EIA: U.S. CO2 Emissions Declined 11% in 2020 – No Change in Rising Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide

Yes, Trump’s plan worked better than the others and he didn’t cripple our economy in the process.

“muddled masses”

I like it. Very discriptive.

With step two being that they find out that the other team has more ammo.

I think Dems are falling in love with these downturns. They get to check off blocks of items on their agenda list all at once in the form of mislabeled stimulus, now with side payments to the voter base.

Told you so – January 2008.

https://wattsupwiththat.com/2021/02/27/great-reset-architects-celebrate-the-orderly-quiet-of-covid-lockdown-cities/#comment-3195374

Funny – Atmospheric CO2 concentrations were unaffected by the full-Gulag Covid-19 lockdown, despite a huge decrease in fossil fuel consumption.
 
Why? Because increasing CO2 concentrations are primarily naturally caused, not primarily driven by fossil fuel combustion.
 
Surprise! Climate Crisis Cancelled!

I recommend Ed Berry’s new book
“Climate Miracle: There is no climate crisis Nature controls climate”
https://www.amazon.ca/Climate-Miracle-climate-crisis-controls-ebook/dp/B08LCD1YC3/
 
My review: 5 Stars.
An excellent, readable book that destroys the scary global warming / climate hypothesis.
Reviewed in Canada on November 11, 2020 Verified Purchase
 
https://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/esrl-co2/from:1979/mean:12/derivative/plot/uah6/from:1979/scale:0.22/offset:0.14
 
file:///C:\Users\Owner\AppData\Local\Temp\msohtmlclip1\01\clip_image002.jpg
 
Author Dr. Edwin Berry demolishes the IPCC’s very-scary catastrophic man-made global warming hypothesis. Ed proves from basic principles that the growth of CO2 in the atmosphere is primarily natural, not man-made. Berry’s analysis is consistent with my 2008 publication that atmospheric CO2 cannot significantly drive temperature, because changes in CO2 lag temperature changes in the modern data record, as they do in the longer-term ice core record. Kuo et al (1990) and Keeling (1995) made similar observations in the journal Nature, but have been studiously ignored by global warming propagandists. “The future cannot cause the past.”
 
CARBON DIOXIDE IS NOT THE PRIMARY CAUSE OF GLOBAL WARMING, THE FUTURE CAN NOT CAUSE THE PAST
By Allan M.R. MacRae, January 2008
http://icecap.us/images/uploads/CO2vsTMacRae.pdf
_________________________________ 

Joseph,
Correlation is no proof of causation, ever, per Statistics 101

Sort of like sea level trend growth

Atmospheric CO2 concentration has being completely disrespectful to man and the manmade emissions, either when the emissions were going up or not…
same disrespect to manmade emissions
from ‘rona’ too. 🤪

cheers

“. . . so I would not expect an 11% reduction in emissions to have any effect on the growth of annual atmospheric CO2 levels . . .”

Well, the Mauna Loa observatory is reporting CO2 levels to the nearest 0.1 ppm, equivalent to 0.1/410 = .02% precision in ppm measurement (not that I necessarily believe this claimed level of precision).

At end-2019 the US was contributing about 14% of all global CO2 emissions (https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/03/climate/carbon-dioxide-emissions.html ). I could not quickly locate more current data on this parameter, but it changes slowly so let’s just go with this value.

So, using your values for the other terms, we arrive at this conservative calculation for the change in global atmospheric CO2 assuming that it was only the US that reduced CO2 emissions in 2020:

(1 ppm/5 Gt * 33 Gt) * (0.14 * -0.11) * 0.5 = -0.05 ppm

Thus, the US-only 11% reduction is CO2 emissions for 2020 would likely not be detectable in Mauna Loa reported CO2 levels.

According to the IEA (https://www.iea.org/articles/global-energy-review-co2-emissions-in-2020 ) global energy-related CO2 emissions fell by 5.8% in 2020. If we use just this value (i.e., neglect the CO2 emission changes related to cement production and other processes in 2020) and again use a rough estimate that about 50% of CO2 emissions are absorbed by the biosphere, we get this calculation:

(1 ppm/5 Gt * 33 Gt) * (1 * -0.058) * 0.5 = -0.19 ppm

This should have been detectable at Mauna Loa, although it would not appear as a “dip” on the graph in the above article due to its limited resolution.

Bottom line: the gist of the above article and LT’s related comment is correct, significant reductions in mankind’s annual emissions of CO2 will result in almost imperceptible changes in global CO2 levels for long into the future.

If the ‘sinks’ are saturated by man’s additions, then surely the effect of small changes in those emissions will be amplified in the Mauna Loa record, not masked?

No quantity of data could possibly impact Kerry’s Quixotic quest for carbon control. Any human being who could justify flying in a private plane round trip to Europe to receive a climate award lacks the cognitive ability to process actual empirical data.

The 800 years lag consists in consideration of long and slow warming trends,
and usually leads to misconception, as actually CO2 lags temps at around of 0.2C of variation.

In the slow long term temp variation trends, the 0.2C consists in a 800 years time frame.

But you see, in any significant climatic warming trend CO2 concentration will lag in time accordingly with the 0.2C variation and reaching
‘full potential’ of a clear steady growth just about
@ the 0.4C variation of temperature.

Again, CO2 concentration lags temperature, and it has not a special timetable or timeframe to keep.

cheers

 “Medieval Warm Period” from about 950 – 1250 BC?. I presume you mean AD 950 to 1250?

Yes, and there’s also the continued reference to temperature rising “since the beginning of the industrial age”. Why not “since the end of the Little Ice Age”? That’s more appropriate, as most of the warming has been recovery from the coldest period in human history. Who wants to go back there?

that’s a cool website you have at https://www.woodfortrees.org/

Fresh water absorbs the most CO2. Ocean salinity has been increasing which would lower the absorption of CO2 and decrease evaporation. My biggest question is what do other forms of ocean pollution do to CO2 absorption and/or evaporation?

We know our oceans are receiving tons of micro-plastic pollution. Is it possible that human pollution of the oceans is raising the temperature of the water due to decreased evaporation? Naturally, some of that heat would also warm the atmosphere and reduce absorption of CO2.

Working through the data empirically it is clear that only up to 15% of atmospheric CO2 increase is related to direct emission to atmosphere from fossil burning. Therefore net-zero emission policies may result in up to 15% reduction of total emission. This will be barely observable. In reality it is likely substantially less than 15%, but this provides an upper bound.

Very interesting graph. River waters and lots of ground water are bicarbonate, and in my graduate studies days were thought to be the major inputs to ocean “carbon” in its various forms. How did the cycle close with carbon dioxide return to the atmosphere? Well, I was taught about the clay minerals on the ocean floor, but in the early 1980s, I was gone from academics into industry and was slow to get the news that researchers began to recognize the importance of hot springs on the midocean ridge system and alteration of oceanic crust.

I have just started to read your linked article. Many thanks for it. Sampling is the achilles heel of all this, isn’t it? — ocean chemistry, atmospheric temperature, sea level rise. In every instance we have sampling done not necessarily where the measurements would be most useful, but where convenient and with stations highly correlated to one another, but treated as independent.

JCM, I don’t know who you are (“my work”), but your 20 ton carbon loss per acre per year by erosion is high by much more than a factor of 10. A little crop yield data disproves your assertion quite readily. Take hay production, for example. According to USDA production data for selected states, sustainable dry hay production per acre per year is only about 1 to 3 tons, yet you claim 20 tons per acre per year carbon loss by erosion. Meanwhile, farmers have long known and used erosion control practices as well as practices to maintain soil organic carbon. Agricultural soils in the U.S. typically ranges from about 1% to 10% organic carbon, higher in moist and colder northern states. So naturally, those 10% soil organic carbon regions only begin with 100 tons organic carbon per acre in the plow layer. According to your estimate, all soil organic carbon would be gone via erosion in only 5 years! Yet we have been actively and successfully farming those regions for well over 100 years. Without organic carbon, soil structure, fertility and tilth would be destroyed.

You treat modern farmers as if they are idiots, when they are in fact some the most sophisticated and knowledgeable of professionals, continually learning and improving their practices.

Now internationally, that is a totally different story. Maybe that is where you get your numbers. Land use change, particularly in S. America and SE Asia and other developing and impoverished regions, is responsible for something like 1/4 to 1/3 of human-caused atmospheric CO2 emissions. If we could stop and instantly reverse poor land use practices in those areas, it would stop anthropogenic emissions growth in its tracks, without even changing our fossil fuel combustion practices. But of course, nobody dares say that, because we are the evil West.

Hi JCM..
Someone of my line of thinking, theCO2 is coming out of the dirt

I’ve explained here a trillion times
Start exploring here…
https://www.jstor.org/stable/1938896?seq=1

yes it talks about forests and trees but all farmland was =forest before it became farmland

Rough calculation..
Assume the soil organic layer goes down to 3 metres depth, under a truly ancient undisturbed forest
Lets say 50% of the soil, by volume is organic material. Just as you would make compost for a pot-plant on your windowsill
Thus 1.5 metres depth organics

When fairly dry, 25% moisture, it will have a density of about 660kg per cubic metre
Thus, under one hectare there will be 10,000 x 1.5 x 0.66 tonnes of organics

I make that to be 4,000 tonnes per acre

It is no good coming along now and talking about what is there now in the plough layer
It has all gone
It is floating around in the sky

Reason being = Nitrogenous fertiliser
It primarily feeds the soil bacteria (fungi also) and when their Liebig Limiter is opened right up via additional nitrogen, they go crazy consuming soil organics and making CO2
So there goes vast amounts of CO2 as per the link above

In the process, they produce acidic waste, exactly as we human animals do. We are bacteria factories.
That aidic waste will acidify the soil, something cery well known and is why, when nitrogen fert. first was made available just after WW2, it was supplied (in the UK) as ‘Nitro-Chalk’
Basically Calcium Nitrate – with the calcium put there to buffer the acid created by the bacteria.
Otherwise. soil pH could drop by a whole pH point inside 25 years.
But there is another CO2 source because Nitro-Chalk is no longer available.
Farmers much prefer Ammonium Nitrate, because you get much more nitrogen bang-for-your-buck
But, certainly in England, many farms are on naturally chalky or limestone soils
Thus, the acid created by the bacteria is neutralised by the chalk BUT, releases vast amounts more of CO2

I was gonna point to the gallery at NASA of the original OCO Sputnik data.
It. Has. Gone.

The reason why it went was that it showed HUGE amounts of CO2 hanging over the rrainforests – directly and completely contradicting their narrative that CO2 caused Global Greening.
The rainforest should have had low CO2, not elevated high levels.

The reason, as pointed out on the link, is that ‘escaped nitrogen’ was falling into the forest.
It was feeding the soil bacteria down there and creating both greening and extra CO2
The nitrogen escaping from farms obcviously but also motor vehicles, power stations, cookers, heaters furnaces boilers etc etc etc
Oxides of Sulphur, from those same sources, were also feeding the bacteria

That is the cause of the Global Greening.
What everyone calls ‘Pollution’

No. Farmers are not idiots. They do what they must, what they know they must, to stay in business
i.e. Produce Cheap Food

All the fine words about Lo-Till No Till and soil organics is pure BS in that face of that Prime Directive
And that means using Ammonium Nitrate to stay in business.
If they don’t, they go out of business and someone else takes over who will use Nitrate fertiliser
As long as farmers keep using Nitrate fertiliser, the CO2 will keep rising.
Until of course that start figure 4,000 tonnes per acre created by the ancient forest, is all used up
Then they will be looking at and trying to farm a desert
As I remember, one tonne of organic will get you 2.4 tonnes of CO2
(Don’t quote me)

Yes JCM you are on the exact right track but, the CO2 is primarily blowing away in the wind and not down the streams and rivers

The Alert Reader will now see the jam we are in.
Rising atmospheric CO2 means falling soil organics and there is only a finite amount there.
When it runs out, we all move to Planet Mars. Without going anywhere.

OK. Let’s stop using Nitrogen fertiliser.
Fine. In 3 months time, over 80% of the World’s population will have died of starvation

If we keep using nitrogen, inside 60 years (as calculated and presented by the UN ## in a report of 2015), 99.9% will have perished, because all the farmland soil will be dust and have blown away.

There Is Precedent
And its no good saying that ‘measures have been taken’
Sorry. No.
When the dirt blew away in the Dust Bowl, it did actually blow away.
The horse bolted. Its gone.
Pointless now ‘taking measures’ to prevent another Dust Bowl.
You only had One Chance
and blew it

There’s your choices, take it or leave

## Its out there somewhere,I’ve looked but not found it.
As a start, look for “UN, farmland soil, 60 years, 2015” or any combination of those plus whatever you think may help with a search

No, they are not listening. They already have their minds made up.

The radical Left is not moved by rational arguments.

Some people think if Joe or Kamala were to go the southern border and view the chaos, that they would see the light and change their policty.

No, this misunderstands how the Left looks at things. What is happening at the border is what they want to have happen. The only southern border problem the Biden-Harris administration think they have is the optics of the fiasco. So they censor and try to keep secret what they are doing as much as possible, while trying to speed up the importation of illegal aliens.

If Kamala were to travel to the border, then she would be expected to do something about it, and I don’t think that’s in their plans.

I was encouraged to see the governors of South Dakota and South Carolina come out and say their States will not accept Biden’s illegal aliens in their States. When the South Carolina governor was asked about what he would do if the U.S. government tried to force him to take illegal aliens, the governor said, “In that case, the fight would be on.”

More States should come out and refuse to help Biden import his illegal voters into the United States. Every State has children who need foster parents and every State has homeless people that need help, and Biden wants U.S. States to put their own people last, and service the illegal aliens instead. The governors say they are not going to do that.

The human average yearly human activity input of CO2 into the atmosphere for the past forty years has been one tenth of one ppm. This microscopic amount has absolutely no noticeable impact on the Earth’s temperature or climate. The increase in the atmospheric CO2 level is almost completely driven by the increase in global broadleaf vegetation caused by global warming.. The mapping based on OCO-2 data support this.

The mapping of global CO2 concentrations based on OCO-2 data shows a direct and clear relationship between the locations of heavy vegetation, especially broadleaf vegetation, and higher levels of CO2.

Thankfully, Greta & Co. are immune to reality. The MSM continues to spin disaster scenarios despite what happens in the real world (frosty France for example). So they continue to whine and cry inside an information bubble, insulated from reality.

What is nonsense?
Answer these questions.

1) Do you doubt that atmospheric CO2 is a Greenhouse Gas?
2) Do you doubt that atmospheric CO2 is accurately measured by Mauna Loa?
3) Do you doubt that there has been no discernible change in the increase in atmospheric CO2 concentration in 2020?
4) Do you doubt that emissions were reduced by the loss of flights, traffic, industry during 2020?
5) Do you doubt that anthropogenic emissions are responsible (at least in part) for the rise in atmospheric CO2 concentration?

If you actually believe all five points are reasonable the only logical conclusion is:
Mitigation is unworkable. And therefore wasteful.

So it doesn’t matter what you actually dare to answer.
The world’s political leaders are going to end up drawing the only logical conclusions anyway:
Points 1 to 5 are right and AGW needs to be adapted to…
Or…
At least one of those points is wrong and AGW needs to be ignored.

Even standig in front of what ever nonsense you will not recognise it because you don’t know, what sense is.

But typing your comments, everybody see upcoming nonsense 😀

Au contrare, weather WAS a factor. The wind wasn’t high enough to spin the turbine blades, hence no electricity was generated. And calm conditions are a part of weather. A big part, which is why wind generators are unreliable. Keep on truckin’.

A long URL, and I made a mistake.

http://www.skepticmedpublishers.com/article-in-press-journal-of earth-science-and-climatic-change/

So there is no point in mitigation? It will take centuries?

Also why do the seasonal emissions from the oceans get re-absorbed on an annual basis but not the AGW emissions. The sinks are large enough to cope with year to year variation that exceeds mankind’s annual emissions.

True.
But Covid was international.
All the flights stopped. Ad the rest, remember?

Try and make a policy that governs the whole world more than Covid enforced.

It’s irrelevant Time-Wasting.

• Adaptation is proven to be the only realistic policy.