Guest Commentary by Kip Hansen
The New York Times has set a new standard of scientific misrepresentation in this front page title to the latest climate change consensus salvo from Justin Gillis. On the front page of the online edition of the NY Times for 26 June 2017, the title is given: “Sharp Rise in Levels of Earth-Scorching Carbon Dioxide”
The actual title of the article, once one clicks through to it, is “Carbon in Atmosphere Is Rising, Even as Emissions Stabilize”.
Who knows who at the NY Times thinks that characterizing CO2 as “Earth-scorching” is a valid scientific description of one of the absolutely necessary-for-life trace gases in the Earth’s atmosphere. It certainly is not a proper journalistic description.
My objection is that it is a serious violation of Society of Professional Journalists’ Code of Ethics specifically:
What do you think the phrase “Take special care not to misrepresent or oversimplify in promoting, previewing or summarizing a story” might mean in this context?
It is simply scientifically false to label CO2 as “Earth-scorching” in so many ways that it is difficult to begin to write about it. Journalistically, even if it were anywhere near true, it would be an oversimplification.
Is Mr. Gillis blameless? He doesn’t write the front-page headlines. I wish I could say that but I can’t. Gillis writes: “The excess carbon dioxide scorching the planet rose at the highest rate on record in 2015 and 2016. A slightly slower but still unusual rate of increase has continued into 2017.” — this is Gillis’ misrepresentation.
Are CO2 concentrations particularly high? Looking at the NY Times graphic, we see that they are at mountainous heights:
Looking at NOAA’s graphic, not so mountainous:
The NY Times art department (or whomever is making the graphics) has taken data from the NOAA graphic and stretched it vertically to increase the appearance of a large increase.
Re-scaling the NY Times graphic helps some:
Better this:
I must say I can’t see that incredible dangerous increase in rate of rise in the second NOAA graphic — because it is in reality an increase in fractional parts per million. Note that the current spike in the two bar graphs matches a spike from the last El Niño in 1998 and the recent 2015-2016 El Niño .
Is the planet scorching?
No, it is not. For the year so far, we are running about 0.4 °C or 0.72°F above the 1981-2010 thirty-year average, down considerably from the 2015-2016 El Niño peak.
How about the US?
Oddly flat from the 1920s thru the 1980s — [adjusted?] up to flat again in the new century, centering on 53.5 °F or 12 °C — is that “scorching”? It is a bit chilly for me. Note that Global Average Temperatures are in the same absolute temperature range…still not scorching.
But, but, but they say, what about those summertime high temperatures?
For the United States, reader Steve Case “compiled [the data] from NOAA Climate at a Glance data”…then saved a text file of all the states June through September Max temperatures Alabama to Wyoming. Trends in high temps produce this map:
So, maybe not scorching in the US either.
Actual observational stats on extreme weather are not on rising trends – at least droughts (US), hurricanes, tornadoes (US), flooding, etc. Reference Pielke Jr.’s evidence presented to the Senate Committee.
Gillis at least asks the right question:
“If the amount of the gas that people are putting out has stopped rising, how can the amount that stays in the air be going up faster than ever? Does it mean the natural sponges that have been absorbing carbon dioxide are now changing?”
Good question, Mr. Gillis.
Let’s see if the readers here can answer it for you —
Here’s the question:
“If the amount of the gas [CO2] that people are putting out has stopped rising, how can the amount that stays in the air be going up faster than ever?”
Readers: Your answers in comments please.
# # # # #
Author’s Comment Policy:
I am not a climate scientist — I am an essayist, a writer. I have some ideas, but not an answer.
I think that the question is apt and extremely important — it may be, or contain, the key to the current climate dilemma.
I’ll be interested in reading the answers you share in comments, but probably won’t be responding much. [ I may moderate a bit if the discussion devolves into name-calling.]
# # # # #
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This article is a scorcher.
This is not “sponges” it’s oceanic outgassing. It is the higher temperatures leading to CO2 increase not CO2 emissions leading to higher temperatures.
At least he’s noticed there is an “anomaly” in attributing dCO2 to emissions. Although he apparently thinks this indicates some other kind of environmental catastrophe.
Look like Gillis has just discovered what most readers here have known for years. Short term dCO2 is strongly correlated with SST.
That graph is NOT showing CO2 concentrations , it is showing the annual change in CO2 ie rate of change.
Maybe you should not have cropped off the title of that NYT graphic when you reproduced it here. 😉
The years 1964 and 1990 needs to be explained.
The only way they can pin the increase of CO2 on human caused emissions is to postulate a ridiculous half life of 1000 years. In other words, the extra human caused CO2 has to stay in the atmosphere forever or their arithmetic doesn’t work.
It is probable that CO2’s residence time is much shorter than is needed for CAGW to work. link
The geological record shows that CO2 lags temperature. That’s exactly what we’re seeing as the planet rebounds from the LIA. Here’s a possible explanation.
There are reasons why CO2 increases with increasing SSTs at a rate greater than can be explained by Henry’s Law.
Greg June 27, 2017 at 12:07 am
HA, I will agree that most readers here have been told about that correlation between dCO2 and SST for years and years, …….. but very, very few of said readers have ever admitted to actually knowing about or agreeing with that direct correlation.
And on the contrary, quite a few of said posters hereon have specifically stated their disagreement and/or disbelief in/of said direct correlation between dCO2 and SSTs.
Most claim or infer a belief that human emissions (anthropogenic) of CO2 into the atmosphere directly correlates to the increase in CO2 ppm ………. but there has never been any evidence provided that defines a “human signature” in any of the measured/recorded CO2 ppm data or proxy records, graphs, etc.
commieBob June 27, 2017 at 3:45 am
The following was excerpted from your above cited “possible explanation” hyper link: https://wattsupwiththat.com/2017/03/15/study-why-co2-levels-are-lower-during-global-cold-periods/
The simplest explanation for the above stated “scientifically factual observation” is that the rate-of-microbial-decomposition of dead biomass is severely restricted when the near-surface air temperature averages remain below 60F, …….. as well as does the reproduction rate (population increases) and the biomass ingestion rate of most every species of land based animals: insects, reptiles, birds, etc., etc., and humans.
Greg,
If humans emit about twice the increase in the atmosphere, where does the human emissions get? Into space?
Indeed temperature does influence the sink rate into the oceans and even more into (tropical) vegetation. The latter is even a net CO2 source during El Niño years. That is the year-to-year variability in the rate of change you see.
Even so in all years of the past near 60 years, nature was a net sink for human CO2 at a surprisingly linear rate (e-fold decay rate of ~51 years) with the excess CO2 level above the equilibrium CO2 level (~290 ppmv) for the current ocean surface temperature:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/dco2_em2.jpg
BTW, both the oceans and vegetation are proven, measured sinks for CO2…
The repeated use of hyperbole has the opposite of the intended effect. We are bombarded with exaggerations of all kinds every day. The advertising industry specializes in this sort of dishonesty. Look at every ad for a new car. They all start with this statement: “Introducing the all-new XXX” where XXX is the brand name. How long could an automobile manufacturer stay in business if it had to create an “all new” model every year? Following that absurd claim, we see the car speeding down a beautiful country road with not another vehicle in sight. The reality? You drive it off the lot into the daily commuter traffic jam.
Just ignore this kind of noise. It’s a sign of desperation on the part of the alarmists.
Hysterical warmist headlines are making their shrinking pack of True Believers look just as nutty as the Purple Shroud People at this point. I honestly think most of the world as long since moved on. We’re three weeks out from the Paris Purge and the number of articles in any media touting “climate change” have greatly decreased, which leads me to believe they’re just not getting the clicks anymore.
Are you referring to Heaven’s Gate? Their dead bodies were covered by squares of purple cloth.
Mass delusion has happened at all times and places. The problem is well documented. link
CAGW may go down as the greatest mass delusion ever.
http://www.express.co.uk/news/science/824088/Stephen-Hawking-Donald-Trump-climate-change-venus
professor hawking says trump is going to make earth 250degrees hot with boiling sulfuric acid skies.
i heard in on his speak & spell.
Termites like warmer weather ?
Yes, and help prevent desertification. https://pindanpost.com/2015/05/21/termites-worms-winners/ “Termites and other ecosystem engineers may buffer the effects of anthropogenic global change in some of the world’s most environmentally and socioeconomically sensitive regions” …
Because people aren’t the only source of CO2?
Brogie62
You are correct about that. The annual natural total is about 92 Gigatons. We provide about Gt 3. If our rate drops to 2.9 and the natural rate rises to 92.2 (0.2%) then the AG reduction is smothered by the natural rise.
This is one of the things I’m most confused about. I seem to recall a WUWT article some considerable time ago claiming figures like you claim here but the figures were later retracted and adjusted to show a considerable fraction of atmospheric CO2 now having a human origin. Can we get to the bottom of what the true figure is and how it is measured or calculated?
cephus0,
You are entirely right, too many people fall in that trap: the natural input is about 150 GtC (as CO2) per year and the human input is about 9 GtC/year. That is about 6%. So human CO2, measurable in the atmosphere as that has a much lower 13C/12C ratio and zero 14C, can never be higher than 6%. But we measure around 9%, what’s up with that?
The point is that not many people are bookkeepers which do show the total balance: the 150 GtC/year natural input is more than compensated by 154.5 GtC/year natural output. Thus the net balance of all natural fluxes together currently is -4.5 GtC/year… In all years of the past 60 years, nature was a net sink for CO2 and (near) all increase in the atmosphere is by human emissions. The temperature increase of the ocean surface was good for about 10 ppmv of the 110 ppmv increase since ~1850.
See further for a comprehensive background:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/co2_origin.html
One simple answer was provided by Jamaal Munshin in one of his many highly readable pieces on climate statistics: there is no indication of a causal relation between CO2 and temperature, using a statistical method often used by economists to disentangle a possibly causal relation from a simple noncausal but high correlation.
Lance Wallace ==> Link to Jamal Munshin’s paper “Unstable Correlations between Atmospheric CO2 and Surface Temperature“.
Lance,
Does that mean that there also is no reverse causal relationship between temperature and the CO2 increase (rate)?
Overstatement to say the least. There are serious questions about how the NOAA historical temperature chart was created, as it seriously differs from US historic temperatures, and most other places where people were actually keeping records. Tony Heller has gone on at length on that topic, and I am not quite up on the criticism of his work, but he does make a prima facie case that there has been fitting reporting to theory, not vice versa.
I agree with this.
Global average temperature trend component includes both global warming component [IPCC says it started in 1951] and the ecological changes component [warmer component is over emphasised in ground based data series] which is present starting from even before industrialisation. The ecological changes component has nothing to do with CO2 but this is part of the correlations.
Dr. S. Jeevananda Reddy
Tony has done a spectacular job of resurrecting past climate/weather records and newspaper articles that Warmists would prefer remain buried and forgotten.
He enjoys insulting people on twitter, but when people have legitimate criticisms of his work, he has responded by changing some of his analyses. I good example would be how he went from talking about average temperatures to talking about maximum temperatures to talking about % of daytime records over specific temperatures. This was in response to criticisms about time of observation bias not being captured in the historical temperatures that he is most expert in.
He has also published temperature records using only stations that have been continuously recording since year 19XX, or only stations that were reporting morning temps back in the 1930s. I think he has done a remarkably nimble job of hammering home that historical temperature records from the US, which are some of the only legitimate long-term temperature records on earth, strongly contradict the narrative being sold by the Warmists.
The main criticism of Tony seems to be that one time Anthony Watts said something bad about him. Most establishment Warmist steer well clear of engaging Tony, and certainly won’t debate him or his data.
+1
I would agree that Tony has done some good work, but his main failing is refusing to admit when he is wrong.
This was the basis for the WWT angst towards him on the freezing of CO2 in Antarctica discussion. https://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/06/13/results-lab-experiment-regarding-co2-snow-in-antarctica-at-113%C2%B0f-80-5%C2%B0c-not-possible/
I have experienced something similar when he tried to use old photos of Pacific islands as proof of no sea level rise damage on Twitter, but when I pointed out he was comparing two different islands….just crickets. It would have been easy for him to say my mistake but add there is still no proof of sea level rise damage in the Pacific which would have been perfectly acceptable.
All that aside…what he does is important work and I admire him for being so persistent and remaining strong under adverse circumstances in the climate debate.
Some of Tony Heller’s graphs were used in a presentation for President Trump, before Trump pulled out of the Paris Accord. I would love to have been a fly on the wall at that presentation. 🙂
The NOAA graph needs fixing (or at least a note that the label is wrong). The title says it’s since preindustrial times, but it looks like only the satellite record time slice.
Bob ==> The link to the NOAA graph is
If you open the image alone at that link, you see the tiny print that says “Preindustrial Value: 280 ppm” in the lower right hand corner. So the graph represents the increase from that time, from that value.
Poorly titled, as you say.
So… I wonder if Justin Gillis and the NYT think Earth used to be Venus?
Venus has a sulfuric acid cycle instead of Earth’s hydrologic cycle. Much higher temperature with such working fluid.
Venus is 40 million KM closer to the sun. Venus rotates clockwise in retrograde rotation once every 243 Earth days. Venus’s atmospheric pressure is ninety times that of Earth.
Sharp Rise in Levels of Earth-Scorching Hyperbole
CO2 outgassing from warmer ocean, especially during El Nino a contributing factor.
Less CO2 taken up by warmer surface water . . I think ; )
“If the amount of the gas [CO2] that people are putting out has stopped rising, how can the amount that stays in the air be going up faster than ever?”
Nature is in charge of the production of 96% of the CO2. Variations in this can dwarf what man produces. If the temperature rises, the oceans will expel more. If it cools, the oceans will suck it up.
ntesdorf,
Wrong reasoning, Nature sucks up 97% of all emitted CO2, for 94% natural + 6% human alike. Thus about 3% remains in the atmosphere. Natural variability is +/- 1.5% in the past 60 years, thus smaller than current human emissions, except for the extremes like the 1998 El Niño.
Sadly, the New York Times stopped employing journalists in the late 1990s. I never read the rag anymore. It used to be the gold standard of “all the news that’s fit to print.” Now it’s full of politically-slanted hyperbole. What a fall.
(all the news that’s printed to fit)…
The NYT has become a linchpin of the Blue Bubble Circle-Jerk; all they do is quote each other, round-robin:
WashPo, The New Yorker, The Atlantic, New York, NPR, HuffPo, and NYT. It really is laughable when you track each others’ references from day to day. It’s like a bunch of cultists sitting on a desert island, convincing each other that the sky is really green and the water orange.
The New York Times has been a partisan, political rag since at least the Vietnam war. They have been pushing the socialist agenda since at least that time. As have all the other news media outlets of the time. They are all propaganda organs for the Democrat party.
They wouldn’t know a “gold standard” if it walked up and bit them.
Piper ==> Cute.
One of the funniest ‘cartoons’ I’ve ever seen, still laughing…
https://youtu.be/jdP8TiKY8dE
Fake news Trump/Russian story more important to CNN than Trump/Paris Climate story. Apologies if this stuff is well known in US but even surprised me.
It’s just breaking here, som . . on top of the already collapsing narrative, and a widespread *CNN is fake news* sentiment . . O’Keefe is an eviscerator
Climate change is just business, perhaps not as big as Russia is to the mainstream media, but to climate scientists it’s all they have, which keeps them employed (gainfully).
Major government labs are usually run by big business, not the government, at least in the U.S. It’s not unheard of for top administrators to make around $1 million/year in salary, benefits, bonuses. Their corporate bosses make even more. Jagadish Shukla has been able to benefit himself and family members by millions, but he really isn’t a worse offender. Substitute climate change for Russia and climate science for media in these videos and realize that climate change is business too.
http://www.veritaslive.com/06-26-2017/americanpravdacnn.html
Warming oceans hold less co2 thus co2 will continue to rise in rhythm with the warming of the oceans . Anthropogenic sources have little or nothing to do with it
https://climategrog.wordpress.com/ddt_co2_sst/
There is strong link between short term changes in CO2 and SST. How much of the underlying long term rise can be attributed to out gassing is uncertain, though it clearly is not zero.
Thanks for you heartfelt, unsubstantiated assertion.
Greg,
Per Henry’s law: the influence of the ocean surface temperature on atmospheric CO2 levels is about 16 ppmv/K at steady state. Proven by over 3 million seawater samples taken in the past century and the temperature/CO2 curves over the past 800,000 years.
For the current average seawater temperature, the CO2 levels would be 290 ppmv at steady state. That means about 10 ppmv increase over the past 60 years, the rest comes from humans…
The answer to his question is in Harde 2017 and Salby’s videos and Humlum 2014. The increase in atmospheric CO2 is not due to human emissions and in fact does not correlate to our emissions. Human emissions are less than 2% of the annual flux from natural sinks to natural sources. They are lost in the noise of the system and have to date only accounted for about 4% of the increase in atmospheric CO2 not 100% of the increase as assumed by the IPCC. The message will become apparent as human emissions plateau as they have for three years and atmospheric content stays on its long time trend because it is controlled by an integral function of global temperature. The natural sinks are increasing not failing as shown by the greening we have seen.
DMA,
Hardem Salby and Humlum are all wrong, simply as a correlation between the noise around a trend doesn’t say you anything about the cause of the trend, only about the cause of the noise.
And comparing the non-detrended temperature increase with the detrended CO2 increase is completely unphysical…
Scorchio!
After all, The New York Time and The Pulitzer Prize were founded by an illegal migrant!
“Red Herring” strawman; specious claim to support Justin’s sophistry and scare tactics.
Justin is very similar to a fraud yelling “fire!” at the back of a filled theater; where fire does not exist.
Thirty years on and alarmists still rely upon imaginary future disasters.
Justin sources this as his future disaster fantasy basis.
An activist who runs a “carbon” web site devoted to anthropogenic carbon molecule emissions.
This activist, Canadell, was quoted in an article speculating on little to no evidence or science.
From a quick look, the alleged research conducted by Canadell’s group is of no better quality than speculation with lots of anthropogenic blame assigned.
No oceans involved.
No ocean calcium dense basins are involved.
No incredibly massive inestimable limestone reservoirs are mentioned.
No apparent definitive carbon dioxide measurement systems, just guesswork.
No definitive or specific mankind emissions tracking mechanism.
All to demonize an increase of 1.2-1.3 molecules of carbon dioxide per 10,000 molecules of atmosphere; before relating what an increase of 1.2-1.3 molecules of carbon dioxide to Earth as a total; including land, ocean and 9,996 molecules of atmosphere.
Canadell cried “rabid dog” and Justin screamed “rabid bear(s)”.
Not of, by or for science, instead it is all for their cause.
In Canadell’s case it is to keep funds flowing to his “global carbon project”, in Justin’s case it is to foment teeth gnashing and unrest.
Clean, green, renewable CO2.
CO2 – the fuel of life.
Three sister planets’ atmosphere:
Venus 95% CO2
Earth 0.04% CO2
Mars 95% CO2
Which one currently supports CO2 consuming Carbon Based Life?
To identify flows that cause changes in atmos co2 we need a co2 budget but we don’t have one. The IPCC carbon budget is fiction because it does not take uncertainty into account. For details …
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2654191
It also understates volcanic CO2 emissions by an order of magnitude or more.
Jamal,
You do make an essential thought mistake in your work: the errors in the original fluxes are not propagated into an overall error, as you have calculated, but the overall error is known as the sum of only two errors: the error in the measurements of CO2 in the atmosphere and the error in the emissions inventory. The first is less than +/- 0.2 ppmv, the second is less than +/- 0.25 ppmv, or even summed up less than +/- 0.45 ppmv…
That is by far more than sharp enough to have an accurate budget…
People should read you more. There is not much skeptical space in the carbon budget. The ocean is a sink, and a warming ocean is still a growing sink unless one talks about short, El Nino or ENSO affected periods.
The oceans have orders of magnitude more CO2 that the atmosphere and events like el nino can make CO2 emissions from humans look like a burp and a warming planet drives CO2 levels?
In the past CO2 levels have been more than ten times what they are today and in those times there were both warm periods and ice ages. There is no real evidence that CO2 has any effect on climate and plenty os scientific reasoning to support the idea that the climate sensivity of CO2 is really zero. Hence CO2 cannot be scorching, In terms of the AGW conjcture, H2O is the primary greenhouse gas so water, clouds, fog. snow and rain must be scorching too.
Indeed! There is a stunning contradiction as the “dangerous” part of the claimed warming effect of CO2 is the model-driven amplification by water vapor, yet direct emissions of water vapor are dismissed as not significant. I did the math a while back, to find that a typical coal-fired power plant using evaporative cooling would emit on the order of 5 times more water vapor (by mass) than its CO2 emissions from combustion. So we have the absurdity of the EPA (in its endangerment finding documents) arguing correctly that anthropogenic emissions of water vapor are not significant, not realizing that for the same reasons, CO2 cannot possibly have the claimed effect with such an excess of water available on earth’s surface and in the atmosphere to help drive the atmospheric heat engine. Imagine the NYT screeching “RISING LEVELS OF EARTH-SCORCHING WATER VAPOR!” as summer has arrived with its higher humidity.
In reality the feedback effect of H2O is negative. Besides beig the primary so called greenhouse gas, H2O is a primary coolant in the Earth’s atmosphere moving heat energy from the Earth’s surface which is mostly some form of H2O to where clouds form via the heat of vaporization. According to some energy balance models, more heat energy is moved by H2O via the heat of vaporization then by both convection and LWIR absorption band radiation combined. The cooling effects of H2O is further evidenced by the fact that the wet lapse rate is significantly less than the dry lapse rate and hence more H2O allows more heat energy to flow up into the atmosphere where it is radiated out to space. So much of the AGW conjecture is just wrong.
oh and NOAA were “stunned’ apparently, by the el nino caused CO2 spike. That suggests they dont understand the oceans very well when it comes to releasing CO2
Trump should defund stunned scientists. We don’t need stunned people.
Back many years ago, Earth processes were stagnate and/or in decline because of a lack of Carbon Dioxide in the atmosphere. Human activities began to add CO2, slowly at first, then more rapidly with industrial processes using coal, oil, and natural gas.
Earth processes that use CO2 picked up usage. For example, green plants grew faster and more lush. With CO2 going from 300 to 400 ppm, rapid response processes reached the upper-right breakover point of the “S”-shaped or sigmoid curve.
Other slow-response Earth processes, plus the former rapid-response ones, continue to take CO2 from the atmosphere. I think this is what Mr. Gillis is trying for with his wording “… the natural sponges that have been absorbing carbon dioxide are now changing.” Still, it does not mean catastrophe like he thinks it means.
PS: It is a very good thing that Pres. Trump did not use the word “sponges” in any of his tweets. The twits of the twitterverse would have gone ballistic.
This reminds me of George Carlin’s – The Universe Wanted Plastic.
http://www.drroyspencer.com/wp-content/uploads/c13-analysis-results.jpg
The official party line is that the interannual variability has a differing source than the longer term anthropogenic trend. (shouldn’t a NYT journalist know this?)
Maybe it is that co2 follows temperature rise by about 800 years we are getting the outgassing from the oceans from the end of the Medeaval warm period.