Guest essay by Rud Istvan
Dr. Murry Salby has been getting substantial attention in the climate blogosphere, for two reasons. First is his theory that at least 2/3 of the observed increase in atmospheric CO2 is natural and temperature induced. Second are the circumstances surrounding his departure from U. Colorado and later termination from Macquarie University. This post covers the first and not the second, and is motivated by a very recent WUWT post on the mysteries of OCO-2, where the Salby theory was raised yet again in comments.
Background
Dr. Salby developed a substantial scientific reputation for work on upper atmosphere wave propagation and stratospheric ozone. He has published two textbooks, Atmospheric Physics (1996) and Physics of the Atmosphere and Climate (2012). His new theory that most of the increase in atmospheric CO2 is naturally temperature induced (NOT anthropogenic) is not published. He explicated it in a Hamburg lecture 18 April 2013, and a London lecture 17 March 2015. Both are available on YouTube. (Search his name to find, view, and critique them before reading on if you want to deep dive.) This post does not reproduce or critique his arguments in detail. (There are fundamental definitional, mathematical, and factual observation errors. Perhaps a more detailed companion post will follow detailing them with footnotes if this does not suffice.) This post only addresses whether his conclusions are supported by observations; it is a macro Feynman test rather than a Salby details deep dive.
Controversial CO2 Atmospheric Concentration Theory
The core of Salby’s theory is derived using CO2 data from MLO’s Keeling Curve since 1958, and satellite temperature data since 1979. (His few charts reaching back to 1880 contain acknowledged large uncertainties.) His theory builds off a simple observation, that in ‘official’ estimates of Earth’s carbon cycle budget, anthropogenic CO2 is only a small source compared to large natural sources and sinks. This is illustrated by IPCC AR4 WG1 figure 7.3.
He then deduces there must be rapidly responding temperature dependent natural CO2 net sources much greater than anthropogenic sources. This is a very questionable argument on short decadal time frames. Gore got it wrong, and Salby got it wrong. The ice core based CO2 lagged change to temperature is about 800 years, common sensically corresponding to the thermohaline circulation period. (For rigorous calculations on Salby’s decadal time scales using residency half-lives and efold times, see Eschenbach’s post at http://www.wattsupwiththat.com/2015/04/19/the-secret-life-of-half-life/
He observationally bolsters his conclusion by ‘showing’ that highest CO2 concentrations are over relatively uninhabited/unindustrialized regions like the Amazon basin, so must have natural origins. The following ‘observational’ figure is from his Hamburg lecture. Except it is completely disproved by OCO-2.
Critique
As Feynman said, observation trumps theory.
First, if Salby is right, the rise in atmospheric CO2 concentrations should have slowed or stopped because of the ‘pause’. They haven’t. They bear no short or long term relationship to one another. Since 2000, CO2 has increased about 35% on the 1958 Keeling curve base; temperatures haven’t (the pause). The seasonality of the northern hemisphere terrestrial photosynthetic sink is apparent in the Keeling curve, as is the temperature/CO2 discrepancy disproving Salby.
Second, satellites have NOT generally observed higher CO2 concentrations over uninhabited/ unindustrialized regions in past two decades. (The following NASA charts use AIRS IR sensors on various satellites to estimate gridded CO2 concentrations from peak CO2 OLR absorption wavelengths. The new OCO-2 data is even more stark.)
Third, Salby’s theory requires that land and/or sea serve as the temperature dependent CO2 net sources that ‘overwhelm’ anthropogenic CO2 emissions from fossil fuels and cement production. That is NOT true either; both land and sea have been serving as net sinks.
Terrestrial biomass (net primary productivity, NPP) is an increasing sink. This has been observed in multiple ways, including NASA AVHRR (1982-2009) and MODIS (2000-2009) ‘normalized difference vegetative index’ (NDVI). NDVI has been ground truthed by sampling NPP including both ‘roots and shoots’ by ecosystem. The terrestrial net biological sink has increased since 1980. It is not a source. The most recent paper is NASA’s 14% greening in 30 years, published 4/16/2016 and previously remarked at WUWT.
That leaves oceans. Biologically, oceans are a net carbon sink through photosynthesis and calcification. Satellites detect this through planktonic chlorophyll concentrations.
But there are certainly large ocean zones that are relatively barren (mainly from lack of iron fertilization in the form of dust). Those large blue barren swaths are where ocean water pCO2 and pH are monitored, precisely to minimize confounding biological sink influences recently explained on WUWT by Dr. Jim Steele. Could those also be a net source?
Barren ocean regions are mainly influenced Henry’s Law and Le Chatellier’s Principle. The first says partial pressures of ocean dissolved CO2 and atmospheric CO2 will equilibrate. The second partly says colder water stores more dissolved CO2. ARGO suggests the oceans are warming. Could Le Chatellier be stronger than Henry, in which case oceans could provide Salby’s requisite rapidly temperature dependent net natural source? There are two stations, Aloha 100 km north of Oahu (maintained by University of Hawaii and WHOI) and BATS off Bermuda (maintained by WHOI) where the hypothesis can be tested by observations. Both show even barren oceans are a net carbon sink since 1980. Barren ocean pH declines as pCO2 increases.
If there are no observational temperature dependent natural CO2 sources, and temperature dependent sinks (NH temperate terrestrial vegetation) increase with temperature, then Salby’s natural carbon dioxide theory cannot be true. It is falsified. Even before detailing his definitional, mathematical, and factual errors.
I love the circular logic of global warmists….not Dr. Murry Salby, it just reminded me of it
The recent warming can’t be explained by anything we know…..
…so we’re going to accredit it to something we know even less about….
…might as well blame it on the tooth fairy
The most recent paper is NASA’s 14% greening….
This will throw that off a tad….
“the world’s drylands host 40% more forests than thought, the team writes today in Science. That’s more than a 9% bump in total global forest coverage, or two-thirds the size of the Amazon.”
Earth’s forests grew 9% in a new satellite survey
http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/05/earths-forests-grew-9-new-satellite-survey
The two are not inconsistent. 14% is all earth. The new ‘forest’ is just drylands like the Sahel.
“It will also help scientists make more accurate estimates of how much carbon dioxide Earth’s trees are sucking out of the atmosphere—and how much of our fossil fuel emissions they’ll be able to handle in the future.”
ristvan
May 13, 2017 at 10:53 am
Ristvan……no matter what,,, the CO2 concentration trend is at the point that you should consider it as being unprecedented, aka no natural…..you will not have a standing hypothesis or theory to explain it, no body will have as the very ACC people will tell and acept .
As the ACC cabal will clearly say and prove to you when time be ripe for it…..you do not need a theory or hypothesis when the observation and the data show you clearly that the concentration CO2 trend is nearly at 420 ppm and showing that it will keep going up…
Remember, the scientific method,,,,, and the guy you called it a troll the other day when he point it out to you that you have not a hypothesis or theory……..and the ACCer will not need one either when at 420 ppm and especially in a cooling trend…..to claim that the anthropogenic CO2 is forcing the increase of the ppms……
and you and any one else at that point trying to complain and fight against the precautionary principle, aka something like a Paris treaty,,, will be just like peasants with pitchforks. trying to fight a very heavy armored and compact samurai force ….
The guy the other day was not a troll, even when it looked very much like one….already knew exactly what “he” was doing……
I am not sure but the last representation of Dr. Salby, did not look much like a theory or hypotheses to me, was more like a detailed analyses of the data and the observations, with a conclusive outcome……was more like a test crash or a attempt to falsify the AGW. How successful or good that was or is, is an entirely different matter but to me it did not seem like much of a hypothesis or a theory….wondering if that so, why would you try to paint it differently than it was or is…….!?
cheers
Whiten, am having a hard time comprehending your comment in order to respond. So lets take your comments in bites. CO2 concentration unprecedented depends on your time frame. C4 plants evolved because CO2 had got too low for dry place C3 plants to thrive. 85% of plant species are C3; evolutionary evidence that we are low rather than unprecidented high.
As to AGW, CO2 is a ghg. But, it could not have caused the temp rise from ~1920-1945 that is indistinguishable from ~1975-2000 (IPCC AR4 WG1 SPM fig. 8.2). So there is a very large attribution problem to AGW in the later period, upon which all CAGW rests.
As to precautionary principle, two observations. 1. The warmunist use is a 180 degree inversion of its original meaning, 2. The warmunist version is economic suicide.
As to Salby, yes he tried to refute AGW. And he failed miserably, as shown by my post– nevermind the details of how and why that two below demand (but if were fully as opposed to only partly in the post and comments), would still either not comprehend or object to). That way does not lie skeptical political success.
whiten
forgive me if I misinterpreted your post, but I read it as a stab at ristvan for his illustration of the, now, two studies that demonstrate the planet is greening.
First, I would suggest the green community ought to be cock a hoop over these studies and broadcasting them. Strangely, the very objective they have pursued for many years is now abandoned for political reasons.
Second, the precautionary principle is a scientific straight jacket. Whilst we are all desperate to avoid another Thalidomide event, how many more beneficial scientific programs were successful in pushing the boundaries of science without it. We would probably never have had penicillin if the precautionary principle were in operation at the time.
ristvan
May 13, 2017 at 1:50 pm
ristvan I can not blame it on you, the lack of understanding and getting my point……….especially when you keep listing the “pitchfork” arsenal you own……
At 420 ppm as the data and the observatiions stand, regardless of what temp trend or theories or whatever….the ppm trend stands as unprecedented in nature, according to the data and the observations…..
And if no one can reasonably quantify the outcome of such anthropogenic impact, either as good bad or nothing, then the precautionary principle applies on the point of considering the human CO2 emission reductions……and the only thing that matters then is the amount of the possible reduction, regardless of temps theories or what ever, CS, ECS, warming or any thing like that will not matter ristvan, only the “obvious” “truth” that ppms are very much forced by the anthropogenic CO2 emissions…end of the story at that point….as it clearly will be shown by the data and the observations…..
cheers
HotScot
May 13, 2017 at 2:04 pm
how many more beneficial scientific programs were successful in pushing the boundaries of science without it. We would probably never have had penicillin if the precautionary principle were in operation at the time.
—————————
Very good, in deed, I think any ACCer will applaud and accept it,,,,, having the anthropogenic CO2 emissions turned in to a scientific program, with a very much handling and controlling of it, as the program will require it, as a basic requirement.
Actual means and methods to reduced and manage it as required…..and as it being at this kind of point an international program it will require an international involvement with treaties like that of Paris……and a lot of “juice” and gravy to keep it running………….:) Virtually basically the same gravy train……
cheers
“His theory builds off a simple observation”
I know a theory can be built on an observation. How can one be built off an observation? Does it mean ignoring the observation?
RoHa
English is a wonderfully versatile language, to me in my version, they mean the same thing. To others and their variant of English they won’t.
We know since before the USA was founded that plants don´t grow without CO2. (Van Helmont, 1580-1644)
We know how plants capture CO2. (RuBisCo)
We know the RuBisCo capturing mechanism at atomic level.
We can reasonably quantify the increase of activity of RuBisCo as CO2 concentrations increase in vitro (Michaelis-Menten kinetics)
We have thousands of in vivo experiments proving that the in vitro ones are correct (www.co2science.org)
Those in vivo experiments are backed up in real life. (increase of world grain, vegetables, fruits productions per acre in the 20th century)
We have satellite confirmation that the planet is greening.
Yes, we can prove that increasing CO2 levels is good for plants.
BTW, In order to post your comments you had to click on the reply button, Just above said reply button there is a link that says: Earths-forests-grew-9-new-satellite-survey. (earth´s forests grew 9% in a new satellite survey). Are you ignoring the data you don´t like?
What does the ACC acronym mean?
Bob
My guess is that ACC means Anthropogenic Climate Change. YMMV.
RoHa
“Build on” means on top of something – The house is built on the foundations.
“Build off” means adjacent to something – The pier is built off the beach, often into deep water, which is where we seem to be with ACC.
The pause is meaningless in this context. As warming is driving CO2 out of the oceans, the atmospheric CO2 rises. It is ingenuous to assume that the outgassing goes to equilibrium as so much of the ocean is not in equilibrium with the surface temperature. Even if the pause lasted 40 years, outgassing would progress. No one knows how long it would take for the oceans to go to equilibrium as the climate never stays put in one place that long.
The lack of an equilibrium here is evidenced by the observation of lags in which CO2 always follows the temperature. For large CO2 swings, the lag is 600-800 years. In shorter time frames, it’s five to ten years.
Just as occurs with glaciers, as long as the temperature is above a certain temperature, melting occurs, it matters not whether, the warming goes up and down, melting will progress until temperatures drop low enough to favor glacier growth.
Higley7, your comment is an inverse variation on my first critique example, especially since Salby’s London talk guestimated a source response time on the order of 10 months to 1 year. So actually, the pause is highly relevant in the specific context of Salby’s two video claims.
higley7,
You are confusing the equilibrium of the atmosphere with the deep oceans with the equilibrium of the ocean surface.
The CO2 dynamic equilibrium (“steady state”) has an e-fold exchange rate of less than a year and any CO2 change in the atmosphere is followed by a change of CO2 and derivatives in the ocean surface within a few years.
Quantities in the atmosphere: ~800 GtC
Quantities in the ocean surface: ~1000 GtC
Temperature and CO2 exchanges between ocean surface and atmosphere are rapid and a matter of months to a few years for full equilibrium.
Temperature and CO2 exchanges with the deep oceans are of a different order and thanks to the sun, deep ocean cold upwelling is rapidly warmed up, releasing ~40 GtC/year as CO2. About the same quantity does sink into the deep oceans near the poles, the balance being slightly more sink than source, based on over 3 million seawater pCO2 measurements all over the oceans. See Feely e.a.:
https://www.pmel.noaa.gov/pubs/outstand/feel2331/exchange.shtml
and following sections.
For temperature, I don’t think you should wish any equilibration with the deep ocean waters at 3-5°C, as that effectively would reduce CO2 levels to where no C3 plants can survive. Neither is there any sign that returning waters of ~800 years ago contain more CO2 than in previous or later time periods.
“As warming is driving CO2 out of the oceans, the atmospheric CO2 rises”
Now we have to worry about run away CO2….another tipping point </snark
I would be more comfortable with any of these assertions if they included “When CO2 was measured as x, the rippling boundary heights for atmospheric layers in location specified surface conditions were y.”
Right you are, Latitude, …… not Dr. Murry Salby,
Excerpted text from above essay by Rud Istvan
Well “DUH”, then Salby’s theory is based in/on factual science, logical reasoning and intelligent deductions.
Of course it’s a “highly questionable argument”, but only for all those persons who do not understand (miseducated) and/or are incapable of recalling and associating the physical changes that occur in/with the earth’s surface ….. with the changing of the equinoxes (seasons).
The literal scientific fact is ……. that there is a “rapidly responding temperature dependent natural CO2 net source much greater than anthropogenic sources”.
And the aforesaid “natural CO2 net source” is the Southern Hemisphere’s ocean surface waters …. which the temperature there of, per se, “rapidly responds” on a 6-month seasonal cycle (bi-yearly).
Well “DUH”, there is NOT an electronic satellite in any part of earth’s atmosphere that is capable of actually seeing or detecting physical CO2 molecules floating freely in the atmosphere. The only thing those satellites can, per se, “see” (detect), is the IR radiation of a pre-defined frequency, ……. which NASA personnel then “assumes” said IR radiation frequency was emitted by CO2 molecules in a specific locale of the atmosphere.
But the problem is, as I see it, is the fact that the earth’s surface and/or atmospheric water molecules could be radiating that “pre-defined frequency” …… and/or …. the airborne CO2 molecule could be radiating IR in a non-defined frequency and thus the satellite would be, per se, “blind” to said CO2 IR emissions.
“DUH”, the “pause” was determined by the mathematically calculated “near-surface air temperature averages” ….. and those “near-surface air temperature” don’t have one iota of effect on atmospheric CO2 ppm quantities, ……. so don’t be wasting time and energy “looking for” a magical relationship to one another. And here is the graph with plotted data that proves, without any doubt, what I stated above, to wit:
http://i1019.photobucket.com/albums/af315/SamC_40/1979-2013UAHsatelliteglobalaveragetemperatures.png
But iffen you want to “see” the relationship between the bi-yearly (seasonal) cycling of atmospheric CO2 ppm as per the Keeling Curve graph and temperature …… then ya gotta be looking at the temperature of the ocean waters in the Southern Hemisphere.
The only thing that “is apparent” is the fact that you were mimicking a biological impossibility via you above statement.
Well, SURPRISE, SURPRISE, …….. given the fact said satellites are incapable of “observing” much of anything of a low-density gaseous nature that is residing in the atmosphere.
We know there’s no such thing as run away global warming…
..so, oddly enough, we also know there’s no such thing as run away global CO2
Very good, Latitude, …… I liked that.
Me thinks I’ll save it in one of my MS Word files as a “good quote” for repeating.
Samuel C Cogar May 13, 2017 at 4:09 pm
Well “DUH”, there is NOT an electronic satellite in any part of earth’s atmosphere that is capable of actually seeing or detecting physical CO2 molecules floating freely in the atmosphere. The only thing those satellites can, per se, “see” (detect), is the IR radiation of a pre-defined frequency, ……. which NASA personnel then “assumes” said IR radiation frequency was emitted by CO2 molecules in a specific locale of the atmosphere.
Except of course that’s not how the OCO-2 satellite measures the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere.
First, if Salby is right, the rise in atmospheric CO2 concentrations should have slowed or stopped because of the ‘pause’. They haven’t. They bear no short or long term relationship to one another
This is pretty much a falsification of Salby’s theory, although, of course, true believers will find excuses for this [and any other problem].
and some true believers claim the sun has no effect on the temperature.
Not relevant for this topic, so hold the snotty comments.
…LOL…Speaking of “snotty”, look in the mirror….
You do that !
Maybe Lief, you should put some effort into looking up the definition of “Snotty” !
you should look up the spelling of Leif.
Sorry. “Leif” is not found in any dictionary, no matter how much you value your own opinion…..
Try harder. “Put more effort into…”
http://www.dictionary.com/browse/leif
As for ‘snotty’: “having or showing a superior or conceited attitude”
The one making the comment [denoted as snotty] is the one to which the definition applies.
I apologize Dr.S….Auto correct error..…..I stand corrected !
lief in English means happily, gladly.
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_before_E_except_after_C
[…But you forgot to add “… or when sounded like “A” as in neighbor and weigh.” .mod]
“A” as in neighbor and weigh
============
so Leif is pronounced layf not leaf
That is how my mother pronounced it. When I worked in Japan they insisted in calling me Raifu which is the closest they can come to the correct pronunciation. They tell me they can’t hear the difference.
I don’t know from Danish or any other Nordic language, but it’s dead simple in German. “Ei” sounds like short the pronoun “I” in English, while “ie” sounds like long “e”.
Since Leif Erikson was of Norwegian ancestry, though probably born in Iceland, but a speaker of Old Norse, I have no clue how to pronounce his name. When studying New World history, US kids hear both “Layf” and “Leaf”, usually the latter because at least it’s a word in English.
If only Tolkein were here to set us straight.
Did anyone stop to think that “Leif” is not an English word, and that English spelling and pronunciation rules would not apply?
IMO the faith-based pews are filled with CACA advocates, who can’t find a human fingerprint in climate, yet believe on blind faith alone that the culprit has to be those evil sinners against Nature, people.
who can’t find a human fingerprint in climate…
First they are made to believe that 400ppm is not some minuscule trace…then when it acts exactly like it should at that concentration…..they are bumfuzzled
It’s funny how innumerate Green activists wail about CO2 at over 400 ppm. Sounds so much scarier than 0.04%.
400,000 ppb is even more dangerous
Well, it was fun while it lasted. Now it’s over and something new must be hypothesized. Let’s see what reveals itself.
I query the phrase “long term”.
Meaning we haven’t been making detailed measurements for 1000 years. Let’s wait before we start talking about climate change, wait for 1000 years at least. After all, there’s nothing we can do about it, despite all the Cnuts and Gores..
So stupid. The model is not that CO2 is proportional to temperature anomaly, but that it is proportional to the integral of temperate anomaly.
When the critics cannot even be bothered to try to understand the argument, there is hardly any basis for agreement.
Bartemis, please reread the last sentance of the Background section of the post. I understand Slaby’s logic in detail, and where and why it fails. Eschenbach got part there in 2015 in his linked post. This essay is only about whether Salby’s conclusion might be observationally supported, not why and how Salby went logically wrong.
No, you are not even close. You are not even in the correct domain.
See longer critique of your article coming up soon from moderation.
1st thanks for Rud for writing on this topic. Could you publish your book as paperback?! I want a carbon sink in my library.
Bartemis,
In plain language you say: once seas get hot, they start leaking CO2 and the speed of the leak is dependent on the temperature anomaly?
Except not, because the partial pressure of CO2 has risen 30% (well, more, from 280 to 410 ppm), so of course the oceans have become a big net sink. At the same time, ocean temperature has barely nudged up.
Vegetation is also a net sink, so what is not? Coal (and oil, gas). If you go Salby, then you are basically forced to think vegetation is loosing mass and seas ‘boil’.
“In plain language you say: once seas get hot, they start leaking CO2 and the speed of the leak is dependent on the temperature anomaly?”
No, that is not the mechanism. That is a mechanism, but it does not amount to a whole lot.
It has more to do with the fact that, when the seas heat up, they stop carrying CO2 down.
There is a constant flow of CO2 laden waters upwelling in the tropics, and downwelling near the poles. Any imbalance between those flows must accumulate within the surface oceans. Rising temperature at the poles produces such an imbalance.
Hugs…a 30% increase in CO2 is not equal to a 30% increase in the atmospheric pressure…( CO2 is about 400 PPM. up by 30% since 1880)…not even a .004 increase in pressure..
Do you need me to calculate the partial pressure of CO2 in 1880 and 2017? Why?
Don’t say you mix % and unit-%. From 300 to 400 ppm is 100 ppm-units and 30%.
ristvan, where’s your point with Salby.
meanwhile –
https://www.google.at/search?q=sentance&oq=sentance&aqs=chrome.
Bartemis, sorry about misunderstanding. So you suggest there was an ocean sink in progress before, and it is now getting smaller because water warms up?
And human emissions simply don’t affect the balance and they roughly match the scale of atmospheric CO2 increase only by accident?
Well, that’s a hypothesis.
Hugs, wish that paperback carbon sink were possible. But even with print on demand to lower publisher risk, the Amazon price would have been $70-80 per copy because of all the color illustrations. So a cheap ebook it is, albeit in all ebook formats thanks to the publisher (iNook, Kindle, Nook, Kobo). Got that for his 40% cut. Good ebook news is, lots of footnote hot links, and footnote to websource links, and digital annotation capability.
Hugs @ May 13, 2017 at 12:55 pm
“And human emissions … roughly match the scale of atmospheric CO2 increase only by accident?”
What is we are talking about here? It very roughly matches 1/2 of the sum total of emissions over a century. Coincidence? You bet!
What continuing natural process do you know of where the outcome is in any way dependent on the sum total of inputs? Is the lake nearest you dependent on the sum total of rainfall since 1900? Is your bank balance anywhere close to your sum total of inputs over the years since you first opened it? Is the pavement outside your house as hot as the sum total of heat that went into it over the past several decades would make it? If you turn on the water at the faucet in your kitchen sink and leave it on for a week, will your house flood?
Of course not. In continuing, dynamic processes, you aren’t just filling a sealed bucket. You are feeding a process that keeps a given reservoir at a given level. You cannot increase that level by any amount proportionally greater than the proportion of the input you are feeding it.
Bartemis. If we have a sink with 100 gallons in it, and 1 gallon an hour entering from a tap and 1 gallon an hour leaving from the drain, we have stability. If we now add 1oz an hour extra, we will raise the level in the sink.
Occam’s razor would suggest that the raised level was because of the extra water added. Of course, it might be that the 1 gallon an hour entering had increased, but that introduces an extra couple of terms that Occam’s razor rejects – unless we have evidence for them.
It is reasonable that the increased level is attributed to the extra added water. If this hypothesis is to be rejected we need additional evidence.
It is reasonable to attibute the increased CO2 in the atmosphere to the extrac CO2 added by burning fossil fuels. Additional evidence required for other attributons is lacking.
..or the drain is clogged
No one knows enough about “sinks”…….
Butch,
For ideal gases, relative volume = partial pressure, thus ppmv = μatm pressure. With a slight difference: ppmv is usually expressed in dry air, while μatm is the real pressure in wet air. That makes a difference of a few % mainly at the ocean surface…
Bart:
What continuing natural process do you know of where the outcome is in any way dependent on the sum total of inputs?
Is the CO2 level in the atmosphere dependent of the sum of temperatures above a baseline?
Of course not, as a fixed change in temperature gives a fixed change in CO2 level in the atmosphere per Henry’s law: ~16 ppmv/K.
Bart’s theory completely ignores the effect of the increased CO2 pressure in the atmosphere, which is already 110 μatm above steady state, thus the average CO2 flux is from atmosphere into the oceans, not reverse. Which is observed. Thus Bart’s theory fails the main observation.
BTW, that the increase in the atmosphere is about half human emissions is just coincidence as a result of the slightly increasing CO2 emissions over time (a fourfold since 1958). So did the net sinks as result of the increased CO2 pressure in the atmosphere and thus the increase in the atmosphere.
seaice1 @ May 13, 2017 at 5:21 pm
” If we have a sink with 100 gallons in it, and 1 gallon an hour entering from a tap and 1 gallon an hour leaving from the drain, we have stability. If we now add 1oz an hour extra, we will raise the level in the sink.”
Under these circumstances, you will raise it thusly:
Settled level before extra added: L1 = K*1 gallon/hr
Settled level after extra added: L2 = K*(1 gallon/hr + 1 oz/hr) = K*1.0078 gallon/hr
% change in level: 1.0078/1 – 1 = 0.78%
” If this hypothesis is to be rejected we need additional evidence.”
Here is your evidence: If the level rose more than 0.78%, then part of the rise came from somewhere else. If it rose, say, 50%, then (50-0.78)/50 = 98.5% of the rise came from somewhere else.
Ferdinand Engelbeen @ May 14, 2017 at 4:48 am
“Of course not, as a fixed change in temperature gives a fixed change in CO2 level in the atmosphere per Henry’s law: ~16 ppmv/K.”
Henry’s Law only determines the ratio between atmosphere and ocean. It does not determine the absolute level.
“BTW, that the increase in the atmosphere is about half human emissions is just coincidence as a result of the slightly increasing CO2 emissions over time (a fourfold since 1958).”
It is 100% likely that any observed rise will be proportional to some other random number. This is not an amazing coincidence. It is a commonplace.
“So did the net sinks as result of the increased CO2 pressure in the atmosphere and thus the increase in the atmosphere.”
Ferdinand’s insistence that splitting the flow between the oceans and the atmosphere produces work to push CO2 into the downwelling waters is a perpetual motion scheme.
Bartemis
So true:-
The bigger the area of shallow water tropical seas under the influence of the Hadley Cell, the greater the production of warm dense saline water at the surface, the lower the gas carrying capacity of this seawater, the more CO2 is expelled into the atmosphere and the greater the outflow to depth of warm dense saline water.
Bower, A.S., Hunt, H.D. and Price, J.F., 2000. Character and dynamics of the Red Sea and Persian Gulf outflows. Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans, 105(C3), pp.6387-6414.
In the geological past the east-west orientated Tethys Ocean with its shallow carbonate sediment rich epeiric seas ruled the climate of the warm ocean, high CO2 atmosphere, Cretaceous world. Now the linked north-south Atlantic Ocean, with its open connection from the Arctic Ocean to the latent heat polynya in the Southern Ocean Weddell Sea, rules the climate in the modern cold ocean, low CO2 atmosphere of our Ceonozoic world.
Bart:
Henry’s Law only determines the ratio between atmosphere and ocean. It does not determine the absolute level.
If the CO2 level/pressure in the oceans is known (expressed as pCO2(aq)), the ratio per Henry’s law determines the setpoint for the absolute level in the atmosphere: if the CO2 level/pressure in the atmosphere (expressed as pCO2(atm)) is higher, then CO2 will move from the atmosphere into the oceans or reverse if the pressure is lower. The resulting flux is directly proportional to the CO2 pressure difference (pCO2(atm) – pCO2(aq)) between the atmosphere and ocean surface.
The pressure difference is highly negative from atmosphere to ocean surface at the upwelling zones and highly positive at the sink zones. Net result: ~40 GtC of CO2 emitted near the equator, transported by the atmosphere and absorbed near the poles. Slightly more sink than source.
At any point of the ocean surface, an increase of 1 K in temperature increases the pCO2(aq) with ~16 μatm. An increase of ~16 ppmv in the atmosphere fully compensates for the increase in pCO2(aq), no matter if that is for one spot in the oceans or the full dynamics of the whole ocean surface.
This is not an amazing coincidence. It is a commonplace.
Not if the sinks behave as a simple linear process: in ratio to the pressure increase in the atmosphere above steady state, which they do in the past near 60 years…
insistence that splitting the flow between the oceans and the atmosphere produces work to push CO2 into the downwelling waters is a perpetual motion scheme.
Except that all the work is done by the CO2 pressure differences: pCO2(atm) is currently at ~400 μatm.
At the upwelling zones, pCO2(aq) is about 750 μatm. The 350 μatm difference does all the work to push 40 GtC/year CO2 from the ocean surface into the atmosphere. Potential energy transformed into kinetic energy…
The same at the sink zones: from 400 μatm down to 250 μatm.
The cold waters which sink near the poles return to the surface near the equator and are warmed up by the sun, increasing the pCO2(aq) again to ~750 μatm: that is your (near) perpetual energy machine at work…
“Not if the sinks behave as a simple linear process: in ratio to the pressure increase in the atmosphere above steady state, which they do in the past near 60 years…”
This is the nub of your problem. They do not act in ratio to the pressure increase above steady state. They react to the pressure, period.
That means they react to the sum total of natural and anthropogenic input. Since the anthropogenic input is variously estimated at 3-5% of the natural input, the anthropogenic share of the rise can only be in the range of 3-5%.
You take the “steady state” as a given, and then illegitimately decouple the anthropogenic input from the natural input. That makes your conception nonphysical.
“Except that all the work is done by the CO2 pressure differences: pCO2(atm) is currently at ~400 μatm.”
There is no work done there. Splitting the flow between the atmosphere and the oceans only means that, what is taken up by the atmosphere is that much less that is transported by the ocean currents. So, the downwelling sites have the added pressure of the atmosphere, but a reduced pressure from the ocean flow. The net effect is zero.
Bart:
They do not act in ratio to the pressure increase above steady state. They react to the pressure, period.
Bart, that doesn’t make any sense: the sinks react to the CO2 pressure (pCO2) difference between the atmosphere and seawater. If these are equal, nothing happens. At the sinks the waters have a lot lower pCO2 than the atmosphere: CO2 is absorbed. At the sources the waters have a lot higher pCO2 than the atmosphere: CO2 is released. The balance between these two is what changes the CO2 level in the atmosphere or reverse.
For the current ocean temperature the steady state is at 290 ppmv in the atmosphere. Any extra CO2 above 290 ppmv will reduce the influx and enhance the outflux.
That means they react to the sum total of natural and anthropogenic input. Since the anthropogenic input is variously estimated at 3-5% of the natural input
Completely wrong: the sinks don’t react on the natural or human inputs of one year, they react on the pressure difference between atmosphere and oceans. At steady state it doesn’t make any difference if the natural cycle fluxes are 40 or 400 GtC/year. If you add 5 ppmv CO2 in a year, the same pressure increase in the atmosphere will occur and the same net amount of CO2 will be absorbed by the oceans (less release + more sink), no matter the influxes.
That is Le Chatelier’s principle at work.
There is no work done there.
Wow Bart, a new escape plan? First you accuse me of creating a perpetuum mobile, now you say that no work is done. Of course work is done as kinetic energy is needed to release and absorb CO2, but the necessary potential energy comes from the sun.
Anyway what you say further is more interesting: What is released from the waters gets in the atmosphere and the waters that reach the sinks are more depleted and thus have a lower pCO2 at the same temperature. Agreed this time.
The interesting point is that an increase in temperature at every point in the ocean surface gives more CO2 in the atmosphere and thus less in the oceans. Before a new steady state is reached, the warmer sinks also receive less CO2 from the atmosphere, thus overall less CO2 sinks in the deep oceans than was upwelling.
The net effect is an increase in the atmosphere, not a “throttling” of the ocean sinks. That is only a null-operation when a new steady state is reached at ~16 ppmv/K…
“Bart, that doesn’t make any sense: the sinks react to the CO2 pressure (pCO2) difference between the atmosphere and seawater. If these are equal, nothing happens.”
The sinks react to total inflow, such that the steady state is proportional to the inflow, both natural and anthropogenic:
steady_state_combined = K*(NaturalInflow + AnthroInflow)
for some K. Take the AnthroInflow out, and you get
steady_state_Nat = K*NaturalInflow
Ratio of the two
steady_state_combined /steady_state_Nat = 1 + AnthroInflow/NaturalInflow
AnthroInflow/NaturalInflow is on the order of at most a few percent. Negligible.
“First you accuse me of creating a perpetuum mobile, now you say that no work is done.”
A perpetual motion machine of the first kind in one that does work with no input of energy. Work is required to overcome the added impedance to downflow induced by a temperature rise.
Bart:
The sinks react to total inflow, such that the steady state is proportional to the inflow, both natural and anthropogenic: steady_state_combined = K*(NaturalInflow + AnthroInflow)
No, most (sources and) sinks react on temperature, largely independent of what is in the atmosphere whatever the inputs (or outputs) at that moment. That gives the bulk of the in/out fluxes and a natural steady state of ~290 ppmv where NaturalInputs = NaturalOutputs, for the current average ocean surface temperature. That gives the residence time of ~5 years.
When the CO2 pressure in the atmosphere gets above the steady state of 290 ppmv, the ocean inputs are suppressed and the ocean (plus vegetation) outputs are increased. Thus part of the increased pressure in the atmosphere is removed. That is a much slower process than the temperature induced natural in/out fluxes: ~51 years decay rate.
Temperature changes are the driver for most natural inputs and outputs and the “setpoint” of the steady state.
Pressure changes are the driver for changes in the balance between inputs and outputs.
Bart:
A perpetual motion machine of the first kind in one that does work with no input of energy. Work is required to overcome the added impedance to downflow induced by a temperature rise.
If you are talking about the CO2 flux that goes into the deep together with the sinking waters: there is zero extra work needed to sink the CO2, as that doesn’t change in the waterflow itself between parcels of water: what is upwelling is ultimately downwelling no matter the temperature of the water.
Any work done is via the atmosphere: the pCO2 (= solar energy at the upwelling) difference is what drives CO2 out of the waters at the upwelling an drives CO2 into the waters at the sinks…
Snotty comment: Almost all discussion of CO2’s effect on global temperatures are irrelevant, since we live in the coolest period of the past 10,000 years, and in a cooler interglacial than the Eemian 125,000 years ago. Is the history of natural climate change irrelevant when it doesn’t suit the current fashion of climate scientism?
…+ 1,000… gold stars..stupid argument…
Well the question of relevance is of course how long it takes before we break records of 10,000 yrs, 100,000 yrs, 1,000,000 yrs, 10,000,000 yrs. If we’d do the last one in less than 200 years, I’d be scared. But it appears this is not probable atm.
Good point, majormike1. Let’s step back and look at the bigger picture:
The present is the key to understanding the past. And understanding the past is the key to looking forward to our future. Natural variability and the vastness of geologic timescales overwhelm popular human conception.
Sorry, graph courtesy of oz4caster at wordpress.
Good chart. Will save.
Leif, the premise of the question you answered was wrong to begin with:
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/uah/scale:0.3/plot/esrl-co2/derivative:1/mean:12/from:1979
In 2010 from WUWT, A study- the temperature rise has caused the co2 increase not the other way around by Lon Hocker:
“Conclusion
Using two well accepted data sets, a simple model can be used to show that the rise in CO2 is a result of the temperature anomaly, not the other way around. This is the exact opposite of the IPCC model that claims that rising CO2 causes the temperature anomaly.
We offer no explanation for why global temperatures are changing now or have changed in the past, but it seems abundantly clear that the recent temperature rise is not caused by the rise in CO2 levels.”
In 2014, First and second derivative atmospheric CO2 global surface temperature and_ENSO
“Abstract
A significant gap now of some 16 years in length has been shown to exist between the observed global surface temperature trend and that expected from the majority of climate simulations, and this gap is presently continuing to increase. For its own sake, and to enable better climate prediction for policy use, the reasons behind this mismatch need to be better understood. While an increasing number of possible causes have been proposed, the candidate causes have not yet converged. The standard model which is now displaying the disparity has it that temperature will rise roughly linearly with atmospheric CO2. However research also exists showing correlation between the interannual variability in the growth rate of atmospheric CO2 and temperature. Rate of change of CO2 had not been a causative mechanism for temperature because it was concluded that causality ran from temperature to rate of change of CO2. However more recent studies have found little or no evidence for temperature leading rate of change of CO2 but instead evidence for simultaneity. With this background, this paper reinvestigated the relationship between rate of change of CO2 and two of the major climate variables, atmospheric temperature and the El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO). Using time series analysis in the form of dynamic regression modelling with autocorrelation correction, it is demonstrated that first-derivative CO2 leads temperature and that there is a highly statistically significant correlation between first-derivative CO2 and temperature. Further, a correlation is found for second-derivative CO2, with the Southern Oscillation Index, the atmospheric-pressure component of ENSO. This paper also demonstrates that both these correlations display Granger causality. It is shown that the first-derivative CO2 and climate model shows no trend mismatch in recent years. These results may contribute to the prediction of future trends for global temperature and ENSO. Interannual variability in the growth rate of atmospheric CO2 is standardly attributed to variability in the carbon sink capacity of the terrestrial biosphere. The terrestrial biosphere carbon sink is created by photosynthesis: a major way of measuring global terrestrial photosynthesis is by means of satellite measurements of vegetation reflectance, such as the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI). This study finds a~close correlation between an increasing NDVI and the increasing climate model/temperature mismatch (as quantified by the difference between the trend in the level of CO2 and the trend in temperature).”
The warming/cooling of the ocean and CO2 are definitely related.
Leif, the premise of the question you answered was wrong to begin with
I didn’t answer any question…
http://www.woodfortrees.org/graph/uah/scale:0.3/plot/esrl-co2/derivative:1/mean:12/from:1979
“However more recent studies have found little or no evidence for temperature leading rate of change of CO2 but instead evidence for simultaneity.” from the abstract above.
Simultaneity is the operative concept.
Simultaneous with sea level change too.
What variable power drives ocean temps, sea level, and CO2 outgassing & absorption?
I interpreted “if Salby is right” as a question of theirs.
No biggie
Bob,
All what you look at in the work of Lon Hocker and others have the same problem: if you look at the derivatives, you have largely detrended the cause of the increase and inflated the noise around the trend. In the real world that noise is not more than +/-1.5 ppmv aroiund a trend of +80 ppmv.
From there Lon concludes that the residual trend in the derivative is caused by the same process as what caused the noise.
The problem is that you can’t conclude anything about the trend by looking only at the variability.
1. The residual trend in CO2 derivative is caused by a slightly quadratic increase of CO2 in the atmosphere. That is caused by the slightly quadratic increase of human emissions at twice the amounts of the increase in the atmosphere.
2. The variability is mostly caused by the effect of (ocean) temperatures on (tropical) vegetation (El Niño, Pinatubo). But vegetation is a proven, increasing sink for CO2, thus not the cause of the trend.
but if the lag is 800 years, how can it be falsified in 20?
…Tax Dollars ?
It sure isn’t 800yrs when your coca cola goes flat in an hour or so when it sits in a warm room.
This doesn’t make sense to me. From my time making homemade hooch, we brought the temperature of a solution containing alcohol to about 77 – 80 C, and held the temperature there. The solution continued evaporating the alcohol without raising the temperature further. The alcohol did not just suddenly evaporate. It occurred over a period of many hours. It would have evaporated at a lower temperature, but would have taken much, much longer.
I would assume CO2 in such a huge volume of water would also take a long time. Where am I wrong?
Simple. You have not watched the Salby vidoe lectures (or studied them if you, like Janice, did). You just provided another physical reason he is wrong.
come on, ristvan- vid or it didn’t happen.
pulling a mosher may be highly amusing to you, but i find it petulant and boring.
be better, no?
“Because of the enormous ocean thermal capacity, a lot of ocean heat capacity increase results in very LITTLE delta T. ” as you say.
cuts both ways
why would one expect a measurable change due to the pause?
KK,
Yes, what got left out of the presentation by Rud was the time to reach equilibration for a mass of upwelling water that is enriched in CO2, and constantly being replenished. It obviously doesn’t all flash off like popping open a warm soda drink. So, even if the global atmospheric temperature is constant for decades, it can be expected that outgassing will proceed at a faster rate than it did when the atmosphere was cooler.
KK,
The difference between the alcohol in your case and CO2 in the oceans is that there is practically no alcohol in the air above the liquid and thus the evaporation of alcohol is one-way. In the case of the (deep) oceans, there is a two-way exchange, as any release of CO2 from the oceans will increase the CO2 partial pressure in the atmosphere, thus pushing more CO2 back into the oceans. If nothing changes, that will lead to a dynamic equilibrium (“steady state”), where lots of CO2 do come in from upwelling deep ocean waters (~40 GtC/year) near the warm equator and lots of CO2 go out into the deep oceans (~40 GtC/year) near the poles.
For the current (weighted) average ocean surface temperature of ~15°C, the equilibrium is around 290 ppmv per Henry’s law. We are at 400 ppmv. That reduces the CO2 input at the equator somewhat and increases the output near the poles somewhat, thus slightly (~3 GtC/year) more CO2 sinks in the deep oceans than is released.
The reaction of the sinks to the increased CO2 pressure in the atmosphere is completely ignored by Salby, Bart and too many others…
“The reaction of the sinks to the increased CO2 pressure in the atmosphere is completely ignored by Salby, Bart and too many others…”
Because you cannot do work by mere splitting of flows, and you are proposing perpetual motion.
Bart,
Because you cannot do work by mere splitting of flows, and you are proposing perpetual motion.
If that was true, there wouldn’t be water evaporation and rain… Lots of energy are transported from equator to poles via water evaporation and clouds/rain.
The energy to move CO2 out of the oceans at the upwelling places comes from the sun and that extra CO2 pressure (potential energy) in the atmosphere is suffficient to push back about the same amount of CO2 into the cold ocean waters near the poles.
“Lots of energy are transported from equator to poles via water evaporation and clouds/rain.”
“…that extra CO2 pressure (potential energy) in the atmosphere is suffficient to push back about the same amount of CO2 into the cold ocean waters near the poles.”
The former process has an energy source, the Sun, which evaporates the water. The latter has no energy source. The CO2 diffuses from the waters, goes to the poles, and there diffuses back into the waters. It is only a splitting of the flow, with no net energy gained. The CO2 that diffuses to the atmosphere is that much less that is carried to the poles via ocean currents.
I made a good analogy to you the last time we traded opinions. You have a kitchen sink with the faucet turned on, such that the level of water in the sink reaches a specific level. Now, you take a chopping block and put it under the faucet, diverting part of the flow so that it drops in closer to the drain, so that it gets there a little faster. There is some small transient response, as the water sloshes a bit. But, in the end, it does nothing to increase the level of water in the sink.
Bart:
The latter has no energy source. The CO2 diffuses from the waters, goes to the poles, and there diffuses back into the waters.
There is energy needed for CO2 to escape from a liquid and absorbed back by a liquid. But that is in fact not relevant in the discussion. What is relevant is that all important changes occur in the atmosphere and these are influenced both by (ocean) temperatures and axtra (human) emissions.
You have a kitchen sink with the faucet turned on, such that the level of water in the sink reaches a specific level.
To which I responded that the analogy doesn’t fit the CO2 exchanges: the main sink/source fluxes are the result of temperature changes (seasonal) or differences (equator-poles). The main reaction of the sinks to any extra CO2 in the atmosphere is on the pressure change: different effects, different response times (~factor 10).
“The main reaction of the sinks to any extra CO2 in the atmosphere is on the pressure change:”
There is no net pressure change. Every parcel taken up by the atmosphere is that much less transported by the ocean currents.
This is very simple, Ferdinand. Let’s say I have pressure going as
dp/dt = -p/tau + u
The input u tends to increase the pressure. It does not matter if I split p into two components or not, the pressure is rising. That will increase the term p/tau, with will tend to relieve the pressure buildup.
If u is constant, p will eventually settle out to p = tau*u. But, if tau is very long, then it will take a long time to settle out, and in the intervening time, we will have
p := u
and, the pressure will continue building.
So, the diversion into the atmosphere is… a diversion. It has no impact on the question at hand. It is just a splitting of the flow.
I think you have made the mistake of thinking my model shows no buildup due to anthropogenic sources. That is not the case. It does. It is just that the impact is small relative to the impact from natural flows.
Because the time needed for deep ocean equilibration is long, both inputs accumulate in the surface system over a long time period. But, if anthropogenic inputs are 4% of the natural inputs, they are only responsible for about 4% of the observed rise. That is negligible, and can be ignored.
This is always the case then there is a dynamic balance – you cannot affect the outcome by a greater proportion than the proportion of your inputs.
Bart:
There is no net pressure change. Every parcel taken up by the atmosphere is that much less transported by the ocean currents.
There is no net pressure change from the natural inputs and outputs at steady state. That is the whole point.
In your formula:
dp/dt = -p/tau + u
dp/dt doesn’t depend of the natural inputs or outputs, as these are equal at steady state and natural u = zero. Thus u = human emissions and -p is the pressure difference between steady state (natural inputs = natural outputs) without human emissions. Tau is observed ~51 years
While only 4% of the inputs in mass (and 2% of the outputs in mass), human emissions make near all of the pressure change in the atmosphere…
What about endothermic mechanism of carbon dioxide dissolution and carbonic acid dissociation?
If the atmospheric temperature is flat and the heat is going into the ocean instead then CO2 outgassing would continue or have I missed something?
Yes, you missed something. Outgassing depends on delta T. True. Because of the enormous ocean thermal capacity, a lot of ocean heat capacity increase results in very LITTLE delta T. Look at measured ARGO delta T, not the computed delta quadrillion whatever heat therms to grasp this basic fact. It is another snooker play by warmunists.
ristvan
May 13, 2017 at 3:40 pm
Just for the sake of an exercise…would you think will be possible or reasonable to consider how long, years or millennia perhaps, will it take for the LITTLE delta T to increase and be “big” enough to count for the amount of outgassing required to fit the bill for the last century emissions of CO2, in regard to the CO2 concentration\s “observed” increase?!
Whiten,
With the current speed of increase, maybe 1 billion years, as the whole cold ocean interior need to reach over 22°C to give more CO2 in the atmosphere than 400 ppmv…
Ferdinand Engelbeen
May 14, 2017 at 5:27 am
Ferd, I really do envy your math….:)
cheers
Leif writes
I dont specifically know what Salby’s theorem is, but if you consider the greening of the planet as “drawing CO2 out of the oceans” by Henry’s law then as long as greening continues to lock CO2 into the vegetation even at the same temperature, the CO2 that is drawn out of the oceans will continue and ultimately the concentration in the atmosphere will increase, ratcheted up by the (primarily) NH seasons.
Clearly we’re putting more than enough CO2 out there ourselves to account for the increase so Salby does seem to have cause wrong if he’s considering today’s CO2 increases. Cause is something of a no brainer.
However the idea is an important one to take account of, I think.
lsvalgaard May 13, 2017 at 9:55 am
lsvalgaard, me thinks that one of the “other problems”, …… which I am not authorized to offer an excuse for, …….. is your above claim of “pretty much a falsification”, …… which I have to assume was a “self-admission” that you don’t have a clue about what you are criticizing ……. because iffen you were actually knowledgeable on the above subject matter in question, you would have explicitly stated your reason(s) for claiming said “falsification”.
And lsvalgaard, I address your above “pretty much a falsification” of the “pause” question that was first presented by Rud Istvan in my above posted response ‘here’ ….. and thus the reason I found your silly “pretty much” statement highly irritating.
Cheers, Sam C
which I have to assume was a “self-admission” that you don’t have a clue about what you are criticizing
Nonsense. Istcan notes that “First, if Salby is right, the rise in atmospheric CO2 concentrations should have slowed or stopped because of the ‘pause’. They haven’t”.
So Sakby is not right, unless he can explain why not. I see not such explanation. Do you?
lsvalgaard – May 13, 2017 at 6:51 pm
lsvalgaard, you are the one that was talking “nonsense” when you responded to Rud Istvan “nonsense”…. and you are still talking “nonsense”.
lsvalgaard, your 1st FUBAR mistake was when you assumed that Rud Istvan nonsensical comment that stipulated ….. “the rise in atmospheric CO2 concentrations should have slowed or stopped because of the ‘pause’” …. was a factually correct statement.
“WRONG”, ….. Istvan’s nonsensical claim about “rising” atmospheric CO2 not “pausing” in conjunction with the “pausing” of the rise in near-surface temperatures ….. was not based in/on actual, factual scientific evidence or observations, …… but was based in/on the CAGW “junk-science” claim that “increases in atmospheric CO2 directly cause increases in near-surface air temperatures”. And silly you, lsvalgaard, ….. agreed with Istvan.
And your 2nd FUBAR mistake, lsvalgaard, was your per se “demand” that Dr. Murry Salby was obligated to “explain why” Rud Istvan was wrong in claiming CO2 ppm rise should have “stalled” when the “pause” occurred.
And lsvalgaard, quit pretending “mental blindness”, it’s “a dog that won’t hunt”. To wit: “I see no such explanation. Do you?’
“YES”, lsvalgaard, …… I see/seen such an explanation, ….. because I posted said explanation, …. and I told you where you could see that explanation, …. but apparently your NIH attitude forced you to ignore said “explanation”.
Here, read it, to wit:
“DUH”, the “pause” was determined by the mathematically calculated “near-surface air temperature averages” ….. and those “near-surface air temperature” don’t have one iota of effect on atmospheric CO2 ppm quantities, ……. so don’t be wasting time and energy “looking for” a magical relationship to one another.
But iffen you want to “see” the relationship between the bi-yearly (seasonal) cycling of atmospheric CO2 ppm as per the Keeling Curve graph and temperature …… then ya gotta be looking at the temperature of the ocean waters in the Southern Hemisphere.
Too many assumptions…
My quote was
“First, if Salby is right, the rise in atmospheric CO2 concentrations should have slowed or stopped because of the ‘pause’. They haven’t”.”
If you have a problem with that go ask Istvan.
If Istvan and Salby are right my comment stands. If they are not, why even discuss the nonsense?
Everything is always qualified.
lsvalgaard – May 14, 2017 at 9:59 am
lsvalgaard, are you denying the fact that the following is a “copy” [w/included clarity punctuations] of your 1st posting to this thread in response to Istvan’s commentary wherein you specifically stated that Salby’s theory was falsified ….. via Istvan’s questioning “claim-of-factuality”, ….. to wit:
lsvalgaard – May 13, 2017 at 9:55 am
Did you note in your above that it was you who CLAIMED ….. falsification of Salby’s theory
lsvalgaard – May 14, 2017 at 9:59 am
If you have a problem with that go ask Istvan.”
I certainly did have a problem with that, as you damn well know I did …. and I addressed that problem to the “attention of Istvan” in my posting, ……. so why would someone who claims to be a Professional be asking such an ignorant question?
lsvalgaard – May 14, 2017 at 9:59 am
Now, again, just why would someone who claims to be a Professional be asking such an ignorant question ….. especially after that “someone” had already declared or adjudged Dr. Salby to be wrong?
Are your other Professional activities conducted similarly?
Scientists are allowed to [even encouraged to] disagree. Irritated activists like you have no influence on the road to wisdom.
For me, Salby is falsified. You may not think so. That is your problem, not mine.
And so bemoans: lsvalgaard – May 15, 2017 at 7:02 am
You should know, lsvalgaard, because you are a “prime example” and one (1) of a few posters hereon WUWT that my actual, factual, evidence based, science related commentary ….. has had no effect whatsoever on improving your science knowledge (wisdom) of earth’s natural world that you reside in/on.
“Whatever turns your crank”, …… lsvalgaard, …… and likewise “falsified” for several million other inhabitants who are utterly ignorant of the “specifics” of the biology of the natural world around them.
If you “think” Salby is falsified, …… then you should state science-based reason(s) for your thinking.
I figure Ferdinand E. will be supportive of your “thinking”.
Nuff for me ……. when the “horse refuses to drink the water” that they are led to.
There are comments that are worthy of a reasoned response, yours are, sadly, not.
That is not a falsification of the theory, since in chemistry there is a time lag in temperature-dependent solubility, often contingent on surface area.
Succinctly, once the temperature is set to a new level, CO2 will continue to off-gas until it is in equilibrium.
Salby does not take that into account, so why should we?
Frankly, I do not see how he could not take that into account. I only see that yours is a factually incorrect statement regarding the falsification of a temperature-dependent CO2 solubility theorem.
The hysteresis of CO2 equilibrium should only support an off-gassing theorem, as the temperature has not in fact gotten colder.
Where does Salby say that he carefully took that into account? He didn’t for the simple reason that it is not clear how to do this. How would you do it? My comment is not about what actually happens, but about what Salby says about it. So demonstrate that he took it into account. I would like to know.
Lira,
The CO2 exchanges between ocean surface and atmosphere are extremely fast, in the order of less than a year. Thus that equilibrium is settled within a few years, as can be seen in the increase of DIC (total inorganic carbon) in the ocean surface vs. CO2 in the atmosphere.
To reply to both of you, relative to the vast quantity of subsurface solvent (ocean water), there is a limited amount of interface surface area through which CO2 might off-gas. There then are ocean currents, layers, and temperature gradients beneath which may sequester and transport the solute.
Much of this can be demonstrated on a laboratory scale (or at home) with carbonated water of different temperatures relative to exposed surface areas. At basic value, you can even see where visible bubbles might become trapped.
Surface gas exchange, to an arbitrarily small layer, is not much relevant to the total oceanic presence, which will be brought in contact with the surface relative to time and agitation. If you wanted to model this, Reynolds number is often used. It’s somewhat analogous to gas mixing in the lungs being fast, but relatively slower is the total system of blood-gas turnover.
As for why Dr. Salby might not have explicitly stated this? (I’ve not read over his work in excruciating detail.) I would guess a similar reason to why I myself would not explicitly state it: It is extremely basic chemistry, and my research paper is not a student lecture on the topic. It would be sufficient to show the principle for the CO2 increase without having an exactitude on reservoir size. (Which would likely take running solubility and fluid dynamics work on every layer of the entire ocean.)
Lira,
In this case, you can simply ignore CO2 and temperature of the deep oceans, as one cycle between deep oceans and atmosphere needs about 800 years. One needs extreme changes in temperature and/or CO2 (+ derivatives) concentration in the deep oceans via the upwelling to have a discernable influence on short term (up to decades) CO2 or temperature of the ocean surface. For which is zero evidence.
All the variability where Salby’s theory is based on is on the short term: 1-3 years, the reaction of the CO2 rate of change on fast temperature changes (Pinatubo, El Niño). That is only at the ocean surface and in land vegetation.
Further, it doesn’t make a difference if you shake a 0.5, 1.0 or 1.5 liter bottle of Coke from the same batch: the pressure under the screw cap will be (near) the same for the same temperature. Thus lucky for us, only the temperature and CO2 concentration of the ocean surface is important. Equilibrium with the deep ocean temperatures (3-5°C) wouldn’t be so nice…
The equilibrium between ocean surface and atmosphere is very fast and per Henry’s law, the CO2 levels in the atmosphere should be ~290 ppmv for the current (area weighted) average ocean surface temperature. We are at 400 ppmv, thus the CO2 flux is from atmosphere into the oceans, not reverse, as is observed:
https://www.pmel.noaa.gov/pubs/outstand/feel2331/exchange.shtml
“One needs extreme changes in temperature and/or CO2 (+ derivatives) concentration in the deep oceans via the upwelling to have a discernable influence on short term (up to decades) CO2 or temperature of the ocean surface.”
Lira – get used to this. Ferdinand is very long on assertion, but short on actual foundation.
“The equilibrium between ocean surface and atmosphere is very fast and per Henry’s law, the CO2 levels in the atmosphere should be ~290 ppmv for the current (area weighted) average ocean surface temperature.”
What can I tell you? Ferdinand thinks the ocean is a bottle of Coke. No need to consider deep ocean currents. All the action happens at the top. By ignoring long term dynamics, he can come up any narrative he wants, and he thinks you should accept it because he says so.
Leif is a broken record. He cannot be reasoned with. No point in trying.
You don’t ‘reason’ with people. You present your scientific arguments without judging other people. Judge their arguments instead.
Mr. Englebeen, the ocean is not quantized into hard-limit layers, nor into absolute 800 year cycles, nor is the ‘pressure’ of a shaken bottle significantly relevant to the science of diffusion.
As I have explained to Dr. Svalgaard, it is simply a factually incorrect statement in chemical terms to state a ‘pause’ of temperature increase should result in a pause of off-gassing. There are non-temperature variables in the off-gas rate. It would only be a more relevant comment if the temperature of solvent had DECREASED.
Consequently, what Dr. Salby has or has not done is largely irrelevant: You cannot falsify his theory with first-order factual incorrectness.
That said, the ocean is a complex biosphere, and thus for a naturalistic explanation, I would expect a role for the microorganism constituent of it. Small temperature increases can yield larger scale metabolic responses, as anyone running a compost pile may be able to tell you. And of course, carbonates are a very large component in organism local pH management. Whether Dr. Salby discusses this possibility in detail, I’m not sure. But from what I’ve seen a naturalistic explanation is not so easily dismissed as attempted in this article.
Lira,
It is simply a factually incorrect statement in chemical terms to state a ‘pause’ of temperature increase should result in a pause of off-gassing. There are non-temperature variables in the off-gas rate.
The variability of temperature (or more accurate, the dT/dt variability) explains over 60% of the dCO2/dt variability, thus one can expect that the pause has some effect on the rate of change. But nevertheless not that important as that is a discussion over the noise around the trend, not the cause of the trend itself…
Further, most of the exchanges between atmosphere and oceans (CO2, O2, temperature) are fast with the “mixed layer”, the upper 100-200 meters of the oceans where most of biolife is. Deeper parts hardly play a role, except for the biological pump and the deep ocean exchanges at a restricted number of places…
Re: “First, if Salby is right, the rise in atmospheric CO2 concentrations should have slowed or stopped because of the ‘pause’.”
I cannot reconcile this statement in the original post with the earlier “The ice core based CO2 lagged change to temperature is about 800 years, common sensically corresponding to the thermohaline circulation period.”
If the latter is well established, and I think it is, then the former must be wrong. No? Given the slow rate of conductance into the deep oceans, an 800 year lag seems easy to explain but surely the process would be progressive. Degassing would start rising within decades and keep increasing until the ocean temperature had stabilized. In view of this we might expect to see measurable degassing after 250 years. (i.e. since about 1750A.D.)
Steve,
If we may assume that ice cores give a reasonable impression of historical CO2 levels, these were ~290 ppmv about 800 years ago. Seems quite difficult to push that to 400 ppmv now with upwelling waters of that period…
And don’t wish for any temperature equilibrium with the deep ocean waters: at 3-5°C, CO2 levels would drop so much that most C3 plants (all trees, a lot of crops), would die off…
However, if the lag be 800 years, as seems reasonable, then the rise in CO2 since c. AD 1850 could be reflecting the Medieval Warm Period. Before Mann tried to get rid of it, that interval was dated from c. AD 900 to 1400, with a central peak of around 150 years.
IMO most of the recent increase in CO2 is however from human sources. My guess is about 70 ppm of the alleged 120 ppm gain in beneficial plant food since 1850, but possibly a larger share.
The lag, if any, is very poorly defined in any case.
Essay Cause and Effect in ebook Blowing Smoke discusses the lag in some depth, along with several laughable attempts to disappear it for warmunist purposes. Shakun 2012 was the most serious (his PhD and Nature paper) and in several ways the most fundamentally flawed. Amazing that it got through peer review.
On every post from WUWT lately, you find a way to promote your own Ebook….pathetic…
[well if he was was making a line to Amazon, you’d have a point, but he isn’t, so you don’t – Anthony]
…Very good point, but it just seems repetitive…(maybe my point of view is bias because I already went there and read it..) ?
Nope. You make the false assumption that CO2 has a major effect upon temperature. It doesn’t. It’s an effect of temperature increase, not a cause.
I’d have thought that that was obvious.
After the first 100 or 200 ppm, I should have said.
Even if it is all due to humans, it is demonstrably a good thing. Of course, we need an accurate description (not model) of the “carbon cycle” which we don’t have.
..Robert of Ottawa, Canada….I simply cannot understand why ANY Canadian in the “Frozen North” would want it to be colder than it already is…I was raised in Blind River, Ontario as a child….During winter in the North. everything was simply shut down !
Well done Robert, only a couple more stages to go.
Yes, the order-1000 year lag time between when water last sees the northern atmosphere and when it upwells and warms again at the equator is a deeply confounding factor. What were conditions of the atmosphere then? How did dust and biota falling through the water column in the interim affect dissolved carbon? All will have an effect, but it may take a long, long time.
pochas94,
CO2 levels in the atmosphere 800 years ago were around 280 ppmv. I don’t see any reason that these CO2 levels of 800 years ago would increase the current CO2 levels to over 400 ppmv…
CO2 levels over the past 800,000 years follow temperature with a surprising linear ratio of about 16 ppmv/K, as per Henry’s law for CO2 in seawater. Only since 1bout 1850 CO2 levels start in lockstep with human emissions. Pure coincidence?
Chimp May 13, 2017 at 9:57 am
Chimp, according to the following, …. human sources for “recent increase in atmospheric CO2” ….. don’t have leg to stand on, ….. wooden or otherwise, to wit:
Samuel,
But the termites, like the poor, we have had with us alway.
@Chimp
And what do you think a warmer climate does to termites?
Maybe they like it and grow more colonies? Therefore produding more CO2? There is never a ‘ceterus paribus’ situation in nature. Everything changes and everything is interdependent.
Samuel,
Termites use wood that incorporated its CO2 from the same atmosphere where it is released again, only a few years to a few decades before.
The current biosphere, including termites, is a net sink for CO2, the earth is greening, despite the number of termites, animals, humans and other (indirect) veggies…
There, Ferdinand, ……. I fixed it for you.
Do you have references for this? It seems like the world could use a few less termites, or perhaps we could harness their production.
Humans reading such things consume more aspirin, driving an increase in production, which consumes CO2. Homeostasis in action.
R. Shearer – May 14, 2017 at 12:53 pm
R. Shearer, …. I guess iffen you don’t know how to use the Internet and the Google program for finding answers to simple little questions ……. then it’s probably OK iffen I do it for you …… so here is the reference you asked for, to wit:
http://www.nytimes.com/1982/10/31/us/termite-gas-exceeds-smokestack-pollution.html
“so here is the reference you asked for”
That NY Times article is about the Zimmerman paper that was probably overestimating termite emissions by at least a factor of 10.
And even then it doesn’t agree with your claim that termites produce 10 times as much CO2 as all fossil fuels. The article only says more than twice as much – and that’s compared emissions in the 80s.
Samuel,
Termites don’t increase the CO2 levels in the atmosphere today for the simple reason that vegetation absorbs more CO2 than all bacteria, fungi, insects and animals together release.
Humans do increase the CO2 levels in the atmosphere today for the simple reason that the production of new coal, oil and gas absorbs less CO2 than humans release from the ancient atmosphere.
Ferdinand, …… have you un-plugged your refrigerator/freezer?
If not, why not, …… you already told me that cool, …… cold ,,,,,,,, and freezing temperatures will not prevent the microbial decomposition of the dead biomass foods that you have placed in your refrigerator/freezer for “safe keeping”.
Or did I misunderstand you …… and that “safe keeping” thingy you claimed was to prevent your pack of pet pooches (dogs) from eating the food(s) you have saved for you, your wife and kids?
Chimp,
The fact that there has never been a runaway hothouse from which Earth did not recover (Tipping Point), suggests that, at the very least, the temperature sensitivity to CO2 is much less than generally claimed. Moreover, there appears to be some sort of negative feedback loop that corrects for temperature changes over the long term. One possible explanation is that CO2 isn’t even driving the temperature, but is a result of it. That is, it takes a millennium for temperature changes to work through the system, and once out of equilibrium, outgassing will continue for hundreds of years, as long as the Earth isn’t quickly plunged into another ice age by some exogenous forcing.
Consider the following: In the absence of anthropogenic CO2, the oceans might supply CO2 at a greater rate than what they currently do. That is, anthropogenic CO2 is moderating the rate at which CO2 outgases in a warming world. Therefore, the correlation with anthropogenic CO2 may be a spurious correlation.
Clyde,
I couldn’t agree more.
But that doesn’t mean that most of the apparent CO2 gain over the past 167 years isn’t from human activities.
Per IPCC AR5 Figure 6.1 prior to year 1750 CO2 represented about 1.26% of the total biospheric carbon balance (589/46,713). After mankind’s contributions, 67 % fossil fuel and cement – 33% land use changes, atmospheric CO2 increased to about 1.77% of the total biosphere carbon balance (829/46,713). This represents a shift of 0.51% from all the collected stores, ocean outgassing, carbonates, carbohydrates, etc. not just mankind, to the atmosphere. A 0.51% rearrangement of 46,713 Gt of stores and 100s of Gt annual fluxes doesn’t impress me as measurable let alone actionable, attributable, or significant.
And in some other words.
Earth’s carbon cycle contains 46,713 Gt (E15 gr) +/- 850 Gt (+/- 1.8%) of stores and reservoirs with a couple hundred fluxes Gt/y (+/- ??) flowing among those reservoirs. Mankind’s gross contribution over 260 years was 555 Gt or 1.2%. (IPCC AR5 Fig 6.1) Mankind’s net contribution, 240 Gt or 0.53%, (dry labbed by IPCC to make the numbers work) to this bubbling, churning caldron of carbon/carbon dioxide is 4 Gt/y +/- 96%. (IPCC AR5 Table 6.1) Seems relatively trivial to me. IPCC et. al. says natural variations can’t explain the increase in CO2. With these tiny percentages and high levels of uncertainty how would anybody even know? BTW fossil fuel between 1750 and 2011 represented 0.34% of the biospheric carbon cycle.
Nicholas,
How much carbon is in reservoirs is not of the slightest interest, as long as there is no exchange between the reservoirs.
How much carbon is exchanged between the reservoirs is not of the slightest interest, as long as the ins and outs are equal.
What is of interest is the balance: 9 GtC/year human emissions in, 4.5 GtC/year increase in the atmosphere, thus the natural unbalance is -4.5 +/- 3 GtC/year, including year by year natural variability. Nature is a net and increasing sink for CO2 already near 60 years of accurate measurements and thus not the cause of the increase, no matter how one tortures the data…
BTW, accuracy of human emissions: +/- 0.5 GtC (based on sales – taxes) and CO2 measurements: +/- 0.4 GtC. Accurate enough to show that nature is a net sink for near 60 years, no matter if the natural cycles were 10 GtC/year, 150 GtC/year ot 1000 GtC/year in and out…
Some questions which may cast doubt on the accuracy of some of the figures:
1. Do the figures for “human emissions” take account of CO2 from respiration particularly in view of world population growth ?
2. Do the figures for “human emissions” take account of fuel burnt that is not taxed and may not be fossil fuel anyway but still produces CO2 during combustion? For example where I live most households are burning 3 – 6 tonnes of wood per annum, usually from their own land = no records, no taxes.
3. Do the figures for “human emissions” take account of burning for reasons other than heating/cooking? For example burning of waste/rubbish which may range from personal garden refuse to larger scale burning of collected waste from many households. There is also burning as a recovery process for, e.g. copper from cable scrap.
4. Do the figures for “human emissions” take account of wind turbines catching fire? OK, maybe a little /s but have you seen how much smoke and flames you get from a “good ‘un”?
5. Do the figures for “human emissions” take account of the respiration of our dogs/cats in view of the increasing popularity of having a pet and therefore this is probably increasing at a greater rate than population in some countries?
I suspect that the crude calculation of fossil fuel related CO2 derived from records of oil/coal sales , etc is highly likely to be a significant under estimate of the actual amount of CO2 which is human produced. A significant percentage may be simply due to human population growth and associated growth in related activities which produce net CO2 entirely independent of the fossil fuel contribution. Has anyone ever seen a study of this point?
Reverend,
Your points 1), 2) and 5) are part of the biosphere, as what is emitted/exhaled as CO2 was taken out of the atmosphere some months to decades before. In average that gives a slight sink for CO2: about 1 GtC/year more CO2 removed by photosynthesis than is returned by burning wood or eating/digesting/exhaling…
For point 3) depends of what is used is recent organics or fossil organics. In the first case, it is part of the biocycle an in the second case, the average energy use to produce plastics, metals, paper,… is included in fossil fuel use, the energy recuperation from burning wastes, as far as I know, not.
About point 4), I only hope that much more of these bird and bat killers burn down…
So natural sources don’t explain the increasing CO2 and rising CO2 can’t explain the pause. Good thing the science is settled or there would be a lot of questions to be sorted out.
So, carbon dioxide and temperature are uncorrelated outside of laboratory conditions (and carbonated drinks), implying that there are other unidentified and uncharacterized sources and processes that regulate both.
Have no informed opinion about Salby’s theories, but do have graphical demonstration of global temperature – CO2 connection http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/esrl-co2/mean:12/scale:0.2/isolate:60/plot/hadcrut4gl/isolate:60/mean:12/from:1961
Even more striking for the tropics http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/esrl-co2/mean:12/scale:0.2/isolate:60/plot/hadcrut4tr/isolate:60/mean:12/from:1961
Oh stop it…..your graph clearly shows the CO2 follows temps very quickly…. 😉
…..tropics can’t find the hot spot either
“global temperature – CO2 connection”
What it does show is the scale factor – 0.2. That is, a 1°C rise in temp corresponds to a 5 ppmv increase. We’ve seen a 120 ppmv increase since pre-industrial – that would need a 24°C rise in temperature.
No, it wouldn’t. It is NOT A PROPORTIONAL RELATIONSHIP!
It was in the plot he showed.
Hi Nick; what does the 120 ppmv CO2 mean for temperature?
Bart,
Of course it is a proportional relationship or you are violating Henry’s law for the solubility of CO2 in seawater…
No, Ferdinand. Henry’s Law only determines the ratio of partition. It does not say anything about the absolute concentration which is rising as a result of the temperature change.
Bart:
Henry’s Law only determines the ratio of partition. It does not say anything about the absolute concentration which is rising as a result of the temperature change.
Of course it does. For a fixed temperature, the fixed ratio between CO2 in seawater and the atmosphere gives a fixed absolute concentration in the atmosphere. At 15°C ocean surface that is ~290 ppmv in the atmosphere.
If the temperature of a liquid increases the solubility of any gas is reduced, because the internal pressure to escape from the liquid increases. That is measurable and for CO2 in seawater, the internal pressure of CO2 (called fugacity) increases with about 16 μatm/K. With a fixed ratio, the increase in the atmosphere also would reach ~16 ppmv/K for a new equilibrium.
“With a fixed ratio, the increase in the atmosphere also would reach ~16 ppmv/K for a new equilibrium.”
That is only the short term equlibration. But, the overall level in the surface system, partitioned between surface oceans and atmosphere, is increased, because there is less transported out of the system via downwelling.
Henry’s Law has nothing to say about that long term buildup, except for how it will be partitioned.
Bart,
the overall level in the surface system, partitioned between surface oceans and atmosphere, is increased, because there is less transported out of the system via downwelling.
That is during the transition to a new steady state. When the increase in the atmosphere reaches ~16 ppmv more CO2 per K temperature change, the original CO2 downfluxes are reestablished and as much CO2 sinks in the deep as before (and as much is released at the sources as before), with the help of the higher CO2 level in the atmosphere.
“When the increase in the atmosphere reaches ~16 ppmv more CO2 per K temperature change, the original CO2 downfluxes are reestablished…”
Splitting the flow does not push more CO2 into the downwelling. This is a perpetual motion scheme.
Bart,
Splitting the flow does not push more CO2 into the downwelling. This is a perpetual motion scheme.
No, the increased pressure of CO2 in the atmosphere pushes more CO2 in the downwelling. That is the point. The energy needed is supplied by the increased pCO2 due to warmer ocean temperatures in the upwelling zones.
These plots are closely related to Humlum’s analsyis as seen at his website climate4you.com and his published paper from 2013. He concluded from these extensive data analyses that “(6) CO2 released from anthropogene sources apparently has little influence on the observed changes in atmospheric CO2, and changes in atmospheric CO2 are not tracking changes in human emissions.”
Harde 2017 consulted Salby and incorporated many of his thoughts and concludes “Our analysis of the carbon cycle, which exclusively uses data for the CO2 concentrations and fluxes as published in AR5, shows that also a completely different interpretation of these data is possible, this in
complete conformity with all observations and natural causalities.” The alternate conclusion they find
is the one described by Salby.
This alternate conclusion does not need to assume saturated sinks at the beginning of the industrial age or fractionated residence times that cannot be measured but are in conflict with 36 published estimates of CO2 residence time developed using 6 different methods between 1957 and 1992. The IPCC residence curve keeps 40% of fossil fuel CO2 in the atmosphere for over 100 years where these studies all cluster around 5 to10 years.
DMA,
Common error of too many skeptics to mix residence time with e-fold decay rate. The residence time has nothing to do with the decay rate of any extra CO2 injection in the atmosphere above dynamic equilibrium per Henry’s law. The residence time is mainly seasonal and temperature driven. The decay rate of any extra CO2 in the atmosphere is pressure driven. The residence time is ~5 years, the e-fold decay rate is ~51 years.
See Willis’excellent post:
http://www.wattsupwiththat.com/2015/04/19/the-secret-life-of-half-life/
It is the same difference as between the turnover of goods (and thus capital) in a factory and the gain (or loss) that the same factory makes. Somewhat related, but largely independent of each other.
Both Humlum and Harde made the same error of (indirectly) using the residence time, which is of no value in the calculation of how long it takes to remove some extra CO2 out of the atmosphere…
The IPCC makes use of the Bern model, which includes large residual amounts of CO2 in the atmosphere, due to saturation of the deep oceans and vegetation, for which is not the slightest indication…
Have no informed opinion about Salby’s theories, but do have graphical demonstration of global temperature – CO2 connection http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/esrl-co2/mean:12/scale:0.2/isolate:60/plot/hadcrut4gl/isolate:60/mean:12/from:1961
Even more striking for the tropics http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/esrl-co2/mean:12/scale:0.2/isolate:60/plot/hadcrut4tr/isolate:60/mean:12/from:1961
Mmm; 3 compared to 4:
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/esrl-co2/mean:12/scale:0.2/isolate:60/plot/hadcrut4gl/isolate:60/mean:12/from:1961
Nice write up Rudd.
And all this time I though PC02 was related to my computers anthropogenic footprint!
The CDIAC plot shows CO2 in ppmv vs the annual rate of emission. I think like should be compared with like – CO2 with cumulative emission, or annual rates of change. Here, from here, is the plot of CO2 in ppmv vs cumulative emissions. The mass balance can be compared, and there is a fairly constant airborne fraction (reasons here), so that only about half remains in the air. But it is very clear that, with all the natural annual cycling over the pre-industrial years, no nett change occurred. It was just the same carbon going through various phases, as it still does. The rise in CO2 in ppmv started with our emissions (initially land clearing), and tracked it throughout.
the plot of CO2 in ppmv
Sorry, it compares both atmospheric C and cumulative emissions in Gtons C.
no nett change occurred…so it was limiting
The temperature relationship shows a better match since reliable CO2 estimates became available.
http://i1136.photobucket.com/albums/n488/Bartemis/tempco2_zpsmgkycbdj.png
I must admit it looks neat. But. Correlation in not causation.
The unambiguous correlation is in the rate domain. Human emissions do not track with anything like this level of detail.
http://i1136.photobucket.com/albums/n488/Bartemis/scale022_zps2rnyhcl6.png
The problem is that HadCRU’s books have been cooked to show such a relationship.
The RSS correlation below however is more convincing, even though its series has now also joined the bogus, cooked book, climate consensus collective Borg.
Well, then, check out UAH:
http://woodfortrees.org/plot/esrl-co2/derivative/mean:12/from:1979/plot/uah6/offset:0.73/scale:0.2
HadCRU’s books have been slightly cooked, though they are far less well done than GISS. But, they have not been cooking them to show a relationship between temperature and the rate of change of CO2.
Bartemis,
It’s clear that the fluctuations in CO2 follow temperature, but that doesn’t mean that no accumulation from human sources has occurred. My own guess at the man-made portion is lower than, say, Ferdinand’s estimate.
“It’s clear that the fluctuations in CO2 follow temperature, but that doesn’t mean that no accumulation from human sources has occurred.”
Occam’s Razor. The temperature relationship fully accounts for the rise. Why assume something you do not need?
BTW, human inputs indubitably account for some of the rise. But, it is a negligible level, probably on the order of maybe 3-5%, if estimates of the relative size of anthropogenic inputs to natural inputs are accurate.
Bartemis,
IMO there is a need to explain what I consider to be higher than naturally occurring CO2. The temperature increase since 1850 has been minor compared to the CO2 gain, assuming that pre-1958 estimates are in the ballpark.
“…assuming that pre-1958 estimates are in the ballpark.”
Why would you assume that? I sure don’t.
It is a moot question. Since 1958, when the best, most accurate, direct measurements of CO2 became available, the rate of change of CO2 to temperature relationship has held with extraordinarily high fidelity. In that era, the concentration rose from about 315 ppmv to the current 400 or so ppmv. If it had stayed at 315 ppmv, we would hardly even care. IMO, we can safely discount the pre-MLO era has having little to no relevance.
Bartemis,
“The temperature relationship shows a better match”
Consider what is plotted. One is carbon added versus carbon measured, both jn Gtons. The other is carbon measured vs the integral of Southern Hemisphere temperature, with a specially chosen offset first, then a chosen matching factor, then another offset. All with no physical explanation, and restricted to just a 60-year period. There are enough degrees of freedom in that matching to turn the straight line y=x into any section of any parabola.
No, Nick, there are not. The quadratic component of the absolute CO2 level is directly related to the linear component of the rate of change. It comes from the trend in temperature, not from any arbitrary fitted parameter.
That is precisely the key element that establishes that the rise is overwhelmingly due to temperature. The trend in temperature fits the quadratic term in CO2, when it is scaled to match the variability. Emissions also have a linear growth that would accumulate into a quadratic term. But, since the quadratic component is already explained essentially in total by the temperature dependent term, there is little to no room for it. Ergo, human inputs cannot be contributing significantly to the outcome.
“It comes from the trend in temperature, not from any arbitrary fitted parameter.”
So what is the 0.22 multiplier on temperature?
Bartemis,
“The temperature relationship shows a better match since reliable CO2 estimates became available.”
Just to show how easily these nonsense correlations can be produced, I played around in WFT. I took Crutem4, but scaled it by zero and offset by 1. That seems to be the only way to produce a constant 1 – I tried random etc, but they only go to year 2000. Then I integrated, offset by 500 and integrated again, then scaled by 0.000146. The same number of fitted choice parameters as you have, and it is just a parabola. No climate information at all. The result plotted against ERSL Co2 is here:
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/crutem4vgl/from:1958/to:2016/scale/offset:1/integral/offset:500/integral/scale:0.000146/offset:314/plot/esrl-co2/mean:24
or pictured here:
What mechanisms justify the offsets?
“What mechanisms justify the offsets?”
Good question. In my case it was just fitting, as I believe it is in Bart’s.
Bartemis’ plot shows CO2 rising with the *Integral* of temperature, which implies that if temperatures stay constant from now on, CO2 will continue to rise indefinitely at the same rate. I think that is somewhat unlikely, to say the least.
It is also worth noting that Bartemis’ plot suggests CO2 levels would remain constant if temperatures were about that seen in the 1890s (determined by the scaling of 0.22 and the first offset of 0.1). This implies that during glacial periods, which were (IIRC) about 4 degrees cooler than that, CO2 levels would have rapidly plummeted below zero ppm, which is of course absurd. So this is at best only a local approximation, where one approximately exponential signal (integrated temperature) has been fitted to another approximately exponential signal (atmospheric CO2) using three free parameters. It is not surprise that this can be done, as Nick demonstrated.
Bart,
As usual…
The correlation is between the variabilities, as that is mainly the effect of temperature on (tropical) vegetation. The trend is NOT caused by vegetation, as that is a net sink for CO2. Thus while most variability is caused by temperature, that is just noise and the trend is caused by the twice as high human emissions.
The combination of emissions, increase in the atmosphere (and thus net sink rate) gives exactly the same plot as yours, where temperature is only a minor player for the trend:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/had_co2_emiss_nat_deriv.jpg
Ferdinand, would you please further an explanation of the red line in your plot. (what exactly does it mean, how did you calculate it?) Thanx…
Nick Stokes @ May 13, 2017 at 7:42 pm
You integrated twice! Of course you can get a quadratic term if you integrate a constant twice.
Now, plot the derivative:
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/crutem4vgl/from:1958/to:2016/scale:0.000001/offset:1/integral/offset:500/integral/scale:0.000146/offset:314/derivative/plot/esrl-co2/mean:24/derivative
Oops! Doesn’t match the variations AT ALL!
This is p*** poor, Nick. Are you purposefully just trying to muddy the waters?
jorgekafkazar May 13, 2017 at 9:39 pm
“What mechanisms justify the offsets?”
1) offset for equilibrium temperature anomaly – temperature anomaly baseline is arbitrary, so there is no reason for it to have physical significance in the first place
2) offset for integration constant
dikranmarsupial @ May 14, 2017 at 2:19 am
“…which implies that if temperatures stay constant from now on, CO2 will continue to rise indefinitely at the same rate.”
For a time, until other dynamics assert themselves. This is a linearized model which is expected to hold locally in time, and holds very well for the period under observation. This is standard engineering practice. If we have a system
dx/dt = -x/tau + u
for some input u and time constant tau. If the period of observation is much less than tau, then the equation becomes approximately
dx/dt := u
and, we can use that as the model for near term analysis. But, the actual system is not ultimately unbounded for u of one sign, as this one would be.
Ferdinand Engelbeen @ May 14, 2017 at 6:20 am
Your model is nonphysical, as you are taking a natural equilibrium state as a given, and decoupling the equilibrium dynamics from the anthropogenic input.
“Offsets let us plot two data sets on the same chart. “
Your examples are of known, defined scale factors (eg 1.800000). These are fitted, and they do more than put the two graphs on the same page. They optimise the fit. And because the integration suppresses most of the variation detail, they basically just match up the low order moments. That was the point of my demo that just applying fitting multipliers and offsets could match a straight line of unit slope to the CO2 curve, just as well as doing the same with HADCRUT 4 SH. The scale matches the curvature (2nd moment), then the offset added before integration matches the slope, then the final offset matches the intercept. They are all the parameters you need to fit a quadratic.
Nick:
So what IS the scaling factor between ppmv and °C ?
Bartemis wrote “You [Nick] integrated twice! Of course you can get a quadratic term if you integrate a constant twice.”
Yes, of course he did. Nick multiplied temperature by 0 and added 1 to get a constant and then integrated it to get a linearly increasing signal. Nick’s point was that with three free parameters you can easily get a match to atmospheric CO2 by integrating any signal with an approximately linear increase. Perhaps you ought to try and understand the point being made before dismissing it. Of course it doesn’t explain the variations, but then again, as Nick’s example shows integrated temperature doesn’t necessarily explain the long term increase.
“This is a linearized model which is expected to hold locally in time, and holds very well for the period under observation. “
Yes, of course it does, with three free parameters you can get an equally good fit by integrating more or less any linearly increasing signal, as Nick demonstrated, so it means precisely nothing.
Nick Stokes @ May 14, 2017 at 5:41 pm
This is either dishonest or incompetent.
Fonzie,
It is getting problematic here to follow all the discussions…
As I remember well (it is already years ago…), it is the combination of the direct influence of temperature on the variability in CO2 rate of change (4-5 ppmv/K), to match the amplitudes at one side and human emissions minus the calculated sink rate on the other side.
The calculated sink rate is the result of the fixed ratio over the past near 60 years between observed sink rate and the CO2 levels in the atmosphere above the calculated equilibrium for the momentary temperature with base 290 in 1960 plus the temperature anomaly at 16 ppmv/K.
The fixed ratio is currently ~2.15 ppmv/year for 110 ppmv above equilibrium and was quite constant over the past near 60 years.
The result you see is that almost all the trend is from human emissions minus the net sink rate and that almost all variability is from the temperature impact on (tropical) vegetation plus in part ocean temperatures (but vegetation wins the contest)…
Bart:
Your model is nonphysical, as you are taking a natural equilibrium state as a given, and decoupling the equilibrium dynamics from the anthropogenic input.
Bart, the natural equilibrium state IS a given, as proven by 800,000 years of ice cores, showing a fixed ratio between temperature (proxy) and CO2 levels (measured). It IS a given per Henry’s law. confirmed by over three million seawater samples.
All what I have decoupled is that natural variability and trend have nothing to do with each other as is proven by the opposite CO2 and δ13C changes: changes in (tropical) vegetation are the main cause of the CO2 rate of change variability, induced by ocean temperature variability. But vegetation is a net, increasing sink for CO2 over periods longer than 1-3 years, thus NOT the cause of the increase in dCO2/dt or CO2 in the atmosphere… That are human emissions, not temperature.
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/temp_dco2_d13C_mlo.jpg
BTW, as you can see there is a lag between dCO2/dt and dT/dt, thus the integral relationship is between dT/dt and CO2, not between T and CO2. Unfortunately for you (and Salby’s) theory, dT/dt has no trend, only a small offset, good for a few ppmv CO2 after integration…
“…the natural equilibrium state IS a given…”
Sure, sure. It’s magic!
No, Ferdinand. A natural equilibrium does not just exist for no reason. There has to be a dynamical relationship that establishes it. And, that dynamical relationship is going to apply to any anthropogenic inputs as well.
Bart:
There has to be a dynamical relationship that establishes it. And, that dynamical relationship is going to apply to any anthropogenic inputs as well.
The dynamic relationship between ocean surface and atmosphere for the ocean temperature is 16 ppmv/K with a current steady state setpoint of ~290 ppmv.
The dynamic relationship for the removal of any excess CO2 in the atmosphere above that dynamic setpoint has a tau of ~51 years, No matter the origin of that excess.
Excess compared to what? How do you know there is an “excess”? How did the magical equilibrium level come about?
The answer: it is established by a balance between inflow and outflow. We cannot shift that balance by any greater proportion than our proportion of additional inflow. If we attempted to, we would be opposed by the very same forces that oppose the natural inflow.
That is what is missing from your model. That is what makes it nonphysical.
Bart:
Excess compared to what? How do you know there is an “excess”? How did the magical equilibrium level come about?
There is nothing “magical” about the steady state between the ocean surface and the atmosphere. For every temperature of the ocean surface, there is a fixed level in the atmosphere where ocean surface and atmosphere are in equilibrium per Henry’s law. It doesn’t matter if that is for a single sample in a lab or for the average temperature and the full dynamics of the total ocean, including sinks and sources.
The answer: it is established by a balance between inflow and outflow. We cannot shift that balance by any greater proportion than our proportion of additional inflow. If we attempted to, we would be opposed by the very same forces that oppose the natural inflow.
That is where you go wrong. The main in/out fluxes are directly cuase by temperature differences, while the removal of any injection of extra CO2 is only possible by pressure differences.
In the case of the oceans, the main influx is at the upwelling, where the warming up of the deep ocean waters gives a boost to CO2 to enter the atmosphere. The opposite happens at the sink side. The quantities involved are directly proportional to the pCO2 difference between atmosphere and ocean surface or reverse, thus mainly by local temperatures. Total flux between sinks and sources ~40 GtC/year via the atmosphere, in steady state at ~290 ppmv in the atmosphere for an average 15°C ocean surface temperature.
The outflux is not dependent of the influx of any particular year, but depends of the pCO2 difference between atmosphere and sinking waters, the former of course is influenced by the inputs.
Take an extra CO2 input of volcanoes or humans and the pCO2 in the atmosphere increases. That will influence both the incoming fluxes and the outgoing fluxes, proportional to the pressure increase in the atmosphere. Completely independent of the influx or outflux of that moment. The difference between the new influx and outflux is what net sinks into the deep oceans (and vegetation). That is measured at current ~2.15 ppmv/year.
Humans add ~4.5 ppmv/year, the difference remains in the atmosphere.
Atlantic Ocean CO2 uptake reduced by weakening of the meridional overturning circulation
http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/v6/n2/abs/ngeo1680.html
“…there is a fixed level in the atmosphere where ocean surface and atmosphere are in equilibrium per Henry’s law.”
That only tells us the ratio, not the absolute level. It does not say anything about the content or distribution within the oceans, or how it came to be.
“The main in/out fluxes are directly cuase by temperature differences, while the removal of any injection of extra CO2 is only possible by pressure differences.”
You are still only talking about the atmospheric/ocean interface. This is only a small part of the flow problem. Oceanic transport is not instantaneous, and it is not simple. It is very long term, and very complex. You are dismissing it as though it were of no consequence, treating the vastness of the oceans as though it were a shallow pond.
You are like the proverbial blind man, who feels the elephant’s trunk, and declares that an elephant is a long, sinuous animal, much like a snake. You have not even begun to explore the other parts of the elephant.
Nick,
Thanks for an informational comment. Mostly I agree, but will mention this:
“The rise in CO2 in ppmv started with our emissions (initially land clearing),…”
The chart indicates land clearing started about 1850. It is possible to argue that land clearing has been going on for much longer. So, two examples only:
Recent — Pennsylvania’s big cut
http://explorepahistory.com/story.php?storyId=1-9-E&chapter=1
Not so recent — forests of the Lebanon cedar
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cedars_of_God
Nick,
You surely are expert at producing nonsense correlations.
John,
” It is possible to argue that land clearing has been going on for much longer.”
Yes, I think so too. I plotted Houghton’s data, which started in 1850. There is some indication of an earlier small rise in atmospheric CO2.
Land effects conceivably go back at least 2000 years in the Amazon.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/02/170207092752.htm
Nick
These depictions of the ice core CO2 records were used to argue that the increase had to be human caused. There are multiple refutations of there accuracy for absolute CO2 content. They are good indicators of changes but because of the mechanics of the ice formations and diffusion in the ice layers and liquid water found in the ice layers down to -70C they will always show less than the maximum concentration for the period they represent. Stomata counts show over 360 PPM 10,000yrs ago. High quality chemical analysis show over 350 PPM during the 19ty and early 20th century.
DMA,
Please, don’t repeat what Jaworowski said in 1992, which was all refuted in 1996 by the work of Etheridge e.a. on three ice cores at Law Dome.
Ice cores are excellent indicators of ancient CO2 levels, the only drawback is that they are always a mix of several years, depending of the local snow accumulation rate. Between 10 years resolution over the past 150 years and 560 years resolution over the past 800,000 years. Repeatability +/- 1.2 ppmv (1 sigma) for Law Dome, maximum 5 ppmv difference for the same average gas age for ice cores with extreme differences in temperature and accumulation rate.
Including an overlap of ~20 years (1960-1980) between ice core data and direct measurements at the South Pole. See further:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/jaworowski.html
I had years of discussion with the late Ernst Beck about the historical data. While the accuracy was reasonable (+/- 10 ppmv), where was measured was problematic: midst of towns, under, inbetween and over growing plants, midst of forests… Completely unsuited for “background” CO2 levels of that period. See:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/beck_data.html
Ferdinand Engelbeen
May 14, 2017 at 6:34 am
Ice cores are excellent indicators of ancient CO2 levels, the only drawback is that they are always a mix of several years, depending of the local snow accumulation rate.
——————————
No, the ice core data in the way you address these data are far from excellent indicators, and the drawbacks far much more serious then you try to imply and make believe…
These data confuse and contradict each other very significantly over the CO2 concentration and the temperatures….
Sorry Engelbeen, if you use your basic math carefully you may just realize that for your self……
All data is subject to drawbacks due to pollution and contamination of the samples by other natural signals other than the ones that the data tries to represent, and also due to raw data processes that can not fully and accurately count for all needed adjustments and interpretation of such data…….some thing like in the case of the actual CO2 residence time in atmosphere.
Remember the ice core data is just that, it is in no way atmospheric data…
cheers
Whiten,
CO2 in ice core bubbles from Law Dome were measured with the same equipment as direct measurements in the atmosphere at the surface, in firn and show the same CO2 levels in the period 1960-1980 as direct measurements at the South Pole.
Thus if you have concrete findings why and when these data are so far contaminated that they can’t be reliably used, I am all ear.
There are more discussions about the proxies in the ice core used for temperature indication. Mostly δD and δ18O in the ice. The heavier isotopes show some increase with higher temperatures where water is evaporated and where the same water vapor directly freezes to snow and what of these is more important. And that ratio also may shift between glacial and interglacial periods.
That makes that the polar 8 ppmv/K CO2 change probably is 16 ppmv/K globally (another ongoing discussion…). Anyway, the CO2/T ratio between glacial and interglacial periods didn’t change over 8 interglacials, each some 100,000 years apart and 16 ppmv/K is in the ball park of Henry’s law for CO2 in seawater.
Ferdinand Engelbeen
May 15, 2017 at 12:51 pm
Do you realise how silly your argument is?
The bred and butter about icecore data is the long term paleo climate representation of climatic parameters.
Trying to validate the worthiness and accuracy of such data in long term by relying in a period of 20 years between 1960 to 1980, to me is beyond silly….
Still icecore data do confuse and contradict among…. and are highly polluted by other signals other than the ones that supposedly to be representing the temp and CO2 concentration variation….
There is Greenland icecore data that due to such discrepancy are considered and deemed arbitrary invalid because, because these data very clearly contradict other ice core data and other proxies..to a very high degree of violation……
Also very long term ice core data in general do contradict clearly shorter term icecore data to a point that the picture for the same event, like an interglacial, is completely in two different ranges that do not even slightly overlap…as at the very least expected , when it comes to climatic parameters that these icecore data suppose to reflect and mirror….A huge unacceptable error………
Considering your knowledge, I am surprised that you still do not get it, with all you math magic!
cheers
Whiten,
Greenland ice cores are far more contaminated by a combination of sea salts and frequent acidic dust from nearby Icelandic volcanoes. That gives in-situ formation of CO2. Therefore the CO2 results can’t be used as unreliable in many cases. The same bubbles contain CH4 and these match the Antarctic CH4 data.
As far as I know, ice cores show a trapped overlap with each other, each longer one “bootstrapped” with the next longer one with a longer resolution. The first two (Law Dome) show 150 years with a resolution of less than a decade and match 20 years with direct measurements at the South Pole. The next get ~1.000 years back in time and match the 150 years of the first, etc.
The main problem is in calculating the average age of the gas composition, mostly (verified) modelling (firn densification model), but the shapes of the CO2 changes in general are identical.
Land clearing has been occurring for millennia by axe and burning; it’s just another ad hoc hypothesis dreamed up by the alarmists to explain another of the anomalies (inconsistencies) in their neat settled science™.
The pre-1958 CO2 trend aside, if land clearing was responsible for the purported CO2-driven instrumental surface temperature trend prior to ~1945 (that can’t be explained by emissions), it could also explain the similar trend post-1945:
http://www.climate4you.com/images/HadCRUT3%20GlobalMonthlyTempSince1850%20WithSatellitePeriod.gif
You may NOT combine ice core proxies and MLO instrument data. That’s just flat FRAUD.
Nicholas,
You may combine ice core CO2 with instrument data, as ice core CO2 are direct measurements, not proxies. Even done with the same instrument by Etheridge for CO2 in ice, firn and atmosphere for the Law Dome data.
There is a 20-year overlap between Law Dome CO2 data and direct measurements at the South Pole:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/law_dome_sp_co2.jpg
Ice core measurements are one or two steps removed from the original sample air, i.e., they are proxies.
R. Shearer,
Depends of the definition of “proxy”.
In general a “proxy” is some variable which is influenced by the variable of interest. Like three ring widths or density for temperature and stomata data for CO2 levels. These need calibration over some periods with the variable of interest.
In general the proxy variable is not only influenced by the variable of interest, but also by other variables like precipitation in the case of tree rings and local/regional CO2 sinks/sources in the case of stomata data. Or by non-linear responses, maximum responses,…
That is not the case for CO2 in ice core bubbles. While there are corrections needed, like a correction for the increase of the heavier isotopes and molecules at the bottom of stagnant air (based on the change in 15N/14N ratio), these corrections are not higher than 1% of the measured value, which is a direct measurement of the variable of interest.
Thus in my opinion ice core CO2 is not a “proxy” in the same sense as most proxies, but may be called a “proxy” because it doesn’t reflect the CO2 levels of a particular moment in time or even a particular year, but a skewed (to more recent years) average mix of several years of air.
Nice flatline; what was temp doing during this period?
How does one know for sure? in any case, he is of retirement age, and one should not hold that against him.
An employed person, usually, has many required distractions from a main interest. Once or twice we had to fill out forms detailing activities by each 15 minutes. Some useless meetings are required or expected.
Once retired a person can focus on that main interest, or other things one did not have time to do when a salary is being earned.
We recommend it.
Thank you, Rud Istvan.
You are welcome, fellow traveller, presumably from Europe. Auf Deutsch, Vielen Dank.
I am from the Netherlands and I try to teach the Dutch skeptics on carbon cycle basics.
Together with his Flemish fellow traveller (but have been working 34 years in The Netherlands in the chemical industry)…
Hi Ferdinand, you too thank you very much for your input here!
Thanks Rud
I believe skeptics have made several unforced errors by refusing to call out BS. This refusal has allowed other to easily and credibly tar you all with one big brush.
Rud avoids this simple mistake.
Many folks will pick up any skeptical argument as long as it is merely opposed to accepted science.
So lets start here. With The Core of climate science ( CAGW is another thing )
1. C02 is a GHG. Yes virginia, C02 like water vapor is a GHG. GHGs make the planet warmer than it would
be otherwise not cooler. YET skeptics continue to entertain and allow sky dragon types to spread their
nonsense. Do yourself a favor and distance yourself from these clowns. That means Pro actively countering their BS.
2. Humans are responsive for the rise in C02. Yes throw salby under the bus. You cannot on one hand demand
that folks follow the scientific method, publish their data and code, and then let SALBY lead your charge
since he refuses to actually do science or publish results. YouTube videos are not science.
3. The world is in fact warming. Yup. The temperature record is not a hoax. There was an LIA it was cooler in the past. It is warmer now. That sentence and the concept of a ‘global’ temperature has an operational meaning.
folks might reasonably disagree about a few tenths here and there, but the LIA was in fact real. It is in fact warmer.
4. Prior to the intrusion of politics into science, scientists did in fact ( 1896, 1938) Predict that adding C02 would warm the planet. They did not predict it would cool the planet. They did not predict it would warm everywhere or even warm monotonically year in and year out because the recognize that other factors can temporarily work against this warming trend. The increased warming we see is evidence FOR the theory it is not Evidence AGAINST the theory. but the pause!!! All other things being equal an increase in my salary causes my bank balance to go up. Last month it went down. Hospital bills. This “disconnect” between salary and balance doesnt mean that in general an increase in salary will NOT lead to an increase in balance.
What left? Whats left are the real questions, the open questions in the science. These are the questions where skeptics COULD IN FACT have an impact on the trajectory of the science and the conversation. If you stay mired down in arguing 1-4, at some point people will stop talking to you as your position is akin to flat earthers.
What are the real questions left.
1. How much will we emit in the future
2. How much will we warm
3. Should we and can we do anything.
The temperature record is not a hoax
Notice that Mosher never gives any science, he just claims CO2 warms the planet. To hades with the ice core data that shows otherwise, and to hades with thermodynamics that says otherwise. And those poor scientists that worked in the space program who developed the “US Standard Atmosphere” — I bet they feel foolish for being so correct. After all, there is no mention of the back-radiation delusion at all.
Oh, and he takes a shot at a group in his number 1 that we can not even link to or mention by site policy. Perhaps Mosher will travel over and tell Dr. P*st** what he thinks.
“Notice that Mosher never gives any science”
Perhaps there’s a reason for that…
You neglect the fact that increased trees/plants/flowers/weeds that are growing INCREASE the absorption rate of CO2 from the atmosphere… !!
“Yes throw salby under the bus. You cannot on one hand demand that folks follow the scientific method, publish their data and code, and then let SALBY lead your charge”
Salby has far greater credentials than you do, Steven. Your bio says you were an English major. Why do you feel I should weight your scientific opinion more heavily than his?
I do not make it a habit of allowing people who are manifestly wrong about one thing dictate to me what I must accept as right about another.
In this case, the evidence is very clear – human inputs have little impact on atmospheric CO2 concentration.
All right – 4 years Bachelor’s in an engineering discipline, +2 years Master’s, +2 years PhD.
I think that holds up fairly strongly against an English major.
Steven’s bio, as ferreted out by sleuth Poptech:
http://www.populartechnology.net/2014/06/who-is-steven-mosher.html
That is a really dumb analogy.
All engineers study science. Few lawyers are heart valve engineers.
Any engineer has enough scientific education to evaluate CACA and find it ludicrously wanting. Few English majors and marketers are qualified to comment upon, let alone practice science.
Their credentials are irrelevant to my point, and has nothing to do with why your claim about civil engineers missed the mark.
I mentioned Mosher because he happens to have a poor understanding of statistics and repeatedly makes claims that reflect that. He gets some things right, but his scorecard is abysmal.
I also tire of the apparent lack of understanding of how feedback processes work by those untrained. The fact that Bartemis has to keep repeating the difference between a proportional relationship and an integral relationship could very well be related.
Or do you go only by grad and undergrad degrees, not considering work experience as a credential or qualification?
http://www.zoominfo.com/p/Rudyard-Istvan/27615932
As I said, an impressive and continuing career. Even his retirement farm brings science experience.
Why do refuse to open the link I showed you.
Rud’s career post-MBA and -JD is what matters. He had enough scientific education and on the job experience to contribute to the advancement of applied science in the 20th and 21st centuries, in different fields.
You, not so much.
The point of science is that one should be able to explain your evidence to anyone who has enough backround to follow the argument. The issue is more of having any understanding of any hard science field, and the attitude that gives towards using evidence. English Literature does not give that sort of “education”.
That is not to state that Eng Lit majors are irredeemable, only that any understanding of science is something they picked up outside their major field of study.
i was a psych major, and my evaluation of my math skills is that they suck. I can sorta follow math, but it is about as awkward as using a bilingual dictionary to translate. Getting the idea of sampling error and bias is something I do have a feel for, though. Psych does have a nasty tendency towards “cargo cult science” though, and the field is not quite “science” yet.
Since you can’t handle the truth and refuse even to look at it, I’ll save you trouble of clicking on the link:
http://www.mpr-inc.com
Rudyard IstvanRudyard IstvanRudyard L. Istvan is CEO of Third Stream Bioscience, Inc., a startup to commercialize a novel antimicrobial technology, and is also engaged in private equity investing in the energy, biotechnology, and semiconductor arenas.Rud was formerly EVP and a Director of GMP Companies, Inc., a privately held medical technologies company that among other things commercialized a wireless patient monitoring system based on Motorola patents.He joined GMP from Motorola, where he was a SVP, the Director of the Corporate Strategy Offices, and General Manager of Future Businesses.While at Motorola, Rud was involved in two major reorganizations, three acquisitions, several divestitures, and was the initial manager of new business platforms including Energy Systems, RFID/Smartcards, GMRAM spintronic memory, and Biochip Systems.Prior to joining Motorola, he was a SVP (senior partner) of The Boston Consulting Group heading two worldwide practice areas and the audit committee of th