually none of today’s crops that are the same as they were even 1000 years ago, thanks to our bio-engineering and hybridisation since we began to raise crops.
If there is a direct correlation between CO2 levels and ambient temperatures, then starting off with an even lower concentration of CO2 would also create a lower starting point for ambient pre-industrial temperatures.
Negating that pesky fact that dropping CO2 from 185ppm to 160ppm would eliminate most photosynthesizing plants, Following the reverse logarithmic curve, lowering CO2 would also have led to a much lower pre-industrial starting temperature and most likely had balanced out the extra warming effect leaving us just as warm and toasty as we are today
When fossil fuel energy was discovered
Like 1 million years ago? Possibly before speech? The use of fire greatly assisted human development, providing much more energy from the available food, enough to support the brain size increase.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Control_of_fire_by_early_humans
No, ‘Fossil fuel’ is applied to coal, peat, lignite, oil and gas.
Not to sticks on a campfire
though both still produce CO2 equally.
Is it fossil fuel because the fuel has fossils in it or because fossils created it?
Is there a, um, consensus on that chicken/egg thing?
NO, its fossil fuel because all of us old farts like it.
…Wow !! Talk about desperation ! It sounds like like they are unhappy that Humanity will NOT be destroyed after all…!
An air sample is properly collected. From anywhere. I am confident that the exact composition of gases, in particular CO2, can be quantitatively determined. But how, or can, the CO2 measured in that sample quantitatively be determined to be human emission? Or natural emission?
Good point TRomAK.
I also wonder how people can so confidently talk about CO2 forcing. With the dominance of water vapor over all other so-called greenhouse gasses, I do not see how CO2 forcing can be anything but a mathematical construct. And if real, so small as to be lost in the noise.
Not forgetting the wailing and gnashing of teeth about CH4 – which decomposes into H and C naturally in the atmosphere. CH4 poses no problem at all.
I believe that CH4 is Oxidized into CO2 and H20 with the application of either Heat (fires) or Electricity(lightning) 1-CH4 + 6-O + heat = 1-CO2 & 2-H2O
Should be 1-CH4 and 2-O2 (4-O)
With a lot of hand waving and speculation. It’s bollocks. Atmospheric CO2 is very clear driven by temperature, and not the other way around. It does not matter what errant or incomplete hypotheses say, that is what the data tell us.
http://woodfortrees.org/graph/esrl-co2/derivative/mean:12/from:1979/plot/uah/offset:0.6/scale:0.22
If the natural concentration had been “a factor of 2 or more lower”, he wouldn’t be here to write this idiocy, all plant life on the planet having previously perished.
And if my aunt had been a man, she (he) would have been my uncle.
Such things are possible now, Trebla.
If your aunt feels she is a man she would become your uncle? In order not to offend one with a delusion everybody else must be offended by also taking part in this delusion?
as Siants slithers on . .
I thought she would have been your Aunt-Man
“…he wouldn’t be here to write this idiocy, all plant life on the planet having previously perished.”
Are you implying the author is a plant or that the author has the IQ of a plant? It works for me either way.
Oscar – not!
Nearly lost a keyboard!
+ Several!
Auto
And if I were 2 inches shorter or taller none of my clothes would fit.
Tom in Florida July 21, 2016 at 3:06 pm
Excellent.
Tom in Florida July 21, 2016 at 3:06 pm
I must say Tom, that for all the years you have contributed to WUWT? I have always enjoyed your posts. Thoughtful and intelligent, consistently. I am pretty sure you have posted this comment previously, but it struck me right in the funny bone today. Chuckled for a while. Thanks and keep up the great commentary.
Or if you ate too much or went on a diet…
Tom, you made me realize that if I were not born, none of my clothes would sit in front of this screen and keyboard. I never thought of my garments that way. They really depend on me.
And if my left leg was 2 inches shorter, Nature would compensate by making my right leg 2 inches longer!
” evolved millions of years later in our planet’s history, when the sun was a little warmer, we would have encountered serious climate problems decades earlier in our industrial history than today, and therefore have been a lot less able to deal with them”
Why? We seem to be able to solve and adapt to challenges quite quickly. It doesn’t make sense to create an hypothetical situation for humanity and then stipulate a fixed outcome. Sounds like another model. Anyway, several million years would mean the passing of about 20 or more inter-glacials which would be 20 opportunities to advance before having to wait for this new hypothetical starting point.
And if the sun were 2.5 solar mass,,,, things would be diffeerent
michael
err different
If the sun went nova…
(Mike, if an error is that synchrostratalogical just leave it, I suggest, and people might think you’re very clever)
(PS, I made that word up myself, so I know it’s correctly spelled)
But the Copernican Conundrum would seem to indicate that we would not be around for most of these opportunities!
If Aunt Jane had testicles, she’d by my Uncle Bob.
And if CO2 were a factor of two or more lower, there most likely wouldn’t be any humans to create emissions.
wouldn’t that be your Uncle Bruce?
“wouldn’t that be your Uncle Bruce?”
No.
If Aunt Sheila had nads he’d be your Uncle Bruce.
If my Aunt Jane had nads she would be my Uncle Bob, and if my Uncle Bob then lost his he would be my Aunt Jane. I would still have Aunt Jane and Uncle Bob so I dont care as long as they love me!
What a flash of sociological insight!
Pretty sound; will they – Uncle Jane and Aunty Bob – leave you their collection of Corbyn’s Predictions?
That’ll be a humdinger when he becomes PM.
Piers – not the chap with no friends at work.
Auto
Eric
If you look at the 30 latest OCO-2 satellite images and the report that surrounds them in the link below, you will see the real carbon cycle. CO2 in the Northern Hemisphere is at the lowest levels when the sun is at the most intense. So what value are they using for warming calculations ??
Both of the statements quoted in your post above are rubbish and without foundation. Look at the OCO-2 satellite images released on the 14th of April and see for yourself and see the real carbon cycle. Link below.
Where does the CO2 originate and where does it go to ???, It is pretty obvious to those with an open mind and an unbiased set of eyes.
http://www.blozonehole.com/blozone-hole-theory/blozone-hole-theory/carbon-cycle-using-nasa-oco-2-satellite-images
Eric – PS
If you or any others have an alternative to what I am proposing in my report I am happy to discuss.
Why has it taken so long for anyone to even note that these all too important OCO-2 images actually exist.let alone comment on them. Is this not what the entire AGW discussion revolves around ??
“CO2 forcing is logarithmic – the more CO2 you add, the less effect additional CO2 has…”
Kind of like global warming alarmism…
That’s a good bumper sticker.
{IF the temperature at the surface of the sun were just 1 % hotter, or IF Earth were just a few percent closer to the sun, a significantly lower atmospheric CO2 concentration would have been needed, for weathering to balance the same rate of CO2 degassing}
yep, and IF a frog had wings, it wouldn’t bump it’s ass every time it hops
” we still haven’t encountered any “challenging” problems with the global climate”
I hate to disagree,Mr.Worrall,however,we have. It’s called how to keep the climate leeches/politicos from stealing our hard earned bucks for a non-existent problem through “carbon taxes”, short of shooting them all.
Fair point 🙂
Justthin – hold on.
Shooting them, I trust, is a metaphor for – something like – popping them into very caring – but very, very secure – homes, ensuring that they never again sully the reasonable discussion of reasonable folk, even by smoke-signals or carrier pigeon.
I trust.
Auto – ever vigilant that my hope turns into a roast beef dinner [one day!].
oh wow…. really reaching with this one… well with all of them but this one reminds me of something my dad used to say… “if my aunt had balls she would have been my uncle.”
Cheers,
Joe
This must have been a very common saying at one time, I’ve lost count of how many people have posted it. ^_^
They’re trying way too hard. There’s a reason they’re trying too hard. They’ve won the political policy battle but they’re losing the big one – the evidence war, and they know it.
“If the natural concentration [of CO2] had been a factor of two or more lower,…
There would be no vegetation left on Earth !!
We wouldn’t be here. !!
We got lucky, and started de-sequestering that much needed CO2, just in time.
First, the fabricated low atmospheric CO2 of 280 ppm that is claimed to be the historical CO2 concentration before fossil fuels was chert-picked from real CO2 chemical bottle data from the last 200 years that range from the low 200s to way above 440 ppm. A narrow range of data points around 280 ppm were chosen, averaged, and published as the factual constant CO2 of prehistory.
We have real CO2 chemical bottle data going back over 200 years and the data clearly shows that CO2 has gone up and down during three mina parts of the last 200 years. The cherry-picking of the data eliminated this clear historical variation. Just like the hockey stick graph supposedly disappeared the Little Ice Age, this data fabrication eliminated real recorded variations in CO2.
Furthermore, ice core CO2 values are taken as absolute measurements of the concentration of CO2 at the time the bubbles were trapped. This is so far from the truth, it hurts. Jaworowski, the world expert on ice cores, admits the micro-fracturing, depressurization, and outgassing that must occur during core extraction from the depths of an ice sheet. Estimating 30–50% CO2 losses, one can back calculate the ice core data and find that CO2 was probably the same or higher than now during most of the last 500K years. Ice core CO2 values are notoriously low, due to losses, and the fluctuations over time are also muted as the higher the CO2 concentration, the more the loss from a core during extraction. Dishonestly, the IPCC and alarmist scientists like to pretend ice core data is direct measurement.
Yep, that dreadful Callendar paper.
CO2 does not drive temperature tempeature drives CO2.
CLAIM: If temperatures had started out 10 degrees warmer….they would be claiming we need more CO2
(but then they would have to explain how CO2 can do something it can’t do)
footnote: “If the natural concentration had been a factor of two or more lower”…we would be dead
Is he cheating on his figure 4? That looks like he has changed the log curve to a higher value to make the saturation effect come in later. We may be saturating much sooner and the effect (per the CO2 people) may end shortly.
If the Earth was Venus, we would all be living on Venus.
I do believe that Mr. D. Archer has way too much time on his hands, and should try and write something noteworthy on the taxpayer’s dime, rather than writing speculative shite.
And, let’s not forget that, if CO2 had been a factor of two lower than they claim, our plants would be either dead or not growing and the animals would be dying. The idea that even entertaining CO2 concentrations that low shows how stupid people have gotten about CO2.
We need MORE NOT LESS CO2. It is plant food and is greening the planet. Higher CO2 also allows plants to grow faster, need less water and nutrients, and be more temperature tolerant over a larger range.
If the subject is the recent past, then “If the natural concentration had been a factor of two or more lower,” all the plants would have died and everything else with them.
Plants start doing pretty poorly around 150 ppm. From what I understand, it has gotten down to the 200s (ppm) before.
The underlying premise of the entire post is mistaken: there has been no proven AGW. None. Only “Well, human CO2 must be doing something… .” A guess is not evidence.
Here’s a real scientist’s expert opinion on AGW:
Dr. Richard Lindzen
(from a 2011 essay in which he concedes that human CO2 may be doing some miniscule warming, but, that this is, so far, not proven and, even if so, certainly be nothing to do anything about)
(Source: https://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/01/17/richard-lindzen-a-case-against-precipitous-climate-action/ )
***************************
CO2 UP. WARMING STOPPED.
Game over.
The article starts with:
“CO2 forcing is logarithmic – the more CO2 you add, the less effect additional CO2 has on the climate system.”
Thankfully Janice says:
“The underlying premise of the entire post is mistaken: there has been no proven AGW. None.”
I’ve seen the logarithmic claim before, it sounds definitive. But I want to know exactly what is logarithmic. What is “CO2 forcing”? To make that claim there must be something that’s being measured, so how are they measuring “CO2 forcing”? Logarithmic implies there is a correlating function, will someone please publish this function?
If there were no CO2 in the atmosphere there would be no “CO2 forcing”.
Now let’s add a single molecule of CO2 to the atmosphere, how much “CO2 forcing” would there be?
And if we add a second CO2 molecule the “CO2 forcing” per molecule would drop as per the logarithmic claim?
Is there a base level of CO2 where this logarithmic claim begins? What is that base level? What is the upper bound of “CO2 forcing”? We’ve established that there is no “CO2 forcing” on Mars, and its atmosphere is 950000 ppm. So when they claim that “the more CO2 you add, the less effect it has” do they mean that the entire effect approaches zero with increased CO2? So, if it starts at zero and ends at zero, is that logarithmic?