China’s carbon-monitoring satellite reports global carbon net of six gigatons

INSTITUTE OF ATMOSPHERIC PHYSICS, CHINESE ACADEMY OF SCIENCES

Research News

IMAGE
IMAGE: THE FIRST GLOBAL CARBON FLUX MAP DERIVED BY TANSAT OBSERVATION. view more CREDIT: DONGXU YANG

About six gigatons — roughly 12 times the mass of all living humans — of carbon appears to be emitted over land every year, according to data from the Chinese Global Carbon Dioxide Monitoring Scientific Experimental Satellite (TanSat).

Using data on how carbon mixes with dry air collected from May 2017 to April 2018, researchers developed the first global carbon flux dataset and map. They published their results in Advances in Atmospheric Sciences.

The map was developed by applying TanSat’s satellite observations to models of how greenhouse gasses are exchanged among Earth’s atmosphere, land, water and living organisms. During this process, more than a hundred of gigatons of carbon are exchanged, but the increase in carbon emissions has resulted in net carbon added to the atmosphere — now at about six gigatons a year — which is a serious issue that contributes to climate change, according to Dongxu Yang, first author and a researcher in the Institute of Atmospheric Physics at the Chinese Academy of Sciences (IAP CAS).

“In this paper, we introduce the first implementation of TanSat carbon dioxide data on carbon flux estimations,” Yang said. “We also demonstrate that China’s first carbon-monitoring satellite can investigate the distribution of carbon flux across the globe.”

While satellite measurements are not as accurate as ground-based measurements, said co-author Jing Wang, a researcher in IAP CAS, satellite measurements provide continuous global observation coverage that provides additional information not available from limited or varied surface monitoring stations. For example, a monitoring station in a city may report very different observations compared to a station in a remote village, especially if they are in drastically different climates.

“The sparseness and spatial inhomogeneity of the existing ground-based network limits our ability to infer consistent global- and regional-scale carbon sources and sinks,” said co-author Liang Feng, researcher with the National Centre for Earth Observation at the University of Edinburgh. “To improve observation coverage, tailor-made satellites, for example TanSat, have been developed to provide accurate atmospheric greenhouse gas measurements.”

The data from these satellites, which includes TanSat, Japan’s GOSAT and the United States’ OCO-2, and future missions, will be used to independently verify national emission inventories across the globe. According to the Yang, this process will be overseen by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and begin in 2023, in support of the Paris Agreement. TanSat’s measurements generally match with data from the other satellites.

“This verification method will be helpful to better understand carbon emissions in real time, and to help ensure transparency across the inventories,” said co-author Yi Liu, researcher in IAP CAS.

The process will be bolstered by the next generation of satellites, known as TanSat-2, which is currently in the design phase. The goal, Yang said, will be to obtain measurements that help elucidate the carbon budget from the global scale down to individual cities.

###

TanSat, funded by the Ministry of Science and Technology of China and the China Meteorological Administration, was launched in December 2016.

From EurekAlert!

Link to full non-paywalled paper.

Abstract.

Space-borne measurements of atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations provide global observation constraints for top-down estimates of surface carbon flux. Here, the first estimates of the global distribution of carbon surface fluxes inferred from dry-air CO2Ā column (XCO2) measurements by the Chinese Global Carbon Dioxide Monitoring Scientific Experimental Satellite (TanSat) are presented. An ensemble transform Kalman filter (ETKF) data assimilation system coupled with the GEOS-Chem global chemistry transport model is used to optimally fit model simulations with the TanSat XCO2Ā observations, which were retrieved using the Institute of Atmospheric Physics Carbon dioxide retrieval Algorithm for Satellite remote sensing (IAPCAS). High posterior error reduction (30%ā€“50%) compared with a priori fluxes indicates that assimilating satellite XCO2Ā measurements provides highly effective constraints on global carbon flux estimation. Their impacts are also highlighted by significant spatiotemporal shifts in flux patterns over regions critical to the global carbon budget, such as tropical South America and China. An integrated global land carbon net flux of 6.71 Ā± 0.76 Gt C yrāˆ’1Ā over 12 months (May 2017ā€“April 2018) is estimated from the TanSat XCO2Ā data, which is generally consistent with other inversions based on satellite data, such as the JAXA GOSAT and NASA OCO-2 XCO2Ā retrievals. However, discrepancies were found in some regional flux estimates, particularly over the Southern Hemisphere, where there may still be uncorrected bias between satellite measurements due to the lack of independent reference observations. The results of this study provide the groundwork for further studies using current or future TanSat XCO2Ā data together with other surface-based and space-borne measurements to quantify biosphere-atmosphere carbon exchange.

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Gregory Woods
July 24, 2021 6:18 am

12 times the mass of all living humans

new unit of measurement? what happened to NYC?

Klem
Reply to  Gregory Woods
July 24, 2021 7:38 am

Global human net of six billion tons, that’s like 50 Hiroshima nuclear bombs exploding in the atmosphere every second…or something. Right?

Reply to  Klem
July 24, 2021 8:33 am

But with no explosions, no radiation, and no damage.

n.n
Reply to  Gregory Woods
July 24, 2021 10:34 am

Abort. Cannibalize. Sequester. It’s a per capita measure for purposes of social progress, including planned population schemes.

July 24, 2021 6:57 am

Trust China. Just like we should trust them on the release of Covid.

Greg
Reply to  HenryP
July 25, 2021 12:39 am

Very smart move of the Chinese to launch their own “carbon” monitoring satellite. That way they can check any claims being thrown at them by partisan warmists running US based climate “science”.

As the world moves to “quotas of carbon” and granting of funding or penalties will be imposed, it is those who control the data who control entire countries.

Stephen Lindsay-Yule
July 24, 2021 7:01 am

6 billion is 1.09ppm per year. Claim 1 watt per 1 trillion tons of human carbon emissions makes 6 billion 0.006watt. Global population breaths out 0.49ppm per year 0.003 watts per year. Recent Roy Spenser satellite data shows the last 1 trillion of human emissions added since 1990-2020 expected global warming rise of 0.4Ā°C is no longer there. June global temperature anomaly -0.01Ā°C (cooling since February 2020) means the 0.59Ā°C expected 40 year increase from human emissions isn’t there. It was never there in the first place as natural factors caused to 0.59Ā°C increase. It isn’t there as earth is back to energy balance.

Reply to  Stephen Lindsay-Yule
July 24, 2021 11:09 am

Nor does the image itself support plus 6 billion tons of CO₂ net.

The map’s dark blues, i.e. absorbed CO₂ far outweigh the alleged red emissions.

Keeping in mind that this is all model estimates.

Greg
Reply to  ATheoK
July 25, 2021 12:41 am

That’s probably a snapshot , not the annual average.

Brian R
Reply to  Greg
July 25, 2021 7:28 am

It’s labeled as annual.

Geoff Sherrington
Reply to  ATheoK
July 25, 2021 4:58 pm

Watch the minus signs and words “Carbon sink”. A negative number for sink seems to be the same as a positive source. Geoff S

July 24, 2021 7:02 am

ā€œā€¦Using data on how carbon mixes with dry air ā€¦.ā€, so, Iā€™m not clear, are we talking carbon dioxide with a MW of 44 or Carbon with a MW of 12 ?ā€¦..or maybe black soot?ā€¦.or evaporated hydrocarbons ? ā€¦.just to carry the sciency sounding non-technical jargon to extremesā€¦..

Reply to  DMacKenzie
July 24, 2021 11:00 am

When you get right down to it, twice the amount of oxygen is required to pollute the air than carbon when you are talking about CO2.

So why are we not sequestering more oxygen? This can easily be done by stopping the painting and protecting of all iron and steel which will cause more ferric oxide to form and capture 3 atoms of oxygen that otherwise would form pollution by combining with carbon.

When you are fighting climate change, its silly to ignore any opportunities that could easily be taken. Plus think of all the jobs that would be created polishing rust off of iron and steel so more ferric oxide can form, preventing even more carbon dioxide pollution.

Reply to  DMacKenzie
July 24, 2021 11:56 am

Carbon sounds so much scarier than carbon dioxide. The former is perceived to be black, like soot, while the latter is an odorless, colorless gas.

Greg
Reply to  Retired_Engineer_Jim
July 25, 2021 12:43 am

Exactly, carbon is “dirty”.

H.R.
July 24, 2021 7:38 am

“About six gigatons ā€” roughly 12 times the mass of all living humans”


Is that a big number or a small number?

Won’t the Worlds population all fit into Texas or something like that? It will take many, many years to add significant amounts of CO2 to the atmosphere.

How much of that remains resident of the six gigatons that are emitted?

The answers to those questions still won’t raise my alarm level much above a yawn. We need more CO2 in the atmosphere if we ever expect to get back to the good old days.

That said, it’s still nice to get a measurement of the amount of CO2 added to the atmosphere.

Oh, and how much CO2 is that in terms of Empire State buildings?

Gary Pearse
Reply to  H.R.
July 24, 2021 9:11 am

“Wonā€™t the Worlds population all fit into Texas or something like that?”

I once calculated that the world’s pop (6 billion at the time) would fit into Lake Superior, each having 15sq.m to tread water in. If you wanted to give only 1sq.m each, it could accommodate 90billion people.

You know, when they start calculating the contribution of human breathing to GW, it’s not nice curious folk doing that sort of thing. Several years ago German researchers determined that the elderly have by far the largest carbon footprint! Gee that sure could come in handy. And more recently in N America, “toxic white males were unceremoniously excluded from “diversity” I guess someone will come up with a use of all this interesting data!

n.n
Reply to  Gary Pearse
July 24, 2021 10:31 am

Diversity [dogma] is a color judgment, not limited to racism, sexism, ageism.

Gary Pearse
Reply to  n.n
July 24, 2021 11:50 am

Yeah, got that. All I was pointing out is that toxic white males are EXCLUDED from the warm fuzzy diversity rainbow which does include females (of all colors, of course). The old toxic white males are the worst, the idea being that they participated in the racist “Enlightenment” “Age of Reason” the “Scientific and Industrial Revolution” ” Space Age” and ” “Tech Rev”.

The Outraged are ripping up statues and rewriting history to right these wrongs.

Dave Fair
Reply to  Gary Pearse
July 24, 2021 12:46 pm

When accused of Toxic Masculinity, I responded it was just my Testy Cals in operation.

gregole
Reply to  H.R.
July 24, 2021 9:40 am

With the Empire State Building weighing in at 365000 tons it’s about 5.5 X 10^15 Empire State Buildings – provided I did the math correctly. But a better comparison, apples to apples so to speak, is with the weight of the entire atmosphere IMHO. See my comment below

H.R.
Reply to  gregole
July 24, 2021 12:33 pm

I’m not sure if ‘Empire State Building’ is the proper SI unit, gregole. I may be in error there.

I think the proper SI unit is ‘Great Pyramid’, which is about 5,750,000 tons. Yeah… that’s more like it.

not-a-red-neck
Reply to  H.R.
July 24, 2021 11:29 am

Apparently the word’s population could all fit into the Shetland Isles (standing close together)… Ironically that would at least keep them warm – because Shetland is mostly bloody freezing.

Reply to  H.R.
July 24, 2021 11:58 am

I think that it is Zanzibar (Last Stand on Zanzibar)?

Ron Long
July 24, 2021 8:05 am

So, we are supposed to believe the most polluting (certainly in terms of carbon) nation on the earth is going to call a foul on themselves? The country that just expelled the WHO from investigating the Wuhan Lab is going to turn honest global citizen? Sorry, I’m a little skeptical. OK, I’m a lot skeptical.

Dave Fair
Reply to  Ron Long
July 24, 2021 12:48 pm

Remember when they were caught underestimating their CO2 production by 17%?

whiten
July 24, 2021 8:13 am

From the Abstract.

“Their impacts are also highlighted by significant spatiotemporal shifts in flux patterns over regions critical to the global carbon budget, such as tropical South America and China. An integrated global “land” carbon net flux of 6.71 Ā± 0.76 Gt C yrāˆ’1 over 12 months (May 2017ā€“April 2018) is estimated from the TanSat XCO2 data, which is generally consistent with other inversions based on satellite data, such as the JAXA GOSAT and NASA OCO-2 XCO2 retrievals.”

Now let me be bold and try a correction;

“Their impacts are also highlighted by significant spatiotemporal shifts in flux patterns over “regions critical to the global carbon budget, such as tropical South America and China”. An integrated global “surface” carbon net flux of 6.71 Ā± 0.76 Gt C yrāˆ’1 over 12 months (May 2017ā€“April 2018) is estimated from the TanSat XCO2 data, which is generally consistent with other inversions based on satellite data, such as the JAXA GOSAT and NASA OCO-2 XCO2 retrievals.”

Ok, done.

cheers

whiten
Reply to  whiten
July 24, 2021 2:30 pm

The feedback here… it is amazing..

whiten
Reply to  whiten
July 24, 2021 3:14 pm

very proud and happy… if I may say…. zero point zero….

bdgwx
Reply to  whiten
July 24, 2021 5:22 pm

I was wondering about too. Did they really mean “land” or did they actually mean “surface”?

whiten
Reply to  bdgwx
July 24, 2021 6:34 pm

bdgwx

My understanding is they mean “global land surface” and not “global surface”.

They do not use at all the term “surface” even in consideration of land.

The chain is as strong as the weakest link.

As far as I can tell this gives it away:

“However, discrepancies were found in some regional flux estimates, particularly over the Southern Hemisphere, where there may still be uncorrected bias between satellite measurements due to the lack of independent reference observations.”

They undermine their entire work by pointing out a problem, with satellite measurements, by implying a considerable bias error with satellite data, specifically with south hemisphere.

In proposition of an estimate of a global surface net CO2 flux, there will be no problem, but when that instead served and considered as an estimation of the global land net CO2 flux, yes there will be a considerable problem there… very very little land in the SH for the SH CO2 flux signal.

I think they really mean “land” when they say land.

cheers

July 24, 2021 8:16 am

What do the red and blue colors mean?
Does red and positive mean CO2 emitted (source) and blue-negative mean CO2 absorbed (sink)?
Or the other way around?

Clyde Spencer
Reply to  Hatter Eggburn
July 24, 2021 8:55 am

It looks to me that the reds mean net emission and the blue net sequestration. Although, the correlation with the first OCO-2 map is poor because the Amazon was shown as a net source while this map shows it as a net sink. Surprisingly, the Sub-Sahara, at about the same latitude as the Amazon, is shown as a net source.

Who do you believe when presented with contradictory results?

Reply to  Clyde Spencer
July 25, 2021 4:30 am

Neither

commieBob
Reply to  Hatter Eggburn
July 24, 2021 8:56 am

In the bottom left of the map, there is a bar that shows what the colors mean. It is labeled Carbon Sinks. Blue is -200 so it is a negative sink ie. a source. Red is +200 so it is a carbon sink.

Note that the bright blue and red places have nothing to do with any industrial or heavily populated centers. In other words, the vast majority of the CO2 flux has nothing to do with humans. We already knew that.

The only way ‘they’ can blame the increase in atmospheric CO2 on humans is to posit that human caused CO2 emissions stay in the atmosphere forever. It’s ridiculous.

Reply to  commieBob
July 24, 2021 11:23 am

It looks that way, but the maps in the paper show boreal forests of Canada and Russia in blue in the summer months. Assuming (which we have been told for decades) that these forests are carbon sinks during the growing season, the blue must mean sequestration, i.e. the +/- must refer to the outward flux of CO2 from earth to atmosphere (+ = emission), and not the flux from atmosphere to earth .

Very confusing, possibly a Chinese/English translation problem?

Greg
Reply to  Smart Rock
July 25, 2021 1:00 am

Clearly that label has been screwed up. Red is “danger” , blue is cool.

I think it is supposed to be “carbon flux”.

On the chinese site that image is labelled:

The first global carbon flux map derived by TanSat observation. (Image by YANG Dongxu)

So Wan Hung Lo messed up the translation on the label.

Gary Pearse
Reply to  commieBob
July 24, 2021 11:58 am

commie, blue in Northern Canada is definitely a sink. I think it’s one of those common double negative screw ups. Canada is one of the worlds largest sinks.

Clyde Spencer
Reply to  commieBob
July 24, 2021 1:35 pm

Note that equatorial waters are shown in yellow, while the cooler waters toward the poles are shown in blue. It is well known that gasses are more soluble in colder water. That is, blue has to be a sink!

Rich Davis
Reply to  commieBob
July 24, 2021 6:05 pm

That would indeed be ridiculous cb, but that is not what is posited. Sure, there have been many alarmists who have talked about concentration remaining elevated for thousands of years, but that is scaremongering nonsense and intentionally misleading.

It is not the particular CO2 molecules that remain for a long time. It is only the total quantity of CO2 molecules that remains elevated (all else being equal).

What is the case is that we emit about twice as much CO2 as the concentration rises each year. Basic math requires that nature is a net sink. We trickle in a small excess that slowly raises the net concentration. It is indeed a tiny amount compared to the natural fluxes, but it is the decisive flux nonetheless. I guess I will never understand how my fellow skeptics can come to a different conclusion.

Apart from that disagreement with your comment, I would like to make a different observation that you likely wonā€™t find controversial.

These model calculations can never be useful in identifying anthropogenic emissions since they are swamped by the natural fluxes, especially where areas of natural net sinks exceed the anthropogenic sources or there are large natural sources.

How do we distinguish between a net sink slightly reduced by anthropogenic emissions and a natural sink with no anthropogenic sources?

Likewise how do we distinguish between a net source slightly increased by anthropogenic sources and a natural source with no anthropogenic sources?

We might initially think that anomalies could be used to detect changes over time, but a momentary reflection shows that such an approach must also fail.

If our emissions have been steadily increasing, yet the percentage of our emissions that contribute to the rise in concentration has been similar year after year, then it is clear that the natural sinks are dynamic and increase when concentration increases from any source. (Global greening)

Yet how will we know if those sinks can increase indefinitely? Any anomaly could be due to a change in the natural net flux or the anthropogenic emissions or both. Itā€™s a hopeless mess to untangle.

Fraught with models purporting to tease out an immeasurable quantity from noise data, itā€™s a prescription for gaslighting us with bogus claims that the warmunist schemes are working, and the ā€œproofā€ will be in the cooling temperatures (that are likely coming anyway from natural cycles).

DMA
Reply to  Rich Davis
July 24, 2021 6:31 pm

“It is indeed a tiny amount compared to the natural fluxes, but it is the decisive flux nonetheless. I guess I will never understand how my fellow skeptics can come to a different conclusion.”
The different conclusion comes from reasoned flux analysis. See https://edberry.com/blog/climate/climate-physics/preprint3/
Your attribution of the rise to our emissions requires the assumption that the natural sources and sinks are balanced.

Clyde Spencer
Reply to  DMA
July 24, 2021 7:12 pm

“… requires the assumption that the natural sources and sinks are balanced.”

Which they almost certainly never have been and never will be balanced. As one or both change, there are always adjustments going on in the direction of balance.

Rich Davis
Reply to  Clyde Spencer
July 25, 2021 4:35 am

Yes, Clyde, exactly right, although the way youā€™ve worded it could be misinterpreted as evidence to support DMA if someone accepts his mistaken premise.

What you said is correct, and is fully consistent with what I said. DMAā€™s idea that the mass balance argument depends on the natural fluxes being in balance is what is in error.

We do not even need to know the magnitude of individual natural fluxes in order to show that the net natural flux is a sink, and thus cannot be the cause of rising CO2 concentration.

Mass balance around atmosphere:
(1) In -Out = Accumulation
(2) In = In(n) + In(a)
where In(n) is natural sources and In(a) is anthropogenic sources.

Combine and rearrange:
(3) In(a) – Accum = Out – In(n)

The left side can be closely estimated and is a positive value. The right side must therefore also be positive.

If the natural sinks (Out) minus the natural sources (In(n)) is a positive value, then the net natural flux is a sink.

Further, if
(4) Out -In(n) > 0
Then
(5) Out > In(n)

Indeed the mass balance shows that the natural fluxes are not currently in balance.

Clyde Spencer
Reply to  Rich Davis
July 25, 2021 8:57 am

The massively thick beds of limestone throughout the world demonstrate that, over geologic time, the oceans are a net sink and manage to sequester CO2 without significantly changing the chemical characteristics of the water, notably the pH.

I think that we can safely say that the sink represented by the oceans will never become saturated because CO2 is always being removed, either as lime in warm Bahamian waters, or as the shells of photosynthetic calcifiers everywhere.

Rich Davis
Reply to  DMA
July 24, 2021 7:43 pm

No, DMA, how can you say that I assume the natural fluxes are balanced when I explicitly stated that the natural flux must currently be a net sink?

It is not even implied that the natural flux would be in balance absent our emissions. It must remain a net sink even if we could instantly end all emissions because the natural sinks respond to the current CO2 concentration, not to the origin of the CO2 in the atmosphere.

If it is a net sink at current concentration, it will continue to be a net sink at least until CO2 is at a level that represents a balance. That point of balance will change continuously with many changing factors and probably is never achieved. A net zero flux is probably very unlikely regardless of whether there is an anthropogenic contribution.

Assume that internal variability resulted in a trend of net natural flux being a source. In such a scenario, any additional sources from our emissions must increase concentration one for one, which is not observed. Less than half of our known emissions are accounted for in increased concentration of CO2. Thus the natural fluxes must net out to a sink under current conditions.

That mass balance is the basis of my statement.
In – Out = Accumulation

whiten
Reply to  Rich Davis
July 25, 2021 7:39 am

Rich, you must be specific about your claim.

Yes, the global land CO2 net flux is negative.
When in the same time the global surface CO2 net flux always positive.

Similar with precipitations.(evaporation)

cheers

Rich Davis
Reply to  whiten
July 25, 2021 11:10 am

Sure itā€™s correct that currently the total surface flux inclusive of anthropogenic sources is positive (source), which follows from the increasing CO2 concentration, over a long enough period. The Keeling curve does have seasonal periods where the total surface flux is negative (sink) resulting in decreasing CO2 concentration, though.

I donā€™t think that the claim that global land CO2 flux is negative can be supported, and is not a claim that I have made. But maybe you know of data to justify that.

As I said, the mass balance I envision only measures our CO2 emissions (from fossil fuel burning and cement production), and the change in atmospheric CO2 concentration. I donā€™t attempt to consider the magnitude of any natural fluxes nor to partition the natural fluxes between land and ocean.

It would be very difficult to attempt a bottom-up accounting of all natural fluxes. The reason for that is that the natural fluxes are huge and seasonally variable. Uncertainty would be huge, with measurement error possibly larger than anthropogenic emissions. Fortunately for my purposes it is only necessary to determine if the net effect of the natural fluxes is a source or a sink.

On land, precipitation no doubt exceeds evaporation. In order to be in balance, evaporation over oceans must exceed precipitation. But again, my argument doesnā€™t need to partition between land and ocean surface fluxes, so I donā€™t see how that would be relevant. If we wanted to determine a mass balance of the hydrological cycle, it would only be possible to argue that ice accumulation must be negative because sea level is slowly rising.

whiten
Reply to  Rich Davis
July 25, 2021 12:02 pm

Let me give you a clue about my point.

“Sink power”… colloquially ok, but not correct in overall.

Overall variation of CO2 concentrations very much effected by CO2 precipitation-global CO2 net flux coupled relation.

Sink power has no much to do with residence time of atmospheric CO2 residence time.

Atmospheric CO2 “precipitation” in overall is constant, where variability of CO2 concentration depends mostly on the variation of
Global surface CO2 net positive flux.
Yes it varies, but allways
positive.

As with water, the precipitation of CO2 does not depend on the power of the sink or the power of evaporation flux, for any place or territory on this earth of ours.

Yes it can not be said with certainty that the global land CO2 net flux must be in overall negative, but definitely it is never a positive.
Similar with evaporation versus precipitation, in the case of H2O.

CO2 “precipitation” in overall overwhelms any CO2 land flux.

Thanks. šŸ™‚

Rich Davis
Reply to  whiten
July 25, 2021 5:39 pm

Whiten
Very sorry but I fail to see how your comments relate to my earlier posts.

I have not used the term sink power that you say is not correct. Perhaps by that you mean the driving force or amount out of balance that the CO2 concentration is in the atmosphere?

You make a claim that ā€œCO2 precipitationā€ is constant. I interpret your meaning as the sink or sequestration rate is constant. Yet itā€™s clear that the sink rate is not constant. Our emissions have grown exponentially while the rate of increase in atmospheric concentration has increased almost linearly. So that implies an increasing sink. The visible evidence is in the greening of the planet.

I guess that you claim that the amount of the sink is independent of a driving force. But this is not logical. Relative to the oceans there is the driving force of a differential partial pressure (Henryā€™s Law). For the biosphere it is plain to see that plants grow faster and sequester more CO2 as a function of atmospheric CO2.

You raise again the point about CO2 flux on land, but as I have already pointed out, my analysis based on the mass balance does not segment the natural fluxes between land and ocean, so I fail to see how this is a criticism of any flaw in my analysis. Whether you are right or not, it doesnā€™t touch my analysis.

Itā€™s not even clear to me what you say is the cause of rising CO2 concentration in the atmosphere, in light of your criticisms of my approach. Are you in fact arguing that atmospheric CO2 concentration is rising due to ocean outgassing? If so, please address how my mass balance analysis that shows this to be impossible is in error.

whiten
Reply to  Rich Davis
July 25, 2021 9:24 pm

It is just an argument.

My main point made was;

global surface CO2 net flux always positive.
Variable but positive.

global land CO2 net flux non positive therefor most likely in overall to be considered negative.

That was all I tried to point out.

That is where we differ… I think.

whiten
Reply to  whiten
July 25, 2021 9:30 pm

oh well just the other point.

The variation of global surface CO2 net flux effects mainly the CO2 concentration.
Aka the oceans surface CO2 net flux mainly drives the atmospheric CO2 concentration.

Rich Davis
Reply to  whiten
July 26, 2021 4:32 am

I would agree that the ocean flux is more important than the land flux. After all there is a 71:29 ratio of ocean:land.

You donā€™t say whether you agree with those who think the ocean rather than anthropogenic emission is the cause of increasing CO2 year to year as many have claimed. So the following may not be a point of disagreement.

The ocean warming to the extent that it has done so, has of course changed the driving force, weakening the ocean sink compared to what it would have been if there had been no warming, but the mass balance still shows that less than half of our annual emissions are accounted for when considering the additional mass of CO2 in the atmosphere. As previously discussed, that means that nature is a net sink and it is our contribution that is slowly increasing atmospheric CO2 concentration.

whiten
Reply to  Rich Davis
July 26, 2021 8:57 am

When it comes to ocean sinking that too, in it’s own, is meaningless in comparison with CO2 precipitation.

I do not think that ‘rain forests’ do make rain.

That was my main point.
Precipitation is a different “sink” than the one you consider.

The thermal flux of land surface is very weak.
Aka the lift power over land.
Our human CO2 emissions consist as an increasing “payload” with no increased lift power.

The land CO2 emissions do not make it to the atmospheric CO2 “Accumulation”.

Further more,
while the global land CO2 net flux in ideal can be considered in overall as neither positive or negative, still considering that when oceanic CO2 net flux at higher range of its power, will contribute a considerable
extra CO2 “falling” over land due to its own CO2 precipitating,
then;
it will be reasonable to consider the global land CO2 net flux in overall as negative.

I see we are in two different lines of thinking,
but that is ok with me.
Just expecting that you understand my argument.
You do not have to accept it as valid or with merit.

šŸ™‚

cheers

Rich Davis
Reply to  whiten
July 26, 2021 4:05 am

global surface CO2 net flux always positive.

I donā€™t see how to justify that statement.

From May to September when most of the land surface has its active growing season and the southern ocean is cooling and thus absorbing CO2, CO2 concentration dropped every year since 1958. I would maintain that atmospheric CO2 concentration cannot drop unless there is a negative global average surface flux.

From September to May, the global average surface flux is a bigger positive magnitude than the negative magnitude during the northern hemisphere growing season, so that if you only look at the annual average, it always increases.

comment image

whiten
Reply to  Rich Davis
July 26, 2021 9:21 am

You are forgetting the very study in this blog post.

Annually, they find a net positive CO2 flux, by relying on global satellite data…
data which in it’s own overall, regardless of this study’s finds, support my position not yours.
No any CO2 anthropogenic signal there… non at all.

Yearly, the global surface
CO2 net flux is positive and high.
That is what satellite data show.
The ‘global’ means both hemispheres.
And yearly takes it out of seasonality.
The seasonality simply shows the lack of anthropogenic forcing…
very clearly, as far as I can tell.

“Nada anthropogenic signal there”…
according to the satellite data, from the overview… oh well, at least till now.

Hopefully you understand my argument.
Again you are not obligated to accept it as valuable.

šŸ™‚

cheers

whiten
Reply to  Rich Davis
July 24, 2021 7:07 pm

Rich, you missing the main point, the main trick…

The global map of CO2 produced by this study,
can be used as a tool or instrument for further extra processing of satellite data, for better and higher resolution.

guess what the higher resolution product will be then, when all oriented for land.

leaving your imagination to figure it out.

Rich Davis
Reply to  whiten
July 24, 2021 8:04 pm

ĪšĪ±Ī»Ī·Ī¼Ī­ĻĪ±! Whiten

Apparently I am missing the significance of your comment. Leaving it to my imagination is for you to have too much confidence in my abilities.

In my view itā€™s mostly models and will be made increasingly complex until they give the desired results.

whiten
Reply to  Rich Davis
July 25, 2021 9:35 am

Thank you.

Your response very much appreciated.

šŸ™‚

Reply to  commieBob
July 25, 2021 12:22 pm

Many thanks, communist Robert!

Reply to  Hatter Eggburn
July 24, 2021 10:29 am

Red is Republican
Blue is Democrat

Reply to  Willem Post
July 25, 2021 5:20 pm

Everywhere else red is left wing (or communist) and blue is right wing (or Fascist)

Rich Davis
Reply to  kelvin Duncan
July 25, 2021 7:17 pm

Fascism is not right-wing, it is an ideology of the Left. Only to a communist is a fascist right-wing. Those who insist on calling fascism right-wing label themselves accordingly.

Mussolini was a socialist before he was a fascist. Hitler was a national socialist. Wilson and the Progressives were similarly socialist-leaning big government collectivists. All of them were authoritarian collectivists with a racist streak.

The true Right are classical Liberals who champion individual liberty, limited small government, and free markets.

oeman 50
July 24, 2021 8:28 am

So what is the CO2 flux over the remaining 70% of the planet, the oceans?

whiten
Reply to  oeman 50
July 24, 2021 8:40 am

The net CO2 flux for non land, aka oceans,
according to these guys, it is zero point zero.

nyolci
Reply to  whiten
July 24, 2021 9:15 am

according to these guys, it is zero point zero.

No. And of course they’ve never claimed that. Pls. check fig 3. in the study.

whiten
Reply to  nyolci
July 24, 2021 9:45 am

It is no need for them to claim it, as it is obvious; they have calculated-estimated the global surface CO2 net flux from global CO2 satellite data.
And assigned all that to land surface…

cheers

nyolci
Reply to  whiten
July 24, 2021 2:30 pm

they have calculated-estimated the global surface CO2 net flux

You are fighting with facts and, understandably, you are loosing.

whiten
Reply to  nyolci
July 24, 2021 2:58 pm

yes idot, no one can actually calculate the global land CO2 net flux.

But hey, do not let me rock your damy silly boat…

whiten
Reply to  whiten
July 24, 2021 3:06 pm

Facts… You do not know what “facts” stand for… as it is beyond you… far far beyond you.

Derg
Reply to  nyolci
July 24, 2021 11:03 am

Plant food

Clyde Spencer
Reply to  oeman 50
July 24, 2021 8:46 am

The CO2 flux is shown for the oceans. It is just very subdued and difficult to see.

whiten
Reply to  Clyde Spencer
July 24, 2021 9:34 am

Clyde,

The map you refer to,
is not what satellites “see”, or depict.

It is a simulated generic carbon budget map, a result after these guys calculate estimate the ‘global surface CO2 net flux’ from the satellite data,
and then consider it a ‘global land CO2 net flux’.

There is no compatibility whatsoever between OCO2 data map with that carbon budget map there.

But still, according to the estimation offered, as offered, the oceans CO2 net flux is 0.0.

cheers

Reply to  Clyde Spencer
July 24, 2021 11:50 am

It ain’t so.

The map was developed by applying TanSatā€™s satellite observations to models

Their model oddly shows China to be a net sink and an incredible CO₂ emission hotspot in Malaysia.

Models can, apparently, do anything… on demand.

Clyde Spencer
Reply to  ATheoK
July 24, 2021 1:42 pm

Understandably, China might have a motive to downplay their role in the source of atmospheric CO2. And, models can be manipulated to get the results wanted by modelers.

This thread started as an attempt to understand what the colors were supposed to represent.

whiten
Reply to  Clyde Spencer
July 24, 2021 1:53 pm

Please, do not blame China, for this one.

whiten
Reply to  whiten
July 24, 2021 1:58 pm

See, Indiana Jockes, was/is not Chinese…

M.M… too…Phily also.

cheers

nyolci
Reply to  ATheoK
July 24, 2021 2:31 pm

Their model oddly shows China to be a net sink

Red is sink, blue is source, you idiot.

eyesonu
Reply to  nyolci
July 24, 2021 7:17 pm

nyolci, I guess you are today’s troll

July 24, 2021 8:43 am

Now, I tried to figure out how much this translates to per cubic meter of air, and I got to around 0.00000000085 of a gram (by all means check my math, I may have a extra 0 in there somewhere). Are they seriously asking us to believe they can see that with a sputnik?

Reply to  Right-Handed Shark
July 24, 2021 11:52 am

Yes, and they’re asking you to believe that they are seeing that sputnik molecule by molecule, narrow satellite bypass by narrow satellite bypass.

Gary Pearse
Reply to  ATheoK
July 24, 2021 2:00 pm

They will fill inner space with data cooking satellites. They will be believed by their NWO sycophants. What elite Europe, US left, gov welfare billionaires don’t know is they will be the useful idiot’s no longer needed when China takes charge of the Totality gift that’s being prepared for the CCP.

Mark Kaiser
July 24, 2021 8:46 am

ā€œAbout six gigatons ā€” roughly 12 times the mass of all living humansā€

This is an alarming ratio!!!

But if we increase the population of the earth to ~84 billion it will be roughly 1 times the mass of all living humans. A very acceptable ratio.

July 24, 2021 8:53 am

No no no. This is garbage.

Reason: They’ve got (what’s left of) the big forests of Amazon, Central Africa going in completely opposite directions.
They also show SE Asia’s forest to be e net sink – again NASA had it as a source

NASA have subsequently trashed their OCO gallery and turned it into fast moving and headache inducing GIF.
But especially they are now claiming the OCO cannot ‘see’ the big forest because “It is always too cloudy”

There was a nice image on NASA’s OCO gallery which showed the big trees to be releasing large amounts of CO2 – all across the year

I’ll leave you with this – I snaffled as much as I could from the OCO gallery but didn’t seem to grab The Definitive image I’m talking about:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/8n1zceskj0c1h8d/OCO2%20-%20Copy.pdf?dl=0

But scanning through it, you can see there is pretty well always elevated levels of CO2 above the forests whereas here they are epic sinks.

A nice one in that pdf is the image I labelled ‘end July 16. on page 2 of the pdf

Where’s all that CO2 above Antarctica coming from?

These Folks, and NASA, Are Just Making It All Up

Reply to  Peta of Newark
July 24, 2021 9:06 am

sigh – too late for the edit.
(Why do you sometimes get aaaaaages to edit and other times ‘next to zero?)

The Alert Mind will have got my point anway

i.e. If CO2 is acting as a fertiliser and causing Global Greening, why were there elevated levels of the stuff above the big trees?

Then, having asserted that CO2 fertilses greenery, why did NASA trash the original OCO gallery claiming that OCO cannot now see the ground when, immediately after its launch & commissioning, it could see down to the ground perfectly.
As can, obviously, the Global Greening Sputnik
(Am not sure, I suspect are both instruments are aboard OCO)

No matter, let Einstein deliver the killer blow

Krishna Gans
Reply to  Peta of Newark
July 24, 2021 9:47 am

Maybe not because of the trees but because of the underground ?

Clyde Spencer
Reply to  Peta of Newark
July 24, 2021 1:49 pm

Was this the image that you were looking for:

image6[1].png
gregole
July 24, 2021 9:49 am

I’ve been playing around with some ideas and numbers lately on one thing I have been pondering is the weight of the atmosphere compared to the weight of emitted CO2 and now this article. Perfect!

Now I realize the weight of the atmosphere varies due to varying moisture content; and I recognize that gasses have different atomic weights in combination…but for the sake of gross back-of-envelop comparison, how much in percentage of the weight of the atmosphere is 6 gigatons?

I am assuming the Chinese used 1 ton = 2000 lbm
Wiki expresses atmospheric weight in tonnes and 1 tonne = 2204.6 lbm

Translating to lbm for the sake of using Excel:
Wiki weight of atmosphere: 1.10E+19 lbm
Chinese satellite weight of CO2: 1.20E+13 lbm
Percent (gross comparison ignoring water vapor and mole fractions…) 0.000109%.

Check my math.

Oh, and it’s raining here in Phoenix and has been for last couple of days and my roof is leaking. Gotta stop screwing around on the internet and get a tarp up there.

Drake
Reply to  gregole
July 24, 2021 8:42 pm

But if it stops raining Manana is soon enough!

July 24, 2021 10:59 am

The First Global Carbon Flux Map Derived By Tansat Observation. Credit: Dongxu Yang”

Oh! China is a net carbon sink… How curious?

The map was developed by applying TanSatā€™s satellite observations to models”

I see, China wants to vie with NASA for most involuted inaccurate satellite imaged CO₂ estimates.

In this paper, we introduce the first implementation of TanSat carbon dioxide data on carbon flux estimations,ā€ Yang said.”

Jean Parisot
Reply to  ATheoK
July 24, 2021 11:02 am

Oh! China is a net carbon sinkā€¦ How curious?”

Of course they are, pay them. It’s almost as funny as the Spanish solar farms generating power at night.

whiten
July 24, 2021 1:13 pm

It is amazing,
A climate subject post.
An interesting one, very much so

But still.
No much activity, in the comment’s section!

Well, it is what it is, in the end of the day… init!

cheers

whiten
Reply to  whiten
July 24, 2021 1:41 pm

Got to pinch…

Where is Rudy, when most wanted!

Sorry… šŸ¤“

goldminor
July 24, 2021 3:46 pm

Off topic: I have been watching this major typhoon off of the east coast of China for the last 3 days. At first this typhoon sat to the east of Taiwan, but they were fortunate that it continued to the north. The jet stream suggested to me that this would impact China over time, and that is what is now taking place. This will bring renewed flooding on top of the previous flooding. This is going to have serious consequences for Central and Northern China. … https://earth.nullschool.net/#current/wind/isobaric/850hPa/orthographic=-236.50,30.28,2083/loc=123.552,30.540

goldminor
Reply to  goldminor
July 26, 2021 2:28 pm

Now 48+ hours later that storm is still sitting close to Shanghai while inundating a large area of China.

goldminor
Reply to  goldminor
July 28, 2021 4:21 pm

and 48 hours later this storm is still impacting Eastern China. This is one long lived storm.

Walter Sobchak
July 24, 2021 8:30 pm

And you believed them. When did the Chinese start telling the truth?

Greg
July 25, 2021 12:35 am

Using data on how carbon mixes with dry air

Carbon does not mix with air , WTF is that supposed to mean?

Another win for the media studies freshmen running Urea Alert.

Does it never occur to them that you need scientifically literate people to cover science?

July 25, 2021 12:20 pm

These satellite maps of CO2 emission show human input to be of little significance. Hard to see a human signature at all in the blue areas showing CO2 sources. Alaska a bigger source than east or west coast US urban areas. Pripyat marshes and Belorussian-Polish ancient forest much bigger than all urbanised west Europe (Berlin-Paris-Amsterdam-London). In China the CO2 source is where the people arenā€™t -inland and in the western Xinjiang desert, not a pip from Beijing and Shanghai.

Iā€™m not saying that humans arenā€™t emitting a lot of of CO2. Itā€™s just that anthropogenic CO2 never shows up on satellite images.

Geoff Sherrington
July 25, 2021 4:56 pm

Please, can some reader here explain how one measures flux – CO2 gas going into or out of liquids or solids – from measurements of CO2 concentration in the air?
Surely such measurements reveal only how much CO2 is there, not how much went where, or came from where. Geoff S

Steve Z
July 26, 2021 11:56 am

Six billion tons per year of “carbon” emissions, for a total of 7.8 billion people, comes out to about 770 kg of “carbon” per person per year.

Assuming that the average person exhales about 2 liters per breath, 12 breaths per minute, that’s 24 liters per minute, or about 1.07 gram-moles per minute (at a standard 22.4 liters/gmol at sea level and 0 C). If we assume that exhaled air contains 3% CO2, the person would exhale 0.032 gmol/min or 1.414 g/min of CO2, containing 0.386 g/min of “carbon”. Times 60 min/hr * 24 hr/day * 365 days/year = 203 kg/yr of “carbon”, or 743 kg/yr of CO2.

This means that human beings emit about 26% of the world’s net “carbon” emissions simply by breathing!

Let’s everybody save the planet by holding our breath! Although that might not be too good for human health…