Hi Jen,
I don’t know if you have seen this new paper in the journal ‘Energy and Environment’ by Ernest-Georg Beck, entitled ‘180 Years of Atmospheric C02 Analysis by Chemical Methods’, now available online here with supporting data.
The absract follows:
“More than 90,000 accurate chemical analyses of CO2 in air since 1812 are summarised. The historic chemical data reveal that changes in CO2 track changes in temperature, and therefore climate in contrast to the simple, monotonically increasing CO2 trend depicted in the post-1990 literature on climate-change. Since 1812, the CO2 concentration in northern hemispheric air has fluctuated exhibiting three high level maxima around 1825, 1857 and 1942 the latter showing more than 400 ppm.
Between 1857 and 1958, the Pettenkofer process was the standard analytical method for determining atmospheric carbon dioxide levels, and usually achieved an accuracy better than 3%. These determinations were made by several scientists of Nobel Prize level distinction. Following Callendar (1938), modern climatologists have generally ignored the historic determinations of CO2, despite the techniques being standard text book procedures in several different disciplines. Chemical methods were discredited as unreliable choosing only few which fit the assumption of a climate CO2 connection. [end of quote]
Regards,
Paul Biggs
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A note to potential Commentators, I suggest you read the paper before posting a comment below, try and limit comments to 2-3 posts per 24 hour period, and try and stay polite and on-topic. Cheers, Jennifer.
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
http://rabett.blogspot.com/2006/10/amateur-night.html
http://rabett.blogspot.com/2007/03/sitemeter-reveals-all.html
next .. .. ..
Oh look the CO2 record for the South Pole
http://cdiac.esd.ornl.gov/trends/co2/graphics/spo121e_thrudc04.pdf
http://cdiac.esd.ornl.gov/trends/co2/sio-spl.htm
ROTFL and LMAO
Baahhaaahaahhaaaa!!!!! But those CO2 measurements were measured a whole 2 metres off of the ground – they gotta be correct! Probably kilometers from the nearest city too – that’s rural Europe for ya!
I am beginning to suspect that E&E just might not be the bestest journal in the whole wide world.
Jennifer: can we ask Paul to tell us how the previous generations obtained those CO2 figures featured in Becks review?
I received this from Beck on Friday, when the full paper became available:
Dear all,
additionally to my paper “180 Years of atmospheric CO2 Gas Analysis by Chemical Methods” ENERGY & ENVIRONMENT VOLUME 18 No. 2 2007 I want to give you access to a supplementing webpage with most important historic resources.
http://www.biokurs.de/treibhaus/180CO2_supp.htm.
Because of explosive content of my paper let me give you some further comments.
It´s clear that it is not possible to reconstruct 150 years of scientific evolution concerning one subject thoroughly in 20 pages. This is the main difference to other papers concerning one single problem. I had to sample, evaluate and select hundreds of problems. Therefore my selection out of available data can always be critisized with all possible arguments.
For this reason the online support should serve as a first help before projected publication of the monograph with all inspected sources.
So perhaps you realize that my paper is only a first sign of pointing to those “forgotten data”. Your work will start right here.
Probably you also agree that my paper is not in first place a climate paper, it´s a chemical paper, because most historic resources are written by chemists.
As a biochemist I feel much more connected to CO2 as a climate scientist because of CO2 beeing an essential substance for all living things.
Modern propagated image of carbon dioxide as a climate killer contradicts natural importance ( biology, chemistry, medicine, nutrition science) in total.
Looking at history of modern natural science and measuring CO2 we see a timeline of two lines of arguments:
1. a 200 hundred year of consecutive evolving natural science establishing most modern knowledge and laws of nature ( honoured by dozends of NOBEL awards in 20th century)
2. a 60 year of climate science in parallel to (1) establishing a different, contradicting view of CO2 in nature with no real knowledge but most hypothesis and speculations.
Viewing from point 2 my paper is junk science.
Viewing from scientific point we have to evaluate verify and falsify both lines and join them together without excluding one or both a priori at the base of laws of nature.
In that sense I appreciate your comments and critics and your contribution to establish real thruth.
Thank you for your help.
best regards
Ernst Beck
Merian-Schule Freiburg
Dep. Biotechnology and Nutrition Science
79104 Freiburg
Rheinstr. 3
Germany
It would be intersting to see measurements by chemical methods comapared with modern techniques for the period 1958 onwards.
When Rabett goes to meet the butcher – he ends up in the butcher’s window, upside down:
http://www.sciencebits.com/SkyResults#comment-79
This just popped into my mail box:
Bob asked: “Given the capability of the biosphere to absorb a surplas of CO2 as small as the human contribution, why do most AGW skeptics go along with the assumption that humans are wholly responsible for the rise in atmospheric CO2 in the last 150 years?”.
It seems that it is because the “sceptics” being sceptical, did not spent enough time to peruse in-depth the glaciological papers on CO2, and the original papers on carbon cycle. They rather glanced over the photos, figures, tables, and read mostly abstracts and conclusions, which tells that for the past >500 000 years almost always “atmospheric” CO2 levels were lower that 290 ppmv, even in periods when the surface temperature was higher than now. The sceptics credulously accepted the glaciologists’ claim that the proxy CO2 determinations in the ice cores, are not proxy but rather direct measurements of this gas in the original ancient atmospheric air, trapped in the allegedly closed system of ice, miraculously not changed by brutal drilling procedures, and tens of physical and chemical processes in the ice sheets and in the ice cores, to say nothing of the liquid water present in the cold Antarctic ice. The peace of mind of sceptics was not disturbed even by a total disappearance of air inclusions in all deep ice cores. They did not noticed this, or what? The carbon cycle models were all founded on an assumption on low pre-industrial CO2 level of 290 ppmv, even before the glaciological support. A component of these models is the buffer factor, in which assumption on pre-industrial CO2 level of 290 is the most important parameter. Future historians of science will probably eagerly study this phenomenon of a groupthink, common in evironmental research.
Best wishes,
Zbigniew
Prof. Dr hab. Zbigniew Jaworowski
ul. Sadowa 9, 05-520 Konstancin, Poland
Well I’l be………….and it’s been a while too JONRAY!
check it out for yourselves folks. I’m off to bed in disgust.
I suppose if you have a little persistence and your agenda is to increase uncertainty on AGW, you will suck some mug in now but not again. But you will miss fellow travellers and phonies like Phil Cooney now gone to ExxonMobil. As New Scientist p6 24 March reports, as White House ex Chief of Staff, Phil made at least 181 edits to emphasise uncertainty on the effects of climate change. He did invoke the Nuremberg defense. Will the children of sceptics grant them clemency for their blind eyes to rapidly shrinking uncertainty.
Yeah, well I feel much more connected to CO2 than Beck does. I breathe it out all the time, and my plants need it to grow. Goody.
The historical record clearly displays the errors encountered by using these methods. That CO2 content could vary so wildly is absurd, when you compare the current, accurate methods used.
Luke has provided good links on the topic.
Just look at Deltoid’s picture of the graph.
http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2006/10/more_nonsense_about_co2.php
The ice core record dovetails nicely into the Mauna Lao record. (Which agrees with the Tasmanian records as well, so no volcanoe for you).
Prior to that, CO2 was supposed to be gyrating by massive amounts that defy belief. Suddenly, when accurate records can be made, it increases in a much smoother fashion. I can be disbelieving, because the Ice Core provides a much more plausible record.
I would recommend Zbigniew looks at the graph on Deltoids blog, and see if he can repeat his claims.
To anyone who has not done gas analysis or CO2 measurement this post will mean little but it’s about frauds, swindlers, pommies, biggsies, ronnies, er ratrays etc cause I’ve met them all somewhere before. If no one has ever gone to “Greenie Whatever” either and been hooked then it also shouldn’t be noticed however there is a select network at play behind the scene.
“It would be intersting to see measurements by chemical methods comapared with modern techniques for the period 1958 onwards”
The facts are;
1) I gave up worrying about the accuracy of CO2 measurements made by any one anywhere about 1960 because we could all afford to forget them.
2) A lot of engineers’ world wide also made the swing in their analysis.
3) The villain then was CARBON MONOXIDE not CO2.
4) Before 1960 a mere handful of people could be trusted to reproduce their CO2 readings.
5) I personally continued to have a lot of arguments with scientists and officials over their CO2 accuracy after the late 50’s. Twice a day sometimes.
6) Like a lot of old practical problems none of this gets recorded or appears on the web today in science papers.
7) Recall; I say Australia was at the forefront of technology through the 60’s with a number of innovative developments including mutual recognition procedures.
So when I go hunting for nonsense I know what to look for. One of Paul’s post led me straight to another familiar QLD blogger who I bet likewise has never done a raw measurement of any sort in his life.
Folks: This blog is not about good science.
Jennifer: With regard, from personal observations our background CO2 levels don’t change much anywhere but have historically been incredibly difficult to measure with the apparatus we had. Firstly the things were never accurate, secondly and most importantly good calibration depended on so much.
The South Pole experience probably drove the choice of Cape Grim as our main baseline station for everything including CO2 measurement. I recall the public discussion and the general satisfaction with our Tasmanian location since the big factor there was the prevailing winds. The few times they failed were insignificant. When considering the cost of maintaining full time research stations further south we had a big winner. Also we had the drop on the whole Indian Ocean there as no one else could and for the first time too.
NB; These measurements have become so important to Australia’s current position in monitoring global climate change.
So the consensus is that Beck’s paper is not very good!
But again, I think there is some interesting information in it, even if the general conclusions are somewhat dubious.
I’m particularly interested to know how concentrations of C02 in 2m sampling heights now look at that German meteorological station (see figure 5, pg 267).
I vaguely remember reading about methane being not ‘well mixed’ with plumes above forests? Following on from Nexus’s comment in the above thread… what is the ‘normal situation’ with C02?
What sort of concentrations would one expect say 2 metres up in a city versus a forest, day versus night?
At what ‘height’ does C02 become well mixed?
I saw Beck’s chemical measurements of CO2 stuff some time ago – on Warwick Hughes I guess. I’m also not aware of anyone other than Jaworowski who has such big issues with ice core data. Since Beck has now written a 25 page paper, which is a fraction of a ‘200 page monograph,’ I thought I would put it up for discussion. There is no need for big warmers to jump up and down, or foam at the mouth. Beck himself says “Viewing from point 2 my paper is junk science.” He has posted all the data for discussion and is aware of the criticisms of his re-evaluation of the data. Non of this alters the measurements from 1958 to present, which have risen from 315ppmv to 380ppmv.
I’m sure further foaming at the mouth could be induced by Christopher Monckton’s climate sensitivity paper, which I have in my posession.
I’m not sure there is a particular set height at which CO2 becomes ‘well-mixed’. In central Antarctica it may well be 2m, but near dense population centres (which pretty much includes all of Europe) it would be much higher, and would also heavily depend on weather conditions.
Jennifer : This comment should promote more discussion
In regard to Beck’s 180 yrs of records and his inconvenient CO2 hiccups, I can easily accept those wild points around the war years on this basis;
1) We burnt a lot of coal in bad conditions during that period
2) I expect many measurements were influenced by the industrial and transport situation. Most of the world’s navies and railways were steam powered.
3) Cold countries suffer from severe flue stack downdrafts.
From my own efforts later on it was obvious background CO2 measurement was near IMPOSSIBLE in a city or industrial environment. But we only needed a handle on CO levels then.
Beck needs to go back and eliminate all such measurements above or go back hunting CO from the same periods then let’s discuss the similarity or otherwise of CO and CO2 peaks.
Paul: Beware W/H and jonnie ray post the same shit over and over
CHEERS
Paul – well he may have reservations but it’s already gone off like wildfire around the internet touting the biggest farce in the history of science is the IPCC CO2 evolution graph of the 20th century etc.
The measurements may be accurate but what do they mean.
That’s why the global CO2 network is here: http://cdiac.ornl.gov/trends/co2/sio-keel.htm
Keeling himself was not happy with La Jolla pier.
I would have thought one would have a duty of care to not go public without a fair context and examination of alternative explanations given the “supposed” seriousness of the material. And if you did you would make those limitations clear.
The issue with the South Pole numbers which I think many would see as far from urban or biosphere interference (somebody will shout Mt Erebus I’m sure) is that they’re close to Mauna Loa numbers and the other network stations and that one can see the wiggles of annual biosphere cycles in the graphs.
Luke,
I think some AGW skeptics are just starting to get going, returning ‘fire’ with ‘fire’ so to speak including publishing and promoting Beck’s paper.
I mean the IPCC and others, not to mention Real Climate and Tim Flannery, have hardly been ‘playing fair’. And when the journal ‘Nature’ stoops as low as it has over recent years, we end up with new alternatives including ‘Energy and Environment’which is pushing an agenda in a particular and opposite direction.
On a related issue, how many reputable scientists endorsed ‘An Inconvenient Truth’ and ‘The Weather Makers’ when both are obviously works of propaganda pushing a particular agenda. Both draw dubious conclusions given the available data!
We now have’The Great Global Warming Swindle’ in response to ‘An Inconvenient Truth’.
I’m not condoning anyone, but ‘you guys’ have been pushing too hard for too long in one direction.
How many schools have been sent copies of ‘An Inconvenient Truth’?
I spoke with a 13 year old just last weekend who had recently seen it as part of a class in a Queensland school. I asked her if she was ‘scared’ by it. She said she wasn’t sure how much of it to believe.
There is hope yet.
Jennifer
In what way has the IPCC, Tim Flannery or Realclimate not played fair? The science behind their claims is a lot more sound that this latest piece of waffle. As Luke has already pointed out, it’s flying around the internet. For many, it will have already achieved the status of fact, and no amount of reason will ever change that.
Flannery is not a climate scientist, so Realclimate was quite happy to point out the errors they found in his book. Is that not an example of self-criticism?
Some interesting issues here, and not all resolved by lukes link to Brer Rabbett.
The first is the fact that there is a major difference between how we (they) derive a number representing global CO2 and how global mean temperature is derived.
Global mean temperature is the sum of a claimed representative sample of annual means. And this sample has supposedly had the Urban Heat Island (UHI) effect removed with a view to obtaining what is claimed to be some sort of “uncontaminated” data set. UHI is wrongly assumed to be the only form of temperature “contaminant” that needs to be removed when we know that irrigation, land cover change, drainage and local airport pavements also influence temperature means well away from urban locations.
The really curious thing, as Brer Rabbett has pointed out, is that the determination of atmospheric CO2 levels starts from the recognition that it is almost impossible to obtain measurements that are not subject to some form of contamination. And the response to this is to concentrate on a small number of sample sites that are used as surrogates for global CO2 concentrations.
The problem with this, and it is a major problem, is that humanity and all the environments in which they live, and all the wildlife that share those environments, actually live in locations where CO2 levels can be quite variable.
And when we consider how local ecosystems will respond to any climatic changes that might be induced by changing CO2 levels then it is a key fact that those changes will be driven by the actual, highly variable CO2 levels, not those of the surrogates at Mauna Loa and Cape Grim.
These surrogates are all located in supposedly “low contaminant” prone sites that exhibit none of the continental variation that we know is present, and has been present for a very long time.
A good sample of the continental variation can be seen at http://www.co2science.org/scripts/CO2ScienceB2C/subject/u/summaries/urbanco2dome.jsp
Of particular note are the references to clean non-urban sites such as;
“at four different times of the year in Poland, Zimnoch et al. (2004) made diurnal measurements of the concentration and isotopic composition (δ13C, δ18O) of atmospheric CO2 at a height of 20 meters above the ground at a location in the western part of Krakow that borders recreation and sports grounds and is some distance away from direct low-emission CO2 sources and strong car traffic. During the winter, as they describe it, they found that “the local CO2 contribution is made up almost exclusively from anthropogenic emissions,” which produce nighttime atmospheric CO2 concentrations at 20 meters above ground level that are sometimes as high as 440 ppm, although they say “the calculated mean contribution of anthropogenic CO2 to the city atmosphere during winter is about 30 ppm.” During the daytime in summer, however, they report that “the dominant source of CO2 is the local biosphere,” and that “when the lower atmosphere was intensely mixed, the recorded CO2 concentration dropped to values close to those observed at ‘clean’ continental stations (354 ppm).” Nevertheless, on some summer evenings CO2 emissions from respiration and biomass decomposition would cause the air’s CO2 concentration to rise as much as anthropogenic CO2 emissions would cause it to rise in the winter”.
So while Mauna Loa is telling us that global CO2 levels are 378ppm and all the models are assuming the same, the “clean continental stations” of Poland are showing only 354ppm (93.6%) but with urban concentrations to 440ppm. Other localised readings go to 950ppm but these are small in number and decline to the local “clean” level with increasing height.
The key question is, if CO2 will actually define climate change, will it be based on the surrogate or the actual global CO2 level which is the sum of a fully representative set of mean CO2 levels?
And if a number of those representative samples have exhibited very high levels in the past then we need to know about it and incorporate that data into our understanding of carbon flux and potential outcomes.
When Al Gore stands up and proclaims GW is a ‘moral issue’ and everybody else incl RC backs him up, claiming that inaction is immoral, you can well ponder on what the real issue is.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Gore#_note-62
Rog
I don’t understand what you are hinting at.
But Ian, CO2 lags temp in historical records, pacific islands aren’t getting flooded by rising sea levels and big burp theory is bunkum. I thought that meant AGW theory was crumbling like a deck of cards?
So why are you concerned about CO2 data collection all of a sudden? Surely it’s irrelevent, unless you suspect CO2 has something to do with warming… right?
Wow – an interesting and thoughtful piece from Ian. Impressive. Good stuff even.
Jen – IMO of course – no group is perfect – I would suggest that RC get pretty short with people at times. Why coz they get more than share of crap thrown at them. And because they’re human.
What they do do though is not claim everything – you’ll notice RC and Stoat walked away from the Atlantic Conveyor stopping story – were not convinced. Didn’t jump on it. The troposphere warming rapidly over Antarctica – they didn’t call it as AGW – unsure. The fact that they don’t go for everything is usually different to most contrarian sites who’ll publish almost anything as long as it puts the boot in.
RC also goes to a fair bit of trouble to explain why something is important as a review – refreshingly with references provided.
Of course they’re not perfect but I’d suggest they’ve set a benchmark for some quality and civility in the debate.
The IPCC inevitably involves group process and political overrides (but more to hosing down than sexing up I’d suggest). People get disenchanted like the mosquito researcher, Landsea etc.
Could you run such a process and have 100% of people happy? Is any democracy truly happy?
What children should be shown is both “Inconvenient Truth” and “The Great Global Warming Swindle” and given the SPM to read – be informed that both movies have been heavily criticised and ask the students to research an opinion on what the “truth” might really be. Or what is a reasonable position. As students this would stand them in good stead as adults in a world where science quality will be highly contentious and where they may even be asked to vote on certain matters – e.g. “stem cell research”.
Teach kids how to think and be constructively critical.
What personally drives me on the AGW issue is that (a) is bloody interesting really
(b) peed off with bench scientists who are muzzled by their governments but getting rubbished heavily with no right of reply – i.e. there are no Australian RC equivalents or RealEnvironments or RealNaturalResources blog sites !! You’re either a rampant greenie or a brownie or an individual maverick. If science unions had any guts we’d have such a thing(s).
(c) personally concerned about drought in Australia long term and water resources. Historically and into the future. And enough warning signs now to be very concerned what sort of hand we may be being dealt from the global CO2 numbers. So this involves working on behalf of people like Ian while copping a daily kick in the backside as well. But your bum scars over after a while.
I’m personally struggling with “The Improving State of the World” by Indur Goklany at the moment. I’ve stabbed a few pages with my kitchen knife.
At some point Jen – your Wiki may get populated. But the blog is too divisive yet.
As you note – there is hope.
Jennifer, what evidence have you that realclimate don’t play fair. I haven’t noticed you commenting there. Why not put forward some “sceptical” comment, etc and see what reaction you get? It seems to me the commenters and scientists there are always willing to engage in constructive discussion.
By the way, I don’t visit your site much these days but I haven’t noticed your scientific justification that the Great Barrier Reef won’t be significantly damaged by climate change. As damage to the reef was one of the first things that got me interested in finding out the truth or otherwise of AGW I would be very interested to see it.
By the way I have just been watching the talk by Stern at the Press Club in Canberra. I saw Garrett, Swan, Brown, McKew, etc there but not a coalition pollie in sight.
And if you watched Question Time and the Matter of Public Importance (MPI) you would of seen some great debate about Global Climate Change.
It is interesting to learn that the State Labor Governments would remove MRET, VRET and NRET as being incompatible with a future national carbon trading scheme.
Shame though that Garrett didnt know his own Party’s policy when challenged by Turnbull.
Looked like a real dill.
Allan
I make no assumptions on which side would be better at responding to the issue, which will be basically a technical/economic one. Perhaps they weren’t there because of a private briefing? As a voter I would prefer that they turned up. Sorry I missed question time, etc.
Just a few more thoughts on CO2, ice cores, lags and rapid responses of CO2 to temperature: From the recent paper ‘Climate forced atmospheric CO2 variability in the early Holocene…’ My understanding of its findings is that short-term CO2 fluctuations do not show up in ice cores due to diffusion of air through the settled snow until there is sufficient overburden to solidify it into ice. The paper then goes on to examine alternative ways of assessing atmospheric CO2 levels from sub-fossil leaves, which shows that CO2 levels do indeed change with short-term changes in climate and solar activity.
Ice cores, therefore, can only reveal CO2 changes that moved in the same direction for a significant period of time. Playing Devil’s Advocate for a moment, does this not undermine the claim, based on ice cores, that CO2 levels always lag behind temperature changes by hundreds of years? Could the time lag be due to the diffusion effect and not be a real lag at all?
SJT, is GW an issue of science or morals?
Listening to the ABC this am, a scientist remarked on how the cane toad had evolved to live in climatic conditions outside of its source and could live in a far greater parts of Australia than prtevious, esp the SW of WA.
Later on the announcer said, ‘further evidence of climate change, cane toads in Sydney soon’
Save our ABC!
I fully support Luke in noting Ian’s thoughtful post
Paul: in terms of our dilemma; the next stage of this debate must be to consider that there is no lag between CO2, temp and sea levels now as there is an increasingly measurable non linear change in all three.
I’m an incurable solarphile. Overlay the 11-year sunspot cycle graph over Holgate’s sea level rise graph. Interesting, and it has been considered before. I also believe that climate sensitivity to CO2 is at the low end of the IPCC’s 1.1C to 6.4C range. I really would like to see some reliable pre-1958 measurements of CO2 in air. Aside from some large splikes, Beck’s graph shows some points of agreement/near agreement with the ice core data. He also noted diurnal changes, which isn’t new, and monthly CO2 variations coincident with lunar phases, which is a paper in preparation – I wonder what his explanation is for that.
Rog
The science of global warming is a matter, of course, of science. It presents us with information that is the best we can obtain.
The response to that information we have obtained is a moral issue.
Science was telling us that pollution in cities was affecting people’s health. The response was new engine technology to reduce that pollution.
Science told us that cigarettes were causing lung cancer. The response to that information was once again a moral one. The response of cigarette companies, knowing what they knew, was clearly immoral.
An interesting issue about local CO2 variations and diurnal variations is the fact that any actual warming would also be dependent on the extent of these variations.
If CO2 is higher in winter then one can only conclude that this higher reading is less relevant because the insolation and related albedo that is supposedly captured by this higher CO2 reading is much less due to the shorter days and lower angle of incidence.
This winter CO2 peak is made even less relevant by the wider presence of snow, and cloud, that reflects more solar heat during the day when CO2 levels are lower and hence reducing the potential for the night time CO2 to retain heat.
And it would seem that there is a compound problem with the modelling of clouds, especially tropical and temperate maritime clouds that spend the day time reflecting solar heat before it even gets to the CO2 below. This will render whatever levels of CO2 below the clouds pretty much redundant because the CO2’s warming potential has already been negated by the cloud.
But these clouds often then move on-shore in the evening where they are fully capable of rendering the on-shore CO2 redundant by doing the same job of capturing reflected heat.
The fact that experimental removal of various forcing elements from the models (to ascertain the relevant weightings of each) produces a total contribution in excess of 100% (actually 125%) makes it fairly clear that the hierachy of forcing agents is not well understood.
It would then be a case of determining what proportion of cloud cover, on a particular day, will negate the warming potential of xxxppm of CO2.
But it is late, and I guess one could say,
“I’ve looked at clouds from both sides now, but still some how, its cloud illusions I recall, I really don’t know clouds at all”.
Paul, the variations in CO2 due to lunar phases would be from variations in growth, ie increased light at full moon. These variations are almost as old as time itself but it is these variations that would have been lumped in with the “contaminants” that are excluded at sites like Mauna Loa and Cape Grim.
And as for the ice cores, I haven’t looked at the Jarowoski stuff for a while but was not at all impressed with the quality of argument provided by his critics. It was a standard sneering undergrad hatchet job with more time spent on imaginary misstatements by someone with a poor command of english rather than the substance of his argument, particularly the issue of sample contamination.
Paul
Kudos to you for asking great questions – and especially questions that risk undermining your stance.
I may not be a “solarphile” but by the same token I believe that there is “something” that we as yet don’t understand which has a significant role to play in the case against CO2.
Food for thought…
Fact: CO2 tends to mix quickly into the atmosphere.
Fact: Anthropogenic CO2 emissions have historically increased at a (relatively) steady rate (in line with population growth).
So when we look at the direct measurements of CO2 at Mauna Loa or at the South Pole we should not expect to see any major spikes and troughs. And in fact we don’t.
http://cdiac.ornl.gov/trends/co2/graphics/mlo145e_thrudc04.pdf
But we should expect step increases if there are additional, non anthropogenic emissions. When there are serious volcanic events (Luke – regardless of where in the world) such as those below – we would expect a step increase in CO2 levels ON TOP of the anthropogenic emissions.
http://www.volcano.si.edu/world/largeeruptions.cfm
We would expect that there be steps corresponding to other natural events like the fires in Indonesia (or even bushfires like we had in Victoria early this summer) where 100’s of thousands of square km of vegetation was converted into CO2. The list goes on…
We would logically also expect step increased corresponding to Man’s folly such as the burning of the oilfields in the first Gulf War.
These don’t appear.
So the inevitable conclusion must be that there HAS to be a signal that overrides this.
Fact: Atmospheric temperatures have increased (and the correlated assumption: ocean temperatures have therefore increased proportionally).
Fact: As water heats up, it has less capacity to carry CO2.
Fact: The key CO2 sampling stations are at Mauna Loa (in the middle of the Pacific), and at the South Pole (in a biologically sterile environment that is surrounded by ocean).
Inductive conclusion: The reason that the CO2 measurements don’t exhibit expected “steps” is that what actually is measured is the release of CO2 from the ocean AND that this release of CO2 from the ocean is a stronger signal that masks the other, anthropogenic / natural fluctuations.
Note: Cape Grim is at the northwest point of Tasmania and with the prevailing weather being from the west, really only measures the CO2 from the Southern Ocean atmosphere.
A bit about statistics.
The principal use of statistics is to identify trends and correlations from a “sample” of one or more (incomplete) data sets. It is perfectly acceptable, or even obligatory to exclude outliers from a sample so that any derived trends are not (potentially) distorted.
On this basis, it is perfectly acceptable to discard the data as per Beck as contaminated and unrepresentative.
Unfortunately, science is not statistics. It in fact science is the antithesis of statistics. It is perfectly acceptable in statistics to exclude the observed relativistic perturbations of Mercury’s orbit (using SJT’s favourite example) from an estimation of (not theory of) the force of gravity. In science this is not the case. It is in the method of science to either show that the observation is flawed or to account for the observation as “data” – and you can never arbitrarily “discard” inconvenient “data”.
So we come to Beck.
I would suggest that nobody disputes the CO2 measurements reported as per Beck’s analysis. What is in dispute is whether these are “representative”.
What Beck does is to bring to light the fact that a “uniform” increase in anthropogenic CO2 emissions does not exit. And if you think about this – this is a rational proposition. Given that the Mauna Loa / South Pole observational data shows “uniformity” this means that there HAS to be some other and stronger signal that masks the non-uniform anthropogenic (and natural) increase in CO2 emissions.
Now to Glassman as per the other thread.
In view of the above, his argument has merit. In a cooler environment, CO2 saturated surface water is naturally subducted into deeper and even colder layers which can cope with more CO2 (via the oceans “conveyor belt”), and then brought back to a surface environment (where the water is warmer than that originally subducted). Since in a warmer environment, and this surface is already saturated with CO2 (and therefore can’t hold any more CO2), this will result in a degassing – i.e. release of CO2 into the atmosphere.
Given the above, it is plausible that as the water warms and as it gets CO2 rich water from below the ensuing CO2 degassing is potentially in excess of any anthropogenic / natural emission. This therefore masks the anthropogenic / natural emissionsignal as measured at Mauna Loa / South Pole.
Given the length of time that the oceanic conveyor belt can take to do the circle – it is also a great explanation for the lag…
There is a big question that needs to be resolved however. Is the ocean already saturated with CO2 throughout the entire water column and in equilibrium? If it is, then the CO2 in the surface water can not “sink” with it.
As I said – this is food for thought – I am not going to make any furher conclusions / guesses at this point. Its too late… Readers can extrapolate on this and make their own.
cheers
Arnost
Arnost
What Beck doesn’t show is how quickly CO2 mixes as we increase in height – the greenhouse effect does not just exist for a few metres off the ground.
Volcanoes – not much in contemporary eruptions .
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2006/05/current-volcanic-activity-and-climate/
Human activity flux dwarfs contemporary vulcanism
As for the ocean – what you say applies to some “steady state” system without humans perhaps.
Oceans
But we know isotopically speaking where the increase in CO2 in the atmosphere has come from – fossil fuel combustion – and that the ocean has sunk a big quantity of it (many discussions this blog on CO2 and reefs etc). Google Revelle factor in Jen’s archives.
The concern is that the changes in ocean chemistry will greatly reduce the ability of the ocean to be a sink and increase the anthropogenic effect.
Science 16 July 2004:
Vol. 305. no. 5682, pp. 367 – 371
The Oceanic Sink for Anthropogenic CO2
Christopher L. Sabine,1* Richard A. Feely,1 Nicolas Gruber,2 Robert M. Key,3 Kitack Lee,4 John L. Bullister,1 Rik Wanninkhof,5 C. S. Wong,6 Douglas W. R. Wallace,7 Bronte Tilbrook,8 Frank J. Millero,9 Tsung-Hung Peng,5 Alexander Kozyr,10 Tsueno Ono,11 Aida F. Rios12
Using inorganic carbon measurements from an international survey effort in the 1990s and a tracer-based separation technique, we estimate a global oceanic anthropogenic carbon dioxide (CO2) sink for the period from 1800 to 1994 of 118 ± 19 petagrams of carbon. The oceanic sink accounts for 48% of the total fossil-fuel and cement-manufacturing emissions, implying that the terrestrial biosphere was a net source of CO2 to the atmosphere of about 39 ± 28 petagrams of carbon for this period. The current fraction of total anthropogenic CO2 emissions stored in the ocean appears to be about one-third of the long-term potential.
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/305/5682/367?ck=nck
Variations in surface concentrations are related to the length of time that the waters have been exposed to the atmosphere and to the buffer capacity, or Revelle factor, for seawater (12, 13). This factor describes how the partial pressure of CO2 in seawater (PCO2) changes for a given change in DIC. Its value is proportional to the ratio between DIC and alkalinity, where the latter term describes the oceanic charge balance. Low Revelle factors are generally found in the warm tropical and subtropical waters, and high Revelle factors are found in the cold high latitude waters (Fig. 3). The capacity for ocean waters to take up anthropogenic CO2 from the atmosphere is inversely proportional to the value of the Revelle factor; hence, the lower the Revelle factor, the higher the oceanic equilibrium concentration of anthropogenic CO2 for a given atmospheric CO2 perturbation. The highest anthropogenic CO2 concentrations (60 µmol kg–1) are found in the subtropical Atlantic surface waters because of the low Revelle factors in that region. By contrast, the near-surface waters of the North Pacific have a higher Revelle factor at comparable latitudes and consequently lower anthropogenic CO2 concentrations primarily because North Pacific alkalinity values are as much as 100 µmol kg–1 lower than those in the North Atlantic (Fig. 3).
Future changes.
On the time scales of several thousands of years, it is estimated that 90% of the anthropogenic CO2 emissions will end up in the ocean (24). Because of the slow mixing time of the ocean, however, the current oceanic uptake fraction is only about one-third of this value. Studies of the coupled carbon-climate system have suggested that on decadal time scales, the ocean may become a less efficient sink for anthropogenic CO2 because of positive feedbacks in the coupled carbon-climate system (25)— consistent with the suggestion of a decreasing ocean-uptake fraction noted from Table 1.
There is a potential for both positive and negative feedbacks between the ocean and atmosphere, including changes in both the physics (e.g., circulation, stratification) and biology (e.g., export production, calcification) of the ocean. These processes are still not well understood. On the time scales of decades to centuries, however, most of the known chemical feedbacks are positive. If the surface ocean PCO2 concentrations continue to increase in proportion with the atmospheric CO2 increase, a doubling of atmospheric CO2 from preindustrial levels will result in a 30% decrease in carbonate ion concentration and a 60% increase in hydrogen ion concentration. As the carbonate ion concentration decreases, the Revelle factor increases and the ocean’s ability to absorb more CO2 from the atmosphere is diminished. The impact of this acidification can already be observed today and could have ramifications for the biological feedbacks in the future (26). If indeed the net feedbacks are primarily positive, the required socioeconomic strategies to stabilize CO2 in the future will be much more stringent than in the absence of such feedbacks. Future studies of the carbon system in the oceans should be designed to identify and quantitatively assess these feedback mechanisms to provide input to models that will determine the ocean’s future role as a sink for anthropogenic CO2. {ENDS}
Arnost and Ian, both good posts. You have almost hit the jackpot, we are all lucky enough to be experiencing climate change in real time. But we have procrastinated for too long on things like lag , however I’m the first to accept discernable change is heavily masked by sheer mass of air water and ice involved.
That’s why I insisted on going back to basics like ice in a jug, difficult enough if we only want .1 C for a calibration at zero in RT at say 17C (Melbourne on a dull day).
Ian rightly sent us looking for global mean, SST’s and so on, not so bad either given the range sample points possible. Back in the 70’s I had a mate who was “inventing” deep sea data loggers (Southern Oceans) for commercial gain in his shiny metal garage. We shared a common interest Ian, in clearing blackberries and wattle scrub in old eucalypt forests with large goats then. Experiments were plenty but our main task was shifting sludge from A to B while seeking the 1% heavy metal.
This thread more than any other has highlighted the issue of CO2 variation and the great challenge in finding a mean that is relevant to understanding what I think is the bigger question about rate of change. Early on I was satisfied to let increasing ice melts be the final indicator. I keep going back to what’s most indisputable. This practice is so important working with liquid salt, transformer oil at vapour point etc when chasing 1 or 2 degrees C for some bloody minded professor or consultant.
Paul: My arbitrator has always been the ice and to hell with any solar radiation shifts that don’t involve major wobbles at our end of the dark room. Stuff in space is pretty constant at the high school level. That’s been the problem; everyone’s been running round looking for excuses, anything but us hey
Luke may be interested that one of our major challenges back in the 70’s was Ph measurement deep down as CO2 and other stuff changed in the flask on the way up and on the lab bench. All the same I said no to our data logging development as electrode sensitivity changes in the presence of even the slightest organic development. Slime build up was possible everywhere I looked.
I have started a new thread with the above very interesting comment from Arnost: http://www.jennifermarohasy.com/blog/archives/001976.html
I am inclined to take Dr Beck’s paper seriously, if only (and it’s more than that) as a counterweight to the politically inspired IPCC reports. My doubts about IPCC include additionally the following factors:
1. That there are a number (over a dozen) of different proposed atmospheric models.
2. The failure of any of these models to include the reflective effects of cloud formation.
3. The unexplained reason for the warming period between about 900 and 1300 AD, when Greenland was colonised by the Vikings and crops were grown there.
4. The current space probe photography which shows unambiguously that the polar ice caps on Mars are melting, which is indicative of a change in the solar constant.
Ian
The IPCC is not politically inspired.
What about the rest of the planets and moons, are they also warming? Mars already has a known cycle of polar ice caps melting and re-forming.
The warming in Greenland might or might not be unexplained, the current warming is.
The models do model cloud behaviour.
“Why should clouds change? Global warming for example. Surprised? Most climate simulations predict some “global dimming” due to the water vapor and cloud feedback of greenhouse gas forced global warming. Global warming, however, affects the entire atmosphere whereas global dimming is only a surface and near-surface phenomena. Hence global warming and global dimming are not exclusive or contradictory. (Incidentally, the decline of solar energy at the surface inferred in my study is about 60% of the increasing longwave radiation in a typical global warming climate simulation (Feichter et al. 2004)). With global warming, atmospheric moisture increases and this makes the atmosphere slightly less transparent to sunlight. Furthermore once clouds are formed, they tend to hold more water and therefore look a little darker.”
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=110
Beck’s data was already rejected by Fonselius
http://www.someareboojums.org/blog/?p=25
blown up graph:
http://www.someareboojums.org/blog/wp-content/images/fonselius_fig_0001.jpeg
There is absolutely no reason why the three outliers in the 1940’s should be representative for the global baseline co2 level.
SJT — You seem think that the IPCC is not politically inspired. Just to recall, the “I” stands for Intergovernmental and governments work through politics, and incidently fund the IPCC either directly or via the UN and WMO. Note that the February 2007 Summary Report was written by a small group of scientists and advisors on government payroles, and they agreed that the April Technical Report would be modified as necessary to accord with the Summary.
As you observed, the rest of the planets and their moons (as well as Mars) will also warm if the cause is a change in solar constant.
You say that the cause of the Medieval Warm Period “might or might not be unexplained”. If you have a good explanation, let’s hear it and tell us which climate model will reproduce it. Please note also that during this period a rise in sea level did not apparently occur.
Maybe I was a bit uncompromising over the cloud issue, but you spell it out fairly: on the one hand clouds reflect solar radiation, but on the other hand they act like a blanket. Which effect predominates is not settled in the models, regardless of whether some clouds “look a little darker” than others.
Regards,
Hans Erren — You seem think that the IPCC is not politically inspired.
Of course they are.
The proper question to ask is “Cui prodest? (Whom does it benefit?)”
Or even better, consider the original phrase by Seneca “cui prodest scelus, is fecit (The murderer is the one who gains by the murder)”.
If carbon dioxide is so dangerous that we should spend huge amounts of money on decreasing emissions, what are the most economic ways to do so?
1. Main sources of energy for running the world economy are burning either coal or hydrocarbons. Since hydrocarbons produce about twice as much energy per unit carbon dioxide emission than coal, we should stop burning coal and use even more hydrocabons (natural gas, oil, bitumen) than we do right now.
2. Nuclear energy production comes with no carbon dioxide emission at all, so it’s even better. The cost of guarding – or not guarding – inevitable plutonium mines for the next several hundred thousand years of human history is dismissed as irrelevant.
3. Any other potential energy source (including all the so called renewable sources) is much more expensive and/or absolutely insufficient.
So what? If one goes for limiting carbon dioxide emissions (like eg. the Kyoto Protocol does), it’s nothing but supporting the hydrocarbon and nuclear lobbies while bashing the coal lobby.
The real problem with coal is that we have plenty of it, even conservative estimates make proven, cheap reserves last for several hundred years. This way it’s not so attractive, it does not look like an outsanding business opportunity at all. Except if it could be made much more expensive somehow and exactly this is the job IPCC is supposed to do.
Of course all this hysteria is only for midterm financial gains, because solar energy will win in the long run, as it did in supporting life on earth ages ago.
After all we have got this huge power station called sun nearby with some 4×10^26 watts output and we can’t even stop it.
The only doodad we need to tap this source economically is a solar panel that is not significantly more expensive than rooftiles and which produces some reasonable non-toxic, non-explosive, not flammable energy rich chemical like sugar (or aluminium) instead of electricity. Beacause the funny thing is that the sun pereferes to shine in daytime during the summer, while we need a good portion of the energy on winter nights. Of course a fuel cell should also be integrated into the device to convert stored energy to electric power on demand.
All this can be accomplished in fifty years (possibly much sooner) by molecular nanotechnology. Then we’ll face a serious shortage of carbon dioxide, the universal feedstock of that time.
By 1944 London should have been buried under nine feet of horse manure as it was smartly predicted fifty years before. There was havoc indeed in the city that year, but it came from the skies, not from ordinary traffic.