Why Do Most Climate Skeptics Accept ‘The Consensus’ that Humans are the Principal Source of Increasing Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide Levels? (Part 1)
Posted by jennifer, September 23rd, 2008 - under Opinion.
Tags: Climate & Climate Change
But there is evidence indicating that most of the increase in atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide could be from natural sources.
So, asks Alan Siddons from Holden, Massachusetts, why do most climate skeptics tacitly and even explicitly accept that man is the culprit?
Let’s consider some of the available evidence.
1. Carbon dioxide concentrations have been measured at Mauna Loa in the Pacific Ocean since 1957 and over this period have shown a general increase.
2. Over this period there has been a general increase in global temperatures.
3. The change in carbon dioxide concentration with time correlates better with temperature change than with change in human carbon dioxide emissions (see Figures 2 and 3 @ Roy Spencer on how Oceans are Driving Carbon Dioxide, Watts Up with That, January 25, 2008).
4. Large interannual fluctuations in Mauna Loa-derived carbon dioxide “emissions” roughly coincide with El Nino and La Nina events (see Figure 3, ibid)
5. There is a clear and strong relationship between levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide and long-term average sea-surface temperatures as would be expected from the solubility curves for carbon dioxide in water at various temperatures and pressures (see Figure 1 @ Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide Levels Follow Sea Surface Temperatures, Jennifer Marohasy.com/blog, September 16, 2007)
6. Current carbon cycle flux estimates indicate that the annual carbon dioxide exchange between the surface and the atmosphere amounts to 20% to 30% of the total amount in the atmosphere.
7. Natural processes remove an order of magnitude more than the annual increase in carbon dioxide each year, then put it back again.
8. Human generated carbon dioxide is around 3% of the total carbon dioxide flux.
9. The isotope ratio difference between ‘natural’ carbon dioxide and carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels is small and not a reliable indication of the source of an increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide (see Spencer Part2: More CO2 Peculiarities – The C13/C12 Isotope Ratio, Watts Up With That? January 28, 2008)
***********************
The above nine points are drawn in part from posts by Roy Spencer at blog site ‘Watt’s Up with That?’ on January 25 and 28, 2008 and also a post by Lance Endersbee at JenniferMarohasy.com/blog on September 16, 2007.
Thanks to Alan Siddons for the discussion and the slide, which is from a Lord Monckton lecture.
Cohenite wrote, “and they suppose a decline in sink capacity…”
That’s strike three against the anthropogenic accumulation model, by the way. Not only do delta 13C counts and official carbon budget figures dispute the model, but also a simple comparison between gigatons of atmospheric growth and gigatons of human emissions.
It is said that the earth is presently absorbing about half of human CO2 emissions on an annual basis. Thus the atmosphere’s carbon content goes up by about half the yearly human output. Joe D’Aleo and I commented on the ramifications of this idea in an essay last year
http://www.ilovemycarbondioxide.com/pdf/Carbon_Dioxide_The_Houdini_of_Gases.pdf
and pointed out that carbon sinks must logically be increasing as time passes since human emissions are increasing. That is, the more gas we pump out, the more the earth supposedly absorbs. To accept this pinhole view, of course, one must ignore the total flux the earth is processing every year and presumptively exclude anything but human emissions as the cause of atmospheric change.
But let’s quantify this growth of alleged “carbon sinks.” All one must do is subtract human emissions from the atmospheric increase. For instance, if the atmosphere went up 3 gigatons yet people emitted 7 gigatons that year, then 3 minus 7 gives you -4, so 4 gigatons out of 7 presumably went to carbon sinks. Applying this rule across the record, here’s the weight result in 10-year samples (I don’t wanna hog up space).
1850 -0.16
1860 -0.12
1870 -0.07
1880 -0.83
1890 -0.07
1900 -0.11
1910 -0.03
1920 0.29
1930 0.20
1940 1.09
1950 1.20
1960 0.64
1970 1.84
1980 1.56
1990 3.53
2000 4.49
As you see, “carbon sinks” have been climbing. Yet if a fixed reservoir were available for catching an “excess,” that reservoir’s capacity should be shrinking as time passes, not expanding. But it also turns out that “negative sinks” — in other words, non-anthropogenic sources — must have been in effect until around 1930 (thus contradicting the accumulation premise), after which “positive sinks” took over and started compensating for the human output…
Three strikes. That anyone takes the anthropogenic accumulation model seriously is astounding.
An argument from ignorance, Alan. Your inability to understand the science does not mean you have disproved it.
Now why do you say that SJT?
In fact you are only saying that because you are a liar and an idiot right? Thats what is going on here.
Oceans as a CO2 sink.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2004/07/0715_040715_oceancarbon.html
From http://www.globalcarbonproject.org/carbontrends/index.htm “The growth rate of emissions was 3.5% per year for the period of 2000-2007, an almost four fold increase from 0.9% per year in 1990-1999. The actual emissions growth rate for 2000-2007 exceeded the highest forecast growth rates for the decade 2000-2010 in the emissions scenarios of the Intergovermental Panel on Climate Change, Special Report on Emissions Scenarios (IPCC-SRES). This makes current trends in emissions higher than the worst case IPCC-SRES scenario. Fossil fuel and cement emissions released approximately 348 PgC to the atmosphere from 1850 to 2007.” I think all those who claim we are not adding CO2 at the rate indicated need to do a better analysis. All those who claim that the measured diffence from the assumed historical level need to rethink what the mass accumulation equation is, versus the assumptions made on its behalf.
“CO2 removal by natural sinks
Natural land and ocean CO2 sinks have removed 54% (or 4.8 PgC per year) of all CO2 emitted from human activities during the period 2000-2007. The size of the natural sinks has grown in proportion to increasing atmospheric CO2. However, the efficiency of these sinks in removing CO2 has decreased by 5% over the last 50 years, and will continue to do so in the future. That is, 50 years ago, for every ton of CO2 emitted to the atmosphere, natural sinks removed 600 kg. Currently, the sinks are removing only 550 kg for every ton of CO2 emitted, and this amount is falling. ” “From this leaf-level saturation response,
we can infer that in the absence of any other limiting
factor (e.g., light, nutrients, water) net primary productivity
will not increase with increasing CO2 beyond
800–1 000 ppm (Fig. 6.1b) from Saturation of the Terrestrial Carbon Sink
Josep G. Canadell · Diane E. Pataki · Roger Gifford · Richard A. Houghton · Yiqi Luo · Michael R. Raupach
Pete Smith · Will Steffen Eleven Free-Air CO2 Enrichment (FACE) experiments
encompassing bogs, grasslands, desert, and young temperate
tree stands report an average increased NPP of
12% at 550 ppm when compared to ambient CO2 (Nowak
et al. 2004). Four FACE studies on forest stands showed
a 23% median increased NPP, an expectedly high response
for stands made up of young trees and saplings
(Norby et al. 2005). A meta-analysis of over a hundred
studies shows about À of the experiments responding
positively to increased CO2 (Luo et al. 2006). This analysis
also shows that ecosystems under elevated CO2 can
accumulate N, supporting the hypothesis that terrestrial
ecosystems have certain capacity to gradually acquire
additional N required to continue accumulating C under
increasing CO2 concentrations (Gifford 1992, 1994; but
see Reich et al. 2006; Groenigen et al. 2006).” The above has become one of my favorites.
Just what is wrong? I agree, Beck is to say politely, a weak paper, as is this one. First, it depends on the models being correct on a regional basis, that have been shown repeatedly now, that cannot do regional well at all. The “Beck’s” of the model world. Next there are two fundamental problems with the analysis. One is the nature of NPP in a tropical rain forest situation, and claiming a static carbon sink while admitting to the possibility of increased NPP. The problem is the ecological niche foundation of tropical rainforests where conservation of nutrients enables the very existance of these large canopy biomes. This is highlighted by their use of tundra and alpine consditions, while ignoring several relevant facts. These alpine-tundra ecological biomes are known for their temperature limitations. This is not mentioned rather the converse. They talk about the limitations including temperature, while not recognizing their model calls for increased temperature. The inherent discepancies are not addressed in the paper. Nor the fact that the increased NPP was determined for the biomes that cover about 95% of the earth, while their incorrect postulation covers only 5% and is contra-indicated to at least a small extent by their own paper.
“If I ever find the person who claimed CO2 is the only climate forcing, I’ll be sure to show them that graph.”
Well Will Robinson, you can give a copy to Gore for starters, and Flannery and Jimmy Hansen, whose public utterances have shamefully focused on CO2; but a further point of contradiction; if CO2’s heating (of 0.27C for the 108 years from 1900-2008) is assisted by the enhanced greenhouse, where is its effect? Whether you call it CO2 greenhouse or enhanced greenhouse, the effect has been a dud.
Alan; actually Will above does stumble onto the last man standing for the AGW thesis; he has referred to the Sabine paper on oceanic sink activity partially removing the ACO2; if AGW is right and ACO2 is entirely responsible for the atmospheric increase then the oceans, as the largest sink, must be taking in more CO2 with a measureable effect, as in acidity and heat; there is no warming but is there acidification? In your decadal chart above, the +ve trend beginning at 1920 would mean that the oceans became a net emitter at that time, would it not?
What is the source of the carbon dioxide that is accumulating in our atmosphere?
“the +ve trend beginning at 1920 would mean that the oceans became a net emitter at that time, would it not?”
Yes, exactly Cohenite. I think this is your Eureka moment! Crack open the champers, sing and dance. You have finally discovered the flaw in AGW.
It took you long enough, crikey. And all that research you had to do, when it was just sitting there all the time waiting for you to finally see the truth.
“Well Will Robinson, you can give a copy to Gore for starters, and Flannery and Jimmy Hansen, whose public utterances have shamefully focused on CO2;”
I said it’s not the only forcing, and you were looking at graphs going back a long way. At present, CO2 is the principal forcing. This conclusion has been made after all the other forcings are taken into account. Some forcings are understood better than others, but none of the others are undergoing such a rapid change, so they can be ruled out as the major drivers of change.
“there is no warming ”
There is warming, and it took me a long time to find that update for the paper. Didn’t you read it?
“In fact you are only saying that because you are a liar and an idiot right? ”
LOL
“the” flaw? Don’t be condescending; anyway, how about a comment on the 0.27C increase since 1900.
But you’re right about one thing; it’s a lovely day and I’m about to crack a chilled bottle of Peterson House 2003 Pinot Noir Chardonnay Muenier!
what 0.27c increase?
And convection has been known about since the 1960’s.
I am continually amused at the worry over a scant atmospheric molecule.That has a tiny absorption band in the IR window.
A single CO2 molecule that is
added based on guesswork every 5 years.That can be pegged on mankind.
This is hilarious stuff!
The CO2 RE-RADIATING idea that is a built in error.Is where most of the supposed AGW warming is created.
Any emission will be cooler that what it absorbed.Therefore it can not add any new warming.The main emission is of a lower energy level and thus no longer in the IR range of the spectral window.
Keep in mind that IR radiation from the earths surface is only about 1.5% of the total heat going outward from the earths surface.
Meaning that NO ADDITIONAL warmth can be added!
Should be: Negligible additional warmth can be added!
Will Robinson; here are 2 graphs showing anomalous temp trends over the 20thC, one from HadCrut, the other from GISS; tell us all what the temp movement has been from 1900-2000;
http://i32.tinypic.com/2s01m5y.jpg
http://tamino.files.wordpress.com/2008/01/smooth.jpg
Cohenite, CO2 started accumulating from the late 19th century. So it could have been partly to do with that. You’re telling me not be condescending? why do you pick on me Cohers? You pretend to be ‘fair’ and balanced and whatever. But you’re not. You don’t tell Graeme to stop being condescending. So stop pretending you’re this fair-minded, balanced debater. You’re as much working from a political angle as everyone else here. Hell you still haven’t figured out what is wrong with Mann et al 2008, but it’s still on your worst papers list. That’s not being fair or balanced.
Sunsettomy, well I guess everyone else is wrong and you few here are right….
“I am continually amused at the worry over a scant atmospheric molecule.That has a tiny absorption band in the IR window.”
Another argument from ignorance. It’s not my fault you can’t understand how it works.
I’d love to see a graph of the sources of atmospheric CO2 to see how the 3% Anthropogenic contribution stacks up against the others.
NT; stop being unreasonable; I have posted on Mann2 already; what Mann2 has done with the eiv process is very similar to what he did with PCA in Mann1; he has reused discredited proxies, but revitalised them via a number of dubious ‘callibration’ methods; one he describes thus;
“To pass screening, a series was required to exhibit a statistically significant (P>0.10 correlation with either one of the two closest instrumental surface temperature grid points.”
The measure of ’skill’ is lower again, and the double dipping with the instruments is unreasonable; none of his proxies has an R2 > 0.5, and therefore they have no skill against the instruments; historically, his proxies are terrible with only 17 beginning before 1000, and he effectively relies on 3 proxies to account for temps over 2 millenium.
Now what about the temp increase from 1900-2008 of 0.27C?
This should cause some interest:
EVIDENCE THAT STABLE CARBON ISOTOPES ARE NOT A RELIABLE CRITERION FOR DISTINGUISHING BIOGENIC FROM NON-BIOGENIC PETROLEUM
A. A. Giardini* Charles E. Melton**
*Departments of Geology, University of Georgia, Athens, GA 30602, USA **Departments of Chemistry, University of Georgia, Athens, GA 30602, USA
Copyright 1982 SCIENTIFIC PRESS LTD
ABSTRACT
The isotopic abundance of presumably-pristine primordial carbon has been determined by analyzing carbon dioxide entrapped in a 8.65 carat natural diamond of African origin. The results were 12C = 98.9275% and13C = 1.0725%, which giveδ13C = -35.2‰/00. This value is well within the range used to assign a biogenic origin to carbon-containing compounds, i.e., more negative than -18.0‰/00. Similar negative values have been reported for some natural diamonds and carbon-bearing meteorites. It is concluded, therefore, that stable carbon isotopes can be an unreliable criterion for assigning a biogenic origin to petroleum.
Source :http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/120045321/abstract?CRETRY=1&SRETRY=0
So you can’t rely on Carbon isotopes to distinguish “biogenic” carbon from “abiogenic”.
Dyson says that the amount of CO2 released from land and absorbed by land dwarfs the amount from fossil fuels. But there are only a couple of folks even trying to measure how land use causes CO2 to be absorbed or released.
“Dyson says that the amount of CO2 released from land and absorbed by land dwarfs the amount from fossil fuels. But there are only a couple of folks even trying to measure how land use causes CO2 to be absorbed or released.”
The amount released and absorbed is much larger, but if you increase the amount by two percent each year, (as an example) it’s not too long till you have doubled the total amount in the atmosphere.
That’s just ignorance, it is a topic of active research by many scientists, including our own CSIRO.
http://www.csiro.au/resources/GlobalCarbonProjectFigures.html#2
“James, I have been onto you since our HIV/AIDS disagreement. You admitted you didn’t know the first thing about the HIV/AIDS debate, yet you looked up one paper and used that to justify your belief that the paradigm must be correct.”
Gordon Robertson
(25 September, 2008 at 12:24 pm)
Gordon Robertson, you have admitted yourself that you have no training in immunology, and yet you still see fit to deny the HIV/AIDS link in the basis of unsubstantiated conspiracy theories and the mistaken rantings of discredited scientists. As I informed you a number of weeks ago I worked as a diagnostic and research scientist in immunology for a decade and a half, and I can tell you with certainty that the link is established beyond doubt.
I see though that you have not yet attended to obtaining an immunological education for yourself yet, and that you yourself are relying on a thin tissue of fruitcake writings with which to make your HIV denialist case. It’s more than a bit rich to see you try to talk to James Haughton about the truth of HIV and AIDS.
Once more, your promulgation of the idea that HIV does not cause AIDS, and that the virus does not even exist, is irresponsible beyond words. Your promotion of this meme potentially risks people’s health and even their lives, and you should be held accountable for putting this nonsense out into the public domain. I would recommend to Jennifer that she place disclaimers at the end of any and every such post on her blog to the effect that she does not endorse this idea, and that the science indicates beyond doubt that HIV is the underlying cause for the syndrome referred to as AIDS.
My questions still stand. Why will you not speak with immunologists about the working of the immune system, and how the virus works. Why will you not consider being injected with a virus that you don’t even believe exists, if you believe that you cannot acquire AIDS from it? Why will you not speak with the diversity of AIDS patients to be found at any HIV clinic in any major hospital, and ask them about the disease?
I am on to YOU, and I will warn any unsuspecting third party reading this thread that your understanding of HIV and of immunology is absent, and indeed grossly in error.
If your grasp of other disciplines of science is similarly informed then you really have no place to be discussing scientific matters in the first place.
Luke asked:
“That’s funny – I was wondering if Louis and GB were the same person?”
(26 September, 2008 at 11:20 pm)
No Luke, Louis and Bird are separate identities. However Bird and Ra are one and the same. The self-directed dialog can be very amusing!
I wonder… can the HIV denialists on this blog explain how, if the virus does not cause AIDS (let alone whether it exists at all), the Nobel committee saw fit to award a prize for the discovery of the virus?
The conspiracy must be profound indeed.
Or they could just be “wrong, exclamation mark”, as our treasury secretary likes to say.
A late comment, as I just saw this discussion.
I have had a lot of discussions with skeptics about these points. Here is my point of view:
- there is little doubt that humans are responsible for the increase of CO2 in the atmosphere. I have made a comprehensive web page explaining that in detail. All observational evidence point to that. Any alternative theory does conflict with one or more observations.
See: http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/co2_measurements.html
What I have seen, again and again, is that it seems very difficult to understand the difference between a turnover (like the seasonal exchanges of CO2 between the reservoirs) and a one-way addition.
You can compare that to a sea level gauge: there are enormous differences in sea level over a halve day, bi-weekly, etc… due to the tides, meters away. There is a very tiny expansion signal of rising sea level (whatever the cause) of less than a fraction of a mm per day, a few mm per year,…
Despite the enormous differences in tidal height, we are able to detect these small changes, be it that we need some 25 years of measurements to know them with reasonable accuracy.
For CO2 measurements it is the same story: whatever the amounts residing in the carbon deposits (sea/land carbonates and organic carbon), no matter how much is circulating through the atmosphere during the seasons, that doesn’t add or substract one molecule, gram, ton or ppmv to the total amount in the atmosphere, as long as the amounts entering the atmosphere are as high as what is leaving the atmosphere. If what circulates is 1 GtC/yr, or 150 GtC/yr or 1,000 GtC/yr, that doesn’t matter at all.
That is the difference with the emissions: humans add CO2 one-way. And for the full past century (at least for the past 50 years with more accuracy), the natural circulation has absorbed more CO2 than it added, simply because less CO2 is left in the atmosphere than humans have added. So there was NO net addition of CO2 to the atmosphere, at least in the past 50 years.
For several skeptics, that we are responsible for the increase of CO2 in the atmosphere is a bridge too far, and it is fightet with fury. Sorry, but if you don’t have good, rigorous scientific arguments for the opposite, then it makes that you are not believed for points that are far more defendable, and far more important.
Further, if you are a real skeptic, please look at what skeptics say with the same glasses as to what warmers say. You may like the data of Beck, but besides the measurement errors, as already nicely described by PeterD (btw, I like to receive the Bray paper), most of the measurements done in the peak period around 1942 were on land, near ground level, which is known to give much too high average results, due to local sources. See e.g. the Cabauw tower measurements taken at 20 m and 200 m:
http://www.chiotto.org/cabauw.html
Even 200 m is not high enough to be over the local disturbances, one need 1,000 m and higher over land…
Thus Beck’s data are simply worthless for global CO2 data of that time.
Next Jaworowski:
Take his comments with a lot of salt: completely outdated data, false assumptions, which are taken into account long ago, and physically impossible remarks.
Only one example: cracks in the ice core lead to erronous measurements, therefore the values are too low.
Well can anybody explain me how they can measure 180-280 ppmv CO2 in the ice core bubbles, when the outside air contains 380 ppmv, if that was true?
Small correction:
“So there was NO net addition of CO2 to the atmosphere, at least in the past 50 years.”
must be read:
“So there was NO net addition of natural CO2 to the atmosphere, at least in the past 50 years.”
Some addition:
I just added a page on the historical CO2 data by Ernst Beck. Some parts still to be added (a comparison with other CO2 proxy methods), but the most important problem with his data is covered: the places where was measured: completely unsuitable for background CO2 measurements…
Of course one need to include a link to the announcement of a new page:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/beck_data.html
comments on Ernst Beck’s historical data…
Again I added a new page to my web site. Unfortunately, it seems that nowadays we need more time to correct incorrect allegations by skeptics than by warmers…
The page is about the accusations of Jaworowski against the CO2 levels measured in ice cores.
Many of his claims are completely outdated, some are physically impossible and some, in my opnion, smell like deliberate untruths…
See: http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/jaworowski.html
“RW you are a piker. You are a man without courage. You are not like your great heros Clinton and Wilson. You showed up here to lie flat out and its true that you haven’t weakened and owned up to it.
But by God you will never be like Wilson. You are a gutless pig because you came here to lie anonymously.”
Ain’t deniers a lovely bunch.