From Dr. Roy Spencer’s Global Warming Blog
by Roy W. Spencer, Ph. D.
The goal of reaching “Net Zero” global anthropogenic emissions of carbon dioxide sounds overwhelmingly difficult. While humanity continues producing CO2 at increasing rates (with a temporary pause during COVID), how can we ever reach the point where these emissions start to fall, let alone reach zero by 2050 or 2060?
What isn’t being discussed (as far as I can tell) is the fact that atmospheric CO2 levels (which we will assume for the sake of discussion causes global warming) will start to fall even while humanity is producing lots of CO2.
Let me repeat that, in case you missed the point:
Atmospheric CO2 levels will start to fall even with modest reductions in anthropogenic CO2 emissions.
Why is that? The reason is due to something called the CO2 “sink rate”. It has been observed that the more CO2 there is in the atmosphere, the more quickly nature removes the excess. Last year I published a paper showing that the record of atmospheric CO2 at Mauna Loa, HI suggests that each year nature removes an average of 2% of the atmospheric excess above 295 ppm (parts per million). The purpose of the paper was to not only show how well a simple CO2 budget model fits the Mauna Loa CO2 measurements, but also to demonstrate that the common assumption that nature is becoming less able to remove “excess” CO2 from the atmosphere appears to be an artifact of El Nino and La Nina activity since monitoring began in 1959. As a result, that 2% sink rate has remained remarkably constant over the last 60+ years. (By the way, the previously popular CO2 “airborne fraction” has huge problems as a meaningful statistic, and I wish it had never been invented. If you doubt this, just assume CO2 emissions are cut in half and see what the computed airborne fraction does. It’s meaningless.)
Here’s my latest model fit to the Mauna Loa record through 2023, where I have added a stratospheric aerosol term to account for the fact that major volcanic eruptions actually *reduce* atmospheric CO2 due to increased photosynthesis from diffuse sunlight penetrating deeper into vegetation canopies:
What Would a “Modest” 1% per Year Reduction in Global CO2 Emissions Do?
The U.N. claims that CO2 emissions will need to decline rapidly to achieve Net Zero by mid-Century. Specifically, they say 45% reductions below 2010 levels will need to be made by 2030, and Net Zero will need to be achieved by 2050, in order to limit future global warming to the (rather arbitrary) goal of 1.5 deg. C.
But let’s look at what a much more modest reduction in CO2 emissions (1% per year) would do to future atmospheric CO2 concentrations. Here’s a plot of the history of global CO2 emissions, and how that trajectory would change with 1% per year reductions from 2023 onward. (Even this seems optimistic, but we can all agree the U.N.’s goal is delusional),
When we run the CO2 model with these assumed emissions, here’s how the atmospheric CO2 concentration responds:
Even though the CO2 emissions continue, atmospheric CO2 levels start to fall around 2060. Also shown for reference are the four CMIP5 scenarios of future CO2 emissions, with RCP8.5 often being the one used to scare people regarding future climate change, despite it being extremely unlikely.
The message here is that CO2 emissions don’t have to be cut very much for atmospheric CO2 levels to reverse their climb, and start to fall. The reason is that nature removes CO2 in proportion to how much excess CO2 resides in the atmosphere, and that rate of removal can actually exceed our CO2 emissions with modest cuts in emissions.
I don’t understand why this issue is not being discussed. All of the Net Zero rhetoric I see seems to imply that warming will continue if we don’t cut our CO2 emissions to essentially zero. But that’s not true, because that’s not how nature works.
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‘The reason is that nature removes CO2 in proportion to how much excess CO2 resides in the atmosphere, and that rate of removal can actually exceed our CO2 emissions with modest cuts in emissions.’
Gee, sounds almost like a negative feedback.
It also sounds like the future generations, when you and I are both long gone, will freak out over plummeting CO2 and declining crop yields if the Net Zero lunacy prevails.. It looks like China and India will keep that from happening though.
There may be global warming/cooling, climate change call it what you will but what is certain is that CO2 emitted naturally or from fossil fuels has absolutely nothing to do with it.
Here is another reason to appreciate Roy Spencer. This article is well reasoned, and the point is well taken.
But also,
“What isn’t being discussed (as far as I can tell) is the fact that atmospheric CO2 levels (which we will assume for the sake of discussion causes global warming) will start to fall even while humanity is producing lots of CO2.”
Now that the discussion is complete, let’s remember that there is no good reason to begin with to attribute ANY of the reported warming to incremental CO2, certainly not to harmful extent.
David Dibble:
An excellent comment!
What IS causing our modern warming (since 1980) is simply the cleansing of our atmosphere of industrial SO2 aerosol pollution due to Clean Air legislation and Net-Zero activities that ban the burning of fossil fuels.
The cleaner our air becomes, the hotter it will get. This is a historical fact, with the Minoan, Roman, and Medieval Warming Periods being periods of very low VEI4 or higher volcanic activity, with their
atmospheres essentially free of volcanic SO2 aerosol pollution.
Unfortunately, we are well on our way toward reaching the higher temperatures of those eras!.
I consider that warming as a positive as those hotter periods were good for human beings.
exactly!
Joseph Zorrin:
See above.
Matthew Bergin:
You are mistaken; Some areas undoubtedly benefited from the higher temperatures, but, on the whole, they were terrible times for human beings, with droughts, heat waves, starvation, floods, the demise of earlier cultures, etc.
You may have read of the “hunger stones”: inscriptions on rocks at the bottom of dried up riverbeds during the MWP.
Temperatures then were higher than during the 2014-2016 El Nino, but you need to read the Wikipedia article “The 2014-2016 El Nino”, which is a listing of world-wide disasters associated with higher temperatures. It will give you an idea as to what is in store for us.
Funny how all these warm periods coincide with the rise of great civilisations and the cold periods with the civilisations fall. Disasters happen world wide all the time. Sorry but I wouldn’t use a Wikipedia article for toilet paper.
Matthew Bergin:
You have a point, but the article is simply a well-referenced listing of climate-related disasters, without commentary.
Really? This contradicts the historical record from Europe at least. The Hunger Stones in German rivers were emplaced during the Little Ice Age, not the MWP.
Graemethecat:
My bad!
You are correct. I have always associated droughts with periods of higher temperatures, as now in Europe, and elsewhere, and not with LIA temps. Precipitation bound up in ice?
There has always been droughts, floods, hurricanes, earthquakes, wars, famine and every other problem. Trying to blame any problem on “climate change” is foolhardy. Being an atheist, I don’t often quote the bible, but some things in ring true.
Similarly, being an agnostic, I don’t usually cite scripture. However, I have to acknowledge that there is a lot of wisdom to be found in the Christian bible. Whether it was divinely inspired is another question entirely.
In 2020 when COVID spread worldwide, human emissions of CO2 dropped by 6% according to the International Energy Agency, yet the rate of increase of CO2 didn’t change a bit.
That is a natural experiment that shows human emissions of CO2 aren’t causing the continuing rise in CO2.
The increased solar output over the last 100 years is probably warming the oceans causing them to release more CO2 and absorb less.
https://www.iea.org/reports/global-energy-review-2020/global-energy-and-co2-emissions-in-2020
https://www.co2.earth/monthly-co2
Solar irradiance chart
https://lasp.colorado.edu/lisird/data/historical_tsi
TSI in the 15th century to the nearest half watt. Somewhere past total bullshit.
Some ideas are so bad, that they will never die.
A decrease in CO2 emissions for just one year is way too small to be visibly noticeable.
CO2 levels have been increasing by an average 2ppm per year. From year to year this number sometimes goes up a little, sometimes goes down a little, based on many factors.
6% of 2ppm is about 0.12ppm. Normal, year to year, variation is easily that big.
Beyond that there is the seasonal variation of over 5ppm per year. Once again, that amount changes year to year.
Beyond that, the amount of fossil fuels being burned every year is much more than sufficient to explain the 2ppm/year increase in CO2 levels.
Hi Mark.
You said, “CO2 levels have been increasing by an average 2ppm per year.”
Averages can be misleading.
The attached graph shows the rate of increase is increasing but at half the rate that emissions are increasing. Notice that the units for CO2 are gigatonnes of C, not ppm.
Here is the up to date graph including 2023. (using Mauna Loa growth data)
Notice that the CO2 growth in 2023 was was an increase of more than 7 Gt C. (3.36 ppm)
CO2 data from https://gml.noaa.gov/ccgg/trends/data.html
I’m a big fan of the “Plot the data on a graph and just look at it” method for trying to see which factors might be “causes” and which might be “effects”.
Doing this for the ONI (my usual ENSO / SOI proxy) and UAH compared to the year-on-year deltas for the Mauna Loa atmospheric CO2 concentrations gave me the graph attached below.
While there appears to be something “regular” for the “Super / Godzilla” El Nino events, that pattern did not hold for the most recent, and effectively still-ongoing, period.
“Just looking at” the graph and trying to imagine what “causes” the variations in the “CO2-deltas” line had, and still has, me either saying to myself
1) “Nope, I got nuffink”, or
2) “I am missing one or more of those ‘many factors’ …”
Over the satellite record, i.e. “since 1979”, the “year to year variation” ranged from less than +0.5 ppm (in 12 months) to almost +4.5ppm (at least, that “record” may well be broken in the next two or three months).
Follow-up 1 (I can only attach one image file from my local hard disk per post).
A “zoomed view” starting in 1996, which highlights the similarity in the “patterns” following the 1997/8 and 2015/6 El Nino “spikes”.
2023 has a typical El Nino CO2 spike. However, the temperature rise was untypical, perhaps from all the water vapor injected by the eruption.
Follow-up 2.
A “zoomed view” from 2015, showing how that “pattern” breaks down for the most recent, 2023/4, El Nino …
NB : At this time I personally think that trying to pin down precisely which of the “many [other] factors” influencing the 12-month CO2-deltas are, or are not, in play here counts as “pure speculation”.
It might be useful to look at monthly CO2 data, normalized to the annual low-point such as I have done in Figure 3, here:
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2021/06/11/contribution-of-anthropogenic-co2-emissions-to-changes-in-atmospheric-concentrations/
This may come across as being “hyper-pedantic” on my part, but I’d consider “interesting” to be a better choice than “useful”.
My approach would give more of a “view from 30,000 feet” of the whole (66 year, March 1958 to March 2024 …) Mauna Loa dataset. yours gives a “limited” view of only the last 9 to 10 years.
Both approaches highlight “interesting” features, and different people will find each of them more or less “useful” defending on their perspectives.
From one of your responses to a different poster “below”.
Setting a fixed “anchor” in October, or any other month, of each year will also “hide a lot of what is going on” !
For example, while needing more horizontal pixels (/ a higher resolution) my “12-month deltas” line is only one line, and allows for a (relatively ?) easy estimation of the “Min-Max” values that doesn’t depend on a specific “starting from month N” phase.
Even with only 9 lines worth of data my updated version of your graphic (attached to the end of this post) is rather … what’s the right word ? … “crowded” ? … “busy” ? …
A similar graph with 60+ lines — or even 40+ lines if we limit it to the overlap with UAH — would be very confusing, and probably not all that “useful”. In addition I fear that any selection process would give rise to accusations of “cherry picking”.
How many times do you have to be told that 6% of 4%, the declared human contribution, or a 0.24% reduction in the carbon cycle for a year, (probably less), is beneath the noise threshold to show up in the graphs you site?
I’ve told you in email and commenters tell you every time you bring it up.
“How many times do you have to be told?”
According to my climate model,
97 more times, which is unprecedented, and worse than previously thought,
The point being, using an annual average hides a lot of what is going on. However, monthly, and even daily measurements are available from MLO and other stations.
The precision in the Carbon Cycle analyses is probably, at best, about +/-2 Pg. However, I suspect that some creative manipulation has been used to be sure that the conservation of mass equations balance reasonably well so that it can be used as a supporting argument for anthropogenic influence.
Estimates for the annual 2020 drop vary from about 5% to 10%. Roy’s graph shows a drop of about 5%. However, the monthly anthropogenic drops in late-Winter to early-Spring were as high as 14-18% in April.
See Fig. 1 here:
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2022/03/22/anthropogenic-co2-and-the-expected-results-from-eliminating-it/
Went and read the underlying paper. Remarkably good fit to the Keeling Curve for such a simple underlying CO2 model. Well done.
Given the simplicity of the Keeling Curve this is not terribly surprising. However the model seems to assume that natural sources are constant and natural sinks are only responsive to atmospheric concentrations. Given the largely biological nature of both this assumption is implausible. The biological sources and sinks consist of myriad natural populations all of which oscillate aperiodically on time scales ranging from years to centuries. Constancy is statistically impossible.
You don’t need graphs to know that Net Zero can’t be achieved. We aren’t going to have electric ships and airplanes, and wind mills and solar panels aren’t going to power home heating, and heavy industry’s electric arc furnaces or much of anything else. It’s obvious propaganda.
Some of the Nutters realize this- so what they now claim is “we’ll just lock up all the forests to sequester whatever leftover carbon we emit”. The main preacher of this is Bill Moomaw, a physical chemist- now retired from Tufts- who knows nothing about forests and little about the climate, though he was supposedly an IPCC editor/author for some years early in this century. He calls this method to save the planet “proforestation”. I’ve been arguing against his fantasy for several years.
Roy says :”The reason is that nature removes CO2 in proportion to how much excess CO2 resides in the atmosphere, and that rate of removal can actually exceed our CO2 emissions with modest cuts in emissions.”
What happens when there is no “excess”? When the excess is zero does nature forget how to remove CO2 or is that the magic point where sinks match emissions and CO2 concentration remains fixed? I think sink rate is predicated on CO2 abundance not excess above some previous level. How did it get from 7000PPM to 180 PPM then back to the 350 goal that guarantees we remain safely below the 1.5 degree threshold of catastrophe. Additionally I think Ed Berry’s work shows that only a small part of the recent increase is from our emissions so reducing our emissions will have no measurable effect on the concentration.
when the “excess” is removed, the natural CO2 fluxes in and out of the surface (which are huge) are then in balance again, and atmospheric CO2 remains relatively constant again. Theoretically. 🙂
Roy thanks for the comment. My point is that the natural balance has varied from 180 PPM to over 7000 PPM. It was rising before the human emissions were enough to equal the rise (Before about 1950). So where do we think the balance point is and why do we think it is there?
We have to depend on the estimates of the various versions of the Carbon Cycle for the balance point. Considering the obvious biases demonstrated in climatology, I’m cynical enough to suspect that if the Carbon Cycle(s) didn’t balance without the inclusion of anthropogenic emissions, the authors would have found some rationalization to adjust one or more of the natural influences. That is, they knew ahead of time what answer they needed to find.
Nature is constantly, in real time, trying to reach equilibrium. If CO2 emissions are reduced, the equilibrium threshold likewise shifts.
Part of the problem with IPCC is their stubborn assumption that all of it is the fault of human activities.
More blinded by dogma than stubborn. The AR4 WG1 SPM contained figure 4, supposedly attributing the temperature rise since about 1975 to anthropogenic CO2 ‘forcing’, thus guiding mitigation policy.
Their blinded problem is the same figure 4 also said the equivalent temperature rise from about 1920-1945 WASN’T anthropogenic. They couldn’t see what they had actually done.
” nature removes CO2 in proportion to how much excess CO2 resides in the atmosphere”
First, the atmospheric CO2 “excess” needs to be defined.
Atmospheric CO2 is in equilibrium with CO2 dissolved in the oceans.
This equilibrium can be perturbed if more CO2 is added to the atmosphere than oceans, and this is how the “excess” is created.
Then, according to Henry’s Law nature will equilibrate atmospheric and oceanic CO2.
Temperature changes of atmosphere and oceans occurring for any reasons will also affect the equilibrium ratio.
More important, nature irreversibly removes CO2 from circulation between oceans and atmosphere primarily in proportion to how much CO2 is dissolved in the oceans.
Photosynthesis on land produces biomass that is significantly offset by biomass decay. Not completely offset, but a lot more comparing with what happens in the oceans.
Photosynthesis in oceans produces biomass that is much more likely to be irreversibly sequestered at the ocean bottom in the form of shells and bones, forming chalk, limestone and marble deposits.
Disproportionate removal of biomass in the oceans creates imbalance of carbon between atmosphere and oceans.
Then continuous drain of CO2 from atmosphere to the oceans occurs according to Henry’s Law.
Except that a huge amount of biomass has been sequestered in the Tundra for at least 20,000 years, and possibly much longer. It is now being released as CO2 and CH4 by warming, whatever the mechanism might be.
Perhaps, but 20,000 years is not much on geological scale.
Observed behaviour suggests that “damaging and totally unnecessary” are the goals.
That’s what the Duck Test says.
Only quacks use the Duck Test! 🙂
A feature
The Mauna Loa curve doesn’t seem to change slope no matter if emissions are way up as with China Indian et al the past 25 years or down with the COVID lock downs
Tony Heller often shows that chart because it’s so informative.
It is clear that the seasonal changes are biologically driven and the ramp-up phase is not balanced by the draw-down phase. It would be prudent to look for biological drivers of the imbalance because a nearly constant anthropogenic CO2 flux of less than 0.4 PPMV per month gross doesn’t seem adequate to account for the El Nino anomalies in the ramp-up phase or the natural inter-annual variations.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2022/03/22/anthropogenic-co2-and-the-expected-results-from-eliminating-it/
I would add that the NASA 2019 paper on the greening of the earth by increase CO2 levels found a 14% increase. Shouldn’t that have had an effect?
“I don’t understand why this issue is not being discussed.”
What should be discussed
– the rate of CO2 removal is the same for natural and anthropogenic CO2
– only 4% of global emissions is anthropogenic, 96% is natural
– the increase in CO2 atmospheric content is 96% natural
CO2 content in atmosphere will be what nature decides it to be, regardless of what humans do.
– “the increase in CO2 atmospheric content is 96% natural”
Only stupid conservatives make that false claim and embarrass reasonable conservatives.
Please stop.
The CO2 increase is 100% manmade
“It has been observed that the more CO2 there is in the atmosphere, the more quickly nature removes the excess” funny I didn’t know anyone could define what “excess” CO2 is ? seems to me nobody can … unless you mean anything above 0 ppm is “excess” …
I think it just means any increase. If the level increases, planetary mechanisms react accordingly.
Poor wording.
???
As far as plant life is concerned there is no “excess” CO2 in the atmosphere…
There is still a massive deficit.
Take it up with Spencer, it’s his model.
So you haven’t got a mind of your own ??
We already knew that. !
I was merely answering somebody’s question – an answer that could easily be found by actually reading the article.
I do not agree with the the argument presented, and you obviously strongly disagree with it. But as always here, rather than ask questions of Dr Spencer on his own web site, you would sooner rant about it and attack me as if it was my own simplistic model.
You come here to make your comments. If you are unwilling to support your comments or get your feelings hurt when someone else criticizes , then maybe you should take that up with your priest somewhere else.
No hurt feelings – I love seeing people like bnice making idiots of themselves. But in this case, the only comment I made was to quote the part of Spencer’s article where he explained what excessive meant in his model.
Very good Dr. Spencer.
“But that’s not true, because that’s not how nature works.”
Since when does that matter in the climate emergency mess?
Roy, how much “modest reductions” are necessary to stabilize the percent of CO2 in the atmosphere based on your model?
Why would be want to “stabilise” the percentage of CO2 in the atmosphere.?
Onward and upward should be the plan !!
When the air content of CO2 gets to about 1,100 ppm we’ll all be growing luscious veggies in our kitchen window-box gardens.
Year round probably.
How wonderfully beneficial will that be for everyone’s health and groceries costs?
Bring it on!
True, no reason to stop it from rising- but I was curious if Roy’s model would result in the level stabilizing- but the use of that word wasn’t meant to imply that it’s the objective. I like CO2. I see trees growing faster than ever and that’s a good thing.
I always find it amazing that the results of prior genetic evolution, ie: plants can already use 1200 ppm atmospheric concentration of CO2 in their metabolisms, is deemed to be “dangerous”, “harmful”, “polluted”, “excess”, or whatever other demeaning adjective can be mustered up to describe something that is completely natural.
Interesting detail. Recently read up on Mauna Loa. Fascinating works, meticulous, good science.
The detail is, that chart is not ppm in the atmosphere, it is the molar fraction of CO2 in dry air. They sample, remove the water, then measure the CO2.
What makes this interesting, aside from the 11,000 foot elevation, is the side note in the Mauna Loa documentation that describes how water vapor in the air reduces the CO2 concentration by as much as 15 ppm for inclusion of water vapor. This makes sense based on simple mol calculations.
Maybe we need to have Gavin comment here….
Gums wonders…
The big question is ..
Why the heck would we want less CO2 in the atmosphere. ? !!!
In long-term historic and biological terms, levels are not that far above planetary plant starvation levels.
And what the heck does “excess” CO2 mean..??
Plants prefer around 1000ppm… there is no “excess”
The goal itself is absolute anti-life idiocy.
You have to wonder why vegetarians and vegans never protest John Kerry, Greta Thunberg, King Charles, Joe Biden, the IPCC, Net Zero and all the other people who want to “fight climate change”.
You would think that they would realize that they are all opposed to their chosen lifestyle philosophy…
Here is a better way to visualize the CO2 emissions and understand how to useless it is to hobble economies by trying to reduce emissions through unreliable energy production:
Time to stop whining and adapt.
Yes, China alone produces more CO2 than the US and Europe together, and is going the opposite direction.
Engineers have had to deal with rates of gases including CO2 dissolving into water for a long time already. See following from Dankwertz p, equation 3, page 627, half a century ago a standard reference book for chemical engineers, plus there have been many paper published since then, including by myself on selective absorption of H2S and CO2 in methyldiethanolamine solutions circa 1986.
https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1351/pac196510040625/pdf
You can see the (C-Co) for ocean water CO2 versus the air above it, on the attached chart, in green Unfortunately variations in ocean surface temperature make it difficult to tell if there is an increased absorption rate of CO2 as Dr. Roy has claimed. But Dankwertz says such is the case, so it will…
Spencer makes a number of crucial points here while reminding us of the UN’s unrealistic targets and aspirations. He could have added that the majority of citizens worldwide consider net-zero 2050 to be unattainable in the first place and don’t intend to make any big lifestyle changes to make it possible. In addition, they won’t accept all sorts of new taxes, laws and restrictions to facilitate it. Too many of all these is likely to cause changes in governments, and the politicians and bureaucrats are fully aware of such risks to their careers.
changed my mind. no comment
If you write something and decide not to post it, just erase what you wrote, and then click the “Reply” button again, and the reply box will close and nobody will be the wiser. 🙂
World population is expected to stabilise around 2050 then start to decline.
So, if Dr Spencer is correct, one might expect a 1% decrease in CO2 (anthropogenic) emissions to occur as a consequence of population decline.
Perhaps the Lorax needs to arrive and speak for the trees. I’m pretty sure they are not interested in reducing CO2 levels and would much rather that they were significantly higher, certainly higher than their all time lows in the recent past which have verged on starvation levels for plant life.
We don’t need to reduce CO2, and certainly Net Zero is an insane proposition which no one should be aiming for either quickly or slowly. Net Zero is a strategy by which developed nations are to use their amalgamated resources to deliberately and systematically destroy their energy infrastructure. What will follow from this, if carried out, will be a level of human suffering never before seen in all of human history. It will make even the worst horrors of the 20th century seem quaint. Billions will die, mostly of starvation and cold exposure. This is their plan, they have talked about this, about the “plague” of humans and how to deal with it, for decades.
Perhaps the Lorax needs to arrive and speak for the trees. I’m pretty sure they are not interested in reducing CO2 levels and would much rather that they were significantly higher, certainly higher than their all time lows in the recent past which have verged on starvation levels for plant life.
We don’t need to reduce CO2, and certainly Net Zero is an insane proposition which no one should be aiming for either quickly or slowly. Net Zero is a strategy by which developed nations are to use their amalgamated resources to deliberately and systematically destroy their energy infrastructure. What will follow from this, if carried out, will be a level of human suffering never before seen in all of human history. It will make even the worst horrors of the 20th century seem quaint. Billions will die, mostly of starvation and cold exposure. This is their plan, they have talked about this, about the “plague” of humans and how to deal with it, for decades.
If this hypothesis is true, the result would be a very bad thing. Keep increasing CO2 — If you have reason to believe the evidence saying most CO2 increase does not come from human activities is incorrect.
https://rclutz.com/2024/03/20/humans-add-little-to-rising-co2-march-2024/
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02626667.2023.2287047
What are alarmists really afraid of? Since they have been hugely wrong with each and every prediction in the last 40 years (the bigee the anomaly forecast for 1st the decade of the new millennium – the avg of all the T°C models was 300% too high, top half of the model bundle reached up to 600% too highl). Worse, we entered the literally crippling “Dreaded Pause” in temperatures starting in 1997 and stubbornly extending 18 yrs, matching the period of time of the year-end warming spell that all the fuss was about!
Crippling? It caused an epidemic of career-ending mental illness for a fair number of climate scientists dubbed “The Climate Blues” (of course, the fake history spinners have rewritten a history to bury the real story so use ‘wayback’ or dated accounts). Anyway, It’s not hard to imagine the shock of having spent grade school brainwashing, another decade to get your PhD and another decade or two publishing, speaking, rallying, exhorting …only to discover the whole thing was a sham! Or worse, a front for a new world order! Yeah, andwhat about the the thesis, the papers, the, the newsclippings your mum is keeping for you?
Alarmists are afraid that odds are high for a 30yr cooling stretch and they want to get ahead of the parade to take credit for it and stave off a lethal blow to their flimsy theory. They know the massive 10s of trillions wasted, the damage to economies, agriculture and, untold human casualties from this (inflation food, energy, etc.) globally can be laid at their feet.
“The message here is that CO2 emissions don’t have to be cut very much for atmospheric CO2 levels to reverse their climb, and start to fall.” One only cares to any significant degree if one assumes facts not in evidence.
” CO2 levels (which we will assume for the sake of discussion causes global warming)” Just stop it.
And yes, to a prior comment, the next government crisis will be managing CO2 from falling. But, again, so what?
We will have no financial resources by then to address that problem.
No energy. No economy. No cash.
Let me start by saying Roy Spencer, John Christy, Richard Lindzen, William Happer and Patrick Moore are my favorite climate scientists
Unfortunately, I rejected this article for my blog’s daily recommended reading list for several reasons:
It’s a prediction:
I reject all predictions because predictions are rarely right
It treats Nut Zero as a real engineering project that has some chance of success. CO2 levels will continue to rise: 175 of 195 nations are not participating in Nut Zero. Nut Zero is not even a real engineering project — it is a political power strategy, explained here:
The Honest Climate Science and Energy Blog: Nut Zero is a political power strategy and it is working as planned.
I don’t recognize “excess CO2”
For C3 photosynthesis plants, only CO2 above 1,500 ppm would be excess CO2.
I do recognize nature as a NATURAL CO2 absorber in the long run. In the past 4.5 billion years, As proven by the sequestered carbon in rocks, shells, coal, oil and natural gas.
It’s possible our planet had 4% CO2 or even much more 4.5 billion years ago. That CO2 had declined to 0.018% about 20,000 years ago.
The addition of manmade CO2 of about +250 ppm after 1850, less CO2 absorption by nature, reversed that very long term declining CO2 trend, which was very good news.
There is no evidence CO2 emissions will change much from Nut Zero.
FROM MORE CO2:
Slight annual greening of 29% of the Earth (land) should absorb more CO2 by plants.
But slight annual warming of 71% of the Earth (oceans) should absorb less CO2 by the oceans.
In climate history, it seems that atmospheric CO2 levels varied as a result of changes in ocean temperatures.
More CO2 in the air improved plant growth. But that plant growth boost never stopped the 4.5 billion years of intermittently declining atmospheric CO2.
The Honest Climate Science and Energy Blog