by Fred Haynie
I conclude that, the IPCC’s model assumptions that long-term natural net rate of accumulation is constant and anthropogenic emission rates are the only contributor to total long-term accumulation of atmospheric CO2, is false.
All the data I have analyzed are evidence that reported monthly averages are measurements of a global distribution of background levels of CO2. Event flask measurements that were exceptionally high (that could be from local anthropogenic sources) have been flagged and were not included in monthly averages. The result is a consistent global uniformity with no significant variation with longitude and a latitude dependent seasonal variation. That seasonal variation is the greatest and relatively constant north of the Arctic circle. There are similar but lesser seasonal variations in the Antarctic.
The Scripps data set from sites that were selected to represent background, http://scrippsco2.ucsd.edu/data/atmospheric_co2.html, has the longest time coverage for both CO2 and 13CO2 index. Much more data measured around the globe are published at the World Data Centre for Greenhouse Gases . The seasonal variations are caused by natural processes which are temperature dependant. Anthropogenic emissions are not temperature dependent. Therefore, evidence for an anthropogenic increase in atmospheric CO2, is more likely to be observed in long term changes with the seasonal variations factored out.
Year to year increasingly negative 13CO2 index values indicate that the atmosphere is accumulating the lighter CO2 faster than it does the heavier. Since the lighter is more from organic origin and the heavier more from inorganic, it has been assumed that the consistently increasing burning of fossil fuel has caused the difference. This assumption does not consider long-term changes in natural source and sink rates. The long-term proxied ice core data for atmospheric CO2 concentrations indicate that these natural changes are significant and should be considered in any mass balance type of calculation.
The C 13/12 ratio is calculated as:
Delta C13= ((C13/C sample)/(C13/C PDB)-1)*1000.
If we assume that all the CO2 from organic origin can be represented by an average Delta C13 value of somewhere between -15 and -30, and that from inorganic origin has a value of 0 represented by the PDB standard, we can make a first estimate of the organic origin fraction by dividing the index by say -20. Actually, both fractions have ranges of values and there are inorganic fractionation processes that can produce values within the organic range. To get a better estimate of the average organic origin index value, regress the measured values of atmospheric concentration on the measured index values. The resulting concentration coefficient is an estimate of the average organic origin index value for the time period regressed. The ratio of the measured 13CO2 index to this value gives an estimate of the organic fraction. This simple conversion of the Delta C13 index to an organic fraction has no effect on the accuracy of values and reverses the sign so that the accumulation is shown as positive.
The Arctic data has both the highest background concentration values and the greatest seasonal variation. The seasonal variation is likely the results of the ever-changing unfrozen sink area (both ocean and land biosphere). We should be able to get a more accurate CO2 mass balance using these data from this primary sink area. Nearly all of the CO2 is coming from the south and is being delivered in the upper atmosphere.
So what do the Arctic data tell us? Take a look at what I have found at the two sources referenced above. The following plots are based on the monthly averaged data from all the land based measuring sites located north of 60N.
Fig 1. Arctic background CO2 concentrations as a function of time.
The above plot is point to point on averages of monthly averages of 18 sets of data. The average of all the two standard deviations is only 2.2 ppm. Any locational differences appear to be insignificant.
A similar analysis of 13CO2 index data yields the following plot.
Fig 2. Change in 13CO2 index in the Arctic as a function of time.
This plot is based on eight sets of flask data from the same region north of 60N. The observed variations in both plots appear to be mirror images as one should expect.
To reduce the error estimates and improve the signal to noise ratio, both sets of data were smoothed by calculating running three months averages. Since we want to determine the relative natural and anthropogenic contributions, and anthropogenic emissions are rates, we are more interested in accumulation rates rather than the amount accumulated as shown in the above plots. The total seasonal short-term rates were calculated as running two month differences (i.e. 6*(Mar. – Jan.). The long-term values are running twelve month differences (i.e. Jan. 2000 – Jan. 1999). Anthropogenic Emissions assumes uniform global distribution with no sink rate and is shown for comparison with the net measured rates.
Fig 3. Comparison of net short-term and long-term accumulation rates with anthropogenic emissions.
Fig. 4. Comparison of net long-term accumulation rates with anthropogenic emissions.
The seasonal variations (running 2 months) in all of these plots are orders of magnitude greater than the year to year variations (running twelve months). The two months net rates primarily reflect natural processes but may include anthropogenics that have cycled through the system.
The following are similar plots for the smoothed 13CO2 index values.
Fig. 5. Short and long-term rates of change in the 13CO2 index.
Fig. 6. Long term rates of change in the 13CO2 index.
Both sets of running two months differences fit a triangular wave form (cosine function with one harmonic) and an interaction with time term. The resulting R squares are greater than 0.99. Regressing the short-term CO2 accumulation rates on the 13 CO2 index rates and time times the index yields an index coefficient of -19.78 with 2 standard deviations (95% confidence limits) of 0.13. This is a best estimate of the organic fraction average 13 CO2 index mostly from natural sources. With this value I was able to calculate the organic and inorganic fractions of the natural annual cycles and estimate the relative contributions of each.
Fig. 7. Relative contribution to Arctic CO2 concentrations from organic and inorganic sources.
The long-term linear trends accumulation rates are 1.17 ppm/year for organics and 0.57 ppm/year for inorganics. The seasonal variation of the organics is greater than the inorganics and with an opposite phase.
The running 12 months difference data indicate much lower rates that change significantly from year to year. The contribution of anthropogenic emissions should be evident in these data but does not account for the variability.
Regressing the long-term CO2 accumulation rate on both the long-term rate of change in the 13CO2 index, anthropogenic emission rates, and their possible interaction
yields the following results.
Table I. Results of regressing long-term CO2 accumulation rates on long-term 13CO2 index rate of change, anthropogenic emissions, and their interaction.
The following plot graphically presents these results for the anthropogenic contribution to the total long-term accumulation rate of atmospheric CO2.
Fig. 8. Relative contribution of anthropogenic CO2 to the long-term rate of accumulation in the Arctic.
I used the anthropogenic emission rate coefficient and related estimate of error to estimate the accumulation of anthropogenic CO2 in the atmosphere/surface system. The surface includes water, soil and biosphere that are affected by cycles with wave lengths of less than around 500 years. For example, the decay of forest litter has a cycle wave length of about 10 years. Phytoplankton decay is expected to cycle CO2 faster. The results are shown in the following plot.
Fig 9. Estimate of anthropogenic CO2 accumulation in the global atmosphere/surface system from Arctic atmosphere data.
Subtracting the anthropogenic accumulation from the total long-term accumulation (with seasonal variations factored out) gives the net natural long-term accumulation. the following plot shows the results for the Arctic.
Fig. 10. Estimated contributions to atmospheric CO2 concentrations in the Arctic.
Both anthropogenic and natural emissions have been rising, with anthropogenics rising faster than naturals. This relative rise rate is shown in the following plot.
Fig. 11. Relative contribution of anthropogenic emissions to the atmospheric accumulation of CO2 in the Arctic.
This plot indicates that lowering global anthropogenic emissions to 1990 levels would likely lower the accumulation in the Arctic by less than 5%.
To show that the Arctic is representative of the global distribution of atmospheric CO2, I similarly analyzed both the Mauna Loa and Antarctic (south of 60S) data. There are multiple data sets of CO2 and 13CO2 index for both locations.
The following plots compare the results with that obtained from the Arctic data.
Fig. 12. Global long-term rates of accumulation of CO2 for Mauna Loa and Antarctica compared with Arctic.
The trends are similar but the Arctic data is much more variable and the peaks appear to lag by a few months.
Fig. 13. Global long-term rate of change in the 13CO2 index for Mauna Loa and Antarctic compared with Arctic.
The same differences are observed in these results, but they are not as pronounced. Like the Arctic data, there is a strong relationship between the CO2 accumulation rate and the 13CO2 index for the Mauna Loa and Antarctic data. The latter should be a better global signature for atmospheric CO2 distribution and composition. I used the strong correlation ( R > 0.99 ) to calculate 13CO2 values back to 1957 (beginning of Scripps CO2 measurements). I then regressed the long-term CO2 values on anthropogenic emissions and an interaction term between anthropogenic emissions and the long-term rate of change in the 13CO2 values. The results are in the following table.
Table II. Results of regressing long-term CO2 accumulation rates at Mauna Loa and the Antarctic on anthropogenic emission rates and an interaction between anthropogenics and long-term rates of change in the 13CO2 index.
Comparing the results in Table II. with those in Table I. shows the correlation for Mauna Loa/Antarctic is better than for the Arctic. R is greater and the error terms are significantly less. The anthropogenic coefficient for Mauna Loa/Antarctic is less with less associated error, but well within the lower 95% confidence limit for the Arctic anthro coefficient. This coefficient is a better estimate of the fraction of anthropogenic emissions that is accumulating in the earth’s surface environment (water,soil, and biosphere). This coefficient was used to calculate the values for the following plot.
Fig. 14. Natural and anthropogenic emissions contributions to global long-term rates of accumulation of CO2 in the atmosphere. The natural contribution is the total long-term rate minus the anthropogenic emissions accumulation rate.
The natural component global signature looks like it was written by ENSO with matching variations and long-term change. I downloaded the NCDC v4 ERSST for the ENSO area (20S to 0 and 120E to 280E) from Climate Explorer, smoothed it with a 13 month running average, and regressing the long-term natural CO2 accumulation rates on these values and a cylical time function. The best fit is obtained with the CO2 accumulation rates lagging the SSTs by two months and a longer term lag associated with a 30.9 year wavelength cycle. The results are shown in the following plot.
Fig. 15. Relation between natural long-term CO2 accumulation rates and sea surface temperatures in the ENSO area (20S to 0 and 120E to 280E) cycles lagged.
The two months lag indicates temperature is controlling natural emissions of CO2 rather than CO2 concentrations controlling temperature. The mechanism is likely the processes of evaporation/condensation/absorption/convection/freezing that occurs in tropical thunderstorms. These clouds are pumping air containing water vapor and CO2 out their tops where the water freezes and releases CO2. Much of the cold water returns absorbed CO2 to the surface in rain. This cyclical process tends to fractionate the CO2 isotopes with more of the lighter isotopes going out the top. The concentration of the lighter fraction in the upper atmosphere should be a function of the number of cycles. By the time that upper atmospheric air reaches the Arctic, CO2 will have gone through many cycles, resulting in the highest concentrations of the lighter fraction. This effect is added to the biological fractionation effect that, also, is temperature dependant.
To place the relative contributions to global long-term accumulation of atmospheric CO2 in perspective, I used the rates to back calculate 95% confidence limits for both natural and anthropogenic components . The results are shown in the following two plots.
Figure 16. Global net accumulation of anthropogenic emissions and natural emissions of co2 in the atmosphere.
Figure 17. Global long-term relative anthropogenic emissions contribution to atmospheric CO2 accumulation.
Both natural and anthropogenic emissions have been increasing for over 50 years. Although anthropogenics represent a relatively small fraction of the total accumulation, that fraction has nearly tripled in the same time period. So what should we expect in the future and what effect would controlling anthropogenic emissions have on Global concentrations?
I did curve fitting on both the 95% limits of observed total long-term accumulation of CO2 and the estimated accumulation that is probably associated with anthropogenic emissions. I used a Fourier series type model for the total accumulation and an exponential model for anthropogenic emissions. The regression results for the total accumulation are given in tables III and IV.
Table III. Lower 95% limit for global long-term accumulation of atmospheric CO2.
Table IV. Upper 95% limit for global long-term accumulation of atmospheric CO2.
The anthropogenic emissions CO2 accumulation best fits:
Lower 95% Limit = exp(-42.851+.0231*t),and
Upper 95% Limit = exp(-42.486+0.023*t), where t is years.
Both fits have R squared values greater than 0.999.
These relationships can be used in “what if” calculations to project what we may probably expect in the future. For example, the following plot indicates that atmospheric concentrations will peak out around 450 ppm around 2060 if emission rates continued as trended.
Figure 18. Projected contributions of natural and anthropogenic emissions to the long-term global accumulation of CO2 in the atmosphere.
These should be rather good projections for areas around 15S latitude where seasonal variations are relatively insignificant. Seasonal variations at other latitudes are additive to these long-term projections.
I conclude that, the IPCC’s model assumptions that long-term natural net rate of accumulation is constant and anthropogenic emission rates are the only contributor to total long-term accumulation of atmospheric CO2, is false. It should be a simple matter for IPPC programmers to include these “what if” inputs in their models to see if they can produce more realistic projections. Also, they can enter lower anthropogenic emission rates to see how much (or how little) difference it makes in the value and time that atmospheric CO2 is expected to peak out. Economist could have a field day with cost/benefit modeling.
JC note: This was originally posted on Fred Haynie’s blog, where there are some good comments. This post was mentioned in the comments on a previous thread, where a request was made to discuss this topic at CE. As with all guest posts, please keep your comments relevant and civil.
Update: I’m interested in Fred’s analysis for these reasons:
- an interest in understanding the role of the Arctic in the carbon cycle
- an interest in understanding the role of multidecadal oscillations in the ocean in the carbon cycle (i.e. natural decadal variations)
- and of course, the stadium wave links the two previous points together to some extent
I am making no personal judgment on Fred’s analysis; I find Greg Goodman’s comments and ensuing discussion with Fred on the original blog post to be interesting.
Bottom line is that I think the traditional method of analyzing all this leaves out multidecadal natural variability which is relevant on the timescales of interest. Same problem I have with sensitivity analyses (the recent Lewis/Curry paper accounted for some of this in a limited way)
Reblogged this on Centinel2012 and commented:
Interesting analysis appears to be real science! So that means no one will consider it.
Mr. Haynie,
Thank you for your work and for sharing. Would you be willing to offer a bio? This might be of value in addressing Centinel2012’s concern.
From Fred’s LinkedIn profile: environmental engineer, retired, formerly with the US EPA ASRL, research expertise on the effects of air pollutants.
This is an interesting article that will need time to digest
Maybe the EPA background explains why our engineer freind thing running averages and running diffs are a low-pass filter of choice.
Taking fig 6 as an example we see that there is still considerable sub-annual variability in the 12 month diff.
https://retiredresearcher.files.wordpress.com/2011/11/lt-rate-of-12-co2-change.jpg
This should have be been removed by a decent fitler. In fact most of it will be corrupt, inverted data that this kind of ‘filter’ produces. I would suggest a simple 6month gaussian which would give a much clearer plot and help to see the longer term changes.
I discussed this in an article here on CE a couple of years back. My original is here and provided links to some alternative filters, including gaussian.
https://climategrog.wordpress.com/2013/05/19/triple-running-mean-filters/
freind thing = friend thinks?
The “natural” contribution looks suspiciously highly correlated with the anthropogenic part, presumably because “nature” guessed what Man was going to do and just did the same, or it is just a coincidence. The future projection curve-fitting uses a hoped for Fourier match for this “natural” part rather than the more obvious upward exponential. This bends it down, even when there is no sign of such a thing happening so far.
CO2 stayed above 400 ppm for a month for the first time in March. Half of the rise has been since 1980, which coincidentally is also the period of half the emissions.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/05/06/carbon-dioxide-400-ppm_n_7224088.html
Yes. Something doesn’t seem quite right.
While I’m highly skeptical of the ice core CO2 data (taking a quick look at emissions and concentrations, it doesn’t seem plausible that CO2 levels were as low and stable as shown), I think it is very unlikely that most of 20th C is natural. I doubt much more than 30 or 40 ppm are in the normal multi-decadal/centenial variability.
But Jim, his point is that natural process determine how much CO2 ends up in the atmosphere regardless of origin.
I think there is a bit of a miscommunication here, I think we need a better summary of what is happening.
Aaron,
From Fig. 16 it looks as though this model says that from 1960 to 2010, about 5/8 was natural and 3/8 anthropogenic. Is that the way you read it?
Eyeballing, looks about right. About 50ppm natural and a little over 40ppm anthro. But fig 9 looks like anthro over half.
So, what I think he’s saying is that antro emissions are growing, natural emissions are growing, and sinks are growing even more.
I think non-linearity in all of these make his conclusions overconfident/overstated.
I think that precipitation, convective processes, ocean mixing, bio activity probably have more to do with CO2 level than temp. Temp just happens to correlate strongly with these.
Jim D: The “natural” contribution looks suspiciously highly correlated with the anthropogenic part, presumably because “nature” guessed what Man was going to do and just did the same, or it is just a coincidence.
This is not the first time that it has been pointed out that the measures of the hypothetical human effects are correlated with the measures of the hypothetical natural effects. Getting them clearly disentangled will be hard, and until there is something that can disentangle them unequivocally the estimate of the size of the human effects will always be dependent on the hypotheses about the sizes of the natural effects. That’s among the facts that some people attempt to deny outright.
As someone else said, it is very odd that after millennia of flat CO2 levels, some “natural” effect kicked in just as fossil emissions started to increase and that continues to follow the shape of emissions, but some people appear to believe that is what has happened. The fact that Man has emitted twice as much as the atmospheric increase seems not to sway their view either. It shows a complete disregard of the carbon budgets in nature.
During the so called little ice age,the northern peatlands were sources of emission not sinks due to decreased PAR and lower temperatures.[Charman 2013]
Total carbon accumulated over the last 1000 yr is linearly related to contemporary growing season length and photosynthetically active radiation, suggesting that variability in net primary productivity is more important than decomposition in determining long-term carbon accumulation.Furthermore, northern peatland carbon sequestration rate declined over the climate transition from the Medieval Climate Anomaly (MCA) to the Little Ice Age (LIA), probably because of lower LIA temperatures combined with increased cloudiness suppressing net primary productivity
Jim D: , it is very odd that after millennia of flat CO2 levels,
Where is the evidence that the atmospheric CO2 concentrations were constant for millenia? With the oscillation in the global mean temperature over the last 11+ millenia, it is unlikely to have been flat, and accurate estimates are not available.
Matthewrmarler.
There are several lines of evidence available:
The 13C/12C ratio does distinguish between organic (fossil or recent) and inorganic sources.
The oxygen balance (and the zero 14C content) does distinguish between fossil and recent organics.
The 13C/12C ratio excludes the oceans as source:
If the increase in the atmosphere was from the oceans, the δ13C level in the atmosphere would go up, but there is a firm decline in δ13C level in the atmosphere and the ocean surface layer, in complete lockstep with human emissions:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/sponges.jpg
All what happens is that the permanent exchange of CO2 between the atmosphere and the deep oceans of ~40 GtC/year dilutes the human “fingerprint”, which makes that Fred Haynie’s “natural” contribution is no contribution at all…
The oxygen balance excludes the biosphere as source:
One can calculate the oxygen use from burning fossil fuels from fuel sales and burning efficiency. That shows that there is slightly less oxygen used than calculated. That means that the biosphere as a whole is a net, growing source of O2, thus a net sink for CO2 and preferentially 12CO2, thus not the cause of the CO2 increase, neither of the δ13C decline.
All other possible sources (volcanoes, rock weathering,…) either too small or too slow…
All what is left as sole source are human emissions, which fit all observations…
Ferdinand Engelbeen: The 13C/12C ratio excludes the oceans as source:
If the increase in the atmosphere was from the oceans, the δ13C level in the atmosphere would go up, but there is a firm decline in δ13C level in the atmosphere and the ocean surface layer, in complete lockstep with human emissions:
I did ask for evidence over multiple millenia: what are the estimates of CO2 concentration during the previous warm periods and the cool periods in between, during the Holocene?
matthewrmarler,
Sorry, I am completely lost in all the loose ends here…
Ice cores of different resolution cover the Holocene:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/antarctic_cores_010kyr.jpg
The most detailed core over the full Holocene (~40 years resolution) is Taylor Dome, data can be found at:
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/data-access/paleoclimatology-data/datasets/ice-core
Ferdinand Engelbeen: The most detailed core over the full Holocene (~40 years resolution) is Taylor Dome, data can be found at:
Thank you. That’s telling.
Jim D, I only can agree: 800,000 years of reliable (be it smoothed) ice core data which show 8 ppmv/K change, suddenly start to increase from natural causes at exact the same moment and in exact ratio as the human emissions. Not only CO2 but also CH4 and N2O…
There are high resolution ice cores like Law Dome with a resolution of about 20 years which show a ~6 ppmv drop for the ~0.8 K drop in temperature between MWP and LIA, but a similar (or smaller) warming since the LIA would give half of the 110 ppmv CO2 increase?
There are much more solid arguments to discuss the overblown “projections” of climate models and the resulting dire predictions.
Discussing the origin of the CO2 increase in the atmosphere is the worst thing to do for skeptics: that is a lost battle, where all observations fit the human cause and climate science is unusually solid. See:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/co2_origin.html
Ferdinand, yes, you have an informative graphic here.
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/acc_co2_1900_2004.jpg
Skeptics will say correlation isn’t causation, but when it is 0.9966, they should at least pay attention, and not dismiss it completely. They are all grasping at this being just a coincidence, which just looks like the usual denialism in the face of evidence. This one is typical of all their arguments against the evidence.
Jim D,
“Skeptics will say correlation isn’t causation”…………seriously? Who would say it is? Steven Mosher might refer to this as a “weak argument” and one that shouldn’t be used.
Danny, correlation is evidence of causation. Don’t you think so? In this case, pretty strong evidence.
Jim D,
Only part of the picture and you know that: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Correlation_does_not_imply_causation
http://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-mh-see-correlation-is-not-causation-20140512-column.html
Understood what you meant, but giving you a hard time about what you said.
(have fun with the second link, think you’ll enjoy)
In this case, the skeptics who deny that CO2 has risen almost entirely because of anthropogenic causes (which seems to be almost all of them here) have to explain why Nature wants to do something that is so correlated, beyond chance, with Man, or vice versa.
“This one is typical of all their arguments against the evidence.’
You were having a good day and you had to say that, little jimmy dee. Very small of you, jimmy. Your stature is shrinking. You must be living close to a stature sink.
Don M, the skeptics are self-inflicting this one on themselves. Reasonable people can just look on with pity.
True dat, little jimmy. But what you said does not reflect well on your character and intelligence. I would say you have not acquited yourself well, despite the opportunity you were handed on a gold platter.
Don M, this whole natural CO2 thing is a good example of the motivated reasoning and groupthink that Judith keeps talking about. If a skeptic deviated and said that the main post was junk, they would have got a battering and lost club membership, so they either toe the line or keep quiet.
You are digging deeper, yimmy. You must have missed what I said and several others. Do you think I am on your side? HELLO! YIMMY!
Don M, it is a sad state here when you are the lone voice of reason.
There you go again, jimmy dee. You are shrinking. Smaller and smaller, in an ever deeper hole.
I could coach you and get you out of the deep crevace you are in. Your presentation is all wrong. No wit, no humor, no finesse. Just the same old rote dogma punctuated with links to huffpo and pal reviewed papers that no one will read. You desperately need to up your game, jimmy. Start by telling the truth, occasionally.
Dany,
I am very skeptical about the “projections” of climate models as I am pretty sure that climate models do overestimate the effect of 2xCO2 (and aerosols) and underestimate natural variability.
But I am as sure that the current CO2 increase is almost completely caused by human emissions.
Indeed correlation is not necessary causation. But if all evidence points to one cause and that possible cause is delivering twice the amount that is found back in the atmosphere, it would be a hell of a coincidence that some natural cause started at the exact moment and increase rate as human emissions, without violating one observation (which is impossible)…
“In this case, the skeptics who deny that CO2 has risen almost entirely because of anthropogenic causes (which seems to be almost all of them here) have to explain why Nature wants to do something that is so correlated, beyond chance, with Man, or vice versa.”
One can also ask why only approx. 50% of anthro emissions “accumulate” and that this appears to remain true over roughly an order of magnitude increase in emissions. Nor does this appear to be levelling off as “sinks saturate”. How very odd that nature seems to have anticipated our output and adjusted to match…
Or one might compare the residuals on C ratios vs ppms and question why these appear to match the “random, natural” variations better than the more nearly straight-line anthro emissions – surely highly suggestive that it is sinks, not sources, causing the decline.
Yes, there are many questions yet to be answered in climate research. And while indicative your evidences may be, definitive they are not, so ignoring counter-factuals doesn’t help understanding – rather the opposite.
kneel, the proportionality is what is expected from chemistry considerations. There is no saturation, just a ratio between the air and water. The ratio also depends a little on temperature, and that affects the annual accumulation too. So, yes, Nature does adjust to Man because Nature obeys chemistry laws.
Ferdinand Engelbeen,
it would be a hell of a coincidence that some natural cause started at the exact moment and increase rate as human emissions, without violating one observation (which is impossible)…
ok. Which of the following are impossible or helluva coincidences?
Medieval Warming Period:
1) Very strong regional NH warming
2) Increased Methane clathrate release
3) Awakening of dormant vegetation decay CO2
4) Sinking of 2) & 3) by open Arctic ocean
Modern Warming Period:
1) MWP CO2 released after 800 yr delay.
2) Strong global warming
3) Arctic Ocean opens.
Follow-up questions:
1) Is the MWP CO2 source > or < modern Arctic CO2 sink?
2) By how much?
3) Is interest in regional quantification anti-science?
Jim D | May 9, 2015 at 12:19 am |
“Danny, correlation is evidence of causation. Don’t you think so? In this case, pretty strong evidence.”
Ugh. No. It’s a clue of where to look for causation.
For instance shoe size is positively correlated with income. The bigger the shoe the more a person earns. Is foot size a cause of higher earnings? Of course not.
Jim D:
Absolutely not the case. If you have two unrelated quantities, both with a linear trend, you will get nearly perfect correlation every time.
This is regardless of whether you are correlating atmospheric CO2 concentration versus anthropogenic CO2 emissions, or CO2 concentration versus annual number of plants sprayed by male cats.
Evidence for causation is established by the presence of a model that predicts a correlation between two quantitates, which is then empirically confirmed to exist.
Ferdinand Engelbeen:
It’s my impression this is a sentiment shared by a great number of scientists and engineers (including myself, though perhaps we might disagree by how much the models are overstating ECS).
Jim D: Skeptics will say correlation isn’t causation, but when it is 0.9966, they should at least pay attention, and not dismiss it completely.
“Pay attention”: that is what I advocate.
blueice2hotsea
Medieval Warming Period:
Points 1-4 are good for an increase of ~6 ppmv in the atmosphere. Measurable only in high resolution ice cores.
Modern Warming Period:
1) MWP CO2 released after 800 yr delay.
Hardly: there is little influence of the small increased CO2 level during the MWP on the sinking waters. If that comes back to the surface now, that may give 1-2 ppmv extra.
2) Strong global warming
Good for 5 ppmv extra.
3) Arctic Ocean opens.
Should give more sink capacity.
Follow-up questions:
1) Is the MWP CO2 source > or < modern Arctic CO2 sink?
The Arctic together with the Antarctic removed ~40 GtC/year at steady state. Currently increased to ~43 GtC/year. Extra upwelling from the MWP maximum 0.5 GtC/year.
2) By how much? See 1)
3) Is interest in regional quantification anti-science?
Why would that be anti-science? We know the total balance with reasonable accuracy, we roughly know the largest fluxes and reservoirs, but there are lots of details which are far from quantified and many may not even be known… Thus far more reason to look into regional and local balances than to sit back and say "we know everything what we need to know".
Jim D: If a skeptic deviated and said that the main post was junk, they would have got a battering and lost club membership, so they either toe the line or keep quiet.
That is absurd. There is no “club membership” or any other enforced “line”.
So that natural CO2 lags temperature is confirmed in paleo. Does anthropogenic CO2 drive trmperature?
Yes.
Paleo has examples of leading too (volcanic eras like the Permian-Triassic boundary). This one is much like those.
Not to any degree that we need to worry about it. The benefits far outweigh the consequences.
Warming from aCO2 is occurring predominantly over land, at night, in higher latitudes, in the winter.
If we were to wish for a global climate more friendly to living things we would wish for warming at night, over land, in higher latitudes, in the winter.
The reason the AGW is distributed unevenly across the globe is CO2 has the greatest greenhouse effect where there is the least water on the surface available for evaporation and the least water vapor in the atmosphere to compete with CO2 for the limited number of photons in the narrow CO2 absorption band.
Add to that great benefit to the primary producers in the food chain of longer growing seasons in the colder latitudes plus the acceleration in plant growth rate afforded by higher CO2 concentration plus the reduced water requirement per unit of plant growth (which helps in places where soil water content is a limiting factor) and it becomes clear that CO2 is a boon to life in general.
The only real downside appears to be sea level rise and then only to one species that stupidly built a lot of immovable concrete and steel nests close to sea level. That species will need to abandon some ill-placed nesting sites. Fortunately sea level is rising so slowly there is plenty of time to migrate to new nesting locations on higher ground.
Or, perhaps, adopt
a newanother approach to nest-building.http://www.zastavki.com/pictures/originals/2012/Cities_Venice_canals_035233_.jpg
http://static.hothdwallpaper.net/51924c8e1e82d46397.jpg
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-jbFkj1g0v98/UEqwH9PGS9I/AAAAAAAAFwo/7bmh7OKVCyw/s1600/Grand%2BCanal%252C%2BVenice%252C%2BItaly.jpg
More.
I see a lot of curve-fitting, but I don’t see any meaningful effort to examine the validity of the resulting curves. There are all sorts of unexplored parameters in this. Outside the parameters explicit to the models themselves, there are all sorts of issues about the data transformations, the time periods chosen (especially since we’re shown different time periods for different data sets), and the very nature of the models themselves.
How are we supposed to know these fits aren’t spurious? While the post emphasizes the “strong correlation ( R > 0.99 )” in its fits, the reality is results like those almost always indicate a model which has been significantly overfit. I’d wager that’s the case here.
I’m really struggling to see how this is more than meaningless curve-fitting. That’s especially true for the future accumulation rates given at the end.
“I’m really struggling to see how this is more than meaningless curve-fitting.”
Could the same question be asked of the IPCC’s models of the climate?
brandon go read it at his site and read the comments.
This is pretty bad to make it on to Judith’s. its begining to feel like WUWT..
Judith likes to step in some doo-doo, every so often. Maybe she just gets bored.
I know this may sound crazy, but simply because a paper is wrong doesn’t mean it shouldn’t ever get published. I think Judith realizes that wrong science is not a virus (it does not infect you and then you die for example).
This article is made much better when you see the comments on Fred Haynie’s blog post..
Greg Goodman harps on the evils of running averages (he and I had some back and forth here that people might be interested in).
As usual, I appreciated Ferdinand Engelbeen’s comments on that blog. I think Ferdinand has pretty well nailed the issues with Fred’s post. Fred did not unfortunately seem receptive to admitting error, but sometimes that can be instructive when it happens too.
Carrick, I’m okay with wrong things being published. I don’t see a way to exclude papers as “wrong” without causing all sorts of undesirable effects. I just also don’t see what there is to learn from this post.
Actually, I think this post could provide a good learning experience if people would address the problems in it. A good critique/rebuttal of the post’s approach could be informative. It doesn’t accomplish much to say, “It’s wrong,” but sitting down and demonstrating how it is wrong could teach people quite a bit.
But that doesn’t seem to be happening.
Brandon, yes it’s absolutely necessary for wrong arguments to get published. Otherwise, for example, their refutation never sees light of day. In those cases, the bad arguments just linger on and on and never really die.
The main thing this post has done for me is to draw attention to Ferdinand Englebeen’s post, which I hadn’t actually see before.
But I agree more could be done. My biggest objection to many of the comments and arguments presented here and elsewhere (on either side) would be their lack of a quantitative nature. So in the end they just amount to vigorous hand-waving.
As a counter point, Lucia’s blog has had a number of constructive model-driven discussions on CO2, see for example this one, which nicely demonstrates the folly of just using verbal argument and hand waving to try and argue quantitative points.
Unfortunately for lay people, there is a limit to what you can really accomplish without resorting either to accepting somebody’s word as an authority or without writing down a physically-reality constrained mathematical model.
The problem with using just words is you can either describe a precise physical theory…or you can with equal ease describe a wild fairy tale with no anchoring whatsoever in reality.
Steven,
Many years ago you made a comment that it would be beneficial if some funding could be made available to locate and validate some historical climate observations. This morning my wife, who has been doing some genealogy research, gave me a print out of page 76 of the History of El Dorado County (published in 1883) as she thought I’d be interested in “Table of Rainfall at Shingle Springs (Altitude 1,350 feet)” as it covers “19 years” of data by month “beginning with September, 1849 and being continued to April , 1868.” Thought you might want the reference for your files. The data was compiled by Dr. J. R. Edwards.
As we are in a drought you might find this info of interest: “The heaviest rainfall in any year was 77.8 inches, during 1861/2; the lightest, 17.20 inches in 1850/1, the average 31.64 inches.”
The last sentence on page 76 says this: “As the results of careful observations and registrations from the time of the first settlement, this record is worthy of permanent preservation.” Pg 77 contains a data table with rainfall by month for the 19 years. Hopefully the info will be of some use to you.
Brandon S? (@ Corpus no Logos): I’m really struggling to see how this is more than meaningless curve-fitting.
You can’t be sure that it is. Perhaps it will stimulate someone to examine other sources of data to distinguish natural from man-made. As the author noted, looking at the isotope ratios seemed for a while like a way (he didn’t put it that way), but they turn out not to be unambiguous.
We do know that nature isn’t driving around in SUVs and operating fossil fueled power plants. How much CO2 do you figure that humans add to the atmosphere in a year?
matthewrmarler, I’m all for people examining the issue. I just don’t see how bad work improves the situation. If people weren’t examining the issue before, will doing bad work really make them start? I don’t see why it would.
I wouldn’t even be bothered by the curve-fitting if it were presented as such. Curve-fitting can be useful for exploratory purposes. One could use a similar approach in a way which is constructive. The problem is this post doesn’t do that. it doesn’t treat its work as exploratory, suggesting paths of discovery. It draws strong conclusions. That’s not right.
Brandon S?(@Corpus no Logos): it doesn’t treat its work as exploratory, suggesting paths of discovery. It draws strong conclusions.
I agree, but that’s easily fixed with a modest amount of rewriting. Hopefully the author will revise a bit when he submits for publication. That is pretty standard for this field, wouldn’t you say — both sentences? Consider Michael Mann’s (and co-authors’) paper on re-estimating the Atlantic and Pacific multidecadal oscillations; was it written as exploratory, suggesting paths of discovery? I wrote a similar comment when he put up the post at RealClimate: if you make an assumption about the signal, you can re-estimate the noise, and refine your model of the signal; if you make an assumption about the noise, you can re-estimate the signal, and refine your estimate of the noise. In both cases, and in many such cases, you can not be sure that what you have accomplished is more than meaningless curve-fitting. That will require out-of-sample data, probably of multiple kinds.
In the larger context, the entire “anti-CO2 alarmism” was started before anyone tried seriously considering, let alone trying to model, natural variability. It was simply assumed to be negligible, something like low-variance stationary white noise. Now we have multiple demonstrations that the extant data are compatible with large amounts of natural variation and negligible anthropogenic effects.
Up until now, I have not seen any attempt to distinguish anthropogenic CO2 accumulation rates from natural CO2 accumulation rates and that natural sources and sinks have never been clearly quantified. So from this POV alone, I consider that this paper to be of more than usual interest.
While I remain sceptical that CO2 is the main driver of climate change it still seems to show that the current global warming is not mainly derived from anthropogenic emissions of CO2 in any case. Global warming, slight that it may be, seems more related to other factors such as changes in cloud, wind and ocean currents
Peter Davies: So from this POV alone, I consider that this paper to be of more than usual interest.
My reaction as well. Maybe it will stimulate more research that will eventually disentangle natural from anthropogenic effects.
Watching Dr Salby’s video on this, I relized a big issue with the isotope data. If the earth’s natural churning of CO2 is 10-20X higher than man’s emissions…shouldn’t the anthropogenic CO2 be almost entirely removed and replaced with CO2 already in the system?
And that being the case…perhaps the isotope change could also be a result of the natural sources as the earth warmed from the little ice age.
The roughly 210 GT of atmospheric turnover vs 830 GT of atmospheric carbon (5.6 year mean lifetime) vs 9.8 GT of emissions means you are looking for a small signal in a lot of noise.
There are 2 GT of emissions from burning rainforest every year as well.
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“I conclude that, the IPCC’s model assumptions that long-term natural net rate of accumulation is constant and anthropogenic emission rates are the only contributor to total long-term accumulation of atmospheric CO2, is false.”
This post is incomprehensible. For heavens sake, start with documenting a few things. What model are we talking about? What did the IPCC assume, and what did they say? What in all that rigmarole says that it is false.
And then please explain, if there is some other cause of long term accumulation, why hasn’t it been accumulating. It’s been steady for many centuries.
Come on, nicky. It’s comprehensible. A joke. Get it?
Nick Stokes: This post is incomprehensible. For heavens sake, start with documenting a few things.
Don’t be absurd — he starts with a clear statement of his result, then presents a comprehensible development.
“he starts with a clear statement of his result”
That’s what I quoted. Clear? OK, do you know what model he’s talking about? Or what the IPCC assumed? Or how he disproved it?
> Don’t be absurd — he starts with a clear statement of his result […]
Not only that, but the post also ends with a clear statement of his conclusion:
The very same sentence.
That surely means something.
what it means is that I copied his conclusion to the beginning of the post, so people knew what the post was about.
> what it means is that I copied his conclusion to the beginning of the post, so people knew what the post was about.
One does not simply reblog an edited post, Judy. This induced Matt to believe that the author “starts with a clear statement of his result,” which is false.
Please use typographical tricks to separate your edits from the author’s text.
***
This also means that your admission makes this comment false:
https://retiredresearcher.wordpress.com/2011/11/03/quantifying-the-anthropogenic-contribution-to-the-global-background-level-of-atmospheric-co2/#comment-76
Simple reblogs are not exactly guest posts.
***
This is not science, but it is important.
This is not like going up against McIntyre, nicky. You got a winner here. This stuff is straight from Denierville. Don’t let them intimidate you, nicky.
Don Monfort: This stuff is straight from Denierville. Don’t let them intimidate you, nicky.
Formally, it is like Vaughan Pratt’s modelling. With some semiquantitative hypotheses about signal and noise (or anthropogenic and natural), he worked out quantitative refinements, and showed that with the data at hand it is possible that a certain statement is true: in Pratt’s case, he ended with refined estimates of background noise and the human signal in warming; in Haynie’s case, he ended with refined estimates of background noise and human signal in atmospheric CO2. About Pratt’s result I wrote that he might have found the “Holy Grail” of the CO2-climate relationship, or it might just be the latest result from a long line of curve-fitting on an extensively examined set of data. About Haynie’s result I wrote that you can’t tell whether the result is true or just the result of a bunch of curve fitting.
The fact is that the principle human agency and the background variation have large co-occurred during the warming since 1880. If you knew the background variation you could estimate the human signal; if you knew the signal, you could estimate the background variation. As it is, you can make a hypothesis about the size of one and then estimate the implied size of the other — there is a symmetry.
Some people fall back on pre-conceived notions, exactly what they believed before reading the data analysis — what Bayesians call “priors”. If you have a strong belief that such a large increase in atmospheric CO2 can’t possibly have a non-human origin, then you largely disregard this analysis. If you think that such a large increase in atmospheric CO2 must have a largely non-human origin, then Haynie has computed a reasonable estimate of the amount that is of human origin. If there is a clear case one way or another, I have not yet come across it; all the arguments have liabilities.
It wouldn’t be a good idea to believe that Haynie has presented an accurate estimates of the natural and human contributions. But I think, or at least hope, that other people will look for more ways to distinguish between the human and natural combinations.
very well said:
“It wouldn’t be a good idea to believe that Haynie has presented an accurate estimates of the natural and human contributions. But I think, or at least hope, that other people will look for more ways to distinguish between the human and natural combinations.”
I agree. Both the rise in ENSO temperatures and anthropogenic emissions are covariant over the range of available data and it is hard to partition the relative contributions. If these are the only contributers in a model both are contributing but which is more significant and best fits the data on any time scale? More work by better minds is required to get a final answer. If CO2 follows ENSO temperatures by say 20 or thirty years and is a major contributor, one would expect a decrease in the rate of accumulation some time in the climate change future. I don’t expect to live to see it within the next twenty years but I can estimate what to expect next year or five years from now.
Matt, we pretty much know how much CO2 we have added to the atmosphere and will continue to add. It’s a lot. If natural variability can significantly in a short time frame either add to, or subtract from the amount of CO2 that get’s retained, we are still in the same boat, or maybe worse off. How does not knowing about natural variability change our policy choices?
Don Monfort: Matt, we pretty much know how much CO2 we have added to the atmosphere and will continue to add.
What we don’t know are: (a) how much of the CO2 in the atmosphere is due to the human additions and (b) how much a reduction in human CO2 will reduce the atmospheric CO2 concentration
How does not knowing about natural variability change our policy choices?
My policy prescriptions are: (a) more construction of well-designed flood control and irrigation projects; (b) constructing greater resilience to other kinds of natural disasters, such as earthquakes, fires, and cyclonic storms; (c) continued R&D on energy sources to replace fossil fuels. I doubt that a rapid build-down of fossil-fueled power plants will produce a good effect any time soon. So the policy choices are about the same, but this analysis might increase doubt that rapid elimination of fossil fuel use will produce good results.
“What we don’t know are: (a) how much of the CO2 in the atmosphere is due to the human additions and (b) how much a reduction in human CO2 will reduce the atmospheric CO2 concentration”
What we do know is that we put a lot of CO2 into the atmosphere and it’s got to be someplace. It either remains in the atmosphere, or it is in a natural sink. This is in addition to the natural CO2 that is either in the atmosphere, or in a sink. We know that CO2 content in the atmosphere has varied considerably in the past, at times a lot higher. Not much lower. If we suppose that natural CO2 is responsible for some significant part of the recent rise in CO2, does that make us less worried about human CO2? If we listen to Fred, don’t we have to now worry about natural variability of CO2 as well as the human part? It’s worse than we thought.
> If we suppose that natural CO2 is responsible for some significant part of the recent rise in CO2, does that make us less worried about human CO2?
Mr. T asks himself the same question.
***
Less than 50% can still be significant. Think in terms of election turnout:
http://calgary.ctvnews.ca/voter-turnout-the-strongest-in-decades-in-alberta-1.2361119
High turnouts get progressive parties elected in Alberta.
Fancy that.
Don, the implication is that sensitivity is low.
This post is NOT incomprehensible, but I fully agree that documentation and support for assertions is lacking. It needs to be far more rigorously presented IMO, I think Greg Goodman’s remarks on his blog to be an excellent review.
1. There is about 2 GT/Y of rainforest emissions
2. There is about 0.5 GT/Y of carbon sink destroyed.
3. The net carbon sink destroyed since 1900 is about 40 GT/Y of sinking capacity – over 8 times the annual rise in CO2.
4. The atmospheric absorption is increasing twice as fast as emissions (180% vs 80%)..
5. The rate of atmospheric increase in CO2 is virtually constant in the face of an exponential increase in emissions.
6. The post 1900 warming would have increased net emission from the ocean (a 38000 GT carbon sink).
7. The post 1900 warming woud have increased net emission from land due to various decay processes.
8. The exchange between ocean/land and atmosphere of 210 GT/Y dwarfs the 9.8 GT/Y carbon emissions.
So:
1. The net rate of accumulation is not constant. Claiming it is is an outright lie.
2. The anthropogenic emission rates have little or no relationship to the actual rise and don’t correlate all that well.
The anthropogenic emission rates are part of the picture but it isn’t clear how big a part.
http://i.imgur.com/krv1PnR.png
The contention that there is a strong relationship between emissions and CO2 is just ludicrous.
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This post was already taken apart when it was first posted.
jeez.
Greg Goodman seemed to like it.
Where was it taken apart? I read Greg Goodmans excellent responses to it on his blog. The main problem as I see it (and touched on by Nick Stokes) is lack of references or further support and justification for some assertions, and the appearance of over fitting.
It seems more a problem of presentation rather than substance. Or is that what you meant by it being “taken apart”? If so then I think that’s an unfair characterisation, since “taken apart” is often implies “discredited”. That would be ironic if you were yourself being unclear in criticising someone for not being clear enough.
> “taken apart” is often implies “discredited”
Unless one presumes that as soon as an error gets spotted, it becomes common knowledge, I don’t think that these two words are synonym.
For instance, here’s one possible source of the taking apart:
https://retiredresearcher.wordpress.com/2011/11/03/quantifying-the-anthropogenic-contribution-to-the-global-background-level-of-atmospheric-co2/#comment-5
looks a lot
Then Ferdinand goes on to explain what he believes is the basic problem with the calculation.
That ze Moshpit believes Ferdinand has taken apart Fred’s calculation seems more natural to me than to believe there’s a problem of presentation.
Now, assuming that Ferdinand’s right (I guess Willard Tony’s fans know how often he wrote such a comment) about Fred’s calculation, one possible effect is that the calculation gets discredited. However, that effect does not follow ipso facto. For instance, it has been reblogged here and elsewhere.
Reblogging cascade, anyone?
***
In any case, as long as it induces people to look for alternative ways to do attribution, Mr. T’s happy. As a bonus, Judy gets some crowdsourcing effort for her forthcoming post.
What’s not to like about that post?
Hope this helps,
W
This doesn’t make a lot of sense to me: “The seasonal variations are caused by natural processes which are temperature dependant [sic]. Anthropogenic emissions are not temperature dependent.”
Here in northern New England, anthropogenic emissions sure seem to be temperature dependent to me! We use a lot of oil, wood, and some gas for heat in the winter, and don’t need a whole lot of cooling in the summer. You also don’t get out in your car as much in the winter because not a whole lot is going on (remember “cabin fever”), but summertime is vacation time. I can see how such factors might mostly cancel out globally, but I don’t see how the described methodology could generate a baseline non-anthropogenic CO2 concentration that doesn’t vary by lattitude or longitude.
When the CO2 concentrations were around 7000 ppm, some time ago, the anthropogenic component was zero, the natural component 100%.
No runaway greenhouse effect since then. The Antarctic managed to freeze.
CO2 levels in the past have risen and fallen. Assuming that Nature has lost the ability to cause a rise in CO2 levels, is somewhat naive.
In that case, there is no way of quantifying any anthropogenic long term change. As the Earth doesn’t seem to be warming overall, it appears CO2 levels below 1000ppm are no particular cause for concern, regardless of the origin.
You’re forgetting the Sun, which was fainter when CO2 was around 7000ppm than it is now. Strange that, given that it’s almost always the Sun, except when it’s not.
ATTP,
So the Sun got brighter after the advent of Man? How much brighter, would you say? How much did the Antarctic warm owing to this brighter Sun?
The Antarctic remains frozen, in spite of the warmer Sun. I’m forgetting nothing. The GHE didn’t work for four billion years, and it doesn’t work now. Sorry about that.
Mike,
No, stars get brighter as the move along the main-sequence. A star like the Sun was probably about 3-4% fainter 500Myr ago than it is now. So, that would reduce solar forcing by maybe 10W/^2. A CO2 concentration of 7000ppm would produce a radiative forcing of around 17W/m^2 relative to pre-industrial times. So, the slightly fainter Sun would imply that the Earth would have been cooler than today, but the higher CO2 compensates for that, to produce a net increase in forcing of around 7W/m^2 relative to pre-industrial. This is about 2 doublings of CO2 relative to pre-industrial times and is consistent with temperatures being about 10C higher then than they are now.
ATTP,
Unfortunately, the Antarctic froze over much more recently than 500Myr ago. The oldest ice is apparently only 1.5 million years old, with most being younger than that.
Before that, ice free, obviously.
Maybe your Sun got colder at that point, but has increased brightness since. All very confusing, because the Antarctic ice cap refuses to melt.
All a bit reminiscent of circular orbits, cycles, and ever more complicated epicycles to explain observations.
You see, as the temperature dropped from a molten surface to the present, it had to be at some point 10C warmer. No need for GHE at all.
Occam’s razor, and all that.
ATTP. It’s been known for a long time that insolation variation alone can’t account for the temperature variations. But the Sun has more attributes than visible photons. UV, magnetic effects, solar wind effects, … those sorts of things have to be eliminated as a hypothetical.
..and Then There’s Physics | May 7, 2015 at 5:29 am |
Mike,
No, stars get brighter as the move along the main-sequence. A star like the Sun was probably about 3-4% fainter 500Myr ago than it is now. So, that would reduce solar forcing by maybe 10W/^2. A CO2 concentration of 7000ppm would produce a radiative forcing of around 17W/m^2 relative to pre-industrial times. So, the slightly fainter Sun would imply that the Earth would have been cooler than today, but the higher CO2 compensates for that, to produce a net increase in forcing of around 7W/m^2 relative to pre-industrial. This is about 2 doublings of CO2 relative to pre-industrial times and is consistent with temperatures being about 10C higher then than they are now.
Lets fact check this:
http://www.americanthinker.com/legacy_assets/articles/old_root/%231%20CO2EarthHistory.gif
I was going to fact check ATTP then realized he wasn’t laying out his own case correctly which is why his numbers didn’t make sense.
The 7000 PPM should be using the IPCC ECS (3x forcing) so the forcing was about 51 W/m2. Even at the Cambrian/Ordovician boundary there was still 42 W/m2 of CO2 forcing (using the IPCC ECS). There has to be about 4 W/m2 of forcing to explain each 1°C of temperature difference.
However this doesn’t explain the Cretaceous temperatures.
And it takes 57 Watts to go from 288K to 298K (10 degrees warmer). The 3.7W/K is a short term linear approximation.
And it takes 57 Watts to go from 288K to 298K (10 degrees warmer). The 3.7W/K is a short term linear approximation.
“SIgh”., what was I thinking. The 1K change is 5.45W vs the 10 K change of 57.1W isn’t that significant. The 3.7W/K.figure is equal to an assumed 0.68 average emissivity.
Mike,
I’m afraid you’ve rather lost me. You mentioned 7000ppm, which was the level around 500 million years ago. You should probably also read up a little on the concept of Occam’s razor.
PA,
Again, not quite sure what you’re getting at either. 7000ppm relative to 280ppm (i.e., pre-industrial levels) is a change in forcing of 5.35ln(C/Co) = 17.2 W/m^2. If, during that era, Solar forcing was 10W/m^2, then the net change in external forcing was just over 7W/m^2, or about two doublings of CO2.
Of course, this is only the change in forcing. If the ESS (Earth System Sensitivity) is about 4-5C per doubling of CO2, then that would imply about 10C warmer than pre-industrial times.
@ATTP-
“to produce a net increase in forcing of around 7W/m^2 relative to pre-industrial. This is about 2 doublings of CO2 relative to pre-industrial times and is consistent with temperatures being about 10C higher then than they are now.
Of course, this is only the change in forcing. If the ESS (Earth System Sensitivity) is about 4-5C per doubling of CO2, then that would imply about 10C warmer than pre-industrial times.”
You are forgetting that there were also higher CH4 and N2O levels, not to mention that the continents were in very different locations, which generally allowed for a more equitable distribution of global temperature (which both has a stefan-boltzman effect and has an albedo effect, which allows for a higher global average temperature for a similar level of greenhouse gases and solar irradiance).
I don’t think that ECS an ESS are as high as you think they are.
Any chance we can avoid the pedantry? My very simply point was that you can’t ignore the evolution of solar insolation when describing how the system responds to different levels of atmospheric CO2. If you want to add other complexities, go ahead. This started with a simple claim that CO2 has been 7000ppm in the past and we didn’t undergo runaway. Well the Sun was a few percent fainter then.
Yes, I know you do, but it’s not all that important. Make them smaller and add in your CH4 and N2O if you want to. The point (which I thought was trivial) is that there is more than just CO2.
@ ATTP –
“My very simply point was that you can’t ignore the evolution of solar insolation when describing how the system responds to different levels of atmospheric CO2.”
Fair enough. I agree with you.
“This started with a simple claim that CO2 has been 7000ppm in the past and we didn’t undergo runaway.”
Even with the increase in solar irradiance, runaway global warming is not even close to being feasible. I think Arthur Smith provided a link that showed that Runaway cannot occur until a temperature of well over 600 K (at which point water will reach boiling temperature given the increase in atmospheric pressure due to all the extra water vapour). Maybe runaway global warming is feasible in say 2 billion years when the sun gets bright enough, but there is no sudden tipping point after which the Earth goes into runaway warming regardless of how much people like Hansen want to claim it exists. CO2 will make the planet warmer, and this will be amplified by feedbacks, and then a new equilibrium will be reached.
The sun might have been fainter in the past when CO2 was 7000 ppm but the climate was warmer in the past when CO2 concentrations were less then 7000ppm even though the sun had the same intensity.
I know. I wasn’t suggesting that it was. Jesus!
http://www.biocab.org/Carbon_Dioxide_Geological_Timescale.html
As one can see the temperature went up in the distant past when CO2 concentrations went down and vice versa. The sun ‘s faintness not a factor.
http://www.biocab.org/Geological_Timescale.jpg
Not a factor in what? Are you disputing the role that the Sun plays?
“I know. I wasn’t suggesting that it was. Jesus!”
My mistake. I apologize.
iiequalsexpipi
re: runaway warming & James Hansen
Guess what? Hansen no longer holds that a Venus-like runaway is possible in less than a billion year time-scale. Reason: improved accounting of “non-radiative vertical energy transport”.
..and Then There’s Physics | May 7, 2015 at 11:00 am |
…
PA,
Again, not quite sure what you’re getting at either. 7000ppm relative to 280ppm (i.e., pre-industrial levels) is a change in forcing of 5.35ln(C/Co) = 17.2 W/m^2. If, during that era, Solar forcing was 10W/m^2, then the net change in external forcing was just over 7W/m^2, or about two doublings of CO2.
If you are going to play global warmer you have to go “Whole Hog” global warmer.
ECS is 3X Fco2 so Fancient_fimes = 3 * 5.35 * ln (7000/280) = 51.6 W/m2
With Fa_t = 51.6 W/m2 you can make some of your temperature claims.
But it still doesn’t explain the late Cretaceous temperatures when the temp was 10°C higher and the CO2 was only 1000 PPM or less.
PA,
You should probably familiarise yourself with the terms “forcing” and “feedback”.
..and Then There’s Physics | May 8, 2015 at 1:06 pm |
PA,
You should probably familiarise yourself with the terms “forcing” and “feedback”.
In the magic IPCC world there isn’t much of a difference.
If I was doing an analog simulation of a realistic system model – then these fine distinctions are important.
Climate science doesn’t have anything approaching a realistic system model.
They have definitions, even in IPCC world. Maybe you should try looking them up.
Jeepers, seriously? Read Eli’s post if you can’t get this. The basic formula is
Delta = AE + NE – NS
where Delta is the increase in atmospheric CO2, AE is the anthropogenic emissions, NE is the natural emissions, and NS is the natural sinks. Clearly, Delta and AE are positive, and AE > Delta. This allows you to write
Delta – AE = NE – NS,
which must be less than zero. Therefore, the natural sinks are greater than the natural emissions and, consequently, the source cannot be natural, and must be anthropogenic.
Judith
Is there some special point in posting this at this time?
I see the original article dates back to 2011. It was then revised last February. Presumably that was because it was found to be incorrect, at least in part?
Without knowing the nature of the revisions, why they were made and why this has been resurrected at this time it is a bit difficult to make any substantive comment.
tonyb
Fred appeared on a previous thread, linking to his post. It looked interesting and some denizens said they would like to discuss at CE. Fred agreed to do a guest post for CE. Note the comments on the original thread are interesting. Fred said he would participate in the comments here.
Regarding revisions, journal articles go through many revisions (before and after submission for publication); its the end product that is relevant for evaluation.
ATTP,
You’re forgetting that plant growth increases with the availability of additional CO2. NS therefore increases, and your assumption is clearly incorrect.
Sorry about that, also.
No, it’s not and suggesting that it is particularly silly. That NS goes up makes it even harder to argue for a natural source. Think about this. There is more CO2 in the oceans and in the biosphere than before we started emitting. How can they be the source if they’ve absorbed more CO2 than they’ve emitted? This is not even all that complicated.
ATTP,
And just where does all the CO2 we emit come from? When the atmosphere was 95% CO2, where did it all go?
Releasing the energy associated with sequestered carbon produces heat and CO2. Eventually the CO2 is once again sequestered as hydrocarbons and so on. The heat is lost to space, of course, quite quickly.
Sorry about that. On the positive side, assuming no GHE (which is backed up by long and short term averages) gives us one less thing to worry about.
You defined Delta to be an increase, but then you define the terms AE, NE, and NS to be totals, not deltas.
So the equation for Delta should be:
Delta = delta(AE) + delta(NE) – delta(NS)
They were all meant to be over some time interval – annual, for example.
ATTP,
Try a time interval of four billion years. Tell me how much the Earth warmed. Or maybe the time interval from the time when Antarctica was ice free to now.
Mike,
We’re talking about the period during which we’ve been burning fossil fuels. It started in about the mid-1800s, which is a time interval significantly shorter than four billion years.
Whoops. Now posted in correct place. Attack of fat finger. Sorry.
ATTP,
You’ve moved the goalposts a bit. First it was 100Myr, now it’s only from the mid 1800’s.
Can you go a little further, and specify a year, and the global average surface temperature at that time. Please specify the precision and accuracy of your baseline measurement.
No, I haven’t. You need to try reading harder. Well, unless you’re intentionally trying to sound silly?
The incredibly stupid so-called “mass-balance” argument rears its ugly head again.
NS dynamically responds to atmospheric concentration. It is thereby a function of both NE and AE, NS = NS(NE,AE).
We can observe that NE – NS(NE,AE) is less than zero, but that does not imply that nature on its own is a net sink. To establish that, you would have to demonstrate that NE – NS(NE,0) is less than zero.
If you remove the human forcing, NS declines back to the level NS(NE,0) due to natural forcing alone. That means NS(NE,0) is less than NS(NE,AE). And, that means that just because NE – NS(NE,AE) is less than zero, it does not preclude NE – NS(NE,0) being greater than zero.
This so-called “mass-balance” argument is the province of naive simpletons who have no experience with dynamic systems analysis.
Ahhh, Bart, we’ve been through this before, I think.
The suggestion isn’t that nature is a net sink. The suggestion is that in the presence of AE, nature is a net sink. If, in the presence of AE, nature is a net sink, it can’t be the source.
I think you’re ignoring that NE has a dependence on AE too. So what we have is
Delta = AE + NE(NS,AE) – NS(NE,AE)
You’re suggesting that we need to show that
NE(NS,0) – NS(NE,0) <= 0 in order for the mass balance argument to be valid.
Well, no, that's rather silly.
If NE(NS,AE) – NS(NE,AE) < 0 then in the presence of AE, the natural sinks cannot be a source, therefore the rise is anthropogenic.
My gut feeling is that anyone willing to say this is also unwilling to acknowledge their own errors. How can you backtrack from calling those who disagree with you simpletons. Doing so would then imply that you’re the simpleton and that might just be too much to acknowledge?
attP,
No, the natural sinks and sources don’t have to relate the same ways. The sources could be due to decreased albedo, increased upwelling nearly independent to aghg forcing and atmospheric concentration, while the sinks could be more dependent on atmospheric concentration, precipitation, ocean mixing and photosythensizing light.
Not even close. As I stated, this so-called “mass-balance” argument is the province of naive simpletons who have no experience with dynamic systems analysis. You have self-identified.
Aaron – yes, the sinks respond dynamically to the overall concentration in the atmosphere, whether it is due to anthropogenic or natural input. Natural inputs are exogenous.
It’s true that natural variability of the CO2 concentration might be significant also on multidecadal level, but the regularity of the observed increase of the concentration seems to tell that natural variability contributes little over periods longer than the ENSO cycle.
It’s also true that details of the carbon cycle are not well known according to the IPCC AR5 report.
All that has, however, an almost negligible effect on the main conclusion that the increase in the CO2 concentration is due to the anthropogenic influence. The uncertainties are simply very small in the cumulative effect up to now.
The most important uncertainty concerns the behavior of the rate of removal over long periods (from 50 years to centuries). That may be very important for the ultimate warming that CO2 will produce and, in particular, for the long term changes in sea level.
Thank you, Pekka. An adult has arrived on the scene.
This is all assertion, Pekka. The “evidence” which has been taken account of is silly arguments like the “mass-balance” above, and circular reasoning starting with the premise that the rise is due to humans.
Bartemis,
Mass balance is an excellent argument, when the masses considered are large enough to assure that uncertain factors cannot distort much the conclusions. This is a perfect case of that.
The cumulative anthropogenic release and the cumulative increase in the atmospheric CO2 are so large that it’s virtually certain that other factors have negligible influence on the interpretation of those numbers.
Sometimes common sense allows for reliable assertions.
“it’s virtually certain”
Here we go again. lol
Andrew
Bart:”This is all assertion, Pekka.”
He’s got you there, Pekka. What proof do you have that humans emitting gazillions of gigatons of CO2 to the atmosphere has actually caused the concentration of CO2 to rise? Don’t show us any charts of any so-called measurements. We want real proof.
“Mass balance is an excellent argument, when the …”
Oh, Pekka. I used to have a better opinion of you.
“What proof do you have that humans emitting gazillions of gigatons …
Natural inputs are way more than that. This is a really bad argument from incredulity.
“The suggestion isn’t that nature is a net sink. The suggestion is that in the presence of AE, nature is a net sink. If, in the presence of AE, nature is a net sink, it can’t be the source.”
Mathematically it can:
C’ = (Eneq + Enchange + Ea) – {Eneq + (Enchange + Ea)f}
Pekka Pirilä:
Mass balance is an excellent argument, when the masses considered are large enough to assure that uncertain factors cannot distort much the conclusions. This is a perfect case of that.
Where has it been shown that the unknown fluxes are ignorable? This is a perfect case for showing that the unknown fluxes are so large as to swamp the effort to identify the fossil-fuel- burning component.
Matt:”Where has it been shown that the unknown fluxes are ignorable? This is a perfect case for showing that the unknown fluxes are so large as to swamp the effort to identify the fossil-fuel- burning component.”
Don’t we have a pretty good idea on the amount of ACO2 that has been emitted into the atmosphere? How has that been swamped by unknown fluxes? It got eaten up and it’s gone? If you got a bucket with a some holes in it and nature is adding some amount of H2O that we can’t measure and some guy is adding H2O, and we know about how much water he is adding, and the level of the H2O is rising, who done it? Did I forget to mention that the man has added twice as much water as would be necessary to raise the level of the H2O to where it is now?
“Did I forget to mention that the man has added twice as much water as would be necessary to raise the level of the H2O to where it is now?”
It is immaterial to the question. I walk through just such an argument here at Apr 20, 2015 at 6:50 PM.
Don, you are really embarrassing yourself. You clearly have no familiarity at all with the evolution of dynamic systems.
barty, barty
With the humans adding twice as much ACO2 as is necessary to account for the increase in atmospheric CO2, it would seem to be incumbent on the dynamic systems genuises to explain what happened to all the ACO2. Did it vent to outer space? If it is in a natural sink, did it not crowd out some natural CO2 that would have otherwise occupied that space? Does ACO2 create it’s own little sink? You got a lot of esplainin to do, barty. But you have said, you don’t have the time.
Ferdinand destroys you, barty.
“If it is in a natural sink, did it not crowd out some natural CO2 that would have otherwise occupied that space?”
No, Don, it doesn’t. That really is the whole point. The sinks are not static, and they are not random. They respond systematically to the level of forcing. That is how a feedback system works. It is very elementary.
“Ferdinand destroys you, barty.”
Uh, that’d be no. Ferdinand is a great cataloger of facts and factoids (things that appear to be facts, but really aren’t), and a really nice fellow in general, but his math skills are at best marginal (sorry, Ferdinand, it’s just the truth).
Come on, Don Don. You don’t seem to know Bartemis. Are you sure you “read the blog,” as bender implored? Here:
http://climateaudit.org/2011/09/08/more-on-dessler-2010/#comment-303619
Please bow to your formal master.
Don, Bart indeed is a master in math, but has no idea of natural processes. My math is completely rusty, but I have 37 years of experience of implementing theoretical processes in a real chemical plant, with all the problems involved: theory doesn’t always (mostly not) work in the real world…
Bart simply calls everything that is counter his (spurious) match of natural variability and slope of the CO2 increase with temperature as just conjecture. Human emissions simply disappear in space…
In this case, his theory is of a huge natural source out of the oceans. But that violates about all known observations like the drop of 13C/12C ratio in the atmosphere and ocean surface.
More to the point:
Human emissions increased a fourfold since 1960.
The observed increase rate in the atmosphere increased a fourfold since 1960
The calculated net sink rate increased a fourfold since 1960:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/dco2_em2.jpg
If some natural cycle was the cause, that cycle MUST have increased a fourfold since 1960 to overwhelm the influence of human emissions. Not a threefold or fivefold. For which is not the slightest indication in any observation, to the contrary…
Don Monfort | May 7, 2015 at 4:06 pm |
Bart:”This is all assertion, Pekka.”
He’s got you there, Pekka. What proof do you have that humans emitting gazillions of gigatons of CO2 to the atmosphere has actually caused the concentration of CO2 to rise?
———————————————————————
What proof do you have that natural sources emitting a thousand times more CO2 than humans hasn’t gone up or that natural sinks of a thousand times more CO2 than humans emit haven’t decreased in uptake?
Step away, Donny. You’re way outside your pay grade grade in this argument.
I made a comment earlier which was fairly critical of this post, and my opinion of the post has gone down since. Despite that, I have to say this “rebuttal” is wrong. Anders concludes:
But that in no way rebuts what this post says. The argument Anders presents merely states that natural sources cannot be the only source of the rise in CO2. It does not rule out the possibility changes to the natural sinks/emissions of CO2 could play some role in the rise in CO2 levels.
Either Anders has misunderstood some very simple equations, or he has posted an argument he knows does not address the argument raised in this post.
What I am disputing is your claim that the reason why temperatures were colder in the geological past when CO2 concentrations were higher was because the sun was fainter.
Data shows CO2 concentrations faint sun or no faint sun do not correlate with the global temperature.
I didn’t say they were colder. Try reading harder!
“Therefore, the natural sinks are greater than the natural emissions and, consequently, the source cannot be natural, and must be anthropogenic.”
If NS > AE, then it would be all natural CO2 variation. I think this a semantic difference, with the correct answer in the middle. I wouldn’t say we did it all when we don’t have the sufficient accounting to support that. To take the average CO2 level which seems pretty well established and say, We did that. I think there’s a problem with glossing over what we can’t account for, yet still moving ahead using simplifying assumptions about the CO2 cycle.
The IPPC assumes that there has been no significant increase in natural emissions in the last fifty years and that anthropogenic emissions have been more than enough to account for all the atmospheric accumulation of SO2. They then accomplish a “global mass balance” by assuming sink rates are increasing and taking out about half of the anthropogenics. What I am doing is a vertical mass balance on different regions. Take a look at Fig.4. If you regressed the total accumulation rate only on anthropogenic emissions, you would get a coefficent of around 0.5 that the IPPC uses in their models. However, that regression does not account for the larger variations in the long term data that are not anthropogenic. Those unaccounted for variations are most likely natural and a function of regional temperature.
As to curve fitting and over fitting. A lot of people do it, including the IPPC.
Over fitting occurs when ratio of factors to degrees of freedom is too small. So fitting data to a Fourier type series becomes over fitting when too may terms are included in the series. I have avoided over fitting by including only the harmonics that produced statistically significant coefficients. Over fitting in models also occurs when you include more so called fixed factors in your model than the degrees of freedom in the data can account for. The IPPC models are a good example of this type of over fitting. I have simply included only two factors (natural and anthropogenic). I would greatly appreciate comments from statisticians on my efforts.
Projecting any models beyond the limits of the data is risky business. However, based on probabilities, I am betting my projections are better than the IPPCs.
For consistency, I’ll say here what I’ve said elsewhere. If there is one thing related to climate science about which we have virtual certainty, it is that the rise in atmospheric CO2 since the mid-1800s is anthropogenic. This is not in dispute and is accepted by almost everyone who understands this topic. In my opinion, it is irresponsible to promote – without comment – a suggestion that it might not be anthropogenic. There is sufficient mis-information about this topic without exaccerbating it further. One might excuse sites ilke WUWT or Bishop Hill because the hosts have no formal experience in climate science and, despite years of writing about it, appear to still have little actual understanding of the topic. For a site run by a professional climate scientist to do so is, in my view, remarkably unfortunate. I do think that professional scientists have some responsibility to distinguish between scientific views that are still under debate, and those that are not; even more so if it is a topic which has significant societal relevance.
“In my opinion, it is irresponsible to promote – without comment – a suggestion that it might not be anthropogenic.”
I’m not sure why this is so terrible.
Andrew
I mean, this is science right? Claims are supposed be open to scrutiny, testing, etc…
Andrew
I didn’t say “terrible”. However, there are certain things in science about which we have virtual certainty, and others that we don’t. That the rise in atmospheric CO2 since the mid-1800s is anthropogenic is one thing about which we’re virtually certain. To not at least make this clear on a science blog about this topic, seems remarkable to me. How do we benefit by not distinguishing between what is certain and what isn’t, especially when this topic is societally relevant?
“there are certain things in science about which we have virtual certainty”
This is just a claim. It needs to be given to the treatment of science. Which means I can’t just accept it because you say so.
Andrew
It has been. That you don’t realise this doesn’t make it not so. I’m also not planning on doing your homework for you.
“It has been.”
Another claim. Got anything to reference?
Andrew
ATTP’s issue is, there’s no “virtual certainty” in anything he could possibly reference, and therefore cant post any links for me.
Andrew
Judith has long promised that she would weigh in on Salby’s theories. Although she hasn’t done so, maybe she will provide some details related to her scientific perspective on the theories outlined in this post.
Personally, I see no problem with her offering up material for discussion – but it would seem beneficial if she were to at least add her scientific analysis to the discussion.
I’m interested in Fred’s analysis for two reasons:
• an interest in understanding the role of the Arctic in the carbon cycle
• an interest in understanding the role of multidecadal oscillations in the ocean in the carbon cycle (i.e. natural decadal variations)
• and of course, the stadium wave links the two previous points together to some extent
I am making no personal judgment on Fred’s analysis; I find Greg Goodman’s comments and ensuing discussion with Fred on the original blog post to be interesting.
Bottom line is that I think the traditional method of analyzing all this leaves out multidecadal natural variability which is relevant on the timescales of interest. Same problem I have with sensitivity analyses (the recent Lewis/Curry paper accounted for some of this in a limited way)
I’m going to add this statement to JC notes in the main post
I don’t think that the natural variability is not considered. I think that it is considered, and that it is quite well understood. It, however, does not – and cannot – explain the long-term rise in atmospheric CO2 which is very obviously anthropogenic.
You should have told that to nasa before they spent all that money on their new satellite.
I didn’t say it was completely understood. However, it’s my understanding that the goal of the NASA satellite is to better understand the carbon sinks which – of course – is an important part of understanding how the atmospheric concentration will grow if we continue to increase our emissions. I do not think that it was launched with the goal of establishing if the rise is anthropogenic or not.
yes, Greg made quite extensive comments on the original post. What do you think about the changes that Fred made in light of those criticisms? Do you think that Fred has successfully addressed the points that Greg made?
Judith:”Bottom line is that I think the traditional method of analyzing all this leaves out multidecadal natural variability which is relevant on the timescales of interest.”
How relevant is natural variability on the timescale of interest?
Well there is plenty of natural variability on timescales of a decade to centuries. The anthro CO2 effect on temperature shows up in the ‘fingerprints’ after about 1980. Seems to me that natural variability on these timescales could be playing an important role in what is going on. We don’t really know how the carbon cycle feedbacks work (this budget stuff is really zeroth order too simplistic IMO)
Ferdinand Englebeen also made comments challenging Fred’s analysis. Here is Englebeen’s comprehensible and I think persuasive analysis of the CO2 increase:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/co2_measurements.html
Yes Don, Ferdinand Englebeen is not only clear he is a saint when it comes to dealing with this type of crap.
Judith:”We don’t really know how the carbon cycle feedbacks work (this budget stuff is really zeroth order too simplistic IMO)”
That seems like a vague but potentially serious argument for ending fossil fuel use in a quick hurry. At least we have some control over that. If natural variability in the carbon cycle results in more natural source CO2 being retained in the atmosphere coincident with our pumping it out, we could be in deep doo-doo.
Mosher
Contrary to being academic malpractice, it might be a helluva a teachable moment. I would much rather see students bang their head against the consensus and maybe really learn the depths of the subject rather than go along with the lemmings and yawn all the way relying on everyone else to wet nurse them through the exercise. Climate science has too many conformists and that is why it is a mess. Let the students learn the hard way. Being wrong is not always a bad thing.
Mosh
Yes, Ferdinand IS a saint with his clarity and patience. He also doesn’t believe that increased anthropogenic co2 has that much to do with rising temperatures.
tonyb
I just read the interesting exchange between Englebeen and Bart on Salby’s latest presentation at Bishop Hill, many relevant issues (related to mass balance models)
http://www.bishop-hill.net/blog/2015/4/14/the-salby-lecture.html
Bart is I. The case is crystal clear. There is no evidence of the phase distortion which would necessarily be evident if the trend in temperature were not forcing the trend in dCO2/dt. Therefore, the trend in temperatures is causing the trend in dCO2/dt.
There is also a trend in emissions. It is already accounted for by the temperature relationship.
It is therefore impossible that human inputs can be a significant driver.
This is a very ordinary response of a feedback regulatory system – it tracks the equilibrium level set by natural boundary conditions, and strongly attenuates external disturbances such as the tiny input from human activity.
It’s not even a close call. A lot of people are going to have egg on their faces when the truth is finally realized.
Bart, have you done any quantitative analysis on this topic? I agree with you that the mass balance approach is naive zeroth order. I would welcome a guest post on this
Salby has, though IMO, he is taking a very cautious approach. But, perhaps that is best. Like the measurement of electron charge, it’s going to take a long time to get people to climb down from the previous “expert” opinion. Trying to push it all the way at once would probably just result in complete dismissal. Better, I suppose, to get people to start confronting the evidence in bite-sized chunks.
Sorry, I cannot take the time to do a proper treatment. I live in a world in which I have to design systems that work, and quickly. Once I have identified the problem and how to correct it, I have to move on to the next project.
Here, I have identified the problem to my satisfaction. I am seeing very typical behavior which leaves me with no doubt what is going on. I only post on the topic when I can, generally when waiting for huge simulations to finish running. I only keep at it because it annoys me no end to see so many people making a hash of things, and attacking a guy like Murry Salby, for whom I have the utmost esteem.
If that sounds like a cop out, well, sorry. It’s the best I can do. I just hope at some point, someone will pick up the ball and run with it.
Judith and Bart, thanks for the B.H. link and discussion. It’s a bit wonkish for us laypeople but a good lesson and perspective. Also thanks to Don Monfort for Englebeen s web. Learning a lot here from a supposed bogus blog :-)
I would agree with Judith’s comment about natural variability not being very well understood.
Another way to put what ATTP was driving at would be that “natural variability is well enough understood to bracket the range of possible natural emissions”. In this case, you wouldn’t have fully understand natural variability before you could attribute the increase in CO2 to human activity.
tony
“Mosh
Yes, Ferdinand IS a saint with his clarity and patience. He also doesn’t believe that increased anthropogenic co2 has that much to do with rising temperatures.”
really, you mean he has both true and false beliefs. say it’s not so!
I’ll put it differently Even Ferdinand who isnt smart enough to understand that c02 drives temperature isnt dumb enough to disbelieve that man has caused almost all of the rise in c02
OMG!
“I’ll put it differently Even Ferdinand who isnt smart enough to understand that c02 drives temperature isnt dumb enough to disbelieve that man has caused almost all of the rise in c02”
Steven is on a roll.
Steven Mosher:
I don’t think that’s actually Ferdinand’s belief though. I think tonyb didn’t accurately represent Ferdinand’s views on this, and that Ferdinand would more properly be characterized as a “lukewarmer”
[Insert wise crack about Steven Mosher not vetting his sources.]
and Then There’s Physics: I don’t think that the natural variability is not considered. I think that it is considered, and that it is quite well understood.
Natural variability was assumed to be negligible and dismissed before there had been much study of it. Now that it is being more thoroughly studied, it looks as though it had been dismissed too soon, and it might not be negligible.
“Natural variability was assumed to be negligible and dismissed before there had been much study of it”
Where on earth do you get this stuff from. Please give some documentation.
The silly thing is, GCMs have long proceeded on the basis that future CO2 was unpredictable within the model. That’s why they use scenarios, to cover a range. They have in mind the unpredictability of decisions on fuel use, but it certainly allows natural variability.
Nick Stokes: Where on earth do you get this stuff from. Please give some documentation.
It is hard to document what isn’t there. If there are examples of where the natural fluxes of CO2 were extensively studied, I would appreciate links to them. They certainly would render the present post redundant, or at least inform the discussion a lot.
I think my statement is correct: natural variability in the natural CO2 fluxes was considered to be negligible before there had been much study of them. I follow up most links that are supplied to me.
“It is hard to document what isn’t there.”
No, you said (as did the lead post) “Natural variability was assumed to be negligible and dismissed”. Who made that assumption? Who dismissed? When and where?
Judith,
Indeed Bart and I have a long standing (already years) dispute about the influence of temperature on the trend of CO2 in the atmosphere. According to Bart, all rise is caused by the small temperature rise of 0.6°C since 1960. According to me that is impossible: the long term increase based on ice cores, but also on Henry’s law (no matter if that is static or dynamic) is 4-17 ppmv/°C for a change in temperature from one steady state to the next. Thus the increase in temperature since 1960 is good for ~5 ppmv increase, that is all.
The main problem with Bart’s approach is that he sees the variability and increase in CO2 rate of change as caused by the same process. That is proven wrong: the short term variability is the influence of temperature variations on (tropical forests), as can be seen in the opposite CO2 and δ13C changes. The long term increase is NOT the result of vegetation: that is a net, increasing sink over time, the earth is greening… Different, independent processes at work.
Further, a fixed, continuous CO2 increase caused by a small sustained temperature offset from an arbitrary base is impossible without a negative feedback from the increased CO2 pressure in the atmosphere…
Amen, brother Ferdinand! End of story! Barty is stuffed! What was Judith thinking?
Fin.
“Thus the increase in temperature since 1960 is good for ~5 ppmv increase, that is all.”
In the modern era since at least 1958, atmospheric concentration and temperature are related by the differential equation
dCO2/dt = k*(T – T0)
It is an integral relationship, i.e., integrating both sides of the equation, we see that CO2 is proportional to the integral of re-baselined temperature anomaly. The sensitivity k is in ppmv/K/unit-of-time, so the impact accumulates over time. Thus, Ferdinand’s argument fails. Henry’s law, which applies to steady state systems, is not directly applicable here. Every second of every day. new CO2 is upwelling from various sources, especially the oceans, and every second, old CO2 is being taken out, particularly via oceanic downwelling. Any imbalance between those two rates causes a change in the quantity at the surface available for the atmosphere.
No matter how many times Ferdinand insists on a static relationship, the data flatly contradict him.
Bart has no idea what the dynamics of the ocean-atmosphere CO2 exchanges are. His formula:
dCO2/dt = k*(T-T0)
completely ignores the feedback from the CO2 increase in the atmosphere. It is like adding a continuous fixed stream of water into a basin with an open drain and assuming that the level will go up unabated.
The real formula for the reaction of the oceans on temperature increases is:
dCO2/dt = k*(T-T0) – ΔpCO2
where ΔpCO2 is the increase of CO2 in the atmosphere since t0.
At the moment that dCO2/dt = 0:
ΔpCO2 = k*(T-T0)
Which is what Henry’s law says.
The deep oceans release about 40 GtC as CO2 in the tropic upwelling zones which return to the deep oceans in the sink zones near the poles.
With increasing temperatures, the ocean release increases and the sink capacity is reduced. That gives an increase of CO2 in the atmosphere, but that is a transient response: dCO2/dt approaches zero when a new steady state is reached at ~8 ppmv/K increase of CO2 in the atmosphere. At that moment the original in and out fluxes are restored.
The role of vegetation is an entire different story: It is the main response on temperature on seasonal and opposite on short term (1-3 years) CO2 rate of change variability. But on longer term, vegetation is a small net sink for CO2…
Nick Stokes: No, you said (as did the lead post) “Natural variability was assumed to be negligible and dismissed”. Who made that assumption? Who dismissed? When and where?
It was assumed (implicitly, as we say) without the assumption being expressed explicitly. If you can find where someone wrote with an explicit claim that natural variability was not ignorable, in the consensus view, I would appreciate your citing it or linking it. The first attempts at explicitly addressing the natural variability were in critiques of the consensus, as far as I can tell. In the Cook-Lewandosky-Oreskes crowd, references to “natural variability” are treated as cognitive liabilities blinding some of us to the truth.
It is certainly possible, perhaps likely that the head post has mistakes and reaches an incorrect conclusion. So how best to resolve the question?
There’s the physics of proper analysis and clarity.
And then there’s the physics of pounding the table and telling everybody to shut up and go home.
And then there’s the physics of doing some work yourself and discovering something that has been obvious to many for a very long time.
As an educator, I suppose Dr. Curry is less likely than others to simply tell the confused to shut up and go home.
Why not have a little tolerance for diversity of style? Not everybody is cut out to be loud authoritarians.
“As an educator, I suppose Dr. Curry is less likely than others to simply tell the confused to shut up and go home.”
look if your graduate student came to you and proposed disproving the case that the rise in C02 was human caused, it would be academic malpractice to encourage them.
Its not a matter of telling fred to shut up and go home. But someone of Judiths stature does have a moral responsibility to guide people away from nonsense or at least to tell them their odds of success will be vanishingly TINY.
encouraging talented people to waste their time is abhorrent to me.
Steven, are you suggesting that this is like the O.J. case. All the evidence points to he done it, but it coulda been a Columbian drug dealer.
I agree that the memorization of the well trod paths is an invaluable time-saver. Perhaps you feel your time with BEST was a waste of your time but you have my gratitude.
JC apparently feels this space has not been fully explored and remember all science students explore already well-covered territory anyway. Not to poke holes, but to experience the depth, breadth and beauty of science. Solving a problem from a variety of angles and getting the same answers improves confidence in the answer and improves problem solving in general.
well said
Steven Mosher: look if your graduate student came to you and proposed disproving the case that the rise in C02 was human caused, it would be academic malpractice to encourage them.
A thorough review of all the relevant literature, and a review of ways to simultaneously estimate human and natural sources, would be a good academic exercise. If it were followed by a strong case that a never-before-used statistical method would provide better estimates or use more of the available data, a method like co-integrated vector-autoregressive modeling for example, it might be even better; or if it proposed measuring something that had not yet been measured that would strengthen the estimate of one cause or another, that also would be worthy.
If I recall correctly, you don’t have a college degree in science and have not written a thesis proposal or “capstone” project in science.
I’ve collected 100+ papers (recent) on this general topic that challenge aspects of the consensus on this topic, or describe unaccounted for feedbacks. I would love for someone to assess these, not sure when I will have the time. But there is a lot of research out there that IMO has not been appropriately integrated into our reasoning on this topic.
Steven Mosher: look if your graduate student came to you and proposed disproving the case that the rise in C02 was human caused, it would be academic malpractice to encourage them.
Academic advice seldom ends with one interchange. A very good approach would be to encourage the student to prove that the rise in CO2 was human-caused; and then later encourage the student to prove that it was all human-caused; and then later, … . On present evidence, you can’t prove it either way without making unjustified assumptions; with unjustified assumptions, you can prove it either way you choose. Seeking out the minimal set of most reasonable assumptions to prove something or its opposite is respected academic work.
oops: first prove none was human caused; then prove all was human-caused.
Moshpit, “Encouraging talented people to waste their time is abhorrent to me”
Well knowing you a little I believe you really feel that way. OTOH nobody appointed you god to determine waste of talent. If those of talent are really that smart don’t you think they could reason their way through those pitfalls. You ought to be able to make your case without being so dismissive and out right slandering the dude. I know you don’t have the people patience that Englebeen exhibited (although you directed me there T.Y.) but with your english background you should be able to express a rebuttal in short order without the belittling dismissiviness.
What about measuring C14 bomb pulse concentration in the more recent emissions vs fossil energy emissions which is C14 depleted from eons ago? Is that useful in sequestration of recent fossil emissions vs recently natural emissions from land or environmental sources?
Scott
curryja:
I spent some time trying to understand the relative contributions to the rise in CO2 levels. I gave up because I could find few good resources on the subject, and a lot of material that might have been worth looking at was paywalled. I know people say you can go to a nearby university (assuming they’ll allow non-student access to their library), but that’s a significant burden.
I think it’d definitely be interesting to see a systematic review of the work on the subject. I doubt a layman interested in the subject would ever find more than, “Humans cause it,” and I think that’s a shame. If global warming is as serious a threat as people say, it should be made easy for people to examine any aspect of it they’re interested in.
For instance, I’ve long wondered just how much of the current CO2 levels are caused by methane emissions. When methane breaks down in the atmosphere, it converts into CO2 (and other things). I’ve never once seen a paper try to quantify the amount created that way.
Not only is that sad, it causes an oddity when estimating the radiative forcing (RF) of various greenhouse gases. In things like the IPCC report, methane’s estimate RF is slightly increased to account for a couple secondary effects it has. One of those effects is the creation of CO2 molecules. That means the IPCC increases methane’s RF to account for the CO2 it creates, but it then includes that CO2 when looking at the RF of atmospheric CO2. I find that strange.
Anyway, I don’t expect these sorts of issues to have significant effects on our understanding of global warming, but they should certainly be well-understood. They’re basic aspects of the global warming issue, and they’re relatively simple. If the answers for them aren’t clear, why would the answers for more complicated matters be clearer?
But I still don’t see that this post improves our understanding of anything.
In this comment I will prove that 2+2 = 5
“It is certainly possible, perhaps likely that the head post has mistakes and reaches an incorrect conclusion. So how best to resolve the question?”
1. First question your OBLIGATION to resolve the question. You don’t need to correct every bad piece of reasoning you come across.
2. Stop reading, you have more important things to do.
3. Tell the person to think harder.
4. Point the person to literature
5. Find their actual mistake.
6. Give the correct explanation.
which is best? best for who? best for what purpose?
questions, I got bags of questions.
Dr. Curry,
http://cdiac.esd.ornl.gov/trends/co2/lawdome.html
“For these three parameters, each core displayed clear, well-preserved seasonal cycles allowing a dating accuracy of ±2 years at 1805 A.D. for the three cores and ±10 years at 1350 A.D. for DSS.”
Does that not indicate that ice core data for the past 1000 years has decadal time resolution?
resolution gets worse the deeper (older) the core. Here are some stats quoted by noaa paleo program:
Dating is a difficult task. Five different dating methods have been used for Vostok cores, with differences such as 300 years per meter at 100 m depth, 600yr/m at 200 m, 7000yr/m at 400 m, 5000yr/m at 800 m, 6000yr/m at 1600 m, and 5000yr/m at 1934 m.[24]
sorry, I posted in the wrong location. :(
Dr. Curry,
Thank your reference. I take it that you took this from wikipedia (that’s where a google search of your reference got me).
Reference #24 from the wikipedia article just sends me to the noaa page on ice cores, so I have difficulty tracking down the claim made by wikipedia. I tried searching for ‘Vostok ice core timescales’ (which is the text description of reference #24 provided by wikipeda) in the noaa search bar.
The first result (after just a redirection to the page I was just on) is http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/reports/trieste2008/ice-cores.pdf. Under timescale uncertainty, I get “In the 200-year-long U.S. ITASE ice cores from West Antarctica, they showed that while the absolute accuracy of the dating was +/- 2 years, the relative accuracy among several cores was <+/- 0.5 year, due to identification of several volcanic marker horizons in each of the cores".
So not only does it suggest that temporal uncertainty for recent years is low, but it can be greatly reduced by calibrating the data to known years of major volcanic activity. So the past 1000 years of data should at least have decadal temporal resolution, no? That pdf is from 2008, where as the reference 24 from the wikipedia article says it was retrieved in 2005, so might be out of date.
The other thing to mention is that your reference refers specifically to data from Vostok ice cores, where as Law Dome or Dome C data may have much better temporal resolution. Also, just because five different methods have given large discrepancies in dating, doesn't mean that the temporal resolution is small (perhaps one of the dating methods used was very poor).
I agree that Law Dome or Dome C, with more snowfall, appear to have better temporal resolution, but this is still disputed. I think the biggest issue is the discrepancy between ice core and stomatal estimates of CO2 variations, this remains unresolved.
Hasn’t Salby proposed a solution? Based on diffusional “flattening” of short-term variation in ice?
Has that solution been actually written up in rigorous fashion anywhere? Available online?
Here is a pretty good article on ice core uncertainties, from eric stein (who supports the consensus). ftp://ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/paleo/icecore/ice-cores.pdf
There are others who would say uncertainties are even larger
See also http://robertkernodle.hubpages.com/hub/ICE-Core-CO2-Records-Ancient-Atmospheres-Or-Geophysical-Artifacts
Of course, to be fair, it seems to me that the assumption that stomatal behavior in a “species” is identical over thousands of years is pretty much unwarranted (IMO). Short term genetic changes, either “drift” or adaptive to some unknown factor, could easily have caused the differences. But the assumption that they actually did would be equally unwarranted. IMO.
I’ve read some papers that suggest CO2 is somewhat mobile in ice. Given it has thousands of year to move around, there certainly could be a smoothing of the CO2 signal.
See comments as well as post.
http://climateaudit.org/2012/04/21/thompson-gets-new-nsf-grant/
http://climateaudit.org/2013/06/16/briffa-condemns-mann-reconstructions/
Dr. Curry,
Fair enough. Although perhaps that just means that the stomatal estimates are unreliable, where as the ice core estimates are relatively reliable.
I suspect that there are problems with both
Prof. Curry…
Thanks for those references. Especially the second, and the references therein.
I see several potential problems with the use of ice cores in “proving” the role of fossil fuels in the current rise in pCO2:
The time-scale for diffusional “smoothing” needs to be better quantified. The current observations show a sub-century-scale rise, potentially by a factor of 2 or more (which is potentially anthropogenic). How certain can we be that similar “noise” didn’t occur over the last few thousand years?
• If the compaction process takes 1-2 centuries, variations on the order of the current one could well have been hidden, or at least reduced to tiny “wiggles”. OTOH, if it takes 1-2 decades, that increases the post facto probability that the current one is anthropogenic. What is the current estimate? What are the stated uncertainties? How realistic are the latter?
• There is considerable evidence of processes that could continue to “smooth” sub-century scale variation. What is the currently estimated magnitude of these processes? What is the stated uncertainty, both overall and between different cores? How realistic are the latter?
Reading the second reference, I perceive a pattern of a solidifying “paradigm” (sensu Kuhn, roughly). This means that many of the studies more or less assume the absence of substantial decadal or century-scale variation, then evaluate their current results as to whether they are in conflict with the paradigm, rather than how well they support it in the absence of “priors”.
This could well be an artifact of my own bias (as a “Kuhnian” revolutionary). But paradigms introduce strong circularities, and given the role of the IPCC in producing an artificial paradigm in “climate science”, I wonder if such paradigms are justified in the use of ice cores in demonstrating some supposed absence of sub-century-scale variations in the past.
IMO this is a subject that deserves a whole lot of study, and funding for such. Given the current uncertainties in the role of CO2, and GHG’s in general, in determining “climate”, any “paradigmatic” certainty that CO2 hasn’t undergone similar variation in the past should be continually reexamined.
In fact, thinking about it, I realize that this particular issue highlights
theone essential difference between “Science for the sake of curiosity” (sensu Kuhn) and “Science for the sake of policy advice”: paradigms require a great deal more frequent and strong re-validation in the latter, because huge policy mistakes could be made based on obsolete paradigms while waiting for the standard “Kuhnian” process to replace them.good point. In previous comment, mosher said we are wasting time revisiting this. I disagree, if there is something wrong with the IPCC argument, it has huge policy implications.
I would also question whether CO2 bubbles are in equalibrium with ice and whether it may “‘disolve” in ice in different rates/amounts than other gases in bubbles.
WRT diffusion of CO2 and other markers in ice, there are no mechanisms proposed that would enhance a signal. The odds are that the signal is damped. There’s your prior.
That’s not a “prior”. It’s just a boundary condition.
The current (paradigmatic) “prior” is that any damping that exists is trivial. The question is how robust conclusions based on the actual data are to different “priors”. Given the unknowns, even just the “known unknowns”, I would intuitively guess very unrobust.
It certainly deserves a major looking-into. IMO.
@ AK –
“IMO this is a subject that deserves a whole lot of study, and funding for such.”
I agree with this. In general, it would be nice to see more funding for better reconstructions of the Holocene; because if we can understand climate change over the Holocene, and how temperature and CO2 responded to changes in solar irradiance, then this gives better insight into how much of recent warming is due to the sun and what the temperature-CO2 feedback is. Not to mention what the long run climate response is.
Jim2,
Ice is pretty solid at low pressure, but become more plastic and melts when under pressure.
(revised from an early comment down thread)
Also, I would think that being less dense, it would it would have more space to disolve gases. Of course, being that the water dipoles are bonded to eachother, there would be less availible to bond with CO2 molecules, but as it is pressurized, bonds would break and become availible.
I would guess that at low pressure and being rigid on the way down, little CO2 ends up in the ice when snow is formed and falls.
Steven Mosher: In this comment I will prove that 2+2 = 5
That’s been done many times, usually to illustrate the importance of unstated assumptions.
AK – the knowledge that there are no factors that can improve the signals from ice cores but several potential factors that would damp the signal CAN be used as a prior. Or do you object to the warmista’s liberal uses of Bayesian statistics as well?
From the article:
…
In Bayesian statistical inference, a prior probability distribution, often called simply the prior, of an uncertain quantity is the probability distribution p that would express one’s beliefs about this quantity before some evidence is taken into account.
…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prior_probability
From:
…
aaron | May 8, 2015 at 11:47 am |
Jim2,
Ice is pretty solid at low pressure, but become more plastic and melts when under pressure.
(revised from an early comment down thread)
Also, I would think that being less dense, it would it would have more space to disolve gases. Of course, being that the water dipoles are bonded to eachother, there would be less availible to bond with CO2 molecules, but as it is pressurized, bonds would break and become availible.
…
Water bonds via hydrogen bonds, i.e. protons. Protons are highly mobile, even in ice.
Judith,
About ice cores, there is a good overview of the Law Dome record and its gas age distribution at:
http://courses.washington.edu/proxies/GHG.pdf
Ice core CO2 is accurate to +/- 1.2 ppmv (1 sigma) for repeated samples of the same part of an ice core up to +/- 5 ppmv for different ice cores with extreme differences in snow accumulation and temperature.
The resolution of ice cores is less than a decade over the past 150 years (2 drillings at Law Dome), via 20 year over the past 1,000 years (Law Dome, downslope) to 560 years for the past 800,000 years (Dome C).
There is no measurable migration in the extreme cold inland ice cores, but there may be some theoretical migration in relative “warm” coastal cores. That gives a broadening of the resolution e.g. in the Siple Dome ice core from 20 to 22 years at medium depth and from 20 to 40 years at full depth (~70,000 years back in time).
Ice core CO2 are direct, be it smoothed measurements of ancient CO2 levels. Their main drawback is that the resolution worsens with the lower snow accumulation rate, but that allows to go further back in time. Another problem is to find out the exact timing between the age of the ice and the average age of the enclosed air.
Stomata data are proxies which have all the problems inherent on proxies: they grow locally on land, where there is a variable bias against “background” CO2 levels. That can be compensated by calibrating the stomata (index) data against direct measurements and ice cores over the past century. The main problem is that there is no guarantee that the local bias didn’t change over the centuries due to huge changes in land use, locally and in the main wind direction, over the centuries…
Thus if the stomata data give a different average CO2 level over the period of resolution of any ice core, the stomata data are certainly wrong…
BTW, your first reference mentioned Jaworowski, not the most reliable person about CO2 in ice cores:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/jaworowski.html
ATTP:
Sure – some of the rise is anthropogenic. But how much?
All of it or just 1/2?
If humans vanished off the planet as of the mid-1800’s, warming would still have occured naturally (rebound from LIA).
Warming releases CO2 (some from permafrost, some from the ground under melting glaciers, some from increased wildfires, some from ocean warming) – so it would be a mistake to assume that all of the CO2 increases since the mid-1800’s are human caused.
All Fred is trying to do is estimate how much of the increase is natural and how much is human.
I am glad he has posted his analysis.
Richard,
The relationship between temperature and CO2 is something like 10-20ppm per degree C. If we had not emitted 550GtC, the temperatures would maybe have risen a few tenths of a degree since the mid-1700s and CO2 would probably have risen by less than 10ppm. We’ve had 120ppm since the start of the industrial age.
There is a sublety here. The balance between the different sinks (atmosphere/ocean/biosphere) does depend on temperature. However, since the natural sinks have absorbed more than they’ve emitted, essentially means that the rise is all anthropogenic.
Now, if we could have had a 1C degree rise in temperature without a rise in atmospheric CO2, then we’d expect atmospheric CO2 to rise by 10-20ppm due to the relationship between CO2 and T. However, this isn’t what happened.
http://csas.ei.columbia.edu/files/2014/12/Fig.-2.jpg
The balance between the different sinks (atmosphere/ocean/biosphere) does depend on temperature.
And on the level of CO2 in the atmosphere.
The greater the concentration, the greater the sinks?
That’s what the ‘uptake’ chart indicates.
CO2 solubility does depend on temperature:
http://docs.engineeringtoolbox.com/documents/1148/solubility-co2-water.png
But the poles have temperatures that are well below 0C, so the area exposed to cold water probably doesn’t change much so the uptake is determined more by the amount of CO2 to be absorbed than the small slow temperature change.
Further complication is the practicality of below freezing temperatures which create sea ice, effectively dropping the uptake to zero for these regions.
ATTP said “However, since the natural sinks have absorbed more than they’ve emitted, essentially means that the rise is all anthropogenic.”
Why do you assume all sinks are natural.
Isn’t it possible the increase in sinks is partially antropogenic?
We sure have planted a lot of trees in the United States in the last 70 years – maybe some of the increase in sinks is human caused? We are greener today than we were in 1978 (based on satellite data).
I feel confident that while we have increased emissions, we have also increased sinks as well.
Are we not growing more crops today than 50 years ago?
I think it is more complicated than you are assuming – which is why it is good to try to determine how much of the net increase in CO2 in the atmosphere is human caused and how much is natural.
You also said “Now, if we could have had a 1C degree rise in temperature without a rise in atmospheric CO2, then we’d expect atmospheric CO2 to rise by 10-20ppm due to the relationship between CO2 and T.”
However, it is not possible to have a 1C degree rise in temperature without a rise in atmospheric CO2 – so it still comes down to determining how much of the warming is human caused and how much of the net CO2 increase is human caused.
We know we are responsible for some – but what fraction?
I think 100% will turn out to be the wrong answer.
It couldn’t hurt to do some projections in which we assume humans are causing 50% of the warming and 50% is natural variability, and see what that does to the projections.
Was 2014 the year CO2 emissions peaked?
@ATTP –
“The relationship between temperature and CO2 is something like 10-20ppm per degree C.”
The change in atmospheric CO2 between the LGM and the Holocene is roughly 100 ppm. The change in temperature between the LGM and the Holocene is 4.0 +/- 0.8 C (95% CI according to Annan and Hargreaves 2013). This suggests that the temperature-CO2 feedback is 20-30 ppm per degree C. Although the temperature CO2 feedback may have been higher during the ice age than today. What evidence do you have that suggests that the temperature CO2 feedback is 10-20 ppm per degree C rather than 20-30 ppm per degree C?
Make it 20-30 then. It doesn’t really matter. It’s still going to be small. The numbers that I’ve seen before are around 18ppm per degree, but I’m certainly not going to waste a great deal of time arguing over a difference of 30% or so!
Make it 20-30 then. It doesn’t really matter. It’s still going to be small. The numbers that I’ve seen before are around 18ppm per degree, but I’m certainly not going to waste a great deal of time arguing over a difference of 30% or so!
Do you have any basis for this?
Acknowledging that there are uncertainties with the budget,
the evidence appears to be just the contrary – uptake has quintupled as temperatures have risen.
Comparisons with the glacials probably are not valid because so much else was different – biology and the increase in windiness if nothing else.
@ Turbulent Eddie –
“Do you have any basis for this?”
I just gave you a basis. Pleistocene Ice core data + Annan & Hargreaves 2013. You can also get similar numbers by taking the amount of water on earth, apply the temperature dependence of Henry’s constant for CO2 in water, and add the effect of thawing permafrost.
The point is, the temperature-CO2 feedback is less than 30 ppm/C. If it were otherwise, there would be much larger swings in atmospheric CO2 concentrations for ice core data.
ice core data does not resolve CO2 at decadal to century time scales
I just gave you a basis. Pleistocene Ice core data + Annan & Hargreaves 2013. You can also get similar numbers by taking the amount of water on earth, apply the temperature dependence of Henry’s constant for CO2 in water, and add the effect of thawing permafrost.
Evidently that relationship doesn’t work very well:
http://climatewatcher.webs.com/StartLG.png
Not to mention the post-industrial record.
Dr. Curry, could you please provide me with some information that demonstrates that ice core does not resolve CO2 at century or decadal timescales? I’m aware that ice-core data temporal uncertainty increases with depth, so maybe ice core data from 20,000 years ago doesn’t have this temporal resolution. But I was under the impression that the Law Dome data for the past 2000 years has sufficient temporal resolution such that if the temperature-CO2 feedback was much higher then there would have been a larger change in atmospheric CO2 in response to the medieval warm period and little ice age.
@ Turbulent Eddie – Your diagram isn’t taking into account polar amplification, which is why I referred to Annan and Hargreaves 2013.
” since the natural sinks have absorbed more than they’ve emitted, essentially means that the rise is all anthropogenic.”
I hate to have to bring up soils again…per year, 60Gt in, .2Gt out.
And I tire of pointing this out again. If the soils were a net source of 60Gt/C per year, the biosphere would be dying at the rate of 60Gt/C per year. The total biosphere mass is around 2000 GtC. Let’s see, all gone in about 30 years. Seriously, the biosphere overall takes in 120GtC and emits 120GtC. It is not a source! Look up the carbon cycle. The diagrams are very easy to understand. As Willard would say “scratch your own itch”.
> As Willard would say “scratch your own itch”.
I would sing it if I could. I sometimes shout it. I always stand on the shoulders of giants, since the expression dates back to the Ancient Geeks:
https://gettingreal.37signals.com/ch02_Whats_Your_Problem.php
A more ancient text:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cathedral_and_the_Bazaar
I would think that CO2 solubility would depend on both the temperature of the gas and the water.
Also, I would think that being less dense, it would also disolve in ice, though more slowly. Of course, being that the water di-poles are bonded to eachother, there would be less availible to bond with CO2 molecules, but as it is pressurized, bonds would break and become availible.
ATTP.
perhaps Judith is trying to innoculate people to science denial by exposing them to weak versions.
There is no blog post that can serious challenge the conclusion that the rise in c02 is of human origin, so I can’t fathom any other reasn for posting this crap other than to innoculate people.
No serious scientist, no working scientist would waste their time re litigating this issue. I can only conclude it is posted to embarass skeptics or to get them to waste their time. Instead of focusing on the GOOD ARGUMENTS this is an invitation to waste time.
Next they will want NSF money to re study the problem. Waste of time and money
Steve:
119 meters of the 120 meter sea level rise since the last ice age is natural.
I wonder how much of the CO2 rise can be attributed to warming which raised the sea level 119/120ths or 99.17%.
Perhaps the answer is 0 – but I doubt it.
Some of the rise in CO2 is natural and some would have happened even in the absence of humans.
To say “the rise”, which I read as everything over 280 ppm, is most likely completely wrong.
Maybe I could get a grant to study that?
Sorry – I meant to say “Some of the rise in CO2 is anthropogenic . . .”
121 meters of the 120 meter sea level rise since the last ice age is natural
Steve ” skeptical science” Cook!
and Then There’s Physics: If there is one thing related to climate science about which we have virtual certainty, it is that the rise in atmospheric CO2 since the mid-1800s is anthropogenic.
You probably have no grounds for your certainty. fhhaynie has shown that the IPCC conclusions are based on propositions that can’t be independently tested. after fhhaynie’s development, perhaps someone can present a development that shows via unambiguous evidence that the IPCC assumptions are more accurate than fhhaynie’s assumptions, and thus produce more credible estimates than either his or the IPCC’s..
He’s not saying it isn’t anthroprogenic, it looks about 50/50. Don’t think it’s quite right, but I won’t rule it out. The more I think about it, a good bit seems plausible.
Bad Andrew, here is a link that explains what ATTP is talking about:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2004/12/how-do-we-know-that-recent-cosub2sub-increases-are-due-to-human-activities-updated/
Although I, like you, would certainly appreciate some links from ATTP as he may not know many of us here are not scientists and probably never even thought of this subject nonetheless doing any homework with regards to it.
“One way that we know that human activities are responsible for the increased CO2 is simply by looking at historical records of human activities.”
This claim from RC can’t possibly be true. Mosher says historical records are unreliable.
Andrew
ordvic,
Thanks for the link.
Apologies for not providing more information. The issue is that I have spent a good deal of my time discussing this topic elsewhere, almost always without any success whatsoever. Hence, I’ve rather given up trying to explain our certainty about this topic. It’s also not that hard to find good explanations. This post by Tom Curtis is also good. This Bishop Hill Discussion Thread includes some comments from Gavin Cawley that are worth reading.
RC claim #2 isotopes – “One of the methods used is to measure the 13C/12C in tree rings, and use this to infer those same ratios in atmospheric CO2.”
How reliable is this inference?
Andrew
ATTP,
Thanks for the links! They are very helpful for my understanding, greatly appreciated!
Bad Andrew, the historical record pertinent here only goes back to 1880 and since Mosher believes in his BEST (pun intended) then RC and Mosher would be in agreement there don’t you think?
“RC and Mosher would be in agreement there don’t you think?”
Mosher has explicitly stated that historical records are not reliable.
I don’t know what else to tell ya.
If you are waiting for him to explain that some historical records are reliable and some are not, you may be waiting awhile.
Andrew
yes, all historical records are unreliable. Since we have to rely on them, we estimate HOW unreliable they are.
modern measurements are unreliable too.
you skeptics are not skeptical enough
I see Mosher didn’t get rid of the broad brush. Too bad.
Steven Mosher,
If records are unreliable, just ignore them.
Start afresh. What’s the point of changing an unreliable record to something more to your liking?
The past is gone. Trying to rewrite it seems pointless, at least to me.
Either the GHE exists or it doesn’t. If it does, it can be measured. There even seems some difference of opinion as to whether the Earth has warmed over the past 18 years or so.
It appears that even the most up to date records are subject to interpretation and dispute.
Can you provide anything useful, in relation to the prediction of future weather (and hence climate)? Or will Nature proceed on her merry way, laughing as she goes?
http://shrinkthatfootprint.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/Emissionsandsinks1.jpg
It is what it is.
The rainforest destruction has added about 180 GT of carbon and destroyed about 40 GT/Y of sinking. The destruction during the late 20th century was about 2 GT/Y emissions and 0.5 GT/Y/Y sink loss..
The manmade emissions are about 9.8 GT.
So on paper at the current rising CO2 level is 1/5 due to emissions and 4/5 due to carbon sink destruction.
“If records are unreliable, just ignore them.
Start afresh. What’s the point of changing an unreliable record to something more to your liking?
The past is gone. Trying to rewrite it seems pointless, at least to me.”
The past is ALWAYS gone. even when you start afresh the past is gone.
you dont get it. all records are past. all are unreliable. However if you want to predict you have to rely on the unreliable and characterize how unreliable they are. There is no starting “afresh” because, time, she marches on.
you are not skeptical enough. be skeptical of the notion that you can ignore the past and that you can start afresh and be reliable. You can be more reliable, less worse, but never certain
Steven Mosher,
Unfortunately, you can’t predict the future. From past records, from crystal balls, from anything. You can make assumptions, if you like.
Governments require fund managers, at least in my country, to include the words “past performance is no guarantee of future performance” in their advertising. This nonsensical Warmist idea that the past predicts the future is denied by governments around the world, to protect a gullible population from fast talking snake oil salesmen.
Here’s an opportunity for you. Show that you can predict the future better than I. If you can’t, you’re obviously wasting your time fiddling about trying to rewrite history. You don’t get it – the future is unknowable.
> [Y]ou can’t predict the future.
I predict Mike Flynn will repeat that we can’t predict the future in a not too distant future.
willard,
Maybe you are confusing assumption with prediction. A twelve year old child can predict the Sun will rise, or that Winter will be colder than Summer.
I prefer useful predictions. Predictions that are better than those which can be made by a twelve year old child, merely by extrapolating the past into the future.
I predict you can’t come up with a useful prediction. Think about it, and give it a try if you like. Any fool can predict, and many do.
…and Then There’s Physics says: “…there is one thing related to climate science about which we have virtual certainty, it is that the rise in atmospheric CO2 since the mid-1800s is anthropogenic….”
You are quite wrong. You are just parroting IPCC propaganda. Since you think you embody physics, do you understand the physics of greenhouse warming? Let me draw you a picture. First, we do know very well what the atmospheric carbon dioxide is doing from the Keeling curve and its extensions. Its ups and downs are related to the growth and shedding of leaves in the northern hemisphere and are distinctly visible on the curve. If there should be another comparable change of atmospheric carbon dioxide that caused warming it should likewise be visible on the Keeling curve. It so happens that there is just such warming episode that lasted 25 years.It started suddenly in 1915, kept on going until 1940, and then stopped. This segment of the global temperature curve is often shown as part of greenhouse warming caused by carbon dioxide. James Hansen started this when he made it part of a hundred year warming he presented to the Senate as proof of the existence of the greenhouse effect. If that warming really is greenhouse warming its beginning should coincide with an increase of carbon dioxide visible on the Keeling curve. But this did not happen, proving that it is not greenhouse warming and not anthropogenic. This fact is further reinforced by the sudden stoppage of warming in 1940. In order to actually stop greenhouse warming you would have had to remove every molecule of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, an entirely impossible task. This means that we are dealing with a twenty five year stretch of global warming that is quite impossible to assign to greenhouse warming by carbon dioxide. This of course is not the only instance where greenhouse warming is falsely claimed. Much closer to our time is the existence of the hiatus/pause or cessation of global warming for the last 18 years. That means we have been greenhouse free for 18 years. And by the way, have you noticed that IPCC now tells us to start looking for human-caused global warming after the year 1950? It is pretty obvious that they know they cannot include that early century warming as source of their imaginary greenhouse effect. One excuse they gave for starting to look for human influence only after 1950 is that earlier records are hard to see because of noise. That of course is nonsense because the warming from 1915 to 1940 is hard to miss on any global temperature curve. It also means that now they have no proof that warming started with the beginning of the industrial age. I urge you to contemplate these facts before you say one more thing about global warming. It certainly isn’t anthropogenic, it is rather irregular, and it certainly does not parallel the Keeling curve.
1910 to 1940 spans a period from a quiet sun through one of its more active phases. 1910 was a cold anomaly, while 1940 was one of the warmest peaks for hundreds of years to that date, so it went from a relative minimum to a maximum. Since 1940 it continued to warm, however. Two thirds of the CO2 warming effect has occurred since 1950, and that has something to do with it.
Arno, ATTP was saying that the increase in CO2 was certainly caused by humans, in which I agree. That says next to nothing about the influence of the increase of CO2 on temperature, that is an entire different discussion.
The global average seasonal variation is ~5 ppmv for a global temperature change of ~1 K. The total CO2 increase is 110 ppmv while the temperature increase was only 0.8 K since the LIA.
Thus I agree with you that the influence of the extra CO2 on the temperature increase is minimal…
That should be accumulation of CO2 rather than SO2.
“Anthropogenic emissions are not temperature dependent.”
This statement is very strong as ACO2 and T are interdependent.
e.g. Increased temperature has resulted in a longer growing season in the Canadian heartland which enabled a massive increase in fossil fueled agriculture that helps to feed a global population explosion which in turn emits more CO2.
Would prefer something like: The interdependence of ACO2 and T is assumed to have insignificant influence on the results.
Interesting, but fraught with the same second derivative issues as Salby. I recently took a shot at integrating d13C values into the consensus fluxes and reservoir sizes of the Carbon cycle and got the interesting result that there is way too much light C input to the atmosphere to get the observed -.02 PDB per year trend measured since 1978 and in ice cores before that.
https://geosciencebigpicture.files.wordpress.com/2015/04/carbon-model1.png
My model produced over -3 PDB the first year!
https://geosciencebigpicture.files.wordpress.com/2015/04/carbonbalance.png
Either we are grossly overestimating light C inputs or we are grossly underestimating heavy C inputs. Assuming our light inputs are roughly correct, the only known source of heavy C that could balance the books is the ocean mixed layer at +2 PDB. According to the model it takes 262 GtC, about five times consensus, from the mixed layer to get the atmosphere down to -.02 per year. This effectively doubles the overall yearly volume of the Carbon cycle.
Next project will be to evaluate the mixed layer inputs. Strongly suspect there will be serious balance problems here as well that may require submarine volcanic heavy C input.
The wordpress image lice have been chewing overtime. Apologies.
A link to the spreadsheet, hopefully.
https://geosciencebigpicture.files.wordpress.com/2015/05/ferdinand.xlsx
Interesting, but fraught with the same second derivative issues as Salby.
Are sure about this? e.g. CO2 = mt + b contains a “1st derivative” of a sort (slope m), yet the function CO2(t) is obviously not dCO2/dt.
Similarly a regression equation fit to CO2 rate of change as a function of time will only contain the 2nd derivative, but nevertheless will still be a 1st derivative function – dCO2/dt, no?
In case you don’t know the issue, it is basically this. If you consider something like dCO2/dt over a moderately short time interval – a decade, or maybe two – then the anthropogenic contribution is largely constant (1 – 2 ppm/yr) and all the variability is natural. What Salby did was to correlate this with temperature and showed that there was a correlation. Well, yes, that’s clear because the variability is driven by temperature variability. However, this cannot tell you anything about what is driving the long-term rise, which is the anthropogenic contribution.
ATTP. Salby’s possible conflation of a 2nd order effect with 1st order has made me uneasy the times I have tried to follow him.
Still, is that necessarily the same as a 2nd derivative issue? That was my question to gymnosperm.
No, not really sure about that and still very much mulling the second derivative objection. Thinking after I wrote that much delta anomaly/dt stuff we do all the time wears the same shoe.
gymnosperm,
The human input from burning fossil fuels is quite fast spread over the seasonal exchanges with the oceans surface and vegetation, but that is not the main difference, as much of the low 13C returns in another season.
The main problem is in the deep ocean exchanges: what goes into the deep oceans is the isotopic composition of today, what comes out is the composition of ~1000 years ago. Both including some isotopic shift at the air-water border.
That makes that the light-carbon fossil fuel “fingerprint” is diluted by the heavy-carbon CO2 from the deep oceans (around zero per mil). The dilution can be calculated: about 1/3rd of the original fossil CO2 remains in the atmosphere, the rest is in other reservoirs. That also allows us to estimate the deep oceans – atmosphere exchanges: about 40 GtC/year in and out:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/deep_ocean_air_zero.jpg
The discrepancy in the early years is probably from vegetation, which was thought to have been a small source before 1990…
Ferdinand, the deep ocean is 0 to .5 PDB depending who you talk to. Thanks for the graph and I agree that is a clever way to get the flow rate between the deep ocean and the atmosphere. I have used your rate in my model. But I don’t understand the Y axis units which seem reversed in sign. Deep ocean input to the atmosphere adds heavy C as it is 0 to + .5 PDB going into a reservoir at -8 and should trend it less negative.
The bigger problem is that the atmosphere at -8 and the ocean mixed layer at +2 are completely unstable at those values in the face of the enormous inputs of light C. My first approach was to dump lots more (262 Gt) +2 from the mixed layer to the atmosphere, but that is pretty ridiculous and just shifts the problem to the mixed layer already wildly enriched in heavy C relative to its inputs.
The problem cannot be solved by flow chart alone and must incorporate the active fractionation going on. The atmosphere can be resolved by adjusting the effective vegetation input from -26 to -10 using the relationship of the observed stable values (-26veg less -8atm=delta 16). This brings the atmosphere/mixed layer exchange back to the accepted 50Gt range and allows us to argue that active fractionation by vegetation to the atmosphere is +16 PDB.
On to the mixed layer…
to and then there is physics,
So in your mind the debate is over and the IPPC is correct?
What is certain is that CO2 is increasing, and that humans are emitting CO2. The logical reasoning linking these two certainties into a claim that humans are the cause of all of the postindustrial increase in CO2 is what is being discussed. IMO the IPCC sanctioned analysis is over simplistic, and this is a topic worth discussing.
We don’t understand the spatiotemporal variations in CO2 sources and sinks, which to me implies that we don’t truly understand these processes in a quantitative way. Which is why NASA put up the new Carbon Observatory satellite.
Judith: “We don’t understand the spatiotemporal variations in CO2 sources and sinks, which to me implies that we don’t truly understand these processes in a quantitative way.”
We got not idea about the possible contribution of natural sources to the increase of CO2 from 280 to 400ppm? Why didn’t we talk about this before?
curryja: What is certain is that CO2 is increasing, and that humans are emitting CO2. The logical reasoning linking these two certainties into a claim that humans are the cause of all of the postindustrial increase in CO2 is what is being discussed. IMO the IPCC sanctioned analysis is over simplistic, and this is a topic worth discussing.
I agree with you.
It seems that a lot of people do not recognize that the IPCC has made assumptions (for subsequent derivations) that do not have a lot of empirical support.
What is certain is that CO2 is increasing, and that humans are emitting CO2. The logical reasoning linking these two certainties into a claim that humans are the cause of all of the postindustrial increase in CO2 is what is being discussed.
I’m sorry but I agree with Mosher and ATTP that this article was not up to the standards I have come to expect at this blog.
To my mind, the changing isotopic ratio is pretty much a smoking gun for anthropogenic emission, absent some large increase in volcanic activity (which there has not been).
A pretty simple case of Occam’s razor: the simplest explanation works very well.
We should apply the same standard to evidence no matter where it leads; for the case of CO2, the burden of proof is most definitely on those who claim it is not anthropogenic.
fizzymagic | May 8, 2015 at 6:20 pm |
“What is certain is that CO2 is increasing, and that humans are emitting CO2. To my mind, the changing isotopic ratio is pretty much a smoking gun for anthropogenic emission, absent some large increase in volcanic activity (which there has not been)”.
Argument on volcanic CO2 production with most volcanoes under sea and not reliably measured is not correct, you should know that and acknowledge that a large increase might be possible [though unlikely].
The changing isotope ratio is not even a smoking gun due to inherent difficulties in isotope measurement for if it was widely acknowledged as being indisputable it would be an active gun.
It is not, with more data and reliability it might be.
Isotope changes are fraught with difficulty.
About the long-term rise in atmospheric CO2? Pretty much. The lines of evidence that support it being anthropogenic are extensive and convincing. The short-term variability is almost certainly mostly natural, but this variability does not contribute to the long-term rise. Understanding this variability is certainly an important part of understanding the behaviour of the carbon sinks, but I don’t think anyone working on this disputes that the long-term rise is anthropogenic.
The argument that all atmospheric increase is human can be summarized by this formula by Ferdinand Engelbeen:
4.5 GtC/year = 9 GtC/year + X – Y
X – Y = – 4.5 GtC/year
Where 4.5 is the observed increase, 9 is the human input, X is natural sources and Y is natural sinks.
The Al gibar is airtight, except that the human source is defined as the variable. If we take another 60GtC substantially one way input, soil microbial respiration, and define it as the variable, the equation then proves that IT is the source of atmospheric increase.
Humans and microbes are on the same team.
ATTP
Phil Jones and The Met Office have admitted in recent years that natural variability was greater than they had hitherto realised when promoting the virtually stable climate promoted in the Hockey Stick;
This from a 2005 paper by Jones and Briffa about the very warm pre AGW period noted in old records and especially CET;
” The year 1740 is all the more remarkable given the anomalous warmth of the 1730s. This decade was the warmest in three of the long temperature series (CET, De Bilt and Uppsala) until the 1990s occurred. The mildness of the decade is confirmed by the early ice break-up dates for Lake Malaren and Tallinn Harbour. The rapid warming in the CET record from the 1690s to the 1730s and then the extreme cold year of 1740 are examples of the magnitude of natural changes which can potentially be recorded in long series. Consideration of variability in these records from the early 19th century, therefore, may underestimate the range that is possible.”
Phil Jones has written several good books on historic climate and is somewhat more sceptical than some might think. In recent years the Met Office has also moved away from their notion of a steady climate until mans influence from 1900, to one in which natural variability is somewhat more centre stage. The biggest Hockey Stick in the CET series from 1659 (and there are several) is the period noted in the article and not the modern period.
It is an interesting paper – ‘UNUSUAL CLIMATE IN NORTHWEST EUROPE DURING THE PERIOD 1730 TO 1745 BASED ON INSTRUMENTAL AND DOCUMENTARY DATA’. Jones and Biffa. Revised version published 2006.
http://rd.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs10584-006-9078-6
They do indeed note that CET (and other sources) indicate a series of mild years in the 1730s, with the period 1729–1738 only 0.3C below the average for the last ten years before publication. But then came 1740, when temps plummeted 2.4C to give the coldest year in the entire series, famine in Ireland, and featuring the coldest May and October in the record. Somebody bent the hockey stick back on itself.
tonyb
What? It’s not a one-way input.
Tony,
We’re discussing atmospheric CO2, not temperatures!
ATTP
I meant to plant it next to a comment by Judith above. However, are you now (sensationally) saying that atmospheric Co2 has nothing to do with temperatures? :)
tonyb
No, obviously not. Still not clear what relevance your earlier comment had, though. The variability in temperature is not driven by variability in CO2. Climate scientists don’t think that it is all CO2, despite what some might claim.
Hey climatereason, this is off-topic, but a couple days ago I saw something I thought you’d be interested in. I don’t want to start an off-topic discussion here, so would it be alright if I e-mailed you about it?
If you don’t want to post your address publicly, mine is just my first and last name, separated by a period, at gmail.com.
Co2 has nothing to do with temperatures?
Doesn’t appear so, or at least not significantly on the basis of global average temperature.
Uptake has increased as global average temperature has increased for the last seven century.
Likely the bottom water formation takes whatever CO2 is available.
The more CO2 to take up, the more is taken up.
Brandon
email me at tonyATclimateREASONDOTcom
tonyb
Cool, e-mail sent.
“What? It’s not a one-way input.”
It is a one way input to the atmosphere less a fraction of a GT from weathering.
No, I don’t think it is. My understanding is that it is mostly from decomposing matter which was once alive. It would only be one way if plants and animals were dying and decomposing and not being replaced by new plants and animals. As far as the biosphere is concerned, about 120Gt/yr is absorbed and 120Gt/yr is emitted. In fact, with our emissions, slightly more is absorbed than emitted.
” It would only be one way if plants and animals were dying and decomposing and not being replaced by new plants and animals.”
We have to carve nature at its joints. We have a box for soil, we have a box for plants and animals and we have a box for the atmosphere. If you’re going to say, “it’s all one, man” the discussion is over and even human input is bidirectional because we are pulling Carbon from layers beneath the soil.
The soil box gets large input from plants and animals. The atmosphere gets a large input from soils with only a tiny back feed to soil from weathering. The soil input to the atmosphere is as asymmetric as the human input, it has a similar 13C signature, and it is much larger.
Let’s try taking this a bit further. As for decompostion, we have plants and animals that grow and sequester CO2. Then they die and decompose, releasing CO2. The timescale is probably years/decades and – on average – is in balance.
Now consider our box. We burn fossil fuels. We’ve released 550GtC in the last 130 years. Are we reforming a similar amount of fossil fuels over the same time interval. Obviously, no. So, the only source that is essentially a source, but is not associated with a sink, is our fossil fuel emissions.
” The timescale is probably years/decades and – on average – is in balance.”
There are definitely timescale differences. Some decomposition takes place in the yearly timescale we are mostly discussing here, but much takes years or decades. In the case of fossil fuel the same process takes millennia.
We are talking about the atmosphere. Atmospheric Carbon goes to plants, a different box. It does not go to soil significantly. Soil C goes to the atmosphere, a different box, and then to plants. We all understand that sub cycle, but the entire system is ultimately balanced. It doesn’t really matter that human C will take a long time to get back to fossil fuel through swamps and Soil C will get back to plants rather more quickly through the atmosphere. What matters is that both inputs are asymmetric to the atmospheric box we are discussing, and they can equally be put in Ferdinand’s equation.
gymnosperm,
You’re forgetting the plants and animals in the ocean. And bacteria.
Gymnosperm,
We know the balance of the whole biosphere (land and sea plants, bacteria, molds, insects, animals) together: slightly more sink than source. That can be deduced from the oxygen balance: slightly less oxygen is used than is calculated from fossil fuel burning. The whole biosphere together is a net producer of oxygen, thus a net sink for CO2 and preferentially of 12CO2:
http://www.bowdoin.edu/~mbattle/papers_posters_and_talks/BenderGBC2005.pdf
Thus the biosphere as a whole is not the cause of the CO2 increase in the atmosphere or the δ13C decline in atmosphere and ocean surface.
It doesn’t make sense to single out one part of a cycle, the net result of the total cycle is what changes the CO2 (and δ13C) level in the atmosphere. The only exception is human emissions, which are one-way additional…
The warmistas like to point out that rising temperatures cause CO2 outgassing from the oceans (paleo ice core evidence) and other short term evidence (but don’t have link right now).
Since we know temps have been rising, at least some of the CO2 has come out of the oceans, since surface ocean temps tend to increase with overall global temps.
The warmistas like to point out that rising temperatures cause CO2 outgassing from the oceans (paleo ice core evidence) and other short term evidence (but don’t have link right now).
Since we know temps have been rising, at least some of the CO2 has come out of the oceans, since surface ocean temps tend to increase with overall global temps.
I don’t think so.
The ocean isn’t saturated and the area of very cold waters is not likely to decline much. And as the image depicts, uptake has risen for 70 years as temperature has increased.
Much uncertainty, evidently, about the CO2 budget, but the concentration is probably much more important than temperature, especially global average temperature which doesn’t capture the variation.
The ocean does not have to be saturated with CO2. If the ocean surface waters get hotter, they can’t hold as much CO2 and it will outgas.
This is merely a shift in equilibrium and has nothing to do with saturation per se.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry's_law#Temperature_dependence_of_the_Henry_constant
http://i.imgur.com/2izwrin.png
Total human emissions are only slightly larger than the noise in the 210 GT/Y global carbon budget.
The absorption is driven by the atmospheric concentration and has nothing to do with emissions and is gaining on emissions.
In 30-40 years the absorption is going to catch up to emissions which is about the time supply shortages and high prices will reduce fossil fuel use.
PA, human emissions are slightly quadratic increasing over time, which shows up in the near-linear increase of dCO2(em)/dt over time. The net result is that both the increase in the atmosphere as the net sink capacity also increases slightly quadratic over time and thus dCO2(atm)/dt and dCO2(sinks)/dt are quite linear over time.
As long as human emissions are increasing in the same way, there may be never a catch up of the sinks and the “airborne fraction” would remain about the same. Of course, as long as production can follow demand…
“the burden of proof”
…is always on the people who make the claims. If no proof is provided for the claim, then the claim is just that.
Andrew
Yep, and we are still waiting on the IPCC to make their case.
BA,
You seem to think that there is some kind of default position that others need to prove wrong? It is natural until proven otherwise? It doesn’t work like that in the physical sciences. A fundamental part of the physical sciences is explaining the physical processes behind what we observe. We don’t start from some assumption of knowledge that we prove wrong. We might start with a hypothesis that we test, but that doesn’t mean that what we choose first has some precedence over what comes later.
“It is natural until proven otherwise?”
I didn’t say that. I said if you claim to know what it is, you get to prove it.
Andrew
ATTP,
Traditionally, scientists have born the burden of proving their own claims. Are suggesting that should no longer be the case?
Andrew
No, I’m suggesting that “you’re wrong until you convince me that you’re not” is not a claim!
Since the lighter is more from organic origin and the heavier more from inorganic, it has been assumed that the consistently increasing burning of fossil fuel has caused the difference.
There seems to be 2 assumptions here, and no allowance for volcanic activity as a factor influencing organic vs. inorganic atmospheric carbon concentrations, and the assumed preferential venting off into space of CO2 from organic origin may require a leap of faith.
Are the data and calculations used in this post available anywhere? I’m trying to understand some of the choices used in this post, and I’m not having much luck.
The warmistas like to point out that rising temperatures cause CO2 outgassing from the oceans (paleo ice core evidence) and other short term evidence (but don’t have link right now).
Since we know temps have been rising, at least some of the CO2 has come out of the oceans, since surface ocean temps tend to increase with overall global temps.
MY REPLY
Which is correct . The oceans have been warming releasing CO2 into the atmosphere. This will reverse when the sea surface temperatures start cooling which will be the case going forward.
The GHG effect is the result of the climate not the cause of the climate.
This is the data ,this is what it shows, and the evidence for what is shows as most likely being correct when contrasted to AGW theory.
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/337/6096/809.summary
The quote below is from the article, NASA satellite data shows a decline in water vapor.
The quote is radiosonde data shows that upper atmosphere water vapor declines with warming.
Further from the patriot post article called, Evidence That Demands a Verdict shows quite clearly two items of data of importance one being there has been no warming in the tropical atmosphere at the 12km level or 18 km level and that all the deviations in the upper tropical troposphere atmosphere temperatures are correlated with the temperature in Nino region 3.4.
I will send this data over on my next post.
Data also showing thus far no lower tropospheric hot spot has materialized.
What the data is saying if one tries to incorporate all of this, is first of all it appears that the temperature in the tropical troposphere is correlated to ENSO. When ENSO in in an El Nino phase the temperature in the tropical troposphere increases and vice versa with no long term change in the temperature of the tropical troposphere overall. In addition radiosonde data is indicating that water vapor concentrations are inversely correlated with the temperature of the atmosphere and from the article I posted it said one of the ways in which water vapor may get into the stratosphere outside of the tropics is via convection. Then in addition, with data still showing no tropical tropospheric hot spot here are the objective conclusions that have to be drawn based upon the data.
The conclusions I take away from all of this is first the temperature of the tropical troposphere is controlled by ENSO not CO2 and that the concentrations of water vapor irrespective of if water vapor is or is not inversely correlated to the temperature of the upper atmosphere is going to be tied to ENSO, not CO2.
In addition it looks like sea surface temperatures(PDO) /convection may have much to do with the amounts of water vapor which eventually reach the stratosphere all of which destroy AGW theory which said the amounts of water vapor which will reside in the tropical troposphere will be DIRECTLY tied into the strong positive feedback between CO2 and water vapor which would result in two distinct trends developing in the tropical troposphere which would be a steady increase in water vapor which would be in tandem with a steady increasing temperature trend in the tropical troposphere which would be more pronounced with altitude relative to the lower levels, and that this steady increase in water vapor /temperature trend which would be evolving would cause a tropical tropospheric hot spot to evolve, due to an ever increasing negative lapse rate.
Data however shows no such negative lapse rate trend evolving and no correlation between CO2 and the tropical tropospheric temperature profile, nor no correlation with CO2 and tropical troposphere water vapor profile. Instead data shows the temperature and water vapor characteristics of the tropical troposphere seem to be correlated with ENSO ,and indicate in the case of water vapor (according to radiosonde data) an inverse relationship to temperature all things being equal, but this could be obscured by convection changes in the tropics due to sea surface temperature changes and atmospheric circulation changes all of which AGW theory does not address to any degree whatsoever when it comes to the temperature profile and water vapor profile of the tropical troposphere.
In conclusion not only does the resultant tropical hot spot as called for by AGW theory not appear but data shows in addition the reasons why it does not appear are because it is not CO2 which governs how the tropical tropospheric temperature/water vapor profile may evolve but rather it is ENSO phases and sea surface temperature changes (PDO phases) along with convection changes in the tropics due to atmospheric circulation changes, that govern the tropical troposphere temperature/water vapor profile.
This all showing that the central theme of AGW theory which is a strong positive feedback between CO2 and water vapor resulting in a tropical tropospheric temperature/water vapor profile which would give rise to a tropical hot spot is flawed. Hence the theory is flawed.
T
http://patriotpost.us/opinion/19138
This pertains to my post last post.
Anyway, I’ll be blunt about the post by Fred Haynie. I don’t buy it at all.
The Earth’s atmosphere has a mass of 5.15 x 10^18 kg. This suggests that it takes 2.13 gigatons of carbon to increase atmospheric CO2 by 1 ppm when burned. Current global CO2 emissions correspond to nearly 10 gigatons of carbon per year. It isn’t that hard to figure out how much of the observed CO2 increase is natural.
However, observed increase in atmospheric CO2 is less than anthropogenic emissions. This is because of natural uptake. Natural uptake is dominated by oceans absorbing excess CO2 in order to reach equilibrium (i.e. Henry’s law). In the long run, the oceans can absorb roughly 85% of emitted CO2 due to Henry’s law, and the characteristic decay time towards equilibrium is on the order of a century (though I suspect it may be slightly less than this). Natural uptake has been increasing because the Earth has been moving further away from equilibrium.
There is a temperature CO2 feedback, but it isn’t that large. Warming water by 1 C will generally result in it being able to hold 1.26% less dissolved CO2 via the properties of Henry’s constant. Then you also have melting permafrost effects. Anyway, if you look at CO2 changes over the Pleistocene, the difference in atmospheric CO2 from LGM to Holocene was ~100 ppm, where as the global temperature difference was 4.0 +/- 0.8 C (95% CI from Annan and Hargreaves 2013). This suggests that the Temperature-CO2 feedback is roughly 25 +/- 5 ppm per C. Although it might be slightly less than this since the Oceans now have at most 1 – (1 – 0.0126)^4 = 4.95% less dissolved CO2 and there is less permafrost left to dethaw than during the LGM.
iiequalsexpipi, the only flaw in your analysis is:
If one can blithely ignore human emissions, there’s a good case for “it’s natural”.
I see lots of the same static reasoning in the posts above.
It’s funny, in a way. Those who claim human attribution are making common cause with the Skydragons.
The Skydragons say that energy out = energy in no matter what, so CO2 cannot be heating the surface. But, it really isn’t energy in/out, it is power in/out. Power, a.k.a. energy flux. For equilibrium, power in = power out, but that says nothing about where the equilibrium is established. Every second of every daylight hour, new sunlight is being input to the surface. If the atmospheric IR opacity increases, then some of that sunlight doesn’t escape. For purely radiative exchange, with all else held equal, that forces an increase in surface temperature, until such as time as equilibrium between power in and power out is reestablished. Within that time, there has been an increase in the energy stored at or near the surface, and a corresponding increase in temperature.
Just so, the deniers of natural forcing of atmospheric CO2 claim that temperature cannot be driving the rise, because a static pool of water only outgasses a finite amount due to a change in temperature. But, every second of every day, new CO2 is entering the system, and old CO2 is being taken out. Any even temporary net imbalance between the two increases the amount of CO2 retained. Equilibrium is established when CO2 flux in = CO2 flux out.
And, that is why we see a sensitivity NOT in ppmv/K, but in ppmv/K/unit-of-time. The relationship is clearly evident in plots of the rate of change of CO2 versus temperature.
There is no way around it. Humans are not the drving force of atmospheric CO2. It isn’t even a close call.
Bart,
Your plot of CO2 variability vs. T variability is based on the assumption that the variability and the trend are caused by the same temperature driven process.
That is proven wrong. The dCO2/dt variability is certainly driven by temperature variability, as that is a short response function of (tropical) forests on short term temperature changes (El Niño, La Niña) as the opposite CO2 and δ13C variability shows:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/temp_dco2_d13C_mlo.jpg
But vegetation is not the cause of the longer term (1-3 years) trend: the biosphere is a proven sink for CO2.
The arbitrary match between T and CO2 variability and slopes is quite obvious if you plot the trend lines: either the variability matches, but the slopes don’t, or the slopes match, but the variability doesn’t… It is getting worse for the period after 2000 and even negative for the period 1976-1996…
Further, the sensitivity of CO2 changes after T changes is ppmv/K NOT ppmv/K/unit-of-time. There is no permanent influx of CO2 for any sustained offset in temperature, without a feedback from the increased CO2 pressure in the atmosphere. Or you violate Henry’s law: any change in temperature gives a fixed change in equilibrium for a static system as good as for the steady state level of a dynamic system, which the ocean – atmosphere exchanges are. The whole influence of the temperature increase since 1960 is not more than 5 ppmv, assuming 8 ppmv/K (4-17 ppmv/K according to Henry’s law), hardly visible in the CO2 trend.
ferdinand, “But vegetation is not the cause of the longer term (1-3 years) trend: the biosphere is a proven sink for CO2.”
That is one point of contention. The “biosphere” has large land and ocean components that are known to have considerable longer term cycles. “all things remaining equal” the biosphere is a net sink on planetary time scales, but currently the land portion of the biosphere is a net source and the ocean portion may be a net source since about two giga tons of carbon are harvested per year not counting knock on impacts, carbon cycle disruption, of that harvest.
http://oceanworld.tamu.edu/resources/oceanography-book/anthropocene.htm
Basically, human activity is forcing more CO2 through the atmosphere/ocean loop.
Ferdinand,
Do natural sources of CO2 emission dwarf anthropogenic? TRUE/FALSE
Do you know how much all the natural sources and sinks of CO2 are sourcing and sinking on an annual basis with accuracy and precision much smaller than annual human emission? TRUE/FALSE
If the answer to the second question is “true” please provide your source for all that information.
I wasn’t impressed with your writing on WUWT and I’m not impressed with it here either. Your certainty is ill-founded. Correlation does not equal causation. Write that down.
“Further, the sensitivity of CO2 changes after T changes is ppmv/K NOT ppmv/K/unit-of-time.”
Directly contradicted by empirical evidence.
When theory and data clash, it’s the theory that has to be modified, not the data. This is a dynamic system, not a stagnant pool of water.
> When theory and data clash, it’s the theory that has to be modified, not the data.
Only if you have adamant data, which is seldom the case and an invicible model, which never is.
Let’s not forget that between theory and data, there’s Bartemis’ interpretation.
Mr. T always hesitates between ditching between theory, model, data, and usually throws off a bit of everything.
“Only if you have adamant data, which is seldom the case and an invicible model, which never is.”
So, we junk the data, and follow our “feelings”. Great. Now we’ve regressed to Pre-Enlightenment.
An “invincible model”? The fact that it is vincible is the very point.
Captdallas,
The biosphere as a whole since 1990 is a proven, increasing sink for CO2:
http://www.bowdoin.edu/~mbattle/papers_posters_and_talks/BenderGBC2005.pdf
Most plants use photosynthesis which uses CO2 and releases O2. Near all other life uses plant energy, direct or indirect to live from, that uses O2 and releases CO2. What we need is the balance between these two.
The change in O2 over time can be measured. Most of the change is from fossil fuel burning, but some small part is missing: the biosphere is a net producer of O2, thus a net sink of CO2. That includes land and sea plants, bacteria, molds, insects and animals…
The earth is greening…
BTW, land clearing is added to human emissions. I don’t use that in my calculations as that is quite uncertain, but worst case than is that human emissions are underestimated, not overestimated.
> The fact that it [i.e. the model] is vincible is the very point.
The point was rather that when there’s a conflict between data and theory, the theory had to be modified. Unless theory and model are synonyms, the “very point” just shifted.
Models are more than vincible: they’re all wrong. While some are useful, is yours useful, Bartemis? You seem to claim it’s random.
To explain regularities by randomness would be quite a feat. Go for it.
Good luck with that.
***
> Now we’ve regressed to Pre-Enlightenment.
Considering that you just effed the concept of model, Bartemis, you might be advised to stick to very basic feedback theory.
David Springer:
Do natural sources of CO2 emission dwarf anthropogenic?
True but irrelevant: as long as the natural sources are fully compensated by natural sinks the net result is zero change in the atmosphere.
Human emissions are one-way additional.
Do you know how much all the natural sources and sinks of CO2 are sourcing and sinking on an annual basis with accuracy and precision much smaller than annual human emission?
False for any individual flux, true for the sum of all fluxes:
The accuracy of the inventory of human emissions is -0.5/+1 GtC/year
The accuracy of the CO2 levels in the atmosphere is +/- 0.4 GtC/year
The accuracy of the net sink rate therefore is -1.5/+1 GtC/year
Human emissions are ~9 GtC/year and growing, larger than the necessary accuracy ánd the variability (+/- 2 GtC) in net sink rate.
Sources:
http://www.eia.gov/cfapps/ipdbproject/IEDIndex3.cfm?tid=90&pid=44&aid=8
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/dv/iadv/
I wasn’t impressed with your writing on WUWT and I’m not impressed with it here either. Your certainty is ill-founded. Correlation does not equal causation. Write that down.
I don’t need or even want to impress anybody, I only do look at ALL available evidence. If all available evidence points in one direction: human emissions as cause of the increase and there is no counter-evidence, then and only then I will display some certainty that humans are the cause of the increase…
But are you sure that the “Correlation does not equal causation.” is not meant for Bart, whose whole theory is based on an artificial match of two straight lines, while that violates all available observations, every single one…
Bart,
When theory and data clash, it’s the theory that has to be modified, not the data. This is a dynamic system, not a stagnant pool of water.
Please take your own words into consideration: your theory violates every single observation of all available observations…
And as Willard said:
you might be advised to stick to very basic feedback theory.
If the temperature of the oceans increases, the CO2 in the atmosphere increases. The increase in the atmosphere reduces the increase speed of CO2 from the oceans into the atmosphere. At ~8 ppmv extra in the atmosphere a new steady state is reached for a 1 K temperature increase. I have shown the chain of events and the calculations: 40 GtC going in and out continuously between deep oceans and atmosphere, before and after the temperature increase.
If you have a different theory about what happens between the oceans and the atmosphere for 1 K temperature increase, will you please give a detailed chain of events, so that a layman here can follow your theory and calculations…
Englebeen your sources don’t support your contention that you know enough about the performance of all CO2 sources and sinks with sufficient precision to know that human emission is the cause of the rise in atmospheric carbon reservoir.
I’d say nice try but it really wasn’t anything more than hand waving.
The future GHG effect may be more due to water vapor concentration changes then CO2 concentration changes if no positive feedback exist between increases in CO2 and water vapor. This angle or approach has not been taken.
I think it is valid and needs to be looked into.
Everyone is fixated on CO2 concentration changes and thus future GHG effects while not devoting much time to water vapor future concentrations and the role it may have independent of CO2.
You need to look at the total atmosphere for changes in water vapor, not just what is going on in the stratosphere, which warmistas have predicted cooling which would mean a drop in stratospheric water vapor.
Which means you are going on and on about predictions made and confirmed that support the AGW narrative.
If for instance CO2 concentrations rise while water vapor concentrations fall the GHG effect is going to DECREASE not increase despite increasing CO2 concentrations.
This possibility is not being considered and should be especially if sea surface temperatures decline which will mean less evaporation less water vapor in the lower levels of the atmosphere while precipitation increases would mean less water vapor concentrations in the upper atmosphere.
Dynamics of atmospheric circulation and ocean currents means less water vapor in the lower atmosphere does not necessarily have to correlate with lesser amounts of precipitation.
So maybe water vapor concentration changes should be given some considerations instead of solely being fixated on CO2 concentration changes to see what kind of future GHG effect may be present going forward?
I presented it as a question to see if anyone has any thoughts on this approach.
This post is utter rubbish. A simple material balance shows the Earth has been a net sink for man made CO2 for at least as long as the Mauna Loa record. Any ‘analysis’ which concludes otherwise has to be wrong. The post is worthy of the annual Salsby award for nonsensical gibberish.
Judith, you made a mistake allowing such nonsense on your blog.
Yeah steve, but if you ignore the fact of the human emissions, it could be natural. We have to discuss this. And we have to give Bartemis his turn. And we hope that guy comes back to give us the missing part 3, of his series on stock prices and climate whatever.
No Don, we don’t. The Earth has absorbed about half of all human emissions… there is nothing more worth saying.
Don’t be so hasty, steve. We haven’t yet heard from Dougie Cotton.
No Steve,that is the common fallacy. ALL emissions, natural and human,are absorbed in about five years because the annual flux is huge, about a quarter of the total atmospheric mass. The increases may or may not be due to human emissions but they are certainly not composed of human emissions.
Well, there you have it steve. The molecules of ACO2 and NCO2 are shuffling in and out of the atmosphere so fast, we can not keep track of what is which. We will never be able to know how much of the increase is ACO2 vs. NCO2. I guess this makes Fred’s case. We can stop now.
Don Monfort: We will never be able to know how much of the increase is ACO2 vs. NCO2.
Once we have accepted that we do not know now, we may be able to, and motivated to, figure out how in the future.
Don,
We do not need to hear from Doug Algodao. The post is rubbish.
“we may be able to, and motivated to, figure out how in the future”
Why? There are no physical processes that depend on the history of the molecules. They have no memory.
Dave Wojick,
You are very confused.
Why? There are no physical processes that depend on the history of the molecules. They have no memory.
The biological consumers have an evolutionary memory of past atmospheres a significant constraint on future assumptions.
http://www.biogeosciences.net/4/323/2007/bg-4-323-2007.html
> There are no physical processes that depend on the history of the molecules. They have no memory.
They still could be subject to a funding bias.
It’s not called a carbon budget for nothing.
The truth is out there.
Nick,
Well, what if a Maxwell’s daemon painted the ones which came from fossil fuels bright red? Then you could at least keep track of them.
Steve Fitzpatrick: In places, “incomprehensible gibberish” is actually a better descriptor.
I think sometimes Judith likes to provoke people to think and respond. This may be one of those times.
If you haven’t seen it, I’d be interested in your take on Ferdinand Englebeen post: Origin Of The Recent Co2 Increase In The Atmosphere
Carrick,
Maybe Judith is trying to provoke, but if so, it is a mistake IMO. There is plenty of room at WUWT for nonsensical rubbish, and there is no need to encourage it elsewhere.
WRT Ferdinand, I have not seen the post you linked to, but Ferdinand usually makes sensible arguments (based on multiple lines of evidence) that the increase in atmospheric CO2 level is certainly due to human emissions. I am honestly not inclined to check Ferdinand’s work; I will trust that he is pretty close to correct. And no matter what Ferdinand says, you just don’t need to go past the obvious: the mass balance is very clear; about half of human emitted CO2 has disappeared.
What drives me crazy here Carrick is what Steve Mosher has many times pointed out: rubbish arguments tend to keep the conversation from where it should be, and give CAGW advocates easy things to critique. The legitimate arguments about weaknesses in the CAGW case are what need to be focused on, not rubbish arguments about why CO2 is rising. As I have said before, I wish the hopelessly uninformed would stop trying to help so much….. or become better informed.
The issue is this. Our understanding of the carbon budget has significant uncertainties, especially the land component. See the global carbon project http://www.globalcarbonproject.org/carbonbudget/
If you look back over the period to say 1900 or even 1920, how large are the uncertainties in those carbon budgets? To understand natural carbon cycle variability on decadal to century scales, we need to understand this, and not simply assume ‘equilibrium’ on decadal to century timescales, especially in the presence of a longterm warming trend since at least the 18th century.
We don’t have data for any of this. So I am not convinced by simple mass balance attribution arguments based on current observations. I think it unlikely that 100% of the increase in atm CO2 is caused by humans. It is not unreasonable to start from a point of 50-50 (Fred’s conclusion) and see if you can falsify natural variability as large as 50%. It may not be 50%, but I don’t think it is 0%.
And then there is the issue of CO2 variability derived from stomatal records
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277379113000553
A quick glance at AR5 ch 5 doesn’t provide much clarity on the differences between stomatal and ice cores say for past 1000 yrs
Judith,
Honestly, what you are saying makes no sense to me. We have a very good estimate of the total CO2 which has been emitted by human activities. We have a very good estimate of how much CO2 has increased. So we have a very good estimate of how much net uptake of emitted CO2 has taken place. You could argue (for example) that “some of the increase is due to out gassing due to a warmer ocean surface”, but that argument begs the real issue: all that argument amounts to is that an even GREATER portion of the emitted CO2 would have been absorbed except for warming of the ocean surface. There is no argument which refutes the obvious mass balance argument, unless you want to argue that the estimates of total emitted CO2 are very wrong, and I don’t think you are suggesting that.
> rubbish arguments tend to keep the conversation from where it should be, and give CAGW advocates easy things to critique. The legitimate arguments about weaknesses in the CAGW case are what need to be focused on, not rubbish arguments about why CO2 is rising.
The converse has also been observed: libertarian advocates focusing on the easiest things to critique. Sometimes, they even call that “legitimate arguments about weakenesses in the CAGW case,” oblivious to the fact that they insert their own CAGW meme. The Serengeti strategy is generalized.
***
SteveF might agree with Richard Tol on a related matter:
http://judithcurry.com/2011/11/07/two-new-papers-vs-best/#comment-134297
willard,
Lucia is correct, you seem incapable of composing an comprehensible written comment. I have not the slightest clue what you were trying to say.
Steve, it sounds like you do not know a lot about this. Here are the basics. Natural emissions are around 200 btcy. Human emissions are around 8 btcy. Natural absorption is also around 200 btcy. The atmospheric mass is about 800 btc, so roughly 25% is exchanged every year. The annual increase is 3-4 btcy. Human emissions are a small fraction of the annual flux so it takes some strong conjectures to make them the cause of the increase. But on no case is the increase composed of human emissions.
Stevefitzpatrick,
How do you know they are good estimates? What are the estimates and 95% confidence intervals?
How about the increase in the ocean? Is that also not human-caused? Do you see your argument falling apart yet?
David Wojick,
Actually, I do know something about the subject, including “the basics”. This is a very simple case of material balance: we know CO2 has been rising, but rising at a much lower rate than humans have been emitting CO2 to the atmosphere (about half the rate of emissions since the late 1950’s when the Mauna Loa record starts). This leads to the inevitable conclusion that there has been a NET uptake of CO2 by the Earth since the late 1950’s, not a net release of CO2 from the Earth. If you don’t see that, then I can’t help you. Like I said, you are very confused.
> I have not the slightest clue what you were trying to say.
Which part of “libertarian advocates focusing on the easiest things to critique” you don’t get, SteveF? All the concepts come from your own claim. I simply replaced “CAGW” with “libertarian.” I doubt the concept of libertarianism escapes you:
http://judithcurry.com/2015/02/15/denizens-ii/#comment-676062
***
As to the Serengeti strategy, your favorite Mike promotes it:
http://blog.ucsusa.org/michael-mann-responds-to-misleading-filings-in-climate-change-lawsuit-641
What may escape Mike is that predators usually attack the weakest preys, but then Mike’s not the target of the most vicious PR campaign known to mankind for no reason.
Do you really want me to spell it out more for you?
***
Finally, there’s Richard Tol’s reaction to Judy promoting formal crap. He considers that this “has done a disservice by lending your credibility to these papers.”
Would you say the same about this blog post?
***
If there’s anything else that I said that you don’t get, please feel free to say so.
Many thanks!
No matter how many times I see it, it always amazes me how people can be so dumb, yet be so smug about it.
This (the Earth being a net sink for ACO2 for as long as directly measured) is often brought up as the main argument against the hypothesis that some of the increase in atmospheric CO2 could be naturally caused. That makes no sense – even ATTP agrees (upthread) that at least some of the increase is caused by the warming.
So, nature can be a net sink and still cause some of the increase and even most of it.
The increase is due to the sum of all changes in sinks and sources, most of which are unknown. One cannot simply pick a single term out of this long equation and call it the cause of the sum, just because that term is larger than the sum. Causality is not that simple.
DW, quite so.
David,
I have a local bank account where I save $ 200 a month. At the end of the year, the local bank publishes its yearly balance, which shows a net gain of $ 1200.
According to you, the gain may be not from my contribution, it can be from anyone else who has contributed some money.
According to me, I will get all my money back as soon as possible and look for a safer deposit…
Judith
If Bart does not have the time I would imagine That Ferdinand might be interested in producing an article on which Bart could comment thereby ensuring a lively discussion.
Here is ferdinands home page
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/climate.html
Although he believes man is responsible for the increased co2 emissions he is a climate sceptic in as much he is somewhat sceptical of the claimed devastating effects of increased co2
I met Ferdinand in England four or five Years ago when we attended together a lecture given by Dr Iain Stewart at Southampton university. Dr Stewart presented tv’s ‘ climate Wars’
We both asked several questions of dr Iain Stewart in the ensuing q and a session.
I could ask him or perhaps you are already in contact with him? He may well turn up here of course as his antenna is keenly tuned to co2 discussions
Tonyb
Well I’m mainly interested in new ideas for how to approach this problem; there has been plenty written on the mainstream mass budget approach.
Frankly I think it’s no use flogging a dead horse, this “problem” is not a problem. The real issue is the postulated sink saturation in the Bern model. That and that alone is responsible for the modeled catastrophic CO2 level at the end of this century under a RCP8.5 emission scenario.
It’s election night over here so I will be up all night watching the results. If I have a bright new idea at 4am I will let you know.
BbC exit poll suggests Conservatives will be the largest party but short of an overall majority.
Tonyb
Hans, I agree that the bad BERN model is a big policy issue, but it does not follow that the cause of the CO2 increase is not also an unsolved scientific problem.
The only way to approach this problem is to actually measure the ongoing changes in all the major sources and sinks; until then we simply have no data so there is nothing for science to do. It is all just empty conjecture.
Peter Dietze and Bern model calculations of CO2
in the atmosphere.
http://www.john-daly.com/dietze/cmodcalc.htm
Sorry Judith to be a little late on the festivities here: two days and far over 400 comments. Sometimes I have another life beyond discussing mass balances…
Currently I am preparing a longer article about the cause of the increase of CO2 in the atmosphere, which is everything taken into account about 96% human and 4% natural (temperature).
I have yet one small problem to solve: the variability in rate of change of the CO2 increase is caused by the influence of temperature variability on (tropical) vegetation which needs a response function that is short and zeroes out after 1-2 years, as the longer term influence of temperature on vegetation is opposite to the short term response…
There is already some food for thoughts here (already mentioned a few times in other comments):
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/co2_origin.html
tonyb:
That doesn’t make him a “climate sceptic”. That just makes him a sceptic of catastrophic AGW.
Carrick
When he was quizzing Dr Iain Stewart at Southampton University and afterwards in the pub, he gave a very good Impersonation of being a sceptic, which is not to say that he doesn’t have some lukewarming tendancies, as do many sceptics.
Tonyb
Hi Tony,
Some time ago that we have met…
Seems that we were right to point Dr. Ian Stewart towards the “hide the decline” in the temperature proxy graphs…
The mass balance approach separates human contribution and treats the rest of the planet as a single box. The planet is really a lot of different boxes with different properties and fluxes between them. Some fluxes between boxes are symmetrical and some are not. The asymmetrical ones are the reason the mass balance approach does not work.
I agree, I think.
An unknown number of boxes, each containing an unknown amount of C, with Nature moving C from box to box, quite possibly in a mathematically chaotic fashion.
From time to time, Nature may add or delete boxes, or change their sizes.
But no matter. Some claim they have an equation that takes all the above into account. I’m not so sure.
gymnosperm,
Not completely: the main reservoirs are known and the (seasonal) main fluxes between atmosphere and the other reservoirs are roughly known:
– atmosphere
– biosphere: ~60 GtC in and out, seasonal
– ocean surface ~50 GtC in and out, seasonal
– deep oceans ~40 GtC in and out, continuous
Besides human emissions which are one-way contribution, all other fluxes are two-way (except some smaller ones like volcanic vents).
What is further known with reasonable accuracy is human emissions from fossil fuel burning (based on sales: taxes and burning efficiency).
The increase in the atmosphere is accurately known.
The net total result of all natural in and out fluxes is known: that is the difference between increase in the atmosphere and human emissions: more sink than source in the past 55 years.
The surprising point is that there is little variation in the net sink rate, besides an increase in ratio with the increase in the atmosphere, despite the huge natural fluxes involved: less that +/- 1 ppmv from year to year.
Ferdinand, I think the contribution to the atmosphere from microbial decomposition of soil, guestimated at 60Gt, is substantially one way as well. The atmosphere contributes Oxygen to the decomposition process but supposedly only .2GtC by weathering.
Look, you got a bank with a million customers. The customers put money in they take money out. The bank keeps track of all this activity, keeps an accounting of each account’s activity, balance of each account and the balance of the aggregate. The bank knows the total amount of customers’ money it is holding.
If you become a customer of that bank and you start at the beginning of the year putting a net positive amount of $100/month into your account, you are increasing the banks deposits by $100 a freaking month, no matter what the other million customers do. At the end of the year the bank closes the books and you know the amount of the bank’s total deposits. If the banks deposits have increased from $4billion at the end of the previous year to $4billion and $1200, guess who did it. If the bank’s deposits have increased by $600, who done it?
Where’s freddie, bartie et al.? This is a dynamic system with a million and one moving parts. Do you get this?
Another investor puts in 600 a month and increases his investment as the economy heats up. Now who done it?
You did not answer the question, gymnospermie. You fail. Next.
Let’s see how long it takes someone to lamely offer “What if they bank got the accounting wrong, or there was embezlement, or somebody deposited counterfeit money….?
Made the below comment before/
What about measuring C14 bomb pulse concentration in the more recent emissions vs fossil energy emissions which are C14 depleted from eons ago? Is that useful in sequestration of recent fossil emissions vs recently natural emissions from land or environmental sources?
Scott
Does this make sense in the ratio of modern C vs fossil C based on the C14 bomb curve reduction with increasing concentration from a depleting pool of C14?
Scott
Natural production of C14 might complicate things
Bob
Thanks for the thought. Actually rate of formation of C14 is by cosmic rays and is small vs remaining C14 in atmosphere.from 50’s and 60’s atmospheric a bomb tests. It is a difficult calculation but emissions from vegetation and the surface should be at current concentrations while fossil fuel emissions should be totally depleted. It was used to determine that CO2 smog in grand canyon was from recent fires of vegetation and not fossil fuel emissions from LS. I guess the rate of release from the ancient ocean water would also be fully depleted. Just a thought to try some other avenue. Looking into the turnover of carbon from recent emissions to sequester in forests or tall grasslands vs dangerous pumping liquid CO2 to underground capped basins. Lots uncertain at this point.
Scott
LA
Emissions amount to nearly 2000 Gt CO2. The rise in the atmosphere from 280 ppm to 400 ppm is 900 Gt CO2. The period and rate of rise correlate strongly with each other. Not only that but the ocean has acidified in the same period due to also gaining carbon. How can anything be more clear cut than that, that there is extra carbon entering the system (still today), and it is coming from fossil fuels which is why CO2 is rising.
Nature tucks too much carbon away in fossil fuels. CO2 levels in atmosphere fall. Nature realises mistake. Man created to put CO2 back into atmosphere, and raise levels from dangerously low concentration, otherwise leading to plant starvation and irreversible runaway extinction of both CO2 and O2 dependent life.
See how clever Nature is! Just the Universe unfolding as it should.
Phew, just dodged a big one there!
We can take two balance sheets with the latter one showing plus 900 Gt. atmosphere and plus 1100 Gt sinks. We can infer the income statement that connects the two, but we don’t seem to know either what the sink number is or what the natural emissions are. Income statement wise, it’s Hail Mary accounting.
The ocean is also net gaining carbon. Do you consider that to be natural?
The oceans gaining carbon is not all natural. We have ocean sunk amount plus all other sinks equaling total sunk amount, which isn’t known, nor is the natural emissions number. We just know that all the unknowns add up to the balance sheet change from before to now. Most time series we see in climate science use balance sheet to balance sheet accounting. We model the income statements that explain the changes, accurately with some of the numbers some of the time, but not all of the numbers being accurate. It seems with the carbon cycle we are doing that.
Do you see that the ocean and atmosphere have each had a net gain? Where did that come from?
Yes, a gain in the atmosphere partially man made.
http://jo.nova.s3.amazonaws.com/graph/ocean/acidification/pdo-ocean-ph-link-lrg.png
It’s more unclear what’s going with the oceans. I admit it’s very likely that our CO2 is going into the oceans, but measuring how much is probably difficult. If CO2 can bring us out of a glacier period, I’d bet a fast and sustained source of that is the oceans. Control of the massive ocean CO2 levels seems more difficult than controlling atmospheric levels.
Ragnaar,
Increase of CO2 in the ocean surface is measured at a few fixed station as DIC (dissolved inorganic carbon) and more sporadic ship’s surveys. All show an increase in DIC over time:
http://www.tos.org/oceanography/archive/27-1_bates.pdf
The pCO2 in the atmosphere is ~7 μatm higher than the average pCO2 of the oceans, thus the average flux is from the atmosphere into the oceans. See Feely e.a.:
http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/pubs/outstand/feel2331/exchange.shtml
and following pages…
It would seem upwelling of CO2 rich water would be required to recycle carbon over the long term. There’s a material amount of carbon in the deep oceans as far as I know. If wasn’t recycled, over 100s of millions of years, we’d run out of it. Here, you can start near the middle of it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YcxS2LoZukQ
What’s the source of the far South CO2?
For those in the US, next week’s Nova on PBS is about the effect of fossil fuels on the ocean, and its future.
Ragnaar, indeed CO2 is recycled from the deep oceans: the deep oceans are replenished with high CO2 levels in sinking cold polar waters and additional planktonic carbonate shells and organic debris dropping out from the surface which dissolves in the deep + bacteria which use the organics and also produce CO2, further subsurface volcanoes also add some CO2. That is coming back via upwelling waters near the tropics, where the combination of high CO2/bi/carbonate levels and high temperatures emit a lot of CO2 (if not captured by abundant bio-life at upwelling zones).
The net result at steady-state is a continuous flux of ~40 GtC/year out of the tropical oceans towards the poles and back via the deep oceans, be it with a lag of ~1000 years for the latter. With the 110 ppmv extra CO2 pressure in the atmosphere, the unbalance now is ~38.5 GtC/year into the atmosphere and ~41.5 GtC/year out into the deep oceans, a net sink of ~3 GtC out of the ~9 GtC human contribution…
Check out the Earth breathing video again. Around Feb/March a large puff of CO2 North of Antarctica as the sea ice minimum is reached. It might be illustrating this: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10724166 by Keeling. The general idea is that Antarctic sea ice can form a barrier to CO2 release to the atmosphere.
Since CO2 is in a quasi-equilibrium between atmosphere and ocean, there will be a partitioning effect of CO2 molecules made up of different carbon isotopes. Ones with 2 12 AWU carbons will preferentially be partitioned into the atmosphere. One with heavier isotopes will tend to stay in the ocean.
That is actually the case but it is vastly more complicated. The ocean mixed layer is far richer in 13C than any of the reservoirs that communicate with it. The plankton within the ocean grab every 12C they can get their hands on and leave the water enriched in 13C. Biologically rejected 13C washes from the atmosphere in rain and from land in rivers. Life just doesn’t want the stuff and the ocean winds up with it.
Evaporation also concentrates 13C. Even though we don’t think of Carbon going along for the ride as some 400,000 GT of water evaporates from the ocean surface every year, it does.
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v316/n6027/abs/316434a0.html
“Ones with 2 12 AWU carbons” should have been “Ones with a 12 AWU carbon”
There is this thing called conservation of matter. The increases in carbon in air and sea are a very good fit for the amount of carbon we have extracted from the ground. Not only that, but the isotopic composition of the above ground carbon has shifted exactly as one would expect from our adding fossil fuel carbon to the mix. You can believe that the added carbon is our doing, or you can believe that there is some magical sink for the carbon we have dug out of the ground, and some other magical source for carbon that happens to have the very same isotopic signature.
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Reblogged this on pdx transport.
Prof. Curry. If the natural environment is a net source of a carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, then the rise in atmospheric CO2 should be faster than the rate of anthropogenic emissions as both nature and mankind would be contributing to the rise. This is true, regardless of what governs natural sources and sinks, it is a matter of accounting for the carbon circulating through the carbon cycle. However, it is clearly not what we actually observe.
If, on the other hand, the natural environment is a net carbon sink, taking more CO2 out of the atmosphere each year than it puts in, then it is hard to see how that could be described as *causing* the rise in atmospheric CO2 rather than *opposing* it.
So if you wish to argue that the rise is even partially natural, you need to be able to explain either:
(i) How can the observation that atmospheric CO2 rising more slowly than anthropogenic emissions be made consistent with the natural environment being a net source of CO2?
or
(ii) How can the natural environment be described as a cause of the atmospheric increase in CO2, even though it is a net carbon sink, taking more CO2 out of the atmosphere than it puts in?
Please could you give a direct answer to either of these questions.
The assumption that the natural environment is a net sink is the circular reasoning “fudge factor” in the IPPC’s “mass balance” argument that “proves” about 50% of anthropogenics are more than enough to cause the rise in atmospheric CO2. My analysis suggests that only about 20% of anthropogenics are accumulating in the surface/air environment which requires an increase in natural emissions to match the observed increase in the atmosphere. My analysis puts the mass balance some where between Bart’s all natural, and Ferdinand’s all anthropogenic. Who do you think is closer to the truth?
Ferdinand thinks 95% is human.
fhhaynie again your reply strongly suggests that you do not understand the mass balance argument. That the natural environment is a net sink is the CONCLUSION of the mass balance argument, not an assumption. Thus there is no circularity.
Making it the conclusion by assuming that anthoprogenic emissions are more than enough to account for all the rise in atmospheric accumulation is the circular reasoning. Try doing a vertical mass balance on the ARCTIC where the cold open surface sink area is constantly changing.
fhhaynie wrote “Making it the conclusion by assuming that anthoprogenic emissions are more than enough to account for all the rise in atmospheric accumulation is the circular reasoning.”
That is a misrepresentation of the of the mass balance argument. It shows that BECAUSE anthropogenic emissions are greater than the atmospheric growth rate THEN the natural sinks take more CO2 out of the atmosphere than natural sources put in. We know this because otherwise the principle of conservation of mass would be violated. Again you have demonstrated that you do not understand the mass balance argument.
Yes, I do understand your mass balance arguement and your continued falling back on natural sinks being greater than natural sources so that about 50% of anthropogenics are retained in the surface/air environment is your circular reasoning. You can get a mass balance (as Bart does) that assumes all the increase is because natural emission rates exceed natural sink rates. I think that the truth is that both are contributing to the rise.
Well, the land plants are sinking 120 GT / year.
35% of this is due to increased (55% increase) CO2 driven growth.
120 * 0.35 = 42 GT. That is 42 GT for a 90 PPM increase.
9.8/42 * 90 = 21 PPM. To absorb all of mankind’s annual emissions requires less than a 21 PPM rise in CO2 levels (I haven’t even included the ocean).
The claim that mankind’s emissions have had more than a 21 PPM effect on CO2 levels is without foundation.
How do you know that?
I don’t like this dikran character even a little bit. But he has got it right. Jimmy dee has got it right. Kenny has got it right. Haynie is dead wrong. If you can’t see that, that’s why they call y’all deniers.
Don,
Just saying people are wrong is Mosher’s schitck. You don’t do it as well as he does. You have to be smugger.
Andrew
Don, “I don’t like this dikran character even a little bit. But he has got it right. Jimmy dee has got it right. Kenny has got it right. Haynie is dead wrong. If you can’t see that, that’s why they call y’all deniers.”
Haynie is most likely wrong, but I doubt Judith allowed the post because she thinks he is right. The point is that there is uncertainty in several of the variables assumed way in the simple mass balance. About 50% of the estimated ACO2 emissions are staying in the atmosphere, but there is no “law” that requires the 50% remains constant. Land use for example is estimated at about a 1/3 of the emissions and could be off by a factor of two. There was also considerable “pre-industrial” land use change and even the Antarctic ice core CO2 reconstruction indicates the reversal in the Rate of CO2 uptake about 5000 years ago.
Haynie may be a bad specific example, but there is more to the story than a simplistic mass balance and the magical 1950 start date.
fhhaynie wrote: “Yes, I do understand your mass balance arguement and your continued falling back on natural sinks being greater than natural sources”
The mass balance argument doesn’t fall back on natural sinks being greater than natural sources, it *establishes* that natural sinks are greater than natural sources, so clearly you don’t understand the mass balance argument if you are unable to distinguish between its conclusion and its assumptions. It assume conservation of matter (pretty reasonable IMHO) and uses observations of atmospheric CO2 and anthropogenic emissions. It doesn’t assume anything else, hence there is no circularity.
“so that about 50% of anthropogenics are retained in the surface/air environment is your circular reasoning. ”
Again, you demonstrate that you don’t understand the mass balance argument as it does not explain why the airborne fraction is about a half. To show that you need a more complex model, perhaps starting with the simple first order box model described in my paper.
I have simplified my model to vertical fluxes in regions around the globe representing both sources and sinks. Also, I have uniformly distributed anthropogenic emissions assuming they eventually become part of the natural cycle. Try doing your method on a source or sink region.
Capt, there is not much uncertainty about how much ACO2 has been added to the atmosphere. The uncertainty about natural CO2 and fluxes and sinks doesn’t affect the fact of the ACO2. Twice as much ACO2 has been emitted as would be necessary to account for the rise. Half of the ACO2 is in the sinks and the other half is in the atmosphere. Or all of the ACO2 is in the sinks and it has crowded out an equal amount of natural CO2, which is in the atmosphere. Either way, the ACO2 has caused the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere to rise.
don as I mentioned elsewhere the land use portion of emissions has the highest uncertainty and contribute roughly a 1/3 to total emissions. If land use emissions are underestimated, land use mitigation would have a much larger positive impact.
Dealing with land use, black carbon and the worst of the pollutants would be most cost effective and have the greater impact than any draconian carbon tax that focused on FF only.
I believe Curry is looking at this with an eye toward directing research and policy recommendations which is just a bit past simplistic modeling.
Capt., I have seen estimates that land use accounts for less than 10% of ACO2. Anyway, the main argument here seems to be that maybe ACO2 ain’t the villain in the rise in CO2 in the atmosphere. That is a denier argument. If you want to focus on land use, I think you are pretty much alone.
Don,
Land Use (not counting urban) appox. 20-24%. https://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/unfccc/sbsta40/AR5WGIII_Tubiello_140606.pdf
Most of the surface of the earth is water, Tropical oceans are the big source. The Artic ocean and the south circumpolar current are the big sinks. These rates are always changing and they do not balance out from year to year. Small changes can exceed annual anthropogenic emission rates. That is what I observe in the data.
Don Monfort | May 8, 2015 at 11:41 am |
I don’t like this dikran character even a little bit. But he has got it right. Jimmy dee has got it right. Kenny has got it right. Haynie is dead wrong. If you can’t see that, that’s why they call y’all deniers.
The total CO2 environmental exchange is 210+ GT in and out of the atmosphere every year.
The total human emissions are less than 5% (1 part in 20) of the carbon cycle.
https://www.hydrofarm.com/resources/articles/co2.jpg
It takes less than a 21 PPM increase to alter the balance of the CO2 exchange to totally compensate for human emissions.
The CO2 increase is mostly the result of something else. Something else usually includes land use changes and natural warming.
Once you burn down rainforest that sinking is in the toilet and gone, perhaps permanently.
PA, the total human emissions that are added to the natural cycle are twice the amount needed to account for the rise in CO2. Live with it. Argue about something else. The strong positive water feedback assumption is a fat target.
The total natural emissions of CO2 is at least 20 times anthropogenic emissions. It only takes about a five percent increase in the natural emission rate to more than account for the observed rise in atmospheric CO2. Can you live with that? That is what Bart is doing with his mass balance.
Thanks, Danny. This source says 8%?
http://www.globalcarbonproject.org/carbonbudget/14/hl-compact.htm
Anyway, the argument here seems to be different. I don’t think that better land use is controversial.
Don,
Looks like the discrepancy is the GCP separates forestry and refers to deforestation and “land use change” while the IPCC report includes Ag production.
With you fully on the land use being by far less controversial which leads to a lack of undertanding on focus on that which is doable. But no one asked me.
Thanks for that link!
don, ” Anyway, the main argument here seems to be that maybe ACO2 ain’t the villain in the rise in CO2 in the atmosphere”
More like fossil fuel related ACO2 isn’t the only game in town. Land use emissions are about 3 times more than you thought and since they went from a net sink to a net source they could have 50% of the impact. The 13C only roughly separates out the FF part, land use is still part of the A team.
haynie, haynie, haynie
“It only takes about a five percent increase in the natural emission rate to more than account for the observed rise in atmospheric CO2.”
How TF do you make that argument and ignore the fact that the amount of ACO2 is twice as much as is necessary to account for the rise in atmospheric CO2? And that is ADDED to the natural CO2. Can you substantiate that the natural CO2 has risen by 5%? Do some thinking.
Get serious, Capt. I thought the land use contribution is less than 10%. Let’s stipulate that I read a wrong source. Danny’s source says between 20-24%. that ain’t a difference of three times. In any case that’s still ACO2, land use is not the main argument here. Don’t you get that? I am surprised that otherwise intelligent and rational people are hung on this BS.
fhhaynie wrote “The total natural emissions of CO2 is at least 20 times anthropogenic emissions. It only takes about a five percent increase in the natural emission rate to more than account for the observed rise in atmospheric CO2.”
Whether the rise is natural depends on whether or not total natural emissions exceeds total natural uptake. It is only the difference between natural uptake and natural emissions that matters and while anthropogenic emissions may be 20 times smaller than natural emissions, natural uptake is bigger still. Anthropogenic emissions are not small compared to the difference between natural emissions and natural uptake, which is why anthropogenic emissions dominate.
Again you demonstrate that you don’t understand the mass balance argument which shows with high certainty that natural uptake is greater than natural emissions.
I readily see that you cannot believe that natural emissions can exceed natural sinks. How do you explain those cycles in the net long term accumulation rate data? That isn’t balanced out over time.
don, “In any case that’s still ACO2, land use is not the main argument here. Don’t you get that? I am surprised that otherwise intelligent and rational people are hung on this BS.”
Everyone is allowed a brain fart Don. If land use is responsible for 24% and net ACO2 emissions and was a “natural” sink sink prior to man, land use would be responsible for up to 48% of the CO2 remaining in the atmosphere. If you hadn’t bought into ‘possum’s straw that would be easy to understand. btw less than 10% to 24%+ urban is damn near 3 times :)
Now Haynie screws up by calling the change in the “natural” sink natural. It isn’t really known and could be primarily man caused. You can’t assume away man’s potential impact on the “natural” sink or the possibility that the “natural” sink can change.
Take the fertile cresent, looks like a freaking desert to me. You don’t think primitive slash and burn plus goat centric agriculture could have modified things a touch?
haynie. haynie
If you have a sizable checking account with a lot of in-and-out activity and you always put in an extra $100 a month, beyond the net of the monthly transactions, what would you think if at the end of the year you only had a net gain in the balance of $50 a month? You would complain that your mass balance was off and the bank would say “Well, you got a lot of transactions, the total of which is a lot bigger than the measly $50 a month you say is missing.”
there are no feedbacks in your bank account. Consider this same exercise at the level of a bank with a million different accounts. What does the in activity for your account say about the net assets of the bank?
Take that further. Suppose you know someone is depositing a sizable but unknown variable amount each month and someone else is depositing a much smaller but known amount, and you know your wife spends a sizable but unknown amount. Are you going to tell your wife she spent too much if the bank statement shows a decrease?
curryja wrote “there are no feedbacks in your bank account. Consider this same exercise at the level of a bank with a million different accounts. What does the in activity for your account say about the net assets of the bank?”
The transactions referred to in the analogy represent all natural and anthropogenic emissions and uptake. So one wonders what these million different account represent? The carbon cycles on other planets perhaps, which obviously would have no effect on the carbon cycle on ours.
It is a shame that all too often when an analogy is used in discussing climate it is almost inevitable that someone will extend it without engaging constructively with the message that is was clearly intended to explain.
Judith, Judith
If you put in a $100 a month net of your other transactions, you will increase the assets of the bank by a $100 a month. If somebody else withdraws a hundred dollars a month, your money is still there. It is still an asset of the bank. It ain’t going to get lost or confused with somebody else’s money. If the assets of the bank are increasing, you contributed to the increase in assets, by $100/month, period. If the assets of the bank are decreasing, they would have decreased more without your deposits. This is not at all complicated.
PS: If the banks assets are increasing by $100/mo, you are doing it.
fhhaynie “Take that further. Suppose you know someone is depositing a sizable but unknown variable amount each month and someone else is depositing a much smaller but known amount, and you know your wife spends a sizable but unknown amount. Are you going to tell your wife she spent too much if the bank statement shows a decrease?”
If I shared an account with my wife only, and it attracted no interest or bank charges (i.e. it strictly obeyed conservation of money) and I noticed that the balance rose at lest than the rate of my net transactions then I would indeed know that my wife was taking more money out then she was putting in. I would know this even if I didn’t have detailed knowledge of her transactions.
Of course this analogy is usually extended by introducing bank robbers or other obfuscatory factors, but since my transactions represent anthropogenic emissions and my wife’s represent all natural emissions and uptake, that only leaves extraterrestrial or supernatural influences for the bank robber to represent. Good luck with that!
So you would blame your wife for spending too much before you complained to your big depositor for not depositing enough. That certainly isn’t a win-win.
> there are no feedbacks in your bank account
In mine there are.
Switch to another bank ASAP.
I am happy that you are enjoying this, willy. You now know how we are amused when we see jokers like you, dikran, kenny et al. put on displays of willful ignorance and stubborn intransigence when you all are attempting to defend the indefensible parts of your dogma.
> we are amused
The majestic we, again. Are you sure your protection services grant you the right to use that trick, Don Don.
I’m not here to defend anything, BTW, except my own claims.
***
Do you think Judy will link to this post when she’ll post something about and her (?) “circular reasoning” argument about detection and attribution in the AR5?
Banking analogies
This comment is mostly to assist me as I grapple with 21st century technology! However, a possibly useful analogy is the daily interbank market where tens of trillions of dollars etc of deposits are traded (‘churned’). There are comparatively tiny injections of external capital (billions) into the system each day. In the course of a day’s business, banks will create new assets (loans) which typically will lead to new deposits (bank liabilities). How much of these new deposits can be attributed to the tiny external capital injections (anthro CO2) and how much to internal banking activity (natural CO2)? Someone might know the answers, but they are not telling.
curryja writes | May 7, 2015 at 8:51 pm |
The issue is this. Our understanding of the carbon budget has significant uncertainties, especially the land component. See the global carbon project http://www.globalcarbonproject.org/carbonbudget/
This suggests a rather fundamental misunderstanding of the mass balance
argument. The mass balance argument is used to INFER the difference between total natural sources and total natural sinks FROM observations of the atmospheric growth rate and anthropogenic emissions, both of which are know with sufficiently low uncertainty to be very confident that the natural environment is a net carbon sink (emissions records would need to be halved even for the natural environment to be carbon neutral). The uncertainty in natural fluxes is irrelevant as their values do not appear anywhere in the argument.
That is the circular reasoning that causes the IPPC “mass balance” argument to fail. It requires assuming that natural emissions have not increased significantly in the past 50 years or that those increases have been exactly balanced out by increasing sinks. In a out of equilbrium or out of steady-state dynamic system, that is not very likely.
You obviously did not read my comment, the mass balance argument does not assume **anything** about natural emissions or uptake, it is used to **infer** the difference between natural uptake and natural sources.
fhhaynie,
Come on, think about what Dikran is saying. If nature was a source then the rate at which atmospheric CO2 is rising would have to exceed that rate at which we’re emitting CO2. It does not, therefore nature cannot be a source.
No. The Mass balance is A+N-Sinks= accumulation or dA/dt+dN/dt+dSinks/dt= accumulation rate. Where dA/dt is the known emission rate, dN/dt is unknown natural emission rates, dSinks/dt is unknown sink rates, and accumulation rates are known. You have one equation with two unknowns. We need another equation that links the two unknowns. That is where the 13CO2 index is used. Otherwise you have to make some assumptions.
No, we can rewrite it as
dA/dt + dNat/dt = accum rate,
where dNat/dt = dN/dt + dSinks/dt.
We know, or can make a reasonable estimate for, dA/dt, and we know the accum rate. We therefore have an equation with one unknown which is the net natural uptake rate. Since dA/dt > accum rate, it is negative and nature cannot be a source.
dik, Natural sources would be a net sink on the way up and a net source on the way down. For some magic mix of temperature, concentration, biological activity and weathering, there might be an equilibrium of sorts. If you know that an equilibrium can exist and that the system is close to that equilibrium, then you can confidently say that a relatively small perturbation is causing this or that. The ratio of c13 to c12 might give you some insight as to where you are with respect to that hypothetical equilibrium.
In the transition from a glacial to interglacial there is about a 90 ppmv change in atmospheric CO2 concentration. As far as I can tell, none of that is considered anthropogentic and 90 ppmv appears to be significant wrt 400ppmv. Mainly northern hemispheric leaf stoma reconstructions indicate that there is more NH variability in CO2 than there is in ice core reconstructed CO2. There are some question about long term averaging of ice core CO2 since it is a gas and less than perfectly encapsulated in different types of ice/snow accumulation at the ice core locations and there is an obvious lag of CO2 to temperature in the ice core reconstructions. So having another method to reduce uncertainties should be a good thing.
I have no clue if Mr. Haynie’s post will be useful, but since atmospheric CO2 forcing depends on atmospheric CO2 concentration which depends on the efficiency of the natural sink, I can see where something a little better than a simplistic model might be useful. For example land use is estimated to be responsible for about 1/3 of emissions and the estimated land use emissions can be off by a factor of two. If land use estimates are low, then land use mitigation would have more impact. Conversely, reducing FF emissions would have less impact.
See how that works? The more you know the better decisions you can make.
cap, the mass balance equation is not a model of the carbon cycle. It is a statement of a constraint that the carbon cycle must obey (and therefore any reasonable model of the carbon cycle). The observations of atmospheric CO2 and anthropogenic emissions show that either that constraint is violated or that the natural environment is a net carbon sink. Nothing you have written addresses that point.
dik,You need to move on to the next step. The mass balance by default assumes a balance or equilibrium should exist. It very well could exist, but there is other data and indicates it isn’t as stable a condition as ice cores would indicate. If you are trying to attribute portions of imbalances, you need more information.
Haynie and what’s his name aren’t the only ones curious about this situation. Lowell Stott also believes there are other things needing to be considered with the southern ocean and the hemispheric seesaw. We are in the strong SH portion of the processional cycle, most of the imbalance in radiant forcing is in the SH and most of the OHC increase is in the SH. At one time Stott estimated that the current situation might produce around 30 ppmv increase in CO2. That would be a significant amount. So if 30 PPMV is “natural” and rest is FF/land use, then 25% of the increase would be unavoidable.
So your mass balance constraint has a larger margin of error than you are admitting.
cap,
“The mass balance by default assumes a balance or equilibrium should exist.”
It doesn’t assume anything is in equilibrium, just that any carbon dioxide that is emitted into the atmosphere that isn’t taken up by the sinks must remain in the atmosphere. Here “balance” is just used to mean that the total amount of carbon in the carbon cycle is conserved. It doesn’t mean that natural sources and sinks are either static or in equilibrium (indeed the conclusions of the analysis show that neither is the case).
We can move on from the mass balance analysis when it has been properly understood.
cap wrote “So your mass balance constraint has a larger margin of error than you are admitting.”
no, the margin of error of the mass balance analysis depends only on the uncertainties in the estimates of the atmospheric growth rate and of anthropogenic emissions, as those are the only observations involved. If you think otherwise, it is an indication that you don’t understand the mass balance argument.
dik, “It doesn’t assume anything is in equilibrium, just that any carbon dioxide that is emitted into the atmosphere that isn’t taken up by the sinks must remain in the atmosphere.”
Right, but the amount of uptake can vary. As I said you need to move on to the next step. If 25% of the amount left in the atmosphere is due to reduction in the sink efficiency do to something other than man’s activities, that is significant enough to be considered.
Now while you say it doesn’t ASSUME anything it is ASSUMING that the amount left in the atmosphere is do to man’s activities or at least portrayed that way, period end of conversation. The carbon cycle probably isn’t quite that simple. As Dr. Curry said it likely isn’t 50% but it is extremely unlikely to be 0%.
cap wrote “Right, but the amount of uptake can vary. ”
yes, and indeed it does, however the mass balance argument only shows that the natural environment is a net carbon sink, it doesn’t tell you whether it is because uptake has increased or natural emissions decreased, just that uptake has increased relative to natural emissions.
As it happens both natural emissions and natural uptake have increased, but natural uptake by more than natural emissions. However the evidence for this is more uncertain, hence the need for satellites, but this is irrelevant to the mass balance argument.
“As I said you need to move on to the next step. If 25% of the amount left in the atmosphere is due to reduction in the sink efficiency do to something other than man’s activities, that is significant enough to be considered.”
Irrelevant, the question is whether the natural environment is a net source or a net sink. If it is a net sink it is opposing the rise in CO2, not causing it. If there has been a reduction in sink efficiency, then there must also have been a reduction in natural sources, for there to be conservation of matter.
“Now while you say it doesn’t ASSUME anything it is ASSUMING that the amount left in the atmosphere is do to man’s activities or at least portrayed that way, period end of conversation.”
That is a conclusion, not an assumption. If the natural environment is a net carbon sink, which is what the analysis shows, then the rise must be caused by anthropogenic emissions, because the natural environment is opposing the rise.
dik, ” the margin of error of the mass balance analysis depends only on the uncertainties in the estimates of the atmospheric growth rate and of anthropogenic emissions, as those are the only observations involved. If you think otherwise, it is an indication that you don’t understand the mass balance argument.”
Okay, as I said on the way up you have a net sink and on the way down you have a net source. Since your mass balance only considers anthropogenic emissions and atmospheric growth rate. Since you only consider anthropoginic emissions, your simplistic mass balance model attributes all the increase to man. It ASSUMES all changes are due to man. It is kind of like have you stopped beating your wife yet.
Basic mass balance CO2ppmv versus FF emissions only provides a reference. If the percentage of FF emissions left in the atmospheric changes with time, something else is going on. Some would like to know about the something else. If the rate can be changed to more efficient net sinkage by say planting co2 devouring shrubbery with pretty red flowers, you have an ascetically pleasing mitigation proposal that even dumb republicans might buy into.
Carbon mass balance gives you a rough estimate, but it is time to move beyond rough estimates.
cap wrote “Okay, as I said on the way up you have a net sink and on the way down you have a net source. ”
Sorry, I have already explained this further up the thread, and I have no interest in a cyclic argument-by-attrition, so I think I’ll leave it there.
Well, about 40 GT of land based carbon sinking was eliminated and 180 GT of carbon released in the process. Land plants currently sink about 120 GT. That is a 55% increase from preindustrial levels, 35% of current land plant CO2 sinking is due to increased CO2 fueled plant growth . So… Part of the rise in the CO2 level is the result of destroyed carbon sinking and the continued destruction of carbon sinking puts upward pressure on the CO2 level.
dik, “Sorry, I have already explained this further up the thread, and I have no interest in a cyclic argument-by-attrition, so I think I’ll leave it there.”
Of course you don;t, you have your simplistic argument that the oceans and biosphere have been a net sink since at least 1950 and every thing has to be due to ACO2. Dr. Curry is concerned with attribution so you are pretty much wasting bandwidth.
dikranmarsupial: no, the margin of error of the mass balance analysis depends only on the uncertainties in the estimates of the atmospheric growth rate and of anthropogenic emissions, as those are the only observations involved.
There are also uncertainties in the ocean/biosphere uptake rates, and the uncertainties in the flux rates of other sources. This is a clear-cut example of other parts of the problem that are not being adequately measured.
matthewrmarler wrote “There are also uncertainties in the ocean/biosphere uptake rates, and the uncertainties in the flux rates of other sources. This is a clear-cut example of other parts of the problem that are not being adequately measured.”
As the mass balance analysis does not depend in any way on knowledge of the values of these fluxes, the margin of error of the conclusions does not depend on those uncertainties.
dikranmarsupial: Sorry, I have already explained this further up the thread, and I have no interest in a cyclic argument-by-attrition, so I think I’ll leave it there.
You have an analytical scheme that is clearly too simple for the problem at hand. When the ignored complexities are pointed out to you, your response is to deny them outright, rather than explain clearly and with reasonable completeness and accuracy why they are ignorable.
“When the ignored complexities are pointed out to you, your response is to deny them outright”
Exact same experience I had with monkey man discussing the ineptitude of climate models due to the nonlinear nature of the problem.
dikranmarsupial: As the mass balance analysis does not depend in any way on knowledge of the values of these fluxes, the margin of error of the conclusions does not depend on those uncertainties.
Unless you have decided to ignore altogether the problem of evaluating how much of the increase in atmospheric CO2 has been caused by fossil fuel burning, that is absurd.
“You have an analytical scheme that is clearly too simple for the problem at hand.”
It is sufficient to show that the natural environment is a net carbon sink, but nothing more than that. If I was using it to show more than that, you would have a point, but I am not.
It is a simple constraint on the carbon cycle, but it is a constraint nevertheless, and that constraint is violated by any hypothesis that involves the natural environment being a net carbon source, given the observation that atmospheric CO2 is rising more slowly than anthropogenic emissions. So if you want to argue that the natural environment is a net carbon source, you need to explain why the carbon cycle violates conservation of matter (good luck with that one) or show that the observations that it actually uses (atmospheric CO2 and anthropogenic emissions) are unreliable.
When it comes to “net carbon sink”, the “natural environment” is a myth.
There are individual objects, such as peat bogs, swamps, forests, ocean regions. (Actually, sphagnum leaves, leaves of swamp plants and patches of swampy ground, tree leaves and patches of forest ground, small patches of ocean.) Each has its own behavior, determined by a variety of factors of which atmospheric pCO2 is only one of many.
For sources, the overwhelming category is respiration, which AFAIK is little affected (if at all) by atmospheric pCO2. For sinks, the relationship between pCO2 and the characteristics of enzymes such as RuBisCO is important, but probably not overwhelming. And, more importantly, different for every detailed sink.
Thus “global carbon budgets” tell us nothing of use. They’re just artifacts of simplistic models.
AK,
There is an elegant solution for this problem: the oxygen balance. Fossil fuel burning uses oxygen. The amount can be calculated and the oxygen decline in the atmosphere can be measured. Ocean O2 movements are restricted to the influence of temperature on O2 solubility in seawater. But near all plants produce O2 with photosynthesis by taking in CO2 and near all plant use or decay uses O2 to get the energy and produces CO2.
The O2 measurements show that there is a small deficit of O2 decay based on fossil fuel calculations. Thus the biosphere as a whole (land and sea plants, bacteria, molds, insects, animals) is a net producer of O2, a net user of CO2 and preferably 12CO2. That is quantified:
http://www.bowdoin.edu/~mbattle/papers_posters_and_talks/BenderGBC2005.pdf
The mass balance argument as you describe is zeroth order, consideration of the carbon budget (as per global carbon project) is first order. To really understand this, we need to move beyond this kind of analysis and consider regional variability and feedbacks. The new Orbiting Carbon Observatory will be a big help wrt regional variability.
Thankyou for your reply, however you have not answered my question. If a “zeroth order” constraint shows that the observations are inconsistent with the natural environment being a net carbon source, then we have to accept that.
Do you accept that the mass balance analysis shows that the natural environment has been a net carbon sink for the last 50 years (for which we have good records of atmospheric CO2 from the Mauna Loa Observatory)?
By the way, conservation of mass is not a “zeroth order consideration”, it is a “zeroth order constraint”. Unless you can argue that carbon dioxide spontaneously disappears without being taken up by the natural sinks, then the mass balance constraint must hold exactly, both in reality and in any reasonable N-th order model.
So what? It doesn’t have anything to do with why atmospheric pCO2 is rising. It’s just an observational artifact.
dikranmarsupial: Unless you can argue that carbon dioxide spontaneously disappears without being taken up by the natural sinks, then the mass balance constraint must hold exactly, both in reality and in any reasonable N-th order model.
In order for the mass balance argument to be a constraint, you have to show that all the sources and sinks have been identified, and that all are accurately measured. Problems like this arise in statistics (the problem of unmeasured covariates), causal analysis (the problem of unmeasured pathways), pharmacokinetics (unmeasured natural sources and elimination processes).
matthewrmarler wrote “In order for the mass balance argument to be a constraint, you have to show that all the sources and sinks have been identified, and that all are accurately measured.”
Nonsense, if I have a sieve and pour water into it fast enough for the level of water in the sieve to rise, I don’t need to accurately measure the water flowing out through each hole, or even have counted the holes in order to say that the rate at which the water is rising in the sieve is the difference between the amount flowing in from the tap and the amount flowing out through the holes. That is analogeous to mass balance, which simply says the rise in atmospheric CO2 is the difference between total emissions and total uptake.
dikranmarsupial:
Does your mass balance analysis assume all of the increase in CO2 sinks is natural?
Don’t we need to look at natural versus anthropogenic for both emissions and sinks increases?
If humans disappeared in 1600, wouldn’t the world still have warmed?
Wouldn’t that warming still have caused the CO2 to rise from 280 ppm to some higher number?
Wouldn’t that in turn increase plant growth, which in turn raises the natural CO2 sink?
With humans here, we are emitting more CO2 – but are we not also increasing the CO2 sink over and above the natural increase in CO2 sink?
Does your analysis account for that human CO2 sink increase?
No, that isn’t really relevant. We have 3 reservoirs – oceans/atmosphere/biosphere. The oceans can be both a source and a sink. The biosphere can be both a source and a sink. The other source is our burning of fossil fuels, which is not associated with a sink since we are not creating more fossil fuels to replace those that we’ve burning. If the rate at which the atmospheric CO2 is rising is slower than the rate at which we’re emitting it then we have to be the source.
ATTP:
What confuses me about this argument is wouldn’t everything be true even without humans?
Again – say humans disappear at 1600 – so no emissions by humans after that.
The world would still have warmed – naturally.
CO2 would have risen from 280 – naturally.
Sinks would rise naturally – but presumably slower than the rise in atmospheric CO2.
So all the conditions you cite are met by nature.
So how do we subtract the natural portion out of the anthro portion?
You just assume the entire increase is anthro – but that cannot be correct (as I see it).
dikranmarsupial said “Nonsense, if I have a sieve and pour water into it fast enough for the level of water in the sieve to rise, I don’t need to accurately measure the water flowing out through each hole, or even have counted the holes in order to say that the rate at which the water is rising in the sieve is the difference between the amount flowing in from the tap and the amount flowing out through the holes.”
Isn’t the situation that we are pouring water into a sieve, but it is also raining into the sieve. Don’t we need to know how much it is raining to measure how much of the the rise is anthro?
Richard Arrett wrote “Isn’t the situation that we are pouring water into a sieve, but it is also raining into the sieve. Don’t we need to know how much it is raining to measure how much of the the rise is anthro?”
O.K., consider we have two taps pouring water into the sieve, a hot tap (representing anthropogenic emissions) and a cold tap (representing natural emissions). We measure the water flowing in from the hot tap and the level of water in the sieve. If we notice that the water in the sieve is rising at a rate faster than it is being poured in from the hot tap, then we know that water is pouring out through the holes (natural uptake) faster than it is coming in through the cold tap. We don’t need to measure the water flowing in through the cold tap to know this, or the rate at which it is flowing out through the holes (or even the number of holes). This is because we know the system obeys the principle of conservation of matter, any water that is poured in from the taps that doesn’t fall through the holes stays in the sieve.
dikranmarsupial: if I have a sieve and pour water into it fast enough for the level of water in the sieve to rise, I don’t need to accurately measure the water flowing out through each hole, or even have counted the holes in order to say that the rate at which the water is rising in the sieve is the difference between the amount flowing in from the tap and the amount flowing out through the holes.
You don’t have a sieve, do you? As usual, the argument by extremes is irrelevant to the case under consideration. For the CO2 analogy, you have a human source and many natural sources, most unmeasured; you have many sinks, most unmeasured. You don’t have anything corresponding to a sieve. You want a quantitative estimate of how much of the CO2 change in one measured compartment is the result of change in one of the measured sources. Every estimate you can make depends on assumptions about the changes in the unmeasured fluxes.
dikranmarsupial:
Ok – that does make sense, and does address my question.
Does this also work if humans punched a couple of extra holes in the sieve?
Do we need to know how much water is exiting through the human made holes?
matthewrmarler wrote “You don’t have a sieve, do you?”
Its an analogy, and not a particularly difficult one to understand. The sieve represents that atmosphere, in which the amount of CO2 is directly measured. If we know the level of water in the sieve (atmospheric CO2) and the rate at which water is flowing through the hot tap (anthropogenic emissions) then we don’t need to know anything about the nature of the cold tap (natural emissions), or the holes in the sieve (natural uptake) to know that water is flowing out through the holes faster than it is coming in through the cold tap (natural uptake is greater than natural emissions). This is a very straightforward argument, and most are able to grasp it without difficulty, until that is is is applied to CO2!
Richard Arrett “Does this also work if humans punched a couple of extra holes in the sieve?”
If additional holes in the sieve punched by humans would correspond to CO2 taken out of the atmosphere by human activities, for instance planting forests or carbon capture and storage. However at the present time, the amount of CO2 taken out of the atmosphere is far too small to have a noticable effect on the outcome, and so is normally left out of the analysis.
“This is a very straightforward argument, and most are able to grasp it without difficulty, until that is is is applied to CO2!”
End of story.
“Its an analogy, and not a particularly difficult one to understand. ”
Simplistic and fallacious analogies are Dkiran’s game.
His response at SKS to my pointing out the nonlinear nature of the climate problem and the absurdity of prediction thereof:
“now consider placing an electromagnet to one side of the (iron) double pendulum. …”
…
“So with the double pendulm, its movement is chaotic, but the statistical properties of that movement is deterministic and non-chaotic.”
Sophistic nonsense.
Here is the mass balance argument summarized by Ferdinand.
4.5 GtC/year = 9 GtC/year + X – Y
X – Y = – 4.5 GtC/year
X and Y are natural sources and sinks and the planet is a net sink. Trouble is, ANY natural source greater than 4.5Gt can be substituted.
Ferdinand does not believe that the actual molecules humans burn are the ones to be found in the increase. He sees it like JC’s stadium wave or an ocean wave where a perturbation moves through the system.
This seems a different aspect and how it relates to mass balance is not yet clear to me.
gymnosperm, Ferdinand is correct on this point. This is because the vast exchange fluxes between the atmosphere and oceans and biosphere exchange molecules of atmospheric CO2 (including those from anthropogenic emissions) with CO2 from the oceans and biosphere. This is a straight swap and hence doesn’t affect atmospheric CO2 levels, but it does mean that only a small proportion of the excess CO2 is of directly anthropogenic emissions, even though anthropogenic emissions are responsible for the rise. This may sound counter-intuitive, but a proper understanding of the difference between residence time and adjustment time is important in understanding the effects of anthropogenic emissions. There is some discussion of this in my paper:
Gavin C. Cawley, On the atmospheric residence time of anthropogenically sourced carbon dioxide, Energy & Fuels, volume 25, number 11, pages 5503–5513, September 2011.
http://theoval.cmp.uea.ac.uk/publications/pdf/ef2011a.pdf
Back when Cawley wrote this paper, we had a long e-mail conversation over his methodology. I suggested he have his work reviewed by a qualified chemical engineer who knows how to do a mass balance in a flow system. He mentioned Ferdinand. Google both to find out how qualified they are.
Ah resorting to the ad-hominem, how dissapointing. The mass balance argument also appears in the IPCC report and journal papers (see references in my paper) written by carbon cycle specialists, so if it must rest on anybodies reputation, it should be theirs as they have priority.
Is is possible that you’re confusing mass balance in a multi-component system, with mass balance of a single component in a multi-component system?
Indeed, but not all that surprising?
fhhaynie,
I am a B.Sc, in industrial chemistry, from some very long time ago (1965), calculated a lot of things, including pumping viscous liquids in (batch) reactors to make synthetic resins and some continuous reactors too.
I suppose that I am “qualified” to judge a mass balance or a steady state process or a (chemical or physical) equilibrium, etc… Be it that it takes more and more time to do the math, as that is completely rusty…
I knew of your education and work experience before we started our discussions and have great respect for your environmental concerns and honesty. However, your mass balance model would not have passed a chemical engineering graduate school test, possibly because your math is rusty or you did not take graduate level courses on transport phenomena. I know it is hard for anyone to admit they made mistakes, but it is always best to do so. I may be off in my analysis, but I am willing to bet that I am closer to the truth than either you or Bart. Like you, I am a retired old school environmental researcher with grand children and even great grand children. My concern is for their future.
“By the way, conservation of mass is not a “zeroth order consideration”, it is a “zeroth order constraint”. Unless you can argue that carbon dioxide spontaneously disappears without being taken up by the natural sinks, then the mass balance constraint must hold exactly, both in reality and in any reasonable N-th order model.’
The pouched one is correct. And it doesn’t matter if there is not one ACO2 molecule to be found in the air today. Gazillions of gigatons have been added to the atmosphere and if they are not remaining in the atmosphere, then they are in natural sinks taking up space that would otherwise be occupied by natural CO2.
don, does the mass balance tell you what percentage of ACO2 is supposed to be taken up by the natural sinks? The sky is blue is often correct but not very informative.
No, and nobody claims that it does. It does however show that the natural environment is a net carbon sink. There is a simple first-order box model in my paper that is used to show that the anthropogenic CO2 rapidly ends up in the natural sinks because of the short residence time, even though the cause of the rise is anthropogenic. This has been known for a long time and is explained in section 1.2 of the first IPCC WG1 report (about page 8 IIRC).
dik, “No, and nobody claims that it does. It does however show that the natural environment is a net carbon sink.”
well, duh. Right now the natural environment is a net carbon sink. The natural environment can also be a net carbon source. Per Stott at this particular portion of the precessional cycle the environment should be a net source. 5000 year ago there was a shift in the trend from sink to source. The point is how strong a sink should the natural environment be at this point in time.
As I said you need to move to the next step.
I don’t care how much of the ACO2 is taken up by the natural sinks. Without the ACO2 the natural sinks would be taking up natural CO2. Are you claiming that the gazzillions of tons of ACO2 have been accommodated by natural sinks without crowing out their natural CO2 cousins?
don, “I don’t care how much of the ACO2 is taken up by the natural sinks. Without the ACO2 the natural sinks would be taking up natural CO2. Are you claiming that the gazzillions of tons of ACO2 have been accommodated by natural sinks without crowing out their natural CO2 cousins?”
If I sprayed agent orange on all of North America I would have one serious impact on the “natural” CO2 sink. When you convert 50% of the land surface of the Earth to something other than “natural” that might have an impact as well. Since man has been busy doing stuff for thousands of years, exactly what is “natural”.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/d7/LongshengRiceTerrace.jpg/1024px-LongshengRiceTerrace.jpg
Mountain top mining Chinese style. That pre-dates “pre-industrial”.
Don Monfort | May 8, 2015 at 12:44 pm |
Without the ACO2 the natural sinks would be taking up natural CO2.”
By that argument, we are very lucky indeed to have started pumping in CO2 when we did, for otherwise, CO2 would have declined to zero by now.
So, why is the argument flawed? Because it is static. Because it assumes the natural sinks do not react to the amount of available CO2.
And, this is wrong. The sinks dynamically expand in response to the ACO2. Take away the ACO2, and the sinks shrink back to a level consistent with the natural input.
Thus, while is is quite possible to have nature a net sink right now, if you take away the anthropogenic forcing, it does not necessarily remain so. And, it follows that, if you never had the ACO2 in the first place, nature could easily have been the net source that drove atmospheric concentration to its current level.
What that means is that a portion of the “natural sinks” are, in fact, unnatural. They were induced to form by the anthropogenic forcing. They are as artificial as beer is artificial, even though the yeast excreting it are “natural”. Or, as artificial as a bone graft is artificial, even though the mechanism of bone growth is natural. We induced the natural activity which sucks up the excess input. We created it. Without us, it would not have happened.
And so, in a very real sense, the sinks are split into “natural” and “artificial” portions. The “artificial” portion is entirely due to our pumping CO2 into the atmosphere. It would not have come to be had we not.
So, when you say N – S is less than zero, you have to split it, and say N – SN – SA is less than zero. Now, you have one inequality, and two unknowns, and it is impossible to bound the one independently of the other. It is very possible to have N – SN – SA be less than zero, but have N – SN be greater than zero.
And, that is why the pseudo-mass balance argument fails. That is why it is stupid beyond measure. Really, just dumb stupid. Stupid beyond words. Stupid beyond imagining. Carpet lint stupid. Toenail fungus stupid. Really, really, reallly, genuinely, insanely, immeasureably stupid. Have I made my point?
Are you claiming that the gazzillions of tons of ACO2 have been accommodated by natural sinks without crowing out their natural CO2 cousins?
The “bazzillion-gazzillions” of tons of natural CO2? Sure. No problem. It’s a drop in the bucket. We are the proverbial flea on the elephant’s back, and you think we are steering it. Get a sense of proportion.
Captain,
Your are utterly wrong. Please think this subject through again carefully.
There are many interesting questions you can ask about natural sources and sinks for CO2, such as the validity/accuracy of the Bern model, etc., and those questions are real questions which are important to ask and answer. But first you have to accept the mass balance constraint: We are putting much more CO2 into the atmosphere than the measured rate of rise. Therefore, the Earth (in total, net) is (MUST BE!) a sink for CO2, not a source. It can be nothing else. The details what processes are involved do not in any way invalidate the basic mass balance.
stevefitzpatrick – You are wrong. This is a dynamic system. The measured rate of rise being less than the sum total of a particular input over time does not establish that input as being the driving factor.
It is all a matter of sink activity, which expands in response to forcing, whether natural or anthropogenic. If the sinks are aggressive enough, then they can effectively take out everything humans put in, and any observed rise of any significance would then have to be a result of sinks not keeping up with the much larger natural inputs.
The indications are that the sinks are very aggressive. The rate of change of atmospheric CO2, and hence the level, can be almost entirely determined from the temperature record. Human inputs are effectively superfluous.
This is very basic feedback theory. Very well established, and not in any way controversial. Not that I think that will convince you. Trying to explain to someone who just can’t understand it is like trying to explain why it is always worth changing your initial choice in the Monte Hall problem. Some people just can’t get past the mental block that says the odds just must be 50/50.
They have a mental block on that mass balance thing, steve. It’s weird.
SteveF, “We are putting much more CO2 into the atmosphere than the measured rate of rise. Therefore, the Earth (in total, net) is (MUST BE!) a sink for CO2, not a source. ”
And what part of no s$it sherlock do you not understand? The question is how efficient should the sink be. The mass balance constraint by itself doesn’t provide a clue.
barty says:”If the sinks are aggressive enough, then they can effectively take out everything humans put in, and any observed rise of any significance would then have to be a result of sinks not keeping up with the much larger natural inputs.”
Ah, the sinks remove the ACO2 first. We should have known that.
How is it you don’t understand, Don? If I have two inputs, one equal to 1 unit, and another equal to 99 units, and I uniformly remove 99% of them, then I have 1 unit left over. Of that 1 unit, 0.01 is from the first source, and 0.99 is from the second. IOW, the first input is an insignificant driver of the output.
barty, barty
You are assuming that the dynamic system has a desire to keep ACO2 from accumulating in the atmosphere. Prove it.
“The measured rate of rise being less than the sum total of a particular input over time does not establish that input as being the driving factor.”
It’s the factor that makes the difference at the margin. Add a pint of water to a 5 gallon bucket that has 4.9 gallons of water in it and it will overflow.
Would you see it the same way if the additional gazillions of tons of CO2 were coming from volcanoes?
Time again:
http://csas.ei.columbia.edu/files/2014/12/Fig.-2.jpg
The amount of uptake has increased five-fold since 1960.
If concentration was zero, what would uptake be?
Uptake is a function of concentration, especially for the sequestering deep water formation.
There are natural sources, but the natural sinks are larger and are growing with increased concentration.
Deep water formation slows towards zero where ice is thick enough.
CO2 update also slows towards zero where ice is thick enough.
Since there is plenty of cold air formation, much lower than zero degrees, the change in global average temperature is not a big factor in natural uptake.
Natural uptake driven by concentration will continue to increase, even if emissions slow, meaning emissions and uptake are converging.
Actually, this is not bad for illustrating the problem with the “mass balance” argument. Suppose the first input is
H = 2
The second input is
N = 98
The quantity removed is
S = 0.99*(H+N) = 99
The sum total is N + H – S = 1, and H = 2 is twice that, so the remainder is due to H, no?
No. The remainder is 0.02 from H, and 0.98 from N. The fact that N – S = -1 is negative does not establish that H is responsible for the remainder at all.
Why? Because S depends on BOTH H and N. The net result from N alone is N – 0.99*N = 0.98. The fact that N – 0.99*(N+H) = -1 is less than zero doesn’t establish a thing about attribution.
> And, that is why the pseudo-mass balance argument fails. That is why it is stupid beyond measure. Really, just dumb stupid. Stupid beyond words. Stupid beyond imagining. Carpet lint stupid. Toenail fungus stupid. Really, really, reallly, genuinely, insanely, immeasureably stupid. Have I made my point?
If hammering the same assertions over and over again counts as having made a point, you bet.
Or not. Perhaps we’d need another paragraph of two full of “stupid.”
Stupid, stupid, stupid.
Willard – take a look at the illustration above your post. If you do not agree after reading it over that the pseudo-mass balance argument is stupid, if you do not grok my supreme annoyance with it at that point, then I don’t know what more I can do.
I think what Bartemis is suggesting is that if you have carbon, you get to make stuff with it. Like plants and people. If you take away carbon you have to make less stuff. It is dynamic. Oil turns into life. A nifty trick.
I agree it’s a very nifty trick, Ragnaar, so nifty in fact that I think we could use it to destroy the very concept of causality.
This is all you need to know about barty:
”If the sinks are aggressive enough, then they can effectively take out everything humans put in, and any observed rise of any significance would then have to be a result of sinks not keeping up with the much larger natural inputs.”
He has his own version of the mass balance argument and he throws in natural sinks that prefer to take out the ACO2, first. What a joker.
Don Monfort | May 8, 2015 at 8:18 pm |
“He has his own version of the mass balance argument and he throws in natural sinks that prefer to take out the ACO2, first. “
Just, wow. I very clearly showed how this works, and how it is a matter of proportions, and of the sinks acting equally on natural and anthropogenic inputs. You don’t really get math at all, do you?
willard (@nevaudit) | May 8, 2015 at 7:44 pm |
That is the so-called “mass balance” argument in a nutshell, Willard. N – S is less than zero, therefore the rise is from H. Only, it very plainly isn’t when S is a feedback depending on the previouslly accumulated CO2, and the feedback is aggressive (factor of 0.99 in the illustration).
I focused on one step of the iteration
CO2(k) = CO2(k-1) + N + H – 0.99*CO2(k)
For N a constant 98 and H a constant 2, then with CO2(0) = 0, we have
CO2(1) = 100
CO2(2) = 101
CO2(3) = 101.01
CO2(4) = 101.0101
etc… At each step, we have
N – 0.99*CO2(1) = -1
N – 0.99*CO2(2) = -1.99
N – 0.99*CO2(3) = -1.9999
N – 0.99*CO2(4) = -2.0000
At every step, “nature”, as represented by the differences above, is a net sink. Yet, N is responsible for 98% of the rise, and H for 2%.
The sinks respond to all CO2, both human generated and natural. As long as there is an H input and CO2 is rising slower than the virtual accumulation of H, then natural inputs minus sinks will be negative. But, that does not tell you if the rise is mostly from humans or nature.
Willard:
I am not questioning general causality. We have caused part of the rise.
We have CO2 and CH2O. Which does Carbon (C) prefer, the first or the latter? Neither, it’s an element. And it seems to prefer the deep oceans as there’s a lot of it there. We might say since it takes energy to get from CO2 to CH20 and things lose energy it prefers to be CO2 rather than the latter. In the presence of sunlight it wants to be part of a carbohydrate I think. But that would mean the Sun would effect the sinks. Since water can combine with CO2 to get CH2O, then precipitation also effect sinking. Generally speaking temperature increases increase CO2 to CH2O conversion, again effecting the sinking. Marching right off the cliff, during a glacial, what form does carbon prefer? We may lack sunlight, humidity and warmth. Then it might best be insulation, CO2.
Perhaps “elucidating” was too offensive.
Let’s try this other route by showing:
If we accept that SA is established as being real, and that SN can’t be distinguished from SA, then we group everything under SA, which I believe means that everything’s anthropogenic, if I follow Bartemis’ notation properly.
I can live with that.
***
An interlude:
https://youtu.be/sNhhvQGsMEc
You sticking with this foolishness, barty:”If the sinks are aggressive enough, then they can effectively take out everything humans put in, and any observed rise of any significance would then have to be a result of sinks not keeping up with the much larger natural inputs.”
Show us how it works with real numbers, barty. That made up crap is inoperable. We know that ACO2 is gazillions of gigatons. How much is the increase in natural CO2, if any? Show your work. Real numbers this time, barty. Don’t just keep making crap up, barty. Ferdinand is watching you. He is liable to jump in and embarrass you, again.
Bart,
Your reasoning doesn’t fit an equilibrium process:
If you start at steady state, 98 N is going in, 98 S is going out. A = 1000
Add 2 H: 2 H + 98 N is going in but 98.2 S is going out, depending of the response rate of the sinks.
That gives 1.8 from H left in 1001.8 A and 0.2 extra sink caused by H.
All in mass flows, not original molecules…
next year:
Add 2.5 H: 2.5 H + 97.8 N is going in, 98.5 S is going out.
That gives 1.8 from H left in 1003.6 A, 0.2 less N and 0.5 extra sink caused by H
etc…
The point is that the sinks don’t react on momentary inputs, they react on the total increased pressure in the atmosphere, which gives currently a net sink of ~2.15 ppmv for 110 ppmv CO2 pressure above steady state.
Moreover, the 98 N and 98 S is mainly temperature dependent, while the 2.15 ppmv sink rate is pressure (difference) dependent…
Willard – SA is created by the anthropogenic input.
It’s like feeding tribbles. The more you feed them, the more they grow and reproduce.
Or, like the fizziness of a soda. The more pressure you put it under, the more CO2 dissolves into it.
That is how the sinks work. They respond to the ambient level in the atmosphere, and remove a portion of it.
If that ambient level is increased from any source, then the sink activity increases, too.
If there were no anthropogenic inputs, SA would be zero. SN and SA cannot be distinguised by content, but one is the result of natural inputs, and the other a result of human activity.
For nature to be a net sink wholly independent of human activity, then one would have to show N – SN less than zero.
But, nobody is showing that. They are saying N – SN – SA is less than zero, and then blithely dismissing SA as zero.
It isn’t zero. It is induced by anthropogenic forcing, and it is some fractional value of it. When the fraction is large enough, it becomes impossible for human inputs to be the driver.
And, the fraction becomes large when the sinks are aggressive. And, the available evidence does, indeed, tell us that the sinks are aggressive.
I tried to point out earlier to Bart that arguing that his analysis is superior on the basis of others’ analyses as being “dumb” might be a sub-optimal approach. But apparently Judith thinks that my doing so isn’t “useful.”
Will the 3rd time be the charm?
Don, I’ve tried to be nice, and to lead you through the steps, but you just insist on being a blithering idiot.
What can I say? I’m done with you.
Ferdinand – No. The equations I gave can be considered the perturbation from the equilibrium. Superposition holds for this linear system.
Ferdinand – No. The equations I gave can be considered the perturbation from the equilibrium. Superposition holds for this linear system.
barty, barty: “And, the available evidence does, indeed, tell us that the sinks are aggressive.”
What we know then is that the aggressive sinks are only eating up half of the increase in ACO2. Case closed!
here ya go don,
http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/images/ghgemissions/GlobalGHGEmissionsBySource.png
“Land Use, Land-Use Change, and Forestry (17% of 2004 global greenhouse gas emissions) – Greenhouse gas emissions from this sector primarily include carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from deforestation, land clearing for agriculture, and fires or decay of peat soils. This estimate does not include the CO2 that ecosystems remove from the atmosphere. The amount of CO2 that is removed is subject to large uncertainty, although recent estimates indicate that on a global scale, ecosystems on land remove about twice as much CO2 as is lost by deforestation. [2”
So forestry related land use change could be a swing from 34% sink to a 17% source.
“Agriculture (14% of 2004 GHG emissions) – global greenhouse gas emissions) – Greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture mostly come from the management of agricultural soils, livestock, rice production, and biomass burning.”
> SN and SA cannot be distinguised by content
I don’t think they are, Baremis. They only are distinguished by effect. It cannot be otherwise, since attribution studies are multi-causal analyses.
My point was that if you work with the only certainty that SA’s not empty, then all you have, if you are to follow your doubts, is SA. To undermine AGW, you’d have to argue the other way around: we can’t say if SA is not SN, therefore there’s no SA independent from SN. Or an epistemic version of the same argument, e.g. we can’t really know &c.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe that your argument is so strong that it undermines any kind of multi-causal analysis whatsoever. All you need is two variables and some plausible argument according to which these two variables may depend upon one another.
We could even go further and use the argument to destroy any kind of analysis whatsoever. Pick a variable V. Consider the possibility that V may depend upon something beyond your epistemic boundaries. Put that something into non-V and your argument obtains: we have no idea if V is really V, and not non-V, say because it coheres dynamically with everything else that may exist.
The alternative, of course, is to presume that identity works somewhat faithfully for humans, especially for our case scientists who do attribution studies. These scientists need to assume that the variables they identify could be designed in another way than they do. It just so happens that what they do just works.
***
No scientist can be guaranteed that the manual they use to translate nature is the best one. Some have surmised that it’s always possible to bring another translation manual that would do an equivalent job.
The tricky part, of course, is to build an alternative manual, not simply handwaving to its possibility.
Thanks, Capt. Could you help barty find some evidence and numbers for the increasing natural CO2 that has him all excited? He shows us squat, up to now.
Willard – You seem to be trying to stretch the point farther than it needs to go. The mass balance freaks insist that N – SN – SA being less than zero conclusively establishes that the rise is dominated by anthropogenic emissions. It does not establish that at all. To establish that, they would have to show that N – SN is less than zero. They cannot.
A lot of people are hanging their hats entirely on the so-called mass balance argument being conclusive – just look through the responses here to see. If it is not, then the way is opened up to begin actually researching the question in a serious light. I have serious arguments to make on that score, but first, we have to tear down this mental block in peoples’ minds.
Let’s add a TL;DR, if only for SteveF:
Unless Bartemis can show that there’s a significant part of the anthropogenic forcings that return to the natural cycle, the best he can hope for, with his argument, is that attribution studies underestimate them. Even shorter: he needs to show some kind of mutual dependence between SA and SN.
Returning to Pratītyasamutpāda theory might be more fruitful.
> The mass balance freaks insist that N – SN – SA being less than zero conclusively establishes that the rise is dominated by anthropogenic emissions. It does not establish that at all. To establish that, they would have to show that N – SN is less than zero. They cannot.
I’d like a citation of a mass balance freak, Bartemis.
I find your argument lacking, and I suspect that your “conclusively establishes” is a bit stronger than the inference being used in attribution studies.
It may be a vocabulary thing.
You will never get through to your little friend barty, willy. He doesn’t understand “marginal”. He must have been absent when I explained how the optimum production and sales volume of widgets is where marginal cost=marginal revenue.
Ask him to pretend that he got a job driving camels. They are loaded with straw bales to take somewhere. Got big frame racks on them and they can hold up to about a 100 bales. But you gotta be careful. Let’s say barty has 98 bales loaded up and the camel is groaning. Barty says another bale is nothing compared to what this beast is already carrying. Yes, it was the straw that broke the camel’s back and got barty fired. And he won’t get this, at all.
> Got big frame racks on them and they can hold up to about a 100 bales.
Easy for you to pretend so, Don Don.
There are merits to the idea that assuming a wedge between A and N is somewhat arbitrary and can lead to dynamical effects. There are also limitations. One problem, as you seem to insist in hammering, is that even if your box is full of sexy dynamics, it still is basic accounting matter from an external perspective.
Perhaps the most constructive way out of this would be to look at a real example of a freak who uses the mass argument Bartemis criticizes.
I ain’t proposing a wedge between A and N, willy. They look the same to me. Like the 99th bale of straw looks just like the other 98. They get added together, mixed well and the sinks deal with the total. Sinks don’t care if they are A or N. Probably don’t even know. It’s the total that counts. If the sinks are used to carrying 98 and they are looking at more than that….
Clear your head, willy. Barty is a bad influence.
Ask barty if he knows the answer to this , willy:
Thermos bottle keep hot things hot and cold things cold. How do it know?
I am surprised that you are wavering and falling towards the denier side, willy. Ask your denier pals if CO2 has been increasing in the atmosphere since the Little Ice Age. Ask them to explain why it has kept steadily increasing during the long pause in warming. Ask them to actually account for any increase in NCO2. How much and where did it come from?
Don Monfort,
You may be right about the mental block. I sure don’t have any other explanation. This entire crazy thread seems to have been transferred in its entirety form WUWT. ‘Weird’ is not a strong enough adjective. I though one could avoid such crazy stuff on this blog…. I was mistaken about that.
SteveF, Don and gang, “You may be right about the mental block. I sure don’t have any other explanation. This entire crazy thread seems to have been transferred in its entirety form WUWT.”
Let me give an example of looking at the next step. Based on Mass balance and general carbon accounting practices “sustainable” fuels like corn ethanol, oil palm, wood chips for Drax etc. have been pushed. Converting land use to fuel crops ends up producing more atmospheric CO2 in many cases since it impacts the sink efficiency and still introduces CO2 into the atmosphere. That increases the “Sustainable” CO2 uptake in the oceans increases acidification. That is a WUWT kind of topic and of course “sustainable” fuels have mass balance constraint supporters.
Since the overall uncertainty on the sink side of the balance is close to the total emissions value, the land use part of the cycle is so grossly underestimated that action with potentially more harm than benefit is recommended by the mass balance. You need more information or at least more respect for the uncertainties.
> Based on Mass balance and general carbon accounting practices “sustainable” fuels like corn ethanol, oil palm, wood chips for Drax etc. have been pushed.
Citation needed.
***
> You need more information or at least more respect for the uncertainties.
Uncertainties about what, how much would it cost to reduce them, and what should we expect to gain?
You always need more information. Sometimes, you just need to do with the information you have.
Mr. T’s a monster for everyone.
willard, >citation needed
Actually it is research needed. The EPA quote that I emboldened explains there is considerable uncertainty. Most of this “argument” is due to that uncertainty btw. Henry’s “law” is something anthropogenic activity won’t change but the mass balance “constraint” doesn’t constraint the mass balance enough to be useful for determining such things. 13C/12C also is too course to “constrain” changes in the carbon cycle as well.
If you want to consider Drax though it is pretty simple. The wood pellets on their own would be carbon neutral provided they don’t impact the sink efficiency of the region they are grown. The chips though have to be process, carbon source, and shipped, carbon source and then they are burned, carbon source. That overall process is a small carbon source, however, the trees themselves are a carbon sink, so carbon “neutral” really means a reduction in the land carbon sink and changing the carbon cycle path to atmosphere – ocean. leaving the trees as trees then converting the mature trees to long term carbon storage, i.e. furniture, homes etc. enhances the land carbon sink and actual sequesters carbon.
Drax wood chips may have less carbon emission impact than low efficiency coal use, but it definitely isn’t carbon “neutral” and it does squat as far as reducing ocean acidification.
> Actually it is research needed.
Research to do what, for what results, and how can you know it’s worth it?
Mr. T does not come cheap, but sometimes he’s the cheapest money can buy.
“Research to do what, for what results, and how can you know it’s worth it?”
I guess you will just have to ponder that on your own good buddy.
> I guess you will just have to ponder that on your own good buddy.
You guessed wrong, Cap’n. I’m not the who holds that until we do more research, we shan’t trust the mass balance model to make decisions about energy development. Wait, have I just said “model”? Not teh modulz again!
Damn scientists!
willard (@nevaudit) | May 8, 2015 at 10:13 pm |
“I’d like a citation of a mass balance freak, Bartemis.”
Good God, look over this page. Anything from “…and Then There’s Physics” (explicitly here for example) or “dikranmarsupial”, Steve Mosher, or Don Monfort or “stevefitzpatrick”. Anything from anyone who invokes the “mass balance” to claim that anthropogenic attribution is a lock. Just search for “mass balance”. You will find dozens.
I showed you here how the sums do not add up that way when the sinks comprise an active feedback system. That, as long as you have the anthropogenic forcing, the “nature is a net sink” meme is a trivial tautology, which provides no conclusion on attribution.
> Anything from “…and Then There’s Physics” (explicitly here for example) or “dikranmarsupial” […] Anything from anyone who invokes the “mass balance” to claim that anthropogenic attribution is a lock.
Thanks. That’s useful. Looking at one source of AT’s, I’ve found this:
http://rabett.blogspot.com/2015/05/2-3-0-or-why-natural-sources-and-sinks.html
Do you dispute these two “things”? Please note that Eli defined “nature” as “everything except CO2 generated by burning fossil fuels,” which does not seem very far from the most conservative notion of nature one can imagine.
***
I want to make sure that your argument only contradicts the formal properties of the algebraic accounting, and nothing else. These two “things” are unrelated to your “basic feedback theory” argument. If we can stand them aside, we might isolate the conflicting assumptions behind your argument and the one you attack. Doing so while following the real exposition of that argument prevents us from caricaturing it too much, which seems plausible considering the contempt you’ve exhibited so far toward it.
“Do you dispute these two “things”?”
Absolutely. This is a dynamic system. There is a continuous outward flux of CO2 out of the surface system. So, the claim that “emissions due to burning of fossil fuel would increase the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere more than the observed increase” is categorically false.
It depends entirely on the interplay between sources and sinks. If the sinks are very active, then they take out most of what is input to them very rapidly. In that case, H is taken out nearly as fast as it is put in. But, the larger and, since they are unknown, effectively unbounded natural sources must then be the major source of any observed rise,
Again, I showed above a specific example where the input N is driving the overwhelming majority of the rise, even while nature, by Eli’s definition N – 0.99*CO2, is consistently a “net sink”, with negative values.
Just saw this:
That clarifies a few things.
First, Bartemis disputes the premises of the mass argument, not its inference (at least in the paragraph above).
Second, Bartemis injects his own premise by stating that “there is a continuous outward flux of CO2 out of the surface system.”
Third, Bartemis explictly rejects the premise that “emissions due to burning of fossil fuel would increase the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere more than the observed increase.”
Some questions:
(Q1) How does the fact that climate is a dynamic system leads to the assumption that there is a (significant) continuous outward flux of CO2 out of the surface system?
(Q2) How does the asumption that there’s a continuous outward flux of CO2 out of the surface system leads to the rejection of the claim that emissions due of fossil fuel would increase?
Regarding Q1, I see no reason to infer from “it’s dynamics” that there must be a continuous flux of CO2 out of the surface, or rather that this continuity must lead to some kind of homeostasis between the sinks and the sources. In other words, it does not follow from “climate’s dynamic” that “climate is some kind of internal thermostat that tunes itself whatever inputs it receives.” Which means that Bartemis’ argument does not follow from the definitions of basic feedback theory.
The same kind of considerations apply to Q2.
***
Something else than maths is being injected here. I’d like to know what it is. At the very least, we need to take into account that a future post may touch upon these considerations.
This is not science, but it is important.
cap wrote: “well, duh. Right now the natural environment is a net carbon sink.”
well, duh indeed. It is a net carbon sink right now, and according to the Mauna Loa observatory dataset it has been a net carbon sink for at least the last fifty years, and the Law/Taylor dome ice cores show it has been a net carbon sink for even longer. That is the point, the mass balance argument shows that the natural environment has been a net carbon sink for a long time and hence has been OPPOSING the rise, not causing it.
Well let’s try no s%it sherlock. “Law/Taylor dome ice cores show it has been a net carbon sink for even longer.” Then prior to A anything CO2 should have been going down. For about 5000 years prior to “pre-industrial” it start climbing slowly. Where are the sources that caused that rise?
Land use change has been going on for a lot longer than fossil fuel use, if you look at the data you will find that fossil fuel emissions only overtook land use change emissions surprisingly recently (1950s/60s IIRC). The data is available from http://cdiac.ornl.gov/
“Then prior to A anything CO2 should have been going down. ”
This isn’t actually true. The carbon cycle has various feedback mechanisms, for instance Henry’s law says that solubility of CO2 is proportional to the difference between partial pressure in the atmosphere and concentration in surface waters, so if CO2 levels go up, solubility increases and uptake increases. However the constant of proportionality depends on temperature, so as temperatures rise, solubility decreases and CO2 levels rise. CO2 is a greenhouse gas, so increased CO2 means increased temperature and so lower solubility. So even in this single aspect of the carbon cycle there is a positive and a negative feedback. Now if there are no external perturbations, eventually the carbon cycle will reach an equilibrium where these feedbacks reach a balance and cancel out. So in the absence of external forcing, there is no reason to expect levels to be rising or falling in the long term.
We have perturbed the carbon cycle by taking carbon out of the ground and returning it to the active carbon cycle. If you perturb a system in equilibrium, it will usually act to oppose the perturbation to try and return to equilibrium. In chemistry I believe this is known as Le Chatellier’s principle.
dik, with land use you get a twofer, changing a source to a sink has a bigger impact than just reducing a source, plus you get other secondary benefits. That gives you more time for energies of the future to be realized.
Cap, that is already taken into account, however for land use to turn from a source into a sink, you need and increase in primary production (i.e. new growth) which is not generally happens when land use changes. I very rarely say anything about policy, so I am not arguing about whether to reduce fossil fuel use or plant trees (or indeed both). The important thing is to make the discussion more productive by at least reaching agreement that the rise in atmospheric CO2 is anthropogenic. It isn’t only the mass balance argument that demonstrates that this is the case, as Ferdinand has been tireless in explaining. The mass balance argument is however enough to show that the natural environment has been a net carbon sink for a long time, which is enough for most people to see that it has been opposing the rise rather than causing it.
dik, “The mass balance argument is however enough to show that the natural environment has been a net carbon sink for a long time.”
Nope, it implies as long as a lot of estimates are correct that it may have been a net sink for a long time.
https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-5HJtF3oStfE/VM0mgAvgLdI/AAAAAAAAMZU/2TmiFIjbvXs/w643-h377-no/boreholes%2Bwith%2Bcomposite%2Bco2.png
That is composite CO2 Luthi et al 2008 with with the borehole reconstruction.
FWIW if you take the supposed current yearly volcanic C production (low IMO, and low geologically judging from large igneous provinces) and multiply it by a few billion years it becomes clear that the “natural environment” has been a net sink forever.
Where did a couple billion GtC go? You will not find it in our current conceptions of reservoirs.
Suppose we start with 750GT, have 150GT natural addition and 5GT anthropogenic addition for a total of 905GT. Suppose that during the year 0.165746 of the 905 is removed naturally, which is 150GT removed. This results in a 5GT net increase but 0.165746 of the anthropogenic 5GT addition was removed so 0.83GT of the 5GT net increase was not anthropogenic. Or suppose the same scenario with zero anthropogenic addition. Of the 900GT total 0.165746 would be removed, which is 149.17GT removed, still showing the 0.83GT net natural increase.
Is this a valid way of determining the anthropogenic contribution: (a) determine what the total would have been without any anthropogenic contribution, (b) determine what the total is with the anthropogenic contribution, (c) the difference is the anthropogenic contribution.
From observing and commenting in this thread, I am drawing the following conclusion, and people can tell me if I’m wrong: There is uncertainty about sources of C02 in the atmosphere. Naturally, Warmers have to defend the position that it’s all or mostly anthropogenic, despite the uncertainties, or AGW theory loses it’s foundation.
Andrew
Yeah, it’s funny. The warmists think they have to be right about everything and the deniers think the warmists are wrong about everything. Thanks for playing your part well, Bad.
Agree with that. big numbers with large uncertainties. Do recovering forests in the US northeast and tall grass plains sequester more C than increases in fossil fuel use? Do oceans out gas in raising temperatures or absorb more because partial pressure of driving concentrations increase to offset changing ocean T? Amazon forest depletion vs increases in African foliage?
This is difficult to estimate and errors are unknown unknowns.
Scott
Can you quantify that uncertainty?
1 ppmv of CO2= 2.13 Gt of carbon
More than 365 Gt of carbon has been pulled from the ground and emitted into the atmosphere. The atmospheric C content has risen by about 120 ppmv, about 255 Gt. The rest has gone into the oceans, and other sinks.
How many Gt do you think would have been added to the atmosphere without human activities. Prior to the industrial revolution, there was about 280 ppmv CO2 in the atmosphere.
What do you think the ppmv would be now if there had been no human activity?
“Prior to the industrial revolution, there was about 280 ppmv CO2 in the atmosphere.”
Chris, how do you know this?
Andrew
How do you not know this? Or, what is your ball-park estimate, and what is it based on?
“How do you not know this?”
No one’s ever explained how definitive knowledge of pre-industrial C02 levels in the atmosphere is acquired.
Andrew
If you want to keep eating sausage, don’t visit the sausage factory.
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=pre-industrial+CO2+scholar
What is your best estimate, and how did you base it on?
Chris,
I’m not interested in a google search, because it doesn’t direct me to a link I know gives me good information. Can you refer me to a site that gives an explanation of how definitive knowledge of pre-industrial C02 levels in the atmosphere is acquired?
You keep using the word ‘estimate’, which concedes some uncertainty. I’d like some information that reduces the uncertainty as much as possible. Do you know a specific place where such information can be viewed?
Andrew
BA, do your own research, come up with your own best estimate, and then we can compare. What is your best estimate, and how did you arrive at it?
I am not going to engage in a debate of real world observations versus your conjecture.
“I am not going to engage in a debate”
I’m not asking for a debate. I’m asking for assistance.
Andrew
BA,
You could start with this. Could look at what it cites, or what cites it, if you want more.
There’s also this.
No, you are looking to cast unsubstantiated doubt on anything that runs counter to your preconceptions. Bring something to the table to talk about; don’t ask others to do all the cooking and then complain that you don’t like the taste.
ATTP,
I’m going to ask one question before I explore these links… Do they contain the method used for how definitive knowledge of pre-industrial C02 levels in the atmosphere is acquired (to the extent that’s possible)?
Andrew
BA,
Ahhh, no. One estimates the rate of carbon emission from fossil fuel burning, the rate of increase in atmospheric CO2, and the rate of uptake in the carbon sinks. The other discusses the relevance of residence times. You can probably use them as a suitable starting point if you were willing to actually do some work for yourself.
“No, you are looking to cast unsubstantiated doubt on anything that runs counter to your preconceptions.”
Chris,
Not at all. I’m actually looking to examine and hopefully reduce the uncertainty that exists in estimating C02 in an atmosphere of the past. Surely someone knows a reliable method to do this?
Andrew
BA,
Do you know how to use Google Scholar? I typed in “Holocene CO2 concentrations” and found this.
“Ahhh, no.”
ATTP,
I’ve asked a relatively straightforward question and the responses I’m getting appear to be addressing other things. I’ve repeated the question several times. Perhaps you don’t know where I can get what I’m looking for?
Andrew
BA,
Okay, I think I’ve spent enough of my evening looking things up that I thought might be relevant. You should probably have been doing your own homework in the first place, but you can certainly do it yourself given your most recent responses.
No Andrew, it is much simpler: Has the Earth been a net source or sink of CO2 for the last 70 years? The answer is clear; the mas balance says it has to have been a significant net sink, and NOT a net source. All the rest of the discussion is nonsense mixed with confusion.
How does the author differentiate between anthropogenic emissions and “natural” emissions?
Our emissions cause a temperature rise. If that temperature rise causes permafrost to melt and decay, and/or destabilizes clathrate deposits, that is a positive feedback caused by our activity. Are we supposed to believe that would have happened without us causing the temperature rise in the first place?
Chris
What has caused permafrost to melt and decay in the recent past, say 1000 years, prior to mans co2 creating activities?
Tonyb
Fire existed before man; therefore, man can not make fire.
You’re being a bit mystical there Chris, sure you’re not Willard in disguise?
If we take the period from say 1000ad to 1500ad we will find instances of melting permafrost in places like Siberia which caused village houses to subside. That period was also thought to have given rise to the travellers tales of such things as will of the wisps caused by the methane released.
If you can ever get along to the Scott polar institute in Cambridge you will find various papers on this in their archives and also in their library.
These Events predate mans co2 activities and Came about through previous episodes of warming caused by natural variability.
Tonyb
If you don’t understand the logical fallacy of your argument, I can’t help you.
Chris
Merely pointimg out that temperatures can rise without the input of man.
Tonyb
Yeah, so?
You know this because climate scientists have told you about it. It has no relevance to the topic of how much of the rise in CO2 is our responsibility and how much is not. We are having a discussion about who killed Abraham Lincoln and you are saying, “But who killed Oetzi?”
(Do I need to define metaphor?)
OMG! Who killed Oetzi?
The climate alarmists have got themselves a target rich environment on this post. Why does she do it?
I don’t think I have seen this Chris work before. He’s more clever than most of the dogma crowd. You don’t have to make it easy for him.
Chris
Natural variability killed Otzi. I saw him last year during one of my research projects to study the effects of natural variability on our climate which appears to be no greater with enhanced co2 than it was without it.
Tonyb
> Natural variability killed Otzi.
Sometimes, natural variability has some sharp edges:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1394753
Another theory is that at Otzi’s the information about running with scissors had not yet escalated.
Atmospheric CO2 rises by only half anthropogenic CO2 emission.
When someone can explain exactly why I’ll have a little more confidence that aCO2 is the culprit.
The other half is being sunk into natural sinks along with the natural CO2. When the capacities of the sinks are reached, what’s leftover stays in the atmosphere. Half of the ACO2 added to the natural stuff is enough to top off the sinks. What would happen if all the ACO2 stopped?
“What would happen if all the ACO2 stopped?”
There would be a very gradual decline in atmospheric and ocean CO2 over several hundred years. Barring Yosemite erupting or something similar, eventually the sinks will balance out the pulse we have added.
I wanted somebody else to answer, Chris. I don’t think it would take several hundreds of years. Unless the sinks shrink. What they don’t, or refuse to understand is that this is a marginal issue. The ACO2 is operating at the margin. It’s topping off the sinks. Not too many here have studied cost accounting, finance, microecon etc.
Chris, how about explaining why y’all think that water vapor is a rapid and strongly positive feedback? Where all dat water vapor?
“What would happen if all the ACO2 stopped?”
Not much. The sink capacity would shrink down in response, enough that once settled out, you could see directly that nature on its own is currently a net source, and atmospheric CO2 would keep rising according to the temperature dependent boundary conditions which are driving it.
“Unless the sinks shrink. What they don’t, or refuse to understand is that this is a marginal issue.”
That is incorrect. The sinks are dynamic. With reduced forcing, they do indeed shrink.
They respond to the atmospheric concentration. The very fact that we see no reduction in sink activity with rising levels in the atmosphere testifies to this. In fact, atmospheric concentration is currently rising at a nominally constant rate, while emissions keep accelerating
http://i1136.photobucket.com/albums/n488/Bartemis/CO2_zps330ee8fa.jpg
Hardly evidence of sink saturation. In fact, a naive person might imagine that the sinks are necessarily increasing in strength. But, it is an illusion, because it is assuming the wrong root cause for the change in atmospheric CO2 concentration. The actual main driver of atmospheric concentration is a temperature dependent process, and the rate of change of atmospheric concentration is in lockstep with temperatures
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/esrl-co2/from:1979/mean:12/derivative/plot/uah/from:1959/scale:0.22/offset:0.14
So the sinks are infinitely elastic, barty. They never get full. Thus no CO2 can be added to the atmosphere. Thank you, barty. We can add all the CO2 we want, no effect. Thank you, barty. We are saved!
Infinitely? No. But, they are elastic, they respond dynamically, and they handle much larger natural inputs quite well. Why in the world would you think they would have trouble with our relatively miniscule inputs?
Why does the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere increase every year, barty? The sinks ain’t keeping up. We know by how much ACO2 is increasing. How about natural CO2, barty? Where is it coming from and how much of it is being added each year? And that’s all the time I have for you.
“Why does the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere increase every year, barty?”
That is the question worthy of investigation. Some candidates are: increased ocean outgassing due to a bulge in CO2 content of upwelling waters; restricted downwelling due to increasing temperatures and varying salinity; increasing biological activity with temperature rise… I’m sure investigators can find many possibilities to look at. The common thread being that they are temperature dependent, in a manner producing the observed temperature/CO2 relationship
dCO2/dt = k*(T – T0)
But, you don’t have to know how a diesel engine works to know you’d better get off the tracks when the train approaches. And, we don’t have to know the exact mechanisms to know that emissions are excluded as the driving force by the relationship above.
“We know by how much ACO2 is increasing.”
We know how much is being released. We do not know the exact amount which remains after the sinks have removed their portion, but we do know it is small, because the above empirical relationship precludes significant dependence of atmospheric concentration on emissions.
Maybe it was a Columbian drug dealer, barty? Add that to your list of guesses.
Don, Don, Don… I strongly advise you get off the tracks before the train arrives.
Bart, human emissions did increase a fourfold in the past 55 years. So did the increase in the atmosphere and so did the sinks. The current CO2 level is 110 ppmv above steady state. If we stop all emissions today, the sink rate would remain the same (~2.15 ppmv) for the first year, as that is caused by the 110 ppmv extra pressure in the atmosphere. That will gradually reduce to zero the moment that steady state is reached, which is ~290 ppmv for the current temperature per Henry’s law. That will take a few centuries with a half life time of ~40 years.
And don’t use your bloody misleading graph again: messing with different scales and an offset in one of them is not done here.
Here is the same graph with the same emissions and increase in the atmosphere and the calculated increase, the latter based on the total increase in the atmosphere vs. steady state and sink rate:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/dco2_em6.jpg
All plotted on the same scale with the same units: the last three years were at 2.3 ppmv/year according to Pieter Tans (NOAA), the calculated increase is right on spot, middle of the noise caused by temperature variability.
Your dCO2/dt = k*(T – T0) is nonsense: any increase in temperature starts at that, but dCO2/dt gradually decreases when the CO2 pressure in the atmosphere increases: it is a transient response and ends when dCO2/dt = 0.
The main formula is dCO2/dt = k*(T – T0) – ΔpCO2
where ΔpCO2 is the increase in pCO2 since time t0. When dCO2/dt = 0,
ΔpCO2 = k(T-T0), which is exactly what Henry’s law says.
That is for the ocean part.
The variability caused by temperature variations is a fast response of vegetation on temperature changes, which response zeroes out in 1-3 years, even getting slightly negative over time, I still need to work that out.
You have no way of knowing that.
I agree with Ferdinand. The equilibrium is 280-290 ppm. In the absence of emissions the absorption time scale is 50 years (1/e in 50 years). Unfortunately the emission time scale pushing it away from equilibrium has been 25 years for the past century or more, which is why the increase time scale is 50 years (1/25 minus 1/50). There are some other subtleties that may prevent it returning all the way to 280 ppm. The good thing is that if we can get the emission rate low enough, CO2 levels can go down, even without zero emissions.
Ferdinand –
“That will gradually reduce to zero the moment that steady state is reached, which is ~290 ppmv for the current temperature per Henry’s law.”
There is nothing at all that compels that. The only thing you can say for sure is that the sinks will temporarily continue taking out at an elevated level due to the anthropogenic forcing, gradually declining due to the loss of that input, then reaching a lower level of activity at some time in the future which balances natural input activity.
Which is to say, the mass balance will increase from N – SN – SA to just N – SN. At that point, N – SN would be positive, and you would be able to see directly that nature is the source which has been driving the rise.
AK = “You have no way of knowing that”
Agreed. He has no way of knowing the exact timeline. It is true, though, that the near term level of sink activity would start out at the current level SN + SA, declining to SN at some point in the future.
AK and Bart,
If there are no more human emissions and no extreme natural events, the CO2 level will return to what the equilibrium is for the current ocean temperature, per Henry’s law for the solubility of CO2 in seawater. That is around 290 ppmv.
Over the past 800,000 years the oceans acted as a simple, first order system for CO2. It still does so:
Peter Dietze calculated the net sink rate for the oceans at 350 ppmv in the atmosphere (1988):
http://www.john-daly.com/carbon.htm
His e-fold decay rate was ~55 years
My calculation of the net sink rate today for 400 ppmv gets ~51 years for the e-fold decay rate.
It would be quite remarkable if the oceanic CO2 equilibrium process suddenly changed when going back from 400 to 350 ppmv in the atmosphere, which will take some 40 years.
It’s called chemistry. Here is a primer. http://chemistry.bd.psu.edu/jircitano/solution.html
“If the pressure of the gas is increased above the gaseous solution, then the solubility will be increased in a linear fashion.”
Increasing the number of moles of CO2 in the atmosphere increases the pressure of that species. This has been understood since around 1800. I’m willing to believe that Henry was not wrong.
OK, the ocean is not the only sink, but it is the largest one.
Henry was, of course, correct for a static pool of water in steady state. But, that is not what we have here. See above.
Bart, the oceans are absorbing CO2. Do you have a better explanation for David’s question?
Chris –
“Do you have a better explanation for David’s question?”
Random chance. The fact that there is a net rise means that there has to be some ratio of the rise to total virtual accumulation of emissions. The ratio happens to be roughly 1/2.
It’s a bit of a leading question, kind of along the lines of, when did you stop beating your wife? Not that David meant it that way, but it sort of implies that half the emissions are remaining in the atmosphere. But, there is nothing fundamentally to preclude the oceans, biosphere, mineral weathering, et al. soaking up essentially all of the emissions, and the remainder being due to much larger natural forcing. The fact that atmospheric concentration is being driven by a temperature dependent process and not human emissions tells us that there actually is very little “airborne fraction” of emissions hanging around.
Sure, I know that the standard explanation is that equilibrium dynamics act to rapidly partition roughly half the emissions into the ocean. However, that is a post hoc claim, not really founded on fundamental physics. Or, rather, the degree to which fundamental physics supports the notion is not comprehensive – once the desired answer was obtained, they stopped looking. Confirmation bias at work. That makes it merely a potential explanation, not an established fact. The other evidence I mentioned above tells me it is wrong.
I didn’t mean to jump on you. I was simply alerting you to the fact that, empirically, we can verify that the sensitivity of atmospheric CO2 to temperature is a rate sensitivity. And, that means that you should hold as suspect any analysis which treats the oceans as a static pool of water.
I took organic and inorganic chemistry in both high school and later college Chris. Thanks for not asking how long ago. I’m aware of Henry’s Law. I’m also aware that there’s an outside chance that the hypothesis Bartemis offered is correct.
You do not know exactly which sources and sinks are acting nor how much. Correlation is not causation. There’s an odd correlation between aCO2 emission and atmospheric rise. The oddity is the rise is only half the input and the 1:2 ratio appears to remain constant despite greatly increased human emission. In the meantime natural sources of CO2 dwarf the human contribution which makes the alternative hypothesis offered by Bartemis, Salby, Haynie, et al live players for the correct explanation.
Let me know when you have hard data for exactly how all sources and sinks in the carbon cycle are operating. Until then I advise tempering your hubris with a little uncertainty like a good scientist.
Chris,
The response of the dynamic behavior of the oceans-atmosphere exchanges to an increase in temperature is exactly the same as for a stagnant system, something I have said to Bart many times without success…
The highest pCO2 measured near the equatorial upwelling waters was 750 μatm, which does give some 40 GtC/year CO2 release for a ~350 μatm difference with the atmospheric partial pressure (400 ppmv is about 400 μatm minus water vapor pressure). At the other side of the globe, the sinking waters are at ~150 μatm, sinking ~40 GtC/year at steady state.
At the CO2 upwelling area, a warming ocean increases its pCO2 with about 8 μatm (4-17 μatm). That increases the outflux to 40.4 GtC/year.
At the sink side, the pCO2 difference is ~250 μatm, decreasing to 242 μatm for a warming ocean (if that happens at all near the ice edge). That reduces the outflux to 38.7 GtC/year. The difference of in total 0.7 GtC/year (~0.33 ppmv) remains in the atmosphere.
The CO2 level in the atmosphere thus increases with 0.33 ppmv in the first year. The increase in the atmosphere makes that the change in pressure difference is reduced and thus gradually the increase in the atmosphere will reduce to zero, that is at the moment that the increase in the atmosphere is about 8 ppmv higher: the in/out fluxes are restored at exactly the same pressure increase in the atmosphere as for a static process, here for 17 ppmv/K:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/upwelling_temp.jpg
It doesn’t matter if the in/out fluxes at the start of the temperature increase were not in equilibrium: after an 8 ppmv increase in the atmosphere, the same disequilibrium is restored as before the temperature increase.
“The response of the dynamic behavior of the oceans-atmosphere exchanges to an increase in temperature is exactly the same as for a stagnant system, something I have said to Bart many times without success…”
Yeah, a dynamic system behaves exactly the same as a static system. That is why engineering colleges across the country which currently teach a semester of static systems theory, followed by the advanced semester of dynamic systems theory, are junking the latter. F = MA has been replaced by F = 0. This has allowed colleges across the country to lay off more expensive faculty, and focus on their core mission, which is hiring administrators. /sarc
Bart:
Yeah, a dynamic system behaves exactly the same as a static system.
I was talking about the behavior of an equilibrium of CO2 between the oceans and the atmosphere, not an exotic mechanical or electronic system. The oceans simply give the same CO2 level in the atmosphere for the same temperature change after some time, including the huge in/out fluxes as the same ocean waters in a continuous pCO2 measurement on a sea ship do in seconds or the same sample does static in a closed cylinder…
F = MA is not exactly exotic, Ferdinand. You are wrong. Dynamic systems do not behave like static systems generally. You are making common cause with the Skydragons.
Bart,
In the case of the current ocean-atmosphere cycle, the behavior of the dynamic system to temperature changes is exactly the same for shaking a bottle of seawater with air, spraying seawater in a small air stream, bubbling air through a seawater flow, waiting for the whole oceans to equilibrate after a few years or taking a sample and forgetting it for months and then measuring CO2 in the air phase.
In all cases you will find the same change in CO2 level in the atmosphere for the same change in temperature of the seawater. That was established in 1803 by Henry and since then confirmed by millions of laboratory and field measurements.
The only difference is the time frame needed to reach the new equilibrium or steady state.
Of course, if you change the input (or output) parameters by e.g. allowing more ocean input, either amount of upwelling or concentration, you change the behavior of the system, but even that will lead to a new equilibrium: not, never, going unabated until eternity without feedback from the change in pCO2 of the atmosphere…
The earth’s water and air is a continuous flow system that isn’t even a steady state, much less approaching equilibrium. Every revolution and change in tilt with respect to the sun changes things and the system responds with cycles and harmonics of different wave lengths. The total system never approaches equilibrium but the water phase change processes are probably the primary temperature regulators. Also, they are probably contributing to the regulation of atmospheric CO2 concentration.
Fred,
What about this:
“fhhaynie | May 8, 2015 at 3:54 pm |
No. The Mass balance is A+N-Sinks= accumulation or dA/dt+dN/dt+dSinks/dt= accumulation rate. Where dA/dt is the known emission rate, dN/dt is unknown natural emission rates, dSinks/dt is unknown sink rates, and accumulation rates are known. You have one equation with two unknowns. We need another equation that links the two unknowns. That is where the 13CO2 index is used. Otherwise you have to make some assumptions.”
“…and Then There’s Physics | May 8, 2015 at 4:04 pm |
dA/dt+dN/dt+dSinks/dt= accumulation rate. Where dA/dt is the known emission rate, dN/dt is unknown natural emission rates, dSinks/dt is unknown sink rates, and accumulation rates are known. You have one equation with two unknowns.
No, we can rewrite it as
dA/dt + dNat/dt = accum rate,
where dNat/dt = dN/dt + dSinks/dt.
We know, or can make a reasonable estimate for, dA/dt, and we know the accum rate. We therefore have an equation with one unknown which is the net natural uptake rate. Since dA/dt > accum rate, it is negative and nature cannot be a source.”
Do you see where you are wrong, Fred? If you people don’t get this mass balance thing, you should be getting someone to handle your financial affairs for you.
No I don’t and what you have posted is no “proof” that I am wrong.
OK, freddie. Then you must be able to explain where ATTP has gone wrong. He says you don’t get it. Are you just going to take that?
Time will tell who is right. Do you care to make a prediction of what the temperature or CO2 concentration will be at a specific location and time and bet that your prediction is better than mine. Will you use the IPPC models to make your prediction? Good luck. I don’t think you have the skills to do it yourself.
don, “where dNat/dt = dN/dt + dSinks/dt.”
that should be dNat/dt=dN/dt-dSinks/dt, then if dNat/dt<0, "nature" is a sink.
That is misleading though since if CO2ppmv is greater than ~290 ppmv, by Henry's law the oceans would always be a sink. When t is small, the oceans oscillate between source and sink which is an indication there is more than one sink consideration. So if you focus on just T and Henry's Law you can get some creative conclusions to leap to.
Longer term, there is another T, the average ocean temperature and a P the effective ocean pressure the creates a long term oceans sequestration, mid term mother of all sinks. This was what Lowell Stott was on about, medium level ocean temperature and pressure can change the "carbon capture" depth for lack of the proper term. At 400 ppmv the oceans would still be a net sink but there would be a reduction in the deep ocean sink rate.
Even longer long term there is weather of rocks which is the most permanent form of carbon sequestration, iirc.
As far as basic sink or source goes though, "nature" is a carbon sink if CO2 is greater than ~290 ppmv. Since CO2 is a gas and has a diffusion rate through ice, fern etc. there isn't a real good indication of what the +/- should be for the ~290 ppmv on various time scales. Based on Greenland Ice cores and leaf stoma, it is probably about +/- 30 ppmv.
Now, back to your scheduled bickering.
We are talking about the case of historical accumulation of CO2 in the atmosphere, freddie. We don’t need to get distracted with prediction and betting BS. You could at least try to explain why ATTP’s ciphering is wrong, freddie. He only got one unknown, and you got two. Is he smarter than you are, freddie?
The IPPC’s mass balance model is what I say is wrong and their predictions based on that model are what politicians are betting their efforts to control the burning of fossil fuel are based on. So put up or shut up. If you wish to respond, do so on my site and lets put this thread to bed. So long.
fhhaynie wrote “The IPPC’s mass balance model is what I say is wrong and their predictions based on that model are what politicians are betting their efforts to control the burning of fossil fuel are based on.”
In this one sentence you have shown that not only do you not understand the mass balance argument, but you are also unfamiliar with what the IPCC actually say. The mass balance argument is not a model, it makes no predictions (it is a way of analysing what has happened), and therefore the IPCC have not used its predictions for anything, because they don’t actually exist.
Here is one sentence from the other genius that explains his problem with getting the mass balance thing:
“If the sinks are aggressive enough, then they can effectively take out everything humans put in, and any observed rise of any significance would then have to be a result of sinks not keeping up with the much larger natural inputs.”
The sinks apparently prefer to eat the ACO2 first. So the ACO2 doesn’t get a chance to make the atmospheric concentration rise.
Ferdinand Engelbeen | May 9, 2015 at 3:09 pm |
“In the case of the current ocean-atmosphere cycle, the behavior of the dynamic system to temperature changes is exactly the same…”
Wrong. If upwelling is continuously bringing new CO2 into the surface system, and temperature causes the rate of outgassing to increase, while downwelling decreases, then there will be a continuous net flux of CO2 into the atmosphere.
Bartemis is correct again. The ocean isn’t a beaker in a lab. Upwelling cold water in the tropics can be thousands of years old and the dissolved CO2 in it at the partial pressure from thousands of years ago too. Ferdinand and others are ridiculous to think this is a simple matter of appying Henry’s Law. Like OMG that’s so naive.
David Springer,
Bart is completely wrong on this.
We were talking about an increase of temperature alone, not changes in ocean deep water upwelling or enhanced CO2 concentration in the upwelling waters.
If you start with a constant influx and outflux (steady state), the CO2 level in the atmosphere stays the same.
If the oceans warm with 1 K everywhere, the pCO2 of the oceans increases with 8 μatm everywhere. That gives more influx and less outflux of CO2, due to the change in pCO2 difference between atmosphere and ocean surface (in- or outfluxes are directly proportional to the pCO2 difference). So far so good.
But as the CO2 level in the atmosphere increases over time, the change in pCO2 difference is reduced and gets zero when 8 μatm (~8 ppmv) extra in the atmosphere is reached: we are again at steady state at a higher CO2 level in the atmosphere. It is a transient response, not a continuous influx until eternity.
The same happens if there is some increase in upwelling (amount or concentration):
The extra e.g. 10% CO2 concentration in the upwelling will increase the pCO2 by 10% at the upwelling places. That gives a lot more influx and initially not more outflux. CO2 levels in the atmosphere increase, the outflux increases and the influx decreases until about 50% of the extra influx is distributed towards the outflux and both influx and outflux are equal again at a higher CO2 level in the atmosphere, depending of half the height of the extra influx:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/upwelling_incr.jpg
Again a transient response to a new steady state, no continuous influx until eternity.
The same for a combination of both. In no case there is a continuous influx of CO2 due to a fixed temperature increase or a fixed increase in ocean input or both.
Don your scientific illiteracy is showing. Listen to Bartemus.
The fact that aCO2 emission rate is increasing exponentially while CO2 concentration in atmosphere increases linearly in response shows us that it is an equilibrium system being driven far out of equilibrium. The characteristic response of these systems is when driven farther from equilibrium the drive to restore equilibrium becomes stronger as well. This is what creates the linear increase in atmospheric CO2 despite the exponentially increasing emission source.
Chris Gollege doesn’t understand this either. If aCO2 emission were to stop the amount in the atmosphere would decrease at the same rate it increased. The rate of decrease would decelerate as the system moves closer to equilibrium.
Equilibrium appears to be 280 ppmv CO2 if ice cores covering multiple glacial/interglacial cycles can be trusted. 280 ppmv CO2 for interglacial ocean temperature and 200 ppmv CO2 for glacial periods. Those are the equilibrium points and appear to be controlled by ocean temperature.
Bartemis – where I’m going to disagree with you is on natural source being responsible for 20th century atmospheric CO2 increase. The global ocean basin mean temperature hasn’t changed significantly during the industrial revolution. Rising CO2 is almost certainly because the rate of emission has increased driving the ocean/atmosphere interface farther and farther from equilibrium.
davey. davey
Show us the alternate explanation for the increase of CO2 in the freaking atmosphere. Not a bunch of half-baked theoretical BS, but where is the NCO2 supposed to be coming from, when did it start increasing, how much of it year by freaking year, how much have the sinks expanded, which sinks, but you really can’t show doo-doo. On the other hand we know that ACO2 has increased just at the right time to explain the increase in CO2 in the atmosphere and in an amount twice what it would take. And that ain’t all. Read Ferdinand E’s explanation. I never took you for a denier, davey. Now I am out of this foolishness. This has been a most unproductive and silly thread. Judith should know better.
Donny, Donny, Dondon… Nice strawman ya got there. I didn’t dispute aCO2 being the cause of the rise in atmospheric CO2. I didn’t say I was certain either. Certainty is for math not science. Science is about best explanations. Four isn’t the best explanation of two plus two it’s a certain result. The best explanation for the rise in CO2 is human emission. But it isn’t certain. An alternative hypothesis is ocean warming. Thanks for asking.
“Not a bunch of half-baked theoretical BS”
Yeah, Dave. We don’t need no stinikin’ theory. We need only probe our feelings. Good Gosh, we’re pumping gazillions of tons of CO2 into the atmosphere! Run for your lives!
Hey, thanks for your support, Dave. This whole page is really depressing. I can only hope these aren’t our best and brightest posting. Otherwise, we’re doomed.
“…where I’m going to disagree with you is on natural source being responsible for 20th century atmospheric CO2 increase. The global ocean basin mean temperature hasn’t changed significantly during the industrial revolution.”
The sensitivity is in ppmv/K/unit-of-time. So, the impact builds over years. See above.
These jokers don’t know what they are talking about. Here it is:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/co2_origin.html
It’s just a narrative, Don, unmoored from mathematical imperatives.
It looks like barty thinks if he hangs around here long enough he will be the last man standing. You will still be wrong, barty. Ferdinand rules:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/co2_origin.html
David,
Human emissions and increase in the atmosphere both increased slightly quadratic over time and so did the net sink rate:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/temp_emiss_increase.jpg
With as result a quite linear ratio between human emissions and increase in the atmosphere. The (temporarily?) relative linear period in increase after 2000 was visible in other periods too: 1976-1996 even shows a negative rate of change growth with increasing temperatures and emissions…
If aCO2 emission were to stop the amount in the atmosphere would decrease at the same rate it increased.
Probably, but that is just coincidence as the emissions were continuously about twice the growth rate in the atmosphere, which means that for the same ΔpCO2 between atmosphere and equilibrium, the net sink rate and increase rate in the atmosphere were about equal.
The CO2/T ratio over the past 800,000 years was about 8 ppmv/K. Not as Bart alleges and where his theory is build on, ppmv/K/unit-of-time.
Then you need to continuously adjust the factor for each period, even within the past 55 years like for the 1976-1996 period with a negative slope…
And a glacial-interglacial transition over 5,000 years with 0.0016 ppmv/K/year…
The sensitivity is in ppmv/K/unit-of-time. No matter how many times Ferdinand insists on a static relationship, the data flatly contradict him.
Bart,
Like in the 1977-1996 period which needs a negative factor to match the slopes so that the amplitudes go upside down?
Or the 2000-current period which shows the same problem?
That are 35 years of the 55 year period which show a negative behavior for the two slopes… And you still insist that there is one overall factor and offset that “matches” everything?
Amazing piece of slight of hand there Ferdi. I’d always regarded you as an honest player, who arrives at different conclusion. I’m starting to doubt that.
You used land + sea, when only SST is relevent to outgassing. You used SH temps to compare to MLO which is at 22N.
You use a crappy running mean which will likely degrade the correlation, then you cherry pick a period where the end is dominated by Mt Pinatubo and start drawing meaningless “trends.”.
You lost a lot of the respect I had for you there bud.
Now let’s try again using global SST and a half decent 12mo filter on your prefered period.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/esrl-co2/from:1977/derivative/to:1996/mean:12/mean:9/mean:7/plot/hadsst3gl/from:1977/scale:0.33/offset:0.12/to:1996/mean:12/mean:9/mean:7
Now looking at the full period for CO2 data
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/esrl-co2/from:1958/derivative/to:2015/mean:12/mean:9/mean:7/plot/hadsst3gl/from:1958/scale:0.3/offset:0.12/to:2015/mean:12/mean:9/mean:7
It actually matches surprsingly well. The deviation seems in large part due to Mt. P
Clearly a large amount of the variability can be accounted for by oceanic outgassing.
Greg
The oceanic outgassing is an interesting area but one which is somewhat confusing.
A one degree rise in ocean temperature is supposed to equate to some 7ppmv increase in co2 . But does that mean ALL the ocean surface of the globe would have to rise by one degree in order to produce that increase?
How much co2 is produced in the real world in a country like Britain whereby typically the oceans around us might increase from a minimum of around 7 degree centigrade in march to some 17c by October then Cool down again. At what point is it outgassing and at what point is it absorbing? Are the two in equilibrium?
Multiply this scenario to a greater or lesser degree around the globe and the net impact is difficult to work out.
Tonyb
Bartemis
At zero lag, T correlates ok with dCO2. But there’s a much better correlation with plain old CO2. And an even better correlation with T lagging CO2 by 3 or 6 years.
For the present, my opinion is that T driving ocean CO2 out-gassing is a 2nd order effect. That says nothing about the ocean CO2 pipeline as a net sink or source in the future.
Greg,
I simply used the same temperature trend as Bart did, I have no stake here as in my opinion temperature has little effect on CO2 levels.
On the other side, Bart indeed uses different temperature scales for different periods of time, just to have the best fit. Even the shorter satellite trends, but that isn’t really ocean surface or near ground land temperature…
The point I tried to make is that while temperature variability and CO2 variability are clearly linked, the longer term trends of temperature and CO2 are NOT linked to each other, not for 35 years of the 55 years of accurate measurements that includes your own plots, whatever the temperature trend you take.
Further, it is not ocean outgassing which gives the variability, it is vegetation: higher (ocean) temperatures (El Niño) cause too high temperatures and changing rain patterns in the Amazon, leading to increased decay and less uptake by the tropical forest. That gives a short (1-2 years) peak in CO2 rate of change, which levels off (because of lack of “fuel”) and returns to zero in short time, even slightly negative: higher temperatures and more CO2 give a slight more global uptake of CO2 by plants. That is proven by the opposite CO2 and 13C/12C ratio changes.
Fast CO2 variability and CO2 trend are caused by separate, independent processes, where the short term variability is certainly caused by the influence of temperature variability on vegetation, while the long term trend is NOT caused by the influence of temperature on vegetation.
Neither are the oceans: the long term influence of temperature on the oceans is not more than 8 (4-17) ppmv/K per Henry’s law.
For the current average surface temperature, the steady state is 290 ppmv. The (colder) temperature of the deeper layers is of no interest for the equilibrium setpoint, only the surface counts.
We are now at 400 ppmv, 110 ppmv above steady state: the oceans are a net sink for ~3.5 GtC/year CO2, despite the small temperature increase in the past 55 years.
That means that Bart’s contention that temperature is the only driver of the CO2 increase in the atmosphere is completely bogus.
Very clear and convincing explanation, Ferdinand. But the willfully ignorant and the stubbornly intransigent will pay no attention at all to the facts and logic.
climategrog | May 9, 2015 at 4:21 pm |
Yes, thank you for pointing out Ferdinand’s cherry picking sleight of hand. Ferdinand seems to think that linear trends are crystal balls which divine truth even when there is a low SNR. His trend estimates over short intervals are not statistically significant.
climatereason | May 9, 2015 at 4:48 pm |
It is a dynamic system. If upwelling is increased, and downwelling is reduced, there will be a continuous injection of CO2 into the atmosphere. That is why the sensitivity is in ppmv/K/unit-of-time.
blueice2hotsea | May 9, 2015 at 7:59 pm |
“At zero lag, T correlates ok with dCO2. But there’s a much better correlation with plain old CO2. And an even better correlation with T lagging CO2 by 3 or 6 years.”
A lag has to have a cause. For a model to be valid, it has to match the phase. There is no correlation with plain old CO2 because there is a 90 degree phase lag between T and CO2. A 90 degree phase lag across the entire spectrum is uniquely the phase response of an integral.
A lag has to have a cause. For a model to be valid, it has to match the phase. There is no correlation with plain old CO2 because there is a 90 degree phase lag between T and CO2.
What if i told that where I live, there is a phase lag between max solar insolation and max temp? In July it hits around 90 degree lag. You are arguing, in effect, that there is no correlation between sunlight and temp.
So while I agree that T drives CO2, I also think it reasonable that CO2 drives temp. Regional quantification could be helpful.
Dang left out something.
dCO2 vs T no lag correlation ~ 0.5
CO2 vs T NO lag correlation ~ 0.9
“What if i told that where I live, there is a phase lag between max solar insolation and max temp? In July it hits around 90 degree lag. You are arguing, in effect, that there is no correlation between sunlight and temp.”
Your thought exercise is illustrative. To match solar insolation with temperature, you need to input the insolation through a system response. That system response is a low pass filter, which can be modeled as a first order lag filter with a thermal time constant. It has a 90 degree lag at higher frequencies, and 0 degrees at low frequencies. If you slowed down the rotation rate of the Earth, the phase lag would become less and less. A model would be
dT/dt = -T/tau + S
S is insolation, and tau is a time constant. You would not correlate T with S with a direct, linear comparison. You would compare dT/dt+T/tau with S.
We also have a system response from temperature to CO2. Empirically, we find a direct, linear comparison between the rate of change of CO2, dCO2/dt, and re-baselined temperature anomaly T – T0, such that
dCO2/dt = k*(T – T0)
Bart,
I simply used your latest cherry-picked temperature series, which every time changes if it suits your theory best.
And as shown, for 35 years of the 55 years the correlation is negative (if you take the RSS satellite data for the period after 2000) or zero amplitude after 2000, which gives an upside down effect on the amplitudes of temperature and dCO2/dt variability.
If more than halve of your “matching” years gets zero to negative amplitudes, then your whole match of slopes is bogus.
That has a very simple explanation: there is not the slightest connection between T and CO2 variability at one side and the slopes of temperature and dCO2/dt on the other side. They are proven caused by different processes:
T and CO2 rate of change variability are proven caused by the influence of temperature on (tropical) forests, while the trend of dCO2/dt is not the result of the overall trend in temperature on vegetation at all: vegetation is a net sink for CO2. Thus the slope of the effect of T on dCO2/dt by vegetation is zero to slightly negative.
It is a dynamic system. If upwelling is increased, and downwelling is reduced, there will be a continuous injection of CO2 into the atmosphere. That is why the sensitivity is in ppmv/K/unit-of-time.
Yes, but you forget something: it is a dynamic system. If the CO2 level in the atmosphere increases, the upwelling is reduced and the downwelling is increased. Which makes that the increase in the atmosphere caused by extra upwelling or a temperature increase reduces over time until that is zero. It is a transient response to disturbances. The sensitivity is in ppmv/K which is what Henry’s law says:
ΔpCO2 = k * (T – T0)
where k = ~8 ppmv/K
The real life formula (for the oceans) thus is:
dCO2/dt = k * (T – T0) – ΔpCO2
where ΔpCO2 is the increase of CO2 in the atmosphere since t0.
As vegetation has a complete different response to temperature and is far less influenced by pCO2, it is responsible for most of the variability and not for the trend.
blueice2hotsea | May 9, 2015 at 7:59 pm |
The long standing discussion between Bart and me has had some interesting comment by Paul_K here:
http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2013/10/21/diary-date-murry-salby.html?currentPage=2#comments
second page, fourth comment.
He shows that in case of a transient response like the lag of CO2 changes after T changes, the lag is always pi/2, whatever the frequency, as long as the response time (from the oceans in this case) is slower than the slowest frequency, which is obviously the case here.
That makes that if you take the derivative of CO2, there is always a zero lag between T and dCO2/dt, because by taking the derivative of CO2, you shift dCO2/dt pi/2 back in time and T and dCO2/dt synchronize.
But that says nothing about the slopes, as these have nothing to do with the variability.
In fact you are right: the connection is between T variability and CO2 variability without much effect on the increase itself, here for the period 1990-2001 with the largest T/CO2 changes and eventually between dT/dt and dCO2/dt variability in transient response, not between T and dCO2/dt:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/temp_dco2_d13C_mlo.jpg
“The acceptability of a plug depends upon the amount: a plug must be immaterial in order to be justified.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plug_%28accounting%29
A plug balances the books. When you reconcile your checking account and find an error of a dollar, you can just force your register to the bank’s number and be done with it. You can also hopefully find the mistake in your register and correct it. Examples of material plugs (not allowed): Plugging for 1/3 of total revenues. Plugging for 1/3 of total expenses. What is plugged is almost always the income statement. We have a good handle on our balance sheet. For instance, the bank says we have X. Plugging the balance sheet is less common. With the CO2 cycle we are saying it has to be somewhere. No bank tells us we have X, and there are many banks where it is. The more banks there are the less certain we are of where it is and what happened. The best information is emissions and CO2 levels. This deficiency is helped somewhat by modeling and plugging. With the deep and intermediate oceans, that may be the most difficult place to get an accurate number on what is in that bank. That is where a lot of CO2 is. It’s been said the hydrological cycle speeds up when it’s warmer. Why not the carbon cycle? Upwelling is associated with nutrient levels, that would seem to be carbon, life. Some might say we caused the increased upwelling.
Transfixed on CO2 leaving water vapor behind. Foolish.
Particularly when burning fossil fuels produces twice as much water as CO2. Methinks the BEST (aka airport) temperature record may record this signal.
If the measured CO2 concentration rises from 300 to 400 ppm, it is tempting to assert that this rise is purely due to the effect of man made CO2, as a result of man returning to the atmosphere that which Nature previously removed.
However, there are a few natural sources of CO2 which contribute an uncertain amount.
– Undersea volcanoes. Number completely uncertain, and total CO2 emissions unknown. Measurements show PH of 5 in at least one subsurface basin, so contributing to natural oceanic acidification is also a function of Nature.
– Aboveground volcanoes. Contribution guesstimate at best. Influence uncertain.
– Direct leakage into lakes and atmosphere. 1986, Lake Nyos, around 1700 people, 3500 cattle and an unknown number of other animals killed by single release of CO2 from lake. Others known, total number unknown.
– oxygen breathing organisms, from yeast to Blue whales, oxidise carbon to maintain life. Increasing biomass results in increasing CO2. Amount unknown.
– Decay by oxidation of hydrocarbons and carbohydrates, and other carbon based compounds. Includes plant matter, animals, even anaerobic life forms. Estimates uncertain.
Any graph of paleo CO2 levels shows falls and rises. In some cases, rises of 7000 ppm before man was around.
It appears that levels of CO2 are currently rising. Humans are contributing an unknown amount to this. What is not known at all, is the human impact, if any, on the natural mechanisms which have produced an overall inexorable decrease in CO2 levels until very recently.
What level of CO2 is neede to sustain our present ecosystem? Does anyone know? If this basic information is unavailable, fiddling around with CO2 levels in complete ignorance of the consequences might not be the smartest thing to do.
Mike, the main point in the discussion is that there are a lot of possible natural sources of the increase in the atmosphere, but why should they show very little variability in the past millennia (where we have ice cores with a reasonable resolution) and suddenly start to increase in lockstep with human emissions?
Here for CO2, last 1,000 years:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/antarctic_cores_001kyr.jpg
Here for CH4, last 1,000 years:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/law_dome_ch4.jpg
A similar graph can be found for N2O…
Facetiously, maybe for the same reason that the correlation between U.S. spending on science space and technology, and suicides by hanging, strangulation, and suffocation, show a 0.992 correlation. Not quite lockstep, but close, I think you would agree.
Seriously though, someone might observe that the heat output of their campfire was in lock step with the CO2 emitted, and assume that the heat was obviously caused by the CO2. As CO2 increased, so did measured heat output. Completely ridiculous isn’t it?
No reasonable person could possibly believe such a thing could they?
So, correlation may lead to infer causation incorrectly.
Measure all emissions. Measure all sinks. Don’t assume or guess. Then I’ll become a believer. Until then, I assume it’s the long arm of coincidence at work.
Mike,
Human emissions are calculated from fossil fuel sales, with reasonable accuracy. Maybe more underestimated than overestimated. Nobody likes to pay taxes…
The increase in the atmosphere is measured: until 1960 smoothed (less than a decade in Law Dome) in ice cores, after 1960 very accurate directly in the atmosphere in a lot of places.
That means that the net contribution of all natural sinks and sources together is known, less accurate for pre-1960 data, but quite accurate since 1960: more sink than source.
Human emissions are twice the amount measured in the atmosphere.
In a lot of cases correlation is not causation. In this case, all evidence points to one cause which is obviously a good candidate to be the real cause of the increase in the atmosphere.
Just coincidence? Or you don’t like to admit that Climate Science on this point (and this point alone) may be right?
Congrats to our limester denizens:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/generalelection/unshackled-from-coalition-partners-tories-get-ready-to-push-radical-agenda-10237611.html
Get rid of the BBC.
I fer one don’t luv octopussy,
it’s arms are too long. Git rid of
the BBC, likewise the ABC,
UNFCCC, IPCC, the list is long …
You’re kidding surely?
Just because the BBC is following the ‘politically correct’ consensus on climate alarmism, and even then there are voices of dissent on that within its ranks, the BBC is genuinely one of the most effective and positive institutions I can think of over its history, for all it’s manifest faults.
Get rid of the BBC and replace it with what? The Sun? The Daily Mail? News of the World (errr…..well maybe not them)? Channel 4 news is even more alarmist in its coverage of climate change than the BBC. Nor are any of the commercial broadcasters in the Uk truly fully commercial, if divestment from public money is what you might deem best.
The BBC do a lot more than just news you know. They have been the biggest cultural driving force in the Uk (and around the world) for generations. You wouldn’t have had Monty Python without the BBC, Blackadder, Dr Who, Teletubbies, Top Gear, and a myriad other innovative content largely copied by commercial broadcasters as they benefit from the laboratory the BBC’s mandate directs them to be.
I could give you a long long list of their faults, disasters, stupidities, and frustrations, many of which I have personally been on the receiving end of (I work in the film and TV industry), but compared to the relative good it does it pales into insignificance.
The glory is in the past. The future is crapola. Rest on the laurels. End it now!
You are assuming that without the BBC there would have been no Monty Python, etc. That does not necessarily follow.
It is usually not a good thing to have the government sponsoring
(or regulating) a news channel. Too many conflicts of interest.
“It is usually not a good thing to have the government sponsoring
(or regulating) a news channel. Too many conflicts of interest.”
The UK government does NOT sponsor or regulate the news channel. It is entirely independent. The way it is set up is that a Television license (it’s moderately controversial these days) is levied from everyone who owns a TV. This is enshrined in law and means that the BBC know exactly how much they get from that source. It does NOT come directly from government.
Every so often, a non-partisan (made up of MPs from different parties) oversight committee convene to discuss any change of the BBC’s charter with the governing body of the BBC. The governing body choose the administrating body of the BBC covering world, factual, news, drama, and entertainment, and the head of the BBC itself.
The BBC also has a commercial arm and earns a significant amount of its overall revenue from commercial sales. The BBC’s charter precludes it from pursuing purely commercial interests, but it sometimes does this anyway to the great annoyance of the commercial broadcasters. The BBC is supposed to innovate with its content – which is why it has consistently come up with the most interesting material and formats that the commercial broadcasters then copy.
The government has no direct control over the BBC at all. Recently when it DID try to interfere at the BBC, it was over the ‘sexed up dossier’ affair, which caused huge upheaval and was largely damaging to the BBC, but also to the government. This is because a journalist made an accusation about the government which the government took great exception to. The government couldn’t control message, but did lead to the dismissal of the head of the Beeb at the time, Greg Dyke. And that’s about as much as it could do….it had the effect of weakening the BBC for a time.
The one burning question I have about CO2 is this: how is it possible for the Keeling curve to keep on rising for eighteen years in a row if there was no parallel warming this was supposed to create? None of the highly technical analyses in this paper are nothing but side issues compared to this conundrum.
How is it possible for the Keeling curve to keep rising? Maybe its due to anthrogenic emission or or maybe not so. What is unequivocal is that atmospheric CO2 levels are able to change rapidly. The atmospheric reservoir is small relative to the flux of Co2 entering or being removed from the atmosphere each year
By strong contrast the heat sink provided by the earth’s oceans is huge. It changes in average temperature very slowly.
We need to understand the rapidly changing CO2 flux, not the slowly changing average global temperatures which has large specific heat capacity inertia
Climate change research has shown that we cannot predict the weather years into the future, nor do we have a grasp of the massive heat reservoirs involved with it.
Alternately, climate change research has clearly demonstrated, as per the Keeling curve, that atmospheric Co2 concentrations are volatile, involving large fluxes relative to the whole mass.
Climate change is a discussion about CO2 levels at the start and also at its end. .. Not temperature, nor climate in the main focus
Arno Arrak:
Because anthropogenic CO2 isn’t the only thing that controls temperature. For short enough periods, the variation in the Earth’s temperature is dominated by short period natural variability. It’s only over long periods (I’d say at least 30-years of data) do you see CO2 start to really dominate the overall variability.
Is this really Carrick? Just kidding. I think Santer could be right – what he actually said not the blog misinterpretation. About half of 30.
Dominate what variability?
The “overall” variability? So by that are you saying that natural variability just cancels itself out over periods of 30 years? So there is no natural variability longer than that, say over 100 years? Or 500 to 1000?
The problem I have is that the case for alarm is predicated on the effect CO2 has on relatively short time scales, whereby adaption is difficult, which is what the models were telling us. So if more than 95% of models don’t agree with observations, the underlying assumptions used in their construction must either be incorrect, or incomplete.
A half baked idea …
The earth has always been a net carbon sink. It is the biosphere which mobilizes carbon, keeping it suspended in the atmosphere. Good times biologically speaking are hot times. Increased atmospheric Co2 levels are indicative of increased biological activity. When the biological activity declines the atmospheric CO2 levels collapse.
Dry arid regions result in a decline in atmospheric Co2. The vegetative route to continuous remobilization has been reduced
http://icecap.us/images/uploads/Crux_Flawed_Science.pdf
As I have been saying it is the water vapor /CO2 positive feedback which will doom AGW theory.
This is why the focus on CO2 concentrations per say is not where the focus should be but is where almost every poster on this site is fixated with.
A waste of time and effort in my opinion.
OK, I did some more research and I see this(!) (OMG!):
“There’s more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere now than at any other time in at least 650,000 years!”
http://www.epa.gov/climatestudents/scientists/proof.html
The page is called “The Proof is in the Atmosphere.”
The page has a squiggly line drawing… but there is no mention of the method of proof on the page.
Is that right?
Andrew
No, it is at least 800k years, and many would estimate it to be several million years since 400 ppm was last seen.
http://blogs.ei.columbia.edu/2013/06/11/400-ppm-world-part-1-large-changes-still-to-come/
Jimmy D,
They have proof. Do you have proof?
Andrew
Mathematics works by proof. Science works by evidence.
They have proof. They say so. They win. You lose. lol
Andrew
Dr. Gray’s explanation as to why AGW theory is flawed is excellent. My post at 9:43 am May 09.
I’m sorry that this thread has turned into a name calling shouting match.
Bart and Ferdinand have been arguing this mass balance problem for years. I have offered an alternative approach because it is very likely that neither is correct. With individuals with little knowledge of statistics, or physical and chemical processes taking sides and doing most of the shouting, it is probably best that we end this thread on Dr. Curry’s blog. Bart and Ferdinand are welcome to continue their debate on my site. Others are welcome to join in, but be prepared to defend your statements on factual data. Using the IPPC as your source of “facts” will be questioned.
Greg, I greatly appreciate your input and I wish that others would follow your example.
Well this post is eliciting a large number of comments, with two sides and a middle. I guess my summary comment is that we need to do a better job of framing this problem, and I think that some sort of dynamical systems approach should be tried. And I think we need to look at regional issues and feedbacks (notably the Arctic). I thank Fred for raising these issues and his patience in going through the comments.
Dear Judith,
Indeed Bart and I are discussing this about every few weeks, even days lately… It is getting a little problematic, as I have not even the time to work things out, like the response of vegetation on temperature changes, which explains near all variability of the CO2 rate of change… And my (too) many other hobby’s are coming under pressure…
I was really surprised that you did put the whole point on your blog, as even most leading skeptics (Singer, Lindzen, Spencer,…) accept that humans are near fully responsible for the CO2 increase in the atmosphere…
Spencer’s post on this in August puts him as a fence-sitter too.
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2014/08/how-much-of-atmospheric-co2-increase-is-natural/
But he did admit in an update that he could be wrong, and the Law Dome record presented to him after his post is the best argument that he is wrong.
http://www.co2science.org/subject/other/figures/lawdome.jpg
On May 9 curryja wrote:
“Well this post is eliciting a large number of comments, with two sides and a middle. I guess my summary comment is that we need to do a better job of framing this problem, and I think that some sort of dynamical systems approach should be tried.”
The amount of back and forth that has followed this post is is large and given the overall format broken up and difficult to track–and I suspect difficult for people to clearly and succinctly make their points. Here is a suggestion: develop an open dynamic model or models online using a readily available software tools. The first that comes to mind of course is R which has a number of relevant packages, e.g., deSolve, and community publications. However, python and octave might work well. (The problem with matlab is the cost.) Also it might be interesting to look at some of the freeware products for dynamic systems simulation. Why not a gnuCarbon or rCarbon?
The models would serve as a reference point for what-if games, extensions, and the basis for commenting. To make a point one has to calculate and/or extend the model starting from a common point–with documentation. I would also impose zero tolerance for non-professional comments and irrelevant comments on that post, perhaps setting up a play pen post for that sort of nonsense. Hey, if people want to get serious, then they could get serious.
Two earlier versions of this post must be held up in moderation, though there is no indication on the display. I will try again, removing the part that most likely would have tripped the moderation queue. The two earlier versions may be deleted by the moderator if he/she pleases.
Name calling and shouting are not at all unusual in scientific controversies. Usually, it only stops when one of the disputants dies, and science advances on funeral at a time. But, it is part of the process. If there is no dispute, there is no progress, because people just assume the matter has been laid to rest, and stop looking into it.
I thank Fred, too. He is the reason I first started looking at these things, and realized the orthodoxy was sadly lacking. I knew there was something inherently fishy about hypothesizing a system, obviously governed by feedback, for which the regulation was so tight that it maintained steady CO2 levels for centuries, yet so loose that it was easily upended by our puny inputs. The real epiphany was when I happened on integral relationship between temperature and CO2, and realized it left little to no room for significant anthropogenic attribution. Ferdinand wants to pick and choose which pieces of the temperature relationship to maintain, and which to dismiss. But, nature has no means of carrying out his prescription.
If the variability of atmospheric CO2 is caused by temperature, and the relationship extends to the lowest observable frequencies with no discernible phase distortion, then it necessarily follows that the trend in temperatures is the source of the trend in the rate of change of CO2. Emissions also have a trend. There is little room to add it in with the temperature relationship. As a consequence, emissions cannot be having a significant impact on atmospheric CO2 levels.
Now, you can play with the trends, and try to combine the two sources such that emissions are responsible for part, and temperature is responsible for part, and come up with an upper bound on what emissions can have contributed, and that is essentially what Fred and Murry Salby appear to be attempting. But, in a larger systems sense, the range of system responses which would essentially obliterate the emissions input, and depend almost entirely on the temperature relatioship, is much larger than the range of finely tuned responses which would leave emissions partially in place. The odds are very strong, IMO, that the former is what is actually happening.
And, lastly, thank you Dr. Curry for providing this forum.
I don’t come from the “in depth” scientific background that many here have certainly shown.
In scanning through the posts, questions and comments, did anyone mention or consider Dr. Murry Salby’s research which seems to indicate (and not necessarily in a linear fashion), that CO2 is “lagging” temperature rise, not leading ti?
Would love to hear some thoughts, particularly from Fred or Dr. Curry on how his analysis might impact this discussion?
Scott,
CO2 lags temperature on many time frames from months to multi-millennia. But it does lead over the past 160 years, we are now ~110 ppmv above steady state. The cause of the increase is where the whole discussion is about.
Thanks for your response…
Unless I misunderstood watching the hour plus presentation by Dr. Salby, his research seems to show that the substantial addition to the atmosphere cannot be demonstrated by Anthropogenic forces alone. That the “sinks” (in their complexity), belie the AGW “lead” of CO2 as a driver of temperature, but rather show that CO2 “sinks” may apparently be additive following rises in temperature with only a half life of (I believe he said around 8 years).
I’m not saying he’s correct. I’m just asking if anyone in this discussion is considering his findings in light of this discussion and if so, how would his hypothesis fit in?
Thanks again…
Try this, Scott:
https://quantpalaeo.wordpress.com/2015/04/29/dissembling-with-graphs-murry-salby-edition/
It is not presently leading the temperature. That is flat out wrong.
I’m a bit confused….
Williard, you’re showing me Dr. Salby’s graphs which is what I was referring to. What am I missing?
Salvatore, I think I was agreeing with you based on Dr. Salby’s research, which is what prompted my question as to how his research fits in with this article/study?
Salby doesn’t mention ocean acidification, which is proof that he has the sign wrong for the net flux of carbon.
Scott,
This isn’t correct. In fact, his analysis can tell us nothing about what is causing the long-term rise in atmospheric CO2. I’ll see if I can explain. He correlates two functions, the CO2 growth rate, and temperature. If you look at Salby’s figure for CO2 growth rate, you see a variable function but it doesn’t vary about zero, it varies about a value of between 1 – 2 ppm/yr. Therefore you can write the CO2 growth rate as
dCO2/dt = f(t) + const.
where const is 1 – 2 ppm/yr and f(t) is the function that varies with t, but centered on zero. When you the correlate this with temperature you find a good correlation between temperature – T(t) – and f(t); the const doesn’t matter. However, the const is us. The 1 – 2ppm/yr is what we’re adding. The variable part is nature. So, Salby is showing that the variability about the long-term trend correlates with temperature, which is true. What his analysis cannot determine is what is causing the 1 – 2 ppm/yr steady increase. That part is us.
Jim D –
“Salby doesn’t mention ocean acidification, which is proof that he has the sign wrong for the net flux of carbon.”
Carbon is carbon. No matter the source, if it is increasing in the atmosphere, it is increasing in the oceans.
ATTP –
“However, the const is us. The 1 – 2ppm/yr is what we’re adding.”
Emissions are not constant. They have a well defined trend. The fact that the trend in emissions is clearly not significantly contributing to the trend in atmospheric concentration (because it is already accounted for by the temperature trend) means that emissions are not significantly contributing in any way.
ATTP – correction
“However, the const is us. The 1 – 2ppm/yr is what we’re adding.”
Emissions are not constant. They have a well defined trend. The fact that the trend in emissions is clearly not significantly contributing to the trend in the rate of change of atmospheric concentration (because it is already accounted for by the temperature trend) means that emissions are not significantly contributing in any way.
“But it does lead over the past 160 years, we are now ~110 ppmv above steady state. “
Nonsense. CO2 lags temperature by 90 degrees in phase in the modern era. The lag is across the board in frequencies, even unto the lowest observable. IOW, in the modern era, CO2 is a function of the integral of temperature, as expressed by the differential relation
dCO2/dt = k*(T – T0)
with the sensitivity, k, in units of ppmv/K/unit-of-time.
Bad tag:
“But it does lead over the past 160 years, we are now ~110 ppmv above steady state. “
Nonsense. CO2 lags temperature by 90 degrees in phase in the modern era. The lag is across the board in frequencies, even unto the lowest observable. IOW, in the modern era, CO2 is a function of the integral of temperature, as expressed by the differential relation
dCO2/dt = k*(T – T0)
with the sensitivity, k, in units of ppmv/K/unit-of-time.
Bart,
Well, yes, but if you consider a relatively short time interval, it is approximately constant – well, compared to the much more variable natural influence. Being pedantic isn’t a particularly compelling argument.
“Well, yes, but if you consider a relatively short time interval, it is approximately constant.”
And, if you wish upon a star, your dreams come true. Get real. They have a very well defined trend:
http://i1136.photobucket.com/albums/n488/Bartemis/CO2_zps330ee8fa.jpg
Concentration also has a trend, but is is accounted for by the temperature relationship. Ergo, emissions are not the driver.
If you look at the plot above, of late you can see that the emissions are, in fact, diverging from the atmospheric concentration, continuing to accelerate while atmospheric concentration settles into a steady rate. The relationship with temperature, however, is not diverging.
For the 10th time, Bart stop using that highly misleading graph.
It is not enough that you change every time the temperature trend for which you have the best correlation, you repeat the same graph again and again with two variables: human emissions and increase in the atmosphere, but use different units for both and an offset in scales. That is a typical example of how to mislead people with graphics.
A graph with the same variables plotted on the same scales, tells a different story:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/dco2_em6.jpg
The calculated average trend in the atmosphere, based on the difference between actual CO2 level and steady state level for the actual temperature still is widely within natural variability.
Further: all variability is from the influence of temperature variability on vegetation, but vegetation is a net sink for CO2 on longer (2-3 years) term.
Short term variability and long term trend are completely independent of each other and are simply additive in the atmosphere: no phase distortion whatever if the trend is not temperature dependent, which it is clearly not, as 35 years of the past 55 years show in negative to flat temperature trends.
Your dCO2/dt = k*(T – T0) is completely bogus: it is negative in long periods and completely ignores the negative feedback from the increased CO2 pressure in the atmosphere. It violates even the most elementary principles of a linear process in dynamic equilibrium and Henry’s law of the solubility of CO2 in seawater.
For the 100th time, Ferdinand, stop using your highly misleading graph. You can always scale the red line to lie within the green, but you still cannot wholly hide the fact that your red line is moving up toward the end, but your green line isn’t.
“dCO2/dt = k*(T – T0) “
Who are you going to believe? Ferdinand, or your lying eyes?
Bart,
I didn’t use any scaling to match my graph, it is pure calculation based on what can be expected from a simple first order feedback process and there are other periods with less increase due to increased uptake. So what?
But for the record of all lurkers: why does your graph use different scales for similar variables and an offset in one of the scales?
Further you seems not to have heard of something called a feedback?
Your dCO2/dt = k*(T-To) may arbitrarily match the two slopes of temperature and CO2 rate of change (but then the amplitude of the variability doesn’t match), but that is impossible in the real world without feedback from the increased CO2 pressure in the atmosphere.
The oceans-atmosphere carbon cycle is a huge feedback system: if you add more CO2 in the atmosphere, either by more upwelling, volcanoes, temperature or human emissions, the CO2 levels in the atmosphere increase. That makes that the input from ocean upwelling places will be suppressed and the output of CO2 into the cold polar waters will be increased, ultimately compensating for any temperature increase (at ~8 ppmv/K) or volcanic events (Pinatubo event not even measurable in the CO2 increase) or more upwelling or human emissions. The latter will take more time as the feedback is too slow to get rid of all current human emissions in short time.
CO2 didn’t lead temperature rise in the past 160 years. Temperature started rising at the end of the Little Ice Age many decades before CO2 began rising.
Warmists like Ken Rice (ATTP) constantly spewing mistruths ruins the utility of these comments.
What, no snappy comebacks to temperature starting to rise decades before fossil CO2 input became significant?
David,’
According to Henry’s law, the influence of the ocean temperature on CO2 levels in the atmosphere is not more than 8 ppmv/K. That is what is seen in ice cores over the past 800,000 years and even seen in high resolution ice cores for the MWP-LIA cooling (a drop of ~6 ppmv for ~0.8 K cooling).
If we may agree that the warming since the LIA is not more than the cooling between MWP and LIA, then the whole warming since the LIA is good for maximum 6 ppmv extra CO2 in the atmosphere. That is all. The measured increase is 110 ppmv since ~1850. of which the largest part since 1960, when we have accurate direct measurements.
Human emissions were twice the measured increase since at least 1900. Temperature is not the cause of the increase.
You need a damned good explanation to show that “something else” was the cause of the increase and not humans… By preference one that doesn’t violate all observations…
http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.com/2013/04/new-paper-demonstrates-temperature.html
This supports my contentions.
Salvatore,
Old news, based on a misinterpretation of the evidence…
Jim,
I do recall him discussing ocean acidification, but as the ocean is dramatically “basic”, how would that effect a net flux of carbon?
The ocean is gaining carbon, while Salby would say it should be losing it to explain the increase in the atmosphere. I have not seen Salby address this rather central point.
Okay Jim thanks.
But as it’s the “biggest sink” which I think intuitively it is (we don’t need a proof here, do we?). As such, would it also not be the “biggest source” as forcing mechanisms cause it to release CO2? I do think that was one of his major points?
Acidification says it is a net sink, not a source. There is more carbon around due to fossil fuel burning, and it is being received by both the atmosphere and ocean.
Scott,
The ocean is a slightly basic buffer solution and all actors influence each other in different equilibriums: pH, CO2 loss and gain, total alkalinity, boron salts, total salt content, temperature,…
We have a reasonable amount of data from a lot of places in the oceans over time, including a few fixed places with longer data series.
– If the oceans lose CO2 (e.g. by higher temperatures), the pH will go up and DIC (total inorganic carbon: CO2 + bicarbonates + carbonates) will go down.
– If the pH goes down by some factor, e.g. the sudden emission of a lot of acids like SO2 from deep ocean volcanoes, the pH will go down and DIC will go down.
– If more CO2 is entering the oceans from out of the atmosphere, DIC will go up and pH will go down.
The latter is what is observed: on all places with data over longer periods, the pH is going down, but DIC is going up. Thus the main CO2 flux is from the atmosphere into the oceans, not reverse. See:
http://www.tos.org/oceanography/archive/27-1_bates.pdf
Jim D,
Please stop talking about acidification of the oceans. We have not monitored the oceans anywhere near long enough, carefully enough, or
thoroughly enough to be able to say anything about it. We know less
about how the acidity of the oceans has changed than we do about
the temperature of the oceans. The ARGO network is nice but needs
to be tripled or quadrupled and needs to be monitored another 20 year
to have a long enough span of data. Ocean pH studies are in their infancy. In a very short span of time, very large changes in any variable (such as temp. or pH) could allow one to say something. But, small changes, at the edge of the uncertainty of the measurement, can’t tell
us anything until we have many decades of data.
I absolutely agree with this, our understanding of ocean ‘acidification’ is in its infancy.
If you are in the US, check out Nova’s “Lethal Seas” on PBS on Wednesday. It is about ocean acidification, which is more than just a theory now.
It certainly is! But we do know enough to know that there are enormous biological influences in both directions in addition to the effects of atmospheric pCO2.
For instance, biological production of DMSO etc. could well counteract any acidifying effect of increased atmospheric CO2. Or, changes (to that production) could actually amplify it. We just don’t know.
http://www.biogeosciences.net/11/3453/2014/bg-11-3453-2014.pdf
You have a thread here where you can look like you have some sense, jimmy. Why ruin it by dredging up that ocean acidification scare BS?
I only mention it because there is a TV program coming up on it. Maybe the title scared you. That’s not my fault.
“…while Salby would say it should be losing it to explain the increase in the atmosphere.”
No. This isn’t a zero sum game, and not all sources are accounted for. What you are suggesting would imply that a pot of water would boil on the stove only if the eye became cold.
Carbon IS a zero-sum game. What are you talking about?
No, it isn’t. The surface system is not closed. Every second of every day, new flows of CO2 laden waters are upwelling in the tropics. Every second of every day, flows of CO2 laden waters are downwelling at the poles.
If there is a net imbalance between those two flows such that more is coming in than is going out, then CO2 will accumulate in the surface waters, and thence outgas in continuous increase to the atmosphere.
Not to mention enormous biological “carbon pumps” drawing both carbon (organic and iCO3-2) and calcium (carbonate) into the depths. Changes in these “pumps” could have substantial effects on the level of dissolved CO2, which is in rough equilibrium with the atmosphere at the surface.
CO2 from emissions account for the acidification rate, so why do you need another source? Plus, the deep water is not even as acidic as the surface water. Plus, the pH decrease is globally distributed consistent with it coming from the atmosphere rather than a deep source. Plus, why did this only start happening in the 1800’s?
Bart,
What you forget every time is that with increasing CO2 levels out of the deep oceans, the increase in the atmosphere will compensate for the increased pressure from the ocean upwelling by reducing the influx and increasing the outflux. It is a dynamic feedback system, not a static system…
Further, as all evidence of all measurements of all repeatedly measured ocean parts show a very small decrease in pH (either calculated or from modern measurements) and all show an increase in DIC, that makes that for the average of all measured parts of the ocean over time the CO2 flux is from the atmosphere into the oceans, not reverse.
No matter the sparse sampling, there is no counterevidence found in any part of the open oceans (upwelling zones and estuaries excluded).
Jim D | May 10, 2015 at 6:32 pm |
“CO2 from emissions account for the acidification rate, so why do you need another source?”
Because the temperature relationship is a better fit to the observations. Because emissions are currently accelerating, while atmospheric concentration is at a steady rate of increase. Because these facts indicate that human emissions are not the main driving force in atmospheric CO2.
“Plus, the pH decrease is globally distributed consistent with it coming from the atmosphere rather than a deep source.”
It is consistent with either one. Carbon is carbon.
“Plus, why did this only start happening in the 1800’s?”
Why not?
Ferdinand Engelbeen | May 11, 2015 at 11:09 am |
“What you forget every time is that with increasing CO2 levels out of the deep oceans, the increase in the atmosphere will compensate for the increased pressure from the ocean upwelling by reducing the influx and increasing the outflux. “
Were that the case, were that feedback so active, then even human inputs would not budge it. Were that the case, we would not see an almost perfect relationship
dCO2/dt = k*(T – T0)
Bartemis,
You forget that physics tells very clearly and definitively that the temperature of the ocean cannot produce such a strong feedback. It’s known beyond doubt that the combination of 1 C warmer ocean and an atmospheric concentration that’s more than 10 ppm higher than earlier balance leads to CO2 flux into the ocean, not out of it. The feedback that you propose is not there.
As Ferdinand has stated so many times everything related to the CO2 concentration is fully consistent with the standard understanding and highly inconsistent with your proposal. Your ability to write equations does not make those equations true.
Salvatore,
Again, you’re preaching to the choir showing me the debunked Hockey Stick Graph? I’m perhaps not being clear on my question?
You did not look at this article. It shows CO2 is still following the temperature on the graph it presents.
Salvatore,
I did read the article and actually have several times.
You’re responding to me as if I was suggesting the opposite?
I think (personally), Salby had a compelling (though not necessarily complete) argument.
So now that you realize, I agree with the paper you linked.
Can you answer my question?
See my request at the top of this thread and the one right below this response.
I think actually he did address the point and discussed the dynnamic relationship as the ocean being the world’s biggest CO2 sink.
How about a short answer (if someone can) to either say:
Salby is wrong,
What he says is not germane to the discussion
Or…this is how we see (in simple terms) that his research goes along with the essence of the article/paper above.
Guys, don’t just throw a piece of “data” out as an answer.
If you don’t want to or don’t feel qualified, then just don’t.
I’m not saying at all that I am qualified, I’m just curious if someone out there who feels they are could answer my original question at the top of this thread?
Thanks…
The mainstream view is that the ocean is the biggest sink and Man is the biggest source. Salby might agree it is the biggest store, but his whole idea is that it is the main source for the atmosphere.
JIm,
I didn’t see my reply posted so at the risk of it coming up twice. Here goes.
First thanks for the general description.
But if the ocean is the “biggest sink”, doesn’t it make intuitive sense (I don’t think we need to go through a scientific paper on this here) that it is also the “biggest source”? I think that’s what Salby actually was saying in discussing the dynamics of “sinks”. He did mention that the forcing isn’t exactly known and that he had research which showed much greater “sinks” may be available to CO2 than previously thought?
Also, if the ocean is substantially “basic” how would any “micro” (my term) extremely minor acidification of the ocean have any real effect on it as a CO2 sink? It seems the argument is giving a tremendous amount of “forcing” capability on a most minor event?
I replied to that above. Net flux is into the ocean. Acidification shows that much.
I think the graph that still shows CO2 lagging temperature in the very recent past supports Salby’s contention that the global temperature is still the determining factor in CO2 concentrations.
I suggest if the global temperature trend starts to decline that CO2 concentration increases will slow and possibly eventually start to decline if the cooling is protracted and significant enough in degree of magnitude.
This is what I got out of Salby’s presentation as well. Thanks
Try this, Scott:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/co2_origin.html
Don,
Thanks very much, this paper does indeed further my understanding.
Jim, the statement is what I call a “science dart”. It seems that if you throw a dart the argument is dismissed.
Even if “ocean acidification” is at play, how does that relate to this article?
I’ll assume you believe in AGW and are being respectful in your “darts”? But I don’t think a well researched hypotheses falls apart quite that easily.
I am looking forward to when he publishes and is peer reviewed, but there certainly is lots of legal and political machinations at work on that right now in Australia.
As the only sort of real response seemed to come from Salvatore, I’l just leave this out here if anyone else picks up the question.
Thanks…..
Steele writing about natural increases in near surface CO2:
“First consider that oceans store 50 times more CO2 than the atmosphere. A small change in the rate by which deep acidic water reaches the surface is the major determinant of surface pH trends. Nutrients, acidity, and density increase with depth, but not all depths contain a balanced supply of nutrients critical for photosynthesis. To bring denser water to the surface requires a significant input of energy that is primarily provided by the winds or tides (Wunsch 2004). Stronger winds generate more upwelling and winter mixing. Thus cycles of oceanic and atmospheric circulation that strength and weaken winds, raise varied combinations and concentrations of nutrients to the surface, which accordingly affects the biological pump and pH.”
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/03/25/ocean-acidification-natural-cycles-and-ubiquitous-uncertainties/
There’s a lot of discussion of physics and chemistry and not so much of biology.
http://mathnathan.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/lynx-hare.jpg
Above the hare is the available Carbon and the lynx are life that sinks Carbon. Maybe they were right. CO2 is the control knob, that controls life. Life at the smallest levels changes in response to available Carbon.
Pingback: Curry’s wide Sargasso Sea of Stupidity – Stoat
As I said early in this thread, we have no real data on the behavior of the many specific sources and sinks, so it is all a contest of conjectures. Mostly people arguing from crude guesses and first laws, hence perfect blog fodder. Ferdinand is especially adept at asserting conjectures as established facts.
The argument from ignorance. Maybe you should consider that the level of ignorance isn’t some kind of universal constant?
To Gavin Cawley,
Are you saying that your paper was not used in IPPC’s estimating “business as usual” projections? You can reply on my site if you wish.
Of course it wasn’t used by the IPCC! My paper provides a very basic introduction to a few carbon cycle issues that will already be familiar to virtually ever climatologist who has looked at the issue, so there is no reason why they should cite it. It’s main purpose was to try an prevent time being wasted (yet again) discussing the residence time myth, or other similar arguments for the rise in atmospheric CO2 being natural, when that is directly refuted by the observations (starting with the fact that atmospheric CO2 is rising more slowly than anthropogenic emissions). This is such a bad argument, that even Fred Singer published an article criticizing those who use it (note his choice of words, not mine)
http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2012/02/climate_deniers_are_giving_us_skeptics_a_bad_name.html
There is no reason to expect anybody involved in writing the IPCC document to have even heard of my paper (unless they were one of the anonymous peer-reviewers).
If you had read my paper, you would know that the FAR briefly mentions the mass balance argument, and there are journal papers that mention it as well. I didn’t invent it, and Ferdinand has been patiently explaining it for longer than I have. This is carbon cycle 101 stuff, and so basic that the IPCC reports ought to be able to assume the reader is capable of understanding basic ideas involving flows and accumulation.
As to “Are you saying that your paper was not used in IPPC’s estimating “business as usual” projections?” that really does show that you haven’t read the IPCC reports or understand the mass balance argument. As I said, the mass balance argument is a way of analysing what has happened, and cannot be used to make projections. Now modern climate models will include modelling of the carbon cycle, and those models will obey the principal of conservation of mass, but they don’t use the mass balance analysis to do so.
Arno Arrak
The rate of change of CO2 has been fairly constant for the time that temps have been fairly constant and there is a marked similarity in the deviations in both over that period.
https://climategrog.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/ddt_co2_sst.png
https://climategrog.wordpress.com/?attachment_id=223
This is variation around constant rate of change very close to 2ppm/year.
Previously, the rate of change of CO2 was increasing in a similar way to the increase in global mean SST. Now SST is paused the dCO2 is paused.
The world has been warming for about 300 years and the deep oceans will not have reached pCO2 equilibrium with the atmosphere since 1998. As the warmth penetrates and diffusion mixes surface water with deeper water, the massive reserve in the ocean will continue outgassing.
Your burning question arrises from an unstated and unwarrented assumption that SST ( sea surface temperature ) will fully account for any temperature related change in CO2. It is an indication and closely matches short term change with primarily reflects shallow changes, but the ocean is not one uniform reservoir.
It can be seen in the above graph that there is a different scaling between the short, inter-annual changes and the longer inter-decadal rise in SST and dCO2.
Further information can be gained by looking at higher derivatives. In part the high-pass effect of the derivative helps isolate the short term change. Again we see the clear similarity, perfectly in phase.
https://climategrog.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/d2dt2_co2_ddt_sst2.png
https://climategrog.wordpress.com/?attachment_id=233
That article derives 8ppmv/K/year for the std deviations of the short term variability. This is corroborated by looking at the largest swing in the data around the 1998 El Nino, which produces 9ppmv/K/year. ( see links ).
The long term averages gives about 4 ppm/year/kelvin , as the inter-decadal ratio. This is in general agreement with the x3 scaling I used in the dCO2 vs SST graph.
This kind of reduction of scaling ratio with time is what would be produced by a relaxation to equilibrium type response. On the centennial level it would further reduced.
As a ballpark estimation: a further order magnitude in timescale would lead to a similar halving of the scaling, leading to 2ppm/K/year on the centennial variability.
SST rise over last 100 years is about 0.7K
2*0.7*100= 140 ppmv
400 – 280 = 120 ppmv
This is a crude estimation but is based on current empirical data which shows that the amount of temperature driven increase needs to be properly investigated, not swept aside.
Human emissions certainly have not slowed since 1998 according to CDIAC
http://cdiac.ornl.gov/images/global_fossil_carbon_emissions_google_chart.jpg
http://cdiac.ornl.gov/trends/emis/glo_2010.html
That shows that the Keeling curve does match SST on decadal time-scales but does NOT match emissions on decadal time-scales .
Update?
Unfortunatley CDIAC, which has become an accepted reference for emissions data has not produced anything since 2009.
Some waffle by WWF is not an update. Note that article specifically refers to energy sector related CO2 not total emissions which is much broader. There is not a single emissions figure in that artcile.
The IEA article is based on “provisional” figures. These notoriously get ‘corrected’ later.
I’d love something more recent than 2009. If you find something, do let me know.
Last decades from 1980 on up to 2012, but not completely the same numbers as in the previous data series (although not far off) and expressed as Gt CO2 (not GtC) from EIA:
http://www.eia.gov/cfapps/ipdbproject/IEDIndex3.cfm?tid=90&pid=44&aid=8
Greg,
The Keeling curve exactly matches human emissions, temperature does not:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/temp_emiss_increase.jpg
Temperatures were negative 1945-1976, but emissions and CO2 in the atmosphere increase further. Temperature is flat since ~2000, but emissions go up and CO2 still goes up unabated, only a little slower…
By looking at the derivatives you look at the variability around the increase, which is less than +/- 1 ppmv over a trend of 110 ppmv…
There were other (longer) periods where the CO2 was not rising as fast in ratio as human emissions, but that is just natural variability in sink rate, not source rate…
As long as the increase in the atmosphere is between 1% and 99% of human emissions, humans are responsible for the increase…
To ATTP:
Convincing is what salesmen do. Proving is what scientists do.
Andrew
BA,
As Michael Mann said
Care to try again?
To be clear though, I have no great interest in explaining this to you, proving it to your satisfaction, convincing you, or whatever term is most suitable. There are better ways in which I could waste my time.
“As Michael Mann said”
Yes, quoting another salesman is very convincing.
Sigh.
Andrew
BA you need to learn a bit about the philosophy of science, I’d start with Popper (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Logic_of_Scientific_Discovery). Scientists don’t prove things, even the idea that you can disprove is not as straightforward as it might seem. The idea of obtaining certain knowledge via empirical means went out with Hume in the 18th century.
“Scientists don’t prove things”
The EPA disagrees with you:
“The Proof Is in the Atmosphere”
http://www.epa.gov/climatestudents/scientists/proof.html
Andrew
In that article they are just saying that we know CO2 is rising because they can measure it and see that it is rising. There is no theory or hypothesis there, just observation and the word “proof” is obviously being used very loosely. It is a shame that you choose to use rhetoric, rather than actually look into the philosophy of science and find out why ATTP’s criticism of what you wrote was valid. Like ATTP, I won’t waste my time any further.
“It is a shame that you choose to use rhetoric”
Looks like EPA is using it, too.
Andrew
no scientist is about what is more likely or less likely.
At least that is what feynman thought, or appears to think, in this video
which is more likely genuine than fake
“https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wLaRXYai19A
Right.
And observations of generally improved conditions mean disaster is unlikely.
“And observations of generally improved conditions mean disaster is unlikely.”
huh?
I was late to meeting the other day, so I started to speed. instead of travelling at 55 I drove at 80. My condition improved. I was no longer going to be late according to my GPS. Then I got a ticket, I was lucky I didnt crash.
Improved conditions in the past does not give you an assurance that the same will hold in the future. even idiots know this.
really?
so the whole idea behind quantumm mechanics is Bullshit?
so…Bohr and all the rest were fools?
Feynman spent his entire academic career teaching student about QM because it “no scientist is about what is more or less likely”?
non scientists, because Mosh declared them thus?
Mosh…you do well in the quantitative fields for an english major.
Be happy you found paying gig, and don’t give into hubris.
Your’s is truly the post of an individual who never got past newtonian physics.
“the word “proof” is obviously being used very loosely”
You think so?
Andrew
Yawn. Sorry, the philosophy of science is interesting, the carbon cycle is interesting, Popper, Hume and Feynman are interesting, having pointless rhetorical discussions with somebody is not interested in the opponents argument is very very dull.
“Yawn.”
Well, thanks for playing, whateveryournameissupposedtobe. You can go take a nap now. ;)
Andrew
“Proof” can be used for observations. You can prove CO2 is rising, or that the global temperature is rising, or that the earth is round. That doesn’t mean that there are always some doubters.
“You can prove CO2 is rising, or that the global temperature is rising”
Why haven’t you done it, then?
Andrew
Jimmy D in one comment: “Mathematics works by proof. Science works by evidence.”
Jimmy D in another: “Proof” can be used for observations.”
Are you confused about this science thing, Dimmy?
Andrew
BA, observations prove that things exist or are happening. The science has to explain them, but the explanations are not provable in themselves. Which part of this are you having trouble with?
Jimmy,
I’m just trying to figure out if you include “proof” as a valid scientific idea. Above you implied it only applied in math. Now you are allowing it in science, generally. So, I’d like some clarification from you on this.
Andrew
Well, I don’t think that that is what Jim D said. If you take a measurement, and then you take another one, you can use math to prove that one measurement is bigger/smaller/the same as the other. Nothing inconsistent there. However, if you want to understand why one is bigger/smaller/the same as the other, you need to do science and although you may develop an explanation that is consistent with the laws of physics and with the available evidence, you – typically – cannot prove that it explains the observations.
BA, is an observation science? I say yes? Can observations prove things? Yes? Not in the rigorous mathematical sense, but to the reasonable thinking person who follows the logical steps. Scientists call their explanations of observations theories and not proofs. Some theories come very close to proof from observations, like Newton’s laws, and others may be falsified, like the flat earth.
ATTP:
“with the available evidence, you – typically – cannot prove that it explains the observations”
But sometimes you can? Yes or no?
Andrew
I can’t think of a case where you can, but I could be mistaken. I’ll say “no”, though. In my experience, physical science doesn’t involve proving things, it involves understanding physical systems.
> But sometimes you can? Yes or no?
An observation could “prove” a fact, be never a law.
Sometimes, you can do anything:
There are some people you can’t prove anything to. Flat-earthers for example. There’s no accounting for the way the mind works when confronted with evidence, however strong. I can say I believe Newton’s laws are proven enough. They got us to the Moon and are useful, but really they are an approximation to nature. Same with anything Einstein did. Prediction of independent experimental results/observations is a test of a theory. If it works, is it proof? It depends who you are.
…and Then There’s Physics | May 10, 2015 at 2:24 pm |
“However, if you want to understand why one is bigger/smaller/the same as the other, you need to do science”
Unless you’re dealing with global warming then you need to do narrating i.e. make up a “just so” story.
Take natural vs. anthropogenic warming. Anthropogenic warming is bigger because something called the CO2 control knob. Humans have been twisting this knob higher and higher until it was finally set higher than nature ever set it many many millions of years. 97% of scientists agree with the CO2 control knob. Ice cores and tree rings prove it. The science is settled. Deniers of this are all in the pay of big oil and should be put in jail for crimes against humanity.
See how it works, Kenny? As an astrophysicist you should be exceedingly well trained in the narrative arts.
Jim D wrote:
1.) There are some people you can’t prove anything to.
There are many people to whom you do not have to prove anything.
Still, given the effort, it is advisable to be sure you are clearly asking the right questions.
Go after the swing vote.
2.) There’s no accounting for the way the mind works when confronted with evidence
If this is so then perhaps there is no reason to require evidence. :O)
3.) If it works, is it proof? It depends who you are.
That depends on the nature of the it’s. Perhaps with QED Q.E.D?
Besides how complete does proof have to be when making a decision? We often are unlikely to to vanquish our uncertainty monsters in constraining time-frames.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Logic_of_Scientific_Discovery
This post has turned out to be interesting as a test of intelligence and bias. A lot of people have proved themselves to be either rather dense, or they are so hung up on exonerating ACO2 that they refuse to see reality.
Would you expect anything else? The bottom line should be about 1/3 of the situation isn’t well understood. Even the O2 Keeling curve indicates about 1/3 of the CO2 change is due to something other than FF combustion. That would be related to a change in the efficiency of the sinks not a binary shift from “global” sink to “global” source.
As Judith said the question isn’t properly framed.
All that the sinks are doing is influence how fast it is growing, not whether or not it is anthropogenic. Until such time as the rate of increase in atmospheric CO2 exceeds the rate at which we’re pumping it into the atmosphere, it is us.
attp, “All that the sinks are doing is influence how fast it is growing, not whether or not it is anthropogenic. Until such time as the rate of increase in atmospheric CO2 exceeds the rate at which we’re pumping it into the atmosphere, it is us.”
Perfect example of binary thinking. We are part of the system and need to learn how to work within the system. Of the options we have, land use change to improve sink efficiency could be the most effective. Switching to biomass related alternatives could be the most detrimental. .
That may be true, but prior to the industrial revolution part of the system was fossils which had been created very slowly over millions of years. We dug them up and burned them in a time that was much shorter than the time over which they formed. We might be part of the system, but that does not mean that we can’t determine our influence on the system.
http://judithcurry.com/2015/05/06/quantifying-the-anthropogenic-contribution-to-atmospheric-co2/#comment-701781
attp, prior to fossil fuel man cut down or burned just about everything in sight. Land use in the cute lil forcing estimates is miniscule, but could be responsible for a third of the CO2, reduction in glacial expanse and the majority of pm2.5. Fossil fuels was the lesser of the evils and until something a lot better comes along could still be.
You can change the bank to a lake. You got a lake with a billion gallons of water. You start adding 5 million gallons a month and you check it at the end of the year. It’s up by 30 million gallons. Are you going to say you don’t know that adding 60 million gallons accounts for the increase? You just don’t know. What if you remove the 60 million gallons you put in? What you got then?
Yes, but they did so at a rate similar to the rate at which what they chopped down regrew, or was replaced by something else that took up CO2. That is the crucial difference. Our burning of fossil fuels is essentially a one-way process. Fossil fuels are not being re-created, they’re simply being burned and depleted.
Don, Have you been channeling willard? You have a big oil account, a big coal account a big ag account and big concrete account. If you increase big ag to offset big coal, the balance remains the same. You can switch part of big ag in long term CD’s and get a better return on big coal until you get more customers.
Now if you want to completely eliminate Anthropogenic you could just get rid of the Anthros.
attp, “Yes, but they did so at a rate similar to the rate at which what they chopped down regrew, ”
That is an assumption. The fertile crescent at one time may have been fertile and not desert. Of course when the locals over did things their civilizations disappeared. i believe that would be a feedback.
It’s slightly more than that. The evidence suggests that atmospheric CO2 was broadly constant for thousands of years prior to the mid-1800s. That suggests that the sinks were in some kind of balance, with essentially no net flux into the atmosphere. Also, we’re pretty certain that we’re not recreating fossils at a rate anything close to the rate at which we’re burning fossil fuels. On the other hand, we do know that plants and trees do replace those that we chop down and burn.
attp, “broadly” constant is based on ice cores which have millennial scale smoothing that varies on the density of the ice. Greenland ice cores which have more season melt that helps reduce diffusion to a degree have more variability than Antarctic ice cores. Leaf Stoma also indicates a big more variability.
https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-5HJtF3oStfE/VM0mgAvgLdI/AAAAAAAAMZU/2TmiFIjbvXs/w643-h377-no/boreholes%2Bwith%2Bcomposite%2Bco2.png
About the time man really got into agriculture, even the Antarctic cores indicate a shift in the CO2 trend. As I said, about a 1/3 is in question and related to mainly land use change though Lowell Stott at one time suspected southern ocean warming due to precessional cycle change could be a player on the order of 30 ppmv.
Hmmmm.
its a good test of who is worthy of engagement.
Its also interesting in the following sense.
Some people argued that posting bad science had pedagogic purposes.
suggesting that people could learn the right answer. Note than none of them are here to help with the lesson..
Yep.
Mosher and Monfort: Do you guys have anything of substance to contribute? Or, are you entirely dependent on playground taunts?
“Mosher and Monfort: Do you guys have anything of substance to contribute?”
yes.
Where?
barty, barty
Here is a dynamic natural system for you:
You can change the bank to a lake. You got a lake with a billion gallons of water. You start adding 5 million gallons a month and you check it at the end of the year. It’s up by 30 million gallons. Are you going to say you don’t know that adding 60 million gallons accounts for the increase? You just don’t know. What if you remove the 60 million gallons you put in? What you got then?
Will you say that maybe rainfall and stream inflow was bigger than the 5 million gallons added each month? Or that evaporation could have been less than normal? Somebody else could be pouring water into the lake we don’t know about? So we just don’t know. What you do know is the amount of the increase was 30 million gallons and you added 60 million gallons of water to the lake. Do the math barty. Do you know what the volume of the water in the lake would be if you removed 60 million gallons? This is an intelligence test, barty.
“You got a lake with a billion gallons of water. You start adding 5 million gallons a month and you check it at the end of the year. It’s up by 30 million gallons. Are you going to say you don’t know that adding 60 million gallons accounts for the increase?”
The outflow of the lake is dependent on the level in the lake. Let’s assume the lake is maintained by an inflow of 0.9 billion gallons per month. We have a set of equations
L(k+1) = L(k) + inflow – a*L(k)
The steady state level is 1 billion, so we must have a = 0.9.
Now, we start adding 5 million gallons a month.
L(k+1) = L(k) + 900 – 0.9*L(k) + 5
For each month of the year, we have
L(1) = 1005
L(2) = 1005.5
L(3) = 1005.55
L(4) = 1005.555
L(5) = 1005.5555
L(6) = 1005.55555
L(7) = 1005.555555
L(8) = 1005.5555555
L(9) = 1005.55555555
L(10) = 1005.555555555
L(11) = 1005.5555555555
L(12) = 1005.55555555555
So, at the end of the year, we should have added 5.55555555555 million gallons. Since the observed rise is 30 million gallons, we conclude that the rise came from some other source.
Math… Don’t leave home without it.
“This is an intelligence test, barty.”
Indeed. Looks like you failed.
Bart,
Come on, you’ve changed the whole problem. You’ve assumed an outflow of 0.9L(k) which means the outflow rate increases as the total increases. The alternative way to set up the problem would be
L(k+1) = L(k) + 900 – 0.9 L(0) + 5
Now try solving it again.
No (sigh). If the water level increases, the rate of outflow must increase. Are you really trying to argue that the outflow from outgoing streams does not increase as the lake level rises? Really?
No, dear boys. This is a dynamic flow problem, with a dynamic feedback which tends to resist change (Le Chatelier’s principle). It is the same for atmospheric CO2.
Just out of curiousity, do you fellows even have a degree in a science-related discipline?
Little barty doesn’t get the part about taking the beginning level/balance and the ending level/balance. All inflows and outflows are accounted for. Like a freaking checking account. Barty needs to hire a professional to handle his finances.
Don, “Capt. mass balance indicates that ACO2 is enough to account for all of the increase in atmospheric CO2 and more.”
Yes it does and once again that isn’t the point.
I think you may be channeling, willard. Go up to the top and read freddie’s post. You are arguing about something else. Do you see that the mass balance argument alone PROVES that freddie is wrong?
I said Judith indicated the question wasn’t frame right, freddie frame the question. that is why I typed, ” The bottom line should be about 1/3 of the situation isn’t well understood. Even the O2 Keeling curve indicates about 1/3 of the CO2 change is due to something other than FF combustion. That would be related to a change in the efficiency of the sinks not a binary shift from “global” sink to “global” source.”
Freddie put up a guest post. Freddie framed the question. That is what all these people have been discussing. Judith has disappeared. If you think you can reframe the question and change the topic from freddie’s foolishness, you are welcome. But why don’t you answer the on topic question I just asked? It doesn’t require talking about land use and fertile crescents or cement plants. That’s willy’s schtick:)
don I have answered that question a number of times, mass balance definitely indicates there is anthropogenic impact. Even Freddie’s post indicates there is anthropogentic impact. Where Freddie went wrong is with “natural”. There is a huge gray area in “natural”. Was pre-industrial man “natural”?
The re-framing I recommended was “attribution” by account. Land use appears to be a much larger player than even you suspected. Land use is a twofer, it not only causes emission, it reduces sink.
btw don, this is a greenland dye 3 CO2 reconstruction.
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-hgRtY6HGISI/VU-fIS0kbrI/AAAAAAAANcM/qF_TSN0Dbk4/w691-h519-no/dye%2B3%2Bco2.png
Ferdinand Engelbeen’s so-called “mass balance” argument doesn’t prove anyone either right or wrong. I think Ferdinand makes many good arguments as to why the increase in atmospheric CO2 concentration is likely to be anthropogenic in origin, but in my opinion his mass balance argument isn’t one of them. This argument is not at all persuasive to an engineer who has spent much of his career designing feedback control systems. If natural CO2 sources and sinks are operating according to Le Chatelier’s principle (and I believe they are), then the atmospheric carbon cycle is an example of a giant natural feedback control system.
I agree that Nature has been a net CO2 sink for a number of decades. This is exactly what I would expect from a feedback control system in which the output (atmospheric CO2) is increasing at least partially due to one of its inputs (aCO2). We know that aCO2 is increasing. We also know that natural sinks are increasing to partially compensate for this. Under this circumstance Nature has to be a net sink. However, it does _NOT_ follow that Nature would continue to be a net sink in the absence of anthropogenic emissions, if the feedback control system is in fact a reasonable model for the atmospheric carbon cycle.
What we don’t know is if there is a natural CO2 flux into the atmosphere that is also increasing and if it is, by how much. If there is a natural CO2 source that is increasing, natural sinks would also be increasing to partially compensate for it. If sink compensation is linear with respect to the magnitude of the source (a reasonable assumption), and if the (hypothetical) increase in the natural source is, say, 10 times the anthropogenic source, the resultant increase that we currently observe in CO2 concentration would be 90% due to the natural source. Under this hypothetical circumstance, if anthropogenic emissions completely disappeared, their corresponding compensating natural sink would also disappear and Nature would then become a net source. Atmospheric CO2 would still be increasing but at 90% of its current rate.
The current mass balance argument ignores this very real possibility. In my opinion, before Ferdinand can make a convincing mass balance argument he needs to have better data on the atmospheric carbon cycle and he needs to know how the earth’s CO2 sinks adapt to changes in CO2 sources. I don’t think this is really possible until more precise spatial and temporal carbon cycle measurements have been made.
thank you for this, this jives with how I have been thinking about the problem
Finally, another feedback controls guy weighs in. To us, the “mass balance” argument is completely trivial. Thank you willb01.
I’m not sure feedback is the correct description in engineering terms. It’s simply a multiple reservoir system. It’s like multi-stage RC network. The ocean is a huge big C with a fairly significant R.
Vegetation probably could be regarded as a feedback since it is actively responding, though annual growth and decay has a reservoir effect too.
Out-gassing is a postitive feedback and may explain the bistable glacial/interglacial states.
Planck is the over-riding neg. f/b that keeps it all stable, despite the +ve f/b effect.
“What we don’t know is if there is a natural CO2 flux into the atmosphere that is also increasing and if it is, by how much.”
we also dont know if unicorns exist.
It seems odd that when there is a perfectly good explanation of the increase of CO2 in the atmosphere and ocean with no mysterious terms needed, that some want to introduce mysterious terms anyway. It’s an analogy to the global heat budget argument.
> [B]efore Ferdinand can make a convincing mass balance argument he needs to have better data on the atmospheric carbon cycle and he needs to know how the earth’s CO2 sinks adapt to changes in CO2 sources.
I’m not where Ferdinand made that argument. In fact, I’m not even sure there’s one mass balance argument. More importantly, I’m quite sure that better data will never preclude the possibility that “natural sinks would [if we accept linearity and if the natural source is, say, 10 times the anthropogenic source] also be increasing to partially compensate for it.”
The conditions between brackets seem to express counterfactual thinking that may not be relevant to the actual application of the mass balance argument. They fail to satisfy the only means to get rid of an argument: either you attack its one of its premises, its inference, or its implications. Arguing from ignorance simply doesn’t cut it.
‘when there is a perfectly good explanation”
But no proof?
Andrew
Willbo1
you say
‘However, it does _NOT_ follow that Nature would continue to be a net sink in the absence of anthropogenic emissions, if the feedback control system is in fact a reasonable model for the atmospheric carbon cycle.’
Yes, surely the biosphere would expand according to what is being fed into it. There must be-like Hookes law- a limit to its expansion, but judging by the current amount of forests, grasslands etc etc, compared to the past, that limit, if a limit exists, must surely be a long way away.
Once the Earth starts to cool again as we eventually head towards another ice age, , presumably a greater proportion will then start to be absorbed into the oceans.
tonyb
Jim D – It isn’t “perfectly good”. The data indicate that we are dealing with a temperature dependent source as the driving factor. Human inputs do not describe the variability, the ups and downs, in that plot. The temperature relationship explains those plus the trend. And, currently, emissions are accelerating
http://i1136.photobucket.com/albums/n488/Bartemis/CO2_zps330ee8fa.jpg
while atmospheric concentration is not. But, the temperature relationship is tracking the steady rate (see link above).
Steven Mosher | May 10, 2015 at 2:47 pm |
“we also dont know if unicorns exist.”
Steven finally talks about his area of expertise… mythology.
Don’t look now Steven but your english major is showing.
JimD, “It seems odd that when there is a perfectly good explanation of the increase of CO2 in the atmosphere and ocean with no mysterious terms needed, that some want to introduce mysterious terms anyway. It’s an analogy to the global heat budget argument.”
It is called being complete Jim.
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-OvQHzJy8gFU/VLF3XHImAqI/AAAAAAAAMGM/X1vv5Tx0kiI/w689-h411-no/oppo%2Bover%2Bmann.png
For example there are indications that climate may not be perfectly stable all the time unless man does something.
Since you are a UN kinda guy, a “Global” initiative to improve land conservation, reduce the old school pollutants like SO2, NOx, PM and improve energy efficiency would be an easy sell. Pull that easy stuff out of the wickedness and you have a start that has multiple benefits. Since Land Use appears to have a larger than mass balance guestimations indicate influence, I could have a lot more positive impact on “climate change” than anyone of the minions would ever imagine.
Don.
This:
“What we don’t know is if there is a natural CO2 flux into the atmosphere that is also increasing and if it is, by how much.”
Then This:
“thank you for this, this jives with how I have been thinking about the problem”
That should come as no surprise
Structurally you will find this type of argument runs consistently through the weakest forms of skepticism. It’s basically the argument I detailed a few posts ago. ( but see below for the strongest variant)
You will find it in prevalent in Sun nuts, who point to “hidden” or “possible” solar factors that are yet to be understood. You will find it in appeals to natural variability ( note judiths affinity for this type of argument ). It is an ever present form of skepticism that can be use to attack ANY and ALL observational science findings, however “settled” they are.
Since theory is always underdetermined by evidence “it” could always “be something else”, There will always be gaps.
In structure it is effectively a “god of gaps” appeal. It uses what is not known to discredit or dismiss what is known.
The gaps argument never goes away. On the surface it looks reasonable. But when we consider pragmatics and behavior we see several subtle differences.
A) The use of gaps to discredit. All explanations have gaps. Some people will use gaps to discredit the best explanation and argue that they have no obligation to IMPROVE the explanation. These types typically use the words prove/disprove. They use gaps to resist understanding, any understand , usually for suspect motives.
B) The use of gaps to spur curiosity, a search to fill the gaps, to improve in the theory, to draw a more complete picture. When done in good faith, this works. You have to watch to see if the person actually works on the problem. These types ( aka scientists ) will readily acknowledge the priority and value of the current explanation.
C) the use of gaps to ASSIGN HOMEWORK. Typically these types suggest that others need to do the work. more important they refuse to acknowledge the current best explanation. They are more sly than group A.
Capt. mass balance indicates that ACO2 is enough to account for all of the increase in atmospheric CO2 and more.
Yes Steven, they got their gaps. They can’t see that the gaps are accounted for in the mass balance argument. You don’t need to know where all the CO2 came from and and where it went. You know how much you started with and you how much was added by humans. Judith still doesn’t get it. Very interesting.
Mosher – still waiting for something substantive. The language of science is mathematics, not words. Your side is guilty enough of using the “CO2 of the gaps” to explain any and all climate variabiliity that your soapbox has collapsed.
Don – “Capt. mass balance indicates that ACO2 is enough to account for all of the increase in atmospheric CO2 and more.”
A necessary requirement, but not a sufficient reason to make a conclusion one way or the other.
This is completely silly:
“What we don’t know is if there is a natural CO2 flux into the atmosphere that is also increasing and if it is, by how much.”
We do know how much total CO2 has increased. And we know that the increase in ACO2 is a bigger number. Do the freaking math.
“temps increases , CO2 increases … do the freakin math”
Wow, if two things change one ( apparently the second one ) caused the first one. The “math” involves checking the signs to see whether it made it go up or down.
If the changes don’t resemble each other at all, just draw a “trend” though both and call the rest ‘noise’.
Hey you must be a real climatologist , right?
LOL
“Do the freaking math.”
Please do. Just, don’t use Don’s facile accounting methods.
willb01
I do agree that the ocean-atmosphere system behaves like a simple first order process. So far so good.
We have human emissions which increased a fourfold over 55 years.
We measure an increase in the atmosphere which is a fourfold over 55 years.
The net sink rate also increased a fourfold over 55 years.
That is completely in line with a simple linear process with one disturbance of the process (besides some small variability by temperature).
Any other variable that may have influenced the increase of CO2 in the atmosphere MUST have increased a fourfold in the same period, not a three- or fivefold, as the sinks don’t make any differentiation between an increase caused by one or another variable. Only in that case the mass balance can be “cheated” by a 100% parallel increase of a natural cycle.
There is not the slightest indication that any other carbon cycle increased over time, as that would influence other observations like the 13C/12C ratio and the residence time. To the contrary: the residence time slightly increased over time which points to a rather fixed carbon cycle in a growing amount of CO2, certainly not a fourfold increase in throughput.
Thus while pure theoretically possible in very strict circumstances of timing and increase rate, the observations refute that an increased natural carbon cycle was responsible for a substantial increase of CO2 in the atmosphere.
You talking to me, Greg. That’s not the equivalent of what I said. What I said is more like “if you got a 4 gallon bucket with 3 gallons of water in it and you add 2 quarts, you increased the freaking water in the bucket by at least a freaking quart.”
I would like to see somebody actually explain where the increase in CO2 from 280 to 400ppm came from, instead of a bunch of BS about unknown this and that. We know how much ACO2 we have made. Where has it gone? Vented to outer space?
Steven Mosher, what I am disputing are some of the assumptions being made in the mass balance argument, which is not by itself an observational science finding. The mass balance argument is an argument used to prove the observational science finding that the increased CO2 in the atmosphere is exclusively anthropogenic in origin. I disagree with that proof but not necessarily with the observational science finding.
Bart,
Even in the pure theoretical assumption that some natural carbon cycle started to increase in 100% lockstep with human emissions, that has nothing to do with temperature, as there is no cycle on earth that gives a continuous stream of minimal 9 GtC/year equal to human emissions (let be 10 times that amount) extra CO2 for 0.6 K temperature increase…
(the emphasis is on “continuous”).
Start with just some of the evidence here. Antarctica.
http://www.co2science.org/subject/other/figures/lawdome.jpg
Skeptics, what is your best explanation for why the CO2 started to increase when it did after being steady for so long? The one you believe most. This is the one that stumps Spencer.
Another clue is that Man has directly put twice this increment into the atmosphere in that same period roughly at that rate.
> A necessary requirement [mass balance indicates that ACO2 is enough to account for all of the increase in atmospheric CO2 and more], but not a sufficient reason to make a conclusion one way or the other.
It could very well be the other way around: Bartemis’ argument attacks the necessity of the argument, while the mass argument (including its assumptions) could suffice to show that natural variability does not resist basic accounting.
My own argument is that Bartemis’ argument doesn’t lead very far in his quest to show that it’s random all the way down:
Science has very little to do with proving necessities anyway. The best explanation suffices to win.
***
> The data indicate that we are dealing with a temperature dependent source as the driving factor.
So temps drive temps. We may have a first mover here! I thought pre-Enlightenment was kinda bad [1], but I have a soft spot for first movers. (Grrrrowth is another one.) So I can live with that.
Has Aristotle [2] anticipated feedback theory?
***
[1]: http://judithcurry.com/2015/05/06/quantifying-the-anthropogenic-contribution-to-atmospheric-co2/#comment-701531
[2]: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aristotle-natphil/
JimD,
http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/PageMill_Images/image354.gif
And there is leaf stoma. Either way man has increased CO2 but there is more information that can be obtained that by just guessing big oil and republicans done it all.
I do not believe it stayed so steady, and as there is no way to directly verify the interpretation of the ice cores, they remain rather conjectural. Salby has delved into this question, and I suggest review of his findings would be worthwhile.
In fact, it is rather contradictory to posit that the Earth’s CO2 regulatory system maintained atmospheric levels in a tight band, but then got thrown off by our relatively puny inputs. Low bandiwdth regulatory systems, such as would be so sensitive to our inputs, do not maintain outputs in a tight band. They tend to wander widely, as regulatory activity is lax, and random inputs act like those on particles suspended in a fluid undergoing Brownian motion.
But, if it were proved that, indeed, CO2 behaved this way, I would think it likely that a transport bubble arose in the THC, and what we are seeing is essentially a burp from the long ago past when the currently upwelling waters originally downwelled.
“The mass balance argument is an argument used to prove the observational science finding that the increased CO2 in the atmosphere is exclusively anthropogenic in origin.”
How far wrong could they be? If it isn’t exclusively ACO2 how much of it is natural? By what mechanism? Starting with 280ppm, how close to 400ppm do you get without gazillions of tons of ACO2?
> mythology
Wrong discipline:
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/possible-objects/#Uni
Moshpit’s argument is the shortest route to show the absurdity of requiring science to operate with strong inferences like deductions.
Mr. T and deductivism just don’t mix.
Let’s see if you really do get the whole flux thing. Prior to us starting our emissions, the system was essentially in balance with the rate of volcanic outgassing. There is a slow carbon cycle in which CO2 is removed through weathering and by being sequestered in the deep ocean. There is then outgassing via volcanoes. This sets the steady level. The volcanic outgassing rate is about 0.1GtC/yr. So, the outflow rate prior to our emissions was around 0.1GtC/yr and volcanoes were replacing this at the same rate.
When we started emitting CO2 it was at about 1GtC/yr – 10 times faster than the slow carbon cycle rate. It’s now about 10GtC/yr – 100 times faster than the slow carbon cycle rate. That’s why it’s accumulating: our emissions far exceed the rate at which CO2 is flowing out of the ocean/biosphere/atmosphere system.
“Let’s see if you really do get the whole flux thing.”
Good luck, kenny. Your explanation is good but I predict it wont make a dent. Especially with impervious bartie, who figures the ACO2 is relatively small and puny so it get’s eaten by the sinks first. And then there is a lot of other confounding stuff going on, which he doesn’t have time to explain. He’s got some unicorns he has to herd, somewhere.
Willb
Disputing assumptions?
Stupid pet trick. Your job is to illustrate how different assumptions change the answer and then argue about assumptions. Questioning assumptions is feeble skepticism since all science works from assumptions.
Ferdinand Engelbeen
Actually, from 1958 to 2010 I think the numbers are 4.65 for human emissions and 3.74 for CO2 in the atmosphere. Close but not exactly equal and perhaps different enough to cast some doubt.
Steven Mosher
My original comment was in response to Don Montfort’s assertion that:
“Do you see that the mass balance argument alone PROVES that freddie is wrong?”
I would be very interested to get your take on the mass balance argument and how it might prove that “freddie is wrong”.
> Questioning assumptions is feeble skepticism since all science works from assumptions.
Stating which assumption(s) is (or are) being questioned would still be nice. Here are two:
http://rabett.blogspot.com/2015/05/2-3-0-or-why-natural-sources-and-sinks.html
Are there others?
willb01
Sorry third time, hopefully at the right place now… It gets hard to follow all loose ends…
The ratio between human emissions and increase in the atmosphere is quite constant over the past 55 years, but there are 1-3 years large swings and even decadal ups and downs. If the increase rate is less in the past 1.5 decade, that means that the natural sinks increased, thus even less contribution of the natural cycle, if there was any.
If you take the average trends over the past 55 years, for emissions, increase rate and sink rate, it is all about a factor 4:
But that is not that relevant.
My question to you is: if a non-human source was contributing any appreciable amount of CO2 to the rise of CO2 in the atmosphere over the past 55 years, should it have been increasing in complete lockstep with human emissions, some 4-fold over that time period or not?
The graph wasn’t copied:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/dco2_em2.jpg
Anyway, if the net sink rate increased somewhat to give a 3.74 times increase i.s.o. 4.65 times for human emissions, the increase in net sink rate of the total of natural cycles would currently be less than 0.5 ppmv/year or ~1 GtC/year, which is the measured increase in sink capacity of the biosphere since ~1990. Far from overwhelming the human contribution…
Steven Mosher | May 10, 2015 at 3:36 pm |
Steven,
You are in many cases quite cryptic in your comments, but this comment about how to avoid admitting that your own theory is wrong, or a theory you don’t like is right, is marvelous:
– invent new arguments every time again without any proof.
– always look at the unknowns to reject the known.
you may add:
– reject all evidence of your own theory failing known observations as “conjecture”.
For all those discussing here, please think about the wise words of Steven:
why you are rejecting the huge possibility that humans are responsible for the CO2 increase in the atmosphere, if all evidence points in that direction and no observation is violated, for no other reason that you don’t like the result?
Ferdinand Engelbeen
“My question to you is: if a non-human source was contributing any appreciable amount of CO2 to the rise of CO2 in the atmosphere over the past 55 years, should it have been increasing in complete lockstep with human emissions, some 4-fold over that time period or not?”
This is a good question and a good argument why the increase in atmospheric CO2 is caused by anthropogenic emissions. It is a correlation argument. It has nothing to do with the mass balance argument.
> It is a correlation argument. It has nothing to do with the mass balance argument.
A good way to check their mutual independence is to ask: is it possible to reject the mass balance argument and yet accept the correlation argument? The test may fail if the correlation argument shares assumptions with the mass balance argument. If that’s the case, “it has nothing to do” might a bit strong.
Mr. T likes magic tricks, but only up to a point.
thanks Capt. , what paper is that from. There’s apparently a lot of variability in GRIP data. I’d like to see what the storey is with mulitple values at apparently the same date. Also considerable change around Younger Dryas event.
http://eprints.lib.hokudai.ac.jp/dspace/bitstream/2115/32470/1/P217-241.pdf
Haven’t really vetted it yet, just looks reasonable.
Thanks, yes, look very thorough. BTW it’s GRIP not die3 ;)
GRIP, right I posted the wrong one, they are about the same though.
It’s actually very interesting to see what happens when they do find large short-term changes in a CO2 ice core series. They conclude that they must be ‘artefacts’ and go about hypothesising how it may happen.
They have more faith in Byrd record despite saying that conditions and accumulation rate may not be capable of capturing short term changes.
So if there were historically recorded CO2 changes of significantly larger magnitude they would never get accepted as truly existing. They would be ‘artefacts’. Apparently we already “know” that historical change was small.
This tends to blow out all claims that recent change is ‘unprecedented’ since this is nothing more than circular logic. Any evidence to the contrary is rejected as artefacts and dismissed.
Another thing I note is that they are expecting these short changes to correlate with temperature (δ18 0 ), when as shown above the correlation is with dCO2.
gregg, Right, it has to be an artifact since the consensus says so. I can’t find it now but there is one with dust accumulation which should indicate drought and reduced land carbon sink plus land carbon emission as long as there is significant erosion. That should produce a change in CO2 concentration. That would be an artifact as well since the Antarctic reference doesn’t change. Now though we have more indication that land use is causing a CO2 emission where before it was a CO2 sink of roughly the same magnitude. You have twice the impact which should show in the CO2 records.
I need to find that and overlay the two data sets.
They do look at all the contaminants in some detail and it is a pretty informative bit of research. However, the graph you posted clearly shows greater variability coming out of the last glaciation. The solid line from Byrd in Antarctica is clearly heavily damped and is recognised to be low resolution.
If core with high temporal resolution that show significant variation are going to be rejected as artefacts, it is a foregone conclusion that recent change will be “unprecedented”.
It would also be better practice to show Byrd data as points too. That line looks like spline fit or something.
Ferdinand, “As they give a plausible reason why the data are not reliable, I don’t see any reason to doubt that the ice core data from Greenland shouldn’t be used…”
For an absolute value I agree that greenland cores wouldn’t be useful. As an indication of variability though, they can be. Leaf stomata are not likely to be very good for absolute values either because of dating issues, but the do indicate variability. Antarctic cores are likely smoothed to a few thousand years which creates cause/effect issues. None of the data is perfect.
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-OvQHzJy8gFU/VLF3XHImAqI/AAAAAAAAMGM/X1vv5Tx0kiI/w689-h411-no/oppo%2Bover%2Bmann.png
I just don’t see how the past was a smooth as a unicorn’s horn until thermometers showed up.
Capt,
Depends of the cause of the variability:
In the case of volcanic deposits, the CO2 variability only shows the variability of the nearby volcanic activity, little resemblance to local/regional CO2 levels in the atmosphere.
In the case of stomata data, the variability may be of interest, as that shows the local/regional change in CO2 levels, which depend of local/regional changes in land use / vegetation in the main wind direction. It may even indicate that the main wind direction changed over different periods like between MWP (mostly Western) and LIA (often Eastern in NW Europe)… But it will not be easy to separate the causes of the variability, except if you have detailed knowledge of changes in regional flora/agriculture over rather long distances of the sample places for the periods involved…
BTW, there are huge differences in resolution of the Antarctic ice cores: the best ones have a resolution of less than a decade, but span only 150 years when reaching bedrock, thanks to high snow accumulation per year (coastal, 1.5 m ice equivalent/year), the worst are ~600 and ~560 years (far inland, a few mm/year of ice equivalent), but these span 420,000 and 800,000 years.
The nice point is that they overlap each other, so that one can see if the CO2 levels for the same average age of the air bubbles match each other, which is the case for a differences within 5 ppmv…
Greg and Capt,
Greenland ice cores are largely unreliable for CO2 measurements: besides sea salt/carbonate deposits in all ice cores (mainly in coastal cores), Greenland has frequent deposits of highly acidic volcanic dust from nearby Iceland. That gives a lot of in-situ CO2 formation, especially with the now abandoned wet method, where all ice was melted and CO2 was extracted under vacuum: the in CO2 production continued over hours. Besides that there is also more organic material present in Greenland ice.
Antarctic cores have far less dust inclusions and the inland ice cores hardly any dust, except in the coldest glacial periods.
As they give a plausible reason why the data are not reliable, I don’t see any reason to doubt that the ice core data from Greenland shouldn’t be used…
There seems to be a lot of binary thinking on show here. As well as a lot of excitability. Bun fights are always great fun but don’t usually advance understanding. Let’s try logic.
There are two basic physical effects that are not contentious.
1. Warming a liquid causes out-gassing.
2. Increasing partial pressure of a gas above a liquid will cause absorption of the gas to restore equilibrium at the boundary.
Both these conditions are present so both effects will be happening. No amount of shouting or insults will change that.
Now if we are to linearise the whole system we can separate the two effects, consider them separately and add the results.
If SST remained constant, almost all the aCO2 would eventually get absorbed into the massive sink of the deep oceans. In the interim, with atm CO2 still rising, an undetermined proportion will be absorbed.
If there were zero aCO2 and oceans warmed, atm CO2 would increase due to out-gassing.
Adding the two it could equivalently be regarded as SST changes modulating the oceans’ capacity to absorb the atm CO2 excess. So it is not one or the other. Saying that oceans must be acting as sinks does not preclude out-gassing happening. It is not a binary choice.
The outgassing is clearly present as shown in the dCO2 / SST and d2CO2 / dSST graphs.
What is less easy to extract is how much of the centennial scale change is attributable to either process.
As CO2 in the atmosphere has increased from 280-400ppm, have the oceans been a net sink or a net source?
This is interesting:
http://www.biogeosciences.net/11/3453/2014/bg-11-3453-2014.pdf
“As CO2 in the atmosphere has increased from 280-400ppm, have the oceans been a net sink or a net source?”
If the oceans were capable of sinking all human emissions rapidly and the rise in atm CO2 was totally due to out-gassing, the oceans would still be acting as a net sink. That question does not get you anywhere.
I don’t think that scenario is any more realistic than proposing that out-gassing is irrelevant. But both explanations see the oceans as a net sink.
In your own version of the science, that you are clearly making up as you go along, what would be the difference if emissions were zero instead of 200 ppm? Would you predict that the ocean still outgasses the same 120 ppm or did it need that 200 ppm to be able to do that?
“I don’t think that scenario is any more realistic than proposing that out-gassing is irrelevant. But both explanations see the oceans as a net sink.”
Who proposed that out-gassing is irrelevant? It is relevant, but what is more relevant is the net. If the oceans have been a net sink, then how do we get from 280 to 400 ppm with any contribution from natural CO2, given that the amount of ACO2 is twice what is needed to explain the increase? Is bartie right, that the sinks eat up the more delicious ACO2 first?
Greg,
I have done that exercise:
– Henry’s law for the solubility of CO2 in seawater gives an increase of ~8 ppmv/K in the atmosphere for going from one steady-state to the next. That is also what the changes over the previous 800,000 years show in ice cores.
– The increase with 0.6 K over the past 55 years is good for 5 ppmv extra CO2 in the atmosphere at steady state.
– The base for the eventual sink or source towards steady state was 290 ppmv pre-industrial. For other years one can calculate the base by the change in temperature according to Henry’s law over the past 55 years.
– The total increase in the atmosphere is the driving force for the net sink rate, which is currently 2.15 ppmv/year for the 110 ppmv increase in the atmosphere. For a linear process, which the ocean-atmosphere carbon cycle seems to be, that is the increase/sink ratio for all levels of CO2 in the atmosphere.
– With the above knowledge, we can calculate the exact sink rate for each year, based on the CO2 level in the atmosphere of that year and the equivalent CO2 level for the temperature of that year.
– Human emissions are known, thus the increase rate of CO2 in the atmosphere (the “airborne fraction”) can be calculated.
Here is the result:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/dco2_em6.jpg
The red line is the calculated CO2 increase rate based on the above rules, which implies that no significant changes in the natural carbon cycles occurred.
The variability around the trend is not caused by ocean outgassing / uptake. It is caused by vegetation, as the opposite CO2 and δ13C levels show. That is short lived and doesn’t make more than 4-5 ppmv/K difference for a life time of a 1-3 years, zeroing and even going slightly negative after a few years, thus hardly influencing the trend.
Ferdnand,
Compare your figure to my Fig. 14 and Fig. 15. You will find the differences to be that my estimate anthropogenics contribute 21.9% versus your 50% and I am showing the natural contribution as the total minus the anthropogenic. Do you agree that those wiggles in the total are not caused by burning fossil fuel?
Ferdinand may have given up on your, freddie. Here is what he said, above:
“All what happens is that the permanent exchange of CO2 between the atmosphere and the deep oceans of ~40 GtC/year dilutes the human “fingerprint”, which makes that Fred Haynie’s “natural” contribution is no contribution at all…
The oxygen balance excludes the biosphere as source:
One can calculate the oxygen use from burning fossil fuels from fuel sales and burning efficiency. That shows that there is slightly less oxygen used than calculated. That means that the biosphere as a whole is a net, growing source of O2, thus a net sink for CO2 and preferentially 12CO2, thus not the cause of the CO2 increase, neither of the δ13C decline.
All other possible sources (volcanoes, rock weathering,…) either too small or too slow…
All what is left as sole source are human emissions, which fit all observations…”
And all that is based on his .5 regression coefficient which I find should be more like .2 when naturals are included in the regression. You just don’t get it.
Sorry freddie, the known quantities are the increase in atmospheric CO2 and the amount of ACO2 emissions. We know that the ACO2 emissions are twice big enough to account for the increase in CO2. What you got is confused conjecture.
Where is your balance sheet, freddie? Give us an accounting. Real numbers. How much has natural CO2 increased? Must be a lot. What caused it? How do you get from 280 to 400 ppm, if ACO2 only accounts for 22% of the increase? Do you believe as does your friend bartie that the sinks eat up the ACO2 first? Think , freddie.
Fred, you don’t understand what I have done. Besides a small contribution from temperature (~5 ppmv over the past 55 years), according to Henry’s law of the solubility of CO2 in seawater ALL CO2 increase in the atmosphere is caused by the human contribution. That would be the case even if it was 1% or 99% of the human contribution: the 50% is just coincidence because of the slightly quadratic increase of human emissions.
What I have done is calculating the theoretical increase in the atmosphere for a simple linear reaction of the oceans to the increased CO2 pressure in the atmosphere: a doubling gives a doubling in sink rate. That shows that my calculation is middle of the observed increase in the atmosphere, with only 4% increase due to warmer oceans.
Your figures are based on the 13C/12C decline which is only 1/3rd of the theoretical decline if all human CO2 would have been retained in the atmosphere, but what you see is “dilution” by swapping a lot of CO2 in the atmosphere, including human emissions, by deep ocean CO2: that doesn’t add any CO2 to the total in the atmosphere (the oceans are a net sink of ~3.5 GtC/year), only increases the 13C/12C ratio somewhat and is not part of the increase.
The huge variability is caused by the fast response of vegetation on temperature changes, but vegetation is a net, increasing sink for CO2 too, thus also not the cause of the increasing trend…
The problem with that analysis is that the big ocean sinks and sources hardley ever approach equilbrium. Differences in partial pressure at the air/water interface tells you which direction the CO2 is going. It does not tell you the rate. Think about how the updraft velocity in tropical thunderstorms pumps CO2 out the top.
Fred,
Ocean surface in the tropics and near the poles is never in equilibrium with the atmosphere, but the oceans are working towards the steady state: any disturbance of CO2 in the atmosphere, be it volcanoes or human emissions or increased sunlight/temperature will be met with a change in the in/out fluxes.
For temperature that is ~8 ppmv/K to reach a new steady state. For volcanic or thunderstorms or human emissions that is a linear response with an e-fold decay rate of over 50 years. In general fast enough to eliminate the small disturbances in a few years, but not fast enough to eliminate all human emissions in short time…
How is it that nature can remove all of natural emissions in a short time and (most within a year) and leave 50% of annual anthro emissions? Is it actually accumulating in the water and earth surface to be emitted years later into the atmosphere? If so, the rates of accumulation in the atmosphere are not being controlled by thermo but by ocean current rates, decay rates, etc.
fhhaynie | May 11, 2015 at 12:08 pm |
How is it that nature can remove all of natural emissions in a short time and (most within a year) and leave 50% of annual anthro emissions?
Different processes at work:
Most fast processes are strongly temperature dependent:
~60 GtC goes in and out vegetation over the seasons. Only ~1 GtC/year is removed in more permanent uptake, partly thanks to higher temperatures (over the extra-tropics), mostly thanks to more CO2 pressure.
~50 GtC goes out and in the ocean surface over the seasons in counter stream with the vegetation fluxes. Only ~0.5 GtC/year extra is absorbed by the oceans surface, completely caused by the extra increase in atmospheric CO2 pressure.
~40 GtC goes out and in the deep oceans continuously between the equatorial upwelling zones and the polar sink zones, due to temperature differences. Only ~3 GtC difference between sources and sinks makes for a near permanent sink of CO2 into the deep oceans entirely due to the increased pressure in the atmosphere.
Do you see the difference: the natural cycles are heavily temperature dependent and partly counter current. The removal of any extra CO2 above equilibrium is entirely pressure (difference) dependent…
When the temperature doesn’t change, the seasonal and permanent fluxes are completely in dynamic equilibrium. If the temperature changes, the net result on seasonal and continuous fluxes is only temporarily until a new dynamic equilibrium is reached at ~8 ppmv/K change. That is all.
The removal of any extra shot of CO2 into the atmosphere, whatever the source, is not temperature dependent at all (except for the change in equilibrium level): it is entirely pressure dependent: only the pressure difference between atmosphere and equilibrium CO2 level for the current temperature counts.
Different processes with different driving forces and time constants at work…
Ferdi:
If you look at your graph you will see that biggest inter-annual change in the CO2 record which happened at the same time as the biggest temp swing in the corresponding period matches a net decline and a clear reversal in your “exact ” calculated equivalent CO2 level .
Clearly some of your assumptions are fundamentally wrong and the result is in no way “exact” as you claim.
Greg,
My calculation is for the oceans only. Vegetation is a different story.
What is clear is that the biosphere as a whole is a net absorber of CO2 over periods longer than 2-3 years: the earth is greening…
There are two opposite movements in vegetation:
– seasonal: CO2 goes down with temperature, δ13C goes up.
Mainly a reaction of NH extra-tropical forests on spring-summer-fall growth of leaves and stems.
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/seasonal_CO2_d13C_MLO_BRW.jpg
– inter-annual: CO2 goes up with temperature, δ13C goes down.
Mainly a reaction of the tropical forests on increased temperatures and drought.
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/temp_dco2_d13C_mlo.jpg
The oceans are not the main cause of the variability: during an El Niño, ocean temperatures are highest in the tropics, but there is far less upwelling, thus less release of CO2. Opposite for La Niña conditions. See the map of Ragnaar in next comment…
Take home message: the inter-annual variability has very little effect on the increase in the atmosphere: it is +/- 2 ppmv around the 110 ppmv trend and as it is caused by vegetation, the effect is negative: more sink than source over periods longer than 2-3 years, at least since 1990.
http://d32ogoqmya1dw8.cloudfront.net/images/eslabs/carbon/ocean_co2_flux_credit_1400184673_744.jpg
“Purple to blue colors indicate areas of the ocean where more CO2 is dissolving into the ocean than is “undissolving” out to the atmosphere. Thus, this area is a carbon sink.
Green colors indicate the movement of CO2into and out of the ocean is fairly equal.
Yellow to red colors indicate areas of the ocean where more more CO2is “undissolving” out to the atmosphere than is dissolving into the ocean. Thus, this area is a carbon source (to the atmosphere).” – http://serc.carleton.edu/eslabs/carbon/6a.html
The largest red zone is similar to a La Nina condition. This suggests a PDO Carbon cycle link and the unexpected possibility of a cool phase with increasing CO2 levels. Say we were stuck in the cool phase of the PDO. More CO2 then seems desirable. Stuck in the warm cycle (El Nino) has the prescription of less CO2 needed. I’ve said to some, water doesn’t seem to want to harm us. It now seems to me, neither does CO2.
A little discovery bonus for myself is that red in the Bering Sea. Looks like the North Pacific upwelling I was looking for.
It doesn’t appear to me that the various versions of that change a great deal from year to year, so I doubt you are seeing anything significant in the Bering Sea.
I think it’s evidence of the thermohaline circulation upwelling.
“This upwelling, and thus the CO2 flux to the atmosphere, is heavily modulated by the El Niño–southern oscillation (ENSO) cycle. During strong El Niño years the equatorial Pacific CO2 source can drop to zero. During La Niña the CO2 source to the atmosphere is enhanced.”
“Time series measurements of atmospheric CO2, 13C and O2/N2 sources have suggested that ocean flux variations must be in the order of 1–2 Pg C/year…” (Although smaller amounts have also been suggested.)
http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/pubs/outstand/sabi2854/modern.shtml
What’s interesting is that past La Ninas (back thousands of years) during cooler times seems to be the oceans trying to dredge up CO2 for the atmosphere. A reasonable response.
Thanks Ragnaar, some interesting links there.
The CO2 flux map is particularly useful. It is interesting to note that the major sink areas are not the coldest polar regions but lower latitude , temperate zones.
This is where the ocean pCO2 vs atm CO2 is more finely balanced and the effects of temperature change have the most effect. This is one of main flaws in Ferdinand’s globally averaged Henry’s law calculations.
The effects of SST changes in very warm tropical waters and very cold polar regions are less important.
Greg, the main THC sink is in the NE Atlantic, near the edge of the sea-ice, but that is hardly visible on the map. The ocean and vegetation variability is opposite to each other against temperature changes (so it is seasonal too). In both cases, vegetation is dominant: if the oceans were dominant, CO2 and δ13C changes in the atmosphere would parallel each other. If vegetation is dominant, CO2 and δ13C changes are opposite to each other.
Ocean flux variation of 1-2 PgC/year are variations of 0.5-1 ppmv/year compared to human emissions of ~9 PgC/year (4.5 ppmv/year) and an ocean uptake of ~3.5 PgC/year (1.6 ppmv/year). The variability zeroes in 1-3 years…
Ferdinand Engelbeen:
Using your numbers:
1-2 or 1.5 PgC Ocean flux
versus
9.0 PgC Human
Could be a net of 7.5 to 10.5
Or, 9.0 PgC +- 1.5
Minor or small amount, perhaps significant.
Another flux map from 2009:
http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/co2/files/2009_anom.png
Noticeably different pattern from above lacking what I assume is a strong La Nina flow. Significant it seems outflow next to Pacific Antarctica.
The 2nd map seems to show significant near Greenland downwelling.
For those who are short on their knowledge of statistical analysis, here is an introductory short lesson. https://books.google.com/books?id=8C7pXhnqje4C&pg=PA83&lpg=PA83&dq=%22Fred+H.+Haynie%22%2B%22Statistical+Treatment+of+Data%22&source=bl&ots=tqDNhxLpO9&sig=azsqFXNYFt0PRs4kEqGE-3QQaDM&hl=en&sa=X&ei=PfhPVcmGJZLgoAToqIGYCg&ved=0CB8Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=%22Fred%20H.%20Haynie%22%2B%22Statistical%20Treatment%20of%20Data%22&f=false or google “Fred H. Haynie”+”Statistical Treatment of Data”.
Thanks for the link Fred. I notice that Chapter one deals with the design of experiments which would be another area with which I would like to familiarise myself as well.
In relation to climate trend analyses, one issue that I have is the specification of the population of climate temperature and CO2 data over millenia and the best PDF to be used in defining the likely error bands of current observations of these two parameters.
Current commentry on climate trends are using far too short data series to support any sensible debate on global warming or on the stasis that is currently being observed.
And the resolution and accuracy of existing proxie data doesn’t help.
Agreed. Spatially and temporally, proxy data from paleontology needs much more work before we can rely on current projections for policy purposes. It seems that the CAGW alarmism is based on current observational data that has been grafted onto a rather dubious paleo trend line and that much scepticism is based on current observational data alone which IMO has no detectable trend either way.
Paleo data indeed are scarce and mostly low resolution. Fortunately, we have overlapping ice cores going from high resolution (less than a decade) over the past 150 years to 560 years for the past 800,000 years and a repeatability of CO2 levels from the same part of the cores of +/- 1.2 ppmv (1 sigma).
That makes that the current increase of 110 ppmv in 160 years would be measurable in all ice cores, even with the lowest resolution in the past 800,000 years…
Any links on this Ferdinand? If the current paleo data series can be matched with previous series, then we do indeed have something that would yield a trend line that we can work with.
Links to ice core measurements:
A nice overview:
http://courses.washington.edu/proxies/GHG.pdf
For the highest resolution cores (Law Dome) by Etheridge e.a. (1996), data at:
http://cdiac.ornl.gov/trends/co2/lawdome.html
the full report can be downloaded (needs a free subscription):
http://www.researchgate.net/publication/253162785_Natural_and_anthropogenic_changes_in_atmospheric_CO2_over_the_last_1000_years_from_air_in_Antarctic_ice_and_firn
For the longest record (Dome C), data at:
http://cdiac.ornl.gov/trends/co2/ice_core_co2.html
full report at:
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v453/n7193/full/nature06949.html
So, the rise in CO2 is beyond any shadow of a doubt completely and absolutely due to anthropogenic output.
And global temperature rises in lockstep with increasing CO2 concentrations, beyond any shadow of a doubt.
Therefore anthropogenic CO2 output causes a rise in temperature beyond any shadow of a doubt.
Except when it doesn’t, of course. Like now.
So what’s the problem? Unless you have an irrational fear of a necessary and beneficial gas, without which we would all perish? Maybe more is better. Who really knows?
Mike,
That the increase in CO2 is caused by human emissions is beyond reasonable doubt, but that says next to nothing about the influence of the extra CO2 on temperature.
What always wonders me is that many skeptics agree that there is no statistical connection between the increase in CO2 and the increase in temperature, but insist that temperature is the cause of the increase of CO2 in the atmosphere…
You may well be right. However, if the scientists are to be believed, CO2 levels in the past have risen to well over 1000ppm before man was about.
So the present rise is by no means unprecedented. Correlation certainly. Causation, not beyond a reasonable doubt, in my mind.
In any case, there doesn’t seem to be any particular reason to worry about levels of CO2 rising to, say, 1000ppm. If somebody showed that consuming fossil fuel reduced the O2 level, more than would be compensated by increased O2 production due to increased CO2 levels, then I might be concerned.
Unfortunately, history is littered with settled science, absolutes, and uncontrovertible evidence that turned out to be wrong.
I suppose I’m skeptical about some of the assumptions made. That’s all.
You Ferdinand ,are at best guessing you have yet to prove your case.
Further the latest temperature/co2 data shows CO2 is FOLLOING the temperature as has always been the case.
http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.com/2013/04/new-paper-demonstrates-temperature.html
This supports my contentions. Ferdinand, the data does not support what you are saying. That is the problem you and AGW enthusiast have which is you will not accept data that runs counter to your way of thinking.
Salvatore del Prete The blog article you mention does not show that CO2 is following temperature, and indeed that contention is not supported by the paper.
The diagram in the paper shows that the growth rate (i.e. the rate of change) in CO2 has been rising more slowly since 1990. If your contention is that the rise in CO2 is due to rising temperature, then if temperatures have flat-lined, then CO2 levels should also have flat-lined, which would mean that the growth rate would be essentially ZERO. This clearly not what is shown in Fig 3 of the paper. You only need to look at CO2 measurements since 1998 to see that CO2 has been rising at pretty much the same rate, even though some would claim that the temperature rise that caused it doesn’t exist!
Sadly it is easy to get confused when reasoning about increases by looking at growth rates because it is the average value of the growth rate that gives rise to the increase and the variations in the growth rate actually tell you very little about the long term rise. This is just the error that Prof. Salby made, and he wasn’t the first by any means. See
http://www.skepticalscience.com/salby_correlation_conundrum.html
Yes it does show that CO2 is following the temperature. It is as plain as day.
Sorry, merely repeating your assertion does not address the criticism, if increasing temperatures cause CO2 to increase, then if temperatures stop increasing, CO2 should stop increasing, i.e. the growth rate would be zero. That is not what the paper actually shows, regardless of the conclusions of the blog article.
DIKRANMARSUPIAL, if you want to be in denial of the data ,it is fine with me.
dikranmarsupial: The diagram in the paper shows that the growth rate (i.e. the rate of change) in CO2 has been rising more slowly since 1990. If your contention is that the rise in CO2 is due to rising temperature, then if temperatures have flat-lined, then CO2 levels should also have flat-lined, which would mean that the growth rate would be essentially ZERO.
No. If the CO2 rate of change is a nondecreasing function of temperature,then a nearly constant temperature implies a nearly constant rate a change, NOT a ZERO rate of change.
Ferdinand Engelbeen: What always wonders me is that many skeptics agree that there is no statistical connection between the increase in CO2 and the increase in temperature, but insist that temperature is the cause of the increase of CO2 in the atmosphere…
In my reading, what they “insist” is that the possibility of temp increase causing CO2 increase has been insufficiently studied, and can not be ruled out on present evidence without making some untested assumptions(s). The case that temp change has caused CO2 change, like the case that CO2 change has caused temp change is full of liabilities. But so are the contrary cases.
I have pointed out that you are confusing the growth rate of atmospheric CO2 with the growth of CO2, but it appears that you are unwilling or unable to engage in a constructive discussion of this issue, so I will waste no more time explaining it to you.
matthewrmarler wrote “No. If the CO2 rate of change is a nondecreasing function of temperature,then a nearly constant temperature implies a nearly constant rate a change, NOT a ZERO rate of change.”
That is what the diagram shows, but is not what is usually claimed (e.g. if you use Henry’s Law as the justification for a temperature-CO2 link, then temperature would be related directly to the partial pressure of CO2 in the atmosphere, not the growth rate).
So, assuming that temperature is related to growth rate, at what temperature should the growth rate be zero (i.e. at what temperature would atmospheric CO2 be stable)?
dikranmarsupial: So, assuming that temperature is related to growth rate, at what temperature should the growth rate be zero (i.e. at what temperature would atmospheric CO2 be stable)?
I don’t know. Salby’s graphs show atmospheric CO2 growth rate to be positively associated with temperature. I don’t think this has as strong an implication as he thinks, but that is what his graphs show. In particular, it does not rule out the possibility that atmospheric CO2 increase is mostly due to the increase in anthropogenic CO2. But it does show that a steady increase in CO2 is not incompatible with a nearly constant temperature.
On the other hand, Ferdinand Egelbeen’s graph over a much longer time period, to which I responded today, argues against the monotonic relationship displayed in Salby’s graphs being a good explanation for the post industrial rise in CO2 concentration.
dik, “So, assuming that temperature is related to growth rate, at what temperature should the growth rate be zero (i.e. at what temperature would atmospheric CO2 be stable)?”
According to Vostok cores the average CO2 level has been 230 ppmv with a range of ~100 ppmv. Doesn’t look like it has ever been “stable” in the normal sense of the word. Greenland cores indicate the range could be more like 150 ppmv.
It is most likely not “stable” because biological activity on land or in the oceans doesn’t have to synch with ocean temperature. If you want to assume it does synch with SST then “stable” should be about 300ppmv with an average ocean surface temperature of about 19.5 C degrees, excluding the normally ice covered parts. Global non ice covered land temperature is about 12 C degrees. I imagine if you used “global” temperature and included all the ice covered parts you might figure CO2 should be lower than it actually is. Need to be careful with that “global” temperature though, I believe it has been adjusted down to about 14 C degrees now.
Dear Dr Curry, I would have placed this comment on your blog but am unfortunately now excluded by your rules from doing so. However I think you could with advantage provide some balance to your re-blogging of Fred Haynie’s essay by providing equal coverage to Ferdinand Engelbeen’s professional discussion of the same issue. Regards, Coldish. From: Climate Etc. To: roundton@yahoo.co.uk Sent: Thursday, 7 May 2015, 4:27 Subject: [New post] Quantifying the anthropogenic contribution to atmospheric CO2 #yiv2276022009 a:hover {color:red;}#yiv2276022009 a {text-decoration:none;color:#0088cc;}#yiv2276022009 a.yiv2276022009primaryactionlink:link, #yiv2276022009 a.yiv2276022009primaryactionlink:visited {background-color:#2585B2;color:#fff;}#yiv2276022009 a.yiv2276022009primaryactionlink:hover, #yiv2276022009 a.yiv2276022009primaryactionlink:active {background-color:#11729E;color:#fff;}#yiv2276022009 WordPress.com | curryja posted: “by Fred HaynieI conclude that, the IPCC’s model assumptions that long-term natural net rate of accumulation is constant and anthropogenic emission rates are the only contributor to total long-term accumulation of atmospheric CO2, is false.All ” | |
The original post isn’t worth commenting on, other than perhaps asking why Judith chose to promote it, but Judith’s take on it is mind boggling.
http://judithcurry.com/2015/05/06/quantifying-the-anthropogenic-contribution-to-atmospheric-co2/#comment-700829
Strange times we live in.
We have a rise in CO2 unprecedented for at least the million or so years over which we can measure CO2 in antarctic ice bubbles.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1c/Carbon_Dioxide_400kyr.png
The rise started to be clear against the baseline c. 1750; James Watt was granted the first patent on his improvements to steam engine design in 1769, kickstarting the industrial revolution.
The atmospheric rise totals about half the cumulative emissions known from fossil fuel burning and land use changes, the rest being absorbed by natural sinks. This “mass balance argument” is simple and irrefutable without showing that our assessment of anthropogenic emissions has been out by a factor of more than two, or a similar error in measurements of CO2. I note that no-one has attempted to show this.
No amount of arm waving, calls to non-linearity or dynamics makes any difference to this:
The rise in atmospheric CO2 is only half what we have emitted. Ergo the natural world must be absorbing, not emitting CO2
That well known and very easily understood facts like these are denied or obscured by well educated people more than capable of understanding them is informative: Facts alone are insufficient to convince people, however powerful a case they make.
It may well be that some, many even, cannot ever be convinced by factual arguments.
[PS kudos to Don Montford, here and in the much earlier Charlie Hebdo thread]
verytallguy
So, would ordinary people prefer life BEFORE the Industrial revolution or AFTER I? I think we know the answer to that.
So IF we have influenced co2 levels through our industrial activities it has been, on the whole, a good thing.
At what point does it become a bad thing? If we have affected the climate so radically almost immediately we started emitting co2 is it possible to put the genie back in the bottle with billions more people all wanting a better life with all that entails?
No answers to that, just that we need to stop looking at the industrial revolution as the cause of all our problems. It was the start of a golden era for mankind.
tonyb
Tony,
you are off topic. My comment wasn’t about the benefits of the industrial revolution, neither was the post.
An absurd analysis purporting to show that the CO2 rise is not anthropogenic merely makes the author and those who support it look ridiculous, and makes it less likely that their arguments on other subjects will be taken seriously.
The reaction of Judith and denizens to it is most instructive.
verytallguy
I queried the value of this post on the first day
http://judithcurry.com/2015/05/06/quantifying-the-anthropogenic-contribution-to-atmospheric-co2/#comment-700551
As it turns out the discussion has widened out although whether anything new has been added or learnt is debatable.
tonyb
Well, we learned that Judith thinks up to 50% of the Co2 rise may be natural.
Bit of an eye-opener, that.
No, that’s neither what she said, nor what she thinks.
It seems to me that Prof. Curry does not rule out the possibility of a natural contribution as high as 50% as she suggests that as a starting point for the investigation. However that is immediately falsified by conservation of mass and the observations. Sadly Prof. Curry appears not to understand the mass balance argument, if she is unconvinced by the mass balance analysis, perhaps she should have a dialogue with somebody who does find it convincing.
curryja | May 7, 2015 at 8:51 pm |
…
We don’t have data for any of this. So I am not convinced by simple mass balance attribution arguments based on current observations. I think it unlikely that 100% of the increase in atm CO2 is caused by humans. It is not unreasonable to start from a point of 50-50 (Fred’s conclusion) and see if you can falsify natural variability as large as 50%. It may not be 50%, but I don’t think it is 0%.
VTG
Asking to falsify a theory is a lot more rigorous thinking than just being a bobblehead, which is where much of climate science is. If half as much effort had been put into falsifying the consensus view over the last 30 years as was put into confirming it, our knowledge might be much beyond where it is now.
> No, that’s neither what she said, nor what she thinks.
Please tell me what you read there, Peter:
http://judithcurry.com/2014/08/24/the-50-50-argument/
Willard. Reading must be difficult for you. She was referring to the attribution of warming, not the mix of CO2 in the atmosphere.
Willard, kindly read and understand before sprouting
Sorry about that, jim2. Sometimes, I just get tired of copy-pasting quotes on my tablet. Denizens simply don’t read, not even Judy’s. No wonder they don’t realize that Judy’s mostly recycling her old stuff.
Now that I’m downstairs, here’s what I had in mind:
http://judithcurry.com/2014/08/24/the-50-50-argument/
Now, my question is this: how do you get to the 50-50 argument by positing that there’s more than 50% of aCO2?
If there was some nCO2 effect to take into account, perhaps that ought to be mentioned. Instead, we only see the usual suspect in the ABC (Anything But Carbon) list. solar. Aerosol is being repeated. Perhaps the ClimateBall episode with Grypo was too old:
http://judithcurry.com/2010/10/24/overconfidence-in-ipccs-detection-and-attribution-part-iii/#comment-5630
Interestingly, this episode is also about the circular reasoning argument, something we might read soon.
As you can see, very little has changed since 2010 at Judy’s.
Hi Willard. Just saw your response.
I guess I fail to see the heresy here. The rise in global temperature has abated for well over a decade. She appears to be speculating on the cause of that.
Even the warmista scientists posit natural variability as an explanation for this abatement. She is merely pointing out that it COULD be something more – perhaps a more active feedback that comes into play to mitigate a rise in global temperature.
Of course, if you believe climatology in its present state is complete, I can see why you are in a tizzy over the quote. But of course, in my view climate science isn’t complete, so I don’t see her statement as problematic. I see it as her asking some of the right questions.
VTG accepts the ice record without question. Interesting.
Jim, it is indeed interesting that I do that. It’s motivated by multiple studies drawing almost identical conclusions, and no study suggesting uncertainty anywhere close to that needed to provide a challenge to the origins of the Co2 rise.
It’s also interesting to note that modern measurements alone support the same conclusion.
Finally it’s downright fascinating that you choose to insinuate issues with the measurements of
Keeling, Law, Vostock and Dome C provide the key data.
[Contd] without stating what the issues are alleged to be, or th rir magnitude.
Lots of interest.
VTG – we recently visited this question here on CE, the one about diffusion in ice, and there are in fact papers discussing this issue.
VTG – search for “ice” in this post.
Jim,
discussions may or may not be interesting. What you need to demonstrate is errors in the region of 100 ppm from ice cores to put the unprecedented in doubt.
And even that woild be a sideshow; if the modern rise were not unprecedented, the mass balance still unequivocally shows it is anthropogenic.
I haven’t argued that ACO2 doesn’t exist in the atmosphere, not in my exchange with you nor elsewhere. I’m contesting the fidelity of the ice core record.
Jim,
Okay, so:
(1) what is the stated accuracy of the ice core measurements?
(2) what would the accuracy need to be to challenge a hypothesis that all the recent rise is anthropogenic?
(3) what is your belief in the accuracy, with a link to a reputable source for this number?
(1) 1.2ppm
(2) 60ppm – half the rise
(3) my breath is bated
Since the effect of diffusion and conduction of CO2 via cracks, and possibly other unknown transport mechanisms, there is no authoritative error range.
Try 2:
Since the effect of diffusion and conduction of CO2 via cracks is unknown and possibly other unknown transport mechanisms exist, there is no authoritative error range.
Completely unknowable! How convenient!
Also convenient is that it’s unnecessary to go down your rabbit hole as the Keeling curve alone with concurrent knowledge of emissions proves the point regardless.
Again, personally, I believe a majority fraction of atmospheric CO2 is anthropocentric. But your ice core chart proves nothing.
Using estimated CO2 emissions from ORNL Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center and the Bern model we can conclude that the atmospheric CO2 concentration had risen by 1 ppm between years 1751 and 1870, By 1900 the increase had reached about 4 ppm. 10 ppm was reached in 1925.
From that we can conclude that releases from fossil-fuel burning and cement manufacture had negligible influence until 1900 and really significant influence has come after 1950.
Land use changes were more important before that, but estimating their influence quantitatively is not easy. There’s little connection between those changes and the invention of steam engine, however.
Thanks Pekka, whilst referring to both I hadn’t tried to separate them as you have.
Watt’s patent date was merely intended to be of interest. Doubtless the various key points along land use changes could also be added to build a picture of the rise of technologies which caused the commensurate rise in co2.
pekka, ” Using estimated CO2 emissions from ORNL Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center and the Bern model we can conclude that the atmospheric CO2 concentration had risen by 1 ppm between years 1751 and 1870″
.
http://cdiac.ornl.gov/trends/co2/graphics/lawdome.gif
let’s see, Ferdinand has “natural” pegged at about 5-7ppmv per degree.
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-OvQHzJy8gFU/VLF3XHImAqI/AAAAAAAAMGM/X1vv5Tx0kiI/w689-h411-no/oppo%2Bover%2Bmann.png
Mann appears to have it at about 0.1 degree per 5-7 ppmv. The new kids on the block, Oppo, Rosenthal and Lindsey seem to agree with Ferdinand.
Ferdinand refers to Herry’s law that tells, how temperature of water affects the equilibrium between CO2 dissolved in ocean water near surface and in the atmosphere. That equilibrium remains unchanged when both the surface temperature and the atmospheric CO2 concentration change satisfying Δconcentration/ΔT = 5-7 ppm/C.
This value is useful, because it has been measured in laboratory and because the value depends only little on other conditions (the given range tells that there’s some dependence).
I don’t think that Mann disagrees on this number, the value that you assign to him must tell about something else.
pekka, “I don’t think that Mann disagrees on this number, the value that you assign to him must tell about something else.”
You mean something like bias perhaps? The Oppo et al 2009 IPWP reconstruction should be a fair proxy for global CO2 concentration using Henry’s law. The Law Dome CO2 reconstruction should be a good proxy for “global” CO2 concentrations. So prior to “industrial” “global” temperatures should have a swing to match the CO2 swing.
From 0 to 1750 there is a CO2 range of 12.2 and a standard deviation of 2.8 ppmv. How large should the swing in temperatures be and what “natural” variability range would you have?
Mann has a +/-0.2 C range prior to 1750. Oppo has a +/- 0.65 C range. Which is a better fit for Henry’s and the Bern Model?
Ferdinand refers to Herry’s law that tells, how temperature of water affects the equilibrium between CO2 dissolved in ocean water near surface and in the atmosphere. That equilibrium remains unchanged when both the surface temperature and the atmospheric CO2 concentration change satisfying Δconcentration/ΔT = 5-7 ppm/C.
Temperature is neither static nor uniform.
A large factor is that the coldest and most absorptive of CO2 waters are the waters that then descend to the bottom of the ocean:
http://www.drroyspencer.com/wp-content/uploads/Ocean-temperature-vs-depth.png
And when these waters descend, then take CO2 with them, making CO2 at depth larger than near the surface:
http://www.pnas.org/content/106/30/12235/F2.large.jpg
VTG,
Now ould you care to estimate how much of the CO2 rise since 1750 was do to anthro factors not directly from fossil fuel burning?
Ooops, try again…
VTG,
Now would you care to estimate how much of the CO2 rise since 1750 was due to anthro factors not directly from fossil fuel burning?
thisis,
As what you’re asking for its readily available without asking me, you appear to be playing rhetorical games.
Also I don’t have the expertise to estimate these, I rely on actual experts for the figures.
That said, for the record, it’s roughly 1/3 land, 2/3 fossil since 1750.
More recently it’s about 90% fossil.
AR5 WG1 SPM B.5
Studies by C Loehle (20080) and F Ljungquist(2010)
of different non tree ring proxy data show corresponding
evidence for a Medieval Warming Period and a post
Little Ice Age sharp rise in warming, pre the Industrial
Revolution. Are not the rate of warming and MWP
evidence of natural climate variability and does this
variabiliity simply cease to be in the 20th and 21st
centuries?
https://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2010/09/loehle_v_fig21.png
Beth,
The post is on co2 and makes the claim that the rise is to a significant extent natural.
The point I am making is that as we have emitted twice the co2 necessary to cause the rise it cannot be natural; on the contrary, the discordant process, quite conclusively, that far from causing the rise, natural systems have in fact reduced it.
Whether or not your understanding of the LIA or MCA is correct is entirely irrelevant to that.
“discordant process”!
Should read “discrepancy proves”
Shakespeare himself would have been stymied by the awful tyranny of autocorrect. (I hasten to add I am in no way claiming equivalence with the Bard)
Incidentally, this discussion is an excellent illustration of why I raised this topic on a previous thread here on “Distinguishing the academic from the interface consensus”
http://judithcurry.com/2014/09/18/distinguishing-the-academic-from-the-interface-consensus/
This is an issue where the academic consensus is almost complete in its unanimity, and yet there have been countless discussions on blogs as to whether the rise in atmospheric CO2 is anthropogenic or natural (ruled out by the observations as Ferdinand has explained again and again, extremely patiently). Sadly the volume of discussion on blogs is not necessarily a good indicator of where the scientific consensus actually stands.
I think you’re confusing blogs with echo chambers.
I think you’re confusing blogs with echo chambers.
I think whatshisname is confusing “consensus” with scientific rigor.
Andrew
It’s just incredible. And, surreal. I can lay out equations specific to the question, here, here, and here, showing uneqivocally that the “mass balance” argument is completely and utterly false, and people just plug their ears and chant “nah, nah, nah”.
This is a dynamic feedback system, folks. Your tidy little algebra is not up to the task of describing how a real-world system works. You should not be engaged in the discussion. You do not have the requisite scientific or engineering training. You are not qualified.
Bartemis demonstrated he doesn’t understand the mass balance argument when he writes “Your tidy little algebra is not up to the task of describing how a real-world system works.”. The mass balance argument doesn’t explain HOW the carbon cycle works, and nobody claims it does. It is just a statement of a very obvious constraint that the carbon cycle must obey. Bartemis will never understand the mass balance argument while he continues to treat it as if it were a model of the carbon cycle.
Sadly Bartemis is to reliant on ad-hominems and rhetoric for discussion of the science to be productive, so I will leave it at that. Perhaps we could give the rhetoric and insults/ad-hominems a rest and stick to the science for a bit?
If it was unequivocal and obvious, why is there still so much disagreement? Unequivocal means “leaving no doubt; unambiguous”.
“Sadly Bartemis is to reliant on ad-hominems and rhetoric”
Appeal to “consensus” is rhetoric.
Andrew
This is the way bartie’s feedback system operates:
“If the sinks are aggressive enough, then they can effectively take out everything humans put in, and any observed rise of any significance would then have to be a result of sinks not keeping up with the much larger natural inputs.”
The ACO2 makes the sinks aggressive and hungry for the special flavor of ACO2. The sinks eat the ACO2 first, so any increase in atmospheric CO2 is due to the natural stuff, which the sinks don’t find all that tasty. What little bartie doesn’t realize is that this is a particularly silly form of a bogus mass balance argument.
Bartemis,
Surreal it is indeed.
We have emitted double the Co2 needed to effect the measured rise, which unequivocally proves that natural systems are a net sink.
Yet you continue to claim that the rise is natural, due to a burp in the thermohaline circulation, unprecedented in a milion years and miraculously coincident with industrialisation
Better yet, you lecture others with claims that they don’t have the engineering knowledge of dynamic systems.
As you appeal to engineering authority, I’m a fellow of he institute of chemical engineers. I can assure you that you fail to understand the basics of a mass balance.
Where do you suppose the emitted Co2 went?
That Judith chooses to endorse such bizarre views is very sad.
dikranmarsupial | May 11, 2015 at 12:01 pm |
“It is just a statement of a very obvious constraint that the carbon cycle must obey.”
No, it doesn’t. For a dynamic feedback system, it is a trivial statement with no usefulness for assigning attribution.
…and Then There’s Physics | May 11, 2015 at 12:05 pm |
“If it was unequivocal and obvious, why is there still so much disagreement?”
Beats me. I think I’m arguing math with a bunch of English majors. Do any of you actually have a degree in a hard science? Because, I see no indication whatsoever that you do.
Don Monfort | May 11, 2015 at 12:21 pm |
“The ACO2 makes the sinks aggressive and hungry for the special flavor of ACO2.”
I’ve shown time and again that it is simply a matter of proportions. In all the math I have shown, the sinks act equally on anthropogenic and natural CO2.
verytallguy | May 11, 2015 at 12:27 pm |
“Better yet, you lecture others with claims that they don’t have the engineering knowledge of dynamic systems.”
What else can you say when people ignore clear and convincing mathematics such as cited, here, here, and here?
If you are capable of understanding the math, then get your head out of your tuckus and read it. As of right now, I can only conclude that you do not understand feedback processes.
“Where do you suppose the emitted Co2 went?”
The same places natural CO2 ends up. It is only a tiny portion of the overall flows. Why in the world would anyone imagine the sinks could not handle our puny inputs when they regularly handle the much, much larger natural flows?
> You do not have the requisite scientific or engineering training.
In return, you don’t seem to get what a bisimulation is, Bartemis.
Bartemis wrote “No, it doesn’t. For a dynamic feedback system, it is a trivial statement with no usefulness for assigning attribution.”
Unless the feedback can cause carbon to spontaneously appear of disappear, rather than merely being transferred from one reservoir within the carbon cycle to another, conservation of mass still applies. From there it is just a matter of basic algebra and plugging in the observations to show that the natural environment is a net carbon sink.
verytallguy | May 11, 2015 at 12:27 pm |
“We have emitted double the Co2 needed to effect the measured rise, which unequivocally proves that natural systems are a net sink.”
But, that net sink is expanded by human forcing. Take away the human forcing, and it shrinks back to the size consistent with natural forcing alone. When it shrinks back, you find nature is no longer a net sink.
This is the essence of a dynamic feedback system. There is a dynamic response to forcing. The sinks are not fixed.
dikranmarsupial | May 11, 2015 at 12:58 pm |
“From there it is just a matter of basic algebra and plugging in the observations to show that the natural environment is a net carbon sink.”
It’s not a question of whether with human forcing it is a net sink or not. You have to show it is a net sink when there is no human forcing.
The sinks dynamically respond to the human forcing. They expand in response to it. Once you remove the human forcing, they shrink. Then, your mass balance no longer indicates a net sink.
How do you get such a simple concept through to a bunch of unqualified people? It is a very vexing problem. I try to spoon feed it, yet the porridge still ends up on the bib.
Bartemis wrote “It’s not a question of whether with human forcing it is a net sink or not. You have to show it is a net sink when there is no human forcing.”
Bartemis again shows that he doesn’t understand the issue. Nobody is claiming that the natural environment would be a net sink in the absence of anthropogenic emissions. Indeed, in the absence of anthropogenic emissions, one would expect the carbon cycle to be reasonably well balanced, as the ice core data shows it to be during inter-glacial periods, such as the one we are in now.
The fact that the natural environment has become a net carbon sink shows that it is actively opposing the rise in atmospheric CO2, and trying to bring it back into approximate equilibrium, it is not causing the rise as it is acting in the opposite direction.
dikranmarsupial | May 11, 2015 at 1:17 pm |
“Nobody is claiming that the natural environment would be a net sink in the absence of anthropogenic emissions.”
You are claiming it would not be a net source, but the “mass balance” is purely agnostic on that score.
“The fact that the natural environment has become a net carbon sink shows that it is actively opposing the rise in atmospheric CO2, and trying to bring it back into approximate equilibrium…”
The natural environment is always trying to do that regardless of the source of the rise. Your “mass balance” argument is trivial. Whether nature is a net sink or not with human forcing does not establish whether humans are responsible for the observed rise. I showed above an example of a system where the human input H is an insignificant driver, yet the “mass balance” shows nature is a net sink.
It all depends on the power of the sinks. If they are powerful, and the evidence indicates they are, then they can take out just about all of the human forcing with no problem. Any remaining rise has to be due to other influences. The “mass balance” argument is not useful for determining responsibility for the rise.
Bartemis,
I am a chemist and chemical engineer, with more than 35 years “real world” experience with “real-world” systems, and with much of that time working as a contracted consulting engineer, solving “real world” problems in a dozen different countries. I am also very skeptical of all claims of future doom, human or ecological, due to CO2 driven warming, because these are based mainly on climate models which I judge to be grotesquely biased by internal kludges, and incapable of making meaningful projections of warming.
You are completely mistaken on this question. The mass balance constraint is clear and irrefutable: the Earth has been a net sink of human emitted CO2 for as long as we have accurate measurements, which is at least since the late 1950’s. I do not know your background or your experience, but It is clear from everything you write that you just do not understand the implications of that mass balance constraint (or worse, that you just do not understand how a mass balance generates a strong constraint). I suggest you try to think this trough very carefully and try to better understand what the mass balance constraint implies.
Bartemis “You are claiming it would not be a net source, but the “mass balance” is purely agnostic on that score.”
I said nothing of the sort. In the absence of anthropogenic emissions, there is no reason to expect the carbon cycle to be any more variable that it was during any other interglacial period. That does not preclude it being a net source at time and a net sink at others, but as Ferdinand has shown the temperature sensitivity can’t explain more than ten ppm.
The mass balance analysis shows that the natural environment has been a net carbon sink every year for at least the last fifty, and that the net sink is strengthening with time (although there is considerable year-to-year variability). The fact that it is a net sink means that it has opposed the rise in atmospheric CO2, not caused it. The temperature sensitivity means that it hasn’t opposed the rise as much as it would have done had temperatures remained constant, but “opposing the rise less” is not the same as “causing the rise”.
dikranmarsupial –
“I said nothing of the sort. In the absence of anthropogenic emissions, there is no reason to expect the carbon cycle to be any more variable that it was during any other interglacial period.”
There is “no reason to expect” that the Sun does not revolve around the Earth. “No reason to expect” is not a scientific argument.
If you cannot preclude nature being a net source in the absence of human forcing, then you cannot assign attribution on this basis.
It is as simple as that. The “mass balance” argument does not determine attribution. Other evidence indicates that atmospheric concentration is driven mostly by some other, temperature dependent process.
Bartemis,
When you don’t care anything about the properties of the real Earth, you can write equations at will, and those equations may agree with your proposals. Our world is, however, not controlled by your imagination but by it’s real properties. Ferdinand has listed very many carefully studied arguments, which make it clear that what has been observed is fully consistent with the dominance of anthropogenic contribution. Nobody has been able to propose any natural mechanism that could have resulted to a natural source of similar magnitude since 1950. Neither has anyone been able to propose mechanisms that could have acted as sink for both the actual anthropogenic releases and the natural source that you propose.
To explain the smooth increase in CO2 concentration the additional natural source should also be very regular, There are three issues to be explained to make your ideas credible:
– a natural source that could have had a big enough contribution over the period of last 60 years
– natural sinks that can absorb that much more than the sinks have absorbed according to the standard understanding
– an explanation for the rather sudden start of the additional releases in the first half of the 20th century and approximate constancy thereafter.
Then we have also the isotope ratios and other further details that you must explain.
On the other side of the argument everything fits nicely together without any contradictions to be explained. Some details are not well known, but the general picture is natural and consistent.
Bartemis –
If SteveF’s appeal to self-authority won’t convince you, then I suspect that nothing will.
Nice summary, Pekka. But he won’t get it. Dude is impervious.
He’s hung up on this nonsense:”“If the sinks are aggressive enough, then they can effectively take out everything humans put in, and any observed rise of any significance would then have to be a result of sinks not keeping up with the much larger natural inputs.”
It’s rather pathetic. I am surprised and disappointed that so many otherwise seemingly intelligent and rational people are following along with the foolishness of bartie and freddie. I guess it’s bias.
Bartemis wrote “If you cannot preclude nature being a net source in the absence of human forcing, then you cannot assign attribution on this basis.”
Nonsense. Firstly we know that the natural carbon cycle is not sensitive enough to temperature to have caused more than a few ppm rise over the last century, as Ferdinand has explained to you repeatedly, with very admirable patience. Secondly the “uncertainty” in some hypothetical scenario in the absence of anthropogenic CO2 does not change one iota the fact that the natural environment has opposed the rise in atmospheric CO2 in the real world – that is what the observations tell us. You may not be able to accept that, but it has been demonstrated, by multiple lines of evidence and is beyond reasonable doubt.
Pekka,
You can offer lots of complicated arguments, but you really need only the mass balance to show that Earth has been an obvious net sink of human emitted CO2.
Seems to met this thread resembles a function in the 3-space of comedy, tragedy, and absurdity… with a significant contribution for all three variables. The more complicated the arguments which are offered to prove something so obvious, the higher the absurdity value becomes.
Pekka –
We are focusing on the validity of the “mass balance” argument in this thread.
If we can dispense with that silliness, then I am happy to address your other points:
“– a natural source that could have had a big enough contribution over the period of last 60 years”
The empirical evidence indicates a dynamic of the form
dCO2/dt = k*(T – T0)
The factor k is a sensitivity in ppmv/K/unit-of-time and T0 is an equilibrium level. Thus, the impact of the source integrates over time.
A good candidate for a process displaying such a sensitivity is an imbalance in upwelling of CO2 enriched waters in the tropics, and downwelling of CO2 depleted waters at the poles. Any net offset between those two would cause CO2 to accumulate continuously in the surface oceans, and thence in the atmosphere.
“– natural sinks that can absorb that much more than the sinks have absorbed according to the standard understanding”
Evidently, they can absorb at least half. A factor of two isn’t that much more. The sinks are a collection of dynamic elements which expand in response to forcing. There is no indication whatsoever that they have declined in strength as the concentration has risen. Quite the contrary, if you buy into the proposition that atmospheric CO2 is being driven by human inputs, then you would have to conclude that sink activity has increased measurably of late, as concentration is rising only linearly, while emissions keep accelerating.
http://i1136.photobucket.com/albums/n488/Bartemis/CO2_zps330ee8fa.jpg
“– an explanation for the rather sudden start of the additional releases in the first half of the 20th century and approximate constancy thereafter.”
See above.
“On the other side of the argument everything fits nicely together without any contradictions to be explained. “
Not so nicely. See above.
dikranmarsupial | May 11, 2015 at 2:09 pm |
“Nonsense. Firstly we know that …”
Can I take it then that you are conceding that the “mass balance” argument has no particular usefulness in resolving the question of attribution? About time!
Joshua,
You once again have proven your lack of reading comprehension. I noted my experience ONLY in response Bartemis suggesting that those opposed to his erroneous analysis are not used to working on “real-word” systems. You, on the other hand, really do seem completely without technical experience. Perhaps better then to not comment on such things.
Bartemis wrote “Can I take it then that you are conceding that the “mass balance” argument has no particular usefulness in resolving the question of attribution? About time!”
Firstly, no, the mass balance argument shows that the natural environment has been a net carbon sink every year for at least the last fifty (I think I may have mentioned that already). That shows that the natural environment has been opposing the rise in atmospheric CO2. That is a pretty useful observation in resolving the question of attribution as an entity cannot simultaneously cause and oppose the rise in atmospheric CO2, and most are able to understand that concept without undue difficulty.
Secondly, if we have reached the point where you are going to respond with rhetorical one-liners, rather than actually address the argument, that suggests we have reached the point once more where further discussion is likely to prove unproductive.
If you want to demonstrate otherwise, you could start by giving an unequivocal answer to the following question (note “yes” or “no” would be a good start). Do you agree that the mass balance argument shows that the natural environment has been a net carbon sink over the last fifty years?
stevefitzpatrick | May 11, 2015 at 1:44 pm |
“The mass balance constraint is clear and irrefutable: the Earth has been a net sink of human emitted CO2 for as long as we have accurate measurements, which is at least since the late 1950’s.”
YES! THE EARTH HAS BEEN A NET SINK! IT HAS NO BEARING ON THE QUESTION OF ATTRIBUTION WHEN THE SINKS DYNAMICALLY EXPAND IN RESPONSE TO INPUTS FROM ANY SOURCE!
Read the stuff I have written on this, e.g., here, where I discuss in mathematical detail an example in which a dynamic system response precludes using the “mass balance” argument to establish attribution.
It’s not a close call. It’s not mysterious or weird or flaky. It is standard feedback dynamics. It’s downright trivial.
Bartemis,
Show a mechanism that integrates over time for this issue. That would require a transition to another persistent state like opening a valve and leaving it open. I do not believe that you can provide any alternative that would operate like that and that could have remained unnoticed in obvious ways. That’s totally unsupported speculation from your part, and contrary to observational evidence.
All known mechanisms operate differently and are capable of explaining all observations within the accuracy that can be expected.
dikranmarsupial –
“That is a pretty useful observation in resolving the question of attribution as an entity cannot simultaneously cause and oppose the rise in atmospheric CO2…”
A partially blocked drain will still drain water from a lavatory sink, and oppose any additional trickle you put in, while still causing the water level to rise due to a torrent of water from the faucet.
You make categorical statements, which sound like common sense, but in fact, are not well grounded at all. If you had pursued a hard science degree, you would have been instructed on avoiding such pitfalls in logic.
“Do you agree that the mass balance argument shows that the natural environment has been a net carbon sink over the last fifty years?”
Yes. It has no bearing on the argument.
Do you agree that the “mass balance” argument does not preclude nature being a net source in the absence of human inputs?
Bartemis wrote “YES! THE EARTH HAS BEEN A NET SINK!”
Super. Now can you give an example of any other situation where something can be said to cause the amount of some substance in a container (or reservoir) to increase whilst at the same time taking more of that substance out of the container (or reservoir) than it puts in?
I suspect you won’t be able to do so, because it would not conform to the usual usage of “cause”. For example, can I cause the amount of cookies in a cookie jar to increase by taking more cookies out of the jar than I put in? No, of course not. If the number of cookies in the jar were rising, it would be because someone else was putting cookies in the jar (c.f. anthropogenic emissions) and I (c.f. the natural environment) was opposing the increase.
Sorry, Pekka. I disagree. The temperature relationship precludes significant human attribution for the observed rise. The ongoing divergence between emissions and the rate of change of atmospheric CO2, while atmospheric CO2 remains in lockstep with the temperature relationship, tells us that humans are not in the driver’s seat.
I gave you a mechanism. The oceans are not a static pool of water. Those who treat it as such are making the same mistake as the skydragon slayers.
dikranmarsupial | May 11, 2015 at 2:40 pm |
“Now can you give an example of any other situation where something can be said to cause the amount of some substance in a container (or reservoir) to increase whilst at the same time taking more of that substance out of the container (or reservoir) than it puts in?”
I gave you one. See “lavatory sink” in the last response. I gave a specific mathematical example above
If you cannot understand these examples, you really should remove yourself from the debate.
I must leave. Failure to respond further should not be taken as evidence of acquiescence.
Don’t worry. Your absence won’t hurt your case, bartie.
I wrote: “Now can you give an example of any other situation where something can be said to cause the amount of some substance in a container (or reservoir) to increase whilst at the same time taking more of that substance out of the container (or reservoir) than it puts in?”
Batrtemis wrote: “I gave you one. See “lavatory sink” in the last response. I gave a specific mathematical example above”
that example turned out to be:
“A partially blocked drain will still drain water from a lavatory sink, and oppose any additional trickle you put in, while still causing the water level to rise due to a torrent of water from the faucet.”
That clearly is not an example of that form as the amount of water leaving through the drain is less than the amount coming in from the tap. You need to find an example where somthing causes a level to rise while taking more out than it puts in. Of course you won’t be able to do that because you are using a novel definition of “cause” that appears to be unique to the carbon cycle.
Bartemis,
“It’s not mysterious or weird or flaky. It is standard feedback dynamics. It’s downright trivial.”
Your argument is not mysterious, but it is “weird” and “flaky”; more importantly it is plainly wrong, and betrays a lack of understanding. A system can’t simultaneously oppose a measured rise in concentration and cause that rise, and invoking “feedback dynamics”, which I am quite familiar with, or anything else for that matter, will not make it so. You plainly do not understand the “trivial” concepts involved.
On final suggestion, you should stop assuming people lack “a hard science degree” based on them pointing out that you are mistaken about something. Many people here who have told you that you are mistaken do have a degree (or multiple degrees) in a “hard science”, often along with a lot of practical experience. Suggesting they lack technical training just because they tell you you are mistaken reflects poorly on you.
I will waste no more time on this silly thread. Cio.
“I must leave”
Good idea, Bartemis. I admire your tenacity, but some of the “mass-balancers” you are now arguing with seem to be suffering from the same disease of logic that afflicts the Sky Dragon people. Best to give it up before you accidentally slip and fall into their rabbit hole.
I wasn’t appealing to consensus, I was discussing the difference between academic consensus (i.e. what the scientists believe) and the interface consensus (e.g. what people discuss on blogs). No science depends on the consensus, but it is useful for the public discussion of climate to know where the balance of expert opinion lies, because paying attention to expert opinion is a rational thing to do on topics where you don’t have sufficient expertise to understand the science for yourself. If you understand the science really well, the consensus is of little interest, however few of us are in that category.
Just sounds like more rhetoric to me. You can tell, because your latest comment is science-free. It’s just a rhetorical word shift from appealing to “consensus”, to appealing to “expert opinion.” Old, old, word game.
Andrew
The basic strategy on this one is for the willfully ignorant to play the appeal to ignorance card, against the appeal to consensus card. They get a wash there. That leaves the actual facts and logic. Since they can’t even comprehend the mass balance argument, not much point in continuing with this foolishness.
And yes, it’s obvious Warmers are desperate to “win” this particular discussion, because losing means bye bye AGW.
Andrew
No, I discussed the relevance of expert opinion because *you* raised the question of appealing to consensus; there was none made in my original comment. Saying that “no science depends on the consensus” and “If you understand the science really well, the consensus is of little interest” doesn’t sound much like “appealing to expert opinion” as far as I can see, other than in perhaps homeopathic quantities!
It seems to me that you are reading rather more into what I have written than is actually there.
Andrew,
The reason warmers are interested is, perhaps, that it is a clear demonstration of how many “sceptics” are determined to follow their obsessions regardless of how obviously the facts contradict them.
Even professors at Georgia Tech.
If “consensus” and “expert opinion” do not validate/invalidate the science, why bring them up at all?
Andrew
OMG! Bad thinks this is the final,final nail in the AGW coffin. This has really gotten silly. What was she thinking?
Oh oh, Warmer Don is using exclamation points.(!!!)
The end is near!!!
Andrew
dikranmarsupial wrote ” No science depends on the consensus, but it is useful for the public discussion of climate to know where the balance of expert opinion lies, because paying attention to expert opinion is a rational thing to do on topics where you don’t have sufficient expertise to understand the science for yourself. ”
Bad Andrew “If “consensus” and “expert opinion” do not validate/invalidate the science, why bring them up at all?”
Clearly Bad Andrew is not taking the trouble to read the comments to which he is responding. It was actually Bad Andrew that brought up the topic of the relevance of the consensus, not me, I was just pointing out that this is an excellent example of the divergence between the scientific consensus and the lack of consensus in the public understanding/communication of the science (or at least on blogs).
So baddie thinks I am a warmer now. Was it the ! that gave me away? I am not obligated to swallow the denier dogma hook-line-and-sinker. And you are definitely a denier, if you don’t get that the increase in CO2 is on us. Live with it and argue about something else.
Well, the “reality deniers” claim that emissions are driving warming.
By their reasoning the 1960 emissions of 2.57 GT which caused 0.8 PPM CO2 rise, should lead to the 2014 9.8 GT of emissions cause over 3 PPM of atmospheric CO2 rise – instead of 2.13PPM.
It looks like that current roughly 2.2 PPM average annual rise is the high point and the rate of increase will decline.
The “human emissions are driving the CO2 level” people can’t explain this.
“So baddie thinks I am a warmer now.”
Just goin by what you comment.
Andrew
PA,
On the contrary. The changes in the atmospheric concentration are fully consistent with expectations based on the main stream understanding.
The Bern model describes well enough the present understanding over time periods relevant for this question and the development is fully consistent with that.
PA, is it possible they can be right about some things and wrong about some things? Do you feel obligated to argue about everything and never give an inch? That’s what makes me question their honesty.
baddie:”Just goin by what you comment.”
What is it, a day to day thing? Do I have to pass the denier test everyday to stay in the club? How long you been here? Never mind, no point in conversing with you.
Pekka Pirilä | May 11, 2015 at 1:31 pm |
PA,
On the contrary. The changes in the atmospheric concentration are fully consistent with expectations based on the main stream understanding.
The Bern model describes well enough the present understanding over time periods relevant for this question and the development is fully consistent with that.
Bull.
The IPCC has a 2100 CO2 level of 940 PPM for RCP8.5.
Human emissions will not drive the CO2 level over 500 PPM. Not now, not ever, never.
“Sadly the volume of discussion on blogs is not necessarily a good indicator of where the scientific *consensus* actually stands.” -Thus Spaketh Whatshismoniker
Andrew
dikranmarsupial –
Is this a valid way of determining the anthropogenic contribution: (a) determine what the total would have been without any anthropogenic contribution, (b) determine what the total is with the anthropogenic contribution, (c) the difference is the anthropogenic contribution.
Why would you do that when it is possible to infer what actually did happen?
Part of the problem with your approach is the set of assumptions involved in determining what the total would have been without any anthropogenic contribution. If you argue that the rise in CO2 is the result of a rise in temperature, how do you separate out the fraction of the rise that was due to anthropogenic CO2 emissions via the enhanced greenhouse effect?
If you take this approach, then as Ferdinand has already explained, the temperature rise can only explain a small fraction of the observed rise in CO2 and you get essentially the same answer you get from the mass balance analysis.
Personally I don’t think this approach gives a completely straightforward answer, because the temperature sensitivity just means that the natural environment has been less able to oppose the rise in atmospheric CO2, which is not the same thing as “causing the rise in CO2”, at least according to conventional usages of the word.
Can you give an example of any other situation where it is possible to make a statement of the form “X causes the amount of Y to increase in Z, while taking more Y out of Z than it puts in”, where X, Y and Z are nouns of your choice. This isn’t easy, for instance if I were to say “Mrs Marsupial (X) causes the amount of money (Y) in our bank account (Z), while taking more money out of our bank account than she puts in”, most people would agree that was a nonsensical statement. We know that the natural envrionment takes more CO2 out of the atmosphere that it puts in, which suggests to me it would make more sense to say it has been opposing the rise, rather than causing it.
Typing too quickly, that should have been “Mrs Marsupial (X) causes the amount of money (Y) in our bank account (Z) to increase, while taking more money out of our bank account than she puts in”
Are you saying that if the anthropogenic CO2 emitted was X and if the net addition of CO2 to the atmosphere during that period was X, that this is conclusive proof that the entire X was anthropogenic?
No, it is a question designed to explore what it means to be the cause of an increase. X, Y and Z are placeholders in a template that you should fill with nouns in such a way that you end up with a sensible statement. In my example, X is replaced by “Mrs Marsupial”, Y is replaced with “money” and Z is replaced by “bank account”. The point is that you won’t be able to do so as you can’t cause something to rise without putting more in than you take out. This illustrates that looking at hypotheticals is not necessarily a good way of performing attribution.
swood1000:
Actually, I think their argument is that humans are emitting 2X.
Nature as absorbing 1X of this 2X and the rise in CO2 in the atmosphere is X.
They are netting the natural emissions and natural sinks and calling them even or a wash.
Therefore, according to the argument, the entire rise in CO2 in the atmosphere is caused by humans.
That is how I understand their argument.
dikranmarsupial –
Let’s suppose that humans put 5GT of CO2 into the atmosphere in one year and that X amount is put in naturally. Then let’s suppose that Y% of all the CO2 in the atmosphere is removed naturally, resulting in a net increase of 5GT for the year. Is it correct to say that since Y% of the anthropogenic contribution was removed, therefore the net increase for the year cannot be entirely attributed to the anthropogenic contribution?
Richard Arrett –
But if the net increase for the year is equal to the human addition and yet a % of all CO2 present was removed naturally during the year, how do they assert that none of the human contribution was removed and only the natural addition was removed?
Because that is not what is being asserted. The claim is not that every single one of the extra CO2 molecules has an anthropogenic origin. The claim is that the reason there has been a rise is because of anthropogenic emissions. We aren’t tracking individual molecules.
ATTP –
In the situation I described there would still have been a net increase even without any human contribution. But are you saying that since the net increase with the human contribution equals the human contribution, therefore the entire increase is attributable to the human contribution?
ATTP –
In my example there would have been an increase even if there had been no human contribution. If we add a human contribution, a percentage of which is removed naturally, then we have a bigger increase. But what I am understanding people to say is that if the human contribution equals the final net annual increase then we attribute the entire increase to the human contribution. Is that what you are saying?
How? In your example we added 5GtC and it went up by 5GtC. I don’t see how, in your example, it would have gone up without our contribution. Of course, you could construct one where that were the case, but what would the point of that be? The atmospheric concentration is rising more slowly than our emissions.
ATTP –
My example:
Let’s say that Y is 20. This means that of the 5GT human addition, only 4GT remained at the end of the year. Yet the final net addition was 5GT. Therefore, 1GT had to come from a natural source. Or let’s look at it from the other side. Let’s start with a situation where there is a 1GT natural addition, without respect to any human contribution. Then let’s take that situation and add 5GT human addition, 1GT of which will be removed naturally. At the end of the year there is a 5GT net increase. Without the human contribution there would have been a 1GT net increase. Therefore, 4GT of the increase is attributable to the human contribution. Correct?
No, I don’t think so. If you have a situation where you have a net natural addition of 1 GT, then your initial flux calculation is
in – out = 1
Okay?
Now we add 5Gt human. Now the flux calculation is
in – out + 5 = 1 + 5 = 6
What you’re suggesting is that it should be
in – out + 5 – 1 = 1 + 5 – 1 = 5
but why would it work that way? In a sense you’re suggesting that the system will go from one in which there is a net flux out of the natural sinks (1 Gt) to one with no net flux out of the natural sinks (in – out – 1 = 0), just because we’ve started adding our own emissions. I don’t think this makes sense. If there is a net flux out of the natural sinks, then anything we add should simply add to this net flux and the concentration should increase faster than our emissions. It might not be quite 1 + 5 since some of our emissions will go into the natural sinks, but I think it has to be > 5.
The 30 is the observed increase in the other lake Bart made up a new lake where adding 5 million gallons per month does not lead to a 30 million gallon increase by the end of the year.What is the point of Don’s example? That if there is an increase of 30 and we added 60 that we know that the 30 is entirely accounted for by the 60?
ATTP –
No. In the entirely natural case the ‘out’ is not a static and constant figure independent of the amount ‘in’. The amount removed naturally is a percentage of the amount that exists in the atmosphere. You have assumed that if we add 5 more none of it will be naturally removed. But the assumption is that 20% is removed, so the flux calculation is
in – out + 5 = 1 + 5 – (5 * .2) = 5
If 20% is removed naturally, then why would not 20% of the 5 be removed as well?
Okay, I haven’t finished my first coffee, so this may not be right, but I think you need to consider what happens if you continue the process. What you’re suggesting is something like this. Without our emissions, we have
in – 0.2Ntot = 1, where Ntot is the total amount in the atmosphere.
Now we add our 5Gt, to get
in – 0.2Ntot + 5 – 0.2(5) = 1 + 4 = 5
Okay?
Now do the next year
in – 0.2(Ntot + 5) + 5 – 0.2(5) = in – 0.2Ntot – 1 + 5 – 1 = 4
So, the above assumes that “in” doesn’t change, and it might. However, I think if you were to continue, you would find that you’d end up in a state where the rise is slower than our emissions and the natural sinks are taking in more than they’re giving out.
ATTP –
‘in’ is included in Ntot. For greater clarity let’s use Otot as the original amount in the atmosphere, at the beginning of year 1, before ‘in’
Otot + in – 0.2(Otot + in) = Otot + 1
Otot + in – 0.2(Otot + in) + 5 – 0.2(5) = Otot + 1 + 4 = Otot + 5
At the beginning of year 2 we add the 5 from the previous year to Otot:
Otot + 5 + in – 0.2(Otot + 5 + in) = Otot + 5 + 1 = Otot + 6 (let’s say it’s again a net 1 increase over the previous year without any human addition). Then add in the human part:
Otot + 5 + in – 0.2(Otot + 5 + in) + 5 – 0.2(5) = Otot + 6 + 4 = Otot + 10
In any event, even if there is a human addition of 5 and a net increase of 5 some of the net increase could be attributable to natural sources, correct?
swood1000,
I think your calculation is wrong.
First step and second step are fine. Consider the third step (from the beginning of year two).
Otot + 5 + in – 0.2(Otot + 5 + in) = Otot + in – 0.2(Otot + in) + 5 – 1 = Oto + 1 + 4 = Otot + 5.
In other words, the addition of 5 by humans has pushed the system to a point where by year 2 is in now in balance without human additions (i.e., it was Otot + 5 and is still Otot + 5). Therefore, from year two onwards any human additions will be the sole contributor to the rise. If you want to argue that in year 1, one-fifth was natural and four-fifths were human, fine, but the point is that by adding extra we go from a system that could have a natural contribution to one that is solely human.
ATTP –
Except that I don’t think that is the standard alarmist position. See Ferdinand Englebeen’s post where he said:
Do you disagree with this?
As for year two, yes if everything remained exactly the same as year one there would be no natural addition. But things are always changing. My only point was to disagree with the idea expressed above by Ferdinand Englebeen (and seemingly held by many).
Yes, I do agree with this. Consider even your example. The only year in which you can argue that some was a natural was year 1, in which the human addition was 5 and the increase was 5 (i.e., the increase was the same as – not smaller than – the human addition). In all subsequent years, if humans keep adding 5, the increase is less than 5 and it is all humans. That’s the point. If the increase is smaller than our addition then we are essentially responsible for it all.
ATTP –
Well, suppose that in year 1 of my example the net natural addition was .9 instead of 1. If human emissions are 5 their net contribution to the final result would be 5 – 0.2(5) = 4. The final net increase would be 4.9, which is above zero and smaller than the human emissions of 5. So humans are responsible for the entire 4.9 in that year?
Okay, you seem to have constructed an example where the rise is smaller in year 1 and yet the human contribution does not account for all of it. So you seem to have constructed a very specific example where what Ferdinand said is wrong for a single year of emissions. However, if humans kept emitting, in the very next year, they would be the cause of all the rise. That is what is relevant. Do you not see this? And seriously, this is rather tedious. This really isn’t an “expception proves the rule” type of situation.
We know the varmint’s guilty: string him up!
Anybody got any string?
ATTP –
Except that Ferdinand does not agree that I found an example where he is wrong. See his comment here.
No, what I am trying to understand is the logic that Ferdinand and others are using. Back to my original post on this topic:
This does appear to be what is asserted: if the human emissions for a year were X then the first X of any net increase for the year is entirely attributable to humans, as if none of the CO2 attributable to humans was naturally absorbed during the year, and even if there would have been a net increase without the human emissions. It almost looks like they are using an accounting method which they assert is valid even though it is at odds with reality. But you apparently do not buy into that accounting method, correct?
No, it’s not about single years. We all acknowledge that the variability about the long-term trend is natural. All that is being claimed is that the long-term trend is entirely anthropogenic. We’re not claiming that the variability in individual years is all anthropogenic. That is natural. To repeat. Over the last about 150 years we have emitted 550GtC. The amount in the atmosphere has increased – on average – by about 250GtC. That increase over what it was before the industrial revolution is us. There will be individual years when it might be slightly higher and others when it is slightly lower. That’s natural variability. The long-term rise, however, is us.
ATTP –
The long-term trend is nothing but a collection of single years. There is nothing we could say about the long-term trend that is not a collection of the things we say about individual years. But if you look at what Ferdinand wrote, he rejects my assertion even with respect to a single year. Do you reject the following assertion as he appears to do?
This is a valid way of determining the anthropogenic contribution: (a) determine what the total would have been without any anthropogenic contribution, (b) determine what the total is with the anthropogenic contribution, (c) the difference is the anthropogenic contribution.
Sorry, but this is all getting a little circular. WADR, I’d rather not spend my evening going in circles.
You got a lake with a billion gallons of water. You start adding 5 million gallons a month and you check it at the end of the year. It’s up by 30 million gallons.
Well, a lot of things went on in that year. Rain, evaporation, streams flowing out and in, ducks and frogs drinking the water etc. How you gonna know what caused the rise of 30 million gallons? You know you put in 60 million gallons. That covers it.
“You got a lake with a billion gallons of water. You start adding 5 million gallons a month and you check it at the end of the year. It’s up by 30 million gallons. Are you going to say you don’t know that adding 60 million gallons accounts for the increase?”
The outflow of the lake is dependent on the level in the lake. Let’s assume the lake is maintained by an inflow of 0.9 billion gallons per month. We have a set of equations
L(k+1) = L(k) + inflow – a*L(k)
The steady state level is 1 billion, so we must have a = 0.9.
Now, we start adding 5 million gallons a month.
L(k+1) = L(k) + 900 – 0.9*L(k) + 5
For each month of the year, we have
L(1) = 1005
L(2) = 1005.5
L(3) = 1005.55
L(4) = 1005.555
L(5) = 1005.5555
L(6) = 1005.55555
L(7) = 1005.555555
L(8) = 1005.5555555
L(9) = 1005.55555555
L(10) = 1005.555555555
L(11) = 1005.5555555555
L(12) = 1005.55555555555
So, at the end of the year, we should have added 5.55555555555 million gallons. Since the observed rise is 30 million gallons, we conclude that the rise came from some other source.
Math… Don’t leave home without it.
WD,
This is a flawed analogy, if you haven’t noticed. If you can’t determine the amount of rain, evaporation, streams, ducks and frogs the way you do your 60 million gallons, then your analogy doesn’t solve anything.
Andrew
> Since the observed rise is 30 million gallons, we conclude that the rise came from some other source. Math… Don’t leave home without it.
Since the conclusion referred to by “we conclude” lies outside maths, math alone won’t help much, wherever that is, at home or not. This kind of argument is tough to articulate without a hint of logic or epistemology. Even ontology helps here.
Don,
See my comment below. The CO2 problem is more like my trying to estimate how much water is leaking out of the lake (hopefully a small amount) while adding and subtracting large inputs and withdrawals that are imprecisely measured.
You made up your own lake, bartie. And you made up math to suit your purposes. We are not really surprised at your result. You fail to understand mass balance. Just admit it. And you better get professional help to handle your finances.
Bart,
Jeepers, this is silly. Don’s lake was a lake in which you add 5 million gallons per month and at the end of a year there is an increase of 30 million gallons. Yours is a lake in which you add 5 million gallons per month and at the end of a year there is an increase of 5.555555 million gallons. THEY ARE DIFFERENT LAKES!
Don Monfort | May 11, 2015 at 2:19 pm |
This is how the real world works. Don. I’m sorry that your educational experiences did not include a study of dynamic systems. Mine did. Rather extensively.
Bartemis,
If the defining factor in this is who had studied dynamic systems more, do you think that’s you, or the scientific community actually researching the matter?
Your attempt to appeal to authority given you’re a lone voice against every expert is unwise.
Your actual argument is utterly implausible.
Above all though, Prof Curry’s apparent support for you shows her in a very poor light.
baddie, baddie
“This is a flawed analogy, if you haven’t noticed. If you can’t determine the amount of rain, evaporation, streams, ducks and frogs the way you do your 60 million gallons, then your analogy doesn’t solve anything.”
We know how much water we started with, we know how much water we added, we know how much water we had at the end of the year. Focus on what we know, baddie. Think hard about that mass balance thing. But don’t hurt yourself.
ATTP –
I don’t think he’s saying that. The 5.555555 is the calculated increase. The 30 is the observed increase. Therefore he is saying that the remainder of the rise came from some other source.
The 30 is the observed increase in the other lake. Bart made up a new lake where adding 5 million gallons per month does not lead to a 30 million gallon increase by the end of the year.
> Bart made up a new lake where adding 5 million gallons per month does not lead to a 30 million gallon increase by the end of the year.
Alternatively, Bartemis’ internal view of the lake allows him to let you see the real dynamics of the lake. From an external point of view, you might see a 30 million increase, but that’s because you don’t know math.
Speaking of whom:
https://youtu.be/yoxHGxQw9ws
My thanks to Judith and Fred Haynie for this post.
Lots of good comments and dialog for the most part.
As to how much of the net CO2 increase is due to us vs. “natural” effects it seems to me that no matter how you slice it and dice it the result is a small difference between large numbers. In the best controlled situation the result is difficult to ascertain with any certainty. Don Montfort’s analogy to a bank ledger is overly simplistic since hopefully a bank’s ledger is precise whereas estimating the magnitude of numerous CO2 sources and sinks is far from precise.
Don, your lake analogy is also flawed. I have actually been tracking the water we have been putting into our irrigation lakes at my club golf courses with the intention of trying to figure out how much water we have been losing due to leakage. A classic small difference in large numbers problem. Difficult to come up with reliable numbers.
A 40% increase in atmospheric CO2 is not a small number!
I should have added this above, but if the amount of water in your lake increased by 40%, I’m pretty sure you’d be able to work out where it came from.
ATTP,
You missed my point. Both examples are of trying to estimate a quantity that is a relatively small difference between many very large numbers that are at best imprecisely known..
Mark,
Human emissions are large compared to total atmospheric concentration, and well quantified.
Natural sinks and sources were in balance for thousands of years prior to the current excursion.
To postulate a natural cause, a fantasy of a source rising lockstep with human emissions needs to be dreamed up. This source needs to be greater than that of human emissions. It needs to have miraculously happened at the exact time human emissions arose, though we know no equivalent event happened in the last million years.
Such a fantasy, as summoned by Bartemis, is utterly incredible. You appear ridiculous by attempting to justify it.
No, I understand your point. I think you’re wrong. If we have a single reservoir and can measure the amount of some substance in that reservoir, then we can determine if the amount is increasing, decreasing, or staying the same. We are clearly capable of measure the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere; it is increasing. We can also estimate how much CO2 we’re emitting. Since at least 1950, the atmospheric CO2 has been increasing at a rate that is slower that the rate at which we are emitting it. Since CO2 can’t simply disappear, some of what we emit must go somewhere other than the atmosphere. All that’s left is nature. Nature is therefore a sink; we’re the source.
Nature is therefore a sink; we’re the source.
Yes, but that doesn’t mean that we’re the cause of all of the change in atmospheric CO2. You agreed that some of the change is caused by the warming. So nature CAN be a net sink and still cause some of the change. It can cause most of the change and still remain a net sink.
Edim,
no really, it can’t. Not when ACO2 is double the necessary rise. Not when atmospheric concentrations have risen lockstep with ACO2 emissions. Not when the rise is unprecedented in a million years but timed exactly with our emissions. Not when O2 concentrations drop as expected for combustion.
Not unless, in other words, you are really, really determined to ignore the facts.
Do you know what a net sink means?
VTG, it clearly can. I think all agree that at least some (even if it’s only 5 ppm) of the rise is caused by nature (warming).
Edim,
Yes, there are details at the edges. If you want to argue over 5% I’m not your man, that’s really semantics
(eg as we have emitted 200% of the necessary co2, does that mean we are 200% responsible? If 5% of the Co2 would be expected from the temperature rise attributed to that co2, is that natural or not? Etc.)
I only commented here because prof curry supported the absurd notion that up to 50% of the rise might be natural.
So I think we might be in agreement.
Then you have to agree that nature can be a net sink and a part of the rise can still be natural. The mass balance argument doesn’t make sense. It doesn’t address causality at all.
You could also argue that all or some of the warming was caused by ACO2, so the CO2 release caused by the warming is a positive feedback. But why bother? This thread is silly enough already. I think the warmists are going to stay around as long this thing keeps rolling. They are shooting fish in a barrel. Like the German U-boat skippers during the Happy Time.
Yes it does. The mass balance argument tells us that nature is a net sink. You are correct that there is a temperature dependence. We’ve emitted about 550GtC. If temperatures had not risen, the atmospheric concentration would be different to what they are now, given that it has risen. However, the effect (as VTG and Ferdinand have pointed out) is small – maybe 10ppm. However, that doesn’t change that nature is still a net sink and that the reason that there has been a 40% rise in atmospheric CO2 is because of our emissions.
Don, warmists are the fish in a barrel. They use the mass balance argument to claim that nature cannot be the cause of any rise in CO2 (being a net sink), but at the same time accept that some of the rise is natural (warming).
verytallguy | May 11, 2015 at 3:50 pm |
“no really, it can’t.
No really, it can. I gave you a specific mathematical example above.
Don’t be so stubborn and stupid – it’s a bad combination.
ATTP, so you also agree that nature caused some of the rise (maybe 10 ppm) while being a net sink. Getting closer?
Not quite. There is indeed a weak temperature dependence. That’s not, however, the same as nature causing some of the rise.
Edim, you don’t understand their argument. If you think that they are off by a few %, that doesn’t put them in the barrel. If you kinda are going with bartie, freddie et al., you are in the barrel. Sorry. I can’t go along with foolishness.
ATTP, how it is not the same? Even if it’s only 1 ppm caused by the (natural) warming, it still shows that nature can be a net sink and still cause some of the rise in atmospheric CO2. This should be obvious in the first place, the mass balance doesn’t address causality at all.
ATTP, “However, the effect (as VTG and Ferdinand have pointed out) is small – maybe 10ppm. However, that doesn’t change that nature is still a net sink and that the reason that there has been a 40% rise in atmospheric CO2 is because of our emissions.”
That depends on how you define “nature”. Per the EPA’s version of the story, Forestry and land use produce about 17% of emissions and that does not include the reduction in the sink efficiency which may or may not be restored. The EPA uses the term “large uncertainty” So there is anthro impact on the natural sink.
According to the Law Dome reconstruction, there was pre-1750 variability in the CO2 record of about 12 ppmv and Antarctic cores would tend to smooth over long time scales. 30 ppmv could be a better guess for purely “natural”.
Firstly, we don’t know that the warming is natural. Secondly, if we’d emitted 550GtC and temperatures had not risen, the atmospheric concentration today would probably be around 390ppm. Instead, we’ve emitted 550GtC and temperatures have risen (about 0.9 degrees C) and the concentration is 400ppm. If you really want to argue about whether or not 10ppm or so is natural, go ahead, but as VTG says, that’s all a bit pedantic.
ATTP, it’s not pedantic at all. I point out that you accept that at least some of the rise in atmospheric CO2 is caused by the warming which can be partly natural. So nature can be a net sink and still cause a part of the rise. Using the mass balance argument to claim that nature cannot be a net sink and cause some of the rise is just wrong.
verytallguy,
“Natural sinks and sources were in balance for thousands of years prior to the current excursion.”
I can understand that if you are convinced that the multitude of natural CO2 sources and sinks were in balance before we started burning fossil fuels, and that this phenomenon would have persisted if we remained in caves, that you would reach the trivial conclusion you have reached based on mass balance. I guess I just haven’t seen anything that convinces me of your argument.
Since I am not expert in the field, and only have a few old science degrees, my ability to fully comprehend something this complicated and esoteric is somewhat limited. Hence I give more than a little credence to Judith Curry’s views here, as well as those of several other denizens. You, not so much!
Mark,
I’m not asking you to believe me on this. Just look at the graph here
http://judithcurry.com/2015/05/06/quantifying-the-anthropogenic-contribution-to-atmospheric-co2/#comment-702049
It’s from wiki.
Don’t like wiki? Read AR5.
Don’t like AR5? Google “law dome”, read the papers.
CO2 was pretty much rock steady for a millenium before we came along. Before that, the current excursion is entirely unprecedented for as far back as we can measure directly, nearlya millionyears. Google “Dome C”
Anyone who tries to convince you co2 rise isn’t anthropogenic is either deluding themselves or taking you for a fool.
I’ve no idea which Judith is.
Mark, I will help you. If you could measure the amount of water in your irrigation lakes and then take subsequent measurements at appropriate intervals, you could determine how much water you are losing.
You probably didn’t notice that in my analogy I get to stipulate that I know the water content of the lake, before and after adding my 60 million gallons. Which is analogous to the total CO2 in the atmosphere and the amount of ACO2 that we have added. We know those numbers. Anybody telling you it’s natural CO2 what done it needs to come up with some numbers that explain how we got from 280 to 400ppm with natural CO2, period.
“Don Montfort’s analogy to a bank ledger is overly simplistic since hopefully a bank’s ledger is precise whereas estimating the magnitude of numerous CO2 sources and sinks is far from precise.”
That shows that you don’t understand the mass balance argument. I don’t think I can help you with that. Well, I will try. If you know the beginning and ending balance of the banks yearly balance sheet, you don’t need to know the details of the millions of transactions that were netted out. Watch this:
I know what effect I had on the balance sheet, because I know the beginning and ending balances and I know how much I deposited. Period.
We know how much CO2 was in the atmosphere 50 years ago and we know how much there is now. There has been an increase. We put twice as much ACO2 in there as is needed to account for the increase. We are responsible for the increase.
One more point with the lake analogy. You do the same thing for 50 freaking years and you get the same result, you should start to understand that you are responsible for the lake getting bigger.
“That shows that you don’t understand the mass balance argument. I don’t think I can help you with that. Well, I will try. If you know the beginning and ending balance of the banks yearly balance sheet, you don’t need to know the details of the millions of transactions that were netted out. Watch this:
I know what effect I had on the balance sheet, because I know the beginning and ending balances and I know how much I deposited. Period.”
If you are trying to determine what happened to specific money you deposited, you would have to keep track of serial #’s. Like an inventory. If your method of accounting is sufficiently ambiguous, you could decide any withdrawal(s) adding up to the same amount offsets your deposit, if that’s how you choose to account for it. Its an accounting issue.
You would have to know more than just beginning balance, ending balance and amount deposited, if you really wanted to know what happened to THAT money.
Andrew
Sure, but when it comes to CO2 we aren’t interested in tracking individual molecules. Noone is claiming that the 40% increase in atmospheric CO2 is composed exactly of molecules that were once in fossil fuels that we burned. The claim is that the reason there has been a 40% increase in atmospheric CO2 is because of our burning of fossil fuels which has released almost twice as much CO2 as that associated with the increase in atmospheric CO2.
Don,
I understand mass balance! The only thing that can be reliably measured in the CO2 balance is recent atmospheric concentration at select locations. The rest is pretty much guesstimates. My gut feel is that their is an anthropogenic component to the measured increase in CO2. Probably doesn’t matter if it’s all or part unless one wants to brow beat the world into stopping the use of fossil fuels, which is exactly what the UNFCC/IPCC wants to do.
In my lake I put in 100 million gallons of water (+/-10%) and take out 110 million (+/- 15%), the level of the lake goes down 1 foot (+/-25%) and I know the surface geometry of the lake within +/- 10%). I have to estimate evaporation based on air temperature, wind speed, relative humidity. I can always calculate a number for leakage, but it ain’t very useful unless the sucker is leaking like a sieve.
“Noone is claiming that the 40% increase in atmospheric CO2 is composed exactly of molecules that were once in fossil fuels that we burned.”
If you really wanted to determine the amount of AC02 that is in the atmosphere, you would have to keep what amounts to a running inventory.
Andrew
I think I am going over to the warmist side. It’s much easier arguing against willfully ignorant deniers.
Okay, I’ll try and explain it again. We aren’t trying to claim that 40% of the CO2 in the atmosphere is ACO2. The claim is that the reason there has been a 40% increase in atmospheric CO2 is due to our burning fossil fuels and releasing CO2. If the amount of money in your bank account is increasing, it’s because you’re earning more money than you’re spending. You don’t actually care where a specific 5 pound note came from, though.
OMG! Our baddie doesn’t know that money is fungible. Google it, baddie. These people are killing me.
“You don’t actually care where a specific 5 pound note came from, though.”
Maybe not. But you should keep an inventory if you want to keep track of specific units or groups. Which I believe is closer to the case here, since you are trying to identify what C02 gets an ‘A’ tacked on it.
Andrew
No that is not the case. Try reading harder. The reason that the atmospheric CO2 has increased by 40% since the industrial revolution, is because we been releasing CO2 through burning fossil fuels. The rise is a consequence of anthropogenic emissions. That is not claiming that every single one of the extra CO2 molecules in the atmosphere today has an anthropogenic origin, simply that the reason there has been a rise is due to anthropogenic emissions.
> If the amount of money in your bank account is increasing, it’s because you’re earning more money than you’re spending.
Balderdash. If there’s more money in your bank account, it’s because the more of money you have, the more it becomes your main source of money. Money’s a human construct that grows naturally after a while, after which it regulate itselfs.
As above, so below. Capital’s hermetic.
“That is not claiming that every single one of the extra CO2 molecules in the atmosphere today has an anthropogenic origin.”
But don’t you think it matters how many of them are?
If you do, then you need an inventory.
Andrew
We know – or can estimate – how much we’ve emitted. That’s one side of the mass balance equation. We know how much atmospheric CO2 has risen. That’s another. The difference tells us that some of our emissions have gone into the natural sinks. We don’t, however, need to track individual CO2 molecules once they’ve been emitted.
“We don’t, however, need to track individual CO2 molecules once they’ve been emitted.”
You do if you want to know if the emitted AC02 is still there.
Andrew
According to bartie, the sinks eat up the ACO2 first. So he must have some way of tracking them. You should ask him, baddie. If he ever comes back.
Still where? It’s certainly almost all still in either the atmosphere, ocean, or biosphere. It can’t really be anywhere else (well, we lose about 0.1GtC/yr into the slow sinks, but that’s not very much). However, the claim is not that all of the increased CO2 in the atmosphere is A. The claim is that the reason there has been an increase is because of A. These are not the same things.
Stop it, baddie. Kenny is just having fun with you now. You are too easy.
BA,
The residual amount of our emissions can be calculated and measured (by the 13C/12C decline). While humans are responsible for almost all the 30+% increase in the atmosphere, the residual anthro CO2 is around 9%, the rest is exchanged with CO2 from other reservoirs and now is measurable in vegetation and ocean surface too. More difficult in the deep oceans, as the mass of CO2 derivatives there is way larger to detect the small human input. Here the graph since 1850:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/fract_level_emiss.jpg
where FA is the remaining fraction of aCO2 in the atmosphere and FL the fraction in the ocean surface layer and tCA and tCAobs the calculated increase in the atmosphere and the observed CO2 increase.
But the residual amount of human input is mainly of academic interest: it shows how fast human CO2 is exchanged with CO2 from other reservoirs, which mainly depends of the residence time and in this case mainly from the very long exchange times with the deep oceans.
Don Monfort | May 11, 2015 at 3:27 pm |
I think I am going over to the warmist side. It’s much easier arguing against willfully ignorant deniers.
========================================
Thank you!
That would be like Kim Jong-un joining the Hillary 2016 campaign.
Don Monfort | May 11, 2015 at 4:19 pm |
According to bartie, the sinks eat up the ACO2 first. So he must have some way of tracking them. You should ask him, baddie. If he ever comes back.
===========================================
Like duh. aCO2 is released over land where green plants can gobble it up.
Less blurting and more thinking might help you avoid so many own goals like that.
David,
Most human CO2 is entering the atmosphere with enough turbulence to mix it rapidly with the rest of the atmosphere. But even so, plants have a limited uptake, which is defined by sunlight and other necessities, extra CO2 uptake lately is only ~1 GtC/year of the ~60 GtC going in and out vegetation over the seasons, which may be a result of local and global (+30%) extra CO2 levels and/or temperature.
Thus what happens is that the bulk of the emissions, especially industrial and power plants (high chimneys), towns with relative less vegetation and at night simply gets into the bulk of the atmosphere.
That only 1/3rd of the emissions show up in the atmosphere (as 13C/12C ratio change) is mainly a matter of deep ocean – atmosphere exchanges: what goes into the oceans is the isotopic composition of today, what comes out of the deep is the isotopic composition of ~1000 years ago…
BS. CO2 is heavier than air.
http://www.plantphysiol.org/content/29/6/500.full.pdf+html
CO2 at ground level reduced by 50% at 2pm on a day with calm winds.
It’s Donnie’s straw man. I never suggested any asymmetry in sink response.
Which is not to say that there might not be some, based the location of different sources relative to sinks.
“Still where?”
In the atmosphere. Now you are just playing dumb.
“However, the claim is not that all of the increased CO2 in the atmosphere is A.”
You’ve yet to produce a valid method of determining how much there is, if you don’t keep track of it. Which you admittedly state that such tracking is not happening.
Andrew
Are you really struggling this hard to understand this. I’ll try one more time. The suggestion is not that all of the extra CO2 molecules in the atmosphere today (i.e., 120ppm of the 400ppm) have an anthropogenic origin. The suggesion is that the reason that it has risen by 120 ppm is because of anthropogenic emissions. We don’t need to keep track of the individual molecules to know how much we’ve emitted and to know how much the atmospheric concentration has increased.
If you really think that people are suggesting that all of the increase is composed of molecules with a specific anthropogenic origin, then you don’t understand what is being said. If you’re going to argue against something, it would be best if you tried – first – to understand what it is you’re arguing against. The alternative is to simply fight your own strawmen.
“The suggestion is not that all of the extra CO2 molecules in the atmosphere today (i.e., 120ppm of the 400ppm) have an anthropogenic origin.”
I’m not interested in suggestions. I’m interested in how much AC02 is in the atmosphere. Let me know when climate science is able to determine that.
Andrew
If you mean specific ACO2 molecules, why would you want to know that? It might be interesting, but I doubt anyone’s going to ever bother working it out. It’s really rather irrelevant. ACO2 molecules don’t have different properties to non-ACO2 molecules.
“It’s really rather irrelevant. ACO2 molecules don’t have different properties to non-ACO2 molecules.”
That’s nice, but I thought we were interested in the effect of the ‘A’. You don’t care now how much of it there is?
Andrew
No, that isn’t what is of interest. What’s of interest is the consequence of increasing atmospheric CO2 concentrations. That is due to our emissions, but does not mean that all of the increase is A molecules or that only A molecules are relevant.
“That is due to our emissions”
Except for that you still haven’t provided a way of determining how much is due to “our” emissions because you don’t know what C02 is “ours”.
Andrew
We don’t need to, but I’ve probably wasted enough of my time explaining this.
BA,
See here, ATTP is right here: while humans are responsible for the full rise in CO2, not all CO2 from human origin remains in the atmosphere: it is distributed over the oceans and vegetation.
It is like bringing $ 100 money to the bank in marked $ 10 dollar notes: the marked notes disappear in the mass of exchanges and you probably will never seen then back, while they are still responsible for the increase on your bank account…
I tried that. He doesn’t get that money is fungible. He refuses to look up the word. This thread is the worst I have seen. I might be driven over to kenny’s blog. I’ll have to use another name. He banned me.
Ferdinand,
I already dismantled the bank analogy. It’s flawed. Come up with a better one. I’m sure it can be done.
Andrew
Words, words, words, I’m so sick of words. Is that all you blighters can do?
Gentlepersons, the language of science is mathematics. Herewith, I issue the following mathematical challenge. Please frame any responses in equation form. If you can’t say it in math, I don’t want to hear it.
Suppose CO2 dynamics evolve according to
CO2(k+1) = C02(k) + N(k) + H(k) – S(k)
where CO2(k) is the perturbation of the CO2 state at step k from step k = 0.
N(k) is natural inputs
H(k) is human inputs
S(k) is sink output
The sink output depends on the current atmospheric concentration. If the CO2 level goes up, then the sink activity increases. If it goes down, the sink activity decreases. It is not static.
We can model such a dynamic via a proportionality factor f such that
S(k) = f*CO2(k)
We start with zero perturbation to the equilibrium, CO2(0) = 0. At step zero, we input step inputs for N(k) and H(k) with
N(k) = 98 for all k g.t. 0
H(k) = 2 for all k g.t. 0
We assume the sinks are active, so we set f = 0.99. The perturbative CO2 state then evolves as
CO2(k+1) = 0.01*CO2(k) + 100
This gives us the following progression
CO2(1) = 100
CO2(2) = 101
CO2(3) = 101.01
CO2(4) = 101.0101
…
CO2(100) = 101.01010101…..
At each step, nature is a “net sink”
N(1) – S(1) = -1
N(2) – S(2) = -1.99
N(3) – S(3) = -1.9999
N(4) – S(4) = -2.0000
…
N(100) – S(100) = -2.00000000…
The sum total of H is
H(1) = 2
H(1) + H(2) = 4
H(1) + H(2) + H(3) = 6
…
H(1) + H(2) + … + H(100) = 200
The rise was 101.01…, about half of the sum total of H input. Nature is a “net sink” at every step of the process. Yet, 98% of the rise is due to N, and only 2% due to H.
You guys say this is impossible. The sum total of H is twice the rise, yet the rise only depends 2% on H. How can this be?
It can be because this is a dynamic feedback system.
The “mass balance” argument is essentially useless for determining attribution. You’ve got to know the sink activity. You’ve got to know how fast things are being taken out, as well as how fast they are being put in.
This is really an elementary result. Now, stop embarrassing yourselves, and start looking at the actual, serious evidence for determining attribution.
Why don’t you do a guest post, bartie? Judith has invited you. That thread should provide enough juicy material for the next Cook-Lewandwosky paper. There might be a book in it for that creature Oreskes. You could be famous. Well, infamous. But you would have to come up with a surname.
Throw in some non linearity, which in Nature seems to occur more often than not.
If you want an equation, the logistic equation may suffice.
The logistic equation was studied by Robert May, in relation to biological population changes. The principle may be applicable, as there seems to a plant increase associated with increased CO2, and vice versa, along with other factors.
One may find that the link between an input and output is unpredictable, in spite of often appearing correlated to a high degree, for a period.
Measuring various inputs and outputs would help, but of course is not practical at present. If chaos is present, estimates may be useless, as Lorenz found to his surprise.
This linear (or, linearized) description is sufficient to show that the “mass balance” argument is flawed, and not generally applicable to determine attribution.
Bartemis wrote “The “mass balance” argument is essentially useless for determining attribution. You’ve got to know the sink activity. You’ve got to know how fast things are being taken out, as well as how fast they are being put in.”
Yet again Bartemis shows he doesn’t understand the mass balance argument. To show that the natural environment is a net sink you don’t need to know the magnitude of the natural sources of the natural sinks, you just need to show that the natural sinks exceed the natural sources. This is not rocket science.
If I have an equation a – b = c – d and I know that a – b is negative, then I know for a fact that c – d is negative as well, even if I don’t know either of their actual values. This is just basic algebra.
The rise in atmospheric CO2 only depends on the difference between total uptake and total emissions (as Prof. Salby states – he is entirely correct on that point). It doesn’t matter if emissions are 2GtC per year and uptake 1GtC per year or if emissions are 1,000,002 GtC per year and uptake 1,000,001 GtC per year, atmospheric CO2 will rise by 1GtC either way.
> If I have an equation a – b = c – d and I know that a – b is negative, then I know for a fact that c – d is negative as well, even if I don’t know either of their actual values. This is just basic algebra.
Indeed, which means the system is commutative, associative, distributive, identity follows equivalence, with inverses, etc. That you choose a distributive system shows you’re a socialist, BTW. Commutativity hints at communism, and associativity clearly shows you’re for unions. Don’t you see how the mass balance is just a way to kill the poor?
Compare with Bartemis’ model. It’s dynamic. How can anyone be against dynamics? It’s life, it’s beauty, it’s love, it’s justice. More than that: it’s Grrrowth. Grrrowth is the only constant in the universe, and it’s a dynamic one.
Thank you.
The error in Bartemis’ analysis is easily demonstrated by taking the same math an putting it in a financial setting, where people tend to be much more shrewd in understanding stocks and flows:
Say I were to offer Bartemis the following deal: We open up bank account (no interest, no bank charges). Bartemis will put in $2 a month, and I will put in $98 a month, and I will take out an amount proportional to the current balance. At the end, Bartemis gets to keep 50% of the closing balance.
According to Bartemis’ logic this ought to be a good deal as I contributed 98% of the increase and he contributed only 2%. However, he would be a fool to accept the offer (as we shall see)!
Right, translating Bartemis’ maths to the new setting:
Suppose account dynamics evolve according to
B(k+1) = B(k) + N(k) + H(k) – S(k)
where B(k) is the perturbation of the balance at step k from step k = 0 (if we make B(0), then B(k) is simply the balance at step k).
N(k) is my deposits
H(k) is Bartemis’ deposits
S(k) is my withdrawals
My withdrawals depends on the current balance. If the balance goes up, then my withdrawals increases. If it goes down, my widthsrawals decreases. It is not static.
We can model such a dynamic via a proportionality factor f such that
S(k) = f*B(k)
We start with zero perturbation to the equilibrium, B(0) = 0. At step zero, we input step inputs for N(k) and H(k) with
N(k) = 98 for all k g.t. 0
H(k) = 2 for all k g.t. 0
We assume my withdrawals are active, so we set f = 0.99. The perturbative balance state then evolves as
B(k+1) = 0.01*B(k) + 100
This gives us the following progression
B(1) = 100
B(2) = 101
B(3) = 101.01
B(4) = 101.0101
…
B(100) = 101.01010101…..
At each step, nature is a “net sink”
N(1) – S(1) = -1
N(2) – S(2) = -1.99
N(3) – S(3) = -1.9999
N(4) – S(4) = -2.0000
…
N(100) – S(100) = -2.00000000…
The sum total of H is
H(1) = 2
H(1) + H(2) = 4
H(1) + H(2) + H(3) = 6
…
H(1) + H(2) + … + H(100) = 200
The rise was 101.01…, about half of the sum total of H input. I am a “net withdrawer” at every step of the process. Yet, 98% of the rise is due to N, and only 2% due to H.
In this example, Bartemis has put $200 into the account and gets to keep half of the $101.01 (rounding to the nearest penny) in the account at the end. I on the other hand get half of the $101.01$ final balance, but I also get to keep the other $150 that I took out during each step.
Now you would have to be crazy to think that I contributed to the rise in the bank balance here, as I was taking money out at every step, rather than putting it in!
This makes Bartemis’ error very clear, he is just not considering natural uptake in determining the cause of the rise, just the emissions, but the natural environment consists of both the sources and the sinks, and both determine the natural contribution to the rise.
“You guys say this is impossible. The sum total of H is twice the rise, yet the rise only depends 2% on H. How can this be?”
Because you are using faulty reasoning by ignoring the natural sinks in the attribution!
So Bartemis, the question is, “if this offer were genuine, would you take it?” ;o)
he,he,he
Better check with a professional financial adviser, bartie. The pouched purveyor of shady investment schemes might be tricking you. Taking advantage of your bad skills in the logic game. You have been forewarned.
Wow. That is just unfathomably stupid.
Had you put nothing in, the equation would have been
B(k+1) = B(k) + H(k) – S(k) = 0.01*B(k) + 2
After 100 months, your balance would have been 2.0000….
Had there been no H, it would have been
B(k+1) = B(k) + N(k) – S(k) = 0.01*B(k) + 98
After 100 months, your balance would have been 98.989898…
Instead, it is 101.010101… Of that, 98% is from what you put in, and 2% from what I put in.
“I on the other hand get half of the $101.01$ final balance, but I also get to keep the other $150 that I took out during each step.”
Yeah, dikran. You’re the sink. You took out most of what BOTH of us put in.
I’m sorry that even this simple exercise confuses you so. It seems we have a case of invincible ignorance.
I wrote “I on the other hand get half of the $101.01$ final balance, but I also get to keep the other $150 that I took out during each step.”
Bartemis wrote “Yeah, dikran. You’re the sink. You took out most of what BOTH of us put in.”
yes, super, we agree on something. But in that example would you say that I was responsible for 98% of the final balance and you were responsible for 2% of the balance? Yes or no?
If “no”, explain how this situation is different from your model of the carbon cycle, given that the maths is *identical*
If “yes”, explain why it would be a bad deal to accept 50% of the final balance even though you were responsible for only 2% of it. (if you can’t spot it as a bad deal, I’m sure everybody else can)
I note you failed to comment on the fundamental error that you made which is that your attribution scheme completely ignores natural uptake and considers only the emissions. ;o)
Good grief, you really should stop claiming to be an expert at this. In Dikran’s example he puts in $98 per month, but removes 0.99 of what is in the account. You put in $2 per month and remove nothing (well until the end). Since the account always has more than $100 in, he always removes more every month than he desposits.
Bartemis,
When the entire scientific community disagrees with you, shooting about others’ “invincible ignorance” could seem unwise
dikranmarsupial | May 12, 2015 at 1:49 pm |
“But in that example would you say that I was responsible for 98% of the final balance and you were responsible for 2% of the balance?”
Of course you are. You make the balance go up faster than it would have if you had just taken out 99% at each step, rather than also adding in 98 at each step.
It is very simple, Dikran: No N(k) = 98, no B(100) = 101.0101… It never gets higher than 2/0.99 = 2.0202…
“I note you failed to comment on the fundamental error that you made which is that your attribution scheme completely ignores natural uptake and considers only the emissions.”
There was no error. Natural uptake is represented by S(k), which is proportional to the level.
Oh this is ridiculous. So someone who ends up with more money than they started with, is somehow partly responsible for the increase in the money in the account? Can you not see how ridiculous that is? Okay, that’s a rhetorical question.
dikranmarsupial wrote
“But in that example would you say that I was responsible for 98% of the final balance and you were responsible for 2% of the balance?”
Bartemis wrote “Of course you are. You make the balance go up faster than it would have if you had just taken out 99% at each step, rather than also adding in 98 at each step.”
Right, so in that case, would you conclude that it is a good deal for you given that you get to keep 50% of the balance to which you only contributed 2% and I contributed 98%? “Yes” or “No”?
It is very simple, boys: No N(k) = 98, no B(100) = 101.0101… It never gets higher than 2/0.99 = 2.0202…
Bartemis wrote “It is very simple, boys: No N(k) = 98, no B(100) = 101.0101… It never gets higher than 2/0.99 = 2.0202…”
Dodging the question. Is the deal good for you or not? You get to keep 50% of the end balance to which you only contributed 2% and I contributed 98%. If your method of attribution is sensible, it ought to give an idea of whether the deal is favorable to you. So why don’t you give a direct answer to the question? ;o)
So you have no answer?
It is very simple, boys: No N(k) = 98, no B(100) = 101.0101… It never gets higher than 2/0.99 = 2.0202…
Bartemis wrote “It is very simple, boys: No N(k) = 98, no B(100) = 101.0101… It never gets higher than 2/0.99 = 2.0202…”
you might have got away with dodging the question once, but trying it twice makes it clear to everybody that you know you can’t answer the question without demonstrating that your attribution method is absurd. If you say you wouldn’t take the deal it shows that your method does not give a good impression of who actually caused the increase in the balance. If you say you would, then you would have made youself look very silly as it is obviously a terrible deal.
I don’t see the point in trying to discuss science with somebody who engages in this sort of transparent evasion. I’m sure you will have some rhetorical response to that, but I am really not interested; you have shown that you know perfectly well you are wrong, but just can’t admit it.
You are obviously trying to avoid the obvious conclusion, which is that H, on its own, cannot contribute a significant amount when the sinks are active.
Look, Dikran, there is no way around it. This is a very pat result of control theory. You are simply wrong. Your “mass balance” argument does not constrain nature to be a net sink when you remove the influence of human inputs entirely. It is a necessary condition, but not a sufficient one.
It is very obvious in this case here. No N(k) = 98, no B(100) = 101.0101… It never gets higher than 2/0.99 = 2.0202… H(k) alone cannot propel your bank balance above 2.0202…
Do the math.
> This is a very pat result of control theory.
No, Bartemis. You inject something else. Nothing in control theory compels the sinks to behave like you say they do.
This is your daemon. Tame it.
“Nothing in control theory compels the sinks to behave like you say they do.”
Actually, it does, if you want there to be a stable equilibrium. An equilibrium is the result of two opposing forces cancelling one another. A stable equilibrium is one in which they cancel, and moving away from the equilibrium tends to produce a restoring force back to the equilibrium point.
Yes, and as Ferdinand has already explained, the stable equilibrium at Holocene-like temperatures is about 280ppm. Why? Because that is the concentration at which the rate at which CO2 is sequestered in the slow sinks (rocks/deep ocean) matches the rate at which it is outgassed by volcanoes. However, this is much slower than the rate at which we’re adding CO2 via our emissions. Hence the atmospheric concentration is rising, and it is us. If we stopped emitting CO2, it would slowly return to pre-industrial levels, but this would take thousands of years. You can always play around with this carbon cycle model.
> Actually, it does, if you want there to be a stable equilibrium.
What you want ain’t in control theory, Bartemis. It is you who decides to model climate as a stabilizable system. Moreover, your argument an observability that is far from being obvious. Now, please tell Denizens how you stabilize a system you can’t control and thoroughly observe.
Also, there are many conceptions of stability. Which one do you have in mind? Perhaps we should start with a simpler question. You say:
All that is well and good, but what are the forces, how exactly do they cancel each other, and what’s the equilibrium point?
***
Enough armwaving, Bartemis, either you will turn this into the physics of the problem, or you will go away.
Sorry to make you hot under the collar, guys. That tends to happen when you realize something you’ve been championing is, in fact, a load of rubbish.
However you pose the problem, there is no getting around the fact that, if the sinks are aggressive enough, they can take out essentially all of the human input, and whatever remains must be due to the action of natural sources.
The “mass balance” argument tells us nothing about how aggressive the sinks are, and without that bit of information, you cannot conclude that the rise is from human activity.
In the example above, I put in an aggressive sink. It reduces the influence of the “human” input H(k) to a fraction of its raw accumulation, and the vast majority of the increase is from the N(k) term.
Now, you can argue about whether you believe the sinks are aggressive enough. That is a legitimate subject for inquiry. But, let’s have done with this silly “mass balance” argument once and for all. It is not legitimate. It is facile. It is jejune. It is wrong.
> However you pose the problem, there is no getting around the fact that, if the sinks are aggressive enough, they can take out essentially all of the human input, and whatever remains must be due to the action of natural sources.
That’s not a fact, Bartemis, unless you accept as facts propositions that start with ifs, like “if the sinks are aggressive enough.” We usually call these counterfactuals. Confusions about the concepts of model and explanation are more common that about the concept of fact.
Now, how does control theory defines aggressiveness? Is that a formal property? More importantly, what does warrant such aggressiveness? Assuming such aggressive sinks would look plausible to model blog comment sections, but CO2?
A Cartesian daemon looks more plausible.
***
Scientific arguments only need to be idiot proof. They don’t need to be closed under deduction, nor do they need to be daemon proof. Daemon-proof arguments are fun, but perhaps we should keep them for Gedankenexperimenten.
Not to speak for Bartemis, since I disagree with him on many points, but if I were using such loose language to represent something more formal (which I probably wouldn’t be) I’d mean something like this:
The rate at which any single sink absorbs CO2 will depend on many factors, among them the ambient pCO2. If it operates like most enzymes, which it probably does given that most extraction of CO2 from the environment is performed by enzymes, it will have a very strong reaction to small changes in part of its response curve. The “strength” of that reaction compared to the size of the small change would, then, be roughly equivalent to its “aggressiveness”.
Of course, most plants that use these enzymes, Ribulose-1,5-bisphosphate carboxylase/oxygenase (RuBisCO) in C3 plants/algae, and Phosphoenolpyruvate carboxylase (PEP carboxylase) in C4 plants/algae, use some method of secondary control to limit their activity to what the organism needs and can support.
Quite a number of factors could potentially affect how any particular plant (or algae) responds to higher ambient pCO2.
AFAIK the research into these subjects is in its infancy, and there’s no good reason to regard any simple (simplistic) model as predictive in any way.
> The rate at which any single sink absorbs CO2 will depend on many factors, among them the ambient pCO2.
That’s not control theory. Neither is it formal.
***
> there’s no good reason to regard any simple (simplistic) model as predictive in any way.
We’re talking about a descriptive one.
“We” are? I was sure I saw the word “attribution” in there somewhere.
Oh, and this:
A “descriptive” model doesn’t include “mechanisms”. Certainly doesn’t prove them.
> I was sure I saw the word “attribution” in there somewhere.
The mass balance argument provides a constraint on attribution, and does not stand on a predictive model.
***
> A “descriptive” model doesn’t include “mechanisms”
Of course it can. The concept of mechanism was related to the concept of explanation, which Bartemis confused with trendology. His trend was not a even a “model”.
Must be a paradigm thing.
Not much of a constraint. It just means that any predictive/explanatory model must produce the observed results.
“[E]xplanation” is inherently predictive. It says, for instance, that if you remove one element of the factors the “explanation” depends on, the results are potentially different. It also implies that if the same conditions are reproduced the same result will occur. That’s predictive.
> Not much of a constraint. It just means that any predictive/explanatory model must produce the observed results.
You really have no idea what you’re talking about, AK.
The mass balance argument tells us that nature’s a sink, not a source. This is a contraint:
http://judithcurry.com/2015/05/06/quantifying-the-anthropogenic-contribution-to-atmospheric-co2/#comment-702679
I’m trained to spot posturing. Please desist.
No, you don’t understand what I’m talking about. I’m talking about attribution, not whether the “natural environment [is] making a positive contribution to the rise.”
Must have trouble with mirrors then.
> No, you don’t understand what I’m talking about.
Neither are you:
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/scientific-explanation
***
> I’m talking about attribution, not whether the “natural environment [is] making a positive contribution to the rise.”
And I’m talking about the mass argument, which helps substantiate and constrain possible attribution claims.
***
Please come help AK, Don.
Willard, “The second argument [mass balance] is not merely a correlation, but a constraint that means the natural environment cannot be making a positive contribution to the rise.”
That isn’t true which is why there is such a confused debate. It is a lot like the missing dollar puzzle. The only real constraint is that fossil fuel combustion has to be making a positive contribution. As it is, “nature” is removing over half of the FF contribution, if nature removed more it would be contributing to more reduction and less if would be contributing to more increase. If you completely removed FF, “nature” could be sinking or sourcing, FF just moves the bar.
So the constraint is “as long as man burns FF .and. atmospheric CO2 increases, FF .has to be. contributing to the rise. I don’t think anyone argues with that, what they are arguing is that FF doesn’t have to be responsible for “all” the rise.
Nice to see you quoting a false premise. Let’s fix that.
“The second argument [mass balance] is not merely a correlation, but a constraint that means
the natural environment cannotman has to be making a positive contribution to the rise.”AK | May 12, 2015 at 11:02 pm |
“The rate at which any single sink absorbs CO2 will depend on many factors, among them the ambient pCO2.”
Very nicely explained.
captdallas2 0.8 +/- 0.2 | May 13, 2015 at 9:45 am |
“If you completely removed FF, “nature” could be sinking or sourcing, FF just moves the bar.”
Yes!
——-
I was trying to keep things simple, and to demonstrate an elementary concept in the example above. Now, let’s go a step farther. Here is another hypothetical system to consider. In this exercise, we learn about the effect of feedback on the polynomial degree of the output.
We start with the previous model
CO2(k+1) = C02(k) + N(k) + H(k) – S(k)
with
S(k) = f*CO2(k)
and f = 0.95 (making the sinks a little weaker, just to mix things up a little).
We set H(k) = 2 for k greater than zero.
The accumulated H(k) is
sum{H(n) | n = 1:k} = 2*k
i.e.,
H(0) = 2
H(0)+H(1) = 4
H(0)+H(1)+H(2) = 6
…
H(0)+H(1)+…+H(98) = 198
H(0)+H(1)+…+H(99) = 200
and so on
The output of the system with CO2(0) = 0 and N(k) = 0 is
CO2(1) = 2
CO2(2) = 2.1
CO2(3) = 2.105
CO2(4) = 2.1052
…
and so on. In the steady state, we converge to 2/f = 2.1053.
Obviously, we are not tracking the cumulative sum of H. In fact, we have an asymptotically full polynomial degree reduction relative to the accumulation of H.
We now set N(k) = k
The system now reads
CO2(k+1) = 0.05*CO2(k) + k + 2
This system output is
CO2(1) = 2
CO2(2) = 3.1
CO2(3) = 4.155
CO2(4) = 5.2077
…
CO2(98) = 105.2078
CO2(99) = 106.2604
So, we have CO2 tracking roughly 1/2 of the cumulative sum of H, therefore nature is a “net sink”, yet the rise is almost all from the natural input N(k). Moreover, without the N(k) steadily increasing, we don’t even get a steady rise at all.
You generally lose a polynomial degree relative to the steady accumulation with a dissipative feedback, i.e., for any f greater than zero. If f is “small” (long time constant, very non-aggressive feedback), then for a transient interval, one can approximate the straight accumulation. But, if the feedback is aggressive (f near unity), you very quickly diverge from it.
Willard said: “The mass balance argument tells us that nature’s a sink, not a source.”
I think the mass balance argument tells us that delta nature plus delta human – both together on the sink side, sum to a sink.
I think it is an error to assign all increase in sink as a natural increase.
That is why the mass balance isn’t an attribution argument – it only looks at the total change, not to what the change can be attributed.
> The only real constraint is that fossil fuel combustion has to be making a positive contribution. As it is, “nature” is removing over half of the FF contribution, if nature removed more it would be contributing to more reduction and less if would be contributing to more increase.
Why should we expect that? Imagine a less aggressive daemon than Bartemis’. Another behavior would emerge. A continuum of possible systems is a lot of systems to consider. Control theory does not tell you anything about the possible behavior. You can specify just about anything using control theory, including perpetual motion machines.
Willard, “Why should we expect that?”
Er.. because that is what the data and math indicate. Prior to man atmospheric CO2 varied, I believe that pretty much had to be “natural”. 4000 BC to 1750 AD man could have an influence, but FF impact would have been fairly small other than coal veins that have been burning for thousands of year and the occasional tar pit fire.
https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/–EoDfDfi5PQ/VVE_-gJsJWI/AAAAAAAANeg/THQY43bWoG0/w731-h521-no/law%2Bdomw%2Bpreindustrial%2Bwith%2Boppo.png
There is some evidence that tropical SST and Antarctic CO2 varied prior to “pre-industrial”.
> because that is what the data and math indicate
Math doesn’t indicate anything in the world, Cap’n. It’s just math. That’s why you got a contiunuum of Bartemisian daemons waiting to retrofit any data you throw at him.
The data part is interesting, however. Because prior to man atmospheric CO2 varied, then if nature removed more it would be contributing to more reduction and less if would be contributing to more increase?
Perhaps you also need to add control theory to get to that result. Perhaps you only need to add control theory too. That would be just great. No need for such a thing called climate science, after all.
The truth is out there. Control theory and data will get it for us.
“What’s of interest is the consequence of increasing atmospheric CO2 concentrations. That is due to our emissions”
Actually, this is the exact same argument for Global Warming in general, (just dressed up with different words) which goes something like this:
AGW, all things being equal, makes it warmer than it would have been.
in this case
AC02 emissions, all things being equal, make concentrations higher than they would have been.
ATTP or someone tell me if I’m wrong.
Andrew
E = Emissions
S = Sinks
1) Nature before Man: 10E – 9S = +1 CO2
2) Nature’s share reacting to Man: 10E – 11S = – 1 CO2
3) Man’s share: 4E – 1S = + 3 CO2
4) 2) + 3) = + 2 CO2
If Nature reacts to Man and sinks more of Man’s CO2, that’s not Natural. It would not have sunk 11S without Man but rather 9S. Call it unnatural sinking. Let’s try some cost accounting:
1) Nature before Man: 10E – 9S = +1 CO2
2) Nature’s share not reacting to Man: 10E – 9S = + 1 CO2
3) Man’s share: 4E – 3S = + 1 CO2
4) 2) + 3) = + 2 CO2
In the immediate above unnatural sinking is allocated to Man. That’s cost accounting. There are methods but absolute truths not so much. There’s judgment, traditions and different points of view.
baddie:”AC02 emissions, all things being equal, make concentrations higher than they would have been.’
You obviously don’t understand the mass balance argument. The simple elegance and clarity of the bank analogy was over your head. The lake was too deep for you. You probably can’t be helped.
“The simple elegance and clarity of the bank analogy was over your head.”
The bank analogy is flawed, as more than one commenter has pointed out.
Andrew
Well Andrew, you have made it clear that you don’t understand the mass balance thingy. So how could you possibly get the analogy to the mass balance thingy. Sorry, but I don’t have time to make up very useful and elegant analogies by the bushel, in the dim hope that you and your fellows who don’t get the bank and the lake might have an epiphany.
https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-MVSPkh6HjaY/VVEwgn3QDVI/AAAAAAAANeE/LGw0GZeQdX4/w725-h527-no/law%2Bdomw%2Bpreindustrial.png
Let’s see, Nature is always a sink-check
Since “pre-industrial”, with industrial starting with the steam engine, the 40% increase in CO2 is all anthropogenic and probably all fossil fuel generated CO2.
The “natural” sink only varies by about 10ppmv per degree of surface temperature change.
So Law dome CO2 “pre-industrial” should be a great temperature proxy.
Have I got that right?
Capt,
The Law Dome DSS ice core is a good proxy for temperature before the industrial revolution:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/law_dome_1000yr.jpg
If you look at the period around 1600, at the depth of the LIA, the drop in CO2 was about 6 ppmv or for 8 ppmv/K the drop in temperature was ~0.8 K.
That is about what the reconstructions with the largest drop in temperature (Moberg, Esper) also show.
After 1750, the CO2 increase is more and more from agriculture and industrial emissions, thus can’t be used for temperature estimates anymore.
Opposite, the temperature increase since the depth of the LIA is maximum 0.8 K, as we may assume that the MWP was at least as warm as the current period. Thus the whole warming since the LIA is responsible for maximum 6 ppmv of the 110 ppmv extra we see today…
Ferdinand
Your graphic seems to illustrate that whilst additional co2 may have been caused by man, that increase has had little to do with rising temperatures, which are no higher than during the 280ppm MWP.
The ice cores, by their nature have a very coarse resolution and miss out on the decadal and annual temperature variations we can observe elsewhere, which also fail to be picked up by other very coarse proxies such as tree rings.
Here is my temperature reconstruction of CET back to 1538 (Dutch reconstructions are somewhat similar)
https://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2013/08/clip_image0041.jpg
The temperatures are all over the place. Ice cores, like other novel proxies fail to pick up short term natural variability. Incidentally, bearing in mind that polar conditions show considerable amplitude over conditions elsewhere, and that the North and South Poles are counter cyclical, why should they be considered any sort of valid temperature proxy anyway?
As a co2 measurement they may have more merit
tonyb
Hi Tony,
The Law Dome DSS ice core spans the past 1,000 years and has a reasonable resolution for CO2: about 20 years.
It can’t be used for global temperatures, as the dD and d18O levels (even with yearly resolution) in the ice are related to the nearby Southern Ocean temperatures.
But we can use the CO2 levels to estimate the global temperature, if you allow a lag of 100-150 years for CO2 after T, there is some resemblance with the spaghetti graph for a change of ~8 ppmv/K…
Ferdinanad, “The Law Dome DSS ice core spans the past 1,000 years and has a reasonable resolution for CO2: about 20 years.
It can’t be used for global temperatures, as the dD and d18O levels (even with yearly resolution) in the ice are related to the nearby Southern Ocean temperatures.
But we can use the CO2 levels to estimate the global temperature, if you allow a lag of 100-150 years for CO2 after T, there is some resemblance with the spaghetti graph for a change of ~8 ppmv/K…”
Actually Law dome CO2 spans more than a 1000 years, that particular chart is limited to 1000 years.
https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/–EoDfDfi5PQ/VVE_-gJsJWI/AAAAAAAANeg/THQY43bWoG0/w731-h521-no/law%2Bdomw%2Bpreindustrial%2Bwith%2Boppo.png
Oppo 2009 is an indo-pacific warm pool reconstruction which has roughly 50 year resolution binned to decade data points. When you consider that “nature” has its own smoothing procedures, the correlation between the two is remarkable.
You like most, don’t consider the true uncertainty in paleo reconstructions. Law Dome CO2 for example has roughly a millennial scale smoothing which varies with fern/ice composition. When the SH has lower solar insolation, it would have more fern less ice for example. The data is imperfect but useful provide you include a reasonable uncertainty range. 12ppmv in Law dome could very easily correspond to 30 ppmv with a shorter natural averaging period.
Since there have been ice ages and glacial periods, the “natural” sink has varied between source and sink. It hasn’t varied between source and sink for the past 250 years or so, but it has varied in the past. Now we are concerned with how much the sink efficiency varies. The binary swap is meaningless rhetoric.
Btw, based on Law Dome and Oppo 2009, “natural” variability is ~+/-0.3 C or one standard deviation not the assumed +/- 0.1 C commonly assumed. 0.3 C is about 1/3 of the measured warming and the change in sink efficiency is about 1/3 of the overall emissions. Despite this blog spat, more research is being focused on the range of natural variability and sources of that variability. Time will win this debate.
and yet in the historical data co2 concentrations were much higher then they are currently. Reaching over 2000 ppm.
Are we getting anywhere in this discussion? I think everyone understands the concept of the mass balance. The issue is how/whether this relates to attribution, given that we have a dynamical system with feedbacks (including regional variations and temperature dependent feedbacks).
No. If everyone understood the concept of the mass balance they would either agree with Ferdinand, or they would be able to present a cogent argument against it. I see many people in the first category, but none in the second. Can you explain why the mass balance argument is incorrect, or correct?
nothing wrong with mass balance; in and of itself, it isn’t an attribution argument
Don, I think the limitations of the mass balance have been explained pretty well. Nature isn’t likely to be perfectly static so for attribution you need to tease out those little +/- 0.3 C and +/-12 or more ppmv changes that are “natural” variability.
https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/–EoDfDfi5PQ/VVE_-gJsJWI/AAAAAAAANeg/THQY43bWoG0/w731-h521-no/law%2Bdomw%2Bpreindustrial%2Bwith%2Boppo.png
For example pre-industrial CO2 and tropical SST seem to indicate that there was a little variability prior to steam engines. Man existed back then so it could have been due to big fire wood or big AG, but that is a pretty good temperature swing.
It is the attribution argument that works for me and a lot of other people. How far off could it be, with ACO2 being twice big enough to account for the increase for at least fifty straight years. If you got a better argument, let’s see it.
curryja:
Aye. 50% of anthopogenic emissions may be absorbed while all of natural sinks/emitters are in perfect balance, or 55% of anthropogenic emissions may be absorbed while natural sinks/emitters are not quite in balance. Both cases result in anthropogenic emissions increasing atmospheric levels. Both cases fit the mass-balance structure just as well. It’s just the nuances they disagree on.
Whether human CO2 emissions lead to an 55% or 45% increase in atmospheric CO2 levels may seem irrelevant to most people, but when looking at trillion dollar cost-benefit analyses, that sort of difference is huge.
“50% of anthropogenic emissions may be absorbed while all of natural sinks/emitters are in perfect balance, or 55% of anthropogenic emissions may be absorbed while natural sinks/emitters are not quite in balance.”
Or, 90% of anthropogenic emissions may be absorbed while natural sinks/emitters are not in balance. Or 95%. Or, even 99%. Frankly, the range of system responses which would reduce them by such amounts or more is much larger than the range that would finely balance them in the 50% neighborhood. Pace Don Monfort’s “feelings” (his view certainly is not based on mathematical rigor) the “mass balance” argument levies no constraint on the share removed.
Salby has estimated no less than 70% removed. It is likely he is being overcautious.
Bartemis:
I can’t agree “no constraint on the share [is] removed.” You may disagree, but in my view, the mass-balance argument certainly offers some manner of constraint. It’s just a largely irrelevant constraint. Values like 0 or 200% don’t mean much to the discussion since nobody believed them in the first place, but an argument can still remove them.
I have never been able to find anything resembling a clear-cut or rigourous argument for Salby’s position. I’d be happy to review what he has to say, but this issue is relatively simple. It should only take a ~5 minute lecture to explain. If he’s right, why isn’t there a clear resource which shows he is? (Or if there is one I’ve somehow overlooked, could you provide a link to it?)
I’ve actually spent a little time looking into how this issue is handled by the IPCC reports. My interpretation is the IPCC has blatantly ignored the scientific research it relies upon and has resorted to simply making things up, but nothing in this topic addresses any of that. This post seems to be a case of using a weak argument to advance what could be a relatively strong position.
> it isn’t an attribution argument
I’d like to see one, to see if a Bartemisian daemon could not beat it.
Anything with ceteris paribus clauses won’t do.
Brandon S –
“I can’t agree “no constraint on the share [is] removed.” You may disagree, but in my view, the mass-balance argument certainly offers some manner of constraint.”
It completely depends on the power of the sinks. If they are very aggressive, they can remove essentially all the human input, and whatever is left has to be from natural forcing which, being unknown, can be considered unbounded.
The “mass balance” argument only covers necessity. To attribute the rise mostly to humans, it must be less than or equal to the sum total of human inputs. However, it is not a sufficient argument. There is no backward double arrow. Having the rise less than or equal to the sum total of human inputs does not establish that the rise is mostly from human inputs.
Is barty again trying to sell the story that the natural sinks prefer to eat the ACO2, first. Don’t make me look for the quote, bartie.
OMG! This is a classic:
“If they are very aggressive, they can remove essentially all the human input, and whatever is left has to be from natural forcing which, being unknown, can be considered unbounded.”
Please beg this character to write a guest post, Judith.
Don, “It is the attribution argument that works for me and a lot of other people. How far off could it be, with ACO2 being twice big enough to account for the increase for at least fifty straight years. If you got a better argument, let’s see it.”
You just saw it. From ~1950 onward there is so much ACO2 that the mass balance indicates it is “mostly” A. Going backwards, when there is less A, the N and A get more confused. Since there is some indication that N variability is at least 12 ppmv with roughly millenial scale smoothing (that is what is suspect with Antarctic ice cores) and forestry/land use is on the order of 30 ppmv, there could be 30 to 40 ppmv due to some combination of natural sink variability and land use.
Then if you consider FF CO2 versus Land Use you can evaluate best options to reduce overall CO2, if need be.
The funny part is Ferdinand’s own calculations indicates Mann must be wrong and either there was A influence prior to 1750 or Antarctic Ice cores are seriously suspect. As Pekka used to say, “everything fits when the theory is correct”. Thar be demons in the details.
curryja wrote “nothing wrong with mass balance; in and of itself, it isn’t an attribution argument”
Mass balance shows that the natural environment is a net carbon sink and is therefore opposing the rise, not causing it. It is hard to think of a better basis for attribution than to demonstrate that the natural environment is taking more CO2 out of the atmosphere each year than it puts in!
the pouched one says:
“Mass balance shows that the natural environment is a net carbon sink…”
I wonder how many of them get that. If they get that, they should be able to get this:
“and is therefore opposing the rise, not causing it. It is hard to think of a better basis for attribution than to demonstrate that the natural environment is taking more CO2 out of the atmosphere each year than it puts in!”
Weird.
> It is hard to think of a better basis for attribution than to demonstrate that the natural environment is taking more CO2 out of the atmosphere each year than it puts in!
Perhaps we ought to think harder. It’s a basis, sure, but it’s not enough. Bartemis’ daemon shows there are still open gaps. With such gaps, why would Denizens budge and accept the best explanation?
Don’t forget: we’re on the Internet, and Mr. T knows nothing until he knows everything.
I don’t think we are. I had a busy weekend so I didn’t look at this post over the last few days, but I honestly can’t see anything I missed which was new or informative. Some people keep resorting to an overly simplistic mass-balance argument, and others keep pointing out that argument is not dispositive. That repeats, over and over, and nothing is accomplished.
That’s all I’m seeing.
Why don’t you be the one to explain what the mass balance argument is missing, Brandon? Then maybe we could make some progress.
Good summary. Thanks for the “time out”.
VTG and (I guess) Don seem to think ice core analyses nail it. Me, I dunno!
There’s a lot I dunno, but I have no problem with folks who want to test the bounds of what some think they know and ask tough questions that may lead into a rabbit hole, but so what. Maybe this is inconvenient for those who think they know everything
I tend to agree with jim2 who commented earlier to VTG:
“Again, personally, I believe a majority fraction of atmospheric CO2 is anthropocentric. But your ice core chart proves nothing.”
Frankly I don’t appreciate tactics of implying that those who see things differently must be stupid. Normally I enjoy Don, but he has kind of pissed me off here.
I don’t care about the ice core analysis, Mark. And I don’t care if I piss you off. What we know is where the level of atmospheric CO2 was fifty years ago. We know where it is now. We know that for fifty freaking straight years ACO2 has been twice big enough to account for the increase in CO2. How about net emissions of natural CO2 ? Anybody got any numbers? Consult the dreaded mass balance.
Nobody here has presented a persuasive or even cogent argument against Ferdinand’s analysis. It can be found on his web page. People should actually read it, before the spout. Unless somebody has evidence that natural sinks eat the ACO2 first, or that ACO2 tends to vent to outer space, or hide in volcanoes, or that there is a lot of natural CO2 sneaking in somewhere, ACO2 is our man.
I am not an ideologue. I am persuaded by evidence and logic. What I am seeing here from the home team is mostly dreary denial. That just gives the warmists opportunity to ridicule and marginalize skeptics, with justification. That pisses me off. Argue about things where you have a little evidence and logic on your side.
I’ve read Ferdinand’s analysis. It’s damn good. Haynie and Judith (and others) think there’s still work to be done. Why not do it? A heck of a lot better than pissing away more billions on silly models.
You’re too worried about giving the warmunists reasons to think that us deniers are dumb. Why let them set the agenda? No matter what you do or say they will still conclude that you have your head up your butt. Do you really think you can influence their Sol Alinsky driven tactics?
You may not be an ideologue, but you sure are single minded when you get fixated on your own ideas. Get off the mass balance BS. As Judith said most of us understand mass balance. For mass balance to work you gotta measure the ins and outs accurately. Impossible wrt CO2.
Again, my gut feel is that much of the increase in atmospheric CO2 is anthropogenically driven. So we are arguing about form rather than substance.
I have found there are few things that are black or white in life. You seem to think that this issue is a black or white one.
For the record, (one projects guy to another) I don’t care if you care that you piss me off.
“You’re too worried about giving the warmunists reasons to think that us deniers are dumb. Why let them set the agenda? No matter what you do or say they will still conclude that you have your head up your butt. Do you really think you can influence their Sol Alinsky driven tactics?”
Otter: I’ve got news for you, pal. They’re gonna’ nail us no matter what we do, so we might as well have a good time. Toga! Toga! Toga!
“I’ve read Ferdinand’s analysis. It’s damn good. Haynie and Judith (and others) think there’s still work to be done. Why not do it?”
yup.
This is the difference between skepticism as a POSITION and scepticism as a METHOD
Ah just what we needed. Mosher, the thermometer guru, weighing in with one of his wise assed remarks.
You don’t understand the mass balance, Mark. You don’t have to measure all the ins and out accurately. You have a beginning balance and an ending balance. You know the ACO2 contribution accurately enough. It’s not mysterious from there. It’s like the bank and the lake. ACO2 is twice the amount needed to account for the increase for at least fifty years in a row. Unless you can show that the sinks prefer ACO2 disproportionately, or that ACO2 has gone to the moon, or is hiding in a closet, or you discover a large quantity from an unknown source of natural CO2 that shows up every freaking year, ACO2 is your man.
The attribution schemes of freddie, bartie, salby et al., don’t accurately account for all the ins and outs. They don’t have a clue.
There is much more to Ferdinand’s analysis than the mass balance. Yeah, it’s basically the consensus position. They find an acorn, once in a while.
You won’t see anybody here come up with a better analysis. Nobody can accurately measure the ins and outs. That’s why the mass balance is useful.
The rest of it, looks like you think I take this crap seriously. I am here mostly for the target practice and to play my part in the human comedy. You all don’t seem to mind my rude behavior, when I am hammering warmist trolls. Are we OK now, Mark?
Mosher may have been complimenting you, Mark. Think about it. Read harder.
Why do we hang here, Steven?
“Unless you can show that the sinks prefer ACO2 disproportionately, or that ACO2 has gone to the moon, or is hiding in a closet, or you discover a large quantity from an unknown source of natural CO2 that shows up every freaking year, ACO2 is your man.”
The math proves you are wrong.
Don,
Whatever floats your boat, works for me. Must be a California thing.
We’re ok.
“Cause and Effect” is a myth.
Writing here to prove you wrong.
Go ahead…
You haven’t proven jack yet. Just jerked around begging the question.
““Cause and Effect” is a myth.”
Cause: AK post
Effect: Bartemis’ response
QED
Nope. You’re generalizing from one occurrence. You didn’t respond last time I said it. Or the time before that.
A single contradiction is enough to disprove a theorem.
Whatever “theorem” you think you’re “disproving” is a straw man.
I didn’t say “‘cause and effect’ doesn’t exist.” I said it’s a myth.
curryja wrote “… I think everyone understands the concept of the mass balance. The issue is how/whether this relates to attribution, given that we have a dynamical system with feedbacks (including regional variations and temperature dependent feedbacks).”
The mass balance argument shows the natural environment is a net carbon sink; please explain in what sense the natural environment can be considered a cause of the increase while taking more CO2 out of the atmosphere than it puts in.
Dikran, in the same sense that nature has been a net sink and still has caused some of the rise, however small. It simply means that without human emissions, nature would be net source, not net zero (in the period of observations).
edimbukvarevic wrote “in the same sense that nature has been a net sink and still has caused some of the rise, however small.”
That isn’t answering the question, it is just repeating the initial statement
“It simply means that without human emissions, nature would be net source, not net zero (in the period of observations).”
So what is your evidence that in the absence of anthropogenic emissions that the natural environment would have been a net source over the last fifty years. Note that in the absence of anthropogenic forcing, we would expect GMSTs to have declined over that period as the natural forcings have been in the opposite direction and would be expected to produce mild cooling instead (c.f. https://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/ch9s9-4-1-2.html).
The warming we have seen over the last fifty years has reduced the ability of the natural environment to oppose the rise in CO2, but “opposing the rise less” is not the same thing as “causing the rise”. What matters is not what the natural environment may have done in some unspecified hypothetical situation, but what we observe it actually did do in reality.
“in the same sense that nature has been a net sink and still has caused some of the rise”
It would interesting to see you explain how nature do that trick.
Nature emissions 100 gazillion tons, nature sinks 105 gazillion tons. How is any natural CO2 left over to cause increase in the atmosphere? No problem. Give nature 10 gazillion tons of ACO2, which nature will naturally eat first.
Don, what’s to explain? Nature is and has been a sink. It reacts to the (relatively) minor and slow human input (CO2 emissions) by absorbing about half of it (now more and increasing). Even consensus agrees, that without the human CO2, nature would not have been a net sink, but net about zero or a minor source from the minor natural warming. It’s obvious that nature can be a net sink and still cause a part of the rise. It simply means that without the human input, nature would have been a net source.
edimbukvarevic wrote “It simply means that without the human input, nature would have been a net source.”
For which you have provided no evidence whatsoever. Note as I pointed out above, our knowledge of natural forcings indicates that the climate would have cooled, rather than warmed, over the last 50 years in the absence of anthropogenic emissions.
“Cause and effect” is a myth.
Well, you’re getting a little closer to understanding the reality behind the myth of “cause and effect”.
That’s an unwarranted assumption. It appears, on net, to be “absorbing about half of it (now more and increasing)”, but how do you know what it would have done in the absence of the anthropogenic contribution? How do you know how (or even whether) it’s “reacting”?
They do? And so what? Given the infantile state of the science, what chance does “consensus” have of being right?
Nature “can be a net sink and still cause a part of the rise”, but you haven’t proven it is.
Nobody’s proved nothing. Just argued in question-begging circles.
Your non-explanation clearly indicates that your understanding is a net zero, edim. Maybe you would get it, if the increase every year for more than 50 years was exactly the same amount as the ACO2 emitted. That could happen over the next fifty years and you and the rest of the unseers could get on board the mass balance train.
dikranmarsupial | May 12, 2015 at 1:47 am | Reply
“…please explain in what sense the natural environment can be considered a cause of the increase while taking more CO2 out of the atmosphere than it puts in.”
(Sigh) Because it is taking out BOTH the natural source input AND the anthropogenic input.
This is so dumb. Do the math.
dikranmarsupial | May 12, 2015 at 2:07 am | Reply
” …then I know for a fact that c – d is negative as well…”
So what? The implication is not what you think it is. It only means that the sinks are taking out BOTH the anthropogenic input natural source input AND the anthropogenic input. It does not tell you which one is contributing to the majority of the rise.
This is so dumb. Do the math.
dikranmarsupial | May 12, 2015 at 1:40 am |
“Mass balance shows that the natural environment is a net carbon sink…”
Check.
“… and is therefore opposing the rise, not causing it…”
Non sequitur.
edimbukvarevic | May 12, 2015 at 6:42 am |
“It reacts to the (relatively) minor and slow human input (CO2 emissions) by absorbing about half of it (now more and increasing).”
There is no known limit on how much human input can have been taken out by the sinks.
“Even consensus agrees, that without the human CO2, nature would not have been a net sink, but net about zero or a minor source from the minor natural warming.”
It can have been a major source. There is no evidence to exclude the possibility. In fact, the temperature data indicates that it is the major source.
dikranmarsupial | May 12, 2015 at 6:56 am |
“For which you have provided no evidence whatsoever. “
Right here.
“I pointed out above, our knowledge of natural forcings indicates that the climate would have cooled, rather than warmed, over the last 50 years in the absence of anthropogenic emissions.”
The same “knowledge” that told us temperatures should have risen unrelentingly over the past 20 years?
On the 2015-05-12, at 12:32, Bartemis opines on “Mass balance shows that the natural environment is a net carbon sink”:
On the 2015-05-10, at 13:34, Bartemis disputes the fact that emissions due to burning of fossil fuel would increase the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere more than the observed increase (Δ-He < 0).
http://judithcurry.com/2015/05/06/quantifying-the-anthropogenic-contribution-to-atmospheric-co2/#comment-701830
On the 2015-05-12, at 12:32, Bartemis rejects that nature being a net carbon sink indicates that it opposes the rise, and is not causing it:
In other words, Bartemis shifts from disputing the premises to rejecting the inference of the mass balance argument. We therefore share his own problems following his counterargument.
That nature is a net carbon sink does not prevent a Bartemisian daemon to agressively dynamicise CO2 molecules. Nothing prevents that daemon to dynamicize anything. Pitch him in a black hole, and he’ll slowly resurface, one derivation at a time. He learned that from his master, Zeno.
Yes. I think we have clearly demonstrated that the rise is anthropogenic, and those like apparently now yourself, simply ignore the facts.
I note you now summon up temperature feedback.
To do this whilst ignoring the potential magnitude of such a feedback beggars belief from an academic.
It’s quite astonishing.
You haven’t demonstrated squat. Nobody here has. Everybody seems to be arguing in question-begging circles.
LETS GIVE DR. CURRY A BREAK! Allow her to close down this thread. If you wish to continue this argument, come to my site http://www.retiredresearcher.wordpress.com. Please come prepared with your math skills and scientific experience to critically review my work and show me where I have made mistakes or made bad assumptions. Just saying that the IPPC is right and that all others are wrong wont hack it.
> Just saying that the IPPC is right and that all others are wrong wont hack it.
You just said that the IPCC is wrong because your curve fitting exercise is right, Fred. That’s the same form you say won’t back it.
https://www.google.com.au/?gws_rd=ssl#q=ipcc+1st+assessment+report
P 202 ”There is growing evidence, that world wide
temperatures were higher than at present during the
late 10th to 13th centuries (about 950 to-1250)’ …
‘This period of widespread warmth is notable in that
there is no evidence that it was accompanied by an
increase in greenhouse gases.’
P203.’some of the global warming since 1850 could
be a recovery from the Little Ice Age rather than a
direct result of human activity.’
verytallguy | May 12, 2015 at 2:08 am | Reply
“Yes. I think we have clearly demonstrated that the rise is anthropogenic, and those like apparently now yourself, simply ignore the facts.”
This is so dumb. Do the math.
Beth
1) 1st assessment report was in 1990. In case you were wondering, that’s 25 years ago. Or about 50ppm CO2. There are four more recent IPCC reports you could have chosen.
2) The point is that if temperature were causing CO2 to rise now, as Fred and Judith seem to postulate, it should also have done the same during any MWP. And CO2 did not rise then. So either the MWP didn’t exist, or they’re flat wrong. Or both, of course.
Back then the IPCC was less certain,vtg, before those
divergent models notably diverged from observation while
stated confidence increased. Re yr comment on existence
of MWP and CO2, better take it up with them that said it.
verytallguy | May 12, 2015 at 12:38 pm |
“The point is that if temperature were causing CO2 to rise now, as Fred and Judith seem to postulate, it should also have done the same during any MWP. And CO2 did not rise then. So either the MWP didn’t exist, or they’re flat wrong. Or both, of course.”
Or, the ice core proxies, or at least they way they are interpreted, are unreliable. But, what makes you think that the same conditions must hold over millennia, anyway? Things change, conditions change, dynamics change, equilibrium points change.
But, we do not need to worry about it to settle the question of attribution. What has been going on since reliable CO2 measurements became available is very clear. As this was the era of the greatest part of the rise, it is all we need to know to establish that humans are not driving CO2 levels in the modern era.
Dear Judith,
The ocean-atmosphere carbon cycle behaves as a simple linear feedback system for disturbances, as it did over the past 800,000 years and still does
What the mass balance shows is that nature is a net sink for CO2 over the past 55 years. That is certain. 55 years more sink than source.
That implies that it is near impossible that nature is the main source of the increase in the atmosphere.
There is one and only one possibility that the natural cycle may be the main cause: that is if the natural cycle increased a fourfold in exact lockstep of timing with the fourfold increase of human emissions in the past 55 years. If it was a threefold or fivefold there wouldn’t be a fourfold increase in the atmosphere and net sink rate as is observed. Or, alternatively there was no increase in the natural cycles at all.
(I will work that out in response to Bart’s weird example)
Thus we need another observation to be sure that the natural cycle was constant or increased in lockstep with human emissions.
There are two observations which can show the difference:
– The δ13C level. Substantial increases in natural cycles would either increase the δ13C level in the atmosphere (oceans) or cause an extreme decrease in δ13C level (vegetation). Neither is observed: only a firm decrease in δ13C level in direct ratio to human emissions. Further, vegetation is a net sink for CO2, as is proven by the oxygen balance, thus not the cause of the δ13C decline.
– The residence time. Any substantial increase in any huge natural cycle would reduce the residence time of a CO2 molecule (whatever its origin) in the atmosphere. The newer calculations of residence time show that it is getting slightly longer. Thus a rather stable throughput in an increasing CO2 content of the atmosphere.
The observations show that there is no substantial increase in any of the huge natural cycles and therefore the mass balance is unambiguous that humans are the cause of the increase.
Thanks, Ferdinand. Now bartie will reply with some math related to a made up example of a fantasy atmosphere where sinks eat the ACO2 first. Somebody else will do some fancy curve fitting that goes no where, another will point at temperature, another will hit you with natural CO2 is bigger, you can’t account for all the ins and outs, yatta…yatta. I think they would get this if the increase in CO2 every freaking year over the last half century had been exactly the same amount as the ACO2 emissions. Maybe.
It turns out that for the past century both emissions and atmospheric CO2 levels above 280 ppm have had the same growth rate, approximately doubling every 33 years. If that isn’t an argument for complete attribution, I don’t know what it is. The proportionality is unremarkable to people who know how the global carbon cycle works, but the skeptics are surprised by this coincidence and are still struggling to figure it out without the carbon cycle that they don’t fully understand or even believe anyway.
You don’t know what is. Saying they “had the same growth rate, approximately doubling every 33 years” doesn’t mean they actually grew at the same rate. It only means they had roughly the same polynomial degree.
D’you know what else had roughly the same polynomial degree? The temperature integral. That is the result of the differential relationship
dCO2/dt = k*(T – T0)
only, that relationship is a much better fit, as can be readily seen in the plot in the rate domain. Try matching the rate domain plot of emissions and atmospheric concentration. They don’t match. Especially in the past decade+ with the temperature hiatus.
http://i1136.photobucket.com/albums/n488/Bartemis/CO2_zps330ee8fa.jpg
Bartemis, you are saying the timing and rates are just a coincidence, and you also probably don’t mind the contradiction that your idea has within it when the ocean acidifies showing that it too gains carbon at a significant rate. You probably will just add an epicycle to say that all this extra carbon is coming from anywhere else but fossil fuels. It should be called ABCDE. Anything But Carbon Dioxide Emissions. I could also add F for Foolhardiness.
> that relationship is a much better fit
Unless it’s within millikelvins, it might be a bit rough:
http://judithcurry.com/2012/12/04/multidecadal-climate-to-within-a-millikelvin/
Engelbeen has a better one. Accumulated emissions versus CO2 rise.
Almost as good as the millikelvin one. Coincidence – I think not.
http://www.drroyspencer.com/wp-content/uploads/engelbeen-3.jpg
Jim D | May 11, 2015 at 10:47 pm |
“Bartemis, you are saying the timing and rates are just a coincidence…”
You cannot rule out coincidence, therefore this is an argument from incredulity. On the other hand, your side wants to argue it is just coincidence that temperatures line up essentially perfectly with the rate of change of CO2.
“…and you also probably don’t mind the contradiction that your idea has within it when the ocean acidifies showing that it too gains carbon at a significant rate.”
There is no contradiction. Carbon is carbon. If it is rising from whatever source, the surface oceans will become more acidic.
Jim D | May 11, 2015 at 10:53 pm |
“Engelbeen has a better one. Accumulated emissions versus CO2 rise.
Almost as good as the millikelvin one. Coincidence – I think not.”
This match is better.
http://i1136.photobucket.com/albums/n488/Bartemis/tempco2_zps55644e9e.jpg
Most skeptics don’t like it when I point out that the temperature rise is 1 C per 100 ppm, which is what is predicted by AGW using a medium-level transient sensitivity of 2 C per doubling, but your graph also demonstrates AGW at work as expected. You have it exactly backwards, but at least you use the same graph as AGW.
Bartemis, you say “from whatever source” but you have ruled out the single biggest growing source which is fossil fuels? Which “coincidentally” has been rising at the same rate and is large enough that it can account for observed carbon increases both in the air and in the ocean.
“… your graph also demonstrates AGW at work as expected…”
Wrong. The graph shows the dependency of CO2 on the integral of temperature, i.e., consistent with the differential equation
dCO2/dt = k*(T – T0)
Cause and effect are clearly in the direction of temperature driving the rate of change of CO2. Otherwise, you are making the absurd claim that the rate of change of CO2 is driving temperature, and not the absolute amount, i.e., that you can pump up CO2 as high as you like, but once you stop pumping, temperatures revert to their initial values regardless of the dramatic increase in concentration.
“Bartemis, you say “from whatever source” but you have ruled out the single biggest growing source which is fossil fuels?
Begging the question. It is simply a source, not confirmed to be the “biggest”.
Which “coincidentally” has been rising at the same rate and is large enough that it can account for observed carbon increases both in the air and in the ocean.
It is no more an unlikely coincidence to dismiss than the coincidence of the temperature relationship. Actually, it is much easier to dismiss because the temperature relationship matches the variations, as well as the long term trend, while the correlation with emissions is merely the fact that both are going up. And, of late, emissions have been diverging, accelerating while atmospheric concentration remains at a steady rate.
The temperature data is simply and obviously a better match. Emissions are not temperature dependent, hence they are not the main driver.
I hate it when I got nothing to throw at jimmy dee. Somebody please stop this thread.
> Somebody please stop this thread.
The audit never ends, Don.
“Somebody please stop this thread.”
Spoken like a true Warmer, Warmer Don. Shut down discussion. The first pillar or Warmerism.
Andrew
You can’t or won’t explain your position, baddie. What use is their in discussing it with you?
I think it would be useful to start another thread, in about a week. Invite Ferdinand to make a guest post. BECAUSE I DON’T BELIEVE THAT YOU PEOPLE HAVE READ FERDINAND’S ANALYSIS WHICH IS COMPREHENSIVE AND FREAKING DEFINITIVE.
“FERDINAND’S ANALYSIS WHICH IS COMPREHENSIVE AND FREAKING DEFINITIVE”
It can’t be. This is a climate analysis. Nothing is demonstrable.
His analysis is a hodge-podge of assumptions, beliefs, and math.
Andrew
of Warmerism, excuse the typo.
Andrew
Don
Thing is Don, that’s essentially down to Judith. No-one cares that there are cranks on the internet who believe all sorts of complete nonsense, including magical CO2 production. It’s Judith’s support for them that drives the traffic.
Rather than demand an end, it might be more productive to ask why Judith has chosen to support this absurdity.
Dishonest rhetoric. IMO worse than begging the question. Usually people doing the latter are f00ling themselves.
Of course, one has to bear in mind that according to your standards, anything in which the words could be rearranged in order for what is said to be dishonest, qualifies. Adding extra words is also allowed.
Straw men. A typical tactic of dishonest rhetoricians.
Oh, I thought I was quite careful in what I had said. What would have been better “in my interactions with you, it appears that your definition of dishonest rhetoric is anything in which you can rearrange – or add – words so as to make what is said appear dishonest”?
Yes. Appearances can be deceiving. Especially to those buried in self-deception.
AK,
it’s pure crankery. It requires an unknown natural source to match anthro co2 temporally.
To describe it as magical thinking is actually pretty accurate.
That Judith and others wish to defend it is a great example of the effects of the climate debate on rational discourse.
Cook and Lewandowsky could have a field day here
It’s a very rough correlation. To the Industrial Revolution in general, not just fossil CO2 emissions.
And only for the last 50 years or so. Prior to that, only ice cores, with substantial holes.
AK,
self deception is probably right. At least it’s the most charitable explanation for claiming the Co2 rise is natural to any appreciable extent.
It’s also the most charitable explanation for claiming the CO2 rise is anthropogenic.
Either is just a guess. The latter on perhaps less flimsy evidence, but far to flimsy to justify major policy decisions.
VTG,
Cook and Lewandowsky are a part of the problem, at least if you consider politically motivated and dishonest pseudo-scientific “psycho studies” part of the problem (and I do).
Stick to the technical issues like mass balance, and avoid suggesting that your political opponents are insane.
We’ll have to agree to differ on “part of the problem”- the problem pre dated either of them.
I was trying to point out that if you want to be taken seriously, putting up crank arguments such as those here will been seized on by others. Others like Cook and Lewandowsky.
But you’re right, it’s not really going to help the thread. Nothing would, other than Judith giving a rational opinion on the subject. Which I’m not expecting.
This thread reminds me of bartenders trying to close a nightclub after closing time.
stevefitzpatrick | May 12, 2015 at 9:49 am | Reply
“Stick to the technical issues like mass balance, and avoid suggesting that your political opponents are insane.”
The “mass balance” argument is hooey. Do the math. Anyone who claims that the “mass balance” argument is conclusive is either incapable of doing the math, or is insane.
Don’t take everything I say literally, verywarmguy. I don’t care if she leaves this thread open. The damage has already been done. I think she should invite Ferdinand to do a post, not that clown bartie. What is she thinking?
verytallguy | May 12, 2015 at 3:14 am | Reply
“Rather than demand an end, it might be more productive to ask why Judith has chosen to support this absurdity.”
Perhaps she is smarter than you. Do the math.
verytallguy | May 12, 2015 at 9:25 am |
“It requires an unknown natural source to match anthro co2 temporally.”
Finding Pluto requires hypothesizing an unknown mass producing perturbations in the orbit of Uranus. Science is replete with discoveries based on the detection of anomalous correlations which do not fit the prevailing paradigm.
Right now, we have an obvious correlation between temperatures and the rate of change of CO2 which contradicts the paradigm of human attribution.
Williard,
I am claiming that my “curve fitting” is better than either the IPPC’s or Bart’s when it comes to solving the mass balance (attribution) problem. Come show me were I have made mistakes.
fhhaynie,
you’ve been told many times already what is wrong with your analysis; I’d be astonished if anyone wants to continue bashing their intellect against a brick wall over at your place.
Ferdinand put it best:
The only thing of interest is who is willing to promote or support such a poor analysis.
Now, two requests:
1) please explain the natural source needed to support your claims which miraculously matches anthro production
2) please stop dragging the reputation of the chemical engineering profession through the mud by claiming its principles support your crankery
Ferdinand is in denial of the data
Salvatore,
Care to name the magical natural source?
I can already show two, Fred. Here’s your conclusion:
There are two assumptions, so the “is” is incorrect.
The “false” is incorrect, since all you claim is that your curve fitting is the best you can find.
I can also dispute the “model assumptions,” since linearity is more than a model assumption, and because the attribution claim is more than an assumption.
In other words, you don’t have the argument you claim you have. You can’t hide this under what you call incorrectly “math”.
Arguing is hard.
I stand behind my claim that my curve fitting of the data indicates that anthro emissions are not the “cause” of all the accumulation of CO2 in the atmosphere as claimed by IPPC, based on their mass balance curve fitting. I will also state that it is not all natural. Your saying that I am wrong and the IPPC is right is your bias. Come to my site using science and math and show me where I have made mistakes or made bad assumptions. Just saying I’m wrong wont hack it.
fhhaynie writes “I stand behind my claim that my curve fitting of the data indicates that anthro emissions are not the “cause” of all the accumulation of CO2 in the atmosphere as claimed by IPPC, based on their mass balance curve fitting.”
yet again, fhhaynie shows he doesn’t understand the mass balance analysis. The mass balance analysis does not involve any curve fitting at any point.
That IPPC curve fitting is the simplest kind. Comparing the total accumulation in the atmosphere (400ppm-280ppm) to the total emissions and fitting the data with a .5 coefficent and assuming the global environment is a net sink for natural emissions but not for anthropogenics. It is you who does not understand mass balance in a multi-phase dynamic system. If you wish to discuss this further, do it on my site or we can continue our argument further via e-mail.
They all claim that they get the mass balance analysis, but they don’t. They just freaking do not get it.
> I stand behind my claim that my curve fitting of the data indicates that anthro emissions are not the “cause” of all the accumulation of CO2 in the atmosphere as claimed by IPPC, based on their mass balance curve fitting.
Cool. Providing an argument to show this would have been even cooler. Curve fitting doesn’t hack it.
The mass balance argument is an inference based on a set of observations, what we know about the climate science of global warming, basic algebra, and a physical conception of the world:
(O) The change in CO2 atmospheric concentration, Δ, is positive.
(GW) Emissions due to burning of fossil fuel would increase the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere more than the observed increase (Δ-He < 0).
(BA) cf. field theory.
(PCW) CO2 molecules don’t disappear or reappear by magic, nor do they bootstrap themselves.
***
Nothing you said disproves any of this. What you did, though, is to show that there might be an alternative explanation of the phenomena, which may lead to a different take on the attribution problem. What you need to show, then, is that your curve fitting leads to an alternative explanation. In other words, you have not proven the IPCC wrong, you have shown that you prefer your own personal theory.
Now, all you need is an alternative explanation. There might be a stadium wave of them out there. Perhaps even more, since the universe expands as we speak. Go for it.
The truth is out there.
Don,
Do you have OCD? If so you may need to get your meds adjusted.
fhhaynie wrote “That IPPC curve fitting is the simplest kind. Comparing the total accumulation in the atmosphere (400ppm-280ppm) to the total emissions and fitting the data with a .5 coefficent and assuming the global environment is a net sink for natural emissions but not for anthropogenics.”
O.K. so you haven’t even *seen* the mass balance argument then, never mind understood it. Here it is, spelled out for you, point out the “.5 coeffecient” when you find it (you’ll be looking a long time because it isn’t there).
Let dC be the rise in atmospheric CO2 over some fixed period (a year is convenient), Ea is anthropogenic emissions (fossil fuel and land use change), En is total natural emissions (from all natural sources) and Un is total natural uptake (by all natural sinks). Conservation of mass requires that
dC = Ea + En – Un
rearranging
dC – Ea = En – Un
We know from the observations that the left hand side of this equation is negative because we observe that the rise in atmospheric CO2 is less than anthropogenic emissions. That means the right hand side must be negative as well, i.e. En < Un. In other words, total uptake by all natural sinks exceeds total emissions from all natural sources.
This means the natural environment is a net carbon sink and has been actively opposing the increase in CO2, not causing it.
Throughout this thread you have been criticizing the mass balance argument, and you have just demonstrated that you don't even know what it actually is!
How do you come to the conclusion that natural sinks are greater than natural emissions without assuming that anthropogenic emissions are twice as much (.5 coefficent) to account for the observed rise? Do you think it is impossible for the sinks to be sucking up 80% (my .2 coefficent) and for long-term changes in natural emissions to be too small to contribute to accumulation?
> so you haven’t even *seen* the mass balance argument then,
One version of the argument has been cited here:
http://judithcurry.com/2015/05/06/quantifying-the-anthropogenic-contribution-to-atmospheric-co2/#comment-701575
The same version has been cited here:
http://judithcurry.com/2015/05/06/quantifying-the-anthropogenic-contribution-to-atmospheric-co2/#comment-702004
My (O) and my (GW) comes from this version. That this version is also Dikran’s is only an intriguing correlation. The multiverse is a causal myth anyway. We’re into matrices all the way down.
> We know from the observations that the left hand side of this equation is negative because we observe that the rise in atmospheric CO2 is less than anthropogenic emissions. That means the right hand side must be negative as well, i.e. En < Un. In other words, total uptake by all natural sinks exceeds total emissions from all natural sources.
This is incorrect: the right hand side must be negative, unless Mr. T calls the Bartemisian daemon to correct the right side and make it positive. All he needs is to aggressively dynamicize CO2 molecules.
If you don't see how he does it, that's because he's using invisible hands.
fhhaynie wrote :”How do you come to the conclusion that natural sinks are greater than natural emissions without assuming that anthropogenic emissions are twice as much (.5 coefficent) to account for the observed rise?”
because dC – Ea is negative, which means that En – Un must be negative. This is just very basic algebra.
Note the .5 coefficient appears no-where in the mass balance argument, and you were not able to point it out, and more importantly you were not able to admit that you couldn’t point it out!
” Do you think it is impossible for the sinks to be sucking up 80% (my .2 coefficent) and for long-term changes in natural emissions to be too small to contribute to accumulation?”
Find the .5 coefficient in the mass balance argument, or admit you didn’t understand it, THEN we can discuss this, not before.
You are assuming that only half of all anthropogenics are accumulating in the atmosphere/surface system over the time frame of observations. That is your .5 coefficent that you do not recognize. For your “mass balance” to work you must further assume that the long-term natural rate of accumulation is negative (net sink). Bart is claiming that natural emissions are more than enough to account for all the rise in atmospheric accumulation and as a result there is no room for anthropogenics in the mass balance. My analysis suggests that both extremes are unlikely.
dikranmarsupial | May 12, 2015 at 10:54 am |
Yet again, dikranmarsupial shows that he does not understand the difference between necessary and sufficient conditions.
dikranmarsupial | May 12, 2015 at 11:38 am |
“That means the right hand side must be negative as well, i.e. En < Un. In other words, total uptake by all natural sinks exceeds total emissions from all natural sources."
Check.
“This means the natural environment is a net carbon sink and has been actively opposing the increase in CO2, not causing it.”
Non sequitur.
fhhaynie wrote “You are assuming that only half of all anthropogenics are accumulating in the atmosphere/surface system over the time frame of observations. ”
no, that doesn’t appear anywhere in the mass balance argument that I presented. Quote the step in the mass balance argument (quote my actual words) where this assumption is made. You are just demonstrating, yet again, that you don’t actually understand the mass balance argument, I recommend you stop digging and just admit it, the hole is deep enough already.
You are using Ferdinand’s mass balance methodology and his analysis of the data yields a coefficent of around 0.5. What value does the IPPC use in their models? Do they use 1 and that is one reason their projections are so high?
hhaynie wrote “You are assuming that only half of all anthropogenics are accumulating in the atmosphere/surface system over the time frame of observations. ”
when I pointed out this wasn’t actually true,
fhhaynie wrote “You are using Ferdinand’s mass balance methodology and his analysis of the data yields a coefficent of around 0.5. ”
Notice the shift from “you are assuming that half” to “yields a coefficient of around 0.5” (i.e. a conclusion rather than an assumption). It would be better if you had just admitted that you made an error and that the mass balance argument does not “assume that half of all anthropogenics are accumulating…”. Sorry, there is little point in trying to discuss science if you are going to engage in that sort of debating tactics.
By assuming anthros are causing all the long term rise in atmosphering CO2 and comparing that with actual data you end up with a coefficient of .5. Bart, on the other had assumes allmost all caused by the long-term accumulation of energy which suggests a coefficient for anthro near zero. Neither extreme is very likely and my analysis suggest that both are contributing to the rise. That analysis includes the oberved change in the 13/12 C index. If you do the math with the 13/12 C index you will see how accumulation rate and changes in 13/12 C are related. The 13/12 C index for fossil fuels ranges from around -25 to about -30. The index for decaying biological matter is less than -20. We obseved the atmospheric index to have changed from around -6 to around -8. These are averages of the relative contributions of both anthros and natural emissions. I’m working with two related equations with two unknowns while you are working with one equation with two unknowns. You have to make some assumptions about the relationship between sources and sinks in order for your equation to balance.
Freddie, why are you shifting the issue to models and projections? We are talking about historical data. Why won’t you answer the freaking questions?
fhhaynie wrote “By assuming anthros are causing all the long term rise in atmosphering CO2 and comparing that with actual data you end up with a coefficient of .5.”
Sorry, you have made it perfectly clear that you are unable to accept that you are wrong and that the mass balance argument is not curve fitting and doesn’t involve a coefficient of .5. There seems little point in trying to discuss science under these circumstances.
BTW, mass balance doesn’t assume that anthros are causing all of the long term rise either, so yet again you are demonstrating that you don’t understand it. The mass balance argument shows that the natural environment is a net sink and hence is opposing the rise. This means that the rise must be anthropogenic, because in the absence of extraterrestrial or supernatural fluxes, there is nothing else. This is a conclusion of the argument, not an assumption.
Your method rejects the need to “curve fit” and gets a straight line through two points (280ppm and around 400ppm). The slope of that line as a function of anthro emissions is the .5 coefficent I’m talking about. You did not answer my question as to what coefficents you used in IPPC models to project the effects of anthropogenic emissions?
fhhaynie wrote “Your method rejects the need to “curve fit” and gets a straight line through two points (280ppm and around 400ppm).”
no, it doesn’t do anything of the sort. The argument is set out in full above, and no straight lines are drawn, neither 280ppm not 400ppm are mentioned anywhere. This is my last reply to one of your comments as it is clear that you are not paying the slightest attention to what I am saying and I have no desire to watch you dig the hole you are in any deeper than it already is.
The data proves Ferdinand is wrong. CO2 if you look at the graph is still following the temperature which strongly suggest it is the temperature which is influencing the CO2 concentrations. There is a log time involved.
http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.com/2013/04/new-paper-demonstrates-temperature.html
Salvatore,
If you don’t know the difference between the variability in rate of change which follows the temperature variability and the total increase in the atmosphere, which is way higher than what it should be for the current temperature, then I can’t help you anymore.
I have done my best I suppose to convince you and others, but it is hopeless to try to convince somebody who doesn’t want to be convinced…
If one looks at the graph it shows clearly CO2 is lagging the temperature. That is what the data shows.
So, the magical source is temperature causing outgassing, right?
And 0.8 degrees temperature rise has caused 120ppm co2 rise?
And the Co2 level in the last ice age was when temperatures were c. 5 degrees lower was?
And also, the MWP was warmer than today, but without a co2 rise?
And this all magically happened coincident with the industrial revolution with us emitting double the Co2 needed to cause the rise?
And I’m the Prince of Dennmark
People simplify the glacials as a period of temperature difference. It’s more complicated than that. The glacials were very much windier than present ( as evidenced by huge dust increases even in the Antarctic ice cores. Wind has a great affect on mixing. Also, deep water formation is not so much a function of global temperature, but the temperature of the exposed polar waters ( which varies with amount and thickness of sea ice and of meridional wind flow. Also, the tropics may have been warmer during the last glacial. Also, sea level pressure was significantly greater during the last glacial max because sea level was 120m lower ( so pressure was greater ).
You don’t need to go to the ice ages. This is enough:
“And 0.8 degrees temperature rise has caused 120ppm co2 rise?”
Keep it simple for them. They get distracted, easily.
verytallguy | May 12, 2015 at 10:03 am | Reply
“And 0.8 degrees temperature rise has caused 120ppm co2 rise?”
It is an integral relationship
dCO2/dt = k*(T – T0)
and it builds over time.
dCO2/dt = k*(T – T0)
Which violates Henry’s law, the very basic principles of any feedback system and all known observations…
Thus sorry Bart, no feedback from the increased CO2 pressure in the atmosphere on the ocean in and out fluxes? Ask some chemical engineer, he/she can help you out…
“Thus sorry Bart, no feedback from the increased CO2 pressure in the atmosphere on the ocean in and out fluxes?”
A CO2 pressure feedback that would prevent much larger natural flux from increasing the level would absolutely prevent human inputs from raising it. This is grasping at straws.
> A CO2 pressure feedback that would prevent much larger natural flux from increasing the level would absolutely prevent human inputs from raising it.
Let’s stress the “absolutely” here, for Bart’s daemon has more power than the King of Danemark.
The more humans would try to raise it, the more he would aggressively lower it down. They would lower it down, he would push it up. Humans would try to raise it and than lower it down, he’d do nothing, like a true Tai Chi master:
“The more humans would try to raise it, the more he would aggressively lower it down.”
I wonder if you ever realized you were taking my side by ridiculing the suggestion. It was Ferdinand who suggested a magic, all powerful feedback. I was just pointing out it would apply to both natural and anthropogenic forcing.
The side you took has a long tradition, Bartemis:
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wittgenstein_on_Rules_and_Private_Language
Skepticism’s a bit like libertarianism: you grow out of it and shrug it off.
Here my final word, a reaction on the example by Bart.
My essential point is that the only way that the natural inputs can be an important part of the increase is if the natural inputs increase in exactly the same ratio and timing as human emissions. That is also what Bart has done in his example, be it that the “increase” in his case was a factor 1.
To begin with, Bart’s formula is:
CO2(k+1) = CO2(k) + N(k) + H(k) – S(k)
where N(0,…, k) = 98
and H(0,… , k) = 2
and S(k) = 0.99*CO2(k)
all “CO2” is the amount of CO2 above steady state, whatever that may be.
If the sinks are active, they don’t wait to the end of the time span between k+1 and k to do their job. They act also on the new sources continuously. It would be a little strange that you add continuously some 100 and there are active sinks which remove continuously 99 that the net result is continuously over 100… Bart’s residual 100+ is far too high. The formula for S(k) then is:
S(k) = 0.99*(CO2(k) + N(k) – S(k))
The real increase for Bart’s example then is:
CO2(k+1) = 0 + 2 + 98 – 99 = 1
CO2(K+2) = 1 + 2 + 98 – 99.99 = 1.01
CO2(K+3) = 1.01 + 2 + 98 – 99.9999 = 1.0101
etc…
Not exactly what Bart had in mind, but not far off: the step response in the atmosphere is about 50% of the step change in human input, thus at first glance, all increase is from humans, but in reality only 2% is from humans if the natural input increased simultaneously stepwise with the human input.
Again. that is only true if both emissions and natural cycle increased in exactly the same rate and timing. For a step response, the N rate should be in ratio to the sink rate and H step to provide the right 50% increase in the atmosphere.
Let’s see if I can make that clear:
Same as above, but we can add a linear (and eventually a quadratic) component both in N and H. For the same step response as above and no (non-)linear increase and a more realistic ratio H:N ratio of 2:20 and a factor 0.955 for S:
CO2(k+1) = 0 + 2 + 20 – 21 = 1
CO2(k+2) = 1 + 2 + 20 – 22 = 1
CO2(k+3) = 1 + 2 + 20 – 22 = 1
—-
CO2(k+55) = 1 + 2 + 20 – 22 = 1
with a constant addition of 2 from the human step change and 20 from the step change in natural addition, the total increase is 1 in a few time steps, due to the aggressive response of the sinks.
in graph form:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/equi_step_step.jpg
We know that human emissions did grow over time, let’s begin with a linear growth of 0.1 per time step:
CO2(k+1) = 0 + 2 + 20 – 21 = 1
CO2(k+2) = 1 + 2.1 + 20 – 22.1 = 1
CO2(k+3) = 1 + 2.2 + 20 – 22.2 = 1
—-
CO2(k+55) = 1.3 + 7.5 + 20 – 27.5 = 1.3
In graph form:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/equi_lin_step.jpg
Big problem: the increase in the atmosphere doesn’t follow the H input at 50%.
There are two options: either there is an increase in N at the same ratio as for H or there is no N at all and S is far less aggressive.
Here for a linear increase in N with 1 per time step:
CO2(k+1) = 0 + 2 + 20 – 21 = 1
CO2(k+2) = 1 + 2.1 + 21 – 23 = 1.1
CO2(k+3) = 1.1 + 2.2 + 22 – 23 = 1.1
CO2(k+4) = 1.1 + 2.3 + 23 – 25.2 = 1.2
CO2(k+5) = 1.2 + 2.4 + 24 – 26.3 = 1.2
—-
CO2(k+55) = 3.8 + 7.5 + 75 – 82.4 = 3.8
In graph form:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/equi_lin_lin.jpg
Result: CO2 increases at half H, if and only if N increases in full ratio with H.
The alternative: no N at all and a less aggressive sink (0.666):
CO2(k+1) = 0 + 2 + 0 – 1.3 = 0.7
CO2(k+2) = 0.7 + 2.1 + 0 – 1.8 = 0.9
CO2(k+3) = 0,9 + 2.2 + 0 – 2.1 = 1.0
CO2(k+4) = 1.0 + 2.3 + 0 – 2.2 = 1.1
CO2(k+5) = 1.1 + 2.4 + 0 – 2.3 = 1.2
—-
CO2(k+55) = 3.7 + 7.5 + 0 – 7.4 = 3.8
In graph form:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/equi_lin_nul.jpg
No problem at all to obtain the half increase.
At last with a slightly quadratic term (0.01) added to H and zero addition from N in graph form:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/equi_quad_nul.jpg
What this all shows is that there is a very remote, pure theoretical possibility that a natural source was the cause of the increase in the atmosphere if and only if the natural source is completely synchronized in timing and ratio with human emissions. For which is not the slightest indication…
The Excel spreadsheet can be downloaded to experiment with all inputs at:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/equi_excel.xlsx
SPECULATION .
Show the data that shows CO2 leading the temperature.
> SPECULATION .
SPECULATION.
Thanks Ferdinand. Your work is excellent, your reasoning is clear and your patience is remarkable.
I believe you have already stated elsewhere that the main issue in the warming debate is not what has caused the buildup in atmospheric CO2, but how does the buildup influence climate and the future well being of us all. I believe you have also stated that you believe the atmosphere is less sensitive to additional CO2 buildup rather than more. Given this, where do you think future climate research needs to be focused?
The data does not support his claim.
But it is only data, go with the theory right?
Ferdinand Engelbeen | May 12, 2015 at 9:48 am | Reply
“The formula for S(k) then is: S(k) = 0.99*(CO2(k) + N(k) – S(k))”
No. I did not want to get into the details of discretization, but you have done it wrong. It does not change the mathematical result.
The sinks must depend on both N(k) and H(k) in equal measure. So, if your formula were correct (which, it isn’t), you would have to have S(k) = 0.99*(CO2(k) + N(k) + H(k) – S(k)).
No matter how you slice it, N(k) will account for 98% of the rise, and H(k) for 2%.
Mark Silbert | May 12, 2015 at 10:44 am | Reply
“Thanks Ferdinand. Your work is excellent, your reasoning is clear and your patience is remarkable.”
I’m sorry if I appear churlish, but Ferdinand’s maths are just atrocious.
Bart,
De essence of your and mine exercise is that you can only dwarf the human emissions if and only if the natural emissions increased a fourfold in the past 55 years, in complete lockstep of time and ratio with human emissions. Any huge deviation of the fourfold increase would give a deviation in the slope of the increase, compared to what is observed.
Except if there is no important increase in natural emissions at all.
We can go on for years, but if you can prove that there is a natural source that increased a fourfold in the past 55 years, backed by observations, we may at last agree. Until then we can repeat this discussion every few weeks again…
Really? Can you guys really repeat this discussion every few weeks? That would be swell.
> The sinks must depend on both N(k) and H(k) in equal measure.
Why, and does that assumption come from discretization too?
“…you can only dwarf the human emissions if and only if the natural emissions increased a fourfold in the past 55 years, in complete lockstep of time and ratio with human emissions…”
Nope. There is an entire continuum of source/sink behavior which could produce the observations. They only have to together produce the net observed trend in the rate of change of CO2. They would not be “in lockstep” with human emissions because human emissions are not, themselves, in lockstep with the observed rise – you have to scale by roughly 1/2, and you have to ignore the divergence since the beginning of the “pause”. So, mere approximate affine similarity is quite sufficient.
Bart, show me the math:
Show me in concrete figures that there can be an increase in any natural cycle which is let’s say a threefold and a fivefold over the past 55 years and still gives a fourfold increase in the atmosphere and a fourfold net sink rate together with the fourfold increase in human emissions.
And if you have the time: show me how that should affect the δ13C ratio in the atmosphere and the residence time.
> There is an entire continuum of source/sink behavior which could produce the observations.
None of them make physical sense if they depend on CO2 molecules bootstrapping themselves, therefore the whole continuum belongs to the equivalence class of formal fluff.
Sorry,
Error in the formula:
S(k) = 0.99*(CO2(k) + N(k) – S(k))
must be
S(k) = 0.99*(CO2(k) + N(k) – H(k))
which is what was used in the calculations and graphs.
Sink capacity is directly proportional to the total increase of CO2 in the atmosphere above equilibrium, that is current level + new input.
Sorry again…
The formula used was:
S(k) = fS*(CO2(k) + N(k) + H(k))
where
fS was 0.99
Need to stop now, the garden is waiting…
Then, you’ve made an error somewhere, because the response is equal for N(k) and H(k) when it depends on the sum N(k)+H(k). But, N(k) is 98% of the input, and H(k) is 2%, and the system is linear, so the output is going to depend 98% on N(k) and 2% on H(k).
Bart,
That is the essence of the matter:
For any response to be caused by N, N must change in a fixed ratio with H, or the response will not show any trend in ratio to H.
In the special case of a step response, both H and N must jump simultaneously or there would be a change in response when one and the other jump.
If H increases linearly and N is constant and huge, CO2 will be near constant at high fS.
In the case of a linear increase of both, H and N must increase in fixed ratio with each other at exactly the same starting point, or you will see deviations in the response.
If, and only if the timing and ratio is maintained, N can be the main cause of the change.
For the real human emissions in the atmosphere, the only way the natural emissions/cycle can be the cause of the increase is that the natural cycle increased a fourfold as human emissions did, or you can’t have a fourfold increase in the atmosphere (and consequently a fourfold net sink rate).
“For any response to be caused by N, N must change in a fixed ratio with H, or the response will not show any trend in ratio to H.”
No, because you are assuming that the response is known and constant. It is unknown, and may not be constant, or even nearly constant.
The amount of change observed is a complex interplay of sources and sinks, and there is a continuum of source/sink interaction which can produce essentially the same loose polynomial degree similarity to H. It is the combination of the two. It really doesn’t require much of a coincidence to get something with a loose, low order polynomial similarity, which is all that is required.
“If H increases linearly and N is constant and huge, CO2 will be near constant at high fS. “
There is no reason to assume N is constant. There is not even any reason to assume fS is constant. Sure, we’ve assumed such things for illustration of particular concepts here, but that does not mean that the real world behaves that way.
“For the real human emissions in the atmosphere, the only way the natural emissions/cycle can be the cause of the increase is that the natural cycle increased a fourfold as human emissions did, or you can’t have a fourfold increase in the atmosphere (and consequently a fourfold net sink rate).”
No. See above.
You take so much for granted, Ferdinand. You need to think things through more carefully. If something is fundamentally unknown, or depends on something fundamentally unknown as a premise, then it cannot be stated as a fact.
Bart,
You still don’t (want to) get it.
Every response of CO2 to temperature in nature is quite linear, as seen over the past 800,000 years in ice cores, the current seasonal response to temperature and the year by year variability caused by temperature. Even Henry’s law gives a quite linear response for a small temperature change (less than 1°C). That is the base.
There is no reason to assume N is constant. There is not even any reason to assume fS is constant.
fS is proven constant: the sink or source rate of CO2 out/in the oceans is directly proportional to the ΔpCO2 between oceans and atmosphere. That is one of the points of Henry’s law.
N is not necessary constant, but if it is not increasing in exactly the same ratio as H, or quite constant, the increase in CO2 will not follow in ratio to H for a constant fS.
That CO2 follows H in rather exact ratio (+/- 20%) is what is observed. That N follows H (or CO2) is not observed at all.
Hey, if you do not want to go by the data so be it.
That is the problem with those of you who believe in AGW , if the data does not agree with what the theory calls for (which is hardly ever the case) the data is either wrong, inaccurate or incomplete.
You are living up to the script by dismissing the data in favor of theories put forth by the likes of Ferdinand, that have no hard data to back up what they suggest.
Until he can produced clear cut data which shows CO2 is leading the temperature his theory along with others similar to his, amount to nothing more then speculation.
The point Ferdinand , is the data does not back up what you suggest. Co2 still is FOLLOWING the temperature presently with a LAG time built in.
If and when this should change then you may be on to something, but until then you have SPECULATION, and nothing more.
I am going to go with what the data suggest not theories.
Salvatore,
1946-1975: temperatures drop, CO2 goes up unabated.
2000-current: temperatures flat, CO2 goes up unabated.
What follows what?
Sal will think of some rationalization, Ferdinand. He is committed, hook-line-and-sinker.
Ferdinand ,if I am correct and the global temperatures start to trend down you will have your test.
If CO2 should still increase at the same rate in the face of a declining global temperature trend then you may be correct. Lag time taken into account.
VTG suggests a summary comment from me.
The key issue that needs resolving IMO is to understand the decadal-century scale fluctuations of atmospheric CO2. I am not convinced that a single analysis at a single site in Antarctica is sufficient to reject the notion that natural decadal to century fluctuations are of a significant magnitude. More paleo work is needed, including biological proxies.
The other issue that needs addressing is to understand the regional variability of sources and sinks; this is critical for understanding the feedback processes. The new Carbon satellite is providing some provocative insights in this regard.
And finally, why does it matter whether we attribute 100% or 90% or 50% of the increase in atm CO2 to humans? Well the key issue is to predict how the 21st century concentration of atm CO2 will evolve in response to future emissions. We need to test these predictions against actual observations to see how the carbon cycle models are doing. So far, the IPCC predictions have been consistently running too high.
So to really get the 21st century predictions of atm CO2 correct, we need to understand the regional sources and sinks and the feedbacks. The mass balance argument doesn’t take you very far in all this.
The IPCC has made some specific projections. Fred’s analysis leads to a specific projection. Given the uncertainties in all this, do I think either is likely to be absolutely correct? No. But the IPCC predictions to date have been consistently too high. Lets try to understand why. Fred’s ideas point us in a useful direction, IMO. But the white part of the Italian flag is pretty big here.
One item I think that could be added is the water vapor link to CO2 concentrations.
Dr. Gray , makes a very strong case that a negative feedback may exist in the upper atmosphere not a positive one. I have the article if you want it.
“And finally, why does it matter whether we attribute 100% or 90% or 50% of the increase in atm CO2 to humans? Well the key issue is to predict how the 21st century concentration of atm CO2 will evolve in response to future emissions.”
The answer to this seems pretty obvious to me. If the increase in CO2 is 100% anthropogenic then 21st century concentrations are going to be primarily governed by fossil fuel emissions, so predicting 21st century concentrations will be largely a matter of economics, rather than science. If on the other hand it is 50% then it become a more balanced question of economics and science. It is *very* relevant to the discussion. I suspect this is why the IPCC use projections based on scenarios to cover the economic component.
The regional issues must be considered to discover why the natural environment has reacted in the way that it had, but are not required to know that the rise is anthropogenic. We are more likely to make progress on discussing the regional influences if we can all agree on the global attribution issue first, given that it is much more straightforward,
“But the IPCC predictions to date have been consistently too high.”
Can you specify exactly what predictions you are referring to here, when they were made and the observations that have shown them to be too high.
“Can you specify exactly what predictions you are referring to here…”
This claim puzzles me also. Is Judith suggesting that the IPCC overestimated the future rate of antropogenic *emissions*? Then that would explain why it also would have overestimated CO2 accumulations, *consistently* with the premise that accumulations are very nearly 100% anthropogenic. This would only be a failure of an *economic* model. However, to date, the atmospheric accumulation and cumulative emission values still are almost perfectly correlated. There has been no failure from the IPCC to accurately *project* CO2 accumulations as a function of emissions only (plus, possibly, a very small feedback from surface temperature increase around 8ppm/K). The airborne fraction hasn’t changed significantly.
Thanks for the excellent summary.
Wow, almost 1200 comments on something that is supposed to be settled and obvious.
Thankyou Dr Curry for that summary. I have read most of this thread and thought very hard about the contributions from the commentators and this is pretty much the inconclusive conclusion I have come to as well.
I agree with views best represented by Bart that the mass balance argument is essentially flawed, but I am not fully convinced that that argues AnthroCO2 is not a dominant factor in the recent rise in AtmosCO2. Clearly natural temp driven rise is likely to be a factor but by how much?
What would convince me either way is better (and more) proxy evidence of AtmosCO2 before records began, and in particular during extremes of Temps (eg MWP vs LIA) in the past. From some of the links others have posted, there is a correlation with changes in AtmosCO2 during known periods of relative warmth or cold, but not by as much as we are seeing at the moment, or for as sustained a period.
I vehemently disagree with the characterisation some commentators have made of this post as being “unfortunate” or it having been “taken apart” or that this area is so certain as to not require further questioning. Given the uncertainties involved (very poor coverage and low resolution data as well as a general lack of it) to me that is utterly antithetical to the scientific process.
agnostic2015 wrote “I agree with views best represented by Bart that the mass balance argument is essentially flawed,”
I’d be interested to hear why you think the mass balance argument is flawed, it is just the principal of conservation of mass (which is a pretty reasonable assumption), a small amount of algebra, and the fact that the rise in CO2 has been slower than the rate of anthropogenic emissions.
Do you think that conservation of mass does not apply to the carbon cycle or do you think the algebra is incorrect. or do you think that atmospheric CO2 has not risen more slowly than anthropogenic emissions?
” Clearly natural temp driven rise is likely to be a factor but by how much?”
Do you believe that over the past half century that nature has been a net sink for natural CO2 emissions?
You have a pretty good idea of the rise in temperture over that period, how much CO2 rise do you think it has driven? There have been several estimates presented here. Look up Ferdinand’s comments. Any reason to believe he is wrong on that? Does the rise in temperature from when we were at 280 get you close to 400ppm?
By the way, you don’t understand the mass balance.
Hey, pouched crusader. Pick out a year and show him the actual mass balance numbers and the algebra. It might help him get it. One can only hope.
agnostic2015 | May 12, 2015 at 11:00 am | Reply
I agree with views best represented by Bart that the mass balance argument is essentially flawed, but I am not fully convinced that that argues AnthroCO2 is not a dominant factor in the recent rise in AtmosCO2.”
It doesn’t. Showing that the mass balance argument fails to establish human attribution is only one step in building the case. Showing that CO2 is dependent on temperatures in a manner which forecloses significant human attribution is the next.
The slope in temperatures explains the trend in dCO2/dt, and hence the quadratic term, the curvature, in CO2. Emissions also have a trend. There is little to no room for it, because the trend is already accounted for by the temperature relationship.
This is a very ordinary feedback dynamic. CO2 levels are regulated to temperature dependent, environmental boundary conditions, and human inputs are sharply attenuated by the feedback loop.
> The slope in temperatures explains the trend in dCO2/dt
Slopes explain, now.
Math is powerful stuff.
Fine. The trend in temperatures explains the trend in dCO2/dt. Happy?
No, I’m not, Bartemis. A trend’s not an explanation. A trend’s only an indicator. There’s no mechanism in a trend.
Let’s add this confusion to your conflation of model and theory.
Look. This is climate science. You want to double guess scientists, fine. Talk like a scientist, and stop the stupid mathematician act.
@dikranmarsupial
Human emissions are merely an input, and a minor one at that, into a large and complex dynamic self regulating system. I fully understand Barts argument on this, and his objection to the mass balance idea. It so happens that the total increase in AtmosCO2 is less than our input, but that does not necessarily mean that we are responsible for the increase, the system may have been able to increase (as it has in the past at least on long time scales) on its own.
I think Bart and Fred Haynie has convincingly shown that AtmosCO2 in the very short term is very closely correlated with temperature (with a lag). Therefore if there is a trend in the temperature there should be a trend on the AtmosCO2, regardless of human emissions. The mechanisms for increased Carbon cycle are well understood, but the magnitudes, extent, and details are not, and it’s an area that needs a lot more study IMO.
Your question asking me whether I thought nature was a net sink, is a misleading one – this is something I have come to appreciate over the course of this thread. Since human emissions are greater than the increase in AtmosCO2 one would think so, but if Bart and Fred are right, and I think they probably are, then absent ACO2 AtmosCO2 would still increase – nature would be a net emitter. However the big question is by how much?
@Willard
I appreciate that correlation is not proof of causation, but the mechanism explaining the reason why if temperatures go up, so must CO2 is very easy to find. Perhaps a little harder to quantify, but that’s what this OP was taking a stab at.
You only need to take a look at why you need your fridge for an explaining mechanism. If you leave meat on kitchen work top, it goes off much faster than when you out it in the fridge. Higher temperatures encourage biological breakdown of organic matter releasing, amongst other things, CO2. OTH green houses raise temperature and often add CO2 artificially in order to increase plant growth.
Increased temperatures mean organic matter in the soil are broken down faster, re absorbed by the biosphere faster, but never in balance. Bacteria, which vastly more abundant than larger flora such as trees, become more abundant and metabolise faster in times of higher temperature unlocking more CO2 to be available to the carbon cycle. When trees and other CO2 absorbing flora die during colder periods, they are not broken down as fast thus trapping CO2 that would otherwise be returned to the atmosphere, lowering AtmosCO2.
agnostic2015
Human inputs are small, but one-way and not part of the normal cycles or the short term variability.
Most of the in/out fluxes are seasonal: during the seasons some 50 GtC goes out and in the ocean surface, some 60 GtC goes out and in vegetation, largely countercurrent the ocean fluxes. Net result: the NH extra-tropical forests are dominant in the seasonal CO2/δ13C variations.
That is already 110 GtC in/out fluxes which shows little variation over the past 55 years.
The deep ocean-atmosphere exchanges are more continuous between the warm upwelling zones near the equator and the sink zones near the poles and are estimated around 40 GtC/year (based on the 14C bomb spike decay and the dilution of the low-13C “fingerprint” from human emissions).
Human emissions are ~9 GtC/year and have little influence on the seasonal cycle which is mainly temperature dependent, not pressure dependent.
The total increase in CO2 uptake by vegetation is ~1 GtC/year at 110 ppmv above equilibrium.
The ocean surface act as a rapid, but small sink of about 10% of the change in the atmosphere due to carbon chemistry (Revelle/buffer factor), or about 0.5 GtC/year.
Their main influence of the 9 GtC human emissions is on the 40 GtC deep ocean cycle. That is over 20% extra per year above a cycle which was once in equilibrium. The current sink rate in the deep oceans is ~3 GtC/year.
What Bart and Fred and NOAA (Pieter Tans, http://esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/co2conference/pdfs/tans.pdf ) have shown, and which can be seen in the opposite CO2/δ13C variations is that temperature variations cause CO2 variations in vegetation uptake/release, in the order of 4-5 ppmv/K.
But the long term trend is NOT caused by vegetation, that is a net sink for CO2. Variability and trend have nothing to do with each other.
That the variability is temperature driven doesn’t say anything about the influence of temperature on the CO2 trend.
The historical influence was 8 ppmv/K. Henry’s law says 4-17 ppmv/K for seawater. That is all. The increase in temperature over the past 55 years is good for 5 ppmv CO2 increase in the atmosphere. That is all.
The rest of the 110 ppmv increase is from human emissions, not from temperature.
Bart’s dCO2/dt = k(T-T0) is completely bogus and ignores the feedback from the increased CO2 pressure in the atmosphere on the ocean release and uptake. It violates Henry’s law. It ignores the basic response of a feedback process…
And as we are 110 ppmv above equilibrium, what do you think would happen if we stop all emissions today?
Ferdinand said “And as we are 110 ppmv above equilibrium, what do you think would happen if we stop all emissions today?”
Doesn’t that depend on what humans do with sinks?
I think you mean to ask what would happen if we stop all emissions today – all other things being equal – right?
I think if we stopped all emissions today the rise in CO2 would slow down and over time probably even drop.
But if we burned up all the trees for fuel, I am not certain what would happen to CO2 because that might have a bigger impact on the CO2 sink side than our emissions do on the emission side of the equation.
Richard,
If humans stop all their emissions today (all by installing windmills and solar panels, I suppose… /sarc off), the CO2 levels would drop with 2.15 ppmv within a year, as that is the sink rate of all the sinks together for the 110 ppmv above equilibrium of today. It is the total pressure in the atmosphere above the steady state that pushes more CO2 into the oceans (and vegetation). That is hardly influenced by the momentary human input of 4.5 ppmv…
That will go on with a decreasing sink rate as the pressure in the atmosphere goes down until steady state is reached.
That is a basic principle for any chemical or physical reaction which is disturbed from its equilibrium: Le Châtelier’s principle…
@Ferdinand:
But the long term trend is NOT caused by vegetation, that is a net sink for CO2. Variability and trend have nothing to do with each other.
I’m sorry but I don’t find that at all convincing, I don’t think you can be so sure. There have excursions to much high levels of AtmosCO2 in the past which has returned to lower levels all without human contributions.
What you are proposing is an extremely balanced model of the Carbon Cycle which MIGHT be right but doesn’t seem likely when one thinks about it. Changes in cloud cover and temperature likely effect sink rates and source rates unequally, leading to imbalances that lead to trends.
Where you have an argument is the length of the trend and the rate of the trend. If better data becomes available as to the extent of CO2 variability then we would be better able to figure out what impact human emissions really have. It certainly the case that short term (centennial scale) variations don’t show the same scale of change as we have seen over the last century, with the data we have anyway.
Where your argument is weak is that there has been no significant change in trend in the increase of AtmosCO2 despite the rate of human emissions having increased significantly. This argues that the system is relatively insensitive to our contribution.
Either way, the near certainty expressed on this subject (not necessarily by you I hasten to add) that some people express I find unjustified.
One other comment regarding the one above….I never said that vegetation would not be a sink….the main source on land anyway is not vegetation but from bacteria in soil. I contend that in warmer conditions bacteria metabolise dead vegetable (and animal) matter faster releasing more CO2 into the atmosphere and faster than vegetation can absorb.
This is why rain forest floors have much higher levels of atmospheric CO2 than average.
Hoping not to embarrass myself too much, but after some 1200 comments there are a some things still lacking in my simple mind.
Dr. Curry states: “Well the key issue is to predict how the 21st century concentration of atm CO2 will evolve in response to future emissions.”
So for me some definitions are in order. What is considered “natural”? Mass Balance make sense in the entirety, but with nature responding by increasing vegetative and oceanic processes then should we address anthro emissions via FF predominately, would we not expect a reduction in those process still leading to further increase in atm CO2 short term (indicating long term sequestration should be a goal I.E. improving land use practice)? And would that response by nature to man’s anthro emissions then be considered natural, or still anthro?
Much of this discussion seems to come about due to a less than ideal framing and set of definitions. Standing by waiting for my flogging.
Fossil fuel emissions, cement production and land use change emissions are all considered anthropogenic as they are the result of human activities. Everything else is considered “natural” (for example additional plant growth in wild forests due to more atmospheric CO2 would be considered a natural sink).
dikranmarsupial,
Already fearing I wasn’t clear. The question is that observations are that natural processes are offsetting emissions. Should those emissions be reduced the natural processes will presumably respond in kind. Initially, one would expect a fast process re-releasing sequestered the anthro produced CO2 thus leading to a slower process for long term. How will these be considered? (Attributed?) Point being if the initiation is considered anthro then following it down the line.
I’m very much in the thought process of Capt.D w/r/t land use being key and a “twofer” as he stated.
Danny, “The question is that observations are that natural processes are offsetting emissions.”
it would be more accurate to say that the inference from the mass balance analysis is that natural processes are offsetting emissions.
” Should those emissions be reduced the natural processes will presumably respond in kind.”
it is more that the natural processes respond to the atmospheric concentration, rather than the emissions directly, but yes, if we reduce emissions, the net natural sink will gradually reduce.
“Initially, one would expect a fast process re-releasing sequestered the anthro produced CO2 thus leading to a slower process for long term.”
I’m not sure what you mean here, the sequestered anthropogenic CO2 won’t be re-released, it will just get spread more evenly around the carbon cycle rather than being concentrated in the atmosphere. Most of it will end up in the oceans.
“Point being if the initiation is considered anthro then following it down the line.”
I’m not sure what you mean here. The natural environments response to the anthropogenic emissions is still natural emissions and uptake.
“I’m very much in the thought process of Capt.D w/r/t land use being key and a “twofer” as he stated.”
No, it isn’t a twofer (at least not in a way that isn’t already taken into account). Generally land is more or less carbon neutral until you change the way it is used. Stable, mature forests are carbon neutral, they give out about as much CO2 as they take in. If you cut the forest down, then you release the carbon in the wood, but if you replace it with grassland, once that is stable and mature, that is more or less carbon neutral as well, so there is no long term change.
dikranmarsupial,
“the net natural sink will gradually reduce.” Wouldn’t this lead to a short term reduction in vegetative processes and “de-greening” re-release of the anthro to atm then to oceans? (It won’t all stay in the ground).
My impression of the “twofer” is due to long term sequestration (trees and even underground via roots) vs. shorter term via grasslands (more cyclical?) as well as reduced emissions due to generally increased biomass. But point taken w/r/t stability if not changed. However, we are changing it constantly so we lose sequestration (uptake) and emissions are increased at the same time. It would be the opposite of:”I’m not sure what you mean here. The natural environments response to the anthropogenic emissions is still natural emissions and uptake.” In other words, man is adding some emissions but an effect is an anthro greening.
ATTP calls it a fast cycle via vegetation and slow cycle via oceans (if understood correctly) sequestration.
This is in part a desire to define terms more clearly. (Hope this does and makes sense).
dik, “No, it isn’t a twofer (at least not in a way that isn’t already taken into account). Generally land is more or less carbon neutral until you change the way it is used. Stable, mature forests are carbon neutral, they give out about as much CO2 as they take in. If you cut the forest down, then you release the carbon in the wood, but if you replace it with grassland, once that is stable and mature, that is more or less carbon neutral as well, so there is no long term change.”
grass land is less stable than forests, drought, wildfire, erosion. You can have the same thing with forests, but grasslands are more volatile. Erosion depletes soil carbon (source) and reduces land productivity (less sink) there is a twofer impact. Same thing with forests, a major drought can trigger wildfire or pest infestation. Termites are a huge CO2 source. You also have biological population boons and busts. Everything is fairly stable because the extremes are limited, you have growth or not, not because there is some Utopian “matured” condition.
I have to give this one to the Capt. over the pouched warmist.
Thanks Dr Curry for the summary.
One question not addressed in the above interesting analysis is
If the Keeling curve from circa 1960 shows increases at approximately the same slope of CO2 additions vs CO2 concentration what caused the increases prior to 1979 or so?
On the curve they show roughly the same relationship prior to the great increase in CO2 emission.
Scott
I’ll make a projection: when people really dig into the “fossilization” process around pCO2,
they’remost of them are going to get some surprises. I’d guess substantial variation in compaction rate, and therefore diffusional “smoothing”, of century-scale and smaller variation.Variation by site, and also time periods at the same site.
” I am not convinced that a single analysis at a single site in Antarctica is sufficient to reject the notion that natural decadal to century fluctuations are of a significant magnitude.”
Fred’s analysis doesn’t depend on rejecting that notion. Is their any evidence that natural fluctuations caused any of the actual CO2 increase, over the period of time that we are actually discussing? And whatever natural fluctuations there are, ACO2 gets added to the mix.
What do projections have to do with the period that we are discussing, which is the recent past? We have data for that. If we can’t get that straight, no reason to think worrying about making projections is going to do us any good. So the IPCC has made bad projections. Does that make the IPCC wrong about ACO2 attribution in the recent past? Do we dismiss everything the IPCC comes up with?
“So to really get the 21st century predictions of atm CO2 correct, we need to understand the regional sources and sinks and the feedbacks. The mass balance argument doesn’t take you very far in all this.”
The mass balance argument works with real numbers that are known with a degree of certainty that makes the mass balance useful. The ins and outs of regional sources sinks feedbacks, good luck with that.
The attribution of the rise to date as anthropogenic is as near certain as anything in science. No literature whatever contradicts it (or perhaps you have a reference attributing a significant portion to “natural” causes?) If someone as distinguished as yourself feels otherwise, you should publish.
Do you really think that ice core data wouldn’t reveal a rise of 50% of the current anthropogenic (60ppm!), even with the smoothing inherent? It’s completely implausible.
And to suggest that a mysterious natural source came along just exactly as our own emissions started and rose lockstep with them? Risible.
You seem to feel obligated to support even the most absurd notions, as long as they challenge orthodoxy.
Until we know the ins and outs of regional sources sinks feedbacks…yatta…yatta, we got no idea. In the meantime, we play around with curve fitting and various random ideas that don’t have any real substance. Anything to poke at the IPCC, which we know can’t be right about anything. That’s how we roll.
> Anything to poke at the IPCC
Anything but Sky Dragon stuff, Don Don. Which the current ClimateBall episode is not. Because.
Goldilocks’ a very dynamic player.
Judith:
“And finally, why does it matter whether we attribute 100% or 90% or 50% of the increase in atm CO2 to humans?”
“Well the key issue is to predict how the 21st century concentration of atm CO2 will evolve in response to future emissions.”
Lets draw a parallel
“”And finally, why does it matter whether we attribute 100% or 90% or 50% of the increase in warming to humans?”
“”Well the key issue is to predict how the 21st century temperature will evolve in response to future emissions.”
##################
Judith in the past you have argued that we need to understand the human contribution to warming, to understand the potential for future warming.
Strangely, you dont see how attribution of the increases in C02 is likewise important to the discussion of future concentrations.
We have a science that guides us in determining from a global perspective how much of the increase in c02 is due to man. There is no serious challenge to this view. Surely there are questions of the regional and decadel variability. However, Nothing you can find at smaller spatial scales or shorter temporal scales will change the global answer in any appreciable way. You simply can’t ignore or dismiss what the best science has to say about the matter’
Further
“So to really get the 21st century predictions of atm CO2 correct, we need to understand the regional sources and sinks and the feedbacks. The mass balance argument doesn’t take you very far in all this.”
This needs to be shown and not asserted. Neither you nor Fred nor anyone else has shown that you “need” to understand the “regional” sources and sinks to get atm c02 correct.
curryja | May 12, 2015 at 10:36 am | Reply
“The IPCC has made some specific projections. Fred’s analysis leads to a specific projection.”
My projection: Temperatures will continue evolving with the long term laid-in pattern:
http://i1136.photobucket.com/albums/n488/Bartemis/tempproject_zps16578eaa.jpg
CO2 will continue evolving as the integral of k*(T – T0).
http://www.woodfortrees.org/graph/esrl-co2/isolate:60/mean:12/scale:0.25/plot/hadcrut3vgl/isolate:60/mean:12/from:1958
The above data CLEARLY shows CO2 is following the temperature with a lag time.
Salvatore,
CO2 variability follows T variability with a lag.
CO2 levels and trend are way higher than the influence of temperature (8 ppmv/k) can be (Henry’s law).
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The Skeptical Science group created a video for their online course on dealing with climate deniers which deals with this topic. You can see it below:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQ9hPl9dl98
That’s not me cherry-picking a weak argument they use while ignoring a stronger one. That really is their only argument.
actually it isn’t the only argument, check out section 6.3.2.3 of the most recent IPCC report; it is just the most straightforward.
or see my paper, which lists some of the other arguments as well http://theoval.cmp.uea.ac.uk/publications/pdf/ef2011a.pdf or see Tom Curtis’ excellent SkS blog post http://www.skepticalscience.com/anthrocarbon-brief.html
dikranmarsupial, you’ve just engaged in one of the class fallacies, the straw man argument. Anyone with basic reading skills will understand the words “the” and “their” mean different things even though they start with the same three letters. As such, anyone with basic reading skills will realize these sentences do not refer to the same concept:
As anyone reading my comment can see, I discussed the material presented in a class. My comment mocking the weakness of that material was clearly referring to the material presented in the class. That other material, which the class doesn’t present, may be better does nothing to absolve the class for what it did present.
In other words, you just wrote two comments to tell me I’m wrong because something I clearly didn’t say is wrong. I’d hate to imagine what you’d have said if I had pointed out the class practically pretends methane isn’t a greenhouse gas.
Brandon being ridiculous. You said:
“That really is their only argument.”
That could easily be taken to mean exactly what it says. Why didn’t you say:
“That really is the only argument they presented.”
See the diff, junior?
And actually, junior, the pouched wonder didn’t say that you said it is their only argument. Read harder before you go off, junior.
Brandon_S wrote “As anyone reading my comment can see, I discussed the material presented in a class.”
somebody hasn’t looked at the reference list for this weeks lecture, have they? ;o)
thanks dikran.
dikranmarsupial:
Somebody doesn’t understand providing a reference doesn’t mean you’ve presented all the material in those references to the listener, do they? ;o)
Brandon wrote “The Skeptical Science group created a video for their online course on dealing with climate deniers which deals with this topic. You can see it below:”
and
“That’s not me cherry-picking a weak argument they use while ignoring a stronger one. That really is their only argument.”
It is clear that the “their” in “That really is their only argument” refers to “The Skeptical Science group” just as it refers to the “their” in “their online course”. The Skeptical Science group has all of those other arguments at their disposal, and you made no direct mention of the class materials.
Personally I find discussing science rather more interesting than inaccurate nit-picking, so I think I’ll leave it at that.
Somebody is a pretty smart kid, who doesn’t know his limitations.
dikranmarsupial, I actually accept that. I misremembered what I had written. I thought I had made it more clear I was referring to the class than I actually had. I shouldn’t have reacted the way I did.
That said, while I expressed it poorly, the intended point of my comment remains true. The Skeptical Science online class offers that overly simplistic mass-balance argument as its only argument on the issue.
I wasn’t trying to make a point about the overall issue. I was just trying to highlight what that class has to say on it.
Brandon, fair enough. There is a limit to the amount of material you can fit into a MOOC, and keep to a reasonable time budget for the students. This is especially when the students are likely to have a wide range of background knowledge, some will know a lot of climate science already, some will be seeing it for the first time. Believe me, I would have liked to covered a lot more! This is one area of the climate debate where there actually is very little doubt; it is clear by a number of lines of evidence that show pretty conclusively that the rise is anthropogenic. It would be to the advantage of both “sides” of the debate to agree on this one and move onto a more productive topic.
Just to add. I disagree that the mass balance analysis is overly-simplistic, it is a sufficient argument to show that the rise is anthropogenic in origin.
Since we’re into pedagogy, Dikran, please note that “mass balance” refers to something different in Chapter 10 of the AR5.
dikranmarsupial, I actually agree the mass balance argument is sufficient to say anthropogenic emissions cause atmospheric levels to rise. The reason I call it overly simplistic is it is not sufficient to establish the size of the anthropogenic component. Showing Nature is a net sink does not prove the entirety of the increase is due to anthropogenic emissions. By its very nature, it cannot.
And while that may not be a particularly important issue for the class, the class does claim the rise in atmospheric levels is due to anthropogenic emissions. That means the class offers the argument as proof of a point the argument cannot prove. That’s not appropriate.
Brandon S wrote “The reason I call it overly simplistic is it is not sufficient to establish the size of the anthropogenic component. Showing Nature is a net sink does not prove the entirety of the increase is due to anthropogenic emissions.”
My question is this, in what sense is the natural environment causing any of the increase given that it taking more CO2 out of the atmosphere than it puts in?
Can you give an example of another situation where something causes the amount of a substance to rise in a reservoir whilst at the same time taking more out of that reservoir than it puts in? For example, if I share a bank account with my wife (lets assume there are no bank charges or interest); if I take more money out each month than I put in but the balance still rises, what proportion of the increase is due to my transactions? Most people would say “none, you are opposing the rise, your wife is responsible for all of the rise in the balance”. Why is the carbon cycle any different?
> I share a bank account with my wife
No.
Do not use this example.
Ever.
Again.
***
Kids, don’t do this. He’s just a math guy. Two bank accounts. OK?
Or do your freaking testament! Both of you.
Right now.
“Why is the carbon cycle any different?’
The standard answer from the multitude, who don’t get the mass balance, is that you don’t know all the ins and outs. You can explain that to ’em, but they won’t get it. This thread is a real eyeopener.
Having just watched the lecture again, I actually provide two arguments that the rise is anthropogenic, and the mass balance argument is actually the stronger. The first argument is the strong correlation between atmospheric CO2 and cumulative anthropogenic emissions, which would be a bit of a coincidence if anthropogenic emissions were not the cause. The second argument is mass balance, which is based on the fact that the growth rate is less than anthropogenic emissions, which shows that the natural environment is a net carbon sink. The second argument is not merely a correlation, but a constraint that means the natural environment cannot be making a positive contribution to the rise. Those are distinct arguments, with differing levels of significance.
dikranmarsupial:
Easily. I’ll do it by tweaking your example. Your example is:
Suppose instead your wife was adding $400 each month while withdrawing $300. At the same time, you were withdrawing $50 each month. That would result in the bank account growing by $50 a month. Then one day you decide to start withdrawing only $25 a month from the account. That causes the account to start growing by $75 a month even though no additional money is being added.
Your influence on the bank account is still a net loss/sink, but because the amount of that loss/sink changed, the rate of growth increased. You can, of course, say, “Well, that rate of growth would be impossible without the wife depositing her money.” That’s true. It’s just not a rebuttal of the point people are making – by reducing the amount of money you withdraw from the bank, you cause the rate of growth to increase.
It’s easy to see why this point matters. Imagine if natural sinks increased in efficacy so much CO2 levels began rising by only 1 ppm/decade. That would be a huge deal, but under the mass-balance argument, nothing would change. The mass-balance argument would still say 100% of the rise is due to man. That the amount of rise changed would be ignored.
Interestingly, this issue ties back to another important comparison in the global warming discussion. When talking about what portion of the temperature change man is responsible for, many people say the answer is over 100%. I believe I’ve seen you say so yourself. If you used the approach given with the mass-balance argument, that wouldn’t be possible. That’s because the net balance argument cannot quantify individual components.
By the way, the point being made by critics of the mass balance argument is present in peer-reviewed literature. It’s actually argued to be an important issue in the global warming debate. There is worry because as the planet warms, Nature’s carbon sinks are likely to decrease in efficacy. That will result in a greater proportion of carbon dioxide emitted by man to remain in the atmosphere.
But look at how that would appear in the mass balance argument. Under it, since Nature would still be a net sink, we’d say the rise in CO2 levels is due entirely to man. There’s nothing wrong with saying that. It’s technically true. In some discussions, it might even be a necessary point to make. It just wouldn’t help us examine any number of questions we might be interested in.
Suppose the rise in temperatures over the last century has caused CO2 levels to rise by 20 ppm more than the direct effect of emissions would have. That’s something which might be worth knowing if we want to understand what will happen in the future. People might discuss it. They might publish papers about it.
And they might get annoyed if every time they talked about it somebody came along and said, “CO2 levels are only rising because of humans are emitting CO2.” That statement may be technically true, but it wouldn’t contribute anything to the the issue they’re trying to examine.
And that’s what the mass balance argument is. It’s people making a technically true statement which does nothing to help examine the issues we’re looking at.
Brandon S? wrote “Suppose instead your wife was adding $400 each month while withdrawing $300. At the same time, you were withdrawing $50 each month. That would result in the bank account growing by $50 a month.”
Yes, in that case my wife would be 100% responsible for the rise as she is putting in $100 a month more than she puts in, and I would be strongly opposing the rise because I am taking $50 dollars out each month more than I am putting in.
“Then one day you decide to start withdrawing only $25 a month from the account. That causes the account to start growing by $75 a month even though no additional money is being added.
Your influence on the bank account is still a net loss/sink, but because the amount of that loss/sink changed, the rate of growth increased. You can, of course, say, “Well, that rate of growth would be impossible without the wife depositing her money.” That’s true.”
indeed I agree.
” It’s just not a rebuttal of the point people are making – by reducing the amount of money you withdraw from the bank, you cause the rate of growth to increase.”
Now this is the point where your logic is mistaken. By taking only $25 out a month, rather than $50 I am not causing the rise, just opposing the rise caused by my wife less strongly. “causing an increase” and “opposing the increase less strongly” are not the same thing.
To show why, consider what would happen if there were a divorce and my wife and I agreed to share the remaining balance equally on the grounds that we had both caused the rise in the balance. Would that be fair? Of course it wouldn’t, common sense ought to be able to tell you that!
“It’s easy to see why this point matters. Imagine if natural sinks increased in efficacy so much CO2 levels began rising by only 1 ppm/decade. That would be a huge deal, but under the mass-balance argument, nothing would change. The mass-balance argument would still say 100% of the rise is due to man. That the amount of rise changed would be ignored.”
So you are suggesting that because the natural net sink even more strongly opposes the rise it should be considered as causing even more of the rise and anthropogenic emissions less? That is a rather strange form of logic. It is a bit like sating that if I started taking $95 dollars out of the account each month does that change who is responsible for the rise in the balance? No, of course it doesn’t it is still my wife as she is putting more in than she takes out and I am taking more out than I am putting in.
dikranmarsupial, I hope you realize when you say:
You have reached the point of arguing nothing but semantics. I’m fine with that as I love discussing semantics, but it still means this is not a scientific argument.
Common sense also tells me we can describe things in more than one way, and those descriptions don’t change the underlying reality. It also tells me what people say is “common sense” often is not.
For instance, suppose you had been withdrawing money from the account to pay the housekeeper you and your wife had agreed you needed. You eventually reduced the hours the housekeeper worked and took over some the cleaning duties yourself. That caused you not to need to withdraw as much money, causing the bank account to grow more quickly.
Would you deserve a share of the balance? Maybe. You did work so as to let it grow more quickly. You weren’t adding money to the account yourself, but you were reducing how much money needed to be taken out.
No. That is not what I said. At all. What I said is very simple. When we have a change in a total value which is gotten by combining many variables, we can be interested in the change of each individual variable. Neither the mass-balance argument, nor your discussion of semantics, allows us to do so.
When people discuss the details of how various variables have changed, responding with a formulation that cannot possibly examine those details is wrong. It’s nothing but a throwing a red herring into the mix. Everyone in a discussion could agree with a mass balance argument yet still want to look at how the various components of the carbon system have changed or will change in the future. There are a number of scientific papers which do exactly that.
I would hope nobody would deny natural emissions and sinks can change over time. I assume you do not. If you do not, you must accept that changes to those emissions and sinks could influence atomspheric levels. That’s what most people are talking about here. They’re not denying what the mass balance argument says. They’re discussing details the mass balance argument could never address.
Because the mass balance argument is overly simplistic and cannot address issues many people, including many scientists who publish papers on these issues, are interested in.
With the exception of the weak argument for CO2 staying about the same for thousands of years prior to the recent past, what else is wrong with the presentation? The poor guy can’t say “phenomenon”, but what else is wrong?
Brandon will pretend he doesn’t see this, because he is still mad at me. Someone else put the question to the little fella, so he can answer. He must be dying to tell us.
“As anyone reading my comment can see, I discussed the material presented in a class.”
yes you discussed SOME of the material presented in class and then you made an argument about not cherry picking and drew a conclusion about all of the arguments they had.
Steven Mosher, if you’re going to claim:
You really ought to show people what it is I left out. Otherwise you’re just making a baseless accusation nobody has any reason to believe.
Good argument, Steven. The kid can get all petulant, but he said what he said. And reasonable people could easily make the inference that the kid meant exactly what he said:
junior:“That really is their only argument.”
No Brandon, you have to show that you looked at everything. You made the claim. it needs to be supported. No shifting burdens.
Brandon it took me 1 minute to find more videos on the carbon cycle,
bonus materials,
references,
all of which contain more arguments.
Without reviewing this material you CONCLUDED that you had found their only argument. And you argued that you didnt pick the weakest one.
you made a simple mistake.
focus. you know why McIntyre can find a small problem and show why it matters?
HE FOCUSES.
He uses judgement.
Yes, if one is not focused, one is liable to be caught cherrypicking and then one is likely to react with unseemly petulance. Self-awareness can be useful, if one cares about how one is viewed by the other folks.
Steven Mosher:
That one person made a claim does not excuse you from your burden of proof when you make a claim of your own. One can challenge a claim without incurring any burden of proof by simply expressing doubt, but that is not what you did.
I’ve been waiting for months for the next images from the Carbon Observatory satellite.
Anybody know what’s taking so long?
I too have been awaiting this, no idea what the hold up is.
“I’ve been waiting for months for the next images from the Carbon Observatory satellite.”
“The first images were rather disconcerting to the consensus.”
Eli rabett
“They are available.The first images were exactly what had been expected for the time of year with significant agricultural burning in the Southern Hemisphere.”
really? then why are you bothering to say this?
“It was what was expected because it was what had been earlier seen from a number of other satellites at that time of year”.
really? then why was it rather disconcerting to the consensus [Eli] enough to contradict discomfort and this comment?
Better to keep quiet rather than speak out and let everyone know you are really alarmed.
The first images were rather disconcerting to the consensus.
Really? How so?
They are available. Satellite sensors have to be calibrated and validated once on station. That takes time.
The first images were exactly what had been expected for the time of year with significant agricultural burning in the Southern Hemisphere. It was what was expected because it was what had been earlier seen from a number of other satellites at that time of year. However, as usual, the usual suspects did not, nay would not, understand.
VTG – please refer to Eli’s response.
They are probably looking for a color scheme even more alarming than the alarming one they chose in the first place.
My money is on after Paris.
you could be right Capt’n
My guess is that they are trying to graphically highlight the “Anthro” part of the CO2 cycle, but the “A” isn’t cooperating. It’s swamped by natural fluctuations and they are having trouble resolving A-CO2 sources.
Looking through this surprisingly copious thread, there is a lot to be learned about the carbon cycle and I think that the satellite should fill in a lot of the blanks regarding SST, ENSO, ice, permafrost, vegetation … – and produce some surprises too.
But, would NASA want to provoke a lively discussion about something everybody thought was completely settled – just before Paris?
If they can’t spin a graphic with a non-ambiguous A-CO2 signal before COP, will they sit on it until afterwards?
(Of course, that would be politics – not science.)
I would be happy if my cynicism is proved misplaced.
KenW, Most of the uncertainty is in land use change which for some reason was a specifically removed from mitigation plans as far as the US was concerned. Since US land is a net carbon sink, the US should be getting props for “doing something”. Since “biofuels” are contributing to land use emissions and are promoted as a “mitigation” method, I don’t think that would look good for the IPCC team.
That’s a good reason!
The first images were for a month around November and showed the expected Southern Hemisphere max around vegetation. If they did one for May, you would see the annual Northern Hemisphere peak which is much bigger due to the greater size of the vegetated area. These pictures are good for seeing the annual 6 ppm cycle, but don’t show where emissions are really coming from because those changes are more diffuse and have lower change rates in any given month.
Salvatore:
What that graph shows is the VARIATION FROM THE MEAN of rising atmospheric CO2 due human emissions.
When plotted against global ave temps it would indeed show a lag.
Why? because CO2 from natural sources outgasses naturally on the back of temperature – this following global temp.
You have managed there to completely throw away the CO2 signal that is the driver ….. namely the MEAN and isolated a tiny naturally varying proportion and worked backwards to say it is the driver.
It is akin to saying that weather drives climate, when of course, weather rides on the back of climate.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/graph/esrl-co2/isolate:60/mean:12/scale:0.25/plot/hadcrut3vgl/isolate:60/mean:12/from:1958
This graph shows the temperature trend and CO2 trend. It shows temperature leading CO2.
It is the mean temperature deviation but the message is the same which is CO2 follows the temperature trend.
No it’s not – It’s as I described. It’s the DEVIATION from the mean, not a trend. That’s why there is a ZERO in the midddle of the left-hand scale whith + above and – below.
It’s simply the background variation in CO2 from natural causes as it is outgassed and therefore HAS to follow.
The DRIVER is the CO2 that lies in the increasing MEAN. – that is NOT represented on that graph.
I’m sorry but if you cant understand that then you really shouldn’t be commenting.
Ava,
That is not the trend at all it is the CO2 variability which follows T variability.
CO2 is going up unabated, while the influence of temperature (~8 ppmv/K) hardly plays a role in the increase and the variability of CO2 around the trend is less than +/- 1 ppmv for a 110 ppmv trend (70 ppmv since 1960).
Which drives the other? “All laws of nature are local.” “In other words it is impossible to bring a proof of a statement using global or averaged quantities otherwise than by deriving them from the local microscopical laws of nature.” Milanovic – http://judithcurry.com/2014/05/23/how-simple-is-simple/
There is some focus on the global which can lead to less discussion on the local. We have the four values of our emissions, nature’s emissions, nature’s sinks and change in atmospheric CO2. There’s more to the story. It’s like looking at one line, net income briefly, being satisfied, and moving on. When you start looking at the details, it’s probable there’s more understanding.
Global averages are an artifact and are not appropriate for use in climate trend analyses. This has always been my main concern with climate science as it is being practiced. Tomas Milanovic comment clearly demonstrates this.
Ava, please don’t listen to Sal. He is lost. Go to Ferdinand Englebeen’s website and review his analysis. You can see from his reply to your comment that he is a gentleman and a scholar.
For a group of people who think this discussion should be stopped, The Warmer Ice Cream Socialites sure are contributing heavily to it.
Andrew
Judith, the pouched wonder made the following comment in the wee small hours of this morning:
“curryja wrote “… I think everyone understands the concept of the mass balance. The issue is how/whether this relates to attribution, given that we have a dynamical system with feedbacks (including regional variations and temperature dependent feedbacks).”
The mass balance argument shows the natural environment is a net carbon sink; please explain in what sense the natural environment can be considered a cause of the increase while taking more CO2 out of the atmosphere than it puts in.’
Do you believe that the natural environment has been a net sink in at least the last 50 years? Can you, will you explain in what sense the natural environment can be considered a cause of the increase, while taking more CO2 out of the atmosphere than it puts in?
It may not be clear that the last paragraph is my inquiry. I don’t believe Judith has answered the questions and it’s rather important, if this exercise is to be of any value, to Mark et al.
You seem to be in denial that – lacking a significant natural increase in natural forcing – the CO2 level won’t reach 500 PPM.
Anthro-emissions are about a 1/20th of the carbon cycle.
The increase in PPM in atmospheric CO2 needed to cause natural absorption to negate the anthropomorphic emissions completely is about 20 PPM. The remaining increase in atmospheric CO2 is due to other causes.
PA, fails miserably to answer the very clearly written questions and demonstrates his woeful lack of understanding of the mass balance argument. That’s one denizen down, Judith. Next!
PA,
“other causes” ?
“decade variability”?
Magick?
Don’t gloat, verysmugguy. Hey, the mass balance deniers could use some help from the creators of Mike’s Nature trick.
Ducky, I enjoy a good barney as much as the next man but I think we’ve enough on here without needing to go off topic to Mike.
I expect Judith will post something suitably derogatory about him here soon and everyone will pile on, just like old times.
Yeah, we can rehash that Charlie Hedbo thing. But we really should give the hockeystick fabricator a break. He has suffered enough, already. Just ask him. And we don’t want to get sued.
“other causes” ?
“decade variability”?
“This upwelling, and thus the CO2 flux to the atmosphere, is heavily modulated by the El Niño–southern oscillation (ENSO) cycle. During strong El Niño years the equatorial Pacific CO2 source can drop to zero. During La Niña the CO2 source to the atmosphere is enhanced.”
http://judithcurry.com/2015/05/06/quantifying-the-anthropogenic-contribution-to-atmospheric-co2/#comment-702029
Also record SSTs.
Since no one else is stepping up, I will give Ragnaar a do-over. The two questions are:
1. Do you believe that the natural environment has been a net sink in at least the last 50 years?
2. Can you, will you explain in what sense the natural environment can be considered a cause of the increase, while taking more CO2 out of the atmosphere than it puts in?
The first one is a simple, yes or no. But you can say yes or no, and then explain your reasons. If you say no to the first question, no need to waste our time on the second. Clear?
Don Monfort:
1) Yes. It is true our emissions are so large that the flow is in total in the expected direction.
2) Decadal variability. While we are overwhelming the fast sinks, ocean upwelling if it takes water from 100s of years ago from the bottom of the deep oceans, that seems to vary with ENSO, that would be a supply flux. And it’s my opinion that THC upwelling content is not uniform. That each parcel of that water may have more or less CO2 potential. That is the ability to put CO2 into the atmosphere.
Don Monfort | May 12, 2015 at 2:25 pm |
PA, fails miserably to answer the very clearly written questions and demonstrates his woeful lack of understanding of the mass balance argument. That’s one denizen down, Judith. Next!
http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/images/indicator_figures/sea-surface-temp-figure1-2014.png
Since 1900 the sea temperature has risen about 1’C and that results in about 300 GT of CO2 outgassing. So the 270 GT change in atmospheric CO2 (830-560) is 111% caused by ocean warming alone (111% is one better than the IPCC 110%).
Thanks for looking out for me Don!
You are welcome, Mark.
Ragnar gets a pass on the first question and a star for trying on the second.
PA skipped the first question and has made an assertion. Fail.
Ferdinand has a very comprehensive and very, very, very likely correct explanation of all this stuff on his web page. And he has addressed all your pet issues there and in his comments here.
PA,
Anthro emissions are 5% of the carbon cycle, thus only 5% of the rise?
Sorry, but a feedback system doesn’t work like that:
The 95% in and out is mostly a matter of (seasonal) temperatures and at 290 ppmv for the current temperature, everything is balance: input and output fluxes are equal. Even if you add only 5% of a one-way input, that does disturb the equilibrium and levels will go up, 100% caused by the 5% extra input. In this case, the carbon cycle is not fast enough to remove the 5% extra input (which also is increasing over time) and the levels go up further and further, near fully caused by the extra input, whatever the natural in and out fluxes were, until a new equilibrium between inputs and outputs is reached. That is a pressure dependent process, which is much slower than the temperature related processes responsible for the huge in/out fluxes.
The 300 GtC extra from 1 K temperature increase is simply impossible. An increase of 1 K gives ~8 ppmv (~17 GtC) extra in the atmosphere. That is all.
The quantities in the (deep) oceans don’t play any role at all: only the change in oceanic CO2 pressure plays a role: it doesn’t make much difference if you shake a 0.5, 1.0 ot 1.5 l bottle of Coke from the same batch: you will find near the same CO2 pressure under the cap at the same temperature…
Y’all can help Judith, if you want to. She said she thinks everybody understands the mass balance concept. If you do, you should be able to handle these questions:
1. Do you believe that the natural environment has been a net sink in at least the last 50 years?
2. Can you, will you explain in what sense the natural environment can be considered a cause of the increase, while taking more CO2 out of the atmosphere than it puts in?
Don Monfort,
Ferdinand Engelbeen has answered your question in this recent post:
http://judithcurry.com/2015/05/06/quantifying-the-anthropogenic-contribution-to-atmospheric-co2/#comment-702501
The simple mass balance argument only demonstrates that the environment has been a net sink, and hence not a net source, for the atmospheric CO2 accumulation. It doesn’t show that the *cause* of the increase could not have been (entirely or partially) natural. Ferdinand explains carefully in the linked post (and at least half a dozen earlier posts) how very improbable (but not inconsistently with mass balance considerations) it would have been for the natural contribution of sources and sinks to contrive, together with anthropogenic emissions, to produce a net response that is indistinguishable from the expected effect of anthropogenic emissions alone, and yet be *causally* responsible for part of it. In other posts, he also explains why such hypothetical natural contributions (that must involve some coincidental acceleration of the carbon cycle) aren’t just unlikely but also would be inconsistent with the bulk of observations about the evolving oxygen mass balance and the carbon isotope ratios.
Compare: Suppose you and I, only, are making frequent small deposits to, and withdrawals from, a joint bank account (a few dollars at a time, say). At the end of the year, the balance is up $1000 while your own net contribution (total deposits minus total withdrawals) was also $1000. This only shows that my financial contribution to the account balance variation was zero. It doesn’t show that I didn’t *cause* part of the increase, or, indeed, all of it. I may have been monitoring the evolving account balance and made sure that the balance would be increased by $1000 at the end of the year no matter what you did. I could also have been monitoring it so as to increase the balance by $500 just in case you would have contributed nothing. If this had been my plan, though you contributed $1000 of your own money, and I contributed nothing, you still only are causally responsible for $500, since your actual (net) deposits causally accounts for the final balance being $1000 higher rather than just $500 higher (as it would have been even if you had contributed nothing).
If course, the above explanation could be ad hoc and unwarranted, but it doesn’t violate mass (monetary) balance. The simplistic mass balance argument is thus inconclusive, as Judith notes. It’s a pity that she only addresses the flaw in the simplistic argument, and pays no attention to Ferdinand’s much stronger argument.
Also not well established are the cumulative effects of a greater frequency and magnitude of El Nino events versus La Nina events. El Nino frequency and their combined magnitude have been dominant during every period when global SST and atmospheric temperatures have risen over the past 150+ years. The reverse has occurred when the number and magnitudes of La Nina events outweigh El Nino events. Why? If the heat released by one El Nino is not countered by the heat absorbed of an equally weighted La Nina, there will be a net gain in atmospheric and oceanic heat. Temperatures rise as a consequence. And if that heat has not been fully dissipated before another El Nino adds more, the effect becomes additive. Each subsequent El Nino then adds to the prior oceanic and atmospheric heat, raising global temperature. The same holds true for periods of back-to-back El Nino events, or when the magnitude of a La Nina is not countered by an equally sized El Nino, except, of course, the result is a net heat loss and a decrease in temperature.
It would appear similar results can be expected for the growth rate in atmospheric CO2 concentration in response to ENSO events.
Thanks, Pierre. You answered both questions correctly. You agree with Ferdinand. So do I. I am waiting for Judith to indicate that she get’s it. I have not seen her explicitly answer both questions. I am beginning to suspect she is avoiding, as she was posed this query in the wee small hours of this morning by dikrant, and again by myself. She seems to be impressed by the arguments against Ferdinand of freddie and bartie. It’s the crux of the issue. IMVHO.
Ferdinand:”What this all shows is that there is a very remote, pure theoretical possibility that a natural source was the cause of the increase in the atmosphere if and only if the natural source is completely synchronized in timing and ratio with human emissions. For which is not the slightest indication…”
The probability is down around the unicorn level. And they need some evidence for a contributing natural source. All they got so far is unicorns.
> a joint bank account
Again. Damn. No. Bad idea. Do you have any idea how much complications this creates?
Mind your examples, please.
Don Monfort | May 12, 2015 at 1:54 pm | Reply
1. Do you believe that the natural environment has been a net sink in at least the last 50 years?
Yes
2. Can you, will you explain in what sense the natural environment can be considered a cause of the increase, while taking more CO2 out of the atmosphere than it puts in?
Nonsense question Don, of the beating the wife variety.
Logically if it takes more CO2 out than it puts in it cannot cause an increase if you are dealing with a fixed base source of CO2 .
But the question is rather
“Can the natural environment put more CO2 overall out and take more in so there is a bigger amount of CO2 being put into the atmosphere in the first place.”
Yes.
You just need an increase in the CO2 base to do this.
In which case there can be an increase in CO2 in the atmosphere while there is also an even bigger removal of CO2 from the atmosphere if the total amount being put in has increased dramatically.
ie if the turnover rate is a lot higher there can be more CO2 in the air and the sea with the sea putting out more CO2 into the air but also absorbing and sequestrating more at the same time.
So imagine a giant series of sub sea volcanic eruptions CO2 rich which put up the CO2 level in the sea plus a rise in CO2 which puts more of that CO2 level into the air The higher CO2 in the air puts more into plants, sea vegetation and shellfish shells and chemical reactions in the seabed absorbing the CO2.
So all the CO2 sequestrations lead to more CO2 removed.
CO2 level goes up at rate of increasing OHC so CO2 has gone up.
Must balance with the amount in the sea
Extra volcanic [natural] , human, whatever cause of CO2 input balanced by extra absorption and binding.
What is so hard about it.
apart from your silly question.
angech, how sure are you that it is volcanoes and not fossil fuels on a scale of 1 to 10, and what fraction would you give to volcanoes? If fossil fuels added 2x and the atmosphere increased by x, where do the volcanoes contribute? Don’t you think the other x went into the ocean and caused acidification? Why isn’t that the most obvious candidate to you for what happened, and what specifically makes you doubt it?
Sorry angie, I don’t have any more time or patience to deal with you characters. Jimmy will handle it.
angech2014,
The possibility that a natural source was synchronizing with human emissions is quite impossible”: not only in timing: starting exactly together with human emissions and increasing in exactly the same ratio of a fourfold in the past 55 years. Even more important: there is not the slightest evidence that there is any important change in any observation that indicates an increased natural carbon cycle, to the contrary: what is known shows no change at all.
Thus while pure theoretically possible, the observations show that it didn’t happen.
Take your example: more undersea volcanic emissions may give more acidic ocean upwelling and more CO2. The latter a remote point, as the deep oceans are a gigantic reservoir for carbon derivatives. A lower pH gives more CO2 release in the atmosphere, thus more loss of CO2/DIC in the sea surface. The observations show a small decrease in pH, but an increase in DIC. Thus the main flux is from the atmosphere into the oceans, not reverse…
Jim D | May 13, 2015 at 12:22 am |
angech, how sure are you that it is volcanoes and not fossil fuels on a scale of 1 to 10, and what fraction would you give to volcanoes?
It was an example to show Don that humans are not the only cause of CO2
and that his question was ridiculous.
[which he knows hence his leaving the argument when his logic was exposed]
and that conditions can easily be met to have more CO2 be taken out of the environment while the natural environment puts more in simply by making a lot more CO2 in the first place [Humans, extra plant growth, volcanoes, no one knows].
I would certainly like to give fossil fuels a much bigger guernsey than volcanoes but how can I when we do not know how much they are putting out in the first place.
My guess would be 1 out of 10 volcanoes on a scale of 1 to 10 or less but it is,emphasis, a guess.
If fossil fuels added 2x and the atmosphere increased by x, where do the volcanoes contribute?
They don’t in your particular scenario.
Don’t you think the other x went into the ocean and caused acidification?
Jim D, if the OHC went up and the sea volume increased which you are claiming would occur with a C02 rise then these 2 steps would actually lead to alkinisation, Hotter ocean more CO2 in the air and greater sea volume less acid to go around so pH would rise?
If the other X disappears reasonable answers [4] are it went into making more plankton, sea vegetation and land vegetation so the biomass of the world increased. Alternatively the basic earth at the bottom of the sea neutralized the acid and turned it into CaCo3 etc which deposited on the sea bed.
In which case it did not have to cause any extra acidification.
Not that it could have if the ocean was hotter or larger anyway, correct?
Why isn’t that the most obvious candidate to you for what happened, and what specifically makes you doubt it?
Explained above , specifically.
I could add that some people have cast doubt on the measurement of ocean acidification and even that the ocean is acid
[Seven is neutral. Over the past 300 million years, ocean pH has been slightly basic, averaging about 8.2. Today, it is around 8.1, a drop of 0.1 pH units, representing a 25-percent increase in acidity over the past two centuries.]
but that would be pedantic and I quite agree that decreasing alkinisation is the same as increasing acidification
Don Monfort | May 13, 2015 at 1:00 am |
Sorry angie, I don’t have any more time or patience to deal with you characters. Jimmy will handle it.
Bye Don,
Take question 2 with you.
2. Can you, will you explain in what sense the natural environment can be considered a cause of the increase, while taking more CO2 out of the atmosphere than it puts in?
A. of cause it cannot,
There that was not so hard was it?
So just what did you want to say?
“It may not be clear that the last paragraph is my inquiry. I don’t believe Judith has answered the questions and it’s rather important, if this exercise is to be of any value, to Mark et al.”
It may not be clear to you but Judith is answering a different question to the simple one you are asking.
Just follow the mantra of appeal to authority from Feynman
“We have a science that guides us in determining from a global perspective how much of the increase in c02 is due to man. There is no serious challenge to this view. Surely there are questions of the regional and decadel variability. However, Nothing you can find at smaller spatial scales or shorter temporal scales will change the global answer in any appreciable way. You simply can’t ignore or dismiss what the best science has to say about the matter’”
Hand in hand, just the two of us, who would have thought?
[Sorry, I forgot thinking was not allowed]
angech, you probably know your sea volume and plankton argument is just as weak as your volcano argument. I don’t need to explain why. You are just making things up now.
Don, you may consider the cold Arctic Ocean and the Antarctic circumpolar current as unlimited sinks that suck up all the CO2 that reaches them. However, that does not make all the ocean a net sink. Emissions from the tropics are not constant nor is the area of open Arctic ocean constant. The annual concentration swings in the Arctic is evidence that the global system switches from net source to net sink annually. With the addition of anthros to the natural fluxes, the long term accumulation rates have been positive, but one should not assume that the long-term natural source fluxes have not increased as well.
Fred,
I have repeatedly shown to you that the seasonal swings are caused by (NH) vegetation, not by the oceans. That is very clearly demonstrated in the opposite CO2 and δ13C movements over the seasons:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/seasonal_CO2_d13C_MLO_BRW.jpg
And if you look at the literature, the whole biosphere is a net, growing sink for CO2. Not a source. So are the oceans, as can be deduced from the increase in DIC everywhere (and the hardly measurable decrease in pH).
As I have been trying to convey all day the data shows that CO2 is following the temperature trend, with a lag time.
In addition the fact that the temperature trend last century was up overall can also be shown not to correlate with CO2 concentrations. it is instead tied very closely to the PDO/AMO/ENSO and sunspots.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/graph/esrl-co2/isolate:60/mean:12/scale:0.25/plot/hadcrut3vgl/isolate:60/mean:12/from:1958
http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.com/2014/09/new-paper-finds-natural-ocean.html
This graph along with the other graph makes my case and if you choose not to believe what the data is telling so be it.
I will take the data over wild speculation theories any time which is all that is being done by many on this site. Speculation with no data to back it up with.
Until I see the temperature trend correlate with CO2 and CO2 leading the temperature trend the speculation that anthropologic CO2 is going to be the determining factor in future CO2 concentrations is just that speculation.
The test will come once the global temperature trend starts to drop which it will because the natural factors that govern the climate started to phase into a colder trend post 2005 and this is only going to increase with time.
Those being solar primary /secondary effects, PDO/AMO phase ,and ENSO.
This is what has been governing the climate and what will continue to govern the climate going forward.
Also there is much evidence that there is NO positive feedback between increasing CO2 concentrations and water vapor.
http://icecap.us/images/uploads/Crux_Flawed_Science.pdf
This is the reality and the reason why AGW theory will be obsolete before this decade ends.
I agree that the environment is a net sink.
How do we know that the NATURAL environment is a net sink?
How do we know that humans haven’t created an anthro sink which is larger than their emissions, with a decrease in natural sink to compensate?
Your analysis is ignoring the absolute values of the four variables, anthro emissions, natural emissions, anthro sinks and natural sinks and just assuming that all the increase in sinks is natural.
It may be that the entire increase in sinks is natural, but it seems likely to me that as we have raised emissions, we have raised CO2 sinks as well.
Excellent points.
Now even if human emissions have increased CO2 concentrations some the over riding factors are natural those being geological activity, biological activity, climate and forrestation.
“How do we know that humans haven’t created an anthro sink which is larger than their emissions, with a decrease in natural sink to compensate?” Good phrase. Anthro Sink. What is the greening of the planet if not an Anthro Sink? It would not do to have a problem that solves itself.
Richard says “how do we know”. Fail.
Richard,
Natural sinks do respond to the increase in the atmosphere, no matter the cause of the increase. The whole ocean-atmosphere cycle reacts to any disturbance as a simple linear feedback system: the sink rate is directly proportional to the increase in the atmosphere above the equilibrium level(steady-state: as much CO2 is coming in as going out). That was the case for the past 800,000 years: a change of ~8 ppmv/K warming or cooling over the 8 glacial – interglacial periods.
The CO2 level in the atmosphere should be ~290 ppmv for the current average ocean temperature, according to Henry’s law. We are at 400 ppmv. That means that there is 110 μatm (~ppmv) extra pressure to push more CO2 into the oceans. The net result is that ~2.15 ppmv/year (4.5 GtC/year) sinks into the oceans (and vegetation).
Human emissions are ~4.5 GtC/year, twice the current net sink capacity of the natural carbon cycle, no matter how much CO2 cycles through the different reservoirs.
Conclusion: human emissions exceed the sink capacity of the carbon cycle and are the main cause of the increase in the atmosphere.
“The whole ocean-atmosphere cycle reacts to any disturbance as a simple linear feedback system:”
Ain’t no simple linear feedback cycle nowhere in the whole ocean-atmosphere cycle and you know that.
CO2 increase, increased temperature, increased clouds, increased ocean volume, increased OHC, albedo increase, negative feedback,currents and heck I’m barely started.
Do you want to try again, in simple terms?
angech2014:
Have a look at the CO2-temeprature record over the past 420,000 years (recently confirmed for 800,000 years) in the Vostok ice core:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/Vostok_trends.gif
where most of the deviations is due to the long lags during the onset of a glaciation. Looks quite linear to me.
If you look at the current sink rate for 110 ppmv above the equilibrium for the current temperature, that is about 2.15 ppmv/year or an e-fold decay rate of ~51 years.
Peter Dietze calculated years ago the e-fold rate at 60 ppmv (1988) above equilibrium and found an e-fold decay rate of ~55 years:
http://www.john-daly.com/carbon.htm
Looks quite linear to me.
Thus while lots of underlying processes may be far from linear, chaotic, irregular,… the oceans act surprisingly linear to disturbances, be it temperature or CO2 injection in the atmosphere…
Ferdinand,
many things changed during the glacials, not just temperatures.
In fact, as I pointed out to ATTP, there is a twelve thousand year period where temperature fell about 9 degrees C and CO2 didn’t budge!
http://climatewatcher.webs.com/StartLG.png
Changes in windiness, sea level pressure, and general circulation all have an impact. And even with temperature records from ice cores, recall the CLIMAP data indicated a warmer time in the tropics during the LGM.
I don’t dispute Henry’s law just that short of saturation, there may be more important factors than temperature governing how much CO2 the oceans actually take up.
turb, you can do better than that.
https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-5HJtF3oStfE/VM0mgAvgLdI/AAAAAAAAMZU/2TmiFIjbvXs/w643-h377-no/boreholes%2Bwith%2Bcomposite%2Bco2.png
I think pretty much every holocene temperature reconstruction indicates temperatures have been decreasing until AGW. Composite CO2 indicates CO2 has been increasing the whole time.
“How do we know that humans haven’t created an anthro sink which is larger than their emissions, with a decrease in natural sink to compensate?”
unicorns!!!! how do we know that Unicorns are not a net sink?
They appear Magically to fool us !!!
Mosher yelling about unicorns is Climate Science at it’s best, don’t ya think?
Andrew
I think this “unicorn” needs a definition. Say this “unicorn” is an increased greening due to anthro contribution to atm concentrations of CO2. Would that not be an anthro caused increase in sink? Would not deforestation and other poor land use be reduction of “natural” sinks?
As stated before, the mass balance argument is reasonable for the entirety, but the offsets need to be considered. My impression is the is what Dr. Curry intended here: http://judithcurry.com/2015/05/06/quantifying-the-anthropogenic-contribution-to-atmospheric-co2/#comment-700829
(subject to her correction)
Andrew
““How do we know that humans haven’t created an anthro sink which is larger than their emissions, with a decrease in natural sink to compensate?”
Can you recognize a bad argument.
Suppose that I showed you fossils of a T rex and said that was evidence the earth was more than 6000 years old and you responded
““How do we know that the devil didnt plant this false evidence?”
Pretty weak argument huh? Do you know why?
Suppose That I showed you that Increased gun ownership was coincident with lower crime and you said
“How do we know that crime did go down for some other reason?”
Suppose I showed you that decreasing taxes led to increased revenue for the government and you repsonded
“How do we know that revenue didnt rise for another reason?”
Pretty bad argument.
What if you argued
“How do we know that some else besides C02 didnt cause the warming?”
Pretty bad argument.
Why are these bad arguments? Why are they phony questions?
Do you see how this objection can be used on EVERY claim to understanding? And thus is a meaningless objection.
In science the speculation that “it might e something else ” is a commitment to LOOK FOR something else and report your FAILURE.
“How do we know that the devil didnt plant this false evidence?”
That’s not the argument here.
The fact that you have to resort to poetic language in a supposedly scientific venue and using false comparisons makes your rant even more juvenile.
Andrew
Steven Mosher:
I am not making an argument.
I am questioning whether knowing only human emissions and total change in atmospheric CO2 allows us to attribute all the rise in atmospheric CO2 to humans.
Without knowing anything about anthro changes to sinks.
Am I going to go out and do science on this issue – no.
Am I allowed to raise questions about the analysis being used to attribute “near all the rise to humans” – of course.
The background rate for sea level rise is 120 meters over 20,000 years – which is 6mm per year.
If sea level rise is only 3 mm per year currently have humans caused a decrease in sea level rise of 3mm per year?
That sort of analysis feels like the mass balance attribution argument to me – overly simplistic.
The DRIVER is the CO2 that lies in the increasing MEAN. – that is NOT represented on that graph.
Tony Banton says which is a FALSE argument of wishful thinking ,since there are many other data sources which show very strong correlation between global temperature trends and natural factors in the absence of CO2 concentrations.
My post at 6:10pm May 12 for example.
Solar activity that being visible light and long wave UV light intensities is what governs sea surface temperatures not CO2 and the associated IR which can penetrate the skin of the surface ocean to 1mm!! Not going to make a dent in contrast to visible light /UV long wave penetration of surface ocean waters of up to 50 meters!
As solar activity declines so will the sea surface temperatures so will the global temperature trend.
PA those sea surface temperature trends you sent correlate to sunspot activity very closely.
OMG! It’s the sunspots! Who woulda thunk it?
Don, answer this simple question is CO2 concentrations were being driven anthropologically why is it that CO2 is still following the temperature trend?
Until you can answer that question you have no basis for your conclusions.
Apparently all of the AGW enthusiast who amount to the blind leading the blind. A pathetic theory which will be obsolete before this decade ends.
How many times do you want to lose that argument, Sal? Have you been so battered that you have lost your memory? Go back through the thread and review.
Don , I am waiting for your answer.
You can not answer it. I do not see how I can loose the argument when I have data to back up my argument.
co2 is still following the temp trend. Why Don?
SDP…
Well…
The rise in CO2 doesn’t correlate well with emissions.
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2008/01/spencer-c12-c13-image6.png?w=720
The natural variability and the long term trend have the same C13/C12 ratio.
It is hard to avoid the conclusion that the rise in CO2 is mostly natural or the result of destruction of carbon sinks (which has nothing to do with – and is actually reduced by fossil fuel use).
Nice work pa:
“is actually reduced by fossil fuel use”
Your Nobel Prize is in the mail.
PA,
The variability in year by year CO2 increase is certainly caused by vegetation, but that is not the cause of the long term trend, as the whole biosphere, including plants, bacteria, molds, insects, animals and human caused land use changes is a net producer of oxygen, a net sink for CO2 and preferably for 12CO2, thus leaving relative more 13CO2 in the atmosphere. See:
http://www.bowdoin.edu/~mbattle/papers_posters_and_talks/BenderGBC2005.pdf
Thus the biosphere is not the cause of the δ13C decline in the atmosphere, only humans are, as all known other important sources of CO2 (oceans, volcanic vents, rock weathering,…) are higher in δ13C than the atmosphere.
Exactly. The data is on our side.
actually SST does not correlate to Sun spots. And if it did it would still be physically meaningless.
Steven Mosher said “And if it did it would still be physically meaningless.”
You mean it would still be physically meaningless as far as I know.
if co2- correction
AGW believers as we can all see do not accept data which runs counter to their theory.
Land Atmosphere Carbon Flux
https://climatedataguide.ucar.edu/sites/default/files/styles/node_lightbox_display/public/key_figures/climate_data_set/Fig3.jpg?itok=Ngn8QLcz
From about 1950 to 1973 we have an El Nino/La Nina like – Spike, Collapse then stabilization. After that a new regime towards and into negative values. If I am reading the graphs correctly here:
https://climatedataguide.ucar.edu/climate-data/carbon-emissions-historical-land-use-and-land-use-change land use change continues to add CO2 to the atmosphere. So having taken CO2 out of the land which I assume includes vegetation, we’ve found a way to put it back.
Ragnaar,
Fortunately for the earth, even including human caused land use changes, the whole biosphere still is more sink than source, as can be deduced from the oxygen balance: the earth and especially the dry areas are greening.
See http://www.bowdoin.edu/~mbattle/papers_posters_and_talks/BenderGBC2005.pdf
Looks like this bizarre thread has pretty much run its course. Judith is apparently not going to respond to comments/questions on her tepid, some would say lame, summary comment.
The genius warmists, who are accustomed to having to defend the indefensible, have had a good time here for a few days and they will go back to their warmist blogs to celebrate. They should at least thank Judith for meekly allowing them to mercilessly beat up on her denizens.
The majority of Judith’s flock sail on wearing their little paper hats floating on their little paper boats down that big river in Egypt.
I am used to dealing with serious people. I would have to say that even a majority of the evil doers that I have had to squash were serious, in their own perverted ways. What I am finding in this climate debate is that about 95% of the participants are small characters who are not to be taken seriously: simple axe grinders. I am out.
Don,
I am leaving too. It is quite depressing that even Dr. Curry with brilliant ideas about the (small) influence of CO2 on temperature is trapped in the delusion of a (probable) non-human cause of the CO2 increase in the atmosphere.
All available evidence points to a human cause. Every alternative I have heard of violates one or more observations. Bart’s alternative even violates ALL observations, including Henry’s law and the most elementary knowledge of a feedback process, which the oceans are for the carbon cycle.
Thus sorry, I am going to plant the pumpkins, the weather is getting nice here…
Don, and many others, thanks for the help, see you next time, I suppose, as this discussion is repeated every few weeks nowadays…
Ferdinand
Ferdinand,
I sympathise. I did learn from some of your comments, so not a complete waste of time, I hope :-)
I am also leaving; life is too short to waste on rhetorical discussions with those that are not listening. Many thanks to Ferdinand, Don, ATTP and others for their efforts. It is hard to understand why this topic gets recycled so often on blogs, given that the scientific evidence is essentially unequivocal, and the errors have already been patiently explained by Ferdinand on numerous occasions. As Fred Singer wrote, clinging on to such canards is doing climate skeptics no good at all.
http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2012/02/climate_deniers_are_giving_us_skeptics_a_bad_name.html
“Then there is another group of deniers who accept the existence of the greenhouse effect but argue about the cause and effect of the observed increase of atmospheric carbon dioxide. One subgroup holds that CO2 levels were much higher in the 19th century, so there really hasn’t been a long-term increase from human activities. They even believe in a conspiracy to suppress these facts. Another subgroup accepts that CO2 levels are increasing in the 20th century but claims that the source is release of dissolved CO2 from the warming ocean. In other words, they argue that oceans warm first, which then causes the CO2 increase. In fact, such a phenomenon is observed in the ice-core record, where sudden temperature increases precede increases in CO2. While this fact is a good argument against the story put forth by Al Gore, it does not apply to the 20th century: isotopic and other evidence destroys their case.”
I strongly recommend anybody to read Ferdinand’s web page on this topic, it is an excellent resource: http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/co2_origin.html
Good decision Ferdinand since the data does not support your speculation
You are a gentleman and a scholar, Ferdinand. Your work is sound and it is very disappointing that Judith has given it short shrift. I am not going to read back through this mess to be sure, but I don’t recall her engaging with you. She has left some brief comments that indicate she is impressed with the foolishness of Fred and Bart, but she hasn’t made more than a vague and cursory effort to address how their jive conflicts with your analysis, which happens to basically agree with the consensus on this particular issue.
We need to know more about the regional sources, sinks, birds and bees, etc. to make projections for policy and the mass balance doesn’t help. So, we tell the policy makers that we got nothing for them because we need to know more about the blah…blah…blah and there might be unicorns.
I don’t think she understands the mass balance. We would know, if she would answer the questions.
Ferdinand, I don’t think Judy enforses what Fred hypothesized here. She said as much. I get the sense that she thinks that nature has an interaction and if you say 4% is natural then there is. I believe she is also talking more about the idea that humans injecting CO2 into the atmosphere is bound to be just another influx into an already chaotic system and as such is part of the whole. If that makes sense. I think she was more interested in opening of the discussion than anything. I realize the science here is pretty straight forward and linear as you say, however, different perspectives can never hurt where science is concerned. Look at big bang theory, everyone was on board with the expanding universe and cosmic radiation. Now we’re finding out the expansion is excellerating. So that is explained by dark energy that has yet to be discovered. Even the basis premise that the universe had a beginning is just postulate. You would have to believe that once upon a time there was non-existence. Pretty hard to understand that.
Thanks for blogging here, I learned a lot from you.
I must say, Don, that you’ve surprised me on this thread, and I mean that positively. You re-instilled – in me – a sense of optimism, although you may not regard that as particularly positive yourself :-)
ATTP –
Did you have a response to my last post?
You warmistas could instill a sense of optimism in me, if you went over to the Guardian blog and put as much effort into combating little nuticelli’s latest mendacious propaganda effort, as you have expended in dealing with the jokers on this thread. You might also thank Judith for her tolerance and maybe show a little more of it on your own blog.
Don,
+10
Thanks, Steve. Hey, do you think that Fred’s work bounds the ACO2 at 50% vs. Ferdinand’s 100%? That seems to be the purpose of this post. To give us a basis for discussion. Judith is looking for someone to do a dynamic systems analysis of the carbon cycle. I nominate you. When can you have it completed?
Don,
You contradict yourself:
“I am used to dealing with serious people. I would have to say that even a majority of the evil doers that I have had to squash were serious, in their own perverted ways. What I am finding in this climate debate is that about 95% of the participants are small characters who are not to be taken seriously: simple axe grinders. I am out.”
vs.
“The rest of it, looks like you think I take this crap seriously. I am here mostly for the target practice and to play my part in the human comedy. You all don’t seem to mind my rude behavior, when I am hammering warmist trolls.”
My guess is that you’ll be back.
Life is full of contradictions, Mark. So are people. I am sure you can find a comment of mine where I stipulate that everything I say is not necessarily meant to be taken entirely seriously. Hopefully, the serious people will understand what I am about.
What a load of pompous, self-worshipping bilge. You guys can’t do the math, so you throw a hissy fit, and take your ball and go home. Meh.
It’s not about the maths, Bartemis. It never was.
Arguing by counter models in empirical sciences is a bit silly.
We admire and at the same time are defeated by your paranormal ability to count unicorns, bartie. Have fun.
“It’s not about the maths, Bartemis. It never was.”
Science isn’t about math. Mmmm-hmmm…
“Arguing by counter models in empirical sciences is a bit silly.”
Can I describe a system which outputs 1/2 of the virtual accumulation of one of its inputs, yet is not driven by that input? Why, yes I can. Quite easily in fact.
If the “mass balance” argument does not work for that example system, and it clearly does not, then what kind of system does it work for, and how do you know the Earth’s CO2 regulatory system is one that it works for?
http://www.thehindu.com/multimedia/dynamic/01392/12-YT-rhino—l_12_1392587g.jpg
yes Don.
I have changed my mind.
Who was here to straighten out the absolute mess of disinformation that the post created?Not Judith, but dikranmarsupial and ferdinand.
those guys did great. They tried to reason, but look at the result. No wonder the D word still has traction.
I dont see how or why she can sit back and refuse to comment
She doesn’t have to show us she get’s it, Steven:
“When you’ve understood this scripture, throw it away. If you can’t understand this scripture, throw it away. I insist on your freedom.”
― Jack Kerouac, The Scripture of the Golden Eternity
Mosh
This has been a strange thread that doesn’t seem to want to die. Ferdinand said this, which I agree with;
“I am leaving too. It is quite depressing that even Dr. Curry with brilliant ideas about the (small) influence of CO2 on temperature is trapped in the delusion of a (probable) non-human cause of the CO2 increase in the atmosphere.
All available evidence points to a human cause.’
I have made the point several times that increased co2 does not seem to make much of a difference to temperatures, once you get over a certain concentration.
Which part of Ferdinand’s statement would you disagree with?
tonyb
Actually, they’re as deluded as Haynie. As bad as convicting somebody of murder just because he happened to be in the neighborhood.
“As bad as convicting somebody of murder just because he happened to be in the neighborhood.”
That’s right, AK. Anybody could have stepped in the unjustly convicted gentleman’s DNA on the sidewalk and carried it into the house and deposited it on the body. The fingerprints are a little harder to explain, but we like this poor guy and want to give him the benefit of the doubt. Did I forget to mention that the murder could have been done by a Columbian drug dealer?
> The fingerprints are a little harder to explain,
Mr. T’s got invisible hands. He waves them aggressively and the Kirkian effect operates control theorically. You swear their fingerprints, but they’re not.
If the gloves fit, you must acquit.
Judith must be busy over on the anchovy thread. I have decided to avoid getting involved in that knotty controversy. Oh, the policy implications of that one.
But what does it mean when a prosecutor cancelled a defense witness’s plane ticket so he couldn’t show up in court?
The U.S. EPA suggests a maximum continuous exposure level of 1000 ppm, without specifying any adverse effects for concentrations above this.
OSHA workplace limit average is 10,000 ppm, with 30,000 ppm short term.
Toxicity sets in at around 40,000 ppm.
Who cares what causes a level of 400 ppm? Natural or man made, the effect on humans is the same. Nothing. Zip.
Much ado about nothing.
I am pretty sure that most of these full-blown nothing zip characters are agent provocateurs working for the Consensus Climatariat Bureau of Counterinsurgency. The CCBC. I don’t know the cyrillic acronym.
“Richard Betts wrote elsewhere “It doesn’t particularly matter whether warming has been “statistically significant” and “I just use “pause”, “hiatus” and “slowdown” as a way of describing a feature of the raw data – just looking at the data, you see a run of years in which the later ones are not particularly warmer than the earlier ones. ”
A reply elsewhere was
“If you are going to claim that there is a feature of the raw data (i.e. it is not just an artifact of the noise to which human eyes are all too easily attracted) then the question ought to be “is there statistically significant evidence for the existence of a “pause”).”
My response
The artifact of the noise as you describe it sure looks like a pause to me, and apparently to a lot of other people.
So does it not exist?
or does it exist as purely an artifact?
or does it exist as a genuine pause?
If you wish to view it as a pause that reflects an artifact of noise we can at least talk about “the pause”.
Because of the short time frame you may well be right but you may, not equally of course, be wrong.
Eventually it will break one way or another and we will know for sure whereas now we just think we know for sure.
When people start to discuss unicorns the unicorn may be a myth but the concept of a unicorn becomes real.The concept of the pause has become real whether one likes it or not.
““is there statistically significant evidence for the existence of a “pause”).” great question but one which nobody wants to answer.
I am happy to put a pennies worth in to start the ball rolling.
With caveats.
CO2 has gone up so the temperature should go up in relative tandem. Anyone arguing that CO2 has an effect on temperature should see the logic in that broad statement.
Equally obviously CO2 and temperature do not go up in tandem as ATTP has said elsewhere.
This is indeed the problem with the so called pause. CO2 up but not surface temperature in recent times on some data sets basically the satellite ones which still qualify as “statistically significant evidence.”
Not all the evidence, just some statistically significant evidence which again we should all agree on [we won’t but tough luck].
We have a sideways movement in an up going trend over a short time interval [decadal in this case still very short].
In terms of science warming should resume unless the cause of the movement is a negative feedback to the rising C02.
If the temperature defies physics and keeps going sideways for another 20 years I would say that that would be definite proof both for the existence of a pause and therefore the need to consider carefully such a mechanism.
If the temperature were to fall 0.5 degrees over the next 20 years I would both question negative feedbacks and other ideas relating to the estimation of the actual heat source variation which circulate on other blogs.
These time frames may be far too small but if anyone agrees with me on that, which they should, all the current arguments pro and con AGW are pointless anyway as we will never be around long enough to prove them
WRONG
“CO2 has gone up so the temperature should go up in relative tandem. Anyone arguing that CO2 has an effect on temperature should see the logic in that broad statement.”
The theory starts with this
If you increase C02 and hold everything else constant, then the temperature should go up over time.
Issues:
1. How much should it go up
2. Did everything else stay constant
3. How much time.
the problem with your broad statement is that it has nothing to do with the actual theory
Steven
“The theory starts with this. If you increase C02 and hold everything else constant, then the temperature should go up over time.”
This is the same as saying
“CO2 has gone up so the temperature should go up in relative tandem”
“as a broad statement.”
The comment as “a broad statement” means effectively holding everything else constant, ie not picking on quibbles and caveats in a narrow statement
My statement is the actual theory, sorry your English acumen has failed your in your desire to nail my comment.
We are saying the same thing , except your statement implies no relationship of CO2 to Temp other than a positive response whereas we both know that their is a relationship, climate sensitivity which my comment of going up in relative tandem satisfiers
“Don, I am leaving too.”
Can you take all your Warmer Troll buddies with you and not come back?
Andrew
There are Trolls out there but Don is not and ATTP and dikranmarsupial are arguing their beliefs. Let them do it. If they want to go, let them go. I thank them for coming.
The blog is poorer as an echo chamber and truth will come by ironing out the differences, not insulting them.
Some of the arguments are mainstream,and have to be given weight.
angech,
I understand that you feel sorry for them (even Trolls are people too), and that’s OK with me. I do not feel sorry for them.
Andrew
All they have is speculation with no data to back it up with.
Bad Andrew,
If all you can do is argue with those who have the same ideas as yourself, that only gives an echo chamber of “me too!” as there are too many blogs already.
But don’t be afraid, I will come back to haunt everybody of every side who spreads bad science, no matter if that is a “warmist” or a “d*nier”.
I am only interested in good science and will defend that against anybody, no matter the side of the fence.
Next week we have here (Flanders/Belgium) – at last – a real debate about the science of climate change between two scientists of the “warmer” side and two of the “cooler side”. Marcel Crok, co-author with Judith of an article about climate sensitivity will be one of the “cooler” side.
I am in the committee which made that debate possible. The dialogue between the two camps is going on already a few years in The Netherlands which is far more fruitful than preaching for the converted…
> [A] real debate about the science of climate change between two scientists of the “warmer” side and two of the “cooler side”. Marcel Crok, co-author with Judith of an article about climate sensitivity will be one of the “cooler” side.
I don’t think you should present Marcel as a scientist, Ferdinand.
If all contrarians have are scientific journalists to manufacture dissent, no wonder we’re having such a thread at Judy’s.
Change of venue? All meeting at Willards?
Ferdinand,
Thanks for engaging so civilly and informatively. Of course these discussions go on a cycle as the science is unsettled. But interesting perspectives on all sides. Good luck on the science climate debate. It would be nice to see the discussions and slides.
Scott
Most of the contrarian memes have currency here, so there’s no reason to move elsewhere. There’s no better place to crowdsource for the next Hearings.
I never argue from ignorance, but if I did, I’d go where I can find it.
> Of course these discussions go on a cycle as the science is unsettled.
See? The science makes contrarians do it.
“at last – a real debate”
Fred, I appreciate that you feel that this is might be a contribution to honest dialog about climate science. I see it as insignificant and way past long overdue. I’m not sure what the value of it is against the backdrop of the last decade of Warmer climate propaganda.
Andrew
Ferdinand:
I have enjoyed reading your posts, as well as dikranmarsupial’s.
I feel we have already made good progress.
I was not happy with the characterization that humans caused “all” of the rise in CO2.
Now, your analysis shows that you allow for 1/12 (10 ppm of 120 ppm rise) to be caused by natural variation (or whatever you want to cause the non-anthro portion).
So we already agree that not all of the rise in CO2 above 280 ppm is caused by humans – and that is a good thing.
Perhaps the humans are the cause of the other 11/12ths, perhaps it is 7/12ths – I don’t know.
So I feel that progress has been made and thank you for your participation.
I would feel better if we could actually put numbers on the change in sink caused by nature and the change in sink caused by anthro activities, and then I believe we would be in a better position to use the mass balance argument for attribution.
On the emissions side, I do feel like we have pretty good numbers on anthro emissions and total rise in atmospheric CO2 – but am less satisfied with the natural CO2 emissions numbers.
The netting of natural emissions with both the change in natural sink plus the change in human sink is merely an assumption, and has the effect of simplifying everything by lumping three separate variables into one net variable.
I think further work will let us know whether this assumption is actually correct and warranted – or whether perhaps humans have had a bigger effect on the sink side than perhaps is currently realized.
That’s not an unreasoned position, Richard. You should do more thinking on the implications of the mass balance and supporting evidence vs. the lack of evidence for net natural contributions. Stating that we need to know more about the ins and outs of the regional whatevers does not help. It could be we will never know and the mass balance and other evidence that Ferdinand cites is as good as we are going to get. If we are making policy today, what do we go with?
“If we are making policy today, what do we go with?”
Warmer Don… Mosher’s lil’ policy buddy.
Andrew
Don asks “If we are making policy today, what do we go with?”
If you are asking me – I would recommend generating as much of our electricity with nuclear as possible. I would phase in as much nuclear as we can reasonably build over the next 30 or 40 years and store the waste regionally or even at the plants (kind of like we are doing now anyway).
I would take America from 20% nuclear to 50 or 75% nuclear (if I were King).
I would continue to invest in research for new inventive ways to generate energy without generating carbon, but which are cheaper than hydro-carbons (oil, coal and natural gas).
If it is cheaper – the market will switch over without any regulation or subsidies.
Wind and solar aren’t cheaper.
Nuclear is currently not cheaper – but would be if we would lower regulation and liability and start mass building.
Nuclear is baseload, 24 hours per day, 365 days per year – no need for backup. The new passive cooled plants are much safer designs and nuclear is already much safer than mining coal anyway.
Just one persons opinion.
Willard,
Marcel has a MSc in Physical Chemistry and was 15 years science writer for a magazine “Natuur en Techniek”. As he was interested in the critique of Mann’s HS, he interviewed both Mann and McIntyre and let the facts about Mann’s statistics speak for themselves by having his methods examined by a statistics professor in Leuven (Belgium). Since then he is a -moderate- skeptic, including three years of expert review work on the latest IPCC report WG1 for the Dutch Ministry of the Environment.
The other skeptic is Dr. Bas van Geel who is a biologist and paleo-climatologist, University of Amsterdam.
On the other side:
Luc Debontridder climatologist at KMI (Royal Meteorological Institute), Ukkel , Belgium.
Dirk Verschuren is professor at the Ghent University for paleo-ecology and climate change.
Two paleo guys with opposite views must give some lively debate…
I think your proposed actions are very sensible, Richard. But what I was asking is what do you base your policy on? Do you base it on what we can infer from the mass balance and supporting evidence, or are you going to be paralyzed by what we don’t know about regional this and that? Since you are proposing measures that will reduce ACO2, I guess it’s the former.
Of course, whether any action to reduce CO2 is necessary also depends on whether or not forestalling potential warming is worth whatever costs we incur. But that ain’t the issue here.
Anyway, I wonder if anyone in the argument over policy is taking the freddie, barty, salby stuff seriously I haven’t noticed this issue coming up in the public debate over CO2 mitigation.
> Marcel has a MSc in Physical Chemistry and was 15 years science writer for a magazine “Natuur en Techniek”.
I know Marcel’s pedigree, Ferdinand. An MSc does not a scientist make. Marcel’s a science writer. If a science writer is invited to debate science, then you say “a science writer is invited to debate science”.
As a ninja, I could not care less about titles. However, I do care about the fact that Marcel’s not a scientist and that you’ve presented him as such.
Thank you for your concerns.
Don asked “But what I was asking is what do you base your policy on? Do you base it on what we can infer from the mass balance and supporting evidence, or are you going to be paralyzed by what we don’t know about regional this and that?”
I would not base any policy decision on the mass balance evidence. I would not base any policy decision on the model output. I consider the mass balance evidence more of a toy model and the model output is inaccurate. Neither is ready for trillion dollar decisions.
I would base my policy decisions on no-regrets actions (like going nuclear) which address the problem, but in a way which hopefully will not be a problem if the forecasts are wrong (under or over).
If we are truly running out of fossil fuels (peak oil keeps moving away into the future) – then nuclear would be a no regrets option. We certainly cannot replace all fossil fuels with the current solar/wind. So start weaning ourselves off of fossil fuels – replacing fossil fuel plants as they age with nuclear. Carbon emissions are lowered. No drilling, no transportation costs (or very much lower). Small footprint. Many advantages – but in the short run more expensive. Still, that is what I would do.
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As the data shows very CLEARLY CO2 is still following the temperature trend, suggesting natural causes are still the main driver for CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/graph/esrl-co2/isolate:60/mean:12/scale:0.25/plot/hadcrut3vgl/isolate:60/mean:12/from:1958
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/05/12/22-very-inconvenient-climate-truths/
More data showing AGW theory is flawed.
dohumanscauseglobalwarming.wordpress.com
ROFL
Yes, very good.
Salvatore;
You know, repeating nonsense does not make it correct.
I fail to see why you can not comprehend that a variation from the mean vs time is NOT the mean trend, and when plotted against and correlated to T is merely the response to T that the biosphere must have, namely following T. That is the normal situation, UNLESS you overwhelm the Earth’s ability to sink CO2, as anthro CO2 emissions have done. FYI: CO2 does follow T when Milankovitch cycles drive T and then act as a feedback.
Also Mons Bardinet’s “23 points” are …..
Point #16 FI: So you agree that the GHE effect “goes against the 2nd Law of thermodynamics” do you?
Even Watty calls that Dragon-slayer (insert).
That one statement torpedoes all the rest even without noting the myths/lies and stupidity with the rest.
Tony , you are in denial of the data which again shows co2 follows the temperature does not lead it and that there are no temp. /co2 correlations.
17. The temperatures have always driven the CO2 content of the air, never the reverse. Nowadays the net increment of the CO2 content of the air follows very closely the inter-tropical temperature anomaly. (discussion: p. 33)
Until that changes you are incorrect.
Tony Banton | May 13, 2015 at 1:46 pm | Reply
Salvatore;
You know, repeating nonsense does not make it correct.
Yup, that is why I don’t listen to global warmers. Just because global warmers can incessantly drivel out nonsense doesn’t mean they are right.
Since around a 20 PPM rise in the CO2 level completely compensates for 9.8 GT of fossil fuel/cement emissions by increasing absorption (sinking) , the remaining 70 PPM of rise is due to something else.
Global warmers can dance whatever jig they want – it isn’t going to increase the effect of human emissions. Human emissions are a pathetically small quantity in the general scheme of things.
agree 100%
Tony it does NOT matter what the mean trend is in this case, only the deviation and if the deviation in CO2 concentrations is leading or following the temperature deviation.
Why the mean trend in temperature had risen last century is due to natural variability in my opinion and has nothing to do with the point I am trying to make.
Tony read it and learn from it.
Conclusions:
The observations of a global mean temperature “flat” with no linear trend since 1997 cannot be discarded.
Those observations do contradict the conjecture of a “greenhouse effect” for which there is no physically admissible definition at hand: there is no “heat trapping” between surface and air as the net radiative heat flow between those bodies is about nil
The main features of the atmosphere both on Earth and on Venus are easily deduced from the basic polytropic equations of the ideal gases.
The observations show that in the last decades as in geological times the CO2 content of the air is a consequence of the temperatures and cannot be their cause.
Truth n°2 57% of the cumulative anthropic emissions since the beginning of the Industrial revolution have been emitted since 1997, but the temperature has been stable. How to uphold that anthropic CO2 emissions (or anthropic cumulative emissions) cause an increase of the Global Mean Temperature?
[Note 1: since 1880 the only one period where Global Mean Temperature and CO2 content of the air increased simultaneously has been 1978-1997. From 1910 to 1940, the Global Mean Temperature increased at about the same rate as over 1978-1997, while CO2 anthropic emissions were almost negligible. Over 1950-1978 while CO2 anthropic emissions increased rapidly the Global Mean Temperature dropped. From Vostok and other ice cores we know that it’s the increase of the temperature that drives the subsequent increase of the CO2 content of the air, thanks to ocean out-gassing, and not the opposite. The same process is still at work nowadays]
Conclusions:
The observations of a global mean temperature “flat” with no linear trend since 1997 cannot be discarded.
Those observations do contradict the conjecture of a “greenhouse effect” for which there is no physically admissible definition at hand: there is no “heat trapping” between surface and air as the net radiative heat flow between those bodies is about nil
The main features of the atmosphere both on Earth and on Venus are easily deduced from the basic polytropic equations of the ideal gases.
The observations show that in the last decades as in geological times the CO2 content of the air is a consequence of the temperatures and cannot be their cause.
Truth n°2 57% of the cumulative anthropic emissions since the beginning of the Industrial revolution have been emitted since 1997, but the temperature has been stable. How to uphold that anthropic CO2 emissions (or anthropic cumulative emissions) cause an increase of the Global Mean Temperature?
[Note 1: since 1880 the only one period where Global Mean Temperature and CO2 content of the air increased simultaneously has been 1978-1997. From 1910 to 1940, the Global Mean Temperature increased at about the same rate as over 1978-1997, while CO2 anthropic emissions were almost negligible. Over 1950-1978 while CO2 anthropic emissions increased rapidly the Global Mean Temperature dropped. From Vostok and other ice cores we know that it’s the increase of the temperature that drives the subsequent increase of the CO2 content of the air, thanks to ocean out-gassing, and not the opposite. The same process is still at work nowadays]
Salvatore del Prete-
The same process is still at work nowadays
Assume that the ice core Temp/CO2 relationship still holds. How much CO2 increase is due to the temp increase during the modern anthropogenic CO2 era?
This lengthy and technical discussion would make a nice issue tree diagram. See my http://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2013/07/10/the-issue-tree-structure-of-expressed-thought/ and http://www.stemed.info/reports/Wojick_Issue_Analysis_txt.pdf. The issue tree is already there, in the way the responses fit together, but diagramming those relations would not be a trivial task.
I am surprised to see that some people seem to still be arguing that human emissions must be causing the annual CO2 increase just because they are larger than the increase. This is wrong. The increase is caused by the sum of all changes in the system.
That’s not quite what’s being said: the net human emissions are larger than the increase. The net natural emissions are not – they’re negative. Hence the rise is a consequence of human emissions.
ATTP said “the net human emissions are larger than the increase.”
That is an assumption – we do not know that (I don’t think).
We don’t have a very good handle on the change in sinks, attributing the changes between nature and anthro.
That is why the mass balance argument isn’t an attribution argument.
They’re negative because they’re the sum of everything but one category of emission, that happens to be positive.
Doesn’t follow.
AK,
Yes, that’s kind of the point.
Yes, it does. However, the chance of you getting this is clearly vanishingly small, so I won’t bother explaining further.
Richard A.,
Yes, we do know this. We can estimate our emissions and we can measure the rise in atmospheric CO2. Our emissions are greater than this rise.
Anthro has to be net positive as we are not re-creating fossils. Our emissions are greater than the rise in atmospheric CO2. Some of it has to be going somewhere else. The only other place is nature. Since CO2 is conserved, the natural sinks must be taking up more than they emit.
ATTP’s argument is that the increase of C02 in the atmosphere *is a consequence of* human emitted C02.
It’s OK to argue that. The difficult part is that he cannot establish the chain of events necessary to get from the first part to the second. His argument (mass balance) is deliberately vague to accommodate this.
Andrew
Wow, I thought Richard was making progress.
And poor David:”The increase is caused by the sum of all changes in the system.”
The mass balance is the sum of all the changes in the system. That’s why it is called the mass balance.
Bad Andrew | May 13, 2015 at 2:42 pm |
ATTP’s argument is that the increase of C02 in the atmosphere *is a consequence of* human emitted C02.
Plant growth has increased 55% during the 310 PPM to 400 PPM transition. The ocean absorption has increased 5 GT/Y during the 310 to 400 transition (the 1°C ocean warming increased emission 3 GT/Y).
Land (120/155)*55 = 42.5 GT/Y
Land+Ocean 42.5 GT + 5 GT/Y = 47.5 GT/Y.
( 90 PPM/47.5 GT/Y ) * 9.8 GT = 18.6 PPM. All human fossil fuel/cement emissions are completely neutralized by a 18.6 PPM increase in the CO2 level.
What is just crazy is that global warmers relentlessly advance dubious tangential solutions to the real problem: the 2 GT/Y rainforest destruction emissions and the accompanying 0.5 GT/Y loss of carbon sinks (40 GT/Y total since pre-1900).
The net annual increase in atmospheric CO2 is about 4.5 GT. This is about 9 years of rainforest destruction (0.5 x 9 = 4.5).
If rainforest destruction was globally banned for 9 years the CO2 level would stabilize. The fact that global warmers don’t propose a REAL solution to rising CO2 levels indicates they aren’t being honest, don’t care about CO2, and are just pursuing a political agenda.
ATTP
the natural sinks must be taking up more than they emit.
Not all emitters are sinks. Do you have a good handle on the current rate of GHG emissions from methane clathrates?
“The mass balance is the sum of all the changes in the system”
Which doesn’t determine that AC02 did it. *All the changes did it.*
Duh.
Andrew
No, it does not follow, ATTP. Causation is not that simple. The net change is the sum of all the positive and negative changes. It may be a very long equation. You cannot pick just one term out of that long string of changes and call it the cause.
Here is a bank analog. During the day many people come to the bank. Some make deposits, others withdrawals. At the end of the day the bank has a little more money than at the beginning. No single deposit, which happens to be bigger than the increase, is the cause of the increase. You can say that if that deposit had not been made then the increase would not have occurred. But that is not sufficient to make that deposit the cause, because you can also say that for many other combinations of deposits and withdrawals.
The cause of the change is the sum of the changes.
“You can say that if that deposit had not been made then the increase would not have occurred.”
Think on that a little bit longer David. If a corresponding amount of natural CO2 had been removed, you would not have had the increase. See how it works, David?
Good example. If the bank is plus $75 for the day and 10 people each made $100 deposits, the 10 of them could each argue they caused the ending balance to be plus $75. If 9 and not 10 of them deposited $100 each, who would claim they caused all the increase? In this case the bank would be minus $25 for the day. They could argue that if not for them, the bank would be minus $125 for the day. I am reminded of a few of my married clients who file jointly who want to know what each spouse pays in taxes? They each want to pay their share and only their share.
Methods:
1) Break the return into 2 returns. Apportion the tax based on the ratio of each return.
2) Do one return and add the others to it. Look at the marginal change.
3) Do the other return and add the others to it. Look at the marginal change.
The marginal approach can help when one spouse earns 3 times what the other does.
Practice:
We owe money and it’s all your fault.
We got a refund and half of it’s mine.
When figuring two shares, I add the caveat that not all accountants will agree with the method I used.
One more example. Only one spouse works. The other spouse get a part time job. The other spouse says, all the money I earn is mine. The other spouse says, but I pay all the bills with my money.
There are many ways of looking at things.
Yes, but if we know that there is one person who made a deposit that was larger than the increase and then withdrew nothing, then we know that the sum total of all the other people’s activities is to withdraw money. Without the first person’s deposit, the account would have had less money at the end of the day.
“Without the first person’s deposit, the account would have had less money at the end of the day.”
Same can be said about all the deposits.
Andrew
You have to account for the individual in’s and out’s if you actually want to know what is going on.
Special Pleading if you suggest Climate Science doesn’t have to.
Andrew
Here is a really good article on the carbon budget, explaining the uncertainties – 2009 so it is a little outdated
http://www.igbp.net/download/18.1b8ae20512db692f2a680007111/1376383103766/NL74-global_CO2_budget.pdf
Note, the article says 90% probability that CO2 increase is above natural variability. This is very different from absolute certainty that 100% of the increase is caused by humans
Judith,
The article says no such thing. It comments on the trend in the airborne fraction.
The airborne fraction is the anthro co2 contributing to the rise, the remainder being absorbed in natural sinks.
The article confirms exactly that (greater than) all the current rise is anthro.
Words fail me on how you can misread a simple article so incorrectly.
Please. Take a pause. Close the comments. Reflect. Write something rational in a week or two once the dust has settled.
No it doesn’t, read it again.
Judith,
VTG is right. It’s not saying what you seem to think it is saying. I’ll repeat it below.
In other words the airborne fraction (about 43% of our emissions) is increasing at about 0.3% per year (i.e., more is staying in the atmosphere – on average – every year). The 90% refers to the probability that this is a real trend and not simply associated with natural variability of the airborne fraction.
Uh that’s what I said. Nowhere in this does it state that 100% of the increase in atmospheric CO2 is absolutely caused by humans.
Judith,
It’s hard to know where to go from here.
I quoted the words. ATTP has repeated them. They are absolutely clear. The article is quoting the rate of change of airborne fraction, not the change of CO2 concentration.
Implicit in the whole article, as confirmed in every single other piece of reputable literature, is that the Co2 rise is anthropogenic.
Your comments on this thread continue to astound me.
> Read it again.
Good idea:
The text preceding it explains why airborn fraction is analyzed:
The conditional does not say what happens if the sinks become more aggressive. Nevertheless, why does this indicator matter? Because:
The authors obviously forget about the possibility of a Bartemisian daemon which makes sure that no inference about partioning would ever be possible.
Judith,
You said,
This isn’t quite what the article is saying. It is saying that there is a 90% probability that the increase in the airborne fraction is above natural variability. That’s not the same as a 90% probability that the increase itself is above natural variability.
This may be true, but I suspect that that is more because it wasn’t regarded as worth saying, rather than there being some chance that it isn’t the case.
Judith
‘Uh that’s what I said. Nowhere in this does it state that 100% of the increase in atmospheric CO2 is absolutely caused by humans.”
nowhere does the article that we landed on the moon.
there are many things not worth saying.
Look at your logic
‘Note, the article says 90% probability that CO2 increase is above natural variability. This is very different from absolute certainty that 100% of the increase is caused by humans”
“Note, the article says 90% probability that CO2 increase is above natural variability. This is very different from saying we landed on the moon”
see what you did?
THE CAUSE of the increase is NEVER ADDRESSED. you take a statement about the probability of the trend exceeding natural variability
and note that it is different from a statement about the cause. well duh!
of course a statement about something different is different.
Dr. Curry’s reading of the article appears correct.
There are some interesting points in the article
“Finally, the excess CO 2 of the late 1990s appears to be partly a signature of political incentives to clear land in Indonesia that took advantage of the ongoing drought conditions”
The late 90’s CO2 excess was due to Indonesians trying to burn the planet down. The authors don’t comment on the amount of sinking that was destroyed.
If the global warmers were right the “mean annual growth rate of CO2” would be much higher and rising. Instead 2.2 PPM / Year appears to be a historic maximum for the mean annual growth rate and probably for the nice annual growth rate as well. The MAGROC for the next 5 years will be less than 2.2 PPM.
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/
In fact I will bet cash money that the “mean annual growth rate of CO2” measured on Mauna Loa as reported by NOAA will be less than 2.2 PPM this year (2015).
Steven Mosher-
“Note, the article says 90% probability that CO2 increase is above natural variability.
Nope. It says that trend in air-borne fraction is 90% probability not natural. See what you done?
me-
Nope. It says that trend in air-borne fraction is 90% probability not natural. See what you done?
That should have been: the trend in air-borne fraction is 90% probability not due to natural variation.
It implies that natural sinks are weakening and/or a change in natural sources are confounding the analysis.
Judith
There are surely two parts to this thread. The first being whether the recent co2 increase is wholly or mostly due to man. Ferdinand has set out pretty convincingly that man is wholly or mostly responsible.
The second part is surely what effect this increased co2 , whatever it’s source, has on temperature.
As I pointed out a week ago Ferdinand appears to believe the impact on temperature is small. I believe that as well, once a certain concentration is exceeded. I suspect that many here would agree with Ferdinand on the first proposition, that man is largely responsible for increased co2 but would dispute the second proposition of it’s limited impact on temperature.
This latter proposition is surely more important than the first one?
Would it be possible to have a thread on it?
Tonyb
Tony, I have new material for another post on no-feedback CO2 sensitivity, can you (or ferdinand) point me to ferdinand’s arguments along these lines). This will undoubtedly be another bun fight, but could be interesting.
Judith
I expect Ferdinand will see your comment, if not I will email him.
I would like the popcorn concession for the event. I am already stockpiling stale buns.
Tonyb
Dr. Curry,
Hadn’t seen your comment yet, too many loose ends here…
I have done some (qualitative) work on the influence of aerosols on climate sensitivity, as that works in tandem in most climate models: if (human) aerosols have a huge influence, then CO2 has a huge influence too, and vv., as that partly compensates each other.
Aerosols were the main escape goat to explain the slight 1945-1975 cooling with increasing CO2 level. But that is more and more questionable, as that doesn’t explain the current “pause”.
Some comment of mine is at Real Climate in the early days that discussion still was possible until half my comments disappeared in cyberspace:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2005/07/climate-sensitivity-and-aerosol-forcings/
comment #14
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2006/02/an-aerosol-tour-de-forcing/
comment #6 and following replies and comments
I have written an article about the influence of aerosols on climate sensitivity which was published in a special edition of E&E together with articles from others about climate change. I will write the publisher if I may use that here.
The wording is awkward, but it says there a 90% probability of a 0.3% annual increase in the air-borne fraction.
So Judith, for policy making purposes what difference does it make if it’s 90% probability vs. 100%? Do you think their methods and data got it exactly right? Do you think better measurements of regional yatta…yatta…yatta will conclusively clear up the issue? Will it ever get better than somewhere between 90 and 100% probability?
This was the point of my remarks yesterday. It doesn’t really matter if it’s 50% or 90% or 100%. What matters is the 21st century projections of atmospheric CO2 for a given amount of emissions. Again, the the models have been running too high. Something is not right with the models that encapsulate the ‘official’ understanding of all this.
> It doesn’t really matter if it’s 50% or 90% or 100%. What matters is the 21st century projections of atmospheric CO2 for a given amount of emissions.
The number of post in the category “indicator” seems to indicate that attribution matters a bit more than than:
http://judithcurry.com/category/attribution/
Sometimes, attribution is even considered as an overarching issue:
http://judithcurry.com/2015/05/04/what-are-the-most-controversial-points-in-climate-science/
Since attribution might be relevant for sensitive matters, the two overarching issues may not be that independent.
Judith,
you’ve said this at least twice on the thread.
Which models?
Too high in what – CO2? Temperature? Something else?
Judith, the paper you cited states:
“One interesting result coming out of this analysis was that the trends in accounted co 2 matched well the trends in emitted co 2– both rising at the same rate.”
I don’t see anything in that paper that hints that a significant amount of the recent rise of CO2 is of natural origin. It supports Ferdinand’s analysis. Seen any other papers?
It seems to me we are still waiting for someone to come up with some evidence of a contribution from natural CO2, other than the small amount that could have resulted from increasing temperature.
You could have been a lot more helpful in this discussion, Judith.
I haven’t looked. Is the discussion of the anchovies any more productive? I use them a lot. You can add that umami flavor to just about anything with some mashed anchovy. Don’t add too much.
I don’t want to alarm you Don, but you’d better get down to Peru before the anchovies ALL DIE because of ACO2!
No problem. Since I became a warmist a few days ago, I decided to stockpile anchovies. Got 400,000 cans, so far. I am going to make a fortune. I’ll be the last man in the world with anchovies.
If you’re patuent, Don, each can will be worth:
https://youtu.be/whUvTIzcE_U
I don’t see how anybody reading the paper that Judith cited could not see that it supports the mass balance and supporting evidence that has been so clearly and well expressed by Ferdinand’s work, period.
JC, Your main point is correct. A proper paper-napkin estimate is probably at least 20 ppm. And Englebeen has only now (after 5 years) acceded to the possibility of 10 ppm natural.
OTOH ATTP commented that he would not argue with 20-30ppm, so ATTP seems reasonable.
I stated that the anthro contribution is arguably bounded somewhere between 50% (Freds number) and 100% (and I don’t think it is 100%, and I’m not exactly sure where it says 100% in the IPCC AR5; it doesn’t explicitly say this in SPM). so 20-30 ppm is well within range. Remind me again what we are arguing about? It would have been far more productive to argue why fred’s number for natural variability is too high, rather than to say he is completely wrong and natural variability contributes nothing. So if the contribution to natural variability is > 0, how do we go about assessing this? What implications does this have for our models of 21st century CO2 contributions? Now, can we get to the interesting questions that mass balance can’t address?
Ferdinand Englebeen has long argued that “very near 100%” is anthro . Bartemis argued 100% natural.
We are not arguing. I agree with you.
Why is it more likely to be >0 than <0?
What makes the bound 100%?
If +30ppm natural is "in range", why not -30ppm?
Of course the sinks and sources are interesting, which is why the new satellite data is important, but we're very unlikely to get anywhere addressing them starting with fixed preconceptions as to the answers.
Or by pretending we don't know the rise is anthropogenic.
vtg-
Or by pretending we don’t know the rise is anthropogenic.
Curry is saying that anthropogenic is likely to be 50-100%. We don’t know that it is 100%. Why are you pretending to be stupid?
Well, because 50% is completely wrong and ridiculous. Why argue about that? Argue from Ferdinand’s sensible analysis. I’m done.
I am looking for someone to do a dynamical systems analysis of the carbon cycle.
PS: And you invited Bart to do a post, which is even more ridiculous. He doesn’t have a clue. Maybe we should start with an analysis that shows there has been NO increase from 280-400ppm, if we really want to be ridiculous.
I googled it:
https://www.google.com/search?q=dynamical+systems+analysis+of+the+carbon+cycle&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8
This looks it could be interesting:
http://www.ams.org/journals/bull/2015-52-01/S0273-0979-2014-01471-5/S0273-0979-2014-01471-5.pdf
This is recent:
Links between atmospheric carbon dioxide, the land carbon reservoir and climate over the past millennium
http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/v8/n5/fig_tab/ngeo2422_F3.html
vtg, “If +30ppm natural is “in range”, why not -30ppm?”
It could be in that range. One reason it could be in the +30 range though is that at this point in the precessional cycle the oceans would tend to have greater heat uptake. There is good evidence of a hemispheric seesaw. That agrees with the latest OHC data ala Stephens et al.
In any case, land use estimates depend on knowing the amount of internal variability. The new satellite data will resolve some of that, but there is still the “normal” problem.
don “this is recent.”
Hey! What about this as yet unpublished ditty?
https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/–EoDfDfi5PQ/VVE_-gJsJWI/AAAAAAAANeg/THQY43bWoG0/w731-h521-no/law%2Bdomw%2Bpreindustrial%2Bwith%2Boppo.png
You think the tropical oceans can swing that much with changing precipitation patterns? A few degrees here and a few gigatons there, next thing you know you have variability.
This one is may actually be worth looking at:
http://www.biogeosciences.net/12/835/2015/bg-12-835-2015.pdf
Recent changes in the global and regional carbon cycle: analysis of
first-order diagnostics
Don Monfort-
Well, because 50% is completely wrong and ridiculous.
Well, it’s a lower boundary. It’s a subjective assessment which implies less than 5% probablility anthro exceeds natural.
blueice2hotsea | May 13, 2015 at 5:02 pm |
“Ferdinand Englebeen has long argued that “very near 100%” is anthro . Bartemis argued 100% natural.”
Bartemis has always argued “insignificant”. I would call anything under 10% insignificant, and something in that range is what I expect will eventually be settled on.
But, it will not happen tomorrow, nor likely next year, nor likely for many years to come. If this response board has done nothing else, it has reinforced to me the lengths to which people will go to preserve a cherished conception in the face of overwhelming contrary evidence.
“I know that most men — not only those considered clever, but even those who are very clever and capable of understanding most difficult scientific, mathematical, or philosophic, problems — can seldom discern even the simplest and most obvious truth if it be such as obliges them to admit the falsity of conclusions they have formed, perhaps with much difficulty — conclusions of which they are proud, which they have taught to others, and on which they have built their lives. “ – Leo Tolstoy
Here is a very detailed analysis by the same author as the article Judith cited. It’s more recent:
http://www.planta.cn/forum/files_planta/gblobal_carbon_budget_602.pdf
Don- ask yourself why Dr marsupial excluded income from term-investments (e.g methane clathrate seeps, etc) from his bank analogy. Notice also that Englebeen discussed oxygen balance and 13C decline but also did not mention that same elephant in the room. It should not be up to you or me to bring this up.
er… long-term investments.
Even worse.
Article contains model results, estimates, likelihoods, missing CO2 requiring adjustments, hopeful trend projections, meaningless expressions of probabilities, and all the rest.
Not terribly confidence inspiring, one way or t’other.
On probability. When you play Russian roulette with a six shooter, there is roughly 84% probability you will pull the trigger on an empty chamber. If an expert told you probability was really 99% because modelling showed that the bullet would tend to come to rest opposite the firing pin,would you be any more likely to play?
Not me. Well, probably not, with a high degree of confidence. Maybe.
curryja wrote “Note, the article says 90% probability that CO2 increase is above natural variability. This is very different from absolute certainty that 100% of the increase is caused by humans”
I’m sorry Prof. Curry, you have indeed misunderstood the article. The article does not say there is “a 90% probability that the CO2 increase is above natural variability”, it says that there is a (small) increasing trend in the airborne fraction that has a 90% probability of being above natural variability. The airborne fraction is not the CO2 increase itself, it is the proportion of anthropogenic emissions that remain in the atmosphere. I am very surprised that you appear not to grasp this fundamental distinction, and rather disappointed by your dismissive reaction (“No it doesn’t, read it again.”) to those who have pointed out your error.
Rather than asking for people who might write a guest post on dynamical models of atmospheric carbon, why not ask an expert, such as Prof. Le Quere, or Colin Prentice or Ken Caldeira or David Archer or Josep Canadell?
BTW, you can find the mass balance argument in this paper, co-authored by Prof. Le Quere:
http://www.globalcarbonproject.org/global/pdf/Raupach_et%20al.%202008.Anthrop%20&%20bioph%20contributions%20to%20atmCO2.Biogeosciences.pdf
Note Figure 1d the green line is the net flux from the natural environment into the atmosphere, inferred from the observed atmospheric growth rate and estimated anthropogenic emissions. This flux is clearly negative, indicating the natural environment is a net sink and the net sink is becoming stronger as time goes on. That shows the rate is 100% anthropogenic as nature is OPPOSING the increase.
Now, if you compare anthropogenic emissions and the growth rate, you can see that one is an almost constant multiple of the other. That is approximately the airborne fraction. A change in the airborne fraction is not a change in the growth rate, it is essentially the rate of change in the growth rate, and you can see that this has actually changed very little over the last 50 years. THAT is the change that Prof. Le Quere is talking about in her paper.
BTW, Prof. Prentice also mentions the mass balance argument in his rebuttal of Prof. Salby’s hypothesis:
“1. The rate of accumulation of CO2 in the atmosphere is
less than the rate of emission from fossil fuel burning. Therefore, the ocean and/or land are sinks for CO2”
.
http://climatefutures.mq.edu.au/files/file/How%20we%20know%20the%20recent%20rise%20in%20atmospheric%20CO2%20is%20anthropogenic.pdf
I suspect you will have difficulty in finding a paper that explicitly states the relative contributions of man and nature to the rise in atmospheric CO2 because it is obvious that it is anthropogenic emissions that are causing it. Research papers tend not to state things that are that well understood by the research community.
Salvatore;
It really confounds me that you cannot differentiate between a trend (the driver) and the deviation from the trend (which has no trend).
You are aware that CO2 is produced/sunk naturally by the biosphere?
You are aware that that process is driven by T?
Then why would you NOt expect CO2 to follow T when sampling the atmosphere?
Taken in isolation that is what it must show.
You cannot isolate CO2 increase against T in that way to determine T lag/lead.
I’m sorry, it’s just basic.
As others, even fellow sceptics on here have said as well.
Oh, Would you care to sanswer my question as to whether you believe that the GHE “goes against the 2nd Law of thermodynamics” as espoused by Mons Bardinet who (in your mind) has “More data showing AGW theory is flawed”.
As I said above – just that one stupid anti-science statement completely torpedoes credibility.
“FALSE argument of wishful thinking ,since there are many other data sources which show very strong correlation between global temperature trends and natural factors in the absence of CO2 concentrations.”
CORRECT: … Err, but when the climate system was accumulation CO2 beyond the Biosphere’s capacity to sink it equally. ANd in response to DeltaT driven by orbital parameters. NOT now.
Go on surprise me and see sense. Nope, it’s QED isn’t it?
Humans, not Unicorns, have changed the Earth’s carbon equation. Can we have a consensus on that?
Do you have any data on the cumulative effect of unicorns on the Earth’s carbon equation?
PA, PA
You have to get that unicorn data from freddie and bartie. They got plenty of it. Youse can use it as is, or upside down and bassackwards. Whatever suits your parochial porpoise.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/ca/One_horned_Rhino.jpg
At the risk of subjecting myself to more condescension, does anybody know how much of the increase in CO2 during the past fifty years is coming from the burning of fossil fuels vs. how much is due to the significant increase in population (human and other mammals) during that time frame?
The 7 billion people emit around 2 GT per year (CO2) or about 1/18 the 36 GT of fossil fuel emissions.
Killing off people really doesn’t help with the CO2 issue. Nuclear power is a better solution.
PA,
From breathing out CO2, land use changes, or fossil fuels?
Scott
That is just breathing out. Meat animal production is mentioned as 14-22% percent of emissions or about 3-4 times as much. One kilogram of steak is 34.6 kilograms of CO2 and the average person eats about 46 kilograms of meat a year.
http://timeforchange.org/are-cows-cause-of-global-warming-meat-methane-CO2
PA,
These kinds of studies don’t show offsets. There are about 150 species of ruminants, which include both domestic and wild species. Ruminating mammals include cattle, goats, sheep, giraffes, yaks, deer, antelope, and some macropods.[3]
Shows 1.5B cattle, but doesn’t show how many other ruminants are displaced (eliminated) in order to gain those numbers. Bison in the U.S. is a good example.
And ruminants have been domesticated since 8000 BC.
All according to: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruminant (and links within)
And finally: “Methane production by animals, principally ruminants, is estimated 15-20% global production of methane.” (Of note, this doesn’t tell us any indication of historic contributions)
Mark Silbert,
I don’t know the answer. Even more interesting, estimates of insect biomass vary between 10 and 300 times that of humans, according to scientists.
Whether man made CO2 triggers an increase in plant growth, which provides more food and oxygen for insects . . . , is completely unknown, as far as I know. Maybe somebody has some facts.
Maybe the population logistic equation can be of use, but I don’t think anyone really knows. Many questions, few factual answers.
Interesting. Must be accounted for in the obvious, but poorly understood, incontrovertible MASS BALANCE.
Huh?
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/grl.50563/abstract
https://www.hydrofarm.com/resources/articles/co2.jpg
Since 1900 plant growth has increased 55%. This is pretty much “settled science” unless you are a global warmer that likes to bury unpleasant facts.
As to whether insect biomass has increased… can’t find good numbers. The warming and more plants should produce more insects – but humans have a habit of spraying the things with pesticides.
Lot is also do to land use change impacts. Cutting down and burning forests in the Amazon and Indonesia add carbon. Plus sinks for carbon absorption are reduced. The article above on the carbon budget was interesting.
Scott
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Got to tell you Judith, this is the first-ever thread at Climate Etc. where I have found your technical take to be fundamentally in conflict with overwhelming empirical evidence. I suggest you invite Ferdinand to post something reasonable in response.
Oh, you mean that the human contribution is NOT between 50 and 100%? Also, the carbon cycle should NOT be regarded as a dynamical system?
Of course NOT. Here’s what jives with how you have been thinking about the problem:
http://judithcurry.com/2015/05/06/quantifying-the-anthropogenic-contribution-to-atmospheric-co2/#comment-701863
Oh, you mean that the human contribution is NOT between -73% and 100%? Also, the carbon cycle should NOT be regarded as a dynamical system, as no one has suggested that it be?
Don Monfort | May 13, 2015 at 8:42 pm |
Oh, you mean that the human contribution is NOT between -73% and 100%? Also, the carbon cycle should NOT be regarded as a dynamical system, as no one has suggested that it be?
The fossil fuel contribution is certainly less than 50%.and could be as low as 22%.
And I rode on a merry-go-round that had a cherry on top. Now it’s your turn, again.
The consensus way of doing things is to average the guesses. You know, no scientist left behind :)
Judith,
The estimates of human contribution from all sources (primarily fossil fuels, Portland cement, and land use changes) is closer to ~200% of the observed increase since the late 1950’s. The carbon cycle(s) is(are) certainly dynamic, in that it(they) will change in response to changes in a host of variables (ocean temperature, growing season, rainfall, etc.). But that has little to do with the basic accounting, or the ‘big picture’ of what is causing atmospheric CO2 to rise. When someone suggests that ‘natural causes’ are responsible for a significant fraction of the observed increase, it is at best an inaccurate description, and at worst, encourages people to carry on about how the human contribution is ‘very uncertain’.
More accurate is something like, “Had there not been warming of the ocean surface and increases in plant growth rates (due to a combination of CO2 fertilization and longer growing seasons), two controlling factors for CO2 uptake which have opposed each other, the measured increase in atmospheric CO2 may have been either a little higher or a little lower than what has been observed.” The efficiency of the natural sink processes could indeed have changed somewhat, but in total they consistently absorb about half of all emissions when averaged over any period longer than ~5 years.
The human contribution to the measured increase is NOT uncertain, it is close to 100%. To suggest that emissions known to be near 200% of the observed increase are not responsible for the observed increase leads to threads like this one.
Good one, willy. Those theoretical “if we only knew” stories come along and seem to float for a while, until Ferdinand comes along to expose them as being way down there with the gremlins, leprechauns and unicorns on the scale of all things possible:
“I do agree that the ocean-atmosphere system behaves like a simple first order process. So far so good.
We have human emissions which increased a fourfold over 55 years.
We measure an increase in the atmosphere which is a fourfold over 55 years.
The net sink rate also increased a fourfold over 55 years.
That is completely in line with a simple linear process with one disturbance of the process (besides some small variability by temperature).
Any other variable that may have influenced the increase of CO2 in the atmosphere MUST have increased a fourfold in the same period, not a three- or fivefold, as the sinks don’t make any differentiation between an increase caused by one or another variable. Only in that case the mass balance can be “cheated” by a 100% parallel increase of a natural cycle.
There is not the slightest indication that any other carbon cycle increased over time, as that would influence other observations like the 13C/12C ratio and the residence time. To the contrary: the residence time slightly increased over time which points to a rather fixed carbon cycle in a growing amount of CO2, certainly not a fourfold increase in throughput.
Thus while pure theoretically possible in very strict circumstances of timing and increase rate, the observations refute that an increased natural carbon cycle was responsible for a substantial increase of CO2 in the atmosphere.”
Judith was impressed and in concurrence with the comment boldly bolded by an unusually helpful willy. I wonder if she read Ferdinand’s reply. She didn’t challenge it, or question it. I don’t recall seeing her interact with Ferdinand, at all.
SteveF, “The human contribution to the measured increase is NOT uncertain, it is close to 100%. To suggest that emissions known to be near 200% of the observed increase are not responsible for the observed increase leads to threads like this one.”
If the percentage of the human contribution absorbed dropped to 25%, that would be an increase sink response assumed to be “natural”. If the percentage of human contributions absorbed increased to 75%, that would be due to reduced or weaken sink response also assumed to be natural. Simply, if there was no anthropogenic source, the “natural sink” can vary between source and sink pretty much like it has done for the past few hundred million years or so. Everyone knows there is ACO2, no one really knows the actual range of natural variability of CO2 on century time scales. Nature has her own smoothing preferences.
Fred attempted to use 13C to estimate how much of the rise might be due to changes in sink efficiency. He neglected the normal dilution of atmospheric 13C due to huge carbon cycle, so his estimate is wrong on the high side. Judith’s intent with the post appears to have someone say, “Hey Fred! With the huge carbon cycle likely removing most of the 13C, don’t ya think your estimate is high?” Then a normal discussion would follow.
Judith evidently forgot it was posted on Climate Etc.
Stevefitzpatrick:
“The carbon cycle(s) is(are) certainly dynamic, in that it(they) will change in response to changes in a host of variables (ocean temperature, growing season, rainfall, etc.). But that has little to do with the basic accounting, or the ‘big picture’ of what is causing atmospheric CO2 to rise.”
Accounting is bottom up. The smallest things are captured and migrated up to the income statement and balance sheet, perhaps similar to climate being the sum of all weather. What we have here are a few numbers with the strongest ones being CO2 level and human sources. There’s whole truckloads of data not available that is required to do acceptable accounting. Our balance sheet, is incomplete. We’ve only been able to estimate land, vegetation, and near ocean surface CO2. Our income statement has few items on it. Estimates of income and expenses and a more solid plus 120 ppm bottom line. We might consider demoting our financial statements to financial ratios. This data we don’t have is apparently removing 50% of the danger being handled for the time being. What if that is variable? There can be problems with relying on accountants and not digging into things oneself. Management wants to know how much money do we have and how much did we make. Better management wants to know why?
Capt.:”Judith’s intent with the post appears to have someone say, “Hey Fred! With the huge carbon cycle likely removing most of the 13C, don’t ya think your estimate is high?” Then a normal discussion would follow.”
And the indication of that intent can be found, where? After a thousand comments, one might think that if that was her intent she would have asked him the question. Did she?
don,
“curryja | May 13, 2015 at 4:58 pm |
I stated that the anthro contribution is arguably bounded somewhere between 50% (Freds number) and 100% (and I don’t think it is 100%, and I’m not exactly sure where it says 100% in the IPCC AR5; it doesn’t explicitly say this in SPM). so 20-30 ppm is well within range. Remind me again what we are arguing about? It would have been far more productive to argue why fred’s number for natural variability is too high, rather than to say he is completely wrong and natural variability contributes nothing. So if the contribution to natural variability is > 0, how do we go about assessing this? What implications does this have for our models of 21st century CO2 contributions? Now, can we get to the interesting questions that mass balance can’t address?”
I think we can see why natural variability is almost negligible by seeing how well the emission accumulation matches the atmospheric accumulation over the last century with a proportionality that is fairly constant just due to the way chemistry works at the air-ocean interface. In CO2 levels we see only expected variations, first from emissions, second from an annual vegetation cycle, and third from annual temperature variations in that order of importance. All explainable with budgets. No need for mysterious sources or sinks.
stevefitzpatrick | May 13, 2015 at 9:33 pm |
“The human contribution to the measured increase is NOT uncertain, it is close to 100%.”
(Sigh) Do the math. The “mass balance” argument does not confirm it, and other evidence argues against it.
Don,
I’ll boldly raise Cap’n:
http://judithcurry.com/2015/05/06/quantifying-the-anthropogenic-contribution-to-atmospheric-co2/#comment-700645
We just don’t know.
Thank you, Capt.
So, it was her intention in having the post but she waited until freaking May 13, 2015 at 4:58 pm to give us a freaking hint. I would have been happy to say
“Hey Fred! With the huge carbon cycle likely removing most of the 13C, don’t ya think your estimate is high?”
after the first three freaking comments, if I had known that was what she was after. It would have saved us all a total of around 8,722 man/woman hours of wading through BS. Or maybe not, with this crowd.
Fred’s estimate is just goofey, so we didn’t really need to go through this. She should have asked Ferdinand to present his coherent analysis. Then she also asked Bartemis if he would present a guest post. Why in the freak would she that do? He makes Fred look reasonable. Hmmm.
And so it goes that this is still what they are hanging their hats on:
“What we don’t know is if there is a natural CO2 flux into the atmosphere that is also increasing and if it is, by how much.”
When they find the unicorn that does exactly what Ferdinand says it has to do to qualify, they can get back to us. In the meantime we got real numbers in the mass balance and other supporting evidence that’s quite serviceable.
Ragnaar, you don’t have a clue about the mass balance. We know the total increase of CO2 per year for more than fifty straight years. We also have the total each freaking year for ACO2.
You presumably know the change in assets for your little firm for each year and you know the amount of retained earnings, because you got income statements and balance sheets that sum up all the activities of the firm. Would you be able to figure out what effect the amount of retained earnings had on the total of the assets? Think about it.
don, “Thank you, Capt.
So, it was her intention in having the post but she waited until freaking May 13, 2015 at 4:58 pm to give us a freaking hint. I would have been happy to say”
She also mentioned improper framing of the questions earlier as I mentioned. Lost in all of this was a potential interesting discussion on uncertainty and practical limits of simple accounting methods aka Mass Balance. As I pointed out one of the charts you linked showed pre-industrial land organic varying by about 40 Gt over the past thousand year prior to industrial. It even had a roughly 25 Gton drop in roughly 150 years near the end of the LIA period. Since that LIA period just missed the “pre-industrial” cut, there is about 20 to 30 ppmv that could be “Natural” prior to 1950. Remember, prior to 1950 there was no Keeling curve which is a major “known” in the mass balance and land use data doesn’t have the same easy accounting as FF. So when you see Mass balance used it is typically limited to 1970s to present which means there is an assumed “normal” baseline or account balance. You cannot reconcile your books prior to roughly 1960 with any confidence.
Without trying to beat the dead horse too much, not knowing the variability prior to the higher tech instrumental creates an initial value problem and climate models including mass balance assume a boundary value problem.
Judith could have picked a better example or more clearly stated her intent, but considering the Stadium Wave and Uncertainty Monster papers I am a bit surprised her regulars could not read between the lines.
Don did dig this up.
http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/v8/n5/images/ngeo2422-f3.jpg
+/- 20 Gt is ten times the current land sink rate and does have that oddly famil iar not so hockey stick shape.
https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/–EoDfDfi5PQ/VVE_-gJsJWI/AAAAAAAANeg/THQY43bWoG0/w731-h521-no/law%2Bdomw%2Bpreindustrial%2Bwith%2Boppo.png
Tropical oceans and preindustrial Law Dome also have the oddly famil iar non hockey stick shape. Law Dome CO2 is also suspected to have a fairly long term smoothing that would tend to mute century scale flucuations and there are those pesky leaf stomata reconstructions and curiously unreliable Greenland core reconstructions that I believe were published by scientists.
excuse me, that should be net land uptake rate.
Capt,
The 1000 years Law Dome ice core has a resolution of ~20 years and a repeatability of multiple samples on the same part of the core of 1.2 ppmv (1 sigma).
That makes that any peak of 2 ppmv sustained over a period of 20 years or a 20 ppmv peak sustained over 2 years would be measurable in that core.
Thus no problem at all to detect something like the current 110 ppmv peak over 160 years…
Greenland cores indeed are unreliable for CO2, due to frequent volcanic dust of nearby volcanoes of Iceland. Stomata (index) data have far more problems than ice core data, like a local bias due to local/regional changes in land use in the main wind direction.
The graphs are interesting, as they show the global (?) change in land based carbon due to temperature. But have a look at the speed of change: 20 GtC in 200 years, that is 0.1 GtC/year. The current net sink rate is ~1 GtC/year in the biosphere (in fact higher, if including human caused land use change emissions)…
Ferd, “The 1000 years Law Dome ice core has a resolution of ~20 years and a repeatability of multiple samples on the same part of the core of 1.2 ppmv (1 sigma).
That makes that any peak of 2 ppmv sustained over a period of 20 years or a 20 ppmv peak sustained over 2 years would be measurable in that core.”
Cutting a 20 year slice doesn’t mean you have 20 year resolution. d18O is fixed in the H2O and CO2 diffuses until it is fixed by depth. So you have two different natural smoothing regimes, d18O fixed by SST and CO2 smoothed over a few centuries to a milliennia or so. The difference in smoothing would cause a CO2 lag plus reduce peaks.
Greenland is difficult because melt water can hold more CO2 and the local NH CO2 variability is much higher than the SH due to land/ocean distribution. Leaf Stomata is limited by it appears research bucks needed to find enough valid samples.
None of the proxies are perfect nor should one be more believable than another. It is all data with your typical flaws.
Capt,
I have the impression that you underestimate the resolution of the gas phase in some of the ice cores.
That highly depends of the snow accumulation rate. At Law Dome that is 1.2 m ice equivalent per year (it is a coastal dome). That means that at bubble closing depth (~72 m), the ice is ~40 years old and the average gas age is ~7 years younger than the air above the surface. You need several years between first and last closing pores, therefore the spread in gas age is less than a decade.
Two cores were drilled on the top of the dome, which go back some 150 years before reaching bedrock.
The third core was drilled downslope the dome, has smaller ice layers and a resolution of ~20 years, but does go back in time over ~1000 years.
In both cases, they can take slices of ice of a fraction of a year in ice age, the summer/winter differences in snow/ice compaction are clearly visible.
More information (with free subscription):
http://www.researchgate.net/publication/253162785_Natural_and_anthropogenic_changes_in_atmospheric_CO2_over_the_last_1000_years_from_air_in_Antarctic_ice_and_firn
Ferd, the reason I made the Oppo et al IPWP and Law Dome CO2 chart was to show the preindustrial variation. With CO2 and ice/fern mix you can have 1000 year scale diffusion that varies with accumulation, ice/fern mix and surface melt. Based on that, I suspect you are over-estimating the accuracy of the Law Dome core on millennial time scales.
That “natural” long term smoothing would tend to subdue peaks and create a lag, kinda like the Oppo/Law Dome chart illustrates. Don’t forget there is also the land based organic carbon reconstruction.
BTW ferd, pre-industrial CO2 variability probably is greater than 10 ppmv and less than 30 ppmv since 0 AD. That would not have a particularly significant impact on current CO2 conditions, but it does favor Oppo et al 2009 paleo over Mann et al. 2015 paleo meaning “normal” global temperature could be about a degree warmer than 1900 and “natural” internal variability would be in the +/- 0.3 C range.
That is kinda significant.
I should point out that when dealing with a sum of contributions the concept of percentage of contribution does not apply. Math is funny that way. For example, suppose we have the equation (4+3+2+1)-(4+3+2)=1. What percentage does the first 3 play? The answer is that the question is not meaningful. And so it may be with human CO2 emissions.
David, they need your skills in the art of the trivial math on that other thread. They are trying to figure out how many anchovies can dance on the head of a pin.
This is the mass balance presented in the IPPC summary. Using these figures I calculate a retention in the atmosphere of fossil fuel emissions coefficient of 0.568. I didn’t calculate the error range. That is higher than Ferdinand’s around 0.5. How did they get these figures? How did they use them in the model projections?
• From 1750 to 2011, CO2 emissions from fossil fuel combustion and cement production have released 375 [345 to 405]
GtC to the atmosphere, while deforestation and other land use change are estimated to have released 180 [100 to 260]
GtC. This results in cumulative anthropogenic emissions of 555 [470 to 640] GtC. {6.3}
• Of these cumulative anthropogenic CO2 emissions, 240 [230 to 250] GtC have accumulated in the atmosphere, 155 [125
to 185] GtC have been taken up by the ocean and 160 [70 to 250] GtC have accumulated in natural terrestrial ecosystems
(i.e., the cumulative residual land sink). {Figure TS.4, 3.8, 6.3}
The mass balance argument is not the same thing as the carbon budget (hint: why were scientists concerned about the “missing sink”? How did they know there was a “missing sink”?). I set the mass balance analysis out for you in detail earlier in this discussion, you would be better off engaging with it, rather than misrepresenting it – again!
Fred,
It is not important if the residual CO2 increase (the “airborne fraction”) is 1% or 99%, in all cases human emissions are responsible for the total rise in the atmosphere, besides a small contribution of the increase in temperature…
That is your argument. Bart argues the other extreme; changes in temperature can account for nearly all the observed rise being natural. Your argument that the long-term changes in global average temperature (based on Henry’s law) cannot produce the rise, is not applicable because the fluxes at neither sources or sinks are controlled by thermodynamics. Partial pressure differences are the driving force and the kinetics of fluid flow is the rate controller.
> Bart argues the other extreme; changes in temperature can account for nearly all the observed rise being natural.
The argument goes beyond that: you can create a feedback system that can account for just about any partition of natural and non-natural CO2 in the atmosphere.
In other words, Bartemis’ daemon renders attribution impossible.
Not “impossible.” Just much more difficult: it becomes necessary to understand how the system actually works well enough to provide a convincing model with a much better chance of being right than the current appeal to lynch-mob psychology (“consensus”).
Fred,
The largest natural fluxes are all controlled by temperature: seasonal and 1-3 years variability are 100% caused by temperature variations.
Seasonal at ~5 ppmv/K (~60 GtC in/out vegetation, ~50 GtC in/out ocean surface).
1-3 years variability at 4-5 ppmv/K (~2 GtC in/out around the trend)
Both are from the influence of temperature on vegetation.
In these cases, Henry’s law is only involved for the ocean surface and the influence of increased CO2 pressure in the atmosphere is limited to a small extra net uptake of the ocean surface (~0.5 GtC/year) and the biosphere (~1 GtC/year).
Besides that, there is a continuous CO2 flux between upwelling places near the equator and the sink places near the poles of ~40 GtC/year. The temperature of the oceans at the surface of upwelling and sinking areas is the main cause of the differences in pCO2 between oceans and atmosphere and thus of the in/out fluxes. Any temperature change will influence the local pCO2 with ~8 μatm/K.
The ΔpCO2 is directly influenced by the increase of CO2 in the atmosphere: that will reduce the input and increase the output. At ~8 ppmv extra in the atmosphere the ΔpCO2 for 1 K temperature increase is restored and so are the in/out fluxes…
Henry’s law thus is fully applicable for the deep ocean – atmosphere exchanges.
Look at Scripps cruze data where they measure measure concentrations in the atmosphere and measure or calculate partial pressures in the oceans surface. these data gives you evidence of where sources and sinks are and how they change with time. They do not tell you the fluxes out at the sources or the fluxes in at the sinks. There is the additional complication that the sink area in the Arctic is constantly changing with freezing and thawing.
> it becomes necessary to understand how the system actually works
Even if you know how the system actually works (assuming this idea makes sense), you could still simulate it using another system and another partition. Ask your neural networks guru. Which means that you still can’t make an attribution case that would be daemon-proof.
Besides, if we knew how the system actually works, why the hell would we want to do attribution in the first place?
Just as you can’t make a case in a criminal trial that would be “doubt-proof”.
The standard in criminal trials is “beyond a reasonable doubt.” Which, of course, depends on a “consensus” definition of “reasonable.”
The question is, how “reasonable” is the case against fossil fuels, given how very little is actually known about how the system works?
Of course, another line of questioning can ask whether such standards should be applied to the huge socio-economic changes being proposed to deal with the “problem.” Perhaps a more modest stringency, such as is often used in civil cases/torts?
Or perhaps more low-regrets approaches to reducing fossil carbon emissions? The latter are justified even absent climate: we’re dumping huge amounts of fossil carbon into the system, and we don’t even know where it’s all going, much less how much damage it does along the way and when it gets there.
Why not go with the low-regrets options, such as increased R&D and low-cost subsidies for innovative technology, while studying and arguing about the need for more?
Well, if, for instance, if it could be demonstrated that dumping fossil carbon into the system didn’t make any significant difference to the amount in the air, then a much larger focus on extractive solutions (remediation) would be indicated. Indeed, it’s not impossible, or even implausible at our current state of ignorance, that even though dumping it into the air had something to do with the rise, stopping now wouldn’t make any difference.
> The question is, how “reasonable” is the case against fossil fuels, given how very little is actually known about how the system works?
That we’re virtually certain that most if not all (if not more than all [1]) the actual increases in the atmosphere is caused by our own dumping, with the provisos that we don’t live in a daemon-proof universe and that this universe follows both the laws of physics and of double-entry book keeping, should be reasonable enough.
The onus is on the daemon producers to show a way to actually know how the system works. To that effect, a post on Bartemis’ random physics is more than welcome.
How to reconcile the idea that we can actually know how the system works and the rejection of the concept of causality would also be nice.
[1]: http://initforthegold.blogspot.com/2015/01/more-than-all.html
I didn’t reject it, I said it’s a myth. Or here:
Complicated. Not random, although it often looks that way from the outside, and in many cases quantum indeterminacy may introduce unreproducible results, depending on how that works. When “chains of causation” (in a non-temporal sense) form feedback loops, the system can become highly non-linear, and hard to predict.
When it comes to CO2 sinks, and even sources in a longer-term sense, there are lots of feedback loops. As well as other potential amplifying connections.
We don’t even know whether the “CO2-Hockey-Stick” is real or a figment of simplistic imaginations.
AK, I think when you say “we” you mean only you at this point still don’t know. Skeptics often use “we” when they mean they themselves don’t understand something well or deeply enough yet, which is fine because they have not studied it fully yet, but “we” has a limited meaning. It doesn’t extend to the scientists who have studied this.
I think some are saying CO2 will not do anything unexpected. It just follows us and warms the planet. It cannot come roaring out of the ocean, overrun the land with massive growth, or increase sea life exponentially for a time and then fall into the deep oceans. Sea ice has little effect on it, stuck jet streams don’t matter nor do positive PDO jets. Besides warming us it about the most boring thing around. We can pretty much set our watch by it. CO2 cannot perform Ghil S curve tricks. I admit to being a CO2 alarmist. We just don’t know what’s going on. I think we need another satellite to look at. We need Argo type measurement coverage of the ocean/atmosphere flux. We need better deep ocean measurement and flow volumes. We need more money spent on it.
Up until about 18 years ago, it was absolutely certain that the correlation between CO2 levels and temperature would continue into the future. Settled science and all that.
Now it is absolutely certain that the correlation between rises in CO2 and ACO2 emissions will continue into the future. Settled science. No dissent allowed. Scientists are agreed.
Good grief.
Mike,
There has NEVER been good correlation between estimates of GHG forcing and temperature change.. just the opposite, the correlation is historically poor, suggesting natural variation is a large contributor (eg the pseudo-60 year cycle in the temperature record). The GCM’s ate unable to simulate anything like the historical variability at all time scales, and so are obviously incapable of making credible projections over milti-decadal periods.
Not so with atmospheric concentration of CO2 and emissions; the correlation is extremely good, and perfectly consistent with a simple first order absorption process. And this is independently supported by multiple lines of evidence, as Ferdinand has so tirelessly explained for at least 6 years. The continued uptake of ~50% of human emissions on multi-decade time scales is a virtual certainty. “Studies” like the post that started this comment thread are always wrong about something obvious (in this case, the C13/C12 ratio). It is for me incredible that threads like this one take place in the face of overwhelming contrary empirical evidence.
There is a great deal worthy of critical analysis in climate science, but what causes rising atmospheric CO2 levels is most definitely not worthy, and only distracts from what should be discussed.
Steve, I think the problem is that they can’t keep their little Fullblown Denier badges, unless they stubbornly oppose every detail of the consensus science.
Exactly. AGW theory is failing on many fronts.
Judith Curry
I agree with the comment of curryja; http://judithcurry.com/2015/05/06/quantifying-the-anthropogenic-contribution-to-atmospheric-co2/#comment-702338 :
”Are we getting anywhere in this discussion? I think everyone understands the concept of the mass balance. The issue is how/whether this relates to attribution, given that we have a dynamical system with feedbacks (including regional variations and temperature dependent feedbacks).”
In my view, the wickedly complex climate changes prevent us to reach any generally accceptable, working solution to the present problem on climate change and extreme events of weather.
A further excerpt from another comment of curryja; http://judithcurry.com/2015/05/06/quantification-the-anthropogenic-contribution-to-atmospheric-co2/#comment-700829 :
”We don’t have data for any of this. So I am not convinced by simple mass balance attribution arguments based on current observations. I think it unlikely that 100% of the increase in atm CO2 is caused by humans. It is not unreasonable to start from a point of 50-50 (Fred’s conclusion) and see if you can falsify natural variability as large as 50%. It may not be 50%, but I don’t think it is 0%.”
As I see, Judith Curry expresses no evidence on any potential, anthropogenic share of the recent increase of CO2 content in atmosphere.
Based on pragmatic logic, Tom V Segalstad expresses; http://www.co2web.info/ESEF3VO2.htm : ”Carbon isotopic trends agree qualitatively with fossil fuel CO2 emissions like stated by IPCC, but show quantitatively a fossil fuel CO2 component of maximum 4 % versus the 21% claimed by IPCC.”
David Wojick http://judithcurry.com/2015/05/06/quantifying-the-anthropogenic-contribution-to-atmospheric-co2/#comment-702981 :
”I am surprised to see that some people seem to still be arguing that human emissions must be causing the annual CO2 increase just because they are larger than the increase. This is wrong. The increase is caused by the sum of all changes in the system. ”
Concerning the anthropogenic share of the recent increase of CO2 content in atmosphere, in my comment http://judithcurry.com/2011/08/04/carbon-cycle-questions/#comment-198992 I agree with both Segalstad and Salby. Based on natural laws and pragmatic logic I have proved that all CO2 emissions from sources to atmosphere and all CO2 absorptions from atmosphere to sinks together determine how much CO2 is needed in atmosphere to make a necessary dynamic balance possible. As the anthropogenic share of total CO2 emissions is only about 4%, the CO2 content in atmosphere is striving for a dynamic balance, where even the anthropogenic CO2 content in atmosphere is about the same 4% of total CO2 content in atmosphere. Nowadays it means that the atmospheric CO2 content of about 400 ppm contains only about 16 ppm anthropogenic CO2 at the most.
Lauri,
You make an essential error (as many before you):
The natural carbon cycles were more or less in balance for about 800,000 years. The cycles are still more or less in balance, as there is little year to year variability (+/- 1 ppmv) and the natural cycles are more sink than source. That is what is measured.
That human emissions are (nowadays) only 6% of the emissions is true, but irrelevant. The 6% is one-way addition, the 94% is from a two-way cycle: 94% is going in, 97% is going out in all natural sinks, human sinks are virtually absent.
How much of this years human input is responsible for a part of the extra 2% output is a matter of extra atmospheric pressure:
The current extra pressure of CO2 is 110 ppmv above equilibrium (290 ppmv) for the current temperature per Henry’s law, whatever the cause. As we add ~4.5 ppmv this year, the extra pressure increases to 114.5 ppmv. Thus the human emissions of this year are good for 4% of the sink rate (in fact less, as the emissions are gradually, not one-shot), or 0.2 ppmv of the 2.15 ppmv which sinks in the oceans and vegetation.
That means that most of the human emissions remain in the atmosphere and are responsible for near all of the increase of this year (and all previous years).
Why is that not measured in the atmosphere? Because of the huge throughput of natural CO2 (the 94% in and 97% out), a lot of anthro CO2 is swapped with natural CO2. That is removal in concentration of aCO2, but not removal of total quantity of CO2 in the atmosphere, it is simple exchange.
Segalstad, Salby and many others err on this as they use the residence time (of ~5 years), which is about exchanges, instead of the excess decay rate, which is the time (~51 years e-fold rate) needed to remove an extra shot of CO2 in the atmosphere…
Another very nice explanation, Ferdinand. If you are Catholic you will be sainted one day for patience in the face of willful ignorance and an eery intransigence that may be demonic in origin.
One of the big things I think the unseers are ignoring is that the numbers in the mass balance are reliable. The change in CO2 is measured and the ACO2 is reliably estimated. Or they can argue with that, which I don’t recall being a point that many have pushed. The rest is off the shelf logic, basic accounting and Henry’s law, which Fred thinks he can repeal. The elephant in the room is the fact that ACO2 has been twice big enough to account for the rise in CO2 each year for 50+ years in a row. The mouse is the “what if” there is a source of extra natural CO2 that is waiting and hoping to be discovered. They may need another fifty years to observe and think about what’s going on, Ferdinand.
Segalstad, Salby and many others err on this as they use the residence time (of ~5 years), which is about exchanges, instead of the excess decay rate, which is the time (~51 years e-fold rate) needed to remove an extra shot of CO2 in the atmosphere
According to your speculation Ferdinand.
Salvatore,
The residence time of a capital as goods flowing through a factory is called the throughput or turnover ratio.
The gain or loss of the invested capital is what is interest for most shareholders, most are not interested in the turnover as a sideshow.
The residence time of CO2 is the turnover ratio of CO2 through the atmosphere.
The e-fold decay rate is the loss of CO2 over time.
Two very different types of ratio/decay with a limited influence on each other: you can double or halve the turnover in a factory and the net result can be more gain or more loss or going from loss to gain or reverse or no change at all.
If you don’t understand the difference, ask a bookkeeper to explain that in detail…
Yes, but does all this increased co2 , probably caused by man, have any great influence on temperature?
Ferdinand appears to say not. I can’t see that today is any warmer than certain periods of the past so am doubtful of its impact over a certain concentration.
We have here a strange situation where Judith appears to believe that adding more co2 will increase temperatures but that the source of the additional co2 is not wholly man thereby partly exonerating him.
Many would agree with Ferdinand about the source, but would disagree with him about the overall effect.
Tonyb
Hi Tony,
I am pretty sure that humans are responsible for the bulk of the increase of CO2 in the atmosphere. But I am as sure that current climate models overblow the effect of 2xCO2 and aerosols (which act in tandem in the models).
The physical effect of 2xCO2 is around 1°C, based on the absorption of IR where water vapor is not/less active. That is all what is certain. The rest is a matter of positive and negative feedbacks, where climate models add a lot of positive feedbacks, but nature seems to deliver negative feedbacks like displacement of heat via air and water, clouds, thunderstorms, rain,… which makes that the observed response of the earth is somewhere between 1-1.5°C for 2xCO2. That gets lower, the longer that the “pause” remains…
Much more interesting to discuss than the origin of the increase, which is as rock solid caused by humans as anything observed can be…
Ferdinand
Presumably you saw this?
http://judithcurry.com/2015/05/06/quantifying-the-anthropogenic-contribution-to-atmospheric-co2/#comment-703036
I agree, the effect of the increased co2 on temperature is much more interesting than determining the source. Hope you can make a contribution as per Judith’s request?
BTW, I think what this illustrates is the capacity of scientists to get things wtr9ng. Many reputable scientists have been taking co2 measurements since 1820 (as per Beck) yet they seem to have mis-measured until Keeling.
If so, it illustrates the very real possibility that todays crop of climate scientists, as in previous centuries don’t know everything.
tonyb
If so, it illustrates the very real possibility that todays crop of climate scientists, as in previous centuries don’t know everything.
While that should be self evident to almost everyone with a little common sense, based on many, many comments here and elsewhere, it appears not everyone accepts that. The curtain of hubris needs to be removed before the clarity appears. I hope the poor dears can handle the truth.
No the relevant question is will CO2 concentrations continue to follow the global temperature trend.
So far they are.
Today’s Reason Prize goes to the appropriately named climatereason. This has been a big waste of time. We should be the discussing things that are not already freaking obvious to anybody whose thinking is not ruled by their biases. Let’s attack the strongly positive water vapor feedback assumption. Nice big juicy target.
i have an iris hypothesis post planned.
Don,
Given the biases displayed in this thread, why would you want to discuss anything requiring a rational thought process with those denying or obfuscating the bleedin’ obvious?
What would the purpose of such a discussion be with these people?
Alternatively, where might you find a reasonable set of people it would be productive to have such a discussion with?
How could such a discussion be held in a way in which civility triumphed over insults?
Exactly which does not exist. There is no hot spot.
Don Montfort-
New anaolgy.
1. Wages = $5 gazillion.
2. Interest income = $1 gazillion
3. After tax income = $2.5 gazillion
Questions
1. Is after tax income very near 100% due to wages, or nearer 80% due to wages?
2. If wage income = $0, is after tax income negative?
Why are you here discussing very patiently, veryslipperyguy? Will you be around when it’s time to defend the indefensible parts of the consensus climate science dogma? Or will you leave that up to little jimmy dee?
Have you seen the foolishness that your smarmy pal nutticelli has been up to lately? Go dog him for a while and you might earn some respect. Maybe he will let one or two critical comments from you in, for old times sake.
Sorry, I had to put you in your proper place. Having said that, this thread has been a big disappointment. The one positive thing I believe I can say in favor of the unseers is that they appear to have honestly formed their odd array of opinions. The claims of a high level of certainty on the necessary parts of their dogma and the exaggerations and scare tactics from the highly-educated climate consensus elite are fairly strong evidence for dishonesty.
Now that I have become a warmist, according to the denizens, I find that I still don’t like them. I wonder why kenny hasn’t offered to lift my banning. What a spectacle this has been.
coming later today is a post on bias, which i address some issues from this thread
Blue, I am going to try to help you one more time. You had a lemonade stand for one day. With me so far? Your cost to make and sell your product was $100. That is the total. We don’t need to know the freaking details. Still with me? You sold $95 worth of lemonade to passersby, who felt sorry for you. Around closing time, your dad asked how much money you got. Oh, you are losing money. He buys $10 worth of lemonade. Instead of losing money, you made money. His $10 is much smaller than the total sales to passersby, but it made the difference. You happy now?
Don,
You are no “warmist”, just someone who accepts overwhelming evidence of factual reality. We need a lot more of that on all sides. Like for example, accepting the bloody obvious divergence between reality and model projections of warming as clear evidence the model projections, both short and long term, are a lot less than credible. About which you will probably encounter Bartemis-like thinking and utter refusal to accept reality in the very tall one and the pouched warrior. I might hope to be pleasantly surprised by one of them, but I don’t count on miracles.
Don,
No.
These are answers to the last of my questions.
To be clear, the reason I comment here rarely is because it’s often downright unpleasant, and *always* overwhelmed by folk who simply refuse to accept facts. Not everyone, but more than enough to drown out a more rational minority. It’s pointless.
Don Montfort-
Thanks for trying to help me.
Going back to my riddle/analogy. The answers are 1) nearer 80% and 2) YES after tax income is negative. (You pay property tax, not income tax.)
Steve, did you see that veryannoying guy says it is pointless to comment here. Yet he has been here for several days on this zombie thread banging away. We are entitled to suspect that it’s because he had an easy time with this issue. It apparently hasn’t been downright unpleasant for him, this time. I don’t think we should hold out much for hope for an improvement in verydogmatic guy’s attitude, Steve. Let’s see what happens, when we have a water vapor thread.
VTG,
Yup, it is worth your time to engage the unwashed who disagree with you when you can easily show they are factually wrong (as with this ridiculous post and comment thread). But it seems when the technical arguments of your opponents have some merit, it is AWAYS beneath you to engage in discussion. I do wonder if you can appreciate how bad this makes you look.
You see tall wonder, the fact is Don, Ferdinand, and lots of other “den!ers” are willing to acknowledge that “den!er rubbish” is in fact rubbish. I haven’t seen much of that from you when it comes to obvious “alarm!st rubbish”. The word that comes immediately to mind here is disingenuous.
Don Monfort-
Yes, without Pop’s $10, you lose money. But not all of the profits are due to dear old dad.
A passing stranger tossed $1.50 in methane clathrates into your money box while you weren’t looking.
Was the stranger a pink unicorn, bloo? Or some other very highly unlikely figment of your imagination? It was your lemonade stand. You didn’t follow the first rule: watch your cash box.
Maybe I get these things easier than many others here, because in my misguided youth I was a very slick short change artist.
Don Monfort-
Remember the old saw: How can -65C clouds warm the Earth? Answer: When -65C clouds become -60C clouds.
This is similar. How can a negative natural mass balance contribute to CO2 increase? Answer: When it goes from negative to less negative.
P.S. Methane clathrates are elephants, not unicorns.
Recall the paper that JC linked to? It says the the airborne fraction is trending positive. So negative mass balance may be trending less negative.
My final conclusions just for the record.
Humans have caused CO2 concentrations to be higher then they would be in the absence of human contributions.
Natural forces still probably account for over 50% of the CO2 increases since the turn of the century.
Until CO2 leads the temperature trend or deviation what ever you want to choose to use it really does not matter that much what percentage of the increase in CO2 concentrations is due to natural forces or is human induced as long as CO2 continues to follow the temperature trend.
Going forward the future temperature trend versus CO2 concentration changes in the atmosphere will give us much more insight into how much CO2 concentration increases can be linked to natural forces versus human.
Most important by far, is thus far there is no evidence of CO2 leading or driving the global temperature trend and there is no evidence of a positive feedback between CO2 concentration and increases in water vapor concentrations in the upper atmosphere.
This last point makes the other points much less relevant in importance.
I am going to engage in what is probably a futile exercise, and try to explain, with some additional perspective, to the dummies out there (you know who you are) why the “mass balance” argument does not establish attribution.
You are confused on the issue because, as you would say “if nature is a net sink, then it is always subtracting, so it cannot possibly be responsible for the rise”. This is incorrect, because of the following, very simple reason:
As the CO2 level in the atmosphere is established by a dynamic balance, any reduction in sink activity has the same impact as an equivalent increase in source activity.
So, even if nature is a “net sink”, which is to say, even if the rise is less than the virtual accumulation of human inputs, it can still be causing the rise if it is sinking less than would otherwise be sunk. Merely saying “nature is a net sink” is not sufficient to establish human attribution.
I have demonstrated this fact in a couple of mathematical examples above, here, and here. In both of these cases, nature is a “net sink”, yet the output overwhelmingly depends on the natural input represented by N(k), and would not gotten nearly as high without N(k).
Do the math. Show yourself it is possible. Because it is, and you dummies are making fools of yourselves.
Bartemis,
You demonstrate, yet again, that you are willing to ignore clear and obvious evidence that you are 100% wrong. Read Ferdinand’s many comments and his bog to see why what you are suggesting resides in the land of unicorns and magical beans. Please stop discrediting by association those who have legitimate arguments to make about the dubious claims of warming driven doom made by ‘climate science’. Don’t just ‘do the math’, do the thinking.
Steve, bartie has a very nice cow he will trade you for 7 magical beans and one unicorn. He says if you don’t have a proper unicorn on hand, you can deliver at your convenience. He really wants to trick you into trading the magical beans, he doesn’t really want to have to feed a unicorn. Where would he keep it? Vet’s bills to pay. It’s a red herring bargaining chip. Dude is very clever.
Which is you typical know it all reply when someone does not agree with your views. You are correct and everyone else is wrong.
I gave you the math. I explained the concept. You’ve seen other controls engineers take my side. There is no question about it. It is incredibly basic stuff. You would absolutely be laughed off the stage were you to appear in front of a group that really understands these things and spout your nonsense.
You’re an idiot, Steve. I guess there is no help for it.
I gave you the math. I explained the concept. You give me words. You have no clue.
It is a waste of time to argue with stevefitzpatrcik a person who thinks he knows it all.
Actually, no. I know very lite about middle English literature. But do know the difference between reasonable doubt and self-delusion. You practice the later.
I believe there is some secret jargon or buzz word required to communicate the effect of a weakening or strengthening “sink”. It is a bit like the subtle difference between a thermal reservoir and a heat “sink”. In a real “sink” there ain’t no coming back. In a reservoir there is flow in both directions even though one direction may dominate most of the time.
Considering this “effective” “sink” emission is on the order of 10 to 30 ppmv and is currently over whelmed by the anthropogenic contribution you have to find that secret handshake or passwording to get the peanut gallery to quit playing financial manager.
Bart,
In the second reference, your little trick is by putting
We now set N(k) = k
Which gives a linear increase in total N in exact ratio with the total increase in H and exact ratio of CO2 increase.
What we have today in reality is H which increased a fourfold in the past 55 years, CO2 in the atmosphere which increased a fourfold in the past 55 years and a net sink rate which increased a fourfold in the past 55 years.
No matter how aggressive the sinks are, the only fit you can have with these fourfold increases is by an N that increased exactly (give or take 20%) a fourfold over the past 55 years. Or an N that hardly changed (give or take 20%).
Besides that, there is no shred of evidence in any observation that one of the main natural carbon cycles did show a substantial increase in fluxes.
It’s just one example, Ferdinand. There are infinite possibilities which produce virtually identical behavior.
For what it’s worth Bartemis, I understand what you are saying completely. For me, the key thing is simply to think of human emissions as simply an input within a much larger and complex system. The system is traditionally self regulating always struggling and never finding equilibrium.
I think what we CAN say is that we are contributing to making the carbon cycle LARGER, by unlocking hitherto trapped carbon, and possibly damaging sinks, (deforestation) although that might be counter balanced by agriculture.
It may come to the same thing, that we are perturbing the system sufficiently to be responsible for more of the rise than there would be naturally, and by significant amount, but I completely agree and understand that the way you have to start looking at it in the first instance is e way you have outlined.
Bart ,I think the future test will come once the global temperature starts to show a more definitive decline along with sea surface temperatures, which should be the case before this decade is out.
Allowing for lag times ,this should at the very least show a definite slow down in the rate of CO2 concentration increases.
Bart , I think the strongest argument for your take on this situation presently is CO2 is still following the temperature.
As long as this remains in place I think the evidence is on your side.
Yes, you are right, Salvatore. It has already decelerated markedly with the temperature stasis, while emissions have kept accelerating. The divergence will become undeniable in the not too distant future. Time is on my side.
My Summary:
Dikranmarsupial argues the mass balance argument is:
Let dC be the rise in atmospheric CO2 over some fixed period (a year is convenient), Ea is anthropogenic emissions (fossil fuel and land use change), En is total natural emissions (from all natural sources) and Un is total natural uptake (by all natural sinks). Conservation of mass requires that
dC = Ea + En – Un
The problem with this formula is it is missing a term Ua – which is total anthro uptake (by all anthro sinks).
If 1/2 of anthro emissions are taken up by sinks, it seems reasonable to me that the increase in sinks is caused by anthro actions (not all part of nature). I don’t know what they are – whether is more trees, more crops or whatever. But by crediting all increase in sinks as natural, this analysis is incomplete and misleading.
By ignoring this term (Ua), this analysis gives “credit” for all anthro sink increases to the natural environment.
You could just as easily do a mass balance without any anthro emissions and just lump them all in with En and it would be just as misleading – which is what this analysis is doing on the sink side of the equation.
Yes, that is essentially the problem. The sinks work by natural processes, but they are induced to grow larger by the availability of additional CO2 from artificial release. Those portions which are so fed are, as you say, anthro sinks.
This looks like it’s a major cause of their lack of understanding, Ferdinand:
“The sinks work by natural processes, but they are induced to grow larger by the availability of additional CO2 from artificial release. Those portions which are so fed are, as you say, anthro sinks.”
They are not anthro sinks. They are natural sinks and they have only grown enough to accommodate about HALF of the ACO2 that has been added to the natural CO2 in the atmosphere. Half of the added ACO2 has gone in the sinks, the other half is in the atmosphere. It happens year after year for 50+ straight years. This ain’t that hard.
Wrong, Don. They’ve grown enough to remove almost all of the human input, and what remains is from greater natural throughput. That is what is consistent with the temperature relationship.
Richard,
The historical (steady state) equilibrium for the current temperature was 290 ppmv in the atmosphere. That is also what Henry’s law shows for the solubility of CO2 in seawater.
That means that the current CO2 pressure in the atmosphere is about 110 ppmv above equilibrium, whatever the cause.
Humans do add ~4.5 ppmv/year. That gives an increase in sink rate of about 4% or 0.08 ppmv of the 2.15 ppmv net sink rate of last year.
Thus humans did add net ~4.42 ppmv to the atmosphere last year and are fully responsible for the rise of last year and all rise of the previous 55 years…
Your assuming that 4.5/110 = 4%, which is the increase in CO2 to atmosphere also means a 4% increase for anthro sinks. This is an assumption. I am not sure it is warranted.
However, the sinks have overall increased to absorb 1/2 of human emissions or 4.5 ppmv/year (of the 9 humans emit per year). Why should we not assume all increase in sink above the background is due to humans? Why assume 96% of the increase in sink rate is natural?
If the sinks have expanded to absorb 1/2 of our emissions one can only assume this is caused by humans. Otherwise, in the absence of humans CO2 would have dropped below the background rate of 280 ppm (or the 290 value you use).
If anthro sinks are increased by 4.5 ppmv/year (i.e. absorbing 1/2 of human emissions), that is quite a bit more than .08 ppmv.
Why have sinks increased so as to absorb 1/2 of our emissions – if not anthro caused?
Richard,
The net sink rate is in direct ratio to the increase of CO2 in the atmosphere above equilibrium. Thus the 4.5 ppmv is extra pressure above the 110 ppmv already in the atmosphere.
How to attribute the sinks is to what you attribute the 110 ppmv rise in the atmosphere.
If the 110 ppmv is mainly (96%) caused by humans then the whole sink rate is caused by humans.
If the total increase is caused by nature, then only 4% of the sink rate over a year is caused by humans. That still means that most of the human input is added to the atmosphere, as the sink rate is a function of the extra pressure in the atmosphere, not only from the momentary input. Which contradicts the theory that the increase is not from the human contribution…
Ferdinand:
You are saying we have to be consistent – and I understand that.
But doesn’t your analysis say most of the increase in atmospheric CO2 is anthro but most of the increase in sink is natural? Who is being inconsistent?
You don’t even have a term for anthro sink (Ua) – so I think you are not being consistent.
“. I don’t know what they are – whether is more trees, more crops or whatever.”
Its UNICORNS!
here is the thing. If you want to postulate a magical entity, you have to show that you made an effort to find it, quantify it.. actually Test your hypothesis that it might be X!
unless you do this your speculation that it might be X is untestable. It says nothing factual. It supposes that some fact might exist which would change your conclusion.
The best explanation we have says ‘we dont need X to explain things”
That doesnt mean X doesnt exist, but you cant just make the bare assertion that unicorns might change the answer. Thats Trivially true of any explanation.
The fact is that sinks have grown to absorb 1/2 of our emissions. That is not a unicorn – that is a fact. Is this increase anthro or natural. Ferdinand and dikranmarsupial assume the entire increase in sinks is natural. I am assuming the entire increase in sinks is anthro.
Richard,
It is either 96% of the increase in the atmosphere is human and thus near all net sinks are human caused, or the increase is 100% natural and the sinks are 4% human caused. You can’t have it both ways: sinks don’t select human emissions first…
That doesn’t make any sense, Ferdinand.
Salby says that a higher concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere results in an increased rate of absorption, and I assume he’s talking about the natural absorption. You are not satisfied with that answer?
All I know is the analysis is assuming all of the increase in sinks is natural. They don’t have any actual numbers to show how much of the increase in sinks is natural versus anthro.
Isn’t that like assuming all of the increase in emissions is natural?
We actually went out and put numbers to the anthro emissions – but failed to even consider what anthro sinks might be (i.e. no Ua term in the equation).
I think this mass balance analysis is not complete and more work needs to be done to understand what if any affect humans have had on the sink side of the equation.
Richard Arrett,
This argument makes sense to me. Had man not emitted additional CO2 the sinks would not have strengthened. Had the sinks not strengthened, the additional CO2 would have remained in the atm and been considered anthro, so why then are the strengthened sinks considered in the same fashion even if formed by nature? Was the strengthening not caused by man?
Chemistry dictates the ratio of CO2 in the air to that in the water in equilibrium with it. For more in the air, you get more in the water as that ratio is maintained. It is only a sink because the CO2 is being put in the air, not the water. This is the kind of misunderstanding that leads skeptics astray while the mainstream scientists don’t even have to ask for these explanations because they know this stuff as part of the basics of chemistry. Similar things have happened with denying basic radiative transfer and the “dragonslayers”. Don’t let the outgassers be another dragonslayers by denying chemistry.
Jim D, I think the skeptics understand that just fine. It’s the mainstream supporters that have the problem with it or they would understand that that makes it an anthropogenic sink and makes it clear that the mass balance argument being presented as proof that all of the CO2 rise is anthropogenic is a flawed argument.
steven, I think you are proving you don’t understand it. It is an anthropogenic source and a natural/chemical response which is a sink to bring it back to equilibrium. Humans are pushing it away from equilibrium by putting CO2 in the atmosphere. The ocean and biosphere just respond. It’s chemistry, not an anthropogenic sink.
Jim, I understand completely. Would the aCO2 be added to the ocean if it wasn’t added to the atmosphere? Is co2 being added to the ocean from the atmosphere considered a sink?
steven, if you are saying acidification is anthropogenic, yes it is. If it wasn’t for the CO2 being added to the atmosphere it would not increase in the ocean. It is also an anthropogenic source for the ocean. It is a source for both, a sink for neither.
Jim, if the oceans took just one molecule out of the atmosphere it would be a sink. If it took that one molecule because of human actions, such as adding CO2 to the atmosphere, it would be an anthropogenic sink. Nobody said anything about it taking up all the aCO2.
It is a natural sink because it is a chemical response. Man has no influence on the laws of chemistry. It would happen exactly the same way whether it was man or volcanoes, so it makes no sense to label it anthropogenic when it is just nature doing what nature does.
Jim, that makes as much sense as me saying that combustion is a natural chemical reaction so isn’t anthropogenic. Come back when you have an argument.
The argument is that anthropogenic effects act as a source for both the atmosphere and ocean. Are you going to say anthropogenic global warming is actually also cooling because some heat flows into the ocean as it warms too? Or is it better to say that AGW applies both to the atmosphere and ocean?
Jim, it can’t add to both and still not be the sole contributor to the atmosphere? Show me that in an equation and make sure your equation includes the fact that adding co2 to the atmosphere creates sinks.
The atmosphere and ocean values are both rising, so both have sources compared to the natural state. What is source for the atmosphere is also source for the ocean.
JIm, I don’t see an equation. Here is mine showing why you need more than just mass balance, as has been used here, to determine the human contribution to the atmosphere:
C’ = (Eneq + Enchange + Ea) – {Eneq + (Enchange + Ea)f}
C’ = change in atmospheric concentration
Eneq – natural emissions at equilibrium
Enchange = change in natural emissions
Ea = anthropogenic emissions
f = percentage of emissions lost to the atmosphere due to created sinks
There, you see, it is not an anthropogenic sink because it combines a response to natural sources too. I called it a natural sink. It is merely proportional to sources regardless of origin. Its mechanism doesn’t care where the CO2 came from.
Jim, not suprising that you went back to that. See my comment above regarding combustion.
You are wrong, steven. But it’s fun to watch you run jimmy around in circles.
You can call the sinks whatever you like, but they are sinks that existed before ACO2. The sinks expand in reaction to increased CO2 in the atmosphere, whether that CO2 is from a natural source or from a human source. For the last 50+ years twice as much ACO2 has been emitted, as has gone into the sinks. Do you get that much? Now I will turn you back over to jimmy dee. Give him a good workout.
That didn’t make sense either. Combustion looks the same whether a man did it or nature. It makes no sense having that label attached. Are you going to call freezing anthropogenic freezing if it occurs in a refrigerator? Does that add any scientific value to the process. As I said, warming of the ocean is not anthropogenic cooling of the air. It is a response to warming of the air, proportional and less. Applying terms like anthropogenic cooling are ridiculous for the same reason as your anthropogenic sink.
JIM D,
Think Don may be right when Jim D writes: “Applying terms like anthropogenic cooling are ridiculous for the same reason as your anthropogenic sink.”
Guess that would apply equally to using that term as a modifier for say warming; CO2; Ocean’s “acidification”; etc.
This gem: ” Combustion looks the same whether a man did it or nature. ” appears to mean if we log a forest that’s anthro but if we burn it down it’s not.
Don, you have to look at the other evidence because you just can’t prove it is anthropogenic with the mass balance equation alone. I’m not one of those that dispute the increase is at least mostly anthropogenic, but that doesn’t mean the way some have used mass balance here isn’t a flawed argument. I’m just trying to get Jim to say it now. I know he knows.
Ok Jim, you have now settled it for us. There are no anthropogenic sources and no anthropogenic sinks. Only natural ones. Thanks for the clarification. I guess that makes the atmospheric increase in CO2 completely natural. I never would have guessed.
Don says “You can call the sinks whatever you like, but they are sinks that existed before ACO2. The sinks expand in reaction to increased CO2 in the atmosphere, whether that CO2 is from a natural source or from a human source.”
It does matter quite a bit what you call things for an attribution argument.
Try this statement on for size:
You can call the emissions whatever you like, but they are emissions that existed before ACO2. The emissions expand in reaction to increased CO2 in the atmosphere, whether that CO2 is from a natural source or from a human source.
It is all a matter of definition and the increase in sink would not have happened but for human emissions. To call the entire rise in sink natural and not attribute some portion of it to anthro seems to be to be a very incomplete and misleading analysis.
steven, put it this way. If you heat up some water on a stove it is anthropogenic heating. If you let it cool, it is natural, not anthropogenic cooling. If you let nature do what it wants, it is natural. The distinction is very clear. Anthropogenic source, natural sink.
Jim D,
Even I understand what these guys are saying. Using your example:
steven, put it this way. If you heat up some water on a stove it is anthropogenic heating. If you let it cool, it is natural, not anthropogenic cooling. If you let nature do what it wants, it is natural. The distinction is very clear. Anthropogenic source, natural sink.
Changed this way. If you heat the water via the same heat source as is used in an absorbtion refrigeration system, then put the pan of heated water inside the absorbtion refrigerator to cool, then anthro heating (which few here seem to not acknowledge) with an offsetting anthro cooling (created due to the same heat source {CO2}).
It seems some wish to account for only the emitted CO2 being a net positive feedback while ignoring that that very same emitted CO2 “greened” the system leading to an anthropogenically “caused” expansion of the natural sink.
This does not change that man has perturbed the natural warming while giving credit (if that’s the word one should be using) for man’s perturbing the natural sinks.
It’s no different than stating that man “enhanced” the natural warming when at the same time via the same set of anthro emissions man “enhanced” the sink. Semantics, but this should be ground which can be easily agreed upon.
I see two differing arguments and don’t see how this changes the mass balance equation over the entirety while mass balance does not address the levels of sources and sinks. (I made C’s in college chem.)
Jim, wouldn’t cool if it wasn’t warmed now would it?
steven, and you would call that anthropogenic cooling, even if it is just sitting there cooling naturally. I think we have different meanings of anthropogenic for sure. To me, anthropogenic cooling is someone physically forcing something to cool, like putting ice into it, but you don’t have a separate term for that.
Jim, I’m just waiting for you to either state you agree that the mass balance equation isn’t proof the atmospheric increase in CO2 is anthropogenic or to provide your equation that shows my equation is wrong. I’m not interested in your analogies of water warming and cooling or someone elses frustration with their wife’s spending habits.
“The problem with this formula is it is missing a term Ua – which is total anthro uptake (by all anthro sinks).”
To all intents and purposes, there are no anthro sinks. The amount of sequestration resulting from e.g. carbon capture and storage is negligible. Now the natural sinks have increased as a result of the increase in atmospheric CO2, but that is a natural feedback, and assigning it as an anthropogenic uptake makes no sense whatever. For a start, since it is a response to rising atmospheric CO2, if you say it is anthro uptake that is a tacit admission that the rise is anthropogenic in the first place!
I agree that the rise in atmospheric CO2 is anthro (but don’t buy that the entire rise is anthro).
But for humans action in raising the atmospheric CO2, the sinks would not have risen – which makes the rise in sinks anthro also.
Pretend humans disappeared in 1600 and tell me that the sinks would have risen to their current level.
Saying the sinks rise is natural is like saying that the rise in emissions is natural.
Doesn’t pass the but for test.
Anthro sink increase needs to be netted against anthro emissions.
Don on the other hand approaches this subject in a collect objective manner.
Nearly 1700 comments and rising. This at least demonstrates that the “science” isn’t “settled” or obvious. More important, the economics based on that “settled science” is not settled.
The volume of comments doesn’t demonstrate anything about science. What it demonstrates, freddie, is that a lot of people are impervious to facts and logic and they refuse to be persuaded. We call that being willfully ignorant and stubbornly intransigent. Yes, I am looking at you.
That statement applies to those on both sides of the debate who lack the knowledge in math and science required to properly analyze observed data.
Don,
Took the words from my mouth.
Fred – took the words from my mouth.
Let’s write 1700 more to unsettle science a bit more and make it less obvious.
LOGIC FAIL FRED
“Nearly 1700 comments and rising. This at least demonstrates that the “science” isn’t “settled” or obvious. ”
it demonstrates no such thing.
It might be that stupid commenters explain the excess comments.
That is, truth cant SINK into your head.
second science is NEVER settled and obviousness is relative to the brains of the observer.
Look at the number of comments I conclude it shows that the science is settled, and some people are either in denial or dense
Dr. Judith Curry ,if possible I would be interested if you could show, and explain why, what the data is indicating to you about this topic?
Let me add this Dr. Curry ,if you could do this I would want it based on the approach of data not theory, which is just speculation. Thanks.
OK PEOPLE! This is quite enough of this foolishness. Everybody move on to the anchovy thread. Those of youse who don’t like anchovies, move on to the next thread. Just stop the foolishness.
Has anyone read AR5 Ch 6 on the carbon cycle lately? Their main conclusion:
With a very high level of confidence, the increase in CO2 emissions from fossil fuel burning and those arising from land use change are the dominant cause of the observed increase in atmospheric CO2 concentration.
Ok, so what does ‘dominant’ mean? From the dictionary: Exercising the most power, control, or influence. Ahhh, ‘most’ again.
We had ‘fun’ with this issue in my previous post ‘Most’ versus ‘more than half’ versus ‘>50%’ http://judithcurry.com/2015/01/19/most-versus-more-than-half-versus-50/
Dominant does not mean all or 100%. Seems like 70-80 anthro is perfectly consistent with ‘dominant’. Fred’s 50% would be outside this range, but not by a huge amount.
So all of you who are insisting that it is all humans, well the IPCC didn’t come out and say this, anyone wonder why? And if you read AR5 section 6.3, mass balance arguments don’t figure as the ‘dominant’ rationale
When the warmists say dominant, they mean all, unless their little feet are held to the fire. Then they might weasel it down a little. In any case, we didn’t need to see Fred’s analysis. It doesn’t make sense. Now maybe if you started a cheese thread, the guys who don’t want to go over to the anchovy thread could move on.
What if we all pretend to agree that 80% is the lower constraint? Can we be excused then?
Don
Despite the chairs being put on the tables, the barman noisily washing the glasses and the cleaners busily moving round the premises with their vacuum cleaners, it appears the patrons are still reluctant to leave.
They must have had a really good time here at the e- salon, no doubt they will be in a mellow enough mood to talk frankly of their biases in the post that our hostess has promised for later today.
Tonyb
I think 200% of the observed rise counts as dominant. It doesn’t leave much room for anything else, except as net sinks in response.
The IPCC is apparently confused about “dominate” versus “predominant.” AGW theory is dominant among Western scientists where the government-education machine dominates the discussion to the point of claiming a 97% consensus of opinion. For those outside the West, skepticism of AGW is the predominate mood. The view outside the West is that natural causes — nominally, solar activity — is the predominant cause of climate change. Those outside the West liken climatology to the ancient science of astrology and see Western climatologists as being opportunistic charlatans who are dominated politics.
curryja: Dominant does not mean all or 100%. Seems like 70-80 anthro is perfectly consistent with ‘dominant’. Fred’s 50% would be outside this range, but not by a huge amount.
That was a good comment.
Now, we are appealing to a subjective interpretation of a vaguely worded IPCC statement as being authoritative. Well, it could be 70 or 80%. Let’s go wit dat. When did we start trusting the IPCC for this kind of stuff? We will have to ask joshie if this is an open and shut case of unintentional irony with a double twisting back flip.
My good friends and fellow geniuses, Mosher and willy, would undoubtedly agree with me that this is really funny and some kind of fallacious argument. I am sure willy has got some foreign name for it.
We don’t even know how the IPCC came up with this vague BS. I am sure we have all read Ferdinand’s analysis by now. (cough, cough) As far as I and a lot of other smart people are concerned, it’s comprehensive and a very solid case. Nobody has come up with any criticisms that make a dent. The “what if there are other natural sources/sinks we don’t know about” crap don’t get it.
Why don’t we start with Ferdinand’s estimation and see if we can whittle it down? Citing the IPCC politicized BS, doesn’t do it. Fred and Bart are helpless and flailing. Somebody needs to step up and get it done. Or Ferdinand is the Gold Standard. Amen.
Don Monfort: When did we start trusting the IPCC for this kind of stuff?
Who said anything about trust? IPCC is cited by some, and quoted herein. Lots of people write endlessly with little attempt at clarity or definition. curryja made a modest attempt to provide one disambiguation of a vague word often repeated, and along with that commented that fhhaynie’s result is not a lot different from a reasonable interpretation of an IPCC conclusion.
I liked curryja’s comment and you didn’t.
there is less difference between IPCC and fred, than there is between bart and ferd
Matt, can you explain why 70-80% is a reasonable interpretation? That’s not Fred’s interpretation. It’s actually speculation and it’s wrong. The post was about the IPCC’s assumption that it’s 100%. Fred was challenging that. How could it be 70%? This is just flailing around.
I had to read that several times. Are you joking now, Judith?
“there is less difference between IPCC and fred, than there is between bart and ferd’
Uh, bart says zero and fred says 50%. IPCC says ‘dominant’, and ferd says 100% (or maybe 96%). do the math
Average CO2 per Vostok is 230 ppmv for the past 800ka. Average Holocene CO2 is ~270 ppmv. Ferd’s estimated equilibrium at current conditions is about 290 ppmv. Law Dome variability for the past 2ka is about 12 ppmv. Current is 400 ppmv. Pick yer baseline. Ferd seems to like 4% which is about 1/3 of the Law Dome variability.
I can do the math. Fred’s stuff is silly and Bart’s is beyond outlandish. If some joker comes along and says it’s 422%, are you going to include him in your story? Let’s call him Mr.X. Would Mr.X be closer to Fred, or Bart? Or Salvatore? Why are you doing this? Don’t you care about your scientific reputation?
The IPCC says this:
“The increase of CO2, CH4 and N2O is caused by anthropogenic emissions from the use of fossil fuel as a source of energy and from land use and land use changes, in particular agriculture. The observed change in the atmospheric concentration of CO2, CH4 and N2O results from the dynamic balance between anthropogenic emissions, and the perturbation of natural processes that leads to a partial removal of these gases from the atmosphere.”
Which just about anybody, including Fred, would see means 100%. But you can go with whatever floats your boat. It’s your reputation.
Don Monfort: Which just about anybody, including Fred, would see means 100%. But you can go with whatever floats your boat. It’s your reputation.
You and curryja quoted different lines from the text, lines that do not agree. The disparity is one of the reasons not to “trust” the IPCC.
Matt, I know all the reasons not to trust the IPCC. I didn’t bring up the IPCC. Judith cited the IPCC to make a case that “dominant” could mean 70-80%. Dominant could mean 20%. You got 5 puppies in a litter and one of them is dominant. She apparently just prefers that it means 70-80%, for some reason. Her numbers.
Ferdinand found a quote that more clearly indicates that the IPCC is going with 100%.
Fred thinks it’s 100%. That was the premise of his post.
The warmist wiseguys who have been hanging around here all week believe in their little hearts that the IPCC dogma says 100%.
Why would anybody believe the IPCC meant 70-80%? Wouldn’t 70% mean that burning fossil fuels is not such a big deal? That would blow the case for their drastic mitigation schemes.
If we ask the IPCC to clarify their statement, are they going to say they meant 70-80%?
Is somebody so desperate to justify this very unproductive zombie thread that she is grasping at straws?
Rhetorical questions.
Don Monfort: If we ask the IPCC to clarify their statement, are they going to say they meant 70-80%?
We shall see in AR6, assuming that there will be one. My expectation is that the more technical sections will be written in less certain (seemingly precise) language than the sections aimed for superficial readers such as policy makers. That’s what they did in AR5.
You didn’t answer the question, Matt. My point is that the IPCC did not mean 70-80%. That would make their case for drastic mitigation pretty weak. We don’t have to wait for AR6 to know that they are not going to admit to 70-80%. That is not even plausible. I would bet very big money that if forced to give actual numbers, they would say 95-100%, with a high degree of certainty. They have a good story for that, it cannot be proven wrong and they control the narrative.
don, “You didn’t answer the question, Matt. My point is that the IPCC did not mean 70-80%. That would make their case for drastic mitigation pretty weak. We don’t have to wait for AR6 to know that they are not going to admit to 70-80%. That is not even plausible. I would bet very big money that if forced to give actual numbers, they would say 95-100%, with a high degree of certainty. They have a good story for that, it cannot be proven wrong and they control the narrative.”
Probably more like 110% anthropogenic.
Dr. Curry,
The executive summary of chapter 6 puts it somewhat stronger:
The increase of CO2, CH4 and N2O is caused by anthropogenic emissions from the use of fossil fuel as a source of energy and from land use and land use changes, in particular agriculture. The observed change in the atmospheric concentration of CO2, CH4 and N2O results from the dynamic balance between anthropogenic emissions, and the perturbation of natural processes that leads to a partial removal of these gases from the atmosphere.
Note the “is caused”. Seems to me that the IPCC is pretty sure that it is 100%. I am satisfied with only 96%, leaving 4% for the temperature increase…
Ferdinand
You have quoted from the executive summary. That tends to be more certain than the full ipcc document. At this time of the night I don’t have the stamina to look at the actual ar5 reference but no doubt someone will compare one with the other to see if both have this 100percent certainty or whether they leave any room for doubt.
Tonyb
Judith is floundering around on this one. Of course the warmists claim it’s 100%. Get them drunk and they will claim it’s 165%. To think they have 70-80% in mind, is ludicrous. Fred’s analysis is ludicrous. Bart is beyond ludicrous. When will this end?
Lookie here how this thread started:
“I conclude that, the IPCC’s model assumptions that long-term natural net rate of accumulation is constant and anthropogenic emission rates are the only contributor to total long-term accumulation of atmospheric CO2, is false.”
The author of the post is challenging the IPCC position, as he sees it. Do you see what I am getting at? Why now are we seeing this goofey speculation about 70-80%? Are we desperate?
Head over to the new thread on ‘bias’, where the rationale for the carbon thread is discussed
Speculation at best.
curryja wrote “Has anyone read AR5 Ch 6 on the carbon cycle lately? Their main conclusion:”
Has anyone read FAR chapter 1 (at least as far as page 14). There is a whole section on “Evidence that the Contemporary Carbon Dioxide Increase is Anthropogenic”. It starts:
“How do we know that in FACT human activity has been responsible for the well documented 25% increase in atmospheric CO2 since the early 19th century. Couldn’t this rise instead be the result of some long term natural fluctuation in the natural carbon cycle? Simple arguments allow us to DISMISS this possibility”. [EMPHASIS mine]
So in 1990 it was clear that the IPCC completely dismissed the possibility of the rise being natural. Now unless we have some good arguments to suggest that the rise is natural between FAR and AR5, I would suggest that by “dominant” they mean “essentially all of it”.
I agree that going back to FAR is generally illuminating, before this became over politicized and group think set in
Yes, and on this issue, FAR was even more forthright than AR5. So the question is, what has changed in the scientific literature to imply that “dominant” means something substantially different to what was stated in the FAR? I suspect the answer is “nothing” and that the equivocation is there as a result of the difficulties in getting a bunch of scientists to fully agree about anything.
Oh, my.
We’re now reduced to scouring reports to try and find a word which gives sufficient ambiguity to allow wiggle room. Whilst ignoring the content of the document.
Judith, in this thread we’ve seen you:
– propose that 50% natural causes is “not unreasonable”
– egregiously misinterpreting a Corrine le Quere article which actually contradicted the claim you made of it
– claim historic ice core measurements rely on a “single analysis at a single site in Antarctica” (note that the Law dome alone yielded three separate cores, separately analysed)
– attempt to quote mine the IPCC to pretend a conclusion clearly not intended
And all this in the face of the multiple lines of evidence (I won’t repeat Ferdinand’s excellent analysis yet again) which provide overwhelming evidence of the anthropogenic nature of the rise. Which is not contradicted or even challenged in any way by a single piece of reputable literature.
Your pronouncements appear completely devoid of any rational thought or scientific process, but rather to support anything, however implausible, which provides any room to criticise the IPPC.
It would be interesting to ask what lines of evidence are presented in AR5 that suggest the rise is partially natural. That would give an idea of what they mean by “dominant”. I suspect they were merely being overly-cautious in the wording and demonstrating that their collective mind was not completely closed on this one, even though there is no real evidence to suggest the rise is natural. I have no real problem with that, but it does leave the report vulnerable to quote mining.
Dikran,
some quotes from Ch 6 exec summary.
My bolds. Not much wiggle room there.
There’s no more in the detail that I can see either that supports any “natural processes”
You two characters are having fun with this one. And you can’t be blamed for taking full advantage of the gift you were handed. And it seems to be a gift that just keeps on giving. What was she thinking?
Is Anthro Sink a denier fiction? Consider a factory making food. It buys CO2 and water. It does this: CO2 + 2 H2O + photons → CH2O + O2 + H2O. To whom does the CH2O belong? We could ask Ayn Rand or Karl Marx if they weren’t dead. The additional carbohydrates could be attributed to the additional CO2. They wouldn’t be there without the additional CO2. They are the change that results when you add CO2. How do we account for this? Additional inputs resulted in additional carbohydrates. We bought CO2 and water and have to show it ended up as something. We reverse out the CO2 and water used and put that same amount into carbohydrate inventory. We could put it into world carbohydrate inventory by writing it off the books and showing a loss, but not if it was still in the warehouse. I suppose if we left it outside the door of the warehouse and someone stole it, this second treatment would work. We could also just quit doing accounting and work at Walmart stocking shelves.
We have planted a lot of trees since 1950 – America is greener. We sure grow more crops to feed 7 billion instead of 4 or 5 billion. Think of the plastic and all the materials we have manufactured – the building materials we have used – the stuff we have placed into landfills. I don’t know what the numbers are for anthro sinks – but neither do the mass balance folks.
It may turn out that 96% of the increase in CO2 in the atmosphere is due to humans – but we should at least net out the anthro sinks.
I am merely pointing out that the analysis doesn’t even allow for anthro sinks – but calls all the increase in sinks natural. Doesn’t pass the smell test.
Consider two partners with a 90% and a 10% share in C-Corp. The smaller partner just earns revenue and has no expenses. Part of his income is suggested to be sunk into income taxes as the corporation is taxed. The larger partner had expenses equal to revenues but had much higher revenues than the smaller partner. Which partner should pay the corporate income tax? They each get the profits they are responsible for. Very few accountants would say they should divide that equally, or that one partner is so large (revenues) that they should pay it. Few accountants would say that since the larger has so many expenses, and carbon assets for that matter, this tax sink is just another for the larger partner to pay. Most would say the smaller partner pays all the tax the corporation incurred. If you are responsible for the income and you get to keep it, you pay the tax. In this example, the sink is tied to its cause. Any accountant that tries to do something I’d consider stupid in this case, might be called on it. It’s starting to look to me that ignoring Anthro Sinks could be subject to the loss of being able to claim one was doing proper accounting. Is proper accounting a scientific standard?
“We have planted a lot of trees since 1950 ” that would be “land use change”.
dik, ““We have planted a lot of trees since 1950 ” that would be “land use change”.
Right, LUC is a source or emission of CO2. So that land is emitting less CO2 and sinking more CO2. Thirty years from now those trees might be used as fuel in Europe, so do you pull that CO2 out of the Natural account or the Anthro account?
Let’s say for the sake of argument that half of the Saharan Desert used to be green and productive with a healthy herd of unicorns. Anthro mismanaged their herds and “emitted” 30 Gt of carbon from the land and reduced the “natural” sink rate by 15 Gt. That total 45 Gt should be about 20-25 pmmv increase in ACO2 plus it would increase Ocean CO2 account. Wait, one is a fixed value and one is a rate. At 15Gt/yr, humans are effectively emitting CO2 even though they aren’t doing anything.
A few thousand years later you show up to reconcile the books and find you have a very old account still accruing interest.
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-_hrb4gfFEgk/VVX1SHvXASI/AAAAAAAANfo/iDD4Fqg2TK8/w858-h482-no/law%2Band%2Bcomposite.png
Now do you close that account or not?
This from Skeptical Science, so it must be true.
“But there have been several times in Earth’s past when Earth’s temperature jumped abruptly, in much the same way as they are doing today. Those times were caused by large and rapid greenhouse gas emissions, just like humans are causing today.”
Notice “large and rapid greenhouse gas emissions, just like humans are causing today.”
It happened in the past. What supports the apparent contention it could never happen again?
Seems like an extreme battle of unsubstantiated assertions, by and large. And completely pointless, probably. Even if one tribe or the other proves to be right, what difference will it make? I suppose as long as we’re all having fun and enjoying ourselves, no harm is done.
Interesting graph:
http://photos.mongabay.com/07/1022gcp.jpg
That IS an interesting graph.
Indeed, quite interesting graph: it shows that the large variability in sink rate of land vegetation is the main cause of the year-by-year variability of the rate of increase in the atmosphere. Ocean sinks are also increasing, but more regularly.
When I wrote a post about the discussion of this one, I didn’t plan to advertise it at all because I figured the discussion was almost dead. I guess I was wrong. For people who are interested, you can see the post here.
For the short version, most of the arguments I’ve seen arising from this thread have been off-base, not addressing what the post says. And anyone who thinks the mass balance argument disproves what this post says either doesn’t understand what the mass balance argument shows, or doesn’t understand what this post says. Either way, they look pretty silly.
Er, I forgot to include the link. It’s here.
If you had paid attention, you would know that the mass balance, which you don’t get, is not the only argument. Ferdinand Englebeen has provided for your education a comprehensive, factual, and logical analysis that can be found on his website. You showed no sign in your little self-aggrandizing cursory post that you are familiar with Ferdinand’s analysis, or that you paid any attention to his incisive and decisive comments on this zombie thread. It looks like you based your post on your own few driveby comments here and some cherrypicked responses. You are more interested in self-promotion than science. You have a lot of work to do, junior.
Still here Don?
The large volume of comments generated here show you are wrong in claiming 100% anthropogenic warming as a fait accompli.
Fitzgerald above even put up good reasons for 200% AGCO2 not realizing that this must mean 100% of it has been absorbed naturally by his logic without giving any reason.
Oops I see you do the same thing
” Don Monfort | May 14, 2015 at 10:04 am |
. The elephant in the room is the fact that ACO2 has been twice big enough to account for the rise in CO2 each year for 50+ years in a row.”
Can you not see that if you can hide 50% of the ACO2 then even more may have gone, making your guess of 100% up thread worthless as I could by your logic claim only 50% is ACO2
I wish to take you to task on a comment of fourfold increases over 50 years with 3 different values proving a link.
“We have human emissions which increased a fourfold over 55 years.
We measure an increase in the atmosphere which is a fourfold over 55 years.The net sink rate also increased a fourfold over 55 years.
That is completely in line with a simple linear process with one disturbance of the process (besides some small variability by temperature).”
Mumbo Jumbo to prove the point you think exists.
The fact is the fourfold increases you assert are for different entities which do not have a simple linear link between them
Hence the fourfold increases cannot be related.
eg Surface area of a cube and a square double the square side you get 4 double the cube [6 sides] you get 24.They do not go up at the same rate for the one linear [side ] increase.
Hint the same problem exists with Human emissions increase in linking them to the claimed fourfold increase in the atmosphere
And your complete guess on sinks and the sink rate, this is specious on your part, no-one knows the rate of sink rate increase let alone what all the sinks are.
You have I guess merely interpreted what CO2 is left and then claim this proves a sink rate increase as you can only conceptualize of the CO2 increase being human.
For what it is worth a simple 4 ppm per year increase in CO2 for 54 years without anything but seasonal variation is so unnatural that it either has to be contrived.
ie the model measuring the CO2 is linked to the IPCC forecast Climate and model sensitivity.
Or due to open microwave oven door affecting the measurements.
Go look at History? Remember the burning Indonesian forests 10 years ago with CO2 over all Asia.
Remember the 3 volcanic eruptions?
Not a jot on the CO2 record, not one, a steady upward unbelievable CO2 level.
To claim this as a natural record makes a scientist cry.
You completely ignore the fact that in different years the CO2 production in the world from natural causes varies immensely and that the amounts can easily dwarf the human addition in good growing years.
” Don Monfort | May 14, 2015 at 10:04 am |
. The elephant in the room is the fact that ACO2 has been twice big enough to account for the rise in CO2 each year for 50+ years in a row.”
This fact alone shoots your argument to shreds and yet you had the sense to make it.
Note1. A lot of people here argue that the emission increase is 100% human and the amount put out by Humans is exactly that not 200%
So half of you have your facts or data bases wrong.
Note 2 If we have put double the amount in and only the amount remains the other amount has been absorbed in a sink.
This would make your argument of sink rate x4 increase have to be x8 instead to cope with the extra CO2. The people proposing your fourfold increase were not the ones positing a 200% increase in AGCO2 were they?
Note 3 If you can wave a magic wand and make 50% of human AGCO2 disappear then you could just as easily make another 10 % disappear giving you Judith’s 80% AGCO2 or 25% making a AGCO2 of 50% only. Where do your claims go then?
angech2014.
The calculated human emissions from fossil fuel burning and cement manufacturing (excluding the ~10% extra emissions from land use changes) increased from ~1.1 ppmv/year in 1966 to ~4.5 ppmv in 2011.
The measured increase in the atmosphere increased from ~0.6 ppmv/year to ~2.3 ppmv/year in the same time span.
The net sink rate increased in ratio, as that is the difference between the two:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/dco2_em2.jpg
As you can see in that graph: all three increased about a factor 4 over the full period, while the ratio between increase in the atmosphere and human emissions remained about 1:2.
There is nothing magic about that: if the sinks act in ratio to the increase in the atmosphere and you double the amount in the atmosphere, the sink rate will double. That is all what happened. If human emissions would remain the same, the sinks would catch up with the emissions after some time and the CO2 level in the atmosphere wouldn’t increase anymore when sinks = emissions.
As you can see, there is some +/- 1 ppmv variability in the sink rate and hence in the amounts each year remaining in the atmosphere: that is the natural variability in sink rate (not source rate), which is caused by the influence of temperature variations on vegetation.
The natural year by year variability is not more than +/- 1 ppmv/year, while the current increase is +2.3 ppmv/year and human emissions are 4.5 ppmv/year.
Thus there is surprising little variability in the natural cycles and the sinks are relative slow, as they can’t remove all human emissions in short time. There is zero evidence that any natural cycle substantially increased over time thus near all increase is from the human emissions.
If you have any evidence that the total natural cycle increased a fourfold over the past 55 years, then we can have a new discussion about the cause of the increase. Until then, it is only theory without any evidence from your side…
Ferdinand Engelbeen | May 15, 2015 at 5:33 am
The calculated human emissions from fossil fuel burning and cement manufacturing (excluding the ~10% extra emissions from land use changes) increased from ~1.1 ppmv/year in 1966 to ~4.5 ppmv in 2011.
This is not a rate of 4% a year, is it?
? 3.4%
The measured increase in the atmosphere increased from ~0.6 ppmv/year to ~2.3 ppmv/year in the same time span.
1.7%
This is not a rate of 4% a year is it?
The net sink rate increased in ratio, as that is the difference between the two:
So that is definitely not 4% is it?
? 2.55%
If Don bases his assertions on your figures he has made statements re 4% increases that are not factually as well as not mathematically true.
Further if your definition of a sink is purely based on rate of the emissions in the first place then there is no importance in any relationship between the two because a relationship is built into the definition, not a causation at all. Tell me people are not claiming a causation link on CO2 and sinks when they define the sink rate purely on the emissions in the first place.
It would be a necessity by definition and not something to marvel at.
Tell me it is not so Don.
Tell me you have independent measures of CO2 sink rates?
Yes???
Otherwise redact that part of your argument please.
Don’t ask me to keep dealing with your foolishness, angie. Just keep adding to the total of comments to strengthen your case that you claim has already been proven by the high number of comments on a freaking blog post. Nice science, angie.
Ferdinand is handling you like you are a little puppy. Have fun.
angech2014
It is not about % per year it is about the fact that all three increased in app. the same ratio in the past 55 years. That some natural cause is involved is only possible if that increased in the same ratio, or didn’t increase at all…
Ferdinand Engelbeen | May 15, 2015 at 2:55 pm |angech2014
It is not about % per year it is about the fact that all three increased in app. the same ratio in the past 55 years.
I just pointed out on your figures that none of the increased at the same rate, they increased at different rates
That some natural cause is involved is only possible if that increased in the same ratio, or didn’t increase at all…
Or if the sinks became bigger at the same rate the natural cause became bigger
Ferdinand:
I am not even arguing with any of your numbers at this point.
It is all about the attribution on the sink side.
To me a natural process is what would have happened in the absence of humans.
You have admitted that it was humans increasing the pressure of 110 ppm in atmospheric CO2 which increased the sink rate.
I am merely saying that but for humans increasing the pressure, the sink would not have increased.
That makes the increase in sink anthro to me – by definition.
I think you are applying reasoning here that would not be applicable to similar situations elsewhere. Say my wife and I share a bank account, and she has decided that she would like to maintain the balance at £1000. Now if I make no transactions, then clearly my wife will just make sure that her withdrawals match her deposits and the balance will stay at approximately £1000. Now if I start putting in £1000 a month, she will start spending more than she saves in an attempt to bring the balance down to £1000 again. However, being a busy person, she only finds the time to spend £500 a month extra on top of her usual activity. In this case, it is obvious that the balance will rise by £500 a month, and the rise in the balance is solely due to my increased deposits, the change in my wifes’ transactions doesn’t change that conclusion at all.
All true. But the both the additions and subtractions to the account are all athro – right?
Your point doesn’t get at dividing up the subtractions between natural and anthro subtractions. Your are ignoring attribution all together – which is fine as far as the balance is concerned (mass balance ok – attribution using mass balance – not so ok).
A natural subtraction (just an example) could be the present value after five years, taking into account a 2% inflation. In other words, the 1000 account, sitting there for 5 years, with a 2% rate of inflation would be worth less in today’s dollars than the 1000 today.
“But the both the additions and subtractions to the account are all athro – right?”
No, my wifes transactions represent natural sources (deposits) and natural sinks (withdrawals). My deposits represent anthropogenic emissions; I make no withdrawals because to intents and purposes, anthropogenic activities to not take CO2 out of the atmosphere in appreciable quantities.
“Your point doesn’t get at dividing up the subtractions between natural and anthro subtractions.”
There are no “anthro subtractions”, we don’t do enough carbon capture and storage etc. to make any difference.
” Your are ignoring attribution all together ”
No, I explicitly state that the rise in balance is 100% due to my deposits.
“A natural subtraction (just an example) could be the present value after five years, taking into account a 2% inflation.”
No, natural subtractions are already accounted for by my wifes withdrawals. Adding inflation to the example would be equivalent to contravening the principal of conservation of mass in the carbon cycle. Carbon is not spontaneously created or destroyed in reality, so its counterpart (money) doesn’t change its value, it just moves from place to place.
Maybe they could get this if they had somebody else to blame it on. Say that we found out that the Venutians had built a pipeline to our atmosphere to dump gazillions of tons of their unwanted CO2 on us. So we take them to court to stop them and they say (translation), “Nah it’s your own naturally occurring CO2 that’s causing a lot of the increase in your atmosphere. Besides, a little more of the harmless gas ain’t going to cause y’all any serious problems.” Are we earthlings going to fall for that story?
Don:
Under your hypo these emissions would be considered natural (not anthro) – because the are not being added by humans. Of course humans would take the blame using your accounting.
Change the hypo to have the venutions take the CO2 out of our atmosphere instead of adding to it. I guess humans would get credit for the reduction in atmospheric CO2 (Not). You would call the reduction natural and refuse to net it with anthro emissions.
The accounting is rigged.
It’s over your head, Richard. Just read the first sentence and stop. Do NOT read the rest. It just confuses you. Follow these instructions and you might get it.
Richard,
It is more a matter of definition:
– All sinks are natural, there are hardly any human sinks.
– It is a natural process which strives to equilibrium on external disturbances, be it temperature, volcanoes or human emissions. Thus all process response is natural.
– The main disturbance this time is human emissions. The main response is natural…
If one accepts the mainstream “consensus” (a laden word!), then near all the increase in the atmosphere is from humans. In that way the increasing net sink rate is caused by humans, even if all sinks are natural and the composition of the sinks still is 91% natural, 9% human (the current atmospheric composition). I have no problem with that.
If you don’t accept that the increase is caused by human emissions, then the sinks are only fractionally caused by human emissions, which means that even more human emissions remain in the atmosphere and then contradict the theory of a non-human increase in the atmosphere…
I don’t have a non-human increase theory.
I fully accept that humans have increased the CO2 amount in the atmosphere.
I compute a 42.85% increase in co2 in the atmosphere (400-280)/280 * 100. So not sure where you get 9% human on sinks. Why not 42.85% of the increase in sinks over the background rate is anthro?
Why not 100%?
After all – but for the increase of 120 ppm extra in the atmosphere, there would be no increase in sinks at all. Or would the sinks have naturally risen even if CO2 was still 280 ppm?
The historical (steady state) equilibrium for the current temperature was 290 ppmv in the atmosphere. That is also what Henry’s law shows for the solubility of CO2 in seawater.
That means that the current CO2 pressure in the atmosphere is about 110 ppmv above equilibrium, whatever the cause.
Humans do add ~4.5 ppmv/year. That gives an increase in sink rate of about 4% or 0.08 ppmv of the 2.15 ppmv net sink rate of last year.
My reply to Ferdinand.
How did the equilibrium for the current temperature of 290 ppmv come about?
Past history shows this did not hold up. For example during the Ordovician Period CO2 concentrations were 4000 ppmv and the temperature was lower . There are many more examples telling me this 290 ppmv for the current temperature seems to be not set in stone ,not even close.
Well…
There are a couple of things that disturbed equilibrium:
1. Rainforest destruction. How much sink (GT/Y) was destroyed, how much CO2 (GT of carbon) emitted? The answers seem to be 40 GT/Y of sink destroyed and 180 GT carbon emitted
The ocean surface temperature increased about 1°C since 1900. How much CO2 outgassing from the sea resulted? 300 GT over the course of a century or about 3 GT / Y seems to be a reasonable estimate.
What seems obvious and inarguable is that if 40GT/Y of sinking is destroyed that the CO2 level would rise until increased plant growth balanced the sink loss. The current 120 GT of land plant sinking is 55% growth on a base depleted of 40 GT/Y of sinking. Which means 1900 land plant sinking was only slightly less than today.
I’m open to improved estimates on any of this.
thanks
PA
1. As the whole biosphere is a net sink for CO2 of ~1 GtC/year, whatever the exact height of forest destruction, that is more than compensated by the increased capacity of plant life to absorb CO2…
2. 1°C since 1900 = ~8 ppmv or ~17 GtC in 115 years or 0.14 GtC/year or 0.06 ppmv/year. That is all. 300 GtC over 115 is complete unreasonable and violates Henry’s law.
3. See 1.
Salvatore,
Henry established his law for the solubility of gases in 1803. Since then there were millions of measurements done in laboratories and the field which confirm his law.
In the past decades it was confirmed by over 3 million measurements of seawater.
The 290 ppmv for the current temperature is quite certain for the past 2 million years (as found in some type of planktonic sediment)
If you know the exact composition and average temperature of the ocean surface waters in the Ordovician Period, one can calculate the equilibrium CO2 level in the atmosphere for you. But as a lot of CO2 of that period sits in the white cliffs of Dover and other carbonate rocks, the current oceans and the ancient oceans are not directly comparable.
Henry’s law applies to a steady state system at constant temperature. When there are massive flows in and out, and temperature is not even remotely uniform at source and sink, it does not hold at all.
Equilibrium (Henry’s Law) may be approached in the tops of tropical thunderclouds. CO2 in cold rain may be close to equilibrium with the CO2 in Air that is shooting out the top. I’ve been looking at the time series air temperatures at 600mb level for the Pacific area between 130 to 280E and and 20S to 20N. The long-term rise is greater than observed UAH tropical lower troposphere SST. That could be the control mechanism for natural emissions concentration (but not necessarly flux).
Bart,
You may be a master in calculating high frequency systems, but you only demonstrate that you have no idea what a slow dynamic system like the oceans do.
Henry’s law is applicable at every moment for any gas/liquid system, locally and globally.
If the ocean temperature increases everywhere, the pCO2 of the oceans at all places will increase with ~8 ppmv/°C. That is what Henry’s law gives for the solubility of CO2 in seawater.
As the influx and outflux are directly proportional to the pCO2 differences (ΔpCO2) between ocean and atmosphere, the influx of CO2 at the upwelling places is increased and at the sink places reduced. That gives a net extra influx in the atmosphere. Thus the CO2 levels in the atmosphere increase.
What you completely ignore in a dynamic system, is that the CO2 increase in the atmosphere counteracts the original disturbance.
When the CO2 levels reach the above ~8 ppmv/°C, the original in and out fluxes are restored, as the ΔpCO2 difference gets exactly the same as it was before the temperature change.
The new equilibrium after a temperature change is exactly the same for a dynamic or static system per Henry’s law.
http://geocraft.com/WVFossils/Carboniferous_climate.html
The data shows 290 ppmv CO2 concentration for a given temperature does not hold up. Ferdinand explain it.
Commiserations to Cincinatus [who he?]
3rd boot from Arctic Sea Ice who still puts up 2012 sea ice extent to prove catastrophic warming and 2012 death spirals.
You fought the good fight….
. If human emissions would remain the same, the sinks would catch up with the emissions after some time and the CO2 level in the atmosphere wouldn’t increase anymore when sinks = emissions
Yet CO2 concentrations have varied from over 5000 ppm to less then 200 ppm. Why Ferdinand? What do you mean by some time? How long.
Salvatore, the oceans of 500 million years ago had a complete different composition than the oceans of today. Stop using that argument, different times, different oceans, different CO2 levels.
As the current increase in the atmosphere is about half the human emissions, if we should fix the human emissions to the current amount/year, the increase in the atmosphere need to double (510 ppmv) to give a doubling of the sink rate to equal the emissions. That will need a lot of years…
If we halve the emissions today, the steady state would be reached today and CO2 levels wouldn’t go up or down…
I agree. My numbers are similar to these. I would say that if we held at 40 GtCO2/yr, it would stabilize near 550 ppm, but these are rough numbers.
I am going to tie off my input here with a few last observations and ruminations.
Firstly, I am gratified that some of the smarter students are “getting it”. Richard Arrett, and “stevenreincarnated” are recent additions, so I will single them out for their perspicacity, which is not meant to be a slight on some of the other A students who have been getting it all along.
Yes, sink activity which is induced by anthropogenic activity represents an “anthro sink”, and this must be accounted for in the “mass balance” in the anthro column of the ledger. For the “mass balance” equation, that produces a single inequality with two unknowns, and the natural and anthro sinks cannot be individually, uniquely bounded with that one inequality.
The “mass balance” argument therefore fails to establish attribution. But, the mass balancers ask, nature is still never adding, so how can nature be responsible for the rise? As I explained above, since the CO2 level in the atmosphere is established by a dynamic balance, any reduction in sink activity has the same impact as an equivalent increase in source activity. So, even if nature is a “net sink”, which is to say, even if the rise is less than the virtual accumulation of human inputs, it can still be causing the rise if it is sinking less than would otherwise be sunk. Because of the additional anthro sink, it is sinking more than it otherwise would.
The controversy reminds me of discussions I’ve had over the Monte Hall Problem”. The problem is set up as follows:
You are on a game show. There are three doors. Behind two doors is a goat. Behind the other one is a brand new car. But, of course, you do now know which hides the goats, and which hides the car.
The game show host asks you to pick a door. Then, he opens one of the other doors to reveal a goat. Now, there are two doors, one of which conceals a goat, and the other the car. The game show host now offers you a choice: you may stick with your original choice, or you can switch to the other one. What should be your choice?
Most people, out of a misplaced sense of loyalty, opt to remain with their first choice. After all, there are two doors. Behind one is the car, and the other is the goat. You still don’t know which, so the odds are 50/50, and it doesn’t matter which one you pick. Or, so it seems.
But, that is incorrect. The answer, if you want to maximize your odds of getting the car, is: switch. The odds that you chose the right door to get the car at the outset are 1 in 3. Nothing the game show host did after that has changed those odds. There is now only one other choice, therefore that choice must give you odds of 2 in 3. If you ran many trials, and always stayed with your original choice, you would win 1 in 3 times. But, if you switch, you will win 2 in 3 times.
People will argue over this to the death. The people who just cannot grasp the probability implications will go nuts exclaiming that the odds are 50/50, and you cannot improve them. When Marilyn Vos Savant originally posed the question in a column many years ago, she received many pompous, authoritative letters, e.g., from a professor at MIT, who wrote in to tell her that, based on their authority, she was wrong, and making a fool of herself.
Instead, these august sages had made rank fools of themselves.
Don’t be one of those august personages. Don’t accept what “authorities” tell you just on the basis of their assumed authority. Science is hard. Puzzles and brainteasers abound. Looking at the problem from a single perspective may seem to tell you there is no alternative to your conclusion.
But, you must not stop there. You must make every effort to see the problem from other perspectives. You must try to come up with specific examples to test whether your intuition is correct, as I did with the math exercises previously which show that it is entirely possible to have “nature”, as defined by the mass balancers, to be a “net sink”, while still being responsible for almost the entire rise.
“Because of the additional anthro sink, it is sinking more than it otherwise would…”
…but, if nature would have been accounted a net source without human inputs, it is sinking less than it would without that net additional source.
Fumbled that a little. Oh, well. Grist for more lame comments by the D students.
“Never explain. Your friends don’t need it, and your enemies won’t believe you anyway.” – Henry Ford
Well, if the ocean outgassed 300 GT since 1900 and the CO2 atmospheric increase was only 270 GT (830-560) the ocean outgassing was 111% responsible for the rise in CO2 (I’m using global warmer style IPCC math here).
Except that the oceans didn’t outgas net 300 GtC, they outgassed maximum 6 ppmv = 13 GtC for 0.8°C temperature increase.
Bartemis: For the “mass balance” equation, that produces a single inequality with two unknowns, and the natural and anthro sinks cannot be individually, uniquely bounded with that one inequality.
fhhaynie may not have found the truth of the matter or the most accurate estimates, but the arguments that he can not possibly be right because of mass balance depend on assumptions about the unmeasured sources and sinks, including assumptions about their changes across time. This unwillingness or inability to address unstated assumptions might be one of the cognitive deficits discussed by Lewandowsky and other in their open online course.
matthewrmarler you clearly do not understand the mass balance argument, the whole point of which is that it doesn’t rely on us knowing **anything** about the natural sources and sinks, other than that they exist. It is a way of inferring the **difference** between natural sources and natural sinks, assuming (quite reasonably) that the carbon cycle obeys the principal pf conservations of mass (i.e. carbon isn’t spontaneously created or destroyed, but just moves from reservoir to reservoir within the carbon cycle).
No, dikranmarsupial, you do not understand it. Everyone in this particular sub-thread so far does.
You do not understand that the “mass balance” argument is not sufficient to assign human attribution.
You do not understand that, since the CO2 level in the atmosphere is established by a dynamic balance, any reduction in sink activity has the same impact as an equivalent increase in source activity.
You do not understand that increasing natural sources reduces the “net natural sink”, and that therefore having nature a “net sink” does not necessarily mean that nature is not responsible for the rise.
You seem vaguely to understand that the “mass balance” argument does not preclude nature from being a net source in the absence of human inputs. Keep going with that. In that case, nature could have been responsible for the observed rise without human inputs. And, if it could have been responsible for the rise without them, then it can be responsible for the rise with them.
I’m sorry, but this is very basic stuff. Your continued championing of this horrendously flawed argument is an indication of your lack of understanding of dynamic systems. It is really painting you in a very unflattering light. I strongly recommend that you quit digging.
Bart,
Before pointing to others that they don’t understand dynamic systems, you should examine your own knowledge of such systems in the case of disturbances.
Like e.g. an increase in temperature where the oceans-atmosphere dynamic carbon system doesn’t react on the increased pressure in the atmosphere, against all rules for a dynamic feedback system…
Ferdinand Engelbeen | May 16, 2015 at 2:54 am |
“Like e.g. an increase in temperature where the oceans-atmosphere dynamic carbon system doesn’t react on the increased pressure in the atmosphere, against all rules for a dynamic feedback system…”
But, that would mean that the inputs from human sourcing would cause a reaction on the increased pressure, and you wouldn’t be able to get much of a rise from human inputs, either.
In fact, this is correct, but you have the relationship backwards. The increased pressure from human inputs means that they rapidly get sent into the oceans, and other sinks. However, increased pressure from the oceans is different, because the oceans are the dominant partner, and they set the tune to which everyone else dances.
Consider a water planet. Let A represent atmospheric CO2, and O ocean CO2. “A” will evolve according to something like
dA/dt = (A – r*O)/tau
where tau is a short time constant. This dynamical equation will drive the atmospheric concentration to r*O, and represents your desired reaction to increased pressure. Input a virtual increase to A, and it gets driven back to r*O.
We can add in the anthropogenic inputs to this equation
dA/dt = (r*O – A)/tau + H
Now, we could hypothesize a system description of O as
dO/dt = (A/r – O)/(tau/r)
and, this would maintain dA/dt + dO/dt = H, i.e., would represent a continuous buildup in both O and A from H, i.e., no actual sink activity permanently removing input CO2 from the overall system. If tau is “short”, then we would have approximately
dA/dt := (r/(1+r))*H
dO/dt := (1/(1+r))*H
It is hypothesized that, with all the buffering, r := 1, and dA/dt := 0.5*H, and that is what leads to the observed roughly 1/2 factor rise. However, that is just a post hoc rationalization. In fact, if r is actually small, then the influence of H is small, potentially negligible. Most of it goes into the oceans.
In fact, we know from the temperature data that r := 1 isn’t correct. If we assume a dominant net imbalance of flow into and out of the oceans due to temperature modulation, then we can say
dO/dt := c*(T – T0)
for some c. Let us define k = c/r and Aeq = r*O. Then, we have a system of equations
dA/dt = (Aeq – A)/tau + H
dAeq/dt := k*(T – T0)
If tau is “short”, then we can reduce this to approximately
dA/dt := k*(T – T0)
and, that is precisely what we observe in the data. Your feedback has not only failed to prevent nature from driving the observed increase, it has actually enforced it.
So, let’s recap where we are. You insisted that the “mass balance” argument establishes human attribution for the observed rise. I have showed you that it does not. You insisted that the pressure feedback would prevent nature from being responsible for the rise. I have showed that, not only does it actually prevent humans from being responsible for the rise, it is the very mechanism by which nature drives the rise.
At some point, Ferdinand, surely you are going to have to develop a least a modicum of humility in the face of so many categorical pronouncements proved wrong.
I thought I had fixed this, but in the above, the first equation
dA/dt = (A – r*O)/tau
should have been
dA/dt = (r*O – A)/tau
The minus sign always needs to be on the variable changing to get negative feedback and stability.
Bartemis wrote:
“dA/dt = (Aeq – A)/tau + H
dAeq/dt := k*(T – T0)
If tau is “short”, then we can reduce this to approximately
dA/dt := k*(T – T0)”
In other words, if we assume the temperature sensitivity dominates anthropoenic emissions (H) then we conclude that temperature sensitivity dominates anthropogenic emissions. ROFLMAO!
By the way, the correlation shown in Bartemis’ WFT diagram is well known and has been since the work of Bacastow back in the 1970s and carbon cycle researchers know all about it already and have good evidence for what causes it (it isn’t ocean degassing, but largely changes in terrestrial vegetation). The difference is that *THEY* know that the long term rise is due to the average value of dA/dt and the year to year variability that matches temperature actually has little effect on CO2 levels. Bartemis conveniently ignores the fact that H has a very direct effect on the average value of dA/dt.
Of course if Bartemis has a trace of humility and actually went and read the existing research on this topic, rather than having the hubris to think he knows better than the worlds carbon cycle specialists and keep insulting those who point out his errors, he wouldn’t keep making them.
You are wasting your time playing ping pong with these jokers, prof. pouch. They have no weight and no influence in the real world. I just hope that the next time Judith visits Congress she doesn’t testify that the IPCC implies that the human contribution to the increase of CO2 in the atmosphere could be in the neighborhood of 70-80% and that ain’t far from some guy named Fred’s BS theory that it’s only 50%. I am sure she has enough sense not to mention Bart’s silly claptrap.
True, this is probably my last post on this thread. It is ironic though, given the other article on “tackling human biases in science”, that nobody was able to spot Bartemis’ completely unsubtle transition from a d.e. based on a difference in pressure to a d.e. based on temperature, by making an approximation based on assuming tau is “short” just to get the desired conclusion.
Observant readers may also have noticed that Bartemis’ approximation doesn’t obey conservation of mass.
As an exercise for the reader, look at Bartemis’ WFT plot:
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/esrl-co2/from:1959/mean:24/derivative/plot/hadcrut4sh/from:1959/scale:0.22/offset:0.10
And work out what T0 is (i.e. the temperature at which the growth rate is zero), then work backwards to see what that predicts for atmospheric CO2 levels (i) during the Little Ice Age and (ii) during the last glacial period.
It would be interesting if a congressman were to ask Prof. Curry questions about this topic next time she testifies.
“In other words, if we assume the temperature sensitivity dominates anthropoenic emissions (H) then we conclude that temperature sensitivity dominates anthropogenic emissions.”
Wrong. The fact that the temperature sensitivity dominates anthropogenic emissions is established by the empirical data. I’m just showing one way in which such an empirical result could be produced.
“By the way, the correlation shown in Bartemis’ WFT diagram is well known and…”
It was not appreciated at that time that it is both a long term and short term relationship. Not enough data had been taken to establish the long term correlation.
“Bartemis conveniently ignores the fact that H has a very direct effect on the average value of dA/dt.”
Demonstrating once again that dikranmarsupial has no understanding of feedback systems. The solution of the differential equation
dA/dt = (Aeq – A)/tau + H
for tau “short” is approximately
A := Aeq + tau*H
Note, NOT the integral of H, just the rate of change. Thus, tau*H is a very small addition. The rate of change of dA/dt is approximately
dA/dt := dAeq/dt + tau*dH/dt
So, no, H does not have a “very direct effect on the average value of dA/dt”. That’s the magic of feedback. If you had ever taken a course in calculus, you would understand this, but I cannot make up for the deficit in your education here.
“And work out what T0 is (i.e. the temperature at which the growth rate is zero), then work backwards to see…”
Another very flawed argument. There is no rule at all that says the system must be linear and/or time invariant. Extrapolating a local solution beyond established bounds of applicability is a fool’s errand. But, we know the local solution fits the modern era since at least 1958 and, as that is the era of the greater part of the observed modern rise in atmospheric concentration, that is all we need to know to demolish the claim of anthropogenic attribution.
“True, this is probably my last post on this thread.”
We can only hope. You should never have been commenting on the topic in the first place. You’re not qualified. You haven’t got the maths.
“Note, NOT the integral of H, just the rate of change. Thus, tau*H is a very small addition. The rate of change of dA/dt is approximately…”
Before someone gets all pedantic on me, that should have been:
Note, NOT the integral of H, just the rate of change of the integral (a.k.a., the virtual accumulation) of human inputs. Thus, tau*H is a very small addition, indeed. The rate of change dA/dt is approximately…
Bartemis wrote ” The fact that the temperature sensitivity dominates anthropogenic emissions is established by the empirical data [plot of temperature and growth rate yet again].”
This would only be true if there were no confounding factors affecting the growth rate, but unfortunately there is (anthropogenic CO2), which makes Bartemis’ argument circular.
Now if Bartemis’ model is correct then it also needs to:
(i) conform to the principle of conservation of mass (as otherwise his model is physically implausible, significant amounts of CO2 do not just dissappear into nowhere, the carbon budget has to balance). Bartemis’ model fails on this count.
(ii) show that the growth rate is less than anthropogenic emissions, as that is what we observe. If Bartemis fixes his model so that it obeys conservation of mass, it will fail this one.
(iii) give a residence time of 4-15 years (as that is what we observe).
It isn’t enough just to show a correlation with one set of observations, it needs to fit all of the available observations.
” The solution of the differential equation
dA/dt = (Aeq – A)/tau + H
for tau “short” is approximately
A := Aeq + tau*H
Note, NOT the integral of H, just the rate of change. Thus, tau*H is a very small addition. ”
Yes, but this is contingent on tau being assumed to be short, however that assumption is only needed to make Bartemis’ model fit the data, but it is not an assumption needed to make more conventional models fit the data, so that is just more circular reasoning from Bartemis.
The funny thing is that Bartemis’ solution shows that the rise in atmospheric CO2, over its equilibrium value, should be proportional to some fraction of the anthropogenic increase and depends on nothing else. LOL.
One last bit of analysis:
Bartemis gives the d.e.
dA/dt = (Aeq – A)/tau + H
So the natural influence on atmospheric CO2 is the first term and is proportional to the difference between the equilibrium concentration Aeq and its current value. This is fine for a first order model, however unless you are going to argue that the equilibrium value is *higher* than the current concentration, this term is NEGATIVE, i.e. the natural environment will be opposing the rise.
Bartemis goes on:
“dAeq/dt := k*(T – T0)
If tau is “short”, then we can reduce this to approximately
dA/dt := k*(T – T0)”
Right, so now the natural influence on the growth rate is proportional to the current temperature minus some equilibrium temperature T0. Now unless you assume that the Earth is below the temperature required for the carbon cycle to be in equilibrium, (T – T0) is POSITIVE. In other words, Bartemis’ little piece of legerdemain has flipped the sign on the natural influence on dA/dt. And nobody noticed! LOL!
“This would only be true if there were no confounding factors affecting the growth rate, but unfortunately there is (anthropogenic CO2), which makes Bartemis’ argument circular. “
Precisely the opposite. Anthropogenic CO2 is an exogenous input. Were it the driver, it would add above and beyond the temperature relationship. But, the temperature relationship covers just about everything – we do not need human inputs to be able to reconstruct CO2 levels to a high degree of fidelity. All we need is the starting value, the temperature record, and the affine parameters k and T0.
“…it also needs to … conform to the principle of conservation of mass…”
The system is not closed, so conservation of mass is not required. It is open to the deep oceans which receive the downwelling CO2 from human emissions, and are driving the atmospheric increase from upwelling. It is open to sink activity on both land and sea. Including terms and equations for these open portions would close the system, but that is superfluous – we only need the parts which have been modeled to see how temperature can drive the system to its observed state.
“…show that the growth rate is less than anthropogenic emissions, as that is what we observe…”
We can choose the k and T0 for the affine model directly from the match of temperatures and dA/dt. They are about k = 0.22 ppmv/K/month and T0 = -0.64 K for the temperature reference provided by UAH in the above linked plot.
“…give a residence time of 4-15 years…”
Part of the other dynamics not included in the model. Another exercise for another time, but not necessary to describe the major driving force in atmospheric CO2.
“…but it is not an assumption needed to make more conventional models fit the data, so that is just more circular reasoning from Bartemis.”
Actually, it is assumed in other models, too, that the equilibration time between atmosphere and oceans is “short”. And, no, there is no circular reasoning. The empirical data establish that the atmospheric rise is overwhelmingly driven by a temperature modulated process. Showing how such a driving force can arise is not the proof that it is doing so. The direct observations of temperature and the rate of change of CO2 do that already.
“The funny thing is that Bartemis’ solution shows that the rise in atmospheric CO2, over its equilibrium value, should be proportional to some fraction of the anthropogenic increase and depends on nothing else. LOL.”
LOL, indeed. This is where you really go off the rails. H is not the “anthropogenic increase”. It is the rate of change of anthropogenic increase, on the order of something like 0.006 ppmv/year equivalent. As I emphasize to my students again and again, you’ve got to make sure your units match. Multiplying H by tau in years gives ppmv. And, as tau is only a fraction of a year, the ppmv influence from H is really tiny.
“…unless you are going to argue that the equilibrium value is *higher* than the current concentration…”
That is the whole point. Aeq is increasing according to dAeq/dt := k*(T – T0). Atmospheric concentration A is simply tracking Aeq.
“In other words, Bartemis’ little piece of legerdemain has flipped the sign on the natural influence on dA/dt. And nobody noticed! LOL!”
LOL, indeed. There is no sign flip. Aeq is increasing according to dAeq/dt := k*(T – T0). And, you are clueless.
Bartemis wrote “Part of the other dynamics [residence time] not included in the model. Another exercise for another time, but not necessary to describe the major driving force in atmospheric CO2.”
It isn’t a surprise that Bartemis doesn’t want to look at residence time. His model assumes that anthropogenic emissions are negligible because if the sinks are sufficiently active (i.e. tau is short), then anthropogenic emissions are removed essentially immediately. However if the sinks were that active then the residence time would also be extremely short (as the residence time is the ratio of atmospheric CO2 and the rate of removal by the sinks). However, we know this is not the case. Residence time is very relevant as it gives bounds on the plausible values for tau.
Sadly the only justification Bartemis has for tau being short is that he needs that for his model to fit the observations. The problem is that there are other models that fit the observations without giving an absurd value for the residence time and he is unable to accept the possibility that his model is wrong and the carbon cycle modellers who have worked on this for years actually do know what they are talking about.
dikranmarsupial | May 18, 2015 at 12:50 pm |
“His model assumes that anthropogenic emissions are negligible because if the sinks are sufficiently active (i.e. tau is short)…”
Actually, this particular model doesn’t even model the sinks. The “tau” in it models the equilibration between atmospheric and oceanic CO2, which everyone agrees is quite short.
“…the carbon cycle modellers who have worked on this for years …”
If its expert opinion you want to argue, I’ll put up Salby against any ten of your choice any day. Salby is a genius. Your guys… not so much. Especially any who put any stock in the silly “mass balance” argument.
“Sadly the only justification Bartemis has for tau being short is that he needs that for his model to fit the observations.”
That is delicious! We don’t need no stinkin’ observations!
“Sadly, the only justification Bartemis has for his hypothesis that the sky is blue is that he has looked up, and observed it is blue. Those of us with our eyes fixed firmly on the ground have inferred that it is, beyond any doubt, red.”
Erratum: “It is the rate of change of anthropogenic increase, on the order of something like 0.006 ppmv/year equivalent.”
Read the wrong chart. It is more like 2 ppmv/year equivalent. Still, when multiplied by tau of a fraction of a year, produces a very small overall contribution.
He may sometimes not communicate so clearly. Especially when he’s talking about using Fourier analysis on ice core records.
You show someone why they are wrong and give them 3 years to think about it, yet they still come back with the same old flawed argument. It isn’t easy to get motivated to arguing with brick walls.
http://judithcurry.com/2011/08/04/carbon-cycle-questions/#comments
Plus ca change. So many of the same people, making the same arguments. Except that it appears Steven Mosher has perhaps fallen off the wagon, and drunk the Kool-Aid.
The eye sees what the mind wants it to:
http://skepticalscience.com//pics/InterannualCO2rise.jpg
From ’87 to ’98 we get some variability. About 2.75 to about 0.60 then to about 2.90.
“The increasing long-term trend is *mainly* the result of rising anthropogenic carbon emissions.” http://www.skepticalscience.com/print.php?n=2538
Mainly? Sounds like denier speak.
Ragnaar,
The full variability is from the influence of temperature on vegetation: that is a variability of about +/- 1 ppmv/year around the trend. Extreme events like the 1991 Pinatubo and 1998 El Niño somewhat more.
Changes in vegetation are not responsible for the increase in the atmosphere, vegetation is a small, increasing sink for CO2.
The slope in rate of change from vegetation in the above graph is zero to slightly negative.
The full offset and slope in the above graph is from a different process than the cause of the variability. You may choose between human emissions (at twice the offset and slope) as cause or some other, unknown source. But in the latter case, show the observations on which that is based…
Ferdinand Engelbeen:
I believe there is a variable source:
http://judithcurry.com/2015/05/06/quantifying-the-anthropogenic-contribution-to-atmospheric-co2/#comment-702029
It is said 86-87, 87-88 and 91-92 were El Nino years. Do you think it’s possible that suppressed the La Nina upwelling? I find it interesting that my link about Pacific variability seems to be at odds with SkS: “Indeed, CO2 atmospheric growth is generally higher than normal during El Niño events, and generally lower than normal during La Niña events (for more details see also a study by Bastos et al., 2013).” http://www.skepticalscience.com/record-growth-co2-2013.html
Ragnaar,
Indeed, an El Niño episode suppresses the main THC upwelling in the East Pacific. This should give a (temporarily) lower increase of CO2 in the atmosphere, but the effect on the Amazon is more important: changed rain patterns give drought in large parts of the tropical forests, reduced growth due to higher temperatures and faster decay of the litter.
The dominant effect is from vegetation, which can be seen in the opposite CO2 and δ13C rate of change:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/temp_dco2_d13C_mlo.jpg
You plot has C13 fluxing and about -0.2 sustained. An upwelling explanation would require something like 0.0 sustained. I take this to mean recent changes are not because of variable upwelling. You seem to be saying blocked CO2 upwelling happens and then plants do poorly shortly thereafter. Eventually the El Nino passes and the plants should return. If you plot went back further to cover 1985, would be see breakpoint at around 1998? I happen to think the deep ocean CO2 is the source and sink for the glacial to interglacial transitions. We may see more El Ninos and more blocked upwelling as the planet tries to keep a lid on CO2 levels.
It’s a pleasure to watch your work, Ferdinand. Judith should thank you for your participation. You are carrying the wight for the science on this thread.
Here’s Tamino’s best on Southern sea ice:
https://tamino.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/shem140.jpg
Here’s Keeling: “We suggest that low glacial atmospheric CO2 levels might result from reduced deep-water ventilation associated with either year-round Antarctic sea-ice coverage, or wintertime coverage combined with ice-induced stratification during the summer.”
I might say, there’s come of the CO2 increase, the ice loss. I see how some will object to that.
Why is the sea basic, pH 8.2?
Because the substrate it rests on, the sea floor is basic at pH 8.2.
Add some acid H2CO3?
neutralized.
Add more acid?
neutralized.
Add as much as you like it is neutralized by the far larger substrate [earth] of the sea floor
The pH can only change substantially if you change the substrate which will not happen any time soon.
This is why, Don, there can be larger CO2 production and absorption not accounted for by your mass balance concept.
It is also why we will never have to worry about ocean acidification.
We can only vary in a very narrow range
Actually, I’d say it was the other way around. Virtually all of the “substrate it rests on” that it’s actually in contact with is composed of detritus that was deposited while in equilibrium with the lower ocean. Which doesn’t say anything about the upper mixing layer, either way.
angech,
Chemistry isn’t my forte so ocean ph is fairly complicated for me at least.
http://www.skepticalscience.com/pics/pHprofilecropped_550.png
Just from fishing though I am aware the pH varies a good bit and deeper water up welling whichs happen to gather the most offshore fish I like to play with generally has a lower pH, higher neutrient levels, more bait and I get bigger tips. The surface water temperature about 30 km south of here is around 78 F right now and the bottom water temperature is about 38 F degrees (1700 foot). That bottom water is home to swordfish that I don’t care to catch (PITA) plus Skipjack and mainly blackfin tuna that I do like to catch. I don’t really need to check the pH all I need to do is check surface water temperature if I have it or look for life, birds, baits sprays, etc. and current eddys.
Looking at the chart provided by skeptical science I would say the Pacific Ocean tends to have more upwelling currents than the Atlantic. So while I am sure that ACO2 plays some important role in ocean pH, The average temperature of the deeper ocean and the mixing rate between the surface and deep ocean appears to be pretty important as well.
The “average” temperature of the oceans btw is about 4C degrees now and back in 1700 it appears to have been about 3C degrees. There is a very small change in CO2 soluability from 3C to 4C of about 0.1 gram per kg and the ocean mass is around 1.5 x 10^21 kg which happens to be one crap load of grams.
Since young climate scientist guns like Oppo, Rosenthal, Linsey and others have done work that indicates there is just a tad more pre-industrial climate variabiliy than folks like Mann and crew indicate, there is the potential that a crap load less CO2 , in atmospheric terms is hanging out in the oceans because of a very small change in “average” ocean temperature generally attributed solely to man and his demon coal.
Whether or not the simple Mass Balance can teast out that -0.1 g per kg is what I believe Dr. Curry had in mind with this particular post. I don’t think we need to worry about pH right now.
Capt,
The change in pH between surface and the bulk of the deep oceans is mainly a matter of bio-life: phytoplankton eats CO2 away, building its own organic life and some species ( coccoliths) also build tiny carbonate shells around them. While much of it is eaten by fish etc. and returns as CO2, part drops out into the deep, which makes that the deep is richer in C species and therefore also has a lower pH than the top layer where most life is present.
The same cause makes that the top layer has a higher 13C/12C ratio than the deep oceans, as the organics which did drop out have a much lower 13C/12C ratio, thus leaving relative more 13C behind them…
The deep ocean – ocean surface exchanges are quite slow and mainly via the edges: sinks near the poles and upwelling near the equator, the latter lags the sinks with 500-1500 years… Equilibration between deep oceans and ocean surface (and atmosphere) is a matter of centuries to millennia…
Further the temperature of the deep oceans plays no role in the CO2 emissions of the oceans to the atmosphere, only the surface temperature at the upwelling places counts, the deep ocean waters need to warm up first before they can release a lot of CO2…
ferd, “Further the temperature of the deep oceans plays no role in the CO2 emissions of the oceans to the atmosphere, only the surface temperature at the upwelling places counts, the deep ocean waters need to warm up first before they can release a lot of CO2…”
No role is pretty definitive and I kinda doubt that. Since the THC is a “deep ocean” current and has a fairly impressive impact on climate, I doubt is has “no role” in the carbon cycle.
Capt,
The THC plays a very important role in the whole carbon cycle and the temperature in large parts of the earth, but its deep ocean temperature is of no consequence for both…
Ferd, I will just let you enjoy your complete understanding of what I believe is part of a more complex system.
btw, the new wais core data is pretty interesting. Based on that, the published uncertainty of the Law Dome reconstruction looks to be overly optimistic as is so common in climate science.
Ferdinand makes an own goal admitting that CO2 dissolved in deep water only matters when it upwells to the surface.
That water is thousand years old, Ferdy. The amount of CO2 in dissolution didn’t come from exposure to modern atmosphere. Duh.
A very important point, David. We have no idea what is in the THC pipeline. Transport phenomena are very complex, and typically give rise to oscillations of high and low concentration.
David,
One can expect that waters from the deep are about 1,000 years old, thus reflect the CO2 composition of around the year 1000, plus what is mixed in from the rest of the deep oceans and what did drop out from the surface and dissolved in the deep ocean flux.
Can that differ from the atmosphere today? Quite sure: a lot richer in CO2 (and nutrients), enriched in 13CO2 and somewhat depleted in 14CO2. Can that increase the pre-industrial atmosphere with 110 ppmv in 160 years? Certainly not.
The ocean waters at the sinking places were as cold as today to a little warmer, thus taking the same (pre-industrial) concentration of CO2 to a little less into the deep.
A 30% increase in the atmosphere caused by the deep ocean upwelling needs a 60% increase in either concentration or total upwelling mass, as the increased pressure in the atmosphere caused by the upwelling is evenly distributed over reducing the upwelling and increasing the sinks when a new steady state is reached:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/upwelling_incr.jpg
Even -again- theoretically possible, any such huge increase in upwelling would violate the measured δ13C level, which would go up, not down as measured:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/deep_ocean_air_increase_290.jpg
where the orange line is what can be expected if the origin of the increase in the atmosphere was caused by the (deep) ocean exchanges.
Keep trying, angie. Hopefully, you learn something when you are corrected.
Thanks Don,
the learning seems to be a bit on and off at times.
Hopefully everyone learns when corrected.
I think Bart will be correct when all the dust settles. Thanks Bart for all of your inputs.
You do not understand that increasing natural sources reduces the “net natural sink”, and that therefore having nature a “net sink” does not necessarily mean that nature is not responsible for the rise.
Bart says which is a key point.
Salvatore, while Bart’s theory of an increasing natural source/sink (cycle) is remotely possible in very specific circumstances (increasing in exact ratio and timing with human emissions), he nor you nor anybody else has given a shred of evidence that there was any increase in the natural carbon cycle, as that should be visible in some observation like the 13C/12C ratio in the atmosphere…
I think I am going to start questioning data that does not support my thoughts just like AGW theory is doing.
I am going to question the 13c/12c ratio in the atmosphere. It must be wrong it is not supporting my theory. I am going to get new data to show how off this data is. lol
That is what AGW theory enthusiast do constantly.
Ferdinand Engelbeen | May 16, 2015 at 11:03 am | Reply
“…he nor you nor anybody else has given a shred of evidence that there was any increase in the natural carbon cycle…”
Right here. More than a shred. Conclusive, in fact.
Salvatore del Prete | May 16, 2015 at 3:14 pm |
“I am going to question the 13c/12c ratio in the atmosphere.”
It’s not the data that is necessarily in question, it is the interpretation of it. It is, again, the question of sufficiency versus necessity. Consistency with a narrative does not establish inevitability, just possibility.
Salvatore and Bart:
All what Bart has shown is a nice correlation between two variability’s which is caused by the influence of temperature variations on vegetation, and a (non-)match of two straight lines with an arbitrary factor and offset, where variability and trend have nothing to do with each other.
That a natural cause for the increase in CO2 violates ALL known observations is only a small detail…
Bartemis theory with all its doors and goats is not the simplest explanation, which is that nature can’t keep up with the increasing human source. See, I can say this in one line, while Bartemis has to invent a Rube Goldberg machine.
I think you have found a home on this thread, jimmy. You da Skydragon slayer. You can’t make a mistake here. You are invulnerable to criticism and ridicule. You are taking candy from babies. Please go to another thread where I can get at you. Meet you on the anchovy thing.
Jim D | May 16, 2015 at 11:26 am | Reply
“Bartemis theory … is not the simplest explanation…”
“Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler.” – A. Einstein
Your “simplest” explanation is not consistent with the temperature data. Your “simplest” explanation does not explain the divergence since the “pause”, when atmospheric CO2 has settled into a steady rate while emissions keep accelerating.
Don sez: Rah! Rah! Sis Boom Bah!
You got your bobby socks on, and your pom poms?
Nice job of cheerleading. But, cheerleaders are not players.
No reason for me to wrassle with you, bartie. You have already been defeated. You are a lightweight. Ferdinand, even little jimmy, will get bored with your foolishness soon. Then you and freddie will be here to entertain each other, all by your little lonesomes.
“Barty” cut your arms and legs off then mopped the floor with you, Don. Now you’re doing a very good imitation of The Black Knight “tis merely a flesh wound”. I warned you that your mouth was writing checks your science background couldn’t cash.
I never noticed that you are a full-blown denier, Springer. I guess your entertaining shenanigans masked your emotional attachment to the foolishness. Ferdinand has many times explained why bartie is just barking at the moon:
“Bart’s theory of an increasing natural source/sink (cycle) is remotely possible in very specific circumstances (increasing in exact ratio and timing with human emissions), he nor you nor anybody else has given a shred of evidence that there was any increase in the natural carbon cycle, as that should be visible in some observation like the 13C/12C ratio in the atmosphere…”
You and bartie and the rest of the denier faithful have had time to produce some kind of evidence, but instead it’s just a dull, droning repetition of the theoretical possibility, we don’t know if, maybe this or that, unicorns, leprechauns yatta..yatta..yatta.
The stillborn theories of freddie and bartie will progress no further than this zombie blog thread. This is as good as it gets for them. I give it about one more day and it’s over.
Evidence. Far from conclusive, I admit.
Still, I suspect a good defense attorney could get their client off using it.
AK, why don’t you fill in the gaping gaps with whatever else you can cobble together, write it up and find a good attorney to represent your case for the defense of humanity. If you can overturn the notion that we are responsible for the rise in CO2, you will end the AGW hysteria and save us $TRILLION$ that would have been spent on hairbrained mitigation schemes. You’ll get a Nobel Peace Prize, at least. You will be a hero. Or nobody will pay any attention to you and you will be a zero. Think it through a little more and calculate the odds. Also, remember that you are in a race with freddie, bartie and The Springer to get to the prize first. Although, that part probably doesn’t worry you any. Good luck!
That was just for you, Don Don. Even the lines. The people who matter probably got it when I first posted it.
Well…
Over the same period:
The ocean outgassed about 300 GT
The deforestation was about 180 GT.
The fossil fuel emissions were about 350 GT
Don’t have a good number for increasing decomp but we’ll assume 300 GT.
This gets back to the fact that about a 20 PPM change in CO2 level “immunizes” the atmosphere from 9.8 GT/Y of emissions by increasing sinking.
350*90PPM/(1130) = 28 PPM.
The above analysis says that fossil emissions are only responsible for 28 PPM
No matter how you look at it man was a minor player in the CO2 rise.
PA,
Where is it described that the oceans outgassed 300 Gt (CO2 or C?)
Deforestation and fossil fuel burning in general are combined as both are human caused…
There is 90 GT in and 90 GT out of the ocean annually and we are supposed to believe a 1°C rise in surface temperature isn’t going to have at least a 1.5% impact?
In theory if top 1/3 of the ocean warmed 1°C that would be 300 GT.
or if the bottom 1/10th of the ocean warmed 1°C that would do it.
Or a 0.15°C overall increase would have the same effect.
And there is also enhancement of emission and inhibition of intake to consider. It isn’t just the outgassing.
I found an outgassing alone analysis that is 163 GT (total outgassing) without considering the emission and inhibition.
I’m still looking for good figures of merit that I like for effects of the 1°C temperature rise on land and ocean.
But when the in ocean sinking is +/- 0.5GT/Y from the general trend, and it has gone from 0.84 GT in 1959 to the current 2.20 GT… the cumulative thermal outgassing effect is in the 100s not 10s of GTs.
PA,
The ocean-atmosphere carbon cycle is a dynamic system, which reacts both on temperature and pressure.
Temperature is important as that changes the partial pressure of seawater (pCO2) at the surface with about 8 μatm/°C, that is the equilibrium pressure with the above atmosphere at the temperature of the seawater.
Pressure is important, as the difference in partial pressure of CO2 (ΔpCO2) between seawater and air is the driving force for a flux into or out of the oceans. If pCO2(oceans) = pCO2(atmosphere), nothing happens (or more accurate: the number of molecules going in and out are equal).
Now, at the source and sink places, there is a continuous huge ΔpCO2 between oceans and atmosphere: a lot of CO2 comes in from upwelling places near the equator and a lot of CO2 goes down in the sink zones near the poles. As long as these two fluxes are equal, nothing happens in the atmosphere: there is a “dynamic” equilibrium between the oceans and the atmosphere, the carbon cycle is in “steady state”.
If you start from steady state and increase the temperature of the oceans, the ΔpCO2 at the upwelling places goes up and at the ΔpCO2 at the sink places goes down. Thus more CO2 is entering the atmosphere and less is removed by the sinks. That means that the pCO2 of the atmosphere increases, until the ΔpCO2 at the sink and sources is restored. At that moment the influx and outflux are equal again. That is at about 8 μatm/°C increase in the atmosphere, which is about the same as the ppmv (the difference is in water vapor, ppmv is measured in dry air).
In graph form for realistic pressures and in/out fluxes:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/upwelling_temp.jpg
No matter how much CO2 is in the oceans, all what counts is the difference in (partial) pressure, not the quantities in the oceans. To bring the atmosphere at 8 ppmv more CO2, you need ~17 GtC extra, that is all. Even if the (deep) oceans contain 100 times more carbon in different forms, that doesn’t matter.
In 1960 the extra pressure in the atmosphere was already ~40 ppmv above equilibrium, today we are at 110 ppmv above equilibrium for the corresponding temperatures. Thus in all cases of the past 55 years, the oceans were more sink than source…
It really isn’t that easy. For one thing you’d have to check primary production in the ocean:
” In the absence of ocean primary production, surface total carbon dioxide CO2 would be 20% higher, and at equilibrium with such a surface ocean, the atmosphere would have a CO2 concentration close to double present levels (Sarmiento et al., 1990). Biological processes, therefore, have a profound impact on the carbon cycle yet this impact is very poorly understood and the subject of significant debate (Broecker 1991, Longhurst 1991, Banse 1991, Sarmiento 1991).”
http://www.mbari.org/staff/reiko/co2/primary.htm
Steven,
I tried to make it not too complicated, as Henry’s law is for a pCO2 equilibrium between concentrations vs. temperature, all other things remaining equal.
Indeed, bio-life in the oceans is an important factor in the CO2 concentrations and thus in ocean pCO2. The question is if bio-life changed that much over the past 55 years that it influenced the CO2 levels in the atmosphere.
The answer is yes, but opposite to the trend: with less bio-life in the oceans DIC would increase and pCO2 would go up, while pH goes down and less oxygen is produced (which comes out the ocean surface above the solubility of O2). The first items are observed, the last item not.
The oxygen balance shows that more oxygen is produced by the whole bio-sphere, including what is produced by the oceans. Thus the whole bio-sphere is a net sink for CO2 of currently ~1 GtC/year.
Ferdinand Engelbeen | May 18, 2015 at 2:12 am |
“Indeed, bio-life in the oceans is an important factor in the CO2 concentrations and thus in ocean pCO2.”
It is important to the amount of CO2 produced each year
but it is an irrelevance [of minor interest] to the level of CO2 in the air and the ocean.
This depends on the amount of CO2 in the air, the amount in the sea and the temperature of the water.
Higher temp drives CO2 out giving higher atmospheric CO2
Higher atmosphere CO2 drives more CO2 into the sea
More CO2 production naturally increases the amount in and out and lessens the impact of human CO2 production
“Equilibration between deep oceans and ocean surface (and atmosphere) is a matter of centuries to millennia…”
But the CO2 is there all the way down and a quasi equilibrium always exists.It has already had its millenia to achieve this de facto equilibrium and it is not going to change much or take a long time to change
“Further the temperature of the deep oceans plays no role in the CO2 emissions of the oceans to the atmosphere, only the surface temperature at the upwelling places counts, the deep ocean waters need to warm up first before they can release a lot of CO2…”
So the temperature plays no part >… but if” it warms up” ie changes in temperature it is important?
Please say what you meant to say, not rubbish.
extra Human CO2 Don may match the the amount the CO2 has gone up but to say that without this human extra CO2 we would be “normal” is rubbish that looks good.
The amount extra may well be comprised of extra natural production which if it had not occurred the human contribution would be correspondingly less.
You are confusing the input and what happens to it with the output which is a matter of the natural mass balance and the amount of actual CO2 production
angech2014,
The deep oceans are at ~5°C. The surface at the upwelling zones is around 30°C. For ~8 ppmv/°C that is a difference of 200 μatm in pCO2 in the ocean waters, or a lot less pressure difference with the atmosphere and thus a lot less CO2 influx in the atmosphere.
Only if the deep ocean waters warm up to the surface temperature, the maximum influx is realized. Thus the deep ocean or even intermediate ocean temperatures have no influence on the influx, only the surface temperature has.
Over many decennia to many millennia, there was an equilibrium between temperature and CO2 levels in the atmosphere which changes with ~8 ppmv/°C.
While ice cores have a resolution not better than 10 years over the past 150 years or 20 years over the past 1000 years, excursions like the current 110 ppmv in 160 years would be measurable in all ice cores and a “peak” of 2 ppmv sustained over 20 years would be measurable over the past 1,000 years.
Over the past 55 years, the year by year natural unbalance is +/- 1 ppmv around the trend, while the trend itself can be calculated as a function of the emissions and the sink rate caused by the increase in the atmosphere.
If there was more natural production, that is fully compensated by more natural sink capacity, as the net natural sources minus natural sinks was negative over the full 55 years. Human sinks play hardly a role and human emissions are only a small part of the increased sinks, if one assumes that all increase is natural…
My knowledge in this area is not nearly as good as Bart and Ferdinand and you both have gave me much insight into the situation. Both of you have taught me much about this subject.
Thanks to both of you.
seawater (pCO2) at the surface with about 8 μatm/°C, that is the
Ferdinand can you explain the atmospheric measurement /degree C ?
Salvatore:
For fresh water the CO2 curve is here:
http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/gases-solubility-water-d_1148.html
Be aware that the solubility curve is for 100% (1 bar) CO2. At 0.0004 bar CO2 pressure the dissolved quantities are a lot lower…
Specific for seawater (see Fig. 2):
http://my.net-link.net/~malexan/Appendix%20B.htm
The solubility of CO2 in seawater is about a factor 10 higher than in fresh water, due to its buffer capacity.
When samples of seawater are measured for pCO2, the common method is taking a continuous stream of seawater from the motor inlet and spraying it in a continuous small air flow and measuring CO2 in the air flow. As the equilibrium is reached within seconds, that is a fast method which can be used in commercial vessels without maintenance over the full trajectory in open seas.
One need to compensate for the small change in temperature between seawater at the inlet and the measuring devise. That is done with the formula:
(pCO2)sw @ Tin situ = (pCO2)sw @ Teq x EXP[0.0423 x (Tin-situ – Teq)]
See for a full description of the equipment and procedures:
http://www.ldeo.columbia.edu/res/pi/CO2/carbondioxide/text/LMG06_8_data_report.doc
“No matter how much CO2 is in the oceans, all what counts is the difference in (partial) pressure, not the quantities in the oceans.”
Amazing. A violent contradiction in a single sentence, and you are completely oblivious to it.
What drives partial pressure if not the quantity?
“Thus in all cases of the past 55 years, the oceans were more sink than source…”
Still clinging to the now utterly discredited “mass balance” argument. Will you ever learn?
Several things, including pH. Which, in turn, can be influenced by changes to the sequestration rates of calcium (and magnesium?) by changing balances between coccolithophores and diatoms.
It’s interesting that people talk about “ocean acidification” from increasing atmospheric pCO2, but not (very much) about the way that increased sequestration of calcium/magnesium can produce “ocean acidification” that will result in outgassing of CO2.
AK,
One can know the difference between the causes:
If the pH is decreasing by some internal or external factor, CO2 will be expelled and the total inorganic carbon (DIC) level will go down.
If the pH is decreasing by pushing more CO2 into the oceans from higher levels in the atmosphere, then DIC will increase, together with the lower pH.
The latter is what is observed: at all areas of the ocean surface where repeated measurements were made, DIC increases and pH (very slightly) decreases.
Bart,
Quantities are not important, concentrations are important (and pH and temperature and salt content,…)
Shake a 0.5 or 1.0 or 1.5 l bottle of Coke from the same batch and you will measure (nearly) the same CO2 pressure under the screw cap. The only difference may be in the fact that the loss of CO2 from the liquid is somewhat higher in the smaller bottle.
That plays no role in the oceans: quantities are far high enough to see no loss, thus concentration is what counts.
Still clinging to the now utterly discredited “mass balance” argument. Will you ever learn?
Will you ever learn that the mass balance must be obeyed at every moment of the day, thus that human emissions don’t disappear into space?
Indeed, adhering to the idea that carbon doesn’t spontaneously appear from nowhere or vanish without a trace seems pretty reasonable to me, just as conservation of energy is a constraint on the Earth’s energy budget or conservation of momentum is an important constraint in modelling collisions of billiard balls. Using disparaging terms doesn’t change that, it just means you back yourself into a corner where you can no longer admit that you are wrong without looking an utter fool (not for being wrong, that’s O.K., but for being so rude to those who have attempted to help you see your error). A good way of avoiding cognitive biases is being polite you your opponents, as Ferdinand has been polite to you, despite your continual rudeness to him.
dikran,
I wonder if you could explain why the conservation of energy is a constraint on the Earth’s energy budget.
The Earth seems to have cooled quite a lot.
What energy has been conserved? All the energy released by the conversion of mass to energy due to nuclear processes over the last four and a half billion years seems to have left the Earth. If the Sun winks out, the Earth will lose energy quite rapidly.
If you are trying to say that the Earth emits just as much energy as it receives from the Sun, this is obviously incorrect.
I wonder if you could explain what energy is being conserved.
Thanks.
PS. The conservation of momentum may well apply to modelled billiard balls, but of course not to real ones. There is course no conservation of energy. The balls come to rest. Losses in the physical collisions are emitted as heat, which can be calculated, photographed, and confirmed by the paths of the balls.
Maybe I misunderstood. I would appreciate correction if I have.
Mike Flynn Internally generated heat is a small component of the Earth’s energy budget. Conservation of energy constrains the energy budget so that any energy gained (either internally generated or from the sun) is either radiated away into space or it is retained by the Earth. The energy that has been radiated has been lost from the earth, but it has been accounted for in the Earth’s energy budget – we know where it has gone – it has been radiated out into space.
The Earth cools whenever it radiates more energy than it gains. At the moment, the Earth is radiating less energy that it receives (because of the increase in the greenhouse effect) and as a result it is currently warming (the Earth system as a whole, rather than just the atmosphere). Jupiter on the other hand is cooling, because it radiates appreciably more energy than it receives from the sun.
that is a difference of 200 μatm in pCO2 in the ocean waters, or a lot less
Define for me 200 uatm . I can’t equate it . What value is that? Could you convert is to bars? If so what is the formula?
Thanks.
that is a difference of 200 μatm in pCO2 in the ocean waters
1 μatm = one millionth of an atmosphere or bar.
Thus 200 μatm = 0.2 mbar or 0.0002 bar.
Seems very small in pressure the push CO2 out of the oceans or into the oceans, but as the oceans have an enormous surface, still a lot of CO2 going in and out…
Thank you Ferdinand. I really appreciate it.
Ferdinand Engelbeen | May 18, 2015 at 2:39 am | Reply
“That plays no role in the oceans: quantities are far high enough to see no loss, thus concentration is what counts.”
This is ridiculous. If you increase the CO2 content of the oceans, then of course that is going to equilibrate with the atmosphere, and the atmosphere is going to rise in concentration.
“Will you ever learn that the mass balance must be obeyed at every moment of the day, thus that human emissions don’t disappear into space?”
They “disappear” into the same place naturally input CO2 does – into the oceans and other sinks. I have shown conclusively that the “mass balance” argument fails to preclude natural forcing. Your clinging to it shows that you do not have the mathematical and physical understanding necessary to diagnose this dynamic system.
Mike Flynn | May 18, 2015 at 6:19 am |
Yes, the mass balancers are Skydragon Slayers in disguise. They do not understand dynamic systems.
dikranmarsupial | May 18, 2015 at 6:40 am |
“The Earth cools whenever it radiates more energy than it gains.”
And, CO2 in the atmosphere goes up whenever the oceans upwell more CO2 than they downwell.
Bart, the original point was that many conflate the ratio in quantities present in the oceans with those present in the atmosphere with the ratio in concentrations.
If you double the carbon amount present in the oceans, you double the concentration in the oceans and that may cause a doubling in the atmosphere, but that doesn’t increase the atmospheric CO2 with a 50:1 ratio as many assume due to the current ratio in mass…
Your clinging to it shows that you do not have the mathematical and physical understanding necessary to diagnose this dynamic system.
My math’s are don’t tip on yours, but your knowledge of physics can’t tip on my practical knowledge of slow feedback systems.
I am still waiting for your solution which shows that an increase in any natural cycle which is a 3-fold or 5-fold in the past 55 years can be the cause of the 4-fold increase in CO2 in the atmosphere, dwarfing human emissions… Besides its effect on known observations…
dikran,
My assumptions are –
1. The Earth’s surface was once molten.
2. Atmospheric CO2 levels have been higher in the past.
I have drawn from these assumptions the following –
High atmospheric CO2 levels, in isolation, have been unable to prevent the Earth from cooling.
I wonder if you could tell me if you if you disagree with my assumptions, or my logic, and tell me why.
If you wouldn’t mind addressing my actual wording, I would be grateful.
Mike, he might ask you why you think 1. and 2. are relevant and who told you that CO2 prevents cooling. Just a heads up.
Don,
Thanks. Your response indicates clearly why I prefer that people quote my words, rather than inserting their own.
If you examine what I wrote, I said the opposite of what you think I said. Feel free to correct me if I’m wrong.
I await dikranmarsupial’s response with interest. Unfortunately, I suspect his will be along the same line as yours.
But thanks anyway.
Bartemis is still arguing because he is the last person to notice that acidification means the ocean is a net sink of CO2. He has the sign wrong and won’t admit it.
I addressed your actual words, Mike. Is it necessary for me to copy/paste them for you?
Your assumptions 1. and 2. are irrelevant to this discussion. And nobody has said that CO2 prevents the earth cooling. So, that is also irrelevant. Get your act together, Mike. You are wasting people’s time.
Don Monfort,
In response to your question, yes.
I don’t believe you will, however. As to time wasting, why are you wasting yours responding to me on behalf of dikran?
Is he not capable of ignoring my question himself? Why do wish to shield him? If I’m wrong I’m wrong. Refusing to state either agreement or non agreement with an assumption may be a simple refusal to offer assistance and education.
Or do you think dikran may be concerned that I might use his honest answers to support my contention that his views on global warming are incorrect?
Is 1872 comments a record number?
It is rather ironic.
dikran,
thanks for the pdf of the article you listed on the other thread.
appreciate reading the actual information you referenced.
Scott
Still 600 to go:
http://judithcurry.com/2012/12/04/multidecadal-climate-to-within-a-millikelvin/
You can do it, Don Don!
At least the genial Dr Pratt had some panache to his curve fitting. He never did tell me if he received that partial roll of Premium Saran Wrap that I sent him so he could complete his Woods debunking experiment. It would be interesting to get his take on this foolishness.
Are we there yet, Daddy?
Again Ii appreciate these two guys. Both have vast knowledge in this area and what makes it great is you get two different points of view.
I have learned much from both of them
Seeing an itemised list of this learning would be most instructive…
Seems that you have not learned anything at all during these exchanges. Amazing!
If you wanted to know, you could ask.
What have you learned, Peter?
I think that we always learn something from every contributor, whether we agree with their general POV or not. The learning may not necessarily be about the topic at hand but we can still get something out of every exchange that leaves us better off for having been here to read it.
If not, then you would need to question whether your continued presence here will be fruitful, for you and, in fact, for every one else who visits this blog. I have learned that both Bart and Ferdinand have both put a lot of thought into their comments and while the jury is still out (in my humble opinion) I have appreciated these exchanges. I am sorry that you have not.
Peter,
err… you haven’t actually asked me what I’ve learned. Might be better not to make assumptions?
What have you learned?
Well, if you wanted to provide an itemised list of what you have learned from these exchanges, you would, instead of trolling. If my assumption about you being a troll is incorrect, I apologise.
Apology accepted.
I’m genuinely fascinated by what Salvatore has learned. I’ve no desire to troll anyone.
What have you learned, Peter?
Next time I see a smarmy comment from anyone, I will not let my irritation get the better of me. Salvatore no doubt will appreciate your genuine interest in his personal quest for learning and will respond in the spirit in which you have engaged him.
Peter, the thread has been fascinating.
It’s a shame you won’t share your own reflections on it, but people’s reactions here is what makes it so compelling, so I guess that’s part of the fascination in and of itself.
Indeed vtg. That is one reason that I enjoy coming here. Human nature is a constant source of surprises, to me, anyway. Good evening.
I have learned much. This field(the climate) is vast and NO one knows it all not even close.
To really master this field one has to be an expert in astronomy, geology, oceanargraphy, chemistry, physics, climatology ,meteorology ,biology, a historian of the historical past climates, magnetism the physics of it from the magnetosphere and earth’s inner core, glaciology etc etc.
Until you are an expert in all those fields you have not mastered this subject.
Salvatore,
I was interested more specifically what your learning from the thread has been.
Genuinely, I’d be fascinated to know.
Personally, I have no pretension as to mastery of the subject; I doubt that any commentator here has.
Very briefly what I have learned is the complexity of the situation, and how the same data can cause two people that have knowledge in this area Bart/Ferdinand to come up with entirely different takes.
Both of which explain their case in detail, and that is where I have learned much. When they explain how they come up with the conclusions they come up with.
I really do not know which one is more correct.
I think possibly data will show which one might be more correct as we move forward in time.
I have approached this subject(climate) much more from the data side of things rather then the theory side of things. What is frustrating is even the data varies depending on what sources are used.
When I say complexity of the situation it is just not this particular topic but every topic associated with climate. One can make a case that they are right as Bart/Ferdinand have done on every aspect of the climate ranging from solar to AGW theory.
I have devoted much of my time to the solar/climate connection side of things and that is where my knowledge is strongest but there is so much more to this.
Salvatore,
thank you for sharing, I appreciate it.
Some of my reflections are similar, some radically different, as I’m sure you could guess.
Firstly, that CE is a much more pleasant environment than it used to be. Personal abuse is much less prevalent.
Secondly, that the ability of the human mind to filter out uncomfortable facts is quite amazing. Whilst I understood in principle our ability to filter out unpleasant realities, for something so clear, obvious and backed by so many independent lines of evidence as the anthropogenic nature of the CO2 rise to be disputed by scientifically literate people here has been truly amazing to observe.
Thirdly, that Judith is prepared to support clearly unscientific positions if they enable criticism of the IPCC.
Finally, that Ferdinand has the patience of a saint; but also that has no impact on his ability to influence those determined to hold their positions.
verytallguy | May 18, 2015 at 10:44 am | Reply
The unscientific position here is the one that treats the system as static. The “mass balance” argument fails utterly in a dynamic framework. The notion that pitifully small human inputs can force a rise, but much larger natural accumulation in the oceans cannot, is risible.
It isn’t even a close question. It is very clear that atmospheric CO2 is overwhelmingly a temperature dependent process. This is a very ordinary system response in the presence of feedback – the system tracks the environmentally induced equilibrium point, and shrugs off small disturbances such as our own.
Someday, you will learn to listen to the people who know what they are about, and not the clueless individuals who brought you such mind bogglingly ridiculous assertions as the “mass balance” argument’s claim that nature cannot be driving the rise as long as it is less than the sum total of human inputs to date. That is just an incredibly fatuous argument, and nobody who adheres to it should be taken seriously.
Looks like bartie has taken up residence here. It seems like about a month ago that for some unfathomable reason Judith invited him do a guest post. Bartie said he didn’t have time. I wonder if Judith has changed her mind, after watching this spectacle of silliness.
verytallguy,
I have given up on Bart, as all what he has is a complete spurious match between two straight lines caused by an arbitrary offset and factor, where the variability is certainly caused by temperature, but the slope and offset are not…
So I write for people who still have an open mind and may be convinced by solid arguments…
Ferdinand wrote “spurious match between two straight lines caused by an arbitrary offset and factor”
and where the confounding factor has been pointed out to him, repeatedly…
Keep up the good work Ferdinand, neither side of the discussion of climate benefits from returning to this one again and again.
Ferdinand,
The absolute determination shown in this thread to avoid addressing these arguments has been a real eye-opener.
In particular, I still find it hard to believe Judith really wrote the comments she did.
they could both be partially correct. In this case it does not have to be one is 100% correct and the other 100% wrong.
+1. I rather doubt that anyone is ever 100% right in these things due to the uncertainty of the science and the comparative lack of reliable data over a sufficiently long period of time.
Thing is Peter, that’s exactly how science does work. The sun does *not* partially orbit the earth; science is 100% right in asserting the opposite.
Likewise, the post 1750 CO2 rise is absolutely attributable to humans, essentially 100% give or take insignificant quibbling.
There is a huge amount of extremely reliable evidence supporting this, over a time period approaching a million years, evidence all supporting the same conclusion using several orthogonal approaches.
No-one here has pointed to anything in the reputable literature which suggests anything other is remotely plausible.
Unless you can now?
265 years as a fraction of 1 million years is 0.000265. So you are saying that events over this time span are statistically significant in the context of of any discernable climate trend over 1 million years?
Given that climate trends are difficult to measure due to major shifts occurring on an irregular basis from forcings such as volcanic activity (on land and under the sea) any simplistic hockey stick type trend analysis is too far fetched for my liking.
verytallguy,
Gavin Schmidt said that it was more likely than not (64%) that 2014 was not hotter than 2013.
Good thing he’s only a mathematician. I suppose a real climate scientist would have said it was 100% certain, one way or the other.
You might like to tell myself and Peter whether 2014 was globally warmer than 2013 with 100% accuracy – or is this not an example of real science?
Peter Davies
Yes, I get that you don’t *like* it.
Science, though, isn’t about what you like, it’s about what the evidence shows.
The evidence is absolutely overwhelming that the increase in CO2 is anthropogenic. I note you’ve been entirely unable to quote any reputable source refuting this – and neither has anyone else.
And yet, you allow your “liking” to overrule all the evidence. That’s what is so fascinating about your response, Judith’s response, and denizens’ response in general.
Mike Flynn, I believe the topic of the post is a supposed refutation of the anthropogenic nature of the CO2 rise.
If vtg wants to engage lets see his response to my position as to whether he thinks 265 years is a sufficient sample to draw any sensible conclusions.\ about future climate trends.
For those interested in schoolboy debate, if Peter is serious, perhaps he could provide a link to a reputable study shedding doubt on the anthropogenic nature of the CO2 rise?
For engagement on 265 years, I’ve honestly no idea what your point is Peter. You talk about climate, the subject of the post is atmospheric CO2.
So I’ll address the subject of the post. The data shows that the past 250 odd years have seen a rise in CO2 unprecedented in nearly a million years.
I’ll quote AR5 for you:
Executive summary chapter 6.
I think “unequivocal” certainly meets “statistically significant”.
vtg will not engage on whether he thinks 265 years is a sufficient sample to draw conclusions on CO2 (an important parameter of climate) trends.
vtg needs to look at whether the slope of the last 265 years is to be taken as evidence that the last million years trend line (no reliable evidence of domain PDF) is being moved one iota.
vtg needs to forget about his school days and engage with the subject matter at hand. The post is about CO2 certainly but I rather think that Keeling’s sample is insufficient to draw any conclusions about CO2 levels, natural variability or accumulation or any other possible wriggle room that vtg may need.
Peter,
honestly, you’ve completely lost me.
Yes is the answer and I gave you a reference to back it up. “Unequivocal” is the summary of the scientific literature. How that constitutes “not engaging” I don’t understand.
Now, can you please provide a reference to a reputable source showing that the CO2 rise since 1750 is not anthropogenic (or acknowledge that no such sourcce exists)
vtg lets say I were to agree with your view that anthro is the main source of the increase in CO2 then will you answer my position as to whether the million year trend line is being moved or not? IMO it simply doesn’t matter where the source of the CO2 comes from because CO2 doesn’t matter. I will come back tomorrow as I have other things to attend to right now and no disrespect is intended.
Peter,
I don’t understand why revealing one view is contingent on revealing the other.
I don’t know what trend you’re referring to; the topic of the post is anthropogenic (or not) CO2. If you mean a best fit linear trend over a million years, trivially that won’t be moved significantly by 250 years data. Why it matters either way vs attribution of the current rise I don’t understand.
verytallguy,
Why restrict yourself to a cherry-picked 800,000 years or so?
Show us your reputable literature that claims with 100% certainty that rises of 500 ppm have never taken place since the seas became liquid.
Can’t do it? So is it possible that rises in CO2 can take place without human involvement, or not?
You are correct inasmuch the whole question has no relevance to anything in particular. A meaningless intellectual exercise which achieves nothing, or do you believe that a rise in CO2 levels to 1000 ppm is somehow detrimental? I presume you can provide details of reputable literature which show with 100% certainty the ill effects to humanity of CO2 levels twice those which currently exist.
Over to you.
verytallguy,
err.. because that’s the length of time it’s possible to get directly measured data from bubbles in ice cores. “Cherry picking” means limiting the data to suit your objective. Here I‘ve deliberately taken a time period which covers *all* the high quality data available. Data from further back depends on much less reliable proxies.
It’s not a relevant question to the subject of the post, which is the anthropogenic attribution of the recent rise. We don’t need to demonstrate that there have never been previous rises to do that.
It’s entirely possible. The PETM is exactly an example of such a rise. If you’re not familiar, Wiki gives a reasonable starting point, and there’s a very brief description in AR4.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paleocene%E2%80%93Eocene_Thermal_Maximum
https://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/ch6s6-3-3.html
Staying on topic would be good.
VTG, 100% is a fairly large claim. You sure it couldn’t be 90% or 80% or even 70%? Where is your published attribution that explicitly rules out any contribution from natural sources?
Mike, you are moving the goalposts…
It is pretty sure that the current increase, at least since 1850 (1750-1850 change is quite small to be sure) in CO2 is higher than ever in the past 800,000 years, as a similar increase and level would be measurable in all ice cores of even the worst resolution (560-600 years). Probably 2 million years, as can be found in sediments of specific plankton types.
What is also clear from the past 800,000 years is that CO2 levels followed temperature changes with a (huge) lag with around 8 ppmv/°C.
The current rise is over 100 ppmv/°C, if temperature was responsible, which violates Henry’s law for the solubility of CO2 in seawater.
You can’t compare current climate and CO2 levels with the climate and CO2 levels of 100 or 200 million years ago: the oceans were much higher in CO2, much of which is meanwhile settled in sediments: huge layers of carbonate rock where once was the (shallow) sea bottom.
Different oceans carbon species content, different ocean currents (drifting continents), different temperatures, different CO2 levels in the atmosphere…
Oh? Was Newton (Newtonian celestial mechanics) 100% right? About the orbit of Mercury? About the behavior of masses at close to the speed of light?
The claim that “science is 100% right” isn’t actually about Science, it’s about a religion the claimer is calling science. With real Science, there’s no way to know whether it’s “100% right” till long after the fact.
Actually, nobody’s demonstrated that here. Just engaged in dishonest rhetoric and straw-man arguments using egregious bad-faith misrepresentations of opposing opinions.
Granted, the real issue is more semantic: what do you mean by “attributable to humans”? Defenders of the politically motivated consensus engage in a variety of arm-waving and misrepresentation of opposing views to hide this fact. (With help from a variety of people who don’t understand the science.)
Ferdinand,
I have no team in the CO2 attribution game. I don’t believe I have moved the goalposts when I am not involved in the game as such.
I merely share other commenter’s views that it is not an absolute certainty that one team is 100% right, and that the other team is 100% wrong. There seems to be a fair bit of assumption, coupled with possibly unrealistic modelling, a lack of relevant data, possibly chaotic system of interrelationships that we can’t even begin to understand, amongst other things that would give me food for thought.
You may be absolutely right, or not. Although you tell me I can’t compare present conditions to those several million years ago, you would probably object if I said that you cannot even compare conditions now with those of 50 years ago, if you were to claim with complete certainty that no relevant changes have occurred in that period.
Correlation may suggest causation, but is no guarantee.
I am a little surprised at the emotion and passion demonstrated by both teams. The competition winners, in any case, receive a big bag of precisely nothing. It matters not whether the rise in CO2 is caused by man, Nature, or tinfoil hat wearing aliens.
I’d be more impressed if somebody could forecast the weather with 100% accuracy even one hour ahead, but currently trying to forecast wind speed and direction accurately even 30 seconds in advance is impossible.
May the best team win. Whether the game is worth the prize, I leave to the teams.
Oh, for want of a backslash… hopefully formatted properly:
stevenreincarnated
On the contrary. Given a pretty much flat historical baseline and a sudden rise commensurate with industrialisation and requiring only 50% of our emissions to effect it, it’s very much middle of the road.
Well, every source I can find is flat out unequivocal that the rise is anthropogenic. Just couple of examples:
AR5:
M. R. Raupach et al.: Increasing CO2 airborne fraction (the paper Le Quere based her article on that Judith misinterpreted above):
Which unfortunately leaves you down to my noddy analysis for a quantitative analysis as what could conceivably be natural.
From
MACFARLING MEURE ET AL.: LAW DOME ICE CORE AIR RECORDS
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2006GL026152/pdf
The study goes back 2000 years – I believe that was to bedrock.
TRUDINGER ET AL.: ICE CORE SMOOTHING show that decadal natural changes would show up in the ice cores:
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2003JD003562/pdf
In the absence (and there is a total absence) of any evidence of a new or significantly changing natural source of CO2, 10ppm seems a reasonable bound to put on changes in natural sources or sinks.
Which would give us 100% +/- 8% anthropogenic on the 120ppm rise, as any natural change could be positive or negative. Ferdinand could probably do better.
There are other constraints: any source or sink impacting significantly on the anthropogenic rise in CO2 must have increased lockstep with it, otherwise we would not see the near perfect correlation of anthropogenic emissions with atmospheric concentration. Then there’s the changes in isotopic concentration, delta-O2 etc.
So there you are. Essentially all anthro.
Now, your turn to do some research I think. Show me a link to a reputable source demonstrating otherwise and I’ll happily rescind.
Flynn is right on this one. You can’t prove that you are 100% right. Look at the molten earth and the squirrels. What about that stuff? You can’t answer all his questions. He will exhaust you. Flynn for the win. What a guy.
VTG, sure I’ll find a reference. Why don’t I just use yours?
“Even a decrease in the atmospheric CO2 concentration during the mid-1940s and the air enclosure smoothing suggesting a large additional sink of ~ 3PgC yr/-1 [Trundinger et al 2002]. ….. The processes that could cause this response are still unknown”
So while they state that the change wasn’t due to changes in the biosphere or fossil fuel usage, they still have a sink they don’t understand. I’m not feeling 100% sure they have a 100% handle on the carbon cycle. Maybe you shouldn’t unless you have a reason why nature can reduce the amount of co2 staying in the atmosphere but can’t amplify it?
Steve,
Yes, interesting, isn’t it?
The ice core data is claimed as capable of deconvoluting changes in natural sinks from the anthropogenic contribution.
The only significant change noted over the period post industrialisation is an *increase* in sinks over a short period of time in the 1940s, something of the order of 12GtC total, ca 6ppm.
That leaves us with an attribution to anthro of 105%
And no evidence whatsoever for a significant natural source over the period.
Consistent with all other literature, the paper support exactly what I’ve claimed.
VTG, yes I am familiar with the arguments. Natural variation can only cause cooling and sinks. :)
Steve,
You seem to be dodging the conclusions of the paper you quoted, Steve. Which was that natural variation has been a net *sink* during the period of interest. Ooops.
Also, you still have the challenge to find a reputable citation which supports the existence of a significant natural source.
Over to you.
VTG, I’m not dodging at all. I showed you there was a sink that wasn’t understood. It prevented an increase in atmspheric CO2 for over a decade despite human emissions. That you fail to see that there may be sources that aren’t understood is no suprise to me despite it being a rather logical extrapolation. My own guess is that the increase has been about 90% anthropogenic, but I understand there are sources and sinks we don’t have a handle on so I am not 90% sure I am right. You can think you are as right s you want but I don’t see the knowledge available to eliminate as possibilities values lower than what I think much less what you state as fact.
Steve,
I haven’t claimed at all there are no unknown natural sources, merely that they can conclusively shown to be small enough to have no significant effect on the post 1750 change.
Fascinating that despite you citing a paper which seems to show natural variation has been a net sink you still persist in believing the opposite in getting to your 90% anthro, but if you accept 90%, OK, I’m not really interested in details beyond that.
VTG, of course the oceans and land have been net sinks. That is obvious. It also doesn’t mean that natural emissions couldn’t have added to the atmospheric concentration. You do at least agree with that or are you one of those that are fooling yourselves with the mass-balance argument?
Ah, steve agrees that the oceans and the land are net sinks. (Should have kept quiet, after that.)
Given that the oceans and land are net sinks, can you explain how the land and oceans could be the source of the CO2 increases in the atmosphere? Is there some natural source from someplace other than the oceans and land?
In case you don’t know what “net sink” means, the oceans and land have been taking up more CO2 than they are emitting, period. The ACO2 has steadily, for at least the last 50 years, been twice as much as the amount needed to account for the CO2 increase. Do some freaking thinking.
steve
Careful Steve, the way you’re going we’ll agree on everything!
It depends what you mean by the “mass balance argument”
If “the mass balance argument” is *purely* that anthro has been 2x increase in the absence of contextual information then I agree with you.
If, however, “the mass balance argument” is that
– atmospheric concentrations were closely in balance between sources and sinks for millenia
– concentration started to rise as anthro emissions started
– the rise in concentration is excellently quantitatively correlated to anthro emissions through time
– a mass balance of the emission shows roughly 50% remains airborne
then I’d say that is a definitive attribution, based on the mass balance over time of CO2. That this could occur coincidentally naturally is utterly implausible.
Then there’s all the other lines of evidence.
Do small changes in natural sources and sinks have an additional impact on atmospheric CO2? Sure, I’d agree with that.
VTG: Yes, mass balance is evidence but not proof so we agree there.
Don: Here is why I argue that mass-balance is not mathematical proof. If you can see a reason I should change my equation I’d appreciate it:
C’ = (Eneq + Enchange + Ea) – {Eneq + (Enchange + Ea)f}
C’ = change in atmospheric concentration
Eneq – natural emissions at equilibrium
Enchange = change in natural emissions
Ea = anthropogenic emissions
f = percentage of emissions lost to the atmosphere due to created sinks
I haven’t seen anybody claim that the mass balance argument is mathematical proof, steve. It is a convincing argument that matches up with the emissions and sinks and other evidence, which has been explained to you many times, and there is no plausible alternative with supporting evidence that has been described in these 2000 comments, or anywhere else. That it is theoretically possible that the mass balance argument is wrong is trivial.
Continuing this argument is silly. Ferdinand is still here because he is a scholar and a gentleman and he sincerely wants you people to get this. The warmist contingent is hanging around, because this is a winner for them. It’s easy and they are enjoying themselves. This story reinforces justification for their stereotyping of skeptics/deniers. Get them in an argument about what really matters, like the dubious strongly positive water vapor assumption, and they will get uncomfortable and scurry back to their warmist echo chambers.
Don, you asked me to explain how net sinks can also be a source. The equation shows that they can. I’m actually not sure why you are arguing with me. I doubt anyone that doesn’t believe mass-balance is proof would and there are some of those, just read through the comments.
The “natural” source accumulation has to have something like a 0.99 correlation with the anthropogenic source. I think you are just fooling yourself to think it is independent.
Mass balance is not claimed to be a mathematical proof for the increase of CO2 in the atmosphere, steve. How many times does that have to be stipulated? Oh, you got a formula. Nobody is arguing that it is not THEO-FREAKING-RETICALLY possible for some part of the increase to be natural. Ferdinand has gone over this a dozen freaking times, explaining why the probability of that is down in unicorn territory.
The burden is on you characters to dig up some freaking evidence that somehow, out of a net natural sink there HAS come natural CO2, in the necessary amount and with the timing required, to explain some significant part of the CO2 increase. Why don’t you go to Ferdinand Englebeen’s website and read the freaking full explanation.
You can argue your formula all you want. Your argument is irrelevant unless you can find some supporting EVIDENCE and it will NEVER have any influence on the discussion, beyond an occasional BS blog thread like this one. End of story.
Don, I see now that my thought the rise is about 90% anthropogenic must surely be wrong based upon your repeated assertions. We can stop now.
You don’t even understand the implications of your own argument, stevie. Why do you think it’s 90%? Why not 50%, like freddie? Or 12%? Can’t you get to zero, like bartie? You don’t have to justify any particular number. You got a formula. Judith guesses that the IPCC is around 70-80%. Are you going to let the freaking IPCC lowball you, stevie? Personally, I think that 69% is the sweet spot for you and your little formula. You are right in there between everybody. Bet Judith would support that.
You still don’t see the absurdity of this discussion, but you are shining example. Thanks for playing.
Because roughly 10% can be attributed to the temperature increase. Well, I thought it could. You have clearly proven me wrong.
Do you actually admit there has been a temperature increase, stevie? What caused that?
You could have said roughly 5%, stevie? That’s closer to reality. Anyways, you are roughly in agreement with the mass balance thingy. Tell the rest of them, stevie. Some are still stuck on zero, others 50%, and 70-80%.
Don, I think about 10% is good but I appreciate all the help you have been in changing my position. OK, it hasn’t changed. But it is very close to Ferdinand’s so it must have? I told you unless you thought mass balance alone was actually proof that we didn’t have anything to argue about. You should listen once in a while. I do appreciate the way you attempted to ridicule me though. You may want to consider a new debating style. That one isn’t going to change anyone’s mind about anything.
David Middleton brought this up:
“Values of δ13C obtained from conventional bulk sediment radiocarbon dates encompassing the Pleistocene Holocene boundary have been compiled and plotted against 14C age. In all. 286 lake sediment dates from southern Sweden in the range 8.000 to 13.000 BP have been evaluated. A significant decrease in δ13C values, initiated shortly before 10.000 RP and amounting to 5%, is distinguished. This change is accompanied by increased limnic productivity. decreased erosive input and increased organic carbon content of the sediments.”
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1502-3885.1993.tb00183.x/abstract
He suggests that “δ13C has declined when over all CO2 levels have risen.”
Do we have good proof the ratio hasn’t always done this? The match between the ratio and CO2 levels could be argued to be too good. Too fast, as here: http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/temp_dco2_d13C_mlo.jpg
On the graph, in 1998 the CO2 roared out of the ocean. The ratio level drops to its lowest level in unison. It just seems too synchronized.
Here:
http://www.skepticalscience.com/pics/dC13Bohmetal.jpg
If you invert at least one of them, they all track together. I agree. Not sure the ratio is clearly showing much.
Ragnaar,
There are only two main sources of low 13C: recent organics and fossil organics.
Large excursions like in the Swedish lake show local sediments, were influenced by local CO2 uptake/release from vegetation.
Ice cores show global changes, which show that even over huge temperature changes like the last glacial-interglacial transition towards the Holocene, the change in δ13C was not more than a few tenths of a per mil, which points to the (deep) oceans as cause of the extra CO2 in the atmosphere, not vegetation, as that is increasing with warmer temperatures, thus a net, increasing sink.
During the whole Holocene the same variability: a few tenths of a per mil, in ice cores with a resolution of ~40 years over the past 10,000 years and ~20 years over the past 1,000 years.
As both the ice cores in the atmosphere and the coralline sponges in the ocean surface (resolution 2-4 years!) show a small variability of +/- 0.1 per mil in δ13C pre-1850 and start to decline in direct ratio to human emissions, it is quite clear that humans are the sole cause of the decline: a drop of 1.6 per mil since 1850 is equivalent to burning 1/3rd of all land vegetation without regrowth.
Thus we have two completely independent observations which show the same δ13C decline in the same periods caused by the same source.
Of course there are natural variations which reduce or enhance the effect of human emissions on the δ13C decline over years to decades: El Niño has a profound influence and the PDO and other oscillations may influence the rate of change too, but if you look at the pre-1850 period: similar variability in temperatures show only a small variation in δ13C…
We are most of the cause of the decline of 13C. I am trying to isolate the variable CO2, not say it was all natural. Two examples. Stuck in a positive or negative PDO. Or put another way, predominate El Ninos or La Ninas.
In your plot I linked to, most might agree that the 1998 CO2 peak was natural and caused by either that El Nino or the following La Nina. With that peak, say it was on one day, what was the d13C ratio telling you? It told me that it reached an extreme value because of a natural variation.
Probably for δ13C.
It’s more complicated than that for atmospheric pCO2:
If you take a bucket of water and pour it into a normal American toilet, and the water comes up to the rim and then sloooooowly goes back down, is the “cause” of that the bucket of water you poured in?
No of course not! The “cause” is that the danged thing’s plugged up. Any dern fool knows that.
If you do the same with a bigger bucket with some water in it, is the “cause” of that the bucket of water you poured in? Yes of course! Any dern fool knows that.
Both very simplistic analogies, but they demonstrate how “cause and effect” is really a function of expectations. Both of the artifacts mentioned above are designed by humans to fulfill certain expectations: that the bucket will hold whatever water you put in it, that the toilet will normalize to maintain a constant water level.
Of course, only a creationist would argue that the CO2 system mediated by the atmosphere is “designed”. But what should we expect?
NB: I’m fully aware of the humor, and “irony” of my analogy of the atmosphere as a toilet.
AK:
I like your explanation. I expect (want because of bias) natural variability. We had slow laundry drain for years. My wife kept bombing it with chemicals and I with water pressure and a snake. The answer was to cut the pipe out, then reconnect the new pipe into a sewer main that was known to have a good flow. The problems of one mode, disappeared with a system mode switch. The problem was not excessive water usage.
AK,
A little careful with examples…
Your toilet example can be seen as the natural variability which is flushing the toilet. Human emissions are the flush charge which is continuously and increasingly overflowing…
Thus the variability in discharge is caused by the momentary flushing, while the increase in discharge is from the overflow…
Perhaps. It depends on how the system is assumed to operate in the absence of fossil CO2. The problem is that there’s very little research into the subject, and especially into how it operated in the past.
And, of course, we have the fact that Salby’s suggestion that there’s been much more variation in pCO2 over the last (and previous) interglacial was prevented from publication by bureaucratic hooliganism. That certainly doesn’t prove he’s right, but it does go to show those responsible were afraid he is.
AK,
There is not the slightest reason that Dr. Salby can’t publish his theories about the diffusion of CO2 in ice cores. All ice core data are freely available on the net and he can publish – and defend – his theories here or at WUWT…
I’ve never seen any data of the sort he seemed to be talking about. In any event, it isn’t his data, that he generated using a good deal of computer time, and the results were confiscated, and as far as anybody knows destroyed.
Science involves real work, some of which he says he did, that he can’t publish because it appears to have been stolen through bureaucratic hooliganism. (While he was at a conference.) Something he’s often explained.
So yes, it appears there is a very good reason “ that Dr. Salby can’t publish his theories about the diffusion of CO2 in ice cores.”.
The dog ate his homework.
AK,
As far as I know, Dr. Salby has not done any work on ice cores. Al what I have seen from him is a theoretical migration that he needs to support his own story about the (too low according to him) CO2 levels in the past.
That may be mathematically correct, but has not the slightest value if not backed by real world data.
In the real world, there is no measurable migration of CO2 in ice cores, only during the time there are still open pores connected with the atmosphere. None once the bubbles are closed.
There was one attempt to calculate the -theoretical- migration of CO2 in ice cores by looking at the increased CO2 level near melt layers of relative warm coastal ice cores:
http://catalogue.nla.gov.au/Record/3773250
All what that indicates is that the migration in such cores broadens the resolution of the gas age from average 20 years to 22 years at middle depth and from 10 to 40 years at full depth. That is all.
As the inland cores are much colder and migration is reduced exponentially with lower temperatures, that is virtually zero in Vostok and Dome C.
Moreover, if there was substantial migration as Dr. Salby alleges, the spread of the original peaks would cause much too low original values during glacial periods, even negative if you go back in time. Which is calculable on the back of an envelope… Doesn’t need any expensive computer time…
Further, his work was commented on several friendly forums, including WUWT and here (in 2011, when he was still at work). Thus no reason at all not to defend his own work when there is critique from other skeptics…
Maybe not actually measuring the quantities in the cores.
AFAIK this (specifically the bolded part) shows a dramatic misrepresentation of his thesis. Perhaps through misunderstanding?
Looking at the abstract of your link, that’s not what I see.
That’s utterly ridiculous! The only “good-faith” explanation I can think of for such a misrepresentation of his thesis is that you don’t understand the difference between decadal-scale peaks and interglacial peaks. AFAIK he’s talking about a typical ~200ppm average for glacials, and ~280-300ppm average for interglacials. What’s at issue is how high the peaks are for variations on a scale of 10-200 year.
And no, I doubt those calculations could be done on the back of an envelope (but I’m not an expert on Fourier analysis). Not when you have to work back from a highly damped observed signal to an original signal where the damping depends on the frequency, as it would when it’s mediated by diffusion: more damping for higher frequencies, because the net diffusion depends on the gradient, which is higher for a higher frequency signal at the same amplitude.
If I were making an argument like that, and you came to me with your nonsense about “the spread of the original peaks would cause much too low original values during glacial periods, even negative if you go back in time.”, I would refuse to engage with you also, because I would seriously doubt your good faith: your interpretation doesn’t make sense, and anybody who came at the issue in good faith would start by looking for an explanation that did make sense.
Mosher calls it doing/listening with “sympathy”, although IMO he talks about it much more than he does it. I prefer to reference John S Wilkins’ Principle of Charity:
Among which I would certainly classify ridiculous nonsense that doesn’t make sense.
And this:
I call that bad faith.
AK,
I have repeatedly listed to several of Dr. Salby’s speeches, in Australia, Hamburg, was personally in London’s parliament last year for his speech (where he avoided a direct answer to few pertinent questions I had afterwards) and listed/commented on his recent speech again in London.
If I don’t agree with somebody, I want to be pretty sure that what he/she said was really what I thought what was said.
In the case of ice cores, Dr. Salby had two separate objections against the CO2 levels found in ice cores: the short time variability which is leveled off during the time the snow is accumulating and the pores still are open (everybody agrees on that) and the peak shaving due to migration: a peak of 1000 ppmv is noticed as a peak of 100 ppmv only during an interglacial.
Here is what he said in his speech in Hamburg, from 27 minutes on in the film (thanks to Janice):
A peak of 40 ppmv would be seen as a 20 ppmv peak after 10,000 years, 1000 ppmv would be noticed as a peak of 100 ppmv in the ice core after 100,000 years.
Not literally, but listen to it for yourself.
Which is physically impossible: CO2 levels in ice cores don’t level off over time and if they did, that implies a factor 4 higher peak every interglacial back in time to obtain about the same CO2 level and negative values during glacial times…
Salby’s math is quite difficult to follow and need a lot of knowledge and probably computer power if you want to work that out in real figures. As good as with Bart’s, Salby’s reasoning may be superb and mathematically 100% right, but the result violates all observations, thus is 100% wrong and even a back on an envelope calculation can show that…
His theoretical calculations start a few minutes before the above where he shows that the lower the frequency, the more the signal is attenuated (!). That is where my internal alarms started to ring…
OK, having carefully studied the presentation, I realize where a possible mis-understanding arose.
You’re mixing apples and oranges here. Take the chart showing at 26:23 (where I happened to pause this time through). This shows that for
frequencieswavelengths of 10,000-20,000 years, the damping is close to 1 (1-1.3). Forfrequencieswavelengths of 50,000 years, the damping is up around 10. However, the record of the Pleistocene doesn’t really show any changes on that (latter) time-scale. So there are no multiplications to make. The signals of the inter-glacials/glacials are all on the order of 10,000 years and under.Now, go forward to 26:57, you’ll see the cross covariance crosses zero at a wavelength of around 18,000 years. This means that the long-scale average of glacials and inter-glacials is roughly flat. Which it is.
I admit, his mention (27:21-27:31) of “A change of proxy CO2 on a time-scale of 100,000 years then underestimates the atmospheric change by a factor of 15,” is a bit confusing to me, since AFAIK no such changes exist. The following (27:33-27:44) “swings of proxy CO2 of 100ppmv during the glaciation cycle then derive from changes in the atmosphere of over 1000ppmv,” seems to be true, but totally irrelevant. AFAIK no such swings on that time-scale exist, although there may be more to his theory than I got. Or he may have mis-read his notes, and actually meant to say “swings of 10ppmv derive from changes of 100ppmv”. There might be such changes to the average on that time-scale.After a few more times through, I managed to recover (I think) what I originally got out of this section. The key is that he’s talking about the signal he’s concerned with: temperature-driven CO2 entry into the atmosphere. The “damping” isn’t from diffusion; he doesn’t even mention that till later. Rather, it’s from longer-scale absorption. Here, if I’m right, his “proxy CO2” actually refers to something that, after damping, will become the derivative with respect to time of pCO2. I admit it’s confusing, and I’m actually highly skeptical of this part, for the same reason I’m skeptical of your mass-balance argument.
The part that matters for the 19th-21st century starts at about 27:25, which is where he starts to talk about the effect of diffusion. E.g. 28:22: “Short scales, with steep gradient, are diffused faster than long scales, with flat gradient.” The equation is on the screen at 28:52.
29:54-30:02 “The effective damping now includes a contribution that increases quadratically with wavenumber.” 30:11-30:20 “High frequencies; short time-scales are damped more than low frequencies long time-scales.” 30:40-30:54 “Changes of atmospheric CO2 are again underestimated in the proxy record. But now, their underestimation increases with frequency.” Here at 30:54 is a damping chart that should be the one appropriate to 19th-21st century CO2 issues. This may be the one you intended to reference, and it clearly (to me) has an incorrect label on the bottom scale. This is why I’m highly skeptical of his presentation, and want to see the whole thing laid out on paper, where he’s had a chance to check for errors. But what I’m pretty sure happened is that when he transferred the curve from its original software to PPT (or whatever), he forgot to transfer update the scale at the bottom, which is clearly the same one from his previous chart (at 26:23).
You say he didn’t repeat this part in his 2015 presentation, so I suspect that there was an error in presentation here. My understanding from his words was (and is) that variation on a time-scale (wavelength) of 10-200 years is highly damped, while those on a scale of 1000 years is much less so. But I’ll admit every time I see this presentation I simply assume that the scale at the bottom of his chart is incorrect. The problem is what scale he intended to have at the bottom, and what, besides speculation, he has to justify it. This, AFAIK, is where the theft of his research materials is critical. (Although for him the proofs of the earlier part may be more important.)
Anyway, I have issues here with his assumptions about diffusion, because I suspect there’s quite a bit more of it during the first few centuries after the ice closes. But in general, the part of his presentation concerned with diffusion seems to me to make sense, if you allow for a few errors. Primarily the scale at the bottom of the chart at 30:54.
Now, I’m not saying that I think for sure that he’s right. But I do think that he’s on to something that needs to be looked at much more closely before any major societal investments are made on the basis of an asssumed CO2 “hockey stick”.
I will admit I needed a good deal of “charity” to untangle his rather confusing presentation.
AK,
I think that we can agree on one point: if you delve deeper in what Dr. Salby said, it gets more confusing as it is near impossible to know what he really meant to say.
Take: “Rather, it’s from longer-scale absorption.”, I interpreted that as diffusion in the ice itself (diffusion in firn pre-closing the bubbles is not in discussion), as there is even 100% absorption of CO2 (and O2 and N2) in the form of clathrates in ice cores once the pressure is high enough (and temperatures low enough). That may give problems at measurement time in the transition zone from no clathrates to 100% clathrates, but with the newest analytical technique (100% sublimation and cryogenic separation) no problem at all: all CO2 is measured, wherever it hides.
My impression was that he needed some form of diffusion/absorption to explain the low CO2 levels found in ice cores to prove his theory of a continuous increase of CO2 for a fixed temperature increase, which violates about all known observations (mass balance or not)…
There is no measurable diffusion of CO2 in ice, once the bubbles are fully closed. Ice cores with extreme differences in temperature and snow accumulation show the same CO2 levels for the same average gas age +/- 5 ppmv, which would be impossible if there was migration: that would level off any peak more in “warm” coastal ice cores than in the extreme cold inland cores…
“The 13C shows a 0.9% decrease from about 1850 to the present which is consistent with the perturbation of the atmospheric 13C reservoir from by fossil fuel burning. However, there are prominent periods of stasis (1950-1985) and abrupt change (1988-1989) that parallel some of the shifts in 18O record, suggesting that the link between atmospheric 13C , coral 13C, and ocean dynamics is complex.”
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&sqi=2&ved=0CCMQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.marine.usf.edu%2FPPBlaboratory%2Fpaleolab_pdfs%2FQuinn_etal_PO_98PA00401.pdf&ei=aqxaVa_UOYPRtQWl8oGIBg&usg=AFQjCNG_s0zmIgdyFrpDnGFMr0DUxcDk-w&sig2=2pdQpKrzBIWSOXlRrdQigQ&bvm=bv.93564037,d.b2w&cad=rja
Some of the other conclusions are interesting. There’s mention of decadal changes. A couple of the dates in the conclusion are close but earlier than the regime shift changes of 1942 and 1978. I’ve been wondering that if there are temperature regime changes, why not ocean CO2 regime changes?
I think this is their plot inverted:
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/image/coral/ncqtr13c.gif
The author mentions 1850 but why not start with 1740? The ratio has been dropping since 1740 and seems to track CO2 levels. The other thing I found, is the lack of these types of studies. There’s SkS and Real Climate arguing why the ratio makes sense, but where are the studies? The paleontology data?
I noticed something about the del13C plot. When has it been positive? Hardly ever.
The bulk of all the carbon on earth is inorganic and around zero per mil δ13C. That is all CO2 in the oceans (except organic), carbonate rock, volcanic vents,…
Organic carbon is a lot lower in δ13C: coal, oil , natural gas, wood, animals,…
The biosphere was more or less in equilibrium with the atmosphere over the Holocene: a little more uptake in some periods, a little more decay in other periods, but in average quite neutral vs. the atmosphere.
What caused the low δ13C in the atmosphere? That is mainly the exchanges with the (deep) oceans: when CO2 transfers from water to the atmosphere, 12CO2 goes faster than 13CO2, as its transfer speed is higher than for the heavier 13CO2 for the same temperature and pressure difference. That makes that the δ13C in the deep oceans of 0 to +1 per mil and the +1 to +5 per mil at the ocean surface (due to bio-life) translates to -10 to -9 per mil in the atmosphere for deep ocean water and -9 to -5 per mil for surface waters.
At the sink places the reverse happens: again 12CO2 transfers faster than 13CO2 into the waters and what remains behind is +2 per mil richer in δ13C in the atmosphere.
The net effect of all in/out movements between oceans and atmosphere gives that the atmosphere was -6.4 +/- 0.2 per mil over the whole Holocene. Even huge temperature changes like over a glacial-interglacial transitions don’t give more than a few tenths of a per mil change…
See: http://dge.stanford.edu/SCOPE/SCOPE_16/SCOPE_16_1.5.05_Siegenthaler_249-257.pdf
Ferdinand Engelbeen
“…prominent periods of stasis (1950-1985) and abrupt change (1988-1989)…”
Any idea what was going with the above? I have no idea why but how about 1950 being a lagged response from a 1942 regime change and 1985 and 1988 -1989 being a lagged response from a 1978 regime change?
In the New Caledonia plot, I don’t see any 30 year average that is positive. It goes all the way back to 1650. The downward trend from 1740 to 1850 should have an explanation. My guess is warming oceans or something related to that. Emission plots don’t show much until 1850 yet the ratio started moving in its current direction 100 years earlier. Thank you. You’ve been patient.
Ragnaar,
Depends where you take the sample. The coralline sponges taken at the Bermuda’s are in the North Atlantic gyre, which is rather evenly mixing over the years.
If you take coralline sponges from the Pacific, one can see sudden changes caused by upwelling (El Niño / La Niña) from the deep oceans. Thus these not only reflect the change of δ13C in the atmosphere but also changing upwelling / ocean oscillations.
For the New Caledonia plot they refer to competing ocean streams and the influence of the monsoon and ITCZ latitude. Thus there too there are several influences at work at the same time.
The slightly negative value for δ13C shows that there is relative little bio-life in tropical oceans, mainly due to a lack of nutrients, if these are far from upwelling zones…
Warming oceans also may play a role in the drop of δ13C: with warmer water temperatures, the δ13C shift (~-10 per mil) between ocean surface and atmosphere is slightly less negative, thus releasing slightly more 13CO2 relative to 12C)2.
The same mechanism plays a role in determining the ancient ocean surface temperatures by looking at the change in 18O/16O ratio…
Curiously, if you compare Bartemis’ comparison of CO2 growth rate and surface temperature,
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/esrl-co2/from:1959/mean:24/derivative/plot/hadcrut4sh/from:1959/scale:0.22/offset:0.10
with a similar plot of CO2 growth rate and ocean surface temperature
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/esrl-co2/from:1959/mean:24/derivative/normalise/plot/hadsst2gl/from:1959/normalise
the match isn’t nearly as good. This would be rather surprising if the temperature dependent solubility of CO2 in the oceans were the cause as then it would be the ocean temperature that would be relevant. I seem to recall that Ferdinand and I have both mentioned that the year-to-year variability is though to be due to changes in land based vegetation (largely changes in precipitaion in the Western Americas due to ENSO).
That the variability in the CO2 rate of change is a reaction of vegetation to temperature changes can be seen in the opposite changes of CO2 and δ13C:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/temp_dco2_d13C_mlo.jpg
The long term trend is NOT caused by vegetation, as vegetation is a net sink for CO2 over periods longer than 2-3 years. Thus variability and trend are not caused by the same processes.
Moreover temperature and CO2 rate of change show opposite trends in the period 1977-1996, thus giving a variability which is upside down for one of the variables if you try to match the trends. For the period 2000-2015 the trends are opposite or flat, depending of which temperature series you take. With a flat temperature, the factor needed to match the up going trend in dCO2/dt with the temperature trend is near zero, which makes that the amplitude of the variability is too low…
All together, 35 years of the 55 years don’t show a match in trends, only the overall trend does, but that is quite certain completely spurious…
Ferdinand can you address this? Thanks.
I think until CO2 concentrations show a definitive separation from the global temperature trend, in other words CO2 starts to lead the temperature trend and does not follow it the verdict is not in on this issue.
The rise in CO2 over the last 100 years has been in conjunction with a temperature rise /ocean sea surface temperature rise and it is still following the temperature rise which leads this whole question of Anthropogenic versus nature for the controlling factor in the determination of future CO2 concentrations left unanswered.
My point being Ferdinand, if CO2 concentrations are now governed by human sources as opposed to natural sources would it not be likely that CO2 concentrations would start to lead the temperature instead of following it as it did in the past when natural processes according to your thinking governed CO2 concentrations?
If you do not think this has to be the case I would like to know why? Thanks.
CO2 levels do lead temperature already since at least 1900, as the increase in CO2 is (far) beyond what Henry’s law shows for the temperature increase.
The main problem is to separate the influence of the extra CO2 in the atmosphere with the influence of natural variability (including the warming since the LIA).
Climate models are mainly based on the warming in the period 1976-2000, but can’t explain the current “pause”. That is because they overblown the sensitivity of temperature for the CO2-aerosol tandem.
If the current “pause” is caused by some ocean oscillation, the sun or whatever natural cause, the same (or a different) natural cause can be responsible for a (large) part of the warming 1976-2000 and the influence of CO2 is far less than what the models imply…
That is far more important to discuss than the cause of the CO2 rise, which is a lost battle where skeptics only can loose their credibility…
I think until CO2 concentrations show a definitive separation from the global temperature trend, in other words CO2 starts to lead the temperature trend and does not follow it the verdict is not in on this issue.
Co2 concentration changes are impacted by the biosphere, geological events, forestation as well as the climate(oceans /global temperatures).
The rise in CO2 over the last 100 years has been in conjunction with a temperature rise /ocean sea surface temperature rise and it is still following the temperature rise which leads this whole question of Anthropogenic versus nature for the controlling factor in the determination of future CO2 concentrations left unanswered.
This is why this debate is going on with both sides being able to make points to support the conclusions they draw.
This is similar to the argument that a prolonged solar minimum not CO2 increases is going to govern future global temperature trends.
The answer to this question will likely finally come about because post 2005 solar is in a prolonged minimum state while CO2 concentrations have been rising.
Which way the global temperature trend moves going forward will shed much light on this question in contrast to the past when both solar /co2 were acting in concert instead of in opposition.
The same applies to CO2 concentrations if we could have global temperatures/ocean temperatures acting in opposition to what the current trend in CO2 concentrations has been then we would know much more about what is exerting the greatest control on CO2 concentrations.
Ferdinand Engelbeen:
MULTIPLE THERMOMETRY IN
PALEO CLIMATE AND HISTORIC CLIMATE
Leona M. Libby
January 1972
“The principle of isotope thermometry is that isotope ratios are
temperature dependent. It is proposed that Isotope ratios in bioorganic
material may have independent temperature coefficients, so
that by measuring ratios for several elements, e.g. hydrogen, carbon
and oxygen, it may be possible to show that a temperature change
occurred.”
“In bio-organic material however. there may be at least three
useful Isotope thermometers, namely D/II. c13/c12. and 018/016. The
basic reaction is photosynthesis with production of cellulose, here
written schematically as a basic module. H – C – OH. or CH20. according
to C02 + H20 = CH20 + 02.”
(Quote is not exact, see the source)
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=9&ved=0CE4QFjAI&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.dtic.mil%2Fdtic%2Ftr%2Ffulltext%2Fu2%2F739261.pdf&ei=W7FbVbS3A4KMsAXP-IBY&usg=AFQjCNFWn5iISQKKGXnDocWx7k-DmshbYg&sig2=P758RwSnHDoN-UW8yxiSCw&bvm=bv.93756505,d.b2w&cad=rja
Why am I pursuing this obscure subject? There’s photosynthesis above. The old tree rings were different than more recent ones. It was colder before. The tree over the course of hundreds of years changed what it is chemically. Enough so that we can measure that. All the other trees in the world? Not sure about those. Are they saying that C13/C12 is temperature dependent? How does tree ring dating reconcile with our emissions. Are our emissions with their funny signature effecting tree ring dating? If the ratio signature is seen in 1850, what effect does that have on all post 1850 tree rings? Are we changing the trees and their signature to look more or less like coal and oil?
Assuming trees accept that slightly different CO2 that is ours, and whether they do or not is unknown by me, over time all tree carbohydrates will look like our carbohydrates. As their CO2 releases back into the atmosphere will look like ours. At that point it could be said all natural variations from trees will look like our CO2. Our signature would be what is seen. Assuming fast life cycle plants also accept our CO2, we should already see that with them. Fast land CO2 vegetative changes would look like Engelbeen’s tight correlation graph on this thread.
Ragnaar,
I have no direct reference to an article about the change in 13C/12C in plants, but what I have read is that the change in the atmosphere is reflected in plant leaves too: the isotopic discrimination stays about the same when the 13C/12C levels go down. The net effect is mainly seasonal, as over 95% of the CO2 uptake from the atmosphere by vegetation in spring/summer returns the same year or shortly after that.
All what happens is that the change in 13C/12C ratio cuased by fossil fuel burning is fast distributed between atmosphere, vegetation and ocean surface. That influences the ratio in the atmosphere somewhat, but that is not more than ~15% of the change after full distribution.
The main dilution of the human “fingerprint” is from the deep oceans: what goes in is the isotopic composition of today (minus the isotopic shift at the air-water border) what comes out is the isotopic composition of ~1000 years ago (minus the shift at the water-air border). That exchanges about 2/3rd of the original human CO2 emissions with CO2 from the deep oceans which has a much higher 13C/12C ratio…
Fast changes in plant uptake and release indeed are visible in seasonal and the 1-3 years variability. Seasonal and year-by-year variability are even opposite to each other: warmer temperatures give high uptake of new leaves growing in spring, mainly in the temperate to sub-polar areas of the NH. Warmer temperatures give less CO2 uptake and more decay in tropical areas during El Niños and opposite during Pinatubo’s.
As the oxygen balance shows, vegetation is an increasing sink over the past 1.5 decade: producing more oxygen and thus catching more CO2 and preferentially 12CO2, thus not the cause of the 13CO2 decline, to the contrary…
Neither do I offhand, but this morning, I discovered some work that open questions WRT the blanket assumption that changes to the δ13C are entirely caused by contributions from land vegetation or fossil fuels. (Don’t have time for more than links this am.)
C3 and C4 Pathways of Photosynthetic Carbon Assimilation in Marine Diatoms Are under Genetic, Not Environmental, Control
Unicellular C4 photosynthesis in a marine diatom.
Evidence of Coexistence of C3 and C4 Photosynthetic Pathways in a Green-Tide-Forming Alga, Ulva prolifera
Here are some more:
Energy costs of carbon dioxide concentrating mechanisms
in aquatic organisms
Detection of a variable intracellular acid-labile carbon pool in Thalassiosira weissflogii (Heterokontophyta) and Emiliania huxleyi (Haptophyta) in response to changes in the seawater carbon system
All of these support serious questions about how a changing balance between coccolithophores and diatoms etc. in sequestering CO2 from the surface, as well as a changing balance between C3 and C4 photosynthesis (with their very different effects on δ13C ratios) in supplying organic carbon for sequestration, could affect the δ13C of surface CO2/bicarbonate/carbonate.
Research appears to be very immature on this subject, and any conclusion that such mechanisms haven’t made a substantial contribution ought to be very preliminary. Of course, this doesn’t prove that they have, just that the question is much more open than many people suggest.
AK,
It doesn’t make a difference for the attribution of the CO2 rise to humans: as the oxygen balance shows that the whole biosphere (land + sea plants, bacteria, molds, insects, animals,…) is a net producer of oxygen, thus a net sink for CO2 and preferentially 12CO2, it can’t be the cause of the 13CO2 decline, to the contrary.
The only difference is that the isotopic change within C4 plants is less than in C3 plants, but in both cases more NPP gives relative more 13CO2 in the atmosphere, while we see a sharp decline in ratio to human emissions.
Non sequitur. If I though you were actually discussing this in good faith, I might expand. But if you were discussing this in good faith you’d almost certainly have caught, and mentioned the big difference between your argument and mine.
IMO.
AK,
It really doesn’t make much difference:
If we assume that C3 plants discriminate down to -24 per mil δ13C and C4 plants to -10 per mil. in both cases more CO2 uptake would leave more 13CO2 behind in the atmosphere and ocean surface: +24 per mil for C3 plants and +10 per mil for C4 plants.
Even if all C3 plants were replaced by C4 plants, more uptake of CO2 than release by decay/feed/food still would increase the δ13C level of the atmosphere and ocean surface. What is observed is a firm decline in both, thus not caused by the biosphere…
You’re still managing to evade the point. It’s not uptake that matters, it’s sequestration. Uptake is more or less balanced by release through respiration (by consumers of uptaken carbon), except for the part that manages to find its way out the bottom of the mixing layer.
A substantial switch from C3 to C4 algae in plankton as the source of carbon being sequestered could reduce the δ13C level, assuming no change in whatever source balances it.
Similar could be said for a substantial increase in calcium carbonate with its high δ13C levels (relative to organic detritus).
I’m not saying this happened, just that all these factors are in a sort of dynamic balance, and substantial changes to ocean ecology could well have driven such changes, which would then have an effect together with fossil emissions.
If we assume, hypothetically, that there’s a standard “equilibrium” pCO2 (absent fossil emissions) driven by some integral of the temperature field, along with certain (unspecified at this point) ecological factors, then we might propose that the fossil emissions have driven the system to a higher pCO2 than the otherwise determined “equilibrium”. The key question in that case would be: how much of the observed rise in pCO2 is due to departure from the “equilibrium”, and how much is due to upwards movement of the “equilibrium” itself?
AK,
I really don’t see the problem here: the oxygen balance includes all plants (sea and land) and al plant users (from bacteria to humans). The net result is a small but growing net sink for CO2, probably in more permanent storage (roots, humus, peat,…) or fallout of organic parts out of the sea surface into the deep oceans.
In all cases, that gives an increase in δ13C both in the ocean surface layer and the atmosphere. For C3-type plants more than for C4-type plants, but up anyway, thus not the cause of the δ13C decline.
The setpoint of the CO2 levels in the atmosphere were at least 800,000 years long fixed at ~8 ppmv/K (2 million years in sediments) and that is also what Henry’s law says for the solubility of CO2 in seawater. A shift in C3/C4 plants hardly influences that, as the oceans are dominant over periods longer than a few decades, except for the past 160 years. Since the accurate CO2 measurements started in 1958, the ratio between emissions and increase in the atmosphere remained largely the same, which points to a rather linear response of the (ocean) carbon cycle to the increased CO2 level in the atmosphere compared to the small change in setpoint due to temperature changes…
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/temp_dco2_d13C_mlo.jpg
It looks like ENSO is influencing CO2 concentrations?Ferdinand ?
http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=oni+index+chart&view=detailv2&&&id=03861D85D4DFFFC827A93C4186E7E2E87D21FAB7&selectedIndex=0&ccid=7vkWX6O5&simid=608038533549984403&thid=JN.Nv3OnPG%2f%2b%2bDz6OxqhZ83Uw&ajaxhist=0
Your chart shows CO2 concentration rises corresponding to EL NINO events in 1991-1992, 1994-1995 ,1997-1998 and 2002-2003.
Do you agree?
It does seem so but maybe I am wrong in this observation. Anyone agree or not?
Salvatore,
Yes. I definitely, 100%, agree or not.
Hope this helps.
Salvatore,
Indeed the sink rate is directly, temporarily, influenced by temperature changes like El Niño and Pinatubo, but the increase in the atmosphere simply goes on unabated, only the speed at which that happens is variable. In average, the rate of change of the variability is zero to slightly negative as can be seen in the around zero slope of dT/dt in the above graph. dCO2/dt caused by temperature is the integral towards a new (steady state) equilibrium between temperature changes and CO2 changes, which is not more than ~8 ppmv/K.
The real increase is caused by human emissions, as can be seen in the parallel increase of both:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/temp_emiss_increase.jpg
http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.com/2014/09/new-paper-finds-natural-ocean.html
CO2 levels do lead temperature already since at least 1900, as the increase in CO2 is (far) beyond what Henry’s law shows for the temperature increase.
That is a very good point Ferdinand.
This is why I approach the flaw in AGW on two fronts, neither one being the topic we have been discussing.
Front one is, as evidenced by the data I sent that natural forces correlate quite nicely with temperature trends.
Front two is, I think more attention needs to be paid to the water vapor aspect of the GHG effect rather then increasing amounts of CO2.
Also the saturation factor in that increasing amounts of CO2 have a lesser effect upon temperature.
If a negative feedback is associated with upper atmospheric water vapor concentrations and an increase in CO2 concentrations then this theory(AGW) is in deep trouble.
Better yet if natural conditions are the controlling factor of water vapor concentrations in the atmosphere at all levels of the atmosphere this would also put AGW theory in deep trouble, especially if the climate should cool ( which I think it may) due to prolonged minimum solar conditions.
Evidence for the above assertions is the lack of a lower tropical tropospheric hot spot and the fact that OLR emissions from earth to space have yet to decrease in response to increasing CO2 concentrations.
This subject needs the attention it is getting. I think this whole discussion is very worth while . At the same time I do not understand how one could get so emotional over this particular aspect of the climate. It is by far not the most important factor.
Because it’s a potential hole in the entire “save the planet with socialism” meme structure. Worse yet, most CAGW types really did think it was “settled science”.
Because it graphically demonstrates how unskeptical “skeptics” actually are when presented even with the most overwhelming evidence.
Actually, the problem is that defenders of the consensus misrepresent any skepticism towards the consensus position as “unskeptical “skeptics” ”.
And the only “overwhelming evidence” that has been presented is that defenders of the consensus paradigm refuse to be properly skeptical of paradigmatic assumptions. (Not the actual scientists doing the work, but the people who come here trying to defend it.)
As a bit of web research this morning just showed me, even the supposed human (fossil CO2) responsibility for changing δ13C remains open to substantial questions. I’m not saying I would guess a very high probability that other causes predominate, but plausible scenarios can be built.
The fact is that the sides of the debate aren’t identical. Many of the “solutions” proposed for the “problem” of fossil CO2 require essentially “settled science”, proof “beyond a reasonable doubt” before most polities will sign on for them. One can point out that Salby’s work raises “reasonable doubt” about the human responsibility for increased pCO2 while still remaining highly skeptical of said work.
That’s my position, although my skepticism of the consensus position, and especially its defenders here, is increased by the egregious bad-faith misrepresentation of his ideas as well as the way he was apparently prevented from publishing his work through bureaucratic hooliganism.
OTOH, I have noticed how a number of “skeptics” here seem to see any slim question of the consensus paradigm as justifying blanket opposition to any action on the issue. Reasonable doubts can justify refusing to act in any way that substantially increases the price of energy while reasonable suspicion can still justify low-regrets action such as expenditures on R&D, and subsidies for immature fossil carbon-neutral energy technology.
verytallguy,
Correct me if I’m wrong, but up until recently the overwhelming evidence was that surface air temperatures would increase in lockstep with CO2 levels.
The science was settled, we were told.
I’m an unbeliever about GHE, mainly because it doesn’t exist, but skeptical about scientific claims that aren’t backed up by experimental evidence. The existence of the luminiferous ether explains many things, but I remain skeptical. If it can be experimentally verified, I’ll accept it.
As to reasons for the increasing CO2 levels, I see no evidence for claims of 100% certainty either way. Too much assumption and guesswork involved, for me, about something as irrelevant as levels of CO2 in the atmosphere.
Who cares? What difference does it make?
Mike,
You’re wrong.
You’re welcome.
verytallguy,
I’m skeptical. Where’s your overwhelming evidence? Models? Still skeptical.
At least you’re only making unsubstantiated assertions rather than playing the Warmist Weaselword game.
Thank you.
> I’m an unbeliever about GHE, mainly because it doesn’t exist,
Unbelieving is unseeing.
Salvatore,
The main problem of both sides is that there are not many real skeptics: most people are skeptic about theories or even data which do disagree with what they believe is true.
Adepts of human CO2 gives catastrophically warming are skeptic against anything that undermines the strong positive feedbacks which are implemented in many climate models.
Here are a lot of people discussing who are skeptic about everything the “consensus” says, even if it is proven in many ways.
It is quite simple: if the increase in CO2 is not human, all the rest of the influence of CO2 on temperature/climate doesn’t need to be discussed anymore, as that is anyway all natural, not caused by humans.
That gives a huge bias in interpreting the overwhelming amount of data which shows that the increase is caused by humans. Every report that hints that humans are not the cause (Bart) or only partly (Salby, Haynie, Humlum,…) is uncritically accepted as truth, even if there are glaring errors and misinterpretations in it (like the often repeated confusion between residence time of an individual molecule and the e-fold decay rate of an extra injection of CO2 above steady state).
All what I can say is: stay as critical at anything someone writes for what you like as what you dislike (even it is me…). Then and only then you are a true skeptic…
@Ferdinand “All what I can say is: stay as critical at anything someone writes for what you like as what you dislike (even it is me…). Then and only then you are a true skeptic…”
+100
Ferdinand wrote “All what I can say is: stay as critical at anything someone writes for what you like as what you dislike (even it is me…). Then and only then you are a true skeptic…”
Well said! I’d probably go further and say be more questioning of evidence that suits your position as an active guard against your own cognitive biases (and we all have them, without exception).
However, I’d also point out that people get stuff wrong, it isn’t a big deal, so don’t give them a hard time for it, especially if they are willing to stand corrected. We are all only human, and it is unreasonable to expect people to overcome their cognitive biases all the time with complete effectiveness (again without exceptions).
Ferdinand Engelbeen and dikranmarsupial – both very good comments on skepticism. And thank you for your patient, informative participation.
Ferdinand Engelbeen and/or dikranmarsupial:
Earlier in the discussion I was told that the increase in sinks (which has absorbed 1/2 of anthro emissions) is defined as a natural increase and not an anthro increase.
I disagree with this, because but for human activities the sinks would not have increased – it is actually the increased emissions which are increasing the total sink.
However, it made me realize I don’t understand the definition of “anthro” or “natural”. Or perhaps I understand but need to be convinced your definition is the correct one.
What are your definitions of these terms?
A couple of examples to show what I am talking about:
Say I produce electricity to run an air conditioner. We all agree (I think) that the CO2 emissions to produce the electricity are anthro emissions. Is the waste heat generated by the air conditioner anthro or natural? Is UHI anthro or natural? I consider the waste heat a secondary effect and the CO2 produced to generate the electricity which generates the waste heat a primary effect (or direct effect). Are we double counting our Anthro if we look at waste heat and UHI?
The extra CO2 I emit to run my AC has a warming effect – is the sea level rise from that warming effect anthro or natural? I consider the sea level rise from the waste heat a tertiary effect.
I plant a tree – it absorbs CO2. Is that extra CO2 absorbed anthro or natural? I consider the extra absorbed CO2 a primary anthro sink.
I cut down a forest – I reduce the amount of CO2 absorbed by the forest and if I burn it for fuel, I emit extra CO2. I consider these items all primary anthro emissions and anthro reduction of sinks.
I intentionally light a forest fire. Ditto with the last example. All effects on both the emission and sink sides are anthro. The heat from the forest fire is a secondary effect – but that heat goes somewhere – maybe it raises the sea a little – that is a tertiary effect.
Lets get back to first principles and please define what you consider anthro and natural, and maybe look at direct effects, secondary effects, tertiary effects, etc.
Because I really don’t understand why there is no term for anthro sinks in the equation for mass balance. Even if the term was negative (i.e. human activity reduced the sinks, rather than increasing them) – I would want to know all of the effects caused by humans – and not just on the emission side.
How do you guys look at these issues and where are these considerations missing from the mass balance equation.
If I wanted to be more nuanced, what terms would you add to the equation?
Thank you in advance for any answer you provide.
Richard,
1. Practically all sinks are natural, humans may have planted some forests here and there, but in general humans have and are destroying more land vegetation than they have replaced. Direct CO2 capturing field projects are miniscule compared to emissions.
2. In my opinion, humans are for 95% responsible for the CO2 increase in the atmosphere, thus for 95% responsible for the increase in net sink rate over the past 55 years. If all increase was natural, then the yearly emissions of humans are a small part of the sinks and most sinks are caused by some natural increased cycle (for which is no evidence at all).
3. Waste heat and UHI are all human, but don’t play any important role in the energy budget of the earth, compared to the energy from the sun. Neither does human generated water vapor caused by burning fossil fuels. Both are simply negligible.
4. Sea level rise is human in so far that humans are responsible for the temperature rise of the oceans, which is debatable…
5. Burning renewable fuels like wood is “climate neutral”, as long as it is replaced with the natural growth of new forests. If the balance is negative, it must be added to human emissions.
6. Land use changes from 5 and 1 are counted separately from burning fossil fuels and cement manufacturing, as these are far less reliable than the other two. The estimates are somewhere between 10-20% extra CO2 emissions compared to fossil + cement.
7. I never use land use changes for my calculations, as these are too uncertain. But that doesn’t make any difference: If you take them into consideration, that only makes that vegetation is a larger sink than expected, as that is where the extra CO2 is getting absorbed, in “all natural” sinks…
Ferdinand:
Thank you for your reply.
As to your point 2. – if 95% of the increase in sink rate is human caused then why is there no term in the mass balance equation for anthro sink increases.
As I understand the formula – it is assuming that the 20 times larger natural carbon exchange nets out to nothing (i.e. natural emmisons and natural sinks are not considered at all as they are assumed to net).
However, by not putting a number to anthro sink increases, which are caused by our anthro emissions, we are treating them as “natural” as they are then part of the natural exchange and not taken into consideration.
That seems wrong to me.
As to your point 3 – UHI is a degree or more on average in most major metropolitan areas and this doesn’t seem insignificant to me. Weather actually goes around most major cities because of the bubble of warmer air – so weather patterns are being changed by this insignificant effect (at least as to most tornadoes).
As to your point 4 – their is actual litigation in which people are suing states for the erosion of the coasts – and the damage caused by humans seems pretty speculative to me. Hard to put a number on how much of the 8 inches of sea level rise last century can be pinned on humans.
But – I really appreciate the time you took to respond and will consider your response in greater detail.
http://judithcurry.com/2011/08/04/carbon-cycle-questions/#comment-198992
This is the counter point of view which Bart agrees with.
Salvatore,
From that link:
The strong dependence on internal properties indicates that emission of CO2 from natural sources, which accounts for 96 per cent of its overall emission, plays a major role in observed changes of CO2.
Yes, “internal properties” like temperature and drought in the tropical forests as result of ENSO play a huge role in the year-by-year variability, where Bart’s whole idea is based on. But it plays only a marginal role in the trend (+/- 1 ppmv around the trend): the trend is currently 110 ppmv above steady state, of which 70 ppmv after 1960. That is NOT caused by the influence of temperature on vegetation, as vegetation is a net, increasing sink for CO2 with increasing temperatures and CO2 levels.
Thus whatever the nice correlation between the variability of temperature and CO2 variability, the fourfold increase in rate of change of CO2 over the past 55 years is not from the same process that caused the variability.
The influence of temperature on the trend is not more than 0.5 ppmv, or less than 0.1 ppmv/year for the 0.6°C temperature increase per Henry’s law. That is all. The rest is caused by human emissions which were twice the observed increase…
The rest of that comment is also questionable, but not the subject of this discussion…
Sorry,
The influence of temperature on the trend is not more than 0.5 ppmv
must be:
The influence of temperature on the trend is not more than 5 ppmv over the past 55 years (~8 ppmv/K)
Ferdinand,
If natural sinks outweigh natural sources, we have a problem.
What action do we need to take to ensure that CO2 levels remain above the critical level to maintain C3 plant life?
If levels fall below this, do we start on the death spiral, so beloved of Alarmists?
Seriously, I would much rather enjoy a level of 450 ppm rather than take a chance on the extermination of the human race at levels of 100 ppm. Doesn’t the precautionary principle demand we make sure co2 levels don’t drop too far?
Natural sinks are *currently* stronger than natural sources because anthropogenic emissions have raised CO2 levels above the equilibrium concentration (the concentration at which natural sources and natural sinks balance). In chemistry, this is known as Le Chateliers’ principle (from wikipedia):
“When a system at equilibrium is subjected to change in concentration, temperature, volume, or pressure, then the system readjusts itself to (partially) counteract the effect of the applied change and a new equilibrium is established.”
We don’t need to do anything to make sure CO2 levels stay high enough for photosynthesis. If we cease emissions, then atmospheric CO2 will fall back to a new equilibrium value (a bit higher than the pre-industrial value due to the extra carbon re-introduced to the carbon cycle from fossil fuel emissions). Given a few tens to hundreds of thousands of years, the chemical weathering mechanism will bring it back down a bit further).
dikranmarsupial,
So how far will it fall? How do you know? “a bit further” is not precise enough, if the future of the human race is at stake, is it?
We are just supposed your believe your assurances, are we? Or do you have some actual science to back up your your hopeful assumptions?
What is the lowest CO2 concentration to ensure our survival, and how do you think it will be ensured?
Thanks.
“So how far will it fall? How do you know? “a bit further” is not precise enough, if the future of the human race is at stake, is it?”
LOL, that’s a bit alarmist isn’t it?
“We are just supposed your believe your assurances, are we? Or do you have some actual science to back up your your hopeful assumptions?”
well you could try reading the IPCC WG1 report, or look for the many papers that have been published on this subject, or get a book on the carbon cycle (there are good introductory books by David Archer and Tyler Volk – the latter is the more approachable). They aren’t my “hopeful assumptions”, it is the findings of carbon cycle specialists that have been working on this for years.
“What is the lowest CO2 concentration to ensure our survival, and how do you think it will be ensured?”
Our survival is not put at plausible risk by low CO2 AFAICS.
I have to wonder why this conversation continues with one of most posted threads Dr Curry has had for a while. The reason I wonder is that when I take a look at a CO2 chart from 1700 I see CO2 at about 275-280ish and that lasts until about 1850. Then from 1850 it gradually climbs until a little over 300. Then it takes off like a rocket until it reaches 400 today. I would think that was practically all you needed to know. I know there is some dispute about pre-recorded records but really how bad could they be? I have always keeped an open mind but logic about the physical evidence overwhelms me on this one.
Some how I skipped saying it reached 300 in 1950.
dikranmarsupial,
Maybe you are not aware, but plants need a certain concentration of CO2 to survive. You don’t seem concerned at all that reducing CO2 below a critical level will wipe out much plant life.
That’s not being alarmist. That’s just stating experimentally verifiable fact.
Being alarmist is claiming that beneficial levels of CO2 in the atmosphere need to be lowered due to some associated air temperature rise, which apparently will cause some non specific danger to someone, sometime, somewhere.
Fortunately, the supposed, unverifiable, GHE, is having precisely no effect. Adding to that, CO2 levels double those at present, pose no danger to human life at all, and may well lead to the re greening of the planet.
You may be opposed to increased plant life. I am not.
You still refuse to say what a reasonable minimum concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere should be. Do you not know, or just do not want to say?
So which do think is likely to prove more dangerous? Increasing the CO2 level by 100%, or decreasing it by the same amount?
Maybe applying the precautionary principle might be in order, don’t you think?
Mike Flynn I gave you some good advice when I wrote:
“well you could try reading the IPCC WG1 report, or look for the many papers that have been published on this subject, or get a book on the carbon cycle (there are good introductory books by David Archer and Tyler Volk – the latter is the more approachable). They aren’t my “hopeful assumptions”, it is the findings of carbon cycle specialists that have been working on this for years.”
If you follow this advice and read up on the subject, you will find that CO2 levels are not going to fall to dangerous levels anytime soon (thousands of years at the very least), for the reasons I gave, and your concerns are entirely groundless.
Really, don’t just read blogs, get a good book and find out the basics. The first IPCC report is very readable, I got my copy second hand via amazon for only a couple of pounds; it provides a good way of finding out what the basic issues are.
dikranmarsupial,
I hope you are not referring to Tyler Volk’s “CO2 Rising”, by any chance? If so, surely you jest! A reliable source of information?
As to David Archer, which particular publication are you referring to? On which page would you advise I find answers to the questions you decline to answer?
If you happen to be referring to “The Global Carbon Cycle”, might I suggest you reread it, and mentally strip out all the unsubstantiated assertions, the scientifically vague or inaccurate statements, and then reaffirm your belief in its usefulness.
I am perplexed that you paid money for any of the IPCC publications. I believe I have read them all, in their entirety, and obtained all of them as free downloads, from the IPCC, as I recollect.
In any case, it is patently obvious that the IPCC publications are riddled with assumptions, unverifiable assertions, poorly supported ideas, model outputs masquerading as fact, and so on.
Anybody who cannot see this may be biased to a dangerous extent, and ignoring reality to their ultimate peril.
So thanks for nothing. You may choose to believe that the globe is warming due to CO2 in the atmosphere. You may also choose to believe that the luminiferous ether is necessary to enable EMR to transport energy, if you wish. I believe neither.
The GHE does not exist. Unlike the Seebeck Effect, the Peltier Effect, or even the Mpemba Effect, the supposed greenhouse effect cannot be demonstrated, measured, or be shown to have even the slightest resemblance to anything to do with a greenhouse.
At best, it could more aptly be renamed the No Effect Effect – which properly describes the phenomenon.
I’ll leave you alone. If you don’t know an answer to a question, your reputation might even be enhanced if you simply say you don’t know. I can’t speak for others, though. They will no doubt render their own judgements.
Mike Flynn, sorry if you are going to dismiss any material that contradicts your perspective (especially when it is the work of genuine experts – such as David Archer or the IPCC), then it is perhaps unsurprising that you end up having some rather odd ideas (such as there being a plausible risk of CO2 falling to dangerous levels) and cannot be disabused of them.
Your fundamental lack of understanding is demonstrated by your question:
“So which do think is likely to prove more dangerous? Increasing the CO2 level by 100%, or decreasing it by the same amount?”
The radiative forcing due to CO2 is logarithmic in the concentration, so obviously the answer would be a 100% decrease, but then the only way to get a 100% decrease would be to take ALL of the carbon out of the atmosphere AND the oceans (as otherwise Henry’s law would just replenish it again from the ocean). It would also mean taking all the carbon out of the biosphere – which would be bad (duh!). HOWEVER, there is no way that is going to happen. Increasing atmospheric CO2 on the other hand is pretty straightforward and is what we are doing at the moment. In other words it is a silly (or perhaps disingenuous – am going to assume silly) question as you are comparing something that will happen with something that is essentially impossible.
Now if you were to ask which would be worse, doubling CO2 or halving it, my first estimate would be that they would be about equally bad, as it is the CHANGE that is the problem, not the temperature itself. This is because our civilization is rather heavily adapted to the pre-industrial climate (especially agriculture), and current population levels mean we can’t just move somewhere else with a more pleasant climate.
However it is clear that you are not really interested in the answers to your questions as you have just rudely dismissed the answers so far (if you think “We are just supposed your believe your assurances, are we? Or do you have some actual science to back up your your hopeful assumptions?” is not rude, then you were pretty badly brought up; if you want people to be polite to you, don’t be rude to them first).
Mike,
No problem for plants at all: the dynamic equilibrium (“steady state”) between oceans and atmosphere is at around 290 ppmv for the current temperature. Thus as long as the ocean temperatures don’t drop towards a new glacial period, there will be enough CO2 in the atmosphere for all plants.
Higher is of course better for most plants, as gardeners supply some 1000 ppmv in their greenhouses to boost production and organic gardeners use mulching: production of CO2 at ground level where the new plants grow.
I have no problem with 560 ppmv either, in my opinion that would give a change of 1°C where I live, or the “climate” of Paris in Antwerp, hardly a change and in general more beneficial than harmful…
The optimum for most C3-type plants is thus around 1000 ppmv, but that would be difficult to maintain with extra emissions. To prevent the death of C3 plants during a glacial period, you need at least 180 ppmv, but 100 ppmv extra or more is preferable. To maintain an extra 100 ppmv above steady state you need about halve the current human emissions or about 4.5 GtC/year…
Ferdinand,
So what if the ocean temperatures do drop? What then? They have obviously dropped before in the Earth’s history. Could it not happen again?
How do we ensure sufficient CO2 levels are maintained? Faith? Hope?
I assume you have something a little more scientific and reassuring. What is it?
Thanks.
Mike,
From ice cores we know that ocean temperatures and CO2 levels in the atmosphere are tightly coupled: CO2 levels follow temperature with some lag at about 8 ppmv/°C in the Vostok ice core, recently confirmed by the 800,000 years Dome C ice record:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/Vostok_trends.gif
The control mechanisms for temperature also controls the CO2 levels over the past several million years and we have had no CO2 levels below 180 ppmv, which is the critical level for C3 plants, that are all types of trees and a lot of other plants.
As I don’t think that CO2 is THE control knob for temperature, there is little we can do if the temperature drops again towards a new glacial period. In the best case, our emissions may prevent the trigger which leads to an ice age, but that is just speculation…
As asked, what if CO2 levels get too low? It could be that CO2 controls its own level or that temperature controls CO2 levels. During a glacial I think that the deep ocean upwelling must continue with sufficient volume. And that this is vital, to keep up with the sinks. With low levels of CO2, some think that there’s high sensitivity, that is there’s diminishing returns at higher levels. The first 1 ppm increase has more effect than the second 1 ppm increase. Moving in the other direction a 1 ppm decrease would be followed by a more powerful second 1 ppm decrease. This is a precarious situation. Sliding into cold with no brakes. So the question is, what stops CO2 from sinking further?
Ferdinand , they do not agree with your conclusions.
As for me until and if I see CO2 concentrations be independent of temperature over a log term of time I tend to be with them. Until CO2 concentrations rise in the face of falling temperatures or rise in the case of increasing temperatures I am not convinced that your conclusions are correct.
Judith Curry,
I appreciate the question expressed by Salvatore del Prete:
”Ferdinand Engelbeen May 20, 2015 at 6:32 am:
‘CO2 levels do lead temperature already since at least 1900, as the increase in CO2 is (far) beyond what Henry’s law shows for the temperature increase.’
What is you reply to this statement Dr. Curry or Lauri Heimonen?
I tend to be with your take of things Lauri, but I can’t reconcile the statement from Ferdinand. Can you, thanks?”
Henry’s law is a tool that one must learn to use in a way that is proper for a certain problem. I have found that there are some physicists who wrongly apply Henry’s law to the combination of oceans and atmosphere like sea water in bottle where partial pressure of CO2 between liquid phase and gas phase are in static balance.
As I have stated, in reality the CO2 content in atmosphere is striving for a level that makes a dynamic balance be possible between all CO2 sources and all CO2 sinks. What is a certain share of manmade CO2 emissions in atmospheric change of CO2 content, is determined by the manmade share in total CO2 emissions. As I have stated in my comment http://judithcurry.com/2011/08/04/carbon-cycle-questions/#comment-198992 , the manmade share in the recent increase of CO2 content in atmosphere and in the total CO2 content in atmosphere is only about 4 % at the most.
There is available no empiric evidence, according to which CO2 levels could do lead any trend of global temperature. Vice versa trends of CO2 content in atmosphere follow changes of temperature, as I have stated in my comment above.
Salvatore,
Henry’s law applies for static as good as for dynamic equilibriums between the oceans and the atmosphere. The short term (seasonal to 2-3 years) influence of vegetation is huge but the long term dynamic equilibrium is dominated by the oceans. That is near linear ratio between the oceans and atmosphere of ~8 ppmv/K as the above graph of the Vostok ice core shows. Henry’s law gives 4-17 ppmv/K for the ocean-atmosphere equilibrium, thus the 8 ppmv/K is in the middle of the ball park…
Vostok (420 kyear) and Dome C (800 kyear) show the net result of all CO2 cycles: vegetation reduction and growth in area, increased/decreased plant growth, growing/melting ice sheets over land and sea-ice area, ocean surface and deep ocean current changes, all caused by huge temperature shifts over thousands of years.
For the current (ocean) temperatures, the steady state between oceans and atmosphere would be around 290 ppmv. We are currently around 400 ppmv. That is 110 ppmv above equilibrium. Thus CO2 leads temperature. In how far CO2 influences temperature, that is an entire different discussion from the current discussion about the origin of the increase.
There are already two periods where CO2 rises, while temperature is cooling (1945-1975) or flat (2000-current). CO2 follows human emissions all the time at least clear since 1900 and only follows temperature on short term changes like seasons and El Niño or Pinatubo. The maximum influence of temperature since the LIA is 6 ppmv. That is all.
Again, you are confusing between the 4% per year human CO2, which is one-way additional and the huge natural (mainly seasonal) fluxes which are part of a cycle: 96% in, 98% out. All natural cycles together are more sink than source, thus the 4% is fully responsible for 95% of the CO2 increase in the atmosphere, temperature for the remaining 5%…
Sorry. Fat finger again.
Anyway, what level do you think is the minimum, plus a reasonable margin for error, (after all, the continuation of the species is at stake), for atmospheric CO2? How do you think we should make sure we don’t fall below it?
Thanks.
http://notrickszone.com/2013/10/08/carbon-dioxide-and-the-ocean-temperature-is-driving-co2-and-not-vice-versa/#sthash.pVWb4U3T.dpbs
This is support of natural variability also.
This question will be answered once the oceans start to cool and what the response of CO2 concentrations will be in the atmosphere from that point in time on.
Right now there is no answer because the ocean temperatures have been acting in concert for increasing CO2 concentrations.
When the oceans are acting in opposition to increasing CO2 concentrations is when the test will come to see which side is correct.
Salvatore,
If you link to some blog which you think supports your ideas, also read the comments below the article: Bart’s and my comments are quite lively there… With the same arguments as here…
I know. My conclusion is we do not know the answer and only time will tell.
We will have to wait and see you may be correct , you may be wrong. Time will tell.
Thanks for the reply Dr. Curry.
I agree until CO2 actually leads the temperature what Ferdinand’s conclusions are in question.
http://scholar.google.ca/scholar_url?hl=en&q=http://xa.yimg.com/kq/groups/18208928/233408642/name/phase%2Brelation%2Bbetween%2Batmospheric%2Bcarbon%2Band%2Bglobal%2Btemperature.pdf&sa=X&scisig=AAGBfm2_FClsSVBbTLdzlwJJytToRLHpNw&oi=scholarr&ei=N-SVUvKOD9PtoATG6IHgCQ&sqi=2&ved=0CCsQgAMoADAA
The argument for natural variability determining CO2 concentrations is very strong. Time will tell.
12. Conclusions
There exist a clear phase relationship between changes of atmospheric
CO2 and the different global temperature records, whether
representing sea surface temperature, surface air temperature, or lower
troposphere temperature, with changes in the amount of atmospheric
CO2 always lagging behind corresponding changes in temperature.
(1) The overall global temperature change sequence of events appears
to be from 1) the ocean surface to 2) the land surface to
3) the lower troposphere.
(2) Changes in global atmospheric CO2 are lagging about 11–
12 months behind changes in global sea surface temperature.
(3) Changes in global atmospheric CO2 are lagging 9.5–10 months
behind changes in global air surface temperature.
(4) Changes in global atmospheric CO2 are lagging about 9 months
behind changes in global lower troposphere temperature.
(5) Changes in ocean temperatures appear to explain a substantial
part of the observed changes in atmospheric CO2 since January
1980.
(6) CO2 released from anthropogene sources apparently has little influence
on the observed changes in atmospheric CO2, and
changes in atmospheric CO2 are not tracking changes in human
emissions.
(7) On the time scale investigated, the overriding effect of large volcanic
eruptions appears to be a reduction of atmospheric CO2,
presumably due to the dominance of associated cooling effects
from clouds associated with volcanic gases/aerosols and volcanic
debris.
(8) Since at least 1980 changes in global temperature, and presumably
especially southern ocean temperature, appear to represent
a major control on changes in atmospheric CO2
Salvatore,
Depends what you mean by “changes”. If you mean the variability in the increase rate of CO2 we can agree to a certain extent.
But where you go wrong is by mixing “observed changes in atmospheric CO2” with changes in increase rate in point 5 and beyond:
There are changes in the increase rate, which all depend of changes in temperature, mainly the influence of (ocean) temperatures on (tropical) vegetation, but that is only in the rate of change, hardly visible in the increase of CO2 itself.
Point 6 is pure nonsense:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/acc_co2_1960_cur.jpg
The CO2 in the atmosphere follows human emissions at an extremely fixed ratio over at least the past 115 years (if including ice core measurements).
All what you have shown is that the variability around the trend is caused by influence of temperature variability on vegetation. That is not the same process as which is responsible for the increase itself, as vegetation is a net sink for CO2 since at least 1990.
Most of the trend is caused by human emissions, only ~5 ppmv by the increase in ocean temperature since 1960.
That are two different causes, working completely independent of each other.
Ferdinand:
If humans stopped emitting CO2 tomorrow and the CO2 dropped at 2 ppm (or whatever you say it would fall at) per year, would you consider that drop to be Anthro or natural?
From what you have said about sinks (earlier in the thread), I assume you will say the drop in atmospheric CO2 would be natural – and that makes no sense to me.
But you would have to say the effect that stopping emissions would have on atmospheric CO2 is natural to be consistent with your opinion on the increase in sink rate to accommodate 1/2 our emissions (i.e. that that increase in sink rate is also natural)..
It seems to me that part of the problem with the entire question (at least from my point of view) is the definition of what is anthro.
How can the effect of actions taken by humans not be considered anthro?
What is the point of defining something in a manner which ignores humans actions?
If the increase in sink rates is natural (due to the pressure of the additional CO2 emitted by humans) and the decrease in atmospheric CO2 is natural (caused by decrease in human emissions), than is not the increase in atmospheric CO2 also natural?
Isn’t the increase in CO2 in the atmosphere not naturally occurring as a result of the humans emissions not all be absorbed by sinks?
If the CO2 increase in the atmosphere is natural than why should we decrease our emissions?
Do you see the problem with your definition of anthro?
This is not what I have shown it is what they have shown. I am merely presenting the other point of view.
Salvatore,
Indeed, many skeptics are misled by the nice correlation between temperature and the CO2 rate of change, but that is only a correlation between the variability, not between the trends…
Richard,
Most CO2 sources are natural, near all CO2 sinks are natural. Human emissions are relative small, but not insignificant. There are hardly any human introduced sinks. That is part one.
Most increase in the atmosphere is caused by human emissions, because the natural cycle is too slow to remove all extra CO2 in the atmosphere above the dynamic equilibrium for the current temperature. That is part two.
As the natural (ocean-atmosphere) carbon cycle acts like a simple linear process, any disturbance increasing the CO2 content of the atmosphere from whatever source (volcanoes, forest fires, humans) above the temperature controlled equilibrium is countered by both an increase in (polar) uptake and a decrease in (equatorial) release of CO2. The change in uptake and release is entirely natural, whatever the cause of the increase. That is part three.
While the yearly human emissions are small compared to the huge seasonal and continuous natural CO2 fluxes, the earth’s carbon cycle can’t cope with the extra amounts, which partly accumulate in the atmosphere.
The sinks do increase in ratio to the accumulation in the atmosphere above the temperature controlled equilibrium.
As human emissions increased slightly quadratic over time, so did the level in the atmosphere and so did the sinks. That is part four.
If humans should stop today with all emissions, the sinks still go on to remove CO2 in ratio to the increase in the atmosphere until the equilibrium is reached again. That is part five.
In summary: while human emissions are small, near all increase of CO2 is human caused and thus the sink rate is human caused, but all sinks still are natural.
“…but all sinks still are natural.”
From the oceans and plants point of view, the CO2 falls out of the sky and they keep it, though not all of it. That is a subsidy paid for with our CO2. Compare this to an income tax. We have our money, then the government has it, then someone else has it. By law ownership changes. The last step is only possible because of the first step. The first step is driving the last step. It’s a question of defining natural. I don’t any amount of defining changes the fact that the sinking increased because of us.
Ferdinand:
I am a patent attorney – so I am approaching this as a lawyer.
We use the but for test in law a lot.
But for human emissions, the CO2 atmospheric level wouldn’t have increased. This makes CO2 increase in the atmosphere anthro to me.
But for the human increase in CO2 atmospheric level, the sinks wouldn’t have increased. This makes the increase in CO2 sinks anthro to me.
Another way to look at it is if humans disappeared from the planet in 1600, and we didn’t emit any of the emissions since 1600 that we actually did emit, would the sinks have increased to their current level?
I say no – because they only increased because of human emissions.
So I completely agree that human emissions are anthro.
Where I disagree with you is that the increase in CO2 atmospheric level is not natural – but is caused by humans. I am not willing to say 100% of the increase is caused by humans but I am willing to say quite a bit of it is caused by humans.
You, on the other hand are arguing that the emissions are anthro but the increase in CO2 atmospheric level is natural. I disagree.
You also are arguing that the increase in sinks is natural, because it happens naturally. I disagree – because but for the anthro emissions, which increased the atmospheric CO2 level, the extra pressure wouldn’t have increased the sinks to their current level.
If I use your same logic – none of the sea level rise can be attributed to humans. After all, once the atmospheric level of CO2 increases naturally, the sea level increase is also a natural process.
To summarize. Accordingly to your logic:
The emissions are anthro;
The increase in atmospheric CO2 level is natural, because it happened naturally as a result of the emissions;
The increase in the sinks is natural, because it happened naturally as a result of the increased atmospheric CO2;
If we stopped emitting CO2, the decrease in CO2 level would be natural, and
The resulting decrease in sink rates would be natural.
So, given these definitions, why should I decrease emissions?
Using the but for test – it makes sense to stop the anthro emissions, the anthro increase in atmospheric CO2 level and the anthro increase in sinks.
Given that – I have no idea why you are arguing that the mass balance allows for attribution to humans. You would be better off agreeing with me that what is caused by humans is caused by humans and is not “natural”.
Richard,
Some misunderstanding here:
– Human emissions are one-way additional and about twice the observed increase in the atmosphere.
– The increase in the atmosphere is about 95% human caused (thus NOT natural), 5% natural (because of warming oceans).
– All sinks are natural and were more or less in equilibrium with the sources in pre-industrial times (as far as the pre-Mauna Loa CO2 variability can be detected, which is a matter of resolution).
– The increase in natural sink capacity in the past 55/160 years is caused by the human caused increase of CO2 in the atmosphere.
Thus while near all increase of CO2 in the atmosphere is caused by humans, it is the natural carbon cycle which adjusts its in/out fluxes to cope with the increase in the atmosphere, independent of the source of the increase. It continuous to do that even if humans should stop all emissions today, until the equilibrium for the current (ocean) temperature is reached again.
So I think that we largely agree on this.
Where many go wrong is attributing much, even all of the rise to “natural”, but human emissions (almost) all disappearing in sinks. That is bad reasoning… Either the increase is natural and thus most of the extra sink capacity is natural and only part of the extra sink capacity is caused by humans (which violates the mass balance), or most of the increase is human and also most of the extra sink capacity.
Ferdinand says: “Either the increase is natural and thus most of the extra sink capacity is natural and only part of the extra sink capacity is caused by humans (which violates the mass balance), or most of the increase is human and also most of the extra sink capacity.”
Right – say I agree the most of the increase is human and also most of the extra sink capacity. There is no term for the increase in extra sink capacity in the mass balance equation. It is lumped in with the natural exchange terms. This seems incorrect to me.
Most of the trend is caused by human emissions, only ~5 ppmv by the increase in ocean temperature since 1960.
My reply maybe.
I want to see what happens to CO2 concentrations when the oceans are in opposition to increasing CO2 concentrations rather then being in concert with increasing CO2 concentrations as it was for the last 75 years or so.
Salvatore,
Have a look at the period 1945-1975
If you add the 1945-1960 ice core data from Law Dome, the CO2 trend is just increasing…
http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.com/2010/01/climate-modeling-ocean-oscillations.html
As one can see when PDO turned cold CO2 followed.
Salvatore,
Temperature followed the PDO, CO2 didn’t: it still was going up in ratio to human emissions, despite the (small) drop in temperature of the oceans…
Correction – what I meant to say when PDO turned cold it was in an overall rising trend.
https://bobtisdale.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/figure-14.png?w=850&h=306
This shows why 1945-1975 is a poor representation.
Salvatore,
In all the temperature series, 1940-1975 is (slightly) cooling, while CO2 goes up. That is what you didn’t expect to see. Thus your theory that ocean temperatures drive the current CO2 increase is falsified.
Moreover the SST increase 1910-1940 was at least as strong as 1975-2000, but CO2 increase in the first period was 10 ppmv, in the second period 50 ppmv. After 2000 no SST increase, but record increase of CO2.
Thus simply said: CO2 in the atmosphere follows the emissions, not the sea surface temperature.
Ocean temperatures did drive CO2 levels in the past, but that is not more than ~8 ppmv/K over multi-decennia to multi-millennia. It is not the driver for short term (seasonal to 2-3 years) CO2 variability, which is dominated by vegetation.
No it is not falsified. Not in the least.
Salvatore,
How large should the discrepancy between temperature and CO2 increase be before you admit that temperature is not the driving force of the CO2 increase?
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/OceanCarbon/
Great article, and time will tell..
Great article, I agree, as they have it over the oceans as continuous sink, not a source of CO2 (except for some parts at some periods). Where I disagree is the last sentence, where they say that there is no steady state in the oceans, but the overall sink rate did increase in ratio with the increase of CO2 in the atmosphere…
I do not know the answer to that question. Lag times are going to be involved which makes it hard to know the answer.
The exchange at the boundary layer is diffusion.
It is going to be the vector sum of the effects.
If the ocean warms it emits CO2. Where the ocean is currently emitting CO2 it looks like an increase. Where the ocean is currently on net absorbing CO2 it looks like a decrease in absorption.
But it is no different than if the intake/outtake of the ocean were treated as unaffected and you independently added 160-300 GT to the atmosphere every time the ocean surface temperatures increased a degree celsius.
PA,
If the ocean surface increases 1°C, that shifts the equilibrium with the atmosphere with ~8 ppmv, which needs about 17 GtC from the oceans into the atmosphere. That is all. Humans emitted near 400 GtC in the past 160 years…
I just spotted this on the CO2 ice core diffusion issue
https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=y&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.klimatupplysningen.se%2F2015%2F05%2F15%2Fklimatets-mysterier-fler-funderingar-om-vaxthusgaser%2F&edit-text=&act=url
Dr. Curry,
That is more a story of someone who sets up a theory why one does find lower CO2 values in ice cores that currently measured and search the literature for confirmation, but doesn’t understand the underlying physics…
To begin with: his theory is that air from clathrates can escape through (still) open pores, but clathrates are formed at much lower depth than where all bubbles are already closed and all firn transformed into ice.
If we may reverse the case: after drilling the core, the ice is allowed to expand from the huge pressure down the ice, by keeping it on site at around -20°C for at least a year. As O2 and N2 clathrates form at much higher pressure than CO2 clathrates, they are the first to decompose and if there are cracks/open pores in the ice, the first to escape via the cracks. At the moment that the pressure is further released, CO2 clathrates may decompose, thus giving much higher CO2 levels in the remaining air, not too low…
He didn’t understand the Ahn & Jinho research results: as there is no direct measurable migration in ice cores, they used the CO2 migration found at the edge of melt layers in a relative warm coastal ice core. Their -theoretical- result was that the about 20 years resolution of the CO2 levels in that particular ice core (Siple Dome) broadened to 22 years at middle depth and to 40 years at full depth (~70 kyears back in time). Not really a big deal and only applicable to coastal cores, as the inland ice cores are much colder and thus even the theoretical migration is negligible.
See: http://catalogue.nla.gov.au/Record/3773250
There is some fractionation seen of the smallest atoms/molecules (O2, Ar, Ne) the moment that the air bubbles are nearly closed in the firn/ice transition zone. That makes that the O2/N2 ratio slightly differs from the original value in the air and after relaxation even may get lower over time.
That is not the case for CO2.
See: http://icebubbles.ucsd.edu/Publications/closeoff_EPSL.pdf
“There are three regimes of gas transport in the firn. The uppermost layer, which appears to extend down to about 10-m depth at some sites where firn air has been sampled and analyzed, is affected by convective mixing driven by surface wind stress. Underlying the convective zone is the ‘‘stagnant air column,’’ in which transport is by molecular and atomic diffusion only. Diffusivities of gases are typically about 1 m2 day21 at 10-m depth. Below, they decrease with increasing density, due to a combination of lower porosity and higher tortuosity (the latter factor accounts for the extra distances gas atoms and molecules must travel as they wind their way through the ice crystals to move from one depth to another).
The diffusivity of the firn is such that air at the base of the stagnant column today has a ‘‘CO2 age’’ ranging from about 6 yr for the GISP2 core (central Greenland) to about 40 years at Vostok (East Antarctica). In point of fact, however, air in firn at a given depth is not of a single age.”
“At Vostok, for example, the bubble closeoff zone is about 8 m thick. A single layer of ice traps bubbles throughout the (about) 300 yr it moves through this zone. This process accounts for the largest share of the dispersion of gas ages in a single sample of ice. At Summit, Greenland, on the other hand, high-density layers are completely sealed as they pass through the top of the bubble closeoff zone. Sealing forms vertically impermeable layers that prevent additional diffusive mixing and ‘‘locks in’’ the composition of gas present in the open, intervening, low-density layers. In such a case, individual ice samples can resolve time periods as short as a decade.”
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=14&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CDkQFjADOAo&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.pnas.org%2Fcontent%2F94%2F16%2F8343.full.pdf&ei=xjtmVZOgJcHRtQXDu4GQDA&usg=AFQjCNEvQG_sEw1Yt–qgMo6rBx-BekcjQ&sig2=ms-taz6tkV2b6UWDwRp8NA
It seems that higher levels would diffuse more until they are locked. Lower levels would attempt to take up more. Like a trailing average. The locking process locks CO2. The question is, does the process tend to push any CO2 upwards?
“At a depth of 960m (about 80 kyr) at a location near the Siple Dome core site, the ice temperature reaches -4 C, 19 C higher than at the shallow depth where we estimated the CO2 permeation coefficient.”
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CB8QFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdigitalcommons.library.umaine.edu%2Fcgi%2Fviewcontent.cgi%3Farticle%3D1023%26context%3Ders_facpub&ei=Z0pmVZ9CiJ-wBf6EgoAH&usg=AFQjCNFvVV9Op1KqSTb4x7rVV7fSoLqNFw&sig2=XHh4eT2Ji9v2RGr5ehhdDA&bvm=bv.93990622,d.b2w
– 4 C seems warm. I can see more diffusion, but to where? The warm temperature indicates heat is flowing upwards.
Ragnaar,
My reply didn’t show up, maybe in Dr. Curry’s spam folder…
In short: the bottom of all glaciers is melting due to earth warmth. That part can never be used for CO2 levels, as CO2 at such high temperatures can migrate into the melt water which smears the bottom of the glaciers/ ice fields. As ice is a quite good insulator, in general only the last tens of meters of the ice are too warm and the last tens to hundreds of meters the layers are often disturbed by bumps in the rock bottom where the ice flows over.
That can be detected by radar, where they have nice layer reflections until the depth where disturbances are present: the ice has no layer reflections anymore.
http://www.geo.uni-bremen.de/geomod/staff/grosfeld/new_vostok_cartoon_high.jpg
Ferdinand Engelbeen:
I find it interesting to look at ice and what it might be able to do. A warm lower surface of ice sheets allowing basal sliding is a possibility for glacial terminations as I read over at SoD. At 80 kyr we have, – 4 C in one location. Seems balmy to me. Somewhat inconsistent with locking. 100,000 years of very minor heat, less than 0.1 watt, perhaps 0.01watts per square meter flowing through our sample. High pressure and gases contained. I am not saying the samples are ruined, but that they might be subject to CO2 diffusion.
Ragnaar,
The ice core of Siple Dome has valid data to about 70 kyear, which in the Ahn e.a. report gives a broadening of the resolution from ~20 years to ~40 years for the lowest part, if their theoretical migration is right.
80 kyear is probably the last meters near the bottom, where the ice is warm enough to give a lot of migration, including into the melt water. Thus no valid data…
http://www.waterencyclopedia.com/Bi-Ca/Carbon-Dioxide-in-the-Ocean-and-Atmosphere.html
Off topic but on the road to ice sheet sinking and sourcing of CO2:
How did ice sheets control CO2?
“One possible link is a fast polar-alkalinity response (Broecker and Peng, 1989). Changes in atmospheric circulation driven by northern ice sheets affect deep-water circulation in the Atlantic (Boyle and Keigwin, 1985; Raymo et al., 1989). Variations in the depth of penetration of northern source deep waters alter the relative areas of Atlantic sea floor bathed by corrosive southern-source waters and less corrosive northern-source waters, with resulting effects on CaCO3 dissolution on the Atlantic sea floor. With rapid southward flow in the deep Atlantic, these changes alter the mixed-layer chemistry (alkalinity) of the Southern Ocean a few hundred years later when deep Atlantic waters later reaches the surface, and thereby affect atmospheric CO2. During the northern hemisphere ice-age cycles, the 13C proxy for ‘NADW’ flow (Raymo et al., 1997) varied mainly at 41 000 years until 0.9 million years ago and subsequently within the 100 000-year band. Both variations were phased with 18O (ice volume).”
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CB8QFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.clim-past.net%2F2%2F43%2F2006%2Fcp-2-43-2006.pdf&ei=VHVnVeCGCoa0ggS524HQBA&usg=AFQjCNE0RtlnsIaL6LHVA5IN-1Vmb090FA&sig2=0u3bkPc0DXx8o3PU7xSe6w&bvm=bv.93990622,d.eXY
As far as I can tell, the paper is about CO2 being a fast positive feedback to ice sheet changes. What I have not found is the amount of CO2 or equivalents in the ice sheets. Probably because it’s not a lot, but it is a lot of water. I don’t think the paper goes down this path.
Ragnaar,
You need to take the ice sheet formation and melting in the proper time frame: the transition from a glacial to an interglacial period, including ice sheet melting did take 5000 years for a lag of ~100 ppmv change in CO2.
The reverse mover did take 10,000-15,000 years where the lag of CO2 was thousands of years.
The amount of air with 180-300 ppmv CO2 in ice sheets is about 10-15% of the volume at closing depth. If all ice melts, what is released is air with less CO2 than what is already in the atmosphere during a glacial period. Thus it is rather a negative feedback for CO2 in the atmosphere (be it a relative small one, if you compare the volumes air vs. ice).
I get it. Ice is 10% air. 120 meters of sea level rise is 12 meters of air released.
“The question is: Do ice cores contain the fossils of Earth’s prehistoric atmospheres, or do ice cores contain artifacts of geophysical processes that continuously remix gases in glacial ice?”
“Early studies on ice cores consistently showed a range of CO2 readings that were higher than later studies – in one case, a study by the same researcher on the same ice core showed different numbers in different years.”
“Downward diffusion through this network of veins eventually outpaces the flow of the ice, thereby separating substances from the ice with which they were deposited. Scientists require a model that includes such a capillary process to better interpret ice records for reconstructing prehistoric climates.”
http://robertkernodle.hubpages.com/hub/ICE-Core-CO2-Records-Ancient-Atmospheres-Or-Geophysical-Artifacts
There’s an image of a frozen block. Zooming in very closely and looking at the limits of small, what is going on? The ice sheets are alive more than they are not. They are in motion more than they are not. Think of horizontal shear zones and what mixing they would allow. I don’t know much about Kernodle, but he lists a number of possible problems with the ice cores. Let’s say the data is pretty good, but there may be some bias. The ice core plots show stable peak and trough values going back about 400,000 years. Isn’t it possible the CO2 cycle is slowly slowing down to lower values except for our recent additions?
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